CHAPTER X
“MY LIFE SHALL BE FOURSQUARE”
The servant who answered the ring at Mr. Dalton’s door found standing there a tall, dignified young man, with the unmistakable stamp of the gentleman upon him.
To his inquiry if Miss Dalton was at home, he replied that she was, and ushered him into a small reception room opposite the drawing room.
“Take this, if you please, to her,” Earle Wayne said, handing the man a blank, unsealed envelope.
The servant took it with a bow and withdrew, wondering what that spotless envelope contained, and who the gentleman was who sent no card—unless, perhaps, it might be in the envelope, and was intended for Edith’s eyes alone.
The fair girl arose with apparent calmness at his rap, and, taking the missive from his hand, opened it, and found within her own note, that she had written bidding Earle come to her as soon as he should be free.
At that moment she realized how very short and formal it was, and a feeling of remorse stole into her heart that she had not written more freely and kindly, in spite of her sensitiveness at her father’s sneers and insinuations.
Waiting a moment or two to cool the hot color in her cheeks, and to still the fierce beating of her heart, she then went slowly and trembling down to meet the brave hero, whom she had not seen for nearly three years.
Would he be much changed? Would he be pale, haggard, and miserable in appearance? Would he look the same, and speak the same, as he had done on that sad day when she had bidden him farewell and left him to go to his dreary fate within those four gloomy walls, or would he be broken and disheartened, and feel that the future held nothing but scorn and contempt for him?
She had read of men, noble, spirited, and energetic, who, having been imprisoned for a term of years, were ruined by it, and who had settled down into an existence of profound melancholy and inaction upon regaining their freedom.
Would Earle be like this?
These were some of the anxious questions that flitted through her mind on the way from her chamber to the reception room, where Earle, with equal agitation, was awaiting her coming.
She opened the door softly and went in.
He did not hear her—he was standing at a window, his back toward her, and absorbed in thought.
As if shod with velvet, Editha crossed the room and stood at his side.
Her eyes had lighted wondrously as they rested upon the proud, handsome figure before her, and the rich color coming and going in her cheeks made her marvelously beautiful.
“Earle, I am so glad you have come,” she said, simply, yet with tremulous tones that betrayed her gladness was almost unto tears, while with something of her old impulse, she held out both fair hands to him.
He started and turned quickly at the sweet tones, and searched the glowing face with eager scrutiny.
Could this tall, beautiful woman, with the shining, silken crown about her shapely head, with her deep, glowing eyes, her rich, varying color, her cordial, tremulous greeting, be the same Editha of three years ago?
She had been a fair, plump, and laughing girl, her sunny hair falling in graceful waves over her rounded shoulders, her eyes dancing with fun and merriment, her moods never twice the same, a creature of heart and impulse.
Now her form was grown; she was more fully developed, with a stately poise which she was not wont to have; her features were more deeply lined with character, and glorified with a richer, more mature beauty, and the waving, sunny hair had been gathered up and wreathed her head in a plaited golden coronet.
But these eyes—those clear, truthful, heaven-blue eyes were the same; the smile was the same upon the scarlet lips, and the sweet, tender tremulous tones were the same; he had never forgotten their music, and his heart bounded with a joy that was almost pain as they again fell upon his ear.
“Earle, I am so glad you have come.”
Words so simple, yet full of heartfelt gladness, never greeted mortal ears before.
He grasped both her outstretched hands, forgetting all her supposed neglect of him, and without the least hesitation as to his own worthiness to do so.
He knew he was worthy—his hands, morally speaking, were as fair and free from stain as her own.
Yet he had not expected to find her so cordial and glad to see him, and her manner filled him with deepest gratitude and admiration.
“Editha—Miss Dalton,” he said, his whole face glowing, “I thank you for your words of welcome—I cannot doubt their heartiness.”
“Of course not; why should you, Earle?” she asked, with some surprise, as she searched his face.
“I told you that I should not forget you—that I should always be your friend; what reason could you have to think I would not greet you heartily?” she urged, a little look of grieved surprise in her eyes.
“I should not if—if—pardon me, I ought not to speak thus. Have you been well?” and he tried to change the subject.
“Quite well; and you?”
“Do not my looks speak for me?” he asked, smiling, yet with the shadow deepening in his eyes.
He might be well physically, but it would take a long while to heal the wound in his soul.
“Earle,” Editha said, gravely, meeting his eyes with a steady, earnest look, “what made you speak as you did about doubting the heartiness of my welcome? I can see that you have some reason for it; please tell me—surely you did not think I would have broken my promise—my flowers must have proven that I did not forget.”
Earle gave her a quick, surprised glance.
“That was just why I was in doubt,” he said, flushing slightly. “I have not received a single token of remembrance from you for nearly two years.”
“Earle!”
Editha instantly grew crimson to the line of gold above her forehead, then white as the delicate lace at her throat at this startling intelligence.
What could this strange thing mean? Who could have appropriated her flowers and kept them from him?
Then, with a feeling of shame, not unmixed with indignation, her heart told her that her father, in his prejudice against Earle, must have intercepted them.
“How cruel!” she murmured. “I do not wonder that you doubted my friendship; but, to exonerate myself, I must tell you that every week I have sent you flowers, or fruit, or something, to show you that you were remembered—not once have I failed.”
“Then forgive me for all the hard things I have thought,” he said, in tones of self-reproach. “I can never tell you how those sweet little messages cheered me during my first year in—that place, nor how dreary and lonely I was when they came no longer to brighten my gloomy cell. After Mr. Forrester died,” he continued, with emotion, “I felt as if my only friend had been taken from me. I had not one to whom to turn for a ray of comfort.”
“I know,” Editha said, with starting tears, then, with rising color, “if you had only dropped me a line, I would have taken care that my offerings reached you safely after that.”
“You know the old saying, ‘one may as well be neglected as forgotten;’ I never mistrusted that they had been sent and failed to reach their destination, and so imagined a good many things I had no right to, and—”
“And were too proud to remind me of my negligence,” Editha interrupted, with a smile.
“Doubtless some enemy has done this, or they could not all have missed coming to me. Am I forgiven for doubting my stanch little friend?” he asked, gently.
“Freely; I could not blame you under the circumstances.”
“Then let us talk of something else,” Earle said for he began to mistrust from Editha’s manner who had been the guilty one. “Tell me of Mr. Forrester and of yourself during these years.”
And thus their conversation drifted to other subjects, and, as they conversed, their old freedom of manner returned in a measure—in a measure, I repeat, for there could not be quite the former carelessness and sparkle, while each was trying to conceal the secret which their hearts held, and which, for the time, at least, they felt they must not reveal.
Earle told her of his life in prison—of how he had spent his time—of the knowledge he had acquired and something of his plans for the future.
“Earle,” she said, glancing up at him through the tears she could not restrain, when he had completed his account, “you have borne it so nobly, this suffering for another, that I want to tell you how proud I am of you; and Uncle Richard would say the same thing if he were living.”
“Thank you,” he said, with emotion; “it is almost worth having been a prisoner for three years to hear you say that. If only the world might feel as assured of my innocence as you do, and hold out the same friendly hand of welcome,” he concluded, with a sigh.
“It will in time, Earle—I feel sure that someday your innocence will be established.”
“I shall devote my energies to that purpose, and if the guilty ones are never brought to justice, I will live my innocence. I will prove it by my life—my life shall be foursquare, and I will yet command the faith and respect of all who know me. It will be hard, but I shall strive to fight my battle bravely, and I feel that I shall conquer in the end. You know Pope tells us that ‘He’s armed without that’s innocent within.’”
“You will succeed—you cannot fail with such an earnest purpose in your heart,” Editha said, eagerly; then she added, musingly: “You said you would make your life ‘foursquare.’ I do not think I quite understand that.”
Earle Wayne smiled a rare, sweet smile, as, leaning nearer his fair companion, he said, in a low, reverent tone:
“You have read of the ‘city that lieth foursquare,’ whose length is as large as its breadth, whose ‘walls are of jasper,’ and whose ‘gates are of pearl.’ That city, Editha, a perfect square, and embellished with the most precious stones, is, I believe, the emblem or symbol of a pure and perfect life, and so, with the help of God, I mean that mine shall be ‘foursquare.’”
Editha gave him a look as if she thought it could not be far from that even now.
After a moment of silence, he continued:
“From my early boyhood, I have always had a desire to become a thoroughly good man—a man honored and respected by my fellow men. My mother ever tried to impress me never to be guilty of a mean or ignoble action. I thought her the perfection of womanhood while she lived, and have tried to treasure her precepts since she died; so you can judge something of what I have endured in the disgrace of serving out a criminal’s sentence. I could not speak of this to anyone else,” he added, with some excitement; “but you have been so kind and sympathizing that it relieves my burden somewhat to speak of it to you.”
Editha did not reply—she had no words with which to answer him, but she lifted her blue eyes to his face, and he saw that they were full of tears.
“I am glad,” Earle went on, a slight tremulousness in his tones, “that my mother did not live to know of my deep trouble—much as I have needed her sympathy, love, and counsel—for she must have suffered torture on account of it. If she knows anything about it now, she knows that I am innocent, and also just why this sad experience was permitted to come to me.”
“Earle, how deeply you have suffered from it,” Editha said, almost awed by the intensity of his feeling, and wondering, too, at his way of looking at the past, as if in some way his trial was meant for his ultimate good.
“But I will rise above it yet; it may be hard for me to battle against the frowns and distrust of the world for a while, but I shall not allow them to dishearten me—if only I had a few more friends,” he added, wistfully.
“You cannot long be without them, with such nobility and resolution in your soul,” Editha answered, her face glowing with admiration for him, “and you may count me the warmest of them all until you find a better.”
She involuntarily held out her hand as if to seal the compact as she spoke.
He grasped it eagerly, his whole face luminous with sudden joy; his breath came quickly, his broad breast rose and fell, and his eyes sought hers with an intensity of expression that made her veil them with her white lids.
She did not know how she was tempting him—she could not know how he had grown to love her during the past six years, and how sweet and cheering her sympathy was to him just now when he felt himself so friendless and alone in the great cold world.
“God bless you, Editha! If—I—”
He had begun to speak in low, concentrated tones, but now he stopped short as if some great inward shock had suddenly cut off his power of speech.
He shut his teeth tightly together and drew in his breath with a quick gasp; the great veins in his forehead filled and stood out full and purple, and his hands locked themselves together with the intensity of some deep, inward emotion.
One quick, searching look Editha flashed up at him, and then her eyes fell again, a rosy flush rising to her very brow at what she had seen on his face.
“I beg your pardon,” he said at length, nervously pushing back the hair from his brow; “I fear you will think me very thoughtless and selfish to weary you thus with my troubles.”
“No, Earle, I—am glad that you think me worthy of your confidence,” she answered, softly.
He looked at her in surprise.
How exceedingly beautiful she was, sitting there with her downcast eyes, the lovely color in her face, and the womanly sympathy beaming in every feature.
“Worthy!” he repeated.
“Yes, worthy,” she said, her lips relaxing just a trifle into a tremulous smile. “I would like to be your friend in all your troubles—maybe I could help you if you would trust me enough to tell me of them. I used to think there was no one like you when I was a wild and impulsive girl, and you were with Uncle Richard—you were always so upright so strong, and self-reliant.”
“You used to think that of me, Editha?” he said, flushing again and trembling.
If she had known how her words moved him—but she did not dream of his love for her.
He began to grow dizzy with the new, delicious hope that seized him as she spoke.
Could it be that this fair girl had learned to love him?
He had thought of her night and day, at his work and in his lonely cell, and her image would be stamped indelibly on his heart as long as he should live.
But he had no right to speak one word of it to her now—his disgrace clung to him, and would clog him, perhaps, for long years.
Oh! if he could but break the cruel fetters that bound him—if he could but discover the real criminal, and clear his own name, then he might hope to win the respect of the world once more, fame and position, and the right to tell this gentle girl how dear she was to him.
“Yes,” she returned, noticing his emphasis, and fearing she might have wounded him by wording her sentence thus; “and, Earle. I think you are very—very noble now, to bear your trouble so patiently and uncomplainingly, and something tells me that it will not be so very long before all the world will be proud to call you friend.”
She spoke softly, but in a tone that thrilled him through and through.
“And then—”
The words came breathlessly, and before he could stop them. They would not be stayed.
He bent eagerly toward her, his heart in his eyes, his face full of passion which so nearly mastered him.
But he checked them, biting them off short as he had done before, but growing white even to his lips with the effort it cost him.
Something in his tones made her start and look up, and she read it all as in an open book—all his love for her, all the blighted hopes of the past, the longing and bitterness of the present, wherein he writhed beneath the stigma resting upon him, and the mighty self-control which would not presume upon her sympathy.
A flood of crimson suddenly dyed her face and throat, and even the soft, white hands that lay in her lap, and which were now seized with nervous trembling.
Then a look of resolution gleamed in her eyes, the red lips settled into an expression of firmness, and, though her heart beat like the frightened thing it was, her sweet tones did not falter as she replied:
“And then—Editha Dalton will be very proud also.”
Was ever heaven’s music sweeter than those few low-spoken, unfaltering words?
There was no mistaking them—they had been uttered with a purpose, and he knew that his love was returned.
Eager brown eyes looked into tender blue for one long, delicious minute. No word was spoken, but both knew that for all time they belonged to each other.
Then Earle Wayne, with a glad, though solemn light illumining his face, lifted the white hand that lay nearest him, touched it reverently with his lips, and then gently laid it back in its place.
It was as though he blessed her for the hope thus delicately held out to him, but his innate nobility and self-respect would not allow him to bind her to him by so much as a word until he could stand proudly before her and offer her a name that should not have so much as the shadow of a stain upon it.
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