"You are laughing at me!"she said finally."But inhuman and selfish as these stories may seem,and sometimes are,I believe that these curious estrangements and separations often come from some fatal weakness of temperament that might be strengthened,or some trivial misunderstanding that could be explained.It is separation that makes them seem irrevocable only because they are inexplicable,and a vague memory always seems more terrible than a definite one.Facts may be forgiven and forgotten,but mysteries haunt one always.I believe there are weak,sensitive people who dread to put their wrongs into shape;those are the kind who sulk,and when you add separation to sulking,reconciliation becomes impossible.I knew a very singular case of that kind once.If you like,I'll tell it to you.May be you will be able,some day,to weave it into one of your writings.And it's quite true."It is hardly necessary to say that John Milton had not been touched by any personal significance in his companion's speech,whatever she may have intended;and it is equally true that whether she had presently forgotten her purpose,or had become suddenly interested in her own conversation,her face grew more animated,her manner more confidential,and something of the youthful enthusiasm she had shown in the mountain seemed to come back to her.
"I might say it happened anywhere and call the people M.or N.,but it really did occur in my own family,and although I was much younger at the time it impressed me very strongly.My cousin,who had been my playmate,was an orphan,and had been intrusted to the care of my father,who was his guardian.He was always a clever boy,but singularly sensitive and quick to take offense.Perhaps it was because the little property his father had left made him partly dependent on my father,and that I was rich,but he seemed to feel the disparity in our positions.I was too young to understand it;I think it existed only in his imagination,for Ibelieve we were treated alike.But I remember that he was full of vague threats of running away and going to sea,and that it was part of his weak temperament to terrify me with his extravagant confidences.I was always frightened when,after one of those scenes,he would pack his valise or perhaps only tie up a few things in a handkerchief,as in the advertisement pictures of the runaway slaves,and declare that we would never lay eyes upon him again.At first I never saw the ridiculousness of all this,--for Iought to have told you that he was a rather delicate and timid boy,and quite unfitted for a rough life or any exposure,--but others did,and one day I laughed at him and told him he was afraid.Ishall never forget the expression of his face and never forgive myself for it.He went away,--but he returned the next day!He threatened once to commit suicide,left his clothes on the bank of the river,and came home in another suit of clothes he had taken with him.When I was sent abroad to school I lost sight of him;when I returned he was at college,apparently unchanged.When he came home for vacation,far from having been subdued by contact with strangers,it seemed that his unhappy sensitiveness had been only intensified by the ridicule of his fellows.He had even acquired a most ridiculous theory about the degrading effects of civilization,and wanted to go back to a state of barbarism.He said the wilderness was the only true home of man.My father,instead of bearing with what I believe was his infirmity,dryly offered him the means to try his experiment.He started for some place in Texas,saying we would never hear from him again.A month after he wrote for more money.My father replied rather impatiently,I suppose,--I never knew exactly what he wrote.That was some years ago.He had told the truth at last,for we never heard from him again."It is to be feared that John Milton was following the animated lips and eyes of the fair speaker rather than her story.Perhaps that was the reason why he said,"May he not have been a disappointed man?""I don't understand,"she said simply.
"Perhaps,"said John Milton with a boyish blush,"you may have unconsciously raised hopes in his heart--and"--"I should hardly attempt to interest a chronicler of adventure like you in such a very commonplace,every-day style of romance,"she said,with a little impatience,"even if my vanity compelled me to make such confidences to a stranger.No,--it was nothing quite as vulgar as that.And,"she added quickly,with a playfully amused smile as she saw the young fellow's evident distress,"I should have probably heard from him again.Those stories always end in that way.""And you think?"--said John Milton.
"I think,"said Mrs.Ashwood slowly,"that he actually did commit suicide--or effaced himself in some way,just as firmly as Ibelieve he might have been saved by judicious treatment.Otherwise we should have heard from him.You'll say that's only a woman's reasoning--but I think our perceptions are often instinctive,and Iknew his character."
Still following the play of her delicate features into a romance of his own weaving,the imaginative young reporter who had seen so much from the heights of Russian Hill said earnestly,"Then I have your permission to use this material at any future time?""Yes,"said the lady smilingly.
"And you will not mind if I should take some liberties with the text?""I must of course leave something to your artistic taste.But you will let me see it?"There were voices outside now,breaking the silence of the veranda.
They had been so preoccupied as not to notice the arrival of a horseman.Steps came along the passage;the landlord returned.
Mrs.Ashwood turned quickly towards him.
"Mr.Grant,of your party,ma'am,to fetch you."She saw an unmistakable change in her young friend's mobile face.