They kept Fred Starratt in bed for two weeks, and one morning when the
sun was flooding through the skylight with soul-warming radiance they
brought him his clothes and he knew that the prologue to the drama of
his humiliation was over. He crawled to his feet and looked down upon
his body wasted by days of enforced idleness and fasting. He dropped
back upon the bed, exhausted. The sun, striking him squarely,
gradually flamed him with feeble energy. He straightened himself and
dressed slowly.
When he had finished the sun still poured its golden shower into the
room. He rose to his feet and lifted his chilled hands high to receive
its blessing. He felt the blood tingle through his transparent
fingers.
In the next room he heard the tramping of feet and a feeble curse or
two. He dropped his hands and sat down again. The nurse came in with
his breakfast.
"The man next door?" he asked. "Is he leaving to-day, too?"
"Yes."
"Where does he go?"
"To Fairview."
A memory of that first night with its piercing terror sent a shiver
through him.
"They brought him in the same day I came," he ventured, half musingly.
"At the beginning he made a lot of noise, but lately..."
She set the tray down upon the bed. "They had to put him in a
strait-jacket," she said, significantly. "He's quite hopeless. He
tried to kill his wife and his child ... and he set fire to the home.
He's an Italian."
"Yes ... so I was told."
The nurse departed and he drank the cup of muddy coffee on the tray.
He laid the cup down and sat staring at the square cut in the center
of the thick oak door leading into the corridor. Presently he heard
the swish of a woman's skirt passing the opening, followed by the
pattering footsteps of childhood. There came the sound of soft weeping
... the swishing skirt passed again, and the pattering footsteps died
away. The nurse returned.
"The Italian's wife and child have just been here," she said. "They
let the woman look for the last time at her husband through the hole
in the door."
Fred put his head between his hands. "He tried to murder her and yet
she came to see him," he muttered, almost inaudibly. "I dare say he
abused her in his day, too."
The woman gave him a sharp glance. "You're married, aren't you?"
He looked up suddenly, reading the inference in her question. "Yes ...
but my wife won't come..."
The nurse left the room and he put his face in his hands again. The
sun was traveling swiftly. He shifted his position so that he could
get the full benefit of its warmth. He thought that he had banished
the memory of Helen Starratt forever, but he found his mind
re-creating that final scene with her in all its relentless
bitterness... She had come that day to salve her conscience ... to pay
her tithe to form and respectability ... perhaps moved to fleeting
pity. He had seen through every word, every gesture, every glance. Her
transparency was loathsome. Why did he read her so perfectly now? Was
it because she felt herself too secure for further veilings, or had
his eyes been suddenly opened?
She was not flaming nor reckless nor consumed utterly; instead, there
was a complacent coolness about her, as if passion had drawn every
warmth within her for its own consummation. She had still her
instincts in the leash of calculation, going through the motions of
conventionality. The lifted eyebrows and curling lip which she had
directed at Ginger's departing figure were not inconsistent.
Dissimulation was such an art with her that it was unconscious.
He had asked her only one question:
"And how is Mrs. Hilmer?"
Even now he shuddered at the completeness with which her words
betrayed her.
"There is no change ... we are simply waiting."
He had turned away from this crowning disclosure. _Waiting_? No wonder
she could veil her desire in such disarming patience! He had intended
asking her plans. Now it was unnecessary. And he had thought at once
of that last night when he had called at Hilmer's, remembering the
sprawling magazine on the floor, the bowl of wanton flowers upon the
mantelshelf, the debonairly flung mandarin skirt clinging to the
piano--these had been the first marks of conquest.
As she was leaving she had said, "I shall see you again, of course."
In spite of its inconsistency he had sensed a certain habitual
tenderness in her voice, as if custom were demanding its due. And, for
a moment, the old bond between them touched him with its false warmth.
But a swift revulsion swept him.
"Why bother?" he had thrown back at her.
"You mean you don't want me to come?"
"Yes, just that!"
He had taken her breath away, perhaps even wounded her, momentarily,
but she had recovered herself quickly. Her smile had been full of the
smug satisfaction of one who has washed his hands in public
self-justification.
She had left soon after that passage at arms, achieving the grace to
dispense with the empty formality of either a kiss or a farewell
embrace... He remembered how he had flung up the window as if to clear
the room of her poisonous presence...
To-day, sitting upon his narrow bed, instinctively following the patch
of yellow sunlight as it gilded the gloom, he felt that the maniac
next door had the better part. Of what use was reason when it ceased
to function except in terms of withering unbelief?
He sat motionless for hours, waiting patiently for them to come and
release him to sharper sorrows. He had a passive eagerness to taste
bitterness to the lees... When he heard the door open finally he did
not rise. He kept his face buried. A light footstep came nearer and he
was conscious of the pressure of icy fingers upon his hands. He looked
up. Ginger stood before him.
"I brought you some smokes," she said, simply, "but they wouldn't let
me bring them in."
He tried to speak, but suddenly great sobs shook him.
She put her fingers in his hair, drawing him to his feet, and
presently he felt her own tears splashing his cheek.
He was smiling when they finally came for him. But he felt weaker than
ever, and as they walked out into the glare of the street he was glad
to lean upon Ginger's arm. The sheriff's van was drawn up to the curb.
Two deputies helped him in. He turned for a last look at Ginger. Her
pale little face was twisted, but she waved a gay farewell. In a far
corner of the lumbering machine Fred could see two catlike eyes
glimmering. Slowly his gaze penetrated the gloom, and the figure of a
battered man shaped itself, his two hands strapped to his sides. The
deputies got in, the door was shut sharply, and the van shot forward.
In less than fifteen minutes they had reached the ferry.
The train was late, and it was long after nine o'clock when it pulled
into the Fairview station. The day had been hot, and the breath of
evening was bringing out grateful and cooling odors from the sunburnt
stubble of the hillside as Fred Starratt and his keeper stepped upon
the station platform. The insane Italian followed between two guards.
An automobile swung toward them. They got in and rode through the
thickening gloom for about three miles... Presently one of the
deputies leaned toward Fred, pointing a finger in the direction of a
cluster of lights, as he said:
"There's your future home, old man. Keep a stiff upper lip. You'll
need all your grit."