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She was searching the heart of another, not only because she was suspicious, but because she wanted to know herself better. "It is easy to remember." "Is it long since you saw him?" The question almost carried terror with it, for she was not quite sure why Mrs. Falchion questioned her. She lifted her eyes slowly, and there was in them anxiety and joy. "It seems," she said, "like years."
Falchion was silent for a time, then, with a slight air of surprise, and in a quite critical way, she said: "I should think you would act very well, if you used less emotion. Mrs. Valiant had a kind of courage, but she was foolish to die. She should have stayed and fought him fought him every way, until she was his master. She could have done it; she was clever, I should think.
Falchion, saying that on the following day she would start for the coast; that her luggage would be taken to Sunburst at once; and that, her engagement with me fulfilled, she would spend a night there, not returning again to the hills. I was preparing for my own departure, and was kept very busy until evening.
Falchion, I knew, was selfish, and would not, or could not, see that she was hard upon the girl, by such exactions as midnight reading and loss of sleep. She demanded not merely physical but mental energy a complete submission of both; and when this occurred with a sensitive, high-strung girl, she was literally feeding on another's life- blood.
Falchion heartily acknowledged the courtesy. She seemed to be playing no part, but was apparently grateful all round; yet I believe that even already Ruth had caught at something in her presence threatening Roscoe's peace; whilst she, from the beginning, had, with her more trained instincts, seen the relations between the clergyman and his young parishioner. But what had that to do with her?
After a moment I turned to Mrs. Falchion, and said: "It is beautiful, is it not?" She drew in a long breath, her eyes lighted up, and she said, with a strange abandon of gaiety: "Yes, it is delightful to live." It seemed so, in spite of the forebodings of my friend and my own uneasiness concerning him, Ruth Devlin, and Mrs. Falchion. The place was all peace: a very monotony of toil and pleasure.
It takes several visits to see the bazaar satisfactorily, and we felt as we left it that we had but made a beginning. "Five years ago I vowed to Heaven upon my falchion blade To build the tower; and to this hour my vow hath not been paid. "When from the eagle's nest I snatched my falcon-hearted dove, And in my breast shaped her a nest, safe and warm-lined with love,
Falchion came to sit many hours a day beside the sick couch of Galt Roscoe, moistening his lips, cooling his brow, giving him his medicine. After the first day, when she was, I thought, alternating between innate disgust of misery and her womanliness and humanity, in these days more a reality to me, she grew watchful and silently solicitous at every turn of the malady.
Justine Caron was slyly besieged by the curious, but they went away empty; for Justine, if very simple and single-minded, was yet too much concerned for both Galt Roscoe and Mrs. Falchion to give the inquiring the slightest clue. She knew, indeed, little herself, whatever she may have guessed. As for Hungerford, he was dumb. He refused to consider the matter.
Falchion," said I, "I have THOUGHT harder things of you than I ever SAID to any one. Pray believe that, and believe, also, that I never tried to injure you. For the rest, I can make no complaint. You do not like me. I liked you once, and do now, when you do not depreciate yourself of purpose.... Pardon me, but I say this very humbly too.... I suppose I always shall like you, in spite of myself.
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