THE END OF DOUBT
When the Englishman entered the card-room, the last of the players to
linger at their table had risen and were taking their leave of
Genevieve. Her father and aunt were disputing over their last game. But
at sight of the newcomer, Mrs. Gantry bowed and beckoned to him,
instantly forgetful of her argument.
"You are always in time, Earl," she remarked. "We are just about to
leave. May I ask if you have seen Dolores?"
"Not a moment ago. I daresay she has gone for her wraps."
"Huh! Ran off from you, eh?" bantered Mr. Leslie. "She's a coltish
kitten. Didn't scratch, did she?"
"She misses no opportunity for that, the hoyden!" put in Mrs. Gantry.
"Ah, Earl, we are the last." She rose and went to meet Genevieve, who
was coming to them from the farther door. "My dear girl, I congratulate
you! It has been a grand success!"
"Thank you, Aunt Amice," replied Genevieve in rather a listless tone.
"Must you be going?"
"Lord Avondale has just come in to let me know that it is time."
"Er--beg pardon," said Lord James. "I wish to speak with Miss Leslie
before going."
"Ah, in that case," murmured Mrs. Gantry, with a gratified smile, "you
are excused, of course! Herbert, you may see me out."
Mr. Leslie looked from Lord James to his daughter doubtfully. But the
Englishman was fingering a pack of cards with seeming nonchalance, and
Genevieve met her father's glance with a quiet smile. He shook his
head, and went out with Mrs. Gantry.
As they left the room, Lord James faced Genevieve with a sudden tensity
that compelled her attention.
"What is it?" she asked, half startled by his manner. "You said you
wished to speak with me?"
"If you'll be so kind as to come into the library. It's a most serious
matter. There'll be less chance of interruptions."
She permitted him to lead her in to her former seat at the library
table. He took the big chair across from her.
"You look so grave," she said. "Please tell me what it is."
"Directly. Yet first I ask you to prepare yourself. Something has
happened--most unfortunate!"
She bent toward him, startled out of her fatigue and lassitude. "You
alarm me!"
"I cannot help it," he replied. "Genevieve, matters have come to an
unexpected crisis. There can be no more delay. I must ask you to make
your decision now. Do you love Tom?"
"You have no right to ask that. I did not give you the right. You said
you would wait."
"I am not asking for myself," he insisted. "It is for him. He has the
right to know."
"The right? How?" she asked, with growing agitation. "I do not
understand. You spoke of some misfortune. Has papa--?"
"Quite the contrary. Yet Tom is in a very bad way, and unless you--"
"Tom ill--ill?" she cried. "And I did not realize it! That I should
have been angered--should have left him--because I thought he was in a
rage--and all the time it was because of his suffering, his illness! It
was despicable of me--selfish! Oh, Tom, Tom!"
She covered her face with her hands, and bent over, quivering with
silent grief and penitence.
"You have answered me," said Lord James, regarding her with grave
sympathy. "You love him."
She looked up at him, dry-eyed, her face drawn with anxiety. "Where is
he? Why aren't you with him? He has a doctor? He must have the best!"
"That rests with you, Genevieve," he replied. "There is one person
alone who can save him--if she loves him enough to try."
The truth flashed upon her. She stared at him, her eyes dilating with
horror. "It is _that_ you mean! He has failed--again!"
He sought to ease her despair. "Believe me, it is not yet too
late--Permit me to explain."
"Explain?" she asked. "What is there to explain? He has failed!" Her
voice broke in a sob of uncontrollable grief. "I tried to forget, still
hoping he was strong--that he would prove himself strong. How I have
hoped and prayed--and now!"
She bent over, with her face on the table, in a vain effort to conceal
and repress her grief.
Lord James leaned forward, eagerly insistent. "You must listen to me.
He has not had fair play. Such a gallant fight as he was making! I
believe he would have won, I really believe he would have won, had it
not been for that woman."
"What woman?" asked Genevieve, half lifting her head.
"Pardon me," he replied. "But your aunt--It was most uncalled for, most
unfair. It seems she sought him out--to-night, of all times!--when he
was pegged--completely knocked-up. You have seen that yourself. This
was after we deserted him."
"Deserted? Yes, that is the word--deserted!"
"At the moment when he tasted the wine, quite unaware of what he was
doing. We deserted him at the time when he had utmost need of us. What
clearer proof of his great strength than that he fought off the
temptation?"
"Yet now you say--?"
"He fought it off then. He proved himself as strong as even you could
desire. When I hastened in I found him still where I am sitting, but
doubled over, utterly spent--asleep, poor chap. His hand was bleeding.
He had shattered your--he had crushed one of the glasses with his fist."
"Crushed a glass! But why?"
"To prevent himself from drinking what was in it. Can't you see? The
struggle must have been frightful; yet he won. Had I but foreseen! I
fancied he would be undisturbed in here--would get a bit of refreshing
sleep to pull him up. But your aunt came in. She took her
opportunity--convinced him that you did not love him; that your feeling
was only gratitude."
Genevieve bent over, with renewed despair. "And for that he gave up the
fight!"
"He fought and won when we left him, when we deserted him in his need.
It was only after your aunt had convinced him that you did not--"
"He foresaw that he would lose!" she cried. "He foresaw! But I--I could
not believe it possible!"
"But you do not understand. It was not that he really lost. He did not
give way because of weakness. He did it deliberately--"
"Deliberately?" she gasped. Surprise gave place to an outflashing of
scorn. "Deliberately! Oh, that he could do such a thing--deliberately!"
"No, no! I must insist. To cut himself off from you, that was his
purpose. He thought to save you from sacrificing yourself. However
mistaken he was, you must see how high a motive--how magnanimous was
his intention."
But the girl was on the verge of hysteria, and quite beyond reason.
"You may believe it--I don't! I can't! He's weak--utterly weak!"
"Genevieve, no! There's still time to save him. A word from you, if you
love him."
"Love him!" she cried, almost beside herself. "How can I love him? He
did it deliberately! I despise him!"
"You are vexed--angry. Pray calm yourself. I remember what you had to
say about him, there on the steamer, coming up from Aden. You loved him
then."
"But now--Oh, how could he? How could he?"
The Englishman failed to understand the real cause of her half-frenzied
anger and despair--the thought that Blake had ruined himself
deliberately. "But don't you see it was not weakness? He proved it when
he shattered the glass. His hand was cut and bleeding. He has proved
that he can master that craving. I've sought to explain how it was. It
is not yet too late. A word from you would save him, a single word!"
"No. It is too late. I can't see it as you do. It was
weakness--weakness! I cannot believe otherwise."
"Yet--if you love him?"
"James, it is generous of you--noble!--when you yourself--"
"That's quite out of it now. It's of him I am thinking, and of you."
"Never of yourself!" she murmured. She looked down for a short moment.
When she again raised her eyes, she had regained her usual quiet
composure. She spoke seriously and with a degree of formality: "Lord
Avondale, when you honored me with your offer, you asked me to wait
before giving you a final answer."
He was completely taken unawares. "I--I--To be sure. But I cannot
permit you--Your happiness is my first consideration."
"It is that disregard of self, that generosity, which enables me to
speak. As I told you, I can now give you no more than the utmost of my
esteem and affection. But if you are willing to take that as a
beginning, perhaps, later on, I may be able to return your love as you
deserve."
"But you--I do not know how to say it--In justice to yourself, no less
than to him, you should make sure."
"I have never been more sure," she replied. "You have been most
generous and patient. It is not right or considerate for me to longer
delay my decision."
"Er--very good of you, very!" he murmured, gazing down at his
interlocked fingers. "Yet--if you would care to wait--to make sure, y'
know."
"But why should I wait? No, James, I am clear in what I am doing. I
know that I can trust you absolutely."
Lord James slowly raised his head and met her gaze, too intent upon
repressing the stress of his emotions to perceive the big fur-clad form
that stood rigid in the doorway beyond Genevieve.
"Miss Leslie," he said, speaking in the same formal and serious tone
that she had used in giving her decision, "I am then to understand that
you accept my proposal--you will marry me?"
"Within the year, if you desire," she responded, without any sign of
hesitancy.
"It's very good of you!" he replied. "I shall devote myself to your
happiness."
If his voice lacked the joyful ring and his look the ardent delight of
a successful lover, she failed to heed it. He rose and bent over the
table with grave gallantry to kiss the hand that she held out to him.
"'Gratulations!" said a harsh voice, seemingly almost in their ears.
They looked up, startled. Blake stood close to them, at the end of the
table, with his soft hat in his half-raised left hand, and his shaggy
fur coat hanging limp from his bowed shoulders. He stood with perfect
steadiness. Only in the fixed stare of his bloodshot eyes and the
twitching of the muscles in his gray-white face could they perceive the
mental stress and excitement under which he was laboring.
"Tom!" stammered the Englishman. "You here!"
"Couldn't get Ashton started," replied Blake. His voice was hoarse and
rasping but not thick. Though he spoke slowly, his enunciation was
distinct. "His man just carried him out. I've been waiting to slip out,
unseen, this way. I ask you to excuse me. Long's I'm here, I'll make
the best of it I can. Congratulations to you! Best man wins!"
While he was speaking, Genevieve had drawn her hand out of the
unconscious clasp of Lord James and slowly risen from her chair. Her
face was as white as Blake's; her eyes were wide with fear and pity and
horror.
"You!--how could you do it?" she gasped. "When I had given you the
second chance--to fail again!" The sight of his powerful jaw, clenched
and resolute, stung her into an outburst of angry scorn. "Fail, fail!
always fail! yet with that look of strength! To come here with that
look, after failing again so utterly, miserably--in my house! You
coward!"
"That's it," assented Blake in a dead monotone. "Only pity is you
couldn't see it sooner. But you know me now. Ought to 've known me from
the first. I didn't get drunk there in Mozambique 'cause I hadn't the
stuff. You might have known that. But now it's settled. I've proved
myself a brute and a fizzle--been proving it ever since Ashton got a
bottle and showed me into a little room. We've been guzzling whiskey in
there ever since. His man took him out dead drunk. So far I'm only--"
"Tom!" broke in Lord James. "No more of that! Tell the truth--tell her
why you did it!"
"Tell her--when she's guessed already. But if you say so, Jimmy--It's
the first time I ever owned up I'm a quitter. Great joke that, when all
my life I haven't been anything else,--hobo, fizzle, quitter, bum--"
"Gad! Not that drivel! If you can't explain to her, then keep silent."
"No, I don't keep silent till I've had my say," rejoined Blake
morosely. "Needn't think I don't know just what I'm saying and what I'm
doing." His voice harshened and broke with a despair that was all the
more terrible for the deadness of his tone. "God! That's why the
whiskey won't work. I've poured it down like water, but it's no use--it
won't work! I can't forget I've lost out!"
Genevieve leaned toward him, half frenzied, her face crimson and her
gentle eyes ablaze with scorn. "And you--you!--claiming to be
sober--come in here and say that to me!--that you've deliberately
sought to intoxicate yourself in my house--in my house! You haven't
even the decency to go away to do it! You must flaunt your shame in my
face!"
"I told you I meant to slip out unseen," he mumbled, for the moment
weakening in his determination to vilify himself. "Didn't think you'd
give me the gaff--when it was all for you."
"For me!" she cried, in a storm of hysteria--"for me! Oh! To destroy
all my love for you--my trust in the courage, the strength, the heroism
I thought was yours! Oh! And to prove yourself a brute, a mere
brute!--here in my own house!--my guest! Oh! oh! I hate you! I hate
you!"
She flung herself, gasping and quivering, into her chair, in a
desperate effort to regain self-control.
Blake bent over her and murmured with profound tenderness: "There,
there, little girl! Don't take on so! I ought to 've cleared out right
at first--that's a fact. But I didn't mean to bother you. Just
blundered in. But I'm glad to know you've found out the truth. Long's
you know for sure that you hate me, 't won't take you long to feel
right toward him. He's all I'm not. Mighty glad you're going to be
happy. Good-bye!"
Genevieve had become very still. But she neither looked up at him nor
spoke when he stopped. He turned steadily about and started toward the
door of the cardroom. Lord James thrust back the heavy chair and sprang
to place himself before his friend.
"Wait, Tom!" he demanded. "Can't you see? She's overcome. Good God! You
can't go off this way! You must wait and tell her the truth--how it
happened--why you did it!"
Blake looked at him quietly and spoke in a tone of gentle warning, as
one speaks to a young child: "Now, now, Jimmy boy, get out of my way.
Don't pester me. Just think how easily I could smash you--and I'm not
so far from it. Stand clear, now."
"No! In justice to yourself--to her!"
"That's all settled. Let me by."
He stepped to one side, but Lord James again interfered. "No, Tom, not
till you've told her! You shall not go!"
The Englishman stood resolute. Blake shook his head slowly, and spoke
in a tone of keen regret: "Sorry, Jimmy; but if you _will_ have it!"
His bandaged right fist drove out and struck squarely on the point of
his friend's jaw. His nerves of sensation were so blunted by the liquor
he had drunk that he struck far harder than he intended. Lord James
dropped without a groan, and lay stunned. Blake stared down at him, and
then slowly swung around to look at Genevieve.
She had risen and stood with her hands clutching the edge of the table.
Her face was distorted with horror and loathing.
"You coward!--you murderer!" she gasped.
"Yes, that's it," he assented--"brute, drunkard, coward, murderer--all
go together. You're right to hate me! But you can't hate me half as
much as I hate myself. That's hell all right--to hate yourself."
Suddenly he flung out his arms toward her and his voice softened to
passionate tenderness. "God! but it's worth the price!--to save you,
Jenny! I'd do it all over again, a thousand times, to make you happy,
little girl!"
She shrank back and flung up her arm in a gesture of bewilderment,
which he mistook for fear.
"Don't be afraid," he reassured. "I'm going."
He turned hastily, stooped to feel the heart of the unconscious man,
and rose to swing across to the cardroom door. He passed out swiftly
and closed the door behind him, without pausing for a backward glance.
Genevieve stared after him, dazed and bewildered by her half
realization of the truth. The door had closed between them--what seemed
to her an age had passed--when the full realization of what he had done
flashed in upon her clouded brain like a ray of glaring white light.
She flung out her arms and cried entreatingly: "Tom! Tom--dearest!"
She tried to dart around the table, but swayed and tottered, barely
saving herself from the fall by sinking into a chair. The heavy,
muffled clang of the street door came to her as from a vast distance.
The merciful darkness closed over her.