Dorian

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Do­ri­an stood knee-​deep in the snow and watched the girl run back in­to the house. In his sur­prise, he for­got his im­me­di­ate er­rand. He had found Car­lia, found her well and strong; but why had she run from him with a cry of alarm? She sure­ly had rec­og­nized him; she would not have act­ed thus to­ward a stranger. Ap­par­ent­ly, she was not glad to see him. He stood look­ing at the closed door, and a feel­ing of re­sent­ment came to him. Here he had been search­ing for her all this time, on­ly to be treat­ed as if he were an un­wel­come in­trud­er. Well, he would not force him­self on her. If she did not want to see him, why an­noy her? He could go back, tell her fa­ther where she was, and let him come for her. He stood, hes­itat­ing.

The door opened again and a wom­an looked out in­quir­ing­ly at the young man stand­ing in the snow with an axe on his shoul­der. Do­ri­an would have to of­fer a word of ex­pla­na­tion to the wom­an, at least, so he stepped in­to the path to­ward the house.

“Good morn­ing,” he said, lift­ing his hat. “I'm out to get a Christ­mas tree for the chil­dren over there, and it seems I have star­tled the young la­dy who just ran in.”

“Yes,” said the wom­an.

“I'm sor­ry to have fright­ened her, but I'm glad to have found her. You see, I've been search­ing for her.”

The wom­an stood in the door­way, say­ing noth­ing, but look­ing with some sus­pi­cion at the young man.

“I should like to see her again,” con­tin­ued Do­ri­an. “Tell her it's Do­ri­an Trent.”

“I'll tell her,” said the wom­an as she with­drew and closed the door.

The wait seemed long, but it was on­ly a few min­utes when the door opened and Do­ri­an was in­vit­ed to come in. They passed through the kitchen in­to the liv­ing room where a fire was burn­ing in a grate. Do­ri­an was giv­en a chair. He could not fail to see that he was close­ly ob­served. The wom­an went in­to an­oth­er room, but soon re­turned.

“She'll be in short­ly,” she an­nounced.

“Thank you.”

The wom­an re­tired to the kitchen, and present­ly Car­lia came in. She had tak­en off her wraps and now ap­peared in a neat house dress. As she stood hes­itat­ing­ly by the door. Do­ri­an came with out­stretched hands to greet her; but she was not ea­ger to meet him, so he went back to his chair. Both were silent. He saw it was the same Car­lia, with some­thing added, some­thing which must have tak­en much ex­pe­ri­ence if not much time to bring to her. The old-​time ros­es, some­what mod­ified, were in her cheeks, the old-​time red tint­ed the full lips; but she was more ma­ture, less of a girl and more of a wom­an; and to Do­ri­an she was more beau­ti­ful than ev­er.

“Car­lia,” he again ven­tured, “I'm glad to see you; but you don't seem very pleased with your neigh­bor. Why did you run from me out there?”

“You star­tled me.”

“Yes; I sup­pose I did. It was rather strange, this com­ing so sud­den­ly on to you. I've been look­ing for you quite a while.”

“I don't un­der­stand why you have been look­ing for me.”

“You know why, Car­lia.”

“I don't.”

“You're just talk­ing to be talk­ing--but here, this sounds like quar­rel­ing, and we don't want to do that so soon, do we?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Won't you sit down.”

The girl reached for a chair, then seat­ed her­self.

“The folks are anx­ious about you. When can you go home?”

“I'm not go­ing home.”

“Not go­ing home? Why not? Who are these peo­ple, and what are you do­ing here?”

“These are good peo­ple, and they treat me fine. I'm go­ing to stay--here.”

“But I don't see why. Of course, it's none of my busi­ness; but for the sake of your fa­ther and moth­er, you ought to go home.”

“How--how are they!”

“They are as well as can be ex­pect­ed. You've nev­er writ­ten them, have you, nor ev­er told where you were. They do not know whether you are dead or alive. That isn't right.”

The girl turned her bowed head slight­ly, but did not speak, so he con­tin­ued: “The whole town has been ter­ri­bly aroused about you. You dis­ap­peared so sud­den­ly and com­plete­ly. Your fa­ther has done ev­ery­thing he could think of to find you. When he gave up, I took up the task, and here you are in the hills not so far from Green­street.”

Car­lia's eyes swam with tears. The kitchen door opened, and the wom­an looked at Car­lia and then at Do­ri­an.

“Break­fast is ready,” she an­nounced. “Come, Miss Davis, and have your friend come too.”

Do­ri­an ex­plained that he had al­ready eat­en.

“Please ex­cuse me just now,” plead­ed Car­lia, to the wom­an. “Go eat your break­fast with­out me. Mrs. Carl­ston, this is Mr. Trent, a neigh­bor of ours at my home. I was fool­ish to be so scared of him. He--he wouldn't hurt any­one.” She tried brave­ly to smile.

Alone again, the two were ill at ease. A flood of mem­ories, a con­fu­sion of thoughts and feel­ings swept over Do­ri­an. The liv­ing Car­lia in all her at­trac­tive beau­ty was be­fore him, yet back of her stood the grim skele­ton. Could he close his eyes to that? Could he let his love for her over­come the re­pul­sion which would arise like a black cloud in­to his thoughts? Well, time alone would tell. Just now he must be kind to her, he must be strong and wise. Of what use is strength and wis­dom if it is un­fruit­ful at such times as these? Do­ri­an arose to his feet and stood in the strength of his young man­hood. He seemed to take Car­lia with him, for she al­so stood look­ing at him with her shin­ing eyes.

“Well, Car­lia,” he said, “go get your break­fast, and I'll fin­ish my er­rand. You see, the storm stopped the mail car­ri­er and me and we had to put up at your neigh­bour's last night. There I found three chil­dren great­ly dis­ap­point­ed in not hav­ing their usu­al Christ­mas tree. I promised I would get them one this morn­ing, and that's what I was out for when I saw you. You know, Car­lia, it's Christ­mas Eve this morn­ing, if you'll al­low that con­tra­dic­tion.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I'll come back for you. And mind, you do not try to es­cape. I'll be watch­ing the house close­ly. Any­way,” he laughed light­ly, “the snow's too deep for you to run very far.”

“O, Do­ri­an--”

“Yes.”

He came to­ward her, but she with avert­ed face, slipped to­ward the kitchen door.

“I can't go home, I can't go with you--re­al­ly, I can't,” she said. “You go back home and tell the folks I'm all right now, won't you, please.”

“We'll talk about that af­ter a while. I must get that tree now, or those kid­dies will think I am a rank im­pos­tor.” Do­ri­an looked at his watch. “Why, it's get­ting on to­ward noon. So long, for the present.”

Do­ri­an found and cut a fair­ly good tree. The chil­dren were at the win­dow when he ap­peared, and great was their joy when they saw him car­ry it to the wood­shed and make a stand for it, then bring it in to them. The mail car­ri­er was about ready to con­tin­ue his jour­ney, and he asked Do­ri­an if he was al­so ready. But Do­ri­an had no rea­son for go­ing on fur­ther; he had many rea­sons for de­sir­ing to re­main. And here was the Christ­mas tree, not dressed, nor the can­dy made. How could he dis­ap­point these chil­dren?

“I won­der,” he said to the moth­er, “if it would be ask­ing too much to let me stay here un­til to­mor­row. I'm in no hur­ry, and I would like to help the chil­dren with the tree, as I promised. I've been hin­dered some this morn­ing, and--”

“Stay,” shout­ed the chil­dren who had heard this. “Stay, do stay.”

“You are more than wel­come,” replied Mrs. Hick­son; “but I fear that the chil­dren are im­pos­ing on you.”

Do­ri­an as­sured her that the plea­sure was his, and af­ter the mail car­ri­er had de­part­ed, he thought it wise to ex­plain fur­ther.

“A very strange thing has hap­pened,” said Do­ri­an. “As I was go­ing af­ter the tree for the chil­dren, I met the young la­dy who is stay­ing at Mrs. Carl­ston.”

“Miss Davis.”

“Yes; she's a neigh­bor of mine. We grew up to­geth­er as boy and girl. Through some trou­ble, she left home, and--in fact, I have been search­ing for her. I am go­ing to try to get her to go home to her par­ents. She--she could help us with our tree dress­ing this evening.”

“We'd like to have both our neigh­bors vis­it with us,” said Mrs. Hick­son; “but the snow is rather deep for them.”

By the mid­dle of the af­ter­noon Do­ri­an cleared a path to the neigh­bor­ing house, and then went stamp­ing on to the porch. Car­lia opened the door and gave him a smil­ing wel­come. She had dressed up a bit, he could see, and he was pleased with the thought that it was for him. Do­ri­an de­liv­ered the in­vi­ta­tion to the two wom­en. Car­lia would go im­me­di­ate­ly to help, and Mrs. Carl­ston would come lat­er. Car­lia was greet­ed by the chil­dren as a re­al ad­di­tion to their com­pa­ny.

“Did you bring an ex­tra of stock­ings?” asked Mrs. Hick­son of her. “An up-​to-​date San­ta Claus is go­ing to vis­it us tonight, I am sure.” She glanced to­ward Do­ri­an, who was busy with the chil­dren and the tree.

That was a Christ­mas Eve long to be re­mem­bered by all those present in that house amid soli­tude of snow, of moun­tain, and of pine forests. The tree, un­der the mag­ic touch­es of Do­ri­an and Car­lia grew to be a thing of beau­ty, in the eyes of the chil­dren. The home-​made can­dles and dec­ora­tions were pro­nounced to be as good as the “bought­en ones.” And the can­dy--what a mir­acle work­er this sober-​laugh­ing, rud­dy-​haired young fel­low was!

Car­lia could not re­sist the spir­it of cheer. She smiled with the old­er peo­ple and laughed with the chil­dren. How good it was to laugh again, she thought. When the tree was ful­ly ablaze, all, with the ex­cep­tion of Mr. Hick­son joined hands and danced around it. Then they had to taste of the var­ious and doubt­ful mak­ings of can­dies, and ate a bread-​pan of snow-​white pop­corn sprin­kled with melt­ed but­ter. Then Mr. Hick­son told some sto­ries, and his wife in a clear, sweet voice led the chil­dren in some Christ­mas songs. Oh, it was a re­al Christ­mas Eve, made dou­bly joy­ful by the sim­ple help­ful­ness and kind­ness of all who took part.

At the close of the evening, Do­ri­an es­cort­ed Mrs. Carl­ston and Car­lia back to their house, and the old­er wom­an gra­cious­ly re­tired, leav­ing the par­lor and the glow­ing log to the young peo­ple.

They sat in the big arm­chairs fac­ing the grate.

“We've had a re­al nice Christ­mas Eve, af­ter all,” said he.

“Yes.”

“Our Christ­mas Eves at home are usu­al­ly qui­et. I'm the on­ly kid there, and I don't make much noise. Fre­quent­ly, just moth­er and Un­cle Zed and I made up the com­pa­ny; and then when we could get Un­cle Zed to talk­ing about Je­sus, and ex­plain who He was, and tell his sto­ry be­fore He came to this earth as the Babe of Beth­le­hem, there was a re­al Christ­mas spir­it present. Yes; I be­lieve you were with us on one of these oc­ca­sions.”

“Yes, I was.”

Do­ri­an ad­just­ed the log in the grate. “Car­lia, when shall we go home?” he asked.

“How can I go home?”

“A very sim­ple mat­ter. We ride on the stage to the rail­road, and then--”

“O! I do not mean that. How can I face my folks, and ev­ery­body?”

“Of course, peo­ple will be in­quis­itive, and there will be a lot of spec­ula­tion; but nev­er mind that. Your fa­ther and moth­er will be mighty glad to get you back home, and I am sure your fa­ther will see to it that you--that you'll have no more cause to run away from home.”

“What--what?”

“Why, he'll see that you do not have so much work--man's work, to do. Yes, reg­ular down­right drudgery it was. Why, I hard­ly blame you for run­ning away, that is, tak­ing a brief va­ca­tion.” He went on talk­ing, she look­ing silent­ly in­to the fire. “But now,” he said fi­nal­ly, “you have had a good rest, and you are ready to go home.”

She sat rigid­ly look­ing at the glow in the grate. He kept on talk­ing cheer­ful­ly, op­ti­misti­cal­ly, as if he wished to pre­vent the gloom of night to over­whelm them. Then, present­ly, the girl seemed to shake her­self free from some be­numb­ing in­flu­ence, as she turned to him and said:

“Do­ri­an, why, re­al­ly why have you gone to all this trou­ble to find me?”

“Why, we all want­ed to know what had be­come of you. Your fa­ther is a changed man be­cause of your dis­ap­pear­ance, and your moth­er is near­ly bro­ken heart­ed.”

“Yes, I sup­pose so; but is that all?”

“Isn't that enough?”

“No.”

“Well, I--I--”

“Do­ri­an, you're nei­ther dull nor stupid, ex­cept in this. Why did not some­one else do this hunt­ing for a lost girl? Why should it be you?”

Do­ri­an arose, walked to the win­dow and looked out in­to the win­try night. He saw the shine of the ev­er­last­ing stars in the deep blue. He sensed the girl's plead­ing eyes sink­ing in­to his soul as if to search him out. He glimpsed the shad­owy specter lurk­ing in her back­ground. And yet, as he fixed his eyes on the heav­ens, his mind cleared, his pur­pose strength­ened. As he turned, there was a grim smile on his face. He walked back to the fire-​place and seat­ed him­self on the arm of Car­lia's chair.

“Car­lia,” he said, “I may be stupid--I am stupid--I've al­ways been stupid with you. I know it. I con­fess it to you. I have not al­ways act­ed to­ward you as one who loves you. I don't know why--lay it to my stu­pid­ity. But, Car­lia, I do love you. I have al­ways loved you. Yes, ev­er since we were chil­dren play­ing in the fields and by the creek and the ditch­es. I know now what that feel­ing was. I loved you then, I love you now.”

The girl arose me­chan­ical­ly from her chair, reached out as if for sup­port to the man­tle. “Why, Oh, why did you not tell me be­fore--be­fore”--she cried, then swayed as if to a fall. Do­ri­an caught her and placed her back in the seat. He took her cold hands, but in a mo­ment, she pulled them away.

“Do­ri­an, please sit down in this oth­er chair, won't you?”

Do­ri­an did as she want­ed him to do, but he turned the chair to face her.

“I want you to be­lieve me, Car­lia.”

“I am try­ing to be­lieve you.”

“Is it so hard as all that?”

“What I fear is that you are do­ing all this for me out of the good­ness of your heart. Lis­ten, let me say what I want to say--I be­lieve I can now.... You're the best man I know. I have nev­er met any­one as good as you, no, not even my fa­ther--no­body. You're far above me. You al­ways have been will­ing to sac­ri­fice your­self for oth­ers; and now--what I fear is that you are just do­ing this, say­ing this, out of the good­ness of your heart and not be­cause you re­al­ly--re­al­ly love me.”

“Car­lia, stop--don't.”

“I know you, Do­ri­an. I've heard you and Un­cle Zed talk, some­times when you thought I was not lis­ten­ing. I know your high ide­als of ser­vice, how you be­lieve it is nec­es­sary for the high­er to reach down to help and save the low­er. Oh, I know, Do­ri­an; and it is this that I think of. You can­not love poor me for my sake, but you are do­ing this for fear of not do­ing your du­ty. Hush--Lis­ten! Not that I don't hon­or you for your high ide­als--they are no­ble, and be­long to just such as I be­lieve you are. Yes, I have al­ways, even as a child, looked up to you as some­one big and strong and good--Yes, I have al­ways wor­shiped you, loved you! There, you know it, but what's the use!”

Do­ri­an moved his chair close to her, then said:

“You are mis­tak­en, of course, in plac­ing my good­ness so high, though I've al­ways tried to do the right by ev­ery­body. That I have failed with you is ev­idence that I am not so per­fect as you say. But now, let's for­get ev­ery­thing else but the fact that we love each oth­er. Can't we be hap­py in that?”

The ros­es fad­ed from Car­lia's cheeks, though coaxed to stay by the fire­light.

“My dear,” he con­tin­ued, “we'll go home, and I'll try to make up to you my fail­ings. I think I can do that, Car­lia, when you be­come my wife.”

“I can't, Do­ri­an, Oh, I can't be that.”

“Why not Car­lia?”

“I can't mar­ry you. I'm not--No, Do­ri­an.”

“In time, Car­lia. We will have to wait, of course; but some day”--he took her hands, and she did not seem to have pow­er to re­sist--“some day” he said fer­vent­ly, “you are go­ing to be mine for time and for eter­ni­ty.”

They looked in­to each oth­ers faces with­out fear. Then: “Go now, Do­ri­an” she said. “I can't stand any more tonight. Please go.”

“Yes; I'll go. To­mor­row, the stage comes again this way, and we'll go with it. That's set­tled. Good­night.”

They both arose. He still held her hands.

“Good­night,” he re­peat­ed, and kissed her gen­tly on the cheek.