"Oh!" she choked. "If—if—"



CHAPTER XXII

A CONFESSION

Monte left Nice on the twentieth of July, to join—as Peter supposed—Madame Covington in Paris. Monte himself had been extremely ambiguous about his destination, being sure of only one fact: that he should not return inside of a year, if he did then. Peter had asked for his address, and Monte had given him the same address that he gave Marjory.

"I want to keep in touch with you," Peter said.

Peter missed the man. On the ride with Marjory that he enjoyed the next day after Monte's departure, he talked a great deal of him.

"I 'd like to have seen into his eyes," he told her. "I kept feeling I 'd find something there more than I got hold of in his voice and the grip of his hand."

"He has blue eyes," she told him, "and they are clean as a child's."

"They are a bit sad?"

"Monte's eyes sad?" she exclaimed. "What made you think so?"

"Perhaps because, from what he let drop the other night, I gathered he was n't altogether happy with Mrs. Covington."

"He told you that?"

"No; not directly," he assured her. "He's too loyal. I may be utterly mistaken; only he was rather vague as to why she was not here with him."

"She was not with him," Marjory answered slowly. "She was not with him because she was n't big enough to deserve him."

"Then it's a fact there's a tragedy in his life?"

"Not in his—in hers," she answered passionately.

"How can that be?"

"Because she's the one who realizes the truth."

"But she's the one who went away."

"Because of that. It's a miserable story, Peter."

"You knew her intimately?"

"A great many years."

"I think Covington said he had known you a long time."

"Yes."

"Then, knowing her and knowing him, was n't there anything you could do?"

"I did what I could," she answered wearily.

"Perhaps that explains why he hurried back to her."

"He has n't gone to her. He'll never go back to her. She deserted him, and now—he's going to make it permanent."

"A divorce?"

"Yes, Peter," she answered, with a little shiver.

"You're taking it hard."

"I know all that he means to her," she choked.

"She loves him?"

"With all her heart and soul."

"And he does n't know it?"

"Why, he would n't believe it—if she told him. She can never let him know it. She'd deny it if he asked her. She loves him enough for that."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Peter. "There's a mistake there somewhere."

"The mistake came first," she ran on. "Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you these things, except that it is a relief to tell them to some one."

"Tell me all about it," he encouraged her. "I knew there was something on your mind."

"Peter," she said earnestly, "can you imagine a woman so selfish that she wanted to marry just to escape the responsibilities of marriage?"

"It is n't possible," he declared.

Her cheeks were a vivid scarlet. Had he been able to see them, she could not have gone on.

"A woman so selfish," she faltered ahead, "that she preferred a make-believe husband to a real husband, because—because so she thought she would be left free."

"Free for what?" he demanded.

"To live."

"When love and marriage and children are all there is to life?" he asked.

She caught her breath.

"You see, she did not know that then. She thought all those things called for the sacrifice of her freedom."

"What freedom?" he demanded again. "It's when we're alone that we're slaves—slaves to ourselves. A woman alone, a man alone, living to himself alone—what is there for him? He can only go around and around in a pitifully small circle—a circle that grows smaller and smaller with every year. Between twenty and thirty a man can exhaust all there is in life for himself alone. He has eaten and slept and traveled and played until his senses have become dull. Perhaps a woman lasts a little longer, but not much longer. Then they are locked away in themselves until they die."

"Peter!" she cried in terror.

"It's only as we live in others that we live forever," he ran on. "It is only by toiling and sacrificing and suffering and loving that we become immortal. It is so we acquire real freedom."

"Yes, Peter," she agreed, with a gasp.

"Could n't you make her understand that?"

"She does understand. That's the pity of it."

"And Covington?"

"It's in him to understand; only—she lost the right to make him understand. She—she debased herself. So she must sacrifice herself to get clean again. She must make even greater sacrifices than any she cowed away from. She must do this without any of the compensations that come to those who have been honest and unafraid."

"What of him?"

"He must never know. He'll go round and round his little circle, and she must watch him."

"It's terrible," he murmured. "It will be terrible for her to watch him do that. If you had told him how she felt—"

"God forbid!"

"Or if you had only told me, so that I could have told him—"

She seized Peter's arm.

"You would n't have dared!"

"I'd dare anything to save two people from such torment."

"You—you don't think he will worry?"

"I think he is worrying a great deal."

"Only for the moment," she broke in. "But soon—in a week or two—he will be quite himself again. He has a great many things to do. He has tennis and—and golf."

She checked herself abruptly. ("Damn golf!" Monte had said.)

"There's too much of a man in him now to be satisfied with such things," said Peter. "It's a pity—it's a pity there are not two of you, Marjory."

"Of me?"

"He thinks a great deal of you. If he had met you before he met this other—"

"What are you saying, Peter?"

"That you're the sort of woman who could have called out in him an honest love."

There, beside Peter who could not see, Marjory bent low and buried her face in her hands.

"You 're the sort of woman," he went on, "who could have roused the man in him that has been waiting all this time for some one like you."

How Peter was hurting her! How he was pinching her with red-hot irons! It hurt so much that she was glad. Here, at last, she was beginning her sacrifice for Monte. So she made neither moan nor groan, nor covered her ears, but took her punishment like a man.

"Some one else must do all that," she said.

"Yes," he answered. "Or his life will be wasted. He needs to suffer. He needs to give up. This thing we call a tragedy may be the making of him."

"For some one else," she repeated.

Peter was fumbling about for her hand. Suddenly she straightened herself.

"It must be for some one else," he said hoarsely—"because I want you for myself. In time—you must be mine. With the experience of those two before us, we must n't make the same mistake ourselves. I—I was n't going to tell you this until I had my eyes back. But, heart o' mine, I 've held in so long. Here in the dark one gets so much alone. And being alone is what kills."

She was hiding her hand from him.

"I can't find your hand," he whispered, like a child lost in the dark.

Summoning all her strength, she placed her hand within his. "It is cold!" he cried.

Yet the day was warm. They were speeding through a sunlighted country of olive trees and flowers in bloom—a warm world and tender.

He drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them passionately. She suffered it, closing her eyes against the pain.

"I've wanted you so all these months!" he cried. "I should n't have let you go in the first place. I should n't have let you go."

"No, Peter," she answered.

"And now that I've found you again, you'll stay?"

He was lifting his face to hers—straining to see her. To have answered any way but as he pleaded would have been to strike that upturned face.

"I—I 'll try to stay," she faltered.

"I 'll make you!" he breathed. "I 'll hold you tight, soul of mine. Would you—would you kiss my eyes?"

Holding her breath, Marjory lightly brushed each of his eyes with her lips.

"It's like balm," he whispered. "I've dreamed at night of this."

"Every day I'll do it," she said. "Only—for a little while—you 'll not ask for anything more, Peter?"

"Not until some day they open—in answer to that call," he replied.

"I did n't mean that, Peter," she said hurriedly. "Only I'm so mixed up myself."

"It's so new to you," he nodded. "To me it's like a day foreseen a dozen years. Long before I saw you I knew I was getting ready for you. Now—what do a few weeks matter?"

"It may be months, Peter, before I'm quite steady."

"Even if it's years," he exclaimed, "I've felt your lips."

"Only on your eyes," she cried in terror.

"I—I would n't dare to feel them except on my eyes—for a little while. Even there they take away my breath."



CHAPTER XXIII

LETTERS

Letter from Peter Noyes to Monte Covington, received by the latter at the Hotel Normandie, Paris, France:—

NICE, FRANCE, July 22.

Dear Covington:—

I don't know whether you can make out this scrawl, because I have to feel my way across the paper; but I'm sitting alone in my room, aching to talk with you as we used to talk. If you were here I know you would be glad to listen, because—suddenly all I told you about has come true.

Riding to Cannes the very next day after you left, I spoke to her and—she listened. It was all rather vague and she made no promises, but she listened. In a few weeks or months or years, now, she'll be mine for all time. She does n't want me to tell Beatrice, and there is no one else to tell except you—so forgive me, old man, if I let myself loose.

Besides, in a way, you're responsible. We were talking of you, because we missed you. You have a mighty good friend in her, Covington. She knows you—the real you that I thought only I had glimpsed. She sees the man in the game—not the man in the grand-stand. Her Covington is the man they used to give nine long Harvards for. I never heard that in front of my name. I was a grind—a "greasy grind," they used to call me. It did n't hurt, for I smiled in rather a superior sort of way at the men I thought were wasting their energy on the gridiron. But, after all, you fellows got something out of it that the rest of us did n't get. A 'Varsity man remains a 'Varsity man all his life. To-day you stand before her as a 'Varsity man. I think she always thinks of you as in a red sweater with a black "H." Any time that you feel you're up against anything hard, that ought to help you.

We talked a great deal of you, as I said, and I find myself now thinking more of you than of myself in connection with her. I don't understand it. Perhaps it's because she seems so alone in the world, and you are the most intimate friend she has. Perhaps it's because you've seen so much more of her than I in these last few months. Anyway, I have a feeling that somehow you are an integral part of her. I've tried to puzzle out the relationship, and I can't. "Brother" does not define it; neither does "comrade." If you were not already married, I'd almost suspect her of being in love with you.

I know that sounds absurd. I know it is absurd. She is n't the kind to allow her emotions to get away from her like that. But I'll say this much, Covington: that if we three were to start fresh, I'd stand a mighty poor chance with her.

This is strange talk from a man who less than six hours ago became officially engaged. I told her that I had let her go once, and that now I had found her again I wanted her to stay. And she said, "I'll try." That was n't very much, Covington, was it? But I seized the implied promise as a drowning man does a straw. It was so much more than anything I have hoped for.

I should have kept her that time I found her on the little farm in Connecticut. If I had been a little more insistent then, I think she would have come with me. But I was afraid of her money. It was rumored that her aunt left her a vast fortune, and—you know the mongrels that hound a girl in that position, Covington? I was afraid she might think I was one of the pack. She was frightened—bewildered. I should have snatched her away from them all and gone off with her. I was earning enough to support her decently, and I should have thought of nothing else. Instead of that I held back a little, and so lost her, as I thought. She sailed away, and I returned to my work like a madman—and I nearly died.

Now I feel alive clear to my finger-tips. I 'm going to get my eyes back. I have n't the slightest doubt in the world about that. Already I feel the magic of the new balm that has been applied. They don't ache any more. Sitting here to-night without my shade, I can hold them open and catch the feeble light that filters in from the street lamps at a distance. It is only a question of a few months, perhaps weeks, perhaps days. The next time we meet I shall be able to see you.

You won't object to hearing a man rave a little, Covington? If you do, you can tear up this right here. But I know I can't say anything good about Marjory that you won't agree with. Maybe, however, you'd call my present condition abnormal. Perhaps it is; but I wonder if it is n't part of every normal man's life to be abnormal to this extent at least once—to see, for once, this staid old world through the eyes of a prince of the ancient city of Bagdad; to thrill with the magic and gorgeous beauty of it? It shows what might always be, if one were poet enough to sustain the mood.

Here am I, a plugging lawyer of the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, State of New York—which is just about as far away from the city of Bagdad as you can get. I'm concerned mainly with certain details of corporation law—the structure of soulless business institutions which were never heard of in Bagdad. My daily path takes me from certain uptown bachelor quarters through the subway to a certain niche in a downtown cave dwelling. Then—presto, she comes. I pass over all that intervened, because it is no longer important, but—presto again, I find myself here a prince in some royal castle of Bagdad, counting the moments until another day breaks and I can feel the touch of my princess's hand. Even my dull eyes count for me, because so I can fancy myself, if I choose, in some royal apartment, surrounded by hanging curtains of silk, priceless marbles, and ornaments of gold and silver, with many silent eunuchs awaiting my commands. From my windows I'm at liberty to imagine towers and minarets and domes of copper.

Always she, my princess, is somewhere in the background, when she is not actually by my side. When I saw her before, Covington, I marveled at her eyes—those deep, wonderful eyes that told you so little and made you dream so much. I saw her hair too, and her straight nose, and her beautiful lips. Those things I see now as I saw them then. I must wait a little while really to see them again. In their place, however, I have now her voice and the sound of her footsteps. To hear her coming, just to hear the light fall of her feet upon the ground, is like music.

But when she speaks, Covington, then all other sounds cease, and she speaks alone to me in a world grown silent to listen. There is some quality in that voice that gets into me—that reaches and vibrates certain hidden strings I did not know were there. So sweet is the music that I can hardly give enough attention to make out the meaning of her words. What she says does not so much matter as that she should be speaking to me—to my ears alone.

And these things are merely the superficialities of her. There still remains the princess herself below these wonderful externals. There still remains the woman herself. Woman, any woman, is marvelous enough, Covington. When you think of all they stand for, the fineness of them compared with our man grossness, that wonderful power of creation in them, their exquisite delicacy, combined with the big-souled capacity for sacrifice and suffering that dwarfs any of our petty burdens into insignificance—God knows, a man should bow his knee before the least of them. But when to all those general attributes of the sex you add that something more born in a woman like Marjory—what in the world can a man do big enough to deserve the charge of such a soul? In the midst of all my princely emotions, that thought makes me humble, Covington.

I fear I have rambled a good deal, old man. I can't read over what I have been scribbling here, so I must let it go as it is. But I wanted to tell you some of these things that are rushing through my head all the time, because I knew you would be glad for me and glad for her. Or does my own joy result in such supreme selfishness that I am tempted to intrude it upon others? I don't believe so, because there is no one else in the world to whom I would venture to write as I 've written to you.

I'm not asking you to answer, because what I should want to hear from you I would n't allow any one else to read. So tear this up and forget it if you want. Some day I shall meet you again and see you. Then I can talk to you face to face.

Yours,

PETER J. NOYES.

Sitting alone in his room at the Normandie, Monte read this through. Then his hands dropped to his side and the letter fell from them to the floor.

"Oh, my God!" he said. "Oh, my God!"

Letter from Madame Covington to her husband, Monte Covington, which the latter never received at all because it was never sent. It was never meant to be sent. It was written merely to save herself from doing something rash, something for which she could never forgive herself—like taking the next train to Paris and claiming this man as if he were her own:—

Dearest Prince of my Heart:—

You've been gone from me twelve hours. For twelve hours you've left me here all alone. I don't know how I've lived. I don't know how I'm going to get through the night and to-morrow. Only there won't be any to-morrow. There'll never be anything more than periods of twelve hours, until you come back: just from dawn to dark, and then from dark to dawn, over and over again. Each period must be fought through as it comes, with no thought about the others. I 'm beginning on the third. The morning will bring the fourth.

Each one is like a lifetime—a birth and a death. And oh, my Prince, I shall soon be very, very old. I don't dare look in the mirror to-night, for fear of seeing how old I've grown since morning. I remember a word they used on shipboard when the waves threw the big propeller out of the water and the full power of the engines was wasted on air. They called it "racing." It was bad for the ship to have this energy go for nothing. It racked her and made her tremble and groan. I've been racing ever since you went, churning the air to no purpose, with a power that was meant to drive me ahead. I 'm right where I started after it all.

Dearest heart of mine, I love you. Though I tremble away from those words, I must put them down for once in black and white. Though I tear them up into little pieces so small that no one can read them, I must write them once. It is such a relief, here by myself, to be honest. If you were here and I were honest, I 'd stand very straight and look you fair in the eyes and tell you that over and over again. "I love you, Monte," I would say. "I love you with all my heart and soul, Monte," I would say. "Right or wrong, coward that I am or not, whether it is good for you or not, I love you, Monte," I would say. And, if you wished, I would let you kiss me. And, if you would let me, I would kiss you on your dear tousled hair, on your forehead, on your eyes—

That is where I kissed Peter to-day. I will tell you here, as I would tell you standing before you. I kissed Peter on his eyes, and I have promised to kiss him again upon his eyes to-morrow—if to-morrow comes. I did it because he said it would help him to see again. And if he sees again—why, Monte, if he sees again, then he will see how absurd it is that he should ask me to love him.

Blind as he is, he almost saw that to-day, when he made me promise to try to stay by his side. With his eyes full open, then he will be able to read my eyes. So I shall kiss him there as often as he wishes. Then, when he understands, I shall not fear for him. He is a man. Only, if I told him with my lips, he would not understand. He must find out for himself. Then he will throw back his shoulders and take the blow—as we all of us have had to take our blows. It will be no worse for him than for you, dear, or for me.

It is not as I kissed him that I should kiss you. How silly it is of men to ask for kisses when, if they come at all, they come unasked. What shall I do with all of mine that are for you alone? I throw them out across the dark to you—here and here and here.

I wonder what you are doing at this moment? I have wondered so about every moment since you went. Because I cannot know, I feel as if I were being robbed. At times I fancy I can see as clearly as if I were with you. You went to the station and bought your ticket and got into your compartment. I could see you sitting there smoking, your eyes turned out the window. I could see what you saw, but I could not tell of what you were thinking. And that is what counts. That is the only thing that counts. There are those about me who watch me going my usual way, but how little they know of what a change has come over me! How little even Peter knows, who imagines he knows me so well.

I see you reaching Paris and driving to your hotel. I wonder if you are at the Normandie. I don't even know that. I'd like to know that. I wonder if you would dare sleep in your old room. Oh, I'd like to know that. It would be so restful to think of you there. But what, if there, are you thinking about? About me, at all? I don't want you to think about me, but I 'd die if I knew you did not think about me.

I don't want you to be worried, dear you. I won't have you unhappy. You said once, "Is n't it possible to care a little without caring too much?" Now I 'm going to ask you: "Is n't it possible for you to think of me a little without thinking too much?" If you could remember some of those evenings on the ride to Nice,—even if with a smile,—that would be better than nothing. If you could remember that last night before we got to Nice, when—when I looked up at you and something almost leaped from my eyes to yours. If you could remember that with just a little knowledge of what it meant—not enough to make you unhappy, but enough to make you want to see me again. Could you do that without getting uncomfortable—without mixing up your schedule?

I cried a little right here, Monte. It was a silly thing to do. But you're alone in Paris, where we were together, and I'm alone here. It is still raining. I think it is going to rain forever. I can't imagine ever seeing the blue sky again. If I did, it would only make me think of those glorious days between Paris and Nice. How wonderful it was that it never rained at all. The sky was always pink in the east when I woke up, and we saw it grow pink again at night, side by side. Then the purple of the night, with the myriad silver stars, each one beautiful in itself.

At night you always seemed to me to grow bigger than ever—inches taller and broader, until some evenings when I bade you good-night I was almost afraid of you. Because as you grew bigger I grew smaller. I used to think that, if you took a notion to do so, you'd just pick me up and carry me off. If you only had!

If you had only said, "We'll quit this child's play. You'll come with me and we'll make a home and settle down, like Chic."

I'd have been a good wife to you, Monte. Honest, I would—if you'd done like that any time before I met Peter and became ashamed. Up to that point I'd have gone with you if you had loved me enough to take me. Only, you did n't love me. That was the trouble, Monte. I'd made you think I did not want to be loved. Then I made you think I was n't worth loving. Then, when Peter came and made me see and hang my head,—why, then it was too late, even though you had wanted to take me.

But you don't know, and never will know, what a good wife I'd have been. But I would have tried to lead you a little, too. I would have watched over you and been at your command, but I would have tried to guide you into doing something worth while.

Perhaps we could have done something together worth while. You have a great deal of money, Monte, and I have a great deal. We have more than is good for us. I think if we had worked together we could have done something for other people with it. I never thought of that until lately; but the other evening, after you had been talking about your days in college, I lay awake in bed, thinking how nice it would be if we could do something for some of the young fellows there now who do not have money enough. I imagined myself going back to Cambridge with you some day and calling on the president or the dean, and hearing you say to him: "Madame Covington and I have decided that we want to help every year one or more young men needing help. If you will send to us those you approve of, we will lend them enough to finish their course."

I thought it would be nicer to lend the money than give it to them, because they would feel better about it. And they could be as long as they wished in paying it back, or if they fell into hard luck need never pay it back.

So every year we would start as many as we could, each of us paying half. They would come to us, and we would get to know them, and we would watch them through, and after that watch them fight the good fight. Why, in no time, Monte, we would have quite a family to watch over; and they would come to you for advice, and perhaps sometimes to me. Think what an interest that would add to your life! It would be so good for you, Monte. And good for me, too. Even if we had—oh, Monte, we might in time have had boys of our own in Harvard too! Then they would have selected other boys for us, and that would have been good for them too.

Here by myself I can tell you these things, because—because, God keep me, you cannot hear. You did not think I could dream such dreams as those, did you? You thought I was always thinking of myself and my own happiness, and of nothing else. You thought I asked everything and wished to give nothing. But that was before I knew what love is. That was before you touched me with the magic wand. That was before I learned that our individual lives are as brief as the sparks that fly upward, except as we live them through others; and that then—they are eternal. It was within our grasp, Monte, dear, and we trifled with it and let it go.

No, not you. It was I who refused the gift. Some day it will come to you again, through some other. That is what I tell myself over and over again. I don't think men are like women. They do not give so much of themselves, and so they may choose from two or three. So in time, as you wander about, you will find some one who will hold out her arms, and you will come. She will give you everything she has,—all honest women do that,—but it will not be all I would have given. You may think so, and so be happy; but it will not be true. I shall always know the difference. And you will give her what you have, but it will not be what you would have given me—what I would have drawn out of you. I shall always know that. Because, as I love you, heart of me, I would have found in you treasures that were meant for me alone.

I'm getting wild. I must stop. My head is spinning. Soon it will be dawn, and I am to ride again with Peter to-morrow. I told you I would ride every fair day with him, and I am hoping it will rain. But it will not rain, though to me the sky may be murky. I can see the clouds scudding before a west wind. It will be clear, and I shall ride with him as I promised, and I shall kiss him upon his eyes. But if you were with me—

Here and here and here I throw them out into the dark.

Good-night, soul of my soul.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE BLIND SEE

Day by day Peter's eyes grew stronger, because day by day he was thinking less about himself and more about Marjory.

"He needs to get away from himself," the doctors had told Beatrice. "If you can find something that will occupy his thoughts, so that he will quit thinking about his eyes, you 'll double his chances." Beatrice had done that when she found Marjory, and now she was more than satisfied with the result and with herself. Every morning she saw Peter safely entrusted to Marjory's care, and this left her free the rest of the day to walk a little, read her favorite books, and nibble chocolates. She was getting a much-needed rest, secure in the belief that everything was working out in quite an ideal way.

The only thing that seemed to her at all strange was a sudden reluctance on Peter's part to talk to her of Marjory. At the end of the day the three had dinner together at the Hotel d'Angleterre,—Marjory could never be persuaded to dine at the Roses,—and when by eight Peter and his sister returned to their own hotel, he gave her only the barest details of his excursion, and retired early to his room. But he seemed cheerful enough, so that, after all, this might be only another favorable symptom of his progress. Peter always had been more or less secretive, and until his illness neither she nor his parents knew more than an outline of his life in New York. Periodically they came on to visit him for a few days, and periodically he went home for a few days. He was making a name for himself, and they were very proud of him, and the details did not matter. Knowing Peter as they did, it was easy enough to fill them in.

Even with Marjory, Peter talked less and less about himself. From his own ambitions, hopes, and dreams he turned more and more to hers. Now that he had succeeded in making her a prisoner, however slender the thread by which he held her, he seemed intent upon filling in all the past as fully as possible. Up to a certain point that was easy enough. She was willing to talk of her girlhood; of her father, whom she adored; and even of Aunt Kitty, who had claimed her young womanhood. She was even eager. It afforded her a safe topic in which she found relief. It gave her an opportunity also to justify, in a fashion, or at least to explain, both to herself and Peter, the frame of mind that led her up to later events.

"I ran away from you, Peter," she admitted.

"I know," he answered.

"Only it was not so much from you as from what you stood for," she hurried on. "I was thinking of myself alone, and of the present alone. I had been a prisoner so long, I wanted to be free a little."

"Free?" he broke in quickly, with a frown. "I don't like to hear you use that word. That's the way Covington's wife talked, is n't it?"

"Yes," she murmured.

"It's the way so many women are talking to-day—and so many men, too. Freedom is such a big word that a lot of people seem to think it will cloak anything they care to do. They lose sight of the fact that the freer a man or a woman is, the more responsibility he assumes. The free are put upon their honor to fulfill the obligations that are exacted by force from the irresponsible. So those who abuse this privilege are doubly treacherous—treacherous to themselves, and treacherous to society, which trusted them."

Marjory turned aside her head, so that he might not even look upon her with his blind eyes.

"I—I didn't mean any harm, Peter," she said.

"Of course you did n't. I don't suppose Mrs. Covington did, either; did she?"

"No, Peter, I'm sure she didn't. She—she was selfish."

"Besides, if you only come through safe, and learn—"

"At least, I've learned," she answered.

"Since you went away from me?"

"Yes."

"You have n't told me very much about that."

She caught her breath.

"Is—is it dishonest to keep to one's self how one learns?" she asked.

"No, little woman; only, I feel as though I'd like to know you as I know myself. I'd like to feel that there was n't a nook or cranny in your mind that was n't open to me."

"Peter!"

"Is that asking too much?"

"Some day you must know, but not now."

"If Mrs. Covington—"

"Must we talk any more about her?" she exclaimed.

"I did n't know it hurt you."

"It does—more than you realize."

"I'm sorry," he said quickly.

He fumbled about for her hand. She allowed him to take it.

"Have you heard from Covington since he left?"

He felt her fingers twitch.

"Does it hurt, too, to talk about him?" he asked.

"It's impossible to talk about Monte without talking about his—his—about Mrs. Covington," Marjory explained feebly.

"They ought to be one," he admitted. "But you said they are about to separate."

"Yes, Peter; only I keep thinking of what ought to be."

She withdrew her hand and leaned back on the seat a little away from him. Sensitive to every movement of hers, he glanced up at this.

"Somehow,"—he said, with a strained expression,—"somehow I feel the need of seeing your eyes to-day. There's something I 'm missing. There's something here I don't understand."

"Don't try to understand, Peter," she cried. "It's better that you should n't."

"It's best always to know the truth," he said.

"Not always."

"Always," he insisted.

"Sometimes it does n't do any good to know the truth. It only hurts."

"Even then, it's best. When I get my eyes—"

She shrank farther away from him, for she saw him struggling even then to open them.

It was this possibility which from that point on added a new terror to these daily drives. Marjory had told Monte that Peter's recovery was something to which she looked forward; but when she said that she had been sitting alone and pouring out her heart to Monte. She had not then been facing this fact by the side of Peter. It was one thing to dream boldly, with all her thoughts of Monte, and quite another to confront the same facts actually and alone. If this crisis came now, it was going to hurt her and hurt Peter, and do no good to any one; while, if it could be postponed six months, perhaps it would not hurt so much. It was better for Peter to endure his blindness a little longer than to see too soon. So the next day she decided she would not kiss his eyes. He came to her in the morning, and stood before her, waiting. She placed her hand upon his shoulder.

"Peter," she said as gently as she could, "I do not think I shall kiss you again for a little while."

She saw his lips tighten; but, to her surprise, he made no protest.

"No, dear heart," he answered.

"It is n't because I wish to be unkind," she said. "Only, until you know the whole truth, I don't feel honest with you."

"Come over by the window and sit down in the light," he requested.

With a start she glanced nervously at his eyes. They were closed. She took a chair in the sun, and he sat down opposite her.

For a moment they sat so, in silence. With her chin in her hand, she stared out across the blue waters of the Mediterranean, across the quay where Monte used to walk. It looked so desolate out there without him! How many hours since he left she had watched people pass back and forth along the broad path, as if hoping against hope that by some chance he might suddenly appear among them. But he never did, and she knew that she might sit here watching year after year and he would not come.

By this time he was probably in England—probably, on such a day as this, out upon the links. She smiled a little. "Damn golf!" he had said.

She thought for a moment that she heard his voice repeating it. It was only Peter's voice.

"You have grown even more beautiful than I thought," Peter was saying.

She sprang to her feet. He was looking at he—shading his opened eyes with one hand.

"Peter!" she cried, falling back a step.



"More beautiful," he repeated. "But your eyes are sadder."

"Peter," she said again, "your eyes are open!"

"Yes," he said. "It became necessary for me to see—so they opened."

Before them, she felt ashamed—almost like one naked. She began to tremble. Then, with her cheeks scarlet, she covered her face with her hands.

Peter rose and helped her back to a chair as if she, in her turn, had suddenly become blind.

"If I frighten you like this I—I must not look at you," he faltered.

Still she trembled; still she covered her face.

"See!" he cried. "I have closed them again."

She looked up in amazement. He was standing with his eyes tight shut. He who had been in darkness all these long months had dared, to save her from her own shame, to return again to the pit. For a second it stopped her heart from beating. Then, springing to his side, she seized his hands.

"Peter," she commanded, "open your eyes!"

He was pale—ghastly pale.

"Not if it hurts you."

Swiftly leaning toward him, she kissed the closed lids.

"Will you open them—now?"

She was in terror lest he should find it impossible again—as if that had been some temporary miracle which, having been scorned, would not be repeated.

Then once again she saw his eyes flutter open. This time she faced them with her fists clenched by her side. What a difference those eyes made in him. Closed, he was like a helpless child; open, he was a man. He grew taller, bigger, older, while she who had been leading him about shrank into insignificance. She felt pettier, plainer, less worthy than ever she had in her life. By sheer force of will power she held up her head and faced him as if she were facing the sun.

For a moment he feasted upon her hungrily. To see her hair, when for months he had been forced to content himself with memories of it; to see her white forehead, her big, deep eyes and straight nose; to see the lips which he had only felt—all that held him silent. But he saw something else there, too. In physical detail this face was the same that he had seen before he was stricken. But something had been added. Before she had the features of a girl; now she had the features of a woman. Something had since been added to the eyes and mouth—something he knew nothing about.

"Marjory," he said slowly, "I think there is a great deal you have left untold."

She tightened her lips. There was no further use of evasion. If he pressed her with his eyes open, he must know the truth.

"Yes, Peter," she answered.

"I can't decide," he went on slowly, "whether it has to do with a great grief or a great joy."

"The two so often come together," she trembled.

"Yes," he nodded; "I think that is true. Perhaps they belong together."

"I have only just learned that," she said.

"And you've been left with the grief?"

"I can't tell, Peter. Sometimes I think so, and then again I see the justice of it, and it seems beautiful. All I 'm sure of is that I 'm left alone."

"Even with me?"

"Even with you, Peter."

He passed his hand over his eyes.

"This other—do I know him?" he asked finally.

"Yes."

"It—it is Covington?"

"Yes."

She spoke almost mechanically.

"I—I should have guessed it before. Had I been able to see, I should have known."

"That is why I did n't wish you to see me—so soon," Marjory said.

"Covington!" he repeated. "But what of the other woman?"

She took a long breath.

"I—I'm the other woman," she answered.

"Marjory!" he cried. "Not she you told me of?"

"Yes."

"His wife!"

"No—not that. Merely Mrs. Covington."

"I don't understand. You don't mean you're not his wife!" He checked himself abruptly.

"We were married in Paris," she hastened to explain. "But—but we agreed the marriage was to be only a form. He was to come down here with me as a compagnon de voyage. He wished only to give me the protection of his name, and that—that was all I wished. It was not until I met you, Peter, that I realized what I had done."

"It was not until then you realized that you really loved him?"

"Not until then," she moaned.

"But, knowing that, you allowed me to talk as I did; to hope—"

"Peter—dear Peter!" she broke in. "It was not then. It was only after I knew he had gone out of my life forever that I allowed that. You see, he has gone. He has gone to England, and from there he is going home. You know what he is going for. He is never coming back. So it is as if he died, isn't it? I allowed you to talk because I knew you were telling the truth. And I did not promise much. When you asked me never to go from you, all I said was that I 'd try. You remember that? And I have tried, and I was going to keep on trying—ever so hard. I had ruined my own life and his life, and—and I did n't want to hurt you any more. I wanted to do what I could to undo some of the harm I'd already done. I thought that perhaps if we went on like this long enough, I might forget a little of the past and look forward only to the future. Some day I meant to tell you. You know that, Peter. You know I would n't be dishonest with you." She was talking hysterically, anxious only to relieve the tenseness of his lips. She was not sure that he heard her at all. He was looking at her, but with curious detachment, as if he were at a play.

"Peter—say something!" she begged.

"It's extraordinary that I should ever have dared hope you were for me," he said.

"You mean you—you don't want me, Peter?"

"Want you?" he cried hoarsely. "I'd go through hell to get you. I'd stay mole-blind the rest of my life to get you! Want you?"

He stepped toward her with his hands outstretched as if to seize her. In spite of herself, she shrank away.

"You see," he ran on. "What difference does it make if I want you? You belong to another. You belong to Covington. You have n't anything to do with yourself any more. You have n't yourself to give. You're his."

With her hand above her eyes as if to ward off his blows, she gasped:—

"You must n't say such things, Peter."

"I'm only telling the truth, and there's no harm in that. I 'm telling you what you have n't dared tell yourself."

"Things I mustn't tell myself!" she cried. "Things I must n't hear."

"What I don't understand," he said, "is why Covington did n't tell you all this himself. He must have known."

"He knew nothing," she broke in. "I was a mere incident in his life. We met in Paris quite by accident when he happened to have an idle week. He was alone and I was alone, and he saved me from a disagreeable situation. Then, because he still had nothing in particular to do and I had nothing in particular to do, he suggested this further arrangement. We were each considering nothing but our own comfort. We wanted nothing more. It was to escape just such complications as this—to escape responsibility, as I told you—that we—we married. He was only a boy, Peter, and knew no better. But I was a woman, and should have known. And I came to know! That was my punishment."

"He came to know, too," said Peter.

"He might have come to know," she corrected breathlessly. "There were moments when I dared think so. If I had kept myself true—oh, Peter, these are terrible things to say!"

She buried her face in her hands again—a picture of total and abject misery. Her frame shook with sobs that she was fighting hard to suppress.

Peter placed his hand gently upon her shoulder.

"There, little woman," he tried to comfort. "Cry a minute. It will do you good."

"I have n't even the right to cry," she sobbed.

"You must cry," he said. "You have n't let yourself go enough. That's been the whole trouble."

He was silent a moment, patting her back, with his eyes leveled out of the window as if trying to look beyond the horizon, beyond that to the secret places of eternity.

"You have n't let yourself go enough," he repeated, almost like a seer. "You have tried to force your destiny from its appointed course. You have, and Covington has, and I have. We have tried to force things that were not meant to be and to balk things that were meant to be. That's because we've been selfish—all three of us. We've each thought of ourself alone—of our own petty little happiness of the moment. That's deadly. It warps the vision. It—it makes people stone-blind.

"I understand now. When you went away from me, it was myself alone I considered. I was hurt and worried, and made a martyr of myself. If I had thought more of you, all would have been well. This time I think I—I have thought a little more of you. It was to get at you and not myself that I wanted to see again. So I saw again. I let go of myself and reached out for you. So now—why, everything is quite clear."

She raised her head.

"Clear, Peter?"

"Quite clear. I'm to go back to my work, and to use my eyes less and my head and heart more. I 'm to deal less with statutes and more with people. Instead of quoting precedents, perhaps I 'm going to try to establish precedents. There's work enough to be done, God knows, of a sort that is born of just such a year as this I 've lived through. I must let go of myself and let myself go. I must think less of my own ambitions and more of the ambitions of others. So I shall live in others. Perhaps I may even be able to live a little through you two."

"Peter!" she cried.

"For Covington must come back to you as fast as ever he can."

"No! No! No!"

"You don't understand how much he loves his wife."

"Please!"

"And, he, poor devil, does n't understand how much his wife loves him."

"You—you"—she trembled aghast—"you would n't dare repeat what I've told you!"

"You don't want to stagger on in the dark any longer. You'll let me tell him."

She rose to her feet, her face white.

"Peter," she said slowly, "if ever you told him that, I'd never forgive you. If ever you told him, I 'd deny it. You 'd only force me into more lies. You'd only crush me lower."

"Steady, Marjory," he said.

"You're wonderful, Peter!" she exclaimed. "You 've—you 've been seeing visions. But when you speak of telling him what I've told you, you don't understand how terrible that would be. Peter—you'll promise me you won't do that?"

She was pleading, with panic in her eyes.

"Yet, if he knew, he'd come racing to you."

"He'd do that because he's a gentleman and four-square. He'd come to me and pretend. He'd feel himself at fault, and pity me. Do you know how it hurts a woman to be pitied? I'd rather he'd hate me. I'd rather he'd forget me altogether.",

"But what of the talks I had with him in the dark?" he questioned. "When he talked to me of you then, it was not in pity."

"Because,"—she choked,—"because he does n't know himself as I know him. He—he does n't like changes—dear Monte. It disturbed him to go because it would have been so much easier to have stayed. So, for the moment, he may have been—a bit sentimental."

"You don't think as little of him as that!" he cried.

"He—he is the man who married me," she answered unsteadily. "It was—just Monte who married me—honest, easy-going, care-free Monte, who is willing to do a woman a favor even to the extent of marrying her. He is very honest and very gallant and very normal. He likes one day to be as another. He does n't wish to be stirred up. He asked me this, Peter: 'Is n't it possible to care without caring too much?' And I said, 'Yes.' That was why he married me. He had seen others who cared a great deal, and they frightened him. They cared so much that they made themselves uncomfortable, and he feared that."

"Good Lord, you call that man Covington?" exclaimed Peter.

"No—just Monte," Marjory answered quickly. "It's just the outside of him. The man you call Covington—the man inside—is another man."

"It's the real man," declared Peter.

"Yes," she nodded, with a catch in her voice. "That's the real man. But—don't you understand?—it was n't that man who married me. It was Monte who married me to escape Covington. He trusted me not to disturb the real man, just as I trusted him not to disturb the real me."

Peter leaned forward with a new hope in his eyes.

"Then," he said, "perhaps, after all, he did n't get to the real you."

Quite simply she replied:—

"He did, Peter. He does not know it, but he did."

"You are sure?"

She knew the pain she was causing him, but she answered:—

"Yes. I could n't admit that to any one else in the world but you—and it hurts you, Peter."

"It hurts like the devil," he said.

She placed her hand upon his.

"Poor Peter," she said gently.

"It hurts like the devil, but it's nothing for you to pity me for," he put in quickly. "I'd rather have the hurt from you than nothing."

"You feel like that?" she asked earnestly.

"Yes."

"Then," she said, "you must understand how, even with me, the joy and the grief are one?"

"Yes, I understand that. Only if he knew—"

"He'd come back to me, you're going to say again. And I tell you again, I won't have him come back, kind and gentle and smiling. If he came back now,—if it were possible for him really to come to me,—I 'd want him to ache with love. I 'd want him to be hurt with love."

She was talking fiercely, with a wild, unrestrained passion such as Peter had never seen in any woman.

"I 'd want," she hurried on, out of all control of herself—"I'd want everything I don't want him to give—everything I 've no right to ask. I 'd want him to live on tiptoe from one morning through to the next. I'd begrudge him every minute he was just comfortable. I'd want him always eager, always worried, because I 'd be always looking for him to do great things. I 'd have him always ready for great sacrifices—not for me alone, but for himself. I 'd be so proud of him I think I—I could with a smile see him sacrifice even his life for another. For I should know that, after a little waiting, I should meet him again, a finer and nobler man. And all those things I asked of him I should want to do for him. I 'd like to lay down my life for him."

She stopped as abruptly as she had begun, staring about like some one suddenly awakened to find herself in a strange country. It was Peter's voice that brought her back again to the empty room.

"How you do love him!" he said solemnly.

"Peter," she cried, "you shouldn't have listened!"

She shrank back toward the door.

"And I—I thought just kisses on the eyes stood for love," he added.

"You must forget all I said," she moaned. "I was mad—for a moment!"

"You were wonderful," he told her.

She was still backing toward the door.

"I'm going off to hide," she said piteously.

"Not that," he called after her.

But the door closed in front of her. The door closed in front of him. With his lips clenched, Peter Noyes walked back to the Hotel des Roses.



CHAPTER XXV

SO LONG

When Peter stepped into his sister's room he had forgotten that his eyes were open.

"Beatrice," he said, "we must start back for New York as soon as possible."

She sprang from her chair. Pale and without his shade, he was like an apparition.

"Peter!" she cried.

"What's the trouble?"

"Your eyes!"

"They came back this morning."

"Then I was right! Marjory—Marjory worked the miracle!"

He smiled a little.

"Yes."

"It's wonderful. But, Peter—"

"Well?"

"You look so strange—so pale!"

"It's been—well, rather an exciting experience."

She put her arms about his neck and kissed him.

"You should have brought the miracle-worker with you," she smiled.

"And instead of that I'm leaving her."

"Leaving Marjory—after this?"

"Sit down, little sister," he begged. "A great deal has happened this morning—a great deal that I'm afraid it's going to be hard for you to understand. It was hard for me to understand at first; and yet, after all, it's merely a question of fact. It is n't anything that leaves any chance for speculation. It just is, that's all. You see, you—both of us—made an extraordinary mistake. We—we assumed that Marjory was free."

"Free? Of course she's free!" exclaimed Beatrice.

"Only she's not," Peter informed her. "As a matter of fact, she's married."

"Marjory—married!"

"To Covington. She's Covington's wife. They were married a few weeks ago in Paris. You understand? She's Covington's wife." His voice rose a trifle.

"Peter—you 're sure of that?"

"She told me so herself—less than an hour ago."

"That's impossible. Why, she listened to me when—"

"When what?" he cut in.

Frightened, she clasped her hands beneath her chin.

His eyes demanded a reply.

"I—I told her what the doctors told me. Don't look at me so, Peter!"

"You tried to win her sympathy for me?"

"They told me if you stopped worrying, your sight would come back. I told her that, Peter."

"You told her more?"

"That if she could love you—oh, I could n't help it!"

"So that is why she listened to you; why she listened to me. You begged for her pity, and—she gave it. I thought at least I could leave her with my head up."

Beatrice began to sob.

"I—I did the best I knew how," she pleaded.

His head was bowed. He looked crushed. Throwing herself upon her knees in front of him, Beatrice reached for his clasped hands.

"I did the best I knew!" she moaned.

"Yes," he answered dully; "you did that. Every one has done that. Only—nothing should have been done at all. Nothing can ever be done."

"You—you forgive me, Peter?"

"Yes."

But his voice was dead. It had no meaning.

"It may all be for the best," she ran on, anxious to revive him. "We'll go back to New York, Peter—you and I. Perhaps you'll let me stay with you there. We'll get a little apartment together, so that I can care for you. I 'll do that all the days of my life, if you 'll let me."

"I want a better fate than that for you, little sister," he answered.

Rising, he helped her to her feet. He smoothed back her hair from her forehead and kissed her there.

"It won't do to look ahead very far, or backwards either just now," he said. "But if I can believe there is something still left in life for me, I must believe there is a great deal more left for you. Only we must get away from here as soon as possible."

"You have your eyes, Peter," she exclaimed exultingly. "She can't take those away from you again!"

"Hush," he warned. "You must never blame her for anything."

"You mean you still—"

"Still and forever, little sister," he answered. "But we must not talk of that."

"Poor Peter," she trembled.

"Rich Peter!" he corrected, with a wan smile. "There are so many who have n't as much as that."

He went back to his room. The next thing to do was to write some sort of explanation to Covington. His ears burned as he thought of the other letter he had sent. How it must have bored into the man! How it must have hurt! He had been forced to read the confession of love of another man for his wife. The wonder was that he had not taken the next train back and knocked down the writer. It must be that he understood the hopelessness of such a passion. Perhaps he had smiled! Only that was not like Covington. Rather, he had gripped his jaws and stood it.

But if it had hurt and he hankered for revenge, he was to have it now. He, Noyes, had bared his soul to the husband and confessed a love that now he must stand up and recant. That was punishment enough for any man. He must do that, too, without violating any of Marjory's confidences—without helping in any way to disentangle the pitiful snarl that it was within his power to disentangle. She whose happiness might partly have recompensed him for what he had to do, he must still leave unhappy. As far as he himself was concerned, however, he was entitled to tell the truth. He could not recant his love. That would be false. But he had no right to it—that was what he must make Covington understand.

Dear Covington [he began]: I am writing this with my eyes open. The miracle I spoke of came to pass. Also a great many other things have come to pass. You'll realize how hard it is to write about them after that other letter, when I tell you I have learned the truth: that Marjory is Mrs. Covington. She told me herself, when our relations reached a crisis where she had to tell.

I feel, naturally, as if I owed you some sort of apology; and yet, when I come to frame it, I find myself baffled. Of course I'm leaving for home as soon as possible—probably to-morrow. Of course if I had known the truth I should have left long ago, and that letter would never have had any occasion for being written. I'm assuming, Covington, that you will believe that without any question. You knew what I did not know and did not tell me even after you knew how I felt. I suppose you felt so confident of her that you trusted her absolutely to handle an affair of this sort herself.

I want to say right here, you were justified. Whatever in that other letter I may have said to lead you to believe she had come to care for me in the slightest was a result solely of my own self-delusion and her innate gentleness. I have discovered that my sister, meaning no harm, went to her and told her that the restoration of my sight depended upon her interest in me. It was manifestly unfair of my sister to put it that way, but the little woman was thinking only of me. I'm sorry it was done. Evidently it was the basis upon which she made the feeble promise I spoke of, and which I exaggerated into something more.

She cared for me no more than for a friend temporarily afflicted. That's all, Covington. Neither in word nor thought nor deed has she ever gone any further. Looking back upon the last few days now, it is clear enough. Rather than hurt me, she allowed me to talk—allowed me to believe. Rather, she suffered it. It was not pleasant for her. She endured it because of what my sister had said. It seems hard luck that I should have been led in this fashion to add to whatever other burdens she may have had.

I ask you to believe—it would be an impertinence, except for what I told you before—that on her side there has been nothing between us of which you could not approve.

Now for myself. In the light of what I know to-day, I could not have written you of her as I did. Yet, had I remained silent, all I said would have remained just as much God's truth as then. Though I must admit the utter hopelessness of my love, I see no reason why I should think of attempting to deny that love. It would n't be decent to myself, to you, or to her. It began before you came into her life at all. It has grown bigger and cleaner since then. It persists to-day. I'm talking to you as man to man, Covington. I know you won't confuse that statement with any desire on my part—with any hope, however remote—to see that love fulfilled further than it is fulfilled to-day. That delusion has vanished forever. I shall never entertain it again, no matter what course your destiny or her destiny may take. I cannot make that emphatic enough, Covington. It is based upon a certain knowledge of facts which, unfortunately, I am not at liberty to reveal to you.

So, as far as my own emotions are concerned then, I retract nothing of what I told you. In fact, to-day I could say more. To me she is and ever will be the most wonderful woman who ever lived. Thinking of you before, I said there ought to be two of her, so that one might be left for you. Now, thinking of myself, I would to God there were two of her, so that one might be left for me. Yet that is inconceivable. It might be possible to find another who looked like her; who thought like her; who was willing for the big things of life like her. But this other would not be Marjory. Besides everything else she has in common with other women, she has something all her own that makes her herself. It's that something that has got hold of me, Covington.

I don't suppose it's in particularly good taste for me to talk to you of your wife in this fashion; but it's my dying speech, old man, as far as this subject is concerned, and I 'm talking to you and to no one else.

There's just one thing more I want to say. I don't want either you or Marjory to think I'm going out of your lives a martyr—that I'm going off to pine and die. The first time she left me I made an ass of myself, and that was because I had not then got hold of the essential fact of love. As I see it now, love—real love—does not lie in the personal gratification of selfish desires. The wanting is only the first stage. Perhaps it is a ruse of Nature to entice men to the second stage, which is giving.

Until recently my whole thought was centered on getting. I was thinking of myself alone. It was baffled desire and injured vanity that led me to do what I did before, and I was justly punished. It was when I began to think less about myself and more about her that I was reprieved. I'm leaving her now with but one desire: to do for her whatever I may, at any time and in any place, to make her happy; and, because of her, to do the same for any others with whom for the rest of my life I may be thrown in contact. Thus I may be of some use and find peace.

I'm going away, Covington. That will leave her here alone. Wherever you are, there must be trains back to Nice—starting perhaps within the hour.

So long.

PETER J. NOYES.



CHAPTER XXVI

FREEDOM

With the departure of Peter and his sister—Peter had made his leave-taking easy by securing an earlier train than she had expected and sending her a brief note of farewell—Marjory found herself near that ideal state of perfect freedom she had craved. There was now no outside influence to check her movements. If she remained where she was, there was no one to interrupt her in the solitary pursuit of her own pleasure. Safe from any possibility of intrusion, she was at liberty to remain in the seclusion of her room; but, if she preferred, she could walk the quay without the slightest prospect in the world of being forced to recognize the friendly greeting of any one.

Peter was gone; Beatrice was gone; and Monte was gone. There was no one else—unless by some chance poor Teddy Hamilton should turn up, which was so unlikely that she did not even consider it. Yet there were moments when, if she had met Teddy, she would have smiled a welcome. She would not have feared him. There was only one person in the world now of whom she stood in fear, and he was somewhere along the English coast, playing a poor game of golf.

She was free beyond her most extravagant dreams—absolutely free. She was so free that it seemed aimless to rise in the morning, because there was nothing awaiting her attention. She was so free that there was no object in breakfasting, because there was no obligation demanding her strength. She was so free that whether she should go out or remain indoors depended merely upon the whim of the moment. There was for her nothing either without or within.

For the first twenty-four hours she sat in a sort of stupor.

Marie became anxious.

"Madame is not well?" she asked solicitously.

"Perfectly well," answered Marjory dully.

"Madame's cheeks are very white," Marie ventured further.

Madame shrugged her shoulders.

"Is there any harm in that?" she demanded.

"It is such a beautiful day to walk," suggested Marie.

Marjory turned slowly.

"What do you mean by beautiful?"

"Ma foi, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, the birds singing," explained Marie.

"Do those things make a beautiful day?"

"What else, madame?" inquired the maid, in astonishment.

"I do not know," sighed madame. "All I know is that for me those things do not count at all."

"Then," declared Marie, "it is time to call a doctor."

"For what?"

"To make madame see the blue sky again and hear the birds."

"But I do not care whether I see them or not," concluded madame, turning away from the subject.

Here was the whole thing in a nutshell. There were some who might consider this to be an ideal state. Not to care about anything at all was not to have anything at all to worry about. Certain philosophies were based upon this state of mind. In part, Monte's own philosophy was so based. If not to care too much were well, then not to care at all should be better. It should leave one utterly and sublimely free. But should it also leave one utterly miserable?

There was something inconsistent in that—something unfair. To be free, and yet to feel like a prisoner bound and gagged; not to care, and yet to feel one's vitals eaten with caring; to obtain one's objective, and then to be marooned there like a forsaken sailor on a desert island—this was unjust.

Ah, but she did care! It was as if some portion of her refused absolutely to obey her will in this matter. In silence she might declare her determination not to care, or through tense lips she might mutter the same thing in spoken words; but this made no difference. She was a free agent, to be sure. She had the right to dictate terms to herself. She had the sole right to be arbiter of her destiny. It was to that end she had craved freedom. It was for her alone to decide about what she should care and should not care. She was no longer a schoolgirl to be controlled by others. She was both judge and jury for herself, and she had passed sentence to the effect that, since she had chosen not to care when to care had been her privilege, it was no longer her privilege to care when she chose to care. Nothing since then had developed to give her the right to alter that verdict. If anything, it held truer after Peter's departure than ever. She must add to her indictment the harm she had done him.

Still, she cared. Staring out of her window upon the quay, she caught her breath at sight of every new passer-by, in fearful hope that it might prove to be Monte. She did this when she knew that Monte was hundreds of miles away. She did this in face of the fact that, if his coming depended upon her consent, she would have withheld that consent. If in truth he had suddenly appeared, she would have fled in terror. He must not come; he should not come—but, O God, if he would come!



Sometimes this thought held her for a moment before she realized it. Then for a space the sun appeared in the blue sky and the birds set up such a singing as Marie had never heard in all her life. Perhaps for a step or two she saw him striding toward her with his face aglow, his clear, blue eyes smiling, his tender man mouth open to greet her. So her heart leaped to her throat and her arms trembled. Then—the fall into the abyss as she caught herself. Then her head drooping upon her arm and the racking, dry sobs.

How she did care! It was as if everything she had ever hungered for in the past—all her beautiful, timid girlhood dreams; all that good part of her later hunger for freedom; all of to-day and all that was worth while of the days to come, had been gathered together, like jewels in a single jewel casket, and handed over to him. He had them all. None had been left her. She had none left.

She had always known that if ever she loved it was so that she must love. It was this that she had feared. She had known that if she gave at all she must give utterly—all that she ever had or hoped to have. Suddenly she recalled Mrs. Chic. It was with a new emotion. The latter had always been to her the symbol of complete self-sacrifice. It centered around the night Chic, Junior was born. That night she had been paler than Mrs. Chic herself; she had whimpered more than Mrs. Chic. Outside, waiting, she had feared more than the wife within who was wrestling with death for a new life. She had sat alone, with her hands over her ears in an agony of fear and horror. She had marveled that any woman would consent to face such a crisis. It had seemed wrong that love—an affair of orange blossoms and music and laughter—should lead to that. Wide-eyed, she had sobbed in terror until it was over. It was with awe and wonder that a few days later she had seen Mrs. Chic lying in her big white bed so crooningly happy and jubilant.

Now she understood. The fear and horror had vanished. Had she been in the next room to-day, her heart would have leaped with joy in tune with her who was fighting her grim fight. Because the aches and the pains are but an incident of preparation. Not only that, but one can so love that pain, physical pain, may in the end be the only means for an adequate expression of that love. The two may be one, so blended as to lead, in the end, to perfect joy. Even mental pains, such as she herself now suffered, can do that. For all she was undergoing she would not have given up one second to be back again where she was a month before.

Something comes with love. It is that more than love itself which is the greatest thing in the world. Sitting by her window, watching the shadows pass, Marjory was sensing this. The knowledge was coming slowly, imperceptibly; but it was bringing her strength. It was steadying her nerves. It was preparing her for the supreme test.

Because that very day, toward sunset-time, as she still sat by her window, she saw a shadow that looked like Monte. She smiled a little, because she knew it would soon dissolve. Rapidly the shadow strode along the quay until opposite the hotel. Then, instead of vanishing, it came on—straight toward her. She sprang to her feet, leaning back against the wall, not daring to look again. So she stood, counting her heart-beats; for she was still certain that when a hundred or so of them had passed, the illusion also would fade.

Marjory did not have time to count a full hundred heart-beats before she heard a light rap at the door. For the fraction of a second she swayed in the fear that, taking the stairs three at a time, Monte might have ventured to her very room. But it would be with no such gentle tap that he would announce himself.

"Yes?" she called.

"A card for madame," came the voice of the garcon.

Her knees still weak, she crossed the room and took the card. There was no longer any hope left to her. Apparitions do not materialize to the point where they present their cards.

"Madame is in?" queried the boy.

"What else can I say?" she asked, as if, in her desperate need, seeking counsel of him.

The boy shrugged his shoulders.

"If madame desires, I can report madame is away," he offered.

It was all one to him. It was all one to every one else in the world but herself. No one was interested. She was alone. Then why had not Monte himself let her alone? That was the point, but to determine that it was necessary to see him.

It was possible he had come merely by chance. It was possible he had come to see Peter, not knowing that Peter had gone. It was possible he had returned this way in order to take the Mediterranean route home. On the face of it, anything was more probable than that he had come deliberately to see her.

"You will ask monsieur to wait, and I will be down in a few moments," she replied to the boy.

She called to Marie.

"I have a caller," she announced nervously. "You must make me look as young as possible."

Even if she had grown old inside, there was no reason why she should reveal her secret.

"I am glad," nodded Marie. "Madame should put on a white gown and wear a ribbon in her hair."

"A ribbon!" exclaimed madame. "That would look absurd."

"You shall see."

She was too weak to protest. She was glad enough to sit down and give herself up utterly to Marie.

"Only we must not keep him waiting too long," she said. "Monsieur Covington does not like to be kept waiting."

"It is he?" exclaimed Marie.

"It—it is quite a surprise." She blushed. "I—I do not understand why he is here."

"It should not be difficult to understand," ventured Marie.

To that madame made no reply. It was clear enough what Marie meant. It was a natural enough mistake. To her, Monsieur Covington was still the husband of madame. She had stood in the little chapel in Paris when madame was married. When one was married, one was married; and that was all there was to it for all time. So, doubtless, Marie reasoned. It was the simple peasant way—the old, honest, woman way.

Madame folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes while Marie did her hair and adjusted the ribbon. Then Marie slipped a white gown over her head.

"There," concluded the maid, with satisfaction, as she fastened the last hook. "Madame looks as young as when she was married."

But the color that made her look young vanished the moment Marjory started down the stairs alone to meet him. Several times she paused to catch her breath; several times she was upon the point of turning back. Then she saw him coming up to meet her. She felt her hand in his.

"Jove!" he was saying, "but it's good to see you again."

"But I don't understand why you are here," she managed to gasp.

To him it was evidently as simple as to Marie.

"To see you," he answered promptly.

"If that is all, then you should not have come," she declared.

They were still on the stairs. She led the way down and into the lower reception-room. She did not care to go again into the sun parlor. She thought it would be easier to talk to him in surroundings not associated with anything in the past. They had the room to themselves. She sat down and motioned him to another chair at some little distance. He paid no attention to her implied request. With his feet planted firmly, his arms folded, he stood before her while she tried to find some way of avoiding his gaze.

"Peter Noyes has gone," he began.

"Yes," she nodded. "You heard about his eyes?"

"He wrote me."

She looked up swiftly.

"Peter wrote you?" she trembled.

"He told me he had recovered his sight. He told me he was going."

What else had he told? Dizzily she waited. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she might faint. That would be such a silly thing to do!

"He said he was going home—out of your life."

Peter had told Monte that! What else had he told?

He paused a moment, as if expecting her to make some reply. There, was nothing she could say.

"It was n't what I expected," he went on.

What else had Peter told him?

"Was n't there any other way?" he asked.

"I did n't send him home. He—he chose to go," she said.

"Because it was n't any use for him to remain?"

"I told him the truth," she nodded.

"And he took it like a man!" exclaimed Monte enthusiastically. "I 'd like to show you his letter, only I don't know that it would be quite fair to him."

"I don't want to see it," she cut in. "I—I know I should n't."

What else besides his going had Peter told Monte?

"It was his letter that brought me back," he said.

She held her breath. She had warned Peter that if he as much as hinted at anything that she had confessed to him, she would lie to Monte. So she should—but God forbid that this added humiliation be brought upon her.

"You see, when I went I expected that he would be left to care for you. With him and his sister here, I knew you would n't be alone. I thought they'd stay, or if they went—you'd go with them."

"But why should n't I be alone?" she gathered strength to ask.

"Because," he answered quickly, "it is n't good for you. It is n't good for any one. Besides, it is n't right. When we were married I made certain promises, and those hold good until we're unmarried."

"Monte!" she cried.

"As long as Peter was around, that was one thing; now that he's gone—"

"It throws me back on your hands," she interrupted, in an attempt to assert herself. "Please to sit down. You're making your old mistake of trying to be serious. There's not the slightest reason in the world why you should bother about me like this."

She ventured to look at him again. His brows were drawn together in a puzzled frown. Dear Monte—it was cruel of her to confuse him like this, when he was trying to see straight. He looked so very woe-begone when he looked troubled at all.

"It—it is n't any bother," he stammered.

"I should think it was a good deal," she answered, feeling for a moment that she had the upper hand. "Where did you come from to here?"

"Paris."

"You did n't go on to England at all?"

"No."

"Then you did n't get back to your schedule. If you had done that, you would n't have had any time left to—to think about other things."

"I did n't get beyond the Normandie," he answered. "My schedule stopped short right there."

He was still standing before her. Apparently he intended to remain. So she rose and crossed to another chair. He followed.

"You should have gone on," she insisted.

"I had my old room—next to yours," he said.

She must trouble him still more. There was no other way.

"That was rather sentimental of you, Monte, was n't it?" she asked lightly.

"I went there as a man goes home," he answered softly.

Her lips became suddenly dumb.

"Then I had a long letter from Peter; the first one."

"He has written you before?"

"He wrote me that he loved you and was going to marry you. That was before he learned the truth."

"About you?"

"And about you. When he wrote again, he said you had told him everything."

So she had; more, far more than she should. What of that had he told Monte? The question left her faint again.

"How did it happen?" he asked.

"I—I don't know," she faltered. "He guessed a little, and then I had to tell him the rest."

Monte's mouth hardened.

"That should n't have been left for you to do. I should have told him myself."

"Now that it's all over—can't we forget it, Monte, with all the rest?"

He bent a little toward her.

"Have you forgotten all the rest?" he demanded.

"At least, I 'm trying," she gasped.

"I wonder if you have found it as hard as I even to try?"

Steady—she must hold herself steady. His words were afire. With her eyes on the ground, she felt his eyes searching her face.

"Whether it is hard or not makes no difference," she answered.

"It's just that which makes all the difference in the world," he contradicted. "I wanted to be honest with myself and with you. So I went away, willing to forget if that were the honest way. But, from the moment I took the train here at Nice, I've done nothing but remember. I've remembered every single minute of the time since I met you in Paris. The present has been made up of nothing but the past. Passing hours were nothing but echoes of past hours.

"I've remembered everything—even things away back that I thought I had forgotten. I dug up even those glimpses I had had of you at Chic's house when you were only a school-girl. And I did n't do it on purpose, Marjory. I 'd have been glad not to do it, because at the time it hurt to remember them. I thought I'd given you over to Peter. I thought he was going to take you away from me. So I 'd have been glad enough to forget, if it had been possible."

She sprang to her feet.

"What are you saying, Monte?" she trembled.

With his head erect and his eyes shining, he was telling her what her heart hungered to hear. That was what he was doing. Only she must not listen.

"I'm telling you that to forget was not possible," he repeated hotly; "I'm telling you that I shall never try again. I've come back to get you and keep you this time."

He held out his arms to her. She shrank back.

"You're making it so hard," she quavered.

"Come to me," he said gently. "That's the easy way. I love you, Marjory. Don't you understand? I love you with all my heart and soul, and I want you to begin life with me now in earnest. Come, little woman."

He reached her hands and tried to draw her toward him. She resisted with all her strength.

"You must n't," she gasped. "You must n't!"

"It's you who're making it hard now, wife o' mine," he whispered.

Yes, she was making it hard. But she must make it still harder. He had come back to her because she was alone, moved temporarily by a feeling of sentimental responsibility. That was all. He was sincere enough for the moment, but she must not confuse this with any deeper passion. He had made a mistake in returning to the Normandie. Doubtless he had felt lonesome there. It was only natural that he should exaggerate that, for the time being, into something more.

Then Peter's two letters had come. If Peter had not told him anything that he should n't, he had probably told him a great deal more than he should. Monte, big-hearted and good, had, as a consequence of all these things, imagined himself in love. This delusion might last a week or two; and then, when he came to himself again, the rude awakening would follow. He would see her then merely as a trifler. Worse than that, he might see himself as merely a trifler. That would be deadly.

"It's you who are making it hard now," he repeated.

She had succeeded in freeing herself, leaving him before her as amazed and hurt as a spurned child.

"You're forcing me to run away from you—to run away as I did from the others," she said.

He staggered before the blow.

"Not that!" he cried hoarsely.

"I'm going home," she ran on. "I'm going back to my little farm, where I started."

"You're running away—from me?"

"I must go right off."

She looked around as if for Marie. It was as if she were about to start that second.

"Where is Marie?" she asked dully.

She made for the door.

"Marjory," he called after her. "Don't do that!"

"I must go—right off," she said again.

"Wife o' mine," he cried, "there is no need of that."

"Marie!" she called as she reached the door. "Marie!"

Frantically she ran up the stairs.



CHAPTER XXVII

WAR

War!

A summer sky, warm and fragrant, suddenly became dour and overcast. Within a day thunder rolled and lightning flashed. Men glanced up in startled surprise, then clenched their jaws. Women who were laughing gayly turned suddenly white. Orders were speeded over the wires and through the clouds to the remotest hamlets of France. In a few hours men began to gather in uniform, bearing rifles. They posted themselves about the gates of stations. They increased in numbers until they were everywhere. Trumpets sounded, drums rolled. Excited groups gathered in the hotels and rushed off to the consulates. The very air was tense and vibrant.

War!

People massed in groups. The individual no longer counted. Storekeepers, bankers, dandies, chauffeurs, postmen, gardeners, hotel proprietors became merely Frenchmen. They dropped the clothes that distinguished their caste, and became merely men in uniform.

Foreign visitors no longer counted as individuals. They ran about in panic-stricken groups like vagrant dogs. Those in uniform looked on indifferently, or gave sharp orders turning strangers back from this road or that, this gate or that. A chauffeur in uniform might turn back his millionaire foreign master.

Credit money no longer counted. Banks refused to give out gold, and the shopkeepers and hotel proprietors refused to accept anything but gold. No one knew what might happen, and refused to risk. A man might brandish a letter of credit for ten thousand francs and be refused a glass of wine. A man with a thousand francs in gold was in a better position than a millionaire with only paper.

Monte discovered this when he hurried to his own bankers. With half a million dollars and more to his credit at home, he was not allowed a single louis d'or. Somewhat bewildered, he stood on the steps and counted the gold he happened to have in his pockets. It amounted to some fifty dollars. To all intents and purposes, that embraced his entire capital. In the present emergency his stocks and bonds were of no avail whatever to him. He thought of the cables, but gold could not be cabled—only more credit, which in this grim crisis went for nothing. It was as if he had suddenly been forced into bankruptcy. His fortune temporarily had been swept away.

If that was true of his own, it must be equally true of Marjory's. She was no wealthier now than the sum total of the gold she happened to have in her possession. The thought came to him at first as a shock. What was she going to do? She was upon the point of leaving, and her plans must have been suddenly checked. She was, in effect, a prisoner here. She was stranded as completely as if she were any penniless young woman.

Then some emotion—some feeling indistinctly connected with the grandfather who had crossed the plains in forty-nine—swept over him. It was a primitive exultation. It made him conscious of the muscles in his back and legs. It made him throw back his head and square his shoulders. A moment before, with railroads and steamships at her command, with a hundred men standing ready to do her bidding in response to the magic of her check-book, she had been as much mistress of her little world as any ancient queen.

Sweaty men were rushing fruits from the tropics, silks from India, diamonds from Africa, caviar from the north; others were making ready fine quarters in every corner of the globe; others were weaving cloths and making shoes; others were rehearsing plays and music—all for her and others like her, who had only to call upon their banks to pay for all this toil. Instead of one man to supply her needs, she had a thousand, ten thousand. With the machinery of civilization working smoothly, she had only to nod—and sign a check.

Now, overnight, this had been changed. The machinery was to be put to other uses. Ships that had been carrying silks were needed for men with rifles. Railroads were for troops. The sweat of men was to be in battle. Servants were to be used for the slaughter of other servants. With nations at one another's throats, the very basis of credit, mutual trust and esteem, was gone. She and others like her did not count. Men with the lust for blood in their hearts could not bother with them. They might sit in their rooms and sob, or they might starve. It did not much matter. A check was only a bit of paper. Under such conditions it might be good or not. Gold was what counted—gold and men. Broad backs counted, and stout legs.

Monte took a deep breath. Now—it might be possible that he would count. It was so that his grandfather had counted. He had fought his way across a continent and back for just such another woman as Marjory. Life had been primitive then. It was primitive now. Men and women were forced to stand together and take the long road side by side.

The blood rushed to Monte's head. He must get to her at once. She would need him now—if only for a little while. He must carry her home. She could not go without him.

He started down the steps of the bank, two at a time, and almost ran against her. She was on her way to the bank as he had been, in search of gold. Her eyes greeted him with the welcome her lips would not.

"You see!" he exclaimed, with a quick laugh.

"When you need me I come."

She was dressed in the very traveling costume she had worn when they left Paris together. She was wearing, too, the same hat. It might have been yesterday.