Part 13

“Yes--yes!” She turned and sank down in the chair, hiding her face in her hands. “I’ll try to tell you,” she went on in a choked voice. “Overton came back; he came up to the Catskills. We went--I didn’t tell you, Arthur didn’t want any letters--we went up to the lodge two weeks ago; you know I had the keys. While we were there, Overton came to see his aunt, who lives near by. We met, and as soon as I saw him I knew that something was wrong. He wouldn’t tell me, but I knew. A woman knows those things about her husband. That night Arthur came home; he had been down in New York, and he went to see Overton. When he came back he told me. He----”

She stopped, choked with her sense of shame. Her father, greatly moved and changed, came slowly across the room and stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder.

“Go on, Diane. I must know it all.”

She stopped and lifted her white face toward his, twisting her handkerchief with frantic hands.

“Papa, I can’t--I can’t tell you all; but Overton and Arthur were alone together. Overton broke his ankle; he couldn’t walk. Arthur took the sledge and the dogs and escaped, leaving Overton in the blizzard, helpless, to freeze to death!”

The judge made no response. He stood looking down at his daughter without the power to reply. She seemed to think he had not understood, and she repeated her story with a kind of agony which showed him that she felt a vicarious participation in her husband’s act.

“He left him--helpless--to die. Overton wasn’t even entirely unconscious; he--he lay there and saw Arthur go!”

The judge could not believe it. Whatever his fears had been, the fact was past belief.

“You must be mistaken; you can’t have understood it all. He must have left him to go for help, and then returned.”

She shook her head.

“I asked him--he never went back until it was too late.”

“Faunce admits this? He told you this himself?”

She nodded; she could not speak. Her father groaned aloud.

“My child--my poor child!”

She looked up at him, saw the grief and anger and sympathy in his face, and her lip quivered pitifully. She tried to speak again, but words utterly failed her, and she flung herself into his arms, weeping dreadfully. The judge clasped her and held her close, stroking her brown hair, tears scalding his own eyes. What had he done! Married his child, his daughter, the pride of his heart, to a coward?

“The rascal!” he said below his breath. “The craven rascal!”

She clung to him sobbing.

“I loved him! Oh, papa, I loved him! It’s--it’s broken my heart!”

He tried to quiet her, but his indignation kept breaking out in angry mutterings and threats against Faunce. Apparently she did not hear them. She was satisfied to feel his arms around her, to be sure that she was safe in that harbor. She only turned her head a little as she nestled closer, clinging to him with hands that still shook.

“I was afraid you’d be angry with me, that you’d want me to--to go back, because he’s--he’s my husband!”

“Go back!” The judge’s pent-up wrath broke out with some of his old thunderous bass. “Go back to that coward? If you did, Di, I’d--I’d go after you and pry you out of his house with a writ of habeas corpus. I’d sooner see you dead than the wife of a coward. I’ll free you, if it takes my last cent to do it!”

She shivered. The assurance was what she wanted. She had craved it for hours; she had prayed for it ever since she ran away from the little mountain house in the dark and stormy night, and braved a midnight journey to come to her father; yet it did not comfort her now. She shook from head to foot, and a feeling of sheer loneliness and desolation--a feeling that might have come to Hagar when she was driven out into the desert--came to her.

She was at home, in her father’s arms, safe in the old familiar room. The same warm light shone from the shaded lamp on the multicolored bindings. His old pipe lay on the table, and the old clock that she had loved as a child drummed out the hour; but it could never be the same again. She had passed through an immortal crisis of agony and shame. She could never take up the old life again at the same place, for the subtle change that had taken place in all the relations of that life had dissolved the very foundations of it beneath her feet and left her adrift.

XXVI

IT was soon after this--in fact, no later than the following afternoon--that Mrs. Price hurried up the long driveway to the seminary. She was going home, and, being small and round and oldish, she panted and bubbled a little in her haste. Even her exactly appropriate garb, patterned closely on “correct and distinctive styles for more mature figures,” and her very sober little hat, shaped like a sugar-bowl, palpitated with undue excitement.

She burst in upon the dean and Fanny, who were quietly enjoying a cup of tea in the sunny little sitting-room, where a yellow rose showered its golden buds against the wide stone sills of the bay window. Fanny, looking up as she entered, recognized something amazing in the expression of her mother’s round face and rounder eyes.

“Why, mamma, what’s the matter?” she exclaimed, suspending the cream-pitcher over her father’s second cup of tea.

Mrs. Price dropped into the nearest chair, and, stretching out a plump hand, gave the dean a sudden prod in the arm that happened to be within easy reach.

“Edward, do you remember what you said--that night--about Faunce?”

The dean, still waiting for his cup of tea, looked around at her with an absent air.

“What night--what?”

“Just before he was married. You said he was prowling around at all hours of the night.”

“Oh, yes, I remember! He was. Give me that tea, please, Fanny, before you upset the cream-pitcher into it.”

Fanny recovered herself and hastily passed the cup over to her father, while Mrs. Price resumed.

“You were right, Edward--you always are! There’s something wrong. Diane has come home--alone!”

“Humph! What of that? He’s probably in New York, closing up his business before they sail.”

“She’s left him!”

“Eh?”

The dean jerked around in his chair and gazed at his wife in open-mouthed incredulity, while Fanny suddenly reddened and then paled. Only Mrs. Price, having recovered her breath, remained mistress of the situation.

“I said, she’s left him.”

“Nonsense! Your imagination always runs away with you, Julia. They haven’t been married six months.”

“I know it, but it’s true--the judge told me so himself.”

“Oh, mamma!”

Fanny’s exclamation did not express incredulity so much as dismay. She had given up all effort to drink her tea, and leaned back in her chair, her trembling hands hidden in her lap.

The dean continued to regard his wife over the tops of his big tortoise-shell spectacles. His mild face and pale-blue eyes behind the heavy brown rims made him look like a pallid but speculative beetle.

“What’s the matter? Did the judge tell you?”

Mrs. Price shook her head.

“He said: ‘My daughter came home last night to stay, and she has my entire approval and support.’ That’s exactly the way he worded it, Edward, and I--really, I was afraid to say a word. The atmosphere seemed to be thick--charged, you know. I can tell you I was glad to get out. I almost ran all the way home!”

“Did you see Diane, mamma?” Fanny managed to ask in a voice which at another time would have arrested her mother’s attention; but at the moment Mrs. Price was absorbed.

“Just for a few minutes, dear. She went right up-stairs and left me to the judge. You know I never am at home with him. I always feel--well, just the way I did when I was a little girl and my father made me fire off a Roman candle. I was so frightened when it exploded! You know I went over there to return those books papa borrowed, and I got right into it. As soon as Di went up-stairs, he began. I saw there was something the matter before. She looks as if she’d been drawn through a knot-hole. I was just thinking that I never saw a bride look like that when she got up and left me with him. Of course, I began to get ready to leave, too, but he made me sit down and sprang this thing on me--just like that! Somehow I felt as if I’d done it myself. I know David never felt a bit worse when Nathan said unto him, ‘Thou art the man!’ I felt as if I were either Faunce or Faunce’s mother, and I got up and ran!”

The dean smiled grimly.

“You’re not to blame, my dear, unless you want to shoulder a vicarious responsibility because I married them.”

“It’s an awful responsibility, Edward, to marry people these days! Fanny, give me a cup of tea. I feel a little faint. Was that water boiling, child, when you made it? Some of the tea-leaves are floating.”

“Elfrida brought it, mamma. I suppose it was.”

“Very likely it wasn’t, if she brought it. These Norwegians will be the death of me yet. I’ve no doubt that they made perfectly beautiful vikings--so crude and bloody, you know--but they’re deadly cooks! Edward, don’t you think you ought to do something, or say something? It’s so unscriptural.”

“What--the Norwegian?”

His wife stared at him in exasperation.

“You know perfectly what I mean. It’s shocking, the way people act. You really ought to talk to Diane.”

“Or to Faunce,” retorted the dean dryly. “Very likely he’s to blame.”

“Oh, no!” Fanny’s cry was so sharp that both parents looked at her, amazed, and she blushed painfully. “He was so much in love with Diane,” she faltered. “He told me so. We used to talk about her, and I know how he feels. He couldn’t--he simply couldn’t mean to quarrel with her!”

“So that’s what you were talking about, was it?” her father said in a relieved tone. “I sometimes thought, Fan, that he was trying to flirt with you at the same time that he was making love to Diane.”

“Oh, no!”

This time Fanny’s negative was low and a little tremulous. Mrs. Price glanced meaningly at her husband, but the dean, placidly spreading butter on a toasted muffin, was oblivious to the warning.

“I never believed in him, Fan--he’s too handsome. Personally I have more confidence in little plain old men, getting slightly bald and wearing spectacles.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Edward! We all know you. But it’s--it’s really terrible. Do you suppose Diane intends to get a divorce?”

The dean shook his head helplessly.

“Search me!”

“Edward! Those horrid boys are teaching you slang!”

“Of course they are, my dear. Slang is an expression of the age. I’m making a study of it, but I haven’t used much. If I did, I should say that I heard your news without even batting an eye.”

Mrs. Price rose and set her empty cup on the table.

“I think it’s time for me to go up-stairs and take off my things. I really do wish, Edward, you’d think it over. Something ought to be done. The judge is going to let that child ruin her whole life right at the start. You’re a minister of the gospel, as well as the dean of a seminary, and it’s your duty--it certainly is your duty--to preach the word. There’s nothing in it to favor divorce, and you know it!”

“My dear Julia--” the dean began, but she was already at the stairs, and she only called back something to him about David and Uriah’s wife as she disappeared.

The dean chuckled.

“The trouble with your mother’s quotations, my dear, is that she gets them misapplied. What do you think of it, Fan? You know Faunce better than we do.”

Fanny was looking intently out of the window at the buds of the yellow rose.

“I don’t think I do know him very well, papa. You see, he was so much in love with Diane that he talked about her more than anything else. I felt, after a while, as if I stood on the outer edge. You understand, don’t you? It was as if I knew him quite well as my friend, but his real inner self, his soul, was a long way off. I--I thought it was because he was in love with--with some one else.”

The dean mused.

“I’m not so sure, my child. I think that was the way he made most of us feel--as if his soul was a long way off, as if he had something on his mind. Perhaps Diane has just found out what it is, and it’s given her a shock.”

Fanny started, turning her blue eyes on him.

“You mean you think he’s done something wrong?”

“I don’t think I meant anything as concrete as that, Fan. I was thinking that the inner self of some men is a shock to the average woman. That’s why we get these surprises, my dear. We don’t know people as they are, and when we find out their hidden characteristics we sometimes get a jar. It takes time to settle down and find that we can’t make the world over to suit our own ideas. Diane’s a bit headstrong; she’ll take it hard.”

“I don’t think she cared much for him, papa. She--she was in love with Overton before he went away.”

“Sh! My child, don’t say a word; that road leads to scandal. We don’t know yet how Overton was saved. I suppose, if this goes on, I’ll have to speak to Diane or to Faunce.”

“It’s not his fault, papa,” Fanny protested firmly, as she rose. “He loves her!”

The dean shook his head.

“Youth,” he remarked, “is optimistic. There’s Ferdie Farrar trying to bat that ball right into the seminary window, and I’ve warned him twice!” he added, springing up and making for the door, his eyes intent on the plunging figures on the distant campus.

Fanny heard him go out with his usual impetuosity; then she sat down weakly, poured herself another cup of lukewarm tea, and drank it. She was very glad that she had been so completely mistress of herself. She felt sure that her father had no suspicions. She was aware that Mrs. Price had, but she could depend on her mother.

Mrs. Price had her failings, but she was loyal to her little girl, as she still called her daughter. If she knew that Fanny had suffered when Faunce married Diane, she would not betray her knowledge, even by sympathizing with her. There was relief in that; it would be all the harder to drag her poor little secret out and dissect it, when it was a plain duty to let it die of inanition.

But it was like turning the knife in the wound to see that Diane could not get on with Faunce. Of course, they would patch this quarrel up, unless it was about some vital matter; but they could not go on as they had begun. At least Fanny could not believe it possible.

She had, besides, an intuitive knowledge of Diane’s frame of mind. Diane had loved Overton, and had been drawn to Faunce because of his association with Overton. He had won her consent to the marriage, but Fanny did not believe that he had ever completely won her heart. And now Overton had come back.

Fanny started as the thought took shape. Overton’s inexplicable return, the questions that it had raised about Faunce, the gossip and the scandal were synchronous with Diane’s flight. Was this the meaning of it?

Fanny rose slowly from the tea-table and went to the window. She felt a little giddy with the rush of troubled thoughts, and she blinked as the sunshine flashed full into her eyes. The window faced west, and the day was nearly done. Against a yellow mist she saw the striped and barred figures of the ball-players on the distant field. Their lithe forms etched against the orange tint of the horizon reminded her of the Greek figures on one of Judge Herford’s glazed porcelains.

The trees were scantier here than in the hills, but their green leafage formed a graceful screen between their lawn and the campus. A mass of day lilies bloomed under the window, and she could see the little stars of the blue-eyed grass. She leaned forward, both hands resting on the sill, and looked out, the summer air touching her hot cheek and moving the delicate tendrils of fair hair on her forehead.

XXVII

SHE was still leaning there with a dumb kind of resistance to her inner restlessness, when she saw a visitor coming up the walk. Looking more closely at the tall figure, she recognized Overton with a shock of feeling. She knew that it was not unnatural for him to come to Mapleton, but the unexpected sight of him made her mind flash back to Diane, and she experienced a sensation akin to panic.

He had seen her, and she could not escape. She had to stand there bravely until the Norwegian maid opened the door and led him clumsily to the sitting-room, her square, peasant figure appearing in the background as he entered.

Fanny greeted him, trying to say something correct and conventional. She was secretly appalled at the thought that his resurrection from the polar snows had in it almost an element of tragedy. He seemed to have lost his place among mortal men, and to have assumed the guise of the departed. His return had put their little world all out of joint.

She felt as if he must know it, must feel awkward and out of place, even when she invited him to be seated and offered to despatch the hovering Norwegian for some hot tea. He shook his head at this, however, and Fanny disposed of the attendant by sending her away with the tea-tray. Then she came over to a seat nearer the window.

“Papa’s just gone over to the seminary,” she explained. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you very much.”

“Not as much as I want to see him,” Overton replied warmly. “It’s very good to be here and to see my friends again!”

Fanny felt a pang of guilt, and looked up at him for the first time with a seeing eye. He was, indeed, greatly changed. His strong face was worn, his eyes hollowed; but there remained the old look of genius that had glorified all he did. It was, indeed, accentuated. There was something in his tranquil, unstirred gaze that reassured her, and she felt at home with him again.

“We all thought you were lost,” she said simply. “Your coming back seems like a miracle, and no one quite understands.”

He was at once on his guard.

“That seems to be the trouble. There has been a great deal of misapprehension. I was lost in the ice, given up for dead, and finally rescued by my English friends. I can’t tell you how good they were to me,” he hurried on. “I was so nearly gone that they had no hope at first, and I was so ill and delirious afterward that they didn’t know who I was. I had left my papers with my men, and I happened to have one of poor Rayburn’s diaries on me. They thought I was Rayburn--that’s why no word came back about me. It wasn’t until I recovered enough to know myself that the English nurses found out who I was.”

Fanny turned uneasily and broke off a spray of yellow buds that lay at the window-ledge.

“Mr. Faunce told us how terrible it all was. He couldn’t bear to speak of the worst of it. He said you were the best friend a man ever had. I think”--she looked at him--“the thought of your death nearly crazed him at first.”

She caught the expression in Overton’s eyes, but she could not fathom it; only the tension in his face increased.

“I’ve just seen Faunce. They were up in the Catskills when I went there to visit my old aunt.”

“Oh!” She pulled the yellow buds off one by one. “Then you’ve just seen Diane, too? We didn’t know where they went.”

“Yes, I saw her. When I met her I didn’t know that she was married. You see, we’d had no news.”

Fanny sank back in her chair.

“I never thought of that!”

He smiled grimly.

“It’s like being dead, you know,” he remarked, thinking how pretty she had grown to be, how slender and graceful. He noticed how prettily her fair hair grew on her forehead and on the nape of her white neck. He was the more surprised when she turned a strangely searching look on him, and her face flushed.

“Did you know that Diane had left him?”

“What?”

She nodded.

“It’s true--the judge told mama.”

Overton made no reply at first; he seemed incapable of speech, and Fanny saw the blood rush up to his forehead.

“Are you sure?” he managed to gasp out at last.

“Oh, yes; mama just heard it from the judge. I--I shouldn’t have told. Please don’t tell her that I did!”

He commanded himself again with difficulty.

“She wouldn’t mind your telling me, Fanny. Of course, I sha’n’t give you away, though. You and I were always good pals, weren’t we? The trouble is that I--I can’t quite believe it. I saw them both only two days ago, and I know he’s in New York now.”

“She’s here with her father.”

He rose from his seat and began to walk about the room. Apparently he did not care what she might think of his agitation, which had returned with full force.

“You’re fond of her, you know her well--has she told you what’s the matter?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

He stopped short.

“Has her father anything to do with it?”

Fanny hesitated.

“I suppose he has; you know he’s always so domineering. I don’t know anything about it, but there’s been talk about the expedition. I believe they had set their hearts on Faunce commanding it, and--and, of course, it’s yours. It couldn’t go to any one but you now.”

“Yes, it can, for I’ve refused it.”

She gave him a startled look, her heart warming toward him. She knew well enough why he had refused.

“I’ve asked to have Faunce go,” he went on. “There’s no question of that, if she--if she----”

“It isn’t that with her!” Fanny interrupted.

“I thought you said you hadn’t seen her?”

“I haven’t, but I’m a woman, and I--I know that much myself!”

He stood looking at her, a little reassured, but with a keen subconsciousness that recalled Diane’s white face and her outstretched hands when she pushed him away. He had believed then that she loved Faunce. On that belief, to shelter her, he had tried to shield Faunce, and had surrendered his chance to command the new expedition, only to find that Diane had left her husband!