"Vio, do you mean anything by that?"
"What should I mean but--but the fact? You're a mystery to me, Billy,
just as you've evidently been to--to this young lady. At the very
minute when we hope, as she so picturesquely puts it, that you're going
to buck up, you--you clear out. You must have a marvelous eye for your
opportunities in that respect. That's why I say it is like genius. No
one who didn't have a genius for clearing out, still to call it that,
could so neatly have seen his chance at Bourg-la-Comtesse!"
"Vio!"
I don't know what I was about to do, because with my own shout ringing
in my ears I became aware that Lydia had caught me by the arm.
"Oh, kid, please don't!"
"Yes; let him." Vio's face was strained upward toward me, but otherwise
she hadn't moved. "Men who run away from other men are always quick to
strike women."
My arm fell. I bent till my face was close to hers.
"When did I ever run away?"
Her hand was thrown out in the imperious gesture of dismissal I had seen
two or three times already.
"Please, Billy! We won't go into that. You'll--you'll spare me."
"Vio, you believe _that_?"
She inclined her head slowly.
"That I was a--a coward--a deserter?"
She inclined her head again.
"And that I--" the whole plan spread itself out before me--"that I
pretended to commit suicide in order to cover up my tracks?"
Once more she bowed her head relentlessly.
"You _believe_ that?"
"Billy, I know it. Every one knows it. I've stood by you right up to
now. But now--" she rose with a kind of majesty from which I backed
away--"now that you've brought this woman here, into my house, where
I've been fighting your battles-- Oh, Billy, what kind of a man are you
to have--to have a wife like me?"
I made no attempt to respond to this. I could only stand amazed and
speechless. Perhaps a minute had gone by, perhaps two or three before I
found myself able to say:
"All right, Vio. Since it's--since it's that way, and with all the
other things--"
But I couldn't go any farther. There was another speechless passage of
time, during which we could only stare at each other, regardless of the
white and wide-eyed spectator of the scene. Turning abruptly, I walked
down the long hall toward the door of my own room. As I did so Vio said
nothing, but Lydia uttered a little broken cry.
"Oh, kid, _I_ don't believe it; Harry Drinkwater doesn't believe it
either. Nobody will believe it when they've had a word with me."
But I didn't thank her. I didn't so much as look back. It was only by
degrees that I learned, too, what the two women said to each other when
I left them alone together.
I was packing in my room when Boosey brought me a letter. As letters
had for so long been to me a thing of the past I took it with some
curiosity, recognizing at once the hand of my friend Pelly.
DEAR SOAMES,--I suppose I ought to call you Mr. Harrowby now, but it
don't somehow come natural. Soames you were to me and Soames you will
be till I get used to the other thing, which I don't think I shall. I
write you these few lines to let you know that I am well and going just
the same as ever, though I miss our old times together something fierce.
Would like to know how you are, if you ever get time to write. Expect
you are having a swell time with all the gay guys in Boston. Friends
say that Boston is some sporty town when you get with the inside gang,
which I don't suppose you have any trouble in getting. Miss Smith has no
one yet for your old room, which is all repapered and fine with a
brand-new set of toadstools, real showy ones. Mrs. Leeming is sure some
artist, and a nice old girl besides, when she doesn't cry. Had a very
nice time at Jim's the other night; just a quart between him and Bridget
and me; nothing rough-house, but all as a gentleman should. Bridget
could come, as his wife was away burying an uncle at Bing Hampton. Hope
you found your wife going strong as this leaves mine at present. Had a
very nice letter from her the other day, and answered it on the spot
telling her to be true to me and may God bring her and me together again
after this long parting. Now no more from
your friend,
S. PELLY. Write soon.
It is impossible to tell you of the glow that warmed and lighted me on
reading these friendly lines. They were all the more grateful owing to
the fact that if Pelly believed of me what Vio and every one else
believed, as quite possibly he did, it would have made no difference.
Of the things taught me in my contact with the less sophisticated walks
in life, the beauty of a world in which there is comparatively little
judging was the most comforting. There were all kinds of jealousies
there, bickerings, sulkings, puerilities, and now and then a glorious
free fight; but condemnation was rare. The bruised spirit could be at
peace in this large charity, and in the spaciousness of its tolerance
the humiliated soul could walk with head erect. Its ideals and
pleasures might be crude; but they were not pharisaical.
If I had any doubt as to my plans I had none any longer. The instinct
that urged me back to the room with the new set of toadstools was like
that of the poor bull baited in the ring to take refuge amid the dumb,
sympathetic herd of its own kind. I asked only to be hidden there, to
live and work, or, if necessary, die obscurely.
Not that I hadn't had a first impulse to try and clear my name; but the
futility of attempting that was soon apparent. I had nothing to offer
but my word, and my word had been rejected. In the course of the two or
three hours since the scene with Vio and Lydia, while I had gone to the
station to secure a berth on a night train for New York and dined at a
hotel, I had come to the conclusion that the effort to explain would be
folly. The mere fact that my doings between Bourg-la-Comtesse and the
_Auvergne_ were still blurred in my memory would make any tale I told
incoherent and open to suspicion. In addition to that Vio knew, Wolf
knew, and others knew that I had not offered my services to the
Ambulance Corps of my own free will, while my letters had painted my
horror of the sights I witnessed with no thought of reserve. My
supposed suicide being ascribed to remorse, the discovery that I was
alive and well and in hiding in New York--
No; the evidence against me was too strong. The one witness who might
say something in my favor, Doctor Scattlethwaite, had himself not
believed me. He could say that the claim I was putting forth now I had
put forth two years previously; but there would be nothing convincing in
that.
Besides, and there was much in the fact, I wanted to get away, to get
back among those who trusted me, and to whom I felt I belonged. If the
thread of flame had led me to my old life it was only to show me once
for all that there was no place for me in it. Knowing that, I could
take hold of the new life more whole-heartedly and probably do better
work there. Already new plans were springing to my mind, plans which I
could the more easily put into operation because of having some money at
my disposal. Mildred Averill would help me in that and perhaps I could
help her. If Vio secured a divorce, and I should put no obstruction in
the way of that--
But Vio herself came into my room with the calm manner and easy movement
which in no wise surprised me, as she was subject to such reactions
after moments of excitement.
"What are you doing, Billy?"
She seated herself quietly.
A coat being spread before me on the bed, I folded the sleeves, and
doubled the breasts backward.
"I'm packing."
"What for?"
"Because I'm going away."
"When?"
"To-night; in an hour or so."
"Where to?"
"New York first."
"And then?"
"I don't know yet. Possibly nowhere. I may stay in New York. Probably
I shall."
"And not come back here any more?"
"That's my intention."
"What are you doing it for?"
Taking the coat I had folded I laid it in my suit-case.
"I should think you'd see."
"Is it--is it because of--of what was said this afternoon?"
"Partly."
"Not altogether?"
Pulling another coat from the closet I spread it on the bed.
"No; not altogether."
"What else is there?"
"Oh, nothing that you'd be interested in. I--I just want to get away."
"From me?"
"Only in the sense that--that you're part of the whole."
"The whole what?"
"The whole life. It's not a life for me any more."
She did not deny this or protest against it. For a minute or more she
said nothing, though as I crossed the room from the bed to the closet
for more clothes I saw in the glass that she furtively dashed away a
tear. Yesterday I would have been touched by that; but now that I knew
what she believed of me, what she had been believing of me during all
the weeks since I had come home, my heart was benumbed. Besides, if she
was in love with Dick Stroud there was no reason for my feeling pity.