"I have a suspicion, but to make it certain I must ask you for the present to say nothing of this to any one."
Uncle Ben nodded. "And when you hev found out and you're settled in your mind that you kin make my mind easy about this yer Lou Price, ez we'll call her, bein' divorced squarely, and bein', so to speak, in the way o' gettin' married agin, ye might let me know ez a friend. I reckon I won't trouble you any more to-night-onless you and me takes another sociable drink together in the bar. No? Well, then, good-night." He moved slowly towards the door. With his hand on the lock he added: "Ef yer writin' to her agin, you might say ez how you found ME lookin' well and comf'able, and hopin' she's enjyin' the same blessin'. 'So long."
He disappeared, leaving the master in a hopeless collapse of conflicting, and, it is to be feared, not very heroic emotions. The situation, which had begun so dramatically, had become suddenly unromantically ludicrous, without, however, losing any of its embarrassing quality. He was conscious that he occupied the singular position of being more ridiculous than the husband-whose invincible and complacent simplicity stung him like the most exquisite irony. For an instant he was almost goaded into the fury of declaring that he had broken off from the writer of the letters forever, but its inconsistency with the chivalrous attitude he had just taken occurred to him in time to prevent him from becoming doubly absurd. His rage with Seth Davis seemed to him the only feeling left that was genuine and rational, and yet, now that Uncle Ben had gone, even that had a spurious ring. It was necessary for him to lash himself into a fury over the hypothesis that the letters MIGHT have been Cressy's, and desecrated by that scoundrel's touch. Perhaps he had read them and left them to be picked up by others. He looked over them carefully to see if their meaning would, to the ordinary reader, appear obvious and compromising. His eye fell on the first paragraph.
"I should not be quite fair with you, Jack, if I affected to disbelieve in your faith in your love for me and its endurance, but I should be still more unfair if I didn't tell you what I honestly believe, that at your age you are apt to deceive yourself, and, without knowing it, to deceive others. You confess you have not yet decided upon your career, and you are always looking forward so hopefully, dear Jack, for a change in the future, but you are willing to believe that far more serious things than that will suffer no change in the mean time. If we continued as we were, I, who am older than you and have more experience, might learn the misery of seeing you change towards ME as I have changed towards another, and for the same reason. If I were sure I could keep pace with you in your dreams and your ambition, if I were sure that I always knew WHAT they were, we might still be happy-but I am not sure, and I dare not again risk my happiness on an uncertainty. In coming to my present resolution I do not look for happiness, but at least I know I shall not suffer disappointment, nor involve others in it. I confess I am growing too old not to feel the value to a woman-a necessity to her in this country-of security in her present and future position. Another can give me that. And although you may call this a selfish view of our relations, I believe that you will soon-if you do not, even as you read this now-feel the justice of it, and thank me for taking it."
With a smile of scorn he tore up the letter, in what he fondly believed was the bitterness of an outraged trustful nature, forgetting that for many weeks he had scarcely thought of its writer, and that he himself in his conduct had already anticipated its truths.
CHAPTER XII.
The master awoke the next morning, albeit after a restless night, with that clarity of conscience and perception which it is to be feared is more often the consequence of youth and a perfect circulation than of any moral conviction or integrity. He argued with himself that as the only party really aggrieved in the incident of the previous night, the right of remedy remained with him solely, and under the benign influence of an early breakfast and the fresh morning air he was inclined to feel less sternly even towards Seth Davis. In any event, he must first carefully weigh the evidence against him, and examine the scene of the outrage closely. For this purpose, he had started for the school-house fully an hour before his usual time. He was even light-hearted enough to recognize the humorous aspect of Uncle Ben's appeal to him, and his own ludicrously paradoxical attitude, and as he at last passed from the dreary flat into the fringe of upland pines, he was smiling. Well for him, perhaps, that he was no more affected by any premonition of the day before him than the lately awakened birds that lightly cut the still sleeping woods around him in their long flashing sabre-curves of flight. A yellow-throat, destined to become the breakfast of a lazy hawk still swinging above the river, was especially moved to such a causeless and idiotic roulade of mirth that the master listening to the foolish bird was fain to whistle too. He presently stopped, however, with a slight embarrassment. For a few paces before him Cressy had unexpectedly appeared.
She had evidently been watching for him. But not with her usual indolent confidence. There was a strained look of the muscles of her mouth, as of some past repression, and a shaded hollow under her temples beneath the blonde rings of her shorter hair. Her habitually slow, steady eye was troubled, and she cast a furtive glance around her before she searched him with her glance. Without knowing why, yet vaguely fearing that he did, he became still more embarrassed, and in the very egotism of awkwardness, stammered without a further salutation: "A disgraceful thing has happened last night, and I'm up early to find the perpetrator. My desk was broken into, and"-
"I know it," she interrupted, with a half-impatient, half uneasy putting away of the subject with her little hand-"there-don't go all over it again. Paw and Maw have been at me about it all night— ever since those Harrisons in their anxiousness to make up their quarrel, rushed over with the news. I'm tired of it!"
For an instant he was staggered. How much had she learned! With the same awkward indirectness, he said vaguely, "But it might have been YOUR letters, you know?"
"But it wasn't," she said, simply. "It OUGHT to have been. I wish it had" — She stopped, and again regarded him with a strange expression. "Well," she said slowly, "what are you going to do?"
"To find out the scoundrel who has done this," he said firmly, "and punish him as he deserves."
The almost imperceptible shrug that had raised her shoulders gave way as she regarded him with a look of wearied compassion.
"No," she said, gravely, "you cannot. They're too many for you. You must go away, at once."
"Never," he said indignantly. "Even if it were not a cowardice. It would be more-a confession!"
"Not more than they already know," she said wearily. "But, I tell you, you MUST go. I have sneaked out of the house and run here all the way to warn you. If you-you care for me, Jack-you will go."
"I should be a traitor to you if I did," he said quickly. "I shall stay."
"But if-if-Jack-if"-she drew nearer him with a new-found timidity, and then suddenly placed her two hands upon his shoulders: "If-if-Jack-I were to go with you?"
The old rapt, eager look of possession had come back to her face now; her lips were softly parted. Yet even then she seemed to be waiting some reply more potent than that syllabled on the lips of the man before her.