Seeing that he had plenty of time he walked slowly round to the Forty-second Street entrance instead of going in the side way. He observed the great piles of building and rebuilding that were going on in the neighborhood, and compared the reconstruction of the quarter to his own case. He wondered why they delayed in making the Park Avenue connecting bridge—such an integral part of the scheme. Ifhehad shilly-shallied like that, a nice mess he would have made of his life! He gazed up at the great new front of the station and bumped into a stentorian newsboy. Everywhere those confounded newsboys—!He was actually in the station before he had any suspicion. There was about the usual number of people in the great waiting-room, but there seemed to be more hurrying than usual. He saw one or two people dart across the space, and observed that they did not disappear into the train gates.... Had he or had he not caught the word "wreck" on one of those flaunting headlines in the street? He turned off suddenly to a news stand and bought a paper.There it all was, in black and white—or rather red and white. Red letters, five inches high.Train 64, the Maine Special, had run through an open switch and turned turtle somewhere near Stamford. Fifteen reported killed, others injured. No names given.The Maine Special. Beatrice's train.He knew that he must devote all his efforts at this juncture to keep himself from thinking. Until he knew, thatwas. He did not even allow himself to name the thoughts he was afraid of giving birth to. Anxiety, hope, fear, premonition, horror, satisfaction, pity—he must put them all away from him. There was no telling what future horrors he might be led into if he gave way ever so little to any one of them. The one thing to do now was tofind out.This was not so easy. He went first to the bulletin board where the arrivals of trains were announced, and found a small and anxious-eyed crowd gazing at the few uninforming statements marked in white chalk. There was nothing to be learned from them. He spoke to an official, who was equally reticent, and spoke vaguely of a relief train."Do you mean to say there's no way of finding out the names of those killed before the relief train comes in?" he asked."We can't tell you what we don't know!" replied the man, already too inured to such questions to show feeling of any sort. He then directed James to the office of the railroad press agent, on the eighth floor.James started to ask another question, but was interrupted by a young woman who hurried up to the official. She held a little girl of seven or eight by the hand, and the eyes of both were streaming with tears. The sight struck James as odd in that cold, impersonal, schedule-run place, and he swerved as he walked off to look at them. He turned again abruptly and went his way, stifling an involuntary rise of a feeling which might have been very like envy, if he had allowed himself to think about it....And no one else had even noticed the two.He found no one in the press office except a few newspaper reporters who sat about on tables with their hats balanced on the backs of their heads. They eyed him suspiciously but said nothing. An inner door opened and a young man in his shirtsleeves, a stenographer, entered the room bearing a number of typewritten flimsies. The reporters pounced upon these and rushed away in search of telephones.James asked the young man if he could see Mr. Barker, the agent.The young man said Mr. Barker was busy, and asked James what paper he represented.James said none.On what business, then, did James want to see Mr. Barker?To learn the fate of some one on the Maine Special.A friend?A wife.The stenographer dropped his lower jaw, but said nothing. He immediately opened the inner door and led James up to an older man who sat dictating to a young woman at a typewriter. He was plump and clean-shaven and very neat about the collar and tie; James did not realize that this was the agent until the younger man told him so."My dear sir," replied Mr. Barker to James' question, "I know absolutely no more about it than you do. If I did, I'd tell you. The boys have been hammering away at me for the past hour, and I've given 'em every word that's come in. These two names are all I've got so far." He handed James a flimsy.James' eye fell upon the names of two men, both described as traveling salesmen. He went back to the outer office and sat down to think. It was, of course, extremely improbable that Beatrice had been killed. There had been, say, two hundred people on the train, of whom fifteen were known to have died—something like seven and a half per cent. Two of these were accounted for; that left thirteen. He wondered how long it would be before those thirteen names came in.The room began to fill up again; the reporters returned and new recruits constantly swelled their number. From their talk James gathered why there was such a dearth of detailed news. The wreck occurring during the waking hours of the day had been learned, as far as the mere fact of its occurrence was concerned, and published within half an hour after it had happened. It naturally took longer than this to do even the first work of clearing the wreckage and the compiling of the lists of dead and injured would require even more time. With the results that interested friends and relations, learning of the wreck but none of its particulars, were rushing pell-mell to headquarters to get the first news. One young man described in vivid terms certain things he had just witnessed down in the concourse."Best sob stuff in months," was his one comment.Just then one of their number, a slightly older man andevidently a leader among them, emerged from the inner office."What about it, Wilkins?" they greeted him in chorus. "Slip it, Wilkins, slip it over! Give us the dope! Any more stiffs yet? Come on, out with it—no beats on this story, you know...."Harpies!The outer door opened and two women burst into the room. The first of them, a tall, stout, good-featured Jewess, clothed in deep mourning, was wildly gasping and beating her hands on her breast."Can any of you tell me about a young man called Lindenbaum?" she asked between her sobs. "Lindenbaum—a young man—on Car fifty-six he was! Has anything been heard of him—anything?"The reporters promptly told her that nothing had. She sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands and burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping. The younger woman, evidently her daughter, stood by trying to comfort her. At length the other raised her veil and wearily wiped her eyes. James studied her face; her sunken eyes no less than her black clothes gave evidence of an older sorrow. Moved by a sudden impulse he went over and spoke to her, telling her that her son was in all probability safe and basing his assurance on the calm mathematical grounds of his own reasoning. The woman did not understand much of what he said, but the quiet tones of his voice seemed to comfort her. She rose and started to go."Thank you," she said to James, "you're a nice boy.—Oh, I do hope God will spare him to me—only nineteen, he is, and the only man I have left, all I have left...."Sob stuff!Scarcely had the door closed behind her when a business man of about forty-five, prosperous, well-dressed and unemotional-looking, came in and asked if the name of his daughter was on the list of the dead. Some one said it was not."Thank God," said the man in a weak voice. He raised his hand to his forehead, closed his eyes and fell over backward in a dead faint. When he came to he had to be told that the names of only three of the dead were as yet known.These were the first of a long series of scenes such asJames would not have thought possible off the stage. He had never seen people mastered by an overwhelming anxiety before; it was interesting to learn that they acted in such cases much as they were generally supposed to. Anxiety, he reflected, was perhaps the most intolerable emotion known to man. Yet as he sat there calmly waiting for the arrival of the relief train he could have wished that he might have tasted the full horror of it.... No, that was mere hysteria, of course. But there was something holy about such a feeling; it was like a sort of cleansing, a purifying by fire.... Was it that his soul was not worthy of such a purifying? Oh, hysterics again!But the purifying of others went on before his eyes as he sat trying not to think or feel and reading the bulletins as they came out from the inner office. Grotesquely unimportant, those bulletins, or so they must seem to those concerned for the fate of friends!"General Traffic Manager Albert S. Holden learned by telegram of the accident to Train 64 near Stamford this morning and immediately hurried to Stamford by special train. Mr. Holden will conduct an investigation into the causes of the accident in conjunction with Coroner Francis X. Willis of Stamford.""One young woman among the injured was identified as Miss Fannie Schmidt of Brooklyn. She was taken to the Stamford hospital suffering from contusions.""Patrick F. McGuire, the engineer of Train 64 which ran through an open switch near Stamford this morning, has been in the employ of the Company for many years. He was severely cut about the face and head. He has been engineer of the Maine Special since the 23rd of last May, prior to which he had worked as engineer on Train 102. He began his service in the Company in 1898 as fireman on the Naugatuck Division....""Vice-President Henry T. Blomberg gave out in New Haven this morning the following statement concerning the accident at Stamford....""Whew!" exclaimed a reporter, issuing suddenly from a telephone booth near James, "this issomestory, believe me!" He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He was a young man and looked somewhat more like a human being than the others."Oh, you'd call this harrowing, would you?" said James."Well," said the other apologetically, "I've only been on the job a few months and this human interest stuff sort of gets me. This is the first big one of the kind I've been on. I guess there's enough human interest here to-day for any one, though!""There doesn't seem to be enough to inconvenience you," observed James. "Not you, so much, but—" with a wave toward the reporters' table—"those—the others."The young man laughed slightly. "Oh, you can stand pretty near anything after you've been on the job for a while! You see, when you're on the news end of a thing like this you don't have time to get worked up. When you're hot foot after every bit of stuff you can get, and have to hustle to the telephone to send it in the same minute, so's not to get beaten on it, you don't bother about whether people have hysterics or not. You simply can't—you haven't got time! That's why these fellows all seem so calm—it'sbusinessto them, you see. They're not really hard-hearted, or anything like that. Gosh, it's lucky for me, though, that I'm here on business, if I have to be here at all!""You mean you're glad you don't know any one on the train?""Oh, Lord yes, that—but I'm glad I have something to keep me busy, as long as I'm here. If I were just standing round, watching, say—gosh, I wouldn't answer for what I'd do! I'd probably have hysterics myself, just from seeing the others!"This gave James something more to think about.He saw now that he had misjudged the reporters; even these harpies gave him something to envy. If one was going to feel indifferent at a time like this it would be well to feel at least an honest professional indifference.... But that was not all. Had not this young man admitted that the mere sight of such suffering would have stirred him to the depths if he did not have his business to think of, and that without being personally concerned in the accident? While he himself, with every reason to suffer every anxiety in this crucial moment, was quite the calmest person in the room, able to lecture a hysterical mother on the doctrine of chances! Was he dead to all human feeling?There was a moment of calm in the room, which wasbroken by the entrance of a tall blonde young man—a college undergraduate, to all appearances."Can any of you tell me if Car 1058 was on the Maine Special?" he asked the reporters.No one had heard of Car 1058. Research among the bulletins failed to reveal any mention of it."What's the name of the person you're interested in?" asked some one. "We might be able to tell you something.""Oh, it wasn't anyperson," the young man explained; "it was my dog I was looking for. I've found he was shipped on Car 1058. A water spaniel, he was. I don't suppose you've heard anything?"A moment of silence followed this announcement, and then one of the reporters began to laugh. There was nothing funny about it, of course, except the contrast. They all knew it was by the merest accident that Fannie Schmidt's contusions had been flashed over the wires rather than the fate of the water spaniel.The youth flushed to the roots of his yellow hair."Oh, yes, it's very funny, of course," he said, and stalked out of the room. But there shone another light in his eyes than the gleam of anger."Say, there's copy in that," observed one reporter, and straightway they were all busy writing.James had smiled with the others, but his merriment was short-lived. This indeed was the finishing stroke. That young fellow actually was more concerned about his dog....The relief train was due to arrive at 1:30, and shortly before that hour there was a general adjournment to the concourse. A crowd had already gathered before the gate through which the survivors would presently file. James looked at the waiting people and shuddered slightly. He preferred not to wait there.Passing by a news stand he bought the latest extra. It was curious to see the contents of those press agent flimsies transcribed on the flaring columns as the livest news obtainable. Well, all that would be changed shortly.... His own name caught his eye; a paragraph was devoted to telling how he had waited in the station, and why. "Mr. Wimbourne was entirely calm and self-contained," the item ended. Calm and self-contained. And those people took it for a virtue!...The gates were opened to allow the friends of passengers on the ill-fated train to pass through to the platform. The reporters were unusually silent as James walked by. James knew what their silence meant, and writhed under it.The platform was dark and chilly. Like a tomb, almost.... The idea was suggestive, but his heart was stone against it. The thought of seeing Beatrice walking up the platform in a moment was enough to check any possible indulgence of feeling. That was the way such things always had been rewarded, with him. He could not remember having entertained one such emotional impulse in the past that had not led him into fresh misery.He had waited nearly two hours and there was absolutely no indication as to whether Beatrice had suffered or not. He had telephoned several times to his flat, to which the servants had lately returned, and to his office and had learned that no word had been received at either place. That meant nothing. Five names of people killed had been received when he left the press office, and hers was not among them. But the number of dead was said to be larger than was at first expected; it would probably reach into the twenties. Part of one Pullman, it appeared, had been entirely destroyed by fire, and several people were believed to have perished in it. There was no telling, of course, till the train came in. The chances were still overwhelmingly in favor of Beatrice's safety, of course....One torment had been spared him: Tommy had not turned up. There would be no scene; he would not have to look on while his wife and her lover, maddened by the pangs of separation and suspense, rushed into each other's arms.... Ah, no; he would not deceive himself. His relief at Tommy's absence was really due to the fact that he had been spared the sight of some one genuinely and whole-heartedly anxious about Beatrice's fate.The train crawled noiselessly into the station. James posted himself near the inner end of the platform, so as to be sure not to miss her. Soon groups began to file by of people laughing and crying and embracing each other, as unconscious to appearances as children. How many happy reunions, how many quarrels and misunderstandings mended forever by an hour or two of intense suffering!... No, that was a foolish thought, of course.Presently he saw her, or rather a hat which he recognizedas hers, moving up the platform. He braced himself and walked forward with lowered eyes, trying to think of something felicitous to say. He dared not look up till she was quite near. At last he raised a hand toward her, opened his mouth to speak, and found himself staring into the face of a perfectly strange woman.The mischance unnerved him. He lost control of himself and darted aimlessly to and fro through the crowd for a few moments, like a rabbit. Then he rushed back to the gate and stood there watching till the last passenger had left the platform and white shrouded things on wheels began to appear.He saw a uniformed official and addressed him, asking where he could find a complete list of the dead and injured. The man silently handed him a paper. James ran his eyes feverishly down the list of names. There it was—Wim—no, no, Wilson. Her name was not there. He raised his eyes questioningly to the official."No, that list is not complete," said the man.He led James away to one or two other uniformed officials, and then to a man who was not in uniform. At length it was arranged; James was to take the first train for Stamford. Some one gave him a pass.But before he went he telegraphed to Bar Harbor. It was necessary to have conclusive proof that Beatrice was on the train. As he recrossed the concourse, now converted into a happy hunting ground for the reporters, he caught sight of Mrs. Lindenbaum, the anxious mother. She was alone, but the expression on her face left no doubt as to how the day had turned out for her. He stopped and spoke to her:"Your son is all right, is he?""Yes!" She turned toward him a face fairly transfigured with joy. "He wasn't hurt at all—just scratched a little by broken glass. He and my daughter have just gone to telephone to some people.... What do you think—he was the first one in his car to break open a window and let the smoke out! He reached up with his umbrella and smashed it open—that was how he got out. And he dragged out three people who were unconscious...." She stopped and laughed. "You must excuse me—I'm foolish!""Not at all," replied James. "I'm so glad—" Hestarted to move on, but the woman stopped him, suddenly remembering."But what about—I do hope—" she began."No," said James quietly. "I'm sorry to say my news is bad." He had little doubt now as to the verdict, but bad—! Was it? Oh, was it?It was early evening before he returned. His expedition had been painful in the extreme, but wholly without definite results. There had been one or two charred fragments of clothing that might or might not have been.... It was too horrible to think much about.He knew for certain no more than when he started out, but conviction was only increased, for all that. What was there left to imagine but what that heap of cinders suggested? There was just one other chance, one bare possibility; Beatrice might not have left Bar Harbor, at any rate not on that train. The answer to his telegram would settle that.He found the yellow envelope awaiting him on the hall table. He lifted it slowly and paused a moment before opening it, wondering if he could trust himself to hope or feel anything in this final instant of uncertainty. Anything! Any human feeling to break this shell of indifference....No use. Something in his brain refused to work.He tore open the envelope. "Beatrice left last night on the seven o'clock ferry; nothing more known. Please wire latest news," he read.Well, that settled it, at any rate. He knew what the facts were; now he had only to bring himself face to face with them. Yet still he found himself dodging the issue, letting his thoughts wander into obscure by-paths. His brain was strangely lethargic, his heart more so, if possible, than in the station this morning. It was not that he felt bitter or cruel; he explained the situation to the maid, as she served him his dinner, with great tact and consideration, and afterward arranged certain matters of detail with all his usual care and foresight. It was only when he looked into himself that he met darkness.Uncle James, who was in town on business, dropped in during the evening. James told him the results of hislabors and watched the first hopefulness of his uncle's face freeze gradually into conviction."I see, I see," said Uncle James at last. "There's nothing more to be done, then? Any use I can be, in any way—""Thank you," replied James gravely, "there's nothing more to be done."Uncle James rose to go and then hesitated. "Well, there it is," he said; "it's just got to be faced, I suppose. A major sorrow—the great blow of a lifetime. Not many of us are called upon to bear such great things, James. I never have been, and never shall, now. We feel less sharply as we grow older.... It's a great sorrow, a great trial—but I can't help feeling, somehow, that it's also a great chance.... But I'm only harrowing you—I'm sorry." He turned and went out without another word.Presently James wandered into the bedroom that had once been hers. He turned on all the lights as if in the hope that illuminating the places she had been familiar with would bring the memory of her more sharply to his mind. Yes, it all seemed very natural; he would not say but what it made death less terrible. The fact that her chair was in its accustomed place before her dressing table did somehow make it easier to remember the events of that afternoon. He sat down before the dressing table. There was little on it to bring an intimate recollection of her to his mind; most of her small possessions she had naturally taken away with her to Bar Harbor. He opened a drawer and discovered nothing but a small box of hairpins.He took them out and handled them gently for a moment. Hairpins! Even so, they brought her back more vividly than anything had yet done—the soft dark hair sweeping back from the forehead, the lovely arch of her nose, and all the rest of it.... He supposed she ought to seem aloof and unapproachable, now that she was dead, but it was not so at all. He remembered her only as feminine and appealing. She certainly had been very beautiful. And of all that beauty there remained only—hairpins. The fact of human mortality pressed suddenly down on him. Some time, a few days or a few decades hence, he would cease to exist, even as Beatrice, and nothing would remain of him but—Not hairpins, indeed, but hardly anything more substantial. A society pin, a little gold football,a few papers bearing his signatures in McClellan's files....Poor Beatrice!A feeling touched his heart at last; one of pity. Poor Beatrice! Fate had treated her harshly, far beneath her deserts. She had sinned.... Had she? It was not for him to settle that; she had been human, even as he. She had been frail; leave it at that. The strongest of us are weak at times. Only most of us are given a chance to regain our strength, pull ourselves together after a fall, make something out of ourselves at last. This opportunity had been denied Beatrice. Surely it was hard that she should be cut off thus in the depth of her frailty, at the lowest ebb of all that was good in her. The weakest deserved better than that.So he sat meditating on the tragedy of her life as he might, in an idle mood, have brooded over the story of a lovely and unhappy queen of long ago, some appealing, wistful figure of the past with whom he had nothing in common but mortality. The sense of his own detachment from the story of his wife's life struck him at last and roused him to fresh pity. He went into his dressing room and fetched the photograph of her that he had thought it advisable to keep on his bureau. He stood it up on her dressing table and sat down again to study it. Poor Beatrice! It was pathetic that she, so young, so beautiful, so lonely, should be unmourned, since his feeling could not properly be described as mourning...."Poor Beatrice," he murmured, "is pity all I can feel for you?"A bell sounded somewhere, the front door bell. He scarcely noticed it.No, there was one person to mourn her, of course—Tommy. The thought of him sent a sudden shudder through him. Tommy! He wondered if he could bring himself to be decent to Tommy in case he should turn up.... Just like him, the nauseous little brute!No, that thought was unworthy of him. What particular grudge had he against Tommy? Hitherto he had not even taken the trouble to despise Tommy, and surely there was no point in beginning now. No, he must be decent to Tommy, if the occasion should arise.But that Tommy should be chief mourner! Poor Beatrice!...Presently he roused himself with a slight start. He did not wish to grudge his wife what slight homage he could pay her, but he felt that he had perhaps gone far enough. One felt what one could; harping over things was merely morbid. He rose and quietly left the room.The lights in the hall seemed dim and low. A gentle glow shone through the living room door. That was odd; he thought he remembered turning out the light in the room before he left it. Then he became aware of a sentence or two being spoken in a low voice in that room, and the next moment one of the servants walked out of the door and into the hall.He brushed past her, wondering who could have arrived at this time of night. At the door he stopped, strained his eyes to pierce the half-gloom and became aware of a figure standing before him, a silent, black-robed figure, full of a strange portent....Aunt Selina.CHAPTER XIIIRED FLAME"James, is it true—what she just told me?" Her voice was full of anxiety and horror, but in some curious way she still managed to be the self-possessed Aunt Selina of old. Even in that moment James found time to admire her."Yes, Aunt Selina, I'm afraid it's true.""Is there no hope, no chance—""None, that I can see.""Then ... oh!" She gave way at that, seeming to crumple where she stood. James helped her to a sofa and silently went into the dining room and mixed some whisky and water. Aunt Selina stared when he offered it to her, and then took it without a word. How like Aunt Selina again! A fool would have raised objections. James almost smiled."How do you happen to be here, Aunt Selina?" he asked after a few moments, less in the desire of knowing than in the hope of diverting her. "You didn't come from Bar Harbor to-day?""From Boston.""Boston?""I took the boat to Boston last night. I learned of the accident there. I supposed she was safe—the papers said nothing.""Yes, I know. But—but how did you happen to leave Bar Harbor at all?""I was going to meet her here.""Her?""Beatrice.""I don't understand.""No, and oh, my poor boy, I've got to make you!" She said this quietly, almost prayerfully, with the air of a person laboring under a weighty mission. James had no reply to offer and walked off feeling curiously uncomfortable. There was a long silence."Come over here and sit down, James; I want to talk to you," said Aunt Selina at last. She spoke in her natural tone of voice; there was no more of the priestess about her. There was that about her, however, that made him obey."James, I've got to tell you a few things about Beatrice. Some things I don't believe you know. Do you mind?""No," said James slowly, "I don't know that I do.""Well, in the first place, I suppose you thought she was in love with that Englishman?"James nodded."Well, she wasn't—not one particle. Whatever else may or may not be true, that is. She despised him."James froze, paused as though deciding whether or not to discuss the matter and then said gently: "I have my own ideas about that, Aunt Selina."She nodded briefly, almost briskly. It was the most effective reply she could have made. The more businesslike the words the greater the impression on James, always, in any matter. Aunt Selina understood perfectly. She let her effect sink in and waited calmly for him to demand proof. This he did at last, going to the very heart of the subject."Then perhaps, Aunt Selina, you can account for certain things....""No, I shall only tell you what I know. You must do your own accounting." She paused a moment and then went on: "You've heard nothing since you left Bar Harbor, I suppose?""Nothing.""Beatrice was quite ill for a time after you left. For days she lay in bed unable to move, but there seemed to be nothing specific the matter with her. We called in the doctor and he said the same old thing—rest and fresh air. He knew considerably less what was the matter with her than any one else in the house, which is saying a good deal."Lord Clairloch left the day after you did. Beatrice saw him once, that evening, and sent him away. The next day he went, saying vaguely that he had to go back to New York."James, of course I knew. I couldn't live in the house with the two people I cared most for in the world and not see things, notfeelthings. The only wonder is that nobody else guessed. It seemed incredible to me, who wasso keenly alive to the whole business. Time and time again when Cecilia opened her mouth to speak to me I thought she was going to talk about that, and then she would speak about some unimportant subject, and I blessed her for her denseness. And how I thanked Heaven that that sharp-nosed little minx Ruth wasn't there! She'd have smelt the whole thing out in no time."Gradually Beatrice mended. Her color came back and she seemed stronger. At last one evening—only Tuesday it was; think of it!—she came down to dinner with a peculiar sort of glitter in her eyes. She told us that she felt able to travel and was going to New York the next day. She had engaged her accommodations and everything. Of course I knew what that meant...."Knowledge can be a terrible thing, James. For days it had preyed on me, and now when the moment for action came I was almost too weak to respond. Oh, how I was tempted to sit back and say nothing and let things take their course!... But I simply couldn't fall back in the end, I simply couldn't. After bedtime that evening I went to the door of her room and knocked."I found her in the midst of packing. I told her I had something to say to her and would wait till she was ready. She said she was listening."'Beatrice,' said I, 'I've always tried to mind my own business above all things, but I'm going to break my rule now. I'm fond of you, Beatrice; if I offend you remember that. I simply can't watch you throw your life away without raising a finger to stop you.'"She didn't flare up, she didn't even ask me how I knew; she only gave a sort of groan and said: 'Oh, but Aunt Selina, I haven't any life to throw away! It's all been burned and frozen out of me; there's nothing left but a shell, and that won't last long! Can't you let me pass the little that remains in peace? That's all I ask for—I gave up happiness long ago. It won't last long! It can hurt no one!'"'You have an immortal soul,' said I; 'you can hurt that.'"She sat looking at the floor for a while and then said imploringly: 'Don't ask me to go back to James, Aunt Selina, for that's the one thing I can't do.' 'I shan't ask you to do anything,' I told her, but I knew perfectly wellthat I was prepared to go down on my knees before her, when the time came...."But it hadn't come yet—there was a great deal to be done first. What I did was to tell her something about my own life, in the hope that it might throw a new light on her situation. I told her things that I've never told to a human being and never expected to tell another...."James, I think I ought to tell you the whole thing, as I told it to her. It may help you to understand ... certain things you must understand. Do you mind?"She paused, less for the purpose of obtaining his consent than in order to gain a perfect control over her voice and manner. Taking James' silence as acquiescence she folded her hands in her lap and went on in a low quiet voice:"I haven't had much of a life, according to most ways of thinking. All I ever knew of life, as I suppose you know it, was concentrated into a few months. Not that I didn't have a good time during my girlhood and youth. My mother died when I was a baby, but my stepmother took as good care of me as if I had been her own child, and I loved her almost like my own mother. I've often thought, though, that if my mother had lived things might have turned out differently. Stepmothers are never quite the same thing."Well, I grew up and flew about with the college boys in the usual way. I never cared a rap for any of them, beyond the bedtime raptures that girls go through. I was able to manage them all pretty easily; I see now that I was too attractive to them. I had a great deal of what in those days was referred to as 'animation,' which is another way of saying that I was an active, strong-willed, selfish little savage. I was willing to play with the college men, but I always said that when I fell in love it would be with arealman. I laughed when I said it, but I meant it."Presently there came a change. Father died, and when I came out of mourning the college men I knew best had graduated and the others seemed too young and silly for me even to play with. It was at about this time, when I was adjusting myself to new conditions and casting about for something to occupy my mind that I came to know Milton Leffert."James stirred slightly. Aunt Selina smiled."Yes, you've heard of him, of course. It gives one acurious feeling, doesn't it, to learn that dead people, or people who are as good as dead, have had their lives? I know, I know ... I think you'd have liked Milton Leffert. He was very quiet and not at all striking in appearance, but he was strong and there was no nonsense about him. He was more than ten years older than I. I had known him only slightly before that time. Then after Father's death he began coming to see me a good deal and we fell into the habit of walking and driving together. I always liked him. I loved talking with him; he was the first man I ever talked much with on serious subjects. He stimulated me, and I enjoyed being with him. Only, it never occurred to me that he could be the Real Man."You've often heard of women refusing men because of their poverty. Well, the chief thing that prejudiced me against Milton Leffert was his wealth. He happened to possess a large fortune made and left to him by his father, and he didn't do much except take care of it, together with that of his sister Jane. He was president of the one concern his father had not sold out before he died, but that was the sort of thing that ran itself; he didn't spend an hour a day at it. That wasn't much of a career, according to the way I thought at that time, and when he first began asking me to marry him I laughed outright."'You can't know me very well, Milton,' I said, 'if you suppose I could be content with a ready-made man. I like you very much, but you're not the husband for me.'"'What do you mean by a ready-made man?' he asked, looking at me out of his quiet gray eyes."'I should say it was sufficiently obvious,' I said. 'There's nothing the matter with you, and I hate to hurt you, but—well, you're not dynamic.'"I stopped to see how he would take that. He was silent for a while, then at last he said: 'I don't think that's a very good reason for refusing a man.'"I laughed; the grave way he said it was so characteristic of him. 'Oh, Milton,' I said, 'I really think that's the only reason in the world to make me refuse a man. I don't much believe I shall ever marry, but if I do it will be to a man that I can help win his fight in the world; somebody with whom I can march side by side through life, whom I alone can help and encourage and inspire! He's got to be the kind that will start at the bottom andwork his way up to the top, and who couldn't do it without me! That's not you, Milton. You have no fight to make—your father made it for you. You start in at the top, the wrong end. Of course there are still higher summits you could aim for, but you never will, Milton. You're not that kind; you'll hold on to what you have, and no more. I'm not blaming you; you were made that way. And there must be a great many people like you in the world. And Ilikeyou none the less. Only I can't marry you.'"'But I don't see what difference all this would make,' he said, 'if you only loved me.'"'My dear man,' said I, 'don't you see that it's only that sort of a man who could make me love him? If you had it in you, I suppose I should love you. You don't suppose I could love you without that, do you? I'm afraid you don't understand me very well, Milton!'"'I'm learning all the time,' he answered, and that was the nearest thing to a witty or humorous remark that I ever heard him make."'Then again,' I went on, 'our ages are too far apart. Even if you were the sort I mean, we shouldn't be starting even. The fight would be half won when I came in, and that would never do. I shouldn't feel as if I were part of your life. A marriage like that wouldn't be a marriage, it would be a sweet little middle-aged idyll!'"He flushed at that. 'A man can't change his age, Selina; you have no right to taunt me with that.'"'I didn't mean to taunt you—I only wanted to explain,' said I. 'And the last thing in the world I want to do is to hurt you.'"'But that's the only thing a man can't change,' he went on after a moment, paying no attention to my apology. After another pause he added: 'I shan't give you up, mind,' and when we talked again it was of other things."I went on seeing him as before, though not quite so often. Then presently I went away on some long visits and did not see him for several months. When I came back I noticed that his manner was more animated than before, and that somehow he looked younger. I remember being quite pleased.—He was thirty-four at the time, and I not quite twenty-three."It was perfectly evident, even to me, that he was workingto win me. I saw it, but I did not pay any attention to it; when I thought about it at all it was with a sort of amusement. One day he came to me apparently very much pleased about something."'Congratulate me, Selina,' he said; 'I've just got my appointment.'"'Appointment?' said I. I truthfully had no idea what he was talking about."'Yes,' he went on, 'I begin work on the board next week.'"'What board?'"'Why, the tax board—the city tax board. Surely you knew?'"Then I laughed—I remember it so distinctly. 'Good gracious, Milton,' I said, 'I thought it must be the Cabinet of the United States, at the very least!' Then I saw his face, and knew that I had hurt him."'It's splendid, of course,' I added. 'I do congratulate you, indeed, most heartily. Only—only Milton, you were so serious!'"I laughed again. He stared at me and after a moment laughed himself, a little. I suppose that laugh was the greatest effort he had made yet. I know I liked him better at that moment than ever before. If he had let it go at that who knows what might have happened?"But he changed again after a few seconds; he scowled and became more serious than ever. 'No!' he said angrily, 'why should I laugh with you over the most serious thing in my life? Why should you want to make me? First you blame me for not making anything of myself, and now, when I am trying my best to do it, you laugh at me for being serious! Of course I'm serious about my work—I shan't pretend to be anything else.'"Of course that was all wrong, too. Every one admires a man who can laugh a little about his work. But I felt a sort of hopelessness in trying to explain it to him; I was afraid he would never really understand. So instead I drew him out on the new work he had taken up and tried to make him talk about the plans he had in mind, of which the tax board was only the first step. He seemed rather shy about talking of the future."'It's a case for actions, not words,' he said. 'I don't want to give you the impression that I'm only a talker.You'll see, in time, what you've made of me,' and he smiled at me in a way that rather went to my heart."'Milton,' I said, 'I'm more than glad if I can be of help to you, in any way, but I should be deceiving you if I let you think there's any hope—any more hope, even, than there was.'"But that was the kind of talk he understood best. 'Selina,' he said, 'don't you bother about caring for me. The time hasn't come for that yet. I'm not even ready for it myself—there's a lot to be done first. The time will come, at last; I'm sure of it. A woman can't have such a power over a man as you have over me without coming to have some feeling for him in the end, if it's only pride in her own handiwork. But even if it never should come, do you think I could regret what I've done, what I'm going to do? You've made a man of me, Selina. That stands, no matter what happens!'"Of course that sort of thing can't help but make an impression on a woman, and it had its effect on me. It made me a little nervous; it was like raising a Frankenstein. I began to wonder if I should come to be swallowed up in this new life I had unwillingly created. Once or twice I caught myself wondering how it would feel to be the wife of Milton Leffert...."But about that time my stepmother began talking to me about it and trying to persuade me to marry him, and that had the effect of making me like the thought less. Somehow she made it seem almost like a duty, and if there was one thing I couldn't abide it was the idea of marrying from a sense of duty. Then other things came into my life and for a time I ceased to think of him almost entirely."We went abroad for several months, my stepmother and the two boys and I. Hilary had been seriously ill, and we thought the change would do him good. And as he had a good deal of study to make up—he was fourteen at the time—my stepmother engaged a young man to go with us and tutor him and be a companion to the boys generally."You might almost guess the rest. I saw my stepmother wince when he met us at the steamer—we had engaged him by letter and had no idea what he looked like. I suppose it had never occurred to her before that there might be danger in placing me in daily companionship with a manof about my own age. It certainly occurred to her then."James, I know I can't make it sound plausible to you, but even now I don't wonder I fell in love with him. I don't suppose a more attractive man was ever born. He was thin and brown and had a pure aquiline profile—but it's no use describing him. Think of the most attractive person you ever knew and make him ten times more so and perhaps you'll get some idea."He was quite poor—that also took my fancy. He was trying to earn money enough to put himself through law school. Those who knew him said he was a brilliant student and that a great career lay before him, and I believed it. He certainly was as bright and keen as they make 'em, and very witty and amusing. Occasionally Harry reminds me of him, and that makes me worry about Harry.... Of course I was tremendously taken with his mental qualities, and I had all sorts of romantic notions about helping him to make a great place for himself in the world, and all the rest of it. But as a matter of fact what drew me to him chiefly was simple animal attraction. It wasn't wrong and it wasn't unnatural, but—well, it was unfortunate."Even my stepmother felt it. I don't know how long it was before she knew what was going on, but she never made any effort to stop it. Like a sensible woman she kept her mouth shut and determined to let things take their course. But she never talked to me any more about Milton Leffert, and as a matter of fact I know she would have been perfectly willing that I should marry Adrian. Yes, that was his first name. I shan't tell you his last, because he's still alive."I remember telling myself when I first saw him that such an absurdly handsome person could not have much to him, but he appeared better and better as time went on. He was thoughtful and tactful and knew how to efface himself. He was splendid with the boys; Hilary in particular took a tremendous fancy to him and would do anything he said. He was the greatest influence in Hilary's life up to that time, and I really think the best. He was an extraordinary person. By the end of the first month I suspected he was the Real Man. By the end of the second I was convinced of it, and by the end of the third I would willingly have placed my head under his foot any time he gave the word. By the end of the sixth month Iwouldn't have touched him with my foot—I'm sure of it. But there never was any sixth month."In the month of June we were on the Lake of Como. There happened to be a full moon. Como in the moonlight is not the safest place in the world for young people, under any circumstances. In our case it was sure to lead to something."We had strolled up to a terrace high above the lake and stood for a long time leaning over the balustrade drinking in the beauty of the scene. For a long time we said nothing, and apparently the same thought struck us both—that it was all too beautiful to be true. At any rate after a time Adrian sighed and said: 'Oh, this damnable moonlight!'"'Why?'I asked."'Because it makes everything seem so unreal—the lake, the mountains, the nightingales, everything. It's like a poem by Lamartine. But I don't mind that—I like Lamartine. The trouble is it makes you seem unreal too. Oh, I know that you're where you are and are flesh and blood and that if I pinched you you'd probably scream and all that—'"'No, I shouldn't,' said I. 'I wouldn't be real if I did.'"He sighed. 'That shows it,' he said; 'that proves exactly what I say. You're not really living this; your soul isn't really here. I'm not really in your life. I'm just a pretty little episode, a stage property, a part of the lake and the moonlight, a part of every summer vacation!'"'If you're not really in my life,' said I, 'doesn't it occur to you that it's because of your unreality, not mine?'"'You admit that I'm not real to you, then?'"'No,' said I, 'but it would be your own fault if you weren't.'"'What about that man in New Haven, is he real?' he asked suddenly. I only flushed, and he went on: 'That's it—he's the real man in your life. You're willing to play about with me in the summertime, but when the winter comes you'll go straight back and marry him. I'm all right for the moonlight, but you want him in the cold gray light of the dawn! He's the Old and New Testaments to you, and I'm only—a poem by Lamartine! And with me—oh, Lord!' He buried his face in his hands."I don't know whether it was pure accident or whetherhe somehow guessed part of the truth. At any rate it roused me. I was very sure that what he said was not true, or at least I was very anxious that it should not be true, which often comes to the same thing. I argued with him for some time, and when words failed there were other things. But he did not seem entirely convinced."After a while, as we sat there, Hilary appeared with a telegram that had just arrived for me. I saw that it was a cable message and thought it was probably from Milton Leffert, as he had said that he might possibly come abroad on business during the summer and would look me up if he did. And somehow the thought of Milton Leffert at that moment filled me with the most intense disgust...."'Now,' I said when Hilary had gone, 'I'm tired of arguing; here may be a chance to prove myself by actions. Open this telegram, and tell me if it's from Milton Leffert!'"He looked at me in a dazed sort of way. 'Open it!' I repeated, stamping my foot. I was drunk with love and moonlight and I imagine I must have acted like a fury. I know I felt like one."He opened the telegram and read it, gravely and silently."'Is it or is it not from Milton Leffert?'"'Yes. He—'"'That's all I want to know—don't say another word! Do you hear? Never tell me another word about that telegram as long as you live! And now destroy it—here—before my eyes! I'm going to put Milton Leffert out of my life forever, here and now! Go on, destroy it!'"Adrian hesitated. He seemed almost frightened. 'But—' he began."'Adrian!' I turned toward him with the moonlight beating full down on me. I was not so bad-looking in those days; I daresay I was not bad-looking at all as I stood there in the moonlight. At least I know that woman never used her beauty more consciously than I did in that moment."'Adrian, look at me! Do you love me?'"He allowed that he did."'Then do what I say. Destroy that telegram and never mention it or that man's name to me again!'"A change came over him. He hesitated no longer; he became forceful and determined."'Very well,' he cried, 'if you're not mine now you will be! Here's good-by to Milton Leffert!'"He took some matches from his pocket and lit the end of the paper. When it was burning brightly he dropped it over the edge of the terrace and it floated out into the space beneath. We stood together and watched it as it fell, burning red in the moonlight...."Then for some weeks we were happy. Adrian seemed particularly so; he had had his gloomy moods before that but now they passed away entirely. And if there was a cloud of suspicion that I had done wrong in my own mind I was so happy in seeing Adrian's joy that I paid no attention to it."Only one thing struck me as odd; he would not let me tell my stepmother. He gave a number of reasons for it; it would make his position with us uncomfortable; he could not be a tutor and a lover at the same time; he was writing to his relatives and wanted to wait till they knew; we must wait till we were absolutely sure of ourselves, and so forth. One of these reasons might have convinced me, but his giving so many of them made me suspect, even as I obeyed him, that none of them was the real one. I wondered what it could be. I found out, soon enough."We left Italy and worked slowly northward. Several weeks after the scene on the terrace we reached Paris. There we met a number of our American friends, some of whom had just arrived from home. One day my stepmother and I were sitting talking with one of these—Elizabeth Haldane it was—and in the course of the conversation she happened to say: 'Very sad, isn't it, about poor Milton Leffert?'"'What is sad?' asked my stepmother."'Why, haven't you heard?' said Elizabeth. 'He died a short time before we left. Brain fever or something of the sort—from overwork, they said. He was planning to run for the State Legislature this fall.' I saw her glancing round; she couldn't keep her eyes off me. But I sat still as a stone...."As soon as I could I took Adrian off alone."'Adrian,' I said, 'the time has come when you've got to tell me what was in that telegram.'"'Never,' said he, smiling. 'I promised, you know,'"'I release you from your promise.'"'Even so, I can't tell you.'"'Adrian,' said I, looking him full in the face, 'Milton Leffert is dead.'"'I'm sorry to hear it,' said he."I blazed up at that. 'Stop lying to me,' I cried, 'and tell me what was in that telegram!'"He confessed at last that it was from Jane Leffert saying that her brother was dangerously ill and asking me to come to him if possible or at least send some message. I knew well enough what it must have been, but I wanted to wring it from his lips...."'Well, have you nothing to say to me?' he asked."I didn't answer for some time—I couldn't. To tell the truth I hadn't been thinking of him. At last I turned on him. 'You contemptible creature,' I managed to say."'Why?' he whined. 'You've no right to call me names. You made me do it. If you're sorry now it's your own fault.'"'I was to blame,' I answered. 'Heaven forbid that I should try to excuse my own fault. But do you think that lets you out? Suppose the positions had been reversed; suppose you had been ill and Milton with me. Do you imagine he would have let me remain in ignorance while you lay dying and in need of me, no matter what I told him to do or not to do? Are you so weak and mean that you can't conceive of any one being strong and good?'"'It was because I loved you so much that I did it,' he said."'Oh, Adrian,' I told him, 'if you really loved me, why did you let me do a thing you knew I'd live to regret? If you really loved me, what had you to fear but that?'"'You might have saved his life,' he answered."Oh, James, the anguish of hearing those words from his lips! The man I did not love telling me I might have saved the life of the man I did! For now that it was too late I knew well enough who it was that I loved. In one flash I saw the two men as they were, one strong, quiet, unselfish, the other selfish, cowardly, mean-spirited. Now I saw why he had not wanted me to tell my stepmother of our engagement. He wanted to cover up his own part in the affair in case anything unpleasant happened when I heard of Milton's death."I told my stepmother everything as soon as I could andshe behaved splendidly. She sent Adrian away and I never saw him again. And as I announced my intention of going home on the next steamer she decided it was best to give up the rest of her trip and take the boys along back with me. So we all went, that same week."People wondered, when we arrived so long ahead of time, and came pretty near to guessing the whole truth. But I didn't care. The one thing I wanted in the world was to see Milton's sister, his one surviving relative."'Jane Leffert,' I wrote her, 'if you can bear to look on the woman who killed your brother, let her come and tell you she's sorry.' She was a good woman and understood. The next day I went to her house. She took me upstairs and showed me his room, the bed where he had died. I never said a word all the time. Then, as she was really a very remarkable woman, she handed me an old brooch of her mother's containing a miniature of him painted when he was four years old, and told me it was mine to keep. Then for the first time I broke down and cried...."If it hadn't been for Jane Leffert I think I should have gone mad. She never tried to hide the truth from me. She admitted, when I asked her, that Milton had, to all intents and purposes, worked himself to death for me, and that the doctor had said the one hope for him lay in his seeing me or hearing I was coming to him. But never a word of blame or reproach did she give me, never a hint of a feeling of it. She knew how easy it is to make mistakes in life, she knew how hard it is to atone for them. She it was who gave me the blessed thought that it was worth while to go on living as part of my atonement, and that if I put into my life the things I had learned from him I might even, to a certain extent, make Milton live on in me."So instead of taking poison or becoming a Carmelite nun I went on living at home as before, stimulated and inspired by that idea. It was hard at first, but somehow the harder things were the greater the satisfaction I took in life. By the time I had lightened the remaining years of my stepmother's life and nursed Jane Leffert through her last illness I became content with my lot and, in a way, happy. I never asked for happiness nor wanted it again on earth, but it came, at last. There is something purifying about loving a dead person very much. The chief danger is in its making one morbid, but as I was always a thoroughlypractical person with a strong natural taste for life it did me nothing but good. But I don't prescribe it for any one who can get anything better...."One thing in particular helped me to keep my mind on earth and remind me of the far-reaching effects of wrong-doing. I have said that Hilary, your father, was extremely fond of Adrian. Well, somehow he got the idea into his head that I had thrown him over because of his poverty, and he never forgave me for it. Till his dying day he believed that I really loved Adrian most but was afraid to marry him. Over and over again I told him the truth, taking a sort of fierce pleasure in being able to tell any one that I had never loved any one but Milton Leffert."'Then why did you let Adrian make love to you?' Hilary would answer, 'and why did you make him burn that telegram? I know, I heard you as I walked down the path.' Nothing I could say ever made him understand. And the hardest part of it was that I couldn't exactly blame him for not being convinced."Taking him at that impressionable time of life the thing had a tremendous effect on him. The idea grew into him that no human feeling could stand the test of hard facts; that that was the way love worked out in real life. From that time on his mind steadily developed and his soul steadily dwindled. He became practical, brilliant, worldly wise, heartless. We grew gradually more and more estranged; you seldom heard him mention my name, I suppose? That's why you never heard before what I've been telling you, or at least the whole truth of it.... And so, as he consciously modeled certain of his mannerisms after those of Adrian he unconsciously grew more and more like him in character; and I had the satisfaction of watching the change and realizing that it was due, in part at least, to me. And the thought of how I unwillingly hurt him has made me all the more anxious to make reparation by being of service to his two boys. Perhaps you can imagine some of the things I've feared for them...."Here Aunt Selina broke off, choked by a sudden gust of emotion. James said nothing, but sat staring straight in front of him. Presently his aunt, steadying her voice to its accustomed pitch, went on:"Well, James, I told this to Beatrice, much as I've toldit to you, though not at so great length, and I could see it made an impression on her. She came over and sat down by me and took my hand without speaking."'You lived through all that?' she said at last, 'and you never told any one?'"'Why should I have told?' I answered. 'There was no one to tell. I've only told you because I thought it might have some bearing on your own case.'"She caught her breath, gave a sort of little sigh. And that sigh said, as plainly as words, 'Dear me, I was so interested in your story I almost forgot I must get ready to go to New York to-morrow.' It was a setback; I saw I had overestimated the effect I had made. But I set my teeth and went on, determined not to give her up yet."'Beatrice,' I said, 'I haven't told you all this for the pleasure of telling it nor to amuse you. I've told it to you because I wanted to show you how such a course of action as you're about to take works out in real life. There is a strange madness that comes over women sometimes, especially over strong women; a sort of obsession that makes them think they are too good for the men they love. I know it, I've felt it—I've suffered under it, if ever woman did! It may seem irresistible while it lasts, but oh, the remorse that comes afterward! Beatrice, how many times do you suppose I've lived over each snubbing speech I made to Milton Leffert? How often do you suppose my laugh at him when he told me about the tax board has rung through my ears? Those are the memories that stab the soul, Beatrice; don't let there be any such in your life!'"She didn't answer, but sat staring at the floor."'Beatrice,' I went on, 'there's no mortal suffering like discovering you've done wrong when it's too late. It's the curse of strong-willed people. It all seems so simple to us at first; it's so easy for us to force our wills on other people, to rule others and be free ourselves. Then something happens, the true vision comes, and it's too late! Beatrice, I've caught you in time—it's not too late for you yet. Do you know where you stand now, Beatrice? You're at the point where I was when I told Adrian to burn that telegram!'"Still she said nothing, and the sight of her sitting there so beautiful and cold drove me almost wild. 'Oh, Beatrice,' I burst out, losing the last bit of my self-control, 'don't tellme I've got to live through it all again with you! Don't go and repeat my mistake before my very eyes, with my example before yours! It was hard enough to live through it once myself, but what will it be when I sit helplessly by and watch the people I love best go through it all! I can't bear it, I can't, I can't! It takes all the meaning out of my own life!...'"She was moved by my display of feeling, but not by my words. She said nothing for a time, but took my hand again and began stroking it gently, as if to quiet me. I said nothing more—I couldn't speak. At last she said, in a calm, gentle tone of voice, as if she were explaining something to a child:—"'Aunt Selina, I don't think you quite understand about my marriage with James. It isn't like other marriages, exactly.'"'It seems to me enough that it is a marriage,' I answered. 'Though I haven't spoken of that side of it, of course.'"'Oh, you won't understand!' she said."'Beatrice,' said I, 'I couldn't understand if you kept telling me about it till to-morrow morning. No one ever will understand you, except your Creator—you might as well make up your mind to it. I don't doubt you've had many wrong things done to you. The point is, you're about to do one. Don't do it.'"Always back to the same old point, and nothing gained! I had the feeling of having fired my last shot and missed. I shut my eyes and leaned my head back and tried to think of some new way of putting it to her, but as a matter of fact I knew I had said all I had to say. And then, just as I was giving her up for lost, I heard her speaking again."'Aunt Selina,' she said, 'you have made me think of one thing.'"'What's that, my dear?' I asked."'Well, I don't doubt but what I have done wrong things already, without suspecting it. Oh, yes, I've been too sure of myself!'"'It's possible, my dear,' said I, 'but you haven't done anything that you can't still make up for, if you want.'"'I think I know what you mean,' she said slowly; 'you mean I could go and tell him so. Tell him I had done wrong and was sorry—for I did sin, not in deed, but still inthought.... I never told him that, of course....' Then she shivered. 'Oh, but Aunt Selina, I can't do it, I can't! If you only knew how I've tried already, how I've humiliated myself!'"'That never did any one any harm,' I told her."'And then,' she went on, 'even if I did do it, he'd never take me back—not on any terms! He'd only cast me away again—that's what would happen, you know! What would there be for me then but—Tommy?'"Well, I knew I'd won a great point in making her even consider it."'Several things,' I answered, taking no pains to conceal my delight. 'In the first place, it's by no means certain that he will refuse you. But if he does—well, you'll never lack a home or a friend while I'm alive, my dear! And don't you go and pretend that I'm not more to you than that brainless, chinless, sniveling, driveling little fool of an Englishman, for I won't believe it!'"She laughed at that and for a moment we both laughed together. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't do better than leave it at that, let that laugh end our talk."'Good night, my dear,' I said, kissing her. 'The time has come now when you've got to make up your mind for yourself. I've done all I can for you.' And with that I left her."But, oh, James, it wasn't as simple as all that! It was all very well to tell her that and go to bed, but if you knew what agonies of doubt and suspense I went through during the night, fearing, hoping, wondering, praying! Those things are so much more complicated in real life than they are when you read them or see them acted. What should have happened was that I should have one grand scene with her and make her promise at the end to do as I wanted. And I did my best, I went as far as it was in me to go, and knew no more of the result than before I began! And we parted laughing—laughing, from that talk!"But almost the worst part of it was next morning when we met downstairs after breakfast, with the family about. I could scarcely say good morning to her, and I never dared catch her eye. And all the time that one great subject was burning in our minds. And we couldn't talk of it again, either; we couldn't have if we'd been alone together in a desert! You can't go on having scenes with people."At last, after lunch, I was alone on the verandah with her, and managed to screw myself up to asking her whether she was going to New York or not."'Yes, I'm going,' she answered."'What do you mean by that?' I asked."'Oh, I don't know what I mean!' she said desperately. I knew she was as badly off as I was, or worse, and after that I simply couldn't say another word to her."But I saw her alone once again, just before she started. She kissed me good-by and smiled and whispered: 'Don't worry, Aunt Selina—it's all right,' and then the others came. Just that—nothing more!"I didn't know what to think—what I dared to think. One moment I rushed and telegraphed you, because I was afraid she was going to the Englishman, after all. The next minute I was hurrying to catch the night boat to Boston, because I thought she was going to you and that I might have to deal with you. I wanted to be with her in any case. Oh, I was so mad with the uncertainty and suspense I didn't know what I did or what I thought! But the impression I took away finally from her last words to me were that she was going to you.... But I never knew, James,I never knew! And now I never shall!..."
Seeing that he had plenty of time he walked slowly round to the Forty-second Street entrance instead of going in the side way. He observed the great piles of building and rebuilding that were going on in the neighborhood, and compared the reconstruction of the quarter to his own case. He wondered why they delayed in making the Park Avenue connecting bridge—such an integral part of the scheme. Ifhehad shilly-shallied like that, a nice mess he would have made of his life! He gazed up at the great new front of the station and bumped into a stentorian newsboy. Everywhere those confounded newsboys—!
He was actually in the station before he had any suspicion. There was about the usual number of people in the great waiting-room, but there seemed to be more hurrying than usual. He saw one or two people dart across the space, and observed that they did not disappear into the train gates.... Had he or had he not caught the word "wreck" on one of those flaunting headlines in the street? He turned off suddenly to a news stand and bought a paper.
There it all was, in black and white—or rather red and white. Red letters, five inches high.
Train 64, the Maine Special, had run through an open switch and turned turtle somewhere near Stamford. Fifteen reported killed, others injured. No names given.
The Maine Special. Beatrice's train.
He knew that he must devote all his efforts at this juncture to keep himself from thinking. Until he knew, thatwas. He did not even allow himself to name the thoughts he was afraid of giving birth to. Anxiety, hope, fear, premonition, horror, satisfaction, pity—he must put them all away from him. There was no telling what future horrors he might be led into if he gave way ever so little to any one of them. The one thing to do now was tofind out.
This was not so easy. He went first to the bulletin board where the arrivals of trains were announced, and found a small and anxious-eyed crowd gazing at the few uninforming statements marked in white chalk. There was nothing to be learned from them. He spoke to an official, who was equally reticent, and spoke vaguely of a relief train.
"Do you mean to say there's no way of finding out the names of those killed before the relief train comes in?" he asked.
"We can't tell you what we don't know!" replied the man, already too inured to such questions to show feeling of any sort. He then directed James to the office of the railroad press agent, on the eighth floor.
James started to ask another question, but was interrupted by a young woman who hurried up to the official. She held a little girl of seven or eight by the hand, and the eyes of both were streaming with tears. The sight struck James as odd in that cold, impersonal, schedule-run place, and he swerved as he walked off to look at them. He turned again abruptly and went his way, stifling an involuntary rise of a feeling which might have been very like envy, if he had allowed himself to think about it....
And no one else had even noticed the two.
He found no one in the press office except a few newspaper reporters who sat about on tables with their hats balanced on the backs of their heads. They eyed him suspiciously but said nothing. An inner door opened and a young man in his shirtsleeves, a stenographer, entered the room bearing a number of typewritten flimsies. The reporters pounced upon these and rushed away in search of telephones.
James asked the young man if he could see Mr. Barker, the agent.
The young man said Mr. Barker was busy, and asked James what paper he represented.
James said none.
On what business, then, did James want to see Mr. Barker?
To learn the fate of some one on the Maine Special.
A friend?
A wife.
The stenographer dropped his lower jaw, but said nothing. He immediately opened the inner door and led James up to an older man who sat dictating to a young woman at a typewriter. He was plump and clean-shaven and very neat about the collar and tie; James did not realize that this was the agent until the younger man told him so.
"My dear sir," replied Mr. Barker to James' question, "I know absolutely no more about it than you do. If I did, I'd tell you. The boys have been hammering away at me for the past hour, and I've given 'em every word that's come in. These two names are all I've got so far." He handed James a flimsy.
James' eye fell upon the names of two men, both described as traveling salesmen. He went back to the outer office and sat down to think. It was, of course, extremely improbable that Beatrice had been killed. There had been, say, two hundred people on the train, of whom fifteen were known to have died—something like seven and a half per cent. Two of these were accounted for; that left thirteen. He wondered how long it would be before those thirteen names came in.
The room began to fill up again; the reporters returned and new recruits constantly swelled their number. From their talk James gathered why there was such a dearth of detailed news. The wreck occurring during the waking hours of the day had been learned, as far as the mere fact of its occurrence was concerned, and published within half an hour after it had happened. It naturally took longer than this to do even the first work of clearing the wreckage and the compiling of the lists of dead and injured would require even more time. With the results that interested friends and relations, learning of the wreck but none of its particulars, were rushing pell-mell to headquarters to get the first news. One young man described in vivid terms certain things he had just witnessed down in the concourse.
"Best sob stuff in months," was his one comment.
Just then one of their number, a slightly older man andevidently a leader among them, emerged from the inner office.
"What about it, Wilkins?" they greeted him in chorus. "Slip it, Wilkins, slip it over! Give us the dope! Any more stiffs yet? Come on, out with it—no beats on this story, you know...."
Harpies!
The outer door opened and two women burst into the room. The first of them, a tall, stout, good-featured Jewess, clothed in deep mourning, was wildly gasping and beating her hands on her breast.
"Can any of you tell me about a young man called Lindenbaum?" she asked between her sobs. "Lindenbaum—a young man—on Car fifty-six he was! Has anything been heard of him—anything?"
The reporters promptly told her that nothing had. She sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands and burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping. The younger woman, evidently her daughter, stood by trying to comfort her. At length the other raised her veil and wearily wiped her eyes. James studied her face; her sunken eyes no less than her black clothes gave evidence of an older sorrow. Moved by a sudden impulse he went over and spoke to her, telling her that her son was in all probability safe and basing his assurance on the calm mathematical grounds of his own reasoning. The woman did not understand much of what he said, but the quiet tones of his voice seemed to comfort her. She rose and started to go.
"Thank you," she said to James, "you're a nice boy.—Oh, I do hope God will spare him to me—only nineteen, he is, and the only man I have left, all I have left...."
Sob stuff!
Scarcely had the door closed behind her when a business man of about forty-five, prosperous, well-dressed and unemotional-looking, came in and asked if the name of his daughter was on the list of the dead. Some one said it was not.
"Thank God," said the man in a weak voice. He raised his hand to his forehead, closed his eyes and fell over backward in a dead faint. When he came to he had to be told that the names of only three of the dead were as yet known.
These were the first of a long series of scenes such asJames would not have thought possible off the stage. He had never seen people mastered by an overwhelming anxiety before; it was interesting to learn that they acted in such cases much as they were generally supposed to. Anxiety, he reflected, was perhaps the most intolerable emotion known to man. Yet as he sat there calmly waiting for the arrival of the relief train he could have wished that he might have tasted the full horror of it.... No, that was mere hysteria, of course. But there was something holy about such a feeling; it was like a sort of cleansing, a purifying by fire.... Was it that his soul was not worthy of such a purifying? Oh, hysterics again!
But the purifying of others went on before his eyes as he sat trying not to think or feel and reading the bulletins as they came out from the inner office. Grotesquely unimportant, those bulletins, or so they must seem to those concerned for the fate of friends!
"General Traffic Manager Albert S. Holden learned by telegram of the accident to Train 64 near Stamford this morning and immediately hurried to Stamford by special train. Mr. Holden will conduct an investigation into the causes of the accident in conjunction with Coroner Francis X. Willis of Stamford."
"One young woman among the injured was identified as Miss Fannie Schmidt of Brooklyn. She was taken to the Stamford hospital suffering from contusions."
"Patrick F. McGuire, the engineer of Train 64 which ran through an open switch near Stamford this morning, has been in the employ of the Company for many years. He was severely cut about the face and head. He has been engineer of the Maine Special since the 23rd of last May, prior to which he had worked as engineer on Train 102. He began his service in the Company in 1898 as fireman on the Naugatuck Division...."
"Vice-President Henry T. Blomberg gave out in New Haven this morning the following statement concerning the accident at Stamford...."
"Whew!" exclaimed a reporter, issuing suddenly from a telephone booth near James, "this issomestory, believe me!" He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He was a young man and looked somewhat more like a human being than the others.
"Oh, you'd call this harrowing, would you?" said James.
"Well," said the other apologetically, "I've only been on the job a few months and this human interest stuff sort of gets me. This is the first big one of the kind I've been on. I guess there's enough human interest here to-day for any one, though!"
"There doesn't seem to be enough to inconvenience you," observed James. "Not you, so much, but—" with a wave toward the reporters' table—"those—the others."
The young man laughed slightly. "Oh, you can stand pretty near anything after you've been on the job for a while! You see, when you're on the news end of a thing like this you don't have time to get worked up. When you're hot foot after every bit of stuff you can get, and have to hustle to the telephone to send it in the same minute, so's not to get beaten on it, you don't bother about whether people have hysterics or not. You simply can't—you haven't got time! That's why these fellows all seem so calm—it'sbusinessto them, you see. They're not really hard-hearted, or anything like that. Gosh, it's lucky for me, though, that I'm here on business, if I have to be here at all!"
"You mean you're glad you don't know any one on the train?"
"Oh, Lord yes, that—but I'm glad I have something to keep me busy, as long as I'm here. If I were just standing round, watching, say—gosh, I wouldn't answer for what I'd do! I'd probably have hysterics myself, just from seeing the others!"
This gave James something more to think about.
He saw now that he had misjudged the reporters; even these harpies gave him something to envy. If one was going to feel indifferent at a time like this it would be well to feel at least an honest professional indifference.... But that was not all. Had not this young man admitted that the mere sight of such suffering would have stirred him to the depths if he did not have his business to think of, and that without being personally concerned in the accident? While he himself, with every reason to suffer every anxiety in this crucial moment, was quite the calmest person in the room, able to lecture a hysterical mother on the doctrine of chances! Was he dead to all human feeling?
There was a moment of calm in the room, which wasbroken by the entrance of a tall blonde young man—a college undergraduate, to all appearances.
"Can any of you tell me if Car 1058 was on the Maine Special?" he asked the reporters.
No one had heard of Car 1058. Research among the bulletins failed to reveal any mention of it.
"What's the name of the person you're interested in?" asked some one. "We might be able to tell you something."
"Oh, it wasn't anyperson," the young man explained; "it was my dog I was looking for. I've found he was shipped on Car 1058. A water spaniel, he was. I don't suppose you've heard anything?"
A moment of silence followed this announcement, and then one of the reporters began to laugh. There was nothing funny about it, of course, except the contrast. They all knew it was by the merest accident that Fannie Schmidt's contusions had been flashed over the wires rather than the fate of the water spaniel.
The youth flushed to the roots of his yellow hair.
"Oh, yes, it's very funny, of course," he said, and stalked out of the room. But there shone another light in his eyes than the gleam of anger.
"Say, there's copy in that," observed one reporter, and straightway they were all busy writing.
James had smiled with the others, but his merriment was short-lived. This indeed was the finishing stroke. That young fellow actually was more concerned about his dog....
The relief train was due to arrive at 1:30, and shortly before that hour there was a general adjournment to the concourse. A crowd had already gathered before the gate through which the survivors would presently file. James looked at the waiting people and shuddered slightly. He preferred not to wait there.
Passing by a news stand he bought the latest extra. It was curious to see the contents of those press agent flimsies transcribed on the flaring columns as the livest news obtainable. Well, all that would be changed shortly.... His own name caught his eye; a paragraph was devoted to telling how he had waited in the station, and why. "Mr. Wimbourne was entirely calm and self-contained," the item ended. Calm and self-contained. And those people took it for a virtue!...
The gates were opened to allow the friends of passengers on the ill-fated train to pass through to the platform. The reporters were unusually silent as James walked by. James knew what their silence meant, and writhed under it.
The platform was dark and chilly. Like a tomb, almost.... The idea was suggestive, but his heart was stone against it. The thought of seeing Beatrice walking up the platform in a moment was enough to check any possible indulgence of feeling. That was the way such things always had been rewarded, with him. He could not remember having entertained one such emotional impulse in the past that had not led him into fresh misery.
He had waited nearly two hours and there was absolutely no indication as to whether Beatrice had suffered or not. He had telephoned several times to his flat, to which the servants had lately returned, and to his office and had learned that no word had been received at either place. That meant nothing. Five names of people killed had been received when he left the press office, and hers was not among them. But the number of dead was said to be larger than was at first expected; it would probably reach into the twenties. Part of one Pullman, it appeared, had been entirely destroyed by fire, and several people were believed to have perished in it. There was no telling, of course, till the train came in. The chances were still overwhelmingly in favor of Beatrice's safety, of course....
One torment had been spared him: Tommy had not turned up. There would be no scene; he would not have to look on while his wife and her lover, maddened by the pangs of separation and suspense, rushed into each other's arms.... Ah, no; he would not deceive himself. His relief at Tommy's absence was really due to the fact that he had been spared the sight of some one genuinely and whole-heartedly anxious about Beatrice's fate.
The train crawled noiselessly into the station. James posted himself near the inner end of the platform, so as to be sure not to miss her. Soon groups began to file by of people laughing and crying and embracing each other, as unconscious to appearances as children. How many happy reunions, how many quarrels and misunderstandings mended forever by an hour or two of intense suffering!... No, that was a foolish thought, of course.
Presently he saw her, or rather a hat which he recognizedas hers, moving up the platform. He braced himself and walked forward with lowered eyes, trying to think of something felicitous to say. He dared not look up till she was quite near. At last he raised a hand toward her, opened his mouth to speak, and found himself staring into the face of a perfectly strange woman.
The mischance unnerved him. He lost control of himself and darted aimlessly to and fro through the crowd for a few moments, like a rabbit. Then he rushed back to the gate and stood there watching till the last passenger had left the platform and white shrouded things on wheels began to appear.
He saw a uniformed official and addressed him, asking where he could find a complete list of the dead and injured. The man silently handed him a paper. James ran his eyes feverishly down the list of names. There it was—Wim—no, no, Wilson. Her name was not there. He raised his eyes questioningly to the official.
"No, that list is not complete," said the man.
He led James away to one or two other uniformed officials, and then to a man who was not in uniform. At length it was arranged; James was to take the first train for Stamford. Some one gave him a pass.
But before he went he telegraphed to Bar Harbor. It was necessary to have conclusive proof that Beatrice was on the train. As he recrossed the concourse, now converted into a happy hunting ground for the reporters, he caught sight of Mrs. Lindenbaum, the anxious mother. She was alone, but the expression on her face left no doubt as to how the day had turned out for her. He stopped and spoke to her:
"Your son is all right, is he?"
"Yes!" She turned toward him a face fairly transfigured with joy. "He wasn't hurt at all—just scratched a little by broken glass. He and my daughter have just gone to telephone to some people.... What do you think—he was the first one in his car to break open a window and let the smoke out! He reached up with his umbrella and smashed it open—that was how he got out. And he dragged out three people who were unconscious...." She stopped and laughed. "You must excuse me—I'm foolish!"
"Not at all," replied James. "I'm so glad—" Hestarted to move on, but the woman stopped him, suddenly remembering.
"But what about—I do hope—" she began.
"No," said James quietly. "I'm sorry to say my news is bad." He had little doubt now as to the verdict, but bad—! Was it? Oh, was it?
It was early evening before he returned. His expedition had been painful in the extreme, but wholly without definite results. There had been one or two charred fragments of clothing that might or might not have been.... It was too horrible to think much about.
He knew for certain no more than when he started out, but conviction was only increased, for all that. What was there left to imagine but what that heap of cinders suggested? There was just one other chance, one bare possibility; Beatrice might not have left Bar Harbor, at any rate not on that train. The answer to his telegram would settle that.
He found the yellow envelope awaiting him on the hall table. He lifted it slowly and paused a moment before opening it, wondering if he could trust himself to hope or feel anything in this final instant of uncertainty. Anything! Any human feeling to break this shell of indifference....
No use. Something in his brain refused to work.
He tore open the envelope. "Beatrice left last night on the seven o'clock ferry; nothing more known. Please wire latest news," he read.
Well, that settled it, at any rate. He knew what the facts were; now he had only to bring himself face to face with them. Yet still he found himself dodging the issue, letting his thoughts wander into obscure by-paths. His brain was strangely lethargic, his heart more so, if possible, than in the station this morning. It was not that he felt bitter or cruel; he explained the situation to the maid, as she served him his dinner, with great tact and consideration, and afterward arranged certain matters of detail with all his usual care and foresight. It was only when he looked into himself that he met darkness.
Uncle James, who was in town on business, dropped in during the evening. James told him the results of hislabors and watched the first hopefulness of his uncle's face freeze gradually into conviction.
"I see, I see," said Uncle James at last. "There's nothing more to be done, then? Any use I can be, in any way—"
"Thank you," replied James gravely, "there's nothing more to be done."
Uncle James rose to go and then hesitated. "Well, there it is," he said; "it's just got to be faced, I suppose. A major sorrow—the great blow of a lifetime. Not many of us are called upon to bear such great things, James. I never have been, and never shall, now. We feel less sharply as we grow older.... It's a great sorrow, a great trial—but I can't help feeling, somehow, that it's also a great chance.... But I'm only harrowing you—I'm sorry." He turned and went out without another word.
Presently James wandered into the bedroom that had once been hers. He turned on all the lights as if in the hope that illuminating the places she had been familiar with would bring the memory of her more sharply to his mind. Yes, it all seemed very natural; he would not say but what it made death less terrible. The fact that her chair was in its accustomed place before her dressing table did somehow make it easier to remember the events of that afternoon. He sat down before the dressing table. There was little on it to bring an intimate recollection of her to his mind; most of her small possessions she had naturally taken away with her to Bar Harbor. He opened a drawer and discovered nothing but a small box of hairpins.
He took them out and handled them gently for a moment. Hairpins! Even so, they brought her back more vividly than anything had yet done—the soft dark hair sweeping back from the forehead, the lovely arch of her nose, and all the rest of it.... He supposed she ought to seem aloof and unapproachable, now that she was dead, but it was not so at all. He remembered her only as feminine and appealing. She certainly had been very beautiful. And of all that beauty there remained only—hairpins. The fact of human mortality pressed suddenly down on him. Some time, a few days or a few decades hence, he would cease to exist, even as Beatrice, and nothing would remain of him but—Not hairpins, indeed, but hardly anything more substantial. A society pin, a little gold football,a few papers bearing his signatures in McClellan's files....
Poor Beatrice!
A feeling touched his heart at last; one of pity. Poor Beatrice! Fate had treated her harshly, far beneath her deserts. She had sinned.... Had she? It was not for him to settle that; she had been human, even as he. She had been frail; leave it at that. The strongest of us are weak at times. Only most of us are given a chance to regain our strength, pull ourselves together after a fall, make something out of ourselves at last. This opportunity had been denied Beatrice. Surely it was hard that she should be cut off thus in the depth of her frailty, at the lowest ebb of all that was good in her. The weakest deserved better than that.
So he sat meditating on the tragedy of her life as he might, in an idle mood, have brooded over the story of a lovely and unhappy queen of long ago, some appealing, wistful figure of the past with whom he had nothing in common but mortality. The sense of his own detachment from the story of his wife's life struck him at last and roused him to fresh pity. He went into his dressing room and fetched the photograph of her that he had thought it advisable to keep on his bureau. He stood it up on her dressing table and sat down again to study it. Poor Beatrice! It was pathetic that she, so young, so beautiful, so lonely, should be unmourned, since his feeling could not properly be described as mourning....
"Poor Beatrice," he murmured, "is pity all I can feel for you?"
A bell sounded somewhere, the front door bell. He scarcely noticed it.
No, there was one person to mourn her, of course—Tommy. The thought of him sent a sudden shudder through him. Tommy! He wondered if he could bring himself to be decent to Tommy in case he should turn up.... Just like him, the nauseous little brute!
No, that thought was unworthy of him. What particular grudge had he against Tommy? Hitherto he had not even taken the trouble to despise Tommy, and surely there was no point in beginning now. No, he must be decent to Tommy, if the occasion should arise.
But that Tommy should be chief mourner! Poor Beatrice!...
Presently he roused himself with a slight start. He did not wish to grudge his wife what slight homage he could pay her, but he felt that he had perhaps gone far enough. One felt what one could; harping over things was merely morbid. He rose and quietly left the room.
The lights in the hall seemed dim and low. A gentle glow shone through the living room door. That was odd; he thought he remembered turning out the light in the room before he left it. Then he became aware of a sentence or two being spoken in a low voice in that room, and the next moment one of the servants walked out of the door and into the hall.
He brushed past her, wondering who could have arrived at this time of night. At the door he stopped, strained his eyes to pierce the half-gloom and became aware of a figure standing before him, a silent, black-robed figure, full of a strange portent....
Aunt Selina.
RED FLAME
"James, is it true—what she just told me?" Her voice was full of anxiety and horror, but in some curious way she still managed to be the self-possessed Aunt Selina of old. Even in that moment James found time to admire her.
"Yes, Aunt Selina, I'm afraid it's true."
"Is there no hope, no chance—"
"None, that I can see."
"Then ... oh!" She gave way at that, seeming to crumple where she stood. James helped her to a sofa and silently went into the dining room and mixed some whisky and water. Aunt Selina stared when he offered it to her, and then took it without a word. How like Aunt Selina again! A fool would have raised objections. James almost smiled.
"How do you happen to be here, Aunt Selina?" he asked after a few moments, less in the desire of knowing than in the hope of diverting her. "You didn't come from Bar Harbor to-day?"
"From Boston."
"Boston?"
"I took the boat to Boston last night. I learned of the accident there. I supposed she was safe—the papers said nothing."
"Yes, I know. But—but how did you happen to leave Bar Harbor at all?"
"I was going to meet her here."
"Her?"
"Beatrice."
"I don't understand."
"No, and oh, my poor boy, I've got to make you!" She said this quietly, almost prayerfully, with the air of a person laboring under a weighty mission. James had no reply to offer and walked off feeling curiously uncomfortable. There was a long silence.
"Come over here and sit down, James; I want to talk to you," said Aunt Selina at last. She spoke in her natural tone of voice; there was no more of the priestess about her. There was that about her, however, that made him obey.
"James, I've got to tell you a few things about Beatrice. Some things I don't believe you know. Do you mind?"
"No," said James slowly, "I don't know that I do."
"Well, in the first place, I suppose you thought she was in love with that Englishman?"
James nodded.
"Well, she wasn't—not one particle. Whatever else may or may not be true, that is. She despised him."
James froze, paused as though deciding whether or not to discuss the matter and then said gently: "I have my own ideas about that, Aunt Selina."
She nodded briefly, almost briskly. It was the most effective reply she could have made. The more businesslike the words the greater the impression on James, always, in any matter. Aunt Selina understood perfectly. She let her effect sink in and waited calmly for him to demand proof. This he did at last, going to the very heart of the subject.
"Then perhaps, Aunt Selina, you can account for certain things...."
"No, I shall only tell you what I know. You must do your own accounting." She paused a moment and then went on: "You've heard nothing since you left Bar Harbor, I suppose?"
"Nothing."
"Beatrice was quite ill for a time after you left. For days she lay in bed unable to move, but there seemed to be nothing specific the matter with her. We called in the doctor and he said the same old thing—rest and fresh air. He knew considerably less what was the matter with her than any one else in the house, which is saying a good deal.
"Lord Clairloch left the day after you did. Beatrice saw him once, that evening, and sent him away. The next day he went, saying vaguely that he had to go back to New York.
"James, of course I knew. I couldn't live in the house with the two people I cared most for in the world and not see things, notfeelthings. The only wonder is that nobody else guessed. It seemed incredible to me, who wasso keenly alive to the whole business. Time and time again when Cecilia opened her mouth to speak to me I thought she was going to talk about that, and then she would speak about some unimportant subject, and I blessed her for her denseness. And how I thanked Heaven that that sharp-nosed little minx Ruth wasn't there! She'd have smelt the whole thing out in no time.
"Gradually Beatrice mended. Her color came back and she seemed stronger. At last one evening—only Tuesday it was; think of it!—she came down to dinner with a peculiar sort of glitter in her eyes. She told us that she felt able to travel and was going to New York the next day. She had engaged her accommodations and everything. Of course I knew what that meant....
"Knowledge can be a terrible thing, James. For days it had preyed on me, and now when the moment for action came I was almost too weak to respond. Oh, how I was tempted to sit back and say nothing and let things take their course!... But I simply couldn't fall back in the end, I simply couldn't. After bedtime that evening I went to the door of her room and knocked.
"I found her in the midst of packing. I told her I had something to say to her and would wait till she was ready. She said she was listening.
"'Beatrice,' said I, 'I've always tried to mind my own business above all things, but I'm going to break my rule now. I'm fond of you, Beatrice; if I offend you remember that. I simply can't watch you throw your life away without raising a finger to stop you.'
"She didn't flare up, she didn't even ask me how I knew; she only gave a sort of groan and said: 'Oh, but Aunt Selina, I haven't any life to throw away! It's all been burned and frozen out of me; there's nothing left but a shell, and that won't last long! Can't you let me pass the little that remains in peace? That's all I ask for—I gave up happiness long ago. It won't last long! It can hurt no one!'
"'You have an immortal soul,' said I; 'you can hurt that.'
"She sat looking at the floor for a while and then said imploringly: 'Don't ask me to go back to James, Aunt Selina, for that's the one thing I can't do.' 'I shan't ask you to do anything,' I told her, but I knew perfectly wellthat I was prepared to go down on my knees before her, when the time came....
"But it hadn't come yet—there was a great deal to be done first. What I did was to tell her something about my own life, in the hope that it might throw a new light on her situation. I told her things that I've never told to a human being and never expected to tell another....
"James, I think I ought to tell you the whole thing, as I told it to her. It may help you to understand ... certain things you must understand. Do you mind?"
She paused, less for the purpose of obtaining his consent than in order to gain a perfect control over her voice and manner. Taking James' silence as acquiescence she folded her hands in her lap and went on in a low quiet voice:
"I haven't had much of a life, according to most ways of thinking. All I ever knew of life, as I suppose you know it, was concentrated into a few months. Not that I didn't have a good time during my girlhood and youth. My mother died when I was a baby, but my stepmother took as good care of me as if I had been her own child, and I loved her almost like my own mother. I've often thought, though, that if my mother had lived things might have turned out differently. Stepmothers are never quite the same thing.
"Well, I grew up and flew about with the college boys in the usual way. I never cared a rap for any of them, beyond the bedtime raptures that girls go through. I was able to manage them all pretty easily; I see now that I was too attractive to them. I had a great deal of what in those days was referred to as 'animation,' which is another way of saying that I was an active, strong-willed, selfish little savage. I was willing to play with the college men, but I always said that when I fell in love it would be with arealman. I laughed when I said it, but I meant it.
"Presently there came a change. Father died, and when I came out of mourning the college men I knew best had graduated and the others seemed too young and silly for me even to play with. It was at about this time, when I was adjusting myself to new conditions and casting about for something to occupy my mind that I came to know Milton Leffert."
James stirred slightly. Aunt Selina smiled.
"Yes, you've heard of him, of course. It gives one acurious feeling, doesn't it, to learn that dead people, or people who are as good as dead, have had their lives? I know, I know ... I think you'd have liked Milton Leffert. He was very quiet and not at all striking in appearance, but he was strong and there was no nonsense about him. He was more than ten years older than I. I had known him only slightly before that time. Then after Father's death he began coming to see me a good deal and we fell into the habit of walking and driving together. I always liked him. I loved talking with him; he was the first man I ever talked much with on serious subjects. He stimulated me, and I enjoyed being with him. Only, it never occurred to me that he could be the Real Man.
"You've often heard of women refusing men because of their poverty. Well, the chief thing that prejudiced me against Milton Leffert was his wealth. He happened to possess a large fortune made and left to him by his father, and he didn't do much except take care of it, together with that of his sister Jane. He was president of the one concern his father had not sold out before he died, but that was the sort of thing that ran itself; he didn't spend an hour a day at it. That wasn't much of a career, according to the way I thought at that time, and when he first began asking me to marry him I laughed outright.
"'You can't know me very well, Milton,' I said, 'if you suppose I could be content with a ready-made man. I like you very much, but you're not the husband for me.'
"'What do you mean by a ready-made man?' he asked, looking at me out of his quiet gray eyes.
"'I should say it was sufficiently obvious,' I said. 'There's nothing the matter with you, and I hate to hurt you, but—well, you're not dynamic.'
"I stopped to see how he would take that. He was silent for a while, then at last he said: 'I don't think that's a very good reason for refusing a man.'
"I laughed; the grave way he said it was so characteristic of him. 'Oh, Milton,' I said, 'I really think that's the only reason in the world to make me refuse a man. I don't much believe I shall ever marry, but if I do it will be to a man that I can help win his fight in the world; somebody with whom I can march side by side through life, whom I alone can help and encourage and inspire! He's got to be the kind that will start at the bottom andwork his way up to the top, and who couldn't do it without me! That's not you, Milton. You have no fight to make—your father made it for you. You start in at the top, the wrong end. Of course there are still higher summits you could aim for, but you never will, Milton. You're not that kind; you'll hold on to what you have, and no more. I'm not blaming you; you were made that way. And there must be a great many people like you in the world. And Ilikeyou none the less. Only I can't marry you.'
"'But I don't see what difference all this would make,' he said, 'if you only loved me.'
"'My dear man,' said I, 'don't you see that it's only that sort of a man who could make me love him? If you had it in you, I suppose I should love you. You don't suppose I could love you without that, do you? I'm afraid you don't understand me very well, Milton!'
"'I'm learning all the time,' he answered, and that was the nearest thing to a witty or humorous remark that I ever heard him make.
"'Then again,' I went on, 'our ages are too far apart. Even if you were the sort I mean, we shouldn't be starting even. The fight would be half won when I came in, and that would never do. I shouldn't feel as if I were part of your life. A marriage like that wouldn't be a marriage, it would be a sweet little middle-aged idyll!'
"He flushed at that. 'A man can't change his age, Selina; you have no right to taunt me with that.'
"'I didn't mean to taunt you—I only wanted to explain,' said I. 'And the last thing in the world I want to do is to hurt you.'
"'But that's the only thing a man can't change,' he went on after a moment, paying no attention to my apology. After another pause he added: 'I shan't give you up, mind,' and when we talked again it was of other things.
"I went on seeing him as before, though not quite so often. Then presently I went away on some long visits and did not see him for several months. When I came back I noticed that his manner was more animated than before, and that somehow he looked younger. I remember being quite pleased.—He was thirty-four at the time, and I not quite twenty-three.
"It was perfectly evident, even to me, that he was workingto win me. I saw it, but I did not pay any attention to it; when I thought about it at all it was with a sort of amusement. One day he came to me apparently very much pleased about something.
"'Congratulate me, Selina,' he said; 'I've just got my appointment.'
"'Appointment?' said I. I truthfully had no idea what he was talking about.
"'Yes,' he went on, 'I begin work on the board next week.'
"'What board?'
"'Why, the tax board—the city tax board. Surely you knew?'
"Then I laughed—I remember it so distinctly. 'Good gracious, Milton,' I said, 'I thought it must be the Cabinet of the United States, at the very least!' Then I saw his face, and knew that I had hurt him.
"'It's splendid, of course,' I added. 'I do congratulate you, indeed, most heartily. Only—only Milton, you were so serious!'
"I laughed again. He stared at me and after a moment laughed himself, a little. I suppose that laugh was the greatest effort he had made yet. I know I liked him better at that moment than ever before. If he had let it go at that who knows what might have happened?
"But he changed again after a few seconds; he scowled and became more serious than ever. 'No!' he said angrily, 'why should I laugh with you over the most serious thing in my life? Why should you want to make me? First you blame me for not making anything of myself, and now, when I am trying my best to do it, you laugh at me for being serious! Of course I'm serious about my work—I shan't pretend to be anything else.'
"Of course that was all wrong, too. Every one admires a man who can laugh a little about his work. But I felt a sort of hopelessness in trying to explain it to him; I was afraid he would never really understand. So instead I drew him out on the new work he had taken up and tried to make him talk about the plans he had in mind, of which the tax board was only the first step. He seemed rather shy about talking of the future.
"'It's a case for actions, not words,' he said. 'I don't want to give you the impression that I'm only a talker.You'll see, in time, what you've made of me,' and he smiled at me in a way that rather went to my heart.
"'Milton,' I said, 'I'm more than glad if I can be of help to you, in any way, but I should be deceiving you if I let you think there's any hope—any more hope, even, than there was.'
"But that was the kind of talk he understood best. 'Selina,' he said, 'don't you bother about caring for me. The time hasn't come for that yet. I'm not even ready for it myself—there's a lot to be done first. The time will come, at last; I'm sure of it. A woman can't have such a power over a man as you have over me without coming to have some feeling for him in the end, if it's only pride in her own handiwork. But even if it never should come, do you think I could regret what I've done, what I'm going to do? You've made a man of me, Selina. That stands, no matter what happens!'
"Of course that sort of thing can't help but make an impression on a woman, and it had its effect on me. It made me a little nervous; it was like raising a Frankenstein. I began to wonder if I should come to be swallowed up in this new life I had unwillingly created. Once or twice I caught myself wondering how it would feel to be the wife of Milton Leffert....
"But about that time my stepmother began talking to me about it and trying to persuade me to marry him, and that had the effect of making me like the thought less. Somehow she made it seem almost like a duty, and if there was one thing I couldn't abide it was the idea of marrying from a sense of duty. Then other things came into my life and for a time I ceased to think of him almost entirely.
"We went abroad for several months, my stepmother and the two boys and I. Hilary had been seriously ill, and we thought the change would do him good. And as he had a good deal of study to make up—he was fourteen at the time—my stepmother engaged a young man to go with us and tutor him and be a companion to the boys generally.
"You might almost guess the rest. I saw my stepmother wince when he met us at the steamer—we had engaged him by letter and had no idea what he looked like. I suppose it had never occurred to her before that there might be danger in placing me in daily companionship with a manof about my own age. It certainly occurred to her then.
"James, I know I can't make it sound plausible to you, but even now I don't wonder I fell in love with him. I don't suppose a more attractive man was ever born. He was thin and brown and had a pure aquiline profile—but it's no use describing him. Think of the most attractive person you ever knew and make him ten times more so and perhaps you'll get some idea.
"He was quite poor—that also took my fancy. He was trying to earn money enough to put himself through law school. Those who knew him said he was a brilliant student and that a great career lay before him, and I believed it. He certainly was as bright and keen as they make 'em, and very witty and amusing. Occasionally Harry reminds me of him, and that makes me worry about Harry.... Of course I was tremendously taken with his mental qualities, and I had all sorts of romantic notions about helping him to make a great place for himself in the world, and all the rest of it. But as a matter of fact what drew me to him chiefly was simple animal attraction. It wasn't wrong and it wasn't unnatural, but—well, it was unfortunate.
"Even my stepmother felt it. I don't know how long it was before she knew what was going on, but she never made any effort to stop it. Like a sensible woman she kept her mouth shut and determined to let things take their course. But she never talked to me any more about Milton Leffert, and as a matter of fact I know she would have been perfectly willing that I should marry Adrian. Yes, that was his first name. I shan't tell you his last, because he's still alive.
"I remember telling myself when I first saw him that such an absurdly handsome person could not have much to him, but he appeared better and better as time went on. He was thoughtful and tactful and knew how to efface himself. He was splendid with the boys; Hilary in particular took a tremendous fancy to him and would do anything he said. He was the greatest influence in Hilary's life up to that time, and I really think the best. He was an extraordinary person. By the end of the first month I suspected he was the Real Man. By the end of the second I was convinced of it, and by the end of the third I would willingly have placed my head under his foot any time he gave the word. By the end of the sixth month Iwouldn't have touched him with my foot—I'm sure of it. But there never was any sixth month.
"In the month of June we were on the Lake of Como. There happened to be a full moon. Como in the moonlight is not the safest place in the world for young people, under any circumstances. In our case it was sure to lead to something.
"We had strolled up to a terrace high above the lake and stood for a long time leaning over the balustrade drinking in the beauty of the scene. For a long time we said nothing, and apparently the same thought struck us both—that it was all too beautiful to be true. At any rate after a time Adrian sighed and said: 'Oh, this damnable moonlight!'
"'Why?'I asked.
"'Because it makes everything seem so unreal—the lake, the mountains, the nightingales, everything. It's like a poem by Lamartine. But I don't mind that—I like Lamartine. The trouble is it makes you seem unreal too. Oh, I know that you're where you are and are flesh and blood and that if I pinched you you'd probably scream and all that—'
"'No, I shouldn't,' said I. 'I wouldn't be real if I did.'
"He sighed. 'That shows it,' he said; 'that proves exactly what I say. You're not really living this; your soul isn't really here. I'm not really in your life. I'm just a pretty little episode, a stage property, a part of the lake and the moonlight, a part of every summer vacation!'
"'If you're not really in my life,' said I, 'doesn't it occur to you that it's because of your unreality, not mine?'
"'You admit that I'm not real to you, then?'
"'No,' said I, 'but it would be your own fault if you weren't.'
"'What about that man in New Haven, is he real?' he asked suddenly. I only flushed, and he went on: 'That's it—he's the real man in your life. You're willing to play about with me in the summertime, but when the winter comes you'll go straight back and marry him. I'm all right for the moonlight, but you want him in the cold gray light of the dawn! He's the Old and New Testaments to you, and I'm only—a poem by Lamartine! And with me—oh, Lord!' He buried his face in his hands.
"I don't know whether it was pure accident or whetherhe somehow guessed part of the truth. At any rate it roused me. I was very sure that what he said was not true, or at least I was very anxious that it should not be true, which often comes to the same thing. I argued with him for some time, and when words failed there were other things. But he did not seem entirely convinced.
"After a while, as we sat there, Hilary appeared with a telegram that had just arrived for me. I saw that it was a cable message and thought it was probably from Milton Leffert, as he had said that he might possibly come abroad on business during the summer and would look me up if he did. And somehow the thought of Milton Leffert at that moment filled me with the most intense disgust....
"'Now,' I said when Hilary had gone, 'I'm tired of arguing; here may be a chance to prove myself by actions. Open this telegram, and tell me if it's from Milton Leffert!'
"He looked at me in a dazed sort of way. 'Open it!' I repeated, stamping my foot. I was drunk with love and moonlight and I imagine I must have acted like a fury. I know I felt like one.
"He opened the telegram and read it, gravely and silently.
"'Is it or is it not from Milton Leffert?'
"'Yes. He—'
"'That's all I want to know—don't say another word! Do you hear? Never tell me another word about that telegram as long as you live! And now destroy it—here—before my eyes! I'm going to put Milton Leffert out of my life forever, here and now! Go on, destroy it!'
"Adrian hesitated. He seemed almost frightened. 'But—' he began.
"'Adrian!' I turned toward him with the moonlight beating full down on me. I was not so bad-looking in those days; I daresay I was not bad-looking at all as I stood there in the moonlight. At least I know that woman never used her beauty more consciously than I did in that moment.
"'Adrian, look at me! Do you love me?'
"He allowed that he did.
"'Then do what I say. Destroy that telegram and never mention it or that man's name to me again!'
"A change came over him. He hesitated no longer; he became forceful and determined.
"'Very well,' he cried, 'if you're not mine now you will be! Here's good-by to Milton Leffert!'
"He took some matches from his pocket and lit the end of the paper. When it was burning brightly he dropped it over the edge of the terrace and it floated out into the space beneath. We stood together and watched it as it fell, burning red in the moonlight....
"Then for some weeks we were happy. Adrian seemed particularly so; he had had his gloomy moods before that but now they passed away entirely. And if there was a cloud of suspicion that I had done wrong in my own mind I was so happy in seeing Adrian's joy that I paid no attention to it.
"Only one thing struck me as odd; he would not let me tell my stepmother. He gave a number of reasons for it; it would make his position with us uncomfortable; he could not be a tutor and a lover at the same time; he was writing to his relatives and wanted to wait till they knew; we must wait till we were absolutely sure of ourselves, and so forth. One of these reasons might have convinced me, but his giving so many of them made me suspect, even as I obeyed him, that none of them was the real one. I wondered what it could be. I found out, soon enough.
"We left Italy and worked slowly northward. Several weeks after the scene on the terrace we reached Paris. There we met a number of our American friends, some of whom had just arrived from home. One day my stepmother and I were sitting talking with one of these—Elizabeth Haldane it was—and in the course of the conversation she happened to say: 'Very sad, isn't it, about poor Milton Leffert?'
"'What is sad?' asked my stepmother.
"'Why, haven't you heard?' said Elizabeth. 'He died a short time before we left. Brain fever or something of the sort—from overwork, they said. He was planning to run for the State Legislature this fall.' I saw her glancing round; she couldn't keep her eyes off me. But I sat still as a stone....
"As soon as I could I took Adrian off alone.
"'Adrian,' I said, 'the time has come when you've got to tell me what was in that telegram.'
"'Never,' said he, smiling. 'I promised, you know,'
"'I release you from your promise.'
"'Even so, I can't tell you.'
"'Adrian,' said I, looking him full in the face, 'Milton Leffert is dead.'
"'I'm sorry to hear it,' said he.
"I blazed up at that. 'Stop lying to me,' I cried, 'and tell me what was in that telegram!'
"He confessed at last that it was from Jane Leffert saying that her brother was dangerously ill and asking me to come to him if possible or at least send some message. I knew well enough what it must have been, but I wanted to wring it from his lips....
"'Well, have you nothing to say to me?' he asked.
"I didn't answer for some time—I couldn't. To tell the truth I hadn't been thinking of him. At last I turned on him. 'You contemptible creature,' I managed to say.
"'Why?' he whined. 'You've no right to call me names. You made me do it. If you're sorry now it's your own fault.'
"'I was to blame,' I answered. 'Heaven forbid that I should try to excuse my own fault. But do you think that lets you out? Suppose the positions had been reversed; suppose you had been ill and Milton with me. Do you imagine he would have let me remain in ignorance while you lay dying and in need of me, no matter what I told him to do or not to do? Are you so weak and mean that you can't conceive of any one being strong and good?'
"'It was because I loved you so much that I did it,' he said.
"'Oh, Adrian,' I told him, 'if you really loved me, why did you let me do a thing you knew I'd live to regret? If you really loved me, what had you to fear but that?'
"'You might have saved his life,' he answered.
"Oh, James, the anguish of hearing those words from his lips! The man I did not love telling me I might have saved the life of the man I did! For now that it was too late I knew well enough who it was that I loved. In one flash I saw the two men as they were, one strong, quiet, unselfish, the other selfish, cowardly, mean-spirited. Now I saw why he had not wanted me to tell my stepmother of our engagement. He wanted to cover up his own part in the affair in case anything unpleasant happened when I heard of Milton's death.
"I told my stepmother everything as soon as I could andshe behaved splendidly. She sent Adrian away and I never saw him again. And as I announced my intention of going home on the next steamer she decided it was best to give up the rest of her trip and take the boys along back with me. So we all went, that same week.
"People wondered, when we arrived so long ahead of time, and came pretty near to guessing the whole truth. But I didn't care. The one thing I wanted in the world was to see Milton's sister, his one surviving relative.
"'Jane Leffert,' I wrote her, 'if you can bear to look on the woman who killed your brother, let her come and tell you she's sorry.' She was a good woman and understood. The next day I went to her house. She took me upstairs and showed me his room, the bed where he had died. I never said a word all the time. Then, as she was really a very remarkable woman, she handed me an old brooch of her mother's containing a miniature of him painted when he was four years old, and told me it was mine to keep. Then for the first time I broke down and cried....
"If it hadn't been for Jane Leffert I think I should have gone mad. She never tried to hide the truth from me. She admitted, when I asked her, that Milton had, to all intents and purposes, worked himself to death for me, and that the doctor had said the one hope for him lay in his seeing me or hearing I was coming to him. But never a word of blame or reproach did she give me, never a hint of a feeling of it. She knew how easy it is to make mistakes in life, she knew how hard it is to atone for them. She it was who gave me the blessed thought that it was worth while to go on living as part of my atonement, and that if I put into my life the things I had learned from him I might even, to a certain extent, make Milton live on in me.
"So instead of taking poison or becoming a Carmelite nun I went on living at home as before, stimulated and inspired by that idea. It was hard at first, but somehow the harder things were the greater the satisfaction I took in life. By the time I had lightened the remaining years of my stepmother's life and nursed Jane Leffert through her last illness I became content with my lot and, in a way, happy. I never asked for happiness nor wanted it again on earth, but it came, at last. There is something purifying about loving a dead person very much. The chief danger is in its making one morbid, but as I was always a thoroughlypractical person with a strong natural taste for life it did me nothing but good. But I don't prescribe it for any one who can get anything better....
"One thing in particular helped me to keep my mind on earth and remind me of the far-reaching effects of wrong-doing. I have said that Hilary, your father, was extremely fond of Adrian. Well, somehow he got the idea into his head that I had thrown him over because of his poverty, and he never forgave me for it. Till his dying day he believed that I really loved Adrian most but was afraid to marry him. Over and over again I told him the truth, taking a sort of fierce pleasure in being able to tell any one that I had never loved any one but Milton Leffert.
"'Then why did you let Adrian make love to you?' Hilary would answer, 'and why did you make him burn that telegram? I know, I heard you as I walked down the path.' Nothing I could say ever made him understand. And the hardest part of it was that I couldn't exactly blame him for not being convinced.
"Taking him at that impressionable time of life the thing had a tremendous effect on him. The idea grew into him that no human feeling could stand the test of hard facts; that that was the way love worked out in real life. From that time on his mind steadily developed and his soul steadily dwindled. He became practical, brilliant, worldly wise, heartless. We grew gradually more and more estranged; you seldom heard him mention my name, I suppose? That's why you never heard before what I've been telling you, or at least the whole truth of it.... And so, as he consciously modeled certain of his mannerisms after those of Adrian he unconsciously grew more and more like him in character; and I had the satisfaction of watching the change and realizing that it was due, in part at least, to me. And the thought of how I unwillingly hurt him has made me all the more anxious to make reparation by being of service to his two boys. Perhaps you can imagine some of the things I've feared for them...."
Here Aunt Selina broke off, choked by a sudden gust of emotion. James said nothing, but sat staring straight in front of him. Presently his aunt, steadying her voice to its accustomed pitch, went on:
"Well, James, I told this to Beatrice, much as I've toldit to you, though not at so great length, and I could see it made an impression on her. She came over and sat down by me and took my hand without speaking.
"'You lived through all that?' she said at last, 'and you never told any one?'
"'Why should I have told?' I answered. 'There was no one to tell. I've only told you because I thought it might have some bearing on your own case.'
"She caught her breath, gave a sort of little sigh. And that sigh said, as plainly as words, 'Dear me, I was so interested in your story I almost forgot I must get ready to go to New York to-morrow.' It was a setback; I saw I had overestimated the effect I had made. But I set my teeth and went on, determined not to give her up yet.
"'Beatrice,' I said, 'I haven't told you all this for the pleasure of telling it nor to amuse you. I've told it to you because I wanted to show you how such a course of action as you're about to take works out in real life. There is a strange madness that comes over women sometimes, especially over strong women; a sort of obsession that makes them think they are too good for the men they love. I know it, I've felt it—I've suffered under it, if ever woman did! It may seem irresistible while it lasts, but oh, the remorse that comes afterward! Beatrice, how many times do you suppose I've lived over each snubbing speech I made to Milton Leffert? How often do you suppose my laugh at him when he told me about the tax board has rung through my ears? Those are the memories that stab the soul, Beatrice; don't let there be any such in your life!'
"She didn't answer, but sat staring at the floor.
"'Beatrice,' I went on, 'there's no mortal suffering like discovering you've done wrong when it's too late. It's the curse of strong-willed people. It all seems so simple to us at first; it's so easy for us to force our wills on other people, to rule others and be free ourselves. Then something happens, the true vision comes, and it's too late! Beatrice, I've caught you in time—it's not too late for you yet. Do you know where you stand now, Beatrice? You're at the point where I was when I told Adrian to burn that telegram!'
"Still she said nothing, and the sight of her sitting there so beautiful and cold drove me almost wild. 'Oh, Beatrice,' I burst out, losing the last bit of my self-control, 'don't tellme I've got to live through it all again with you! Don't go and repeat my mistake before my very eyes, with my example before yours! It was hard enough to live through it once myself, but what will it be when I sit helplessly by and watch the people I love best go through it all! I can't bear it, I can't, I can't! It takes all the meaning out of my own life!...'
"She was moved by my display of feeling, but not by my words. She said nothing for a time, but took my hand again and began stroking it gently, as if to quiet me. I said nothing more—I couldn't speak. At last she said, in a calm, gentle tone of voice, as if she were explaining something to a child:—
"'Aunt Selina, I don't think you quite understand about my marriage with James. It isn't like other marriages, exactly.'
"'It seems to me enough that it is a marriage,' I answered. 'Though I haven't spoken of that side of it, of course.'
"'Oh, you won't understand!' she said.
"'Beatrice,' said I, 'I couldn't understand if you kept telling me about it till to-morrow morning. No one ever will understand you, except your Creator—you might as well make up your mind to it. I don't doubt you've had many wrong things done to you. The point is, you're about to do one. Don't do it.'
"Always back to the same old point, and nothing gained! I had the feeling of having fired my last shot and missed. I shut my eyes and leaned my head back and tried to think of some new way of putting it to her, but as a matter of fact I knew I had said all I had to say. And then, just as I was giving her up for lost, I heard her speaking again.
"'Aunt Selina,' she said, 'you have made me think of one thing.'
"'What's that, my dear?' I asked.
"'Well, I don't doubt but what I have done wrong things already, without suspecting it. Oh, yes, I've been too sure of myself!'
"'It's possible, my dear,' said I, 'but you haven't done anything that you can't still make up for, if you want.'
"'I think I know what you mean,' she said slowly; 'you mean I could go and tell him so. Tell him I had done wrong and was sorry—for I did sin, not in deed, but still inthought.... I never told him that, of course....' Then she shivered. 'Oh, but Aunt Selina, I can't do it, I can't! If you only knew how I've tried already, how I've humiliated myself!'
"'That never did any one any harm,' I told her.
"'And then,' she went on, 'even if I did do it, he'd never take me back—not on any terms! He'd only cast me away again—that's what would happen, you know! What would there be for me then but—Tommy?'
"Well, I knew I'd won a great point in making her even consider it.
"'Several things,' I answered, taking no pains to conceal my delight. 'In the first place, it's by no means certain that he will refuse you. But if he does—well, you'll never lack a home or a friend while I'm alive, my dear! And don't you go and pretend that I'm not more to you than that brainless, chinless, sniveling, driveling little fool of an Englishman, for I won't believe it!'
"She laughed at that and for a moment we both laughed together. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't do better than leave it at that, let that laugh end our talk.
"'Good night, my dear,' I said, kissing her. 'The time has come now when you've got to make up your mind for yourself. I've done all I can for you.' And with that I left her.
"But, oh, James, it wasn't as simple as all that! It was all very well to tell her that and go to bed, but if you knew what agonies of doubt and suspense I went through during the night, fearing, hoping, wondering, praying! Those things are so much more complicated in real life than they are when you read them or see them acted. What should have happened was that I should have one grand scene with her and make her promise at the end to do as I wanted. And I did my best, I went as far as it was in me to go, and knew no more of the result than before I began! And we parted laughing—laughing, from that talk!
"But almost the worst part of it was next morning when we met downstairs after breakfast, with the family about. I could scarcely say good morning to her, and I never dared catch her eye. And all the time that one great subject was burning in our minds. And we couldn't talk of it again, either; we couldn't have if we'd been alone together in a desert! You can't go on having scenes with people.
"At last, after lunch, I was alone on the verandah with her, and managed to screw myself up to asking her whether she was going to New York or not.
"'Yes, I'm going,' she answered.
"'What do you mean by that?' I asked.
"'Oh, I don't know what I mean!' she said desperately. I knew she was as badly off as I was, or worse, and after that I simply couldn't say another word to her.
"But I saw her alone once again, just before she started. She kissed me good-by and smiled and whispered: 'Don't worry, Aunt Selina—it's all right,' and then the others came. Just that—nothing more!
"I didn't know what to think—what I dared to think. One moment I rushed and telegraphed you, because I was afraid she was going to the Englishman, after all. The next minute I was hurrying to catch the night boat to Boston, because I thought she was going to you and that I might have to deal with you. I wanted to be with her in any case. Oh, I was so mad with the uncertainty and suspense I didn't know what I did or what I thought! But the impression I took away finally from her last words to me were that she was going to you.... But I never knew, James,I never knew! And now I never shall!..."