Pocahontas gazed at him in bewilderment, her mind grappling with an idea that appalled her, her face blanching with apprehension, and her form cowering as from an expected blow.

"Must I understand, Mr. Thorne, that love for _me_ suggested the thought of divorcing your wife?" she questioned hoa.r.s.ely--"that _I_ came between you and caused this horrible thing? It is _not_--it _can not_ be true. G.o.d above! Have I fallen so low?--am I guilty of this terrible sin?"

Thorne's quick brain recognized instantly the danger of allowing this idea to obtain possession of her mind. Fool! he thought furiously, why had not he been more cautious, more circ.u.mspect. Dextrously he set himself to remove the idea or weaken its force--to prove her guiltless in her own eyes.

"Princess," he said, meeting the honest, agonized eyes squarely, "I want to tell you the story of my marriage with Ethel Ross, and of my subsequent life with her. I had not intended to hara.s.s you with it until later--if at all; but now, I deem it best you should become acquainted with it, and from my lips. It will explain many things."

Then he briefly related all the miserable commonplace story. He glossed over nothing, palliated nothing; bearing hardly now on his wife, and again on himself, but striving to show throughout how opposed to true marriage was this marriage, how far removed from a perfect union was this union. Pocahontas listened with intense, strained interest, following every word, sometimes almost antic.i.p.ating them.

Her heart ached for him--ached wearily. Life had been so hard upon him; he had suffered so. With a woman's involuntary hardness to woman, she raised the blame from Thorne's shoulders and heaped it upon those of his wife. Her love and her sympathy became his advocates and pleaded for him at the bar of her judgment. Her heart yearned over him with infinite compa.s.sion.

If Thorne had kept silence, and left the matter there, and waited until she should have adapted herself to the new conditions, should have a.s.similated the new influences, which crowded thick upon her, it would have been better. But he could not keep silent--he had no patience to wait. He could not realize that the things which were as a thrice-told tale to _him_, had an overwhelming newness for _her_. That the influences which had molded his thought, were very far removed from the influences which had made _her_ what she was. He could not understand that, while the world had progressed, this isolated community had remained stationary, and that the principles and rules of conduct among them, still, were those which had governed _his_ world in the beginning of the century.

He saw that her sympathy had been aroused, that she suffered for, and with, him, and he could not forbear from striving to push the advantage. He went on speaking earnestly; he demonstrated that this marriage which had proved so disastrous was in truth no marriage, and that its annulment was just and right, for where there was no love, he argued, there could be no marriage. With all the sophistry; with all the subtle arguments of which he was master--and they were neither weak nor few--he a.s.sailed her. Every power of his brilliant intellect, every weapon of his mental armory, all the force of his indomitable will was brought to bear upon her--and brought to bear in vain.

Calm, pale, resolute, she faced him--her clear eyes meeting his, her nervous hands folded tightly together. She would not give way. In their earnestness both had risen, and they stood facing each other on the hearth-rug, their eyes nearly on a level. The man's hand rested on the mantle, and quivered with the intensity of his excitement; the woman's hung straight before her, motionless, but wrung together until the knuckles showed hard through the tense skin. She would NOT give way.

Thorne was startled and perplexed. Opposition he was prepared for, argument he could meet and possibly refute, tears and reproaches he could subdue--but dumb, quiet resistance baffled him. Suddenly he abandoned reason, cast self-control to the winds, and gave the reins to feeling. If he could not convince her through the head, he would try a surer road--the heart. Though proof against argument, would she be proof against love? He knew she loved him; he felt it in every fiber of his being, every pulse of his heart--and he was determined to win her at all hazards; his she must be; his she _should_ be.

"My love!" he murmured, extending his arms with an appealing tenderness of look and gesture. "Come to me. Lay your sweet face on my breast, your dear arms around my neck. I need you, Princess; my heart cries out for you, and will not be denied. I can not live without you. You are mine--mine alone, and I claim your love; claim your life. What is that woman? What is any woman to me, save you, my darling--you only?

My love! My love! It is my very life for which I am pleading. Have you no pity? No love for the man whose heart is calling you to come?"

Pocahontas shivered, and bent slightly forward--her face was white as death, her eyes strange and troubled. The strength and fire of his pa.s.sion drew her toward him as a magnet draws steel. Was she yielding?

Would she give way?

Suddenly she started erect again, and drew back a step. All the emotions, prejudices, thoughts of her past life; all the principles, scruples, influences, amid which she had been reared, crowded back on her and a.s.serted their power. She could _not_ do this thing. A chasm black as the grave, hopeless as death, yawned at her feet; a barrier as high as heaven erected itself before her.

"I can not come," she wailed in anguish. "Have you no mercy?--no pity for me? There is a barrier between us that I dare not level; a chasm I can not cross."

"There is _no_ barrier," responded Thorne, vehemently, "and I will acknowledge none. I am a free man; you are a free woman, and there is no law, human or divine, to keep us asunder, save the law of your own will. If there be a chasm--which I do not see; which I swear does not exist--_I_ will cross it. If you can not come to me, I can come to you; and I _will_. You are _mine_, and I will hold you--here in my arms, on my breast, in my heart. Have you, and hold you, so help me G.o.d!"

With a quick stride he crossed the small s.p.a.ce between them, and stood close, but still not touching her.

"Have you no pity?" she moaned.

"None," he answered hoa.r.s.ely. "Have you any for me?--for us both? I love you--how well, G.o.d knows, I was not aware until to-night--and you love me I hope and believe. There is nothing between us save an idle scruple, which even the censorious world does not share. I ask you to commit no sin; to share no disgrace. I ask you to be my wife before the face of day; before the eyes of men; in the sight of heaven!"

Could she be his wife in the sight of heaven? It was all so strange to her, she could not understand. Words, carelessly heard and scarcely heeded, came back to her, and rung their changes in her brain with ceaseless iteration. It was like a knell.

"Nesbit?" she said wearily, using his name unconsciously, "listen and understand me. In the eyes of the law, and of men you are free; but I can not see it so. In my eyes you are still bound."

"I am _not_ bound," denied Thorne, fiercely, bringing his hand down heavily on the mantle; "whoever tells you that I am, lies, and the truth is not in him. I've told you all--and yet not all. Ethel Ross, the woman who was my wife--whom _you_ say is my wife still--is about to marry again. To join her life--as free and separate from mine as though we had never met--to the life of another man. Isn't that enough? Can't you see how completely every tie between us is severed?"

Pocahontas shook her head. "I can not understand you, and you will not understand me," she said mournfully; "her sin will not lessen our sin; nor her unholy marriage make ours pure and righteous."

Thorne stamped his foot. "Do you wish to madden me?" he exclaimed; "there is no sin, I tell you; nor would our marriage be unholy. You are torturing us both for nothing on G.o.d's earth but a scruple. I've argued, reasoned, and pleaded with you, and you refuse to weigh the argument, to listen to the reason, to yield to the persuasion. You are hard, and opinionated, and obstinate. You set up your individual judgment against the verdict of the world and deem it infallible. You are hard to yourself, and cruelly hard to me, for, as there is a G.o.d in heaven, I believe you love me, even as I love you. Oh, my love! my love!" his voice melted, his arms closed around her. "Why do you try me beyond my strength? Why are you so cruel to us both? See; I hold you safely; your heart beats on mine; your dear face is on my breast.

Stay with me, my darling, my own, my wife;" and soft, clinging pa.s.sionate kisses pressed down on hair, and cheek, and lips; kisses that burned like flame, that thrilled like strong wine.

For a moment Pocahontas lay quietly in his arms, lulled into quiescence. Then she wrenched herself free, and moved away from him.

It had been said of her that she could be hard upon occasion; the occasion had arisen, and she _was_ hard.

"Go!" she said, her face wan as ashes, but her voice firm; "it is you who are cruel; you who are blind and obstinate. You will neither see nor understand why this thing may not be. I have showed you my thought, and you will not bend; implored you to have pity, and you are merciless. And yet you talk of love! You love me, and would sacrifice me to your love; love me, and would break down the bulwarks I have been taught to consider righteous, to gratify your love. I do not understand; love seemed to me so different, so n.o.ble and unselfish.

Leave me; I am tired; I want to think it out alone."

Thorne stood silent, his head bent in thought. "Yes," he said presently; "it will be better so. You are overwrought, and your mind is worn with excitement; you need rest. To-morrow, next week, the week after, this matter will wear a different aspect. I can wait, and I will come again. It will be different then."

"It will never be different," the voice was low; the gray eyes had a hopeless look.

Thorne repeated his a.s.sertion in the gentle, persistent tone of one who is patient with the unreasonableness of a frightened child. His determination to win success never faltered, rather it hardened with opposition into adamant; but he was beginning to realize his blunder.

He had overwhelmed her; had brought about an upheaval of her world so violent that, in her bewilderment, her dread of chaos, she instinctively laid hold on the old supports and clung to them with desperation. She must have time to think, to familiarize herself with the strange emotions, to adapt herself to the changed conditions. Only one other thing would he say. He held in reserve a card which he knew, ere now, had proved all powerful with conscientious women. To gain his end, he would stop at nothing; he took both her hands in his, and played his card deliberately.

"Think over it well," he said, "weigh every argument, test every scruple. My life is in your hands. I am not a religious man, nor a good man, but you can make me both. Give me the heaven that I crave, the heaven of your love, and I will be by it enn.o.bled into faith in that other heaven, of which it will be the foretaste. But refuse; deny the soul that cries out to you; thrust aside the hands that seek to clasp you, as the truest, n.o.blest, holiest thing they have ever touched, and--on your head be it. I have placed the responsibility in your hands and there it rests."

With a lingering look into her eyes and a fervent pressure of her hands, he turned and slowly left the room.

Back to the mind of the girl, standing motionless where he had left her, came, unwished and unbidden, the memory of a summer night out yonder beside the flowing river. She seemed to see again, the swaying of the branches in the moonlight, and to hear the lulling wash of the water against the sh.o.r.e; to hear also, a quiet, manly voice fighting down its pain, lest the knowledge of it should wound her, saying, simply and bravely: "Don't be unhappy about me, dear. I'll worry through the pain in time, or grow accustomed to it. It's tough just at first, but I'll pull through somehow. It shall not spoil my life either, although it must mar it; a man must be a pitiful fellow who lets himself go to the bad because the woman he loves won't have him.

G.o.d means every man to hold up his own weight in this world. I'd as soon knock a woman down as throw the blame of a wasted life upon her."

Plain words, poorly arranged and simply spoken, for the man who uttered them was not clever; but brave, manly words, for all that. The girl turned from the unwelcome memory with a sharp, impatient sigh that was almost a groan. It pained her.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The next day Thorne quietly returned to New York, without making any attempt to see or communicate with Pocahontas again. He had considered the situation earnestly, and decided that it would be his wisest course. Like a skilled general, he recognized the value of delay.

Failing to carry the citadel by a.s.sault, he resorted to strategy. In the girl's love for him, he possessed a powerful ally; there was a traitor in the camp of his adversary, and sooner or later it would be betrayed into his hands; of this he was convinced, and the conviction fortified him to trust the result to time. Pride and principle were in arms now, holding love in check, but it would not be so always; soon her woman's heart would speak, would wield an influence more powerful and resistless, from the concentration engendered by repression. Now, too, she was braced by the excitement of personal resistance; she was measuring her will, with his will, her strength with his strength. Let him withdraw for a time, and what would follow? The outside pressure, the immediate need of concentrated effort removed, there would inevitably ensue a state of collapse; purpose and prejudice would sink exhausted, the strain on the will relax, the weapons fall from the nerveless hands. Then the heart would rally its forces, would collect its strength for the field; external conflict suspended, internal strife would commence, fierce, cruel and relentless as internecine struggles ever are. Was there any doubt of the result of the battle?

It only needed time. Time, quietude, and earnest thought, free from the disturbing, stimulating power of his presence.

He could wait; every affection of her loving, constant heart, every fiber of her self-sacrificing nature, would fight for him; prejudices, even the most deeply-rooted, must yield, in time, to love. When he should come again it would be to claim his victory.

No thought of abandoning the pursuit crossed his brain; no impulse of ruth stirred his heart. Did she suffer? So did he--keenly, cruelly.

Let her end this torture for them both; let her lay aside these senseless scruples, and place her hand in his. His arms were open to her, his heart yearning for her; let her come and anchor in the sure haven of his love.

Pocahontas told her mother, very quietly, of Thorne's visit, his proposal, and her rejection of it; just the bare facts, without comment or elaboration. But Mrs. Mason had a mother's insight and could read between the lines; she did not hara.s.s her daughter with many words, even of approval; or with questions; she simply drew the sweet, young face down to her bosom a moment, and held it there with tender kisses.

Nor did Berkeley, to whom his mother communicated the fact, volunteer any comment to his sister. After what had pa.s.sed, Thorne's proposal was not a surprise, and to them the girl's answer was a foregone conclusion. Poor child! the brother thought impatiently, the mother wistfully, how much bitterness would have been spared her could she only have loved Jim Byrd.

During the weeks that followed Thorne's second return north, the two families were thrown together more and more intimately. Blanche's engagement and Warner's increased illness served to break down all restraints. All through the winter the boy had steadily lost ground, and as the spring progressed, instead of rallying as they hoped, his decline became more rapid. The best advice was had, but science could only bear the announcement of bereavement; there was nothing to be done, the doctors said, save to alleviate pain, and let the end come peacefully; it was needless to worry the boy with change, or bootless experiments. Even to the mother's willfully blinded eyes, and falsely-fed hopes, conviction came at last that her son's days were numbered.

Berkeley, Royall and other of the neighboring gentlemen took turns in aiding with the nursing and the night-watches, as is the custom in southern country neighborhoods where professional nurses are unknown.

Of all the kindly friends that watched and tended him through long weeks of illness, the one that Warner learned to love the best was Berkeley Mason. There was a thoughtful strength in the nature of the man who had suffered, the soldier who had endured, which the weaker nature recognized and rested on. To the general, during this time of trouble, the young man became, in very truth, a son; the old debt of kindness was canceled, and a new account opened with a change in the balance.

As is usual in cases of lingering consumption, the end was very sudden--so sudden, in fact, that Norma, still away with her northern friends, received the telegram too late for word or look or farewell kiss. She was traveling with Mrs. Vincent and the message followed her from place to place.

On a still, beautiful May morning, Warner was laid to rest in the Lanarth graveyard beside poor Temple Mason. It was the boy's own request, and his mother felt constrained to comply with it, although she would have preferred interring the remains of her child beside those of her own people at Greenwood. The story of the young life beating itself out against prison bars, had taken strong hold of the lad's imagination, and the fancy grew that he too would sleep more sweetly under the shadow of the old cedars in the land the young soldier had loved so well.

Norma and Pocahontas stood near each other beside the new-made grave, and as they quitted the inclosure, their hands met for an instant coldly. Pocahontas tried not to harbor resentment, but she could not forget whose hand it had been that had struck her the first bitter blow.

After Warner's death, Mrs. Smith appeared to collapse, mentally as well as bodily. She remained day after day shut in his chamber, brooding silently and rejecting with dumb apathy all sympathy and consolation.