The Woman Thou Gavest Me; Being the Story of Mary O'Neill. Sir Hall Caine
to leave to-morrow at two, though, having to sail the same night, but of course it would be luck to go farther south than Charcot and make another attack on the Antarctic night.
I could see that life was full of faith and hope and all good things for him, and remembering some episodes of the past I said:
"So you are going 'asploring' in earnest at last?"
"At last," he answered, and we looked into each other's eyes and laughed as we stood together on the church steps, with little tender waves of feeling from our childhood sweeping to our feet.
"And you?" he said. "You look just the same. I knew you instantly. Yet you are changed too. So grown and so … so wonderfully. … "
I knew what he meant to say, and being too much of a child to pretend not to know, and too much of a woman (notwithstanding my nun-like impulses) not to find joy in it, I said I was glad.
"You've left the Convent, I see. When did that happen?"
I told him three weeks ago—that my father had come for me and we were going back to Ellan.
"And then? What are you going to do then?" he asked.
For a moment I felt ashamed to answer, but at last I told him that I was going home to be married.
"Married? When? To whom?"
I said I did not know when, but it was to be to the young Lord Raa.
"Raa? Did you say Raa? That … Good G—— But surely you know. … "
He did not finish what he was going to say, so I told him I did not know anything, not having seen Lord Raa since I came to school, and everything having been arranged for me by my father.
"Not seen him since … everything arranged by your father?"
"Yes."
Then he asked me abruptly where I was staying, and when I told him he said he would walk back with me to the hotel.
His manner had suddenly changed, and several times as we walked together up the Tritoni and along the Du Marcelli he began to say something and then stopped.
"Surely your father knows. … "
"If he does, I cannot possibly understand. … "
I did not pay as much attention to his broken exclamations as I should have done but for the surprise and confusion of coming so suddenly upon him again; and when, as we reached the hotel, he said:
"I wonder if your father will allow me to speak. … "
"I'm sure he'll be delighted," I said, and then, in my great impatience, I ran upstairs ahead of him and burst into my father's room, crying:
"Father, whom do you think I have brought to see you—look!"
To my concern and discomfiture my father's reception of Martin was very cool, and at first he did not even seem to know him.
"You don't remember me, sir?" said Martin.
"I'm afraid I can't just place you," said my father.
After I had made them known to each other they sat talking about the South Pole expedition, but it was a chill and cheerless interview, and after a few minutes Martin rose to go.
"I find it kind of hard to figure you fellows out," said my father. "No money that I know of has ever been made in the Unknown, as you call it, and if you discover both Poles I don't just see how they're to be worth a two-cent stamp to you. But you know best, so good-bye and good luck to you!"
I went out to the lift with Martin, who asked if he could take me for a walk in the morning. I answered yes, and inquired what hour he would call for me.
"Twelve o'clock," he replied, and I said that would suit me exactly.
The Bishop came to dine with us that night, and after dinner, when I had gone to the window to look out over the city for the three lights on the Loggia of the Vatican, he and my father talked together for a long time in a low tone. They were still talking when I left them to go to bed.
TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER
At breakfast next morning my father told me that something unexpected had occurred to require that we should return home immediately, and therefore he had sent over to Cook's for seats by the noon express.
I was deeply disappointed, but I knew my father too well to demur, so I slipped away to my room and sent a letter to Martin, explaining the change in our plans and saying good-bye to him.
When we reached the station, however, I found Martin waiting on the platform in front of the compartment that was labelled with our name.
I thought my father was even more brusque with him than before, and the Bishop, who was to travel with us, was curt almost to rudeness. But Martin did not seem to mind that this morning, for his lower lip had the stiff setting which I had seen in it when he was a boy, and after I stepped into the carriage he stepped in after me, leaving the two men on the platform.
"Shall you be long away?" I asked.
"Too long unfortunately. Six months, nine—perhaps twelve, worse luck! Wish I hadn't to go at all," he answered.
I was surprised and asked why, whereupon he stammered some excuse, and then said abruptly:
"I suppose you'll not be married for some time at all events?"
I told him I did not know, everything depending on my father.
"Anyhow, you'll see and hear for yourself when you reach home, and then perhaps you'll. … "
I answered that I should have to do what my father desired, being a girl, and therefore. …
"But surely a girl has some rights of her own," he said, and then I was silent and a little ashamed, having a sense of female helplessness which I had never felt before and could find no words for.
"I'll write to your father," he said, and just at that moment the bell rang, and my father came into the compartment, saying:
"Now then, young man, if you don't want to be taken up to the North Pole instead of going down to the South one. … "
"That's all right, sir. Don't you trouble about me. I can take care of myself," said Martin.
Something in his tone must have said more than his words to my father and the Bishop, for I saw that they looked at each other with surprise.
Then the bell rang again, the engine throbbed, and Martin said, "Good-bye! Good-bye!"
While the train moved out of the station he stood bareheaded on the platform with such a woebegone face that looking back at him my throat began to hurt me as it used to do when I was a child.
I was very sad that day as we travelled north. My adopted country had become dear to me during my ten years' exile from home, and I thought I was seeing the last of my beautiful Italy, crowned with sunshine and decked with flowers.
But there was another cause of my sadness, and that was the thought of Martin's uneasiness about my marriage the feeling that if he had anything to say to my father he ought to have said it then.
And there was yet another cause of which I was quite unconscious—that like every other girl before love dawns on her, half of my nature was still asleep, the half that makes life lovely and the world dear.
To think that Martin Conrad was the one person who could have wakened my sleeping heart! That a word, a look, a smile from him that day could have changed the whole current of my life, and that. …
But no, I will not reproach him. Have I not known since the day on St. Mary's Rock that above all else he is a born gentleman?