Chapter XII: Part V (1)

"Miss Anna! Miss Anna! Doctor Percival is waiting for you," were the opening words of the next day's life. Its bells had had no influence in restoring me to consciousness of existence. I never have liked metallic commanders. Now Jeffy's Ethiopian tones were inspiriting, and to their music I began the mystic march of another day.

Doctor Percival was not out of patience, it seemed, with waiting; for, as I went in, he was so engrossed with a morning paper that he did not even look up, or notice me, until I made myself vocal, and then only to say,--

"Ring for breakfast, Anna; I shall have done by the time it comes."

"It is here, father"; and he dropped the newspaper, turned his chair to the table, leaned his arms upon it, covered his precious face with two thin, quivering hands, and remained thus, whilst I prepared coffee, and lingered as long as possible in the seeming occupation.

Jeffy--and I suspect that the mischievous African designed the act--overturned the coffee in handing it to my father, who is not endowed with the most equable temper ever consigned to mortals; but this morning he did not give Jeffy even a severe look, for his eyes were full of tender pity, such as I had never seen in them in all the past.

"How is your patient?" I asked.

"Better, thank God!" he replied.

"Were you with him all night?"

"Yes, all night. I must go out this morning to see some patients. I'll send up a nurse from the hospital on my way. I don't think the delirium will return before mid-day; can you watch him till then, Anna?"--and he asked with a seeming doubt either of my willingness or my ability, perhaps a mingling of both.

I did not like to recount my serious failures with Miss Axtell, but I answered,--

"I will try."

Before he went, he took me in to the place of my watching. The gentleman was asleep. The housekeeper was quite willing to relinquish her office. The good physician gave me orders concerning the febrifuge to be administered in case of increase of febrile symptoms, and saying that "it wouldn't be long ere some one came to relieve me," he bent over the sleeping patient for an instant, and the next was gone.

I think a half-hour must have fled in silence, when Jeffy stole in, his eyes opening as Chloe's had done not many days agone, when the vision of myself was painted thereon. I upheld a cautionary index, and he was still as a mouse, but like a mouse he proceeded to investigate; he opened a bureau-drawer the least way, and pushing his arm in where my laces were wont to dwell, he drew out, with exultant delight, the wig before mentioned.

"What _do_ you s'pose _he_ wants with this thing'?" whispered Jeffy; and he pointed to the soft, fair masses of curling hair that rested against the pillow.

Jeffy was a spoiled boy,--"my doing," everybody said, and it may have been truly. He was Chloe's son, and had inherited her ways and affectionate heart, and for these I forgave him much.

I said, "Hush!"--whereupon he lifted up the wig and deposited it upon the top of his tangled circlets of hair before I could stay him.

I reached out my hand for it, not venturing on words, for fear of disturbing the patient; but Jeffy, with unpardonable wilfulness, danced out of my circuit, and at the same instant the sick man turned his head, and beheld Jeffy in the possession of his property. Jeffy looked very repentant, said in low, deprecatory tones, "I'm sorry," and, depositing the wig in the drawer, hastened to escape, which I know he would not have done but for the disabled condition of the invalid, who could only look his wrath. I had so hoped that he would sleep until some one came; but this unfortunate Jeffy had dissipated my hope, and left me in pitiable dilemma.

In the vain endeavor to restore the scattered influence of Morpheus, I flew to one of the aids of the mystic god, and beseeching its assistance, I prepared to administer the draught. I could not find a spoon on the instant. When I did, I made a mistake in dropping the opiate, and was obliged to commence anew, and all the while that handsome face, with large, pleading eyes in it, held me in painful duress. When I turned towards him and held the glass to his lips, I trembled, as I had not done, even in the church, when Abraham Axtell and I stood before the opened entrance into earth. All the words that I that day had heard in the tower were ringing like clarions in the air, and they shook me with their vibrant forces.

"Am _I_ in heaven?"

It was the same voice that had said to Miss Axtell, "Will you send me out again?" that spake these words.

Was he going into delirium again? I was desirous of keeping him upon our planet, and I said,--

"Oh, no,--they don't need morphine in heaven."

"They need _you_ there, though. You must go _now_," he said; and he made an effort to take the glass from my hand.

"I have never been in heaven," I said.

"Then they deceive, they deceive, and there isn't any heaven! Oh, what if after all there shouldn't be such a place?"

He lifted up his one usable hand in agony.

"We wait until we die, before going there," I said; "I am alive, don't you see?"

"Alive, and not dead? you! whom I killed eighteen years ago, have you come to reproach me now? Oh, I have suffered, even to atonement, for it! You would pardon, if you only knew what I have suffered for you."

Surely delirium had returned. I urged the poor man to take the contents of the glass.

He promised, upon condition of my forgiveness,--forgiveness for having killed me, who never had been killed, who was surely alive. Jeffy had come in again, and had listened to the pleading.

"Why don't you tell him yes, Miss Anna? He doesn't know a word he's sayin'. It'll keep him quiet like; he's like a baby," he whispered, with a covert pull at my dress by way of impressment.

And so, guided by Chloe's boy, I said, "I forgive."

"Why don't you go, if you forgive me? I don't like to keep you here, when you belong up there"; and he pointed his words by the aid of his available hand.

I knew then _why_ Miss Axtell had loved this man: it was simply one of those cruel, compulsory offerings up of self, that allure one, in open sight of torture, on to the altar. Oh, poor woman! why hath thy Maker so forsaken thee? And in mute wonder at this most wondrous wrong, that crept into mortal life when the serpent went out through Eden and left an opening in the Garden, I forgot for the while my present responsibility, in compassionate pity for the pale, beautiful lady in Redleaf, into whose heart this man had come,--unwillingly, I knew, when I looked into his face, and yet, _having come, must grow into its Eden, even unto the time that Eternity shadows;_ and I sent out the arms of my spirit, and twined them invisibly around her, who truly had spoken when she said, "I want you," with such hungry tones. God, the Infinite, has given me comprehension of such women, has given me His own loving pity,--in little human grains, it is true, but they come from "the shining shore." "Miss Axtell does want me," I thought; "she is right,--I am gladness to her."

"Will you go?" came from the invalid.

"A woman, loving thus, never comes alone into a friend's heart," something said; "you must receive her shadow"; and I looked at the person who had said, "Will you go?"

There are various words used in the dictionary of life, descriptive of men such as him now before me. They mostly are formed in syllables numbering four and five, which all integrate in the one word _irresistible_: how pitifully I abhor that word!--every letter has a serpent-coil in it. "Love thy neighbor even as thyself." It is good that these words came just here to wall themselves before the torrent that might not have been stayed until I had laid the mountain of my thought upon the sycophantic syllabication that the world loves to "lip" unto the world,--the false world, that, blinded, blinds to blinder blindness those that fain would behold. There is a crying out in the earth for a place of torment; there are sins for which we want what God hath prepared for the wicked.

"Are you going?"--and this time there was plaintive moaning in the accents.

"You must take him in, too," my spirit whispered; and I acted the "I will" that formed in the mental court where my soul sat enthroned,--my own judge.

"Oh, no, I am not going away," I said; "I am come to stay with you, until some one else comes."

A certain resignment of opposition seemed to be effected. I knew it would be so,--it is in all such natures,--and he seemed intent upon making atonement for his imaginary wrong, since I would stay.

"Mary, I didn't mean to kill you," he said; "I wouldn't have destroyed your young life; oh! I wouldn't;--but I did! I did!"

"You make some strange mistake; you ought not to talk," I urged, surprised at this second time being called Mary.

"Yes, I guess 'twas a mistake,--you're right, all a mistake,--I didn't mean to kill you; but I did _him_, though. Oh! I wanted to destroy him,--_he hadn't any pity, he wouldn't yield_. But it's _you_, Mary, _you_ oughtn't to hear me say such things of _him_."

"I am not Mary, I am Miss Percival; and you may tell me."

"I beg pardon, I had no right to call you Mary; but it is there, now, on your tomb-stone in the old church-yard,--Mary Percival,--there isn't any Miss there. Do they call you Miss Percival in heaven?"--and he began to sing, deep, stirring songs of rhythmic melody, that catch up individual existences and bear them to congregated continents, where mountains sing and seas respond, amid the _encore_ of starry spheres.

O Music! if we could but divine thee, dear divinity, thou mightst be less divine! then let us be content to be divinized in thee!--and I was. I let him sing, knowing that it was in delirium; and for the moment my wonder ceased concerning Miss Axtell's love for Herbert.

This while, Jeffy stood speechless, transfused into melody. Whence came this love of Africans for harmonious measure? Oh, I remember: the scroll of song whereon were written the accents of the joyed morning-stars, when they grew jubilant that earth stood create, was let fall by an angel upon Afric's soil. No one of the children of the land was found of wisdom sufficient to read the hieroglyphs; therefore the sacred roll was divided among the souls in the nation: unto each was given one note from the divine whole.

"Jeffy must have received a semi-breve as his portion," I thought, for he was rapt in ecstasy.

"Oh, sing again!" he said, unconsciously, when, exhausted, the invalid reached the shore of Silence,--where he did not long linger, for he changed his song to lament that he could not reach his ship, that would sail before he could recover; and he made an effort to rise. He fell back, fainting.

It seemed a great blessing that at this moment the housekeeper introduced the person Doctor Percival had sent.

That night, and for many after, it seemed, my father looked extremely anxious. I did not see the patient again until the eventful twenty-fifth of March was past.

Two days only was I permitted for my visit. Would Miss Axtell expect me? or had she, it might be, forgotten that she had asked my presence?

My father had not forgotten the obligation of the ring of gold; he made allusion to it in the moment of parting, and I felt it tightening about me more and more as the miles of sea and land rolled back over our separation; and a question, asked long ago and unanswered yet, was repeated in my mental realm,--"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" and I said, "I will not try."

It was evening when I arrived at the parsonage. Sophie was full of sweet sisterly joy on seeing me, and of surprise when I told her what had occurred in our father's house. It was so unprecedented, this taking in a stranger whose name and home were unknown; for I could not tell Sophie my conviction that father had discovered who the patient was.

"Miss Axtell is almost well." Sophie gave the information before I found time to ask. "She pleases to be quite charming to me. I hope she will be equally gracious to you." And so I hoped.

From out the ark of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked forth in its morning-time to redeem my promise.

"Miss Percival! I'm so glad!"

Katie showed me into the room that once I had been so much afraid of. She did not long leave me there.

"Miss Lettie would like to see you in her room."

Sophie was right. She is almost well.

"Come!" was the sole word that met my entering in; then followed two small acts, supposed to be conventionalities. Isn't it good that all suppositions are _not_ based upon truth? I thought it good then. I hope I may away on to the dawning of the new life.

This was my first seeing of Miss Axtell in her self-light. She said,--

"This is the only day that I have been down in time for breakfast,"--she, who looked as if the fair Dead-Sea fruits had been all of sustenance that had dropped through the leaden waves for her; and an emotion of awe swept past me, borne upon the renewal of the consciousness that I had been made essential to her.

"I knew that you would come," she continued. "Oh! I have great confidence in you; you must never disappoint me,--will you?"--and, playfully, she motioned me to the footstool where she had appointed me a place on the first night when she told me of her mother, dead.

I assured her that I should. I must begin that moment by mentioning the time of my visit's duration.

"How long?" and there was import in the tone of her voice.

"I must be at home to-morrow morning."

"No reprieve?"

I answered, "None,"--and turned the circlet of obligation upon my finger.

"I am glad you told me; I like limits; I wish to know the precise moment when my rainbows will disband. It's very nice, meeting Fate half-way; there's consolation in knowing that it will have as far to go as you on the return voyage."

I smiled; a little inward ripple of gladness sent muscle-waves to my lips. She noticed it, and her tone changed.

"I see, I see, my good little Anemone! You don't know how exultant it is to stand alone, above the forest of your fellows,--to lift up your highest bough of feeling,--to meet the Northland's fiercest courser that thinks to lay you low. Did you ever turn to see the expression with which the last leap of wind is met, the peculiar suavity of the bowing of the boughs, that says as plainly as ever did speaking leaves, '_You have left me myself_'? You don't understand these things, you small wind-flower, that have grown sheltered from all storms!"

"One would think not, Miss Axtell, but"--and I paused until she bade me "Go on."

"Perhaps it is vanity,--I hope not,--but it seems to me that I have a mirror of all Nature set into the frame of my soul. It isn't a part of myself; it is a mental telescope, that resolves the actions of all the people around me into myriads of motives, atomies of inducement, that I see woven and webbed around them, by the sight-power given. Besides, I am not an anemone,--oh, no! I am something more substantial."

"I see, very"; and before I could divine her intent, she had lifted up my face in both her hands and held my eyes in her own intensity of gaze, as, oh, long ago! I remember my mother to have done, when she doubted my perfect truth.

Miss Axtell was engaged in looking over old treasured letters, bits of memory-memoranda, when I arrived. She had laid them aside to greet me, somewhat hastily, and a rustling commotion testified their feeling at their summary disposal. Now she sat framed in by the yellow-and-white foam, that had settled to motionlessness,--an island in the midst of waves of memory.

"Did you bring my treasures?" were the first words, after investigating my truth.

"They are safely here."

I gave the package.

She made no mention of former occurrences. She trusted me implicitly, with that far-deep of confidence that says, "Explanation would be useless; your spirit recognizes mine." She only said, drooping her regal head with the slightest dip into motion,--

"I want to tell you a story; it is of people who are, some in heaven and some upon the earth;--a story with which you must have something to do for me, because I cannot do it for myself. I did not intend telling so soon, but my disbanded rainbow lies in the future."

Before commencing, she wandered up and down the room a little, stopped before the dressing-bureau, brushed back the hair, with many repetitions of stroke, from the temples wherein so much of worship had been gathered, smoothed down the swollen arches of veinery that fretted across either temple's dome, looked one moment into the censers of incense that burned always with emotionary fires, flashed out a little superabundant flame into the cold quicksilver, turned the key, fastening our two selves in, examined the integrity of the latch leading into the dressing-room beyond, threw up the window-sash,--the same one that Mr. Axtell had lifted to look out into the night for her,--asked, "should I be cold, if she left it open?" looked contentment at my negative answer, rolled the lounge out to where her easy-chair was still vibrating in memory of her late presence, made me its occupant, reached out for the package over which I had been guardian, pinioned it between her two beautiful hands, laid it down one moment to wrap a shawl around me, then, resuming it, sat where she had when she said, "I want to tell you a story," and perhaps she was praying. I may never know, but it was many moments before she made answer to my slight touch, "Yes, child, I have not forgotten," and with face hidden from me she told me her story.

MISS AXTELL'S STORY.

"Alice Axtell was my sister. Eighteen years ago last August-time she was here.

"There has been beauty in the Axtell race; in her it was radiant. It would have been truth to say, 'She is beautiful.'

"I said that it was August-time,--the twenty-seventh day of the month. Alice and I had been out in the little bay outside of Redcliff beach, with your sister. You don't remember her: she was like you. Doctor Percival had given Mary a boat, taught her to row it, and she had that afternoon given Alice a first lesson in the art. The day went down hot and sultry; we lingered on the cooler beach until near evening. We saw clouds lying dark along the western horizon, and that voiceless lightnings played in them. Then we came home. The air was tiresome, the walk seemed endless; still Alice and Mary lingered at the gate of your father's house to say their last words. The mid-summer weariness was over us both, as we reached home. We came up to this room,--our room then. Alice said,--

"'I think I shall go to bed, I'm so tired.'

"She closed the blinds. As she did so, a crash of thunder came.

"'We're going to have a thunder-shower, after all,' she said; 'how quickly it is coming up! Come and see.'

"I looked a moment out. Jet masses of vapor were curling up amid the stars, blotting out, one by one, their brightness from the sky. Alice was always timid in thunder-storms. She shuddered, as a second flash pealed out its thunder, and crept up to me. I put my arms around her, and rested my cheek against her head. She was trembling violently.

"'Lie down, Allie; let me close the other blinds; don't look out any longer.'

"Our mother came in.

"'I came to see if the windows were all down,' she said; 'it will rain in a moment'; and she hurried away, and I heard her closing, one after another, the windows that had been all day open.

"Alice lay for a long time quietly. The storm uprose with fearful might; it shook the house in its passing grasp, and I sat by this table, listening to the music wrought out of the thunderous echoes.

"'Couldn't we have a window open?' Alice asked; 'I feel stifled in here'; and she went across the room and lifted the sash before I was aware.

"I looked around, when I heard the noise. The same instant there came a blinding, dazzling light; then, that awful vacuous rattle in the throat of thunder that tells it comes in the name of Death the destroyer.

"'Oh, Allie, come away!' I screamed.

"In obedience to my wish, she leaned towards me; but, oh, her face! I caught her, ere she fell, even. I sent out the wings of my voice, but no one heard me, no one came. I could not lift her in my arms, so I laid her upon the floor, and ran down.

"'Go to Alice,--the lightning!' was all I could say, and it was enough. I heard groans before I gained the street.

"My pale, silent sister was stronger than the storm which flapped its wings around me and threatened to take me to its eyry; but it did not; it permitted me to gain Doctor Percival's door. I was dazzled with the lightning, only my brain was distinct with 'its skeleton of woe,' when I found myself in your father's house.

"I could not see the faces that were there. I asked for Doctor Percival. Some one answered, 'He is not come home. What has happened?' and Mary ran forward in alarm.

"'It is lightning! Oh, come!' was all that I could utter; and with me there went out into the pouring rain every soul that was there when I went in.

"'She is dead; there is nothing to be done.'

"Three hours after the stroke, these words came. Then I looked up. Alice, with her little white face of perfect beauty, lay upon that bed. Thunder-storms would never more make her tremble, never awake to fear the spirit gone. It was Doctor Percival from whom these fateful words came. I had had so much hope! In very desperation of feeling, I strove to look up to his face. My eyes were arrested before they reached him.

"'By what?' did you ask?"

Her long silence had incited me to question, and she turned her face to me, and slowly said,--

"By the Lightning of Life.

"Two sisters, in one night,--one unto Death, the other unto Life. Beside Doctor Percival was standing one. I do not know what he was like, I cannot tell you; but, believe me, it is solemnly true, that, that instant, this human being flashed into my heart and soul. I saw, and felt, and have heard the rolling thunder that followed the flash to this very hour. It was very hard, over my Alice. If I had only been she, how much, how much happier it would have been!--and yet it must have been wiser. She could not have endured to the end. She would have failed in the bitterness of the trial.

"My Alice! I am devoutly thankful that you are safe in heaven!"--and for a moment the hands were lifted up from the treasured packet; they closed over it, and she went on.

"Alice was wrapped up in earth. In the moment when the first fold of the clod-mantle, that trails about us all at the last, fell protectingly over her, I was in that condition of superlative misery that cries out for something to the very welkin that sends down such harsh hardness; and I hurried my eyes out of the open grave, only to find them again arrested by the same soul that had stood beside Doctor Percival and Alice in her death. They said something to me, kinder than ever came out of the blue vault, and yet they awoke the fever of resistance. I would have no thought but that of Alice. What right had any other to come in then and there?

"September came. Its days brought my sorrow to me ever anew. The early dew baptized it; the great sun laid his hot hand upon its brow and named it Death, in the name of the Mighty God; and the evening stars looked down on me, rocking Alice in my soul, and singing lamentful lullabies to her, sleeping, till such time as Lethean vapors curled through the horizon of my mind, and hid its formless shadows of suffering.

"Mary Percival was Alice's best friend; as such, she came to comfort and to mourn with me. One day, it was the latest of September's thirty, Mary lured me on to the sea-shore, and into her small boat once more. Little echoes of gladness sprang up from the sea; voices from Alice's silence floated on the unbroken waves.

"'You look a little like yourself again; I'm so glad to see it!' Mary said. 'There comes Mr. McKey. I wonder what brings him here.'

"I looked up, and saw, slowly walking on to the point at which Mary was securing her boat, the possessor of the existence that had come into mine. There was no way for me to flee, except seaward; and of two suicides I chose the pleasanter, and I stayed.

"'Who is it, Mary?' I had time to question, and she to answer.

"'It is Bernard McKey; he has come to study medicine in papa's office; he came the night Alice died.'

"He was too near to permit of questioning more, and so I stood upon the seashore and saw my fate coming close.

"Mary simply said, 'Good evening,' to him, followed by the requisite introductory words that form the basis of acquaintance.

"'I think Miss Axtell and I scarcely need an introduction,' he said; nevertheless he looked the pleasure it had strewed into his field, and guarded it, as a careful husbandman would choicest seed.

"He asked the style of question which monosyllables can never answer, to which responding, one has to offer somewhat of herself; and all the time of that sombre autumn, there grew from out the chasm of the lightning-stroke luxuriant foliage. I gave it all the resistance of my nature, yet I knew, as the consumptive knows, that I should be conquered by my conqueror. It was only the old story of the captive polishing chains to wear them away; and yet Mr. McKey was simply very civil and intentionally kind, where he might have been courteously indifferent. Abraham was away when Bernard McKey came to Redleaf. For more than twelve months this terrible something had been working its power into my soul. Yet we were not lovers,"--and Miss Axtell made the _pronunciamiento_ as if she held the race mentioned in utmost veneration. "Day by day brought to me new reasons why Bernard McKey must be unto me only a medical student in Doctor Percival's office, and the stars sealed all that the day had done; whilst no night of sky was without a wandering comet, whereon was inscribed, in letters that flashed every way, the sentence that came with the lightning-stroke; even storms drowned it not; winter's cold did not freeze it. Verily, little friend, _I know that God had put it into Creation for me, and yet there seemed His own law written against it_"; and Miss Axtell's tones grew very soft and tremulously low, as she said,--

"Mr. McKey had faults that could not, existing in action, make any woman happy: do you think happiness was meant for woman?"

She waited my answer in the same way that she had done when she was ill and asked if I liked bitters concealed. She waited as long without reply. The pause grew oppressive, and I spanned it by an assurance of individual possessive happiness.

"Anemones never know which way the wind blows, until it comes down close to the ground," she said; "but souls which are on bleak mountain-summits _must_ watch whirlwinds, poised in space, and note their airy march. So I saw, clearly cut into the rock of the future, my own face, with all the lines and carvings wrought into it that the life of Bernard McKey would chisel out, and I only waited. I might have waited on forever, for Mr. McKey had not cast one pebbly word that must send up wavy ripples from deep spirit-waters; he only wandered, as any other might have done, upon the shore of my life, along its quiet, dewy sands, above its chalk-cliffs, and by the side of its green, sloping shores. He never questioned why rose and fell the waves; he never went down where 'tide, the moon-slave, sleeps,' to find the foundations of my heart's mainland. I had only seen him standing at times, as one sees a person upon a ship's deck, peering off over Earth's blue ocean-cheek, simply in mute, solemn wonder at what may be beyond, without one wish to speed the ship on.

"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into every part of it. An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his hourly companion. The two had scarce a thought in common: one was impulsive, prone to throw himself on the stream of circumstance, to waft with the wind, and blossom with the spring; the other was the great mountain-pine, distilling the same aroma in all atmospheres, extending fibrous roots against Nature's granite, whenceever it comes up. How could the two harmonize? They could not, and a time of trial came. We knew, before it came, why Doctor Percival's little white office held Abraham so many hours in the day. It was because the Mountain-Pine found in the moss of Redleaf the sweet Trailing-Arbutus."

She asked me if I knew the flower; and when I answered her with my words of love of it, she said, "she had always thought it was one of Eden's own bits of blossomry, that, missing man from the hallowed grounds, crept out to know his fate, and, finding him so forlornly unblest, had sacrificed its emerald leaves, left in the Garden, and, creeping into mosses, lived, waiting for man's redemption. We used to call Mary 'The Arbutus,' and it was pleasant to see the great rough branches of Abraham's nature drooping down, more and more, toward the pink-and-white pale flower that looked into the sky, from a level as lofty as the Pine's highest crown. Abraham goes out to search for the type of Mary every spring"; and rising, she brought to me the waxen buds that were yet unopened.

I took them in my hands, with the same feeling that I would have done a tress of Mary's hair, or a fragment that she had handled. I think Miss Axtell divined this feeling; for she cautiously opened the door leading into her brother's room, and finding that he was not there, she bade me "come and see." It was Mary's portrait that once more I looked upon; framed in a wreath of the trailing-arbutus, it was hanging just where he could look at it at night, as I my strange tower-key.

We went back. Miss Axtell closed the sash; she was looking weary and pale. I was afraid she would suffer harm from the continued recital. She said "No," to my fear,--that "it must all be spoken now, once, and that forever,"--and I listened unto the story's end.

"One year had passed since Alice's death before Abraham's coming. Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel the weight of my cross. I know not how it came to Abraham's knowledge that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence. I only know that he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and furrowing his forehead. He came up here, where I was sitting. I had watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival's house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival. For several days she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me. He came quite close. He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he whispered hoarsely,--

"'Do you care for him?'

"'What is it, Abraham?' I asked, startled by his words and manner, but with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words.

"'Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?'

"'You've no right to question me thus,' I said.

"'And you will not answer me?'

"'I will not, Abraham.'

"The next morning Abraham was gone. He had not told me of his intended absence. He had only left a note, stating the time of his return.

"It was a week ere he came. Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no one deemed her very ill.

"I dreaded Abraham's coming home, because he had left me in silent anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I did? No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, my brother, my answer first?

"Lazily the village-clock swung out the hours that summer's afternoon. The stroke of three awakened me. I had not seen Mary that day.

"'I would go and see her,' I decided.

"'She was sleeping, the dear child,' Chloe said. 'She would come and tell me when she was awake, if I would wait.'

"I said that I would stay awhile, and I wandered out under the shade of the great whispering trees, to wait the waking hour.

"I remember the events of that afternoon, as Mary and Martha must have remembered the day on which Lazarus came up from the grave unto them.

"The air was still, save a humming in the very tree-tops that must have been only echoes tangled there, breezes that once blew past. The long grape-arbor at the end of the lawn looked viny and cool. I walked up and down under the green archway, until Chloe's words summoned me.

"Mary was 'better,' she said; 'a few days, and she should feel quite strong, she hoped'; but she looked weary, and I only waited a little while, until her father and mother came in, and then I went.

"Mr. McKey was sitting in the door of the little white office. He came out to meet me ere I had reached the street,--asked if I was on my way home.

"I said 'Yes,' with the lazy sort of languor born of the indolence of the hour.

"'Have you energy enough for a walk to the sea-shore?' he asked.

"It had been my wish that very day. I had not been there since Mary's illness. I hesitated in giving an answer. Abraham would be home at sunset.

"'Don't go, if it is only to please me,' he said.

"'I am going to please myself,' I answered; 'only I wish to be at home on Abraham's coming.'

"That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him. One month more, and he should leave it. He put into words the memory of that first look across the dead. He talked to me, until the sea lost its sunlight sheen,--until I no longer heard its beat of incoming tide,--until I forgot the hour for Abraham's coming. It was he who reminded me of it. Once more we paced the sands, already sown with our many footsteps, that the advancing waters would soon overwhelm. After that we went village-ward. The gloaming had come down when we reached home.

"'Abraham must have been an hour here,' I thought, as alone I went in.

"He met me in the hall.

"'Where have you been, Lettie?' was his greeting.

"'On the sands.'

"'Not alone?'

"'No, Abraham; Bernard McKey has been with me.'

"'By what right?' he demanded, with that mighty power of voice that is laid up within him for especial occasions.

"'By the right that I gave him, by the right that is his to walk with me,' I said; for I grew defiant, and felt a renewal of strength, enough to tell Abraham the truth.

"Don't start so, Anemone," she said to me. "You think defiance unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my brother had no right to question me.

"But one word came from his lips, as he confronted me there, with folded arms; it was,--

"'When?'

"'This very afternoon, Abraham.'

"Mother came out at the moment. She saw the cloud on Abraham's brow even in the dim light. She asked, 'What is it?' and Abraham answered us both at the same time.

"He had been to the home of Bernard McKey. He proved to my mother's utmost satisfaction that her daughter had no right to care for one like Bernard McKey. He did not know the right that came on that night almost two years before. He saw that his proofs were idle to me; but he said 'he had another, one that I would accept, for I was an Axtell.'

"'Yes, Abraham, I am an Axtell, and I shall prove my right to the name, come what will'; and without waiting to hear more, I glided into the darkness up-stairs.

"For a long time I heard mother and Abraham talking together; it seemed as if they would never cease. At last, mother sent up to know if I was not coming to take my tea. I had forgotten its absence till then. I went down. A half-hour later, during which time a momentous mist of silence hung over the house, I heard steps approaching. You know that it was summer time, and the windows were all thrown open, after the heat of the day. I had been wondering where every one was gone. I recognized both of the comers, as their footsteps fell upon the walk, but I heard no words. Oh, would there had been none to come! I heard Abraham go on up the stairs, and knew that he was searching for me. I knew who had come in with him, and I arose from my concealment in the unlighted library, and went into the parlor. It was Mr. McKey who sat there.

"'What is it?' I asked,--for a gnome of ill was walking up and down in my brain, as we had walked on the sands so few hours before.

"'What is it? I don't know,' he said. 'Your brother asked me to come over for a few minutes.'

"Evidently Abraham had not shown him one coal of the fire that burned under his cool seeming. That is the way with these mountain pine-trees: one never knows how deep into volcanic fires their roots are plunged.

"'Something has happened,' I whispered. 'Whatever comes, bear it bravely.'

"He laughed, a low, rippling laugh, like the breaking up of ever so many songs all at once; and the notes had not floated down to rest, when mother and Abraham came in. Mr. McKey arose to greet my mother. She stood proudly erect, her regal head unbending, her eyes straight on, into an endless future, in which he must have no part,--that I saw. Whatever he discerned there, he, too, stood before her and my brother. Abraham handed me a letter, saying, 'Read that, for your proof.'

"And I read. The letter bore the signature of Bernard McKey. The date was the night of Alice's death. The words descriptive of the scene chiselled into my brain were on that fair paper-surface; and there were others, words which only one man may write to one woman. I read it on to the end.

"'You are right, Abraham,' I said, 'and I thank you for my proof'; and without one word for the pale, handsome face that stood beseechingly between me and the great future, through which I gazed, I went forth alone into the starry night. Anywhere, to be alone with God, leaving that trio of souls in there; and as I fled past the windows, I heard my mother speak terrible words to one that was, yes, even then, myself. Some angel must have come down the starry way to guide me; for, without seeking it, without consciousness of whither I fled, I found myself near the old church, where, from the day of my solemn baptism within its walls, I had gone up to the weekly worship. I crept up close to the door. In the shadow there no one would see me; and so, upon the hard stones, I writhed through the anguish of the fire and iceberg that made war in my heart.

"Then came unto me the old inheritance, the gift of towering pride; and I said unto myself, 'No one shall think I sorrow; no one shall know that an Axtell has sipped from a poisoned cup; no one shall see a leaf of myrtle in my garden of life'; and from off the friendly granite steps that had received me in my hour of bitterness, I went back to my home.

"What, could have happened there, that I had not been missed? Father was absent from Redleaf. Bernard McKey was coming down the walk. I hid in the shrubbery, and let him pass. Oh, would that I had spoken to him, then, there! It would have saved so much misery on the round globe!

"But I did not. I stood breathless until he entered Doctor Percival's house; then I waited a moment to determine my own course; I wanted to gain my room undiscovered. I saw the same figure come out; I knew it by the light that the open door threw around it; and a moment later, in the still air,--I knew the sound, it was the unlocking of the little white office. Then I stole in, and fled to my refuge. No one had discovered my absence.

"The night went by. I did not sleep. I did not weep,--oh, no! it was not a case for tears; there are some sorrows that cannot be counted out in drops; a flood comes, a great freshet rises in the soul, and whirls spirit, mind, and body on, on, until the Mighty Hand comes down and lifts the poor wreck out of the flood, and dries it in the sun of His absorption.

"It was morning at last. Slowly up the ascent, to heights of glory, walked the stars, waving toward earth, as they went, their wafting of golden light, and sending messages of love to the dark, round world, over which they had kept such solemn watch,--sending them down, borne by rays of early morning; and still I sat beside the window, where all through the night I had suffered. My mother and Abraham had sought to see me, but I had answered, with calm words, that I chose to be alone; and they had left me there, and gone to their nightly rest."

Miss Axtell hid her face a little while; then, lifting it up, she went to the window so often mentioned, beckoned me thither, pointed to the house where my life had commenced, to a door opening out on the eastern side, and said,--

"I wish you to look at that door one moment; out of it came my doom that midsummer's morning. Light had just gained ascendency over darkness, when I saw Chloe come out. I knew instantly that something had happened there. The poor creature crept out of the house,--I saw her go,--and kneeling down behind that great maple-tree, she lifted up her arms to heaven, and I heard, or thought I heard her, moaning. Then, whilst I watched, she got up, looked over at our house, from window to window; once more she raised her hands, as if invoking some power for help, and went in.

"I brushed back the hair that my fingers had idly threaded in unrest, looked one moment, in the dim twilight of morning, to see what changes my war-fare had wrought, then, cautiously, breathlessly, for fear of awakening some one, I went out. The night-dew lay heavy on the lawn. I heeded it not. I knew that trouble had come to Doctor Percival's house. I went to the door that Chloe had opened. No one seemed awake; deep stillness brooded over and in the dwelling. Could I have been mistaken? Whilst I stood in doubt whether to go or stay, there came a long, sobbing moan, that peopled the dwelling with woe.

"It came from Mary's room. Thither I went. There stood Doctor and Mrs. Percival beside Mary, and she--was dead.

"I shudder now, as I did then, though eighteen years have rolled their wheels of misery between,--shudder, as I look in memory into that room again, and see your father standing in the awful grief that has no voice, see your mother lifting up her words of moaning, up where I so late had watched the feet of stars walking into heaven. I don't know how long it was, I had lost the noting of time, but I remember growing into rigidness. I remember Bernard McKey's wild, wretched face in the room; I remember hearing him ask if it was all over. I remember Abraham's coming in; I _felt_, when through his life the east-wind went, withering it up within him. I do not know how I went home. I asked no questions. Mary was dead; she had gone whither Alice went. It seemed little consolation to me to ask when or how she died.

"Father came home that day. Mother forgot me for Abraham: love of him was her life. Father did not know, no one had told him, the events of the night before; he thought me sorrowing for Mary, and so I was; my grief seemed weak and small before this reality of sorrow.

"It was late in the day, and I was trying to get some sleep, when Chloe sent a request to see me. I had not seen her since I knew why she had hid her suffering behind the tree in the morning. I saw that she had something to say beside telling me of Mary; for she looked cautiously around the room, as if fearing other ears might be there to hear.

"'Oh! oh! Miss Lettie,' she said, 'I stayed with Miss Mary last night. I must have gone to sleep when she went away; but I'm afraid, I'm afraid it wasn't the sickness that killed her.'

"'What then? what was it, Chloe?' I asked, whilst the tears fell fast from her eyes.

"'Doctor Percival gave her some medicine just afore he went to bed, and she said she was "very sick"; she said so a good many times, Miss Lettie, afore I went to sleep.'

"'You don't think it was the medicine that killed her?'--for a horrible thought had come in to me.

"'I hope not, but I'm afraid'; and with a still lower, whispering tone, and another frightened look about the room, Chloe took from under her shawl a small cup. She held it up close to me, and her voice penetrated with its meaning all the folds of my thought,--'Chloe's afraid Miss Mary drank her death in here.'

"'Give it to me,' I said; and I snatched at the cup. Catching it from her, I looked into it. The draught had been taken; the sediment only lay dried upon it.

"'You think so, Chloe? How could it have been? You say Doctor Percival gave it to her?'

"She said that 'Mr. Abraham had been in to see her a little while,--only a few moments. Something was the matter with him. Miss Mary talked, just a few words; what they were she did not hear,--she was in the next room,--only, when he went away, she heard her say, "Don't do it; you may be wrong, and then you'll be sorry as long as you live"; and then Mr. Abraham shut the door heavy-like and was gone. Afterwards Doctor Percival came up,--said Miss Mary must sleep, she had more fever; asked her so many kind questions, and was just going down to go to the office for something to give her, when he met Master McKey coming in. I heard my master ask him to go for it. And I doesn't know anything more, Miss Lettie. I came to tell you.'

"I asked her 'if she had told any one else? if any one had seen the cup?'

"She said, 'No'; and I made her promise me that she would never mention it, never speak of it to any living soul.

"She promised, and she has kept her promise faithfully to this day."

I thought, at this pause in the story, of Chloe's hiding chloroform from me.

"I had myself seen Bernard McKey go out to the office that night. Had he given poison to Mary Percival? And with the question the hot answer came, 'Never!--he did not do it!'

"Chloe went, leaving the cup with me.

"I knew that I must see Bernard. How? The household were absorbed in Abraham. His condition perilled his reason. Doctor Percival came over every hour to see him, and I was sure that his hair whitened from time to time. It was terrible to hear Abraham declaring that he had killed Mary,--that he might have granted her request. And as often as his eyes fell upon me, his words changed to, 'It was for you that I did it,--for my sister!' And whilst all sorrowed and watched him, I sought my opportunity. 'It would never come to me,' I thought, 'I must go to it'; and under cover of looking upon the face of Mary, I went out to seek Bernard.

"We met before I reached the house; we should have passed in silence, had I not spoken. It was the same hour as that in which we had come from the sands the night before. What a horrible lifetime had intervened! I said that 'I had some words for him.' He stood still in the air that throbbed in waves over me. He was speechlessly calm just then.

"'I expected no words after my judgment,' at length he said,--for I knew not how to open my terrible theme; 'will you tell me on what evidence you judge?'

"What a trifle then seemed any merely human love in the presence of Death! I was almost angry that he should once think of it.

"'It is something of more importance than the human affection with which you play,' I said. 'It is a life, the life of Mary Percival, that last night went out,--and how? Was it by this cup?'--and I handed the cup to him.

"He looked simple amazement, as he would have done, had it been a rock or flower; he did not offer to take it,--still I held it out.

"'Will you examine the contents,' I asked, 'and report to me the result?'

"'Certainly I will, Miss Axtell,' he said; and with it he walked to the office.

"I watched him through the window. I saw him coolly apply various tests. The third one seemed satisfactory.

"He came to the door. I was very near, and went in

"'This is nothing Miss Mary had,--it is poison,' he said.

"He was innocent; I knew it in the very depth of my soul. How could I tell him the deed his hand had done? But I must, and I did. I told him how Chloe had brought the cup to me. When I had done, he said,--

"'You believe this of me?'

"I answered,--