In similar small happenings April passed and we had reached the middle
of May. Easter and the opera were over; as the warm weather was coming
on people were already leaving town for the country, the seaside or
Europe. Personally, I had no plans beyond spending the month of August,
which Mr. Grainger informed me I was to have "off," in making a visit to
my old home in Halifax. Hugh had ceased to talk of immediate marriage,
since he had all he could do to live on what he earned in selling bonds.
He had taken that job when Mildred could lend him no more without
dipping into funds that had been his father's. He was still resolute on
that point. He was resolute, too, in seeing nothing in the charms of
Cissie Boscobel. He hated red hair, he said, making no allowance for the
umber-red of Australian gold, and where I saw the lights of Limoges
enamel he found no more than the garish tints of a chromolithograph.
When I hinted that he might be the hero of some young romance on
Cissie's part, he was contented to say "R-rot!" with a contemptuous roll
of the first consonant.
Larry Strangways was industrious, happy, and prospering. He enjoyed the
men with whom his work brought him into contact, and I gathered that his
writing for daily, weekly, and monthly publications was bringing him
into view as a young man of originality and power. From himself I
learned that his small inherited capital was doubling and tripling and
quadrupling itself through association with Stacy Grainger's
enterprises. For Stacy Grainger himself he continued to feel an
admiration not free from an uneasiness, with regard to which he made no
direct admissions.
Of Mrs. Brokenshire I was seeing less. Either she had grown used to
doing without her lover or she was meeting him in some other way. She
still came to see me as often as once a week, but she was not so
emotional or excitable. She might have been more affectionate than
before, and yet it was with a dignity that gradually put me at a
distance.
Cissie Boscobel I didn't meet during the whole of the six weeks except
in the company of Mrs. Rossiter. That happened when once or twice I went
to the house to see Gladys when she was suffering from colds, or when my
former employer drove me round the Park. Just once I got the opportunity
to hint that Lady Cissie hadn't taken Hugh from me as yet, to which Mrs.
Rossiter replied that that was obviously because she didn't want him.
We were all, therefore, at a standstill, or moving so slowly that I
couldn't perceive that we were moving at all, when in the middle of a
May forenoon I was summoned to the telephone. I was not surprised to
find Mr. Strangways at the other end, since he used any and every excuse
to call me up; but his words struck me as those of a man who had taken
leave of his senses. He plunged into them without any of the usual
morning greetings or preliminary remarks.
"Are you game to go to Boston by the five-o'clock train to-day?"
I naturally said, "What?" but I said it with some emphasis.
He repeated the question a little more anxiously.
"Could you be ready to go to Boston by the five-o'clock train this
afternoon?"
"Why should I be?"
He seemed to hesitate before replying.
"You'd know that," he said at last, "when you got on the train."
"Is it a joke?" I inquired, with a light laugh.
"No; it's not a joke. It's serious. I want you to take that train and
go."
"But what for?"
"I've told you you'd know that when you got on the train--or before you
had gone very far."
"And do you think that's information enough?"
"It will be information enough for you when I say that a great deal may
depend on your doing as I ask."
I raised a new objection.
"How can I go when I've my work to attend to here?"
"You must be ready to give that up. If any one makes any trouble, you
must say you've resigned the position."
As far as was possible over the wire I got the impression of earnestness
on his part and perhaps excitement; but I was not yet satisfied.
"What shall I do when I get to Boston? Where shall I go?"
"You'll see. You'll know. You'll have to act for yourself. Trust your
own judgment as I trust it."
"But, Mr. Strangways, I don't understand a bit," I was beginning to
protest, when he broke in on me.
"Oh, don't you see? It will all explain itself as you go on. I can't
tell you about it in advance. I don't know. All I can say is that
whatever happens you'll be needed, and if you're needed you'll be able
to play the game."
He went on with further directions. It would be possible to take my seat
in the train at twenty minutes before the hour of departure. I was to be
early on the spot so as to be among the first to be in my place. I was
to take nothing but a suit-case; but I was to put into it enough to last
me for a week, or even for a week or two. I was to be prepared for
roughing it, if necessary, or for anything else that developed. He would
send me my ticket within an hour and provide me with plenty of money.
"But what is it?" I implored again. "It sounds like spying, or the
secret service, or something melodramatic."
"It's none of those things. Just be ready. Wait where you are till you
get your ticket and the money."
"Will you bring them yourself?"
"No. I can't; I'm too busy. I'm calling from a pay-station. Don't ring
me up for any more questions. Just do as I've asked you, and I know
you'll not regret it--not as long as you live."
He put up the receiver, leaving me bewildered. My ignorance was such
that speculation was shut out. I kept saying to myself: "It must be
this," or, "It must be that," but with no conviction in my guesses. One
dreadful suspicion came to me, but I firmly put it away.
A little after twelve a special messenger arrived, bringing my ticket
and five hundred dollars in bank-notes. I knew then that I was in for a
genuine adventure. At one I put on my hat and coat, locked the door
behind me, and went off to my hotel. Mentally I was leaving a work to
which, from certain points of view, I was sorry to say good-by, but I
could afford no backward looks.
At the hotel I packed my belongings and left them so that they could be
sent after me in case I should not return. I might be back the next
morning; but then I might never come back at all. I thought of those
villagers who from idle curiosity followed the carriage of Louis XVI.
and Marie Antoinette as it drove out of Varennes, some of them never to
see their native town again till they had been dragged over half the
battle-fields of Europe. Like them I had no prevision as to where I was
going or what was to become of me. I knew only--gloatingly, and with a
kind of glory in the fact--that I was going at the call of Larry
Strangways, to do his bidding, because he believed in me. But that
thought, too, I tried to put out of my mind. In as far as it was in my
mind I did my best to express it in terms of prose, seeing myself not as
the heroine of a mysterious romance--a view to which I was inclined--but
as a practical business woman, competent, up-to-date, and unafraid. I
was afraid, mortally afraid, and I was neither up-to-date nor competent;
but the fiction sustained me while I packed my trunks and sent a
telegram to Hugh.
This last I did only when it was too late for him to answer or intercept
me.
"Called suddenly out of town," I wrote. "May lead to a new place. Will
write or wire as soon as possible." Having sent this off at half past
four, I took a taxicab for the station.
My instructions were so far carried out successfully that, with a
colored porter wearing a red cap to precede me, I was the first to pass
the barrier leading to the train, and the first to take my seat in the
long, narrow parlor-car. My chair was two from the end toward the
entrance and exit. Once enthroned within its upholstered depths I
watched for strange occurrences.
But I watched in vain. For a time I saw nothing but the straight, empty
cavern of the car. Then a colored porter, as like to my own as one pea
to another, came puffing his way in, dragging valises and other
impedimenta, and followed by an old gentleman and his wife. These the
porter installed in chairs toward the middle of the car, and, touching
his cap on receipt of his tip, made hastily for the door. Similar
arrivals came soon after that, with much stowing of luggage into
overhead racks, and kisses, and injunctions as to conduct, and
farewells. Within my range of vision were two elderly ladies, a smartly
dressed young man, a couple in the disillusioned, surly stage, a couple
who had recently been married, a clergyman, a youth of the cheap
sporting type. To one looking for the solution of a mystery the material
was not promising.
The three chairs immediately in front of mine remained unoccupied. I
kept my eye on them, of course, and presently got some reward. Shortly
before the train pulled out of the station a shadow passed me which I
knew to be that of Larry Strangways. He went on to the fourth seat,
counting mine as the first, and, having reached it, turned round and
looked at me. He looked at me gravely, with no sign of recognition
beyond a shake of the head. I understood then that I was not to
recognize him, and that in the adventure, however it turned out, we were
to be as strangers.
One more thing I saw. He had never been so pale or grim or determined in
all the time I had known him. I had hardly supposed that it was in him
to be so determined, so grim, or so pale. I gathered that he was taking
our mission more to heart than I had supposed, and that, prompt in
action as I had been, I was considering it too flippantly. Inwardly I
prayed for nerve to support him, and for that presence of mind which
would tell me what to do when there was anything to be done.
Perhaps it increased my zeal that he was so handsome. Straight and slim
and upright, his features were of that lean, blond, regular type I used
to consider Anglo-Saxon, but which, now that I have seen it in so many
Scandinavians, I have come to ascribe to the Norse strain in our blood.
The eyes were direct; the chin was firm; the nose as straight as an
ancient Greek's. The relatively small mouth was adorned by a relatively
small mustache, twisted up at the ends, of the color of the coffee-bean,
and, to my admiring feminine appreciation, blooming on his face like a
flower.
His neat spring suit was also of the color of the coffee-bean, and so
was his soft felt hat. In his shirt there were lines of tan and violet,
and tan and violet appeared in the tie beneath which a soft collar was
pinned with a gold safety pin. The yellow gloves that men have affected
of late years gave a pleasant finish to this costume, which was quite
complete when he pulled from his bag an English traveling-cap of several
shades of tan and put it on. He also took out a book, stretching himself
in his chair in such a way that the English traveling-cap was all I
could henceforth see of his personality.
I give these details because they entered into the mingled unwillingness
and zest with which I found myself dragged on an errand to which I had
no clue. Still less had I a clue when the train began to move, and I had
nothing but the view of the English traveling-cap to bear me company.
But no, I had one other detail. Before sitting down Mr. Strangways had
carefully separated his own hand-luggage from that of the person who
would be behind him, and which included an ulster, a walking-stick, and
a case of golf-clubs. I inferred, therefore, that the wayfarer who owned
one of the two chairs between Mr. Strangways and myself must be a man.
The chair directly in front of mine remained empty.
As we passed into the tunnel my mind lashed wildly about in search of
explanations, the only one I could find being that Larry Strangways was
kidnapping me. On arriving in Boston I might find myself confronted by a
marriage license and a clergyman. If so, I said to myself, with an
extraordinary thrill, there would be nothing for it but submission to
this _force majeure_, though I had to admit that the averted head, the
English traveling-cap, and the intervening ulster, walking-stick, and
golf-clubs worked against my theory. I was dreaming in this way when the
train emerged from the tunnel and stopped so briefly at One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street that, considering it afterward, I concluded that the
pause had been arranged for. It was just long enough for an odd little
bundle of womanhood to be pulled and shoved on the car and thrown into
the seat immediately in front of mine. I choose my verbs with care,
since they give the effect produced on me. The little woman, who was
swathed in black veils and clad in a long black shapeless coat, seemed
not to act of her own volition and to be more dead than alive. The
porter who had brought her in flung down her two or three bags and
waited, significantly, though the train was already creeping its way
onward. She was plainly unused to fending for herself, and only when, as
a reminder, the man had touched his hat a second time did it occur to
her what she had to do. Hastily unfastening a small bag, she pulled out
a handful of money and thrust it at him. The man grinned and was gone,
after which she sagged back helplessly into her seat, the satchel open
in her lap.
That dreadful suspicion which had smitten me earlier in the day came
back again, but the new-comer was so stiflingly wrapped up that even I
could not be sure. She reminded me of nothing so much as of the veiled
Begum of Bhopal as she sat in the durbar with the other Indian
potentates, her head done up in a bag, as seen in the pictures in the
illustrated London papers. For a lady who wished to pass unperceived it
was perfect--for every eye in the car was turned on her. I myself
studied her, of course, searching for something to confirm my fears, but
finding nothing I could take as convincing. For the matter of that, as
she sat huddled in the enormous chair I could see little beyond a
swathing of veils round a close-fitting hat and the folds of the long
black coat. The easiest inference was that she might be some poor old
thing whom her relatives were anxious to be rid of, which was, I think,
the conclusion most of our neighbors drew. Speaking of neighbors, I had
noticed that in spite of the disturbance caused by this curious
entrance, Larry Strangways had not turned his head.
I could only sit, therefore, and wait for enlightenment, or for an
opportunity. Both came when, some half-hour later, the ticket-collectors
passed slowly down the aisle. Other passengers got ready for them in
advance, but the little begum in front of me did nothing. When at last
the collectors were before her she came to herself with a start.
She came to herself with a start, seizing her satchel awkwardly and
spilling its contents on the floor. The tickets came out, and some
money. The collectors picked up the tickets and began to pencil and tear
them; the youth of the cheap sporting type and I went after the coins.
Since I was a young woman and the lady with her head in a bag might be
taken for an old one, I had no difficulty in securing his harvest, which
he handed over to me with an ingratiating leer. Returning the leer as
much in his own style as I could render it, I offered the handful of
silver and copper to its owner. To do this I stood as directly as might
be in front of her, and when, inadvertently, she raised her head I tried
to look her in the eyes.
I couldn't see them. The shimmer I caught behind the two or three veils
might have been any one's eyes. But in the motion of the hand that took
the money, and in the silvery tinkle of the voice that made itself as
low as possible in murmuring the words, "Thank you!" I couldn't be
mistaken. It was enough. If I hadn't seen her she at least had seen me,
and so I went back to my seat.
I had got the first part of my revelation. With the aid of the ulster,
the walking-stick, and the golf-clubs I could guess at the rest. I knew
now why Larry Strangways wanted me there, but I didn't know what I was
to do. By myself I could do nothing. Unless the little begum took the
initiative I shouldn't know where to begin. I could hardly tear off a
disguise she had chosen to assume, nor could I take it for granted that
she was not on legitimate business.
But she had seen me, and there was something in that. If the owner of
the vacant chair turned up he, too, would see me, and he wouldn't wear a
veil. We should look each other in the eyes, and he would know that I
knew what he was about to do. The situation would not be pleasant for
me; but it would conceivably be much less pleasant for anybody else.
I waited, therefore, watching the beautiful green country go tearing by.
The smiling freshness of spring was over the hillsides on the left,
while the setting sun gilded the tiny headlands on the right and turned
the rapid succession of creeks and inlets and marshy pools into sheets
of orange and red. Fire illumined the windows of many a passing house,
to be extinguished instantaneously, and touched with occasional flames
the cold spring-tide blue of the sea. Clumps of forsythia were in
blossom, and here and there an apple-tree held out toward the sun a
branch of early flowers.
When the train stopped at New Haven I was afraid that the owner of the
ulster and the golf-clubs would appear, and that my work, whatever it
was to be, would be rendered the more difficult. But no new arrival
entered. On the other hand, the passengers began to thin out as the time
came for going to the dining-car. In the matter of food I determined to
stay at my post if I died of starvation, especially on seeing that the
English traveling-cap was equally courageous.
Twilight gradually filtered into the world outside; the marshes, inlets,
and creeks grew dim. Dim was the long, burnished line of the Sound,
above which I could soon make out a sprinkling of wan yellow stars. Wan
yellow lights appeared in windows where no curtains were drawn, and what
a few minutes earlier had been twilight became quickly the night. It was
the wistful time, the homesick, heart-searching time. If the little lady
in front of me were to have qualms as to what she was doing they would
come then.
And indeed as I watched her it seemed to me that she inserted her
handkerchief under her series of coverings as if to wipe away a tear.
Presently she lifted two unsteady hands and began to untie her outer
veil. When it came to finding the pins by which it was adjusted she
fumbled so helplessly that I took it on myself to lean forward with the
words, "Won't you allow me?" I could do this without moving round to
where I should have been obliged to look her in the face; and it was so
when I helped her take off the veil underneath.
"I'm smothering," she said, very much as it might have been said by a
little child in distress.
She wore still another veil, but only that which was ordinarily attached
to her hat. The car being not very brightly lighted, and most of our
fellow-travelers having gone to dinner, she probably thought she had
little to fear. As she gave no sign of recognition on my rendering my
small services I subsided again into my chair.
But I knew she was as conscious of my presence as I was of hers. It was
not wholly surprising, then, that some twenty minutes later she should
swing round in the revolving-chair and drop all disguises. She did it
with the words, tearfully yet angrily spoken:
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to Boston, Mrs. Brokenshire," I replied, meekly. "Are you
doing the same?"
"You know what I'm doing, and you've come to spy on me."
There is something about the wrath of the sweet, mild, gentle creature,
not easily provoked, which is far more terrible than the rage of an
irascible old man accustomed to furies. I quailed before it now, but not
so much that I couldn't outwardly keep my composure.
"If I know what you're doing, Mrs. Brokenshire," I said, gently, "it
isn't from any information received beforehand. I didn't know you were
to be on this train till you got in; and I haven't been sure it was you
till this minute."
"I've a right to do as I please," she declared, hoarsely, "without
having people to dog me."
"Do I strike you as the sort of person who'd do that? You've had some
opportunity of knowing me; and have I ever done anything for which you
didn't first give me leave? If I'm here this evening and you're here,
too, it's pure accident--as far as I'm concerned." I added, with some
deepening of the tone, and speaking slowly so that she should get the
meaning of the words: "I'll only venture to surmise that accidents of
that kind don't happen for nothing."
I could just make out her swimming eyes as they stared at me through the
remaining veil, which was as black and thick as a widow's.
"What do you mean?"
"Wouldn't that depend on what you mean?"
"If you think you're going to stop me--"
"Dear Mrs. Brokenshire, I don't think anything at all. How can I? We're
both going to Boston. By a singular set of circumstances we're seated
side by side on the same train. What can I see more in the situation
than that?"
"You do see more."
"But I'm trying not to. If you insist on betraying more, when perhaps
I'd rather you wouldn't, well, that won't be my fault, will it?"
"Because I've given you my confidence once or twice isn't a reason why
you should take liberties all the rest of your life."
To this, for a minute, I made no reply.
"That hurts me," I said at last, "but I believe that when you've
considered it you'll see that you've been unjust to me."
"You've suspected me ever since I knew you."
"I've only suspected you of a sweetness and kindness and goodness which
I don't think you've discovered in yourself. I've never said anything of
you, and never thought anything, but what I told Mr. Brokenshire two
months ago, that you seem to me the loveliest thing God ever made. That
you shouldn't live up to the beauty of your character strikes me as
impossible. I'll admit that I think that; and if you call it
suspicion--"
Her anger began to pass into a kind of childish rebellion.
"You've always talked to me about impossible things--"
"I wasn't aware of it. One has to have standards of life, and do one's
best to live up to them."
"Why should I do my best to live up to them when other people-- Look at
Madeline Pyne, and a lot of women I know!"
"Do you think we can ever judge by other people, or take their actions
as an example for our own? No one person can be more bound to do right
than another; and yet when it comes to doing wrong it might easily be
more serious for you than for Mrs. Pyne or for me."
"I don't see why it should be."
"Because you have a national position, one might even say an
international position, and Mrs. Pyne hasn't, and neither have I. If we
do wrong, only our own little circles have to know about it, and the
harm we can do is limited; but if you do wrong it hurts the whole
country."
"I must say I don't see that."
"You're the wife of a man who might be called a national institution--"
"There are just as important men in the country as he."
"Not many--let us say, at a venture, a hundred. Think of what it means
to be one of the hundred most conspicuous women among a population of a
hundred millions. The responsibility must be tremendous."
"I've never thought of myself as having any particular
responsibility--not any more than anybody else."
"But, of course, you have. Whatever you do gets an added significance
from the fact that you're Mrs. Howard Brokenshire. When, for example,
you came to me that day among the rocks at Newport, your kindness was
the more wonderful for the simple reason that you were who you were. We
can't get away from those considerations. When you do right, right seems
somehow to be made more beautiful; and when you do wrong--"
"I don't think it's fair to put me in a position like that."
"I don't put you in that position. Life does it. You were born to be
high up. When you fall, therefore--"
"Don't talk about falling."
"But it would be a fall, wouldn't it? Don't you remember, some ten or
twelve years ago, how a Saxon crown princess left her home and her
husband? Well, all I mean is that because of her position her story rang
through the world. However one might pity unhappiness, or sympathize
with a miserable love, there was something in it that degraded her
country and her womanhood. I suppose the poor thing's inability to live
up to a position of honor was a blow at human nature. Don't you think
that that was what we felt? And in your case--"
"You mustn't compare me with her."
"No; I don't--exactly. All I mean is that if--if you do what--what I
think you've started out to do--"
She raised her head defiantly.
"And I'm going to."
"Then by the day after to-morrow there will not be a newspaper in the
country that won't be detailing the scandal. It will be the talk of
every club and every fireside between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and
Mexico and Montreal. It will be in the papers of London and Paris and
Rome and Berlin, and there'll be a week in which you'll be the most
discussed person in the world."
"I've been that already--almost--when Mr. Brokenshire made his attack in
the Stock Exchange on--"
"But this would be different. In this case you'd be pointed at--it's
what it would amount to--as a woman who had gone over to all those evil
forces in civilization that try to break down what the good forces are
building up. You'd do like that unhappy crown princess, you'd strike a
blow at your country and at all womanhood. There are thousands of poor
tempted wives all over Europe and America who'll say: 'Well, if she can
do such things--'"
"Oh, stop!"
I stopped. It seemed to me that for the time being I had given her
enough to think about. We sat silent, therefore, looking out at the
rushing dark. People who drifted back from the dining-car glanced at us,
but soon were dozing or absorbed in books.
We were nearing New London when she pointed to one of her bags and asked
me if I would mind opening it. I welcomed the request as indicating a
return of friendliness. Having extracted a parcel of sandwiches, she
unfolded the napkin in which they were wrapped and held them out to me.
I took a pate de foie-gras and followed her example in nibbling it. On
my own responsibility I summoned the porter and asked him to bring a
bottle of spring-water and two glasses.
"I guess the old lady's feelin' some better," he confided, when he had
carried out the order.
We stopped at New London, and went on again. Having eaten three or four
sandwiches, I declined any more, folding the remainder in the napkin and
stowing them away. The simple meal we had shared together restored
something of our old-time confidence.
"I'm going to do it," she sighed, as I put the bag back in its place.
"He's--he's somewhere on the train--in the smoking-car, I suppose.
He's--he's not to come for me till--till we're getting near the Back Bay
Station in Boston."
I brought out my question simply, though I had been pondering it for
some time. "Who'll tell Mr. Brokenshire?"
She moved uncomfortably.
"I don't know. I haven't made any arrangements. He's in Newport for one
or two nights, seeing to some small changes in the house. I--I had to
take the opportunity while he was away." As if with a sudden inspiration
she glanced round from staring out into the dark. "Would you do it?"
I shook my head.
"I couldn't. I've never seen a man struck dead, and--"
She swung her chair so as to face me more directly.
"Why," she asked, trembling--"why do you say that?"
"Because, if I told him, it's what I should have to look on at."
She began wringing her hands.
"Oh no, you wouldn't."
"But I should. It would be his death-sentence at the least. It's true he
has probably received that already--"
"Oh, what are you saying? What are you talking about?"
"Only of what every one can see. He's a stricken man--you've told me so
yourself."
"Yes, but I said it only about Hugh. Lots of men have to go through
troubles on account of their children."
"But when they do they can generally get comfort from their wives."
She seemed to stiffen.
"It's not my fault if he can't."
"No, of course not. But the fact remains that he doesn't--and perhaps
it's the greatest fact of all. He adores you. His children may give him
a great deal of anxiety but that's the sort of thing any father looks
for and can endure. Only you're not his child; you're his wife.
Moreover, you're the wife whom he worships with a slavish idolatry.
Everything that nature and time and the world and wealth have made of
him he gathers together and lays it down at your feet, contented if
you'll only give him back a smile. You may think it pitiful--"
She shuddered.
"I think it terrible--for me."
"Well, I may think so, too, but it's his life we're talking of. His
tenure of that"--I looked at her steadily--"isn't very certain as it is,
do you think? You know the condition of his heart--you've told me
yourself--and as for his nervous system, we've only to look at his face
and his poor eye."
"I didn't do that. It's his whole life--"
"But his whole life culminates in you. It works up to you, and you
represent everything he values. When he learns that you've despised his
love and dishonored his name--"
Her foot tapped the floor impatiently.
"You mustn't say things like that to me."
"I'm only saying them, dear Mrs. Brokenshire, so that you'll know how
they sound. It's what every one else will be saying in a day or two. You
can't be what--what you'll be to-morrow, and still keep any one's
respect. And so," I hurried on, as she was about to protest, "when he
hears what you've done, you won't merely have broken his heart, you'll
have killed him just as much as if you'd pulled out a revolver and shot
him."
She swung back to the window again. Her foot continued to tap the floor;
her fingers twisted and untwisted like writhing living things. I could
see her bosom rise and fall rapidly; her breath came in short, hard
gasps. When I wasn't expecting it she rounded on me again, with flames
in her eyes like those in a small tigress's.
"You're saying all that to frighten me; but--"
"I'm saying it because it's true. If it frightens you--"
"But it doesn't."
"Then I've done neither good nor harm."
"I've a right to be happy."
"Certainly, if you can be happy this way."
"And I can."
"Then there's no more to be said. We can only agree with you. If you can
be happy when you've Mr. Brokenshire on your mind, as you must have
whether he's alive or dead--and if you can be happy when you've
desecrated all the things your people and your country look to a woman
in your position to uphold--then I don't think any one will say you
nay."
"Well, why shouldn't I be happy?" she demanded, as if I was withholding
from her something that was her right. "Other women--"
"Yes, Mrs. Brokenshire, other women besides you have tried the
experiment of Anna Karenina--"
"What's that?"
I gave her the gist of Tolstoi's romance--the woman who is married to an
old man and runs away with a young one, living to see him weary of the
position in which she places him, and dying by her own act.
As she listened attentively, I went on before she could object to my
parable.
"It all amounts to the same thing. There's no happiness except in right;
and no right that doesn't sooner or later--sooner rather than later--end
in happiness. You've told me more than once you didn't believe that; and
if you don't I can't help it."
I fell back in my seat, because for the moment I was exhausted. It was
not merely the actual situation that took the strength out of me, but
what I dreaded when the man came for his prize from the smoking-car. I
might count on Larry Strangways to aid me then, but as yet he had not
recognized my struggle by so much as glancing round.
Nor had I known till this minute how much I cared for the little
creature before me, or how deeply I pitied the man she was deserting. I
could see her as happier conditions would have made her, and him as he
might have become if his nature had not been warped by pride. Any
impulse to strike back at him had long ago died within me. It might as
well have died, since I never had the nerve to act on it, even when I
had the chance.
She turned on me again, with unexpected fierceness.
"It doesn't matter whether I believe all those things or not--now. It's
too late. I've left home. I've--I've gone away with him."
Though I felt like a spent prize-fighter forced back into the ring, I
raised myself in my chair. I even smiled, dimly, in an effort to be
encouraging.
"You've left home and you've gone away; but you won't have gone away
with him till--till you've actually joined him."
"I've actually joined him already. His things are there beside that
chair." She nodded backward. "By the time we've passed Providence he'll
be--he'll be getting ready to come for me."
I said, more significantly than I really understood: "But we haven't
passed Providence as yet."
To this she seemingly paid no attention, nor did I give it much myself.
"When he comes," she exclaimed, lyrically, "it will be like a
marriage--"
I ventured much as I interrupted.
"No, it will never be like a marriage. There'll be too much that's
unholy in it all for anything like a true marriage ever to become
possible, not even if death or divorce--and it will probably be the one
or the other--were to set you free."
That she found these words arresting I could tell by the stunned way in
which she stared.
"Death or divorce!" she echoed, after long waiting. "He--he may divorce
me quietly--I hope he will--but--but he won't--he won't die."
"He'll die if you kill him," I declared, grimly. I continued to be grim.
"He may die before long, whether you kill him or not--the chances are
that he will. But living or dead, as I've said already, he'll stand
between you and anything you look for as happiness--after to-night."
She threw herself back, into the depths of her chair and moaned. Luckily
there was no one near enough to observe the act. As we talked in low
tones we could not be heard above the rattle of the train, and I think I
passed as a companion or trained nurse in attendance on a nervous
invalid.
"Oh, what's the use?" she exclaimed at last, in a fit of desperation.
"I've done it. It's too late. Every one will know I've gone away--even
if I get out at Providence."
I am sorry to have to admit that the suggestion of getting out at
Providence startled me. I had been so stupid as not to think of it, even
when I had made the remark that we had not as yet passed that town. All
I had foreseen was the struggle at the end of the journey, when Larry
Strangways and I should have to fight for this woman with the powers of
darkness, as in medieval legends angels and devils fought over a
contested soul.
I took up the idea with an enthusiasm I tried to conceal beneath a smile
of engaging sweetness.
"They may know that you've gone away; but they can also know that you've
gone away with me."
"With you? You're going to Boston."
"I could wait till to-morrow. If you wanted to get off at Providence I
could do it, too."
"But I don't want to. I couldn't let him expect to find me here--and
then discover that I wasn't."
"He would be disappointed at that, of course," I reasoned, "but he
wouldn't take it as the end of all things. If you got off at Providence
there would be nothing irrevocable in that step, whereas there would be
in your going on. You could go away with him later, if you found you
had to do it; but if you continue to-night you can never come back
again. Don't you see? Isn't it worth turning over in your mind a second
time--especially as I'm here to help you? If you're meant to be a
Madeline Pyne or an Anna Karenina, you'll get another opportunity."
"Oh no, I sha'n't," she sobbed. "If I don't go on to-night, he'll never
ask me again."
"He may never ask you again in this way; but isn't it possible that
there may eventually be other ways? Don't make me put that into plainer
words. Just wait. Let life take charge of it." I seized both her hands.
"Darling Mrs. Brokenshire, you don't know yourself. You're too fine to
be ruined; you're too exquisite to be just thrown away. Even the hungry,
passionate love of the man in the smoking-car must see that and know it.
If he comes back here and finds you gone--or imagines that you never
came at all--he'll only honor and love you the more, and go on wanting
you still. Come with me. Let us go. We can't be far from Providence now.
I can take care of you. I know just what we ought to do. I didn't come
here to sit beside you of my own free will; but since I am here doesn't
it seem to you as if--as if I had been sent?"
As she was sobbing too unrestrainedly to say anything in words, I took
the law into my own hands. The porter had already begun dusting the dirt
from the passengers who were to descend at Providence on to those who
were going to Boston. Making my way up to him, I had the inspiration to
say:
"The old lady I'm with isn't quite so well, and we're going to stop here
for the night."
He grinned, with a fine show of big white teeth.
"All right, lady; I'll take care of you. Cranky old bunch, ain't she?
Handle a good many like that between Boston and Ne' Yawk."
Mrs. Brokenshire made no resistance when I fastened the lighter of her
two veils about her head, folding the other and putting it away. Neither
did she resist when I drew her cloak about her and put on my own coat.
But as the train drew into Providence station and she struggled to her
feet in response to my touch on her arm, I was obliged to pull and drag
and push her, till she was finally lifted to the platform.
Before leaving the car, however, I took time to glance at the English
traveling-cap. I noted then what I had noted throughout the journey. Not
once did the head beneath it turn in my direction. Of whatever had
happened since leaving the main station in New York Larry Strangways
could say that he was wholly unaware.