Chapter VIII: Give Me My Release

Without meeting a soul Maisie gained her own room--the room she had left but an hour before with such joyful emotion that she did not seem to herself now like the same girl--this wan-faced, heavy-eyed creature, peering into the long mirror in wonder at her own metamorphosis.

Where were the roses that had blushed on her dimpled cheeks, the smiles that had curved her crimson lips, the love-light in the velvety violet eyes? All faded now into a pallid image of despair.

The door opened, and Nancy’s red head popped inside, while she called out eagerly:

“Yes, here she is, Mr. Del--here, in her own room!”

She disappeared as a tall, slim figure in showy uniform darted over the threshold, and her young husband came to her, crying out, excitedly, with burning eyes:

“Maisie, dear, I have just a few minutes left to say good-by! I’ve been talking to Aunt Constance. She has promised to be a mother to you while I am away. You’ll be a good girl, won’t you, little wife? Why did you shudder at that word, Maisie? Does it frighten you to remember you are my wife? Rest easy. I shall not claim you till the war is over, you know. Now one sweet kiss! How pale you are, child! Don’t grieve for me--I’ll write you often--and come back as soon as I can!”

She had turned around from the mirror, poor Maisie, and stood listening like a breathing statue to the torrent of his words. She even let him kiss her passive lips, but she neither spoke nor moved and her cold lips and hands chilled him like ice.

He cried out uneasily:

“See here, Maisie, don’t you worry about Josephine! I--I deceived you for your own good, that--that you might have a home, dear. She is only a treacherous cat. She threw me over when she found I was disinherited, and she means to get Byrd now. Foil her little game if you can, child--and--don’t dream but that the day will come when I shall love you better than I ever did her! Now, say good-by to your soldier boy!” lifting her arms and placing them about his neck, kissing her passive, silent lips again, and rushing from the room, glad to get the parting over, though he thought:

“Poor little one, she takes it hard, but I couldn’t have stayed, with my mind full of Josephine! Oh, Heaven, if I had waited a little longer; if she had but repented a little sooner! But the horrible mistake is made now, and it’s forever too late to go back! I had my revenge at least! Faugh, how bitter it tastes on my lips!” and driven mad by misery, he rushed from the house, eager to join his company, and hoping soon to be in the thick of war, where he might forget the madness of to-day.

As for her, there was one lurid flash from her splendid eyes as the handsome form disappeared; then she snatched up her tiny lace handkerchief and brushed it vehemently over her lips, as if to wipe off the stain of his kiss. But then the reaction came. Staggering toward a chair, she slipped and fell heavily to the floor like a stone.

She lay there a long time without motion, as though life itself had been stricken from her at one fell blow, and none came to her assistance, for it was thought best to leave her alone at first, in the sorrow of her separation from her young husband.

So she came to herself quite alone at last, and dragged herself in a dazed way to a chair, where she sat some time with her pale face buried in her cold, white hands, and her eyes fixed in a strange, inscrutable gaze upon nothingness.

When her strange self-communing was over she arose and returned to the library.

Her crisp white gown was rumpled where she had fallen and lain so long upon the floor, her wealth of golden locks were all in disorder, her face pallid, her great eyes fixed in a strange stare, but she gave not a thought to herself, only hurried on till she stood in the presence of the master of Castellane.

He was sitting with his head bowed over his desk writing a check, and as he passed the blotter over it and looked up, he saw Maisie coming toward him, with that gliding step that always seemed to him the very poetry of motion.

He got up quickly to his feet, with the paper in his hand, exclaiming:

“Ah, Maisie, my fair sister-in-law, you came just in the nick of time! I was writing you a check for a bridal present. Pray accept it, with my best wishes!”

He thrust it into her nerveless hand, and her bewildered eyes mechanically scanned his firm, bold writing where it was signed to a check that ordered his bank to pay to the order of Mrs. Delmar Barrington the sum of two hundred thousand dollars.

Even in her utter astonishment she could not help seeing how the firm hand had wavered over the new writing of her name, and her heart leaped with a certain satisfaction that made her feel confident of the success of her mission.

In a husky voice she said:

“You are very generous, and I thank you, but I cannot accept this!” with the words she tore the check in two and cast it at his feet.

“Maisie!” reproachfully.

“Sir!” proudly.

“You do me injustice. Will you believe when I tell you truly I was ignorant of that clause in my father’s will that left you penniless? I know he intended to provide for you, and--I understand now that it was pique at your rejection of my suit that caused him to disinherit you. I fear--I believe, that his intention was to drive you into my arms. As if”--with a proud toss of his head--“I would accept a bride thus won. No, Maisie, do not think so hardly of your new brother, who is willing and anxious to repair his father’s fault.”

Byrd stood at the back of his chair looking earnestly at the pale young beauty with something of compassion in his grave blue eyes.

She started in wonder and exclaimed:

“Delmar was wronged far more than I, yet you have not tried to make it up to him!”

He made a gesture as if of throwing off something unpleasant.

“Do not let us recur to that. I--I can offer no explanation. Come back to yourself, Maisie. I implore you not to refuse a wedding-gift from me. I have a right to make it. It is discourteous in you to refuse it. Let me write you another check--even larger, if you will accept it.”

To his boundless amazement, she answered hoarsely:

“I will not deny that I came here, Byrd, to ask you for a wedding-gift, but not of money!”

“Of jewels then, perhaps? No?” as she slowly shook her head. “Ah, I have it. A home of your own, where you can live with your husband when he returns covered with glory from the war? You would not wish to continue living at Castellane. How can I blame you? Very well, Maisie, you shall select for yourself a beautiful mansion, or shall I have one built for you? Your wish is my pleasure,” with a courtly bow.

But again the girl silently shook her beautiful golden head.

“Not that, my dear sister? Then I cannot guess any further--unless,” with a start, “you wish me to persuade Delmar not to go away--to remain here with you. Ah, that is it, poor child, is it not?”

He was scarcely prepared for what followed, though he had read on her pallid face the grief that was tearing her heart-strings apart, and pitied her with a yearning pity.

Beautiful Maisie advanced a step and sank on her knees at the feet of her tall, stately brother-in-law. She clasped her writhing white hands, and lifted great, pleading eyes to his pale drawn face.

“Ah, I was right,” he was saying to himself. “She cannot bear the absence of her heart’s beloved. There is grief and agony on her lovely face. She will appeal to me to bring him back to her side!”

The thought went like a knife through his heart, while he waited for the beautiful suppliant to speak.

She cried out to him in a voice strained with anguish:

“See, I kneel to you, Byrd, to pray for your kindness. I do not deserve it; you need not remind me of that, for I have been cruel and wicked to you! Yet somehow I feel that you will do for me what I am going to ask. Promise me beforehand.”

“I do not know how I could refuse anything you asked me, Maisie,” he answered gently, wondering at her passion for his brother that could drive proud Maisie to the humility of this moment. “Speak out frankly, my dear child, I will do what I can!”

But in his secret heart he wondered if it would be possible for him to persuade the young soldier to come back to live with his unloved bride, with his heart full of another. Oh, the pity of it!

Yet he promised himself that he would try, even if Delmar repulsed him, rather than betray the confidence of the beautiful suppliant kneeling at his feet, praying for his kindness.

His heart seemed to beat in his ears as she began to speak:

“You know all about the law, don’t you, Byrd? You are a lawyer yourself, aren’t you, although so rich that you need not practise it? So you can help me easily, I know. It isn’t much I ask of you--not near so much as your gift of two hundred thousand dollars that I wouldn’t accept; not near so hard as to go and beg your angry brother to return to his heart-broken bride, which I’m not asking you to do, ha! ha!” with an awful mirthless laugh. “No, no, Byrd. The only wedding-gift I want from you is that you will secure for me--immediately or as soon as the law will act--a divorce from your dastard brother!”

She laughed aloud at the great start of surprise he gave, as if an earthquake shock had moved him from his feet.

“Maisie, are you mad?” he demanded hoarsely.