Hetty yielded—the more, it would seem, because she had not the strength to resist love pleadings than from any desire for the “outing” recommended by Hester. Taking shawl and cushion with her, she passed down the garden alley to the gate. There was a broad track through the orchard, worn by the wheeled chair and Hester’s attendants. It led straight to the king apple tree. From this bourne another track, not so distinctly marked, diverged to the white picket fence shutting in the Gilchrist garden. Hetty’s feet had never trodden this, she reflected with a pang, after she had settled herself against the brown trunk. It was most probable that she never would.
Her one little dream was dead, and she was too practical a business woman to resuscitate it. Her consistent plan of avoiding March Gilchrist and abjuring the painful sweet of association with his sister was adopted before she returned to the house from her ineffectual quest for Homer and the parsley. She was filled with wonder, in looking back to the time—was it three minutes, or thirty?—she had wasted, leaning on the gate, enveloped in lilac perfume as in a viewless mantle, and daring to feel as other and unexceptional girls feel—that she could have forgotten herself so utterly. She said—“so shamelessly.”
“The worm on the earth may look up to the star,” if it fancies that method of spending an ignoble life, but star-gazing and presumptuous longing for a million centuries would bring planets and worms no nearer together. Hetty was very humble in imagining the figure. Some people must live on the shady side of the street, where rents are low, and green mold gathers upon stones, and snails crawl in areas. If the wretches who pune and pale in the malaria-breeding damps would not go mad, they must not look too often across the way where flowers and people bloom. If they do, they must support the consequences.
This misguided girl had looked. She was now suffering. That she merited what she had to bear did not make the pain less.
Unwittingly she had spread her shawl where March had laid his rug last night. The rough bark of the tree-bole hurt her presently. Her gown was thin, and her flesh less firm than it had been six weeks ago. She slid down upon the shawl, her head on the cushion, and reached out, in idle misery, to pick up some withered leaves and small, unripe apples scattered on the grass. March had dropped them while hearkening to his sister’s criticism of the Bohemian household. She was as idly—and as miserably—tearing apart the leaves toughened by the heat of the day, when she heard a joyous rush behind her and felt the panting of hot breath upon her neck, and Thor was kissing her face and licking her hands. She sprang to her feet and cast a wild glance along the path and under the trees. There was no one in sight. The grounds were peremptorily posted, and no vagrant foot ever crossed them. She took in the situation at once. March had gone to New York in the five o’clock train; the dog, wandering aimlessly about and missing his master, had espied her, and accepted her as a substitute. She knelt down and clasped her arms about his head, laid her cheek to his burly muzzle.
“O Thor! Thor! you would help me if you could.” Just as she had fondled him in those far-away, blissful days. Her hand was tangled in his coat when, looking across his huge bulk, she had met March Gilchrist’s eyes. True eyes—and bonny and true, which must never read her soul again.
“Thor! dear Thor!” She cried it out in a passion of tears.
The faithful fellow moaned a little in sympathy. The more eloquent than human longing to comfort the sorrowing, never seen except in a dog’s eyes, filled and rounded his.
“I wouldn’t cry if I could help it, dear,” said Hetty, her arch smile striking through the rain. “And nobody else should see me shed a tear. You are my only confidant; and I do believe you understand—a little.”
He was not an indifferent consoler, it appeared, for in fifteen minutes both of them were asleep, their heads upon the same pillow.