Page:Weird Tales v02 n01 (1923-07-08).djvu/84

Rh glow, brooded the radiance of the crackling logs.

The old lady rose from the bench before the fire and advanced, smilingly, to meet him. She was a very ancient little dame. Her quaint, full dress might have been the fashion in the dim days of her girlhood. Her curtsey, too, retained a flavor of those days. The doctor found himself bowing even more ceremoniously than he had done for the old gentleman; and he felt that old-world formality very pleasing. It stirred no chord in his memory—the courtly old pair were strangers to him; yet, as he greeted them, something generous and glowing pulsed through his veins; something akin to that hot, soon-passing fire which is youth.

"You are late again," chided a soft voice, out of the shadows.

The doctor wheeled, suddenly. He had not seen this girl. She must have been sitting very quietly in the lee of the fireplace. She stood now in the ruddy glow, and regarded him with a pouting smile. Her eyes were deep violet, but the firelight darkened them to black. Her face was rose and ivory. As her gaze met his, her delicate under lip, which had been drawn inward with the pout, struggled into freedom; and let the smile have its way without hindrance.

"I suppose I must forgive you," she exclaimed, with a toss of her head. "Will you be pleased to sit beside me on the bench, and talk to me, sir? Waiting is weary work, you know and I have been practising it a long time."

"I must have been lost in the woods," the doctor defended, rather shamefacedly.

"You—lost in these woods?" She laughed, frankly, and, seizing his hand in her own firm little one, dragged him unresisting to the bench. There she plumped down, and took both of his hands in hers, the better to emphasize, by patting them, the fact that she was scolding him soundly.

"What will you say next? Each night you've the most ridiculous excuse in the world. Then, the very next time, you come with a worse. Don’t you know, sir, that lovers should be ahead of their hour, and not tardy?"

The doctor was aware that the old couple had excused themselves. He was alone with the girl. Of other facts, however—even more obvious—he was strangely unaware. He had no feeling that the girl was speaking wildly. There was nowhere in his horizon any sense of incongruity. With the first of her words—at the mere sound of her voice—he had lost all possibility of that. The fire coursing through his veins was authentic. He was a young man. Remembering nothing, he still knew that this was the place where he should be.

"Yet I was lost," he insisted, obstinately.

Her eyes sobered. She leaned toward him, until her warm breath was on his cheek, and looked up into his face, with a sort of fright.

"Wilford! Do you mean to tell me you're not joking? If you're not, then you are ill; for you know these woods better than I."

"I was lost; but I’ve found myself, now!" he answered her, with an abrupt burst of gayety. "I've found myself, Lucia!"

"Did you ever lose yourself, then, silly boy?" she retorted.

It was a simple question, but it shook the doctor. His mind, which had seemed very steady, swayed a little, and he saw the girl and the room and the crackling logs through a mist. Then the steadiness returned. She was regarding him with a mischievous smile, which had, withal, something of wonder in it. He smiled back into her violet eyes, and, with sudden deftness, imprisoned the hand that had been patting his.

"Lucia!"

She was silent; but her smile became deeper. There was a hint in it, too, of wistfulness and pain.

"Tell me—" he began; then he stopped. What was it he wished her to tell him? It was perfectly natural that he should be there on the bench with her. There was no mystery in that. Yet why, then, were they so strange toward each other? They should have been chatting unrestrainedly and gaily, as they always did. No two people in the world could be more intimate than they were. He knew the white soul behind those violet eyes. He knew—

Then he began to talk. It seemed that the realization of that constraint was all he had needed. He talked; and so did she—though mostly she listened, her ivory cheeks alternately suffused with color, and pale. That which they said was chiefly expressed in tones of the voice, in glances, in subtle interchange more delicate and evanescent than words. One fragment, only, remained of their constraint: which was, that he contented himself with looking into her quickened face, and with pressing her hands between both of his.

So it grew late; and, becoming aware of familiar heavy footsteps, the doctor glanced up, to find the old gentleman smiling down at him, while the little, old lady hovered hospitably in the rear.

"I have kindled a fire in your room," the old gentleman announced, in his booming voice. "One trip up the stairs is enough for me. When you are ready, Lucia will show you there."

"He is ready now, grandfather," said the girl, rising; and, with her words, the doctor knew, suddenly, that he was, indeed, very tired.

His hand sought his heart again, and he smiled somewhat vaguely about him. Lucia lighted two candles which were on the mantel, and, giving him one, took the other, herself. He was tired; but, nevertheless, he felt unconquerably young. He responded to the stately leave-taking of the old gentleman and the old lady almost with the forced gayety of a boy bidding his elders good-night.

He followed Lucia through the doorway, her slender, whiltewhite [sic]-clad figure tripping before him up the narrow stairs. When they reached the hallway above, broad and heavy-timbered, he walked beside her, and looked into her steady eyes; but in the flickering yellow light of the candle, she seemed unsubstantial. In spite of that evening's intimacy, there was a gulf between them. He yearned to speak, yet walked in silence.

She stopped, at length, before an open doorway near the far end of the hall, from which came the glow of a fire.

"This is your room," she said, quietly. "I hope you will sleep well, Wilford. Good-night."

He did not answer, at once. Instead, he stood in the doorway, and looked into her face. Very slowly, like a man in a dream, he advanced toward her. She trembled, but did not retreat. In the yellow circle of candlelight, she was more than ever like a figure in ivory.

He extended his arms. She leaned slightly toward him. Then an instantaneous change crossed her face. It seemed the expression of one who remembers a half-forgotten and terrible truth. She turned, with a little cry, and ran back down the passage.

He watched her candle-light, swiftly receding, until it was gone.

E ENTERED the room, heavily; but the warm comfort of its greeting, as he looked slowly about it, revived him, and brought back something of the cheer of the evening he had spent on the bench before the fire.

It was a beautifully old-fashioned room with a four-poster bed, equally ancient, which stood at right angles to the wall on one side of the crackling fireplace. On the other was an oaken wardrobe, with a top higher than the doctor could reach. He essayed the feat, in youthful exuberance, and paid for it the next moment when he sank down upon the bed, hand on heart. The