But Mary was quite mistaken--as absolute logic is apt to be when dealing
with human beings. Camelia, indeed, had gone to Perior, but on a very
different errand from the one Mary's imagination painted for her.
Camelia was not thinking of herself, nor of throwing off the iron chains
of that responsibility with which she felt herself manacled for life.
Mary's story had crushed every thought of self, beyond that
consciousness of riveted guilt. It was of Mary alone she thought as she
galloped through the mist. With terror and pity infinite she looked upon
Mary's love and the approaching death that was to end it; their tragedy
filled everything, and at the feet of the majestic presences her own
personality only felt itself as a cowering criminal. It was as though
the ocean of another's suffering had flooded the complacent rivers of
her life. They overflowed their narrow channels; they were engulfed,
effaced in the mighty desolation; never again could they find their
flowering banks, their sunny horizons.
This moan of a suffering universe, heard before only in vaguest
whispers, the minor key of the happy melody that she had known, making
the melody all the sweeter for its half-realized web of sadness--this
moan was now like the tumult of great waters above her head, and a loud
outcrying of her awakened soul answered it. She was guilty--yes, as
guilty as Mary knew her to be, for all the mistaken deductions of Mary's
ignorance. She loved Perior, and he did _not_ love her; but those facts
in no way touched the other unalterable facts--a cruelty, a selfishness,
a blindness, hideous beyond words.
Yet now she did not think of this guilt, irrevocable as it was.
Mary--Mary--Mary. The horse's hoofs seemed to beat out the cry! Mary and
her fate. Camelia stood with Mary against that fate; but her attitude of
rebellion was even fiercer, more determined than poor Mary's flickering
light could have sustained. Mary good--with nothing. Virtue _not_ its
own reward. Suffering, crushing, unmerited suffering, eating away the
poor empty life. She herself bad, and the world at her feet. Camelia
felt herself capable of taking the immoral universe by the throat and
shaking it to death--herself along with it.
She was galloping for help, yes, to Perior. He must help her, he alone
could help her, to clutch the malignant cruelty, tear it off Mary, and
then give her some gleam of happiness before she died. Camelia
straightened herself in the saddle at the thought. "She shall not die,"
clenched her teeth on the determination. She might be saved. Who could
tell? One heard of wonderful cures. And at least, at least, she should
not die unhappy. Camelia would wrench happiness for her out of despair
itself. She would fight the injustice of the gods until her last breath
left her.
All the pitiful humanity in Camelia clung to the human hope of
retribution and reward. Her mind fixed in this desperate hope, she could
take no thought of the coming interview; that would have implied a
retrospective glance at her last visit to the Grange, and Camelia could
not think of herself, nor even of Perior.
The Grange was desolate on its background of leafless trees. Camelia, as
she dismounted at the door, looked down at the whiteness which brimmed
the valley; the tree-tops emerged from it as from a flood; but where she
stood there was no mist--a clear, sad air, and a few faint patches of
blue in a colorless sky above. She rang, holding the horse's reins over
her arm. Her habit was heavy with the wet, and her loosened hair clung
damply about her throat and forehead. Old Lane, when he appeared, showed
some alarm. She could infer from his expression what her own must be.
"Mr. Perior? Yes, Miss; in the laboratory with Job Masters. Just go up,
Miss, and I'll take the horse round to the stables."
The laboratory was at the top of the house. Camelia found herself
panting from the swiftness of her ascension when she reached the door.
Entering, she faced the white light from the wide expanse of window,
which overlooked on bright days miles of wooded, rolling country, to-day
the sea of mist. Perior's back was to her, and he was bending with an
intent interest over a microscope; a collection of glass jars was on the
table, and Job Masters, his elementary features lit by the intelligent
gravity of close attention, was standing beside him. Perior was
saying--
"Now, Job, take a look at it." His gray head did not turn.
"It's Miss Paton, sir," Job volunteered. At that Perior rose hastily,
and Camelia advancing, looked vaguely at Job, at the microscope, at the
jars of infusoria.
A thought of the last visit had shot painfully through Perior on hearing
her name, but, after one stare at her white face, his fear, freed from
any selfish terror, took on a sympathetic acuteness.
"I must speak to you," she said.
"Very well. You may go, Job," and as Job's heavy footsteps passed beyond
the door, "What is it, Camelia?" he asked, holding her hands, his
anxiety questioning her eyes.
For a moment, the press of all that must be said crowding upon her, of
all that must be said with a self-control that must not waver or
misinterpret through weakness, Camelia could not speak. She looked at
him with a certain helplessness.
"Sit down, you are faint," said Perior, greatly alarmed, but, shaking
her head, she only put her hand on the back of a chair he brought
forward.
"I have something terrible to tell you, Michael." That she should use
his name impressed him even more than her announcement, emphasized the
gravity of the situation in which he was to find himself with her. In
the ensuing pause their eyes met with a preparatory solemnity.
"Michael, Mary is dying." He saw then that her eyes seized him with a
deep severity of demand. The shock, though not unexpected, found him
unprepared.
"She knows it?" he asked.
"Yes, she knows it. Listen. She told me everything. It was more horrible
than you can imagine. She told me how cruel I had been to her--how I had
neglected her--how I had cut again and again into her very soul. She
hates me, she hates her life, but she is afraid of death. She is not
going to die happily, hopefully, as one would have thought Mary would
die. She is dying desperately and miserably, for she sees that being
good means merely being trodden on by the bad. She has had nothing, and
she regrets everything." Perior dropped again into the chair by the
table. He covered his eyes with his hands.
"Poor child! Unhappy child!" he said.
The shuddering horror of the morning came over Camelia. She clasped her
hands, pressing them against her lips. It seemed to her suddenly that
she must scream.
"What does it mean? What does a life like that mean?" Her eyes, in all
their helpless guilt and terror, met his look of non-absolving pity.
"It means that if one is good one is often trodden upon. We must accept
the responsibility for Mary's unhappiness. My poor Camelia," Perior
added, in tones of saddest comprehension, and he stretched out his hand
to her. But Camelia stood still.
"Accept it!" she cried, and her voice was sharp with the repressed
scream. "Do you think I am trying to shirk it? Do you think that I do
not see that it is I--_I_, who trod upon her? Don't say 'We'; say 'You,'
as you think it. You need have no compunctions. I could have made her
happy--happier, at least, and I have made her miserable. I have
done--said--looked the cruellest things--confiding in her stupid
insensibility. I have crushed her year after year. I am worse than a
murderer. Don't talk of me--even to accuse me; don't think of me, but
think of _her_. Oh, Michael! let us think of her! Help me to mend--a
little--the end of it all!"
"Mend it?" He looked at her, taken aback by her words, the strange
insistence of her eyes. "One can't, Camelia--one can't atone for those
things."
"Then you mean to say that life _is_ the horror she sees it to be? She
sees it! There is the pity--the awful pity of it! Not even a merciful
blindness, not even the indifference of weakness! Morality is a gibe
then? Goodness goes for nothing--is trampled in the mud by the herd of
apes snatching for themselves! That is the world, then!" The fierce
scorn of her voice claimed him as umpire. Perior put his hand to his
head with a gesture of discouragement.
"That is the world--as far as we can see it."
"And there is no hope? no redemption?"
"Not unless we make it ourselves--not unless the ape loses his
characteristics." He paused, and a deepened pity entered his voice as he
added, "You have lost them, Camelia."
"Yes; I can hear the canting moralist now, with his noisome explanation
of vice and misery. Mary has been sacrificed to save _my_ soul,
forsooth! _My_ soul!"
"Yes." Perior's monosyllable held neither assent nor repudiation.
"Yes? And what does my miserable soul count for against her starved and
broken life?"
"I don't know. That is for you to say."
"I say that if virtue is to give a reward to vice, life is a nightmare."
Perior again put his hands over his eyes. The thought of poor Mary,
conscious of injustice, the sight of Camelia writhing in retributory
flames, made him feel shattered.
"But I didn't come to talk about my problematic soul," said Camelia in
an altered voice; "I came to tell you about Mary." She approached him,
and stood over him as she spoke, so that he looked up quickly.
"She will probably be dead in a month. She knows it; and, Michael, she
loves you." Perior flushed a deep red, but Camelia whitened to the lips.
He would have risen; she put her hand on his shoulder.
"Impossible!" he said.
"No, listen. She told me. She lashed me with it this morning--that
hopeless love--for she thinks that you love me--thinks that I am playing
with you. She loves you. She has loved you for years."
"Don't say it, Camelia!" Perior cried brokenly. "Mary's disease explains
hysteria--melancholia--a pitiful fancy--that will pass--that should
never have been told to me."
"Ah, don't shirk it!" her hand pressed heavily on his shoulder. "Her
disease made her tell me, I grant you, but you could not have doubted
had you heard her!--as I did! You understand that she must never
know--that I have told you."
"I understand that, necessarily, and I must ask you from what motive
you think your revelation justified; it must be a strong one, for I
confess that the revelation seems to me unjustifiable--cruelly so."
"I have a strong motive."
"You did not come to pour out to me the full extent of poor Mary's
misfortune for the selfish sake of relieving, by confession, your
self-reproach? And, indeed, in this matter I cannot see that you are
responsible. It is a cruelty of fate, not yours."
Camelia looked away from him for a moment, looked at the microscope. A
swift flicker of shame went through her, one thought of self, then,
resolutely raising her eyes, she said, "Am I not at all responsible? Are
you sure of that?"
"Responsible for Mary loving me?" Perior stared, losing for a moment, in
amazement, his deep and painful confusion.
"No; that is fate, if you will. But had I not come back last summer, had
I not claimed you, monopolized you, absorbed you. Ah! you are flushing;
don't be ashamed for me! I swear to you, Michael, that I am not giving
myself a thought, had I not set myself to work to make love to
you--there is the fact;--don't look away, I can bear it--can you tell me
that Mary might not have had the chance she so deserved, of slipping
sweetly and naturally into your heart--becoming your wife?"
"Camelia!" Perior turned white. "I never loved Mary, never could have
loved her. Does that relieve you?" He keenly eyed her.
"Don't accuse me of seeking relief! That is a cruelty I don't deserve.
If you never could have loved Mary, it is even more dreadful for me--for
it is still crueller for Mary. That she should love you. That you
should not care! could never have cared!"
At this Perior rose and walked up and down the room. "Don't!" he
repeated several times. His wonder at Camelia interfused intolerably his
sorrow for Mary.
Camelia followed him with steady eyes. The eagerness of decisive appeal
seemed to burn her lips as she said slowly--
"Ah, had you seen her! Had you heard her crying out that she was
dying--that she loved you--that you did not care!"
"You must not say that." Perior stopped and looked at her sternly, "I am
not near enough. It is a desecration."
"Ah! but how can I help her if I don't? How can _you_ help her? For it
is you, Michael, _you_. Can't you see it? You are noble enough.
Michael--you will marry Mary! Oh!"--at his start, his white look of
stupefaction, she flew to him, grasped his hands--"Oh, you must--you
_must_. You can make her happy--you only! And you will--say you will.
You cannot let her die in this misery! Say you cannot, Michael--oh, say
it!" And, suddenly breathless, panting, her look flashed out the full
significance of her demand. In all its stupefaction Perior's face still
retained something of its sternness, but he drew her hands to his
breast. "Camelia, you are mad," he said.
"Mad?" she repeated. Her eyes scorned him; then, rapidly resuming their
appealing dignity, "You can't hesitate before such a chance for making
your whole life worth while."
"Quite _mad_, Camelia," he repeated with emphasis. "I could not act such
a lie," he added.
"A lie! To love, cherish that dying child! A better lie than most
truths, then! You are not a coward--surely. You will not let her die
so."
"Indeed I must. Any pretence would be an insult. As it is, if Mary could
see you here, she would want to kill us both."
"Not if she understood," said Camelia, curbing the vehemence of her
terrified supplication, the very terror warning her to calm. "And what
more would there be in it to hurt her?"
"That _I_ should know--and should refuse. Good God!"
"Where is the disgrace?" Camelia's eyes gazed at him fixedly. "Then we
are both disgraced--Mary and I." Her smile, bitterly impersonal, offered
itself to no interpretations, yet before it he steadied his face with an
effort. He could not silence her by the truth--that he loved her, her
alone; loved now her high, frowning look, her passionate espousal of
another's cause. Mary's tragic presence sealed his lips. He said
nothing, and Camelia's eyes, as they searched this chilling silence,
incredulous of its cruel resolve, filled suddenly and piteously with
tears.
"Oh, Michael," she faltered. Scorn and defiance dropped from her face;
he saw only the human soul trembling with pity and hope. He did not dare
trust himself to speak--he could not answer her. Holding her hands
against his breast, he looked at her very sorrowfully.
"Listen to me, Michael. I mustn't expect you to feel it yet as I
do--must I? That would be impossible. I only ask you to _think_. You see
the pathos, the beauty of Mary's love for you! for years--growing in her
narrow life. Think how a smile from you must have warmed her heart--a
look, a little kindness. She adores you. And this consciousness of
death, this nearing parting from you--you who do not care--leaving even
the dear sight of you. Think of her going out alone, unloved, into the
darkness--the everlasting darkness and silence--with never one word, one
touch, one smile, to hold in her heart as hers, meant for her, with
love. Oh, I see it hurts you!--you are sorry; oh, blessed tears! You
cannot bear it, can you? Michael, you will not let her go uncomforted?
She is not strong, or brave, or confident. She is sick, weak,
terrified--a screaming, shuddering child carried away in the night.
Michael!"--it was a cry; she clasped his hands in hers--"you will walk
beside her. You will kiss her, love her, and she will die happy--with
her hand in yours!" Her eyes sought his wildly. He had never loved her
as he loved her now, and though his tears were for Mary, the power, the
freedom of his love for Camelia was a joy to him even in the midst of a
great sadness. He could not have kissed her or put his arms around her;
the dignity of her abasement was part of the new, the sacred loveliness,
and it was more in pity than in love that he took the poor, distraught,
beautiful face between his hands and looked at her a negation, pitiful
and inarticulate. She closed her eyes. He saw that she would not accept
the bitterness.
"I will do all I can," he then said; "but, dear Camelia, dearest
Camelia, I cannot marry her."
It was a strange echo. Camelia drew away from him.
"What can you _do_? She knows you are her friend; that only hurts."
"Does it?" He saw now, through the unconscious revelation, the greatness
of her love for him, and saw that in the past he had not understood. She
loved him so much that there was left her not a thought of self. Her
whole nature was merged in the passionate wish that he should fulfil her
highest ideal of him. He saw that she would have laid down her life for
him--or for Mary, as she stood there, and, for Mary, she expected an
equal willingness on his side.
"It would only be an agony to her," Camelia said; "she would fear every
moment that she would betray herself to you, as she betrayed herself to
me. Can't you see that? Understand that?" Desperately she reiterated:
"You must pretend! You must lie! You must tell her that you love her!
You must marry her, take her away to some beautiful country--there are
places where they live for years; make a paradise about her. You
_must_." She looked sternly at him.
"No, Camelia, no."
"You mean that basest no?" She was trembling, holding herself erect as
she confronted him; her white face, narrowly framed by the curves of
loosened hair, tragic with its look of reprobation.
"I mean it. I will not. You will see that I am right. It would be a
cruel folly, a dastardly kindness, a final insult from fate. And I do
not think only of Mary--I think of myself; I could not lie like that."
Her silent woe and scorn, frozen now to a bleak despair, dwelt on him
for a long moment, then, without another word, she turned from him and
left him, making, by the majesty of her defeated wrong, his victorious
right look ugly.