Chapter 33

TEMPTATION.

Elinor VanVorst swung around in her chair, and eyed her sister.

"Well, Kate?" she asked.

Kate raised violet eyes in protest.

"Please, Nell, don't insist," she begged. "I don't want to talk about it."

Her sister continued, firmly:

"It must be talked of.... You must divorce him, Kate."

"No!"

"But I say, 'Yes!' You should hear what people are saying about you."

"What do I care what people are saying about me? It's what I think of myself that counts."

"That may be true," her sister retorted; "but it's too idealistic for this world.... Moreover, you're not consistent."

Kathryn looked up, quickly.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

Elinor shrugged her shoulders, a little and answered:

"You're compromising. You're hedging. If he isn't good enough to live with, he isn't good to be married to."

"But," Kathryn protested. "I can't live with him, Nell! You know as well as I how impossible that is."

"Then," returned Elinor, rising, "divorce him."

Kathryn shook her head, wearily.

"I can't do that, either."

The other turned.

"Then what are you going to do?" she demanded. "Are you going on forever being honest neither with him nor with yourself--compromising on the one hand with your womanhood, on the other with your selfishness? How long has it been since you made the slightest effort to see him, or to send anyone to him?"

Kathryn answered, slowly:

"Not since the time I tried to go, and Tom went before me. I--I have thought, often, of going.... But, somehow, I've been--afraid." In almost a whisper, she repeated, "Yes.... Afraid!"

Elinor VanVorst raised her shoulders in an expressive gesture. It conveyed more plainly than could words that her end of the argument was done--her case was rested.

Kathryn considered long, earnestly, in silence. Divorce him! Divorce John Schuyler! It had occurred to her--it had occurred to her in the long silences of the night--in the thousands of aeons that had lain, ofttimes, between the setting of the sun and the rising thereof.... Divorce him! ... It was a thought that stung. He had been to her all that any man could have been. He had been a man of whom her head was proud and her heart fond with the great love that lies in the heart of a good woman. He it was, and God, who had given her the little child that she could see from where she sat, rolling, a tumbled little heap of white lace and whirling brown legs on the broad expanse of the green lawn. He it was who had taken the first of her life--who had shown her what it was to live....

And then this thing had come--this awful, hideous thing that had stretched even her very life to the breaking point, and drained from it the wealth of sweetness to the uttermost drop.... She felt resentment, yes, and horror, and disgust. Yet there were other things, she knew, though she could not have told how she knew. There was something that was hidden--something unknown and unknowable....

Long, she thought, and earnestly--as she had thought so many, many times before--times without end.... At length she rose. Firm little chin was set; violet eyes were firm.

She said, slowly:

"I think I see your point, Nell. You're right.'

"And you'll divorce him?"

Kathryn shook her head.

"No," she replied softly, "I'll go to him."

Elinor started.

"What!" she cried, untrustful of her own ears.

"I have failed in my duty; you have shown me wherein I have failed. I'll go to him."

Elinor caught her hand.

"Kate!" she pleaded. "Kate, dear, listen to me! I haven't shown you your duty if that's what you consider your duty.... I'll tell you something that you haven't thought of.... Muriel."

In almost a gasp, her sister cried:

"Muriel! ... Muriel!"

"Can you take her with you?" demanded Elinor.

Kathryn shook her head.

"No," she replied. "Of course not. I shall leave her here, with you."

Her sister shook her head.

"Do you see?" she queried. "Can you go to him, and live with him, as wife?" Kathryn made no answer. Again Elinor shook her head, gently. "Don't you understand," she asked. "It's compromise on compromise-- hedging on hedging. Can't you see how impossible it all is? ... how utterly impossible?"

Torn of anguish, of inability to solve the problems that God had laid before her, Kathryn turned beseeching eyes to her sister.

"But what shall I do, Nell?" she asked, beseechingly. "What can I do.... Wasn't it hard enough, even that way?"

Elinor replied, gently:

"Too hard. I want to make it easier. I want you to leave him irrevocably. Then you can forget him; but not until then."

Kathryn was silent.

"What does Tom say?" she asked, at length. She had learned to depend much upon the big-bodied, big-hearted, big-minded friend of late.

"I haven't asked him," returned her sister. "But I will, now."

She rose, quickly, and went to the rose-strewn arbor-way. She could see Blake, out upon the broad lawn, playing with the child that he loved, boyish, natural, whole-souled, with all the enthusiasm unspoiled that God gives not to many who are grown.

"Tom!" she called.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Will you come here, to us, for a moment? Let Muriel stay with Mawkins."

"Right, oh!" he called, cheerily. In another moment he stood in the opening of the arbor, hair rumpled, clothing awry.

"Well?" he asked, inquiringly.

Elinor began, slowly:

"Tom, Kate and I have been talking, seriously. I want her to leave John Schuyler--legally leave him--leave him for all time. It's the only fair-- the only right--thing to do. I'm not going to argue. It is all sufficiently plain. She can't live with him; and yet, as long as she is his wife, she has no right to be away from him. And she can never go to him."

"She wants your opinion, Tom," she went on. "She's always respected your judgment more than mine--more than that of anyone save the man upon whom she may never depend again."

Kathryn had wandered to where the white blooms clustered thickest. She was thinking--thinking deeply, bitterly. Elinor drew closer to Blake.

"I like you, Tom," she said, softly. "You're a good man--a decent man--a clean man--and they're mighty scarce these days.... All that Kate may have owed to John Schuyler, she long since paid to the last sad penny.... All your life you have been paying the things that you did not owe.... There is happiness, somewhere; a happiness that can be found." She thrust out her hand. "Tell her what to do," she said. "Tell her the right thing to do--the thing that should be done." And she turned on her heel, and went away.

For a long, long time Blake stood motionless. Of that which was going on within his soul, no one might know. The expression of his face remained the same, and of his body. Only his hands clenched, and unclenched, and clenched again. It was a difficult position in which he found himself-- how difficult only he might know. There lay before him a vast, spreading vista of golden possibility--a possibility of which he had never dared to think--even to dream. Possibly it were but a possibility--and yet surely it was that. A word from him would so make it. That he knew. On the other hand--

For yet a longer time, he stood, hands clenching, unclenching, clenching.... Slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood, slender white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant whiteness.

She turned, a little. Violet eyes slowly lifted.... He looked into their depths.... His hands clenched, and unclenched more swiftly.

"Kate," he said, at length, slowly, very slowly, "do you want me to tell you what to do?"

She answered, with infinite weariness:

"I--I don't know, Tom.... I'm tired--so, so tired...." And then, abruptly: "Tell me.... Yes, tell me. What shall I do?"

She waited, deep eyes lifted, little head poised wearily upon white, rounded throat.

He answered, very slowly--with effort that even he could not conceal:

"Kate, do you remember that day in June, eight years ago, when you walked down the aisle of Old Trinity. Do you remember how the sun shone in at the windows, flecking the darkness of the old pews with golden motes? John Schuyler met you at the altar; and to him you said, 'For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.'"

Gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder, with great tenderness.

"Stick, Kate," he advised, softly. "Stick."

And that was all.