DRIVEN TO HIS DUTY
Toward this culmination of her troubles Archie had indeed contributed
far too much, but yet not as much as Sophy thought. He had taken her
part, he had sought for her, he had very reluctantly come to accept his
mother's opinions. His trip had not been altogether the heaven Madame
represented it. The Admiral had proved himself dictatorial and
sometimes very disagreeable at sea; the other members of the party had
each some unpleasant peculiarities which the cramped quarters and the
monotony of yacht life developed. Some had deserted altogether, others
grumbled more than was agreeable, and Marion's constant high spirits
proved to be at times a great exaction.
Before the close of the pleasure voyage, Archie frequently went alone
to remember the sweet, gentle affection of his wife, her delight in his
smallest attentions, her instant recognition of his desires, her
patient endeavours to please him, her resignation to all his neglect.
Her image grew into his best imagination, and when he left the yacht at
her moorings in Pittendurie Bay, he hastened to Sophy with the
impatience of a lover who is also a husband.
Madame had heard of his arrival and was watching for her son. She met
him at the door and he embraced her affectionately, but his first words
were, "Sophy, I hope she is not ill. Where is she?"
"My dear Archie, no one knows. She left your home three weeks after you
had sailed."
"My God, Mother, what do you mean?"
"No one knows why she left, no one knows or can find out where she went
to. Of course, I have my suspicions."
"Sophy! Sophy! Sophy!" he cried, sinking into a chair and covering his
face, but, whatever Madame's suspicions, she could not but see that
Archie had not a doubt of his wife's honour. After a few minutes'
silence, he turned to his mother and said:--
"You have scolded for once, Mother, more than enough. I am sure it is
your unkindness that has driven my wife from her home. You promised me
not to interfere with her little plans and pleasures."
"If I am to bear the blame of the woman's low tastes, I decline to
discuss the matter," and she left the room with an air of great
offence.
Of course, if Madame would not discuss the matter with him, nothing
remained but the making of such inquiries as the rest of the household
could answer. Thomas readily told all he knew, which was the simple
statement that "he took his mistress to her aunt's and left her there,
and that when he returned for her, Miss Kilgour was much distressed and
said she had already left." Archie then immediately sought Miss
Kilgour, and from her learned the particulars of his wife's
wretchedness, especially those points relating to the appropriated
letter. He flushed crimson at this outrage, but made no remark
concerning it.
"My one desire now," he said, "is to find out where Sophy has taken
refuge. Can you give me any idea?"
"If she is not in Pittendurie,--and I can find no trace of her
there,--then I think she may be in Edinburgh or Glasgow. You will mind
she had cousins in Edinburgh, and she was very kind with them at the
time of her marriage. I thought of them first of all, and I wrote three
letters to them; but there has been no answer to any of the three. She
has friends in Glasgow, but I am sure she had no knowledge as to where
they lived. Besides, I got their address from kin in Aberdeen and wrote
there also, and they answered me and said they had never seen or heard
tell of Sophy. Here is their letter."
Archie read it carefully and was satisfied that Sophy was not in
Glasgow. The silence of the Edinburgh cousins was more promising, and
he resolved to go at once to that city and interview them. He did not
even return to Braelands, but took the next train southward. Of course
his inquiries utterly failed. He found Sophy's relatives, but their air
of amazement and their ready and positive denial of all knowledge of
his lost wife were not to be doubted. Then he returned to Largo. He
assured himself that Sophy was certainly in hiding among the
fisher-folk in Pittendurie, and that he would only have to let it be
known that he had returned for her to appear. Indeed she must have seen
the yacht at anchor, and he fully expected to find her on the door-step
waiting for him. As he approached Braelands, he fancied her arms round
his neck, and saw her small, wistful, flushing face against his breast;
but it was all a dream. The door was closed, and when it admitted him
there was nothing but silence and vacant rooms. He was nearly
distracted with sorrow and anger, and Madame had a worse hour than she
ever remembered when Archie asked her about the fatal letter that had
been the active cause of trouble.
"The letter was Sophy's," he said passionately, "and you knew it was.
How then could you be so shamefully dishonourable as to keep it from
her?"
"If you choose to reproach me on mere servants' gossip, I cannot
prevent you."
"It is not servants' gossip. I know by the date on which Sophy left
home that it must have been the letter I wrote her from Christiania. It
was a disgraceful, cruel thing for you to do. I can never look you in
your face again, Mother. I do not feel that I can speak to you, or even
see you, until my wife has forgiven both you and myself. Oh, if I only
knew where to look for her!"
"She is not far to seek; she is undoubtedly among her kinsfolk at
Pittendurie. You may remember, perhaps, how they felt toward you before
you went away. After you went, she was with them continually."
"Then Thomas lies. He says he never took her anywhere but to her aunt
Kilgour's."
"I think Thomas is more likely to lie than I am. If you have strength
to bear the truth, I will tell you what I am convinced of."
"I have strength for anything but this wretched suspense and fear."
"Very well, then, go to the woman called Janet Binnie; you may
recollect, if you will, that her son Andrew was Sophy's ardent
lover--so much so, that her marriage to you nearly killed him. He has
become a captain lately, wears gold buttons and bands, and is really a
very handsome and important man in the opinion of such people as your
wife. I believe Sophy is either in his mother's house or else she has
gone to--London."
"Why London?"
"Captain Binnie sails continually to London. Really, Archie, there are
none so blind as those who won't see."
"I will not believe such a thing of Sophy. She is as pure and innocent
as a little child."
Madame laughed scornfully. "She is as pure and innocent as those
baby-faced women usually are. As a general rule, the worst creature in
the world is a saint in comparison. What did Sophy steal out at night
for? Tell me that. Why did she walk to Pittendurie so often? Why did
she tell me she was going to walk to her aunt's, and then never go?"
"Mother, Mother, are you telling me the truth?"
"Your inquiry is an insult, Archie. And your blindness to Sophy's real
feelings is one of the most remarkable things I ever saw. Can you not
look back and see that ever since she married you she has regretted and
fretted about the step? Her heart is really with her fisher and sailor
lover. She only married you for what you could give her; and having got
what you could give her, she soon ceased to prize it, and her love went
back to Captain Binnie,--that is, if it had ever left him."
Conversation based on these shameful fabrications was continued for
hours, and Madame, who had thoroughly prepared herself for it, brought
one bit of circumstantial evidence after another to prove her
suspicions. The wretched husband was worked to a fury of jealous anger
not to be controlled. "I will search every cottage in Pittendurie," he
said in a rage. "I will find Sophy, and then kill her and myself."
"Don't be a fool, Archibald Braelands. Find the woman,--that is
necessary,--then get a divorce from her, and marry among your own kind.
Why should you lose your life, or even ruin it, for a fisherman's old
love? In a year or two you will have forgotten her and thrown the whole
affair behind your back."
It is easy to understand how a conversation pursued for hours in this
vein would affect Archie. He was weak and impulsive, ready to suspect
whatever was suggested, jealous of his own rights and honour, and on
the whole of that pliant nature which a strong, positive woman like
Madame could manipulate like wax. He walked his room all night in a
frenzy of jealous love. Sophy lost to him had acquired a sudden charm
and value beyond all else in life; he longed for the morning; for
Madame's positive opinions had thoroughly convinced him, and he felt a
great deal more sure than she did that Sophy was in Pittendurie. And
yet, after every such assurance to himself, his inmost heart asked
coldly, "Why then has she not come back to you?"
He could eat no breakfast, and as soon as he thought the village was
awake, he rode rapidly down to Pittendurie. Janet was alone; Andrew was
somewhere between Fife and London; Christina was preparing her morning
meal in her own cottage. Janet had already eaten hers, and she was
washing her tea-cup and plate and singing as she did so,--
"I cast my line in Largo Bay,
And fishes I caught nine;
There's three to boil, and three to fry,
And three to bait the line,"
when she heard a sharp rap at her door. The rap was not made with the
hand; it was peremptory and unusual, and startled Janet. She put down
the plate she was wiping, ceased singing, and went to the door. The
Master of Braelands was standing there. He had his short riding-whip in
his hand, and Janet understood at once that he had struck her house
door with the handle of it. She was offended at this, and she asked
dourly:--
"Well, sir, your bidding?"
"I came to see my wife. Where is she?"
"You ought to know that better than any other body. It is none of my
business."
"I tell you she has left her home."
"I have no doubt she had the best of good reasons for doing so."
"She had no reason at all."
Janet shrugged her shoulders, smiled with scornful disbelief, and
looked over the tossing black waters.
"Woman, I wish to go through your house, I believe my wife is in it."
"Go through my house? No indeed. Do you think I'll let a man with a
whip in his hand go through my house after a poor frightened bird like
Sophy? No, no, not while my name is Janet Binnie."
"I rode here; my whip is for my horse. Do you think I would use it on
any woman?"
"God knows, I don't."
"I am not a brute."
"You say so yourself."
"Woman, I did not come here to bandy words with you."
"Man, I'm no caring to hear another word you have to say; take yourself
off my door-stone," and Janet would have shut the door in his face, but
he would not permit her.
"Tell Sophy to come and speak to me."
"Sophy is not here."
"She has no reason to be afraid of me."
"I should think not."
"Go and tell her to come to me then."
"She is not in my house. I wish she was."
"She _is_ in your house."
"Do you dare to call me a liar? Man alive! Do it again, and every
fisher-wife in Pittendurie will help me to give you your fairings."
"_Tush!_! Let me see my wife."
"Take yourself off my doorstep, or it will be the worse for you."
"Let me see my wife."
"Coming here and chapping on my door--on Janet Binnie's door!--with a
horsewhip!"
"There is no use trying to deceive me with bad words. Let me pass."
"Off with you! you poor creature, you! Sophy Traill had a bad bargain
with the like of you, you drunken, lying, savage-like, wife-beating
pretence o' a husband!"
"Mother' Mother!" cried Christina, coming hastily forward; "Mother,
what are you saying at all?"
"The God's truth, Christina, that and nothing else. Ask the mean,
perfectly unutterable scoundrel how he got beyond his mother's
apron-strings so far as this?"
Christina turned to Braelands. "Sir," she said, "what's your will?"
"My wife has left her home, and I have been told she is in Mistress
Binnie's house."
"She is not. We know nothing about the poor, miserable lass, God help
her!"
"I cannot believe you."
"Please yourself anent believing me, but you had better be going, sir.
I see Limmer Scott and Mistress Roy and a few more fishwives looking
this way."
"Let them look."
"Well, they have their own fashion of dealing with men who ill use a
fisher lass. Sophy was born among them."
"You are a bad lot! altogether a bad lot!"
"Go now, and go quick, or we'll prove to you that we are a bad lot!"
cried Janet. "I wouldn't myself think anything of putting you in a
blanket and tossing you o'er the cliff into the water." And Janet, with
arms akimbo and eyes blazing with anger, was not a comfortable sight.
So, with a smile of derision, Braelands turned his back on the women,
walking with an affected deliberation which by no means hid the white
feather from the laughing, jeering fisher-wives who came to their door
at Janet's call for them, and whose angry mocking followed him until he
was out of sight and hearing. Then there was a conclave in Janet's
house, and every one told a different version of the Braelands trouble.
In each case, however, Madame was credited with the whole of the
sorrow-making, though Janet stoutly asserted that "a man who was feared
for his mother wasn't fit to be a husband."
"Madame's tongue and temper is kindled from a coal out of hell," she
said, "and that is the God's truth; but she couldn't do ill with them,
if Archie Braelands wasn't a coward--a sneaking, trembling coward, that
hasn't the heart in him to stand between poor little Sophy and the most
spiteful, hateful old sinner this side of the brimstone pit."
But though the birr and first flame of the village anger gradually
cooled down, Janet's and Christina's hearts were hot and heavy within
them, and they could not work, nor eat, nor sleep with any relish, for
thinking of the poor little runaway wife. Indeed, in every cottage
there was one topic of wonder and pity, and one sad lament when two or
three of the women came together: "Poor Sophy! Poor Sophy Braelands!" It
was noticeable, however, that not a single woman had a wrong thought of
Sophy. Madame could easily suspect the worst, but the "worst" was an
incredible thing to a fisher-wife. Some indeed blamed her for not
tholing her grief until her husband came back, but not a single heart
suspected her of a liaison with her old lover.
Archie, however, returned from his ineffectual effort to find her with
every suspicion strengthened. Madame could hardly have hoped for a
visit so completely in her favour, and after it Archie was entirely
under her influence. It is true he was wretchedly despondent, but he
was also furiously angry. He fancied himself the butt of his friends,
he believed every one to be talking about his affairs, and, day by day,
his sense of outrage and dishonour pressed him harder and harder. In a
month he was quite ready to take legal steps to release himself from
such a doubtful tie, and Madame, with his tacit permission, took the
first step towards such a consummation by writing with her own hand the
notice which had driven Sophy to despair.
While events were working towards this end, Sophy was helpless and
senseless in the Glasgow hospital. Archie's anger was grounded on the
fact that she must know of his return, and yet she had neither come
back to her home nor sent him a line of communication. He told himself
that if she had written him one line, he would have gone to the end of
the earth after her. And anon he told himself that if she had been true
to him, she would have written or else come back to her home. Say she
was sick, she could have got some one to use the pen or the telegraph
for her. And this round of reasoning, always led into the same channel
by Madame, finally assumed not the changeable quality of argument, but
the positiveness of fact.
So the notice of her abandonment was sent by the press far and wide,
and yet there came no protest against it; for Sophy had brought to the
hospital nothing by which she could be identified, and as no hint of
her personal appearance was given, it was impossible to connect her
with it. Thus while its cruel words linked suspicion with her name in
every household where they went, she lay ignorantly passive, knowing
nothing at all of the wrong done her and of the unfortunate train of
circumstances which finally forced her husband to doubt her love and
her honour. It was an additional calamity that this angry message of
severance was the first thing that met her consciousness when she was
at all able to act.
Her childish ignorance and her primitive ideas aided only too well the
impression of finality it gave. She put it beside all she had seen and
heard of her husband's love for Marion Glamis, and the miserable
certainty was plain to her. She knew she was dying, and a quiet place
to die in and a little love to help her over the hard hour seemed to be
all she could expect now; the thought of Janet and Christina was her
last hope. Thus it was that Janet found her trembling and weeping on
her doorstep; thus it was she heard that pitiful plaint, "Take me in,
Janet! Take me in to die!"
Never for one moment did Janet think of refusing this sad petition. She
sat down beside her; she laid Sophy's head against her broad loving
breast; she looked with wondering pity at the small, shrunken face, so
wan and ghostlike in the gray light. Then she called Christina, and
Christina lifted Sophy easily in her arms, and carried her into her own
house. "For we'll give Braelands no occasion against either her or
Andrew," she said. Then they undressed the weary woman and made her a
drink of strong tea; and after a little she began to talk in a quick,
excited manner about her past life.
"I ran away from Braelands at the end of July," she said. "I could not
bear the life there another hour; I was treated before folk as if I had
lost my senses; I was treated when I was alone as if I had no right in
the house, and as if my being in it was a mortal wrong and misery to
every one. And at the long last the woman there kept Archie's letter
from me, and I was wild at that, and sick and trembling all over; and I
went to Aunt Griselda, and she took Madame's part and would not let me
stay with her till Archie came back to protect me. What was I to do? I
thought of my cousins in Edinburgh and went there, and could not find
them. Then there was only Ellen Montgomery in Glasgow, and I was ill
and so tired; but I thought I could manage to reach her."
"And didn't you reach her, dearie?"
"No. I got worse and worse; and when I reached Glasgow I knew nothing
at all, and they sent me to the hospital."
"Oh, Sophy! Sophy!"
"Aye, they did. What else could be, Janet? No one knew who I was; I
could not tell any one. They weren't bad to me. I suffered, but they
did what they could to help me. Such dreadful nights, Janet! Such long,
awful days! Week after week in which I knew nothing but pain; I could
not move myself. I could not write to any one, for my thoughts would
not stay with me; and my sight went away, and I had hardly strength to
live."
"Try and forget it, Sophy, darling," said Christina. "We will care for
you now, and the sea-winds will blow health to you."
She shook her head sadly. "Only the winds of heaven will ever blow
health to me, Christina," she answered; "I have had my death blow. I am
going fast to them who have gone before me. I have seen my mother
often, the last wee while. I knew it was my mother, though I do not
remember her; she is waiting for her bit lassie. I shall not have to go
alone; and His rod and staff will comfort me, I will fear no evil."
They kissed and petted and tried to cheer her, and Janet begged her to
sleep; but she was greatly excited and seemed bent on excusing and
explaining what she had done. "For I want you to tell Archie
everything, Janet," she said. "I shall maybe never see him again; but
you must take care, that he has not a wrong thought of me."
"He'll get the truth and the whole truth from me, dearie."
"Don't scold him, Janet. I love him very much. It is not his fault."
"I don't know that."
"No, it is not. I wasn't home to Braelands two days before Madame began
to make fun of my talk, and my manners, and my dress, and of all I did
and said. And she got Archie to tell me I must mind her, and try to
learn how to be a fine lady like her; and I could not--I could not. And
then she set Archie against me, and I was scolded just for nothing at
all. And then I got ill, and she said I was only sulky and awkward; but
I just could not learn the books I be to learn, nor walk as she showed
me how to walk, nor talk like her, nor do anything at all she tried to
make me do. Oh, the weary, weary days that I have fret myself through!
Oh, the long, painful nights! I am thankful they can never, never come
back."
"Then don't think of them now, Sophy. Try and rest yourself a bit, and
to-morrow you shall tell me everything."
"To-morrow will be too late, can't you see that, Janet? I must clear
myself to-night--now--or you won't know what to say to Archie."
"Was Archie kind to you, Sophy?"
"Sometimes he was that kind I thought I must be in the wrong, and then
I tried again harder than ever to understand the weary books and do
what Madame told me. Sometimes they made him cross at me, and I thought
I must die with the shame and heartache from it. But it was not till
Marion Glamis came back that I lost all hope. She was Archie's first
love, you know."
"She was nothing of the kind. I don't believe he ever cared a pin for
her. You had the man's first love; you have it yet, if it is worth
aught. He was here seeking you, dearie, and he was distracted with the
loss of you."
"In the morning you will send for him, Janet, very early; and though
I'll be past talking then, you will talk for me. You will tell him how
Madame tortured me about the Glamis girl, how she kept my letters, and
made Mrs. Stirling think I was not in my right mind," and so between
paroxysms of pain and coughing, she went over and over the sad story of
petty wrongs that had broken her heart, and driven her at last to
rebellion and flight.
"Oh! my poor lassie, why didn't you come to Christina and me?"
"There was aye the thought of Andrew. Archie would have been angry,
maybe, and I could only feel that I must get away from Braelands. When
aunt failed me, something seemed to drive me to Edinburgh, and then on
to Glasgow; but it was all right, you see, I have saved you and
Christina for the last hour," and she clasped Christina's hand and laid
her head closer to Janet's breast.
"And I would like to see the man or woman that will dare to trouble you
now, my bonnie bairn," said Janet. There was a sob in her voice, and
she crooned kind words to the dying girl, who fell asleep at last in
her arms. Then Janet went to the door, and stood almost gasping in the
strong salt breeze; for the shock of Sophy's pitiful return had hurt
her sorely. There was a full moon in the sky, and the cold, gray waters
tossed restlessly under it. "Lord help us, we must bear what's sent!"
she whispered; then she noticed a steamboat with closely reefed sails
lying in the offing; and added thankfully, "There is 'The Falcon,' God
bless her! And it's good to think that Andrew Binnie isn't far away;
maybe he'll be wanted. I wonder if I ought to send a word to him; if
Sophy wants to see him, she shall have her way; dying folk don't make
any mistakes."
Now when Andrew came to anchor at Pittendurie, it was his custom to
swing out a signal light, and if the loving token was seen, Janet and
Christina answered by placing a candle in their windows. This night
Janet put three candles in her window. "Andrew will wonder at them,"
she thought, "and maybe come on shore to find out whatever their
meaning may be." Then she hurriedly closed the door. The night was
cold, but it was more than that,--the air had the peculiar coldness
that gives sense of the supernatural, such coldness as precedes the
advent of a spirit. She was awed, she opened her mouth as if to speak,
but was dumb; she put out her hands--but who can arrest the invisible?
Sleep was now impossible. The very air of the room was sensitive.
Christina sat wide awake on one side of the bed, Janet on the other;
they looked at each other frequently, but did not talk. There was no
sound but the rising moans of the northeast wind, no light but the glow
of the fire and the shining of the full moon looking out from the
firmament as from eternity. Sophy slept restlessly like one in
half-conscious pain, and when she awoke before dawning, she was in a
high fever and delirious; but there was one incessant, gasping cry for
"Andrew!"
"Andrew! Andrew! Andrew!" she called with fast failing breath, "Andrew,
come and go for Archie. Only you can bring him to me." And Janet never
doubted at this hour what love and mercy asked for. "Folks may talk if
they want to," she said to Christina, "I am going down to the village
to get some one to take a message to Andrew. Sophy shall have her will
at this hour if I can compass it."
The men of the village were mostly yet at the fishing, but she found
two old men who willingly put out to "The Falcon" with the message for
her captain. Then she sent a laddie for the nearest doctor, and she
called herself for the minister, and asked him to come and see the sick
woman; "forbye, minister," she added, "I'm thinking you will be the
only person in Pittendurie that will have the needful control o' temper
to go to Braelands with the news." She did not specially hurry any one,
for, sick as Sophy was, she believed it likely Archie Braelands and a
good doctor might give her such hope and relief as would prolong her
life a little while. "She is so young," she thought, "and love and
sea-breezes are often a match for death himself."
The old men who had gone for Andrew were much too infirm to get close
to "The Falcon." For with the daylight her work had begun, and she was
surrounded on all sides by a melee of fishing-boats. Some were
discharging their boxes of fish; others were struggling to get some
point of vantage; others again fighting to escape the uproar. The air
was filled with the roar of the waves and with the voices of men,
blending in shouts, orders, expostulations, words of anger, and words
of jest.
Above all this hubbub, Andrew's figure on the steamer's bridge towered
large and commanding, as he watched the trunks of fish hauled on board,
and then dragged, pushed, thrown, or kicked, as near the mouth of the
hold as the blockade of trunks already shipped would permit. But, sharp
as a crack of thunder, a stentorian voice called out:--
"Captain Binnie wanted! Girl dying in Pittendurie wants him!"
Andrew heard. The meaning of the three lights was now explained. He had
an immediate premonition that it was Sophy, and he instantly deputed
his charge to Jamie, and was at the gunwale before the shouter had
repeated his alarm. To a less prompt and practised man, a way of
reaching the shore would have been a dangerous and tedious
consideration; but Andrew simply selected a point where a great wave
would lift a small boat near to the level of the ship's bulwarks, and
when this occurred, he leaped into her, and was soon going shoreward as
fast as his powerful stroke at the oars could carry him.
When he reached Christina's cottage, Sophy had passed beyond all earthly
care and love. She heeded not the tenderest words of comfort; her life
was inexorably coming to its end; and every one of her muttered words
was mysterious, important, wondrous, though they could make out nothing
she said, save only that she talked about "angels resting in the
hawthorn bowers." Hastily Christina gave Andrew the points of her
sorrowful story, and then she suddenly remembered that a strange man had
brought there that morning some large, important-looking papers which he
had insisted on giving to the dying woman. Andrew, on examination, found
them to be proceedings in the divorce case between Archibald Braelands
and his wife Sophy Traill.
"Some one has recognised her in the train last night and then followed
her here," he said pitifully. "They were in a gey hurry with their cruel
work. I hope she knows nothing about it."
"No, no, they didn't come till she was clean beyond the worriments of
this life. She did not see the fellow who put them in her hands; she
heard nothing he said to her."
"Then if she comes to herself at all, say nothing about them. What for
should we tell her? Death will break her marriage very soon without
either judge or jury."
"The doctor says in a few hours at the most."
"Then there is no time to lose. Say a kind 'farewell' for me,
Christina, if you find a minute in which she can understand it. I'm off
to Braelands," and he put the divorce papers in his pocket, and went
down the cliff at a run. When he reached the house, Archie was at the
door on his horse and evidently in a hurry; but Andrew's look struck
him on the heart like a blow. He dismounted without a word, and
motioned to Andrew to follow him. They turned into a small room, and
Archie closed the door. For a moment there was a terrible silence, then
Andrew, with passionate sorrow, threw the divorce papers down on the
table.
"You'll not require, Braelands, to fash folk with the like of them;
your wife is dying. She is at my sister's house. Go to her at once."
"What is that to you? Mind your own business, Captain Binnie."
"It is the business of every decent man to call comfort to the dying.
Go and say the words you ought to say. Go before it is too late."
"Why is my wife at your sister's house?"
"God pity the poor soul, she had no other place to die in! For Christ's
sake, go and say a loving word to her."
"Where has she been all this time? Tell me that, sir."
"Dying slowly in the public hospital at Glasgow."
"_My God_!"
"There is no time for words now; not a moment to spare. Go to your wife
at once."
"She left me of her own free will. Why should I go to her now?"
"She did not leave you; she was driven away by devilish cruelty. And
oh, man, man, go for your own sake then! To-morrow it will be too late
to say the words you will weep to say. Go for your own sake. Go to
spare yourself the black remorse that is sure to come if you don't go.
If you don't care for your poor wife, go for your own sake!"
"I do care for my wife. I wished--"
"Haste you then, don't lose a moment! Haste you! haste you! If it is
but one kind word before you part forever, give it to her. She has
loved you well; she loves you yet; she is calling for you at the
grave's mouth. Haste you, man! haste you!"
His passionate hurry drove like a wind, and Braelands was as straw
before it. His horse stood there ready saddled; Andrew urged him to it,
and saw him flying down the road to Pittendurie before he was conscious
of his own efforts. Then he drew a long sigh, lifted the divorce papers
and threw them into the blazing fire. A moment or two he watched them
pass into smoke, and then he left the house with all the hurry of a
soul anxious unto death. Half-way down the garden path, Madame
Braelands stepped in front of him.
"What have you come here for?" she asked in her haughtiest manner.
"For Braelands."
"Where have you sent him to in such a black hurry?"
"To his wife. She is dying."
"Stuff and nonsense!"
"She is dying."
"No such luck for my house. The creature has been dying ever since he
married her."
"_You_ have been _killing her_ ever since he married her. Give way,
woman, I don't want to speak to you; I don't want to touch the very
clothes of you. I think no better of you than God Almighty does, and He
will ask Sophy's life at your hands."
"I shall tell Braelands of your impertinence. It will be the worse for
you."
"It will be as God wills, and no other way. Let me pass. Don't touch
me, there is blood on your hands, and blood on your skirts; and you are
worse--ten thousand times worse--than any murderer who ever swung on
the gallows-tree for her crime! Out of my way, Madame Braelands!"
She stood before him motionless as a white stone with passion, and yet
terrified by the righteous anger she had provoked. Words would not come
to her, she could not obey his order and move out of his way, so Andrew
turned into another path and left her where she stood, for he was
impatient of delay, and with steps hurried and stumbling, he followed
the husband whom he had driven to his duty.