The Bacillus of Beauty Part 53

"Helen is ill; come," it read.

Cadge met me at the studio door, white-faced, strangely, silently gentle.

From a tumbled heap among the cushions of the tepee came a voice like Kitty's, moaning. Cadge tried to speak, but could only point to the little bedroom.

There, in the straight white dress she wore at the wedding, Helen lay, as if sleeping, upon a couch. Floods of shining hair fell about her shoulders. In the white dignity of death her face was marvellous. All trace of stress and strain had left it, replaced by an enigmatic calm. She looked not merely beautiful, but Beauty's self vouchsafed to mortal eyes.

I do not know how long I gazed. Vaguely, between Kitty's sobs, I heard the ticking of a watch.

"For another woman of such loveliness," at length said a reverent voice behind me, "we must wait the final evolution of humanity."

Dr. Upton, one of Reid's friends whom I had seen at the wedding, had reached the house before me. He had been examining a gla.s.s, a spoon and some other objects so quietly that I had not heard. He said that Helen had been dead some hours.

Mechanically I listened, but it was not until afterward that I understood the full purport of his speech or of Kitty's story of the night and morning. Their words reached me as if spoken from some great distance by the people who live in dreams.

Kitty had come to us; she stood in the doorway, white and shaking.

"Helen--Helen's head ached," she sobbed, "and she begged me to brush her hair, but when I began, she said it hurt, and told me to stop; then she fell to writing. I coaxed her to come to bed, for I thought she was ill; but she called me 'Kathryn' and then I knew I couldn't manage her. Oh, I was wicked, wicked; but I was afraid of her, always--you know. So I--oh, how could I?--I fixed a screen against the light and lay down, meaning to try again in a few minutes; but the instant my head touched the pillow I must have dropped asleep. The last thing I said was: 'Shall I tell Morphy you're coming?' I was so tired that I don't know whether she answered. And this morning--oh, I can't believe it; Oh, Helen, Helen!"

"And this morning?" prompted Dr. Upton.

"This morning when--when I waked and saw her on the couch, I wondered why she hadn't come to bed; but I dropped a shawl over her and tiptoed out. It wasn't until half-past eight that I tried--oh, I can't! I can't! Don't ask me!"

Kitty's voice was lost in hysterical chokings.

Dr. Upton handed me Helen's visiting card. Below the name was scrawled: "P. P. C."

"It was found pinned to Miss Reid's bedspread," he said; "is that Miss Winship's handwriting?"

"Yes," I answered. The shaky letters were unrecognisable.

"Don't you see! To say farewell," wailed Kitty. "She's done it a hundred times when she started for school before I was up. Barnard is so far. Oh, I can't bear it! How could you, Helen?"

"Don't, Kitty," said Cadge, drawing her from the room.

The doctor motioned me to a table behind the screen of which Kitty had spoken. There Helen had sat, there lay her writing case, the key sealed in an envelope addressed to me. Picking up a slip of paper torn from a letter pad, he asked:--

"Is this also Miss Winship's writing?"

He held it out to me and I read the single line:--

"Don't tell Father."

Dazed, half-comprehending, I repeated: "Yes."

Upton had found nothing else, except Helen's watch, open beside the writing case, and a gla.s.s that still held a little sherry. At this he looked with sombre intelligence and set it carefully aside.

Nothing in the room had been disturbed. Helen's chair had the look of having been pushed from the table as she rose but a minute before. Near it on an easel stood the Van Nostrand picture, smiling--smiling, as if it had seen no tragedy. On the floor was a little ash as of charred paper.

In a few minutes Mrs. Reid and Kitty returned with Mr. Winship. Through the fog that enveloped me I saw with dull curiosity that they had told him something that he didn't understand.

He could not believe Helen dead, but knelt by her side and coaxed her to wake, rubbing her fair, slender hands between his leathery palms and calling her by every pet name of her childhood.

"It's on'y your ol' Dad, Sis," he crooned. "Jes' come to fetch ye t' yer Ma; that's all. I know yer tired--plum tired out; but Ma 'n' me'll take care on ye." It was pitiful to hear him.

He desisted at last and looked back at us with a mien of anger.

"Do suthin', some o' ye," he snarled, "'stid o' standin' round like gumps!

Speak to me, Poppet; tell yer ol' Pap w'at ails ye. Fetch some hot water, you gals! Ain't ye got no sense? Rub her feet; an' her hands. Speak to me, Sissy--why don't ye?"

As the truth slowly won over him, he straightened himself, one hand still clasping Helen's cold one.

"It's sudden; sudden," he said. "Doctor, w'at ailed my little Nelly?"

Still numbly inquisitive, I waited. The old man couldn't see the truth, the horrible truth. What would the doctor say?

It was Cadge's voice that broke the silence; gentle, a.s.sured, yet with a note almost of defiance.

"We think--in fact, Helen overstudied," she said. "We've been much worried about her."

Dr. Upton turned abruptly. Cadge's irregular, mobile face for once was still, its quiet demand bent full upon him. His answering look refused her, but the effort was obvious with which he spoke to the broken man waiting his verdict.

"Miss Winship--your daughter--" he began.

The words died. Cadge's steady black eyes controlled him.

"Wa-al?"

The doctor bowed his head over Helen. I was listening again to her watch that ticked insistently. "Don't tell Father! Don't tell Father!" it said over and over, over and over, louder and louder, until the words echoed from every corner of the room.

They must hear! That was why she had left it!

"I ast ye w'at ailed my little girl."

"Cardiac asthenia--heart failure," said Dr. Upton, abruptly.

Kitty threw herself upon Cadge, kissing her convulsively, while Mr.

Winship persisted:--

"Sis was first-rate yist'day; w'at fetched the attack on?"

As gently as Cadge herself, Dr. Upton answered:--

"Mr. Winship, your daughter wasn't so strong as she seemed. There was much in her condition to cause anxiety. I'll be back in an hour," he added, moving hastily, as Reid entered, toward the door.

Could I let him shoulder the responsibility of concealment? And if I refused? Publicity--an inquest? At last I was alive to the situation; in silent grat.i.tude I wrung Upton's hand, but he took no notice of me. As he pa.s.sed Reid he growled:--

"Your wife's a good woman to tie to, Pros. She's all right. Lucky she was telegraphed for."

Cadge had begun to talk in low tones to Mr. Winship. He did not seem to listen, but the quiet voice soothed him. Gradually his gray, set features relaxed, though he would not submit to be led from the bedside.