Dr. Lavendar looked at the bowed head; but he offered no comfort. When
she said brokenly, "No; I can't have him. I can't have him," he
assented; and there was silence again. It was broken by a small,
cheerful voice:
"Mary says supper's ready. There's milk toast, an'--"
Dr. Lavendar went as quickly as he could to the door; when he opened it
he stood between the little boy and Helena. "Tell Mary not to wait for
me; but ask her to give you your supper."
"An' Mary says that in Ireland they call clover 'shamrocks'; an'--"
Dr. Lavendar gently closed the door. When he went back to his seat on
the other side of the table, she said faintly, "That was--?"
"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar.
"Oh," she whispered. "I knew I would have to give him up. I knew I had
no right to him."
"No; you had no right to him."
"But I loved him so! Oh, I thought, maybe, I would be--like other
people, if I had him."
After a while, with long pauses between the sentences, she began to
tell him. ...
"I never thought about goodness; or badness either. Only about Lloyd,
and happiness. I thought I had a right to happiness. But I was angry at
all the complacent married people; they were so satisfied with
themselves! And yet all the time I wished Frederick would die so that I
could be married. Oh, the time was _so_ long!" She threw her arms up
with a gesture of shuddering weariness; then clasped her hands between
her knees, and staring at the floor, began to speak. Her words poured
out, incoherent, contradictory, full of bewilderment and pain. "Yes; I
wasn't very happy, except just at first. After a while I got so tired
of Lloyd's selfishness. Oh--he was so selfish! I used to look at him
sometimes, and almost hate him. He always took the most comfortable
chair, and he cared so much about things to eat. And he got fat. And he
didn't mind Frederick's living. I could see that. And I prayed that
Frederick would die.--I suppose you think it was wicked to pray that?"
"Go on."
"It was only because I loved Lloyd so much. But he didn't die. And I
began not to be happy. And then I thought Lloyd didn't want to talk to
me about Alice. Alice is his daughter. It was three years ago I first
noticed that. But I wasn't really sure until this summer. He didn't
even like to show me her picture. That nearly killed me, Dr. Lavendar.
And once, just lately, he told me her 'greatest charm was her
innocence.' Oh, it was cruel in him to say that! How could he be so
cruel!" she looked at him for sympathy; but he was silent. "But
underneath, somehow, I understood; and that made me angry,--to
understand. It was this summer that I began to be angry. And then I got
so jealous: not of Alice, exactly; but of what she stood for. It was a
kind of fright, because I couldn't go back and begin again. Do you know
what I mean?"
"I know."
"Oh, Dr. Lavendar, it is so horrible! When I began to understand, it
seemed like something broken--broken--broken! It could never be mended."
"No."
...Sometimes, as she went on he asked a question, and sometimes made a
comment. The comment was always the same: when she spoke of marrying
Frederick to get away from her bleak life with her grandmother, she
said, "Oh, it was a mistake, a mistake!"
And he said, "It was a sin."
And again: "I thought Lloyd would make me happy; I just went to be
happy; that was my second mistake."
"It was your second sin."
"You think I am a sinner," she said; "oh, Dr. Lavendar, I am not as bad
as you think! I always expected to marry Lloyd. I am not like a--fallen
woman."
"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar.
She shrank back with a gesture of dismay. "I always expected to marry
him!"
"It would have been just the same if you had married him."
"I don't understand you," she said faintly.
"From the beginning," he said, "you have thought only of self. You
would not have been redeemed from self by gaining what would have made
you more satisfied with yourself."
She thought about this for a few minutes in a heavy silence. "You mean,
getting married would not have changed things, really?"
"It would have made the life you were living less harmful to your
fellow creatures, perhaps; but it would have made no difference between
you two."
"I thought I would be happier," she said.
"Happier!" said Dr. Lavendar; "what sort of happiness could there be in
a marriage where the man could never respect the woman, and the woman
could never trust the man!"
"I hadn't thought of it that way," she said slowly. And then she began
again. ... Once Dr. Lavendar interrupted her to light the lamp, for the
study was dark except for the wink of red coals in the grate; and once
he checked her, and went into the dining-room to bring her a glass of
wine and some food. She protested, but he had his way, and she ate and
drank before going on with her story. When she told him, brokenly, of
Sam Wright, Dr. Lavendar got up and walked the length of the study. But
he made no comment--none was needed. When she ended, there was a long
pause. Suddenly she clasped her hands on the top of her head, and bowed
her forehead almost to her knees. She seemed to speak as if to herself:
"Not worthy; not worthy."... Then aloud; _"I give him up,"_ she said.
And stretched out empty arms.
She rose, and began to feel about for her cloak that had fallen across
the arm of her chair. But she was half blind with weeping, and Dr.
Lavendar found it for her and gently put it over her shoulders.
"I will go away," she said, "but I may see him again, mayn't I? Just
once more, to say good-by to him."
"Yes," he said.
"I'll send his little things down to you to-morrow, Dr. Lavendar.
Oh,--his dear little things!"
"Very well."
He lighted a lantern for her, but made no offer to see her home, or to
send his Mary along as an escort. Yet when he let her go away into the
rainy darkness, he stood in the doorway a long while, looking after
her. Then he went back to the study, to pace up and down, up and down.
Twice he stopped and looked out of the window, and then at the clock.
But each time he put the impulse aside. He must not interfere.
It was almost midnight before he took his lamp and went up-stairs; at
David's door he hesitated, and then went in. The little boy was lying
curled up like a puppy, his face almost hidden in his pillow, but his
cheek glowing red under the soft thatch of hair. Dr. Lavendar, shading
his lamp with one hand, looked down at him a long time. On the wall
behind him and half-way across the ceiling, the old man's shadow loomed
wavering and gigantic, and the light, flickering up on his face,
deepened the lines of age and of other people's troubles. By and by he
stooped down, and gently laid his old palm upon the little head.
When he lifted himself up his face was full of peace.