It rained again the following day, and though the downpour ceased in the late afternoon, great gray banks of clouds hung threateningly above the city. Nevertheless, tormented with the notion that we might at any time be separated for several weeks, I went again to the Monument to seek her.
She was there. Nor did she seem at all surprised that I had come.
“I am full of energy to-day,” she said, smiling a welcome. “Let us take a long walk together.”
“Good!” said I. “I will tell you about your father. As you know, I called on him Thursday afternoon.”
But from the Judge she quickly turned the subject to discussion that was wholly impersonal, and it was the same on the following Monday when I saw her again. Had it not been for the expression in her eyes with which she greeted me, listened when I talked to her and bade me good-bye when I left her, these would have been depressing meetings for me, because I thought that I could clearly see that she was holding me at arm’s length with that natural art of a good, true woman,—an art which needs no practice.
Imagine, then, my surprise, on this second occasion, when we had reached her door, when she had asked me to have tea and I had been forced to plead a previous engagement, when she stood there before me smiling, rosy, the form itself of health, beauty, and vivacity, and when her glance was raised to meet mine, I suddenly saw her smile fade and I thought her eyes were filling with tears.
She laughed, however,—a little choking laugh,—and looking down so that I could not see her face, she said, “I have liked these walks and chats with you better than any I have ever had.” And so she bade me good-night.
Only when I had gone from her did I recall that she had spoken as if our companionship was not to continue, as if, for some cause unknown to me, there was to be an end of our intimacy. The thought made me stop stock-still upon the pavement.
“And yet,” thought I, “might it not be—that she meant only to show that she is willing to continue our relationship—perhaps forever?”
Loving her as much as I did and wanting her—and no other on the breadth of the green earth—for my wife, this uncertainty was a torment which I could not stand. I remembered she had told me that the Judge walked each evening after his dinner, and I am ashamed to confess that the next evening dark found me waiting on their street corner, like a scullery maid’s beau, until I saw his stoop-shouldered figure come down the steps with the lank, grizzled “Laddie” behind, and heard the beat of his grapevine stick recede down the avenue.