Beth Norvell Part 23

"Beth," he asked, daring to touch her trembling hair, "have I hurt you?

Have I done wrong to speak thus?"

A single sob shook the slender, bowed figure, the face still hidden.

"Yes," she whispered faintly, "you have hurt me; you have done wrong."

"But why?" he insisted. "Is not my love worthy?"

She lifted her head then, resting one hand against the dishevelled hair, her eyes misty from tears.

"Worthy? O G.o.d, yes! but so useless; so utterly without power."

Winston strode to the window and back again, his hands clenched, the veins showing across his forehead. Suddenly he dropped upon his knees beside her, clasping her one disengaged hand within both his own.

"Beth, I refuse to believe," he exclaimed firmly. "Love is never useless, never without power, either in this world or the next. Tell me, then, once for all, here before G.o.d, do you love me?"

She swept the clinging tears from her lashes, the soft clasp of her fingers upon his hand unconsciously tightening.

"You may read an answer within my face," she replied, slowly. "It must be that my eyes tell the truth, although I cannot speak it with my lips."

"Cannot? In G.o.d's name, why?"

She choked, yet the voice did not wholly fail her.

"Because I have no right. I--I am the wife of another."

The head drooped lower, the hair shadowing the face, and Winston, his lips set and white, stared at her, scarcely comprehending. A moment later he sprang to his feet, one hand pressed across his eyes, slowly grasping the full measure of her confession.

"The wife of another!" he burst forth, his voice shaking. "Great G.o.d!

You? What other? Farnham?"

The bowed head sank yet lower, as though in mute answer, and his ears caught the echo of a single m.u.f.fled sob. Suddenly she glanced up at him, and then rose unsteadily to her feet clinging to the back of the chair for support.

"Mr. Winston," her voice strengthening with each word spoken, "it hurts me to realize that you feel so deeply. I--I wish I might bear the burden of this mistake all alone. But I cannot stand your contempt, or have you believe me wholly heartless, altogether unworthy. We--we must part, now and forever; there is no other honorable way. I tried so hard to compel you to leave me before; I accepted that engagement at the Gayety, trusting such an act would disgust you with me. I am not to blame for this; truly, I am not--no woman could have fought against Fate more faithfully; only--only I couldn't find sufficient courage to confess to you the whole truth. Perhaps I might have done so at first; but it was too late before I learned the necessity, and then my heart failed me. There was another reason I need not mention now, why I hesitated, why such a course became doubly hard. But I am going to tell you it all now, for--for I wish you to go away at least respecting my womanhood."

He made no reply, no comment, and the girl dropped her questioning eyes to the floor.

"You asked me if I had ever loved him," she continued, speaking more slowly, "and I told you no. That was the truth as I realize it now, although there was a time when the man fascinated, bewildered me, as I imagine the snake fascinates a bird. I have learned since something of what love truly is, and can comprehend that my earlier feeling toward him was counterfeit, a mere bit of dross. Be patient, please, while I tell you how it all happened. It--it is a hard task, yet, perhaps, you may think better of me from a knowledge of the whole truth. I am a Chicago girl. There are reasons why I shall not mention my family name, and it is unnecessary; but my parents are wealthy and of good position. All my earlier education was acquired through private tutors; so that beyond my little, narrow circle of a world--fashionable and restricted--all of real life remained unknown, unexplored, until the necessity for a wider development caused my being sent to a well-known boarding-school for girls in the East. I think now the choice made was unfortunate. The school being situated close to a large city, and the discipline extremely lax, temptation which I was not in any way fitted to resist surrounded me from the day of entrance.

In a fashionable drawing-room, in the home of my mother's friends, I first became acquainted with Mr. Farnham."

She paused with the mention of his name, as though its utterance pained her, yet almost immediately resumed her story, not even glancing up at her listener.

"I was at an age to be easily flattered by the admiration of a man of mature years. He was considerably older than I, always well dressed, versed in social forms, liberal with money, exhibiting a certain dashing recklessness which proved most attractive to all the girls I knew. Indeed, I think it was largely because of their envy that I was first led to accept his attentions. However, I was very young, utterly inexperienced, while he was thoroughly versed in every trick by which to interest one of my nature. He claimed to be a successful dramatist and author, thus adding materially to my conception of his character and capability. Little by little the man succeeded in weaving about me the web of his fascination, until I was ready for any sacrifice he might propose. Naturally ardent, easily impressed by outward appearances, a.s.sured as to my own and his social position, ignorant of the wiles of the world, I was an easy victim. Somewhere he had formed the acquaintance of my brother, which fact merely increased my confidence in him. I need not dwell in detail upon what followed--the advice of romantic girls, the false counsel of a favorite teacher, the specious lies and explanations accounting for the necessity for secrecy, the fervent pleadings, the protestations, the continual urging, that finally conquered my earlier resolves. I yielded before the strain, the awakened imagination of a girl of sixteen seeing nothing in the rose-tinted future except happiness. We were married in Christ Church, Boston, two of my cla.s.smates witnessing the ceremony.

Three months later I awoke fully from dreaming, and faced the darkness."

She leaned against the wall, her face, half hidden, pressed against her arm. Speaking no word of interruption, Winston clasped her hand and waited, his gray eyes moist.

"He was a professional gambler, a brute, a cruel, cold-blooded coward,"

the words dropping from her lips as though they burned in utterance.

"Only at the very first did he make any effort to disguise his nature, or conceal the object of his marriage. He endeavored to wring money from my people, and--and struck me when I refused him aid. He failed because I blocked him; tried blackmail and failed again, although I saved him from exposure. If he had ever cared for me, by this time his love had changed to dislike or indifference. He left me for weeks at a time, often alone and in poverty. My father sought in vain to get me away from him, but--but I was too proud to confess the truth. I should have been welcome at home, without him; but I refused to go. I had made my own choice, had committed the mistake, had done the wrong; I could not bring myself to flee from the result. I burrowed in the slums where he took me, hiding from all who sought me out. Yet I lived in an earthly h.e.l.l, my dream of love dispelled, the despair of life constantly deepening. I no longer cared for the man--I despised him, shrank from his presence; yet something more potent than pride kept me loyal. I believed then, I believe now, in the sacredness of marriage; it was the teaching of my church, of my home; it had become part of my very soul. To me that formal church wedding typified the solemnity of religion; I durst not prove untrue to vows thus taken; divorce was a thought impossible."

"And now?" he interrupted gently.

She lifted her head, with one swift glance upward.

"You will think me wrong, quixotic, unnatural," she acknowledged soberly. "Yet I am not absolved, not free--this man remains my husband, wedded to me by the authority of the church. I--I must bear the burden of my vows; not even love would long compensate for unfaithfulness in the sight of G.o.d."

In the intense silence they could hear each other's strained breathing and the soft notes of a bird singing gleefully without. Winston, his lips compressed, his eyes stern with repressed feeling, neither moved nor spoke. Beth Norvell's head sank slowly back upon her arm.

"He took me with him from city to city," she went on wearily, as though unconsciously speaking to herself, "staying, I think, in each as long as the police would permit. He was seldom with me, seldom gave me money. We did not quarrel, for I refused to be drawn into any exchange of words. He never struck me excepting twice, but there are other ways of hurting a woman, and he knew them all. I was hungry at times and ill clad. I was driven to provide for myself, and worked in factories and stores. Whenever he knew I had money he took it. Money was always the cause of controversy between us. It was his G.o.d, not to h.o.a.rd up, but to spend upon himself. My steady refusal to permit his bleeding my father enraged him; it was at such times he lost all control, and--and struck me. G.o.d! I could have killed him! There were times when I could, when I wonder I did not. Yet in calm deliberation I durst not break my vows. Three years ago he left me in Denver without a word, without a suggestion that the desertion was final. We had just reached there, and I had nothing. Friends of my family lived there, but I could not seek them for help. I actually suffered, until finally I found employment in a large department store. I expected he would return, and kept my rooms where he left me. I wrote home twice, cheerful letters, saying nothing to lower him in the estimation of my people, yet concealing my address for fear they might seek me out.

Then there unexpectedly came to me an opportunity to go out with Albrecht, and I accepted it most thankfully. It gave me a chance to think of other things, to work hard, to forget myself in a growing ambition. I had already thrown off the old, and was laying ever firmer hands upon the new, when you came into my life, and then he came back also. It is such a small world, such a little world, all shadowed and full of heartaches!"

In the silence she glanced aside at him, her eyes clear, her hair held back by one hand.

"Please do not look at me like that," she pleaded. "Surely, you cannot blame me; you must forgive."

"There is nothing to blame, or forgive, Beth; apparently there is nothing for me to say, nothing for me to do."

She swayed slowly toward him, resting one hand upon his shoulder.

"But am I right? Won't you tell me if I am right?"

He stood hesitating for a moment, looking down upon that upturned, questioning face, his gray eyes filled with a loyalty that caused her heart to throb wildly.

"I do not know, Beth," he said at last, "I do not know; I cannot be your conscience. I must go out where I can be alone and think; but never will I come between you and your G.o.d."

CHAPTER XIX

THE POINT OF VIEW

She sank back upon the chair, her face completely hidden within her arms. Winston, his hand already grasping the latch of the door, paused and glanced around at her, a sudden revulsion of feeling leaving him unnerved and purposeless. He had been possessed by but one thought, a savage determination to seek out Farnham and kill him. The brute was no more than a mad dog who had bitten one he loved; he was unworthy of mercy. But now, in a revealing burst of light, he realized the utter futility of such an act. Coward, brutal as the man unquestionably was, he yet remained her husband, bound to her by ties she held indissoluble. Any vengeful blow which should make her a widow would as certainly separate the slayer from her forever. Unavoidably though it might occur, the act was one never to be forgiven by Beth Norvell, never to be blotted from her remembrance. Winston appreciated this as though a sudden flash-light had been turned upon his soul. He had looked down into her secret heart, he had had opened before him the religious depth of her nature--this bright-faced, brown-eyed woman would do what was right although she walked a pathway of self-denying agony. Never once did he doubt this truth, and the knowledge gripped him with fingers of steel. Even as he stood there, looking back upon her quivering figure, it was no longer hate of Farnham which controlled; it was love for her. He took a step toward her, hesitant, uncertain, his heart a-throb with sympathy; yet what could he say?

What could he do? Utterly helpless to comfort, unable to even suggest a way out, he drew back silently, closed the door behind him, and shut her in. He felt one clear, unalterable conviction--under G.o.d, it should not be for long.

He stood there in the brilliant sunlight, bareheaded still; looking dreamily off across the wide reach of the canyon. How peaceful, how sublimely beautiful, it all appeared; how delicately the tints of those distant trees blended and harmonized with the brown rocks beyond! The broad, spreading picture slowly impressed itself upon his brain, effacing and taking the place of personal animosity. In so fair a world Hope is ever a returning angel with healing in his wings; and Winston's face brightened, the black frown deserting his forehead, all sternness gone from his eyes. There surely must be a way somewhere, and he would discover it; only the weakling and the coward can sit down in despair. Out of the prevailing silence he suddenly distinguished voices at hand, and the sound awoke him to partial interest. Just before the door where he stood a thick growth of bushes obstructed the view. The voices he heard indistinctly came from beyond, and he stepped cautiously forward, peering in curiosity between the parted branches.

It was a narrow section of the ledge, hemmed in by walls of rock and thinly carpeted with gra.s.s, a small fire burning near its centre.

There was an appetizing smell of cookery in the air, and three figures were plainly discernible. The old miner, Mike, sat next the embers, a sizzling frying-pan not far away, his black pipe in one oratorically uplifted hand, a tin plate in his lap, his grouchy, seamed old face screwed up into argumentative ugliness, his angry eyes glaring at the Swede opposite, who was loungingly propped against a convenient stone.

The latter looked a huge, ungainly, raw-boned fellow, possessing a red and white complexion, with a perfect shock of blond hair wholly unaccustomed to the ministrations of a comb. He had a long, peculiarly solemn face, rendered yet more lugubrious by unwinking blue eyes and a drooping moustache of straw color. Altogether, he composed a picture of unutterable woe, his wide mouth drawn mournfully down at the corners, his forehead wrinkled in perplexity. Somewhat to the right of these two more central figures, the young Mexican girl contributed a touch of brightness, lolling against the bank in graceful relaxation, her black eyes aglow with scarcely repressed merriment. However the existing controversy may have originated, it had already attained a stage for the display of considerable temper.

"Now, ye see here, Swanska," growled the thoroughly aroused Irishman vehemently. "It's 'bout enough Oi 've heard from ye on that now. Thar 's r'ason in all things, Oi 'm tould, but Oi don't clarely moind iver havin' met any in a Swade, bedad. Oi say ye 're nothin' betther than a dommed foreigner, wid no business in this counthry at all, at all, takin' the bread out o' the mouths of honest min. Look at the Oirish, now; they was here from the very beginnin'; they 've fought, bled, an'

died for the counthry, an' the loikes o' ye comes in an' takes their jobs. Be hivins, it 's enough to rile the blood. What's the name of ye, anny how?"

"Ay ban Nels Swanson."

"Huh! Well, it's little the loikes o' ye iver railly knows about names, Oi 'm thinkin'. They tell me ye don't have no proper, dacent names of yer own over in Sweden,--wherever the divil that is, I dunno,--but jist picks up annything handy for to dhraw pay on."