A Visit [pp. 262-266]

A Visit.
of danger, the gallant young man had borne
a charmed life through the perils of the
times. Like Desdemona, Frederica loved
him for the dangers he had passed. So
patent was the reciprocity of sentiment between the two, that any failure as to the issue
would have seemed almost a personal grievance defrauding the on-lookers. Free from
pique, fromi coquetry, and from calculation,
never was courtship less guileful or more
generous. When a betrothal was announced,
it was more as a matter of form than of necessity.
"Never talk to me again about woman's
tact and intuition!" quoth Everett Dunning,
one morning shortly before his friend's return to Cummings. "Could any woman
have foreseen better than I the desirability
of this match? Would any woman have
brought them together more skillfully?
Could any woman boast of a more suitable
arrangement altogether of her own devising?"
"All's well that ends well," deprecated
Mrs. Dunning, perhaps irritated by her husband's fault in taste; for Frederica was in the
room. She rose hastily, and went over to
Ethel.
"Oh, Ethel! do you believe it will not end
well? Do you think it will not? Reassure
me, if you can, dear, for oh, Ethel-oh, Everett-I feel just so about it myself."
"''Nonsense!" cried the matter-of-fact Lieutenant; "why shouldn't it end well? What's
to hinder? Freddy, you're not well this
morning, you're hysterical and nervous.
Wells kept you up talking too late last night.
By Jove! it's well he's soon off, or we'd
have you on the sick-list."
But from that day, a dash of bitterness
was in the sweet wine of life Frederica had
been quaffing. Mrs. Dunning bitterly reproached herself for the hasty speech that
had poisoned her friend's peace.
"It was not that —indeed, it was not,"
Miss Van Graben averred; "that only made
me speak what was in my heart before.
For a while I was so happy-so unspeakably
content-I, who have been always restless
and unsatisfied. But that happiness was too
perfect to last-the doubt crept in. Believe
me, Ethel, nature will assert itself. One's
temperament cannot be made over."
Miss Van Graben made strenuous efforts
to combat and resist the profound melancholy that assailed her. She never failed to
present to her lover's gaze a cheerful countenance; for Frederica was one of those
women who opine that a man is more than
sufficiently harassed by the cares and responsibilities of his business and the outer world,
and that his loyalty deserves the reward and
encouragement of smiles and sweet sympathy at home.
Only once her self-possession failed; on
the day before Lieutenant Wells's departure
for his own post, Frederica came to him
with the little stereoscopic picture of his
scouts, halved in her hand.
"Take this with you, Fulton; it was a tie
between us ere ever we met. I shall like
to know we hold it in common." She
looked up into his grave face, full of feeling,
and something she read there filled her eyes
with tears. She lifted her arms to him.
"Oh, Fulton!" she cried piteously, "I cannot let you go. Stay with me, dear one,
stay."
But in the early morning, the little group
stood in the sally-port, watching the ambulance roll along the rocky road, until lost to
sight among the gnarled junipers and armed
soap-weed. Lieutenant Wells was gone.
"Oh, the silence that came next! The
patience and long waiting!"
It preyed upon them all. Ethel Dunning,
and her husband himself, grew wan with
doubt and apprehension. Frederica wasted
away under the terrible suspense, like one
who succumbs to a swift and fatal malady.
All her pretty fair color faded, and her supple, nymph-like form lost its graceful contours. Her great gray eyes burned like
lamps, with an eager, anxious light. Her
restlessness was intense; it seemed that she
must be wearing out her life.
Day by day the Apache raids went on.
Every post, every breathless courier galloping in from the outlying settlements with
headlong haste, brought dire tidings of
265
1883.]