Part 17

"No," she repeated, "you could never trust." Her face was colorless, but impassive, as if it had been turned to stone, her voice was almost as firm as his. "You are quite right," she said. "I deserve all the harsh things you could say. It is kind of you to say--so few. Perhaps, later, you'll judge me more gently; but--I couldn't expect it now. And so"--she faltered and caught her breath, as if her strength failed her--"and so good-bye," she said at last. "I think it can only hurt us both to--discuss this any longer."

Her calmness stunned him. He had been prepared for tears--excuses--but she offered no defence and made no effort to arouse his pity. There was a dignity in her complete submission. He looked at her, his face working with varied emotions; and then he said "Good-bye" mechanically and took her hand for an instant. It was icy cold and lay impassively in his. He dropped it and moved towards the door, as if under some spell, deprived of all capacity for thought or feeling. Involuntarily, her eyes followed him. Was this the parting, after so many months? But at the door he paused, he looked back. The firelight played on her hair, on her white dress, the drooping lines of her slender form, the deathly pallor of her face, the despair in her eyes.... He softened, perhaps, or it might be that the mere physical spell of her beauty held him, even when all that made the glory of his love, had been rudely shattered. He came back, caught her in his arms, and pressed burning kisses on her lips. She trembled as if they had been blows, but she made no effort to free herself. And then, as if ashamed of his weakness, he let her go and went out hastily. A moment later she heard the front door close, with a dull sound that echoed through the quiet rooms.

She stood where he had left her, staring blankly about her at the familiar objects which seemed to have acquired, during the last hour, an air of change, of unreality. What had happened, what had she done? Awhile ago she had been borne up by a courage that seemed almost heroic, a sense of moral victory. Now that had failed her. She was simply a woman despised and heart-broken, who by her own suicidal act had destroyed her happiness.

"How--how can I bear it?" she broke out, at last, fiercely, and sinking down on the hearth-rug, she lay prostrate, her face hidden, while her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs. The old Dutch clock ticked softly, pitifully, in the silence; the fire flickered and died away. But outside in the street spasmodic whistles kept on blowing, and belated wayfarers still bade each other, with laughter and jollity, "Happy New Year."

_Chapter XXIX_

It was eight days later. Elizabeth's trouble and the New Year were both a week old. She had lived through the time somehow or another, had even faced those smaller trials which follow in the wake of any great catastrophe. She had told the whole truth to her aunts--it was only less hard than telling Gerard--she had written to her friends to announce the breaking of her engagement, and had countermanded the orders for her trousseau. These affairs disposed of, she was ready to face the world with such strength as she had left.

For Gerard the situation was simpler. He had taken at once his man's way out of it, and pacing the deck of an ocean steamer, he tried to distract his mind and forget his trouble in plans for extensive travel and scientific research. They had been his resource once before, when a woman had disappointed him.

He had not seen Elizabeth again. He dreaded, perhaps, to trust himself, or perhaps his anger was still too great. But he had written before he left to her aunts, urging them to consult a lawyer and take steps at once to free her from the results of her rash marriage. To himself, he justified this weakness--if it were weakness--by the thought of Halleck's baseness. "I could not bear to think of her as his wife," he said to himself, "a fellow who could give her up for money!"

Upon Elizabeth's aunts the affair had come like a thunderbolt. They were quite unprepared for it, though many suspicious circumstances--the mystery as to Elizabeth's jewels, her own occasional words--might have suggested the idea that something was amiss. But absorbed in their delight in the engagement, their affection for Gerard, they had not the heart to formulate any doubt they might have felt. Now, in the first shock of their awakening, they remembered unwillingly the same facts of family history which had occurred to Gerard. What could they have expected from Malvina's child but deceit, folly and disgrace? But they were gentle souls, and had no reproaches for Elizabeth, only a silent, sorrowful pity, which hurt the girl's proud spirit more than the sharpest words.

She was lingering that morning, pale and languid, over her untasted breakfast, and Miss Cornelia, from behind the coffee-urn, stole anxious glances towards her, all sense of injury lost in her distress over the girl's wretched looks, and fear that she was going to be ill. They two were alone, Miss Joanna having already started to do her marketing, when the maid entered with the belated newspaper. Miss Cornelia held out her delicate, tremulous hand for it, nervously apprehensive of that paragraph which no doubt in the society columns, announced that the engagement between Miss Van Vorst and Mr. Gerard had been broken "by mutual consent."

It was not this notice which met her eyes, but some exciting head-lines on the first page which had already attracted the attention of the cook and the housemaid.

"Elizabeth," said Miss Cornelia, in a stifled voice. "Elizabeth--what is this?"

Elizabeth raised her vacant eyes, and saw Miss Cornelia deathly white and staring in horror at the paper. "Is it?" she said. "It must be. What a dispensation! So young, too."

"Auntie," said Elizabeth, impatiently, "why don't you say what it is?"

"I am afraid he was very ill prepared," said Miss Cornelia, apparently talking to herself and oblivious of her niece's presence. But suddenly she seemed to realize it and placed her hand over the paper. "My dear, don't look at this yet," she faltered. "You--it will be a shock, Elizabeth. Prepare yourself."

Elizabeth did not wait to hear more, but went to her and seized the paper from her hand. The headline told, in large type, how Paul Halleck, the prominent young singer, had died the evening before of a mysterious draught of poison, which had been sent to him by mail.

There followed in smaller type the details of the affair, but Elizabeth did not read them. She sank into the nearest chair and sat staring before her with dilated eyes, that seemed to express less surprise or terror than a sort of awe, as at some unexpected manifestation of Providence.

"It was I who killed him," she said. She spoke in a dull, dream-like way, not in the least conscious, as it seemed, of anything extraordinary in the words. Poor Miss Cornelia could form no other conclusion than that she had suddenly lost her mind.

"Elizabeth, my darling," she remonstrated, "what do you mean?" But Elizabeth was still staring before her vacantly, absorbed in her own thoughts.

"And so it has happened!" she said, in a low voice, "at last!--when I had given up hope!"--She was quite oblivious of her aunt's horror or of the staring eyes of the maid, who stood listening, the coffee-pot in her hand, her mouth wide open. But at that moment Miss Cornelia suddenly remembered her presence and signed to her to leave the room--an order obeyed reluctantly.

"Now, Elizabeth," Miss Cornelia faltered out, as the door closed, "do, my darling, explain what you mean. It's quite absurd, you know, to say that you had anything to do with this."

"I wished it," said Elizabeth, gazing at her with dull, expressionless eyes. "I wished, I even prayed, that he might die. And my wishes always come true--only it is in such a way that it does no good."

"But you can't," urged Miss Cornelia, in desperation, "you can't kill people by _wishing_, Elizabeth. Of course, there are things that one can't--feel as sorry for as one would like"--Her voice faltered, as she thought of certain individuals connected with her own life, whose death it had been hard to regard in the light of an affliction. "We can't help our thoughts," she murmured, "we can only pray not to give way to them."

"Ah, but I didn't," said Elizabeth. "I encouraged them. And now I shall have remorse, I suppose, all my life." She sat pondering a moment, while the expression on her face grew softer. "I am sorry he is dead," she said, at last. "It does me no good now--and he seemed so full of life the last time I saw him. But it was his fate, no doubt--a fortune-teller told him he would die before the year was out. It was his unlucky year, as well as mine. And the prediction has come true--in both cases."

"But how did it happen?" urged Miss Cornelia. "Do read, Elizabeth, how it was. Did he drink poison by mistake?"

Elizabeth took up the paper and read the story, which grew to be a famous one in the annals of New York crime. Halleck had received on New Year's Eve a package which contained a small hunting-flask of sherry. There was no name or card with the present--if present it _were_; nothing to identify the giver, except the hand-writing on the package, which he did not recognize.

He suspected nothing, however, imagining the card to have been forgotten, and accepted the flask as a belated Christmas present; but kept it unopened, in the hope of discovering from whom it came. He had brought it out and showed it the night before to some friends, and the flask and the box in which it arrived were passed from one to the other, but each disclaimed all knowledge of them.

"To me," said D'Hauteville, who happened to be present, "it looks like a woman's handwriting, disguised to seem like a man's. Perhaps"--he smiled--"it contains a love potion."

"Or a death potion," suggested another man, laughing.

"I'm not afraid," said the young singer, lightly, "of either catastrophe." With a smile he poured some of the wine into a glass and raised it to his lips. "To the health," he said, "of the mysterious giver." He emptied the glass and put it down, observing that it must be, after all, a woman's gift, since no man would have chosen such poor wine. "Try it," he said, but by some fortunate chance no one did. And in a few minutes Halleck was taken desperately ill, and died before the hastily-summoned physician could save him.

This is, briefly put, the account which Elizabeth read, at first with a strange sense of unreality, as if such tragedies, of which she had often read before in the papers, could not possibly occur within the circle of her own acquaintance. Then followed a growing horror, a feeling of passionate remorse for her own indifference.

"Read it, auntie," she said, thrusting the paper into Miss Cornelia's hand. "I--I must be alone to think it over." She went quickly and shut herself in her room. But when there she did not lie down and cry, as might have been best for her; she had not shed any tears since New Year's Eve. She paced up and down, going over the whole thing in her mind, imagining the details with a feverish vividness, struggling, above all, with this irrational, yet terrible sense of guilt.

It _was_ irrational--this she realized even in her state of feverish excitement. The vindictive wish which had crossed her brain would never have gone beyond it and resolved itself into action. She would not even--she knew this now--have been a passive factor in Paul's death; she would have been the first to go to his aid, had she seen him suffering. No selfish remembrance of her own gain would have stopped her. And yet--and yet--with all her reasoning, her mind always returned to the same point. She had wished for his death, and her wishes had been fulfilled, too late for her own advantage, only as it seemed, to add to her punishment.

The idea occurred to her all at once that she must go and look at his dead body. It presented itself, in some irrational way, in the light of an atonement. The fever in her blood, the beginning of an illness, made the strained, hysterical thought seem natural and almost inevitable. She was not conscious of doing anything unusual. Hastily, she dressed herself, choosing instinctively a black gown and tying a black veil over her face, and went out into the street, where the cold air, which she had not faced for a week, blew refreshingly on her burning cheeks. She walked all the way, rapidly, choosing unfrequented avenues, and looking neither to the right nor the left, her mind intent on the one object, yet with a strange relief in motion and the intense cold. She reached Carnegie Hall in a surprisingly short time, but here she encountered unexpected difficulties.

"Take you up to Mr. Halleck's studio?" said the elevator-man, looking with surprise and suspicion at this veiled young woman, who made such an extraordinary request. "I can't take you up. The police has charge, and there ain't a soul allowed to go in but Mr. D'Hauteville."

Elizabeth was not in a mood to be gainsaid. She placed a coin in the man's hand. "I must see him," she said, in a hoarse whisper. "If you won't take me up, I'll walk. I am his wife," she went on, as he still stared at her, wondering. "I have a right to see him."

"Well, it's the police that settles that," he rejoined, gruffly, but still he took her up, reflecting that, after all, it was no business of his. He brought the elevator to a stand-still, with a shake of the head and an anxious look towards the fatal studio, but Elizabeth moved towards it as if she had no doubt whatever of entering. And at the same moment, Mr. D'Hauteville opened the door of his rooms on the same landing, and came face to face with her.

"Miss Van Vorst!" he exclaimed, staring at her; then, in a lower voice: "For Heaven's sake, don't come here. Halleck is dead. Haven't you heard?"

"Yes, I--I have heard." She looked pleadingly at him. "Mr. D'Hauteville," she said, "take me in to see him. I--I must see him. It was such a shock. I am his wife, you know," she added. The disclosure, which she had once so dreaded, fell from her lips indifferently, as if it were a thing of small importance, compared with the gaining of her purpose.

"His wife!" D'Hauteville fell back and stared at her incredulously. Then his mind quickly grasped the explanation of facts which had puzzled him. He looked at her and saw that she was suffering from terrible distress and excitement. "Do you really wish to see him?" he said. "It would be painful."

"Yes, I--I must see him." Elizabeth raised confidingly her troubled eyes, and D'Hauteville apparently could not resist their appeal. Slowly and reluctantly he unlocked the studio door and allowed Elizabeth to enter. The hall was empty, but from behind the portière at the end came the sound of voices. D'Hauteville cast an anxious glance towards them, but he opened quickly another door, and led the way into the bedroom, which was still and dark, and close with a strange, oppressive atmosphere. D'Hauteville, treading softly, drew up the shade. Then he fell back and turned his eyes away.

Elizabeth felt no fear, though her only recollection of death was connected with a horrible moment in her childhood, when they had led her in trembling to look at her father in his coffin. But now she felt indifferent to any trivial terrors. She stood by the bedside looking down at the dead man, and put out her hand and touched the curls which clustered about his forehead. He was not much changed; the greatest difference which death had made was in a certain look of dignity, which his face had never worn in life. It was impossible, standing there, to think of his faults, or of any harm that he had wrought in her life. She only remembered that he had been her first lover--nothing more.

A few moments passed, and then D'Hauteville pulled down the shades and drew her gently from the room. The tears were falling fast behind her veil, and the hand that rested against his was icy cold.

"I had better see you home," he said anxiously, but she shook her head.

"No, no, thank you. You have been very kind, but I--I would rather not. Mr. D'Hauteville," she said, raising piteous eyes to his "who--who could have done it?"

"God only knows!" said D'Hauteville, with a sigh. "No one else, I believe, ever will."

He had rung the bell, and they stood waiting for the elevator, when she turned to him. "It was not I," she said, "don't ever think that it was I." And at that moment the elevator stopped and she was borne away, before there was time for further words. But D'Hauteville stood paralyzed.

"For Heaven's sake," he asked himself, "why did she say that? Who accused her?"

Elizabeth, as she went her way, was quite unconscious of the impression her words had produced. Her head felt confused, and after she left Carnegie there followed a blank interval, during which she wandered aimlessly, but found herself at last, as if led by some involuntary instinct, in the Park beside the lake, into which a few weeks before she had thrown her wedding ring. Now, as before, it was nearly covered with a thin coating of ice, yet there was a strip of water visible, and upon this her eyes fastened with a thrill of terrified fascination. She pictured it involuntarily, closing over her, dragging her down, blotting out all thoughts, all feelings.... A moment of agony, perhaps, and then? Rest, oblivion, an end of all struggle, no more to-morrows to be faced, no more regrets.... The thought of death, the one way out, the only remedy, swift and sure, appealed to her with a force almost irresistible.

If only the water were not so cold!--In an instant there swept over her, quite as inevitably, the natural, healthy reaction; the revulsion against the icy pond, and all the weird, uncanny, frightful, unpleasant associations that it conjured up. Ah, she had not the courage!--not then, at least. She closed her eyes, shutting out the strange fascination of the water gleaming in the pale chill sunlight, and promising its sure and terrible relief--she closed her eyes and turned resolutely away. A horror seized upon her of herself and of loneliness, of the bleak desolation on every side. She hastened, breathing heavily, towards the entrance of the Park, her hurried foot-steps on the crisp, hard path sounding unnaturally loud in the wintry silence.

_Chapter XXX_

Several weeks later the Halleck poisoning case was still, so far as the general public was concerned, an impenetrable mystery. For a day or two various clues were investigated, with a great appearance of zeal; and then a lull fell upon the efforts of the police. Their final investigations, if they made any, were conducted behind closed doors. But no result appeared from their labors; the coroner's inquest was postponed from week to week for lack of sufficient evidence. The public grew impatient, and clamored that some one should be arrested;--it did not seem greatly to matter whom. And then there began to be strange rumors of influence exerted to conceal the truth, of suspicion which pointed in such high quarters, that the police were afraid to continue their search.

These rumors were still comparatively new when Eleanor Van Antwerp took up one day a scandalous society journal--(one of those papers which no one reads, but whose remarks, in some mysterious way, every one hears about)--and came across a paragraph, which seemed to her at once insulting and inexplicable.

"They say"--it began with this conventional formula--"that certain highly dramatic developments are to be expected soon in the famous poisoning case. The evidence that the District Attorney has collected is now said to be complete and to inculpate rather seriously a well-known beauty. The lady is related, though on the father's side only, to one of our old Dutch houses, and was introduced to society, where she was before entirely unknown, by the representative of another old Knickerbocker family. Under such circumstances her success was certain. Not content with taking the town by storm, she made special capture of a certain prominent society man and eligible parti, to whom her engagement was announced. This gentleman has, however, according to latest reports, left the forlorn beauty and fled to parts unknown."

What did it mean? The hot, indignant color rushed to Mrs. Bobby's cheek, and then, retreating, left her deadly pale. She took the paper to her husband, and pointing out the offending paragraph, she stood beside him as he read it, her dark eyes fixed intently upon his face, and seeing there, to her dismay, more indignation than surprise.

"Well," she said, as he looked up at the end. "Tell me--what does it mean?"

"It--the editor of that infernal thing ought to be horsewhipped," he said, fiercely.

She put the remark aside as irrelevant. "Why, that should have been done long ago. But what does it mean?" she persisted, holding to the main point.

He put the paper down with a sigh. "It means what it says, Eleanor, I'm afraid," he said.

She stared at him, a shade paler, while the dread in her eyes grew more pronounced. "Means what it says?" she repeated. "Then it isn't merely a wild concoction of the kind they're always inventing?"

"It's more than that, I'm afraid." Bobby rose and began to pace up and down. "They do say nasty things," he said, apparently addressing the walls, or anything rather than his wife.

Her eyes followed him with an intense anxiety, as her white lips barely framed the question: "At the clubs?"

He nodded. "Yes, there, and--at other places besides. At the District Attorney's, for instance"--

"You don't mean?"--she began incredulously.

"That they suspect her? Yes."

Mrs. Bobby sat down as if her strength suddenly had failed her. "But that's absurd--impossible!" she said, after a moment.

"Perhaps; but--it's the impossible that some times happens." Mrs. Bobby was silent in incredulous horror; and he went on, after a pause: "You see, she's in a confoundedly unpleasant position. There are all kinds of queer stories going the round. They say now that she was secretly married to Halleck; that he had some kind of power over her, at least; and then having every motive to get rid of him, being engaged to Gerard"--

"Bobby," said his wife, in a horrified tone "how can you repeat such disgusting gossip?"

"I'm only telling you what they say," said Bobby, apologetically.

"I don't wish to know it." Bobby held his peace. "Why should she have any motive?" said his wife, after a moment's reflection "when her engagement was broken?"

"They say--but I thought you didn't wish to know."

"I don't, but I suppose, I must know. What do they--these disgusting people--say?"

"They think that Gerard found out something which made him break the engagement. As for the poison, that was sent before, you know"--

"Bobby," said his wife, with a little cry, "you don't mean to suggest that she--that Elizabeth Van Vorst"--She paused as if at a loss for words, and Bobby concluded the sentence.

"Sent the poison?" he said, quietly. "No, I don't suggest it--not for a second; I don't _believe_ it, even," he cried, with sudden emphasis, "but there are other people who--who do both."

"Then they must be fools." Bobby made no reply. "Where," she said, in a moment, "do they suppose she got it--the poison?"

"That they don't know--as yet; but they know--or they think they do--where she got the flask. There's a shop in Brooklyn where they sell others like it"--he stopped.

"Well," she said, "what of it? I daresay there are a good many shops where they sell them."

"The man who keeps this particular shop, said, I believe, that he sold one on the twenty-third of December to a young woman thickly veiled, rather tall and with wavy red hair."

"Her hair isn't red," said Mrs. Bobby, quickly.

"Some people call it so, you know," said Bobby. She was silent.