Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 41

To this she had answered by telegraph: "I write to-night." He was in Philadelphia, and until the evening of the following day she would be unable to leave for home. He would receive her letter in time to get to Stormpoint soon after her arrival in Easthampton. He desired a letter; he should have a letter.

Yet it was hard to write. It had been easy to whisper to herself such phrases as "Mark, dear Mark, I love you, I love you"; but it was less easy to set those words down on paper, though there was a joy in it, too. The difficulty of writing them vanished when they were for her own eye only, not to be mailed. And so she scribbled over sheet after sheet of paper: "Mark, Dear Mark, My Love, My Own, My Lover"--such words and many others she wrote, blushing, smiling; at times not seeing what she wrote for the tears in her eyes. At last she roused herself from this foolish play and wrote a proper letter.

"Dear Mark--How good you have always been! I shall arrive home on Sat.u.r.day morning. I long to see you. Dear Mark, I love you."

The last phrase was hurriedly written and had required resolution, but she was happier for having written it. She sealed the letter that she might not be tempted in the morning to subst.i.tute another. Then she went to bed, and all the night through her face was the mirror of her pleasant dreams. No shadow of the future was upon her as she slept smiling.

And awoke with the smile upon her face, and in a low voice sang while dressing. Her toilet concluded, she took her letter from the table, kissed it shyly, and placed it in her bosom. She would mail it as she went downstairs.

A knock at her door and the announcement of a visitor--a lady who had business of importance. Natalie ordered that the lady be shown into her sitting-room.

On entering the sitting-room she found Berthe.

CHAPTER XLI.

HER GUILTY CONSCIENCE CRIED: "BEHOLD YOUR HANDIWORK."

Natalie saw all things through the halo of the rosy hopes that now encompa.s.sed her. "Berthe!" she exclaimed, both hands extended in welcome, "I thought you had gone to France. Mrs. Leon told me so--but, how is this? You look pale and ill?"

Pale and ill she was, but no illness would have deterred her from making the appeal she had come to make.

Since his return to America, Leonard had indulged in drink more recklessly than ever, and Berthe, though conscious of the value to herself of the divorce, had dreaded the granting of the decree. For the prospect of being bound to this lost creature filled her with aversion.

Conscience makes cowards of us all, and Berthe feared the man. Not that he had shown any inclination for violence toward her, though he had long been irritable and disposed to quarrel on slight provocation. She did not fear his hand; it was his presence. The sodden spectacle was becoming a weight upon her soul, an accusation beyond her strength to bear. She had loved him, loved him even now, and her guilty conscience cried incessantly, "Behold your handiwork!"

On the day when Natalie had petted Tabitha, she had for the first time lived in fear, even of his hand. Early that morning she had noticed that his speech was tremulous and uncertain, though he drank less than usual.

He dozed constantly, often waking with a cry of terror; and then his whole frame would tremble as he gazed with eyes of hate and horror at herself, or at some invisible yet dreadful object near her, muttering incoherent phrases indicating fear. Again he would doze, again awake and the scene would be repeated. With each new seizure his action became more violent, while the nameless horror that was upon him communicated itself to her. At last she sent for a physician, but not until there had been a wild outbreak. He had clutched her by the throat: "Devil!" he shouted, "you shall not take me to h.e.l.l; I am of the elect, a Claghorn!

Down, fiend!" She had cowered in fear, and he had saved her life by fainting.

The doctor easily diagnosed the case. Berthe's willingness to pay for the services of two male nurses, and the fear that any disturbance might entail a frantic outbreak and death, were the considerations that restrained the physician from ordering the patient's removal to a hospital.

The convulsions of the stricken man were frightful; his shrieks, his wailing prayers for deliverance from h.e.l.l--these appalled the woman, filling her with apprehension akin to that of the raving victim. His calls for Natalie were most piteous, wails of anguish that pierced the heart of the woman that had loved him, and whose moans answered his incessant repet.i.tion of the name of one, lacking whose forgiveness he must face the horrors of the d.a.m.ned. The unending utterance of the name, never ceasing even when at last he sank into the stupor of exhaustion and of opiates, attracted the attention of the physician, who told Berthe that while he believed the case hopeless, possible good might be effected by the presence of the person without whom it seemed as though the man could not even die.

The awful fear that he would die, his last wish ungratified, wherefore, in her belief, his restless soul would haunt all her future days; this, added to the pity for the man she still loved, who had rescued her from misery, whose head had lain upon her bosom, nerved her to carry out the resolve she had taken. She knew that no messenger could effect the purpose; she must a.s.sume the task herself. It was not without a pang that she determined upon a mission which, if successful, must involve her desertion of the dying man; but, though she did not forget such jewels as she possessed or to collect all the money that remained, her flight was nevertheless intended as such expiation as she could make.

She hoped, though she could not be sure, that her ident.i.ty as Leonard's companion was not known to Natalie; but she a.s.sumed that Mrs. Leon had given information as to other misconduct, and she expected to be met with cold disapproval, if, indeed, she were received at all. But instead of disapproval she was encountered with outstretched hands and their friendly pressure; and, as with this reception there came upon her the recollection of the sweet graciousness of her former mistress, and with it the consciousness of her requital of the kindness of past days, her heart was like to fail.

"I bring you a message," she gasped, "from your husband."

"My husband!" For the moment Natalie forgot that she had no husband.

Then the recollection came upon her, and with it a premonition of evil.

She was as pale as Berthe, as she stood, looking at her visitor, bewildered and afraid.

"Stop!" she exclaimed, as Berthe was about to speak. "What can you know of him you call my husband? He left me, abandoned me for a wicked woman.

He wrote me confessing his shame, but not his fault. Again he wrote, insinuating wicked deeds of me, and threatening me. Since two days he is no more my husband; I can receive no message."

"He is dying!"

The red flush which had displaced the pallor of Natalie's cheek disappeared. Again her face grew pale; she stared at Berthe.

"Listen," faltered the Frenchwoman. "He wronged you, yet he loved you always, has loved you till this hour, and cannot die without your forgiveness."

"Take it to him----Dying! Leonard, Leonard!" She covered her face.

"I was maid to the woman he went away with," continued Berthe, "and so I came to know his story. The woman has been kind to him--let her pa.s.s, then"--seeing that her listener shuddered. "The man is dying. He moans and wails for you--for you. The woman herself begged me to come for you.

He fears" (her face grew whiter) "he fears the fires of h.e.l.l, but he will not have a priest. Only you can rescue him--your pardon--he cannot die without it." She broke down. All else she might have borne upon her conscience; but she could not bear that he should go unshriven.

At the mention of the fires of h.e.l.l Natalie was conquered. "Take me to him," she said.

"Follow me in half an hour," Berthe rose as she spoke, handing a written address to Natalie.

"But no time must be lost----"

"In half an hour," repeated Berthe. "Give her--the woman--time to get away." And then she pa.s.sed out of the room.

CHAPTER XLII.

"I WILL NEVER LEAVE HIM, SO HELP ME G.o.d IN HEAVEN."

"Natalie." He stirred uneasily, muttering the word, which since her coming he had not uttered; then, as she lightly pressed the hand she held, he slept again. So she had sat for hours beside his bed.

The physician had prepared her for the sight that had met her eyes. From Tabitha, who was with her, he had gleaned some knowledge of the facts.

Tabitha, still ignorant of the granting of the decree, had a.s.sured him that the visitor was the wife of Leonard Claghorn.

"Poor woman, she will need her courage," he said. "The other one has gone. As for the wife, if she can bear it, I would have her sit beside him so that he can see her when he wakes."

So there she had taken her place, beside the man whom the law had decreed was no more to her than any other. But death mocks law. Dying, he was so much to her that no hand but hers should smooth his pillow.

Perhaps the nature of the disease, perhaps the deep exhaustion, had made a great change in his appearance. The bloated aspect of his face was gone, and even a greater beauty than the beauty of his youth and innocence was apparent. But it was the beauty of ruin. The face was marble, yet lined with the deep furrows of sorrow and remorse. The hair was gray at the temples, the cheeks were hollow and the mouth was drawn.

It was Leonard, the man whose head had lain upon her bosom, the father of her child--the same, yet oh, how changed!

"Natalie!"

She bent toward him. He essayed to lift her hand to his lips; she placed it on his brow.

"I have had a dream," he whispered, "a dreadful dream!"

"Hush, Leonard. You must sleep."

He feebly raised his arm and tried to draw her to him. Slowly she bent toward him, falling on her knees beside the bed. His arm was now about her neck; he drew her cheek to his.