第18章

For a moment he remained stupefied, and then, with a mechanical instinct, plunged his head and face in the lazy-flowing water, and then once again rose cool and collected.The half-mad distraction of his previous resolve had given way to another, more deliberate, but not less desperate determination.He knew now WHY he came there--WHY he had brought his gun--why his boat had stopped when it did!

Lying flat in the bottom, he tore away fragments of the crumbling bankto fill his frail craft, until he had sunk it to the gunwale, and below the low level of the Marsh.Then, using his hands as noiseless paddles, he propelled this rude imitation of a floating log slowly past the line of vision, until the tongue of bushes had hidden him from view.With a rapid glance at the darkening flat, he then seized his gun, and springing to the spongy bank, half crouching half crawling through reeds and tussocks, he made his way to the brush.A foot and eye less experienced would have plunged its owner helpless in the black quagmire.At one edge of the thicket he heard hoofs trampling the dried twigs.Calvert's horse was already there, tied to a skirting alder.

He ran to the house, but, instead of attracting attention by ascending the creaking steps, made his way to the piles below the rear gallery and climbed to it noiselessly. It was the spot where the deserter had ascended a year ago, and, like him, he could see and hear all that passed distinctly.Calvert stood near the open door as if departing.Maggie stood between him and the window, her face in shadow, her hands clasped tightly behind her.A profound sadness, partly of the dying day and waning light, and partly of some vague expiration of their own sorrow, seemed to encompass them.Without knowing why, a strange trembling took the place of James Culpepper's fierce determination, and a film of moisture stole across his staring eyes.

"When I tell you that I believe all this will pass, and that you will still win your brother back to you," said Calvert's sad but clear voice, "I will tell you why--although, perhaps, it is only a part of that confidence you command me to withhold.When I first saw you, I myself had fallen into like dissolute habits; less excusable than he, for I had some experience of the world and its follies.When I met YOU, and fell under the influence of your pure, simple, and healthy life; when I saw that isolation, monotony, misunderstanding, even the sense of superiority to one's surroundings could be lived down and triumphed over, without vulgar distractions or pitiful ambitions; when I learned to love you--hear me out, Miss Culpepper, I beg you--you saved ME--I, who was nothing to you, even as I honestly believe you will still save your brother, whom you love.""How do you know I didn't RUIN him?" she said, turning upon himbitterly."How do you know that it wasn't to get rid of OUR monotony, OUR solitude that I drove him to this vulgar distraction, this pitiful--yes, you were right--pitiful ambition?""Because it isn't your real nature," he said quietly.

"My real nature," she repeated with a half savage vehemence that seemed to be goaded from her by his very gentleness, "my real nature! What did HE--what do YOU know of it?--My real nature!-- I'll tell you what it was," she went on passionately."It was to be revenged on you all for your cruelty, your heartlessness, your wickedness to me and mine in the past.It was to pay you off for your slanders of my dead father--for the selfishness that left me and Jim alone with his dead body on the Marsh.That was what sent me to Logport--to get even with you--to--to fool and flaunt you! There, you have it now! And now that God has punished me for it by crushing my brother--you--you expect me to let you crush ME too.""But," he said eagerly, advancing toward her, "you are wronging me-- you are wronging yourself, cruelly.""Stop," she said, stepping back, with her hands still locked behind her."Stay where you are.There! That's enough!" She drew herself up and let her hands fall at her side. "Now, let us speak of Jim," she said coldly.

Without seeming to hear her, he regarded her for the first time with hopeless sadness.