Eva's Sins.

LXIII

„Someone's sins are nails stubbed in his soul that bleeds till death"

  „Bardain, wait a minute!" Eva cried after the teamster, one morning when she got out of the house to have a walk as she was having lately and she saw Bardain heading toward the carriage with a bowed head.

  The fact that Eva asked him to wait for her amazed Bardain a lot, for even if he knew she's very kind and that she often used to talk to the servants among who she grew up, he had never expected, yet, that she'll talk to him, for they weren't either too close or that open to each other to have a free talk. Yet, he stopped, thinking that maybe she called him to ask him to do something for her as he was going to town: what exactly Eva could ask him to do, he didn't know. Anyway, it couldn't be anything out of the common: just to take a letter to Beth or Mrs. Huntington or to ask him to buy something she needed.

  Yet, he's been wrong, for once got next to him, Eva neither asked him to take a letter to the town nor asked him to buy something she needed. Per contra, she simply told him: „I would like to have a walk together if you don't mind."

  Bardain stared at her thunderstruck: „a walk with me?"

  „Yes. I don't know why, but I feel the need to have a walk, but not alone, and while Stan and Brian aren't home, the only one left to accompany me is you."

  „But, Ms. Stonebridge, I..."

  „I know you have to go to town with business. That's why I promise that the walk won't take long. So, should we go now?"

  At that moment, Bardain only had to accept, for, eventually, she was the woman Brian loved and he knew very well how much his young master had suffered being away from her. That's why Bardain followed her in silence for a while. Then, when Eva stopped to wait for him, Bardain quickened his pace till he got by her side and Eva right away grasped his arm, murmuring: „I feel dizzy! I'll bear against your arm if you don't mind."

  „Of course, of course, Miss Stonebridge!" the teamster mumbled, pacing slower than before and thus giving her the opportunity to keep pace with him.

  After a few steps, taken in silence, Eva said: „You seem upbeat lately, Bardain. Something happens?"

  Bardain again stared thunderstruck at her, for he hadn't expected her to notice his tune because since he opened that box with memories, he suddenly became so sad, even more upbeat than he generally was. But even so, he had thought that he forced himself a lot to look as if he was fine.

  „Don't even try to deny this, Bardain, for you can't turn me round so easily," Eva told him in a cheerful voice, seeing the old man so confused and understanding that very soon he'll tell her one of those common excuses the men use to tell women often when they feel ambushed or they were trying to hide something, an excuse that was generally starting with „I'm fine... Don't worry... I just...," and which was often ending with „we are now together, right?"

  „Do you see?! I've been right!" Eva said, seeing Bardain looking elsewhere and slowly biting his lower lip as he used to do each time he felt caught in a trap or that his feelings have been so freely noticed by someone. „Actually, there've been a few days already spotting you in this state of mind. But... each time I've tried to find a logical cause for this, I couldn't. At least I understood that it can be only because of a heart cause."

  Bardain smiled: „because of heart! Maybe you're right!"

  „Not „maybe"... I'm sure I am, for... I've passed through something similar and this feeling is so familiar to me," Eva murmured, sadly smiling. „And, even if I know that what I lived in the past can't be compared with what you lived, Bardain, yet, I know very well that our hearts suffer the same."