"Oh, Midgetina!" she whispered meaninglessly. "Now we must talk." And having wedged back the catch of my door, we moved quickly and cautiously in the direction of Wanderslore.
We climbed on up the quiet hill. The cool, fragrant, night seemed to be luring us on and on, to swallow us up. Yet, _there_ shone the customary stars; there, indeed, to my amazement, as if the heavenly clock of the universe had set back its hands on my behalf, straddled the constellation of Orion.
Come to our beech-tree, now a vast indistinguishable tent of whispering, silky leaves, Fanny seated herself upon a jutting root, and I stood panting before her.
"Well?" she said, with a light, desolate laugh.
"Oh, oh, mocking-bird!--with all these riches?"
I cast a glance up into the leafy branches, and seated myself opposite to her.
"'Heard,' she says!" It was her turn to play the parrot. "What am I here for, but to hear more? But never mind; that's all over. Has mother----"
"'All over,' Fanny!" I interrupted her. "All over? But, the letters?"
"What letters?" She stared at me, and added, looking away, "Oh, mine?" She gave out the word with a long, inexhaustible sigh. "That was all right. He did not hide, he burned.... Neither to nor from; not even to his mother. Every paper destroyed. I envy _her_ feelings! He just gave up, went out, _Exit_. I envy that, too."
"Not even to you, Fanny? Not a word even to you?"
The figure before me crouched a little closer together. "They said," was her evasive reply, "that there is melancholia in the family."
I think the word frightened me even more than its meaning. "Melancholia," I repeated the melodious syllables. "Oh, Fanny!"
"Listen, Midgetina," her voice broke out coldly. "I can guess easily enough what's saving up for me when I come home--which won't be yet a while, I can assure you. I can guess, too, what your friends, Lady Pollacke and Co., are saying about me. _Let_ them rave. That can't be helped. I shall bear it, and try to grin. Maybe there would be worse still, if worse were known. But your worse I won't have, not even from you. I was not his keeper. I did _not_ play him false. I deny it. Could I prevent him--caring for me? Was he man enough to come openly? Did he say to his mother, 'Take her or leave her, I mean to have her'--as _I_ would have done? No, he blew hot and cold. He temporized; he--he was a coward. Oh, this everlasting dog-fight between body and mind! Ages before you ever crept upon the scene he pestered and pestered me--until I have almost retched at the sound of church bells. What was it, I ask you, but sheer dread of what the man might go and _do_ that kept me shilly-shallying? And what's more, Miss Wren, who told me to throw the stone? Pff, it sickens me, this paltering world. I can't and won't see things but with my reason. My reason, I tell you. What else is a schoolma'am for? Did he want me for _my_ sake? Who begged and begged that his beautiful love should be kept secret? There was once a philosopher called Plato, my dear. He poisoned Man's soul."