Horace Chase Part 39

"Are you tired of the bed? I can make you comfortable in that chair by the fire, then," Dolly answered. "Here are stockings. And shoes, too--Portia's. But I'm afraid they will drop off!" Kneeling down, she drew on the stockings, and then Ruth, rising, stepped into the shoes.

Dolly went to spread a blanket over the chair, and while she was thus engaged Ruth, seeing a homespun dress of Portia's hanging from a peg, took it and put it on over her night-gown.

"You need not have done that," commented Dolly; "here is a second blanket to wrap you up in."

But Ruth was going towards the door. Dolly hurried after her and caught her arm. "You are not going down? What for?"

"I don't know," answered Ruth, vaguely. Then, with quickened breath, she added, "Yes, I _do_ know; I am going to tell--tell what I did." She was panting a little; Dolly could hear the sound.

The elder sister held her tightly. But Ruth did not struggle, she stood pa.s.sive. "What are you going to tell?" Dolly asked, sternly. "What _is_ there to tell? You took a ride; you walked in the forest; you stood in a thicket; you came back. That is all. No one saw you; no one on earth knows anything more. And there _was_ nothing more, save in thought. Your thoughts are your own affair, you are not required to tell them; it would be a strange world indeed if we had to tell all our thoughts! In your _acts_ as it has turned out, there has been nothing wrong. Leave it so, then. Let it rest."

Ruth did not reply. But in her clouded eyes Dolly thought she read refusal. "Ruth, let me judge for you," she pleaded. "Could I possibly advise you to do anything that was not your best course? Your very best?

If you force an account of your inward feelings upon your husband--who does not ask for them or want them--you destroy his happiness, you make him wretched. Don't you care for that? If I have never liked him--and I may as well confess that I never have--at least I know his devotion to you. If you tell, therefore, tell so unnecessarily, it will be a great cruelty. Think of all he did for mother! Of all he did and tried to do for Jared!"

Two tears welled up in Ruth's eyes. But she did not speak.

"And then there is another thing," Dolly went on. "If he knows the truth, all the good in him will be changed to bitterness. And, besides, he will be very harsh to you, Ruth; he will be brutal; and he will even think that it is right that he should be so. For those are the ideas of--of some people about wives who go wrong." To the woman who had married Horace Chase Dolly could say no more. But if she had spoken out all that was in her heart, her phrase would have been, "For those are the ideas of common people about wives who go wrong." (For to Dolly, Horace Chase's commonness--or what seemed to her commonness--had always been the insupportable thing.) But what she was saying now about her dread of his possible brutality was not in the least a fiction invented to influence Ruth; she had in reality the greatest possible dread of it.

Ruth, however, seemed either to have no fears at all, or else she was all fear--fear that had reached the stage of torpor.

"Think of _this_, too," urged Dolly, finally. "If you tell, have you the slightest idea that your husband will be able to keep himself from breaking off instantly all relations with the Willoughbys--with the uncles as well as the nephew? And do you want Walter Willoughby to suspect--as he certainly would suspect--the cause? Do you wish this young fellow who has merely played with you, who from the beginning has amused himself at your expense, and, no doubt, laughed at you over and over again--do you wish him to have a fresh joke at the sight of your imbittered husband's jealousy? Is he to tell the whole story to Marion Barclay? And have _her_ laughing also at your hopeless pa.s.sion for him?--at the way you have thrown yourself at his head? If you are silent, not only will your husband be saved from all his wretchedness, but Walter Willoughby will have no story to tell!"

For answer, Ruth gave a moan of physical weakness; she did not try to free herself from her sister's hold; she stood motionless, her figure drooping, her eyes closed. "Dolly," she murmured, "if you keep on opposing me--and my strength won't hold out very long--you will end by preventing it, preventing my telling. But there is something you won't be able to prevent: I am so tired that I want to die! And I shouldn't be afraid of _that_; I mean, finding a way."

Dolly's hands dropped.

And then Ruth, after a moment more of delay, pushed back the bolt, pa.s.sed along the entry, and began to go down the dark stairs. She went slowly, a step at a time. A step; then a hesitation; then another step.

Finally she reached the bottom, and opened the door.

Her descent had been noiseless; it was not until her hand touched the latch that Chase turned his head. When he saw her, he sprang up. "_You_, Ruthie!" he exclaimed, delightedly, as she entered, followed, after a moment, by the frightened, wretched Dolly. "Are you well enough to be up?" He put his arm round her and kissed her. "Come to the fire."

But Ruth drew herself away; she moved off to a little distance. "Wait; I have something to tell you," she answered.

"At any rate, sit down," Chase responded, bringing the best arm-chair and placing it before her. He had had a long experience regarding her changing caprices; he never disputed them.

But she did not seat herself; she only leaned on the back of the chair, her hands grasping its top. "I did not take that ride this morning for the reason you think," she began. "I was going to Walter Willoughby; I knew he was at The Lodge."

"Well, then, I wish you hadn't," replied Chase. He looked annoyed, but not angry. "Fellows like Walter are conceited enough without that sort of thing. If you wanted to see him, you could have sent a note, asking him to come to L'Hommedieu. Or Dolly could have written it for you; that would have been the best way. But don't stand there; sit down."

Ruth took a fresh grasp of the chair. "You do not comprehend," she said, her voice showing how little strength she had. But though she was weak physically, there was no nervousness; she was perfectly calm. "You do not comprehend. I was going to him because I loved him, Horace. I have loved him for a long time. I loved him so that I _had_ to go!"

As she said this her husband's face changed--changed in a way that was pitiful to see. He looked stunned, stricken.

"I did not mean to," Ruth went on. "I did not know what it was at first.

And then--it was too late. I thought he loved me; I was sure of it. And so--I went to him."

Dolly, hurrying forward, laid her hand restrainingly on Chase's wrist.

"He didn't see her, no one saw her. And she did no harm, no harm whatever."

But Chase shook Dolly off with a motion of his shoulder. Ruth, too, paid no heed to her sister; she looked straight at her husband, not defiantly, but drearily; she went on with her tale almost mechanically, and with the same desperate calmness as before. "So I went to him; I left my horse here, and went up through the woods. But he had Marion Barclay there; I saw her. And I saw his face, the expression of his face, as he talked to her; it is Marion he loves!"

"I could have told you that. At least I could have told you that he has been trying to get that girl for a long time," said Chase, bitterly.

"But there was nothing in that to hold him back as regards _you_. And it hasn't held him back; it hasn't prevented him from--But he shall answer for this! Answer to _me_." The rage in his face was deep; his eyes gleamed; his hands were clinched. Dolly turned cold. "He will _kill_ Walter," she thought. "Oh, what will he do to Ruth?"

Ruth had left her chair; she came and stood before her husband. "He isn't to blame, Horace. I would tell you if he were; I should like to see Marion Barclay suffer! But if you go to him, he will only laugh at you, and with reason; for he has never cared for me, and he has never even pretended to care; I see that now. It is _I_ who have been in love with _him_. It began that first winter we spent in Florida," she went on. She had returned to her place behind the chair, and her eyes were again fixed upon her husband's face. "And when he told me, suddenly, that he was going to California, going for years, I could not breathe.

Then, when Jared died, and mother died, and you were so good to me, I tried to forget him. But as soon as I saw him again I knew that it was of no use--no sort of use!"

"You'll never make me believe that _he_ did nothing all this time," said Chase, savagely. "That he didn't profit--that he didn't take advantage--"

But Ruth shook her head. "No. Perhaps he amused himself a little. Once or twice he said a few words. But that was all. And even this was called out by me--by _my_ love. Left to himself, he always drew back, he always stopped. But _I_--I never did! You must believe me about this--I mean about its having been _my_ doing. How can I make you believe it? If I say that by my mother's memory, by Jared's, what I have told you is true, will you believe it then? Very well; I _do_ say so." Exhausted, she put her face down upon her hands on the top of the chair-back.

The firelight, which was now brilliant, had revealed her clearly. Her figure in the homespun dress looked wasted; in her face there was now no beauty, the irregularity of its outlines was conspicuous, the bright color was gone, the eyes were dull and dead.

Something in her bowed head touched Chase keenly. A memory of her as she was when he married her came before him, the radiant young creature who had given herself to him so willingly and so joyously.

"Ruthie, we'll forget it," he said, in a changed voice. "I was too old for you, I am afraid. I ought not to have asked you to marry me. But it's done now, past mending, and we must make the best of it. But we'll begin all over again, my poor little girl." For his wife had always seemed to him a child, an impulsive, lovely child; a little spoiled, no doubt, but enchantingly sweet and dear. Her affection for him, as far as it went, had been sincere; he had comprehended that from the beginning.

And alluring though she was to him in her young beauty, he would not have married her without it; her consent, even her willing consent, would not have been enough. And now it seemed to him that he could go back to that girlish liking, that he could foster it and draw it out. He had not protected her from her own fancies, he had not guarded her or guided her. Now he would make her more a part of his life; he would no longer think of her as a child.

He had come to her as he spoke. This time she did not draw herself away; but, looking at him with the same fixed gaze, she went on. She had been speaking slowly, but now her words came pouring forth in a flood as though she felt that it was the only way in which she could get them spoken at all; each brief phrase was hurried out with a quick pant.

"Oh, you don't understand. You think it was a fancy. But it wasn't, it wasn't; I _loved_ him! I was going to stay with him forever. I would have gone to the ends of the earth with him. I would never have asked a question. I hadn't the least hesitation; you mustn't think that I had. I sang to myself as I rode out here, I was so happy and glad. I didn't care what became of you; I didn't even think of you. If he had been alone at The Lodge, I should have gone straight into his arms. And you might have come in, and I shouldn't have minded; I shouldn't even have known you were there! From the moment I started, you were nothing to me--nothing; you didn't exist! I am as guilty as a woman can be. I had every intention, every inclination. What was lacking was _his_ will; but never mine! It was only twelve hours ago. I haven't changed in that time. The only change is that now I know he doesn't care for _me_. I would have accepted anything--yes, anything. It was only twelve hours ago, and if he _had_ been alone at The Lodge, whether he really loved me or not, he would not have--turned me out."

"No; d.a.m.n him!" answered Chase.

"And _I_ should have been glad to stay," Ruth concluded, inflexibly.

Her husband turned away. It was a strong man's anguish. He sat down by the fire, his face covered by his hands.

Into the pause there now came again the strains of Portia's hymn in the kitchen--that verse about "the peerly gates" which she was hopefully singing a second time to Dave. Then, in the silence that followed, the room seemed filled with the rushing sound of the rain.

Ruth had remained motionless. "I shall never be any better," she went on with the same desperation; "I wish you to understand me just as I really am. I might even do it a second time; I don't know. You may make whatever arrangements you like about me; I agree to all in advance. And now--I'll go." Turning, she went towards the door of the stairway, the pale Dolly joining her in silence.

Then Horace Chase got up. His face showed how profoundly he had suffered; it was changed, changed for life. "After all this that you've told me, Ruth, I don't press myself upon you--I never shall again; I _couldn't;_ that's ended. You haven't got any father or mother, and you're very young yet; so I shall have to see to you for the present.

But it can be done from a distance, and that's the way I'll fix it. You mustn't think I don't feel this thing because I don't say much. It just about kills me! But as to condemning, coming down on you out and out, I don't do it, I haven't got the cheek! Who am I that I should dare to?

Have I been so faultless myself that I have any right to judge _you?_"

And as he said this, his rugged face had, for the moment, an expression that was striking in its beauty; its mixture of sorrow, honesty, and grandeur.

Ruth gazed at him. Then she gave an inarticulate entreating cry, and ran to him.

But she was so weak that she fell, and Dolly rushed forward.

Horace Chase put Dolly aside--put her aside forever. He lifted his wife in his arms, and silently bent his head over hers as it lay on his breast.

THE END