Chapter IX: Part 9

The house was kept by a widow, a woman whom his mother had long ago befriended, and she always set his room in order and kept his belongings together. In a way it was like going home. It was the only home he had known for years, and was likely to be the only one he would ever know now, he reflected, as he approached it. As soon as this expedition was under way, as soon as he felt free of the necessity of shielding Faunce, he would find some way to set out himself, he would plunge again into the mist and the mirage of the polar seas.

It was reflections like these that made it almost startling to open the old gate, which had an annoying habit of coming off one hinge--a habit that had clung to it ever since his boyhood--and to feel that it was admitting him again into the commonplace existence that he had left behind him when he started out. There were the same old piazza, the same old dog still asleep on the door-mat, the two porcelain jardinières, with the same straggling begonias that he had seen there spring after spring. There, too, was the parrot that Overton had brought from South America.

He went in, and was half-way up-stairs when a messenger-boy’s sudden arrival on the front porch aroused the dog and the parrot. The boy had brought a telegram, and wanted fifteen cents for carrying it over from the station. Overton paid the money and tore open the yellow envelope. The message was from Faunce.

You are needed to see party about expedition. Can you come at once?

Overton stared at the telegram in some amazement. He had purposely concluded his own connection with the expedition to give Faunce a free hand; he could not imagine what had occurred to bring such a summons. He had arranged with Asher to silence all questions about his own rescue. The English accounts had been too vague, so far, to arouse active suspicions, and the very fact that he had given over the command to Faunce had silenced all rumors. What, then, was the necessity for his immediate presence--a necessity so great that Faunce had summoned him? Undoubtedly there was something unexpected.

He thrust the despatch into his pocket and looked at his watch. He could easily catch an evening train; but, if he did, he might have to see Faunce at his apartment, and he could scarcely hope to avoid seeing Diane also. It was more than he felt able to do at the moment. It would be better for both of them if they did not meet, he thought--at least not now.

He decided to wait until morning, and wrote a reply to the telegram, sending it back by the boy, after paying a further subsidy. Thus fate, playing strange havoc with the affairs of mice and men, held him back a moment when his very presence might have turned the scale, when the flame of that candle in the wind which has been likened unto the life of a man might have been shielded a little longer in the hollow of his hand.

XXXVII

EVERY time Diane tried to pour out a cup of coffee for Arthur Faunce she experienced a feeling of awkwardness. It seemed as if she had thrust herself back into a place that was closed to her. She could not recover the habitude of the _tête-à-tête_ breakfast-table. The man sitting opposite to her did not seem so much her husband as some specter of the man she had married.

Perhaps, she reflected, it was because she had never really known him, because his revelation of himself had destroyed the old order of things, and she had not yet had time to accustom herself to the new. She kept viewing him from a new standpoint all the time, as if she had discovered a stranger. No matter how hard she tried she could not get back to the old angle, the angle that had showed him as a hero and her lover. She was not even sure that he loved her any more, for she saw that the old confidence could not be reestablished.

He, in turn, regarded her as an outsider, a hostile critic at his own fireside, not his helpmeet and his best friend. As she realized this, she felt the shock of it--felt that he, too, had reason to complain. It was harder because they could not speak out and get it over, and find some common ground on which to build up their lives. It was always a relief when they could get away from each other. She felt it so, and she was sure that he did.

If it went on like this, either it would grow to be intolerable, or they would sink into the kind of apathy that she had seen so often--the apathy of a badly mated pair, when neither of them has the courage to find a way of escape. She tried to avoid it, she tried to throw into her manner something of her repentance, her will to do better; but he did not meet her half-way. After the first burst of feeling, the relief of getting her back, he had relapsed into a kind of sullen reserve. He had had a terrible experience in confessing to her, and she felt sure that he had determined never to risk it again; but she ventured, now and then, on commonplace questions, if only for the sake of keeping up conversation.

“I suppose you’re about ready now?” she asked politely, retiring behind the coffee-urn and pretending to be busy with her own cup. “I saw that you and Captain Asher seemed to be quite sure of your arrangements.”

He nodded without looking up from his plate.

“We’ve been ready almost a week. There are only one or two things to delay us now--some changes in the crew at the last minute.”

“You don’t have to see to that, surely?”

She spoke idly, for something to say, and she was surprised when he raised his eyes quickly to hers and she caught a look of furtive alarm in them.

“No, I don’t have to see to that; but some of the old men have been troublesome. They wanted their berths back with more pay; and then we’ve lost two we tried to get. It’s hard to get tried men to volunteer for the sort of trip we’re making.”

She assented to that, and tried to finish her breakfast. Having no appetite, the pretense of eating was difficult. She saw him looking again at his watch--the third time since they had sat down at their meal.

“Have you an appointment?” she asked gently. “You seem in a hurry.”

He thrust his watch back into his pocket. “I’m not in a hurry, I--can you remember what time the trains are due from Mapleton, Di?”

She was startled. Her thoughts leaped to her father, and she felt a queer tightening in her throat.

“There was one due at a quarter to eight, and”--she looked up at the clock on the mantel--“if that’s right, there’s one due now.”

“Perhaps he’s coming on that!” he exclaimed, rising from his seat and going to the window.

His tall figure and wide shoulders rather obscured the light as he stood there, and she viewed him with a return of the feeling that she did not know him.

“Are you expecting any one from home?” she asked weakly, laying down her fork.

He answered without looking around.

“I wired for Overton last night--he’s up there.”

She gasped, but the sound was so slight and so soft that he did not hear her. For a moment she was overwhelmed with a rush of feeling. It seemed impossible that he could have sent for Overton on any business that did not involve her, for her thoughts had been filled with Overton. She had struggled against it, but it had been too strong for her.

She kept contrasting the two, and always, in the end, she seemed to vision that moment of terrible cowardice, the flight of a strong man who was leaving an injured comrade to die. Now, as she looked at him, she saw it again, and it overwhelmed her. She clutched at the edge of the table and held herself erect in her place, but her face was ashen.

“What’s the matter?” she managed to ask at last. “I--I thought he’d given over the command long ago.”

“So he has.” Faunce swung around from the window suddenly and looked at her. He saw, at a glance, the struggle in her mind. “This is about something else--something I thought he’d like to do--for your sake.”

The color came back into her face; she blushed up to her hair.

“What do you mean?”

He continued to regard her, his haggard eyes seemed to cling to her face, but there was an expression of bitterness about his lips.

“Oh, you know! He’s been keeping this whole thing quiet to shelter you. There’s something new come up--I’ve tried to deal with it, and perhaps I’ve failed; I can’t tell yet. But I wasn’t willing to take any risk, so I wired for him.”

“Do you mean you’re asking him to do something more--to sacrifice something more for my sake?”

“My dear girl, don’t worry. He answered the telegram, but he hasn’t come.”

She had risen from her seat, but now she sank back into it again with a sigh of relief.

“I’m so glad!”

He began to walk about the room in his usual restless way.

“You won’t be later on!” he muttered.

She forced herself to speak then.

“If you mean it’s about that--about what happened down there--I think I’d rather it were known. I’d rather pay for it in some way, Arthur, than to feel that any one was protecting us, saving us as an act of mercy.”

“You didn’t do it!” he retorted dryly.

“But it’s mine now--don’t you see?” she went on courageously. “It’s mine, because I’ve taken it up. I’m your wife--I share it all.”

He gave her a strange look. She thought that he was going to break down the barrier at last and speak, that there might yet be hope for them, but he was interrupted. Some one rang the bell in the little outside vestibule, and he started at once to answer it, believing that Overton had come.

Diane thought so, too, and sprang from her chair, looking about for a way to escape without crossing the room where she was sure to come face to face with the visitor. As she reached the door that led into her bedroom, she saw that the caller was a rough-looking man dressed like a sailor, and that he and Faunce stood talking--apparently bargaining--near the hall entrance. It was simpler for her to return to her seat at the table and wait until the stranger was gone.

She went back with such a feeling of relief that she found courage to pour out another cup of coffee, and to drink it slowly, while she was trying to think. She was going to accompany Faunce on the expedition, and she had already packed. There was little or nothing left for her to do, except to write a last letter to her father, entreating him to think of her while she was away, and to try to forgive her for doing what she felt it was right for her to do--for returning to her husband.

She was thinking of this, trying to frame it in her mind, when Faunce suddenly returned. She looked up as he entered, and saw that his usually pale face was deeply flushed, and his eyes had the feverish look that she had noticed when she first came back. Something in his expression made her turn in her seat and exclaim:

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

He came over to the table and stood leaning on it with both hands, his expression heavy with some pent-up emotion.

“I want to borrow some money immediately,” he said slowly. “I’ve put about all my spare cash in--can you lend me anything, Diane?”

She saw his embarrassment and rose quickly.

“I’ll get my check-book. I haven’t got much, Arthur. You know papa’s angry, and he’ll give me nothing but my mother’s; but I can spare you five hundred dollars, I think.”

He hesitated.

“That’ll do,” he said after a moment.

She left him, and returned almost immediately with her check-book. There was a desk in the corner, and she went to it and sat down, looking hastily over her accounts. Her heart sank, for she had a sudden swift intuition that the man in the next room wanted it. Was it blackmail? She dared not ask, but she looked up.

“I can spare you six hundred.”

Faunce did not reply and she turned in her chair, looking back at him over her shoulder. He was standing erect beside the table, his arms folded on his breast and his head bent. She could not make out the expression of his face, and she thought that he had not heard her.

She repeated her statement. He roused himself and raised his head.

“Never mind about it now,” he said. “I’ve thought better of it. I’ve decided I can do without it.”

She turned completely around, facing him.

“Of course I should be glad to help you, Arthur.”

He thanked her, turning toward her with a look that suddenly softened her mood, for his smile was tender and sad.

“I don’t want it,” he repeated. “I--I’ve just made up my mind. I’m going out but I’ll be back as soon as I can. If Overton comes here, tell him to go down to the pier; he’ll probably find me on the ship.”

She tried to stop him, to tell him that she would not be there to see Overton, that she must go out on some errands; but apparently he did not hear her. He left the room, and she heard some sharp talk outside before he went out with his visitor and left her alone.

It was some time before she got control of herself and decided what to do. The thought that she must face Overton again so soon was almost intolerable; at the moment her sensation was one of sheer panic, and she determined to escape it at any cost.

There had been no time since her return to secure a maid, and she had been putting the apartment in order and setting aside the breakfast things before the caretaker came to wash the dishes; but she did not stop now even for such simple tasks as these. She hurried back to her room and put on an outdoor dress and hat. Having picked up her parasol and gloves, she was on her way to the outer door when it opened suddenly and Overton himself stood on the threshold.

They stood speechless for a moment, looking at each other. Strange as it seemed to her then, she was the first to recover her self-command.

“Arthur had to go out, but he wanted me to tell you that he’d gone to the ship, and you might find him by going at once to the pier.”

His face changed and flushed deeply.

“I’ll go there immediately. I understand that I’m wanted, though I don’t know why. But”--he hesitated--“before I go I want to ask--your forgiveness.”

She was aware of a strange sensation, as if the universe moved under her feet and the room was darkening before her eyes; but she rallied all her strength as she tried to answer him.

“There’s--there’s nothing to forgive.”

“There’s so much to forgive that I feel--and I want you to know that I feel--that the score between us, between your husband and myself, is wiped out--or, rather, that it’s against me. I did him an injury greater than his injury to me, and I was more cowardly--I tried to take you away from him!”

“When you say that, you accuse me, too!” she replied, her voice breaking a little. “I--it was worse for me than for you and----”

“No, no--not worse for you! I was the man, and I saw more plainly the consequences to you, the ruin of your high purpose, of that beautiful soul that I had worshiped in you. I tried”--he drew a long breath, his eyes dark with emotion--“I tried to drag you down to my level, to play upon your tenderness and your memories of our youth together. But when your father told me--after I’d got over some of the anguish of losing you, I--I thanked God that I’d done nothing worse, that I could come here still and beg your pardon!”

“Don’t speak to me like that!” she exclaimed. “Don’t bring it back. Let’s forget it, let’s forget there was ever a moment when we seemed so--so near to each other, because it couldn’t be! There’s nothing for me to forgive that I oughtn’t to ask you to forgive, too. And for me--it was worse than for you. Besides that, we, my husband and I, feel that we’re bound to you, that you’ve given up so much to shelter him. I suppose I ought to thank you for that, too, but I can’t--I can’t now!”

“There’s nothing to thank me for, nothing that I haven’t been glad to do for your sake.”

As she spoke, he turned back toward the door. The edge of emotion was worn so thin that a touch might break through, and he dared not stay longer. But to Diane the moment had come with a revelation; she felt her strength coming back to her with almost a feeling of relief. She had passed through a great crisis, and she had returned to her husband. It seemed to her that that bare fact suddenly armed her with a power of resistance which she had never suspected she possessed, and her voice was almost tranquil when she answered him.

“Whether it’s for my sake or for his, I do thank you! And there’s one thing more I want to ask you. You’ve seen my father--do you think he’ll ever be willing to forgive me?”

“I’m sure he will; he must. For the moment--you know how violently he feels at first; but you’re all he’s got!”

Her eyes filled with tears, and Overton saw them.

“I must go,” he said gently. “For the last time--Diane, good-by!”

She held out her hand, and he clasped it warmly. There was a moment of deep emotion, and she stood watching him as he turned and went slowly out of the room.

XXXVIII

IT was late in the afternoon before Diane returned to the apartment. After Overton’s departure she had found it impossible to stay there alone all through the hours that must pass while she waited her husband’s return. The crowd and hurry and noise in the streets had helped her to pass through that inward crisis which had meant so much to her. Silence and solitude would have beaten down upon her like rain and drenched her with misery; but out in the open air, with that upward glimpse of the sun which is all that the narrow streets permit to a New Yorker, she began to rouse herself to face the days and weeks that would lengthen out into years before her, if she lived, and would bring no material uplift, unless--the thought shot through her mind as a ray of sunshine sometimes penetrates a black forest--unless her husband suffered some change of heart.

Something in him, something vague and elusive, but still tantalizing her with a fleeting vista of change, had perplexed her. But his attitude had been the same; it had been the same up to the moment when he had decided that he would not use the loan.

The remembrance of that stung her with apprehension. Was there still to be something to hide, something to fear? It would be intolerable if it went on like that! She tried not to think of it, she tried to think only of Overton’s reassurance about her father, and of the one thing that gave her comfort--the fact that she had returned to her husband. Her duty in that was now so clear to her that she wondered that she had ever faltered, and the very fact that she had done so shamed her. Yet she had been strong enough at last to see the right way and return to it, and that was a reassurance.

It carried her through the day, and brought her back at last without the shiver of dread that had shaken her the first time she found her way to her husband’s quarters--a dread that she had never been able to shake off after his confession. But now she came quietly back, stopping for a moment where Overton had stood, and looking about her.

She was surprised that she felt none of the tumult and storm of the day when he had held her hands in the golden mist, the day when she had almost yielded, almost followed the call of her old love for him. She was aware of a new quietude, an aloofness of spirit, and a great throb of relief shot through her. She knew that her task would be easier, that the way was smoothing before her feet.

She began to long keenly for the moment that she had dreaded--the moment when they would embark for the antarctic, when she could plunge into the dangers and fascinations of that perilous trail. By her very presence she could lift and inspire the soul of Faunce until it rose at last above that awful moment when he had fallen--a coward in the face of death. The thrill of that thought made her turn quickly when she heard his step outside. When he entered, she was standing by a table, where she had just laid her hat and gloves.

But the sight of his face dashed all her newly acquired serenity to the ground. She gave a strange little cry.

“Arthur, what is it?”

He did not reply for a moment, but, opening a couple of evening papers that he had brought in his hand, he laid them down on the table in front of her, sweeping his hand across some big headlines on the first columns.

“It has all come out, Diane,” he said in a voice that was strangely self-contained and emotionless. “See, it’s in the papers--you can read it yourself.”

She gave one glance downward, caught the drift of the announcement, and thrust the papers away. She was trembling now, but she spoke quietly.

“Please tell me how it all happened.”

He stood in front of her, his haggard face showing its wasted lines, and his eyes still peculiarly brilliant.

“It didn’t happen; I told them.”

She made an inarticulate sound, which he supposed to be an expression of horror and dismay, and the lines of his face hardened a little as he went on, like a man forcing himself to a repugnant but necessary task.

“You remember the man who came here this morning?” She nodded without speaking, and he went on: “I saw you thought he was trying to levy blackmail, and you were right, he was. He’s one of the sailors who belonged to the last expedition--one of those who met me on my return--and he found out, in some way, more than the others. He felt that I was a coward, and he built on it. He’s been bleeding me now for nearly two months--ever since Overton returned. But this morning I made up my mind, and, before he could use the little he did know, I went to the men who have financed this expedition and told them exactly what I did. I didn’t try to palliate it, and I don’t mean to; I’ve got to suffer for it. I told them the truth, resigned my command, and saw that it was given to Overton. He’s been made to accept it. The evening papers got the story--you’ll find it there in all its details.”

As he finished speaking, he called her attention again to the papers, pointing out the flaring headlines, which magnified the facts. Then, as she made no reply, and he became convinced that her horror of his deed had returned to reenforce the shame she must feel at his disgrace, he went on steadily, without looking at her.

“Of course, I know how you feel--that I hadn’t the right to disgrace you. That’s been Overton’s argument. When he came back, I thought that the misery I’d endured was over, that the whole thing would come out, and--since he was alive--I had only to face the humiliation and begin life again. But he shackled me; he insisted on silence to save you, he gave up his command to me, he yoked me until I felt that I was no better than his slave, subject to his dictates, and--I knew he loved you! It was intolerable. It’s best for a man to suffer his punishment, and I’m going to take mine. For months I haven’t slept without a drug. I’ve been a slave to chloral; but to-night I shall sleep, I’ve nothing to hide, I’m no man’s slave, I can suffer, and I can stand up again. But you”--his voice broke suddenly--“I’ve thought of you all day, and I’ve come here to-night, Diane, to tell you that I can’t ask you to bear my shame. There’s been a time when I felt you wouldn’t have to bear it long, and I couldn’t help remembering what your father said long ago about a man’s life being like a candle in the wind. I thought mine might go out and free you, but it may not. I’m young and strong--it may not!”

He paused, but still she did not speak. He looked around into her face, his own twitching with pain.

“I couldn’t endure to see you unhappy. I’d--I’d rather set you free!”

She lifted her head then and met his eyes, and hers were beautiful.

“But--suppose I won’t take it, suppose I wouldn’t take it if I could?”

“I don’t understand. You know that this will ruin me. It’ll take years for me to wipe it out, if I can ever do it.” He turned with a poignant gesture and sank into a chair. “I’ve no right to pull you down. I know how you despise my--my cowardice!”

“Yes,” she replied steadily, “I did; but now, Arthur, can’t you see that you have done a very brave thing? You’ve paid--in your heart’s blood--for it; you’ve given him what’s more to you than your life--your hopes, your ambition, your reputation! When you said that about the candle in the wind you mustn’t think of it as if it meant all that. It’s a man’s life, not his soul--the flame of that may burn low and flicker, but when it springs up, as yours has sprung up, in on act of sacrifice and atonement, it lights the whole way upward and onward. It’s--it’s like a power of growth, of immortal life!”

She stopped for a moment; then she took a step nearer and stood looking at him, a light on her face that was clearer and purer than the light of the setting sun, which shone in through the windows opposite and was reflected on her slender figure and the soft, light color of her gown.

“I--I can’t tell you,” she went on, “how thankful I am--how thankful that you’ve done it, that you’ve atoned, and, as you say, that you’re free--free to begin again, to live it all down!”

As he turned his head slowly and looked up at her his face changed and flushed deeply.

“I--your coming back saved me,” he said in a voice that thrilled with feeling. “I wanted to kill myself, but you came back to me, and in some way--I can’t tell how, but as simply as the coming of daybreak, the change came into my heart. But I’ve had one thing to torture me, to drive me on--I’ve felt--Diane, do you love him still?”

She came slowly toward him and knelt beside his chair, lifting her eyes steadily to his.

“I thought I did, and there was once--when I was away from you--that I was tempted. I thought my happiness lay that way, but now----”

He bent over her, his hands clasped hers and held them, his eyes searched hers.

“But now, Diane?” he whispered hoarsely.

She smiled.

“Now I know that you’ve expiated it all, that you’ve come back to me in the semblance that I knew and----” she paused, and a beautiful look came into her face, a look of such tenderness, such faith, that it touched him to the soul, he would have drawn her closer, clasped her in his arms, but her eyes still held his and he waited until she went on softly, with infinite gentleness: “you’re my husband--it was that, Arthur, the bond that I couldn’t break. That, and the hope which has come to me, the hope that I’m not long to be the only one to love you--because--because there may be sometime, before very long now, a great change! Out of those beautiful vague clouds--that I seem to see at the horizon of our lives--coming as surely as the sun rises and the day dawns--a little child is coming to us, Arthur!”

XXXIX

DIANE awoke the next morning with a sensation that was so new to her that it seemed almost unreal. She felt at peace--at peace with herself and with the world. She was willing now to accept her share of the public disgrace, even her share of the unpleasant notoriety that was sure to come to Faunce. It was the price of his redemption, it was the earnest of his return to the semblance that she had loved, and she was willing to pay it. She was willing to face any sacrifice that meant that her husband, the man she loved, had completed his atonement, that he had had the supreme courage to tell the truth and bear his punishment.

As she lay there--unaware that it was late and that she had overslept--she thought of him with a new and beautiful tenderness. She had left him, she had treated him with scorn and cruelty, and he had borne no ill will toward her, he had continued to love and to trust her. Whether she had deserved it or not, he had trusted her! In their long talk the night before, in that moment when she had told him her secret, that the dawn of a deeper love in her heart had revealed the truth to her--that the bond between them was too strong for her to break--he had not failed her. It had seemed to her that his joy and his relief at the assurance of her love had crystallized into a sterner purpose, a resolution to wrest something still from the exigencies of his confession, to rise above it and, for her sake, and the sake of the child who was yet unborn--to reclaim his life, to win back the laurels he had lost, to come back to her, indeed, in the semblance that she had loved. She had seen the purpose rise in him, it had shone in his pale face and his kindling eyes, she had heard it in his voice, although he had given it no form in words. It was as if she had seen the soul of the man rise--at the call of her love and her faith--from the ashes of his despair. She had rekindled the flame of the candle, and her heart was thrilled with a new and exquisite tenderness. The instinct of maternity, the love that lies dormant in the heart of every good woman, was slowly but surely unfolding in hers, and it reached out toward her husband, it brooded over him in his sorrow and his suffering, it was ready to forgive him, to lift him up. It had kindled in her, too, the instinct of defense, the instinct to battle for those she loved--as the leopardess in the jungle will battle to save her young. The thought that the world was against him made him more than ever her own. It was her portion now, not to fly from him, as she had in the mountains, but to stand by him, to fight for him, to help him to that moment--which she no longer doubted--the moment when he should redeem himself, not only in her eyes, but in the eyes of the world.

It seemed to her now, as she lay there, that these thoughts had been with her through the night, that they had, indeed, possessed her with a new gift, a kind of clairvoyance. She seemed to see into the mists of the future and behold there--not the man who had failed at the supreme test in the desert of ice and snow--but the soul of her husband, purified by suffering and lifted to a courage greater than death.

The room was shaded. The curtains, drawn the night before, still shut out that feeble gleam of sunrise that shot down into the well-like court of the city building. Diane turned her head on her pillow and looked toward it, she could see a gleam of the sunlight striking, like the golden head of an arrow, upon the dull wall opposite. It was the herald of a new day--not only in the world, but in her life, the day that she was to begin with her husband the greatest task of all, the task of building up, of making his life over, of snatching back from defeat and disgrace the career that he had chosen. That was the thing she most keenly desired; he must not give up, he would not now, she knew that. In the face of opposition, in the very teeth of scandal, he would make good.

She rose slowly and went to the window. Looking up through the half-drawn shutters she saw the sky, perfect and radiant and ineffable. It lifted her heart, it reassured her. She began to dress hastily, suddenly aware that she was late. Then she heard voices, Arthur must have an early caller, she had been caught napping. She hurried, half aware that the voices drew nearer, as if the speakers had entered the room next her own. Then she was startled, she recognized the voice which answered her husband--it was Overton’s!

For a moment it gave her a shock, it was still impossible to ignore that instant of emotion when they had stood together in the golden mist of the rain, and her heart throbbed at the thought that Overton must have believed that she had left her husband only for him. He had a right to believe it! A deep blush rose to Diane’s brow and she stood, wholly dressed now and ready to go to breakfast, but unable to move. After last night it seemed strange to her that she could ever have ignored the natural and spiritual law which bound her to Arthur. Something had changed in her heart, or a new and deeper emotion, an instinct as old as the world, had stirred within her. Was it that, was it because--for the first time--she began to realize the dawn of a new experience, of a tenderness so deep and so vital that it had sanctified the bond between them, that she could no longer even imagine the thought of deserting her husband? It might be that she no longer tried to fathom it, but it was strong enough to steady her now, she could go and meet Overton again without the emotion of yesterday. To-day she was Arthur’s wife--beyond that there was nothing!

She had taken a step toward the door and stopped, arrested by the thought that the two men might have something to say to each other about Arthur’s confession that they would not want her to hear. She hesitated; there was nothing that she could not hear now, for her husband had told her all. Yet----?

She was still standing there, when there was a soft knock at the door and Faunce entered. His face was slightly flushed and his eyes shone, but there was behind that a certain new strength that reassured her. He came in quietly, and closed the door behind him.

“Diane,” he said in a low voice, “Overton is here. He’s come to tell me something which seems--well, it seems almost unbelievable after yesterday----” he paused and his flush deepened, but his eyes held hers steadily. “He’s been sent--by the very men to whom I confessed yesterday--to offer me the supreme command of the expedition. He has finally refused it.”

For a moment Diane was unable to speak. The thought that the chance had come to him--come at the moment when she had seemed to foresee it--sent a thrill of joy through her. It was, indeed, almost unbelievable. In the visions of the night, in her half waking dreams, her very soul had cried out for this chance for him--and that supreme but invisible Power who orders the fates of men had answered her! She did not move, she stood still. With a half groping gesture she put out her hand and Faunce took it, holding it close. They said nothing, but he understood her, he knew that this, this chance of redemption, had been the one desire of her heart.

“There’s one thing more, Diane,” he said softly, “Overton has told the newspapers that he asked me to go, that he’s not strong enough yet to assume command of an expedition. He wants to convince them that my conduct wasn’t criminal, he has faced the terrors of ice and snow and he knows--as I do--the terrible chance that both might be lost when only one could be saved. He wants them to understand that we still stand as friends, that he--he hasn’t condemned me as the papers did last night! He’s done again the noble thing, the expedition is to be mine, the chance is to be mine--to show you----” his voice broke a little, but he smiled--“that your husband is no longer a coward, that he’d rather die than to fail you again!”

Still she said nothing, but her hand quivered in his and he saw that her dark lashes were wet with tears. There was no longer even a shadow of doubt between them, he drew her slightly toward him, watching her beautiful downcast face.

“I came to ask you,” he said quietly. “I’ll do nothing now that can make you feel that I’m not willing to expiate, to make good. I came to ask you, then, if I should take the command--after I gave up, take it in the teeth of the clamor and the scandal? Take it--not as Overton’s gift, but as my right, my right to earn my own chance to live or to die doing my duty? Or would it nullify my expiation--must I suffer more?”

Again her hand quivered in his, but this time she lifted her eyes to his, and he saw in them that new and exquisite tenderness, that tranquillity which not even her tears could veil.

“I want you to go,” she replied softly. “I want it--because I have faith in you, Arthur, I know that this time there is no power on earth that can make you fail!”

* * * * *

In the days that followed, days in which the expedition was briefly delayed while Faunce resumed his duties, he wrote to Gerry. Much as he wanted Diane to go with him, he began to fear the hardships for her. This new phase of their lives which was unfolding gradually before their vision, made him anxious for her. Would it be well with her if the child was born in that land of mist and snow? Could she face the cold and the terrors, the possible hardships, even the chance of privations? He said nothing of this to her, he knew her longing to go, but he wrote to Gerry. Two days before the ship sailed he received a letter from the doctor, and Diane received one from her father.

The sight of his handwriting gave her a shock of mingled fear and pleasure. Had he written to quarrel with her? It was not like him, there was always too much finality about his rages. Or had he relented? She remembered Overton’s words, that the judge would forgive her. Did this mean that Overton had again intervened? Her cheek reddened, but her eyes softened, after all, it was her father’s way to do violent things violently. She opened the letter.

“Dear Diane,” the judge wrote; “Gerry has told me all that your husband has written to him about you. Gerry and I are of one mind, we can’t bear to have you face those hardships now. I said I’d disown you. I’ve tried it, I can’t, you’re all I’ve got! I know how you feel. Very well, I’ll forgive him, too. I’m down, I’m an old beggar alone in the world. If I’m to have a grandchild I want it born in my house. Will you come now, Diane, come to your old father?”

The letter rustled in her hands, she stood holding it and looking out into the street. It was twilight, and one by one the lamps sprang up, here and there and everywhere they twinkled and flashed and danced, while long tiers of them on either side of the seemingly endless street flashed and receded, light by light, until they converged into a glow and brightness that made the hazy distance seem like a spangled veil.

Diane was still standing there when Faunce rose from the table, where he had read his letter, and came over to her side.

“Diane,” he said gently, “I wrote to Gerry, I told him. I’ve been afraid the hardships were too great for you. Here’s his answer. He admits the hardships, but he says you can face them if you will. You’re young and strong. But still he wants you to stay, he wants to take care of you himself.”

Diane turned quietly and gave him her father’s letter. She did not look at him while he read it, for she knew he had suffered much at her father’s hands, that she had been guilty of setting her father against him. For the first time since that moment of confidence, of complete reunion, she dreaded to look at him. Presently, however, he handed it back to her and she met his eyes. They were calm, they had, indeed, that new look of strength in them that nothing seemed to dash. She knew the chloral habit had been absolutely broken, that with a strength of will which amazed his doctor, he had let the drug go. Now she saw that the moral change had been as great as the physical.

“Will you stay?” he asked gently, his eyes holding hers.

She did not answer at once. It seemed as if she took that moment to think, to concentrate all her powers of mind and heart on the one supreme choice that was so vital to them both, the choice between the risks and the hardships of the frozen pole and the safety of her father’s house--without her husband. There was no question of a quarrel now, the judge had forgiven him, he would stand by his word. In his brusque way, Herford was holding out his hand to Faunce. To go to him would not be an insult to her husband, but, if she left him now, he must face the struggle alone and she had pledged herself to face it with him. She had pledged herself, and she desired it more than anything else in the world--except the safety of that little life which might come in peril and cold and mist, like a pledge of their faith to each other, and her belief that her husband would redeem himself!

It seemed a long moment before she answered, and then, with a mute, adorable gesture, she laid her cheek against his sleeve.

“I’m not afraid,” she said in her low, vibrating, beautiful voice, “I’m going with you, Arthur.”

He made no answer in words, an inarticulate murmur was all that escaped him. But he held her close and she seemed to feel the thrill that her assurance gave him. She was no longer an outsider, no longer a hostile critic at his fireside, they were united, their marriage was no longer merely a physical, it was a spiritual union. Henceforth she must share not only his victories, but his defeats, and in both, in one as much as in the other, he would be dear to her, for she no longer doubted him, she knew the worst that he had done, and she knew, too, that he had repented and that now, purged by his long spiritual conflict, he was in reality stronger than she was.

In the days which followed, days in which she wrote fully and lovingly to her father, she was again conscious of a new and great tranquillity. She had passed through the fiery furnace of her trial, she had drained the cup of doubt to its dregs, and now she looked calmly into that future that held for her the greatest of all trials, and the most tender of all hopes.

The same thought was with her the day the ship sailed. It had been a day of conflict for Faunce, a day of trial, for he had had to face the publicity and the questions, but he had shown a strength and composure that amazed himself. As he had told Diane, his confession had freed him, he was no man’s slave, he had nothing to fear, and he faced the future with a courage so high that it transformed him. Diane saw it. She stood beside him as the ship, slipping its moorings in the North River, dropped down the bay. It was a day of clouds, and a light fog hung like a veil about the great city, it made the distant streets appear like deep incisions between the towering sky-scrapers, and the crowded battery was lightly touched with mist. Above the gray clouds drifted, below the dark water lapped, but Diane lifted her eyes to the face of her husband. Faunce was calm; he was very pale but his eyes glowed and his lips closed firmly. There was power in the face and conflict and hope.

Suddenly, the gray clouds parted and showed a rift of exquisite blue, like a window in heaven, and a shaft of sunlight shot across the sky, it touched the clouds with gold and it glinted on the towering figure of Liberty bearing aloft her torch to light the world.

In the far distance the mists over the narrows grew soft and luminous as Diane looked into them. She did not look back, she looked forward. Out of that future, out of those clouds and that golden glory, she seemed to see the form of her husband--no longer fallen and defeated, but coming back to her in the semblance that she had dreamed, clothed with powers at once mortal and spiritual, and wearing the laurels of victory.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.