Agnes was not particularly surprised, for a vague suspicion of
something like the truth had gradually been creeping into her brain,
as she noted Maddy's pallid face, and the changes which passed over it
whenever Guy was mentioned. Agnes pitied Maddy, for in her own heart
there was a little burning spot, when she remembered who was to
accompany Dr. Holbrook. So she did not urge her to remain, and she
tried to hush Jessie's lamentations when she heard Maddy was going.
One long, sad, wistful look at Guy's and Lucy's home, and Maddy
followed Charlie to the buggy waiting for her, bidding him drive
rapidly, as there was every indication of a coming storm.
The gray, wintry afternoon was drawing to a close, and the December
night was shutting down upon the Honedale hills in sleety rain, when
the cottage was reached, and Maddy, passing up the narrow, slippery
walk, entered the cold, dreary room, where there was neither fire nor
light, nor friendly voice to greet her. No sound save the ticking of
the clock; no welcome save the purring of the house cat, who came
crawling at her feet as she knelt before the stove and tried to kindle
the fire. Charlie Green had offered to go in and do this for her, as
indeed he had offered to return and stay all night, but she had
declined, preferring to be alone, and with stiffened fingers she laid
the kindlings Flora had prepared, and then applying the match, watched
the blue flame as it gradually licked up the smoke and burst into a
cheerful blaze.
"I shall feel better when it's warm," she said, crouching over the
fire, and shivering with more than bodily cold, There was a kind of nameless terror stealing over her as she at
thinking of the year ago when the inmates of three graves across the
meadow were there beneath that very roof where she now sat alone.
"I'll strike a light," she said, rising to her feet, and trying not to
glance at the shadowy corners filling her with fear.
The lamp was found, and its friendly beams soon dispersed the darkness
from the corners and the fear from Maddy's heart, but it could not
drive from her mind thoughts of what might at that moment be
transpiring at Aikenside. If the bride and groom came at all that
night, she knew they must have been there for an hour or more, and in
fancy she saw the tired, but happy, Lucy, as up in her pleasant room
she made her toilet for dinner, with Guy standing by and looking on.
Just as he had a right to do. Did he smile approvingly upon his young
wife? Did his eye, when it rested on her, light up with the same
expression she had seen so often when it looked at her? Did he commend
her taste and say his little wife was beautiful, as he kissed her
fair, white cheek, or was there a cloud upon his handsome face, a
shadow on his heart, heavy with thoughts of her, and would he rather
it were Maddy there in the bridal room? If so, his burden was hard
indeed, but not so hard as hers, and kneeling on the floor, poor Maddy
laid her head in the chair, and, 'mid piteous moans, asked God, her
Father, to help them both to bear--help her and Guy--making the latter
love as he ought the gentle girl who had left home and friends to live
with him in a far-distant land; asked, too, that she might tear from
her heart every sinful thought, loving Guy only as she might love the
husband of another.