The Wanderer was not inclined to deny the statement which accorded well enough with his total disbelief of the story Unorna had told him. But he did not answer her immediately, for he found himself in a very difficult position. He would neither do anything in the least discourteous beyond admitting frankly that he had not believed her, when she taxed him with incredulity; nor would say anything which might serve her as a stepping-stone for returning to the original situation. He was, perhaps, inclined to blame her somewhat less than at first, and her changed manner in speaking of Kafka somewhat encouraged his leniency. A man will forgive, or at least condone, much harshness to others when he is thoroughly aware that it has been exhibited out of love for himself; and a man of the Wanderer’s character cannot help feeling a sort of chivalrous respect and delicate forbearance for a woman who loves him sincerely, though against his will, while he will avoid with an almost exaggerated prudence the least word which could be interpreted as an expression of reciprocal tenderness. He runs the risk, at the same time, of being thrust into the ridiculous position of the man who, though young, assumes the manner and speech of age and delivers himself of grave, paternal advice to one who looks upon him, not as an elder, but as her chosen mate.
After Unorna had spoken, the Wanderer, therefore, held his peace. He inclined his head a little, as though to admit that her plea of madness might not be wholly imaginary; but he said nothing. He sat looking at Israel Kafka’s sleeping face and outstretched form, inwardly wondering whether the hours would seem very long before Keyork Arabian returned in the morning and put an end to the situation. Unorna waited in vain for some response, and at last spoke again.
“Yes,” she said, “I was mad. You cannot understand it. I daresay you cannot even understand how I can speak of it now, and yet I cannot help speaking.”
Her manner was more natural and quiet than it had been since the moment of Kafka’s appearance in the cemetery. The Wanderer noticed the tone. There was an element of real sadness in it, with a leaven of bitter disappointment and a savour of heartfelt contrition. She was in earnest now, as she had been before, but in a different way. He could hardly refuse her a word in answer.
“Unorna,” he said gravely, “remember that you are leaving me no choice. I cannot leave you alone with that poor fellow, and so, whatever you wish to say, I must hear. But it would be much better to say nothing about what has happened this evening—better for you and for me. Neither men nor women always mean exactly what they say. We are not angels. Is it not best to let the matter drop?”
Unorna listened quietly, her eyes upon his face.
“You are not so hard with me as you were,” she said thoughtfully, after a moment’s hesitation, and there was a touch of gratitude in her voice. As she felt the dim possibility of a return to her former relations of friendship with him, Beatrice and the scene in the church seemed to be very far away. Again the Wanderer found it difficult to answer.
“It is not for me to be hard, as you call it,” he said quietly. There was a scarcely perceptible smile on his face, brought there not by any feeling of satisfaction, but by his sense of his own almost laughable perplexity. He saw that he was very near being driven to the ridiculous necessity of giving her some advice of the paternal kind. “It is not for me, either, to talk to you of what you have done to Israel Kafka to-day,” he confessed. “Do not oblige me to say anything about it. It will be much safer. You know it all better than I do, and you understand your own reasons, as I never can. If you are sorry for him now, so much the better—you will not hurt him any more if you can help it. If you will say that much about the future I shall be very glad, I confess.”
“Do you think that there is anything which I will not do—if you ask it?” Unorna asked very earnestly.
“I do not know,” the Wanderer answered, trying to seem to ignore the meaning conveyed by her tone. “Some things are harder to do than others——”
“Ask me the hardest!” she exclaimed. “Ask me to tell you the whole truth——”
“No,” he said firmly, in the hope of checking an outburst of passionate speech. “What you have thought and done is no concern of mine. If you have done anything that you are sorry for, without my knowledge, I do not wish to know of it. I have seen you do many good and kind acts during the last month, and I would rather leave those memories untouched as far as possible. You may have had an object in doing them which in itself was bad. I do not care. The deeds were good. Take credit for them and let me give you credit for them. That will do neither of us any harm.”
“I could tell you—if you would let me—”
“Do not tell me,” he interrupted. “I repeat that I do not wish to know. The one thing that I have seen is bad enough. Let that be all. Do you not see that? Besides, I am myself the cause of it in a measure—unwilling enough, Heaven knows!”
“The only cause,” said Unorna bitterly.
“Then I am in some way responsible. I am not quite without blame—we men never are in such cases. If I reproach you, I must reproach myself as well—”
“Reproach yourself!—ah no! What can you say against yourself?” she could not keep the love out of her voice, if she would; her bitterness had been for herself.
“I will not go into that,” he answered. “I am to blame in one way or another. Let us say no more about it. Will you let the matter rest?”
“And let bygones be bygones, and be friends to each other, as we were this morning?” she asked, with a ray of hope.
The Wanderer was silent for a few seconds. His difficulties were increasing. A while ago he had told her, as an excuse for herself, that men and women did not always mean exactly what they said, and even now he did not set himself up in his own mind as an exception to the rule. Very honourable and truthful men do not act upon any set of principles in regard to truth and honour. Their instinctively brave actions and naturally noble truthfulness make those principles which are held up to the unworthy for imitation, by those whose business is the teaching of what is good. The Wanderer’s only hesitation lay between answering the question or not answering it.
“Shall we be friends again?” Unorna asked a second time, in a low tone. “Shall we go back to the beginning?”
“I do not see how that is possible,” he answered slowly.
Unorna was not like him, and did not understand such a nature as his as she understood Keyork Arabian. She had believed that he would at least hold out some hope.
“You might have spared me that!” she said, turning her face away. There were tears in her voice.
A few hours earlier his answer would have brought fire to her eyes and anger to her voice. But a real change had come over her, not lasting, perhaps, but strong in its immediate effects.
“Not even a little friendship left?” she said, breaking the silence that followed.
“I cannot change myself,” he answered, almost wishing that he could. “I ought, perhaps,” he added, as though speaking to himself. “I have done enough harm as it is.”
“Harm? To whom?” She looked round suddenly and he saw the moisture in her eyes.
“To him,” he replied, glancing at Kafka, “and to you. You loved him once. I have ruined his life.”
“Loved him? No—I never loved him.” She shook her head, wondering whether she spoke the truth.
“You must have made him think so.”
“I? No—he is mad.” But she shrank before his honest look, and suddenly broke down. “No—I will not lie to you—you are too true—yes, I loved him, or I thought I did, until you came, and I saw that there was no one——”
But she checked herself, as she felt the blood rising to her cheeks. She could blush still, and still be ashamed. Even she was not all bad, now that she was calm and that the change had come over her.
“You see,” the Wanderer said gently, “I am to blame for it all.”
“For it all? No—not for the thousandth part of it all. What blame have you in being what you are? Blame God in Heaven—for making such a man. Blame me for what you know; blame me for all that you will not let me tell you. Blame Kafka for his mad belief in me and Keyork Arabian for the rest—but do not blame yourself—oh, no! Not that!”
“Do not talk like that, Unorna,” he said. “Be just first.”
“What is justice?” she asked. Then she turned her head away again. “If you knew what justice means for me—you would not ask me to be just. You would be more merciful.”
“You exaggerate——” He spoke kindly, but she interrupted him.
“No. You do not know, that is all. And you can never guess. There is only one man living who could imagine such things as I have done—and tried to do. He is Keyork Arabian. But he would have been wiser than I, perhaps.”
She relapsed into silence. Before her rose the dim altar in the church, the shadowy figure of Beatrice standing up in the dark, the horrible sacrilege that was to have been done. Her face grew dark with fear of her own soul. The Wanderer went so far as to try and distract her from her gloomy thoughts, out of pure kindness of heart.
“I am no theologian,” he said, “but I fancy that in the long reckoning the intention goes for more than the act.”
“The intention!” she cried, looking back with a start. “If that be true——”
With a shudder she buried her face in her two hands, pressing them to her eyes as though to blind them to some awful sight. Then, with a short struggle, she turned to him again.
“There is no forgiveness for me in Heaven,” she said. “Shall there be none on earth! Not even a little, from you to me?”
“There is no question of forgiveness between you and me. You have not injured me, but Israel Kafka. Judge for yourself which of us two, he or I, has anything to forgive. I am to-day what I was yesterday and may be to-morrow. He lies there, dying of his love for you, if ever a man died for love. And as though that were not enough, you have tortured him—well, I will not speak of it. But that is all. I know nothing of the deeds, or intentions, of which you accuse yourself. You are tired, overwrought, worn out with all this—what shall I say? It is natural enough, I suppose—”
“You say there is no question of forgiveness,” she said, interrupting him, but speaking more calmly. “What is it then? What is the real question? If you have nothing to forgive why can we not be friends as we were before?”
“There is something besides that needed. It is not enough that of two people neither should have injured the other. You have broken something, destroyed something—I cannot mend it. I wish I could.”
“You wish you could?” she repeated earnestly.
“I wish that the thing had not been done. I wish that I had not seen what I saw to-day. We should be where we were this morning—and he perhaps would not be here.”
“It must have come some day,” Unorna said. “He must have seen that I loved—that I loved you. Is there any use in not speaking plainly now? Then at some other time, in some other place, he would have done what he did, and I should have been angry and cruel—for it is my nature to be cruel when I am angry, and to be angry easily, at that. Men talk so easily of self-control, and self-command and dignity, and self-respect! They have not loved—that is all. I am not angry now, nor cruel. I am sorry for what I did, and I would undo it, if deeds were knots and wishes deeds. I am sorry, beyond all words to tell you. How poor it sounds now that I have said it! You do not even believe me.”
“You are wrong. I know that you are in earnest.”
“How do you know?” she asked bitterly. “Have I never lied to you? If you believed me, you would forgive me. If you forgave me, your friendship would come back. I cannot even swear to you that I am telling the truth. Heaven would not be my witness now if I told a thousand truths, each truer than the last.”
“I have nothing to forgive,” the Wanderer said, almost wearily. “I have told you so, you have not injured me, but him.”
“But if it meant a whole world to me—no, for I am nothing to you—but if it cost you nothing, but the little breath that can carry the three words—would you say it? Is it much to say? Is it like saying, I love you, or, I honour you, respect you? It is so little, and would mean so much.”
“To me it can mean nothing, unless you ask me to forgive you deeds of which I know nothing. And then it means still less to me.”
“Will you say it, only say the three words once?”
“I forgive you,” said the Wanderer quietly. It cost him nothing, and, to him, meant less.
Unorna bent her head and was silent. It was something to have heard him say it though he could not guess the least of the sins which she made it include. She herself hardly knew why she had so insisted. Perhaps it was only the longing to hear words kind in themselves, if not in tone, nor in his meaning of them. Possibly, too, she felt a dim presentiment of her coming end, and would take with her that infinitesimal grain of pardon to the state in which she hoped for no other forgiveness.
“It was good of you to say it,” she said at last.
A long silence followed during which the thoughts of each went their own way. Suddenly Israel Kafka stirred in his sleep. The Wanderer went quickly forward and knelt down beside him and arranged the silken pillow as best he could. Unorna was on the other side almost as soon. With a tenderness of expression and touch which nothing can describe she moved the sleeping head into a comfortable position and smoothed the cushion, and drew up the furs disturbed by the nervous hands. The Wanderer let her have her way. When she had finished their eyes met. He could not tell whether she was asking his approval and a word of encouragement, but he withheld neither.
“You are very gentle with him. He would thank you if he could.”
“Did you not tell me to be kind to him?” she said. “I am keeping my word. But he would not thank me. He would kill me if he were awake.”
The Wanderer shook his head.
“He was ill and mad with pain,” he answered. “He did not know what he was doing. When he wakes, it will be different.”
Unorna rose, and the Wanderer followed her.
“You cannot believe that I care,” she said, as she resumed her seat. “He is not you. My soul would not be the nearer to peace for a word of his.”
For a long time she sat quite still, her hands lying idly in her lap, her head bent wearily as though she bore a heavy burden.
“Can you not rest?” the Wanderer asked at length. “I can watch alone.”
“No. I cannot rest. I shall never rest again.”
The words came slowly, as though spoken to herself.
“Do you bid me go?” she asked after a time, looking up and seeing his eyes fixed on her.
“Bid you go? In your own house?” The tone was one of ordinary courtesy. Unorna smiled sadly.
“I would rather you struck me than that you spoke to me like that!” she exclaimed. “You have no need of such civil forbearance with me. If you bid me go, I will go. If you bid me stay, I will not move. Only speak frankly. Say which you would prefer.”
“Then stay,” said the Wanderer simply.
She bowed her head slightly and was silent again. A distant clock chimed the hour. The morning was slowly drawing near.
“And you,” said Unorna, looking up at the sound. “Will you not rest? Why should you not sleep?”
“I am not tired.”
“You do not trust me, I think,” she answered sadly. “And yet you might—you might.” Her voice died away dreamily.
“Trust you to watch that poor man? Indeed I do. You were not acting just now, when you touched him so tenderly. You are in earnest. You will be kind to him, and I thank you for it.”
“And you yourself? Do you fear nothing from me, if you should sleep before my eyes? Do you not fear that in your unconsciousness I might touch you and make you more unconscious still and make you dream dreams and see visions?”
The Wanderer looked at her and smiled incredulously, partly out of scorn for the imaginary danger, and partly because something told him that she had changed and would not attempt any of her witchcraft upon him.
“No,” he answered. “I am not afraid of that.”
“You are right,” she said gravely. “My sins are enough already. The evil is sufficient. Do as you will. If you can sleep, then sleep in peace. If you will watch, watch with me.”
Then neither spoke again. Unorna bent her head as she had done before. The Wanderer leaned back resting comfortably against the cushion of the high carved chair, his eyes directed towards the place where Israel Kafka lay. The air was warm, the scent of the flowers sweet but not heavy. The silence was intense, for even the little fountain was still. He had watched almost all night and his eyelids drooped. He forgot Unorna and thought only of the sick man, trying to fix his attention on the pale head as it lay under the bright light.
When Unorna looked up at last she saw that he was asleep. At first she was surprised, in spite of what she had said to him half an hour earlier, for she herself could not have closed her eyes, and felt that she could never close them again. Then she sighed. It was but one proof more of his supreme indifference. He had not even cared to speak to her, and if she had not constantly spoken to him throughout the hours they had passed together he would perhaps have been sleeping long before now.
And yet she feared to wake him and was almost glad that he was unconscious. In the solitude she could gaze on him to her heart’s desire, she could let her eyes look their fill, and no one could say her nay. He must be very tired, she thought, and she vaguely wondered why she felt no bodily weariness, when her soul was so heavy.
She sat still and watched him. It might be the last time, she thought, for who could tell what would happen to-morrow? She shuddered as she thought of it all. What would Beatrice do? What would Sister Paul say? How much would she tell of what she had seen? How much had she really seen which she could tell clearly? There were terrible possibilities in the future if all were known. Such deeds, and even the attempt at such deeds as she had tried to do, could be judged by the laws of the land, she might be brought to trial, if she lived, as a common prisoner, and held up to the execration of the world in all her shame and guilt. But death would be worse than that. As she thought of that other Judgment, she grew dizzy with horror as she had been when the idea had first entered her brain.
Then she was conscious that she was again looking at the Wanderer as he lay back asleep in his tall chair. The pale and noble face expressed the stainless soul and the manly character. She saw in it the peace she had lost, and yet knew that through him she had lost her peace for ever.
It was perhaps the last time. Never again, perhaps, after the morning had broken, should she look on what she loved best on earth. She would be gone, ruined, dead perhaps. And he? He would be still himself. He would remember her half carelessly, half in wonder, as a woman who had once been almost his friend. That would be all that would be left in him of her, beyond a memory of the repulsion he had felt for her deeds.
She fancied she could have met the worst in the future less hopelessly if he could have remembered her a little more kindly when all was over. Even now, it might be in her power to cast a veil upon the pictures in his mind. But the mere thought was horrible to her, though a few hours before she had hardly trembled at the doing of a frightful sacrilege. In that short time the humiliation of failure, the realisation of what she had almost done, above all the ever-rising tide of a real and passionate love, had swept away many familiar landmarks in her thoughts, and had turned much to lead which had once seemed brighter than gold. She hated the very idea of using again those arts which had so directly wrought her utter destruction. But she longed to know that in the world whither he would doubtless go to-morrow he would bear with him one kind memory of her, one natural friendly thought not grafted upon his mind by her power, but growing of its own self in his inmost heart. Only a friendly memory—nothing more than that.
She rose noiselessly and came to his side and looked down into his face. Very long she stood there, motionless as a statue, beautiful as a mourning angel.
It was so little that she asked. It was so little compared with all she had hoped, or in comparison with all she had demanded, so little in respect of what she had given. For she had given her soul. And in return she asked only for one small kindly thought when all should be over.
She bent down as she stood and touched his cool forehead with her lips.
“Sleep on, my beloved,” she said in a voice that murmured softly and sadly.
She started a little at what she had done, and drew back, half afraid, like an innocent girl. But as though he had obeyed her words, he seemed to sleep more deeply still. He must be very tired, she thought, to sleep like that, but she was thankful that the soft kiss, the first and last, had not waked him.
“Sleep on,” she said again in a whisper scarcely audible to herself. “Forget Unorna, if you cannot think of her mercifully and kindly. Sleep on, you have the right to rest, and I can never rest again. You have forgiven—forget, too, then, unless you can remember better things of me than I have deserved in your memory. Let her take her kingdom back. It was never mine—remember what you will, forget at least the wrong I did, and forgive the wrong you never knew—for you will know it surely some day. Ah, love—I love you so—dream but one dream, and let me think I take her place. She never loved you more than I, she never can. She would not have done what I have done. Dream only that I am Beatrice for this once. Then when you wake you will not think so cruelly of me. Oh, that I might be she—and you your loving self—that I might be she for one day in thought and word, in deed and voice, in face and soul! Dear love—you would never know it, yet I should know that you had had one loving thought for me. You would forget. It would not matter then to you, for you would have only dreamed, and I should have the certainty—for ever, to take with me always!”
As though the words carried a meaning with them to his sleeping senses, a look of supreme and almost heavenly happiness stole over his sleeping face. But Unorna could not see it. She had turned suddenly away, burying her face in her hands upon the back of her own chair.
“Are there no miracles left in Heaven?” she moaned, half whispering lest she should wake him. “Is there no miracle of deeds undone again and of forgiveness given—for me? God! God! That we should be for ever what we make ourselves!”
There were no tears in her eyes now, as there had been twice that night. In her despair, that fountain of relief, shallow always and not apt to overflow, was dried up and scorched with pain. And, for the time at least, worse things were gone from her, though she suffered more. As though some portion of her passionate wish had been fulfilled, she felt that she could never do again what she had done; she felt that she was truthful now as he was, and that she knew evil from good even as Beatrice knew it. The horror of her sins took new growth in her changed vision.
“Was I lost from the first beginning?” she asked passionately. “Was I born to be all I am, and fore-destined to do all I have done? Was she born an angel and I a devil from hell? What is it all? What is this life, and what is that other beyond it?”
Behind her, in his chair, the Wanderer still slept. Still his face wore the radiant look of joy that had so suddenly come into it as she turned away. He scarcely breathed, so calmly he slept. But Unorna did not raise her head nor look at him, and on the carpet near her feet Israel Kafka lay as still and as deeply unconscious as the Wanderer himself. By a strange destiny she sat there, between the two men in whom her whole life had been wrecked, and she alone was waking.
When she at last raised her eyes the dawn was breaking. Through the transparent roof of glass a cold gray light began to descend upon the warm, still brightness of the lamps. The shadows changed, the colours grew more cold, the dark nooks among the heavy foliage less black. Israel Kafka’s face was ghostly and livid—the Wanderer’s had the alabaster transparency that comes upon some strong men in sleep. Still, neither stirred. Unorna turned from the one and looked upon the other. For the first time she saw how he had changed, and wondered.
“How peacefully he sleeps!” she thought. “He is dreaming of her.”
The dawn came stealing on, not soft and blushing as in southern lands, but cold, resistless and grim as ancient fate; not the maiden herald of the sun with rose-tipped fingers and grey, liquid eyes, but hard, cruel, sullen, and less darkness following upon a greater and going before a dull, sunless and heavy day.
The door opened somewhat noisily and a brisk step fell upon the marble pavement. Unorna rose noiselessly to her feet and hastening along the open space came face to face with Keyork Arabian. He stopped and looked up at her from beneath his heavy brows, with surprise and suspicion. She raised one finger to her lips.
“You here already?” he asked, obeying her gesture and speaking in a low voice.
“Hush! Hush!” she whispered, not satisfied. “They are asleep. You will wake them.”
Keyork came forward. He could move quietly enough when he chose. He glanced at the Wanderer.
“He looks comfortable enough,” he whispered, half contemptuously.
Then he bent down over Israel Kafka and carefully examined his face. To him the ghastly pallor meant nothing. It was but the natural result of excessive exhaustion.
“Put him into a lethargy,” said he under his breath, but with authority in his manner.
Unorna shook her head. Keyork’s small eyes brightened angrily.
“Do it,” he said. “What is this caprice? Are you mad? I want to take his temperature without waking him.”
Unorna folded her arms.
“Do you want him to suffer more?” asked Keyork with a diabolical smile. “If so I will wake him by all means; I am always at your service, you know.”
“Will he suffer, if he wakes naturally?”
“Horribly—in the head.”
Unorna knelt down and let her hand rest a few seconds on Kafka’s brow. The features, drawn with pain, immediately relaxed.
“You have hypnotised the one,” grumbled Keyork as he bent down again. “I cannot imagine why you should object to doing the same for the other.”
“The other?” Unorna repeated in surprise.
“Our friend there, in the arm chair.”
“It is not true. He fell asleep of himself.”
Keyork smiled again, incredulously this time. He had already applied his pocket-thermometer and looked at his watch. Unorna had risen to her feet, disdaining to defend herself against the imputation expressed in his face. Some minutes passed in silence.
“He has no fever,” said Keyork looking at the little instrument. “I will call the Individual and we will take him away.”
“Where?”
“To his lodging, of course. Where else?” He turned and went towards the door.
In a moment, Unorna was kneeling again by Kafka’s side, her hand upon his forehead, her lips close to his ear.
“This is the last time that I will use my power on you or upon any one,” she said quickly, for the time was short. “Obey me, as you must. Do you understand me? Will you obey?”
“Yes,” came the faint answer as from very far off.
“You will wake two hours from now. You will not forget all that has happened, but you will never love me again. I forbid you ever to love me again! Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“You will only forget that I have told you this, though you will obey. You will see me again, and if you can forgive me of your own free will, forgive me then. That must be of your own free will. Wake in two hours of yourself, without pain or sickness.”
Again she touched his forehead and then sprang to her feet. Keyork was coming back with his dumb servant. At a sign, the Individual lifted Kafka from the floor, taking from him the Wanderer’s furs and wrapping him in others which Keyork had brought. The strong man walked away with his burden as though he were carrying a child. Keyork Arabian lingered a moment.
“What made you come back so early?” he asked.
“I will not tell you,” she answered, drawing back.
“No? Well, I am not curious. You have an excellent opportunity now.”
“An opportunity?” Unorna repeated with a cold interrogative.
“Excellent,” said the little man, standing on tiptoe to reach her ear, for she would not bend her head. “You have only to whisper into his ear that you are Beatrice and he will believe you for the rest of his life.”
“Go!” said Unorna.
Though the word was not spoken above her breath it was fierce and commanding. Keyork Arabian smiled in an evil way, shrugged his shoulders and left her.
Unorna was left alone with the Wanderer. His attitude did not change, his eyes did not open, as she stood before him. Still he wore the look which had at first attracted Keyork Arabian’s attention and which had amazed Unorna herself. It was the expression that had come into his face in the old cemetery when in his sleep she had spoken to him of love.
“He is dreaming of her,” Unorna said to herself again, as she turned sadly away.
But since Keyork had been with her a doubt had assailed her which painfully disturbed her thoughts, so that her brow contracted with anxiety and from time to time she drew a quick hard breath. Keyork had taken it for granted that the Wanderer’s sleep was not natural.
She tried to recall what had happened shortly before dawn but it was no wonder that her memory served her ill and refused to bring back distinctly the words she had spoken. Her whole being was unsettled and shaken, so that she found it hard to recognise herself. The stormy hours through which she had lived since yesterday had left their trace; the lack of rest, instead of producing physical exhaustion, had brought about an excessive mental weariness, and it was not easy for her now to find all the connecting links between her actions. Then, above all else, there was the great revulsion that had swept over her after her last and greatest plan of evil had failed, causing in her such a change as could hardly have seemed natural or even possible to a calm person watching her inmost thoughts.
And yet such sudden changes take place daily in the world of crime and passion. In one uncalled-for confession, of which it is hard to trace the smallest reasonable cause, the intricate wickednesses of a lifetime are revealed and repeated; in the mysterious impulse of a moment the murderer turns back and delivers himself to justice; under an influence for which there is often no accounting, the woman who has sinned securely through long years lays bare her guilt and throws herself upon the mercy of the man whom she has so skilfully and consistently deceived. We know the fact. The reason we cannot know. Perhaps, to natures not wholly bad, sin is a poison of which the moral organization can only bear a certain fixed amount, great or small, before rejecting it altogether and with loathing. We do not know. We speak of the workings of conscience, not understanding what we mean. It is like that subtle something which we call electricity; we can play with it, command it, lead it, neutralise it and die of it, make light and heat with it, or language and sound, kill with it and cure with it, while absolutely ignorant of its nature. We are no nearer to a definition of it than the Greek who rubbed a bit of amber and lifted with it a tiny straw, and from amber, Elektron called the something electricity. Are we even as near as that to a definition of the human conscience?
The change that had come over Unorna, whether it was to be lasting or not, was profound. The circumstances under which it took place are plain enough. The reasons must be left to themselves—it remains only to tell the consequences which thereon followed.
The first of these was a hatred of that extraordinary power with which nature had endowed her, which brought with it a determination never again to make use of it for any evil purpose, and, if possible, never even for good.
But as though her unhappy fate were for ever fighting against her good impulses, that power of hers had exerted itself unconsciously, since her resolution had been formed. Keyork Arabian’s words, and his evident though unspoken disbelief in her denial, showed that he at least was convinced of the fact that the Wanderer was not sleeping a natural sleep. Unorna tried to recall what she had done and said, but all was vague and indistinct. Of one thing she was sure. She had not laid her hand upon his forehead, and she had not intentionally done any of those things which she had always believed necessary for producing the results of hypnotism. She had not willed him to do anything, she thought and she felt sure that she had pronounced no words of the nature of a command. Step by step she tried to reconstruct for her comfort a detailed recollection of what had passed, but every effort in that direction was fruitless. Like many men far wiser than herself, she believed in the mechanics of hypnotic science, in the touches, in the passes, in the fixed look, in the will to fascinate. More than once Keyork Arabian had scoffed at what he called her superstitions, and had maintained that all the varying phenomena of hypnotism, all the witchcraft of the darker ages, all the visions undoubtedly shown to wondering eyes by mediaeval sorcerers, were traceable to moral influence, and to no other cause. Unorna could not accept his reasoning. For her there was a deeper and yet a more material mystery in it, as in her own life, a mystery which she cherished as an inheritance, which impressed her with a sense of her own strange destiny and of the gulf which separated her from other women. She could not detach herself from the idea that the supernatural played a part in all her doings, and she clung to the use of gestures and passes and words in the exercise of her art, in which she fancied a hidden and secret meaning to exist. Certain things had especially impressed her. The not uncommon answer of hypnotics to the question concerning their identity, “I am the image in your eyes,” is undoubtedly elicited by the fact that their extraordinarily acute and, perhaps, magnifying vision, perceives the image of themselves in the eyes of the operator with abnormal distinctness, and, not impossibly, of a size quite incompatible with the dimensions of the pupil. To Unorna the answer meant something more. It suggested the actual presence of the person she was influencing, in her own brain, and whenever she was undertaking anything especially difficult, she endeavoured to obtain the reply relating to the image as soon as possible.
In the present case, she was sure that she had done none of the things which she considered necessary to produce a definite result. She was totally unconscious of having impressed upon the sleeper any suggestion of her will. Whatever she had said, she had addressed the words to herself without any intention that they should be heard and understood.
These reflections comforted her as she paced the marble floor, and yet Keyork’s remark rang in her ears and disturbed her. She knew how vast his experience was and how much he could tell by a single glance at a human face. He had been familiar with every phase of hypnotism long before she had known him, and might reasonably be supposed to know by inspection whether the sleep were natural or not. That a person hypnotised may appear to sleep as naturally as one not under the influence is certain, but the condition of rest is also very often different, to a practised eye, from that of ordinary slumber. There is a fixity in the expression of the face, and in the attitude of the body, which cannot continue under ordinary circumstances. He had perhaps noticed both signs in the Wanderer.
She went back to his side and looked at him intently. She had scarcely dared to do so before, and she felt that she might have been mistaken. The light, too, had changed, for it was broad day, though the lamps were still burning. Yet, even now, she could not tell. Her judgment of what she saw was disturbed by many intertwining thoughts.
At least, he was happy. Whatever she had done, if she had done anything, it had not hurt him. There was no possibility of misinterpreting the sleeping man’s expression.
She wished that he would wake, though she knew how the smile would fade, how the features would grow cold and indifferent, and how the grey eyes she loved would open with a look of annoyance at seeing her before him. It was like a vision of happiness in a house of sorrow to see him lying there, so happy in his sleep, so loving, so peaceful. She could make it all to last, too, if she would, and she realised that with a sudden pang. The woman of whom he dreamed, whom he had loved so faithfully and sought so long, was very near him. A word from Unorna and Beatrice could come and find him as he lay asleep, and herself open the dear eyes.
Was that sacrifice to be asked of her before she was taken away to the expiation of her sins? Fate could not be so very cruel—and yet the mere idea was an added suffering. The longer she looked at him the more the possibility grew and tortured her.
After all, it was almost certain that they would meet now, and at the meeting she felt sure that all his memory would return. Why should she do anything, why should she raise her hand, to bring them to each other? It was too much to ask. Was it not enough that both were free, and both in the same city together, and that she had vowed neither to hurt nor hinder them? If it was their destiny to be joined together it would so happen surely in the natural course; if not, was it her part to join them? The punishment of her sins, whatever it should be, she could bear; but this thing she could not do.
She passed her hand across her eyes as though to drive it away, and her thoughts came back to the point from which they had started. The suspense became unbearable when she realised that she did not know in what condition the Wanderer would wake, nor whether, if left to nature, he would wake at all. She could not endure it any longer. She touched his sleeve, lightly at first, and then more heavily. She moved his arm. It was passive in her hand and lay where she placed it. Yet she would not believe that she had made him sleep. She drew back and looked at him. Then her anxiety overcame her.
“Wake!” she cried, aloud. “For God’s sake, wake! I cannot bear it!”
His eyes opened at the sound of her voice, naturally and quietly. Then they grew wide and deep and fixed themselves in a great wonder of many seconds. Then Unorna saw no more.
Strong arms lifted her suddenly from her feet and pressed her fiercely and carried her, and she hid her face. A voice she knew sounded, as she had never heard it sound, nor hoped to hear it.
“Beatrice!” it cried, and nothing more.
In the presence of that strength, in the ringing of that cry, Unorna was helpless. She had no power of thought left in her, as she felt herself borne along, body and soul, in the rush of a passion more masterful than her own.
Then she was on her feet again, but his arms were round her still, and hers, whether she would or not, were clasped about his neck. Dreams, truth, faith kept or broken, hell and Heaven itself were swept away, all wrecked together in the tide of love. And through it all his voice was in her ear.
“Love, love, at last! From all the years, you have come back—at last—at last!”
Broken and almost void of sense the words came then, through the storm of his kisses and the tempest of her tears. She could no more resist him nor draw herself away than the frail ship, wind-driven through crashing waves, can turn and face the blast; no more than the long dry grass can turn and quench the roaring flame; no more than the drooping willow bough can dam the torrent and force it backwards up the steep mountain side.
In those short, false moments, Unorna knew what happiness could mean. Torn from herself, lifted high above the misery and the darkness of her real life, it was all true to her. There was no other Beatrice but herself, no other woman whom he had ever loved. An enchantment greater than her own was upon her and held her in bonds she could neither bend nor break.
She was sitting in her own chair now and he was kneeling before her, holding her hands and looking up to her. For him the world held nothing else. For him her hair was black as night; for him the unlike eyes were dark and fathomless; for him the heavy marble hand was light, responsive, delicate; for him her face was the face of Beatrice, as he had last seen it long ago. The years had passed, indeed, and he had sought her through many lands, but she had come back to him the same, in the glory of her youth, in the strength of her love, in the divinity of her dark beauty, his always, through it all, his now—for ever.
For a long time he did not speak. The words rose to his lips and failed of utterance, as the first mist of early morning is drawn heavenwards to vanish in the rising sun. The long-drawn breath could have made no sound of sweeter meaning than the unspoken speech that rose in the deep gray eyes. Nature’s grand organ, touched by hands divine, can yield no chord more moving than a lover’s sigh.
Words came at last, as after the welcome shower in summer’s heat the song of birds rings through the woods, and out across the fields, upon the clear, earth-scented air—words fresh from their long rest within his heart, unused in years of loneliness but unforgotten and familiar still—untarnished jewels from the inmost depths; rich treasures from the storehouse of a deathless faith; diamonds of truth, rubies of passion, pearls of devotion studding the golden links of the chain of love.
“At last—at last—at last! Life of my life, the day is come that is not day without you, and now it will always be day for us two—day without end and sun for ever! And yet, I have seen you always in my night, just as I see you now. As I hold your dear hands, I have held them—day by day and year by year—and I have smoothed that black hair of yours that I love, and kissed those dark eyes of yours many and many a thousand times. It has been so long, love, so very long! But I knew it would come some day. I knew I should find you, for you have been always with me, dear—always and everywhere. The world is all full of you, for I have wandered through it all and taken you with me and made every place yours with the thought of you, and the love of you and the worship of you. For me, there is not an ocean nor a sea nor a river, nor rock nor island nor broad continent of earth, that has not known Beatrice and loved her name. Heart of my heart, soul of my soul—the nights and the days without you, the lands and the oceans where you were not, the endlessness of this little world that hid you somewhere, the littleness of the whole universe without you—how can you ever know what it has been to me? And so it is gone at last—gone as a dream of sickness in the morning of health; gone as the blackness of storm-clouds in the sweep of the clear west wind; gone as the shadow of evil before the face of an angel of light! And I know it all. I see it all in your eyes. You knew I was true, and you knew I sought you, and would find you at last—and you have waited—and there has been no other, not the thought of another, not the passing image of another between us. For I know there has not been that and I should have known it anywhere in all these years, the chill of it would have found me, the sharpness of it would have been in my heart—no matter where, no matter how far—yet say it, say it once—say that you have loved me, too—”
“God knows how I have loved you—how I love you now!” Unorna said in a low, unsteady voice.
The light that had been in his face grew brighter still as she spoke, while she looked at him, wondering, her head thrown back against the high chair, her eyelids wet and drooping, her lips still parted, her hand in his. Small wonder if he had loved her for herself, she was so beautiful. Small wonder it would have been if she had taken Beatrice’s place in his heart during those weeks of close and daily converse. But that first great love had left no fertile ground in which to plant another seed, no warmth of kindness under which the tender shoot might grow to strength, no room beneath its heaven for other branches than its own. Alone it had stood in majesty as a lordly tree, straight, tall, and ever green, on a silent mountain top. Alone it had borne the burden of grief’s heavy snows; unbent, for all its loneliness, it had stood against the raging tempest; and green still, in all its giant strength of stem and branch, in all its kingly robe of unwithered foliage. Unscathed, unshaken, it yet stood. Neither storm nor lightning, wind nor rain, sun nor snow had prevailed against it to dry it up and cast it down that another might grow in its place.
Yet this love was not for her to whom he spoke, and she knew it as she answered him, though she answered truly, from the fulness of her heart. She had cast an enchantment over him unwittingly, and she was taken in the toils of her own magic even as she had sworn that she would never again put forth her powers. She shuddered as she realised it all. In a few short moments she had felt his kisses, and heard his words, and been clasped to his heart, as she had many a time madly hoped. But in those moments, too, she had known the truth of her woman’s instinct when it had told her that love must be for herself and for her own sake, or not be love at all.
The falseness, the fathomless untruth of it, would have been bad enough alone. But the truth that was so strong made it horrible. Had she but inspired in him a burning love for herself, however much against his will, it would have been very different. She would have heard her name from his lips, she would have known that all, however false, however artificial, was for herself, while it might last. To know that it was real, and not for her, was intolerable. To see this love of his break out at last—this other love which she had dreaded, against which she had fought, which she had met with a jealousy as strong as itself, and struggled with and buried under an imposed forgetfulness—to feel its great waves surging around her and beating up against her heart, was more than she could bear. Her face grew whiter and her hands were cold. She dreaded each moment lest he should call her Beatrice again, and say that her fair hair was black and that he loved those deep dark eyes of hers.
There had been one moment of happiness, in that first kiss, in the first pressure of those strong arms. Then night descended. The hands that held her had not been yet unclasped, the kiss was not cold upon her cheek, the first great cry of his love had hardly died away in a softened echo, and her punishment was upon her. His words were lashes, his touch poison, his eyes avenging fires. As in nature’s great alchemy the diamond and the blackened coal are one, as nature with the same elements pours life and death from the same vial with the same hand, so now the love which would have been life to Unorna was made worse than death because it was not for her.
Yet the disguise was terribly perfect. The unconscious spell had done its work thoroughly. He took her for Beatrice, and her voice for Beatrice’s there in the broad light, in the familiar place where he had so often talked with her for hours and known her for Unorna. But a few paces away was the very spot where she had fallen at his feet last night and wept and abused herself before him. There was the carpet on which Israel Kafka had lain throughout the long hours while they had watched together. Upon that table at her side a book lay which they had read together but two days ago. In her own chair she sat, Unorna still, unchanged, unaltered save for him. She doubted her own senses as she heard him speak, and ever and again the name of Beatrice rang in her ears. He looked at her hands, and knew them; at her black dress, and knew it for her own, and yet he poured out the eloquence of his love—kneeling, then standing, then sitting at her side, drawing her head to his shoulder and smoothing her fair hair—so black to him—with a gentle hand. She was passive through it all, as yet. There seemed to be no other way. He paused sometimes, then spoke again. Perhaps, in the dream that possessed him, he heard her speak. Possibly, he was unconscious of her silence, borne along by the torrent of his own long pent-up speech. She could not tell, she did not care to know. Of one thing alone she thought, of how to escape from it all and be alone.
She feared to move, still more to rise, not knowing what he would do. As he was now, she could not tell what effect her words would have if she spoke. It might be but a passing state after all. What would the awakening be? Would his forgetfulness of Beatrice and his coldness to herself return with the subsidence of his passion? Far better that than to see him and hear him as he was now.
And yet there were moments now and then when he pronounced no name, when he recalled no memory of the past, when there was only the tenderness of love itself in his words, and then, as she listened, she could almost think it was for her. It was bitter joy, unreal and fantastic, but it was a relief. Had she loved him less, such a conflict between sense and senses would have been impossible even in imagination. But she loved him greatly and the deep desire to be loved in turn was in her still, shaming her better thoughts, but sometimes ruling her in spite of herself and of the pain she suffered with each word self-applied. All the vast contradictions, all the measureless inconsistency, all the enormous selfishness of which human hearts are capable, had met in hers as in a battle-ground, fighting each other, rending what they found of herself amongst them, sometimes uniting to throw their whole weight together against the deep-rooted passion, sometimes taking side with it to drive out every other rival.
It was shameful, base, despicable, and she knew it. A moment ago she had longed to tear herself away, to silence him, to stop her ears, anything not to hear those words that cut like whips and stung like scorpions. And now again she was listening for the next, eagerly, breathlessly, drunk with their sound and revelling almost in the unreality of the happiness they brought. More and more she despised herself as the intervals between one pang of suffering and the next grew longer, and the illusion deeper and more like reality.
After all, it was he, and no other. It was the man she loved who was pouring out his own love into her ears, and smoothing her hair and pressing the hand he held. Had he not said it once, and more than once? What matter where, what matter how, provided that he loved? She had received the fulfilment of her wish. He loved her now. Under another name, in a vision, with another face and another voice, yet, still, she was herself.
As in a storm the thunder-claps came crashing through the air, deafening and appalling at first, then rolling swiftly into a far distance, fainter and fainter, till all is still and only the plash of the fast-falling rain is heard, so, as she listened, the tempest of her pain was passing away. Easier and easier it became to hear herself called Beatrice, easier and easier it grew to take the other’s place, to accept the kiss, the touch, the word, the pressure of the hand that were all another’s due, and given to herself only for the mask she wore in his dream.
And the tide of the great temptation rose, and fell a little, and rose higher again each time, till it washed the fragile feet of the last good thought that lingered, taking refuge on the highest point above the waves. On and on it came, receding and coming back, higher and higher, surer and surer. Had she drawn back in time it would have been so easy. Had she turned and fled when the first moment of senseless joy was over, when she could still feel all the shame, and blush for all the abasement, it would have been over now, and she would have been safe. But she had learned to look upon the advancing water, and the sound of it had no more terror for her. It was very high now. Presently it would climb higher and close above her head.
There were long intervals of silence now. The first rush of his speech had spent itself, for he had told her much and she had heard it all, even through the mists of her changing moods. And now that he was silent she longed to hear him speak again. She could never weary of that voice. It had been music to her in the days when it had been full of cold indifference—now each vibration roused high harmonies in her heart, each note was a full chord, and all the chords made but one great progression. She longed to hear it all again, wondering greatly how it could never have been not good to hear.
Then with the greater temptation came the less, enclosed within it, suddenly revealed to her. There was but one thing she hated in it all. That was the name. Would he not give her another—her own perhaps? She trembled as she thought of speaking. Would she still have Beatrice’s voice? Might not her own break down the spell and destroy all at once? Yet she had spoken once before. She had told him that she loved him and he had not been undeceived.
“Beloved—” she said at last, lingering on the single word and then hesitating.
He looked into her face as he drew her to him, with happy eyes. She might speak, then, for he would hear tones not hers.
“Beloved, I am tired of my name. Will you not call me by another?” She spoke very softly.
“By another name?” he exclaimed, surprised, but smiling at what seemed a strange caprice.
“Yes. It is a sad name to me. It reminds me of many things—of a time that is better forgotten since it is gone. Will you do it for me? It will make it seem as though that time had never been.”
“And yet I love your own name,” he said, thoughtfully. “It is so much—or has been so much in all these years, when I had nothing but your name to love.”
“Will you not do it? It is all I ask.”
“Indeed I will, if you would rather have it so. Do you think there is anything that I would not do if you asked it of me?”
They were almost the words she had spoken to him that night when they were watching together by Israel Kafka’s side. She recognised them and a strange thrill of triumph ran through her. What matter how? What matter where? The old reckless questions came to her mind again. If he loved her, and if he would but call her Unorna, what could it matter, indeed? Was she not herself? She smiled unconsciously.
“I see it pleases you,” he said tenderly. “Let it be as you wish. What name will you choose for your dear self?”
She hesitated. She could not tell how far he might remember what was past. And yet, if he had remembered he would have seen where he was in the long time that had passed since his awakening.
“Did you ever—in your long travels—hear the name Unorna?” she asked with a smile and a little hesitation.
“Unorna? No. I cannot remember. It is a Bohemian word—it means ‘she of February.’ It has a pretty sound—half familiar to me. I wonder where I have heard it.”
“Call me Unorna, then. It will remind us that you found me in February.”