Chapter C

Dear Peter:

I had decided not to write you anymore concerning myself or of what has happened to me in these intervening years. But woman-like I felt that there was more you should know, and I did not precisely feel as if I had had the last word. You must forbear with me and be patient.

As I told you in my last letter, Bill went to the penitentiary. I went with him on the train. The sheriff thought I was his wife. He commiserated with me and allowed me to sit next to Bill all the way. Bill was pitiful. I felt for him, for it was so unnecessary for him to be in the position he was in. I would have given Bill a living but I was afraid. He would not have believed me. He would have thought that I had some other man. Bill would have killed me and then you would have been free. I never intended that. I would not have had that happen.

You should have sat back of us and heard Bill swear what he would do after he got out. Twenty years! Can you imagine anybody laying plans for something to happen in twenty years? Bill did not get out. Poor animal, he died in the place. I buried him. And curiously enough I wept for him when he was placed in the ground. I buried with him my one great love. But I had learned what love meant. I don’t mean love surrounded with riches, but love that animates the breast of just a man. It is different.

When he was buried and a small stone placed at his head, I left the country. I came to Paris and I have lived here ever since. I should like to have you see the place. It is beautiful. I have a great house. And in it I have one room with a divan and a light back of it. I have in front of the divan a fireplace. It is kept lit all the time, even in the warmest weather. I look into it a great deal. I build even now hopes and castles that will never be realities.

I see in its blue flame, when the light is out and a quiet has settled upon the streets and only an occasional wayfarer goes by, a castle, and in its walls I place you, Peter—and the boy. I see my life as it might have been. I should not have known Bill. I should have had a different kind of love, not of the same value, but still I imagine it might have sufficed; it might have held me to my own. It would have done for I would not have known Bill—Bill the cave man.

Have you, I wonder, ever thought of this? Have you ever considered how dreadfully wasted your life has been and how lonely?

I have a garden back of this house. French windows open out upon it. Down in its depths, where I love to go, I have had placed trees like those I loved at home, greenswards of grass lead to paths and their borders are lined with flowers, almost the same kinds of flowers I had at home. A fountain plays and casts its waters into the air. I have a lodge keeper who bows when I enter the gates. He has a sinister smile. He, too, seems unhappy, but wise beyond comprehension, Peter.

Underneath, Peter, I want something I haven’t got. I don’t know what that is. I try to argue the thing out. I go carefully over every incident that has comprised my life. I try to blame myself. Sometimes I can and then at other times I cannot. It is curious the condition I am in.

I am not old, yet I feel old. I am only forty-odd years of age, and nowadays that is not age. I have no friends. I know no one. I must be lonely. I don’t know.

I think a great deal of you. I think of your wasted life. I don’t mean from the money standpoint. Which is the least thing in the world. For I experienced greater happiness living in a hovel, in dirt and in squalor, than I did with a butler and the other servants. But your life, Peter, is over. You are sixty and more. Time is ready to take you back into itself and close its account with you. Soon you will be dead. And out of it all you have got nothing. I’ve followed your career with interest and amusement. I knew its futility. I knew what in your heart you wanted. You wanted me. And your cupidity and your philosophy had lost for you the greatest thing in your life—love.

Do you know, Peter, that after all these years of separation I feel that you ought to come to me? That in all this world you have no one to take care of you. I told you in one of my letters to you that no matter what comes into a woman’s life, in her heart she lives alone with the man she gave herself to first. I am no different. I am only a woman, with all the frailties of a woman.

I don’t believe that there is any quality in a woman which is stronger than the quality of pity. I pity you. You are such a sad waste—such a pitiable thing. At times, Peter, I loved you with all the fervor of a young mind. That is something. Bill was only a sporadic incident in my life. As a fact he only seared it—burnt it with horrors that it would have been better that I should not have known. Had I not had the frailties of a woman I would not have gone with Bill; nature and its demands are too strong. Nature made me go with Bill. It was not of any volition of my own. If it had been I would not have gone.

Tizzia is with me. I’ve had her for the past few years. I hunted her up after I buried Bill. She is here beside me. She is looking over my shoulder as I write to you. She and I have become more than maid and mistress. I hold to her with eager hand. It is by her that I link myself with the past, with you and with the boy. I am weak. I wobble. I am not as I used to be. My strength is gone. The fight in me is over. I have suffered, Peter—suffered terribly.

I often wonder at the weakness of the human. We start with such assurance and we end so pitiably. I had strength. I had determination. I did the thing that now I know I should not have done and out of it I have gotten that thing revenge. It is only too true the words in the Bible—“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.” I have lost. I wonder what the proper course in life is, for what we do is always wrong. I tried and I failed.

Tizzia and I talked over this thing this morning and I write it hastily for fear I may again change and the old feeling might arouse itself in me and I would not put down here truly what I feel. There is only one thing left in me that is like my old self and that is my absolute strength for the truth. That I think is my one saving grace.

Tizzia said slowly and with what I thought was wonderful clearness. “Now, Madame, I would write this. I would give Mr. Thorbald the chance. You would have done your duty. It is better. Why carry out a bad situation when it can be bettered?”

“But,” I answered, “he will think me foolish, and weak. After all my bragging as to what I was going to do.”

“We are all weak, Madame,” she replied. “We are only human.”

“What would you say, Tizzia?” I asked.

“This,” she replied shortly.

“The door is open. I wait for you to come. I will be to you as I was before. We can forget the past. It is over. All that we did is done. I am sorry. That covers with me a multitude. We have both lost. We should try in these few years left us to regain what we have lost.”

“Is that all?” I asked.

“I think so. It is direct,” she answered me.

“I can’t do that, Tizzia—I can’t. I would feel that I had put all my entity into the balance and found it wanting.”

“That has been your failure. Madame, you’ve weighed and you have lost in the weighing too much already. You have lost your life.”

“Suppose he should refuse?” I asked.

“It can’t be helped. Then you must continue to suffer. It may be that he will. It depends on what his viewpoint may be. He may be too comfortable as he is. He may have put you out of his life. You may not occur to him at all.”

“Shall I try?” I asked doubtfully.

“Yes, Madame. And you will,” she replied.

And, Peter, I am sending you this. I will wait until you reply. The door, as Tizzia says, is open. I am not hard to find. I shall wait. And while I wait, I shall be abased; for I can not know what you will answer. But I shall hope.

I wonder, shall I fail in this as in everything else?

Good-night, Peter. Remember, I hope.