________________________________________________
_ The last rehearsal was over, a tedious dress
rehearsal which had lasted all day and exhausted
the patience of every one who had to do with it.
When Hilda had dressed for the street and
came out of her dressing-room, she found
Hugh MacConnell waiting for her in the corridor.
"The fog's thicker than ever, Hilda.
There have been a great many accidents to-day.
It's positively unsafe for you to be out alone.
Will you let me take you home?"
"How good of you, Mac. If you are going with me,
I think I'd rather walk. I've had no exercise to-day,
and all this has made me nervous."
"I shouldn't wonder," said MacConnell dryly.
Hilda pulled down her veil and they stepped
out into the thick brown wash that submerged
St. Martin's Lane. MacConnell took her hand
and tucked it snugly under his arm.
"I'm sorry I was such a savage. I hope
you didn't think I made an ass of myself."
"Not a bit of it. I don't wonder you were
peppery. Those things are awfully trying.
How do you think it's going?"
"Magnificently. That's why I got so stirred up.
We are going to hear from this, both of us.
And that reminds me; I've got news for you.
They are going to begin repairs on the
theatre about the middle of March,
and we are to run over to New York for six weeks.
Bennett told me yesterday that it was decided."
Hilda looked up delightedly at the tall
gray figure beside her. He was the only thing
she could see, for they were moving through
a dense opaqueness, as if they were walking
at the bottom of the ocean.
"Oh, Mac, how glad I am! And they
love your things over there, don't they?"
"Shall you be glad for--any other reason, Hilda?"
MacConnell put his hand in front of her to ward
off some dark object. It proved to be only a lamp-post,
and they beat in farther from the edge of the pavement.
"What do you mean, Mac?" Hilda asked
nervously.
"I was just thinking there might be people
over there you'd be glad to see," he brought
out awkwardly. Hilda said nothing, and as
they walked on MacConnell spoke again,
apologetically: "I hope you don't mind
my knowing about it, Hilda. Don't stiffen up
like that. No one else knows, and I didn't try
to find out anything. I felt it, even before
I knew who he was. I knew there was somebody,
and that it wasn't I."
They crossed Oxford Street in silence,
feeling their way. The busses had stopped
running and the cab-drivers were leading
their horses. When they reached the other side,
MacConnell said suddenly, "I hope you are happy."
"Terribly, dangerously happy, Mac,"--
Hilda spoke quietly, pressing the rough sleeve
of his greatcoat with her gloved hand.
"You've always thought me too old for
you, Hilda,--oh, of course you've never said
just that,--and here this fellow is not more
than eight years younger than I. I've always
felt that if I could get out of my old case I
might win you yet. It's a fine, brave youth
I carry inside me, only he'll never be seen."
"Nonsense, Mac. That has nothing to do with it.
It's because you seem too close to me,
too much my own kind. It would be like
marrying Cousin Mike, almost. I really tried
to care as you wanted me to, away back in the beginning."
"Well, here we are, turning out of the Square.
You are not angry with me, Hilda? Thank you
for this walk, my dear. Go in and get dry things
on at once. You'll be having a great night to-morrow."
She put out her hand. "Thank you, Mac,
for everything. Good-night."
MacConnell trudged off through the fog,
and she went slowly upstairs. Her slippers
and dressing gown were waiting for her
before the fire. "I shall certainly see him
in New York. He will see by the papers that
we are coming. Perhaps he knows it already,"
Hilda kept thinking as she undressed.
"Perhaps he will be at the dock. No, scarcely
that; but I may meet him in the street even
before he comes to see me." Marie placed the
tea-table by the fire and brought Hilda her letters.
She looked them over, and started as she came
to one in a handwriting that she did not often see;
Alexander had written to her only twice before,
and he did not allow her to write to him at all.
"Thank you, Marie. You may go now."
Hilda sat down by the table with the
letter in her hand, still unopened. She looked
at it intently, turned it over, and felt its
thickness with her fingers. She believed that
she sometimes had a kind of second-sight
about letters, and could tell before she read
them whether they brought good or evil tidings.
She put this one down on the table in front
of her while she poured her tea. At last,
with a little shiver of expectancy,
she tore open the envelope and read:--
Boston, February--
MY DEAR HILDA:--
It is after twelve o'clock. Every one else
is in bed and I am sitting alone in my study.
I have been happier in this room than anywhere
else in the world. Happiness like that makes
one insolent. I used to think these four walls
could stand against anything. And now I
scarcely know myself here. Now I know
that no one can build his security upon the
nobleness of another person. Two people,
when they love each other, grow alike in their
tastes and habits and pride, but their moral
natures (whatever we may mean by that
canting expression) are never welded. The
base one goes on being base, and the noble
one noble, to the end.
The last week has been a bad one; I have been
realizing how things used to be with me.
Sometimes I get used to being dead inside,
but lately it has been as if a window
beside me had suddenly opened, and as if all
the smells of spring blew in to me. There is
a garden out there, with stars overhead, where
I used to walk at night when I had a single
purpose and a single heart. I can remember
how I used to feel there, how beautiful
everything about me was, and what life and
power and freedom I felt in myself. When the
window opens I know exactly how it would
feel to be out there. But that garden is closed
to me. How is it, I ask myself, that everything
can be so different with me when nothing here
has changed? I am in my own house, in my own study, in the
midst of all these quiet streets where my friends live.
They are all safe and at peace with themselves.
But I am never at peace. I feel always on the edge
of danger and change.
I keep remembering locoed horses I used
to see on the range when I was a boy.
They changed like that. We used to catch them
and put them up in the corral, and they developed
great cunning. They would pretend to eat their oats
like the other horses, but we knew they were always
scheming to get back at the loco.
It seems that a man is meant to live only
one life in this world. When he tries to live a
second, he develops another nature. I feel as
if a second man had been grafted into me.
At first he seemed only a pleasure-loving
simpleton, of whose company I was rather ashamed,
and whom I used to hide under my coat
when I walked the Embankment, in London.
But now he is strong and sullen, and he is
fighting for his life at the cost of mine.
That is his one activity: to grow strong.
No creature ever wanted so much to live.
Eventually, I suppose, he will absorb me altogether.
Believe me, you will hate me then.
And what have you to do, Hilda, with
this ugly story? Nothing at all. The little boy
drank of the prettiest brook in the forest and
he became a stag. I write all this because I
can never tell it to you, and because it seems
as if I could not keep silent any longer. And
because I suffer, Hilda. If any one I loved
suffered like this, I'd want to know it. Help
me, Hilda!
B.A. _
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