THE PENALTY.
When Sinclair returned to the city that night he sat down in his office
and wrote a letter to Cleo Ballard. It was the most difficult thing he
had ever done in his life. It told her briefly of his love for Numè. He
felt he could not be a good husband to her so long as he loved another
woman. It was better she knew it than to find it out after they had
married.
Mrs. Davis gave it to Cleo when she thought her strong enough to bear
the shock. She read it with white lips, her poor, thin hands trembling
as the letter slipped to her feet.
"I expected it," she said, bitterly, to Mrs. Davis; and then suddenly,
without the smallest warning, she leaned over and picked the scattered
sheets from the floor and tore them into a thousand fragments with such
fierceness that it frightened her friend.
After that day Mrs. Davis devoted herself more than ever to her friend,
and scarce left her alone for a moment. A strange calm and quiet had
come over Cleo. She would sit for hours by an open window, perfectly
silent, with her hands clasped in her lap, looking out before her with
large eyes which were dry of tears, but which held a nameless brooding.
Mrs. Davis tried in every way to cheer her up, but though she protested
that she was not suffering, yet she could not deceive her friend who
knew her so well.
"You _are_ going to be happy, dear, and as soon as you are strong enough
we'll make the voyage back. You didn't know I was going with you, did
you? Well, dear," her sweet voice faltered, "_I_ couldn't bear to stay
here--after--after you were gone. We will all be happy when in America
again. I believe that's what has made us all more or less gloomy. We
have been homesick. Japan _is_ all right, beautiful and all that--but,
well, it is not America. We never _could_ feel the same here." So she
rattled on to Cleo, trying to take the girl's thoughts out of herself.
And then, one day, Cleo turned to her and told her very quietly that she
knew everything.
Mrs. Davis gasped. "Everything!"
She looked at the girl's calm, emotionless face in horror. "And--and
you----"
"I've known it some time now," the girl continued, grimly. She heard the
other woman sobbing for her, and put her hand out and found the little
sympathetic one extended.
"I know--know, dear, how you tried to hide it from me," she smiled
faintly; "that could not be."
Mrs. Davis was mute. Cleo was an enigma to her now.
"I never guessed you knew."
"No? Mother told me. She did not mean to be cruel, but she was not well
herself then, and she--she reproached me."
She rose suddenly to her feet, the same still, white look on her face
that had come there when she had read Sinclair's letter. She turned on
her friend with an almost fierce movement.
"Why don't you _hate_ me?" she said, with only half-repressed vehemence.
"Why does not every one--as I do myself?"
She was beyond the comfort of her friend now. Jenny Davis could only
watch her with wide eyes of wonder and agony. For a moment the girl
paced the room with restless, dragging step, like a wild caged thing.
"Jenny, I will tell you something now. You may laugh at me--laugh as--I
can--as I do myself, but----" Again she paused, and she put her hand to
her throat as though the words choked her.
"After I read that--that letter, it seemed as if something broke in
me--not my heart--no, don't think that; but at first I felt desolate,
with a loneliness you could never comprehend. He had been in my mind so
many years then. Yes, I know--I had expected it all--but it was a shock
at first. I never _could_ face anything painful all my life, and when I
actually knew the truth--when I read his letter, and it _was_ cruel,
after all, Jenny, I wanted to go away somewhere and hide myself--no--I
wanted to go to some one--some one who really loved me, and cry my heart
out. Don't you understand me, Jenny? Oh, you must----" her voice was
dragging painfully now. "I wanted--to--go--to Orito!"
"Cleo!"
"Yes, it is true," she went on, wildly. "_He_ was better than the other.
So much tenderer and truer--the best man I ever knew--the only person in
the whole world who ever really loved me. And I--Jenny, I _killed_ him!
Think of it, and pity me--no, don't pity me--I deserve none. And
then--and then----" she was beginning to lose command of her speech now.
Mrs. Davis tried to draw her into a chair, but she put the clinging,
loving hands from her and continued: "When I wanted him--when that other
had deserted _me_--had let me know the truth that he never did care for
me--never did care for me," she repeated, incoherently, "and I loved him
all those years. I used to lie awake at night and cry for him,--for
Orito--for his comfort--just as I do now. I cannot help myself. I
thought I would go to him and tell him everything--_he_ would
understand--how--how my heart had awakened--how I must have loved him
all along. And then--then mother burst out at me only last week, Jenny,
and told me the truth--that--that he was _dead_--that he had killed
himself; no--that I had killed him. Do you wonder I did not _die_--go
mad when I learned the truth? Oh, Jenny, I am half dead--I am so numb,
dead to all pleasure, all hope in life."
She had been speaking spasmodically; at first with a hard, metallic ring
to her voice, and then wildly and passionately. Now her voice suddenly
trembled and melted. She was still quite weak, and had excited herself.
Her friend caught her to her breast just in time for the flood of tears
to come--tears that were a necessary, blessed relief. She broke down
utterly and began to sob in a pitiful, hopeless, heart-breaking fashion.
From that day, however, she seemed to improve, though she was erratic
and moody. She would insist on seeing all the callers--those who came
because of their genuine liking for her, and sorrow in her illness, and
the larger number who came out of curiosity. However much of her heart
she had shown to Mrs. Davis, no one else of all Cleo's friends guessed
the turmoil that battled in her breast.