"TheVan Antwerps have come up for the summer," said Miss Joanna, who had made the same announcement, if you remember, not quite a year before. "The butcher says they came last night. They never got here so early before."
Elizabeth, who was arranging flowers, looked up suddenly. "Yes, I know," she said, quietly, "Eleanor wrote me." She left her roses half arranged, and wandered restlessly over to the long French window. Before her stretched the well-kept lawn, with its flower-beds and rose-bushes and beyond, field and wooded upland, all clothed in their newest, most vivid dress of green; further still the river, with the white sails on its surface—that river from which, more than half a century before, another Elizabeth Van Vorst had resolutely turned away her eyes, refusing to be reminded of the life that she had given up. But that woman of an older generation was made of sterner stuff, perhaps, than her grand-daughter. And then there was not much travel in those days, no daily mails, no guests coming up to neighboring house-parties over Sunday.... "It will be nice for you, Elizabeth, to have Mrs. Bobby," said Aunt Joanna, in her comfortablemonotone, her knitting-needles clicking peacefully. "You have found it a little dull, you know, dear, since you came back."
A little dull! Elizabeth could have laughed out loud at the words. A little dull—with such exciting subjects to discuss as the new Easter anthem, and the latest illness of the Rectory children; with such diversions as a drive to Bassett Mills, a tea-party at the Courtenays! ...
"If I am dull," she said, turning round presently with the ghost of a smile "It certainly isn't the fault of the Neighborhood. I didn't tell you that Mrs. Courtenay has asked me to tea—a third time. She says 'Frank will see me home—no need to send the carriage.'" She laughed a little, not without a shade of bitterness. "Fancy Mrs. Courtenay suggesting that—last summer!"
"Well, dear, she means well, I suppose," said Miss Joanna, puzzled but kindly. Miss Cornelia raised her head with a little, involuntary touch of pride.
"The Courtenays are—are really quite pushing, I think," she said, a most unwonted tone of asperity in her voice. "I told Mrs. Courtenay, Elizabeth, that you had been sovery gay"—with emphasis—"you really needed a complete rest."
Elizabeth laughed. "And of course," she said "that only made her—dear good woman!—all the more anxious to provide me with a little more amusement. I never realized before how fond the girls have always been of me. But then that's the case, apparently with the whole Neighborhood. Theyalways concealed their affection for me very successfully—until this spring!"
She paused, her aunts made no reply. She went over to the piano and began absently turning over sheets of music.
"Do you remember, auntie," she said, abruptly—Miss Joanna had left the room in response to a summons from the maid, and Elizabeth and Miss Cornelia were alone—"do you remember that I told you once that I felt myself a sort of nondescript—neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring? But now I seem to be considered a very fine fowl indeed—the ugly duckling, probably, that turned into a swan."
"You never were anuglyduckling, my dear," Miss Cornelia could not help protesting, in spite of her principles. "It certainly wasn't that."
"Perhaps not," said Elizabeth, "at all events, I'm no better-looking than I was—let us say, last year. I heard a woman at The Mills say the other day that I had "gone off terrible," in my looks. But that doesn't prevent Frank Courtenay from coming here day after day, boring me to death, since he has discovered as his mother tells me, that I am "just the style that he admires"—it doesn't prevent the Johnston girls from going into raptures over my beautiful hair, and asking if I mind their copying my lovely gowns. Theyhavecopied my new spring hat, if you notice. Oh, it would be amusing, if it wasn't—so very petty!" She put out her hand with a weary, contemptuous gesture. "And then the funny part of it all is that I am not really so nice, if they only knew it, as I was last year, when theyall treated me as if I had committed some sort of crime, merely in existing."
"My dear," remonstrated Miss Cornelia, "how can you talk like that? I'm sure you're not a bit spoiled—every one says so."
"Ah, they think so," said Elizabeth, quickly, "they think me nice, because I've acquired a society manner, and say the correct thing, but if they knew—everything"—she stopped suddenly and stood for a moment staring steadily before her, with knit brows. "Do you know, Aunt Cornelia," she said abruptly "what I think I am?—a sort of moral nondescript, neither good nor bad. I see the right way—oh, I see it so very plainly, and I want to take it; and then I choose the wrong—always and inevitably I choose the wrong, and shall all my life, until the end. It's not my fault, really—I can't do right, no matter how hard I try."
"My dear!" Miss Cornelia looked at her, puzzled and shocked. "There's no one," she said, putting into trite words her own simple conviction "there's no one, Elizabeth, who can't do right, if they try hard enough."
"Do you think so, auntie?" said Elizabeth, very gently. "Then probably I don't try—hard enough." She went over to Miss Cornelia and kissed her on the cheek. "If I were like you," she said, "I should." Then without further words, she sat down at the piano and began to play, as she did every day for hours at a time. Such restless, passionate, brilliant playing! A vague uneasiness mingled in Miss Cornelia's mind with her pride in the girl'stalent, as she listened to it. Something was troubling Elizabeth, evidently; something which had brought her home so unexpectedly, which had changed her in looks and manner beyond what could be accounted for by excitement and late hours. Yet innate delicacy and timidity prevented Miss Cornelia from forcing in any way the confidence which seemed to tremble, now and again, upon the girl's lips. She had a vague idea that the difficulty, whatever it was, would soon be decided one way or another, that the Van Antwerps' arrival, which Elizabeth seemed at once to dread and look forward to, would bring matters to a crisis, and the whole thing would be explained.
Elizabeth was still playing when Mrs. Bobby interrupted her. That she had not allowed a day to elapse before hastening to the Homestead was a fact noted with jealous care by the Misses Courtenay, who met her at the gate.
"He is desperate." Mrs. Bobby's visit had not lasted many minutes before she murmured this, holding Elizabeth's hand, and scanning eagerly her averted face. At Mrs. Bobby's words it quivered, the color flushed into her cheek; but otherwise she made no sign.
"When you first went away," Mrs. Bobby continued, as no answer came, "he was all for coming up here at once. He thought it a caprice, a morbid, unaccountable whim; he was sure that if he could see you, remonstrate with you—And then there was your letter, forbidding him to come. He was beside himself! It was all I could do to keep himfrom taking the first train up here. I said—Wait—it doesn't do, always, to force a woman's will; give her a little time. At least she has paid you the compliment, which she has paid to no one else of—running away from your attentions."
She paused, her eyes still eagerly fixed upon Elizabeth's face. The color in the girl's cheek was now brilliant, her lips were parted; but still she did not speak.
"Day after day," said Mrs. Bobby, "we have talked it over—he walking up and down, restless, wild; I trying to soothe him, urging him to be patient—Sometimes he thinks that you are revenging yourself in this way for his former neglect, that it is a little scheme to pay him back—the idea drives him frantic, makes him furious with himself, yet he is always encouraged when he thinks of it. And then again—he thinks that you don't care for him, that you never will, that there is some one else.... Ah, my dear, if you really do care, you are cruel, unpardonably cruel, to torment him like this."
Again she paused. Elizabeth, with a quick, impatient movement, dragged her hand away from her grasp, and began to pace up and down, gasping as if for breath. "Cruel," she cried out, "cruel! And you think it gives me pleasure—to torment him!"
"If it doesn't," said Mrs. Bobby, following her with her eyes and speaking with some coldness, "I confess I am at a loss to account for your behavior."
Elizabeth stopped suddenly and bending down,almost buried her face in the roses, whose fragrance she inhaled.
"There never was a man," said Mrs. Bobby, "who loved a woman more than he loves you, Elizabeth. And there isn't a man, who, I believe, deserves a woman better."
"Deserves her!" murmured Elizabeth, "deservesme! Oh, good Heavens!" The exclamation was barely audible, and apparently addressed only to the roses.
"I said to him yesterday," said Mrs. Bobby, "'You'll come up Saturday, of course?' But—he's proud now and hurt, Elizabeth—he said: 'I won't come, I won't force myself upon her without—her knowledge and consent. If she knows, if she's willing, why, then, I'll come—not otherwise.'"
There was a pause. Elizabeth turned presently a face which seemed to reflect the glowing color of the roses over which she had bent. "What do you—want me to do, Eleanor?" she asked, softly.
"Tell me what I shall say," said Mrs. Bobby "in the letter which I must write when I get home." She went over to Elizabeth and put her hand on her arm. "Shall he come, or shall he not? It rests with you."
Elizabeth's eyes were again averted. "It isn't for me, Eleanor," she murmured, "to drive your guests away, if—if they really want to come."
And so Mrs. Bobby, when she got home, wrote her letter. It consisted of only one word.
The Saturday following was extremely warm.The Rector and his wife came to take tea at the Homestead, and they all sat afterwards in the dimly-lighted drawing-room. Elizabeth wandered to the long French window, and stood looking out upon the moon-lit lawn. "It's so warm that I think I shall go for a walk," she said, half aloud, but no one heard her. The Rector was telling Miss Cornelia about the death of an old clergyman in Cranston, who had lived alone with two old servants. Elizabeth stood and listened for a moment to the deep, impressive tones which mingled strangely with the comfortable monotone which the Rector's wife was addressing to Miss Joanna.
"And so," she was saying "you see I have had blue put on it again, being more summery"—
"I feel particularly sorry," the Rector's voice broke in, "for the old servants. They were quite prostrated, I fear, poor things! They too have not long to live."
"Black satin at four dollars a yard," said his wife, "is sure to last forever."
"He was an excellent man," said the Rector. "His death is a great loss." But here Elizabeth, weary of listening, softly turned the knob of the window and stepped out on the lawn.
What a beautiful night it was outside! The long twilight was fading into dusk, but the moon silvered the shadows that the trees cast across the road. Elizabeth walked to the gate and stood leaning against it. In the distance she heard distinctly the sound of a horse's hoofs. It grew nearer and nearer, and in a few moments a man on horseback wasbeside her, and drew his rein abruptly before this figure in white, which stood like an apparition in his path.
"Elizabeth," he said. "Elizabeth, is it you?"
"Did you think it was my ghost?" she asked, with a soft laugh. Her white gown shimmered in the moonlight, her hair framed in her face with a vivid halo, her eyes shone like stars. Gerard sprang from his horse.
"Elizabeth," he said "were you waiting for me?"
"Yes," she answered, "I was waiting for you."
And the next moment he had her in his arms, and she had forgotten all other thoughts, all other claims, beneath the fervor of his kisses.
Thesummer passed for an eventful one at Bassett Mills, being marked by at least two subjects of conversation; the one the engagement of Elizabeth Van Vorst of the Homestead "that girl of Malvina Jones," to a gentleman from town, who was reported to be "rolling in wealth;" the second, the illness of Amanda Jones, of that fashionable disease called nervous prostration, which no other girl at Bassett Mills but Amanda, who had always given herself airs, would have had the time or the money to indulge in. She had been taken ill while visiting her relations in New York, and her mother had gone up to nurse her, and announced on her return that Amanda was "that nervous" the doctor—"the best that could be had," as she observed with pride, had recommended complete rest, and sending her to a sanitarium for a few months.
"But there really ain't much the matter with her," Amanda's mother explained rather tartly to Elizabeth, who inquired for particulars as to her cousin's illness. "She has fits of crying, and then of sitting still and staring straight before her, like as if she was in a trance, and then she'll get up, and walk up and down the room for hours, and sometimes she'll notice you, and sometimes she won't—but dearme, it's all nonsense, I say. If she had some hard work to do, it would be better for her—but the doctor didn't seem to think so, and so I let her go to the sanitarium. No one shall say that I grudge the expense, as, thank Heaven! I don't have to, though there ain't another person at The Mills that wouldn't."
"I'm sure I hope it will do her good," Elizabeth said, kindly. She felt so glad to have Amanda, whatever the reason, away from Bassett Mills that she was conscious of a sudden pang of remorse, which increased when she received a letter from her cousin, congratulating her upon her engagement. It was a perfectly rational letter, with only slight references to her illness, and none at all to that unpleasant last interview in town; and Elizabeth answered the congratulations in the same amicable spirit in which they were offered, reflecting that, after all, much of Amanda's peculiarity must be excused on the ground of her persistent ill-health. And yet, as she sealed and directed her own letter, she breathed again a fervent thanksgiving that Amanda was safely out of the way.
There was another person for whose absence just then she felt devoutly thankful. When her engagement was announced, early in July—against her own wishes and in deference to Gerard's—she had received a terrible letter from Halleck, denouncing her perfidy, and threatening to come up at once. She had answered it as best she could, imploring his silence, and enclosing a sum of money which she borrowed from her aunts, on the plea of urgentbills—far from mythical, unfortunately, but which remained unpaid. Whether or no Paul granted her request, he pocketed the money, and she next heard of him as having gone abroad for the summer. The piece of news, casually mentioned one day in the course of conversation, thrilled her with a sense of overpowering relief, a suggestion, against which she struggled in vain, of possible accidents, of all the things that might reasonably happen to those who travel by sea or land. Elizabeth breathed a devout wish—it might almost be called a prayer—that this particular traveler might never return.
Meanwhile, the summer passed; a cool, delightful summer, rich with a succession of fragrant, sunshiny days and long, balmy evenings; and signalized by what for the Neighborhood was an unusual amount of gaiety. Several entertainments were given in honor of Elizabeth's engagement, among others a large dinner at the Van Antwerps'. And for this Elizabeth wore—it was Gerard's fancy—the same white gown in which he had first seen her, which he vowed that he cared for more than all her other gowns put together. And though she had pouted a little and declared that the others were far more smart, she yielded to his wishes in this, as she did in most things. Yet during the evening she noticed now and again his eyes fixed upon her with an odd, doubtful expression, as one who searches his memory for the details of a likeness, and finds inexplicably something lacking.
"I know what it is," he announced, abruptly, when they had wandered after dinner for a littlewhile into the conservatory. "I was wondering what it was I missed, and now I know. You haven't got on your pearls. You wore them that night—in fact, I never saw you in full dress without them."
She flushed beneath his wondering gaze, reflecting how constantly he had observed her, wishing—almost—that he had not observed her quite so much.
"Did you forget them?" he asked smiling, as she made no response, but merely put up her hand to her white neck, as if just reminded of the fact that it was unadorned.
She plucked a rose from a plant near by, and began, nonchalantly, to pull it to pieces.
"Oh, I—I didn't feel in the mood to put them on," she said carelessly. "I—somehow I think I shallnotbe in the mood to wear them again for a long while."
He was watching her lazily, an amused smile gleaming in the depths of his dark eyes. "What an odd, capricious child you are!" he said. "You're all made up of moods. I never know what to expect next."
She was picking the rose to pieces very deliberately, petal by petal, her eyes cast down. "Yes, I'm all made up of moods," she echoed, softly. "You must never be surprised at anything I do or say."
"I'm not," he returned, smiling. "And yet," he went on, after a moment, "I confess I'm a little surprised—and disappointed at this last one. I was thinking, to tell the truth, as I had an idea youvalued those pearls particularly, of asking you to let me have them, so that I could get you another string to match them exactly."
The last petal of the rose fell from Elizabeth's hand, she stared up at Gerard with an odd, frightened expression. "Don't," she broke out, harshly. "I—I hate pearls." Then with a sudden change, as she saw the absolute bewilderment in his face, she laid her hand gently on his arm. "Dear," she said, very sweetly, "you must have patience with my moods. I've got an idea, just now, that pearls are unlucky. It's very silly, I know, but—don't argue with me. Bear with me, Julian, let me have my own way—a little."
They were alone in the conservatory. He put his arm around her and pressed his lips to hers. "A little," he murmured. "Have your own way—a little! Didn't I tell you, my darling, that you should have your own way in everything?"
She seemed to shrink away with an involuntary shiver at the words. "Ah, but I don't want it," she protested. "It's the last thing I want. If"—she freed herself from his hold and stood looking him, very sweetly and steadily, in the face—"if we are married, Julian"—
"If!" he echoed, reproachfully.
"It's always safer to say 'if'" she said.
"Ah, but that's a suggestion I won't tolerate," he declared, firmly. "I'll have my own way in that, if in nothing else. But,whenwe are married, Elizabeth"—he paused.
"When we are married, then,"—she ceded thepoint resignedly, blushing rosy red—"when we are married, Julian, it must be your way, not mine. Yours is far better, wiser—yes"—she stopped his protest with an imperious gesture—"I feel it, even though I try sometimes to dispute it. I shall never do that—later. I shall try, with all the strength I have, to be more worthy of your love. But now—just now, Julian"—she looked at him anxiously, and a note of appeal crept into her voice—"if I seem odd, wilful, don't blame me, don't—doubt me"—
"Doubt you?" He took her hand and raised it reverently to his lips. "I shall never doubt you—again, my darling, no matter what you do or say."
There was the ring of absolute confidence in his voice. Yet it might have been that which made her shiver and shrink away, almost as if he had struck her a blow.
"I—I think we had better go back to the others," she announced, abruptly, in a moment, and her intonation was quick and sharp, almost as if she were frightened and trying to escape from some threatened danger. "It"—she smiled uncertainly—"it's not quite good form, I think, for us to wander off like this."
"Hang good form!" said Gerard, but still he followed her back resignedly to the other room, and she gave, as they reached the lights and the people, a soft sigh of relief, which fortunately he did not hear. Yet he noticed that for the rest of the evening she was paler than she had been at first.
This pallor increased when Mrs. Bobby, too, voiced the question which had been perplexing her all theevening, as to why she did not wear the pearls. Elizabeth did not mention her moods—it is evident that women cannot be put off, in such important questions as that of jewelry, with the vague answers that might satisfy a man. She said that the string had broken, and she had sent them to town to be re-strung. Her aunts knew that they had been there for that purpose since early spring, and they could not understand why she did not send for them, since other things had been left at the same jeweler's—notably that little jeweled watch, which they had heard of, but never seen. It was odd that Elizabeth should have lost, to so large an extent, her taste for pretty things.
Gerard, too, noticed this, but he would not ask her any more questions. Later he gave her a string of emeralds set with diamonds, which she wore to entertainments in the Neighborhood that autumn, and no one asked any more questions about the pearls, since it was natural that she should prefer to wear his gift.
His trust in her was absolute, as he had said. It seemed as if he would make amends now by the plenitude of his confidence, for that former instinctive, reasonless distrust. And then she was so different from the frivolous girl he had first imagined her. Every day he reproached himself with his old estimate of her character, as he discovered in her new and unexpected depths of brain and soul. She read all the books that he recommended—some of them very deep, and she would once have thoughtvery tiresome—and she surprised him by the intelligence of her criticisms, she took a sympathetic interest in those articles by which he was making a name for himself in the scientific world, and she entered with an apparently perfect comprehension into all his hopes, thoughts and aspirations. There was only one thing in which she baffled him, one point where her old wilfulness would come between them. This was her obstinate and unaccountable refusal to name their wedding day.
The Neighborhood was exercised on the subject. It had been decided by unanimous consent that the wedding should be in the autumn—"quite the best time for a wedding" as the Rector's wife observed, and lay awake one whole night planning the most charming (and inexpensive) decorations of autumn leaves and golden-rod. But all the reward she received for her pains was the information that Elizabeth did not care for autumn weddings, and as the Misses Van Vorst at Gerard's request, had taken a small apartment in town for the winter, the Rector's wife had many pangs at the thought that the Bassett Mills church and her husband would lose all the prestige that would attend this great event—to say nothing of the fee.
But when Gerard, as a matter of course, spoke of their being married in town, Elizabeth looked up deprecatingly into his face.
"Wait till I'm twenty-one," she pleaded. "This is my unlucky year, you know. Do please, Julian, wait till it's over."
But Gerard's face was set in rigid lines, like that of a man who is determined to stand no more trifling. Elizabeth's unlucky year would not be past till April.
Itwas a bleak December day and Central Park seemed the last place where one would wish to loiter. The sky hung lowering overhead, gray, cold, heavy with the weight of invisible snowflakes. The wind made a dull moaning sound, as it stirred the bare branches of the trees. The lake, where at another season you see children sailing in the swan-boats, was nearly covered with a thin coating of ice. But Elizabeth Van Vorst as she stood with eyes intently fixed upon the small space of water still visible, did not seem to notice either the cold or the dreariness of the scene. She was leaning against a tree, and looking at nothing but the lake, till at the sound of foot-steps on the path, she turned to face Paul Halleck.
"So you got my note," she said, speaking listlessly, without a sign of surprise or satisfaction. She did not give him her hand, which clasped the other tightly, in the warm shelter of her muff.
"Yes, I got it; but I could wish you had chosen a warmer meeting-place, my dear." The last months had changed him, and not for the better. His figure had grown stouter, his beauty coarser. She shrank away in invincible repugnance from the careless familiarity of his manner.
"It was the best place I could think of," she said, curtly. "At home, we are always interrupted; at your studio—it is impossible. I had to see you—somehow, somewhere." She sat down on a bench near by, and shivering drew her furs about her.
"You do me too much honor," Paul returned, lightly. He took the seat beside her, his eyes resting, in involuntary fascination, on the rounded outlines of her cheek, the soft waves of auburn hair beneath her small black hat. "It's a long time since you have wished to see me of your own accord, my dear," he said, in a tone in which resentment struggled with his old, instinctive admiration of her beauty.
She turned to him, suddenly, her eyes hard, her face very white and set. "You know the reason." "I had to see you, to—to talk things over. You assume a right to control me, you ask me for money, you try to frighten me with threats. There must be an end of it. I"—she paused for a moment, and drew her breath quickly, while she flushed a dull crimson. "I have promised—Mr. Gerard," she said "to—to marry him next month."
He interrupted her with a scornful laugh. "To marry him—next month," he repeated. "And how about that ceremony which we know of—you and I—in the church at Cranston?"
The crimson flush faded and left her white, but still she did not flinch. "I have thought of that," she said, steadily, "and I have decided that it should not—make any difference. I don't believe the marriagewould be legal—but that's neither here nor there. I don't want a divorce, I don't want the thing known, I don't consider that we were ever married. I don't think such a marriage as ours, which we both entered into without the slightest thought, which we have repented of"—
"Speak for yourself," he interposed.
"Which I have repented of, then," she went on, "ought to be binding. The clergyman who married us is dead; the witnesses, so old that they are childish, probably remember nothing about it. There is no one now living who remembers, except you and I. And for me I have determined to think of it as a dream, and I want you to promise me to do the same."
"But—there is the notice in the parish register." He was staring at her blankly, admiring in spite of himself, the calm resolution of her manner, the business-like precision with which she was unfolding her arguments, as if she had rehearsed them many times to herself.
"I have thought of that, too," she said, in answer to his last objection, "and I don't think it in the least likely that any one will ever see it. Why should they, without any clue? At all events, this is—the only way out." She faltered as her mind wandered for a moment unwillingly to another way which she had now despaired of—too easy a solution to her difficulties ever to come true. What a fool she had been to think that he would die! People like that never die. As she saw him now, in thefull pride of his health and good looks, it seemed impossible to believe that any misfortune could assail him—least of all death! ...
"There is—no other way," she repeated, with a little, involuntary sob. "The risks are not great—but, at any rate, I must take them. Now, there is only one other thing"—She paused for a moment and then drew out of her purse a plain gold ring, and showed it to him. It was the ring which she had once worn on her finger for a few minutes, which she had kept carefully hidden ever since. She glanced about her; there was no one in sight except the policeman, who in the distance near the carriage-drive, was pacing up and down at his cold post and beating his hands to keep them warm. Elizabeth rose and went to the edge of the lake. With well-directed aim, she threw the tiny circlet of gold so that it struck the fast-vanishing surface of water and quickly disappeared. She drew a long sigh of relief. "There," she said, "that is over."
Paul watched her curiously. He saw that she attached to this little action a mysterious significance. He sneered harshly. "Very pretty and theatrical," he said. "But do you really think that by a thing like that—throwing away a ring—you can dissolve a marriage?"
She turned to him, her white face still resolute and intensely solemn. "I don't know," she said, quietly, "but I wanted to throw it away before you, so that you would understand that everything is over between us, and that day at Cranston is as if it never had been.Never had been, you understand,"she repeated, with eager emphasis. "I want you to promise to think of it like that."
He shrugged his shoulders. "How we either of us think of it, I suppose, doesn't make much difference so far as the legality of the thing goes," he said. "But,—have your own way. If you choose to commit a crime, it's not my affair."
"A crime!" She started and stared at him. "Do you call that a crime?"
He smiled. "It's a rough word to use for the actions of a charming young girl," he said "but I'm afraid that the law might look at it in that light."
Elizabeth returned to the bench and sat down. She seemed to be pondering this new view of the matter. "I can't help it," she said at last, in a low voice. "If that's a crime, why—I understand how people are led into them. And I can't ruin his happiness, crime or no crime."
"And my happiness?" he asked her bitterly. "You never think of that? You professed to love me once. You took me for better, for worse, and how have you kept your word? If my life is ruined, the responsibility is yours. If you had gone with me as I wanted you to, I should have been a different man." There was a curious accent of sincerity in his voice. He really believed for the moment what he said.
The reproach was not without effect. She looked at him more gently, with troubled eyes that seemed to express not only contrition, but a certain involuntary sympathy. "It's true," she said. "I have treated you badly, and broken the most solemn promiseany one could make. I don't defend myself; but—I'm willing to make what amends I can. I can't give you myself, but at least I can give you what little money you would have had with me. When I am married to"—she paused and flushed, but concluded her sentence firmly—"to Mr. Gerard, I will give you—all the money I have."
Paul paced up and down, apparently in deep thought. It was evident that her offer tempted him, yet some impulse urged him to refuse it. He stopped suddenly in front of her. "Principal or interest, do you mean?" he asked, in a tone in which the thirst for gain distinctly predominated.
The doubtful sympathy in Elizabeth's eyes faded, and was replaced by a look of unmistakable disgust. "I suppose I could hardly give you the principal," she said, coldly. "But I will pay over the income every year." She named the sum. "Isn't it enough?"
"That depends," he said, looking at her coolly. "It is enough, of course, for Elizabeth Van Vorst, but for Mrs. Julian Gerard"—
He stopped as an electric shock of anger seemed to thrill Elizabeth from head to foot. "You don't suppose," she cried, "that I would give youhismoney?"
"Then," said Paul, curtly, "he doesn't know?"
"Certainly not," she said, haughtily.
He began again reflectively to pace up and down. "I don't see," he said, "how you are to pay me over this money without his knowing it."
"Don't trouble yourself about that," said Elizabeth, contemptuously. "Mr. Gerard will never ask what I do with my money."
"Well he has enough of his own, certainly," said Paul, philosophically. "And yet, poor fellow, I am sorry for him if he ever finds out how you have deceived him."
"He nevershallfind out," said Elizabeth. She rose and pulled down her veil. "It is so cold," she said shivering, and indeed she looked chilled to the core. "I cannot stay here any longer. This thing is settled, isn't it? You will promise?" There was a tone of piteous entreaty in her voice.
"How am I to know," he asked, still hesitating "that you will keep your word? Once married to Gerard, you might—forget."
"If I do," she returned quietly, "you will always have the power to break yours and ruin my happiness."
"So be it, then. I won't interfere with you. After all, we probably shouldn't have got on well. Come—let us part friends, at least."
He held out his hand, but hers was again securely hidden in her muff, and the smile that gleamed on her face was pale and cold as the winter day itself. "Good-bye," she said, and turned away. He fell back, with a muttered oath.
"Upon my word, my lady," he said, "you might be a little more gracious." At that moment Elizabeth came back. There was a softer look on her face.
"I loved you once," she said. "Good-bye." And she held out her hand. He took it in silence. Thus they parted for the last time.
It had been a successful interview. She had gained all that she dared hope for. Seated in the warm car going home, and shivering as from an ague, she told herself that she had silenced forever all opposition to her wishes. Yet it did not seem a victory. Words which Paul had said lingered in her mind, stinging her with their contempt, the fact that even he could set himself above her. "A crime!" She had never considered it in that light. Surely it was impossible on the face of it that she, Elizabeth Van Vorst, could commit a crime.... And then again—what was it he had said? "Poor fellow, I am sorry for him, if ever he finds out how you have deceived him."
"But he never shall," she said to herself, resolutely as before. "Crime or no crime, his love is worth it. He never shall find out."
Elizabethhad little time in those days for thought. There was still less time, even, when she was alone with Gerard. The days passed in a whirl of gaiety, in which she had been swallowed up since her return to town. It was a state of things which bored Gerard extremely, but secure in the promise he had at last obtained from her that the wedding should be at the end of January he possessed his soul in such patience as he could muster. And when he requested as a special favor, that she would refuse all invitations for the thirty-first of December and see the Old Year out in peace, she consented at once, and the hope of a quiet evening buoyed him up through other weary ones, when he would lean in his old fashion against the wall, and watch her across a ball-room, the center of an admiring court. Yet, even as he did so, the proud consciousness of proprietorship swelled his heart. She was his—his! He had no longer any doubt of her, or jealousy of the men who talked to her.
Why then was the expected evening, when it came, fraught with an intangible sense of gloom, of oppression, which made the time pass heavily?The old Dutch clock, which the Misses Van Vorst had brought with them from the country seemed to-night to mark the hours with extraordinary slowness, as if the Old Year were in no hurry to be gone, even though the noises in the street, the blowing of horns and of whistles were enough, one might have thought, to hasten his departure.
Elizabeth was pacing restlessly up and down the room. Her hands were clasped carelessly before her, her long house-dress of white cashmere, belted in by a gold girdle, fell about her in graceful folds. There was a flush in her cheeks, a somewhat feverish light in her eyes; she started nervously now and then as some enterprising small boy blew an especially shrill blast on his horn.
"I don't know why it is," she said at last with a petulant little laugh, coming back to her seat by the fire opposite Gerard, and taking up a piece of work, in which she absently set a few stitches, "New Year's Eve always gets on my nerves, I think of all my sins—and that's very unpleasant!" She broke off, pouting childishly, as if in disgust at the intrusion of unwelcome ideas.
He was watching her lazily, with the amused, indulgent smile which certain of her moods had always the power to call forth; the smile of a strong man, who felt himself quite able to cope with them. "With such terrible sins as yours, Elizabeth," he said, "it must be indeed a dreadful thing to think of them."
She turned quickly towards him. "You don't think that they can be very bad?"
"I should be willing to take the risk of offering you absolution."
She bent down over her work so that her face was hidden. "Ah, you—you don't know"——she rather breathed than spoke. He only smiled incredulously, as one who knew her better than she did herself.
"Play for me, darling," he said, after awhile, and she went mechanically to the piano. But her playing was always a matter of mood, and to-night her fingers faltered, the keys did not respond as usual. She passed restlessly from one thing to another—snatches of Brahms, Chopin, Tschaikowski, with the same jarring note running through them all.
She broke off at last, with a wild clash of chords. "I can't play to-night," she said, and came back to the fire. "How calm you are!" she said, standing beside Gerard and looking down at him with eyes almost of reproach. "This horrible evening doesn't get on your nerves at all."
"How can it?"—Gerard possessed himself of her hand and raised it to his lips.—"How can I waste any regrets on the Old Year," he said, "when the New Year is to bring me—so much happiness?"
She started and caught her breath, as if the words held a sting. "Ah, yes," she repeated, very low "it is to bring you—so much happiness!" For a moment she left her hand in his and then withdrew it with a stifled sigh. She went back very still and pale, to her seat on the other side of the fire, and taking up her work, she fixed her eyes upon it intently.
"And so you think it is to bring you happiness?" she said, in a low voice, continuing the subject as it seemed in spite of herself. "You are quite sure of that, Julian, you have—no doubts?" She raised her eyes with a wistful questioning that puzzled him.
"Doubts, Elizabeth!" He stared back at her reproachfully, his brows drawn together frowning. "Why do you harp so much on that, my darling? Why should I have doubts?"
"Why, some men might, you know."—Her eyes were bent again upon her work.—"You yourself—you had them, you know, when you first knew me."
He flushed. "Don't remind me of that," he said, hastily.
"Well, it may have been a true presentiment."—She gave him an odd, furtive look. "I've wondered—sometimes—if I were as nice naturally as other girls I know. I hadn't, to begin with, the sort of mother that—most girls have"——She hesitated, a painful crimson flooded her face, her eyes filled with tears. Gerard stared at her in amazement. He had never heard her allude to her mother before, and had supposed her entirely ignorant of all painful facts in the family history.
"Darling," he broke out, indignantly, "who has told you—things like that?"
"Who? Oh! I don't know."—She put the question aside listlessly.—"One always hears unpleasant facts, somehow. I always knew that she wasn't the—the sort of person that the Neighborhood would call on"—a painful smile hovered about her lips."It used to make me very unhappy—but lately—it hasn't seemed to matter. And yet—I think of it sometimes"——She broke off suddenly and looked at Gerard with a strange light in her eyes. "Doesn't it make a difference to you? Doesn't it occur to you sometimes that I may be—my mother's daughter; that it would be wiser to—distrust me?" Her voice died away at the last words into a hoarse whisper.
"Elizabeth!"—Gerard sprang to his feet. He went over to her and took both her hands in his strong grasp. "Elizabeth, never let me hear these morbid fancies again. Never suppose that anything your mother did or left undone, can make a difference in my faith in you!"
He stood looking down at her with eyes full of an imperious tenderness. She trembled and shrank away before them, as if frightened. "You trust me, then?" she repeated, and she drew a long sobbing breath. "You're quitesureyou trust me?"
"Absolutely."—Gerard's smile lit up his face.—"How often, you exacting woman," he asked, "do you want me to promise that I will never doubt you again."
There was silence for a moment. The noises in the street sounding suddenly with redoubled violence in the stillness, seemed to punctuate Gerard's words with an outburst of derision. To Elizabeth's fancy the whole atmosphere of the room was tense, vibrant, filled with jarring echoes of the noise without. Even the old Dutch clock, whose ticking was one of her earliest memories, seemed to beat witha new, discordant note of mockery, as if it too were uttering its ironical comment on the wisdom of a man's faith.
Elizabeth shuddered and thrust Gerard's hands away. "I wish—I wish I deserved your trust, Julian," she broke out, wildly. Then she laid her face on the arm of the chair and sobbed. He fell back and stared at her aghast. The tender smile was arrested, frozen on his lips. For him, too, as for her, the room was suddenly filled with discordant vibrations, a sense of unreasoning dread.
In a moment Elizabeth looked up; with a great effort she conquered her tears. She went to Gerard and put her hand on his arm. The face she raised to his was white, trembling in a pathetic appeal. The tears still glistened on her long lashes, there was a tremulous sweetness in her great dark eyes, in the quivering lines about her pale lips. "Julian," she said, "if I'm not—not worthy of your trust—not worthy of your love, even"—she faltered—"if I had deceived you—weredeceiving you still"——she paused and looked him in the face with an agonized questioning.
"Yes?"—Gerard's hoarse voice urged her on.—"If you were deceiving me? It isn't—it can't be true, but if you were?"——
"If I were," she went on, steadily, "if I had kept one thing from you—against my will—oh, God knows! sorely against my will"—her voice broke—"if it had been a weight on my mind day and night—if I had longed to tell you and had tried to do it and always—my courage failed me, and—and—ifat last—at last, I told you—would you—think me so very much to blame, couldn't you—forgive?"—Her voice again faltered piteously, the last word was barely audible.
He broke away from her and took two or three turns up and down the room, breathing heavily, like a man who had been running. "Tell me what this secret is?" he broke out, fiercely, pausing suddenly in front of her. "How can I tell if——I could forgive, till I know what it is?"
Again the silence. Elizabeth's white lips tried, apparently in vain, to form an answer. The courage which a moment before had possessed her, seemed to shrivel up and die away, before that fierce light in his eyes.
"Tell me," he repeated, inexorably, "what it is."
She put out her hand suddenly with a pleading gesture. "Ah, let us first see the Old Year out together," she murmured, "as we planned. I should like to feel that you loved me till—the very end of it. You may not—afterwards. It won't be long. See—it's nearly time." She glanced up at the clock. It was ticking faster now, as it seemed, and steadily, the hour hand well towards midnight.
Elizabeth went to the window and flung it open. The current of cold air which flooded the room seemed to give her relief; she leaned out as far as she could, inhaling it in long, fevered gasps. Gerard followed and stood behind her, in an agony of impatience, distraught by a hundred incongruous, terrible suggestions. The prolonged suspense seemed, in his over-wrought state, a very refinementof cruelty, yet some instinct kept him silent, left to her the mastery of the situation.
In the street there was unwonted stir and bustle. A crowd assembled to greet the New Year. Small boys, whose horns made the night hideous, pranced about like uncouth imps of darkness; the street-lamps, as they flickered, cast a weird, uncertain light on the snow-covered ground. But the moon, riding overhead, shone peacefully, and myriads of stars studded the wintry sky. Down towards the Battery one could hear, above all coarser sounds, the chimes of Old Trinity ringing faint but true.
Elizabeth's eyes were riveted upon St. George's clock, which stood out, not many blocks away, above the roofs of intervening houses. Her lips moved, but no sound came; one hand grasped convulsively the curtain behind her. To Gerard as he watched her those fifteen minutes before the New Year were the longest of his life.
Suddenly all noises slackened; upon the listening crowd outside there fell a pause, a hush of expectation. St. George's clock boomed out the hour in twelve majestic strokes. The old Dutch clock within the room echoed it in quieter tones. And then, as the last stroke died away, the crowd stirred, there arose a hideous Babel of sound—cat-calling, shouting, blowing of horns and whistles; pandemonium set loose. It raged for several minutes, and stopped abruptly, exhausted by its own violence. There was again silence, and then a burst of laughter. Some one in the crowd cried loudly and heartily: "Happy New Year!"
Elizabeth shivered, as if with a sudden consciousness of the cold. She shut the window and faced Gerard. Against the vivid background of the crimson curtain, in her clinging white dress, her pale beauty, crowned by her red-gold hair, stood out with a strange, unearthly quality, like that of some pictured saint. There was a look on her face which was tragic in its despairing resolution, yet which had in it a certain exaltation, as if she had risen for the moment at least, above herself, to heights hitherto unknown.
"You shall know the worst of me, at last. You won't"—she gave an odd little laugh—"you won't grant me absolution, Julian, I'm afraid. But oh, I'm sick—God knows, I'm sick of lies!" She paused and caught her breath as if for one supreme effort. "This is the truth," she said. "I was married to Paul Halleck—before I knew you, more than a year ago."
He staggered back, as if she had struck him a blow. "You were—married—to Paul Halleck?"
"Yes," she repeated, in a dull monotone, "married to him—more than a year ago."
He was still staring at her as if stupefied. "Married!" he repeated, "married all this time!—when you professed to love me! When"—a pause—"you promised to marry me! Oh, it's impossible," he cried, with a sudden flash of incredulity, and he put out his hand and touched her involuntarily. "Say you're only playing with me," he begged her, "trying my faith—say it's not true." His voice shook, unconsciously his hand closed upon her wristwith a grasp that might have hurt her, had she been capable just then of feeling physical pain.
"It—it is true," she said, and stood motionless, white and rigid as a statue, her head bent.
He still stared incredulous for a moment, and then the reality of what she said seemed to sink into his soul. With a quick, involuntary gesture, which wounded more than words, he let her hand fall, and began to pace up and down the room.
"Good God!" she heard him mutter. "Married all these months!—and I, who loved you, trusted you!"——He broke off with a gesture of angry despair. Her lip quivered, her eyes followed him for a moment and then filled with tears. She went over to the mantel-piece, and resting her arms upon it, she hid her face.
It was a long time before he stopped beside her, but then his voice showed recovered self-control. "Will you tell me," he said, "exactly how and when this marriage took place?"
She turned with a little shuddering sigh and raised her white, exhausted face to his. "It was at Cranston," she said, quietly, "one day in July. I did it hastily. My aunts were opposed to it, and—I hated to make them unhappy. But I—I thought I loved him. It was a mistake. I went up to Cranston to meet him, and—we were married. It was in church—there were witnesses, we signed a register—it was all legal, or at least I suppose so. And then—when we came out"——she paused.
"Yes—when you came out?"—Gerard repeated the words hoarsely, his brows drawn together, hiseyes fixed upon her in an agonized questioning.—"What then, Elizabeth?"
She hesitated, staring straight before her, as if she were trying to recall the whole thing exactly as it happened. "When we came out of the church, I felt—I don't know why—I felt frightened. I seemed to realize—indeed, I think Ihadrealized all the time—what a mistake it was. He begged me to come away with him, and I—I refused. He had promised me that I should go home, and that he wouldn't claim me for six months, and—I held him to it. He gave in at last, and so—we parted"——
"Ah!"—Gerard drew a long breath.—"You—parted?"
"Yes. I left him and came home. I got there about four—my aunts suspected nothing. He went abroad. And—after a while he stopped writing, I thought he had forgotten me. It all began to seem like a dream. And then—Eleanor Van Antwerp asked me to come to town, and—the rest you know."
"No, not all." Gerard insisted. "When the fellow came home, why didn't he claim you? How have you kept him quiet, all this time?"
"Ah, that was easy."—She spoke listlessly.—"He didn't care anything about me; I used to give him money. I sold my pearls—all my jewelry, in fact. Yes"—as Gerard uttered a horrified exclamation—"it was a terrible bondage, but what could I do? He had me in his power. I used to wonder if the marriage were legal, but there was no one whom I dared ask. And then I thought sometimes that he might die—I had all sorts of wild ideas; but nothinghappened, and meanwhile he threatened—to tell you everything. I bought him off twice, and then—this last time"—she paused—"this last time I promised him all my income if he would give me up forever, and never trouble me again. Ah, you think it unpardonable, I see"—she put out her hand with a deprecating gesture—"but you don't know what it is to be tempted—desperate. I was determined I wouldn't ruin my life. And then—then"—her voice faltered—"this evening when you seemed so happy, so trustful—that was what hurt me, Julian—it was easier when you were jealous, suspicious, as you were at first—it came to me suddenly that I couldn't begin the New Year—I couldn't begin our life together with this—this terrible secret weighing on my soul. And so I—I told you"——
Elizabeth's voice faltered, she raised her eyes in a half conscious appeal. It seemed to her for the moment as if the agony of that confession must make amends to some extent even for such deceit as hers. But Gerard's face did not soften. Her whole conduct seemed to him monstrous, incredible. He could not accept as atonement this tardy repentance, the fact that she had told him the truth—at the eleventh hour.
The thought occurred to him, which she had herself suggested, earlier in the evening. He remembered chance gossip of the Neighborhood about her antecedents, listened to vaguely even before he knew her, and haunting him afterwards in the first days of their acquaintance, till love had made him castit aside, as a thing of no importance. Now it recurred to his mind as the only explanation—he did not accept it as an excuse—of this weakness which seemed otherwise inexplicable. No doubt there must be, he told himself, in the child of such parents,—it would be strange if there were not—some hereditary taint, some lack of moral fibre, which curiously imperceptible in other ways, must needs assert itself in any great moral crisis. The thought, which might have softened him, seemed at the time only to steel him the more against her.
He fell again to pacing up and down, thinking it over; seeing past incidents afresh in the merciless light of his present knowledge; recalling this or that insignificant circumstance which at the time had aroused, unreasonably as it seemed, his distrust;—her occasional uneasiness and distress, that air she had of being on her guard, the look in the picture—ah, he understood it now! It was the shadow of falsehood, which for months had clouded her every thought and action. What a fool he had been, he reflected fiercely—how he had allowed himself to be deceived—made an easy prey by the extent of his infatuation—how she had juggled with the truth, telling him the worst of herself in such a way that he had believed, all the more determinedly, the reverse.
He stopped at last his restless pacing to and fro and paused beside her. The fierce tide of anger, the first bitterness of his disillusion, had subsided. He was cold, with the coldness of despair. His face was worn and haggard, as if from the sufferingof years, but it was set in rigid lines, from which all feeling seemed to have vanished. His eyes were dry and hard.
"I think," he said, and there was a dull, toneless sound in his voice; he spoke slowly, like one who either weighed his words with great care, or was afraid to trust himself too far, "I think there had better be an end to this. I should only say, if I said all I thought, things I might afterwards—regret; and I wouldn't"—his voice broke ever so little—"God knows I don't want to be unjust! But I cannot"—he let his hand fall with a look of dull despair—"Icannotunderstand how you have kept this from me all these months!"
He paused, as if expecting an answer, an excuse, perhaps of some sort; but she said nothing, and he went on, after a moment, his voice growing more uncertain: "It isn't so much the marriage—that could be, perhaps"—He hesitated, his heavy brows drawn together frowning—"The man must be an absolute wretch," he said, suddenly, "there must be—for your sake I hope so—some way out"——
"Oh, for me"—she made a little gesture of utter carelessness—"for me it can make no difference—now."
"For myself," he went on, not heeding her words, perhaps not fully grasping their meaning, "I couldn't—whether the marriage held or not—I couldn't forgive—being so deceived."
He stopped and again seemed to expect some protest, but she only repeated, in a dull voice of completeacquiescence: "No, I didn't think you could forgive—being so deceived"——
"Even if I could forgive," he said, "I could never trust"——
"No," she repeated, "you could never trust." Her face was colorless, but impassive, as if it had been turned to stone, her voice was almost as firm as his. "You are quite right," she said. "I deserve all the harsh things you could say. It is kind of you to say—so few. Perhaps, later, you'll judge me more gently; but—I couldn't expect it now. And so"—she faltered and caught her breath, as if her strength failed her—"and so good-bye," she said at last. "I think it can only hurt us both to—discuss this any longer."
Her calmness stunned him. He had been prepared for tears—excuses—but she offered no defence and made no effort to arouse his pity. There was a dignity in her complete submission. He looked at her, his face working with varied emotions; and then he said "Good-bye" mechanically and took her hand for an instant. It was icy cold and lay impassively in his. He dropped it and moved towards the door, as if under some spell, deprived of all capacity for thought or feeling. Involuntarily, her eyes followed him. Was this the parting, after so many months? But at the door he paused, he looked back. The firelight played on her hair, on her white dress, the drooping lines of her slender form, the deathly pallor of her face, the despair in her eyes.... He softened, perhaps, or it might be that the mere physical spell of her beautyheld him, even when all that made the glory of his love, had been rudely shattered. He came back, caught her in his arms, and pressed burning kisses on her lips. She trembled as if they had been blows, but she made no effort to free herself. And then, as if ashamed of his weakness, he let her go and went out hastily. A moment later she heard the front door close, with a dull sound that echoed through the quiet rooms.
She stood where he had left her, staring blankly about her at the familiar objects which seemed to have acquired, during the last hour, an air of change, of unreality. What had happened, what had she done? Awhile ago she had been borne up by a courage that seemed almost heroic, a sense of moral victory. Now that had failed her. She was simply a woman despised and heart-broken, who by her own suicidal act had destroyed her happiness.
"How—how can I bear it?" she broke out, at last, fiercely, and sinking down on the hearth-rug, she lay prostrate, her face hidden, while her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs. The old Dutch clock ticked softly, pitifully, in the silence; the fire flickered and died away. But outside in the street spasmodic whistles kept on blowing, and belated wayfarers still bade each other, with laughter and jollity, "Happy New Year."
Itwas eight days later. Elizabeth's trouble and the New Year were both a week old. She had lived through the time somehow or another, had even faced those smaller trials which follow in the wake of any great catastrophe. She had told the whole truth to her aunts—it was only less hard than telling Gerard—she had written to her friends to announce the breaking of her engagement, and had countermanded the orders for her trousseau. These affairs disposed of, she was ready to face the world with such strength as she had left.
For Gerard the situation was simpler. He had taken at once his man's way out of it, and pacing the deck of an ocean steamer, he tried to distract his mind and forget his trouble in plans for extensive travel and scientific research. They had been his resource once before, when a woman had disappointed him.
He had not seen Elizabeth again. He dreaded, perhaps, to trust himself, or perhaps his anger was still too great. But he had written before he left to her aunts, urging them to consult a lawyer and take steps at once to free her from the results of herrash marriage. To himself, he justified this weakness—if it were weakness—by the thought of Halleck's baseness. "I could not bear to think of her as his wife," he said to himself, "a fellow who could give her up for money!"
Upon Elizabeth's aunts the affair had come like a thunderbolt. They were quite unprepared for it, though many suspicious circumstances—the mystery as to Elizabeth's jewels, her own occasional words—might have suggested the idea that something was amiss. But absorbed in their delight in the engagement, their affection for Gerard, they had not the heart to formulate any doubt they might have felt. Now, in the first shock of their awakening, they remembered unwillingly the same facts of family history which had occurred to Gerard. What could they have expected from Malvina's child but deceit, folly and disgrace? But they were gentle souls, and had no reproaches for Elizabeth, only a silent, sorrowful pity, which hurt the girl's proud spirit more than the sharpest words.
She was lingering that morning, pale and languid, over her untasted breakfast, and Miss Cornelia, from behind the coffee-urn, stole anxious glances towards her, all sense of injury lost in her distress over the girl's wretched looks, and fear that she was going to be ill. They two were alone, Miss Joanna having already started to do her marketing, when the maid entered with the belated newspaper. Miss Cornelia held out her delicate, tremulous hand for it, nervously apprehensive of that paragraphwhich no doubt in the society columns, announced that the engagement between Miss Van Vorst and Mr. Gerard had been broken "by mutual consent."
It was not this notice which met her eyes, but some exciting head-lines on the first page which had already attracted the attention of the cook and the housemaid.
"Elizabeth," said Miss Cornelia, in a stifled voice. "Elizabeth—what is this?"
Elizabeth raised her vacant eyes, and saw Miss Cornelia deathly white and staring in horror at the paper. "Is it?" she said. "It must be. What a dispensation! So young, too."
"Auntie," said Elizabeth, impatiently, "why don't you say what it is?"
"I am afraid he was very ill prepared," said Miss Cornelia, apparently talking to herself and oblivious of her niece's presence. But suddenly she seemed to realize it and placed her hand over the paper. "My dear, don't look at this yet," she faltered. "You—it will be a shock, Elizabeth. Prepare yourself."
Elizabeth did not wait to hear more, but went to her and seized the paper from her hand. The headline told, in large type, how Paul Halleck, the prominent young singer, had died the evening before of a mysterious draught of poison, which had been sent to him by mail.
There followed in smaller type the details of the affair, but Elizabeth did not read them. She sank into the nearest chair and sat staring before herwith dilated eyes, that seemed to express less surprise or terror than a sort of awe, as at some unexpected manifestation of Providence.
"It was I who killed him," she said. She spoke in a dull, dream-like way, not in the least conscious, as it seemed, of anything extraordinary in the words. Poor Miss Cornelia could form no other conclusion than that she had suddenly lost her mind.
"Elizabeth, my darling," she remonstrated, "what do you mean?" But Elizabeth was still staring before her vacantly, absorbed in her own thoughts.
"And so it has happened!" she said, in a low voice, "at last!—when I had given up hope!"—She was quite oblivious of her aunt's horror or of the staring eyes of the maid, who stood listening, the coffee-pot in her hand, her mouth wide open. But at that moment Miss Cornelia suddenly remembered her presence and signed to her to leave the room—an order obeyed reluctantly.
"Now, Elizabeth," Miss Cornelia faltered out, as the door closed, "do, my darling, explain what you mean. It's quite absurd, you know, to say that you had anything to do with this."
"I wished it," said Elizabeth, gazing at her with dull, expressionless eyes. "I wished, I even prayed, that he might die. And my wishes always come true—only it is in such a way that it does no good."
"But you can't," urged Miss Cornelia, in desperation, "you can't kill people bywishing, Elizabeth. Of course, there are things that one can't—feel as sorry for as one would like"—Her voice faltered, asshe thought of certain individuals connected with her own life, whose death it had been hard to regard in the light of an affliction. "We can't help our thoughts," she murmured, "we can only pray not to give way to them."
"Ah, but I didn't," said Elizabeth. "I encouraged them. And now I shall have remorse, I suppose, all my life." She sat pondering a moment, while the expression on her face grew softer. "I am sorry he is dead," she said, at last. "It does me no good now—and he seemed so full of life the last time I saw him. But it was his fate, no doubt—a fortune-teller told him he would die before the year was out. It was his unlucky year, as well as mine. And the prediction has come true—in both cases."
"But how did it happen?" urged Miss Cornelia. "Do read, Elizabeth, how it was. Did he drink poison by mistake?"
Elizabeth took up the paper and read the story, which grew to be a famous one in the annals of New York crime. Halleck had received on New Year's Eve a package which contained a small hunting-flask of sherry. There was no name or card with the present—if present itwere; nothing to identify the giver, except the hand-writing on the package, which he did not recognize.
He suspected nothing, however, imagining the card to have been forgotten, and accepted the flask as a belated Christmas present; but kept it unopened, in the hope of discovering from whom it came. He had brought it out and showed it the night before to some friends, and the flask and thebox in which it arrived were passed from one to the other, but each disclaimed all knowledge of them.
"To me," said D'Hauteville, who happened to be present, "it looks like a woman's handwriting, disguised to seem like a man's. Perhaps"—he smiled—"it contains a love potion."
"Or a death potion," suggested another man, laughing.
"I'm not afraid," said the young singer, lightly, "of either catastrophe." With a smile he poured some of the wine into a glass and raised it to his lips. "To the health," he said, "of the mysterious giver." He emptied the glass and put it down, observing that it must be, after all, a woman's gift, since no man would have chosen such poor wine. "Try it," he said, but by some fortunate chance no one did. And in a few minutes Halleck was taken desperately ill, and died before the hastily-summoned physician could save him.
This is, briefly put, the account which Elizabeth read, at first with a strange sense of unreality, as if such tragedies, of which she had often read before in the papers, could not possibly occur within the circle of her own acquaintance. Then followed a growing horror, a feeling of passionate remorse for her own indifference.
"Read it, auntie," she said, thrusting the paper into Miss Cornelia's hand. "I—I must be alone to think it over." She went quickly and shut herself in her room. But when there she did not lie down and cry, as might have been best for her; she had not shed any tears since New Year's Eve. Shepaced up and down, going over the whole thing in her mind, imagining the details with a feverish vividness, struggling, above all, with this irrational, yet terrible sense of guilt.