THE CONFESSIONAL
"Will you go with Mr. Harcourt and myself?" she asked. "There will be
plenty of room, I think."
"No. I will go by train and meet you there."
When he reached the house on Massachusetts Avenue she had not yet come.
Mrs. Pennybacker took him into the parlor.
"I am glad to have the opportunity to tell you something of the girl's
history before Margaret comes," she said. "The poor child has something
on her mind that she feels she must tell you.... No, I don't know what
it is."
When she had finished that pitiful story of woman's trust and man's
perfidy, his face was haggard. He could guess the name. They both
thought that her talk would be a plea for the child.
Margaret came at last and they were taken to the sick girl's room.
"She is very weak," whispered Mrs. Pennybacker at the door, "but
perfectly clear in mind. For the last few days she has been in great
mental distress about something. It is only since I promised her to send
for you both that she has been quiet. Let her do the talking in her own
way."
At the bedside of the girl Mr. De Jarnette felt a great wave of
compassion sweep over him. She was so young.
"Rosalie, this is Mr. De Jarnette."
He held out his hand but she would not take it, and he passed to a seat
at the foot of the bed where he could see her without being himself
under the eyes of any of them.
When Margaret bent over her, smoothing her hair, patting the worn cheek,
and smiling into her eyes, the mental anguish of the last two days of
which Mrs. Pennybacker had spoken, seemed to break out afresh.
"Oh, madam, do not take my hand. It is stained with blood.... If--when
you have heard all--"
"Why, Rosalie, my poor girl," Margaret said soothingly, "you have done
nothing that you should plead to me for forgiveness. Your greatest sin
has been to yourself and your child--and even then you have been more
sinned against than sinning."
"Oh, madam, you do not know. It is this that I have brought you to this
room to hear."
Margaret had drawn a chair to the bedside, thinking that the girl could
tell her story, whatever it was, better to her than to a stranger.
"What is it, Rosalie? Tell me then if it will ease your mind in the
least. What have you ever done to me!"
"What have I done?... She asks me what I have done! Oh, madam--look away
from me--and listen. 'Twas I who--who killed him!"
"She is delirious," said Margaret, in an undertone, and laid a wet cloth
on her head. But Richard De Jarnette bent forward, watching the woman
with a quick comprehension that took in all she said and was supplying
more.
"I am not delirious," said Rosalie, sadly. "I think I have been all
these month that I have had the shelter of your roof and eaten your
bread. Now I have come to myself. And whatever the result you must know
the truth."
"What does she mean?" asked Margaret, turning to the others.
"Let her tell her story in her own way," suggested Mrs. Pennybacker. She
saw that the girl's breath was becoming labored.
"Yes. Listen to me while I have strength to talk. And then--forgive ...
if you can. The man that wrought my ruin was your husband--and I killed
him."
"My husband died by accident," Margaret said with white lips. "He said
so with his dying breath."
"Then he spoke falsely--even in death," said the woman, "for I killed
him!"
"But--don't you remember you told me that your betrayer died from
natural causes?"
"I told you that he died a natural death. He did; it was by my hand."
"Let her go on, Margaret."
"You know that day you came to the hospital and wanted to take my boy
because he looked like yours and because you were so desolate?"
"Yes."
"And then you heard my story and were so filled with pity for a poor
sinning girl that you brought me to your own home and put my child into
my empty arms and said, 'This much of life's joy you shall have.' Oh, I
have never forgotten those words! Do you remember that?"
"Yes," said Margaret.
"It was because your own heart was sore that you wanted to bind up mine.
But I did not know--oh, believe me, I did not know--into whose house I
was coming. I had not heard your name till one day the young girl called
you Mrs. Osborne. I had not even thought of it. You were so gentle--so
merciful--I did not care about your name. When one day I heard a servant
call you Mrs. De Jarnette, I fainted. I was very weak, you know, and it
came over me like a flash whose house I was in."
"I remember that time," said Mrs. Pennybacker in an undertone to Mr. De
Jarnette. "We wondered what it was."
"I felt after that that I must go away," the sick girl said, "I felt
that I could not stay under your roof knowing that I had made your child
fatherless. But then--I thought if I should tell you you would send my
Louis back to the Home and me to the Hospital, and I would lose him
again just as he was getting fond of me. I tried to tell--but I could
not."
"Can you tell us now connectedly just what you did--and how?"
It was Mr. De Jarnette that spoke. His voice sounded stern in its
intensity.
"Yes--that was what I wanted to do. That was why I sent for you both."
She looked up helplessly at Mrs. Pennybacker. "Where must I begin?"
"I have told him, Rosalie, all that we know. You need not repeat that.
Begin where you went to Mr. De Jarnette in his office."
"Yes. I will try very hard to tell it connectedly. But it seems to come
to me in bits. Some of it stands out so much more distinctly than the
rest."
She lay still a moment thinking. Then fixing her preternaturally bright
eyes upon him and speaking slowly, she began:
"I had been sick for months in the hospital. But I was better then and
soon would have to go away. I did not know where I could go and I
worried a great deal about it. I was sorry--no, not sorry either--for
there was my baby, and what would have become of him if I had died.
Well, one day--the very day I was to be discharged--I saw in a paper
that he, this man, had come back to Washington. After thinking it over I
determined that I would go to him and ask him to settle on me enough
money to let me take the child and go away somewhere where I need never
trouble him any more--where I could have a little home and keep my baby
with me. You see, sir, it was not that I was unwilling to work, but with
the child I could not get anything to do."
Richard De Jarnette gripped the iron rail, smothering a groan.
"I went straight to him from the hospital. He was sitting at his desk
cleaning his revolver--a pretty thing that seemed to catch my eye and
hold it while we talked--it was so bright and shining. I remember
thinking that the price of it would pay for many, many loaves of
bread.... I told him what I wanted. But--I think something must have
gone wrong before I came, for he was very angry--said he had thought
that he was through with me--that this was blackmail. Sir, I swear to
you I did not know what blackmail was. I had never heard the word."
She waited a moment to recover breath and then went on.
"Oh. I said bitter things to him then. I seemed to see the child before
my eyes, gasping as it did in those days when we starved before the
fever came, and it maddened me. He bade me leave it in the Home if I
could not care for it, and go away--to some other city--I would soon
forget it if I were away, and it would be cared for by the District. I,
its mother, would forget! He said that he would give me money to go away
from Washington--a ticket to Chicago or the far West--no more. He had
done all for me that he could--far more than many a man would do--it
would have to end some time--and more like this. A ticket to go away and
leave my child! This was his cure for all my wrongs!"
Margaret stooped over and took the sick girl's hand. At the sweet touch
of sympathy Rosalie turned toward her, the words coming now fast and
feverishly.
"Then--then--oh, madam, I have been a wicked woman! I did not mean to do
it, but while he was speaking something in my brain seemed to burst. I
saw strange things all jumbled up together in a flash--the lilacs in our
yard at home, a wretched woman of the street with painted face--a baby
left upon a mountain side to perish as I had read in my history the
Spartans left them, and whirling everywhere before my eyes that cursed
shining pistol worth so many loaves of bread!"
She stopped, overcome by the recital. There was not a sound but the tick
of the clock on the mantel. They were all in the fatal office.
Said Richard De Jarnette with a white set face,
"Go on!"
"Then--I can't seem to remember anything clearly then except that I
caught the pistol up and fired. I think he must have started up, for he
fell--against me." She closed her eyes and a shudder ran through her.
"Oh--h! I have seen his face so often in the night!"
"What happened then? Go on!" urged Richard, fearing that her strength
might fail. "It was but a moment from the time that shot was fired
before I was there. Where did you go?"
"The minute I fired the thought came to me of my own danger. I had not
seemed to think of it before. And at that second I heard somebody trying
to get in. I thought they were coming to get me. You know how things
will come to you all in a flash. I remembered that there was a night
latch on the door--that I could get out if they could not get in. In a
second I had thrown the pistol on the floor and was in the hall with the
door closed behind me."
"It was that I heard," breathed Margaret. "I _thought_ I heard a door
shut."
"It was just a step around to the side hall where the elevator was. As I
turned the corner I heard somebody running from the room across the
hall. Then the elevator came. I stepped in, and before anybody knew what
was the matter I was in the street.... No, I don't know where I went, or
what I did. I think from what they told me afterwards that I went back
to the hospital and they took me in. At any rate, I found myself there
when I knew anything again--long afterwards. They said I had had a
relapse."
"Why have you waited so long to tell this?" demanded Richard De
Jarnette, so sternly that she cowered down in the bed.
"Oh, sir, I was afraid to tell. Afraid--" her voice sank to a frightened
whisper--"that they would hang me. Will they--do it--now?"
"No!" said Mrs. Pennybacker, constituting herself judge and jury. "No!"
"Oh, I have been frightfully afraid. Sometimes I have put my fingers
around my throat and pressed hard, to see--"
"Rosalie!"
"Yes,--and then I always gave it up. I _could not_ do it."
"But," the girl went on, turning to Margaret again, "it was not that
alone. I think I could have got so after a while that I would have dared
to die even that shameful death--I was so worn out with it all--the
struggle and the remorse. But for my child's sake I could not tell. I
felt that you would cast him off if you knew all. How could you bear him
in your home when--when--and if you turned against him who would take
him up? Oh, madam ... I tried to tell. But when I thought of him I could
not. To keep this horrible secret that was eating my life away seemed
the only thing left that I could do for him."
"Rosalie, why have you told it now?"
"Because--oh, madam, I cannot die with a lie upon my lips--a lie that
keeps _your_ child from your arms."
"My child--from my arms?" repeated Margaret, groping for her meaning.
"Why,--"
"Rosalie, you have talked enough now," said Mrs. Pennybacker, kindly.
"You are worn out."
"One moment," Margaret interrupted. Then dropping to her knees beside
the sick girl she took her hand, saying solemnly, "Be at peace! I
promise by the love I bear my own child that I will be a mother to
yours. From this day he shall bear his father's name."
"Oh, madam!"
Mr. De Jarnette broke the silence that fell on them then.
"There is no need that this should ever be known outside of ourselves.
To the world Victor De Jarnette died by accident. So let it rest."
When Rosalie spoke again it was only to murmur as if to herself, "I did
not know--the world had people in it--like this!"
To Mrs. Pennybacker, who bent over her with a reviving draught, she said
as simply as a child would say it, "Do you think God will forgive me
now?"
"'Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him,'" was the instant answer. "'He knoweth our frame; He
remembereth that we are dust.'"
To Margaret it was an assurance of infinite compassion.
But the sick girl started up, crying, "Oh, not as a father! Not that! My
father shut his door upon me. My child's father cast him off. If it
could only have been 'as a mother'--"
"Rosalie, it is! For, as if that was not enough, the dear Lord says: 'As
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.'"
"Does it say that?... Is it true?... 'As one--whom--his mother
comforteth!' Oh, my mother would have comforted me! She would have taken
me--sinful though I was--to her arms! She would have--"
She closed her eyes and lay still. Then they saw her lips move.
"'As one--whom--his _mother_--comforteth.'"
Mrs. Pennybacker motioned them silently to go.
They reached the lower hall before either spoke.
Then Margaret said, not raising her eyes to his, "Richard, if God can so
forgive, may not we?"
He was silent so long that she looked up at him in wonder. His face was
gray.
She opened her lips to ask him if he were ill, but at that moment
something in his look palsied the words. Her tongue clave to the roof of
her mouth. Her breath was shut off. An instant, horrible enlightenment
had fallen upon her. Then,
"You thought--I did it!" she said.