An obscure reluctance made her begin to undress before opening it. She felt slightly tired and indolently happy, and she did not wish any jarring impression to break in on the sense of completeness which her husband's coming always put into her life. Her happiness was making her timid and luxurious: she was beginning to shrink from even trivial annoyances.

But when at length, in her dressing-gown, her loosened hair about her shoulders, she seated herself before the toilet-mirror, Wyant's note once more confronted her. It was absurd to put off reading it—if he asked for money again, she would simply confide the whole business to Amherst.

She had never spoken to her husband of her correspondence with Wyant. The mere fact that the latter had appealed to her, instead of addressing himself to Amherst, made her suspect that he had a weakness to hide, and counted on her professional discretion. But his continued importunities would certainly release her from any such supposed obligation; and she thought with relief of casting the weight of her difficulty on her husband's shoulders.

She opened the note and read.

"I did not acknowledge your last letter because I was ashamed to tell you that the money was not enough to be of any use. But I am past shame now. My wife was confined three weeks ago, and has been desperately ill ever since. She is in no state to move, but we shall be put out of these rooms unless I can get money or work at once. A word from you would have given me a start in New York—and I'd be willing to begin again as an interne or a doctor's assistant.

"I have never reminded you of what you owe me, and I should not do so now if I hadn't been to hell and back since I saw you. But I suppose you would rather have me remind you than apply to Mr. Amherst. You can tell me when to call for my answer."

Justine laid down the letter and looked up. Her eyes rested on her own reflection in the glass, and it frightened her. She sat motionless, with a thickly-beating heart, one hand clenched on the letter.

"I suppose you would rather have me remind you than apply to Mr. Amherst."

That was what his importunity meant, then! She had been paying blackmail all this time.... Somewhere, from the first, in an obscure fold of consciousness, she had felt the stir of an unnamed, unacknowledged fear; and now the fear raised its head and looked at her. Well! She would look back at it, then: look it straight in the malignant eye. What was it, after all, but a "bugbear to scare children"—the ghost of the opinion of the many? She had suspected from the first that Wyant knew of her having shortened the term of Bessy Amherst's sufferings—returning to the room when he did, it was almost impossible that he should not have guessed what had happened; and his silence had made her believe that he understood her motive and approved it. But, supposing she had been mistaken, she still had nothing to fear, since she had done nothing that her own conscience condemned. If the act were to do again she would do it—she had never known a moment's regret!

Suddenly she heard Amherst's step in the passage—heard him laughing and talking as he chased Cicely up the stairs to the nursery.

If she was not afraid, why had she never told Amherst?

Why, the answer to that was simple enough! She had not told him because she was not afraid. From the first she had retained sufficient detachment to view her act impartially, to find it completely justified by circumstances, and to decide that, since those circumstances could be but partly and indirectly known to her husband, she not only had the right to keep her own counsel, but was actually under a kind of obligation not to force on him the knowledge of a fact that he could not alter and could not completely judge.... Was there any flaw in this line of reasoning? Did it not show a deliberate weighing of conditions, a perfect rectitude of intention? And, after all, she had had Amherst's virtual consent to her act! She knew his feelings on such matters—his independence of traditional judgments, his horror of inflicting needless pain—she was as sure of his intellectual assent as of her own. She was even sure that, when she told him, he would appreciate her reasons for not telling him before....

For now of course he must know everything—this horrible letter made it inevitable. She regretted that she had decided, though for the best of reasons, not to speak to him of her own accord; for it was intolerable that he should think of any external pressure as having brought her to avowal. But no! he would not think that. The understanding between them was so complete that no deceptive array of circumstances could ever make her motives obscure to him. She let herself rest a moment in the thought....

Presently she heard him moving in the next room—he had come back to dress for dinner. She would go to him now, at once—she could not bear this weight on her mind the whole evening. She pushed back her chair, crumpling the letter in her hand; but as she did so, her eyes again fell on her reflection. She could not go to her husband with such a face! If she was not afraid, why did she look like that?

Well—she was afraid! It would be easier and simpler to admit it. She was afraid—afraid for the first time—afraid for her own happiness! She had had just eight months of happiness—it was horrible to think of losing it so soon.... Losing it? But why should she lose it? The letter must have affected her brain...all her thoughts were in a blur of fear.... Fear of what? Of the man who understood her as no one else understood her? The man to whose wisdom and mercy she trusted as the believer trusts in God? This was a kind of abominable nightmare—even Amherst's image had been distorted in her mind! The only way to clear her brain, to recover the normal sense of things, was to go to him now, at once, to feel his arms about her, to let his kiss dispel her fears.... She rose with a long breath of relief.

She had to cross the length of the room to reach his door, and when she had gone half-way she heard him knock.

"May I come in?"

She was close to the fire-place, and a bright fire burned on the hearth.

"Come in!" she answered; and as she did so, she turned and dropped Wyant's letter into the fire. Her hand had crushed it into a little ball, and she saw the flames spring up and swallow it before her husband entered.

It was not that she had changed her mind—she still meant to tell him everything. But to hold the letter was like holding a venomous snake—she wanted to exterminate it, to forget that she had ever seen the blotted repulsive characters. And she could not bear to have Amherst's eyes rest on it, to have him know that any man had dared to write to her in that tone. What vile meanings might not be read between Wyant's phrases? She had a right to tell the story in her own way—the true way....

As Amherst approached, in his evening clothes, the heavy locks smoothed from his forehead, a flower of Cicely's giving in his button-hole, she thought she had never seen him look so kind and handsome.

"Not dressed? Do you know that it's ten minutes to eight?" he said, coming up to her with a smile.

She roused herself, putting her hands to her hair. "Yes, I know—I forgot," she murmured, longing to feel his arms about her, but standing rooted to the ground, unable to move an inch nearer.

It was he who came close, drawing her lifted hands into his. "You look worried—I hope it was nothing troublesome that made you forget?"

The divine kindness in his voice, his eyes! Yes—it would be easy, quite easy, to tell him....

"No—yes—I was a little troubled...." she said, feeling the warmth of his touch flow through her hands reassuringly.

"Dear! What about?"

She drew a deep breath. "The letter——"

He looked puzzled. "What letter?"

"Downstairs...when we came in...it was not an ordinary begging-letter."

"No? What then?" he asked, his face clouding.

She noticed the change, and it frightened her. Was he angry? Was he going to be angry? But how absurd! He was only distressed at her distress.

"What then?" he repeated, more gently.

She looked up into his eyes for an instant. "It was a horrible letter——" she whispered, as she pressed her clasped hands against him.

His grasp tightened on her wrists, and again the stern look crossed his face. "Horrible? What do you mean?"

She had never seen him angry—but she felt suddenly that, to the guilty creature, his anger would be terrible. He would crush Wyant—she must be careful how she spoke.

"I didn't mean that—only painful...."

"Where is the letter? Let me see it."

"Oh, no" she exclaimed, shrinking away.

"Justine, what has happened? What ails you?"

On a blind impulse she had backed toward the hearth, propping her arms against the mantel-piece while she stole a secret glance at the embers. Nothing remained of it—no, nothing.

But suppose it was against herself that his anger turned? The idea was preposterous, yet she trembled at it. It was clear that she must say something at once—must somehow account for her agitation. But the sense that she was unnerved—no longer in control of her face, her voice—made her feel that she would tell her story badly if she told it now.... Had she not the right to gain a respite, to choose her own hour? Weakness—weakness again! Every delay would only increase the phantom terror. Now, now—with her head on his breast!

She turned toward him and began to speak impulsively.

"I can't show you the letter, because it's not—not my secret——"

"Ah?" he murmured, perceptibly relieved.

"It's from some one—unlucky—whom I've known about...."

"And whose troubles have been troubling you? But can't we help?"

She shone on him through gleaming lashes. "Some one poor and ill—who needs money, I mean——" She tried to laugh away her tears. "And I haven't any! That's my trouble!"

"Foolish child! And to beg you are ashamed? And so you're letting your tears cool Mr. Langhope's soup?" He had her in his arms now, his kisses drying her cheek; and she turned her head so that their lips met in a long pressure.

"Will a hundred dollars do?" he asked with a smile as he released her.

A hundred dollars! No—she was almost sure they would not. But she tried to shape a murmur of gratitude. "Thank you—thank you! I hated to ask...."

"I'll write the cheque at once."

"No—no," she protested, "there's no hurry."

But he went back to his room, and she turned again to the toilet-table. Her face was painful to look at still—but a light was breaking through its fear. She felt the touch of a narcotic in her veins. How calm and peaceful the room was—and how delicious to think that her life would go on in it, safely and peacefully, in the old familiar way!

As she swept up her hair, passing the comb through it, and flinging it dexterously over her lifted wrist, she heard Amherst cross the floor behind her, and pause to lay something on her writing-table.

"Thank you," she murmured again, lowering her head as he passed.

When the door had closed on him she thrust the last pin into her hair, dashed some drops of Cologne on her face, and went over to the writing-table. As she picked up the cheque she saw it was for three hundred dollars.



XXXIV

ONCE or twice, in the days that followed, Justine found herself thinking that she had never known happiness before. The old state of secure well-being seemed now like a dreamless sleep; but this new bliss, on its sharp pinnacle ringed with fire—this thrilling conscious joy, daily and hourly snatched from fear—this was living, not sleeping!

Wyant acknowledged her gift with profuse, almost servile thanks. She had sent it without a word—saying to herself that pity for his situation made it possible to ignore his baseness. And the days went on as before. She was not conscious of any change, save in the heightened, almost artificial quality of her happiness, till one day in March, when Mr. Langhope announced that he was going for two or three weeks to a friend's shooting-box in the south. The anniversary of Bessy's death was approaching, and Justine knew that at that time he always absented himself.

"Supposing you and Amherst were to carry off Cicely till I come back? Perhaps you could persuade him to break away from work for once—or, if that's impossible, you could take her with you to Hanaford. She looks a little pale, and the change would be good for her."

This was a great concession on Mr. Langhope's part, and Justine saw the pleasure in her husband's face. It was the first time that his father-in-law had suggested Cicely's going to Hanaford.

"I'm afraid I can't break away just now, sir," Amherst said, "but it will be delightful for Justine if you'll give us Cicely while you're away."

"Take her by all means, my dear fellow: I always sleep on both ears when she's with your wife."

It was nearly three months since Justine had left Hanaford—and now she was to return there alone with her husband! There would be hours, of course, when the child's presence was between them—or when, again, his work would keep him at the mills. But in the evenings, when Cicely was in bed—when he and she sat alone, together in the Westmore drawing-room—in Bessy's drawing-room!... No—she must find some excuse for remaining away till she had again grown used to the idea of being alone with Amherst. Every day she was growing a little more used to it; but it would take time—time, and the full assurance that Wyant was silenced. Till then she could not go back to Hanaford.

She found a pretext in her own health. She pleaded that she was a little tired, below par...and to return to Hanaford meant returning to hard work; with the best will in the world she could not be idle there. Might she not, she suggested, take Cicely to Tuxedo or Lakewood, and thus get quite away from household cares and good works? The pretext rang hollow—it was so unlike her! She saw Amherst's eyes rest anxiously on her as Mr. Langhope uttered his prompt assent. Certainly she did look tired—Mr. Langhope himself had noticed it. Had he perhaps over-taxed her energies, left the household too entirely on her shoulders? Oh, no—it was only the New York air...like Cicely, she pined for a breath of the woods.... And so, the day Mr. Langhope left, she and Cicely were packed off to Lakewood.

They stayed there a week: then a fit of restlessness drove Justine back to town. She found an excuse in the constant rain—it was really useless, as she wrote Mr. Langhope, to keep the child imprisoned in an over-heated hotel while they could get no benefit from the outdoor life. In reality, she found the long lonely hours unendurable. She pined for a sight of her husband, and thought of committing Cicely to Mrs. Ansell's care, and making a sudden dash for Hanaford. But the vision of the long evenings in the Westmore drawing-room again restrained her. No—she would simply go back to New York, dine out occasionally, go to a concert or two, trust to the usual demands of town life to crowd her hours with small activities.... And in another week Mr. Langhope would be back and the days would resume their normal course.

On arriving, she looked feverishly through the letters in the hall. None from Wyant—that fear was allayed! Every day added to her reassurance. By this time, no doubt, he was on his feet again, and ashamed—unutterably ashamed—of the threat that despair had wrung from him. She felt almost sure that his shame would keep him from ever attempting to see her, or even from writing again.

"A gentleman called to see you yesterday, madam—he would give no name," the parlour-maid said. And there was the sick fear back on her again! She could hardly control the trembling of her lips as she asked: "Did he leave no message?"

"No, madam: he only wanted to know when you'd be back."

She longed to return: "And did you tell him?" but restrained herself, and passed into the drawing-room. After all, the parlour-maid had not described the caller—why jump to the conclusion that it was Wyant?

Three days passed, and no letter came—no sign. She struggled with the temptation to describe Wyant to the servants, and to forbid his admission. But it would not do. They were nearly all old servants, in whose eyes she was still the intruder, the upstart sick-nurse—she could not wholly trust them. And each day she felt a little easier, a little more convinced that the unknown visitor had not been Wyant.

On the fourth day she received a letter from Amherst. He hoped to be back on the morrow, but as his plans were still uncertain he would telegraph in the morning—and meanwhile she must keep well, and rest, and amuse herself....

Amuse herself! That evening, as it happened, she was going to the theatre with Mrs. Ansell. She and Mrs. Ansell, though outwardly on perfect terms, had not greatly advanced in intimacy. The agitated, decentralized life of the older woman seemed futile and trivial to Justine; but on Mr. Langhope's account she wished to keep up an appearance of friendship with his friend, and the same motive doubtless inspired Mrs. Ansell. Just now, at any rate, Justine was grateful for her attentions, and glad to go about with her. Anything—anything to get away from her own thoughts! That was the pass she had come to.

At the theatre, in a proscenium box, the publicity, the light and movement, the action of the play, all helped to distract and quiet her. At such moments she grew ashamed of her fears. Why was she tormenting herself? If anything happened she had only to ask her husband for more money. She never spoke to him of her good works, and there would be nothing to excite suspicion in her asking help again for the friend whose secret she was pledged to keep.... But nothing was going to happen. As the play progressed, and the stimulus of talk and laughter flowed through her veins, she felt a complete return of confidence. And then suddenly she glanced across the house, and saw Wyant looking at her.

He sat rather far back, in one of the side rows just beneath the balcony, so that his face was partly shaded. But even in the shadow it frightened her. She had been prepared for a change, but not for this ghastly deterioration. And he continued to look at her.

She began to be afraid that he would do something conspicuous—point at her, or stand up in his seat. She thought he looked half-mad—or was it her own hallucination that made him appear so? She and Mrs. Ansell were alone in the box for the moment, and she started up, pushing back her chair....

Mrs. Ansell leaned forward. "What is it?"

"Nothing—the heat—I'll sit back for a moment." But as she withdrew into the back of the box, she was seized by a new fear. If he was still watching, might he not come to the door and try to speak to her? Her only safety lay in remaining in full view of the audience; and she returned to Mrs. Ansell's side.

The other members of the party came back—the bell rang, the foot-lights blazed, the curtain rose. She lost herself in the mazes of the play. She sat so motionless, her face so intently turned toward the stage, that the muscles at the back of her neck began to stiffen. And then, quite suddenly, toward the middle of the act, she felt an undefinable sense of relief. She could not tell what caused it—but slowly, cautiously, while the eyes of the others were intent upon the stage, she turned her head and looked toward Wyant's seat. It was empty.

Her first thought was that he had gone to wait for her outside. But no—there were two more acts: why should he stand at the door for half the evening?

At last the act ended; the entr'acte elapsed; the play went on again—and still the seat was empty. Gradually she persuaded herself that she had been mistaken in thinking that the man who had occupied it was Wyant. Her self-command returned, she began to think and talk naturally, to follow the dialogue on the stage—and when the evening was over, and Mrs. Ansell set her down at her door, she had almost forgotten her fears.

The next morning she felt calmer than for many days. She was sure now that if Wyant had wished to speak to her he would have waited at the door of the theatre; and the recollection of his miserable face made apprehension yield to pity. She began to feel that she had treated him coldly, uncharitably. They had been friends once, as well as fellow-workers; but she had been false even to the comradeship of the hospital. She should have sought him out and given him sympathy as well as money; had she shown some sign of human kindness his last letter might never have been written.

In the course of the morning Amherst telegraphed that he hoped to settle his business in time to catch the two o'clock express, but that his plans were still uncertain. Justine and Cicely lunched alone, and after luncheon the little girl was despatched to her dancing-class. Justine herself meant to go out when the brougham returned. She went up to her room to dress, planning to drive in the park, and to drop in on Mrs. Ansell before she called for Cicely; but on the way downstairs she saw the servant opening the door to a visitor. It was too late to draw back; and descending the last steps she found herself face to face with Wyant.

They looked at each other a moment in silence; then Justine murmured a word of greeting and led the way to the drawing-room.

It was a snowy afternoon, and in the raw ash-coloured light she thought he looked more changed than at the theatre. She remarked, too, that his clothes were worn and untidy, his gloveless hands soiled and tremulous. None of the degrading signs of his infirmity were lacking; and she saw at once that, while in the early days of the habit he had probably mixed his drugs, so that the conflicting symptoms neutralized each other, he had now sunk into open morphia-taking. She felt profoundly sorry for him; yet as he followed her into the room physical repulsion again mastered the sense of pity.

But where action was possible she was always self-controlled, and she turned to him quietly as they seated themselves.

"I have been wishing to see you," she said, looking at him. "I have felt that I ought to have done so sooner—to have told you how sorry I am for your bad luck."

He returned her glance with surprise: they were evidently the last words he had expected.

"You're very kind," he said in a low embarrassed voice. He had kept on his shabby over-coat, and he twirled his hat in his hands as he spoke.

"I have felt," Justine continued, "that perhaps a talk with you might be of more use——"

He raised his head, fixing her with bright narrowed eyes. "I have felt so too: that's my reason for coming. You sent me a generous present some weeks ago—but I don't want to go on living on charity."

"I understand that," she answered. "But why have you had to do so? Won't you tell me just what has happened?"

She felt the words to be almost a mockery; yet she could not say "I read your history at a glance"; and she hoped that her question might draw out his wretched secret, and thus give her the chance to speak frankly.

He gave a nervous laugh. "Just what has happened? It's a long story—and some of the details are not particularly pretty." He broke off, moving his hat more rapidly through his trembling hands.

"Never mind: tell me."

"Well—after you all left Lynbrook I had rather a bad break-down—the strain of Mrs. Amherst's case, I suppose. You remember Bramble, the Clifton grocer? Miss Bramble nursed me—I daresay you remember her too. When I recovered I married her—and after that things didn't go well."

He paused, breathing quickly, and looking about the room with odd, furtive glances. "I was only half-well, anyhow—I couldn't attend to my patients properly—and after a few months we decided to leave Clifton, and I bought a practice in New Jersey. But my wife was ill there, and things went wrong again—damnably. I suppose you've guessed that my marriage was a mistake. She had an idea that we should do better in New York—so we came here a few months ago, and we've done decidedly worse."

Justine listened with a sense of discouragement. She saw now that he did not mean to acknowledge his failing, and knowing the secretiveness of the drug-taker she decided that he was deluded enough to think he could still deceive her.

"Well," he began again, with an attempt at jauntiness, "I've found out that in my profession it's a hard struggle to get on your feet again, after illness or—or any bad set-back. That's the reason I asked you to say a word for me. It's not only the money, though I need that badly—I want to get back my self-respect. With my record I oughtn't to be where I am—and you can speak for me better than any one."

"Why better than the doctors you've worked with?" Justine put the question abruptly, looking him straight in the eyes.

His glance dropped, and an unpleasant flush rose to his thin cheeks.

"Well—as it happens, you're better situated than any one to help me to the particular thing I want."

"The particular thing——?"

"Yes. I understand that Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell are both interested in the new wing for paying patients at Saint Christopher's. I want the position of house-physician there, and I know you can get it for me."

His tone changed as he spoke, till with the last words it became rough and almost menacing.

Justine felt her colour rise, and her heart began to beat confusedly. Here was the truth, then: she could no longer be the dupe of her own compassion. The man knew his power and meant to use it. But at the thought her courage was in arms.

"I'm sorry—but it's impossible," she said.

"Impossible—why?"

She continued to look at him steadily. "You said just now that you wished to regain your self-respect. Well, you must regain it before you can ask me—or any one else—to recommend you to a position of trust."

Wyant half-rose, with an angry murmur. "My self-respect? What do you mean? I meant that I'd lost courage—through ill-luck——"

"Yes; and your ill-luck has come through your own fault. Till you cure yourself you're not fit to cure others."

He sank back into his seat, glowering at her under sullen brows; then his expression gradually changed to half-sneering admiration. "You're a plucky one!" he said.

Justine repressed a movement of disgust. "I am very sorry for you," she said gravely. "I saw this trouble coming on you long ago—and if there is any other way in which I can help you——"

"Thanks," he returned, still sneering. "Your sympathy is very precious—there was a time when I would have given my soul for it. But that's over, and I'm here to talk business. You say you saw my trouble coming on—did it ever occur to you that you were the cause of it?"

Justine glanced at him with frank contempt. "No—for I was not," she replied.

"That's an easy way out of it. But you took everything from me—first my hope of marrying you; then my chance of a big success in my career; and I was desperate—weak, if you like—and tried to deaden my feelings in order to keep up my pluck."

Justine rose to her feet with a movement of impatience. "Every word you say proves how unfit you are to assume any responsibility—to do anything but try to recover your health. If I can help you to that, I am still willing to do so."

Wyant rose also, moving a step nearer. "Well, get me that place, then—I'll see to the rest: I'll keep straight."

"No—it's impossible."

"You won't?"

"I can't," she repeated firmly.

"And you expect to put me off with that answer?"

She hesitated. "Yes—if there's no other help you'll accept."

He laughed again—his feeble sneering laugh was disgusting. "Oh, I don't say that. I'd like to earn my living honestly—funny preference—but if you cut me off from that, I suppose it's only fair to let you make up for it. My wife and child have got to live."

"You choose a strange way of helping them; but I will do what I can if you will go for a while to some institution——"

He broke in furiously. "Institution be damned! You can't shuffle me out of the way like that. I'm all right—good food is what I need. You think I've got morphia in me—why, it's hunger!"

Justine heard him with a renewal of pity. "Oh, I'm sorry for you—very sorry! Why do you try to deceive me?"

"Why do you deceive me? You know what I want and you know you've got to let me have it. If you won't give me a line to one of your friends at Saint Christopher's you'll have to give me another cheque—that's the size of it."

As they faced each other in silence Justine's pity gave way to a sudden hatred for the poor creature who stood shivering and sneering before her.

"You choose the wrong tone—and I think our talk has lasted long enough," she said, stretching her hand to the bell.

Wyant did not move. "Don't ring—unless you want me to write to your husband," he rejoined.

A sick feeling of helplessness overcame her; but she turned on him firmly. "I pardoned you once for that threat!"

"Yes—and you sent me some money the next day."

"I was mistaken enough to think that, in your distress, you had not realized what you wrote. But if you're a systematic blackmailer——"

"Gently—gently. Bad names don't frighten me—it's hunger and debt I'm afraid of."

Justine felt a last tremor of compassion. He was abominable—but he was pitiable too.

"I will really help you—I will see your wife and do what I can—but I can give you no money today."

"Why not?"

"Because I have none. I am not as rich as you think."

He smiled incredulously. "Give me a line to Mr. Langhope, then."

"No."

He sat down once more, leaning back with a weak assumption of ease. "Perhaps Mr. Amherst will think differently."

She whitened, but said steadily: "Mr. Amherst is away."

"Very well—I can write."

For the last five minutes Justine had foreseen this threat, and had tried to force her mind to face dispassionately the chances it involved. After all, why not let him write to Amherst? The very vileness of the deed must rouse an indignation which would be all in her favour, would inevitably dispose her husband to readier sympathy with the motive of her act, as contrasted with the base insinuations of her slanderer. It seemed impossible that Amherst should condemn her when his condemnation involved the fulfilling of Wyant's calculations: a reaction of scorn would throw him into unhesitating championship of her conduct. All this was so clear that, had she been advising any one else, her confidence in the course to be taken might have strengthened the feeblest will; but with the question lying between herself and Amherst—with the vision of those soiled hands literally laid on the spotless fabric of her happiness, judgment wavered, foresight was obscured—she felt tremulously unable to face the steps between exposure and vindication. Her final conclusion was that she must, at any rate, gain time: buy off Wyant till she had been able to tell her story in her own way, and at her own hour, and then defy him when he returned to the assault. The idea that whatever concession she made would be only provisional, helped to excuse the weakness of making it, and enabled her at last, without too painful a sense of falling below her own standards, to reply in a low voice: "If you'll go now, I will send you something next week."

But Wyant did not respond as readily as she had expected. He merely asked, without altering his insolently easy attitude: "How much? Unless it's a good deal, I prefer the letter."

Oh, why could she not cry out: "Leave the house at once—your vulgar threats are nothing to me"—Why could she not even say in her own heart: I will tell my husband tonight?

"You're afraid," said Wyant, as if answering her thought. "What's the use of being afraid when you can make yourself comfortable so easily? You called me a systematic blackmailer—well, I'm not that yet. Give me a thousand and you'll see the last of me—on what used to be my honour."

Justine's heart sank. She had reached the point of being ready to appeal again to Amherst—but on what pretext could she ask for such a sum?

In a lifeless voice she said: "I could not possibly get more than one or two hundred."

Wyant scrutinized her a moment: her despair must have rung true to him. "Well, you must have something of your own—I saw your jewelry last night at the theatre," he said.

So it had been he—and he had sat there appraising her value like a murderer!

"Jewelry—?" she faltered.

"You had a thumping big sapphire—wasn't it?—with diamonds round it."

It was her only jewel—Amherst's marriage gift. She would have preferred a less valuable present, but his mother had persuaded her to accept it, saying that it was the bride's duty to adorn herself for the bridegroom.

"I will give you nothing—" she was about to exclaim; when suddenly her eyes fell on the clock. If Amherst had caught the two o'clock express he would be at the house within the hour; and the only thing that seemed of consequence now, was that he should not meet Wyant. Supposing she still found courage to refuse—there was no knowing how long the humiliating scene might be prolonged: and she must be rid of the creature at any cost. After all, she seldom wore the sapphire—months might pass without its absence being noted by Amherst's careless eye; and if Wyant should pawn it, she might somehow save money to buy it back before it was missed. She went through these calculations with feverish rapidity; then she turned again to Wyant.

"You won't come back—ever?"

"I swear I won't," he said.

He moved away toward the window, as if to spare her; and she turned and slowly left the room.

She never forgot the moments that followed. Once outside the door she was in such haste that she stumbled on the stairs, and had to pause on the landing to regain her breath. In her room she found one of the housemaids busy, and at first could think of no pretext for dismissing her. Then she bade the woman go down and send the brougham away, telling the coachman to call for Miss Cicely at six.

Left alone, she bolted the door, and as if with a thief's hand, opened her wardrobe, unlocked her jewel-box, and drew out the sapphire in its flat morocco case. She restored the box to its place, the key to its ring—then she opened the case and looked at the sapphire. As she did so, a little tremor ran over her neck and throat, and closing her eyes she felt her husband's kiss, and the touch of his hands as he fastened on the jewel.

She unbolted the door, listened intently on the landing, and then went slowly down the stairs. None of the servants were in sight, yet as she reached the lower hall she was conscious that the air had grown suddenly colder, as though the outer door had just been opened. She paused, and listened again. There was a sound of talking in the drawing-room. Could it be that in her absence a visitor had been admitted? The possibility frightened her at first—then she welcomed it as an unexpected means of ridding herself of her tormentor.

She opened the drawing-room door, and saw her husband talking with Wyant.



XXXV

AMHERST, his back to the threshold, sat at a table writing: Wyant stood a few feet away, staring down at the fire.

Neither had heard the door open; and before they were aware of her entrance Justine had calculated that she must have been away for at least five minutes, and that in that space of time almost anything might have passed between them.

For a moment the power of connected thought left her; then her heart gave a bound of relief. She said to herself that Wyant had doubtless made some allusion to his situation, and that her husband, conscious only of a great debt of gratitude, had at once sat down to draw a cheque for him. The idea was so reassuring that it restored all her clearness of thought.

Wyant was the first to see her. He made an abrupt movement, and Amherst, rising, turned and put an envelope in his hand.

"There, my dear fellow——"

As he turned he caught sight of his wife.

"I caught the twelve o'clock train after all—you got my second wire?" he asked.

"No," she faltered, pressing her left hand, with the little case in it, close to the folds of her dress.

"I was afraid not. There was a bad storm at Hanaford, and they said there might be a delay."

At the same moment she found Wyant advancing with extended hand, and understood that he had concealed the fact of having already seen her. She accepted the cue, and shook his hand, murmuring: "How do you do?"

Amherst looked at her, perhaps struck by her manner.

"You have not seen Dr. Wyant since Lynbrook?"

"No," she answered, thankful to have this pretext for her emotion.

"I have been telling him that he should not have left us so long without news—especially as he has been ill, and things have gone rather badly with him. But I hope we can help now. He has heard that Saint Christopher's is looking for a house-physician for the paying patients' wing, and as Mr. Langhope is away I have given him a line to Mrs. Ansell."

"Extremely kind of you," Wyant murmured, passing his hand over his forehead.

Justine stood silent. She wondered that her husband had not noticed that tremulous degraded hand. But he was always so blind to externals—and he had no medical experience to sharpen his perceptions.

Suddenly she felt impelled to speak "I am sorry Dr. Wyant has been—unfortunate. Of course you will want to do everything to help him; but would it not be better to wait till Mr. Langhope comes back?"

"Wyant thinks the delay might make him lose the place. It seems the board meets tomorrow. And Mrs. Ansell really knows much more about it. Isn't she the secretary of the ladies' committee?"

"I'm not sure—I believe so. But surely Mr. Langhope should be consulted."

She felt Wyant's face change: his eyes settled on her in a threatening stare.

Amherst looked at her also, and there was surprise in his glance. "I think I can answer for my father-in-law. He feels as strongly as I do how much we all owe to Dr. Wyant."

He seldom spoke of Mr. Langhope as his father-in-law, and the chance designation seemed to mark a closer tie between them, to exclude Justine from what was after all a family affair. For a moment she felt tempted to accept the suggestion, and let the responsibility fall where it would. But it would fall on Amherst—and that was intolerable.

"I think you ought to wait," she insisted.

An embarrassed silence settled on the three.

Wyant broke it by advancing toward Amherst. "I shall never forget your kindness," he said; "and I hope to prove to Mrs. Amherst that it's not misplaced."

The words were well chosen, and well spoken; Justine saw that they produced a good effect. Amherst grasped the physician's hand with a smile. "My dear fellow, I wish I could do more. Be sure to call on me again if you want help."

"Oh, you've put me on my feet," said Wyant gratefully.

He bowed slightly to Justine and turned to go; but as he reached the threshold she moved after him.

"Dr. Wyant—you must give back that letter."

He stopped short with a whitening face.

She felt Amherst's eyes on her again; and she said desperately, addressing him: "Dr. Wyant understands my reasons."

Her husband's glance turned abruptly to Wyant. "Do you?" he asked after a pause.

Wyant looked from one to the other. The moisture came out on his forehead, and he passed his hand over it again. "Yes," he said in a dry voice. "Mrs. Amherst wants me farther off—out of New York."

"Out of New York? What do you mean?"

Justine interposed hastily, before the answer could come. "It is because Dr. Wyant is not in condition—for such a place—just at present."

"But he assures me he is quite well."

There was another silence; and again Wyant broke in, this time with a slight laugh. "I can explain what Mrs. Amherst means; she intends to accuse me of the morphine habit. And I can explain her reason for doing so—she wants me out of the way."

Amherst turned on the speaker; and, as she had foreseen, his look was terrible. "You haven't explained that yet," he said.

"Well—I can." Wyant waited another moment. "I know too much about her," he declared.

There was a low exclamation from Justine, and Amherst strode toward Wyant. "You infernal blackguard!" he cried.

"Oh, gently——" Wyant muttered, flinching back from his outstretched arm.

"My wife's wish is sufficient. Give me back that letter."

Wyant straightened himself. "No, by God, I won't!" he retorted furiously. "I didn't ask you for it till you offered to help me; but I won't let it be taken back without a word, like a thief that you'd caught with your umbrella. If your wife won't explain I will. She's, afraid I'll talk about what happened at Lynbrook."

Amherst's arm fell to his side. "At Lynbrook?"

Behind him there was a sound of inarticulate appeal—but he took no notice.

"Yes. It's she who used morphia—but not on herself. She gives it to other people. She gave an overdose to Mrs. Amherst."

Amherst looked at him confusedly. "An overdose?"

"Yes—purposely, I mean. And I came into the room at the wrong time. I can prove that Mrs. Amherst died of morphia-poisoning."

"John!" Justine gasped out, pressing between them.

Amherst gently put aside the hand with which she had caught his arm. "Wait a moment: this can't rest here. You can't want it to," he said to her in an undertone.

"Why do you care...for what he says...when I don't?" she breathed back with trembling lips.

"You can see I am not wanted here," Wyant threw in with a sneer.

Amherst remained silent for a brief space; then he turned his eyes once more to his wife.

Justine lifted her face: it looked small and spent, like an extinguished taper.

"It's true," she said.

"True?"

"I did give...an overdose...intentionally, when I knew there was no hope, and when the surgeons said she might go on suffering. She was very strong...and I couldn't bear it...you couldn't have borne it...."

There was another silence; then she went on in a stronger voice, looking straight at her husband: "And now will you send this man away?"

Amherst glanced at Wyant without moving. "Go," he said curtly.

Wyant, instead, moved a step nearer. "Just a minute, please. It's only fair to hear my side. Your wife says there was no hope; yet the day before she...gave the dose, Dr. Garford told her in my presence that Mrs. Amherst might live."

Again Amherst's eyes addressed themselves slowly to Justine; and she forced her lips to articulate an answer.

"Dr. Garford said...one could never tell...but I know he didn't believe in the chance of recovery...no one did."

"Dr. Garford is dead," said Wyant grimly.

Amherst strode up to him again. "You scoundrel—leave the house!" he commanded.

But still Wyant sneeringly stood his ground. "Not till I've finished. I can't afford to let myself be kicked out like a dog because I happen to be in the way. Every doctor knows that in cases of spinal lesion recovery is becoming more and more frequent—if the patient survives the third week there's every reason to hope. Those are the facts as they would appear to any surgeon. If they're not true, why is Mrs. Amherst afraid of having them stated? Why has she been paying me for nearly a year to keep them quiet?"

"Oh——" Justine moaned.

"I never thought of talking till luck went against me. Then I asked her for help—and reminded her of certain things. After that she kept me supplied pretty regularly." He thrust his shaking hand into an inner pocket. "Here are her envelopes...Quebec...Montreal...Saranac...I know just where you went on your honeymoon. She had to write often, because the sums were small. Why did she do it, if she wasn't afraid? And why did she go upstairs just now to fetch me something? If you don't believe me, ask her what she's got in her hand."

Amherst did not heed this injunction. He stood motionless, gripping the back of a chair, as if his next gesture might be to lift and hurl it at the speaker.

"Ask her——" Wyant repeated.

Amherst turned his head slowly, and his dull gaze rested on his wife. His face looked years older—lips and eyes moved as heavily as an old man's.

As he looked at her, Justine came forward without speaking, and laid the little morocco case in his hand. He held it there a moment, as if hardly understanding her action—then he tossed it on the table at his elbow, and walked up to Wyant.

"You hound," he said—"now go!"



XXXVI

WHEN Wyant had left the room, and the house-door had closed on him, Amherst spoke to his wife.

"Come upstairs," he said.

Justine followed him, scarcely conscious where she went, but moving already with a lighter tread. Part of her weight of misery had been lifted with Wyant's going. She had suffered less from the fear of what her husband might think than from the shame of making her avowal in her defamer's presence. And her faith in Amherst's comprehension had begun to revive. He had dismissed Wyant with scorn and horror—did not that show that he was on her side already? And how many more arguments she had at her call! Her brain hummed with them as she followed him up the stairs.

In her bedroom he closed the door and stood motionless, the same heavy half-paralyzed look on his face. It frightened her and she went up to him.

"John!" she said timidly.

He put his hand to his head. "Wait a moment——" he returned; and she waited, her heart slowly sinking again.

The moment over, he seemed to recover his power of movement. He crossed the room and threw himself into the armchair near the hearth.

"Now tell me everything."

He sat thrown back, his eyes fixed on the fire, and the vertical lines between his brows forming a deep scar in his white face.

Justine moved nearer, and touched his arm beseechingly. "Won't you look at me?"

He turned his head slowly, as if with an effort, and his eyes rested reluctantly on hers.

"Oh, not like that!" she exclaimed.

He seemed to make a stronger effort at self-control. "Please don't heed me—but say what there is to say," he said in a level voice, his gaze on the fire.

She stood before him, her arms hanging down, her clasped fingers twisting restlessly.

"I don't know that there is much to say—beyond what I've told you."

There was a slight sound in Amherst's throat, like the ghost of a derisive laugh. After another interval he said: "I wish to hear exactly what happened."

She seated herself on the edge of a chair near by, bending forward, with hands interlocked and arms extended on her knees—every line reaching out to him, as though her whole slight body were an arrow winged with pleadings. It was a relief to speak at last, even face to face with the stony image that sat in her husband's place; and she told her story, detail by detail, omitting nothing, exaggerating nothing, speaking slowly, clearly, with precision, aware that the bare facts were her strongest argument.

Amherst, as he listened, shifted his position once, raising his hand so that it screened his face; and in that attitude he remained when she had ended.

As she waited for him to speak, Justine realized that her heart had been alive with tremulous hopes. All through her narrative she had counted on a murmur of perception, an exclamation of pity: she had felt sure of melting the stony image. But Amherst said no word.

At length he spoke, still without turning his head. "You have not told me why you kept this from me."

A sob formed in her throat, and she had to wait to steady her voice.

"No—that was my wrong—my weakness. When I did it I never thought of being afraid to tell you—I had talked it over with you in my own mind...so often...before...."

"Well?"

"Then—- when you came back it was harder...though I was still sure you would approve me."

"Why harder?"

"Because at first—at Lynbrook—I could not tell it all over, in detail, as I have now...it was beyond human power...and without doing so, I couldn't make it all clear to you...and so should only have added to your pain. If you had been there you would have done as I did.... I felt sure of that from the first. But coming afterward, you couldn't judge...no one who was not there could judge...and I wanted to spare you...."

"And afterward?"

She had shrunk in advance from this question, and she could not answer it at once. To gain time she echoed it. "Afterward?"

"Did it never occur to you, when we met later—when you first went to Mr. Langhope——"?

"To tell you then? No—because by that time I had come to see that I could never be quite sure of making you understand. No one who was not there at the time could know what it was to see her suffer."

"You thought it all over, then—decided definitely against telling me?"

"I did not have to think long. I felt I had done right—I still feel so—and I was sure you would feel so, if you were in the same circumstances."

There was another pause. Then Amherst said: "And last September—at Hanaford?"

It was the word for which she had waited—the word of her inmost fears. She felt the blood mount to her face.

"Did you see no difference—no special reason for telling me then?"

"Yes——" she faltered.

"Yet you said nothing."

"No."

Silence again. Her eyes strayed to the clock, and some dim association of ideas told her that Cicely would soon be coming in.

"Why did you say nothing?"

He lowered his hand and turned toward her as he spoke; and she looked up and faced him.

"Because I regarded the question as settled. I had decided it in my own mind months before, and had never regretted my decision. I should have thought it morbid...unnatural...to go over the whole subject again...to let it affect a situation that had come about...so much later...so unexpectedly."

"Did you never feel that, later, if I came to know—if others came to know—it might be difficult——?"

"No; for I didn't care for the others—and I believed that, whatever your own feelings were, you would know I had done what I thought right."

She spoke the words proudly, strongly, and for the first time the hard lines of his face relaxed, and a slight tremor crossed it.

"If you believed this, why have you been letting that cur blackmail you?"

"Because when he began I saw for the first time that what I had done might be turned against me by—by those who disliked our marriage. And I was afraid for my happiness. That was my weakness...it is what I am suffering for now."

"Suffering!" he echoed ironically, as though she had presumed to apply to herself a word of which he had the grim monopoly. He rose and took a few aimless steps; then he halted before her.

"That day—last month—when you asked me for money...was it...?"

"Yes——" she said, her head sinking.

He laughed. "You couldn't tell me—but you could use my money to bribe that fellow to conspire with you!"

"I had none of my own."

"No—nor I either! You used her money.—God!" he groaned, turning away with clenched hands.

Justine had risen also, and she stood motionless, her hands clasped against her breast, in the drawn shrinking attitude of a fugitive overtaken by a blinding storm. He moved back to her with an appealing gesture.

"And you didn't see—it didn't occur to you—that your doing...as you did...was an obstacle—an insurmountable obstacle—to our ever ...?"

She cut him short with an indignant cry. "No! No! for it was not. How could it have anything to do with what...came after...with you or me? I did it only for Bessy—it concerned only Bessy!"

"Ah, don't name her!" broke from him harshly, and she drew back, cut to the heart.

There was another pause, during which he seemed to fall into a kind of dazed irresolution, his head on his breast, as though unconscious of her presence. Then he roused himself and went to the door.

As he passed her she sprang after him. "John—John! Is that all you have to say?"

"What more is there?"

"What more? Everything!—What right have you to turn from me as if I were a murderess? I did nothing but what your own reason, your own arguments, have justified a hundred times! I made a mistake in not telling you at once—but a mistake is not a crime. It can't be your real feeling that turns you from me—it must be the dread of what other people would think! But when have you cared for what other people thought? When have your own actions been governed by it?"

He moved another step without speaking, and she caught him by the arm. "No! you sha'n't go—not like that!—Wait!"

She turned and crossed the room. On the lower shelf of the little table by her bed a few books were ranged: she stooped and drew one hurriedly forth, opening it at the fly-leaf as she went back to Amherst.

"There—read that. The book was at Lynbrook—in your room—and I came across it by chance the very day...."

It was the little volume of Bacon which she was thrusting at him. He took it with a bewildered look, as if scarcely following what she said.

"Read it—read it!" she commanded; and mechanically he read out the words he had written.

"La vraie morale se moque de la morale.... We perish because we follow other men's examples.... Socrates called the opinions of the many Lamiae.—Good God!" he exclaimed, flinging the book from him with a gesture of abhorrence.

Justine watched him with panting lips, her knees trembling under her. "But you wrote it—you wrote it! I thought you meant it!" she cried, as the book spun across a table and dropped to the floor.

He looked at her coldly, almost apprehensively, as if she had grown suddenly dangerous and remote; then he turned and walked out of the room.

* * * * *

The striking of the clock roused her. She rose to her feet, rang the bell, and told the maid, through the door, that she had a headache, and was unable to see Miss Cicely. Then she turned back into the room, and darkness closed on her. She was not the kind to take grief passively—it drove her in anguished pacings up and down the floor. She walked and walked till her legs flagged under her; then she dropped stupidly into the chair where Amherst had sat....

All her world had crumbled about her. It was as if some law of mental gravity had been mysteriously suspended, and every firmly-anchored conviction, every accepted process of reasoning, spun disconnectedly through space. Amherst had not understood her—worse still, he had judged her as the world might judge her! The core of her misery was there. With terrible clearness she saw the suspicion that had crossed his mind—the suspicion that she had kept silence in the beginning because she loved him, and feared to lose him if she spoke.

And what if it were true? What if her unconscious guilt went back even farther than his thought dared to track it? She could not now recall a time when she had not loved him. Every chance meeting with him, from their first brief talk at Hanaford, stood out embossed and glowing against the blur of lesser memories. Was it possible that she had loved him during Bessy's life—that she had even, sub-consciously, blindly, been urged by her feeling for him to perform the act?

But she shook herself free from this morbid horror—the rebound of health was always prompt in her, and her mind instinctively rejected every form of moral poison. No! Her motive had been normal, sane and justifiable—completely justifiable. Her fault lay in having dared to rise above conventional restrictions, her mistake in believing that her husband could rise with her. These reflections steadied her but they did not bring much comfort. For her whole life was centred in Amherst, and she saw that he would never be able to free himself from the traditional view of her act. In looking back, and correcting her survey of his character in the revealing light of the last hours, she perceived that, like many men of emancipated thought, he had remained subject to the old conventions of feeling. And he had probably never given much thought to women till he met her—had always been content to deal with them in the accepted currency of sentiment. After all, it was the currency they liked best, and for which they offered their prettiest wares!

But what of the intellectual accord between himself and her? She had not been deceived in that! He and she had really been wedded in mind as well as in heart. But until now there had not arisen in their lives one of those searching questions which call into play emotions rooted far below reason and judgment, in the dark primal depths of inherited feeling. It is easy to judge impersonal problems intellectually, turning on them the full light of acquired knowledge; but too often one must still grope one's way through the personal difficulty by the dim taper carried in long-dead hands....

But was there then no hope of lifting one's individual life to a clearer height of conduct? Must one be content to think for the race, and to feel only—feel blindly and incoherently—for one's self? And was it not from such natures as Amherst's—natures in which independence of judgment was blent with strong human sympathy—that the liberating impulse should come?

Her mind grew weary of revolving in this vain circle of questions. The fact was that, in their particular case, Amherst had not risen above prejudice and emotion; that, though her act was one to which his intellectual sanction was given, he had turned from her with instinctive repugnance, had dishonoured her by the most wounding suspicions. The tie between them was forever stained and debased.

Justine's long hospital-discipline made it impossible for her to lose consciousness of the lapse of time, or to let her misery thicken into mental stupor. She could not help thinking and moving; and she presently lifted herself to her feet, turned on the light, and began to prepare for dinner. It would be terrible to face her husband across Mr. Langhope's pretty dinner-table, and afterward in the charming drawing-room, with its delicate old ornaments and intimate luxurious furniture; but she could not continue to sit motionless in the dark: it was her innermost instinct to pick herself up and go on.

While she dressed she listened anxiously for Amherst's step in the next room; but there was no sound, and when she dragged herself downstairs the drawing-room was empty, and the parlour-maid, after a decent delay, came to ask if dinner should be postponed.

She said no, murmuring some vague pretext for her husband's absence, and sitting alone through the succession of courses which composed the brief but carefully-studied menu. When this ordeal was over she returned to the drawing-room and took up a book. It chanced to be a new volume on labour problems, which Amherst must have brought back with him from Westmore; and it carried her thoughts instantly to the mills. Would this disaster poison their work there as well as their personal relation? Would he think of her as carrying contamination even into the task their love had illumined?

The hours went on without his returning, and at length it occurred to her that he might have taken the night train to Hanaford. Her heart contracted at the thought: she remembered—though every nerve shrank from the analogy—his sudden flight at another crisis in his life, and she felt obscurely that if he escaped from her now she would never recover her hold on him. But could he be so cruel—could he wish any one to suffer as she was suffering?

At ten o'clock she could endure the drawing-room no longer, and went up to her room again. She undressed slowly, trying to prolong the process as much as possible, to put off the period of silence and inaction which would close in on her when she lay down on her bed. But at length the dreaded moment came—there was nothing more between her and the night. She crept into bed and put out the light; but as she slipped between the cold sheets a trembling seized her, and after a moment she drew on her dressing-gown again and groped her way to the lounge by the fire.

She pushed the lounge closer to the hearth and lay down, still shivering, though she had drawn the quilted coverlet up to her chin. She lay there a long time, with closed eyes, in a mental darkness torn by sudden flashes of memory. In one of these flashes a phrase of Amherst's stood out—a word spoken at Westmore, on the day of the opening of the Emergency Hospital, about a good-looking young man who had called to see her. She remembered Amherst's boyish burst of jealousy, his sudden relief at the thought that the visitor might have been Wyant. And no doubt it was Wyant—Wyant who had come to Hanaford to threaten her, and who, baffled by her non-arrival, or for some other unexplained reason, had left again without carrying out his purpose.

It was dreadful to think by how slight a chance her first draught of happiness had escaped that drop of poison; yet, when she understood, her inward cry was: "If it had happened, my dearest need not have suffered!"... Already she was feeling Amherst's pain more than her own, understanding that it was harder to bear than hers because it was at war with all the reflective part of his nature.

As she lay there, her face pressed into the cushions, she heard a sound through the silent house—the opening and closing of the outer door. She turned cold, and lay listening with strained ears.... Yes; now there was a step on the stairs—her husband's step! She heard him turn into his own room. The throbs of her heart almost deafened her—she only distinguished confusedly that he was moving about within, so close that it was as if she felt his touch. Then her door opened and he entered.

He stumbled slightly in the darkness before he found the switch of the lamp; and as he bent over it she saw that his face was flushed, and that his eyes had an excited light which, in any one less abstemious, might almost have seemed like the effect of wine.

"Are you awake?" he asked.

She started up against the cushions, her black hair streaming about her small ghostly face.

"Yes."

He walked over to the lounge and dropped into the low chair beside it.

"I've given that cur a lesson he won't forget," he exclaimed, breathing hard, the redness deepening in his face.

She turned on him in joy and trembling. "John!—Oh, John! You didn't follow him? Oh, what happened? What have you done?"

"No. I didn't follow him. But there are some things that even the powers above can't stand. And so they managed to let me run across him—by the merest accident—and I gave him something to remember."

He spoke in a strong clear voice that had a brightness like the brightness in his eyes. She felt its heat in her veins—the primitive woman in her glowed at contact with the primitive man. But reflection chilled her the next moment.

"But why—why? Oh, how could you? Where did it happen—oh, not in the street?"

As she questioned him, there rose before her the terrified vision of a crowd gathering—the police, newspapers, a hideous publicity. He must have been mad to do it—and yet he must have done it because he loved her!

"No—no. Don't be afraid. The powers looked after that too. There was no one about—and I don't think he'll talk much about it."

She trembled, fearing yet adoring him. Nothing could have been more unlike the Amherst she fancied she knew than this act of irrational anger which had magically lifted the darkness from his spirit; yet, magically also, it gave him back to her, made them one flesh once more. And suddenly the pressure of opposed emotions became too strong, and she burst into tears.

She wept painfully, violently, with the resistance of strong natures unused to emotional expression; till at length, through the tumult of her tears, she felt her husband's reassuring touch.

"Justine," he said, speaking once more in his natural voice.

She raised her face from her hands, and they looked at each other.

"Justine—this afternoon—I said things I didn't mean to say."

Her lips parted, but her throat was still full of sobs, and she could only look at him while the tears ran down.

"I believe I understand now," he continued, in the same quiet tone.

Her hand shrank from his clasp, and she began to tremble again. "Oh, if you only believe...if you're not sure...don't pretend to be!"

He sat down beside her and drew her into his arms. "I am sure," he whispered, holding her close, and pressing his lips against her face and hair.

"Oh, my husband—my husband! You've come back to me?"

He answered her with more kisses, murmuring through them: "Poor child—poor child—poor Justine...." while he held her fast.

With her face against him she yielded to the childish luxury of murmuring out unjustified fears. "I was afraid you had gone back to Hanaford——"

"Tonight? To Hanaford?"

"To tell your mother."

She felt a contraction of the arm embracing her, as though a throb of pain had stiffened it.

"I shall never tell any one," he said abruptly; but as he felt in her a responsive shrinking he gathered her close again, whispering through the hair that fell about her cheek: "Don't talk, dear...let us never talk of it again...." And in the clasp of his arms her terror and anguish subsided, giving way, not to the deep peace of tranquillized thought, but to a confused well-being that lulled all thought to sleep.



XXXVII

BUT thought could never be long silent between them; and Justine's triumph lasted but a day.

With its end she saw what it had been made of: the ascendency of youth and sex over his subjugated judgment. Her first impulse was to try and maintain it—why not use the protective arts with which love inspired her? She who lived so keenly in the brain could live as intensely in her feelings; her quick imagination tutored her looks and words, taught her the spells to weave about shorn giants. And for a few days she and Amherst lost themselves in this self-evoked cloud of passion, both clinging fast to the visible, the palpable in their relation, as if conscious already that its finer essence had fled.

Amherst made no allusion to what had passed, asked for no details, offered no reassurances—behaved as if the whole episode had been effaced from his mind. And from Wyant there came no sound: he seemed to have disappeared from life as he had from their talk.

Toward the end of the week Amherst announced that he must return to Hanaford; and Justine at once declared her intention of going with him.

He seemed surprised, disconcerted almost; and for the first time the shadow of what had happened fell visibly between them.

"But ought you to leave Cicely before Mr. Langhope comes back?" he suggested.

"He will be here in two days."

"But he will expect to find you."

"It is almost the first of April. We are to have Cicely with us for the summer. There is no reason why I should not go back to my work at Westmore."

There was in fact no reason that he could produce; and the next day they returned to Hanaford together.

With her perceptions strung to the last pitch of sensitiveness, she felt a change in Amherst as soon as they re-entered Bessy's house. He was still scrupulously considerate, almost too scrupulously tender; but with a tinge of lassitude, like a man who tries to keep up under the stupefying approach of illness. And she began to hate the power by which she held him. It was not thus they had once walked together, free in mind though so linked in habit and feeling; when their love was not a deadening drug but a vivifying element that cleared thought instead of stifling it. There were moments when she felt that open alienation would be easier, because it would be nearer the truth. And at such moments she longed to speak, to beg him to utter his mind, to go with her once for all into the depths of the subject they continued to avoid. But at the last her heart always failed her: she could not face the thought of losing him, of hearing him speak estranging words to her.

They had been at Hanaford for about ten days when, one morning at breakfast, Amherst uttered a sudden exclamation over a letter he was reading.

"What is it?" she asked in a tremor.

He had grown very pale, and was pushing the hair from his forehead with the gesture habitual to him in moments of painful indecision.

"What is it?" Justine repeated, her fear growing.

"Nothing——" he began, thrusting the letter under the pile of envelopes by his plate; but she continued to look at him anxiously, till she drew his eyes to hers.

"Mr. Langhope writes that they've appointed Wyant to Saint Christopher's," he said abruptly.

"Oh, the letter—we forgot the letter!" she cried.

"Yes—we forgot the letter."

"But how dare he——?"

Amherst said nothing, but the long silence between them seemed full of ironic answers, till she brought out, hardly above her breath: "What shall you do?"

"Write at once—tell Mr. Langhope he's not fit for the place."

"Of course——" she murmured.

He went on tearing open his other letters, and glancing at their contents. She leaned back in her chair, her cup of coffee untasted, listening to the recurrent crackle of torn paper as he tossed aside one letter after another.

Presently he rose from his seat, and as she followed him from the dining-room she noticed that his breakfast had also remained untasted. He gathered up his letters and walked toward the smoking-room; and after a moment's hesitation she joined him.

"John," she said from the threshold.

He was just seating himself at his desk, but he turned to her with an obvious effort at kindness which made the set look of his face the more marked.

She closed the door and went up to him.

"If you write that to Mr. Langhope—Dr. Wyant will—will tell him," she said.

"Yes—we must be prepared for that."

She was silent, and Amherst flung himself down on the leather ottoman against the wall. She stood before him, clasping and unclasping her hands in speechless distress.

"What would you have me do?" he asked at length, almost irritably.

"I only thought...he told me he would keep straight...if he only had a chance," she faltered out.

Amherst lifted his head slowly, and looked at her. "You mean—I am to do nothing? Is that it?"

She moved nearer to him with beseeching eyes. "I can't bear it.... I can't bear that others should come between us," she broke out passionately.

He made no answer, but she could see a look of suffering cross his face, and coming still closer, she sank down on the ottoman, laying her hand on his. "John...oh, John, spare me," she whispered.

For a moment his hand lay quiet under hers; then he drew it out, and enclosed her trembling fingers.

"Very well—I'll give him a chance—I'll do nothing," he said, suddenly putting his other arm about her.

The reaction caught her by the throat, forcing out a dry sob or two; and as she pressed her face against him he raised it up and gently kissed her.

But even as their lips met she felt that they were sealing a treaty with dishonour. That his kiss should come to mean that to her! It was unbearable—worse than any personal pain—the thought of dragging him down to falsehood through her weakness.

She drew back and rose to her feet, putting aside his detaining hand.

"No—no! What am I saying? It can't be—you must tell the truth." Her voice gathered strength as she spoke. "Oh, forget what I said—I didn't mean it!"

But again he seemed sunk in inaction, like a man over whom some baneful lethargy is stealing.

"John—John—forget!" she repeated urgently.

He looked up at her. "You realize what it will mean?"

"Yes—I realize.... But it must be.... And it will make no difference between us...will it?"

"No—no. Why should it?" he answered apathetically.

"Then write—tell Mr. Langhope not to give him the place. I want it over."

He rose slowly to his feet, without looking at her again, and walked over to the desk. She sank down on the ottoman and watched him with burning eyes while he drew forth a sheet of note-paper and began to write.

But after he had written a few words he laid down his pen, and swung his chair about so that he faced her.

"I can't do it in this way," he exclaimed.

"How then? What do you mean?" she said, starting up.

He looked at her. "Do you want the story to come from Wyant?"

"Oh——" She looked back at him with sudden insight. "You mean to tell Mr. Langhope yourself?"

"Yes. I mean to take the next train to town and tell him."

Her trembling increased so much that she had to rest her hands against the edge of the ottoman to steady herself. "But if...if after all...Wyant should not speak?"

"Well—if he shouldn't? Could you bear to owe our safety to him?"

"Safety!"

"It comes to that, doesn't it, if we're afraid to speak?"

She sat silent, letting the bitter truth of this sink into her till it poured courage into her veins.

"Yes—it comes to that," she confessed.

"Then you feel as I do?"

"That you must go——?"

"That this is intolerable!"

The words struck down her last illusion, and she rose and went over to the writing-table. "Yes—go," she said.

He stood up also, and took both her hands, not in a caress, but gravely, almost severely.

"Listen, Justine. You must understand exactly what this means—may mean. I am willing to go on as we are now...as long as we can...because I love you...because I would do anything to spare you pain. But if I speak I must say everything—I must follow this thing up to its uttermost consequences. That's what I want to make clear to you."

Her heart sank with a foreboding of new peril. "What consequences?"

"Can't you see for yourself—when you look about this house?"

"This house——?"

He dropped her hands and took an abrupt turn across the room.

"I owe everything to her," he broke out, "all I am, all I have, all I have been able to give you—and I must go and tell her father that you...."

"Stop—stop!" she cried, lifting her hands as if to keep off a blow.

"No—don't make me stop. We must face it," he said doggedly.

"But this—this isn't the truth! You put it as if—almost as if——"

"Yes—don't finish.—Has it occurred to you that he may think that?" Amherst asked with a terrible laugh. But at that she recovered her courage, as she always did when an extreme call was made on it.

"No—I don't believe it! If he does, it will be because you think it yourself...." Her voice sank, and she lifted her hands and pressed them to her temples. "And if you think it, nothing matters...one way or the other...." She paused, and her voice regained its strength. "That is what I must face before you go: what you think, what you believe of me. You've never told me that."

Amherst, at the challenge, remained silent, while a slow red crept to his cheek-bones.

"Haven't I told you by—by what I've done?" he said slowly.

"No—what you've done has covered up what you thought; and I've helped you cover it—I'm to blame too! But it was not for this that we...that we had that half-year together...not to sink into connivance and evasion! I don't want another hour of sham happiness. I want the truth from you, whatever it is."

He stood motionless, staring moodily at the floor. "Don't you see that's my misery—that I don't know myself?"

"You don't know...what you think of me?"

"Good God, Justine, why do you try to strip life naked? I don't know what's been going on in me these last weeks——"

"You must know what you think of my motive...for doing what I did."

She saw in his face how he shrank from the least allusion to the act about which their torment revolved. But he forced himself to raise his head and look at her. "I have never—for one moment—questioned your motive—or failed to see that it was justified...under the circumstances...."

"Oh, John—John!" she broke out in the wild joy of hearing herself absolved; but the next instant her subtle perceptions felt the unconscious reserve behind his admission.

"Your mind justifies me—not your heart; isn't that your misery?" she said.

He looked at her almost piteously, as if, in the last resort, it was from her that light must come to him. "On my soul, I don't know...I can't tell...it's all dark in me. I know you did what you thought best...if I had been there, I believe I should have asked you to do it...but I wish to God——"

She interrupted him sobbingly. "Oh, I ought never to have let you love me! I ought to have seen that I was cut off from you forever. I have brought you wretchedness when I would have given my life for you! I don't deserve that you should forgive me for that."

Her sudden outbreak seemed to restore his self-possession. He went up to her and took her hand with a quieting touch.

"There is no question of forgiveness, Justine. Don't let us torture each other with vain repinings. Our business is to face the thing, and we shall be better for having talked it out. I shall be better, for my part, for having told Mr. Langhope. But before I go I want to be sure that you understand the view he may take...and the effect it will probably have on our future."

"Our future?" She started. "No, I don't understand."

Amherst paused a moment, as if trying to choose the words least likely to pain her. "Mr. Langhope knows that my marriage was...unhappy; through my fault, he no doubt thinks. And if he chooses to infer that...that you and I may have cared for each other...before...and that it was because there was a chance of recovery that you——"

"Oh——"

"We must face it," he repeated inflexibly. "And you must understand that, if there is the faintest hint of this kind, I shall give up everything here, as soon as it can be settled legally—God, how Tredegar will like the job!—and you and I will have to go and begin life over again...somewhere else."

For an instant a mad hope swelled in her—the vision of escaping with him into new scenes, a new life, away from the coil of memories that bound them down as in a net. But the reaction of reason came at once—she saw him cut off from his chosen work, his career destroyed, his honour clouded, above all—ah, this was what wrung them both!—his task undone, his people flung back into the depths from which he had lifted them. And all through her doing—all because she had clutched at happiness with too rash a hand! The thought stung her to passionate activity of mind—made her resolve to risk anything, dare anything, before she involved him farther in her own ruin. She felt her brain clear gradually, and the thickness dissolve in her throat.

"I understand," she said in a low voice, raising her eyes to his.

"And you're ready to accept the consequences? Think again before it's too late."

She paused. "That is what I should like...what I wanted to ask you...the time to think."

She saw a slight shade cross his face, as if he had not expected this failure of courage in her; but he said quietly: "You don't want me to go today?"

"Not today—give me one more day."

"Very well."

She laid a timid hand on his arm. "Please go out to Westmore as usual—as if nothing had happened. And tonight...when you come back...I shall have decided."

"Very well," he repeated.

"You'll be gone all day?"

He glanced at his watch. "Yes—I had meant to be; unless——"

"No; I would rather be alone. Good-bye," she said, letting her hand slip softly along his coat-sleeve as he turned to the door.



XXXVIII

AT half-past six that afternoon, just as Amherst, on his return from the mills, put the key into his door at Hanaford, Mrs. Ansell, in New York, was being shown into Mr. Langhope's library.

As she entered, her friend rose from his chair by the fire, and turned on her a face so disordered by emotion that she stopped short with an exclamation of alarm.

"Henry—what has happened? Why did you send for me?"

"Because I couldn't go to you. I couldn't trust myself in the streets—in the light of day."

"But why? What is it?—Not Cicely——?"

He struck both hands upward with a comprehensive gesture. "Cicely—everyone—the whole world!" His clenched fist came down on the table against which he was leaning. "Maria, my girl might have been saved!"

Mrs. Ansell looked at him with growing perturbation. "Saved—Bessy's life? But how? By whom?"

"She might have been allowed to live, I mean—to recover. She was killed, Maria; that woman killed her!"

Mrs. Ansell, with another cry of bewilderment, let herself drop helplessly into the nearest chair. "In heaven's name, Henry—what woman?"

He seated himself opposite to her, clutching at his stick, and leaning his weight heavily on it—a white dishevelled old man. "I wonder why you ask—just to spare me?"

Their eyes met in a piercing exchange of question and answer, and Mrs. Ansell tried to bring out reasonably: "I ask in order to understand what you are saying."

"Well, then, if you insist on keeping up appearances—my daughter-in-law killed my daughter. There you have it." He laughed silently, with a tear on his reddened eye-lids.

Mrs. Ansell groaned. "Henry, you are raving—I understand less and less."

"I don't see how I can speak more plainly. She told me so herself, in this room, not an hour ago."

"She told you? Who told you?"

"John Amherst's wife. Told me she'd killed my child. It's as easy as breathing—if you know how to use a morphia-needle."

Light seemed at last to break on his hearer. "Oh, my poor Henry—you mean—she gave too much? There was some dreadful accident?"

"There was no accident. She killed my child—killed her deliberately. Don't look at me as if I were a madman. She sat in that chair you're in when she told me."

"Justine? Has she been here today?" Mrs. Ansell paused in a painful effort to readjust her thoughts. "But why did she tell you?"

"That's simple enough. To prevent Wyant's doing it."

"Oh——" broke from his hearer, in a long sigh of fear and intelligence. Mr. Langhope looked at her with a smile of miserable exultation.

"You knew—you suspected all along?—But now you must speak out!" he exclaimed with a sudden note of command.

She sat motionless, as if trying to collect herself. "I know nothing—I only meant—why was this never known before?"

He was upon her at once. "You think—because they understood each other? And now there's been a break between them? He wanted too big a share of the spoils? Oh, it's all so abysmally vile!"

He covered his face with a shaking hand, and Mrs. Ansell remained silent, plunged in a speechless misery of conjecture. At length she regained some measure of her habitual composure, and leaning forward, with her eyes on his face, said in a quiet tone: "If I am to help you, you must try to tell me just what has happened."

He made an impatient gesture. "Haven't I told you? She found that her accomplice meant to speak, and rushed to town to forestall him."

Mrs. Ansell reflected. "But why—with his place at Saint Christopher's secured—did Dr. Wyant choose this time to threaten her—if, as you imagine, he's an accomplice?"

"Because he's a drug-taker, and she didn't wish him to have the place."

"She didn't wish it? But that does not look as if she were afraid. She had only to hold her tongue!"

Mr. Langhope laughed sardonically. "It's not quite so simple. Amherst was coming to town to tell me."

"Ah—he knows?"

"Yes—and she preferred that I should have her version first."

"And what is her version?"

The furrows of misery deepened in Mr. Langhope's face. "Maria—don't ask too much of me! I can't go over it again. She says she wanted to spare my child—she says the doctors were keeping her alive, torturing her uselessly, as a...a sort of scientific experiment.... She forced on me the hideous details...."

Mrs. Ansell waited a moment.

"Well! May it not be true?"

"Wyant's version is different. He says Bessy would have recovered—he says Garford thought so too."

"And what does she answer? She denies it?"

"No. She admits that Garford was in doubt. But she says the chance was too remote—the pain too bad...that's her cue, naturally!"

Mrs. Ansell, leaning back in her chair, with hands meditatively stretched along its arms, gave herself up to silent consideration of the fragmentary statements cast before her. The long habit of ministering to her friends in moments of perplexity and distress had given her an almost judicial keenness in disentangling and coordinating facts incoherently presented, and in seizing on the thread of motive that connected them; but she had never before been confronted with a situation so poignant in itself, and bearing so intimately on her personal feelings; and she needed time to free her thoughts from the impending rush of emotion.

At last she raised her head and said: "Why did Mr. Amherst let her come to you, instead of coming himself?"

"He knows nothing of her being here. She persuaded him to wait a day, and as soon as he had gone to the mills this morning she took the first train to town."

"Ah——" Mrs. Ansell murmured thoughtfully; and Mr. Langhope rejoined, with a conclusive gesture: "Do you want more proofs of panic-stricken guilt?"

"Oh, guilt—" His friend revolved her large soft muff about a drooping hand. "There's so much still to understand."

"Your mind does not, as a rule, work so slowly!" he said with some asperity; but she paid no heed to his tone.

"Amherst, for instance—how long has he known of this?" she continued.

"A week or two only—she made that clear."

"And what is his attitude?"

"Ah—that, I conjecture, is just what she means to keep us from knowing!"

"You mean she's afraid——?"

Mr. Langhope gathered his haggard brows in a frown. "She's afraid, of course—mortally—I never saw a woman more afraid. I only wonder she had the courage to face me."

"Ah—that's it! Why did she face you? To extenuate her act—to give you her version, because she feared his might be worse? Do you gather that that was her motive?"