“What did _I_ want with praise and honor? To be gaped and gossiped about
would have driven me mad. It pleased that vain boy as much as fooling
the public amused me. A whim, and, being a dishonest one, we shall both
have to pay for it, I suppose.”
“What will he do?”
“He has told Gladys, to begin with; and, if it had been possible, would
have taken some decisive step to-day. He can do nothing sagely and
quietly: there must be a dramatic _dénouement_ to every chapter of his
life. I think he has one now.” Helwyze laughed, as he struck back the
leaves of the book he still held, and looked at the dashing signature of
his own name.
“_He_ wrote that, then?” asked Olivia.
“Yes, here, at midnight, while I lay asleep and let him tell the tale as
he liked to Gladys. No wonder it startled her, so tragically given. The
sequel may be more tragic yet: I seem to feel it in the air.”
“What shall _you_ do?” asked Olivia, more anxiously than before; for
Helwyze looked up with as sinister an expression as if he knew how
desperate an enemy had stood over him last night, and when his own turn
came, would be less merciful.
“Do? Nothing. They will go; I shall stay; tongues will wag, and I shall
be tormented. I shall seem the gainer, he the loser; but it will not be
so.”
Involuntarily his eye went to the little chair where Gladys would sit no
longer, and darkened as if some light had gone out which used to cheer
and comfort him. Olivia saw it, and could not restrain the question that
broke from her lips,—
“You do love her, Jasper?”
“I shall miss her; but you shall take her place.”
Calm and a little scornful was his face, his voice quite steady, and a
smile was shed upon her with the last welcome words. But Olivia was not
deceived: the calmness was unnatural, the voice _too_ steady, the smile
too sudden; and her heart sank as she thanked him, without another
question. For a while they sat together playing well their parts, then
she went away to Gladys, and he was left to several hours of solitary
musing.
Had he been a better man, he would not have sinned; had he been a worse
one, he could not have suffered; being what he was, he did both, and,
having no one else to study now, looked deeply into himself, and was
dismayed at what he saw. For the new love, purer, yet more hopeless than
the old, shone like a star above an abyss, showing him whither he had
wandered in the dark.
Sunset came, filling the room with its soft splendor; and he watched the
red rays linger longest in Gladys’s corner. Her little basket stood as
she left it, her books lay orderly, her desk was shut, a dead flower
drooped from the slender vase, and across the couch trailed a soft white
shawl she had been wont to wear. Helwyze did not approach the spot, but
stood afar off looking at these small familiar things with the
melancholy fortitude of one inured to loss and pain. Regret rather than
remorse possessed him as he thought, drearily,—
“A year to-morrow since she came. How shall I exist without her? Where
will her new home be?”
An answer was soon given to the last question; for, while his fancy
still hovered about that nook, and the gentle presence which had
vanished as the sunshine was fast vanishing, Canaris came in wearing
such an expression of despair, that Helwyze recoiled, leaving
half-uttered a playful inquiry about “the little son.”
“I have no son.”
“Dead?”
“Dead. I have murdered both.”
“But Gladys?”
“Dying; she asks for you,—come!” No need of that hoarse command; Helwyze
was gone at the first word, swiftly through room and hall, up the stairs
he had not mounted for months, straight to that chamber-door. There a
hand clutched his shoulder, a breathless voice said, “Here _I_ am
first;” and Canaris passed in before him, motioning away a group of
tearful women as he went.
Helwyze lingered, pale and panting, till they were gone; then he looked
and listened, as if turned to stone, for in the heart of the hush lay
Gladys, talking softly to the dead baby on her arm. Not mourning over
it, but yearning with maternal haste to follow and cherish the creature
of her love.
“Only a day old; so young to go away alone. Even in heaven you will want
your mother, darling, and she will come. Sleep, my baby, I will be with
you when you wake.”
A stifled sound of anguish recalled the happy soul, already half-way
home, and Gladys turned her quiet eyes to her husband bending over her.
“Dear, will he come?” she whispered.
“He is here.”
He was; and, standing on either side the bed, the two men seemed
unconscious of each other, intent only upon her. Feebly she drew the
white cover over the little cold thing in her bosom, as if too sacred
for any eyes but hers to see, then lifted up her hand with a beseeching
glance from one haggard face to the other. They understood; each gave
the hand she asked, and, holding them together with the last effort of
failing strength, she said, clear and low,—
“Forgive each other for my sake.”
Neither spoke, having no words, but by a mute gesture answered as she
wished. Something brighter than a smile rested on her face, and, as if
satisfied, she turned again to Canaris, seeming to forget all else in
the tender farewell she gave him.
“Remember, love, remember we shall be waiting for you. The new home will
not be home to us until you come.”
As her detaining touch was lifted, the two hands fell apart, never to
meet again. Canaris knelt down to lay his head beside hers on the
pillow, to catch the last accents of the beloved voice, sweet even now.
Helwyze, forgotten by them both, drew back into the shadow of the deep
red curtains, still studying with an awful curiosity the great mystery
of death, asking, even while his heart grew cold within him,—
“Will the faith she trusted sustain her now?”
It did; for, leaning on the bosom of Infinite Love, like a confiding
child in its father’s arms, without a doubt or fear to mar her peace, a
murmur or lament to make the parting harder, Gladys went to her own
place.
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