Roxy

53. Roxy's Return

After Whittaier's night visit to Mark the latter had been busily engaged in adjusting his affairs that he might leave the country. On that very Thursday morning his brother-in-law Barlow had called, partly to see Mark, chiefly in hope of buying the Bonamy poplars at half price. And all day Friday and Saturday Mark had kept himself busy. It was at night when business cares relaxed that a returning sense of wretchedness came upon him. When Sunday came and his solitude pressed more heavily he sank into extreme dejection. A young and ambitious man lives in his future, a self-indulgent man in his present. Mark's future had been suddenly annihilated and his imagination was not yet able to discern a new one; his present was too uncomfortable to be dwelt upon. Lt was in this mood of restless dejection that he started ; >ut after night-fall on Sunday to walk through by-ways and back streets. The more he walked the more he felt himself a wanderer shut out from the world about him. Of course, he might have known that in time the village vould cease to concern itself about him, even if he continued to live in the town. But the wretchedness of his present conspicuousness and exclusion bore too hearily for him to forecast possibilities of human forgetfulness. People were gathering in the churches, but he could not enter one of them without being stared at as the Esau who had Bold his birthright. It was with such melancholy reflections as these that he came in sight of Adams's old-fashioned hewed log house, standing in the midst of its garden-plot in a lonesome part of the village. A sudden desire to see Roxy seized him. A sudden and sharp remembrance of the welcome she used to give him overcame all his caution, and he resolved to see her once again. The honeysuckles were growing over the window as they had grown three years ago. Some fascination of memory made him choose that front window. He looked eagerly in at the window she was before him, listless and heart-broken. And though remorse smote him sore he could not withdraw his eyes, but pressed his face closer and closer to the window that he might get a clearer view of her, it was to be the last. lie longed inexpressibly and blindly for some recognition or forgiveness. At last she turned full toward him and gave a shriek of fright and surprise, and fell fainting to the floor. Aroused now, Mark had bounded over the fence and hurried homeward like a fugitive. He was smitten with the idea that Roxy had an utter horror of him. All his old remorse revived and again suicide looked tempting to him. Sometimes the suicidal mania moved him toward a life of reckless intemperance and moral self-destruction. When morning came he had little heart for business arrangements. He could not get rid of Roxy's terrified look and her cry when she saw him the night before. As the day wore on he wavered between suicide, intemperance, and a sudden absconding from Luzerne and all the associations it held with his old life. In this conflict of impulses he resolved at any rate to go away from the house never to come back t lie put on his hat and went out toward the gate, not turning to get a last glimpse of the old home now grown so hateful to him.

Bob, when he had given Roxy the horse that morning, had been in some doubt whether it were better to tell Mr. JBonamy or not. White folkses quar'ls waz more'n he could git de hang of, 'peared like. And of course he could not know whether or not Mark Bonaray would censure him for letting Roxy have the clay-bank colt. But Bob had noticed with apprehension Bonamy's uneasiness during the night, and had kept a watch on him the next day. His great dread was that Mark should go away and so fail to see Roxy when she should bring Dick home in the evening. He set great store by this visit. Something in Mark's manner aroused his suspicions, and when about mid-day he saw him going out of the gate in haste Bob ran after him calling out :

" I say, sah, Mass' Mauk, I wants to say sumpin to ye."

Mark stopped impatiently. What did he care about giving Bob directions in regard to planting ?

" I see Miss Roxy dis mo'nin', sah."

" Oh, you did ! " Mark was attentive now.

" Yes, sah, and she borryed Dick from me. I couldn't say she shouldn't have de clay-bank colt, ye know."

" She took Dick, did she ? " asked Mark, with eagerness

"Yes, sah, but she said she'd fotch him he'se'f 'long 'bout dis evenin' some time. I didn't know whedder ye'd want to be heah or not when she comes."

" Of course I want to be here," and Mark went back again into the house.

For hours he walked up and down the front porch, trying to guess what use Roxy could make of the horse ; where she could have gone, why she was coining to see him, and what it all meant. From time to time he called Bob and questioned him about the whole transaction, But it was still a mystery to him.

At last about four o'clock he saw acros the tops of the vines of the vineyard, a woman riding toward the front gate. When he was sure that it was Roxy, he trembled from head to foot, and retreated inside of the house, sending Bob to open the gate.

When Roxy rode up to the horse-block he went out himself, silently holding the horse while she as silently dismounted. Then giving the reins to Bob he stretched a trembling hand to Roxy standing there on the block and said, with eyes downcast :

" May I help you down ? "

Roxy gave him her hand and he assisted her to the ground and walked a little way behind her to the porch. He did not invite her in but left her free to go where she would in her own house, if she chose to make it hers. Roxy went into the sitting-room and sat down in the rocking chair that Mark set for her, while Mark took a chair on the other side of the room.

*' I have come back, Mark," she said, with effort.

Mark sat stock-still. He was shaken by contrary emotions. He put his head down between his hands and sat thus in grief and shame.

" Have you come back to your house to stay ? "

"No. I've not come back to my house. I've come back to my husband. I'm going to stay if you will let me."

" O God ! " said Mark. But he said no more.

Roxy could see the shaking of his whole frame. After a while she spoke again.

" You haven't told me whether I am to stay or to go."

" I'm not fit to have you stay. You know that, Roxy. I ought to have killed myself long ago. If you will only stay here I will go. I'm not lit to stay with you."

"What should I stay for, if you go. I've not come back to the house, I told you. I've come buck to you. If you go I will go, if you stay I will stay unless you tell me you don't want me."

"You know, Roxy, that I'm likely to be prosecuted by the Kirtleys." Murk said this after a Long lime. "How can I involve you in any way with myself while such a prosecution is pending?"

" But I've been to see Nancy Kirtley today and I've had a long talk with her and I've arranged the whole matter with her. She is satisfied and glad to have things as I've fixed them, and there'll be no prosecution."

"You've been to Kirtley's!" Mark raised himself up and looked full iii her face. "You went to see that creature that plotted in cold blood to bring this harm on you? And all for my sake ! "

"No, not all for your sake. Partly for your sake, partly for Naney's sake, partly for my own sake; for this is an affair that can't be settled by halves. I had to settle it on all sides, you know. Besides," Roxy spoke rapidly," I am to blame, too, you must remember. And now I've set myself to see what good can come out of this evil for all of us."

"What a woman you are! There's no man in the world lit to be your husband. Of all men I'm not." And he leaned his head upon a table and was silent.

Then, after awhile, he said: "What kind of a settlement did you make with Nancy?"

" It's not best to discuss that now, Mark. Can't you leave, that to me?"

" I will leave everything to you."

"Now, Mark, the whole matter is arranged, if you will be forgiving."

"I forgive ?"

" Yes, you must forgive me for being so severe with you as to help the temptation rather than to help you."

"Don't say that again. If you talk about my forgiving you, you'll drive me mad."

" You must forgive Nancy, then."

"I can forgive her all I have suffered easily enough, for that is about even, I'm afraid. But it's awful hard to think of her plotting against you, of all women in the world. But then, what's the use of my talking that way ? I'm not the one who has a right to hold any grudge against any sinner in God's world. I eould forgive the Devil for being the Devil after what I've been through."

"But you must forgive yourself. You and I ean'l build up our life together again if you keep in this mood. You must hope for the best, or it will be only a wretched kind of living we shall have. I've thought it all over today. I want you to try to forgive yourself for my sake."

Mark made no reply.

"Here, I've been sitting a good while, my husband, with my bonnet on, and you haven't given me a kiss or any other welcome home again. Don't you love me, Mark ?"

After a pause Mark answered slowly:

" No, Roxy, I'm not fit to say I love you, but God knows I worship you. I could get down on my knees to you. I would like to be your slave."

" But I don't want that," said Roxy, almost impatiently. " Unless you can forgive yourself enough to be something more than that, I'd just as well not have come." Roxj rose up, and jaine and stood on the side of the table opposite to Mark. With his head still bowed upon the table, he reach out his hand and took hold of the tips of her fingers, and, drawing them to him, kissed them over and over again.