The night before Jacques Benoix' release found Kate Kildare lying
sleepless within sight of a grim gray wall that blocked the end of the
street upon which her window opened. A great fatigue was upon her, a
fatigue more of the spirit than of the body. For years, it seemed to
her, she had been fighting the world alone, unaided; and now that
victory was within her grasp it tasted strangely like defeat.
She tried to realize that the gray wall no longer stood between her and
happiness; was a menace that with the sun's rays would disappear out of
her life like so much mist. But the effort was useless. The aura of
shadow that hung always over that place wrapped her in its suffocating
miasma, became part of the very air she breathed.
She had taken rooms in an old hostelry near the railroad station,
wishing to avoid the curious recognition that would have been inevitable
in the town's one good hotel. She was occupying what had been known in
days of former prosperity as the bridal suite. This consisted of a dingy
parlor, in which on the morrow Philip was to perform the ceremony that
made her his father's wife, and of the room in which she lay, its walls
dimly visible in the light of an arc-lamp just outside the window, gay
with saffron cupids who disported themselves among roses of the same
complexion. Over the mantel-piece of black iron hung an improbably
colored lithograph of lovers embracing.
Kate found the effect of these decorations ironic, curiously depressing.
She was not usually so responsive to environment.
Very near her now Jacques must be lying sleepless, too; watching for the
dawn as she was watching--but with what eagerness, what trembling hope!
Her depression shamed her. She tried in vain to conjure up a consoling
vision of the man she had loved so long. The figure that came to her
mind was more Philip than his father. She put it from her impatiently,
angrily.
"I believe I'm developing nerves," she thought.
Her eyes, weary of the meaningless, leering antics of the cupids,
presently came to rest on the ceiling above her bed, which appeared to
be a-flutter with small pieces of pasteboard. She made them out to be
business cards, evidently momentoes of passing knights of the road who
had amused themselves by sailing their credentials heavenward, each with
a transfixing pin. Kate smiled a little, oddly cheered by these
reminders of carefree, commonplace humanity which had lain sleepless
also in that dreary bridal chamber. The knights of the road were better
company for her thoughts than brides who might have dreamed there dreams
to which she had forfeited her right; young, innocent brides who were
not fighting their way to happiness over the happiness of their
children.
Now and again a train came thundering past her window, till the old
house shook to its foundation. For these she listened, tense and
quivering. One of them would be bearing away from her forever the
first-born of her children....
While she made ready for her journey, Jemima had also made ready for a
journey, grimly; Jacqueline wandering between the two like a woebegone
young specter, all her gaiety dissolved in tears. Mrs. Kildare herself
had written to her husband's aunt, for the first time in years,
explaining briefly her own intentions and Jemima's attitude with regard
to them. The reply had come by telegraph, not to her, but to Jemima.
Kate did not ask to see it. Without comment, she had observed the girl's
preparations for immediate departure. She could not trust herself to
speak.
It was known throughout the countryside by this time that the French
doctor was indeed coming out of prison, and that the Madam intended to
marry him. The news brought Professor Thorpe post-haste to Storm, pale,
but ready as ever with his services.
"I never knew Dr. Benoix well, but now I shall make up for lost time,"
he said quietly. "What are your arrangements? Will you need a best man,
or anything of that sort? Here I am."
Kate thanked him with tears in her eyes, declining.
"Jacques will prefer to see nobody, just at first, but Philip and me, I
think. But if you _could_ do something with Jemmy? She will listen to
you, if to anybody. Make her understand, somehow--make her
believe--" Her choking voice could not finish, and Thorpe silently
patted her shoulder.
He had done his loyal best with the girl already, without success. He
was handicapped by his promise not to say anything that would shake
Jemima's passionate pride and faith in her father.
"I have nothing further to do with my mother's affairs," was her stony
answer to all his arguments. "The day she brings that man into my
father's house, I leave it, naturally; and I shall do my best to make
Jacqueline leave it. That is all."
Her packing went on apace. On the last morning she found a check-book at
her breakfast plate.
"Do you mean me to have this, Mother?" she asked in the coldly courteous
voice she had used toward Kate since her discovery.
"Yes. There will be a deposit to your credit on the first day of each
month until you come of age, when a third of my property will be turned
over to you."
The girl flushed deeply, but said nothing except "Thank you." She would
have liked to refuse all aid from her mother; but after all, was she not
being deprived of her rightful inheritance? Let her mother make what
reparation was possible.
To the last moment Kate hoped for some sign of relenting, struggled to
find some explanation, some plea, that would draw the girl to her. But
those who have formed the habit of ruling, suffer one disadvantage among
their fellows: it is impossible for them to become suppliants.
"Good-by, Mother."
When she started for the train that was to take her to Frankfort, Jemima
followed her to the door.
"You will be here when--we return, to-morrow?" Kate's steady voice hid
very successfully her agonized suspense.
"No, Mother."
"Ah!... Then your aunt expects you? She knows what train to meet?"
"Yes, thank you. Professor Thorpe has made all the arrangements. He will
put me on the train in Lexington."
Kate bent over her child. "Good-by, my daughter."
Even then the tremble of a lip, a tear on an eyelash, might have brought
them into each other's arms. But neither was the sort of woman who weeps
in a crisis. They kissed, their lips quite cool and firm.
It was Jacqueline who did the weeping for both of them, and insisted
upon sitting in her mother's lap all the way to the station, so that
Kate had some difficulty in driving....
Such were the scenes and memories that flitted through Kate's brain all
the night before her wedding; and the night was long.
Near morning she slept at last, and dreamed. Somebody stood beside her,
smiling down--a stranger, she thought him, till she met his eyes.
"Jacques!" she cried, starting up with hands outstretched. "You,
Jacques!"
The consoling vision for which she yearned had come at last; but not as
she had seen it before, not in the prime of manhood, strong to hear her
burdens. This was an elderly man, stooping, gray-haired, frail. Only the
eyes were the same, blue as a child's in his wan face, warm as a caress.
He spoke to her. He seemed to promise something.
She awoke with his name on her lips, and saw that it was morning. Peace
had come to her with the vision. She faced a new day, a new life, serene
and unafraid. What was it that he had promised? No matter. She would
ask him when she saw him, soon now.
Smiling at her own credulity, she began with hasty hands to dress.
Out in the street she heard the crisp trot of horses, stopping beneath
her window. Looking down, she saw one of her own vehicles, a light
phaeton drawn by a pair of young blooded colts she had sent in to
Frankfort some days earlier, that they might be rested and fresh for the
day's drive back to Storm, which was to be their wedding journey. She
looked them over critically.
"They are in excellent condition. We ought to make it in eight hours,"
she thought. "How he will love to drive those pretty fillies! He was
always so fond of horses."
Philip knocked on her door. His voice said, "I am ready now."
It had been her idea to send him for Jacques alone, so that father and
son might have a little time together before they came to her. She
opened to him and stood, a white-clad vision, framed in the doorway of
that dreary bridal suite.
"You see, I am ready too," she said, blushing a little. "Do you like my
dress, Philip?"
He stared at her without speaking. His eyes were heavy and rimmed with
shadow. For Philip, too, the night had been long.
She asked again rather anxiously, "Do I look nice, Philip? It doesn't
seem too--young for me, this white?" She was in need of all her vanity
just then. The mirror had shown her a face pale and luminous, not less
beautiful--she knew that--but far older than the face whose memory
Jacques carried with him into prison. She was obsessed by the fear that
he would not recognize her.
But for once Philip's comforting admiration failed her. "I don't know
how you look," he muttered, and turned abruptly away.
She stared after him in surprise. "Dear Phil--he must be very much upset
to speak to me like that!" she thought.
She went into the parlor, and busied herself arranging flowers she had
ordered to make the place less cheerless for the little wedding. The
proprietress came in presently with more flowers, a box bearing the card
of James Thorpe. The woman was in a flutter of excitement.
"They's two reporters in the office already, _Mrs. Kildare_," she said,
emphasizing the name, "and more on the way, I reckon. If I'd 'a guessed
who you were, I'd 'a' had a weddin'-cake baked, I surely would. I've
been on your side from the very first!"
"Thank you," said Kate, wearily.
"We've often had folks stayin' here to meet a friend who was comin'
out,"--she jerked a significant thumb over her shoulder toward the
penitentiary--"but never any one so famous, and never a weddin' right at
the very gate, so to speak," she added unctuously.
Kate winced. She had registered under a false name, hoping thus to
escape notoriety. Now she saw the folly of any such hope. From the
first, no detail of her unfortunate romance had escaped notoriety.
"Let the reporters come up," she sighed. "Perhaps if I speak to them now
they will let us alone afterwards."
She was speaking to them, when she heard in the street outside the
familiar, crisp trot of the colts from Storm. Her voice broke off in the
middle of a sentence, and the two reporters, exchanging glances,
tactfully withdrew.
Kate was suddenly very weak in the knees. She stood by the window for a
moment, clinging to the curtains, with closed eyes. "I must be prepared
for changes," she said to herself. "It is many years, many years--"
She opened her eyes and looked down. Philip had alighted, throwing the
lines to a porter. As he crossed the sidewalk, he glanced up at her
window and she saw his face. No one followed him.
She met him at the head of the stairs. "Where is he, Philip?" Her voice
was very quiet.
"Gone."
He led her into the room, closing the door in the faces of the eager
reporters.
"Father caught a train that went through Frankfort just after dawn," he
said tonelessly.
She cried out. "Just after dawn!" It was the hour of her vision. "He did
not get our letters, then? He did not know that we were coming to take
him home? There was some mistake!"
"There was no mistake. From the first he did not mean to see us. The
warden said so."
"Where has he gone?"
"I do not know. The warden would not tell me."
Kate ran into her room, and returned with a hat and coat. "He will tell
me," she said. "Come."
The warden received them in his private office, grave with sympathy.
"I understand what a blow this is to you," he said. "I argued with him
to make him change his intention--Dr. Benoix was as nearly my personal
friend as was possible under the circumstances. But from his first
coming here he was determined never to be a burden upon his son--nor
upon you, Mrs. Kildare. He felt, rightly or wrongly, that he had already
darkened your life too much. It was for that reason he declined to write
to you or to receive letters from you. He did not wish to keep alive
a--a sentiment which would be better dead."
Kate gasped, "He said that?"
"Yes," said the warden, gently. "He asks that you forget him, if it is
possible, or that you think of him as one who has died."
After a moment she said in her resolute voice, "You must tell us where
he is."
The other shook his head. "I cannot, and I would not if I could. He has
the right to make his life as he chooses. But you may be sure that
wherever he has gone, there will be a place for him." The warden's voice
changed, "He will be missed here. My business is not a sentimental one.
It does not soften a man. We see a great deal of evil in this place, and
very little that is good, and it is easy to--to question the ways of
Providence, if there is any belief left in Providence. But when men like
Benoix come to us, as occasionally they do come, the old-fashioned idea
of a guardian Providence becomes--well, more tangible. There seems to be
a reason back of such miscarriage of justice. I believe," he said rather
haltingly, "that Benoix was sent here, not because he had any need of
prison, but because prison had need of him."
He told them something of the doctor's prison life; of an epidemic that
had raged through the wards, when he offered his services to the jail
physician and for many days and nights had gone without sleep in his
efforts to assuage suffering; of women in the surgical wards who
mentioned his name beside that of God in their prayers; of men to whom
he had given new hope and a new outlook on life by curing them of
obscure disease from which they had not known they suffered.
"I would have recommended him for pardon or parole years ago, but he
forbade me. He said he had more opportunity for research here than
elsewhere." The warden smiled. "By 'research' he meant help, of course,
he held the modern theory that crime is always a thing for the surgeon's
knife, or the physician, or the teacher, to handle. We let him practise
his theories wherever possible, because he was of great assistance to
us. He could do more with the prisoners than we could, being one of
them. Whenever we had trouble with an inmate, his first punishment was
Benoix. He did not often need a second. It is many years since the
whipping-post, or the standing-irons, or solitary confinement, have been
used in this place, as perhaps you know. Many of our prison reforms may
be traced to Benoix' influence, though he will never get the credit of
them. He said once, 'What is the use of making men desperate? What you
want is to make them ashamed. And that comes from inside.' Young man,"
he turned to Philip, "convict or not, you need never be ashamed of your
father."
"I never have been," said Philip.
They went away, each with a letter Jacques had left for them. Kate's was
very short:
I have known always that you would come, and that I must not let
you. I am going while I have the strength to go. Fill up your busy,
useful life without me, Kate. I thank God that you have your
children and my boy, whom you have made a man. Once I left him to
your care. Now I leave you to his, without fear. He is worthy.
Do not trouble your great heart for me. I shall find my work in a
world that is so full of people--work and friends, too. We cannot
be together, you and I, but remember always that I am not far from
you wherever I may go, never so far that any need of yours will not
reach me.
JACQUES.
She gave this letter, silently, to Philip, but he did not offer her his
own. There were things his father had said to him in farewell not meant
for other eyes to read; and for a long time they left him awed and
silent.