Charles Egbert Craddock

“ Hildegarde herself descended as easily as a fawn might bound down a hill, to Colonel Kenwynton’s amazement, accustomed to lend the ladies of his day a supporting arm. She sprang upon the gunwale of the yawl in so lightsome a poise that it scarcely tipped beneath her weight before she was seated beside the old blind soldier, joyous, reassuring and hopeful.
“It is hard to be in danger and unable to help others or even to see and judge of the situation,” he said meekly, bending forward under the down-pour, his face pallid and wrinkled, its expression of groping wistfulness most appealing. ”

“ More than once, as she took up her position beside her husband in the glittering drawing-room, hearing the approach of the first of the guests, he said to her in a low voice, the tone like a pinch: “Don’t seem so dull, Paula—you have gone off awfully in your looks lately, and that gown is no good. For Heaven’s sake be more animated, and not so much like a rag doll.” It was poor preparation to meet the coterie of men and women keyed to a high pitch of effort toward charm and brilliancy, as doing honor to the occasion, their hosts, and themselves. ”

“ There was no lack of indicia of displeasure among the thwarted travelers as they strolled in baffled irritation up and down the stone floor of the portico, and gazed along the glittering river at the slow approach of the shanty-boat, now drifting as noiselessly and apparently as aimlessly on the lustrous surface as a sere leaf on a gust of wind, and now, with its great sweeps, working to keep the current from carrying it in and grounding it on the bank. The old lady who had entertained fears of the insane man was both peevishly outspoken and addicted to covert innuendo. ”

“ As the yawl fared onward it encountered one of the great monarchs of the woods, tossed into the river by the gusts that had uprooted it and now borne swiftly on by the combined force of the wind and the current. It required all the strength of the oarsmen to hold back and give precedence to this gigantic flotsam, lest some uncovenanted swirl of the waters fling it with all its towering intricacies of boughs upon the boat, and, hopelessly entangling it, thrash out the life of every creature on board. For the wind was rife in its branches and thus contorted its course. ”

“ And from the Mississippi River the lenses of the steam yacht Aglaia, focused on the old mansion of Duciehurst, saw it at one moment still and silent, majestic even, in its melancholy ruin, the sun lingering on its massive cornice and columnated portico. The next it slid as softly from vision as an immaterial mirage. The caving bank had gone down into the unimaginable depths of the river, carrying on its floods a thousand acres of disintegrating land and the turbulent waters of the liberated Mississippi were flowing deep over the cotton fields of Duciehurst plantation, two miles inland. ”

“ He could not expect her to forget the fashion of Randal Ducie’s features, and the presence of the twin brother conjured up his face anew—his face which she had subtly distinguished from its counterpart. That revolted his pride. His wife must have no thought, no care, no memory, even, for aught save him! But her protest as to his ownership of Duciehurst, her revolt against owing any phase of her prosperity to the misfortunes of the Ducies, argued latent sensitiveness, an unprobed wound that he had not suspected, thoughts that he could not divine, memories that he did not share. ”

“ She had not even regret for the disaster of Duciehurst. She regarded its destruction as the solution of a problem. She would not have wished to win in the lawsuit the estate she felt was morally and equitably the property of her former lover. It was delightful to her to be in the position to bestow, and not to receive. She was in case to make brave amends for her fickle desertion of Ran Ducie at the summons of wealth and splendor. She would go back to him a prize beyond computation—the woman he loved and had always loved, but endowed like a princess and looking like a queen. ”

“ Captain Treherne lifted his head and looked about him,—only the bare sand of the bar, dimly visible in the vague light of the clouded moon, and of a differing tint from the dull neutral hue of the atmosphere of darkness. The steamer was absolutely silent, save as a loose chain might clank, swinging in the wind, for at this distance one could not discern the shaking of the transoms in their casings. There was no sight or sound of living creature, until a great bird, driven forth from its roost by the falling of a bough, or evicted by the wind, went screaming overhead. ”

“ He rose presently and strolled away from the group on the deck, smoking his cigar and scanning the weather signs of the coming evening. The stress of the subject of Randal Ducie’s bereavement weighed heavily on his nerves in this vicinity. If, under all the circumstances, it could be so easily and openly mentioned here he was not sure of his ability to listen with discretion. The world was growing strange to him,—he felt himself indeed a survival. He did not understand such views as seemed to possess this woman, such standards of right, such induration of sensibilities. ”

“ A sound that in the deep peace of dreams smote no fiber of consciousness. It came again and again. It was the sound of a step ascending the stair. A slender shaft of light preceded it—the dim radiance showed first in a line under the door. Then the door slowly swung ajar, and Hugh Treherne entered, his candle in his hand—not the officer that the old Colonel had known and trusted in the years that tried men’s souls, who never broke faith or failed in a duty; not the piteous wreck whom he had met on the tow-head where the Cherokee Rose lay aground, who wept on his neck and besought his aid ”

“ Mrs. Floyd-Rosney’s aspect was of a conventional contrast, as point-device as if she sat at table at some ordinary function. The sheen of her golden hair, the gleam of her white dress, her carmine cheeks, her elated and brilliant eyes, her attentive observation of the events as they deployed, were all noted in turn by her domestic tyrant, with a view to future reference. “I’ll have it out with Paula when we get away from here, if ever,” he said grimly within his own consciousness. ”

“ Man and soldier though he was, he could look only with glooming and averse eyes at the wreck of the Cherokee Rose, where a dread deed was wrought, lying white and stark, skeleton-wise, like bleaching bones on the sand-bar in that immaterial region between the pallid mists of the evening and the gray sheen of the river. Very melancholy the aspect of the forlorn craft, he thought in passing, and he scarcely wondered at the prevalence of the riverside legend that strange presences were wont to revisit the glimpses of the moon on this grim, storied wreck of the Mississippi. ”

“ Once more their glances met.
“Colonel,” said Treherne falteringly, “I am not sane. I admit it.”
“I know better,” Colonel Kenwynton vociferated, facing around upon him. “You are as sane as I am, as any man. This is hypnotism. I saw how that fellow looked at you. I marked him well. Why, sanity is in your every intonation.”
Treherne took heart of grace. “But, Colonel, this is a lucid interval. Sometimes I am not myself,—in fact, for many years I was absent.” ”

“ I never loved the woman she is.”
“She is very beautiful,” hesitated Adrian.
“When I thought her mind and heart matched her face she seemed beautiful to me, too,” said Randal.
“You will think so still.”
“Kid, you know nothing about love. A man truly in love may have been attracted by beauty, but it is not that which holds him. It is a unity of soul; he finds a complement of mind; he has a sense of sympathy and, through thick and thin, a partisan, constant faith in a reciprocal heart. ”

“ Floyd-Rosney rowed briskly to the stair that formerly served to ascend to the hurricane deck, the skiff running up flush with the flight. He sprang out—first trying the integrity of the wood with a cautious foot, and tied the painter firmly to one of the posts that supported the hurricane deck, leaving the boat leaping on the ripples, as if seeking to break away from some ponderous creature of its own kind that would fain drag it down into the hopeless devastations of a lair in the depths. ”

“ It was the aspect of the Ducie face, the associations of the past that had recalled her real self to life, that had relumed the spark of pride{160} which had once been her dominant trait, that had given her courage to revolt at rebuke in Adrian’s presence, to hold up her head, to speak from her own individuality, to be an influence to be reckoned with. But of what avail? Life must go on as heretofore, the old semblance of submission, of adulation, the adjustment of every word, every idea, every desire, to the mould of her husband’s thought, his preference. ”

“ Paula was permitted by law to judge and act for herself, and she had had much experience which had aided in determining her course. He could not bring himself to urge her to condone the insupportable allegations in the bill of divorce which Floyd-Rosney had filed and allowed to be made public, and to trust herself and the child once more in his clutches. She had now the wind of public favor in her sails. Her husband had committed himself so openly and so irretrievably that it was probable that the custody of the child would be awarded to her in view of his tender years. ”

“ It rolled swiftly along the table, slipped off its beveled edge, and was heard spinning somewhere in the shadows of the great dusky room. More than one of the gentlemen rose to recover it, and Paula, with unbecoming officiousness, her husband thought, joined in the search. It was she who secured it, and as she restored the coin she laid a glittering trifle before the box, as if it, too, had fallen from the table. “Here is one of the Ducie jewels,” she said.
“Why, it is a key, how cute,” cried Hildegarde. ”