Part 18

“You think he’s paying a big price for a broken potsherd? Well, he isn’t doing it for my sake!” Faunce sank back again in his seat, the spark of his half-smoked cigar dying out between his fingers. Then he turned his head quickly and fixed his haggard eyes on the doctor. “Have you seen my wife lately?”

Gerry shook his head.

“Not for some days--a week, I think.”

“I wrote to her, asking her to answer me herself. If she really wants a divorce, she shall have it; but I want her to answer me, and she hasn’t. I’ve been wondering if she ever got my letter.”

“You mean, you think the judge has kept it from her? He isn’t capable of that. He would give it to her in any case.”

“That’s what I thought; but he has insulted me, I can’t go to the house, and she hasn’t answered my letter.”

The doctor picked up an ivory paper-knife from the table and began to run it back and forth between his fingers.

“It would be natural enough, wouldn’t it, for any woman to expect you to come to the house and ask such a question as that in person?”

“You think I haven’t the courage?”

“I think you’re taking chloral to an extent that’ll soon send you on the long expedition. It’s a dangerous drug, young man. A bit too much, and you’ll travel the common road. Perhaps that’s your idea?”

Faunce laughed bitterly.

“You forget I’m a coward!”

“Sometimes cowards take that way--it’s easy.”

“Don’t be alarmed, I sha’n’t! I’ve always had a tenacious wish for life. If I hadn’t had it, I’d never have done--the thing I did. I simply couldn’t risk dying.”

“Yet you’re going back down there!”

Faunce gazed at the doctor a little wildly, his eyes shining.

“It draws me--I can feel it! But I’ll take no risks; don’t be afraid of that. I know--know perfectly--that I’ll never risk my own skin, no matter how I risk others’.”

The doctor looked at him curiously. “There are two men in you, Faunce. Dose out the one with heroic medicine, and the other would have room to grow. You’d find yourself a hero!”

Faunce turned a haggard face on him.

“When she left me--when I saw the look she gave me--if I’d dared, if I’d had a white man’s courage, I’d have hung myself!” He spoke with such passion and force that it shook him out of his apathy. He stretched out a shaking hand toward the doctor. “For God’s sake, man, give me a dose that’ll deaden my nerves, so that I’ll have the courage to kill myself!”

Dr. Gerry grunted.

“You’ll do that without my help, at the rate you’re going.”

Faunce laughed bitterly again.

“You mean with chloral? I stopped it for a while, but I couldn’t sleep. I can’t, with this thing pursuing me. I thought I would pay off the score, and get free of it; but there’s my wife--I had to think of her. If she stays away, if she will have a divorce, then”--he threw back his head and drew a long breath--“then I’ll cut loose!”

“You mean, you’ll give it all away, and bear the odium, rather than stay bound to Overton?”

Faunce nodded, rising, and tossing his dead cigar out of the window. As he did so, he stood for a moment staring out, his view commanding the long street, closely flanked with great buildings, which narrowed in the far perspective until the high walls seemed to meet in a blur of blazing lights. It was as if he looked into the wide mouth of a funnel, lined with jewels, and it seemed that all these living, moving atoms, brute and human, must either be crowded or pushed through a tiny opening at the farther end or strangle in it.

Faunce was aware of it, aware of the clamor and the struggle of it, of the leap with which that crowd would launch itself upon the fallen, as a pack of wolves upon a wounded comrade, tearing and trampling the man who failed under its eager, cruel, predatory feet. He turned with a gesture of disgust.

“At the price I’m paying, life isn’t worth living!” he exclaimed.

Gerry rose from his seat and began to potter around the room. He did not even look toward Faunce, but he was aware of it when the younger man went to the table to take another cigar. While his back was turned, the doctor picked up a small, dark bottle from the dresser and dropped it into his pocket; then he found his hat.

“Don’t pay the price,” he said, as he held out his hand to Faunce.

Faunce stared at him for a moment without speaking, wrung his hand nervously, and went back to the task of lighting a new cigar.

“There are two ways of taking that,” he commented, as the doctor reached the door.

“There’s only one--live and get free of it.”

Faunce laughed bitterly.

“Free of it? How? I’ll never be free of it until I give my life for his. That’s the price they’re asking!”

The doctor shook his head, but he offered no argument. He had, in fact, a vague feeling of uncertainty. Between the two, Overton and this man, which? That was it--if Overton took Faunce’s wife, which?

The doctor was unable to answer it. Instead, he went down in the elevator with his hand over the bottle in his pocket.

XXXV

LEFT alone, Faunce moved restlessly about the room, still smoking. He had almost completed the business that had occupied him before the doctor’s visit. Everything was, in fact, in good order; the ship would sail soon, and, in spite of a certain veiled objection on the part of the promoters of the enterprise, there was no real opposition to Faunce as the leader.

The greatest difficulty was in his own mind. At first he had longed for it as a chance to vindicate himself, to assure himself that he was not wholly a coward, that he could earn the honors he had worn before Overton’s return. He had felt the lure of those frozen solitudes almost as keenly as Overton himself. But now it was only one more shackle to bind his obligations to the man who had survived in spite of his cowardly desertion. He was aware of the feeling of superiority that seemed to emanate from Overton’s personality with the sure touch of pride and conscious victory; and the obligation had become intolerable.

In a moment of mortal agony, in the stress of a terror that freezes men’s souls, Faunce had failed. He had sunk to the level of the veriest coward that shambled in the street below. By that one act, that one fall from the full stature of his manhood, he had slipped his neck under the yoke, he was Overton’s bondsman! It was intolerable.

As he reflected upon it, the alternative seemed almost merciful. What was shame compared to his present burden? He had suffered the worst, the mortal blow, when he had read his shame in his wife’s eyes. Diane’s abhorrence, her scorn, had shattered his last frail hold on hope. He could never retrieve himself, never come back absolved--not even by courage, by sacrifice, by self-denial. He doubted if death could wipe it out in her eyes, yet he loved her. The fact of his love for her had made him write to her, made him demand her own decision, not her father’s; but he was well aware what that decision would be. He had lost her!

There was a futility in his agony, a helplessness. There was nothing that he could do. Dr. Gerry was right--he should never have married Diane. He had never been happy with her, for he had felt always that this thing--his cowardice--lay between them, that he was trading upon her belief in him, taking a love from her that belonged, not to him, but to the man she imagined him to be.

Now, deeper than that, plunged the thought that it was Overton she had always loved, it was Overton who had taken her away, Overton whom she would marry in the end--if Faunce set her free.

It was in moments like this--moments of intolerable anguish and jealousy--that he vowed he would not give her up. Surely he had a right to demand her loyalty! There was nothing right or fine in what she had done; she was as bad as he was, if she left him for Overton. He even found some relief in the thought, in letting his jealousy loose, his pent-up rage, and in railing at her.

What kind of a wife had she been to him? How had she kept her vows? Overton had returned, the man who had been--she had confessed it--her first love; and at a word, a nod from him, she had left her husband!

Looked at in this light, it was black enough. Faunce felt that he had no need to feel so abased. He had not killed Overton--he had left him to return to steal his wife from him!

It was bitter, it was degrading! Diane deserved no mercy at his hands. A hundred times, since that night when she had left him, he had lashed himself to a fury like this, only to succumb at last to fresh misery, to fresh remorse. He loved her, he could not blame her, for she had done only what any brave woman would do--she had deserted a coward, left him to his shame, and he deserved it!

It was the old argument, and it brought the old answer.

Faunce stopped in his restless pacing to look at the clock. It was late, and he had not dined. He had long since ceased to heed meal-times, but to-night he had a curious feeling of faintness. Perhaps he had better go out for food, and then, when he returned, he would drug himself and get a night’s sleep.

He had not slept for a long time. He had, indeed, been trying to break an ugly habit, but the horror of sleeplessness was greater than the horror of sleep. Sleep had its horror, for it brought dreams. Either he dreamed of the ice and snow and fog, of the unforgettable face of Overton, or he dreamed of sunshiny fields and the scent of spring flowers, and saw Diane coming to him, holding out her hands, with her eyes shining, as he had seen them shine once with love--as he would never see them again!

Good God, what a price to pay for one act of cowardice, one break in the fair, clean record of his life! Nothing he had done before, nothing that he could do now, would wipe it out--nothing but death! It was too much to bear. He would go out, and he would get sleep when he got back.

Then he remembered his chloral bottle. Was it full? He went to the drawer and reached for it. It was not there. He tried the dresser, the mantel, the table, the cabinet, finally his bedroom. It had gone.

He felt like a child robbed of its favorite toy, or a drunkard denied his dram. Some one had taken it, and he began to plan a tirade for the chambermaid or the bellboy. Then he remembered Dr. Gerry, and reddened with anger. Of course, the doctor had taken it!

The thought made Faunce stop short, sick with shame. Gerry was treating him like a bad child, or a sick man who had lost control of his will. Small as the thing was, it gave him a shock. It did more to rally him than a thousand arguments. It was a delicate way of making a lesson perceptible even to a diseased brain. He knew now how he had craved a drug that would deaden his pain, lessen his resistance, go on making him a coward.

He straightened himself and stood staring vacantly into the mirror over the dresser. It was a long while before he became aware of his own image, and then he was shocked by it. His face was white and lined, the face of a man who had aged ten years. A new kind of agony that was half self-pity shot through him. He was a forsaken man, a man who was existing by the sufferance of another, whose very honors were at the mercy of another, who had lost all and saved nothing, not even love.

It was a moment of mortal anguish, but it passed. He turned abruptly, opened a drawer, and, slipping his hand back in the corner, laid it upon his pistol. As he did so, a slight sound startled him. Some one had opened the door in the outer room. He remembered now that he had not locked it.

He withdrew his hand quickly and shut the drawer. Then he walked to the arch between the two rooms. The lamp was still burning brightly on the table in the center, and his cigarette-case lay open beside it; beyond that circle of light the room was less brilliant. It seemed to be pervaded by the varied colors of the lights in the street below, by a breath of fresh air, and the clamor of the life outside.

Beyond this, on the threshold of the outer door, stood a figure which seemed to him, at first, part of his own imaginings, a specter of his dreams.

“Diane!” he said blankly.

At the sound of his voice she came slowly into the room and closed the door behind her, outlining the slender grace of her somberly clad figure, the delicate pallor of her face under her black hat. She seemed to hesitate, and lifted her eyes slowly, almost reluctantly, to his.

He did not speak, and she clasped her trembling hands against her breast, her eyes holding his, though tears trembled on the lashes.

“Arthur,” she began slowly, her tone almost inaudible--“Arthur, I’ve come back to you. I’ve come back to you to stay, if--if you want me!”

He answered her with a sound that was almost like a sob, broken and inarticulate, and sank into a chair, covering his face with his hands.

She stood looking at him, startled, amazed; then she saw that his whole frame was shaken by his emotion, that he was trembling like a grief-stricken child, speechless with tears of relief. She went slowly across the room, and, kneeling beside his chair, put her arms around him and lifted her pale face to his.

XXXVI

THE judge looked up heavily from his desk, his glance taking in the faces of both his guests--the men he had summoned to hear his news.

“Diane has left me--broken with me forever,” he announced sternly. “Last night she went back to Faunce.”

Unconsciously the little dean glanced at Overton’s pale profile, outlined cameo-like against the dark hangings behind him; but he answered Herford:

“You mean she’s gone back to her husband? And she’s right, too!”

“I suppose I had to expect that from you!” retorted the judge bitterly. “It’s orthodox, isn’t it? It may be right, but she’s given me up. I shall never forgive her!”

The dean fired up with a passion that transfigured his thin face.

“She can do better without your forgiveness than without God’s!”

The judge eyed him a moment in heavy silence.

“Did you meddle with her, Price?”

“No, more shame to me! I was afraid of you, Hadley, that’s the truth.” In spite of himself the judge smiled grimly. “I was afraid to speak. I waited my opportunity, a plain call to interfere, but all the while I hoped, I prayed, that she’d see the light--and she has! She’s a fine woman. God bless her!”

Herford turned slowly around in his chair and faced Overton.

“You, at least, will be on my side!”

A deep flush mounted slowly over Overton’s pale face. He felt both pairs of eyes upon him, and he had found it difficult, from the first, wholly to master his emotion; but he lifted his head now.

“No!” He spoke slowly and with an effort. “I’m not on your side, judge. She’s done the high thing, the noble thing, that we should have expected--knowing her.”

“You mean that it’s noble to be a martyr? It’s nothing but martyrdom to force a brave woman--and she’s a brave woman--to live with--with that man!”

“She’ll make him over. The believing wife shall save the unbelieving husband. She’s done right!” the dean cried again.

The judge looked from one to the other in open disgust.

“She’s my daughter, and I’m--ashamed of her!” he thundered.

“Good Heavens, judge, what an impossible thing to say of her!” Overton was on his feet; it seemed to the other two men that he towered, tall and gaunt and still haggard from his visit with death. He saw the look in their eyes and reached for his hat. “I beg your pardon,” he said to the judge with all his natural courtesy, “but I can’t stay. You must excuse me, feeling as I do.”

As he spoke, he held out his hand. The judge wrung it. Then, as Overton disappeared through the portières, Herford turned to Dr. Price.

“He loved her--she might have been happy yet, and she’s gone back to that--that craven!”

The little dean looked at him with a shocked face.

“You’re a judge, Hadley, and a father--don’t you know you were doing something wrong, immoral and wrong, hideously so? You’ve fed yourself too much on the old Greek idolatry. What right had you to put them asunder--you?”

The judge stared back at him, coloring deeply, angrily.

“You can’t change me--I told her so. I won’t forgive her! You’re all very well, Edward, but you can’t preach to me. I sha’n’t listen. I’m an old man, as you say----”

“I didn’t!” interrupted the dean. “And I’m older than you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m an old man, and she’s all I’ve got. I felt I had influenced her, I had helped along the match; to get her free would have been to free my conscience of a load, too, and she knew it. She knew it so well that she ran off without saying good-by. Ran off to go to him, and--she doesn’t love him!”

“She married him; I think she does.”

The judge shook his head.

“She doesn’t,” he insisted. “She admitted as much to me.”

Receiving no reply to this, the judge rose and threw open another window. He felt oppressed for breath.

“If it comes out--if it all comes out--and it may--it’ll break her heart. If I’d had any idea of what he was, of how he was lying to us, trading on another man’s achievements, playing on us, I’d--I’d have shot him dead before I’d have let him cross my threshold! Oh! I know what you’ve got to say, but you can save yourself the trouble. I sha’n’t listen!”

The little dean got up. Like Overton, he sought his hat. Unlike Overton, however, he stopped to look mildly at the judge.

“She’s done right,” he persisted. “At the first sign of trouble, you’ll forgive her.”

Herford turned slowly. He looked aged and shaken.

“I’ll never forgive her--while he lives!” he declared with finality.

Dr. Price shook his head. They did not shake hands, and the dean went out with a curious feeling of failure and helplessness. He had failed in his Master’s business; he had failed to go to Diane with any remonstrance, and his remonstrance with the judge had fallen flat. He hurried down the steps and out into the country road.

As he got to the top of the hill, he saw Overton. Strangely enough, Overton was standing on the little bridge where Dr. Price had once seen Faunce stand at midnight. There was something in the attitude of the tall figure below him that made the little dean take the other path, for he knew he was not wanted there. He hurried home, instead, and Fanny opened the door for him. He noticed that she, too, was a little pale and shaken.

“What is it, papa?” she asked excitedly. “What did the judge want? Where’s Diane?”

Her father put down his hat and walking-stick and started for the library, holding his daughter’s hand.

“I’m glad you’re not married yet, Fan!” he remarked irrelevantly. Then he told her: “Diane’s gone back to her husband, my child. The thing’s over and done with, I hope.”

To his amazement he felt her hand trembling in his, and turned, to find her lip quivering like a child’s. She was trying to keep back tears.

“Oh, papa!” she cried softly, with a little sob. “I’m so glad--I’m so glad! I know how he loved her!”

The dean looked helplessly toward the dining-room, where the Norwegian was moving heavily around the table.

“Please give me my dinner, my dear. I’m--I’m a little done up!”

* * * * *

At that hour of the day the sun had got down a little behind the tree-tops, and was casting feathery and delicate shadows on the smooth water below the bridge. The flicker of light between them, the slender grace of the tall flags that thrust pale blossoms up through the lush grass at the edge, and the whistling call of a catbird, who was darting from twig to twig over his head, held Overton. He watched it all, tried to concentrate his attention upon it, until he should be able to wrestle with the foe within.

Over and over again he told himself, as he had told Judge Herford, that Diane was right; yet his heart leaped up in fierce rebellion against the fate that had overtaken him. He could not forget the look in her eyes, the tender beauty of her face, as she leaned toward him through the mist. He felt again the tremor of her hands in his, and he knew now that it had been the tremor of flight.

She had been stronger than he. She had seen their danger, and she had turned her back upon it. She was right--right in the higher moral sense, right in the eyes of the world, and yet--he loved her! He must give her up, too, to a man whom he despised, a man who was, at that very hour, trading upon his generosity, his forebearance, climbing upon his shoulders to a command that was not rightfully his, and doing it because his wife was shielding him.

Contempt, deep-seated and remorseless, took possession of Overton’s mind. He wondered what manner of man Faunce was--what manner of man that she could love him, go back to him! But did she love him? Ah, that tormenting question again!

Overton left the bridge and sat down upon a stone, his big figure hunched over in a strange attitude, his chin in his hands. He fixed his eyes upon the catbird again. It was a delicate creature, gray-coated and black-capped. Its bright eyes had discovered him, and regarded him in a friendly way. It hopped from twig to twig again, its twitching tail accentuating its nervous little jerks. It screamed plaintively, like a kitten crying for its mother, but its eyes were keen.

Overhead the soft blue sky was dappled with pink clouds, for the sun was setting. The trees began to rustle with a faint breeze, and he could smell the salt of the sea as the tide changed. It was very clear, yet he heard a far-off fog-horn beginning to moan; there must be a fog outside.