Jason Part 34

Below, in the open, his feet led him mechanically straight down under the trees, through the tangle of shrubbery beyond, and so to the wall under the cedar. Arrived there, he awoke all at once to his task, and with a sort of frowning anger shook off the dream which enveloped him.

His eyes sharpened and grew keen and eager. He said:

"The last arrow! G.o.d send it reached home!" and so went in under the lilac shrubs.

He was there longer than usual; unhampered now, he may have made a larger search, but when at last he emerged Ste. Marie's hands were over his face and his feet dragged slowly like an old man's feet.

Without knowing that he had stirred he found himself some distance away, standing still beside a chestnut-tree. A great wave of depression and fear and hopelessness swept him, and he shivered under it. He had an instant's wild panic, and mad, desperate thoughts surged upon him. He saw utter failure confronting him. He saw himself as helpless as a little child, his feeble efforts already spent for naught, and, like a little child, he was afraid. He would have rushed at that grim encircling wall and fought his way up and over it, but even as the impulse raced to his feet the momentary madness left him and he turned away. He could not do a dishonorable thing even for all he held dearest.

He walked on in the direction which lay before him, but he took no heed of where he went, and Mlle. Coira O'Hara spoke to him twice before he heard or saw her.

XXV

MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY

They were near the east end of the rond point, in a s.p.a.ce where fir-trees stood and the ground underfoot was covered with dry needles.

"I was just on my way to--our bench beyond the fountain," said she.

And Ste. Marie nodded, looking upon her sombrely. It seemed to him that he looked with new eyes, and after a little time, when he did not speak, but only gazed in that strange manner, the girl said:

"What is it? Something has happened. Please tell me what it is."

Something like the pale foreshadow of fear came over her beautiful face and shrouded her golden voice as if it had been a veil.

"Your father," said Ste. Marie, heavily, "has just been telling me--that you are to marry young Arthur Benham. He has been telling me."

She drew a quick breath, looking at him, but after a moment she said:

"Yes, it is true. You knew it before, though, didn't you? Do you mean that you didn't know it before? I don't quite understand. You must have known that. What, in Heaven's name, _did_ you think?" she cried, as if with a sort of anger at his dulness.

The man rubbed one hand wearily across his eyes.

"I--don't quite know," said he. "Yes, I suppose I had thought of it. I don't know. It came to me with such a--shock! Yes. Oh, I don't know. I expect I didn't think at all. I--just didn't think."

Abruptly his eyes sharpened upon her, and he moved a step forward.

"Tell me the truth!" he said. "Do you love this boy?"

The girl's cheeks burned with a swift crimson and she set her lips together. She was on the verge of extreme anger just then, but after a little the flush died down again and the dark fire went out of her eyes.

She made an odd gesture with her two hands. It seemed to express fatigue as much as anything--a great weariness.

"I like him," she said. "I like him--enough, I suppose. He is good--and kind--and gentle. He will be good to me. And I shall try very, very hard, to make him happy."

Quite suddenly and without warning the fire of her anger burned up again. She flamed defiance in the man's face.

"How dare you question me?" she cried. "What right have you to ask me questions about such a thing? You--what you are!"

Ste. Marie bent his head.

"No right, Mademoiselle," said he, in a low voice. "I have no right to ask you anything--not even forgiveness. I think I am a little mad to-day. It--this news came to me suddenly. Yes, I think I am a little mad."

The girl stared at him and he looked back with sombre eyes. Once more he was stabbed with intolerable pain to think what she was. Yet in an inexplicable fashion it pleased him that she should carry out her trickery to the end with a high head. It was a little less base, done proudly. He could not have borne it otherwise.

"Who are you," the girl cried, in a bitter resentment, "that you should understand? What do you know of the sort of life I have led--we have led together, my father and I? Oh, I don't mean that I'm ashamed of it! We have nothing to feel shame for, but you simply do not know what such a life is."

Though he writhed with pain, the man nodded over her. He was so glad that she could carry it through proudly, with a high hand, an erect head.

She spread out her arms before him, a splendid and tragic figure.

"What chance have I ever had?" she demanded. "No, I am not blaming him.

I am not blaming my father. I chose to follow him. I chose it. But what chance have I had? Think of the people I have lived among. Would you have me marry one of them--one of those men? I'd rather die. And yet I cannot go on--forever. I am twenty now. What if my father--You yourself said yesterday--Oh, I am afraid! I tell you I have lain awake at night a hundred times and shivered with cold, terrible fear of what would become of me if--if anything should happen--to my father. And so," she said, "when I met Arthur Benham last winter, and he--began to--he said--when he begged me to marry him.... Ah, can't you see? It meant safety--safety--safety! And I liked him. I like him now--very, very much. He is a sweet boy. I--shall be happy with him--in a peaceful fashion. And my father--Oh, I'll be honest with you," said she. "It was my father who decided me. He was--he is--so pathetically pleased with it. He so wants me to be safe. It's all he lives for now. I--couldn't fight against them both, Arthur and my father, so I gave in. And then when Arthur had to be hidden we came here with him--to wait."

She became aware that the man was staring at her with something strange and terrible in his gaze, and she broke off in wonder. The air of that warm summer morning turned all at once keen and sharp about them--charged with moment.

"Mademoiselle!" cried Ste. Marie. "Mademoiselle, are you telling me the truth?"

For some obscure reason she was not angry. Again she spread out her hands in that gesture of weariness. She said, "Oh, why should I lie to you?" And the man began to tremble exceedingly. He stretched out an unsteady hand.

"You--knew Arthur Benham last winter?" he said. "Long before his--before he left his home? Before that?"

"He asked me to marry him last winter," said the girl. "For a long, long time I--wouldn't. But he never let me alone. He followed me everywhere.

And my father--"

Ste. Marie clapped his two hands over his face, and a groan came to her through the straining fingers. He cried, in an agony: "Mademoiselle!

Mademoiselle!"

He fell upon his knees at her feet, his head bent in what seemed to be an intolerable anguish, his hands over his hidden face. The girl heard hard-wrung, stumbling, incoherent words wrenched each with an effort out of extreme pain.

"Fool! Fool!" the man cried, groaning. "Oh, fool that I have been! Worm, animal! Oh, fool not to see--not to know! Madman, imbecile, thing without a name!"

She stood white-faced, smitten with great fear over this abas.e.m.e.nt. Not the least and faintest glimmer reached her of what it meant. She stretched down a hand of protest, and it touched the man's head. As if the touch were a stroke of magic, he sprang upright before her.

"Now at last, Mademoiselle," said he, "we two must speak plainly together. Now at last I think I see clear, but I must know beyond doubt or question. Oh, Mademoiselle, now I think I know you for what you are, and it seems to me that nothing in this world is of consequence beside that. I have been blind, blind, blind!... Tell me one thing. Why did Arthur Benham leave his home two months ago?"

"He had to leave it," she said, wondering. She did not understand yet, but she was aware that her heart was beating in loud and fast throbs, and she knew that some great mystery was to be made plain before her.

Her face was very white. "He had to leave it," she said again. "_You_ know as well as I. Why do you ask me that? He quarrelled with his grandfather. They had often quarrelled before--over money--always over money. His grandfather is a miser, almost a madman. He tried to make Arthur sign a paper releasing his inheritance--the fortune he is to inherit from his father--and when Arthur wouldn't he drove him away.

Arthur went to his uncle--Captain Stewart--and Captain Stewart helped him to hide. He didn't dare go back because they're all against him, all his family. They'd make him give in."

Ste. Marie gave a loud exclamation of amazement. The thing was incredible--childish. It was beyond the maddest possibilities. But even as he said the words to himself a face came before him--Captain Stewart's smiling and benignant face--and he understood everything. As clearly as if he had been present, he saw the angry, bewildered boy, fresh from David Stewart's berating, mystified over some commonplace legal matter requiring a signature. He saw him appeal for sympathy and counsel to "old Charlie," and he heard "old Charlie's" reply. It was easy enough to understand now. It must have been easy enough to bring about. What absurdities could not such a man as Captain Stewart instil into the already prejudiced mind of that foolish lad?

His thoughts turned from Arthur Benham to the girl before him, and that part of the mystery was clear also. She would believe whatever she was told in the absence of any reason to doubt. What did she know of old David Stewart or of the Benham family? It seemed to Ste. Marie all at once incredible that he could ever have believed ill of her--ever have doubted her honesty. It seemed to him so incredible that he could have laughed aloud in bitterness and self-disdain. But as he looked at the girl's white face and her shadowy, wondering eyes, all laughter, all bitterness, all cruel misunderstandings were swallowed up in the golden light of his joy at knowing her, in the end, for what she was.