With his swivel-chair overturned behind him the young lawyer stood at
the desk of his inner office, read this letter through at headlong
speed, turned it again, and re-read it slowly, searchingly, from his own
name to its writer's.
Then readjusting his chair he stepped to a door, asked a clerk in the
outer office to order his cutter, turned back, and was closing his desk,
when his partner came to him.
"Byington, are you ill?" asked the fatherly man.
"No; I'm only going out on some business. I'll be back about--" He
looked at his watch.
"Byington, don't go. You're ill. You don't realize how ill you are. If
you go at all, go home, and let me send some one with you. Why, your
hand is as cold"--
"I'm all right," said the young man, freeing his hand and smiling with
white lips. He took his hat and passed out.
Meanwhile Isabel lay on her bed too overwhelmed to rise. In his room
adjoining, with doors locked, Arthur paced the floor. He had spent the
first half of the night in an agonizing interview with his wife, and the
second half in writing and rewriting the letter to Leonard.
Now Isabel noticed the cessation of his steps. In the door between
them the key turned; then the door opened, and he stood, haggard and
dishevelled, gazing on her. She sat up in the bed, wan, tear-spent,
her glorious hair falling over the embroideries of her nightdress.
"Arthur, dear, I am sorry for every angry word I have spoken. But the
things I have denied I must deny forever.
"If you should wait till doomsday, I could confess no more.
"I have never harbored one throb of unworthy or unsafe regard toward any
man in this wide world.
"For me to say differently would be to lie in God's own face.
"I have had great happiness of Leonard's companionship, and I have been
proud to be myself a proof that a man and a woman can be close, dear,
daily friends without being lovers or kin, and earth be only more like
heaven for it, to them and all theirs. If Leonard has confessed one word
more than that for me,--or even for himself, Arthur, dearest,--he has
lost his reason. It's a frightful explanation, but I find no other.
"Leonard Byington is not wicked, and if he were he wouldn't be so in a
dastard's way.
"Never since the day I first plighted my faith to you, dear heart, has
he given me one sign of a lover's love.
"Oh, Arthur, I do love my husband! This night has proved it to me as
I never knew it before; and if you will only believe me and go back to
Leonard, I believe he can tear the mask off this horrible mystery."
Arthur turned and once more locked the door. His wife flamed red and
hearkened, and the light footfall which had tortured her for hours began
again. Suddenly she left the bed and hurried to dress.
At the mirror, with her hair lifted on her hands, she paused and again
hearkened. Sleighbells stopped at the front door.
Now some one was let in down there, and now, at her husband's room,
Giles, his English man of all work, announced Mr. Byington:--
"Yes, sir, but he says if you can't come down 'e will 'ave to come up,
sir."