A Sappho of Green Springs

by Bret Harte

anundistinguishable heap to the ground.

  When Josephine Forsyth returned an hour later with her mill foreman, shewas startled to find her helpless patient in a fit on the floor of herroom. With the assistance of her now converted and penitent employee,she had the unfortunate man conveyed to his room--but not until she hadthoughtfully rearranged the disorder of her desk and closed the opendrawers without attracting Dick Shipley's attention. In the morning,hearing that the patient was still in the semiconscious exhaustion ofhis late attack, but without seeing him, she sent for Dr. Duchesne. Thedoctor arrived while she was absent at the mill, where, after a carefulexamination of his patient, he sought her with some little excitement.

  "Well?" she said, with eager gravity.

  "Well, it looks as if your wish would be gratified. Your friend hashad an epileptic fit, but the physical shock has started his mentalmachinery again. He has recovered his faculties; his memory isreturning: he thinks and speaks coherently; he is as sane as you and I."

  "And"--said Josephine, questioning the doctor's knitted eyebrows.

  "I am not yet sure whether it was the result of some shock he doesn'tremember; or an irritation of the brain, which would indicate that theoperation had not been successful and that there was still some physicalpressure or obstruction there--in which case he would be subject tothese attacks all his life."

  "Do you think his reason came before the fit or after?" asked the girl,anxiously.

  "I couldn't say. Had anything happened?"

  "I was away, and found him on the floor on my return," she answered,half uneasily. After a pause she said, "Then he has told you his nameand all about himself?"

  "Yes, it's nothing at all! He was a stranger just arrived from theStates, going to the mines--the old story; had no near relations, ofcourse; wasn't missed or asked after; remembers walking along the ridgeand falling over; name, John Baxter, of Maine." He paused, and relaxinginto a slight smile, added, "I haven't spoiled your romance, have I?"

  "No," she said, with an answering smile. Then as the doctor walkedbriskly away she slightly knitted her pretty brows, hung her head,patted the ground with her little foot beyond the hem of her gown, andsaid to herself, "The man was lying to him."

  CHAPTER III

  On her return to the house, Josephine apparently contented herself withreceiving the bulletin of the stranger's condition from the servant, forshe did not enter his room. She had obtained no theory of last night'sincident from her parents, who, beyond a querulous agitation that wasquickened by the news of his return to reason, refrained from even thatinsidious comment which she half feared would follow. When anotherday passed without her seeing him, she nevertheless was conscious of alittle embarrassment when his attendant brought her the request thatshe would give him a moment's speech in the porch, whither he had beenremoved.

  She found him physically weaker; indeed, so much so that she was fain,even in her embarrassment, to assist him back to the bench from whichhe had ceremoniously risen. But she was so struck with the change inhis face and manner, a change so virile and masterful, in spite of itsgentle sadness of manner, that she recoiled with a slight timidity as ifhe had been a stranger, although she was also conscious that he seemedto be more at his ease than she was. He began in a low exhausted voice,but before he had finished his first sentence, she felt herself in thepresence of a superior.

  "My thanks come very late, Miss Forsyth," he said, with a faint smile,"but no one knows better than yourself the reason why, or can betterunderstand that they mean that the burden you have so generously takenon yourself is about to be lifted. I know all, Miss Forsyth. Sinceyesterday I have learned how much I owe you, even my life I believe,though I am afraid I must tell you in the same breath that THAT is oflittle worth to any one. You have kindly helped and interested yourselfin a poor stranger who turns out to be a nobody, without friends,without romance, and without even mystery. You found me lying in theroad down yonder, after a stupid accident that might have happened toany other careless tramp, and which scarcely gave me a claim to a bedin the county hospital, much less under this kindly roof. It was not myfault, as you know, that all this did not come out sooner; but while itdoesn't lessen your generosity, it doesn't lessen my debt, and althoughI cannot hope to ever repay you, I can at least keep the score fromrunning on. Pardon my speaking so bluntly, but my excuse for speaking atall was to say 'Good-by' and 'God bless you.' Dr. Duchesne has promisedto give me a lift on my way in his buggy when he goes."

  There was a slight touch of consciousness in his voice in spite of itssadness, which struck the young girl as a weak and even ungentlemanlynote in his otherwise self-abnegating and undemonstrative attitude. Ifhe was a common tramp, he wouldn't talk in that way, and if he wasn't,why did he lie? Her practical good sense here asserted itself.

  "But you are far from strong yet; in fact, the doctor says you mighthave a relapse at any moment, and you have--that is, you SEEM to have nomoney," she said gravely.

  "That's true," he said, quickly. "I remember I was quite played out whenI entered the settlement, and I think I had parted from even some littletrifles I carried with me. I am afraid I was a poor find to those whopicked me up, and you ought to have taken warning. But the doctor hasoffered to lend me enough to take me to San Francisco, if only to give afair trial to the machine he has set once more a-going."

  "Then you have friends in San Francisco?" said the young girl quickly."Those who know you? Why not write to them first, and tell them you arehere?"

  "I don't think your postmaster here would be preoccupied with lettersfor John Baxter, if I did," he said, quietly. "But here is the doctorwaiting. Good-by."

  He stood looking at her in a peculiar, yet half-resigned way, and heldout his hand. For a moment she hesitated. Had he been less independentand strong, she would have refused to let him go--have offered himsome slight employment at the ranch; for oddly enough, in spite of thesuspicion that he was concealing something, she felt that she would havetrusted him, and he would have been a help to her. But he was not onlydetermined, but SHE was all the time conscious that he was a totallydifferent man from the one she had taken care of, and merely ordinaryprudence demanded that she should know something more of him first. Shegave him her hand constrainedly; he pressed it warmly.

  Dr. Duchesne drove up, helped him into the buggy, smiled a good-naturedbut half-perfunctory assurance that he would look after "her patient,"and drove away.

  The whole thing was over, but so unexpectedly, so suddenly, sounromantically, so unsatisfactorily, that, although her common sensetold her that it was perfectly natural, proper, business-like, andreasonable, and, above all, final and complete, she did not know whetherto laugh or be angry. Yet this was her parting from the man who had buta few days ago moved her to tears with a single hopeless gesture.Well, this would teach her what to expect. Well, what had she expected?Nothing!

  Yet for the rest of the day she was unreasonably irritable, and, if theconjointure be not paradoxical, severely practical, and inhumanlyjust. Falling foul of some presumption of Miguel's, based upon hisprescriptive rights through long service on the estate, with therecollection of her severity towards his antagonist in her mind, sherated that trusted retainer with such pitiless equity and unfemininelogic that his hot Latin blood chilled in his veins, and he stood lividon the road. Then, informing Dick Shipley with equally relentless calmthat she might feel it necessary to change ALL her foremen unlessthey could agree in harmony, she sought the dignified seclusion ofher castle. But her respected parents, whose triumphant relief at thestranger's departure had emboldened them to await her return in theirporch with bended bows of invective and lifted javelins of aggression,recoiled before the resistless helm of this cold-browed Minerva, whogalloped contemptuously past them.

  Nevertheless, she sat late that night at her desk. The cold moon lookeddown upon her window, and lit up the empty porch where her silent guesthad mutely watched her. For a moment she regretted that he had recoveredhis reason, excusing herself on the pr
actical ground that he would neverhave known his dependence, and he would have been better cared forby her. She felt restless and uneasy. This slight divergence from thepractical groove in which her life had been set had disturbed her inmany other things, and given her the first views of the narrowness ofit.

  Suddenly she heard a step in the porch. The lateness of the hour,perhaps some other reason, seemed to startle her, and she half rose.The next moment the figure of Miguel appeared at the doorway, and witha quick, hurried look around him, and at the open window, he approachedher. He was evidently under great excitement, his hollow shavencheek looked like a waxen effigy in the mission church; his yellow,tobacco-stained eye glittered like phosphorescent amber, his lankgray hair was damp and