“I know a land where the streets are pavedWith the things which we meant to achieve;It is walled with the money we meant to have saved,And the pleasures for which we grieve—And kind words unspoken, the promises broken,And many a coveted boon,Are stowed away there in that land of somewhere,The land of “Pretty Soon.”There are uncut jewels of possible fameLying about in the dust,And many a noble and lofty aimCovered with mould and dustAnd oh, this place, while it seems so near,Is further away than the moon;Though our purpose is fair, yet we never get there—To the land of “Pretty Soon.”The roads that lead to that mystic landAre strewn with pitiful wrecks;And the ships that have sailed for its shining strandBear skeletons on their decks.It is further at noon than it was at dawn,And further at night than at noon;Oh let us beware of that land down there—The land of “Pretty Soon.””
“I know a land where the streets are pavedWith the things which we meant to achieve;It is walled with the money we meant to have saved,And the pleasures for which we grieve—And kind words unspoken, the promises broken,And many a coveted boon,Are stowed away there in that land of somewhere,The land of “Pretty Soon.”There are uncut jewels of possible fameLying about in the dust,And many a noble and lofty aimCovered with mould and dustAnd oh, this place, while it seems so near,Is further away than the moon;Though our purpose is fair, yet we never get there—To the land of “Pretty Soon.”The roads that lead to that mystic landAre strewn with pitiful wrecks;And the ships that have sailed for its shining strandBear skeletons on their decks.It is further at noon than it was at dawn,And further at night than at noon;Oh let us beware of that land down there—The land of “Pretty Soon.””
“I know a land where the streets are pavedWith the things which we meant to achieve;It is walled with the money we meant to have saved,And the pleasures for which we grieve—And kind words unspoken, the promises broken,And many a coveted boon,Are stowed away there in that land of somewhere,The land of “Pretty Soon.”
“I know a land where the streets are paved
With the things which we meant to achieve;
It is walled with the money we meant to have saved,
And the pleasures for which we grieve—
And kind words unspoken, the promises broken,
And many a coveted boon,
Are stowed away there in that land of somewhere,
The land of “Pretty Soon.”
There are uncut jewels of possible fameLying about in the dust,And many a noble and lofty aimCovered with mould and dustAnd oh, this place, while it seems so near,Is further away than the moon;Though our purpose is fair, yet we never get there—To the land of “Pretty Soon.”
There are uncut jewels of possible fame
Lying about in the dust,
And many a noble and lofty aim
Covered with mould and dust
And oh, this place, while it seems so near,
Is further away than the moon;
Though our purpose is fair, yet we never get there—
To the land of “Pretty Soon.”
The roads that lead to that mystic landAre strewn with pitiful wrecks;And the ships that have sailed for its shining strandBear skeletons on their decks.It is further at noon than it was at dawn,And further at night than at noon;Oh let us beware of that land down there—The land of “Pretty Soon.””
The roads that lead to that mystic land
Are strewn with pitiful wrecks;
And the ships that have sailed for its shining strand
Bear skeletons on their decks.
It is further at noon than it was at dawn,
And further at night than at noon;
Oh let us beware of that land down there—
The land of “Pretty Soon.””
Marrion laid the paper by, and summoning all his powers of self-control:
“I spoke of his reformation just now,” he began, as if reading her thoughts. “Answer me one question; if he never reforms, have you ever thought of changing your life?”
“You mean separation; the world or a convent?” she began, gently, growing calmer as she went on, “I had thought of that, I must out with the truth. I went away once, but a good friend advised me to go back. She told me living for others was a long way towards being happy.” Looking on the floor she got out the remainder of her sentence, “and now I intend to stay.”
As she spoke the words to Marrion there came upon her a terrible sense of emptiness and desolation. Obeying a sudden impulse, she arose to leave.
“I shall go to my room now; I must think awhile alone. I am glad it’s such a sad sort of a day; if it were bright I couldn’t stand it.”
Marrion followed her to the door, raised her hands to his lips, and suddenly breaking away as if unworthy to pay such homage cried:
“I could kneel to you, true, grand woman. Your resolution is full of the gravest, tenderest meaning. You think of him only; his reputation is dearer toyou than your own happiness. This nobility of your character is the very touchstone and measure of your womanliness.”
She paused on the threshold a moment, then hurried away.
The whole day Marrion spent in sympathy with her. If he could find but some way to make Robert promise never to touch another drop of drink, he knew he would be safe; for he was one man who never made a promise but to keep.
Of ever securing his promise, he sometimes despaired, but not for the world would he hint it to Cherokee.
As the day wore to a close the wind came in fitful gusts; a pale moon glittered faintly among the ragged clouds that drifted across the sky like sails torn from wrecked ships. Cherokee sat by the window watching for Robert.
In that warm latitude the soft, dewless hours are spent in lightless rooms or on piazzas. The daffodil tints of the higher sky were reddening to a guinea gold. There was no other light except the moon. Marrion sat just outside, smoking; he was allured again and again by a strong sense of Cherokee’s beauty of face and pose, enticed by some spiritual vivacity, and hazed by cares.
The moon, still pale and languorous, shone from the lately racked sky on the tree buds, so warm in tone that their color became an old ivory, and the limbs and branches black carvings and traceries.
Faint mists rose in wreaths and floated in gossamer folds about the trunks of the trees, and at times above their forms. The whole scene had a meaning of sad regrets.
Cherokee broke the silence:
“I wonder what keeps Robert so long; it must be nine o’clock.”
“Don’t be uneasy, he is doubtless with some congenial companion.” Then, almost before he knew it, Marrion asked:
“Did you know that Robert was dissipated before you married him?”
He felt himself tremble, as if he intruded where she knelt. As intimately as he had known her, yet he never before had dared approach her inner life so nearly.
“Tell me all,” he said. “If ever a heart could open to a friend, now must that door unclose.”
“No. I didn’t believe it; I should have never married him if I had known. I made a mistake. A Southern girl should only marry one of her kind; he alone could understand and appreciate her nature.”
It was not prompted by accidental harmony, this answer, she felt he had a right to know all:
“When I first loved Robert, he was a splendid masterman, and so tender of me. He seemed the breath of my body; his heart, not mine, beating within me. I fancy now that his love was only a reflection from the flame that burned in my soul, for if it were not true surely that love would have reformed him.”
“No, he does love you, and you will yet be happy together.”
She was hungry for his assurance, and her “Heaven bless you for your sympathy,” was spoken earnestly.
“But I wish he would come. Suppose he has gotten into that quick-sand in the creek bed.”
“Suppose he has swallowed the gun.”
“Don’t speak so lightly,” she corrected.
Marrion thought as he noted her anxiety: “Blind devotion is the sainthood of woman.”
“Now, here he comes. I hope you are happy,” but a chill gripped his heart as he saw it was a stranger, whose walk indicated haste.
“Ain’t this here whar Mars’ Milburn’s wife stay?”
“Yes, what is it?” asked Marrion.
“What is it?” Cherokee repeated, coming forward, “has anything happened to my husband?”
“I’d bin out possum huntin’. I comed up de road, and I mighty nigh run over sumpin in de paff. I got down and he looked powr’ful like de artist I seed at de station.”
“Marrion; my God, he is dead!”
“Wait and I will find out.” He put his arm around her to support her. The stranger kept on talking:
“I tried to tote him, but he ’peared like two men; he’d weigh mighty nigh three hundred pounds, and den I didn’t know as I oughter move him till de coroner and de jury set on him.”
Marrion could not stop him.
“He ain’t bin dead long, marm.”
“That will do,” interrupted Marrion.
“I will go and see; it may not be Robert; it may be someone else.”
“Let me go with you,” she pleaded.
“I don’t know nothin’ better fur you ter do than stay whar you is,” put in the negro.
So Marrion hurried away to look after his friend. There was no sound in the gloomy wood—which was painful—any kind of noise would have been a relief. The thick foliage baffled the slightest light,and it was with the greatest difficulty that they groped their way, keeping in the road.
“Stop! here he am!” cried the negro, who had been piloting the way. “I thought he couldn’t o’ bin dead long, fer he ain’t cold yet.”
It was true that Robert was dead—dead drunk, and to drink was his purpose in leaving Marrion at home. He had been held in check until he could not—he felt it was impossible—work any longer until he had gotten under the influence of drink.
It was more than a week before he was able to resume his work. Marrion put his best efforts forth to sober him, but all resulted in failure. This annoyed him more than he dared tell Cherokee. He felt that Robert had not the proper appreciation; for here he had given up his work and pleasures for a time, that he might aid in the artist’s advancement. It surely seemed a thankless task.
One day, when patience was exhausted, he poured forth his very soul in one long, fervent—swear; took up his hat and started out for a walk.
As he tramped, wondered, swore, he strolled on toward the stream. He always was a dream-haunter of the woods, realizing that communion with naturestrangely ministers to heart wounds and breathes sweetened memories.
Suddenly his steps were arrested by the spectacle of Cherokee lying at full length upon the grass, one arm lay across her eyes, the other was stretched on the ground. She had never looked prettier. He sat down by her and took her hand. A thousand thoughts chased themselves with lightning speed through his brain; meanwhile the pressure of that hand continued; he leaned over, took her arm away, and looked down into her face.
Whether it came to him suddenly as a revelation, or grew upon him like a widening light—that knowledge of a love that wronged his honor—it had come too late. Had he been asleep, or mad, that this should have conquered him unawares.
Where was his experience of human nature—his worldly wisdom—his ever abiding sense of honor—that he should have allowed a love for another man’s wife to enter his thoughts and take possession, and that man his dearest friend!
It seemed but yesterday that this woman was to him only as dear as a friend might be, without wrong to his or her own faith. Now he knew she was more—a thousand times dearer than all life lives for—dearer than all save honor, if, indeed, he questioned, that were not already lost.
Yet no, there was no wrong. His love was worship, instinct with reverence, he could not for that very love’s sake destroy its object.
“You want me to go away and leave you alone, Cherokee?” he asked.
“No, Marrion, no! I am too much alone, and that makes me hungry, desperately hungry, for companionship,” she stammered. “But, tell me, how is Robert?”
“No better; I am almost ashamed to ask you to be brave any more, for I’ve hoped so long without fulfillment.”
She answered: “I ask myself how long this banishment is to last—this exile from joy.”
“Everything here has an end; the brighter side may come at last.”
“No, it will never come, it is all a mistake; even life itself.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Cherokee; I am with you. Don’t you care for——” Here he stopped, but she understood, and her answer, said in silence, was the sweetest word of all.
“I must speak this once at any cost—Great God! and forgive me, I love her so,” he whispered, as he seized her listless form, so unresisting, and wildly kissed her brow, her lips, her hair, her eyelids—sealed her to him by thosecaresses that were prompted by love’s unreasoning fury.
The whole earth revolved in one vast throb of song, and the wind, entuned, seemed to catch the music in its chase. Nothing under the sun could equal those moments with them.
At first they were so happy; then there came a desire—which comes to those of deep and tender sensibilities when their felicity becomes so acute that it verges upon pain—the desire, the involuntary longing, to die—an abandon of self—a forgetting.
In this moment of delirium he was the first to speak.
“I have known from the first that we were meant for each other.”
She did not answer; she was so thoroughly intoxicated just then, that if he should have dared to give her blows her heart would have arraigned him at its bar, with weeping paid the costs, and swore the blow was kind—she loved him so.
“I say that we were meant for each other,” he repeated. “Love like ours should be the first law of the universe, after love of God.”
“I am thy neighbor’s wife,” she answered, slowly.
“I now admit no ties except the one that fate has made between your heart and mine.”
“Think, Marrion, of what you say. Is it a sin for us to love?”
He could not answer at once—all the iron in his strong nature was broken down. His emotions, so long withheld, and now uncontrolled, were more than he could bear.
He looked long into her trusting countenance. He was seeking by a violent effort to master himself; but it was only by the heaving of his breast, and now and then a gasp for breath, that he betrayed the stormy struggle within. Though his nature was full of the softer sympathies he could not call them to the front—he was but man. This was the crucial test.
There is in some affections so much to purify and exalt, that even an erring love, conceived without a cold design, and wrestled against with a noble spirit, leaves the heart more tolerant and tender if it leaves it in time.
“It may be wrong,” he said, at length, “but this is our fate—our fate,” as if waking from some hideous dream.
“We are creatures of destiny, I have fought this love but it would not die. The very loneliness of your existence appeals to me; but for that, I might have conquered.”
“And your tender care and help have oftenreconciled me to my lot, and extinguished many bitter feelings in me.”
“You trusted me, Cherokee, and I believe there is a kind of sanctity in your ignorance and trust—there is a soul about you as well as a body. Is it with that soul you have loved me?”
“Yes, Marrion, I love you better than life now.”
“Then our love can surely not be wrong. Depend upon it, that God Almighty, who sums up all the good and evil done by his children, will not judge the world with the same unequal severity as those drones of society. Surely He requires not such sacrifices from us; no, not even the wrathful, avenging Father.”
His tone was one of infinite persuasion.
“God understands what you are to me—youth, beauty, truth, hope and life.”
“You forget your friend, my husband,” she warned.
“No, I do not forget. He is a man for whom I would all but die, but I love you better than anything else.”
“And that is more than he does,” she broke in, sorrowfully.
“Cherokee, be mine in spirit? I plead as an innocent man pleads for justice.”
“Stop!” she cried, “let me speak. You have aprofound and generous soul to hear me. Let me ask you not to tempt me; we have gone already too far.”
“Not too far when it is with me that you go.”
“Yes, Marrion it is, unless we could go all of life’s road together. I love you, that you know, but I come to you now, begging you not to tempt me, but to help to make me strong, and to follow the road of sacrifice and duty. My heart cries out to you, but let me not hear. If you love me, prove it, and leave me.” Her voice died in a wail, it was a loving, weak soul’s despairing cry.
Marrion stood for a moment immovable, then he took her hand with reverential homage.
“Cherokee, you have raised all womankind in my eyes. I did love you—now I worship you. Your open frankness is so unlike the irresolute frailty, the miserable wiles of your sex. You have touched a chord in my heart that has been mute for years. To me you are a garden of roses, you have bloomed even under blight. Beholding you now, I am enabled to forget that the world is evil.”
“Blessed be that influence,” she murmured, sweetly.
“Yes, God’s blessing upon it,” he repeated. And he thought of what pangs her high spirit must have endured ere it had submitted to the avowal ithad made. She had been honest enough to confess that she was weak—that she loved him, but that very confession was as a tower of strength to him.
“Cherokee, my idol, what will you of me?” he asked, in tender manly tones.
“I want you to promise, Marrion that you will always like me; let us be what human nature and worldly forms seldom allow those of opposite sexes to be—friends; having for each other that esteem which would be love if the hearts were unadulterated by clay. Your memory will be my nearest approach to happiness. I shall never be happy unless Robert reforms; then the old love and joy would come again.”
There was on her face an expression, in her voice a tone, so appealing that it inspired him to say:
“I will save him by my life if need be.”
She looked at him with an admiring, grateful gaze:
“Your friendship is even better than love.”
“That is both,” he answered.
“You will promise to go away at once, or I cannot live near you and without you.”
“Yes, Cherokee, I promise,” he said firmly, and continued:
“To-day for a short interval we have belonged to each other. Heart has spoken to heart.To-morrow you are only my friend’s wife. Not a word, not a thought of yours or mine must destroy his trust. Our past will lie buried as in a deep grave, no tears bedewing it, no flowers marking the spot.”
So sorrowfully, even despairingly, were the words uttered that it seemed Cherokee’s turn to comfort.
“Think of me as almost happy since I know that you love me so,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“Tears from you for me,” he cried. “Bless you, bless you; may you think of me as one whose loyalty to another is loyalty to yourself,” he murmured. “I must go away and meet you no more. Pass a few busy, taskful years, come and go a few brief seasons of stimulating activity and wholesome intercourse; then I can hold out my untrembling hand to Robert’s wife, and forget the lover in the friend; now let us part.”
She stepped forward and extended her hand; he kissed it and pressed it warmly, and then the dream was ended. A matter of a moment, true enough, but death itself is but a moment, yet eternity is its successor.
Cherokee took the path to the house; her eyes held a troubled light as they looked back, Marrion was standing where she had left him, in a hopeless attitude. His head drooped low with a slow motionof despair, which seemed almost tranquil in its acceptance of destiny.
A low, late sunshine crept through the swathing blue, softly bright upon him.
For a time Marrion Latham stood in a sad reverie; then he slowly went back to the house, following the path Cherokee had taken.
He entered the house unobserved, and went directly to his room, from which he did not emerge until the clock told him that the hour was eleven. He was going to leave; upon that point he was decided. The midnight train would take him to the city. He took his grip, and crept out stealthily without a word, for he could not now own what was forcing him to leave. Of course it would seem strange to Robert, but written lines could not clear it up. It would take more than a note to explain such an offense as this would seem; it could only be made plain in person. It needed the voice, the eye, the spirit breathing through the words to make them effective.
He had decided to wait until the artist returned to New York. As he stepped out on the piazza he noticed that the blinds of the studio were open and the window up.
“I will take a last look,” he thought, as he went up to the window.
“Cherokee, Cherokee,” but his whisper was too deep, she did not hear. There she stood before the painting, her arms wide open as though ready to enfold the image; then she drew back, and her low sobbing was heard—not despair, not sorrow, not even loss flowed in those relieving tears—they came as a balm, allowing the pent-up force of suffering to ooze out.
The very purity of her adoration was pitiful to see. Marrion stood outside and watched her; wrong as it might be to stay he was tempted to bide the result and remain.
Everything around was still; the wind, even, ceased to dip into the lustrous gloom of the laurels. He could scarcely hear the stream below, drawing its long ripples of star-kindled waves from the throat of the forest. Not a human sound interposed one pulse of its beating between these two silent souls.
“I must, I must touch her—just to say good-bye again.”
But through the gentle silence there throbbed a warning. He battled with it; the mad desire grew upon him, the stress, the self-torture was getting beyond control. Reckless inconsideration told him to enter.
The palpitating misery that swayed through every wave of his blood, cried in almost an ecstacy of terror: “Go in, she is yours.” He knew he could not resist what love counseled if he remained much longer, and he hung his head for very shame.
When a proud man finds out he is but a child in the midst of his strength, but a fool in his wisdom, it is humiliating to own it even to himself.
While every passion held him enslaved, he felt a vague desire to escape, a yearning, almost insane, to get out from his own self.
“Why should you not have her, when you love her so dearly?” the tempter asked.
But he knew the voice and shrank from it. Then he murmured inwardly:
“Great and good God, I turn to you,” and before he knew it, his unaccustomed lips had framed a prayer.
With a feeling of renewed strength he took one last look at her and walked away. He had scarcely time to catch that midnight train. He was leavingheaven behind, but he was doing what was best for all. There was something in that, and Robert must never know what his poor services had cost him.
“For your own sake, if not for mine, Robert, do not begin drinking the first thing in the morning,” Cherokee pleaded.
“I must, I must; my nerves are all shattered. I will stop when I have won the laurels of art,” and he poured the fiery poison into the sugared glass.
“Does Marrion know breakfast is waiting?” he asked.
“I suppose not.” Cherokee felt her voice trembling, she was almost certain he had gone; there was a dreariness about the place, an utter loneliness, that made her feel that she would not hear his voice that morning.
Robert touched the bell, and when the servant answered, he bade her:
“Tell Mr. Latham breakfast is ready.”
“Mr. Latham went away in the night,” theservant answered. “I suppose he won’t be back soon, as he took a grip with him.”
In sudden temper Robert cried: “You don’t mean it, has he gone home?”
“I don’t know, sir, he went towards the station about a half hour before the New York train was due.”
“That will do, leave us,” he ordered the maid.
“Now, Cherokee, tell me why Marrion has left me?”
“Mr. Latham may prefer to make his own excuse,” she answered, quietly.
“Never mind that assumed dignity; I know the reason as well as you could tell me. This letter I found on the studio floor gives the villain away,” and thrusting it at her, he demanded: “Read it aloud.”
She nervously unfolded it and read:
“My Dear Latham:I presume you know I too was painting the ‘Athlete.’ My model is a failure, a disappointment. Come to New York at once, and pose for me at your own price.Yours, anxiously,Willard Frost.”
“My Dear Latham:
I presume you know I too was painting the ‘Athlete.’ My model is a failure, a disappointment. Come to New York at once, and pose for me at your own price.
Yours, anxiously,Willard Frost.”
When she finished the letter she could not find a suitable answer, so she did not answer at all. Robert did not like silence, he liked to have things explained, cleared up.
He looked at his wife with grave severity, and demanded:
“You knew this was what called him away.”
“I did not,” was her truthful and emphatic reply.
“Oh, God!” in a frenzy, “just to think how I trusted him; his word and honor were dear to my very soul; but now—now I hate him, I curse him; if I ever prayed, I might pray that the train would be wrecked and dash him to his eternal, just reward.”
“Robert, Robert!” the gentle voice pleaded, “hold him not guilty without defense; he is still your friend.”
“Hush! tell me nothing. It is a plain case of villainy; he has been bought off; he has robbed me of my future,” and Robert quit the table and went at once to his room. The insanity of drink held festival in his delirious brain.
The next few hours found him in a deplorable condition. The reaction from his fit of inebriety had been a severe shock to his system, notespecially strong at best, and this, together with Marrion’s sudden flight, preyed sharply on his mind, and he suffered a sort of nervous prostration.
“My picture! my masterpiece is unfinished! it can never be finished without him!” was the substance of his raving.
Never before had Cherokee seen such woe in his countenance. She knew the painting was almost completed, and that he could finish it from the picture he had of Marrion, taken purposely to aid him, even when the model was there; but to mention anything so as to manage a way out of the pit into which he imagined he had fallen merely infuriated him, and did no good.
“Marrion must come back to me; send for him; tell him I cannot win without him,” he cried, scarcely above a whisper, he was so weak. Never before had the one desire of man’s life been strained through his face and speech like this.
Cherokee was deeply moved, yet she could not understand how he could charge Marrion with double-dealing and treachery, with conduct so entirely at variance with the whole tenor of his gracious life. How could he think that Willard Frost, that crafty, remorseless villain, couldpurchase the manhood of Marrion Latham. If Robert had only known how much that friend had suffered and borne for him, he would have worshipped where he now condemned.
“Cherokee,” he called from the bed, “what am I to do?”
“Rest and then go to work; your picture is almost finished; it already shows the touch of a master-hand, and it is perfect so far as you have done. Marrion had other reasons for going away from us; believe me, he will make it all right.”
She was ever gentle and tender toward him, and worked quietly, yet constantly.
The task of reforming a man takes a great deal of time, more than a life has to give, frequently, but she had been strengthened by the promise from Marrion to aid her, though now she must bear it alone.
She looked in the glass, and in the depths of it she found not the face that once smiled at her—ah! that other face, its wild-rose bloom had faded; the lips that used to tremble as if with joy alive are thinner now and they do not tremble; they are firm and somewhat sad. The hair that used to slip fromits confinement, and in golden torrents fall about the wild-rose face, is somber-hued, and stays where it is pinned.
Ah! she knows what youth means to a woman, and that is denied her.
With the first mail that Marrion Latham received after reaching New York was a letter which bore the postmark of the small railway station in Kentucky from which he had lately departed so hastily. He opened it first, for it was the most important to him. The letter ran:
“Mr. Latham:I have trusted you above all other men, yet you have proven to be my most hurtful enemy. I was surprised that you would sell my friendship, my future, and, above all, your own manhood to Willard Frost.From this time on I am done with you—we are strangers. Enclosed find check, as I prefer not being in your debt for services rendered.Robert Milburn.”
“Mr. Latham:
I have trusted you above all other men, yet you have proven to be my most hurtful enemy. I was surprised that you would sell my friendship, my future, and, above all, your own manhood to Willard Frost.
From this time on I am done with you—we are strangers. Enclosed find check, as I prefer not being in your debt for services rendered.
Robert Milburn.”
Marrion laid the letter down with a moan; but the cruel injustice of it aroused no resentment—he was only stunned by it. After awhile, he felt tiredand sick, so he lay down across the foot of his bed and finally went to sleep. In his sleep nature had her way—was no longer held in check by his will, and so, when his weary brain, his sad, unresting heart cried out they could no longer endure, she came and gave them rest.
Two hours afterward found him somewhat refreshed, but he was sorry to have awakened; he should have liked to sleep—that was all. That most vexing question kept repeating itself to him. “Why are the best motives of our lives turned into wolves, that come back, ravenous, to feed upon our helpless and tortured selves?”
Willard Frost’s letter had made so slight an impression upon him that, until this reminder, he had quite forgotten it; had carelessly dropped it down, never thinking of it again until now.
It looked hard, that he had come away to save that home, and then, to have the head of that home confront him with a pen picture of a scoundrel placarded “Marrion Latham.”
It was an unexpected experiment, and an astounding shock. With hands clasped behind him Marrion restlessly paced the floor, trying to determine what was the best thing for him to do.
He could board the next train and go back; but no, Cherokee had his promise that he would stayaway. Besides, she had borne and sacrificed enough for Robert.
He could write; but how could he express it on cold paper; he could wait a few days and see him in person, for he knew Robert expected to return when the bloom of the year was passed. That would be soon, for it was now time for the woods to be full of ghosts who gather to make lament, while winds sob in minor key, and trees are bowed in silent woe, and leaves, like tears, fall fast.
This was best; so he decided upon it to wait and see him in person.
His new drama lay on the desk before him; it was in this one Cherokee figured. What better way to forget the slow, creeping time, than to go to work; he had often said he wished he were poor, for the poor have small time for grieving.
He did go to work in earnest; each night found him brain-weary after a hard day’s arduous task; it was the best thing he could have done. The very first morning he saw an announcement of Milburn’s return to the city he dropped him a line:
“My Dear Milburn:I have an explanation—an apology to make—then let us be on the old footing; for without you I ama lonely man. Appoint a place for an immediate interview and let me assure you that Frost had nothing to do with my leaving you.I return check.Yours very truly,Marrion Latham.”
“My Dear Milburn:
I have an explanation—an apology to make—then let us be on the old footing; for without you I ama lonely man. Appoint a place for an immediate interview and let me assure you that Frost had nothing to do with my leaving you.
I return check.
Yours very truly,Marrion Latham.”
He dispatched this message, and paced the floor in a fever of anxiety until the answer came. Quickly he snatched the envelope, as a starving man breaks a crust of bread.
This is what the letter said:
“My time is now entirely occupied.Respectfully,Robert Milburn.”
“My time is now entirely occupied.
Respectfully,Robert Milburn.”
Frost was succeeding in bringing Robert Milburn into open disrepute. That he was, will appear from his statement of the case to a few friends who had accompanied him into the bar room of —— hotel.
“I was saying, gentlemen, that it is such a deuced pity to see Milburn waste his talents, but the fact is, these self-destructive excesses must result in a total wreck. Am I not right?”
The man appealed to nodded approval.
“That’s what you are.”
“I say when a man gets so that he can walk up to a bar and take a drink alone, it’s about time to put a bridle on him.”
“That’s a fact,” assented a third; “and that isn’t all of it.”
“No,” put in Frost, “I saw him driving up and down Fifty-eighth Street with the Morris woman the other day, in the early afternoon. I just told him what I thought about it.”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, he flared up, and said it was his own affair.”
“Well, I always thought Milburn a pretty square kind of a fellow,” said a quiet man who stood leaning against a gilded column. “In that deal with ‘—— Syndicate’—you recollect it, Frost—he could have beaten the life out of you, but he stood to you when I know he was offered double commission to come off.”
“Ah! nobody is saying anything against his honesty,” returned Willard, sharply, “he’s square enough, but it is his infernal recklessness. Now, yesterday, I sauntered into his office to remonstrate. I said, ‘Robert, old boy, you are getting yourself out of everybody’s good books; why don’t you brace up? The first thing you know, you will be dropped like a hot nail.’ I asked him why he couldn’t be a little more modest about it, for instance, I suggested, ‘when the spirit moves you to take Morris out for an airing, why won’t a moonlight night and a by-road answer the purpose as well as Fifty-eighth Street and the middle of the afternoon.’”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He held out his cigar case to me saying, ‘You are wasting your time, I don’t care to be respectably wicked, and I choose to go to the devil in my own way.’”
“Look here!” interrupted the quiet man, “I fancy I know Milburn better than most people, and he has a clean life behind him; moreover, he thinks you are the only man on earth. I can’t understand how he can deliberately throw himself away, as you say he is doing. There is a very strong motive of some kind. He is not a man to take to dissipation for its own sake.”
Frost’s eye twinkled as he turned abruptly and fronted the speaker.
“Then you think he has a provocation?”
“He must have; I’ve observed him pretty closely, and there is an underlying streak of good metal in his character that will crop out at times. Say, Frost, have you tried to help him?”
“Always.” An oppressive little silence followed, and Frost frowned as he tugged away at his mustache. “But I can do little with him of late.”
“It is all very bad—very bad,” said the quiet man.
“Though if he did a world of wrong, injuring every human creature that came between him and his pleasure, he should not be forsaken by you—he sticks to you.”
Every line in the clear whiteness of Frost’s face was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking at the man whose words were thefine point of a sword with which, in delicatefinesse, he ran him through the body.
Frost bent his head in his most courtly fashion.
“Milburn may not be all at fault; you know he has a pretty wife!” There was a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words that struck the other forcibly. At the same time the thin, straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic.
“Come, what will you have gentlemen?”
“Excellent claret, Latham, have a glass with me,” said the artist, Willard Frost.
“Thanks, not any; I have ordered a meal—been out rowing and it makes a fellow deucedly hungry.”
It was by the merest accident that Marrion Latham and Willard Frost had taken seats at the same table, in one of New York’s restaurants.
To the right of them, some distance away, there was a decorated table, covers laid for twelve. Pretty soon the party came in and took their seats.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Latham, “I wonder what’s up. There’s Robert Emmet Cooper, Fred Ryder, D. Kohler, and who is the one at the head of the table? Well, upon my word, it is Milburn.”
“What does all this mean?” inquired Frost.
“That dinner is given to Mr. Milburn,” said the waiter, “he is one of the acknowledged artists now.”
“What! you don’t tell me his ‘Athlete’ has been accepted by the Commissioners of the Art Palace?”
“That, sir, is what the judges decided.”
“Strange I had not heard the good news, but I am certainly proud of his success,” exclaimed Marrion.
“Well, I am not. I despise him, the accursed Milburn,” Frost hissed between his teeth. “He crossed me in every path; my luck quails before his whenever we encounter. I say luck, for he has no genius.”
“There are a number of people mistaken then, for he is rapidly gaining reputation.” This was harrowing to the vanity of the other.
“Yes, and it will do him more good than he deserves, but he had a big advantage in this.”
“Not advantage, Frost, more than that which hard work and skill bestows.”
“Umph! You need not defend him, for he hates you, Latham.”
“That doesn’t keep me from rejoicing with him.”
“Well, tell me, when did the drop in the temperature of your relations occur?”
“About two months ago we had a slight misunderstanding.”
“About his wife, I presume?”
“About none of your business, if you will pardon brevity,” Marrion answered, curtly.
“You need not mind a little thing like that. I am in the same boat.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am in love with her, too; I admire her as cordially as I hate him.” He drained the fifth glass of his genuine Medoc, and went on:
“Did you ever see such a ravishing form; I’ll swear she is divine.”
Marrion appeared not to hear him; he turned his head away as if the other were not speaking. He heard the wit and gaiety of his club friends. Meanwhile, everybody’s old acquaintance, the devil, had been spending a time with Frost, by special invitation. He could only view the other’s triumph; and there he sat, helpless, consumed with impotent rage; a look of ungovernable fury distorted his features, already flushed with madness and wine. His upper lip curled at the corners, and his eyes blazed like those of an enraged tiger, as he muttered:
“Robert Milburn, you shall pay dearly for this victory.” Then he turned to Marrion and said:
“I wonder if he would feel so elated if he knew how much his wife thought of me?”
The other turned sharply and faced him:
“Scoundrel! dare to utter a word against her, and I’ll crush the life out of your body.”
Frost gurgled a fiendish laugh:
“I know you are jealous, but do not be hasty; I can prove what I say.”
“Then, sir, you will have to do it, and if you have lied, look sharp, for a day of reckoning will surely come.”
“She is at my studio every Friday at three o’clock. You know which window looks in upon my private apartments; watch that, and you will see her pass. Remember the time.”
“That will do,” returned Marrion, coldly, as he arose to leave.
At that moment his attention was attracted toward the banquet scene. Milburn had been called upon for a speech. As a general thing he was a man of a few words, but when he was inspired there was no more eloquent talker than he. He made an individual mention of those who had substantially aided in this distinction he had attained.
Marrion listened, hoping that he would kindly speak his name, but what a tumult within stirred him to pathetic, unspoken appeal, as the speech ended without the slightest reference to his model.
As the enthusiastic friends thronged about him, Marrion could not help showing that he rejoiced with them.
His unexpected appearance in their midst created a decided sensation. He extended his hand warmly to Robert, and said most cordially:
“Let me congratulate you, too.”
With a look of intense loathing the artist waved him away, and folding his arms said coldly:
“Excuse me, sir.”
Some one of the party whispered:
“Don’t mind that, Latham; Milburn has imbibed a little too freely.”
It had been some months since Cherokee and Marrion had met. But he still loved and was guarding her reputation. The little bit of treachery, villainy, or whatever Frost might have meant, he proposed to see through.
It was an awful day, that Friday, rain had been falling since early morning. But nestling his beardless chin into the broad collar of his storm coat, he walked the opposite side of the street from the studio of Willard Frost.
In breathless amazement, he saw a woman pass by the very window. She walked back and forth a time or two, and then she and Frost stood together. The gown was violet, with gold trimmings; he had seen Cherokee wear a dress like that; but he felt there must be some mistake, or everyone is of dual existence. By this one woman he measured the goodness of the world; if there was no truth in her, then it followed with him that there was no truth in the world.
When the woman, heavily veiled and warmly wrapped, came down the step and turned down the street, he followed her. All that had passed was like a dim bewildering vision. All that he saw in the streets of the city—the faces he beheld—all was like a monstrous nightmare. It did not seem that anything was real.
He still shadowed the woman who went directly to the elevated train, and when they came to the station where he knew Milburn got off, he anxiously watched the woman.
She got up, and, without looking to right or left, hurried out of the coach. It had stopped raining, but she raised her umbrella and went on.
Marrion walked behind her until there was no one near, then he stepped up:
“I must speak to you,” he said.
She turned upon him an unmerciful stare.
“How dare you, sir?”
“Forgive me, but I must understand it all,” he exclaimed, excitedly.
“But what right have you, Mr. Latham, to shadow me, or question?”
“To save Robert Milburn’s home—that’s what. I should think you, who owe so much to his friendship, would not dare to do this.” He caught her by the hand:
“Come with me where we can talk it over alone, or you will never regret it but once, and that once will be always.”
She consented reluctantly, and they walked off together.
So complicated are the webs of fate, that this step, though hastily taken, gained a secret of the most vital moment to him and to Robert Milburn.
It had blown hard in the night, but the wind had dropped at dawning, and now the rising sun tinted the cruel fringe of storm wrack as it dwindled into the west.
A low, gray sky, eaten to a jagged edge as by a fire torch, hung over the harbor.
Eastward, this sky line was broken by the spout of foam when two waves dashed each other into spray. A heavy surf beat upon the shore. Marrion Latham stood watching the small boats swoop up and down the emerald valley, dipping away nor’ward under easy sail. He loved the water, and when anything annoyed him, he had often found relief in its lullaby. This was one time its surging sighs had not soothed him.
He must see Robert, for his home was in peril. He turned from the water front. Slowly and deliberately he walked, every step was an effort. He could not forget that this man, for whom he felt so much concern, had refused to take his hand, had refused him a chance for personal justification.All this he thought of, and while love and wounded pride were both struggling for mastery, he reached the door where he had once been a welcomed and an honored guest.
“Is Mr. Milburn in?” he asked of the maid who answered the bell.
“No, sir, he left this morning for Boston; will you leave a message.”
“Oh! no. I shall wire him, if you will give me his address.”
He tried so hard to speak lightly, but lamentably failed in the attempt. Without being conscious of it he had spoken in almost an imploring tone.
So Robert was out of his reach; what should Marrion do now? He could not think; he had gone through so much excitement lately that his brain felt in a confused tangle, he was unable to calculate coolly; one thing he knew, that his mental agony was beyond endurance. In thought, word, and deed, he had been true to Robert, but that the other might never know until the history of man is carried from time to eternity, where none can erase or alter it.
“Who was the gentleman?” Mrs. Milburn asked, when the servant returned.
“A friend of yours, but he wanted to see your husband. It was Mr. Latham.”
“Say, rather, an acquaintance of mine,” was the reply.
Cherokee felt that she had no such thing as a friend. She who had been petted and admired saw the change now; the cordial hand held back, the friendly, confidential glance replaced by frowns of almost fierce suspicion and reproach. She observed a gradual but marked difference in her friends’ demeanor toward her. Her greetings were received coldly, though sometimes with scrupulous politeness. Groups began to melt insensibly away at her approach, or her advent was a signal for dead silence.
The young women were frigid; the old ones were more so, and systematically cut her dead, and were often heard to say: “They had always thought there was something very queer about this woman.”
It happened that the very day after Robert’s return, he had accepted, for the first time in some months, one of the many invitations which Willard Frost had extended. He had usually declared himself in his notes “Already engaged,” or “Sorry illness makes me forego the pleasure, etc.”
Designing Frost, therefore, continued his invitations until Milburn, from that fatality which seemingly regulates and controls us, accepted the proffered invitation. Frost’s apartments were gorgeous. He had made money as well as married it.
“Gentlemen,” he said to his three guests, “let me show you the first success I had,” and he pointed to a baby face on the wall.
“That study I sold for two thousand dollars to a man who had lost a child about that age, and he had no picture of it; this he fancied looked very much like her.”
“It is a marvelous face—so beautiful. Where did you get your model?” Robert asked.
“It is my own child.”
“What! I did not know you had ever been married until——” Robert paused in awkward confusion.
“Until I made my recent ‘fiasco,’” laughed Frost. “Well, whether I have or not, the child’s mother died at its birth—that was lucky.”
He saw how the others looked at him when he made this heartless speech, so he added:
“You remember those old stony hills of New Hampshire? Well, I was reared there, and perhaps that accounts for so much flint and grit in my make up.”
“But mine host,” Robert began, “where is the other rare treat you promised—your latest portrait, that wears a hectic flush and nothing more?”
The others, who were listening to the colloquy burst into ripples of merriment.
“Ah, so I did promise,” and he seized his glass, and emptied it at a gulp.
A gust of cold mist, mingled with fine snow, puffed into the brilliant rooms, and stirred the stifling air that was saturated with exhalations of spirits and tobacco smoke.
“And you really would like to see my creation—‘A Nude Daughter of Our Land.’”
“Nothing would delight us more,” they declared.
He summoned the servant and ordered him to draw the curtain aside.
The eager crowd caught his words at once.
“Yes! yes! yes! draw the curtain.”
Robert watched eagerly, while the other guests shouted in his ear.
“Let us see! brave man, let us see!”
As they watched the canvas the drapery fell to one side.
“My wife! Great God!”
Robert felt the horror stricken tremor in his own exclamation. There played on Willard Frost’s face a satanic smile, while a momentary exultation thrilled him.
“She kindly posed for this, my greatest effort,” returned Frost, still smiling.
Robert controlled every muscle in his countenance; no fire broke from his steadfast, scornful eyes; but there was a kingly authority in the aspect—the almost stately crest and power in the swell of the stern voice—which awed the lookers on.
With that locked and rigid countenance, with arms folded, he stood confronting the other artist, who advanced toward him with menacing brow.
“Willard Frost, this is a lie! and I demand youto prove it. You villain! you dastard! you coward! Fall on your knees, you cur, and ask God to forgive you, lest you are suddenly called to face your black account.”
Frost strove to be scornful, but his lips trembled, and his voice died in hollow murmurs in his breast.
“Answer me, I demand proof!” cried Robert, looking upon him with a crushing and intense disdain.
“I know, Milburn, you will hate me; but acknowledge, we are at last even,” said the other.
“No! I do not believe it! By the eternal powers, my wife would not stoop so low as this model indicates. I must have proof.”
“Then, sir, you shall!” and Frost’s eyes flashed a lightning glance of triumph.
“Gentlemen, I do not like to bring you into this little unpleasantness, but what do you know of this?”
“We know that Mrs. Milburn has often been to the studio, and we, moreover, have seen her when you were at work on the picture. But the man surely knows his own wife; this is a speaking likeness.”
“Besides, here’s a note where she asked that the matter be kept a dead secret.”
Robert looked at the paper, it was herhandwriting; bearing no date, unfortunately, or he would have known that this was written when she was a girl, about an entirely different picture.
“Is that her hand, or forgery?”
This question, uttered triumphantly, and regarded by all three as a climax, fell flat.
He met their merciless, inquisitorial gaze, now riveted on him, unflinchingly; while they fidgeted, cleared their throats, and interchanged significant looks, he stood motionless; only an unwonted pallor, and tiny bead-like drops gathering to his forehead, betokened the intensity of the struggle within.
Looking again at the note, he handed it back to one, saying, in a voice deliciously pure:
“Then I am Christ, if she is Magdalene. She is forgiven.”
The companions were taken back, they had expected a more complete victory for their host.
Presently, as if his nature had nursed this crushing, profound humiliation until it almost burst forth in fury, he madly rushed toward the picture.
“Whether she did or did not pose for it, I shall rip the infernal thing from center to circumference.”
An indescribable uproar arose, as he opened his knife and approached the picture. Frost’s clinched fist rose in the air, and he shouted angrily:
“Do it and die!”
“I am no coward; I am not afraid of your threats,” he returned coldly.
“But it is madness!” the other roared, “I am surrounded by friends; you have none here.”
“By heavens he has!” said a voice behind them.
“Marrion Latham!” came from every tongue.
“Yes, and the most unwelcome guest you ever entertained. This is all a base, cowardly lie, and I came to tell you,” he hissed to the others, as he caught Robert by the hand.
“My friend,” cried Robert, “forgive me the injustice I have done you; I could kneel and beg it of you.”
“I am not warrior, priest or king—only brother,” he said earnestly.
“You contemptible cur; dare you say Cherokee Milburn was not my model and my—”
“Yes, I do dare; even the first thing you ever led her into was a deception, and the baby face that swings above you there on the wall is the same face you hid away when misfortune overtook her—to die in the slums—and that one was your own child.”
“But I say, emphatically, that this is a picture of Mrs. Milburn—the other has nothing to do with this,” cried the enraged artist.
“And I say, with the same emphasis, it is ad—— lie; the face was made from Mrs. Milburn’s picture, and the form—you paid another five hundred dollars to sit for it.”
“And pray, who is this individual?” questioned Frost, carelessly.
“Yes, who is she?” cried his companions.
The tumult became so great that an ordinary tone could not be heard at all.
“Who is she? Who is she?”
“Men, have patience, I am in no hurry,” said Marrion, as he leveled a revolver at the party.
“Now, Robert, old boy, let the good work go on.”
“Bless you, Latham, by your help I will,” and he plunged the knife into the canvas.
Frost uttered a tremendous oath, and shouted:
“I’ll kill you both for that!”
“Now, to complete the scene we should have the real model here—would that please you?” said Marrion, aggravatingly.
“Yes, produce her if you can.”
He walked to the door and opened it; no one spoke; all seemed riveted to the spot.
Who should walk in but Mrs. Milburn’s maid, Annie Zerner.
“You bought her, Frost, but she sells you.” Then turning to the woman, Marrion asked:
“Did you pose for this man’s picture?”
“Yes, sir, and——”
A fierce glance from the artist, Willard Frost, kept her from ending the sentence.
“D—— you! I’ll finish you.”
“Wait!” cried a firm, but sweet voice. Willard Frost stepped back in dismay. The doorway framed the form and beautiful, indignant face of Cherokee Milburn.