Christmas Eve was particularly frosty and bright. The sun poured through
Sabine's windows high up when she woke, but her heart was heavy as lead.
She had not had a single word alone with Henry the night before, and
knew the dreaded _tête-à-tête_ must come. She did not set herself to
tell him who her husband was on this particular morning--about that she
must be guided by events--but she could not make barriers between them,
and must allow him to come to her sitting-room. He did, about half-past
ten o'clock, his face full of radiance and love. She had always
steadfastly refused to take any presents from him, but he had had the
most beautiful flowers sent from Paris for her, and they had just
arrived. She was taking them out of their box herself. This made a
pretext for her to express delighted thanks, and for a little she played
her part so well that all Henry's doubts were set at rest, and he told
himself that he had been imaginative and foolish to think that anything
was changed in her.
He helped her to put all the lovely blooms into vases, so happy to
think they should give her pleasure. And all the while he talked to her
lovingly and soothingly, until Sabine could have screamed aloud, so full
of remorse and constraint she felt. If he would only be disagreeable or
unkind!
At last, among the giant violets, they came upon one bunch of white
ones. These she took and separated, and, making them into two, she stuck
one into her belt and gave Henry the other to put into his coat.
"Won't you fasten them in for me, dearest?" he said, his whole
countenance full of passionate love.
She came nearer, and with hasty fingers put the flowers into his
buttonhole.
The temptation was too great for Henry. He put his arm round her and
drew her to his side, while he bent and kissed her sweet red mouth.
She did not resist him or start away, but she grew white as death, and
he was conscious that, as he clasped her close, a repressed shudder ran
through her whole frame.
With a little cry of anguish he put her from him, and searched with
miserable eyes for some message in her face. But her lids were lowered
and her lips were quivering with some pain.
"My darling, what is it? Sabine, you shrank from me! What does it mean?"
"It means--nothing, Henry." And the poor child tried to smile. "Only
that I am very foolish and silly, and I do not believe I like
caresses--much." And then, to make things sound more light, she went on:
"You see, I have had so few of them in my life. You must be patient with
me until I learn to--understand."
Of course he would be patient, he assured her, and asked her to forgive
him if he had been brusque, his refined voice full of adoring
contrition. He caught at any gossamer thread to stifle the obvious
thought that if she loved him even ever so little he would not have to
accustom her to caresses; she would long ago have been willing to learn
all of their meanings in his arms!--and this was only the second time
during their acquaintance that she had even let him kiss her!
But of her own free will she now came and leaned her head against his
shoulder.
"Henry," she pleaded, "I am not really as I know you think I am--a
gentle and loving woman. There are all sorts of fierce sides in my
character which you have not an idea of, and I am only beginning to
guess at them myself. I do not know that I shall ever be able to make
you happy. I am sure I shall not unless you will be contented with very
little."
"The smallest tip of your finger is more precious to me than all the
world, darling!" he protested with heat. "I will be patient. I will be
anything you wish. I will not even touch you again until you give me
leave. Oh! I adore you so--Sabine, I will bear anything if only you do
not mean that you want to send me away."
The anguish and fond worship in his face wrung her heart. She started
from him and then, returning, held out her arms, while she cried with a
pitiful gasp, almost as of a sob in her throat:
"Yes--take me and kiss me--kiss me until I don't feel!--I mean until I
feel--Henry, you said you would make me forget!"
He encircled her with his arm and led her to a sofa, murmuring every vow
of passionate love; and here he sat by her and kissed her and caressed
her to his heart's content, while she remained apparently passive, but
still as white as the violets in her dress, and inwardly she could
hardly keep from screaming, the torture of it was so great. At last she
could bear no more, but disengaging herself from his arms she slipped on
to the floor, and there sat upon a low footstool, with her back to the
fire, shivering as though with icy cold.
Lord Fordyce's instincts were too fine not to realize something of the
meaning of this scene. Although not greatly learned in the ways of
women, he had kissed them often before in his life, and none had
received his caresses like that. But since she did not repulse him, he
must not despair. She perhaps was, as she said, unused to fond
dalliance, and he must be more controlled, and wait. So with an inward
sense of pain and chill in his heart, he set himself to divert her
otherwise, talking of the books which they both loved, and so at last,
when Nicholas announced that déjeuner was ready, some color and
animation had come back to her face.
But when she was alone in her room she looked out of the high window and
passionately threw up her arms.
"I cannot bear it again!" she wailed fiercely. "I feel an utterly
degraded wretch."
At breakfast the Père Anselme watched her intently while he kept his
aloof air. He felt that something extra had disturbed her. He was to
stay in the house with them on Christmas night, because it was so cold
for him to return to his home after dinner, and Sabine could not
possibly spare him; she assured him he must be with them at every meal.
His wit was so apt, and with Madame Imogen's aid he kept the ball
rolling as merrily as he could. But he, no less than Henry, was
conscious that all was not well.
And afterwards, as he went towards the village, he communed with
himself, his kind heart torn with the deep-seated look of resignation in
the eyes of his Dame d'Héronac.
"She is too young to be made to suffer it," he said, half aloud. "The
good God cannot ask so much, as a price for wilfulness; and if this man
has grown as distasteful to her as her face seems to suggest, nothing
but misery could come from their dual life." It was all very cruel to
the Englishman, no doubt, but where was the wisdom of letting two people
suffer? Surely it was better to let only one pay the stakes, and if this
thing went on, both would have equal unhappiness, and be tied together
as two animals in a menagerie cage.
No gentleman should accept such a sacrifice. If the Lord Fordyce did not
realize for himself that something had changed things, it must be that
he, Gaston d'Héronac, the Père Anselme, must intervene. It might be very
fine and noble to stick to one's word, but it became quixotic if to do
so could only bring misery to oneself and one's mate!
The good priest stalked on to his _presbytère_, and then to his church,
to see that all should be ready for _réveillon_ that night, and he was
returning to the château to tea when he met Henry taking a walk.
After lunch Sabine had gone off with Moravia to Girolamo's nurseries,
and Lord Fordyce had felt he must go out and get some air. Mr.
Cloudwater had started with Madame Imogen in the motor on a commission
to their little town directly they had all left the dining-room. Thus
Henry was alone.
He greeted the Père Anselme gladly. The old priest's cultivated mind was
to him always a source of delight.
So he turned back and walked with him into the garden and along by the
sea wall, instead of across the causeway and to the house. This was the
doing of the Père Anselme, for he felt now might be his time.
Henry had been growing more and more troubled while he had been out by
himself. He could not disguise the fact that there was some great change
in Sabine, and now his anxious mood craved sympathy and counsel from
this her great friend.
"Madame Howard does not look quite well, Father," he remarked, after
they had pulled some modern philosophies to pieces, and there had been a
pause. "She is so nervous--what is the cause of it, do you know? Perhaps
this place does not suit her in the winter. It is so very cold."
"Yes, it is cold--but that is not the reason." And the Père Anselme drew
closer his old black cloak. "There are other and stronger causes for the
state in which we find the Dame Sabine."
Henry peered into his face anxiously in the gray light--it was four
o'clock, the day would soon be gone. He knew that these words contained
ominous meaning, and his voice was rather unsteady as he asked:
"What are the reasons, Father? Please tell me if you are at liberty to
do so. To me the welfare of this dear lady is all that matters in life."
The Curé of Héronac cleared his throat, and then he said gently:
"I spoke once before to you about the cinders and as to whether or no
they were still red. That is what causes her to be restless--she has
found that they are yet alight."
Lord Fordyce was a brave man, but he grew very pale. It seemed that
suddenly all the fears which his heart had sheltered, though would not
own as facts, were rising before him like giant skeletons, concrete and
distinct.
"But the divorce is going well!" he exclaimed a little passionately, his
hurt was so great. "She told me so last night; she will be free some
time in January, and will then be my wife."
His happiness should not be torn from him without a desperate fight.
The priest's voice was very sad as he answered:
"That is so. She will, no doubt, be ready to marry you whenever you ask
it is for you to demand of yourself whether you will accept her
sacrifice."
"Sacrifice! I would never dream of any sacrifice. It is unthinkable,
Father!"
Anguish now distraught Henry's soul; he stopped in his walk and looked
full at the priest, his fine, distinguished face working with suffering.
The Père Anselme thought to himself that he would have done very well
for the model of a martyr of old. It distressed him deeply to see his
pain and to know that there would be more to come.
"Her happiness is all that I care for--surely you know this--but what
has caused this change? Has she seen her husband again?--I----" Here
Henry stopped, a sense of stupefaction set in. What could it all mean?
"We have never spoken upon the matter," the priest answered him. "I
cannot say, but I think--yes, she has certainly come under his
influence again. Have you never searched in your mind, Monsieur, to ask
yourself who this husband could be?"
"No--! How should I have done so? I have never been in America in my
life." And then Henry's haggard eyes caught a look in the old priest's
face. "My God!" he cried, agony in his voice, "you would suggest that it
is some one I may know!"
"I suggest nothing, Monsieur. I make my own deductions from events. Will
you not do the same?"
Henry covered his eyes with his hands. It seemed as though reason were
slipping from him; and then, like a flash of lightning which cleared his
brain, the reality struck him.
"It is Michael Arranstoun," he said with a moan.
"We know nothing for certain," proclaimed the Père Anselme. "But the
alteration began from this young man's visit. That is why I warned you
to well ascertain the truth of her feelings before going further. I
would have saved you pain."
Henry staggered to the wall of the summer-house and leant there. His
face was ashen-gray in the afternoon's dying light.
"Oh, how hopelessly blind I have been!"
The priest unclasped his tightly-locked hands; his old eyes were full of
pity as he answered:
"We may both have made mistakes. You are more aware of the circumstances
than I am. The Seigneur of Arranstoun is the only man she has seen here
besides yourself. You perhaps know whom she met in England, or Paris?"
"It is Michael Arranstoun," Henry said in a voice strangled and altered
with suffering. "I see every link in the chain--but, O God! why have
they deceived me? What can it mean? What hideous, fiendish cruelty! And
Michael was my old friend."
A wild rage and resentment convulsed him. He only felt that he wished to
kill both these traitors, who had tricked him and destroyed his beliefs
and his happiness. Ghastly thoughts that there might be further
disclosures of more shameful deceptions to come shook him. He was
trembling with passion--and then the priest said something in his grave,
quiet voice which almost stunned him.
"Has it been done in cruelty, my son? You must examine well the facts
before you assert that. You must not forget that whoever the husband may
be, he has consented to divorce her, and she is now going to give
herself to you. Is that cruelty, my son? Or is it a fine keeping to a
given word? It looks to me more like a noble sacrifice, unless the
Seigneur of Arranstoun was aware before he ever came here that Madame
Howard was his wife."
Lord Fordyce controlled himself. This thing must be thought out.
"No, Michael could not have known it," after a moment or two he
averred. "He even laughed over the name when I told it to him, and said
he had a scapegrace cousin out in Arizona and wondered if the husband
could be the same----"
Then further recollections came with a frightful stab of anguish,
crushing all passion and anger and leaving only a sensation of pain, for
he remembered that his friend had given him his word of honor that he
would not interfere with him in his love-making--and, indeed, would help
him in every way he could, even to lending him Arranstoun for the
honeymoon! That letter of his, too, when he had gone from Héronac,
saying in it casually he hoped that he, Henry, thought that he had
played the game!--Yes, it was all perfectly plain. Michael had come
there in all innocence, and could not be blamed. He remembered numbers
of things unnoticed at the time--his own talk with Sabine when he had
discussed Michael's marriage--and this brought him up suddenly to her
side of the question. Why, in heaven's name, had she not told him the
truth at once? Why had she pretended not to recognize Michael? For,
however Michael might have started, since he, Henry, was not looking at
him, Sabine, whose face he had been gazing into all the while, had shown
no faintest recognition of him. What a superb actress she must be!--or
perhaps, having only seen him those two times in her life, for those
short moments, she really did not recognize him then. The whole thing
was so staggering in its hideous tragedy his brain almost refused to
think; but he said this last thought aloud, and the priest's strange
sudden silence struck even his numbed sense.
"She had only seen him for such a little while--they parted immediately
after the wedding; it was merely an empty ceremony, you know. Why, then,
should she have had any haunting memories of him?"
The Père Anselme avoided answering this question by asking another.
"You knew that the Seigneur of Arranstoun was wedded, it would seem. How
was that?"
Then Henry told him the outline of Michael's story, and the cruel irony
of fate in having made him himself leave the house before seeing Sabine
struck them both.
"What can her reasons have been for not telling me all this time,
Father?" the unhappy man asked at last, in a hopeless voice. "Can you in
any way guess?"
The Père Anselme mused for a moment.
"I have my own thoughts upon the matter, my son. We who live lonely
lives very close to Nature get into the way of studying things. I have,
as I told you, made some deductions, but, if you will permit me to give
you some counsel, I would tell you to go back to the château now, with
no _parti pris_, and seek her immediately, and get her to tell you the
whole truth yourself. Of what good for you and me to speculate, since we
neither of us know all the facts?--or even, if our suppositions are
correct----" Then, as Lord Fordyce hesitated, he continued: "The time
has passed for reticence. There should be no more avoiding of feared
subjects. Go, go, my son, and discover the entire truth."
"And what then!" The cry came from Henry's agonized heart. But the
priest answered gravely:
"That is in the hand of God. My duty is done."
And so they returned in silence, the Père Anselme praying fervently to
himself. And when they reached the house, Lord Fordyce stumbled up the
stone stairs heavily and knocked at the door of Sabine's sitting-room.
He had seen Moravia at her window in the inner building, and knew that
this woman who held his life in her hand would be alone.
Then, in response to a gentle "_Entrez_" he opened the door and went in.
* * * * *
Sabine had been sitting at her writing-table, an open blue despatch-box
at her side. She was at the far end of the great apartment, so that
Henry had some way to go toward her in the gloom, as, but for the large
lamp near her and the blazing wood fire at each end, there was no light
in the vast room. She rose to meet him, a gentle smile upon her face,
and then, when he came close to her, she realized that something had
happened, and suddenly put her hand out to steady herself upon the back
of a chair.
"Henry--what is it?" she said, in a very low voice. "Come, let us go
over there and sit down," and she drew him to the same sofa where that
very morning they had sat when she had let him kiss her. This thought
was extra pain.
He was so very quiet he frightened her, and his gray eyes looked into
hers with such a world of despair, but no reproach.
"Sabine," he commanded in a voice out of which had vanished all life and
hope, "tell me the whole story, my dear love."
She clasped her hands convulsively--so the dreaded moment had come!
There would be no use in making any excuses or protestations, her duty
now was to master herself and collect her words to tell him the truth.
The utter misery in his noble face wrung her heart, so that her voice
trembled too much to speak at first; then she controlled it and began.
* * * * *
So all was told at last.
Then Henry took her two cold hands again and drew her up with him as he
rose.
"Sabine," he said with deep emotion, his heart at breaking point, but
all thought of himself put aside in the supreme unselfishness of his
worship; "Sabine, to-morrow I will prove to you what true love means.
But now, my dearest, I will say good-night. I think I must go to my
room for a little; this has been a tremendous shock."
He bent and kissed her forehead with reverence and blessing, as her
father might have done, and, hiding all further emotion, he walked
steadily from the room.