Chapter LXX: Bertha and Waldon Meet Again

“I must see him! I will—I will!”

Bertha was walking up and down her chamber, sweeping the India matting with her loose robe, and stamping her foot now and then with feverish impatience.

“Some fiend in human shape has maligned me to him! I will know the truth! Lydia!”

“I am here, Miss B., and have been all the time,” said Lydia, coming out from behind the muslin curtains of a window sunk deep into the wall, through which she had been anxiously watching the young lady. “Can I do anything?”

“Lydia, is there any way by which we can leave the island?”

“Yes, miss. Old Sam can set us ashore in his tub of a boat.”

“But I want something more than that.”

“To go up stream? I understand.”

“Is there no boat—no horse?”

“I’ll inquire of Sam, if you must go.”

Lydia went out of the room, and found Sam in the garden patch, where Celia had sent the old man for a mess of new potatoes. She found the old servant sitting on the broken turf which grew around the roots of a great oak on the edge of the potato patch, fast asleep, with his hoe lying close by, where he had dropped it.

“Sam! Sam! I say, old Sam!”

The old man started, snatched up his hoe, and looked around, much relieved when he saw Lydia.

“It’s only you, sure ’nuff,” he said, with a sigh of relief. “Thought de ole ’oman was ’bout. He! he! he!”

“Sam, is it possible to get a boat that will hold water—something that a—that I could pull up stream? One gets so tired of doing nothing.”

“Duz dey!” said Sam, combing out his wool with the fingers of one hand. “He! he! he! Die ole darkey never gets done tired doin’ dat. He! he!”

“I should think not,” answered the girl, laughing. “But about the boat—can such a thing be got?”

Again Sam’s fingers sought the wool on his temples. He seemed greatly puzzled and irresolute.

“Miss Lyddy, am yer to be trusted wid a mighty big secret?”

“Am I? Oh, yes.”

“Miss Lyddy, jist tote yerself down to der bridge. I’se gwoin’ to show yer suthin’.”

Lydia followed the old man, wondering what form his secret would take when they reached the log bridge.

Sam let himself down the bank at one end, and, parting the trumpet vines with both arms, told her to look over.

Lydia leaned over the logs, looked through the opening Sam had made in the vines, and saw a little boat, whose outlines seemed familiar, moored close under the timbers.

“As true as I live, it’s the ‘Firefly!’” she exclaimed, delighted. “How came it here, Sam?”

“Comfisticated prop’ty,” answered Sam, rubbing his hands in high glee, “come down yer ob its own self. I only jist ’ticed it inter de run, agin some pussen come down ’quiren ’bout it.”

“It was lost after the picnic, months ago, Sam—the night my young mistress was nearly drowned. I think the boat belongs to Miss Noel.”

“Don’t know noffin’ ’bout dat. I’se comfisticated it, and dat’s ’nuff for dis darkey. Now, what am it you wants, Miss Lyddy?”

“This, Sam: Miss B. and I mean to have a good, long pull up stream with this boat, after sunset. Get it out, and, if the cushions are saved, put them in.”

“Cushens!” said Sam, ruefully; “dem are done gone. Dey drifted ’long wid de boat, wet as sop, so de ole ’oman took de stuffen for pillars. But de young missus kin have dem.”

“Never mind the cushions; we can do very well without them. But get the little craft in order for a good long trip.”

After giving these directions, Lydia went up to the house and reported progress.

Bertha stopped her restless pacing up and down the room long enough to listen, then commenced walking again, pausing now and then to take out her watch and wonder if it had not stopped.

At last the soft glow of coming sunset fell upon the island, and through its golden mist the two girls went down to the log bridge, where the “Firefly” lay rocking, light and graceful as a Turkish caique in the water.

Sam unmoored the pretty craft, and Bertha sprang in, directing Lydia to seat herself in the stern.

“Where is it you are going, Miss B.?” inquired the girl, as they put forth into the broad river.

“Lydia, I am going to Willow Bend. A person is there that I must speak with. It may be difficult, but you must help me.”

Bertha spoke with energy. The exercise of rowing gave her unusual force; perhaps the hope of seeing that man stirred the blood in her veins. At any rate, the “Firefly” shot up stream like a bird. At nine o’clock it lay under the weeping willows, which drooped over it like the long, swaying fringes of some royal tent.

“He usually walks here about this time,” thought the girl, as she sprang on shore, leaving Lydia in the boat.

The house was before her, lighted brilliantly from the parlors and dining-room which were exposed through the open windows, through which she saw a man and a woman pass to the veranda, where they paced slowly up and down, conversing together.

Bertha watched them with pressed lips and dilating eyes. The man’s tread reached her where she stood, concealed by the willows, which in places swept the bank with their branches. Never, since she first saw Waldon, had that footstep failed to make her blood stir and her heart leap. She heard it now with a pang that shook her from head to foot; for with it came a sweet gush of laughter, and the undertones of a voice that had spoken to her tenderly only a short time ago.

Those two left the veranda, and strolled down upon the lawn. The man’s head was bent toward his companion, and her hands were clasped fondly over his arm, while her cheek almost touched his shoulder. They came straight down toward the spot where Bertha was standing. She drew back, placing the trunk of the willow between herself and them.

They sauntered to the very edge of the drooping foliage, talking eagerly. She was speaking.

“Then everybody will say that she jilted you, and I took up with Bertha Canfield’s leavings,” Mary was saying, when her words became clear. “Besides, if papa ever hears about your being engaged to her, he will want to know why you broke it off, for he is awfully particular about honor, and all that.”

“It is not likely that he will ever hear about it. Bertha was far too delicate to speak of the engagement while it existed, and the most reticent pride that I ever knew in woman will keep her from complaint now.”

“But other people knew it. Miss Bertha’s exquisite delicacy did not prevent that. Mr. Hyde told me of it before they had been here a week; besides, it was known everywhere in New York,” said Mary, almost spitefully.

“But these people are my own friends, and knew of my entanglement almost as soon as I was sure of it myself. They will learn that it is broken the first opportunity after everything is settled, and know how to be silent. As for New York, your father is not likely to go there before his knowledge will be of little importance.”

“But I—I wish to know, and wish the world to know. It shall not be said that Bertha Canfield refused what I accepted,” said the heiress, petulantly.

“The dew is heavy—you will take cold,” was Waldon’s answer. “You had better go back to the house.”

Waldon spoke almost curtly. He was getting angry.

“But you will go with me. Surely you do not intend to return to Mr. Hyde’s at this late hour?”

“No. I will see you safe indoors, then take a stroll along the bank.”

The couple turned and walked slowly toward the house, while Bertha watched them from the boat to which she had leaped the moment their conversation turned upon herself; but before she could escape, that one sentence had struck her like a blow.

Drifting in the shadow of the bank, Bertha saw Waldon turn from the veranda, after Mary went in, and stroll down to the river again. The moon was shining brightly now, and through the swaying willow branches came swift ripples of silver from the water, which trembled all over with light. She allowed her little craft to float downward with the current till the willows swept over it. Then she sprang on the bank, and, before Waldon was aware of her presence, stood by his side on the very spot where they had parted only a few weeks before, pledged man and wife.

“Bertha! Great Heavens! Bertha Canfield, how came you here?”

Her presence sent a shock through that strong frame. The man’s knees shook under him; but through it all came a wild thrill of pleasure. With all his faithlessness, the man had loved her, and she was superbly beautiful, standing there in the moonlight, as it sifted through the willow branches upon her head and her dusky garments.

“You did not expect me—did not wish to see me—but I came, knowing that. Only a few minutes ago I stood behind this tree while you talked with the girl that was once my friend. I heard part of what you said, not willingly; I could not get to the boat sooner than I did. She only asked the question that I came to ask. That which you declined to tell her I must know!”

“Why have you come, Bertha? This can be nothing but a most painful interview.”

“What is there left for me on earth but pain?” cried the girl, with a pathetic cry of despair. “But I will understand—I must understand! I have no father, no brother, to come and say, with a power of redress: ‘This woman has been wronged, her heart trampled on, and her pride broken, and we will have full and sufficient reason, or such atonement as men force from men.’ I am only a young girl—fatherless, almost friendless, buried in sorrow for the death of a mother who loved me supremely, hunted down by some vague evil which no one can explain but yourself. This you _must_ explain, or kill me! I cannot live—I cannot live with this fever of doubt burning up my strength! Waldon! Waldon! if you ever loved me, give up the secret that has separated us! I will know it!”

Waldon stood motionless, gazing upon Bertha. Her beauty and the wild grandeur of this appeal awoke all that was worshipful and good in him. Coming directly after the shallow petulance of that other girl for whom he had sacrificed her, the contrast was overpowering. For that moment the selfish fiend fled out of his nature, and left him purely a man of genius, so lifted above his own meaner self that a keen intellect gave him one glimpse of its own actions as they would have appeared to others knowing them as he did. But for these momentary feelings he might have told Bertha the truth, concealing only what he knew of her mother’s death; but now the solemn promise he had made that mother came back to his memory with a shock. He could neither force himself to betray her trust nor own that he was her murderer. As he looked upon the girl, doubly bereaved by his own selfishness, this man hated himself with bitter hatred, as if he had been some other person.

“You will tell me this, that I may depart at once,” said Bertha, whose voice shook with the tremor that disturbed her whole frame. “I did not come to plead with you, or in anything change that which you have done. But I must know why you have done it. If any man or woman has maligned me, the right of self-justification is mine, and I demand it! If it is—as one who loved you less than I did might be tempted to think—because another had greater attractions and more abundant wealth, you could at least grant me the privilege of contempt.”

“No! no, Bertha! I could not endure contempt or hatred from you; and that would come if I broke the solemn pledge that binds me to secrecy. Ask me anything but this, even to dishonor myself by breaking up this new engagement, and I will do it, rather than betray a sacred trust! Ask that, Bertha, for now that you are before me, in all the grandeur of your soul and this wonderful loveliness, I can see how my heart has debased itself. Ask that, Bertha, and I shall be madman enough to ruin myself and follow you. Ask me! ask me!”

The fiend was coming back into the man’s soul again. Enraged with himself, and lured by her presence, he flung his arms around the startled young creature, and kissed her madly on her eyes, her hair, and her quivering lips, until she broke away from him, and leaping into her boat, fled down the river.