be saved what I have suffered. If my mother had lived it might have
been all different. Surely, surely a mother would have known how to save
her child from what I have suffered. A father might not--perhaps a
father might not be to blame, though sometimes--oh, Hannah, it is
dreadful, but my father seems to me a cruel, wicked man. It was he that
did it. What did I know? Why your knowledge of the world is great and
vast compared to mine! I had had only the sisters to teach me, and they
were as ignorant as I. My father told me he had no home to take me to,
and that Robert would give me a sweet home, and love and protection and
kindness, and that I would be so happy and must consider myself very
fortunate. He told me that Robert could not express himself very well,
speaking a different tongue from my own, but that he loved me devotedly
and that the great object of his life would be to make me happy. And so
I married him, glad to please my father, pleased myself, as a child, at
the idea of having a home of my own, and ignorant as a child of what I
was doing."
"And without loving your husband?" said the little teacher, with a look
that showed she could be severe.
"What did I know about love? I thought I loved him. He was handsome and
kind to me and my father said he adored me--he told me himself that he
loved me. If his manner was not very ardent, what did I know about ardor
in love-making? I knew my not being able to speak English fluently must
be a hindrance to him in expressing himself, and I thought he was
everything I could wish, and never doubted I should be as happy as a
child with a doll-house and everything else that she wanted. As I
remember now," she said reflectingly, as if searching back into her
memory, "Robert was different in those days--not an impassioned lover,
compared to the tenor who sang in the opera to-night, but compared to
what he is now, he was so. There was once that he seemed to care a
little--"
She broke off and Hannah spoke:
"I was thinking to-night about you and whether you were not in danger,"
she said, with a certain air of wisdom which her somewhat hard
experience of life had given her. "How that man looked at you as he sang
those words! That wild passion of love which they expressed seemed a
reality. I wondered if you could hear them unmoved--and a thought of
danger for you made me feel unhappy."
Christine did not answer her for a moment. A strange smile came to her
lips as her eyes rested gently on the little teacher. Eyes and smile had
both something of hopelessness in them, as if she despaired of making
herself understood.
"That was sweet of you, Hannah," she said presently, a look of simple
affectionateness chasing away the other. "It is good to think that
there was any one, in all that great crowd of people, who cared so much
about me, but, my good little friend, never trouble yourself with that
thought in connection with me again. My heart is dead--so dead that it
seem weary waiting for the rest of me to die, and nothing but the
resurrection morning that renews it all can ever give me back the heart
I had before I was married. It did not die suddenly at one blow, but
it died a lingering death of slow, slow pain. Think what it is! I am
younger than you, and already joy and pleasure and hope are words that
have no meaning for me. Oh, poor Hannah! I oughtn't to make you cry,
and yet your tears are blessed things. When I could cry I was not so
wretched."
She leaned toward the girl and clasped her close, kissing the teardrops
from each eye and soothing her, as if hers had been the sorrow.
"I want to be just to my husband," she went on presently. "I do believe
he is not to blame. He gives me all he has to give, but there is
nothing! Oh, when I look into my heart and see its power of suffering,
and see, too, how marvellously happy I might once have been, I seem a
thousand worlds away from him--my husband, who ought to be the very
closest, nearest, likest thing to me! Perhaps he is not happy, but at
least he does not suffer, and he is always contented to live on as we
are--no work, no friends, no ambition, no interest in life, except mere
living. Oh, but it is hard! How long will it go on so, Hannah?" she
broke out suddenly, with a ring of fervor in her voice. "Did you ever
hear of any one living on and on and on, in a life like this? Could it
go on until one got old and deaf and wrinkled, and can anything end it
but death? It seems so impossible that I can be the little Christine who
used to sit and dream of happiness in marriage, and of the handsome
lover who would come some day and carry me off to a beautiful land where
all my dreams would be realized. I came out on that stage to-night," she
went on, sitting upright and folding her beautiful arms, "and while the
people were looking at me and clapping, a thought came to me that made
me feel like sobbing. I wondered in my soul how many broken hearts were
covered by those lace and velvet garments, and those smiling,
superficial faces. The thought absorbed me so that I forgot everything
and the prompter thought I'd forgotten my part entirely and gave me my
cue."
"I saw you. I saw the strange look that came over your face, but I
did not know what it meant. And perhaps the people envied you and
thought you must be so happy, to be so beautiful and admired. Oh, poor
Christine! I am sorry for you. I wish you could be happy. It seems as
if you might."
"_You_ might! Everything is possible to you. There is no reason, I
suppose, why you may not have all the happiness I ever dreamed of, for,
after all, the beginning and end of it was love. And yet I have advised
you never to marry--for I often disbelieve in the existence of the sort
of love that I have dreamed of--but how can I tell? I know nothing but
my own life, and I tell you that is an intolerable pain. I sit here and
say the words and you hear them, but they are words only to you, shut
off as you are from all the experiences that make up my suffering.
Lately there has been a new one. If anything could make my life more
miserable it would be the addition of poverty and privation to what I
bear already--and that is what I am threatened with--what may probably
be just ahead of me. Suppose that should come too! Why, then I should be
more unhappy yet, I suppose, although I have thought I couldn't be."
She spoke still with that strange calm which her companion had wondered
at from the beginning of their conversation. Her manner in the carriage
seemed to be a part of the excitement of the evening's performance, but
now the cold calm of reaction had come on and she was very quiet. She
had leaned back again in the big chair, and looked at Hannah gravely.
Neither of them thought of sleep, and their faces expressed its nearness
as little as if it were afternoon, instead of midnight. The last words
uttered by Christine had presented a practical difficulty to her friend
which her own experiences brought home to her forcibly, while they shut
her off from a just sympathy with some of her other trials.
"What do you mean?" she said. "Isn't your husband well off and able to
support you comfortably?"
"How do I know? How am I to find out?"
"Ask him. Make him explain to you exactly what his circumstances are. I
wonder you haven't done that long ago."
"You will wonder at a good deal more if you go on. For my part, I have
wondered and wondered until I have no power to wonder left. I did ask
him--that and many other things--and the result is I am as blind and
ignorant this moment as you are." She spoke almost coldly. One would
have thought it was another and an almost indifferent person whose
affairs she was discussing.
"But how can you be ignorant?" said Hannah. "Does he refuse to answer
your questions?"
"No--he doesn't refuse to answer them, though it is evident he thinks
them useless and annoying--but generally he tells me he doesn't know."
"Doesn't know how much money he has, or whether he is rich or poor?"
The other nodded in acquiescence.
"Why, how on earth can that be so? Doesn't he always have money to pay
for things as you go along?"
"Yes--heretofore he has always had. I have needed nothing for myself.
All the handsome clothes you see me wear belong to my poor, miserable
trousseau." She smiled bitterly as she said it, but there were no tears
in her eyes and her voice was utterly calm.
"What makes you think, then, that he may not continue to have plenty?"
"A letter I read without his permission, though he left it on the table
and probably didn't care. I have been troubled vaguely for some time to
find he knew nothing whatever about his business affairs, and that he
merely drew on his lawyer for what he wanted, and was always content so
long as he got it. Lately, however, although he had been looking for a
remittance, the lawyer's letter came without it, and it was that letter
that I read. I saw he looked annoyed, but not for long. He put the
letter down and spent the evening playing solitaire, as he always does
when he doesn't go to the theatre. After he went to bed I read the
letter. It was from the lawyer in the far West, who had always had
charge of the money left by his father--and he said that having
repeatedly warned him that he could not go on spending his principal
without coming to the end of his rope, he had to tell him now that the
end was almost reached. He might manage to send him a remittance soon by
selling some bonds at a great sacrifice, and as his orders were
imperative of course he would have to do this, but he notified him that
there was scarcely anything left, a certain tract of land, which was
almost valueless, and that, he said, was the entire remnant of his
inheritance, which could never have been very much as he certainly has
no extravagant tastes."
"Why didn't you tell him you had read the letter and ask him about it?"
said Hannah, her rather acute little face animated and serious at once.
"I did."
"And what did he say?"
"That a woman had no business meddling with men's affairs, and that he
could not help it."
"But if it is so why doesn't he get something to do?"
"I asked him and he said he couldn't."
"But had he tried?"
"He said he had--several times."
"What could he do?"
Christine shook her head.
"I have wondered," she said, "and I can think of nothing. He said he was
not trained to any business, and I know no more what to tell him to do
than he knows himself. The lawyer advised him to go to work, but did not
suggest how. He spoke as if he did not know of his marriage, for he said
a man ought to be able to get something to do that would support one."
"Oh, Christine! and is this all you accomplished?"
"This is all."
"How long ago was it?"
"About a week."
"And you have gone through with all that rehearsing and dressing and
acting with this weight on your mind? How could you do it?"
"I was determined to do it. It kept me from thinking. I could not
withdraw at the last moment. I knew that as soon as the performance
was over I would have to look the thing in the face somehow, though I
am more helpless than any child. The thought has pursued me through
everything. It terrifies me less when I sit and face it calmly, so, than
when I put it by and it comes rushing back--as it did to-night while I
was singing my last solo. I thought it would take my breath away, but
instead it seemed to give an impulse to my voice that made me sing as
I had never sung before. I wondered to hear myself, and I was not
surprised the people applauded. It was a love song, but what did I care
for the stupid man who stood and rolled his eyes at me sentimentally
while I sang it? I was in a frenzy, not of love, but despair. This last
knowledge that has come to me has put the final touch. To be an actual
beggar, as I may be before long, leaves nothing more but death--and that
would be peace and satisfaction and joy."
"But surely your father will help you when he understands."
"He has no money generally. I know he had to borrow some to get my
wedding clothes. He explained to me that the last cent of my little
inheritance from my mother had been spent on my education. Besides," she
added, with a change of tone that made her face harden, "I shall not
tell him. I feel bitterly toward my father. He could never have truly
loved me: he wanted to rid himself, as soon as he could, of the burden
of me. So I am left absolutely without a friend. I don't forget you,
Hannah," she added quickly. "You are my friend, I know, and would help
me if you could. Your love can help me and it does and will, but we are
poor little waifs together--only you can do something to support
yourself, and your mother loves you, while I am utterly helpless and
have no love in all the world except what you give me. Oh, Hannah, you
must never leave me!"
"Where is Mr. Noel--the gentleman you told me of who was so good to
you on the steamer, and afterward came to see you and spoke to you so
kindly?"
"He has forgotten me--at least I suppose so," she said, shaking her
head. "Yes, he was good to me. I think he would be sorry for me. He has
gone back to Europe and taken his mother and sisters. Some one was
speaking of them and said they all loved him so. You and I are more
desolate than most people, Hannah. You have only your mother and me to
love you--and I have only you."
VI.
The clock on the mantel struck twelve. Christine rose to her feet with a
little shiver. There was a mirror not far away, toward which she turned
and surveyed herself from head to foot. As she did so the soft folds of
her Greek drapery settled about her, severe and beautiful. The masses of
her dark hair were drawn into a loose, rich knot pierced by a gold
dagger, and her eyes--so remarkably beautiful in color and expression
that no one ever saw them unimpressed--were clear and steady as they
gazed at the reflected image in front of her.
"I wonder," she said, lifting her bare arms with a sort of conscious
unconsciousness and clasping her hands in a fine pose behind her head,
which she turned slightly to one side, "I wonder if this is the very
last of me--the very last of the Christine who loved to look beautiful
and wear rich clothes and be admired, and who thought that she would one
day be loved."
Turning away from that long look she held out both fair arms to Hannah.
"Come close, close, Hannah," she said, as the plain little teacher, in
her rough dark gown, was drawn into her embrace. "I want to feel some
living thing near my heart to-night, for I am frightened and lonely. I
have told myself good-by. Christine is dead and gone and I have buried
her. I want some one near me in these first moments of my strange new
self. Oh, Hannah, if we could die! Not you--for your mother needs
you--but me. Oh, Hannah," she said, in a strained voice that sounded as
if it were only by an effort that she kept her teeth from chattering,
"if I hadn't you to-night I don't know what would become of me."
Hannah tried to soothe her with soft words of comfort and assurances of
love.
"It will not be so dark and sad and friendless as you think," she said.
"All those people who have admired and praised you so will surely be
good to you--" But she was interrupted sharply.
"I am done with them," she said, "and done with fine dressing, and
becoming colors." Her voice shook, and Hannah, seeing that she was
completely unnerved, succeeded in persuading her to go up to her own
room. On the threshold she paused.
"Come into the dressing-room with me," Christine said. "Don't leave me.
He will not wake," she added, seeing her friend glance toward the door
between the dressing-room and sleeping-room. "He sleeps like a stone. I
shall lie here on the lounge till morning. I often do. I have lain
there, night in and out, and almost sobbed my heart away, and no one
knew."
Hannah braided the lovely hair, unfastened the exquisite white and gold
dress, which fell in a rich mass on the floor, and out of it Christine
stepped, looking more lovely than ever and more childlike. She caught
sight of the ornaments she still wore, and hastily taking them off laid
them in a heap on the dressing-table.
"They can be sold," she said. "I shall never want to put them on again.
Oh, Hannah, you are so good to me," she went on in the plaintive voice
of an unhappy child, as Hannah brought a warm dressing-gown and made her
put it on, and little soft-lined slippers for her feet. "I am so cold,"
she said, shivering. "Some day you will know, perhaps, how unhappy I am.
You don't know half of it now, and I cannot tell you. Oh, you have made
me so comfortable," she added, as Hannah tucked a warm coverlet over
her, on the big, soft lounge. "I haven't had any one to take care of me
for so long. Don't leave me, Hannah. Sit in that big chair and hold my
hand and let me go to sleep. I am so tired."
Her lids drooped and her voice fell. In another moment she was asleep.
Once only Christine opened her eyes, and finding Hannah still there said
piteously, "Oh, I am so unhappy," but the plaintive little tones died
away in sleepiness, and in a moment she was drawing in the regular
breaths of profound slumber.
By-and-by, without waking her, Hannah drew her hand away, and leaning
back in the big chair, threw a great shawl all around her, and worn out
by the experiences of the evening, she also fell asleep.
Morning found them so. The rising sun looking in at the window waked
them simultaneously, and with a remembering look on both faces, they
were clasped in each other's arms. A long embrace and then a kiss. No
word was spoken, and when they met at breakfast and were joined by Mr.
Dallas, the manner of all three was as usual. The servant who waited saw
nothing to comment upon, except, perhaps, that the unwonted presence of
a guest made little difference in the usual silentness of the meal.
VII.
Noel remained abroad a year and a half and came home at last with a new
determination, which he promptly put into effect. This was to begin in
earnest the practice of his profession. He was tired of travelling, and
even his beloved painting was not enough to satisfy the more insistent
demands for occupation and interest, which his maturity of mind and
character gave rise to.
Not very long after his return he went to call on the Dallases. He was
informed, on inquiring at the house, that a family of another name now
occupied it, and no one could tell where Mr. and Mrs. Dallas had gone.
He made inquiries at several places in the neighborhood, but in vain.
He walked away, with a sad and tender feeling in his heart for the poor
foreign girl, whose beauty, youth and childlike charm had taken a strong
hold upon his mind. The annoying thought occurred to him that he had
been foolishly prudent and apprehensive of danger. He wondered if it
hadn't been a sort of coxcombry in him to think there was any danger to
her in free and frequent intercourse with him! As for the danger to
himself, that it was cowardly to think about. He wished he had acted
differently, and felt unreasonably troubled at having let the girl drift
beyond his knowledge. She had looked so young and appealing as he had
seen her last, seated on the rug with the kittens on her lap, and so
beautiful. No one he had seen before or since was as beautiful. The type
seemed almost unique. He knew her to be utterly ignorant of the world,
and he hated to think what experience might have taught her of it. He
ought to have looked after her more. The reproachful thought stung him.
He said to himself that he'd be a little more careful the next time he
felt inclined to occupy this high moral platform and be better than
other men! He ought to have seen that common kindness demanded a little
more of a man than this. He was completely self-disgusted, and
registered a sort of mental vow that if he ever found the young creature
again he would befriend her, if she were still in need of a friend, and
take the consequences. He was not so irresistible, he told himself, as
to be necessarily dangerous to the peace of mind of all the women of his
acquaintance. He had acted the part of a prig and he was well punished
for it.
Noel had altered in some ways since his former return from Europe. For
one thing his appearance had changed. He had now a thick, close-trimmed
beard, which made him look older and graver. There were some premature
gray hairs, also, in his close-cropped hair.
The weather was very hot, and his mother and sisters had gone at once to
their country house, but Noel lingered in town, although, socially, it
was almost deserted.
One afternoon of a very hot day, when the neighborhoods of soda
fountains alone were populous, and men walked about the streets
with umbrellas in one hand and palm-leaf fans in the other, with
coats open, hats pushed back and frequent manipulation of their
pocket-handkerchiefs, Noel, whose sense of propriety admitted of none
of these mitigations of the heat, was standing at a down-town crossing,
waiting for a car. He was going to his club to refresh himself with a
bath, order a dinner with plenty of ice accompanying it, and then take
a drive in the park behind a horse warranted to make a breeze. It was
getting intolerable in town, and he had just determined to leave it
to-morrow.
As he stood waiting he observed, on the opposite corner, a woman
carrying a baby. He had a good heart and it troubled him to see that
the child seemed ill. He was struck, too, with the fact that the woman,
although closely veiled, had something in her figure and bearing, as
well as her dress, which made her present position seem in some way
incongruous. His practised eye perceived that her figure was good,
and his instinct told him that she was a lady. He looked at her so
attentively that his car passed without his seeing it until it was too
far to hail. As another car, going the opposite way, came along and
stopped, the woman got on it, and a resemblance, which some fleeting
movement or position suggested to his mind, struck him so powerfully
that almost without knowing what he was doing he found himself running
to overtake the car, which had started on. It was not difficult to do,
and once having undertaken it, it would have looked silly to stop, so he
swung himself on to the platform. The car was full and he did not go
inside. He saw the figure his eye was following take a seat high up, and
turn the child so that it might get the air from the window. He could
see the poor, little pinched face, utterly listless and wan, and by
reason of its sickness totally bereft of the beauty that belongs
to plump, round, rosy babyhood. And yet the child had wonderful
eyes--strange, large eyes of a clear, golden-brown color--the like
of which he had seen once only before. Memories, speculations and
presentments seemed to crowd upon him. He tried to get a view of the
mother, but her back was turned to him, and a fat German woman, with a
pile of unmade trousers from a clothing establishment, almost hid the
sight of that. Usually he could not see these poor sewing-women, with
their great, hot burdens of woollen cloth on their knees, without a
sentiment of pity, but he did not give this one a thought. His mind was
wholly absorbed in scanning curiously, though furtively, the baby's
poor, little white face, and all that he could see of the mother's dress
and figure. Presently the car came to a halt. The German woman got up
and labored down the aisle with her burden and got off, but some one
quickly moved into the vacant seat. Still he could see better now, and
the better he saw the stronger grew the conviction in his heart.
Gradually the car thinned out, and he might have gone nearer, but
something held him back. He kept his position by the conductor, until
he rang his bell and called out the name of a landing from which the
excursion boats went out daily. Then the woman rose, lifting her baby
with gentle carefulness, and came down the aisle and got out. She
passed directly by Noel, but her thick veil was impenetrable, and yet,
from the nearer view of her figure and the pose of her head, the feeling
he had was deepened and strengthened. He got out, too, and followed her,
and as he walked directly behind her, his eyes fastened on the rich coil
of her wavy dark hair, he felt sure that this was Christine Dallas.
"Poor thing!" he said under his breath. The tears were near his eyes,
but a feeling of rage surged up and overmastered them. Where was the
girl's husband? Where were all the men and women that ought to have
protected her and given her support and companionship in this hour?
She toiled on in front of him now, her figure braced to its burden. The
baby was light, but she carried in addition to it a shawl and a small
bag. He longed to go and help her, but he feared to startle or distress
her. If he had been a stranger he would not have hesitated, and he
wondered at the cruel indifference of the passers-by. They were mostly
laborers, draymen and porters, but at least they were men, and it made
his blood boil to see them passing her carelessly and almost jostling
her.
She got on board the boat, which was not crowded, and he followed a
little way behind. It gave him a sense of keen distress to see her
threading her way through groups of rough men, who ignored or jostled
her, to the little window where she bought her ticket, and it angered
him to see how indifferently the man sold it to her, and pushed her her
change.