Part 17

"You might have fallen in the drifts yourself! Oh, Rachel, my dear, my dear, you're mine--don't you see you are? I won't give you up!"

"I never thought of him, God forgive me! John, let me go--no, I must, he's--he's my husband--and I think I know almost where he fell!"

"They'll find him."

"John--"

They looked at each other mutely, then he drew the furs up about her throat and opened the door; together they went along the terrace.

"Rachel."

"Yes?"

"Forgive me!"

"Oh, I do! I've been a brute, I never once thought of him, only of you; but I must go now--you see that I must?"

He did not reply; he had seen that the lights were stationary over the snow and they outlined the dark figures of Astry and his men. They delved in the snow and labored with it. It was so deep that Charter helped Rachel down the last few yards with difficulty until they reached the path that the others had broken. Astry was kneeling in the drift, his head against the breast of the figure that they had uncovered.

Rachel went forward unsteadily and stood beside him. The others brushed away more snow and the form of Belhaven was fully revealed; he lay quite easily, his head on his arm as though he slept.

Astry rose from his knees and took Rachel's hands and turned her gently away.

"It's all over," he said gravely, "all over."

* * * * *

"It wasn't the cold; it was heart failure," Van Citters explained patiently, for the third time.

He was alone with his wife and Lottie Prynne. Eva had been carried up-stairs and Rachel and Dr. Macclesfield were with her. It had been necessary to tell all the guests at once, and under Pamela's skilful leading Paul told all he knew.

"I thought he looked ill," said Pamela, "but there'll be an inquest. Oh, poor Rachel, and poor Eva, too!"

"I can't get over it!" sobbed Lottie Prynne. "I always liked Belhaven--it's--it's dreadful. I should think we'd had thirteen at table."

Paul looked at her, exasperated; he was not sure, after all, that he admired her. Pamela showed sense at a crisis, he recognized, with a thrill of pride; Pamela really was a trump.

"Lord, it's awful to see a man go like that so suddenly!" was all he said, however.

Pamela rose. "See here, Paul," she said decisively, "you've got to take me in town somehow; we're just in the way here."

Paul demurred. "My dear, do you think?" he paused meaningly.

"Yes, I do! Rachel's a woman. I don't care a pin for your horrid stories; if she didn't love him she feels dreadfully. Any one can see that, poor dear! I don't believe Eva remembered anything; she just collapsed; but there's nothing to do now but get out of the way and come back to-morrow when one can be useful. You know we must be a nuisance here with all this happening!"

Paul surrendered. "You're right, but it's as cold as the devil and they've only just got the snow-plough through."

"I don't care," said Pamela stoutly. "Lottie, stop crying; it makes your nose red, dear, and I'm so nervous I just can't bear it."

Paul came back with his own coat and Pamela's wrap. "I say, they've actually got a motor out and it's waiting. I thought perhaps you'd better go on in it to our house, Mrs. Prynne, with Pamela; it's nearly morning--"

Lottie's face cleared. "I'll go straight home if you'll take me," she said, "and be only too thankful to go. I'm all upset!"

In the hall they met John Charter; he had been out and was splashed with snow from the drifts.

"We're going; we thought we'd better," Pamela told him, in a low voice. "But to-morrow I'm coming back to be with Rachel."

John looked at her fresh, kind face. "I wish you would!" he said fervently.

She put out her hand and he took it, aware for the first time that she understood.

He helped them into the motor, for Astry was with Sedley and Dr. Macclesfield in the library beside Belhaven's body. When they were gone Charter went out to the end of the long terrace. The whitened landscape seemed to make every object clear and he noticed the heavy sweep of the big hemlocks under their load of snow. Behind him the house was full of lights; servants moved silently to and fro, for the business of death was there.

He felt the shock of it; this sudden end had found him filled with anger against the dead. He had been in deep rebellion against the fate that had thrust this man into Rachel's life; he had called him coward a thousand times, and now he was overtaken with the abrupt pause that follows the death of an adversary, the feeling that silences reproach on the lips of the living and appeals from man's judgment to that supreme tribunal where there can be neither anger nor malice nor false-witness, and where the soul, climbing slowly and painfully up that long way that men call life, may have already made an atonement deep as life itself. The overwhelming certainty that as a man sows he shall reap was brought home to him in that moment when, thinking of the dead man within, he thought also of Eva, who seemed to have saved herself. But he had seen Eva when the body of Belhaven was borne in, a mute witness of the deed that she had done, and he knew that Eva had need of Astry's mercy, as great as Belhaven's need of salvation.

Standing on the terrace, Charter looked out across the frozen landscape and saw, a long, long way off, the light in the open door of Belhaven's house, where they made ready for his silent return. That light upon the snow made a long and exceedingly narrow way, and over it he seemed to see the figure of the woman he loved coming toward him. For, by her one unthinking act to save her sister, Rachel, too, had stumbled upon the way, and he seemed to see her traveling along it now, stooping always to help those who had stumbled lower or fallen, and bearing always the burden of another's transgressions, but coming at last through the light to meet him and reaping, not in pain and sorrow, but in joy and peace, because her love was greater than theirs.

THE END.