"No," said Harkless; "I want to give him the 'Herald.' Do you know where
he is?"
Mr. Martin stroked his beard deliberately. "The person you speak of hadn't
ort to be very hard to find--in Carlow. The committee was reckless
enough to hire that carriage of yours by the day, and Keating and Warren
Smith are setting in it up at the corner, with their feet on the cushions
to show they're used to ridin' around with four white horses every day in
the week. It's waitin' till you're ready to go out to Briscoe's. It's an
hour before supper time, and you can talk to young Fisbee all you want.
He's out there."
As they drove along the pike, Harkless's three companions kept up a
conversation sprightly beyond the mere exhilaration of the victorious; but
John sat almost silent, and, in spite of their liveliness, the others eyed
him a little anxiously now and then, knowing that he had been living on
excitement through a physically exhausting day, and they were fearful lest
his nerves react and bring him to a breakdown. But the healthy flush of
his cheek was reassuring; he looked steady and strong, and they were
pleased to believe that the stirring-up was what he needed.
It had been a strange and beautiful day to him, begun in anger, but the
sun was not to go down upon his wrath; for his choleric intention had
almost vanished on his homeward way, and the first words Smith had spoken
had lifted the veil of young Fisbee's duplicity, had shown him with what
fine intelligence and supreme delicacy and sympathy young Fisbee had
worked for him, had understood him, and had made him. If the open
assault on McCune had been pressed, and the damnatory evidence published
in Harkless's own paper, while Harkless himself was a candidate and rival,
John would have felt dishonored. The McCune papers could have been used
for Halloway's benefit, but not for his own; he would not ride to success
on another man's ruin; and young Fisbee had understood and had saved him.
It was a point of honor that many would have held finicky and
inconsistent, but one which young Fisbee had comprehended was vital to
Harkless.
And this was the man he had discharged like a dishonest servant; the man
who had thrown what was (in Carlow's eyes) riches into his lap; the man
who had made his paper, and who had made him, and saved him. Harkless
wanted to see young Fisbee as he longed to see only one other person in
the world. Two singular things had happened that day which made his
craving to see Helen almost unbearable--just to rest his eyes upon her for
a little while, he could ask no more. And as they passed along that well-
remembered road, every tree, every leaf by the wayside, it seemed, spoke
to him and called upon the dear memory of his two walks with her--into
town and out of town, on show-day. He wondered if his heart was to project
a wraith of her before him whenever he was deeply moved, for the rest of
his life. For twice to-day he had seen her whom he knew to be so far away.
She had gone back to her friends in the north, Tom had said. Twice that
afternoon he had been momentarily, but vividly, conscious of her as a
living presence. As he descended from the car at the station, his eyes,
wandering out over the tumultuous crowd, had caught and held a picture for
a second--a graceful arm upraised, and a gloved hand pressed against a
blushing cheek under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little figure
poised apparently in air, full-length above the crowd about her; so, for
the merest flick of time he had seen her, and then, to his straining eyes,
it was as though she were not. She had vanished. And again, as his
carriage reached the Square, a feeling had come to him that she was near
him; that she was looking at him; that he should see her when the carriage
turned; and in the same instant, above the singing of a multitude, he
heard her voice as if there had been no other and once more his dazzled
eyes beheld her for a second; she was singing, and as she sang she leaned
toward him from on high with the most ineffable look of tenderness and
pride and affection he had ever seen on a woman's face; such a look, he
thought, as she would wear if she came to love some archangel (her love
should be no less) with all of her heart and soul and strength. And so he
knew he had seen a vision. But it was a cruel one to visit a man who loved
her. He had summoned his philosophy and his courage in his interview with
himself on the way to Carlow, and they had answered; but nothing could
answer if his eyes were to play him tricks and bring her visibly before
him, and with such an expression as he had seen upon her face. It was too
real. It made his eyes yearn for the sight of her with an ache that was
physical. And even at that moment, he saw, far ahead of them on the road,
two figures standing in front of the brick house. One was unmistakable at
any distance. It was that of old Fisbee; and the other was a girl's: a
light, small figure without a hat, and the low, western sun dwelt on a
head that shone with gold. Harkless put his hand over his eyes with a pain
that was like the taste of hemlock in nectar.