"Tell me, Mercy, is it not so? Are we not very much to each other?"
The strange reticence of his tone, even more reticent than his words, had affected Mercy inexplicably: it was as if a chill wind had suddenly blown at noonday, and made her shiver in spite of full sunlight. Her tone was almost as reticent and sad as his, as she said, without raising her eyes,--
"I think it is true."
"Please look up at me, Mercy," said Stephen. "I want to feel sure that you are not sorry I care so much for you."
"How could I be sorry?" exclaimed Mercy, lifting her eyes suddenly, and looking into Stephen's face with all the fulness of affection of her glowing nature. "I shall never be sorry."
"Bless you for saying that, dear!" said Stephen, solemnly,--"bless you. You should never be sorry a moment in your life, if I could help it; and now, dear, I must leave you," he said, looking uneasily about. "I ought not to have brought you into this lane. If people were to see us walking here, they would think it strange." And, as they reached the entrance of the lane, his manner suddenly became most ceremonious; and, extending his hand to assist her over a drift of snow, he said in tones unnecessarily loud and formal, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick. I am glad to have helped you through these drifts. Good-morning," and was gone.
Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of bewilderment. His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow. She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled from it with incredulous pain. "Why should he be afraid to have people see us together? What does it mean? What reason can he possibly have?" Scores of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely. Her conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being engaged to another woman,--some old and mistaken promise by which he was hampered. Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than this which could explain his conduct. Restlessly her imagination fastened on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to decide what would be right under such circumstances.
The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured, remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity. All the joy which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties: and it was a grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door.
He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her, exclaimed,--
"Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?"