Morton looked at a Landseer on the wall, and gnawed his lip with vexation.
Leslie took a turn or two about the room, looked out at the window, remarked that it was a hot afternoon, said that the hay crop had been the heaviest ever known, in consequence, he opined, of the joint effects of heat, moisture, and guano; and was descanting on the ravages committed by the borers on a certain peach tree, when Miss Weston and her sister appeared.
"It's all up with me. She does not care for me a straw," thought Morton, as he saw the easy cordiality with which Miss Leslie received her guests. He was introduced. Miss Weston complimented him on the affair of the railroad. His reply was cold and constrained. Leslie soon left the room. Morton felt himself de trop, yet could not muster strength of mind to go. Conversation flagged. Every body became constrained. Miss Weston suspected the truth, and glanced at her sister that they should take their leave, when, at this juncture, a servant came to announce tea.
The ebbs and flows of the human mind are beyond the reach of astronomy. As they went into the next room, Morton became conscious of a faint and indefinite something in the face of his mistress, which, he could not tell why, cast a gleam of light into his darkness, and lifted him out of the slough of despond in which he had been floundering for the last half hour. A flush of hope dawned on him. His constraint passed away, and Miss Weston's opinion of him was wonderfully revolutionized. At length, much to his delight, one of the visitors remarked to the other, that they had better go home before it grew too dark. But here a new alarm seized him. Might he not be expected to offer them his escort? Terrified at this idea, and oblivious of all gallantry, he made his escape into the garden, impelled—so he left them to infer—by a delicate wish to free them from the restraint of his presence. Here he walked to and fro behind the hedge, in no small agitation, but with all his faculties on the alert.
In a quarter of an hour, he heard voices at the hall door; and approaching behind a cluster of high laurels, saw Edith Leslie accompanying her two friends down the avenue. After walking with them a few rods, she bade them good evening, and turned back towards the house. Morton went forward to meet her.
"There is a beautiful sunset over the water, beyond the garden. Will you walk that way?"
They turned down one of the garden paths.
"What did you think of me this afternoon?" asked Morton—"did you think me ill, or bewitched, or turned idiot?"
"Neither. I thought you a little taciturn, at first."
"I am fortunate if that was your worst opinion. I believe I was under a spell. Did you never dream—all people, I believe, have something in common in their dreams—of being in some great peril, without power to move hand or foot to escape?—of being under some desperate necessity of speaking, without power to open your lips?—or of seeing before you some splendid prize, without power to make even an effort to grasp it? Something like that was my case." Here he came to an abrupt stop, walked on a pace or two, then turned to his companion with a vehemence which startled her—"Miss Leslie, you heard your friend praise me for humanity—courage—what not? It was all a mistake—all a delusion. I thought you were in the train. I was wild with agony; and when the people were crowding after me, I thought that all had been for nothing, because I had not saved you. I can hardly tell what I did; it was mere blind instinct. I could have ridden into the fire, and perhaps not have felt the burning. There is a spell upon me. I am changed—life is changed—every thing is changed. I scarcely know myself. It mans me, and it makes me a child again. The world puts on a new face; just as this sunset lights the earth with purple and vermilion, and turns it to a fairy land. Forgive me; I don't know what I am saying. I am in fear that all this brightness will change of a sudden into winter and night, and cold, rocky commonplace. You know what I would say. I have no words fit to say it. You are my judge, to lift me up, or cast me down."