A BROKEN HEART-STRING
The press next morning devoted entire pages to the sensation in
the Pilgrim Church. Portraits of Gordon, his life and theories,
sketches of the extraordinary scene in his pulpit, a full stenographic
report of his address which he had carefully corrected at midnight,
portraits of his wife and children, pictures of the old church,
its reading-rooms, clubhouses and coffee-house, were exploited.
His letter of resignation and the gift of a millon dollars for
building a vast Temple of Humanity, that would be a forum of free
thought in the heart of the metropolis, were the subject of separate
editorials in every paper.
Speculation as to the identity of this mysterious millionaire, who
had apparently deserted the army of entrenched wealth to support
this daring young revolutionist, filled columns. But it was all
the wildest guessing. Many of the greater magnates hastened to deny
with emphasis that they were in any way connected with the scheme.
Several of them denounced the preacher as a dangerous man whose
wild theories threatened social order. Gordon breathed a sigh of
relief when he found not a line hinting at Kate Ransom's part in
the drama or linking his name with hers.
After two o'clock, when he finished his last conference with the
reporters and his friends, he went to a hotel where he was not
known. He spent the rest of the night pacing the floor fighting
to a finish the battle between the memory of Ruth and his children
and his fierce new passion.
Just before dawn he lay down and fell asleep, dreaming of Kate.
The battle between the flesh and the spirit had ended.
He slept until noon, ate a hasty breakfast, called at the Ransom
house a moment, and hurried to his home.
His wife had read the morning papers with increasing amazement at
the sensation created, and a sense of impending tragedy began to
crush her. For hours she had been walking back and forth from her
window watching for his approach, until now she dreaded to see him.
At the sound of his footstep she recalled the fact that she was
the judge and he the culprit in the scene to be enacted. She had
demanded an explanation of the meaning of the meeting with this
woman, and she would have it. If his excuse were good she would
be generous in her love and beg him to begin once more their old
life, even if she threw the last shred of pride to the winds and
made herself his veriest slave. And yet her heart misgave her. She
felt herself lost and ruined before the battle began, but determined
to play her part bravely.
She watched him over the banisters as he stepped into the hall and
greeted the children with unusual tenderness.
He took Lucy's little form up and placed her arms around his neck.
"Now hug me long, and hard, and kiss me sweet," he whispered.
The child squeezed his neck and, placing her hands on his cheeks,
softly kissed his lips and eyes as she had often seen her mother
do. He ran his hand gently through her brown curls that seemed a
perfect mixture of her mother's and his own, and Ruth thought his
hand trembled as he kissed her again.
"I never saw you quite so beautiful, my baby, as this morning," he
said, as he placed her on the floor.
When he entered the room upstairs Ruth had recovered her composure
and stood waiting, her petite figure drawn to its full height, her
anxious face unusually thin, her eyes, set in the dark rings of
a sleepless night, looking blacker and stormier than ever in the
shadows of her disheveled hair.
"Sorry I could not come sooner, Ruth," he began, with evident
embarrassment. "But I did not get to sleep until just before day,
and I was so exhausted I slept until noon."
"Let us waste no words," said the soft, round voice. "I have waited
long; I am waiting still for ycur explanation. Why was that woman
in your study alone with you last night at half-past ten o'clock?"
"You wish to know the whole truth?"
"I demand it."
"Very well," he replied deliberately. "The immediate reason is a
secret of great importance, I must ask you to guard it sacredly."
"I've kept a dark one in my soul. You have had no cause to complain."
"The morning papers are full of wild speculation as to the millionaire
who gave that immense sum to build the Temple. Miss Ransom gave
the money."
"Impossible!" she gasped.
"So I thought at first. A lawyer came in the afternoon and told me
of the gift without a hint of its author. In answer to a request
on a card asking that I inform her of the results of my appeal, I
called at her house---"
"Before you called at your own or informed your wife," she interrupted
with bitterness.
"Yes; you have ceased to care about rny work. But there was another
and more urgent reason why I called,"
"Doubtless!" she cried impatiently.
"When the import of this gift fully dawned on me, the fulfilment
of my grandest hopes in the very moment of defeat (for the popular
subscription was a failure), I was overwhelmed with gratitude to
God. I fell on my knees and thanked Him. And then, Ruth--"
He paused and looked at her wistfully in pity for the little weak
figure that would reel beneath the blow of his words.
"And then what?" she asked quickly.
Gordon lowered his chin and rested it on his hand, while a dreamy
tone came into his voice, softening it to its lowest notes, and a
trance-like look overspread his face.
"And then I recalled that I had been deceiving you and myself and
another. I faced for the first time honestly the fact that I was
madly in love with a woman not my wife--"
Ruth went white, gave an inarticulate groan, staggered and sank
into a chair near him, sobbing in agony.
"Oh! Frank, for the sake of Jesus, the friend of the weak, who
loved little children, whose name you have so often spoken, have
mercy on me! Do not tell me any more. I am only a woman--I cannot
bear it!"
"But the truth is best, Ruth. You must hear it," he went on rapidly.
"I asked God to forgive me for the wrong I had done you and her.
I said I would tear that love out of my soul if it killed me, and
be true to my marriage vow. I went there to tell her this and ask
her to put the ocean between us. I found that she loved me even
as I loved her, and she promised. As I started to leave the house,
never to enter it again, I saw the card of the lawyer on her table,
and the truth flashed over me that she had made this sacrifice of
her fortune--greater than I had dreamed--for me and my work, and
that because of this I was leaving her forever. It was more than
I could bear or ask her to bear. I faced anew the facts. Our love
has grown cold. We are no longer congenial. Your ways have ceased
to be mine. It is wrong to love one woman and live with another.
We must separate."
"No, no, no, no, Frank, dear, my husband, my love, my own. Not
this. You do not mean it!" she groaned, as she sank to the floor,
buried her face in her arms and stretched out her hand until her
tapering fingers rested on his broad foot.
He bent and took her hand as though to lift her.
Suddenly the fever of her hot fingers trembling with overpowering
passion, the moisture of her hand, and the tremor of her convulsed
body swept his memory with the pain and rapture of his hour with
Kate.
Still holding her fingers, he slipped his watch from his pocket
with the other hand and glanced quickly at its face to see if it
were time for his return to the Ransom house.
"Come, Ruth, this is very painful to me. You must not humiliate
yourself so. You have pride and the heritage of noble blood."
She sprang to her feet and stared at him, with infinite yearning in
her eyes, gave a faint cry, half anguish, half despair, and threw
herself into his arms, holding him with passionate violence while
she smothered his lips and eyes with kisses.
He attempted gently to draw her arms from his neck.
"No, you shall not," she cried, holding him convulsively. "I will
not let you go. You are my husband--my own, my love, the hero of
my girl's dreams, the father of my babies. I have no pride. I will
do anything for you if you will only love me."
"But, Ruth, if I have ceased to love you--"
"Don't, don't say it!" she shrieked, placing her hand on his lips.
"I will not hear it. You do love me. This woman has lured you with
her devil's beauty, and thrown her spell over your baser nature.
Ah, Frank, dear, tell me that you love me! Lie to me as meaner
men lie to their women. Such a lie I'll hold an honour before the
awful shame of desertion. You cannot humiliate me so. See, dear, I
am at your feet. Have mercy on me. Do not ask me to bear more than
I can endure. Am I not the mother of your children?"
Gordon frowned and withdrew her arms from his neck.
"All this is very painful, Ruth. You cannot mean it. You know I
have tried to be honest. I hate a lie. I could not tell one if I
tried. You cannot love me and ask this infamy. I could never lift
up my head again as a leader and teacher of men and know I was a
wilful liar."
The little figure shivered.
"But, Frank, I can't give you up. It was the touch of your hand,
the music of your voice that first awoke my woman's soul. You are
my mate. You cannot know the young mother-wonder, pain and joy
that thrilled my heart as I first bent over Lucy's face, your dear
eyes in hers smiling at me. Our very flesh became one in Nature's
miracle of love."
"And yet our lives have somehow drifted apart, Ruth."
"But not so far, dear, as this woman has made you believe," she
answered tenderly. "I have been selfish and resentful, but I will
make it all up. I will lift up my head and be cheerful--live for
you, work for you, think only of you, ask nothing for myself but
only your presence and your love."
"But if I have given it to another--"
Again she put her hand on his lips.
"But you have not. It is madness. You could not forget our life.
Last night I lay alone in silence, with wide-open eyes, dreaming it
all over again. This woman I know is more beautiful than I--three
years younger; her hair is gold, mine the raven's. She is fair and
full and tall, and I am dark and small; but, Frank, dear, love is
more than eyes and hair and lips and form. We have been made one
in our flesh and blood and inmost soul. There is no other man than
you for me. There is no music save your voice."
"Yet, if you feel this for me, and I thus wait in love on another,
how can I live the lie?"
"Can you forget the sunlit days of our past?" she pleaded wistfully.
"When you lay on the sands of the beach in old Virginia and held
my hand while I read to you, idly dreaming through that wonderful
summer before our first-born came sailing into port from God's
blue sea! You said I was beautiful then. And you were so tender and
gracious in your strength. No other woman can ever be to you this
first girl-mother."
Her voice melted into a sob. She tried to go on and bit her swollen
lips.
Then she rose quietly, and walked to the window and looked down at
the city below, whose roar had drowned the music of her life.
He sat silent, waiting for her to regain her strength. He knew
that he had the power of hypnotic suggestion over her in his iron
will, and that she was beginning to recognise the inevitable.
She turned and faced him again, the hungry fires in her eyes
burning with mystic radiance. A tiny stream of blood ran down from
her lip and stood in the dimple of her chin. She drew a delicate
lace handkerchief from her bosom and wiped the blood away until it
ceased to flow. And then in low accents she said:
"You are going to leave me, my love. I feel the cold chill on my
heart. It is God's will; I bow to it. One look into your dear eyes,
one last embrace, one farewell kiss, and you will be gone. A little
gift I will make you in this, the saddest, lowliest hour my soul
has ever known. This handkerchief, stained with blood from lips
you have kissed so tenderly in the past--that bled to-day because
I tried to keep back the cries of a broken heart. I ask that you
keep this as a token of my love."
She handed it to him and Gordon placed it in his pocket with a
sigh, brushing a tear from his own eyes.