A TALE WELL TOLD.
Of these strange and stirring events no one knew but Arthur himself; nor
of the swift consequences, the divorce of Sonia from her lost husband,
her marriage to Quincy Lenox, the death and burial of her little boy in
England, and the establishment of La Belle Colette and her son Horace in
Chicago, where the temptation to annoy her enemies disappeared, and the
risk to herself was practically removed forever. Thus faded the old life
out of Arthur's view, its sin-stained personages frightened off the
scene by his well-used knowledge of their crimes. Whatever doubt they
held about his real character, self-interest accepted him as Arthur
Dillon.
He was free. Honora saw the delight of that freedom in his loving and
candid expression. He repressed his feelings no more, no longer bound.
He was gayer than ever before, with the gaiety of his nature, not of the
part which he had played. Honora knew how deeply she loved him, from her
very dread of inflicting on him that pain which was bound to come. The
convent would be her rich possession; but he who had given her and her
father all that man could give, he would have only bitter remembrance.
How bitter that could be experience with her father informed her. The
mystery of his life attracted her. If not Arthur Dillon, who was he?
What tragedy had driven him from one life into another? Did it explain
that suffering so clearly marked on his face? To which she must add, as
part of the return to be made for all his goodness!
Her pity for him grew, and prompted deeper tenderness; and how could she
know, who had been without experience, that pity is often akin to love?
The heavenly days flew by like swift swallows. September came with its
splendid warnings of change. The trees were suddenly bordered in gold
yellow and dotted with fire-red. The nights began to be haunted by cool
winds. Louis packed his trunk early in the month. His long vacations had
ended, ordination was at hand, and his life-work would begin in the
month of October.
The household went down to the city for the grand ceremony. Mona and her
baby remained in the city then, while the others returned to the lake
for a final week, Anne with perfect content, Honora in calmness of
spirit, but also in dread for Arthur's sake. He seemed to have no
misgivings. Her determination continued, and the situation therefore
remained as clear as the cold September mornings. Yet some tie bound
them, elusive, beyond description, but so much in evidence that every
incident of the waiting time seemed to strengthen it. Delay did not
abate her resolution, but it favored his hope.
"Were you disturbed by the revelations of Mrs. Curran?" he said as they
sat, for the last time indeed, on the terrace so fatal to Lord
Constantine. Anne read the morning newspaper in the shadow of the grove
behind them, with Judy to comment on the news. The day, perfect,
comfortable, without the perfume of August, sparkled with the snap of
September.
"My curiosity was disturbed," she admitted frankly, and her heart beat,
for the terrible hour had come. "I felt that your life had some sadness
and mystery in it, but it was a surprise to hear that you were not Anne
Dillon's long-lost son."
"That was pure guess-work on Colette's part, you know. She's a born
devil, if there are such things among us humans. I'll tell you about her
some time. Then the fact of my wife's existence did not disturb you at
all?"
"On the contrary, it soothed me, I think," she said with a blush.
"I know why. Well, it will take my story to explain hers. She told the
truth in part, poor Colette. Once I had a wife, before I became Anne
Dillon's son. Will it be too painful for you to hear the story? It is
mournful. To no one have I ever told it complete; in fact I could not,
only to you. How I have burned to tell it from beginning to end to the
true heart. I could not shock Louis, the dear innocent, and it was
necessary to keep most of it from my mother, for legal reasons.
Monsignor has heard the greater part, but not all. And I have been like
the Ancient Mariner.
Since then at an uncertain hour
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
The heart within me burns.
* * * * *
That moment that his face I see
I know the man that must hear me;
To him my tale I teach."
"I am the man," said she, "with a woman's curiosity. How can I help but
listen?"
He holds him with his glittering eye--
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The mariner hath his will.
The wedding-guest sat on a stone,
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
That bright-eyed mariner.
"Do you remember how we read and re-read it on the _Arrow_ years ago?
Somehow it has rung in my ears ever since, Honora. My life had a horror
like it. Had it not passed I could not speak of it even to you. Long ago
I was an innocent fool whom men knew in the neighborhood of Cambridge as
Horace Endicott. I was an orphan, without guides, or real friends. I
felt no need of them, for was I not rich, and happily married? Good
nature and luck had carried me along lazily like that pine-stick
floating down there. What a banging it would get on this rocky shore if
a good south wind sprang up. For a long time I escaped the winds. When
they came.... I'll tell you who I was and what she was. Do you remember
on the _Arrow_ Captain Curran's story of Tom Jones?"
He looked up at her interested face, and saw the violet eyes widen with
sudden horror.
"I remember," she cried with astonishment and pain. "You, Arthur, you
the victim of that shameful story?"
"Do you remember what you said then, Honora, when Curran declared he
would one day find Tom Jones?"
She knew by the softness of his speech that her saying had penetrated
the lad's heart, and had been treasured till this day, would be
treasured forever.
"And you were sitting there, in the cabin, not ten feet off, listening
to him and me?" she said with a gasp of pleasure.
"'You will never find him, Captain Curran ... that fearful woman
shattered his very soul ... I know the sort of man he was ... he will
never go back ... if he can bear to live, it will be because in his
obscurity God gave him new faith and hope in human nature, and in the
woman's part of it.' Those are your words, Honora."
She blushed with pleasure and murmured: "I hope they came true!"
"They were true at that moment," he said reflectively. "Oh, indeed God
guided me, placed me in the hands of Monsignor, of my mother, of such
people as Judy and the Senator and Louis, and of you all."
"Oh, my God, what suffering!" she exclaimed suddenly as her tears began
to fall. "Louis told me, I saw it in your face as every one did, but now
I know. And we never gave you the pity you needed!"
"Then you must give it to me now," said he with boldness. "But don't
waste any pity on Endicott. He is dead, and I look at him across these
five years as at a stranger. Suffer? The poor devil went mad with
suffering. He raved for days in the wilderness, after he discovered his
shame, dreaming dreams of murder for the guilty, of suicide for
himself----"
She clasped her hands in anguish and turned toward him as if to protect
him.
"It was a good woman who saved him, and she was an old mother who had
tasted death. Some day I shall show you the pool where this old woman
found him, after he had overcome the temptation to die. She took him to
her home and her heart, nourished him, gave him courage, sent him on a
new mission of life. What a life! He had a scheme of vengeance, and to
execute it he had to return to the old scenes, where he was more
alone----
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
* * * * *
O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea;
So lonely 'twas that God Himself
Scarce seemed there to be."
The wonder to Honora, as he described himself, was the indifference of
his tone. It had no more than the sympathy one might show toward a
stranger whose suffering had been succeeded by great joy.
"Oh, God grant," he broke in with vehemence, "that no soul suffers as
did this Endicott, poor wretch, during the time of his vengeance.
Honora, I would not inflict on that terrible woman the suffering of that
man for a year after his discovery of her sin. I doubted long the mercy
of God. Rather I knew nothing about His mercy. I had no religion, no
understanding of it, except in a vague, unpractical way. You know now
that I am of the Puritan race ... Livingstone is of my family ... the
race which dislikes the Irish and the Catholic as the English dislike
them ... the race that persecuted yours! But you cannot say that I have
not atoned for them as nearly as one man can?"
Trembling with emotion, she simply raised her hands in a gesture that
said a thousand things too beautiful for words.
"My vengeance on the guilty was to disappear. I took with me all my
property, and I left Messalina with her own small dower to enjoy her
freedom in poverty. She sought for me, hired that detective and others
to hound me to my hiding-place, and so far has failed to make sure of
me. But to have you understand the story clearly, I shall stick to the
order of events. I had known Monsignor a few days before calamity
overtook me, and to him I turned for aid. It was he who found a mother
for me, a place among 'the mere Irish,' a career which has turned out
very well. You know how Anne Dillon lost her son. What no one knows is
this: three months before she was asked to take part in the scheme of
disappearance she sent a thousand photographs of her dead husband and
her lost son to the police of California, and offered a reward for his
discovery living or dead. Monsignor helped her to that. I acknowledged
that advertisement from one of the most obscure and ephemeral of the
mining-camps, and came home as her son."
"And the real Arthur Dillon? He was never found?"
"Oh, yes, he answered it too, indirectly. While I was loitering
riotously about, awaiting the proper moment to make myself known, I
heard that one Arthur Dillon was dying in another mining-camp some
thirty miles to the north of us. He claimed to be the real thing, but he
was dying of consumption, and was too feeble, and of too little
consequence, to be taken notice of. I looked after him till he died, and
made sure of his identity. He was Anne Dillon's son and he lies in the
family lot in Calvary beside his father. No one knows this but his
mother, Monsignor, and ourselves. Colette stumbled on the fact in her
search of California, but the fates have been against that clever
woman."
He laughed heartily at the complete overthrow of the escaped nun. Honora
looked at him in astonishment. Arthur Dillon laughed, quite forgetful of
the tragedy of Horace Endicott.
"Since my return you know what I have been, Honora. I can appeal to you
as did Augustus to his friends on his dying-bed: have I not played well
the part?"
"I am lost in wonder," she said.
"Then give me your applause as I depart," he answered sadly, and her
eyes fell before his eloquent glance. "In those early days rage and
hate, and the maddest desire for justice, sustained me. That woman had
only one wish in life: to find, rob, and murder the man who had befooled
her worse than she had tricked him. I made war on that man. I hated
Horace Endicott as a weak fool. He had fallen lowest of all his honest,
able, stern race. I beat him first into hiding, then into slavery, and
at last into annihilation. I studied to annihilate him, and I did it by
raising Arthur Dillon in his place. I am now Arthur Dillon. I think,
feel, act, speak, dream like that Arthur Dillon which I first imagined.
When you knew me first, Honora, I was playing a part. I am no longer
acting. I am the man whom the world knows as Arthur Dillon."
"I can see that, and it seems more wonderful than any dream of romance.
You a Puritan are more Irish than the Irish, more Catholic than the
Catholics, more Dillon than the Dillons. Oh, how can this be?"
"Don't let it worry you," he said grimly. "Just accept the fact and me.
I never lived until Horace Endicott disappeared. He was a child of
fortune and a lover of ease and pleasure. His greatest pain had been a
toothache. His view of life had been a boy's. When I stepped on this
great stage I found myself for the first time in the very current of
life. Suffering ate my heart out, and I plunged into that current to
deaden the agony. I found myself by accident a leader of a poor people
who had fled from injustice at home to suffer a mean persecution here. I
was thrown in with the great men of the hour, and found a splendid
opponent in a member of the Endicott family, Livingstone. I saw the very
heart of great things, and the look enchanted me.
"You know how I worked for my friends, for your father, for the people,
for every one and everything that needed help. For the first time I saw
into the heart of a true friend. Monsignor helped me, carried me
through, stood by me, directed me. For the first time I saw into the
heart of innocence and sanctity, deep down, the heart of that blessed
boy, Louis. For the first time I looked into the heart of a patriot, and
learned of the love which can endure, not merely failure, but absolute
and final disappointment, and still be faithful. I became an orator, an
adventurer, an enthusiast. The Endicott who could not speak ten words
before a crowd, the empty-headed stroller who classed patriots with
pickles, became what you know me to be. I learned what love is, the love
of one's own; of mother, and friend, and clan. Let me not boast, but I
learned to know God and perhaps to love Him, at least since I am
resigned to His will. But I am talking too much, since it is for the
last time."
"You have not ended," said she beseechingly.
"It would take a lifetime," and he looked to see if she would give him
that time, but her eyes watched the lake. "The latest events in my
history took place this summer, and you had a little share in them. By
guess-work Colette arrived at the belief that I am Horace Endicott, and
she set her detective-husband to discover the link between Endicott and
Dillon. I helped him, because I was curious to see how Arthur Dillon
would stand the test of direct pursuit. They could discover nothing. As
fast as a trace of me showed it vanished into thin air. There was
nothing to do but invent a suit which would bring my mother, Monsignor,
and myself into court, and have us declare under oath who is Arthur
Dillon. I blocked that game perfectly. Messalina has her divorce from
Horace Endicott, and is married to her lover. There will be no further
search for the man who disappeared. And I am free, Monsignor declares.
No ties bind me to that shameful past. I have had my vengeance without
publicity or shame to anyone. I have punished as I had the right to
punish. I have a noble place in life, which no one can take from me."
"And did you meet her since you left her ... that woman?" Honora said in
a low voice half ashamed of the question.
"At Castle Moyna ..." he began and stopped dead at a sudden
recollection.
"I met her," cried Honora with a stifled scream, "I met her."
"I met her again on the steamer returning," he said after a pause. "She
did not recognize me, nor has she ever. We met for the last time in
July. At that meeting Arthur Dillon pronounced sentence on her in the
name of Horace Endicott. She will never wish to see me or her lost
husband again."
"Oh, how you must have suffered, Arthur, how you must have suffered!"
She had grown pale alarmingly, but he did not perceive it. The critical
moment had come for him, and he was praying silently against the
expected blow. Her resolution had left her, and the road had vanished in
the obscurity of night. She no longer saw her way clear. Her nerves had
been shaken by this wonderful story, and the surges of feeling that rose
before it like waves before the wind.
"And I must suffer still," he went on half to himself. "I was sure that
God would give me that which I most desired, because I had given Him all
that belonged to me. I kept back nothing except as Monsignor ordered.
Through you, Honora, my faith in woman came back, as you said it would
when you answered the detective in my behalf. When Monsignor told me I
was free, that I could speak to you as an honorable man, I took it as a
sign from heaven that the greatest of God's gifts was for me. I love you
so, Honora, that your wish is my only happiness. Since you must go, if
it is the will of God, do not mind my suffering, which is also His
will...."
He arose from his place and his knees were shaking.
"There is consolation for us all somewhere. Mine is not to be here. The
road to heaven is sometimes long. Not here, Honora?"
The hope in him was not yet dead. She rose too and put her arms about
him, drawing his head to her bosom with sudden and overpowering
affection.
"Here and hereafter," she whispered, as they sat down on the bench
again.
* * * * *
"Judy," said Anne in the shade of the trees, "is Arthur hugging Honora,
or...."
"Glory be," whispered Judy with tears streaming down her face, "it's
Honora that's hugging Arthur ... no, it's both o' them at wanst, thanks
be to God."
And the two old ladies stole away home through the happy woods.