On the day following that upon which Leonard and Natalie had last met in Leonard's study, there were two women in a room of a shabby New York house, evidently once a worthy residence, but now sadly fallen from that estate.
One of the two, half dressed, with a good deal of tarnished lace decorating such clothing as she had on, sat on the bed in an easy attitude, careless as to the display of a handsome person. Dark, heavy-browed, her first youth past, her haggard face was redeemed by deep, soft eyes, that now, however, from beneath their long lashes, looked out upon the face of the other woman with suspicious wariness.
This one, overfed, coarse, vile to look upon, with the face of a painted gargoyle, red and mottled, garishly dressed in a loose gown, stood with arms akimbo, her little eyes bent wickedly upon the woman on the bed.
"Ten days' board," croaked the fat one. "Ten days."
"Ten weeks, for all I care," was the reply.
The fat creature wheezed and snorted; she half lifted her great red hand as if to administer a blow.
"Try it," said the other, "and I'll stick this into you," holding threateningly the blade of a pair of scissors.
The fat one recoiled; there was enough recklessness in the eyes of the woman with the scissors to justify the movement. "Now, now, Frenchy," she remonstrated, "you won't be a fool. Possy bate, eh?"
"Pas si bête," laughed the other grimly. "Try it and see!"
"You know," said the rubicund one, "this ain't white, Berthe. Whose fault is it if you've no money?"
"Ah!" exclaimed Berthe. "You think me of your kind. I'm a lady; I was a fool to come here."
"Sure, you're a lady; and for that very reason ought to make a mint of money. I'll tell you what's the matter with you, Berthe—you're a mule. I swear," she exclaimed, suddenly conscious of wrong, "my boarders is the bane of my life. Mules—but there, nobody'd believe what I've borne."
"Malheureuse!" sneered Berthe.
"I tell you, missy, girls don't talk that way to me!" exclaimed the red-gowned dame, perhaps suspecting unseemly profanity veiled in a foreign tongue.
"I don't want to talk any way to you. Get out," replied Berthe.
"And the board bill?"
"I've had nothing to eat for two days."
"And won't have as long as you're a mule. If you have no money by this time to-morrow, out you go, and without your trunk; so Frenchy," concluded the woman, changing her tone to persuasion, "be reasonable. You shall have dinner if you'll promise to go out afterward. Think it over," and she waddled off.
Berthe lay back upon the pillow, her long arms stretched above her head, and thought it over.
She had left Mrs. Leon long ago, and since then her steps had been downward. For awhile a nursery governess, which, being amply capable, she might have long remained had it not been for her eyes. She was not altogether conscious of the capacity of her eyes, and was long innocent of the knowledge of the strife and hatred they had wrought in the family in which she served. Maltreated by an infuriated mistress, she had avenged herself amply, living for months in luxury, and on the money and caresses legally belonging to the other. But she had never cared for her sinner, and he had been glad to creep back to that which he had dishonored, not forgiven, but accepted as a hard necessity. Her luxuries and her money were soon spent—as for the rest, it is a dark tale that she recalls, lying there majestic, with her long arms above her black head and her dark eyes brooding.
The present was a problem. The move to this house was toward a deeper degradation than any she had known, and she recoiled from its demands. She knew its probable end, too. She was shrewd, dominant if she chose to be; in short, no fool. She could rise to prosperity and become like the gargoyle, but the prospect sickened her. All the inmates of the house were to her abhorrent, but the gargoyle was a loathsome, soulless, pitiless beast, only not a fool. The others were fools, and she knew, feeling the sparks of humanity within her, that she must even be a fool rather than a beast. And the end of the fool was misery, from which there was but one escape.
She was hungry. It was true that, except as to some slices of bread, smuggled to her by soft-hearted ones, she had eaten nothing for two days. She had long ago pawned her articles of jewelry. Her clothes were in the clutch of the beast. She would have to apply to her for garments for the street. She must surrender.
So she asked for her clothes and her dinner. The beast was gracious, but chary as to giving too many garments. The truth was, the beast hoped her boarder would not return. She had the trunk—she was sick of the mule.
Berthe wandered toward the lower part of the city. Plainly dressed, her carriage dignified, she was not molested, nor did she cast her eyes upon any passer-by. She walked straight on, yet not rapidly, for there was no purpose in her walk. Useless to seek that man upon whose wife she had avenged herself; he had been hurried off to do penance in the country; even if he had returned, she knew nothing of his present abode.
Mrs. Leon was a dweller in hotels, and at this season, not in town. Besides, Mrs. Leon could not be ignorant of what had been accomplished by the nursery governess she had herself recommended.
She wished now, for in truth, as she walked on, terror of possible starvation began to haunt her, that she had carried out an often neglected impulse to write to a man she knew, and who she believed could help her. She would have done so before this, but the man's wife was a friend of Mrs. Leon. This recollection had prevented her addressing him. Yet she knew he would have helped her. He was young, he was kind. Ah! he was adorable.
So she walked on, thinking of that adorable man, forgetting her fear of starvation. He had kissed her, or rather, and she smiled as she corrected herself, she had kissed him. He had been helpless. The innocent!
By this time she was in Fourteenth Street. A man seeing the smile upon her lips, stood in her path and addressed her. She moved aside and walked on; the smile had been born of a memory sweet to her. The man looked after her, astonished at the majestic ignoring of himself.
Suddenly the woman stopped, as if struck. Then she started, walking quickly, and entered a brilliantly lighted resort.
Leonard had passed a sleepless night in the train. In New York he went to a hotel which he had never before frequented. He desired to be alone. He had left home to think, not to seek acquaintance or distraction.
And he thought, walking the streets of the great city until he was footsore, and the more he thought, the less capable was he of reasoning, the more weary he grew of thought; finally, striding onward in a dream of incoherent fancies, that were not thoughts, but impotent efforts of a tired brain. All day long there swayed before his eyes visions inspired by objects seen but not noted and most incongruous. The passing glance upon a billboard, gay with motley figures, gave birth to a picture of living damsels, languishing in postures of inviting loveliness. He saw no stony streets, no squalid scenes, but wandered in a Moslem heaven in whose crystal streams Naiads bathed fair round limbs or sported in wanton frolic in silvery cascades, anon decking with lilies the roseate beauties of their queen. He took no heed of time or place, pacing street after street, along the wharves, seeing neither ship nor dray; in the Hebrew crowd of the East Side, noting nothing of the soft-eyed men with dirty beards, nor the women wearing wigs of jute, nor the children dancing in the streets to hand-organs, nor any of the sights of that crowded foreign city, full of strange interest. Of the things before his eyes he saw nothing; nor could he, being entranced by raptures which had tried the souls of saints a thousand years ago!
At ten o'clock at night, having eaten nothing since an early and neglected breakfast, he stood in the street, conscious that he must eat or faint. He entered a brilliantly lighted room where there were tables, but which was nearly empty.
Back of the room he saw another filled with people, decked with palms and artificial grottoes. He entered and sat down at the first unoccupied table.
"Bring me a sandwich," he said to the waiter, "and a drink."
The sandwich was brought and the drink. The latter Leonard supposed was wine. He remembered that he had scruples against wine-drinking; had, in fact, never tasted wine. He was too tired to care much for scruples, and besides, he was faint, and even his scruples permitted wine in case of illness. He swallowed the liquor, which was whiskey, at one gulp, and commenced to eat ravenously.
He ordered another sandwich and another drink, which was brought, this time with a carafe of water in addition. He drank greedily of the water, reserving his liquor, and, as ravenously as before, consumed his second sandwich.
Then he looked about him with more interest in his surroundings than he had known during all that day. He felt comfortable, happy in fact. He stretched out his legs and sipped his liquor, this time noting the strength of the beverage, which made him cough and brought the tears to his eyes, causing a woman to smile slyly. He smiled in return, then looked quickly away, abashed at his own temerity in thus answering the involuntary expression of a strange lady. This, as he looked about him, he thought must be one of those German beer-gardens he had heard about, but in this country had never seen. Evidently the people did not bring their children. That was well. Beer-drinking was a bad example for children. The women looked tired, he thought, though some were very rosy, remarkably so, and all were tawdry. The men were not a nice-looking set, though there were exceptions. Many were not much more than boys, and these affected brilliant, if somewhat dirty, neckwear. There were things about this place that offended him; principally, the tone of the men. They lolled a good deal and smoked in the women's faces; that was German, he supposed. The women, of whom a number were alone, were better behaved. He noticed a waiter order one to leave the place; that was singular, especially as she had slunk in very quietly and had seemed very humble. Suddenly the great orchestrion commenced to squeal and bang and clash, and soon the heads of the people were strangely bobbing, keeping time; now the strains grew soft and plaintive; a profound sadness crept over him as he listened to what seemed the requiem of a dying soul. He felt the tears rising in his eyes.
For a long time he had been eagerly watched by a woman. Berthe could not be sure if this were indeed the man she knew. What could he be doing here? Half hidden behind a curtain which draped a huge column, she watched the heaving breast of the man. Suddenly, she saw his head fall forward, smashing a tumbler, and a cry of agony broke from him. "Natalie, Natalie!"
It might have been the last despairing wail of the soul doomed thenceforward to darkness, whose requiem he had heard. To the obscene observers and the superintendent of the place it was the cry of a drunken man, who had no business there.
There was no hubbub. The habitués of the place comprehended that nothing of that sort was allowed. The man was quickly hustled into the front room by the manager.
"Get his hat," said this personage to a waiter. "Has he paid his bill?" he questioned as the man brought the hat.
"Yes, except the broken glass."
"Damn the glass!" replied the manager, who desired to get rid of the drunkard. "Come, young fellow, steady on your pins now and be off."
A woman slipped her arm under Leonard's. "I will take care of him," she said.
The manager looked at the pair as they made their way toward the street. "Do you know her?" he asked of an employee who had witnessed the departure.
"She's not a regular, sure."
"Nor he. Well, it's not our affair," and the manager returned to his duties.
The two wandered off, the man's unsteady steps supported tenderly by the woman. When the sun rose, his head rested on her bosom and her lips hovered lovingly above his own, and the hum of the waking city, borne to his ears, may, to him, have been the distant harmony of a pæan of victory hymned in hell.
Natalie Claghorn had always nourished a sentiment, which with many is a conviction, with most a hope, that man is something more than the futile hero of a sorry comedy—not made to live merely that he may die. Hence, religion had been a need of her being, and, though unconsciously, she had developed a creed of her own, vague, no doubt, from the positive standpoint, but one which excluded those essential elements of the faith of her husband, Hell and the Devil; grim inventions these which, while imbibing wisdom at the paternal knee, she had learned were mere memories of ancient Oriental mythologies. This view, in so far as she had given the matter any thought, she had supposed the view commonly held, and universally held among the cultured. Recently, indeed, there had been a moment in which even with her bodily eyes she had, as she had then believed, beheld the terrors and the torments of the damned; but as many men and women, who believe not in ghosts, have nevertheless seen these dwellers of the shades, and yet in less receptive phases of the mind have been able to dismiss their visitants to the shadows from which they were evoked, so Natalie had been able to discard belief in the reality of her vision. Nevertheless, though incredulous, he who has seen a ghost remains impressed, and the memory of her experience naturally recurred with her theological studies, serving to emphasize the horrible, rather than the absurd, aspect of her acquirements.
Her desire to know had been honest, and she imputed honesty to others; hence, when Leonard, with pen and voice, asseverated his belief in a creed which must render paternity impossible to any being with a conscience, she had been confounded by the attitude he presented. She was not aware that between her husband and herself the sources of sympathy had always been shallow, and she was quite as ignorant of theological frenzy as she was of the knowledge of masculine passion. She had loved him; and she had loved Mrs. Joe, Paula, the Marquise, her maid Berthe; in fact, she had loved, and still loved, humanity, as far as she knew it, and it was thus that she had loved her husband, though, doubtless, in his case, this gentle flame had burned with more intensity than in others.
Though grieved that Leonard had left her without saying good-bye, yet she felt that he had acted wisely, in that he had given her time to think without the disturbing sense of his presence in his repellant mood. And during this period an incident occurred which aided her in finding the only solution of the problems which vexed her.
It was not to be expected of the Hampton matrons that they continue their tolerant attitude, with regard to Mrs. Leonard Claghorn. Her continued languid health after the birth of her child, the subsequent bereavement and absence, these had afforded an excuse for neglect; but now there was solicitude, and in a certain circle of dames, which met every fortnight to discuss Shakspere, but whereat other subjects, as possessing more of novelty, were occasionally considered, some rather severe strictures were made, in reference to Professor Claghorn's apparent inability to convert his wife—he who had so audaciously, if not successfully, coped with Brigston.
"Brilliancy is less effective than earnestness," opined Mrs. Waring, wife of Professor Waring, whose forte was Hebrew, and who was noted for great erudition, a large family and a feeble intellect.
"In the long run, no doubt," assented Mrs. Professor Flint. "But surely, she is not really unconverted!"
"She certainly hides her light. There are times—I hope I am not uncharitable—when I wonder, suppose she were a Jesuit!"
"Awful! She's French; her mother was noble—of the old nobility—and the old nobility are all Jesuits."
"And a Jesuit will stick at nothing in the way of deception. It's a terrible possibility!"
Natalie found apologists, notably Mrs. Tremaine, who maintained that there were no female Jesuits, and who defended the absent, partly because she was a spirited and generous woman, partly because, at this particular period, she experienced an unusually distinct impression of her own importance by reason of an acknowledged claim to the admiration of the other Shaksperians. Even Mrs. Waring, the mother of ten, was inclined to look with indulgence, if not with envy, upon this champion, though she whispered to Mrs. Flint that "after a half dozen, Mary Tremaine would change her note."
However that may be, Mrs. Tremaine's note remained on this occasion triumphant, and she glowed with victory, and also with good intentions; for she resolved to warn Natalie that the gossips were preparing for a feast, "and," said the lady to herself, "it must be stopped; never allow a tiger a taste of blood," which mental exclamation clearly indicates the exaltation of the lady's spirit.
In this spirit, as soon as the Shaksperian séance was over, she started for the Morley mansion, full of excellent intentions and the proud possessor of a secret already known to the wives of all the professors of the Seminary, except Natalie; and which, if confided to the latter, would indicate that friendly feeling by which she was really actuated, and thus pave the way to the warning she wished to give. She was also impelled by the pardonable desire to further impart the information already widely diffused; and which, in fact, could not remain much longer a secret, unless the complacent lady decided on complete seclusion for some months.
"Yes," she said, "I suppose it will be noticeable soon. Professor Tremaine is so proud; he actually struts. He hopes for a boy."
"Unfortunate woman!" exclaimed Natalie. "How can you smile?"
"Dear Mrs. Claghorn, I forgot your own recent loss. Believe me, time——"
"But, have I understood? You hope for a baby—you a Christian wife?"
"Why not I—a Christian wife, as you say?" was the answer of the visitor, who was both shocked and puzzled by the expression of her hostess.
"I do not understand," exclaimed Natalie hopelessly; then suddenly: "How can you dare? Have you no compassion, no fear? You can smile, believing that an awful calamity hangs over you!"
"Awful calamity!" echoed the bewildered visitor, perhaps a little alarmed by the speaker's energy.
"Is it not? Have I understood aright? Are you going to have a baby?"
"I have said so. Why the fact should affect you so strangely is a mystery to me."
"Do you believe this book?" and Natalie seized the well-known volume with its blue cover.
"Certainly, I believe the Confession."
"And your husband?"
"Does he not teach it?"
"And believing that this book is true, knowing that the furnaces of hell are choked with sinners—knowing this, you and your husband welcome the birth of a human being! God help me, and you, Mrs. Tremaine, forgive me, but I cannot understand these things. Why! you believe that your baby may be damned!"
"How dare you say such things? My child will not be damned. Ah! You poor woman, I see. You have brooded over your own baby's death, and have been dwelling on horrors. I have heard of such cases. Dear Mrs. Claghorn, dismiss such dreadful folly from your mind. Babies are not damned; nobody has believed that for years."
"Ido not fear for my child, nor for yours. But you—you cannot be sure he will die. He may grow up—what then?"
"Then he must take his chance," said the would-be mother, though her face grew white. "We must all trust in God's grace."
"But he lends His grace to his Elect only. Unless your infant was chosen from before creation, hemustbe damned. You say this book is true, and yet you dare to have a child who may burn in hell! How can you commit such wickedness?" In her energy Natalie had arisen, and now stood before the unhappy matron in what to her seemed a threatening attitude.
"I—I—do not comprehend," she faltered. "You have no right to speak thus to me."
"No right! Have I not the right of humanity, the right of a child-bearing woman?"
"But——"
"I had some excuse, I did not know. But you knew—and yet you dared!"
"I didn't," whimpered the lady. "It was the Professor—it was God's work. You talk horribly."
"God's work! And you lend yourself to God's work! You could have died—anything, rather than be an instrument of wickedness in God's hands!"
Mrs. Tremaine breathed a great sigh of relief when she found herself safely on the outside of the Morley mansion. She sat for awhile on a bench in the Square, and when she had in part recovered her equanimity, she went slowly homeward, pondering over the difficulties which present themselves to those who try to do good in secret.
Yet she had done good; for when Natalie beheld this matron in all the pride and joy of approaching maternity, she saw in the spectacle a living denial of the frightful dogma which, if believed, must have turned the woman's triumph to despair. The orthodox lady served to demonstrate the fact that the upholders of hell do not believe in hell; for the conclusion to which Natalie had arrived was sound: The woman that believes in hell dare not bear a child.
Leonard's continuing absence afforded time for contemplation of this discovery and its consequences; among others the gradual conviction which subjected Leonard, with thousands of others, to the accusation of maintaining palpable falsehood as the living truth. No other conclusion was possible in the face of the fact that humanity can judge only by the aid of human faculties, and that these must, perforce, pronounce eternal punishment incompatible with justice, and preordination to everlasting misery as impossible to a God of mercy. Her training made it difficult for her to understand the palliation of the offense of those who maintained the paradoxes which denied their actions. She was not aware that the minds of such as Leonard had, from infancy, been receptacles into which had been emptied all the follies bred from the meditations of those who profess the mission of being interpreters of Omniscience; nor could she fairly estimate the partisan rage which carried such men, engaged in controversy, even beyond their convictions. She did, however, gather some comprehension of these extenuating forces from the further researches offered by Leonard's table, on which were strewn numerous pamphlets referring to the late theological war. The tone of rancor which pervaded the effusions of the religious antagonists was repellant, but she was shrewd enough to see in so much sound and fury evidences of weakness; and when she came to the theologian who lauded the "beautiful faith" of that Christian father who demolished his pagan adversary with the words, "I believe,becauseit is impossible," she closed the book, and thenceforth avoided further contemplation of the high mysteries of theology.
She could not but condemn Leonard, though she would not dwell upon the thought. To her, as to Dr. Stanley, belief in the impossible was impossible, and, therefore, pretense of such belief dishonest; yet, since these pretenders were not otherwise dishonest, there must be some ground for their attitude, which to her must remain a mystery, but which ought to cause her to hesitate in judging. So, she would not blame Leonard; she perceived now, that her own conduct merited reproach. She was ignorant of her own cruelty and her own absurdity, and would have resented those terms as applied to her attitude; but she acknowledged with sorrow that she had not been kind, and for her unkindness she craved forgiveness.
Very early one morning she started to walk to the cemetery, going by way of the shore, and glorying in the grandeur of the ocean and the breeze that came, health-laden, from its bosom. She stood and looked upon the broad expanse of blue, recalling the day when Leonard had plunged into the raging waters to rescue the boy. That effort had been in vain, as to its intended object, but had it never been made she would not be walking here a wife. She had loved him before, but not with a love that would have urged her to grant him the boon of kisses; but, fresh from that brave deed he was a hero, had taken the hero's meed from her lips, and in that act had sealed the mastery which his courage had won. She gazed long upon the waters, listening to the surge and noting the glint of the sun, tinting with rose the billows rolling toward her. She sighed and, pressing her lips together, turned her back upon the waves and hurried on. It was as though she had resolved not to see some fair vision suggested by the rose-tint in the feathery edging of the billows.
When she entered the beautiful cemetery the birds were chirping in the trees, only their joyous trills breaking the silence of the city of the dead. She sat down beside the grave of her boy.
And here, recalling her recent thoughts and her condemnation of others who were dishonest in their attitude toward God, she saw the need of honesty for herself in all things. If there were facts in her life which she had been willing to ignore, she must look them in the face and deal with them as best she might, being honest always. If, in marrying Leonard, she had striven to escape the longing for a love denied her, and in so doing had cheated her husband, she must admit her fault and resolve to make every reparation in her power. If she had chosen to believe that she had craved religion, and in her husband had seen its embodiment, while in truth she had craved an earthly love, and had in marriage weakly sought refuge from her shame, she must even admit her fault and do what might be in her power to avert its consequences. Not in the futile attempt to deny hearing to her conscience, to murder her reason, but in every wifely allegiance. Thus far she had wofully failed in such allegiance. Even before the last sad breach between her husband and herself she had allowed estrangement to come between them, and had so exclusively devoted herself to her child that Leonard had been secondary. It was true that she had not consciously intended this, but she had been willing that it be so. Her consciousness of wrong warmed her heart toward her absent husband, and filled it with longing to reconsecrate herself to him. He would surely come to-day! As she sped homeward she was more and more persuaded of it, and, finally, believed that on her arrival she would find him waiting for her. As she neared the house she trembled with expectation; she longed to clasp her arms about his neck and falter her prayer for pardon, and assure him of her love. There should be no shadows between them in future. She had dared to look truth in the face, and, lo! it was no longer truth. All the foolish, sinful longings of the past, persistent because she had refused to recognize them, had been dissipated by the light of day. The present moment was to live forever. Henceforth, Leonard, and only he, should dwell in her heart of hearts.
In her agitation she fumbled at the door-lock, then desisted, for from the hallway she heard the firm step of a man coming to the door. Her heart beat wildly; another moment and she would be forgiven.
The door was suddenly opened. With a glad cry Natalie spread wide her own, and in the same instant was clasped in the arms of Mark Claghorn.
In the misery of awakening to a consciousness of existing facts, Leonard could see no possibility of extrication from the bog of degradation into which he had fallen. With excellent intentions on the part of his pastors and masters, he had been trained to dishonest depreciation of his own strength, and he was now without confidence or courage. His days had been without guile, and the unaccustomed aspect of guilt overwhelmed him with hopeless terror. The precepts instilled from infancy thundered direful threats, dwelling lingeringly on the curses of Omnipotence; and in the moment of the acquirement of the dread knowledge that he had been self-deceived, that the Grace of God had not been his, that he, like other doomed and defrauded sinners, had mistaken those "common operations of the spirit," that even non-elect may have, for the effectual call addressed only to the few chosen from eternity, and which to all others is a monstrous mockery—in the moment of this awful revelation he felt all the suffocating horror of that which he had taught as truth: that for the weak there is no Father, no path but the path of evil.
The woman looked upon the exhibition of misery thus presented with compassion tinged with scorn, yet with bewilderment. She had never seen a sinner like this before; but instinctively she felt that when manhood is lost woman's time has come.
"Voyons, chéri," she said, "what is it all about?" and she drew his head to her bosom.
He grasped at the offered sympathy as a starving man may grasp a loaf. The picture he presented was not adorable, but there was truth in it, if, also, some unconscious comedy; and her compassion was not without sincerity, though his broken story was of less interest to her than the simplicity of the narrator. She felt that she had been fashioned fit for this man's needs; and while she soothed him, his spirits rose a little, and he experienced a sort of satisfaction that, since he had taken this direction, he had gone amazingly far. See, now, what Natalie had done!
They rescued Berthe's clothes and left the boarding-house, and were soon quartered in a small French hotel, bathed and well dressed. The surroundings were cheerful; the lunch table, with its bright glassware and silver, white napery and bottle of champagne in its bucket of ice, was inviting; the woman was gay, yet still compassionate and tender. With the first glass of wine Leonard felt actually happy; and as he sat opposite the well-clad woman with the great dark eyes, now languid and inviting, now bright with challenge, and listened to the prattle, which women of her nation can make so engaging, he, looking back upon the past week, was enraptured by the contrast. Of such as she really was he had no perception; he could no more estimate her character than could the veriest college freshman, weary with knowledge of the world. Her brightness of intellect was apparent, and there was neither coarseness nor ignorance of amenities in her bearing. She had said to the mistress of the boarding-house that she was a "lady," and she fitted sufficiently the ordinary acceptation of a much-abused term. She told her story (with the essential suppressions and variations), and he saw in her one who had suffered from the injustice of the world. She admitted being in the last stress of poverty, and confessed to having suffered actual hunger, thanking him, with the first sheen of tears in her eyes, for rescuing her clothes from the clutches of the hawk landlady.
All these confidences, sweetened by moderate draughts of champagne—for Berthe preached moderation, and economy as well—insensibly disposed the man to further confidences of his own, and she listened eagerly to the tale, of which she had heard disjointed fragments in his first outbreak of despair.
"It is all plain,chéri" was her comment. "Mademoiselle—I mean your wife—never loved you."
"I know that," was the gloomy answer.
"Ah, but why not? You so beautiful a man, so good!" and she knelt beside him and put her arms about his neck.
"So beautiful! That is a matter of taste. So good!" he sighed, but let his head droop on her shoulder all the same.
"Any woman must love you," she murmured. "But one thing could hinder."
"And that thing?"
"That she first loved another," she whispered.
He was silent.
"We all knew it in France," she said.
"The Marquise?" he asked huskily.
"The Marquise, assuredly. Why, we ran away from her because of it."
"Tell me all you know," he said, after awhile.
The woman's heart fluttered; here were her tools. She could keep him, and she would. Kneeling thus beside him, her arms about him, her body close to his, his cheek against her own, he was hers. No woman should take him from her. Rights? Bah! Hers were the rights of conquest, and of the fierce demands which bade her hold what she had gained. There were no other rights.
"She loved him always," she murmured. "It is all told in that." Yet she told much more; of how the Marquise had always suspected, of wanderings in Paris with no other chaperone than herself; on which occasions, knowing what was expected of her, and unwilling to spoil the pretty game she watched, she had discreetly remained as much as possible in the background. "He was generous and gave me presents—but,ciel! Why shouldn't he with a gold mine?" They had especially affected churches, and picture galleries where they could sit in secluded nooks, and where Natalie's attendant could easily lose herself temporarily. "The Marquise raved furiously," added the narrator, "but she would have raved more furiously still had she known all I knew."
"She never loved me," faltered Leonard.
"But I loved you the moment I saw you. It was hard to have you leave me after that kiss. Tell me it was hard for you."
"It was hard; better had I never left you."
"And now you never will. You have made me love you; and I,—I have made you love me; is it not so? Is it wicked? Ah, no; it is good, it is good."
To him who heard the murmured words and was enveloped in the tenderness she shed upon him; who felt her lips upon his own, and who, in the contact, found sweet content—to him, this was a foretaste of the life that might be, if he had the courage to embrace it. He was like some worn and weary pilgrim in arid sands who, visioning an oasis, lies him down by a green brookside, rests in the fresh breezes, listens to the rippling waters, sees their sparkle and inhales the fragrance of the flowers, and so is lulled to fatal languor, unconscious that all is a mere mirage.
To her he was no mere wayside victim, but in his resemblance to him whose picture she had held toward heaven in the church, a reminder of the happy days when first she had known love. She longed desperately to retain him, and though she feared the dark gulf of misery in which he had found her, with him she would have even faced it again, rather than safety with another; so that her cajolements had the grace of sincerity, though the parting, which he knew must come, remained constantly the dark background of the present. It may seem that to leave the woman required little heroism; that whatever charms she might possess for him, that those of dignity, of worthy citizenship, of respect, of all that even worldly men hold dear, would allure him with greater power. All of which is reasonable, and, no doubt, such considerations do often operate in cases where discreet sinners, having sinned in secret, quietly emerge from the bog of evil-doing, cleanse their garments and, animated by good resolutions, go forth among their fellows, keeping their own counsel; but these are sinners of experience. The innocent man, like the innocent woman, falls far when he falls; such men sacrifice present respect and hope for the future, choosing ruin; and while there are numerous roads to that goal, the most frequented is that one where woman roams.
But whatever heroism may have been necessary, this man possessed it. He turned his face resolutely from the allurements of the present, and, if trembling, faced the future.
"It cannot be otherwise," he said, falteringly. "I do not leave you to return to happiness. I might find that with you. I go because both for you and for me it is right. We may have years of life before us; let us use them for repentance. In this lies our only hope."
"Do you know what my life must be?"
"One of better deeds. It is not for me," he said, sorrowfully, "to try to win you to high thoughts. That would seem impious, and would inspire you with just contempt for me and for those teachings I have disgraced. But I urge you to consider these things. Seek counsel; I can give you the means; or, if you prefer, go to a priest of your own church."
She smiled bitterly. Knowing his own deadly depression, he could read her thoughts; he implored her not to despair, pointing out that that which was a solemn obligation, her temporal welfare, would be surely fulfilled by him. "Our unholy union," he said, with sad simplicity, "entails upon me the duty of making due provision for you. This will be a matter for immediate attention; promise me to remain quietly here until you hear from me."
And so it was arranged, he giving her money for present needs. He watched her while she packed his valise, touched by wifely attentions, the lack of which, he told himself, had long been a grievance, of which now he knew the cause. He looked about him, noting the embellishments which her taste and her training had enabled her to add to the room, even in the short period of their occupancy, and the sense of a justifying grievance grew stronger.
"There's room for this," she said, holding up a bottle of champagne, the last of a series, and unused because she had insisted upon moderation. He watched her place it in the bag. He had resolved never again to drink wine, but he would not refuse what she gave him, denying herself.
They said good-bye. He left her, promising soon to see her, and in his heart solemnly resolving that they should never meet again. The lie was but one more added to his catalogue of sins, and had been necessary. As to that provision for her needs, he would make it generously. He could not as yet see how details were to be arranged, but for the present there were other things to think of. A man cannot suddenly make the acquaintance of himself without paying some attention to the stranger.
He remained a day longer in the city, and then, absolutely unable to bear solitude, and with a manful struggle to avoid returning to the beckoning comfort he had left, he started on the dreaded journey homeward.
As he left the train in the early morning and crossed the Square toward his house he was, notwithstanding a half-defiant carriage, assumed to hide the cringing of his heart, probably the most miserable man in Hampton. He sat down upon the bench where he had rested after his first meeting with Berthe and, recalling that meeting, remembered how he had striven to give a jaunty trend to his thoughts, and had tried to persuade himself that the kissing episode was but a venial misstep, having indeed little of dignity, but even less of sin. Behold, now, to what it had led him!—that deed in which he had actually gloried, seeing himself, because of it, somewhat more a man of the world than was suspected, with experiences concerning which honor bound him to secrecy as it did men of experience; wherefore he had despised the blabbers of his college days, who either kissed not at all, yet boasted of such kissing, or, displaying equal ingenuousness and greater meanness, bragged of actual kisses. He recalled all this with real sorrow, not unmingled with contempt for the callow youth who had sat here indulging in boyish fancies, the wickedness whereof was surpassed only by their shallowness. It was then, he thought, that his unconscious yet diabolical arts upon the woman, destined to be his victim, had commenced. Though his present misery was as great as he could bear and his penitence sincere, nevertheless, there was an underlying consciousness, and pride in the fact, of more than ordinary fascinating powers, in respect of women. She had loved him from the moment she had seen him, and had loved him to her own destruction! Though he regarded with horror that which he believed himself to have compassed, yet the underlying complacency was there. All these years she had been faithful to his memory. Alas for her weakness! alas for the fate which had made him, in respect to her, a villain! He truly repented,—was he not bowed to the ground in humiliation and sorrow for his sin? Yet, was he wholly responsible, he who had, in ignorance, exercised seductive powers, possessed in ignorance?
The inner being of this man, of noble outward form, was not cast in heroic mould, such moulds being seldom used in the fashioning of our neighbors; yet he was no unusual product, being the inevitable result of various influences, for most of which he was not responsible. An idolized child, a boy of wondrous promise as of wondrous beauty, a youth completely filling all promises of boyhood, early called to the service of Heaven, and so, somewhat set apart and cherished with a care befitting a sacred vessel, to be guarded from every rude touch lest its perfection be endangered,—thus he had been fitted for the world. Every natural healthy instinct had been bent and distorted by the loving hands of ignorance, while equally natural impulses had been ignored as unwholesome weeds, which would find no place in a nature dedicated and cultivated for Heaven. He had been esteemed as somewhat higher than ordinary humanity, while human vices had been nourished in him so that they bore blossoms so fair to look upon that they were as virtues. His innate vanity had been so fostered that it had become the central product of his moral being, permeating every thought, mingled with every act. His most patent and engaging graces had been developed by this vice. His frankness, his amiability, his generosity, his mental aptitude, were all means for winning the esteem he craved, and had been employed, in fact, to that end. They were real virtues. He was in goodness all he seemed to be. The kindness of heart for which he was praised and loved, even this excellence aided in the nurture of that self-complacency which led him to ascribe the woman's undoing to his witchery, rather than to her willingness.
As he raised his eyes and caught sight of his home, and knew that he must enter the house, the subtle consolation which had formed the undercurrent of his despondency was forgotten, or, perhaps, its utter worthlessness for the moment recognized. The whole horrible load of regret weighed again upon him, crushing his spirit. There was no comfort now in any phase of his reflections. He had gone forth from the home of his innocent boyhood, as of his worthy manhood, unhappy, indeed, but claiming and receiving the respect of all his fellows. Now, he must creep back, so vile a creature that he dreaded to meet the eyes even of his servants.
As to his wife, though he had left her without good-bye, and though there had been estrangement between them, he knew that he must meet her face to face, and while he dreaded the meeting, still he longed for it and longed to throw himself upon his knees before her and confess. As to that which had estranged them, it seemed a trifle to him now. Let her have her will; if therein there was to be punishment for him, was he not willing to do penance all his days? As to those confidences made by Berthe, while he believed them, he believed only what he had been told. As to seriously thinking of actual guilt in connection with Natalie, she was too truly estimated by him, and he too truly innocent, still, to harbor base suspicions. But he knew that she had not loved him, and in the dismal oppression caused by his own misdeeds this conviction created a distinct and sharp pain, and yet it had its own alleviation. He, too, had something to forgive, and did forgive, even now, before forgiveness had been granted him. Yes, he would meet her face to face, and there should be repentance between them and, as each had done wrong, so each would do all that could be done in reparation, and if the sacrifice she had demanded of him be still required, he would make it.
And thus, while Natalie, in the cemetery, had seen the way to reconciliation with her husband, and had recognized that she had wronged him, and in that recognition had found in her heart a greater love for him than she had known before, so he with similar thoughts, though more confusedly and with less honesty, though not consciously dishonest, slowly made his way toward the house. He entered by means of his latchkey, meeting nobody, and went at once to the library. It was still early: doubtless Natalie was in her room. He was not sorry for a respite.
He was faint and felt the need of refreshment. No doubt, the maids were about, so he went toward the bell, then drew back, recognizing in his action his dread of meeting any occupant of the house. Then he remembered that in his valise was a small bottle of champagne. He was not sorry, now, for Berthe's foresight, and in his heart thanked her. He recalled how pleasantly this wine had affected him, how it had given him courage, and how his horrible depression had vanished under its influence. Notwithstanding his resolve to resume his old practice of abstinence in regard to wine, he was glad that he had this chance bottle, for he had never needed courage more than now. He wished he had some food, for he had eaten but little for many hours; the wine would serve until he had the courage to ask for food.
While he was opening his bottle the front-door bell rang. The library, its doorway hung with heavy curtains, faced the entrance to the house. Leonard, peeping between the curtains, saw Mark Claghorn admitted and ushered by the servant into the drawing-room.
The sight of Mark, whom he had supposed in Europe, aroused his anger. He hated Mark as one who had gained a love that should have been his own. Under the circumstances he was not sorry that his presence in the house was unknown. Mark, who was noted as an early riser, had probably ridden over from Stormpoint on some trifling errand, and, soon after Natalie appeared, would doubtless leave the house.
And so he waited, thirstily quaffing the champagne and wishing he had a biscuit. He tried not to think of the visitor in the drawing-room, but found that effort vain, thinking of him, in fact, with fast-rising anger, until he was on the point of seeking the man to force a quarrel on him which should banish the intruder from the house forever.
He was arrested in this intention by hearing Mark emerge from the drawing-room and walk quickly to the front door. Leonard peeped through the curtains and saw his wife, with her arms outspread, fall upon Mark's breast, and heard her cry aloud:
"My darling, my darling, welcome home!" and with upturned face she drew Mark's downward, kissing his lips as she had never kissed the watcher.
Who staggered backward, sinking into a chair, dazed as by a blow.
Her face had been illumined, glowing with happiness. Her dancing eyes, her outspread arms, her lips upturned, her gladness unrestrained, so impatient in her longing that she could not wait for greater privacy than the hall—in these he had seen a woman never seen by him before. This was Mark's welcome home. What was his to be?
Great tears streamed down his face; of wounded vanity, of love and trust betrayed, of growing fury. His moods followed fast one upon another. Now sunk in profounder depths of sorrow than any yet sounded, now raging with frantic lust for vengeance upon the woman and her lover.
Even while chaotic fancies whirled in his brain he could hear the murmur of their talk, ecstatic dalliance which he would interrupt.
Yes, he would disconcert their cooing, cover the pair with humiliation, eject the glib intruder and bring the woman to her knees.
But he could not move. He was chained to his chair. A horrible fluttering of his heart made him gasp for breath, his head fell back, his face and lips were white. The want of food, the nervous depression, the rage and exhaustion, all intensified by the sharp and unaccustomed fillip of the wine, had done their work. At first it was fainting, then came slumber.
For a moment Mark had yielded to the rapture of the first pure pressure of lips he had ever known. From the window he had seen Natalie advancing toward the house, and had involuntarily gone to meet her. The sight of her had quickened his blood, but if, for an instant, he had reveled in the bliss of the welcome she had granted him, almost in the same instant he recognized and regretted that he had dishonored her in accepting caresses not intended for him.
He drew her somewhat hastily into the drawing-room. Before he could say a word she had recognized him.
"Mark," she exclaimed, amazed, and then a rosy blush spread over her face.
"I startled you," he said. "It was absurd in me, unpardonable."
"I thought it was——" her voice faltered.
"Leonard, of course. Now welcome me for myself," and he took her hand and shook it warmly, after a proper, cousinly fashion, perhaps sadly noting the contrast, but striving to shield her embarrassment.
He succeeded, as far as appearances went. But both were conscious of emotion, though each strove gallantly to hide it.
"I am so surprised," she faltered. "You must have made a remarkable passage. Your mother did not expect you yet. In fact, Paula——"
"I took an earlier steamer than I had originally intended, and had a quick passage besides."
"How glad they must have been at Stormpoint!"
"They seemed so. I arrived last night."
"I am sorry Leonard is not home yet. I expected him this morning. He has been in New York."
"So the maid told me. Of course, I should not have disturbed you at this hour had I been aware of his absence. I rode over, and knowing that Leonard is, like myself, an early bird, thought I would say good-morning."
"I am very glad you did, Mark."
"Yet, it is always foolish to run outside of conventional grooves. The maid told me you were gone for a walk, and so I waited."
"Which was right. I am glad you waited."
Plainly she was uneasy and so, feeling rather foolish, he explained that in order to fulfil the duty of breakfasting at Stormpoint he must be going. Her suggestion that he remain and breakfast with her was made rather faintly. "Good-bye, Natalie," he said. "Remember me to Leonard. Next time I shall call in proper form."
And so he rode away, watched a little while by her, who then went to her own now belated breakfast. She sat at the table, eating hardly at all, seemingly lost in thought. Then she went slowly upstairs to her own room.
She sat down upon the bed, suddenly catching her breath, as one stifling a sob. Then she twitched her body with an impatient shake, like a naughty child. Then she rose quickly and began to rectify or complete various small duties, neglected by the maid, who had arranged the chamber while she had been out. Ornaments were to be lifted and dusted, pillows more carefully smoothed, chairs to be moved an inch forward then replaced. Mirrors to be wiped clear of invisible dust, but not, for some inscrutable reason, to be looked into; in short, pretended duty must be indulged in—a poor pretense, which died away as she sank into a chair and, with listless hands lying in her lap, permitted thought to have its way.
Had she known him or not? Of course she had not known him. Not even when (here she blushed and her lips parted slightly)——She was angry at her impetuosity, honestly angry. It was silly, but she had no other reproach to make to herself. It had not been her fault, coming from the sunny street, that she had not recognized the man who had advanced so eagerly to meet her,—the last person she could have expected to see in her own house. It would be absurd to feel more than passing annoyance at such a contretemps. Only a morbid conscience could find reproach for an episode in which there was no fault, which naturally she regretted——
No! She didnotregret. Had her heart not fluttered with joy every moment since it had happened? Was it true or was it not—she did not know, but, alas, she wished it true—that for one brief instant, ere he had released her, she had known him and had been happy? Happy! What a barren word was "happy."
Her thoughts wandered far—farther than ever before. The secret casket in her heart, wherein heretofore they had been hidden, was opened, and they rushed forth, to roam in regions forbidden, yet so fair that her feeble protests were unheeded; and she smiled upon them, these bright children of fancy, wandering with them in the paradise where Love has made his home. She closed her eyes and strove to realize again the brief ecstasy of an hour ago. She knew—she must have known—in whose arms she had been enfolded. She wished it so; it must be so. Again she felt his beating heart against her own, his arms once more about her, his breast pressed close to hers. "Mark," she whispered, stretching forth her arms and pouting lips as one prepares for meeting other lips——
The morning grew old, and she still sat thinking of many things. She knew that she loved the man that had left her, with a love that must be his, and his only, shared by no other. She had known it as she had that morning stood upon the strand, seeing in the fleeting rainbows of the spray pictures of a life that might have been, but which could never be. She had turned her back upon the vision, well knowing why she turned away. She had seen it again in the cemetery and had denied it, bidding it begone forever; and she had met it on the threshold of her home, no longer a vision, but a fact so rapturous and so mighty that she dared no longer deny the truth. She loved him; she had always loved him.
She sat long, dreaming her pleasant dreams, which only slowly merged with the facts with which she was environed. Very gradually the full import of her thoughts came home to her, but it came surely, disclosing an abyss so evil and so deep that she was appalled, and sinking upon her knees she cried aloud that she was a guilty creature, and prayed fervently and long for aid to be that which she had only that morning resolved to be, a faithful wife in thought as in deed.
At last she went downstairs. Entering the library, she discovered her husband.
He still slept, the deep sleep of exhaustion. She watched him, noting the careworn face, the disheveled dress. To her he looked like a man who had passed through a crisis of illness, he was so changed.
And now the regret and penitence for all the wrong she had done him pressed upon her as a heavy weight. She was his wife, yet had driven him from her side. She was his wife, yet had, within an hour, dreamed her dreams of love and happiness in which he had no share.
When Leonard awoke to find her bending over him, the anxiety in her eyes looked to him like fear. He had no perception of the fact that hours had passed since in the meeting in the hall he had seen the same eyes dancing with the light of joy, and had heard from the drawing-room the fond murmurs of forbidden love. In his first awakening the scene he had witnessed and the murmurs he had heard swayed before his eyes and sounded still in his ears. Fresh from dalliance with her lover, she might well tremble to find her husband here! With this thought uppermost, he staggered to his feet.
She started back. He glared upon her with a gaze so furious that she was in truth afraid.
For the burden of her guilty dream weighed heavily upon her, justifying the hatred in his eyes, a hatred born of the ascription of all his woes to her, and while she saw abhorrence, the suffering he had endured was no less plainly written in his haggard face, accusing her even as she accused herself. Her sins against this man, her husband, the father of her dead child, crushed her with the burden of the humiliation born of them.
"My husband!" In her self-abasement she sank upon her knees. The action was instinctive in her of Gallic training; to Leonard, bred to less dramatic display of emotion, it was proof of guilt far deeper than he had until now suspected.
"Get up," he said harshly, and taking her by the arm he led her to the doorway, pushing her from the room and, with unconscious violence, almost throwing her against the opposite wall. He returned to the room and rang the bell. His rudeness had given him a sense of mastery in his own house, and had dissipated his dread of meeting the servants. He asked the maid if breakfast would soon be ready, and was surprised to learn that it was long past noon.
Ordering a meal to be prepared he went upstairs, boldly and with something not unlike a swagger in the perception that there were sinners as bad as he, and having bathed, being clothed in fresh garments, and having eaten almost ravenously, he felt, he said to himself, like a new man.
Which indeed he was, if new thoughts make a new man. That dreadful load of regret for his own misdeeds had been lifted from his shoulders. His violence toward his wife had somewhat shocked himself, and while attending to his physical needs, he had had time to regret his hasty outbreak; and this fact led him to resolve to consider the situation calmly and judicially.
To know all is, if the French adage be true, to pardon all, which is perhaps the reason why we find it easier to forgive our own sins than those of others. We presumably know what motives actuated us in evil-doing, and being aware of the strength of the force that drove us, we are conscious of the fact that had the incentive to sin been less powerful than our rectitude we would not have been guilty. In other words, we sin because we can't help sinning, a logical and soothing conclusion, converting our wickedness into misfortune and rendering us objects of self-commiseration rather than of self-condemnation.
But in that contemplation of the iniquity of others, to which circumstances sometimes impel us, and which is always so painful, the strength of temptation which we have not personally experienced is less obvious, while at the same time the sense of our own rectitude is naturally in the ascendant. And as, in such contemplation, our judgment is inevitably swayed by our morality in its sternest mood, especially if the crimes under consideration have wronged ourselves, our indignation is naturally fervent. It is also true that our vision is clarified, our memory sharpened, and we recall incidents, now corroborative of guilt, though heretofore unremarked, or regarded as innocent.
Leonard recalled so many of such incidents that at last nearly every remembered act of his wife assumed a semblance of guilt. There were those visits to churches mentioned by Berthe, the woman who truly loved him, and who, doubtless, had minimized the truth to spare him, and the same habit had been indulged in after marriage. It was not to pray that she went to the churches; he remembered that she had herself said so. No; it was to dream of the old unhallowed meetings in the hallowed precincts. To dream! Why not to meet her lover? During much of their sojourn in Paris, Mark had been supposed to be in London—what was a passage between London and Paris to Mark? He remembered now that in Natalie's bearing toward himself there had always been a vague and undescribable something which he could not define, but which he had felt. It was easy now to fix the date of the commencement of this aloofness (he had found this word for it); it had been during the visit in Paris. He recalled a thousand instances with which to torture his mind and prove his suspicions true. The aloofness had increased; after the birth of the child it had even been noticed by others—and then as a blow came the conviction that the inferences she had drawn from his belief in hell and her consequent resolve to live a celibate life were all pretense, a ghastly role played in obedience to her lover's command.
As this hideous thought took possession of him all semblance of judicial summing up was put aside. He laid his head between his hands and wept aloud in his great misery. He had loved her; she had been the light of his life. He remembered her now (and the vision he recalled was strangely clear and vivid) as she had stood at the entrance to the cave where dwelt the echo of Forellenbach; she laughing a little at the strange American boy who thought wine-drinking an evil; he standing within the cave, half shy, half proud, and longing to wake the echoes with the pretty name, on that day first heard by him. Yes; he had loved her then and always, while she,—and he groaned and his hot tears fell fast as he remembered that Berthe had said—Berthe who knew—that his wife had never loved him!
The thoughts that racked him were base and unworthy, but he believed them. It may be that at the bottom of his heart he wished to believe, even while the belief rent him with actual anguish. He needed justification for his own sins, and true to his human nature, found it where he could. Again, perhaps dim as yet, but only dim because he closed his eyes, was the desire to be driven to a step which he had hardly dared contemplate, which he had refused to contemplate when it had been suggested to him, but toward which now he was making his way as certainly as he who, lost in the gloom of some dark forest, makes his way toward a rift of light.
He took Mrs. Joe's cheque from his pocket and looked at it. He recalled a suggestion of Berthe that they cash it and go to France together. The suggestion had startled, yet had fascinated him. He had put it aside. Now its fascination returned with tenfold power—to put the ocean between him and the past; to be a denizen of that land where man can be free; to be one of those who, being damned, refuse to accept misery in this life as well—he had recognized it then as a picture painted by the devil; it now assumed a worthier aspect. There would be boldness in such a step, a certain picturesqueness as well, and a dramatic ending to the play in which he had enacted the role of dupe. The curtain would be rung down upon a scene not contemplated by the authors of the drama—a scene in which he alone would retain some dignity, to the discomfiture of those whose puppet he had been.
No thought of financial dishonesty was in his mind. The peculiar fascination in the cheque was the facility it afforded for complete and sudden rupture of every tie. He could secure the maker of the cheque against loss; that could be done at his leisure; meanwhile, there it lay, a golden bridge for passage across an abyss of shame, beyond which lay a region of beauty and content.
Yet even while he mused, finding a balm for wounded pride and love betrayed in visions, of which the central figure was the woman who had parted from him in despair, and whose pleading eyes even now besought him, while his own lonely heart called out to her—even now, when despair on the one hand, and passion on the other, strove for mastery, even now he turned from the devil's beckoning finger, resolving to be just.
Yes; the accused should have a hearing. He would confront his wife and demand an explanation of that meeting in the hall. She was probably aware that he had witnessed it, for she had crouched in fear before him when she had unexpectedly found him in the library. If she had not known of his presence he would inform her and warily watch her, and carefully weigh whatever she had to offer in explanation. He would not be deceived, but she should meet the accusation face to face, himself accuser, judge and witness.
He looked at his watch. It was after nine o'clock. Natalie could hardly be in bed. He would see her now in her own room, away from the chance of eavesdropping servants.
He prepared to put his intention into effect and was already in the hall, when a maid handed him a sealed note.
He read the letter. It commenced abruptly, without address:
"Your violence has so agitated me that it has only been after a long struggle that I have brought myself to write you. But I persuade myself, as indeed I must, that you were unconscious of your harshness. I will not, therefore, offer you my forgiveness for an offense which was unintentional. But I think it better that we do not meet immediately. I am the more urgent in this because I wish your spirit to be soothed and your anger against me to be mitigated, so that you shall hear me calmly. For, I have much to say to you—a sad confession to make which may be even harder for you to bear than the sorrow you have already borne. But I have hope that if you will hear it calmly you will recognize that if I did not love you I could not open my heart to you, as I shall do. My husband, I have not been that which I so long to be in future, a true wife to you. But I know, for I know your goodness of heart, that when you have heard all you will pardon all, and that our future shall be cloudless; that your love shall help me to be that which I have failed in being—your faithful wife."
"Your violence has so agitated me that it has only been after a long struggle that I have brought myself to write you. But I persuade myself, as indeed I must, that you were unconscious of your harshness. I will not, therefore, offer you my forgiveness for an offense which was unintentional. But I think it better that we do not meet immediately. I am the more urgent in this because I wish your spirit to be soothed and your anger against me to be mitigated, so that you shall hear me calmly. For, I have much to say to you—a sad confession to make which may be even harder for you to bear than the sorrow you have already borne. But I have hope that if you will hear it calmly you will recognize that if I did not love you I could not open my heart to you, as I shall do. My husband, I have not been that which I so long to be in future, a true wife to you. But I know, for I know your goodness of heart, that when you have heard all you will pardon all, and that our future shall be cloudless; that your love shall help me to be that which I have failed in being—your faithful wife."
No need now, having read this confession, to consider his future course. It was fixed. He looked at his watch. The train left at midnight. He would write the necessary answer to the letter at once.
He wrote swiftly and without pause. His brain had never been clearer, his heart never lighter.
A few minutes before midnight he quietly left the house. When he had crossed the street to the Square he looked back at the only home he had ever known. For good or for evil he was about to leave it, never to return the husband of the woman who watched in the dimly lighted chamber. A sob shook him as he turned from the light toward the darkness.