I am not at all well: my heart gives me SO much trouble--more than ever before--and as you say nothing about coming home I have about concluded to try what a change of climate and scene will do for me, and so have concluded to accept your Aunt Tabitha's invitation to spend a few months with her. Unless you hear from me to the contrary--which you will probably not, as the mails are so uncertain in Kentucky, you had better address your next letter to me at Eau Claire.
But I am so sorry to see by your letter that you show no signs of weariness with your quixotic idea of serving the country in the hospital. I had hoped so much that you would by this time have decided that you had done enough, and come home and content yourself with doing what you could for the Sanitary Fair, and the lint-scraping bees.
YOUR AFFECTIONATE MOTHER.
P.S.--Your father is well. He will go with me to Wisconsin, and then go down to Nebraska to look after his land there.
P.S.--I am SO sorry to tell you that Harry Glen has acted badly again.
The last letters from the regiment say that he did not go into the fight at Wildcat, and afterward was missing. They believe he was captured, and some say he was taken prisoner on purpose. Everybody's saying, "I told you so," and Mrs. Glen has not been on the street or to church since the news came. I am so sorry for her, but then you know that she used to put on quite as many airs as her position justified.
P.S.--Hoop-skirts are getting smaller every month, and some are confident that they will go entirely out of fashion by next year. I do so hope not. I so dread having to cOme back to the old way of wearing a whole clothes-basketful of white skirts. The new bonnets are just the awfulest things you ever did see. Write soon.
Rachel crumpled the letter in her hand, with a quick, angry gesture, as if crushing some hateful, despicable thing, and her clear hazel eyes blazed.
"He is evidently a hopeless coward," she said to herself, "when all that has passed can not spur him into an exhibition of proper spirit. If he had the love for me he professed it could not help stimulating him to some show of manliness. I will fling him out of my heart and my world as I would fling a rotten apple out of a basket."
Then a sadder and gentler light shone in her face.
"Perhaps I am myself to blame a little. I may not be a good source of inspiration to acts of heroism. Other girls may have ways of stimulating their loves to high deeds that I know not of. Possibly I applied the lash too severely, and instead of rousing him up I killed all the hope in his heart, and made him indifferent to his future. Possibly, too, this story may not be true. The feeling in Sardis against him is strong, and they are hardly willing to do him justice. No doubt they misrepresent him in this, as they are apt to do in everything."
Her face hardened again.
"But it's of no use seeking excuses for him. My lover--my husband--must be a man who can hold his own with other men, in whatever relation of life the struggle may be. The man into whose hands I entrust the happiness of my life must have his qualities so clear and distinct that there never will be any question about them. He must not need continual explanation and defense, for then outraged pride would strangle love with a ruthless hand. No, I must never have reason to believe that my choice is inferior to other men in anything."
But notwithstanding this, she smoothed out the crumpled letter tenderly upon her knee, and read it over again, in the vain hope of finding that the words had less harshness than she had at first found in them.
"No," she said after a weary study of the lines, "it's surely worse than mother states it. She is so kind and gentle that she never fails to mitigate the harshness of anything that she hears about others, and she has told me this as mildly as the case will admit. I must give him up forever."
But though she made this resolution with a firm settling of the lines around her mouth that spoke strongly of its probable fulfilment, the arrival of the decision was the signal for the assault of a thousand tender memories and dear recollections, all pleading trumpet-tongued against the summary dismissal of the unworthy lover. All the ineffably sweet incidents of their love-life stretched themselves out in a vista before her, and tempted her to reverse her decision. But she stayed her purpose with repeating to herself:
"It will save untold misery hereafter to be firm now, and end a connection at once that must be the worse for both of us every day that it is allowed to continue."
There was a tap at the door, and Dr. Denslow entered.
The struggle had so shattered Rachel's self-control that she nervously grasped the letter and thrust it into her pocket, as if the mere sight of it would reveal to him the perturbation that was shaking her.
His quick eyes--quicker yet in whatever related to her--noticed her embarrassment.
"Excuse me," he said with that graceful tact which seemed the very fiber of his nature. "You are not in the mood to receive callers. I will go now, and look in again."
"No, no; stay. I am really glad to see you. It is nothing, I assure you."
She really wished very much to be alone with her grief, but she felt somehow that to shrink from a meeting would be an evasion of the path of duty she had marked out for her feet to tread. If she were going to eliminate all thoughts of her love and her lover from her life, there was no better time to begin than now, while her resolution was fresh.
She insisted upon the Doctor remaining, and he did so. Conscious that her embarrassment had been noticed, her self-possession did not return quickly enough to prevent her falling into the error of failing to ignore this, and she confusedly stumbled into an explanation:
"I have received a letter from home which contains news that disturbs me." This was as far as she had expected to go.
Dr. Denslow's face expressed a lively sympathy. "No one dead or seriously ill, I trust."
"No, not as bad as that," she answered hastily, in the first impulse of fear that she had unwarrantably excited his sympathy. "Nor is it anything connected with property," she hastily added, as she saw the Doctor looked inquiringly, but as though fearing that further questioning might be an indelicate intrusion.
She picked nervously at the engagement ring which Harry had placed upon her finger. It fitted closely, and resisted her efforts at removal. She felt, when it was too late, that neither this nor its significance had escaped Dr. Denslow's eyes.
"A f-riend--an--acquaintance of mine has disgraced himself," she said, with a very apparent effort.
An ordinary woman would have broken down in a tearful tempest, but as has been said before she was denied that sweet relief which most women find in a readily responsive gush of tears. Her eyes became very dry and exceedingly hot. Her misery was evident.
The Doctor took her hand with a movement of involuntary sympathy. "I am deeply hurt to see you grieve," he said, "and I wish that I might say something to alleviate your troubles. Is it anything that you can tell me about?"
"No, it is nothing of which I can say a word to any one," she answered.
"It is a trouble that I can share with no one, and least of all with a stranger."
"Am I not more than a stranger to you?" he asked.
"O yes, indeed," she said, and hastening to correct her former coldness, added:
"You are a very dear, good friend, whom I value much more highly than I have given you reason to think."
His face brightened wonderfully, but he adventured his way slowly. "I am very glad that you esteem me what I have tried to show myself during our acquaintance."
"You have indeed shown yourself a very true friend. I could not ask for a better one."
"Then will you not trust me with a share of your sorrows, that I may help you bear them?"
"No, no; you can not. Nobody can do anything in this case but myself."
"You do not know. You do not know what love can accomplish when it sets itself to work with the ardor belonging to it."
"Love! O, do not speak to me of that," she said, suddenly awaking to the drift of his words, and striving to withdraw her hand.
"No, but I must speak of it," he said with vehemence entirely foreign to his usual half-mocking philosophy. "I must speak of it," he repeated with deepening tones. "You surely can not be blind to the fact that I love you devotedly--absorbingly. Every day's intercourse must have shown you something of this, which you could not have mistaken. You must have seen this growing upon me continually, until now I have but few thoughts into which your image does not appear, to brighten and enhance them.
Tell me now that hopes, dearer--infinitely dearer--than any I have ever before cherished, are to have the crown of fruition."
"I can not--I can not," she sighed.
"What can you not? Can't you care for me at least a little?"
"I do; I care for you ever so much. I am not only grateful for all that you have been to me and done for me, but I have a feeling that goes beyond mere gratitude. But to say that I return the love you profess for me--that I even entertain any feeling resembling it--I can not, and certainly not at this time."
"But you certainly do not love any one else?"
"O, I beg of you not to question me."
"I know I have no right to ask you such a question. I have no right to pry into any matter which you do not choose to reveal to me of your own free will and accord. But as all the mail of the hospital goes through my hands, I could not help noticing that in all the months that you have been here you have written to no man, nor received a letter from one.
Upon this I have built my hopes that you were heartfree."
"I can not talk of this, nor of anything now. I am so wrought up by many things that have happened--by my letter from home; by your unexpected declaration--that my poor brain is in a whirl, and I can not think clearly and connectedly on any subject. Please do not press me any more now."