Chapter II

The car sped over the road. Occasionally the driver turned for directions. Clarinda’s only reply was to drive faster. It seemed to her the only thing she desired was motion, such motion as might keep pace with her thoughts.

A feeling of despair overcame her, for her body suffered with her mind. Futility was even more dominant than ever. She had become imbued with the spirit of Peter, that nothing in the world was of any avail, that to fight against a surrounding condition was of no use, that all things were controlled by an invisible force, a force that laughed at any effort to set it aside from its driven path. There was nothing left. It was all reduced to her as a difficulty without a sign of relief.

All that she believed in was destroyed. Even the struggle she had made to make for herself and Peter a life as near an approach to the ideal as possible had fallen to pieces. There was left of her endeavor—nothing.

In the midst of her madness the face of her child came before her. She hated it even as she hated all things. Her hate for Peter was paramount and a greater hate existed in her heart for her father. Her bitterness seemed to concentrate against her father, for it was he who had tutored her into the thing she was. The education he gave her had blighted her life, by leaving her unprepared to meet its vicissitudes, its necessities, and demands.

She sought in her mind for an excuse for them, but could find none. At last as if some great force had taken Peter and her father and stripped them of their flesh, laying bare their innermost souls, she looked into their breasts and saw of what they were made.

Heretofore her face had never betrayed a sign of hardness. It became hard, and her eyes changed color, her cheeks took upon them a different bloom. Her whole body changed under the blow she had received. A determination came into her and broke down all the barriers to her better self. All these barriers she had erected through years of endeavor were gone, and cast into the dust heap.

As a snake sheds its skin, so Clarinda shed all that had been the old Clarinda.

The impasse brought a new factor, one actuated by a woman of new motives. It brought a woman’s mind dark and seething and bitter, and Clarinda felt the change and shivered with fear at the prospect. She could not decipher to what end it would lead her.

Clarinda balanced her account with life and found it all written in red. Never had she received from it anything but the most terrible futility. Evil was not of her, but she determined it should come. All the good she scattered at her feet, breaking it as a frail piece of glass. From now on she would follow in the steps of those whom she had looked up to. Henceforth, she would gather the bitter, no matter what the poison might be.

Where she would land or to what end it should bring her, she cared not. With indefatigable sincerity she had tried to do what she thought was right. This had landed her in a morass of disappointment, and made her only the mistress of the man to whom she had been married. It was not her fault. It was the fault of Peter and her father and she was determined that they should pay. The price they should pay would be the price of death. For the years she had been married she had patted Peter upon the back and helped him with unswerving faith. Now, she should destroy with the same determination what she had endeavored to build. He should pay and pay in the coin he knew nothing of. Her father likewise should pay, for it was he who had spurred Peter on. Endlessly he told him in long conversations, during many nights, of his ability, until Peter believed he was impregnable. He caused Peter to lose all sense of proportion.

Clarinda was not angry at her own position; it was deeper than that. She would seek her own emancipation, for her life was destroyed. Why not bring down the temple with her in her fall, grind it, grind it out into powder that would leave no trace of its original intent?

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will repay.” Clarinda knew this line, but it had no significance.

She put her hand upon the arm of the driver and told him to turn back and she directed him to the house of her father. In a short time she arrived. After the car stopped at the marble steps that led to his glory, she sprang from its interior and ran into the hall, the same hall she had come from with hope in her heart and visions of perfect joy in her soul. Then all the world had looked to her as if it desired to cover her with a mantle of good. Now it was gone, obliterated, wiped out and nothing remained. It was futile. In the place of promises it had given nothing and the struggle she had made was a vain endeavor.

Rapidly she walked across the hall and went up the stairs. She pushed open the door and entered the room in which her father sat.

In three years a change had come upon him. His limbs almost refused to carry his body. His hands shook pitifully. His eyes lacked in lustre, they had died, before he had died. Around his shoulders, limp and lost in form, hung a blanket of rich design to protect him from any draft that might steal insidiously across the floors. His head shook, even as his hands. All about him was disintegration. A sickness that portended death enveloped him.

He had been sitting there for months, and ever before his old, dim eyes came images of those who had gone before. He saw them when he was left alone and in the night they were even more present. They seemed to beckon to him across the dark passage he was confronting and he thought they smiled and their smiles seemed to him to be smiles of derision. Always they pointed at him with bony fingers and their fleshless jaws clashed with a painful noise. He feared and trembled with dread. There was no hope and he knew it, death was at hand. It was only tomorrow.

Often he saw the opened grave that would receive his worn-out body, and all would be ended. There was no hope of immortality. He believed in nothing. He saw but death, dirt and disintegration. When he had ceased to breathe, he would become carrion to be devoured by countless maggots.

The old man wept with regret and begged in his innermost self that he might be given a few more moments. Sometimes, the tears ran down his old, withered face. They fell mockingly upon his clothes and stained them as if with blood. He would slink back into the folds of his chair as if from its depths he could find protection from the thing he dreaded.

Clarinda as she entered the room saw him drawn back into his chair. She watched his hands shake and tremble as if with the palsy and pity went out of her heart, she wanted him to die. Clarinda linked her revenge with him. She wanted the death of this worn-out old man in front of her. He was dying, she knew it, and she rejoiced that it was so. The condition in which she found herself was his burden. Pity had died and nothing was left, there was no surcease. The thing was before her that had produced her and of this thing she would have revenge. She suffered and her suffering was greater than his. His was ended while hers stretched out for years. There was no such end for hers, as his. There was a stone in her breast where her heart should have been. She would carry this stone for endless years.

Clarinda threw off her coat. She did not go to her father, nor place the cover about him with her hands.

Her father looked at her and pride filled his heart. He envied her her youth and would have sacrificed her for a few more years of life. He was human and acknowledged it. Clarinda hated him as she hated Peter and she could not say which one she hated the more. Even her child she hated.

Her father stretched out his hand to her and placed his face to hers that she might kiss him. Clarinda did not move but stood directly in front of him. Her eyes were narrowed. A bitter smile flitted across her face. Clarinda saw him shake. She looked, as his hand fell inert at his side.

“It is over,” she said slowly.

“What is over?” her father asked mumbling his words.

Clarinda sat down in a chair and pulled it over in front of him. Her manner did not change. She kept her eyes fixed upon his face.

“It is over,” she repeated. “Life is queer. Don’t you think so, Father?”

“Yes, yes!” he answered. “What do you mean?”

“You are dying and it is fortunate it is so,” she replied with conviction in her voice.

The old man shrank back further in his chair. He turned his eyes towards her and looked eagerly into her face. He trembled in an agony of fear—he could not understand. He asked himself if in one day there had come such a change. Were the hands of the dead stretched out any more insistently today than yesterday?

“Do I look worse?” he asked pitifully.

“Yes, you are worse. Your hands are worse. Your face is more drawn. I can see a great change,” she replied, following with her eyes the effect of her words. It pleased her that he felt so deeply. Then she added:

“I believe you are dying. I believe that today when the sun goes down you will be dead. You’ve not fought, as you should have fought. You are as weak as I thought you would be.”

“Clarinda! Clarinda!” he screamed.

“Why do you fear? What’s the use? The thing is upon you. It is here. You must die. And now!” Clarinda smiled, her satisfaction was intense. Had he not murdered her? Had he not destroyed her? Was not her destruction greater than the destruction she passed on to him?

The old man gasped and his heart beat with fury in his breast. He could barely see her as she sat before him. He could not understand this curious change that had come to her, his Clarinda, the thing he had loved and worshiped.

“Why this, Clarinda, when you know my condition?” he stuttered.

“I will tell you,” she said intensely. “Through all my life you aimed to destroy me, even from my youth.”

As she was about to continue the door opened and Peter rushed into the room. Clarinda sprang quickly from her chair, as she heard him enter. He cast a look toward the huddled heap in the chair, and in a moment he saw that it was dead.

“What has happened? I suspected that you were up to something,” he said.

“You are the matter,” Clarinda replied turning from him and walking to the other side of the room.

“What have I done?” he asked, his face turning pale.

“You ask!” Clarinda exclaimed.

“I ask,” he said with wonder in his voice.

“What you have done is finished. There is the result.”

The figure in the chair slipped down a little further. The helpless hands dropped limp beside the chair, and a curious look of repose spread itself over the gray ashen face. A bit of saliva trickled from the open mouth.

Peter cried aloud and the house went into a turmoil. He tried to pull the old dead man back into the chair. It was useless, for gradually the body slipped to the floor and lay bent in curious contortions. Clarinda went out of the door, down through the hall and entered the car, and ordered the driver to take her home.

A fury that was intense drove her, but there was no pity in her heart. She wanted revenge and she would persist in bringing it about.

Peter followed her shortly and found her sitting upon the divan. There was no disturbance in her attitude. Clarinda sat quietly. On the floor in front of her was her child. It played unmindful of the tragedy about it. It cooed and looked occasionally at its mother. Clarinda bent her eyes towards it and wished in her heart it was as dead as her father. Should it be raised to sorrow such as she had? Would it put its trust in some great thing and have that trust destroyed? She could kill it with her own hands. It would take but a moment. Its life was held by a slender thread and her hands were strong.

Peter saw the look on her face as he entered. Quickly he took the child from the floor as if to protect it from her. Clarinda did not move.

“Your father is dead,” Peter said.

“I know it,” she replied shortly.

“You’ve killed him.”

“I know it,” she answered in a deadened voice.

“Why?” Peter asked.

“He is dead,” she answered. “It is better so. I am not sorry. You should have seen his fear. It was pathetic.”

“Why did you do it?” Peter asked, with awe in his voice.

“I am someone else. Probably such a wife as you want. I am different. My other self has died even as my father has died.”

“God forbid! I didn’t know!” Peter gasped.

“Go!” she demanded.

“You would have killed the child. I had a premonition. That is why I followed you. You would have killed the child?”

“Yes, I would have killed it. Why not? It is only the emblem of my degradation. It would not have mattered. Death may have saved it much.”

“Clarinda!” Peter trembled from head to foot. His mind was in a whirl. He could not understand.

“It is useless. Go!” Clarinda turned her face from him and walked over to one of the windows that gave a view of the garden.

Peter went out of the room, carrying the child with him and left her alone.