by Bret Harte
CHAPER XII.
John Milton had rowed back without lifting his eyes to Mrs. Ashwood'sreceding figure. He believed that he was right in declining herinvitation, although he had a miserable feeling that it entailed seeingher for the last time. With all that he believed was his previousexperience of the affections, he was still so untutored as to beconfused as to his reasons for declining, or his right to have beenshocked and disappointed at her manner. It seemed to him sufficientlyplain that he had offended the most perfect woman he had ever knownwithout knowing more. The feeling he had for her was none theless powerful because, in his great simplicity, it was vague andunformulated. And it was a part of this strange simplicity that in hismiserable loneliness his thoughts turned unconsciously to his dead wifefor sympathy and consolation. Loo would have understood him!
Mr. Fletcher, who had received him on his arrival with singulareffusiveness and cordiality, had put off their final arrangements untilafter dinner, on account of pressing business. It was therefore withsome surprise that an hour before the time he was summoned to Fletcher'sroom. He was still more surprised to find him sitting at his desk, fromwhich a number of business papers and letters had been hurriedly thrustaside to make way for a manuscript. A single glance at it was enoughto show the unhappy John Milton that it was the one he had sent to Mrs.Ashwood. The color flashed to his cheek and he felt a mist before hiseyes. His employer's face, on the contrary, was quite pale, and hiseyes were fixed on Harcourt with a singular intensity. His voice too,although under great control, was hard and strange.
"Read that," he said, handing the young man a letter.
The color again streamed into John Milton's face as he recognized thehand of Mrs. Ashwood, and remained there while he read it. When he putit down, however, he raised his frank eyes to Fletcher's, and said witha certain dignity and manliness: "What she says is the truth, sir. Butit is I alone who am at fault. This manuscript is merely MY stupid ideaof a very simple story she was once kind enough to tell me when we weretalking of strange occurrences in real life, which she thought I mightsome time make use of in my work. I tried to embellish it, and failed.That's all. I will take it back,--it was written only for her."
There was such an irresistible truthfulness and sincerity in his voiceand manner, that any idea of complicity with the sender was dismissedfrom Fletcher's mind. As Harcourt, however, extended his hand for themanuscript Fletcher interfered.
"You forget that you gave it to her, and she has sent it to me. If Idon't keep it, it can be returned to her only. Now may I ask who is thislady who takes such an interest in your literary career? Have you knownher long? Is she a friend of your family?"
The slight sneer that accompanied his question restored the naturalcolor to the young man's face, but kindled his eye ominously.
"No," he said briefly. "I met her accidentally about two months ago andas accidentally found out that she had taken an interest in one of thefirst things I ever wrote for your paper. She neither knew you nor me.It was then that she told me this story; she did not even then know whoI was, though she had met some of my family. She was very good and hasgenerously tried to help me."
Fletcher's eyes remained fixed upon him.
"But this tells me only WHAT she is, not WHO she is."
"I am afraid you must inquire of her brother, Mr. Shipley," saidHarcourt curtly.
"Shipley?"
"Yes; he is traveling with her for his health, and they are goingsouth when the rains come. They are wealthy Philadelphians, I believe,and--and she is a widow."
Fletcher picked up her note and glanced again at the signature,"Constance Ashwood." There was a moment of silence, when he resumed inquite a different voice: "It's odd I never met them nor they me."
As he seemed to be waiting for a response, John Milton said simply:"I suppose it's because they have not been here long, and are somewhatreserved."
Mr. Fletcher laid aside the manuscript and letter, and took up hisapparently suspended work.
"When you see this Mrs.--Mrs. Ashwood again, you might say"--
"I shall not see her again," interrupted John Milton hastily.
Mr. Fletcher shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said with apeculiar smile, "I will write to her. Now, Mr. Harcourt," he continuedwith a sudden business brevity, "if you please, we'll drop this affairand attend to the matter for which I just summoned you. Since yesterdayan important contract for which I have been waiting is concluded, andits performance will take me East at once. I have made arrangements thatyou will be left in the literary charge of the 'Clarion.' It is only afitting recompense that the paper owes to you and your father,--to whomI hope to see you presently reconciled. But we won't discuss that now!As my affairs take me back to Los Gatos within half an hour, I am sorryI cannot dispense my hospitality in person,--but you will dine andsleep here to-night. Good-by. As you go out will you please send up Mr.Jackson to me." He nodded briefly, seemed to plunge instantly into hispapers again, and John Milton was glad to withdraw.
The shock he had felt at Mrs. Ashwood's frigid disposition of his wishesand his manuscript had benumbed him to any enjoyment or appreciation ofthe change in his fortune. He wandered out of the house and descendedto the beach in a dazed, bewildered way, seeing only the words of herletter to Fletcher before him, and striving to grasp some other meaningfrom them than their coldly practical purport. Perhaps this was hercruel revenge for his telling her not to write to him. Could she nothave divined it was only his fear of what she might say! And now itwas all over! She had washed her hands of him with the sending of thatmanuscript and letter, and he would pass out of her memory as a foolish,conceited ingrate,--perhaps a figure as wearily irritating and stupid toher as the cousin she had known. He mechanically lifted his eyes to thedistant hotel; the glow was still in the western sky, but the blue lampwas already shining in the window. His cheek flushed quickly, and heturned away as if she could have seen his face. Yes--she despised him,and THAT was his answer!
When he returned, Mr. Fletcher had gone. He dragged through a dinnerwith Mr. Jackson, Fletcher's secretary, and tried to realize his goodfortune in listening to the subordinate's congratulations. "But Ithought," said Jackson, "you had slipped up on your luck to-day, whenthe old man sent for you. He was quite white, and ready to rip out aboutsomething that had just come in. I suppose it was one of those anonymousthings against your father,--the old man's dead set against 'em now."But John Milton heard him vaguely, and presently excused himself for arow on the moonlit bay.
The active exertion, with intervals of placid drifting along theland-locked shore, somewhat soothed him. The heaving Pacific beyondwas partly hidden in a low creeping fog, but the curving bay was softlyradiant. The rocks whereon she sat that morning, the hotel where shewas now quietly reading, were outlined in black and silver. In thisdangerous contiguity it seemed to him that her presence returned,--notthe woman who had met him so coldly; who had penned those lines; thewoman from whom he was now parting forever, but the blameless ideal hehad worshiped from the first, and which he now felt could never pass outof his life again! He recalled their long talks, their rarer rides andwalks in the city; her quick appreciation and ready sympathy; her prettycuriosity and half-maternal consideration of his foolish youthful past;even the playful way that she sometimes seemed to make herself youngeras if to better understand him. Lingering at times in the shadow of theheadland, he fancied he saw the delicate nervous outlines of her facenear his own again; the faint shading of her brown lashes, the softintelligence of her gray eyes. Drifting idly in the placid moonlight,pulling feverishly across the swell of the channel, or lying on his oarsin the shallows of the rocks, but always following the curves of thebay, like a bird circling around a lighthouse, it was far in the nightbefore he at last dragged his boat upon the sand. Then he turned to lookonce more at her distant window. He would be away in the morning and heshould never see it again! It was very late, but the blue light seemedto be still burning unalterably and inflexibly.
But e
ven as he gazed, a change came over it. A shadow seemed to passbefore the blind; the blue shade was lifted; for an instant he could seethe colorless star-like point of the light itself show clearly. It wasover now; she was putting out the lamp. Suddenly he held his breath!A roseate glow gradually suffused the window like a burning blush; thecurtain was drawn aside, and the red lamp-shade gleamed out surely andsteadily into the darkness.
Transfigured and breathless in the moonlight, John Milton gazed on it.It seemed to him the dawn of Love!