Chapter VIII.The Truth“I am the resurrection and the life——” The white-frocked minister’s voice rose solemnly above the subdued rustlings and sighing whispers in the little vine-wreathed church, and the stirring ceased. A robin peered in curiously at one of the open windows from his perch on a maple bough and chirped inquiringly, and the scent of lilacs was wafted in from the rector’s garden to mingle with the heavier fragrance of lilies and white roses heaped about the casket at the altar steps.It was such a small casket, almost like that of a child, and fairly buried beneath the weight of the floral offerings which banked it; a varied collection of offerings, for the costliest of hot-house set pieces mingled with sheaves of home-grown blossoms, and rare orchids nestled beside humble wild violets, but each had their place.The congregation, too, was a heterogeneous one. Rich and poor, smart and shabby, the country club colony and the villagers met in a common democracy to do honor to their dead friend.“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away——” The minister went on to the end, and then the voices of a hidden choir chanted softly: “Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another . . . .”In the front pew Norman Storm rested his sleek head upon his black-gloved hand, and George Holworthy beside him cleared his throat huskily. In the moment of stillness which followed the Psalm, a woman’s sob rose from somewhere back in the church, the sound jangling in Storm’s ears like a touch upon naked nerves.The last act of the farce, and then peace! Peace in which to plan for the future, to gain strength with which to shut out vain, maddening memories, to meet and cope with the change which his own act had wrought in his life. But would peace come?Everything had gone smoothly; his scheme to evade justice and preserve himself from danger had been crowned with success; but in fortifying himself against suspicion and accusation from outside, he had not thought that a more subtle enemy might arise to be faced and vanquished or forever hold him in miserable thrall.His love for Leila had not died with her. Despite her unfaithfulness, to the thought of which he clung doggedly, he could not exorcise her gentle influence. Everything in the house spoke mutely to him of her, everywhere he turned were evidences of her care and thoughtfulness and charm. In vain he reminded himself that it was over and done with, a closed chapter never to be recalled. He was beginning to fear himself, to dread the hours of solitude ahead as much as he looked forward to them. The voice of his conscience was whispering, threatening, and he must silence it or know no peace.George glanced furtively at him now and then as the service went on, but he gave no sign. It drew to a close at last, and still he sat there immersed in his own thoughts until a touch upon his arm roused him to a consciousness of the present. Half-way down the aisle Richard and Julie Brewster with exalted faces and hands clasped like children stood aside to let him pass, but he did not even see them, and those who pressed forward and would have spoken paused at sight of his face. Pitying shocked murmurs followed him as he and George stepped into the car, but he did not heed them, and the long ride to the cemetery progressed in silence.The brief, simple service of committal, the clods of earth falling dully, heavily into the grave and then came the interminable drive home. George’s glances were less furtive now, more openly charged with amazement. Storm had not shed a tear, had not vouchsafed an utterance of emotion throughout those solemn hours. His friends wondered how great the reaction would be from such long, pent-up grief, and as they swept into the driveway before the silent, empty house which awaited them he ventured a suggestion.“Norman, don’t you want to pack up and come and stay in town with me for a few days? The change will do you good and give you time to—to get used to things.”Storm stifled the exasperated rejoinder which rose to his lips and replied quietly:“Thanks, old man, but I want to be here, alone. I’ve got to face facts sooner or later, to bring myself to a realization that she has gone, and I’m better off here.”“Well, maybe that’s so,” George conceded. “Country air’s the best, and I’ll run out now and then to cheer you up. You’ll take to playing golf again after a bit——”“Don’t!” The cry was wrung from Storm’s very soul. Never again would he hold a golf-stick in his hands! He could see now before him that driver with the dark stains spattered upon it, and he recoiled shuddering from the apparition, while George inwardly cursed his own tactlessness, the while wholly ignorant of how his clumsy, well-meant effort at consolation had pierced the armor of the other man’s self-control.The fickle May sunshine vanished, and before the coming of twilight a bank of heavy gray clouds formed in the west, presaging a storm. They made a pretense of dining, while the rising wind swept gustily about the house and moaned in the chimneys like a thing in pain.Storm still preserved his stoic calm, and George’s perturbation grew. It wasn’t natural, wasn’t like the Norman he had known from college days. The younger man had always been outwardly reserved, but such stern, almost deliberate self-repression was new to him and filled his friend with vague alarm.“You didn’t close your eyes during the night before last, and you couldn’t have slept much last night, Norman, for I heard you walking the floor at all hours,” he remarked. “Don’t you think it would be well to call in Carr and have him look you over and give you something quieting? You’ll be ill if you keep this up.”“I’m all right!” Storm responded with a touch of impatience. “Don’t worry about me, George. I’ll turn in early and by to-morrow I’ll get a fresh grip on myself——”“I think you’ve got too tight a grip on yourself as it is,” George interrupted.“What do you mean?” Storm shot the question at him almost fiercely. Was he under surveillance, his every mood and gesture subject to analysis? Why couldn’t the other let him alone?“You’re not meeting this normally,” replied George in all seriousness. “Hang it all, I’d rather see you violent than like this! There’s something horrible about your calmness, the way you are clamping down your feelings! If you would just give way——”“I can’t,” Storm protested in the first wholly honest speech which had passed his lips. “I’m all frozen up. For God’s sake, don’t nag me, George, because I’m about all in!”The other subsided, but Storm could feel his eyes upon him, and their mute solicitude drove him to an inward frenzy. At all costs he must get away from that insistent scrutiny! He would lock himself in his room, feign sleep, illness, anything! George had served his turn, and Storm thanked fortune that business would of necessity demand the fussy, faithful little man’s presence in town the next day.He was casting about for an excuse as they rose from the table when all at once the front door knocker sounded faintly, almost apologetically.“I can’t see anyone! I won’t!” The haggard lines deepened about Storm’s mouth. “In Heaven’s name, can’t they respect my—my grief? I’m going upstairs. George, you get rid of them. Send them away, whoever they are!”But George did not send them away. Listening from above, Storm heard the front door open and close, heard George’s low rumble, and a reply in higher but softly modulated feminine tones. Then came a masculine voice which made him grip the stair rail in sudden fury not unmixed with consternation.Richard Brewster! It couldn’t be; the fellow would not dare intrude his presence here, even though he fancied his secret unshared by any living soul! But that was unmistakably Julie’s voice raised in almost tearful pleading, and then Brewster spoke again.What had brought them here? Why didn’t George get rid of them as he had been told to do? Could it be that Julie had discovered the truth of her husband’s unfaithfulness, and with a woman’s hysterical notion of justice had brought Brewster here to force his confession to the man he had wronged? It was evident from the sounds that reached his ears that George was showing them into the library, was taking it upon himself to disregard Storm’s express commands. Damn them all! Why couldn’t they let him alone?A brief colloquy ensued, and then George mounted the stairs.“Look here!” he began in a sepulchral whisper. “It’s the Brewsters, Norman, and I think you ought to see them for a minute. There’s something they want to tell you——”“I don’t want to hear it!” interrupted Storm fiercely. “Good God, man, can’t you see I’m in no condition to listen to a lot of vapid condolences? I told you to send them away!”“I would have done so, but I think you ought to let them tell you,” George insisted with the meek, unyielding tenacity which the other man had always found exasperating. “Julie Brewster is terribly wrought up; she says that in justice to—to Leila’s memory you must hear what she has to say.”In justice to Leila’s memory! Storm gave a sudden, involuntary start. There could be no ambiguity about that phrase. With a feeling as if the world were crashing down about his ears, he thrust George unceremoniously aside and descended the stairs.They were standing side by side on the hearth rug awaiting him, Julie in tears but with her face bravely lifted to his, Brewster meeting his eyes without a tremor.“It is good of you to see us, Mr. Storm.” Julie was making an obvious effort to control her emotion. “We wouldn’t have intruded, but I wanted you to know the truth; I couldn’t bear the thought that the shadow of even the slightest misunderstanding should rest between you and—and Leila’s memory now, especially when it was all my fault.”“ ‘Your fault’?” Storm repeated. “Sit down, please. I don’t understand——”“We won’t detain you long, old man.” It was Brewster who spoke, but his words failed to pierce the tumult in the other’s brain. “We felt it would comfort you as much as anything could to know that almost her last thought on earth had been for the happiness of others.”Storm’s eyes had never left the woman’s face, and to their mute command she responded:“I’m not going to try your patience with a long story of my own foolishness, but I did a wicked, selfish thing in dragging poor Leila into my troubles just to save myself. She was so generous, so self-sacrificing that she did not murmur at the risk to herself, and I never realized until she—she was dead that I might have been the cause of a misunderstanding between you at the very last. It has almost killed me to think of it, and I simply had to come and tell you the truth about the whole affair!”Storm tried to collect his reeling senses, but only one clear thought came to his rescue. These people must never know, never suspect that any trouble had arisen between him and Leila.He steadied his voice with an effort at composure.“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Brewster. If my poor wife was able to help you out of any difficulty—I am glad, but I know nothing of it. You speak of a risk——?”“Yes. I have been very foolish—wilfully, blindly foolish—in the way I’ve acted for weeks past.” She paused and then hurried on shamefacedly. “You see, I thought Dick was neglecting me, and to pay him out I’ve been flirting outrageously with Ted Mattison. Leila tried to influence me, but I wouldn’t listen to her, and when Dick woke up to what was going on and ordered me not even to speak to Ted again I—I resented it and defied him.“Last Monday I motored out to the Ferndale Inn for lunch alone with Ted, and some horrid, gossipy people were there who knew how I’d been trotting about. I didn’t think they had caught a glimpse of Ted then, but I was sure that if they had recognized me they would put two and two together and tell Dick, and I was afraid; terribly afraid, for Dick had threatened to leave me if I disobeyed him.“As soon as I reached home that afternoon I rushed to Leila, told her the whole thing and made her promise to say that she had been to the Inn with me. It never occurred to me that that promise would make her tell you a lie; I’m afraid I didn’t think about anything except the trouble I was in and how I could manage to get out of it.”So that was it! They had come to explain about that paltry lie! Brewster dared to stand there while his wife made her trivial confession, while all the time—! A turbulent flame of rage arose in Storm’s heart, but he quelled it rigorously. Caution, now! Brewster must not suspect!“I knew that my wife had not been with you.” Could that be his own voice speaking with such quiet restraint? “In fact, I had seen her myself in town at noon, although she did not know it. Please don’t distress yourself further, Mrs. Brewster; I know what her errand was in town and why she wished to keep it from me.”“Oh!” Julie started for a moment and then added miserably: “Leila was sure that you guessed she had fibbed to you. The very next day—the last day of her life!—she begged me to absolve her from her promise, for she said you had seemed so strange and cold to her that morning she was afraid you suspected, and it was the first time she had ever told you an untruth!”“She must have imagined a change in my attitude,” Storm said hastily. “I was preoccupied and in a hurry to get to town, but that little white lie never gave me a moment’s uneasiness. I would have chaffed her about it only I did not want to spoil her surprise.”“Surprise!” Julie echoed.“Yes. When I had seen her in town the day before she was just coming out of Alpheus Jaffray’s office in the Leicester Building.” He felt a measure of grim satisfaction at Brewster’s uncontrollable start. “She had been there to arrange to purchase from him the trout stream which adjoins the property here and which he had refused to sell me; you know as well as the rest of the crowd what a veritable feud has existed between the old fellow and me. I learned the truth from my attorney, whom Leila had consulted previously about the transaction. My poor wife intended it as a birthday surprise for me. My birthday is to-day—to-day!”He turned away to hide the rage which was fast getting beyond his control at the smug, hypocritical presence of that other man, but his emotion was misread by both his companions.“To-day! How terrible for you, Storm!” began Brewster, but his wife sobbed:“If Leila had only guessed! But that untruth made her positively wretched! Why, when I telephoned to her late that night and she came out to meet me——”“You telephoned to her! She met you——!” The room whirled and grew black before Storm’s eyes, and the woman’s voice, although clear and distinct, seemed to come from far away.“Yes. I’d had a terrible row with Dick when he came home that night, and I knew he had heard something more about Ted, though I didn’t know what. I was nearly crazy, Mr. Storm, and when he rushed out of the house in anger I ’phoned Leila and begged her to meet me and help me; tell me what to do! She had promised that afternoon to come to me if I needed her. You had gone to the station with Mr. Holworthy when I called up, and Leila did meet me, at the edge of the golf course.“She urged me to tell Dick everything, but I wouldn’t. I might just as well have done so, though, for those horrid people had seen Ted with me at the Inn, after all, and they went straight to Dick the next day. If only I hadn’t persuaded Leila to lie for me! It wasn’t any use, and it made some of her last hours unhappy. I shall never forgive myself, never!—Oh, don’t look at me like that, Mr. Storm! I can’t bear it!”Storm had slowly risen from his chair, one hand clutching the table edge as though for support, his eye fixed in an unwavering gaze of horror at the one thing visible in the whirling vortex about him: the white face of Julie. In his dazed brain a hideous fact was taking shape and form, and his soul cowered before it.He essayed to speak, but no sound issued from his dry lips, and Brewster stepped forward.“Try not to blame Julie too much, old man,” he begged. “You see, the poor little girl was desperate. I was as much at fault in the situation between us as she was; your dead wife showed me that and brought me to reason. The last act of her life was to save me from wrecking both mine and Julie’s, and we can never be grateful enough to her memory. That is why we had to come here to-night to tell you.”Slowly Storm’s gaze shifted to the other man’s face, and the inexorable truth of Brewster’s sincerity was forced upon his wretched consciousness. Still he could find no words, and the other continued:“When I confronted Julie and she stuck to her story, I came here to your wife to confirm the truth of what I had heard. She was loyal to Julie, she tried to make me believe that she had accompanied her to the Inn, but she was too inherently honest to brave it out, and I practically tricked her into admitting the truth. I was going to rush home then in my jealous rage and break with Julie forever, but your wife restrained me, Storm; she convinced me that Julie hadn’t done anything really wrong, anything that I could not forgive, and showed me where I, too, had been at fault in neglecting her for my business, even though it was for her that I wanted to succeed. She made me see that we could begin all over again on a firmer basis even than before, just when I thought everything was ended and the future held nothing but separation and despair.“I can’t tell you what it meant to me, that quiet talk with your wife here in this very room! It was Tuesday night, you know, and death must have come to her shortly after. I can’t realize it even now, she seemed so radiant, so splendidly alive! I’ll never forget what she did for me, and if I thought that—that the excitement of our interview——! I’m afraid I made rather a scene! If it hurt her, brought on that stroke, or fainting spell——!”“No. It was a form of catalepsy, you know.” A totally strange voice was speaking in a monotonous, dragging undertone. Storm did not recognize it as his own. Blind instinct alone braced him to a last effort to dissemble. “No one could predict when it was coming on or what caused it . . . . No one was to blame.”The lie died in his throat, and all at once he began to tremble violently as if the chill of the grave itself were upon him. He caught at the table again, his whole body shaking, collapsing, and with a harsh, strangling cry the floodgates were opened at last. Sinking to his knees, he buried his face in his arms lest the guilt which consumed him be revealed, and sobbed out his anguish unrestrained. He did not feel Julie’s arms about him, her tears against his cheek, nor know when her husband led her gently away. He was face to face with the warped and blackened thing which was his soul, and with that vision he descended to the nethermost depths.
“I am the resurrection and the life——” The white-frocked minister’s voice rose solemnly above the subdued rustlings and sighing whispers in the little vine-wreathed church, and the stirring ceased. A robin peered in curiously at one of the open windows from his perch on a maple bough and chirped inquiringly, and the scent of lilacs was wafted in from the rector’s garden to mingle with the heavier fragrance of lilies and white roses heaped about the casket at the altar steps.
It was such a small casket, almost like that of a child, and fairly buried beneath the weight of the floral offerings which banked it; a varied collection of offerings, for the costliest of hot-house set pieces mingled with sheaves of home-grown blossoms, and rare orchids nestled beside humble wild violets, but each had their place.
The congregation, too, was a heterogeneous one. Rich and poor, smart and shabby, the country club colony and the villagers met in a common democracy to do honor to their dead friend.
“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away——” The minister went on to the end, and then the voices of a hidden choir chanted softly: “Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another . . . .”
In the front pew Norman Storm rested his sleek head upon his black-gloved hand, and George Holworthy beside him cleared his throat huskily. In the moment of stillness which followed the Psalm, a woman’s sob rose from somewhere back in the church, the sound jangling in Storm’s ears like a touch upon naked nerves.
The last act of the farce, and then peace! Peace in which to plan for the future, to gain strength with which to shut out vain, maddening memories, to meet and cope with the change which his own act had wrought in his life. But would peace come?
Everything had gone smoothly; his scheme to evade justice and preserve himself from danger had been crowned with success; but in fortifying himself against suspicion and accusation from outside, he had not thought that a more subtle enemy might arise to be faced and vanquished or forever hold him in miserable thrall.
His love for Leila had not died with her. Despite her unfaithfulness, to the thought of which he clung doggedly, he could not exorcise her gentle influence. Everything in the house spoke mutely to him of her, everywhere he turned were evidences of her care and thoughtfulness and charm. In vain he reminded himself that it was over and done with, a closed chapter never to be recalled. He was beginning to fear himself, to dread the hours of solitude ahead as much as he looked forward to them. The voice of his conscience was whispering, threatening, and he must silence it or know no peace.
George glanced furtively at him now and then as the service went on, but he gave no sign. It drew to a close at last, and still he sat there immersed in his own thoughts until a touch upon his arm roused him to a consciousness of the present. Half-way down the aisle Richard and Julie Brewster with exalted faces and hands clasped like children stood aside to let him pass, but he did not even see them, and those who pressed forward and would have spoken paused at sight of his face. Pitying shocked murmurs followed him as he and George stepped into the car, but he did not heed them, and the long ride to the cemetery progressed in silence.
The brief, simple service of committal, the clods of earth falling dully, heavily into the grave and then came the interminable drive home. George’s glances were less furtive now, more openly charged with amazement. Storm had not shed a tear, had not vouchsafed an utterance of emotion throughout those solemn hours. His friends wondered how great the reaction would be from such long, pent-up grief, and as they swept into the driveway before the silent, empty house which awaited them he ventured a suggestion.
“Norman, don’t you want to pack up and come and stay in town with me for a few days? The change will do you good and give you time to—to get used to things.”
Storm stifled the exasperated rejoinder which rose to his lips and replied quietly:
“Thanks, old man, but I want to be here, alone. I’ve got to face facts sooner or later, to bring myself to a realization that she has gone, and I’m better off here.”
“Well, maybe that’s so,” George conceded. “Country air’s the best, and I’ll run out now and then to cheer you up. You’ll take to playing golf again after a bit——”
“Don’t!” The cry was wrung from Storm’s very soul. Never again would he hold a golf-stick in his hands! He could see now before him that driver with the dark stains spattered upon it, and he recoiled shuddering from the apparition, while George inwardly cursed his own tactlessness, the while wholly ignorant of how his clumsy, well-meant effort at consolation had pierced the armor of the other man’s self-control.
The fickle May sunshine vanished, and before the coming of twilight a bank of heavy gray clouds formed in the west, presaging a storm. They made a pretense of dining, while the rising wind swept gustily about the house and moaned in the chimneys like a thing in pain.
Storm still preserved his stoic calm, and George’s perturbation grew. It wasn’t natural, wasn’t like the Norman he had known from college days. The younger man had always been outwardly reserved, but such stern, almost deliberate self-repression was new to him and filled his friend with vague alarm.
“You didn’t close your eyes during the night before last, and you couldn’t have slept much last night, Norman, for I heard you walking the floor at all hours,” he remarked. “Don’t you think it would be well to call in Carr and have him look you over and give you something quieting? You’ll be ill if you keep this up.”
“I’m all right!” Storm responded with a touch of impatience. “Don’t worry about me, George. I’ll turn in early and by to-morrow I’ll get a fresh grip on myself——”
“I think you’ve got too tight a grip on yourself as it is,” George interrupted.
“What do you mean?” Storm shot the question at him almost fiercely. Was he under surveillance, his every mood and gesture subject to analysis? Why couldn’t the other let him alone?
“You’re not meeting this normally,” replied George in all seriousness. “Hang it all, I’d rather see you violent than like this! There’s something horrible about your calmness, the way you are clamping down your feelings! If you would just give way——”
“I can’t,” Storm protested in the first wholly honest speech which had passed his lips. “I’m all frozen up. For God’s sake, don’t nag me, George, because I’m about all in!”
The other subsided, but Storm could feel his eyes upon him, and their mute solicitude drove him to an inward frenzy. At all costs he must get away from that insistent scrutiny! He would lock himself in his room, feign sleep, illness, anything! George had served his turn, and Storm thanked fortune that business would of necessity demand the fussy, faithful little man’s presence in town the next day.
He was casting about for an excuse as they rose from the table when all at once the front door knocker sounded faintly, almost apologetically.
“I can’t see anyone! I won’t!” The haggard lines deepened about Storm’s mouth. “In Heaven’s name, can’t they respect my—my grief? I’m going upstairs. George, you get rid of them. Send them away, whoever they are!”
But George did not send them away. Listening from above, Storm heard the front door open and close, heard George’s low rumble, and a reply in higher but softly modulated feminine tones. Then came a masculine voice which made him grip the stair rail in sudden fury not unmixed with consternation.
Richard Brewster! It couldn’t be; the fellow would not dare intrude his presence here, even though he fancied his secret unshared by any living soul! But that was unmistakably Julie’s voice raised in almost tearful pleading, and then Brewster spoke again.
What had brought them here? Why didn’t George get rid of them as he had been told to do? Could it be that Julie had discovered the truth of her husband’s unfaithfulness, and with a woman’s hysterical notion of justice had brought Brewster here to force his confession to the man he had wronged? It was evident from the sounds that reached his ears that George was showing them into the library, was taking it upon himself to disregard Storm’s express commands. Damn them all! Why couldn’t they let him alone?
A brief colloquy ensued, and then George mounted the stairs.
“Look here!” he began in a sepulchral whisper. “It’s the Brewsters, Norman, and I think you ought to see them for a minute. There’s something they want to tell you——”
“I don’t want to hear it!” interrupted Storm fiercely. “Good God, man, can’t you see I’m in no condition to listen to a lot of vapid condolences? I told you to send them away!”
“I would have done so, but I think you ought to let them tell you,” George insisted with the meek, unyielding tenacity which the other man had always found exasperating. “Julie Brewster is terribly wrought up; she says that in justice to—to Leila’s memory you must hear what she has to say.”
In justice to Leila’s memory! Storm gave a sudden, involuntary start. There could be no ambiguity about that phrase. With a feeling as if the world were crashing down about his ears, he thrust George unceremoniously aside and descended the stairs.
They were standing side by side on the hearth rug awaiting him, Julie in tears but with her face bravely lifted to his, Brewster meeting his eyes without a tremor.
“It is good of you to see us, Mr. Storm.” Julie was making an obvious effort to control her emotion. “We wouldn’t have intruded, but I wanted you to know the truth; I couldn’t bear the thought that the shadow of even the slightest misunderstanding should rest between you and—and Leila’s memory now, especially when it was all my fault.”
“ ‘Your fault’?” Storm repeated. “Sit down, please. I don’t understand——”
“We won’t detain you long, old man.” It was Brewster who spoke, but his words failed to pierce the tumult in the other’s brain. “We felt it would comfort you as much as anything could to know that almost her last thought on earth had been for the happiness of others.”
Storm’s eyes had never left the woman’s face, and to their mute command she responded:
“I’m not going to try your patience with a long story of my own foolishness, but I did a wicked, selfish thing in dragging poor Leila into my troubles just to save myself. She was so generous, so self-sacrificing that she did not murmur at the risk to herself, and I never realized until she—she was dead that I might have been the cause of a misunderstanding between you at the very last. It has almost killed me to think of it, and I simply had to come and tell you the truth about the whole affair!”
Storm tried to collect his reeling senses, but only one clear thought came to his rescue. These people must never know, never suspect that any trouble had arisen between him and Leila.
He steadied his voice with an effort at composure.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Brewster. If my poor wife was able to help you out of any difficulty—I am glad, but I know nothing of it. You speak of a risk——?”
“Yes. I have been very foolish—wilfully, blindly foolish—in the way I’ve acted for weeks past.” She paused and then hurried on shamefacedly. “You see, I thought Dick was neglecting me, and to pay him out I’ve been flirting outrageously with Ted Mattison. Leila tried to influence me, but I wouldn’t listen to her, and when Dick woke up to what was going on and ordered me not even to speak to Ted again I—I resented it and defied him.
“Last Monday I motored out to the Ferndale Inn for lunch alone with Ted, and some horrid, gossipy people were there who knew how I’d been trotting about. I didn’t think they had caught a glimpse of Ted then, but I was sure that if they had recognized me they would put two and two together and tell Dick, and I was afraid; terribly afraid, for Dick had threatened to leave me if I disobeyed him.
“As soon as I reached home that afternoon I rushed to Leila, told her the whole thing and made her promise to say that she had been to the Inn with me. It never occurred to me that that promise would make her tell you a lie; I’m afraid I didn’t think about anything except the trouble I was in and how I could manage to get out of it.”
So that was it! They had come to explain about that paltry lie! Brewster dared to stand there while his wife made her trivial confession, while all the time—! A turbulent flame of rage arose in Storm’s heart, but he quelled it rigorously. Caution, now! Brewster must not suspect!
“I knew that my wife had not been with you.” Could that be his own voice speaking with such quiet restraint? “In fact, I had seen her myself in town at noon, although she did not know it. Please don’t distress yourself further, Mrs. Brewster; I know what her errand was in town and why she wished to keep it from me.”
“Oh!” Julie started for a moment and then added miserably: “Leila was sure that you guessed she had fibbed to you. The very next day—the last day of her life!—she begged me to absolve her from her promise, for she said you had seemed so strange and cold to her that morning she was afraid you suspected, and it was the first time she had ever told you an untruth!”
“She must have imagined a change in my attitude,” Storm said hastily. “I was preoccupied and in a hurry to get to town, but that little white lie never gave me a moment’s uneasiness. I would have chaffed her about it only I did not want to spoil her surprise.”
“Surprise!” Julie echoed.
“Yes. When I had seen her in town the day before she was just coming out of Alpheus Jaffray’s office in the Leicester Building.” He felt a measure of grim satisfaction at Brewster’s uncontrollable start. “She had been there to arrange to purchase from him the trout stream which adjoins the property here and which he had refused to sell me; you know as well as the rest of the crowd what a veritable feud has existed between the old fellow and me. I learned the truth from my attorney, whom Leila had consulted previously about the transaction. My poor wife intended it as a birthday surprise for me. My birthday is to-day—to-day!”
He turned away to hide the rage which was fast getting beyond his control at the smug, hypocritical presence of that other man, but his emotion was misread by both his companions.
“To-day! How terrible for you, Storm!” began Brewster, but his wife sobbed:
“If Leila had only guessed! But that untruth made her positively wretched! Why, when I telephoned to her late that night and she came out to meet me——”
“You telephoned to her! She met you——!” The room whirled and grew black before Storm’s eyes, and the woman’s voice, although clear and distinct, seemed to come from far away.
“Yes. I’d had a terrible row with Dick when he came home that night, and I knew he had heard something more about Ted, though I didn’t know what. I was nearly crazy, Mr. Storm, and when he rushed out of the house in anger I ’phoned Leila and begged her to meet me and help me; tell me what to do! She had promised that afternoon to come to me if I needed her. You had gone to the station with Mr. Holworthy when I called up, and Leila did meet me, at the edge of the golf course.
“She urged me to tell Dick everything, but I wouldn’t. I might just as well have done so, though, for those horrid people had seen Ted with me at the Inn, after all, and they went straight to Dick the next day. If only I hadn’t persuaded Leila to lie for me! It wasn’t any use, and it made some of her last hours unhappy. I shall never forgive myself, never!—Oh, don’t look at me like that, Mr. Storm! I can’t bear it!”
Storm had slowly risen from his chair, one hand clutching the table edge as though for support, his eye fixed in an unwavering gaze of horror at the one thing visible in the whirling vortex about him: the white face of Julie. In his dazed brain a hideous fact was taking shape and form, and his soul cowered before it.
He essayed to speak, but no sound issued from his dry lips, and Brewster stepped forward.
“Try not to blame Julie too much, old man,” he begged. “You see, the poor little girl was desperate. I was as much at fault in the situation between us as she was; your dead wife showed me that and brought me to reason. The last act of her life was to save me from wrecking both mine and Julie’s, and we can never be grateful enough to her memory. That is why we had to come here to-night to tell you.”
Slowly Storm’s gaze shifted to the other man’s face, and the inexorable truth of Brewster’s sincerity was forced upon his wretched consciousness. Still he could find no words, and the other continued:
“When I confronted Julie and she stuck to her story, I came here to your wife to confirm the truth of what I had heard. She was loyal to Julie, she tried to make me believe that she had accompanied her to the Inn, but she was too inherently honest to brave it out, and I practically tricked her into admitting the truth. I was going to rush home then in my jealous rage and break with Julie forever, but your wife restrained me, Storm; she convinced me that Julie hadn’t done anything really wrong, anything that I could not forgive, and showed me where I, too, had been at fault in neglecting her for my business, even though it was for her that I wanted to succeed. She made me see that we could begin all over again on a firmer basis even than before, just when I thought everything was ended and the future held nothing but separation and despair.
“I can’t tell you what it meant to me, that quiet talk with your wife here in this very room! It was Tuesday night, you know, and death must have come to her shortly after. I can’t realize it even now, she seemed so radiant, so splendidly alive! I’ll never forget what she did for me, and if I thought that—that the excitement of our interview——! I’m afraid I made rather a scene! If it hurt her, brought on that stroke, or fainting spell——!”
“No. It was a form of catalepsy, you know.” A totally strange voice was speaking in a monotonous, dragging undertone. Storm did not recognize it as his own. Blind instinct alone braced him to a last effort to dissemble. “No one could predict when it was coming on or what caused it . . . . No one was to blame.”
The lie died in his throat, and all at once he began to tremble violently as if the chill of the grave itself were upon him. He caught at the table again, his whole body shaking, collapsing, and with a harsh, strangling cry the floodgates were opened at last. Sinking to his knees, he buried his face in his arms lest the guilt which consumed him be revealed, and sobbed out his anguish unrestrained. He did not feel Julie’s arms about him, her tears against his cheek, nor know when her husband led her gently away. He was face to face with the warped and blackened thing which was his soul, and with that vision he descended to the nethermost depths.