VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the
haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked
his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation--mixed with
humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was
the jumpin'-off place."
"What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?"
"Nayther. Lave it as it is," replied he quickly. "So long as I live I
want to feel 'tis here ready for ye whinever ye wish to use it. 'Tis not
mine. Without you I never would have had it, and I want no other
mistress in it. Sure, every chair, every picture on the walls is there
because of ye. 'Tis all you, and no one else shall mar it while I live."
This was the note which was most piercing in her ears, and she hastened
to stop it by remarking the expense of maintaining the place--its
possible decay and the like; but to all this he doggedly replied: "I
care not. I'd rather burn it and all there is in it than turn it over to
some other woman. Go you to Ben and tell him my will concerning it."
This gave a new turn to her thought. "I don't want to do that. Why don't
you go and tell him yourself?"
"Didn't the doctor say I must save meself worry? I hate to ask ye to
shoulder the heavy end of this proposition." His face lost its forced
smile. "I'm a sick man, darlin'; I know it now, and I must save meself
all I can. Ye may send Lucius down and bring him up, or we'll drive down
and see him; maybe the ride would do me good, but I can't climb them
stairs ag'in."
The temptation to see Ben once more, alone in the bright office, proved
too great for Bertha's resolution, and she answered: "All right, I'll
go, but only to bring him down to you. You must give the orders about
the house."
In spite of his iron determination to be of good cheer in her presence,
Mart's lips quivered with pain of parting as he looked round the
splendid dining-room, into which the sunlight was pouring. Suddenly he
broke forth: "Ye _must_ stay here, darlin'--never mind me. 'Tis a sin
and a shame to ask ye to lave all this to go with a poor old--"
"Stop that!" she called, sharply. "I won't listen to any such talk," and
he said no more.
They decided to go down about ten o'clock, when the daily tide of his
life rode highest. This hour suited his own plan, for a train left for
the mountains not long after, and he had resolved to make his escape
while Bertha was with Ben in the office. "There will be no need of any
change in the house," he thought, "but 'twill do no hurt for them to
talk it all over."
For an hour or two he hobbled about the yard and garden, taking a final
look at the horses and dogs, and his face was very lax and gray and his
voice broken as he talked with his men, who had learned of the doctor's
orders, and were awkwardly silent with sympathy. He soon grew tired and
came back to the porch to rest and wait for the hour of his departure.
Settling into his accustomed chair, which faced directly upon the
mountains over which the sun, wearing to the south, was beginning to
hang its vivid shadows, he sat like a man of bronze. The clouds which
each day clothed the scarred and naked peaks with a mantle of ermine and
purple, were already assembling. The range assumed a new and
overpowering grandeur in his eyes, for it typified the Big Divide, which
lay between him and the country of the soundless, dawnless night.
Up that deep fold which lay between the chieftain and his consort to the
north ran the western way--a trail with no returning footprints; and the
thought made his heart beat painfully, while a sense of the wonder and
the terror of death came to him. He was going away as the wounded
grizzly crawls to the thicket to die, unseen of his kind, even of his
mate.
To never return! To mount and mount, each league separating him forever
from the mansion he had come to enjoy, the wife he loved better than his
own life. "I cannot believe it," he whispered, "and yet I must make it
so."
Then he began to wonder, grimly, just when his heart would fail, just
where it would burst like a rotten cinch. "Will it be on the train?
Suppose I last to the coal-switch, then I must climb to the mine.
Suppose I live to reach the mine, then what? Oh, well, 'tis easy to slip
from the cliff."
Meanwhile, out under the trees, the gardener was spading turf, the
lawn-mower was purring briskly and as though no sentence of death had
been passed upon the master of the place. In this Haney saw the world's
action typified. The individual is of little value--the race alone
counts.
He shuffled down to meet the carriage at the gate, and Lucius helped him
in before Bertha could reach him, and they drove off down the street so
exactly in their usual way that Bertha was moved to say: "I don't
believe it! I can't realize we're quitting this town to-morrow."
"No more can I, but I reckon it's good-bye all the same--for me, anyhow.
I despise meself for asking ye to go, darlin'--I _don't_ ask it. Stay
you! I'm not demanding anything at all. 'Tis fitter for me to go alone.
Stay on, darlin'--'twill comfort me to lave ye safe and happy here."
She shook her head with quite as much determination as he. "No, Mart, my
mind is made up--I know my job, and I'm going to muckle to it like a
little lady, so don't fuss."
The air was beautifully clear and bracing, and a minute later Haney
remarked, sadly: "I reckon the doctor knows his trade, but 'tis bitter
nonsense to me when a man says the murky wind of the low country is
better for a sick man than this."
She was very tender at heart as she replied: "I'm afraid he's right,
Mart. I could see you weren't so well here; but I was selfish--I tried
to argue different. You'll be better down below, that's dead certain."
"Well, the bets are all laid and the wheel spinning. I'm ready to take
me exile--but I hate to drag ye down with me."
"Don't worry about me," she answered, with intent to reassure him. "To
be honest, I kind o' like the East."
At the door of Ben's office building she got out, leaving him in the
carriage. As she looked back at him from the doorway something which
seemed like anguish in his face moved her, and she returned to the wheel
to say, "Never mind, Mart, we'll buy a new home down there."
He was struggling as if with the pangs of death, but he said, "'Tis
childish, I know, but I hate to say good-bye to it all."
She patted his hand as if soothing a child, and, turning, mounted the
stairway. How weak and old he seemed at the moment!
Fordyce was at work. She could hear his typewriter click laboriously (he
was his own typist as yet), and she stood for a moment in the hall with
hand pressed hard upon her bosom, the full significance of this last
visit overwhelming her. Here was the end of her own happiness--the
beginning of long-drawn misery and heart-hunger. Her blood beat
tumultuously in her throat, and each throb was a physical, smothering
pain.
At last she grew calmer and knocked. Ben opened the door, and his face
shone with joy. "You're late!" he reproachfully exclaimed; then, as he
peered into the hall, he asked, "Where's the Captain?"
She was very white as she answered: "He can't come up this morning. He
ain't able."
"Is he worse?" His face expressed swift concern.
"Yes--Dr. Steele came last night and examined him--"
"What did he say?"
"He told us to 'get out' of here--quick."
He drew her in and shut the door. "Tell me all about it. What is the
matter?"
"It's his heart. He can't stand it here. We've got to get away--down the
slope--to-morrow."
"Not to stay?"
"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."
He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He
seemed so happy and so much better, too."
"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself.
The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."
"And he positively ordered you to go below?"
"Yes--he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute--if he stayed."
In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own,
for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly,
"And you are going with him?"
"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"
He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay
would be to shorten his life.
"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.
"Mighty hard at first, but he's fairly cheerful to-day. He wants to
leave me here--but I'm going with him. It's my business to be where he
is," she added. "He sure needs me now."
"What are you going to do with the house?"
"Leave it just as it is. He won't sell it or rent it. He wants you to
look after all his business just the same--"
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't intend to stay here." As he spoke his excitement
mounted. "My little world was all askew before you came. You've put the
finishing-touch to it. I'm ready to make my own will at this moment."
"You mustn't talk that way," she admonished. "I don't like to see you
lose your grip." Her words were commonplace, but her hesitating,
tremulous voice betrayed her and exalted him. "I'm--we are depending on
you."
His face, his eyes, filled her with light. She forgot all the rest of
the world for the moment, and he, looking upon her with a knowledge that
she loved him and was about to leave him, spoke fatefully--as if the
words came forth in spite of his will. "You don't seem to realize how
deeply I'm going to miss you. You cannot know how much your presence
means to me here in this small town. I will not stay on without the hope
of seeing you. If you go, I will not remain here another day."
She fought against the feeling of pride, of joy, which these words gave
her. "You mustn't say that--you've got to stay with Alice."
"Alice!" his voice rose. "Alice has given me back my ring and is going
home. When you are gone, what is left in this town for me?" He rose and
walked up and down, a choking sob in his throat. "My God! It's horrible
to feel our good days ending in a crash like this. What does it all
mean? I refuse to admit that our shining little world is only a house of
cards. Are we never to see each other again? I refuse to say good-bye. I
won't have it so!" He faced her again with curt inquiry. "Where are you
going to live?"
"I don't know--maybe in Chicago--maybe in New York."
"No matter where it is, I will come to you. I cannot lose you out of my
life--I will not!"
"No, you mustn't do that. It ain't square to Mart--I can't see you any
more--now."
He seized upon the significance of that little final word. "What do you
mean by _now_? Do you mean because Mart is worse? Or do you mean that I
have forfeited your good-will by my own action?" He came closer to her
and his voice was low and insistent as he continued: "Or do you
mean--something very sweet and comforting to me? Do you love me, Bertie?
Do you? Is that your meaning?"
She struggled against him as she answered: "I don't know--Yes, I do
know--it ain't right for me--for you to say these things to me while I
am Mart Haney's wife."
He caught at her hands and looked upon her with face grown older and
graver as he bitterly wailed: "Why couldn't we have met before you went
to him? You must not go with him now, for you are mine at heart, you
belong to me."
She rose with instinctive desire to flee, but he held her hands in both
of his and hurried on: "You do love me! I am sure of it! Why try to
conceal it? You would marry me if you were free?" His eyes pierced her
as he proceeded, transformed by the power of his own plea. "We belong to
each other--don't you know we do? I am sorry for Alice, but I do not
love her--I never loved her as I love you. She understands this. That is
why she has returned my ring--there is nothing further for me to say to
her. As for Marshall Haney I pity him, as you do, but he has no right to
claim you."
"He don't claim me. He wants me to stay here."
"Then why don't you?"
"Because he needs me."
"So do I need you."
"But not the way--I mean he is sick and helpless."
He drew her closer. "You must not go. I will not let you go. You're a
part of my life now." His words ceased, but his eyes called with burning
intensity.
She struggled, not against him, but in opposition to something within
herself which seemed about to overwhelm her will. It was so easy to
listen, to yield--and so hard to free her hands and turn away, but the
thought of Haney waiting, and a knowledge of his confident trust in her,
brought back her sterner self.
"No!" she cried out sharply, imperiously. "I won't have it! You mustn't
touch me again, not while he lives! You mustn't even see me again!"
He understood and respected her resolution, but could not release her at
the moment. "Won't you kiss me good-bye?"
She drew her hands away. "No, it's all wrong, and you know it! I'll
despise you if you touch me again! Good-bye!"
Thereupon his clean, bright, honorable soul responded to her reproof,
rose to dominion over the flesh, and he said: "Forgive me. I didn't mean
to tempt you to anything wrong. Good-bye!" and so they parted in such
anguish as only lovers know when farewells seem final, and their empty
hearts, calling for a word of promise, are denied.