"I know I have no right to say anything, Hertha," he went on, "I'm poor still, but I can't go away again without telling you a little of what I think of every minute of my life."
The broad path had many people upon it, the most of them, like themselves, on their way home. Hertha looked about as though asking him to say nothing then, but the young man continued in a low voice:
"I haven't anything to say but what you know and every one else knows who sees you and me. I love you like I didn't believe any one could love another. I don't ask for anything but to work for you, hoping some time that you'll take what I have to give. It just about kills me to see you worrying about your work or money. It's for a man to do that. Don't worry, dear," he said the word again, almost in a whisper, "we can walk along together. Let me carry the things."
"No!" Hertha said in a whisper. "Seems to me like it was meant I should carry them alone."
But she did not take the coat from him when they reached the house, letting him take it to her room. He laid it on her bed and at once went out, without glancing her way, but when he turned to her at dinner where she sat beside him he could see a troubled look in her eyes. He felt as though he had stirred the waters, just a little, as he had stirred the lake with his oar that afternoon.
CHAPTER XXVII
The look of happiness on Dick's face made Hertha pass a restless night. She tossed for a long time on her bed, and only fell into a deep sleep by morning. And from this she was awakened by a vivid dream. She was back in her old home among the pines, and never in her waking hours had she seen the cabin more clearly, its log walls, the weeds growing out of the white sand. And as she saw her own home, she saw, too, the home of the whites with its overhanging vines and its broad balcony. In her dream she moved through one and then another, but each room was deserted and empty. She ran among the pines and under the live-oaks, draped with their fringe of swaying moss, but on all her way encountered no human being; only against the blue sky was a long wavering line of birds. The loneliness overwhelmed her, it bore down upon her like a physical weight, until, struggling against the feeling of oppression, she awoke into the hot morning, threw off her blanket and raised herself on her pillow the better to breathe.
As she dressed and thought of her dream, she was overcome with remorse. If the homes were empty, it was because she had made them so. Their life was in her thought, and she had deliberately thrust them far back in her mind. Her lover, whom she tried hard to despise; Miss Patty, who had shown her so many kindnesses; her mother and sister and brother—the command to her heart had been that they should be forgotten. Standing before her mirror and coiling her hair, her hands shook as she thought of the death of her past. And she resolved that before long, when she could reach a decision as to the present, she would bring at least some of the figures back to the empty rooms.
The time had come, she told herself, to determine upon her next step. It was neither kind nor right to play month after month with a man's affection, allowing him to spend money upon her, to grow daily to care more for her, if she was sure that she could never care for him. She sighed a little at her conscientiousness, for Dick, when he kept where he belonged, was a pleasant adjunct to her life. And her second decision must be in regard to her profession. If she could not do better at stenography, she must cease to spend her income trying to master the subject. It would never do to stay on here exhausting her legacy fruitlessly. She turned from her mirror to her desk and took up a calendar that hung above it. To-day was May 22. School would be over on June 24. The day after that would be Saturday. Putting a circle around the date, June 25, she determined in her mind that she would at that time definitely decide on her next step. This resolution taken, she was genuinely relieved, for she knew that, as she would have obeyed such a mark at school had it meant the handing in of a problem or a written paper, so she would obey it now in her difficult life. It was with a feeling of righteous satisfaction, as though the decision had already been reached, that she went down to breakfast.