XIX
WithDiane things had reached a climax long before that culminating moment when she found that she had married not the man of her imagination, but a strange, abstracted, sleepless creature whose soul seemed to be retreating deeper and deeper into some hidden recess of his being. Following out their early plans they had spent months of waiting in Florida, but now the ship being nearly ready to sail, they had come north and gone to the Catskills. During their long stay at the south Diane had written occasionally to her father and heard from him at even rarer intervals. The judge was a poor correspondent and she noticed that he avoided any mention of the continued rumors that Overton still lived. Now, in this last retreat, even these rare letters stopped. Faunce had asked her to let their last brief week in their sylvan cottage be uninterrupted, and they had left no address behind them. They had spent six or seven days together in the solitude of the mountains. The splendor of the sky, which was already softening with the promise of summer, and the soft purple of the infolding hills, hadsoothed her spirit, but they seemed to have only increased a deep disquietude in Faunce.
He tried to hide it from her. She could see a kind of furtive watchfulness in him that defeated any effort on her part to surprise his confidence. The subtle feeling of distrust that had crept into her reluctant heart leaped up whenever she saw his pale face opposite her, even at table, and found that his eyes, handsome and luminous as ever, avoided hers, or only met them with a sidelong glance from under his long, girlish lashes. It was a glance that had an indescribable effect of retreat, of slipping away, as if his soul evaded daylight and the open, as some hunted animal might shun the fellowship of its kind.
In this desire for isolation, he would not even allow a newspaper to find its way to the house, and she was as completely cut off from the world as if his love had marooned her on a desert island.
At first she had acquiesced in this peculiarity of his, had tried to adjust her own keen and active mind to a period of quietude, to a dropping away of the universe, that they might learn how to adjust their own temperaments to each other and find a common ground on which to establish their life together; but the longer she faced the problem, the more difficult was its solution. She could not reconcile herself to characteristics which she recognized as wholly divergent from her own conception of the man.
He was not frank, as he had seemed to be, nor cordially disposed, nor courageously bent on high endeavor. He was secret, complex, and perilously evasive. He had never once, since their arrival in the mountains, spoken the name of Overton; yet by the swift and unerring instinct that comes to a woman at such moments, Diane knew that his former leader was never out of her husband’s mind. Overton it was who loomed between them, his shadowy arm outstretched, as if, even from the bourn of the undiscovered country, his spirit had arisen with new power and new divination.
Diane had accepted Faunce’s word. She had declared that she would believe her husband; and no whisper from the world beyond those shadowed hills had yet broken her resolution. But there were moments—in the depth of night, or in the solitude of some early-morning stroll—that made her heart sink. When she had hoped to find candor and stability, she had encountered a silence as perplexing as it was evasive.
It was a relief to her when, on the eighth or ninth day, he announced his intention of returning to the city. They were sitting over a belated breakfast, which Diane herself had prepared, with scant assistance from the little mountain maid who had come to the Herford cottage to help in their haphazard housekeeping.
The small dining-room, built for summer uses, jutted out from the house, and was almost partof the large veranda which overlooked a magnificent prospect. The scene, flooded with sunshine and touched with the peculiar beauty of morning, lay before them in a panorama of spring. The distant mountains, outlined against a brilliant sky, were blocked out in every shade of violet and ocher, while near at hand the brown woods of winter were exquisitely veiled in a delicate haze of pale green and rose.
Here and there a wide glimpse showed a fallen tree spanning a mountain brook; or some tall pine raised its dark-green shaft, like a forest spire, pointing the way. In the wonderful clarity of the atmosphere even the most distant objects stood out in vivid outline, as if the whole scene had been painted by some Titan artist who had used the universe for his canvas and the colors of heaven for his brush. It had a fascination for Diane; it even comforted her, and she sat looking at it, forgetful of the neglected meal.
She was a little startled when Faunce spoke.
“I think we’ve reached the end of it, Diane. We’ll have to begin to face our great expedition. I’ve got to go to New York to-day.”
She looked up with a feeling of relief, but she met again that retreating glance of his.
“I knew we couldn’t put it off much longer, Arthur. I’ve expected you would be growing impatient as the days passed. But why to-day? It’ssuch short notice! I shall have to close up everything at once.”
He pushed his cup aside, and she noticed for the first time that his coffee was untasted.
“I got a telegram last night. I didn’t tell you.”
“I thought no one knew where we were,” she replied slowly, averting her own eyes from the confusion that she could not help seeing in his face.
“No one but Asher.” This was the man who was to serve under Faunce in the new expedition. “I had to except him, of course. Last night I got a despatch, and I must go to New York to-day; but you needn’t be hurried, dear. I’ll come back to-night or to-morrow morning, and we’ll have a day or two more together before we start.”
Diane understood now his frequent lonely strolls at nightfall. He had gone to the post-office for mail that he had concealed from her. She had a strange sensation, which involved no jealousy of her husband’s private affairs. She felt as if the universe moved beneath her feet, confirming her feeling, too, that there was some new and impalpable barrier between them; but she made no sign of it. Instead, she put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in the hollow of her hand, while she regarded him with a quiet gaze.
“I wish you had told me!”
He moved restlessly in his chair.
“Why should I? It was such a simple thingto do—so obviously necessary. I had to keep in touch with Captain Asher. Except for that, you’ve been the whole world to me,” he added, with that subtle gentleness which no man knew better how to use.
She smiled almost tremulously.
“I’m not jealous! Only——”
She rose abruptly and went to the window, looking out again on the hills. He followed her and put his arm around her.
“Only what, sweetheart?”
She hesitated; then she turned and met his eyes. Their faces were so close together that she felt his breath warm on her cheek.
“Only that I’ve felt, almost from the first, that there was no confidence between us, Arthur. We’re not starting right. We can’t stand still—we shall keep on growing either together or apart. You know it, I know it; but there’s something—it’s like a veil, impalpable and yet impenetrable—between us. What is it? Help me”—she half withdrew herself from his arms and laid her hand lightly on his shoulder—“help me to solve this riddle, dear, or——”
He was a little pale, but for the first time his eyes held hers, and she was less conscious of the retreat in them.
“Or what?” he asked.
His tone seemed expressionless, yet her quick ear caught a guarded note.
“Or we shall lose each other,” she finished bravely. “Don’t you see? We’re two souls reaching out to each other through this thing that we call love; but if we can’t find any meeting-point, we shall pass—our two souls, I mean—like ships in the night! I’m not jealous, I’m not curious, but I want to feel that you and I stand face to face in spiritual confidence, that I know your heart as fully as I’ll try to make you know mine!”
He snatched at the chance she gave him—a chance for evasion.
“Oh, I know it, Diane—it’s a heart of gold! Beside it mine seems as commonplace as lead or pewter; but I love you—never doubt that—I love you with all my soul!”
As he spoke, he folded her close with a reiterated protest of his devotion. There was a moment of silence. Diane hid her face on his shoulder.
It was useless to try to reach him. She knew it now—knew that in protesting his affection with kisses and vows he had used the commonest weapon of defense against a jealous woman. She slipped out of his arms after a moment, and went back to the table, quietly putting aside the little tray on which she had previously set the samovar. He looked at his watch.
“I’ll have to go at once, dear, to get my train. No, I sha’n’t need any bag, I’m coming back so soon.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“That’s all right, Arthur—don’t delay. I’ve got to see to so many things, if we’re to break up in two days. But—you don’t mind now if I write to father? You know I’ve kept the pact and remained in mysterious retreat, but since your breaking it to-day I can, of course, break it, too.”
She saw his hesitation, saw his face redden as he reached for his hat and coat, but she waited quietly, offering no assistance of any kind.
“Why, of course, Di, but”—he laughed weakly—“couldn’t you wait until I come back?”
“Until to-night? Oh, if you wish it! But then I think I’ll call him up on the long-distance. I should like to know just how he is.”
“Of course!” He came across the room to bid her an affectionate good-by. “I hate to go—to break it up—but I must.”
She assented, and stood in the doorway, watching him walk rapidly down the lane. At the end of it he turned and raised his hat, waving it to her.
She returned to her housewifely duties, gave a few directions to the little maid, and began to pack the few belongings that she had brought with her. She was amazed at her own eagerness to go. They had imagined much happiness in this quiet spot, but it had eluded them. She knew that it had eluded Faunce, for he had scarcely slept since they had been there, and his restlessness, hisuneasy, haunted look, had utterly broken down her own effort to be happy at any cost.
She paused in her thoughts with a shock of feeling which flooded her consciousness with a lucidity, an insight, that appalled her. Had they both been disappointed? Had the torch of Psyche been lifted by unsteady hands and fallen into an abyss between them?
Unable to endure her own thoughts, Diane thrust aside her work and went out. She needed to escape the thraldom of four walls and try—in the open—to vanquish the haunting spirits that might well have escaped from the secret caverns of those lovely hills to assail her with a fantom host of doubts.
She walked rapidly, avoiding the road to the little hamlet, and turning into a path that led her past the old house where Overton was born. At the moment she had not thought of it, but, as she approached, her mind returned to him and to the strange report which had so startled her wedding-guests. She thrust that away with an unconscious gesture of pride. She would not distrust Faunce; and to believe that Overton might still survive was to doubt his word. She battled against that with all her remaining strength, and tried to concentrate her thoughts on the beauty about her.
Summer was in the air, and the forces of nature, surviving the long conflict with the bitter winter, had gathered themselves together in a newand beautiful conquest of the earth. At her feet young blades of grass thrust themselves up through the black loam with been new life. The same rebirth seemed to breathe, too, in the tremulous swinging of delicate boughs and the tasseling of magnificent foliage. Overhead the crows flew by twos and tens and twenties, uttering their harsh cries.
It was not tranquil, for the wind stirred restlessly in the branches. Far off she heard the rush of a waterfall, and she could see the dark ring of the encircling hills. It seemed to her that a great, unseen army moved about her, and a mighty conflict was in progress. The dead earth had reawakened; birth, not death, was here. The sap was in the trees, and in the warm moss beneath her feet a myriad living things were struggling up toward the sun.
She stopped suddenly and stood still. Below her, ascending the same path, was the figure of a man. He was still a long way off, but she caught the big outline, the deliberate but easy step, the peculiar erectness of the head and shoulders.
She could not stir, but stood rooted to the spot, all the forces of life suspended. It was impossible either to doubt her own vision or to imagine that it was an apparition. The certainties of her own life dissolved before this solution of the riddle that had tormented her soul; for she knew, even before he approached her, that she stood face to face,not with a specter from the frozen pole, but with the living Overton.
A strange sensation, as if of personal guilt, overwhelmed her, and she shrank back with an involuntary feeling of panic. He did not observe it. He looked up, recognized her, and came forward with outstretched hands.
“Diane!”
She commanded herself with a supreme effort.
“It’s—it’s really you?”
He was holding her hands now, smiling down at her, deeply moved.
“Did you think me a spook?” he laughed unsteadily. “It does seem almost impossible. I’ve fairly come back from the dead! Did you get my letter? I wrote you from London.”
“No—no, I’ve had no letter. I could scarcely believe that you had come back!”
She was trembling; she saw the look in his eyes and knew that he loved her. And how wasted he was, how pale! Here was a man who had indeed been near to death. She fought for time.
“I had given up all hope long ago,” she faltered. “The others were rescued; they believed you had been lost.”
As she spoke, she again raised her eyes to his, trying to find some reassurance there, something that would refute the horrible fear that wrung her heart; but what she saw made her look down, anda deep flush mounted slowly and painfully over her pale face.
“I was as nearly dead as a man could be and live,” he answered soberly. “I can feel the frozen horror of it now, the creeping drowsiness—can see that bleak, inexorable wilderness where I was deserted and left to die!”
He paused, as if the mere thought of it made utterance impossible, as if he had faced a crisis so terrible and so deathlike that it must remain forever inarticulate.
“Left to die!” she repeated in a broken voice, feeling that the very earth sank beneath her feet. “Deserted! What can you mean?”
She was trying to be calm, but a nervous chill shook her from head to foot. He saw it; he caught her hands in his again.
“Diane, you care!” he breathed with deep emotion. “What does anything matter, then. I’ve come back and I’ve found you, my love, my love!”
She swayed and he caught her in his arms, holding her, his wasted face changed and lit with joy.
“Diane, I’ve come back to you!” he cried.
She pushed him away from her with both hands and stood, still shaking, supporting herself against the vine-clad trunk of an ancient oak.
“Don’t!” she gasped in a low voice. “You’ve made a mistake—I’m married!”
There was a moment of intense silence. Hestraightened himself with a shudder, like a man who had been shot but could still keep on his feet.
“You’re married? And your—your husband, Diane—who is he?”
She watched him. She felt as if life itself hung on the look that she would see in his eyes when she answered.
“Arthur Faunce,” she murmured in a low voice.
“Faunce!”
It was a cry of horror, of dismay—she could not mistake that. Overton stood still, a deep color flaming up in his face. He was apparently incapable of speech, but the look in his eyes, as they met hers, was a revelation. It showed neither anger nor jealousy, but only a deep and horrified consternation.