Chapter VIII.

by Bret Harte

　　As Mrs. Argalls's carriage rolled into Fifth Avenue, it for amoment narrowly grazed another carriage, loaded with luggage,driving up to a hotel. The abstracted traveler within it was PaulHathaway, who had returned from Europe that morning.Paul entered the hotel, and, going to the register mechanically,turned its leaves for the previous arrivals, with the same hopelesspatience that had for the last six weeks accompanied this habitualpreliminary performance on his arrival at the principal Europeanhotels. For he had lost all trace of Yerba, Pendleton, Milly, andthe Briones from the day of their departure. The entire partyseemed to have separated at Basle, and, in that eight-hours' startthey had of him, to have disappeared to the four cardinal points.He had lingered a few days in London to transact some business; hewould linger a few days longer in New York before returning to SanFrancisco.The daily papers already contained his name in the list of thesteamer passengers who arrived that morning. It might meet hereye, although he had been haunted during the voyage by a terriblefancy that she was still in Europe, and had either hidden herselfin some obscure provincial town with the half-crazy Pendleton, orhad entered a convent, or even, in reckless despair, had acceptedthe name and title of some penniless nobleman. It was thismiserable doubt that had made his homeward journey at times seemlike a cruel desertion of her, while at other moments theconviction that Milly's Californian relatives might give him someclew to her whereabouts made him feverishly fearful of delaying anhour on his way to San Francisco. He did not believe that she hadtolerated the company of Briones a single moment after the scene atthe Bad Hof, and yet he had no confidence in the colonel's attitudetowards the Mexican. Hopeless of the future as her letter seemed,still its naive and tacit confession of her feelings at the momentwas all that sustained him.Two days passed, and he still lingered aimlessly in New York. Intwo days more the Panama steamer would sail--yet in his hesitationhe had put off securing his passage. He visited the offices of thedifferent European steamer lines, and examined the recent passengerlists, but there was no record of any of the party. What made hisquest seem the more hopeless was his belief that, after Briones'revelation, she had cast off the name of Arguello and taken someother. She might even be in New York under that new name now.On the morning of the third day, among his letters was one thatbore the postmark of a noted suburban settlement of wealthy villa-owners on the Hudson River. It was from Milly Woods, stating thather father had read of his arrival in the papers, and begged hewould dine and stay the next night with them at "Under Cliff," ifhe "still had any interest in the fortunes of old friends. Ofcourse," added the perennially incoherent Milly, "if it bores youwe sha'n't expect you." The quick color came to Paul's careworncheek. He telegraphed assent, and at sunset that afternoon steppedoff the train at a little private woodland station--so abnormallyrustic and picturesque in its brown-bark walls covered with scarletVirginia creepers that it looked like a theatrical erection.Mr. Woods's station wagon was in waiting, but Paul, handing thedriver his valise, and ascertaining the general direction of thehouse, and that it was not far distant, told him to go on and hewould follow afoot. The tremor of vague anticipation had alreadycome upon him; something that he knew not whether he feared orlonged for, only that it was inevitable, had begun to possess him.He would soon recover himself in the flaring glory of thiswoodland, and the invigoration of this hale October air.It was a beautiful and brilliant sunset, yet not so beautiful andbrilliant but that the whole opulent forest around him seemed tochallenge and repeat its richest as well as its most delicate dyes.The reddening west, seen through an opening of scarlet maples, wasno longer red; the golden glory of the sun, sinking over apromontory of gleaming yellow sumach that jutted out into the nobleriver, was shorn of its intense radiance; at times in the thickestwoods he seemed surrounded by a yellow nimbus; at times so luminouswas the glow of these translucent leaves that the position of thesun itself seemed changed, or the shadows cast in defiance of itsglory. As he walked on, long reaches of the lordly placid streamat his side were visible, as far as the terraces of the oppositeshore, lifted on basaltic columns, themselves streaked and veinedwith gold and fire. Paul had seen nothing like this since hisboyhood; for an instant the great heroics of the Sierran landscapewere forgotten in this magnificent harlequinade.A dim footpath crossed the road in the direction of the house,which for the last few moments had been slowly etching itself as asoft vignette in a tinted aureole of walnut and maple upon thesteel blue of the river. He was hesitating whether to take thisshort cut or continue on by the road, when he heard the rustling ofquick footsteps among the fallen leaves of the variegated thicketthrough which it stole. He stopped short, the leafy screenshivered and parted, and a tall graceful figure, like a draped andhidden Columbine, burst through its painted foliage. It was Yerba!She ran quickly towards him, with parted lips, shining eyes, and afew scarlet leaves clinging to the stuff of her worsted dress in away that recalled the pink petals of Rosario."When I saw you were not in the wagon and knew you were walking Islipped out to intercept you, as I had something to tell you beforeyou saw the others. I thought you wouldn't mind." She stopped,and suddenly hesitated.What was this new strange shyness that seemed to droop her eyelids,her proud head, and even the slim hand that had been so impulsivelyand frankly outstretched towards him? And he--Paul--what was hedoing? Where was this passionate outburst that had filled hisheart for nights and days? Where this eager tumultuous questioningthat his feverish lips had rehearsed hour by hour? Where thisdesperate courage that would sweep the whole world away if it stoodbetween them? Where, indeed? He was standing only a few feet fromher--cold, silent, and tremulous!She drew back a step, lifted her head with a quick toss that seemedto condense the moisture in her shining eyes, and sent what mighthave been a glittering dew-drop flying into the loosed tendrils ofher hair. Calm and erect again, she put her little hand to herjacket pocket."I only wanted you to read a letter I got yesterday," she said,taking out an envelope.The spell was broken. Paul caught eagerly at the hand that heldthe letter, and would have drawn her to him; but she put him asidegravely but sweetly."Read that letter!""Tell me of yourself first!" he broke out passionately. "Why youfled from me, and why I now find you here, by the merest chance,without a word of summons from yourself, Yerba? Tell me who iswith you? Are you free and your own mistress--free to act foryourself and me? Speak, darling--don't be cruel! Since that nightI have longed for you, sought for you, and suffered for you everyday and hour. Tell me if I find you the same Yerba who wrote"--"Read that letter!""I care for none but the one you left me. I have read and rereadit, Yerba--carried it always with me. See! I have it here!" Hewas in the act of withdrawing it from his breast-pocket, when sheput up her hand piteously."Please, Paul, please--read this letter first!"There was something in her new supplicating grace, still retainingthe faintest suggestion of her old girlish archness, that struckhim. He took the letter and opened it. It was from ColonelPendleton.Plainly, concisely, and formally, without giving the name of hisauthority or suggesting his interview with Mrs. Argalls, he hadinformed Yerba that he had documentary testimony that she was thedaughter of the late Jose de Arguello, and legally entitled to bearhis name. A copy of the instructions given to his wife,recognizing Yerba Buena, the ward of the San Francisco Trust, ashis child and hers, and leaving to the mother the choice of makingit known to her and others, was inclosed.Paul turned an unchanged face upon Yerba, who was watching himeagerly, uneasily, almost breathlessly."And you think this concerns me!" he said bitterly. "You thinkonly of this, when I speak of the precious letter that bade mehope, and brought me to you?""Paul," said the girl, with wondering eyes and hesitating lips; "doyou mean to say that--that--this is--nothing to you?""Yes--but forgive me, darling!" he broke out again, with a suddenvague remorsefulness, as he once more sought her elusive hand. "Iam a brute--an egotist! I forgot that it might be something toyou.""Paul," continued the girl, her voice quivering with a strange joy,"do you say that you--you yourself, care nothing for this?""Nothing," he answered, gazing at her transfigured face withadmiring wonder."And"--more timidly, as a faint aurora kindled in her checks--"thatyou don't care--that--that--I am coming to you with a name, to giveyou in--exchange?"He started."Yerba, you are not mocking me? You will be my wife?"She smiled, yet moving softly backwards with the grave statelinessof a vanishing yet beckoning goddess, until she reached the sumach-bush from which she had emerged. He followed. Another backwardstep, and it yielded to let her through; but even as it did so shecaught him in her arms, and for a single moment it closed upon themboth, and hid them in its glory. A still lingering song-bird,possibly convinced that he had mistaken the season, and that springhad really come, flew out with a little cry to carry the messagesouth; but even then Paul and Yerba emerged with such innocent,childlike gravity, and, side by side, walked so composedly towardsthe house, that he thought better of it.