"We are almost relations-in-law, you know!" had been his only apology for attentions and gifts, and Eunice had accepted all in simple good faith.
Her interest in his talk and her manifest liking for him, were a more flattering tribute to his vanity than was Jessie's frank cousinliness. I think it is always thus with the tokens of favor vouchsafed to friend and admirer by reserved, self-concentrated women. While Jessie was his especial study (or quarry) just now, he did not disdain the goods the gods offered him in the esteem and preference of the handsome elder sister. He had found her eminently convenient when his motive was to pique and mystify his cousin's betrothed by a feint of haughty indifference, and he was too wise an economist to cast aside what he had gained. He would be a clumsy diplomatist, indeed, were he to prove himself incompetent to the management of two affairs at the same time.
If my attempted analyzation of a "fascinating man's" principles and intentions has seemed prolix to the surface-reader, he will bear in mind that it is but a meagre abstract of what Mr. Wyllys thought, felt, and reasoned through the dreary November day, that did not see the sun until a break in the clouds low upon the western hills let out his light upon a sodden, wretched earth.
The late rays burnished Windbeam's coronal of cedars into golden-green, but curling fleeces of mist clung about his mighty chest and flanks, making him look grimmer and blacker by contrast; the valley was full of shadows, purple and gray; the old church was lightless save for the one dazzling arrow which was shivered against the slender tip of the spire, when Orrin undid the latch of the parsonage-gate. Provençal warmth and roses were things that belonged to the dead summer. Eunice's evergreens hardly redeemed the garden from desolation. A trim arbor-vitæ hedge kept warm the southern border, that would be gay in March with crocuses and tulips; the box-trees were the only leafy shrubs in the alley down which Jessie had crept, to faint in his arms at the other end. A thrifty holly, beaded with scarlet, mounted guard at the left of the front steps, as did a cedar, covered with bluish-white berries, at the right. A stately young pine he remembered as a favorite of Jessie's, filled the air with its solemn sighing, while he awaited the answer to his knock.
"So, Winter comes even to the Happy Valley!" he moralized. "I ought to have known it, of course, only I had not thought of it."
Patsey, the good-humored servant-girl, opened the door, and welcomed Mr. Wyllys with the broadest of smiles.
"Mr. Kirke and Miss Eunice is not at home, sir. They're a-visiting some place in the village. Miss Jessie is in, though. Be pleased to walk into the parlor, and I'll tell her you're here."
He heard swift feet skim the floor overhead as his name was repeated, and Jessie was in the room before he could take off his gloves. With a wild, scared face, lips that moved without sound, and eyes that demanded confirmation or denial of the dread that was strangling her heart, she caught his hands and looked up dumbly at him. His smile broke the spell sooner and more effectually than words could have done. She wrested her fingers from his, with a laugh so burdened with shame and happiness as to be more like a sob, testifying what had been the pressure and what was the release.
"I was sure"—
"That I was the bearer of bad news from abroad. I understand," Orrin took up the broken sentence. "You were never more mistaken. Your letter, enclosing Mrs. Baxter's, brought me. Your fears must take counsel of hope and faith another time. Roy was well when last heard from—well and happy, and, you may be sure, very busy. But what is this?" leading her to the window and scrutinizing her with fond solicitude. "What have you been doing with yourself? I am afraid he keeps his pledge of health, and resignation to the Inevitable better than you do yours to him. Are you not well? You have been sick, and I was not told of it!"