THE SEPARATION OF HEARTS
When Graydon Bansemer opened his eyes upon the world for the second
time--it was as if he had been born again--he looked up into the
eager, wistful face of Jane Cable. It was too much for her to expect
that he could see and understand at once; he would not know what
had gone before, nor why she was there. His feeble glance took in
her face with lifeless interest. Perhaps it was because he had seen
her in that death-like dream; perhaps his weakness kept him from
true realisation. In any event, he did no more than to allow the
flicker of a smile to come into his eyes before he closed them
again. Breathlessly, she waited for the lids to lift once more.
She uttered his name softly, tenderly, time and again. As if hearing
someone calling from a great distance, he moved and again looked
upward, the consciousness of pain in his grey eyes. This time he
stared hard at her; his eyes grew brighter and then darkened with
wonder. At last she saw the look of surprise and joy and relief
that she had been hungering for; he knew her and he was beginning
to understand.
If he heard her while she knelt and thanked Ged for this first
great ray of hope, he gave forth no sign. When she turned her eyes
to his face again he was asleep. But she went forth into the day
with a song in her heart.
She looked about for Teresa. The girl was gone, no one knew whither.
Bray alone could say that she had started toward the thicket.
He pointed out the direction, but did not offer to accompany Jane
when she hurried away to carry the good news to the Spanish girl
who had been her staunch helper during the long vigil. Bray shook
his puzzled head as he followed her with his gaze. It had come
to him suddenly that the Spanish girl was not the solution to the
puzzle, after all.
Jane found the slim boyish figure lying on the ground, deep in the
wood. She had been crying and made no attempt to subdue her emotions
when the American girl came up to her; instead, she bitterly poured
out her woe into the ears of the other. She told her of Bray's
insult--as she termed his unfortunate speculation--and she told
how it came about.
"I am a good girl, Miss Cable," she cried. "I am of a noble family-not
of the canaille. You do not believe it of me? No! He had no right
to accuse me. I was a prisoner; Senor Bansemer was my rescuer. I
loved him for it. See, I cannot help it, I cannot hide it from you.
But he is yours. I have no claim. I do not ask it. Oh!" and here
her voice rose to a wail of anguish, "can you not procure something
else for me to wear? These rags are intolerable. I hate them! I
cannot go back there unless I have---"
"We can give you a few garments, dear," said Jane. "Come! You shall
wear the nurse's uniform. We are to start on the long march to the
coast to-morrow. They say that ALL of the wounded can be moved by
that time."
It was three days, however, before the little company left the
village and began its slow, irksome march across the country toward
the coast where the ship was to pick up the wounded men and convey
them to Manila, Native carriers, cheerful amigos since the disaster
to Pilar, went forward with the stretchers, the hospital wagons
and guard following. Travelling was necessarily slow and the halts
were frequent. There were occasional shots from hidden riflemen,
but there were no casualties. Food had been scarce; the commissary
was thinly supplied for the hard trip. Lieutenant Bray grew strangely
morose and indifferent. He was taciturn, almost unfriendly in his
attitude toward everyone.
The little company stopped to rest in a beautiful; valley, beside
the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away
from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge
of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively into the future.
"How is he?" he asked. She started and a warm glow came into her
cheek.
"He is doing nicely. If he can bear up until we reach Manila, he
will surely live. Are we going as rapidly as we should, Lieutenant
Bray?"
"Quite, Miss Cable. It isn't an easy march, you must: remember."
After a long silence, he suddenly remarked: "Miss Cable, I've
got a rather shameful confession to make. I've had some very base
thoughts to contend with. You may have guessed it or not, but I care
a great deal for you--more than for anyone else I've ever known.
You say he is to get well. For days I wished that he might die.
Don't look like that, please. I couldn't help it. I went so far,
at one stage, as to contemplate a delay in marching that might have
proved fatal to him. I thought of that way and others of which I
can't tell you. Thank God, I was man enough to put them away from
me! Wait, please! Let me finish. You have said you will not marry
him. I don't ask why you will not. I love you. Will you be my wife?"
She stared at him with consternation in her eyes. He had gone on
so rapidly that she could not check his rapid speech. Her hand went
to her brow and a piteous smile tried to force itself to her lips.
"I am sorry," she said at last. "I am sorry you have spoken to me
of it. I have felt for some time that you--you cared for me. No,
Lieutenant Bray, I cannot be your wife."
"I know you love him," he said.
"Yes, it is plain. I have not tried to hide it."
"You must understand why I asked you to be my wife, knowing that
you love him. It was to hear it from your own lips, so that I would
not go through life with the feeling, after all, that it might
have been. Will you tell me the reason why you cannot marry him?
He must love you."
"Lieutenant Bray, he would marry me to-morrow, I think, if I were
to consent. It isn't that. It would not be right for me to consent.
You profess to love me. I have seen it in your eyes--oh, I have
learned much of men in the past few months--and I determined, if
you ever asked me to marry you, to ask a question in return. Do
you really know who I am?"
He looked his surprise. "Why, the daughter of David Cable, of
course."
"No, I am not his daughter."
"His stepdaughter?"
"Not even that. You come from a proud Southern family. I do not
know who my parents were."
"Good Heaven, you-you don't mean you were waif?"
"A waif without a name, Lieutenant Bray. This is not self-abasement;
it is not the parading of misfortune. It is because you have made
the mistake of loving me. If you care less for me now than you did
before, you will spread this information throughout the army."
"Believe me, I am not that sort."
"Thank you. Knowing what you now do, could you ask me to be your
wife?"
"Don't put it just that way," he stammered.
"Ah, I see. It was a cruel question. And yet it proves that you do
not love as Graydon Bansemer loves."
"Some day you may find out all about your parents and be happy.
You may have been abducted and---" he was saying, his face white
and wet. Somehow he felt that he was chastening himself.
"Perhaps," she said quietly. "I might not have told you this had
not the story been printed in every newspaper in the States just
before I left. You see, I did not know it until just a few months
ago. I thought you might have read of me. I--I am so notorious."
"Jane, dear Jane, you must not feel that way!" he cried, as she
started quickly away. "It's---" But she turned and motioned for
him to cease. There were tears in her eyes. He stood stock still.
"She's wonderful!" he said to himself, as she walked away. "Even
now, I believe I could--Pshaw! It ought not to make any difference!
If it wasn't for my family--What's in a name, anyway? A name---"
He started to answer his own question, but halted abruptly, squared
his shoulders and then with true Southern, military bearing strode
away, murmuring:
"A name is something; yes, family is everything."
Jane went at once to Graydon. His great grey eyes smiled a glad
welcome. She took his hand in hers and sat upon the ground beside
him, watching his face until they were ready to resume the journey.
"Would it not be better if he were to die?" she found herself
wondering, with strange inconstancy to her purpose. "Why could it
not have been I instead of he? How hard it will be for us to live
after this. Dear, dear Graydon, if--if I only were different from
what I am."
Not a word of his father's conduct toward her, not a word of blame
for the blow his father had struck. She held him to no account for
the baseness of that father; only did she hold herself unfit to be
his wife. All of the ignominy and shame fell to her lot, none to
the well-born son of the traducer.
Fortune and strength went hand in hand for the next two days and
the famished, worn-out company came to the coast. The wounded men
were half-delirious once more for lack of proper attention, and the
hardships of travel. But the ill-wind had spent its force. Bray's
instructions were to place his charges on board ship at San Fernando
de Union, and then await further orders in the little coast town.
It meant good-bye to Jane, and that meant more to him than, he was
willing to admit, despite all that she had said to him. He went to
her when the ship was ready to leave port.
"Good-bye!" he said. "I'm more grieved than I can tell you, because
I believe you think I am a cad."
"Lieutenant Bray, a cad never would have helped me as you have
helped me, in spite of yourself. Good-bye!"
He went out of her life in that moment.
There were vexatious delays, however, before sailings Almost at the
last moment Jane was approached by Teresa Velasquez, now partly
dressed as a Red Cross nurse. The Spanish girl was nervous and
uneasy. Her dark eyes held two ever changing lights--one sombre,
the other bright and piercing.
"I have decided to wait for the next ship," she announced briefly.
"You are not going with us?" cried Jane in surprise and distress.
"What has happened?"
"It is impossible; I cannot go with you. Pray do not ask for my
reason. Good-bye. Will you say good-bye to--to him for me?"
Jane was silent for a long time, studying the eyes of the Spanish
girl.
"I think I understand," she said at last, taking Teresa's hands in
hers.
"It is better that it be ended here," said Teresa, "I have endured
it as long as I can. You have been good to me, and I want to say
good-bye while there is love for you in my heart. I am afraid to
stay near you--and him. Don't you see? I cannot go on in this way."
"Oh, Teresa!"
"Yes, yes, I know it is wrong, but how can I help it? I've loved
him ever since I first saw him--saved his life." Jane was astounded.
The thrust pierced her to the quick.
"Saved his life?"
"Yes, though he does not know it. It was when we were prisoners of
the Filipinos. My poor brother was dying. From the convent Aguinaldo
and his men were watching and directing the fight on the plaza.
They paid no attention to me--a girl. The noise of the fighting
men was terrible, and I climbed up to a window where I could see.
Suddenly, below me, I saw two men fighting apart from the struggling
mass. In an instant it flashed through my mind that the Filipino
was overpowering the other--was going to kill him. Although I hated
them equally, there was something in the young soldier's face--I
could not see him murdered. I seized a pistol that was lying near
me and fired; the Filipino fell. In terror of the deed and fear
of discovery, I ran to my brother. In a moment the Americans broke
into the convent. You know the rest."
Jane was suffering the keenest pangs of jealousy, and asked,
excitedly:
"You--you did that?"
"And finally, when I had learned to care for him and he was wounded,
to have been denied the right of nursing him back to life--my place
usurped by you. Surely, I have as much to be proud of as you and
I love him a great deal more!"
"As much to be proud of---" Jane was saying, for the moment all
the warmth gone from her voice, the flame from her cheeks; but her
meaning could not have been understood by the other who proudly,
defiantly tossed back her head. Beautiful indeed was this
brown-skinned, black-eyed girl, as she stood there pleading her
rights to an unrequited love--a heart already tenanted by another,
and that other, the woman before her.
"Now, can you imagine," the girl went on, "how it has hurt me to
see you caring for him, to see his eyes forever searching for you?
No?" They were silent a moment. A wistful look was in her eyes now,
and her voice unmistakably reconcilable when she resumed: "Ah, he
was so good and true when I was alone with them--before you came! I
pray God, now, that he may be well and that you may make him happy."
"Alas, I am afraid that can never be! You cannot understand, and
I cannot explain."
"Your family objects because he is poor and a common soldier? Yes?"
She laughed bitterly, a green light in her eyes. "If it were I, no
one could keep me from belonging to him--I would---"
"Don't! Don't say it! You don't understand!" Jane reiterated.
"Dios, how I loved him! I would have gone through my whole life
with him! He must have known it, too."
"He was true to me," said Jane, her figure straightening involuntarily,
a new gleam in her eyes.
"Ah, you are lucky, senorita! I love you, and I could hate you so
easily! Go! Go! Take him with you and give him life! Forget me as
I shall forget you both!" And impulsively taking from round her
neck an Agnus Dei which she was wearing, she placed it in Jane's
hands, and added: "Give this to him, please, and do not forget to
tell him that I sent good-bye and good luck."
Jane would have kissed her had not the blazing eyes of the other
forbade. They merely clasped hands, and Teresa turned away.
"My uncle lives in Manila. He will take me to Madrid. We cannot
live here with these pigs of Americans about us," she said shortly.
A moment later she was lost in the crowd.
Jane's heart was heavy when the ship moved away. Her eyes searched
through the throng for the slight figure of the girl who had
abandoned a lost cause.