University of Virginia Library

54. CHAPTER LIV.
ROGER AND MAGDALEN.

HE was sleeping quietly, and his forehead was fully exposed
to view, with the brown curls clustering around
it, and an occasional frown or shadow flitting across it as
if the pain were felt even in his sleep. How Magdalen's fingers
tingled to thread those curls, and smooth that broad, white brow;
but she dared not for fear of waking him, and she held her breath

and stood looking at him as he slept, feeling a keen throb of sorrow
as she saw how he had changed and knew what had changed
him. He was much thinner than when she saw him last, and
there were lines about his mouth and a few threads of silver in
his brown beard, while his eyes, as he slept, seemed hollow and
sunken.

There was a stool just at her feet, and she pushed it to his
side, and seating herself upon it prepared to watch and wait until
his heavy slumber ended. And while she waited she looked
around and noted all the marks of a refined taste which Roger
had gathered about him, — the books, the pictures, the flowers
and shells, and lastly, a little crayon sketch of herself, drawn evidently
from memory, and representing her as she sat by the river
bank years ago, when first Roger Irving felt that his interest in his
beautiful ward was more than a mere liking. It was hanging
close to Jessie's picture, and Magdalen sat gazing at it until she
forgot where she was, and was back again beneath the old tree by
the river bank, with Roger at her side. Suddenly she gave a
long, deep sigh, and then Roger awoke, and met the glance of
her bright eyes, and saw her face so near to him, and knew that
his long night of sorrow was over, else she had never been there,
kneeling by him as she was, with her hands holding his and her
tears dropping so fast as she tried to speak to him.

“Magda, Magda, my darling,” was all he could say as he
drew her into his arms and held her there a moment in a close
embrace.

Then releasing her he lay down upon his pillow, pale as
death and utterly prostrated with the neuralgic pain which the
sudden excitement and surprise had brought back again.

“You take my breath away; when did you come, and why?”
he asked; and then releasing her hands from his, Magdalen
took the deed from her pocket and changing her position held
it before his eyes, saying: “I came to bring this, Roger; to
make restitution; to give you back Millbank, which, but for me,
you would not have lost. See, it is made out to you! Millbank

is yours again. I bought it with my own money, —
bought it for you, — I give it to you, — it is yours.”

She spoke rapidly and kept reiterating that Millbank was his,
because of the look on his face which she did not quite understand.
He was too much bewildered and confounded to know
what to say, and for a moment was silent, while his eyes ran
rapidly over the paper, which, beyond a doubt, made him
master of Millbank again.

“Why did you do this, Magda?” he said at last, and his chin
quivered a little as he said it.

Then Magdalen burst out impulsively, “Oh, Roger, don't
look as if you were not glad. I've thought so much about it,
and wanted to do something by way of amends. I saved all
my salary, every dollar, before I knew I was Magdalen Grey,
and was going to send it to you, but Guy laughed me out of it,
and said you did not need it: then, when father died and
I knew I was rich, my first thought was of you, and when I heard
Millbank was to be sold, I said, `I'll buy it for Roger if it
takes every cent I am worth;' and I have bought it, and given
it to you, and you must take it and go back there and live. I
shall never be happy till you do.”

She stopped here, but she was kneeling still, and her tearful,
flushed face was very near to Roger, who could interpret her
words and manner in only one way, and that a way which made
the world seem like heaven to him.

“Magda,” he said, winding his arm around her and drawing
her hot cheek close to his own, “let me ask one question.
I can't live at Millbank alone. If I take it of you, who will
live there with me?”

Hester had asked a similar question, but Magdalen did not
reply to Roger just as she had to the old lady. There was a
little dash of coquetry in her manner, which would not perhaps
have appeared had she been less sure of her position.

“I suppose Hester will live with you, of course,” she said.
“She does nicely for you here. She is not so very old.”

There was a teasing look in Magdalen's eyes, which told Roger

he had nothing to fear, and raising himself up he drew her down
beside him and said: “I ask you to be candid with me, Magda.
We have wasted too much time not to be in earnest now.
Your coming to me as you have could only be construed in
one way, were you like most girls; but you are not. You are
impulsive. You think no evil, see no evil, but do just what
your generous heart prompts you to do. Now, tell me, darling,
was it sympathy and a desire to make restitution, as you designate
it, or was it love which sent you here when I had ceased
to hope you would ever come. Tell me, Magda, do you, can
you love your old friend and guardian, who has been foolish
enough to hold you in his heart all these many years, even when
he believed himself indifferent to you?”

Roger was talking in sober earnest, and his arm deepened its
clasp around Magda's waist, and his lips touched the shining
hair of the bowed head which drew back a moment from him,
then drooped lower and lower until it rested in his bosom, as
Magdalen burst into a flood of tears and sobs. For a moment
she did not try to speak; then, with a desperate effort to be calm,
she lifted up her head and burst out with, “I never got your
letter, never knew it was written until a few weeks ago.
Father kept it. Forgive him, Roger; remember he was my
father, and he is dead,” she cried vehemently, as she saw the
dark frown gathering on Roger's face. Yes, he was her father,
and he was dead, and that kept Roger from cursing the man
who had wronged him in his childhood, through his mother,
and touched him still closer in his later manhood, by keeping
him so long from Magdalen.

“Father told me at the last,” Magdalen said. “He was sorry
he kept it, and he bade me tell you so. He did not dislike
you. It was the name, the association; and he hoped I might
forget you, but I didn't. I have remembered you all through the
long years since that dreadful day when I found the will, and
it hurt me so to think you wanted me to marry Frank. That
was the hardest of all.”

“But you know better now. I told you in my letter of Frank's

confession,” Roger said, and Magdalen replied, “Yes, I know
better now. Everything is clear, else I had never come here
to bring you Millbank, and — and, myself, if you will take me.
Will you, Roger? It is leap year, you know. I have a right
to ask.”

She spoke playfully, and her eyes looked straight into his own,
while for answer he took her in his arms, and kissed her forehead
and lips and hair, and she felt that he was praying silently over her,
thanking Heaven for this precious gift which had come to him at
last. Then he spoke to her and said, “I take you, Magda, willingly,
gladly; oh how gladly Heaven only knows, and as I cannot
well take you without the incumbrance of Millbank, I accept that,
too; and darling, though this may not be the time to say it, there
has already been so much of business and money and lands
mixed up with our love, that I may, I am sure, tell you I am
able of myself to buy the mill in Belvidere and the site of the
old shoe-shop. Frank wanted me to do it, and I put him off
with saying I would wait until I knew who was to live at Millbank.
I know now,” and again he rained his kisses upon the
face of her who was to be his wife and the undisputed mistress,
as he was the master, of Millbank.

A long time they talked together of the past, which now
seemed to fade away so fast in the blissful joy of the present;
and Magdalen told him of little Roger Irving, whose godmother
she was, and of her mother and Alice, and the home at
Beechwood, where Guy Seymour's family would continue to live.

“It's the same house my father built for Jessie, — for your
mother,” Magdalen said, softly, and glanced up at the picture
on the wall, whose blue eyes seemed to look down in blessing
upon this pair to whom the world was opening so brightly.

Then they talked of Frank and Bell and Mrs. Walter Scott,
and by that time the summer sun was low in the western horizon,
and Hester's tea-table was spread with every delicacy the
place could afford; while Hester herself was fine and grand in
her second-best black silk, which nothing less than Magdalen's
arrival could have induced her to wear on a week-day.

Guy, too, had made his appearance after waiting in vain for
Magdalen's return. Hester remembered him, and welcomed
him warmly, and told him “the young folks was up chamber,
billin' and cooin' like two turtle doves,” whereupon Guy began
to whistle “Highland Mary,” which Magdalen heard, and starting
up, exclaimed:

“There's Guy come for me! I must go now back to the
hotel.”

But she did not go, for Roger would not permit it, and he
kept her there that night, and the next day took her to his
favorite place of resort, — the rock under the pine, — and seating
her upon the mossy bank knelt beside her, and gave thanks
anew to Heaven, who had heard and answered the prayer made
so often under that tasselled pine, — that if it were right Magda
should one day come to him as his. Then they went all over
the farm and down to the mill, where some of the operatives
who had lived in Belvidere and knew Magdalen came to speak
with her, thus raising themselves in the estimation of the less
favored ones, who gazed admiringly at the beautiful young girl,
rightly guessing the relation she held to Mr. Irving, and feeling
glad for him.

No repairs were needed at Millbank, and but few changes;
so that the house was ready any time for its new proprietors,
but Magdalen would not consent to going there as its mistress
until September, for she wanted the atmosphere thoroughly
cleared from the taint of Mrs. Walter Scott's presence, and
it would take more than a few weeks for that. She liked
Bell and she pitied Frank; but Mrs. Walter Scott was her
special aversion, and so long as she remained at Millbank,
Magdalen could not endure even to cross its threshold. Still
it seemed necessary that she should do so before her return to
Beechwood, and on the morning following the peaceful Sunday
spent at Schodick she returned to Belvidere, which by this
time was rife with the conjectures that Roger was coming
back to Millbank and Magdalen was coming with him.