things, if we’re to break up in two days. But--you don’t mind now if I
write to father? You know I’ve kept the pact and remained in mysterious
retreat, but since your breaking it to-day I can, of course, break it,
too.”
She saw his hesitation, saw his face redden as he reached for his hat
and coat, but she waited quietly, offering no assistance of any kind.
“Why, of course, Di, but”--he laughed weakly--“couldn’t you wait until
I come back?”
“Until to-night? Oh, if you wish it! But then I think I’ll call him up
on the long-distance. I should like to know just how he is.”
“Of course!” He came across the room to bid her an affectionate
good-by. “I hate to go--to break it up--but I must.”
She assented, and stood in the doorway, watching him walk rapidly down
the lane. At the end of it he turned and raised his hat, waving it to
her.
She returned to her housewifely duties, gave a few directions to the
little maid, and began to pack the few belongings that she had brought
with her. She was amazed at her own eagerness to go. They had imagined
much happiness in this quiet spot, but it had eluded them. She knew
that it had eluded Faunce, for he had scarcely slept since they had
been there, and his restlessness, his uneasy, haunted look, had
utterly broken down her own effort to be happy at any cost.
She paused in her thoughts with a shock of feeling which flooded her
consciousness with a lucidity, an insight, that appalled her. Had they
both been disappointed? Had the torch of Psyche been lifted by unsteady
hands and fallen into an abyss between them?
Unable to endure her own thoughts, Diane thrust aside her work and went
out. She needed to escape the thraldom of four walls and try--in the
open--to vanquish the haunting spirits that might well have escaped
from the secret caverns of those lovely hills to assail her with a
fantom host of doubts.
She walked rapidly, avoiding the road to the little hamlet, and turning
into a path that led her past the old house where Overton was born. At
the moment she had not thought of it, but, as she approached, her mind
returned to him and to the strange report which had so startled her
wedding-guests. She thrust that away with an unconscious gesture of
pride. She would not distrust Faunce; and to believe that Overton might
still survive was to doubt his word. She battled against that with all
her remaining strength, and tried to concentrate her thoughts on the
beauty about her.
Summer was in the air, and the forces of nature, surviving the long
conflict with the bitter winter, had gathered themselves together in a
new and beautiful conquest of the earth. At her feet young blades of
grass thrust themselves up through the black loam with been new life.
The same rebirth seemed to breathe, too, in the tremulous swinging of
delicate boughs and the tasseling of magnificent foliage. Overhead the
crows flew by twos and tens and twenties, uttering their harsh cries.
It was not tranquil, for the wind stirred restlessly in the branches.
Far off she heard the rush of a waterfall, and she could see the dark
ring of the encircling hills. It seemed to her that a great, unseen
army moved about her, and a mighty conflict was in progress. The dead
earth had reawakened; birth, not death, was here. The sap was in the
trees, and in the warm moss beneath her feet a myriad living things
were struggling up toward the sun.
She stopped suddenly and stood still. Below her, ascending the same
path, was the figure of a man. He was still a long way off, but she
caught the big outline, the deliberate but easy step, the peculiar
erectness of the head and shoulders.
She could not stir, but stood rooted to the spot, all the forces of
life suspended. It was impossible either to doubt her own vision or
to imagine that it was an apparition. The certainties of her own life
dissolved before this solution of the riddle that had tormented her
soul; for she knew, even before he approached her, that she stood face
to face, not with a specter from the frozen pole, but with the living
Overton.
A strange sensation, as if of personal guilt, overwhelmed her, and she
shrank back with an involuntary feeling of panic. He did not observe
it. He looked up, recognized her, and came forward with outstretched
hands.
“Diane!”
She commanded herself with a supreme effort.
“It’s--it’s really you?”
He was holding her hands now, smiling down at her, deeply moved.
“Did you think me a spook?” he laughed unsteadily. “It does seem almost
impossible. I’ve fairly come back from the dead! Did you get my letter?
I wrote you from London.”
“No--no, I’ve had no letter. I could scarcely believe that you had come
back!”
She was trembling; she saw the look in his eyes and knew that he loved
her. And how wasted he was, how pale! Here was a man who had indeed
been near to death. She fought for time.
“I had given up all hope long ago,” she faltered. “The others were
rescued; they believed you had been lost.”
As she spoke, she again raised her eyes to his, trying to find some
reassurance there, something that would refute the horrible fear that
wrung her heart; but what she saw made her look down, and a deep flush
mounted slowly and painfully over her pale face.
“I was as nearly dead as a man could be and live,” he answered soberly.
“I can feel the frozen horror of it now, the creeping drowsiness--can
see that bleak, inexorable wilderness where I was deserted and left to
die!”
He paused, as if the mere thought of it made utterance impossible, as
if he had faced a crisis so terrible and so deathlike that it must
remain forever inarticulate.
“Left to die!” she repeated in a broken voice, feeling that the very
earth sank beneath her feet. “Deserted! What can you mean?”
She was trying to be calm, but a nervous chill shook her from head to
foot. He saw it; he caught her hands in his again.
“Diane, you care!” he breathed with deep emotion. “What does anything
matter, then. I’ve come back and I’ve found you, my love, my love!”
She swayed and he caught her in his arms, holding her, his wasted face
changed and lit with joy.
“Diane, I’ve come back to you!” he cried.
She pushed him away from her with both hands and stood, still shaking,
supporting herself against the vine-clad trunk of an ancient oak.
“Don’t!” she gasped in a low voice. “You’ve made a mistake--I’m
married!”
There was a moment of intense silence. He straightened himself with a
shudder, like a man who had been shot but could still keep on his feet.
“You’re married? And your--your husband, Diane--who is he?”
She watched him. She felt as if life itself hung on the look that she
would see in his eyes when she answered.
“Arthur Faunce,” she murmured in a low voice.
“Faunce!”
It was a cry of horror, of dismay--she could not mistake that. Overton
stood still, a deep color flaming up in his face. He was apparently
incapable of speech, but the look in his eyes, as they met hers, was a
revelation. It showed neither anger nor jealousy, but only a deep and
horrified consternation.
XX
IT was a long time before they left the spot where they had met.
Unconsciously and unbidden, he turned back with her. They were silent.
She could hear with extraordinary keenness every pebble that crunched
under his feet but she dared not look at him. She had a strange
sensation of suffocating in the open air. A rending fear shook her, yet
even at that supreme moment she had a rush of lucidity, a remembrance
of every word that Faunce had said.
He had been with Overton when he died--that much had been clearly
understood by all; and now, when they knew that Overton was not dead,
but had been rescued by the gallant English sailors who had followed
so closely on his track, what explanation remained, what defense for
Faunce?
“Where I was deserted and left to die!”
Overton’s words rang in Diane’s ears. Suspense was intolerable; she
must know the truth, even if the truth meant ruin. She forced herself
to speak.
“You said just now that you were deserted and left to die. Please tell
me what you meant!”
There was a perceptible pause before he answered.
“Did I say that? I”--he hesitated--“I’ve nearly forgotten what I said.”
She managed to raise her eyes to his face, and was relieved to find
that he was not looking at her. She felt like one lost in a trackless
desert. She must find a way out of it; she could not give up, could not
believe herself lost. If she did, she would perish. She forced herself
to speak again.
“But I haven’t forgotten. How could I? Will you tell me?”
He shook his head.
“Not now--give me a little time to think, please. You must know that
it’s all confused--I’ve been so ill and delirious. You mustn’t ask too
much of a sick man’s memory,” he ended lamely, trying to smile as he
turned at last and faced her.
She met his eyes and felt the full power of their love and their
renunciation. Their message was so clear that it made her feel faint.
She put her hand out involuntarily and caught at an intervening branch,
steadying herself.
He started toward her.
“What is it? You’re ill!”
She shook her head, recovering herself with an effort. She knew that
he was hiding from her something ruinous to her husband. There was
a second in which she still struggled with herself; then a strange
vicarious acceptance of guilt made her face burn. She had cloaked
herself with the iniquity of Faunce, if iniquity it was, and she could
no longer speak or act as a separate entity.
They began to descend the steep path again. This time the pebbles
tumbled ahead of them in a little shower as they scrambled down. Diane
tried to talk casually, not looking at Overton again.
“How is it you’re here, in this out-of-the-way place, so soon after
your return?”
“My aunt, my mother’s only sister, is living over there. She’s nearly
eighty, and she wanted to see me. I found her still in the black she’d
worn for me for months. It’s a strange thing to return from the dead! I
needed rest, too, just for a day or so.”
“You--look ill.”
He smiled.
“I’ve just pulled through; and yet it’s strange, isn’t it, the fever
that possesses me to go back! The lure is on me. It draws men back, I
suppose, to their doom!”
“It does--my husband is going again.”
“So they told me in New York. I was there a few hours. Of course the
newspapers besieged me, and I heard that much. Then I escaped. That’s
why I didn’t hear of--of your marriage.”
He was unable to maintain his tone, and his voice broke on the word.
She winced.
“It was a quiet wedding; not much was said about it. My father has been
ill.”
He expressed his regret, and asked for the latest news of the judge’s
health. She colored deeply.
“We haven’t written. It was agreed, when Arthur and I came up here,
that no one should write to us. You see, he’s been so much pursued
about everything! I’ve been shut up here, out of the world, and I know
nothing.”
He turned quickly, and their eyes met with a shock of feeling. She knew
intuitively that there was a reason why she had been kept in the dark,
and that he fathomed it and was indignant for her.
Once, when Overton was a lad, he had thrashed a comrade for maltreating
a lame dog. She had seen him do it, and she remembered the look in his
eyes. She saw the same look now, flaming up in tranquil depths like a
torch in the dusk.
She hurried on. A little ahead of him she could command herself; to
meet his look just now was more than she could bear.
“Shall you go down to Mapleton?” she managed to ask him. “The Prices
and Dr. Gerry will want so much to see you. So will papa--you know
that!”
“I did intend to go there at once; but now--yes, I suppose I shall. A
man goes home, doesn’t he, for the same reason that a cat returns to
the old house? It’s habit.”
“They’ll all be so glad to see you--you shouldn’t call it just habit to
go back there. It was--it is your home, isn’t it?”
He laughed a little bitterly.
“I haven’t a home in the sense that you mean. I think I’ll be
henceforth a nomadic creature. I’ve been away too long!”
She understood the bitterness in his tone, and she fought against the
wave of feeling that submerged her being. She had scarcely dreamed that
his voice could mean so much to her. The sound of it brought back those
old days when she had listened for it--the days when Faunce had had no
place in her thoughts, though now she was his wife!
As she walked blindly on, hearing Overton’s step behind her once more,
feeling his presence, it seemed incredible that they were separated
forever, that her own act had made an impassable gulf between them. She
struggled with herself. She had believed in her love for Faunce; she
believed in it still. If she did not love him, why should she suffer so
deeply at the horrible doubt of him that had assailed her? She loved
him, she must believe in him, and--if she could not believe in him--she
must suffer with him.
They had reached a turn in the path. Below them lay a wild ravine where
a mountain stream tumbled over the rocks, lashed itself to foam in its
descent, and then dropped placidly into a wide pool, where in summer
the speckled trout darted in lovely shallows and the water-lilies
bloomed. Beyond, the hills rose one above another until they darkened
into the purple distance, piled like a mass of heavy clouds against the
deepening splendor of the western sky.
Near at hand, rising above some clustering evergreens, was the roof
of the little cottage that Judge Herford had built for an occasional
summer vacation. A white plume of smoke rose from the single chimney in
the center, and they could see the sun shining on the window-panes.
“There’s the house,” Diane said, as lightly as she could. “I think papa
built it before you went away, didn’t he? It’s only a rambling affair,
but we’ve done very well there, and it’s really cozy and warm.”
“I knew it was here, but”--he hesitated--“it’s strange, isn’t it, that
my aunt never spoke of your being here?”
“Perhaps she didn’t know it. We’ve been very quiet.” She colored again
as she turned toward him. “Won’t you come in and take a cup of tea? I
can give you that--though we’re roughing it.”
He hesitated; then, aware, perhaps, that the moment was an awkward
one for both, he assented, and followed her down the last slope to
the road. They crossed the little bit of lawn together, and Diane’s
mountain maid opened the door for them. While she and her mistress went
to make tea for him, Overton entered the living-room, and stood looking
down at the few logs that were smoldering in the big, open fireplace.
The room was quaint, planned much in the style of a shooting-lodge that
Judge Herford had visited abroad. A gun and a rod swung high over the
stone mantel-shelf. An old Turkey rug covered the floor, and a couch in
the corner suggested that it was sometimes used for an unexpected guest.
On the table Overton saw an elaborate cigarette-case with the initials
of Arthur Faunce, and on the mantel, almost under his hand, was a pipe
that Faunce must have left there. Nearer, on a chair, were tossed a bit
of Diane’s needlework and her work-basket. They had been sitting there
together by that fireplace, husband and wife, the woman whom Overton
loved and the coward who had left him to perish in those awful wastes!
The touch of intimacy, of actuality, drove the naked reality home.
Overton turned from the fireplace with a smothered groan and began to
pace the room.
The scene, warm, familiar, poignantly suggestive of her presence,
suddenly receded from his mental vision, and the illimitable snows took
its place. He saw again a slate-colored sky, a white and dazzling
waste, lofty peaks of bluish ice, and the face of Faunce bending over
his, distorted with sheer terror, the shrinking eyes avoiding his, the
lips blue. The howl of the antarctic blast seemed to sweep over his
very soul. He remembered the moment, fraught with the bitterness of
death, when, half-rousing from his stupor, he had seen the coward go,
when he had realized that the last means of escape had been snatched
from him, and that, helpless and wounded, he must perish there alone.
Overton recalled his rage, his hatred of the man who had deserted him,
the violence of the spiritual struggle that had torn and wounded his
soul until, in one wild moment, he had almost cursed his Maker. It was
then, when he had nearly lost his hope of heaven, that he had felt
the rush of penitence, of faith. In that illimitable space a Greater
Presence had been revealed, and he had felt the gripping power of
things unseen and eternal. He had known that, though forsaken, he was
not alone; that a Spirit greater than the universe itself was with him.
He had cried aloud to God; and surely it was God who had answered him.
Out of the stupor, the terrible frozen mist that had at last benumbed
him, body and soul, had come the rescue--the sound of human voices, the
touch of strong human hands--and he was saved. But his anger against
Faunce, his scorn of the traitor, had survived. Now, as he tried to
clear his recollection of it, Overton felt sore that he had not
spared him, but had told his rescuers the truth. He remembered their
indignation--the indignation that brave men feel against a coward and a
weakling.
Later, when the illness had left him, he had said less, had been
reserved in his references to Faunce, and he knew that on his landing
in New York he had refrained from describing the details of his narrow
escape from death. It was a chance, perhaps, that he had not betrayed
more, and he was thankful--thankful that, so far at least, he had
spared Diane; for Diane, as Faunce’s wife, must be the one to suffer.
But could he do more to spare her? His mind was confused with the
horror of it. The loss of the woman he loved was bad enough, but to see
her the wife of such a man!
It was significant that even in that moment of despair his thought was
for her, and not for himself. He must shield her if he could. He must
save, if he could, her faith in the wretched man she had married; for,
if she loved Faunce, it would be the shipwreck of her life to see him
dishonored and exposed.
Presently he heard her returning, followed by the maid with the
tea-tray and the samovar. They came in together. Diane had removed her
hat and coat, and in her simple house-gown, her brown hair rumpled by
the wind, she looked almost as when Overton had seen her last. There
was the same delicate color in her cheeks, the same elusive charm in
her soft eyes under their straight, thick lashes, the same white throat
and brow, and yet how changed she was! He saw it when she made tea for
him and raised her eyes as she handed him the cup.
“You’ll have to take cream and sugar,” she said with forced lightness.
“We’re truly ‘twelve miles from a lemon’ here!”
He took the cup with a smile, and sat down in a low chair by her
tea-table. The little maid threw another log on the fire and vanished.
For a moment there was no sound in the room but the crackle of the
flame as it licked up the dry bark of the new log. He looked at it
thoughtfully as he absently tasted his tea.
“It’s good to see a fire again. I don’t believe I’ll ever get past the
joy of feeling warm!” He forced a laugh. “Do you remember that late
autumn when we were all on the shore in Connecticut, and you and I
gathered driftwood?”
“Yes, and it was beautiful. What flames shot out! And have you
forgotten Mrs. Price and the ghost-story?”
They both laughed.
“She thought it wasn’t scriptural! How’s Fanny? She was in school when
I left.”
“She’s been out nearly two seasons, and she’s a very pretty girl.
Nothing could be more amusing than to see her with the dean and her
mother. They flutter behind her like two proud, fat sparrows watching a
fledgling.”
“The dean’s all right; he was good to me when I was a boy. How’s Dr.
Gerry?”
“Just the same!”
Diane stopped to offer more tea, but Overton refused it and set his cup
down. She intuitively felt the effort he was making to skim the surface
of talk. The strain was too much for her. She rose and went to the
fire, kneeling on a low cushion by the hearth, and pretending to watch
the blaze, that he might not see her face. There was a brief pause, and
then she spoke without looking around.
“Shall you go back?”
“To the antarctic? God knows!”
“The new expedition sails very soon--in a week, I think.”
“Oh, no! I heard this morning that it had been put off.”
He spoke without thinking. Diane turned, her face flushed.
“Arthur went to New York to-day. I--why, it’s because you’ve come,
isn’t it?”
He was on his guard again.
“I hope not. I’ve nothing to do with it. I shouldn’t go now, of course.”
“Do you mean you wouldn’t go with--Arthur?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“But you meant it.” She rose slowly to her feet. “I know you meant it!”
She stopped, for he had risen, too.
“Perhaps I did mean that; but can’t you understand there may be other
reasons why I can’t go? I----” His face flushed no less deeply than
hers, but he raised his head, and she was again aware of the fineness
of his presence, his air of strength. “There are many reasons why I
can’t bear to go,” he went on slowly. “There are reasons which--at this
moment--are doubly painful. You must forgive me, have a little patience
with me.”
She did not answer. She was trying to control herself, but she could
not; tears suddenly rained down her cheeks.
“Diane!” he exclaimed in dismay.
She put her hand up, as if to ward off a blow.
“Oh, if you feel like that--if you still feel so, I entreat you----”
she stretched out her clasped hands toward him in a gesture of
supplication--“I beg of you to tell me the truth! I can’t bear it any
longer. I’ve tried not to speak, but I can’t help it--I must! Tell me
the truth--what is this thing? What happened? Who deserted you?”
He averted his face, but she was aware of the struggle in his mind. He
spoke at last with an effort.
“I can’t--I mustn’t! What there is to tell, Faunce must tell you
himself. Say to him that I have been here and I want to see him. He
may want to come to me--tell him that I’ll wait until he does come.
He’ll understand that!”
She did not speak again, but stood looking at him, the color slowly
leaving her face. She held herself very erect, with her head up, as if
she saw a battle before her and would not give it up.
It was a moment so pregnant with feeling, so tragic in discovery, that
neither of them could bridge it with mere words. Overton did not even
take her hand, but turned with a mute gesture of farewell and walked
slowly out of the room and out of the house, his head bent and his
shoulders bowed, like a man who carried a burden.
XXI
IT was late in the evening, long past their usual dinner-hour, when
Diane heard Faunce coming up the path to the front door. Ever since
that bitter moment with Overton, she had been trying to steady her mind
for this meeting. It seemed to her that she must be ready for it--ready
to force the climax, to make Faunce tell her the truth.
If she had failed to get the whole story from Overton, his very silence
and his omissions had made it easy for her imagination to fill up the
gaps. She shuddered now before the vision that her tortured mind had
conjured from the frozen silence. What had happened behind the gray
curtain of the mist and snow? What deep and tragic drama had been
enacted? She did not know, yet she shuddered. She felt the weight of
it upon her. The shadow of it lay across her path, between her and her
husband.
She sat alone before the big fireplace, almost in the very spot where
Overton had stood, and listened. She could not move, she could not even
go to open the door. She was listening to the step--a little hurried
and uncertain--that came up the steps and across the porch, and halted
at the door. There was a moment’s pause, and then Faunce thrust his
latch-key into the lock. She dragged herself to her feet and stood
facing the door, incapable of action or speech.
He came in very pale and haggard, but his preoccupation had gained
upon him, and he was not even startled to see his wife standing there,
motionless, before the fire. He saw her, saw the long, graceful lines
of her figure, the small, uplifted head; but he was too much absorbed
in the struggle within to recognize the change in her.
“I’ve kept you waiting!” he exclaimed hurriedly. “You must forgive me
this time, dear! I hope you haven’t waited dinner?”
As he spoke, he came over and kissed her cheek, without apparently
perceiving the anguish in her eyes. She yielded, let him caress her
soft hair a moment, but she was trying, all the while, to shape the
questions that rushed to her lips.