The older Kate, looking from her eyrie at that other self of hers as at
some stranger she had once known and pitied, saw a girl who wore her
secret in her face, careless of who might read. Indeed she rather hoped
the world would read; she had no shame of loving.
The negroes, sensitive as devoted dogs to the mood of their mistress,
vied with each other in serving her, and whispered uneasily behind her
back. Several times the mulatto nurse, Mahaly, more often with her than
the others, seemed about to speak to her of something, but lost courage.
Kate did not notice. She noticed very little that went on around her in
those days. Sometimes, indeed, she caught the hard, shallow gaze of her
husband fixed upon her, curiously. But if he drew his own conclusions
from her pallor, her starry eyes, her long fits of brooding, he at least
did not trouble her with questions. Which perhaps was just as well. She
would have answered them.
For a while she went about in a sort of daze, living over again what had
passed in the ravine, wondering what she and Jacques would say to each
other when he came to her. Then she began to wonder why he did not come
to her. A week passed--two weeks. She grew troubled, frightened; for the
first time a little ashamed. What if it were not love with him? The girl
had learned in a hard school the difference between love and the thing
that is called love.
She spent hours out under the juniper tree, listening for the
pit-a-patter of a racking horse. She heard it often, but it did not
stop. The baby playing near heard it, too; and when it passed she
murmured with a tragic droop of the little mouth: "Aw--gone--by-by,
Muddy! Aw--gone--by-by!"
Presently Kate lost all sense of shame; ordered out a saddle-horse in
defiance of doctor's advice, and took to haunting the crossroads and the
village on the chance of meeting him alone. This never happened. Fate,
rather late in the day, seemed to have taken her good name into its
keeping. They met, of course, but under the furtive, curious gaze of
others. Usually, too, Jacques had his boy beside him. It was as if he
were afraid to go alone.
So Kate had nothing to feed her heart upon but an occasional grave "Good
morning," or a meeting of eyes that were instantly wrenched apart. It
was enough for her, however. This was no mere emotion she had stirred.
The man's face was worn as by a long illness. The least touch of his
eyes was a caress.
She grew to pity him more than herself. "Poor Jacques!" she thought
tenderly. "Poor, miserable, foolish Jacques!--" and longed to comfort,
to reassure him. She felt in herself the strength for two.
At last she wrote to him:
When are you coming, Jacques? I miss you so! Do not be afraid.
Friends need be none the less friends because they love each other.
Don't you trust me?
It was her custom to send her baby once or twice in the week to visit
the invalid, Mrs. Benoix. She gave her note to the nurse to carry.
"It is to ask the doctor for a prescription," she explained. "If he is
not there, it will not be necessary to leave the note. You understand?"
It was her first lie, and she told it badly, flushing and stammering.
Mahaly understood only too well. The woman seemed oddly reluctant; tried
once again to say what she had to say, and failed.
When she had gone, Kate felt in the reaction as if her heart had been
released from some heavy weight. "Why haven't I written before?" she
thought. "Shyness, pride between people who love--what a silly thing! He
shall see how strong I am; how much better and truer a friend, now that
we know."
To prove the purely friendly nature of her intentions, she donned her
most becoming dress, in case he chose to bring his answer in person.
Mahaly brought the answer, however, written across a leaf of a
prescription-pad:
I do not dare to come. It is myself I cannot trust. Forgive me!
It was her one love-letter from Jacques Benoix. She wore it out with
reading.
Some days later the bomb fell. Her husband said casually, at the
supper-table, "I bought the Benoix place to-day, Kate."
"Bought--the Benoix place?"
"Yes; not that I could afford it! God knows I'm land-poor enough as it
is. But they needed the money, and I knew you would like me to help
them, my dear. They're such friends of yours."
Kate moistened her lips. "Of yours, too, Basil. But--why do they need
money?"
He looked at her. "Oh, haven't you heard?" He spoke slowly, as if the
words were pleasant to him. "Has Jacques not told you that they are
going away to live, to the mountains? Mrs. Benoix' health; lungs, you
know."
The room was whirling; around her. Clutching the tablecloth to steady
herself, she was aware of Mahaly behind her master's chair, looking at
her sharply, warningly. "Isn't it rather foolish of Jacques?" she heard
herself asking, evenly, "to give up his practice a second time?"
Kildare laughed. "Not much practice to give up, my dear! Old Jones is
good enough for us--he's not a d----d Frenchman, at least," he said with
sudden savagery. "In fact," he added, smoothly again, "it was I who
advised Jacques to try the mountains. He has worn out his welcome here."
At last Kate understood. Her husband had seen. He meant to guard what he
did not value. He had forced Benoix to sell his home, and to give up his
means of livelihood. He was driving him out of the neighborhood because
he was her lover.
She rose, and walked steadily from the room. The girl Mahaly followed.
"Tek keer, tek keer!" she muttered, in a low voice. "He's watchin' you,
Miss Kate!"
"He is always watching me," said Kate, dully.
"Yas 'm. I done tried to warn you. Hit were de letter. Ef you jes'
hadn't 'a' sent de letter!"
"My husband saw that?"
"Yas 'm. I don gib it to him."
Kate recoiled, staring at her. "You! You gave it?" she whispered. "You
whom I have trusted! My own servant!"
The mulatto woman's expression was a queer mixture of malice, and
triumph, and pity.
"I was his servant first," said Mahaly.
* * * * *
Several months later, news came of the death of Mrs. Benoix in the
mountains.
But it found Kate oddly indifferent. She was lingering, then, upon a
certain dark threshold which she would have crossed very gladly but for
voices that held her back; the prattle of a child, the thin, helpless
whimper of a baby. She had just given birth to her third daughter.
Basil Kildare did not trouble himself to inspect his new property.
Servants brought him word of its sex and its soundness.
"Good gad, another female?" he cried; and went off down the hill at a
gallop.
Kate heard him go, and retreated a step from the dark threshold.
There was peace in the room.
Presently it seemed to her as if some one were near, a dear familiar
presence she had learned to associate with that threshold; a strength to
lean her weakness on; a hand gripping hers; eyes that held her with
their tenderness, would not let her go.
By a great effort she raised her lids. The vision held. A voice said
steadily: "Quiet, Kate. Remember your baby."
But she had no thought of excitement. It seemed too natural to have him
there. "I knew--you would come--if you could--" she whispered.
He knelt beside her. She drew his head down to her breast, just above
where the baby lay. So they stayed a while without speaking.
There was some sort of commotion downstairs; a cry, instantly hushed.
The old doctor entered the room in haste, and paused, staring. After a
moment he went out softly, clearing his throat. A mulatto-girl,
curiously gray of face, was mounting fierce guard over the door, and
would allow no others to enter.
Then came a sound of trampling feet in the road, as of men bearing some
heavy burden.
Benoix began to speak, in a low and rapid whisper: "Whatever comes now,
you will remember how I have loved you. From the very first, when I saw
you riding to me--There is for every man one woman, only we are fools
and do not wait. Wherever I am, my love shall reach you. They cannot
keep my love from going to you, and you will know. For me there is only
you in the world. The other things are shadows. You will
remember--whatever happens, you will remember?"
She smiled: there was no need to answer.
She asked, incuriously: "What are those feet in the hall? What are they
carrying?"
He answered, "Basil Kildare."
"Basil? He is hurt?"
"He is dead," said Benoix.
After a moment she began to laugh--but very softly, so that the sleeping
baby on her breast might not be disturbed: "Oh, thank God, thank God!
God is good to us, Jacques!"
He stopped the terrible words on her lips with his own. There were feet
on the stairs. He tried to speak to her once more from the door, but he
could not. He closed the door behind him.