Phases of an Inferior Planet Part 60

She stirred slightly. It seemed to her that a wind blew from the altar where the candles fluttered, chilling her flesh. She shivered beneath the still smile of the painted Christ.

The stone pillar pressed into her temple, and she closed her eyes. Her head ached in dull, startled throbs.

As she listened, she knew that the final blow had fallen--that it is not given one to begin over again for a single day; that of all things under the sun, the past is the one thing irremediable.

The sermon was soon over. He returned to the altar, and the offertory anthem filled the church. Pressed against the pillar, she raised her hand to her ear, but the repet.i.tion was driven in dull strokes to her brain:

"Thy Keeper will never slumber. He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps."

CHAPTER XV

Several hours later Mariana was wandering along a cross-street near Ninth Avenue. Rain was falling, descending in level sheets from the gray sky to the stone pavement, where it lay in still pools. A fog had rolled up over the city. She had walked unthinkingly, spurred at first by the impulse to collect her thoughts and later by the thoughts themselves. It was all over; this was what she saw clearly--the finality of all things.

What was she that she should think herself strong enough to contend with a man's creed?--faith?--G.o.d? She might arouse his pa.s.sion and fire his blood, but when the pa.s.sion and the fire burned out, what remained? In the eight years since she had left him a new growth had sprung up in his heart--a growth stronger than the growth of love.

The memory of him defined against the carving of the screen, the altar shining beyond, his vestments gilded by the light, his white face lifted to the cross, arose from the ground at her feet and confronted her through the falling rain. Yes, he had gone back to his G.o.d. And it seemed to her that she saw the same smile upon his face that she had seen upon the face of the painted Christ, whose purple robes tinted the daylight as it fell upon the chancel.

As she reached Ninth Avenue, an elevated train pa.s.sed with its reverberating rumble, and the reflection of its lights ran in a lurid flame along the wet sidewalk. Clouds of smoke from the engine were blown westward, scudding like a flock of startled swans into the river.

Straight ahead the street was lost in grayness and the lamps came slowly out of the fog. A wagon-load of calves was driven past her on the way to slaughter, and the piteous bleating was borne backward on the wind.

Suddenly her knees trembled, and she leaned against a railing.

A man pa.s.sed and spoke to her, and she turned to retrace her steps. From the wet sidewalk the standing water oozed up through her thin soles and soaked her feet. A pain struck her in the side--sharp and cold, like the blow of a knife. In sudden terror she started and looked about her.

A cab was pa.s.sing; she hailed it, but it was engaged, and drove on.

She leaned against the railing of a house, and, looking up, saw the cheerful lights in the windows. The idea of warmth invigorated her, and she moved on to the next, then to the next. At each step her knees trembled and she hesitated, fearing to fall and lie dead upon the cold sidewalk. The horror of death gave her strength. Beyond the desires of warmth and light and rest, she was unconscious of all sensation.

Then the pain in her side seized her again, and the shrinking of her limbs caused her to pause for a longer s.p.a.ce. The monotonous cross-town blocks sloped upward in a black incline before her, seeming to rise perpendicularly from before her feet to a height in the foggy perspective. She clung to the railing and moaned softly. A woman, pa.s.sing with a bundle on her arm, stared at her, hesitated an instant, and went on.

At Broadway the lights of the moving cars interchanged like the colors of a kaleidoscope, swimming amid the falling rain before her eyes.

At Sixth Avenue she steadied herself with sudden resolve, beginning that last long block with a kind of delirious joy. To stimulate her faltering feet she glanced back over the terrible distance that she had come, and she found that the black incline of blocks now sloped in the opposite direction. She seemed to have descended a hillside of slate. Good G.o.d!

How had she lived? Her own door came at last, and she crawled up the slippery steps, steadying herself against the stone bal.u.s.trade. The door was unlatched. She opened it and went inside. At the first suffusion of warmth and rest her waning thoughts flickered into life.

Then she raised her eyes and uttered a shriek of joy.

"Anthony!"

He was standing on the threshold of the drawing-room, and, as she cried out, he caught her in his arms.

"My beloved, what is it? What does it mean?"

But as he held her he felt the wet of her clothing, and he lifted her and carried her to the fire.

"Mariana, what does it mean?"

He was kneeling beside her, unfastening her shoes with nervous fingers.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

"I went out in the rain," she said. "I don't know why; I have forgotten.

I believe I thought it was all a mistake. The blocks were very long."

Then she clung to him, sobbing.

"Don't let me die!" she cried--"don't let me die!"

He raised her in his arms, and, crossing to the bell, rang it hastily.

Then he went into the hall and up-stairs. On the landing he met the maid.

"Where is Mrs. Gore's room?" he asked, and, entering, laid her upon the hearth-rug. "She is ill," he went on. "She must be got to bed and warmed. Put mustard-plasters to her chest and rub her feet. I will get the doctor."

He left the room, and Miss Ramsey came in, her eyes red and her small hands trembling.

They took off her wet things, while she lay faint and still, a tinge of blueness rising to her face and to her fallen eyelids.

Suddenly she spoke.

"Give me the medicine on the mantel," she said--"quick!"

It was tincture of digitalis. Miss Ramsey measured out the drops and gave them to her. After she had swallowed them the color in her face became more natural and her breathing less labored. Miss Ramsey was applying a mustard-plaster to her chest, while the maid rubbed her cold, white feet, which lay like plaster casts in the large, red hands.

Mariana looked at them wistfully. "I have done foolish things all my life," she said, "and this is the most foolish of all."

"What, dear?" asked Miss Ramsey, but she did not answer.

When Anthony came in, followed by the doctor, she was lying propped up among the pillows, with soft white blankets heaped over her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing quietly.

Salvers took her hand and bent his ear to her chest.

"She must be stimulated," he said. "You say she has already taken digitalis--yes?"

He took Miss Ramsey's seat, still holding Mariana's hand, and turning now and then to give directions in his smooth, well-modulated voice.

Anthony was standing at the foot of the bed, his eyes upon the blankets.

A light fall of rain beat rhythmically against the window-panes. The fire crackled in the grate and sent up a sudden, luminous flame, transfiguring the furniture in the room and the faces gathered in the shadow about the bed. Mariana stirred slightly. Presently Salvers rose and drew Miss Ramsey aside.

"It is very serious," he said. "The danger is heart failure. In another case I should say that it was hopeless--but her const.i.tution is wonderful. She may pull through." Then he asked a few questions concerning the cause of the relapse, and turned to go. "Keep her stimulated, as I have said," he continued; "that is all that can be done. I would stay until morning, but several of my patients are at critical points. As soon as I have seen them I will come back." He started, paused to repeat several directions, and left the room softly, the sound of his footsteps lost in the heavy carpets.

Anthony took the chair beside the bed and laid his hand on the coverlet.

He thought Mariana asleep. She was lying motionless, her heavy hair tangled in the lace on the pillow, her lashes resting like a black shadow upon her cheeks, her lips half parted.

He remembered that she had looked like this after the birth of Isolde, when he sat beside the bed and the child lay within the crook of her arm.

A groan rose to his lips, but he choked it back. The hand upon the coverlet was clinched, and the nails, pressed into the livid palm, had become purple. Still he sat motionless, his head bent, his muscles quivering like those of one palsied.

The flame of the fire shot up again, illuminating Mariana's face, and then died slowly down. The rain beat softly against the window.