With a gesture of impatience Guy was about to answer, when something in the heavy fall of the little hand from his shoulder alarmed him, and lifting up the drooping head he saw that Maddy had fainted. Then back across the meadow Guy bore her to the cottage, where Flora, just returned from a neighbor’s, whither she had gone upon an errand, was looking for her in much affright, and wondering who had come from Aikenside with that wet, tired horse, showing so plainly how hard it had been driven.
Up again into her little chamber Maddy was carried and laid upon the bed, which she never left until the golden harvest sheaves were gathered in, and the hot September sun was ripening the fruits of autumn. But now she had a new nurse, a constant attendant, who during the day seldom left her except to talk with and amuse Uncle Joseph, mourning below because no one sang to him or noticed him as Maddy used to do. He had not been sent to the asylum, as Maddy feared, but by way of relieving Flora had been taken to Farmer Green’s, where he was so homesick and discontented that at Guy’s instigation he was suffered to return to the cottage, crying like a little child when the old familiar spot was reached, kissing his armchair, the cook-stove, the tongs, Mrs. Noah and Flora, and timidly offering to kiss the Lord Governor himself, as he persisted in calling Guy, who declined the honor, but listened quietly to the crazy man’s promise “not to spit the smallest kind of a spit on the floor, or anywhere, except in its proper place.”
Guy had passed through several states of mind during the interval in which we have seen so little of him. Furious at one time, and reckless as to consequences, he had determined to break with Lucy and marry Maddy, in spite of everybody; then, as a sense of honor came over him, he resolved to forget Maddy, if possible, and marry Lucy at once. It was in this last mood, and while roaming over the Western country, whither after his banishment he had gone, that he wrote to Lucy a strange kind of letter, saying he had waited for her long enough, and sick or well he should claim her the coming autumn. To this letter Lucy had responded quickly, sweetly reproving Guy for his impatience, softly hinting that latterly he had been quite as culpable as herself in the matter of deferring their union and appointing the bridal day for the—of December. After this was settled Guy felt better, though the old sore spot in his heart, where Maddy Clyde had been, was very sore still, and sometimes it required all his powers of self-control to keep from writing to Lucy and asking to be released from an engagement so irksome as his had become. Neglecting to answer Agnes’ letters when he first left home, she did not know where he was until a short time before, when she wrote apprising him of grandpa’s death and Maddy’s severe illness. This brought him, while Maddy’s involuntary outburst when she met him in the graveyard, changed the whole current of his intentions. Let what would come, Maddy Clyde should be his wife and as such he watched over her, nursing her back to life, and by his manner effectually silencing all remark, so that the neighbors whispered among themselves what Maddy’s prospects were, and, as was quite natural, were a very little more attentive to the future lady of Aikenside. Poor Maddy! it was a terrible trial which awaited her, but it must be met, and so with prayers and tears she fortified herself to meet it, while Guy, the devoted lover, hung over her, never guessing of all that was passing in her mind, or how, when he was out of sight, the lips he had longed so much to kiss, but never had since that day in the graveyard, quivered with anguish as they asked for strength to do right. Oh, how Maddy did love the man she must give up, and how often went up the wailing cry, “Help me, Father, to do my duty, and give me, too, a greater inclination to do it than I now possess.”
Maddy’s heart did fail her sometimes, and she might have yielded to the temptation but for Lucy’s letter, full of eager anticipations of the time when she should see Guy never to part again.
“Sometimes,” she wrote, “there comes over me a dark foreboding of evil—a fear that I shall miss the cup now within my reach; but I pray the bad feelings away. I am sure there is no living being who will come between us to break my heart, and as I know God doeth all things well, I trust Him wholly, and cease to doubt.”
It was well the letter came when it did, as it helped Maddy to meet the hour she so much dreaded, and which came at last on an afternoon when Mrs. Noah had gone to Aikenside, and Flora had gone on an errand to a neighbor’s, two miles away, thus leaving Guy free to tell the story, the old, old story, yet always new to him who tells it and her who listens—story which, as Guy told it, sitting by Maddy’s side, with her hands in his, thrilled her through and through, making the sweat drops start out around her lips and underneath her hair—story which made Guy himself pant nervously and tremble like a leaf, so earnestly he told it; told how long he had loved her, of the picture withheld, the jealousy he felt each time the doctor named her, the selfish joy he experienced when he heard the doctor was refused; told of his growing dissatisfaction with his engagement, his frequent resolves to break it, his final decision, which that scene in the graveyard had reversed, and then asked if she would not be his—not doubtfully, but confidently, eagerly, as if sure of her answer.
Alas for Guy! he could not believe he heard aright when, turning her head away for a moment while she prayed for strength, Maddy’s answer came, “I cannot, Guy, I cannot. I acknowledge the love which has stolen upon me, I know not how, but I cannot do this wrong to Lucy. Away from me you will love her again. You must. Read this, Guy, then say if you can desert her.”
She placed Lucy’s letter in his hand, and Guy read it with a heart which ached to its very core. It was cruel to deceive that gentle, trusting girl writing so lovingly of him, but to lose Maddy was to his undisciplined nature more dreadful still, and casting the letter aside he pleaded again, this time with the energy of despair, for he read his fate in Maddy’s face, and when her lips a second time confirmed her first reply, while she appealed to his sense of honor, of justice, of right, and told him he could and must forget her, he knew there was no hope, and man though he was, bowed his head upon Maddy’s hands and wept stormily, mighty, choking sobs, which shook his frame, and seemed to break up the very fountains of his life. Then to Maddy there came a terrible temptation. Was it right for two who loved as they did to live their lives apart?—right in her to force on Guy the fulfillment of vows he could not literally keep? As mental struggles are always the more severe, so Maddy’s took all her strength away, and for many minutes she lay so white and still that Guy roused himself to care for her, thinking of nothing then except to make her better.
It was a long time ere that interview ended, but when it did there was on Maddy’s face a peaceful expression, which only the sense of having done right at the cost of a fearful sacrifice could give, while Guy’s bore traces of a great and crushing sorrow, as he went out from Maddy’s presence and felt that to him she was lost forever. He had promised her he would do right; had said he would marry Lucy, being to her what a husband should be; had listened while she talked of another world, where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, and where it would not be sinful for them to love each other, and as she talked her face had shone like the face of an angel. He had held one of her hands at parting, bending low his head, while she laid the other on it as she blessed him, letting her snowy fingers thread his soft brown hair and linger caressingly among his curly locks. But that was over now. They had parted forever. She was lying where he left her, cold, and white, and faint with dizzy pain. He was riding swiftly toward Aikenside, his heart beats keeping time to the swift tread of his horse’s feet, and his mind a confused medley of distracted thoughts, amid which two facts stood out prominent and clear-he had lost Maddy Clyde, and had promised her to marry Lucy Atherstone.
For many days after that Guy kept his room, saying he was sick, and refusing to see any one save Jessie and Mrs. Noah, the latter of whom guessed in part what had happened, and imputing to him far more credit than he deserved, petted and pitied and cared for him until he grew weary of it, and said to her savagely: “You needn’t think me so good, for I am not. I wanted Maddy Clyde, and told her so, but she refused me and made me promise to marry Lucy; so I’m going to do that very thing—going to England in a few weeks, or as soon as Maddy is better, and before the sun of this year sets I shall be a married man.”