CONFESSION
By Monday evening there were only two people in all the small town of
Leauvite who had not heard of the tragedy, and these were Hester
Craigmile and Betty Ballard. Mary doubted if it was wise to keep
Hester thus in ignorance, but it was the Elder's wish, and at his
request she went to spend the evening and if necessary the night with
his wife, to fend off any officious neighbor, while he personally
directed the search.
It was the Elder's firm belief that his son had been murdered, yet he
thought if no traces should be found of Peter Junior, he might be able
to spare Hester the agony of that belief. He preferred her to think
her son had gone off in anger and would sometime return. He felt
himself justified in this concealment, fearing that if she knew the
truth, she might grieve herself into her grave, and his request to
Mary to help him had been made so pitifully and humbly that her heart
melted at the sight of the old man's sorrow, and she went to spend
those weary hours with his wife.
As the Elder sometimes had meetings of importance to take him away of
an evening, Hester did not feel surprise at his absence, and she
accepted Mary's visit as one of sweet friendliness and courtesy
because of Peter's engagement to Betty. Nor did she wonder that the
visit was made without Bertrand, as Mary said he and the Elder had
business together, and she thought she would spend the time with her
friend until their return.
That was all quite as it should be and very pleasant, and Hester
filled the moments with cheerful chat, showing Mary certain pieces of
cloth from which she proposed to make dainty garments for Betty, to
help Mary with the girl's wedding outfit. To Mary it all seemed like a
dream as she locked the sad secret in her heart and listened. Her
friend's sorrow over Peter Junior's disagreement with his father and
his sudden departure from the home was tempered by the glad hope that
after all the years of anxiety, she was some time to have a daughter
to love, and that her boy and his wife would live near them, and her
home might again know the sound of happy children's voices. The sweet
thoughts brought her gladness and peace of mind, and Mary's visit made
the dream more sure of ultimate fulfillment.
Mary felt the Elder's wish lie upon her with the imperative force of a
law, and she did not dare disregard his request that on no account was
Hester to be told the truth. So she gathered all her fortitude and
courage to carry her through this ordeal. She examined the fine linen
that had been brought to Hester years ago from Scotland by Richard's
mother, and while she praised it she listened for steps without; the
heavy tread of men bringing a sorrowful and terrible burden. But the
minutes wore on, and no such sounds came, and the hour grew late.
"They may have gone out of town. Bertrand said something about it, and
told me to stay until he called for me, if I stayed all night." Mary
tried to laugh over it, and Hester seized the thought gayly.
"We'll go to bed, anyway, and your husband may just go home without
you when he comes."
And after a little longer wait they went to bed, and Hester slept, but
Mary lay wakeful and fearing, until in the early morning, while it was
yet dark, she heard the Elder slowly climb the stairs and go to his
room. Then she also slept, hoping against hope, that they had found
nothing.
Betty's pride and shame had caused her to keep her trouble to herself.
She knew Richard had gone forever, and she dreaded Peter Junior's next
visit. What should she do! Oh, what should she do! Should she tell
Peter she did not love him, and that all had been a mistake? She must
humble herself before him, and what excuse had she to make for all the
hours she had given him, and the caresses she had accepted? Ah! If
only she could make the last week as if it had never been! She was
shamed before her mother, who had seen him kiss her. She was ashamed
even in her own room in the darkness to think of all Peter Junior had
said to her, and the love he had lavished on her. Ought she to break
her word to him and beg him to forget? Ah! Neither he nor she could
ever forget.
Her brothers had been forbidden to tell her a word of the reports that
were already abroad in the town, and now they were both in bed and
asleep, and little Janey was cuddled in Betty's bed, also in
dreamland. At last, when neither her father nor her mother returned
and she could bear her own thoughts no longer, she brought drawing
materials down from the studio and spread them out on the dining room
table.
She had decided she would never marry any one--never. How could she!
But she would study in earnest and be an illustrator. If women could
never become great artists, as Peter Junior said, at least they might
illustrate books; and sometime--maybe--when her heart was not so sad,
she might write books, and she could illustrate them herself. Ah, that
would almost make up for what she must go without all her life.
For a while she worked painstakingly, but all the time it seemed as
though she could hear Richard's voice, and the words he had said to
her Sunday morning kept repeating themselves over and over in her
mind. Then the tears fell one by one and blurred her work, until at
last she put her head down on her arms and wept. Then the door opened
very softly and Richard entered. Swiftly he came to her and knelt at
her side. He put his head on her knee, and his whole body shook with
tearless sobs he could not restrain. He was faint and weak. She could
not know the whole cause of his grief, and thought he suffered because
of her. She must comfort him--but alas! What could she say? How could
she comfort him?
She put her trembling hand on his head and found the hair matted and
stiff. Then she saw a wound above his temple, and knew he was hurt,
and cried out: "You are hurt--you are hurt! Oh, Richard! Let me do
something for you."
He clasped her in his arms, but still did not look up at her, and
Betty forgot all her shame, and her lessons in propriety. She lifted
his head to her bosom and laid her cheek upon his and said all the
comforting things that came into her heart. She begged him to let her
wash his wound and to tell her how he came by it. She forgot
everything, except that she loved him and told him over and over the
sweet confession.
At last he found strength to speak to her brokenly. "Never love me any
more, Betty. I've committed a terrible crime--Oh, my God! And you will
hear of it Give me a little milk. I've eaten nothing since yesterday
morning, when I saw you. Then I'll try to tell you what you must
know--what all the world will tell you soon."
He rose and staggered to a chair and she brought him milk and bread
and meat, but she would not let him talk to her until he had allowed
her to wash the wound on his head and bind it up. As she worked the
touch of her hands seemed to bring him sane thoughts in spite of the
horror of himself that possessed him, and he was enabled to speak more
coherently.
"If I had not been crazed when I looked through the window and saw you
crying, Betty, I would never have let you see me or touch me again.
It's only adding one crime to another to come near you. I meant just
to look in and see if I could catch one glimpse of you, and then was
going to lose myself to all the world, or else give myself up to be
hung." Then he was silent, and she began to question him.
"Don't! Richard. Hung? What have you done? What do you mean? When was
it?"
"Sunday night."
"But you had to start for Cheyenne early this morning. Where have you
been all day? I thought you were gone forever, dear."
"I hid myself down by the river. I lay there all day, and heard them
talking, but I couldn't see them nor they me. It was a hiding place we
knew of when our camp was there--Peter Junior and I. He's gone. I did
it--I did it with murder in my heart--Oh, my God!"
"Don't, Richard. You must tell me nothing except as I ask you. It is
not as if we did not love each other. What you have done I must help
you bear--as--as wives help their husbands--for I will never marry;
but all my life my heart will be married to yours." He reached for her
hands and covered them with kisses and moaned. "No, Richard, don't.
Eat the bread and meat I have brought you. You've eaten nothing for
two days, and everything may seem worse to you than it is."
"No, no!"
"Richard, I'll go away from you and leave you here alone if you don't
eat."
"Yes, I must eat--not only now--but all the rest of my life, I must
eat to live and repent. He was my dearest friend. I taunted him and
said bitter things. I goaded him. I was insane with rage and at last
so was he. He struck me--and--and I--I was trying to push him over the
bluff--"
Slowly it dawned on Betty what Richard's talk really meant.
"Not Peter? Oh, Richard--not Peter!" She shrank from him, wide-eyed in
terror.
"He would have killed me--for I know what was in his heart as well as
I knew what was in my own--and we were both seeing red. I've felt it
sometimes in battle, and the feeling makes a man drunken. A man will
do anything then. We'd been always friends--and yet we were drunken
with hate; and now--he--he is better off than I. I must live. Unless
for the disgrace to my relatives, I would give myself up to be
hanged. It would be better to take the punishment than to live in such
torture as this."
The tears coursed fast down Betty's cheeks. Slowly she drew nearer
him, and bent down to him as he sat, until she could look into his
eyes. "What were you quarreling about, Richard?"
"Don't ask me, darling Betty."
"What was it, Richard?"
"All my life you will be the sweet help to me--the help that may keep
me from death in life. To carry in my soul the remembrance of last
night will need all the help God will let me have. If I had gone away
quietly, you and Peter Junior would have been married and have been
happy--but--"
"No, no. Oh, Richard, no. I knew in a moment when you came--"
"Yes, Betty, dear, Peter Junior was good and faithful; and he might
have been able to undo all the harm I had done. He could have taught
you to love him. I have done the devil's work--and then I killed
him--Oh, my God! My God!"
"How do you know you pushed him over? He may have fallen over. You
don't know it. He may have--"
"Hush, dearest. I did it. When I came to myself, it was in the night;
and it must have been late, for the moon was set. I could only see
faintly that something white lay near me. I felt of it, and it was
Peter Junior's hat. Then I felt all about for him--and he was gone and
I crawled to the edge of the bluff--but although I knew he was gone
over there and washed by the terrible current far down the river by
that time, I couldn't follow him, whether from cowardice or weakness.
I tried to get on my feet and could not. Then I must have fainted
again, for all the world faded away, and I thought maybe the blow had
done for me and I might not have to leap over there, after all. I
could feel myself slipping away.
"When I awoke, the sun was shining and a bird was singing just as if
nothing had happened, and I thought I had been dreaming an awful
dream--but there was the wound on my head and I was alive. Then I went
farther down the river and came back to the hiding place and crept in
there to wait and think. Then, after a long while, the boys came, and
I was terrified for fear they were searching for me. That is the
shameful truth, Betty. I feared. I never knew what fear was before.
Betty, fear is shameful. There I have been all day--waiting--for what,
I do not know; but it seemed that if I could only have one little
glimpse of you I could go bravely and give myself up. I will now--"
"No, Richard; it would do no good for you to die such a death. It
would undo nothing, and change nothing. Peter was angry, too, and he
struck you, and if he could have his way he would not want you to die.
I say maybe he is living now. He may not have gone over."
"It's no use, Betty. He went down. I pushed him into that terrible
river. I did it. I--I--I!" Richard only moaned the words in a whisper
of despair, and the horror of it all began to deepen and crush down
upon Betty. She retreated, step by step, until she backed against the
door leading to her chamber, and there she stood gazing at him with
her hand pressed over her lips to keep herself from crying out. Then
she saw him rise and turn toward the door without looking at her
again, his head bowed in grief, and the sight roused her. As the door
closed between them she ran and threw it open and followed him out
into the darkness.
"I can't, Richard. I can't let you go like this!" She clung to him,
sobbing her heart out on his bosom, and he clasped her and held her
warm little body close.
"I'm like a drowning man pulling you under with me. Your tears drown
me. I would not have entered the house if I had not seen you crying.
Never cry again for me, Betty, never."
"I will cry. I tell you I will cry. I will. I don't believe you are a
murderer."
"You must believe it. I am."
"I loved Peter Junior and you loved him. You did not mean to do it."
"I did it."
"If you did it, it is as if I did it, too. We both killed him--and I
am a murderer, too. It was because of me you did it, and if you give
yourself up to be hung, I will give myself up. Poor Peter--Oh,
Richard--I don't believe he fell over." For a long moment she sobbed
thus. "Where are you going, Richard?" she asked, lifting her head.
"I don't know, Betty. I may be taken and can go nowhere."
"Yes, you must go--quick--quick--now. Some one may come and find you
here."
"No one will find me. Cain was a wanderer over the face of the
earth."
"Will you let me know where you are, after you are gone?"
"No, Betty. You must never think of me, nor let me darken your life."
"Then must I live all the rest of the years without even knowing where
you are?"
"Yes, love. Put me out of your life from now on, and it will be enough
for me that you loved me once."
"I will help you atone, Richard. I will try to be brave--and help
Peter's mother to bear it. I will love her for Peter and for you."
"God's blessing on you forever, Betty." He was gone, striding away in
the darkness, and Betty, with trembling steps, entered the house.
Carefully she removed every sign of his having been there. The bowl of
water, and the cloth from which she had torn strips to bind his head
she carried away, and the glass from which he had taken his milk, she
washed, and even the crumbs of bread which had fallen to the floor she
picked up one by one, so that not a trace remained. Then she took her
drawing materials back to the studio, and after kneeling long at her
bedside, and only saying: "God, help Richard, help him," over and
over, she crept in beside her little sister, and still weeping and
praying chokingly clasped the sleeping child in her arms.
From that time, it seemed to Bertrand and Mary that a strange and
subtle change had taken place in their beloved little daughter; for
which they tried to account as the result of the mysterious
disappearance of Peter Junior. He was not found, and Richard also was
gone, and the matter after being for a long time the wonder of the
village, became a thing of the past. Only the Elder cherished the
thought that his son had been murdered, and quietly set a detective
at work to find the guilty man--whom he would bring back to
vengeance.
Her parents were forced to acquaint Betty with the suspicious nature
of Peter's disappearance, knowing she might hear of it soon and be
more shocked than if told by themselves. Mary wondered not a little at
her dry-eyed and silent reception of it, but that was a part of the
change in Betty.
BOOK TWO