“No, no; oh, no. I—oh, Mr. Gordon,” Maude began, but stopped abruptly, startled by something in the eyes of the man, who had never called her Maude before, and whose voice had never sounded as it did now, making every nerve thrill with a sudden joy, all the sweeter, perhaps, because she knew it must not be.
Wrenching her hand from his and springing to her feet she said, “It is growing late, and Miss Raynor is waiting for us. Have you forgotten her?”
He had forgotten her for one delirious moment, but she came back to him with a throb of pain and self-reproach that he had allowed himself to swerve in the slightest degree from his loyalty to her.
“I am not a man, but a traitor,” he said to himself, as he helped Maude into her saddle and then vaulted into his own.
The ride home was a comparatively silent one, for both knew that they had not been quite true to the woman who welcomed them back so sweetly and asked so many questions about their ride and what they had seen. Poor Grace; she did not in the least understand why Maude lavished so much attention upon her that evening, or why Max lingered longer than usual at her side, or why his voice was so tender and loving, when he at last said good-night and went to his own room, and the self-castigation which he knew awaited him there.
“I was a villain,” he said, as he recalled that little episode in the school-house, when to have put his arm around Maude Graham and held her for a moment, would have been like heaven to him. “I was false to Grace, although I did not mean it, and, God helping me, I will never be so again.” Then, as he remembered the expression of the eyes which had looked up so shyly at him, he said aloud, “Could I win her, were I free? But that is impossible. May God forgive me for the thought. Oh, why has Grace thrown her so much in my way? She surely is to blame for that, while I——well, I am a fool, and a knave, and a sneak.”
He called himself a great many hard names that night, and registered a vow that so long as Grace lived, and he said he hoped she would live forever, he would be true to her no matter how strong the temptation placed in his way. It was a fierce battle Max fought, but he came off conqueror, and the meeting between himself and Maude next morning was as natural as if to neither of them had ever come a moment when they had a glimpse of the happiness which, under other circumstances, might perhaps have been theirs. Maude, too, had had her hours of remorse and contrition and close questioning as to the cause of the strange joy which had thrilled every nerve when Max Gordon called her Maude and asked her if she hated him.
“Hate him! Never!” she thought; “but I have been false to the truest, best woman that ever lived. She trusted her lover to me, and——”
She did not quite know what she had done, but whatever it was it should not be repeated. There were to be no more rides, or drives, or talks alone with Max. And when next day Grace suggested that she go with him to an adjoining town where a fair was to be held, she took refuge in a headache and insisted that Grace should go herself, while Max, too, encouraged it, and tried to believe that he was just as happy with her beside him as he would have been with the young girl who brought a cushion for her mistress’ back and adjusted her shawl about her shoulders and arranged her bonnet strings, and then, kissing her fondly, said, “I am so glad that you are going instead of myself.”
This was for the benefit of Max, at whom she nodded a little defiantly, and who understood her meaning as well as if she had put it into words. Everything was over between them, and he accepted the situation, and during the remainder of his stay at the Cedars, devoted himself to Grace with an assiduity worthy of the most ardent lover. He even remained longer than he had intended doing, for Grace was loth to let him go, and the soft haze of early September was beginning to show on the Richland hills when he at last said good-bye, promising to come again at Christmas, if it were possible to do so.