Chapter 6

THE WAYS OF DESOLATION.

"Oh! colder than the wind that freezes Founts, that but now in sunshine play'd, Is that congealing pang which seizes The trusting bosom when betray'd."--_Moore_.

Four months had elapsed since the honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern, and Anna was living at Waltham with her mother who grew more fretful and complaining every day. The marriage was still the secret of Anna and Sanderson. The honeymoon at the White Rose had been prolonged to a week, but no suspicion had entered the minds of Mrs. Moore or Mrs. Standish Tremont, thanks to Sanderson's skill in sending fictitious telegrams, aided by so skilled an accomplice as the "Rev." John Langdon.

Week after week, Anna had yielded to Sanderson's entreaties and kept her marriage a secret from her mother. At first he had sent her remittances of money with frequent regularity, but, lately, they had begun to fall off, his letters were less frequent, shorter and more reserved in tone, and the burden of it all was crushing the youth out of the girl and breaking her spirit. She had grown to look like some great sorrowful-eyed Madonna, and her beauty had in it more of the spiritual quality of an angel than of a woman. As the spring came on, and the days grew longer she looked like one on whom the hand of death had been laid.

Her friends noticed this, but not her mother, who was so engrossed with her own privations, that she had no time or inclination for anything else.

"Anna, Anna, to think of our coming to this!" she would wail a dozen times a day--or, "Anna, I can't stand it another minute," and she would burst into paroxysms of grief, from which nothing could arouse her, and utterly exhausted by her own emotions, which were chiefly regret and self-pity, she would sink off to sleep. Anna had no difficulty in accounting to her mother for the extra comforts with which Lennox Sanderson's money supplied them. Mrs. Standish Tremont sometimes sent checks and Mrs. Moore never bothered about the source, so long as the luxuries were forthcoming.

"Is there no more Kumyss, Anna?" she asked one day.

"No, mother."

"Then why did you neglect to order it?"

The girl's face grew red. "There was no money to pay for it, mother. I am so sorry."

"And does Frances Tremont neglect us in this way? When we were both girls, it was quite the other way. My father practically adopted Frances Tremont. She was married from our house. But you see, Anna, she made a better marriage than I. Oh, why was your father so reckless? I warned him not to speculate in the rash way he was accustomed to doing, but he would never take my advice. If he had, we would not be as we are now." And again the poor lady was overcome with her own sorrows.

It was not Mrs. Tremont's check that had bought the last Kumyss. In fact, Mrs. Tremont, after the manner of rich relations, troubled her head but little about her poor ones. Sanderson had sent no money for nearly a month, and Anna would have died sooner than have asked for it. He had been to Waltham twice to see Anna, and once she had gone to meet him at the White Rose Tavern. Mrs. Moore, wrapped in gloom at the loss of her own luxury, had no interest in the young man who came down from Boston to call on her daughter.

"You met him at Cousin Frances's, did you say? I don't see how you can ask him here to this abominable little house. A girl should have good surroundings, Anna. Nothing detracts from a girl's beauty so much as cheap surroundings. Oh, my dear, if you had only been settled in life before all this happened, I would not complain." And, as usual, there were more tears.

But the wailings of her mother, over departed luxuries, and the poverty of her surroundings were the lightest of Anna's griefs. At their last meeting--she had gone to him in response to his request--Sanderson's manner had struck dumb terror into the heart of the girl who had sacrificed so much at his bidding. She had been very pale. The strain of facing the terrible position in which she found herself, coupled with her own failing health, had robbed her of the beautiful color he had always so frankly admired. Her eyes were big and hollow looking, and the deep black circles about them only added to her unearthly appearance. There were drawn lines of pain about the mouth, that robbed the Cupid's bow of half its beauty.

"My God, Anna!" he had said to her impatiently. "A man might as well try to love a corpse as a woman who looks like that." He led her over to a mirror, that she might see her wasted charms. There was no need for her to look. She knew well enough, what was reflected there.

"You have no right to let yourself get like this. The only thing a woman has is her looks, and it is a crime if she throws them away worrying and fretting."

"But Lennox," she answered, desperately, "I have told you how matters stand with me, and mother knows nothing--suspects nothing." And the girl broke down and wept as if her heart would break.

"Anna, for Heaven's sake, do stop crying. I hate a scene worse than anything in the world. When a woman cries, it means but one thing, and that is that the man must give in--and in this particular instance I can't give in. It would ruin me with the governor to acknowledge our marriage."

The girl's tears froze at his brutal words. She looked about dazed and hopeless.

Sanderson was standing by the window, drumming a tattoo on the pane. He wheeled about, and said slowly, as if he were feeling his way:

"Anna, suppose I give you a sum of money and you go away till all this business is over. You can tell your mother or not; just as you see fit. As far as I am concerned, it would be impossible for me to acknowledge our marriage as I have said before. If the governor found it out, he would cut me off without a cent."

"But, Lennox, I cannot leave my mother. Her health grows worse daily, and it would kill her."

"Then take her with you. She's got to know, sooner or later, I suppose. Now, don't be a stupid little girl, and everything will turn out well for us." He patted her cheek, but it was done perfunctorily, and Anna knew there was no use in making a further appeal to him.

"Well, my dear," he said, "I have got to take that 4.30 train back to Cambridge. Here is something for you, and let me know just as soon as you make up your mind, when you intend to go and where. There is no use in your staying in Waltham till those old cats begin to talk."

He put a roll of bills in her hand, kissed her and was gone, and Anna turned her tottering steps homeward, sick at heart. She must tell her mother, and the shock of it might kill her. She pressed her hands over her burning eyes to blot out the hideous picture. Could cruel fate offer bitterer dregs to young lips?

She stopped at the postoffice for mail. There was nothing but the daily paper. She took it mechanically and turned into the little side street on which they lived.

The old family servant, who still lived with them, met her at the door, and told her that her mother had been sleeping quietly for more than an hour.

"Good gracious, Miss Anna, but you do look ill. Just step into the parlor and sit down for a minute, and I'll make you a cup of tea."

Anna suffered herself to be led into the little room, smiling gratefully at the old servant as she assisted her to remove her hat and jacket. She took up the paper mechanically and glanced through its contents. Her eyes fell on the following item, which she followed with hypnotic interest: "Harvard Student in Disgrace!" was the headline.

"John Langdon, a Harvard student, was arrested on the complaint of Bertha Harris, a young woman, well known in Boston's gas-light circles, yesterday evening. They had been dining together at a well-known chop house, when the woman, who appeared to be slightly under the influence of liquor, suddenly arose and declared that Langdon was trying to rob her.

"Both were arrested on the charge of creating a disturbance. At the State Street Police Station the woman said that Langdon had performed a mock marriage for a fellow student some four months ago. She had acted as a witness, for which service she was to receive $50. The money had never been paid. She stated further that the young man, whom Langdon is alleged to have married, is the son of a wealthy Boston banker, and the young woman who was thus deceived is a young relative of one of Boston's social leaders.

"Later Bertha Harris withdrew her charges, saying she was intoxicated when she made them. The affair has created a profound sensation."

"Mock marriage!" The words whirled before the girl's eyes in letters of fire. Bertha Harris! Yes, that was the name. It had struck her at the time when Sanderson dropped the ring. Langdon had said "Bertha Harris has found it."

The light of her reason seemed to be going out. From the blackness that engulfed her, the words "mock marriage" rang in her ear like the cry of the drowning.

"God, oh God!" she called and the pent up agony of her wrecked life was in the cry.

They found her senseless a moment later, staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, the crumpled paper crushed in her hand.

"She is dead," wailed her mother. The old servant wasted no time in words. She lifted up the fragile form and laid it tenderly on the bed. Then she raised the window and called to the first passerby to run for the nearest doctor.