Part 12

"I can't stand this, Rachel. Your marriage is in fact no marriage. Belhaven has no right to hold you to it; it must be broken, you shall be free!"

"I can't; don't you see it?" She held out both hands with a pathetic gesture. "Can't you see it? It would undo all I've done to save her."

"Do you think for a moment that I'll give you up for Eva?"

Her face quivered pitifully. She longed to give up, to let him take the lead and sweep her on to liberty. Then her tortured soul rose again to the struggle. "I knew you wouldn't give up; that's why I lied to you just now. I never did before, John."

"Is it possible you want this to go on?"

"It must!"

"It can't and it shan't!" he cried hotly. "I'm human, I won't give you up; you shan't be bound by such a miserable tie--the man was a cowardly brute to let you shield him."

"I did it for Eva; I've betrayed her by telling you."

"Eva wasn't worth it," said John, in honest wrath. "No one is worth it. Rachel, I won't endure it."

"We've got to endure it; I can't publicly disgrace my sister."

"You needn't; Belhaven can make the way easy,--he can and he shall!"

She shook her head. "He won't."

"He must."

She still shook her head.

A light broke in on John. "He loves you!" he cried suddenly.

She blushed and her eyes filled with tears. "Yes."

He turned and walked to and fro, his white face set and hard. She watched him, reading him, trembling for him, with that intuitive knowledge of his strength and his weakness which is an instinct with a woman who loves much.

He swung around suddenly and faced her. "And you?" he asked, with great bitterness.

She met his eyes bravely; she tried to speak but it was too much.

John caught her in his arms. "You do love me still?" he cried passionately.

"With all my heart!" she said, for one blind moment swept away, and, yielding to her own grief and his rebellion, she clung to him. Then she recalled herself, her heart struggled back to meet fate again. "John, we must part now--I'd hoped to keep your friendship, but we've lost even that--there was, after all, no middle course."

"Do you think I'll give you up now? This marriage is a mockery; it's got to be annulled."

She looked up at him, struggling to be calm. "John, I've always believed in you, I've always trusted you; I trust you now to help me to do right. I'm weak; I'm broken down; you know it, you've felt it--help me to be myself!"

"I can't, and it isn't right, it's an outrage; who ever heard of such a thing? Eva has no right to your life, Belhaven has no right to you--you're mine!"

"I'm not yours while I'm his wife," she said steadily, and she slipped out of his arms and stood trembling.

"His wife!" John laughed bitterly. "You're not, you can't remain his wife, loving me. I can't think that of you, Rachel!"

"Don't think it. I couldn't."

"And you call it right to keep up this sham? It's a lie, Rachel, a living lie!"

She wrung her hands in a kind of agony. "John, I can't bear much more; you'll have to leave me now. Give me a little time, I--I can't bear it!"

"My darling, forgive me!"

"Don't, John," she sobbed, "don't kiss me again--I've got to give you up."

"I won't give you up."

"I've no right to disgrace poor Eva, to disgrace Astry; he's had enough to bear, and that's what it would cost. Can't you see it?"

"It needn't, but Belhaven must release you, I'll make him."

"John, I can't do it. I love you, let me believe in you."

"Have I got to suffer for Belhaven?"

She slipped down on her knees beside a chair, and burying her head on her arms, gave way to her grief. The spiritual agony had given birth to agony of the body and she wept bitterly. He tried to raise her in his arms but she resisted, still weeping.

"Rachel, you'll make me kill Belhaven."

She looked up at that, her eyes still full of tears.

"John, I did it of my own free will. The man has suffered too; it's cruel to him, I can't disgrace and ruin him now. I can't betray Eva, I can't simply think of my own happiness; I'm not like that! I did it myself. I thought you didn't care; I was angry, blind, and, yes, I did want to save my sister, but I've often thought that perhaps I wouldn't have done it but for my anger. I deserve to be punished, and I've got to bear it somehow. What would be the use of it all if, at the first temptation, I gave in and told the world the whole miserable story? When mother was dying she made me promise to be good to Eva; she said she might need all that I could give, she knew her! I can't disgrace her. She's heart-broken about it all, she's sorry; I think I can bring her back to her husband. It's worth trying, John. I've always believed in you, I've always trusted you; help me to be true to myself, help me--because you love me!"

"I can't give you up."

She turned away from him, struggling hard for more composure. "Give me a little time, John. I--I can't bear any more now!"

"You mean you want me to go now? I'll do your bidding, Rachel, but I'll never give you up; I can't."

"Oh, I know--I know, but go--please, John, I can't answer now--I can't do wrong."

"I'm going--you see I'm not trying to force it; I won't even touch you, but I won't give you up."

She did not answer, but stood with bowed head, the charm and grace of her figure outlined against the soft, warm glow of the room, her hands wrung together to hide their trembling. He turned at the door and looked back at her and she tried to smile. There is sometimes mortal agony behind a smile.

"Because I love you, John," she said, with a gesture of appeal.

He turned with a groan and went out into the night.

XVI

It was nearly an hour later when Charter made his way to the fashionable club that he knew Belhaven commonly frequented. He went deliberately, after a brief space of time given to what he would have called deliberation, but which did not deserve the name. He had left Rachel in a storm of feeling, so much more violent than anything usual to his equable nature that he had been unable at first to think with coherence. All smaller considerations, even the events of yesterday, seemed relegated to the limbo of eternal forgetfulness, and nothing was of consequence but this terrible fact, thrust so rudely into his life, this trapping of the woman he loved by a coward who was using her, so Charter felt, as a shield to save him from the punishment which he so richly deserved. Yet, even in his passion, he saw that Rachel's argument was true, that he could do nothing without exposing both sisters to an open scandal, but, in his present mood, even that seemed a small matter compared to Rachel's vindication, and he had no pity for Eva at all.

It was certain, however, that he could not apply primitive methods to the case, and he did not even dream of wringing Belhaven's neck, but, in spite of his rage against him, he was also aware that he could not let this go on without informing him of his own position. When he left the old house on the hill, he had felt keenly the sting of shame and disgust. It seemed to him that he had been there on Belhaven's own errand, to make love to another man's wife, that he was falling to the level of his adversary. But he would not give Rachel up; every instinct battled against such a renunciation, and, being determined to rescue her at any cost, he suddenly hit upon the only course that seemed open to one of his temperament. He would see Belhaven and warn him; he would tell him, face to face, exactly what he intended to do. This idea taking possession of him, he acted upon it with a sudden deviation from his usual tardy deliberation; he went directly to the club and inquired for Belhaven.

As he supposed, he had no difficulty in finding him, seated in a corner of the library reading, or pretending to read, a new book that in reality was only a cover to prevent the interruption of his thought, for Belhaven had more than enough to occupy his mind.

Catching sight of his dark head and handsome profile bent over his book in a remote corner of the big room, Charter walked in, and observing that the only other occupants, two rather elderly men, were deeply engaged with their newspapers, he went over to Belhaven's retreat and addressed him with an abruptness that made him start slightly and lay his book upon his knee.

"I want a word with you."

Belhaven's face darkened with the recollection of John's hands on his throat but he restrained himself with admirable determination.

"I can't exactly prevent you from saying it here," he remarked coolly.

But John took no notice of his manner; instead he leaned against the wall opposite and folded his arms across his breast, perhaps to be certain that he would not make too violent use of them, but he spoke as calmly as Belhaven had, only with a slight stiffening of the lips that with him was a sign of great anger hardly controlled.

"I came over here to tell you that I've just been to your house; I don't want you to think I'm a sneak or a coward. I went there to see Mrs. Belhaven because I've heard--pretty plainly--all the circumstances of your marriage."

Belhaven took up the pipe which he had laid down at John's approach and held it thoughtfully between his fingers, looking into the bowl of it.

"After what occurred the other day I suppose I needn't say I think it's none of your business."

"That's just the point; it is. I love Mrs. Belhaven and I won't give her up to you--after all I've found out!"

Belhaven threw back his head and their eyes met.

"Has she told you?"

Charter hesitated, his face flushing as darkly as his interrogator's. He had not foreseen this natural question.

"I refuse to answer."

Belhaven smiled bitterly. "In other words you've been making love to my wife."

"Exactly; that's what I want to say. I don't propose to be a sneak about it; I love her and I won't allow her to be nothing more than a shield to protect you from Astry."

Belhaven considered this a moment. His first impulse was to resent it angrily, but, after a little thought, he decided to let it go unquestioned. "Perhaps you don't know that she's determined to protect Mrs. Astry."

"I don't consider that Mrs. Astry is worth her life."

"You think she's ruining her life to marry me?"

"You know well enough that you had no right to marry her!"

Belhaven's hand trembled slightly, but he emptied the ashes out of his pipe before he replied.

"You're taking the natural view of a man in love with another man's wife."

"That's neither here nor there; she's the one to consider. If you're a man you'll simply give her her freedom. It's the least thing you can do, the only reparation you can make."

"I don't suppose it occurs to you that, perhaps, she wouldn't take it."

"That's inconceivable."

"You don't know then that she has peculiar ideas about the sacredness of the marriage ceremony?"

"Which couldn't apply to this case; you must see that yourself."

"You mean because she's married me? But I don't suppose I've anything to do with a fixed principle."

"You think she'd apply her scruples even to such a mockery of marriage as this?"

Belhaven assented grimly.

"You've no right to let her do it!"

"Has it occurred to you that I've a right to have my own feelings about it?"

"You haven't; you've got to consider her, to give her up."

"And if I refuse?"

John's angry blue eyes glowed deeply. "Do you think that I'm going to stand it? I'm a factor in this case."

Belhaven eyed him coldly. "Has she made you so?"

Charter winced; he felt keenly that Rachel had not. "No!" he said sharply.

"Well, she won't. I know her well enough for that. You think you know all about her because you're in love with her, but you don't if you imagine she's like that; she--" he stopped and drew a deep breath that was nearer pain than a sigh--"she's too fine for that! I know her better than you do and if I choose to hold her to it I can; she won't listen to you if she feels it to be wrong, and she will."

"And you mean to take advantage of her very goodness to keep her to such a bargain?"

His scorn cut like a knife but Belhaven met it without self-betrayal.

"Why should I give her up to you?" he asked, after a moment.

Charter looked at him attentively. He remembered that Rachel had admitted that Belhaven loved her and he began to suspect now that he would never give her up, that he meant to use his claim upon her to keep her against her will. Such an attitude was almost inconceivable to John.

"You intend to make her stay because you've fallen in love with her?"

"That's no affair of yours."

John glanced across at the old man opposite, who was hunting now for another newspaper on the table. In the distance he saw Count Massena coming through the corridor.

"I'm sorry that this is a place where I can't tell you just what I think of you," he said.

Belhaven did not move. "I can't see that you're in a better situation than I am," he retorted coolly. "You've no right to make love to my wife."

"You've no right to make your wife endure this misery and I tell you now I won't allow it."

Rachel's husband watched him thoughtfully, a drawn look changing his face yet more deeply.

"See here, Charter," he said suddenly, "I'm willing to say this: I've lived in the same house with Rachel long enough to be a changed man. She's humanized me. I'm not quite what you think me, and I'll let her decide in the end, but, by Jove, I won't give her up just for you; I'd die first!"

John looked at him squarely. "If you're a man," he said again, "you'll set her free; then she could choose. Now--if you hold her--"

"Well, and if I do?"

"Then," said John, "you're a damned scoundrel!" and he turned his back on him and walked out of the room.

XVII

Astry was amusing himself driving the billiard balls about on the table, practising some of his favorite strokes. He was an unusually graceful man and he showed it as he handled his cue, his cigarette between his teeth and his eyes narrowed in thought. He had long ago ceased to be a happy man. There had been moments, years before, when he had been considered rather jolly; men liked him and women liked him too. He was greatly changed; the hardening process had destroyed some of the more tender amenities of life.

He drove the ball successfully and stopped to chalk his cue; on the wire over his head one of his parrots balanced, sidling along and talking once and a while in strange jargon. Astry watched him, half amused, then he continued to play with the balls. The house was profoundly quiet; at the moment they had no house guests, though Eva courted company for she dreaded being alone with her husband. He had asked John Charter to come to them but John had refused. The refusal did not surprise Astry; it only confirmed him in certain suspicions and, as the balls danced away from his driving cue, he was thinking of Rachel. Hers was undoubtedly the figure of the drama and he knew that she was unhappy; he divined much more though he made no sign. But he was as other men; he desired love, he craved happiness, he had been embittered by the loss of both, poisoned by the contact of treachery, and he had ceased to believe, he had even ceased to forgive. Forgiveness is godlike, and very few of us ever know it, feel it, or receive it. Forgiveness is like the work in a stone quarry; it takes hard labor and only the morally great accomplish it. But Astry saw revealed Rachel's love for Eva and the sight of it was almost irritating; it seemed as if she wasted it, that Eva gave back so little. He had come to think that Eva had very little to give.

He continued to play with the balls. Presently the old clock in the hall chimed sweetly, five o'clock. Then he heard his wife coming. She had been out and had just returned; she came through the drawing-room, her dress rustling, her light footstep uneven. He reached up and, taking the chattering parrot from the wire, put him into the conservatory and came back with his cue in his hand just as Eva looked in.

"Playing billiards alone," she remarked languidly. "I should think it would bore you to death."

"My dear Eva, I'm bored to extinction, but one must have something to do."

She came slowly into the room and, going to the window, stood there looking out.

"I suppose you'd really be happier if you weren't so rich," she remarked.

"Do you think it's altogether a matter of money? That the possession of it brings misery?"

"Sometimes I think it does. I don't seem to think of any one I know who's very rich and happy too."

Astry put his cue down on the table and sat down; he seemed willing to discuss the point. "Suppose you were poor to-morrow, Eva; would you be any less wretched?"

She gave him a startled look over her shoulder. "Who said I was wretched?"

He smiled grimly. "He who runs may read."

She drew a quick breath of alarm, pressing her cheek against the window-pane and looking out with unseeing eyes. Before her was the wide terrace, the level stretch of lawn with here and there a mound of unmelted snow, and beyond the bare, brown trees and the winter sky.

Astry spoke again with a certain moderation, a mental detachment that made her feel how wide was the chasm between them.

"I can see you're unhappy and I'm sorry. I don't know that there's much to do about it. Divorce is common but a little vulgar. I'm not sure that you care to have me offer you such an avenue of escape."

"I must have been very unpleasant," she said slowly. "I didn't intend to make people think things like that."

"Like what?" he asked gently.

"What you said--just now--that I might want a divorce."

"Do you?"

She did not reply; her face was turned now directly to the window and he only saw the hand that rested on the pane tremble slightly. He moved uneasily in his chair.

"I didn't know it was as bad as that, Eva!"

"As bad as that?" her voice trembled. "I don't understand."

"I didn't know that you wanted a divorce."

"It isn't that!"

He leaned forward, watching her, his expression singularly grave. "Would you mind telling me just what you do mean?"

Eva turned from the window and came toward him, and as the light fell on her face Astry was startled. He rose involuntarily from his seat and Eva stood still, her slender hands clutching at the back of a chair. She tried to speak twice before the words came.

"I can't bear it any longer, Johnstone; I'm going to tell the truth--the whole truth."

He did not speak; he was watching her strangely.

She shivered and then went on, not looking at him, her voice at first a mere whisper, growing a little firmer.

"Rachel married Belhaven--to save my good name."

He was still silent for a moment, regarding her.

"You mean that you--told me a falsehood that night?"

"About Rachel? Yes."

"Good God!"

She hid her face in her hands, but her voice, small and thin and quivering, struggled on. She had to confess, she had to tell him, she could endure it no longer.

"I lied about Rachel."

"And you--" he dragged out the words--"you were guilty?"

"Indeed--no! In thought, in the intention, yes." She broke off and then after a moment of agony went on, her face still hidden in her hands. "I was going to run away with him that day."

Astry did not speak, he did not even move, and Eva sank down into a chair.

"I was going and you caught me; you accused me and--" she stopped again and then went on, "and I was frightened. I'm a coward; I told you a falsehood about Rachel, then I went to her--"

"And Rachel?" his voice was hoarse.

"She forgave me, she sacrificed herself for me; she's an angel."

"And you let her marry that--that scoundrel to save you?"

"I was afraid you'd kill him."

"He ought to have been killed."

Her head sank lower.

"It's incredible! To let your sister marry that scoundrel to save his life, to shield you!"

"She's forgiven me," Eva's voice broke pitifully. "I told her--she--"

He had risen in his agitation and he swung around now, facing her. "Did she know?"

"That I was guilty?" Eva turned darkly crimson. "No, not until the other day--I told her--and she forgave me."

"It's past belief."

"That she should forgive me? Rachel? She's so good to me."

"I know Rachel, but it's past belief that you could let her do it, sacrifice her to save that hound."

"Wait!" Eva rose; she tried to face him steadily. "Listen, you told me that if she didn't marry him you'd kill him."

"Well?"

"That you'd kill him because of me. I told her that and she married him to save my good name."

"It was my business to take care of your good name."

"No, it was mine," she was gaining strength now. "It was mine and I'd failed. I was weak, wicked, foolish; I thought I loved him."

"You thought you loved him? Do you mean you didn't?"

"Not--not afterwards."

"Not after you saw the coward shield himself behind a woman?"

She wrung her hands together. "Yes, it was that; I hated that!"

Astry stood looking at her, a strange conflict of emotions in his face. "Are you telling me the truth, Eva, or are you trying to shield him again?"

"I'm telling you the truth. I thought I loved him, I was afraid of you,--you frightened me sometimes then,--and I had loved him once, I--"

"You never loved me then?"

She hesitated; again a dark blush mounted from throat to brow. "At first I married you because--because Aunt Drusilla wanted it, because--" she stopped.

"Yes--because?" he was watching her sternly.

"Because I wanted to make a great match."

"Oh, for my money!"

"If you want to put it that way."

"And afterwards you called back Belhaven?"

Again she assented.

"You thought it easy to be free of the millionaire after--" He stopped, something in the mute agony of her attitude, her evident humiliation, checking him.

"I thought I loved Belhaven," she said simply, determined not to spare herself. "I was going to run away with him. He begged me to--but it wasn't any more his fault than mine. I'm trying to tell you the truth, the whole truth. Then came that night and your anger and--and I saw he was afraid."

"The hound!"

"I saw he was afraid," her voice trailed on, quivering, "and I saw how Rachel suffered. Johnstone, I've been punished; I deserve it, but--the way is fearful, that way of the transgressors. Not my feet only, but my heart bleeds. I went to Rachel; I begged her, I've begged her twice, to get a divorce, to marry Charter; they love each other. She won't do it--because--" Eva's voice broke with a sob--"she says she can't, that it would ruin me."

"So it would--now."

"Then let it! I can't bear this, Johnstone; cast me out, help Rachel to get free. I can't bear it any longer, it's killing me!"

"You've quite forgotten me, Eva."

"No, no, I haven't!" She burst into sudden, violent weeping. "I haven't; I know now--I know you've suffered too. Johnstone, you won't kill him?"

"Not now. It would disgrace Rachel. Think what I--your husband--owe to Rachel."

"Then it's for her, you mean? It can't be done on her account?"

He nodded; speech was not easy.

Eva stood up, stretching out her arms with her impotent, childish gesture of despair. "I never thought--oh, God, why can't I die?"

"Why didn't you tell me the truth then, as you're telling me now? What if I killed him?"

"I was afraid; I'm a coward, I've told you so!" She stopped and stood looking at him, then suddenly her face quivered. "Can you forgive me? I've suffered, I'd like to feel that you'd forgiven me."

"Does it make any difference? Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

He turned and met her eyes and his face paled. "Eva," he said gently, "did you ever even for one moment love me?"

She pressed her hands together tightly, looking at him strangely.

"Would--would it make it easier to forgive me?"

"Yes," he replied slowly, "I, too, have traveled a long way, Eva; I, too, came to find that there was no love for me; I, too, have suffered,--I'm really quite human. But I could forgive you, I would forgive you even this, if I felt that you'd ever been honest with me, ever loved your husband for a moment in your life."