University of Virginia Library

47. CHAPTER XLVII.
THE BLUEBEARD CLOSET.

The fossil remains of Ironstone Mountain
proved even more interesting to Mr. Chappelleford
than he had expected, and as Brent's
coöperation in his researches and his hospitality
to both his guests were evidently a
great pleasure to himself as well as to them,
the period of their visit was extended day after
day, until it had reached nearly three
weeks. Mr. Chappelleford was now busily
engaged in making casts of some of the most
curious of the antediluvian relies which he
had discovered, and kept both himself and the
workmen Brent had placed at his disposal actively
employed. Brent helped him when
necessary, and when he found that the savant
preferred solitude, or the companionship only
of the laborers, he devoted himself to entertaining
Mrs. Chappelleford, who, either upon
foot or mounted upon Ruth's active little
pony, amused herself by exploring the mountain-passes,
points of view, and curious freaks
of nature, with which the region abounded.
In some of these excursions, she was escorted
by her husband—sometimes, when he and
Brent were engaged, by Paul Freeman, with
whom she liked to talk of old Milvor days,
and sometimes by her host only.

In the beginning of this intimate association,
Beatrice had vigilantly, although most
guardedly, watched every look, word, or intimation

[ILLUSTRATION]

"The crest of Ironstone."

[Description: 454EAF. Page 121. In-line image of a man and woman standing on a rock outlook, gazing over green land bisected by a curving river while sunlight streams through clouds.] of feeling in her companion, determined
to repress all sentiment, or even allusion,
to the past, with unsparing scorn. But
she soon found she had no occasion for her
armor. Brent—always courteous, always
frank and cheerful, but never familiar, never
retrospective, never even silent and preöccupied
— appeared so little like a despondent
lover, so little like the despairing and desperate
man whom Ruth had pictured, that Mrs.
Chappelleford herself fell more and more often
into reverie in his presence, recalling the
old tender scenes that had passed between
them, recalling the constancy, the tenderness
of his nature as she had known him, wondering
if indeed he could have so completely
changed, or if this were only acting, until at
length the desire to penetrate beneath that
calm and debonair exterior, to the Bluebeard
chamber far within became almost irresistible,
and from dreading all allusion to the past,
avoiding all questions of sentiment or personality,
she came to seeking eagerly for the opportunity
of introducing them, and of leading the
conversation, when alone with Brent, to a confidential
turn.

But here, to her amazement and mortification,
she found herself foiled so quietly, and
apparently so unconsciously, that at first she
attributed her discomfiture to accident than to
want of comprehension, and finally to a too
fastidious honor. But in proportion to the difficulty
of discovering the secret feelings of this
heart she had so dreaded to still find her own.
Beatrice felt a growing desire to penetrate
this smooth but impervious veil, to force at
least confession of something hidden, and satisfy
herself that she had not been dreaming
when she believed that Brent had once loved
her truly.

“Only let me once know what he really
feels, and I am satisfied forever,” said she to
herself, and began to search for the key to
that locked door.

“Ruth was telling me of that terrible injury
you sustained in the woods,” said she one
day, as the two slowly climbed the crest of
Ironstone, and paused to look at the wonderful
panorama below.

“Yes, it was rather severe at the time. Do
you see that blue ribbon glittering among the
hills, Mrs. Chappelleford? That is the Alleghany.”

“Indeed. Yes, I see it quite plainly. But
tell me of that time in the woods, Marston.
Ruth says you were near dying, and very low
in spirits, too.”

“Did she tell you how I was cured?”

“By her tender care, I should think, from
her artless story.”

“By that certainly; but also by brandy,
sugar, and salt-pork. I must tell you about
it.”

And Beatrice found herself obliged to listen
with polite attention to a minute account of the
novel medical treatment prescribed by Richard,
with the doctor's indignation, and old Zilpah's
incredulity.

When the story was ended, Beatrice sat
silent and a little offended. Reserve was
very well, but this was rudeness. At last she
said:

“I find you very much changed, Mr. Brent.”

“That is natural, considering the laborious
and exposed life I have led here and in the
woods. Why, Mrs. Chappelleford, I have not
been idle, when I was able to work, so many
hours in five years as I have in the last three
weeks.”

“And do you regret the occasion?” asked
Beatrice, turning her head, “with eyes of

sumptuous expectation fixt” upon the face of
her sometime lover, who promptly answered:

“No, indeed. It has been a great treat to
me to meet once more persons of cultivation
and—”

“Marston Brent, why do you perpetually
evade me thus?” cried Beatrice, with a touch
of her old petulant humor. “It is no compliment
to me to avoid so persistently a subject
upon which I am willing to speak. Are you
afraid for yourself or me?”

“For neither, Mrs. Chappelleford,” said
Brent in a low voice, while the expression of
his face changed so suddenly that Beatrice
felt her heart leap for joy. At last she had
conquered—at last he must speak, and she
would be satisfied once for all.

“Then why do you so pointedly avoid the
past?” asked she, more graciously. “That it
is quite past we neither of us doubt, and why
should we not discuss it as we would the
story of Hero and Leander, or Romeo and
Juliet?”

“We will, if you wish it,” replied Brent,
and his mouth grew white, and his eyes resolute,
as if he had just signified his assent to
the torture, resolving all the while that not
its fiercest extremity should extort confession
or complaint from his lips.

Beatrice, a little startled at her own success,
sat silent for a moment, but finally found
voice to say:

“I have one confession to make, Marston.
It was I who sent you the paper with the announcement
of my marriage.”

“Why do you call it a confession? Did you
mean to wound me?”

“Yes, I am afraid I did. Can you forgive
me?”

“Yes, I forgive you freely.”

“Could you have forgiven me before the
wound was quite healed?”

“I never felt resentment.”

The answer did not satisfy her, and she put
the question in a different form:

“You are content now, Marston?”

“I am content—yes.”

“And happy? You no longer remember
me?”

“I have not so many new friends that I
should forget the old ones very easily.”

“O Marston! you do not tell me what I
want to know. Why will not you speak out
for once?”

“What do you wish to know?”

“Do you—Marston, do you remember—do
you—love me still?”

She had asked it, and sat aghast. The silence
that befell seemed to her filled with accusing
voices — the air with scornful eyes.
She covered her face with her hands, and sat
ashamed and silent.

At last he spoke, in a voice so low and stern
that she hardly recognized it.

“Mrs. Chappelleford, that is a question you
have no right to ask, or I to answer. Let us
forget it.”

“You find it very easy to forget,” said Beatrice
bitterly, and without raising her head.

“So be it,” replied Brent in the same tone.

“But, Marston, before we leave the subject,
I wish to tell you that I heard you were about
to marry. I never should have been married
myself if I had not thought—”

“Hush, Beatrice—hush! Whatever may
be now, you once were my ideal of womanhood.
Do not profane the sacred memories
which alone are left to me by representing
yourself as marrying from other motive than
the highest, or as bearing toward your husband
to-day less than an entire love and confidence.
You have made this inquiry into my
life, past and present, partly from the kind interest
of an old friendship—partly in a spirit
of psychological research. Here let it rest.”

“But, O Marston! help me, advise me,
comfort me! I thought I was content, and I
find myself most miserable. I thought my
heart was dead; and already the new life
coursing through it stings me with anguish
intolerable. Marston, I have slept through
these five long years, and now I begin to waken.
What shall I do? How shall I comfort myself
in my despair?”

She covered her face, and wept passionately.
Brent, pale and agitated, looked at her lovingly
for a moment; then turning half away,
said solemnly:

“You cannot comfort yourself, nor can I
comfort you. There is one Comforter, and
but one — His name is Christ: go to Him.
Forgive me for yielding so rashly and so
weakly to your request for open speech upon
this subject. I should have been strong for
both of us. It is my fault—only mine. Come,
we will go home.”

And without another word, he led the way
swiftly and steadily down the mountain-path,
where already slept the purple shadows of the
night, the misty wraith of the departed day.