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Page 67
"We met Herbert on our way up from the station: he was standing in front
of the 'Gazette' office, laughing and talking with Sudden's barkeeper.
He greeted Phil with cordiality, in spite of the latter's distant
bearing, and told him Grace would be greatly pleased at his arrival.
"'I suppose she will be glad to see me,' said Phil, as we passed on. And
she was glad, very glad, to see him, but she was far from being made
happy by his coming. I sent a note out to her, and Phil and I followed
shortly after. I did not watch their meeting,--I thought, somehow, that
no one ought to see it,--but I knew he took her in his arms; and when
she came out on the porch to bring me in there were tears in her eyes.
"We all sat and talked for a long while, Grace with her hand in Phil's
and her eyes on his face, when she was not looking anxiously after my
awkward attempts at caring for her baby; for of course Nannie had been
brought out almost the first thing. I think, from the way in which she
carefully avoided asking him his reasons for coming back, that she
divined what they were. I imagined that she blamed me as being the prime
cause; but there was nothing I could say to undeceive her. In fact, I
thought it better for her to believe so than to know the truth.
"'She is miserably unhappy, George,' said Phil gloomily, as we walked
away. 'But you were right not to tell me. I can do nothing to help her:
I cannot even openly sympathize with her. It would have been better to
have kept on thinking she was happy: there was a bitter kind of
satisfaction to me in that, but still it was a satisfaction.'
"Nevertheless Phil did not go back to the mountains. He stayed on here
for a month or more, dividing his time pretty equally between my office
and Grace's little parlor. He very seldom met Herbert. Now and then they
would be together at the cottage for half an hour, if Herbert happened
to come home while he was there, and when they met on the street they
would merely pass the time of day.
"One evening before going to supper I waited until after seven o'clock
for Phil to come in, and just as I had given him up, and was starting
away alone, he entered the office, looking pale as a ghost, and
evidently in great distress of spirit.
"'For God's sake, Phil, what is the matter?' I exclaimed, as he sank
upon the sofa and covered his face with his hands.
"'Go away, George: go away and leave me,' was all he said; then he got
up and began walking violently up and down the room. At last he came
near me and put his hand on my shoulder. 'I've killed her, George, I am
afraid; At least I have killed him right before her eyes, and she may
never get over it. I didn't mean to, George, you know that; but he came
home drunk, and I had gone to bid Grace good-by,--for I had made up my
mind, George, to leave to-morrow,--and he came in. We had been talking
of father, and Grace was very sad and wretched, and there were tears in
her eyes when she kissed me, just as he came in and saw us. She was
frightened at his brutality, and clung to me in terror, when he began
swearing in a torrent of passion and calling her the vilest of names. He
struck at us with his cane. If he had struck me he might yet have been
alive; but when I saw the great red welt on Grace's neck and heard her
cry out, I was wild, George. For an instant, I believe, I could have
stamped him into bits, and if it had been my last act on earth I could
not have helped striking him.'
"While he spoke, Phil stood with his hand on my shoulder, looking into
my eyes, as if he wanted me to judge him, as if he would read in my very
look whether I blamed him or not. I took his hand.
"'I thought you would understand,' he went on. 'I did not know I was
going to kill him, but I think I tried to: I struck him with all my
might, Grace threw herself between us and begged me not to hurt him
after he had fallen down, and took hold of my arm as if to hold me. But
when she saw the blood running from his temple, where he had struck it
on the window-sill, and how still and motionless he lay, she tried to go
to him, but could not for weakness and fainting. I carried her into Mrs.
Stanley's, and have not seen her since, but the doctor says she is very
ill. Herbert was dead when they went into the room after I told them
what had happened; and I suppose I had better give myself up to the
law.'
"You can have no idea how I felt to see my dearest friend in such a
position. And poor Grace!--it was much worse for her. I thought with
Phil that she might never survive the shock and misery of it all. But
she did, and came out, weak and broken down as she was, to give her
testimony at Phil's trial. We had no trouble in getting a jury to acquit
him, and he went back to Colorado without bidding Grace good-by,
although she would have seen him and was even anxious to do so. Some
persons here, mostly women, pretended to think that there had been more
cause for Herbert's jealousy than was generally supposed; but they
belonged to the sanctimonious, hypocritical custom-worshippers. All
really good people remembered what Herbert had been, and refused to see
in him a martyr or even a wronged man.
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