VIRGINIA hung up the telephone receiver with an expression of keen
relief. She had just heard of Leigh’s acquittal.
“Dan got him off!” the colonel told her jubilantly. “I knew he would!
Say, Jinny, I shan’t be home for lunch; going over to the club with
Payson and Jessup.”
Virginia smiled to herself. She knew how the old man would enjoy it,
and she did not care for any luncheon herself. She told Plato so, half
an hour later. The old man retired grumbling.
“’Deed, Miss Jinny, yo’ be sick. I’m gwine to tell de col’nel!” But she
only laughed at him. She was, in fact, too nervous to eat. It seemed as
if food would choke her.
She knew everything that had taken place in that court-house almost
as well as if she had been there. The colonel had been very vivid in
his talk, and she had spoken once over the ’phone with Mrs. Carter and
once with Emily. On all these occasions she had heard the amazing fact
that Fanchon’s story on the stand had been a surprise to her husband.
In other words, poor William had been deceived, Mrs. Carter declared,
by a designing little minx, and his life ruined! This cry of maternal
anguish went to the listener’s heart, for Virginia had known William
from childhood, and she understood, even more keenly than his mother,
the humiliation he had suffered in court.
She moved restlessly about the house, trying not to think of it. She
had gathered flowers in the morning, and could not make the garden
another means of diverting her mind, so she tried to answer some
long-neglected letters.
This failed her, too, after a while, and she went into the old
drawing-room, which at this hour was carefully shaded from the sun.
Opening a shutter, she let in a flood of golden light. It shot across
the room like the fiery lance of a crusader, its radiant tip striking
on the ivory keys of her old piano. Virginia walked in it, watching
the light catch on the white folds of her skirt. She sat down dreamily
at the piano and began to play. She played without her notes, and
unconsciously her fingers strayed into old, half-forgotten tunes.
She began to be quite happy. She had not played these tunes for
years, and they brought back pictures, fragmentary bits of things,
and voices and laughter. She had played that one for a dance when her
grandfather had given her a birthday party at seventeen, and this one
for old Judge Jessup because his wife used to like it. This was the
one that William liked. She played it affectionately and lingeringly.
She liked it herself, for it was old-fashioned and sweet and mellow,
without being great music. She smiled a little over it. She knew that
Judge Jessup, who liked good music, would call it “a finger-and-thumb
exercise.”
She was still playing it when it seemed to her that her bit of sunshine
had grown dim, or was being obscured by some shadow, and she looked up.
William Carter was standing beside her. The wide front doors were open
in the warm summer day. He had entered unheralded, and he was standing
there quietly, looking down at Virginia, mute as a graven image, and
nearly as pale.
She was taken unawares, terribly unawares, and her slender fingers made
a little discord before they fell from the keys. She turned a startled
face toward him, paling and then flushing, her lips tremulous.
“William!” she exclaimed softly, almost below her breath. “How you
startled me!”
“I’ve no right to be here,” he exclaimed bitterly. “I’ve felt that ever
since I crossed the threshold and saw you sitting here--as you used to
sit here with me, Virginia.”
Her lips were still trembling, but she was recovering from the
surprise. She rose from the piano and went to a more distant chair,
which stood a little in the shadow. She did not want him to see her
face too plainly.
“Sit down, William,” she said pleasantly, suppressing the quiver in her
voice. “I’ve just heard the news over the ’phone. I’m so happy about
Leigh!”
He did not sit down. He began, instead, to march up and down the room,
his hands behind him and his head bowed gloomily.
“I’m glad about Leigh, too,” he replied grimly. “He’s my brother--and I
ought to have been in his place! I’m glad, but----”
He broke off, and continued his pacing. Virginia was startled again,
this time painfully. Her heart sank; she began to dread what he might
say next. She saw that he was almost beside himself. Old memories
rushed back, too--old, touching, tender, and intimate things. This
was the man she had once promised to marry, the man who had professed
to love her so much. It seemed to her that she had a moment of
clairvoyance. She knew the thoughts that must be thronging into his
mind, too. She was human, she was aware that he had repented, that he
had had bitter cause to repent; but she tried not to think of that.
At last he stopped short and stood looking at her, his face as deeply
flushed as it had been pale. She made an effort to speak, but it seemed
impossible, and she averted her eyes. It was true, she knew now that it
was true--Fanchon had deceived him. The whole miserable tragedy that
had crossed her own life, as well as his, was laid bare before her. She
could not look at him; she felt a tightening in her throat.
“Listen”--he was still standing in front of her, a grim figure of
anger and despair--“I want to tell you the truth. I must tell you,
Virginia----”
She stopped him with an involuntary gesture of protest.
“Oh, William, how can you?” she cried softly, reproachfully.
She had lifted her clear eyes to his, unshadowed and beautiful. He
flinched from the look, and suddenly he was dumb. He turned with a
poignant gesture of pain, averting his face.
Virginia rose from her chair and walked to the window. She was no
longer flushed; she was very pale. Her breath was coming short, but
her eyes were clear and luminous as she looked out on the old familiar
garden, with its box-bordered flower-beds and the wicker table under
the old horse-chestnut. She could almost see the tall, white head of
her grandfather.
She thought, at the moment, that she saw more than that. There was
also a vision of her father--a good man, too, and her mother. They had
been noble-minded--as noble-minded as her grandfather was to-day. In
his simple, kindly old-fashioned way, Colonel Denbigh was a gentleman,
and Virginia knew it.
She clung to the window-sill, her hands trembling. She had a woman’s
heart, she was very human--William had come back! How some women would
have triumphed in a rival’s misfortune!
Then she heard his voice.
“I’ve done wrong--everything has been tragic and terrible. It’s almost
too much to ask, but--Virginia, can you forgive me?”
For a moment Virginia could not speak. She did not even look at him.
She was looking far across the lawn toward the white road that led to
the town; but she saw nothing. Her eyes misted. The break in his voice
touched her; it hurt her to hear it. She pitied him, yet there was a
change in her. She had not known it until this moment, but now she knew
it. It was as if she had seen through a glass darkly, and now the veil
was withdrawn, and she looked into a clear mirror and beheld her own
image as it really was. Nothing could ever be the same again, nothing
could be as it had been before, because her eyes were open.
“Did you hear me, Virginia!” he said hoarsely. “Will you forgive me?”
She lifted her eyes reluctantly to his again, turning from white to
red, but her lips no longer trembled.
“I forgive you, William,” she replied gently, and she held out her hand.
He took it and held it a moment while he searched her eyes. Then he
turned and made his way blindly out of the room and out of the house.
He walked heavily down the driveway to the old gates. An impulse had
brought him--an impulse that he had been too broken to resist. Now, in
its reaction, he despised his own weakness. What right had he to worry
Virginia? But his mind was still in conflict; he could no longer think
concisely or even clearly. Like a man in a dream he walked out of the
gates and turned into the road toward town.
The look in Virginia’s eyes, the look that had roused him, came back
to him only dimly. It was obscured by the scene that haunted him--the
scene in the court-room. He could see the crowd of staring faces again,
the judge on the bench, judicial and disinterested, the flushed,
scowling countenance of the prosecuting attorney, the jury--and Daniel!
How coolly his brother had stood in that heated, tense atmosphere! How
his eyes had kindled and his voice pleaded for the boy’s life! For
jail would have been a living death to one so young.
Leigh rose before him, too. He could see the boy’s beautiful face and
his girlish eyes, and the change in him, the terrible change. The look
of a man--a man who has killed--was in those young eyes!
William drew his breath hard. Her work, he thought bitterly! And yet
how she haunted him! He could see more plainly than anything else her
small, white face with its pointed chin and its fawn-like eyes. He
could hear her voice, sweet and hurrying and light, with the spell of
sex in it--how it haunted him, too! But he was done with her. He set
his teeth hard and clenched his hand, walking on.
He walked blindly. A taxi passed, but he was unaware of it. He never
looked up, he looked down into the dust of the road, for his heart was
heavy and bitter. He was done with her!
Fanchon, who had hidden in the corner of the taxi that he might not
see her, leaned forward now and looked out. She was on her way to the
refuge she had found in the country--a poor, desolate place, but all
that she could pay for--more than she could pay for, if the truth be
told. She felt ill and weak, and she must go somewhere--anywhere, away
from the Carters. There was fever in her blood and her lips were dry,
but her brilliant, restless eyes looked out after the figure in the
road.
She had seen him come out of the Denbigh gates!
She had thought of this, she had pictured it. If he got a divorce, he
would marry Virginia--she never doubted that Virginia would take him.
And now, now when it seemed to her that it was already on its way to
accomplishment, she sank back into her corner aghast.
She lifted a shaking hand and pushed back the soft hair from her
forehead. It was a helpless, thoughtless gesture, but she had pulled
off her gloves, and the light caught the rings on her fingers. Suddenly
she saw her wedding-ring--William’s ring. She held out her small hand
and stared at it, choking back the sob in her throat. She remembered
the look in his eyes when he had put that ring on her finger. How he
had loved her then!
A passion of tears and rage swept over her, and she cowered back in
the taxi, weeping and beating the air with her small hands clenched.
They had taken him away from her, they had made him hate her, and this
girl--this girl with the superior look and the calm, sweet face--she
would have him! That was the bitterest drop in Fanchon’s cup of gall.
It was that which set her to shaking and choking with rage and grief.
William had passed her, he had not even looked at her. He had been to
see Virginia!
Fanchon stared at the ring on her finger. It seemed to fascinate her.
Then she became aware of the laboring sound of the taxi. They
were traveling along a rough road. Here it was ascending, and the
motor-engine puffed and bellowed, and wheezed like a whale in a trough
of the sea. She leaned forward and looked out again. The road led
through a wood. She could discern the slender stems of young trees in
ever increasing ranks. Ahead of them a stream ran down to a bridge.
The sight of the water dashing over the stones brought a new purpose to
mind. She called to the chauffeur.
“Stop! I want to get out here.”
He slowed down and stopped the machine, looking surprised. Fanchon
opened the door and sprang lightly to the ground.
“Wait,” she said quickly, authoritatively. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The man stared, but he waited obediently. He had an idea that the lady
was a little eccentric; but she was a beauty, and she was famous. He
had been delighted to drive off with her in his cab. He leaned out now
and watched her surreptitiously; but she had turned into the brush, and
he lost sight of her small figure. She was so small that she was easily
lost in the low growth of sumac.
Fanchon knew that he was watching her. She checked an impulse to go
straight down to the brook in plain sight of the road. She turned,
instead, and followed a path that led her to a still pool. The water
was clear, and she could see the pebbles in the sandy bottom. It was
scarcely a foot deep, but the place was hidden, and it would serve her
purpose well.
She stepped out on a stone at the edge of the pool, and stood a moment
staring down into it, panting a little, her lips moving. Her small,
black-clad figure, her white face, and her wild, beautiful eyes had a
startling effect. There was something sylvan about her, and the sylvan
landscape framed her well; but she had, too, the look of a sorceress
weaving a spell.
Slowly, deliberately, as if she performed a rite, she drew the
wedding-ring off her finger, held it aloft a moment, and then, with a
gesture more eloquent than words, she flung it into the pool.
“_C’est fini!_” she cried, choking and sobbing.
It sank to the bottom, but it was not hidden. It lay there sideways,
glittering. A fugitive ray of sunlight, striking the surface of the
still water, found it and made merry with it. It sent a glint out of
the gold like a flash of laughter in a dark place; it danced upon it
and rippled over it--and then a tadpole disturbed the pool.
Fanchon, still shaking, still filled with jealousy and misery, stared
at the ring. It seemed to her that it mocked her, that it called
her an outcast, that it laughed her to scorn. Her wedding-ring, the
tangible sign of the link that bound her to William--how it flashed and
glittered! Not even water hid it.
Her lips twitched painfully, not with mirth but with anguish, and she
covered her eyes with her hands. Shutting the sight of it out thus, she
stumbled back to the path.
She had scarcely tasted food that day, and she felt suddenly faint and
dizzy; but she set her small white teeth on her lip, and her great eyes
smoldered dangerously. She was wildly angry again now. She ran along
the path and had almost reached the end of it when she wavered, then
stopped short and stared at her hands.
That third finger felt unnatural. It seemed to grin at her--white and
bare as a bone. She felt for her gloves, and could not find them. She
leaned against a tree and clasped her finger with her small, bare
hands. In her agony of mind she clutched and tore at the bark until the
blood came. The cut in the flesh roused her; she drew a deep breath and
looked back.
“_Mon Dieu!_” she murmured softly, and then: “_Non, non_, I cannot--I
cannot!”
So she went back slowly, reluctantly, as if she was drawn against her
will. She went all the way to the edge of the pool and looked into it.
Yes, it was there--her ring! How it gleamed at her! So might the eye of
the serpent have gleamed in triumph at Eve in the Garden of Eden.
She couldn’t resist it. She stooped and picked up a stick. Creeping out
on the stone again, she tried to fish up her ring with the stick; but
it went deeper; it seemed to wink at her and dodge her, burrowing into
the sand. With a cry of anguish, Fanchon dropped to her knees, half in
the water, and plunged her arm into the pool, digging into the sand
with her fingers. Joy and relief shot through her heart when she felt
the hard metal loop again. She had it!
She staggered to her feet, holding it tight, but she wouldn’t put it
back on her finger. She knotted it into her wet handkerchief and thrust
it into her bosom. Then, blindly, weeping and shaken and dripping, she
made her way back to the waiting taxi.