“She had—she has—very large, very rough, very red hands. I used to imagine myself kissing one of those hands when I should ask her to be my wife, and conjure up the grotesque smile of shy delight with which she would accept the unheard-of honor. The temptation to snatch and kiss that awful hand became so powerful that it cost me more effort than I can explain to resist its ceaseless promptings. And I would chuckle as I looked at it, and at the bizarre countenance that bent over the stocking that was in process of being darned—Jane’s peculiar, shuffling gait seemed to have a peculiarly wearing effect on stockings—and wonder, if she knew, how she would look, what she would say? Then she would thread her needle, or bite the end of her worsted.... That hand! that hand! The struggle between the masterful impulse to seize and kiss it, and the shuddering desire not to do anything of the kind, would, upon these occasions, be perfectly indescribable. And—one day—the very day that saw the completion of my book—I yielded!�
“Yes?� we cry, interrogatively. All our eyes are rounded, all our mouths wide open.
“She saw some of my papers flutter to the carpet as I pushed back my chair,� Andrew continues, “and obligingly crossed the room, stooped and gathered them up. A kind of mist came over my eyes, and when it cleared away, she was there—by my side—holding the written sheets out to me. That hand! I must—I must! Before the poor creature could hazard a guess at my intentions, I seized it—I kissed it—with a resounding smack. I cried deliriously, ‘Jane, will you be my wife? I adore you, Jane!’�
“And what did she do? What did she say?...�
“I’m coming to that! She drew away from me, and turned very white, and her poor red hands trembled, and her little button features twitched absurdly with the effort she made to keep from crying. But, as I seized her hands, and went on with my wild asseverations and protestations—Heaven only knows what I said!—the absurdity of the whole thing came on her, and she burst out laughing wildly. Then I caught the infection, and followed suit. Once I began, I couldn’t stop. I was shaken like a rag in the wind—torn, possessed by seven devils of risibility. But I went on raging, all through it, that she must marry me! At last she tore herself away, and ran out of the room, breathlessly to burst upon my housekeeper with the information that ‘Master was mad, and wanted the doctor.’ And she was not far wrong, for by the time he came I was fit for nothing but to be carried to bed. Twenty-four hours later I was raving in brain fever. Seven weeks that red-hot torture lasted, and then I came to myself, and found that through all the delirium and fever I had been patiently, uncomplainingly, tenderly nursed by poor Jane....�
Andrew’s voice grows a little husky as he nears the finish.
“Well, when I was convalescent, and knew that I owed my life to her devotion, it seemed to me that only one reparation was possible for the wrong I had done Jane. It was a hard thing to do—the madness being over—the morbid impulse that had swayed me being no longer in the ascendant. But I did it! You may have noticed�—he clears his husky throat—“that is, those among you who have spoken to Ladds—that she has a singularly sweet voice—a voice curiously out of keeping with her personality. Well, when she thanked me for my ‘kindness’ and—refused me, I might, supposing my eyes had been shut, have fancied that I was listening to a beautiful woman. She had been ‘marked out by the Lord’ to lead a lonely life, she said. When she was a young girl it used to make her cry when the lads went by her, ‘wi’ their vaices turned away,’ and the girls laughed when she put on a ribbon or a flower. But she got used to it; and she quite understood that I was trying to make up—like a gentleman as I was;—(a mighty poor kind of gentleman, I felt)—‘for summat as I’d said when I didn’t know what I was a-saying!’ Crazy people had queer ideas, and the village ‘softy’ had once taken it into his head that he was in love with Jane.... And she thanked me for sticking to my word now that I was well, and she’d be my faithful servant always and for ever, Amen! Years have passed since then.... Well, she has kept her word. I hope, when the end of everything comes for me, that honest, tender, devoted heart will be beating by my pillow. I hope——�
Andrew breaks off abruptly, and gets up and wishes us all good night.
A VANISHED HAND
“WHY,� Daymond wrote, “do you imagine that I shall despise you for this confession? None but a whole-souled, high-hearted woman could have made it! You have said you love me, frankly; and I say in return that had the fountains of my heart not been hopelessly dried up at their sources, they must have sprung forth gladly at such words from you. But the passion of love, dear friend, it is for me no more to know; and I hold you in too warm regard to offer you, in exchange for shekels of pure Ophir gold, a defaced and worthless coinage!�