CHAPTER XI.
NORINE’S POSITION.
Yes, he was dead. Norine never doubted it. The proofs were too strong to admit of doubt, even if she had been disposed to admit one; but she never dreamed of questioning the matter. She was certain of her desolation, certain of her widowhood, and she mourned as only a tender, loving woman can mourn.
His faults were all forgotten now, and she remembered him only as her girlhood lover and the father of her child. She reproached herself bitterly, passionately, as having been the cause of the quarrel.
If she had only been more considerate, she thought, and had not given way to her wicked, foolish temper, this would never have happened. And now----Ah, her punishment was greater than she could bear.
And so she mourned, woman-like, accepting all the blame, and refusing to hear one word that would reflect on her husband’s memory. Nor was she alone at this, for Jim--weak from the loss of blood, suffered far more in mind than body.
He did not admit himself to be in the wrong in protecting his sister, but his interference had plainly caused the trouble, and he dreaded, yet longed, to see Norine.
“She will never forgive me,” he thought. “She will _never_ forgive me;” and he moaned in bitterness of spirit.
And poor Norine only dreaded meeting him, lest he should reproach her. She was very weak after her great shock, and very ill, so for a time the brother and sister were separated from necessity.
Doctor Conway was greatly troubled over his patients at the farm. Norine did not rally as well as he could wish, but lay weak and silent, only moving to care for her child.
She was perfectly passive, and accepted all he did for her; grateful apparently for his attentions, but perfectly indifferent as to the result.
Jim, on the other hand, was plainly worrying himself into a fever, and Conway feared the result.
He could heal the cut in Jim’s breast, but he acknowledged his inability to minister to a mind diseased.
Norine was the stronger, and must be roused to a sense of her responsibility. And Conway, who would gladly have taken a share of their pain upon himself, resolved to rouse her.
“Norine,” he said gently, as he sat beside her bed, “Norine, you know that Jim is very ill?”
“Yes,” said Norine, startled; “but he is getting better. You said that he would recover.”
“I did say so,” replied Conway, “and I say so now. He will recover; he _must_ recover! But, Norine, it depends more on you than it does on me.”
“On me!” exclaimed Norine. “What can I do for him?”
“You can see him and comfort him. Norine, you will forgive an old friend for saying this, but you are unjust to one of the best men on earth.”
“Oh, I was unjust to my husband!” moaned Norine. “I was _so_ unjust!”
“I do not understand why you accuse yourself,” said Conway somewhat sharply. “I do not think that you were ever unjust before in your life, and you must not be unjust to Jim now.”
“What have I done to poor Jim, doctor?” cried Norine. “How am I unjust, when I love him so? He is all I have left now--he and Clinton.” And her tears broke out afresh.
Poor Conway longed to tell her that there was another one left who needed her love as badly; but he only said gently:
“You know, Norine, that, right or wrong, he received his wound while endeavoring to protect you.”
“Can I ever forget it?” cried Norine passionately. “Can I ever cease to reproach myself for it?”
“You have nothing to reproach yourself for, and you should not reproach him.”
“_I_ reproach him?” said Norine wonderingly. “How have I reproached him?”
“He longs to see you,” replied Conway, “but he fears your blame. He thinks you will love him less for what has happened.”
“Poor Jim!” exclaimed Norine. “I must see him at once. I am strong enough to get up, doctor. Can I see my brother?”
Conway gave his consent, and left the room elated.
“Jim, I have come to see you,” said Norine, as she feebly entered her brother’s room, and sank down by the side of his bed. “Dear, _dear_ Jim, I have come to tell you how much I love you.”
“Oh, Norine!” was all Jim could say.
Norine tried to say something soothing, but she could not do it. Those few days had made such a change in her brother--he looked so pale and feeble lying there, that she could only sink down on his bed and clasp her arms around him, murmuring broken terms of endearment, and then tears came to her relief, and the brother and sister wept together.
“Better than medicine, much better than medicine,” said Conway joyfully, as he left the house--“much better than medicine,” he repeated, as he jogged away upon his little pony; and he repeated it somewhat proudly, too, as if he thought he had made a mistake in adopting the practice of medicine, and was not quite sure, after all, but diplomacy was his forte.
Doctor Conway was justified in his elation, for his patients recovered rapidly from that date.
Without feeling the less regret for the dead, Norine accepted the duty to the living, and found in it, if not freedom, at least relief from her sorrow.
She devoted herself to her brother and little Clinton, and as the summer passed away and they recovered their health, the little household at the farm gradually resumed the simple routine that had been their custom before their strange guest had come; and had it not been for the presence of little Clinton, Jim might have thought it all a troubled dream.
But little Clinton was there, and insisted on being seen, and heard, too, very often. Of course, he ruled the family as only a child can rule one, and there was not a day passed over his sunny little head that did not develop some new grace of mind or body.
After the coming of a new tooth ceased to be a novelty, and he had taken his first toddling steps across the floor, to the great pleasure and amazement of all, he would develop some new and astonishing trait daily.
He was a merry little fellow, always tumbling in and out of mischief, and taking his bumps as something that had to be gone through with, and the sooner he got them over with the better.
They were all his willing slaves, but he would debase Jim more than all the rest; and Jim would declare proudly that he hardly dared to light his pipe now, for fear the little chap would want something.
“Dim do,” or “Dim dive,” were words constantly in use by this young autocrat. As to how Jim was to do or to give impossible things, he did not concern himself. It was for him to order and them to obey.
The summer had passed away and the big red barn had been duly filled with the bountiful crops, when Norine received an unexpected visitor.
He was a very slick, smooth-spoken man, genteel and sedate in all his movements.
He was a tall man--an exceedingly tall man, Norine thought--who seemed to be made up principally of mouth and whiskers, and he introduced himself as the general agent of the Provident Mutual Benefit Widows’ and Orphans’ Tontine Life Insurance Company of New York, and he expressed a desire to see the widow of the late Clinton Percival.
“Is this Mrs. Clinton Percival?” he asked, as Norine entered the room, rising out of his chair in sections as he spoke, like an exaggerated carpenter’s rule.
Norine bowed.
“My dear madam,” he said, smoothly, almost affectionately, “I have come a long distance to see you. We had expected to hear from you before this, but of course we can understand your great affliction. Pardon me when I say that the Widows’ and Orphans’ Tontine Insurance Company fully appreciate your loss--and our own.”
Norine motioned to a chair, and he folded himself up in it and waited for her to speak.
“I am afraid, sir,” she said, after an embarrassing pause, “that I hardly understand you. Was my husband connected with your company?”
“Connected with my company?” repeated the agent, with a look of astonishment directed at Norine’s feet.
“Did you not know, madam, that your late husband had a policy in the Provident Mutual Benefit Widows’ and Orphans’ Tontine Insurance Company?”
“I knew very little about my husband’s business,” said Norine, with a choking sensation in her throat.
“Ah, madam, you will fully appreciate your late husband’s cleverness in choosing our company from all others, when I assure you that the very provision he made for you might have been lost in any other company by your not understanding the form and requirements of the policy. But with us how different. We protect our policy holders, and all our policies are incontestable. Is there any gentleman in the family?” he inquired with great interest.
“My brother,” said Norine, who had been trying hard to follow and understand the stranger’s rapid speech.
“Ah, a brother; I must certainly explain our plans to him before I go; but first, madam, if you will permit me, I will finish our business.”
“I do not understand,” cried Norine. “You say my husband had his life insured?”
The stranger bowed.
“What was the amount of the policy?” inquired Norine.
“Two thousand dollars,” said the agent, with an air of having stated an immense amount.
“And what am I to do?” cried Norine, again.
“Only to give me certain papers, make out, in fact, the proofs of death.”
“Will you excuse me,” said Norine, “if I refer you to my brother. I presume he can act for me?”
The stranger assented eagerly, perhaps scenting a chance for further business, and Norine left the room in search for Jim.
The agent unfolded himself to make a bow as she left the room, and folding himself up with a satisfied smirk when she had gone.
It proved quite a business to make out the necessary proofs of death, but they were made out at last to the company’s satisfaction, and Norine in time received a draft for the two thousand dollars.
“We will not touch it,” she said to Jim. “It is for Clinton.”
And the money was duly invested with the object of ultimately benefiting Master Clinton, who did not seem in the least spoiled by his good fortune.
And if any doubt had existed as to the fate of Clinton Percival it was set at rest now forever. He was dead, dead beyond the possibility of a doubt, and even Lester Conway, who had been living all these months in silent fear that the body of the missing man might be found among the living, was at last satisfied, if not sorrowful. Clinton was dead, and nothing stood between himself and Norine but time.