CHAPTER VII.
A search, continued unintermittingly for a week among the hotels andlodging-houses of Boston, proved finally successful. He found her. As sheopened the door of the miserable apartment which she occupied, and sawwho it was that had knocked, the hard, unbeautiful red of shame coveredher face. She would have closed the door against him, had he not quicklystepped within. Her eyelids fluttered a moment, and then she met his gazewith a look of reckless hardihood. Still holding the door half open, shesaid--
"Henry Burr, what do you want?"
The masses of her dark hairs hung low about her neck in disorder, andeven in that first glance his eye had noted a certain negligentuntidiness about her toilet most different from her former ways. Her facewas worn and strangely aged and saddened, but beautiful still with thequenchless beauty of the glorious eyes, though sleepless nights had lefttheir dark traces round them;
"What do you want? Why do you come here?" she demanded again, in harsh,hard tones; for he had been too much moved in looking at her to reply atonce.
Now, however, he took the door-handle out of her hand and closed thedoor, and said, with only the boundless tenderness of his moist eyes tomend the bluntness of the words--
"Madeline, I want you. I want you for my wife."
The faintest possible trace of scorn was perceptible about her lips, buther former expression of hard indifference was otherwise quite unchangedas she replied, in a spiritless voice--
"So you came here to mock me? It was taking a good deal of trouble, butit is fair you should have your revenge."
He came close up to her.
"I'm not mocking. I'm in earnest. I'm one of those fellows who can neverlove but one woman, and love her for ever and ever. If there were not ascrap of you left bigger than your thumb, I'd rather have it than anywoman in the world."
And now her face changed. There came into it the wistful look of thosebefore whom passes a vision of happiness not for them, a look such asmight be in the face of a doomed spirit which, floating by, should catcha glimpse of heavenly meads, and be glad to have had it, although its ownway lay toward perdition. With a sudden impulse she dropped upon herknee, and seizing the hem of his coat pressed it to her lips, and then,before he could catch her, sprang away, and stood with one arm extendedtoward him, the palm turned outward, warning him not to touch her. Hereyes were marvellously softened with the tears that suffused them, andshe said--
"I thank you, Henry. You are very good. I did not think any man could beso good. Now I remember, you always were very good to me. It will makethe laudanum taste much sweeter. No! no! don't! Pity my shame. Spare methat! Oh, don't!"
But he was stronger than she, and kissed her. It was the second time hehad ever done it. Her eyes flashed angrily, but that was instantly past,and she fell upon a chair crying as if her heart would break, her handsdropping nervously by her sides; for this was that miserable, desolatesorrow which does not care to hide its flowing tears and wrung face.
"Oh, you might have spared me that! O God! was it not hard enoughbefore?" she sobbed.
In his loving stupidity, thinking to reassure her, he had wounded thepride of shame, the last retreat of self-respect, that cruellest hurt ofall. There was a long silence. She seemed to have forgotten that he wasthere. Looking down upon her as she sat desolate, degraded, hopelessbefore him, not caring to cover her face, his heart swelled till itseemed as if it would burst, with such a sense of piteous loyalty andsublimed devotion as a faithful subject in the brave old times might havefelt towards his queen whom he has found in exile, rags, and penury.Deserted by gods and men she might be, but his queen for ever she was,whose feet he was honoured to kiss. But what a gulf between feeling thisand making her understand his feeling!
At length, when her sobs had ceased, he said, quietly--
"Forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"It's all the same. It's no matter," she answered, listlessly, wiping hereyes with her hand. "I wish you would go away, though, and leave mealone. What do you want with me?"
"I want what I have always wanted: I want you for my wife."
She looked at him with stupid amazement, as if the real meaning of thisalready once declared desire had only just distinctly reached her mind,or as if the effect of its first announcement had been quite effaced bythe succeeding outburst.
"Why, I thought you knew! You can't have heard--about me," she said.
"I have heard, I know all," he exclaimed, taking a step forward andstanding over her. "Forgive me, darling! forgive me for being almost gladwhen I heard that you were free, and not married out of my reach. I can'tthink of anything except that I've found you. It is you, isn't it? It isyou. I don't care what's happened to you, if it is only you."
As he spoke in this vehement, fiery way, she had been regarding him withan expression of faint curiosity. "I believe you do really mean it," shesaid, wonderingly, lingering over the words; "you always were a queerfellow."
"Mean it!" he exclaimed, kneeling before her, his voice all tremulouswith the hope which the slightly yielding intonation of her words hadgiven him. "Yes--yes--I mean it."
The faint ghost of a smile, which only brought out the sadness of herface, as a taper in a crypt reveals its gloom, hovered about her eyes.
"Poor boy!" she said; "I've, treated you very badly. I was going to makean end of myself this afternoon, but I will wait till you are tired ofyour fancy for me. It will make but little difference. There! there!Please don't kiss me."