45. CHAPTER XLV.
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
IT wanted yet twenty minutes to eight o'clock, and Jim
was sitting alone in the glow of the evening fireside.
The warm, red light, flickering and shadowing, made the
room seem like a mysterious grotto. Jim, in best party
trim, sat gazing dreamily into the fire, turning the magic
ring now and then in his vest pocket, and looking at his
watch at intervals, while the mysterious rites of the toilet
were going on upstairs.
Alice had never made a more elaborate or more careful
toilet. Did she want to precipitate that which she
said to herself she dreaded? Certainly she did not spare
one possible attraction. She evidently saw no reason,
under present circumstances, why she should not make
herself look as well as she could.
As the result of the whole day's agitations and discussions,
she had come to the conclusion that if Jim had
anything to say she would listen to it advisedly, and take
it into mature consideration. So she braided her long,
dark hair, and crowned herself therewith, and then earrings
and brooches came twinkling out here and there
like stars, and bits of ribbon and velvet fluttered hither
and thither, and fell into wonderfully apposite places, and
the woman grew and brightened before the glass, as a
picture under the hands of the artist.
It wanted yet a quarter of an hour of the time for the
carriage, when there came a light fluff of gauzy garments,
and the two party goddesses floated in in all misty
splendor, and seemed to fill the whole room with the
flutter of dresses.
Alice was radiant; her eyes were never more brilliant,
and she was full of that subtle brightness which
comes from the tremor of fully-awakened feeling. She
was gayer than was her usual wont as she swept about
the room and courteseyed with much solemnity to Jim,
and turned herself round and round after the manner of
a revolving figure in the shop windows.
Suddenly—and none of them knew how—there was
a quick flash; the gauzy robe had swept into the fire, and,
before any of them could speak, the dress was in flames.
There was a scream, an utterance of agony from all parties
at once, and Eva was just doing the most fatal thing
possible in rushing desperately towards her sister, when
Jim came between them, caught the woolen cloth from the
table, and wrapped it around Alice; then, taking her in
his arms, he laid her on the sofa, and crushed out the fire,
beating it with his hands, and tearing the burning fragments
away and casting them under foot. It all passed
in one fearful, awe-struck moment, while Eva stood still,
with the very shadow of death upon her, and saw Jim
fighting back the fire, which in a moment or two was
entirely extinguished. Alice had fainted, and Jim and
Eva looked at each other as people do who have just
seen death rising up between them.
“She is safe now,” said Jim, as he stood there, pale
as death and quivering from head to foot, while the floor
around was strewed with the blackened remains of the
gauzy material which he had torn away. “She is all
right,” he added; “the cloth has saved her throat and
lungs.”
It seemed now the most natural thing in the world
that Jim should lay Alice's head upon his arm and
administer restoratives; and, when she opened her eyes,
that he should call her his darling, his life, his love.
They had been in the awful valley of the shadow together—that
valley where all that is false perishes and
drops off, and what is true becomes the only reality.
Alice felt that she loved Jim—that she belonged to him,
and she did not dispute his right to speak as he did,
and to care for her as one had a right to care for his own.
“Well,” said Eva, drawing a long breath, when the
bell rang and the carriage was announced, “we cannot
go to the party, that is certain; and, Jim, tell him to go
for Doctor Campbell. Mary, bring down a wrapper;
we'll slip it over your torn finery, Alice, for the present,”
said Eva, endeavoring to be practical and self-possessed,
though with a little hysterical sob every now and then
betraying the shock to her nerves. “Then there must
be a note sent to Aunt Maria, or what will she think?”
pursued Eva, when Alice had been made comfortable on
the sofa, where Jim was devoting himself to her.
“Don't, pray, tell all about it,” said Alice. “One
does n't want to become the talk of all New York.”
“I'll tell her that you have met with an accident
that will detain you and me, but that you are not dangerous,”
said Eva, as she wrote her note and sent Mary
up with it.
It was not until tranquillity had somewhat settled
down on the party that Jim began to feel that his own
hands were blistered; for, though a man under strong
excitement may handle fire for a while and not feel it,
yet nature keeps account and brings in her bill in due
season.
“Why, Jim, you brave fellow,” said Alice, suddenly
raising herself, as she saw an expression of pain on his
face, “here I am thinking only of myself, and you are
suffering.”
“Oh, nothing; nothing at all,” said Jim; but Eva
and Alice, now thoroughly aroused, were shocked at the
state of his hands.
“The doctor will have you to attend to first,” said
Alice, “You have saved me by sacrificing yourself.”
“Thank God for that!” said Jim, fervently.
Well, the upshot of the story is that Eva would not
hear of Jim's leaving them that night. Doctor Campbell
pronounced that the burns on his hands needed
serious attention, and the prospect was that he would
be obliged to rest from using them for a day or two.
But these two or three days of hospital care were not
on the whole the worst of Jim's life, for Alice insisted on
being his amanuensis, and writing his editorials for him,
and, as she wrote with the engagement ring sparkling on
her finger, Jim thought that he had never seen it appear
to so great advantage. It was said that Jim's editorials,
that week, had a peculiar vigor and pungency. We
should not at all wonder, under the circumstances, if
that were the case.
