I.
A WOMAN'S FACE.
It was verging towards seven o'clock. The train had just left Marstonstation, and two young men stood on the platform surveying with verydifferent eyes the stretch of country landscape lying before them. FrankEtheridge wore an eager aspect, the aspect of the bright, hopeful,energetic lawyer which he was, and his quick searching gaze flashedrapidly from point to point as if in one of the scattered homes withinhis view he sought an answer to some problem at present agitating hismind. He was a stranger in Marston.
His companion, Edgar Sellick, wore a quieter air, or at least one morerestrained. He was a native of the place, and was returning to it aftera short and fruitless absence in the west, to resume his career ofphysician amid the scenes of his earliest associations. Both were tall,well-made, and handsome, and, to draw at once a distinction between themwhich will effectually separate their personalities, Frank Etheridge wasa man to attract the attention of men, and Edgar Sellick that of women;the former betraying at first glance all his good qualities in thekeenness of his eye and the frankness of his smile, and the latterhiding his best impulses under an air of cynicism so allied tomelancholy that imagination was allowed free play in his behalf. Theyhad attended the same college and had met on the train by chance.
"I am expecting old Jerry, with a buggy," announced Edgar, lookingindifferently down the road. The train was on time but Jerry was not,both of which facts were to be expected. "Ah, here he comes. You willride to the tavern with me?"
"With pleasure," was Frank's cheerful reply; "but what will you do withJerry? He's a mile too large, as you see yourself, to be a third partyin a buggy ride."
"No doubt about that, but Jerry can walk; it will help to rob him of alittle of his avoirdupois. As his future physician I shall prescribe it.I cannot have you miss the supper I have telegraphed for at Henly's."
And being a determined man, he carried this scheme through, to Jerry'smanifest but cheerfully accepted discomfort. As they were riding off,Edgar leaned from the buggy, and Frank heard him say to his pantingfollower:
"Is it known in town that I am coming to-night?" To which that pantingfollower shrilly replied: "Ay, sir, and Tim Jones has lit a bond-fireand Jack Skelton hoisted a flag, so glad they be to have you back. OldDudgeon was too intimate with the undertaker, sir. We hopes as you willturn a cold shoulder to him--the undertaker, I mean."
At which Frank observed his friend give one of his peculiar smiles whichmight mean so little and might mean so much, but whatever it meant hadthat touch of bittersweet in it which at once hurts and attracts.
"You like your profession?" Frank abruptly asked.
Edgar turned, surveyed the other questioningly for a moment, thenremarked:
"Not as you like yours. Law seems to be a passion with you."
Frank laughed. "Why not? I have no other love, why not give all my heartto that?"
Edgar did not answer; he was looking straight before him at the lightsin the village they were now rapidly approaching.
"How strange it is we should have met in this way," exclaimed the younglawyer. "It is mighty fortunate for me, whatever it may be for you. Youknow all the people in town, and perhaps can tell me what will shortenmy stay into hours."
"Do you call that fortunate?" interrogated the other with one of hisquiet smiles.
"Well, no, only from a business view. But you see, Edgar, it is soshort a time since I have thought of anything but business, that I havehardly got used to the situation. I should be sorry, now I come to thinkof it, to say good-by to you before I heard how you had enjoyed lifesince we parted on a certain Commencement day. You look older, whileI----"
He laughed. How merry the sound, and how the growing twilight seemed tobrighten at it! Edgar looked for a moment as if he envied him thatlaugh, then he said:
"You are not tripped up by petty obstacles. You have wings to your feetand soar above small disappointments. My soles cling to the ground andencounter there difficulty after difficulty. Hence the weariness withwhich I gain anything. But your business here,--what is it? You say Ican aid you. How?"
"Oh, it is a long story which will help to enliven our evening meal. Letus wait till then. At present I am interested in what I see before me.Snug homes, Edgar, and an exquisite landscape."
The other, whose face for the last few minutes had been graduallysettling into sterner and sterner lines, nodded automatically but didnot look up from the horse he was driving.
"Who lives in these houses? Old friends of yours?" Frank continued.
Edgar nodded again, whipped his horse and for an instant allowed hiseyes to wander up and down the road.
"I used to know them all," he acknowledged, "but I suppose there havebeen changes."
His tone had altered, his very frame had stiffened. Frank looked at himcuriously.
"You seem to be in a hurry," he remarked. "I enjoy this twilight drive,and--haloo! this is an odd old place we are coming to. Suppose you pullup and let me look at it."
His companion, with a strange glance and an awkward air ofdissatisfaction, did as he was bid, and Frank leaning from the buggygazed long and earnestly at the quaint old house and grounds which hadattracted his attention. Edgar did not follow his example but satunmoved, looking fixedly at the last narrow strip of orange light thatseparated night from day on the distant horizon.
"I feel as if I had come upon something uncanny," murmured Frank. "Lookat that double row of poplars stretching away almost as far as we cansee? Is it not an ideal Ghost's Walk, especially in this hour of fallingshadows. I never saw anything so suggestive in a country landscapebefore. Each tree looks like a spectre hob-nobbing with its neighbor.Tell me that this is a haunted house which guards this avenue. Nothingless weird should dominate a spot so peculiar."
"Frank, I did not know you were so fanciful," exclaimed the other,lashing his horse with a stinging whip.
"Wait, wait! I am not fanciful, it is the place that is curious. If youwere not in a hurry for your supper you would see it too. Come, give ita look. You may have observed it a hundred times before, but by thislight you must acknowledge that it looks like a place with a history.Come, now, don't it?"
Edgar drew in his horse for the second time and impatiently allowed hisglance to follow in the direction indicated by his friend. What he sawhas already been partially described. But details will not be amisshere, as the house and its surroundings were really unique, and bespokean antiquity of which few dwellings can now boast even in the mosthistoric parts of Connecticut.
The avenue of poplars which had first attracted Frank's attention hadthis notable peculiarity, that it led from nowhere to nowhere. That is,it was not, as is usual in such cases, made the means of approach to thehouse, but on the contrary ran along its side from road to rear, thick,compact, and gruesome. The house itself was of timber, and was both grayand weather-beaten. It was one of the remnants of that old time when afamily homestead rambled in all directions under a huge roof whichaccommodated itself to each new projection, like the bark to its tree.In this case the roof sloped nearly to the ground on one side, while onthe other it beetled over a vine-clad piazza. In front of the house andon both sides of it rose a brick wall that, including the two rows oftrees within its jealous cordon, shut off the entire premises from thoseof the adjoining neighbors, and gave to the whole place an air ofdesolation and remoteness which the smoke rising from its one tallchimney did not seem to soften or relieve. Yet old as it all was, therewas no air of decay about the spot, nor was the garden neglected or thevines left untrimmed.
"The home of a hermit," quoth Frank. "You know who lives there ofcourse, but if you did not I would wager that it is some old scion ofthe past----"
Suddenly he stopped, suddenly his hand was laid on the horse's reinfalling somewhat slack in the grasp of his companion. A lamp had at thatinstant been brought into one of the front rooms of the house he wascontemplating, and the glimpse he thus caught of the interior attractedhis eyes and even arrested the gaze
of the impatient Edgar. For thewoman who held the lamp was no common one, and the face which showedabove it was one to stop any man who had an eye for the beautiful, theinscrutable, and the tragic. As Frank noted it and marked its exquisitelines, its faultless coloring, and that air of profound and mysteriousmelancholy which made it stand out distinctly in the well-lighted spaceabout it, he tightened his grip on the reins he had snatched, till thehorse stood still in the road, and Edgar impatiently watching him,perceived that the gay look had crept from his face, leaving there anexpression of indefinable yearning which at once transfigured andennobled it.
"What beauty! What unexpected beauty!" Frank whispered at last. "Did youever see its like, Edgar?"
The answer came with Edgar's most cynical smile:
"Wait till she turns her head."
And at that moment she did turn it. On the instant Frank drew in hisbreath and Edgar expected to see him drop his hand from the reins andsink back disillusionized and indifferent. But he did not. On thecontrary, his attitude betrayed a still deeper interest and longing, andmurmuring, "How sad! poor girl!" he continued to gaze till Edgar, withone strange, almost shrinking look in the direction of the unconsciousgirl now moving abstractedly across the room, tore the reins from hishands and started the horse again towards their place of destination.
Frank, whom the sudden movement seemed to awaken as from a dream,glanced for a moment almost angrily at his companion, then he settledback in his seat, saying nothing till the lights of the tavern becamevisible, when he roused himself and inquired:
"Who is that girl, Edgar, and how did she become so disfigured?"
"I don't know," was the short reply; "she has always been so, I believe,at least since I remember seeing her. It looks like the scar of a wound,but I have never heard any explanation given of it."
"Her name, Edgar?"
"Hermione Cavanagh."
"You know her?"
"Somewhat."
"Are you"--the words came with a pant, shortly, intensely, and as ifforced from him--"in love--with her?"
"No." Edgar's passion seemed for the moment to be as great as that ofthe other. "How came you to think of such a thing?"
"Because--because," Frank whispered almost humbly, "you seemed so shortin your replies, and because, I might as well avow it, she seems to meone to command the love of all men."
"Well, sirs, here I be as quick as you," shouted a voice in their rear,and old Jerry came lumbering forward, just in time to hold their horseas they alighted at the tavern.
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