"Mr. Sherrod is not working for the paper now," responded a man in the counting room when Justine, overawed, applied for information at the office of the newspaper in which her husband's pictures had attracted such widespread notice. At the station a policeman had put her in a cab with directions to the driver. With her baby and her pitiful old satchel, she was jolted over the streets and up to the door of the newspaper office. She felt small, helpless, lost in this vast solitude of noises. The rush of vehicles, cars and people frightened her. Every moment she expected there would be a collision and catastrophe. And Jud was somewhere in this seething, heartless city, sick, unhappy, discouraged and longing for her.
"I know," she responded, thickly, to the clerk, whose glance had been cold and whose tones were curt. "He left here some months ago, but he gets his mail here."
"Does he?" brusquely.
"I address all of my letters to this office and he gets them."
"Country as can be," thought the clerk, his eye sweeping over her, "but devilish pretty. Lord, what eyes she's got." Then aloud, with a trifle more cordiality: "I'll ask Mr. Brokell if he knows where Sherrod lives. Just wait a minute, please." As he walked away there was one thought in his mind: "Sherrod is a lucky dog if he can get this woman to leave her happy home for him." In a few minutes he returned with the information that the address was not known in the office, but that he would be glad to assist her in the search. She thanked him and walked away. Somehow she did not like to meet the eye of this man. There was in it an expression she had never seen before, she who had looked only into the honest faces of countrymen.
The shock of the clerk's blunt announcement that Jud's address was not known to any one then in the office was stupefying. So stunned with surprise was she that her wits did not return until she found herself caught up by the rushing throng on the sidewalk. When she paused in the aimless progress through the crowd she was far from the newspaper office and paralyzed by the realization that she and the baby had nowhere to go. In sheer terror she stopped still and looked about with the manner of one who is aroused from a faint and finds a strange world looking on in sympathetic curiosity.
Busy men jostled her rudely, thoughtlessly; women arrayed as she had seen but one in her life, stared at her as she stood frightened and undecided in the middle of the sidewalk. There was no friendly face, no kindly hand in all that rushing crowd. Scarcely realizing what she did, she asked a man who leaned against the building nearby if he knew Dudley Sherrod. The man stared at her blankly for an instant, a sarcastic grin flashing across his hard face. The smile faded instantly, however, for, street loafer though he was, he saw the agony in her eyes, and knew that she had lost her way. With a politeness that surprised himself, he answered in the negative and then advised her to consult a directory.
She looked so helpless and unhappy that he volunteered to lead her to the nearest drug store. She followed him across the street, her baby on one arm, the big "telescope" bumping against her tired leg as she lugged it with the other hand. The city directory gave Dudley Sherrod's address as 1837 E—— street, but she remembered that he had left this place nearly a year before. Her friend, the lounger, advised her to appeal to the police, but she revolted against anything suggestive of the "criminal." To ask the police to look for her husband was to her shocking.
A clerk in the store was appealed to by the lounger, and that individual agreed with him that the police alone could find "the Man," if he was to be found at all. All this was adding new terror. Tears came to Justine's eyes and she did not try to dash them away. Pride was conquered by despair. The clerk, taking matters in his own hands, called in a passing policeman, and bluntly told her to state the situation to him.
"In the fir'rst place, ma'am, d'ye know the felly here?" asked the officer, regarding the lounger with an unfriendly eye. The latter winced a bit but did his best to put up a brave show of resentment.
"She never seen me till ten minutes ago, Maher, an' I ain't done or said nawthin' wrong to her. Leave it to th' girl herself if I ain't been dead square. Ain't I, ma'am?"
"He's been very kind, policeman," answered Justine, eagerly.
"Sure, sure, Maher, dat's right," said the lounger, triumphantly.
"Did he's thry to touch ye, ma'am?" demanded the officer, still unsatisfied.
"No, sir; he did not do anything so rude. He was very kind, and I thank him," responded she, taking the word "touch" literally.
"What d'I tell you?" said the suspect in hurt tones.
"Kape yer gab out, Biggs," said the officer. "I mean, ma'am, did he ask yez fer money?"
"Oh, no, sir," said Justine confusedly.
"Never asked her fer a cent, on the dead——"
"That'll do ye, Biggs. Clear out, onnyhow," said the policeman, unpityingly.
"Aw, dat's not right——"
"G'wan now, will ye?" exclaimed Officer Maher, roughly shoving Mr. Biggs toward the door.
"Oh," cried Justine, indignantly. "Let him alone!" Her eyes were flashing angrily.
"It's all right, ma'am," explained the clerk, calmly.
"But he's done nothing wrong."
"You can't take chances with these bums. They're a bad lot. He's a tough customer, Biggs is. Don't have anything to do with strangers on the street. It's not safe." By this time the red-faced guardian of the peace was with them again, and Justine reluctantly explained her dilemma to him.
"He worked here for a long time as a newspaper artist," she said, in conclusion.
"I've seen his pictures many a time," said the clerk with new interest. "Is he your husband?"
"Yes, sir."
"I guess he's not on the paper now. I haven't seen his pictures for some time."
"He's been off the paper for nearly a year."
"Come wid me to hidquarters, ma'am, an' the chief'll sind some wan out to loca—ate him before night," said the officer. "Sthate yer case to the boss. It won't be no thrick to find him."
"I hate to have the police look for him," said she imploringly.
"Will, thin, phat'd yez call me in fer?" demanded the officer, harshly.
"I—I didn't call you in, sir," said she, looking helplessly at the clerk.
"I called you in, officer," said the clerk. "She didn't know what to do."
"Will, it's up to you, ma'am. We'll find him if yez say so."
"Do you know any one else in Chicago?" asked the clerk. "Maybe there's some one you could go to while they're trying to find your husband."
"I don't know any one here," she said, despairingly.
"Don't you want to leave your grip here? We'll take care of it till you come after it."
"That'll be all right, ma'am. It'll be safe here, an' yez don't want to be luggin' it around town wid that kid on yer hands. L'ave it here," said Officer Maher, and he picked it up and carried it behind the prescription counter before she could remonstrate. The clerk handed her a card containing the name and location of the store.
"Oh, I do know some one here," she cried suddenly, her face brightening. "Miss Celeste Wood. Do you think I could find her?"
To her dismay, the name was not in the directory.
"Does she live with her parents?" asked the clerk.
"I—I think so," replied Justine, helplessly.
"Do you know her father's name?"
"No, sir. She has a brother named Randall. Would his name be in the book?"
Young Wood's name and address were readily found by the clerk, and Officer Maher advised her to take a cab to the place at once. These men unceremoniously took matters in their own hands, and, almost before she knew it, a cab was taking her northward, bound for the home of the girl who had so often sent her love, through Jud, to the other girl of Proctor's Falls.
The ride gave her ample time to reflect and she had not gone far before her thoughts were running once more in a straight channel. Her pride grew as the situation became plainer, displacing the first dread and confusion. How could she go to a stranger and inflict her with her troubles? What right had she to ask her assistance or even her interest in this hour of need? Besides all this, the mere confession that she could not find her husband would be humiliating to her and explanations would be sure to put Jud in an unpleasant light. It would mean that she must tell Miss Wood of his failure in everything, a condition which the young woman might politely deplore, but that was all. Her own poor garments now seemed the shabby reflection of Jud's poverty, his degradation, his fall from the high pedestal that had been his by promise. She could not look down into the bright, laughing eyes of her boy and go on to the shameful exposition of his father's misfortune. The red of pride mounted to her brown cheeks and the new fire in her eyes burned bright with the resolution to save him and herself from the humiliation of an appeal to Miss Wood.
Past rows of magnificent homes she was driven, but they interested her not at all. Beneath her pride, however, there battled the fast-diminishing power of reason. Try as she would, she could not drive out the stubborn spark which told her that she must call upon some one in her helplessness—but that the "some one" should be a woman was distressing. As she was struggling with pride and reason, the cab turned in and drew up at the curb in front of a handsome house. Her heart gave a great bound of dismay.
"This is No. ——, ma'am," said the driver, as he threw open the door.
"I—I don't believe I'll go in," she stammered, trembling in every nerve.
"Where shall I take you?" he asked wearily. Little he cared for the emotions of his fares.
"Are you sure this is the place?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am. Do you want to get out?"
Fresh courage inspired her, brought about by the sharp realization that it was the only way to find help, humiliating though the method might be. There was no other way, and his question: "Where shall I take you?" reminded her forcibly that she had no place to go.
"Yes," she said, decisively, and with the haste of one who is afraid that hesitation will bring weakness, she stepped to the carriage-block.
"Shall I wait, ma'am?"
"I don't know how long I'll be here," she said, her ignorance confronted by another puzzle. The driver saw in his mind sufficient cause for her uncertainty, and sagely concluded that she was a poor mother who expected to find a home for her babe with the wealthy people who lived at No. ——.
"I'll drive into the park and be back in half an hour, ma'am, if you think you'll be there that long," he said, and away he rolled. She mounted the steps quickly and, after a long and embarrassing search, found the electric button and rang the door bell. A trim maid responded. Justine had fondly hoped that Miss Wood herself would come to the door, and her heart sank with disappointment.
"Is Miss Wood at home?" she managed to ask.
"She does not live here," replied the maid, surveying the caller with a superior and supercilious air.
"I thought her brother——" began Justine, faintly. She felt as if she were about to fall.
"Mr. and Mrs. Wood live here, and they have a married daughter living over in S—— Place. I have only been here since Monday, ma'am, and I can't tell you her address."
"It is Miss Celeste Wood I want to see," said poor Justine, her lip trembling.
"That's the name—Celeste. She was here yesterday, and I heard Mrs. Wood speak the name. Won't Mrs. Wood do as well?" There was kindness in the voice now; Justine's eyes had made their usual conquest.
"I'd—I'd rather see Miss Celeste," she said, timidly. "Can't you tell me where she lives?"
"I'll ask Mrs. Wood. The butler'd know, but he is sick. Will you wait inside the door? What a pretty baby."
She was gone but a few minutes, returning before Justine's dazed eyes had half accustomed themselves to the attractive place.
"She lives at No. 1733 S—— Place. You go to the next corner and turn west. The house is in the second block."
The day was cold and her bare hands were numb. The wind from the lake cut through her thin garments so relentlessly that she longed for the protection of the carriage, which was not to return for half an hour—and then to the wrong place. What if Celeste were not at home? She could not ask to be permitted to sit in her house until her return; that would be too much of an imposition. She could only return to the street and wait for half an hour in the freezing winds for the cab, which seemed like a home to her now.
A hurrying figure in furs and brown approached from the direction in which she was going. The two drew nearer and nearer, the one walking rapidly against the wind, the other driven along more swiftly than was her wont by the heavy gale at her back. Justine was the first to recognize the other. Her heart gave a great bound of joy, for there could be no mistaking the face of the woman who faced the wind. The country girl jubilantly uttered in her soul a prayer of gratitude to the Providence that had brought her face to face with the one she sought. She half stopped as the other drew near. Celeste's eyes met hers. Evidently she was surprised to observe a desire to speak with her on the part of a stranger. Justine's eyes were wide with relief and her lips were parted as if words were just inside. Celeste's eyes narrowed for one brief instant of indecision, and then she knew. There was but one face like Justine Van's, and it had been in her mind for days and days. She had just come from it, in fact, and her heart was still aching with the pain of seeing it on Jud's easel not an hour before. But what could the girl be doing in Chicago? was the thought that flashed into her mind. Even as she opened her lips to greet her, her hands extended, it was known to her that Justine could be going only to the home of Jud Sherrod. Justine's joy was too great for words and Celeste's heart went out to her irresistibly. Despite the wanness of the face and the dark circles under the eyes, Justine's were still the vivid, matchless features that Celeste had envied in that other day. Though she was sorely troubled by the inexplicable presence of the one woman whom she had been thinking of for days, Celeste could but greet her warmly.
"This is the greatest surprise in the world," cried Celeste. "Who would have dreamed of seeing you here?"
"I have just come from your old home. They told me you lived on this street," said Justine, her voice hoarse with emotion.
"And you were going to my home," cried Celeste, just as if intuition had not told her so before. "I was on my way to mother's. Isn't it lucky we met? I will go back with you at once. You must be very cold. And—a baby? Oh, the dear little one! How cold it must be."
"I have him well wrapped up," said Justine. Celeste mentally noted that the child was protected at the sacrifice of the mother's comfort, for Justine looked half frozen.
"Is he—is he your boy?" asked Celeste, and a wave of happiness surged over her when the answer came. Did it not prove that she was married and forever out of Jud's life?
"I am sure he must be a handsome little fellow," said she, as they turned from the sidewalk to the steps leading to the door of her home.
"He looks like his father—and not a bit like me," said Justine, modestly.
"Have you named him?"
"He is named after his father, of course."
"A token of real love."
"Of love, yes—he could have had no other name. I am so happy that he is a boy." The door swung open and they were in the warm hallway.
"You must let me see him. Bring him to the grate. But, first, take off your hat and coat. Mary will relieve you of them. Now, let me see him."
Dudley, the second, was awake, wide-eyed and frightened, when he looked up into the two faces above him.
"Does he not look like his father?" asked Justine, happily.
Celeste started. Justine's innocent query rudely tore down the curtain that had hung between her understanding and Jud's strange behavior, and it seemed to her, in that one brief, horrible moment, that she saw all that was black and ugly in life.
She could take her eyes from the mother's gentle face only to let them rest upon the features of the baby. Justine's question—"Does he not look like his father?"—could have but one answer. Dudley Sherrod's likeness was stamped on the face of the boy, unmistakable, accusing. In her terror, the face of the little one seemed to age suddenly until there loomed up before her the features of Jud, the man.
Powerless to answer, she turned abruptly and staggered to a window, leaning heavily against the casing, her heart like lead, her face as white as death. She knew now the cause of everything that had mystified and troubled her in Jud's conduct. Now she knew why the picture of Justine was before him, now she knew why the mention of her name threw him into confusion. The whole wretched truth was plain.
"Oh, Jud! Oh, Jud!" she cried to herself. "Oh, this poor ruined girl! How could he have done such a—oh, God, no, no! I must be wrong. The resemblance is not real—it is my fancy. But—but, why does she ask me if he looks like his father? What other father can there be—what other man is known to both of us? But how young the boy is; Jud has not seen her in years. He cannot be the father. Why am I afraid? Why have I doubted him?" The voice of the other woman came to her from the fireplace, indistinct, jumbled and as if through the swirl of a storm.
"Pardon me, but I do not know what your name is now," was the apologetic remark from the other side of the room, and Celeste turned to her.
"My name is—is Sherrod, Miss Van," she said, slowly. Justine looked up in surprise and bewilderment. A shadow of unbelief crossed her face.
"Sherrod?" she asked, curiously. "Why, how strange that we should have the same name."
"The same name, Miss Van?"
"My name has not been Van for a long, long time. We were married before you met us in Proctor's Falls, I'm—why, what is the matter?"
"It is not true—it is not true," half shrieked Celeste. Justine shrank back as if confronted by a mad woman, instinctively shielding her boy. "Do you mean to tell me you were married to Jud Sherrod?" she continued, scornfully.
"IT IS NOT TRUE, HALF SHRIEKED CELESTE."IT IS NOT TRUE, HALF SHRIEKED CELESTE.
"IT IS NOT TRUE, HALF SHRIEKED CELESTE."IT IS NOT TRUE, HALF SHRIEKED CELESTE.
"Of course I was—don't look at me like that! What in the name of heaven is the matter, Mrs.—Mrs.——" A sickening thought struggled into Justine's mind. "Your name is—is Sherrod, too," she said, dully. "Has—has Jud anything to do with it?"
"He is not your husband," cried Celeste, pityingly.
"What do you mean?" gasped Justine, limp and white. "Jud and I married three years ago——"
"Oh!" moaned Celeste. Justine's extended arm caught her as she dropped forward. The wild blue eyes looked piteously into the frightened brown ones, and the gray lips repeated hoarsely: "Are you sure? Are you sure?"
"What shall I do?" moaned Justine. "I am his wife, I know I am. Nobody can deny it. Why, why, I have the certificate——" she went on eagerly. Celeste struggled to her feet.
"Then what in the name of heaven has he made of me?" she cried, hoarsely.
"I don't understand," murmured Justine dully. "Do you—do you love him?"
"Love him? Love him? Why, woman, he is my husband!"
The world went black before Justine's eyes. She fell back in the deep chair; her big eyes closed, her hands relaxed their clasp on the boy and he slid to the protecting arm of the chair; her breath clogged her throat. As consciousness fled, she saw Celeste sink to the floor at her feet.
A man drew aside the curtains a few minutes afterwards and planted a heavy foot inside the room. His sombre eyes were on the floor and it was not until he was well inside the room that his gaze fell upon the still group at the fireplace. He paused, his tired eyes for the moment resting wearily on the scene. Slowly his mind, which had been far away, caught up the picture before him. His dull sensibilities became active.
Celeste was lying on the floor. She had fainted. He stretched forth his arms to lift her and his eyes fell upon the upturned face of the woman in the chair. Petrified, he stood for an age, it seemed. Comprehension slowly forced its way into his brain.
"Justine!" A shriek of terror burst in his throat; the sound did not reach his lips. The end had come! It was all over! They knew—theyknew! They knew him for what he was. He had not the strength to flee; he only knew that he was face to face with the end. He must stand his ground, as well now as any time. He waited. There would be cries, sobs, wails and bitterness.
But no sounds came from the lips of the two women. The baby alone stared in wonder at this strange man. The faces of the unconscious girls were deathlike, Justine's drawn with pain, Celeste's white and weak. Unconsciously his hand touched Justine's face, then her breast. She did not move, but her heart was beating. With the same mechanical calmness he dropped to one knee and half raised Celeste's head, expecting her eyes to open. The lids lay still and dark and her neck was limp. As he rose to his feet stiffly, his eyes fell upon the face of the boy and it was as if he were a child again and looking at himself in the old mirror up at the house "on the pike."
He could not meet the smile of that innocent spectator. In a fever of haste lest either woman should revive before he could be hidden from their wretched eyes, he pressed cold lips to their lips, covered the baby's face with kisses and a flood of tears that suddenly burst forth, and then dashed blindly from the room and up the broad staircase, terrified by the sound of his own footfalls, in dread of a piteous call from below, eager to escape the eyes, the condemning eyes that once had loved him. Celeste was the first to open her eyes. For many minutes she lay where she had fallen, striving to remember how she came to be there. Memory gradually pushed aside the kindly numbness—and she saw clearly. Dragging herself to the mantel post, she tried to regain her feet. The effort was vain; her strength had not returned. Leaning against the mosaic background, she turned her eyes upon the motionless figure in the chair. She never knew what her thoughts were as she sat there and gazed upon the face of the other woman, Justine Van—Justine Van, the girl of Proctor's Falls.
At last a long sigh came from Justine's lips, there was a deep shudder and then the fluttering lips parted, two wide, dazed eyes of brown staring into space. Minutes passed before the gaze of the two women met. There were no words, nothing but the fixed stare of horror. Moved by a desperate impulse, Celeste struggled to her feet, her glazed eyes bent upon the face of the baby. Steadying herself for an instant against the mantel, she lurched forward, hatred in her heart, her hands outstretched. The fingers locked themselves in the folds of the child's dress and he was raised above the head of the frenzied woman.
Justine's weak hand went up appealingly; she had not strength to rise and snatch the child from the other's clutches.
"Then kill me, too," she whispered, closing her eyes.
A crowing laugh came from the child. The laugh of an infant who is tossed on high and revels in the fun. A moment later he was lying in his mother's lap and his enemy was sobbing as she laid her hand in the dark hair of the other woman.
A distant scream came from somewhere in the house, but the two women did not hear it. A maid came scurrying downstairs, white and excited. She dashed unceremoniously into the room, panting out the single exclamation:
"Hurry!"
Celeste slowly turned toward her.
"What is it, Mary?" she asked, mechanically, almost unconsciously.
"Mr. Sherrod, ma'am—you must come quick. In the studio," gasped the maid.
"Is Jud here?" asked Justine, raising herself in the chair. A new light struggled into her eyes. Celeste, cold with the certainty of some terrible news, straightened to receive the blow.
"Is it—bad, Mary?" she asked.
"Oh, ma'am, I—I can't tell you," almost whispered the girl. "It's awful! I'll see him to my dying day."
"He—he is dead?" The question came from frozen lips.
The maid burst into tears.
Sherrod's body lay stretched across the rug in front of the grate in his studio. His coat and vest had been hastily thrown aside and his white shirt, covering the deep chest, was saturated with blood. The carved hilt of a Malay dagger stood defiantly above the cleft heart. The steel was deep in his body.
He had dealt one blow, but he had sent the blade of the kris straight home; so true was its course that death must have been instantaneous. He lay flat on his broad back, his neck twisted as if checked in the supreme moment of agony; death had left its stamp of pain on his ghastly face.
On the floor near the body a piece of white paper was found, across which was scrawled:
"Forgive me."
The hand that penciled these words was the same that drove home the blade, but it had trembled only in the writing, not in the blow. The hasty scrawl revealed his eagerness to have over with life while there was yet a chance to escape facing the ruined women below. The last plea of the suicide was not directed to either of the loved ones; it was left for each to take it to her heart and in secrecy hold it as hers alone—cherishing it, if she could.
His had been a crime that the law could not sufficiently punish. He had indicted the penalty himself and he had asked forgiveness of those he had wronged in his weakness. They had loved him to the hour of his death; they had trusted him. Neither had known him in his baseness or his cowardice—they knew him only as loving, devoted and true. Death came just as the joys of being his were shattered; the pains he had given them in life were known only after he had gone from them. They were asked to forgive a dead man who had been everything to them in life, and whom they had loved until his last breath was drawn; he did not wait to receive their reproaches; he had gone away as they had known him and they had not looked upon the face of guilt.
*****
Celeste was the calmer of the two and yet she was the more deeply wronged. After the first grief she arose, bleeding and broken from the wreck of every joy, and she was strong. Justine, stunned by grief and horror, lay for hours in the bed to which she had been carried by the maids after the terrible scene in the studio. With the slow return of composure, Celeste saw dimly the situation as it existed for her. She was not a widow. The widow was the other woman who had crouched on the opposite side of the corpse, pleading with him to come back to her and the boy. While she could not as yet grasp the full reality of her position, she felt that Justine's claim was best.
It was she who had Justine taken to a room by the maids. There was no rage in her heart; she took that other one into her grief and shared it with her. There was no other way; they had suffered together. There still lingered a faint hope—cruel though it was—that she might be the real wife, and Justine the false one. Hours after the calamity, far in the night, while her mother bathed her head and sought to soothe her, Celeste planned and planned.
She knew that if Justine's claim were true, Jud had deliberately made a wanton of her, even though he loved her. The world would soon know that she was not a wife, and the newspapers would be nauseous with the sensation. She was confident, however, that she was the only one in the house who knew Justine's story, and as she lay waiting for the dawn there grew in her mind a steady purpose. The world must never know!
Justine, pale and dead-eyed, stood looking from the window of the bed-chamber when the knock came at her door the next morning. She did not respond, she did not even turn her head, for her thoughts were of the night before, and the life before that. Celeste softly opened the door and came to her side.
"Justine," she said gently, almost inaudibly. Dark, heavy, despairing eyes were turned upon her and she feared for the success of her plan.
"Am I to go to him now?" came the lifeless voice of the other.
"Justine," said Celeste, taking a cold hand in her own, "we must understand each other, we must know the truth. I don't think anything that can happen now will hurt us; we are dead to all pain. We must talk about—about ourselves."
"I don't understand what it all means," moaned Justine. "Why can't I go to Jud? He is mine—he is mine, and—and——"
"But, Justine, dear, it is of this that we must talk. I—I thought he was mine. Oh God, don't you see? I have lived as his wife for months and—and I never knew until you came that I—that I—oh, don't you understand?"
Justine's unwillingness to believe evil of Jud, despite all that had happened to prove the existence of a double life, was a barrier hard to break down, and it was not without long entreaties and explanations that Celeste made her see that her claim had some justification. At last these two women brought themselves down to the point from which the situation could be seen plainly in all its unhappy colorings. Together in the darkness that he had cast about them they groped their way toward the light of understanding; as they went, the heart of each was bared to the other, and both saw and sought to ease the pain the rents disclosed.
There was no denying Justine's right to call Jud husband. Celeste saw her every hope slipping away as she listened to the story of the courtship and marriage in the little country lane. She knew now that she had never been a wife, and she knew that she had to live all the rest of her life beneath an ugly shadow. Whatever were her thoughts of the man who had so basely wronged her, she kept them to herself. Not one word of reproach did she utter in the presence of the wife and mother. The consequences of his crime were hers to bear, and her only object in life now was to prevent others from sharing them with her, to prevent the world from knowing of their existence. If she loathed the memory of the man who had despoiled her honor, she held that loathing secret. To the world, he was her husband, and the world should see her mourn for him.
Her proposition to Justine was at first indignantly rejected, but so skillfully did she paint the picture of her position in life as Jud had left it for her, that the tender, honest girl from the country fell completely under the influence of her pleading. Justine was made to see Jud's fault in all its blackness, and was urged to share in the effort to protect his memory. No one was to know of the double life he had led; no one was to know of his crime; no one was to curse his memory; two women alone were to—forget, if they could.
Between them it was agreed that in Chicago Justine was to appear as a cousin of the dead man, and the funeral obsequies were to be conducted with the real wife in the background, the other as the deepest mourner. The body was to be taken afterwards to Clay township for burial, and there Justine was to claim her dead, with Celeste posing as the good friend in the hour of direst trouble. That was the general plan, the minor but intricate details being intrusted to Celeste.
"Here he was my husband, and the world may never be the wiser," said she, taking the other to her grateful heart. "Down there he is yours, and no one there must know how he has served you. You can save me, Justine, and I can shield him from the curses of your people. He will lie in the grave you dig for him away down there, and your friends may always look upon his headstone and say: 'He was a good man. We all loved him.' It is fair, Justine, and I will love you to my dying day for doing all this for me."
"I love you," said Justine, and they went forth to play their unhappy parts.
It was Celeste, keen and bold in her desperation, who wrote the letter to 'Gene Crawley, signing a fictitious name, Justine looking over her shoulder with streaming eyes. It briefly told of a sudden death and ended with the statement that a telegram would follow announcing the time of leaving Chicago with the body. The newspapers in the city told the story of the suicide, giving the cause as ill-health, and pictured the grief of the young widow. Celeste saw the reporters herself. Purposely, deliberately she misinformed them in many of the details regarding his birthplace and his earlier life. This act of shrewdness on her part was calculated to mislead the people of Clay township, and it succeeded. No one could connect the identity of the suicide with that of the youth who had gone out from that Indiana community long ago.
How the two women lived through the funeral service in S—— Place was past all understanding.
The real wife heard the sobs of the other and choked with the grief she was compelled to suppress. The other wept, but who knows whether the tears were tribute of love for the man over whom the clergyman said such gentle, hopeful words? A dead man and two women knew the story that would have shocked the world. One could not speak, the others would not. And so he was eulogized.
That night the two women and their dead left Chicago for Glenville. Their only companion was Dudley Sherrod, the second.
The people of Clay Township were kept in the dark concerning the manner in which Jud came to his death. The letter to 'Gene merely announced that his sudden death was due to a hemorrhage, and another letter to Parson Marks from Justine's friend in the city bore the same news. Naturally Jud's friends believed that the hemorrhage was of the lungs, which inspired ninety per cent. of them to say that they had always regarded him as frail. Some went so far as to recall predictions made when he was a boy to the effect that he "wouldn't live to see thirty year."
Crawley and Harve Crose drove to Glenville in Harve's wagon to meet the train, prepared to haul the casket to the cemetery, where Mr. Marks was to conduct short services. There was no hearse in Glenville, but there was a carpenter who buried people as a "side line." Rich people in the neighborhood sent to an adjoining county seat for embalmers and undertakers; Clay township buried its dead at it was able and saw fit. Justine would not permit Celeste to pay the expenses of the funeral at Jud's old home and she herself could not afford the luxury of a hearse and mourners' carriage. The arrangements were in the hands of Mr. Marks, Crawley and Crose, and the details were of the simplest character.
The aristocratic "two-seated rig" of David Strong and Martin Grimes's surrey were at the station to act as conveyances for Justine and the minister and a select few. Dozens of buggies, buckboards and not a few spring wagons fell in behind the "mourners' carriages" when the cortege left the depot platform, headed for the cemetery four miles away. Justine, her face hidden in a dense veil of black, occupied the back seat in David Strong's vehicle, and the whole country-side longed to comfort her. By her side sat a pale, beautiful woman in a simple gown of black—the city friend the community had heard so much about. The baby found a comfortable resting place in the capacious lap of Mrs. Strong, who sniffled continuously while her husband drove solemnly and imposingly through the streets of the village. The town looked on with sombre gaze and the country spoke in a respectful whisper. Sad was the home-coming of the Sherrods.
The long procession, headed by the wagon containing the casket, wound its slow way out into the country, through the winter-clean lane, past the house in which Jud and Justine were married, and up to the gate of the dilapidated, weather-worn "burying-ground" on the hill. In oppressive silence, the throng crowded over and about the weed-covered graves in the ill-kept little cemetery to witness every movement in connection with the ceremony. They saw the casket lifted from the wagon bed by six young men and they opened a pathway from the gate to the grave through which the pall-bearers passed with heavy tread; they saw the long black box in which Dudley Sherrod had come home lowered into the clay-colored gulf; they saw Justine, moaning as she stood between old Mrs. Crane and the stranger from the city; but they could not see the heart of that white-faced stranger, who looked with tear-dimmed eyes into the grave at her feet.
Justine's grief was pitiful. Not a man, woman or child in that assemblage but shed tears of genuine sympathy. The men and women who had gathered at the pastor's home not many months before to condemn her, now stood among the graves and wept with her. Not a few cast curious eyes upon the fair stranger and went away to say afterwards that she was the kind of friend to have.
The choir of the little church sang several hymns from books that Jud and Justine had used in days gone by. Heads were bared in the biting air, and no man was there who did not do full honor to Jud Sherrod, the goodliest boy the township had ever produced. The grief of the people was honest. Mr. Marks, inspired by the opportunity, delivered such a discourse on the goodness, the nobility of the young man, that the community, with one voice, proclaimed it to be a masterpiece of oratory.
"And to this devoted young wife, for whom he struggled so manfully, so loyally up to the very hour of his taking away, God gives His boundless pity and will extend His divinest help. Dudley Sherrod, our departed brother, was the soul of honor. He loved his home and the mistress of it second only to his Maker. I voice what is known to the world at large when I say that never lived there a man whose heart was more thoroughly given over to the keeping of woman. And she loved and revered him, and we see her inconsolable, bereft of all earthly joy. We pray God that she may see the brightness beyond this cloud that He has in His wisdom thrown about her. And we pray for the life, the soul of this baby boy who lies fatherless in this—er—this cold world. He will never know the love of a father. We all glory in the privilege of having known this true, honest Christian man, a man whose life bore not a single blemish. His life was an example to all mankind. Oh, ye who listen to my words in this sad hour, strive to emulate his example. Do ye as he has done, live the life he has lived. How many of us are there who might have lived as he—er—did—if we but had the courage to follow the impulses of the soul. He has gone to his reward."
*****
Just before the shades of night fell across the grief-ridden community, Justine escaped the kind ministrations of Mrs. Crane, Mrs. Hardesty, Mrs. Bolton and other good dames who had followed her to the cottage after the chill services in the cemetery for the purpose of comforting her. They had gone to the cottage with red eyes, choking whispers and hands eager to lift her up, and she was trying to avoid these good offices. She crept into the bleak little room upstairs to which Celeste had long since fled to find solitude for her broken heart.
Celeste was stretched upon the bed, face downward, and her slim body was as still as Jud's had been. The feeling of dread in Justine's heart was not dispelled until her hands touched the warm cheek, and her ear caught the sound of a faint, tear-choked sigh.
"It is I, Celeste," she said, gently. "Won't you let me hold you in my arms? See! I am strong again and I must take some one to my heart. It seems so empty, so dead, so cold. You don't hate me for this day, do you?"
Celeste turned her face to the girl above and stretched forth her hand.
"I love you, Justine," she sobbed, and their wet faces were pressed close together on the same pillow. After many minutes she asked abruptly: "What are you going to do, Justine?"
"Do?" asked the other, blankly. "I don't know. I haven't thought."
"You will not stay here, you cannot stay here where—where——"
"But where can I go? What do you mean?"
"I want to be with you always—I want to be near his—your boy," said the other. "Oh, Justine, I must have some one to love, I must have some one to love me. Don't you see, can't you see? I want you to love me and I want his boy to love me. You—you cannot stay here—you shall not stay here and suffer alone; you must not bear it all alone. We took the blow together, dearest Justine; let us bear it together, let us live through it together."
And so it was that the women Jud Sherrod had made happy and unhappy in his brief, misguided life, found a vacant place each in the heart of the other and filled that place with the love that could not be dishonored. It was a long time before Justine could fully comprehend the extent of the other's proposition and it was much longer before she was won over by almost abject pleading on the part of the wretched, lonely girl who had been wife in name only.
Celeste convinced Justine that she was entitled to all that Jud had left as a legacy; she deliberately classified herself as a part of his estate, an article among his goods and chattels, and as such she belonged to his widow and heir. The home in S—— Place was, by right of law, Justine's, argued the pleader, and all that Jud had died possessed of was in that house. So persistent was she in the desire to obtain her end that she triumphed over Justine's objections. It was settled that they were to live together, travel together so long as both found the union agreeable.
Celeste's plan included a long stay in Europe, a complete flight from all that had been laid bare and waste in the world they had known with him. In two weeks they were to sail and there was no time set for their return. Justine's most difficult task was to be performed in the interim. It was to be the rewarding of Eugene Crawley.
She had seen him at the grave-side, standing directly opposite her across the narrow opening in the ground. The pallor of his face was so marked that even she had observed it. He had not raised his eyes to look at her, but she had seen his chest rise and fall.
The third day after the funeral she faced Crawley in the barn-lot. With Celeste she was to leave that evening for Chicago and the time had come for settlement. She stood near the little gate that led to the barn-lot and he approached slowly, uncertain as to the propriety of addressing this woman in grief. It was to be his first word to her since he said good-by on the day that took her to Chicago with his money in her purse, the price of his horses. He had staked his all to give her the means to find Sherrod and she had found him.
"'Gene, I am going away," she said, extending her hand as he came up.
"Going away?" he repeated, blankly.
"Yes. Miss Wood has asked me to accompany her to Europe and—and I am going."
He was silent for a long time, his dazed eyes looking past her as if sightless.
"That's—that's a long ways to go, Justine," he said at last, and his voice was husky. The broad hand which had held hers for an instant, shook as he laid it on the gate post.
"It is very good of her, 'Gene, and I love her so much," she said. She saw again that love was not dead in his heart and the revelation frightened her. "You have been so good to me, 'Gene, and I don't know how I am ever to repay you," she hurried on, eager to pass the crisis.
"You—you c'n pay me in your own way an' in your own time," he said, looking intently at the ground, uncertain of his own meaning.
"We leave to-night," she said, "and I must not go away without—without settling with you."
"Settlin' with me," he echoed. There was no passing over the bitterness in his voice. "You are goin' to-night. Good God!——" he burst out, but the new habit of self-repression was strong. "I beg your pardon, Justine," he went on a moment later. "To-night?"
"Mr. Strong will take us to the train at six o'clock," she said. She had not looked for so much emotion. "'Gene, I owe you so much that I don't see how I am ever to pay you. Not only is it money that I owe, but gratitude. I have thought it all out, 'Gene, and there is only one way in which I can pay the smallest part of my debt, for the debt of gratitude can never be paid. I have sent for 'Squire Rawlings and—and, 'Gene, I know you won't misunderstand me—I am going to ask you to accept this farm from me, to be yours and yours only. The 'Squire will bring the deed, and——"
"Justine!" he exclaimed, looking her full in the eyes. "You wouldn't do that—you don't mean that!" The darkest pain she had ever seen was in his eyes.
"You deserve it and more——" she began, shrinking before his gaze. He held up his hand piteously and turned his face away, and she could see his struggle for control. At last he turned to her, his face white and drawn, his eyes steady, his voice less husky than before.
"You must never say such a thing to me ag'in, Justine. I know you meant all right an' you thought I'd be satisfied with the bargain, but you—you mustn't offer to pay me ag'in. You've paid me all that's comin' to me, you've paid me by makin' a good man of me, that's what you've done. I'd die before I'd take this—this land o' your'n an' that little boy's. You're mighty good an'—an'—— Oh, cain't you see it's no use in me tryin' to talk about it? Wait! You was about to begin beggin' me to take it. I want to ast you as the greatest favor you ever done for me, don't say it. Don't say it. I cain't stand it, Justine!"
"Forgive me, 'Gene, forgive me," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You deserve more than I can ever give you, dear friend. I did not mean to hurt you——"
"It's all over, so let's say no more about it," he said, breathing deeply and throwing up his head. "I'll take keer o' your farm while you're gone, Justine, an' it'll be here in good order when you're ready to come back to it. It'll be kept in good shape for the boy. Don't you ever worry about the place. It's your'n an' I'll take good keer of it for you. You're goin' to ketch the evenin' train?"
"Yes," she said gently, "and I may be gone for a long time, 'Gene."
"Well," he said with difficulty, "I guess we'd better say good—good-bye. You've lots to do in the house an' I want to do some work in the wagon-shed. Good-bye, Justine; be—be good to yourself." It was the greatest battle that rough 'Gene Crawley had ever waged, but he came out of it without a scar to be ashamed of.
"I want to ask you to—to look after Jud's grave, 'Gene," she said, her hand in his. "There is no one else I can ask, and I want it kept better—better than the rest up there. Will you see to it for me?"
"I'll—I'll 'tend to it for you, Justine," he said, but his face went pale.
For a full minute she looked, speechless, upon the white, averted face of the man whose love was going to its death so bravely, and a great warmth crept into her cold veins—a warmth born in a strange new tenderness that went out to him. A sudden, sharp contraction of the heart told her as plainly as though the message had come in words that the love in this man's heart would never die, never falter. Somehow, the drear, chill prospect grew softer, warmer in the discovery that love could still live in this dead, ugly world, that after all fires were burning kindly for her. There was a thrill in her voice as she murmured, brokenly:
"Good-bye, 'Gene, and God bless and keep you."
"Good-bye," he responded, releasing her hand. He did not raise his eyes until the door of the cottage closed after her.
At dusk David Strong drove away from the little house in the lane, and the Sherrods went with him. 'Gene Crawley stood in the shadow of the barn, his hopeless eyes fastened on the vehicle until it was lost among the trees.
A sharp, choking sound came from his throat as he turned those dark, hungry eyes from the purple haze that screened the carriage from view. About him stretched the poor little farm, as dead as his hopes; at his back stood the almost empty barn; yonder was the deserted house from which no gleam of light shone.
He was alone. There was nothing left but the lifeless, unkind shadows. Slowly he strode to the little gate through which she had passed. His hands closed over the pickets tenderly and then his lips were pressed to the latch her fingers had touched in closing the gate perhaps for the last time—closing it with him a prisoner until she chose to come back and release him.
A moment later his face dropped to his arms as they rested on the post, and he sobbed as though his heart would break.