Itwould have needed more imagination than Katharine Lauderdale possessed to suppose that the scene in which she acted a part during the afternoon could possibly lead to serious consequences. Had she been told how jealous Hester really was of her, she could not have realized what such jealousy meant. She had gone away much more hurt by Hester’s coolness, and by her refusal to return to the old terms of friendship, than disturbed by the thought of the domestic quarrel she had left behind her. If Hester was jealous, foolishly, and if Crowdie had displeased both her and Katharine, the young girl considered it only fair that they should talk the matter over, and if Hester were angry, it might teach her husband to be more careful in future.
What had really affected her was the disenchantment she had felt when she found that Hester had no intention of renewing the relations which had existed before the affair of the will had produced a temporary estrangement. It had been another blow to another ideal, and another possibility of life was wiped away from the future.
Little by little her whole existence was being narrowed to one thought, one happiness, one belief, all centred in John Ralston. Of all the many people who had come into her young life, he alone had not brought her any permanent pain, nor any pain at all, save once, when she had been terribly mistaken about something he had done during the previous winter. More than once, indeed, and even within the past few weeks, they had been near to what would have made a disagreement between most lovers. But only near—no more. Just at that point when others might have taken offence foolishly, or spoken the hasty word that sets the whole fabric of love vibrating, and sometimes makes it rock and topple over and fall—just at that point one or the other of them had always yielded, and the danger had been over in an instant and as soon forgotten. It seemed as though they could never quarrel; and when they were weary, as they often had been of late, it rested them to be together even for a few moments.
So it had happened on that day when Ralston had met Katharine as she was coming from the Crowdies’, and they had walked together, and made a plan which would have been put into execution at once, but for the news Bright had given them, and which momentarily checked them when they were on the point of disclosing their long-kept secret. Then they had parted, judgingit wiser that John should stay away from the house that evening, and avoid the danger of irritating Alexander Junior’s temper, which had most probably been more or less roused by the finding of another will.
Katharine went into the library before going to her room, with a vague idea of ascertaining the state of the family humour, if any one happened to be there. She was not disappointed, for her father and mother were together, Alexander sitting upright in Katharine’s favourite chair, and Mrs. Lauderdale lying upon the sofa and staring at the ceiling. Katharine saw her first, and understood her mother’s warning glance. It was clear that there had been a pause in the conversation. Alexander’s face was cold and expressionless as he looked at his wife.
“Well,” he said, in a tone of repressed but righteous indignation, “have you heard the news, Katharine? They’ve found another will.”
“Yes,” she answered, kissing her mother by force of habit rather than from any other motive. “I just met Hamilton Bright in the street. He told me.”
“Oh, yes; he knows all about it.” Alexander spoke with profound resentment, as though Bright were personally responsible for the second will. “Katharine, my dear, I don’t think you’ve kissed me to-day. I didn’t see you this morning.”
Katharine looked at him in some surprise, smiled a little foolishly, as people do when they cannot understand exactly what is wanted of them, and then rose almost before she had sat down. She went to him and laid her cheek against his with precision, and both he and she kissed the air audibly and simultaneously. Alexander Junior had always detested anything like demonstration, but he insisted, on the other hand, upon the punctual execution of certain affectionate practices, as a matter of household discipline. Early or late the air must be kissed when the cheeks were in contact.
“I thought I’d seen you,” said Katharine, as she retired again to her seat.
“No,” answered Alexander, meditatively. “No—I think not. My child,” he continued, in a tone unusually gentle for him, “do you think that without feeling that you are betraying my poor uncle Robert’s confidence, you could tell me what that will contains?”
She fancied from the way in which he spoke that he had framed the question at his leisure before she had come home, so as neither to offend her nor to refer to his previous attempts to gain her confidence. She hesitated a moment before answering him, but he did not appear to be impatient. In her quick weighing of the case, she could see little or no reason for not satisfying his curiosity.
“Recollect, my dear, that I only wish you to speak about it, if you feel that you can do so with a perfectly clear conscience,” he said.
“Oh, yes; of course!” she answered, repressing a smile. “But I don’t really see why you shouldn’t know. I think, while he was alive—well, that was different. But now—I think it’s quite fair. Of course, I don’t know what will this is. He may have made several, for all we know. But the one he told me about was like this. His idea was to make three trusts, all equal. Oh!—in the first place there was to be one million for the Brights, amongst the three, aunt Maggie, Hamilton, and Hester. Then the three equal shares of the rest were to go in trust to Charlotte and Jack Ralston and me—what did you say, papa?”
Alexander Junior had uttered an indistinct exclamation.
“Nothing,” he said. “Go on.”
“Each of us three was to pay half the income of a share to one of you three, you and mother, and Mrs. Ralston. But before that—I forgot to say it—each of us was to contribute something to make up an income for grandpapa—about fifty thousand dollars altogether, I think. Then the fortune was all to be in trust for our possible children. That was all. I don’t think there was anything else.”
“Do you mean to say that there was nothingleft outright to any of us older ones?” asked Alexander, in a tone of stupefaction.
“Well—you three had half the income amongst you,” answered Katharine.
“What an absurd will!” exclaimed her father.
Then he bit his lip and sat in silence, looking at his clasped hands.
“But it may not be that will, after all,” he said, in a low voice, after a long pause. “A man who will leave one old will behind him may leave twenty. Lawyers always say that any one who changes his will once is sure to do it again and again.”
He drew little consolation from the thought, however, and he was suffering all that his arid nature was capable of feeling, in the anticipation of losing the control of the fortune which had been practically within his grasp. But he had grown used to uncertainty and emotion within the last two months, and his face was set and hard. Nevertheless, he felt that he could not long bear the eyes of the two women upon him in his trouble, unless he made an effort of some sort.
“Did the will say nothing about the trusteeship? Who were to be the trustees?” He asked the question with a revival of interest.
“I don’t know,” answered Katharine. “I never saw the will, of course. He only told me what I have told you.”
Alexander said nothing, but he slowly rose tohis feet, with less of energy and directness than he usually showed in his movements.
“We’ll talk about it this evening,” he said, and left the room.
When he was gone Katharine rose and went over and sat upon the sofa at her mother’s feet. Mrs. Lauderdale had said nothing during the brief interview, but had watched her husband’s face anxiously when he spoke, as though she had anticipated some outbreak of temper, at least.
“I’m glad you told him at once, dear,” she said. “I’m very much troubled about him. I was afraid he’d be angry.”
“Isn’t it dreadful that any one should care so much?” Katharine spoke thoughtfully, and looked at the floor.
“I’m very anxious,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, not noticing what her daughter had said. “He has talked in his sleep all night. He talks of nothing but the money. Of course, it’s incoherent, and I can’t make out half of what he says. It’s all the worse. I’m afraid his brain will be seriously affected if this goes on much longer.”
“Mother—hasn’t every one got some great passion like that, locked up inside of them, and trying to get out?”
Katharine looked up as she asked the question. Neither she nor her mother thought of those months of insane envy, which had almost separated them in heart forever.
“I never did,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, innocently. “I never cared for anything like that.”
“I have,” said Katharine. “I do. It’s just like my caring for Jack. You might as well try to face an express train as to stand in the way of it. I know just how papa feels—now. Only with him it’s money. He’ll upset the whole world to have it, as I’d turn the universe inside out rather than lose Jack. I suppose that’s the meaning of the word passion—I’m beginning to understand it.”
“It sounds much more like the meaning of sin,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale. “I don’t mean in your case, dear. Love’s quite another thing. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said it at all.”
EvenAlexander Junior, more than preoccupied by his hopes and fears in regard to the will, was profoundly shocked by the news of Walter Crowdie’s sudden death. Doctor Routh, as a friend of the family, took it upon himself to notify all the relations of what had taken place in the night, for during the first hours Hester had been incapable of any thought. He had undertaken to inform Hester’s mother, and he wrote to the Lauderdales and the Ralstons at once, in order that they might not learn the news from the papers and accidentally.
No one of the family had ever liked poor Crowdie, but all of them had been fond of Hester at one period or another of her life, though she had never seemed to possess the power of keeping upon terms of intimacy with more than one of them at a time, and never with any for very long. The fact that the loss was hers softened every judgment of the man who was gone, and in the first anxiety which every one felt to show a sympathy which was genuine, Alexander Junior was perhaps the only one who remembered thatMr. Allen was coming at eleven o’clock to open the document which had been found, before the eyes of the whole family. With a delicacy which might be attributed to the implacability of circumstances, but for which he was afterwards willing to take more credit than he got, he sent a message down town, explaining what had happened, and putting off the meeting until the afternoon. Alexander spent his morning in making sure that every one could be present, except Mrs. Bright. Hamilton would represent his mother and sister.
It seemed heartless to Katharine that no one—not even Hamilton Bright himself—should have suggested putting off the reading of the paper at least until the next day, and once more the ruthlessness of humanity was thrust upon her so that she could not help seeing it. It was true, she admitted, that in reality Crowdie had been the husband of a very distant cousin, and in theory neither the Lauderdales nor the Ralstons would be expected to suspend a curiosity which concerned the fate of a colossal fortune, for the matter of a death which hardly touched them. Yet Katharine thought that in practice people might show some feeling in such a case. What she saw was that the first shock was real and startling, but that half an hour after hearing the news her father and mother were discussing Crowdie’s character with about as muchconsideration as though he had been a dead Chinaman, or a foreign prime minister. She registered another bit of strong evidence against the efficacy of professed religion, and shut herself up in her room for the morning, for the mere satisfaction of being alone and of asking herself what she had really thought of Crowdie.
She had detested him. She had no doubt of that. When she recalled a certain smile of his, and thought of the redness of his lips, she shivered and was disgusted. She did not like to remember his undulating, womanish gait, nor the pallor of his face. Everything about him had repelled her intensely. And yet, when she thought of him lying dead at that moment, she felt a sharp pang, which was very like what she might have felt if she had really missed him. She could not understand that. Then she remembered his voice, and the enchantment of his singing on that night at the Brights’ the song of Lohengrin—the song of the swan, she thought, as it had turned out to be in truth, so far as she was concerned. She wondered whether it were his voice that she was really thinking of with regret. For she certainly felt the little pang. It came again when she remembered that he was dead. She tried it two or three times. It came once more, then very faintly, then not at all, try as she might to think of him as he probably looked. She had never seen any onedead except old Robert Lauderdale, but that was a recent memory. All the details of death were fresh in her mind, and she could picture to herself the quiet household, the subdued voices, the darkened rooms, the flowers. The faint smell of them came back to her. She wondered whether the smell had been so peculiar, and faint, and sickening, because they had been almost all white. But there was no pang of ‘missing’ when she thought of the old man. Yet she had been fond of him, and she had detested Crowdie. She did not understand, as she sat all alone thinking about it. She came to the conclusion that when people die they are missed in proportion to their vitality by those who have not really loved them. Perhaps she was right. The nature and causes of those sudden thrusts which ordinarily sensitive people feel have been very little studied.
But Katharine was sincerely sorry for Hester. She did not know whether to go to her at once, or to wait until the next day. Her impulse was to go immediately, though she asked herself whether Hester could possibly wish to see her, and she tried to put herself in Hester’s place. But the thought that John Ralston might die brought such a burst of pain with it that she rose from her seat and walked about the room, breathing a little faster. Then, having risen, she went downstairs and consulted her mother.
“If I were you, I should go,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “I’ll go with you, if you like. You’ve always been her best friend. I’m sure she’s been much nearer to you than your sister ever was, hasn’t she? Of course she has. It can’t do any harm to go and ask for aunt Maggie, and if Hester wants to see you, you can go up and I’ll come home alone, or stay downstairs with aunt Maggie until you’re ready.”
“That sounds very sensible,” said Katharine. “I’ll get ready.”
At the house in Lafayette Place everything seemed familiar to the young girl. It was just as she had anticipated. The blinds were drawn down. Old Fletcher, the butler, shuffled and looked red and lachrymose, as he opened the door. There was a strong smell of white flowers.
Presently Mrs. Bright appeared, pale and very grave, in a black frock which was too tight for her and rather old-fashioned—the last one she had worn in her long mourning for her husband. They went into the little room which had been the scene of the trouble on the previous evening. The drawing of old Robert Lauderdale still lay upon the table, where Crowdie had placed it; only the little tea-table was gone. Again Katharine felt that thrust at her heart which she could not explain. It all seemed so near, and yet what was upstairs made such a great difference.
They talked together in subdued tones for a few minutes. Aunt Maggie said that Hester was behaving very strangely, and that she was anxious about her. Walter had always seemed to possess a strange influence over her. Mrs. Bright could not understand it. She herself had never quite approved of the match, and Walter had never endeared himself to her, in spite of his talent and apparent devotion to his wife. Hester was acting very strangely. She was not wild now, She did not scream nor throw herself about. On the contrary, she was so calm that her quiet was positively terrifying. The people—by which term aunt Maggie meant the undertakers—could do nothing without her. She would hardly let them touch poor Walter—she wanted to do everything herself. She must certainly break down, and perhaps lose her reason. People sometimes went mad in that way, but it would be a pity—especially for such a man as Crowdie. No. Walter had never endeared himself to Mrs. Bright.
Katharine looked at the kind-hearted, stout, elderly woman, with her refined face and her air of superiority over the common herd, and wondered whether she had any real feelings. She hardly made a pretence of regret for the young life that had been cut short, though she seemed really anxious for her daughter. She was like the rest of them, thought Katharine, and she reallyhad no heart. That was clear. She asked whether Hester would be willing to see her.
“Really,” answered Mrs. Bright, “she’s behaving so strangely, poor child, that there’s no knowing what she may do. She may be angry if I don’t tell that you’re here. She’s insisted on having him carried into the studio. Poor darling! I let her do as she pleases. But I’ll go and ask her if she’d like to see you. It can’t do any harm, at all events.”
Aunt Maggie left the room, walking on tiptoe and listening before she actually went out, after opening the door.
“Mother, is everybody as heartless as that?” asked Katharine when she was gone, in a tone which seemed to expect no answer.
“Heartless?” repeated Mrs. Lauderdale. “I don’t think she’s heartless. She’s dreadfully anxious about Hester.”
“Yes; but about poor Mr. Crowdie—she doesn’t seem to care in the least.”
“Oh, no—she never liked him. Why should she? Take care, though! somebody might hear us talking.”
Katharine sighed and was silent. Her mother did not seem to understand what she meant any more than any one else. After the first shock they all appeared to be perfectly indifferent. Crowdie was dead. Bury him! Doubtless they were alreadywondering whether Hester would marry again, and if so, when. Yet Katharine knew that they would all be shocked if Hester wore mourning less than three years. It was her business to mourn; it was theirs, in the interest of society, to see that she mourned long and decently for a man whom they had all disliked.
Before long Mrs. Bright returned, softly as she had gone, shut the door noiselessly behind her, and looked round the room as though she thought that some fourth person might be present and listening. Then, with an air of secrecy, she spoke to Katharine.
“My dear, she’ll see you if you’ll come upstairs.”
“Certainly,” answered Katharine. “I’ll go at once.”
“But you mustn’t be surprised by anything she does,” said Mrs. Bright, anxiously. “She’ll want you to see him, I think. She’s looking very quiet, but she’s very strange. Humour her, Katharine—humour her a little.”
Katharine nodded, but said nothing.
“She’s waiting for you on the landing outside the studio,” added Mrs. Bright. “I needn’t go up with you, need I? I’ve just been up all those stairs.”
“Of course not,” Katharine answered.
As she went something oddly like fear got hold of her, and her heart fluttered unexpectedly. Shewas conscious that she was pale as she ascended to the top of the house. Probably, she thought, it was the idea of seeing the dead man’s face that affected her unpleasantly. She nerved herself to make an effort and went on, wondering that it should be so strangely hard to go.
As she began to go up the last flight of stairs she was conscious that Hester was standing at the top, waiting for her. She wished that she had not offered to come. Then she looked up and met the deep eyes, and saw the ghastly face turned towards her. Hester was excessively pale, and even her lips were colourless. Her slight figure looked taller than usual in the straight loose gown of black, and her hands, clasped together upon the banister, had the emaciated, nervous look of some hands in pictures by the early painters. Exhaustion, in some people, shows itself in the hands before it appears in the face.
Katharine reached the top of the flight and stood still, looking at her, wishing to speak but not finding words just then. They had parted almost, if not quite, as enemies, on the previous day. Katharine went a step nearer. Her face showed well enough the deep sympathy she felt, but Hester did not exactly look at her face, but only into her eyes, with a fixed stare that made the young girl feel uneasy. That stare alone would have justified Mrs. Bright in saying that herdaughter was behaving strangely. The transparent hands unclasped one another, but they fell straight to her sides. As Katharine extended her own, Hester drew back, the stare became more fixed, the eyes opened more, till they were very wide, the finely pencilled brows were raised haughtily, and the shadowy figure seemed to grow taller. Then she spoke, slowly and distinctly, in a voice that did not tremble.
“I wanted to see you. Come with me.”
She turned and opened the door of the studio, leading the way. Katharine was startled by what she saw. The great room had been darkened as much as possible by drawing all the thick shades, which had been made to keep out the sun in summer, and a great number of candles were burning with a dim, yellow light. The air was thick with the smoke of burning perfumes, which rose in tall, straight, grey plumes, from two censers placed upon the hearth before the huge chimney-piece. In the absolutely still atmosphere the smoke rose to the height of a man before it broke and opened, hanging then like draped grey curtains in the heavy air. The strange, cool smell of burning myrrh predominated, but in spite of it the drowsy, overpowering odour of frankincense reached Katharine’s nostrils. She stood still and stared through the smoke.
In the middle of the room Crowdie lay dead,clothed in a long garment of stuff that was soft and dark. The couch was covered with a silken carpet which hung down to the floor. The pale light of death softened and beautified the repulsive features, in their solemn calm, to a degree which Katharine would not have believed possible, had she been capable of thought just then. But she was taken by surprise; she was a little frightened, and she was dazed by the glare of the many candles, and dizzy with the sudden breathing of the perfume-laden air. She stood still at a little distance from the couch and looked at the dead face, stretching her head forward with a sort of timid curiosity, holding her body back with the instinctive dread of death which the young feel in spite of themselves.
Hester did not stand beside her. With slow steps, as though she were moving with a solemn procession to the rhythm of a funeral march, sweeping her long black gown noiselessly behind her, she passed to the other side, and came up to the couch and stood over her husband’s body, facing Katharine. In the shadowy smoke of the incense, with the flaring light of the wax candles upon her, she was like a supernatural being. She might have been the freed soul of the dead man, come back to look once more at Katharine’s face.
“Come nearer to me,” she said, in deadly calm, without a tremor.
An older woman might not have obeyed the summons, and might have realized that Hester Crowdie was to all intents and purposes mad, since it could not be supposed that she had planned a tragic scene, with a theatrical instinct nowhere at fault, even in a single detail. But there was something really terrible and grand in it, as it struck Katharine; and there was the grim reality of death lying there and vouching for the widowed woman’s sincerity. To those not familiar with the dead, nothing can seem like comedy in their silent presence. To those for whom death has lost all horror, there is scarcely anything but comedy, anywhere.
Katharine obeyed and went nearer, but not as near as Hester herself. Instinctively she held back her skirts, as though fearing even the contact of the carpet on which Crowdie lay. Her right hand she still carried in a scarf.
Hester’s fixed gaze met her again, and she was conscious that her own eyes were uncertain. There was an irresistible something which drew them to the dead man’s face. But when Hester spoke again the young girl looked at her.
“Katharine Lauderdale, this is your doing, and this is what you have done to me.”
The words came clearly, like those she had spoken before, monotonously and distinctly, as though she had learned them by rote. Katharine started at first, and opened her eyes wider, asthough doubting whether she were in her senses. But she found no word to say, though her lips were parted.
“You have killed my husband. You have destroyed my life. I have brought you here to see what you have done.”
Katharine did not start this time, but she drew back a little, with an indescribable horror that was not fear.
“You must be mad,” she said, in a low voice, keeping her eyes on Hester’s.
A strange, fantastic smile played upon the pale lips, and looked more than unnatural in the yellow glare of the candles.
“I wish I were mad,” she said.
In the long silence which followed, Katharine glanced at the dead man’s face. Its set, waxen smile was like Hester’s, and the girl felt a creeping shudder in her shoulders. She bent her body a little.
“He cannot hurt you,” said Hester, holding her with inexorable eyes. “He knows that you have killed him, but he cannot hurt you. If he could, he would—for my sake. Come close to him and look at him.”
Katharine came forward again, more because she was brave and would not even seem afraid, than for any other reason.
“My dear Hester,” she said, trying to speaknaturally, but in a low voice, “you’re beside yourself with grief. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know what I am saying,” answered the widowed woman, solemnly. “You shall listen to all I have to say. Then you shall go, and I will never see you again until you are dead. Then I will come and look at you, for his sake. You tried to steal him from me while he was living. He is mine now, to keep forever. You cannot get him. Look at him, for he is mine. The last words he ever heard me speak were cruel, unkind words. Then he fell. He did not speak afterwards. I gave him the morphia. I told you my story once—but it was not the true story. It killed him. It was my hand that killed him, through your soul, and your soul shall pay me. I am not mad. You have done this to me. You know it now. You made me speak those last words he heard.”
Katharine listened in silence—chilled with a sort of horror of which she had never dreamt. There was an unnatural terror for her in the woman’s deadly calm. There was no passion in the voice, no hatred, no jealousy. It was as though she were possessed by an unseen power that used her mouth to speak with, and controlled her, and against which she could do nothing.
“Have you heard? Do you know now?” she asked after a pause.
Still Katharine did not speak. A new sensation of fear crept upon her. She began to think that the dead man’s lips moved and that the quiet lids trembled, and she could not take her eyes from the face.
“You have no heart,” said the voice. “You are the worst woman alive to-day, anywhere in the whole world. You said you were my friend, and you have done this thing to me. You have done it. No one else has done it. It is all your fault. You pretended that you loved me like a sister, and you came often, and he saw you. You are more beautiful than I am, and he saw that you were. But he did not love you. Oh, no! He loved me. You pleased his eyes as everything beautiful pleased him. He did not know how bad you were. But I made him say that he hated you,—he said it twice before he died,—and you had only pleased his eyes. But now they are closed, and you cannot please him any more, because he cannot see you.”
Katharine looked up slowly, realizing that the woman was insane. She had never seen an insane person, and it had been hard to understand at first. She did not know what to do. Her blood froze at her throat—she could feel the cold at her collar. Still the monotonous voice went on speaking, while the incense and the myrrh sent up their straight plumes of smoke into the cloudy air, and the heavyperfumes grew more and more oppressive and stupefying.
“You pleased him so much that he broke his promise to me, and it was almost the only promise I had ever asked of him. He sang to you, because you pleased him so much. I will not forgive you. I never will. But he is dead now. See! I kiss him. He does not open his eyes as he used to do when I kissed him softly.”
The dark figure bent down and Hester kissed the dead face, and again her unnatural smile seemed to be reflected in it.
“He smiles,” she said. “But he cannot kiss me. And he cannot sing to you any more. You made him do it once. He will not do it again. Once you made him break his promise. He will not break it again. He will keep it. The dead keep their promises, and he has promised to be mine always now. I am not so sorry that he is dead, because he will be always mine. He smiles, you see. He knows it. He does not want you, because you cannot please him now that his eyes are shut so fast. He does not want you now. Go away, Katharine Lauderdale. Walter does not want you.”
There was no rising intonation in the voice that spoke, no emphasis, no authority. But the calm, unchanging tone was far more terrifying than any passionate outburst could have been. Katharine shrank back, and then stood still a moment.
“Why do you stay?” asked the voice. “We hate you. Go away. You see that we want to be alone together. We do not want you.”
Katharine felt herself growing white with the horror of it all. She bowed her head in silence and went to the door, turning a moment to look back as her hand was on the spring. She felt as though she were in some mysterious tomb of ancient days, where the living and the dead were buried together—the rigid dead upon his couch, the living beside him, flexible, mad, dangerous with the overstrain of an incredible, inexpressible grief.
The dark figure stood erect with dropped and folded hands. The white face stood out luminously pale against the grey smoke-clouds of the incense and myrrh, the yellow flaming candles flickered still from the draught of Katharine’s dress as she had passed and threw an uncertain, moving light upon the motionless mask of the dead man.
“Leave us alone together. We want to be alone together. Go away and never come back to us again.”
Katharine was going, but her terror suddenly overcame her, and she opened the door, went out, and closed it behind her in a flash, gasping for a breath of unscented air. She reeled as she came out, under the clear daylight of the glass roof which covered the staircase, and she steadied herselfagainst the door-post, stupidly staring at the tapestry on the opposite wall. She felt sick and faint, and for a moment she knew that she could not get downstairs without falling. She felt that she was full of the perfume-loaded air she had breathed, that it clung to her like a blanket, and hindered her from drawing a full breath. She raised her left arm to her face mechanically, and smelled it. The stuff was full of the incense, and she threw her head back with parted lips, to draw in freshness if she could.
She was so strong that she did not faint, but stood erect against the door-post until she could trust herself to walk. She listened at the door for a moment to hear whether the mad woman were still talking over her dead husband, or whether, perhaps, the madness had suddenly yielded to the merciful tide of tears. But there was no sound. They were alone together, as Hester had said that they wished to be.
Katharine pressed her hand to her eyes with all her might, as though to crush out the memory of what she had seen. Then she went forward at last, and began to go down the stairs.
She heard a man’s footstep, swift, nervous and strong, coming up from below, and as she reached the first landing she came face to face with Paul Griggs. His weather-beaten face was so grey and drawn that she should hardly have known him ina crowd, and the weary, dark eyes that met hers had something in them which she could not understand. He stood aside to let her pass, but would have said nothing had she not spoken.
“She’s alone with him, up there,” she said in a sort of scared whisper. “She’s going mad—it’s dreadful.”
Griggs looked as though he would have gone on without answering, though he did not actually make a step. His dark eyes were dull and glassy, and his jaws were set, as though he were in great pain.
“Can’t you do something for her?” asked Katharine, hesitating. “Shouldn’t we send for Doctor Routh? He might give her something.”
She made the suggestion vaguely, as women do. There is something pathetic about their blind faith in medicine, though they may have seen it fail a hundred times.
“If you like,” answered Griggs, in a far-away tone, as though he scarcely knew what she was saying. “Send for him if you like. I don’t care.”
Katharine stared at him in surprise. He was sometimes a little absent-minded, but she could not understand his being so at that moment. She laid her left hand upon his arm with a gesture half of appeal, half of authority.
“Something must be done,” she said. “She’s really going mad. She mustn’t be left alone with it any longer.”
“I don’t think she’ll go mad,” Griggs answered. “But I shall,” he added, with an unnatural smile, which recalled Hester’s.
“You!” exclaimed Katharine, in a sudden astonishment which made her forget everything else for an instant. “Why? I know you liked him—”
“Liked him!” repeated Paul Griggs, in a voice that was almost loud, and the dull eyes flashed for a moment, and then became glassy again. “I can’t talk now,” he said, rapidly. “Forgive me—I can’t stop!”
Without waiting for her to go down, he sprang up the stairs. Katharine looked after him with wonder. A moment later she heard the door of the studio open and shut quickly, and she was sure that she heard one word, a name—Walter—spoken in the broken accent of a man’s despair.
Again she paused before she went downstairs, and hesitated, not as to what she should do, but as to what she should think. At least, she felt that her friend Griggs was not without heart, whatever the true ground of his extraordinary emotion might be. She had stumbled upon one of those mysteries which lie so near the dull surface of society around us, and had seen a human soul at that moment of all others when it would not have been seen. As she thought of it, she felt at the same moment theinstinct to tell no one, not even Ralston, of the few words she had exchanged with Griggs on the stairs. The resolution formed itself in her mind unintentionally, as a natural prompting of honour against the betrayal of a secret accidentally learned. What the secret could be she could not guess, and it was long before she knew, but she did not break the promise which had formulated and pledged itself. Long afterwards, when she learned the strange story of Griggs’ life, which no one had ever suspected, she wondered that on that day he had not killed her with his hands rather than be delayed the smallest fraction of an instant on his way up those stairs. In his place, woman as she was, she would have been less merciful, and she would not have been courteous at all.
But she knew nothing of the wanderer’s existence, save that he had of late strayed into her own, and that he had seemed oddly attached to a man who was almost universally disliked without any well-defined reason. Her intuition told her that he had something to conceal, and her faith in him, such as it was, led her to believe that it was something not wrong, but sacred almost beyond anything imaginable.
She went quietly downstairs, and many things happened to her, good and bad, before she saw the face of Paul Griggs again. She found her mother and Mrs. Bright sitting side by side, and auntMaggie was holding Mrs. Lauderdale’s hand, and admiring her bonnet. A death which does not come too near to them draws certain types of women together. As Katharine entered the room and saw the two together, she wondered whether the death of Walter Crowdie was to have the effect of reconciling the Lauderdales and the Brights.
“Well, child, have you seen her?” asked Katharine’s mother, with a considerable show of interest.
“People don’t often really go mad from grief,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, as she and Katharine walked slowly homeward in the bright spring afternoon. “I shouldn’t be surprised if Hester married again in a few years. Not very soon, of course—but in time. She’s very young yet. She’ll be very young still in five years—for a widow.”
“I don’t think she can ever get over it,” answered Katharine, rather coldly, being displeased at her mother’s careless way of speaking.
“It’s a mistake to take things too hard,” said the elder woman. “And it’s a great mistake to underrate time. A great many curious things can happen to one in five years.”
Katharine was not in search of unbelief, nor of encouragement in not believing that human nature could really feel. Her faith in it had been terribly undermined during the past winter, and she had just been with two persons, Hester Crowdie and Paul Griggs, whose behaviour had at least tended to restore it. She did not wish the recuperative effort of her charity towards mankind tobe checked. So she did not argue the point, but walked on in silence.
She had not recovered, and could not recover for many days, from the impression produced upon her by the ghastly scene in the studio. Her young vitality abhorred death, and its contrary and hostile principle, and when she thought of what she had seen, she felt the same sickening, shrinking horror which had led her to hold back her skirt from any possible contact with the carpet on which Crowdie’s body had been lying. She might have been willing to admit that her mother, who had seen nothing, but had sat downstairs talking with the comfortable, fat and refined aunt Maggie, was not called upon to feel what she herself felt after going through such a strange experience. But since her mother felt nothing, her mother could not understand; and if she could not understand, it was better to walk on in silence and to make her hasten her indolent, graceful steps.
In reality, Mrs. Lauderdale was much more preoccupied about the possibilities of the second will turning out to be favourable to her husband or the contrary, and her preoccupation was not at all sordid, though it was by no means unselfish. She was anxious about him, in her unobtrusive, calm way. He talked of money in his sleep, as she had told Katharine, and he was growing nervous. She had even noticed once or twice of late that hishand shook a little as he held the morning paper after breakfast, during the ten minutes which he devoted to its perusal. That was a bad sign, she thought, for a man who had been famous for his good nerve, and who had been known all his life as an unerring shot. She did not like to think what consequences a great disappointment might have upon his temper, which had shown itself so frequently of late, after nearly a quarter of a century of comparative quiescence. Nor was it pleasant to contemplate the new means of economy which he would certainly introduce into his household if by any evil chance he got no share of the Lauderdale fortune. But that, she told herself, was impossible, as indeed it seemed to be.
It was of no use to be in a hurry, she told Katharine, as they had at least an hour to get rid of before the time at which Mr. Allen was to be expected. The Ralstons and Hamilton Bright would only come a few minutes earlier. Every one would understand how unpleasant it might be to be shut up together in such suspense for half an hour before the truth could be known—each hoping to get the other’s money, as Mrs. Lauderdale observed with a little laugh that had hardly any cruelty in it. But, of course, nobody would be late on such an occasion. There was no fear of that. And she laughed again, and stepped gracefully aside on the pavement to let a boy with a big bundle go by.
She had not been deceived in her calculations, for there was still plenty of time to spare when they reached the house in Clinton Place. Katharine disappeared to her room, glad to be alone at last. There was a hushed expectation in the air of the house, which reminded her of the place she had just left, but she herself felt not the smallest interest in the will. So far as she was concerned, she was perfectly well satisfied with the course taken by the law, independently of any will at all.
The Ralstons and Hamilton Bright came almost at the same moment, though not together, and Katharine had no chance of exchanging a word with John out of hearing of the rest. They all met in the library. The old philanthropist was there, and every one was secretly surprised to discover what a very fine-looking old man he was in a perfectly new frock coat with a great deal of silk in front. But his heavy, shapeless shoes betrayed his lingering attachment to the little Italian shoemaker in South Fifth Avenue, whose conscientiously durable works promised to outlast old Alexander’s need for them.
Alexander Junior stood before the empty fireplace, coldly nervous. He could not have sat still for five minutes just then. When he spoke of Crowdie’s death to Hamilton Bright, and immediately afterwards of the weather, his steel-trap mouth opened and closed mechanically, emittingmetallic sounds—it could not be called speaking—and his glittering grey eyes went restlessly from the window to the door and back again, without even resting on Bright’s face.
Bright himself was grave, manly, quiet, as he generally was. He was eminently the man who could be reckoned with and counted upon. He would make no attempt to conceal his disappointment if he were disappointed, nor his satisfaction if he were pleased, but the expression of either would be simple, quiet and manly, with few words, if any.
Mrs. Ralston watched the two as they stood side by side. From her position on the sofa she could see Alexander Junior’s hands twitching nervously behind him. But she was talking with Mrs. Lauderdale at the same time. She made no pretence of being very sorry to hear of Crowdie’s sudden death. She rarely saw him and she had never liked him. To her, he was merely the husband of a very distant cousin—of a descendant of her great-grandfather through a female branch. It was too much to expect that she should be profoundly affected by what had happened. But her dark, clearly cut features were grave, and there was a certain expectancy in her look, which showed that she was not really indifferent to the nature of the events momentarily expected. She admitted frankly to herself that it would make an enormousdifference in her future happiness to be very rich instead of being almost poor, and she had told her son so as they came to the house.
John was trying to talk to Katharine near the window, but he found it impossible to shake off Alexander Senior, whose fondness for his favourite granddaughter was proverbial in the family. The old gentleman stood by, approvingly, and insisted upon leading the conversation which, with old-fashioned grandfatherly wit—or what passed for wit in the families of our grandfathers—he constantly directed upon the subject of matrimony, with an elephantine sprightliness most irritating to John Ralston, though Katharine bore it with indifferent serenity, and smiled when the old man looked at her, her features growing grave again as soon as he turned to John. She could not shake off the terrible impression she had brought with her, and yet she longed to explain to John why she felt and looked so sad. She, also, glanced often at the door. The arrival of the family lawyer would put a stop to her grandfather’s playful persecution of her, and give her a chance to say three words to John without being overheard.
Ralston stood ready, knowing that she wished to speak to him alone, and he paid little attention to Alexander Senior’s jokes. He glanced about the room and said to himself that the members of the Lauderdale tribe were a very good-looking set,from first to last. He was proud of his family just then, for he had rarely seen so many of them assembled together without the presence of any stranger, and he was most proud of Katharine’s beauty. Pallor was becoming to her, for hers was fresh and clear and youthful. It ruined her mother’s looks to be pale, especially of late, since the imperceptible lines had been drawn into very fine but clearly discernible wrinkles. Mrs. Lauderdale had told herself with tears that they were really wrinkles, but she would have been sorry to know that John, or any one else, called them by that name.
At last the lawyer came, and there was a dead silence as he entered—a tall, lantern-jawed man, clean shaven, almost bald, with prominent yellow teeth, over which his mobile lips fitted as though they had been made of shrivelled pink indiarubber. He had very light blue eyes and bushy brows that stood out in contrast to his bald scalp and beardless face like a few shaggy firs that have survived the destruction of a forest.
He spoke in an impressive manner, for he was deaf, emphasizing almost every word in every sentence. He was a New Englander by birth, as keen and provincial in New York as ever was a Scotchman in London.
Having been duly welcomed, and provided with a seat in the midst of the assembled tribe, heleisurely produced a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and a handkerchief, and proceeded to the operation of polishing the one with the other. He was provokingly slow. His chair was placed so that he sat with his back to the window, facing Mrs. Lauderdale and Mrs. Ralston, who occupied the sofa on the right of the fireplace. The two Alexanders and Bright completed the circle, while Katharine and John placed themselves behind the lawyer. John could see over his shoulder.
Not a word was spoken while Mr. Allen made his careful preparations. It could hardly be supposed that he had any traditional remnant of the old-fashioned attorney’s vanity, which made him anxious to produce an effect by taking as long as possible in settling himself to his work. He was simply a leisurely man, who had been born before the days of hurry, and was living to see hurry considered as an obsolete affectation, no longer necessary, and no longer the fashion. There is haste in some things, still, in New York, but not the haste that we of the generation in middle age remember when we were young men. Mr. Allen, however, had never been hasty; and he found himself fashionable in his old age, as he had been in his youth, long before the civil war.
When his glasses were fairly pinching the lower part of his thin grey nose, he thrust one bony hand into his breast-pocket, leaning forward as he didso, and quietly scanning the faces of his audience, one after the other. He was so very slow that John and Katharine looked at one another and smiled. From his pocket he brought out a great bundle of papers and letters, and calmly proceeded to look through them from the beginning, in search of what he wanted. Of course, the big blue envelope was the last of a number of big blue envelopes, and the last but one of all the papers.
“This is it, I think,” said Mr. Allen, with dignity and caution.
The two elder women drew two short little breaths of expectation, sat forward a little, and then thoughtfully smoothed their frocks over their knees. Alexander Junior’s knuckles cracked audibly, as he silently twined his fingers round one another, and pulled at them in his anxiety. Hamilton Bright uncrossed his legs, and recrossed them in the opposite way. Katharine sighed. She was tired of it all, before it had begun.
“Yes,” said Mr. Allen, with even more dignity, but with less caution in making the assertion, “I believe this is it.”
“Thank the Lord!” exclaimed John Ralston from behind the lawyer, who was deaf.
Mrs. Ralston smiled a little, and avoided her son’s eyes. Hamilton Bright looked absolutely impassive.
“You all see what it is,” said Mr. Allen. “Itis a large blue envelope, gummed without a seal, marked ‘Will,’ in a handwriting which may be that of the late Mr. Lauderdale, though I should not be prepared to swear to it, and dated ‘March’ of this year. It is reasonable to suppose that it contains a will made in that month, and therefore prior to the one of which we have knowledge. Mr. Lauderdale”—he turned to Alexander Senior—“and you, Mrs. Ralston—with your consent, I will open this document in your presence.”
“By all means—open it,” said Alexander Junior, with evident impatience.
“Certainly, certainly, Mr. Allen,” said his father. “That’s what we expect.”
Mrs. Ralston contented herself with nodding her assent, when the lawyer looked at her. He searched for a penknife in his pocket, found it, opened it, and with infinite care slit the envelope from end to end. After carefully shutting the knife, and returning it to his pocket again, he withdrew a thick, folded sheet of heavy foolscap. As he did so, a smaller piece of paper, folded only once, fluttered to the ground at his feet. It might have been a note of old Robert Lauderdale’s, expressing some particular last wish of such a nature as not to have found its proper place in a document of such importance as the will itself. The eyes of every one being intent upon the latter, as Mr. Allen opened it, no one paid any attention to the bit of paper.
Mr. Allen was old and formal, and he had no intention of bestowing a preliminary glance at the contents of the paper before reading it. He began at the beginning, for the first words proved it to be a will, and nothing else. It began, as many American wills do, with the words, “In the name of God. Amen.” Then followed the clause revoking all previous wills, each and every one of them; and then the other, relating to the payment of just debts and funeral expenses. Then Mr. Allen paused, and drew breath.
The tension in the atmosphere of the room was high, at that moment of supreme anxiety.
“ ‘It is my purpose,’ ” Mr. Allen read, “ ‘to so distribute the wealth which has accumulated in my hands as to distribute it amongst those of my fellow creatures who stand most directly in need of such help—’ ”
There was a general movement in the circle. Everybody started. Alexander Junior’s hands dropped by his sides, and his steel-trap mouth relaxed and opened.
“Go on!” he said, breathlessly.
Mr. Allen went on, shaking his head from time to time, as his only expression of overwhelming stupefaction. It was by far the most extraordinary will he had ever seen; but it was legally and properly worded, with endlessly long, unpunctuated sentences, all of which tended to elucidatethe already sufficiently clear meaning. In half-a-dozen words, it is sufficient to say that the will constituted the whole fortune, without legacies, and without mention of heirs or relatives, into a gigantic trust, to be managed, for the final extinction of poverty in the city of New York, by a board of trustees, to exist in perpetuity. Many conditions were imposed, and many possible cases foreseen. There were elaborate rules for filling vacancies in the trusteeship, and many other clauses necessary for the administration of such a vast charitable foundation, all carefully thought out and clearly stated. The perspiration stood upon the old lawyer’s astonished head, as he continued to read.
Alexander Junior seemed to be absolutely paralyzed, and stared like a man distracted, who sees nothing, with wide-open eyes. Even Mrs. Ralston bent her dark brows, and bit her even lips, in disappointment. Hamilton Bright bent down, leaning his elbows upon his knees, and looked at the fourth page of the vast sheet of closely written foolscap.
“We’re a pack of fools!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “The will isn’t signed.”
Alexander Junior uttered a loud exclamation, sprang to his feet, and snatched the will from the lawyer’s hand so roughly as to brush the gold-rimmed glasses from his thin nose, on which they had pinched their unsteady hold, and they fell to the ground.
“Eh? What?” he asked, very much disturbed by such rude interruption.
Alexander had turned to the end, and had seen that it was a blank, without signatures either of testator or witnesses.
“Thank God!” he exclaimed, fervently, as he dropped back into his chair. “That almost killed me,” he added in a low voice, regardless of the others.
But no one paid much attention to him. Hamilton Bright remained impassive. Each of the others uttered an exclamation, or breathed a sigh of relief. For some minutes afterwards there was a dead silence.
Mr. Allen was fumbling on the floor for his gold-rimmed glasses, still very much confused. They had managed to get under the low chair in which he sat, and which had a long fringe on it, reaching almost to the ground, so that he took some time in finding them.
“Of course he would never have signed such a thing!” said Hamilton Bright, with emphasis. “He had too much sense.”
“I should think so!” exclaimed Mrs. Lauderdale. “The only thing I can’t understand is how it ever was kept and marked ‘Will.’ ”
“Uncle Robert once told me that he had often made sketches of wills leaving all his money in trust to the poor,” said Katharine. “He nevermeant to sign one, though. This must be one of them—of course—it can’t be anything else!”
“His secretary probably put it away, supposing he wanted to keep it,” said Ralston, from behind Mr. Allen. “Then he forgot all about it, and so it turned up among the papers. It’s simple enough.”
“Oh, quite simple!” assented Alexander Junior, with a half-hysterical laugh.
Mrs. Ralston was watching the lawyer as he felt for his glasses on the carpet. He paused, wiped his brow—for it was a warm afternoon, and he had been nervously excited himself in reading the document. Then he continued his search.
“There’s a bit of paper there on the floor, beside your hand,” said Mrs. Ralston. “I saw it drop when you opened the envelope. Perhaps it’s something more important.”
Mr. Allen recovered his glasses at that moment, and with the other hand took up the little folded sheet. With the utmost care and precision he went through the same preparations for reading which had been indispensable on the first occasion.
“Let us see, let us see,” he said. “This is something. ‘I hereby certify,’—oh, an old marriage certificate of yours, Mrs. Ralston. John Ralston and Katharine Lauderdale—married—dear me! I don’t understand! This year, too! This is very strange.”
Again every one present started, but with verydifferent expressions. Hamilton Bright grew slowly red. There was a short pause. Then John Ralston rose to his feet and bent over Mr. Allen’s shoulder.
“It’s our certificate,” he said, quietly. “Katharine’s and mine. We were married last winter.”
And he took the paper from the hands of the wondering lawyer, and held it in his own.
“Katharine!” cried Mrs. Lauderdale, when she had realized the meaning of Ralston’s words.
“Katharine!” cried Alexander Junior, almost at the same moment.
At any other time some one of all those present might have smiled at the difference in intonation between Mrs. Lauderdale’s cry of unmixed astonishment, and her husband’s deprecatory but forgiving utterance of his daughter’s name. Both conveyed, in widely differing ways, as much as whole phrases could have told, namely, that Mrs. Lauderdale was sincerely pleased, in spite of all her former opposition to the marriage, and that her husband, while he would much rather have his daughter married to Ralston secretly than not at all, felt that his dignity and parental authority had been outraged, and that he would be glad to have an apology, if any were to be had, of which condition his voice also expressed a doubt.
“I’ll tell you all about it, from the beginning,” said John Ralston.
He told the story in as few words as he could, omitting, as he had done in telling his mother, to give Katharine her full share of responsibility. She bent far forward in her seat while he was speaking, and leaned upon the back of Mr. Allen’s chair, never taking her eyes from her husband’s face. More than once her eyes brightened with a sort of affectionate indignation, and her lips parted as though she would speak. But she did not interrupt him. When he had finished he stood still in his place, looking at his father-in-law, and still holding the certificate of his marriage in his hand.
Alexander Junior would have found it hard to be angry just at that moment. He had his desire. In the course of five minutes he had been cast down from a position of enormous wealth and power, since there could be no question but that the half of the great estate would really be in his control if there were no will; he had been plunged into such a depth of despair as only the real miser can understand when his hundreds or his millions, as the case may be, are swept out of sight and out of reach by a breath; and he had been restored to the pinnacle of happiness again, almost before there had been time to make his suffering seem more than the passing vision of a hideous dream. Moreover, the marriage being already accomplished and a matter of fact, made it a positive certaintythat all that part of the fortune which belonged to the Ralstons would return to his own grandchildren. His outraged sense of parental importance was virtuously, but silently, indignant, and he admitted that, on the whole, the causes of satisfaction outnumbered any reasons there might be for displeasure. Something, however, must be done to propitiate the prejudices of the world, which had much force with him.
“I think we’d better all go into the country as soon as possible,” he observed, thinking aloud.
But no one heard him, for Katharine had risen and come forward and stood beside her husband, slipping her arm through his, and invisibly pressing him to her—unconsciously, too, perhaps—whenever she wished to emphasize a word in what she said.
“I want to say something,” she began, raising her voice. “It’s all my fault, you know. I did it. I persuaded Jack one evening, here in this very room—and it was awfully hard to persuade him, I assure you! He didn’t like it in the least. He said it wasn’t a perfectly fair and honest thing to do. But I made him see it differently. I’m not sure that I was right. You see, we should have been married, anyway, as it’s turned out, because papa’s been so nice about it in the end. That’s all I wanted to say.”
There was probably no malice in her diplomaticallusion to her father. The only person who smiled at it was Mrs. Ralston.
“Except,” added Katharine, by an afterthought, “that the reason why we did it was because we wanted to be sure of getting each other in the end.”
“Well,” said Hamilton Bright, who was very red, “I suppose the next thing to do is to congratulate you, isn’t it? Here goes. Jack, I’m sorry I slated secret marriages the other day. You see, one doesn’t always know.”
“No,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale, who had her arms around her daughter’s neck. “One doesn’t—as Ham says.”
“That’s all right, Ham,” said John Ralston. “I didn’t mind a bit.”
But Hamilton Bright minded very much, in his quiet way, for he had played a losing game of late, and the same hour had deprived him of all hope of marrying Katharine, faint as it had been since she had so definitely refused him, and of all prospect of ever getting a share of the Lauderdale fortune. But he was a very brave man, and better able than most of those present to bear such misfortunes as fell to his lot. As for marrying, he put it out of his thoughts; and so far as fortune was concerned, he was prosperous and successful in all that he undertook to do himself, unaided, which is, after all, the most satisfactory success a man can have in the long run. The right to say ‘I didit alone’ compensates for many fancied and real wrongs. And that was something which Hamilton Bright had very often been able to say with truth. But his love for Katharine Lauderdale had been honest, enduring and generally silent. Never had he spoken to her of love until he had fancied that his friend John Ralston had no intention, nor she, either, of anything serious.
It was with the consent and approval of all her family that Katharine entered upon her married life at last, after having been secretly and in name the wedded wife of John Ralston for more than five months. The world thought it not extraordinary that there should be no public ceremony, considering the recent decease of Robert Lauderdale and the shockingly sudden death of Walter Crowdie. The Lauderdales, said the world, had shown good taste, for many reasons, in having a private wedding. Having always lived quietly, it would have been unbecoming in them to invite society to a marriage of royal splendour, when he who had left them their wealth had not been dead two months. On the other hand, the union of forty millions with twenty could hardly have been decently accomplished by means of two carriages from the livery stable and a man from the greengrocer’s. The world, therefore, said that the Lauderdales and the Ralstons had done perfectly right, a fact which pleased some members of the tribe and wasindifferent to others. The only connections who were heard to complain at all were the three Miss Miners, whose old-maidenly souls delighted in weddings and found refreshment in funerals.
And the only person whom Katharine missed, and cared to miss, amongst all those who congratulated her was Paul Griggs. She did not see him, after they had met on the stairs of the house in Lafayette Place, for a long time. During the summer which followed the announcement of her marriage, she heard that he was in the East again—a vague term applied to Cairo, Constantinople and Calcutta. At all events, he was not in New York, but had taken his weary eyes and weather-beaten face to some remote region of the earth, and gave no further sign of life for some time, though a book which he had written before Crowdie’s death appeared soon after his departure. Katharine received one letter from him during the summer—a rather formal letter of congratulation upon her marriage, and bearing a postmark in Cyrillic characters, though the stamp was not Russian, but one she had never seen.
Here ends an act of Katharine’s life-comedy, and the chronicler leaves her with her beauty, her virtues and her imperfections to the judgment of that one reader, if perchance there be even one,who has had the patience to follow her so far, with little entertainment and no advantage to himself. And to that one reader—an ideal creation of the chronicler’s mind, having no foundation in his experience of humanity—the said chronicler makes apology for all that has been amiss in the telling of the events recorded, conscious that a better man could have done it better, and that better men are plentiful, but stout in asserting that the events were not, in themselves and in reality, without interest, however poorly they have been narrated.
Moral, there is none, nor purpose, save to please; and if any one be pleased, the writer has his reward. But besides moral and purpose in things done with ink and paper, there is consequence to be considered, or at least to be taken into account. In real life we take more thought of that than of anything else; for, consciously or unconsciously, man hardly performs any action, however insignificant, without intention—and intention is the hope of consequence.
All that happened to Katharine Lauderdale, and all that she caused to happen by her own will, had an effect upon her existence afterwards. She was entering upon married life with a much more varied experience than most young women of her age. She had been brought into direct and close relation with people influenced by some of thestrongest passions that can rouse the heart. She had been hated by those who had loved her, and for little or no fault of hers. She had seen envy standing in the high place of a mother’s love, and she had seen the friendship of her girlhood destroyed by unreasoning jealousy. Above all, she had known the base hardness and the revolting cruelty which the love of money could implant in an otherwise upright nature. The persons with whom she had to do were not of the kind to commit crimes, but in her view there was something worse, if possible, than crime in some of the things they had done.
So much for the evil by which she had passed. For the good, she had love, good love, pure love, honest love—the sort of love that may last a lifetime. And if love can weather life it need not fear the whirlpool of death, nor the quicksands of the uncertain shore beyond. It is life that kills love—not death.
Therefore, as the chronicler closes his book and offers it to his single long-suffering reader, he says that more remains to be told of Katharine and of the men and women among whom she lived; namely, the consequences of her girlhood in her married life.
THE END.
KATHARINE LAUDERDALE.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD,
Author of “Saracinesca,” “Pietro Ghisleri,” etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
Two Volumes, Bound in Polished Buckram, in Box, $2.00.
The first of a series of novels dealing with New York life.
“Katharine Lauderdaleis essentially a dramatic novel, possessing the unity of time and place and of action.... It is a love story, pure and simple, with no straining after the moral that Mr. Crawford so denounces....Katharine Lauderdaleis a thoroughly artistic novel. The characters are boldly drawn; even those of minor importance are vivid and real.”—Louisville Evening Post.
“While it is a love story, it is much more. It is an accurate picture of certain circles of New York society to-day, and in the analyses of character and motive Mr. Crawford has done nothing better than this book gives us.... Mr. Crawford is always happy in his sense of locality, and the familiar scenes of Washington Park, Clinton Place, and Lafayette Place are brought distinctly before the reader.”—Living Church.
“It is exceedingly interesting.”—Congregationalist.
“Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and inKatharine Lauderdalewe have him at his best.”—Boston Daily Advertiser.
“A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women.”—The Westminster Gazette.
“It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework.”—Life.
“Admirable in its simple pathos, its enforced humor, and, above all, in its truths to human nature.... There is not a tedious page or paragraph in it.”—Punch.
“It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings.”—New York Commercial Advertiser.
“Katharine Lauderdaleis a tale of New York, and is up to the highest level of his work. In some respects it will probably be regarded as his best. None of his works, with the exception of Mr. Isaacs, show so clearly his skill as a literary artist.”—San Francisco Evening Bulletin.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
F. Marion Crawford’s Novels.
NEW UNIFORM EDITION.
12mo. Cloth. $1.00 each.
SARACINESCA.
“The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,—that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope’s temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told.”—Boston Traveller.
SANT’ ILARIO.
A Sequel toSARACINESCA.
“A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest.”—New York Tribune.
DON ORSINO.
A Sequel toSARACINESCAandSANT’ ILARIO.
“Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story ofDon Orsinowill fascinate him until its close.”—The Critic.