With a heart lightened by reconciliation (not the first reconciliation
unhappily), with hopes revived, and sweet content restored, Sydney’s
serenity of mind was not quite unruffled. Her thoughts were not dwelling
on the evil life which she had honestly deplored, or on the wronged wife
to whom she had been eager to make atonement. Where is the woman whose
sorrows are not thrown into the shade by the bright renewal of love? The
one anxiety that troubled Sydney was caused by remembrance of the letter
which she had sent to the convent at Sandyseal.
As her better mind now viewed it, she had doubly injured Herbert--first
in distrusting him; then by appealing from him to the compassion of
strangers.
If the reply for which she had rashly asked was waiting for her at that
moment--if the mercy of the Mother Superior was ready to comfort and
guide her--what return could she make? how could she excuse herself from
accepting what was offered in kindly reply to her own petition? She
had placed herself, for all she knew to the contrary, between two
alternatives of ingratitude equally unendurable, equally degrading.
To feel this was to feel the suspense which, to persons of excitable
temperament, is of all trials the hardest to bear. The chambermaid
was still in her room--Sydney asked if the post-office was near to the
hotel.
The woman smiled. “Everything is near us, ma’am, in this little place.
Can we send to the post-office for you?”
Sydney wrote her initials. “Ask, if you please, for a letter
addressed in that way.” She handed the memorandum to the chambermaid.
“Corresponding with her lover under her husband’s nose!” That was how
the chambermaid explained it below stairs, when the porter remarked that
initials looked mysterious.
The Mother Superior had replied. Sydney trembled as she opened the
letter. It began kindly.
“I believe you, my child, and I am anxious to help you. But I cannot
correspond with an unknown person. If you decide to reveal yourself,
it is only right to add that I have shown your letter to the Reverend
Father who, in temporal as in spiritual things, is our counselor and
guide. To him I must refer you, in the first instance. His wisdom will
decide the serious question of receiving you into our Holy Church, and
will discover, in due time, if you have a true vocation to a religious
life. With the Father’s sanction, you may be sure of my affectionate
desire to serve you.”
Sydney put the letter back in the envelope, feeling gratefully toward
the Mother Superior, but determined by the conditions imposed on her to
make no further advance toward the Benedictine community.
Even if her motive in writing to the convent had remained unchallenged,
the allusions to the priest would still have decided her on taking this
step. The bare idea of opening her inmost heart, and telling her saddest
secrets, to a man, and that man a stranger, was too repellent to be
entertained for a moment. In a few lines of reply, gratefully and
respectfully written, she thanked the Mother Superior, and withdrew from
the correspondence.
The letter having been closed, and posted in the hotel box, she returned
to the sitting-room free from the one doubt that had troubled her; eager
to show Herbert how truly she believed in him, how hopefully she looked
to the future.
With a happy smile on her lips she opened the door. She was on the
point of asking him playfully if he had felt surprised at her long
absence--when the sight that met her eyes turned her cold with terror in
an instant.
His arms were stretched out on the table; his head was laid on them,
despair confessed itself in his attitude; grief spoke in the deep
sobbing breaths that shook him. Love and compassion restored Sydney’s
courage; she advanced to raise him in her arms--and stopped once more.
The book on the table caught her eye. He was still unconscious of her
presence; she ventured to open it. She read the inscription--looked at
him--looked back at the writing--and knew the truth at last.
The rigor of the torture that she suffered paralyzed all outward
expression of pain. Quietly she put the book back on the table. Quietly
she touched him, and called him by his name.
He started and looked up; he made an attempt to speak to her in his
customary tone. “I didn’t hear you come in,” he said.
She pointed to the book, without the slightest change in her face or her
manner.
“I have read the inscription to your wife,” she answered; “I have seen
you while you thought you were alone; the mercy which has so long kept
the truth from me is mercy wasted now. Your bonds are broken, Herbert.
You are a free man.”
He affected not to have understood her. She let him try to persuade her
of it, and made no reply. He declared, honestly declared, that what she
had said distressed him. She listened in submissive silence. He took
her hand, and kissed it. She let him kiss it, and let him drop it at
her side. She frightened him; he began to fear for her reason. There was
silence--long, horrid, hopeless silence.
She had left the door of the room open. One of the servants of the hotel
appeared outside in the passage. He spoke to some person behind him.
“Perhaps the book has been left in here,” he suggested. A gentle voice
answered: “I hope the lady and gentleman will excuse me, if I ask leave
to look for my book.” She stepped into the room to make her apologies.
Herbert Linley and Sydney Westerfield looked at the woman whom they had
outraged. The woman whom they had outraged paused, and looked back at
them.
The hotel servant was surprised at their not speaking to each other.
He was a stupid man; he thought the gentlefolks were strangely unlike
gentlefolks in general; they seemed not to know what to say. Herbert
happened to be standing nearest to him; he felt that it would be civil
to the gentleman to offer a word of explanation.
“The lady had these rooms, sir. She has come back from the station to
look for a book that has been left behind.”
Herbert signed to him to go. As the man turned to obey, he drew back.
Sydney had moved to the door before him, to leave the room. Herbert
refused to permit it. “Stay here,” he said to her gently; “this room is
yours.”
Sydney hesitated. Herbert addressed her again. He pointed to his
divorced wife. “You see how that lady is looking at you,” he said; “I
beg that you will not submit to insult from anybody.”
Sydney obeyed him: she returned to the room.
Catherine’s voice was heard for the first time. She addressed herself
to Sydney with a quiet dignity--far removed from anger, further removed
still from contempt.
“You were about to leave the room,” she said. “I notice--as an act of
justice to _you_--that my presence arouses some sense of shame.”
Herbert turned to Sydney; trying to recover herself, she stood near the
table. “Give me the book,” he said; “the sooner this comes to an end
the better for her, the better for us.” Sydney gave him the book. With a
visible effort, he matched Catherine’s self-control; after all, she had
remembered his gift! He offered the book to her.
She still kept her eyes fixed on Sydney--still spoke to Sydney.
“Tell him,” she said, “that I refuse to receive the book.”
Sydney attempted to obey. At the first words she uttered, Herbert
checked her once more.
“I have begged you already not to submit to insult.” He turned to
Catherine. “The book is yours, madam. Why do you refuse to take it?”
She looked at him for the first time. A proud sense of wrong flashed at
him its keenly felt indignation in her first glance. “Your hands and
her hands have touched it,” she answered. “I leave it to _you_ and to
_her_.”
Those words stung him. “Contempt,” he said, “is bitter indeed on your
lips.”
“Do you presume to resent my contempt?”
“I forbid you to insult Miss Westerfield.” With that reply, he turned to
Sydney. “You shall not suffer while I can prevent it,” he said tenderly,
and approached to put his arm round her. She looked at Catherine, and
drew back from his embrace, gently repelling him by a gesture.
Catherine felt and respected the true delicacy, the true penitence,
expressed in that action. She advanced to Sydney. “Miss Westerfield,”
she said, “I will take the book--from you.”
Sydney gave back the book without a word; in her position silence was
the truest gratitude. Quietly and firmly Catherine removed the blank
leaf on which Herbert had written, and laid it before him on the table.
“I return your inscription. It means nothing now.” Those words were
steadily pronounced; not the slightest appearance of temper accompanied
them. She moved slowly to the door and looked back at Sydney. “Make some
allowance for what I have suffered,” she said gently. “If I have wounded
you, I regret it.” The faint sound of her dress on the carpet was heard
in the perfect stillness, and lost again. They saw her no more.
Herbert approached Sydney. It was a moment when he was bound to assure
her of his sympathy. He felt for her. In his inmost heart he felt for
her. As he drew nearer, he saw tears in her eyes; but they seemed to
have risen without her knowledge. Hardly conscious of his presence, she
stood before him--lost in thought.
He endeavored to rouse her. “Did I protect you from insult?” he asked.
She said absently: “Yes!”
“Will you do as I do, dear? Will you try to forget?”
She said: “I will try to atone,” and moved toward the door of her
room. The reply surprised him; but it was no time then to ask for an
explanation.
“Would you like to lie down, Sydney, and rest?”
“Yes.”
She took his arm. He led her to the door of her room. “Is there anything
else I can do for you?” he asked.
“Nothing, thank you.”
She closed the door--and abruptly opened it again. “One thing more,” she
said. “Kiss me.”
He kissed her tenderly. Returning to the sitting-room, he looked back
across the passage. Her door was shut.
His head was heavy; his mind felt confused. He threw himself on the
sofa--utterly exhausted by the ordeal through which he had passed. In
grief, in fear, in pain, the time still comes when Nature claims her
rights. The wretched worn-out man fell into a restless sleep. He was
awakened by the waiter, laying the cloth for dinner. “It’s just ready,
sir,” the servant announced; “shall I knock at the lady’s door?”
Herbert got up and went to her room.
He entered softly, fearing to disturb her if she too had slept. No sign
of her was to be seen. She had evidently not rested on her bed. A morsel
of paper lay on the smooth coverlet. There was only a line written on
it: “You may yet be happy--and it may perhaps be my doing.”
He stood, looking at that last line of her writing, in the empty room.
His despair and his submission spoke in the only words that escaped him:
“I have deserved it!”
FIFTH BOOK.