The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

other person (I detest buxom women!) passes myunderstanding. I can't tell you how interested I am in Mary! I want toknow more about her. Where is that pretty present of needle-work whichthe poor little thing embroidered for you so industriously? Do let mesee the green flag!"

  She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I felt alittle confused as I answered her.

  "I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my housein Perthshire."

  "You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her keepsakelying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed forgotten Mary!A woman, in your place, would have parted with her life rather than partwith the one memorial left of the time when she first loved!"

  She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such agitation, Imight almost say--that she quite startled me.

  "Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost."

  "I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the greenflag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that, if _my_belief is right."

  "What do you believe?"

  "You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading ofyour face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man."

  "Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as frankly asusual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of Mary?"

  "You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered, gravely--"the hopeof your meeting and your marriage with Mary in the time to come. I wassleepless last night, and I was thinking of your pretty love story bythe banks of the bright English lake. The longer I thought, the morefirmly I felt the conviction that the poor child's green flag isdestined to have its innocent influence in forming your future life.Your happiness is waiting for you in that artless little keepsake!I can't explain or justify this belief of mine. It is one of myeccentricities, I suppose--like training my cats to perform to the musicof my harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being onlyyour friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg andentreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had madeMary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's portrait inthe locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag is with you, Mary'sinfluence is with you; Mary's love is still binding you by the dear oldtie; and Mary and you, after years of separation, will meet again!"

  The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness which hadgiven expression to it would have had its influence over a man of a farharder nature than mine. I confess she had made me ashamed, if she haddone nothing more, of my neglect of the green flag.

  "I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and I willtake care that it is carefully preserved for the future."

  "I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the flag aboutyou, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever you go. Whenthey brought your luggage here from the vessel at Lerwick, youwere particularly anxious about the safety of your travelingwriting-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there anything veryvaluable in it?"

  "It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more highly--mymother's letters, and some family relics which I should be very sorryto lose. Besides, the desk itself has its own familiar interest as myconstant traveling companion of many years past."

  Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was sitting.

  "Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said. "Youhave spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your nurse.Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr. Germaine, for thesuperstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy woman. Promise me that thegreen flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in yourdesk!"

  It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave thepromise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the firsttime since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand in mine,and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my first gratefulimpulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I released it. Shestarted--trembled--and suddenly and silently passed out of the room.

  CHAPTER XXI. SHE COMES BETWEEN US.

  WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I offendedor distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced on her innerknowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had thus far resolutelyignored?

  I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I questionedmy own feelings and impressions, on the chance that they might serve meas a means of solving the mystery of her sudden flight from the room.

  What effect had she produced on me?

  In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to theexclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten days shehad taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women would have failedto possess themselves in so many years. I remembered, to my shame, thatmy mother had but seldom occupied my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs.Van Brandt--except when the conversation had turned on her--had becomea faint image in my mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir Jamesdownward, they had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly andungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free for thereturn of my nurse. In two days more the Government vessel was to sailon the return voyage. My wrist was still painful when I tried to use it;but the far more serious injury presented by the re-opened wound wasno longer a subject of anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I wassufficiently restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick,if I rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr.Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the question ofrejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest moment. The motivewhich I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty as to the sufficientrecovery of my strength. The motive which I now confessed to myself wasreluctance to leave Miss Dunross.

  What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what passion,had she awakened in me? Was it love?

  No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the placewhich Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not the placeoccupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary sense of theword) be in love with a woman whose face I had never seen? whose beautyhad faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted life hung by a threadwhich the accident of a moment might snap? The senses have their sharein all love between the sexes which is worthy of the name. They had noshare in the feeling with which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ thefeeling, then? I can only answer the question in one way. The feelinglay too deep in me for my sounding.

  What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had Iignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand?

  I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had deliberatelyset myself to make. I thought of her shattered health; of her melancholyexistence in shadow and solitude; of the rich treasures of such a heartand such a mind as hers, wasted with her wasting life; and I said tomyself, Let her secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed,bring the trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart beveiled from me in the darkness which veils her face!

  In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return.

  I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day. Thepost to the south went out on the next day; and the early hour of themorning at which the messenger called for our letters made it a matterof ordinary convenience to write overnight. In the disabled state of myhand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under mydictation: she knew that I owed a letter to my mother, and that I reliedas usual on her help. Her return to me, under these circumstances, wassimply a question of time: any duty which she had once undertaken was animperative duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be.

  The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she neverappeared.

  I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in thegarden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I might befound, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild place, to mysout
hern notions; but it extended for some distance along the shoreof the island, and it offered some pleasant views of the lake and themoorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my walk, I proposed to myselfto occupy my mind to some useful purpose by arranging beforehand thecomposition of the letter which Miss Dunross was to write.

  To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind onthe subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in wandering fromthe letter to my mother, and concentrated themselves instead--on MissDunross? No. On the question of my returning, or not returning, toPerthshire by the Government vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion offeeling which it seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was nowabsorbed on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absentfrom it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt!

  My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise