THE INEVITABLE HOUR
"How shall I lose the sin yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest the offense?"
--Pope.
After wandering aimlessly about the city for awhile the half-crazed
gambler turned his footsteps toward home. He longed for and yet dreaded
its quiet and repose. The forces of attraction and repulsion were so
nearly balanced that for a long time he oscillated before his own door
like a piece of iron hung between the opposite poles of a battery.
At last he entered, both hoping and fearing that Pepeeta would be
asleep. He had a vague presentiment that he was on the verge of some
great event. The guilty secret so long hidden in the depths of his soul
seemed to have festered its way dangerously near to the surface, and he
felt that if anything more should happen to irritate him he might do
something desperate.
So quiet had been his movements that he stood at Pepeeta's door before
she knew that he had entered the house, and when he saw her kneeling by
her bedside he stamped his foot in rage. The worshiper, startled by the
interruption, although she was momentarily expecting it, hastily arose.
As she turned toward him, he saw that there was a light on her pale
countenance which reflected the peace of God to whom she had been
praying, as worshipers always and inevitably reflect, however feebly,
the character of what they worship. Her beauty, her humility, her
holiness goaded him to madness. He hated her, and yet he loved her. He
could either have killed her or died for her.
She smiled him a welcome which revealed her love, but did not conceal
her sadness nor her suffering, and, approaching him, extended her hands
for an embrace. He pushed her aside and flung himself heavily into a
chair.
"You are tired," she said soothingly, and stroked his hair.
He did not answer, and her caress both tranquilized and frenzied him.
She placed before him the little lunch which she always prepared with
her own hands and kept in readiness for his return.
"Take it away," he said.
She obeyed, and returning seated herself upon an ottoman at his feet.
The silence was one which it seemed impossible to break, but which at
last became unendurable.
"How often have I told you never to let me find you on your knees when I
come home?" he at last asked, brutally.
"Oh! my beloved," she exclaimed, "you will at least permit me to kneel
to you! See! I am here in an attitude of supplication! Listen to me!
Answer me! What is the matter? Do you not love me any more? Tell me!"
He drew away his hands which she had clasped, and folded them across his
breast.
"What has come between us?" she continued. "Tell me why it is that
instead of growing together, we are continually drawing apart? Sometimes
I feel that we are drifting eternally away from each other. I can no
longer get near to you. An ocean seems to roll between us! What does it
mean? Is this the nature of love? Does it only last for a little time?
Do you not love me any more? Will you never love me again?"
He still gazed sullenly at the floor.
"Will you not answer me?" she begged imploringly. "I cannot endure it
any longer. My heart will break. I am a woman, you must remember that! I
need love and sympathy so much. It is my daily bread. What is the
matter? I beseech you to tell me! Is it your business? Do you feel, as I
do, that it is wrong? I have sometimes thought so, and that you were
worried by it and would be glad to give it up but for the fear that it
might deprive me of some of these luxuries. Is it that? Oh! you do not
know me. You do not know how happy I should be to leave these things
forever, and to go out into the street this very night a pauper. It is
wrong, David. I see it now. I feel it in the depths of my heart."
"Wrong, is it," he cried savagely, "and whose fault is it that I am in
this wrong business?"
"It is mine," she said, "mine! I own it. It was I who led you astray.
How often and how bitterly have I regretted it! How strange it is, that
love like mine could ever have done you harm. I do not understand this.
I cannot see how love can do harm. I have loved you so truly and so
deeply, and I would give my life for you, and yet this love of mine has
been the cause of all your trouble! It would seem that love ought to
bless us. Would you not think so?"
He sat silent; any one but Pepeeta could have seen that this silence
would soon be broken by an explosion.
"Speak to me, my love!" she pleaded, "speak to me. I confess that I have
wronged you. But is there not something that I can do to make you happy?
Surely a wrong like this cannot be irreparable. Tell me something that I
can do to make you happy!"
With a violent and convulsive effort, he pushed her away and exclaimed
fiercely, "Leave me! Do not touch me! I hate you!"
"Hate me?" she cried, "hate me? Oh! David. You cannot mean it. You
cannot mean that you hate me?"
"But I do!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I hate you. You have ruined me, and
now you confess it. From the time that I first saw you I have never had
a moment's peace. Why did you ever cross my path? Could you not have
left me alone in my happiness and innocence? Look at me now. See what
you have brought me to. I am ruined! But I am not alone. You have pulled
yourself down with me. What will you say when I tell you that you are
involved in a crime that must drag us both to hell?"
"A crime?" she cried, clasping her hands in terror.
"Yes, a crime. You need not look so innocent. You are as guilty as I, or
at least you are as deeply involved. We are bound together in misery. We
are doomed."
"Doomed! Doomed! What do you mean? Tell me, I implore you--- do not
speak in riddles!"
"Tell you? Do you wish to know? Are you in earnest? Then I will! You are
not my wife! There! It is out at last!"
Pepeeta sprang to her feet and stood staring at him in horror.
"Not your wife?" she gasped.
"No, not my wife," he said, repeating the bitter truth. "I deceived you.
You were married to your beast of a husband lawfully enough; but as you
would not leave him willingly, I determined that you should leave him
any way. And so I bribed the justice to deceive you."
"You-bribed-the-justice-to-deceive-me?"
"Yes, bribed him. Do you understand? You see now what your cursed beauty
has brought you to?"
She stood before him white and silent.
He had risen, and they were confronting each other with their sins and
their sorrows between them.
It was as if a flash of lightning had in an instant lit up the darkness
of her whole existence, and she saw in one swift glance not only her
misery, but her sin. He was cruel; but he was right. She had been
ignorant; but she had not been altogether innocent. There was a period
in this tragedy when she had gone against the vague but powerful protest
of her soul. With a swift and true perception she traced her present
sorrow to that moment in the twilight when, against that protest, she
besought David to accompany them on their travels. She felt, but did not
observe nor heed that admonition. She had even forgotten it, but now it
rose vividly before her memory.
These moments of revision, when the logic of events throws into clear
light the vaguely perceived motives of the soul, are always dramatic and
often terrible.
It was Pepeeta who broke the silence following David's outburst. In a
voice preternaturally calm, she said, "We are in the presence of God,
and I demand of you the truth. Is what you have told me true?"
"As true as life. As true as death. As true as hell," he answered
bitterly.
"This, then," she said, "is the clue to all this mystery. The tangled
thread has begun to unravel. Many times this suspicion has forced itself
upon my mind; but it was too terrible to believe! And yet I, who could
not endure the suspicion, must now support the reality."
They had not taken their eyes from each other and were trying to
penetrate each other's minds, but realized that it was impossible. There
was in each something that the other could not comprehend.
The strain on his overwrought nerves soon became unendurable to David,
and he sank into a chair.
"Well," he said, as he did so, "what are you going to do about it?"
She had not at first realized that the emergency called for action, but
this inquiry awakened her to the consciousness that she was in a
situation from which she must escape by an effort of her will. She was
before a horrible dilemma and upon one horn or the other she must be
cruelly impaled.
But David, who asked the question, had not realized this necessity at
all.
"Do?" she said, "do? Must I do something? Yes, you are right. We cannot
go on as we are. Something must be done. But what? Is it possible that I
must return to my husband? How can I do that--I who cannot think of him
without loathing! What is the matter? Why do you tremble so? Is it then
as terrible to you as to me? I see from your emotion that I am right.
And yet I cannot see what good it will do! How can it undo the wrong? It
will be a certain sort of reparation, but it cannot bring him happiness,
for I cannot give him back my heart. To whom will it bring happiness?
Has happiness become impossible? Are we all three doomed to eternal
misery? Oh! David, why have you done this?"
He did not reply, but sat cowering in his chair.
"Forgive me," she cried, when she noticed his despair, "I did not mean
to reproach you, but I am so bewildered! And yet I see my duty! If he is
my husband, I must go back to him. A wife's place is by her husband's
side. I do not see how I can do it, but I must. How hard it is! I cannot
realize it. The very thought of seeing him again makes me shudder! And
yet I must go!"
"It is impossible," gasped the trembling creature to whom she looked for
confirmation.
"Why impossible?"
"Because, because--he--is--dead," he whispered, through his dry lips.
"Dead? Did you say dead?" Pepeeta cried. "When did he die? How did he
die?"
"I killed him," he shouted, springing to his feet and waving his hands
wildly. "There! It has told itself. I knew it would. It has been eating
its way out of my heart for months. I should have died if I had kept it
secret for another moment. I feel relieved already. You do not know what
it means to guard a secret night and day for years, do you? Oh, how
sweet it is to tell it at last. I killed him! I killed him! I struck him
with a stone. I crushed his skull and turned him face downward in the
road and left him there so that when they found him they would think
that he had fallen from his horse. It was well done, for one who had
had no training in crime! No one has suspected it. I am in no danger.
And yet I could not keep the secret any longer. Explain that, will you?
If my tongue had been torn out by the roots, my eyes would have looked
it, and if my eyes had been seared with a red-hot iron, my hands would
have written it. A crime can find a thousand tongues! And now that I
have told it, I feel so much happier. You would not believe it, Pepeeta.
I am like myself again. I feel as if I should never be unkind or
irritable any more. The load has fallen from my heart. Come, now, and
kiss me. Let me take you in my arms."
Extending his hands, he approached her. As he did so, the look of horror
with which she had regarded him intensified and she retreated before him
until she reached the wall, looking like a sea-bird hurled against a
precipice by a storm. Such dread was on her face that he dared not touch
her.
"What is the matter?" he said. "Are you afraid of me?"
She did not reply, but gazed at him as if he were some monster suddenly
risen from the deep. He endured the glance for a single moment, and
then, realizing the crime which he had committed had excited an
uncontrollable repulsion for him in her soul, he staggered backward and
sank once more into his chair, the picture of helpless and hopeless
despair.
For a long time Pepeeta gazed at him without moving or speaking. And
then, as she beheld his misery, the look of horror slowly melted into
one of pity, until she seemed like an angel who from some vast distance
surveys a sinful man. Gradually she began to realize that he who had
committed this dreadful deed was her own lover, and that it was the
result of that guilty affection which they bore each other. The
consciousness of her own complicity softened her. She moved towards him;
she spoke.
"Forgive me," she said, "for seeming even for a moment to despise and
abhor you. It was all so sudden. I do not mean to condemn you. I do not
mean to act or feel as if I were any less guilty than you are in all
this wrong. But when one has to face something awful without
preparation, it is very hard. No wonder that we do not know what to do.
Who but God can extricate us from this trouble? We are both guilty,
David. I think that it is because I have had so large a share in all the
rest that has been wrong that I cannot now feel towards you as I think I
ought. It is true that you have injured me terribly and irretrievably.
It is true that your hands are stained with blood, and yet I love you!
My heart yearns for you this moment as never before since we have known
each other. I long to take you in my arms."
He interrupted her by springing from his chair and attempting to embrace
her; but she waved him back with a strange majesty in her mien, and
continued. "I long to take you to my heart and comfort you. I could live
with you or I could die with you. But there is a voice within my soul
that tells me that we must part. Lives cannot be bound together by
crime. While misfortunes and mistakes may knit the hearts of lovers
together, evil deeds must force them apart! We are not lawfully married,
and so--"
"But we can be!" he exclaimed.
"No," she answered, in a voice that sounded to him like that of destiny.
"No, we cannot. No one would marry us if the facts were known. And if we
concealed them from others, we could not hide them from ourselves! We
have no right to each other. We could not respect and therefore we could
not truly love each other. Into every moment of our lives this guilty
secret would intrude. No, it is impossible. I see it clearly. Every
passing moment only makes it more plain. It is terrible, but it is
necessary, and what must be, must!"
"We shall not part!" he cried, springing towards her and seizing her by
the wrist. "God has bound us together and no man shall put us asunder!
We are as firmly linked by vice as by virtue. This secret will draw us
together! We cannot keep away from each other. I should find you if you
were in heaven and I in hell. You are mine! mine, I say! Nothing shall
part us. Have I not suffered for you and sinned for you? What better
title is there than that? It was not the sin, but the secret which has
alienated us, and now that I am not compelled to guard it any longer,
there can be no more trouble between us. The deed has passed
unsuspected. We should have heard of it long ago if any one had ever
doubted that it was an accident. Let the dead past bury its dead! Let us
be happy."
He looked down upon her as if his will were irresistible; but she
remained unmoved and immovable, and gazed at him with deep, sad eyes in
which he saw his doom.
"No," she answered, calmly, "it is impossible. You need not argue. You
cannot change my mind. I see it all too clearly. We must part."
"Oh! pity me," he cried, falling on his knees. "What shall I do? I
cannot bear this burden alone. It will crush me. Have mercy, Pepeeta. Do
not drive me away. I cannot endure to go forth with this brand of Cain
upon my forehead and realize that I shall never hear from your lips
another word of love or comfort. Pity me. You are not God. He has not
put justice into your hands for execution. You are only human!"
"Alas," she cried, "and all too human. But, my beloved, I am not acting
for myself. It is not my mind or heart that speaks. It is God speaking
through me. I feel myself to be acting under an influence apart from
myself. We have resisted these voices and this influence too long. Now
we must obey them."
"But, Pepeeta," he continued, "you do not really think that you have the
power to suppress the love you feel for me?"
"I shall not try," she answered.
"But can you not see that this passion of ours will bring us together
again? Sooner or later, love will conquer. It conquers or crushes.
Everything gives way to it at last. It disrupts the most solemn
contracts. It burns the strongest bonds like tow. Always and everywhere,
men and women who love will come together. It is the law of life, it is
destiny. We cannot remain apart, we are linked together for time and
eternity."
She listened to him calmly until he had finished and then said,
"Nevertheless, I must go. And I will go now; delay is useless. I see
only too clearly that as long as I am near, you must steadily get worse
instead of better. While you possess the fruits of your sin you will not
truly repent. You must either surrender them or be deprived of them. We
can never become accustomed to this awful secret. Our lives are doomed
to loneliness and sorrow; we must accept our destiny; we must go forth
alone to seek the forgiveness of God. Good-bye; but remember, David, in
every hour of trial, wherever you may be, there will be a never-ceasing
prayer ascending to God for you. My life shall be devoted to
supplication. I shall never lose hope; I shall never doubt. Love like
that I bear you must in some way be redemptive in its nature. All will
be well. Once more, good-bye."
She smiled on him with unutterable tenderness, and with her eyes still
fixed upon his haggard face began to move slowly toward the door.
He did not stir; he could not move, but remained upon his knees with his
hands extended towards her in supplication.
Like some exalted figure in a dream he saw her vanish from his sight;
the world became empty and dark; his powers of endurance had been
overtaxed; he lost all consciousness, and fell forward on the floor.