The Flight of the Shadow

“What!” he returned, with a look of surprise; “do you think of me so? I feel as if I had known you all my life—and before it!”

I felt ashamed, and was silent. If he was such a stranger, why was I there alone with him?

“You must not think I speak so to any one,” he went on. “Of those who know my mother, not one has a right to demand of me anything concerning her. But how could I ask you to see me, and hide from you the truth about her? Prudence would tell you to have nothing to do with the son of such a woman: could I be a true man, true to you, and hold my tongue about her? I should be a liar of the worst sort!”

He felt far too strongly, it was plain, to heed a world of commonplaces.

“Forgive me,” I said. “May I sit down again?”

He held out his hand. I took it, and reseated myself on the clover-hillock. He laid himself again beside me, and after a little silence began to relate what occurred to him of his external history, while all the time I was watching for hints as to how he had come to be the man he was. It was clear he did not find it easy to talk about himself. But soon I no longer doubted whether I ought to have met him, and loved him a great deal more by the time he had done.

I then told him in return what my life had hitherto been; how I knew nothing of father or mother; how my uncle had been everything to me; how he had taught me all I knew, had helped me to love what was good and hate what was evil, had enabled me to value good books, and turn away from foolish ones. In short, I made him feel that all his mother had not been to him, my uncle had been to me; and that it would take a long time to make me as much indebted to a husband as already I was to my uncle. Then I put the question:

“What would you think of me if I had a secret from an uncle like that?”

“If I had an uncle like that,” he answered, “I would sooner cut my throat than keep anything from him!”

“I have not told him,” I said, “what happened to-day—or yesterday.”

“But you will tell him?”

“The first moment I can. But I hope you understand it is hard to do. My love for my uncle makes it hard. It has the look of turning away from him to love another!”

With that I burst out crying. I could not help it. He let me cry, and did not interfere. I was grateful for that. When at length I raised my head, he spoke.

“It has that look,” he said; “but I trust it is only a look. Anyhow, he knows that such things must be; and the more of a good man and a gentleman he is, the less will he be pained that we should love one another!”

“I am sure of that,” I replied. “I am only afraid that he may never have been in love himself, and does not know how it feels, and may think I have forsaken him for you.”

“Are you with him always?”

“No; I am sometimes a good deal alone. I can be alone as much as I like; he always gives me perfect liberty. But I never before wanted to be alone when I could be with him.”

“But he could live without you?”

“Yes, indeed!” I cried. “He would be a poor creature that could not live without another!”

He said nothing, and I added, “He often goes out alone—sometimes in the darkest nights.”

“Then be sure he knows what love is.—But, if you would rather, I will tell him.”

“I could not have any one, even you, tell my uncle about me.”

“You are right. When will you tell him?”

“I cannot be sure. I would go to him to-morrow, but I am afraid they will not let me until he has got a little over this accident,” I answered—and told him what had happened. “It is dreadful to think how he must have suffered,” I said, “and how much more I should have thought about it but for you! It tears my heart. Why wasn’t it made bigger?”

“Perhaps that is just what is now being done with it!” he answered.

“I hope it may be!” I returned. “—But it is time I went in.”

“Shall I not see you again to-morrow evening?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “I must not see you again till I have told my uncle everything.”

“You do not mean for weeks and weeks—till he is well enough to come home? How am I to live till then!”

“As I shall have to live. But I hope it will be but for a few days at most. Only, then, it will depend on what my uncle thinks of the thing.”

“Will he decide for you what you are to do?”

“Yes—I think so. Perhaps if he were—” I was on the point of saying, “like your mother,” but I stopped in time—or hardly, for I think he saw what I just saved myself from. It was but the other morning I made the discovery that, all our life together, John has never once pressed me to complete a sentence I broke off.

He looked so sorrowful that I was driven to add something.

“I don’t think there is much good,” I said, “in resolving what you will or will not do, before the occasion appears, for it may have something in it you never reckoned on. All I can say is, I will try to do what is right. I cannot promise anything without knowing what my uncle thinks.”

We rose; he took me in his arms for just an instant; and we parted with the understanding that I was to write to him as soon as I had spoken with my uncle.

CHAPTER XV. THE TIME BETWEEN

I now felt quite able to confess to my uncle both what I had thought and what I had done. True, I had much more to confess than when my trouble first awoke; but the growth in the matter of the confession had been such a growth in definiteness as well, as to make its utterance, though more weighty, yet much easier. If I might be in doubt about revealing my thoughts, I could be in none about revealing my actions; and I found it was much less appalling to make known my feelings, when I had the words of John Day to confess as well.

I may here be allowed to remark, how much easier an action is when demanded, than it seems while in the contingent future—how much easier when the thing is before you in its reality, and not as a mere thought-spectre. The thing itself, and the idea of it, are two such different grounds upon which to come either to a decision or to action!

One thing more: when a woman wants to do the right—I do not mean, wants to coax the right to side with her—she will, somehow, be led up to it.

My uncle was very feverish and troubled the first night, and had a good deal of delirium, during which his care and anxiety seemed all about me. Martha had to assure him every other moment that I was well, and in no danger of any sort: he would be silent for a time, and then again show himself tormented with forebodings about me. In the morning, however, he was better; only he looked sadder than usual. She thought he was, for some cause or other, in reality anxious about me. So much I gathered from Martha’s letter, by no means scholarly, but graphic enough.

It gave me much pain. My uncle was miserable about me: he had plainly seen, he knew and felt that something had come between us! Alas, it was no fancy of his brain-troubled soul! Whether I was in fault or not, there was that something! It troubled the unity that had hitherto seemed a thing essential and indivisible!

Dared I go to him without a summons? I knew Martha would call me the moment the doctor allowed her: it would not be right to go without that call. What I had to tell might justify far more anxiety than the sight of me would counteract. If I said nothing, the keen eye of his love would assure itself of the something hid in my silence, and he would not see that I was but waiting his improvement to tell him everything. I resolved therefore to remain where I was.

The next two days were perhaps the most uncomfortable ever I spent. A secret one desires to turn out of doors at the first opportunity, is not a pleasant companion. I do not say I was unhappy, still less that once I wished I had not seen John Day, but oh, how I longed to love him openly! how I longed for my uncle’s sanction, without which our love could not be perfected! Then John’s mother was by no means a gladsome thought—except that he must be a good man indeed, who was good in spite of being unable to love, respect, or trust his mother! The true notion of heaven, is to be with everybody one loves: to him the presence of his mother—such as she was, that is—would destroy any heaven! What a painful but salutary shock it will be to those whose existence is such a glorifying of themselves that they imagine their presence necessary to all about them, when they learn that their disappearance from the world sent a thrill of relief through the hearts of those nearest them! To learn how little they were prized, will one day prove a strong medicine for souls self-absorbed.

“There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.”

CHAPTER XVI. FAULT AND NO FAULT

The next day I kept the house till the evening, and then went walking in the garden in the twilight. Between the dark alleys and the open wilderness I flitted and wandered, alternating gloom and gleam outside me, even as they chased one another within me.

In the wilderness I looked up—and there was John! He stood outside the fence, just as I had seen him the night before, only now there was no aureole about his head: the moon had not yet reached the horizon.

My first feeling was anger: he had broken our agreement! I did not reflect that there was such a thing as breaking a law, or even a promise, and being blameless. He leaped the fence, and clearing every bush like a deer, came straight toward me. It was no use trying to escape him. I turned my back, and stood. He stopped close behind me, a yard or two away.

“Will you not speak to me?” he said. “It is not my fault I am come.”

“Whose fault then, pray?” I rejoined, with difficulty keeping my position. “Is it mine?”