The weeks rolled by, and gradually Mrs. Mason grew convalescent. She
was still confined to her room, but the worst of the pain was over, and
she could lie on the sofa by the fireside and have Berkeley read aloud
to her in the evenings. Blanche, if she happened to be there, would
sit on a low chair beside the sofa, busy with some delicate bit of
fancy work, and later in the evening Berke would take her home.
Sometimes Pocahontas would bring her work and listen, or pretend to
listen, with the rest, but oftener she would go into the parlor and
play dreamily to herself for hours. She had taken up her music
industriously and practiced hard in her spare moments.
She had been playing a long time one evening in April, and had left the
piano for a low chair beside the open fire. She was tired. Although
spring had come, the evenings were chill and the room was large. Her
hands were cold and she spread them out to the blaze. The heavy
curtains billowed and sank and billowed again, as intrusive puffs of
wind crept officiously through the crevices of the old casements.
Blanche and Berkeley were with her mother, and they were reading "Lorna
Doone." She had read the book a week ago, and did not care to hear it
over.
The front door opened quietly--it was always on the latch--and
footsteps came along the hall; quick, eager footsteps, straight to the
parlor door; the knob turned. No need to turn her head, no need to
question of her heart whose step, whose hand that was, to guess whose
presence filled the room.
Thorne came across the room, and stood opposite, a great light of joy
in his eyes, his hands outstretched for hers. Benumbed with many
emotions, Pocahontas half-rose, an inarticulate murmur dying on her
lips. Thorne put her gently back into her chair, and drew one for
himself up to the hearth-rug near her; he was willing to keep silence
for a little space, to give her time to recover herself; he was
satisfied for the moment with the sense of her nearness, and his heart
was filled with the joy of seeing her once more. The lamps were lit,
but burning dimly. Thorne rose and turned both to their fullest
brilliancy; he must have light to see his love.
"I want to look at you, Princess," he said gently, seeking her eyes,
with a look in his not to be misunderstood; "it has been so long--so
cruelly long, my darling, since I have looked on your sweet face. You
must not call the others. For this first meeting I want but you--you
only, my love! my queen!" His voice lingered over the terms of
endearment with exquisite tenderness.
Pocahontas was silent--for her life she could not have spoken then.
Her gray eyes had an appealing, terrified look as they met his; her
trembling hands clasped and unclasped in her lap.
"How frightened you look, my darling," Thorne murmured, speaking softly
and keeping a tight rein over himself. "Your eyes are like a startled
fawn's. Have I been too abrupt--too thoughtless and inconsiderate?
You would forgive me, love, if you knew how I have longed for you; have
yearned for this meeting as Dives yearned for water--as the condemned
yearn for reprieve. Have you no smile for me, sweetheart?--no word of
welcome for the man whose heaven is your love? You knew I would come.
You knew I loved you, Princess."
"Yes;"--the word was breathed, rather than uttered, but he heard it,
and made a half movement forward, the light in his eyes glowing more
passionately. Still, he held himself in check; he would give her time.
"You knew I loved you, Princess," he repeated. "Yes, you must have
known. Love like mine could not be concealed; it _must_ burn its way
through all obstacles from my heart to yours, melting and fusing them
into one. Don't try to speak yet, love, there is no need to answer
unless you wish. I can wait--for I am near you."
Pocahontas rallied her forces resolutely, called up her pride, her
womanhood, her sense of the wrong he had done her. If she should give
way an instant--if she should yield a hair's breadth, she would be
lost. The look in his eyes, the tenderness of his voice, appeared to
sap the foundations of her resolution and to turn her heart to wax
within her.
"Why have you come?" she wailed, her tone one of passionate reproach.
"Had you not done harm enough? Why have you come?"
Thorne started slightly, but commanded himself. It was the former
marriage; the divorce; she felt it keenly--every woman must; some
cursed meddler had told her.
"My darling," he answered, with patient tenderness, "you know why I
have come--why it was impossible for me to keep away. I love you,
Princess, as a man loves but once in his life. Will you come to me?
Will you be my wife?"
The girl shook her head, and moved her hand with a gesture of denial;
words she had none.
"I know of what you are thinking, Princess. I know the idea that has
taken possession of your mind. You have heard of my former marriage,
and you know that the woman who was my wife still lives. Is it not
so?" She bent her head in mute assent. Thorne gazed at her pale,
resolute face with his brows knit heavily, and then continued:
"Listen to me, Princess. That woman--Ethel Ross--is my wife no longer,
even in name; she ceased to be my wife in fact two years ago. Our
lives have drifted utterly asunder. It was her will, and I acquiesced
in it, for she had never loved me, and I--when my idiotic infatuation
for her heartless, diabolical beauty passed, had ceased to love her.
At last, even my presence became a trouble to her, which she was at no
pains to conceal. The breach between us widened with the years, until
nothing remained to us but the galling strain of a useless fetter. Now
that is broken, and we are free,"--there was an exultant ring in his
voice, as though his freedom were precious to him.
"Were you bound, or free, that night at Shirley?" questioned the girl,
slowly and steadily.
A flush crept warmly over Thorne's dark face, and lost itself in the
waves of his hair. He realized that he would meet with more opposition
here than he had anticipated. No matter; the prize was worth fighting
for--worth winning at any cost. His determination increased with the
force opposed to it, and so did his desire.
"In heart and thought I was free, but in _fact_ I was bound," he
acknowledged. "The words I spoke on the steps that night escaped me
unaware. I was tortured by jealousy, and tempted by love. I had no
right to speak them then; nothing can excuse or palliate the weakness
which allowed me to. I should have waited until I could come to you
untrammeled--as now. I attempt no justification of my madness,
Princess. I have no excuse but my love, and can only sue for pardon.
You will forgive me, sweetheart"--using the old word tenderly--"for the
sake of my great love. It's my only plea"--his voice took a pleading
tone as he advanced the plea hardest of all for a woman to steel her
heart against.
Pocahontas gazed at him in bewilderment, her mind grappling with an
idea that appalled her, her face blanching with apprehension, and her
form cowering as from an expected blow.
"Must I understand, Mr. Thorne, that love for _me_ suggested the
thought of divorcing your wife?" she questioned hoarsely--"that _I_
came between you and caused this horrible thing? It is _not_--it _can
not_ be true. God above! Have I fallen so low?--am I guilty of this
terrible sin?"
Thorne's quick brain recognized instantly the danger of allowing this
idea to obtain possession of her mind. Fool! he thought furiously, why
had not he been more cautious, more circumspect. Dextrously he set
himself to remove the idea or weaken its force--to prove her guiltless
in her own eyes.
"Princess," he said, meeting the honest, agonized eyes squarely, "I
want to tell you the story of my marriage with Ethel Ross, and of my
subsequent life with her. I had not intended to harass you with it
until later--if at all; but now, I deem it best you should become
acquainted with it, and from my lips. It will explain many things."
Then he briefly related all the miserable commonplace story. He
glossed over nothing, palliated nothing; bearing hardly now on his
wife, and again on himself, but striving to show throughout how opposed
to true marriage was this marriage, how far removed from a perfect
union was this union. Pocahontas listened with intense, strained
interest, following every word, sometimes almost anticipating them.
Her heart ached for him--ached wearily. Life had been so hard upon
him; he had suffered so. With a woman's involuntary hardness to woman,
she raised the blame from Thorne's shoulders and heaped it upon those
of his wife. Her love and her sympathy became his advocates and
pleaded for him at the bar of her judgment. Her heart yearned over him
with infinite compassion.
If Thorne had kept silence, and left the matter there, and waited until
she should have adapted herself to the new conditions, should have
assimilated the new influences, which crowded thick upon her, it would
have been better. But he could not keep silent--he had no patience to
wait. He could not realize that the things which were as a thrice-told
tale to _him_, had an overwhelming newness for _her_. That the
influences which had molded his thought, were very far removed from the
influences which had made _her_ what she was. He could not understand
that, while the world had progressed, this isolated community had
remained stationary, and that the principles and rules of conduct among
them, still, were those which had governed _his_ world in the beginning
of the century.
He saw that her sympathy had been aroused, that she suffered for, and
with, him, and he could not forbear from striving to push the
advantage. He went on speaking earnestly; he demonstrated that this
marriage which had proved so disastrous was in truth no marriage, and
that its annulment was just and right, for where there was no love, he
argued, there could be no marriage. With all the sophistry; with all
the subtle arguments of which he was master--and they were neither weak
nor few--he assailed her. Every power of his brilliant intellect,
every weapon of his mental armory, all the force of his indomitable
will was brought to bear upon her--and brought to bear in vain.
Calm, pale, resolute, she faced him--her clear eyes meeting his, her
nervous hands folded tightly together. She would not give way. In
their earnestness both had risen, and they stood facing each other on
the hearth-rug, their eyes nearly on a level. The man's hand rested on
the mantle, and quivered with the intensity of his excitement; the
woman's hung straight before her, motionless, but wrung together until
the knuckles showed hard through the tense skin. She would NOT give
way.
Thorne was startled and perplexed. Opposition he was prepared for,
argument he could meet and possibly refute, tears and reproaches he
could subdue--but dumb, quiet resistance baffled him. Suddenly he
abandoned reason, cast self-control to the winds, and gave the reins to
feeling. If he could not convince her through the head, he would try a
surer road--the heart. Though proof against argument, would she be
proof against love? He knew she loved him; he felt it in every fiber
of his being, every pulse of his heart--and he was determined to win
her at all hazards; his she must be; his she _should_ be.
"My love!" he murmured, extending his arms with an appealing tenderness
of look and gesture. "Come to me. Lay your sweet face on my breast,
your dear arms around my neck. I need you, Princess; my heart cries
out for you, and will not be denied. I can not live without you. You
are mine--mine alone, and I claim your love; claim your life. What is
that woman? What is any woman to me, save you, my darling--you only?
My love! My love! It is my very life for which I am pleading. Have
you no pity? No love for the man whose heart is calling you to come?"
Pocahontas shivered, and bent slightly forward--her face was white as
death, her eyes strange and troubled. The strength and fire of his
passion drew her toward him as a magnet draws steel. Was she yielding?
Would she give way?
Suddenly she started erect again, and drew back a step. All the
emotions, prejudices, thoughts of her past life; all the principles,
scruples, influences, amid which she had been reared, crowded back on
her and asserted their power. She could _not_ do this thing. A chasm
black as the grave, hopeless as death, yawned at her feet; a barrier as
high as heaven erected itself before her.
"I can not come," she wailed in anguish. "Have you no mercy?--no pity
for me? There is a barrier between us that I dare not level; a chasm I
can not cross."
"There is _no_ barrier," responded Thorne, vehemently, "and I will
acknowledge none. I am a free man; you are a free woman, and there is
no law, human or divine, to keep us asunder, save the law of your own
will. If there be a chasm--which I do not see; which I swear does not
exist--_I_ will cross it. If you can not come to me, I can come to
you; and I _will_. You are _mine_, and I will hold you--here in my
arms, on my breast, in my heart. Have you, and hold you, so help me
God!"
With a quick stride he crossed the small space between them, and stood
close, but still not touching her.
"Have you no pity?" she moaned.
"None," he answered hoarsely. "Have you any for me?--for us both? I
love you--how well, God knows, I was not aware until to-night--and you
love me I hope and believe. There is nothing between us save an idle
scruple, which even the censorious world does not share. I ask you to
commit no sin; to share no disgrace. I ask you to be my wife before
the face of day; before the eyes of men; in the sight of heaven!"
Could she be his wife in the sight of heaven? It was all so strange to
her, she could not understand. Words, carelessly heard and scarcely
heeded, came back to her, and rung their changes in her brain with
ceaseless iteration. It was like a knell.
"Nesbit?" she said wearily, using his name unconsciously, "listen and
understand me. In the eyes of the law, and of men you are free; but I
can not see it so. In my eyes you are still bound."
"I am _not_ bound," denied Thorne, fiercely, bringing his hand down
heavily on the mantle; "whoever tells you that I am, lies, and the
truth is not in him. I've told you all--and yet not all. Ethel Ross,
the woman who was my wife--whom _you_ say is my wife still--is about to
marry again. To join her life--as free and separate from mine as
though we had never met--to the life of another man. Isn't that
enough? Can't you see how completely every tie between us is severed?"
Pocahontas shook her head. "I can not understand you, and you will not
understand me," she said mournfully; "her sin will not lessen our sin;
nor her unholy marriage make ours pure and righteous."
Thorne stamped his foot. "Do you wish to madden me?" he exclaimed;
"there is no sin, I tell you; nor would our marriage be unholy. You
are torturing us both for nothing on God's earth but a scruple. I've
argued, reasoned, and pleaded with you, and you refuse to weigh the
argument, to listen to the reason, to yield to the persuasion. You are
hard, and opinionated, and obstinate. You set up your individual
judgment against the verdict of the world and deem it infallible. You
are hard to yourself, and cruelly hard to me, for, as there is a God in
heaven, I believe you love me, even as I love you. Oh, my love! my
love!" his voice melted, his arms closed around her. "Why do you try
me beyond my strength? Why are you so cruel to us both? See; I hold
you safely; your heart beats on mine; your dear face is on my breast.
Stay with me, my darling, my own, my wife;" and soft, clinging
passionate kisses pressed down on hair, and cheek, and lips; kisses
that burned like flame, that thrilled like strong wine.
For a moment Pocahontas lay quietly in his arms, lulled into
quiescence. Then she wrenched herself free, and moved away from him.
It had been said of her that she could be hard upon occasion; the
occasion had arisen, and she _was_ hard.
"Go!" she said, her face wan as ashes, but her voice firm; "it is you
who are cruel; you who are blind and obstinate. You will neither see
nor understand why this thing may not be. I have showed you my
thought, and you will not bend; implored you to have pity, and you are
merciless. And yet you talk of love! You love me, and would sacrifice
me to your love; love me, and would break down the bulwarks I have been
taught to consider righteous, to gratify your love. I do not
understand; love seemed to me so different, so noble and unselfish.
Leave me; I am tired; I want to think it out alone."
Thorne stood silent, his head bent in thought. "Yes," he said
presently; "it will be better so. You are overwrought, and your mind
is worn with excitement; you need rest. To-morrow, next week, the week
after, this matter will wear a different aspect. I can wait, and I
will come again. It will be different then."
"It will never be different," the voice was low; the gray eyes had a
hopeless look.
Thorne repeated his assertion in the gentle, persistent tone of one who
is patient with the unreasonableness of a frightened child. His
determination to win success never faltered, rather it hardened with
opposition into adamant; but he was beginning to realize his blunder.
He had overwhelmed her; had brought about an upheaval of her world so
violent that, in her bewilderment, her dread of chaos, she
instinctively laid hold on the old supports and clung to them with
desperation. She must have time to think, to familiarize herself with
the strange emotions, to adapt herself to the changed conditions. Only
one other thing would he say. He held in reserve a card which he knew,
ere now, had proved all powerful with conscientious women. To gain his
end, he would stop at nothing; he took both her hands in his, and
played his card deliberately.
"Think over it well," he said, "weigh every argument, test every
scruple. My life is in your hands. I am not a religious man, nor a
good man, but you can make me both. Give me the heaven that I crave,
the heaven of your love, and I will be by it ennobled into faith in
that other heaven, of which it will be the foretaste. But refuse; deny
the soul that cries out to you; thrust aside the hands that seek to
clasp you, as the truest, noblest, holiest thing they have ever
touched, and--on your head be it. I have placed the responsibility in
your hands and there it rests."
With a lingering look into her eyes and a fervent pressure of her
hands, he turned and slowly left the room.
Back to the mind of the girl, standing motionless where he had left
her, came, unwished and unbidden, the memory of a summer night out
yonder beside the flowing river. She seemed to see again, the swaying
of the branches in the moonlight, and to hear the lulling wash of the
water against the shore; to hear also, a quiet, manly voice fighting
down its pain, lest the knowledge of it should wound her, saying,
simply and bravely: "Don't be unhappy about me, dear. I'll worry
through the pain in time, or grow accustomed to it. It's tough just at
first, but I'll pull through somehow. It shall not spoil my life
either, although it must mar it; a man must be a pitiful fellow who
lets himself go to the bad because the woman he loves won't have him.
God means every man to hold up his own weight in this world. I'd as
soon knock a woman down as throw the blame of a wasted life upon her."
Plain words, poorly arranged and simply spoken, for the man who uttered
them was not clever; but brave, manly words, for all that. The girl
turned from the unwelcome memory with a sharp, impatient sigh that was
almost a groan. It pained her.