Mrs. Falchion Part 25

During the evenings of these days he wrote much in his diary--the very book that lies by me now. Writing seemed a relief to him, for he was more cheerful afterwards. I know that he had received letters from the summer hotel, but whether they were from Mrs. Falchion or Justine Caron I was not then aware, though I afterwards came to know that one of them was from Justine, asking him if she might call on him. He guessed that the request was connected with Hector Caron's death; and, of course, gave his consent. During this time he did not visit Ruth Devlin, nor did he mention her name. As for myself, I was sick of the whole business, and wished it well over, whatever the result.

I make here a few extracts from Roscoe's diary, to show the state of his mind at this period:

Can a man never get away from the consequences of his wickedness, even though he repents?... Rest.i.tution is necessary as well as repentance; but when one cannot make rest.i.tution, when it is impossible--what then? I suppose one has to reply, Well, you have to suffer, that is all.... Poor Alo! To think that after all these years, you can strike me!

There is something malicious in the way Mercy Falchion crosses my path. What she knows, she knows; and what she can do if she chooses, I must endure. I cannot love Mercy Falchion again, and that, I suppose, is the last thing she would wish now. I cannot bring Alo back. But how does that concern her! Why does she hate me so? For, underneath her kindest words,--and they are kind sometimes,--I can detect the note of enmity, of calculating scorn.

... I wish I could go to Ruth and tell her all, and ask her to decide if she can take a man with such a past.... What a thing it is to have had a clean record of unflinching manliness at one's back!

I add another extract:

Phil's story of Danger Mountain struck like ice at my heart. There was a horrible irony in the thing: that it should be told to me, of all the world, and at such a time. Some would say, I suppose, that it was the arrangement of Providence. Not to speak it profanely, it seems to be the achievement of the devil. The torture was too malicious for G.o.d....

Phil's letter has gone to his pal at Danger Mountain....

The fourth day after the funeral Justine Caron came to see Galt Roscoe.

This was the substance of their conversation, as I came to know long afterwards.

"Monsieur," she said, "I have come to pay something of a debt which I owe to you. It is a long time since you gave my poor Hector burial, but I have never forgotten, and I have brought you at last--you must not shake your head so--the money you spent.... But you MUST take it. I should be miserable if you did not. The money is all that I can repay; the kindness is for memory and grat.i.tude always."

He looked at her wonderingly, earnestly, she seemed so unworldly, standing there, her life's ambition not stirring beyond duty to her dead. If goodness makes beauty, she was beautiful; and yet, besides all that, she had a warm, absorbing eye, a soft, rounded cheek, and she carried in her face the light of a cheerful, engaging spirit.

"Will it make you happier if I take the money?" he said at last, and his voice showed how she had moved him.

"So much happier!" she answered, and she put a roll of notes into his hand.

"Then I will take it," he replied, with a manner not too serious, and he looked at the notes carefully; "but only what I actually spent, remember; what I told you when you wrote me at Hector's death; not this ample interest. You forget, Miss Caron, that your brother was my friend."

"No I cannot forget that. It lives with me," she rejoined softly. But she took back the surplus notes. "And I have my grat.i.tude left still,"

she added, smiling.

"Believe me, there is no occasion for grat.i.tude. Why, what less could one do?"

"One could pa.s.s by on the other side."

"He was not fallen among thieves," was his reply; "he was among Englishmen, the old allies of the French."

"But the Priests and the Levites, people of his own country--Frenchmen--pa.s.sed him by. They were infamous in falsehood, cruel to him and to me.--You are an Englishman; you have heart and kindness."

He hesitated, then he gravely said: "Do not trust Englishmen more than you trust your own countrymen. We are selfish even in our friendships often. We stick to one person, and to benefit that one we sacrifice others. Have you found all Englishmen--and WOMEN unselfish?" He looked at her steadily; but immediately repented that he had asked the question, for he had in his mind one whom they both knew, too well, perhaps; and he added quickly: "You see, I am not kind."

They were standing now in the sunlight just outside the house. His hands were thrust down in the pockets of his linen coat; her hands opening and shutting her parasol slightly. They might, from their appearance, have been talking of very inconsequent things.

Her eyes lifted sorrowfully to his. "Ah, monsieur," she rejoined, "there are two times when one must fear a woman." She answered his question more directly than he could have conjectured. But she felt that she must warn him.

"I do not understand," he said.

"Of course you do not. Only women themselves understand that the two times when one must fear a woman are when she hates, and when she loves--after a kind. When she gets wicked or mad enough to hate, either through jealousy or because she cannot love where she would, she is merciless. She does not know the honour of the game. She has no pity.

Then, sometimes when she loves in a way, she is, as you say, most selfish. I mean a love which--is not possible. Then she does some mad act--all women are a little mad sometimes. Most of us wish to be good, but we are quicksilver...."

Roscoe's mind had been working fast. He saw she meant to warn him against Mrs. Falchion. His face flushed slightly. He knew that Justine had thought well of him, and now he knew also that she suspected something not creditable or, at least, hazardous in his life.

"And the man--the man whom the woman hates?"

"When the woman hates--and loves too, the man is in danger."

"Do you know of such a man?" he almost shrinkingly said.

"If I did I would say to him, The world is wide. There is no glory in fighting a woman who will not be fair in battle. She will say what may appear to be true, but what she knows in her own heart to be false--false and bad."

Roscoe now saw that Justine had more than an inkling of his story.

He said calmly: "You would advise that man to flee from danger?"

"Yes, to flee," she replied hurriedly, with a strange anxiety in her eyes; "for sometimes a woman is not satisfied with words that kill. She becomes less than human, and is like Jael."

Justine knew that Mrs. Falchion held a sword over Roscoe's career; she guessed that Mrs. Falchion both cared for him and hated him too; but she did not know the true reason of the hatred--that only came out afterwards. Woman-like, she exaggerated in order that she might move him; but her motive was good, and what she said was not out of keeping with the facts of life.

"The man's life even might be in danger?" he asked.

"It might."

"But surely that is not so dreadful," he still said calmly.

"Death is not the worst of evils."

"No, not the worst; one has to think of the evil word as well. The evil word can be outlived; but the man must think of those who really love him--who would die to save him--and whose hearts would break if he were killed. Love can outlive slander, but it is bitter when it has to outlive both slander and death. It is easy to love with joy so long as both live, though there are worlds between. Thoughts fly and meet; but Death makes the great division.... Love can only live in the pleasant world."

Very abstractedly he said: "Is it a pleasant world to you?"

She did not reply directly to that, but answered: "Monsieur, if you know of such a man as I speak of, warn him to fly." And she raised her eyes from the ground and looked earnestly at him. Now her face was slightly flushed, she looked almost beautiful.

"I know of such a man," he replied, "but he will not go. He has to answer to his own soul and his conscience. He is not without fear, but it is only fear for those who care for him, be they ever so few. And he hopes that they will be brave enough to face his misery, if it must come. For we know that courage has its hour of comfort.... When such a man as you speak of has his dark hour he will stand firm."

Then with a great impulse he added: "This man whom I know did wrong, but he was falsely accused of doing a still greater. The consequence of the first thing followed him. He could never make rest.i.tution. Years went by. Some one knew that dark spot in his life--his Nemesis."

"The worst Nemesis in this life, monsieur, is always a woman," she interrupted.

"Perhaps she is the surest," he continued. "The woman faced him in the hour of his peace and--" he paused. His voice was husky.

"Yes, 'and,' monsieur?"

"And he knows that she would ruin him, and kill his heart and destroy his life."

"The waters of Marah are bitter," she murmured, and she turned her face away from him to the woods. There was no trouble there. The birds were singing, black squirrels were jumping from bough to bough, and they could hear the tapping of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. She slowly drew on her gloves, as if for occupation.

He spoke at length as though thinking aloud: "But he knows that, whatever comes, life has had for him more compensations than he deserves. For, in his trouble, a woman came, and said kind words, and would have helped him if she could."

"There were TWO women," she said solemnly.