inadvertently perished I had known long and well. My wrongs to her had
been great, but she had kept silence during my whole married life and
in my blind confidence in the exemption this seemed to afford me, I put
no curb upon my ambition which had already carried me far beyond my
deserts. Those who read these lines may know how majestic were my
hopes, how imminent the honor, to attain which I have employed my best
energies for years. Life was bright, the future dazzling. Though I had
neither wife nor child, the promise of activity on the lines which
appeal to every man of political instinct gave me all I seemed to need
in the way of compensation. I was happy, arrogantly so, perhaps, when
without warning the woman I had not seen in years, who,--if I thought
of her at all, I honestly believed to be dead--wrote me a letter
recalling her claims and proposing a speedy interview, with a view to
their immediate settlement. Though couched in courteous terms, the
whole letter was instinct with a confidence which staggered me. She
meant to reënter my life, and if I knew her, openly. Nothing short of
bearing my name and being introduced to the world as my wife would
satisfy her; and this not only threatened a scandal destructive of my
hopes, but involved the breaking of a fresh matrimonial engagement into
which I had lately entered with more ardor I fear than judgment. What
was I to do? Let her have her way--this woman I had not seen in fifteen
years,--who if at the age of twenty had seemed to my enthusiastic youth
little short of a poet's dream, must be far short of any such
perfection now? I rebelled at the very thought. Yet to deny her meant
the possible facing of consequences such as the strongest may well
shrink from. And the time for choice was short. She had limited her
patience to a fortnight, and one day of that fortnight had already
passed.
"I have in my arrogant manhood sometimes credited myself with the
possession of a mind of more or less superiority; but I have never
deceived myself as to the meretricious quality of the goodness with
which many have thoughtlessly endowed me. I have always known it was
not even up to that of men whose standards fall far short of the
highest integrity. But never, till that hour came, had I realized
to what depths of evil my nature could sink under a disappointment
threatening the fulfillment of my ambitious projects. Had there been
any prospect of escape from the impending scandal by means usually
employed by men in my position, I might have given my thoughts less
rein and been saved at least from crime. But these were not available
in my case. She was not a woman who could be bought. She was not even
one I could cajole. Death only would rid me of her; kindly death which
does not come at call. This is as far as my thoughts went at first. I
was a gentleman and had some of a gentleman's feelings. But when my
sleep began to be disturbed by dreams, and this was very soon, I could
not hide from myself toward what fatal goal my thoughts were tending.
To be freed from her! To be freed from her! dinned itself in my ears,
sleeping or waking, at home or abroad. But I saw no plain road to this
freedom, for our paths never crossed and my honor as well as safety
demanded that the coveted result should be without any possible danger
to myself. Cold, heartless villain! you say. Well, so I was; no colder
nor more heartless villain lives to-day than I was between the
inception of my purpose and its diabolical fulfillment in the manner
publicly known.
"So true is this that, as time went on, my ideas cleared and the plan
for which I was seeking unfolded itself before me from the day I came
upon a discarded bow lying open to view in the museum cellar. The
dreams of which I have spoken had prepared me for this sudden
knowledge. The woman who blocked my way and against whom I meditated
this crime was connected in my mind with Alpine scenery and Alpine
events. It was at Lucerne I had first met her, young and fresh, but
giving no promise of the woman she has since become; and in the visions
which came and went before my eyes, it was not herself I saw so much as
the surroundings of those days, and the feats of prowess by which I had
hoped to win her approbation. Among these was the shooting at a small
target with a bow and arrow. I became very proficient in this line. I
shot as by instinct. I could never tell whether I really took aim or
not, but the arrow infallibly hit the mark. In my dreams I always saw
it flying, and when this bow came to hand a thought of what the two
might accomplish came with it. Yet even then I had no real idea of
putting into practice this fancy of a distempered brain. I brought the
bow up from the cellar and hid it unstrung in the Curator's closet,
more from idle impulse I fondly thought, than from any definite
purpose. Another day I saw the Curator's keys lying on his desk and
took them to open a passage to the upper floor. But for all that, I
felt sure that I would never use the bow even after I had thrust it
near to hand behind the tapestry masking the secret entrance to this
passage. One dreams of such things but they do not perpetrate them. I
might approach the deed, I might even make every preparation for its
accomplishment, but that did not mean that the day would ever come
when I should actually loose an arrow from this bow against a human
breast. More than once I laughed at the mere idea.
"But the devil knew me better than I knew myself. Impelled by these
same instincts, I answered the letter sent me with the assurance that I
would surely see her, but I did not name any day, intuitively knowing
that what I dreamed of doing but certainly should not do required a
certain set of circumstances not easily to be met with. Instead, I bade
her show herself in the second section of the southern gallery, every
Tuesday and Friday at the exact hour of noon. If at the moment the two
hands of the clock came together, she saw me on the lower step of the
main staircase, she was to know that I was free to talk and would soon
join her. If she did not see me there, she was to return home and come
another day. She answered that she would come but once, and set the
day. This was startling to my pride, but in a way it brought me a sense
of relief. To wait till all was propitious might mean continual delays.
The very fact of my uncertainty as to whether or not I should have the
courage of my wishes at the critical moment made an indefinite
prolongation of my present condition undesirable. Better one straight
risk and be done with it.
"I was to wait two weeks. Why she exacted so long and seemingly
unnecessary a delay, I do not know. Before I saw her, I thought it was
from a sheer desire to make me suffer; now I know it was not for that.
However, it did make me suffer, from the alternate weakening and
strengthening of my resolve. When the day came, the most trivial of
circumstances would have deterred me from what still had the nature of
a dream to me. Unhappily, everything worked for its fulfillment. There
had never been fewer persons in the building at the noon hour; nor had
there been a time during the past two weeks when the Curator was more
completely occupied in a spot quite remote from his office. As I tried
the door leading up the little winding staircase to the one back of the
tapestry where the bow lay, and found it, just as I had left it,
unlocked, I had a sense for the first time that the courage concerning
which I had had so many doubts would hold. At that moment I was a
murderer in heart and purpose, whatever I was after or have been since.
As I recognized this fact, I felt my face go pale and my limbs shake
from sheer horror of myself. But this weakness was short-lived and I
felt my blood flowing evenly again when having slipped into my place
behind the upper pedestal I peered through my peep-hole in a search for
her figure in the spot where I had bidden her await me.
"She was not there, but then it was not quite twelve, though the noon
hour was so near she must be somewhere in the gallery and liable at any
minute to cross my line of vision.
"It was fifteen years, as I have already said, since I had seen her;
and I had no other picture of her in my mind than the appearance she
had made as a girl, coarsened by time and disappointment. Why I should
have looked for just this sort of change in her, God knows, but I did
expect it and probably would not have recognized her if I had passed
her in the court. But I was not worrying about any mistake I might make
of this kind. All I seemed to fear was that at the critical moment some
one would pass between us on my side of the gallery. I never thought of
anyone passing in front of her.
"I had picked out Section II as the place where she was to show
herself, because it was in a direct line with the course an arrow would
take from a sight behind the vase. I had bade her to look for me in the
court, and that would bring her forward to the balustrade in front. A
knot of scarlet ribbon at her breast was to distinguish her. But the
spot I had thus chosen for her, and the spot I had chosen for myself
had this disadvantage; that while I could see straight to my mark from
the peep-hole I have mentioned, I could see nothing to right or left of
that one line of vision. Why I did not realize the hazard involved in
this fact I do not know. Enough that my whole thought was centered on
the lookout I was keeping and it was with a shock of surprise I
suddenly saw the whole scene blotted from my view by the passing by of
some one on my own side of the gallery. This must have been the
Englishman who found his vantage-point from behind the other pedestal.
He went by quickly, and as the opening cleared once more, I beheld the
woman for whom I was waiting appear in the spot selected. For an
instant I was dazzled. I had not expected to see so noble a figure; and
in that instant a cloud came before my eyes, my resolution failed,--I
was almost saved--she was almost saved--when instinct got the better of
my judgment, and the arrow flew just as that young creature bounded
forward in her delight at seeing her steamer admirer watching her from
my side of the court.
"The shock of thus beholding a perfect stranger fall under my hand
benumbed me, but only for an instant. In the two weeks of intolerable
waiting through which I had just passed, I had so forcibly impressed
upon my consciousness the exact course I was to pursue from the instant
the arrow left the bow that I went about the same automatically.
Pulling out the edge of the tapestry, I slipped behind it, dropping my
bow in the doorway left open for my passage. This caused me no thought
and awakened no fears. But what took all the nerve I possessed, and
gave me in one awful moment a foretaste of the terror and despair
awaiting me in days to come, was the opening of the second door--the
one leading into the Curator's office.
"What might I not be forced to encounter when the knob to this was
turned! Some strolling guest--Correy the attendant--or even the guard
who was never where he was needed and always where he was not! For
anyone to be there of sufficient intelligence to note my face and the
place from which I came meant the end of all things to me. It was not
necessary for this imaginary person to be in the room. To be within
sight of it was enough. But this fear--this horror of impending
retribution--did not make me hesitate or delay my advance a single
instant. Everything depended upon my being one of the crowd when the
first alarm was raised. So with the daring of one who in escaping a
present danger hurls himself knowingly into another equally perilous,
I pushed open the door and entered the office.
"It was empty! Fortune had favored me thus far. Nor was there anyone in
the court beyond, near enough or interested enough to note my presence
or observe any effort I might make at immediate departure. With the
hope riding high within my breast that I should yet reach the street
before my crime was discovered, I made for the nearest exit. But I was
not destined to reach it. When I was only some half a dozen paces from
the great door, Correy's cry rang loudly through the building, with the
result that all egress was shut off, and I was left, with no other aid
than my own assurance, to face my hideous deed with all its appalling
consequences.
"How it served me, you have seen. Steeled by a sense of my own danger,
I was able to confront the woman whom I had so deeply wronged,--whom
I had even endeavored to kill,--and ply her with those questions upon
whose answers depended not only my honor, but my very life.
"My cold-blooded absorption in my own security, and her almost
superhuman devotedness, must have given the Powers cognizant of mortal
lives a new lesson in human nature. Never has a greater contrast been
shown between self-seeking man and self-forgetful woman. But deeply as
I was impressed by the steadfastness and magnanimity of her spirit, nay
by the woman herself, I have been less oppressed by the great debt I
owed her than by the thought, growing more intolerable every day, that
in my frenzied struggle against fate I had cut short the existence of a
young and lovely girl whose right to live was beyond all comparison
superior to my own.
"But now, as the shadows fall thickly about me and the last page of my
dishonorable existence awaits to be turned, my mortal wound is this:
that I must leave to loneliness and unspeakable grief the great-souled
woman who has seen into the heart of my crime and yet has forgiven me.
All else of anguish or dread is swallowed up in this one over-mastering
sorrow. To her my heart's thanks are here given; to her my last word is
due. May she find in it all that her soul calls for in this hour of
supreme disaster: repentance equal to my sin, and a recognition of her
worth, which, late as it is for her comfort, may lead to her acceptance
of the consolation yet to be meted out to her from eternal sources."
That was all. The pen dropped from his hand and he sat inert, almost
pulseless, in the desolation of a despair known only to those who, at a
blow, have sunk from the height of public applause into the depths of
irretrievable ignominy.
The District Attorney, who was a man of more feeling than was usually
supposed, contemplated him in compassionate silence for a moment, then
gently--very gently for him--leaned forward and drew from under the
unresisting hands the scattered sheets which lay in disorder before him,
and passed them on to his stenographer.
"Read," said he; but immediately changed his mind and took them back. "I
will read them myself. Mr. Roberts, I must ask you to listen. It is right
for you to know exactly what you have written before you affix your
signature to it."
Mr. Roberts bowed mechanically, but he looked very weary.
The District Attorney began to read. It is a matter of doubt whether Mr.
Roberts so much as heard him. Yet the reading went on, and when the last
word was reached, the District Attorney, after a pause during which his
eye had consulted that of the Chief Inspector, remarked in a kindly tone
and yet with an emphasis impossible to disregard:
"I see that you have made no mention of Madame Duclos in this relation of
the cause and manner of her young daughter's death. Is it possible that
you are ignorant of the part she played in your affairs or the reasons
she had for the suicide with which she terminated her life?"
"I know nothing of the woman but that she was the mother of the girl
who----" he hesitated, then added with a gesture of despair, "fell under
my hand."
The District Attorney said nothing in reply, he simply waited. But no
denial or further admission came.
"She was a friend of Mrs. Taylor," suggested the Chief Inspector as the
silence grew somewhat oppressive. "An old friend; a friend of her early
days; do you not remember?"
"I do not."
His tormentors went no further. Why harass him for an item of knowledge
which the morrow would certainly bring to light. Instead, they hurried
through the remaining formalities, adding to the reading already made a
capitulation of such answers as he had given to their questions, and
witnessing, while he signed both papers.
This done, he was left for a moment in peace, while the two officials
drew aside into the embrasure of the window for a momentary conference.
He seemed to notice the hush, for he roused from the torpor into which
he was again about to sink, and glanced cautiously about him. The
stenographer was busy with his papers, and the other two stood with their
backs to him. If help was to come it must come now. This he realized,
with a sudden graying of his face which took from it the last vestige
of that youthfulness which had been its distinguishing feature; and the
finger which had fumbled from time to time in his vest-pocket stole
thither once more, bringing forth a little vial which in another moment
he raised to his lips.
Was there no one to see? No one to stop him?
No, the stenographer was closing up his bag; and the two officials deep
in conversation. He could drain the last drop unseen.
But the sound of the little vial crashing upon the hearthstone whither he
had flung it broke the quiet and startled the District Attorney forward
in a doubt bordering upon terror.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing to the fragments that had just missed
the ash heap.
"It contained oblivion," was the answer given him in steady tones. "Do
you wonder that I sought it? Nothing can save me. I have two minutes
before me. I would dedicate them to _her_."
His head fell forward on his hands. The clock on the mantel struck. Could
it be that when the second hand had circled its small disc twice--
This was the thought of the District Attorney, but not of the Chief
Inspector. He had advanced to the desk where Mr. Roberts was still
sitting, and remarked with a gravity exceeding any he had hitherto shown:
"Mr. Roberts, I have a great disappointment for you. This little vial
of yours which held poison yesterday contained nothing but a few drops
of harmless liquid to-day. The change was made in the night, by one
suspicious of your intention. You will have to face the full consequences
of your crime."
Carleton Roberts' arms collapsed and his face fell forward upon them, and
they heard a groan. Then in the short silence which followed, another and
a very different sound broke upon their ears. Seven clear calls from the
cuckoo-clock rang out from the room beyond, followed by a woman's
smothered cry.
It was the one ironic touch the situation had lacked. It pierced the
heart of Carleton Roberts and started him in anguish to his feet.
"O God!" he cried, "that I should have let that thing of evil shriek
out the wicked hours from day to day, only to torment her now with old
remembrances! Why did I not crush it to atoms long ago? Why did I leave
it hanging on my wall----"
With a dash he was in the hall. In another instant he was at the door of
his bedroom, followed by the two officials crowding closely up behind
him.
Would they find her there? Yes; where else should she be, she whom this
call from the past might almost draw from the grave! She was there, but
not in the spot where they had expected to see her, nor in that state of
collapse of which her former weakness had given promise. Apart from Mr.
Gryce, with her form drawn up to its full height she stood, with her
finger pointing not at the cuckoo-clock as would seem most natural, but
at a small newspaper print of the dead girl's face pinned up on another
wall.
"Why is that here?" she cried in a passionate inquiry which ignored every
other presence than that of him who must heed and answer her. "Carleton,
Carleton, why have you pinned that young girl's face up opposite your bed
where you can see it on waking, where it can look at you and you at
it--Or----" here checked by a sudden thought she broke off, and her tone
changed to one of doubt, "perhaps you did not put it there yourself?
Perhaps its presence on your wall is a trick of the police to startle you
into betrayal. Was it? Was it?"
"No, Ermentrude." The words came slowly but firmly. "I put it there
myself. I thought it would haunt me less than if left to my imagination."
Then in a low tone which perhaps reached no other ears than hers:
"I do not know what it does to me; or what I see in it. Something besides
youth and beauty. Something----"
"Hush!" She had him by the arm. "Forget it; these men are listening----"
But with a convulsive movement, he broke from her hold, and in so doing
his eyes fell on a mirror confronting him from the opposite side of the
room. Two faces were visible in it, his own and that of his young victim
pictured in the print hanging on the wall behind him. They seemed alive.
Both of them seemed alive, and as he saw them thus in conjunction, the
sweet, pure countenance of the child he had instinctively mourned,
peering at him over his guilty shoulder--the sweat started on his
forehead and he uttered a great cry. Then he stood still, swaying from
side to side, the eyes starting from his head in a horror transcending
all that had gone before.
"Take him away!" she cried. "Out of the room! Let him remain anywhere but
here. I pray you; I entreat."
But he was not to be moved.
"Ermentrude," he whispered; "they say her name was Duclos. She gave her
name as Willetts. What _was_ her name? You know the truth and can tell
me."
XXXIII
AGAIN THE CUCKOO-CLOCK
Then to the wonder and admiration of all, this extraordinary woman showed
her full strength and the inexhaustible power she possessed over her own
emotions. With a smile piteous in its triumph over a suffering the depths
of which they were just beginning to sound, she held his gaze in hers and
quietly said:
"You have driven me to the wall, Carleton. If I answer, nothing remains
to us of hope or honor; nothing upon which to stay our souls but a
consciousness of truth. Shall we let all go and meet our fate as people
should who stand on a desolate shore and see the whole world roll away
from before them?"
_"What was her name?"_
At his look, at this repetition of his question, she straightened up, and
addressed herself to Mr. Gryce.
"You were astonished and regarded me curiously when at the sound of that
foolish little clock I entered this room. That little clock means
everything to me, gentlemen." Here she surveyed them one after the other
with her proud and candid eye. "It is the one witness I have--is it not,
Carleton?" she asked, turning quickly upon him. "You have not failed me
in this?"
He shook his head.
"A witness to what I am still ready to ignore, if such is your will,
Carleton."
Terror! terror far beyond anything they had seen in him yet, paled his
cheek and made his face almost unrecognizable; but he could still speak,
and in the murmur he let fall she heard no word of protest.
"May I ask one of you to take down that clock?"
In a few minutes it lay on the table to which she had pointed. Mr. Gryce
who had at that moment in his pocket a copy of the inscription pasted on
its back, expected her to turn it over and show them the token of Mr.
Roberts' and her united initials.
But it was not this she had in mind. Though she took up the clock, she
did not turn it round, only looked at it steadily, her trembling lips and
a tear--the first they had seen--testifying to the rush of old memories
which this simple little object brought back to her long suffering heart.
Then she laid it down again and seemed to hesitate.
"I want to get at the works inside," she appealed to them with a helpless
accent. "Can you tear off the back? That would be the quickest way. But
no, I know a quicker," and lifting the clock again she turned it upside
down and shook it.
They heard--what did they hear? No one could say, but when she again
reversed it, there fell out upon the table and rolled to the floor a
small gold circlet. Lifting it, Mr. Gryce held it out to her. Taking it,
she carried it over to the District Attorney and placed it in his hand.
"Read the inscription inside."
He did so, and looking quickly up, said:
"This is a wedding ring! Yours! You believe yourself to have been married
to him."
"I _was_ married to him in Switzerland. The marriage was legal; he knows
it, he acknowledges it, or why should he keep this ring. I have endured
seeing him put another woman in my place. I have kept silence for years;
but when he asks the right name of the child shot down in the museum, and
asks it in a way which compels answer, then I must make known my rightful
claims. For that child was not only mine, but _his_; born after he left
me, and reared without his knowledge, first in this country and then in
France."
And breaking down now utterly, she fell on her knees sobbing out her soul
at the feet of him from whose honor she had torn the last poor, pitiful
shred.
As for him, he said nothing; even his lips refused the smallest cry. Only
his hand which had hung at his side went to his heart; and thus he stood
swaying--swaying, till he finally fell forward into the arms she suddenly
threw out to receive him.
"Carleton! Carleton!" she wailed, searching for consciousness in his fast
glazing eye. "It was to show you your child that I made the appointment
at the museum. Not for myself. Oh, not for myself, but for your sake,
that you might have----"
Useless; all useless.
He was dead.
* * * * *
Would she have had it otherwise? Would any of them? When they were quite
sure of the fact, she placed the ring in his still warm hand; then she
solemnly put it on her finger, and turning, faced them all.
"Do not blame me too much for this final blow I gave him. He had already
seen the truth in that mirror over there. His face--look at it and then
at this picture of her taken after death, and see the resemblance! It is
showing plainer every minute. It was the something which had worried and
eluded him. Nothing could have kept back the truth from him after that
one glimpse he caught of himself and her in the mirror. I loved him. Mine
is the grief; you will let me stay here with him to-night. To-morrow I
will answer all questions."
XXXIV
THE BUD--THEN THE DEADLY FLOWER
You who have read thus far will care little for the legalities which
followed the events just related, but you may wish to know to a fuller
extent some of the facts in Ermentrude Taylor's life which led to this
tragic end of all her hopes.
Her story is twofold, the portion connecting her with Carleton Roberts
being entirely dissociated from that which made her the debtor of
Antoinette Duclos. Let me tell the latter first, as it preceded the
other, and tell it in episodes.
* * * * *
Two girls stood at one end of a long walk of immemorial yews. At
the other could be seen the advancing figure of a man, young, alert,
English-clad but unmistakably foreign. They were school girls and bosom
friends; he their instructor in French; the walk one attached to a
well-known seminary. When they had entered this walk, it had been empty.
Now it held for one of them--and possibly for the other, too--a world of
joy and promise;--the world of seventeen. Innocent and unthinking,
neither of them had known her own heart, much less that of her fellow.
But when in face of that approach, eye met eye with an askance look of
eager question, revelation came, crimsoning the cheeks of both, and
marking an epoch in either life.
Noble of heart and tender each toward the other, they were yet human. Arm
fell from arm, and with an equally spontaneous movement, they turned to
search each the other's countenance, not for betrayal,--for that had
already been made--but for those physical charms or marks of mental
superiority which might attract the eye or win the heart of a man of the
ideality of this one.
Alas! these gifts, for gifts they are, were much too unequally
distributed between these two to render the balance at all even.
Ermentrude was handsome; Antoinette was not.
Ermentrude had besides, what even without beauty would have made her
conspicuous to the eye, the figure of a goddess and the air of a queen.
But Antoinette was small and had to feel secure and in a happy mood to
show the excellence of her mind and the airy quality of her wit.
Then, Ermentrude had money and could dress, while Antoinette, who was
dependent upon an English uncle for everything she possessed, wore
clothes so plain that but for their exquisite neatness, one would never
dream that she came from French ancestry, and that ancestry noble.
Yes, she had that advantage; rank was hers, but not the graces which
should accompany it. More than that, she had nothing with which to
support it. Better be of the yeoman class like Ermentrude, and smile like
a duchess granting favors. Or so she thought, poor girl, as her meek
regard passed from the friend whose attractions she had thus acknowledged
to the man whose approbation would make a goddess of her too.
He was coming--not with his usual indifferent swing, but eagerly,
joyously, as though this moment meant something to him too. She knew it
did. Small memories rushing upon her, made no doubt of that. But why?
Because of Ermentrude or because of herself? Alas! she could recall
nothing which would answer that. They were much together; he had scarcely
ever seen them separate. It might be either----Hardly alive from
suspense, she watched him coming--coming. In a moment he would be upon
them. On which would his eyes linger?
That would tell the tale.
In an anguish of ungovernable shyness, she slipped behind the ample
figure of her friend till only her fluttering skirt betrayed her
presence. Perhaps she was saved something by this move; perhaps not.
She did not see the beam of joy sparkling in his eye as he greeted
Ermentrude; but she could not but mark the heaviness of his step as he
passed them by and wandered away into the shadows.
And that she understood. Ermentrude had not smiled upon him. To him, the
moment had brought pain.
It was enough. Now she knew.
But why had not Ermentrude smiled?
* * * * *
A dormitory lighted only by the moon! Two beds close together; in one a
form of noble proportions, and in the other the meagre figure of a girl
almost buried from sight among pillows and huddled-up blankets. Both are
quiet save for an occasional shudder which shakes the bed of the latter.
Ermentrude lies like the dead, though the moonlight falls full upon her
face blanching it to the aspect of marble. Even her lashes rest moveless
on her cheek.
But she is not sleeping; she is listening--listening to the sobs, almost
inaudible, which now and then escape from the beloved one at her side. As
they grow fainter and fainter and gradually die away altogether till
stillness reigns through the whole dormitory, she rouses and bending
forward on her elbow, looks long and lovingly at the wet brow of her
sleeping mate. She then sinks back again into rigidity, with a low moan,
ending in the whispered words:
"He does not love,--not yet. A slight thing will turn him. Did I not see
him glance back twice, and both times at her? The look with which she
greeted him was so wonderful."
* * * * *
A village street in Britanny; a parish church in the distance; two women
bidding each other farewell amid a group of wedding-guests, gay as the
heavens are blue.
"_Au revoir!_" was the whisper breathed by the bride into the ear of
the other. "_Au revoir_, my Ermentrude. May you have a happy year in
Switzerland!"
"_Au revoir_! little Madame. _You_ will be happy I know in those United
States to which you are going."
And the tears stood in the eyes of both.
"You will write?"
"I will write."
But the bride did not seem quite satisfied. Glancing about and finding
her young husband busy with his adieux, she drew her friend apart and
softly murmured:
"There is something I must say,--something I must know, before the sea
divides us. You remember the day we all left school and you went home
and I came to Britanny? Ermentrude, Achille tells me that on that day he
sought the whole house over for you till he came upon you in one of the
classrooms; and that you whom I had sometimes seen so sad were very gay
and told him between laughing and crying that you were bidding a solemn
farewell to all the nooks and corners of the old seminary, because your
fiancé awaited you at home, and there would be no coming back."
"I meant my music."
"He did not know that, Ermentrude," and here she laid her hands upon the
other's shoulders, drawing back as she did so to look earnestly up into
her face. "Was that done for me?"
They were too near for anything but the truth to pass from eye to eye.
Ermentrude tried to laugh and utter a quick _No, no!_ but the little
bride was not deceived. Again upon her face there appeared that wonderful
look of hers, which made her face for the moment verily beautiful, and
unclasping her hands, she threw them about the other's neck, whispering
in awed tones:
"Yet you loved him! loved him too!"
Then after a moment of silence dear to both their hearts, she drew back
to give her friend one other look, and quietly said:
"His heart is mine now, Ermentrude, wholly and truly mine. And so you
would have it be, I am sure. Life looks fair to me and very sweet; but
however fair, however sweet, that life is yours if ever you want it and
when you want it. The time may come--one never knows--when I can pay you
back this debt. Till then, let there be perfect trust and perfect love
between us. Give me your hand upon it--not just your lips--for I speak as
men speak when they mean to keep their word."
Their eyes met, their hands clasped; then the bridegroom drew away his
bride, and Ermentrude turned with bowed head and glistening eyes, to
enter upon the new life awaiting her in ways she had yet to tread.
* * * * *
The second series of episodes opens with the meeting of a man and woman
on a rustic bridge spanning a Swiss chasm. They are strangers to each
other, yet both instinctively pause and a flush of intuitive feeling dyes
the cheek of each.
The eternal, ever-recurring miracle has happened. He sees Woman for the
first time, though he had thought himself in love before and had wandered
thus far in an effort to forget. So, likewise, with her. She had had her
fancies, or rather her one fancy; but when in strolling along this road
ahead of her party she saw rising between her and the glorious landscape
which had hitherto filled her eye the fine masculine head and perfect
figure of Carleton Roberts, this fancy floated from her mind like the
veriest thistledown, leaving it free to expand in fuller hopes and deeper
joys than visit many women even when they think they love.
Alas! why in that instant of mutual revelation had not the further grace
been given them of quick catastrophe shutting the door upon a future of
which neither could then dream or sense the coming doom.
It was not to be.
He passed, she passed, and for the time the look they gave each other was
all; but the world had been glorified for them both--and Destiny waited.
* * * * *
"Good looks? Yes; but nothing else; very ordinary connections, very. A
little money, true. Her uncle, whom by the way I judge you have not seen,
will leave her a few thousands; but meanwhile he is a fixture--will not
leave her or let her leave him, which is a misfortune since in a social
way he is simply impossible. No sort of match for you, Roberts. Cut and
run while there is time; that's my advice to you, given in the most
friendly spirit."
"Thank you. As I have but just met Miss Taylor, don't you think such
advice is a little premature?"
"No, I don't. She is a woman who must be loved or left; that's all.
You've heard me."
Did Carleton Roberts heed these words? No. What man in the thrall of his
first romance ever did.
"You love me, Ermentrude?"
"I love you, Carleton."
"For a day, for a month or for a year?" he smiled.
"Forever," she answered.
"That's a long time," he murmured, with his eyes on a little clock
hanging in the shop window before which they had stopped in one of their
infrequent walks together. "A long time! That foolish little clock will
beat out the hours of its short life and go the way of all things, before
we shall hardly have entered upon the soul's 'forever.'"
"That clock will last our lifetime, Carleton. Afterward, love will not be
counted by hours."
As she said this she turned her face his way and he saw it in its full
flower with the light of heaven upon it. In later years he may have
forgotten the emotions of that moment, but they were the purest, the
freest from earthly stain that he was ever destined to know.
"I will love you _forever_," he whispered. "That little clock shall be my
witness." And he drew her into the shop.
* * * * *
"Cuckoo!"
Ermentrude glanced up; the clock hung on her wall.
"Oh," she murmured, "each hour it will speak to me of him and his words,"
then softly, like one adream in Paradise:
"I love but thee,
And thee will I love to eternity."
Such was the event to her. What was it to him? Let us see:
A hotel room--a view of Pilatus, but with its top lost in enveloping
clouds.
Seated before it with pen in hand above a sheet of paper, Carleton
Roberts eyes these clouds but does not see them; he is hunting in his
brain for words and they do not come. Why? His mother's name is on the
page and he has only to write that she has been quite correct in her
judgment as to the unfitness of the marriage he had had in mind:--that
youth should mate with youth and that if she could see the glorious young
girl whose acquaintance he had made here, she would be satisfied with
his new choice which promised him the fullest happiness. Why then a sheet
yet blank and a hesitating hand, when all it had to do was to write?
Who can tell? Man knows little of himself or of the conflicting passions
which sway him this way or that, even when to the outward eye, and
possibly to the inner one as well, action looks easy.
Did he feel, without its reaching the point of knowledge, that this
mother of keenest expectation and highest hope would not be satisfied
with what this charming but undeveloped girl of middle class parentage
would bring him? Or was there, deep down in his own undeveloped nature, a
secret nerve alive to ambitions yet unnamed, to hopes not yet formulated,
which warned him to think well before he spoke the irrevocable word
linking a chain which, though twined with roses, was nevertheless a chain
which nothing on earth should have power to break.
He never sounded his soul for an answer to this question; but when he
rose, the paper was still blank. The letter had not been written.
* * * * *
"I do not like secrecy."
"Only for a little while, Ermentrude. My mother is difficult. I would
prepare her."
"And Uncle!"
"What of Uncle?"
"He made me take an oath to-day."
"An oath?"
"That I would not leave him while he lived."
"And you could do that?"
"I could do nothing else. He's a sick man, Carleton. The doctors shake
their heads when they leave him. He will not live a year."
"A year? But that's an eternity! Can you wait, can I wait a year?"
"He loves me and I owe everything to him. Next week we go to Nice. These
are days of parting for you and me, Carleton."
Parting! What word more cruel. She saw that it shook him, and held her
breath for his promise that she should not be long alone. But it did not
come. He was taking time to think. She hardly understood his doing this.
Surely, his mother must be very difficult and he a most considerate son.
She knew he loved her; perhaps never with a more controlling passion than
at this moment of palpitating silence.
As she smiled, he caught her to his breast.
"We have yet a week," he cried, and left her hurriedly, precipitately.
* * * * *
It was their last ride and they had gone far--too far, Ermentrude
thought, for a day so chilly and a sky so threatening. They had entered
gorges; they had skirted mountain streams, had passed a village, left a
ruined tower behind, and were still facing eastward, as if Lucerne had no
further claims upon them and the world was all their own.
As the snows of the higher peaks burst upon their view, she made an
attempt to stop this seeming flight.
"My uncle," she said. "He will be counting the hours. Let us go back."
Then Carleton Roberts spoke.
"Another mile," he whispered, not because he feared being overheard by
their driver, but because Love's note is instinctively low. "You are
cold; we shall find there a fire, and dinner--and--Listen, Ermentrude,--a
minister ready to unite us. We are going back, man and wife."
"Carleton!"
"Yes, dear, it is quite understood. Letters are urging my return to New
York. Your uncle is holding you here. I cannot face an uncertain
separation. I must feel that you are mine beyond all peradventure--must
be able to think of you as my wife, and that will hold us both and make
it proper for you to come to me if I cannot come to you, the moment
you are free to go where you will."
"But why this long ride, this far-away spot? Why couldn't a minister be
found in Lucerne? Is our marriage to be as secret as our engagement?
Is that what you wish, Carleton?"
"Yes, dear; for a little while, just for a little while, till I have seen
my mother, and rid our way of every obstacle to complete happiness. It
will be better. When one has promised to love _forever_, what are a few
weeks or months. Make me happy, dear. You have it in your power to do so.
Happy! When once I can whisper 'wife,' the world will not hold a happier
man than I."
Did she yield because of her own great longing? No, it was by that phrase
he caught her: _The world will not hold a happier man than I_.
* * * * *
Mountains! Icy peaks, with sides heavy with snow! And so near! Almost
they seemed to meet across the narrow valley. She gave them one quick
glance, then her eyes and her heart became absorbed in what she could see
of this Alpine village, holding up its head in the eternal snows like an
edelweiss on the edge of a glacier.
It was to be the scene of her one great act in life; the spot she was
entering as a maiden and would leave as a wife. What other spot would
ever be so interesting! To note its every detail of house and church
would not take long--it was such a little village, and the streets were
so few; and the people--why she could count them.
Afterward, she found that the exact number and the difference in color of
the short line of timbered houses stretching between them and the church
were imprinted on her brain; but she did not know it at the time for her
attention was mainly fixed upon the people when once she had seen them,
for there was a strangeness in their looks and actions she did not
understand, all the more that it seemed to have nothing to do either with
Carleton or herself.
It was not fear they showed, not exactly, though consternation was not
lacking in their aspect, so strangely similar in all, whether they were
men or women, or whether they stood in groups in the street or came out
singly on the doorstep to glance about and listen, though there seemed to
be nothing to listen to, for the air was preternaturally still.
"Carleton, Carleton," she asked as he came to lift her to the ground,
"see those people how oddly they act. The whole town is in the street.
What is the matter?"
"Nothing, except that if we do not hasten we shall have to return
unmarried. The minister is waiting for us."
"What, in the church?"
"Yes, dear. We are a little late."
She took his arm, and though they were a fine couple and the event was
almost an unprecedented one in that remote village, only a few followed
them; the rest hung round their homes or gazed with indecision at the
mountains or up and down along the empty roads.
* * * * *
"Wilt thou have this woman...."
The ceremony had proceeded thus far and all seemed well, when with a rush
and a cry a dozen people burst into the building.
"The snows are moving!" rang up the aisles in accents of mad terror.
"Save yourselves!"
Then came the silence of emptiness. Every soul had left the church save
the three before the pulpit.
An avalanche! and the ceremony was as yet incomplete! Ermentrude never
forgot Carleton Roberts' look. Doubtless he never forgot hers. Meanwhile
the minister spoke.
"There is a chance for escape. Take it; the good God will pardon you."
But the bridegroom stood firm and the bride shook her head.
"Not till the words are said which make us man and wife," declared
Carleton Roberts. "Unless"--and here his perfect courtesy manifested
itself even in this crisis of life and death--"you feel it your duty to
carry what assistance you can to the saving of your frightened flock."
"God must save my flock," said the minister with a solemn glance upward.
"I am where my duty places me." And calmly as though the pews were
filled with guests and joy attended the ceremony instead of apprehended
doom, he proceeded with the rite.
"Wilt thou have this man...."
The glad "I will" leaped bravely from Ermentrude's lips; but it was lost
in loud calls and shrieks from without, mingled with that sound--terrible
to all who hear--impossible to describe--of the might of the hills made
audible in this down-rushing mass, now halting, now gathering fresh
momentum, but coming--always coming, till its voice, but now a threat,
swells into thunder in which all human cries are lost, and only from the
movement of the minister's lips can this couple see that the words which
make them one are being spoken.
Then comes the benediction, and with the falling of those holy hands, a
headlong rush into the open air--a vision of flying forms here, there,
and everywhere--men staggering under foolish burdens--women on their
knees with arms lifted to heaven or flung around their babes--hope lost
under the bowing mountain; and in the midst of it all, plain to the view
of all, the stranger's horse and carriage which, standing there, stamped
with undying honor these terrified villagers, who had seen and not
touched them though Death had them by the hair.
* * * * *
"Quick! quick! You mother there with the child, get in, get in; there is
room here for one more."
But another got the place. The driver, reeling as he ran, sprang for the
empty seat and hung there between the wheels as the horses plunged and
tore away to safety just as the great mass with its weight of gathered
boulders and uprooted forests crashed in final doom upon that devoted
village, burying it from sight as though it had never been.
To safety? Yes, for two of them; the other, struck by a flying stone,
fell in the road and was covered in a trice. So close were they to
destruction's edge at this moment of headlong flight.
* * * * *
Not till the painted towers encircling Lucerne had come again into sight
did the newly wedded pair find words or make the least attempt to speak.
Then Carleton kissed his bride and for a moment love was triumphant. Was
it triumphant enough to lead him to acknowledge their marriage? She
looked anxiously in his face to see and finally she asked:
"How much of this are we to tell, Carleton?"
"All about the catastrophe; but nothing more," he answered.
And while her heart retained its homage, the light in her eyes was
veiled.
Married but not acknowledged! Would it not have been better if the
avalanche had overwhelmed them? She almost thought so, till bending, he
murmured in her ear:
"I shall follow you soon. Did you think I could go on living without
you?"
* * * * *
"Why so thoughtful, Ermentrude? You are not quite yourself to-day?"
"Uncle is very ill. The doctors say that he may not live a month."
"And does that grieve you?"
A yes was on her lips, but she did not utter it. Instead, she drew a
little ribbon from her breast, on which hung a plain gold ring, and
gazing earnestly at this token she remarked very quietly:
"Carleton, have you ever thought that but for this ring no proof remains
in all this world of our ever having been married?"
"But our hearts know it. Is that not enough?" he asked.
"For to-day, yes. But when uncle goes...."
His kisses finished the sentence for her, and love resumed its sway; but
when alone and wakeful on her pillow, she recalled his look, the sting of
her first doubt darted through her uneasy heart, and feeling eagerly
after the ring she tore it from its ribbon and put it on her finger.
"It is my right," she whispered. "Henceforth I shall wear it. He loves me
too well to quarrel with my decision. Now am I really his wife."
* * * * *
Did she see a change in him? Did he come less frequently? Did he stay
less long? Was there uneasiness in his eye--coolness--languor? No, no.
It was her exacting heart which thus interpreted his look--which counted
the days--forgot his many engagements--saw impatience in the quickness
with which he corrected her faults in manner or language instead of the
old indulgence which met each error with a smile. Love cannot always keep
at fever-heat. He, the cynosure of the whole foreign element, had the
world at his feet here as in Lucerne. It needed no jealous eye to see
this; while she--well, she had her attractions too, as had been often
proved, and with God's help she would yet be a fit mate for him. What she
now lacked, she would acquire. She would watch these fine ladies who
blushed with pleasure at his approach, and when her time of mourning was
over she would astonish him with her graces and her appearance. For she
knew how to dress, yes, with the best of them, and hold her head and walk
like the queen she would feel herself to be when once she bore his name.
Patience then, till she had stored her mind and learned the ways he was
accustomed to in others. She had money enough now that her uncle was
dead, and she could do things....
Yes, but something had gone out of her face, and the ring hung loose on
her finger.
* * * * *
And he? Had her fears read him aright? Had he grown indifferent or was
he simply perplexed? Let us watch him as he paces his hotel room one
glorious afternoon, now stopping to re-read a letter he held in his hand,
and now to gaze out with unseeing eyes to where the blue of the sea melts
into the blue of the sky on the far horizon.
Love had been sweet; but man has other passions, and he is in the grip of
the one mightiest in men of his stamp--the all-engrossing, all-demanding
one of personal ambition.
Without solicitation, without expectation even, a hand had been held out
to him whose least grasp meant success in the one field most to his
mind,--a political career under auspices which had never been known to
fail. But there were conditions attached--conditions which a year before
would have filled him with joy, but which now stood like a barrier
between him and his goal, unless.... But he was not yet ready to disavow
his wife, trample upon her heart, nay on his own as well;--that is,
without a struggle.
For the third time he read the letter which you will see was from his
mother.
My Son:--I have an apology to make and a bit of news to give you. When
I urged you to give up Lucie and to seek distraction abroad, I felt
that I was doing justice to your immaturity and saving you from ties
which might very easily jeopardize your future happiness.
But I have lately changed my mind. In seeing more of her I have not
only learned her worth but the advantage such a woman would be to one
of your tastes and promise. And she loves you more devotedly, perhaps,
than you have loved her. How do I know this? Let me tell you of an
interview I had with a certain relative of hers last night. I allude to
her brother, and for a recognized boss buried out of sight in politics,
he has more heart in his breast than I have ever given him credit for.
Not having children of his own, he has centered his affections on this
choice little sister of his, and finding her far from happy, came to
see me yesterday evening with this proposition: If I would consent to
your union with Lucie, and withdraw my opposition to your immediate
marriage, he would take your future in charge and put you in the way of
political advancement only to be limited, as he says, by your talents,
which he is good enough to rate very high.
After this, how can I do otherwise than bid you follow your impulses
and marry Lucie in spite of the disparity of years to which I have
hitherto taken exception. Were she as poor as she is accounted rich,
I should say the same, now that I have sounded the depths of her lovely
disposition and the rare culture of a mind which those seven years have
enriched beyond what is usual even in women of intellect. Her money
does not influence me in her favor, nor does it weigh with me in my
present opinion of her complete fitness for the position you are so
eager to give her. That this will make you happy I know. Let it hasten
your return which cannot be too speedy.
This was the bombshell which had disturbed Carleton Roberts' complacency,
bared his own soul to his horrified view, and revealed to him the
weakness of his moral nature which he had hitherto considered strong. For
his first impulse was one of recoil, not only from the secret marriage
which shut him off from these new hopes, but from his youthful bride as
well. He found himself weary of his flowery bonds and eager for a man's
life in his native city. Oh, why had he urged this immature girl to take
the ride which had led him into slavery to one who could not advance him
in life, however queen-like she moved and talked and smiled upon the
world from the heights of her physical perfections. It was brain that was
needed--an understanding like Lucie's, tempered, like hers, by years, not
months, of culture and refined association.
It was at this point he paused in his restless walk and looked for
inspiration to the far-off waters of the bluest of all seas.
Suddenly he resumed his walk; then quickly stopping again sat down at his
desk and with an air of desperate haste began a letter to his mother with
the announcement:
It is too late. Unfortunately for your scheme, I am already....
He never got any further. A fresh impulse drove him into the street. He
could not thus summarily settle his future fate. It meant too much to
him. He must take time to think. His heart clamors loudly for its rights;
he is only twenty-six--and in a rush of feeling which should have been
his salvation, he turned toward that nest among the flowers where help
was to be had if help was to come at all in this crisis of conflicting
passions.
* * * * *
The hour was noon, one which he had never chosen before for a visit to
Ermentrude. Would he find her in? Would she be in spirits to meet him?
Would she look beautiful--worthy of his name, worthy of the greatest
sacrifice a man can make for a woman? He half hoped that she would;
that he would find his chains riveted and secure beyond the power of any
force to break.
As his musings faltered, he turned the knob of the little side door and
went in. As he did so a shower of rose-leaves fell upon him from the
vines enveloping the balcony.
He shuddered slightly and passed down the hall. Everything was very
still.
She was asleep. Lying on a couch in utter weariness or pain, she had
drifted off into the land of dreams, and he felt that he had a moment of
respite. He could look and weigh the question: Love or a quick success? A
weakling's paradise or the goal of the strong man?
Meanwhile, she was not as beautiful as he thought. But she was more
touching--less robust, less bounteous of aspect, more child-like, more
appealing,--a woman who, if he were no more of a man than he appeared to
be in this hurly-burly of pleasure and fashion, might in time do him
credit and hold him back from follies.
But he was not just the man these casual friends and admirers considered
him. There was much more to him than that. He knew this better than Lucie
did or her powerful brother, or even his adoring mother. Great
opportunities awaited him and a large space in the affairs of men if not
of nations. Such confidence did he feel in himself at this fevered moment
that he never doubted that eventually he would gain all this, even with
the handicap of a good-looking but unsophisticated wife.
But not quickly;... step by step perhaps ... and he was longing to take
it all at a bound.
Poor girl! and she lay there under his eyes all unmindful of his conflict
or of the fact that her fate as well as his was trembling in the balance;
unmindful, though her dreams were far from joyous--or why the tear
welling from between her lashes as he gazed.
She was alone in the house; he knew it by the complete silence. He could
look and look and study her every feature, without fear of interruption;
wait for her waking and be ready to meet her first glance of tender
astonishment which might restore him to his better self.
Drawing up a chair, he sat down; then started upright again with dilating
eyes and a strange shadow on his brow. One of her arms lay uppermost
and on the hand--almost as fine as Lucie's, but not quite,--he saw the
ring--his ring, and it hung loosely. The poor child was growing thin,
very thin. "If she were to hold her hand downward," he muttered to
himself, "I believe that ring would fall off." Did some stray glimpse of
his own features, wearing a look never seen on them before, confront him
from some near-by mirror that he started so guiltily as this heart murmur
rose to his lips? Or was it at a thought, hideous but tempting, which
held him, gained upon him and soon absolutely possessed him, till his own
hand went out stealthily and with hesitations toward those helpless
fingers of hers, now approaching, now withdrawing, and now approaching
them again but not touching them, great as his impulse was to do so,
for fear she should wake, while yet the devil gripped his arm and lit up
baleful fires in his eyes.
He had remembered those words of hers: "Have you ever thought that with
the exception of this ring no proof exists in all the world of our ever
having been married?" Remember them? He had not remembered them; he had
heard them, sounding and resounding in his ears till the whole room
seemed to palpitate with them. Then the devil made his final move.
Ermentrude shuddered, and her position changing, the hand which had
been uppermost fell down at her side and the ring slipped--left her
finger--paused on the edge of the couch--then came to rest in his palm
held out to receive it.
He had not drawn it from her hand. Fate had restored it. As he forced
himself to look at it lying in his grasp, a faintness as of death seized
and held him for a moment; then this passed and he slowly rose and step
by step with sidelong looks and hair starting upright on his forehead,
like one who has walked in blood and sees the trail of guilt following
him along the floor, he left her side--he left the room--he left the
house--and the rose-leaves fell about him once more, maddening him with
their color, maddening him with the memories inseparable from their
sweetness--a sweetness which spoke of her, of love, and the attachment
of a true heart destined to grieve for a little while at least, for he
was never going back, never, never.
There was no eye to see, and no tongue to tell him that the seed,
destined to flower into awful crime some dozen or more years later, put
forth its first bud at this fatal hour.
* * * * *
He wrote her a letter. He had the grace to do that. Addressing her simply
as Ermentrude, he told her that he had been called home to enter upon the
serious business of life. That he was not likely to come back, and as she
was not really his wife, however pleasing the fiction had been in which
they had both indulged, it seemed to him wiser to end their happy romance
thus suddenly and while much of its glamour remained, than to linger on
and see it decay day by day before their eyes till nothing but bitterness
remained. He loved her and felt the wrench more than she did, but duty
and his obligations as a man, etc., etc., till it ended in his signature
limited to initials like his love.
Despicable! the work of a man without conscience or heart! Yes, and he
knew it, and for weeks his sleep was broken by visions and his waking
hours rendered dreadful by fears. How had she taken this cool assumption
that the ceremony performed in the path of the snow was voided by lack of
proof? To whom had she ascribed the loss of her ring, and what must she
think of him? He had left Nice almost immediately, but wherever he went,
in whatever hotel he stayed, or through whatever street he passed, he was
always expecting to see her figure rise up before him in the majesty of
innocence and outraged love.
Thus several weeks passed, and seeing nothing of her, hearing nothing
from her, a different apprehension darkened his days and despoiled him of
rest at night. Grief if not shame had killed her; and the weight of her
fancied doom lay heavy on his heart. At last he could bear it no longer,
and stealing back to Nice he entered it one dark night and prepared to
learn for himself what he feared to trust to the discretion of another.
Alone, with hidden face and heavily throbbing heart, he trod the familiar
ways and encircled the familiar walls. Had she been there----
But the windows were blank and the place desolate, and he fled the spot
and the town, with his questions unasked and his fears unallayed. In two
days he had sailed for home. With the ocean between them he might forget;
and in time he did. As week followed week, and the silence he had half
trusted, half feared, remained unbroken, his equanimity gradually
returned, and he prepared to face the prospect of his new marriage much
as a man who watches for a dreaded door to open moves with restored
confidence about his affairs, when at last convinced that the door is
padlocked and the key lost.
One precaution and one only he was wise enough to take. He told his story
to Lucie's brother, and left it to him to say whether or not he should
marry his sister. And the answer was yes; that if trouble came he would
see him through it. A marriage which could not be proved was no marriage,
and as for anything else, Lucie's happiness must not be sacrificed to a
boy's peccadillos. What were a few wild oats sown by a man of his
promise?
And was this the end? Did Ermentrude accept her doom without a struggle?
Let us see.
* * * * *
One afternoon in June, there entered the parlor of the old-fashioned
mansion of the Roberts family a lady who had asked to see Mrs. Roberts on
business of an important nature. Though plainly clad, her appearance
possessed an elegance which insured respect; but when alone and seated in
the darkest corner of the great drawing room she put up a trembling hand
to thrust back her veil, the countenance thus revealed betrayed an
emotion hardly in keeping with the quiet bearing with which she had
advanced under the servant's eye.
His home! and these the surroundings amid which he had grown to manhood!
Why should the sight of all this rouse emotions she believed eliminated
by a treachery most cruel in face of promises most sacred? Why, as she
looked about, and noted object after object which must have been there
previous to his birth, did she see him as a child and boy and not as the
man who had first won and then deserted her? She would not have had it so
at this hour when strength was needed rather than tenderness. But she
could not help her nature, or still the wild surging of her rebellious
heart, as his portrait seen upon the wall challenged her constancy and
whispered of the hour when his "forever" echoed her "forever" and the
compact for eternity was sealed.
He had broken this compact--broken it soon--broken it before the
honeymoon had passed. But she! Was she to show no firmer spirit whose
love was of the soul and took no note of time? She was his wife, and
acknowledged or unacknowledged, must yet prove to be his blessing though
he--he----
But this would not do. The interview before her called for calmness. She
would not add to the turbulence of her spirits by another glance at what
brought back too much of the past to fortify her for the impending
struggle. She had to do credit to his choice, to impress a difficult
woman with her dignity as a wife. She must not shake nor weep.
Yet when she heard a step at the door, instinct told her to pull down her
veil till the first greetings were over--a precaution for which she was
deeply grateful when in another moment a young woman entered instead of
her husband's mother for whom she had asked and whom she naturally
expected to see.
In the humiliation of the moment, her disappointment took words and she
muttered within herself:
"A companion or possibly a relative. I am to be put off with kindly
excuses; begged to state my errand--rehearse my claims and my hopes to
some gentle go-between! I have not strength for that. I must see the
mother--the mother. God give me wisdom and keep me calm--calm."
Meanwhile the young woman she had instinctively called gentle advanced
into the center of the room. Mechanically, Ermentrude rose to meet her,
and thus stepped into a better light. Tragedy came with her. This it was
impossible not to see--not to feel. But the warning which her aspect gave
passed as she spoke and said in tones a little tremulous, perhaps, but
with an air of perfect courtesy:
"I had hoped to see Mrs. Roberts herself."
The smile with which this was greeted, the flush of pride and the joy of
possession which lit the other's pleasing features as she replied, "I am
Mrs. Roberts," should have carried the truth to Ermentrude.
But they did not. She looked surprised--baffled, and after the briefest
hesitation, observed:
"I am a stranger in this city and have doubtless made some mistake. The
Mrs. Roberts I have called to see--and I was told she lived here--is the
mother of a gentleman of the name of----"
She could not speak it.
But the other could.
"Carleton?" she asked; and at Ermentrude's agitated nod, added with
friendly interest: "This is her home; but she has left it for a while to
us. I am Mr. Carleton Roberts' wife."
* * * * *
There are blows which prostrate; there are others which sear but leave
the body intact--feet still supporting it--eyes still gazing ahead
unmoved--lips moving with mechanical exactness and sometimes still
retaining their smile. Only the soul which gave life to all of this is
dead. The image is there but the spirit is gone; and if sufficiently
preoccupied, the one who struck the blow sees no change. So was it with
Ermentrude and Lucie.
"We are looking for mother to return next week," added the latter as
Ermentrude stood stark and silent before her. "Would you like to leave a
message for her?"
At these words uttered with the sweetness of a rich and sympathetic
nature, the soul returned to Ermentrude's body. With a long and earnest
look which took in the full measure of the other's personality, radiant
with happiness and the consciousness of an assured wifedom, she answered
softly:
"No, I will leave no message," and turned as if to go.
"Nor any name?" queried Lucie, eying with admiration the noble lines of
a figure with whose perfect proportions her own could never hope to
compete.
"Nor any name," came back in indescribable accents from the doorway.
Lucie paused, and gazing in vague trouble after her rapidly disappearing
visitor, murmured to herself, "Who is she?"
But the one who could have answered her was gone.
* * * * *
"Carleton, you seldom see such a woman. Younger than I, she had the poise
of a woman of thirty. Who could she have been?"
"Describe her."
"I wish I could; I hardly saw her face; it was her figure, her voice, her
way of moving and holding herself. I felt as small and quiet as a little
mouse beside her. Only I was happy and she was not. That much I feel now
that I recall her look in leaving."
"Was she American or--or foreign?" he asked, hiding his trouble, for a
great fear had seized him.
"She had an English accent which added very much to her charm."
"Forget her." For a moment his accent was almost fierce, then he laughed
the matter off, assuring this bride of a month that she made him cross
with her self-depreciation, that there was no one of finer mien and
manner than herself, the chosen of his heart upon whom he always looked
with pride. Which subtle tribute to what was her greatest charm
accomplished its end; she did forget the stranger.
But he did not; he knew what was before him and prepared himself for the
inevitable meeting which would be followed by--what?
Not by what he had every right to expect and evidently did. Ermentrude
had learned all she would both of this marriage and of the woman who had
supplanted her, and had made her resolve. This he saw as they came
together in the isolation of a quiet corner of the Park, and so was not
greatly surprised, though a little moved, as after the first few words,
and with an earnest look, she said:
"I am your wife, I, Ermentrude Roberts, married to you in the sight of
God and man. I cannot prove it, but as you once said, our hearts know it
and will continue to know it as long as either of us lives. But I am not
going to obtrude my claims upon you, Carleton, or stand like a specter in
your path. Had this woman you have deceived been weak or foolish or
unloving, or indeed anything but what she is, I might have held to my
rights and insisted upon a recognition which would have profited you in
the end. But I cannot shame that woman--I can neither shame her nor bring
her to grief. You have broken one heart, but you shall be saved the
remorse of breaking two. I had rather suffer myself. I am alone in the
world. I have means. I can ultimately be useful and face good men and
women without fear. Why then should I drag down to the dust one as
innocent as myself, or take from you what may make you the man I once
thought you and hope to see you again. But that I may have strength for
this and for all the sacrifices it involves, you must declare here, now,
in this open park where we stand, with no one within sight much less
within hearing, that I am your wife."
"You are my wife."
"It is enough. Now I can say what otherwise could never have left my
lips. I love you, Carleton, love you to eternity as I promised; but I
shall never seek you again, and you can go on your way unperturbed. I
have consolations here," laying her hand on her breast. "It will no
longer be my portion to watch your face for signs of a failing regard.
What I have is mine, and that is the undying memory of two months of
perfect happiness."
She would have said more, but she saw that he had been greatly shaken.
She feared the renewal of a flame not yet altogether extinct in a heart
which once beat for her alone, and so contenting herself with a low
farewell, she was turning swiftly away, when one last thought made her
pause and say:
"I cannot return you your ring. It is lost. I was careless with it and it
fell unnoticed from my hand. But to-night I will send you back the little
clock which unites our initials. Destroy it if you will, but if some
sentiment bids you keep it, let it be this one and no other: 'I recall
Ermentrude only that I may be faithful to Lucie.'"
With a low cry his head fell upon his breast in extreme self-abasement,
then he slowly lifted his eyes and seeing in her face a full knowledge of
his sin, murmured in overwhelming shame and contrition:
"You know me for the wretch I am. I have the ring; it fell from your hand
into mine one day while you lay asleep. I do not ask for forgiveness,
but this I promise you, Ermentrude:--if the little clock comes back, I
will make a place in it for this ring, and neither clock nor ring shall
leave me again while I live."
Instinctively her hands went out to him, then they fell back on her
breast.
"God will hold you to that promise," she said; and melted away from his
sight in the mist which had been gradually enveloping them without being
seen by either.
Thus the struggle ended for him, which for her had simply begun.
Not till she found herself in the South with her girl friend, Antoinette
Duclos, did she discover that the closest bond which can unite man and
woman held her in spite of her late compact with Carleton Roberts. Should
she reassert her rights and demand that the father should recognize his
child? Her generous heart said No. The old arguments held good. She
appealed to Antoinette for advice.
The result we know. When Antoinette's own child died at birth, she took
Ermentrude's to her heart and brought it up as her own. There was little
difficulty in this, as the Professor had already yielded to a Southern
fever and lay at rest in a New Orleans cemetery.
And this brings us to another episode.
* * * * *
The widow in fact and the widow in heart stood face to face above a
sleeping infant. They were both dressed for traveling and so was the
babe. The dismantled rooms showed why. Young still, for the years of
either's romance had been few, each face, as the other contemplated it,
told the story of sorrow which Time, for all its kindliness, would
never efface. But the charm of either remained--perceptible at this hour
as perhaps it would never be again to the same extent. Antoinette basked
in the light of Ermentrude's beauty ennobled by renunciation, and
Ermentrude in that wonderful look in her friend's plain face which came
at great crises and made her for the moment the equal of the best.
They had said little; and they said little now, as is the way of the
strong amongst us when an act is to be performed which wrings the heart
but satisfies the conscience.
The child was legitimate. It must not grow up under a shadow. To insure
its welfare and raise no doubt in its own mind as it grew in knowledge
and feeling, the two women must separate. No paltering with this duty,
and no delay. A month of baby cries and baby touches might weaken the
real mother. It should be now. It should be to-day.
But first, a final word--a parting question. It was uttered by
Ermentrude.
"You will go back to France?"
"Yes. I can easily live there. And you, Ermentrude?"
"To New York. I shall never go far from him. But he and I will never
meet. My world will not be his world. I shall make my own place."
"As Ermentrude Taylor?"
"As Mrs. Ermentrude Taylor. I am a wife. I shall never forget that fact."
"And the child? Will you never come to see it?"
Ermentrude's head fell and she stood a long time without answering. Then
with a steady look she calmly said:
"I can think of but one contingency which might shake my resolution
to leave her yours without the least interruption from me. If
_he_--Antoinette, if he were left alone and childless, I might see
my duty differently from now. You must be prepared for that."
"Ermentrude, when you send me this little shoe--See, I will leave one on
and give you the other, I shall know that you are coming, or that you
want the child. My life is yours as I once promised, and do you think I
would hold back the child?"
And again their hands met as once before, in that strong clasp, which
means:
"Trust me to the death and beyond it."
* * * * *
With Antoinette it was to the death, as we have seen. Warned by
Ermentrude of the appalling results of their plan to bring father and
child together, and entreated to fly lest her story should imperil
the secret upon the preservation of which his very life now hung, she
answered to the call as she had promised, and thus acquitted her debt
though she failed to save him.
Of her previous act in disfiguring his photograph in her temporary
lodging-place, we shall never know the full story. The picture had been
hers for years, given her by Ermentrude on their parting, so that the
child should not be without some semblance of her father even if she
should not know him as such, and it was to secure this clue to their now
doubly dangerous secret that Madame Duclos ransacked her baggage previous
to her flight from the New York hotel. But whether its destruction in the
peculiar manner we know was the result of simple precaution, or of a
feeling of antagonism so strong against this destroyer of her beloved's
peace, that it had to be expended in some way before she felt strong
enough for that supreme sacrifice in his favor toward which events seemed
hurrying her, may be known in _Eternity_ but will never be told in
_Time_.
* * * * *
And Ermentrude? What of her? Alone, robbed of husband and child and
friend--where shall we look for her in this world of extreme tribulation?
Search the hospitals of France where they press closest to the trenches.
There will you find the woman who losing all has found much. Blessing
and blest! the angel of the battlefield whom the bullets spare since her
work on earth is not yet accomplished!