CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The morrow after the ball was drawing to a close in darkening clouds and

an eerie, rushing wind. It had been one of the gray, cold days of

spring, with a leaden sky and a pervading damp and chill—a long, long

day to some of those in the Leverich house. Rumor whispered that Lawson

had been found upon the highroad in the early morning, unconscious, with

his face and head cut, and that there were tracks yet on the side piazza

from the feet of those who had carried him in from the muddy roads.

Rumor said that the wounds had not come from accident. The doctor’s

carriage had been there, and had gone again; but the doctor might have

come to see Miss Linden, who was also said to be prostrated and in bed,

or Mrs. Leverich, who was excused to callers as having a headache. The

great house was silent and deserted-looking inside, except for the

servants engaged in setting it to rights and carrying the furniture down

from the attic, where it had been stored overnight.

Only a few even of the inmates—of whom Dosia was one—knew that Lawson

was in an upper room, with his head bandaged, sobered and sullen,

watching through the wide windows the gray clouds shifting overhead, as

he waited the completion of the arrangements that were to take him at

nightfall a couple of thousand miles away. Leverich had put his foot

down this time; Lawson was to go. He was bringing his vices too near

home, concealment was no longer possible. All his unsavory hidden past

rose to make a fetid exhalation about his name that also affected

Dosia’s.

“It’s no use,” Leverich had said to his wife, in a stormy interview that

morning, “I won’t have the fellow here another day. I’ll ship him off to

Nevada, and not another penny will I give him while he lives. He can

sink or swim, for all me; and he _will_ sink—down to hell.”

“Oh, don’t say that you won’t send the poor boy any money,” pleaded his

wife.

“Not a red. I’ve had enough of him, Myra. _You_ know! As long as he

could appear half-way decent, I was willing to carry my end, but he’s

going to the dogs now too fast for me. I’ve done with him; he goes

to-night, whether he’s able to or not.”

Dosia was not to leave the house until the next day. Mrs. Leverich,

impelled by what sometimes seems to be the very demon of hospitality,

still pressed her to stay longer, while knowing that her absence would

be a relief.

“It is too bad that you want to go like this,” she had said crossly,

sitting in gorgeous negligée by the side of Dosia’s bed, her handsome,

richly colored face showing mean lines in it. “I looked upon you quite

as a daughter; I thought we would have such nice times together. Why on

earth couldn’t you let Lawson alone, as I told you to? Then none of this

would have happened.” Her tone was complaining, as of one compelled to

suffer unnecessarily; there was such a total absence of warmth as to

prove that shown before as but a tinsel glow. Mrs. Leverich hated

unpleasant things, discomfort of any kind gave her an injured feeling;

if there had been a glamour around Dosia the glamour had departed. What

little depth the nature of Myra Leverich contained was all in the tie of

blood, which made her resent any imputation on Lawson.

“I suppose you’d like to rest up-stairs to-day, and have your meals in

your room,” she went on in a businesslike way. “I’ll send Martha up to

pack your trunk for you—that is, if you insist on going—if she’s not

too busy. The servants have so much to do to-day.”

“Oh, I can pack it myself,” said Dosia. What did one stab the more

matter now? She took Mrs. Leverich’s hand impulsively. “You’ve been so

good, so kind to me—you’ve given me so many pretty things,”—her voice

sank to a whisper,—“it doesn’t seem to me that I ought to keep them

now. I want to give them back to you.”

“What is it you say?” asked Mrs. Leverich impatiently. “You speak so

low, I can hardly hear you. Oh, these!” She turned to a little pile of

jewel-cases on the table. “Why, I gave them to you to keep. Well, if you

feel that way about it—These pearls, perhaps, but the pins were quite

inexpensive; do keep them, really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t,

you know.”

“I’d rather not,” said Dosia; and her hostess gathered the things when

she went out.

It was a long day—a long, long day. From the bed where Dosia lay, she

saw the gray clouds shifting, shifting endlessly above through the

opening made by the parted window-curtains. What had happened?

Nothing—and everything; nothing—and everything!

Gossip reigned in the village, carrying Dosia and Lawson up and down its

gamut, even reaching the high crescendo of a secret marriage, with the

inevitably hinted smirching reasons therefor. The Leverich ball promised

to supply subject-matter for many a day to come. Mrs. Snow, from as

early as eleven o’clock in the morning, sat with a white worsted shawl

wrapped around her—the sign of elegant leisure—and rocked in the

green-bowered and steaming little sitting-room between the geraniums and

the begonias while awaiting visitors. She greeted each one who “ran in”

with the invariable remark:

“I suppose you know all about the Leverichs’ ball last night. Well, what

do you think of the goings-on there?” being intent mousingly on getting

every last little cheesy crumb of detail, and peacefully unaware of

deep, rich stores concealed in her own family. The incident of the

stairway was common property, but Miss Bertha had told nothing of

Dosia’s little heart-breaking confidence to her. Her mother was amazed

at the very conservative disapproval expressed by this elder daughter,

turning for confirmation of her own views to her callers.

“I thought, before all this, that the girl was a bold thing,” she

announced in virtuous condemnation. “It’s all very well for you to try

and defend her, Bertha, but neither you nor Ada would have gone on in

that way.—Oh, yes, Mrs. Willetts, my dear, he kissed her on the

stairs—just as they all say. But that was the least part of it. They

say his _manner_ to her—And he was—yes, exactly. Oh, a man doesn’t

take liberties, in _such_ a way, unless a girl has allowed a good deal.

It’s evident that they’ve—been—pret-ty—intimate. I’m sorry for the

Alexanders, they’ll have a handful in her. Bertha, will you knock on the

window? The man with the eggs is passing by, and we want three.

_Bertha!_ you are not paying any attention to me. She is not herself at

all to-day, Mrs. Willetts, she looks so yellow. Yes, you do, Bertha.

Don’t you think she’s very yellow, Mrs. Willetts?”

“Perhaps it is the light,” suggested Mrs. Willetts evasively.

“No, it’s not the light; it’s the late hours,” said Mrs. Snow. “I did

not want her to go to the ball, late hours knock her up for days.

William shows the effect of it, too—his right hand is all swelled up.

He says he doesn’t know how it got so, but I think it’s from dancing too

much.”

“Mother!” expostulated Miss Bertha.

“Well, my dear, I don’t see why you speak to me like that. I’m not in my

second childhood yet! I don’t know why he couldn’t get a swelled hand

from dancing; some of these young girls are so athletic, they grip your

fingers like a vise—I know _I_ find it very unpleasant. Don’t you

remember—no, of course you don’t, but I do—how poor General Grant’s

hand was puffed out to twice its size from people shaking it? The

picture of it was in all the papers at the time.”

“I don’t think William danced much,” said Ada.

Mrs. Snow pursed her pale lips and shook her small, neat head.

“All I know is that he was quite worn out; he slept so heavily that he

never heard me at all when I rattled at his door-knob and called to him

at three o’clock this morning that I thought I heard some one on the

porch below his window. It’s very odd—I’ve heard it before. I don’t

think it’s cats, and I’m so afraid of tramps.”

The statuesque Ada looked up with a swiftly startled expression.

“There are always tramps around,” said Mrs. Willetts.

“Yes, I know it, and it worries me to have William out so late alone.

William is nothing but a child, though he is so tall,” said Mrs. Snow.

“Of course, last night his sisters were with him.” She paused before

harking back to the appetizing theme. “They say Miss Linden is still

staying at the Leverichs’. I shouldn’t think she’d stay there an hour

longer than she could help. They say Mrs. Alexander refused to have her

back again at first—did you hear that? They say——”

And in Dosia’s room, where she lay alone, the long, silent day wore on;

the gray clouds shifted, shifted above. What had happened? Nothing—and

everything.

If Leverich was to keep his word about Lawson, the preparations for his

departure must be speedy. They also took money. Leverich could contract

for any amount of expenditure to be paid in the future by large drafts,

but to hand over five hundred on the minute in cash was at certain times

and hours an irritatingly difficult procedure. He cursed the necessity

now, with a fervor born of the disastrous ball, and the late hours, and

the further fact that stocks had gone down suddenly and he was out on a

deal. The gray clouds meant also, in the city, clouds of dust, which the

raw wind swept smartingly into his eyes every time he had occasion to go

out. As he was getting ready at last to go home with the purchased

tickets, he looked up and saw Justin coming in. Leverich nodded to the

other’s greeting, but did not otherwise return it.

“I won’t ask you to sit down,” he said curtly; “I want to catch the

four-o’clock train out. How are you getting on? All right?”

“All wrong.”

“What’s the matter?”

“This,” said Justin, with a white light in his eyes, and holding out a

letter which the other took half reluctantly, relapsing mechanically

into the chair by his desk, while Justin dropped straddle-legged into

another opposite, his face looking over the back of it, around which his

arms were clasped. He went on talking, while the other slowly unfolded

the paper and looked at the heading.

“You remember those first big consignments we sent out after the fire?

Well, the whole output was rotten!”

“Great heavens!” said the other, sitting up straight, with his eyes

stuck to the lines. “Are you sure it’s as this says?”

“Sure? It’s the sixth letter of the kind we’ve had in ten days; three

came in this morning’s mail. The packing-room is full now of returned

machines—what we’ll do with the rest I don’t know. A couple of firms

want the instruments duplicated; the rest want their money back. We

talked big at first, thought it was a mistake—that’s why I didn’t speak

of it to you—but it’s no mistake; the whole output’s rotten. The bars

are rusted and bent, so that everything’s out of gear; it would cost

more to repair the machines than to make new ones.”

“Were the bars those you got from Cater?” asked Leverich.

“Yes.”

Leverich whistled.

“It’s no fault of his, those he used were all right.”

Bullen says they must have been a fraction off size for us, and that did

the business. Heaven only knows how many more letters we’ll get! I don’t

see how we’re to pay up and get out of it, as it is.”

“Yes,” said Leverich, throwing the letter down on the desk, drumming on

it with the ends of his fingers. Then he shrugged his big shoulders as

if shunting the burden from them as he rose. “Well, I must go. Sorry I

can’t help you out, but Martin’s away now. By the way, when you can pay

up on that interest, we’ll be glad to have it. We’ve been going pretty

easy with you, you know, but it can’t last forever; we’ve got to have

our money, as well as other people.” He had not meant to say anything of

the kind, but the bad news and the inferred appeal had accented the

irritation of the day.

“Oh, certainly,” said Justin, with a swift gleam in his blue eyes, and a

pride that could be large enough to make contemptuous allowance for a

little meanness in the man from whom he had received benefits. He had

counted on Leverich’s ready help in this trouble, but there was more

between the two men than the money—from the first moment of meeting

this afternoon, Dosia’s name, unspoken, had correlated in each a little

hidden spring of antagonism. One of Justin’s womenkind had misused

Leverich’s hospitality; both resented the fact and her enforced

departure. How many business situations have been made or marred by

domestic happenings, no history of finance will ever tell.

And still the long day wore on in Dosia’s silent room.

The preparations for Lawson’s going were all made before the nightfall

that was to cover his exit. His trunk had gone; his coat and hat and

hand-luggage were stacked conveniently together on a chair in the empty,

cleared-out room.

“And this is the last money you’ll ever get from me,” Leverich said,

counting out the bills on the table by which Lawson sat uneasily, his

head and part of his swollen, discolored face bandaged, his dark eyes

glancing furtively from under their heavy lids. “There are your tickets,

they’ll carry you through. Peters will be at the door with the carriage

at nine to take you to the train here, and James will go over with you

to the terminal and put you on the sleeper. You can’t get out too fast

for me.”

“It’s kind of you to kick a fellow when he’s down,” said Lawson

sardonically.

“It’s a pretty expensive kick,” returned Leverich grimly, “but it’s the

last. You’ll never get a cent more from me, nor from Myra either, if I

know it.”

“Oh, very well,” said Lawson indifferently. But when his sister came in

afterwards alone, he cut her words short; through all her plaintive

farewell complainings there was a manifestly cheerful prevision of

relief when he should be gone.

“I’ve had enough of this—don’t come in here again. He says you’re to

send me no money, but you’re to send me all I want—you hear?”

“Oh, Lawson!”

“You know why you’d better.” He fixed his eye on her threateningly, and

the full color blanched suddenly from her face.

“Yes, yes, I will.” She made an effort to recover herself. “If you

realized how used up I am over all this——”

“Don’t come in here again!” His rising voice, the glance he shot at her,

sent her flying from the room—it was as if some crouching animal were

about to leap a barrier between them.

The shifting gray clouds were darkening now into a solid mass, the eerie

wind that had sprung up whined fitfully around the corners of the house,

as he sat there waiting. After a while the door opened and shut; there

was a soft, rustling noise. Lawson looked up, and saw Dosia against that

background of the darkening sky. She was in a white silken gown, given

her by Mrs. Leverich, that fell in straight folds from her waist to her

feet. She had been in white the night of the ball. But her face! He put

his hand involuntarily across his eyes. So pinched, so wan, so small, so

piteously changed that face, he did well to hide the sight of it from

him. Only her eyes—those eyes that were the mirrors of Dosia’s

soul—showed that she still lived; in them was a steadfastness and a

purpose won from death.

She came straight toward him, though with a slow and languid step,

dragging a low chair forward to a place by his. His rough appearance, so

different from his usual carelessly well-cared-for aspect, sent a

momentary spasm over her pinched face, but that was all. She dropped

into the chair as one who found it difficult to stand, saying after a

moment’s silence, in a childlike voice:

“Please take your hand down from your eyes; please don’t mind looking at

me.”

He dropped the hand heavily on the table, with some inarticulate

protest.

“Please don’t mind looking at me. I want to say—I came here to say—it

is all wrong to act as if everything were all your fault, as if you were

all to blame. I’ve been thinking, thinking, thinking, all day long. If I

had done what was right, none of this would have happened. It was my

fault too.”

“No!” said Lawson roughly.

“Yes.” She stopped, and repeated solemnly: “It was my fault too. They

are sending you away now because—because you had been making love to

me. But I let you”—her locked fingers twisted and untwisted as she

talked—“I _wanted_ you to, when I knew it was wrong, when I didn’t

really love you. That was why you couldn’t respect me. If I had been

quite high and good, you would not have—none of this would have

happened.”

“Oh!” said Lawson; the old bitter, mocking smile flickered back to his

lips. “Really, don’t you think you’re setting too much value even on

_your_ influence? I assure you, you can have quite a clear conscience in

that regard.”

She went on, with no attention to what he had been saying beyond the

fact that her pale cheek seemed to whiten and her gaze was fixed the

more solemnly on his.

“I couldn’t be satisfied until I had thought out the truth. There is

nothing that satisfies but the truth.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “If

it cuts your heart in two, you’ve got to bear it—and be glad—because

it’s the truth. I know now that, after all, I didn’t help you; I

_hindered_. That’s all the more reason for me to stand by you now. And I

came to say,”—she took his hand and laid her cold cheek upon it,—“if

you go away—take me with you! I have enough money to go too. If you

have to work, I’ll work; if you are hungry, I’ll be hungry. There is no

one to love you but me, and I _will_. I said I would believe in you, and

I will believe in you—as I promised—always.”

“My God!” said Lawson. He tore his hand from her, and flung his head

upon his folded arms on the table, breaking into great, voiceless sobs

that shook him from head to foot. Half-inarticulate words fell from him:

“Don’t touch me—don’t come near me!” At last he turned, and, gathering

up a fold of her gown, kissed it again and again. His passion raised a

faint stir of the old thrill that came from she knew not where, except

that his presence inevitably called it forth.

“For this once you may believe in me,” he said. “Look at me!” His gaze,

burning with an inner scorn, rested on hers. “You are the dearest, the

loveliest—” His voice broke once more, he had to wait before he could

regain it. “If I were to let you sink your life with mine, I’d deserve

to be hung. I’ve let you talk as if you could help me. Well, you can’t,

and I’ll tell you why—I’ll clear your conscience of me forever. Down at

the bottom of it all, I don’t want to be helped. I don’t want to be made

better. I don’t want to live a different life! There are moments when

I’ve deceived myself as well as you, but it was all rot. It’s not that

I’m not fit for you,—no man’s that!—but I’m made so that I’d rather go

to the devil than _be_ fit for you. The more you cared for me, the more

I’d drag you down. That’s the whole brutal truth. The one saving grace I

own is that I tell it to you now.”

“Ah, no, no!” said Dosia, with a cry. “It can’t be so.” She turned her

head from side to side, as one looking for succor; her composure was

failing her, after so many cruel knife-thrusts in her already bleeding

heart—she yearned over him with a compassion and longing too great to

bear.

“Dosia,” said Lawson, standing up; his altered voice sounded far away in

her ears.

“Yes,” she answered, rising also, she knew not why.

“This is good-by.”

She did not speak, but looked at him. His face seemed to lose the marks

of dissipation and bitterness, and become strangely boyish, strangely

sweet, in its expression.

“See!” he said, “I could clasp my arms around you, as I’m longing to,

and kiss your darling mouth. You’d let me, wouldn’t you, blessed one?

For all that I’ve done or all that I’ve been, you’d let me?”

“Yes,” whispered Dosia, trembling.

“Then remember it of me, for one poor thing of good, that I did

not—that I was man enough to keep you free of me at the last. I’ll

never touch you again—no, not so much as the hem of your gown. And, so

help me God, I’ll never look upon your face again.”

“Lawson, Lawson!”

“I’ll never see your face again. When you think of me, believe and pray

that I’ll keep my word. I want to have the thought of you to die with.”

“I can’t bear it!” wailed Dosia suddenly.

“Good-by.”

She made a motion as if to fling herself upon his breast, and his

gesture stayed her. They stood, instead, looking at each other; the room

faded away from before them in those moments that were of eternity. The

past—the present—the future crept up now and stood between them,

pushing them farther and farther away from each other, farther and

farther, till even parting had become a fact long ago lived through and

grown dim. They were neither man nor woman, but two souls who saw truth,

and beyond it something beautifully just, even comforting.

Through the high window the darkening sky had become suddenly luminous

where it touched the horizon.

Slowly she moved away from him—slowly, slowly. One last lingering,

solemn look, and the door had closed.