A Speckled Bird Part 37

"Do I love you above everything else? You elusive witch! If you will withdraw the embargo of your request--'not yet, please'--I can soon convince you."

His handsome face, radiantly happy, bent close to hers, but she shrank away from him.

"I am your wife now, but----"

She paused, with a strained look in her eyes.

"Yes; my own precious wife at last, thank G.o.d!"

"There is one, only one proof that will convince me I am really first in your heart. Give me at once the box of papers that incriminate my father."

He dropped her hand and rose.

"It is hard, indeed, when a man must refuse the first request of his bride; but, my darling, I cannot dishonor myself. Such baseness would not prove my love; and it would inevitably arouse your contempt."

She had risen, and as they faced each other under the lamp the swaying carnations almost touched his glossy black head.

Lifting her tightly locked hands in entreaty, her voice vibrated like a lute string rudely swept.

"Don't, oh, don't break my heart! Help me to shield my father from shame, and I will bless you as long as I live. I am so wretched--the world is going to pieces--and I am clinging to you as the one rock of safety, the sole refuge that will not fail me. If you ever really loved me, oh, Mr. Noel, have mercy on me now!"

His face hardened, and, unwilling to trust his voice, he shook his head.

She staggered as if from a blow, but after a moment her cheeks flamed, and banked fires glowed in her dilated eyes.

"Eglah, when did your father have the cruelty to tell you about the papers in my possession?"

"He never told me. He does not suspect I know, and he must not find out I am aware of their existence; because I could not bear that such an additional sorrow should overtake him. My father! It is your will and purpose to ruin him in his old age?"

"Only Judge Kent and I were cognizant of the existence of that box. May I ask how you obtained your information?"

"I was in his bedroom next to the library when you and father came in.

The door was open, and through the thin curtain I heard every word--every cruel, horrible word, that cut my heart like a dagger. At first, when you spoke of not wishing me to know, I felt I had no right to listen, but some things had long perplexed me, things that father would not explain, and I determined to make an end of mysteries."

All tenderness had vanished from his set face, and his blue-grey eyes watched her much as a judge might a witness on the stand.

The train had entered a deep, rocky cut, and the clattering roar sounded a verbal truce. When it rushed through a meadow, Mr. Herriott put his hands behind him.

"I must have all the truth now. If you had not overheard that conversation, you would not have waited for and intercepted me in the grove?"

"Certainly not. I wished to see you at once, and before I met father."

"Your terrible distress and agitation were solely on his account, and not because of my approaching journey?"

"Yes, for father's safety. I was grieved to hear you were going so far away, but, Mr. Noel, father is my all. When I learned of the exposure threatening him I think I must have gone mad, or I should not have made the ghastly mistake of believing you loved me well enough to help me save him, and----"

She paused, silenced by the flash in his eyes, the white fury of his face.

"You proposed our marriage solely to find an opportunity for getting possession of the papers?"

"Yes, that was my object. I thought you would not deny the prayer of your wife."

"You have come to my arms with no more love in your heart than when you refused me years ago?"

"Yes. In a way I have always been attached to you; I honor, and admire, and trust you fully, and of all men I hold you first--but love! G.o.d help me! Perhaps in time I may learn."

"You considered yourself the price of the papers, and felt a.s.sured I could not refuse to sell? Any man who held them could own you body and soul! Any clodhopper, lout, any libertine, any moral leper could own you for life, in exchange for the papers! You, my white-souled, proud, sensitive, ideal woman, for sale! For sale!"

The red spots in her cheeks deepened, and a defiant ring steadied her trembling voice.

"As you are the only person who could yield me what I sought, you are the one possible purchaser. But there was an additional reason for my becoming your wife. My grandmother's will requires the estate she gave me kept in the hands of a trustee until I am thirty, unless I marry. In that event I come into immediate unrestricted possession, and I thought if you denied my prayer I would be financially able to buy the papers when you delivered them in my presence. That is the one hope that stands now between me and despair--a hope made possible by and based on my marriage. There was no other door of escape from ruin, and so I sold myself to the one man whom I have always honored and trusted--who I believed would be patient with me. Yes, I sold myself. That you would be deeply aggrieved I knew, because I intended you should learn all the truth to-night. The horror, the hot shame of the last few hours you will never, never understand."

"There was, however, solace for you in the possibility that Polar perils might speedily cancel your matrimonial bonds? At least that is one hope I can share with you."

Swinging around a sharp curve, the car lurched violently, and she staggered. He caught her arm and led her to the seat, where she leaned her head against the panel and shut her eyes. Singularly beautiful was the proud face wearing the pathetic seal of mental suffering, but, as he looked down at her, no pity softened the gleam in his eyes, and his hands clinched in his struggle for self-control.

"To-night I have learned how a man feels when an angel he worshipped from afar stooped from her heights, led him up, up to the open gate of heaven, and, just as he was entering, the same angelic hand dropped him into h.e.l.l. When I had abandoned all hope of winning you, the suddenness of your surrender made my head reel. I was amazed; but the possibility that you deliberately planned to deceive me no more occurred to me than would an insult to my dead mother. For me you have embodied all that I hold pure, lofty, refined, admirable in womanhood. I was fastidious, but you filled my ideal, and I trusted you almost as I trust my G.o.d. You have wronged me doubly--in the loss of yourself, but far worse in the destruction of my belief in the incorruptibility of some women; sooner or later all are for sale.

"If I had sailed away before seeing you at Y---- I should have carried an unsullied, a perfect, sacred memory of you to light the long Arctic night. G.o.d knows I would sooner have died there than realize you cruelly, deliberately deceived me. You thought you were buying the papers; but, as they will not be delivered, the trade is off. You cannot get possession of what you purchased, and the price paid I here return to you. You have no papers, and I have no wife. Without value received on your part, I have no right to you, and we stand now just as we did before that marriage ceremony, which has proved a mere commercial mockery. I abhor shams--above all things sham marriage. All or none.

Only very strong, deep, tender love justifies a woman in giving herself away. Otherwise the relation degrades her; she is little better than an odalisque; and such I decline to see you. For me you have no love--never will have--and as regards my own wishes, your duplicity has effectually slain what once warmed my heart. After a few days, relief for both of us will come in separation. If I never return you will escape much annoyance. When two years elapse, the divorce court cannot refuse to give you freedom from nominal bonds, and then you will soon forget that you were ever--even in name--my wife."

She had grown ghastly pale, and her lips fluttered. In the brief silence a sick child's fretful cry rolled through the adjoining sleeper, then the train thundered into a tunnel.

"Mr. Herriott, I am so utterly miserable cruel words, even from you, no longer have power to wound me. I--" She laughed nervously, and sat upright.

"My worse than useless appeal to your mercy reminds me of a picture of the Deluge I once saw, when I was a happy child. A drowning woman clung to the edge of an open window in the ark, begging succor, and Noah leaned out and pried off her grasping hands, smiting her back into hungry waves. I shall obey your wishes, Mr. Herriott, in all but one step you have suggested. I do not believe in the validity of divorces.

Vows made to G.o.d can never be cancelled by civil processes. A consecrated minister is not a mere notary public to attest signatures to a deed. My marriage is forever sacred as my baptism; my covenant in His sight, in His holy name, stands always--'till death us do part.' You shall be as free as you wish. You need never see me again, but so long as I live I intend to hold myself your wife."

"Will you do me the kindness to hand me your ring?"

She drew it from her finger and held it toward him. He turned it slowly, smiling bitterly.

"You have not seen the inscription. 'Till death us do part.' The sight of it must be an unpleasant reminder, and I hope and ask that you will never wear it. As a worthless symbol of what no longer exists, allow me to throw it away."

"Just as you please; only remember you have no right to do so, it is mine. If it were cast into the ocean, I should never cease to feel its sacred clasp on my finger."

He laid it on the seat beside her, and she replaced it on her hand. He looked at his watch.

"It will soon be daylight. I am going into the smoking car. Perhaps you can rest. Shall I send the porter?"

"No. I could not sleep."

He went out, closing the door carefully.

With a smothered groan she sank back, and beat her palms against each other. Humiliated, sorely wounded, yet indignant--almost hopeless, but defiant--she stubbornly refused to despair until she had exhausted every means at her command.

After a while she knelt down and prayed G.o.d's help in her mission to save her father. She never knew that the door had glided noiselessly half way in its groove and that Mr. Herriott stood there to ask if she needed anything. He saw the figure bowed in prayer, and stole away as softly as he came. The strain was telling upon her quivering nerves.

Hysterical aching in her throat, parched and dry, was almost intolerable, and the swaying carnations so burdened the air that when she rose her head swam.

After an hour she struggled to her feet. If she had some water it might cool her throat. From her satchel she took a cup, opened the door, and, supporting herself by one hand on the wall of the car, she walked down the narrow pa.s.sage, where she knew the water-tank stood near the porter's seat. Before she reached it she saw Mr. Herriott leaning sideways against the gla.s.s door opening on the platform. Just then the brakeman raised his lantern, and the flash showed a hopelessly sad face sternly set under the close-fitting travelling cap. As she turned back, he saw her and advanced.