If he told her everything and surprised her love for him, there was the
second tragedy. For over there, beyond the scene of such a confession, he
could not behold her as anything else than a fatally lowered woman. The
agony of this, even as a possibil-ity, overwhelmed him in advance. To
require of her that she should have a nature of perfect loyalty and at the
same time to ask her to pronounce her own falseness--what happiness could
that bring to him? If she could be faithless to one man because she loved
another, could she not be false to the second, if in time she grew to love a
third? Out of the depths even of his loss of her the terrible cry was wrung
from him that no love could long be possible between him and any woman who
was not free to love him.
And so at last, with that mingling of selfish and unselfish motives, which
is like the mixed blood of the heart itself, he had chosen the third
tragedy: the silence that would at least leave each of them blameless. And
so he had come finally to that high cold table-land where the sun of Love
shines rather as the white luminary of another world than the red quickener
of this.
Over the lofty table-land of Kentucky the sky bent darkest blue, and was
filled with wistful, silvery light that afternoon as he walked out to the
Falconers'. His face had never looked so clear, so calm; his very linen
never so spotless, or so careful about his neck and wrists; and his eyes
held again their old beautiful light--saddened.
From away off he could descry her, walking about the yard in the pale
sunshine. He had expected to find her preoccupied as usual; but to-day she
was strolling restlessly to and fro in front of the house, quite near it and
quite idle. When she saw him coming, scarce aware of her own actions, she
went round the house and walked on quickly away from him.
As he was following and passing the cabin, a hand was quickly put out and
the shutter drawn partly to.
"How do you do!"
That hard, smooth, gay little voice!
"You mustn't come here! And don't you peep! When are you going?"
He told her.
"To-morrow! Why, have you forgotten that I'm married to-morrow! Aren't you
coming? Upon my word! I've given you to the widow Babcock, and you are to
ride in the procession with her. She has promised me not to laugh once on
the way or even to allude to anything cheerful! Be persuaded! . . . Well,
I'm sorry. I'll have to give your place to Peter, I suppose. And I'll tell
the widow she can be natural and gay: Peter'll not mind! Good-bye! I can't
shake hands with you."