Kate Beaumont :: :: University of Virginia Library

That high-flung gentleman had been
stranded by his debauch on the outer reefs
of that horrible country which is haunted
by the afreets and rocs and serpents and
apes of delirium tremens, remaining for
several days so bruised and shaken with
his shipwreck that he was content to lie in
bed and submit to the nursing of Quash and
Bentley. But the women, not knowing his
wretched state, had no anxiety for him and
much for themselves, expecting to see his
inflamed visage from minute to minute.
Consequently they sought a refuge from
him, passing the day in the house of a venerable
friend of the Beaumont race, and returning
in the evening by back streets to
the hotel.

“You shall not come with us,” said Mrs.
Armitage to her host, fearing yet lest her
irrational husband might find her, and not
willing to lead her old friend into an unpleasantness.
“We shall do much the best
without you. Only let us have your
Cæsar.”

As Cæsar marched behind at a decorous
distance, the two women had a chance to
commune together, and, being women, did
commune. Nor is it any wonder either
that their talk, after fluttering unsatisfied
from subject to subject, should alight upon
Frank McAlister. Kate did not mean to
speak of him; indeed, she had made a resolve
that she would never utter his name
again; but there seemed to be a magical
power about the man, and he would get
himself mentioned. On the present occasion
he made his entrance upon the scene
by dint of that sorcery which is commonly
called “an impression.”

“I have such a strange feeling,” said the
girl, when her sister charged her with absent-mindedness
and inattention. “It seems
to me that we are about to meet — one of
the McAlisters.”

“Which one?” demanded Mrs. Armitage,
crisply.

Kate hesitated; she did not like to expose
her weakness; moreover, she found
“Frank” a great word to utter.

“I know which one,” added Nellie. “Ah,
Kate, do you think a woman does n't understand
such things? I have had just such
impressions. O dear, how well I remember
them yet! You make me sad; you make
me think how happy I was once; it is
dreadful to look back upon lost happiness.
O yes, I can't help understanding you.”

“I don't wish you to impute too much to
me,” said the girl, gently.

“Kate, let us be frank,” returned Nellie.
“If we are women, we are Beaumonts. Let
us speak the whole truth as our race does.”

“I have never failed to do that but two
or three times in my life,” murmured Kate,
remembering with a flush of shame how she
had once glided by the direct fact in
prattling with Jenny Devine about Frank
McAlister. “But is there any need of
talking about this?”

“Perhaps there is,” said Nellie, pensively.
“It is hard to decide whether silence
or talk is best. Don't you want to talk
about it?”

Kate made no answer.

She needs sympathy, thought Nellie; she
shall have a chance to demand it.

“I know that you like him,” she went on
aloud. “I know that it must pain you to
find yourself separated from him for life. I
don't blame you.”

Still Kate spoke not. Denial and confession
were both beyond her power; she
walked on silently, with tears in her eyes.

“Ah well, Kate!” sighed Mrs. Armitage,

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fully comprehending this dumb suffering.
“There is nothing left now but to
bear bravely what is and must be. But if
ever you want a heart to lean upon, here is
mine for you, the whole of it.”

Kate caught her sister's arm, bowed her
head upon her shoulder, and walked thus
for a few steps, still without speaking.

“O my poor darling!” exclaimed Mrs.
Armitage, stopping and embracing the girl
passionately. “It 's lucky that life is n't
very long. It 's the best thing about it.”

After some further walking she resumed:
“He is better than most men, in spite of
his treatment of Tom. But it is useless to
talk of him. There is the feud. I suppose
you must marry some one else when the
time comes.”

“I won't be married at all,” whispered
Kate, her mind suddenly reverting to that
horror of a husband, Randolph Armitage.
She was in a state of feeling to believe that
all men were like him, except the one man
from whom she was divided forever.

On reaching the hotel they went at once
to their rooms to prepare for the early start
of the morrow. But presently Kate missed
her travelling-bag, guessed that she might
have left it in the parlor, and went down in
search of it. The room was deserted and
darkling, for sojourners in that season were
few, and watchful thrift had turned down
the gas-jets. The girl found her bag, but
there was something in the spacious gloom
and lonesomeness which suited her feelings,
and she lingered. There were two sets of
windows; the front ones looked upon the
street, and the rear ones upon a veranda
and garden; outside, everything was illuminated
and idealized by the abundant
moonlight. Kate walked slowly to and fro,
glancing first at one of the little landscapes
and then at the other, and wondering that
the world could seem so much more like an
abode of happiness than she found it. She
remained thus for ten or fifteen minutes,
unconscious that she was watched.

In the rear veranda a man lurked, trembling
with agitation. The night was cool,
but he did not notice it; if it had been
freezing, he would not have noticed it.
When Kate approached him he slipped
shamefacedly away, and when she receded
he placed himself once more at one or other
of the windows, there to gaze after her with
an air of anxiety which was like the greediness
of hunger. Occasionally he started,
as if under some violent impulse, and moved
towards a door which opened into the parlor;
then as suddenly he checked himself,
fell into a meditation and shook his head
sadly; then hastened back to his spying-place.
It was evident that he wished to
speak to the girl, and that for some weighty
reason he did not dare.

This man was Frank McAlister. We
must explain how he came here. South
Carolina had at last summoned him to
prove his science; he had been commissioned
to report upon an iron-mine in Saxonburg.
Half sick and weakly dispirited,
his first impulse had been to decline the job
and continue to coddle his sorrows at home
under the pitying eyes of his mother and
within prompt reach of the sympathy of
Jenny Devine. But he made out to remember
that he was a metallurgist and that it
was high time to magnify his calling. He
bade a grateful good by to Jenny (under
the eyes of Major Lawson, as one happens
to recollect), and left her without suspecting
that he had won her fervent admiration,
not to say a little, be it more or less, of her
affection. Then he journeyed to his mine
and collected specimens of the ore for
analysis; and now here he was waiting
like the two ladies for the morning train
eastward. The presence of Kate in the hotel
parlor he had discovered while taking a
sentimental walk in the moonlit veranda.

The one great question which at once occupied
his mind was, should he speak to
her. Of course he answered it as a gentleman
and a man of sense, saying over and
over that it would be useless, that it could
only do harm, that he ought not and would
not. But on the other hand an impulse
which cared not for reason or reproof insisted
that he must. Only one word,
pleaded this passionate impulse; what that
word should be it did not suggest; simply
that he must find and utter it. Rationality
and sense of propriety fought their battle in
vain against emotion. After advancing repeatedly
to the door, and retreating from it
as often, he opened it and was before her.

It will be remembered that she had had
an impression that he was at hand. That
impression, absurd as she believed it to be,
had so prepared her for the meeting, that
she was not surprised by his appearance,
and recognized him at once in the obscurity.
She did not, however, speak, further
than to murmur, “Mr. McAlister.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said humbly.
“I could not help entering.”

It seemed for a moment as if these words
must end the conversation, and he would
have to retire ignominiously without uttering
a syllable to any purpose. Kate did
not answer him; she knew not what to say.
She believed that he ought not to be there,
and that she ought not to allow him to remain.
At the same time it was quite impossible
for her to bid him retire. Thus
she stood looking at him, her face flushed
with excitement, her lips parted as if to
speak, but silent.

“I wish to ask your forgiveness, — yes,
and that of your whole family,” recommenced

116

Frank, luckily remembering his
difficulty with Tom, and so finding something
to say. “I was a brute to tie you-brother
and a madman to go out with him.
There must be some natural want of delicacy
in me. I did not see it then, but I see
it now. I see it just in time to repent of it
uselessly.”

“Mr. McAlister, I do not want to talk of
this,” replied Kate, pained at his humbling
himself so.

“No. Of course not. I had no right to
speak of it to you.”

He would go on bowing in the dust;
would prostrate himself unnecessarily.

“Don't!” she imposed with the simplicity
and brevity of earnest feeling. “I am
not angry at you. If I was angry, it is
over.”

“Is it possible?” he asked, so grateful
for what he esteemed unmerited pardon,
that he wanted to fall on his knees, as if to
a forgiving deity. “This is more than I ever
hoped to hear from you. I have hated myself
for my folly, and believed that you
hated me for it. I thought also that you
must share the natural feelings of your
family towards me. I have been in despair
over it.”

“Mr. McAlister, you don't know how
you pain me,” Kate could not help saying
in reply to this supposition that she could
hate him.

“O yes, I have done you injustice,” he
went on. “I suppose my thoughts have
sprung from my fears. Well, I am greatly
relieved; I am just a little satisfied. You
at least forgive me.”

“If I blamed you, it was for the duel.”

“But I did not challenge, and I did not
fire at him,” he insisted, still bent on excusing
himself. “I wanted to be shot.”

“O, how could you!” shuddered Kate.

“I was in despair. You did not answer
my letters.”

“Perhaps I was wrong. I did not know
what to do. There was this miserable quarrel,
and all intercourse forbidden. I did
not like to write, not even to say good by,
unless my father knew it.”

“I ought to have had more patience,”
confessed Frank, perpetually ready to condemn
himself.

“It does seem to me that you ought, Mr.
McAlister. I expected a great deal of patience
and calmness from you.”

“And it is you who have shown all the
patience and all the good sense,” declared
the young man, in a passion of humility.
“And I have played the part of a madman
and an idiot. I am so much your inferior.”

“O no!” Kate could not help saying it,
and could not help advancing a little towards
him, she so wanted to console him
under his burden of self-reproach.

Before she knew what he was about he
had taken her hand and kissed it.

Meantime Mrs. Armitage, wishing to give
some direction concerning the start in the
morning, had gone to her sister's room in
search of her, and thence descended to the
parlor. She appeared just in time to see
the hand raised and the kiss impressed upon
it.

“Mr. McAlister, is this proper conduct?”
she demanded, flaming at once into anger.
“Is this keeping your promise to me?”

Frank's soul was in a confused whirl;
but he tried to look down the maelstrom
and discover the truth at the bottom of it;
and he thought he saw that he had not
broken his word in regard to paying court
to Miss Beaumont without her sister's consent.

“I was asking her pardon,” he said. “I
asked her pardon for ill-treating her brother
and for going out with him. She granted
it, and I thanked her.”

He spoke with such a manly self-respect
and such a sincerity of tone, that Mrs. Armitage
could not help believing him. Moreover,
his voice and manner moved her;
they were eloquent with uprightness of character
and fervor of emotion; they made a
music which she had heard and been well
pleased with heretofore. Her confidence
in him and her liking for him returned upon
her with such force that she could not at
once go on with her scolding.

“I ask your pardon also for those wrongs,
Mrs. Armitage,” he added presently.

“O, let them pass,” she replied impatiently,
vexed with herself for losing her anger
at him. “That has all been cancelled in
the proper way, I suppose. But what right
have you here? Why did you come here?”

He told her how he happened to be in
Brownville, and added that he had discovered
her sister by accident.

“Then you go down in the train with us
to-morrow?” she inquired.

“If you object, I will wait over.”

“I don't see that I have any right to
object,” mused Mrs. Armitage. “As things
stand between our families, I have not the
least authority over you.”

“I concede the right and the authority,”
bowed the young man.

“I don't object. It would be asking a
favor of you, — placing ourselves under an
obligation.”

“I assure you that I would not so consider
it.”

“I tell you that I do not object,” repeated
Nellie, a little annoyed by this bandying of
courtesies with a man to whom she ought not
to speak at all, as she believed. “But —”
she added, and then checked herself.

Frank waited respectfully.

“I may as well say it,” she went on, her

117

vexation rising as she found the interview
more and more embarrassing. “You should
not have spoken to my sister. I am not
blaming her; she could not well help listening;
I am blaming you for speaking.
You should not have done it.”

“You are quite right,” admitted Frank
meekly. “I should not have done it.”

“No, and you certainly should not have
done more,” persisted the impulsive Nellie,
unable to let well alone.

“I know it,” the repelled lover burst
forth. “But, Mrs. Armitage, are you no
woman at all?” he continued in a whisper,
— a whisper tremulous with passion, — a
whisper which Kate overheard. “Can't
you concede any latitude to misery? Just
look at me,” he added, turning his thin face
to the light. “Am I the same man that I
was? You at least ought to guess what
this change in me means. I have borne
wretchedness enough in the last month to
make me lose my reason. Indeed, I have
lost it; I have behaved like a madman; I
have behaved so, I suppose, this evening. I
never meant to speak to your sister until
I saw her; and then I could not help it. I
was driven to ask her forgiveness, and driven
to humble myself before her all the more
because she forgave me. Why, don't you
know, can't you understand, what has happened
to me? Separated from her! separated
for life! Can't you imagine what
that means to me? It means a broken
heart, if there can be such a thing.”

“O, stop!” begged Mrs. Armitage, as
Kate fled to the other end of the room,
threw herself on a sofa and covered her
face. “O, these men! there is no doing
anything with them. Don't you see what
mischief you are making? You should n't
have come here. Do go away.”

“No, I should n't have come here,” said
Frank, recovering a little of his self-possession.
“It has only made bad worse.”

“Yes,” sighed Nellie. “And here I am
pitying you. How could you charge me
with not being a woman?”

“O, if I said that, I did you great wrong.
I did not know that I said it. I beg your
pardon.”

“It does n't matter. I am not angry with
you. No, I am not angry with you about
anything, though I suppose I ought to be.
If you are really so wretched, how can I be
angry with you? But come; all this talk
is useless, worse than useless. As long as
the quarrel between our families lasts you
cannot be near to Kate, nor even to me. If
it should ever end, then — perhaps —”

“So you will still be friendly to me, or at
least not hostile?” he asked, his face so
lighting up that it fascinated her.

“I must not say too much,” she answered;
but she could not help giving him her hand.
He pressed it in both his, and barely stopped
short of kissing it. Then turning a last long
look upon the silent girl on the sofa, he
left the parlor and went straight to his room
a lighter-hearted man than he had been for
a month.

“Ah, Kate!” said Mrs. Armitage, taking
her sister's arm and leading her away.
“What with a crazy man and an idiotic
woman, you have had a wretched time. O,
these lovers! I may as well say the word.
He has told you all about it, — with my
help. There is no stopping them. No
woman really and heartily wants to stop
them. I was fool enough to let him go on,
and provoke him to go on. I ought to suffer
for it, and I do. For it was so useless! oh, it
was so useless! Come, let us go to our room
and go to sleep. I wish I could sleep all
the while. I wish you could, my poor darling.
The insensible hours are the happiest
hours of one's life. Even nightmares are
not so bad as realities. Here is one of the
unhappiest women in the world talking nonsense
to the next unhappiest. That is what
waking life is. Let us get to sleep as
quickly as possible. If we could sleep half
the time, we should just balance accounts
between wretchedness and pleasure. It is a
poor consolation.”

They were by this time at the door of
Kate's room. Mrs. Armitage kissed her
sister, lingered a moment on the threshold,
and then entered.

“I can't leave you yet,” she said. “It is
only ten o'clock, although it seems late
enough to be morning, to be the next world.
You will sleep the quicker if we talk awhile.
What a comfort talk is to women. How did
our poor ancestresses get along before they
learned how to do it, if there ever was such
a time?”

“How are we to treat him to-morrow?”
asked Kate, not even hearing her sister's
prattle, though meant to divert her.

“Ah!” returned Mrs. Armitage. “That
is true. Circumstances have changed since
I allowed him to go in the train. Perhaps,
when he told his story, I ought to have forbidden
his coming.”

“Are you going to forbid it?” inquired
Kate so anxiously that Nellie could not reply,
Yes.

“It does not seem to matter much,” she
said, after a moment of hesitation. “It
surely cannot matter so very, very much.
I shall leave him at liberty in the question.
I shall trust to his judgment.”

Did it not occur to her that trusting to
the judgment of a man in love, especially
after what had happened during the evening,
was leaning on a reed? The truth is
that Nellie remembered her own time of
loving; she guessed that these two must
long beyond expression to look at each

118

other, only to look; and in her sympathetic
woman's heart she could not find the hardness
to forbid it.

But half an hour later, as she went to her
own room, she said to herself earnestly, “I
do hope he will stay behind. Will he?”