Part 58

"Not in the least."

Alden laughed--a little mirthless, mocking laugh. It is astonishing, sometimes, how deeply a man may be hurt through his vanity. Rosemary had turned away, and he called her back.

"Won't you kiss me good-bye?" he asked, with a new humility.

Then Rosemary laughed, too, but her laugh was also mirthless. "No," she answered, in a tone from which there was no appeal. "Why should I?" Before he realised it, she was gone.

He went back to the log and sat down to think. This last tryst with Rosemary had been a surprise in more ways than one. He had been afraid that she would be angry, or hurt, and she had been neither. He had come to ask for freedom and she had given it to him without asking, because she could not leave Grandmother and Aunt Matilda, and because she did not love him. He could understand the first reason, but the latter seemed very strange. Yet Rosemary had looked him straight in the face and he had never known her to lie. He had a new emotion toward her; not exactly respect, but something more than that.

Then, with a laugh, he straightened his shoulders. He had what he wanted, though it had not come in the way he thought it would. If he had been obliged to ask her to release him, he would have felt worse than he did now. The letter in his pocket, heavy with portent, asserted itself imperiously. He hurried home, feeling very chivalrous.

Edith, cool and fresh in white linen, with one of the last of the red roses thrust into her belt, was rocking on the veranda, with a book in her lap which she had made no pretence of reading. Two or three empty chairs were near her, but Madame was nowhere to be seen. Alden handed her the letter. "I'm free!" he said, exultantly.

Edith smiled, then, with shaking hands, tore open the letter. Alden eagerly watched her as she turned the closely written pages, but her face was inscrutable. She read every word carefully, until she reached the signature. Then she looked up.

"I'm not," she said, briefly. She tossed the letter to him, and went into the house. He heard her light feet upon the stairs and the rustle of her skirts as she ascended. Perfume persisted in the place she had just left--the rose at her belt, the mysterious blending of many sweet odours, and, above all, the fragrance of Edith herself.

"It's nonsense," he murmured, looking after her. All her quixotic notions of honour would eventually yield to argument--of course they would. Yet his heart strangely misgave him as he read the letter.

"My dear Edith," it began.

"Your letter has somewhat surprised me, and yet I cannot say I feel that I don't deserve it. Since you have been away I have been doing a good deal of thinking. Of course you and I haven't hit it off very well together, and, as I can see no point where you have failed me, I realise that it must be my fault and that I have failed you.

"I wish you had talked to me about it, instead of going away, and yet, even as I write the words, I see how impossible it would have been, for we haven't been in the habit of talking things over since the first year we were married. Gradually the wall of silence and reserve has grown up between us, but while you, with the quicker insight of a woman, have seen it growing, I haven't realised it until it was completed.

"Your offering me my freedom has made me wonder what my life would be without you. No one has ever filled your place to me, or ever will. I may have seemed careless, thoughtless--indeed, I have been both, and constantly, but always in the background has been the knowledge that you were there--that I could depend upon you.

"It may seem like a trite and commonplace thing to say, but upon my word and honour, Edith, I haven't meant to fail you, as I see I have in a thousand ways. I'm sorry, deeply sorry, but I know that the words will not mean much to you.

"Since I first saw you, there's never been any woman in the world for me but you, and there never will be, even though you should cast me off as I deserve. If you can make up your mind to come back to me and let me try again, I'll do my best to make you happy--to consider you instead of myself.

"Men are selfish brutes at the best, and I don't claim to be any better than the average, but all I'm asking for now is a chance to make myself worthy of you--to be the sort of husband a woman like you should have.

"Please let me hear from you very soon.

"Your loving husband,

"W. G. L."

Alden read it again, though he did not need to--he had understood every word of it the first time. Then he folded it, slowly and precisely, and put it into the torn envelope. He tapped on the arm of the chair for a moment with the edge of the envelope, then, mechanically, put it into his pocket.

A robin, in a maple tree beyond him, piped his few notes with unbearable intensity. Discordant chirps assailed his ears from the lattice where the climbing rose put forth its few last blooms. Swaying giddily in a crazy pattern upon the white floor of the veranda, was the shadow of the rose, the plaything of every passing wind. He remembered the moonlight night which might have been either yesterday or in some previous life, as far as his confused perceptions went, when Edith had stood with the rose in her hand, and the clear, sharply-defined shadow of it had been silhouetted at her feet.

All his senses seemed mercilessly acute. Some of the roses were almost dead and the sickening scent of them mingled with the fragrance of those that had just bloomed. It made him dizzy--almost faint.

The maid announced luncheon, but food, or the sight of his mother were among the last things he desired, just then. Affecting not to hear, he went out, got a boat, and rowed far up the river alone.

When he was utterly exhausted, he shipped the oars and let himself drift back, pushing out from shore now and then when the current brought him too near. He knew, with crushing certainty, that Edith would not be swerved from her chosen path by argument--but he could at least try.

White-faced and weary, he went to his room when he reached home, lay down, and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. He seemed to have come to a point of absolute bodily suspension, neither to hunger nor thirst nor sleep again. It was, in a way, like a clock, that ticks steadily, though the hands are definitely fixed at a certain hour and will not move.

He forced himself to dress for dinner and to go down at the proper time. Madame was waiting, but Edith was late. When she appeared, she was in the white linen gown she had worn all day, with the withered rose in her belt. It was the first evening she had not dressed for dinner and she at once apologised to Madame.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but it seemed impossible to make the effort to-night. You'll forgive me, won't you?"