A fateful silence ensued.The wind slightly moved the curtain outward, as if in a playful attempt to follow him, and then subsided.A moment later, apparently re-enforced by other winds,or sympathizing with Richelieu, it lightly lifted the unlucky missive and cast it softly from the window.But here another wind,lying in wait, caught it cleverly, and tossed it, in a long curve,into the abyss.For an instant it seemed to float lazily, as on the mirrored surface of a lake, until, turning upon its side, it suddenly darted into utter oblivion.
When Mainwaring returned from the shrubbery, he went softly to the window.The disappearance of the letter and stone satisfied him of the success of his stratagem, and for the space of three hours relieved his anxiety.But at the end of that time, finding no response from Louise, his former uneasiness returned.Was she offended, or--the first doubt of her acceptance of him crossed his mind!
A sudden and inexplicable sense of shame came upon him.At the same moment, he heard his name called from the steps, turned--and beheld Minty.
Her dark eyes were shining with a pleasant light, and her lips parted on her white teeth with a frank, happy smile.She advanced and held out her hand.He took it with a mingling of disappointment and embarrassment.
"You're wondering why I kem on here, arter I sent word this morning that I kelkilated not to come.Well, 'twixt then and now suthin' 's happened.We've had fine doin's over at our house, you bet!
Pop don't know which end he's standin' on; and I reckon that for about ten minutes I didn't know my own name.But ez soon ez I got fairly hold o' the hull thing, and had it put straight in my mind,I sez to myself, Minty Sharpe, sez I, the first thing for you to do now, is to put on yer bonnet and shawl, and trapse over to Jim Bradley's and help them two womenfolks get dinner for themselves and that sick stranger.And," continued Minty, throwing herself into a chair and fanning her glowing face with her apron, "yer I am!"
"But you have not told me WHAT has happened," said Mainwaring, with a constrained smile, and an uneasy glance towards the house.
"That's so," said Minty, with a brilliant laugh."I clean forgot the hull gist of the thing.Well, we're rich folks now--over thar'on Barren Ledge!That onery brother of mine, Richelieu, hez taken some of his specimens over to Jim Bradley to be tested.And Bradley, just to please that child, takes 'em; and not an hour ago Bradley comes running, likety switch, over to Pop to tell him to put up his notices, for the hull of that ledge where the forge stands is a mine o' silver and copper.Afore ye knew it, Lordy!
half the folks outer the Summit and the mill was scattered down thar all over it.Richardson--that stranger ez knows you--kem thar too with Jim, and he allows, ef Bradley's essay is right, it's worth more than a hundred thousand dollars ez it stands!"
"I suppose I must congratulate you, Miss Sharpe," said Mainwaring with an attempt at interest, but his attention still preoccupied with the open doorway.
"Oh, THEY know all about it!" said Minty, following the direction of his abstracted eyes with a slight darkening of her own, "I jest kem out o' the kitchen the other way, and Jim sent 'em a note; but I allowed I'd tell YOU myself.Specially ez you are going away to-morrow."
"Who said I was going away to-morrow?" asked Mainwaring, uneasily.
"Loo Macy!"
"Ah--she did?But I may change my mind, you know!" he continued,with a faint smile.
Minty shook her curls decisively."I reckon SHE knows," she said dryly, "she's got law and gospel for wot she says.But yer she comes.Ask her!Look yer, Loo," she added, as the two women appeared at the doorway, with a certain exaggeration of congratulatory manner that struck Mainwaring as being as artificial and disturbed as his own, "didn't Sir Francis yer say he was going to-morrow?"
"That's what I understood!" returned Louise, with cold astonishment,letting her clear indifferent eyes fall upon Mainwaring."I do not know that he has changed his mind."
"Unless, as Miss Sharpe is a great capitalist now, she is willing to use her powers of persuasion," added Mrs. Bradley, with a slight acidulous pointing of her usual prim playfulness.
"I reckon Minty Sharpe's the same ez she allus wos, unless more so," returned Minty, with an honest egotism that carried so much conviction to the hearer as to condone its vanity."But I kem yer to do a day's work, gals, and I allow to pitch in and do it, and not sit yer swoppin' compliments and keeping HIM from packin' his duds.Onless," she stopped, and looked around at the uneasy,unsympathetic circle with a faint tremulousness of lip that belied the brave black eyes above it, "onless I'm in yer way."
The two women sprang forward with a feminine bewildering excess of protestation; and Mainwaring, suddenly pierced through his outer selfish embarrassment to his more honest depths, stammered quickly--
"Look here, Miss Sharpe, if you think of running away again, after having come all the way here to make us share the knowledge of your good fortune and your better heart, by Jove! I'll go back with you."
But here the two women effusively hurried her away from the dangerous proximity of such sympathetic honesty, and a moment later Mainwaring heard her laughing voice, as of old, ringing in the kitchen.And then, as if unconsciously responding to the significant common sense that lay in her last allusion to him, he went to his room and grimly began his packing.
He did not again see Louise alone.At their informal luncheon the conversation turned upon the more absorbing topic of the Sharpes'