Then you can forget him; but not until then."
Kathryn was silent.
"What does Tom say?" she asked, at length. She had learned to depend much
upon the big-bodied, big-hearted, big-minded friend of late.
"I haven't asked him," returned her sister. "But I will, now."
She rose, quickly, and went to the rose-strewn arbor-way. She could see
Blake, out upon the broad lawn, playing with the child that he loved,
boyish, natural, whole-souled, with all the enthusiasm unspoiled that God
gives not to many who are grown.
"Tom!" she called.
"Yes?" he answered.
"Will you come here, to us, for a moment? Let Muriel stay with Mawkins."
"Right, oh!" he called, cheerily. In another moment he stood in the
opening of the arbor, hair rumpled, clothing awry.
"Well?" he asked, inquiringly.
Elinor began, slowly:
"Tom, Kate and I have been talking, seriously. I want her to leave John
Schuyler--legally leave him--leave him for all time. It's the only fair--
the only right--thing to do. I'm not going to argue. It is all
sufficiently plain. She can't live with him; and yet, as long as she is
his wife, she has no right to be away from him. And she can never go to
him."
"She wants your opinion, Tom," she went on. "She's always respected your
judgment more than mine--more than that of anyone save the man upon whom
she may never depend again."
Kathryn had wandered to where the white blooms clustered thickest. She
was thinking--thinking deeply, bitterly. Elinor drew closer to Blake.
"I like you, Tom," she said, softly. "You're a good man--a decent man--a
clean man--and they're mighty scarce these days.... All that Kate may
have owed to John Schuyler, she long since paid to the last sad penny....
All your life you have been paying the things that you did not owe....
There is happiness, somewhere; a happiness that can be found." She thrust
out her hand. "Tell her what to do," she said. "Tell her the right thing
to do--the thing that should be done." And she turned on her heel, and
went away.
For a long, long time Blake stood motionless. Of that which was going on
within his soul, no one might know. The expression of his face remained
the same, and of his body. Only his hands clenched, and unclenched, and
clenched again. It was a difficult position in which he found himself--
how difficult only he might know. There lay before him a vast, spreading
vista of golden possibility--a possibility of which he had never dared to
think--even to dream. Possibly it were but a possibility--and yet surely
it was that. A word from him would so make it. That he knew. On the other
hand--
For yet a longer time, he stood, hands clenching, unclenching,
clenching.... Slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood, slender
white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant
whiteness.
She turned, a little. Violet eyes slowly lifted.... He looked into their
depths.... His hands clenched, and unclenched more swiftly.
"Kate," he said, at length, slowly, very slowly, "do you want me to tell
you what to do?"
She answered, with infinite weariness:
"I--I don't know, Tom.... I'm tired--so, so tired...." And then,
abruptly: "Tell me.... Yes, tell me. What shall I do?"
She waited, deep eyes lifted, little head poised wearily upon white,
rounded throat.
He answered, very slowly--with effort that even he could not conceal:
"Kate, do you remember that day in June, eight years ago, when you walked
down the aisle of Old Trinity. Do you remember how the sun shone in at
the windows, flecking the darkness of the old pews with golden motes?
John Schuyler met you at the altar; and to him you said, 'For better or
for worse, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.'"
Gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder, with great tenderness.
"Stick, Kate," he advised, softly. "Stick."
And that was all.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.
THE SHROUD OF A SOUL.
It had been arranged that Blake, again, was to go to him first. Little
had been heard of John Schuyler, of late. A drop to desuetude may of its
last half be far more silent than of its first. One gathers momentum, as
one descends, whether the descent be physical, or moral. At the inception
comes the gradual slipping--the vast, frantic effort to stay that
slipping--the exertion, the hysteria, the fright, the remorse, the
stretching out of hands to aid and of souls to help.... Then, things
become different. There comes a vast silence. The hands draw back; the
souls are hidden; and when Hope itself lifts its pinions and soars away,
then there be little left indeed.
John Schuyler, deserted of friends, deprived of all usefulness in the
life that he had loved, found it to be so; and, finding, tried to think
no more.... If only the Great God would take from him his brain! ... But
He did not....
All were gone from him now save She--The Woman. The doctor came
occasionally when summoned by Parks--Parks who had known and loved in
other days. And the coming of the doctor, and of Her, were the only
things that marked the beginning of the days, and the ending thereof. He
lived in the study a part of the time, a part of the time in his rooms.
The rest of the house knew him not; and the great out-of-doors, even in
its warrenated streets of the city, but seldom. And from the study, at
least, all save She were excluded.
He had been worse that day--much worse. Parks had stayed indoors all day,
listening. As night came on, he had become frightened. The telephone in
the hall had been out of order; and he had taken upon himself the liberty
of entering the forbidden demesne; for the doctor must be called.
The door of the library-study creaked as he opened it.... He stopped upon
the threshold, aghast.
This could not be the same room that he had seen so short a time before.
He looked about him, in horrified disbelief. Before him there lay the
very essence of dirt and disorder. Furniture was broken, overturned. Rugs
were askew, wrinkled. The desk, upbearing broken bottles and a cluttered
mess of paper, letter and debris of all description, was scratched and
dented. Pictures sagged drunkenly upon the walls; hangings were torn, and
draggled, and over all lay a pall of dust, dank, choking.
Slowly, dreadingly, horror gripping his heart, Parks crossed the room to
the desk. He picked up the telephone from where it rested amid the litter
and placed the receiver to his ear. The voice of the operator came to him
across the wire.
"Hello," he called, "Give me 2290 Plaza, please."
At length there came to him an answer. He inquired:
"Is this Dr. Grenelle's office?" It was the doctor himself. "This is
Parks--Mr. Schuyler's secretary.... He is worse--much worse.... You had
better send someone to take care of him. I am going away.... Yes, that's
all. Goodbye."
Hanging up the receiver, Parks sought amid the confusion of the desk for
a sheet of paper, and envelope. At length he found them; but the pens on
the desk were beyond use, and the ink-stands dried and dusty.
It had taken Parks a long time to come to the decision that he should
leave this house. Long, and faithfully, and well had he served John
Schuyler. He had served him gladly, and given of his best. And, until It
had come, had he received besides generous pecuniary rewards, the more
grateful compensation of pleasant treatment, consideration, good-
fellowship, friendliness. He could not have cared more for John Schuyler
had he been of kin to him.... But the disintegration of a man's soul, and
brain, and body, is not a pleasant thing to watch. It had come to a place
where Parks, in his heart, felt that he could do no more. For the rest,
there was nothing to detain him longer.
At first Parks, as most, had come to think that the man was innately a
libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set
the tinder aglow--the tinder that would burn, and consume, and destroy.
He had known of men like that--of men who went the even pathway of their
lives until there crossed it another who tore them from it; and that one
they followed, leaving soul and morals and decency and cleanliness
forever behind them. This, at first, he had thought to be John Schuyler.
For the woman was beautiful--beautiful as an animal is beautiful.... But
then he had not been so sure. His confidence had been shaken; for she had
looked into his eyes, too, playfully; and he had felt his very being rock
upon its foundation, and he had slunk away, chilled, helpless, horror-
ridden.... After that he had avoided her. She had paid no attention to
him....
So the anger--the disgust--the resentment that at first he had felt had
at length been altered to sorrow, and grief, and pity beyond utterance
.... Yet there had been nothing that he could do--nothing.... He could
not sleep, of nights.... It was killing him, too....
Upon the soiled, rumpled sheet he wrote.... Came a noise behind him. He
looked up, quickly, frightenedly.... It was Blake; and quick relief
sprang to the clean-cut face.
But the horror of it was in Blake's. Even as had Parks', his eyes
wandered dreadingly about the room. The horror of it all was in his soul,
too.... For a long time he said no word. He only looked. He thrust the
curtains aside.... The dust, impalpable, strangling, fell about him ....
"Good God!" he muttered. "Good God in heaven!"
He saw Parks.
"Has it been like this for long?" he asked.
Parks shook his head.
"I don't know," he answered.... And then: "It must have been. The
servants are all gone."
"Servants gone?"
"Yes; there's been no one below stairs for a fortnight. They irritated
him, and he discharged them, one and all."
"His valet?"
"Went last night. I go to-morrow.... To have known him as he was--and
then to see him as he is--I couldn't stand it any longer."
There was a pause. Blake looked about him. At length he spoke:
"Does--she come here, now?"
"Seldom. No one else ever comes. It's a lonely place, sir--frightfully
lonely."
"And he?"
"Drink, if you will pardon me--and remorse. He seems bent only upon
forgetting everything. Try as I will I can't keep the brandy from him.
All day--all night--he drinks, and drinks, and tries to forget."
Blake nodded. "I see."
Parks continued:
"At first it made him drunk, and he slept. But now it seems only to numb
his senses. I hear him all through the night muttering--muttering. I hear
him cursing himself--cursing everything, everybody--cursing her--that
woman--then calling to her--calling--calling--It's horrible!"
Blake again nodded.
"I had heard," he said. "But I didn't dream it was as bad as this.... It
is too late, then, you think--too late to do anything? I had thought that
if we should wait--until she was tired--as such as she must tire sooner
or later--"
"Too late?" repeated Park. "It has always been too late. It was too late
from the first. I was with him, you know."
"Yes--abroad. I had forgotten."
Parks exclaimed, almost fiercely:
"I wish to God I could! He was a man, sir--a man!" Then, in quick
transition: "I beg your pardon. But I was very fond of him." He placed
the resignation that he had written fair in the center of the desk. He
turned to go.
Blake called after him:
"You are leaving?"
Parks nodded.
"Don't you think you'd better stay a little longer? You can help him."
Parks shook his head; there was in his voice a great sadness.
"No one can help him now. It is too late.... Too late."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.
THE THING THAT WAS A MAN.
Schuyler came down the stairs slowly, leaning heavily against the broken
balustrade. He laughed a little, wildly, with the mirthless chill that is
of a maniac. His knees bent; he staggered.... And he laughed again....
At first Blake did not know him.... Then, knowing, he could not believe
that his eyes brought to his brain the truth.... This was not John
Schuyler. It could not be John Schuyler. It was not possible. John
Schuyler was at least a man--not a palsied, pallid, shrunken, shriveled
caricature of something that had once been human.... John Schuyler had
hands--not nerveless, shaking talons.... This sunken-eyed, sunken-
cheeked, wrinkled thing was not John Schuyler--this thing that crawled,
quiveringly--from the loose, pendulous lips of which came mirth that was
more bitter to hear than the sobs of a soul condemned.
Blake's soul was curdled; his senses were numbed; but still his eyes
could look.
The ghastly figure stopped in the moonlight, at the landing of the
stairs. White, claw-like hand clutched at the drunken curtain and ripped
it from its fastenings. The pale light of the moon fell harsh upon it....
Blake shut his eyes....
When again he looked, the figure was at the desk, fumbling with a key....
A drawer screeched in protest. Came from it a rattling as a cadaverous
hand drew forth a bottle.... And the thing that had been John Schuyler
guzzled.
It laughed again, then, in hollow, mad glee. It staggered forward. Its
hollow eyes fell upon the letter that Parks had left. Clutching fingers
unsteadily tore end from envelope--drew letter from covering, and hollow,
leaden eyes gazed.
Came another wild burst of laughter gone mad. A voice, thick, weak,
muffled, weird, said:
"Another enveloped insult. From Parks, the good and faithful Parks." Dull
eyes read. "Your employment has become impossible." The letter fell to
the floor; the voice cried: "The rats desert the sinking ship!" It
chuckled: "Wise rats. Sensible rats!" And then dead eyes saw the man who
stood before him.
"You?" They peered, like those of a fish. "Good! I'm glad to see you,
even though you have come to scorn, and abuse, and hate. It's a lonely
hell, this--lonely."
Blake answered, bitterness in his soul:
"I did not come because I wanted to. It was to prevent her coming--the
wife who loved you, and who, God help her, loves you still. She would
make one last effort to save you."
Schuyler laughed again.
"There's nothing left to save," he chuckled.
"I know; but I'll try for her sake."
Schuyler lurched into a chair. In ghastly playfulness he looked upon the
other.
"Try, then," he cackled. "You did so well last time, that you've come to
try again, eh? Well, you've come too late. Do you remember Parmalee--the
boy who killed himself? The boy that I called a fool?" He laughed,
sardonically. "He's got me now--he, and Van Dam, and Rogers--three damned
fools scorching in a hole in hell.... 'A fool there was'" he quoted;
then, stopping, suddenly, he half rose, weakly, to his feet.
"Listen!" he cried.
There came utter silence.
"Did you hear?" he queried, triumphantly. "Did you hear her calling?"
It was more than Blake could bear.
"Jack!" he cried, tensely. "Jack!"
Schuyler rounded on him. "Don't call me that!" he said, petulantly. "Call
me _the Fool_."
Blake shook his head, in the gripping horror of it all.
"It makes me sick," he murmured, to himself, "sick at heart!"
Schuyler had heard.
"It makes me sick, too," he cackled. He pointed to the shattered mirror,
above the mantel. "Do you see that?" he demanded. "There isn't a whole
one in the house. I don't dare to look at myself."
Came to Blake's mind now, stricken and wracked as it had been, by that
which he had seen, a glimmer of hope. He had heard of men like this who
had come back to life--to reason. It might be fever--fever and drink; and
it might be that the fever could be stayed--the drink conquered. John
Schuyler had been a strong man. Surely it could not be that in so short a
time he had been dragged to the grave's very edge. Lack of attention,
lack of care, lack of medicine and nursing and discipline were probably
largely responsible. The man might be awakened--brought to himself. It
might be possible--
Speculatively, not realizing that he spoke aloud, he asked of himself:
"Is there a chance left? Is there one little chance left, to save him?"
Again Schuyler had heard.
"What would be the use?" he queried, dully. The liquor was passing. "What
is there left of me to save? I'm a husk--squeezed dry. I'm a memory--a
nightmare. They are calling me--Young Parmalee, Rogers, Seward Van Dam. I
drink to them, now, even as they drink to me--scorching in their hole in
hell!" He rose weakly to his feet, raising a dirty glass in which
splashed a little amber liquor.
Came to Blake the thought that, even though Schuyler could not be
redeemed to manhood, he might at least, be saved from death, or worse. He
might at least be made again into the semblance of that which he had
been. He started forward, hands gripping the edge of the desk, face close
to Schuyler's own.
"Jack!" he cried, commandingly. "Look here! I want to talk to you!"
Schuyler slumped again into the depths of his chair. He looked up, dully.
"Yes?"
"Listen!" Blake demanded. "Listen closely. There's a chance for you yet!
We'll take you away somewhere--for a year--five years--ten years. You can
change your name--make a new start--build yourself a new character--a new
honor. There's still happiness for you, Jack! We'll go and find it! Come!
Shall we?"
Schuyler answered, dully, with the petulance of the mentally unfit:
"It's too late, I tell you--too late!"
"It's not too late! You'll try! Come!"
"It's too late, I say!" insisted Schuyler, thickly. "She's torn from me
everything that makes life worth living. She's taken honor and manhood
and self-respect--wife and child and friends--everything--everything but--
this!" He patted the bare bottle before him. And then: "Let's drink," he
muttered.
Blake sprang forward, desperation overwhelming him.
"My God, this is awful!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you a spark of manhood
left? no brains? no bowels? nothing a man can appeal to?"
Schuyler repeated, dully:
"Give me that bottle!"
It was then that Blake came to that which he had mentally intended to be
a last resort. Deliberately, not in anger, but in the desperation of a
strong man who plays his last card for his ultimate stake, he leaned
across the table and deliberately struck Schuyler in the face. It was a
hard thing to do; but there are things that so demand. Blake knew that if
this time he failed to arouse whatever of latent, atrophied manhood there
might be in the breast of the other, that never again, probably, would
the shrivelling brain come within call. So he struck; and, following the
staggering form, struck again, flat on the face, with open hand, hard,
stinging blows. And with these blows he cried, tensely:
"If there's any spirit left in you, I'll arouse it. You pitiful thing
that was once a man! You made in God's image? Why, there isn't a swine
that wouldn't be ashamed to roll in the same gutter with you!"
With stinging words and stinging blows, he pursued the stumbling figure
across the room. Schuyler fell. Blake kicked him, sending foot against
body, heavily.
"Get up, you beast!" he ordered. And then, in the horror of it all--in
the awful of horror of the hurt of the thing that he was doing: "Great
God! Will nothing awaken you?"
Schuyler was scrambling weakly to his feet. In dulled eyes there was a
little gleam--the little gleam that Blake had tried so hard, so horribly,
to bring. The slobbering lip had set a little and the loose, lax jaw....
There was there the shadow of the John Schuyler that was.... Blake
stepped back, gladness in his heart.
He had called him back so far. He would call him back the rest!
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.
AGAIN THE BATTLE.
Schuyler staggered, stumbled to his feet, thin hands clutching for
support at chair arm.
"You struck me!" he mumbled, savagely. "You struck me. You'll fight me--
fight me!"
He lifted weakly, balancing himself upon unsteady, weakened legs. Blake,
stepping back, found his hand against a glass of water. He seized it--
advanced a step--and cast the contents of the glass full into Schuyler's
contorting face....
Schuyler slowly came to himself. The shock of the blows--of the words--
and finally of the water against his head, sent the blood to his brain--
banished the liquor, and the dementia, from it.... A weakened, miserable,
pitiful imitation he was of the John Schuyler that had been. Yet it was
John Schuyler that sat slumped into the chair, gazing up at the friend
who had proven his friendship so often and so well.
Schuyler sat for a moment, eyes blinking. At length his hand went forth,
slowly.
"Hello, Tom," he said. "I'm glad to see you." Puzzled eyes went about the
room, eyes expanding, contracting, like those of a man who, having been
long asleep, awakens to find himself in a place unfamiliar.
Blake went to him, leaning over him.
"You can understand me now?" he asked, tensely.
Schuyler looked up.
"Why, yes," he replied. "Of course, Tom. Of course I can understand you."
Eyes again sought to solve the mystery of the room; for from the mind
cleared had fled all memories of the mind uncleared.
Blake cried:
"You are coming away with us, Jack--away from this hell-snake of yours!
You're coming today--now! Do you understand?"
Schuyler nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I understand." In his mind the real and the unreal were
clarifying into an accurate whole. He nodded again.
"There's still a chance for you, Jack." Blake continued, earnestly, all
his force in his words. "There's still a chance for you. You're going to
be strong, and become a man again! Tell me that you will!"
"It's too late, Tom," he replied. There was in the words sadness,
despair, hopelessness unutterable. "It's too late. Body, mind, soul are
wasted, gone. There's no chance, Tom. It's too late!"
"No!" cried Blake! "There is happiness for you--real happiness--the right
happiness! Your wife--your child--"
"Don't speak of them," Schuyler moaned. "Don't! ... Don't!"
"You must think of them, Jack. It's there that salvation lies. Think of
the true woman--the wife who loves you. Think of the little one who used
to put baby hands around your neck and try to tell you all the beautiful
things that only children know. That is what will save you now, Jack--and
only that! Think.... Think!"
"It's too late, Tom!"
"It's not too late!"
"You're sure? Quite, quite sure?"
"I'm sure, Jack!"
There was a pause. Schuyler rose. He thrust forth his hand. Blake took
it, gripping it in his own.
"I'll go, Tom. I'll go." Came to him a touch of that from which he had
been able to withdraw so pitifully little.
"We'll fool her yet, won't we?" he asked, breathlessly. "We'll fool her,
and Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Van Dam and the rest of them. Let's
go now, Tom. Take me away! For the love of God who has forsaken me--whom
I have forsaken--take me away! Save me from her--from myself--My blood
has turned to water, and my bones to chalk! My brain has withered! Good
God! What has come over me! To think that I, who could once look in the
eye all men, all women, all little children, should have come to this.
Look at me! A fool in his drunken Palace of Folly! Dust, dirt, grime,
filth all about me--in my home--in my soul! ... I thought it was too late,
Tom. I thought from the beginning it was too late. The shame, the
disgrace, the loss of honor--of everything, were new to me. I couldn't
understand. Then I cursed myself. I swore to God that I wouldn't become
the thing I am. But He didn't help me; and I couldn't help myself. I
tried! Ah, how I tried! But there was something--her eyes, it was--eyes
that burnt and seared!--I tried to kill myself, as Parmalee did. I
couldn't.... And the only forgetfulness lay in drink--drink that sapped
my strength and drained my veins and shrivelled my brain. Tell me it's a
dream, Tom--that it's all but a vile, horrible, grewsome dream! Tell me
that I'm the kind of a man you are! the kind of a man I once was! And
don't hate me, Tom. Don't loathe, and despise me, all; but pity me a
little--just a little!"
He had sunk in a huddled heap to the floor, weak, hysterical--a half-
crazed soul in the white-hot crucible of suffering. Blake leaned over
him, gently, and lifting him, helped him to the great chair. There was a
great, unselfish gladness in his heart. But that gladness had changed
swiftly to horror. He stood back aghast. For there had entered the room
Kathryn, and Muriel.
The horror of it all did not show in the eyes of the wife. She would not
let it. The child, all gladness, ran to her father; she did not notice.
"Daddy! Oh, daddy!" she called.
Schuyler, a huddled heap by the desk, straightened, weakly.
"You!" he cried, brokenly. Tears welled to his eyes. He seized--the little
form in his arms, clutching it to him.