Saxe Holm's Stories, Second Series. Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson
must have a little talk with you."
Annette looked uneasy. She had never seen Margaret look as she looked now. She knew that bad news was coming.
"My dear, good, kind friend, I must go away from you," said Margaret, and her voice trembled.
Annette gazed speechlessly into Margaret's face.
"Oh, Miss Margaret, what is it? Is it that you must go home?"
Margaret shook her head. "No, Mrs. Reutner, I have no expectation of leaving Chicago; but I must find another home. It is not best for me to live in your house any longer."
Great tears rolled down Annette's face, and she sobbed: "Oh, Miss Margaret, is it nothing we can do to make all better for you. It will break the father's heart and the little ones'. Will you not tell us? We have much more money now; we can buy all for you, if you will only show us how it is to be;" and Annette cried heartily.
Margaret was distressed. It seemed disloyal to Karl to give her reason; cruel to Annette and Wilhelm to withhold it. She remained silent for some time. Annette sobbed again a few broken words; "Miss Margaret, you do not know what it is to the house that you are in it. Karl said, only yesterday, that you were the good angel to each one in the house. Tell us, Miss Margaret. Is it that you must have larger rooms? Wilhelm will build all you want—one, two, more."
The mention of Karl's name gave Margaret more strength to proceed.
"I will tell you, my kind friend," she said, "the real truth. It is for your brother that I must go away. He loves me; he told me so this afternoon; and it is not delicate or kind after that for me to live in the same house with him. I shall never be so happy anywhere else. Nobody will make me so comfortable, and I am very, very sorry to go away; but I must," and Margaret, in her turn, was very near crying.
Annette had dried her tears, sprung to her feet, and now stood gazing at Margaret with such stupefaction in her face that Margaret could scarcely keep from smiling in spite of her distress.
"Karl—tell you he love you—to be his wife?" gasped Annette. "Oh, Miss Margaret, it has been a mistake. Karl has never told you that; Karl could not."
Margaret colored.
"I am not likely to be mistaken, Mrs. Reutner," she said, a little coldly. "I regret it more than I can say. But it is so, and I must go away."
Annette seemed like one in a dream. She was in haste to be gone. She replied at random to all Margaret said, and at last sobbed afresh:—
"Oh, Miss Margaret, I must go now. To-morrow I will hear you again. I think not that the good God sent you to our house to take you away like this;" and Annette was gone.
Wilhelm and Karl were seated in the dining room, smoking. Annette, with streaming eyes entered the room, and hurrying breathlessly to Karl, exclaimed:—
"How daredst thou to ask the teacher to be thy wife? It was thou that hast made her ill, and she will go away from our house because of thee, and—" Annette stopped for lack of breath, and because the two men had both sprung to their feet, and were gesticulating violently—Karl with an angry voice.
"God in Heaven! What dost thou take me for, Annette? Dost thou not know I would as soon ask one of the angels in Paradise to be wife to me? Who has told thee this tale?"
And Wilhelm, "Annette, art thou mad, or dost thou think Karl is a madman?"
Annette looked tremblingly from one to the other. She herself had felt like this when Margaret had first told her. In a hesitating voice she began:—
"But Miss Margaret has said that thou—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Karl's face, white as the face of a dead man, was bent close to hers, and Karl's voice, strange, husky, was saying, in slow, gasping syllables:—
"The teacher—said—I—asked—her—to—be—wife?"
Annette nodded, too terrified to speak.
Karl strode to the door, and opened it. Annette ran to hold him back, but Wilhelm restrained her. In that short moment Wilhelm had understood all. "He must speak to her," he said; "let him go. It must be told to her. She has mistaken; it was not that Karl asked her to marry him. But he has let her to know that he has worship for her. And she need not be angry for my Karl's love, if he ask nothing," added Wilhelm, proudly; but his head sank on his breast, and he said, in a low tone to himself: "Oh, my poor Karl; my poor Karl!"
Margaret knew Karl's step. As she heard it rapidly drawing near her door, her heart beat and her cheeks flushed. What had Annette said? What new distress and embarrassment were coming to her now? Almost she resolved not to admit him, But Karl forestalled that intention. Knocking lightly on the door, he spoke at the same instant:—
"Miss Margaret, for God's sake, I ask to come and speak to you one minute—only one minute; it must be."
The anguish in his voice moved Margaret strangely. She opened the door.
Karl entered almost staggering, and with his hands clasped:—
"Oh, mine God," he exclaimed, "give it to me what I shall say! Miss Margaret, beautiful Miss Margaret, angel of God, I did only ask that the love and the daisies should lie together under your feet. I could die here before you in one second, if you do not believe that never, no never, in all this world, I could have asked you what you have said to Annette. You are to me as if I saw you in Heaven; you are angel of God in my brother's house. If you go away because I have said such love as this, then will I, too, go, and never shall my Wilhelm see my face again, so help me, my God!"
Before Karl had spoken three words, Margaret divined all. Shame, resentment, perplexity, and unspeakable distress mingled of all three, were in her face. She could not speak. This man, then, had never dreamed of asking her to be his wife. True, he acknowledged the utmost devotion for her, and more than implied that the reason he could not ask her to marry him was that he revered her as an angel of God; but the mortifying fact remained that she had not only rejected a man who had not asked her to take him as a husband, but she had told the matter, and compelled him to come and undeceive her. It was a bitter thing. Margaret could not speak; she could not look up.
Karl went on, more calmly: "Beautiful Miss Margaret, it will come that you forgive me when you have thought. And you would have seen that it was only the love like the daisy, at the feet, if you had come down-stairs before you had spoken, you would have seen that you need not to go away. It is not kind to the daisy that there be no more sun."
Margaret could not speak. Karl walked slowly to the door. As he opened it, Margaret sprang towards him, and holding out her hand, said:—
"Forgive me, Mr. Reutner. That is the only word I can say."
Karl took her hand in his, looked at it with no more trace of earthly passion in his eyes than if it were the hand of a shrined saint, lifted it to his forehead, bowed, and was gone.
Now was Margaret's distress complete. Turn which way she would, she saw only perplexity and mortification. Mingled with it all was a new, strange feeling in regard to Karl, which she could not define to herself. He had never looked so manly as when he stood before her, saying, "So help me, my God!" It was the only moment in which he had ever, in her presence, seemed stronger than she. Usually his great love bound him as with withes, and laid him helpless at her feet.
A low hum of voices came to Margaret's ears from the room below. Karl and Wilhelm were talking earnestly. Only too vividly Margaret's fancy pictured what they were saying. She walked the floor; she wrung her hands; she was too wretched to shed a tear. Deep down to its very depths her proud heart was humiliated. It was a kind heart, too, spite of its pride; a loving and a grateful heart; and it was sorely wounded to have brought such sorrow to friends.
An hour passed; all grew quiet down-stairs. Margaret still walked the floor. Suddenly she heard soft steps outside her door; a low knock, and Annette's voice said, entreatingly: "Dear Miss Margaret, may Wilhelm come and speak to you?"
Margaret threw the door open