第44章

That night, as usual, they said good-bye at the wood's edge.

Harney was to leave the next morning early.He asked Charity to say nothing of their plans till his return, and, strangely even to herself, she was glad of the postponement.A leaden weight of shame hung on her, benumbing every other sensation, and she bade him good-bye with hardly a sign of emotion.His reiterated promises to return seemed almost wounding.She had no doubt that he intended to come back; her doubts were far deeper and less definable.

Since the fanciful vision of the future that had flitted through her imagination at their first meeting she had hardly ever thought of his marrying her.She had not had to put the thought from her mind; it had not been there.If ever she looked ahead she felt instinctively that the gulf between them was too deep, and that the bridge their passion had flung across it was as insubstantial as a rainbow.But she seldom looked ahead; each day was so rich that it absorbed her....Now her first feeling was that everything would be different, and that she herself would be a different being to Harney.Instead of remaining separate and absolute, she would be compared with other people, and unknown things would be expected of her.She was too proud to be afraid, but the freedom of her spirit drooped....

Harney had not fixed any date for his return; he had said he would have to look about first, and settle things.He had promised to write as soon as there was anything definite to say, and had left her his address, and asked her to write also.But the address frightened her.It was in New York, at a club with a long name in Fifth Avenue: it seemed to raise an insurmountable barrier between them.Once or twice, in the first days, she got out a sheet of paper, and sat looking at it, and trying to think what to say; but she had the feeling that her letter would never reach its destination.She had never written to anyone farther away than Hepburn.

Harney's first letter came after he had been gone about ten days.It was tender but grave, and bore no resemblance to the gay little notes he had sent her by the freckled boy from Creston River.He spoke positively of his intention of coming back, but named no date, and reminded Charity of their agreement that their plans should not be divulged till he had had time to "settle things." When that would be he could not yet foresee; but she could count on his returning as soon as the way was clear.

She read the letter with a strange sense of its coming from immeasurable distances and having lost most of its meaning on the way; and in reply she sent him a coloured postcard of Creston Falls, on which she wrote:

"With love from Charity." She felt the pitiful inadequacy of this, and understood, with a sense of despair, that in her inability to express herself she must give him an impression of coldness and reluctance;but she could not help it.She could not forget that he had never spoken to her of marriage till Mr.Royall had forced the word from his lips; though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.

She had not seen Mr.Royall on her return to the red house.The morning after her parting from Harney, when she came down from her room, Verena told her that her guardian had gone off to Worcester and Portland.

It was the time of year when he usually reported to the insurance agencies he represented, and there was nothing unusual in his departure except its suddenness.

She thought little about him, except to be glad he was not there....

She kept to herself for the first days, while North Dormer was recovering from its brief plunge into publicity, and the subsiding agitation left her unnoticed.But the faithful Ally could not be long avoided.For the first few days after the close of the Old Home Week festivities Charity escaped her by roaming the hills all day when she was not at her post in the library; but after that a period of rain set in, and one pouring afternoon, Ally, sure that she would find her friend indoors, came around to the red house with her sewing.

The two girls sat upstairs in Charity's room.Charity, her idle hands in her lap, was sunk in a kind of leaden dream, through which she was only half-conscious of Ally, who sat opposite her in a low rush-bottomed chair, her work pinned to her knee, and her thin lips pursed up as she bent above it.

"It was my idea running a ribbon through the gauging,"she said proudly, drawing back to contemplate the blouse she was trimming."It's for Miss Balch: she was awfully pleased." She paused and then added, with a queer tremor in her piping voice: "I darsn't have told her I got the idea from one I saw on Julia."Charity raised her eyes listlessly."Do you still see Julia sometimes?"Ally reddened, as if the allusion had escaped her unintentionally."Oh, it was a long time ago I seen her with those gaugings...."Silence fell again, and Ally presently continued: "Miss Balch left me a whole lot of things to do over this time.""Why--has she gone?" Charity inquired with an inner start of apprehension.

"Didn't you know? She went off the morning after they had the celebration at Hamblin.I seen her drive by early with Mr.Harney."There was another silence, measured by the steady tick of the rain against the window, and, at intervals, by the snipping sound of Ally's scissors.

Ally gave a meditative laugh."Do you know what she told me before she went away? She told me she was going to send for me to come over to Springfield and make some things for her wedding."Charity again lifted her heavy lids and stared at Ally's pale pointed face, which moved to and fro above her moving fingers.

"Is she going to get married?"

Ally let the blouse sink to her knee, and sat gazing at it.Her lips seemed suddenly dry, and she moistened them a little with her tongue.

"Why, I presume so...from what she said....Didn't you know?""Why should I know?"