The Gates Between Part 5

Instantly a thrill pa.s.sed from the wire to the hand. A distant sound jarred upon the air. Steps shuffled somewhere beyond the ma.s.sive walls. I even thought that I heard voices, as of the watchman and others in possible consultation. No one approached the broker's door.

I urged the signal again and again. I became quite frantic, for I had now begun to think with dismay of the effect of all this upon my wife.

I railed upon that signal like a delirious patient at the order of a physician. A commotion seemed to follow, in some distant part of the building. But no one came within hearing of my voice; the noise soon ceased, and my efforts at freedom with it.

It having now become evident that I must spend the night where I was, I proceeded to make the best of it; and a very bad best it was. I was exhausted, I was angry, and I was distressed.

The full force of the situation was beginning to fall upon me. The inspector had put a not unnatural interpretation upon my condition; he thought so little of a gentleman who had dined too freely; it was a perfectly normal incident in his experience. He had mistaken the character of the stupor caused by my accident, and left me in that office for a drunken man. The fact that he was not accustomed to view me in such a light in itself probably explained the originality of his method. We were on pleasant terms. Drayton was a good fellow. Who knew better than he what would be the professional significance of the circ.u.mstance that Dr. Thorne was seen intoxicated down town at midnight? The city would ring with it in twelve hours, and it would not be for me, though I had been the most popular doctor in town, to undo the deed of that slander, if once it so much as lifted its invisible hand against the proud and pure reputation in whose shelter I lived and laboured, and had been suffered to become what we call "eminent." It was possible, too, that the inspector had some human regard for my family in this matter, and reasoned that to spare them the knowledge of my supposed disgrace was the truest kindness wherewith it was in his power to serve me. He meant to leave me where I was and as I was to sleep it off till morning. He would return in good season and release me quietly, and n.o.body the wiser but the watchman; who could be feed. This was plainly the purpose and the programme.

But Helen--

I returned to the table near which I had been sitting, and took the office chair again, and tried, like a reasonable creature, to calm myself.

What would Helen think by this time? I looked about the office stupidly. At first the dreary scene presented few details to me; but after a time they took on the precision and permanence which trifles acquire in emergencies. The gas was not lighted, but I could see with considerable ease, owing to the overwrought brain condition. It occurred to me that I saw like a cat or a medium; I noted this, as indicative of a certain remedy; and then it further occurred to me that I might as well doctor myself, having nothing better to do; and plainly there was something wrong. I therefore put my hand in my pocket for my case. It was gone.

Now, a physician of my sort is as ill at ease without his case as he would be without his body; and this little circ.u.mstance added disproportionately to my discomfort. With some irritable exclamation on my lips I leaned back in the chair, and once more regarded my environment. It was a rather large room, dim now, and as solitary as a graveyard after twilight. Before me stood the table, an oblong table covered with brown felt. A blue blotter, of huge dimensions, was spread from end to end; it was a new blotter, not much blurred.

Inkstand, pens, paper-weight, calendar, and other trifles of a strictly necessary nature stood upon the blotter. Letters on file, and brokers'

memoranda neatly stabbed by the iron stiletto--I forget the name of the thing--for that purpose made and provided, attracted my sick attention.

An advertis.e.m.e.nt from a Western mortgage firm had escaped the neat hand of the clerk who put the office in order for the night, and fell fluttering to my feet. It would be impossible to say how important this seemed to me. I picked it up conscientiously and filed it, to the best of my remembrance, with an invitation to the Merchant's Banquet, and a subscription list in behalf of the blind man who sold tissue-paper roses at the head of the street.

In one corner of the room, as I have said, was the clerk's desk; the electric signal shone faintly above it; it had, to my eyes, a certain phosph.o.r.escent appearance. Opposite, the steam radiator stood like a skeleton. There was a grate in the room, with a c.u.mberland coal fire laid. On the wall hung a map of the State, and another setting forth the proportions of a great Western railroad. At the extreme end of the room stood chairs and settees provided for auctions. Between myself and these, the high, guarded public desk of the broker rose like a rampart.

In this sombre and severe place I now abandoned myself to my thoughts; and these gave me no mercy.

My wife was a reasonable woman; but she was a loving and sensitive one.

I was accustomed to spare her all unnecessary uncertainty as to my movements--being more careful in this respect, perhaps, than most physicians would be; our profession covers a mult.i.tude of little domestic sins. I had not taken the ground that I was never to be expected till I came. A system of affectionate communication as to my whereabouts existed between us; it was one of the pleasant customs of our honeymoon which had lasted over. The telegraph and the messenger boy we had always with us; it was a little matter for a man to take the trouble to tell his wife why and where he was kept away all night. I do not remember that I had ever failed to do so. It was a bother sometimes, I admit, but the pleasure it gave her usually repaid me; such is the small, sweet coin of daily love.

As I sat there at the broker's desk, like a creature in a trap, all that long and wretched night, the image of my wife seemed to devour my brain and my reason.

The great clock on the neighbouring church struck one with a heavy and a solemn intonation, of which I can only say that it was to me unlike anything I had ever heard before. It gave me a shudder to hear it, as if I listened to some supernatural thing. The first hour of the new day rang like a long cry. Some freak of a.s.sociation brought to my mind that angel in the Apocalypse who proclaimed with a mighty voice that Time should be no more. I caught myself thinking this preposterous thing: Suppose it were all over? Suppose we never saw each other again? Suppose my wife were to die? To-night? Suppose some accident befell her? If she tripped upstairs? If the child's crib took fire and she put it out, and herself received one of those deadly shocks from burns not in themselves mortal?

Suppose--she herself opening the door to let in the messenger expected from me--that some drunken fellow, or some tramp--

"This," I said aloud, "is the kind of thing she does when I am delayed.

This is what it means to wait. Men don't do it often enough to know what it is. I wonder if we have any scale of measurement for what women suffer?"

What she, for instance, by that time was suffering, oh, who in the wide world else could guess or dream? There were such suffering cells in that exquisite nature! Who but me could understand?

I brought my clinched hand down upon the broker's blue blotting-paper, and laid my heavy head upon it.

Suppose somebody had got the news to her that the horse had been seen dashing free of the buggy, or had returned alone to the stable, panting and cut?

Suppose Helen thought that my unaccountable absence had something to do with that scene between us? Suppose she thought--or if she suspected--perhaps she imagined--

I hid my face within my shaking hands and groaned. A curse upon the cruel words that I had spoken to the tenderest of souls, to the dearest and the gentlest of women! A curse upon the lawless temper that had fired them! Accursed the hot lips that had uttered them, the unmanly heart that could have let them slip!

I thought of her face--I really had not thought of her face before, that wretched night. I had not strictly dared. Now I found that daring had nothing to do with it. I thought because I had to think. I dwelt upon her expression when I spoke to her--G.o.d forgive me!--as I did; her att.i.tude, the way her hands fell, her silence, the quiver in her delicate mouth. I saw the dim parlour, the lighted room beyond her, the scarlet shade upon the gas; she standing midway, tall and mute, like a statue carved by one stroke of a sword.

My own words came back to me; and I was not apt to remember things I said to people. So many impressions pa.s.sed in and out of my mind in the course of one busy day, that I became their victim rather than their master. But now my language to my wife that unhappy evening returned to my consciousness with incredible vividness and minuteness.

It will be seen from the precision with which I have already recorded it, how inexorable this minuteness was.

It occurred to me that I might as well have struck her.

In this kind of moral pommelling which sensitive women feel--as they do--how could I have indulged! I, who knew what a sensitive woman is, what fearful and wonderful nervous systems these delicate creatures have to manage; I, with what I was pleased to term my high organization and special training--I, like any brutal hind, had berated my wife. I, who was punctilious to draw the silken portiere for her, who could not let her pick up so much as her own lace handkerchief, nor allow her to fold a wrap of the weight of a curlew's feather about her own soft throat--I had belaboured her with the bludgeons that bruise the life out of women's souls. I wondered, indeed, if I should have been a less amiable fellow if I had worn cow-hide boots and kicked her.

My reproaches, my remorses, my distresses, it is now an idle tale to tell. That night pa.s.sed like none before it, and none which have come after it. My mind moved with a piteous monotony over and over and about the aching thought: to see Helen--to see Helen--to be patient till morning, and tell Helen--Only to get through this horrible night, and hurry, rushing to the morning air, to the nearest cab dashing down the street, and making the mad haste of love and shame, to see my wife--to tell my wife--

As never in all our lives before, I should tell her how dear she was; how unworthy was I to love her; how I loved her just as much as if I were worthy, and could not help it though I tried--or (as we say) could not help it though I died! I should run up, ringing the bell, never waiting to find the latch-key--for I could wait for nothing. I should spring into the house, and find her upstairs, in our own room; it would be so early; she would be only half-dressed yet, pale and lovely, looking like a spirit, far across the rich colours of the room, her long hair loose about her. I should gather her to my heart before she saw me; my arms and lips should speak before my breaking voice. I should kiss my soul out on her lifted face. I should love her so, she should forgive me before I could so much as say, Forgive! And when I had her--to myself again--when these arms were sure of their own, and these lips of hers, when her precious breath was on this cheek again, and I could say;--

"Helen, Helen, Helen"--

and could say no more, for love and shame and sorrow, but only--

"Helen, Helen"--

"Yes," said the watchman's voice in the corridor. "It is all right, sir. Me and Inspector Drayton, we thought we beard a noise, last night, and we considered it safe to look about. We had a thorough search. We thought we'd better. But there wasn't nothing. It's all straight, sir."

It was morning, and Brake's clerk was coming in. It was very early, earlier than he usually came, perhaps; but I could not tell. He did not notice me at first, and, remembering Drayton's hypothesis, I shrank behind the tall desk, and instinctively kept out of sight for a few uncertain minutes, wondering what I had better do. The clerk called the janitor, and scolded a little about the fire, which he ordered lighted in the grate. It was a cold morning. He said the room would chill a corpse. He had the morning papers in his hand. He unfolded the "Herald," and laid it down upon his own desk, as if about to read it.

At that instant, the telegraph clicked, and he pushed the damp, fresh paper away from him, and went immediately to the wires. The young man listened to the message with an expression of great intentness, and wrote rapidly. Moved by some unaccountable impulse, I softly rose and glanced over his shoulder.

The dispatch was dated at midnight, and was addressed to Henry Brake.

It said:

"_Have you seen my husband, to-night?_" and it was signed, "_Helen Thorne._"

Oh, poor Helen!...

Now, maniac with haste to get to her, it occurred to me that the moment while the clerk was occupied in recording this message was as good a time as I could ask for in which to escape un.o.bserved, as I greatly wished to do. As quietly as I could--and I succeeded in doing it very quietly--I therefore moved to leave the broker's office. As I did so, my eye caught the heading, in large capitals, of the morning news in the open "Herald" which lay upon the desk behind the clerk. I stopped, and stooped, and read. This is what I read:--

SHOCKING ACCIDENT.

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.

RUNAWAY AT THE WEST END.

_The eminent and popular physician._ _Dr. Esmerald Thorne,_

KILLED INSTANTLY.

CHAPTER VII.

At this moment, the broker entered the office.

With the "Herald" in my hand, I made haste to meet him.

"Brake!" I cried, "Mr. Brake! Thank Heaven, you have come! I have pa.s.sed such a night--and look here! Have you seen this abominable canard? This is what has come of my being locked into your"--