Chapter I: Part I: I (1)

“Mr. Hood will see you in the library, sir.”

George Trescot followed the servant, and when left alone began to wander about a large room which looked out on the north coast of Massachusetts Bay. Why it was called a library might well have puzzled the young man. There were few books except those of reference, but on chair and table were mill and railway reports, and newspapers in superabundance.

As the clock struck the hour of noon a woman of some twenty-seven years entered the room. Hearing the door open, Trescot turned from a brief and hopeless effort to comprehend the genealogical tree of the Hood family, which hung on the wall in much splendor of heraldic blazonry.

Miss Hood came in smiling, as if she had just been amused and was enjoying the remembrance. Her face had—what is more often found in plain women than in those to whom nature has been more bountiful—great power of expressing both kindliness and mirth. She was slight, but of admirable figure, and possessed the mysterious gift of grace. For the rest, she was unselfish, seriously religious, and perplexed at times by the comic aspect of things, hardly realizing the fact that a ready sense of humor had often been as useful in helping her to endure the lesser trials of existence as the religious faith which she held to with the simple trust of a child. Life presented itself to her in relentless simplicity, and consisted of things right and things wrong, with over-sensitive self-reproach when either seemed too amusing. She was, socially speaking, fearless, and occasionally outspoken to a degree which embarrassed others, but never Susan Hood.

“Good morning, major,” she said. “I am glad to see you. I consider myself neglected of late.”

“I shall be the best of brothers-in-law, Miss Susan.”

“Oh, that is all very well. The future does not always pay the debts of the present. You will be as good as my sister will let you be; but I am easily satisfied.”

“I ought to be,” he said. “And, by the way, I am only Mr. Trescot, not Major. These labels should have gone when the war ended; but I suppose men like titles. I shed mine long ago.”

“You are quite right,” she returned, smiling with the aid of a large and expressive mouth and show of rather irregular, very white teeth. “I see that I am just in time to save you a fall from the genealogical tree of the Hoods. I incline to think some of the limbs a trifle insecure. My uncle climbs it at least once a week, and believes in its fabulous fruit as he does in nothing else. I told him last night that it was more genial than logical. If he had understood me, I do not know what would have happened.”

Trescot laughed. “Mr. Hood explained it to me last week. I nearly fell asleep on the top branch.”

“Did you? You would never have been forgiven. It is still growing; the mustard-seed was nothing to it.” Then the further temptations offered by the comparison presented themselves to her as irreverent, and she said:

“By the way, I am sent by my uncle to entertain you, as he is just now engaged. As a matter of fact, he is engaged in settling what he will say to you. He is enjoying it, too. Sit down; you will have to put up with me for as long as he chooses to remain agreeably perplexed.”

“Perplexed?” said the young man, as he seated himself. “What is there to perplex? It seems to me very simple.”

“And to me. You have asked my sister to marry you. She desires to do so. My uncle says he is old, and that he has entitled himself to our society until he dies. I have told him that if he would kindly set a time for that event we should know what to do, and that he was pretty secure as to me. He did not like it. Nothing is simple to my uncle.”

“I suppose not,” said Trescot, laughing. “The asking him seemed to me a mere formal matter. Constance is old enough to know her own mind, and, I fancy, to have her own way. I did not ask of him any favors.”

“They should not need to be asked; but he will be sure to think you expect him to provide for Constance,—as, in fact, he ought to do.”

“I expect nothing of the kind, nor does Constance. We are prepared to wait until I can offer her a home. That may be in a year, or even two years. There is no need to discuss it.”

“Indeed! Wait until you know my uncle better. He discusses everything. He would discuss whether two and two make four. He constructs theories, as he calls them, and when it is needful to act does not always abide by them, which, I assure you, is, on the whole, rather fortunate, as I hope you may discover.”

“Well, on this subject, Miss Hood, I have also my theory, and an abiding faith in it.”

She laughed merrily and said: “Wait a bit. You have as yet seen only one side of my uncle. He can be, as you know, a pleasant, rather cynical old gentleman. Now you present yourself to him under a novel aspect, and he will be sure to construct what he calls a theory for himself and you, to fit the occasion. It will be something like this—I may as well prepare you: ‘My theory, sir, is that people never change. These young women have always had all the money they wanted; _therefore_, they will always want it. It must be clear to you that we shall need to discuss the matter at length—at length, sir. Money in my—sir, in my opinion, is developmental; without money,’ etc. He will be delightfully irrelevant. I wish I could overhear the interview. He really does not care about money; but he likes to talk about it. It may be he will light on something else. You will have to be patient.”

“I can be that. But as concerns money, I do not want it—or, rather, I want it very much, but not from him. I mean in time to get it myself. Confound it! Pardon me, but really—”

“Oh, that is a very mild expletive; if it applies to Uncle Rufus, it is quite unnecessary: he is just now sufficiently confounded. And, after all, if you were an old man like my uncle, would you willingly part with so delightful an inmate as my sister?”

“No,” laughed Trescot; “no, indeed.”

“Well, that is honest. You may be surprised to learn that he would object quite as much to part with me as to part with my sister. I am not malicious enough to ask you to explain that.”

Trescot was relieved from need to reply when, awaiting no answer, she continued:

“The fact is, he likes me because we disagree radically about everything, from religion to politics, and Constance because they agree about most things, except politics. There they are far apart. His opinions about the war have been to both of us a matter of real unhappiness. Had he lived in the South he would have been bitter against secession. He is always in the opposition, but he despises people who yield.”

“Then he will certainly fall in love with me. Thank you for the hint.”

“Oh, I did not mean it for that, and I suspect it was not needed. After all, it is not that you have no money that troubles my uncle; it is really far more the idea that Constance is ungrateful, and shows great lack of taste in being willing to desert him for you, or for any one. I think I hear his voice. I must go; but when you are through with uncle my sister wants to see you in the garden. If you make yourself very disagreeable you will find that Uncle Rufus will find some ingenious excuse for being reasonable. He will think it proper, after he has posed a little as a shrewd man of business, to pose as the good uncle.”

Trescot stood with her in the window recess while they talked, and now, turning, glanced at the shrewd, kind face, with its readiness of humorous comment, and said: “I should like to hear what might be the character of George Trescot you would present to Mr. Hood.”

“Would you, indeed?” she returned, looking up. It was a strong face she saw, and more serious just now than the quality of the question suggested. Yet it smiled in pleased fellowship of mirth as she answered, laughing:

“Ah, there is my uncle! I have half a mind not to tell you.”

“Perhaps I had better not insist. You are sure to be painfully honest, and I may have cause to regret.”

“But I will. I should say—well, I should say—‘Uncle Rufus, I like him.’”

“Thank you. I shall put that with what Sheridan once said to me.”

“What did he say? Do tell me.”

“Oh, he said, ‘That was well done, Major Trescot; very well done.’ I blushed like a girl.”

“What had you done?”

“What had I done? Ah,” he laughed, “you must ask Sheridan.”

“But I may never see him.” She was curious about large things, rarely about little ones or mere social trivialities. “Of course you will tell me.”

“Perhaps if, some day, on trial, you prove to be a quite perfect sister-in-law.”

“Am I not good enough now? I said I liked you. Isn’t that a form of goodness? I assure you that there are no better judges of men than old maids and sisters-in-law.”

“Indeed! But you are only a sort of brevet sister-in-law. And why—shall I dare to say—are old maids good judges of men?”

“Oh, they look down from a heaven of neutrality where there is no giving in marriage. Goodness! what am I saying?”

Hearing her uncle’s step on the stair, she turned to leave. Trescot saw with approval her trim, neat figure, and said, laughing, “The basis of opinion is not altogether secure.”

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “I am already on the family tree, my destiny predetermined,—‘Susan Hood, spinster.’ But here is Uncle Rufus. If he does not first indulge in vain genealogies I shall be surprised. Good-by! I wonder what St. Paul meant by vain genealogies?”

As she spoke, a small, very thin man of some seventy years entered, with a too obvious affectation of youthful briskness.

“I leave Mr. Trescot to your tender mercies, uncle.”

“Ah, good morning. Fine day. Sit down,” said Mr. Hood, as she left them. “Pray, sit down.” He began at once, with an air of decision, “I suppose this matter of which my niece has spoken to me appears to you very simple.”

“It did not at one time. It does now. I have asked Miss Constance to be my wife. She has done me the honor to say yes. What else is there?”

“Everything, sir; everything. I do not propose that my niece shall leave me. She owes to me the affection of a child. I am old and cannot live long. Her sense of duty should forbid her to desert me. If it does not, I must act for her, and prevent what is both criminal and foolish. I must create for her a virtue which she has not.”

“But, Mr. Hood—” said Trescot, raising a hand in appeal.

“No, sir; do not interrupt me. I object to it altogether. You have no money, and she has none. You know nothing of each other—nothing. As to waiting a year—two years—until you can provide for her, it is nonsense. When she mentioned this highly absurd proposition I told her as much. Now, sir, you have my decision, and my niece has already had it.”

“May I ask what was Miss Constance’s reply?”

“She said she meant to marry you if she had to sew for a living. By George! she can’t sew on a button. I was quite prepared for her reply. She has the obstinacy of my people.”

“Then, Mr. Hood, you may rest assured that I shall marry her. I can wait.”

“But I cannot wait. Do you suppose I mean to have a love-sick girl maundering about my house for two years? No, sir; you do not know her. From a child she has been obstinate when she wanted anything; I should have no peace.”

“I am sorry for you,” said Trescot, much amused; “but I can only repeat what I have said already. Unless Miss Constance changes her mind—”

“She never changes her mind; we never do—it is a family trait.”

“I hope not; and in that case I trust you will see this matter in a more favorable light. But in any case, to be frank, I mean to marry her.”

“I suppose, then, there is no help for it,” said the elder man, with a curious collapse of resolution. “I am old and feeble”—which was true. “The girl is ungrateful. I rely upon her for everything. Susan is wrapped up in her poor and her parson—she calls him her rector, I believe. I find it inconsistent with my sense of duty to let you go on in blind ignorance. You will discover Constance to be efficient, obstinate; and as I am told by Susan that you are what is called religious, you ought also to know that my niece and I agree in the entire absence of that adjective.”

“That,” said Trescot, coldly, “is a matter I prefer not to discuss.” He knew very well by this time that the woman he loved had, unlike himself, no distinct creed.

“Well, I desire that you should understand her. She is very like me.”

“Indeed!” he returned, much amused. “Then I shall be sure to end by liking you, Mr. Hood. I presume that I may consider it as settled.”

“No, sir; I may yield, but I will never consent; and I consider it my duty to warn you. I have said as much. This girl, this woman, is a creature of instincts. As a child her temper was terrible; under my wise rule it has been tamed. She loves and hates with animal fidelity; and once she is set on doing anything, neither saint nor devil can change her.”

“That is rather gratifying,” said Trescot, between suppressed mirth and annoyance. Certainly this was an extraordinary old man.

“She was an unreasoning Union woman, and I am of opinion that the South was altogether in the right. But neither reason nor respect for me has ever altered what she calls her views.”

“You will pardon me if I say that I am very glad to hear it.”

“Ah, well, well, that is as you please. A pity you agree. It is a theory of mine that difference of opinion is a basis of true happiness in married life; otherwise it becomes monotonous.”

Trescot sat still, studying the self-pleased face, and amused himself with thought of the mirth with which Susan would have heard her uncle giving Constance a character for her new place. He kept a respectful silence as the old man wandered on; but by what paths he reached an expression of opinion as to the constitutional rights of States and cities to secede, Trescot never could remember. At last he was given to understand that the right of States to secede was based on the undoubted right of individuals to secede from States. Here, as the old man’s voice rose to political levels of emphasis, it recalled Trescot from the dreaming mood which was taking him somewhere into the fairyland of love.

He recovered power to listen, but at last, disappointed by the absence of exhilarating difference of opinion, Mr. Hood said: “We seem to have strayed. I was about to add that my niece and I have always agreed, except as regards one subject; and, I regret to say, as concerns that matter, even the unfortunate closure of the war has in no degree abated her feeling—a child, sir, instinctive and, as I observed, obstinate. I think I have already dwelt on that peculiarity.”

“Yes, I so understood you. And now, Mr. Hood, that you have sufficiently warned and informed me, and have decided to consent—I beg pardon, yield—”

“I did nothing of the kind. I sometimes give way, but I never yield. I do not like this marriage. But I do not propose that you shall cause my niece to quarrel with me. She cannot stay here and make me uncomfortable; she cannot marry you and starve; I won’t permit it.”

“Then may I ask what you propose to do?”

“Well, first I desire to state that, although I am said to be a rich man, I do not intend to leave to my nieces more than a very small competence. I have a theory on this subject. It is interesting. At another time I shall be happy to set it before you—at length.”

Trescot rose. “I assure you, sir, that I should have been glad to feel that in case of anything going wrong with my power to provide for my wife,—such as my death, or what not,—she would be at ease. I should be a fool if I told you I do not care what you do with your money; but if you imagine, as you seem to take for granted, that it is influencing me in my relation to Miss Constance, we had better drop the matter of money altogether.”

“But,” said Hood, testily, “I am not going to be bullied into dropping it. I mean to have my own way.”

Trescot was a man not merely good-tempered, but of a certain gay sweetness of disposition which captured men and women. He began, however, to be a little impatient, and in reply said:

“I have been for a half-hour endeavoring, sir, to find out what it is you want. That I am to marry appears to be settled.”

“I suppose so. I know Constance too well to oppose it. I am told by my niece that you cannot marry at present. But if you choose to accept the position of my agent in St. Ann, Missouri, I will insure my niece an income for five years—say, two thousand dollars. You would be called upon to manage my property, and I should expect that you would eject squatters, bring suits, and otherwise care for my interests.” He fell back in his chair with an air of having settled the matter.

For a moment Trescot was silent, and regarded the feeble, shrunken old man, who sat watching him and pulling nervously at his thin gray side-whiskers. With some sense of the niece being sold to him for a consideration, he returned quietly:

“No; I do not wish to leave Boston. I am not a land agent, and, to be plain, Mr. Hood, I cannot accept your offer.”

“But you will.”

“No, I think not; I cannot. What you please to give your niece or not to give her must have no relation to any business interests you may choose to confide to me, in the very doubtful case of my considering your offer.”

“You had better talk first to Constance. I think she must know you already, for she declared that you would not accept my offer, and then she made me another.”

“Indeed!” Trescot did not like this any better.

“She says that if I give her two thousand a year, and put my affairs at St. Ann in your hands on a pure business basis, you will, perhaps, think of it.”

Trescot would have much preferred to have had the offer made directly to himself. He said he would speak to Constance about it. It was not a thing to settle without time and thought.

“But it is settled,” said the old man. “You will find that out. Constance usually knows her own mind.”

“But not mine,” returned Trescot, rising. He had had by this time as much of the uncle’s indecisions and feeble display of business sharpness as a nearly perfect temper would bear. He had learned that his own tender and respectful love had been met by a passion of affection which had seemed to take as small thought of the future as a bird might do, and yet here was a certain competence in her dealings with her uncle for which he was unprepared.

As he went away to meet her he said to himself, “It seems reasonable,” but felt again that he should have preferred to be left to arrange matters involving business and so complete a change of residence.

II

George Trescot was, like Constance, an orphan, and of the same old New England breed as the woman he loved. With slender means, he had made his way in college, unassisted, by aiding duller men as a tutor, and had passed through the law school with unusual distinction. Then the war broke out, and, enlisting in the ranks, he rose rapidly, as death cleared the way, until in the final struggle he was so wounded as partially to disable his right shoulder, which he commonly eased by carrying his hand caught in his waistcoat. Although five years had gone by, at times it gave him pain, and he felt this as he passed through the drawing-room and out into the garden. Constance’s appearance of being tall struck him as she passed across the path and disappeared behind a row of shrubs which sheltered the garden from the rough sport of the east winds. In reality, admirable symmetry was responsible, for she was not of more than full middle height.

As he turned to meet her she was joyously flushed, a glad welcome in her eyes. In a moment she was in his arms. “A whole week!” she cried.

Conscious that the embrace was as much hers as his, he cast an uneasy glance about him, fearful of profane eyes, of which she was, to appearance, heedless.

The moment was expressive. He loved her with some sense that she was a thing apart from other women. A great respect went with it—a delicate, shy tenderness which passed into delicious wonder at the deep passion which he had awakened. They had met first at a dance, where, as he crossed the room, an awkward partner in the waltz had brought her roughly against his wounded shoulder. In extreme pain he had dropped into a chair. She caught sight of his face. “Who is he?” she said. Her partner replied, “He is George Trescot, my old major in the Sixth. I must have hurt his wounded arm. Excuse me a moment.”

“No, take me to him.”

“Trescot,” said his friend, “I am sorry; I was awkward.”

“May I, too, apologize?” said she.

As they spoke, Trescot, pale with pain, looked up and tried to rise. He met a pair of violet eyes and a face of anxious interest he was never to forget.

“Pardon me,” he said; “I shall be all right in a little while. It was worth some pain to know Miss Hood.”

“Thank you. That is a great deal to say.”

He asked for a glass of wine, and, as his friend went for it, she sat down beside him.

“I am more sorry,” she said, “than I can tell you. Were you hurt in the war? I think Mr. Ware said so.”

“Yes; but pardon me, I cannot talk—not now, not just yet. But do not go.”

She had no such intention. She was silent, watching his set face, sensitively aware of some eager wish to help him.

His friend returned. Trescot took the wine and said at last, as they rose, “I am better, but I think I must go.”

She said, “My sister and I shall be glad to see you; we are always at home on Monday afternoons.”

“Thank you,” he returned; “I shall hope to be better company when we meet again.”

There was no indecision about this love-affair. In two weeks they were engaged. She had often said to herself that she would be hard to please, and that only a long acquaintance would justify a woman in giving herself to a man. She asked herself no questions as to the unreasoning passion which made easy for Trescot what so many had found hard. Their mutual attraction had the inevitability of the physical forces. From the moment of their first meeting, Constance Hood was the realization of his dream of the most stately womanhood. The impression he made on her was as sudden. He was not over her own height, slightly made, and, just then, even delicate in appearance. The look of intellect and power which a few faces show with features of great refinement gave added charm to manners which were gently formal, with some flavor of a more leisurely day when men had time to be courteous.

The contrast between his frail look and the stories men told of his fearlessness in the great war had its influence on the woman who had broken into a passion of anger and grief when the news of Sumter revealed the power of sentiment to stir her, as it stirred and energized the manhood of a great nation, presumed by those who thus challenged it to be given over to the ledger and day-book.

Susan Hood watched with surprise, anxiety, and a little amusement the progress of a love-affair which did not explain itself to one who considered marriage as a matter not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly, and who had had no personal experience to shock her with the discovery of passions in herself or another. To the very humorous, love comes with difficulty.

Very soon Constance talked to her with strange unreserve. This abandonment to love, so profound, so abrupt, shocked Susan. A man might thus exhibit affection, not a woman. Needless to say that it was for a time only the sister who thus saw and heard and wondered, dismayed at a passion as wild as that of Juliet.

* * * * *

When Trescot, having left her uncle, found Constance, the lovers sat down beyond the garden, before them the quiet of an unruffled sea and the eastward glow of the setting sun. The woman’s hand sought his and held it. “Has uncle told you?” she said.

“Your uncle is an amazing person, but I learned at last that you and he had settled the matter.”

She was aware at once that he was not entirely satisfied, and said:

“Oh, of course, George, it rests with you. If you accept we can be married soon, and if you say no we must wait a year, or even two years. How can I be without you so long? My uncle remains here in the country all the year, as you know; and now that I have disturbed his theory as to what my life was to be, I shall be made to suffer.”

“But we would be near, and I should see you often—very often.”

“Yes, I know; but it would be hard—oh, harder than you can know; and my uncle is never done with a subject; my life would be made intolerable. And then, after all, we should not be there—I mean at St. Ann—always; you would succeed, and some day we should come home.” She made it all seem clear, definite, and certain. Indeed, it so appeared to her.

It seemed much more vague to the young man, but the bribe she offered was too much for him to resist.

“We should go among a strange and hostile people, Constance—I a Northern officer, you with your strong feeling about the South.”

“I should learn to hold my tongue, and you would be sure to make friends.”

“Perhaps.” He remained silent a moment, and then went on. “I have rarely had doubts as to any future, dear, except as concerned whether I could make you love me. But this future of a life at St. Ann seems to me a very doubtful matter. I am to displace the present agent and—”

“But Mr. Averill—my uncle calls him, with respect, major-general—Mr. Averill desires to give up the care of uncle’s lands. He did not tell you that, I am sure.”

“No, he did not. Of course that somewhat simplifies the matter. But to act for a man like Mr. Hood may well have its difficulties.”

“I do not think so. He always backs down before a resolute man, or even an obstinate woman. You will have your own way, and we shall be so happy, George.”

“Of that I am sure, there or anywhere; and yet I am in reason, and above all because I love you, bound to think of the future. I am naturally sanguine, Constance. Even in the darkest hours of the war I was that; but in this matter I am not sanguine, and if you were to ask me why, I could not tell you. I have a feeling—” and here he paused.

“A feeling, George?”

“Yes, like that I had once on South Mountain. I was about to ride on to a hillock for a better view of the enemy’s line, when I felt for a moment a curious reluctance. I pulled up my horse, half surprised at myself—and then, with a sense of the absurdity of the thing, I rode on. As my horse moved across the space between, a shell exploded on the hillock.”

“Oh, George! But it isn’t like that—was not that a pure superstition?”

“Yes, very absurd, utterly ridiculous in its application here; I ought not to have said it.”

“It does not in the least trouble me, although, like my uncle, I have my own little thrills about thirteen at table, and all such nonsense. My uncle says—” and she stopped.

“Well, dear?”

“Oh, he says that a person may reason himself out of religious beliefs, but can never quite get rid of these little half-beliefs.”

“I think,” he returned, “that people who are really and thoughtfully religious have least of these remnants of a more ignorant day.”

“And yet, George,” she returned, laughingly, “you obeyed an impulse quite without reason; I should hardly call it a superstition.”

“No; you are right. But to go back to what is for you and me a very serious question. I believe now that I may accept your uncle’s offer. But I must think it over when those dear eyes are not looking into mine, those lips saying, ‘Come, let us go away and be all of life to each other.’ Let us drop it now and talk of other things. I have to go back to Boston by the late train. Within a day I shall write to you and to your uncle. I must talk it over with an older lawyer.”

She was satisfied, and saw, or thought she saw, that he would be of her opinion. She had her own reasons for desiring to have no such delay as he would have tranquilly accepted. He had all through life been denying himself this or that to-day in order that he might be more secure of to-morrow’s wants. Such a passion as possessed her with the power of a primal instinct was not yet in him victorious over all rational considerations. He knew little of women, and nothing of the woman who desires to absorb, so to speak, all of the thoughts and feelings of the one man, and who, as time goes on, becomes jealous of his friends, and even of his work, and, at last, of every hour not given to her. Such women are happily rare, but are now and then to be found. From the hour she first saw him, frail and pallid from suffering, a vast protecting eagerness arose in her mind. As her kinship of pity blossomed into love, the desire to be with him and watch over what seemed to her in her new anxiety a more delicate life than it really was, supplied her with a reason for early marriage. She had never asked herself why she had been so suddenly captured; but as time went on she knew that she had drawn a prize in the uncertain lottery of love, and felt that his charm of manner, his distinction, the delicacy and refinement with which he had pleaded for her love, had fully justified her choice.

After further talk he left her at twilight, and at the last moment, in haste to catch his train. She watched him as he walked swiftly away, noting the arm caught for relieving support in his waistcoat, the upright, soldierly carriage of figure, well built, but lacking flesh. She said:

“Ah! but I love you well; how well, you do not yet know, George Trescot,—but you will—you shall.”

As he turned at the garden gate to look back, she cried, as she ran toward him, “You forgot, George.”

“What?” he said.

“To kiss me again.”

Late in the afternoon of the next day she received a letter, with which she fled to the rocks above the sea. She tore it open and read:

“DEAREST CONSTANCE:

“I wonder how you got that pleasantly prophetic name. You must tell
me.

“Yes, I have made up my mind; my friend has urgently advised me to
accept your uncle’s offer. He thinks the position affords chances I
ought not to decline, and with your ever dear self thrown in—you
remember the Scotch song:

“‘I’ll gie ye my bonny black hen
If ye’ll but advise me to marry
The lad I love dearly, Tam Glenn’—

“I gladly conclude to say yes. With what joy I am filled, you, I
trust, know. I am not very strong as yet, but I come of a vigorous
breed, and no tonic has ever helped me like the bounty of love. You
have given me yourself—how can I ask more?

“Between us there lies one large gulf of difference—and only one.
That some day we shall bridge it over, I hope and believe. Meanwhile,
we shall trust each other’s honesty in this, life’s largest matter,
and, so trusting, wait with the patience of love—”

“No,” she said, looking up, “it is not for me life’s largest matter. This human love is for me the larger. His religion, or any faith, is, compared to that, dim, misty, unsatisfying. But love! ah, that is near and sweet and real.”

“Well, well,” she mused, as she sat with the letter in her lap. “He would have me to believe as he believes. Would I wish him to change? No. He is my religion. That would shock him. To please him I could almost make believe to think as he does. To be separated in anything from him seems terrible.”

She was facing a hard question, made the more difficult by pure ignorance. Since childhood she had been in her uncle’s care. He had his own very peculiar views, and the delight in opposition which is fed by self-esteem and accounts in some degree for the ways and opinions of men who in the conduct of life depart radically from the common-sense standards of the world at large. His theories found a fair field in Constance. She was never to be punished; reasoning would do everything. How could a child accept a creed? She must be kept with a neutral mind. She had never been allowed to set foot in a church. When she grew up she might choose for herself. It shocked the elder sister, who, until the death of an aunt with whom she lived, saw Constance rarely, as they were separated by a hundred miles. When later she herself was left without a home, she gladly accepted her uncle’s invitation to live with them.

The new abode was far more luxurious than the one she had lost upon her aunt’s death. It was also very different. As time ran on, and she became more familiar with what she felt to be a rather singular household, she had an eager desire to help her young sister to escape from what seemed to Susan a bondage of the spirit. She became watchful and observant of her uncle and Constance, and saw, with something like dismay, the completeness of her sister’s isolation from all knowledge of that which seemed to her an essential part of the higher life. She was by temperament and sense of duty made unwilling to accept a neutral attitude; a growing affection added a strong motive, and she was resolute not to go on endlessly without protest. Some feeble attempts to approach the subject on which the elder sister felt so deeply were met by Constance either with indifference or mild amusement, as a thing long since disposed of, or as beneath the consideration of the larger mind. Rather than by persistence risk the loss of a growing affection, Susan ceased to speak of that which she held with such reverent faith, and could only pray that time and circumstances would afford more prosperous opportunities. With her uncle she was still less fortunate, but as he at least rested content with the situation he had created, she felt forced at last to secure for herself an opportunity to make the protest to which she felt driven by motives which left no escape possible.

He had soon become accustomed to use her for many of the little tasks which Constance disliked. She was seated with her uncle in his library after breakfast, engaged in cutting the leaves of a report on the census. He was minutely noting in his diary the state of the barometer and such reflections of his own as he considered worth preserving, and as to this he was generous.

He was not too busy to observe that, true to the habit of the born reader, she was now and then caught by some fact of interest, and ceased using the paper-cutter.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, laughing, “the census of this State embraces three millions of women—poor Mr. Census.”

“Yes, yes,” he returned, “quite remarkable,—an old joke, I believe. But I wish you would finish. I need the book. Constance has been trained to do one thing at a time.” The niece thus characterized had declined the task, and gone out to sail.

“I shall finish it, sir, in a few minutes.”

There was again silence, until at last she said: “The method of securing the number of people in the different religious sects seems to me quite absurd—just listen, Uncle Rufus.”

“I have no interest in it. It ought to be left out. The multitudinous opinions of irrelevant minds are disgraceful to the human intelligence. Negation is the proper attitude. Constance represents it to my satisfaction.”

Susan’s chance had come. She laid the book down and said earnestly: “You must pardon me if I say that I think you are wrong.”

“Well, I am always ready to hear honest opinions,—go on.”

“Do not you think that to leave a young girl without any sense of relation to God must result in her never acquiring any when grown up?”

“No, I do not. I have my views. When she is a woman and mature, she will choose.”

“But will she? She will have no interest in the matter.”

“Well, what then? Suppose that she never has.”

Susan was shocked; but after a moment replied: “Well, why not let her choose her morals? Why insist on her being, as a child, truthful, and charitable? Why insist on good manners? Let her choose her morals and her manners when she is what you call mature.”

“Nonsense; you are sophistical, and you are too clever not to know it.”

Susan was well enough aware of the difficulty in defending her statement, but she was too vexed to be logical, and said: “You have taken away from a young life one of the most imperative motives to be all that a woman ought to be.”

“I think I am a better judge of that than you. I have never missed what you call religion, nor will Constance. I have my views, and I insist that you are not to bother the girl with your superstitions.”

“I am sorry, uncle, but I can make no promise.”

“I suppose not. You are as obstinate in your folly as I am resolute in my common sense.”

“That is fine,” murmured Susan, as she returned to her work, making him no reply, and inclined for the time to abandon a useless purpose. Presently she laid the book beside him, saying:

“Is there anything else?”

“No, nothing.”

She left him and went out to the company of the flowers and the wholesomeness of a perfect day, troubled that she had made no impression, and asking herself if, after all, her argument was sophistical.

As she sat looking at the white sail of Constance’s cat-boat, rocking over an unquiet sea, she began to sum up her slowly acquired knowledge of the younger woman.

Yes, she was intelligent,—clever, accomplished, as Susan was not; an admirable musician, singularly ignorant of the great literature, but, like her uncle, unusually well informed on the history of her country. How she had come to have political opinions the reverse of her uncle’s puzzled Susan. It might be that she too loved to be in opposition, but certainly she held to her views with such passion as he was incapable of. And surely the girl was beautiful. As yet Susan could go no further in her interested analysis. Yes, she had the virtues of her caste, and great capacity for affection.

The woman concerning whom it was thus needful to digress went back to her letter.

“We will put this question aside for the time. You will let me try to
help you. Your uncle made me understand that his affairs would suffer
by delay, and now that I am clear in mind I see no cause to prevent
us from being married whenever you can set a time. No time will be
too soon for me. I have been alone in the world these many years. All
that friendship could give in the army and at home I have had, but
neither love of mother nor of sister, nor of any other woman has been
mine. You have it all—the all that might have been others is yours,
to-day and always.”

Again she paused, with the thought that to take him away even from his friends gave her a sense of such completeness of possession as filled her with joy. The rest of what he wrote was as delightful. She put the letter in her bosom and felt it move with her breathing; now and again she took it out and kissed it.

III

A month had gone by. A savage northeast wind was rocking the pines and hurling a thunderous surf on the rock-guarded coast. It was the third of March, the night before the day set for the marriage. Their uncle having as usual gone to bed early, the two sisters sat alone by a bright wood fire in the sitting-room they shared.

Susan rose and went to the window. “What a wild night!” she said, as the rain, wind driven, crashed against the panes, and the casement rattled. “The gardener said this afternoon a ship had gone ashore on Carlton’s Reef. I hope no lives were lost.”

“Yes, Uncle Rufus told me of it, and was gracious enough to observe that going to sea was like getting married—a very uncertain business.”

Susan, as she returned to the fire, remarked: “He has an unequaled capacity for saying unpleasant things, but I really believe that he does not mean to be malicious. The trouble is, he values the product of his own mind too highly to be willing to suppress any of it. I might have had the fancy that the ocean and marriage are uncertain. I should not have thought it fit or worth while to say so.”

“I do not see, Susan, how George has stood it for this last month. What with Uncle Rufus’s endless indirectness and perpetual indecision, I cannot wonder that George is puzzled to understand what he wants. I shall be more than glad to have done with it, and get half a continent between us and uncle.”

“You will never be done with it while he lives,” returned Susan; “and you may be pretty sure that he will some day appear at St. Ann and still further bother George.”

“Well, George is as obstinate as—I ought to say more resolute than—Uncle Rufus.”

“George asked me,” said Susan, “how uncle had been so fortunate in his affairs. I told him what you of course know, that uncle’s fortune was largely inherited, and that as the mills in which most of it was invested are managed by wiser men, and he is almost morbidly cautious, it is easy to see how he became rich. Those lands in and about St. Ann were one of his father’s ventures. They have been the source of constant trouble. I suspect that General Averill could not agree to do as uncle desired, and that when he gave up no one else would accept the agency.”

No sooner had she spoken than she knew that she had been unwise. Constance rose with a quick movement, and turning to her sister, said:

“Uncle said nothing like that to me or to George. Do you mean that he is using George because he could get no one else? I shall go and ask him if he has dared to do that.” As she spoke she moved quickly to the door. Susan was just in time.

“Stop, dear,” she said; “I have no authority for what I said.”

“Then you should not have spoken. You make me unhappy—and now, to-night of all nights. If your suspicion be correct, it is a thing I will not stand. Let me go.”

“No.” Susan set her back to the door. “Listen, dear. Uncle is asleep.”

“I do not care. He must wake up.”

“But you must care; and if I have been foolish or imprudent, it is too late for you to act wildly on a mere fancy of mine. Forget it, dear, and be sure that no matter what may be uncle’s little schemes, George Trescot will succeed where others have failed.”

The tall girl, still flushed, angry, and only half convinced, moved away and stood beside the fire, silent for a moment. Then, as Susan took her hand, she said:

“You are right; but, indeed, if he has put George in a false position I shall never forgive him. I shall not tell George.”

“I should not, dear. Sit down. It is really of no moment, but I was as indiscreetly anxious in George’s interest as you can be. Let us drop it. This is our last talk. What a mad storm, Conny!”

“Yes. Listen to the wind.”

“But you love storms, dear.”

“Yes, but not to-night. Oh, not to-night!”

“I hope you will have sunshine to-morrow.”

“Oh, sister, I do hope so.”

“It does not look like it, Conny; but there is sunshine enough in George Trescot. No one could help liking him; I am half in love with him myself.”

Constance laughed. “I can’t have that, I want him all to myself.”

“That you will not have,” said Susan, quietly. “I am so glad that you concluded to be married in church.”

“He wanted it, and I really did not care.”

“But you will some day, dear. You cannot live with that man year after year and fail to feel the value of the influences which guide and guard his life—and, dear, it was not your fault. I think it was cruel, wicked.”

Constance looked up. “Do you think he is really—I mean because of that—better than I am? Oh, I mean—you know what I mean.”

“I think you know, dear,” said Susan, “or ought to know. He has had a life of trial, you one of ease. Both of you are what nature and the chances of life have made you. I think you were unfairly dealt with. Before I came, and ever since, uncle has had his way.”

“Yes, I know; but, truly, Susan, I am neither religious nor non-religious; I am open-minded.”

“Are you, my dear sister? Has not your open-mindedness left you with the door of the mind very hard to open wide? Time will show. You have never yet found yourself; you have simply the conventional morals and opinions of our own social world. How they will serve you in days of strain and trouble God alone knows.”

“I think you are severe, Susan. I suppose I shall laugh or cry, and grieve or be merry, like others.”

“You are not like others. You are very unlike others.”

“Am I not?”

“No; you are too natural.”

“Too natural. Upon my word, Susan, you are quite too enigmatical for my powers of comprehension.”

“Well, dear, we won’t talk any more. I did not want to trouble you. And how am I to do without you?”

“Oh, you must come to see us after a while, when we are settled.”

“Oh, shall I not? Now to bed, to bed, dear, for a beauty sleep.”

She kissed her, and Constance went away. The elder woman remained long in thought by the fire, reflecting upon her own imprudent frankness. The younger lay awake for a time, wondering a little what Susan meant by calling her too natural. She awoke early to hear the surf and the constant rain, and the wail of the wind among the pines.

* * * * *

Trescot had never been his former vigorous self since he was wounded, and now, a resolute doctor insisting upon a long holiday, five happy weeks went by, much to the betterment of his health and looks. As they got out of the train at St. Ann early in April, on a Saturday afternoon, a gentleman approached them, and in the soft Southern tongue said:

“Mrs. Trescot, I believe. I am General Averill. Allow me to make you welcome to St. Ann.”

As Trescot gave him his left hand he added in a cordial way:

“Have you met with an accident? Nothing very bad, I hope.” He seemed really distressed. “And in your honeymoon, too.”

“You are very kind,” said Trescot. “I am afraid that you are in a way responsible; it was a Confederate bullet.”

“Oh, indeed? It is too late for apologies, but not for regret. So you were a soldier. Well, I am glad of that. It is not the men who fought who are making mischief now. My carriage is here. This way, madam. Here, boy,” to an aged black, and he gave some directions concerning their baggage.

“But we are going to the hotel,” said Trescot. “I wrote and arranged for rooms.”

The general laughed. “You are going to your own house, sir. My wife has been busy there, or she would have met Mrs. Trescot.”

“But we have no house,” said Constance.

“A little surprise, madam—as I understand, a wedding-gift from Mr. Hood. Mrs. Averill wrote and wished to be allowed to put it in order. Then Miss Hood came to St. Ann. Your uncle and I are old friends, as you know; and now that I see you, Mrs. Trescot, it is more than a pleasure—it is a privilege—to have been thus allowed to be of use. Ah! here is the carriage. Permit me.”

Trescot could only express formal thanks, and they chatted as they drove through the old Creole settlement, with its ill-kept gardens and new wooden houses.

Trescot was much amazed by the uncle’s sudden and secret liberality. They had been five weeks away from home, and except that Susan had written, soon after they left, that St. Ann would surprise them, they had been unprepared for what now they heard.

Unable, for the time, to discuss matters, they drove on for a half-mile through the dust of the main street; and when a little way out of the fast-growing southwestern town the general said, “This is what we call Raeburn’s addition.” Where the road began to slope to the broad river a too sanguine speculator had put up a half-dozen scattered cottages.

“This is your home, Mrs. Trescot. No, I shall leave you to enjoy it alone. Mrs. Averill has gone away, and hopes you will be pleased. You will find supper ready in an hour.”

They stood a moment on the roadside. A neat old black woman in a gay bandana head-kerchief stood at the open door; the general, hat in hand, kind, genial, courteous, a little profuse in talk. The two young people thanked him, and they were left alone.

Constance had misgivings as to what she might expect in this new home. She said nothing of the feeling she had that she should have been consulted as to the furniture. But much of what was needed had been chosen by Susan, and some simple but refined taste had presided over the rest. As she looked about her, she cried: “Oh, George, when I heard I was afraid; but it is really so very pretty and so simple; and was it not considerate to leave us alone? And wasn’t it like Susan just to go away and leave us to ourselves, and Mrs. Averill too?”