A Man: His Mark. A Romance / Second Edition

by W. C. Morrow

“He seems to have recovered at last from the alarming depression that followed his outbreak, and this gives me leisure to think, leisure to recall many circumstances that in my blindness, my incredible blindness and stupidity, I had overlooked. I take into account the fearful strain under which he had suffered so long. He is a delicate, finely organized man, and has had more to do and to bear than a dozen strong men would have done and borne so well and patiently.

“There was his anxiety on the score of my recovery. Then there were the endless duties of waiting on me, of thinking of the thousands of little things that had to be thought of and done, and that he never forgot nor neglected. He has done my cooking, my washing,—everything that was hard and distasteful for a man to do. Then there was his constant anxiety on account of the snow; and it has been growing daily all through the winter with the increasing dangers and discomforts; and besides his anxiety was the hard physical labor—far too heavy for him—that he has been compelled to do in order to keep our hut from being buried and ourselves from being smothered. And, last, there has been the constant wearing upon him of a close imprisonment with me, for whom I know he now must have a most intense dislike.

“I am satisfied, too, that he has anxieties concealed from me. That they are associated with something upon which the back door opens, I have no doubt. There are several reasons for my thinking so. I am so nearly well now that I could get about and be helpful to him if he would only make me a crutch, as I have often begged him to do; but he has always put me off, saying that it was too early for a crutch, that my desire to be useful would give me a serious setback through making me overdo, and that the main thing for us both to consider was the return of my strength as quickly as possible, and our escape on snow-shoes that he would make as soon as I should be able to walk. It has all sounded very plausible, but it seems to me that common-sense would suggest that I take a little exercise. In spite of my having regained my flesh, I am as weak as an infant. Knowing that he is a good physician, I doubt his sincerity about the crutch. I believe the solemn truth is that he fears I would try to invade his cherished secret if I were able to be about.

“I know that he keeps the provisions in the place into which the back door opens, and that this fact seems to give him a sufficient excuse for going there so often,—especially as he does the cooking there; and that is another strange circumstance. For weeks after I was first brought to the hut he prepared the food on the broad hearth here; but after a while he did that in the rear apartment, explaining that the odors from the cooking were not good for me, and that it was uncomfortable for him to cook before an open fireplace. I protested that I did not mind the odors, and he replied that I would at least consider his comfort.

“Another thing: He has not eaten with me for a long, long time. His original plan was to prepare my meal, wait on me until I had finished, and then have his own at the little table in the chimney-corner. I did not observe for some time that he had quit eating in that way, and that he took his meals in the rear apartment. He always speaks of it as an ‘apartment,’ and not as a room. I wonder why. I have been sitting up for a long time now, and do not require his assistance after he has brought me my food. It would be much pleasanter if he would sit at the little table and eat with me. Is his dislike of me so deep that he cannot eat with me? With all my sense, I have permitted this condition of affairs to come about! And we both are sufferers by it.

“It is no wonder, with all these things troubling him, that he has changed so much since I came. He is as scrupulously neat as ever, and he makes this poor little hut shine, but he has changed remarkably since I came. It has been so gradual that I didn’t observe it until my blindness was no longer sufficient to keep me from seeing it. He was slender and evidently not strong when I came, but he has become a shadow, and his gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes are distressing to me. When he comes in now from fighting the snow,—for we must not be buried by it, and must have light and air, and the top of the chimney must be kept clear,—his weakness and exhaustion, though he tries so hard to conceal them, are terrible to see.

“And now a great fear has come to me. It is that at any moment he may break down and die. I wish I had not written that, I wish I had never thought of it. Oh, if my father would only come! What can be keeping him? Do I not know that he loves me better than anything else in the world? Am I not all that he has to love and cling to? I cannot, cannot, understand it. Dr. Malbone says it is unreasonable for me to expect my father, and that if he should make the effort to reach me now it would be at too great a risk to his own life. He tries to assure me that my father will be governed entirely by the advice of the people who know the mountains, and that they will restrain him from making any such attempt, as they would not dare to make it themselves. All that may be true, but it is difficult for me to believe it. If I could only get a word from him, it would give me greater strength to bear the horrors of my situation. But why should I complain, when Dr. Malbone bears it all so patiently, so sweetly, so cheerfully?

“Still, that awful picture of murder comes between me and these pages unceasingly. I think I can understand now why men sometimes kill women. Why should men and women be so different? Why should it be impossible for them to comprehend each other? It was Murder that I saw standing before me—both the horrible picture of murder as he painted it, with me as the murderess—me as the murderess!—and Murder in the flesh as he stood ready to strangle me. Oh, the incredible ferocity of the man, the terrible, wild savagery of him, the awful dark and nether side of his strangely complex character! All along I had taken him for a pusillanimous milksop, a baby, an old woman, a weak nobody; and at once he dropped his outer shell and stood forth a Man,—terrible, savage, brutal, overwhelming, splendid, wonderful! What is my judgment worth after this? And I was so proud of my understanding of men!

“Why didn’t he kill me? It was my cry that checked him; but why should it? Was it my appeal for help that brought him to his senses? I think so. It touched that within him which had been so keenly alert, so unrelaxingly vigilant, ever since I had come under his care. But what did he mean by the howl of the she-wolf? And what did he mean by saying that the wolves had come down? Several times since that terrible scene he has waked me in the night with groans, and with crying out in his sleep, ‘The she-wolf?’ These things have a meaning, I know. Why does he explain nothing? And why have I permitted an estrangement between us that makes it impossible for me to seek his confidence? Is it too late now?

“Oh, the terrible moments, the interminable hours, that passed after he had left the hut by the rear door! Every second, at first, I expected him to return and kill me. Would he have a rifle, a revolver, a knife, or a bludgeon, or would he come with those terrible long fingers hooked like claws to fasten upon my throat? And yet, somehow, I felt safe; I felt that his old watchfulness and solicitude had returned.