Chapter 15

But Helena did not answer--only very slowly she raised her head. And his hands on her shoulders tightened, and he was drawing her gently toward him. Then he bent his head until it was close to hers, and his breath was upon her cheek as it had been that other night--and the longing to know that it was hers, a caress, pure in its motive, hers, snatched out of all that had gone before that sought to rob her of the right to ever know it, fascinated her, held her spellbound, possessed her. Closer his lips came to hers, closer, until they touched her--and then, with a cry, she sprang back, and her hands were fiercely pressed against her cheeks, her throbbing temples. Was she mad! Mad! Was it for this that she had forced herself to give him the opportunity to speak to-night, when her motive was so different, when it had seemed the only _right_ thing left for her to do!

And now, still holding her temples, she raised her eyes to Thornton--he had stepped back like a man stricken, his hands dropped to his sides.

"I--we are mad!" she whispered.

"Helena!" he said in a numbed way; and again; "Helena!" Then, with an effort to control his voice: "You--you do not care--you do not love me?"

"No," she said--and thereafter for a long time a silence held between them.

Then Thornton spoke.

"Some day perhaps, Helena," he said, "you could learn to love me--for I would teach you. Perhaps now you feel that your whole duty lies here in this work to which you have so unselfishly given your life; but I would not hinder that, only try to help as best I could. Perhaps I have been abrupt, have spoken too soon--it is only a few weeks since I saw you first, but it seems as though in those few weeks I had come to know you as if I had known you all my life and--"

But now she interrupted him, shaking her head in a sad little fashion.

"You do not know me," she said. "Sometimes I think I do not know myself. Think! You do not know where I came from to join the Patriarch here; you have no single shred of knowledge about me; you do not know a single particular of my life before you knew me."

"I do not need to know," he answered gravely. "You are as genuine as pure gold is genuine--it is in your voice, your smile, your eyes. It is a crude simile perhaps, but one never asks where the pure gold was dug--it stands for itself, for what it is, because it is what it is--pure gold--at its face value."

The words seemed to stab at Helena, condemning, accusing; and yet, too, in a strange, vague way, they seemed to bring her a hope, a promise for the days to come--at face value! If she could live hereafter--at face value!

"Listen," she said, and her voice was very low. "I do not know how to say what I must say to you. Last night I knew that--that you loved me. I had not thought of you like that, in that way, until then, or--or I should have tried never to have let this hurt come to you. But last night I knew, and since then I have known that sooner or later you would--would tell me of it." She stopped for an instant--her eyes full of tears now. "And so," she went on presently, "I have let you speak to-night because it was better, it was even necessary that I should do so at once--because this could not go on--because you must go away and--"

"Necessary?" he repeated. "I--I do not understand."

"No," she said helplessly; "you do not understand--and I--I cannot explain. Oh, I do not know what to say to you, only that you must take what I say, as you have taken me--at face value."

"I do not understand," he said again. "Helena, I do not understand. Are you in trouble--tell me?"

"No," she said.

"But I cannot go away like this!" he cried out suddenly. "I cannot go and leave you, Helena. You have come into my life and filled it; and I cannot let you pass out of it--like this--without an effort to hold what has come to mean everything to me now. You may not love me now, but some day--"

She shook her head, interrupting him once more.

"There can never be a 'some day,'" she said. "Oh, I do not want to hurt you--you, to whom I owe more than you will ever know--but--but there can never be anything between us, and--and we are only making it harder for ourselves now--aren't we?"

And then he leaned abruptly toward her.

"Is there--some one else?" he asked in a strained voice.

And to Helena the question came as though it had been an inspiration given him--for after that he would ask no more, seek no more to understand, for he was too big and strong and fine for that; and even if it was hopeless now this love that she had known for Madison, even if it could never be again, still that love was hers, and she could answer truthfully.

"Yes," she said beneath her breath.

For a moment Thornton neither moved nor spoke. Then he held out his hand.

"Miss Vail," he said simply, "will you tell this 'some one else' that another man beside himself is the better for having known you. Good-night. And may God bring you happiness through all your life."

But she did not speak--they were standing by the rustic bench and she sank down upon it, and, with her head hidden in one arm outflung across the back of the seat, was sobbing softly.

And he stood and watched her for a little space, his face grave and white; then taking the hand that lay listlessly in her lap, he raised it to his lips--and turned away.

And so he left her--and so, because of this, he knocked upon another door that night, and all unwittingly gave to that "some one else" himself the message that he had asked Helena to deliver.

Madison, pacing his room like a caged beast, his teeth working upon the cigar that he had never thought to light, paid no attention to the summons until it had been repeated twice; then, with a glance around the room, his eyes lingering for a critical instant upon the trunks, closed now, the trays restored to their hiding places, he stepped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. And at sight of Thornton, mechanically, as second nature to him, outwardly, like a mask, there came a smile upon his working lips, a suave, unconcerned composure to his face; while inwardly, in his dazed, fogged brain where chaos raged, surged an impulse to fling himself upon the other, wreck a mad vengeance upon the man--and then swift upon the heels of this an impulse to refrain, for if Helena was straight why should he harm Thornton--and then the shuttle again--why should he not--hadn't Helena said that she had learned what love was last night--and last night she had been with Thornton. How his brain whirled! What had brought Thornton here, anyhow? If he stayed very long perhaps he would batter Thornton to jelly after all! Quick, almost instantaneous in their sequence came this wild jumble singing dizzily its crazy refrain through his mind--and then to his amazement he heard some one speaking pleasantly--and to his amazement it was himself.

"Come in, Thornton. Come in--and take a chair."

"Thanks," Thornton answered; and, entering the room, closed the door behind him. "No; I won't sit down--I shall only remain a moment."

The lamp was on the washstand, and, intuitively again, Madison shifted his position to bring his face into shadow--and leaned against the foot of the bed. He stared at Thornton, nodding--Thornton's face was white and exceedingly haggard--rather curious for Thornton to look that way!

"Madison," said Thornton abruptly, "I believe you to be a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and because of that, and because of the unusual circumstances that first brought us together and the mutual interests that have since been ours, I have come to you to-night to tell you, first, that I am going away from Needley and that I shall not return--and then to ask a service and repose a trust in you. You have said several times that you intended to remain here and take a personal and active part in the work?"

Madison removed the chewed cigar end from one corner of his mouth--and placed it in the other.

"Yes," said Madison.

"Then this is what I want to say," said Thornton seriously. "For my own sake, because it was my wife's wish, and for other reasons as well, my interest here, though I am going away, will be just as great as it has ever been; and so I want you to keep me thoroughly posted, and when the time comes that I can be of further material assistance to let me know. I impose only one condition--you are to say nothing to Miss Vail about it--you can make anything that I may do appear to come from yourself."

"Say nothing to Miss Vail!" repeated Madison vaguely--then a sort of ironic jest seemed to take possession of him: "But Miss Vail keeps all the funds."

"That is why I am asking you to represent me," said Thornton quietly. "I am afraid that she might have a natural diffidence about accepting anything more from me--I asked Miss Vail to marry me to-night, and she refused."

The cigar kind of slid down unnoticed from the corner of Madison's mouth--and he leaned forward, hanging with a hand behind him to the bedpost--and stared at Thornton.

"You--_what_!" he gasped.

"Yes; I know," Thornton answered--and moved abruptly toward the door. "Love makes one's temerity very great--doesn't it? I asked her to marry me--because I loved her." He came back from the door and held out his hand, "I've told you what I would tell no other man, Madison. You understand now why--and you'll do this for me?"

What answer Madison made he never knew himself--he only knew that he was staring at the door after Thornton had gone out, and that he wanted to laugh crazily. Marry Helena! Thornton had asked Helena to marry him because he loved her. God, there was humor here! His brain itself seemed to cackle at it--_marry_ Helena!

And then suddenly there seemed no humor at all--only black, infamous shame and condemnation--and he straightened up from where he leaned against the bedpost, his face set and strained.

"Thornton had asked Helena to marry him because he _loved_ her"--the words came slowly, haltingly, aloud--and then he covered his face with his hands. But he, he who loved her too--what had _he_ done!

--XXII--

THE SHRINE

For a little time Madison stood there in his room, motionless, staring unseeingly before him--and then, as one awakening from a dream that had brought dismay and a torment too realistic to be thrown from him on the instant, his brain still a little blunted, he took up his hat mechanically, went out from the room, descended by the back stairs to the rear door of the hotel, and took the road to the Patriarch's cottage.

And as he walked in the freshness of the night, the restless turmoil of his soul that since early afternoon had brought him near to the verge of madness itself, that had robbed him of sane virility, that a moment since in his room had suddenly begun to lift from him even as the leaden clouds in the vault above him now were scattering, breaking, and through the rifts a moon-glint and the starlight came, passed from him utterly--and a strange calm, a strange joy, a strange sadness was upon him--and his brain for the first time in many hours was rational, keen--and he was master of himself again--and yet master of himself no more!

He smiled a little at the seeming paradox--smiled a little wistfully. He was beaten--by the game--he had won. How strange it was that sense of more than resignation now--a sense that seemed like one of thankfulness--a sense that bade him fling wide his arms as though suddenly they had been loosed from bondage and he was free, free as the God-given air around him.

He could understand Helena, and the Flopper, and Pale Face Harry now. With them it had come slowly, in a gradual concatenation, a progression, as it were, that had worked upon them, molding them, changing them day by day--and he had been too blind to see, or, seeing, had measured the changes only by a standard as false as all his life had been false. With him it had come in a crash, unheralded, that had left him a naked, quivering, stricken thing to know madness, terror and despair, to taste of emotions that had sickened the soul itself.

On Madison walked--along the road, across the little bridge, into the wagon track where, under the arched branches, it was utter dark. There was no one upon the road--he passed no one--saw no one--he was alone.

He had lost Helena--but he understood her now--understood the depth of remorse that she was living through, the terror and the dread as she sought escape, the fear of him--yes, it would be fear now where once it had been love! He had lost Helena--that was the price he had paid--but he understood her now, and he was going to her to help her if he could, going to tell her that he, too, was changed--as she was changed.

His hands clenched suddenly. God, the misery, the hopelessness, the wreck and ruin that lay at his door! And amends--what amends could he make--it was too late for that! How clearly he saw now--when it was too late! Her life was a broken thing, robbed, stripped and despoiled for all the years to come. Their love had not been love--she had given it its name--"passion, vice, lust, sin, degradation and misery and shame." And then love had come to her, into her life, love as God had meant love to be, and she had learned what love was she had said--only that she might never know its fulness, only that it might bring her added bitterness and added sorrow! Thornton had asked her to marry him that night--and she had refused him--because the past, it must have been as a shuddering, hideous phantom that the past had risen before her, had left her no other thing to do but turn away. It seemed he could see her--see her bury her face in her hands and--

He stopped short in his walk. Was he changed so much as this! Did he care so much that it was her happiness--even with another--that counted most! Yes; it was true--he was changed indeed. And the change had brought him too, it seemed, to learn what love was--too late.

He went forward again--a little more slowly; now; a sadness upon him, but, through the sadness, an uplift from that new sense of freedom that was as a balm, soothing him in the most curious way. His had been a rude awakening--mind and body and soul had been torn asunder; but he knew now, as he recalled the hours just past when he had looked on fear, when the gamut of human passion had raged over him, when he had stood staggered and appalled before, yes, before his God, that he had come forth a new man. And how strange had been the ending, how strange and simple, and yet how significant, typifying the broad, clean outlook on life, bringing coherency to his tottering mind, had been those words of Thornton's--"because he loved her."

He had reached the end of the wagon track now, and he walked across the lawn, his steps noiseless on the velvet sward, and passed between the maples; and the moon gleam--for the flying clouds, rear-guard of the routed storm, were flung wide apart, dispersed--fell upon a coiled and huddled little figure all in white, that was quite still and motionless upon the rustic seat beside the porch.

She did not see him, did not hear him, until he stood before her and called her name.

"Helena!" he said unsteadily. "Helena!"

She raised her head and looked at him; and then she rose from the bench, and, still holding to it by one hand, drew back a little. There was no outcry, no startled action. Her dark eyes played questioningly upon him--and he could see that they were wet with tears, and that the face from out of which they looked was very white.

"Why have you come back here to-night?" she asked in a low tone; and then, suddenly, a fear, a terror in her voice, as the Flopper's warning flashed upon her: "Thornton--you have seen Thornton?"

"Yes," he said, surprised a little that she should know; "I saw Thornton a few minutes ago."

She came toward him now and clutched his arm.

"What have you done?" she cried tensely. "Answer me! You--you met him on your way here?"

It was a moment before Madison replied. He had schooled himself of course for more than this, yet the words hurt--that was why she had asked for Thornton--she was afraid that he had harmed the man.

"No," he said; "I did not meet him. I think you must have been longer here on that bench than you imagined--haven't you? He came to my room."

"Your room! What for? Tell me!"

Madison smiled with grave whimsicality.

"To call me a gentleman and repose a trust."

She stepped back again, uncertainly.

"I do not know what you are talking about," she said in a strained way. "And you are talking very strangely."

"Yes," he said. "Everything is strange to-night. It is like a new world, and--and I have not found my way--yet."

She drew back still further.

"Are you mad?" she whispered.

"No," he answered. "Not now--that Is past."

She looked at him for a little time; and, her hands joined before her, her fingers locked and interlocked nervously.

"And--and Thornton?" she asked, at last.

"It was a trust," said Madison slowly; "but it was betrayed before it was given. He did not know--the game. He did not know what was between--you and me."

"No," she said--and the word came almost inaudibly.

"And so," he said, "I will tell you, for it cannot matter now in any case. He told me that he had asked you to marry him to-night--and that you had refused."

Madison paused, and swept his hand across his forehead--his voice somehow had suddenly grown hoarse, beyond control.

"Yes," she said--and reached again for the back of the bench, supporting herself against it.

"He is going away," Madison continued; "and he is to send more money here for the 'cause'--when I ask for it--only you are not to know, because you might be diffident about taking it after refusing him."

She stared at him numbly--there was no sarcasm in his words; in his tones only a sort of dreary monotony. She shivered a little--how cold it seemed! She did not quite grasp his words--and yet she shrank from them. And then her very soul seemed to cry out against them, to pit itself against their meaning, as their meaning surged upon her. And unconsciously she drew herself up, and the whiteness of her face fled before a rush of color.

"Oh, the shame of it!" she burst out. "The bitter shame of it! You shall not touch the money--do you hear! You shall not touch it! I--I thought that you had understood this afternoon. I am glad then that you have come to-night--if I must say more to make you understand. This is the end! I do not care what happens--the little I can do now to atone for what I have done, I am going to do. The game is at an end--you shall not touch another cent--and everything that we have taken goes back to those whom we have worse than robbed it from! You hear--you understand! I will cry it out in the town street if there is no other way--but it shall stop--it shall stop to-night"--she was panting, breathless, the little figure erect, outraged, quivering--and then suddenly the shoulders seemed to droop, the lips to tremble, and she was on her knees upon the grass beside the bench, and sobbing as a child.

"Helena!" Madison said hoarsely. "Helena! Listen! That is what I came for to-night--to find a way out for you, for us all, if I can."

The passionate outburst passed--and she was on her feet again, facing him.

"You are clever--clever!" she cried fiercely. "But you shall not play with me--you shall not trick me--I meant every word I said!"

But now Madison made no answer. The moonlight bathed them both in its clear, white radiance; and touched the sward, shading it to softest green; and the trees limned out like fairy things against the night; and the calm light flooded the little cottage with its hidden walls where the ivy and the creepers grew, and lingered over the trellises to drink the fragrance of the flowers that peeped out from their leafy beds. And upon Madison's face crept slowly the anguish that was in his soul--until it was mirrored there--until unconsciously it answered her where words would have been useless things. Like some white-robed, sorrowing angel, she seemed, as she stood there before him--the brown eyes full of shadow, troubled; the sweet face tear-splashed; the little figure in its simple muslin frock, pitiful in its brave defiance. And pure--just God, how pure she looked!--the brow stainless white under the mass of dark, coiled hair; the perfect throat of ivory. And--and the misery that was in every feature of her face, in every line of her poise--and he had brought her that--_he_ had brought her to that--and now when he loved her as he might have loved her once and known her love in return, when his heart cried out for her, when she was all in life he cared for, she was gone from him, out of his life, and between them was a barrier he could never pass--a barrier of his own raising.

And so he made no answer, for indeed he had not heard her; but she was coming toward him now, her hands outstretched in a wondering way, wistfully, pleadingly, as though to hold back a refutation that would change the dawning light upon her face to dismay and grief again.

"It--it is true," she faltered. "It has come to you too--this change, this new life that has come to me. It is true--I can see it in your face."

"Yes; it is true," he answered, in a low voice.

"Thank God!" she whispered--and hid her face in her hands--and presently he heard her sob again.

A tiny cloud edged the moon, and the light faded, and it grew dark, and the darkness hid her; then softly, timidly almost it seemed, the radiance came creeping through the branches overhead again--and then he spoke.

"Helena," he said, steadying his voice with an effort, "you spoke of atonement a little while ago; but there is no atonement that I can make to you--nothing that I can do to change what I would give my soul to change. I know what it meant to you to send Thornton away to-night, for I love you now as you love him--I know why you did it, and--"

She was staring at him a little wildly--her hands pressed against her cheeks.

"Love--Thornton," she repeated in a sort of wondering way, a long pause between the words.

"Yes," he said gently; "I know. Have you forgotten what you told me this afternoon?--that you had learned--last night--what love was."

She shook her head.

"I do not love Thornton," she said in a monotone. "And yet it is true that through him I learned what love was, what it _could_ be--don't you understand?"

Understand! No; it seemed that he could never understand! She did not love Thornton! And then, as some fiery cordial, the words seemed to whip through his veins, quickening the beat of his heart into wild, tumultuous throbbing. Yes, yes, he could understand--it was true--true--she did not love Thornton.

"Helena!" he cried--and stretched out his arms to her. "I thought, oh, God, I thought that I had lost you--Helena!"

But she did not move.

"What does it matter to you whether I love Thornton or not?" she said dully. "Does it change anything where you and I are concerned--does it change what I told you this afternoon--that I would not go back to _that_."

"To that! Ah, no!"--his voice rang dominant, vibrant, triumphant now. "Helena, don't you understand? We are to begin life again--in a new way, the true way, the only way. Don't you see--I love you!"

Still she did not move--but there was a great whiteness in her face, and in the whiteness a great light.

"You mean?"--her lips scarcely seemed to form the words.