“I have come back, papa,” said she.
Chapter XXXIII
For the first time in his life Arthur Carroll had a perfect sense of the staying power, of the impregnable support, of love and the natural ties of humanity. Charlotte's slender arms closed around his neck; she stood, half-weeping, half-laughing, leaning against him, but in reality he leaned against her, the soul of the man against the soul of the girl, and he got from it a strength which was stronger than life or death. He felt that it bent not one whit before his terrible weight of misery and perplexity. He was stayed.
“I came back, papa,” Charlotte repeated. She was herself a little terrified by what seemed to her a daring action; then, too, she dimly perceived something beneath the surface which made her tremble. She felt the despairing weight of the other soul against her own. She stood still, clinging to her father, saying in her little, quivering voice that she had come back, and he was quite still, until at last he made a little sound like a dry sob, and Charlotte straightened herself and took his hand firmly in her little, soft one. The girl became all in a second a woman, with the full-fledged instincts of one. She knew just what to do for a man in a moment of weakness. She towered, by virtue of the maternal instinct within her, high above her father in spiritual strength.
“Papa, come into the house,” said she, and her voice seemed no longer Charlotte's, but echoed from the man's far-off childhood. “Come into the house, papa,” she said; “come.” And Carroll followed her into the house, like a child, his hands clasped firmly and commandingly by the little, soft one of his daughter.
Charlotte led her father into the dining-room, which was warm and light. There was a Franklin stove in there, and a bright fire burned in it.
“The furnace fire had gone out, and I could not do anything with that, so I made a fire in this stove,” Charlotte explained. “I made it burn very easily.” She spoke with a childish pride. It was, in fact, the first time she had ever made a fire. “The fire in the kitchen-range was low, too,” she said, “but I put some coal on and I poked it, and there is a beautiful bed of coals to cook the beefsteak.” Then Charlotte caught herself up short. “Oh, the beefsteak will burn!” she cried, anxiously. “Do sit down, papa, and wait a minute. I must see to the beefsteak.”
With that Charlotte ran into the kitchen, and Carroll dropped into the nearest chair. He felt dazed and happy, with the happiness of a man waking to consciousness from an awful incubus of nightmare, and yet a deadly sense of guilt and shame was beginning to steal over him. That bottle of chloroform in his pocket stung his soul like the worm, which gnaweth the conscience unceasingly, of the Scriptures. He thought vaguely of removing it, of concealing it somewhere. He looked at the china-closet, the door of which stood ajar; he looked at the sideboard with its glitter of cut glass and silver; but reflected that Charlotte might directly go to either and discover it, and make inquiries. He kept it in his pocket.
He heard Charlotte running about in the kitchen. He continued to smell the broiling beefsteak and tea, and also toast. He became conscious of a healthy hunger. He had eaten nothing since morning, and very little then. Then he gathered his faculties together enough to wonder how this had come about; how and why Charlotte had returned. But he sat still in the chair beside the Franklin stove. He gazed steadily into the red glow of the coals, and a strange dimness came over his vision. A species of counter-hypnotism seemed to overcome him. He had been in an abnormal state, superinduced by unhealthy suggestions of the imagination acting upon a mind ill at ease; now his natural state gradually asserted itself. His mind swung slowly back to its normal poise. When Charlotte entered, bearing a platter of beefsteak, he turned to her quite naturally.
“How did it happen, darling?” he asked.