CHAPTER XXII

"WHO IS MY WIFE?"

Miss Mont sank slowly into her chair, still staring at the writhing features of the man who claimed to be her husband. Insanity had been her first thought; but the agony and passion displayed by John Ryder taught her that he was suffering as no maniac could suffer.

His words had the ring of truth that could not be ignored. He claimed her as his bride, and so confident was his belief in her identity as the woman he had married that her own counter knowledge was almost shaken.

"Mr. Ryder," she said at last and in almost a whisper, "sit down on that trunk yonder. Let me talk to you. Yes, sit down! You are between me and the door; I cannot escape."

Her quiet speech helped to bring him to his senses. He had been threatening her with the vehemence he might have used to a man. Red shame dyed his cheek. His manner suddenly subsided. He obeyed her.

"Mr. Ryder, I am not your wife," she said slowly, looking at him with her truthful eyes. She was the woman now she had seemed aboard the _Minnequago_. "No! I do not mean that," as she saw a wicked expression come into his face. "I have neither intentionally, nor unintentionally wronged you.

"Had I been convinced that I could--could learn to love you as a wife should and had married you, I would have done nothing which you in any way could construe as an attempt to bring disgrace upon your name.

"Wait! You are in a maze yet. You believe I am splitting hairs. I am not." She leaned forward and raised her voice for emphasis. "I am not the woman whom you married."

"What do you mean?" he gasped starting up again. "Would you make me doubt my own eyes? You sit there and coolly tell me I do not know the woman I married--the woman whom I held in my arms night before last--the woman who told me over and over again, by look and word, that she loved me?"

She had blushed vividly and for a moment covered her face with her hands. But she stopped him at that point.

"That is exactly what I do tell you. You do not know your wife, the woman whose name is on that marriage paper. Look at me closely. Come nearer. Is there not some feature different? Is she truly--this other woman--so like me?"

She said it earnestly and eagerly. She bent toward him until her breath fanned his face and until he could look with his troubled eyes deep into her clear, shadowless orbs.

And then, strange as it may seem, although John Ryder saw nothing unfamiliar in her countenance--nothing to warn him that this was not the woman whom he had wedded--one thing he suddenly knew. It was a startling discovery. It shook him to the very depths of his soul.

Whereas Ruth's very presence--his being near her and in physical contact with her--had thrilled him each time it occurred, he felt no such shock now. His anger had abated. He was shaken no more by the terrible rage under which he had labored. But this woman held no such influence over him, after all, as had Ruth. Still he was confused.

"Ruth! Can such a thing be?" he whispered brokenly. "You surely _do_ love me a little?"

The abjectness of his speech and the misery in the man's face were awful. Miss Mont covered her face again and began to sob.

"You will not do this to me, Ruth? I know you must love me a little. No woman could be to a man what you were to me without loving him. Whatever this shadow is that has come between us----"

The passion and pleading in his voice had swept her on with him. She was trembling violently and her sobs were more broken. He would have gathered her into his arms by one sudden movement had she not sprung to her feet and eluded his hands.

"Stop! Stop!" she cried hoarsely. "This is not for me to hear! You do not mean this for _me_!

"I tell you, Mr. Ryder, I am another woman. I am not the person you married. I am not Ruth Mont; I am Rose Mont--and always have been and," she broke into passionate weeping, "and--and--always--shall be--_now_!"

[Illustration: I am another woman. I am not the person you married.]

The vehemence of her emotion quelled Ryder as nothing else had done. She flung herself upon her knees with her head and arms resting upon the littered dressing table and abandoned herself to tears which seemed to well from her very soul.

He leaned over her, not daring to touch her, anxious, panting--altogether broken in spirit. A woman's tears flow easily they say; but this woman was not by nature a crying woman. This flood, however, cleared her heart and mind, and she saw and understood more clearly when her passion was past.

"Listen to me, Mr. Ryder," she said at last, recovering her seat and motioning him into his. "This is a wonderful thing--and a terrible thing. Don't look at me like that! Please, _please_ don't! I tell you I am not the woman you think me."

"Do you mean," he said with deliberation, "that you are not the woman I met aboard the _Minnequago_?"

"No, no!"

"Or you are not the woman I asked to marry me before we landed?"

"No, no, Mr. Ryder! I am that woman."

"Then why did you say just now you were not?" he demanded with heat. "I treated you fairly. Were you not satisfied? Was the glamor of this," and he indicated the makeup box and her discarded costume in his gesture, "too much for you? Could any man give you more that is worth while in life than I? Are you of so changeable a mind that you did not know what you really wanted?

"When I wrote you aboard ship to choose once for all between this beastly Marks' offer of a stage career and a position as my wife----"

"What letter? What do you mean?" she cried, darting at him suddenly.

"You know what I mean. You answered the letter in person when you met me on the dock."

"I received no letter from you, Mr. Ryder."

He looked puzzled and hesitated. "Well, what matters it? You met me and said you were willing to marry me----"

"I tell you _No_!" she cried. "I did not meet you. I did not say I would marry you. And I did not marry you."

"By heaven, woman!"

"No, I tell you!"

She bore him back into his seat upon the trunk with both hands upon his shoulders. Her face was thrust close to his and she held him by the power of her gaze. But again John Ryder realized that her nearness lacked that thrilling influence upon him which contact with his bride had evolved.

"Listen to me," she repeated impressively. "You have been betrayed--fooled. Either you have deceived yourself, or have been deliberately deceived by others who knew well your wealth and power--the man you are. You millionaires are a mark for designing persons, Mr. Ryder, as you should well know.

"I cannot understand it all. But this I do know: I did not see you to speak to for all of that last day before the ship docked. I thought you--you had seen the unwisdom of your course in offering marriage to a woman like me."

She hesitated and the tears welled to her eyes again, but by sheer force of will she drove them back. "I received no letter from you, Mr. Ryder; none at all, you understand!"

"I--I gave it to a steward."

"It was not delivered. When we landed I did not see you. Stop! Let me finish. I was one of the last to leave the ship. Mrs. Gurthrie--the lady who sat by my side at the table--you remember? Mrs. Gurthrie was taken ill as we came up the bay. I remained with her after we docked. An ambulance had to be sent for to remove her to her home. I went with her in the ambulance before going to the hotel Mr. Marks selected for me----"

"What are you saying?" gasped Ryder, his face like death.

"I am telling you the truth. I can prove every word I say. A dozen witnesses--officers of the ship, the doctor, the driver of the ambulance, Mrs. Gurthrie herself and her husband, Mr. Marks--all these can bear out what I say."

She thought he would faint and reaching for the glass standing at her elbow placed the water to his lips. He drank it, still staring into her countenance with fixed gaze.

"Do you understand?" she continued softly. "Don't you _see_ that I am not the woman you married, Mr. Ryder? I am forced to earn my living. This way of the stage was opened to me and my success tonight proves that I was right in accepting the chance offered."

But, he was not listening. He did not hear her final words at all. All that he really heard was this query, repeated over and over again in his tortured brain:

"_Who is my wife?_"