Part 16

“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.