第75章

You have perhaps, in happier and more careless hours, heard me speak of Mrs.Euphemia M'Corkle, of Illinois?"Hurlstone remembered indistinctly to have heard, even in his reserved exclusiveness on the Excelsior, the current badinage of the passengers concerning Senor Perkins' extravagant adulation of this unknown poetess.As a part of the staple monotonous humor of the voyage, it had only disgusted him.With a feeling that he was unconsciously sharing the burlesque relief of the passengers, he said, with a polite attempt at interest,"Then the lady is--no more?""If that term can be applied to one whose work is immortal,"corrected Senor Perkins gently."All that was finite of this gifted woman was lately forwarded by Adams's Express Company from San Juan, to receive sepulture among her kindred at Keokuk, Iowa.""Did she say she was from that place?" asked Hurlstone, with half automatic interest.

"The Consul says she gave that request to the priest.""Then you were not with her when she died?" said Hurlstone absently.

"I was NEVER with her, neither then nor before," returned Senor Perkins gravely.Seeing Hurlstone's momentary surprise, he went on, "The late Mrs.M'Corkle and I never met--we were personally unknown to each other.You may have observed the epithet 'unmet'

in the first line of the first stanza; you will then understand that the privation of actual contact with this magnetic soul would naturally impart more difficulty into elegiac expression.""Then you never really saw the lady you admire?" said Hurlstone vacantly.

"Never.The story is a romantic one," said Perkins, with a smile that was half complacent and yet half embarrassed."May I tell it to you? Thanks.Some three years ago I contributed some verses to the columns of a Western paper edited by a friend of mine.The subject chosen was my favorite one, 'The Liberation of Mankind,' in which I may possibly have expressed myself with some poetic fervor on a theme so dear to my heart.I may remark without vanity, that it received high encomiums--perhaps at some more opportune moment you may be induced to cast your eyes over a copy I still retain--but no praise touched me as deeply as a tribute in verse in another journal from a gifted unknown, who signed herself 'Euphemia.' The subject of the poem, which was dedicated to myself, was on the liberation of women--from--er--I may say certain domestic shackles;treated perhaps vaguely, but with grace and vigor.I replied a week later in a larger poem, recording more fully my theories and aspirations regarding a struggling Central American confederacy, addressed to 'Euphemia.' She rejoined with equal elaboration and detail, referring to a more definite form of tyranny in the relations of marriage, and alluding with some feeling to uncongenial experiences of her own.An instinct of natural delicacy, veiled under the hyperbole of 'want of space,' prevented my editorial friend from encouraging the repetition of this charming interchange of thought and feeling.But I procured the fair stranger's address; we began a correspondence, at once imaginative and sympathetic in expression, if not always poetical in form.I was called to South America by the Macedonian cry of 'Quinquinambo!' I still corresponded with her.When I returned to Quinquinambo I received letters from her, dated from San Francisco.

I feel that my words could only fail, my dear Hurlstone, to convey to you the strength and support I derived from those impassioned breathings of aid and sympathy at that time.Enough for me to confess that it was mainly due to the deep womanly interest that SHE took in the fortunes of the passengers of the Excelsior that Igave the Mexican authorities early notice of their whereabouts.

But, pardon me,"--he stopped hesitatingly, with a slight flush, as he noticed the utterly inattentive face and attitude of Hurlstone,--"I am boring you.I am forgetting that this is only important to myself," he added, with a sigh."I only intended to ask your advice in regard to the disposition of certain manuscripts and effects of hers, which are unconnected with our acquaintance.Ithought, perhaps, I might entrust them to your delicacy and consideration.They are here, if you choose to look them over; and here is also what I believe to be a daguerreotype of the lady herself, but in which I fail to recognize her soul and genius."He laid a bundle of letters and a morocco case on the table with a carelessness that was intended to hide a slight shade of disappointment in his face--and rose.

"I beg your pardon," said Hurlstone, in confused and remorseful apology; "but I frankly confess that my thoughts WERE preoccupied.

Pray forgive me.If you will leave these papers with me, I promise to devote myself to them another time.""As you please," said the Senor, with a slight return of his old affability."But don't bore yourself now.Let us go on deck."He passed out of the cabin as Hurlstone glanced, half mechanically, at the package before him.Suddenly his cheek reddened; he stopped, looked hurriedly at the retreating form of Perkins, and picked up a manuscript from the packet.It was in his wife's handwriting.A sudden idea flashed across his mind, and seemed to illuminate the obscure monotony of the story he had just heard.He turned hurriedly to the morocco case, and opened it with trembling fingers.It was a daguerreotype, faded and silvered; but the features were those of his wife!