Part 19

Hayward held Helen in his arms while he inventoried the contents in the uncertain light, but at her first movement to free herself from his embrace he gently seated her on the little table and stood beside her at the end of it. She was faint with horror and fright and, closing her eyes, sank back against the wall for support: while the wind-driven torrent howled and surged past the door and the fierce but unspeaking lightning lit up the awful night.... Helen was getting some sort of grip on her nerves again when, turning toward the door, in the pallid light she had a vision of the ghastly face lying in the road below them. She shuddered--the faintness was overmastering--and toppled unconscious against her husband's arm. He caught her tenderly, not knowing she had lost consciousness, and, putting his arm around her, drew her softly and closely to himself.

For a long time he stood thus in silence, fearing that speech might break the spell. At last he spoke to her, but she did not answer. He ascribed her silence to fright, and with gentle and reassuring words essayed to compose her fears. He took note of her failure to speak to him: but she was submissive to his caresses, and he was well content with that. At her non-resistance he became more affectionate in his tendernesses, and was lost in the ecstasy of holding her to his heart.

Gone--far removed--from him was the thought of the storm-riven night. An end, he exulted, to nightmares in which she was fleeing from him. His wife was in his arms at last! The silent modesty with which she had committed herself to him was eloquent of her heart's love and faithfulness:--and his pulses sang with joy despite the tragedy that had befallen.

The wind and rain were slackening, but the lightning played on. With a sigh and shiver Helen stirred, and pushed feebly away.

"Where am I? Where are we?" she asked confusedly.

"About two miles and a half from the Lake Drive," Hayward answered, "about four miles from home."

"But what are we doing here? How did we get here?"

Hayward started. In heaven's name, her mind was not unsettled!

"The wreck--I carried you in here out of the storm."

"Oh--yes,--now I remember," Helen said, leaning back against the wall and putting her hands before her eyes as if to shut out memory.

In a flash Hayward was in the clutch of the old terror.

"She did not know, then," he thought. "She was unconscious, and did not give herself to me." Again he was on the rack, all his doubts and fears and jealousies a-surge, but maddened and fired by the memory, the lingering perfume, of her smooth cheek and warm lips.

"How long must we stay here?" Helen asked, starting up.

"Until the storm is over, at the least. They may send after us when we do not arrive on time. I cannot leave you here, or I would go after help now."

"No! you must not leave me here! We will wait till help comes or until--I can go with you. Do you think it will be long?"

Hayward went to the little door and surveyed the heavens.

"Another storm seems to be headed this way," he said. "If that strikes us there's no telling when we will get away. We are perfectly safe here, however. This cabin is built back against the hill and there are no trees near enough to fall on us."

"Were you hurt?" asked Helen abruptly, for the first time thinking of the dangers they had gone through as dangers.

"Nothing worth reporting," said Hayward in order to allay her fears. It was a lie well told, for he had a decidedly caved-in feeling about his ribs.

"You saved my life again--this time at risk of your own. When the carriage was crushed I thought that I--oh, it is too horrible!" She trembled violently.

Hayward saw that he must divert her thoughts from this direful night. He was much desirous of discussing other matters anyway. After a silent minute he began.

"Your return was quite unexpected to--us," he said.

"Yes, and a very short visit I'm to make as it is. I leave again day after to-morrow morning."

She stopped and apparently did not care to say more of herself--or of her plans.... Hayward was of a different mind.

"You didn't say anything of this visit in your last letter," he ventured.

"No, I had not decided on it then." ... Silence again.

"Helen, why did you write me that letter?" Hayward squared himself for battle and fired the first shot.

"I only answered yours--your two letters, rather. You insisted on making your--demands, and I simply told you what I thought. You also attacked one of my friends, and I defended him."

Helen was not versed in the art of indirection or evasion. Hayward was very thankful for that. It made the issue clear, and made it quickly.

"As for your friend," said Hayward, "your defence of him is without knowledge--"

"As your attack upon him was without justice," Helen interrupted.

"I said he was a contemptible cad, and I stand ready to prove it. You may be the judge of it. He was my friend at college, and our relations were of such intimacy as I have told you about, and yet, knowing me full well, he refused to know me in Washington, or to shake hands with me, or to speak to me, even."

"Perhaps he did not remember you. Remember it has been five or six--"

"I'm telling you he did know me. He admitted it--in order that his affront might be unequivocal. I tell you he's a cad, a damnable cad, and I want you to cut him off your list. Promise me that you will have nothing more to do with him."

The man in his half-demand, half-plea, put out his arm toward her to reinforce his appeal with a caress, but his wife drew away from him and warded off his hand as she spoke to him.

"No," she cried, "I cannot believe it. There must be some explanation--I cannot do it--I'm to be one of his automobile party next Thursday.... Don't--don't!"

"What! May I not kiss you?"

"No, no. Not--not now."

"But you are my wife--I have the right to kiss you."

"You have no right," said Helen.

Hayward grew suddenly cold with passion.

"I have every right--more right than that contemptible Lodge has to put his arm around you in the dance!"

"He at least has my permission," Helen replied spiritedly. But she would not have provoked him perhaps if she had known of the fever rising in his blood for all these months.

"Your permission, has he! And I am to beg for rights that are mine--and be refused!" His voice rose in anger with the roar and rush of the new-coming storm.

"You are mine!" he screamed. "I forbid you to meet him again! No man shall take you from me! I love you--I love you---and I will kill any man who tries to rob me of you! Helen, Helen, tell me you are mine--mine now! Not that you will be mine when I win my commission, but that you are already mine--_mine now_!"

Helen turned away from him, terrified by his violence of speech. The man's every passion went wild as he read refusal in her movement. Only for a moment does she look away, however. In that instant she sees again the dead coachman, prone and ghastly as before, but with the end of that blazing wire lying against the back of his head, from which rises the vapour of burning flesh. Sickened with horror she turns to Hayward and reaches out her hand for his support. He clutches her passionately. His blood rushes to his heart in a flood--and then stands still.

"This is surrender," he thinks,--and his veins are aflame.

Helen is quiescent in his arms for a short space and suffers his caresses. Suddenly startled, she looks at his face. In a flash of light she sees it--distorted! With a shriek of terror she wildly tries to push him from her: but the demon of the blood of Guinea Gumbo is pitiless, and against the fury of it, as of the storm, she fights and cries--in vain.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

With his editorial duties and with the plans of his campaign for Mr. Killam's seat in the Senate, Evans Rutledge was as busy a man as Washington knew. However, he dropped his work long enough to attend upon Lola DeVale's marriage. He was no little surprised when Oliver Hazard asked him to stand by at his wedding. He was on friendly terms with the bride--and with Hazard, too, for that matter; but he did not know the strength and sincerity of Lola DeVale's friendship for him.

"We must have Mr. Rutledge," she had said to Hazard when they were choosing their attendants; "and he shall be paired with Elise. I have set my heart on that match, for if it fails I have been kissed for nothing."

"Certainly we'll have him if you wish. He's a great fellow, I think, and he'll be a winner all right, don't worry yourself. He'll win out on naked luck, for any man who can just stumble along and kiss you by mistake is evidently a special protege of the gods." ...

The score or more of young people in the bridal party met at Grace Church on the afternoon before the event to get the details of their marching and countermarching in order. Lola was there to overlook putting them through their paces, but she left the details of straightening out the chattering, rollicking bridesmaids and groomsmen to Elise and Hazard. Rutledge soon learned his role and stood to it like a schoolboy when he was ordered, but he spent most of the time in sympathetic talk with the bride-to-be.

That night when the other girls who filled the house were scattered to their rooms and Elise and Lola were snuggled up in bed, Lola put her arm around her friend and began to say what was on her mind.

"I think it's very rude to refuse to answer a civil question, don't you, Elise?"

Elise was thinking of something else, but she heard enough of what Lola said to answer "yes" in an absent-minded way.

"That would be so with any question. But if it was about a matter of importance the refusal to answer would be more than rude, it would be--exasperating, don't you think?"

"What are you talking about?" Elise asked.

"And if it were a matter of the very greatest importance," Lola continued, "and by every right and custom an answer of some sort was due, and one was flatly told there was _no answer_, then such unpardonable rudeness should be resented, and self-respect would _demand_ that the question be not repeated."

"Lola DeVale," said Elise, turning to face her, "in the name of sense, have you gone daffy?"

"I agree with Mr. Rutledge," said Lola in the same monotone, as she in turn faced away from Elise, "self-respect forbids."

"Here," exclaimed Elise, "turn back over here and say all that again."

"Haven't time," said Lola with a yawn. "I must be getting my beauty-sleep. Good night."

Elise was quiet half a minute.

"Of all the silly people!"--she stirred Lola up with a poke in the ribs--"when did he tell you that?"

"I'm not divulging any confidences," said Lola.

"And what, pray, are you divulging?" asked Elise.

"My opinion that a civil question demands an answer of some sort--a good round 'no,' if nothing else--not the dismissal one gives a telegraph messenger."

"There you go again---and I don't understand; but you said something of 'self-respect'?"

"I'm glad he has it. A man's not made for a woman to wipe her feet on, even if he does love her."

"For goodness sake, Lola, quit making riddles. Just what do you think you are talking about?"

"Do you mean to tell me," demanded Lola, turning toward her, "that Mr. Rutledge did not ask you to marry him and that you didn't tell him there was _no answer_,--that you didn't treat him with contempt, with indifference, with just about as much consideration as you would a clerk who gave you a hand-bill of a cut-price sale? There now!"

"So that's the cause of all this--this _self-respect_, the reason for all this religious silence of his lips--while his eyes work overtime? I thought it was becau--that it--that there was really something; and is _that_ all!" Elise laughed merrily.

"I think it's shameful, myself!" said Lola severely. "I glory in his resentment."

"I have never noticed any resentment, and--_I did not treat him so_," replied the quick-witted Elise combatively. Quietly her heart laughed on.

"You deny it?" asked Lola.

"Yes, I deny it. He did not ask me to marry him. He simply told me--quite abruptly--that he loved me, and, after some time, asked me for my answer. What was I to answer? When there is no question there can be no answer. So I told him there was _no answer_. If a man will insist upon an answer he must not be so stupid as to forget to put a question."

Elise chuckled inwardly as she constructed this specious defence. She was in very good humour with herself,--and with Lola.

"But promise me," she hurried on to say, "that you will not intimate to Mr. Rutledge that it is his stupidity that has swelled his bump of self-respect for these last four years."

Lola demurred to this form of statement: bless her, she was a loyal friend. But Elise insisted.

"Not a word to Mr. Rutledge! Let him discover his mistakes unaided. Promise me. _Promise_," she demanded.

Lola promised.

"Cross your heart and hope you may die," Elise added.

Lola laughingly went through these binding formalities.

"Now the goblins will get you if you ever tell him and besides that I would know it at once. If you do I'll send him packing for good and all."

Lola protested that she would leave Mr. Rutledge entirely to his own devices,--and she kept her promise.

Lola had insisted on retiring early for a good night's rest, but it was long after midnight before she and her school-day chum grew sleepy over their confidences. Along at the last Elise pressed her face down in the pillow beside Lola's cheek and whispered:

"Honey, if it wasn't very dark and our last night together I couldn't tell you; but do you know if Mr. Rutledge were to ask me to marry him to-morrow I would have to tell him there was no answer."

Lola lay still till she caught the meaning of this confession. Then she softly kissed Elise good-night.

"Let your heart decide, dearest," she said.

At the wedding breakfast next morning, and at the church at noon, Rutledge was bewildered by the softness, the gentleness of Elise's manner toward him. There was nothing of the cold brilliance, nor of the warm combativeness, nor of the lukewarm indifference of her moods for such a long time past. Like the breath of long forgotten summers, of one particular halcyon summer, was her simple-hearted friendliness on that day. He harked back by a conscious effort to keep in touch with his grievance, but it seemed to be eluding his grasp.

For a great part of five hours on the train returning to Washington he sat beside her and steadily forgot everything that had come to pass since the days when he first knew and loved this adorable girl. His resentment and his resolutions were toppling and falling, despite his efforts at reserve in his few scattering lucid intervals of "self-respect."

Elise, outrageously well-informed of the reasons and resources and weaknesses of his resistance, almost laughed outright at the ease with which she scattered his forces and at his spasmodic attempts to regather them. She recalled the rigour of her treatment of him, the contempt she had had for the quality of his love, the apparent heartless lack of appreciation of his championship of her name in the Smith affair: and she was of a mind to make amends. In making amends she tore Rutledge's resentment and "self-respect" to tatters, and set his love a-fire. She really did not intend to overdo it. She sincerely wished only to make amends.

At last he turned to her with a look which scared her. She saw that the last shred of his "self-respect" was gone, and that only the crowded car prevented a precipitate, outspoken surrender. She felt very generous toward that "self-respect" now that it was defeated. She did not care to humiliate it. She was also in a temper to be mischievous and a mite reckless. And, further, she was not ready to have Rutledge putting any questions. As the train was rolling under the shed at Washington she said to him in the very friendliest and most serious way:

"Mr. Rutledge, it seems that you are under the delusion that once upon a time you asked me a question which has never been answered. In order that I may not appear rude or unappreciative I will say that my answer to that question would have been 'no.'"

And she left him to think over that.

*CHAPTER XXX*

On the day that Congress convened after the Christmas holidays President Phillips sent to the Senate, among other nominations, that of John H. Graham to be a second lieutenant of cavalry.

Hayward had been for a long time unhappy, depressed, apprehensive of failure. That his name had not been among those submitted at the beginning of the session in December had almost assured his defeat.

All his attempts at communication with Helen since the night of the storm had been met with an accusing silence. Her pale face, which had not regained its colour for weeks, was always averted, and by no trick or chance, by no wild torrent of self-denunciation, nor heart-moving prayer for pardon, nor protestations of love, nor dumb humility of sorrow in his eyes or attitude, could she be brought to look upon him. Neither had she written a line in answer to all his letters of pleading and repentance. True, he had his fiery moments of self-assertion and desperate resolves, and they had fought self-revilings for possession of his soul in many an hour since that wild night, but he crushed them under heel within his heart, and ever wrote contritely to his wife.

For several days after his nomination went to the Senate he waited in hope to receive Helen's congratulations. It had meant so much to them. With a last remnant of hope he wrote to her of it. If that would not break the silence he was undone. At the end of the letter he added in most abject contrition:

"I would joyfully die to atone. My life awaits your command."

The silence was not broken.

* * * * *

Miss Lily Porter's eyes had not fallen on Hayward since his return from Hill-Top. When she saw in the papers that his nomination was before the Senate she hesitated not to write to him to come to see her. On his first night off, Hayward went.

If ever a man was pursued by a woman the White House footman was that man. He saw the game ahead of him before he had been five minutes within the door. A proposal was expected of him. Clearly, it was expected that evening. Hayward was in a frame of mind to welcome the diversion. He had no idea of making the proposal, of course, but he was careless enough of what should happen to him to be quite willing to give Miss Porter the worth of her trouble in the way of mild excitement.

Lily opened up the subject with her congratulations: and the game was on. Up and down, back and forth, round and round the field of conversation she chased the quick-tongued, nimble-witted young fellow in her effort to coax, persuade, lead, drive, push him into the net. The young man was entertaining, but elusive. He was gallant, admiring, soft-spoken, confiding--but there was no way of bringing him to book. The girl took another tack. She went to the piano and sang for him. She sang for him at first, many of the ballads and one thing and another that he formerly had delighted in. Then she sang to him. Hayward leaned against the piano and listened with a very lively appreciation. Music had a power for him where many other things would fail, and the music in Lily Porter's throat was enough to enthrall even though he were deaf to the song in her heart.

Henry Porter was caught by the real note in his daughter's voice as he passed the door, and, stopping where he could see as well as hear, he was enlightened by the tale her face was telling. He was mad all over in a minute, and he made short work of it.

"Git out of my house," he blurted out at Hayward as he stalked angrily into the midst of Lily's melodious love-making. "I tol' you once I didn' want any footman callin' on my daughter!"

"Oh, papa! What do you mean?" Lily cried, springing up from the piano.

"I mean git out when I say git out!"

"Wait a moment, Mr. Hayward," Lily called to the footman, who, chin in air, was leaving the room, truth to tell, no little relieved at this complete solution of what was fast becoming an embarrassing situation for him.

"No use to wait. Move on!" the father growled, placing himself across the door to prevent Lily's following her caller. Upon her attempt to push by him he caught her and shoved her into a chair. As the outer door closed with a very modest and well-mannered snap, he released his hold upon her arm. He was yet in a fury.

"So you've lied to me! Thought you could fool your ol' daddy! But I guess not!"

"I haven't lied to you."

"You have! You tol' me you were goin' to marry a military man, and here you are, dead gone on this footman--and no use to deny out of it!"

Lily didn't attempt to deny it.

"Umhuh, I knew it! Already promised him, ain't yuh?"

No denial of that either, to her father's consternation.

"What! And you a-tellin' me all the time you were goin' to marry a military man! You lyin' huzzy!"

"But he's a military man--he's the John H. Graham whose commission is before the Senate--now I hope you are satisfied!"

Henry Porter stopped his stamping about and looked at his daughter several seconds in silence.

"He's--he's who?" he asked in astonishment.

"He's the same John H. Graham you were reading about in the _Post_ this morning--the man the President has appointed a lieutenant in the cavalry."

"But his name's not Graham."

"His name _is_ Graham--John Hayward Graham--Lieutenant John Hayward Graham when the Senate confirms it."

Old Henry looked a little bit nonplussed. His daughter took courage. She jumped up and grabbed him.

"Come on right now and write him an apology, and send it so that it will get to his rooms by the time he does!"

Old Henry demurred. His dignity was a very real thing--as hard and substantial as his dollars.

"Oh, no, no. Wait awhile. Le's think about it. No use to be in a hurry. He'll come back agin. What did he go sneakin' roun' here without his name for if he wanted people to treat him right? A man's got no business monkeyin' with his name."

"But you _must_ write him an apology, papa. You just must!"

"Oh, well, mebbe I will. But I'll wait till to-morrer. Better wait till the Senate confirms him though, and be certain about it."

"Oh, no! That would _never_ do. It would be too plain,"--and Lily went into a long disquisition to fetch her hard-headed old daddy to her way of thinking. He showed some signs of relenting but could not be persuaded that night. When the morning came it took all her powers to push him to the point of sending a suitable note to Hayward: but she accomplished it. Hayward's stinging, sarcastic, withering reply was not written till late in the afternoon, and in the footman's agitation over other concerns was not mailed till his mother found it in his room on the day after that. By the time Mr. Henry Porter received it, other events had come to pass that gave it some emphasis....

When Hayward Graham returned to his room after his dismissal from Porter's house he found a letter addressed to him in his wife's writing. He tore it open hungrily.

"You say you would joyfully die to atone. That would be the very best thing you could do--the only fitting thing you could do.--H."

A grim smile lighted the man's face. At the moment the blood of some long-dead cavalier ancestor splashed through his heart, and he wrote the brief reply.

"Your wish is law, and shall be obeyed. Grant me one day to put my house in order."

* * * * *