BOOK THE FOURTH.-SOMERSET, DARE, AND DE STANCY. CHAPTER I. parture was the thought that I should hear early from you: my idea of being HERE was no part of Paula's journey able to submit to your absence was based THERE was no part of did not think of upon that. her. He imagined her in the hotel at Havre, in her brief rest at Paris; her drive past the Place de la Bastille to the Boulevart Mazas to take the train for Lyons; her tedious progress through the dark of a winter night till she crossed the isothermal line which told of the beginning of a southern atmosphere, and onward to the ancient blue sea. Thus, between the hours devoted to architecture, he passed the next three days. One morning he set himself, by the help of John, to practice on the telegraph instrument, expecting a message. But though he watched the machine at every opportunity, or kept some other person on the alert in its neighborhood, no message arrived to gratify him till after the lapse of nearly a fortnight. Then she spoke from her new habitation, nine hundred miles away, in these meagre words: "Are settled at the address given. Can now attend to any inquiry about the building." The pointed implication that she could attend to inquiries about nothing else breathed of the veritable Paula so distinctly that he could forgive its sauciness. His reply was soon dispatched: "Will write particulars of our progress. Always the same." The last three words formed the sentimental appendage which she had assured him she could tolerate, and which he hoped she might desire. He spent the remainder of the day in making a little sketch to show what had been done in the castle since her depart 'But I have resolved not to be out of humor, and to believe that your scheme of reserve is not unreasonable; neither do I quarrel with your injunction to keep silence to all relatives. I do not know anything I can say to show you more plainly my acquiescence in your wish 'not to go too far' (in short, to keep yourself dear-by dear I mean not cheap-you have been dear in the other sense a long time, as you know) than by not urging you to go a single degree further in warmth than you please.' When this was posted he again turned his attention to her walls and towers, which indeed were a dumb consolation in many ways for the lack of herself. There was no nook in the castle to which he had not access, or could not easily obtain access by applying for the keys, and this propinquity of things belonging to her served to keep her image before him even more constantly than his memories would have done. Three days and a half after the dispatch of his subdued effusion the telegraph called to tell him the good news that "Your letter and drawing are just received. Thanks for the latter. Will reply to the former by post this afternoon." It was with cheerful patience that he attended to his three draughtsmen in the studio, or walked about the environs of the fortress, during the fifty hours spent by her presumably tender missive on the road. A light fleece of snow fell during the second night of waiting, inverting the position of long-established lights and shades, and lowering to a dingy gray the approximately white walls of other weathers: on this account he could trace the postman's foot-marks as he entered over the bridge, knowing them by the dot of his walking-stick; on entering, the expected letter was waiting upon his table. looked at its direction with glad curiosity; it was the first letter he had ever received from her. He 66 "HÔTEL NICE, February 14. 'DEAR MR. SOMERSET" (the "George," then, to which she had so kindly treated him in her last conversation, was not to be continued in black and white), "Your letter explaining the progress of the work, aided by the sketch inclosed, gave me as clear an idea of the advance made since my departure as I could have gained by being present. I feel every confidence in you, and am quite sure the restoration is in good hands. In this opinion both my aunt and my uncle coincide. Please act entirely on your own judgment in everything, and as soon as you give a certificate to the builders for the first installment of their money, it will be promptly sent by my solicitors. "You bid me ask myself if I have used you well in not sending intelligence of myself till a fortnight after I had left you. Well, let me remind you that there are a thousand things, not bad in themselves, which, nevertheless, custom and circumstance render inexpedient to be done. I say this, not from pride in my own conduct, but to offer you a very reasonable explanation of it. Your resolve not to be out of humor with me suggests that you have been sorely tempted that way, else why should such a resolve have been necessary? "If you only knew what passes in my mind sometimes, you would perhaps not be so ready to blame. Shall I tell you? No. For if it is a great emotion, it may afford you a cruel satisfaction at finding I suffer through separation; and if it be a growing indifference to you, it will be inflicting gratuitous unhappiness upon you, if you care for me, as I sometimes think you may do a little." ("Oh, Paula!" said Somerset.) "Please which way would you have it? But it is better that you should guess at what I feel than that you should distinctly know it. Notwithstanding this assertion, you will, I know, adhere to your first prejudice in favor of prompt confessions. In spite of that, I fear that upon trial such promptness would not produce that happiness which your fancy leads you to expect. Your heart would revolt in time, and when once that happens, farewell to the emotion you have told me of. Analyze your feelings strictly, and you will find this true. At the same time I admit that a woman who is only a compound of evasions, disguises, and caprices is very disagreeable. "Do not write very frequently, and never write at all unless you have some real information about the castle works to communicate. I will explain to you on another occasion why I make this request. You will possibly set it down as additional evidence of my cold-heartedness. If so, you must. Would you also mind writing the business letter on an independent sheet, with a proper beginning and ending? Whether you inclose another sheet is of course optional. Sincerely yours, "PAULA POWER." Somerset had a suspicion that her order to him not to neglect the business letter was to escape invidious remarks from her uncle. He wished she would be more explicit, so that he might know exactly how matters stood with them, and whether Abner Power had ever ventured to express disapproval of him as her lover. But not knowing, he waited anxiously for a new architectural event on which he might legitimately send her another line. This occurred about a week later, when the men engaged in digging foundations discovered remains of old ones, which warranted a modification of the original plan. He accordingly sent off his professional advice on the point, requesting her assent or otherwise to the amendment, winding up the inquiry with 'Yours faithfully." On another sheet he wrote: 66 "Do you suffer from any unpleasantness in the manner of others on account of me? If so, inform me distinctly. I can not otherwise interpret your request for the separate sheets. While on this point I will tell you what I have learned relative to the authorship of that false paragraph about your engagement. It was communicated to the paper by your uncle. Was the wish father to the thought, or could he have been misled, as many were, by appearances at the theatricals? "If I am not to write to you without a professional reason, surely you can write to me without such an excuse? When you write, tell me of yourself. There is nothing I so much wish to hear of. Write a great deal about your daily doings, that she, whose words are the sweetest to me in the world, may express them upon the of the windows-Early English, are they sweetest subject. "You say nothing of having been to look at the chapel of ease, the plans of which I made when an architect's pupil, working in mètres instead of feet and inches, to my immense perplexity, that the drawings might be understood by the foreign workmen. Go there and tell me what you think of its design. I can assure you that every curve thereof is my own. not? I am going to attend service there "How I wish you would invite me to run over and see you, if only for a day or two, for my heart runs after you in a most distracted manner. Dearest, you entirely fill my life! But I forget; we have resolved not to go very far. But the fact is, I am half afraid lest, with such reticence, you should not remember how very much I am yours, and with what a dogged constancy I shall always remember you. Paula, sometimes I have horrible misgivings that something will divide us, especially if we do not make a more distinct show of our true relationship. True, do I say? I mean the relationship which I think exists between us, but which you do not affirm too clearly.-ery, gayeties, and gambling going on in Yours always." "I should like to receive another letter from you as soon as you have got over the misgiving you speak of, but don't write too soon. I wish I could write anything to raise your spirits, but you may be so perverse that if, in order to do this, I tell you of the races, routs, scen this place and neighborhood (into which, Away southward like the swallow went the tender lines. He wondered if she would notice his hint of being ready to pay her a flying visit, if permitted to do so. His fancy dwelt on that further side of France, the very contours of whose shore were now lines of beauty for him. | He prowled in the library, and found interest in the mustiest facts relating to that place, learning with æsthetic pleasure As a love-letter this missive was tantathat the number of its population was fif-lizing enough, but since its form was simty thousand, that the mean temperature of its atmosphere was 60° Fahrenheit, and that the peculiarities of a mistral were far from agreeable. He waited overlong for her reply; but it ultimately came. After the usual business preliminary, she said: "As requested, I have visited the little church you designed. It gave me great pleasure to stand before a building whose outline and details had come from the brain of such a valued friend and adviser." ("Valued friend and adviser," repeated Somerset, critically.) "I like the style much, especially that ply a continuation of what she had practiced before she left, and not a change from that practice, it produced no undue misgiving in him. Far more was he impressed by her omitting to answer the two important questions he had put to her. First, concerning her uncle's attitude toward them, and his conduct in giving such strange information to the reporter. Second, on his, Somerset's paying her a flying visit some time during the spring. But he was not the man to force opinion on these points, or on any others; and since she had requested it, he made no haste in his reply. When penned, it ran in the words subjoined, which, in common with every line of their correspondence, acquired from the strangeness of subsequent circumstances an interest and a force that perhaps they did not intrinsically possess. "People can not" (he wrote) "be forever in good spirits on this gloomy side of the Channel, even though you seem to be so on yours. However, that I can abstain from letting you know whether my spirits are good or otherwise, I will prove in our future correspondence. I admire you more and more, both for the warm feeling toward me which I firmly believe you have, and for your ability to maintain side by side with it so much dignity and resolution with regard to foolish sentiment. Sometimes I think I could have put up with a little more weakness if it had brought with it a little more romantic tenderness, but I dismiss all that when I mentally survey your other qualities. I have thought of fifty things to say to you of the too far sort, not one of any other; how unfortunate, then, is your prohibition, by which I am doomed to say things that do not rise spontaneously to my lips, but have to be made, shaped, and fashioned! You say that our shut-up feelings are not to be mentioned yet. How long is the yet to last? "But, to speak more solemnly, matters grow very serious with us, Paula-at least with me; and there are times when this restraint is really unbearable. It is possible to put up with reserve and circumspection when the reserved and circumspect being is by one's side, for the eyes may reveal what the lips do not. But when absence is superadded, what was piquancy becomes harshness, tender raillery becomes cruel sarcasm, and tacit understandings misunderstandings. However that may be, you shall never be able to reproach me for touchiness. I still esteem you as a friend; I admire you and love you as a woman. This I shall always continue to do, however undemonstrative and unconfiding you prove." CHAPTER II. WITHOUT knowing it, Somerset was drawing near to a crisis in this soft correspondence which would speedily put his assertions to the test; but the knowledge came upon him soon enough for his peace. Her next letter, dated March 9, was the shortest of all he had received, and beyond the portion devoted to the building-works it contained only the following sentences: "I am angry with you for being vexed because I will not make you a formal confession. Why should the verbal I love you be such a precious phrase? During the seven or eight months that you have been endeavoring to ascertain my sentiments you must have fairly well discovered them. You have discovered my regard for you; what more can you desire? Would a reiterated confession of passion really do any good? Instead of pressing a lady upon this point, you should endeavor to conceal from her the progress of her interest in you. You should contrive to deeply involve her heart before she perceives your designs; hiding her, as it were, from her own observation. Then, on your side, can one imagine a situation more charming than that of perceiving a woman interested without herself being exactly conscious of the depth of her interest! What a triumph, to rejoice in secret over what she will not recognize! This is what I should style pleasure indeed. Women labor under great difficulties: believe me that a declaration of love is always a mortifying circumstance to us, and it is a natural instinct to retain the power of obliging a man to hope, fear, pray, and beseech as long as we think fit, before we confess to a reciprocal affection. me. "I am now going to own to a weakness about which I had intended to keep silent. It will not perhaps add to your respect for My uncle, whom in many ways I like, is displeased with me for keeping up this correspondence so regularly. I am quite perverse enough to venture to disregard his feelings; but considering the relationship, and his kindness in other respects, I should prefer not to do so at present. Honestly speaking, I want the courage to resist him in some things. He said to me the other day that he was very much surprised that I did not depend upon his judgment for my future happiness. Whether that meant much or little, I have resolved to communicate with you only by telegrams for the remainder of the time we are here. Please reply by the same means only. There, now, don't flush and call me names. It is for the best, and we want no nonsense, you and I. I feel more than I say, and if I do not speak more plainly, you will understand what is behind after all I have hinted. I can promise you that you will not like me less upon knowing me better. Hope ever. I would give up a good deal for you. Good-by." This caused Somerset some sweet ecstasy and a good deal of gloom. He silently reproached her, who was apparently so independent, for lacking independence in such a vital matter. Perhaps it was mere sex, perhaps it was peculiar to a few, that her independence and courage, like Cleopatra's, failed her occasionally at the last moment. One curious impression which had often haunted him now returned with redoubled force. He could not see himself as the husband of Paula Power in any likely future. He could not imagine her his wife. People were apt to run into mistakes in their presentiments; but though he could picture her as queening it over him, as avowing her love for him unreservedly, even as compromising herself for him, he could not see her in a state of domesticity with him. Telegrams being commanded, to the telegraph he repaired, when, after two days, an immediate wish to communicate with her led him to dismiss vague conjecture on the future situation. His first telegram took the following form: The vagueness there shown made Somerset really uneasy, and he could not help replying somewhat more impetuously than usual: "Why do you give me so much cause for anxiety? Why treat me to so much mystification? Say once, only once, that what I have asked is given.” He waited for the answer, one day, two days, a week; but none came. It was now the end of March, and when Somerset, doubtful and uneasy at her silence, walked of an afternoon by the river and pool in the lower part of the grounds, his ear was newly greeted by the small voices of frogs and toads and other creatures, that had been torpid through the winter, all reminding him of the awakening year. He waited through a second week, and there was still no reply. It was possible that the urgency of his request had tempted her to punish him, and he continued his walks, to, fro, and around, with as close an ear to the under-tones of nature, and as attentive an eye to the charms of his own art, as the grand passion would allow. Now came the days of battle between winter and spring. On these excursions, though spring was to the forward during the daylight, winter would re-assert itself at night, and not unfrequently at other moments. Tepid airs and nipping breezes met on the confines of sunshine and shade; trembling drops that were still akin to frost crystals dash "I give up the letter-writing. I will part with anything to please you but yourself. Your comfort with your rel-ed themselves from the bushes as he purative is the first thing to be considered: not for the world do I wish you to make divisions within-doors.-Yours." Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, passed, and on Saturday a telegram came in reply: "I can fear, grieve at, and complain of nothing since you promise to consider my comfort always." This was very pretty, but it admitted little. Such short messages were in themselves poor substitutes for letters, but their speed and easy frequency were good qualities which the letters did not possess. Three days later he replied: "You do not once say to me, 'Come.' Would such a strange accident as my arrival disturb you much ?” She replied rather quickly: "I am indisposed to answer you too clearly. Keep your heart strong: 'tis a censorious world." sued his way from town to castle; the birds were like an orchestra waiting for the signal to strike up, and color began to enter into the country round. But he gave only a modicum of thought to these proceedings. He rather thought such things as, "She can afford to be saucy, and to find a sort of blitheness in my attachment, considering the power that wealth gives her to pick and choose almost where she will." He was bound to own, however, that one of the charms of her conversation was the complete absence of the note of the heiress from its accents. That, other things equal, her interest would naturally incline to a person bearing the name of De Stancy, was evident from her avowed predilections. His original assumption that she was a personification of the modern spirit, who had been dropped, like a seed from the bill of a bird, amid the alien stones of |