Faunce went on. “It wasn’t a fair question. You couldn’t answer it,
because you’ve never faced a death like that. I had never been a coward
before, but it seized me then--fear, naked, hideous fear! It ground
me and tore me. I tell you I couldn’t resist it. I--I had to go!” he
repeated again.
“You left him; you got to the cache,” Dr. Gerry managed to say at last;
“and then you and the men returned--you must have returned--to find
his body!”
“Yes, I went back--oh, God!” Faunce shrank with a gesture of horror.
“Why do you ask me? Of course, we went back as soon as we could. But
what did we find? Drifted snow-banks, ice--ice--ice! There was no trace
of the body--he lay deep down in that awful waste!”
The doctor had pulled himself still farther forward in his chair,
peering at the younger man curiously.
“Do you think you found the place?”
Faunce swept the thing from him with a gesture that expressed almost
physical pain.
“I--I’ve sometimes feared we didn’t, that I had forgotten. There
couldn’t be any track, you know; but--he was dead!” He paused again,
still breathing hard. Then he turned a haggard look on his auditor.
“You’re a doctor; you can help me; you can tell me the truth,” he
pleaded in an altered voice. “Answer me--does it take long to freeze to
death?”
“Not long--in such a case.”
“He wasn’t conscious--I know he wasn’t conscious; he didn’t know when
I went!” Faunce protested, as if the fact of Overton’s numbness to his
desertion established an excuse. “When that terrible storm broke, there
wasn’t a hope of saving him. We barely saved ourselves. I told the
others to come with me to find the body. We found no trace!”
Faunce’s voice broke at last, and he hid his face in his hands. Without
comment, the doctor leaned back in his chair again and gazed at him.
There was another pause, and then Gerry rose hastily and left the
room, apparently on some urgent errand. When he returned, after an
interval of several minutes, he brought a large, flat book with him. He
found his visitor as he had expected, still sitting before the fire.
Faunce had picked up the poker, and was idly adjusting a fallen log,
as if he had at least partially recovered from his emotion; but the
vacant expression in his eyes betrayed his total self-absorption. The
doctor came to a chair opposite, and, opening the book he had brought,
pointed to a rough map or diagram showing the progress of the Overton
expedition.
“Now, tell me where you left him.”
Dropping the poker, Faunce leaned over and put his finger on the page.
“About there, as near as I can tell you.”
“Beyond hope of rescue?”
“Absolutely.”
The doctor closed the book.
“You knew he loved Diane Herford?”
“I had supposed so; he never told me.”
“Well, he did; and it’s fair to assume that she cared for him. He was
the kind of a man a woman would care for. But you left him there and
came back to ask her to marry you?”
Faunce flushed, and then broke out resentfully:
“I love her!”
The old man leaned back in his chair with a strange grimace, as if a
nauseous draft had been offered to him and he had refused to taste it.
Faunce, turning at the moment, saw the doctor’s expression, and it
kindled his anger again.
“I told you that I love her, that I wouldn’t give her up if Overton
came back from the dead!”
“You knew he couldn’t come back,” retorted the doctor. “You saw to
that!”
Faunce stared at him in blank dismay.
“My God, do you think I killed him? Do you imagine that?”
“There are some fine shades, then, between abandoning him to die and
actually killing him?”
“I’m not a murderer!”
Dr. Gerry laughed bitterly.
“I may be a coward,” Faunce pursued with rising passion, “but I’m no
murderer! I swear to you, on my soul, that I never thought of Diane
there. I never thought of anything but flight. It was a kind of
madness. If it had been my brother, I should have had to do the same
thing. I was mad, mad with fear!”
The doctor uttered an inarticulate sound, stooped, and, seizing the
tongs, picked up a smoking log that had rolled out to the fender and
pitched it back into the fire. The physical action seemed to relieve
the tension of his feelings. He settled back in his chair and waited
for Faunce to go on with his confession.
Dr. Gerry’s view of the tragedy seemed to have destroyed some remaining
stronghold in the younger man’s mind. Faunce kept reiterating his
protest in one form or another.
“Listen--I’m not a murderer! If I had killed him, I never should have
returned here.”
“Oh, yes, you would! Ninety-nine men out of a hundred return to the
scene of their crimes.”
“But I tell you I didn’t hurt a hair of his head! It was a choice
between his life and mine, and I left him. It might not even have been
a choice, for we should both have perished. If I had stayed, I should
have died with him. It would have been heroic--but I didn’t. How many
men would?”
“Did he leave Rayburn?”
Faunce reddened.
“No. He had a kind of bull-headed obstinacy--he would stay.”
“Ah! You tried to dissuade him?”
“I told him that we were risking all three lives, instead of one, by
staying.”
“But he stayed?”
“He offered to stay alone. I stayed with him.”
“Had you the means to leave him? How about the dog-train?”
“We were short--one of the dogs had died; but the madness hadn’t
seized me then. I helped him to the last. We were together when we
buried Rayburn.”
“I remember you paid a tribute to his friendship when we were talking
with Judge Herford. Do you think he would have left you?”
Faunce lifted his head at that, staring off into space with an unseeing
look, his hands twitching nervously.
“No!” he said at last, hoarsely. “No, I can’t say so. He was a brave
man, and I--is there any way of escaping a seizure like that? I’m
ashamed of it. I’ve suffered horribly; but I--I have a horrible feeling
that I might do it again, if I had to face it like that. I couldn’t
have stood up to a fight. You--did you suspect me when you told that
story of the soldier in the Philippines?”
The doctor was sitting with the tips of his fingers nicely fitted
together. He seemed, at the moment, to be deeply engaged with them.
“I can’t say I did. I don’t think I had ever imagined just your
situation, though I saw that you had something weighing on your mind.”
“It has nearly driven me mad! I can’t tell you why I did it. I obeyed
an impulse, a madness. If I hadn’t we should both be down there now. My
staying wouldn’t have saved him. You see how it was? You understand?”
“I understand that you obeyed a pretty universal instinct of
self-preservation.”
“That was it!” cried Faunce eagerly. “It was an impulse. I wanted to
live--God knows I wanted to live! I was willing to fight to live!”
The doctor nodded, silently watching him with a kind of curiosity that
suggested a naturalist’s minute interest in a noisome insect.
“I wanted to live,” Faunce repeated. “It didn’t seem to be wrong to
want to save myself.”
“Does it seem so now?”
Faunce raised a haggard face.
“It’s no longer a question of right or wrong with me. It’s no longer a
question of life or death. I’m haunted!”
Gerry gave him a keen glance.
“I see--it has reached a point that’s worse than staying behind to die?”
Faunce rose and began to walk the floor again. The lamp on the table
had nearly burned out, and the corners of the room were gloomy. The
odd bits of pottery and an old skull--brought from some ancient
excavations--gleamed uncannily in the shadows. The doctor, before the
fire, refused to look in his direction now, and Faunce came back at
last with a cry of desperation.
“It haunts me!” he repeated with a smothered groan. “I’ve told you in
hope that I could exorcise the demon. I had to tell you! When I sleep
I dream of it; when I’m awake I can still see it--that frozen waste
and--Overton!”
Gerry nodded his head thoughtfully.
“It’s killing me!” Faunce went on. “I can’t sleep naturally. I’ve
increased the dose, but I can’t sleep long. Look at my hands now!”
As he held them out, they were shaking like the hands of a palsy
patient. Dr. Gerry eyed them; then he looked up keenly into the haggard
face and wild eyes.
“And you’ve just asked a young girl to marry you!”
Faunce was silent. The older man’s tone was tinged with a contempt that
stung him. He seemed to rally his forces, to pull himself together.
“I was a fool to tell you all this--a fool! It got hold of me--I don’t
know what I’m doing when it gets hold of me. I came here to ask for
something to make me sleep, and I’ve--I’ve stripped my soul naked!”
He was shaking again. The doctor rose and put his hand on the younger
man’s shoulder.
“Go over there and lie down on the lounge. I’ll give you something. If
you don’t sleep, you’ll presently go to a madhouse. Lie down!”
Faunce stared, at first unyieldingly; but he was exhausted, and long
hours of sleeplessness had wrecked his nerves. He turned without a
word and threw himself on the lounge, burying his head in his arms. A
smothered sob shook him from head to foot.
The doctor, measuring out a dose and approaching him, touched his
shoulder sharply. Faunce groaned.
“My God!” he cried wildly. “Why did I do it? Why did I do it?”
The doctor bent down and held the glass to his lips.
“Drink this!” he commanded sharply.
Faunce looked up with glazed eyes, took the cup, and swallowed the
narcotic. For a long while afterward he lay there, tossing restlessly.
Once or twice he uttered a hoarse exclamation, of which Gerry took no
notice.
The doctor sat by the fire, feeding it and listening. After a while he
heard the sound of heavy and measured breathing. The narcotic had done
its work--the tortured man slept.
Gerry rose quietly, extinguished the lamp, and pulled aside the
curtains. It was morning. The storm had passed, and the earth lay under
a white mantle. Every tree and every branch bore its feathery burden of
snow. Through an exquisite lacework of sparkling ice he could see the
wonder of a magnificent sky, still pink with sunrise.
He turned back and looked at the sleeper on the lounge. Faunce lay
with one arm above his head, the other across his breast, an elaborate
seal-ring on one of the white fingers. His face was slightly flushed,
and the beauty of his regular features and fine head had never been
more keenly revealed. He might easily pose as a hero of romance.
He had all the outer attributes--physical strength, unusual beauty
of features, and grace of manner--and he had won distinction by his
service in the antarctic.
The doctor turned with a gesture of bewilderment and started to go
up-stairs. As he did so, he heard some one at the door. Concluding that
it must be an early patient, or perhaps a more or less urgent call, he
went back, and, shutting the door of his study, locked Faunce in. Then
he went himself to answer the ring.
On his door-step, muffled in furs, radiant and sparkling, stood Diane
Herford. The doctor was guilty of a start of surprise. She saw it and
smiled.
“The storm has torn down the wires, and I couldn’t phone,” she
explained. “I want you to come over to breakfast. Papa’s not so well.”
He was aware of a feeling that was almost panic. Nothing on earth could
be worse than that she should suspect Arthur Faunce’s state at that
moment.
“I can’t come over to breakfast, Di,” he replied gruffly, drawing her
out of the frosty air into the little entry. “What’s wrong with the
judge? He was better yesterday.”
“He got excited and tried to do too much. He’s all bent over, and you
know how he hates that. You’ve really got to come!”
She was standing in the hall, almost leaning against the study door,
her dark furs enhancing the beauty of her bright skin and the charm of
her eyes.
“I’ll come over presently. Put a hot-water bag on his back,” advised
the doctor, with a haunting subconsciousness of the man on the lounge.
“Oh, but I want you to come to breakfast!” she argued. “Why can’t you
come?”
He pretended to be angry.
“Why can’t I? I’ve been up all night, my girl, and I want my own way
this morning?”
She commiserated him.
“I’m so sorry--what a shame! Of course you must rest. Papa isn’t really
so ill, only I--I”--she hesitated with a charming smile--“I’ve got
something to tell you!”
He turned a searching look on her.
“Yes?”
“I’m engaged to be married.”
She paused, waiting for him to guess her _fiancé_; but he remained
obstinately silent.
“To Arthur Faunce,” she told him.
The doctor forced himself to hold out both hands to meet hers.
“You want me to congratulate you?” he demanded bruskly. “I sha’n’t! I’m
going to congratulate him, instead. That’s the way to look at it.”
She laughed.
“Papa’s pleased, and I’m so glad that he is! But I won’t keep you from
your rest now. Come over to lunch, instead of breakfast.”
She moved toward the door, her eyes smiling at him. There was something
about her that seemed, to the doctor, not wholly happy. There was a
tremulous note in her voice, and her eyes were too bright. They were at
the door, and he suddenly laid his fatherly hand on her shoulder.
“Diane, do you love him? Are you following your heart?”
She did not answer immediately. Her gaze dwelt on the wide, snowy
landscape before them. Then she looked up, and an exquisite blush
softened her face.
“Yes,” she replied slowly, but with an engaging candor. “I couldn’t
marry for any reason but that. I--I’m following my heart.”
XI
DIANE left Dr. Gerry’s house with a feeling that something had happened
there--something apart from the commonplace fact that the overworked
physician had been up all night. There had been a hint of it in the
doctor’s face as he stood in the doorway watching her departure, his
shrewd old eyes peering at her from behind his spectacles, while his
close-shut lips seemed to be withholding something.
She wished that he had spoken out, that he had said a little more
than the usual things that are said to a newly engaged girl. She did
not know that if he could have told her anything, if it had not been
part of the code of his profession to keep silence, her very admission
of love for Faunce would have made it an impossibility for him to
speak. His lips could never have framed the words that must destroy
her happiness. To him she was still a child, and he could never have
wilfully wounded a child.
The mysterious something in his face, however, had arrested her flow
of spirits and checked the joy with which she had set out. As she
turned to make her way back in an almost untrodden sheet of snow, the
brilliant sparkle of sunshine on the frozen crust dazzled her sight so
much that she stopped for a moment and pressed her gloved hands over
her eyes to shut it out. Then she walked on rapidly, feeling the crisp
cold, and aware that nothing had traveled that road before her but the
milk-wagon, which had left deep ruts in the snow.
The atmosphere was translucently brilliant. It sparkled and
scintillated, cutting out clear outlines and sharp shadows. Beyond
the wide slope of the snow a long, dark line of woodland formed a
background against the intense blue of the sky. On either hand the
houses, large and old, were set well back from the road, with an
independent detachment that gave an impression of stately indifference
to the passer-by. But Diane knew that they had never been indifferent
to her. She was Judge Herford’s daughter, and she had shown herself
more than worthy of certain social traditions that had made her family
an important one in the county and the State.
Some members of it, indeed, had achieved international distinction,
and it had been rather expected that the beautiful daughter of a
distinguished lawyer would make a brilliant marriage. It could scarcely
be said that she was doing this in marrying Arthur Faunce; but there
was a glamour about the young explorer, a prophecy of still greater
achievement, that made him perhaps the most picturesque figure of
the day. It was not this notoriety, however, nor even the promise of
his success, that had won Diane. It was some subtler, more complex
influence that had swayed her mind, while her heart had been touched at
first by the very bond that had made him Overton’s comrade and the heir
of Overton’s greatness.
As she walked homeward along the frozen road, she was trying to collect
her thoughts, to bring herself fairly face to face with this new crisis
in her life, to find the real key to that sudden emotion which had
swept her into the arms of Faunce.
As she had looked about her in the brilliant morning, on her way to Dr.
Gerry’s, she had felt so sure of her love that she could allow herself
to dwell on the memory of Overton as something at once beautiful and
sacred, but remote. She had told herself that he had never been an
actual lover, only a figure that her girlish imagination had clothed in
those attributes. He had left her free, and she had a right to suppose
that he would not have greatly cared if she married a man who loved her
so much that he had told her he could never be happy without her. She
knew, of course, that such a declaration was exaggerated; yet she could
feel the positiveness of Faunce’s actual devotion, as she had felt the
charm of his good looks and his winning ways.
But now, as she slowly and soberly returned, with the chilly memory of
Dr. Gerry’s face, she began to question herself a little. She wondered
if she had indeed followed her heart so faithfully, or had only yielded
to a love that had touched her very deeply at a moment when she felt
solitary and bereaved.
Her eyes followed the long, unbroken reaches of snow until they rested
on the dark-blue line of the distant water. As she sensed the intense
cold and saw the sparkle of ice, her mind went back to the polar
wastes, and she found her eyes filling with tears as she thought of the
man who had fallen exhausted and alone. The face of Overton, so unlike
the face of Faunce, rose before her. The strong, irregular features,
the clear, dark-blue eyes under the straight, slightly frowning brows,
the decisive mouth and chin--how well she remembered them! Though they
lacked Faunce’s classic beauty, they possessed an absolute assurance of
strength and repose.
Where the more facile and graceful Faunce would break or yield, Overton
had exemplified those granite qualities of soul and body that belong
by right to the leaders of men. He would always be that to her, Diane
thought pensively as she walked more slowly, prolonging her return
journey. He would always be a splendid figure at the horizon of her
imagination.
If he had not loved her--and perhaps he had not, after all--she could
think of him more openly, sure that Faunce would understand. For Faunce
had loved him, too. It was that, she remembered with a thrill of
relief; it was that which had drawn them together. She could still hear
the touching tone in Arthur’s fine voice when he paid his tribute to
Overton that first night at the dinner, which seemed now so long ago.
“The best friend man ever had!”
How it had touched her sore heart then; how it touched her now! How
beautifully he had accepted the fact that she had cared for Overton
first; how splendidly he had shown himself above the meanness of
jealousy of the dead!
She was glad that she had told him. Some girls would have been silent
when there had been no actual engagement; but she could not deceive a
man who loved her as Arthur Faunce did. When she gave him her heart,
she gave him the right to know that she had loved Overton first. Yet
did he, could he, really understand how much--how very much--it had
mattered to her? In the midst of her walk Diane stopped short.
“What am I doing?” she cried to herself. “What am I doing? I’ve just
promised to marry one man, and--and I’m crying out here in broad
daylight over another!”
“But you told him, you warned him!” replied an inner voice. “You have a
right to go on feeling just the same as you did before.”
“But I’ve no right to marry Faunce if I love another man more!” she
cried again, arguing with the unseen ego.
Then, in the rustle of the wind in the bare trees, and the crash of
ice falling from their boughs, she seemed to hear an answer--a sublime
voice that reassured her. Overton was dead. He was only a dim and
glorious presence now. He had entered that sphere where they neither
marry nor are given in marriage; how could it matter to him what she
did?
She went on, quickening her steps, trying to reassure herself. She
recalled Faunce, the warm certainty of his affection, the nearness of
his presence. She told herself that she was happy, that she was right,
that she had followed her heart.
XII
THAT assurance remained with her later on, when she and the judge sat
down to a slightly belated breakfast. It had so far tranquilized her
mood that she could chat with him across the table about Dr. Gerry’s
sleepless night and the storm, while she poured out his coffee and put
in the requisite amount of sugar and cream with a firm and graceful
hand.
“I saw two telegraph-poles down,” she said. “The drifts have completely
filled the hollow below Skerry’s Hill.”
The judge looked up sharply from his breakfast.
“Faunce had to cross that bridge. I wonder if he got home all right!”
She was a little startled, and then she smiled reassuringly.
“Why, of course, papa! It was early when he left. It was only snowing a
little then; don’t you remember?”
“How did I know?” her father retorted with something like a growl.
“This lumbago keeps me doubled up like a jack-in-the-box!”
“It’s too bad! I did hope Dr. Gerry had got the better of it, or had
helped you to get the better of it; but I suppose this dreadful weather
is sure to retard the case.”
“There isn’t any cure for it. I’ve told Gerry so a dozen times. If it
stayed continuously, I should only be fit for a menagerie; but it’s
intermittent, thank Heaven! By the way, Di, where’s the newspaper?”
“It hasn’t come; I suppose the trains are stalled. They said something
about trouble on the line between here and New York. When I was passing
Sidney’s, on my way this morning, I heard the men talking at the door.
You had last night’s paper, papa, didn’t you?”
“As if I wanted stale news!” he retorted, going on with his breakfast.
“I saw something about the English expedition returning from the
antarctic. They must have had some delays, but they’ll crow over the
venture, I suppose. They seem to have made good. If only Overton had
lived!”
She pushed her plate aside, though she had scarcely tasted her food,
and clasped her hands on the edge of the table, suddenly aware that her
fingers were not quite steady.
“I didn’t notice the article. What did it say? I’m sure, quite sure,
that Arthur did all he could to finish the work, even after--their
fearful loss.”
“Very likely he did, my dear; but if these Englishmen got ahead of
him--steal a march on him, as it were--he hasn’t won much. Besides,
they’ve saved their ship. I saw there would be a great reception
for them in London. There’s nothing but disappointment in that polar
business. I want Faunce to give it up. I’ll put him in politics here.”
She looked thoughtfully across the table at her father’s gray head,
his massive face, and his keen eyes bent on the table, while his
strong hands plied his knife and fork. The stooping of his big frame
suggested nothing of the weakness of age. His personality, dominant and
resourceful, seemed as immovable as rock.
“I’d rather you didn’t, papa,” she said quietly. “I want him to go
on--to finish the work he’s begun. He’s put his hand to the plow, as it
were, and he mustn’t turn back.”
Herford again looked up sharply.
“That’s a strange sentiment from a girl who’s supposed to be in love!
Don’t you know it’s a terrible risk for a man? Have you forgotten
Overton so soon?”
She rose from the table and went to the window, standing there, looking
out. He could see only the slender grace of her young figure and the
slight droop of her brown head.
“I shall never forget him,” she replied without looking at her father.
“I remember so well what he was, what he did, what he surely would have
become had he lived, that I don’t want Arthur to remain in his shadow,
to be so much less than he was. If there’s anything great in a man’s
soul, I think it’s wrong to choke it with weeds, and--and----”
“You think the political weed is very suffocating?” her father
commented dryly. “As far as that goes, you’re right, my dear; but I’ve
managed to keep a little above the worst growth all these years, and
it’s possible that Arthur might do some weeding out. Reform is not only
a fad--it’s a fact.”