"But you must tell me: my name has been brought into this, and I
must know."
While she listened her eyes flashed and when she spoke her voice
trembled with excitement and anger. "These things are not true,"
she said. "Only Rowan and I know what passed between us. I told
no one, he told no one, and it is no one's right to know. A great
wrong has been done him and a great wrong has been done me; and I
shall stay here until these wrongs are righted."
"And is it your feeling that you must begin with me?" said Mrs.
Osborn, bitterly.
"Yes, Kate; you should not have believed these things. You
remember our once saying to each other that we would try never to
believe slander or speak slander or think slander? It is unworthy
of you to have done so now."
"Do you realize to whom you are speaking, and that what I have done
has been through friendship for you?"
Isabel shook her head resolvedly. "Your friendship for me cannot
exact of you that you should be untrue to yourself and false to
others. You say that you refuse to speak to Rowan on the street.
You say that you have broken up the friendship between Mr. Osborn
and him. Rowan is the truest friend Mr. Osborn has ever had; you
know this. But in breaking off that friendship, you have done more
than you have realized: you have ended my friendship with you."
"And this is gratitude for my devotion to you and my willingness to
fight your battles!" said Mrs. Osborn, rising.
"You cannot fight my battles without fighting Rowan's. My wish to
marry him or not to marry him is one thing; my willingness to see
him ruined is another."
Isabel drove home. She rang the bell as though she were a
stranger. When her maid met her at the door, overjoyed at her
return, she asked for her grandmother and passed at once into her
parlors. As she did so, Mrs. Conyers came through the hall,
dressed to go out. At the sound of Isabel's voice, she, who having
once taken hold of a thing never let it go, dropped her parasol;
and as she stooped to pick it up, the blood rushed to her face.
"I wish to speak to you," said Isabel, coming quickly out into the
hall as though to prevent her grandmother's exit. Her voice was
low and full of shame and indignation.
"I am at your service for a little while," said Mrs. Conyers,
carelessly; "later I am compelled to go out." She entered the
parlors, followed by Isabel, and, seating herself in the nearest
chair, finished buttoning her glove.
Isabel sat silent a moment, shocked by her reception. She had not
realized that she was no longer the idol of that household and of
its central mind; and we are all loath to give up faith in our
being loved still, where we have been loved ever. She was not
aware that since she had left home she had been disinherited. She
would not have cared had she known; but she was now facing what was
involved in the disinheritance--dislike; and in the beginning of
dislike there was the ending of the old awe with which the
grandmother had once regarded the grandchild.
But she came quickly back to the grave matter uppermost in her
mind. "Grandmother," she said, "I received a few days ago a letter
from Kate Osborn. In it she told me that there were stories in
circulation about Rowan. I have come home to find out what these
stories are. On the way from the station I stopped at Mrs.
Osborn's, and she told me. Grandmother, this is your work."
Mrs. Conyers pushed down the thumb of her glove.
"Have I denied it? But why do you attempt to deny that it is also
your work?"
Isabel sat regarding her with speechless, deepening horror. She
was not prepared for this revelation. Mrs. Conyers did not wait,
but pressed on with a certain debonair enjoyment of her advantage.
"You refused to recognize my right to understand a matter that
affected me and affected other members of the family as well as
yourself. You showed no regard for the love I had cherished for
you many a year. You put me aside as though I had no claim upon
your confidence--I believe you said I was not worthy of it; but my
memory is failing--perhaps I wrong you."
"It is _true_!" said Isabel, with triumphant joy in reaffirming it
on present grounds. "It is _true_!"
"Very well," said Mrs. Conyers, "we shall let that pass. It was of
consequence then; it is of no consequence now: these little
personal matters are very trivial. But there was a serious matter
that you left on my hands; the world always demands an explanation
of what it is compelled to see and cannot understand. If no
explanation is given, it creates an explanation. It was my duty to
see that it did not create an explanation in this case. Whatever
it may have been that took place between you and Rowan, I did not
intend that the responsibility should rest upon you, even though
you may have been willing that it should rest there. You discarded
Rowan; I was compelled to prevent people from thinking that Rowan
discarded you. Your reason for discarding him you refused to
confide to me; I was compelled therefore to decide for myself what
it probably was. Ordinarily when a man is dropped by a girl under
such circumstances, it is for this," she tapped the tips of her
fingers one by one as she went on, "or for this, or for this, or
for this; you can supply the omitted words--nearly any one can--the
world always does. You see, it becomes interesting. As I had not
your authority for stating which one of these was the real reason,
I was compelled to leave people at liberty to choose for
themselves. I could only say that I myself did not know; but that
certainly it was for some one of these reasons, or two of them, or
for all of them."
"You have tried to ruin him!" Isabel cried, white with suffering.
"On the contrary, I received my whole idea of this from you.
Nothing that I said to others about him was quite so bad as what
you said to me; for you knew the real reason of your discarding
him, and the reason was so bad--or so good--that you could not even
confide it to me, your natural confidant. You remember saying that
we must drop him from the list of our acquaintances, must not
receive him at the house, or recognize him in society, or speak, to
him in public. I protested that this would be very unjust to him,
and that he might ask me at least the grounds for so insulting him;
you assured me that he would never dare ask. And now you affect to
be displeased with me for believing what you said, and trying to
defend you from criticism, and trying to protect the good name of
the family."
"Ah," cried Isabel, "you can give fair reasons for foul deeds. You
always could. We often do, we women. The blacker our conduct, the
better the names with which we cover it. If you would only glory
openly in what you have done and stand by it! Not a word of what
you have said is true, as you have said it. When I left home not a
human being but yourself knew that there had been trouble between
Rowan and me. It need never have become public, had you let the
matter be as I asked you to do, and as you solemnly promised that
you would. It is you who have deliberately made the trouble and
scattered the gossip and spread the scandal. Why do you not avow
that your motive was revenge, and that your passion was not
justice, but malice. Ah, you are too deep a woman to try to seem
so shallow!"
"Can I be of any further service to you?" said Mrs. Conyers with
perfect politeness, rising. "I am sorry that the hour of my
engagement has come. Are you to be in town long?"
"I shall be here until I have undone what you have done," cried
Isabel, rising also and shaking with rage. "The decencies of life
compel me to shield you still, and for that reason I shall stay in
this house. I am not obliged to ask this as a privilege; it is my
right."
"Then I shall have the pleasure of seeing you often."
Isabel went up to her room as usual and summoned her maid, and
ordered her carriage to be ready in half an hour.
Half an hour later she came down and drove to the Hardages'. She
showed no pleasure in seeing him again, and he no surprise in
seeing her.
"I have been expecting you," he said; "I thought you would be
brought back by all this."
"Then you have heard what they are saying about Rowan?"
"I suppose we have all heard," he replied, looking at her
sorrowfully.
"You have not believed these things?"
"I have denied them as far as I could. I should have denied that
anything had occurred; but you remember I could not do that after
what you told me. You said something had occurred."
"Yes, I know," she said. "But you now have my authority at least
to say that these things are not true. What I planned for the best
has been misused and turned against him and against me. Have you
seen him?"
"He has been in town, but I have not seen him."
"Then you must see him at once. Tell me one thing: have you heard
it said that I am responsible for the circulation of these stories?"
"Yes."
"Do you suppose he has heard that? And could he believe it? Yet
might he not believe it? But how could he, how could he!"
"You must come here and stay with us. Anna will want you." He
could not tell her his reason for understanding that she would not
wish to stay at home.
"No, I should like to come; but it is better for me to stay at
home. But I wish Rowan to come to see me here. Judge Morris--has
he done nothing?"
"He does not know. No one has told him."
Her expression showed that she did not understand.
"Years ago, when he was about Rowan's age, scandals like these were
circulated about him. We know how much his life is wrapped up In
Rowan. He has not been well this summer: we spared him."
"But you must tell him at once. Say that I beg him to write to
Rowan to come to see him. I want Rowan to tell him everything--and
to tell you everything."
All the next day Judge Morris stayed in his rooms. The end of life
seemed suddenly to have been bent around until it touched the
beginning. At last he understood.
"It was _she_ then," he said. "I always suspected her; but I had
no proof of her guilt; and if she had not been guilty, she could
never have proved her innocence. And now for years she has smiled
at me, clasped my hands, whispered into my ear, laughed in my eyes,
seemed to be everything to me that was true. Well, she has been
everything that is false. And now she has fallen upon the son of
the woman whom she tore from me. And the vultures of scandal are
tearing at his heart. And he will never be able to prove his
innocence!"
He stayed in his rooms all that day. Rowan, in answer to his
summons, had said that he should come about the middle of the
afternoon; and it was near the middle of the afternoon now. As he
counted the minutes, Judge Morris was unable to shut out from his
mind the gloomier possibilities of the case.
"There is some truth behind all this," he said. "She broke her
engagement with him,--at least, she severed all relations with him;
and she would not do that without grave reason." He was compelled
to believe that she must have learned from Rowan himself the things
that had compelled her painful course. Why had Rowan never
confided these things to him? His mind, while remaining the mind
of a friend, almost the mind of a father toward a son, became also
the mind of a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, with the old, fixed, human
bloodhound passion for the scent of crime and the footsteps of
guilt.
It was with both attitudes that he himself answered Rowan's ring;
he opened the door half warmly and half coldly. In former years
when working up his great cases involving life and death, it had
been an occasional custom of his to receive his clients, if they
were socially his friends, not in his private office, but in his
rooms; it was part of his nature to show them at such crises his
unshaken trust in their characters. He received Rowan in his rooms
now. It was a clear day; the rooms had large windows; and the
light streaming in took from them all the comfort which they
acquired under gaslight: the carpets were faded, the rugs were worn
out and lay in the wrong places. It was seen to be a desolate
place for a desolated life.
"How are you, Rowan?" he said, speaking as though he had seen him
the day before, and taking no note of changes in his appearance.
Without further words he led the way into his sitting room and
seated himself in his leather chair.
"Will you smoke?"
They had often smoked as they sat thus when business was before
them, or if no business, questions to be intimately discussed about
life and character and good and bad. Rowan did not heed the
invitation, and the Judge lighted a cigar for himself. He was a
long time in lighting it, and burned two or three matches at the
end of it after it was lighted, keeping a cloud of smoke before his
eyes and keeping his eyes closed. When the smoke rose and he lay
back in his chair, he looked across at the young man with the eyes
of an old lawyer who had drawn the truth out of the breast of many
a criminal by no other command than their manly light. Rowan sat
before him without an effort at composure. There was something
about him that suggested a young officer out of uniform, come home
with a browned face to try to get himself court-martialled. He
spoke first:
"I have had Isabel's letter, and I have come to tell you."
"I need not say to you, tell me the whole truth."
"No, you need not say that to me. I should have told you long ago,
if it had been a duty. But it was not a duty. You had not the
right to know; there was no reason why you should know. This was a
matter which concerned only the woman whom I was to marry." His
manner had the firm and quiet courtesy that was his birthright.
A little after dark, Rowan emerged into the street. His carriage
was waiting for him and he entered it and went home. Some minutes
later, Judge Morris came down and walked to the Hardages'. He rang
and asked for Professor Hardage and waited for him on the
door-step. When Professor Hardage appeared, he said to him very
solemnly: "Get your hat."
The two men walked away, the Judge directing their course toward
the edge of the town. "Let us get to a quiet place," he said,
"where we can talk without being overheard." It was a pleasant
summer night and the moon was shining, and they stepped off the
sidewalk and took the middle of the pike. The Judge spoke at last,
looking straight ahead.
"He had a child, and when he asked Isabel to marry him he told her."
They walked on for a while without anything further being said.
When Professor Hardage spoke, his tone was reflective:
"It was this that made it impossible for her to marry him. Her
love for him was everything to her; he destroyed himself for her
when he destroyed himself as an ideal. Did he tell you the story?"
"Told everything."
By and by the Judge resumed: "It was a student's love affair, and
he would have married her. She said that if she married him, there
would never be any happiness for her in life; she was not in his
social class, and, moreover, their marriage would never be
understood as anything but a refuge from their shame, and neither
of them would be able to deny this. She disappeared sometime after
the birth of the child. More than a year later, maybe it was two
years, he received a letter from her stating that she was married
to a man in her own class and that her husband suspected nothing,
and that she expected to live a faithful wife to him and be the
mother of his children. The child had been adopted, the traces of
its parentage had been wiped out, those who had adopted it could do
more for its life and honor than he could. She begged him not to
try to find her or ruin her by communicating the past to her
husband. That's about all."
"The old tragedy--old except to them."
"Old enough. Were we not speaking the other day of how the old
tragedies are the new ones? I get something new out of this; you
get the old. What strikes me about it is that the man has declined
to shirk--that he has felt called upon not to injure any other life
by his silence. I wish I had a right to call it the mettle of a
young American, his truthfulness. As he put the case to me, what
he got out of it was this: Here was a girl deceiving her husband
about her past--otherwise he would never have married her. As the
world values such things, what it expected of Rowan was that he
should go off and marry a girl and conceal his past. He said that
he would not lie to a classmate in college, he would not cheat a
professor; was it any better silently to lie to and cheat the woman
that he loved and expected to make the mother of his children?
Whatever he might have done with any one else, there was something
in the nature of the girl whom he did come to love that made it
impossible: she drove untruthfulness out of him as health drives
away disease. He saved his honor with her, but he lost her."
"She saved her honor through giving up him. But it is high ground,
it is a sad hilltop, that each has climbed to."
"Hardage, we can climb so high that we freeze."
They turned back. The Judge spoke again with a certain sad pride:
"I like their mettle, it is Shakespearean mettle, it is American
mettle. We lie in business, and we lie in religion, and we lie to
women. Perhaps if a man stopped lying to a woman, by and by he
might begin to stop lying for money, and at last stop lying with
his Maker. But this boy, what can you and I do for him? We can
never tell the truth about this; and as we can try to clear him,
unless we ourselves lie, we shall leave him the victim of a flock
of lies."
Isabel remained at home a week.
During her first meeting with Rowan, she effaced all evidences that
there had ever been a love affair between them. They resumed their
social relations temporarily and for a definite purpose--this was
what she made him understand at the outset and to the end. All
that she said to him, all that she did, had no further significance
than her general interest in his welfare and her determination to
silence the scandal for which she herself was in a way innocently
responsible. Their old life without reference to it was assumed to
be ended; and she put all her interest into what she assumed to be
his new life; this she spoke of as a certainty, keeping herself out
of it as related to it in any way. She forced him to talk about
his work, his plans, his ambitions; made him feel always not only
that she did not wish to see him suffer, but that she expected to
see him succeed.
They were seen walking together and driving together. He demurred,
but she insisted. "I will not accept such a sacrifice," he said,
but she overruled him by her reply: "It is not a sacrifice; it is a
vindication of myself, that you cannot oppose." But he knew that
there was more in it than what she called vindication of herself;
there was the fighting friendship of a comrade.
During these days, Isabel met cold faces. She found herself a
fresh target for criticism, a further source of misunderstanding.
And there was fresh suffering, too, which no one could have
foreseen. Late one twilight when she and Rowan were driving, they
passed Marguerite driving also, she being still a guest at the
Merediths', and getting well. Each carriage was driving slowly,
and the road was not wide, and the wheels almost locked, and there
was time enough for everything to be seen. And the next day,
Marguerite went home from the Merediths' and passed into a second
long illness.
The day came for Isabel to leave--she was going away to remain a
long time, a year, two years. They had had their last drive and
twilight was falling when they returned to the Hardages'. She was
standing on the steps as she gave him both her hands.
"Good-by," she said, in the voice of one who had finished her work.
"I hardly know what to say--I have said everything. Perhaps I
ought to tell you my last feeling is, that you will make life a
success, that nothing will pull you down. I suppose that the life
of each of us, if it is worth while, is not made up of one great
effort and of one failure or of one success, but of many efforts,
many failures, partial successes. But I am afraid we all try at
first to realize our dreams. Good-by!"
"Marry me," he said, tightening his grasp on her hands and speaking
as though he had the right.
She stepped quickly back from him. She felt a shock, a delicate
wound, and she said with a proud tear: "I did not think you would
so misjudge me in all that I have been trying to do."
She went quickly in.