第47章

A little whiff of breeze stole up, and suddenly caught the letter from her open hands, and whisked it out over the sand. With a cry she fled after it, and when she had recaptured it, she thought to look at her watch. It was almost time for the barge, and now she made such needless haste, in order not to give herself chance for misgiving or retreat, that she arrived too soon at the point where she meant to intercept the driver on his way to the house; for in her present mutiny she had resolved to gratify a little natural liking for manoeuvre, long starved by the rigid discipline to which she had subjected herself. She had always been awkward at it, but she liked it; and now it pleased her to think that she should give her letter secretly to the driver, and on her way to meet him she forgot that she had meant to ask Barlow for part of the address. She did not remember this till it was too late to go back to the hotel, and she suddenly resolved not to consult Barlow, but to let the driver go about from one place to another with the letter till he found the right one. She kept walking on out into the forest through which the road wound, and she had got a mile away before she saw the weary bowing of the horses' heads as they tugged the barge through the sand at a walk. She stopped involuntarily, with some impulses to flight; and as the vehicle drew nearer, she saw the driver turned round upon his seat, and talking to a passenger behind. She had never counted upon his having a passenger, and the fact undid all.

She remained helpless in the middle of the road; the horses came to a stand-still a few paces from her, and the driver ceased from the high key of conversation, and turned to see what was the matter.

"My grief!" he shouted. "If it had n't been for them horses o' mine, I sh'd 'a' run right over ye."

"I wished to speak with you," she began. "I wished to send"--She stopped, and the passenger leaned forward to learn what was going on.

"Miss Breen!" he exclaimed, and leaped out of the back of the barge and ran to her.

"You--you got my letter!" she gasped.

"No! What letter? Is there anything the matter?"

She did not answer. She had become conscious of the letter, which she had never ceased to hold in the hand that she had kept in her pocket for that purpose. She crushed it into a small wad.

Libby turned his head, and said to the driver of the barge, "Go ahead."

And, " Will you take my arm?" he added to her. "It's heavy walking in this sand."

"No, thank you," she murmured, recoiling. "I'm not tired."

"Are you well? Have you been quite well?"

"Oh, yes, perfectly. I did n't know you were coming back."

"Yes. I had to come back. I'm going to Europe next week, and I had to come to look after my boat, here; and I wanted to say good-by to Maynard.

I was just going to speak to Maynard, and then sail my boat over to Leyden."

"It will be very pleasant," she said, without looking at him. "It's moonlight now."

"Oh, I sha'n't have any use for the moon. I shall get over before nightfall, if this breeze holds."

She tried to think of something else, and to get away from this talk of a sail to Leyden, but she fatally answered, "I saw your boat this afternoon. I had n't noticed before that it was still here."

He hesitated a moment, and then asked, "Did you happen to notice the dory?"

"Yes, it was drawn up on the sand."

"I suppose it's all right--if it's in the same place."

"It seemed to be," she answered faintly.

"I'm going to give the boat to Johnson."

She did not say anything, for she could think of nothing to say, but that she had looked for seals on the reef, but had not seen any, and this would have been too shamelessly leading. That left the word to him, and he asked timidly,--"I hope my coming don't seem intrusive, Miss Breen?"

She did not heed this, but "You are going to be gone a great while?" she asked, in turn.

"I don't know," he replied, in an uncertain tone, as if troubled to make out whether she was vexed with him or not. "I thought," he added, "I would go up the Nile this time. I've never been up the Nile, you know."

"No, I didn't know that. Well," she added to herself, "I wish you had not come back! You had better not have come back. If you had n't come, you would have got my letter. And now it can never be done! No, I can't go through it all again, and no one has the right to ask it. We have missed the only chance," she cried to herself, in such keen reproach of him that she thought she must have spoken aloud.

"Is Mrs. Maynard all right again?" he asked.

"Yes, she is very much better," she answered, confusedly, as if he had heard her reproach and had ignored it.

"I hope you're not so tired as you were."

"No, I 'm not tired now."

"I thought you looked a little pale," he said sympathetically, and now she saw that he was so. It irritated her that she should be so far from him, in all helpfulness, and she could scarcely keep down the wish that ached in her heart.

We are never nearer doing the thing we long to do than when we have proclaimed to ourselves that it must not and cannot be.

"Why are you so pale?" she demanded, almost angrily.

"I? I didn't know that I was," he answered. "I supposed I was pretty well. I dare say I ought to be ashamed of showing it in that way. But if you ask me, well, I will tell you; I don't find it any easier than I did at first."