Bending over the form of his lost wife, Henry Callandar forgot Esther.
His mind, careful of its sanity, removed her instantly from the
possibility of thought. She was gone--whisked away by some swift genie
and, with her, vanished the world of blue and gold inhabited by lovers.
There remained only that white, faded face among the daisies. With
careful hands he removed the crushed hat and loosened the collar at the
neck. It was Molly. Not a doubt of that. Not Molly as he remembered her
but Molly from whom the years had taken more than their toll, giving but
little in return. He could not think beyond this fact, as yet. And he
felt nothing, nothing at all. Both heart and mind lay mercifully numb
under the anaesthetic of the shock.
Deftly he did the few things necessary to restore the swooning woman,
noting with a doctor's eye the first faint flush of pink under the dead
white nails, then the flutter of breath through the parted lips and the
slow unclosing of the hazel eyes which, at sight of him, sprang widely,
vividly into life.
"Harry!" The name was the merest whisper and held a quiver of fear. He
remembered, stolidly, that just so had she whispered it upon the evening
of their hurried marriage.
"Yes, Molly. It is all right. Don't be frightened!"--Just so had he
soothed her.
She closed her eyes a moment while strength came back and then, raising
herself, slipped out of his arms with a little breathless movement of
avoidance. She seemed indeed to cower away and the fear in her eyes hurt
him with a physical pang. Instinctively he put out his hand to reassure
her, repeating his entreaty that she should not be frightened.
"But I am frightened!" Her voice was hoarse. "You terrified me! You had
no right to come like that. You should have let me know--sent
word--or--or something."
"Sent word?" He repeated the words, in a dazed way. "How could I? How
could I know?"
"How could you come if you didn't know?" Already the miracle of
readjustment which in women is so marvellously quick, had given back to
Mary Coombe something of her natural manner. Besides, she had always
known that some day he might find her--if he cared to look.
"Why should you come at all?" she flashed, raising defiant eyes. "The
time to come was long ago."
"I did come." Callandar spoke slowly. "I came--" he paused, for how
could he tell her that his coming had been to a house of death.
The bald answer, the strangeness of his gaze stirred her fear again. For
a moment they stared at each other, each busy with the shifting puzzle.
Then her quicker intuition abandoned the mystery of the present meeting
to straighten out the past.
"Then you followed the letter?"
"Yes, I followed the letter."
"And you saw her--my mother?"
"Yes, I saw your mother."
Impulsively he moved toward her but she shrank back, plainly terrified.
"Don't! I didn't know. I swear I did not know. I never saw the
letter--until last night. And I don't understand. What--what did my
mother tell you when you came?"
"There was only one thing which would have kept me from you, Molly."
"Only one thing? What?" she almost whispered.
"She told me you were dead."
The flash of understanding on her face showed that she, at least, had
shifted part of the puzzle into place.
"I see now," she said slowly, "I have wondered ever since I saw the
letter. But I did not think she would go that far. Yet it was the
simplest way. There was no date on the letter--but I guessed that it
must have come too late."
"Too late?"
"Yes, or she would never have dared. Besides she might not have wanted
to. She didn't know. I never had the courage to tell her. But if the
letter had come in time--"
She faltered, growing confused under his intense gaze.
"In time for what?" he prompted patiently.
She brushed the question aside.
"Did you believe her when she said that?"
"Yes. Why should I have doubted? It seemed to be the end. I fainted on
the doorstep. A long illness followed, when it was at its worst a friend
came--helped me to pull out. When I was well again, I searched for your
mother, employed detectives, but we never found her. Neither did we find
anything upon which to hang a doubt of what she had told me."
"No. She was very clever."
"But _why?_ For God's sake, why? Why should she lie to me? I had never
harmed her. We were married. I could give you a home. She knew it. I
told her. Why should she do this senseless, horrible thing?"
She looked at him with wide eyes and stammered,
"Don't--don't you know?"
A sense of some hitherto undreamed horror came to him with that
stammering whisper. The spur of it brought some of his firmness back.
"I do not know. There must have been a reason. You must tell me."
He forced her, through sheer will, to lift her eyes to his. They were
startled and sullen. With a start he saw, what he had missed before,
that this woman, his wife, was a stranger. But he had himself well in
hand now and his gaze did not falter. There was no escaping its demands.
Her answer came in a little burst of defiance.
"Yes, there was a reason. You may as well know it. Your letter and your
coming were both too late. I was married."
The doctor was not quick enough for this--
"Yes, of course you were, but--"
"Oh, not to you! Can't you understand? I was married to another man....
You need not look like that! What did you expect? I warned you. I knew I
could never defy mother. I told you so. But you said it wouldn't be
long--that she need never know. And I waited and waited. I could have
married more than once but I wouldn't. I faced mother and said I
wouldn't. But every time it was harder. I couldn't keep it up. And you
didn't come. Then when he came and we thought he was so rich she made me
marry him. She _made_ me. I thought you were never coming back anyway. I
wrote you once telling you to come. You didn't answer."
She paused breathless but he could find nothing to say. It seemed a
small thing that the letter must have missed him somewhere, his whole
mind was absorbed in trying to comprehend one stupendous fact. The
puzzle had shifted into place indeed.
"I thought you didn't care any more," her words raced as if eager to be
done, "and mother gave me no peace. You will never understand how
terrified I was of mother. And he seemed so kind and was going to be
rich. He owned part of a gold mine--mother was sure it would mean
millions. But it didn't. Mother was fooled there!" with a gleam of
malice. "The mine turned out to be worthless--after we were married."
Callandar drew a sharp breath and shook himself as if to throw off the
horror of some enthralling nightmare.
"You married him--this man--knowing that you were a wife already?"
"A fine sort of wife!" He quivered at the coarseness of meaning in her
tone. "We were never really married."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that it was all a farce. What's a ceremony? For all I knew it
wasn't even legal. When you did not answer my letter I thought that was
what your silence meant. I asked a girl to ask her father who was a
lawyer if a marriage was legal when the girl was under age and the
parents didn't know about it. He said sometimes it wasn't."
Callandar groaned. "And you married again--on that?"
"Yes. I had to, anyway. I couldn't hold out against mother. I daren't
tell her. She left us after the wedding, when the mine failed, and went
back to Cleveland. It was there she must have got your letter, and the
note I found last night. And when you came, she told you I was dead--to
save the scandal. She was always different after that, though I never
guessed why. It was a lie, you see, and mother was terrified of telling
lies. It was the only thing she was afraid of. She believed that liars
go to hell."
The tone in which she spoke of the probable torment of her mother was
quite without feeling. Callandar listened in fascinated wonder. Was this
Molly?--Pretty, kind-hearted Molly?
"I cannot understand," he said in a stifled voice. "It is all too
horrible! This man you married--"
"He is dead. He died a year ago. I thought at first that you must have
found out and that was why you came. I should have died of fright if you
had come while he was alive. He would never have understood--never! He
didn't like mother but he wasn't afraid of her. And I think that at last
he suspected that she had made me marry him for his money. But he was
always good. At first I was afraid all the time--oh, it was dreadful! I
think I have always been afraid--all my life--" Without warning she
threw her hands out wildly and broke into choking sobs, crying with the
abandon of a frightened child. Yet no one could have mistaken the
impulse of her grief. It was for herself she wept.
Was it possible that she was a child still? A child in spite of her
woman's knowledge, and the dulled lustre of her hair? Callandar
remembered grimly that Molly's views of right and wrong had always been
peculiarly simple. She had never wished to do wrong, but when she had
done it, it had never seemed so very wrong to her. Her greatest dread
had always been the dread of other people's censure.
"Don't cry," he said gently.
She must have felt the change in his voice, for although her sobs
redoubled she did not again shrink from the hand he laid upon her hair.
It was all over. She had told him the truth. Surely he must see that he
was the one to blame, not she.
After a while she dried her eyes and looked up at him timidly but with
restored confidence.
"People need never know now!" she said more calmly.
"People? Do people matter?"
She picked a daisy and began nervously to strip it of its petals--a pang
of agony caught at the man's heart. So, only that morning, had he
imagined himself consulting the daisy oracle. "She loves me, she loves
me not." Absolutely he put the memory from him. Molly was speaking.
"People do matter. They make things so unpleasant. Not that I care as
much about them as I used to; but still, one has to be careful. People
are so prying, always wanting to know things," she glanced around
nervously, "but let's not talk about them. I don't understand things
yet. How did you find me, if you thought I was--dead?"
"Accident, if there be such a thing. I was driving down the road. I am
living in the town near here--in Coombe!"
"But you can't! I live in Coombe. It is my home. There isn't a Chedridge
in the place."
"My name is not Chedridge now. I took my uncle's name when I inherited
his money. I am called Henry Callandar."
"Callandar!" Her voice rose shrilly on the word. "And you are living in
Coombe? Why you are--you must be--Esther's Dr. Callandar!"
The man went deathly white, yet his enormous self-control, the fruit of
years, held him steady.
Mary Coombe began to laugh weakly. "Why, of course, that explains it
all, don't you see? Haven't you placed me yet? Esther is my
step-daughter. The man I married was Doctor Coombe."
"Good God!" The exclamation was revelation enough had Mary Coombe heard
it. But she did not hear it; this new aspect of the situation had seemed
to her so farcical that her laughter threatened to become hysterical.
"Oh, it's so funny!" she gasped.
It was certainly funny--such a good joke! The Doctor thought he might as
well laugh too. But at the sound of his laughter, hers abruptly ceased.
"Don't do that!"
He tried to control himself. It was hard. He wanted to shriek with
laughter. Esther's step-mother, the mysterious Mrs. Coombe, was
Molly--his wife! Some mocking demon shouted into his ears the words he
had intended to say to her when he came to tell her that he and Esther
loved each other. He thought of his own high mood of the morning, of the
tender regret which he had laid away with the dead of the dead past. It
seemed as if all the world were rocking with diabolic laughter--Fate
plans such amusing things!
He caught himself up--madness lay that way.
"Please don't laugh!" said Mrs. Coombe a trifle fretfully. "At least not
so loudly. You startle me. My nerves are so wretched. And anyway it's
more serious than you seem to think. We shall have to discuss ways of
managing so that people will not know. Your being already acquainted
with Esther will help. It will make your coming to the house quite
natural. But it will be better to admit that we knew each other years
ago, were boy and girl friends or something like that. Your change of
name and my marriage will explain perfectly why we did not know each
other until we met. Nobody will go behind that. They will think it quite
romantic. The only one we need be afraid of is Esther. She is so quick
to notice--"
She did not know about Esther then? She had never guessed that the girl
was more to him than a mere acquaintance. Thank God for that! And thank
God, above all, that the worst had not happened--Esther herself did not
know, would never know now--
"I believe it can come quite naturally after all," Mary went on more
cheerfully. "No one will wonder at anything if we say we are old
friends. And we can be specially careful with Esther. I wouldn't have
her know for anything. She is like her father. She would never
understand. She doesn't know what it is to be afraid, as I was afraid of
my mother. Do you think it is wicked that sometimes I'm glad she is
dead, mother, I mean?"
He answered with an effort. "You used to be fond of your mother, Molly."
"Oh, don't call me Molly. Call me Mary. It will sound much better. No
one has ever heard me called Molly here. If Esther heard it she would
wonder at once. You will be careful, won't you?"
"Yes. I shall be careful." He had not heard what she said, save that she
had mentioned Esther's name. Rather he was thinking with a gratitude
which shook his very soul that fate had at least spared the innocent.
Esther was safe. She did not love him. He felt sure of that now. Strange
irony, that his deepest thankfulness should be that Esther did not
love him.
A small hand fell like a feather upon his arm.
"Harry!"
"Yes, Molly!"
He looked down into her quivering face and saw in it, dimly, the face of
the girl in his locket, not a mere outward semblance this time but the
soul of Molly Weston, reaching out to him across the years. Her light
touch on his arm was the very shackle of fate. Her glance claimed him.
Nothing that she had done could modify that claim--the terrible claim of
weakness upon the strength which has misled it.
Vaguely he felt that this was the test, the ultimate test. If he failed
now he was lost indeed. Something within him reached out blindly for the
strength he had dreamed was his, found it, clutched it desperately--knew
that it held firm.
He took the slight figure in his arms, felt that it still trembled and
said the most comforting thing he could think of. "Don't worry, Molly.
No one will ever know."