The Purchase Price by Emerson Hough (ebook reader screen .txt) 📕

eyes were duller. Neither had she slept. She also suffered, even now. Yet her courage matched his own. She smiled.

"It makes me crawl, all the way through, to see a woman hurt that way. Why did you try to climb out of that window? You weren't walking in your sleep."

"I was trying to get away from you. I thought you were coming. I thought I heard you—at the door." She looked him full in the face, searching it for sign of guilt, of confusion. "Was it not enough?" she added.

The frown on his face only deepened. "That was not true," said he. "I never came to your door. It was Sally you heard. I'll confess—I sent her, to get away those—those clothes you saw. I didn't want—you to see them."

"I believe you!" she said, low, as if she spoke to herself. "Yes,
I understand now."

"Why don't you say I'm lying to you?"

"Because you are not lying. Because you tell me the truth, and I know it. I was mistaken."

"How do you know? Why forgive me? I don't want you to forgive me.
You don't understand the madness—"

"What hope could there be in a particular madness such as that?" He could see her eyes turned on him steadily. He turned away, sighing.

"I am degraded for ever."

"Tell me," she flashed out upon him suddenly; "what did you think then of me, there on the boat? How did you dare—"

"I don't think I had any conclusion—I only wanted you. I just couldn't think of your going away, that was all. I'd never seen a woman like you, I'll never hope to see another your equal in all my life. And you sent for me, told me to come, said you needed help. I didn't know what you were. But I didn't care what you were, either. I don't care now. Your past might be what you liked, you might be what you are not, and it would make no difference to me. I wanted you. I'll never in all my life cease to want you. Who you are or what you are is nothing to me."

[Illustration: "I'll never in all my life cease to want you."]

"But what is the right thing to do now?" he resumed, after a time. "Parole? Hostage? I don't need to tell you I'm the prisoner now. My future, my character, are absolutely in your hands. The fact that I have insulted a woman can be proved. It is with you, what revenge you will take. As a lawyer, I point out to you that the courts are open. You easily can obtain redress there against Warville Dunwody. And your relatives or friends will of course hold me accountable."

"Then you fear me?"

"No. What comes, comes. I am afraid of no one in the world but my own self. I fear only the dread of facing life—of looking about me here, in my own home, and not seeing, not hearing you.

"But you haven't told me what you wish," he added; raising his eyes at last; "nor what you intend to do. Tell me, when will your lawyers call on me?"

"Never at all," she answered at last.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "To set me quit so easily? Oh, no."

"Never fear. You shall pay me ransom, and heavily."

"Ransom? Parole? Hostages? How do you mean?"

"What ransom you pay me must be out of yourself, out of your own character. I shall exact it a hundredfold, in shame, in regret, of you. Do you hold any of that ready to pay your debtor?"

He shook his head. "No, I'll never regret. But you don't know me, do you? My fortune is adequate."

"So is mine," she rejoined. "I could perhaps buy some of your property, if it were for sale. But I want more than money of you."

"Who are you?" demanded he suddenly, reverting to the old puzzle regarding her.

A sadness came upon her averted face. "Only a bit of flotsam on the human wave. How small we all are, any of us! And there's so much to be done!"

Half stumbling, he shifted his position, leaning his weight against the tall pillar of the gallery. He could see her plainly. In the light from the hall half her features were now thrown into Rembrandt lighting. The roll of dark hair framed her face, highbred, aristocratic, yet wholly human and sweet. Gravity sat on all her features; a woman for thought, said they. A woman for dreams; so declared the fineness of brow and temple and cheek and chin, the hand—which, lifted now for an instant, lingered at her throat. But a woman for love! so said every throb of the pulse of the man regarding her. And now, most of all, pity of her just because she was woman was the thought first in his soul. Already he was beginning to pay, and as she had said!

"You don't answer me," said he, at length, gently. "I can imagine your ambitions; but I don't learn enough of you."

"No," said she, with a deep breath. "As you said, we part, each with secrets untold. To you, I am of no consequence. Very well. I was born, no matter where, but free and equal to yourself, I fancy. I came here in the pursuit of life and liberty, and of the days of my remaining unhappiness. I suppose this must be your answer."

"You speak, at least, as though you had studied life—and history."

"I have lived. And I have seen some history made—for a cause. Sir, a great cause. Men will fight for that again, here, on this soil, not under man-made laws, but under a higher and greater law. You love my body. You do not love my mind. I love them, both. Yes, I am student of the law. Humanity! Is it not larger than we? Is this narrow, selfish life of yours all you can see—of life—of this law?"

"Yes," said Dunwody, grinning painfully. "I reckon maybe it was one of those 'higher law' abolitionists that shot me!"

"Shot? What do you mean?" Forgetting philosophy, she turned swiftly. Yet even as she spoke she now for the first time caught sight of the dark rimmed rent in his trousers leg, noted the uneasy fashion in which he held his weight.

"No one told me you were hurt—I thought you only tired, or perhaps bruised by some accident—when you fell, in there."

"No; shot," he replied. "Shot right in here, through the edge of the bone. When I tripped and fell, there in the hall, I broke the bone short off—it was only nicked at first."

"And you have been standing here, talking to me, with that?" She stepped to him swiftly and placed a hand under his arm. "You must go in. Come. Can you walk?"

Through his nerves, racked as they were, there swept a flood of joy, more sweet than that of any drug. He could see the blown hair about her ears, see the round of her neck, the curve of her body as she bent to aid him, putting her free arm under his, forgetful of everything in her woman's wish to allay suffering, to brood, to protect, to increase life. They passed through the door toward the foot of the stairs. Here she turned to him.

"The pain is very great?" she inquired.

"The pain at thinking of your going away is very great," he answered. One hand on the newel post, he bent down, his head on his arm for an instant. "Oh, you're making me pay!" he groaned. But the next moment he turned on her defiantly. "I'll not learn! If this was the only way for me to meet you, then I'll not regret a single thing I've done. I'll not! I'll not! I'll not pay! It all comes back to me, just what I said before. What couldn't we do, together?—I need you—I need you!"

"You must go to your room. You've been standing for an hour."

"But I've been with you. I can't hope for another hour like this. You'll be leaving me. But I'd live the hour over again—in hell with you!"

"I told you, when we all gave parole, that I would exact my price of you, in regret, in remorse."

"You shall not have it in regret, I'll not regret. But I'm paying!
See, I'm telling you you may go, that you must go—away from me."

CHAPTER XX THE ART OF DOCTOR JAMIESON

Eleazar proved a faithful messenger once more. Before the evening shadows had greatly lengthened, three figures appeared at the lower end of the approach to Tallwoods mansion house. Jeanne, as usual looking out from their window, saw these.

"It is the old man, Madame," she commented. "And yes, Monsieur le Docteur at last—thank the Bon Dieu! But one other—who is that?"

[Illustration: "It is the old man, Madame," commented Jeanne.]

It was a very worn and weary doctor who presently swung out of his saddle at the gallery step. His clothing was stained with mud, his very shoulders drooping with fatigue. In the past few days he scarcely had slept, but had been here and there attending to the wants of surviving sufferers of the boat encounter. None the less he smiled as he held out his hand to Josephine.

"How is my patient?" he inquired. "Plumb well, of course. And how about this new one—I thought I fixed him up before he came home. I've been grunting at Eleazar all the way, telling him it's all foolishness, my coming away out here—he could have fixed Dunwody's leg up, somehow. I suppose you know the old man's son, Hector. He came along for good measure, I reckon."

The young man referred to now advanced, made a leg and pulled a black forelock. He was a strapping youth, attired in the latest fashion of French St. Genevieve. He bowed to this lady; but at the same time, the glance he cast at her French waiting-maid was evidence enough of the actuating cause of his journey. He had heard somewhat of these strangers at Tallwoods house.

"I'll been forget to tell the docteur h'all about Mr. Dunwodee," began Eleazar.

"What business have you to forget!" demanded Jamieson sternly.
"Has anything gone wrong?"

"Mon pere," began Hector, "I'll tol' him, if he didn't tell the docteur about how Monsieur Dunwodee he'll broke it his leg some more—"

"What's that?" The doctor whirled upon him.

"It's quite true," said Josephine. "He had a fall, here in the house. He thinks he has broken the injured bone. I didn't know for a long time that he had been shot. He stood out here last night talking to me."

"Stood out here—talking to you—with his leg broken through—the front bone? Couldn't you have any mercy? You didn't have to use that broken wrist, but he—standing around—"

"He did not tell me, until the last moment. He said he thought he had a little fever and believed he would take a little quinine."

"Oh, quinine—a Missourian would take that to save his immortal soul—and quite as well as to take it for a broken bone like that. I did the best I could with it—out there in the dark, but it wasn't half dressed. Come—" He motioned Josephine to follow him to Dunwody's room.

Eleazar had slunk away about the house, but Hector, left alone with Jeanne, improved the shining hour. In a few moments he had informed her that he was most happy to see one so beautiful, one, moreover, who spoke his own tongue—although perhaps, it was true, not quite as that tongue was spoken in Canada. As for himself, he was a cooper, and had a most excellent business, yonder at St. Genevieve. But the society of St. Genevieve—ah, well! And so on, very swimmingly.

In the sick chamber Jamieson