She drove back to her hotel. She felt very tired. The world she gazed at
seemed vast and alien, a world in which she had no place. The truth had
come to her and she looked at it curiously, almost indifferently. London
flowed past her, long tides of purpose to right and left. The trees in
Green Park were softly blurred on the chill, white sky. She looked at
the trees and sky and at the far lift of Piccadilly, blackened with
traffic, and, at the faces that went by, as if it were all a vast
cinematograph and she the idlest of spectators. And it was here that
love had first come to her, and here that despair had come. Now both
were over and she accepted her defeat.
She thought, when the hotel was reached, and as she went upstairs, that
she would go to bed and try to sleep. But when she entered her little
sitting-room she found Franklin there waiting for her. He had been
reading the newspapers before the fire and had risen quickly on hearing
her step. It was as if she had forgotten Franklin all this time.
She stood by the door that she had closed, and gazed at him. It was
without will, or hope, or feeling that she gazed, as if he were a part
only of that alien world she had looked at, and this outward seeing was
relentless. A meagre, commonplace, almost comic little man. She saw
behind him his trite and colourless antecedents; she saw before him--and
her--the future, trite and colourless too, but for the extraneous
glitter of the millions that surrounded him as incongruously as a halo
would have done. He was an angel, of course; he was good; but he was
only that; there were no varieties, no graces, no mysteries. His very
interests were as meagre as his personality; he had hardly a taste,
except the taste for doing his best. Books, music, pictures--all the
great world of beauty and intellect that the world of goodness and
workaday virtues existed, perhaps, only to make possible--its finer,
more ethereal superstructure--only counted for Franklin as recreations,
relaxations, things half humorously accepted as one accepts a glass of
lemonade on a hot day. Not only was he without charm, but he was unaware
of charm; he didn't see it or feel it or need it. And she, who had seen
and felt, she who had known Gerald and Helen, must be satisfied with
this. It was this that she must strive to be worthy of. She was
unworthy, and she knew it; but that acceptation was only part of the
horror of defeat. And the soulless gaze with which she looked at him
oddly chiselled her pallid face. She was like a dumb, classic mask, too
impersonal for tragedy. Her lips were parted in their speechlessness and
her eyes vacant of thought.
Then, after that soulless seeing, she realised that she had frightened
Franklin. He came to her. 'Dear--what is the matter?' he asked.
He came so near that she looked into his eyes. She looked deeply, for a
long time, in silence. And while she looked, while Franklin's hands
gently found and held hers, life came to her with dreadful pain again.
She felt, rather than knew--and with a long shudder--that the world was
vast; she felt and feared it as vast and alien. She felt that she was
alone, and the loneliness was a terror, beating upon her. And she
felt--no longer seeing anything but the deeps of Franklin's eyes--that
he was her only refuge; and closing her own eyes she stumbled towards
him and he received her in his arms.
They sat on the sofa, and Franklin clasped her while she wept, and she
seemed to re-enter childhood where all that she wanted was to cry her
heart out and have gentle arms around her while she confessed every
wrong-doing that had made a barrier between herself and her mother's
heart. 'O Franklin,' she sobbed, 'I'm so unhappy!'
He said nothing, soothing her as a mother might have done.
'Franklin, I loved him!' she sobbed. 'It was real: it was the reallest
thing that ever happened to me. I only sent for you because I knew that
he didn't love me. I loved him too much to go on if he didn't love me.
What I have suffered, Franklin. And now he is going to marry Helen. He
loves Helen. And I am not worthy of you.'
'Poor child,' said Franklin. He pressed his lips to her hair.
'You know, Franklin?'
'Yes, I know, dear.'
'I am not worthy of you,' Althea repeated. 'I have been weak and
selfish. I've used you--to hide from myself--because I was too
frightened to stand alone and give up things.'
'Well, you shan't stand alone any more,' said Franklin.
'But, Franklin--dear--kind Franklin--why should you marry me? I don't
love you--not as I loved him. I only wanted you because I was afraid. I
must tell you all the truth. I only want you now, and cling to you like
this, because I am afraid, because I can't go on alone and have nothing
to live for.'
'You'll have me now, dear,' said Franklin. 'You'll try that, won't you,
and perhaps you'll find it more worth while than you think.'
Something more now than fear and loneliness and penitence was piercing
her. His voice: poor Franklin's voice. What had she done to him? What
had they all done to him among them? And dimly, like the memory of a
dream, yet sharply, too, as such memory may be sharp, there drifted for
Althea the formless fear that hovered--formless yet urgent--when
Franklin had come to her in her desperate need. It hovered, and it
seemed to shape itself, as if through delicate curves of smoke, into
Helen's face--Helen's eyes and smile. Helen, charm embodied; Helen, all
the things that Franklin could never be; all the things she had believed
till now, Franklin could never feel or need. What did she know of
Franklin? so the fear whispered softly. What had Helen done to Franklin?
What had it meant to Franklin, that strange mingling with magic?
She could never ask. She could never know. It would hover and whisper
always, the fear that had yet its beauty. It humbled her and it lifted
Franklin. He was more than she had believed. She had believed him all
hers, to take; but it was he who had given himself to her, and there
was an inmost shrine--ah, was there not?--that was not his to give. And
pity, deep pity, and sadness immeasurable for a loss not hers alone, was
in her as she sobbed: 'Ah, it is only because you are sorry for me. I
have killed all the rest. You are not in love with me any
longer--poor--poor Franklin--and everything is spoiled.'
But Franklin could show her that he had seen the fear, and yet that life
was not spoiled by shrines in each heart from which the other was shut
out. It was difficult to know how to say it; difficult to tell her that
some truth she saw and yet that there was more truth for them
both--plenty of truth, as he would have said, for them both to live on.
And though it took him a little while to find the words, he did find
them at last, completely, for her and for himself, saying gently, while
he held her, 'No, it isn't, dear. It's not spoiled. It's not the
same--for either of us--is it?--but it isn't spoiled. We've taken
nothing from each other; some things weren't ours, that's all. And even
if you don't much want to marry me, you must please have me, now;
because I want to marry you. I want to live for you so much that by
degrees, I feel sure of it, you'll want to live for me, too. We must
live for each other; we've got each other. Isn't that enough, Althea?'
'Is it--_is_ it enough?' she sobbed.
'I guess it is,' said Franklin.
His voice was sane and sweet, even if it was sad. It seemed the voice of
life. Althea closed her eyes and let it fold her round. Only with
Franklin could she find consolation in her defeat, or strength to live
without the happiness that had failed her. Only Franklin could console
her for having to take Franklin. Was that really all that it came to?
No, she felt it growing, as they sat in silence, her sobs quieting, her
head on his shoulder; it came to more. But she saw nothing clearly after
the hateful, soulless seeing. The only clear thing was that it was good
to be with Franklin.
THE END.
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ESTABLISHED 1798
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CONDENSED LIST.
_Arranged alphabetically under Authors' Names._
BAILEY, H. C.
Springtime.
Beaujeu.
BECKE, LOUIS.
Edward Barry, South Sea Pearler.
BELLOC, HILAIRE.
Mr. Clutterbuck's Election.
The Girondin.
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Daisy's Aunt.
The Luck of the Vails.
The Money Market.
The Osbornes.
The Princess Sophia.
BENTLEY, E. C.
Trent's Last Case.
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The Simpkins Plot.
The Inviolable Sanctuary.
BLACK, WILLIAM.
White Heather.
BRADDON, Miss.
Lady Audley's Secret.
Vixen.
BRAMAH, ERNEST.
The Secret of the League.
BUCHAN, JOHN.
Prester John.
BURNETT, MRS. F. H.
The Making of a Marchioness.
By The Author of "Elizabeth and
her German Garden."
Princess Priscilla's Fortnight.
CAINE, HALL.
A Son of Hagar.
CAPES, BERNARD.
Jemmy Abercraw.
CARR, M. E.
The Poison of Tongues.
CASTLE, A. and E.
If Youth but Knew.
Incomparable Bellairs.
French Nan.
The Rose of the World.
The Panther's Cub.
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The Riddle of the Sands.
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Red Pottage.
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Woodside Farm.
CONRAD, JOSEPH.
Romance.
COPPING, A.
Gotty and the Guv'nor.
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Mightier than the Sword.
DOUGLAS, GEORGE.
The House with the Green Shutters.
DOYLE, A. CONAN.
The Refugees.
The Great Shadow.
Micah Clarke.
The Sign of Four.
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.
The Hound of the Baskervilles.
DUNCAN, SARA JEANETTE.
Set in Authority.
FALKNER, J. MEADE.
Moonfleet.
FINDLATER, MARY AND JANE.
Crossriggs.
FORREST, R. E.
Eight Days.
FUTRELLE, JACQUES.
The Lady in the Case.
GARNETT, MRS.
The Infamous John Friend.
GISSING, GEORGE.
Odd Women.
Born in Exile.
GRIER, SYDNEY.
The Warden of the Marches.
HARLAND, HENRY.
The Cardinal's Snuff-Box.
My Friend Prospero.
HARRADEN, BEATRICE.
Katharine Frensham.
Interplay.
Out of the Wreck I Rise.
HOBBES, JOHN OLIVER.
Love and the Soul-hunters.
HOPE, ANTHONY.
The Intrusions of Peggy.
Quisante.
The King's Mirror.
The God in the Car.
Count Antonio.
The Dolly Dialogues.
The Prisoner of Zenda.
A Man of Mark.
Rupert of Hentzau.
Sophy of Kravonia.
Tristram of Blent.
The Great Miss Driver.
Simon Dale.
Tales of Two People.
HORNUNG, E. W.
Raffles.
Mr. Justice Raffles.
A Thief in the Night: the Last Chronicles of Raffles.
Stingaree.
HYNE, C. J. CUTCLIFFE.
Thompson's Progress.
Mr. Horrocks, Purser.
JACOB, VIOLET.
The Interloper.
JACOBS, W. W.
The Lady of the Barge.
The Skipper's Wooing.
JAMES, HENRY.
The American.
LAWLESS, Hon. EMILY.
Hurrish.
LONDON, JACK.
White Fang.
Adventure.
A Daughter of the Snows.
LORIMER, G. H.
Old Gorgon Graham.
MACNAUGHTAN, S.
The Fortune of Christina M'Nab.
A Lame Dog's Diary.
Selah Harrison.
The Expensive Miss Du Cane.
The Gift.
MACKAY, L. MILLER.
Return of the Emigrant.
MALET, LUCAS.
The Wages of Sin.
The Gateless Barrier.
MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD.
Exton Manor.
MASEFIELD, JOHN.
Captain Margaret.
Multitude and Solitude.
MASON, A. E. W.
Clementina.
The Four Feathers.
The Broken Road.
MERRICK, LEONARD.
The House of Lynch.
The Call from the Past.
MERRIMAN, H. SETON.
The Last Hope.
The Isle of Unrest.
The Vultures.
In Kedar's Tents.
Roden's Corner.
Barlasch of the Guard.
The Velvet Glove.
MORRISON, ARTHUR.
A Child of the Jago.
NICHOLSON, MEREDITH.
The War of the Carolinas.
The House of a Thousand Candles.
NORRIS, FRANK.
The Octopus.
The Pit.
Shanghaied.
OLLIVANT, ALFRED.
Owd Bob.
PAIN, BARRY.
The One Before.
PARKER, SIR GILBERT.
The Battle of the Strong.
The Translation of a Savage.
An Adventurer of the North.
When Valmond came to Pontiac.
The Right of Way.
Donovan Pasha.
The Seats of the Mighty.
PASTURE, Mrs. H. De La.
The Man from America.
The Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square.
The Grey Knight.
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.
The American Prisoner.
The Farm of the Dagger.
PRIOR, JAMES.
Forest Folk.
A Walking Gentleman.
"Q."
Sir John Constantine.
Major Vigoureux.
Shining Ferry.
True Tilda.
Lady Good-for-Nothing.
Hetty Wesley.
RIDGE, W. PETT.
Mrs. Galer's Business.
ROBERTS, MORLEY.
Salt of the Sea.
ROBINS, E.
Come and Find Me.
The Open Question.
SAVILE, FRANK.
The Road.
SEDGWICK, Miss A. D.
Valerie Upton.
SIDGWICK, Mrs. A.
Cynthia's Way.
Cousin Ivo.
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The Good Comrade.
John Bolsover.
Ordinary People.
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Fortune.
STEEL, FLORA ANNIE.
The Potter's Thumb.
On the Face of the Waters.
TARKINGTON, BOOTH.
Monsieur Beaucaire, and The Beautiful Lady.
The Gentleman from Indiana.
TWAIN, MARK.
Tom Sawyer.
Huckleberry Finn.
VACHELL, H. A.
John Charity.
The Waters of Jordan.
The Other Side.
The Paladin.
Brothers.
VERNEDE, R. E.
The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel.
WARD, MRS. HUMPHRY.
The Marriage of William Ashe.
Robert Elsmere.
Marcella.
Lady Rose's Daughter.
Sir George Tressady.
Helbeck of Bannisdale.
Eleanor.
WELLS, H. G.
Kipps.
The Food of the Gods.
Love and Mr. Lewisham.
The First Men in the Moon.
The Sleeper Awakes.
The Invisible Man.
The History of Mr. Polly.
The Country of the Blind.
The War in the Air.
WEYMAN, STANLEY J.
The House of the Wolf.
A Gentleman of France.
Sophia.
WHITE, STEWART E.
The Blazed Trail.
Rules of the Game.
WHITEING, RICHARD.
No. 5 John Street.
WILLIAMSON, C. N. and A. M.
The Princess Passes.
Love and the Spy.
The Lightning Conductor.
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