Chapter 30

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Blake, leaving the house, lifted Muriel into the big, French car and got in beside her. Her little mind was in great puzzlement; and of Blake she began to ask the countless questions that flew to her lips. "Why was daddy living there, when mother dear and she were with Aunt Elinor?" "Who was the lady that she had seen, and did he know her?" "Was daddy living there all alone, and when was he coming to live with them, as he used?" and many, many more.

Some of them Blake answered as best he could; others he evaded. His heart ached within him sorely.... Almost he wished that he were a woman; the relief of tears would have meant much.

With childish, wondering question stinging deeper and yet more deep, he watched the stream of traffic swirl past--car and cab, brougham and 'bus. They were on the Avenue--Fifth Avenue, like which there is no other street in our land.

On they went, past great club, past rows of magnificent residences, past towering church and staid old dwelling. They came at length to the Plaza, with its hotels, and glistening statue. The Park lay to the left, a thing of green, with its arching trees. Uniformed nurses were wheeling little perambulators; others were watching active, tousled-headed little charges. Anon there flashed past a group of galloping riders.

At length they turned into a side street. The car stopped before a house of brick and stone, with wrought-iron lattices. Blake got out, lifting the child.

The butler admitted them. Mrs. VanVorst was in, he said, in response to Blake's query; Mrs. Schuyler was out....

It had been some time since Blake had seen Kathryn. She had been very ill, very ill--ill almost unto death. This had followed the receipt of a letter from John Schuyler--a letter which made futile all their efforts to spare her suffering--a letter in which he had been condemned of his own hand. Dr. DeLancey had labored hard, and well. In the end she was saved. But Dr. DeLancey was an old man--a very old man; and, when he had seen that she was saved, he himself had passed away. Possibly it was as well; for he was a lonely old man, you know; and those few whom he loved had brought him much suffering. It was a strange letter, that letter that had wrought so much--a letter utterly unlike the man who wrote it. It was, in part:

"... God himself only knows how I feel. I can scarce believe that it is I who write. And yet it must be I. There is no such thing as redemption-- no such thing as hope--no such thing as palliation, or excuse. It is simply an end of me that is not death. Would to God it were. Death would be welcome--even a death of torture refined. There is nothing that I could say that you would understand for nothing that I could say would I myself understand. It is simply the end.... I hope I am insane. Yet I fear that I am not.... I am a ship without a rudder. My will is gone from me; I have no volition of my own--no soul--nothing. All that is left of me is a body, and the power still to suffer, and for the rest, only a great emptiness, and a greater pain."

Kathryn had fainted, when she received that letter. Then fever had come, and with it, delirium. Which was merciful. For weeks she lay closer to death than to life.... Now she was better; and yet far from well. Violet eyes were sad--dull. Brown-gold flesh was pallid. She moved with languor.

For weeks no word of all that meant so much was spoken; it was a topic carefully avoided.

One day Kathryn had said that she must go to see Schuyler. They had tried to dissuade her; without success. This was to have been the day. So Blake himself had gone, eager to bear for her the shock, should there be a shock to be borne; and if not, to render easy her going.

Elinor met him as he entered the drawing room. He set the child down, bidding her go find her nurse; then he turned to Mrs. VanVorst.

"I have seen him," he said, simply.

She looked the query that there was no need for lips to speak.

He shook his head.

"It is impossible," he declared. "Quite impossible. She was there."

"We must dissuade Kathryn from going, then," said Elinor.

He smiled, grimly, sadly.

"It will not be hard, I fear. Muriel was there, too."

And that was why Kathryn Schuyler did not go, then, to John Schuyler.