CHAPTER XV—THE FLAME OF A SWORD

One morning, it seemed the one on which I had planned to sail, I awoke in a strange room. I knew it was strange because the sun was pouring in across the bed, and the sun never looked through my window at the Misses Januaries’ till late in the afternoon. Something wet was on my forehead—a kind of bandage that came down low across my eyes almost preventing me from seeing anything. This set me wondering in a slow, thick-witted manner.

I did not much care how I came to be there—I felt effortless and contented; yet, in a lazy way, my mind became interested. I lay still, piecing together little scraps of happenings as I remembered them. The last thing I could recall that was rational was my attempting to get out of bed. Then came vague haunting shapes, too sweet and too horrible for reality—things which refused to be embodied and remained mere atmospheres in the brain, terrors and delights of sleep which slowly faded as the mind cleared itself.

I pulled my hand from under the sheets and was surprised at the effort it took to raise it to my forehead. I heard the rustle of a starched skirt: it was the kind of sound that Hetty used to make in my childhood, when she came to dress me in the mornings and I pretended that I still slept. I used to think in those days that it was a stern clean sound which threatened me with soap and chilly water. Someone was bending over me; a cool voice said, “Don’t move, Mr. Cardover. I’ll do that.”

The bandage was pushed back and in the sudden rush of light I saw a young woman in a blue print-dress, standing beside my pillow. I tried to speak to her, but my mouth was parched and my voice did not make the proper sound.

“Don’t try to speak,” she said; “you’ve been sick, you know. Soon you’ll feel better.”

I stopped trying to talk and obeyed her, just as I used to obey Hetty. At the back of my mind I smiled to myself that I, a grown man, should obey her; she looked such a girl. After she had put water to my lips and passed a damp cloth over my face and hands, she nodded pleasantly and went back to her seat by the window.

No—until now I had never seen this room. The walls were covered in cherry-colored satin, which was patterned in vertical stripes, with bunches of flowers woven in between the lines. All the wood-work was painted a gleaming white. Chippendale chairs and old-fashioned delicate bits of furniture stood about in odd corners. Between the posts of the big Colonial bed I could see a broad bay-window, with a seat going round it. Across the panes leafless boughs cast a net-work of shadows, and through them fell a bar of solid sunlight in which dust-motes were dancing by the thousand. Half-way down each side of the bed screens were standing, so that I could only see straight before me and a part of the room to the left and right beyond where they ended.

Through weakness I was powerless to speak or stir, yet my swimming senses were anxiously alert. I saw objects without their perspective, as though I were gazing up through water. In the same way with sounds, I heard them thunderously and waited in suspense for their repetition. Though I lay so still, nothing missed my attention.

By the quietness of the house I gathered that the hour was yet early. Far away cocks crew their rural challenge. On a road near by footsteps passed in a hurry. The whistle of a factory sounded; then I knew they had been footsteps of people going to work. Beneath the window a garden-roller clanged across gravel, and became muffled as it reached the turf. A door banged remotely; a few seconds later someone tapped on the door of my bedroom. The nurse laid aside her knitting and rustled over to the threshold. A question was asked in a low whisper and the nurse’s voice answered.

A woman entered into the bar of sunlight and stood regarding me from the foot of the bed. With the immense indifference of weakness I gazed back. Her long, fine-spun hair hung loose about her shoulders like a mantle. She wore a blue dressing-gown, which she held together with one hand across her breast. Her eyes were still sleepy; she had come directly she had wakened to inquire after me. She smiled at me, nodding her head. She seemed very distant; I wanted to return her smile, but I had not the energy. I closed my eyes; when I looked again she had vanished.

For the next few days I do not know how many people came and looked at me, whispered a few words and went. There was the old gray-haired doctor, with his military-bearing and his trick of pursing his lips and knitting his brows as he took my temperature. I had one visitor who was regular—Randall Carpenter. He looked years older. Tiptoeing into the room, he would seat himself in the bay-window; from there he would gaze at me moodily without a word, with his knees spread apart, and his podgy hands clasped together. Sometimes I would doze while he watched me and would awake to find him still there, his position unaltered. One thing I noticed; Vi and he were never in my room together.

In these first days, which slipped by uncounted, I realized that I had been very near to death. It seemed to me that my spirit still hovered on the borderland and looked back across the boundary half-regretful. I had the feeling that life was a thing apart from me—something which I was unanxious to share. All these people came and went, but I could not respond to them. I desired only to be undisturbed.

Several times I had heard the shrill piping voice of Dorrie and the long low hush of someone warning her to speak less loudly. She would come to the door many times in the day, inquiring impatiently whether I were better. Sometimes she would leave flowers, which the nurse would put in water and set down by the side of my bed. I would watch them dreamily, saying to myself, “Dorrie’s flowers.”

One afternoon I heard her voice at the door, asking “Nurth, how ith Dante?” The nurse had left the room for a moment, so no one answered her question. I heard the door pushed wider, and stealthy feet slipping across the carpet. Round the edge of the screen came the excited face and little shining head. I held out my hand to her and tried to speak. Then I tried again and whispered, “Dor-rie! Dorrie darling!”

She took my hand in both her small ones, trying to mask the fear which my changed appearance caused her. “Dear Dante,” she whispered, “I’m tho thorry.”

“Kiss me, Dorrie,” I said.

“Dear Dante, you’ll get better, won’t you? For my thake, Dante! Then we’ll play together, like we uthed to.” Tears trickled down her flushed cheeks as she questioned.

As her soft lips brushed me and her silky curls fell about my forehead, I felt for the first time that my grip on life was coming back. Lying there thinking things over confusedly, it had seemed hardly worth while trying to get better. It seemed worth while, now that I was reminded that there was such beautiful innocence as Dorrie’s in the world.

When the nurse came back a few moments later, she shook her head at Dorrie reproachfully and tried to take her away from me.

“But he wanths me,” cried Dorrie in self-defense, and I kept fast hold of her.

After that I began to gather strength. I noticed that as I threw off my lethargy, Vi’s visits grew less frequent. When she came her manner was restrained; she entered hurriedly and made it appear that her only reason for coming was to confer with the nurse. At first I would follow her about with my eyes; but when I found how much it embarrassed her, I pretended to be dozing when I heard her enter.

I could not understand how I came to be in Randall Carpenter’s house. I dared not ask Vi or her husband; my presence implied too much already. I was afraid to ask the nurse; I did not know how much I should be telling by my question. There seemed to be a polite conspiracy of silence against me. I wondered where it would all end.

I had grown to like the old doctor. He was a shrewd, wise, serious man. He never spoke a word of religion, yet he made his religion felt by his kindness. As he went about his work, he would become chatty, trying to rouse my interest. He spoke a good deal about himself and told me anecdotes of scenes which he had lived through in the War, when he had been a surgeon in the Northern army. Out of his old tired eyes he would watch me narrowly; I began to feel that he understood.

One day I whispered to him to send away the nurse. He invented an errand for her, saying that he would stay with me till she returned. When she had gone, he closed the door carefully and came and sat down on the side of the bed. “Now, what is it, my boy?”

“What happened, doctor?”

He pursed his lips judicially and looked away from me for a full minute, as though he would escape answering; then his eyes came back and I saw that he was going to tell.

“I reckoned you’d be asking that question,” he said.

“The morning that you figured to sail, you were taken sick at the Misses Januaries’. You were mighty bad when they sent for me; you had pneumonia and a touch of brain-fever. It’s a close call you’ve had. I found you wandering in your head—and saying things.”

“Things, doctor? Things that I wouldn’t want heard?”

He nodded gravely. “No one in Sheba knew anything about you. I saw that you were in for a long spell, and that the Misses Januaries’ was no place for you to get proper nursing.”

He halted awkwardly. “Then I came to Randall and told him.”

“Had I mentioned him in my delirium?”

“You’d mentioned her.”

I could feel the warm flush of color spreading through my body and turned away my head. The old doctor gripped my hand. “That’s how it happened, I guess.” Little by little he told me about Randall Carpenter. During the first days of crisis he had scarcely gone to bed, but had paced the house, always returning to my bedroom door to see if he could be of any service.

“But, why should he care?” I questioned.

“Because she cared, I guess. He’s so fond of her that he wants to do more than ever she could ask him. And then, Randall’s a mighty just man, and he’s always most just when he’s most tempted.”

He looked down at me sidelong and silence fell between us. It was broken by the footfall of the nurse along the passage. I asked him quickly when I should be well enough to be moved.

“You’re some better now, but we mustn’t think of moving you yet, though, of course, you must go at the earliest.” Towards midnight the nurse took my temperature. I saw that she was surprised, for she took it a second time. “Have you any pain?” she asked me.

Randall Carpenter came in and they went away together. I lay staring up at the ceiling, my hands clenched and my eyes burning. They all knew; I alone was ignorant of what things I had said.

A carriage came bowling up the driveway. I recognized whose it was, for I had become familiar with the horse’s step. The doctor came into the room; as he bent over me our eyes met. I clutched his arm and he stooped lower. “Stay and talk with me,” I whispered. “You all look at me and none of you will tell me. I can’t bear it—can’t bear it any longer.”

“What can’t you bear?”

“Not knowing.”

When he had told them that there was no change for the worse and had sent them back to bed, he came and sat down beside me. The lights in the room were extinguished, save for a reading lamp in a far corner where the nurse had been sitting.

“I guess something’s troubling you. Take your time and tell me slowly. I’ll sure help you, if I can.”

“Doctor, you know about me and Mrs. Carpenter?”

“I reckon you’re sort of fond of her—is that it?”

I buried my face against the cool pillow. I dared not look at him, but he signaled me courage with the pressure of his hand.

“More than fond, that’s why I came to Sheba. I didn’t mean to let her know that I’d ever been here; that last evening we met by accident. I was a fool to have come. I’ve been unfair to her—unfair to everybody.”

He did not answer me; he could not deny my assertion.

“You remember what you said this afternoon—that I let things out in my delirium. I want to know what they were. I’ve been trying to remember; but it all comes wild and confused. Tell me, did I say anything that would make her ashamed of me—anything that would make her hate me?”

He shook his head. “Nothing that would make her hate you. Perhaps, that’s the worst of it.”

“Well then, anything that would damage her reputation? Was I brought here only to prevent strangers from listening to what I said, just as you’d shut a mad dog up for safety?”

In my feverish suspense, I gained sudden strength and raised myself up on my elbow to face him. He patted me gently on the shoulder, saying, “Lie down; it’s a sick man’s fancy. You’re guessing wide of the mark—it was nothing such as that.” He tucked me up and smoothed out the sheets.

“Now stay still and I’ll tell you. You were calling for her when I came to you. At first we didn’t know what you meant; then you mentioned Dorrie. Only Miss Priscilla and I heard what you were saying; you can trust Miss Priscilla not to speak about it. I let Randall know and he brought his wife over with him. Directly she touched you, you grew quiet. It was Randall suggested you being brought here; he was sorry for you and it was kindness made him do it. All through your illness till you came to yourself, Mrs. Carpenter sat by you; whenever she left you, you grew restless. She and her husband saved your life, I guess.”

“But what makes them all so strange to me now?”

He fidgeted and cleared his throat. “It’s the truth I’m wanting,” I urged.

“Randall saw what she meant to you.”

“Anything else?”

“And what you meant to her.”

Against my will a wave of joy throbbed through me. I felt like sobbing from relief and happiness. Then a clear vision of the reality came to me—the great silent man who stared at me for hours, and the high-spirited woman, so suddenly grown timid, stealing in and out the room with averted eyes in pallid meekness.

“What ought I to do?” My voice choked me as I asked it.

He turned his wise, care-wrinkled face towards me gravely. “I’m wondering,” he said. “There’s only one thing to do—ask God about it. You did wrong in coming—there’s no disguising that. But the good God’s spared you. He knows what He means you to do. I’m an old fellow, and I’ve seen a heap of suffering and trouble. I’ve seen men die on the battlefield, and I’ve seen ’em go under when it was least expected. I don’t know how I’d have come through, if I hadn’t believed God knew what He was doing. I guess if He’d been lazy, like me and you, He’d just have let you slip out, ‘cause it seemed easiest. But He hasn’t, and He knows why He hasn’t. I’d just leave it in His hands.”

Long after he had ceased to speak, I lay thinking of his words—thinking how simple life would be if God were exactly like this old man. Then I began to hope that He might be—a kind of doctor of sick souls, who would get up out of bed and come driving through the night without complaining, just to bring quiet to sinful people like myself. I closed my eyes, trying to think that God sat beside me. Some time must have elapsed, but when I looked round the doctor was still there. His head was bowed forward from his bent shoulders, nodding.

“You’re tired. I can sleep now.”

He awoke with a jerk. His last words to me before he left were, “Just leave it in His hands.”

From then on there was a changed atmosphere in the house. We had all been afraid of one another and of one another’s misunderstandings.

When Dorrie had gone to bed, Vi would sit within the circle of the lamp and read to me while I lay back on my pillows in the shadows, watching how the gold light broke about her face and hands. She was always doing something, either reading or sewing, as though when we were alone she were afraid to trust herself.

One evening she said to me, “You haven’t asked if there are any letters.”

“I wasn’t expecting any.”

“Weren’t expecting any! Why not?”

“Because none of my friends know that I’ve come to Sheba.”

She drew her face back from the lamp; her sewing fell from her hands. My words had reminded us both of the guilty situation which lay unchanged behind our present attitude.

It was she who broke the silence. “When you were taken ill I wrote Ruthita and told her—and told her that you were being nursed in our house.”

She brought me my letters and then made an excuse to leave me to myself. My father had written; so had the Snow Lady. After expressing concern for my health, the tone of their letters became constrained and unnatural; they refrained from accusing me, but they had guessed. Ruthita’s was an awkward, shamefaced little note—it puzzled me by omitting to say anything of Halloway.

More and more after this Vi showed fear of being left alone with me; any moment a slip of the tongue might betray our passion. Frequently during the evening hours Mr. Carpenter would join us. He would steal into the room while Vi was reading and sit down by my bedside. I began to have great sympathy for the man. Vi’s actions to him were those of a daughter, and he, when he addressed her, called her “My child.” Both their attitudes to one another were wrong—it hurt me to watch them; they made such efforts to create the impression that everything was well. Sitting beside me while she read, he would fasten his eyes on her. If she smiled across at him in turning a page, his heavy face would flood with a quite disproportionate joy. He was too fine a man for the part he was playing; he had strength of character and mastery over men.

Along his own lines he had a wonderful mind. It was always scheming for efficiency, concentration, and bigger projects. If money was the reward of his energy, the desire for power impelled him. But I could quite understand how a woman might yearn for more human interests and more subtle methods of conveying affection than the mere piling of luxury on luxury. He could articulate his deepest emotions only in acts.

One evening when Vi had excused herself on the ground that she had a headache, I took the opportunity to thank him for his kindness. He became as confused as if I had discovered him in a lie.

“My dear boy, you mustn’t speak to me like that; you don’t owe me anything. It is I who owe you everything.”

I was staggered by his disclaimer. Under existing circumstances it seemed a superlative extravagance of language. Then he explained, “If it hadn’t been for you, we shouldn’t have Vi.”

It was the first reference that any of us had made to what had happened at Ransby.

After that Randall Carpenter and I grew to be friends. We didn’t do much talking about it, but we each realized how the other felt....

I was almost sufficiently recovered to travel. I broached the subject of my leaving several times—the first time at breakfast. Randall glanced up sharply from the letter he was opening—his expression clouded—instead of looking at me he stared at Vi. “Certainly not. Certainly not,” he blustered. “Couldn’t hear of it.”

Dorrie added her piping protest. Vi alone was silent. Every time I approached the subject it was the same. The truth was our relations were so delicately balanced that the slightest disturbance would precipitate a crisis—and the crisis we dreaded. We each one knew that the time for frank speaking could scarcely be avoided, but we were eager to postpone it. So we procrastinated, lengthening out our respite.

One afternoon I returned with Randall from a drive to find Vi waiting for us at the gate. Her face was drawn with anxiety.

“What’s happened?” asked Randall, and the sharpness of suspense wa$ in his voice.

Vi handed me a cable. It was my recall—we all knew that. I ripped the envelope in haste; what I read, strange to say, caused me no elation—only the bitterness of finality. I raised my eyes; they were both staring at me. “My grandfather’s dead. His will’s in my favor. I must return to England immediately.”

They received the news as though a blow had fallen. Vi crept in and out the rooms with a masked expression of unspoken tragedy. Dorrie caused frequent embarrassment by her coaxing attempts to make me promise to visit them again. Nevertheless, when she had gone to bed and we no longer had her to distract us, we would pass more painful hours in inventing small talk to tide us over dangerous topics.

The night before I sailed, we kept Dorrie up till she fell asleep against me. Her innocence was a barrier between us. When she had been carried to bed, Vi sat down to the piano and sang, while we two men glowered desperately before the fire. I dared not watch her; I could not bear the pain that was in her eyes. As I listened, I knew that her chief difficulty in selections was what to avoid. We were in a mood to read into everything a sentimental interpretation.

There were long pauses between her playing, during which no one spoke and the only sound to be heard was the falling of ashes in the grate. The way in which we were grouped seemed symbolic—she at the piano apart from us, while we were side by side; by loving her, we had pushed her out of both our lives. Randall turned querulously in his chair, “Why don’t you go on playing, my child?”

Several times she half-commenced an air and broke off. Her voice was a blind thing, tottering down an endless passage. For a horrid minute there was dead silence—quivering suspense; then the keys crashed discordantly as she gave way to a storm of weeping.

She rose with an appealing gesture, and slipped out. We heard her footsteps trailing up the stairs, her door close, and then stillness.

I shuddered as though a window had been flung open behind me and a cold wind blew across my back. The man at my side huddled down into his chair; his fleshy face had lost its firmness; his eyes, like a statue’s, seemed without pupils. The moment which we had dreaded and postponed had arrived.

Randall followed her into the hall; he came back, shutting the door carefully behind him. There was slow decision in his voice when he said, “After all, we’ve got to speak about it.”

He sank down, his cheeks blotchy and his hands quivering as with palsy. When he spoke, he tried to make his voice steady and matter-of-fact. It was as though he were saying, “We’ve got to be commonsense, we men of the world. We knew this would happen. There’s nothing to be gained by losing our nerves.”

This is what he actually said, “It isn’t her fault. You and I are to blame.”

“Not you,” I protested. “It’s I who’ve behaved abominably.”

He shifted in his chair; struck a match; raised it part way to his cigar and let it flicker out. Without looking at me he answered, “We shan’t gain anything by quarreling over who’s to blame. We’ve got her into a mess between us—it’s up to us to get her out.”

“But you didn’t——”

He flung out his arm in irritation. “Don’t waste words. I married her when she was too young to know what marriage meant; I loved her and supposed that nothing else mattered. That’s my share. You made love to my wife and followed her to Sheba. That’s yours. We’ve got her into a mess between us, and we’ve got to get her out.”

He waited for me to make a suggestion; I was too much taken aback. We couldn’t get her out; we could only help her to endure it. We both knew that—so why discuss it?

Turning his head and staring hard at me, he continued, “There’s only one thing to be considered—her happiness.”

“Perhaps she’ll forget when I’m gone,” I ventured.

“She won’t and you know it.”

He barked the words. His manner was losing its air of tired patience.

“See here, Cardover, you and I have got to get down to facts. We don’t help one another by fooling ourselves. You went out of her life for a year; she didn’t forget It’s different now; you’ve been with her in this house and everything will remind her of you. What are we going to do about it?”

He repeated his question harshly, as though demanding an instant answer. What could I tell him?

He broke the miserable silence. “Ever since you talked of leaving, I’ve been studying this thing out. I knew we’d have to face it, and yet somehow I hoped—— Never mind what I hoped. So you’ve nothing to say? You can’t guess what I’m driving at?”

I shook my head.

His face became haggard and stern; only the twitching of the eye-lids betrayed his nervousness.

“I’d give anything to see Vi happy. So would you—isn’t that correct?” He darted a challenging look in my direction. “I’d give all I possess, I say, factories, banks, good name, popularity. She’s more to me than anything in the world.” Then reluctantly forcing himself to speak the words, “There’s only one way out—only one way to make her happy.”

He leant forward, clutching my knee. “You must have her.”

I drew back from him amazed, startled out of my self-possession. There was something so horribly commonsense about his offer; I could not take him seriously for the moment. He was tempting me, perhaps, in order that he might find out just how far Vi and I had gone together—he might easily suspect that things had happened during that summer at Ransby which had not been confessed.

Now as I met his cold gray eyes, I felt his power. His face was inscrutable and set, his mouth relentless. I had often wondered as I had watched him in his home-life what stern qualities his amiability disguised—qualities which would account for his business success. I knew now: here was a man who could state facts in their nudity and strip problems of their sentiment—a man who could lay aside feeling and act with the cruelty of logic.

“You must have her,” he repeated.

“Randall,” I broke out hoarsely, “you don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it.”

“She wouldn’t allow it.”

“She’d have to if I forced her; when I’d forced her, she’d be glad.”

“But it’s impossible. It isn’t honorable.”

“Honorable! If we’d been honorable, you and I, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“But think what people would say?”

“What people would say doesn’t matter. There are some things which go so deep that they concern only ourselves.”

“But Vi—before ever we decide anything, it would be honest to consult her.”

“You had her decision to-night.” He spoke bitterly, with settled finality. “You see it’s this way: I’ve tried to make her happy; because of you I never shall. She wants you; she’s a right to have you.”

The fire had all but gone out; the room had grown chilly. We sat without talking, thinking of her, reviewing the brutal cruelties of life. I had reached the logical goal of my desire—the impossible had happened.

I let my fancy run a little way ahead, picturing the first freshness of the days that were coming. Far away, with faery sounds, bugles of the future were blowing. I was recalled to the ominous present by the frozen hopelessness of this just man. We were placing society at defiance; we were settling our problem on grounds of individual expediency. Would we have strength to be happy in spite of condemnation? Would our conception of what was just to Vi prove just in the end?

I began to waver. I thought I saw what had happened to Randall—the tension of the last weeks had wrought upon his nerves. He had brooded over the situation till remorse for his own share in it had made him lose his regard for social standards. There was a tinge of insanity about this quixotic determination to sacrifice himself.

I went over to the fireplace and pulled the smoldering logs together, so that they broke into a feeble flame. I did it leisurely to gain time. With my back towards him I inquired, “Have you reckoned the cost of all this?”

“Probably.”

“But the cost to yourself?”

“As far as I can.”

“You can’t have. You wouldn’t propose it if you had. You know what’ll be said.”

“What’ll be said?”

“That you wanted to get rid of her and that that was why you took me into your house.”

“Leave me out of it. If love means anything, it means sacrifice. I love her; you’ve come between us. My love’s injuring her now, and I’m not going to see you spoil her life by going away without her.”

“But she’ll spoil her life if she goes with me. People——”

“People! Well, what’ll they say about her?”

“Everything defiling that hasn’t occurred.”

“And you think that we ought to keep her miserable just because of that—out of fear of tittle-tattle? If she stays with me she’ll be wretched; I shall have to watch myself torturing her—paining her even with my affection. If she goes with you——”

“If she goes with me she’ll become a social outcast. She couldn’t bear that; she’d sink under it. No, Randall, we can’t decide this matter as if it concerned only ourselves. It doesn’t. There are all kinds of things involved in it. I’ve been your guest, and you’ve become my friend. We’d look low-down in other people’s eyes. You want her to be happy—none of us could ever be that if we did what you suggest. Don’t you see that you’d be the only one who was playing a decent part? Vi’s part and mine would be contemptible. We’d appear treacherous even to ourselves. As for other people——!! You take me into your house when I’m sick, and I run off with your wife! It can’t be done, Randall.”

“But that’s not what I’m proposing,” he said quietly; “I don’t want you to run away together.”

“What then?”

“I’ll arrange that she shall divorce me. I’ve consulted lawyers. According to the laws of Massachusetts an absolute divorce, which would permit you to marry her within a reasonable time, is only granted on one ground. I’ll provide her with fictitious evidence. She can bring the case against me and I’ll let it go uncontested. She can win her freedom respectably without your name being mentioned.”

My position was elaborately false. I wanted her with every atom of my body, and here was I contending that I would not have her. At Ransby I had been willing to steal her, and now she was offered me; but I had not seen how much she meant to Randall then—at that time he was a hostile figure in my imagination.

His unselfishness filled me with shame that I had ever thought to wrong him. And yet the thing which he proposed was the inevitable consequence of our actions; his cold reasoning had discerned that. If facts were as he had stated them, what other way was there out?

“You agree, then?”

“I don’t. You’d save our faces for us, but what d’you suppose we’d think of ourselves? The thing’s not decent. People don’t do things like that. Men can run off with other men’s wives and still respect themselves; if they did what you suggest—take the husband’s happiness and his good name as well—they’d know what to call themselves, though no one else suspected.”

“What’s that?”

“Blackguards.”

“So in your opinion it’s worse to take a wife with her husband’s consent than to steal her? Humph!”

He leant across the table for a cigar. With great deliberation he cut the end. When it was well alight, he thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, looking me up and down. When he spoke, he left gaps between his words. There was the rumble of suppressed anger in what he said.

“I thought you were a strong man, Cardover, or I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I have. You fell in love with my wife without knowing she was married; I don’t blame you for that. But after you knew, you followed her—followed her to her home-town. You’ve made an impossible situation. You can’t leave it at that; you’ve got to help out, and, by God, you shall. I’ve got to lose her and stand the disgrace of it. You’ve got to lose your self-respect. What d’you think life is, anyhow? If you gamble, you incur debts. We’re going to play this game to a finish. You talk of decency and honor; you should have thought of them earlier. You came here to rob me of my wife; well, now I’m going to give her to you because she can’t do without you. And now, out of consideration for me, you want to crawl out at the last minute. Your crawling out may save appearances, but it don’t alter facts. You’re something worse than a blackguard—a quitter.”

He drew in his breath as if he were about to strike; then he flung out his fist, shaking it at me. “Don’t you want her?”

“You know I want her.”

“Then what’s the matter? Are you afraid of the price?”

“The price she’d have to pay and you’d have to pay—yes.”

He frowned. His face was puckered with suspicion. “Isn’t it that you’re afraid for yourself?”

The heat of his anger scorched me. I had watched this interpretation of my conduct taking shape under my repeated refusals.

“I’ve been accused of counting the cost before to-day,” I said. “I’m not counting the cost now. I’m thinking of Vi with her clean standards and her sense of duty. If she were the woman to consent to what you’re proposing, I wouldn’t want to marry her and you wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice yourself for her. But she won’t consent, and I won’t consent.”

Lurching heavily to his feet, he stood over me threateningly. “Don’t you know I can force you? If I divorced her you’d have to marry her.”

“But you won’t.”

“But I would if I thought it was only for my sake you were refusing.”

“It’s only partly for your sake.”

“Why, then?”

“I’ve shared your hospitality.”

“And because of that you won’t take her?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll make you—— For the last time, will you take her?”

“Not on those terms.”

Our voices had risen. A silence followed. Behind us we heard a sound. The temperature of the room seemed lowered, as though something we had killed had entered.

Turning, we saw Vi standing in the doorway. Her hair fell loose about her shoulders. She was thinly clad and had risen hastily from bed. Our quarrel must have reached her through the silent house. Her face was pinched and pitiful. As she watched us her eyes searched Randall’s in terror and her hands plucked at her breasts.

How much had she heard? How long had she been standing there? Did she know how we had been degrading her? What had she gathered from my last words? She had found us haggling over her as though she were a chattel, each one trying to force the other to accept her, neither showing any sign that he desired her for himself. In the chilly room we shivered, hanging our heads.

Slowly she crossed the room. Her eyes were fixed on Randall; for all the attention she paid me, I might not have been there.

“You didn’t mean it. You can’t have meant it.”

He lifted his head weakly, in one last effort to be firm.

“But I did, Vi. It’s for your sake—for your happiness.”

She flung her arms about him, holding him to her though he tried to draw back.

“But you forgot——”

“I forgot nothing.”

“You did—there’s Dorrie.”

She buried her head on his shoulder, sobbing her heart out. He eyed me sullenly. He looked an old man. Awkwardly, with a gesture that was afraid of its tenderness, he let his hand wander across her hair. She raised her face to his, clinging against him, and kissed him on the mouth.

They traversed the room, going from me; their footsteps died out upon the stairs.

Never once had she looked at me.

In the grayness of the morning, before the servants had begun to stir, I packed my bag and left.