The Rose in the Ring Part 55

"He told me, over there in the police station, three years ago, that he had won your love, that you lived for him alone. He lied. I could kill him once for that lie. He told me, in the next breath, that you and he were going to sell Christine to a certain French n.o.bleman, who already had a wife and family. He lied again. I could kill him once more for that lie. He told me--"

"Don't! Don't! For G.o.d's sake, don't tell me any more," she groaned, horror-stricken.

He went on. "He taunted me, he laughed at me. I was up there for three years. In all that time his d.a.m.ned sneers and laughter were never out of my mind. He laughed at me because the drunken bargain I had made with him had turned out to his credit, after all."

"The sale?"

"Yes."

He looked away. The expression in her eyes cut him like a knife.

"I ought to have been shot for that, Mary," he said.

"Yes," she agreed mechanically.

His hand went to his mouth suddenly, as if to steady the lips.

"I'm not asking you to overlook it. Maybe you'll spare Christine the knowledge of it--not for my sake, but for hers."

"Tom, don't you feel that you owe _me_ something?" she asked steadily.

"Everything. I'm going to pay, too. I took you from a home like this and--Oh, well, it won't do any good to bring it all up again. Let's--"

"You owe me a little happiness and peace, Tom, after all these years."

"Oh, I'll go away all right. This is the last time you'll ever see me."

"It isn't that that I ask. There was a time when we were happy, you and I. I do not forget the old days, before you--I mean, when we were working together, you and I, to get control of the circus. Not that I liked the life--G.o.d knows I did not! but that we were striving for big, good things. I--"

"You got your money back," he broke in weakly. "That's more than I did."

"What had I ever done to you, Tom, that you should sell me as if I were a concubine to--"

"Didn't I tell you it was whiskey--and cards?" he cried fiercely.

"True. You _did_ tell me that," she admitted, closing her eyes. He looked at the lowered lids for a moment and then swore softly to himself--not an oath of anger but of despair. She opened her eyes and caught the fleeting look of shame and remorse. "Ah," she cried, "you _have_ a heart, after all. I saw it then. Tom, you _did_ love me, years ago--you were fine and strong and true. You were yourself. You have changed, but I can still see something of the strong, manly Tom Braddock _I_ loved in those wonderful days."

He was scowling again, but she had seen through the mask. She went on eagerly: "You are obsessed by this idea of vengeance. What can it mean to you, after all is said and done? You say you are going to end your own life, as well. You will escape the consequences, as any coward would, and you are _not_ a coward. Who stays behind to suffer all the pain and anguish? Not you! Oh, no! I am the one--as if you had not already done enough. Christine and I! We--"

"I won't listen to you!" he cried, his breast heaving.

"You are listening! You can't help it. Come! You must sit down here beside me. This is the one, great, solitary hour in your life."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "This is the one, great, solitary hour in your life"]

He drew back and permitted an irrelevant question to break from his lips: "Why didn't you divorce me?"

"Because I married you, Tom, that is why! I'll always be your wife.

I--I can't live with you--but I--"

"Mary, you are the grandest woman in all this world," he cried, amazement in his eyes. "And to think of it! I am the one to have married you,--a thing like me!"

She was trembling all over. "Will you do this for me, Tom?"

"Do what?"

"You know what, Tom."

"You mean, give up the one thing I've lived for all these awful years?"

"Yes."

"I--I can't do it, Mary. It's got to be, sooner or later. That man and I can't live on the earth at the same time."

"Oh! Won't you give me something to thank you for after all I've--"

"Wait a minute! Let me think!" He began pacing the floor again. She watched him with bated breath, a half-hope in her heart. He stopped before her once more. His eyes were bright with a new, strange light.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Mary,--for you and Christine. I'll put an end to myself. That's the best way out of it. I can't live if he does.

Wait a minute! It's the simplest, surest way. Don't breathe a word of this to any one. I'll go down to the river to-night. That will be the end of it all. I swear to you, I won't hunt up Grand,--on my word of honor, if you will believe that I have any honor. There is some sort of integrity in a man who can fight the battle I have--and without wavering or whimpering. I'll do that for you, Mary. It's the safest way."

She had heard him at first with a sickening horror in her soul. It was a frightful compromise that he proposed. She knew he meant it, that he would keep his word. She understood how great the sacrifice would be on his part, how bitter the defeat; and she realized that he was doing it to justify himself in her eyes. As he got deeper into his amazing proposition, her clearing brain began to discern the rift in his armor.

Not that she saw a sign of weakness beyond, but that the humanness of his strength was being revealed to her. There was an authority in his offer that dispelled all doubt as to the cloudiness of his mental vision. He was seeing things clearly. His sacrifice lay in the willingness to forego the joy of killing another man before he carried out his original design to make way with himself. She studied his face for a moment before speaking. There was something like gladness there--a truly bright glow that told of the relief he had found in at last doing something to please her!

"Is there no other way, Tom?" she asked, so quietly that his eyes narrowed with a curious intentness.

"It's the only one," he said grimly.

She walked over to the window and looked down into the area-way. Her heart was throbbing loudly.

"To-night?" she asked in m.u.f.fled tones.

"If I don't do it to-night I'll do something worse to-morrow," he said.

"You promise me,--on your word of honor?"

He started. "Certainly. I'll do it."

She turned to face him, her back to the light. He could not see the expression in her eyes.

"You will do this for me, Tom?"

He nodded his head, that was all.

"Take your own life?"

"I was going to do it anyway. Before they could hang me."

Both were silent for a long time. Neither had changed position.