"Then you refuse to accept it?" Everet is speaking.
"Yes. I refuse." Helen speaks decisively and walks away to the window.
"Helen."
Everet comes close to her. He speaks hesitatingly.
"You know that I am your true friend, that when I urge this upon you it
is through no lack of desire on my part to supply you with all your
heart could wish. You know that when I urged you to return to Braine, I
thought of your happiness. You know this. As long as you are satisfied,
this house and everything in it is yours, and all your wishes shall be
fulfilled so far as I am able to do it; but I feel that there is a day
coming when you will not be satisfied, living in this way; and then--in
_money_ will be your only hope. I _must_ speak plainly, dear. It is for
this reason that I entreat you to accept this provision which Braine
offers. All that I have is at your disposal, but I have little in
comparison with the wealth Braine wishes to place in your hands."
She turns and looks at him. She says slowly:
"I do not want your wealth, or his. I want what you will not give
me--love. Wealth will not take its place. If you cannot give me that,
there is but one thing that can in any degree make it up to me--power.
One or the other I must have. One or the other must help me to forget my
ruined life--the life that _he_ has ruined, and now thinks to pay for
with money."
"You are wrong. He has sinned, but if ever a human being suffered and
has tried to rectify his mistakes, he is the one. He has implored you to
return. You have refused all overtures. You have returned his letters
unopened. You have been unwilling to listen--"
"_Listen?_ You talk like a child. This man has done me the greatest
wrong that a woman ever suffered. These last two months with him have
been one great insult, one monstrous indignity and affront. _Listen?_ It
is too late. Once I begged him to listen to me. I humiliated myself
before him, begging for one little expression of love--the next morning
he mocked me. It is too late."
And Everet knows that she speaks the truth.
He says sorrowfully:
"Very well. You cannot return to him? Then be merciful, let him make the
little reparation in his power. Accept this money from him."
She shakes her head:
"Never!"
Then, with a burst of emotion, "Why do you torment me in this way? Once
you would have given half your life for my favor; now you are as
unresponsive as a block of wood."
Everet's face grows troubled:
"Not so," he says; "don't accuse me of this, Helen. Don't call me
unresponsive. You are very dear to me--but I may not have you for my
wife, and I cannot accept you in another relation. I _cannot_ do that.
My position has been a terrible one. I don't think you can understand--"
"His crime was directed toward you--"
"And do you not see that this compels me to be generous? I cannot do
that thing. This man has discovered his wrong and is repentant. I should
be a dog if I refused to recognize the fact. He has converted everything
he possesses in the world into money, and begs you to accept it. He
leaves his home, and takes himself away from his fellows to live--this
man who has swayed thousands with his eloquence, who has commanded the
homage of all the country, who has held the affairs of the nation in his
hands. This man has humbled himself, has forsworn it all, has buried his
strength and his greatness and his talents in a little forsaken
wilderness. God! I am an honor-loving man; I despise his crime, and my
own; and yet, I doubt if I should be great enough for this. After all,
he was guilty of nothing but what his associates are guilty of every day
of their lives, and will continue in uninterruptedly and with less
excuse; the difference--that one has met with retribution and the others
have not. To-day I have more respect and reverence for this man who has
been overtaken and repents, than for Grayson who has braved it through
and is about to step into his place--"
"He would not be repenting in sackcloth and ashes if he had _not_ been
overtaken."
There is a touch of wormwood in her voice.
"Perhaps not; but he is repenting, with an humbler repentance than I
believe even the Lord cares to accept."
Helen's eyes gleam a little, and her lips are firmly pressed together.
Everet's defence of the man who has tried to wrong him, and whom she has
loved, cannot convince her.
After a time Everet rises to go. He holds her hands in his for a moment:
"You are decided?"
"Decided."
Everet says good night. Helen turns wearily back into the pretty rooms.
She looks about, almost contemptuously. Her face is not the face of the
Helen of six months ago. To-night it expresses weariness, hopelessness,
bitterness, longing. She clasps her hands a little wildly. She has not
found what she sought. Since the night in Everet's house, he has been
the friend, not the lover. The old life sometimes comes over her as it
has to-night. The old sweet life, the old sweet love--and yet, the old
love would not satisfy her now, if it must be linked with the old life.
That is an unacknowledged reason for her obduracy. Love without money?
Yes. Love without power, excitement, intrigue? No. If this has poisoned
all her days, yet it is a delicious poison.
At times she is consumed with a sense of the mortification and indignity
of those last months with Braine. She feels a bitter desire for some
sort of revenge. What would she have known of longing and ambition, and
falsehood and madness, but for him?
She has fallen into a morbid state. She now sees no one. She is without
the social pale of her old acquaintance among whom she ruled. The thing
for which she has been in training for years is denied her. That which
nature intended her for--the life of a loving woman--has been made
tasteless to her. Her natural appetite is ruined; her acquired taste is
ungratified. She thinks:
"Could I be occupied! Could I forget, a little while!"
She throws herself upon the divan with a little moan. She lies so for an
hour, perhaps. A card is brought her--she reads "_Dalzel_."
She rises with a curious expression on her face. She stands expectant.
An hour later as he is leaving, he says:
"Of all the women able to accomplish the thing, you are the best
fitted." And watching him go, she thinks:
"This is the clever man who was cleverer than my friend. What better
incentive could a woman want?"