The Mettle of the Pasture | Page 4

and thought--it is wrong either way. But the least wrong to you
and to myself--that is what I have always tried to see, and as I
understand my duty, now that you are willing to unite your life with
mine, there is something you must know."
He added the last words as though he had reached a difficult position
and were announcing his purpose to hold it. But he paused gloomily
again.
She had scarcely heard him through wonderment that he could so
change at such a moment. Her happiness began to falter and darken like
departing sunbeams. She remained for a space uncertain of herself,
knowing neither what was needed nor what was best; then she spoke
with resolute deprecation:
"Why discuss with me your past life? Have I not known you always?"
These were not the words of girlhood. She spoke from the emotions of
womanhood, beginning to-night in the plighting of her troth.

"You have trusted me too much, Isabel."
Repulsed a second time, she now fixed her large eyes upon him with
surprise. The next moment she had crossed lightly once more the
widening chasm.
"Rowan," she said more gravely and with slight reproach, "I have not
waited so long and then not known the man whom I have chosen."
"Ah," he cried, with a gesture of distress.
Thus they sat: she silent with new thoughts; he speechless with his old
ones. Again she was the first to speak. More deeply moved by the sight
of his increasing excitement, she took one of his hands into both of hers,
pressing it with a delicate tenderness.
"What is it that troubles you, Rowan? Tell me! It is my duty to listen. I
have the right to know."
He shrank from what he had never heard in her voice
before--disappointment in him. And it was neither girlhood nor
womanhood which had spoken now: it was comradeship which is
possible to girlhood and to womanhood through wifehood alone: she
was taking their future for granted. He caught her hand and lifted it
again and again to his lips; then he turned away from her.
Thus shut out from him again, she sat looking out into the night.
But in a woman's complete love of a man there is something deeper
than girlhood or womanhood or wifehood: it is the maternal--that
dependence on his strength when he is well and strong, that passion of
protection and defence when he is frail or stricken. Into her mood and
feeling toward him even the maternal had forced its way. She would
have found some expression for it but he anticipated her.
"I am thinking of you, of my duty to you, of your happiness."
She realized at last some terrible hidden import in all that he had been

trying to confess. A shrouded mysterious Shape of Evil was suddenly
disclosed as already standing on the threshold of the House of Life
which they were about to enter together. The night being warm, she had
not used her shawl. Now she threw it over her head and gathered the
weblike folds tightly under her throat as though she were growing cold.
The next instant, with a swift movement, she tore it from her head and
pushed herself as far as possible away from him out into the moonlight;
and she sat there looking at him, wild with distrust and fear.
He caught sight of her face.
"Oh, I am doing wrong," he cried miserably. "I must not tell you this!"
He sprang up and hurried over to the pavement and began to walk to
and fro. He walked to and fro a long time; and after waiting for him to
return, she came quickly and stood in his path. But when he drew near
her he put out his hand.
"I cannot!" he repeated, shaking his head and turning away.
Still she waited, and when he approached and was turning away again,
she stepped forward and laid on his arm her quivering finger-tips.
"You must," she said. "You shall tell me!" and if there was anger in her
voice, if there was anguish in it, there was the authority likewise of
holy and sovereign rights. But he thrust her all but rudely away, and
going to the lower end of the pavement, walked there backward and
forward with his hat pulled low over his eyes--walked slowly, always
more slowly. Twice he laid his hand on the gate as though he would
have passed out. At last he stopped and looked back to where she
waited in the light, her face set immovably, commandingly, toward him.
Then he came back and stood before her.
The moon, now sinking low, shone full on his face, pale, sad, very
quiet; and into his eyes, mournful as she had