第23章

I thought he understood." He spoke slowly, with difficult pauses, "I didn't name you to him: I'd have cut my hand off sooner.I just told him I couldn't spare the horse any longer; and that the cooking was getting too heavy for Verena.I guess he's the kind that's heard the same thing before.Anyhow, he took it quietly enough.He said his job here was about done, anyhow; and there didn't another word pass between us....If he told you otherwise he told you an untruth."Charity listened in a cold trance of anger.It was nothing to her what the village said...but all this fingering of her dreams!

"I've told you he didn't tell me anything.I didn't speak with him last night.""You didn't speak with him?"

"No....It's not that I care what any of you say...but you may as well know.Things ain't between us the way you think...and the other people in this place.He was kind to me; he was my friend; and all of a sudden he stopped coming, and I knew it was you that done it--YOU!" All her unreconciled memory of the past flamed out at him."So I went there last night to find out what you'd said to him: that's all."Mr.Royall drew a heavy breath."But, then--if he wasn't there, what were you doing there all that time?--Charity, for pity's sake, tell me.I've got to know, to stop their talking."This pathetic abdication of all authority over her did not move her: she could feel only the outrage of his interference.

"Can't you see that I don't care what anybody says?

It's true I went there to see him; and he was in his room, and I stood outside for ever so long and watched him; but I dursn't go in for fear he'd think I'd come after him...." She felt her voice breaking, and gathered it up in a last defiance."As long as I live I'll never forgive you!" she cried.

Mr.Royall made no answer.He sat and pondered with sunken head, his veined hands clasped about the arms of his chair.Age seemed to have come down on him as winter comes on the hills after a storm.At length he looked up.

"Charity, you say you don't care; but you're the proudest girl I know, and the last to want people to talk against you.You know there's always eyes watching you: you're handsomer and smarter than the rest, and that's enough.But till lately you've never given them a chance.Now they've got it, and they're going to use it.I believe what you say, but they won't....It was Mrs.Tom Fry seen you going in...and two or three of them watched for you to come out again....You've been with the fellow all day long every day since he come here...and I'm a lawyer, and I know how hard slander dies." He paused, but she stood motionless, without giving him any sign of acquiescence or even of attention."He's a pleasant fellow to talk to--I liked having him here myself.The young men up here ain't had his chances.But there's one thing as old as the hills and as plain as daylight: if he'd wanted you the right way he'd have said so."Charity did not speak.It seemed to her that nothing could exceed the bitterness of hearing such words from such lips.

Mr.Royall rose from his seat."See here, Charity Royall: I had a shameful thought once, and you've made me pay for it.Isn't that score pretty near wiped out?...There's a streak in me I ain't always master of;but I've always acted straight to you but that once.

And you've known I would--you've trusted me.For all your sneers and your mockery you've always known Iloved you the way a man loves a decent woman.I'm a good many years older than you, but I'm head and shoulders above this place and everybody in it, and you know that too.I slipped up once, but that's no reason for not starting again.If you'll come with me I'll do it.If you'll marry me we'll leave here and settle in some big town, where there's men, and business, and things doing.It's not too late for me to find an opening....I can see it by the way folks treat me when I go down to Hepburn or Nettleton...."Charity made no movement.Nothing in his appeal reached her heart, and she thought only of words to wound and wither.But a growing lassitude restrained her.What did anything matter that he was saying? She saw the old life closing in on her, and hardly heeded his fanciful picture of renewal.

"Charity--Charity--say you'll do it," she heard him urge, all his lost years and wasted passion in his voice.

"Oh, what's the use of all this? When I leave here it won't be with you."She moved toward the door as she spoke, and he stood up and placed himself between her and the threshold.He seemed suddenly tall and strong, as though the extremity of his humiliation had given him new vigour.

"That's all, is it? It's not much." He leaned against the door, so towering and powerful that he seemed to fill the narrow room."Well, then look here....You're right: I've no claim on you--why should you look at a broken man like me? You want the other fellow...and Idon't blame you.You picked out the best when you seen it...well, that was always my way." He fixed his stern eyes on her, and she had the sense that the struggle within him was at its highest."Do you want him to marry you?" he asked.

They stood and looked at each other for a long moment, eye to eye, with the terrible equality of courage that sometimes made her feel as if she had his blood in her veins.