AUNT CHARLOTTE IS SYMPATHETIC.

Comethup almost forgot his distrust and his fears during the few days which followed, for ’Linda came to the captain’s cottage in quite the old fashion and accompanied them on their excursions, and seemed, in heart and soul, but little removed from the child of old times. She danced and flitted as gaily as ever among the roses, and was in all things so tenderly, earnestly grateful to Comethup for the excursions he planned and the holidays he gave her that he was more than rewarded, and began to find that no day was quite complete in which he did not see her, no night a time of serene and happy dreams in which he did not carry to his pillow some tender word she had spoken, or the remembrance of some glance she had given him. In that growing love for her which filled him he began—as lovers will—to read into her words, even of the most commonplace order, a new meaning; to give them a new gentleness, as addressed to himself. He was in danger of forgetting his duties in London altogether had not the captain delicately reminded him of his aunt one morning while they sat at breakfast. Comethup flushed with contrition, and determined to go to town at once.

He promised ’Linda on taking leave of her that he would come down again soon, and he kept his word. To such effect did he keep it that Miss Charlotte Carlaw, regarding his absences from London with some anxiety, touched at last upon the matter in her own characteristic way.

“You’re rather fond of the captain, aren’t you?” she said to him one day, when he had carelessly suggested to her that he thought he would run down to see the old man on the morrow.

“Yes,” said Comethup slowly. “We’ve always been—been very good friends.”

“So I should imagine,” said Miss Carlaw, with a short laugh. “Are you aware, my dear boy, that you’ve been down to see the captain five times in about seven weeks?”

“I—I didn’t think it was quite so many as that,” said Comethup. He felt grateful that his aunt could not see his face. “But you see—well, the captain’s always glad to see me—and I——”

“Yes, yes, I perfectly understand, Comethup. Now look here, boy, I’m an old woman and I’ve had a good deal to do with men and women, young and old. Boy, you’re keeping something from me, and it isn’t fair; I thought we were too good comrades for that. Come, I don’t want you to tell me anything that you’d rather keep to yourself, but you won’t humbug me into believing that you fly down to that sleepy hollow whenever you can find time for the sake of seeing the captain. Now, then, is she dark or fair?”

Comethup hesitated for a moment, then laughingly said, “Well, she’s dark.”

“Of course I don’t know the difference between one and the other,” pursued Miss Carlaw. “I only know that it makes a difference in the character. Well, I suppose you’ve sworn eternal vows, and have fully made up your minds—both of you—to die at once if anything should separate you, eh?”

“Not quite that,” said Comethup. “In fact, I haven’t—haven’t really said anything to her.”

“What? You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve been rushing backward and forward all this time and are just where you were when you started? Lord! things were different in my time. I must say you’ve been devilish slow, Comethup. Well, tell me all about it. Of course I know she’s beautiful; we’ll take that for granted. But is she nice? Is she a lady?”

“She’s everything that’s nice, and of course she’s a lady,” said Comethup. “You remember when I was quite a little fellow and you brought me to London? Do you remember also that I mentioned a child of whom I was very fond—’Linda?”

Miss Carlaw nodded. “Yes, I remember very well. And I suppose she’s grown up, and has wrought havoc with your young affections all over again? Well, you’re just the sort of fellow to fall in love very desperately and be tremendously in earnest. I’m sure I wish you luck. Only don’t break your heart if you lose; there isn’t a woman in the world that a man need break his heart over; you’ll find that out some day.”

“Ah! but she’s different from all other women; there couldn’t be anybody like her,” said Comethup.

“Exactly; we take that for granted. Most women are stamped by some man or other at some moment of their lives with that hall-mark which sets them above every one of their sisters; the ugliest and the commonest of them may claim that privilege, in most cases at least, if only for an hour or two. But what about this girl? Does she know anything about you? Does she know you’re rich?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Comethup a little indignantly. “But it wouldn’t make any difference to her if she knew it.”

“Of course not; how should it?” said Miss Carlaw dryly. “Riches never make any difference in this world, do they, my dreamer? There, I won’t laugh at you; go on with your wooing, and prosper in it. Do her parents, or whoever looks after her, know anything about the matter?”

“She has no parents,” said Comethup; “they’re dead, both of them.” And forthwith he proceeded to give his aunt some account of ’Linda and her history, so far as he knew; of how he had first found her, and her friendship for the captain, with many details of her loveliness and her charm which must have wearied the excellent old lady very much. However, she expressed deep interest in the matter, and listened with the utmost attention. Presently she got up from her chair and began to walk up and down the room, with her hand on his arm, in silence. After some minutes she broke the silence and spoke almost as though she were alone.

“Yes, it’s the one thing worth having, the one thing worth holding—I’m not sure that it isn’t the one thing worth dying for. Ah! that sounds foolish, perhaps, from the lips of an old woman to whom God never gave anything to attract a man—except perhaps a sharp tongue, and that sometimes drives ’em away. But you mustn’t think, Comethup, that you’re the only one on this earth that’s ever been in love. I know you think that no one ever had it quite so badly as you’ve got it; that all the others have been quite ordinary affairs compared to yours. But the best and the worst of us, the lowest and the highest, may all chance to have a touch of that fever in their passage from the cradle to the grave. It’s a beautiful fever, and I think the delirium of it takes us precious near heaven.“

She stopped again for some moments and appeared very thoughtful; finally shook her head, laughed a little, sighed, and squeezed his arm more tightly.

”I had it once—that fever; I had it very badly. No one ever knew it, thank Heaven! I speak of it now for the first time, yet I would not willingly forget it. What a long, long time ago it seems! What a mad business it was—and ye gods! what I suffered! I can afford to laugh at it now, boy; but it wasn’t a laughing matter then, I can assure you. It was just that sort of crazy business that a man or a woman drifts into without knowing it, and then wakes up suddenly, with a start, to a new life, as it were. I—poor fool that I was—fell in love with a man’s voice—the sweetest voice and the most honest, I think, I’ve ever heard. He liked to talk to me; was good enough sometimes, when I was lonely and out of sorts, to come and read to me. Lord! the music of it all is in my ears now. A woman grows more lovely—even if she be plain she grows quite passable—but she grows more lovely in her own estimation just in proportion as a man seems to think her lovely, or seems to rate her above other women. I thought that—and had my awakening. He came to me one day and took my hand—God! what brutes men can be without knowing it!—and said he knew that I was his friend, and he wanted me to help him. He was in love with some one else; opposition had been placed in his way, and I, curiously enough, had influence. He wanted me to help him. Well, I did. I saw them married. I made a speech—a damned ridiculous speech—at their wedding, and sent everybody into fits of laughter. And all the time my heart was aching as I never thought anybody’s heart could ache. So you see I know what it is, Comethup.”

She paced about for some time longer and then sat down and resumed her natural manner. Comethup, who had been on the point of offering some sort of consolation, was so disarmed by the ease with which she threw aside any touch of emotion she had displayed that he said nothing.

“Well, boy, I want you to be happy; I’m quite sure you deserve to be. And I don’t know the girl who could help falling in love with you if you set about it in the right way. But do your wooing in your own fashion; I don’t want to interfere.”

Comethup paid another visit to the captain on the following day, announcing his coming by telegraph about an hour or so before he actually arrived. The worthy captain was, of course, delighted to see him, although probably he had his own suspicions concerning the real object of the visit. The young man, emboldened by his conversation with his aunt, and filled with a desperate longing to see ’Linda, left the captain soon after dinner and set off to find her. The captain seemed to understand the matter perfectly, and when Comethup would have offered some excuse for his departure merely clapped him on the shoulder and gently thrust him out of the house.

It was a clear and calm autumn evening, with just that faintest chill in the air which seemed to whisper of a coming winter—a chill so slight that it only quickened the blood, made the air seem purer, and caused one unconsciously to quicken one’s step. As Comethup went along the road which led to the old garden, the sun was setting out beyond the wastes of land behind the town, and the old-fashioned red roofs and the square tower of the Norman church were bathed in the warm light, and all their edges softened by it. He thought he had never seen the old place looking so peaceful before.

As he reached the gates he saw, with a sudden leaping of his pulses, that ’Linda was standing against the one which still hung on its hinges, and was looking out into the road. She sprang forward with a little cry of pleasure as he came near her, and took his hand and drew him quickly into the garden.

“I did not hope to see you so soon again,” she said softly, looking up at him. “When did you arrive?”

“To-day,” said Comethup, holding her hand in both his own and looking into her eyes.

“Only to-day? And you came at once to see me. That was good of you. So many other people would not have troubled, or would have waited until to-morrow. But you came at once.”

There was a new tenderness in her voice, a new light in her eyes—or so he thought—that was not born of mere gratitude. She almost seemed, with her warm fingers twined about his, to be clinging to him; he thought with regret of the desperate loneliness that must have been hers, through the days since last he had seen her; of the weary evenings through which, perhaps, she had stood at the gate, looking out along the road while he was far away.

“I could not have waited until to-morrow,” he said; “I don’t think I should have slept. ’Linda, you don’t know how much, how tremendously I wanted to see you. Dear, I always want to see you more than any one else in the world.”

She was silent, looking up at him and smiling gravely into his face. The trees about them seemed almost to have hushed their whispering and their rustling, to hear what the two had to say.

“Do you remember,” he went on almost in a whisper, “how I found you here first, and how you—you kissed me when I left you?”

She shook her head and laughed. “No, I surely didn’t do that. And if I did—well, we were very young—mere babies, you know.”

“’Linda, don’t laugh at me. We’re not children any longer; but I’ve never ceased to think of you, never ceased to—to love you. I think—in fact, I know—that I came here to-night to tell you that; I think I’ve tried—tried very hard—to tell you several times before. Only I was afraid that you wouldn’t listen to me.”

She lifted the hands she held and laid them for a moment against her cheek, then looked up at him. “Why should I not listen?” she asked gently.

“Oh, because I didn’t think it was possible that you would care anything for me. You see I’m only a big, rough fellow; I’m not even clever, or anything of that kind, but I——”

She slipped one hand from his grasp and laid it quickly on his lips. “Hush! you are the best fellow in the world,” she said. “I think I’ve always seemed to turn to you and think of you most naturally when I wanted help or consolation; in the dullest and the weariest hours I think you’ve seemed to smile at me and make me stronger. Oh, are you sure you love me?” She laid the hand that had touched his lips upon his shoulder and looked up into his eyes; her lips were quivering.

“Dear,” he said, “I’m quite sure; I love you with all my heart and soul. I know I’m young, but I’ve never seemed to think about anybody else; there has never been any one else. It’s always been little ’Linda in the garden; I’ve always felt your arms about my neck, just as you put them when we were children.”

She slipped them round his neck now. “See, they are there again,” she whispered. “But, oh, are you sure, quite sure, that you will never change; that you will love me always?”

“Always,” he replied simply. “I couldn’t change.” He bent his head and kissed her; and she clung to him, sighing a little and glancing behind her at the shadows among the trees. “You’re frightened, dear,” he said. “What is it?”

“No, not frightened. Only this place weighs upon me a little, and the years have seemed so long while I have been waiting. How good you are to me!”

“I’ll try to be, dear love,” he said. “I’ll bring such sunshine into your life, it shall be such a time of happy holidays that you shall forget all the weariness, all the waiting; I’ll make you forget it.”

“Yes,” she said, looking round the garden again, “yes, I’ll try to forget it—hark! what was that?”

She drew away from him suddenly and stood with her hands clasped on her breast, looking toward the gate they had left. A faint light shone beyond it in the road, but all was still and quiet.

“I hear nothing,” said Comethup.

She stood listening for a moment, and then laughed and came back to him. “I thought I heard some one come into the garden,” she said with a smile. “But it was only fancy. When one has wandered long in a desolate place like this, and has had no companion but one’s own thoughts, one is full of fears and fancies.” She threw her arms suddenly about him, and hid her face upon his breast. “Take me away soon, dear,” she whispered; “let me forget everything. You don’t know, can’t guess, how bitterly, bitterly tired I am of it all.”

He soothed her with gentle words, and presently led her toward the house. Beneath the little balcony she stopped and put her hands upon his breast and thrust him gently away.

“Don’t come in,” she whispered. “I am very tired, and shall go straight to my room. I’ll see you to-morrow, and many other to-morrows,” she added, smiling.

“Good-night, dear love,” he replied. “Do you remember the night I came here first, after my return, and saw you on the balcony up there, and you ran down to me?”

“Y—yes,” she replied, “I remember. Good-night!” She kissed him swiftly and slipped out of his arms and ran up the steps, paused on the balcony for a moment to blow a kiss to him, and was gone.

He lingered about the garden quite a long time, until the lights had disappeared one by one and the house stood up black against the sky. Then, carrying his hat in his hand, as though the very place in which she had walked were hallowed, he went out of the garden and back to the captain.

He found that gentleman conning a newspaper in his little parlour with the aid of a reading glass. The captain scorned spectacles, although they were really necessary in his case; he considered them effeminate. A reading glass was a graceful compromise. He looked up as Comethup entered, and laid down the glass and carefully folded the paper. “Well, boy,” he said, “I suppose you found her?”

“Yes,” said Comethup, “I found her.”

Something in his tone, in the large-hearted joyousness of it, struck the captain; he got up and stood with one hand resting on the table, looking across the shaded lamp at Comethup, who towered hugely at the other side of the room. For a moment or two nothing was said; then the captain made the half-circuit of the table, and they looked into each other’s eyes and their hands met.

“You don’t mean——” began the captain.

Comethup nodded and beamed upon him. “Yes,” he replied, “she’s going to be my wife. I’ve loved her—oh, a long time—ever since I was a little chap. Isn’t it splendid?”

The captain gave Comethup’s hand a final grip and let it go. “She’s the best woman in the world,” he said with great emphasis, and went back to his chair.

In the few days that followed before Comethup returned to London the captain endeavoured to frame various excuses for keeping out of the young people’s way. To-day he would be too tired; on another occasion there would be letters to write, or something which needed immediate attention in the garden. But Comethup and the girl laughingly insisted on his accompanying them, declaring that they could not possibly expect to be thoroughly happy if they left him at home. So, with some misgivings, he continued to be their companion as of old.

’Linda proved on that nearer, more delightfully intimate acquaintanceship with her to be the strangest creature of moods and caprices that could well be imagined. There seemed always a passionate desire in her heart to be all, in tenderness and gentleness, that her lover could wish; to show him how deep and sincere her love and gratitude were. Yet, though she succeeded in part in that desire, there were hours when she showed him only petulance; when the beautiful face was turned to him almost with careless indifference to meet his caress; when the words he uttered seemed to fall on unheeding ears. Again and again he left her at night with the miserable feeling that he had failed in some way to please her; blaming himself always, in that he was a rough and uncouth fellow, and that her delicacy and sweetness were things he could not properly meet.

She was always filled with the deepest contrition afterward; was always a thousand times kinder and gentler to him than she had been before, so that the misery he had suffered was more than atoned for. On one memorable occasion, when nothing that he did or said seemed to please her all day, and when she had scarcely responded to his caress when they parted under the balcony, she came running after him while he was sadly walking down the avenue, and cried his name, caught his arm, and fell breathless upon his breast, weeping. He feared that something had occurred to startle her, and was beginning eagerly and anxiously to question her, when she stopped him and poured out all that was in her self-accusing heart.

“Oh, my dear, my love, don’t go from me like this! Why are you always so kind and good and gentle to me? Why don’t you strike me, or laugh at me, or call me harsh names—anything that should teach me how bad I am and how shamefully I treat you? Dear heart, I’ve been horrid to you all day—won’t you tell me that I’ve been horrid?” She looked up into his face and gently shook him.

He looked down at her, held her close, and laughed happily. “No, I couldn’t tell you that,” he said slowly, “because it wouldn’t be true, ’Linda dear. We can’t always be alike, you know, and if the world doesn’t go right with you sometimes—well, I suppose that isn’t your fault. You’re always a great deal too good to me, much more than I deserve, and I wouldn’t have you different for all the world. Whether you’re glad or sorry, or whether you say the sweetest things to me to tease me, you’re just ’Linda, and that’s all I want. You mustn’t fret, dear; you’ve done nothing that I should call you harsh names for; there’s nothing you could do—now or at any time—that could possibly be wrong. Don’t you understand that? It’s just because I love you, and think there’s no one like you in the world, that I think everything you do is right. I don’t seem to be able to say exactly what’s in my heart, but I think you know.”

“If you knew sometimes how miserable I feel after I’ve behaved badly to you—how I cry myself to sleep sometimes, thinking about it—you wouldn’t think so badly of me,” she said.

“But, my darling, I don’t think badly of you. Don’t I tell you that everything you do is right?”

“Oh, if you will only always think that; if you will be content with me just as I am; if you will remember only all my good days and forget all the bad ones!”

“But there are no bad days,” he replied generously. “Indeed, I have nothing to forgive or to forget. How could I have? Why, it just shows what a wonderful little woman you are, that you could run out here again to-night and say all this to me just because you thought that you’d been unkind to me. And you hadn’t been unkind at all. There, good-night, and don’t cry yourself to sleep, will you?”

They parted happily enough, and he watched her as she ran back to the house. Turning slowly at last, with lingering feet he passed out of the garden. As he reached the road a man brushed close against him and glanced up sharply into his face in the darkness, then passed on. Comethup, with a muttered word of apology, went his way.

In a few moments, however, he had an uncomfortable sensation that the man was following him—keeping well out of sight in the shadows of doorways, but still doggedly following. The young man stopped once or twice, and the man immediately stopped too and disappeared; when Comethup went on again the man’s step could be distinctly heard behind. At last, with a growing feeling of anger, Comethup swung round and quickly retraced his steps; the movement was so sudden that the man was taken by surprise and stopped falteringly, evidently not quite knowing what to do. He was an old man, much bent about the shoulders—apparently not from age, but rather as a result of heavy labour of some kind.

Comethup stared at him for a moment, and then, as the man glanced up again at him and made a movement to get past him, Comethup knew him; it was old Medmer Theed. His anger died away, and he held out his hand to the old man. “Why, Theed,” he exclaimed, “I couldn’t make out who on earth was dodging along behind me; I had no idea it was you. How are you?”

“I am well, I thank you,” replied the old man a little distrustfully. “You are out late, sir.”

“Oh, we don’t call this late in London,” said Comethup with a laugh. “Besides, if I’m not mistaken, you know why I’m out late. Didn’t I see you five minutes ago, as I came out from Miss Vernier’s?”

“Yes, you did,” said the old man, chopping his words off sharply.

“I’d just been to see her home, you know,” said Comethup. “I suppose you don’t see as much of her now—not as much as you used to do? Don’t you remember how she used to sit on the bench beside you in your shop when she was quite a little thing?”

“Am I likely to forget it?” asked Theed, looking up at him out of his bright dark eyes. “Don’t I—a hundred times a day, when I’m at work—feel her close beside me? Don’t I hear, in the air about me, the very sound of the childish songs she used to croon to me? Do I remember?” He made a step suddenly toward Comethup, and laid a hand on his arm. “You were but a child then, a baby like herself; have you forgotten? Can any one who has ever looked into her eyes forget her? They say you have travelled far—for many years in many lands; yet her eyes drew you back here again as surely as a load-stone. Could you resist them? Could you forget her?”

“Why, no,” said Comethup. “I think you’re quite right there: I’m quite sure no one could forget her who had once seen her.”

“One and all, young and old, she draws them all back,” went on the old man, speaking as if to himself. “The years go on and bring their changes; the snows come and the flowers bloom again; and still she calls them all back, still she draws them to her. I dreamed once that it might be possible to keep her a child always; to keep her close beside me, crooning her songs and playing with her doll, and knowing nothing of anything outside; never growing older, and never knowing any sorrows but such as may innocently touch a child. But the dream never came true.”

“Why, you couldn’t expect it to come true,” said Comethup, looking at him wonderingly. “’Linda was obliged to grow up, as we all grow; and now she’s quite a beautiful woman.”

“Yes, a woman—a beautiful woman,” whispered the old man, passing his hand in a dazed way across his forehead. “There was another child—or was it this same child, after all?—a child who grew to be a woman, and then——” He came eagerly, almost threateningly, toward Comethup in the deserted street and looked up scowlingly at him. “Why do you come here at all? Why not leave her in peace? Why not leave her a child—in heart at least? The world is wide, and you have seen much of it; this is but a little corner of it, a place hidden away. Why not go out into your world and leave her in peace?”

Comethup looked at him in amazement for a moment—amazement not unmixed with awe, for the man appeared so desperately in earnest. “You don’t understand,” he said at last. “But since you think of her so much, and because I know you were her friend when she was very young, let me tell you that I love her very dearly, and that she is to be my wife.”

“Your wife! Ah! there was some one else who said that once. It is such an easy thing to say! Yet you look—yes, you seem honest. I remember I liked your face when you were a child. Will you swear it?”

“Why, of course, if you won’t believe my bare word.”

“Yes, but what will you swear by?” He glanced up at the starlit sky. “Not by the stars: there is no firmness or strength about them; they glitter and shine to-night, and all the heavens blaze with them; to-morrow you shall not see one of them. No, there’s no constancy about the stars.”

“By the moon, then,” said Comethup lightly, willing to humour him.

“No, not by the moon; that’s lovers’ nonsense—they all swear by that. But there—you need not swear. I can read men’s faces like a book, and I have read yours. Only be good to her, be true to her—for her sake and your own. For the man who wrongs her”—he shook a trembling, knotted forefinger in the air—“the man who wrongs her deals first with me and afterward with his God. She came to me a mite of a child, sent straight by God to fill an ache in my heart; came to me with smiling eyes, just as another baby—or was it the same?—I always forget—just as another baby once came to me. She belongs to me, and no man shall harm her.”

“You don’t think that I shall harm her, do you?” asked Comethup gently.

“No, you will not; but others may. I can not rest for thoughts of her—dreams of her. I do not know which are the dreams and which the waking. But I have crept at night about her house to see that all was well with her; I have been like a faithful dog, to guard the place where she sleeps. For that is her power: she draws all to her who have seen her once. But she draws the good and the evil alike.”

Muttering to himself he turned abruptly and went rapidly toward the centre of the town, where his own dwelling was. Comethup looked after him for a moment, and then went thoughtfully back to the captain’s house. The captain had gone to bed, but had left a light burning in the little parlour for Comethup. On the table lay a packet addressed to him from London. On breaking the seal he found that the envelope contained two or three letters which had arrived for him in his absence, and had been forwarded by Miss Carlaw’s housekeeper.

Two of the letters were unimportant, but a third was from his cousin Brian. He sat down and began to read it by the light of the lamp. It had been hurriedly scrawled, and he had some difficulty in deciphering it. Briefly and jauntily, with a delightful candour which under other circumstances would have been refreshing and even amusing, Brian informed his “best friend on earth” that he was in desperate straits, and near starvation point; that he had but one thing on which to congratulate himself, and that was that he was but treading in the footsteps of many men more illustrious than he could hope to be, who had travelled the same stony road before; but that the consolation demanded a large amount of philosophy to make it effective when it was remembered that actual food was not always to be obtained; that his landlady, who was a hopeless Philistine, refused to be comforted with promises, or with the possibility of seeing herself immortalized by reason of her businesslike connection with her impecunious lodger; that things were, in a word, at their worst. He implored his cousin to come to his rescue; this would absolutely be the last occasion on which such an appeal would be necessary, as his real prospects, from a sordid point of view, were growing brighter every day.

Comethup read the letter through carefully, smiling a little at some of the quaint phrases and sighing a little over the whole business. It happened that he had decided to go back to London on the morrow, and he was glad to think how much easier now it would be to help his cousin than before he had an income of his own. Whatever might occur, and whatever he might have to keep from his aunt, he would at least be spending that with which he had a right to be doing as he liked. Comforted by that thought, he thrust the letter into his pocket and went to bed.

Brian had given an address in the neighbourhood of the Euston Road—in a queer, shabby street of tall houses, every one of which, Comethup discovered as he traversed it, appeared eager to share its accommodation with single gentlemen, or indeed with any one who might care to apply. Comethup, with a mental picture before him of his cousin sitting in a cheerless room, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, craving food, had not hesitated a moment after reaching London, but had driven straight to Brian’s lodging, with his portmanteau on the roof of the cab. His arrival caused something of a flutter; it was evident that he was regarded as a prospective lodger. But when he inquired for Mr. Brian Carlaw, the landlady herself appeared—a little thin, eager woman, with an anxious, watery smile upon her face. A look of relief seemed to come over her when she saw Comethup. Prosperity—a prosperity which was new to her—seemed to be about this well-dressed, elegant young man with the grave eyes. With something of timidity she begged that he would step for a moment into a room she indicated; she would like a word with him.