AN EXPLANATION.
Helen Griswold laid down her pen; placed the sheet of paper which she
had just covered with her neat writing in a drawer of her davenport;
ranged her natty desk implements, and then, resting her chin in the
palms of her hands and looking wistfully before her, she fell
a-thinking. Was the sense of her husband's absence growing real and
painful? Had the effort of this unwonted method of communication with
him roused her to a realisation of the great change that had fallen
upon her daily life? Perhaps so. But there was more perplexity than
pain in Helen's face, and Griswold's departure, though painful,
was in no way perplexing. There was something lurking in her mind
to-day--there had been something lurking in her mind yesterday--which
she dreaded to call out and gaze upon in the open light.
After a little she rose restlessly, and with an impatient sigh, and
passed into the adjoining room, where she found her infant just awake,
and was soon absorbed in the pleasant duties and interest of her
nursery. Then came a walk with the child and its nurse, and Helen
reëntered her house, feeling composed and cheerful, and full of good
resolutions for the wise disposition of her time during her husband's
absence; a disposition by which she almost unconsciously provided for
the elimination of the one disturbing depressing element.
She had just reached her room and was laying aside her bonnet when the
servant brought a message from Mr. Warren. That gentleman requested
that he might be admitted to her presence, and said that he had come
upon special business from Mr. Griswold.
'He knows how to make me receive him,' Helen thought bitterly; and her
eyes flashed and her brows contracted. 'He knows I cannot let the maid
take a refusal to such a plea as that.'
'Tell Mr. Warren I will be with him in a few minutes,' she said; and
went on mechanically arranging her dress.
As she was fastening her linen cuffs, she was reminded of the trifling
incident of the finding of the sleeve-link, and it occurred to her
that the ornament in question belonged to Trenton Warren. Surely it
was a carved gem; one of a pair which she had seen him wear,
respectively representing the heads of Hebe and Ganymede. She was glad
to have recollected this circumstance; it would give her something
indifferent, something safe, to talk about. She looked about for the
link; she had taken it out of her pocket the night before, and laid it
down on her dressing-table. It was not there. She called her maid,
and asked her if she had noticed a gentleman's sleeve-link in the
ring-tray. Her maid replied that she had seen it, and supposing it to
belong to Mr. Griswold, she had slipped it into his dressing-bag just
before he closed it. Mrs. Griswold remarked carelessly that it was
rather provoking, that the sleeve-link was not Mr. Griswold's, but
that it could not be helped, and it did not matter.
She lingered, unwilling to go down, and hoping, when at length she
could not defer doing so any longer, that as soon as Mr. Warren should
have informed her of the nature of the business, real or pretended, on
which he had come, some other visitor might arrive and interrupt the
_tête-à-tête_, which was extremely disagreeable to her in prospect and
most ill-timed.
It was impossible longer to loiter, and Mrs. Griswold went
down-stairs, her long dress trailing, her small head rather
disdainfully held up and back, her countenance wearing an expression
which all her customary associates, save one, would have regarded
with surprise. In the presence of that one, whose ear had caught her
first footfall upon the thickly-carpeted stairs, she stood in a few
moments and his glance caught the unfamiliar expression and read it
aright--without, indeed, its inmost meaning, its complications of
origin, but still clearly enough.
Trenton Warren was standing in the same place from whence he had
watched her so closely on the night which had so severely taxed his
self-command and her patience.
He was handsomely dressed in his usual accurate unexaggerated style,
in a light gray morning suit, and he had an air of perfect leisure
about him, simple leisure which was not without its charm.
It was the kind of manner which pleases women who live in a business
atmosphere, among men who are generally either occupied or over-tired;
it said so intelligibly, 'Here I am entirely devoted to your service,
having got everything off my mind but yourself.'
As all the women of his acquaintance knew Trenton Warren to be as busy
a man as his fellows, the compliment was real, and so the manner was
effective. He was decidedly liked by women; perhaps the solitary
exception to that rule was the one woman for whom he wore this manner
most elaborately, most watchfully, most invariably. But Helen Griswold
did not like even the air of leisure which was so captivating to other
women. It had the misfortune to link itself to the one drawback, the
one discomfort, the one injury of her life, and so, woman-like, she
distorted its meaning, she refused its tribute.
He, too, she bitterly thought, had the presumption to regard her as an
ornament, as a being incompetent to fill a serious and sympathetic
place in her husband's life; he, too, held that women should be
excused from business, and so he came to her a totally unreal
creature, a drawing-room lounger, with malice in his quiet smile and
insulting depreciation under his deferential address, and the
acquiescence in her uselessness which encouraged Alston in his one
fault, and made her heart sick with a powerless anger, to which her
unerring woman's instinct, as she called it--the least trustworthy
guide any woman can follow except within a very limited track--assured
her that Trenton Warren was perfectly conscious.
He had never found her in a less conciliatory humour than on the
present occasion. The undefined struggle in her own heart, the signs
that a great change was passing over her, the introspection which had
been so entirely foreign to her mind and habits, the little lingering
bitterness which had mingled with the solemn tenderness of a parting
with Alston, imparted into it by her feeling that she in reality knew
nothing about the purpose and details of the business which was taking
him so far away from her for so long; all this had prepared her to
receive his visit with anything but welcome. And as he looked at her
he knew that, too, and she saw that he knew it.
Helen Griswold was not sufficiently a woman of the world to be
mistress of those fine shades of manners which are such powerful
weapons on the woman's side of social warfare; but she conveyed to
Trenton Warren with quite sufficient accuracy a sense that she
expected him to deliver his message and go, before they had exchanged
two sentences. She did not take her customary seat, but placed herself
on an ordinary chair in an attitude which had a provoking coolness
about it; and she looked over, not at Trenton.
He had seen her husband later than she had; her husband's parting
words had been for him; would she not display some curiosity as to the
final interview--some interest? Not she; not a jot! So he made up his
mind at once that he would not use any _ménagements_ with her, but
show her at once and plainly the position in which 'that enviable ass,
Griswold'--for thus Mr. Trenton Warren called his confiding absent
friend in his thoughts--had placed her.
'You have some business to be communicated to my husband, I believe?'
said poor Helen, with her very best imitation of slightly patronising
unconcern.
'O dear, no,' replied Warren, putting his hand into his breast-pocket
and taking out a letter. 'I have no business to communicate _to_ Mr.
Griswold; my commission is _from_ him.'
`To me?' The colour flushed over her face.
'To you,' he answered with a bow, and then went on without looking at
her, his eyes bent on the letter in his hand. 'You are aware that I
met Mr. Griswold at the steamer. He had some last words to say to
me--last words which gratified me very much, Mrs. Griswold, because
they proved the sincerity and genuineness of his confidence in me; he
intrusted me with--'
'That letter, which I can see from here is addressed to me. Please to
give it to me sir!'
He glanced at her very slightly, smiled also very slightly, and laid
the letter on the table, by her side. She had not made the least
gesture like taking it from his hand.
'I thank you,' she said, but did not take up the letter. 'I thought my
husband had given me his final instructions; but perhaps he had
forgotten something. I am sorry you should have had the trouble of
coming during business hours.' Then with a total change of tone, 'I
think you lost a sleeve-link here the other evening, which I picked
up; but most unfortunately it has--'
'Excuse me, Mrs. Griswold,' said Warren, in a firm tone, 'if in my
turn I interrupt you. I have something to say, and I do not wish to
turn to irrelevant matter's until it has been said. I did not come
here merely to bring you a letter, which I might have sent you by a
messenger; I came here for a more serious purpose, which may or may
not be corroborated by Mr. Griswold's letter--I know nothing of its
contents--to tell you that your husband has intrusted you to my care,
and wished you to refer to me in his absence in any case in which you
might experience difficulty or require advice.'
So far Helen had heard him with varying colour and a beating heart,
half choked with anger and an undefined dread but now she rose, and
laying her hand upon the letter, said, in an unsteady voice, 'Your
communication is an extraordinary one, Mr. Warren. I think--I think
you can hardly expect me to say that it is welcome. I would rather
read my husband's letter before I hear more.'
'You wish me to leave you?' asked Warren, who had risen when she rose,
but made no sign of an intention to go away.
'I do.'
'I cannot obey you, Mrs. Griswold. Let me beg that you will resume
your seat and listen to me. I am an unwelcome visitor, I know, and you
take my communication badly for some reason which I do not understand,
but which I hope to surmount.'
He controlled himself perfectly; his tone was quite deferential, and
not the faintest, most flickering smile passed over his face.
She had slowly reseated herself, and sat holding the letter and
looking at him with a fixed frown.
'Griswold felt this parting, in more than its sentimental aspect, very
seriously--he thought of your position gravely, and of your
inexperience and habitual dependence upon him for guidance. He deputed
me, as his most intimate friend--indeed, the only one who is
thoroughly acquainted with the business which has taken him to
England--to act for him in several affairs here--things with which I
need not trouble you--and to take care of you and baby; I use his own
words. In the first place, I must apprise you that all your letters to
your husband--the charming daily record which you have promised him'
(Helen started and winced with pain. That her husband should have
talked so familiarly of her with any man--with this man of all
men!)--'must reach him through me.'
'Through you? I do not understand what you mean.'
'Then I will make my meaning plainer. Every letter which you write to
your husband must be sent to my office, under cover to me, to be
forwarded from thence. Such are Griswold's explicit directions. Please
to look at this memorandum.'
He laid a leaf, torn from a note-book, before her; it bore these
words:
'_All letters written to me by my wile, or sent to my private address
to be forwarded, are to be sent under cover to Trenton Warren to his
office, when he will dispatch them to me_.'
'ALSTON GRISWOLD.'
'I see,' said Helen, 'that your statement is correct, that Mr.
Griswold has made this extraordinary arrangement, and that, much as I
dislike it I am bound to conform to it. But you, Mr. Warren, _you_ are
bound to explain it. Have the goodness to do so.'
'Ah, ha!' he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders, full of
impertinent depreciation to her angered eyes; 'that, I regret to say,
it is not in my power to do!'
'What, do you pretend that after your last words with my husband,
after undertaking the charge he laid upon you, after bringing me this
letter and this memorandum, you do not know why Mr. Griswold made such
an arrangement?'
'Pardon me, I do not pretend, I do not say, anything of the sort. I am
perfectly well aware of the motive which led to Mr. Griswold's making
the arrangement which is unpleasant to you, but which I am constrained
to commend as a wise and proper one. I merely say that I regret that
it is not in my power to inform you of his reasons.'
'You refuse to tell me; you acknowledge that you are in my husband's
confidence more completely than I am--you tell me so in fact,
commending his unexplained directions to me--and you expect me to
tolerate all this. For what do you take me, Mr. Warren?'
The struggle in Helen's mind and feelings while she spoke these
brave-sounding words was severe. Under the smooth leisurely manner of
Warren there was an ill-disguised consciousness of power which
frightened her, and there was that nameless something that had already
been haunting her. She was not exactly a courageous, but she was a
singularly sincere woman, and there is always more or less bravery in
truthful actions. She made a sudden resolution even while her blood
was cold, as she asked the question of herself: 'Has Alston put
himself in this man's power?' She would quarrel with Warren _à
l'outrance_ then and there. She would put an end to this evil
influence in her life; it should haunt her no longer. She would
justify herself to Alston if he blamed her by confiding in him, as she
had not yet done by telling him, the inmost dread of her heart. If he
treated it as a folly, she would say let it be a folly in his eyes,
_let it be a folly of hers_, which she should look to him to respect.
A full presentiment and an intimation which she truly and fully
believed (there was a dash of superstition about Helen Griswold)--with
which women with more mind than any one who has taken the trouble to
develop, and an unconsciously unsatisfied heart one occasionally
possessed--told her that in an utter breach with this man, a
determined stand against him, lay her only safety. She would make the
utter breach now on the spot; she would take a determined stand.
With the wonderful quickness of thought, all this passed through her
mind, and her resolution was taken before Trenton Warren answered her
angry question, which he did with considerable deliberation. He too,
had been making a resolution; he, too recognised this interview as a
crisis in his relations with this woman--this woman so beautiful in
his sight, so captivating, so far removed--unless, indeed, his skill
and daring, his 'good play,' as he called it ii his inmost thoughts,
chanced to bring her near. The events of that morning had curtailed.
the space between them in an unexpected, unlooked-for manner. And he
entirely misinterpreted the irrepressible symptoms of emotion in
Helen's manner. He saw hat, with all her braving out of the position
she was afraid of him; and, as he judged her only from the shallow
depths of his own consciousness, as one who did not love her husband
with passion, and therefore did not love him at all, it never occurred
to him that she feared him for her husband's sake--he sought and found
a meaner motive for her fear. Why should she fear him? Why should she
shrink from the notion of his influence with the husband she assuredly
did not love, if she were unconscious that he had not an influence
over herself which she dreaded? Fear comes not of indifference, nor is
one with disdain! The hope which he had secretly cherished in his
treacherous breast in a smouldering state for months past sprang up
into a flame under the influence of Helen's misinterpreted anger. The
mental process in his case was as swift as in hers, and it was after
only a brief pause between question and answer that he replied to her.
'I refuse to tell you, Mrs. Griswold. It is impossible that I should
violate your husband's injunctions on this point, and I hasten to
reply to your other question. I do expect you to tolerate my conduct,
because you _must_ recognise that honour dictates it, though you may
not understand what it costs me; and I take you for the best of wives
and the most fascinating of women.'
He approached her as he spoke with his hand held out, and a smile upon
his face which drove the last faint scruples of prudence far from the
exasperated woman whom he had so thoroughly roused; but Helen rolled
her chair some feet back upon the castors, and, with a slight wave of
her hand, rejected his. Very beautiful she looked--more beautiful than
he had ever seen her--her great eyes ablaze, so that they shone like
jewels, as she said:
'And _I_ take _you_ for the falsest of men. You have always been my
enemy, and I have always known it--known it so long and so well, felt
it so constantly, that it is a relief to me to tell you so. Keep this
secret from me! Do you think Alston will keep it, when I ask him to
explain it to me? No; you know he will not, though you would have made
me despise and distrust him, if you could. Yes, you would, and you
tried, tried hard, for some purpose of your own--I do not know and I
do not care for what purpose--to divide us utterly. You succeeded in
part--thank God, only in part did you succeed! Alston would have made
me his friend and confidant only for you. But you made him
contemptuous of my intelligence; you persuaded him that women are
unsafe in matters of business; you divided me from one-half my
husband's life, and made it a mystery to me. But for you I should have
been his companion in everything. I tell you, Mr. Warren, I distrusted
you from the first. I saw you had an influence which you were using
ill, I--'
'You did me the honour and yourself the injury of being jealous of me,
Mrs. Griswold. It is a mistake which young wives are apt to make with
respect to their husbands' friends, and one which frequently costs
them a good deal.'
'I was not jealous of you,' she said indignantly. 'I could not
entertain so base a feeling. Why should not Alston have friends, as
many and as close as he pleased? But you were his enemy--not his
friend; because you were my enemy; because you would have degraded me
if you could--yes, degraded me, I repeat--by making my husband treat
me as a toy or an indulged pet, not as an equal associate.'
'You are simply doing him a monstrous injustice,' said Warren, with a
sudden abatement of sarcasm in his tone and manner, and a not
unsuccessful assumption of hurt-feeling, of deferential
explanatoriness; 'you are imputing that which is in the nature of the
man to an external influence. Griswold is a very good fellow, and my
best friend; but his notions of women, all his theories about them,
differ from mine widely. He believes in the intellectual inferiority
of women as he believes in their physical beauty, and likes it as
much. Long before he married you, he told me a clever woman was, to
his mind, an anomaly, and a clever wife a nuisance; that he did not
believe any woman in the world could understand business or hold her
tongue; and he meant to conduct his domestic relations, if he ever
found any, on Hotspur's theory, and, while giving his wife all due
credit for discretion, making sure that she "would not tell that which
she did not know." This root of bitterness was none of my planting,
nor have I watered it. You have spoken with harsh frankness to me,
Mrs. Griswold; let me speak with frankness that shall not be harsh to
you. I have contemplated your domestic life with pain--'
'Indeed, and why? It is an unenviable one.'
'So you believe, because you have little experience and an unawakened
heart. If you only knew what home might be, and love, the love of a
man to whom you would be more than the fairest of women, the dearest
of friends, the most trusted of counsellors, the sharer of every
feeling, the companion of every thought! Would not that be the ideal
of earthly happiness?'
His voice had become low, tender, and persuasive, and his words had a
strange influence on Helen. She seemed to forget _him_, to be
conscious of them only, to have been sent by them into a dream.
'Happiness more than earthly,' she said, as if to herself, hardly
knowing that she spoke.
'Such happiness might have been yours. Be honest, be patient, be true
with yourself and with me, and you must acknowledge that it could
never have come with your marriage with Griswold. He is the best of
fellows, but it is not in him to appreciate you. You are a woman for a
man to love with his whole mind and with all the strength of his
pride. If fate had made you _my_ wife you would have been so loved.'
He moved a step nearer to her, and stepped before her, looking at her
with eyes whose gaze she dared not meet.
'You may as well hear me out,' he went on, with a tremor in his voice;
'since your ill-placed suspicions have forced me to clear myself from
the charge which you have brought against me, it is fair that you
should listen to me. When you believed that I was estranging Griswold
from you, undervaluing you to him, I was tortured with envy of his
lot, and silent about you because I dared not speak to my friend of
his wife lest he should--slow as his mind is, except when business is
concerned--suspect that I loved her.'
'You are a wicked man,' cried Helen, rising from her chair and
speaking almost inarticulately in a passion of rage, shame, and fear.
The undefined thing which had been haunting her, the shadow with which
she had refused to parley, the shapeless dread which had troubled the
last hours of her husband's presence in his home, the phantom that had
stolen to her side when she was recording the blameless thoughts of
her innocent heart, had assumed form, consistency, and spoke to her
with a human voice and undissembled speech. This, then, was what it
had all meant, and the thing which she had feared had come upon her in
a shape worse than her fears. It was this man's prejudice, continued
dislike, that she had fancied were in the atmosphere of her home,
tainting it, and filtering drops of poison into her cup of life; but
now she found it was his love, his deadly, hateful, treacherous,
dastardly love. Good God! How she loathed and feared him, for her
husband had gone away and left her in this man's power. Without his
aid she could not even communicate with him, and he--and he, he was
free to write whatsoever he pleased to Alston. It said much for
Helen's courage and principle that she never dreamt, in the moment
when all this was fresh and clear and terrible before her, of any
compromise. She would keep this man at defiance, she would brave him.
'You are a wicked man,' she said, 'a traitor to your friend, and a
coward to me; you take a dastardly advantage of my unprotected
position, and the blind confidence which my husband places in you, and
you insult me in my solitude. Leave my house, sir, and send me at once
my husband's address in England. I refuse to transmit my letters
through you. I repudiate all acquaintance with you henceforth from
this hour; and if you attempt to presume upon the mistake Alston has
made, I shall inform him word for word of what has occurred today. Let
me pass, sir, or I will ring for my servants!'
Warren bad interrupted her on her way to the door, and was standing
before it, his hand behind his back pressed upon the upper panel.
'She did not say she would tell him _whether or no_,' was his rapid
reflection, and there was a gush of guilty hope in the thought, for
this man believed women to be virtuous only in the degree in which
also they were fools, and he held Helen to be no fool.
'I entreat you to pause,' he said gently, 'before you make a scandal
in the house. I am resolved to speak to you, and nothing short of your
making such a scandal can deter me. I have offended you by telling you
the truth, only a little more deeply than you were previously
offended. I am very unfortunate, but I have justified myself, and I
repeat it; I love you--I love you as I have never even persuaded
myself that I loved any other woman! I ask nothing--I seek nothing
from you but the toleration of a sentiment which does you no
dishonour, which is stronger than my will, for your husband's sake and
your own.'
'And I tell you,' she cried, wild and reckless with anger, 'that I
will not tolerate it, either for my husband's sake or my own, for it
_does_ me dishonour. It may be, as you say, that mine is an unawakened
heart, but my conscience is unused to slumber' (in after days she
remembered this fatal admission, and raged blindly and in vain against
the impulse which had induced her to make it), 'and now I am not going
to make any scandal, I am not going to endeavour to pass that door
until you think fit to stand aside and no longer use virtual violence
to me in my own house. See, I resume my seat; I shall retain it until
you rid me of your presence; and I tell you quite plainly my
determination. I demand of you my husband's address in England, and if
you refuse to give it, I think it fair to warn you that I shall follow
him to London by the next steamer; and once there, I shall have no
difficulty in finding him.'
At the words 'I shall follow him,' Trenton Warren had started and left
the door. He now turned abruptly to one of the windows, and stood
there looking out, his face set and pale, for a full minute after she
had concluded her slowly-delivered sentence.
When he turned to speak to her, she marked the whiteness of his face,
and believed her threat had frightened him.
'I _cannot_ give you your husband's address,' he said. 'I can write to
him, and telling him that you are dissatisfied--as doubtless your own
letters will convey--advise him to intrust you with the truth
concerning his business in London in every respect. But no matter what
you threaten, or what you do, I cannot, I will not, depart from his
wishes in this matter.'
He slowly approached her, but did not pass round the table which stood
between them; then suddenly seated himself, and studiously averting
his eyes from her--indeed, Helen Griswold never caught his glance
again during the remainder of the interview--he went on speaking in a
dogged tone.
'I have made a blunder, Mrs. Griswold, and made a fool of myself! I
cannot unsay what I have said, for it is true; the explanation of all
the past which has offended you is the offence of the present. I have
loved you, but I may cease to love you by an effort. A man does not go
on loving with any kind of love very long if he is quite without hope;
_and I am quite without hope_.'
The emphasis on these words would have conveyed a warning to the ear
of a practised woman of the world; to Helen they conveyed merely an
assurance, a relief, a mitigation of insult.
'Suppose,' he continued, 'we discuss the matter reasonably, not so
much in your interest or in mine, as in that of Griswold, your husband
and my friend?'
'Your friend?'
'Yes, my friend. Women like you insist upon pushing everything to its
extreme verge; because I am not the soul of honour, I must be a mere
villain; because I love you, I must, in every other sense and way, be
false to my friendship with your husband--a weak notion, a shallow
judgment! Accept my assurance that you are mistaken, and let me go on.
A total breach between us will only make Alston suspicious and
unhappy, and, perhaps, morose. He is the sort of man to suspect that a
cool man like me does not make love to a married woman without
something like encouragement; another case of a weak notion and a
shallow judgment. But I will relieve you of my presence. I will
abandon the charge laid upon me by Griswold, which you so much resent,
and he may never know it, until time shall have changed everything,
enabled me to meet you with indifference, which has hitherto been
impossible, and you to conquer your repugnance.'
In the evenness of his speech there was something artificial, which
might have warned her had the temptation to snatch at the relief in
his words been one whit less strong. But she heard no warning, only a
blessed promise; only an indication that the cloud which had fallen
upon her might be made to pass away, and leave a better and surer
brightness than ever behind it.
'I will forgive, I will forget everything,' she said eagerly, and with
a bright and beautiful blush, 'if you will go away and leave me; if
you will never attempt to see me during Alston's absence. If I may be
quite sure of that, and calculate upon it, I will never mention
anything to him. It would be an awful pain to me to do so; it is an
immense relief that you do not force me to tell it. I will send my
letters through you; I will ask you no question, if you will promise
me, when you pass that door to-day, I shall see you no more until
Alston has returned!'
'And I have come to my senses. The terms are hard, but I accept them.
Only you forget, Mrs. Griswold, that you are exacting a very difficult
thing from me; the relinquishment of my business, the placing it in
the hands of other people, for at least the same term as that of
Griswold's absence.'
'Why, would you leave New York?'
'How could I remain in New York and never come here, break through all
my former habits, and neglect every recognition of Griswold, without
being suspected of a motive; and from the suspicion of a motive to the
discovery of its nature the interval is very, very short. No, I must
leave New York, where lots of men know how I stand with Griswold, and
have been seriously supposed to stand with you. I will do so; but in
your turn you must promise me, in addition to your forgiveness,
absolute silence towards Griswold.'
'Of course,' said Helen impatiently. 'I only care that he may never
have the pain of knowing.'
'You mistake me again. I do not allude to that, but to my absence from
New York. Men are too busy, and we signify too little to one another,
for any risk to arise, or any one comparing notes with Griswold, when
he comes back, about how long I have been away. But he must not be
allowed to think that, for the sake of a mere pleasure trip--I should
go to the Western States--I abandoned the charge he laid upon me, and
broke the promise I made him at the last moment.'
'You are scrupulous enough in small matters,' thought Helen; but she
only assented aloud again, impatiently.
'Then I have your promise, Mrs. Griswold, your positive assurance,
that your letters to your husband shall contain no intimation whatever
of my absence from New York?'
'They shall contain no mention of you whatever.'
'Pardon me, that will not do. Your correspondence with your husband is
to be in journal form--you are right, it was not very delicate in him
to tell any one anything of the kind--'
'I did not speak, sir.'
'True, there was no need of speech; but that journal, if it contains
no mention of me, will be very unlike what Griswold expects.'
'I cannot help that. I can suppress all mention of you, but I cannot
write letters about you, if that is the meaning you are aiming at. But
you need not hesitate for that consideration. I shall merely have to
remind my husband that we never agreed about you, and to say that I
avoided on purpose the disagreeable subject.'
A momentary gleam of fury shot across Warren's face; but he suppressed
it, and made her a slightly artificial bow.
'This is agreed to, then,' he said; 'and so this interview, which had
so stormy a beginning, ends peaceably. I am utterly beaten, Mrs.
Griswold, acknowledging my defeat, and accepting the penalty. You will
see me no more during Griswold's absence, and when we next meet the
old things will have passed away.'
He bowed deeply and slowly, and walked out of the room with a quiet
deliberate step; but there was something in his air, in his attitude,
in his smile, as little like a beaten man as could be. When he had
left the house--she waited, listening for the closing of the
street-door--Helen Griswold lay back in her chair, and wept such bitter
tears of anger, humiliation, and loneliness as her eyes had never
before shed.
This terrible interview had terminated much better than she could have
hoped. She had got rid of Warren, who would be powerless for the
future to harm her, and she had avoided the necessity for wounding her
husband. When he returned, she not only hoped that foreign travel and
new acquaintances would have weaned him from his infatuation for
Warren, but supplied him with a sounder standard whereby to measure
his claim to regard. But where was the triumph which she ought to have
felt at such a solution of the difficulty which had beset and harassed
her whole married life? No signs of triumph came to the overwrought
feelings and tired nerves; on the contrary, a strange kind of terror,
depression, and misery settled down upon her, the more irresistible as
she endeavoured to disentangle and sort the incidents of the interview
which had just taken place. Her woman's instinct really aroused, and
not wrong for once, told her the victory had been too easily won.
* * * * * *
'So there is an end of my journal,' wrote Helen the same night, when
she was the only person awake under the roof. 'All my pretty and
pleasant plans of setting down the inmost feelings of my heart, of
recording them and every incident of the growth of my mind for
Alston's eyes to see, are quite at an end. There is a secret in my
life now which he must never know, and a dread within my breast which
I cannot say to him that he might soothe it. How wretched they make
me! how I detest them! Good heavens, how miserable one may be with
everything beside one's-self to make one happy! I read over and over
again the few pages I wrote this morning, and I ask myself, Can it be
that I wrote them, and that since then I have learned so much of life,
seen so much of human nature? That such treachery should exist as
Trenton Warren's; that such credulity should exist as Alston's; that
such blindness could be as mine! Thank God he has really promised to
go away. I shall hardly breathe until he has gone, and I shall never
stir beyond the door. He said he would go at once. How _am_ I to write
to Alston? The journal plan I must abandon; I feel that would now be
impossible. I must only just do one common every-day letter. Alston
will not like it--he will reckon it as only one of my compromises. No
matter; it is a convenient excuse for faults far worse even than I
have ever committed.'