The Higher Court Part 15

Isabel went above. She felt again that she had done right in calling a physician, and strove for courage to announce the approaching visit.

When she entered her husband's room he seemed to be dozing. She did not rouse him. Perhaps, after all, sleep would prove to be Philip's best medicine, and something whispered that her apparent anxiety was not good for the broken man she loved. She went out, acknowledging a mistake.

When Philip awoke she would tell him about the doctor, with incidental lightness. Then sooner than she expected she heard an automobile and knew that her note had been timely. The specialist was at hand--in the hall below. She could not prepare Philip for an unwelcome call. But she was eager to unburden her heart, willing to rest her fear with one who ought to a.s.sume it. And at once she told of her husband's early education, of the first success of his priesthood, of his ambition for a great Middle West cathedral, of the bishop's unjust course, of Philip's natural struggle, followed with excommunication from the Church; then all too soon--before he could readjust his life--of the public humiliation in the old mission. She kept nothing back but her own hard part as the wife of an apostate priest. The dread that she had been the sole cause of a brilliant man's undoing she bravely acknowledged. Philip could not forget, could not supplement his relinquished work with domestic happiness.

"Yet he adores me," she confessed. "It is not just that he should suffer--as he does. His heart is breaking. He feels it a sin to love me--to go on with happiness."

"And you?" said Dr. Judkin.

She tried to smile. "Women can bear more than men." Her voice broke.

The man by her side felt her charm, knew that she was valiant in love.

Still he saw disappointment in her tense resistance. "I am afraid that you, too, will soon need attention," he abruptly told her. "Sometimes a wife spoils her husband without realizing it. Men who think a great deal about themselves are not considerate."

She was offended and replied coldly, "You do not know him. It is unjust to judge of a patient before you have seen him."

"I stand reproved," the doctor admitted.

Isabel forgave him. His very bluntness brought her hope. Suddenly she felt faith in the man whom she had summoned. She believed that he was masterful, and she must turn to some one.

"Please come," she invited, "you shall see my husband."

Dr. Judkin stood aside for her to pa.s.s, and she went above, choosing words which should explain his early call. Then at the top of the staircase she stopped.

"Be good enough to wait," she begged. "I must prepare him--go in first."

Then she flew forward, for the smell of burning paper had caught her nostrils. The door to Philip's apartment was fastened. She had been locked out! She rushed to a balcony running before the windows of her husband's room. In an instant she stood within. And she had not come a moment too soon. A fresh tragedy faced her. She hardly breathed. Philip, on his knees in front of the fireplace, did not hear her enter. The ecstasy of delirium possessed him. His whole body trembled as he showered an igniting pile with his rejected ma.n.u.script. "The Spirit of the Cathedral" was smoking. Isabel saw rising flame desert a blackened sketch of a famous duomo but to lick a painting of great St. Peter's.

Once more dominant Romish power appeared to threaten. The curse of the Church seemed about to blaze anew for Philip.

Her heart thumped as she flew to his side. "How can you?" she pleaded.

"You have forgotten your friend--who trusted you. You must not spoil his beautiful pictures." Her hand reached out and coolly rescued scorching sheets of the unpublished book. "But you did not mean to hurt an artist's work," she gently added. She held a ruined sketch before the sick man's staring eyes. "You did not remember. You did not mean to be unfair to your friend." The tenderness of her frightened, loving soul broke over the shattered man, as she led him away to bed. He went like an obedient child; then she unlocked the door and summoned the doctor.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Two trained nurses had been installed. Isabel no longer held her place at Philip's bedside. She was virtually banished from her husband's room.

The courage which she had evinced during previous weeks seemed to be going fast. Now she hardly dared to hope. A silent house already took on the atmosphere of disaster. Even Reginald was not permitted to shout in the garden. And withal spring was at hand, seemingly to brighten the whole world, outside of Philip's closed apartments. The sap of fresh life ran in the veins of every living thing in the valley, on the foothills, above in the mountains. The season had advanced without a check, while throughout the Southwest blooming fruit trees and millions of roses prepared the land for Easter.

To Isabel sensuous beauty on every side seemed cruel. Her heart felt desolate. She went through each day wishing for night, while with darkness she longed for sunlight. Suspense was beginning to drain her vitality. She did not complain, but the doctor saw her brace herself against each discouraging outcome of days that dragged. For Philip's last collapse had turned her from his side. She was barely a memory to the man she loved. At first she had rebelled, then accepted conditions enjoined by Dr. Judkin and consulting specialists. Only one thing helped her to endure the strain of a cruel separation.

Philip's book--now speaking to her heart as she knew it would speak--brought strange, proud comfort. She felt exalted that she--his wife--had saved the ma.n.u.script from the flames. During a week she fairly lived in the scorched pages of "The Spirit of the Cathedral." And gradually she began to see why the work had been refused. Personal feeling and blind enthusiasm were at last tempered. She could read with a cool intellect. The Laodicean att.i.tude of a shrewd publisher hurt her less than at first. For the fact still remained that Philip had produced something fine. Although he occasionally dropped his impa.s.sioned theme to give vent to slight discord, nothing had really been lost from his original motif. Reading between the lines, Isabel detected the natural temptation under which he had worked. Certain paragraphs, all unaided by a magnetic voice and delivery, read too much like his former sermons.

Sometimes overcharged, almost vindictive handling of Romish background was evident. In those first weeks in Paris, after he had deserted the priesthood and been cast out of the Church, he had written without restraint. He had said things best left unsaid. Yet, as Isabel read on, she marvelled at Philip's virile touch, at the masterful, dramatic power of his pen. His word pictures drawn from vivid, exceptional opportunity required no literal ill.u.s.tration. Still she studied the sketches of the a.s.sociate artist, finally selecting one fourth of the cathedrals submitted. Then she read over again the stronger chapters of the singed ma.n.u.script. It was late into night before she weighed the possible chances of her husband's book. He had labored so intelligently that her hand seemed to be guided by his own as she omitted paragraphs which undoubtedly influenced the publishers to refuse a somewhat prejudiced work.

Isabel felt free to decide for Philip. His extremity excused her arbitrary action. She was sure that in his normal condition he would agree to all that she had done. When scorched pages had been replaced by fresh ones she would send the revised ma.n.u.script to the publisher she had met at St. Barnabas, the one who had witnessed the withstayed tragedy in the mission. She believed that her new friend could appreciate the significance of a book written by one who not only criticised expertly, but knew as well the human side of a great cathedral. Her thoughts went back to a time when Philip--a priest--had outlined plans for the n.o.ble church he hoped to build. Then nothing seemed too big for his young city. Isabel smiled, and began to read once more.

Suddenly tears came to her eyes. She put aside the ma.n.u.script. After all, what right had she to tamper with her husband's work? From Philip's higher standpoint, painted or stone saints and angels, looking down from Gothic heights, meant nothing to her, outside of their mere artistic value. She saw with fresh dread that Philip was still a Catholic. Early education and his lost mother's devout influence kept him apart from natural happiness. He should have remained a priest, a power in his Church. She remembered how once she had stood with him in St.

Peter's--in front of the "Pieta." He had then almost forgotten her presence. The wrapt significance of his expression ought to have warned her. She felt once more that she would never be able to share her husband's feeling for an old master's sacred ideal. And later, when the two were pa.s.sing the noted bronze of St. Peter, she recalled that she had failed to hide her repulsion for the throng straining to kiss the statue's jutting, shining toe. Philip divined her thoughts and flushed.

"It comforts them," he had whispered. "Over here the poor have so little in their lives. What seems absurd to you is for them salvation."

To-night Isabel remembered everything now bearing on her husband's tragic state. Her heart grew heavy with fear, with vague foreboding.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

Philip's physical condition had improved during six weeks of masterful nursing. Isabel was at last permitted to see him for ten short minutes; then she kept her promise and went from the room. This morning she sank into a chair, mutely listening to the doctor's voice.

"He has come out much better than I expected," he confessed. "Our nurses have left nothing undone. The patient has responded to the limit of his burned-down condition. We shall save him."

She lifted a face wet with tears. "Oh," she begged, "may I help--do some little thing? I have waited so long. It has been hard, hard, to see other women always at his side, when his wife might not even give him a gla.s.s of water."

Rebellion which she had hidden through past days burst forth. "May I not let one of the nurses go? I long to do my natural part."

Dr. Judkin stopped pacing. "Listen to me," he commanded. She braced herself for fresh disappointment, knowing well the superior wisdom of the man's despotic practice. "Listen!" he repeated. "You have already done what few women can do--submitted magnificently to a pa.s.sive part.

And you have helped me more than you will ever know." She felt a new demand back of his words. "Now is the crucial test of your will power.

I have been waiting anxiously for this particular point in your husband's case. The physical collapse has been arrested and he is now ready for a complete change of scene. He needs a sea voyage, with continued quiet, but nothing familiar to arouse consciousness of past events."

"Oh," she cried, "I may take him abroad? Perhaps to j.a.pan? I can go to any part of the world which you think best for him." Her voice rang joy.

Color ran into her cheeks. "You have been so good to me--so patient with my own impatience. And I knew that you could save him! Something told me that first awful morning that you would help me, that you would be my friend."

The doctor stood powerless to tell her his real decision. Through weeks he had felt the pa.s.sionate suffering beneath her well-bred composure.

Character had stilled her bursting heart. He frowned, looking down at a pattern in the rug.

"You have not quite understood me," he said at last. "The change of which I speak must be absolute, entirely outside of--of--tempting a.s.sociation. As yet the patient must sink reviving interest in life to the dead level of his nurse, to the advent of meals served on the deck of a quiet ship."

"You mean that I should engage a private yacht?" Isabel eagerly asked.

"I know of one owned by a friend who will let me have it. Shall I wire at once?"

Again the man by her side was baffled. Of late his brusque announcements had perceptibly softened. To-day, knowing as only a physician does, the tragedy of certain marital relations, this woman's great love rebuked his ruthless plan. Still he must speak, make a professional edict clear.

"But you are not to accompany your husband," he abruptly told her. "You might undo the work of weeks, make the patient's ultimate recovery doubtful."

His words came hard, plain. Isabel sat stunned and silent.

"Philip Barry will come back from his voyage another man," the doctor deliberately promised. "And the separation will not be as hard as it now seems. After the fight for your husband's life and reason you may feel that we are about to conquer. Tahiti--the isle of rest--will restore him wholly."

Isabel did not answer. Only tightly clasped hands betrayed her agitation. The doctor went on:

"I have taken the voyage to Tahiti myself. Five years ago I was a nervous wreck when I sailed from San Francisco. Twenty-one days later, when I landed at the Society Islands, at Tahiti, I was a new man. Weeks on the water, without a word from the world behind me had worked a miracle. On the upper deck of the comfortable little ship I forgot my troubles through pure joy of existence. All day long I rested body and brain. With evening the blood-red sun plunged into a molten sea. Then blue sky suddenly changed to violet, and deepening shadow brought out the stars--the Southern Cross. I began to feel like a different person."

An eloquent outburst awakened no response. The doctor saw that he must speak decidedly. His next words fell with brutal authority.

"Your husband must be made ready to start for San Francisco at once. A boat leaves Port Los Angeles day after to-morrow. It is best that our patient should avoid the train, and in going by water he will have half a day and a night to rest in some good hotel. The ship sails at noon,--on the seventeenth."

He was beginning to think that Mrs. Barry's silence meant compliance.

Resignation seemed to be a part of her marvelous character. And at last she unclasped her hands, pressing them before her eyes. But he heard her gently sobbing.

"Don't!" he humbly entreated. "You must not forget what I have promised.