第28章

"I don't see how I could be worse off.What is there here for _me_?"He wondered at the good sense of this from a mere child.It was most unlikely that any man of the class she had been brought up in would marry her; and how could she endure marriage with a man of the class in which she might possibly find a husband? As for reputation--She, an illegitimate child, never could have a reputation, at least not so long as she had her looks.After supper, to kill time, he had dropped in at Willett's drug store, where the young fellows loafed and gossiped in the evenings; all the time he was there the conversation had been made up of sly digs and hints about graveyard trysts, each thrust causing the kind of laughter that is the wake of the prurient and the obscene.Yes, she was right.There could be "nothing in it" for her in Sutherland.He was filled with pity for her."Poor child! What a shame!" There must be something wrong with a world that permitted such iniquities.

The clock struck twelve."You must go," she said."Sometimes the boat comes as early as half-past." And she stood up.

As he faced her the generous impulse surged again.He caught her in his arms, she not resisting.He kissed her again and again, murmuring disconnected words of endearment and fighting back the offer to marry her."I mustn't! I mustn't!" he said to himself.

"What'd become of us?" If his passions had been as virgin, as inexperienced, as hers, no power could have held him from going with her and marrying her.But experience had taught him the abysmal difference between before and after; and he found strength to be sensible, even in the height of his passionate longing for her.

She clasped her arms about his neck."Oh, my dear love!" she murmured."I'd do anything for you.I feel that you love me as I love you.""Yes--yes." And he pressed his lips to hers.An instant and she drew away, shaking and panting.He tried to clasp her again, but she would not have it."I can't stand it!" he murmured."I must go with you--I must!""No!" she replied."It wouldn't do unless we were really married." Wistfully, "And we can't be that yet--can we? There isn't any way?"His passion cooled instantly.

"There isn't any way," he said regretfully."I'd not dare tell my father.""Yes, we must wait till you're of age, and have your education, and are free.Then----" She drew a long breath, looked at him with a brave smile.The large moon was shining upon them."We'll think of that, and not let ourselves be unhappy--won't we?""Yes," he said."But I must go."

"I forgot for the minute.Good-by, dearest." She put up her lips.He kissed her, but without passion now.

"You might go with me as far as the wharf," she suggested.

"No--someone might see--and that would ruin everything.I'd like to--I'd----""It wouldn't do," she interrupted."I wouldn't let you come."With sudden agitation she kissed him--he felt that her lips were cold.He pressed her hands--they, too, were cold."Good-by, my darling," he murmured, vaulted lightly over the rail and disappeared in the deep shadows of the shrubbery.When he was clear of the grounds he paused to light a cigarette.His hand was shaking so that the match almost dropped from his fingers.

"I've been making a damn fool of myself," he said half aloud."Adouble damn fool! I've got to stop that talk about marrying, somehow--or keep away from her.But I can't keep away.I _must_have her! Why in the devil can't she realize that a man in my position couldn't marry her? If it wasn't for this marrying talk, I'd make her happy.I've simply got to stop this marrying talk.It gets worse and worse."Her calmness deceived her into thinking herself perfectly sane and sober, perfectly aware of what she was about.She had left her hat and her bundle behind the door.She put on the hat in the darkness of the hall with steady fingers, took up the well-filled shawl strap and went forth, closing the door behind her.In the morning they would find the door unlocked but that would not cause much talk, as Sutherland people were all rather careless about locking up.They would not knock at the door of her room until noon, perhaps.Then they would find on the pincushion the letter she had written to her uncle, saying good-by and explaining that she had decided to remove forever the taint of her mother and herself from their house and their lives--a somewhat theatrical letter, modeled upon Ouida, whom she thought the greatest writer that had ever lived, Victor Hugo and two or three poets perhaps excepted.

Her bundle was not light, but she hardly felt it as she moved swiftly through the deserted, moonlit streets toward the river.

The wharf boat for the Cincinnati and Louisville mail steamers was anchored at the foot of Pine Street.On the levee before it were piled the boxes, bags, cases, crates, barrels to be loaded upon the "up boat." She was descending the gentle slope toward this mass of freight when her blood tingled at a deep, hoarse, mournful whistle from far away; she knew it was the up boat, rounding the bend and sighting the town.The sound echoed musically back and forth between the Kentucky and the Indiana bluffs, died lingeringly away.Again the whistle boomed, again the dark forest-clad steeps sent the echoes to and fro across the broad silver river.And now she could see the steamer, at the bend--a dark mass picked out with brilliant dots of light; the big funnels, the two thick pennants of black smoke.And she could hear the faint pleasant stroke of the paddles of the big side wheels upon the water.