The Tyranny of the Dark. Garland Hamlin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ riding through the mountains on his vacation."

      "What does your mother think of him?"

      "She likes him very much."

      "Well, I won't make any objection, then."

      Viola stared—then blushed furiously. "What do you mean?"

      "Why, didn't you bring him up here to see how I liked him?"

      She pounded him with her little brown fist while tears of mortification filled her eyes. "Now, you stop that! You're teasing me. Why, I've only known him three days."

      He laughed silently, shaking his head. "Well, these things move quickly sometimes—and how was I to know but you'd known him in the East—you seemed so chummy-like—"

      "You've spoiled everything," she wailed, deeply disturbed and painfully self-conscious. "You're mean to me."

      He became instantly contrite. "There, now, don't you mind my joking. Of course I was fooling. It's all safe between us, anyway."

      But the mischief was done. She forgave him, but never again would she be the same to him, to her mother, or to the imperturbable young man smoking his pipe beneath the firs. He was young—that was only too plain to her now; not so young as Clinton, but not the middle-aged person she had been fancying him to be.

      As they were about to start on their homeward trail, Serviss sought opportunity to say: "Mr. Lambert, I met this man Clarke at your house last night, and I want to say that I don't think his influence on your family is particularly wholesome. He's morbid and given to fads."

      Lambert replied: "I know what you mean, professor, and I believe you're right. I don't believe in him myself, and I don't take any stock in any of his notions, but my wife does. She thinks he's of the Covenant, somehow. I wish you'd talk with her and try to have her let up on Viola. I don't think they're doin' right by her. If she was my own girl I'd stop it—I would so." Then he added, in a curious tone, this vague defence: "As for Viola, she would be all right if they would leave her alone. She's gifted in a way I don't understand; but if she isn't twisted by Clarke's foolishness she's going to make some man a good wife. She's a good girl, and, as I say, if she was my own child I'd serve notice that this circle business should stop. I wish you'd talk to 'em. I don't count—but they'll listen to you. I'm glad to have met you. I hope you'll come up again. I'd like to mill that business over with you; it's all very curious, but I'm just plumb distracted with work now."

      "I beg you not to apologize—it's time to start back, anyhow."

      As they rode away down the valley, the girl silent and constrained, Serviss pondered Lambert's words, which were plainly directed against Clarke. His sense of responsibility was increased by Lambert's trust in him. "This won't do," he decided; "I must pull out or I will find myself laden with the woes of the entire family, and Clarke's distresses besides."

      The girl was invested now with compelling pathos. Each mile they descended seemed to deepen the returning shadow on her face. The gayety, the buoyancy of the upward trail was gone. She was silent, constrained, and sad; and he set to work to restore her to the simple and girlish candor of the morning. He called attention to the wonders of the western sky. He shouted to induce echoes, and challenged her to a race, and at the last descent dared her to ride down in one of the ore-buckets, seeking to bring the smiles back to her lips.

      She responded to his cheer, but not as before. Something clouded her clear glance—her smiles died quickly, and the poise of her head was less alert.

      When they had reached the wagon-road and he could ride by her side, he, too, became serious. "I hope I haven't given offence in any way, Miss Lambert? If I have, I assure you it was entirely unintentional, and I beg your pardon."

      She looked away. "You have done nothing," she said, slowly.

      "But you seem distinctly less friendly to me. I hope you didn't take anything I said concerning your mother's faith to heart. I had no intention of attacking her beliefs, but I must be honest with you—I don't like Mr. Clarke. There's something unwholesome about him, and what you've told me to-day is not reassuring. Evidently he took the death of his wife very hard, and it has added to his natural tendency towards a sort of spiritual monomania. As a matter of fact, he's more Spiritualist than Calvinist at present. Isn't that so?"

      The girl's face grew sullen and weary. "Oh, I don't know, I'm tired of it all."

      "He endlessly talks his grind, I suppose. How foolish, how sickly it all seems—here in the presence of uncontaminated nature! In such sunlight as this it seems insanity to sit in a book-walled room and grow bloodless with dreaming over insoluble problems. And yet a friend of mine told me that these towns, and especially California towns, were filled with seers and prophets. The occult flourishes in the high, dry atmosphere, those of the faith say. Don't you permit Clarke to destroy your love of nature, Miss Lambert; you belong to the sane and sunny world, and he has no right to bring his gloomy conceptions home to you. You are too young and too naturally joyous to be concerned with the problems of disease and death. You were made to be happy."

      He ended with greater earnestness than he had intended to use, and the effect of his words on the girl was very great. She could not speak; tears were in her eyes, and her bosom heaved most piteously. His sense of her helplessness deepened, and he added, "Will you permit me to talk to Mr. Clarke about you and your plans?"

      This seemed to alarm her. "No, no!" she cried out, distressfully. "Please don't say anything to him about me. It will do no good. You don't understand, and I can't tell you," she added, breathlessly.

      "Very well," he said, soothingly; "but, remember, your case interests me exceedingly, and you may call on me at any time and I will gladly help."

      She turned a pale and tearful face towards him and extended her hand.

      "I thank you very, very much. You have helped me more than I can say."

      During the remainder of the ride he discussed the springs, the source of the streams, the caverns, and other natural features of the scene, and had the satisfaction of seeing her face in a smile before he left her.

      He went back to his hotel with a feeling of having spent six days in her company rather than six hours. She absorbed his entire thought, and so keen was his sense of her beleaguerment that he resolved to call upon Clarke in order to define his character and to understand his motives. "His passions or his doubt overshadow the girl's sky, and I'm going to find out whether his designs are those of friend or fiend." At the moment he had a feeling that they were those of a devouring fiend.

VIIToC

       Table of Contents

THE FORCES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

       Table of Contents

      Clarke's church typified the decaying faith of its pastor. Grass was serenely pushing up through the rotting planks of the walk which led from the street to the basement "study" just as the natural goodness and cheer of man returns to dominion through the barriers of custom. The paint was blistering and peeling from the clap-boarding on the sunny side of the main building, СКАЧАТЬ