The Glory of the Conquered Part 12

"You know, sweetheart," resting her cheek upon his hand, "I don't like those dark gla.s.ses at all. I'll be so glad when you don't have to wear them."

"Why?" he asked, his voice a little m.u.f.fled.

"Because they shut me out. I always seem closer to you when I can look into your eyes.--Oh--does it pain so?" as he drew sharply away.

"That did hurt," he admitted, his voice low. "I--I'd better not talk for a little, dear."

So she said if there was nothing she could do for his head, she would leave him while she wrote a couple of letters.

For a long time he sat there without moving. It was the exhaustion which follows intoxication, for he had indeed intoxicated himself that afternoon, and with an idea. It had come about so strangely. After they sat down to dinner, he had been on the point a half a dozen times, of excusing himself on the plea of a bad headache. Then when they began to talk about doctors, those other things had come to him, and it was as though the spirit of all those men who had gone down that way entered into him, came so close, possessed him so completely, that he could not hold back those words about them. A spirit quite beyond his control had moved him to that little toast. After that, something--perhaps a spark from the nerve of those men of whom he had spoken--brought his mind firmly into possession of the feeling that everything was all right. It was not that he argued himself out of his fears, but rather that something brought the a.s.surance of its being all right, and after that there came a number of arguments sustaining the conviction. Just before dinner he had gone over to the laboratory and looked at the culture. It had not shown anything at all. At the time he accepted that as a matter of course--it was not time for it to show anything. But looking back on it after this conviction came to him, he took the very fact of its not showing anything as proof that there was nothing there to show. His mind only grasped one side of it--that it showed nothing at all. Brightening under that he began to talk lightly, to joke with Georgia, and talking that way seemed to enable him to keep hold of the conviction that everything was all right. The more he talked, the more sure he was of it, the gayer he felt, the more disposed to let his mind run wild. He was a little afraid if he stopped talking, this beautiful conviction of its being all right would leave him. So he made Georgia keep at it, Georgia was the one could play that sort of game.

As he talked, new arguments came to him. The oculist! At first he had thought it a bad thing that the oculist could not tell what was the matter. Now he seized upon that as proving there was nothing the matter at all. And Dr. Parkman had said, at the last, that it did not amount to anything. At the time that had been a mere conventional phrase, but now, in his exhilaration, he seized upon it as indisputable truth. But always there was the feeling that he must keep on feeling this way, or the conviction, and all that it meant, would go. That was why he clung to Georgia. Finally he reached the point where he could distinctly remember getting the other stuff--the stuff which did not make any difference--on his hands. He could fairly see it on his hands, could remember distinctly getting it in his eye. And then Georgia had said something about going, and he had begged her not to go. But she insisted, and he began to feel then that the exhilaration was wearing off, that he was coming back to face things; to the doubt, the uncertainty, the suffering. And now that he had come back to things as they were, he felt inexpressibly tired.

He went over it again and again, trying to gain something now, not from any form of excitement, but from things as they were. Suddenly his face brightened. He sat there in deep thought, and then at last he smiled a little. Whatever happened must have occurred Friday afternoon. But he had never in all his life felt as happy about his work as he did before he left the laboratory Friday afternoon. Could a man feel like that, would it be in the heart of things to let a man feel that way, if he had already entered upon the road of his destruction? It had been more than a happiness of the mind; it was a happiness of the soul, and would not a man's soul send out some note of warning? And then that same evening when he and Ernestine sat before the fire! If already this grim fate had entered into their lives, would not their love, would not _her_ love, all intuition, deep-seeing, feeling that which it could not understand, have felt in that moment of supreme happiness, some token of what was ahead?

It could not be that the world jeered at men like that. Their love would have told them something was wrong.

Ernestine came in just then and he called her to him.

"Liebchen," he said, "I've been thinking about that evening of your birthday, about how beautiful it was. Weren't you happy, dear, as we sat there before the fire?"

"So happy, Karl," she murmured, warmly glad to have her own Karl again.

"Everything seemed so beautiful; everything seemed so perfectly right."

He drew her to him with a pa.s.sion she did not understand. His Ernestine!

His wife! She who communed with love, whose harmony with the great soul of things was perfect--they could not have deceived her like that!

Ernestine and love dwelt too closely together. She would have received some sign.

For a time that calmed and sustained him; he believed in it; it was his weapon to use against the doubts and terrors which preyed upon him. But the gloom of his soul seemed to thicken with the deepening of the night.

His heart grew cold with the coming of the shadows. The pa.s.sing of day inspired in him fears not to be reasoned away.

He grew very nervous during the evening and finally said he must go over to the laboratory and arrange some things for morning. Ernestine protested against it--and if he must go would he not let her go with him?

But he told her he believed it would be better for his head if he walked alone for just a little while. He did not have a headache more than once in five years, he a.s.sured her, laughing a little, and when he did, it was apt to upset him.

When he came back at last--it seemed to her a very long time--she saw, watching from the window, that he was walking very slowly, almost as if exhausted She could not hold back her alarm at his white, worn face.

Something in it gripped at her heart.

"Is it worse, dear?" she asked anxiously.

"It's a little bad--just now. I'll go to bed. It will be better then." He spoke slowly, as though very tired.

"Won't you take something for it, Karl?" she persisted. "Won't you?"

"I do not know of anything to take that would do any good, Ernestine,"--and he could not quite keep the quiver out of those words.

"But other people take things. There _are_ things. Let me go out and get you something."

He shook his head.

"Doctors don't take much stock in medicine," he said, with a touch of his usual humour.

She wanted to stay with him until he went to sleep. She wanted to put cold cloths on his head. It was hard to avoid Ernestine's tenderness.

"It did not show anything," he a.s.sured himself, pleadingly, when alone.

"It only showed that it was going to show in the morning. I knew that. I knew all the time I was going to know in the morning. I'll not go to pieces. I'll not be a fool about it," he kept repeating.

But a little later Ernestine was sure she heard him groan. She could not keep away from that.

"Oh, sweetheart," she murmured, kneeling by his bed, "I can't bear it not to help you. Let me do just some little thing," she pleaded.

He put his hand over in hers. "Hold it, dear; if you aren't too tired. I don't want to talk,--but hold on to my hand."

His grip grew very tight after a minute. She was sure his head must be paining terribly. If only he would take something for it!

In a little while he grew very quiet. Soon she was sure that he was asleep. But after she had at last stolen away he turned and buried his face in his arms.

CHAPTER XV

THE VERDICT

It was Monday morning now. The hours of that night had been hours of torture. Sleep had come once or twice, but sleep meant only the surrender of his mind to the horrors which preyed upon it. He could, in some measure, exert a mastery when awake, but no man is master of his dreams.

His dreams put before him all those things his thoughts fought away. In his dreams, there was a fearful thing pursuing him, reaching out for him, gaining upon him with each step. Or sometimes, it stalked beside him, not retreating, not advancing, but waiting, standing there beside him with grim, inexorable smile. It was after waking from such dreams that he breathed his prayer that this night pa.s.s. No matter what be ahead, he asked that this night pa.s.s away.

After he was up he found himself able to go on in much the usual way.

When Ernestine came in and asked about his head, he told her it was better; when she wanted to know about his eyes, he said they were not any better yet, but that that was something which would simply have to run its course. She begged him not to go over to the university, but he told her it was especially important to go this morning. He added that he might not be there very long.

He ate his usual breakfast. A truth that would shake the foundations of his life might be waiting for him just ahead, and yet he could make his usual laughing plea for a second cup of coffee. Undoubtedly it was so with many men; beneath a mail of conventions and pleasantries they lived through their fears and sorrows alone.

Something clutched at his heart as he kissed Ernestine good-bye and there was a momentary temptation. Could he face it alone, if he had to face it?

To have her with him! But he put that aside; not alone for her sake, but because he felt that after all there were things through which one must pa.s.s alone. But after he had reached the door, he came back and kissed her again. What if he were to go down into a place too deep for his voice to reach her?

There was some solace, a.s.surance, in the naturalness of things about him.

Everything else was just the same; it did not seem that it could be part of natural law then for his own life to be entirely overturned.

And the world was so beautiful! It was a buoyant spring morning. There was a.s.surance in the song of the birds, in the perfume of flowers and trees. The air upon his face was soft and rea.s.suring. This seemed far away from the hideous phantoms of the night. Why the world did not _feel_ like tragedy this morning!

He had a lecture at eight o'clock, and he made up his mind he would give it. In the night he had thought of going first of all to the laboratory.

The truth would be waiting for him there. But it was his business to give the lecture and he could not be sure of giving it if he went to the laboratory first. A man had no right to let his own affairs interfere with his work. Oh yes--by all means, he would give the lecture. In spite of his prayer that the uncertainty should end, he reached out for another hour of holding it off.

He knew as the hour advanced that he had never done better work in the lecture room. He pinned his mind to it with a rigidity which prompted him to put the subject as though it were the most vital thing in all the world. He threw the whole force of his will to filling his mind with the things of which he spoke that he might not yield so much as an inch to the things which waited just outside.

He talked until the last minute; in fact, he went so much over his time that another cla.s.s was waiting at the door. He clung to those last moments with the desperation of the drowning man to the splintered piece of board. After it was over, just as he was yielding the desk to the man who followed him, one of his students approached him with a question and the thankfulness, the appeal, almost, in the smile with which he received him, mystified the student until he stammered out his question bewilderedly.

He could wait no longer now. That room belonged to others. The next period was his usual hour in the laboratory. It was an hour which on Monday morning he could, if he wished, spend alone.

His temples were beating, thundering. His hands were so cold that they seemed things apart from him. But his mouth--how parched it was!--was set very hard, and his steps, though slow, was firm.