Chapter VIII: Part 8

A look of relief softened the judge’s face. He rose from his chair and, crossing the room, took his daughter in his arms.

“My child, you’re half sick! You’ve worried too much. Don’t talk in this way again. You know you long to be free.”

His softened tone disarmed her again. She clung to him, trembling, tears in her eyes.

“Oh, I do--I do!” she sobbed. “I long to be my old self again!”

The judge gathered her up in his arms, as he had often gathered her up as a child, and carried her up-stairs to her room. He put her on the lounge and covered her up; then he went down, and sent the old maid servant up with a cup of hot tea. It was the only thing he could think of that seemed to fill the peculiar demands of a case like this--a case which, to his mind, was nothing but hysteria. Then he set himself to framing the reply to Faunce that Diane was to sign.

He had made up his mind to settle her affairs for her. He was convinced now that she loved Overton. Sternly as he might have viewed such a case where others were involved, he could see only one side of it for his own daughter--her right, the inalienable right of youth and love, to happiness. He did not permit the finer and more ethical questions to disturb his fixed determination to wrest her from the craven who had been capable of a crime as near to murder as anything short of actual killing could be. Indeed, to his own stalwart mind, it was even worse than murder.

Meanwhile Diane, up-stairs in her own room, drank the hot tea, and permitted the maid to help her with some dry clothing; but she was still shaking like a person who had been suddenly smitten with ague. All the while she seemed to see, through a mist shot with golden rain-drops, the face of Overton, transfigured with his love for her. She wrung her hands together and hid her face in them, oblivious of the pitying eyes of the old servant who had come to take away the tea-things.

She was still sitting there, with her head in her hands, when she heard her father leave the library and go out, and knew herself to be alone in the house. She breathed more freely when she was not in immediate danger of being rushed into some new and terrible decision--a decision that might make her as wretched as that other one which had led to her marriage. She rose weakly from the lounge and went down-stairs.

It was now late afternoon, and the sun had come out with extraordinary splendor. It was flooding the western windows and dappling the lawn with a lovely lacework of rain-gemmed cobwebs that sparkled like frosted fairy veils.

Diane went slowly across the hall, and saw the evening mail lying on the little table in the corner. It recalled with a sharp pang the days long ago when she had looked there in vain for a letter from Overton, then on his way to the south pole. There were some letters there now, however, and she turned them over and started violently when she recognized her husband’s handwriting on an envelope addressed to her.

For a moment she leaned forward, her hands on the table, unable to make up her mind to open it. The aversion she had felt at his confession swept back over her in wave on wave of futile passion and shame. Then she took up the letter and, opening it, moved to the window to read more clearly the few lines that he had written in an unsteady hand:

Your father told me you wanted a divorce, Diane, and now his lawyers
insist upon it; but it’s hard for me to believe it of you. I know
how you felt when you left me, but now--I’ve done nothing against
you, and I trusted you to help me to do better things. I ask you to
come back, I entreat you to come; but I’ll never try to force you.
I have told them that you must answer me yourself. If you don’t, I
shall refuse to let it go on, for I love you still. I will not take
an answer from any one but you. If you still ask it, I will set you
free. But even then I shall love you.

The letter fell from Diane’s hand and fluttered to the floor. She could see him as he had looked that night in the cottage; she could hear his voice making the confession. The letter was like him. It seemed to fall short; it had not even the courage of his love; and yet she knew he loved her. His very weakness in this hour, when he so needed strength, touched her woman’s heart. Her abhorrence of his deed had clouded her own perception of his misery, but now, in a flash, she saw it. It was as great as hers.

She was still standing there, her head bowed, when she heard steps on the piazza and her father’s latch-key in the door. He came in, bringing with him a young man whom Diane recognized as the village notary. She stooped quickly, picked up her husband’s letter, and stood, holding it behind her, as they entered.

The judge looked at her gravely, unable to discern her expression as she stood with her back to the light.

“That paper’s ready, Diane,” he said briefly, “and Mr. Mackay’s come with me to witness it. All we need now, my dear, is your signature.”

Diane turned and acknowledged the young man’s bow with a deep blush. She felt that all the world now knew of her flight from her husband.

The judge went to the library door and opened it, young Mackay waiting at a respectful distance. Diane did not move, and her father looked around.

“Are you ready, my child?” he demanded sharply.

She hesitated an instant, and then turned and followed him into the room.

He went to his table and spread out a type-written sheet, dipping his pen in the ink, and holding it ready in one hand, as he pulled out a chair for Diane with the other.

“Read that, my dear,” he said briefly, “and then sign here.”

His daughter came slowly over to the table and sank into the chair he offered, drawing the paper toward her. The powerful sunshine in the room seemed to flood the document with light, and she could read it at a glance. It was a brief reply to her husband’s demands and a plain statement of her determination to sue for divorce at once.

She read it, aware of the impatient hand at her elbow clenching the pen, and of young Mackay opposite. From the time when she read her husband’s letter until now she had acted mechanically, scarcely conscious of what was going on around her; and she was only half aware of the curiosity and concern in young Mackay’s eyes. She read the paper slowly through, and then, drawing a long breath, she took the pen from her father’s hand.

He spoke sharply to the witness:

“Come over here and see her sign it, John!”

The notary obeyed, and they both stood waiting, their eyes on Diane; but she did not sign the paper. She rose suddenly, turning a white face toward her father.

“I--I’m sorry, papa, but I really can’t sign it!”

As she spoke she looked up, encountered the amazement and fury and repudiation in his eyes, and swayed under it--but only for a moment. She steadied herself, and, turning back again with a gesture of finality, laid the pen down on the table.

XXXIII

FIVE minutes later the judge had closed the door behind the young notary, and stood alone in the hall. He had shut the door sharply, with almost a bang, but now he stood--with his hand still on the knob--thinking. His first fury against his daughter was scarcely subsiding, it had gained force in those moments of mortification--when he had to dismiss the young man whom he had brought to witness her signature--and now it rose in a hot wave of anger against her and against Faunce. He suspected that Faunce had written to her, he was trying to drag the poor girl back against her will. And she--Diane Herford, his own daughter--had not the force of character to resist that craven!

The judge turned with a black brow and tramped back to the library door.

“Diane,” he said in a voice of thunder, “what do you mean by this?”

She was still standing beside the table, in fact she was clinging to the edge of it, and her face was deathly pale. She did not move, she did not even raise her eyes, and her father, still enraged, became alarmed.

“Did you hear me?” he shouted. “What is it, Diane, are you ill? Are you mad?”

At that she turned her head, and slowly and reluctantly lifted her eyes to his.

“I think I’ve been mad, father,” she replied in a low voice, “mad and wicked.”

The judge came into the room, he moved over to get a nearer look at her, peering across the table--where the paper still lay, with the pen flung across the face of it, a mute witness of her indecision, or her change of heart. Diane did not meet his eyes this time, she averted her face and her lips trembled.

“You’re ill, that’s what ails you!” her father exclaimed sharply. “I was a fool not to see it, you’re too hysterical to sign this paper to-day, I”--he stamped over to the telephone--“I’ll call up Gerry. I ought to have done it before----”

She stopped him. “Papa!”

He swung around at the sound of her voice, and, for an instant, they looked at each other. She was trembling, but a little color came back into her face.

“I’m not ill,” she said slowly, with an effort, “and I’m not mad now. I’m sorry, papa, I can’t sign it because----” she stopped, her eyes fell, the color rose softly from chin to brow, her whole face seemed transformed and softened and strangely beautiful--“because it would be wrong for me to sign it.”

His eyes sparkled with anger. “Wrong for you to sign it? Do you mean to tell me that I--your father--would ask you to do anything wrong?”

“No, no! You don’t understand--I--I can’t tell you, papa, I can’t tell any one--just what I feel. It’s something a woman can’t tell--I mean she can’t make any one else understand the change that comes into her heart and her soul when she’s been tried--as I’ve been tried!”

“Pshaw! Any fool could understand it--you’re hysterical!”

Diane gave him a strange look, a look that was not only appealing, it was mystical and remote, it seemed to the angry old man that his daughter’s soul was withdrawing itself into some shadowy region, as obscure to his robust mind as the mists and the snows that had enveloped the fatal delinquency of her husband. But the suspicion that had shot through his mind at the door, came back now with sudden and convincing force.

“That fellow’s been writing to you!” he exclaimed, “he’s been trying to make you come back!”

Diane, full of the fresh consciousness of Arthur’s letter, averted her eyes.

“Yes, he’s written me,” she confessed simply; “he has a right to do that, he’s--my husband.”

The judge gave utterance to an inarticulate sound. He was, in reality, choking with anger.

Diane saw it; she felt an almost intolerable longing to escape, to be alone to order her thoughts, but she could not bear to incur her father’s anger, he had been so good to her! She had fled to him in her darkest hour and he had sheltered her. She hated to offend him, she stood irresolute, unable to voice her thoughts.

Meanwhile, the old man swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I knew it!” he exclaimed bitterly. “He’s been trading on your pity, on your woman’s heart--confound him! Di, you want to be free, you’ve said so--why did you mortify me just now? You made that boy think I was trying to force you to sign a paper against your will. You made a fool of your father because that--that coward’s been begging off!”

“No, no!” she cried sharply, “it wasn’t that--he’s said nothing cowardly, papa, nothing that--that he shouldn’t say to his wife. It is I--I have changed, I----” she stopped, breathing quickly, and then she added more quietly: “you know what I said, papa--what would you do if I went back to my husband?”

The judge stood looking at her for a long time in silence, his face flushing darkly. Then he broke out with passion.

“I’ve told you that, too! I’d disown you.”

She put her hand to her side with a quick gesture of pain, and all the soft color left her face, even her lips grew white.

“Do you mean that?”

The judge, still regarding her with smouldering eyes, bent his head slowly.

“I do. I told you so before I got Mackay. I mean it! What did that fellow write you, what did he say, to make my daughter behave like this?”

She stood her ground firmly now, though she was still very pale.

“It wasn’t Arthur’s letter, it was--something else.”

“What else?”

The judge’s words snapped like a whip; his rage against Faunce was deepening to fury now. It was too much to see the power that coward had to make his daughter wretched. He meant to break it, he would break it, but first--he must break Diane’s will, he saw that!

“I told you I had seen Overton,” she replied slowly, speaking with an effort, as if the words were painful. “It was Overton--who made me see it all, see it so plainly that I couldn’t think why I’d--I’d ever been blind!”

“Overton?” the judge was bewildered. “Why, the man’s in love with you, Di!”

She bent her head at that, tears in her eyes.

“I know it,” she spoke so low that her words were almost inaudible, “that’s why I--I saw it all so plainly. I’m not that kind of a woman!”

“What kind of a woman? What do you mean?” cried the judge with impatience.

“The kind of woman who leaves her husband to go with another man.”

“Good Lord!” cried the judge furiously, “you came to me! It’s not your fault if Overton kept on loving you, is it? You haven’t run away with Overton, have you?”

“If I signed that paper it--it would be almost the same thing!”

He scowled at her, trying to think, seeing at last one side of the question which was not his side.

“You mean you left Faunce because you loved Overton?”

“No!” she cried sharply. “But he loves me, he wants me free. If--if I signed that paper it would be as if I wanted to be free to--to marry him!”

For the second time that day, the judge thought that he saw the light; he softened his tone.

“You do love Overton, Di, and you think it’s wrong, so your idea is to make a martyr of yourself, to refuse a divorce?”

Suddenly her face quivered; an emotion stronger and deeper than any that he had ever seen in her before, shook her from head to foot.

“Oh,” she cried brokenly, “don’t ask me, papa, I--I can’t make you understand, you--you’re a man, you can’t! I--I wish I had a--a mother!” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

The judge was profoundly touched. He felt that his girl was ill in body and mind, and he had driven her too hard, he had tried to force her to act before she was ready, he had seemed to fling her into the arms of her lover. That cry for her mother--he had never heard her utter it before, it reached his heart. He went over to her quickly and took her in his arms.

“I’ve been too hasty, my child,” he said kindly. “You must rest--then we’ll talk it over. You----” he hesitated before he added grimly: “I know how you feel, but you’re not to blame. Overton has always loved you. It’s not his fault now, it’s not yours. If you can’t live with your husband you’ve got a right to be free, and I’m going to set you free. You leave it to me, Diane!”

This time his tenderness did not disarm her, she did not yield to his caress, instead she gave him a strange look, a look that was full of sadness, and slipped quietly out of his arms.

“I--I feel tired,” she said in her low voice, “I can’t argue now, papa, I----” she turned suddenly and lifted her face to his and kissed him--“I’m going up to my room to--to think!”

He stood watching her, taken by surprise. She was walking slowly, almost unsteadily, toward the door and he saw that she was weeping. Something in the way in which she had parted from him, something, too, in the whole attitude of her figure, alarmed him. He called to her sharply.

“Diane!”

She stopped at the door and looked back, her face colorless again, and tears in her eyes.

“Understand me,” said the judge sternly, “I’ve told you before. There’s but one thing for you to do--or for me to do for you. To get free of that coward. If you’re dreaming of going back, if he’s worked on you to go back--remember! I’ll disown you.”

His tone, more than his words, sent a chill to her heart, but she said nothing. She only gave him a look so full of a mute appeal, and that mysticism, that withdrawal, which had so perplexed him a moment ago, that he could not fathom her purpose. Then, without a word, she turned slowly and left the room and he heard her step--still slow but more resolute--ascending the stairs.

He was sorry that he had been so sharp with her, he began to perceive that the trouble had gone deeper than he thought. Or that man, Faunce, had worked upon her--the judge’s choler rose up in his throat again and nearly choked him. He sat down at his table and tried twice to write a letter to Faunce, a letter that should be a quietus, and then, thinking better of it, he tore the sheets into fragments and tossed them into his waste-paper basket.

Meanwhile, Diane, having reached her own room, locked the door with shaking hands. It seemed to her that she had spent all her strength in this conflict of wills, that it had cost her much to resist her father. And yet----?

She recalled the moment when she had lifted the pen, when she had almost signed that paper, with a shudder. It was true that the whole attitude of her mind had broken down. She had seen herself on the brink of separation from her husband because of Overton!

She stood now, just inside her own door, motionless, her unseeing eyes fixed on the window opposite. The long swaying bough of a tree swept across her vision of the sky, and it seemed to her that the leaves trembled and quivered as if some unseen hand had set them to shaking, as an unseen power had set her own heart to trembling at the thought of her own act. Had she fled from her husband--not because she abhorred his deed, but because she loved Overton? The thought was hideous, unbelievable!

Diane lifted her hot hands and pressed them against her eyes, to shut out the light. In the darkness she could think. She tried to recall all the old arguments that had seemed so plausible, that Faunce himself had destroyed her faith in him, that he had hurled her idol down from its pedestal. But she could not; she began to see that there was no argument that she could use to wholly excuse her act. Faunce had confessed to her, he had told her the truth, it was his plea for mercy, for forgiveness, and she had only thought of Overton. But now, in the solitude of her own room, in this moment when even her father had failed her, she felt her spiritual isolation. There was no one on earth who could help her solve the problem of life that confronted her but the man she had married. The bond was unbroken, neither her will, nor the cribbling of lawyers could break it, for a power greater than these had laid hold of her soul. She felt again the strength of it, the invisible power that wrestled with her.

She walked slowly across her room again to the window and knelt down, resting her hands on the sill, and looking out toward the western sky. The sun had set and above the red cloud at the horizon she discerned a solitary star, keen and white and quivering, a spearhead of glory. She lifted her face toward it, the soft wind stirring the tendrils of hair on her white forehead, and touching her feverish cheeks and lips.

Gradually, silently, with infinite beauty, the afterglow touched the soft sky with all the colors of rose and violet, and the earth below sank gently and deeply into the shadow, as if it had dropped from sight. It seemed to Diane that, in that silence, in the tenderness, the infinite beauty of that moment between sunset and twilight, the spiritual struggle ceased. A new thought came to her, or rather her inner consciousness shaped itself into a concrete form. She realized that she stood on the edge of an abyss while the power that had held her back had been within her own soul, hidden deep in her heart, at the mainspring of life itself. She was a woman, it was her province to build up and not to break down, she saw it now with a spiritual insight that sent a shudder through her--she had so nearly forgotten it! So nearly failed to fulfill the destiny that had come down to her through the ages. To-day when she had been with Overton, when she had heard his impassioned plea, when she had almost signed the paper that was to separate her from her husband, she had suddenly awakened from her dream. The tie that bound her to Arthur Faunce was the primitive bond of all the ages. She had chosen him, he was her husband. What could her father do? What could Overton, or any other man do? “Those whom God hath joined together,” the words came to her with a new meaning, a meaning which shook her to her soul. For surely no man could put them asunder! The tie was too deep, it was rooted now in her heart, and she knew it. It was as deep as the instinct which was awakening slowly but surely within her, the primal instinct of life, of mating time, of the birds of the air, of the lioness calling to her mate in the jungle.

Diane lifted her eyes slowly and steadily toward that keen star. It seemed to her that it penetrated the mists that had obscured her soul, as the star of old which guided the wise men to the cradle in the manger. The star was guiding her, too, guiding her into the tender mists and the soft glory of an unknown but beautiful land. Tenderness was born in her at last, a tenderness new and beautiful--as the beginnings of life in the springtime, the budding of flowers, and the song of the bird to its mate. Alone on her knees in the twilight, Diane lifted her soul to that distant star, the thought of Overton passed away from her, the struggle ceased, even her father and his anger were forgotten, she remembered only her husband, and the eternal purposes of the Creator who had made them man and woman in the Garden of Eden.

XXXIV

IT was not until he got a clear look at Arthur Faunce’s face under the strong light of the reading-lamp that Dr. Gerry realized the full effect of the crisis, moral and physical, upon the younger man. The old doctor had come in to New York on business connected with his practise, and in the evening, on his way to the station, he had looked up the apartment-house from which Faunce had phoned to him on more than one occasion. He had found him alone, completing his arrangements for the departure of the expedition to the south pole. Faunce had been glad to see him, had furnished some cigars and a light, and the two men sat on opposite sides of the table, both facing the open windows that looked out over a crowded thoroughfare not far from the heart of the city.

Even at this late hour the clamor of traffic came up to them, and the variegated lights of the flashing signs revolved, flashed, and receded and flashed again with all the colors of a kaleidoscope. But the steady light of the lamp on the table revealed Faunce’s face, its wasted look, the dark rings under the somber eyes, the drawn lines about the tight lips, the threads of white in the thick, dark hair that still curled slightly on the temples. The doctor’s practised eye traveled lower and rested on the lean, blue-veined hand that held the cigar. It was unsteady; even the fingers twitched occasionally.

They had been talking, ever since Dr. Gerry’s entrance, of the expedition. Faunce threw into what he said of it a show of force and even of enthusiasm, and the doctor had listened without showing that his own thoughts recurred persistently to that night long ago when this man had confessed to him in the old office at home. In his heart he pitied Faunce, as he noticed the feverish eagerness with which he talked of the new ship and his own plans.

“I’ve got one thing pretty well shaped in my mind,” Faunce said. “The last time I couldn’t have a free hand, of course, and I always thought some of our mistakes could have been avoided. But Overton wouldn’t yield; he has the kind of obstinacy that won’t give up.” He paused long enough to light another cigar, and then went on: “I’ve been pestered by some of the old men. I didn’t want them, but there’s one----” He stopped abruptly, began to pull at his cigar, and seemed embarrassed.

“Well, there’s one----”

Gerry gave him a keen glance. A dull red mounted in the white face, and Faunce frowned.

“He knows, or thinks he knows, something about the other expedition, and suspects that I can’t afford to risk his telling it.”

“I thought, at one time, that you dreaded the secret; yet you’ve let Overton keep back the truth. You’re up to your neck in his debt.”

Faunce leaned forward in his chair, his shoulders bent like an old man’s, and his clasped hands hanging between his knees.

“I feel the same way now, but we agreed to keep it quiet--there didn’t seem to be any other way.”

“And he gave up the command to you, too. It seems to me you’re getting a good deal more out of it than he is--on the face of it, at least.”

“You think he’s paying a big price for a broken potsherd? Well, he isn’t doing it for my sake!” Faunce sank back again in his seat, the spark of his half-smoked cigar dying out between his fingers. Then he turned his head quickly and fixed his haggard eyes on the doctor. “Have you seen my wife lately?”

Gerry shook his head.

“Not for some days--a week, I think.”

“I wrote to her, asking her to answer me herself. If she really wants a divorce, she shall have it; but I want her to answer me, and she hasn’t. I’ve been wondering if she ever got my letter.”

“You mean, you think the judge has kept it from her? He isn’t capable of that. He would give it to her in any case.”

“That’s what I thought; but he has insulted me, I can’t go to the house, and she hasn’t answered my letter.”

The doctor picked up an ivory paper-knife from the table and began to run it back and forth between his fingers.

“It would be natural enough, wouldn’t it, for any woman to expect you to come to the house and ask such a question as that in person?”

“You think I haven’t the courage?”

“I think you’re taking chloral to an extent that’ll soon send you on the long expedition. It’s a dangerous drug, young man. A bit too much, and you’ll travel the common road. Perhaps that’s your idea?”

Faunce laughed bitterly.

“You forget I’m a coward!”

“Sometimes cowards take that way--it’s easy.”

“Don’t be alarmed, I sha’n’t! I’ve always had a tenacious wish for life. If I hadn’t had it, I’d never have done--the thing I did. I simply couldn’t risk dying.”

“Yet you’re going back down there!”

Faunce gazed at the doctor a little wildly, his eyes shining.

“It draws me--I can feel it! But I’ll take no risks; don’t be afraid of that. I know--know perfectly--that I’ll never risk my own skin, no matter how I risk others’.”

The doctor looked at him curiously. “There are two men in you, Faunce. Dose out the one with heroic medicine, and the other would have room to grow. You’d find yourself a hero!”

Faunce turned a haggard face on him.

“When she left me--when I saw the look she gave me--if I’d dared, if I’d had a white man’s courage, I’d have hung myself!” He spoke with such passion and force that it shook him out of his apathy. He stretched out a shaking hand toward the doctor. “For God’s sake, man, give me a dose that’ll deaden my nerves, so that I’ll have the courage to kill myself!”

Dr. Gerry grunted.

“You’ll do that without my help, at the rate you’re going.”

Faunce laughed bitterly again.

“You mean with chloral? I stopped it for a while, but I couldn’t sleep. I can’t, with this thing pursuing me. I thought I would pay off the score, and get free of it; but there’s my wife--I had to think of her. If she stays away, if she will have a divorce, then”--he threw back his head and drew a long breath--“then I’ll cut loose!”

“You mean, you’ll give it all away, and bear the odium, rather than stay bound to Overton?”

Faunce nodded, rising, and tossing his dead cigar out of the window. As he did so, he stood for a moment staring out, his view commanding the long street, closely flanked with great buildings, which narrowed in the far perspective until the high walls seemed to meet in a blur of blazing lights. It was as if he looked into the wide mouth of a funnel, lined with jewels, and it seemed that all these living, moving atoms, brute and human, must either be crowded or pushed through a tiny opening at the farther end or strangle in it.

Faunce was aware of it, aware of the clamor and the struggle of it, of the leap with which that crowd would launch itself upon the fallen, as a pack of wolves upon a wounded comrade, tearing and trampling the man who failed under its eager, cruel, predatory feet. He turned with a gesture of disgust.

“At the price I’m paying, life isn’t worth living!” he exclaimed.

Gerry rose from his seat and began to potter around the room. He did not even look toward Faunce, but he was aware of it when the younger man went to the table to take another cigar. While his back was turned, the doctor picked up a small, dark bottle from the dresser and dropped it into his pocket; then he found his hat.

“Don’t pay the price,” he said, as he held out his hand to Faunce.

Faunce stared at him for a moment without speaking, wrung his hand nervously, and went back to the task of lighting a new cigar.

“There are two ways of taking that,” he commented, as the doctor reached the door.

“There’s only one--live and get free of it.”

Faunce laughed bitterly.

“Free of it? How? I’ll never be free of it until I give my life for his. That’s the price they’re asking!”

The doctor shook his head, but he offered no argument. He had, in fact, a vague feeling of uncertainty. Between the two, Overton and this man, which? That was it--if Overton took Faunce’s wife, which?

The doctor was unable to answer it. Instead, he went down in the elevator with his hand over the bottle in his pocket.

XXXV

LEFT alone, Faunce moved restlessly about the room, still smoking. He had almost completed the business that had occupied him before the doctor’s visit. Everything was, in fact, in good order; the ship would sail soon, and, in spite of a certain veiled objection on the part of the promoters of the enterprise, there was no real opposition to Faunce as the leader.

The greatest difficulty was in his own mind. At first he had longed for it as a chance to vindicate himself, to assure himself that he was not wholly a coward, that he could earn the honors he had worn before Overton’s return. He had felt the lure of those frozen solitudes almost as keenly as Overton himself. But now it was only one more shackle to bind his obligations to the man who had survived in spite of his cowardly desertion. He was aware of the feeling of superiority that seemed to emanate from Overton’s personality with the sure touch of pride and conscious victory; and the obligation had become intolerable.

In a moment of mortal agony, in the stress of a terror that freezes men’s souls, Faunce had failed. He had sunk to the level of the veriest coward that shambled in the street below. By that one act, that one fall from the full stature of his manhood, he had slipped his neck under the yoke, he was Overton’s bondsman! It was intolerable.

As he reflected upon it, the alternative seemed almost merciful. What was shame compared to his present burden? He had suffered the worst, the mortal blow, when he had read his shame in his wife’s eyes. Diane’s abhorrence, her scorn, had shattered his last frail hold on hope. He could never retrieve himself, never come back absolved--not even by courage, by sacrifice, by self-denial. He doubted if death could wipe it out in her eyes, yet he loved her. The fact of his love for her had made him write to her, made him demand her own decision, not her father’s; but he was well aware what that decision would be. He had lost her!

There was a futility in his agony, a helplessness. There was nothing that he could do. Dr. Gerry was right--he should never have married Diane. He had never been happy with her, for he had felt always that this thing--his cowardice--lay between them, that he was trading upon her belief in him, taking a love from her that belonged, not to him, but to the man she imagined him to be.

Now, deeper than that, plunged the thought that it was Overton she had always loved, it was Overton who had taken her away, Overton whom she would marry in the end--if Faunce set her free.

It was in moments like this--moments of intolerable anguish and jealousy--that he vowed he would not give her up. Surely he had a right to demand her loyalty! There was nothing right or fine in what she had done; she was as bad as he was, if she left him for Overton. He even found some relief in the thought, in letting his jealousy loose, his pent-up rage, and in railing at her.

What kind of a wife had she been to him? How had she kept her vows? Overton had returned, the man who had been--she had confessed it--her first love; and at a word, a nod from him, she had left her husband!

Looked at in this light, it was black enough. Faunce felt that he had no need to feel so abased. He had not killed Overton--he had left him to return to steal his wife from him!

It was bitter, it was degrading! Diane deserved no mercy at his hands. A hundred times, since that night when she had left him, he had lashed himself to a fury like this, only to succumb at last to fresh misery, to fresh remorse. He loved her, he could not blame her, for she had done only what any brave woman would do--she had deserted a coward, left him to his shame, and he deserved it!

It was the old argument, and it brought the old answer.

Faunce stopped in his restless pacing to look at the clock. It was late, and he had not dined. He had long since ceased to heed meal-times, but to-night he had a curious feeling of faintness. Perhaps he had better go out for food, and then, when he returned, he would drug himself and get a night’s sleep.

He had not slept for a long time. He had, indeed, been trying to break an ugly habit, but the horror of sleeplessness was greater than the horror of sleep. Sleep had its horror, for it brought dreams. Either he dreamed of the ice and snow and fog, of the unforgettable face of Overton, or he dreamed of sunshiny fields and the scent of spring flowers, and saw Diane coming to him, holding out her hands, with her eyes shining, as he had seen them shine once with love--as he would never see them again!

Good God, what a price to pay for one act of cowardice, one break in the fair, clean record of his life! Nothing he had done before, nothing that he could do now, would wipe it out--nothing but death! It was too much to bear. He would go out, and he would get sleep when he got back.

Then he remembered his chloral bottle. Was it full? He went to the drawer and reached for it. It was not there. He tried the dresser, the mantel, the table, the cabinet, finally his bedroom. It had gone.

He felt like a child robbed of its favorite toy, or a drunkard denied his dram. Some one had taken it, and he began to plan a tirade for the chambermaid or the bellboy. Then he remembered Dr. Gerry, and reddened with anger. Of course, the doctor had taken it!

The thought made Faunce stop short, sick with shame. Gerry was treating him like a bad child, or a sick man who had lost control of his will. Small as the thing was, it gave him a shock. It did more to rally him than a thousand arguments. It was a delicate way of making a lesson perceptible even to a diseased brain. He knew now how he had craved a drug that would deaden his pain, lessen his resistance, go on making him a coward.

He straightened himself and stood staring vacantly into the mirror over the dresser. It was a long while before he became aware of his own image, and then he was shocked by it. His face was white and lined, the face of a man who had aged ten years. A new kind of agony that was half self-pity shot through him. He was a forsaken man, a man who was existing by the sufferance of another, whose very honors were at the mercy of another, who had lost all and saved nothing, not even love.

It was a moment of mortal anguish, but it passed. He turned abruptly, opened a drawer, and, slipping his hand back in the corner, laid it upon his pistol. As he did so, a slight sound startled him. Some one had opened the door in the outer room. He remembered now that he had not locked it.

He withdrew his hand quickly and shut the drawer. Then he walked to the arch between the two rooms. The lamp was still burning brightly on the table in the center, and his cigarette-case lay open beside it; beyond that circle of light the room was less brilliant. It seemed to be pervaded by the varied colors of the lights in the street below, by a breath of fresh air, and the clamor of the life outside.

Beyond this, on the threshold of the outer door, stood a figure which seemed to him, at first, part of his own imaginings, a specter of his dreams.

“Diane!” he said blankly.

At the sound of his voice she came slowly into the room and closed the door behind her, outlining the slender grace of her somberly clad figure, the delicate pallor of her face under her black hat. She seemed to hesitate, and lifted her eyes slowly, almost reluctantly, to his.

He did not speak, and she clasped her trembling hands against her breast, her eyes holding his, though tears trembled on the lashes.

“Arthur,” she began slowly, her tone almost inaudible--“Arthur, I’ve come back to you. I’ve come back to you to stay, if--if you want me!”

He answered her with a sound that was almost like a sob, broken and inarticulate, and sank into a chair, covering his face with his hands.

She stood looking at him, startled, amazed; then she saw that his whole frame was shaken by his emotion, that he was trembling like a grief-stricken child, speechless with tears of relief. She went slowly across the room, and, kneeling beside his chair, put her arms around him and lifted her pale face to his.

XXXVI

THE judge looked up heavily from his desk, his glance taking in the faces of both his guests--the men he had summoned to hear his news.

“Diane has left me--broken with me forever,” he announced sternly. “Last night she went back to Faunce.”

Unconsciously the little dean glanced at Overton’s pale profile, outlined cameo-like against the dark hangings behind him; but he answered Herford:

“You mean she’s gone back to her husband? And she’s right, too!”

“I suppose I had to expect that from you!” retorted the judge bitterly. “It’s orthodox, isn’t it? It may be right, but she’s given me up. I shall never forgive her!”

The dean fired up with a passion that transfigured his thin face.

“She can do better without your forgiveness than without God’s!”

The judge eyed him a moment in heavy silence.

“Did you meddle with her, Price?”

“No, more shame to me! I was afraid of you, Hadley, that’s the truth.” In spite of himself the judge smiled grimly. “I was afraid to speak. I waited my opportunity, a plain call to interfere, but all the while I hoped, I prayed, that she’d see the light--and she has! She’s a fine woman. God bless her!”

Herford turned slowly around in his chair and faced Overton.

“You, at least, will be on my side!”

A deep flush mounted slowly over Overton’s pale face. He felt both pairs of eyes upon him, and he had found it difficult, from the first, wholly to master his emotion; but he lifted his head now.

“No!” He spoke slowly and with an effort. “I’m not on your side, judge. She’s done the high thing, the noble thing, that we should have expected--knowing her.”

“You mean that it’s noble to be a martyr? It’s nothing but martyrdom to force a brave woman--and she’s a brave woman--to live with--with that man!”

“She’ll make him over. The believing wife shall save the unbelieving husband. She’s done right!” the dean cried again.

The judge looked from one to the other in open disgust.

“She’s my daughter, and I’m--ashamed of her!” he thundered.

“Good Heavens, judge, what an impossible thing to say of her!” Overton was on his feet; it seemed to the other two men that he towered, tall and gaunt and still haggard from his visit with death. He saw the look in their eyes and reached for his hat. “I beg your pardon,” he said to the judge with all his natural courtesy, “but I can’t stay. You must excuse me, feeling as I do.”

As he spoke, he held out his hand. The judge wrung it. Then, as Overton disappeared through the portières, Herford turned to Dr. Price.

“He loved her--she might have been happy yet, and she’s gone back to that--that craven!”

The little dean looked at him with a shocked face.

“You’re a judge, Hadley, and a father--don’t you know you were doing something wrong, immoral and wrong, hideously so? You’ve fed yourself too much on the old Greek idolatry. What right had you to put them asunder--you?”

The judge stared back at him, coloring deeply, angrily.

“You can’t change me--I told her so. I won’t forgive her! You’re all very well, Edward, but you can’t preach to me. I sha’n’t listen. I’m an old man, as you say----”

“I didn’t!” interrupted the dean. “And I’m older than you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m an old man, and she’s all I’ve got. I felt I had influenced her, I had helped along the match; to get her free would have been to free my conscience of a load, too, and she knew it. She knew it so well that she ran off without saying good-by. Ran off to go to him, and--she doesn’t love him!”

“She married him; I think she does.”

The judge shook his head.

“She doesn’t,” he insisted. “She admitted as much to me.”

Receiving no reply to this, the judge rose and threw open another window. He felt oppressed for breath.

“If it comes out--if it all comes out--and it may--it’ll break her heart. If I’d had any idea of what he was, of how he was lying to us, trading on another man’s achievements, playing on us, I’d--I’d have shot him dead before I’d have let him cross my threshold! Oh! I know what you’ve got to say, but you can save yourself the trouble. I sha’n’t listen!”

The little dean got up. Like Overton, he sought his hat. Unlike Overton, however, he stopped to look mildly at the judge.

“She’s done right,” he persisted. “At the first sign of trouble, you’ll forgive her.”

Herford turned slowly. He looked aged and shaken.

“I’ll never forgive her--while he lives!” he declared with finality.

Dr. Price shook his head. They did not shake hands, and the dean went out with a curious feeling of failure and helplessness. He had failed in his Master’s business; he had failed to go to Diane with any remonstrance, and his remonstrance with the judge had fallen flat. He hurried down the steps and out into the country road.

As he got to the top of the hill, he saw Overton. Strangely enough, Overton was standing on the little bridge where Dr. Price had once seen Faunce stand at midnight. There was something in the attitude of the tall figure below him that made the little dean take the other path, for he knew he was not wanted there. He hurried home, instead, and Fanny opened the door for him. He noticed that she, too, was a little pale and shaken.

“What is it, papa?” she asked excitedly. “What did the judge want? Where’s Diane?”

Her father put down his hat and walking-stick and started for the library, holding his daughter’s hand.

“I’m glad you’re not married yet, Fan!” he remarked irrelevantly. Then he told her: “Diane’s gone back to her husband, my child. The thing’s over and done with, I hope.”

To his amazement he felt her hand trembling in his, and turned, to find her lip quivering like a child’s. She was trying to keep back tears.

“Oh, papa!” she cried softly, with a little sob. “I’m so glad--I’m so glad! I know how he loved her!”

The dean looked helplessly toward the dining-room, where the Norwegian was moving heavily around the table.

“Please give me my dinner, my dear. I’m--I’m a little done up!”

* * * * *

At that hour of the day the sun had got down a little behind the tree-tops, and was casting feathery and delicate shadows on the smooth water below the bridge. The flicker of light between them, the slender grace of the tall flags that thrust pale blossoms up through the lush grass at the edge, and the whistling call of a catbird, who was darting from twig to twig over his head, held Overton. He watched it all, tried to concentrate his attention upon it, until he should be able to wrestle with the foe within.

Over and over again he told himself, as he had told Judge Herford, that Diane was right; yet his heart leaped up in fierce rebellion against the fate that had overtaken him. He could not forget the look in her eyes, the tender beauty of her face, as she leaned toward him through the mist. He felt again the tremor of her hands in his, and he knew now that it had been the tremor of flight.

She had been stronger than he. She had seen their danger, and she had turned her back upon it. She was right--right in the higher moral sense, right in the eyes of the world, and yet--he loved her! He must give her up, too, to a man whom he despised, a man who was, at that very hour, trading upon his generosity, his forebearance, climbing upon his shoulders to a command that was not rightfully his, and doing it because his wife was shielding him.

Contempt, deep-seated and remorseless, took possession of Overton’s mind. He wondered what manner of man Faunce was--what manner of man that she could love him, go back to him! But did she love him? Ah, that tormenting question again!

Overton left the bridge and sat down upon a stone, his big figure hunched over in a strange attitude, his chin in his hands. He fixed his eyes upon the catbird again. It was a delicate creature, gray-coated and black-capped. Its bright eyes had discovered him, and regarded him in a friendly way. It hopped from twig to twig again, its twitching tail accentuating its nervous little jerks. It screamed plaintively, like a kitten crying for its mother, but its eyes were keen.

Overhead the soft blue sky was dappled with pink clouds, for the sun was setting. The trees began to rustle with a faint breeze, and he could smell the salt of the sea as the tide changed. It was very clear, yet he heard a far-off fog-horn beginning to moan; there must be a fog outside.

The thought brought back to him the longing for adventure, the lure of the sea. It had been in his blood from boyhood. If he had been born of poorer parents, he would have followed the sea--would perhaps have been a sailor before the mast. As it was, the very tang of salt in the air, the sound of the fog-horn, stirred his blood as a bugle-note stirs a soldier in his sleep.

He longed to go back, to follow the trail, to finish his work! The expedition was ready, and he had only to raise his finger to take the command; but he would not. For her sake he was still willing to give up; for her sake he was covering her husband’s cowardice with a cloak, giving him a share of the glory that his craven spirit had shamed.

His love for her was so strong and so deep that he was willing to pay the price, to pay any price to save her; but she had fled from him, fled from him after he had told her how deeply he loved her. He felt a kind of shame, now, that he had argued with her and tried to make her give up her husband. He remembered, oddly enough, some broken lines of Browning’s. He could not have placed them, but they came back to him like a message and steadied him:

Were it not worthier both than if she gave
Herself--in treason to herself--to me?

He repeated the words persistently, and in a way they helped him to compose his thoughts, to recall his conviction that she was right, that she had done the one thing that a good woman--brought up as she had been in the close hedge of conventions--would have done. No matter how her heart might have misled her for a moment, she could do nothing else but return to the man she had married, whose sin--if it had been a sin at all--was not against herself, but against another man--a man who also loved her.

This feeling, this conviction--which was not new, but had all along been lurking in his heart--helped him to calm himself finally. He rose from his stone, which might well have been called a seat of repentance, and made his way back to the old lodgings that he always used on his visits to Mapleton.