STORMING THE LION’S DEN.
It happened that the very day after Robert’s return, he had accepted,
for the first time in some months, one of the many invitations which
Willard Frost had extended. He had usually declared himself in his
notes “Already engaged,” or “Sorry illness makes me forego the
pleasure, etc.”
Designing Frost, therefore, continued his invitations until Milburn,
from that fatality which seemingly regulates and controls us, accepted
the proffered invitation. Frost’s apartments were gorgeous. He had made
money as well as married it.
“Gentlemen,” he said to his three guests, “let me show you the first
success I had,” and he pointed to a baby face on the wall.
“That study I sold for two thousand dollars to a man who had lost a
child about that age, and he had no picture of it; this he fancied
looked very much like her.”
“It is a marvelous face--so beautiful. Where did you get your model?”
Robert asked.
“It is my own child.”
“What! I did not know you had ever been married until----” Robert
paused in awkward confusion.
“Until I made my recent ‘fiasco,’” laughed Frost. “Well, whether I have
or not, the child’s mother died at its birth--that was lucky.”
He saw how the others looked at him when he made this heartless speech,
so he added:
“You remember those old stony hills of New Hampshire? Well, I was
reared there, and perhaps that accounts for so much flint and grit in
my make up.”
“But mine host,” Robert began, “where is the other rare treat you
promised--your latest portrait, that wears a hectic flush and nothing
more?”
The others, who were listening to the colloquy burst into ripples of
merriment.
“Ah, so I did promise,” and he seized his glass, and emptied it at a
gulp.
A gust of cold mist, mingled with fine snow, puffed into the brilliant
rooms, and stirred the stifling air that was saturated with exhalations
of spirits and tobacco smoke.
“And you really would like to see my creation--‘A Nude Daughter of Our
Land.’”
“Nothing would delight us more,” they declared.
He summoned the servant and ordered him to draw the curtain aside.
The eager crowd caught his words at once.
“Yes! yes! yes! draw the curtain.”
Robert watched eagerly, while the other guests shouted in his ear.
“Let us see! brave man, let us see!”
As they watched the canvas the drapery fell to one side.
“My wife! Great God!”
Robert felt the horror stricken tremor in his own exclamation. There
played on Willard Frost’s face a satanic smile, while a momentary
exultation thrilled him.
“She kindly posed for this, my greatest effort,” returned Frost, still
smiling.
Robert controlled every muscle in his countenance; no fire broke from
his steadfast, scornful eyes; but there was a kingly authority in the
aspect--the almost stately crest and power in the swell of the stern
voice--which awed the lookers on.
With that locked and rigid countenance, with arms folded, he stood
confronting the other artist, who advanced toward him with menacing
brow.
“Willard Frost, this is a lie! and I demand you to prove it. You
villain! you dastard! you coward! Fall on your knees, you cur, and ask
God to forgive you, lest you are suddenly called to face your black
account.”
Frost strove to be scornful, but his lips trembled, and his voice died
in hollow murmurs in his breast.
“Answer me, I demand proof!” cried Robert, looking upon him with a
crushing and intense disdain.
“I know, Milburn, you will hate me; but acknowledge, we are at last
even,” said the other.
“No! I do not believe it! By the eternal powers, my wife would not
stoop so low as this model indicates. I must have proof.”
“Then, sir, you shall!” and Frost’s eyes flashed a lightning glance of
triumph.
“Gentlemen, I do not like to bring you into this little unpleasantness,
but what do you know of this?”
“We know that Mrs. Milburn has often been to the studio, and we,
moreover, have seen her when you were at work on the picture. But the
man surely knows his own wife; this is a speaking likeness.”
“Besides, here’s a note where she asked that the matter be kept a dead
secret.”
Robert looked at the paper, it was her handwriting; bearing no date,
unfortunately, or he would have known that this was written when she
was a girl, about an entirely different picture.
“Is that her hand, or forgery?”
This question, uttered triumphantly, and regarded by all three as a
climax, fell flat.
He met their merciless, inquisitorial gaze, now riveted on him,
unflinchingly; while they fidgeted, cleared their throats, and
interchanged significant looks, he stood motionless; only an unwonted
pallor, and tiny bead-like drops gathering to his forehead, betokened
the intensity of the struggle within.
Looking again at the note, he handed it back to one, saying, in a voice
deliciously pure:
“Then I am Christ, if she is Magdalene. She is forgiven.”
The companions were taken back, they had expected a more complete
victory for their host.
Presently, as if his nature had nursed this crushing, profound
humiliation until it almost burst forth in fury, he madly rushed toward
the picture.
“Whether she did or did not pose for it, I shall rip the infernal thing
from center to circumference.”
An indescribable uproar arose, as he opened his knife and approached
the picture. Frost’s clinched fist rose in the air, and he shouted
angrily:
“Do it and die!”
“I am no coward; I am not afraid of your threats,” he returned coldly.
“But it is madness!” the other roared, “I am surrounded by friends; you
have none here.”
“By heavens he has!” said a voice behind them.
“Marrion Latham!” came from every tongue.
“Yes, and the most unwelcome guest you ever entertained. This is all a
base, cowardly lie, and I came to tell you,” he hissed to the others,
as he caught Robert by the hand.
“My friend,” cried Robert, “forgive me the injustice I have done you; I
could kneel and beg it of you.”
“I am not warrior, priest or king--only brother,” he said earnestly.
“You contemptible cur; dare you say Cherokee Milburn was not my model
and my--”
“Yes, I do dare; even the first thing you ever led her into was a
deception, and the baby face that swings above you there on the wall is
the same face you hid away when misfortune overtook her--to die in the
slums--and that one was your own child.”
“But I say, emphatically, that this is a picture of Mrs. Milburn--the
other has nothing to do with this,” cried the enraged artist.
“And I say, with the same emphasis, it is a d---- lie; the face was
made from Mrs. Milburn’s picture, and the form--you paid another five
hundred dollars to sit for it.”
“And pray, who is this individual?” questioned Frost, carelessly.
“Yes, who is she?” cried his companions.
The tumult became so great that an ordinary tone could not be heard at
all.
“Who is she? Who is she?”
“Men, have patience, I am in no hurry,” said Marrion, as he leveled a
revolver at the party.
“Now, Robert, old boy, let the good work go on.”
“Bless you, Latham, by your help I will,” and he plunged the knife into
the canvas.
Frost uttered a tremendous oath, and shouted:
“I’ll kill you both for that!”
“Now, to complete the scene we should have the real model here--would
that please you?” said Marrion, aggravatingly.
“Yes, produce her if you can.”
He walked to the door and opened it; no one spoke; all seemed riveted
to the spot.
Who should walk in but Mrs. Milburn’s maid, Annie Zerner.
“You bought her, Frost, but she sells you.” Then turning to the woman,
Marrion asked:
“Did you pose for this man’s picture?”
“Yes, sir, and----”
A fierce glance from the artist, Willard Frost, kept her from ending
the sentence.
“D---- you! I’ll finish you.”
“Wait!” cried a firm, but sweet voice. Willard Frost stepped back in
dismay. The doorway framed the form and beautiful, indignant face of
Cherokee Milburn.
[Illustration: “‘Wait!’ cried a firm, but sweet voice.” Page 229.]
She had seen her maid, dressed in her clothes, join Marrion in the
street and had followed them. She could not doubt Marrion Latham’s
honor, and her woman’s instinct--that almost unerring guide which God
has bestowed upon the sex--told her to follow.
One glance at the assembled party, and another at the empty frame and
the canvas that lay beside it, and she comprehended the situation.
“I know you, Willard Frost,” she said, with a calmness that surprised
herself as well as all present.
“I trust you have a good opinion of me,” sneered the baffled scoundrel.
“I have doubted you,” she went on, not heeding the interruption, “for
two years, but I never thought you capable of such as this.” She paused
and pointed to the canvas upon the floor.
“Under a false pretense you first deceived me; you borrowed all the
money I had that you might make me easy prey to your designs,” she
continued, her voice gathering fulness, and swelling with indignation.
“Worst of all, with a wickedness that devils might admire and imitate,
you sought my husband’s ruin, by tempting him to drink. You succeeded;
but that your success fell short of your expectation he and I have this
devoted friend to thank,” she turned and laid her hand upon Marrion’s.
“You! always you!” shrieked Frost, “you have baffled me for the last
time.”
There was a flash--a loud report--and Marrion Latham, clutching at his
breast, sank heavily to the floor. Without waiting to note the full
results of his terrible work, Willard Frost rushed out into the night.
“Oh! my God! my God! save him!” burst from Cherokee’s white, groaning
lips, as she raised her eyes and cried in fierce despair.
“God save you and your home, is all I ask,” he gasped.
Robert, too, knelt by his side, crying: “How could the foul traitor
deal such a merciless blow? Friend, brother, live to see the result of
your work. You are my savior,” cried Robert.
“Then death is unutterably sweet,” dropped from Marrion’s lips. He
gazed imploringly at Cherokee; his power of utterance was gone; he
could give no answering pressure to the fond hands, yet his last words
had filtered like a single drop of sweet, through all the sea of woe.
While the dear ones bent above, they felt that in that stroke fierce
fate had spent her last shaft. There was no drop of worm-wood left in
this bitter, bitter cup.
CONCLUSION.
The wounded man was removed to Robert’s home. The attendant physician
looked grave; he was dealing with a tremendous enemy that assaulted
with sapping and draining of strength, with poisoning of the blood and
brain. But he was young and fresh in his wrestle with evil in disease;
he had the latest words of science; he knew how to work, so he called
up all his powers, and neither slumbered nor slept.
He left the room for only brief intervals, and allowed no one in there
except the servant. Occasionally the patient slept, and then he rested,
too. A whistle from a rushing train far out in the night, or carriages
rolling home from late pleasures, were welcome sounds to break the
stillness, though how foreign to Robert and Cherokee they seemed. Full
of solicitude, full of anxiety, they came to the door at all hours to
ask of the patient’s condition. Time and time again they were turned
away without a comforting answer.
At last, one day, the physician told them he would live and be
himself in health again. Sweetly fell these words, like dew on dying
flowers--their hearts’ throbbing chords were softly soothed.
* * * * * *
They were sitting together in their own room. Robert’s face had greatly
changed.
“Cherokee,” he began, “it isn’t long ago that I promised, before God,
to love and cherish you always. I have learned that that didn’t mean
just to-day, or a year from to-day. It meant this: that we must make
the fulfillment of our sacred promise to each other the supreme effort
of our lives, so long as we both live. I know I have erred, but I
promised Marrion on that terrible night that I would be a man. It is
two years, to-day, since he risked his own life to save you and me.
Tell me, have I kept the faith?”
He held out his hand in a half pleading gesture; she put her’s on his
shoulders, and throwing her head back with the exuberant happiness of a
child, said, with enthusiasm:
“You have! you have! and I do--do love you.” She glanced over his
shoulder into the mirror. Was the bright face she saw there her very
own? What had become of its sallowness, its lines of care, its yearning
melancholy?
A wave of golden consciousness sweetly swept her face. In the fulness
of contentment, long withheld, Cherokee’s glad youth had come back to
reward her husband.
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|Transcriber’s note: |
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|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
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