Part 3

Again he kissed the top of her head, and as she turned to resist him, he folded her slowly but closely into his arms. She yielded--their lips met, every nerve and fibre tense in the two young bodies.

“You were mine in heaven, darling, long before you came to earth. I lost you--and all these years I’ve been searching for you; now I’ve found you, never, never to let you go--mine--you must be mine.”

“Oh, Jack, how can I ever look at Walter again?” sobbed Betty, tearing herself away. “I can never make my peace with God and him,” she said brokenly. “I shall always be afraid in the day lest my actions betray my guilt, and at night I shall be afraid to sleep for fear some self-accusing word may escape my lips.”

“It would be cruel for me to subject you to such misery,” said Jack, leading her to a comfortable couch, which stood before a large open fire. “Come with me--come until we can arrange to be each other’s?”

“Leave--leave Walter?” she asked, as if half dazed. The words seemed crude--unreal, if she had suddenly awakened from a dream whose content was even now vague and fast fading into the subconscious.

“Come, darling, we’ll solve it later,” said Jack, holding her closer in his arms. “My little boy is so frightened now.”

His words and movements indicated possession. She was now the ruling passion of his life----.

* * * * *

It was with great trepidation that Betty awaited the return of Walter; she still had time to rectify her wrongdoing and send Jack away forever. This action was in her power and she was fully conscious of its importance. And her chief thought was of the sorrow she was about to bring upon the man who had been father, husband and brother all in one--who had lived but to please her; surely she was listening to the mad promptings of a wild impulse. Then she strove to persuade herself that Walter was phlegmatic and plain, a person whose goodness consisted rather in the avoidance than the overcoming of temptation.

“Direct me, God, to the right choice,” said she aloud.

Jack held her at arm’s length and austerely scanned her features.

“Dearest, you know you love me--the joy of this hour is proof enough: these thrills are the thrills of love; the first that have ever come to you or to me. Come, dear, come with me. Do not leave my soul in anguish--my heart famished. Darling, come and I shall protect you always. Answer, my own--answer yes,” whispered Jack, as his lips repeatedly pressed warm kisses to hers--and the answer came slowly and softly--“Yes, I’ll come.”

“When? Now?”

“No, I must make it easy for Walter first. I must arrange things and it will take a long while.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, sweetheart, and even if my body be exiled from you forever my heart will still be yours.”

* * * * *

An epidemic of “flu” had spread over the country--multitudes were sick and dying. Many of the doctors had not returned from the war and the few left were inadequate in numbers to cope with the dreaded malady.

Dr. Baker looked up at his wife from the couch where he had fallen from exhaustion.

“Dear,” said she, “there is another desperate case in the Valley. Do you think you can possibly go out tonight? They are waiting at the ’phone for your answer.”

“Tonight! Not possible, Jane, I’m so tired I can scarcely walk another step. Tell them to try Johnson; they will just about catch him. Who is ill?” he asked, as his wife was leaving the room.

“Mr. Gary--Walter Gary.”

“Walter Gary?” repeated Dr. Baker, sitting upright.

“Yes.”

“Ask how long he has been ill.”

Mrs. Baker returned almost immediately. “It’s Mrs. Gary at the ’phone; she is begging you to come. She says her husband has just been taken, but he seems desperately ill.”

The doctor pulled himself to his feet.

“He’s just about the age and the build of the ones who go quickest.”

“Mrs. Gary said she would send for you at once if you would come,” continued his wife.

“Never mind, tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”

It was the latter part of the following week. Dr. Baker entered his home at midnight as noiselessly as possible, but his wife was waiting for him and accosted him from the top of the stairs.

“Is he better, Dick?”

“No, Jane, I’m afraid we’re going to lose him after all. I came home only to snatch a wink of sleep and shall be returning directly.”

“And you really think he is going to die?” asked Mrs. Baker, as she took her husband’s bag from him.

“It looks that way,” answered the Doctor, resignedly. He had become more or less callous to sickness and death, but this case, as he described it, was a very appealing one. He regarded young Gary as the combination of all that went to make a fine citizen, husband, and son, and to be cut down when he hadn’t well begun to live was more than he could understand.

“Perhaps he’ll pull through yet,” said Mrs. Baker, but the doctor only shook his head as he wearily stretched himself out on his bed for a short rest.

When he entered the sick room the next morning the blinds were drawn low to keep out the glare of the bright morning sun. Two figures in white moved noiselessly about the room. He seated himself beside the bed and gravely regarded his patient. There were two tanks of oxygen, basins, towels, and a few dishes here and there, and fumes of a disinfectant were plainly detectable as one crossed the threshold. All went to make up an atmosphere wherein a very ill or dying patient lay.

Betty stood opposite the doctor, her eyes sunken and her face white and drawn; with one hand she held pitifully to Walter, while the other clutched convulsively at her throat.

“Dr. Baker, do something more--for God’s sake do something for him,” she pleaded, “Walter--Walter,” she called softly, but earnestly. Then she threw back her head in despair and prayed ardently to God to save her husband.

“Save him, dear God. Do as you will with me, but save him.” She ended in a husky voice.

The realization of her profound love for her husband thrust itself upon her very forcibly in these hours when his life hung by a thread.

“All has been done that human hands can do, dear girl,” spoke the doctor quietly beside her.

Walter slowly opened his eyes and said, “Baby--I’ll--be--waiting--for--you.” The breath came in short, quick gasps and the eyes closed for the last time. Betty called and called, but no answer came--the voice was hushed forever.

An hour later they carried her limp form from the room. On regaining consciousness she sat up in bed and called again, “Walter--I want to go back with Walter.”

“But you musn’t, Mrs. Gary,” soothingly spoke the nurse at her side. “You can’t do him any good, and you must not jeopardize your own life more than you already have.”

“I--I--want to go,” groaned Betty. “They will take him from me soon, forever. Oh, my darling, my darling.”

“Rest awhile, you’ve been through so much,” pleaded the nurse. “Think, dear, don’t you want to help rid the community of this dreadful disease? It’s spreading so wildly that we must all do our part to eliminate it.”

“No--no,” sobbed Betty, “I only want to go with him--with him--with him----.”

Two months passed. Betty, pale, thin and worn by sickness and grief, walked arm in arm with Aunt Martha through the paths of the old fashioned garden. One glimpse of the grief-stricken girl would leave in the mind a picture one could never forget. The large eyes looked out from depths much deeper than ever before; the ashy pale cheeks made a startling contrast to the dark eyes. The figure was thin almost to emaciation and the dress was simple and black. The mischievous expression was replaced by one of listlessness and altogether she looked like one who had but a slender hold on life.

“Marty, do you think Dr. Baker would allow me to ride Walter’s horse alone?”

“Not today, you’re not strong enough yet. I wrote Jack that you might be well enough to see him today. He is coming out on the early train.”

“I wish I didn’t have to.”

“He’ll cheer you up, dear. I’ve been looking forward to his visit. Walter liked him and you’ve put him off so often. Now let him come.”

“I would rather not see anyone,” responded Betty, her eyes filling with tears.

“But Jack has been so thoughtful--see him for me. You’ll feel better for having had a little company.”

Slow steps sounded on the gravel path. Betty darted a look like a frightened deer in the direction from which they came. Jack approached them between an aisle of poplars.

“Have I caught you unawares?” he asked jocularly, and his face showed plainly that he was startled at the changed appearance of Betty.

“Oh no,” answered Aunt Marty, “my girl has just been asking for a horse-back ride.”

“I wanted to ride Walter’s horse alone for a little while,” interposed Betty sadly.

“You are not strong enough to do that,” said Jack.

“But I’d like to.”

“Take care of her, Jack,” said Aunt Marty, indicating a seat at the far end of the garden. “I must go and see about my chickens--two of my prettiest white ones were killed by a train.”

“Mrs. Ames,” Jack called laughingly after her, “can’t you train chickens better than to have them stand on a railroad track?”

The figure of the patient little old lady disappeared among box woods.

“She didn’t hear me,” he added, turning to Betty.

“She has three hundred and they all seem to know her,” answered Betty, relieved for the moment to find something impersonal to talk of. “Would you like to see the new puppies? There are five of them, Frank says. I haven’t seen them myself yet.”

“No, dear girl. I want to see you and you only. Why have you avoided me, when you know my heart has been aching so badly? and that I love you so deeply?”

Betty rose slowly from the bench, waved Jack away with her hand, and was about to leave him. “Please, will you never, never breathe a word--of--love to me again,” she asked.

“What?”--asked Jack, “were you only playing with me, Betty?”

“No--before God, I knew not what I did or said.”

“Come, come, my little girl, you are weak and faint--I’m a brute to worry you. Let’s be friends now and sweethearts later.”

Betty shuddered at the mention of the word.

“No,” she answered, shaking with emotion--“never have I been your sweetheart, and my grief is that I never realized how truly I did love Walter. He was ever present, dependable, and true. I felt that I could put out my hand in the dark and he was always there to guide and help me, yet I shunned that hand, and deliberately planned to ruin him--to ruin him--just as if I had been his worst enemy. The things one is sure of are the things one casts aside, and I, like a venturesome child, reached for those that were forbidden.”

As she talked her breath came more evenly; the stricture around her heart relaxed, she leant back in the garden seat, as she felt her throat tighten and tears rising to her eyes. She could not keep them back; she was not strong enough. They fell and fell, and from time to time she brushed them away with her handkerchief.

“Then you’ve stopped--loving me--my little boy has stopped loving me,” Jack repeated mechanically.

“It was only an ephemeral love--can you forget it and me?” she asked, gently touching his arm. Like the balmy air of spring was the gentleness of her presence beside him, and, unrelenting as she was, it was enough that she was there.

“And you’ll never be mine?” Jack added, turning again to look into the eyes that held the world for him.

“No--I am married. My husband is dead, but I am married and always shall be. I was not true to him while I had him for my own, but the veil is lifted from my eyes and until we see each other again I am his. For God knows that I loved him.”

At these words a peaceful expression settled upon the pale face, and Jack saw and realized that whatever of shallowness her nature had contained had been consumed in the flame of her tragedy. The real Betty was before him, showing the honesty, the nobility, of her true spirit--depth had taken the place of shallowness. She had lost and suffered and this made her still dearer to him, and sacred. He felt the urgings of his better nature bidding him to forget self in the presence of this sorrowing woman. And he saw that his love could not be--that his relationship to her henceforth would have to be on a more unselfish plane.

They slowly retraced their steps through the aisle of poplars.

“May I still be to you what Walter should have liked me to be?” asked Jack tenderly, and the answer came distinctly, “Yes, his friend and mine.”

“THE WHITE PETAL”

There never lived another man so utterly unreliable as Albert Wilbur. If he promised to be at a certain place at a certain time one could count definitely on his absence. But I never thought he would overlook an appointment as important as that which he had made to meet me at his country house on the night of August 3, 1919.

The two Wilbur boys--John and his adopted brother, Albert--were from childhood my most intimate friends, and I often found it necessary to help Albert out of serious difficulties.

As a boy he was exceptionally handsome and promising, but the vices to which he succumbed in later years not only robbed him of his good qualities, but also brought upon his friends lasting sorrow; for when I last saw him his indulgence in depravities had nearly approached a continuous performance.

John, my real chum, was the embodiment of manhood--the only thing I had against him was that he married my childhood sweetheart. Her name was Ellen. My love for her was real, it was deep, and it was earnest. Let me say it was no passing fancy, for there had never been anything to approach it until now. However, I was not blind to John’s qualities, and was compelled to admit to myself on more than one occasion that in selecting a husband Ellen had only shown her usual good judgment.

Since this catastrophe in my life I had retired into myself, determined to live a life of single blessedness. I resolved to consign to oblivion this period of my existence--existence I say, because this word most nearly describes my life at this time. I first tried hard work as a means to aid me in my purpose. This helped, but did not entirely fulfill the essentials. I discovered that what I needed was a change, a new environment: so I pulled up stakes, hard as it was to leave my three friends--for their little girl was just eleven, and had become my closest companion--and spent the next seven years roaming about the world, finding my pleasures in nature, books, new scenes and old cathedrals.

I had heard regularly from the Wilburs since my departure, but my sudden return was due to the last letter--it was written by a friend of the family. She informed me of a fatal automobile accident in which both John and Ellen had lost their lives. In sequence to this was a telegram from Albert. On my arrival in New York more letters from him awaited me. It was at least a week, however, before I started South for my ultimate destination. I gathered all my belongings--for something told me I would not soon return--and prepared for a rapid departure.

The night was cold for mid-summer, and I remember distinctly how I drew my raincoat about me as I walked from the gate across the lawn to where a dim light glowed through the trees. I had dismissed the carriage which had brought me from the lonely station, as our business was of a somewhat secret nature, and so much had been exchanged between us in regard to it that I counted on finding my friend waiting. As I brushed through the mist-laden shrubbery, I thought how welcome would be the grasp of his hand after so many years of separation, and how quickly the warmth of his presence would dispel the strange uncanny loneliness which had crept upon me during my long ride through the woods, with never a sound except the gentle patter of water dropping from the trees and the slop--slop of the horse’s hoofs in the mud of the road.

So I was more than annoyed, in fact, I was hurt and disgusted when the decrepit old fellow who had always been a part of the Wilbur household informed me that “Mister Albert” had wired that he would not be there until the morning. “Very sorry,” the wire ran, “impossible to keep appointment with Constable. Make him comfortable for night. Will be on in morning. ‘For Constable: Do forgive me, old fellow, and make yourself at home. You have the place to yourself. Guarantee no ghosts.’”

“Small comfort,” I murmured to myself, not being able to repress a sneer--the note was so characteristic of its author.

“Very good, sir,” said the spectre beside me, whose presence I had almost forgotten. “I have moved your bed into the library here, where there is an open fire. You’ll find whiskey and soda right on the table, and I’ll put your bag close by the bed. Anything else you’d like, sir?”

“No thanks, Watkins,” I said, recovering the old fellow’s name from some recess in my memory. “I shall do very well, no doubt. But I’m disappointed.”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” and with these words Watkins disappeared.

“I’ll be damned,” I muttered. “This is getting positively spooky.”

I looked down--a big mastiff pup, overgrown and generally loppy in appearance, evidently thinking himself addressed, arose slowly from the hearth rug and came towards me, wagging the entire rear end of his body in a gesture which seemed exaggerated at the time, though I have no doubt now that even that did not convey the real extent of his pleasure in having company.

“Well, old man,” I said, stroking his head, “it doesn’t seem so bad here, after all. Here’s looking at you,” and I sipped the glass of warming spirits that Watkins had poured for me. After the last drop had been swallowed I seemed to remember that Watkins had cast some apprehensive glances at this very glass before he left the room.

“Nonsense,” said I to myself, “it’s all imagination,” and I continued, “with a good fire, a good drink, and a good book, what more does man want, unless it be a dog? That’s where you come in, old chap,” and I reached down and patted him. “Let’s see what there is to read,” I continued, still addressing the dog for the sake of company.

Albert had one peculiar trait; he always took an austere pride in being a man of few books, and those such as no one else could understand. So I found little help in the scattered but much-thumbed volumes lying in odd corners about the room. Psychology, metaphysics, and a few seventeenth century works on alchemy made up the entire collection.

I was beginning to feel sleepy, so I chose the book with the largest print, and sat down before the blazing fire to while away the hours until slumber overtook me.

The inevitable happened: I fell asleep in about five minutes.

I awoke with a feeling of suffocation. The clock on the mantle was chiming twelve, and I counted the strokes, which seemed to be a continuation of something I had been dreaming. Ten, eleven, twelve, I said aloud dreamily, like a child repeating a lesson. And then a strange thing happened. The clock struck, most distinctly, thirteen, and with a whirring sound stopped dead, the second hand resting exactly in line with the hands of the dial, which pointed to midnight.

“Are we asleep or awake, old man?” I again addressed the dog, trying to pass the thing off as a joke, and stretched out my hand to pat his head. A low growl startled me. The pup was standing erect, every muscle tense, his ears cocked forward, and the hair on the back of his neck bristling. The growl continued for a moment; then a change gradually came over him. The growls became a kind of pitiful whine, his head fell with drooping ears, his tail dropped between his legs, and trembling in every limb he crept to my feet and reached his nose up between my knees, while in his poor dumb eyes, pleading with me as only a dog’s eyes can plead, were registered the terror that I suddenly realized I was sharing with him. Strange unspoken communion of man and beast.

At that moment the seeming impenetrable silence of the night was rent, like a flash of lightning across a pitch-black sky, by a woman’s shriek. No, not a shriek, but a wail, a piercing appeal that nothing could describe. It had all the lure of the Lorelei and the despair of the Siren spurned, and yet all the sweet timbre of a child’s instinctive call to a sleeping mother. Then silence, the absolute and unbounded silence of the grave.

Quivering in every nerve, scarcely able to stand as it seemed at the time, yet impelled by some unknown force, I found myself running through strange passages, wrestling with the darkness, on and on, guided I know not how straight to her whose appeal had come to me--to me of all the people in the world--this night of August 3, sharp on the stroke of--thirteen! Then I was battling with some unknown, unseen opponent, lunging forward wildly, whirling, heaving; and finally with a terrific wrench, which exhausted the last ounce of strength in my body, I threw off my foe, threw him off with such force that he seemed to be shattered in the darkness beyond, and the air that I drew into my lungs in gasping gulps was pure of the evil of his breath.

Silence again, as I stood leaning against the balustrade trying to regain my senses. What had happened; was it all a bad dream? Then slowly I became conscious of a weight against my knees, of two clinging arms about my waist, of a sweet perfume like that of an old-fashioned garden in the dewy twilight; and a soft childlike voice was saying:

“O, please, what is it; what has happened, oh, please----”

The soft voice trailed off into a sob, and the arms tightened about me. I reached down and picked her up, a clinging trembling little form, its gentle curves rounding into womanhood. How she clung to me, poor frightened little soul, her arms tight about me and her cold little face buried against my neck. Then, as I made my way back to the library, she rested quietly, like a white petal blown from the garden and storm-tossed, but at last at peace. I could feel her warm tears and the fresh moist little spot that was her mouth. She seemed to be murmuring something; or did her lips move gently in a kiss?

I slowly regained my senses, which seemed to be numbed and deadened but a short time before. My body felt as though pins and needles were sticking me. My breath came more evenly. I held her lithe, supple little form at arm’s length and scanned the features carefully. I could not believe my eyes--was it little Ellen? Could it really be? Yes, the features were almost the exact reproduction of her mother’s. The straight nose, the well formed lips and the appealing grey eyes, fringed with straight, long lashes--all of these I took in at a glance. I was still too weak to drag ourselves far from the assailant, but her weak little voice whispered, “Run, Don Compie! Run!” The frightened look in her eyes and the commanding appeal of the words served to restore my senses.

Was it a blow from the opponent that had deadened me or was it the whiskey and soda that had done the trick? It was the dose, because I remembered with what difficulty I aroused myself from the drowsy sleep that was about to overtake me. I held Ellen closer to me and made off as fast as my clumsy feet would move. We were well into the cold woods, through which I had ridden but a few hours before, when she said, “I can walk now, please put me down.” I slid her gently to her feet, she slipped her hand into mine, and we fled as though savages were pursuing us. As we ran she murmured between breaths, “Watkins told me he had seen Uncle Albert put something in the whiskey that was on the table. I was trying to reach you when he seized me. He has kept me a prisoner since I refused to marry him. Today is my birthday and the day you were to become my guardian.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but he wrote me you had disappeared--had eloped, been kidnapped or something.”