Part 25

This, indeed, was the general verdict. No one who knew Sören Kule blamed Ragni. An old rake, blind and half-paralysed as the immediate result of ill-living, he had worried his first wife, Ragni's sister, into the grave, and then taken advantage of the young girl's innocence to marry her. The man was a mass of corruption, and his second marriage was one of those strangely cruel crimes which go unpunished in the present state of society. Kallem, who was then lodging in the same house as Kule, was maddened by it. Being a doctor, he foresaw clearly the fate of the pure, lovely, girlish victim of Kule's brutal passion, and in rescuing her from it he had displayed, in the opinion of his friends, the chivalry of soul of a modern knight-errant.

Pastor Meek was a liberal-minded and courageous old man; he showed his sympathy with the Kallems, and his trust in them, in a practical manner.

"My grandson, Karl," he said to Kallem, "is at school here. I wish you would let him come, now and then, to your house. He is only nineteen years old, but he promises to be a first-rate composer. Your wife plays the piano beautifully. They ought to get on well together."

Kallem was so pleased with this mark of approval that he went the next morning to the young musician's lodgings, and invited him to come and live with him. Karl Meek was a lanky, awkward hobbledehoy, with a tousled head of hair and long red hands, which were always covered with chilblains. Ragni asked him to play a simple duet, but he made so many mistakes in playing that she got up from the piano. He was upset, and ran away from the house. Kallem spent an afternoon looking for him, and brought him back with his hair cut, his nails trimmed, and his clothes brushed.

"Can't you see?" said Kallem to his wife. "The lad's shy and afraid of you. Do, my dear, make him feel quite at home."

Ragni was a sweet and gentle woman, and though she did not like Karl much at first, she took him in hand, and, little by little, obtained a great influence over the wild creature. As his fine poetic nature gradually revealed itself, she began to mother him. They were often seen walking out together, and as soon as the snow was firm, they used to go and meet Kallem, and drive home with him, each standing on one of the runners of his sledge. One afternoon, after they had been skating together on the frozen bay, they were returning, without Kallem, when a carriage barred their way. At the sound of Ragni's voice, the man inside said:

"There she goes! Who is it with her? Another man? Ah, I thought that's what would happen!"

Ragni shuddered. It was Sören Kule. The paralysed old rake turned his blind face upon her, as though he could see her, and had caught her doing wrong. The carriage stopped by the next house to the Kallems. Before Kule could get out, Ragni had run indoors. Shortly afterwards her husband arrived. She saw that he, too, had met Kule, and he saw that she had gone into the bedroom to hide herself. She buried her head in his arms; it seemed to her that the air was now full of evil spirits.

And so it was. Edward Kallem did not know it, as he was now too busy to go out anywhere. He was spending a great deal of his wealth in fitting out a private hospital for the study and treatment of the diseases that he specialised in. But Karl Meek soon became aware of malign influences working around him, and around the two persons for whom he would willingly, nay, happily, have laid down his life. He met an old friend in the street, who said to him:

"How do you stand in regard to Mrs. Kallem?"

Karl did not take in his meaning, and began to praise Ragni enthusiastically.

"Yes, I know all about that," his friend interrupted. "But, to make a clean breast of it, are you her lover?"

"How dare you, how dare you!" cried Karl.

His friend quietly said that he only wanted to warn Karl; the report had certainly got about.

"You've been a great deal together, you know," said his friend; "that has given the scandal-mongers something to go on."

Both Edward and Ragni saw that something had happened to Karl when he returned. He was in a black mood; he did not speak; his blue eyes were, by turns, strangely savage and strangely sorrowful. He had to go home at once, he said. He could not tell them now what the matter was, but he would write to them, as soon as he could pluck up the courage to do so. He packed his luggage, and Kallem went to see him off.

A few days afterwards, Ragni received a letter from Karl. He was going to Berlin, he said, to take up the study of music seriously. And then, for four pages, he talked about his prospects. But there was another page, a loose one, on which was written in red ink: "Read this when you are alone."

"I have decided, Ragni," Karl wrote, "that it would be wisest to tell you why I left so suddenly. Someone has started a dreadful slander against us. If I do not now tell you, you will hear it from the lips of some enemy. Ah, God! that I should have brought this upon you! Love you? Of course I love you. How could I help doing so, after all your kindness to me? And as for Edward, I worship the ground he treads on. He is the noblest man I have ever met. But do not show him this letter. Spare him the evil news as long as possible. Now that I have gone away, it may all blow over."

Kallem did not get home from the hospital that night until eight o'clock. When he came home his wife was lying in bed with a headache. She did not get up the next morning. She was in bed several days. When at last she got up, her husband noticed that she had grown very thin; her face had a tired, delicate expression; there were dark rings around her sweet eyes, and she was troubled with a cough.

_III.--The Fell Work of Slander_

Ragni now did not stir outside her own door. She longed for fresh air, but she would not go out into the town for fear of the cruel, curious eyes of the scandal-mongers. Sören Kule haunted her. His house overlooked her garden, and she got the strange fancy into her head that he was always sitting at the window blindly listening for her. So she never even went for a walk in the park-like grounds which Kallem had purchased wholly for her pleasure.

The poison of scandal had done its work. Her husband, unfortunately, never suspected that she was really ill; he had a deep longing for a child of his marriage, and, misled by too eager a hope, he misinterpreted the strange alteration in his wife's health.

But one evening, when she coughed, some blood came up. Kallem saw it, and the hideous truth came upon him in a blinding flash. It was the terrible disease which he had spent the greater part of his fortune in fighting against. Tuberculosis! But how was it that it had come so suddenly, and ravaged her dear, sweet, tender body so furiously? She was in a galloping consumption, and the end was not far off ... a few weeks ... a few days, perhaps.

"Darling," he said, coming to her bedside one day, "isn't there some secret you would like to confide in me--some secret that has been hurting and distressing you? Tell me, dearest, for I shall have no peace until I know it."

"I will tell you," she said. "I have just been thinking about it. You will find some papers in my writing-table--they are all for you. Read them, dear, when----" she broke off abruptly--"by and by. You will understand that it was for your sake I kept it secret."

He went downstairs, and in the writing-table he found Karl's letter. Horror, indignation, and helplessness overcame him. Why had he not known of this in time? He would have gone to every soul in the town, and told them that they lied.

"Ay," he said, "I will tell them so yet. They have murdered her--cowardly murdered her! Ah, God, I have spent my life and my fortune in my endeavours to benefit them, and there's not one of them--not one--honest enough to tell me to defend my wife's good name!"

What drove him almost to madness was that there was none he could go to and take by the throat, exclaiming: "You have done this! You are answerable to me for this!" Still, there was one who stood apart from the others--Josephine. Josephine had not invented the slander; that was not her way. But she would believe what was invented when it concerned anyone she disliked. And how she disliked Ragni! Yes, it was Josephine and her hypocrite of a husband who had laid his darling open to this sort of attack. Very well! Everything else was gone--his joy of life, his interest in science, and his love of mankind. But he still had something to live for--vengeance!

As he was sitting one evening by the bedside of his wife the door opened, and Karl Meek came into the room. "Is she dead?" said the boy. Ragni heard the question. She looked up, and tried to smile. Her eyes rested for a moment on Karl, and then remained on her husband. A moment after she was dead.

Josephine was surprised to hear that Karl Meek was the only person whom her brother allowed to follow the coffin of his dead wife. Did that mean that Edward did not suspect him? Or, more likely, that he had forgiven him? Ah, if one could be as good as that!

"God's way with sinners," said Tuft, "may seem cruel, but it is really kind and merciful. The death of that woman will work for Edward's good: Of course, he feels it keenly now, but he will get over it. It is a blessing in disguise."

As soon as Tuft uttered these words he felt the sheer brutality of them. By a strange irony of fate, his own child had fallen ill about the time that Ragni took to her bed, and the minister and his wife were now talking over the couch of their suffering little boy. Something was wrong with his chest, and Josephine would have liked to call in her clever brother in place of the ordinary family doctor, but she would not humble herself to beg his help. Perhaps it was the shock of her husband's words that aroused her, but that night the springs of her nature were strangely opened. She came downstairs in her nightdress to Tuft's bed, and awoke him. Her eyes were fixed in a blank stare.

"I can't sleep, Ole," she whispered. "I want to warn you. That woman-- Edward's wife--is trying to take away our boy. We have been too hard on her--too hard. Now she will make us pay for it."

"You are not yourself, Josephine," said Tuft, rising up, and dressing himself hastily. "I will fetch the doctor."

"No, no!" she cried. "Ask Edward to come."

Tuft did not dare do this himself, but he got his doctor to approach Kallem, who made an appointment to examine the child early next morning. Josephine shrieked when she saw him. Under the stress of mental suffering, the flesh on his face had wasted to the bone; he was the image of death. Without speaking to either of the parents he went to the child, tapped its chest lightly here and there, and then said something to the doctor and went out.

"He has gone to get his instruments," the doctor whispered. "The case is extremely serious. An operation must be performed at once."

Josephine did not speak, neither did Tuft. They had been watching Kallem's face as he bent over their boy, and in it they seemed to read the sentence of death. They had called him in too late.

They were mistaken. Edward Kallem came hurrying back with a staff of trained assistants. Tuft and Josephine were locked outside their child's room. An hour afterwards the door was opened. The boy's life was saved. This they learnt from their own doctor, but Kallem himself departed without even speaking to them.

_IV.--The Reconciliation_

That night, over the body of the sleeping child, Ole Tuft at last dealt sternly and truly with himself. Three times, in the course of the day, had he gone to Kallem's house to thank him for saving his boy's life. But Kallem had refused to see him. At the third refusal Tuft understood. If ever he entered his brother-in-law's house he would enter it a changed man. He was now vowing that he would begin this new life by uniting Edward and Josephine. It was his jealousy, he admitted to himself, which had been the root of all the mischief.

Edward had been his hero, too, in his younger days, and it was this common worship of a nobler and more gifted nature which had brought him and Josephine together. Why had he not let it remain the base of their intercourse? Their marriage would then have been a happy one, and his own life would have been filled with larger thoughts and more generous feelings.

While Pastor Tuft was meditating, his wife was acting. She too, had been refused admittance to her brother's house. So she was writing to him. For whatever wrong they might have done, she said, they wished to make amends. They had been intolerant, she allowed, and they were sorry for it. But surely they were worthy to be accused? Would he not, then, tell them plainly what they had done to make him so angry?

Some days afterwards, Josephine received a large envelope addressed to her by her brother. But she was surprised, on opening it, to find that it was full of papers in two strange handwritings. They were letters to Kallem, from Ragni and Karl Meek. Josephine trembled as she looked at them. She began by chance with Meek's letters. Ragni innocent? Good God! was she innocent? Yes! Now she understood why Edward had driven away on the day of the funeral with only Karl Meek by his side; but she could not understand how he had survived it.

The servant knocked at her bedroom door, saying that supper was ready.

"No, no!" she managed to exclaim, as she writhed in shame and sorrow. She must go at once to her brother if she had to go to him on her knees. But no! Here were Ragni's letters. She felt as if her brother were standing over her, and forcing her to read them. Some of them were early love-letters. There had been no misconduct. Her chivalrous brother and the sweet, gentle woman whom he had rescued from a horrible fate had lived apart from one another in America until the day of their marriage.

Josephine slipped from the chair down upon her knees, weeping and sobbing. "Forgive me! Forgive me!" she whispered, pressing Ragni's letters in her hands.

Then she forced herself to silence, so that no one might discover her crouching there in the shame of her crime. She had murdered her brother's wife--not by words, but by her silence! Yes, she was a murderess! Well, let Edward deal with her as he thought fit!

She ran wildly out of the house into the dark, rainy street, past her husband's church, past the white wall of Sören Kule's dwelling. Her brother was standing in the open door, surrounded by trunks and boxes. Was he thinking of going away? Tears streamed down her face.

"Edward!"

She could get no further. He drew himself upright, his face white and stern.

"You shall never enter here!" he said, with a break in his voice.

He bent down to do up a trunk. When he got up she was gone. With a fierce look in his eyes, he continued his preparations. He meant to catch the first train the next morning, and get at once far away from his native town. What he would then do he did not know, except that he would never return. When everything was ready, he locked the front door and went to bed. But he could not sleep. Twice in the night the door-bell rang, but he would not open the door. It rang a third time, and kept on ringing; and at last he got out of bed. It was Ole Tuft. His face was ghastly.

"Where is my wife, Edward Kallem? What have you done with my wife?" he moaned.

"Ragni's grave," said Kallem. "She is there, I think."

And then he slammed the door to. Just as dawn was breaking, the bell rang again. Kallem went into the hall, and saw that two pieces of paper had been thrust through the letter-box. On one, Tuft had written: "She is not there, Edward; she was not there. I found this note on my writing-table among the letters you sent her. Oh, Edward, it was not like you to send her away!" On the other piece of paper Josephine had written: "Read these, Ole, and you will understand all. For my life's sake, I am now going to my brother!"

"For my life's sake!" Kallem shivered as he read it, and all his old love for his sister came back to him. Had he killed her? She had wronged Ragni, true; but it was merely out of jealousy. Jealousy because he had made Ragni all in all to him, and left her out of his life. He could have brought his wife and sister together, but he had not tried to do it. Ah, he, too, was guilty! All her life long Josephine had looked up to him and worshipped him. Then he had come back from America, and cast her off, for one who was not worthy of him, so it seemed to her. And in his fierce pride he had refused to reveal to her the fine character of his wife.

He rushed out of the door, resolved to find what had become of her. She was sitting on the steps of the house. As she saw him, she crouched down like a wounded bird, which cannot get away, yet must not be seen. He took her up into his arms, and carried her indoors.

"Let me stay, Edward--let me stay!" she said.

He bent over her and kissed her.

"God's ways! God's ways!" said Ole Tuft, as he and Edward and Josephine walked slowly towards his house through the empty streets in the early morning.

"But I still cannot share your faith," Kallem said.

"It matters not," said the minister. "There where good people walk, are God's ways."

* * * * *

WILLIAM BLACK

A Daughter of Heth

William Black, born in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 13, 1841, was educated with a view to being a landscape painter, a training that clearly influenced his literary life. He became a painter of scenery in words. At the age of twenty-three he went to London, after some experience in Glasgow journalism, and joined the staff of the "Morning Star," and, later, the "Daily News," of which journal he became assistant-editor. His first novel appeared in 1868, but it was not until the publication of "A Daughter of Heth," in 1871, that Black secured the attention of the reading public. "The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton" followed, and in 1873 "A Princess of Thule" attained great popularity. Retiring from journalism the next year he devoted himself entirely to fiction. A score of novels followed, the last in 1898, just before his death on December 10 of that year. No novelist has lavished more tender care on the portrayal of his heroines, or worked up more delicately a scenic background for plaintive sentiment.

_I.--In Strange Surroundings_

"Noo, Wattie," said the Whaup, "ye maun say a sweer before ye get up. I'm no jokin', and unless ye be quick ye'll be in the water."

Wattie Cassilis, the "best boy" of the Airlie Manse, paragon of scholars, and exemplar to his four brothers, was depending from a small bridge over the burn, his head downward and a short distance from the water, his feet being held close to the parapet by the muscular arms of his eldest brother, Tammas Cassilis, commonly known as the Whaup.

"Wattie," repeated the Whaup, "say a sweer, or into the burn ye'll gang as sure as daith!" and he dipped Wattie a few inches, so that the ripples touched his head. Wattie set up a fearful howl.

"Now, will ye say it?"

"_Deevil!_" cried Wattie. "Let me up; I hae said a sweer!"

The other brothers raised a demoniac shout of triumph over his apostacy.

"Ye maun say a worse sweer, Wattie. Deevil is no bad enough."

"I'll droon first!" whimpered Wattie, "and then ye'll get your paiks, I'm thinking."

Down went Wattie's head into the burn again, and this time he was raised with his mouth sputtering out the contents it had received.

"I'll say what ye like! _D--n;_ is that bad enough?"

With another unholy shout of derision Wattie was raised and set on the bridge.

"Noo," said the Whaup, standing over him, "let me tell you this, my man. The next time ye gang to my faither, and tell a story about any one o' us, or the next time you say a word against the French lassie, as ye ca' her, do ye ken what I'll do? I'll take ye back to my faither by the lug, and I'll tell him ye were sweerin' like a trooper down by the burn, and every one o' us will testify against you, and then, I'm thinking, it will be your turn to consider paiks."

Catherine Cassilis, "the French lassie," had arrived at the Manse a few weeks before, and she had sore need of a champion.

Andrew Bogue, the ancient henchman of the Rev. Gavin Cassilis, minister of Airlie, who met her at the station, disapproved of her from the first as a foreign jade dressed so that all the men turned and looked at her as if she had been a snare of Satan. Then, had not young Lord Earlshope, after introducing himself, taken a seat in the trap and talked with her in her own language as if he had known her for years?

"They jabbered away in their foreign lingo," said Andrew that evening to his wife Leezibeth, the housekeeper "and I'm thinking it was siccan a language was talked in Sodom and Gomorrah. And he was a' smiles, and she was a' smiles, and they seemed to think nae shame o' themselves goin' through a decent countryside!"

The Whaup himself had said, on the night of Coquette's arrival, "Oh, she's an actress, and I hate actresses!" But before many days had passed, he completely changed that hasty view. The big, sturdy, long-legged lad succumbed to the charms of his parentless cousin--the daughter of the minister's brother, who had settled in France and taken to himself a French wife--and he became her defender against those inhabitants of the Manse and the parish--from his brother Wattie to the pragmatic schoolmaster--whose prejudices she unintentionally outraged.

Even the minister was grieved when Coquette, as her father had called her, made a casual remark about the "last time she had gone to the mass."