Part 14

She heard it and leaned forward a little on her cushions, trying to read his face, studying every fine and classic outline of the strong head, the brow, the deep-set brilliant eye, the thin-lipped sensitive mouth, the clean shaven, strong jaw and chin. It was his face; how often she had dreamed about it and dreamed of it as turned to her with the glow of love and joy on it, but how pale it was, how hard, how resolute!

“I knew the campaign was hotly contested, but I never doubted your success,” she said simply; “you know I always believed in you.”

He turned sharply and looked at her. “What is the matter, Margaret? You are not yourself.”

She smiled. “No,” she admitted, looking at him with an enigmatical expression, “no, I am not myself; the old Margaret is dead--and buried! Not even Mrs. Wingfield would know me; I burnt up my last red hat yesterday, William.”

He answered her smile involuntarily, but his eyes remained grave, almost stern. He turned abruptly, holding out his hand. “Margaret,” he said, “I came--of course you know it--to ask you to be my wife.”

She drew a long breath and was silent, her eyes on his face; she was wonderfully calm.

“It seems to me that the sooner it is over the better for both of us,” he went on hurriedly; “there will, of course, be some talk; we must face it together.”

Without answering him she bent over and picked up a half sheet of the morning newspaper from the floor, and after glancing at it, held it out to him. “There is an article there about you,” she said in a low voice; “it says you have refused the State Department; is that true?”

He put the paper aside with a little impatience. “Of course it’s true,” he said; “I refused it three days ago.”

She was again silent for an instant while she folded the paper into plaits. “Why did you refuse it?” she asked.

Fox moved sharply and turned his face away, looking at the fire. “That does not concern us, Margaret,” he said gravely; “our marriage is the only question now; I--”

She interrupted him. “Tell me,” she insisted, “it’s my right to know; this had something to do with me, with the prospect of--of your marrying Wicklow’s divorced wife, I know it! Tell me the truth.”

“Of what avail?” he retorted with evident reluctance, his cheek red.

“I have a right to know,” she reiterated.

He smiled bitterly. “The situation is quite clear, isn’t it? I can’t take White’s place in the Cabinet and White’s wife; it would be monstrous.”

She leaned back in her chair, shading her face with her thin hand which trembled slightly, she tried to speak, but her dry lips refused to move. His manner, no less than his words, had ruthlessly torn away the last shreds of her self-deception, and her poor shivering soul shuddered at this revelation of the hardness in him, the eternal note of egoism. How plain it was, how simple, how inexorable! The man’s love had died, and hers had fed itself upon a chimera, a phantasm of her imagination, a dream of the past! Her hand trembled so that she let it fall in her lap and averted her face.

Something of the anguish she felt reached him; he perceived her thought without knowing that he had laid bare his heart to her, and he felt a pang of remorse for his words, though she had wrung them from him with a woman’s besotted madness, a woman’s wild determination to probe her own agony to the core.

“It is of no consequence to me, Margaret,” he said kindly; “I shall give it all up and go away with you; we must build it up from the beginning again. Only it is best to have it over.”

She smiled faintly, looking into the fire which had fallen from the andirons and lay in red coals on the broad hearth. “Tell me,” she said abruptly, turning her full gaze on him, “I have been away and I do not know--where is Rose Temple? Is she still in Paris?”

There was a striking change in his face as though his features, made of potter’s clay, had suddenly fixed themselves into the shape of a mask, stern and unchanging in its finality. “Yes, she’s in Paris,” he replied, with strong reluctance to speak of her; “I know nothing else. You can ask Allestree.”

“Ah, then I suppose it will end happily at last,” Margaret said softly; “she will marry Allestree; I always thought so.”

Fox rose abruptly and walked to the fire, standing a moment looking down at its fallen embers, his back toward her. She could not see his face, but in the covetous agony of her soul she needed no sight, she knew! A gray shadow passed over her own features, her eyes closed, she shivered from head to foot.

After a moment of terrible silence he turned. “When can we be married, Margaret?” he demanded, with passionate haste; “it must be soon, it cannot be too soon!”

She rose, looking slighter and more frail than ever. “No, it cannot be too soon; I will decide, I have no preparations to make,” she added, with a little, mocking smile; “I’m sorry, William, I’ll be but a sober bride; you should have married a young girl and had a grand wedding with a flourish of trumpets.”

“Which I hate,” he said bluntly, “as you know.”

“As I know?” she laughed a little wildly; “I have known very little! You must go now; I--I’m not very strong yet, and the excitement--”

“Has been too much,” he said kindly, “I’ll come again to-morrow--you can tell me then; it can’t be too soon.”

“What an ardent lover!” she said, her lips trembling, “I’m proud of you, William, you do famously, I--I--” she broke off and suddenly laying her thin white hands lightly on his shoulders she kissed his cheek, turned, evaded his touch, and bursting into uncontrollable weeping ran from the room.

IV

MARGARET, leaning a little on Gertrude English, stopped her with a slight pressure on her arm, and shading her eyes with her free hand stood gazing down the long vista of the sunlit avenue. A final recognition of the contrast between realities and the dreams which had changed and warped her life came upon her with a shock which made familiar objects seem strange and distorted. A shudder of anguish shook her slight frame and stole the blood from her lip; stripped at last of all illusions, facing the immutable laws of life, she felt as though she had been thrust out into the streets homeless, and naked, and ashamed; a wrecked soul to wander henceforth up and down on the face of the earth and find no place. How strange, how different from yesterday! The tremulous love, the hope half justified, the unscrupulous, unflinching desire for happiness--where were they? Gone, shrivelled, dead! And she was not dreaming, she was wide awake, this was life, life with its inexorable bonds, its laws, its justice, its cruel requitals, all else had been a dream! Happiness--what was it? A phantom of some man’s imagination, the flaming sword of the angel at the Garden of Eden.

Before her lay the busy, beautiful thoroughfare, alive with carriages and motor-cars, with gay people, children, old women and perambulators. The sun had already swept away all but a few vestiges of snow; it was one of those spring days which come to us in December. At her very feet were some pansies blooming hardily. Away at the north, between long rows of houses, across the intervening circle, she saw the street ascending the hill, caught the white outlines of the high buildings on the heights, the deep blue of the sky.

Yesterday and to-day, oh, God!

She walked on, unconscious of the curious glances which followed her slight, elegant figure, her small pinched face under the great hat with its toppling plumes; unaware, too, that women leaned forward in passing carriages, looked eagerly and sank back into the friendly shelter, glad to escape the necessity of recognition until some one should decide upon the proper course,--rehabilitation or oblivion.

Gerty, shrewd and watchful, saw and made mental notes. She decided swiftly who should be struck off the list when Margaret’s star rose again; no court chamberlain ever drew lines tighter than she at that moment because, in her pity and her affection, she resented every slight with bitter zeal.

Margaret, meanwhile, walked on, regaining her self control with an effort, her large, melancholy eyes gazing dreamily ahead of her. “Gerty,” she said at last, “do you suppose any one is ever really happy?”

“Oh, mercy, yes!” retorted that matter-of-fact young woman, in great astonishment, “I am often! There are so many nice things in the world, Margaret, and when one has money--” Miss English drew a long breath; it expressed her thought.

Margaret smiled bitterly. “Is that the sum total, Gerty? Is there nothing else?”

“Oh, yes, of course, but not to have to pinch and work and reason, just to be vulgarly downright rich once! I shouldn’t ask much else,” said Gerty ecstatically.

“You have no imagination, Gerty,” Margaret replied, “that’s been my curse, I’ve imagined myself into a fool’s paradise! As for money--I’ve had it all my life, it never gave me anything I wanted.”

“Oh, Margaret!” Miss English almost sobbed, “think of all you’ve had, of all you’ve got, of all you’re going to have!” she added incoherently.

“Of all I’m going to have?” Margaret repeated, with a strange smile; “my dear Gerty, the prospect is certainly blinding. Thank you!”

Gerty stared. She did not understand, and she dared not press the question; she could not but perceive the cold agony in Margaret’s eye.

Their walk had brought them to a little triangle between the streets, and as they crossed above it, a child’s voice cried out after them with a shrill little note of joy. “Oh, mamma, there’s mamma!”

Gerty felt the hand on her arm tighten, and the shiver which ran through the figure at her side was almost as perceptible. They both turned and looking across the grass-plot saw two French nurses, a child in a carriage and Estelle running toward them, her small face flushing with eagerness, her pale hair streaming in the breeze. She came swiftly, reached them and, with the first unchecked impulse of her life, flung her arms around her mother. “Mamma, mamma!” she cried, “I’ve wanted you so much!”

Margaret looked at her strangely for a moment, then her lips twitched and tears came into her eyes, as she stooped down and clasped the child close. For the first time the instinct of maternity spoke; she had seen, too, a strange vague likeness to herself in the small, upturned face, one of those fleeting glimpses that come in a look. “Did you really want me, Estelle?” she asked gently, submitting to the child’s wild joy with a new surprised tenderness.

“Oh, mamma, you’re coming home?” Estelle sobbed, clinging to her; “you’re coming back to us? Oh, where have you been, mamma?”

Margaret kissed her and rose, putting her off a little; she saw that people were looking at them, and a slow dull flush rose to her forehead. “Yes, I’m coming,” she said with an effort; “I’ll--I’ll come to-morrow, Estelle, and ask Grandmother White to let me take you for a while. You must be good, child; don’t cry, mamma can’t bear it!”

“Come now, mamma!” Estelle wailed, holding her dress with desperate fingers and calling to her little brother who still clung to his nurse, staring as if he saw a stranger.

The two French women were huddled together, not sure of their instructions and obviously alarmed. Margaret looked over at them and gently detached Estelle’s fingers from her draperies. “I’ll come to-morrow,” she said more firmly; “now run and play.”

But the child caught at her skirts again, still sobbing; she had felt her mother’s arms about her, and half the dread and fear of desertion which had hung over her, half the talk of the nurses which had frightened her, was swept away; she had a mother. “Oh, mamma,” she sobbed, “take me with you--I won’t make any noise!”

Margaret bent and kissed her again, her strange, wild look almost frightening poor Gerty who stood completely discomfited and at a loss, her honest blue eyes full of tears. “There, there!” the mother whispered, “I’m glad you love me, Estelle, I’m coming, coming soon. Oh, Gerty, go home with her!” she added suddenly, “take her away--I--I can’t bear it!”

Gerty obeyed with a pale face. She bent down and whispered to Estelle, kissed and cajoled and threatened until the child let go her mother’s skirt and began to cling to the girl whom she really knew far more intimately, for the good-hearted little secretary had spent many an hour in that gloomy, magnificent nursery. Gerty’s hands shook but she held the child, told her about some lovely things she was going to bring her, a doll, a fairy-book, a toy which ran about the floor of its own accord.

In the midst of it Margaret turned and fled; she had not dared to go to the little boy, although, quite unacquainted with his mother, he was merely staring in a dull, infantile way, his finger in his mouth, ready, no doubt, to raise a sympathetic wail if his sister’s grief warranted a chorus.

The mother, whose rights in the children had been settled by the courts at six months in the year if she desired it, went on blindly along the sunny avenue which seemed now to mock her with its gayety. She turned sharply away from a crowded circle into another street, hardly conscious where she went, but bent upon escape, oblivion, silence.

The child’s cry had touched her chilled and starving heart; she saw her life revealed; she had thrust away the ties of nature, the demands of natural love and duty in her mad pursuit of happiness; she had lost all and gained nothing.

She put up a shaking hand and drew down her veil; her lips were dry and parched, it was difficult to breathe, she had to relax her pace. Another corner brought her to an abrupt and horrified pause. She came face to face with Mrs. O’Neal at a moment when she felt that she could least abide the sight of any one. But with the shock of recognition her scattered senses recovered themselves, her nerves vibrated again, she summoned back her will.

“Margaret!” exclaimed the old lady, pausing, with her skirts gathered up and her foot on her carriage-step, just the shadow of surprised restraint in her manner, the indefinable change that greets the altered social scale; “I’m--I’m delighted to see you! And how are you, my dear?”

“Well,” Margaret replied, with an odd little laugh, for her quick ear had caught the note; “don’t I look so?”

The bird of paradise on Mrs. O’Neal’s hat trembled. “No,” she said flatly, “you don’t; you need building up, you should go to the country for awhile. I’m due at bridge now or I should make you get in and drive with me.”

“Thank you, I couldn’t,” Margaret replied, with forced calm; “I wish you luck at cards instead.”

Mrs. O’Neal glanced at her coachman, stiff and expressionless upon the box, then she leaned over and put a gentle hand on the younger woman’s arm. “My dear, I congratulate you,” she murmured, “you’re lucky to be free; I was so shocked to read this morning that Mr. White had married Lily Osborne yesterday.”

Margaret suppressed her start of surprise. “Has he?” she said, “I forgot to read the paper, and Gerty misses everything except the ninety-eight cent bargains.”

“Yesterday--in New York!” said Mrs. O’Neal tragically; “I hope you’ve got the children.”

Margaret quietly withdrew her arm. “Thanks, yes,” she said; “I’m afraid you’ll be late for your bridge.”

* * * * *

As she walked on, her heart sank. Lily Osborne--of course she had known it would be so! But if anything happened to her and Mrs. White died--poor Estelle!

The cry of the child pursued her. Until now she had thought only of herself, of her own misery, but the touch, the voice of the little girl had reached her very soul; after lying dormant and unknown all those years it was awakening, awakening to a reality so dreadful that it was appalled, without hope, desolate. And shame, the shame of a woman’s heart swept over her and shook her being to its depths. The humiliation which comes upon a woman when she knows, by some overwhelming perception, that her love is not fully returned; she felt as if she had stripped her soul naked and left it lying in the dust at Fox’s feet.

She walked on; agony winged her feet and she could not be still; she avoided the places which she knew, and turned down strange streets and byways. She had no thought of time. It grew late, the short winter day drew to its close; still she walked on. While her strength endured she went on,--it seemed as if pursuing fate drove her. She was not physically strong, yet she was walking beyond the endurance of most women.

As the twilight gathered and the lights began to start up here and there, she turned, with a dim realization of her unfamiliar surroundings and her sudden complete exhaustion. It was St. Thomas’ Day, four days to Christmas; she had no recognition of it, but, looking up, her eye caught the lighted vestibule of a church, and she saw some women going in to vespers; an impulse made her follow them. The heavy doors swung easily inward, and conscious only of the shelter, the chance for rest, a moment to collect her thoughts, she passed in.

The service was nearly concluded, but she paid no heed to that; moving quietly across the aisle and finding a dark corner, she sat down wearily, and crossing her arms upon the back of the pew in front of her hid her face upon them. Mere physical weariness had brought a dull relief to the gnawing pain at her heart; it clouded her brain too, as weariness sometimes does, and she found the horrible vivid thoughts which had tormented her slipping softly away into a haze of forgetfulness; her mind seemed a mere blur.

The soft organ tones swelling through the dim church harmonized with her mood; she lost herself, lost the agony of those past hours, and rested there, inert, helpless, without power to think. She was scarcely conscious of what passed around her, her throbbing head felt heavy on her slender arms, and she listened, in a vague way, to the music, aware at last of a stillness, then the rustle and stir of people settling themselves back in the long pews. She stirred herself, turning her face upon her arms.

A voice penetrated the stillness, a voice with that vibrant quality of youth and passionate self-confidence.

“‘_The wages of sin is death!_’”

Margaret started and raised her head. Her eyes, blinded by the sudden light in the chancel, flickered a moment and she passed her hand across them; at last she saw quite plainly a young strong face, with a tense eager look, white against the dark finishings of the pulpit; she caught the dazzling white of his surplice, the vivid scarlet of the hood which showed on his shoulders.

“‘_The wages of sin is death!_’” He repeated it, giving out his text in a voice which was resonant with feeling.

Margaret sat back in her corner, gazing at him with fixed, helpless eyes, her very soul dazed under the force of revelation which was coming to her swiftly, overwhelmingly. The revelation of her own life, not of God. As yet she framed no thought of that awful Presence, found no interpretation of the tumult in her own soul, but she knew, at last, that she had sinned. Sinned against herself, her womanhood, her honor, her self-respect, sinned against the man she had married, against the children she had borne, and, at last--oh, God!--against the man she loved.

_The wages of sin is death._

She rose, rose with an effort of will for her knees shook under her, and drawing herself together, summoning all her strength and her pride to hide the agony which was devouring her heart, she drew down her veil and slipped out unnoticed, silent, like a shadow. Once at the door, beyond the ring of that terrible young voice, she paused and steadied herself by laying her hand on a pillar of the portico.

It was now very dark; the electric lights at the corner only made the space where she stood more shadowy and secure; the air was chill, damp, penetrating, and she shivered. A horrible sense of homelessness and misery swept over her; she had cast herself out of a home, she had deserted her children for the love of a man who--oh, God!--who loved her not. She who had dreamed of happiness, lived for it, fought for it, sinned for it, who would have purchased it at the cost of heaven itself, had found at last, not happiness but her own soul.

_The wages of sin is death!_

She wrung her hands in silent agony; was there no escape? She had no belief but, at last, she felt that the very devils believed and trembled. Was not God pursuing her with vengeance? Who else?

V

AT last the tumult of passion subsided and Margaret, still leaning on the pillar of the church portico, looked out with bewildered eyes. Again an overwhelming weakness swept over her and wiped out some of the vivid misery.

She must go home--home! The word brought a dull pang of anguish, she had no right to a home, for she had broken up her own and orphaned her children. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the thoughts which stormed back, at a word, to assault her poor fagged brain again. Then the soft sweet notes of the recessional came out to her and she knew that in a few moments the dispersing congregation would find her there; summoning all her flagging energies she stepped down into the street and turning westward was suddenly apprised of the fact that she had been in the old church so often visible from the windows of Allestree’s studio. The discovery brought her a feeling of relief; she was near the studio and she could go there and telephone for a cab to take her back to the hotel. Losing herself in the shadows of the darkest side of the poorly lighted street, she hurried toward the old building on the corner and saw, with relief, the light still shining in Allestree’s window as well as in the curiosity-shop below.

She crossed the street and trying the side door found the latch down. In another moment she was toiling wearily up the old stairs, clinging to the balustrade with an absolute need of its support.