"I--I almost wish he would!"
Eva wept hysterically. "It will kill me, too, that's all; but I don't
suppose you care!"
Rachel looked at her, and gradually her senses cleared, her
overwhelming feeling of shame passed into even deeper suffering; she
saw the old relations of life take flesh again, the old need to save
her sister, and she shivered.
"If you go back on it now," sobbed Eva, "he'll say I'm a liar and he'll
cast me off; he'll disgrace me so I can never hold up my head again!"
Poor Rachel was silent.
"Oh, Rachel, I'm so wretched!"
The other girl made no reply; instead she got up and went to the window
and opened the shutter. Across the distant city, above the house-tops
and the spires, she saw the great dome of the Capitol, and from the
lower terrace came the sweet perfume of heliotrope.
"I haven't slept," Eva went on; "it's killing me, I can't bear it.
Rachel, Rachel," she fell on her knees again beside Rachel and hid her
face on her dress, "I love him!"
"You mean Belhaven?"
There was a sound of strangled anguish from Eva and Rachel laid her
hand on her shoulder. "Eva, have you told me the truth?"
There was a moment's silence.
"Yes."
"Then why in the world didn't you tell Astry the truth, too? Your one
falsehood has cost us all this misery. Oh, I'm so ashamed, I feel as if
I couldn't look Johnstone in the face again!" It was so incredible that
even to save herself Eva should impugn her sister; Astry had dragged
out that side of it, and Rachel was shuddering before it. "I don't see
how you could do it!" she cried.
"He would have killed me!"
"If you haven't sinned, why are you so afraid of him? Eva, in your
heart you're sinning against him now. You've got to give up Belhaven;
if you can't you needn't ask me to do this awful thing. You'll have to
give up Johnstone! I can't do it unless you're true; it's too much!
Have you really chosen, Eva?"
Eva staggered to her feet and leaned against the wall, weeping. "I've
chosen," she sobbed; "I've given him up. Oh, I've suffered enough. I
wish I could be like you; you've no feeling!"
Rachel looked at her in amazement; was it possible that Eva did not
know what she was suffering, what this terrible marriage would cost
her? Was she so utterly selfish that she could not only malign her
sister but sacrifice her without a pang?
But suddenly Eva flung herself into her arms.
"Oh, Rachel, I'm wicked, I'm worthless--you've been an angel. Forgive
me! Save me, save us both; we're not worth it, but save us!"
A moment before Rachel had meant to tell her that she could never do
it, that she would rather die, to beg for a reprieve, an escape, even
if Eva had to suffer, but this anguish dwarfed her own; Eva had not the
strength to take her punishment.
"Eva," her lips quivered, "Eva, promise me that this is the end, that
it won't be in vain, that I will really save you if I take all this
horror to myself?"
"I promise--" her golden head sank lower on Rachel's breast, "I
promise; God help me to keep it!"
Rachel still loved her; she tried to quiet her, she put aside her own
trouble and gave herself to the task of consoling her betrayer, and so
the night passed.
In the morning she was married to Belhaven.