She remained with her until after the funeral. Anabel, when she recovered her senses, cried hopelessly for hours, but gradually controlled herself and rose and went about her affairs with a stern calm. It was her first trouble, but not for nothing had she been given a square jaw and a sturdy little figure. She was filled with dumb protest, and laid away her bright careless youth in the child's coffin, but she accepted the inevitable.
Mr. and Mrs. Leslie were in the south when the baby died, but arrived for the funeral. Until then Anabel clung to her friend, and so did young Colton, who was far more demoralized than his wife. He did not brush his hair, nor go to bed, but wandered about the house like a bewildered spirit, occasionally smiting his hands together, or embracing the other two children convulsively. He had no support to offer his wife, and Isabel was glad to stay with the brave stricken little creature; but when Mrs. Leslie arrived she felt herself superfluous and returned home.
She had had little time to think of Gwynne, but it had crossed her mind that she would accept this heartrending episode, in which she had been called upon to play an intimate part, as but another warning; one, moreover, that would stand its ground did she attempt to force it aside. But Gwynne entered and filled her dispossessed mind the moment she sat down under her acacia-tree, which was perhaps an hour after her return home. But this time her dreams did not flow upon a smooth golden scented tide. She searched the accumulated newspapers for mention of him in the despatches, wept stormily at his neglect, tormented herself with the belief that Julia Kaye was in Washington; at all events that he had discovered that his love for herself was but one more passing fancy, born of propinquity.
She saw mention of him. Twice he had dined at the White House, and his name was frequently in the list of guests at other dinners and functions. He was not visiting at the British Embassy, and Isabel drew her only comfort from the fact: he might be enjoying himself too much to think of her, but his purpose was unaltered, or he certainly would be the guest of a man whom she knew to be his friend: Gwynne was the last man to embarrass anybody, and if the ambassador had enemies they would find his connivance at the Americanization of a useful British peer vastly to his own discredit.
Isabel enjoyed no further peace of mind. The flames of uncertainty devoured her. The worst she could endure, but suspense spurred her always ardent imagination to such appalling feats that she barely ate or slept. But she was far too high-handed to suffer actively for long. She buried her pride in one of her many crypts, summoned her feminine craft, and wrote Gwynne a letter. It began in the brief and business-like manner the iniquities of their builders demanded—they were on strike—and her facile pen flowed on with various other items of information, more or less unpleasant. Mr. Clink, the lessee of Mountain House, had absconded with all the furniture, including the doors and windows, and she hesitated to refurnish, not knowing if Gwynne would return in time for the salmon-fishing. Nor had she been able to find another tenant, although she had spent two days in the mountains. She thought it might be a good place for a sanitarium, if he were inclined to form a company. Some sulphur springs had recently bubbled out of the ground near the house, which would add to the value of the property; but she must confess that they ruined the place for her. She distrusted the sudden advent of mineral waters; one never knew what was coming next. Then, after more cheering, but equally practical information, she rambled off into gossip, told the sad story of the Coltons' bereavement, and asked him a few friendly questions about himself. Of course he had not succeeded in getting his passport or he would be home—unless, to be sure, the Britisher was too strong in him after all, and he would not return. This alternative she contemplated with a lively regret, for she had had no one to talk to since he left, and so much business sat heavily on her shoulders. Then she announced herself his affectionate cousin; and it was not until the letter was gone, and quite a day of self-gratulation at her own adroitness, that it suddenly occurred to her that Gwynne had made up his mind that the first letter should come from her. For a few moments she was furious, then concluded that she did not care; she wanted to hear from him on any terms. She counted the days, intending finally to count the hours and minutes; but this agreeably breathless task came to an abrupt end at the close of the sixth day. Gwynne answered by telegraph. He thanked her for her interesting and more than welcome letter. He was well, and bored, and hoping daily to settle his affairs and start for home. In any case he should have returned to California: he was surprised at her doubts. She was not to bother further about his affairs out there. He had telegraphed to the contractor that he could wait as long as the strikers. He added that he longed for California.
Isabel wondered if he had not dared to trust himself in a letter, finally concluded that this was the secret of the long telegram, dismissed her apprehensions, and, with a soothed but by no means tranquil imagination, yielded herself up again to dreams and the spring.
VIII
It was close upon the middle of April when Gwynne left the train a mile from Lumalitas, and, being unheralded, walked across the fields to his house. He had intended to get off at Rosewater, hire the fastest horse in town, and ride out to Old Inn; but he had been seized with doubt and diffidence, and while he was still turning hot and cold the train moved out of the station. It was now nearly ten weeks since he had seen Isabel, and during that time he had received one letter from her. This letter he had read and reread until its contents were meaningless; and he was still in doubt as to what might lurk between the lines. He was reasonably sure that he had forced her to write, but whether mere pique and curiosity had been his aides, he was far from being able to determine. She had been right in assuming that he dared not trust himself to the tempting privacy of the letter. He had no idea how he stood, and would not run the risk of making a fool of himself; not until he was face to face with her could he pretend to decide upon any course of action. But he had been tormented for ten weeks as he had never expected to be tormented by any woman. Although he still assured himself that he intended to marry her, the riot in his mind and blood bred distrust of himself and evoked terrible images of Isabel at the altar with another. He should hate to the day of his death the beautiful old town of Santa Barbara, where he had been without any sort of refuge from his thoughts; and in Washington, although he had managed to occupy his mind and time profitably, there were still hours which he must spend alone, and he had dreaded them.
And he was beset by other doubts than those of the mere lover. He was conscious that in these weeks of absence and longing, he had idealized Isabel, until the being he dwelt with in fancy was more goddess than woman. He knew many sides of her, but much had eluded him, even after he began to study her. That she was gifted in large measure with what the Americans so aptly termed cussedness he had good reason to know; and whether this very definite characteristic so far controlled her nature as to hold her nobler qualities in durance——or were there nobler qualities? She had brain and common-sense; both attributes had compelled his respect long since. And she had character and pride—loyalty and independence. He had had glimpses of what he would unhesitatingly have accepted as heart and passion had he not known himself to be dazzled by her beauty and wilful powers of fascination. That she was wholly feminine, at least, he was convinced; she was too often absurdly so to keep up, with any one that saw her constantly, the fiction of the sexless philosopher. The very devil in her was of the unmistakable feminine kidney. All this gave him hope, and he knew, that when caprice permitted, she would be unrivalled as a companion. Intellectually, at least, there was no thought of his she could not share and appreciate; and her sense of humor and her feminine perversities would always delight him. If only there were depths beneath. The longings of the spirit are always formless, vaguely worded, a little shamefaced. Gwynne hardly knew what was the great extreme he wanted in his wife, but he knew that if he did not find it he should be miserable. He was by no means the young man that had fallen blindly in love with Julia Kaye. He had had little time for introspection, for intimate knowledge of himself, in those days.