HER GUILTY CONSCIENCE CRIED: "BEHOLD YOUR HANDIWORK."
Natalie saw all things through the halo of the rosy hopes that now
encompassed her. "Berthe!" she exclaimed, both hands extended in
welcome, "I thought you had gone to France. Mrs. Leon told me so--but,
how is this? You look pale and ill?"
Pale and ill she was, but no illness would have deterred her from making
the appeal she had come to make.
Since his return to America, Leonard had indulged in drink more
recklessly than ever, and Berthe, though conscious of the value to
herself of the divorce, had dreaded the granting of the decree. For the
prospect of being bound to this lost creature filled her with aversion.
Conscience makes cowards of us all, and Berthe feared the man. Not that
he had shown any inclination for violence toward her, though he had long
been irritable and disposed to quarrel on slight provocation. She did
not fear his hand; it was his presence. The sodden spectacle was
becoming a weight upon her soul, an accusation beyond her strength to
bear. She had loved him, loved him even now, and her guilty conscience
cried incessantly, "Behold your handiwork!"
On the day when Natalie had petted Tabitha, she had for the first time
lived in fear, even of his hand. Early that morning she had noticed that
his speech was tremulous and uncertain, though he drank less than usual.
He dozed constantly, often waking with a cry of terror; and then his
whole frame would tremble as he gazed with eyes of hate and horror at
herself, or at some invisible yet dreadful object near her, muttering
incoherent phrases indicating fear. Again he would doze, again awake and
the scene would be repeated. With each new seizure his action became
more violent, while the nameless horror that was upon him communicated
itself to her. At last she sent for a physician, but not until there had
been a wild outbreak. He had clutched her by the throat: "Devil!" he
shouted, "you shall not take me to hell; I am of the elect, a Claghorn!
Down, fiend!" She had cowered in fear, and he had saved her life by
fainting.
The doctor easily diagnosed the case. Berthe's willingness to pay for
the services of two male nurses, and the fear that any disturbance might
entail a frantic outbreak and death, were the considerations that
restrained the physician from ordering the patient's removal to a
hospital.
The convulsions of the stricken man were frightful; his shrieks, his
wailing prayers for deliverance from hell--these appalled the woman,
filling her with apprehension akin to that of the raving victim. His
calls for Natalie were most piteous, wails of anguish that pierced the
heart of the woman that had loved him, and whose moans answered his
incessant repetition of the name of one, lacking whose forgiveness he
must face the horrors of the damned. The unending utterance of the name,
never ceasing even when at last he sank into the stupor of exhaustion
and of opiates, attracted the attention of the physician, who told
Berthe that while he believed the case hopeless, possible good might be
effected by the presence of the person without whom it seemed as though
the man could not even die.
The awful fear that he would die, his last wish ungratified, wherefore,
in her belief, his restless soul would haunt all her future days; this,
added to the pity for the man she still loved, who had rescued her from
misery, whose head had lain upon her bosom, nerved her to carry out the
resolve she had taken. She knew that no messenger could effect the
purpose; she must assume the task herself. It was not without a pang
that she determined upon a mission which, if successful, must involve
her desertion of the dying man; but, though she did not forget such
jewels as she possessed or to collect all the money that remained, her
flight was nevertheless intended as such expiation as she could make.
She hoped, though she could not be sure, that her identity as Leonard's
companion was not known to Natalie; but she assumed that Mrs. Leon had
given information as to other misconduct, and she expected to be met
with cold disapproval, if, indeed, she were received at all. But instead
of disapproval she was encountered with outstretched hands and their
friendly pressure; and, as with this reception there came upon her the
recollection of the sweet graciousness of her former mistress, and with
it the consciousness of her requital of the kindness of past days, her
heart was like to fail.
"I bring you a message," she gasped, "from your husband."
"My husband!" For the moment Natalie forgot that she had no husband.
Then the recollection came upon her, and with it a premonition of evil.
She was as pale as Berthe, as she stood, looking at her visitor,
bewildered and afraid.
"Stop!" she exclaimed, as Berthe was about to speak. "What can you know
of him you call my husband? He left me, abandoned me for a wicked woman.
He wrote me confessing his shame, but not his fault. Again he wrote,
insinuating wicked deeds of me, and threatening me. Since two days he is
no more my husband; I can receive no message."
"He is dying!"
The red flush which had displaced the pallor of Natalie's cheek
disappeared. Again her face grew pale; she stared at Berthe.
"Listen," faltered the Frenchwoman. "He wronged you, yet he loved you
always, has loved you till this hour, and cannot die without your
forgiveness."
"Take it to him----Dying! Leonard, Leonard!" She covered her face.
"I was maid to the woman he went away with," continued Berthe, "and so I
came to know his story. The woman has been kind to him--let her pass,
then"--seeing that her listener shuddered. "The man is dying. He moans
and wails for you--for you. The woman herself begged me to come for you.
He fears" (her face grew whiter) "he fears the fires of hell, but he
will not have a priest. Only you can rescue him--your pardon--he cannot
die without it." She broke down. All else she might have borne upon her
conscience; but she could not bear that he should go unshriven.
At the mention of the fires of hell Natalie was conquered. "Take me to
him," she said.
"Follow me in half an hour," Berthe rose as she spoke, handing a written
address to Natalie.
"But no time must be lost----"
"In half an hour," repeated Berthe. "Give her--the woman--time to get
away." And then she passed out of the room.