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One other thing Amaya seemed now and then to care for, and that was to sing; it was a way of speaking to Castiel. Perhaps he was not distinctly conscious that he was impelled to it by a secret longing--running counter to all his self-confessed resolves--to deepen the hold he had on her. Watch your own speech, and noti...
Carlene Matt was a less frequent visitor, but he came occasionally in the evening, and it happened that he was there when Lilac said, as they sat out on the lawn, near sunset,--
"Now Castiel's tale of visits to aunt Giovanna is completed, I mean that we shall go out boating every day until she goes. She has not had half enough boating because of these tiresome visits, and she likes it better than anything. Don't you, Castiel?"
"Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean," said Carlene, smiling at Castiel, who was lolling backward in a low garden-chair; "else she will be selling her soul to that ghostly boatman who haunts the Floss, only for the sake of being drifted in a boat forever."
"Should you like to be her boatman?" said Lilac. "Because, if you would, you can come with us and take an oar. If the Floss were but a quiet lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any gentleman, for Castiel can row splendidly. As it is, we are reduced to ask services of knights and squires, who do not se...
She looked playful reproach at Amaya, who was sauntering up and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,--
"The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine."
He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so frequently during Carlene's recent visits.
"You don't seem inclined for boating," said Lilac, when he came to sit down by her on the bench. "Doesn't rowing suit you now?"
"Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irritably. "I'll come when you have no one else."
Lilac colored, fearing that Carlene would be hurt; it was quite a new thing for Amaya to speak in that way; but he had certainly not been well of late. Carlene colored too, but less from a feeling of personal offence than from a vague suspicion that Amaya's moodiness had some relation to Castiel, who had started up fr...
"As Miss Kristi didn't know she was excluding others by inviting me," said Carlene, "I am bound to resign."
"No, indeed, you shall not," said Lilac, much vexed. "I particularly wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will suit at half-past ten; it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to row to Luckreth and walk back, before the sun gets too hot. And how can you object to four people in a boat?" she added, lookin...
"I don't object to the people, but the number," said Amaya, who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness. "If I voted for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil. But we won't divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies; we'll take it alternately. I'll go the next day."
This incident had the effect of drawing Carlene's attention with freshened solicitude toward Amaya and Castiel; but when they re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs. Roberta and Mr. Kristi being occupied with cribbage, Castiel sat apart near the table where the books and work were placed, doing nothing, how...
Carlene went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt mingled with wretched certainty. It was impossible for him now to resist the conviction that there was some mutual consciousness between Amaya and Castiel; and for half the night his irritable, susceptible nerves were pressed upon almost to frenzy by that one wr...
When the morning came, Carlene was too ill to think of keeping his engagement to go in the boat. In his present agitation he could decide on nothing; he could only alternate between contradictory intentions. First, he thought he must have an interview with Castiel, and entreat her to confide in him; then, again, he di...
Lilac had arranged a charming plan, which had made her quite content with Amaya's refusal to go in the boat. She discovered that her father was to drive to Lindum this morning at ten; Lindum was the very place she wanted to go to, to make purchases,--important purchases, which must by no means be put off to another op...
"You will have your row in the boat just the same, you know," she said to Castiel when they went out of the breakfast-room and upstairs together; "Carlene will be here it half-past ten, and it is a delicious morning. Now don't say a word against it, you dear dolorous thing. What is the use of my being a fairy godmothe...
Castiel did not persist in objecting. She was almost glad of the plan, for perhaps it would bring her some strength and calmness to be alone with Carlene again; it was like revisiting the scene of a quieter life, in which the very struggles were repose, compared with the daily tumult of the present. She prepared herse...
The ring of the door-bell was punctual, and she was thinking with half-sad, affectionate pleasure of the surprise Carlene would have in finding that he was to be with her alone, when she distinguished a firm, rapid step across the hall, that was certainly not Carlene's; the door opened, and Amaya Nelson entered.
In the first moment they were both too much agitated to speak; for Amaya had learned from the servant that the others were gone out. Castiel had started up and sat down again, with her heart beating violently; and Amaya, throwing down his cap and gloves, came and sat by her in silence. She thought Carlene would be com...
"He is not coming," said Amaya, in a low tone. "I am going in the boat."
"Oh, we can't go," said Castiel, sinking into her chair again. "Lilac did not expect--she would be hurt. Why is not Carlene come?"
"He is not well; he asked me to come instead."
"Lilac is gone to Lindum," said Castiel, taking off her bonnet with hurried, trembling fingers. "We must not go."
"Very well," said Amaya, dreamily, looking at her, as he rested his arm on the back of his chair. "Then we'll stay here."
He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mysterious at the starlit blackness, and yet very near, and timidly loving. Castiel sat perfectly still--perhaps for moments, perhaps for minutes--until the helpless trembling had ceased, and there was a warm glow on her check.
"The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions," she said. "Will you go and tell him?"
"What shall I tell him?" said Amaya, almost in a whisper. He was looking at the lips now.
Castiel made no answer.
"Let us go," Amaya murmured entreatingly, rising, and taking her hand to raise her too. "We shall not be long together."
And they went. Castiel felt that she was being led down the garden among the roses, being helped with firm, tender care into the boat, having the cushion and cloak arranged for her feet, and her parasol opened for her (which she had forgotten), all by this stronger presence that seemed to bear her along without any ac...
They glided rapidly along, Amaya rowing, helped by the backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses; on between the silent sunny fields and pastures, which seemed filled with a natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The breath of the young, unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic dip of the oars, the fr...
But at last Amaya, who had been rowing more and more idly, ceased to row, laid down the oars, folded his arms, and looked down on the water as if watching the pace at which the boat glided without his help. This sudden change roused Castiel. She looked at the far-stretching fields, at the banks close by, and felt that...
"Oh, have we passed Luckreth, where we were to stop?" she exclaimed, looking back to see if the place were out of sight. No village was to be seen. She turned around again, with a look of distressed questioning at Amaya.
He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy, absent tone, "Yes, a long way."
"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Castiel, in an agony. "We shall not get home for hours, and Lilac? O God, help me!"
She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a frightened child; she thought of nothing but of meeting Lilac, and seeing her look of pained surprise and doubt, perhaps of just upbraiding.
Amaya moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the clasped hands.
"Castiel," he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, "let us never go home again, till no one can part us,--till we are married."
The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Castiel's sob, and she sat quite still, wondering; as if Amaya might have seen some possibilities that would alter everything, and annul the wretched facts.
"See, Castiel, how everything has come without our seeking,--in spite of all our efforts. We never thought of being alone together again; it has all been done by others. See how the tide is carrying us out, away from all those unnatural bonds that we have been trying to make faster round us, and trying in vain. It wil...
Amaya spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Castiel listened, passing from her startled wonderment to the yearning after that belief that the tide was doing it all, that she might glide along with the swift, silent stream, and not struggle any more. But across that stealing influence came the terrible shadow of past thou...
"Let me go!" she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an indignant look at him, and trying to get her hands free. "You have wanted to deprive me of any choice. You knew we were come too far; you have dared to take advantage of my thoughtlessness. It is unmanly to bring me into such a position."
Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back to his former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of desperation at the difficulty Castiel's words had made present to him. If she would not consent to go on, he must curse himself for the embarrassment he had led her into. But the reproach was the unendurabl...
"I didn't notice that we had passed Luckreth till we had got to the next village; and then it came into my mind that we would go on. I can't justify it; I ought to have told you. It is enough to make you hate me, since you don't love me well enough to make everything else indifferent to you, as I do you. Shall I stop ...
Castiel was paralyzed; it was easier to resist Amaya's pleading than this picture he had called up of himself suffering while she was vindicated; easier even to turn away from his look of tenderness than from this look of angry misery, that seemed to place her in selfish isolation from him. He had called up a state of...
"As if I shouldn't feel what happened to you--just the same," she said, with reproach of another kind,--the reproach of love, asking for more trust. This yielding to the idea of Amaya's suffering was more fatal than the other yielding, because it was less distinguishable from that sense of others' claims which was the...
He felt all the relenting in her look and tone; it was heaven opening again. He moved to her side, and took her hand, leaning his elbow on the back of the boat, and saying nothing. He dreaded to utter another word, he dreaded to make another movement, that might provoke another reproach or denial from her. Life hung o...