Chapter XXXVI: In the Pine Woods

After Philip left his father on the shore of the little lake he, too, wandered about in loneliness for the rest of the day, unable to bear his anxiety and trouble in Phyllis's presence, and equally unable to conceal them. She and Dorothy concluded that he was gone with his father on some hurried excursion. But early the next morning he knocked at the door of the room where the two girls were sleeping, and begged Phyllis to get up and go out with him into the pine woods lying behind the hotel. She grumbled a little, telling Dorothy in a sleepy tone that she could not bear going out before breakfast; at his urgent and reiterated entreaties, she relented, and, after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour, she made her appearance in a very becoming and very elaborate morning costume.

They were soon out of sight and hearing of the hotel, wandering slowly along the soft, dewy glades of the beautiful pine woods, with the morning sunlight streaming in long pencils through the openings of the green roof far above them. Here and there, through the rough, tawny trunks of the trees, they caught a glimpse of the great gray pinnacles of rock, with their fretwork of snow, rising high into the deep blue of the sky. Phyllis was enchanted with everything except the dew, which was spoiling the hem of her pretty dress, and taking the gloss off her little shoes.

"It is as beautiful as the scenery in the Midsummer Night's Dream at the Lyceum," she said. "Do you remember it, and that delicious music of Mendelssohn's? If it was moonlight I should expect to meet _Oberon_ and _Titania_."

Phyllis felt that she was making herself very charming. Philip was an ardent admirer of Shakspere, and what could she say more agreeable to him than this allusion to one of his favorite plays? But, to her great surprise, he seemed not to hear what she was saying.

"My Phyllis," he said, "I have something really terrible to tell you."

"Not that they are going to separate us again!" she cried. "I thought your father must have taken me into favor once more, or he would not have brought me all this way with him. He is not going to be tiresome again?"

"No, no!" he answered, pressing her hand, and keeping it in his own as they sauntered on; "we shall have no more trouble on that score. We need not fear any more opposition from my father. That is the one good thing in this trouble, for if I am not my father's heir, he will not expect me to marry an heiress."

"What do you mean?" she asked in a tone of excitement.

"I mean that my father has another son older than I am," continued Philip. "You know all about poor Sophy Goldsmith as well as I do. Phyllis, it was my father who ran away with her, when he was no older than I am; and they had a son, who has been living not far from here, at Cortina, ever since. He is eight years older than I am."

"Philip!" she exclaimed, standing still, and fastening her eyes upon his face with an air of incredulity, ready to break into a laugh as soon as the joke was repeated.

"I cannot bear to speak of it, even to you," he said gravely. "I wish to God it was not true. But I have read Sophy's last letter to Rachel Goldsmith, and there is no mistake. It is undeniably true. What is worse, my mother is going away this morning. She sent for me last night, and said I must take her away by the first train this morning. She looked as if it would kill her. She wishes to go, and I see it is best. It is best for her and my father to be separated for a while."

"Separated!" ejaculated Phyllis. "Your father and mother!"

"For a time only, I trust," said Philip. "It has been too great a blow for her. Don't you understand, my Phyllis? She has loved the Goldsmiths so much, and she remembers Sophy quite well, and has always been deeply interested in the mystery of her disappearance. And now the sudden discovery of this secret of my father's is too much for her. I have telegraphed for Rachel to come to Berne, and I am going to take my mother there at once, and then come back here to you and Dorothy."

"But are you quite sure there is a son living?" inquired Phyllis.

"I have seen him, and spoken to him," he replied. "He has some resemblance to my father, and he is very like old Andrew. Dorothy saw the likeness in a moment. The worst of it is that he has lived among the lowest of the people, and seems almost imbecile. He is about thirty years of age, and is as ignorant as a savage. Poor fellow! poor fellow!"

His voice fell, and the tears smarted under his eyelids. Phyllis's finely penciled eyebrows were knitted together with a quite new expression of profound and painful thought. He said to himself he had never seen her look so pretty and charming, and he bent his head to kiss the furrow between her eyebrows.

"You are sure it is all true?" she asked. "You are not inventing it?"

"How could I invent anything so horrible?" he said in amazement. "Think of what it means! Think of what my father has done! If it were not for you and my mother, I should wish I had never been born."

"Then you will never be Philip Martin of Brackenburn," she continued, "and Brackenburn will not be your estate. It will belong to this other son?"

"Of course," he answered, "the estate goes to the eldest son. But I do not care about being a poor man. They have christened him Martino. Martino Martin he will be."

"Gracious Heavens!" she ejaculated.

"So there will be no more opposition to our love for each other," he went on in a more cheerful manner; "and I must set to work now to earn a living for you and myself. It will be very pleasant to work for one another--I for you, and you for me. You will wait for me, Phyllis?"

There was no tone of doubt in the half question; it was only asked that some sweet answer might be given. He was as sure of her love as of his own; for had they not grown up for one another?

"But there is Apley," she said, after a short pause. "If this man takes your estate, you will take Hugh's. It is Hugh who must work for his living."

"Oh, no!" he replied; "Apley is settled on my mother's second son, so it belongs to Hugh. My father had no idea that he had a son living, and it seemed fair for Apley to go to the second son."

"But is it quite certain that they were married?" asked Phyllis, with all the premature knowledge of a country clergyman's daughter. "If they were not legally married, this man could not take your place."

Philip dropped the hand he still held. She had struck hard upon a chord in his nature which vibrated under her touch in utter discordance. Now and then she had jarred slightly upon him, and he had hastened to forget it, but here was a discord that would turn all his life's music into harshness.

"Phyllis, you do not know what you are saying," he cried.

"Oh! yes, I do," she answered, half petulantly and half playfully. "It is not likely that your father would marry a girl like Sophy Goldsmith. And if he did not, you will still be the heir, and some day I shall be Mrs. Martin of Brackenburn."

Philip walked on beside her in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground.

"That is the first thing to find out," continued Phyllis shrewdly. "I don't believe there was a legal marriage, or if there was, the Goldsmith's must prove it. Of course, your mother will be very mad about it for a while, but it will come right in the end; and 'All's well that ends well,' you know. But isn't it strange that, after all these years, we should find out about Sophy Goldsmith? And your father knew all along, the naughty, naughty man!"

So smooth hitherto had been the current of their short lives that Philip had never seen Phyllis in any circumstances of great trouble or difficulty. She was still a young girl, and how shame or sorrow would affect her no one could have foretold. But at this crisis, with all his own nature overwrought with shame for his father and sorrow for his mother, he felt how vast was the distance between them. They were dwelling in different worlds. Was it a premonition of this disparity between them which had made his mother oppose their marriage?

He turned back abruptly toward the hotel, and they did not talk much on their way. Phyllis's brain was busy, too busy for much speaking. If this terrible thing could possibly be true--though she rejected such a supposition--then, indeed, she must bid farewell to all the bright schemes she had laid for her future life. Philip would be a poor nobody, and she really was not fitted to be a poor man's wife. She loved him, of course, and it would be intense misery to give him up. How she could part from him she did not know; her mother must manage it for her, if the necessity ever arose. But to be plain Mrs. Martin, of nowhere in particular, living on a few hundreds a year! That would be impossible. Still, what folly it was to be looking forward to things which would never happen! She turned a bright face to Philip as he left her at the hotel door.

"Take courage, and be comforted," she said. "It has all got to be proved first."

He turned away with a feeling of utter discouragement. All his world seemed shaken to its very foundations. His father had been guilty of a deed of the deepest baseness, and his intended wife was blind to that baseness. But he had no time for musing on it. Dorothy's voice arrested him, and, looking up, he saw her coming quickly to him, dressed as for a journey. Her face was troubled, and she spoke to him in imploring tones.

"Your mother is leaving here by the first train," she said, "and she says I must not go with her. Something has made her very unhappy; her face grieves me more than I can say. Persuade her to let me go. She ought not to travel alone."

"I shall be with her," he answered, "and Rachel Goldsmith will meet her in Berne. No, Dorothy, it would be a greater comfort to my mother if you stay here with my father. He is very fond of you, and he, too, is unhappy. You must stay with him and comfort him."

"Yes," she said, weeping; "what has happened I do not know, but I will do what you and Mrs. Martin think best. I do not know which I love the most. Is it anything very dreadful?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Is there nothing I can do besides staying with your father?" she asked. "Philip, we all know how very, very rich I shall be--too rich. If any money is wanted, tell him to recollect how much there is of mine, more than any girl could use. But money losses would not make you miserable."

"No," he said; "no loss of money would break my mother's heart."

"That is how she looks," resumed Dorothy, "as if her heart was broken; and oh! I cannot bear to lose sight of her. If I was her own child she would tell me all about it, and I could comfort her. But now, at the very worst moment, I feel what a stranger I am among you all."

"No, dear Dorothy," he answered; "you are as dear as a daughter to her and my father. You will know all by and by, and you will see then you were of more use staying here than going away with my mother."

"And is Phyllis going with you?" she asked.

"Phyllis? Oh, no!" he said.

"I'm afraid I was feeling a little jealous of Phyllis," she said, smiling through her tears. "Of course, I know she is nearer and dearer to you all, except Mr. Martin, than I am; but I think she could not bear trouble as I can do."

"Trouble!" he repeated, "yes; but could you bear shame?"

"Willingly," she answered.

"Not shame only, but sin. Could you help us to bear our sins?" he asked.

"Yes," she said gravely; "if our Lord came into the world to take away our sins by bearing them himself, surely we ought to bear the burden of one another's sins--we, who are all alike sinful. Have you any such burden to bear? But I shall not have to bear either shame or sin for your father or mother--or for you," she added softly, after a moment's pause.

"Thank you, Dorothy," he said.