Chapter 9

"I'm going to feed you now," laughed Ralph, with a swift change of mood, "and when I come to see you to-morrow, I'm going to bring you a book."

"What kind of a hook?" asked Araminta, between spoonfuls.

"A novel--a really, truly novel."

"You mustn't!" she cried, frightened again. "You get burned if you read novels."

"Some of them are pretty hot stuff, I'll admit," returned Ralph, missing her meaning, "but, of course, I wouldn't give you that kind. What sort of stories do you like best?"

"Daniel in the lions' den and about the ark. I've read all the Bible twice to Aunt Hitty while she sewed, and most of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, too. Don't ask me to read a novel, for I can't. It would be wicked."

"All right--we won't call it a novel. It'll be just a story book. It isn't wrong to read stories, is it?"

"No-o," said Araminta, doubtfully. "Aunt Hitty never said it was."

"I wouldn't have you do anything wrong, Araminta--you know that. Good-bye, now, until to-morrow."

Beset by strange emotions, Doctor Ralph Dexter went home. Finding that the carriage was not in use, he set forth alone upon his feline quest, reflecting that Araminta herself was not much more than a little grey kitten. Everywhere he went, he was regarded with suspicion. People denied the possession of cats, even while cats were mewing in defiance of the assertion. Bribes were offered, and sternly refused.

At last, ten miles from home, he found a maltese kitten its owner was willing to part with, in consideration of three dollars and a solemn promise that the cat was not to be hurt.

"It's for a little girl who is ill," he said. "I've promised her a kitten."

"So your father's often said," responded the woman, "but someway, I believe you."

On the way home, he pondered long before the hideous import of it came to him. All at once, he knew.

XIII

The River Comes into its Own

"Father," asked Ralph, "who is Evelina Grey?"

Anthony Dexter started from his chair as though he had heard a pistol shot, then settled back, forcing his features into mask-like calmness. He waited a moment before speaking.

"I don't know," he answered, trying to make his voice even, "Why?"

"She lives in the house with my one patient," explained Ralph; "up on the hill, you know. She's a frail, ghostly little woman in black, and she always wears a thick white veil."

"That's her privilege, isn't it?" queried Anthony Dexter. He had gained control of himself, now, and spoke almost as usual.

"Of course I didn't ask any questions," continued Ralph, thoughtfully, "but, obviously, the only reason for her wearing it is some terrible disfigurement. So much is surgically possible in these days that I thought something might be done for her. Has she never consulted you about it, Father?"

The man laughed--a hollow, mirthless laugh. "No," he said; "she hasn't." Then he laughed once more--in a way that jarred upon his son.

Ralph paced back and forth across the room, his hands in his pockets. "Father," he began, at length, "it may be because I'm young, but I hold before me, very strongly, the ideals of our profession. It seems a very beautiful and wonderful life that is opening before me--always to help, to give, to heal. I--I feel as though I had been dedicated to some sacred calling--some lifelong service. And service means brotherhood."

"You'll get over that," returned Anthony Dexter, shortly, yet not without a certain secret admiration. "When you've had to engage a lawyer to collect your modest wages for your uplifting work, the healed not being sufficiently grateful to pay the healer, and when you've gone ten miles in the dead of Winter, at midnight, to take a pin out of a squalling infant's back, why, you may change your mind."

"If the healed aren't grateful," observed Ralph, thoughtfully, "it must be in some way my fault, or else they haven't fully understood. And I'd go ten miles to take a pin out of a baby's back--yes, I'm sure I would."

Anthony Dexter's face softened, almost imperceptibly. "It's youth," he said, "and youth is a fault we all get over soon enough, Heaven knows. When you're forty, you'll see that the whole thing is a matter of business and that, in the last analysis, we're working against Nature's laws. We endeavour to prolong the lives of the unfit, when only the fittest should survive."

"That makes me think of something else," continued Ralph, in a low tone. "Yesterday, I canvassed the township to get a cat for Araminta--the poor child never had a kitten. Nobody would let me have one till I got far away from home, and, even then, it was difficult. They thought I wanted it for--for the laboratory," he concluded, almost in a whisper.

"Yes?" returned Doctor Dexter, with a rising inflection. "I could have told you that the cat and dog supply was somewhat depleted hereabouts--through my own experiments."

"Father!" cried Ralph, his face eloquent with reproach.

Laughing, yet secretly ashamed, Anthony Dexter began to speak. "Surely, Ralph," he said, "you're not so womanish as that. If I'd known they taught such stuff as that at my old Alma Mater, I'd have sent you somewhere else. Who's doing it? What old maid have they added to their faculty?"

"Oh, I know, Father," interrupted Ralph, waiving discussion. "I've heard all the arguments, but, unfortunately, I have a heart. I don't know by what right we assume that human life is more precious than animal life; by what right we torture and murder the fit in order to prolong the lives of the unfit, even if direct evidence were obtainable in every case, which it isn't. Anyhow, I can't do it, I never have done it, and I never will. I recognise your individual right to shape your life in accordance with the dictates of your own conscience, but, because I'm your son, I can't help being ashamed. A man capable of torturing an animal, no matter for what purpose, is also capable of torturing a fellow human being, for purposes of his own."

Anthony Dexter's face suddenly blanched with anger, then grew livid. "You--" he began, hotly.

"Don't, Father," interrupted Ralph. "We'll not have any words. We'll not let a difference of opinion on any subject keep us from being friends. Perhaps it's because I'm young, as you say, but, all the time I was at college, I felt that I had something to lean on, some standard to shape myself to. Mother died so soon after I was born that it is almost as if I had not had a mother. I haven't even a childish memory of her, and, perhaps for that reason, you meant more to me than the other fellows' fathers did to them.

"When I was tempted to any wrongdoing, the thought of you always held me back. 'Father wouldn't do it,' I said to myself. 'Father always does the square thing, and I'm his son.' I remembered that our name means 'right.' So I never did it."

"And I suppose, now," commented Anthony Dexter, with assumed sarcasm, "your idol has fallen?"

"Not fallen, Father. Don't say that. You have the same right to your opinions that I have, but it isn't square to cut up an animal alive, just because you're the stronger and there's no law to prevent you. You know it isn't square!"

In the accusing silence, Ralph left the room, and was shortly on his way uphill, with Araminta's promised cat mewing in his coat pocket.

The grim, sardonic humour of the situation appealed strongly to Doctor Dexter. "To think," he said to himself, "that only last night, that identical cat was observed as a fresh and promising specimen, providentially sent to me in the hour of need. And if I hadn't wanted Ralph to help me, Araminta's pet would at this moment have been on the laboratory table, having its heart studied--in action."

Repeatedly, he strove to find justification for a pursuit which his human instinct told him had no justification. His reason was fully adequate, but something else failed at the crucial point. He felt definitely uncomfortable and wished that Ralph might have avoided the subject. It was none of his business, anyway. But then, Ralph himself had admitted that.

His experiments were nearly completed along the line in which he had been working. In deference to a local sentiment which he felt to be extremely narrow and dwarfing, he had done his work secretly. He had kept the door of the laboratory locked and the key in his pocket. All the doors and windows had been closely barred. When his subjects had given out under the heavy physical strain, he had buried the pitiful little bodies himself.

He had counted, rather too surely, on the deafness of his old housekeeper, and had also heavily discounted her personal interest in his pursuits and her tendency to gossip. Yet, through this single channel had been disseminated information and conjecture which made it difficult for Ralph to buy a pet for Araminta.

Anthony Dexter shuddered at his narrow escape. Suppose Araminta's cat had been sacrificed, and he had been obliged to tell Ralph? One more experiment was absolutely necessary. He was nearly satisfied, but not quite. It would be awkward to have Ralph make any unpleasant discoveries, and he could not very well keep him out of the laboratory, now, without arousing his suspicion. Very possibly, a man who would torture an animal would also torture a human being, but he was unwilling to hurt Ralph. Consequently, there was a flaw in the logic--the boy's reasoning was faulty, unless this might be the exception which proved the rule.

Who was Evelina Grey? He wondered how Ralph had come to ask the question. Suppose he had told him that Evelina Grey was the name of a woman who haunted him, night and day! In her black gown and with her burned face heavily veiled, she was seldom out of his mental sight.

All through the past twenty-five years, he had continually told himself that he had forgotten. When the accusing thought presented itself, he had invariably pushed it aside, and compelled it to give way to another. In this way, he had acquired an emotional control for which he, personally, had great admiration, not observing that his admiration of himself was an emotion, and, at that, less creditable than some others might have been.

Man walls up a river, and commands it to do his bidding. Outwardly, the river assents to the arrangement, yielding to it with a readiness which, in itself, is suspicious, but man, rapt in contemplation of his own skill, sees little else. By night and by day the river leans heavily against the dam. Tiny, sharp currents, like fingers, tear constantly at the structure, working always underneath. Hidden and undreamed-of eddies burrow beneath the dam; little river animals undermine it, ever so slightly, with tooth and claw.

At last an imperceptible opening is made. Streams rush down from the mountain to join the river; even raindrops lend their individually insignificant aid. All the forces of nature are subtly arrayed against the obstruction in the river channel. Suddenly, with the thunder of pent-up waters at last unleashed, the dam breaks, and the structures placed in the path by complacent and self-satisfied man are swept on to the sea like so much kindling-wood. The river, at last, has come into its own,

A feeling, long controlled, must eventually break its bonds. Forbidden expression, and not spent by expression, it accumulates force. When the dam breaks, the flood is more destructive than the steady, normal current ever could have been. Having denied himself remorse, and having refused to meet the fact of his own cowardice, Anthony Dexter was now face to face with the inevitable catastrophe.

He told himself that Ralph's coming had begun it, but, in his heart, he knew that it was that veiled and ghostly figure standing at twilight in the wrecked garden. He had seen it again on the road, where hallucination was less likely, if not altogether impossible. Then the cold and sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls had been laid at his door--the pearls which had come first from the depths of the sea, and then from the depths of his love. His love had given up its dead as the sea does, maimed past all recognition.

The barrier had been so undermined that on the night of Ralph's return he had been on the point of telling Thorpe everything--indeed, nothing but Ralph's swift entrance had stopped his impassioned speech. Was he so weak that only a slight accident had kept him from utter self-betrayal, after twenty-five years of magnificent control? Anthony Dexter liked that word "magnificent" as it came into his thoughts in connection with himself.

"Father wouldn't do it. Father always does the square thing, and I'm his son." Ralph's words returned with a pang unbearably keen. Had Father always done the square thing, or had Father been a coward, a despicable shirk? And what if Ralph should some day come to know?

The man shuddered at the thought of the boy's face--if he knew. Those clear, honest eyes would pierce him through and through, because "Father always does the square thing."

Remorsely, the need of confession surged upon him. There was no confessional in his church--he even had no church. Yet Thorpe was his friend. What would Thorpe tell him to do?

Then Anthony Dexter laughed, for Thorpe had unconsciously told him what to do--and he was spared the confession. As though written in letters of fire, the words came back:

_The honour of the spoken word still holds him. He asked her to marry him, and she consented. He was never released from his promise--did not even ask for it. He slunk away like a cur. In the sight of God he is hound to her by his own word still. He should go to her and either fulfil his promise, or ask for release. The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only atonement he could make_.

Had Evelina come back to demand atonement? Was this why the vision of her confronted him everywhere? She waited for him on the road in daylight, mocked him from the shadows, darted to meet him from every tree. She followed him on the long and lonely ways he took to escape her, and, as he walked, her step chimed in with his.

In darkness, Anthony Dexter feared to turn suddenly, lest he see that black, veiled figure at his heels. She stood aside on the stairs to let him pass her, entered the carriage with him and sat opposite, her veiled face averted. She stood with him beside the sick-bed, listened, with him, to the heart-beats when he used the stethoscope, waited while he counted the pulse and measured the respiration.

Always disapprovingly, she stood in the background of his consciousness. When he wrote a prescription, his pencil seemed to catch on the white chiffon which veiled the paper he was using. At night, she stood beside his bed, waiting. In his sleep, most often secured in these days by drugs, she steadfastly and unfailingly came. She spoke no word; she simply followed him, veiled--and the phantom presence was driving him mad. He admitted it now.

And "Father always does the square thing." Very well, what was the square thing? If Father always does it, he will do it now. What is it?

Anthony Dexter did not know that he asked the question aloud. From the silence vibrated the answer in Thorpe's low, resonant tones:

_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . he was never released . . . he slunk away like a cur . . . in the sight of God he is bound to her by his own word still_.

Bound to her! In every fibre of his being he felt the bitter truth. He was bound to her--had been bound for twenty-five years--was bound now. And "Father always does the square thing."

Once in a man's life, perhaps, he sees himself as he is. In a blinding flash of insight, he saw what he must do. Confession must be made, but not to any pallid priest in a confessional, not to Thorpe, nor to Ralph, but to Evelina, herself.

_He should go to her and either fulfil his promise, or ask for release. The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only atonement he could make_.

Then again, still in Thorpe's voice:

_If the woman is here and you can find your friend, we may help him to wash the stain of cowardice off his soul_.

"The stain is deep," muttered Anthony Dexter. "God knows it is deep."

Once again came Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him, now, out of the vibrant silence:

_Sometimes I think there is no sin but shirking. I can excuse a liar, I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no_!

"Father always does the square thing."

Evidently, Ralph would like to have his father bring him a stepmother--a woman whose face had been destroyed by fire--and place her at the head of his table, veiled or not, as Ralph chose. Terribly burned, hopelessly disfigured, she must live with them always--because she had saved him from the same thing, if she had not actually saved his life.

The walls of the room swayed, the furniture moved dizzily, the floor undulated. Anthony Dexter reeled and fell--in a dead faint.

"Are you all right now, Father?" It was Ralph's voice, anxious, yet cheery. "Who'd have thought I'd get another patient so soon!"

Doctor Dexter sat up and rubbed his eyes. Memory returned slowly; strength more slowly still.

"Can't have my Father fainting all over the place without a permit," resumed Ralph. "You've been doing too much. I take the night work from this time on."

The day wore into late afternoon. Doctor Dexter lay on the couch in the library, the phantom Evelina persistently at his side. His body had failed, but his mind still fought, feebly.

"There is no one here," he said aloud. "I am all alone. I can see nothing because there is nothing here."

Was it fancy, or did the veiled woman convey the impression that her burned lips distorted themselves yet further by a smile?

At dusk, there was a call. Ralph received from his father a full history of the case, with suggestions for treatment in either of two changes that might possibly have taken place, and drove away.

The loneliness was keen. The empty house, shorne of Ralph's sunny presence, was unbearable. A thousand memories surged to meet him; a thousand voices leaped from the stillness. Always, the veiled figure stood by him, mutely accusing him of shameful cowardice. Above and beyond all was Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him:

_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . he was never released . . . he slunk away like a cur . . . he is bound to her still . . . there is no sin but shirking_ . . .

Over and over again, the words rang through his consciousness. Then, like an afterclap of thunder:

_Father always does the square thing_!

The dam crashed, the barrier of years was broken, the obstructions were swept out to sea. Remorse and shame, no longer denied, overwhelmingly submerged his soul. He struggled up from the couch blindly, and went out--broken in body, crushed in spirit, yet triumphantly a man at last.

XIV

A Little Hour of Triumph

Miss Evelina sat alone in her parlour, which was now spotlessly clean. Araminta had had her supper, her bath, and her clean linen--there was nothing more to do until morning. The hard work had proved a blessing to Miss Evelina; her thoughts had been constantly forced away from herself. She had even learned to love Araminta with the protecting love which grows out of dependence, and, at the same time, she felt herself stronger; better fitted, as it were, to cope with her own grief.

Since coming back to her old home, her thought and feeling had been endlessly and painfully confused. She sat in her low rocker with her veil thrown back, and endeavoured to analyse herself and her surroundings, to see, if she might, whither she was being led. She was most assuredly being led, for she had not come willingly, nor remained willingly; she had been hurt here as she had not been hurt since the very first, and yet, if a dead heart can be glad of anything, she was glad she had come. Upon the far horizon of her future, she dimly saw change.

She had that particular sort of peace which comes from the knowledge that the worst is over; that nothing remains. The last drop of humiliation had been poured from her cup the day she met Anthony Dexter on the road and had been splashed with mud from his wheels as he drove by. It was inconceivable that there should be more.

Dusk came and the west gleamed faintly. The afterglow merged into the first night and at star-break, Venus blazed superbly on high, sending out rays mystically prismatic, as from some enchanted lamp. "Our star," Anthony Dexter had been wont to call it, as they watched for it in the scented dusk. For him, perhaps, it had been indeed the love-star, but she had followed it, with breaking heart, into the quicksands.

To shut out the sight of it, Miss Evelina closed the blinds and lighted a candle, then sat down again, to think.

There was a dull, uncertain rap at the door. Doctor Ralph, possibly--he had sometimes come in the evening,--or else Miss Hitty, with some delicacy for Araminta's breakfast.

Drawing down her veil, she went to the door and opened it, thinking, as she did so, that lives were often wrecked or altered by the opening or closing of a door.

Anthony Dexter brushed past her and strode into the parlour. Through her veil, she would scarcely have recognised him--he was so changed. Upon the instant, there was a transformation in herself. The suffering, broken-hearted woman was strangely pushed aside--she could come again, but she must step aside now. In her place arose a veiled vengeance, emotionless, keen, watchful; furtively searching for the place to strike.

"Evelina," began the man, without preliminary, "I have come back. I have come to tell you that I am a coward--a shirk."

Miss Evelina laughed quietly in a way that stung him. "Yes?" she said, politely. "I knew that. You need not have troubled to come and tell me."

He winced. "Don't," he muttered. "If you knew how I have suffered!"

"I have suffered myself," she returned, coldly, wondering at her own composure. She marvelled that she could speak at all.

"Twenty-five years ago," he continued in a parrot-like tone, "I asked you to marry me, and you consented. I have never been released from my promise--I did not even ask to be. I slunk away like a cur. The honour of the spoken word still holds me. The tardy fulfilment of my promise is the only atonement I can make."

The candle-light shone on his iron-grey hair, thinning at the temples; touched into bold relief every line of his face.

"Twenty-five years ago," said Evelina, in a voice curiously low and distinct, "you asked me to marry you, and I consented. You have never been released from your promise--you did not even ask to be." The silence was vibrant; literally tense with emotion. Out of it leaped, with passionate pride: "I release you now!"

"No!" he cried. "I have come to fulfil my promise--to atone, if atonement can be made!"

"Do you call your belated charity atonement? Twenty-five years ago, I saved you from death--or worse. One of us had to be burned, and it was I, instead of you. I chose it, not deliberately, but instinctively, because I loved you. When you came to the hospital, after three days----"

"I was ill," he interrupted. "The gas----"

"You were told," she went on, her voice dominating his, "that I had been so badly burned that I would be disfigured for life. That was enough for you. You never asked to see me, never tried in any way to help me, never sent by a messenger a word of thanks for your cowardly life, never even waited to be sure it was not a mistake. You simply went away."

"There was no mistake," he muttered, helplessly. "I made sure."

He turned his eyes away from her miserably. Through his mind came detached fragments of speech. _The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . Father always does the square thing_ . . .