XI

That night was a sleepless one for Eva. Not only did the thought of

that little blue note recur to her constantly, but also the remembrance

of Pamela's talk about Charter. Could it possibly be true? She recalled

Rachel's face that night with a new perception of its anguish. At

the time she had been too much absorbed in her own misery to see her

sister's distress, but now her quickened mind leaped to conclusions.

Was it possible that the announcement of Mrs. Prynne's engagement had

influenced Rachel, that she had taken the leap in the dark because she

was hurt to the quick? If so, the return of Charter a free man and

still in love with her must have been the crowning agony of it all.

Eva sat up in bed in the soft darkness of the summer night and conjured

up the past weeks, and at every point she found evidence, at every turn

she saw the mark of Rachel's footprints ahead of her. It has been said

that it is natural to hate one whom we have deeply injured, and at

first Eva had recoiled from Rachel, but now a sudden rush of feeling

carried her back to the days when they had been children together

and Rachel had always given up to her, always petted her. Rachel's

love had been like a well that was too deep for Eva's shallow plummet

to fathom. Reviewing all the events that had crowded on the heels of

Astry's accusation, Eva found no crumb of comfort for herself. She had

suffered loss and mortification and a keen and excruciating anxiety;

she had saved herself, as it were, at the slippery edge of the chasm,

but she had been forced to crawl and cling to that edge ever since. She

had sacrificed her sister, but, although she had saved herself for the

moment, she had not achieved security, for there was Zélie. The little

French girl who had discovered how near Mrs. Astry had been to running

away with Belhaven held a rod of iron over her head that not even

Rachel could avert. If it fell, it would not only ruin Eva but it would

involve her innocent sister in the disgrace. It was characteristic of

Eva that she nearly got out of bed to write another and larger cheque

for Zélie, but she had not the courage; instead she shrank back into

the pillows, afraid of the darkness and the solitude, afraid that if

she moved Astry might hear her.

Through her terror and anxiety, too, filtered the thought, vague at

first but crystallized at last into coherent shape, that she had gained

nothing at all, not even the love of Belhaven, for, when she forced him

to the alternative of his cowardly marriage to save her reputation,

she had lost his affection, if she had ever had it! That was a

question that tore her heart, for Eva, loving admiration and worship at

her shrine, was disgusted with the idea that perhaps after all she had

got herself into this horrible tangle for a man who had never really

loved her and who, therefore, gave her up the more easily. She had lost

everything then, she argued, and not even gained her own soul. Eva was

just beginning to recognize that the Way of the Transgressors is hard.

In the morning she was troubled again at the new aspect in which her

husband appeared. He was grave and almost kind; if he watched her,

she was not aware of it, and he made no reference to those awful blue

notes. She looked at him covertly, while trying to swallow her coffee,

and discovered new lines about his eyes and mouth, a certain settled

gravity of demeanor that seemed to remove him further and further from

her, to alienate even his admiration and the keener tribute of his

jealousy; she began to be vaguely aware that she was no longer first

even with him. She had never loved him, and while she thought he loved

her it was pleasant to flout him, but his indifference was altogether

another matter. If blessings brighten as they take their flight,

Astry's love certainly increased in value as it diminished. She was

conscious, too, that he talked less than had been his custom when they

were first married; he had dropped into the habit of absorbing his

newspaper with his coffee and she found herself in the common wifely

predicament of either remaining quiescent or trying to read the news

upside down across the breakfast-table. Eva, who had been spoiled all

her life, chafed under this commonplace treatment; it was disgusting to

find herself suddenly of no importance. She did not yet recognize the

inalienable truth of the maxim that indifference is the death of love,

that no human being can go on forever loving another without the shadow

of a return, and that there are few so humble that they care to pick

up the crumbs that fall under the table. She had treated Astry with

a pretty and languid indifference; she had violated his sense of the

proprieties by encouraging the love-making of other men, and she had

finally, it seemed, murdered his love for her.

The situation was quite unbearable and, pushing aside her plate, she

rose from the table and began to tie on a large sun-hat of lace and

muslin that framed her delicate face in its soft and filmy folds.

Astry glanced up from his paper. "You'll find it warm; it's eighty-five

in the shade."

She shot an indignant glance at the paper behind which he had

immediately subsided. "I don't think I'll feel it!"

Astry made no reply and Eva passed out of the long French window on to

the piazza, but, instead of descending into the rose garden, which was

situated on that side of the house, she made her way slowly across the

terrace and through the tennis-court to the road. There she stood a

moment considering, her white dress gathered up in both hands.

The road was shady and inviting, but it led directly past Rachel's

front door and, although she was going there, she did not want to meet

Belhaven. She had tried lately to avoid an encounter, and while she

stood there, undecided, she was almost startled by the appearance of

the postman, who stopped to hand her a letter. She took it gingerly,

but a glance reassured her; it was not Zélie again, but only Pamela.

Standing under the shade of a friendly locust, Eva broke the seal and

glanced hastily at the careless, fashionable scrawl.

"DEAR EVA:--You looked so distressed when I went away that I can't

forget it. Don't think of what I said; I don't know anything, and I'm

sure Rachel never loved Charter, if she did why marry Belhaven? Don't

you see how simple it is? Do take more care of yourself. We're off

at seven thirty-five to-morrow, a brutal hour, but I hope it will be

cooler. In haste, yours,

"PAMELA."

In spite of herself Eva smiled. Her friend's method of solving the

problem was so entirely the usual method of people who try to solve

the problems of others. Pamela, in an effort to comfort, was only

turning the weapon in the wound, as the ignorant sympathizer will tear

the heart open by uttering condolences that only strip the horror of

all decent covering and accumulate the agony. Pamela's argument only

furnished another reason for Eva to feel keenly distressed; she began

to be convinced that Rachel had really loved Charter, while she had

thrust Belhaven upon her at the very moment when she thought that her

lover had forgotten her to marry Mrs. Prynne. Eva tore up Pamela's note

and, scattering the bits broadcast, walked on under the trees; but she

could not escape the thought that possessed her, it had become an _idée

fixe_. It explained so many things, it goaded her with a hundred little

pricks of pain. She scarcely noticed her path under the familiar trees,

and she found none of Rachel's pleasure in a flower by the wayside or

a bird in the bush. The simple, homely things of nature, the things of

the Creator which comforted one sister, passed unseen by the other. Eva

only observed that there was no one in the cedar grove and she entered

by the little turnstile that led her to the rear of the house. She felt

almost like some trespasser skulking along behind the rhododendrons,

but she could not make up her mind to face the ordeal of Rachel and

Belhaven together. She stopped once or twice, her graceful figure

concealed by the clustering foliage, and peeped through some vista in

the greenwood. The old, rambling house nestled under the trees with

a peculiarly friendly and inviting aspect, and Eva perceived, with a

fresh pang, how entirely Rachel had transformed it and clothed it with

beauty and quaintness.

The deep-seated chairs on the wide veranda, the cool awnings, the

lovely coloring of the flower-beds, all suggested the fostering

hand of a woman clothed with those peculiar gifts which make home

beautiful. Eva perceived it with a new keenness of vision and her heart

sank as she recalled the unreal splendor of the big house that she

had never loved to dwell in, which had been altogether for show and

entertainment, and where she dreaded now to be alone with Astry. With

this thought came another: with a sharp stab of pain, she wondered if

Belhaven saw the difference, if he felt it too?

She had scarcely asked herself this question, however, when he appeared

and she drew back with an involuntary start, forgetting that the

rhododendrons completely screened her from his careless glance. But,

after the first panic, she peeped out again and saw him lighting his

cigar with the comfortable air of the habitué. He was clad in a suit

of light summer flannels and wore a straw hat, and it seemed to Eva

that he looked younger and taller than usual. He stood a moment on

the steps and then sauntered down the driveway and disappeared through

the gate. As he went he turned, looked back, and raised his hat with a

courteous gesture. Eva caught her breath; then Rachel was watching him

go!

After all, perhaps her distress was groundless, perhaps these two had

found a way to reconcile themselves to their fate. She stood still, her

lips compressed, thinking; with her old, soft self-pity, she thought

her own position the hardest in the world, and that she had created

the situation herself did not alleviate its misery. It was, perhaps,

this very selfishness, this desire to find that no grief was as great

as her own, that drove her on, for she only remained a moment in

doubt; the next she was crossing the short stretch of lawn between the

rhododendrons and the rear door. Sure now that Belhaven was out, she

trailed leisurely across the intervening space and made her way to the

front of the house.

As she had anticipated, she found Rachel in the front hall, but not

even jealousy could detect any embarrassment or tenderness in her

expression; instead, young Mrs. Belhaven looked deeply depressed. The

sisters greeted each other with that constraint which was the natural

result of their mutual knowledge. Rachel had been engaged in arranging

some long-stemmed roses in a tall vase and she went on with her task,

selecting them from a great cluster that lay on the table at her side.

Eva picked up one or two and pressed them languidly against her face

while she asked the usual desultory questions about the house and their

mutual friends.

"Pamela went away this morning," she announced; "she came out yesterday

to bid me good-by."

Rachel went on with the roses. "She needs a change: she's fallen off

since last winter; Pamela's always in motion, like a merry-go-round."

"She thinks you look perfectly wretched."

"How complimentary! It seems we must have been taking stock of each

other without any illusions on either side."

"You do look badly, Rachel, so white! You aren't ill, are you?"

"Do I look any whiter than you do? Come, Eva, we can't expect to look

blooming; we've been through so much, you and I."

"I was in hopes I didn't show it; I can see that you do."

Rachel looked at her over the roses, a little vexed. "Well, you do show

it."

"Do I?"

Eva went over to the mirror and gazed at her own reflection. The

grace and loveliness of outline, the exquisite color of hair and eyes

remained, but her face--now that she looked at it in the full light of

the open door--was almost transparently pale. She sighed.

"I've gone off worse than Pamela!"

"With more cause, I'm sure," said Rachel bitterly.

"Oh, I've suffered!" Eva threw her two roses back on the table with the

petulant gesture of a child, "no one knows how I've suffered!"

Rachel picked up the discarded roses and put them carefully into the

vase. "Have you never thought of me, Eva?"

"That's one of the things that make it so bad, Rachel; I've thought of

it often. I know it must be dreadful for you, it must be!"

"I don't think that quite expresses it."

Rachel spoke dispassionately, but as she turned and stood facing Eva,

the ravages of pain were apparent in the dark shadows under the eyes,

the delicately hollowed cheeks, the tightening of the sensitive lips.

It had not diminished her beauty, which was less dependent on color

than Eva's, and the subtle charm of her expression was deepened and

accentuated; Eva felt it.

"Rachel, I'm certain that he--that he'll learn to love you better than

he ever loved me; I know he hates me now!"

"Can't you let him go out of your life altogether?"

Eva shook her head slowly. "How can I? Think of all it meant to us, to

you and me, Rachel! Besides, I've suffered."

Rachel looked at her with forbearance; she was unchanged after all,

and she was in need of pity and help like a child.

"You'll have to bear it, Eva; I have to."

"Then--" Eva dragged the words out--"you are wretched?"

"Why do you want to dwell on it? What good does it do? We've got to

bear it."

Eva caught Rachel by both arms, holding her and looking at her.

"Rachel, tell me, were you in love with Charter?"

Rachel recoiled, tried to drag herself away. "Why do you want to know?

What right have you to ask?"