"My dear, sweet little mother: The crucial hour came, and you were away. I may have scuttled ship, but I did what seemed best. Some things you cannot understand now, but I know you love me too well to distress me with questions – when I ask you to trust me. Pray for your
"Baby."
As the clock struck half-past eight, Eliza ran up the steps and into the room, holding against her shoulder a branch of titi pearled with bloom. At sight of the extraordinary loveliness of the figure standing as if frozen, she burst into tears.
"My beautiful – my baby! What does all this mean? Your father has forced you to – "
"Hush, hush. My father was as much astonished as you are. I feared you could not come in time, and here is a note, in which I said all that I can tell you. Don't scold me, and don't cry; wait till I am gone."
She gave her the note and kissed her cheek, where tears were streaming.
"Oh, my baby, give me the positive assurance that this step is voluntary – that you love Mr. Herriott."
"Entirely voluntary. My supreme wish is to go with Mr. Herriott. He is the noblest man in all the world."
"Yes, but you have not just found that out; you have always known it. Now, do you love him? I am afraid you do not; and, my baby, marriage without loving a husband is – "
Eglah laid a hand over Eliza's lips.
"Father is coming for me. I want to wear some titi, because you brought it to me. Pin two clusters under the folds of lace here, just over your baby's heart. Now, kiss Eglah Kent good-bye, and leave me with father while you take off your hat and dry your eyes."
"My dear, are you ready?"
"Wait a few minutes for Ma-Lila. Father, if I can not persuade Mr. Noel to abandon his journey, you must be sure to meet me when he telegraphs you and leaves me. I am inexpressibly unhappy, but if you will forget the last three years, and love me as in the dear old days, it will comfort and gladden me."
The clock chimed nine. Near the foot of the stairway Mr. Herriott waited, and when he came forward the almost unearthly beauty of Eglah's face made his heart throb with vague apprehension. It wore a rapt expression of supreme exaltation, as if a somnambulist walked with eyes fixed on some goal beyond a yawning black chasm.
Drawing her arm from her father's, she stepped to Mr. Herriott's side and laid her hand in his.
CHAPTER XXI
The fast vestibuled train, forty minutes late, swung northward at a speed that kept the car in a quiver. There were few passengers, asleep in their berths, and Mr. Herriott had secured the drawing-room. It was new, luxurious in appointments, and to the end of the brass rod supporting the lamp in the centre he had fastened a great sheaf of white carnations, sent by Mrs. Whitfield. Closing the sliding door that opened into the sleeper, he sat down beside the figure clad in a dark-blue cloth suit.
"I am so insanely happy I dare not pinch or shake myself, lest I should wake and find it only a heavenly dream."
He took one of her remarkably beautiful hands, which he had always admired, and where he had placed a broad, heavy band of gold four hours before. Spreading the cold fingers on his warm palm, he lifted them against his cheek, brushed them with his mustache.
"Lovely little snowflakes; how long I have coveted their touch! And now they are absolutely my very own. Mine forever."
She had been leaning back, but straightened, braced herself, and her breathing was deep and rapid.
"Mr. Noel, do you really love me above everything else?"
He laughed so heartily that she saw the glitter of his fine teeth.
"Do I love you above everything else? You elusive witch! If you will withdraw the embargo of your request – 'not yet, please' – I can soon convince you."
His handsome face, radiantly happy, bent close to hers, but she shrank away from him.
"I am your wife now, but – "
She paused, with a strained look in her eyes.
"Yes; my own precious wife at last, thank God!"
"There is one, only one proof that will convince me I am really first in your heart. Give me at once the box of papers that incriminate my father."
He dropped her hand and rose.
"It is hard, indeed, when a man must refuse the first request of his bride; but, my darling, I cannot dishonor myself. Such baseness would not prove my love; and it would inevitably arouse your contempt."
She had risen, and as they faced each other under the lamp the swaying carnations almost touched his glossy black head.
Lifting her tightly locked hands in entreaty, her voice vibrated like a lute string rudely swept.
"Don't, oh, don't break my heart! Help me to shield my father from shame, and I will bless you as long as I live. I am so wretched – the world is going to pieces – and I am clinging to you as the one rock of safety, the sole refuge that will not fail me. If you ever really loved me, oh, Mr. Noel, have mercy on me now!"
His face hardened, and, unwilling to trust his voice, he shook his head. She staggered as if from a blow, but after a moment her cheeks flamed, and banked fires glowed in her dilated eyes.
"Eglah, when did your father have the cruelty to tell you about the papers in my possession?"
"He never told me. He does not suspect I know, and he must not find out I am aware of their existence; because I could not bear that such an additional sorrow should overtake him. My father! It is your will and purpose to ruin him in his old age?"
"Only Judge Kent and I were cognizant of the existence of that box. May I ask how you obtained your information?"
"I was in his bedroom next to the library when you and father came in. The door was open, and through the thin curtain I heard every word – every cruel, horrible word, that cut my heart like a dagger. At first, when you spoke of not wishing me to know, I felt I had no right to listen, but some things had long perplexed me, things that father would not explain, and I determined to make an end of mysteries."
All tenderness had vanished from his set face, and his blue-grey eyes watched her much as a judge might a witness on the stand.
The train had entered a deep, rocky cut, and the clattering roar sounded a verbal truce. When it rushed through a meadow, Mr. Herriott put his hands behind him.
"I must have all the truth now. If you had not overheard that conversation, you would not have waited for and intercepted me in the grove?"
"Certainly not. I wished to see you at once, and before I met father."
"Your terrible distress and agitation were solely on his account, and not because of my approaching journey?"
"Yes, for father's safety. I was grieved to hear you were going so far away, but, Mr. Noel, father is my all. When I learned of the exposure threatening him I think I must have gone mad, or I should not have made the ghastly mistake of believing you loved me well enough to help me save him, and – "
She paused, silenced by the flash in his eyes, the white fury of his face.
"You proposed our marriage solely to find an opportunity for getting possession of the papers?"
"Yes, that was my object. I thought you would not deny the prayer of your wife."
"You have come to my arms with no more love in your heart than when you refused me years ago?"
"Yes. In a way I have always been attached to you; I honor, and admire, and trust you fully, and of all men I hold you first – but love! God help me! Perhaps in time I may learn."
"You considered yourself the price of the papers, and felt assured I could not refuse to sell? Any man who held them could own you body and soul! Any clodhopper, lout, any libertine, any moral leper could own you for life, in exchange for the papers! You, my white-souled, proud, sensitive, ideal woman, for sale! For sale!"
The red spots in her cheeks deepened, and a defiant ring steadied her trembling voice.
"As you are the only person who could yield me what I sought, you are the one possible purchaser. But there was an additional reason for my becoming your wife. My grandmother's will requires the estate she gave me kept in the hands of a trustee until I am thirty, unless I marry. In that event I come into immediate unrestricted possession, and I thought if you denied my prayer I would be financially able to buy the papers when you delivered them in my presence. That is the one hope that stands now between me and despair – a hope made possible by and based on my marriage. There was no other door of escape from ruin, and so I sold myself to the one man whom I have always honored and trusted – who I believed would be patient with me. Yes, I sold myself. That you would be deeply aggrieved I knew, because I intended you should learn all the truth to-night. The horror, the hot shame of the last few hours you will never, never understand."
"There was, however, solace for you in the possibility that Polar perils might speedily cancel your matrimonial bonds? At least that is one hope I can share with you."
Swinging around a sharp curve, the car lurched violently, and she staggered. He caught her arm and led her to the seat, where she leaned her head against the panel and shut her eyes. Singularly beautiful was the proud face wearing the pathetic seal of mental suffering, but, as he looked down at her, no pity softened the gleam in his eyes, and his hands clinched in his struggle for self-control.
"To-night I have learned how a man feels when an angel he worshipped from afar stooped from her heights, led him up, up to the open gate of heaven, and, just as he was entering, the same angelic hand dropped him into hell. When I had abandoned all hope of winning you, the suddenness of your surrender made my head reel. I was amazed; but the possibility that you deliberately planned to deceive me no more occurred to me than would an insult to my dead mother. For me you have embodied all that I hold pure, lofty, refined, admirable in womanhood. I was fastidious, but you filled my ideal, and I trusted you almost as I trust my God. You have wronged me doubly – in the loss of yourself, but far worse in the destruction of my belief in the incorruptibility of some women; sooner or later all are for sale.
"If I had sailed away before seeing you at Y – I should have carried an unsullied, a perfect, sacred memory of you to light the long Arctic night. God knows I would sooner have died there than realize you cruelly, deliberately deceived me. You thought you were buying the papers; but, as they will not be delivered, the trade is off. You cannot get possession of what you purchased, and the price paid I here return to you. You have no papers, and I have no wife. Without value received on your part, I have no right to you, and we stand now just as we did before that marriage ceremony, which has proved a mere commercial mockery. I abhor shams – above all things sham marriage. All or none. Only very strong, deep, tender love justifies a woman in giving herself away. Otherwise the relation degrades her; she is little better than an odalisque; and such I decline to see you. For me you have no love – never will have – and as regards my own wishes, your duplicity has effectually slain what once warmed my heart. After a few days, relief for both of us will come in separation. If I never return you will escape much annoyance. When two years elapse, the divorce court cannot refuse to give you freedom from nominal bonds, and then you will soon forget that you were ever – even in name – my wife."
She had grown ghastly pale, and her lips fluttered. In the brief silence a sick child's fretful cry rolled through the adjoining sleeper, then the train thundered into a tunnel.
"Mr. Herriott, I am so utterly miserable cruel words, even from you, no longer have power to wound me. I – " She laughed nervously, and sat upright.
"My worse than useless appeal to your mercy reminds me of a picture of the Deluge I once saw, when I was a happy child. A drowning woman clung to the edge of an open window in the ark, begging succor, and Noah leaned out and pried off her grasping hands, smiting her back into hungry waves. I shall obey your wishes, Mr. Herriott, in all but one step you have suggested. I do not believe in the validity of divorces. Vows made to God can never be cancelled by civil processes. A consecrated minister is not a mere notary public to attest signatures to a deed. My marriage is forever sacred as my baptism; my covenant in His sight, in His holy name, stands always – 'till death us do part.' You shall be as free as you wish. You need never see me again, but so long as I live I intend to hold myself your wife."
"Will you do me the kindness to hand me your ring?"
She drew it from her finger and held it toward him. He turned it slowly, smiling bitterly.
"You have not seen the inscription. 'Till death us do part.' The sight of it must be an unpleasant reminder, and I hope and ask that you will never wear it. As a worthless symbol of what no longer exists, allow me to throw it away."
"Just as you please; only remember you have no right to do so, it is mine. If it were cast into the ocean, I should never cease to feel its sacred clasp on my finger."
He laid it on the seat beside her, and she replaced it on her hand. He looked at his watch.
"It will soon be daylight. I am going into the smoking car. Perhaps you can rest. Shall I send the porter?"
"No. I could not sleep."
He went out, closing the door carefully.
With a smothered groan she sank back, and beat her palms against each other. Humiliated, sorely wounded, yet indignant – almost hopeless, but defiant – she stubbornly refused to despair until she had exhausted every means at her command.
After a while she knelt down and prayed God's help in her mission to save her father. She never knew that the door had glided noiselessly half way in its groove and that Mr. Herriott stood there to ask if she needed anything. He saw the figure bowed in prayer, and stole away as softly as he came. The strain was telling upon her quivering nerves. Hysterical aching in her throat, parched and dry, was almost intolerable, and the swaying carnations so burdened the air that when she rose her head swam.
After an hour she struggled to her feet. If she had some water it might cool her throat. From her satchel she took a cup, opened the door, and, supporting herself by one hand on the wall of the car, she walked down the narrow passage, where she knew the water-tank stood near the porter's seat. Before she reached it she saw Mr. Herriott leaning sideways against the glass door opening on the platform. Just then the brakeman raised his lantern, and the flash showed a hopelessly sad face sternly set under the close-fitting travelling cap. As she turned back, he saw her and advanced.
"What do you wish?"
She held out the cup.
"Some water, please."
She reeled, clutched at the wall, and for an instant everything spun round. He placed her in the porter's folding chair, and when he held the cup to her mouth saw that her teeth chattered. She drank spasmodically, and a long, shuddering sigh drifted across her white lips.
"You must lie down and rest. The porter will arrange your berth."
She shook her head and rose.
"You cannot walk alone; lean on me."
"Yes, I can help myself now. I was thirsty and dizzy."
She drew back, but he put his arm around her, holding her firmly against him, and placed her on the seat in the drawing-room. She pointed to the carnations.
"The perfume is overpowering. I can't reach them. Please take them out."
Lifting an arm he snapped the string.
"Like every other souvenir and symbol of to-night, they are simply sickening."
Raising the window he threw the flowers into a river across which the locomotive was cautiously feeling its way. He opened his own satchel, leaning against hers on the opposite seat, took out a silver flask, and poured some ruby, aromatic liquid into the cup.
"You are sadly spent; take this."
"No, I do not need anything more."
"You must. It is merely a mild cocktail."
"No, Mr. Herriott, I prefer not."
"A few hours ago did you swear to obey me? Drink it."
She hid her face in her hands and shivered.
"Eglah, try to control yourself."
"Please don't take any trouble on my account; just leave me alone with my torturing forebodings. No one but God can help me now. The sight of me is painful to you, and I shrink from annoying you. Mr. Herriott, please leave me to myself."
He sat down beside her, the cup in his hand.
"To-night you have made me suffer more than you will ever understand – you have hurt me beyond all possibility of healing – and, perhaps, in the terribly sudden overthrow of beautiful hopes you had called into existence, I may have seemed harsh. If so, you must pardon any desperate words my torture wrung from me. Poor child, you have sorrows enough without any additions from my hand. I cannot trust myself to talk to you; my temper is sometimes beyond control, and you have bruised my heart so sorely I am not sure of self-command. Poor little girl! Do me the favor to drink this, because I ask it."
He held the cup to her lips and she drank. He took a pillow from the opposite seat and put it behind her head.
"If you need anything you have only to open the door and I shall come."
"Mr. Herriott, there is but one thing I shall ever ask you to do for me. The ring you placed on my finger I took off at your request. Here it is. With your own hand put it back where it belongs, and it will be there when I die."
She held out her hand with the ring in her palm. He looked at her intently, and his lips tightened.
"Repeat a mockery? A shameful farce!"
He lifted the glittering circle, tossed it up twice, struggling with the impulse to hurl it through the window, then suddenly slipped it on her finger, dropped her hand, and, picking up his satchel, left her.
Would the night never end? If Duncan Keith refused to sell? She thought of quiet, lovely olive-clad plains in Sicily, with pergolas cool in green shadows of vines, where they might retreat from disgraceful publicity. Mr. Herriott scorned, repudiated her, and henceforth she could devote herself entirely to tender care of her father. Ambition and hope were dead, but was there any anæsthetic to still the burning stings of memory? She went to the opposite seat and rested her head against the open window. A thin, sallow, fading old moon hung like a spectre in the sky where the morning star lighted the way for the coming new day, and the dew-sprinkled air swept in, spiced with waves of aroma from a blooming vineyard.
Hamlets, meadows, fields, bridges, the looming shadow of a wooded mountain fled past as the train rocked, hummed, and flew on. Looking up at the quiet heavens, Eglah lifted her hands and heart in passionate appeal.
"Dear God, have mercy upon us! If I did wrong, forgive my sin. Help me now to save my poor unfortunate father, and I will strive to be a better Christian all the remainder of my days."
At eight o'clock a waiter brought her breakfast. Later, when Mr. Herriott came in, it was evident he had mastered himself; the fury of white heat had chilled to cold steel. He was very pale, and an unusual rigidity locked his features.
"You must be very tired of this close place, and I am glad we shall change cars. It is a fine day, and the scenery along the route will interest you. Here is our train. Give me your wrap and satchel."
The change was into a parlor car with fresh, linen-covered revolving chairs, and wide windows framing lovely spring pastorals – sheep on a green hillside, cattle knee deep in rock-bedded crystal streams, and everywhere the busy bird world nest building.
Eglah drew a deep breath of relief, and, as Mr. Herriott pushed a hassock under her feet, she looked up at him.
"Thank you. Will you be so kind as to tell me when we shall reach the place where your ward lives?"
"I think the train has about made up lost time, and we are due at Woodbury at half-past six. It is not on the trunk line, and we take a narrow gauge just beyond Carville."
Both wound their watches, and then, liberally supplied with magazines and papers, settled comfortably in adjoining seats. She was the only woman in the car, and a dozen men were scattered about, a few playing cards, some dozing, others absorbed in newspapers.
Mr. Herriott sat in front of his companion, his chair turned half around and toward the window. After a time he took from his satchel a folded chart and note-book. Spreading the former across his knees, he appeared oblivious of all but the lines and figures, yet the angles in his bronze face did not soften. Eglah had taken off her hat, hoping to ease the teasing pain in her temples. She rested her head against the back of the chair, and held up an open magazine, but no page was turned, and as she laid it in her lap she shut her eyes.
Her thoughts drifted to a small villa near Messina which Judge Kent had expressed a wish to occupy because he chanced to see it in a rosy mantle of almond blossoms. Mr. Whitfield would attend to estate matters, and Boynton could be trusted to manage the plantations, though they were miles apart. She could do as she pleased now with her money, and if she failed in her mission to Woodbury she would ask her father to take her abroad at once, until Mr. Herriott returned. During that time public discussion of "Ely Twiggs" would end, and probably she need never come back to America. Mr. Herriott evidently wished her out of his life, forever out of his sight, and certainly he should be gratified. Her father could not suspect her reason for going to Europe; he knew how to keep newspapers from her, and as he did not dream she knew the dreadful truth, they might resume the dear old life. So profound was her revery that she had unconsciously opened her eyes, and they looked out, seeing, not the farms and forests gliding by the window, but the sapphire sky, the purple sea, the snow of lemon groves, the red glow of oleander-walled gardens, and the silvery grey-green olive orchards where she might hide her father from shame, herself from the withering scorn of Mr. Herriott's cruel eyes.
Glancing at her over the top of the lifted chart, his attention was arrested by the intense abstraction in which she was plunged. Her extreme pallor was relieved only by vivid color in her delicately curved lips, and under the eyes bluish circles told something of her suffering. He thought of the haunting, wonderful eyes of Urd, and bit his lips as he watched her; so pathetically hopeless, yet unwaveringly proud was the pure face he had loved long and passionately.
The door behind them opened, and a naval officer entered, carrying in his arms a crying child about six months old. The bundle of muslin and lace squirmed and struggled as the man strove to pacify it by beating a tattoo on the window, dangling his watch close to the baby's eyes, and bouncing it up and down. He walked about, sat down, laid the infant face downward across his knees, trotted it, patted it, but with no quieting success, and, when the engine blew long and loud for a bridge crossing, the frightened child screamed distressingly.
The officer rose.
"I am sorry to annoy the passengers, but the nurse has been taken so ill she cannot hold her head up, and as the boy cries to go to her I was obliged to bring him in here. He never saw me until last night. I was on a cruise when his poor mother died."
Once more he essayed to whistle, and swayed to and fro with a rocking motion, but finally desperate, he turned to a young man in a neighboring chair, who was smiling over a cartoon in "Puck."
"Sir, would you do me the great kindness to hold him just a moment, while I get something from his nurse?"
"All right, I will try; but I happen to be a bachelor, and I never held a baby in my life. Come on, little man. Some day you surely will make a star screamer in opera. Now for it, sonny."
He held out his arms, but, as the father attempted to transfer the boy, the sight of another strange face increased his terror; the little hands grasped the officer's beard, and the baby shrieked in protest.
Eglah rose and crossed the car.
"He is accustomed to women; perhaps I can quiet him. Will you allow me to try?"
"O, thank you, madam!"
She took one little hand, caressed it, toyed with the fingers, and cooed as only women can. After a moment the child ceased crying, and when very gently she took it and laid it up against her shoulder the little creature nestled close to her. His suspicion, however, was not entirely allayed. Suddenly he lifted his head, stared curiously into her face, and when she laid her cheek on his, wet with tears, he seemed reassured and clung to her, his lips touching her throat.
The young man leaned over and whispered to a friend in the chair before him.
"He shows good taste in picking his nurse. Is not she a beauty? I have been watching that handsome couple, and things are not serene in their camp. I was near him in the smoker, and his face looked like a brownstone statue with live wild-cat eyes."
Eglah walked slowly up and down the aisle, humming low and very softly Kücken's "Schlummerlied." Now and then the child sobbed faintly.
The officer came back with a bottle of milk, but, as he hurried forward, Eglah shook her head. After a little while the exhausted baby slept soundly.
"Madam, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your goodness. I will relieve you now, and I trust the passengers will excuse the annoyance."
"Let me keep him a while; he still sobs now and then, and if moved might wake. A good nap will quiet his nerves."
"It is too great a tax on you, madam."
"When I am tired, I shall bring him to you."
"In a half hour we get home, and since you are so very kind, I will help the nurse arrange luggage for our station."
Eglah went back to her own chair, and holding the little creature with her right arm softly patted him with her left hand. At every motion the wedding ring flashed like a dancing demon in Mr. Herriott's watching eyes.
"Poor little chap. Did you mesmerize him?"
"I think there is telepathy in great trouble. He feels intuitively that some one else is suffering torture, and 'a fellow feeling' drew him to me."
She avoided looking at him, and her eyes followed the evolutions of a flock of white geese holding regatta in a pond close to the railway track.
After some moments, she cautiously and tenderly laid her muslin-clad burden in her lap, and smoothed out the long lace-ruffled robe. With a start one little hand was thrown up, but she caught and held it. He was a handsome boy, and when she untied the lace cap, too tight at his throat, his fluffy yellow locks enhanced his beauty.
The sight of the baby fingers clinging to the hand where the gold band shone renewed the struggle Mr. Herriott was trying to crush.
Leaning toward her, he said:
"Last night, at your request, I stifled my repugnance, and did what I deeply regret. To-day I must ask you for the only favor you can ever grant me. Give me back my ring."
There was an angry pant in his voice that made the words a demand rather than request.
"Mr. Herriott, I am sorry to refuse any wish of yours; but I cannot."
"I want it."
She looked steadily at him.
"So do I. When I die it will be where you placed it; but in the coffin human covenants end, and I will order it sent to you by those who lay me in the grave. My ring is the badge of my loyalty – not yours. You are as free as you wish to be, but when I meet my God He will know I kept my marriage vows – always."
"And the supreme vow was to love me!"
From the fury in his eyes she did not flinch.
"Yes, I intended to keep all. I thought I might learn to love you; and that you would be patient with me. I wanted to love you, and, as God hears me, I meant to spend my life trying to love you."
Unable to restrain words he was unwilling to utter, he sprang up and took refuge on the front platform.
A prolonged whistle of the engine announced the next stop, and the baby awoke with a startled cry, just as his father entered, followed by the nurse, a middle-aged woman who looked too ill to stand. Eglah rose and laid the child in her arms.
"Madam, I am deeply grateful for your courtesy and goodness. I intended handing my card to your husband. Permit me to lay it on his chair."
"I was glad to have your pretty boy. It was a welcome incident in a very dreary day. Good morning, sir."
Mr. Herriott did not return until the second call for luncheon sounded through the train. He took her hat from the brass hook and held it toward her.
"I dare say you are sufficiently weary to welcome luncheon."
"Thank you, but I want absolutely nothing. I hope you will go without me."
He went out, but not to the dining car.
An hour later, when he came back, she had crossed the aisle to a vacant chair, raised the window, and, with an arm on the broad sill, rested her head there. She did not notice his entrance, and resuming his seat he opened a magazine.
Above the line of brass lattice that held packages, hats, and umbrellas ran a panel of mirrors, and in the section over his head was reflected the face and figure directly opposite. For the next hour he held the magazine open, but his eyes never left the mirror. Twice she looked at her watch without raising her head, and from the tense, strained fixedness of her features he knew she was nerving herself for the ordeal at Woodbury; the final effort in her father's behalf, which he felt assured would prove futile. Conflicting emotions shook him, but nothing availed to abate the rage of his disappointment.
The train slowed at the entrance to a large town, and as the station platform filled with curious faces peering into the car windows, Eglah went back to her own seat.
A moment later the door was thrown open, and a boy wearing the uniform of the telegraph company shouted:
"Is Mr. Noel Herriott aboard? Message for Mr. Noel Herriott!"
"I am Mr. Herriott."
He went forward, signed his name in the receipt-book, and opened the envelope. He stood with his back to Eglah, and remained so motionless that she was seized by an apprehension some evil had overtaken her father. Just as she rose he turned and approached her.