A hoarse, thin cry sounded from within the Makimmon dwelling. It
fluctuated with intolerable pain and died abruptly away, instantly
absorbed in the brooding calm of the valley, lost in the vast, indifferent
serenity of noon. But its echo persisted in Gordon's thoughts and
emotions. He was sitting by the stream, before his house; and, as the cry
had risen, he had moved suddenly, as though an invisible hand had touched
him upon the shoulder. He sat reflected on the sliding water against the
reflection of the far, blue sky. One idea ran in a circle through his
brain, his lips formed it soundlessly, he even spoke it aloud:
"It ain't as though I had gone," he said.
The possible consequence to Lettice of what had been a mere indecision
seemed to him out of any proportion. No, he thought, I wouldn't have gone
when the time came; when the minute came I'd have held back. Then again,
it ain't as though I had gone. A species of surprise alternated with
resentment at the gravity of the situation which had resulted from his
indiscreet conduct; the agony of that cry from within the house was too
deep to have proceeded from ... it wasn't as though he had gone ... he
wouldn't have gone, anyway.
He heard footsteps on the porch, and turned, recognizing Doctor Pelliter.
He half rose to go to the other with an inquiry; but he dropped quickly
back on the bank, looked away.--Some time before the doctor had tied a
towel about his waist ... it had been a white towel.
His mind returned to Lettice and the terrible mischance that had been
brought upon her; that he had brought on her. He tested the latter clause,
and attempted to reject it: he had done nothing to provoke such a terrible
actuality. He rehearsed the entire chain of events which had resulted in
the purchase of the pearl necklace; he followed it as far back as the
evening when, from the minister's lawn, he had seen Meta Beggs undressing
at her window. He could nowhere discover any desperate wrong committed. He
knew men, plenty of them, who were actually unfaithful to their wives: he
had done nothing of that sort. He endeavored to grow infuriated with Meta
Beggs, then with Mrs. Caley; he endeavored to place upon them the
responsibility for that attenuated, agonized sound from the house; but
without success. He had made a terrible blunder. But, in a universe where
the slightest fairness ruled, he and not Lettice would pay for an error
purely his own.
Lettice was so young, he realized suddenly.
He recalled her as she sat alone, under the lamp, with her shawl about her
shuddering shoulders, waiting for the inevitable, begging him to assure
her that it would be all right. It would, of course, be all right in the
end. It must! Then things would be different. He made himself no
extravagant promises of reform, no fevered reproaches; but things would be
different.--He would take Lettice driving; he had the prettiest young wife
in Greenstream, and he would show people that he realized it. She had been
Lettice Hollidew, the daughter of old Pompey, the richest man in the
county.
The importance of that latter fact had dimmed; the omnipotence of money
had dwindled: for instance, any conceivable sum would be powerless to
still that cry from within. In a way it had risen from the very fact of
Pompey Hollidew's fortune--Meta Beggs would never have considered him
aside from it. He endeavored to curse the old man's successful avarice,
but without any satisfaction. Every cause contributing to the present
impending catastrophe led directly back to himself, to his indecision. The
responsibility, closing about him, seemed to shut out the air from his
vicinity, to make labored his breathing. He put out a hand, as though to
ward off the inimical forces everywhere pressing upon him. He had seen
suffering before--what man had not?--but this was different; this
unsettled the foundations of his being; it found him vulnerable where he
had never been vulnerable before; he shrunk from it as he would shrink
from touching a white-hot surface. He was afraid of it.
He thought of the ghastly activities inside the house; they haunted him in
confused, horrid details amid which Lettice suffered and cried out.
He was unaware of the day wheeling splendidly through its golden hours,
of the sun swinging across the narrow rift of the valley. At long
intervals he heard muffled hoof-beats passing on the dusty road above. He
watched a trout slip lazily out from under the bank, and lie headed
upstream, slowly waving its fins. It recalled the trout he had left on
the porch of Hollidew's farmhouse on the night when he had attempted
to ... seduce ... Lettice!
The details of that occasion returned vivid, complete, unsparing. It was a
memory profoundly regrettable because of an obscure connection with
Lettice's present danger; it too--although he was unable to discover why
it should--took on the dark aspect of having helped to bring the other
about. As the memory of that night recurred to him he became conscious of
an obscure, traitorous force lurking within him, betraying him, leading
his complacency into foolish and fatal paths, into paths which totally
misrepresented him.... He would not really have gone away with Meta
Beggs.
He was a better man than all this would indicate! Yet--consider the
result; he might as well have committed a foul crime. But, in the end, it
would be all right. Doctors always predicted the darkest possibilities.
He turned and saw Doctor Pelliter striding up the slope to where his team
was hitched on the public road. A swift resentment swept over Gordon
Makimmon as he realized that the other had purposely avoided him. He rose
to demand attention, to call; but, instinctively, he stifled his voice.
The doctor stopped at the road, and saw him. Gordon waved toward the
house, and the other nodded curtly.