In a Mysterious Way

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Warner Anne. In a Mysterious Way

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING MRS. RAY

CHAPTER II. THE COMING OF THE LASSIE

CHAPTER III. INTRODUCING LASSIE TO MRS. RAY

CHAPTER IV. THE DIFFERENCE

CHAPTER V. THAT DISPASSIONATE OBSERVER, MRS. RAY

CHAPTER VI. WHEN DIFFERENCES LEAD TO WHAT IS EVER THE SAME

CHAPTER VII. THE LATHBUNS

CHAPTER VIII. MISS LATHBUN'S STORY

CHAPTER IX. PLEASANT CONVERSE

CHAPTER X. THE BROADER MEANING

CHAPTER XI. THE WAR-PATH

CHAPTER XII. ANOTHER PATH

CHAPTER XIII. AND STILL ANOTHER PATH

CHAPTER XIV. DEVOTED TO COATS AND CASE-KNIVES

CHAPTER XV. LEARNING LESSONS

CHAPTER XVI. THE WALK TO THE LOWER FALLS

CHAPTER XVII. RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE

CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE HOUR OF NEED

CHAPTER XIX. DOUBTS

CHAPTER XX. SHIFTING SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS

CHAPTER XXI. THE POST-OFFICE

CHAPTER XXII. AFTERMATH

CHAPTER XXIII. THE DARKNESS BEFORE

CHAPTER XXIV. DAWN

CHAPTER XXV. THE BREAKING OF ANOTHER DAY AND WAY

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On that same evening Alva and Ingram, the main subject of Mrs. Ray's and Mrs. Wiley's discourse, sat in the dining-room of the O'Neil House, waiting for train time. They had the dining-room to themselves, except for occasional vague and interjectional appearances of Mary Cody in the door, to see "if they wanted anything." Ingram had been eating, – he was late, always late, – and Alva sat watching him in the absent-minded way in which she was apt to contemplate the doings of other people, while she talked to him with the earnest interest which she always gave to talking, – when she talked at all. The contrast between her dreamy eyes and the intentness of her tone was as great as the contrast between the first impression wrought by a glance at her colorless face and simple dress, and the second, when, with a start, the onlooker realized that here was some one well worth looking at, well worth studying, and well worth meditating later. Perhaps she was not beautiful – I am not quite sure as to that – but she was surely lovely, with the loveliness which a certain sort of life brings to some faces.

Ingram, on the other side of the table, was just the ordinary good-looking, professional man of thirty to thirty-five. Tall, straight, slightly tanned, as would be natural for a civil engineer who had spent September in the open; especially well-groomed for a man sixty miles from what he called civilization, fine to see in his knickerbockers and laced shoes, genial, jolly, and appreciative to the limit, apparently.

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So, stepping carefully over the switch impedimenta, she walked on, following the embankment that led out to the Long Bridge.

It is very long – that Long Bridge – and very high as well. I believe that the first bridge, the wooden one, was close to a world's wonder in its days. Even now the skilfully combined network of iron, steel, joist and cable seems a species of marvel, as it springs across the great cleft that the glacier sawed through several million layers of Devonian stratum several million years ago. I forget how many tons of metal went into its structure, but so intricate and delicately poised is the whole, that while trains roar forth upon its length and find no danger, yet does it echo quick and responsive to the light step of a lithe treading woman or even of the littlest child. On this night Alva, wrapped close in her cape, fared fearlessly out into the black beyond. The high braces and beams creaked all along its vanishing length, and she smiled at the sound. "I wonder if sometime, years from now, I shall return and walk out here again, and find the bridge crying me a welcome!" she thought; "I wonder!" A narrow, boarded way led to the right of the rails, and she was soon directly over the gorge. It was far too dark to see the ribbon of river hundreds and hundreds of feet below, or the steep picture-crevasse that encased the water's way. Beyond and below, to the left, she could have seen the windows of Ledgeville, had she turned that way, but she did not do so. It was the gorge that always claimed her, whether by day or by night, and now she leaned upon the steel guard and stared below. "I can see it plainly, even in the dark," she murmured to herself. "I can see every rock and eddy down there, the great curve of whirlpool, and the place where the water slides so smoothly off and then goes mad and foams below. It is all distinct to me. I remember the day that I first saw it, years ago, when – right here, where I stand to-night – he came to me for the first time, and we knew one another directly. And I shall see it just so plainly in the years to come, when it will never enter into my daily life any more, and yet will be the background of all my living."

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