He saw the blush and a pang of hideous jealousy tore through the
remorse of his mood, but he gripped himself again. "I know you hate
me!" he began.
Rachel looked up quickly. "I don't hate you, far from it. I'm sorry for
you."
He smiled grimly, thinking of Charter. Had he come here to do Charter's
bidding after all? But he was resolved to go on. "Thank you," he said,
"I have, it seems, the beggar's meed--pity! Yet I feel that my very
presence here must be hateful to you. I've traded on your generosity,
your womanliness, even your pity. I've felt at times that I'd be
content to be a dog on your hearth-rug, but it's not so now. Every day
I'm with you I grow to love you more deeply--"
She turned to interrupt him but he held up a protesting hand. "Let me
finish. I know my love's hideous to you, but, none the less, I love you
for your sweetness, your justice, your kindness, and at last a spark
of generosity has been born in my own heart. I've been a good deal of
a scoundrel, Rachel; I can plead no decent excuse, but there's enough
manhood in me to feel that I've got to set you free."
A sudden hope, keen as joy, leaped in her heart for an instant, only
to pass into eclipse. "It's impossible without ruining Eva. I did it
myself, I dreaded the public scandal for her; it's just as much my
fault, in a way, as yours."
"There are ways that involve but little scandal."
Rachel sat looking at the fire. Her heart cried out again; she desired
happiness as fiercely as the most unreasoning child of circumstance,
but she remembered the obligations that had led to her sacrifice.
"It would be the end for Eva. Besides," she hesitated, "perhaps you
don't understand how I feel about marriage--I don't think I've got
a right to get a divorce. I knew what I was doing. You've blamed
yourself; have you ever thought of the wrong I did?"
"You?" He looked at her amazed, and encountering her eyes, that had the
sweet, abashed look of a frightened girl, a sudden wild hope leaped up.
"You mean you consider your marriage too sacred to break?"
She inclined her head.
He drew a quick breath. "Rachel!" then the sight of her face, stricken
with grief and reluctance, brought him back to his senses. "I see, you
mean from the religious point of view. I've always understood that; I
knew you had scruples."
"I've always abhorred the light view, as if it wasn't sacred at all.
I know, I feel I wronged you when I married you. I haven't any right
to bring discredit on you by a divorce, unless--" she looked up
gravely--"if you wish to be free to--to find happiness elsewhere, then
I don't think I'd have the same right to--to insist on bearing my share
of it."
He met her eyes directly; his own face blanched. "You forget that I
love you!" he said slowly.
She colored painfully. "That's another thing that lies heavy on my
soul. I had no right to marry you--forgive me!"
"Rachel, could you ever--have loved me?"
She covered her face with her hands; she was thinking of Charter.
"N-no."
Belhaven still regarded her. He thought that she really abhorred him
and the idea stung him. He had traveled the long road, he had reached
the end of it, and met disaster and defeat. "You've refused divorce,"
he said, in a strange voice, "yet you despise me. I suppose I'm a very
toad in your sight, but you would still save Eva! You're right, I
accept your wishes, but--there are other ways."
She did not understand him; she still hid her face, shutting out the
horror of the situation. Eva's lover as her husband! She could not
bring herself to speak to him.
"There are other ways," he repeated quietly, "but, for your sake, I
wish it wasn't so hard. I wish I could lighten it, Rachel."
"In a way you've done much to lighten it. I'm--I'm grateful."
He stood looking at her bowed head, remembering grimly that the thought
of his love had made her shudder as he had seen women shudder at the
sight of a reptile. Then he turned and went out without another word.
It was a long time after that before Rachel seemed to be aware of
sounds and movements in the house. She had remained where Belhaven left
her, looking into the fire, her chin in her hand. Her gray eyes, lit by
the glow of the falling embers, were intent on some distant thought,
her gaze full of introspection; she saw nothing in the room and, for
a while, heard nothing. She seemed to have been dragged through an
endless chain of events, a series of agonizing scenes. She was no
longer what she had been a week ago, or even yesterday; she seemed
suddenly separated from herself, or was rather a new self, born of
suffering and joy,--the joy of feeling that Charter knew,--and looking
back at her old self,--the self of slow growth, of childhood and
girlhood and womanhood. She had, indeed, been born again in anguish.
She had renounced her own happiness, and what had she gained? In
that dreadful moment she felt that she had not even gained her own
salvation, for the awful feeling of complicity in their guilt remained.
She and Eva and Belhaven had wretchedly cheated Astry; it was to Astry
that she owed the inexorable debt. If she could only feel that she had
saved Eva, brought her back to her husband!
Then came the temptation to escape from her sacrifice, to nullify her
act by accepting the first means of escape. Her heart clamored for
happiness and her love for Charter rebelled against all scruples.
What right had she to make Charter unhappy? There is no argument so
subtle, so unanswerable as the argument of love. Her own heart cried
out against her judgment; it would gladly have broken her bonds and
stultified her sacrifice. She thought that it would be easier to
bear if Charter knew, but it was a million times harder, for Charter
rebelled against it. Charter, who was good, saw no virtue in her
self-immolation; he, too, craved happiness. While Belhaven had offered
her divorce, at the cost, as she saw, of great personal misery, he
had offered her freedom. Her presence in the house had become dear to
him; her kindness, her quick sympathy, her womanliness, had penetrated
the armor of his worldliness and, at last, his soul had risen to meet
hers in an act of self-sacrifice. Though she did not know it, she
had gone far to save Belhaven. It would have been natural for her to
have despised him, to have let him feel himself outside of her life,
the cause of all, but she had not despised him, she had been gentle
and forbearing, and he had seen new and charming qualities in her
simplicity.
If Rachel could have known this, it would have comforted her a little,
but she had not even that small comfort as she sat brooding over the
fire. This was the Thursday of the dinner at the Astrys' and Belhaven
had reluctantly promised to go, for there were many reasons that made
him careful of the conventionalities; Rachel had dined alone and early.
A big fire leaped in the old-fashioned chimney and there was a rich and
luxurious glow of color and light; the heavy, crimson curtains were
drawn over the windows, but it was storming outside, and she heard
the sleet on the window-panes. The wind shouted under the old gables.
Rachel went to a window and looked out; it was still light enough to
discern the cedars beaten by the gale. An old hemlock near the house
stretched spectral arms, sheeted in ice. The gray veil of fog and rain
cloaked the long slope of the landscape, and she could not discover
the distant city. It grew dark fast. She let the curtain fall across
the sash again and went to the fire, stretching out both hands to the
blaze with a shiver. A strange feeling of uneasiness stirred in her
heart, some vague forewarning; delicate and floating like a tendril, it
trembled back again into uncertainty.
She opened a book at random and began to read. It chanced to be a life
of St. Francis of Assisi, exquisitely illuminated, that Belhaven had
picked up for its artistic setting rather than its religious teachings,
for he was something of a connoisseur in books.
Rachel turned the leaf.
"Never set an empty pot to boil on the fire, in hope that your neighbor
will fill it!" ran the proverb.
She sighed. Had not Belhaven set his empty heart on the fire with the
hope that she would fill it for him? And she had not. In this, then,
Brother Giles understood the world; evidently he entertained no hope
for the filling of the pot.
Rachel turned the page, her fingers trembling slightly.
"And they twain ate the pottage of flour by reason of his importunate
charity. And they were refreshed much more by devotion than by the
food."
"And they twain ate of the pottage--" and she and Belhaven had eaten of
it to their despair. They had not been refreshed by devotion, they had
eaten it of necessity; had she found the key at last? They had eaten
the pottage and the taste of it was very bitter. Rachel leaned forward
and looked into the fire, where the red embers fell and the flame
continued to leap merrily.
"And they twain ate the pottage."
She heard the outer door open and close and a step come across the
hall. She turned sharply; some one had braved the storm. It was Astry.
He stood in the door looking at her, as Belhaven had done. His fur coat
was thrown back and disclosed his evening dress; his face, as usual,
was pale and fair.
"I came for Belhaven," he said.
Rachel was surprised. "He's getting ready now; I thought the hour was
eight."
"It is, but I was determined to have no failures and I particularly
want Belhaven; you know he didn't want to come."
"Has any one failed you?"
"Only Mrs. Billop."