XXXIII.
Helen sits erect in the carriage, her lips pressed tightly together, her hands clasped in her lap.
Everet is very pale, and still seems to be acting half-irresponsibly. He watches her face. There is no change in its expression. He can draw no conclusion from it. Presently he touches her hand:
"Helen."
She turns her face and looks at him. There is no inquiry in the expression. It is merely an action indicating that she has heard him.
He pauses. After a moment, he asks in a low tone:
"Where do you want to go?"
An expression of surprise flits across her face for a moment.
Everet looks out of the window. After a moment:
"Where? To your rooms."
"You are acting under a great strain and excitement now, Helen. Would it not be better to wait a little, until you can think more calmly? Suppose I take you to the Arlington, and you remain there to-night. In the morning, whatever decision you have reached shall be carried out. Would not that be better, dear?"
"You do not want me to go with you?"
She speaks monotonously. He does not reply. She repeats it:
"You do not want me to go with you?"
Everet slips his arm about her. There is something pitiful about this woman sitting by him so white, and speaking in so hard a tone.
"Yes, yes, I want you. I was only thinking of you. I would have you do nothing you will repent, that is all. I—"
"I am going to your rooms. I have decided."
Still the same expressionless voice.
Everet lowers the window, and calls to the coachman:
"Go home."
He then puts the window up again, and resumes his erect attitude and the study of the face of the woman beside him. He feels as though he were acting in his sleep. All has occurred so quickly.
Helen's face seems to have changed in the last hour. The expression that has seemed to him one of innocence and helplessness, is impressing him now as one of determination and perhaps calculation. He is suddenly recalling many details of their acquaintance which coincide with this new impression she is producing—but she is a beautiful woman. Nothing can change that fact.
They do not speak again until they have reached Everet's rooms.
Everet opens the door with his latch-key, and Helen passes in as he holds the door open for her. She stands quite still in the centre of the room, abstractedly.
Everet turns the gas higher and stirs the fire in the grate. He goes about the rooms apparently taking no direct notice of her, for a moment, feeling a certain humiliation for her and himself in the situation.
She still stands with her wraps on, and finally Everet comes to her. He takes her hands in his. He says gently:
"Helen, you do not regret?"
She lifts her eyes and looks at him inquiringly:
"Regret? Why should I regret? I have your love?"
Everet catches his lip between his teeth. He replies hoarsely:
"Yes."
"Then why should I regret?"
She unfastens her cloak, and it slips to the floor, leaving her in evening dress, with white bare neck and arms. There is a difference in the atmosphere. Her own house is a degree warmer than Everet's rooms.
He notices the tremor that seizes her, and throws her fur cape about her shoulders. He takes her hand and leads her to a chair by the fire. He places her gently in it, and stands by the side of her. After a moment he says:
"I want to think for you, dear, if you will let me. Whatever I say, remember it is for your own good, because I—I love you. You have become so unhappy that you are not responsible just now for your actions. I want to put things before you plainly. You are here, in my rooms to-night—but you can return home and no one will be the wiser. You are a woman prominent in society. Your husband's name is famous throughout the country. No breath of calumny has ever touched you. If you remain with me, it will be known from here to San Francisco within forty-eight hours. Then, regrets will be useless. You will have lost everything forever but—my love; home, position, fortune, everything that is essential to the happiness of such a woman as you. You can return to-night, no one—"
"Every one knows," in a hard tone—"my servant witnessed all—every one knows."
Everet is silent a moment. Then he speaks slowly:
"Well, if that be true, at least you have nothing to reproach yourself for, yet. Though they know, you will have the knowledge that you are an—honorable woman if you return at once—"
She stops him with a gesture:
"What is that to me? The world will not know it. What I have done is irrevocable, I tell you. I have been in your rooms for fifteen minutes, and three people beside ourselves know it,—your servant, and mine, and my husband. It is possible that I might have done differently if I had been a little more deliberate,—I think not, but it is possible. However, I was not more deliberate—and there is nothing to be done. When a woman scorns conventionalities as I do, all is over."
She speaks proudly. She is in earnest.
Everet feels a sudden tenderness and compassion for this strange woman who speaks with such conviction of her scorn for conventionalities when her respect and reverence for them is what is about to ruin her and deprive her of all peace.
The mere thought that she has stepped aside never so little from the beaten path has paralyzed her capacity of reasoning, and she will wander about in the wood forever, having lost the power to find her way back.
He has done what he could. Now he stands staring at the fire. After a moment he feels a soft hand on his. Helen is looking at him with appealing eyes. She murmurs like a grieved little child:
"I have nothing but you now. If you do not fail me, I shall not miss the rest."
He stoops and clasps her in his arms.
XXXIV.
Braine rings his bell and sends the envelope he has been addressing. Woolet answers the bell and takes the note. Braine says laconically:
"Send by messenger."
Woolet leaves the room—his master's manner is oppressive. The silence of the house is oppressive. Ruin and catastrophe seem to pervade the atmosphere. The sombre looking clock on the mantel strikes solemnly.
Helen's dog sits dejectedly by the fire, now and then going to Braine and poking its nose into his hand. Braine watches it mechanically. He has not left his seat since last night at ten o'clock. The room looks neglected, as all rooms look if not lived in for twenty-four hours.
He has sat silently in his chair during all these hours, with his arms on the desk before him, and his head on his arms. Now he looks calmly about the room. On a chair is Helen's scarf. He rises and going over to it picks it up. It breathes the perfume peculiar to the woman. He folds it in his hands and carries it about the room as he moves aimlessly here and there. Her handkerchief is under a chair. He takes that up and carries it about with the scarf. Helen's dog follows at his heels.
Braine's face is ghastly. There are great rings under his eyes, and furrows in his cheeks that were not there last night. He pauses in the middle of the floor. A scene of long ago comes vividly to him. A little dingy office, in a far off Western town; an "editorial sanctum;" a little half rusty, half white-washed stove set in its box of sand; grimy walls; a man at a rickety desk with improvised pigeon-holes of collar boxes. Not a very inspiring picture? Well, no, but he would give his house with its art treasures, his fame, his wealth, for that little dingy office, with its obscurity—and Helen. Helen, with the sunny eyes. Helen, with the hair where you sought for missing sunbeams; Helen's heart, that sought for nothing—because it was satisfied with what it had found. Helen,—the lost Helen!
He goes to the desk and looks among some old papers. He shades his eyes with his hand—though the light is not strong. He pulls out a long-folded newspaper clipping that reads:
"There died in this town to-day, a young man much esteemed by his fellow-citizens," etc., and as he finishes and lays it by, something near him mutters, "Juggernaut!"
He sits staring into the dead fire—no one has dared intrude upon him to replenish it.
After a time there is a knock on the door. Braine calls: "Come in."
He does not move. Everet comes to the · fireplace and stands silently waiting till he shall speak.
Braine looks at him and rising, says slowly:
"Good evening—Everet. You will be seated?"
The poor voice trembles in its effort at courtesy and usualness. Everet sits. He says, after a moment:
"You wanted me, Braine?"
His tone is kind, and trembles a little too. This handsome, dignified statesman is a sorrowful sight to see.
"Yes. It was kind of you to come," with his eyes fixed on the black grate.
Everet glances at the little crumpled bunch held so tightly in the man's hands.
Braine seems to recover himself with an effort, and tries to speak formally; this is more pitiful than before. He says evenly, as though repeating a lesson:
"I thought perhaps you would come. I felt that it was better to see you first—I thought—I thought—"
He pauses and looks helplessly at Everet. Evidently he cannot keep the thread of his ideas.
Everet says quietly:
"You thought I could tell you about—Helen—your wife? Perhaps—advise you?"
Braine nods.
"That is a strange thing to expect of me, under the circumstances."
"Yes, I know," in an apathetic tone; "I know—but these are not ordinary circumstances. You—you were not to blame—"
Everet suddenly stretches out his hand. There is an eagerness in his tone. He says:
"Thank you for that, Braine. I—I—" He pauses.
Braine continues:
"No, you were not to blame—nor she—Oh, Everet!" rising and speaking excitedly, "she was not to blame. You do not know. She is as good as the angels. The crime is mine. Though she sank to the gutter, mine would be the responsibility, not her's. Six months ago she was as true in thought and deed as a child. I forced her to this. I—I—I—"
He lays his head on the mantel, and sobs shake him from head to foot. No one cares to see a strong man weep. Everet walks to the window and stands, doing something with his handkerchief.
Braine becomes quiet. Everet crosses to him, and lays his hand on his shoulder.
"Braine,"—he speaks in a deep, earnest voice,—"God only knows how I have suffered in twenty-four hours. My suffering has been small compared with yours, but it has been enough. There is nothing to explain. All is as clear to me as the day. You think I should feel contempt for you? I cannot feel that, though your crime has been against me too,—and you will never know how great it was until you know how I believed in and revered the woman who wrought for you. I feel nothing but the deepest pity for you. Since the first time I heard your name in connection with the great schemes of the West, I have reverenced your ability, though not always the account you turned it to—as in this dicker with the whiskey ring. But that you are a great man and a great statesman—not politician, statesman—your bitterest enemies must admit. I am an ambitious man. I cannot say, nor prove even to myself that I would not have done as you have done, had I had the power, the ability. I think now that I would not—but perhaps that is because I know that I cannot. If you have done dishonorable things, you have also done great things. If you have toiled for yourself, you have also toiled for others. You have been a power for good. Last night I pleaded with your wife, Helen, to return here. She refused. I implored her to go to a hotel until the day came, and she could think more collectedly. She said: 'Do you mean that you do not want me?' I took this woman to my home. She was weak, sorrowful, undone. I am a man—I have loved her—nay, I do love her—you could not expect me to do differently. To-day, at the risk of wounding her, I proposed that she let me make some other arrangement for her. She would not listen. Her will must be mine. I am ready to give you any satisfaction you demand."
Braine makes a gesture of his hand. He says hoarsely:
"I have committed crimes enough. There could be no satisfaction for me—except to kill you—and—" He looks in Everet's face and finishes—"I should be taking the life of one of the few men I can respect."
Everet takes his hand, and these two men, strangely enough, make a silent compact of brotherhood, never to be broken—and one of them has taken the other's wife. But strange things happen in this complex world of ours.
Everet says in a gratified voice:
"I am forever in your debt for the weight you take from my heart. All night, all day the expression of your face last night has followed me. I have had no happiness for thinking of your grief."
Braine is now and then shaken by a nervous thrill. He says:
"May I go to her?"
Everet looks at him for a moment, then says slowly:
"It would do no good, Braine. She is obdurate. She will never return to you, and I could not receive you unless she wished it. You understand me, do you not? She is now under my roof and my protection. I must respect her wishes. I must protect her even against her husband, if she commands—until her husband take measures to punish me. You understand, do you not?"
Braine looks a little dazed.
"Yes, I understand."
He speaks so hopelessly that Everet's face contracts with sympathy and pain. He proposes:
"You might write to her, Braine. I could not take it, you know. But I will be there when she receives it. I will prevail upon her to read it, should she refuse."
Every word that is spoken only in kindness and from the heart, cuts Braine like a knife. He feels no jealousy, that this grave friend has an influence over his wife which he no longer possesses, but the thought hurts terribly.
He grasps eagerly at the suggestion.
Everet says as Braine begins to write:
"I will go now, Braine. Send the note at once by the messenger—and—"
He hesitates. Braine looks wistfully at him.
Everet comes close to him. He says, in a solemn, impressive tone:
"From this hour, your wife's honor shall be as sacred to me as it is to you. I will protect her, even against myself, though she remain in my house. And I do this—not for her, but for you."
He leaves the room before Braine can speak.
Braine says under his breath: "This is more than I deserve."
He writes:
"Helen:"—then sits staring at the word. "I dare not come to you until you send for me. I throw myself at your feet, and implore you to forgive me. So miserable a man as I does not live. Helen, child, wife of my heart, who has known the good of my life as well as the bad, come back to me. My life from this hour shall attest my love for you, my sorrow and repentance. Helen, by the memories of those first years, when we lived but one for the other, I implore you. We will go away together. I forswear this life forever. I have wealth. My last penny shall be used for your happiness. The world is all before us. Command, and your least wish shall be fulfilled. My sin is great, my punishment is more than I can bear. Come back, sweet wife, and help me by your presence, your word of approval, to right my terrible wrong if I can. Oh, Helen, the memory of those days filled with your love and goodness crowd upon me, making my despair more hopeless; making my loneliness grimmer. That which you have longed for shall be yours. No more of this hurry and striving! No more of this frenzied living! Come back, Helen, wife, come back—"
The pen slips from his fingers. The paper is all blotted with his tears. He rings the bell, and hands the message through the door. It is gone. And now he waits.
He goes to the seat by the dead fire. He waits with Helen's neglected things in his hands—with Helen's dog at his feet.
An hour goes by, and still he waits—a little longer, and a note is handed through the door.
His note—unopened.
XXXV.
"Then you refuse to accept it?" Everet is speaking.
"Yes. I refuse." Helen speaks decisively and walks away to the window.
"Helen."
Everet comes close to her. He speaks hesitatingly.
"You know that I am your true friend, that when I urge this upon you it is through no lack of desire on my part to supply you with all your heart could wish. You know that when I urged you to return to Braine, I thought of your happiness. You know this. As long as you are satisfied, this house and everything in it is yours, and all your wishes shall be fulfilled so far as I am able to do it; but I feel that there is a day coming when you will not be satisfied, living in this way; and then—in money will be your only hope. I must speak plainly, dear. It is for this reason that I entreat you to accept this provision which Braine offers. All that I have is at your disposal, but I have little in comparison with the wealth Braine wishes to place in your hands."
She turns and looks at him. She says slowly:
"I do not want your wealth, or his. I want what you will not give me—love. Wealth will not take its place. If you cannot give me that, there is but one thing that can in any degree make it up to me—power. One or the other I must have. One or the other must help me to forget my ruined life—the life that he has ruined, and now thinks to pay for with money."
"You are wrong. He has sinned, but if ever a human being suffered and has tried to rectify his mistakes, he is the one. He has implored you to return. You have refused all overtures. You have returned his letters unopened. You have been unwilling to listen—"
"Listen? You talk like a child. This man has done me the greatest wrong that a woman ever suffered. These last two months with him have been one great insult, one monstrous indignity and affront. Listen? It is too late. Once I begged him to listen to me. I humiliated myself before him, begging for one little expression of love—the next morning he mocked me. It is too late."
And Everet knows that she speaks the truth.
He says sorrowfully:
"Very well. You cannot return to him? Then be merciful, let him make the little reparation in his power. Accept this money from him."
She shakes her head:
"Never!"
Then, with a burst of emotion, "Why do you torment me in this way? Once you would have given half your life for my favor; now you are as unresponsive as a block of wood."
Everet's face grows troubled:
"Not so," he says; "don't accuse me of this, Helen. Don't call me unresponsive. You are very dear to me—but I may not have you for my wife, and I cannot accept you in another relation. I cannot do that. My position has been a terrible one. I don't think you can understand—"
"His crime was directed toward you—"
"And do you not see that this compels me to be generous? I cannot do that thing. This man has discovered his wrong and is repentant. I should be a dog if I refused to recognize the fact. He has converted everything he possesses in the world into money, and begs you to accept it. He leaves his home, and takes himself away from his fellows to live—this man who has swayed thousands with his eloquence, who has commanded the homage of all the country, who has held the affairs of the nation in his hands. This man has humbled himself, has forsworn it all, has buried his strength and his greatness and his talents in a little forsaken wilderness. God! I am an honor-loving man; I despise his crime, and my own; and yet, I doubt if I should be great enough for this. After all, he was guilty of nothing but what his associates are guilty of every day of their lives, and will continue in uninterruptedly and with less excuse; the difference—that one has met with retribution and the others have not. To-day I have more respect and reverence for this man who has been overtaken and repents, than for Grayson who has braved it through and is about to step into his place—"
"He would not be repenting in sackcloth and ashes if he had not been overtaken."
There is a touch of wormwood in her voice.
"Perhaps not; but he is repenting, with an humbler repentance than I believe even the Lord cares to accept."
Helen's eyes gleam a little, and her lips are firmly pressed together. Everet's defence of the man who has tried to wrong him, and whom she has loved, cannot convince her.
After a time Everet rises to go. He holds her hands in his for a moment:
"You are decided?"
"Decided."
Everet says good night. Helen turns wearily back into the pretty rooms. She looks about, almost contemptuously. Her face is not the face of the Helen of six months ago. To-night it expresses weariness, hopelessness, bitterness, longing. She clasps her hands a little wildly. She has not found what she sought. Since the night in Everet's house, he has been the friend, not the lover. The old life sometimes comes over her as it has to-night. The old sweet life, the old sweet love—and yet, the old love would not satisfy her now, if it must be linked with the old life. That is an unacknowledged reason for her obduracy. Love without money? Yes. Love without power, excitement, intrigue? No. If this has poisoned all her days, yet it is a delicious poison.
At times she is consumed with a sense of the mortification and indignity of those last months with Braine. She feels a bitter desire for some sort of revenge. What would she have known of longing and ambition, and falsehood and madness, but for him?
She has fallen into a morbid state. She now sees no one. She is without the social pale of her old acquaintance among whom she ruled. The thing for which she has been in training for years is denied her. That which nature intended her for—the life of a loving woman—has been made tasteless to her. Her natural appetite is ruined; her acquired taste is ungratified. She thinks:
"Could I be occupied! Could I forget, a little while!"
She throws herself upon the divan with a little moan. She lies so for an hour, perhaps. A card is brought her—she reads "Dalzel."
She rises with a curious expression on her face. She stands expectant.
An hour later as he is leaving, he says:
"Of all the women able to accomplish the thing, you are the best fitted." And watching him go, she thinks:
"This is the clever man who was cleverer than my friend. What better incentive could a woman want?"
XXXVI.
"Well, dear fellow, I'm glad to be with you."
Braine turns to him with the grave, sad smile that is now the only smile his face knows. He walks slowly. There is none of the energy and spring in his step that belonged to Braine the statesman. The face is still handsome—it will always be that. No expression can entirely change his features, but it is a sombre face. His figure stoops a little. Mental burdens are apt to bow the shoulders far more quickly than physical ones.
Braine has grayed at the temples; it will be but a little time before the brown of his hair will have disappeared.
Everet has got off the train just now, at the tumble-down little station, and as he and Braine walk leisurely down the country road, he covertly notes every detail of his friend's appearance.
There is still a dignity in Braine's figure and movement. No stoop, no length of time can deform that, any more than it can change the attraction of his face. These things were not the ornamentations but the substance of the man. All thought of dishonor in this man was acquired—and it was a hard thing to learn. Honesty and uprightness of mind were innate. It is his natural self that has remained by him in the crisis.
With the woman, things were different.
The two men stroll on through the mellow glow, the setting sun lending its fiery touch to the hedge-rows, turning the gray of the road to a more cheerful yellow. A bob-white calls from the wood on the left; a wood-pecker is warily at work in an apple-tree in the orchard on the right. Sweet evening odors, evening sounds, evening winds, surround the men like a benediction.
Braine stops once in the road and looks off over a yellow field—a field of grain half cut. A man still works there among the sweet-smelling sheaves. A comely woman has just passed through the bars beyond, and is crossing to the man who works. There is a leisurely vigor in his movements that only strong men know at resting time. He sees the woman and stands erect, awaiting her, his rugged, positive form outlined against the flushing sky, that seems to terminate the whole earth in the field behind him. He does not meet her. She comes to him. If there is anything save the rabbits in the grain to see, the man and woman do not know. The man must be a poet—for he does not kiss her lips. The man who binds the sheaves instinctively knows that passion and the hour are incongruous. He takes her face between his hands and looks into her eyes, and as the sun with one last peep sinks below the hill into nothing, he lends to the two the brightest ray left him, and they stand in a rosy sea for a little minute—these two! And the day is done.
Braine stands with shaded eyes. The strong hand, slightly browned, trembles a little. As they walk on, he breaks the stillness gently:
"I could be happy here." There is a wistfulness in his voice.
Everet touches the hand at his side. There is the peculiar gentleness in the touch that some men have. The two go on, hand in hand. The greatness of friendship lies in its simplicity. Neither speaks again until they turn into a worn foot-path at the right, and follow it to a small white house beyond.
Braine lives here. A little house set in a patch of orchard, a flower-bed here near the door—an old-fashioned bed where sweet-william reigns supreme—that shows the conscientious care of some one who loves—something. On the step, Helen's dog. Very little things? Yes. Magnificent in their commonplaceness. These things that are the care and companions of a great mind—a lonely man, who has controlled by his intellect the thought and act of millions, directly or indirectly! Who would not be a flower—or a dog?
With old time courtesy Braine enters and stands in the narrow little doorway to welcome Everet. He makes no apology. He sees nothing to demand it, though the cane chairs are not the poems in upholstery that are in Everet's rooms; though the bench at the side serves in place of luxurious divans. There are no carpets on the floor, but the shining whiteness of the boards is seductive.
There is a desk in one corner—there is something familiar in its look. It has collar boxes for pigeon-holes. It has an atmosphere of industry about it. Evidently the lonely man is not an idle man.
Braine says to the clean boy in the next room:
"We will have some supper now—I do not dine any more," with a smile and a nod at Everet.
Everet makes no remark. The scene is impressing him strangely. The odors of the orchard waft through the door; a cricket under the window keeps up a drowsy tune.
The two men sit side by side on the door-step while their supper is made ready for them. Neither says very much.
"Are you not lonely here, dear fellow?"
Braine looks up, and he ceases to stroke Helen's dog. He replies gently:
"Yes, I am often lonely."
"Do you have nothing to occupy your days?"
"Oh, yes. The days are not bad." He nods in the direction of the desk; pats Helen's dog; glances at his flowers.
"And the nights?"
Braine smiles and does not reply. There are tears that cause heart-ache, but there are smiles that cause heart-break.
After a time they go in to supper. It is a frugal one—suggesting how adequate the food of the mind may be.
There is wine for Everet—who keeps his friend company, however, in drinking water.
After a time they sit together in the twilight. There has been a long silence between them. Presently Everet says:
"Do you want to hear?"
Braine nods.
"She does not live in the house where I established her. She is independent of my care. She no longer comes to me for sympathy. She no longer needs me as a friend. She is rich, powerful, beautiful, cold, commanding. She has a salon. The brilliant men of the country may be found there, a few of the women. She rules the statesman, the poet, the pagan, the minister—all but the Christian and the conventional. If her life is not irreproachably virtuous, now, no one suggests the doubt, because whenever they decide to acknowledge the truth they may no longer visit her. Conventional women know her. They never acknowledge her. They never repudiate her; they never mention her; they are afraid of her. Their husbands' interests are too often in her hands, sometimes their own—or their lovers'. She rules, she reigns. She lifts her finger and great men obey, and she lifts it only for those who pay. She has two sources of income—her wits and a lover. She acknowledges the wits and not the lover; consequently her satellites do the same. How long this state of things will continue, depends on the wits and the lover."
He ceases to speak. He looks at Braine. His sombre face is gray. Everet says:
"Do you know why I am telling you this? Because I am going to drag you from this place where you have buried your greatness and your talents. I am going to show you that this woman you mourn is not worth it, that—"
Braine raises his hand:
"Don't say that." There is firmness and meaning in the tone. "Perhaps this woman is not worth it—but Helen is. I have not buried my talents. I am not an idle man. I am trying to accomplish something that will in some degree indemnify those I have wronged. I do not mourn for the woman alone, but for my sin. My sin was in making my Helen the woman you tell me of. She has no sins to answer for. I am responsible. Some day she will come back to me—"
He speaks dreamily, looking into the purple dusk,
"Some day she will come back, and I will take her in my arms and have my wife, my Helen, Helen of the old good days again. She shall not live so—" looking, about the little room. "All my wealth is being saved for her. She shall not live like this, but amid the surroundings that Helen loves, and with me. She will be so grateful for the rest and peace, after the strife and hurry. We may both be old," wistfully. "I am old now; but it will happen—she will come back."
He stops and seems to continue the thread of his thought to himself.
Everet says nothing. His face is turned the other way—though the dusk would hide its expression. After a time the two men say good night.
XXXVII.
It is another summer evening, like that of four years ago, and Everet is again with Braine at the little cottage. He is impressed less with the sorrow than with the rugged strength of the man who rises from his flower-bed to greet him.
"Work is good for you," he says, scanning the face of his friend; "and the work is good, too. I did not believe it possible that the man of action, relinquishing action as you have done, could become a power as the man of thought. But you have wrought that miracle."
"The work is effective, then?"
"More. It is inspiring. Your printed words do not draw men to you as your eloquence did, and you take no personal part in directing human endeavor, but you are influencing others to action as you never did before, and instead of one great Edgar Braine, filling the eye of the public, we have thousands inspired by him to do his work for the betterment of the land and the time. My friend, I once tried to draw you from the solitude in which you were wasting yourself, as I supposed; I have no wish now to draw you from a seclusion in which you are doing a nobler work than in your most active days."
"Thank you, Everet—and thank God! I have atonement to make, you know, and it is encouraging to know that I am making it."
And so the two talk on of public matters, with no further reference to the more sensitive matters of personal feeling, until the clean boy has served the supper, and they have finished it. Then, as they sit together in the open air, Braine says:
"And now, Everet?"
Everet understands, and takes a preparatory long breath. He begins:
"I told you I had come from New York instead of Washington?"
"Yes."
"Well, she is there."
"Yes?" as Everet pauses.
"Yes. She could not remain in Washington any longer. She has been in New York for six months now."
"What is she doing?"
Everet does not reply for a moment; then he continues:
"The last year she was there was a disastrous one for her. The old set were enraged by certain of her desperate exploits in finance, and she did not get on with the new. It was impossible for her to remain there any longer, so she sought a new field in New York."
He is reluctant to say more, and pauses again.
"Well?" Braine speaks obstinately. "Go on."
"She went to New York and began living on a large scale—she still lives on a large scale—but Helen is a fine-grained woman to her finger tips, no matter what she has done. The Washington politician is bad enough, but the New York politician is a good deal worse—to a woman. When Helen sinks to the street commissioner and the sheriff, she is to be pitied. And it will come to that. Now that she has left the field that she was so long mistress of, she will not be able to reach the superior villains—no: that is hard on them. I'll call them men—we're all men."
He looks meditatively into the darkness.
"No, Helen cannot carry on transactions with her kind any more, and she must use these others." Then, continuing grimly, "How she will bring herself to assimilate with—"
"Everet—you—you are speaking of Helen."
There is no anger in the tone. It is a tone rather of tenderness and surprise.
Everet bites his lip, and says:
"Forgive me, Braine. I—forgot it."
After a time, Braine asks:
"Do you think it would be of any use to go to her, Everet? I would tell her that I loved her just the same, you know, and want her back; or do you think I had better wait awhile,—until she is ready to return of herself?"
He speaks with the old, wistful intonation.
Everet replies earnestly:
"No, Braine. It is better for you to—wait. It would do no good for you to go. There is no use in your putting yourself in the way of affront—"
"I should not mind that," quickly.
"No—not if it would do any good. But it would be useless. I know what I say, Braine. I—I have seen her. She would not return—she would not see you."
Braine sighs heavily.
After a time, he leaves Everet to smoke a last cigar, and goes to his work at his desk, from which he does not rise till morning.
XXXVIII.
A year later.
"How do you feel to-day?"
"The same."
Helen keeps her eyes fixed on the handle of the cracked wash-pitcher.
The physician looks at her curiously for a moment. After a little he says:
"Have you no friends?"
"None;" without ceasing to study the cracked pitcher. As usual, the woman leaves no chance for further questions.
As he rises to go, the physician says gravely:
"I think if you could force yourself to arouse, you could throw off this—this—disease that is sapping your vitality. It is more a disease of the mind, I think, than the body."
"Doubtless."
The physician says:
"Well, good-day," lingering a moment longer.
"Good-day," from the bed.
He has attended this woman, who is on his charity list, for two months, and he has never heard her utter more than one sentence at a time—and seldom a sentence of more than one word. She has looked in his face once. He will never forget that look. Since then, she has studied the wall, or the broken window, or some other object. He may speak for five minutes at a time, and she makes no sign that she hears him unless he asks a question.
He cannot decide what is the matter with her. She lies here day after day, apparently unattended—indeed he is not certain but that she is starving, though she has said, "Nothing," when he has inquired if there was anything that she needed, anything he could do for her.
He has made inquiries of the Irish woman below, of the Dutchman across the hall, and the Italian above, but he only hears below that she's "wan av yer foine ladies," and across the hall and above he has heard—no matter what.
He has discovered that the daughter of the old-iron man in the cellar goes in once a day, and is paid ten cents for it—or used to be; now she goes for sweet charity. He can learn no more. He calls only occasionally now. He can do nothing for her. He does not know what is the matter with her.
As she lies here alone after he has gone, she clasps her thin hands, with a weak movement, and gives a little moan indicative of weakness, of pain, of sorrow perhaps—perhaps all three. After a time she says aloud:
"He is to blame for it all."
The old gleam is in her eyes. The old relentless expression in her tone.
She turns her face to the grimy wall, with a smothered groan. She lies with her eyes shut, while the dusk closes in. The night-sounds in the street reach her through the open window. The room is hot and stuffy; the odors are intolerable. They are intolerable in their suggestions. It is not the subtle perfume that arouses an emotion—but what the perfume suggests; it is not the fume that disgusts—but what it suggests. These fumes suggest a Chinese restaurant, an unclean bedroom, a garbage barrel, a swill cart, and the stale memory of bad tobacco. All this is tinctured with the Dutchman's cheese over the way.
A child is bawling in the street. The Italian above is beating his monkey; a coal-heaver is cursing his wife, and has just thrown a bottle at his brat, which accounts for one less sound,—for one more silence suddenly occurring. And Helen lies on a bed assorting these sounds and smells. Helen! Patrician Helen! Helen of dainty habit! Fastidious Helen! Braine's wife! Braine's Helen!
"D'ye want anythin'?" The old-iron man's daughter thrusts her kindly, dirty face inside the door.
"Nothing."
XXXIX.
Everet and Braine are walking down the road from the station. Everet is talking earnestly. Braine is listening eagerly. Disappointment is written on his face.
"You have found no clew?"
"None." Everet speaks hopelessly.
"Don't speak in that tone. A woman like Helen cannot drop out of existence without leaving some trace. What was the last you discovered?"
"I found a place where she had lived—a comfortable flat. She had lived there—" He hesitates.
Braine says quietly:
"Say it."
"With a man called McPhelan—you know who he is, I presume."
"Good God!"
Braine stops in the road and looks helplessly into Everet's face. He moans:
"Don't say that, Everet! Don't say that! Not Helen! It was not she. It was some other."
"And after all, dear Braine, what is the difference? A Sixth Ward politician, or a member of the cabinet."
He has thrown his arm across Braine's shoulders. His tone is one of tenderest sympathy, but there is a certain sternness in it.
Braine's strong body trembles like a weak child's. He says, hoarsely:
"I must go and find her. I must, Everet."
"No, no. No one could do more than I can in such a matter. I will look until I find her, or know that she is dead. I will obey your least direction, your slightest wish in this, but grant what I ask of you. Don't go to find her. Think, Braine! Think what it would be to learn such things from strangers; think what it would be to learn the details of so pitiful a life from those who cared nothing for your grief. It is right you should know them—but hear them from me. I love you. I loved Helen—the Helen you have known. You surely can bear these things better from me."
"Yes, yes. God bless you, Everet. You're the truest friend a man ever had. But promise me, promise me you will leave no stone unturned?"
"I promise."
XL.
Helen lies staring out of the window. There is no curtain to shut out the glaring sunlight, which is causing the fumes to rise from the broiling humanity below.
Metropolitan poverty suggests to me sounds and smells. I could endure sights. What one sees, one knows. There is no longer room for the imagination—that is capable of so much that is more horrible than reality. But a sound!
A woman in the room below us cries, "Don't!" She may be speaking excitedly to her child—or that brute, her husband, may have her by the hair preparing to cut her throat.
Just now, Helen hears a chair knocked over in the dark hall outside her door. It does not occur to her that someone has stumbled in the darkness; she thinks someone has knocked someone down in the hall. There is no more noise, and she carries on the thought still farther. She says, "One of them is being strangled, and that is why it is still." With this thought, a face she has seen once in the doorway opposite comes to her mind; an evil, loathsome face. She at once associates it with the silent murder that is being done in the hall. She has not the slightest doubt that this is a fact. She does not stir. She would not if the evil man with the loathsome face came in to strangle her. She would be perfectly quiet because she would know of nothing else to do.
Some one raps on her door. It is the man with the loathsome face, she knows. She does not speak. Her eyes are fixed in a sort of fascination on the door. The knob turns; she still stares as the door opens. There is an eeriness in watching a slowly opening door when one knows nothing of the one who is impelling it.
A man enters. It is not the man of the evil face. It is Everet; but the outward effect is the same, upon her. She does not speak. She watches him as he comes toward the bed. He does not speak to her. He stands at the bedside looking down at her. She lies motionless, looking up into his face.
Slowly his eyes fill with tears. He takes the slim, transparent hand that lies inert on the grimy quilt, and bowing over it lifts it to his lips. He kisses it as though it were the hand of a princess. There is a reverence, a homage in the act that he never showed to Helen Braine in her proudest days,—the homage that helplessness and misery command.
Helen makes no sign. Everet walks to the window and looks down into the fiery street. There is a woman, half-clothed, drunk in the gutter. He turns away with a shudder. He stands in the middle of the floor for a moment, looking at the figure in the bed. She does not speak. After a moment of indecision, he hurries from the room. He sends a telegram; gets some wine and other things his judgment suggests may be useful, and hurries back to the room he has left.
He knocks off the neck of the bottle—having no more convenient means of opening it. He finds a cracked tea cup in a cupboard, and pours a little of the wine into it. He goes to Helen and raises her a little by slipping his arm under her shoulders. She is as light as a little child. His hand trembles as he holds the cup to her lips. She drinks and lies back on the pillow without speaking.
After a time she eats a little of what Everet has brought. He looks about the bare room uncertainly. He has a desire to make it more habitable while she is in it. Nothing can be done. He draws a chair to the bed and sits in it. Taking Helen's hand he speaks for the first time; he says:
"You have been very ill?"
She does not reply.
After a pause, he says gently:
"You do not want to talk, dear?"
She shakes her head. Everet remains quietly by her, holding the shadowy little hand.
As evening comes, the sounds in the street become less collective and more individual. They seem more aggressive.
There is no candle, no lamp to light. He does not go out for candles because he does not want to leave her. He sits on in the darkness. Now and then when one sound comes more sharply or loudly than another, the thin fingers tighten over his. He holds the hand close, and murmurs:
"Poor child! And you have endured all this alone."
There is no response, and silence falls again.
After an hour they hear a step in the hall. Helen knows the step. If it were not for the darkness Everet would see the relentless gleam that springs into her eyes. The door opens and Braine hurries into the room.
He stands, bewildered at finding darkness. He can only see objects dimly through the gloom. Everet throws his arm around him, and leads him to the bed. He leaves him standing there, and hurries from the apartment.
Braine sinks on his knees beside Helen. He throws his strong arms about the frail figure, and lifts her to his heart.
There is not a sound, there in the darkness, save the heavy, tremulous breaths drawn by Braine.
He holds her so. He gives her no caress, says no word of endearment. His emotions have carried him beyond such forms. He only holds her close to his heart, tightening his arms about her from time to time, as though in a sudden terror lest she be spirited from him.
That she is utterly unresponsive he does not note. If he did he would not care now. He has but one thought: "This is Helen, Helen, Helen."
Everet finds them so when he re-enters the room. He brings candles with him and lights them. He first notices the expression on Helen's face. It paralyzes him for the moment; then he looks fearfully and furtively at Braine. He is oblivious of Helen's expression. He knows only Helen.
"And now?"
Everet looks about and pauses. He forgets that Helen has not spoken since he entered the room in the morning. Of course he does not know what has passed between the two.
Braine seems utterly helpless, and looks at Everet in reply. Everet says quietly:
"You remembered to bring things as I wired you?"
Braine nods and points to the package on the chair.
Everet had asked Braine in his telegram to bring something that Helen could travel in. He knew that in a certain room, in a certain little white house, were certain beautiful belongings of Helen's; treasured for what? Such a time as this, perhaps.
Everet unrolls the things. Braine has been fortunate enough to select something suitable.
Everet says in a business-like way:
"She must leave here, at once—a hotel, or home?"
"Home."
"Very well; she must be dressed, you know. You had better assist her while I see about a carriage in which to get her away from this place."
He points to the garments, saying:
"There they are, Braine."
He is impressed with the conviction that Braine does not comprehend much now.
He leaves the room. Braine goes to the bed, and says, in a voice too full of tenderness, joy, love, to be very comprehensible:
"Can you be dressed now, dear?"
She looks at him without replying. He thinks she has not heard, and repeats the question. She does not answer. He says, lovingly, with a caress:
"You shall not be annoyed, dearest. You need not talk. I will help you."
She is absolutely passive. She assists herself very little. She does not make any instinctive motion that will help, but obeys Braine's least suggestion like an automaton.
The gown is of a style worn more than five years before, and hangs oddly on the attenuated figure, that once filled out its graceful curves. Its richness contrasts strangely with the dingy room.
Is there a trace of the old Helen? Very little. The beauty of her eyes will never disappear; the grace of her least gesture will remain—but the hard bitterness, the desperate expression is hers too.
Braine does not notice it. He only sees that other trace of Helen.
She seems to be in no pain, but utterly exhausted as he lays her back on the pillow, while they wait for Everet. Her eyes never wander from his face. He interprets their expression by his own emotions, and smiles back at her in response. There seems nothing peculiar in her silence. Even he finds it an effort to speak.
They hear Everet spring up the stairs. He knocks and comes in, as Braine bids him. He says, with a smile:
"You are ready to go?" looking at Helen.
Braine replies:
"Yes."
Helen makes no movement to help herself. Braine takes her in his arms and carries her, with no resistance on her part, to the carriage below. She is but a feather-weight. He draws her to him so that she rests with the utmost ease against his shoulder.
Everet sits opposite. He appears oblivious of everything but the lamp-posts in the street, but he furtively watches Helen's face. Its expression is terrifying him. He is thinking of the future of the friend who sits opposite. He does not dare interpret this changeless expression.
At the station he suggests that he remain in the city. Braine grasps his hand in mute appeal:
"I—I feel so helpless, powerless in some way, Everet."
Everet presses his hand, replying:
"Just as you wish, old fellow—I was only thinking of you."
And so this friend goes with them.
He enters this man's house with this man's wife—the wife whom five years ago he took away.
On the journey, Everet is seldom near them: when he is, he is bright, helpful, tender. Helen has never once spoken. She helps herself in no way. Braine cares for her like a child. She is perfectly passive.
Her continued silence has at last forced itself upon Braine's mind. Now that he stops to think, he knows that he has not heard her voice. He is amazed at first. He looks up at her in a startled way, as the thought comes to him. She is looking vacantly out of the window. He asks her a question. She turns her head and looks in his face. She makes no reply. There is no inquiry expressed in her countenance.
For the first time he realizes the expression of her deep, beautiful eyes. He feels an icy hand clutch at his heart. He is speechless for a moment; then he leans near her. With a world of anguish and appeal in his voice, he says:
"Helen!"
She does not reply; she only looks in his face. Her expression never varies; and it is no look of insanity. It is the only expression Braine will ever see there, and in that instant he is aware of the fact.
He turns to the window and sits staring out. Once he draws a long, quivering breath, that escapes again, flutteringly. In the sigh all the anguish of a lifetime is expressed.
Was there a change for an instant in the expression of the woman's face? If so, it was the shadow of a smile that flitted across it—the old, sphinx-like smile. But perhaps it was not there. If so, it was only suggested.
For the rest of the journey there is silence between the two men. The woman is the same.
When they leave the train at the little station there is a conveyance waiting to take them to the cottage. Braine carries Helen as he has done before.
The three drive silently down the road in the twilight. The two men are thinking of a scene years ago, in which the same characters figured, but oh, so differently!
As Everet glances at the silent figure through the dusk, he feels his whole body shaken by some powerful emotion. That woman, ominously still, with white face, deeply brooding, relentless eyes, haggard, shadowy and worn, is the woman he once admired as the most perfect type of what womanhood was meant by God to be; now she is what sin alone can make a woman, and he remembers with exquisite remorse that the sin which wrought this ruin was in part his.
The two men are thinking of that lost time. The woman—who can guess what the woman is thinking?
They drive through the lane to the house. Apparently neither scene nor time, nor circumstance is impressing her. She looks off over the purple hills into nothingness.
Braine lifts her out and carries her within the cottage, placing her gently in a chair. He says eagerly, while unfastening her wraps:
"Things will not be like this, you know, dearest. In just a few days it will be different."
He speaks hurriedly as though anxious to convey to her that she is not to live in poverty; as though to reassure her; as though to ward off reproach.
Everet stands apart. After a time, when Braine has gone into the next room, he approaches the woman in the chair. He stands by her side. She looks up at him. The relentless look leaves her eyes; her expression, aside from that, is the same. She does not speak. He takes her hand in his and holds it for a moment; then says gently:
"Good-bye, Helen."
No answer. He lays her hand tenderly in her lap, and leaves the room. He never sees her again.
In the next room he grasps Braine's hands, saying in a husky voice:
"I am going, dear Braine. I shall not return. God bless you."
Braine looks in his face, and Everet sees that he has acquired a new expression, one that will be constant. The old restlessness, wistfulness, hope, feverishness are gone. Patience is there, instead.
The men stand with clasped hands for a moment; then Everet goes out the door, carrying with him the memory of two faces, a man's and a woman's; one tragic in its patience; one tragic in its gloom. They are the faces of the only man and the only woman he has ever loved.
These three who have sinned and been sinned against! These three with a common guilt! Two, with a mutual repentance. The other—a woman!
Helen, sitting alone, her eyes rest on the desk with its collar-boxed pigeon-holes. Does it suggest something to her? Perhaps. The same, shadowy, enigmatic smile crosses her face, and is gone.
XLI.
The cottage is still the old familiar white cottage at the foot of the lane. The dog on the step is Helen's dog. The bed of sweet-williams is still tended by Braine. The same old desk sits in the corner, at which the same earnest, grave man works, but all else is different.
There is no longer the seductiveness of shining cleanliness alone, but there have been added the proper settings of the Helen of long ago.
The cottage is dainty within;—rich with soft carpets and heavy hangings. It impresses one as a little incongruous at first, on entering with the impression of simplicity gained outside; but the feeling quickly wears off, and one is satisfied with the charm.
All was done in a week's time. She did not have to wait.
She apparently has been unimpressed with the change. She has accepted the luxury as she did the apparent poverty. Braine has no way of knowing whether it pleases her or not; whether she has a desire that he may make himself happy by gratifying her or not.
She sits always in one place—on a luxuriously soft, roomy chair in the window, with the flower-bed just in front of her. She sits half reclining here, from morning till night.
Braine attends to every want. He dresses her as deftly as a woman, in the morning; at night he assists her again.
She requires no waiting on. He stands for moments beside her sometimes, longing to hear her signify a desire that he may fulfil it. She wants nothing.
Sometimes her presence drives him nearly mad. He sits at the desk hour after hour, feeling her dark, brooding eyes fixed upon him. He endures it until he feels his senses swimming, and then sometimes looks up with a smile, terrible in its effort and pathos. He looks up to meet the relentless gaze that follows him from morning till night. Never a word, never a motion. Silence, passivity always.
She looks at one other thing—the sweet-williams in front of the window. Her expression may not change; it may be the relief that he experiences, when he knows that her eyes are not upon him, but he fancies that the gaze is less terrible, less forbidding when she looks at the flowers. For this reason, he brings her a fragrant little bunch each morning, each evening. He lays them in her lap. He never sees her touch them, but she never rejects them. She accepts them as she does everything else, in utter silence, passively.
Those brought in the morning are withered at night, and those brought at night, faded by day—but he never throws them away. They have been near her. They have touched her gown—possibly she has touched them with her hands. It is possible she has touched them with her lips—those lips he never dares kiss. At any rate he keeps the withered flowers. He puts them away, each little faded bunch, in a drawer in the strange little desk.
Sometimes he raises his head from his writing to speak. He meets her glance, and is dumb. Sometimes he thinks she must be lonely, and reads to her,—reads until the fascination of her eyes draws his glance from the pages, and he looks up with the feeling of horror and oppression that now possesses him. Sometimes he longs for the sound of her voice. Indeed, sometimes the longing becomes so intense that he clenches his hands, and the perspiration stands in great beads upon his forehead.
Sometimes he sits in the twilight, the silent figure near, and thinks of the tones of a voice long ago. He tries to recall the intonation she gave to his name, and certain phrases she used. He wonders if the tones are just right in his memory.
At these times he thinks every moment:
"Will she speak? She is about to speak now. In a moment she will speak my name." And he sits breathlessly, with his head partly turned. There is never a word, never a sound, never a motion.
He is working in his flower-bed. He puts down his trowel and hurries in, suddenly possessed with the idea—"She may feel like speaking, and I not be there." Or while he is at work among the flowers he looks up to find her looking at him.
Her dog is at her feet. She never notices him, never touches him. Braine can no longer find a trace of Helen, his wife, in this woman. He tries in vain to recall her expression.
This evening he is standing at the little gate leading to the lane. He leans on it in the sweet silence, that the birds are emphasizing. He is looking off into the far-away, his white hair touched by the setting sun.
Is it the effect of the dying light, or is his face different? His dark eyes have grown dreamy with their absent look. There is a half smile on his firm, tender lips; an expression of resignation, which is not dogged but cheerful; an expression that impels the squirrel on the rail of the fence to stay where he is, and the dog to poke his black nose into his master's hand.
He turns toward the house, stooping over the sweet-williams to gather the accustomed bunch. He goes into the cottage with them in his hand, the same half-smile on his lips.
In the doorway he pauses. He stands gazing at the figure in the chair by the window. What has come over him? He brushes his hand slowly across his eyes. Helen sits by the window. Where is the terrible face that has haunted him all these months?
He goes nearer. She is asleep. The setting sun burnishes the gold of her hair until it is like the aureole of a saint. It frames the face not of the woman who has sat in silence so long, but of the woman who loved him in his youth. The same sweet mouth with its tender smile. The wife of his youth, of his love, of his happiness, of his poverty, of his eminence, of—
He is at her side. The sun has lowered a little, and the delicate flush on her face is going with it.
He bends near her till his lips touch her tender ones that seem to invite.
He leans heavily against her chair. He lays the sweet-williams gently in her dead hands, as the sun sets behind the hill.
Juggernaut has passed over his soul and Helen's.
The End.
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Works of Biography
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Sir Philip Sidney: His Life and Times. By Mrs. S. M. Henry Davis, Author of "Norway Nights and Russian Days." Steel portrait of Sidney.
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Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. By Wm. Osborne Stoddard, Secretary to President Lincoln.
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Bismarck: His Authentic Biography. By George Hezekiel. Historical Introduction by Bayard Taylor. Profusely Illustrated: New Map, etc.
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Bryant and His Friends: A Memoir of Wm. Cullen Bryant, and Reminiscences of the best-known Knickerbocker Writers—Irving, Halleck, Paulding, Cooper, Dana, etc., etc. By James Grant Wilson. Illustrated with portraits and manuscript fac-similes.
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