XXXVIII
Itwas late in the afternoon before Diane returned to the apartment. After Overton’s departure she had found it impossible to stay there alone all through the hours that must pass while she waited her husband’s return. The crowd and hurry and noise in the streets had helped her to pass through that inward crisis which had meant so much to her. Silence and solitude would have beaten down upon her like rain and drenched her with misery; but out in the open air, with that upward glimpse of the sun which is all that the narrow streets permit to a New Yorker, she began to rouse herself to face the days and weeks that would lengthen out into years before her, if she lived, and would bring no material uplift, unless—the thought shot through her mind as a ray of sunshine sometimes penetrates a black forest—unless her husband suffered some change of heart.
Something in him, something vague and elusive, but still tantalizing her with a fleeting vista of change, had perplexed her. But his attitude had been the same; it had been the same up to the moment when he had decided that he would not use the loan.
The remembrance of that stung her with apprehension. Was there still to be something to hide, something to fear? It would be intolerable if it went on like that! She tried not to think of it, she tried to think only of Overton’s reassurance about her father, and of the one thing that gave her comfort—the fact that she had returned to her husband. Her duty in that was now so clear to her that she wondered that she had ever faltered, and the very fact that she had done so shamed her. Yet she had been strong enough at last to see the right way and return to it, and that was a reassurance.
It carried her through the day, and brought her back at last without the shiver of dread that had shaken her the first time she found her way to her husband’s quarters—a dread that she had never been able to shake off after his confession. But now she came quietly back, stopping for a moment where Overton had stood, and looking about her.
She was surprised that she felt none of the tumult and storm of the day when he had held her hands in the golden mist, the day when she had almost yielded, almost followed the call of her old love for him. She was aware of a new quietude, an aloofness of spirit, and a great throb of relief shot through her. She knew that her task would be easier, that the way was smoothing before her feet.
She began to long keenly for the moment that she had dreaded—the moment when they would embark for the antarctic, when she could plunge into the dangers and fascinations of that perilous trail. By her very presence she could lift and inspire the soul of Faunce until it rose at last above that awful moment when he had fallen—a coward in the face of death. The thrill of that thought made her turn quickly when she heard his step outside. When he entered, she was standing by a table, where she had just laid her hat and gloves.
But the sight of his face dashed all her newly acquired serenity to the ground. She gave a strange little cry.
“Arthur, what is it?”
He did not reply for a moment, but, opening a couple of evening papers that he had brought in his hand, he laid them down on the table in front of her, sweeping his hand across some big headlines on the first columns.
“It has all come out, Diane,” he said in a voice that was strangely self-contained and emotionless. “See, it’s in the papers—you can read it yourself.”
She gave one glance downward, caught the drift of the announcement, and thrust the papers away. She was trembling now, but she spoke quietly.
“Please tell me how it all happened.”
He stood in front of her, his haggard face showingits wasted lines, and his eyes still peculiarly brilliant.
“It didn’t happen; I told them.”
She made an inarticulate sound, which he supposed to be an expression of horror and dismay, and the lines of his face hardened a little as he went on, like a man forcing himself to a repugnant but necessary task.
“You remember the man who came here this morning?” She nodded without speaking, and he went on: “I saw you thought he was trying to levy blackmail, and you were right, he was. He’s one of the sailors who belonged to the last expedition—one of those who met me on my return—and he found out, in some way, more than the others. He felt that I was a coward, and he built on it. He’s been bleeding me now for nearly two months—ever since Overton returned. But this morning I made up my mind, and, before he could use the little he did know, I went to the men who have financed this expedition and told them exactly what I did. I didn’t try to palliate it, and I don’t mean to; I’ve got to suffer for it. I told them the truth, resigned my command, and saw that it was given to Overton. He’s been made to accept it. The evening papers got the story—you’ll find it there in all its details.”
As he finished speaking, he called her attention again to the papers, pointing out the flaring headlines, which magnified the facts. Then, asshe made no reply, and he became convinced that her horror of his deed had returned to reenforce the shame she must feel at his disgrace, he went on steadily, without looking at her.
“Of course, I know how you feel—that I hadn’t the right to disgrace you. That’s been Overton’s argument. When he came back, I thought that the misery I’d endured was over, that the whole thing would come out, and—since he was alive—I had only to face the humiliation and begin life again. But he shackled me; he insisted on silence to save you, he gave up his command to me, he yoked me until I felt that I was no better than his slave, subject to his dictates, and—I knew he loved you! It was intolerable. It’s best for a man to suffer his punishment, and I’m going to take mine. For months I haven’t slept without a drug. I’ve been a slave to chloral; but to-night I shall sleep, I’ve nothing to hide, I’m no man’s slave, I can suffer, and I can stand up again. But you”—his voice broke suddenly—“I’ve thought of you all day, and I’ve come here to-night, Diane, to tell you that I can’t ask you to bear my shame. There’s been a time when I felt you wouldn’t have to bear it long, and I couldn’t help remembering what your father said long ago about a man’s life being like a candle in the wind. I thought mine might go out and free you, but it may not. I’m young and strong—it may not!”
He paused, but still she did not speak. He looked around into her face, his own twitching with pain.
“I couldn’t endure to see you unhappy. I’d—I’d rather set you free!”
She lifted her head then and met his eyes, and hers were beautiful.
“But—suppose I won’t take it, suppose I wouldn’t take it if I could?”
“I don’t understand. You know that this will ruin me. It’ll take years for me to wipe it out, if I can ever do it.” He turned with a poignant gesture and sank into a chair. “I’ve no right to pull you down. I know how you despise my—my cowardice!”
“Yes,” she replied steadily, “I did; but now, Arthur, can’t you see that you have done a very brave thing? You’ve paid—in your heart’s blood—for it; you’ve given him what’s more to you than your life—your hopes, your ambition, your reputation! When you said that about the candle in the wind you mustn’t think of it as if it meant all that. It’s a man’s life, not his soul—the flame of that may burn low and flicker, but when it springs up, as yours has sprung up, in on act of sacrifice and atonement, it lights the whole way upward and onward. It’s—it’s like a power of growth, of immortal life!”
She stopped for a moment; then she took a step nearer and stood looking at him, a light on herface that was clearer and purer than the light of the setting sun, which shone in through the windows opposite and was reflected on her slender figure and the soft, light color of her gown.
“I—I can’t tell you,” she went on, “how thankful I am—how thankful that you’ve done it, that you’ve atoned, and, as you say, that you’re free—free to begin again, to live it all down!”
As he turned his head slowly and looked up at her his face changed and flushed deeply.
“I—your coming back saved me,” he said in a voice that thrilled with feeling. “I wanted to kill myself, but you came back to me, and in some way—I can’t tell how, but as simply as the coming of daybreak, the change came into my heart. But I’ve had one thing to torture me, to drive me on—I’ve felt—Diane, do you love him still?”
She came slowly toward him and knelt beside his chair, lifting her eyes steadily to his.
“I thought I did, and there was once—when I was away from you—that I was tempted. I thought my happiness lay that way, but now——”
He bent over her, his hands clasped hers and held them, his eyes searched hers.
“But now, Diane?” he whispered hoarsely.
She smiled.
“Now I know that you’ve expiated it all, that you’ve come back to me in the semblance that I knew and——” she paused, and a beautiful look came into her face, a look of such tenderness, suchfaith, that it touched him to the soul, he would have drawn her closer, clasped her in his arms, but her eyes still held his and he waited until she went on softly, with infinite gentleness: “you’re my husband—it was that, Arthur, the bond that I couldn’t break. That, and the hope which has come to me, the hope that I’m not long to be the only one to love you—because—because there may be sometime, before very long now, a great change! Out of those beautiful vague clouds—that I seem to see at the horizon of our lives—coming as surely as the sun rises and the day dawns—a little child is coming to us, Arthur!”