When David had been in New York about three weeks, he happened one day to
pass the house where Kate Leavenworth was living.
Kate was standing listlessly by the window looking into the street. She
was cross and felt a great depression settling over her. The flirtation
with Harry Temple had begun to pall upon her. She wanted new worlds to
conquer. She was restless and feverish. There was not excitement enough in
the life she was living. She would like to meet more people, senators and
statesmen—and to have plenty of money to dress as became her beauty, and
be admired publicly. She half wished for the return of her husband, and
meditated making up with him for the sake of going to Washington to have a
good time in society there. What was the use of running away with a naval
officer if one could not have the benefit of it? She had been a fool. Here
she was almost to the last penny, and so many things she wanted. No word
had come from her husband since he sent her the money at sailing. She felt
a bitter resentment toward him for urging her to marry him. If she had
only gone on and married David she would be living a life of ease
now—plenty of money—nothing to do but what she pleased and no anxiety
whatever, for David would have done just what she wanted.
Then suddenly she looked up and David passed before her!
He was walking with a tall splendid-looking man, with whom he was engaged
in most earnest conversation, and his look was grave and deeply absorbed.
He did not know of Kate’s presence in New York, and passed the house in
utter unconsciousness of the eyes watching him.
Kate’s lips grew white, and her limbs seemed suddenly weak, but she
strained her face against the window to watch the retreating figure of the
man who had almost been her husband. How well she knew the familiar
outline. How fine and handsome he appeared now! Why had she not thought so
before? Were her eyes blind, or had she been under some strange
enchantment? Why had she not known that her happiness lay in the way that
had been marked out for her? Well, at least she knew it now.
She sat all day by that window and watched. She professed to have no
appetite when pressed to come to the table, though she permitted herself
to languidly consume the bountiful tray of good things that was brought
her, but her eyes were on the street. She was watching to see if David
would pass that way again. But though she watched until the sun went down
and dusk sifted through the streets, she saw no sign nor heard the sound
of his footsteps. Then she hastened up to her room, which faced upon the
street also, and there, wrapped in blankets she sat in the cold frosty
air, waiting and listening. And while she watched she was thinking bitter
feverish thoughts. She heard Harry Temple knock and knew that he was told
that she was not feeling well and had retired early. She watched him pause
on the stoop thoughtfully as if considering what to do with the time thus
unexpectedly thrown upon his hands, then saw him saunter up the street
unconcernedly, and she wondered idly where he would go, and what he would
do.
It grew late, even for New York. One by one the lights in the houses along
the street went out, and all was quiet. She drew back from the window at
last, weary with excitement and thinking, and lay down on the bed, but she
could not sleep. The window was open and her ears were on the alert, and
by and by there came the distant echo of feet ringing on the pavement.
Some one was coming. She sprang up. She felt sure he was coming. Yes,
there were two men. They were coming back together. She could hear their
voices. She fancied she heard David’s long before it was possible to
distinguish any words. She leaned far out of her upper window till she
could discern dim forms under the starlight, and then just as they were
under the window she distinctly heard David say:
“There is no doubt but we shall win. The right is on our side, and it is
the march of progress. Some of the best men in Congress are with us, and
now that we are to have your influence I do not feel afraid of the issue.”
They had passed by rapidly, like men who had been on a long day’s jaunt of
some kind and were hastening home to rest. There was little in the
sentence that Kate could understand. She had no more idea whether the
subject of their discourse was railroads or the last hay crop. The
sentence meant to her but one thing. It showed that David companioned with
the great men of the land, and his position would have given her a
standing that would have been above the one she now occupied. Tears of
defeat ran down her cheeks. She had made a bad mistake and she saw no way
to rectify it. If her husband should die,—and it might be, for the sea was
often treacherous—of course there were all sorts of possibilities,—but
even then there was Marcia! She set her sharp little teeth into her red
lips till the blood came. She could not get over her anger at Marcia. It
would not have been so bad if David had remained her lone lorn lover,
ready to fly to her if others failed. Her self-love was wounded sorely,
and she, poor silly soul, mistook it for love of David. She began to fancy
that after all she had loved him, and that Fate had somehow played her a
mad trick and tied her to a husband she had not wanted.
Then out of the watchings of the day and the fancies of the night, there
grew a thought—and the thought widened into a plan. She thought of her
intimacy with Harry and her new found power. Might she perhaps exercise it
over others as well as Harry Temple? Might she possibly lead back this man
who had once been her lover, to bow at her feet again and worship her? If
that might be she could bear all the rest. She began to long with intense
craving to see David grovel at her feet, to hear him plead for a kiss from
her, and tell her once more how beautiful she was, and how she fulfilled
all his soul’s ideals. She sat by the open window yet with the icy air of
the night blowing upon her, but her cheeks burned red in the darkness, and
her eyes glowed like coals of fire from the tawny framing of her fallen
hair. The blankets slipped away from her throat and still she heeded not
the cold, but sat with hot clenched hands planning with the devil’s own
strategy her shameless scheme.
By and by she lighted a candle and drew her writing materials toward her
to write, but it was long she sat and thought before she finally wrote the
hastily scrawled note, signed and sealed it, and blowing out her candle
lay down to sleep.
The letter was addressed to David, and it ran thus:
“DEAR DAVID:”
“I have just heard that you are in New York. I am in great
distress and do not know where to turn for help. For the sake of
what we have been to each other in the past will you come to me?
“Hastily, your loving KATE.”
She did not know where David was but she felt reasonably sure she could
find out his address in the morning. There was a small boy living next
door who was capable of ferreting out almost anything for money. Kate had
employed him more than once as an amateur detective in cases of minor
importance. So, with a bit of silver and her letter she made her way to
his familiar haunts and explained most carefully that the letter was to be
delivered to no one but the man to whom it was addressed, naming several
stopping places where he might be likely to be found, and hinting that
there was more silver to be forthcoming when he should bring her an answer
to the note. With a minute description of David the keen-eyed urchin set
out, while Kate betook herself to her room to dress for David’s coming.
She felt sure he would be found, and confident that he would come at once.
The icy wind of the night before blowing on her exposed throat and chest
had given her a severe cold, but she paid no heed to that. Her eyes and
cheeks were shining with fever. She knew she was entering upon a dangerous
and unholy way. The excitement of it stimulated her. She felt she did not
care for anything, right or wrong, sin or sorrow, only to win. She wanted
to see David at her feet again. It was the only thing that would satisfy
this insatiable longing in her, this wounded pride of self.
When she was dressed she stood before the mirror and surveyed herself. She
knew she was beautiful, and she defied the glass to tell her anything
else. She raised her chin in haughty challenge to the unseen David to
resist her charms. She would bring him low before her. She would make him
forget Marcia, and his home and his staid Puritan notions, and all else he
held dear but herself. He should bend and kiss her hand as Harry had done,
only more warmly, for instinctively she felt that his had been the purer
life and therefore his surrender would mean more. He should do whatever
she chose. And her eyes glowed with an unhallowed light.
She had chosen to array herself regally, in velvet, but in black, without
a touch of color or of white. From her rich frock her slender throat rose
daintily, like a stem upon which nodded the tempting flower of her face.
No enameled complexion could have been more striking in its vivid reds and
whites, and her mass of gold hair made her seem more lovely than she
really was, for in her face was love of self, alluring, but heartless and
cruel.
The boy found David, as Kate had thought he would, in one of the quieter
hostelries where men of letters were wont to stop when in New York, and
David read the letter and came at once. She had known that he would do
that, too. His heart beat wildly, to the exclusion of all other thoughts
save that she was in trouble, his love, his dear one. He forgot Marcia,
and the young naval officer, and everything but her trouble, and before he
had reached her house the sorrow had grown in his imagination into some
great danger to protect her from which he was hastening.
She received him alone in the room where Harry Temple had first called,
and a moment later Harry himself came to knock and enquire for the health
of Mistress Leavenworth, and was told she was very much engaged at present
with a gentleman and could not see any one, whereupon Harry scowled, and
set himself at a suitable distance from the house to watch who should come
out.
David’s face was white as death as he entered, his eyes shining like dark
jewels blazing at her as if he would absorb the vision for the lonely
future. She stood and posed,—not by any means the picture of broken sorrow
he had expected to find from her note,—and let the sense of her beauty
reach him. There she stood with the look on her face he had pictured to
himself many a time when he had thought of her as his wife. It was a look
of love unutterable, bewildering, alluring, compelling. It was so he had
thought she would meet him when he came home to her from his daily
business cares. And now she was there, looking that way, and he stood
here, so near her, and yet a great gulf fixed! It was heaven and hell met
together, and he had no power to change either.
He did not come over to her and bow low to kiss the white hand as Harry
had done,—as she had thought she could compel him to do. He only stood and
looked at her with the pain of an anguish beyond her comprehension, until
the look would have burned through to her heart—if she had had a heart.
“You are in trouble,” he spoke hoarsely, as if murmuring an excuse for
having come.
She melted at once into the loveliest sorrow, her mobile features taking
on a wan cast only enlivened by the glow of her cheeks.
“Sit down,” she said, “you were so good to come to me, and so soon—” and
her voice was like lily-bells in a quiet church-yard among the
head-stones. She placed him a chair.
“Yes, I am in trouble. But that is a slight thing compared to my
unhappiness. I think I am the most miserable creature that breathes upon
this earth.”
And with that she dropped into a low chair and hid her glowing face in a
dainty, lace bordered kerchief that suppressed a well-timed sob.
Kate had wisely calculated how she could reach David’s heart. If she had
looked up then and seen his white, drawn look, and the tense grasp of his
hands that only the greatest self-control kept quiet on his knee, perhaps
even her mercilessness would have been softened. But she did not look, and
she felt her part was well taken. She sobbed quietly, and waited, and his
hoarse voice asked once more, as gently as a woman’s through his pain:
“Will you tell me what it is and how I can help you?” He longed to take
her in his arms like a little child and comfort her, but he might not. She
was another’s. And perhaps that other had been cruel to her! His clenched
fists showed how terrible was the thought. But still the bowed figure in
its piteous black sobbed and did not reply anything except, “Oh, I am so
unhappy! I cannot bear it any longer.”
“Is—your—your—husband unkind to you?” The words tore themselves from his
tense lips as though they were beyond his control.
“Oh, no,—not exactly unkind—that is—he was not very nice before he went
away,” wailed out a sad voice from behind the linen cambric and lace, “and
he went away without a kind word, and left me hardly any money—and he
hasn’t sent me any word since—and fa-father won’t have anything to do with
me any more—but—but—it’s not that I mind, David. I don’t think about those
things at all. I’m so unhappy about you. I feel you do not forgive me, and
I cannot stand it any longer. I have made a fearful mistake, and you are
angry with me—I think about it at night”—the voice was growing lower now,
and the sentences broken by sobs that told better than words what distress
the sufferer would convey.
“I have been so wicked—and you were so good and kind—and now you will
never forgive me—I think it will kill me to keep on thinking about it—”
her voice trailed off in tears again.
David white with anguish sprang to his feet.
“Oh, Kate,” he cried, “my darling! Don’t talk that way. You know I forgive
you. Look up and tell me you know I forgive you.”
Almost she smiled her triumph beneath her sobs in the little lace border,
but she looked up with real tears on her face. Even her tears obeyed her
will. She was a good actress, also she knew her power over David.
“Oh, David,” she cried, standing up and clasping her hands beseechingly,
“can it be true? Do you really forgive me? Tell me again.”
She came and stood temptingly near to the stern, suffering man wild with
the tumult that raged within him. Her golden head was near his shoulder
where it had rested more than once in time gone by. He looked down at her
from his suffering height his arms folded tightly and said, as though
taking oath before a court of justice:
“I do.”
She looked up with her pleading blue eyes, like two jewels of light now,
questioning whether she might yet go one step further. Her breath came
quick and soft, he fancied it touched his cheek, though she was not tall
enough for that. She lifted her tear-wet face like a flower after a storm,
and pleaded with her eyes once more, saying in a whisper very soft and
sweet:
“If you really forgive me, then kiss me, just once, so I may remember it
always.”
It was more than he could bear. He caught her to himself and pressed his
lips upon hers in one frenzied kiss of torture. It was as if wrung from
him against his will. Then suddenly it came upon him what he had done, as
he held her in his arms, and he put her from him gently, as a mother might
put away the precious child she was sacrificing tenderly, agonizingly, but
finally. He put her from him thus and stood a moment looking at her, while
she almost sparkled her pleasure at him through the tears. She felt that
she had won.
But gradually the silence grew ominous. She perceived he was not smiling.
His mien was like one who looks into an open grave, and gazes for the last
time at all that remains of one who is dear. He did not seem like one who
had yielded a moral point and was ready now to serve her as she would. She
grew uneasy under his gaze. She moved forward and put out her hands
inviting, yielding, as only such a woman could do, and the spell which
bound him seemed to be broken. He fumbled for a moment in his waistcoat
pocket and brought out a large roll of bills which he laid upon the table,
and taking up his hat turned toward the door. A cold wave of weakness
seemed to pass over her, stung here and there by mortal pride that was in
fear of being wounded beyond recovery.
“Where are you going?” she asked weakly, and her voice sounded to her from
miles away, and strange.
He turned and looked at her again and she knew the look meant farewell. He
did not speak. Her whole being rose for one more mighty effort.
“You are not going to leave me—now?” There was angelic sweetness in the
voice, pleading, reproachful, piteous.
“I must!” he said, and his voice sounded harsh. “I have just done that for
which, were I your husband, I would feel like killing any other man. I
must protect you against yourself,—against myself. You must be kept pure
before God if it kills us both. I would gladly die if that could help you,
but I am not even free to do that, for I belong to another.”
Then he turned and was gone.
Kate’s hands fell to her sides, and seemed stiff and lifeless. The bright
color faded from her cheeks, and a cold frenzy of horror took possession
of her. “Pure before God!” She shuddered at the name, and crimson shame
rolled over forehead and cheek. She sank in a little heap on the floor
with her face buried in the chair beside which she had been standing, and
the waters of humiliation rolled wave on wave above her. She had failed,
and for one brief moment she was seeing her own sinful heart as it was.
But the devil was there also. He whispered to her now the last sentence
that David had spoken: “I belong to another!”
Up to that moment Marcia had been a very negative factor in the affair to
Kate’s mind. She had been annoyed and angry at her as one whose ignorance
and impertinence had brought her into an affair where she did not belong,
but now she suddenly faced the fact that Marcia must be reckoned with.
Marcia the child, who had for years been her slave and done her bidding,
had arisen in her way, and she hated her with a sudden vindictive hate
that would have killed without flinching if the opportunity had presented
at that moment. Kate had no idea how utterly uncontrolled was her whole
nature. She was at the mercy of any passing passion. Hate and revenge took
possession of her now. With flashing eyes she rose to her feet, brushing
her tumbled hair back and wiping away angry tears. She was too much
agitated to notice that some one had knocked at the front door and been
admitted, and when Harry Temple walked into the room he found her standing
so with hands clenched together, and tears flowing down her cheeks
unchecked.
Now a woman in tears, when the tears were not caused by his own actions,
was Harry’s opportunity. He had ways of comforting which were as
unscrupulous as they generally proved effective, and so with affectionate
tenderness he took Kate’s hand and held it impressively, calling her
“dear.” He spoke soothing words, smoothed her hair, and kissed her flushed
cheeks and eyes. It was all very pleasant to Kate’s hurt pride. She let
Harry comfort her, and pet her a while, and at last he said:
“Now tell me all about it, dear. I saw Lord Spafford trail dejectedly away
from here looking like death, and I come here and find my lady in a fine
fury. What has happened? If I mistake not the insufferable cad has got
badly hurt, but it seems to have ruffled the lady also.”
This helped. It was something to feel that David was suffering. She wanted
him to suffer. He had brought shame and humiliation upon her. She never
realized that the thing that shamed her was that he thought her better
than she was.
“He is offensively good. I _hate_ him!” she remarked as a kitten might who
had got hurt at playing with a mouse in a trap.
The man’s face grew bland with satisfaction.
“Not so good, my lady, but that he has been making love to you, if I
mistake not, and he with a wife at home.” The words were said quietly, but
there was more of a question in them than the tone conveyed. The man
wished to have evidence against his enemy.
Kate colored uneasily and drooped her lashes.
Harry studied her face keenly, and then went on cautiously:
“If his wife were not your sister I should say that one might punish him
well through her.”
Kate cast him a hard, scrutinizing look.
“You have some score against him yourself,” she said with conviction.
“Perhaps I have, my lady. Perhaps I too hate him. He is offensively good,
you know.”
There was silence in the room for a full minute while the devil worked in
both hearts.
“What did you mean by saying one might punish him through his wife? He
does not love his wife.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Perhaps he loves some one else, my lady.”
“He does.” She said it proudly.
“Perhaps he loves you, my lady.” He said it softly like the suggestion
from another world. The lady was silent, but he needed no other answer.
“Then indeed, the way would be even clearer,—were not his wife your
sister.”
Kate looked at him, a half knowledge of his meaning beginning to dawn in
her eyes.
“How?” she asked laconically.
“In case his wife should leave him do you think my lord would hold his
head so high?”
Kate still looked puzzled.
“If some one else should win her affection, and should persuade her to
leave a husband who did not love her, and who was bestowing his heart”—he
hesitated an instant and his eye traveled significantly to the roll of
bills still lying where David had left them—“and his gifts,” he hazarded,
“upon another woman——”
Kate grasped the thought at once and an evil glint of eagerness showed in
her eyes. She could see what an advantage it would be to herself to have
Marcia removed from the situation. It would break one more cord of honor
that bound David to a code which was hateful to her now, because its
existence shamed her. Nevertheless, unscrupulous as she was she could not
see how this was a possibility.
“But she is offensively good too,” she said as if answering her own
thoughts.
“All goodness has its weak spot,” sneered the man. “If I mistake not you
have found my lord’s. It is possible I might find his wife’s.”
The two pairs of eyes met then, filled with evil light. It was as if for
an instant they were permitted to look into the pit, and see the
possibilities of wickedness, and exult in it. The lurid glare of their
thoughts played in their faces. All the passion of hate and revenge rushed
upon Kate in a frenzy. With all her heart she wished this might be. She
looked her co-operation in the plan even before her hard voice answered:
“You need not stop because she is my sister.”
He felt he had her permission, and he permitted himself a glance of
admiration for the depths to which she could go without being daunted.
Here was evil courage worthy of his teaching. She seemed to him beautiful
enough and daring enough for Satan himself to admire.
“And may I have the pleasure of knowing that I would by so doing serve my
lady in some wise?”
She drooped her shameless eyes and murmured guardedly, “Perhaps.” Then she
swept him a coquettish glance that meant they understood one another.
“Then I shall feel well rewarded,” he said gallantly, and bowing with more
than his ordinary flattery of look bade her good day and went out.