|UNDER a growing weight of uneasiness, combined with a sense of utter
discontent with himself, Galt put Lionel down when he had half listened
to his accusing prattle for an hour, and sought the shadowy solitude of
his great house.
Yes, Margaret Dealing knew, he told himself. That was plain from her
change of manner. She knew the truth at last, and was now heaping upon
him the silent, womanly contempt which he so eminently deserved.
He sat at his open window and watched the shadows fall and sullenly
creep across the lawn as the sunbeams receded, and the twilight of
a close, sultry evening came on. He went down to supper when he was
called, but he ate little and his loneliness seemed more oppressive
there in the open gas-light, under the gaze of the observant and
solicitous attendants. Taking a cigar, he went outside and began to walk
up and down on the grass, now grimly fighting against the fate which,
like some grim sea-monster, was clutching him with a million penetrating
tentacles, and coiling round him as might some insidious reptile bent
upon retributive torture. How had he dared to question the predominance
of spirit over matter when this piteous appeal for the peace of his soul
was oozing from the very fibre of his being?
Presently he saw Wynn Dearing emerge from the front door of his home,
carrying a traveller's bag. Dearing rested the bag on the walk at his
feet and stood looking down the street. Then, with his arms folded, he
began to walk nervously to and fro.
“He is going away,” Galt speculated. “He looks excited. I wonder if
Margaret could have told him of her discovery?”
Galt stood still, held to the ground by the sheer horror of the thought.
Of all possible happenings, he had most dreaded his best friend's
discovery of that particular thing. The young doctor had turned toward
him and was approaching. He now held his head down and had clasped his
hands tensely behind him. Suddenly, when quite near, he raised his eyes
and recognized Galt.
“Hello, Kenneth!” he said. “I didn't know you were at home. Otherwise, I
should have run in and said good-bye.”
“You are going somewhere, then?” Galt said.
“To Augusta for a few days,” Dearing replied. “I got a letter offering
me a chance to do an important operation. I shall be glad to get away,
even for so short a time as that. I almost wish, old man, that I could
stay away forever. I used to love this town, but I hate it now. I hate
anything that is heartless and totally blinded by money and power to all
sense of justice and common decency.”
“Why, what's gone wrong?” Galt inquired.
“Wrong? The place is rotten to the core!” Dearing burst out. “Kenneth,
a thing is going to be countenanced by the citizens of this town that
would stain the character of the Dark Ages. Haven't you heard the news
that has set every tongue to wagging like a thousand bell-clappers?”
“No, I haven't heard anything out of the ordinary. You see, I am keeping
so close here at home that--”
“Well, old man, the lowest, poorest excuse for a man that old Stafford
ever produced is coming back,” Dearing broke it, furiously. “Fred
Walton, I mean. I didn't think he'd have the effrontery to show his face
here again, but he has decided to do it.”
“Oh!” Galt exclaimed. But that was all he said, for Dearing went on,
angrily:
“Yes, and the dastardly thing--the most outrageous fact about it all--is
that every soul in the place is ready to receive him with open arms.
He has made lots of money; he is rich; he has reformed, they say, and,
idiots that they are, they have forgiven him. I have heard his return
spoken of by a score of our very best citizens, and not one of them has
even mentioned the crime that lies at his door--the crime that stands
out to-day in a more damning light than it ever did. The brave, patient,
suffering little woman--who is as high above him intellectually,
morally, and every other way as the stars are above the earth--and that
glorious child are to have another slap from his dirty, egotistical
paw. He put her into prison and made her an exile with his nameless
offspring, and yet he comes back like a royal prince. 'Wild oats,' they
call his vile conduct, and they are ready to wipe it off his record.
That is modern mankind for you, and, Kenneth, this one circumstance has
come nearer to shaking my faith than anything that ever happened to me.
If God can allow an insult like that to come to Dora Barry now, after
all she has borne so sweetly, silently, and bravely, He can be no God of
mine. I'll be through with the creeds, I tell you. I'll join your gang
of scoffers and trot along wherever your black philosophy leads. Even my
uncle has no protest to make, nor my sister, who I thought had given the
scamp up in disgust. By George, she even looks happy over it! I don't
want to meet him face to face. I don't know that I could control myself.
She has given me no right to act as her defender; if she had,
Kenneth, I'd take up her cause if it ended my career here forever!”
“You? You?” Galt gasped.
“Yes, I. Listen, old man. You are my best friend, and I feel like
telling some one. I feel that it would be a sort of tribute of respect
to her worthiness. I presume you, like all the rest, think that I never
have had any preference for any particular woman, but I have had, and I
am not ashamed of it.
“When I was a boy of thirteen or so, and Dora was about eight, we used
to play together. Even at that age I had an eye for beauty, and she was
the prettiest child that ever lived. We called ourselves sweethearts.
Her old father used to get us to sit for him in his studio, and he would
talk to us as only such a beautiful soul could to children. He used
to sigh and say that she would be a pauper, and that I would grow up a
prince, for an artist could not leave his daughter money, and my
father was said to be well-to-do. Even at that early age I denied the
possibility of such a thing making any difference between her and me,
and when she grew up into such beautiful girlhood, and was studying art
under her father, I determined to make something of myself, aside from
the inheritance which was to come to me. So I went in for medicine and
surgery, and she kept to art, saying that she would earn a living for
her parents when they became old. But he died away off in Paris, whither
his dreams led him, while I was at college, and when I came home I found
that she had grown away from me. It was a great blow, for I had been
constantly thinking of her. To me she was the very glory of her sex,
and it was mostly her influence that made me what I am. I have seen many
women since then, but never her equal from any point of view. I went
with her occasionally after that, but it was more to become accustomed
to her loss than in the hope of winning her regard. Then the awful,
unmentionable thing came out. You know what I mean. That man had won her
confidence, won her heart--how, God only knows, but he had--and dealt
her a back-handed blow, and left her helpless, miserable. I tried then,
harder than ever, to tear her image out of my heart, but I couldn't. My
professional duties called me into the saddened home to which no other
soul was admitted. I saw that even in her blighted womanhood she was
fulfilling every promise given by her youth. Instead of sinking lower,
she was blooming like a flower under snow. I suppose I shall go through
the rest of my life with her personality woven into the very warp and
woof of my being. But knowing her has strengthened and broadened me. She
is beautiful, pure, and spiritual--God's denial of the social law held
over her. Only shallow men judge women by physical mistakes made in the
unselfish purity of over-confidence. She will never call on me for
the aid I'd gladly give, and I can't insult her strange widowhood by
offering it. She has her heart set on going to Paris to live and study,
as her father did. She thinks she can bury herself there before Lionel
is old enough to realize his condition, and that he may never know the
truth. It is a beautiful dream, but it can never be realized.”
A horse and buggy stopped at the gate, and Doctor Beaman, who was
driving, leaned over and called out, excitedly: “I'm fifteen minutes
late, Wynn; you may miss the train. Hurry! hurry!”
“That's a fact; I must go. Good-bye, old man.” Galt held on to Dearing's
hand firmly, almost desperately.
“Wait, I have something to say,” he began--“something that simply must
be said.”
“Good gracious, Wynn, hurry, hurry!” Doctor Beaman was heard calling
out, impatiently. “You don't want to lie over in Atlanta. I'll have to
go in a gallop, and _then_ may miss your train! Hurry!”
“Wait, just a moment,” Galt implored.
“Oh, I know you are sympathetic.” Dealing, misunderstanding, ran for
his bag, with the wordless Galt shambling along at his side. “I couldn't
have told you all that if you hadn't taken such a liking for the poor
little kid. Good-bye, good-bye, only don't join the gang of fools that
will laud that scamp to the skies when he comes--that is all I ask.”
“But you _must_ listen!” Galt cried out. “I must tell you now that--”
But Dearing had darted away. The gate closed after him, and Galt saw him
climbing into the buggy even while it was in motion.
“Well, he'll know it soon enough,” the lonely man thought. “The facts
will come out now. Walton will hear the report when he gets back, and
Dora will declare him innocent.”
Galt went into the dimly lighted hallway of his house and ascended the
stairs. There was nothing to do now, he told himself. The world that had
admired him, the men and women who had entrusted him with the investment
of their savings in his various schemes, would stare and doubt their
senses. They would shun him--one and all they would shun him as they
would some loathsome thing; he had used their money well, but their
profit had been made by a man who had known no honor.
He entered his room, turned up the light, and critically examined his
ghastly image in the mirror on his bureau. What a gashed and blearing
mask to all that lay behind it! How could it go on? How could he bear
with it another day? Even if he could lay it aside in sleep to-night,
the heartless dawn would reveal it all the more relentlessly. Suddenly
out of the turmoil of his emotions a grim resolve rose and fastened
itself on him. His suicide would be his confession--his belated
exoneration of the man who so long had borne the stigma in his stead. In
a small drawer in the bureau lay a revolver. It was loaded in all of its
six chambers, and as he took the weapon out he almost fondled it in his
clammy hand. In the morning his servants would find his body, and
the truth would be out. He would close the door and windows that the
revolver's report might be smothered. But he started; there was the
child, his helpless child, to whom he had given life--and _such_ a life!
“Lionel, Lionel!” he said, aloud. “My son, my son, my beautiful brave
boy, who loves me in spite of what I have done against him! Will he
grow up and understand? Will he pardon his misguided father, or blush
for shame at the thought of him?”
With the revolver still in his hand, he sank into a chair near a window
and gazed out into the star-filled sky. Suddenly he started. Whence had
come the thought? He could not tell, but a new and dazzling conviction
was on him like light streaming through the gates of Paradise. Kill
himself? How absurd the thought! He might dash his bleeding, lifeless
body to the earth, but he, himself, would remain a deathless witness
to the act. Nothing in the shape of matter, no force known to science,
could possibly put out of existence the yearning for atonement within
him. Nothing so divine as that could die. Such a thing was from the
Eternity that had created Eternity. He threw the revolver on his bed,
and drew a deep, delectable breath. His now entranced vision seemed to
extend further out into the world-filled void above him. He stood up,
panting from the sheer ravage his new hope had wrought upon him.
“Eternity! Eternity!” he whispered, in reverential awe. “Now I
see--the scales have fallen from my sight. I see! Thank God, I see! I
understand!”