Quiney turned to the window.
"Too late—too late!" said he. "And yet I spared not the nag."
"You have done all that man could do," her father said, going to him. "Nay, had I myself guessed that she was in such peril—but 'tis past recall now."
And then he took the young man by the hand, and grasped it firmly.
"Good lad," said he, "this that you did for us was a right noble act of kindness, and I trust in Heaven's mercy that Judith herself may live to thank you. As for me, my thanks to you are all too poor and worthless; and I must be content to remain your debtor—and your friend."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
AN AWAKENING.
It was going ill with her. Late one night, Quiney, who had kept hovering about the house, never able to sit patiently and watch the anxious coming and going within-doors, and never able to tear himself away but for a few hundred yards, wandered out into the clear starlit darkness. His heart was full. They had told him the crisis was near at hand. And almost it seemed to him that it was already over. Judith was going away from them. And those stars overhead—he knew but little of their names; he understood but little of the vast immensities and deeps that lay between them; they were to him but as grains of light in a darkened floor: and far above that floor rose the wonderful shining city that he had heard of in the Book of Revelation. And already, so wild and unstrung were his fancies, he could see the four square walls of jasper, and the gates of pearl, and the wide white steps leading up to these; and who was that who went all alone—giving no backward thought to any she was leaving behind—up those shining steps, with a strange light on her forehead and on her trembling hands? He saw her slowly kneel at the gate, her head meekly bowed, her hands clasped. And when they opened it, and when she rose, and made to enter, he could have cried aloud to her for one backward look, one backward thought, toward Stratford town and the friends of her childhood and her youth. Alas! there was no such thing. There was wonder on her face, as she turned to this side and to that, and she went hesitatingly; and when they took her hands to lead her forward, she regarded them—this side and that—pleased and wondering and silent; but there was never a thought of Stratford town. Could that be Judith that was going away from them so—she that all of them had known so dearly? And to leave her own friends without one word of farewell! Those others there—she went with them smiling and wondering, and looking in silence from one to the other—but she knew them not. Her friends were here—here—with breaking hearts because she had gone away and forgotten them, and vanished within those far-shining gates.
And then some sudden and sullen thought of the future would overtake him. The injunctions laid on him by Judith's father could not be expected to last forever. And if this were to be so—if the love and desire of his youth were to be stolen away from him—if her bright young life, that was so beautiful a thing to all who knew her, was to be extinguished, and leave instead but a blankness and an aching memory through the long years—then there might arrive a time for a settlement. The parson was still coming about the house, for the women-folk were comforted by his presence; but Judith's father regarded him darkly, and had scarce ever a word for him. As for Quiney, he moved away, or left the house, when the good man came near—it was safer so. But in the future? When one was freer to act? For those injunctions could not be expected to last forever; and what greater joy could then be secured than the one fierce stroke of justice and revenge? He did not reason out the matter much: it was a kind of flame in his heart whenever he thought of it.