Before Mrs. Lee refolded the letter which contained these words, she had
read them through certainly five successive times.
Not until then had she made up her mind just what to do. She would put
the letter in an envelope, and direct this, very legibly, to Herbert
Hollister. Her determination was as fixed as fate....
When her guests had all departed, on the afternoon of this same day,
Claire slowly walked the spacious drawing-rooms for at least twenty
minutes, with her eyes bent upon the floor.
She felt literally hunted down. The end had come; the clock had struck
twelve, and her fineries were rags, her coach-and-four was a pumpkin and
mice. She had carried it off well until the very last; she was sure of
this, and the surety gave her, even now, a bitter pleasure. She had no
doubt that the coming of her mother, with imperative demands of support
and countenance, would mean a return of all the old taunts and gibes. If
Claire's wealthful life of to-day had been destined to continue, this
prospect would have opened a less dreary vista; as it was, she foresaw
only a dropping back into the former ruts and sloughs of maternal
acrimony and intolerance. The history of her past would in a manner
repeat itself. There would be poverty again, or something closely akin
to it; there would be the mother's unpardoning disapprobation of her
child's ill-favored lot. For one marked difference, Herbert would be
present, as a fresh, assertive force. And what a miserably adverse force
it must prove! To exist with him would be hard enough, now, under any
circumstances. But if he felt perpetually the shadow and weight of this
second gloomy and heavy personality, what new hostile traits might not
his depression, his impatience, his revolt develop?
Claire tried to take a very calm survey of the whole potential
consequence. In so doing she regarded the advent of her mother as one
factor that consorted with other untoward agencies; the central knot of
the tangle would be wrought of several tough and stubborn threads. There
could be no unraveling it. 'But the knot could be cut,' she thought,
silently continuing her metaphor, as she paced the stately rooms.
It sent a thrill of actual terror to her when she reflected _how_ the
knot could be cut. To the feet that have set their tread on slippery
ways, evil can do much downward work by a gentle push. Claire felt
herself lapsing, now....
What if she wrote to Stuart Goldwin a letter very different from the one
she had already written him, and which was then hid under the fleecy
laces that clad her bosom? What if she told him that she must fly from
it all?--the love that she had outraged by cold hypocrisy, the keen if
mute reproaches that would be punishment and torture alike, the thrusts
and innuendoes from a tongue whose venom had poisoned her childhood, the
tarnish in place of splendor, the dullness in place of brilliance, the
obscurity in place of prominence, the service in place of
mastery--perhaps even the toil in place of ease?
She tried, in a pitiable way, to rebuff temptation by taking the sole
means at hand of ending these desperate reflections. In reality she took
the most cogent means of rendering temptation more potent. She tightened
its black clutch on her soul; she went upstairs and talked with her
mother.
Mrs. Twining had been securely convalescent some time ago. She had
passed through a complicated and dangerous illness; she had given Death
odds, yet won with him. She was still subject to those attacks of
fatigue which are inevitable with one who has proved victor in so grim a
wrestle. But she had once more gained a very firm foothold on that
solidity which bounds one known side, at least, of the valley of the
shadow. She intended, in a physical sense, to live a good many years
longer; her freshening vitality was like that of a fire in a forest,
which has stretched an arm of flame across a bare space, at the risk of
not reaching it, but in the end has caught a mighty supply of woodland
fuel.
Claire found her stretched quite luxuriously on a lounge, with a little
table beside her, which held the remains of a hearty repast. She had
the traditional vast appetite of the recovering invalid. She had
devoured enough to have sunk a hearty person of average digestion into
abysses of dyspepsia. She had enjoyed her meal very much. It had
appeared to her as an earnest of many similar joys.
She promptly began a series of her old characteristic sarcasms and slurs
as soon as Claire appeared. Mingled with them was an atmosphere of
odious congratulation--a sort of verbal patting on the back--which her
daughter found even more baneful than her half-latent sneers. She was
thoroughly refreshed; her food (mixed with some admirable claret) had
gone straight to the making of bodily repairs. She had never had
anything so fine and wholesome in the hospital, though after the
patronage of Mrs. Lee she had been supplied with not a few agreeable
dainties. The temporary result was that she had become in a great
measure her real self.
Claire said very little. She did a large amount of listening. She had
never known her mother not to be without a grudge of some sort. It
brought back the past with a piercing vividness, now, while she sat and
heard. The vision of a pale, refined face, lit by soft, dark-blue eyes,
rose before her, and the memory of many a wanton assault, many a
surreptitious wound, appealed to her as well. Her father had stood it
all so bravely--he had been such a gentleman through it all! _She_ had
stood it only with a sturdy, rebellious disapproval through many of the
years that preceded his death.
She stood it, now, with a weary tranquillity. When she went away from
her mother, these were her parting words:--
"I do not think I shall tell my husband, for some few days, that you are
here. There are reasons why I should not. He has some very engrossing
matters to occupy him. But you will be perfectly comfortable in the
meanwhile. Order what you please. The servants will obey you in every
particular. If you should need me, I will come immediately. You have
only to send me word. I shall be at home for the rest of to-day, and all
through the evening."
Claire went into her own private sitting-room, after that. When she had
been there a little while, she had torn up her first letter to Goldwin.
When she had been there a little while longer, she had written the
second letter. Having finished the last, she promptly dispatched it, by
messenger, to Goldwin's private address.
Between the hours of ten and eleven that same evening, the following
note from Goldwin was brought to Claire:--
_Friday Night._
In some unaccountable way I have lost the letter which you sent
me to-day. I feel in honor bound to tell you of this loss,
after a protracted search through my apartments and numerous
inquiries and directions at my club. I cannot sufficiently
blame myself for not having at once burned it to a crisp. But I
thrust it into my pocket after many readings, with the wish to
learn each word by heart before it was finally destroyed. Do
not feel needlessly worried. I shall do my best to recover it,
and even if it should be read by other eyes than yours and
mine, the fact of your mere initials being signed to it is an
immense safeguard.