diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 15793-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 57061 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 15793-h/15793-h.htm | 2889 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 15793.txt | 2765 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 15793.zip | bin | 0 -> 54025 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
7 files changed, 5670 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15793-h.zip b/15793-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f455c99 --- /dev/null +++ b/15793-h.zip diff --git a/15793-h/15793-h.htm b/15793-h/15793-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d29f85 --- /dev/null +++ b/15793-h/15793-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2889 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Unpardonable Liar, by Gilbert Parker</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Unpardonable Liar, by Gilbert Parker</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: An Unpardonable Liar</p> +<p>Author: Gilbert Parker</p> +<p>Release Date: May 7, 2005 [eBook #15793]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPARDONABLE LIAR***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Melissa Er-Raqabi,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + <a href="https://www.pgdp.net">https://www.pgdp.net</a><br /> + from page images generously made available by Early Canadiana Online<br /> + <a href="http://www.canadiana.org/">http://www.canadiana.org/</a></h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through Early + Canadiana Online. See + <a href="http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/52346?id=14d852d8ab3fd2a8"> + http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/52346?id=14d852d8ab3fd2a8</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>AN<br /> +UNPARDONABLE<br /> +LIAR</h1> +<h3>By</h3> +<h2>Gilbert Parker</h2> + +<p class="center"><b>AUTHOR OF <i>SEATS OF THE MIGHTY</i>,</b>"<br /> +<b><i>THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG</i>, ETC.</b></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">CHICAGO<br /> +CHARLES H. SERGEL COMPANY<br /> +<br />1900 +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>AN UNPARDONABLE LIAR.</h1> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h2>AN ECHO.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O de worl am roun an de worl am wide—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O Lord, remember your chillun in de mornin!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's a mighty long way up de mountain side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An day aint no place whar de sinners kin hide,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When de Lord comes in de mornin."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>With a plaintive quirk of the voice the singer paused, gayly flicked the +strings of the banjo, then put her hand flat upon them to stop the +vibration and smiled round on her admirers. The group were applauding +heartily. A chorus said, "Another verse, please, Mrs. Detlor."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all I know, I'm afraid," was the reply. "I haven't sung it for +years and years, and I should have to think too hard—no, no, believe me, +I can't remember any more. I wish I could, really."</p> + +<p>A murmur of protest rose, but there came through the window faintly yet +clearly a man's voice:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Look up an look aroun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fro you burden on de groun"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The brown eyes of the woman grew larger. There ran through her smile a +kind of frightened surprise, but she did not start nor act as if the +circumstance were singular.</p> + +<p>One of the men in the room—Baron, an honest, blundering fellow—started +toward the window to see who the prompter was, but the host—of intuitive +perception—saw that this might not be agreeable to their entertainer and +said quietly: "Don't go to the window, Baron. See, Mrs. Detlor is going to +sing."</p> + +<p>Baron sat down. There was an instant's pause, in which George Hagar, the +host, felt a strong thrill of excitement. To him Mrs. Detlor seemed in a +dream, though her lips still smiled and her eyes wandered pleasantly over +the heads of the company. She was looking at none of them, but her body +was bent slightly toward the window, listening with it, as the deaf and +dumb do.</p> + +<p>Her fingers picked the strings lightly, then warmly, and her voice rose, +clear, quaint and high:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Look up an look aroun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fro you burden on de groun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reach up an git de crown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When de Lord comes in de mornin—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When de Lord comes in de mornin!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The voice had that strange pathos, veined with humor, which marks most +negro hymns and songs, so that even those present who had never heard an +Americanized negro sing were impressed and grew almost painfully quiet, +till the voice fainted away into silence.</p> + +<p>With the last low impulsion, however, the voice from without began again +as if in reply. At the first note one of the young girls present made a +start for the window. Mrs. Detlor laid a hand upon her arm. "No," she +said, "you will spoil—the effect. Let us keep up the mystery."</p> + +<p>There was a strange, puzzled look on her face, apparent most to George +Hagar. The others only saw the lacquer of amusement, summoned for the +moment's use.</p> + +<p>"Sit down," she added, and she drew the young girl to her feet and passed +an arm round her shoulder. This was pleasant to the young girl. It singled +her out for a notice which would make her friends envious.</p> + +<p>It was not a song coming to them from without—not a melody, but a kind of +chant, hummed first in a low sonorous tone, and then rising and falling in +weird undulations. The night was still, and the trees at the window gave +forth a sound like the monotonous s-sh of rain. The chant continued for +about a minute. While it lasted Mrs. Detlor sat motionless and her hands +lay lightly on the shoulders of the young girl. Hagar dropped his foot on +the floor at marching intervals—by instinct he had caught at the meaning +of the sounds. When the voice had finished, Mrs. Detlor raised her head +toward the window with a quick, pretty way she had, her eyes much shaded +by the long lashes. Her lips were parted in the smile which had made both +men and women call her merry, amiable and fascinating.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what it is, of course," she said, looking round, as though +the occurrence had been ordinary. "It is a chant hummed by the negro +woodcutters of Louisiana as they tramp homeward in the evening. It is +pretty, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"It's a rum thing," said one they called the Prince, though Alpheus +Richmond was the name by which his godmother knew him. "But who's the +gentleman behind the scenes—in the greenroom?"</p> + +<p>As he said this he looked—or tried to look—knowingly at Mrs. Detlor, +for, the Prince desired greatly to appear familiar with people and things +theatrical, and Mrs. Detlor knew many in the actor and artist world.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor smiled in his direction, but the smile was not reassuring. He +was, however, delighted. He almost asked her then and there to ride with +him on the morrow, but he remembered that he could drive much better than +he could ride, and, in the pause necessary to think the matter out, the +chance passed—he could not concentrate himself easily.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Who is it?" said the young girl.</p> + +<p>"Lord, I'll find out," said the flaring Alpheus, a jeweled hand at his +tie as he rose.</p> + +<p>But their host had made up his mind. He did not know whether Mrs. Detlor +did or did not recognize the voice, but he felt that she did not wish the +matter to go farther. The thing was irregular if he was a stranger, and if +he were not a stranger it lay with Mrs. Detlor whether he should be +discovered.</p> + +<p>There was a curious stillness in Mrs. Detlor's manner, as though she were +waiting further development of the incident. Her mind was in a whirl of +memories. There was a strange thumping sensation in her head. Yet who was +to know that from her manner?</p> + +<p>She could not help flashing a look of thanks to Hagar when he stepped +quickly between the Prince and the window and said in what she called his +light comedy manner:</p> + +<p>"No, no, Richmond. Let us keep up the illusion. The gentleman has done us +a service; otherwise we had lost the best half of Mrs. Detlor's song. +We'll not put him at disadvantage."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but look here, Hagar," said the other protestingly as he laid his +hand upon the curtains.</p> + +<p>Few men could resist the quiet decision of Hagar's manner, though he often +laughed that, having but a poor opinion of his will as he knew it, and +believing that he acted firmness without possessing it, save where he was +purely selfish. He put his hands in his pockets carelessly, and said in a +low, decisive tone, "Don't do it, if you please."</p> + +<p>But he smiled, too, so that others, now gossiping, were unaware that the +words were not of as light comedy as the manner. Hagar immediately began a +general conversation and asked Baron to sing "The Banks o' Ben Lomond," +feeling sure that Mrs. Detlor did not wish to sing again. Again she sent +him a quick look of thanks and waved her fingers in protest to those who +were urging her. She clapped her hands as she saw Baron rise, and the +others, for politeness sake, could not urge her more.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For the stranger. Only the morning of that day he had arrived at the +pretty town of Herridon among the hills and moors, set apart for the idle +and ailing of this world. Of the world literally, for there might be seen +at the pump-room visitors from every point of the compass—Hindoo +gentlemen brought by sons who ate their legal dinners near Temple Bar; +invalided officers from Hongkong, Bombay, Aden, the Gold Coast and +otherwhere; Australian squatters and their daughters; attaches of foreign +embassies; a prince from the Straits Settlements; priests without number +from the northern counties; Scotch manufacturers; ladies wearied from the +London season; artists, actors and authors, expected to do at inopportune +times embarrassing things, and very many from Columbia, happy land, who +go to Herridon as to Westminster—to see the ruins.</p> + +<p>It is difficult for Herridon to take its visitors seriously, and quite as +difficult for the visitors to take Herridon seriously. That is what the +stranger thought as he tramped back and forth from point to point through +the town. He had only been there twelve hours, yet he was familiar with +the place. He had the instincts and the methods of the true traveler. He +never was guilty of sightseeing in the usual sense. But it was his habit +to get general outlines fixed at once. In Paris, in London, he had taken a +map, had gone to some central spot, and had studied the cities from there; +had traveled in different directions merely to get his bearings. After +that he was quite at home. This was singular, too, for his life had been +of recent years much out of the beaten tracks of civilization. He got the +outlines of Herridon in an hour or two, and by evening he could have drawn +a pretty accurate chart of it, both as to detail and from the point of a +birdseye view at the top of the moor.</p> + +<p>The moor had delighted him. He looked away to all quarters and saw hill +and valley wrapped in that green. He saw it under an almost cloudless sky, +and he took off his hat and threw his grizzled head back with a boyish +laugh.</p> + +<p>"It's good—good enough!" he said. "I've seen so much country all on edge +that this is like getting a peep over the wall on the other side—the +other side of Jordan. And yet that was God's country with the sun on it, +as Gladney used to say—poor devil!"</p> + +<p>He dropped his eyes from the prospect before him and pushed the sod and +ling with his foot musingly. "If I had been in Gladney's place, would I +have done as he did, and if he had been in my place would he have done as +I did? One thing is certain, there'd have been bad luck for both of us, +this way or that, with a woman in the equation. He was a fool—that's the +way it looked, and I was a liar—to all appearances, and there's no heaven +on earth for either. I've seen that all along the line. One thing is sure, +Gladney has reached, as in his engineering phrase he'd say, the line of +saturation, and I the line of liver, thanks be to London and its joys! +And now for sulphur water and—damnation!"</p> + +<p>This last word was not the real end to the sentence. He had, while +lighting his cigar, suddenly remembered something. He puffed the cigar +fiercely and immediately drew out a letter. He stood looking at it for a +minute and presently let go a long breath.</p> + +<p>"So much for London and getting out of my old tracks! Now, it can't go for +another three days, and he needing the dollars. * * * I'll read it over +again anyhow." He took it out and read:</p> + +<p>"Cheer up, and get out of the hospital as soon as you can and come over +yourself. And remember in the future that you can't fool about the fire +escapes of a thirteen story flat as you can a straight foothill of the +Rockies or a Lake Superior silver mine. Here goes to you $1,000 (per +draft), and please to recall that what's mine is yours, and what's yours +is your own, and there's a good big sum that'll be yours, concerning which +later. But take care of yourself, Gladney. You can't drown a mountain with +the squirt of a rattlesnake's tooth; you can't flood a memory with cognac. +I've tried it. For God's sake don't drink any more. What's the use? Smile +in the seesaw of the knives. You can only be killed once, and, believe me, +there's twice the fun in taking bad luck naked, as it were. Do you +remember the time you and I and Ned Bassett, the H.B. company's man, +struck the camp of bloods on the Gray Goose river? How the squaw lied and +said he was the trader that dropped their messenger in a hot spring, and +they began to peel Ned before our eyes? How he said as they drew the first +chip from his shoulder, 'Tell the company, boys, that it's according to +the motto on their flag, Pro Pelle Cutem—Skin For Skin?' How the woman +backed down, and he got off with a strip of his pelt gone? How the +medicine man took little bits of us and the red niggers, too, and put them +on the raw place and fixed him up again? Well, that's the way to do it, +and if you come up smiling every time you get your pound of flesh one way +or another. Play the game with a clear head and a little insolence, +Gladney, and you won't find the world so bad at its worst.</p> + +<p>"So much for so much. Now for the commission you gave me. I'd rather it +had been anything else, for I think I'm the last man in the world for duty +where women are concerned. That reads queer, but you know what I mean. I +mean that women puzzle me, and I'm apt to take them too literally. If I +found your wife, and she wasn't as straightforward as you are, Jack +Gladney, I'd as like as not get things in a tangle. You know I thought it +would be better to let things sleep—resurrections are uncomfortable +things mostly. However, here I am to do what's possible. What have I done? +Nothing. I haven't found her yet. You didn't want me to advertise, and I +haven't. She hasn't been acting for a long time, and no one seems to know +exactly where she is. She was traveling abroad with some people called +Branscombes, and I'm going to send a letter through their agent. We shall +see.</p> + +<p>"Lastly, for business. I've floated the Aurora company with a capital of +$1,000,000, and that ought to carry the thing for all we want to do. So be +joyful. But you shall have full particulars next mail. I'm just off to +Herridon for the waters. Can you think it, Gladney—Mark Telford, late of +the H.B.C, coming down to that? But it's a fact. Luncheons and dinners in +London, E.C., fiery work, and so it's stand by the halyards for bad +weather! Once more, keep your nose up to the wind, and believe that I am +always," etc.</p> + +<p>He read it through, dwelling here and there as if to reconsider, and, when +it was finished, put it back into his pocket, tore up the envelope and let +it fall to the ground. Presently he said: "I'll cable the money over and +send the letter on next mail. Strange that I didn't think of cabling +yesterday. However, it's all the same."</p> + +<p>So saying, he came down the moor into the town and sent his cable, then +went to his hotel and had dinner. After dinner he again went for a walk. +He was thinking hard, and that did not render him less interesting. He +was tall and muscular, yet not heavy, with a lean dark face, keen, steady +eyes, and dignified walk. He wore a black soft felt hat and a red silk +sash which just peeped from beneath his waistcoat—in all, striking, yet +not bizarre, and notably of gentlemanlike manner. What arrested attention +most, however, was his voice. People who heard it invariably turned to +look or listened from sheer pleasure. It was of such penetrating clearness +that if he spoke in an ordinary tone it carried far. Among the Indians of +the Hudson Bay company, where he had been for six years or more, he had +been known as Man of the Gold Throat, and that long before he was called +by the negroes on his father's plantation in the southern states Little +Marse Gabriel, because Gabriel's horn, they thought, must be like his +voice—"only mo' so, an dat chile was bawn to ride on de golden mule."</p> + +<p>You would not, from his manner or voice or dress have called him an +American. You might have said he was a gentleman planter from Cuba or Java +or Fiji, or a successful miner from Central America who had more than a +touch of Spanish blood in his veins. He was not at all the type from over +sea who are in evidence at wild west shows, or as poets from a western +Ilion, who ride in the Row with sombrero, cloak and Mexican saddle. +Indeed, a certain officer of Indian infantry, who had once picked up some +irregular French in Egypt and at dinner made remarks on Telford's +personal appearance to a pretty girl beside him, was confused when Telford +looked up and said to him in admirable French: "I'd rather not, but I +can't help hearing what you say, and I think it only fair to tell you so. +These grapes are good. Shall I pass them? Poole made my clothes, and +Lincoln is my hatter. Were you ever in Paris?"</p> + +<p>The slow, distinct voice came floating across the little table, and ladies +who that day had been reading the last French novel and could interpret +every word and tone smiled slyly at each other or held themselves still to +hear the sequel; the ill-bred turned round and stared; the parvenu sitting +at the head of the table, who had been a foreign buyer of some London +firm, chuckled coarsely and winked at the waiter, and Baron, the +Afrikander trader, who sat next to Telford, ordered champagne on the +strength of it. The bronzed, weather worn face of Telford showed +imperturbable, but his eyes were struggling with a strong kind of humor. +The officer flushed to the hair, accepted the grapes, smiled foolishly, +and acknowledged—swallowing the reflection on his accent—that he had +been in Paris. Then he engaged in close conversation with the young lady +beside him, who, however, seemed occupied with Telford. This quiet, keen +young lady, Miss Mildred Margrave, had received an impression, not of the +kind which her sex confide to each other, but of a graver quality. She +was a girl of sympathies and parts.</p> + +<p>The event increased the interest and respect felt in the hotel for this +stranger. That he knew French was not strange. He had been well educated +as a boy and had had his hour with the classics. His godmother, who had +been in the household of Prince Joseph Bonaparte, taught him French from +the time he could lisp, and, what was dangerous in his father's eyes, +filled him with bits of poetry and fine language, so that he knew Heine, +Racine and Beranger and many another. But this was made endurable to the +father by the fact that, by nature, the boy was a warrior and a +scapegrace, could use his fists as well as his tongue, and posed as a +Napoleon with the negro children in the plantation. He was leader of the +revels when the slaves gathered at night in front of the huts and made a +joy of captivity and sang hymns which sounded like profane music hall +songs, and songs with an unction now lost to the world, even as +Shakespeare's fools are lost—that gallant company who ran a thread of +tragedy through all their jesting.</p> + +<p>Great things had been prophesied for this youth in the days when he sat +upon an empty treacle barrel with a long willow rod in his hand, a cocked +hat on his head, a sword at his side—a real sword once belonging to a +little Bonaparte—and fiddlers and banjoists beneath him. His father on +such occasions called him Young King Cole.</p> + +<p>All had changed, and many things had happened, as we shall see. But one +thing was clear—this was no wild man from the west. He had claims to be +considered, and he was considered. People watched him as he went down over +the esplanade and into quiet streets. The little occurrence at the dinner +table had set him upon a train of thoughts which he had tried to avoid for +many years. On principle he would not dwell on the past. There was no +corrosion, he said to himself, like the memory of an ugly deed. But the +experiences of the last few days had tended to throw him into the past, +and for once he gave himself up to it.</p> + +<p>Presently there came to him the sound of a banjo—not an unusual thing at +Herridon. It had its mock negro minstrels, whom, hearing, Telford was +anxious to offend. This banjo, he knew at once, was touched by fingers +which felt them as if born on them, and the chords were such as are only +brought forth by those who have learned them to melodies of the south. He +stopped before the house and leaned upon the fence. He heard the voice go +shivering through a negro hymn, which was among the first he had ever +known. He felt himself suddenly shiver—a thrill of nervous sympathy. His +face went hot and his hands closed on the palings tightly. He stole into +the garden quietly, came near the window and stood still. He held his +mouth in his palm. He had an inclination to cry out.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he said in a whisper. "To hear that off here after all these +years!" Suddenly the voice stopped. There was a murmur within. It came to +him indistinctly. "She has forgotten the rest," he said. Instantly and +almost involuntarily he sang:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Look up an look aroun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fro you burden on de groun."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then came the sequel as we described, and his low chanting of the negro +woodcutter's chant. He knew that any who answered it must have lived the +life he once lived in Louisiana, for he had never heard it since he had +left there, nor any there hum it except those who knew the negroes well. +Of an evening, in the hot, placid south, he had listened to it come +floating over the sugarcane and through the brake and go creeping weirdly +under the magnolia trees. He waited, hoping, almost wildly—he knew it was +a wild hope—that there would be a reply. There was none. But presently +there came to him Baron's crude, honest singing:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For you'll take the high road, and I'll take the low road,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I'll be in Scotland before you;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I and my true love will never meet again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Ben Lomond."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Telford drew in his breath sharply, caught his mustache between his teeth +savagely for a minute, then let it go with a run of ironical laughter. He +looked round him. He saw in the road two or three people who had been +attracted by the music. They seemed so curious merely, so apathetic—his +feelings were playing at full tide. To him they were the idle, intrusive +spectators of his trouble. All else was dark about him save where on the +hill the lights of the Tempe hotel showed, and a man and woman, his arm +round her, could be seen pacing among the trees. Telford turned away from +this, ground his heel into the turf and said: "I wish I could see who she +is. Her voice? It's impossible." He edged close to the window, where a +light showed at the edge of the curtains. Suddenly he pulled up.</p> + +<p>"No. Whoever she is I shall know in time. Things come round. It's almost +uncanny as it stands, but then it was uncanny—it has all been so since +the start." He turned to the window again, raised his hat to it, walked +quickly out into the road and made his way to the View hotel. As he came +upon the veranda Mildred Margrave passed him. He saw the shy look of +interest in her face, and with simple courtesy he raised his hat. She +bowed and went on. He turned and looked after her; then, shaking his head +as if to dismiss an unreasonable thought, entered and went to his room.</p> + +<p>About this time the party at Hagar's rooms was breaking up. There had been +more singing by Mrs. Detlor. She ransacked her memory for half remembered +melodies—whimsical, arcadian, sad—and Hagar sat watching her, outwardly +quiet and appreciative, inwardly under an influence like none he had ever +felt before. When his guests were ready, he went with them to their hotel. +He saw that Mrs. Detlor shrank from the attendance of the Prince, who +insisted on talking of the "stranger in the greenroom." When they arrived +at the hotel, he managed, simply enough, to send the lad on some mission +for Mrs. Detlor, which, he was determined, should be permanent so far as +that evening was concerned. He was soon walking alone with her on the +terrace. He did not force the conversation, nor try to lead it to the +event of the evening, which, he felt, was more important than others +guessed. He knew also that she did not care to talk just then. He had +never had any difficulty in conversation with her—they had a singular +rapport. He had traveled much, seen more, remembered everything, was shy +to austerity with people who did not interest him, spontaneous with those +that did, and yet was never—save to serve a necessary purpose—a hail +fellow with any one. He knew that he could be perfectly natural with this +woman—say anything that became a man. He was an artist without +affectations, a diplomatic man, having great enthusiasm and some outer +cynicism. He had started life terribly in earnest before the world. He had +changed all that. In society he was a nervous organism gone cold, a +deliberate, self-contained man. But insomuch as he was chastened of +enthusiasm outwardly he was boyishly earnest inwardly.</p> + +<p>He was telling Mrs. Detlor of some incident he had seen in South Africa +when sketching there for a London weekly, telling it graphically, +incisively—he was not fluent. He etched in speech; he did not paint. She +looked up at him once or twice as if some thought was running parallel +with his story. He caught the look. He had just come to the close of his +narrative. Presently she put out her hand and touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"You have great tact," she said, "and I am grateful."</p> + +<p>"I will not question your judgment," he replied, smiling. "I am glad that +you think so, and humbled too."</p> + +<p>"Why humbled?" she laughed softly. "I can't imagine that."</p> + +<p>"There are good opinions which make us vain, others which make us anxious +to live up to them, while we are afraid we can't."</p> + +<p>"Few men know that kind of fear. You are a vain race."</p> + +<p>"You know best. Men show certain traits to women most."</p> + +<p>"That is true. Of the most real things they seldom speak to each other, +but to women they often speak freely, and it makes one shudder—till one +knows the world, and gets used to it."</p> + +<p>"Why shudder?" He guessed the answer, but he wanted, not from mere +curiosity, to hear her say it.</p> + +<p>"The business of life they take seriously—money, position, chiefly +money. Life itself—home, happiness, the affections, friendship—is an +incident, a thing to juggle with."</p> + +<p>"I do not know you in this satirical mood," he answered. "I need time to +get used to it before I can reply."</p> + +<p>"I surprise you? People do not expect me ever to be either serious or—or +satirical, only look to me to be amiable and merry. 'Your only jig-maker,' +as Hamlet said—a sprightly Columbine. Am I rhetorical?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you are really satirical, and please don't think me +impertinent if I say I do not like your irony. The other character suits +you, for, by nature, you are—are you not?—both merry and amiable. The +rest"—</p> + +<p>"'The rest is silence.' * * * I can remember when mere living was +delightful. I didn't envy the birds. That sounds sentimental to a man, +doesn't it? But then that is the way a happy girl—a child—feels. I do +not envy the birds now, though I suppose it is silly for a worldly woman +to talk so."</p> + +<p>"Whom, then, do you envy?"</p> + +<p>There was a warm, frank light in her eyes. "I envy the girl I was then."</p> + +<p>He looked down at her. She was turning a ring about on her finger +abstractedly. He hesitated to reply. He was afraid that he might say +something to press a confidence for which she would be sorry afterward. +She guessed what was passing in his mind.</p> + +<p>She reached out as if to touch his arm again, but did not, and said: "I +am placing you in an awkward position. Pardon me. It seemed to me for a +moment that we were old friends—old and candid friends."</p> + +<p>"I wish to be an old and candid friend," he replied firmly. "I honor your +frankness."</p> + +<p>"I know," she added hastily. "One is safe—with some men."</p> + +<p>"Not with a woman?"</p> + +<p>"No woman is safe in any confidence to any other woman. All women are more +or less bad at heart."</p> + +<p>"I do not believe that as you say it."</p> + +<p>"Of course you do not—as I say it. But you know what I mean. Women are +creatures of impulse, except those who live mechanically and have lost +everything. They become like priests then."</p> + +<p>"Like some priests. Yet, with all respect, it is not a confessional I +would choose, except the woman was my mother."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a moment, and then she abruptly said: "I know you +wish to speak of that incident, and you hesitate. You need not. Yet this +is all I can tell you. Whoever the man was he came from Tellaire, the +place where I was born."</p> + +<p>She paused. He did not look, but he felt that she was moved. He was +curious as to human emotions, but not where this woman was concerned.</p> + +<p>"There were a few notes in that woodcutter's chant which were added to +the traditional form by one whom I knew," she continued.</p> + +<p>"You did not recognize the voice?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell. One fancies things, and it was all twelve years ago."</p> + +<p>"It was all twelve years ago," he repeated musingly after her. He was +eager to know, yet he would not ask.</p> + +<p>"You are a clever artist," she said presently. "You want a subject for a +picture. You have told me so. You are ambitious. If you were a dramatist, +I would give you three acts of a play—the fourth is yet to come; but you +shall have a scene to paint if you think it strong enough."</p> + +<p>His eyes flashed. The artist's instinct was alive. In the eyes of the +woman was a fire which sent a glow over all her features. In herself she +was an inspiration to him, but he had not told her that. "Oh, yes," was +his reply, "I want it, if I may paint you in the scene."</p> + +<p>"You may paint me in the scene," she said quietly. Then, as if it suddenly +came to her that she would be giving a secret into this man's hands, she +added, "That is, if you want me for a model merely."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Detlor," he said, "you may trust me, on my honor."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, not searchingly, but with a clear, honest gaze such as +one sees oftenest in the eyes of children, yet she had seen the +duplicities of life backward and said calmly, "Yes, I can trust you."</p> + +<p>"An artist's subject ought to be sacred to him," he said. "It becomes +himself, and then it isn't hard—to be silent."</p> + +<p>They walked for a few moments, saying nothing. The terrace was filling +with people, so they went upon the veranda and sat down. There were no +chairs near them. They were quite at the end.</p> + +<p>"Please light a cigar," she said with a little laugh. "We must not look +serious. Assume your light comedy manner as you listen, and I will wear +the true Columbine expression. We are under the eyes of the curious."</p> + +<p>"Not too much light comedy for me," he said. "I shall look forbidding lest +your admirers bombard us."</p> + +<p>They were quiet again.</p> + +<p>"This is the story," she said at last, folding her hands before her. "No, +no," she added hastily, "I will not tell you the story, I will try and +picture one scene. And when I have finished, tell me if you don't think I +have a capital imagination." She drew herself up with a little gesture of +mockery. "It is comedy, you know.</p> + +<p>"Her name was Marion Conquest. She was beautiful—they said that of her +then—and young, only sixteen. She had been very happy, for a man said +that he loved her, and she wore his ring on her finger. One day, while she +was visiting at a place far from her home, she was happier than usual. She +wished to be by herself to wonder how it was that one could be so happy. +You see, she was young and did not think often. She only lived. She took a +horse and rode far away into the woods. She came near a cottage among the +trees. She got off her horse and led it. Under a tree she saw a man and a +woman. The man's arm was round the woman. A child four or five years old +was playing at their feet—at the feet of its father and mother. * * * The +girl came forward and faced the man—the man she had sworn to marry. As I +said, his ring was on her finger."</p> + +<p>She paused. People were passing near, and she smiled and bowed once or +twice, but Hagar saw that the fire in her eyes had deepened.</p> + +<p>"Is it strong enough for your picture?" she said quietly.</p> + +<p>"It is as strong as it is painful. Yet there is beauty in it, too, for I +see the girl's face."</p> + +<p>"You see much in her face, of course, for you look at it as an artist. +You see shame, indignation, bitterness—what else?"</p> + +<p>"I see that moment of awe when the girl suddenly became a woman—as the +serious day breaks all at once through the haze of morning."</p> + +<p>"I know you can paint the picture," she said, "but you have no model for +the girl. How shall you imagine her?"</p> + +<p>"I said that I would paint you in the scene," he answered slowly.</p> + +<p>"But I am not young, as she was; am not—so good to look at."</p> + +<p>"I said that I saw beauty in the girl's face. I can only see it through +yours."</p> + +<p>Her hands clasped tightly before her. Her eyes turned full on him for an +instant, then looked away into the dusk. There was silence for a long time +now. His cigar burned brightly. People kept passing and repassing on the +terrace below them. Their serious silence was noticeable.</p> + +<p>"A penny for your thoughts," she said gayly, yet with a kind of +wistfulness.</p> + +<p>"You would be thrown away at the price."</p> + +<p>These were things that she longed yet dreaded to hear. She was not free +(at least she dreaded so) to listen to such words.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for that girl, God knows!" he added.</p> + +<p>"She lived to be always sorry for herself. She was selfish. She could +have thrived on happiness. She did not need suffering. She has been +merry, gay, but never happy."</p> + +<p>"The sequel was sad?"</p> + +<p>"Terribly sad."</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me—the scene?"</p> + +<p>"I will, but not to-night." She drew her hands across her eyes and +forehead. "You are not asking merely as the artist now?" She knew the +answer, but she wanted to hear it.</p> + +<p>"A man who is an artist asks, and he wishes to be a friend to that woman, +to do her any service possible."</p> + +<p>"Who can tell when she might need befriending?"</p> + +<p>He would not question further. She had said all she could until she knew +who the stranger was.</p> + +<p>"I must go in," she said. "It is late."</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing. I want it for my picture—as a key to the mind of the +girl. What did she say at that painful meeting in the woods—to the man?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor looked at him as if she would read him through and through. +Presently she drew a ring from her finger slowly and gave it to him, +smiling bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Read inside. That is what she said."</p> + +<p>By the burning end of his cigar he read, "You told a lie."</p> + +<p>At another hotel a man sat in a window looking out on the esplanade. He +spoke aloud.</p> + +<p>"'You told a lie,' was all she said, and as God's in heaven I've never +forgotten I was a liar from that day to this."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h2>THE MEETING.</h2> + + +<p>The next morning George Hagar was early at the pump-room. He found it +amusing to watch the crowds coming and going—earnest invalids and that +most numerous body of middle aged, middle class people who have no +particular reason for drinking the waters, and whose only regimen is +getting even with their appetites. He could pick out every order at a +glance—he did not need to wait until he saw the tumblers at their lips. +Now and then a dashing girl came gliding in, and, though the draft was +noxious to her, drank the stuff off with a neutral look and well bred +indifference to the distress about her. Or in strode the private +secretary of some distinguished being in London, S.W. He invariably +carried his glass to the door, drank it off in languid sips as he leaned +indolently against the masonry, and capped the event by purchasing a rose +for his buttonhole, so making a ceremony which smacked of federating the +world at a common public drinking trough into a little fete. Or there were +the good priests from a turbulent larruping island, who with cheeks +blushing with health and plump waistcoats came ambling, smiling, to their +thirty ounces of noisome liquor. Then, there was Baron, the bronzed, +idling, comfortable trader from Zanzibar, who, after fifteen years of hide +and seek with fever and Arabs and sudden death—wherewith were all manner +of accident and sundry profane dealings not intended for The Times or +Exeter hall, comes back to sojourn in quiet "Christom" places, a lamb in +temper, a lion at heart, an honest soul who minds his own business, is +enemy to none but the malicious, and lives in daily wonder that the wine +he drank the night before gets into trouble with the waters drunk in the +morning. And the days, weeks and months go on, but Baron remains, having +seen population after population of water drinkers come and go. He was +there years ago. He is there still, coming every year, and he does not +know that George Hagar has hung him at Burlington House more than once, +and he remembers very well the pretty girl he did not marry, who also, on +one occasion, joined the aristocratic company "on the line."</p> + +<p>This young and pretty girl—Miss Mildred Margrave—came and went this +morning, and a peculiar, meditative look on her face, suggesting some +recent experience, caused the artist to transfer her to his notebook. Her +step was sprightly, her face warm and cheerful in hue, her figure +excellent, her walk the most admirable thing about her—swaying, graceful, +lissom—like perfect dancing with the whole body. Her walk was immediately +merged into somebody else's—merged melodiously, if one may say so. A man +came from the pump-room looking after the girl, and Hagar remarked a +similar swaying impulsion in the walk of both. He walked as far as the +gate of the pump-room, then sauntered back, unfolded a newspaper, closed +it up again, lit a cigar, and, like Hagar, stood watching the crowd +abstractedly. He was an outstanding figure. Ladies, as they waited, +occasionally looked at him through their glasses, and the Duchess of +Brevoort thought he would make a picturesque figure for a reception—she +was not less sure because his manner was neither savage nor suburban. +George Hagar was known to some people as "the fellow who looks back of +you." Mark Telford might have been spoken of as "the man who looks through +you," for, when he did glance at a man or woman, it was with keen +directness, affecting the person looked at like a flash of light to the +eye. It is easy to write such things, not so easy to verify them, but any +one that has seen the sleuthlike eyes of men accustomed to dealing with +danger in the shape of wild beasts or treacherous tribes or still more +treacherous companions, and whose lives depend upon their feeling for +peril and their unerring vigilance can see what George Hagar saw in Mark +Telford's looks.</p> + +<p>Telford's glance went round the crowd, appearing to rest for an instant on +every person, and for a longer time on Hagar. The eyes of the two men met. +Both were immediately puzzled, for each had a sensation of some +subterranean origin. Telford immediately afterward passed out of the gate +and went toward the St. Cloud gardens, where the band was playing. For a +time Hagar did not stir, but idled with his pencil and notebook. Suddenly +he started, and hurried out in the direction Telford had gone.</p> + +<p>"I was an ass," he said to himself, "not to think of that at first."</p> + +<p>He entered the St. Cloud gardens and walked round the promenade a few +times, but without finding him. Presently, however, Alpheus Richmond, +whose beautiful and brilliant waistcoat and brass buttons with monogram +adorned showed advantageously in the morning sunshine, said to him: "I +say, Hagar, who's that chap up there filling the door of the summer house? +Lord, rather!"</p> + +<p>It was Telford. Hagar wished for the slightest pretext to go up the +unfrequented side path and speak to him, but his mind was too excited to +do the thing naturally without a stout pretext. Besides, though he admired +the man's proportions and his uses from an artistic standpoint, he did not +like him personally, and he said that he never could. He had instinctive +likes and dislikes. What had startled him at the pump-room and had made +him come to the gardens was the conviction that this was the man to play +the part in the scene which, described by Mrs. Detlor, had been arranging +itself in a hundred ways in his brain during the night—the central +figures always the same, the details, light, tone, coloring, expression, +fusing, resolving. Then came another and still more significant thought. +On this he had acted.</p> + +<p>When he had got rid of Richmond, who begged that he would teach him how to +arrange a tie as he did—for which an hour was appointed—he determined, +at all hazards, to speak. He had a cigar in his pocket, and though to +smoke in the morning was pain and grief to him, he determined to ask for a +match, and started. He was stopped by Baron, whose thoughts being much +with the little vices of man, anticipated his wishes and offered him a +light. In despair Hagar took it, and asked if he chanced to know who the +stranger was. Baron did know, assuring Hagar that he sat on the +gentleman's right at the same table in his hotel, and was qualified to +introduce him. Before they started he told the artist of the occurrence of +the evening before, and further assured him of the graces of Miss Mildred +Margrave. "A pearl," he said, "not to be reckoned by loads of ivory, nor +jolly bricks of gold, nor caravans of Arab steeds, nor—come and have +dinner with me to-night, and you shall see. There, what do you say?"</p> + +<p>Hagar, who loved the man's unique and spontaneous character as only an +artist can love a subject in which he sees royal possibilities, consented +gladly, and dropped a cordial hand on the other's shoulder. The hand was +dragged down and wrenched back and forth with a sturdy clasp, in time to a +roll of round, unctuous laughter. Then Baron took him up hurriedly, and +introduced him to Telford with the words: "You two ought to know each +other. Telford, traveler, officer of the Hudson's Bay company, et cetera; +Hagar, artist, good fellow, et cetera."</p> + +<p>Then he drew back and smiled as the two men, not shaking hands as he +expected, bowed, and said they were happy to meet. The talk began with the +remark by Hagar on the panorama below them, "that the thing was amusing if +not seen too often, but the eternal paddling round the band stand was too +much like marionettes."</p> + +<p>"You prefer a Punch and Judy to marionettes?" asked Telford.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you get a human element in a Punch and Judy tragedy. Besides, it +has surprises, according to the idiosyncrasy of the man in the greenroom." +He smiled immediately, remembering that his last words plagiarized Mr. +Alpheus Richmond.</p> + +<p>"I never miss a Punch and Judy if I'm near it," said Telford. "I enjoy the +sardonic humor with which Punch hustles off his victims. His +light-heartedness when doing bloody deeds is the true temper."</p> + +<p>"That is, if it must be done, to do it with a grin is—"</p> + +<p>"Is the most absolute tragedy."</p> + +<p>Hagar was astonished, for even the trader's information that Telford spoke +excellent French, and had certainly been a deal on red carpet in his time, +did not prepare him for the sharply incisive words just uttered. Yet it +was not incongruous with. Telford's appearance—not even with the red sash +peeping at the edge of his waistcoat.</p> + +<p>They came down among the promenaders, and Baron being accosted by some +one, he left the two together, exacting anew the promise from Hagar +regarding dinner.</p> + +<p>Presently Hagar looked up, and said abruptly, "You were singing outside my +window last night."</p> + +<p>Telford's face was turned away from him when he began. It came slowly +toward him. The eyes closed steadily with his, there was no excitement, +only cold alertness.</p> + +<p>"Indeed? What was I singing?"</p> + +<p>"For one thing, the chant of the negro woodcutters of Louisiana."</p> + +<p>"What part of Louisiana?"</p> + +<p>"The county of Tellavie chiefly."</p> + +<p>Telford drew a long breath, as though some suspense was over, and then +said, "How did you know it was I?"</p> + +<p>"I could scarcely tell you. I got the impression—besides, you are the +only man I've seen in Herridon who looks likely to know it and the song +which you prompted."</p> + +<p>"Do I look like a southerner—still? You see I've been in an arctic +country five years."</p> + +<p>"It is not quite that. I confess I cannot explain it."</p> + +<p>"I hope you did not think the thing too boorish to be pardoned. On the +face of it it was rude to you—and the lady also."</p> + +<p>"The circumstance—the coincidence—was so unusual that I did not stop to +think of manners."</p> + +<p>"The coincidence—what coincidence?" said Telford, watching intently.</p> + +<p>But Hagar had himself well in hand. He showed nothing of his suspicions. +"That you should be there listening, and that the song should be one which +no two people, meeting casually, were likely to know."</p> + +<p>"We did not meet," said Telford dryly.</p> + +<p>They watched the crowd for a minute. Presently he added, "May I ask the +name of the lady who was singing?"</p> + +<p>There was a slight pause, then, "Certainly—Mrs. Fairfax Detlor."</p> + +<p>Though Telford did not stir a muscle the bronze of his face went grayish, +and he looked straight before him without speaking. At last he said in a +clear, steady voice, "I knew her once, I think."</p> + +<p>"I guessed so."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? May I ask if Mrs. Detlor recognized my voice?"</p> + +<p>"That I do not know, but the chances are she did not; if you failed to +recognize hers."</p> + +<p>There was an almost malicious desire on Hagar's part to play upon this +man—this scoundrel, as he believed him to be—and make him wince still +more. A score of things to say or do flashed through his mind, but he gave +them up instantly, remembering that it was his duty to consider Mrs. +Detlor before all. But he did say, "If you were old friends, you will wish +to meet her, of course."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have not seen her in many years. Where is she staying?"</p> + +<p>"At the Tempe hotel. I do not know whether you intend to call, but I would +suggest your not doing so to-day—that is, if you wish to see her and not +merely leave your card—because she has an engagement this morning, and +this afternoon she is going on an excursion."</p> + +<p>"Thank you for the generous information." There was cool irony in the +tone. "You are tolerably well posted as to Mrs. Detlor's movements."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," was the equally cool reply. "In this case I happen to know, +because Mrs. Detlor sits for a picture at my studio this morning, and I +am one of the party for the excursion."</p> + +<p>"Just so. Then will you please say nothing to Mrs. Detlor about having met +me? I should prefer surprising her."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I can make no promise. The reason is not sufficient. +Surprises, as you remarked about Punch and Judy, are amusing, but they may +also be tragical."</p> + +<p>Telford flashed a dark, inquiring look at his companion, and then said: +"Excuse me, I did not say that, though it was said. However, it is no +matter. We meet at dinner, I I suppose, this evening. Till then!"</p> + +<p>He raised his hat with a slight sweeping motion—a little mocking excess +in the courtesy—and walked away.</p> + +<p>As he went Hagar said after him between his teeth, "By Heaven, you are +that man!"</p> + +<p>These two hated each other at this moment, and they were men of might +after their kind. The hatred of the better man was the greater. Not from a +sense of personal wrong, but—</p> + +<p>Three hours later Hagar was hard at work in his studio. Only those who +knew him intimately could understand him in his present mood. His pale, +brooding, yet masculine face was flushed, the blue of his eyes was almost +black, his hair, usually in a Roman regularity about his strong brow, was +disorderly. He did not know the passage of time. He had had no breakfast. +He had read none of his letters—they lay in a little heap on his +mantelpiece—he was sketching upon the canvas the scene which had +possessed him for the past ten or eleven hours. An idea was being born, +and it was giving him the distress of bringing forth. Paper after paper he +had thrown away, but at last he had shaped the idea to please his severe +critical instinct, and was now sketching in the expression of the girl's +face. His brain was hot, his face looked tired, but his hand was steady, +accurate and cool—a shapely hand which the sun never browned, and he was +a man who loved the sun.</p> + +<p>He drew back at last. "Yes, that's it," he said. "It's right, right. His +face shall come in later. But the heart of the thing is there."</p> + +<p>The last sentence was spoken in a louder tone, so that some one behind him +heard. It was Mrs. Detlor. She had, with the young girl who had sat at her +feet the evening before, been shown into the outer room, had playfully +parted the curtains between the rooms and entered. She stood for a moment +looking at the sketch, fascinated, thrilled. Her yes filled with tears, +then went dry and hot, as she said in a loud whisper, "Yes, the heart of +the thing is there."</p> + +<p>Hagar turned on her quickly, astonished, eager, his face shining with a +look superadded to his artistic excitement.</p> + +<p>She put her finger to her lip, and nodded backward to the other room. He +understood. "Yes, I know," he said, "the light comedy manner." He waved +his hand toward the drawing. "But is it not in the right vein?"</p> + +<p>"It is painfully, horribly true," she said. She looked from him to the +canvas, from the canvas to him, and then made a little pathetic gesture +with her hands. "What a jest life is!"</p> + +<p>"A game—a wonderful game," he replied, "and a wicked one, when there is +gambling with human hearts."</p> + +<p>Then he turned with her toward the other room. As he passed her to draw +aside the curtain she touched his arm with the tips of her fingers so +lightly—as she intended—that he did not feel it. There was a mute, +confiding tenderness in the action more telling than any speech. The +woman had had a brilliant, varied, but lonely life. It must still be +lonely, though now the pleasant vista of a new career kept opening and +closing before her, rendering her days fascinating yet troubled, her +nights full of joyful but uneasy hours. The game thus far had gone against +her. Yet she was popular, merry and amiable!</p> + +<p>She passed composedly into the other room. Hagar greeted the young girl, +gave her books and papers, opened the piano, called for some refreshments +and presented both with a rose from a bunch upon the table. The young girl +was perfectly happy to be allowed to sit in the courts without and amuse +herself while the artist and his model should have their hour with pencil +and canvas.</p> + +<p>The two then went to the studio again, and, leaving the curtain drawn +back, Hagar arranged Mrs. Detlor in position and began his task. He stood +looking at the canvas for a time, as though to enter into the spirit of it +again; then turned to his model. She was no longer Mrs. Detlor, but his +subject, near to him as his canvas and the creatures of his imagination, +but as a mere woman in whom he was profoundly interested (that at least) +an immeasurable distance from him. He was the artist only now.</p> + +<p>It was strange. There grew upon the canvas Mrs. Detlor's face, all the +woman of it, just breaking through sweet, awesomely beautiful, girlish +features; and though the work was but begun there was already that +luminous tone which artists labor so hard to get, giving to the face a +weird, yet charming expression.</p> + +<p>For an hour he worked, then he paused. "Would you like to see it?" he +said.</p> + +<p>She rose eagerly, and a little pale. He had now sketched in more +distinctly the figure of the man, changed it purposely to look more like +Telford. She saw her own face first. It shone out of the canvas. She gave +a gasp of pain and admiration. Then she caught sight of Telford's figure, +with the face blurred and indistinct.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said with a shudder. That—that is like him. How could you +know?"</p> + +<p>"If that is the man," he said, "I saw him this morning. Is his name Mark +Telford?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, and sank into a chair. Presently she sprang to her feet, +caught up a brush and put it into his hand. "Paint in his face. Quick! +Paint in his face. Put all his wickedness there."</p> + +<p>Hagar came close to her. "You hate him?" he said, and took the brush.</p> + +<p>She did not answer by word, but shook her head wearily, as to some one far +off, expressing neither yes nor no.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he said quietly—all their words had been in low tones, that they +might not be heard—"why, do you wear that ring, then?"</p> + +<p>She looked at her hand with a bitter, pitiful smile. "I wear it in memory +of that girl who died very young"—she pointed to the picture—"and to +remind me not to care for anything too much lest it should prove to be a +lie." She nodded softly to the picture. "He and she are both dead; other +people wear their faces now."</p> + +<p>"Poor woman!" he said in a whisper. Then he turned to the canvas and, +after a moment, filled in from memory the face of Mark Telford, she +watching him breathlessly, yet sitting very still.</p> + +<p>After some minutes he drew back and looked at it.</p> + +<p>She rose and said: "Yes, he was like that; only you have added what I saw +at another time. Will you hear the sequel now?"</p> + +<p>He turned and motioned her to a seat, then sat down opposite to her.</p> + +<p>She spoke sadly. "Why should I tell you? I do not know, except that it +seemed to me you would understand. Yet I hope men like you forget what is +best forgotten; and I feel—oh, do you really care to hear it?"</p> + +<p>"I love to listen to you."</p> + +<p>"That girl was fatherless, brotherless. There was no man with any right to +stand her friend at the time—to avenge her—though, God knows, she wished +for no revenge—except a distant cousin who had come from England to see +her mother and herself; to marry her if he could. She did not know his +motives; she believed that he really cared for her; she was young, and +she was sorry for his disappointment. When that thing happened"—her eyes +were on the picture, dry and hard—"he came forward, determined—so he +said—to make the deceiver pay for his deceit with his life. It seemed +brave, and what a man would do, what a southerner would do. He was an +Englishman, and so it looked still more brave in him. He went to the man's +rooms and offered him a chance for his life by a duel. He had brought +revolvers. He turned the key in the door and then laid the pistols he had +brought on the table. Without warning the other snatched up a small sword +and stabbed him with it. He managed to get one of the revolvers, fired, +and brought the man down. The man was not killed, but it was a long time +before he—Mark Telford there—was well again. When he got up, the girl"—</p> + +<p>"Poor girl!"</p> + +<p>"When he got up the girl was married to the cousin who had periled his +life for her. It was madness, but it was so."</p> + +<p>Here she paused. The silence seemed oppressive. Hagar, divining her +thought, got up, went to the archway between the rooms and asked the young +girl to play something. It helped him, he said, when he was thinking how +to paint. He went back.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor continued. "But it was a terrible mistake. There was a +valuable property in England which the cousin knew she could get by +proving certain things. The marriage was to him a speculation. When she +waked to that—it was a dreadful awakening—she refused to move in the +matter. Is there anything more shameful than speculation in flesh and +blood—the heart and life of a child?—he was so much older than she! Life +to her was an hourly pain—you see she was wild with indignation and +shame, and alive with a kind of gratitude and reaction when she married +him. And her life? Maternity was to her an agony such as comes to few +women who suffer and live. If her child—her beautiful, noble child—had +lived, she would, perhaps, one day have claimed the property for its +sake. This child was her second love and it died—it died."</p> + +<p>She drew from her breast a miniature. He reached out and, first +hesitating, she presently gave it into his hand. It was warm—it had lain +on her bosom. His hand, generally so steady, trembled. He raised the +miniature to his own lips. She reached out her hand, flushing greatly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please, you must not!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Go on, tell me all," he urged, but still held the miniature in his hand +for a moment.</p> + +<p>"There is little more to tell. He played a part. She came to know how +coarse and brutal he was, how utterly depraved.</p> + +<p>"At last he went away to Africa—that was three years ago. Word came that +he was drowned off the coast of Madagascar, but there is nothing sure, and +the woman would not believe that he was dead unless she saw him so or some +one she could trust had seen him buried. Yet people call her a widow—who +wears no mourning" (she smiled bitterly) "nor can until"—</p> + +<p>Hagar came to his feet. "You have trusted me," he said, "and I will honor +your confidence. To the world the story I tell on this canvas shall be my +own."</p> + +<p>"I like to try and believe," she said, "that there are good men in the +world. But I have not done so these many years. Who would think that of +me?—I who sing merry songs, and have danced and am gay—how well we wear +the mask, some of us!"</p> + +<p>"I am sure," he said, "that there are better days coming for you. On my +soul I think it."</p> + +<p>"But he is here," she said. "What for? I cannot think there will be +anything but misery when he crosses my path."</p> + +<p>"That duel," he rejoined, the instinct of fairness natural to an honorable +man roused in him; "did you ever hear more than one side of it?"</p> + +<p>"No; yet sometimes I have thought there might be more than one side. +Fairfax Detlor was a coward; and whatever that other was,"—she nodded to +the picture—"he feared no man."</p> + +<p>"A minute!" he said "Let me make a sketch of it."</p> + +<p>He got to work immediately. After the first strong outlines she rose, came +to him and said, "You know as much of it as I do—I will not stay any +longer."</p> + +<p>He caught her fingers in his and held them for an instant. "It is brutal +of me. I did not stop to think what all this might cost you."</p> + +<p>"If you paint a notable picture and gain honor by it, that is enough," she +said. "It may make you famous." She smiled a little wistfully. "You are +very ambitious. You needed, you said to me once, a simple but powerful +subject which you could paint in with some one's life' blood—that sounds +more dreadful than it is * * * well? * * * You said you had been +successful, but had never had an inspiration"—</p> + +<p>"I have one!"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "Never an inspiration which had possessed you as you +ought to be to move the public * * * well? * * * do you think I have +helped you at all? I wanted so much to do something for you."</p> + +<p>To Hagar's mind there came the remembrance of the pure woman who, to help +an artist, as poverty stricken as he was talented, engaged on the "Capture +of Cassandra," came into his presence as Lady Godiva passed through the +streets of Coventry, as hushed and as solemn. A sob shook in his +throat—he was of few but strong emotions; he reached out, took her +wrists in his hands, and held them hard. "I have my inspiration now," he +said; "I know that I can paint my one great picture. I shall owe all to +you. And for my gratitude, it seems little to say that I love you—I love +you, Marion."</p> + +<p>She drew her hands away, turned her head aside, her face both white and +red. "Oh, hush, you must not say it!" she said. "You forget; do not make +me fear you and hate myself. * * * I wanted to be your friend—from the +first, to help you, as I said; be, then, a friend to me, that I may +forgive myself."</p> + +<p>"Forgive yourself—for what? I wish to God I had the right to proclaim my +love—if you would have it, dear—to all the world. * * * And I will know +the truth, for I will find your husband, or his grave."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him gravely, a great confidence in her eyes. "I wish you +knew how much in earnest I am—in wishing to help you. Believe me, that is +the first thought. For the rest I am—shall I say it?—the derelict of a +life; and I can only drift. You are young, as young almost as I in years, +much younger every other way, for I began with tragedy too soon."</p> + +<p>At that moment there came a loud knock at the outer door, then a ring, +followed by a cheerful voice calling through the window—"I say, Hagar, +are you there? Shall I come in or wait on the mat till the slavey arrives. +* * * Oh, here she is—Salaam! Talofa! Aloha!—which is heathen for How +do you do, God bless you, and All hail!"</p> + +<p>These remarks were made in the passage from the door through the hallway +into the room. As Baron entered, Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were just coming +from the studio. Both had ruled their features into stillness.</p> + +<p>Baron stopped short, open mouthed, confused, when he saw Mrs. Detlor. +Hagar, for an instant, attributed this to a reason not in Baron's mind, +and was immediately angry. For the man to show embarrassment was an ill +compliment to Mrs. Detlor. However, he carried off the situation, and +welcomed the Afrikander genially, determining to have the matter out with +him in some sarcastic moment later. Baron's hesitation, however, +continued. He stammered, and was evidently trying to account for his call +by giving some other reason than the real one, which was undoubtedly held +back because of Mrs. Detlor's presence. Presently he brightened up and +said, with an attempt to be convincing, "You know that excursion this +afternoon, Hagar? Well, don't you think we might ask the chap we met this +morning—first rate fellow—no pleb—picturesque for the box seat—go down +with the ladies—all like him—eh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see how we can," replied Hagar coolly. Mrs. Detlor turned to the +mantelpiece. "We are full up; every seat is occupied—unless I give up my +seat to him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor half turned toward them again, listening acutely. She caught +Hagar's eyes in the mirror and saw, to her relief, that he had no +intention of giving up his seat to Mark Telford. She knew that she must +meet this man whom she had not seen for twelve years. She felt that he +would seek her, though why she could not tell; but this day she wanted to +forget her past, all things but one, though she might have to put it away +from her ever after. Women have been known to live a lifetime on the joy +of one day. Her eyes fell again on the mantelpiece, on Hagar's unopened +letters. At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost +envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them. She had +seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other, +never to be mistaken. It turned her sick. Her fingers ran up to the +envelope, then drew back. She felt for an instant that she must take it +and open it as she stood there. What had the writer of that letter to do +with George Hagar? She glanced at the postmark. It was South Hampstead. +She knew that he lived in South Hampstead. The voices behind her grew +indistinct; she forgot where she was. She did not know how long she stood +there so, nor that Baron, feeling, without reason, the necessity for +making conversation, had suddenly turned the talk upon a collision, just +reported, between two vessels in the Channel. He had forgotten their names +and where they hailed from—he had only heard of it, hadn't read it; but +there was great loss of life. She raised her eyes from the letter to the +mirror and caught sight of her own face. It was deadly pale. It suddenly +began to waver before her and to grow black. She felt herself swaying, and +reached out to save herself. One hand caught the side of the mirror. It +was lightly hung. It loosened from the wall, and came away upon her as she +wavered. Hagar had seen the action. He sprang forward, caught her, and +pushed the mirror back. Her head dropped on his arm.</p> + +<p>The young girl ran forward with some water as Hagar placed Mrs. Detlor on +the sofa. It was only a sudden faintness. The water revived her. Baron +stood dumbfounded, a picture of helpless anxiety.</p> + +<p>"I oughtn't to have driveled about that accident," he said. "I always was +a fool."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor sat up, pale, but smiling in a wan fashion. "I am all right +now," she said. "It was silly of me—let us go, dear," she added to the +young girl; "I shall be better for the open air—I have had a headache all +morning. * * * No, please, don't accuse yourself, Mr. Baron, you are not +at all to blame."</p> + +<p>"I wish that was all the bad news I have," said Baron to himself as Hagar +showed Mrs. Detlor to a landau. Mrs. Detlor asked to be driven to her +hotel.</p> + +<p>"I shall see you this afternoon at the excursion if you are well enough +to go," Hagar said to her.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she said with a strange smile. Then, as she drove away, "You +have not read your letters this morning." He looked after her for a +moment, puzzled by what she said and by the expression on her face.</p> + +<p>He went back to the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair, +smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel +and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor's last words. +"You haven't read your letters this morning," he repeated to himself. He +glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor.</p> + +<p>"From Mrs. Gladney!" he said to himself. He glanced at the other letters. +They were obviously business letters. He was certain Mrs. Detlor had not +touched them and had, therefore, only seen this one which lay on top. +"Could she have meant anything to do with this?" He tapped it upward with +his thumb. "But why, in the name of heaven, should this affect her? What +had she to do with Mrs. Gladney, or Mrs. Gladney with her?"</p> + +<p>With this inquiry showing in his eyes he turned round and looked at Baron +meditatively but unconsciously. Baron, understanding the look, said, "Oh, +don't mind me. Read your letters. My business'll keep."</p> + +<p>Hagar nodded, was about to open the letter, but paused, went over to the +archway and drew the curtains. Then he opened the letter. The body of it +ran:</p> + +<blockquote><p>DEAR MR. HAGAR—I have just learned on my return from the Continent + with the Branscombes that you are at Herridon. My daughter Mildred, + whom you have never seen—and that is strange, we having known each + other so long—is staying at the View House there with the Margraves, + whom, also, I think, you do not know. I am going down to-morrow, and + will introduce you all to each other. May I ask you to call on me + there? Once or twice you have done me a great service, and I may prove + my gratitude by asking you to do another. Will this frighten you out + of Herridon before I come? I hope not, indeed. Always gratefully + yours,</p> + +<p> IDA GLADNEY. </p></blockquote> + + +<p>He thoughtfully folded the letter up, and put it in his pocket. Then he +said to Baron, "What did you say was the name of the pretty girl at the +View House?"</p> + +<p>"Mildred, Mildred Margrave—lovely, 'cometh up as a flower,' and all that. +You'll see her to-night."</p> + +<p>Hagar looked at him debatingly, then said, "You are in love with her, +Baron. Isn't it—forgive me—isn't it a pretty mad handicap?"</p> + +<p>Baron ran his hand over his face in an embarrassed fashion, then got up, +laughed nervously, but with a brave effort, and replied: "Handicap, my +son, handicap? Of course, it's all handicap. But what difference does that +make when it strikes you? You can't help it, can you? It's like loading +yourself with gold, crossing an ugly river, but you do it. Yes, you do it +just the same."</p> + +<p>He spoke with an affected cheerfulness, and dropped a hand on Hagar's +shoulder. It was now Hagar's turn. He drew down the hand and wrung it as +Baron had wrung his in the morning. "You're a brick, Baron," he said.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what, Hagar. I'd like to talk the thing over once with Mrs. +Detlor. She's a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the +angels, or I'm a Zulu. I fancy she'd give a fellow good advice, eh?—a +woman like her, eh?"</p> + +<p>To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar. He was about to +speak, but Baron, whose foible was hurriedly changing from one subject to +another, pulled a letter out of his pocket and said: "But maybe this is of +more importance to Mrs. Detlor than my foolishness. I won't ask you to +read it. I'll tell you what's in it. But, first, it's supposed, isn't it, +that her husband was drowned?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, off the coast of Madagascar. But it was never known beyond doubt. +The vessel was wrecked and it was said all hands but two sailors were +lost."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. But my old friend Meneely writes me from Zanzibar telling me of +a man who got into trouble with Arabs in the interior—there was a woman +in it—and was shot but not killed. Meneely brought him to the coast, and +put him into a hospital, and said he was going to ship him to England +right away, though he thinks he can't live. Meneely further remarks that +the man is a bounder. And his name is Fairfax Detlor. Was that her +husband's name?"</p> + +<p>Hagar had had a blow. Everything seemed to come at once—happiness and +defeat all in a moment. There was grim irony in it. "Yes, that was the +name," he said. "Will you leave the telling to me?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I came for. You'll do it as it ought to be done; I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"All right, Baron."</p> + +<p>Hagar leaned against the mantel, outwardly unmoved, save for a numb kind +of expression. Baron came awkwardly to him and spoke with a stumbling kind +of friendliness. "Hagar, I wish the Arabs had got him, so help me!"</p> + +<p>"For God's sake think of what you are saying."</p> + +<p>"Of course it doesn't sound right to you, and it wouldn't sound right +from you; but I'm a rowdy colonial and I'm damned if I take it back!—and +I like you, Hagar!" and, turning, he hurried out of the house.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor had not staid at the hotel long; but, as soon as she had +recovered, went out for a walk. She made her way to the moor. She wandered +about for a half hour or so and at last came to a quiet place where she +had been accustomed to sit. As she neared it she saw pieces of an envelope +lying on the ground. Something in the writing caught her eye. She stopped, +picked up the pieces and put them together. "Oh," she said with misery in +her voice, "What does it all mean? Letters everywhere, like the writing on +the wall!"</p> + +<p>She recognized the writing as that of Mark Telford. His initials were in +the corner. The envelope was addressed to John Earl Gladney at Trinity +hospital, New York. She saw a strange tangle of events. John Earl Gladney +was the name of the man who had married an actress called Ida Folger, and +Ida Folger was the mother of Mark Telford's child! She had seen the mother +in London; she had also seen the child with the Margraves, who did not +know her origin, but who had taken her once when her mother was ill and +had afterward educated her with their own daughter. What had Ida Folger to +do with George Hagar, the man who (it was a joy and yet an agony to her) +was more to her than she dared to think? Was this woman for the second +time to play a part—and what kind of part—in her life? What was Mark +Telford to John Gladney? The thing was not pleasant to consider. The lines +were crossing and recrossing. Trouble must occur somewhere. She sat down +quiet and cold. No one could have guessed her mind. She was disciplining +herself for shocks. She fought back everything but her courage. She had +always had that, but it was easier to exercise it when she lived her life +alone—with an empty heart. Now something had come into her life—but she +dared not think of it!</p> + +<p>And the people of the hotel at her table, a half hour later, remarked how +cheerful and amiable Mrs. Detlor was. But George Hagar saw that through +the pretty masquerade there played a curious restlessness.</p> + +<p>That afternoon they went on the excursion to Rivers abbey—Mrs. Detlor, +Hagar, Baron, Richmond and many others. They were to return by moonlight. +Baron did not tell them that a coach from the View hotel had also gone +there earlier, and that Mark Telford and Mildred Margrave with her friends +were with it. There was no particular reason why he should.</p> + +<p>Mark Telford had gone because he hoped to see Mrs. Detlor without (if he +should think it best) being seen by her. Mildred Margrave sat in the seat +behind him—he was on the box seat—and so far gained the confidence of +the driver as to induce him to resign the reins into his hands. There was +nothing in the way of horses unfamiliar to Telford. As a child he had +ridden like a circus rider and with the fearlessness of an Arab; and his +skill had increased with years. This six in hand was, as he said, "nuts to +Jacko." Mildred was delighted. From the first moment she had seen this man +she had been attracted to him, but in a fashion as to gray headed Mr. +Margrave, who sang her praises to everybody—not infrequently to the wide +open ears of Baron. At last she hinted very faintly to the military +officer who sat on the box seat that she envied him, and he gave her his +place. Mark Telford would hardly have driven so coolly that afternoon if +he had known that his own child was beside him. He told her, however, +amusing stories as they went along. Once or twice he turned to look at +her. Something familiar in her laugh caught his attention. He could not +trace it. He could not tell that it was like a faint echo of his own.</p> + +<p>When they reached the park where the old abbey was, Telford detached +himself from the rest of the party and wandered alone through the paths +with their many beautiful surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes, +rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a +stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the +end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern +Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who +had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his +companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be +here. His life, since the day he left his home in the south, had been +sometimes as useless as creditable. However, he was not of such stuff as +to spend an hour in useless remorse. He had made his bed, and he had lain +on it without grumbling, but he was a man who counted his life +backward—he had no hope for the future. The thought of what he might have +been came on him here in spite of himself, associated with the woman—to +him always the girl—whose happiness he had wrecked. For the other woman, +the mother of his child, was nothing to him at the time of the discovery. +She had accepted the position and was going away forever, even as she did +go after all was over.</p> + +<p>He expected to see the girl he had loved and wronged this day. He had +anticipated it with a kind of fierceness, for, if he had wronged her, he +felt that he too had been wronged, though he could never, and would never, +justify himself. He came down from the pathway and wandered through the +long silent cloisters.</p> + +<p>There were no visitors about; it was past the usual hour. He came into the +old refectory, and the kitchen with its immense chimney, passed in and out +of the little chapels, exploring almost mechanically, yet remembering what +he saw, and everything was mingled almost grotesquely with three scenes +in his life—two of which we know; the other, when his aged father turned +from him dying and would not speak to him. The ancient peace of this place +mocked these other scenes and places. He came into the long, unroofed +aisle, with its battered sides and floor of soft turf, broken only by some +memorial brasses over graves. He looked up and saw upon the walls the +carved figures of little grinning demons between complacent angels. The +association of these with his own thoughts stirred him to laughter—a low, +cold laugh, which shone on his white teeth.</p> + +<p>Outside a few people were coming toward the abbey from both parties of +excursionists. Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were walking by themselves. Mrs. +Detlor was speaking almost breathlessly. "Yes, I recognized the writing. +She is nothing, then, to you, nor has ever been?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, on my honor. I did her a service once. She asks me to do +another, of which I am as yet ignorant. That is all. Here is her letter."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h2>NO OTHER WAY.</h2> + + +<p>George Hagar was the first to move. He turned and looked at Mrs. Detlor. +His mind was full of the strangeness of the situation—this man and woman +meeting under such circumstances after twelve years, in which no lines of +their lives had ever crossed. But he saw, almost unconsciously, that she +had dropped his rose. He stooped, picked it up and gave it to her. With a +singular coolness—for, though pale, she showed no excitement—she quietly +arranged the flower at her throat, still looking at the figure on the +platform. A close observer would occasionally have found something +cynical—even sinister—in Mark Telford's clear cut, smoothly chiseled +face, but at the moment when he wheeled slowly and faced these two there +was in it nothing but what was strong, refined and even noble. His eyes, +dark and full, were set deep under well hung brows, and a duskiness in the +flesh round them gave them softness as well as power. Withal there was a +melancholy as striking as it was unusual in him.</p> + +<p>In spite of herself Mrs. Detlor felt her heart come romping to her throat, +for, whatever this man was to her now, he once was her lover. She grew hot +to her fingers. As she looked, the air seemed to palpitate round her, and +Mark Telford to be standing in its shining hot surf tall and grand. But, +on the instant, there came into this lens the picture she had seen in +George Hagar's studio that morning. At that moment Mildred Margrave and +Baron were entering at the other end of the long, lonely nave. The girl +stopped all at once and pointed toward Telford as he stood motionless, +uncovered. "See," she said, "how fine, how noble he looks!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor turned for an instant and saw her.</p> + +<p>Telford had gazed calmly, seriously, at Mrs. Detlor, wondering at nothing, +possessed by a strange, quieting feeling. There was, for the moment, no +thought of right or wrong, misery or disaster, past or future, only—this +is she! In the wild whistle of arctic winds he had sworn that he would +cease to remember, but her voice ran laughing through them as it did +through the blossoms of the locust trees at Tellavie, and he could not +forget. When the mists rose from the blue lake on a summer plain, the rosy +breath of the sun bearing them up and scattering them like thistledown, he +said that he would think no more of her; but, stooping to drink, he saw +her face in the water, as in the hill spring at Tellavie, and he could not +forget. When he rode swiftly through the long prairie grass, each pulse +afire, a keen, joyful wind playing on him as he tracked the buffalo, he +said he had forgotten, but he felt her riding beside him as she had done +on the wide savannas of the south, and he knew that he could not forget. +When he sat before some lodge in a pleasant village and was waited on by +soft voiced Indian maidens and saw around him the solitary content of the +north, he believed that he had ceased to think; but, as the maidens danced +with slow monotony and grave, unmelodious voices, there came in among them +an airy, sprightly figure, singing as the streams do over the pebbles, and +he could not forget. When in those places where women are beautiful, +gracious and soulless, he saw that life can be made into mere convention +and be governed by a code, he said that he had learned how to forget; but +a pale young figure rose before him with the simple reproach of falsehood, +and he knew that he should always remember.</p> + +<p>She stood before him now. Maybe some premonition—some such smother at +the heart as Hamlet knew—came to him then, made him almost statue-like in +his quiet and filled his face with a kind of tragical beauty. Hagar saw it +and was struck by it. If he had known Jack Gladney and how he worshiped +this man, he would have understood the cause of the inspiration. It was +all the matter of a moment. Then Mark Telford stepped down, still +uncovered, and came to them. He did not offer his hand, but bowed gravely +and said, "I hardly expected to meet you here, Mrs. Detlor, but I am very +glad."</p> + +<p>He then bowed to Hagar.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor bowed as gravely and replied in an enigmatical tone, "One is +usually glad to meet one's countrymen in a strange land."</p> + +<p>"Quite so," he said, "and it is far from Tellavie."'</p> + +<p>"It is not so far as it was yesterday," she added.</p> + +<p>At that they began to walk toward the garden leading to the cloisters. +Hagar wondered whether Mrs. Detlor wished to be left alone with Telford. +As if divining his thoughts, she looked up at him and answered his mute +question, following it with another of incalculable gentleness.</p> + +<p>Raising his hat, he said conventionally enough: "Old friends should have +much to say to each other. Will you excuse me?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Detlor instantly replied in as conventional a tone: "But you will +not desert me? I shall be hereabout, and you will take me back to the +coach?"</p> + +<p>The assurance was given, and the men bowed to each other. Hagar saw a +smile play ironically on Telford's face—saw it followed by a steellike +fierceness in the eye. He replied to both in like fashion, but one would +have said the advantage was with Telford—he had the more remarkable +personality.</p> + +<p>The two were left alone. They passed through the cloisters without a word. +Hagar saw the two figures disappear down the long vista of groined arches. +"I wish to heaven I could see how this will all end," he muttered. Then he +joined Baron and Mildred Margrave.</p> + +<p>Telford and Mrs. Detlor passed out upon a little bridge spanning the +stream, still not speaking. As if by mutual consent, they made their way +up the bank and the hillside to the top of a pretty terrace, where was a +rustic seat among the trees. When they reached it, he motioned to her to +sit. She shook her head, however, and remained standing close to a tree.</p> + +<p>"What you wish to say—for I suppose you do wish to say something—will be +brief, of course?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her almost curiously.</p> + +<p>"Have you nothing kind to say to me, after all these years?" he asked +quietly.</p> + +<p>"What is there to say now more than—then?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot prompt you if you have no impulse. Have you none?"</p> + +<p>"None at all. You know of what blood we are, we southerners. We do not +change."</p> + +<p>"You changed." He knew he ought not to have said that, for he understood +what she meant.</p> + +<p>"No, I did not change. Is it possible you do not understand? Or did you +cease to be a southerner when you became"—</p> + +<p>"When I became a villain?" He smiled ironically. "Excuse me. Go on, +please."</p> + +<p>"I was a girl, a happy girl. You killed me. I did not change. Death is +different. * * * But why have you come to speak of this to me? It was ages +ago. Resurrections are a mistake, believe me." She was composed and +deliberate now. Her nerve had all come back. There had been one swift wave +of the feeling that once flooded her girl's heart. It had passed and left +her with the remembrance of her wrongs and the thought of unhappy +years—through all which she had smiled, at what cost, before the world! +Come what would, he should never know that, even now, the man he once was +remained as the memory of a beautiful dead thing—not this man come to her +like a ghost.</p> + +<p>"I always believed you," he answered quietly, "and I see no reason to +change."</p> + +<p>"In that case we need say no more," she said, opening her red parasol and +stepping slightly forward into the sunshine as if to go.</p> + +<p>There ran into his face a sudden flush. She was harder, more cruel, than +he had thought were possible to any woman. "Wait," he said angrily, and +put out his hand as if to stop her. "By heaven, you shall!"</p> + +<p>"You are sudden and fierce," she rejoined coldly. "What do you wish me to +say? What I did not finish—that southerners love altogether or—hate +altogether?"</p> + +<p>His face became like stone. At last, scarce above a whisper, he said: "Am +I to understand that you hate me, that nothing can wipe it out—no +repentance and no remorse? You never gave me a chance for a word of +explanation or excuse. You refused to see me. You returned my letter +unopened. But had you asked her—the woman—the whole truth"—</p> + +<p>"If it could make any difference, I will ask her to-morrow."</p> + +<p>He did not understand. He thought she was speaking ironically.</p> + +<p>"You are harder than you know," he said heavily. "But I will speak. It is +for the last time. Will you hear me?"</p> + +<p>"I do not wish to, but I will not go."</p> + +<p>"I had met her five years before there was anything between you and me. +She accepted the situation when she understood that I would not marry her. +The child was born. Time went on. I loved you. I told her. She agreed to +go away to England: I gave her money. The day you found us together was +to have been the last that I should see of her. The luck was against me. +It always has been in things that I cared for. You sent a man to kill +me"—</p> + +<p>"No, no. I did not send any one. I might have killed you—or her—had I +been anything more than a child, but I sent no one. You believe that, do +you not?"</p> + +<p>For the first time since they had begun to speak she showed a little +excitement, but immediately was cold and reserved again.</p> + +<p>"I have always believed you," he said again. "The man who is your husband +came to kill me"—</p> + +<p>"He went to fight you," she said, looking at him more intently than she +had yet done.</p> + +<p>A sardonic smile played for a moment at his lips. He seemed about to +speak through it. Presently, however, his eyes half closed as with a +sudden thought he did not return her gaze, but looked down to where the +graves of monks and abbots, and sinners maybe, were as steps upon the +river bank.</p> + +<p>"What does it matter?" he thought. "She hates me." But he said aloud: +"Then, as you say, he came to fight me. I hear that he is dead," he added +in a tone still more softened. He had not the heart to meet her scorn with +scorn. As he said, it didn't matter if she hated him. It would be worth +while remembering, when he had gone, that he had been gentle with her and +had spared her the shame of knowing that she had married not only a +selfish brute, but a coward and a would be assassin as well. He had only +heard rumors of her life since he had last seen her, twelve years before, +but he knew enough to be sure that she was aware of Fairfax Detlor's true +character. She had known less still of his life, for since her marriage +she had never set foot in Louisiana, and her mother, while she lived, +never mentioned his name or told her more than that the Telford plantation +had been sold for a song. When Hagar had told him that Detlor was dead, a +wild kind of hope had leaped up in him that perhaps she might care for him +still and forgive him when he had told all. These last few minutes had +robbed him of that hope. He did not quarrel with the act The game was +lost long ago, and it was foolish to have dreamed for an instant that the +record could be reversed.</p> + +<p>Her answer came quickly: "I do not know that my husband is dead. It has +never been verified."</p> + +<p>He was tempted again, but only for an instant. "It is an unfortunate +position for you," he replied.</p> + +<p>He had intended saying it in a tone of sympathy, but at the moment he saw +Hagar looking up toward them from the abbey, and an involuntary but +ulterior meaning crept into the words. He loved, and he could detect love, +as he thought. He knew by the look that she swept from Hagar to him that +she loved the artist. She was agitated now, and in her agitation began to +pull off her glove. For the moment the situation was his.</p> + +<p>"I can understand your being wicked," she said keenly, "but not your being +cowardly. That is and was unpardonable."</p> + +<p>"That is and was," he repeated after her. "When was I cowardly?" He was +composed, though there was a low fire in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then and now."</p> + +<p>He understood well. "I, too, was a coward once," he said, looking her +steadily in the eyes, "and that was when I hid from a young girl a +miserable sin of mine. To have spoken would have been better, for I could +but have lost her, as I've lost her now forever."</p> + +<p>She was moved, but whether it was with pity or remembrance or reproach he +did not know and never asked, for, looking at her ungloved hand as she +passed it over her eyes wearily, he saw the ring he had given her twelve +years before. He stepped forward quickly with a half smothered cry and +caught her fingers. "You wear my ring!" he said. "Marion, you wear my +ring! You do care for me still?"</p> + +<p>She drew her hand away. "No," she said firmly. "No, Mark Telford, I do not +care for you. I have worn this ring as a warning to me—my daily +crucifixion. Read what is inside it."</p> + +<p>She drew it off and handed it to him. He took it and read the words, +"You—told—a—lie." This was the bitterest moment in his life. He was +only to know one more bitter, and it would come soon. He weighed the ring +up and down in his palm and laughed a dry, crackling laugh.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "you have kept the faith—that you hadn't in me—tolerably +well. A liar, a coward, and one who strikes from behind—that is it, isn't +it? You kept the faith, and I didn't fight the good fight, eh? Well, let +it stand so. Will you permit me to keep this ring? The saint needed it to +remind her to punish the sinner. The sinner would like to keep it now, for +then he would have a hope that the saint would forgive him some day."</p> + +<p>The bitterness of his tone was merged at last into a strange tenderness +and hopelessness.</p> + +<p>She did not look at him. She did not wish him to see the tears spring +suddenly to her eyes. She brought her voice to a firm quietness. She +thought of the woman, Mrs. Gladney, who was coming; of his child, whom he +did not recognize. She looked down toward the abbey. The girl was walking +there between old Mr. Margrave and Baron. She had once hated both the +woman and the child. She knew that to be true to her blood she ought to +hate them always, but there crept into her heart now a strange feeling of +pity for both. Perhaps the new interest in her life was driving out +hatred. There was something more. The envelope she had found that day on +the moor was addressed to that woman's husband, from whom she had been +separated—no one knew why—for years. What complication and fresh misery +might be here?</p> + +<p>"You may keep the ring," she said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," was his reply, and he put it on his finger, looking down at +it with an enigmatical expression. "And is there nothing more?"</p> + +<p>She willfully misconstrued his question. She took the torn pieces of +envelope from her pocket and handed them to him. "These are yours," she +said.</p> + +<p>He raised his eyebrows. "Thank you again. But I do not see their value. +One could almost think you were a detective, you are so armed."</p> + +<p>"Who is he? What is he to you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"He is an unlucky man, like myself, and my best friend. He helped me out +of battle, murder and sudden death more than once, and we shared the same +blanket times without number."</p> + +<p>"Where is he now?" she said in a whisper, not daring to look at him lest +she should show how disturbed she was.</p> + +<p>"He is in a hospital in New York."</p> + +<p>"Has he no friends?"</p> + +<p>"Do I count as nothing at all?"</p> + +<p>"I mean no others—no wife or family?"</p> + +<p>"He has a wife, and she has a daughter. That is all I know. They have been +parted through some cause. Why do you ask? Do you know him?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not know him."</p> + +<p>Do you know the wife? Please tell me, for at his request I am trying to +find her, and I have failed."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know her," she said painfully and slowly. "You need search no +longer. She will be at your hotel to-night."</p> + +<p>He started. Then he said: "I'm glad of that. How did you come to know? Are +you friends?"</p> + +<p>Though her face was turned from him resolutely, he saw a flush creep up +her neck to her hair.</p> + +<p>"We are not friends," she said vaguely. "But I know that she is coming to +see her daughter."</p> + +<p>"Who is her daughter?"</p> + +<p>She raised her parasol toward the spot where Mildred Margrave stood and +said, "That is her daughter."</p> + +<p>"Miss Margrave? Why has she a different name?"</p> + +<p>"Let Mrs. Gladney explain that to you. Do not make yourself known to the +daughter till you see her mother. Believe me, it will be better for the +daughter's sake."</p> + +<p>She now turned and looked at him with a pity through which trembled +something like a troubled fear. "You asked me to forgive you," she said. +"Good-bye. Mark Telford, I do forgive you." She held out her hand. He took +it, shaking his head a little over it, but said no word.</p> + +<p>"We had better part here and meet no more," she added.</p> + +<p>"Pardon, but banishment," he said as he let her hand go.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing else possible in this world," she rejoined in a muffled +voice.</p> + +<p>"Nothing in this world," he replied. "Good-bye till we meet +again—somewhere."</p> + +<p>So saying, he turned and walked rapidly away. Her eyes followed him, a +look of misery, horror and sorrow upon her. When he had disappeared in the +trees, she sat down on the bench. "It is dreadful," she whispered, +awestricken. "His friend her husband! His daughter there, and he does not +know her! What will the end of it be?"</p> + +<p>She was glad she had forgiven him and glad he had the ring. She had +something in her life now that helped to wipe out the past—still, a +something of which she dared not think freely. The night before she had +sat in her room thinking of the man who was giving her what she had lost +many years past, and, as she thought, she felt his arm steal round her and +his lips on her cheek, but at that a mocking voice said in her ear: "You +are my wife. I am not dead." And her happy dream was gone.</p> + +<p>George Hagar, looking up from below, saw her sitting alone and slowly made +his way toward her. The result of the meeting between these two seemed +evident. The man had gone. Never in his life had Hagar suffered more than +in the past half hour. That this woman whom he loved—the only woman he +had ever loved as a mature man loves—should be alone with the man who had +made shipwreck of her best days set his veins on fire. She had once loved +Mark Telford. Was it impossible that she should love him again? He tried +to put the thought from him as ungenerous, unmanly, but there is a maggot +which gets into men's brains at times, and it works its will in spite of +them. He reasoned with himself. He recalled the look of perfect confidence +and honesty with which she regarded him before they parted just now. He +talked gayly to Baron and Mildred Margrave, told them to what different +periods of architecture the ruins belonged, and by sheer force of will +drove away a suspicion—a fear—as unreasonable as it was foolish. Yet, as +he talked, the remembrance of the news he had to tell Mrs. Detlor, which +might—probably would—be shipwreck to his hopes of marriage, came upon +him, and presently made him silent, so that he wandered away from the +others. He was concerned as to whether he should tell Mrs. Detlor at once +what Baron had told him or hold it till next day, when she might, perhaps, +be better prepared to hear it, though he could not help a smile at this, +for would not any woman—ought not any woman to—be glad that her husband +was alive? He would wait. He would see how she had borne the interview +with Telford.</p> + +<p>Presently he saw that Telford was gone. When he reached her, she was +sitting, as he had often seen her, perfectly still, her hands folded in +her lap upon her parasol, her features held in control, save that in her +eyes was a bright, hot flame which so many have desired to see in the eyes +of those they love and have not seen. The hunger of these is like the +thirst of the people who waited for Moses to strike the rock.</p> + +<p>He sat down without speaking. "He is gone," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Look at me and tell me if, from my face, you would think I had been +seeing dreadful things." She smiled sadly at him.</p> + +<p>"No, I could not think it. I see nothing more than a kind of sadness. The +rest is all beauty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush!" she replied solemnly. "Do not say those things now."</p> + +<p>"I will not if you do not wish to hear them. What dreadful things have +you seen?"</p> + +<p>"You know so much you should know everything," she said, "at least all of +what may happen."</p> + +<p>Then she told him who Mildred Margrave was; how years before, when the +girl's mother was very ill and it was thought she would die, the Margraves +had taken the child and promised that she should be as their own and a +companion to their own child; that their own child had died, and Mildred +still remained with them. All this she knew from one who was aware of the +circumstances. Then she went on to tell him who Mildred's mother and +father were, what were Telford's relations to John Gladney and of his +search for Gladney's wife.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "you understand all. They must meet."</p> + +<p>"He does not know who she is?"</p> + +<p>"He does not. He only knows as yet that she is the daughter of Mrs. +Gladney, who, he thinks, is a stranger to him."</p> + +<p>"You know his nature. What will he do?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell. What can he do? Nothing, nothing!"</p> + +<p>"You are sorry for him? You"—</p> + +<p>"Do not speak of that," she said in a choking whisper. "God gave women +pity to keep men from becoming demons. You can pity the executioner when, +killing you, he must kill himself next."</p> + +<p>"I do not understand you quite, but all you say is wise."</p> + +<p>"Do not try to understand it or me. I am not worth it."</p> + +<p>"You are worth, God knows, a better, happier fate."</p> + +<p>The words came from him unexpectedly, impulsively. Indirect as they were, +she caught a hidden meaning. She put out her hand.</p> + +<p>"You have something to tell me. Speak it. Say it quickly. Let me know it +now. One more shock more or less cannot matter."</p> + +<p>She had an intuition as to what it was. "I warn you, dear," he said, "that +it will make a difference, a painful difference, between us."</p> + +<p>"No, George"—it was the first time she had called him that—"nothing can +make any difference with that."</p> + +<p>He told her simply, bravely—she was herself so brave—what there was to +tell, that two weeks ago her husband was alive, and that he was now on his +way to England—perhaps in England itself. She took it with an unnatural +quietness. She grew distressingly pale, but that was all. Her hand lay +clinched tightly on the seat beside her. He reached out, took it, and +pressed it, but she shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Please do not sympathize with me," she said. "I cannot bear it. I am not +adamant. You are very good—so good to me that no unhappiness can be all +unhappiness. But let us look not one step farther into the future."</p> + +<p>"What you wish I shall do always."</p> + +<p>"Not what I wish, but what you and I ought to do is plain."</p> + +<p>"I ask one thing only. I have said that I love you, said it as I shall +never say it to another woman, as I never said it before. Say to me once +here, before we know what the future will be, that you love me. Then I can +bear all."</p> + +<p>She turned and looked him full in the eyes, that infinite flame in her own +which burns all passions into one. "I cannot, dear," she said.</p> + +<p>Then she hurriedly rose, her features quivering. Without a word they went +down the quiet path to the river and on toward the gates of the park +where the coach was waiting to take them back to Herridon.</p> + +<p>They did not see Mark Telford before their coach left. But, standing back +in the shadow of the trees, he saw them. An hour before he had hated Hagar +and had wished that they were in some remote spot alone with pistols in +their hands. Now he could watch the two together without anger, almost +without bitterness. He had lost in the game, and he was so much the true +gamester that he could take his defeat when he knew it was defeat quietly. +Yet the new defeat was even harder on him than the old. All through the +years since he had seen her there had been the vague conviction, under all +his determination to forget, that they would meet again, and that all +might come right. That was gone, he knew, irrevocably.</p> + +<p>"That's over," he said as he stood looking at them. "The king is dead. +Long live the king!"</p> + +<p>He lit a cigar and watched the coach drive away, then saw the coach in +which he had come drive up also and its passengers mount. He did not stir, +but smoked on. The driver waited for some time, and when he did not come +drove away without him, to the regret of the passengers and to the +indignation of Miss Mildred Margrave, who talked much of him during the +drive back.</p> + +<p>When they had gone, Telford rose and walked back to the ruined abbey. He +went to the spot where he had first seen Mrs. Detlor that day, then took +the path up the hillside to the place where they had stood. He took from +his pocket the ring she had given back to him, read the words inside it +slowly, and, looking at the spot where she had stood, said aloud:</p> + +<p>"I met a man once who imagined he was married to the spirit of a woman +living at the north pole. Well, I will marry myself to the ghost of Marion +Conquest."</p> + +<p>So saying, he slipped the ring on his little finger. The thing was +fantastic, but he did it reverently; nor did it appear in the least as +weakness, for his face was, strong and cold. "Till death us do part, so +help me God!" he added.</p> + +<p>He turned and wandered once more through the abbey, strayed in the +grounds, and at last came to the park gates. Then he walked to the town a +couple of miles away, went to the railway station and took a train for +Herridon. He arrived there some time before the coach did. He went +straight to the View House, proceeded to his room and sat down to write +some letters. Presently he got up, went down to the office and asked the +porter if Mrs. John Gladney had arrived from London. The porter said she +had. He then felt in his pocket for a card, but changed his mind, saying +to himself that his name would have no meaning for her. He took a piece of +letter paper and wrote on it, "A friend of your husband brings a message +to you." He put it in an envelope, and, addressing it, sent it up to her. +The servant returned, saying that Mrs. Gladney had taken a sitting room +in a house adjacent to the hotel and was probably there. He took the note +and went to the place indicated, sent in the note and waited.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Gladney received the note, she was arranging the few +knick-knacks she had brought. She read the note hurriedly and clinched it +in her hand. "It is his writing—his, Mark Telford! He, my husband's +friend! Good God!"</p> + +<p>For a moment she trembled violently and ran her fingers through her golden +hair distractedly, but she partly regained her composure, came forward and +told the servant to show him into the room. She was a woman of instant +determination. She drew the curtains closer, so that the room would be +almost dark to one entering from the sunlight. Then she stood with her +back to the light of the window. He saw a figure standing in the shadow, +came forward and bowed, not at first looking closely at the face.</p> + +<p>"I have come from your husband," he said. "My name is Mark Telford"—</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," she interrupted.</p> + +<p>He started, came a little nearer and looked curiously at her. "Ida—Ida +Royal!" he exclaimed. "Are you—you—John Gladney's wife?"</p> + +<p>"He is my husband."</p> + +<p>Telford folded his arms, and, though pale and haggard, held himself +firmly. "I could not have wished this for my worst enemy," he said at last +"Gladney and I have been more than brothers."</p> + +<p>"In return for having"—</p> + +<p>"Hush!" he interrupted. "Do you think anything you may say can make me +feel worse than I do? I tell you we have lain under the same blankets +month in, month out, and he saved my life."</p> + +<p>"What is the message you bring?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"He begs you to live with him again, you and your child. The property he +settled on you for your lifetime he will settle on your child. Until this +past few days he was himself poor. To-day he is rich—money got honestly, +as you may guess."</p> + +<p>"And if I am not willing to be reconciled?"</p> + +<p>"There was no condition."</p> + +<p>"Do you know all the circumstances? Did he tell you?"</p> + +<p>"No, he did not tell me. He said that he left you suddenly for a reason, +and when he wished to return you would not have him. That was all. He +never spoke but kindly of you."</p> + +<p>"He was a good man."</p> + +<p>"He is a good man."</p> + +<p>"I will tell you why he left me. He learned, no matter how, that I had not +been married, as I said I had."</p> + +<p>She looked up, as if expecting him to speak. He said nothing, but stood +with eyes fixed on the floor.</p> + +<p>"I admitted, too, that I kept alive the memory of a man who had played an +evil part in my life; that I believed I cared for him still, more than for +my husband."</p> + +<p>"Ida, for God's sake, you do not mean"—</p> + +<p>"Yes, I meant you then. But when he went away, when he proved himself so +noble, I changed. I learned to hate the memory of the other man. But he +came back too soon. I said things madly—things I did not mean. He went +again. And then afterward I knew that I loved him."</p> + +<p>"I am glad of that, upon my soul!" said Telford, letting go a long breath.</p> + +<p>She smiled strangely and with a kind of hardness. "A few days ago I had +determined to find him if I could, and to that end I intended to ask a man +who had proved himself a friend, to learn, if possible, where he was in +America. I came here to see him and my daughter."</p> + +<p>"Who is the man?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. George Hagar."</p> + +<p>A strange light shot from Telford's eyes. "Hagar is a fortunate man," he +said. Then dreamily: "You have a daughter. I wish to God that—that ours +had lived."</p> + +<p>"You did not seem to care when I wrote and told you that she was dead."</p> + +<p>"I do not think that I cared then. Besides"—</p> + +<p>"Besides you loved that other woman, and my child was nothing to you," she +said with low scorn. "I have seen her in London. I am glad—glad that she +hates you. I know she does," she added. "She would never forgive you. She +was too good for you, and you ruined her life."</p> + +<p>He was very quiet and spoke in a clear, meditative voice. "You are right. +I think she hates me. But you are wrong, too, for she has forgiven me."</p> + +<p>"You have seen her?" She eyed him sharply.</p> + +<p>"Yes, to-day." His look wandered to a table whereon was a photograph of +her daughter. He glanced at it keenly. A look of singular excitement +sprang to his eyes. "That is your daughter?"</p> + +<p>She inclined her head.</p> + +<p>"How old is she?" He picked up the photograph and held it, scrutinizing +it.</p> + +<p>"She is seventeen," was the reply in a cold voice.</p> + +<p>He turned a worn face from the picture to the woman. "She is my child. +You lied to me."</p> + +<p>"It made no difference to you then. Why should it make any difference now? +Why should you take it so tragically?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know, but now"—His head moved, his lips trembled.</p> + +<p>"But now she is the daughter of John Gladney's wife. She is loved and +cared for by people who are better, infinitely better, than her father and +mother were or could be. She believes her father is dead. And he is dead!"</p> + +<p>"My child! My child!" he whispered brokenly over the photograph. "You will +tell her that her father is not dead. You"—</p> + +<p>She interrupted. "Where is that philosophy which you preached to me, Mark +Telford, when you said you were going to marry another woman and told me +that we must part? Your child has no father. You shall not tell her. You +will go away and never speak to her. Think of the situation. Spare her, if +you do not spare me or your friend John Gladney."</p> + +<p>He sat down in a chair, his clinched hands resting on his knees. He did +not speak. She could see his shoulder shaking a little, and presently a +tear dropped on his cheek.</p> + +<p>But she did not stir. She was thinking of her child. "Had you not better +go?" she said at last. "My daughter may come at any moment."</p> + +<p>He rose and stood before her. "I had it all, and I have lost it all," he +said. "Good-bye." He did not offer his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye. Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Far enough away to forget," he replied in a shaking voice. He picked up +the photograph, moved his hand over it softly as though he were caressing +the girl herself, lifted it to his lips, put it down, and then silently +left the room, not looking back.</p> + +<p>He went to his rooms and sat writing for a long time steadily. He did not +seem excited or nervous. Once or twice he got up and walked back and +forth, his eyes bent on the floor. He was making calculations regarding +the company he had floated in London and certain other matters. When he +had finished writing, three letters lay sealed and stamped upon the +table. One was addressed to John Gladney, one to the Hudson Bay company +and one to a solicitor in London. There was another unsealed. This he put +in his pocket. He took the other letters up, went downstairs and posted +them. Then he asked the hall porter to order a horse for riding—the best +mount in the stables—to be ready at the door in an hour. He again went to +his room, put on a riding suit, came down and walked out across the +esplanade and into the street where Hagar's rooms were. They were lighted. +He went to the hall door, opened it quietly and entered the hall. He +tapped at the door of Hagar's sitting room. As he did so a servant came +out, and, in reply to a question, said that Mr. Hagar had gone to the +Tempe hotel and would be back directly. He went in and sat down. The +curtains were drawn back between the two rooms. He saw the easels, with +their backs to the archway. He rose, went in and looked at the sketches in +the dim light.</p> + +<p>He started, flushed, and his lips drew back over his teeth with an +animallike fierceness, but immediately he was composed again. He got two +candles, brought them and set them on a stand between the easels. Then he +sat down and studied the paintings attentively. He laughed once with a dry +recklessness. "This tells her story admirably. He is equal to his subject. +To be hung in the academy. Well, well!"</p> + +<p>He heard the outer door open, then immediately Hagar entered the room and +came forward to where he sat. The artist was astonished, and for the +instant embarrassed. Telford rose. "I took the liberty of waiting for you, +and, seeing the pictures, was interested."</p> + +<p>Hagar bowed coldly. He waved his hand toward the pictures. "I hope you +find them truthful."</p> + +<p>"I find them, as I said, interesting. They will make a sensation. And is +there anything more necessary? You are a lucky man, and you have the +ability to take advantage of it. Yes, I greatly admire your ability. I can +do that, at least, though we are enemies, I suppose."</p> + +<p>His words were utterly without offense. A melancholy smile played on his +lips. Again Hagar bowed, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>Telford went on. "We are enemies, and yet I have done you no harm. You +have injured me, have insulted me, and yet I do not resent it, which is +strange, as my friends in a wilder country would tell you."</p> + +<p>Hagar was impressed, affected. "How have I injured you? By painting +these?"</p> + +<p>"The injury is this: I loved a woman and wronged her, but not beyond +reparation. Years passed. I saw her and loved her still. She might still +have loved me, but another man came in. It was you. That was one injury. +Then"—He took up a candle and held it to the sketch of the discovery. +"This is perfect in its art and chivalry. It glorifies the girl. That is +right." He held the candle above the second sketch. "This," he said, "is +admirable as art and fiction. But it is fiction. I have no hope that you +will change it. I think you would make a mistake to do so. You could not +have the situation, if the truth were painted. Your audience will not have +the villain as the injured man."</p> + +<p>"Were you the injured man?"</p> + +<p>Telford put the candle in Hagar's hand. Then he quickly took off his coat, +waistcoat and collar and threw back his shirt from his neck behind.</p> + +<p>"The bullet wound I received on that occasion was in the back," he said. +"The other man tried to play the assassin. Here is the scar. He posed as +the avenger, the hero, and the gentleman. I was called the coward and the +vagabond! He married the girl."</p> + +<p>He started to put on his waistcoat again. Hagar caught his arm and held +it. The clasp was emotional and friendly. "Will you stand so for a +moment?" he said. "Just so, that I may"—</p> + +<p>"That you may paint in the truth? No. You are talking as the man. As an +artist you were wise to stick to your first conception. It had the heat of +inspiration. But I think you can paint me better than you have done, in +these sketches. Come, I will give you a sitting. Get your brushes. No, no, +I'll sit for nothing else than for these scenes as you have painted them. +Don't miss your chance for fame."</p> + +<p>Without a word Hagar went to work and sketched into the second sketch +Telford's face as it now was in the candlelight—worn, strong, and with +those watchful eyes sunk deep under the powerful brows. The artist in him +became greater than the man. He painted in a cruel, sinister expression +also. At last he paused. His hand trembled. "I can paint no more," he +said.</p> + +<p>Telford looked at the sketch with a cold smile. "Yes, that's right," he +said. "You've painted in a good bit of the devil too. You owe me something +for this. I have helped you to a picture and have given you a sitting. +There is no reason why you should paint the truth to the world. But I ask +you this: When you know that her husband is dead and she becomes your +wife, tell her the truth about that, will you? How the scoundrel tried to +kill me—from behind. I'd like to be cleared of cowardice some time. You +can afford to do it. She loves you. You will have everything, I +nothing—nothing at all."</p> + +<p>There was a note so thrilling, a golden timbre to the voice, an +indescribable melancholy so affecting that Hagar grasped the other's hand +and said, "So help me God, I will!"</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>He prepared to go. At the door Hagar said to him, "Shall I see you again?"</p> + +<p>"Probably in the morning. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Telford went back to the hotel and found the horse he had ordered at the +door. He got up at once. People looked at him curiously, it was peculiar +to see a man riding at night for pleasure, and, of course, it could be for +no other purpose. "When will you be back, sir?" said the groom.</p> + +<p>"I do not know." He slipped a coin into the groom's hand. "Sit up for me. +The beast is a good one?"</p> + +<p>"The best we have. Been a hunter, sir."</p> + +<p>Telford nodded, stroked the horse's neck and started. He rode down toward +the gate. He saw Mildred Margrave coming toward him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Telford!" she said. "You forsook us to-day, which was unkind. +Mamma says—she has seen you, she tells me—that you are a friend of my +stepfather, Mr. Gladney. That's nice, for I like you ever so much, you +know." She raised her warm, intelligent eyes to his. "I've felt since you +came yesterday that I'd seen you before, but mamma says that's impossible. +You don't remember me?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't remember you," he said.</p> + +<p>"I wish I were going for a ride, too, in the moonlight. I mean mamma and I +and you. You ride as well as you drive, of course."</p> + +<p>"I wish you were going with me," he replied.—He suddenly reached down his +hand. "Good-night" Her hand was swallowed in his firm clasp for a moment +"God bless you, dear!" he added, then raised his hat quickly and was gone.</p> + +<p>"I must have reminded him of some one," the girl said to herself. "He +said, 'God bless you, dear!'"</p> + +<p>About that time Mrs. Detlor received a telegram from the doctor of a +London hospital. It ran:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Your husband here. Was badly injured in a channel collision last + night. Wishes to see you. </p></blockquote> + +<p>There was a train leaving for London a half hour later. She made ready +hastily, inclosed the telegram in an envelope addressed to George Hagar, +and, when she was starting, sent it over to his rooms. When he received +it, he caught up a time table, saw that a train would leave in a few +minutes, ran out, but could not get a cab quickly, and arrived at the +station only to see the train drawing away. "Perhaps it is better so," he +said, "for her sake."</p> + +<p>That night the solitary roads about Herridon were traveled by a solitary +horseman, riding hard. Mark Telford's first ambition when a child was to +ride a horse. As a man he liked horses almost better than men. The cool, +stirring rush of wind on his face as he rode was the keenest of delights. +He was enjoying the ride with an iron kind of humor, for there was in his +thoughts a picture. "The sequel's sequel for Hagar's brush to-morrow," he +said as he paused on the top of a hill to which he had come from the +highroad and looked round upon the verdant valleys almost spectrally quiet +in the moonlight. He got off his horse and took out a revolver. It clicked +in his hand.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, putting it up again, "not here. It would be too damned +rough on the horse, after riding so hard, to leave him out all night."</p> + +<p>He mounted again. He saw before him a fine stretch of moor at an easy +ascent. He pushed the horse on, taking a hedge or two as he went. The +animal came over the highest point of the hill at full speed. Its blood +was up, like its master's. The hill below this point suddenly ended in a +quarry. Neither horse nor man knew it until the yielding air cried over +their heads like water over a drowning man as they fell to the rocky bed +far beneath.</p> + +<p>An hour after Telford became conscious. The horse was breathing painfully +and groaning beside him. With his unbroken arm he felt for his revolver. +It took him a long time.</p> + +<p>"Poor beast!" he said, and pushed the hand out toward the horse's head. +In an instant the animal was dead.</p> + +<p>He then drew the revolver to his own temple, but paused. "No, it wasn't to +be," he said. "I'm a dead man anyway," and fell back.</p> + +<p>Day was breaking when the agony ceased. He felt the gray damp light on his +eyes, though he could not see He half raised his head. "God—bless—you, +dear!" he said. And that ended it.</p> + +<p>He was found by the workers at the quarry. In Herridon to this day—it all +happened years ago—they speak of the Hudson Bay company's man who made +that terrible leap, and, broken all to pieces himself, had heart enough to +put his horse out of misery. The story went about so quickly, and so much +interest was excited because the Hudson Bay company sent an officer down +to bury him, and the new formed Aurora company was represented by two or +three titled directors, that Mark Telford's body was followed to its grave +by hundreds of people. It was never known to the public that he had +contemplated suicide. Only John Gladney and the Hudson Bay company knew +that for certain.</p> + +<p>The will, found in his pocket, left everything he owned to Mildred +Margrave—that is, his interest in the Aurora mines of Lake Superior, +which pays a gallant dividend. The girl did not understand why this was, +but supposed it was because he was a friend of John Gladney, her +stepfather, and perhaps (but this she never said) because she reminded +him of some one. Both she and John Gladney when they are in England go +once a year to Herridon, and they are constantly sending flowers there.</p> + +<p>Alpheus Richmond showed respect for him by wearing a silk sash under his +waistcoat, and Baron by purchasing shares in the Aurora company.</p> + +<p>When Mark Telford lay dead, George Hagar tried to take from his finger the +ring which carried the tale of his life and death inside it, but the hand +was clinched so that it could not be opened. Two years afterward, when he +had won his fame through two pictures called "The Discovery" and "The +Sequel," he told his newly married wife of this. And he also cleared Mark +Telford's name of cowardice in her sight, for which she was grateful.</p> + +<p>It is possible that John Gladney and George Hagar understood Mark Telford +better than the woman who once loved him. At least they think so.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPARDONABLE LIAR***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 15793-h.txt or 15793-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/7/9/15793">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/7/9/15793</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="https://gutenberg.org/license">https://gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">https://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/15793.txt b/15793.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5e100a --- /dev/null +++ b/15793.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2765 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Unpardonable Liar, by Gilbert Parker + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: An Unpardonable Liar + + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: May 7, 2005 [eBook #15793] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPARDONABLE LIAR*** + + +E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from +page images generously made available by Early Canadiana Online +(http://www.canadiana.org/) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through Early + Canadiana Online. See + http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/52346?id=14d852d8ab3fd2a8 + + + + + +AN UNPARDONABLE LIAR + +by + +GILBERT PARKER + +Author of _Seats of the Mighty_, _The Battle of the Strong_, etc. + +Chicago +Charles H. Sergel Company + +1900 + + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +AN ECHO. + + "O de worl am roun an de worl am wide-- + O Lord, remember your chillun in de mornin! + It's a mighty long way up de mountain side, + An day aint no place whar de sinners kin hide, + When de Lord comes in de mornin." + + +With a plaintive quirk of the voice the singer paused, gayly flicked the +strings of the banjo, then put her hand flat upon them to stop the +vibration and smiled round on her admirers. The group were applauding +heartily. A chorus said, "Another verse, please, Mrs. Detlor." + +"Oh, that's all I know, I'm afraid," was the reply. "I haven't sung it for +years and years, and I should have to think too hard--no, no, believe me, +I can't remember any more. I wish I could, really." + +A murmur of protest rose, but there came through the window faintly yet +clearly a man's voice: + + "Look up an look aroun, + Fro you burden on de groun"-- + +The brown eyes of the woman grew larger. There ran through her smile a +kind of frightened surprise, but she did not start nor act as if the +circumstance were singular. + +One of the men in the room--Baron, an honest, blundering fellow--started +toward the window to see who the prompter was, but the host--of intuitive +perception--saw that this might not be agreeable to their entertainer and +said quietly: "Don't go to the window, Baron. See, Mrs. Detlor is going to +sing." + +Baron sat down. There was an instant's pause, in which George Hagar, the +host, felt a strong thrill of excitement. To him Mrs. Detlor seemed in a +dream, though her lips still smiled and her eyes wandered pleasantly over +the heads of the company. She was looking at none of them, but her body +was bent slightly toward the window, listening with it, as the deaf and +dumb do. + +Her fingers picked the strings lightly, then warmly, and her voice rose, +clear, quaint and high: + + "Look up an look aroun, + Fro you burden on de groun, + Reach up an git de crown, + When de Lord comes in de mornin-- + When de Lord comes in de mornin!" + +The voice had that strange pathos, veined with humor, which marks most +negro hymns and songs, so that even those present who had never heard an +Americanized negro sing were impressed and grew almost painfully quiet, +till the voice fainted away into silence. + +With the last low impulsion, however, the voice from without began again +as if in reply. At the first note one of the young girls present made a +start for the window. Mrs. Detlor laid a hand upon her arm. "No," she +said, "you will spoil--the effect. Let us keep up the mystery." + +There was a strange, puzzled look on her face, apparent most to George +Hagar. The others only saw the lacquer of amusement, summoned for the +moment's use. + +"Sit down," she added, and she drew the young girl to her feet and passed +an arm round her shoulder. This was pleasant to the young girl. It singled +her out for a notice which would make her friends envious. + +It was not a song coming to them from without--not a melody, but a kind of +chant, hummed first in a low sonorous tone, and then rising and falling in +weird undulations. The night was still, and the trees at the window gave +forth a sound like the monotonous s-sh of rain. The chant continued for +about a minute. While it lasted Mrs. Detlor sat motionless and her hands +lay lightly on the shoulders of the young girl. Hagar dropped his foot on +the floor at marching intervals--by instinct he had caught at the meaning +of the sounds. When the voice had finished, Mrs. Detlor raised her head +toward the window with a quick, pretty way she had, her eyes much shaded +by the long lashes. Her lips were parted in the smile which had made both +men and women call her merry, amiable and fascinating. + +"You don't know what it is, of course," she said, looking round, as though +the occurrence had been ordinary. "It is a chant hummed by the negro +woodcutters of Louisiana as they tramp homeward in the evening. It is +pretty, isn't it?" + +"It's a rum thing," said one they called the Prince, though Alpheus +Richmond was the name by which his godmother knew him. "But who's the +gentleman behind the scenes--in the greenroom?" + +As he said this he looked--or tried to look--knowingly at Mrs. Detlor, +for, the Prince desired greatly to appear familiar with people and things +theatrical, and Mrs. Detlor knew many in the actor and artist world. + +Mrs. Detlor smiled in his direction, but the smile was not reassuring. He +was, however, delighted. He almost asked her then and there to ride with +him on the morrow, but he remembered that he could drive much better than +he could ride, and, in the pause necessary to think the matter out, the +chance passed--he could not concentrate himself easily. + +"Yes. Who is it?" said the young girl. + +"Lord, I'll find out," said the flaring Alpheus, a jeweled hand at his +tie as he rose. + +But their host had made up his mind. He did not know whether Mrs. Detlor +did or did not recognize the voice, but he felt that she did not wish the +matter to go farther. The thing was irregular if he was a stranger, and if +he were not a stranger it lay with Mrs. Detlor whether he should be +discovered. + +There was a curious stillness in Mrs. Detlor's manner, as though she were +waiting further development of the incident. Her mind was in a whirl of +memories. There was a strange thumping sensation in her head. Yet who was +to know that from her manner? + +She could not help flashing a look of thanks to Hagar when he stepped +quickly between the Prince and the window and said in what she called his +light comedy manner: + +"No, no, Richmond. Let us keep up the illusion. The gentleman has done us +a service; otherwise we had lost the best half of Mrs. Detlor's song. +We'll not put him at disadvantage." + +"Oh, but look here, Hagar," said the other protestingly as he laid his +hand upon the curtains. + +Few men could resist the quiet decision of Hagar's manner, though he often +laughed that, having but a poor opinion of his will as he knew it, and +believing that he acted firmness without possessing it, save where he was +purely selfish. He put his hands in his pockets carelessly, and said in a +low, decisive tone, "Don't do it, if you please." + +But he smiled, too, so that others, now gossiping, were unaware that the +words were not of as light comedy as the manner. Hagar immediately began a +general conversation and asked Baron to sing "The Banks o' Ben Lomond," +feeling sure that Mrs. Detlor did not wish to sing again. Again she sent +him a quick look of thanks and waved her fingers in protest to those who +were urging her. She clapped her hands as she saw Baron rise, and the +others, for politeness sake, could not urge her more. + + * * * * * + +For the stranger. Only the morning of that day he had arrived at the +pretty town of Herridon among the hills and moors, set apart for the idle +and ailing of this world. Of the world literally, for there might be seen +at the pump-room visitors from every point of the compass--Hindoo +gentlemen brought by sons who ate their legal dinners near Temple Bar; +invalided officers from Hongkong, Bombay, Aden, the Gold Coast and +otherwhere; Australian squatters and their daughters; attaches of foreign +embassies; a prince from the Straits Settlements; priests without number +from the northern counties; Scotch manufacturers; ladies wearied from the +London season; artists, actors and authors, expected to do at inopportune +times embarrassing things, and very many from Columbia, happy land, who +go to Herridon as to Westminster--to see the ruins. + +It is difficult for Herridon to take its visitors seriously, and quite as +difficult for the visitors to take Herridon seriously. That is what the +stranger thought as he tramped back and forth from point to point through +the town. He had only been there twelve hours, yet he was familiar with +the place. He had the instincts and the methods of the true traveler. He +never was guilty of sightseeing in the usual sense. But it was his habit +to get general outlines fixed at once. In Paris, in London, he had taken a +map, had gone to some central spot, and had studied the cities from there; +had traveled in different directions merely to get his bearings. After +that he was quite at home. This was singular, too, for his life had been +of recent years much out of the beaten tracks of civilization. He got the +outlines of Herridon in an hour or two, and by evening he could have drawn +a pretty accurate chart of it, both as to detail and from the point of a +birdseye view at the top of the moor. + +The moor had delighted him. He looked away to all quarters and saw hill +and valley wrapped in that green. He saw it under an almost cloudless sky, +and he took off his hat and threw his grizzled head back with a boyish +laugh. + +"It's good--good enough!" he said. "I've seen so much country all on edge +that this is like getting a peep over the wall on the other side--the +other side of Jordan. And yet that was God's country with the sun on it, +as Gladney used to say--poor devil!" + +He dropped his eyes from the prospect before him and pushed the sod and +ling with his foot musingly. "If I had been in Gladney's place, would I +have done as he did, and if he had been in my place would he have done as +I did? One thing is certain, there'd have been bad luck for both of us, +this way or that, with a woman in the equation. He was a fool--that's the +way it looked, and I was a liar--to all appearances, and there's no heaven +on earth for either. I've seen that all along the line. One thing is sure, +Gladney has reached, as in his engineering phrase he'd say, the line of +saturation, and I the line of liver, thanks be to London and its joys! +And now for sulphur water and--damnation!" + +This last word was not the real end to the sentence. He had, while +lighting his cigar, suddenly remembered something. He puffed the cigar +fiercely and immediately drew out a letter. He stood looking at it for a +minute and presently let go a long breath. + +"So much for London and getting out of my old tracks! Now, it can't go for +another three days, and he needing the dollars. * * * I'll read it over +again anyhow." He took it out and read: + +"Cheer up, and get out of the hospital as soon as you can and come over +yourself. And remember in the future that you can't fool about the fire +escapes of a thirteen story flat as you can a straight foothill of the +Rockies or a Lake Superior silver mine. Here goes to you $1,000 (per +draft), and please to recall that what's mine is yours, and what's yours +is your own, and there's a good big sum that'll be yours, concerning which +later. But take care of yourself, Gladney. You can't drown a mountain with +the squirt of a rattlesnake's tooth; you can't flood a memory with cognac. +I've tried it. For God's sake don't drink any more. What's the use? Smile +in the seesaw of the knives. You can only be killed once, and, believe me, +there's twice the fun in taking bad luck naked, as it were. Do you +remember the time you and I and Ned Bassett, the H.B. company's man, +struck the camp of bloods on the Gray Goose river? How the squaw lied and +said he was the trader that dropped their messenger in a hot spring, and +they began to peel Ned before our eyes? How he said as they drew the first +chip from his shoulder, 'Tell the company, boys, that it's according to +the motto on their flag, Pro Pelle Cutem--Skin For Skin?' How the woman +backed down, and he got off with a strip of his pelt gone? How the +medicine man took little bits of us and the red niggers, too, and put them +on the raw place and fixed him up again? Well, that's the way to do it, +and if you come up smiling every time you get your pound of flesh one way +or another. Play the game with a clear head and a little insolence, +Gladney, and you won't find the world so bad at its worst. + +"So much for so much. Now for the commission you gave me. I'd rather it +had been anything else, for I think I'm the last man in the world for duty +where women are concerned. That reads queer, but you know what I mean. I +mean that women puzzle me, and I'm apt to take them too literally. If I +found your wife, and she wasn't as straightforward as you are, Jack +Gladney, I'd as like as not get things in a tangle. You know I thought it +would be better to let things sleep--resurrections are uncomfortable +things mostly. However, here I am to do what's possible. What have I done? +Nothing. I haven't found her yet. You didn't want me to advertise, and I +haven't. She hasn't been acting for a long time, and no one seems to know +exactly where she is. She was traveling abroad with some people called +Branscombes, and I'm going to send a letter through their agent. We shall +see. + +"Lastly, for business. I've floated the Aurora company with a capital of +$1,000,000, and that ought to carry the thing for all we want to do. So be +joyful. But you shall have full particulars next mail. I'm just off to +Herridon for the waters. Can you think it, Gladney--Mark Telford, late of +the H.B.C, coming down to that? But it's a fact. Luncheons and dinners in +London, E.C., fiery work, and so it's stand by the halyards for bad +weather! Once more, keep your nose up to the wind, and believe that I am +always," etc. + +He read it through, dwelling here and there as if to reconsider, and, when +it was finished, put it back into his pocket, tore up the envelope and let +it fall to the ground. Presently he said: "I'll cable the money over and +send the letter on next mail. Strange that I didn't think of cabling +yesterday. However, it's all the same." + +So saying, he came down the moor into the town and sent his cable, then +went to his hotel and had dinner. After dinner he again went for a walk. +He was thinking hard, and that did not render him less interesting. He +was tall and muscular, yet not heavy, with a lean dark face, keen, steady +eyes, and dignified walk. He wore a black soft felt hat and a red silk +sash which just peeped from beneath his waistcoat--in all, striking, yet +not bizarre, and notably of gentlemanlike manner. What arrested attention +most, however, was his voice. People who heard it invariably turned to +look or listened from sheer pleasure. It was of such penetrating clearness +that if he spoke in an ordinary tone it carried far. Among the Indians of +the Hudson Bay company, where he had been for six years or more, he had +been known as Man of the Gold Throat, and that long before he was called +by the negroes on his father's plantation in the southern states Little +Marse Gabriel, because Gabriel's horn, they thought, must be like his +voice--"only mo' so, an dat chile was bawn to ride on de golden mule." + +You would not, from his manner or voice or dress have called him an +American. You might have said he was a gentleman planter from Cuba or Java +or Fiji, or a successful miner from Central America who had more than a +touch of Spanish blood in his veins. He was not at all the type from over +sea who are in evidence at wild west shows, or as poets from a western +Ilion, who ride in the Row with sombrero, cloak and Mexican saddle. +Indeed, a certain officer of Indian infantry, who had once picked up some +irregular French in Egypt and at dinner made remarks on Telford's +personal appearance to a pretty girl beside him, was confused when Telford +looked up and said to him in admirable French: "I'd rather not, but I +can't help hearing what you say, and I think it only fair to tell you so. +These grapes are good. Shall I pass them? Poole made my clothes, and +Lincoln is my hatter. Were you ever in Paris?" + +The slow, distinct voice came floating across the little table, and ladies +who that day had been reading the last French novel and could interpret +every word and tone smiled slyly at each other or held themselves still to +hear the sequel; the ill-bred turned round and stared; the parvenu sitting +at the head of the table, who had been a foreign buyer of some London +firm, chuckled coarsely and winked at the waiter, and Baron, the +Afrikander trader, who sat next to Telford, ordered champagne on the +strength of it. The bronzed, weather worn face of Telford showed +imperturbable, but his eyes were struggling with a strong kind of humor. +The officer flushed to the hair, accepted the grapes, smiled foolishly, +and acknowledged--swallowing the reflection on his accent--that he had +been in Paris. Then he engaged in close conversation with the young lady +beside him, who, however, seemed occupied with Telford. This quiet, keen +young lady, Miss Mildred Margrave, had received an impression, not of the +kind which her sex confide to each other, but of a graver quality. She +was a girl of sympathies and parts. + +The event increased the interest and respect felt in the hotel for this +stranger. That he knew French was not strange. He had been well educated +as a boy and had had his hour with the classics. His godmother, who had +been in the household of Prince Joseph Bonaparte, taught him French from +the time he could lisp, and, what was dangerous in his father's eyes, +filled him with bits of poetry and fine language, so that he knew Heine, +Racine and Beranger and many another. But this was made endurable to the +father by the fact that, by nature, the boy was a warrior and a +scapegrace, could use his fists as well as his tongue, and posed as a +Napoleon with the negro children in the plantation. He was leader of the +revels when the slaves gathered at night in front of the huts and made a +joy of captivity and sang hymns which sounded like profane music hall +songs, and songs with an unction now lost to the world, even as +Shakespeare's fools are lost--that gallant company who ran a thread of +tragedy through all their jesting. + +Great things had been prophesied for this youth in the days when he sat +upon an empty treacle barrel with a long willow rod in his hand, a cocked +hat on his head, a sword at his side--a real sword once belonging to a +little Bonaparte--and fiddlers and banjoists beneath him. His father on +such occasions called him Young King Cole. + +All had changed, and many things had happened, as we shall see. But one +thing was clear--this was no wild man from the west. He had claims to be +considered, and he was considered. People watched him as he went down over +the esplanade and into quiet streets. The little occurrence at the dinner +table had set him upon a train of thoughts which he had tried to avoid for +many years. On principle he would not dwell on the past. There was no +corrosion, he said to himself, like the memory of an ugly deed. But the +experiences of the last few days had tended to throw him into the past, +and for once he gave himself up to it. + +Presently there came to him the sound of a banjo--not an unusual thing at +Herridon. It had its mock negro minstrels, whom, hearing, Telford was +anxious to offend. This banjo, he knew at once, was touched by fingers +which felt them as if born on them, and the chords were such as are only +brought forth by those who have learned them to melodies of the south. He +stopped before the house and leaned upon the fence. He heard the voice go +shivering through a negro hymn, which was among the first he had ever +known. He felt himself suddenly shiver--a thrill of nervous sympathy. His +face went hot and his hands closed on the palings tightly. He stole into +the garden quietly, came near the window and stood still. He held his +mouth in his palm. He had an inclination to cry out. + +"Good God!" he said in a whisper. "To hear that off here after all these +years!" Suddenly the voice stopped. There was a murmur within. It came to +him indistinctly. "She has forgotten the rest," he said. Instantly and +almost involuntarily he sang: + + "Look up an look aroun, + Fro you burden on de groun." + +Then came the sequel as we described, and his low chanting of the negro +woodcutter's chant. He knew that any who answered it must have lived the +life he once lived in Louisiana, for he had never heard it since he had +left there, nor any there hum it except those who knew the negroes well. +Of an evening, in the hot, placid south, he had listened to it come +floating over the sugarcane and through the brake and go creeping weirdly +under the magnolia trees. He waited, hoping, almost wildly--he knew it was +a wild hope--that there would be a reply. There was none. But presently +there came to him Baron's crude, honest singing: + + "For you'll take the high road, and I'll take the low road, + And I'll be in Scotland before you; + But I and my true love will never meet again + On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Ben Lomond." + +Telford drew in his breath sharply, caught his mustache between his teeth +savagely for a minute, then let it go with a run of ironical laughter. He +looked round him. He saw in the road two or three people who had been +attracted by the music. They seemed so curious merely, so apathetic--his +feelings were playing at full tide. To him they were the idle, intrusive +spectators of his trouble. All else was dark about him save where on the +hill the lights of the Tempe hotel showed, and a man and woman, his arm +round her, could be seen pacing among the trees. Telford turned away from +this, ground his heel into the turf and said: "I wish I could see who she +is. Her voice? It's impossible." He edged close to the window, where a +light showed at the edge of the curtains. Suddenly he pulled up. + +"No. Whoever she is I shall know in time. Things come round. It's almost +uncanny as it stands, but then it was uncanny--it has all been so since +the start." He turned to the window again, raised his hat to it, walked +quickly out into the road and made his way to the View hotel. As he came +upon the veranda Mildred Margrave passed him. He saw the shy look of +interest in her face, and with simple courtesy he raised his hat. She +bowed and went on. He turned and looked after her; then, shaking his head +as if to dismiss an unreasonable thought, entered and went to his room. + +About this time the party at Hagar's rooms was breaking up. There had been +more singing by Mrs. Detlor. She ransacked her memory for half remembered +melodies--whimsical, arcadian, sad--and Hagar sat watching her, outwardly +quiet and appreciative, inwardly under an influence like none he had ever +felt before. When his guests were ready, he went with them to their hotel. +He saw that Mrs. Detlor shrank from the attendance of the Prince, who +insisted on talking of the "stranger in the greenroom." When they arrived +at the hotel, he managed, simply enough, to send the lad on some mission +for Mrs. Detlor, which, he was determined, should be permanent so far as +that evening was concerned. He was soon walking alone with her on the +terrace. He did not force the conversation, nor try to lead it to the +event of the evening, which, he felt, was more important than others +guessed. He knew also that she did not care to talk just then. He had +never had any difficulty in conversation with her--they had a singular +rapport. He had traveled much, seen more, remembered everything, was shy +to austerity with people who did not interest him, spontaneous with those +that did, and yet was never--save to serve a necessary purpose--a hail +fellow with any one. He knew that he could be perfectly natural with this +woman--say anything that became a man. He was an artist without +affectations, a diplomatic man, having great enthusiasm and some outer +cynicism. He had started life terribly in earnest before the world. He had +changed all that. In society he was a nervous organism gone cold, a +deliberate, self-contained man. But insomuch as he was chastened of +enthusiasm outwardly he was boyishly earnest inwardly. + +He was telling Mrs. Detlor of some incident he had seen in South Africa +when sketching there for a London weekly, telling it graphically, +incisively--he was not fluent. He etched in speech; he did not paint. She +looked up at him once or twice as if some thought was running parallel +with his story. He caught the look. He had just come to the close of his +narrative. Presently she put out her hand and touched his arm. + +"You have great tact," she said, "and I am grateful." + +"I will not question your judgment," he replied, smiling. "I am glad that +you think so, and humbled too." + +"Why humbled?" she laughed softly. "I can't imagine that." + +"There are good opinions which make us vain, others which make us anxious +to live up to them, while we are afraid we can't." + +"Few men know that kind of fear. You are a vain race." + +"You know best. Men show certain traits to women most." + +"That is true. Of the most real things they seldom speak to each other, +but to women they often speak freely, and it makes one shudder--till one +knows the world, and gets used to it." + +"Why shudder?" He guessed the answer, but he wanted, not from mere +curiosity, to hear her say it. + +"The business of life they take seriously--money, position, chiefly +money. Life itself--home, happiness, the affections, friendship--is an +incident, a thing to juggle with." + +"I do not know you in this satirical mood," he answered. "I need time to +get used to it before I can reply." + +"I surprise you? People do not expect me ever to be either serious or--or +satirical, only look to me to be amiable and merry. 'Your only jig-maker,' +as Hamlet said--a sprightly Columbine. Am I rhetorical?" + +"I don't believe you are really satirical, and please don't think me +impertinent if I say I do not like your irony. The other character suits +you, for, by nature, you are--are you not?--both merry and amiable. The +rest"-- + +"'The rest is silence.' * * * I can remember when mere living was +delightful. I didn't envy the birds. That sounds sentimental to a man, +doesn't it? But then that is the way a happy girl--a child--feels. I do +not envy the birds now, though I suppose it is silly for a worldly woman +to talk so." + +"Whom, then, do you envy?" + +There was a warm, frank light in her eyes. "I envy the girl I was then." + +He looked down at her. She was turning a ring about on her finger +abstractedly. He hesitated to reply. He was afraid that he might say +something to press a confidence for which she would be sorry afterward. +She guessed what was passing in his mind. + +She reached out as if to touch his arm again, but did not, and said: "I +am placing you in an awkward position. Pardon me. It seemed to me for a +moment that we were old friends--old and candid friends." + +"I wish to be an old and candid friend," he replied firmly. "I honor your +frankness." + +"I know," she added hastily. "One is safe--with some men." + +"Not with a woman?" + +"No woman is safe in any confidence to any other woman. All women are more +or less bad at heart." + +"I do not believe that as you say it." + +"Of course you do not--as I say it. But you know what I mean. Women are +creatures of impulse, except those who live mechanically and have lost +everything. They become like priests then." + +"Like some priests. Yet, with all respect, it is not a confessional I +would choose, except the woman was my mother." + +There was silence for a moment, and then she abruptly said: "I know you +wish to speak of that incident, and you hesitate. You need not. Yet this +is all I can tell you. Whoever the man was he came from Tellaire, the +place where I was born." + +She paused. He did not look, but he felt that she was moved. He was +curious as to human emotions, but not where this woman was concerned. + +"There were a few notes in that woodcutter's chant which were added to +the traditional form by one whom I knew," she continued. + +"You did not recognize the voice?" + +"I cannot tell. One fancies things, and it was all twelve years ago." + +"It was all twelve years ago," he repeated musingly after her. He was +eager to know, yet he would not ask. + +"You are a clever artist," she said presently. "You want a subject for a +picture. You have told me so. You are ambitious. If you were a dramatist, +I would give you three acts of a play--the fourth is yet to come; but you +shall have a scene to paint if you think it strong enough." + +His eyes flashed. The artist's instinct was alive. In the eyes of the +woman was a fire which sent a glow over all her features. In herself she +was an inspiration to him, but he had not told her that. "Oh, yes," was +his reply, "I want it, if I may paint you in the scene." + +"You may paint me in the scene," she said quietly. Then, as if it suddenly +came to her that she would be giving a secret into this man's hands, she +added, "That is, if you want me for a model merely." + +"Mrs. Detlor," he said, "you may trust me, on my honor." + +She looked at him, not searchingly, but with a clear, honest gaze such as +one sees oftenest in the eyes of children, yet she had seen the +duplicities of life backward and said calmly, "Yes, I can trust you." + +"An artist's subject ought to be sacred to him," he said. "It becomes +himself, and then it isn't hard--to be silent." + +They walked for a few moments, saying nothing. The terrace was filling +with people, so they went upon the veranda and sat down. There were no +chairs near them. They were quite at the end. + +"Please light a cigar," she said with a little laugh. "We must not look +serious. Assume your light comedy manner as you listen, and I will wear +the true Columbine expression. We are under the eyes of the curious." + +"Not too much light comedy for me," he said. "I shall look forbidding lest +your admirers bombard us." + +They were quiet again. + +"This is the story," she said at last, folding her hands before her. "No, +no," she added hastily, "I will not tell you the story, I will try and +picture one scene. And when I have finished, tell me if you don't think I +have a capital imagination." She drew herself up with a little gesture of +mockery. "It is comedy, you know. + +"Her name was Marion Conquest. She was beautiful--they said that of her +then--and young, only sixteen. She had been very happy, for a man said +that he loved her, and she wore his ring on her finger. One day, while she +was visiting at a place far from her home, she was happier than usual. She +wished to be by herself to wonder how it was that one could be so happy. +You see, she was young and did not think often. She only lived. She took a +horse and rode far away into the woods. She came near a cottage among the +trees. She got off her horse and led it. Under a tree she saw a man and a +woman. The man's arm was round the woman. A child four or five years old +was playing at their feet--at the feet of its father and mother. * * * The +girl came forward and faced the man--the man she had sworn to marry. As I +said, his ring was on her finger." + +She paused. People were passing near, and she smiled and bowed once or +twice, but Hagar saw that the fire in her eyes had deepened. + +"Is it strong enough for your picture?" she said quietly. + +"It is as strong as it is painful. Yet there is beauty in it, too, for I +see the girl's face." + +"You see much in her face, of course, for you look at it as an artist. +You see shame, indignation, bitterness--what else?" + +"I see that moment of awe when the girl suddenly became a woman--as the +serious day breaks all at once through the haze of morning." + +"I know you can paint the picture," she said, "but you have no model for +the girl. How shall you imagine her?" + +"I said that I would paint you in the scene," he answered slowly. + +"But I am not young, as she was; am not--so good to look at." + +"I said that I saw beauty in the girl's face. I can only see it through +yours." + +Her hands clasped tightly before her. Her eyes turned full on him for an +instant, then looked away into the dusk. There was silence for a long time +now. His cigar burned brightly. People kept passing and repassing on the +terrace below them. Their serious silence was noticeable. + +"A penny for your thoughts," she said gayly, yet with a kind of +wistfulness. + +"You would be thrown away at the price." + +These were things that she longed yet dreaded to hear. She was not free +(at least she dreaded so) to listen to such words. + +"I am sorry for that girl, God knows!" he added. + +"She lived to be always sorry for herself. She was selfish. She could +have thrived on happiness. She did not need suffering. She has been +merry, gay, but never happy." + +"The sequel was sad?" + +"Terribly sad." + +"Will you tell me--the scene?" + +"I will, but not to-night." She drew her hands across her eyes and +forehead. "You are not asking merely as the artist now?" She knew the +answer, but she wanted to hear it. + +"A man who is an artist asks, and he wishes to be a friend to that woman, +to do her any service possible." + +"Who can tell when she might need befriending?" + +He would not question further. She had said all she could until she knew +who the stranger was. + +"I must go in," she said. "It is late." + +"Tell me one thing. I want it for my picture--as a key to the mind of the +girl. What did she say at that painful meeting in the woods--to the man?" + +Mrs. Detlor looked at him as if she would read him through and through. +Presently she drew a ring from her finger slowly and gave it to him, +smiling bitterly. + +"Read inside. That is what she said." + +By the burning end of his cigar he read, "You told a lie." + +At another hotel a man sat in a window looking out on the esplanade. He +spoke aloud. + +"'You told a lie,' was all she said, and as God's in heaven I've never +forgotten I was a liar from that day to this." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MEETING. + + +The next morning George Hagar was early at the pump-room. He found it +amusing to watch the crowds coming and going--earnest invalids and that +most numerous body of middle aged, middle class people who have no +particular reason for drinking the waters, and whose only regimen is +getting even with their appetites. He could pick out every order at a +glance--he did not need to wait until he saw the tumblers at their lips. +Now and then a dashing girl came gliding in, and, though the draft was +noxious to her, drank the stuff off with a neutral look and well bred +indifference to the distress about her. Or in strode the private +secretary of some distinguished being in London, S.W. He invariably +carried his glass to the door, drank it off in languid sips as he leaned +indolently against the masonry, and capped the event by purchasing a rose +for his buttonhole, so making a ceremony which smacked of federating the +world at a common public drinking trough into a little fete. Or there were +the good priests from a turbulent larruping island, who with cheeks +blushing with health and plump waistcoats came ambling, smiling, to their +thirty ounces of noisome liquor. Then, there was Baron, the bronzed, +idling, comfortable trader from Zanzibar, who, after fifteen years of hide +and seek with fever and Arabs and sudden death--wherewith were all manner +of accident and sundry profane dealings not intended for The Times or +Exeter hall, comes back to sojourn in quiet "Christom" places, a lamb in +temper, a lion at heart, an honest soul who minds his own business, is +enemy to none but the malicious, and lives in daily wonder that the wine +he drank the night before gets into trouble with the waters drunk in the +morning. And the days, weeks and months go on, but Baron remains, having +seen population after population of water drinkers come and go. He was +there years ago. He is there still, coming every year, and he does not +know that George Hagar has hung him at Burlington House more than once, +and he remembers very well the pretty girl he did not marry, who also, on +one occasion, joined the aristocratic company "on the line." + +This young and pretty girl--Miss Mildred Margrave--came and went this +morning, and a peculiar, meditative look on her face, suggesting some +recent experience, caused the artist to transfer her to his notebook. Her +step was sprightly, her face warm and cheerful in hue, her figure +excellent, her walk the most admirable thing about her--swaying, graceful, +lissom--like perfect dancing with the whole body. Her walk was immediately +merged into somebody else's--merged melodiously, if one may say so. A man +came from the pump-room looking after the girl, and Hagar remarked a +similar swaying impulsion in the walk of both. He walked as far as the +gate of the pump-room, then sauntered back, unfolded a newspaper, closed +it up again, lit a cigar, and, like Hagar, stood watching the crowd +abstractedly. He was an outstanding figure. Ladies, as they waited, +occasionally looked at him through their glasses, and the Duchess of +Brevoort thought he would make a picturesque figure for a reception--she +was not less sure because his manner was neither savage nor suburban. +George Hagar was known to some people as "the fellow who looks back of +you." Mark Telford might have been spoken of as "the man who looks through +you," for, when he did glance at a man or woman, it was with keen +directness, affecting the person looked at like a flash of light to the +eye. It is easy to write such things, not so easy to verify them, but any +one that has seen the sleuthlike eyes of men accustomed to dealing with +danger in the shape of wild beasts or treacherous tribes or still more +treacherous companions, and whose lives depend upon their feeling for +peril and their unerring vigilance can see what George Hagar saw in Mark +Telford's looks. + +Telford's glance went round the crowd, appearing to rest for an instant on +every person, and for a longer time on Hagar. The eyes of the two men met. +Both were immediately puzzled, for each had a sensation of some +subterranean origin. Telford immediately afterward passed out of the gate +and went toward the St. Cloud gardens, where the band was playing. For a +time Hagar did not stir, but idled with his pencil and notebook. Suddenly +he started, and hurried out in the direction Telford had gone. + +"I was an ass," he said to himself, "not to think of that at first." + +He entered the St. Cloud gardens and walked round the promenade a few +times, but without finding him. Presently, however, Alpheus Richmond, +whose beautiful and brilliant waistcoat and brass buttons with monogram +adorned showed advantageously in the morning sunshine, said to him: "I +say, Hagar, who's that chap up there filling the door of the summer house? +Lord, rather!" + +It was Telford. Hagar wished for the slightest pretext to go up the +unfrequented side path and speak to him, but his mind was too excited to +do the thing naturally without a stout pretext. Besides, though he admired +the man's proportions and his uses from an artistic standpoint, he did not +like him personally, and he said that he never could. He had instinctive +likes and dislikes. What had startled him at the pump-room and had made +him come to the gardens was the conviction that this was the man to play +the part in the scene which, described by Mrs. Detlor, had been arranging +itself in a hundred ways in his brain during the night--the central +figures always the same, the details, light, tone, coloring, expression, +fusing, resolving. Then came another and still more significant thought. +On this he had acted. + +When he had got rid of Richmond, who begged that he would teach him how to +arrange a tie as he did--for which an hour was appointed--he determined, +at all hazards, to speak. He had a cigar in his pocket, and though to +smoke in the morning was pain and grief to him, he determined to ask for a +match, and started. He was stopped by Baron, whose thoughts being much +with the little vices of man, anticipated his wishes and offered him a +light. In despair Hagar took it, and asked if he chanced to know who the +stranger was. Baron did know, assuring Hagar that he sat on the +gentleman's right at the same table in his hotel, and was qualified to +introduce him. Before they started he told the artist of the occurrence of +the evening before, and further assured him of the graces of Miss Mildred +Margrave. "A pearl," he said, "not to be reckoned by loads of ivory, nor +jolly bricks of gold, nor caravans of Arab steeds, nor--come and have +dinner with me to-night, and you shall see. There, what do you say?" + +Hagar, who loved the man's unique and spontaneous character as only an +artist can love a subject in which he sees royal possibilities, consented +gladly, and dropped a cordial hand on the other's shoulder. The hand was +dragged down and wrenched back and forth with a sturdy clasp, in time to a +roll of round, unctuous laughter. Then Baron took him up hurriedly, and +introduced him to Telford with the words: "You two ought to know each +other. Telford, traveler, officer of the Hudson's Bay company, et cetera; +Hagar, artist, good fellow, et cetera." + +Then he drew back and smiled as the two men, not shaking hands as he +expected, bowed, and said they were happy to meet. The talk began with the +remark by Hagar on the panorama below them, "that the thing was amusing if +not seen too often, but the eternal paddling round the band stand was too +much like marionettes." + +"You prefer a Punch and Judy to marionettes?" asked Telford. + +"Yes, you get a human element in a Punch and Judy tragedy. Besides, it +has surprises, according to the idiosyncrasy of the man in the greenroom." +He smiled immediately, remembering that his last words plagiarized Mr. +Alpheus Richmond. + +"I never miss a Punch and Judy if I'm near it," said Telford. "I enjoy the +sardonic humor with which Punch hustles off his victims. His +light-heartedness when doing bloody deeds is the true temper." + +"That is, if it must be done, to do it with a grin is--" + +"Is the most absolute tragedy." + +Hagar was astonished, for even the trader's information that Telford spoke +excellent French, and had certainly been a deal on red carpet in his time, +did not prepare him for the sharply incisive words just uttered. Yet it +was not incongruous with. Telford's appearance--not even with the red sash +peeping at the edge of his waistcoat. + +They came down among the promenaders, and Baron being accosted by some +one, he left the two together, exacting anew the promise from Hagar +regarding dinner. + +Presently Hagar looked up, and said abruptly, "You were singing outside my +window last night." + +Telford's face was turned away from him when he began. It came slowly +toward him. The eyes closed steadily with his, there was no excitement, +only cold alertness. + +"Indeed? What was I singing?" + +"For one thing, the chant of the negro woodcutters of Louisiana." + +"What part of Louisiana?" + +"The county of Tellavie chiefly." + +Telford drew a long breath, as though some suspense was over, and then +said, "How did you know it was I?" + +"I could scarcely tell you. I got the impression--besides, you are the +only man I've seen in Herridon who looks likely to know it and the song +which you prompted." + +"Do I look like a southerner--still? You see I've been in an arctic +country five years." + +"It is not quite that. I confess I cannot explain it." + +"I hope you did not think the thing too boorish to be pardoned. On the +face of it it was rude to you--and the lady also." + +"The circumstance--the coincidence--was so unusual that I did not stop to +think of manners." + +"The coincidence--what coincidence?" said Telford, watching intently. + +But Hagar had himself well in hand. He showed nothing of his suspicions. +"That you should be there listening, and that the song should be one which +no two people, meeting casually, were likely to know." + +"We did not meet," said Telford dryly. + +They watched the crowd for a minute. Presently he added, "May I ask the +name of the lady who was singing?" + +There was a slight pause, then, "Certainly--Mrs. Fairfax Detlor." + +Though Telford did not stir a muscle the bronze of his face went grayish, +and he looked straight before him without speaking. At last he said in a +clear, steady voice, "I knew her once, I think." + +"I guessed so." + +"Indeed? May I ask if Mrs. Detlor recognized my voice?" + +"That I do not know, but the chances are she did not; if you failed to +recognize hers." + +There was an almost malicious desire on Hagar's part to play upon this +man--this scoundrel, as he believed him to be--and make him wince still +more. A score of things to say or do flashed through his mind, but he gave +them up instantly, remembering that it was his duty to consider Mrs. +Detlor before all. But he did say, "If you were old friends, you will wish +to meet her, of course." + +"Yes. I have not seen her in many years. Where is she staying?" + +"At the Tempe hotel. I do not know whether you intend to call, but I would +suggest your not doing so to-day--that is, if you wish to see her and not +merely leave your card--because she has an engagement this morning, and +this afternoon she is going on an excursion." + +"Thank you for the generous information." There was cool irony in the +tone. "You are tolerably well posted as to Mrs. Detlor's movements." + +"Oh, yes," was the equally cool reply. "In this case I happen to know, +because Mrs. Detlor sits for a picture at my studio this morning, and I +am one of the party for the excursion." + +"Just so. Then will you please say nothing to Mrs. Detlor about having met +me? I should prefer surprising her." + +"I'm afraid I can make no promise. The reason is not sufficient. +Surprises, as you remarked about Punch and Judy, are amusing, but they may +also be tragical." + +Telford flashed a dark, inquiring look at his companion, and then said: +"Excuse me, I did not say that, though it was said. However, it is no +matter. We meet at dinner, I I suppose, this evening. Till then!" + +He raised his hat with a slight sweeping motion--a little mocking excess +in the courtesy--and walked away. + +As he went Hagar said after him between his teeth, "By Heaven, you are +that man!" + +These two hated each other at this moment, and they were men of might +after their kind. The hatred of the better man was the greater. Not from a +sense of personal wrong, but-- + +Three hours later Hagar was hard at work in his studio. Only those who +knew him intimately could understand him in his present mood. His pale, +brooding, yet masculine face was flushed, the blue of his eyes was almost +black, his hair, usually in a Roman regularity about his strong brow, was +disorderly. He did not know the passage of time. He had had no breakfast. +He had read none of his letters--they lay in a little heap on his +mantelpiece--he was sketching upon the canvas the scene which had +possessed him for the past ten or eleven hours. An idea was being born, +and it was giving him the distress of bringing forth. Paper after paper he +had thrown away, but at last he had shaped the idea to please his severe +critical instinct, and was now sketching in the expression of the girl's +face. His brain was hot, his face looked tired, but his hand was steady, +accurate and cool--a shapely hand which the sun never browned, and he was +a man who loved the sun. + +He drew back at last. "Yes, that's it," he said. "It's right, right. His +face shall come in later. But the heart of the thing is there." + +The last sentence was spoken in a louder tone, so that some one behind him +heard. It was Mrs. Detlor. She had, with the young girl who had sat at her +feet the evening before, been shown into the outer room, had playfully +parted the curtains between the rooms and entered. She stood for a moment +looking at the sketch, fascinated, thrilled. Her yes filled with tears, +then went dry and hot, as she said in a loud whisper, "Yes, the heart of +the thing is there." + +Hagar turned on her quickly, astonished, eager, his face shining with a +look superadded to his artistic excitement. + +She put her finger to her lip, and nodded backward to the other room. He +understood. "Yes, I know," he said, "the light comedy manner." He waved +his hand toward the drawing. "But is it not in the right vein?" + +"It is painfully, horribly true," she said. She looked from him to the +canvas, from the canvas to him, and then made a little pathetic gesture +with her hands. "What a jest life is!" + +"A game--a wonderful game," he replied, "and a wicked one, when there is +gambling with human hearts." + +Then he turned with her toward the other room. As he passed her to draw +aside the curtain she touched his arm with the tips of her fingers so +lightly--as she intended--that he did not feel it. There was a mute, +confiding tenderness in the action more telling than any speech. The +woman had had a brilliant, varied, but lonely life. It must still be +lonely, though now the pleasant vista of a new career kept opening and +closing before her, rendering her days fascinating yet troubled, her +nights full of joyful but uneasy hours. The game thus far had gone against +her. Yet she was popular, merry and amiable! + +She passed composedly into the other room. Hagar greeted the young girl, +gave her books and papers, opened the piano, called for some refreshments +and presented both with a rose from a bunch upon the table. The young girl +was perfectly happy to be allowed to sit in the courts without and amuse +herself while the artist and his model should have their hour with pencil +and canvas. + +The two then went to the studio again, and, leaving the curtain drawn +back, Hagar arranged Mrs. Detlor in position and began his task. He stood +looking at the canvas for a time, as though to enter into the spirit of it +again; then turned to his model. She was no longer Mrs. Detlor, but his +subject, near to him as his canvas and the creatures of his imagination, +but as a mere woman in whom he was profoundly interested (that at least) +an immeasurable distance from him. He was the artist only now. + +It was strange. There grew upon the canvas Mrs. Detlor's face, all the +woman of it, just breaking through sweet, awesomely beautiful, girlish +features; and though the work was but begun there was already that +luminous tone which artists labor so hard to get, giving to the face a +weird, yet charming expression. + +For an hour he worked, then he paused. "Would you like to see it?" he +said. + +She rose eagerly, and a little pale. He had now sketched in more +distinctly the figure of the man, changed it purposely to look more like +Telford. She saw her own face first. It shone out of the canvas. She gave +a gasp of pain and admiration. Then she caught sight of Telford's figure, +with the face blurred and indistinct. + +"Oh!" she said with a shudder. That--that is like him. How could you +know?" + +"If that is the man," he said, "I saw him this morning. Is his name Mark +Telford?" + +"Yes," she said, and sank into a chair. Presently she sprang to her feet, +caught up a brush and put it into his hand. "Paint in his face. Quick! +Paint in his face. Put all his wickedness there." + +Hagar came close to her. "You hate him?" he said, and took the brush. + +She did not answer by word, but shook her head wearily, as to some one far +off, expressing neither yes nor no. + +"Why?" he said quietly--all their words had been in low tones, that they +might not be heard--"why, do you wear that ring, then?" + +She looked at her hand with a bitter, pitiful smile. "I wear it in memory +of that girl who died very young"--she pointed to the picture--"and to +remind me not to care for anything too much lest it should prove to be a +lie." She nodded softly to the picture. "He and she are both dead; other +people wear their faces now." + +"Poor woman!" he said in a whisper. Then he turned to the canvas and, +after a moment, filled in from memory the face of Mark Telford, she +watching him breathlessly, yet sitting very still. + +After some minutes he drew back and looked at it. + +She rose and said: "Yes, he was like that; only you have added what I saw +at another time. Will you hear the sequel now?" + +He turned and motioned her to a seat, then sat down opposite to her. + +She spoke sadly. "Why should I tell you? I do not know, except that it +seemed to me you would understand. Yet I hope men like you forget what is +best forgotten; and I feel--oh, do you really care to hear it?" + +"I love to listen to you." + +"That girl was fatherless, brotherless. There was no man with any right to +stand her friend at the time--to avenge her--though, God knows, she wished +for no revenge--except a distant cousin who had come from England to see +her mother and herself; to marry her if he could. She did not know his +motives; she believed that he really cared for her; she was young, and +she was sorry for his disappointment. When that thing happened"--her eyes +were on the picture, dry and hard--"he came forward, determined--so he +said--to make the deceiver pay for his deceit with his life. It seemed +brave, and what a man would do, what a southerner would do. He was an +Englishman, and so it looked still more brave in him. He went to the man's +rooms and offered him a chance for his life by a duel. He had brought +revolvers. He turned the key in the door and then laid the pistols he had +brought on the table. Without warning the other snatched up a small sword +and stabbed him with it. He managed to get one of the revolvers, fired, +and brought the man down. The man was not killed, but it was a long time +before he--Mark Telford there--was well again. When he got up, the girl"-- + +"Poor girl!" + +"When he got up the girl was married to the cousin who had periled his +life for her. It was madness, but it was so." + +Here she paused. The silence seemed oppressive. Hagar, divining her +thought, got up, went to the archway between the rooms and asked the young +girl to play something. It helped him, he said, when he was thinking how +to paint. He went back. + +Mrs. Detlor continued. "But it was a terrible mistake. There was a +valuable property in England which the cousin knew she could get by +proving certain things. The marriage was to him a speculation. When she +waked to that--it was a dreadful awakening--she refused to move in the +matter. Is there anything more shameful than speculation in flesh and +blood--the heart and life of a child?--he was so much older than she! Life +to her was an hourly pain--you see she was wild with indignation and +shame, and alive with a kind of gratitude and reaction when she married +him. And her life? Maternity was to her an agony such as comes to few +women who suffer and live. If her child--her beautiful, noble child--had +lived, she would, perhaps, one day have claimed the property for its +sake. This child was her second love and it died--it died." + +She drew from her breast a miniature. He reached out and, first +hesitating, she presently gave it into his hand. It was warm--it had lain +on her bosom. His hand, generally so steady, trembled. He raised the +miniature to his own lips. She reached out her hand, flushing greatly. + +"Oh, please, you must not!" she said. + +"Go on, tell me all," he urged, but still held the miniature in his hand +for a moment. + +"There is little more to tell. He played a part. She came to know how +coarse and brutal he was, how utterly depraved. + +"At last he went away to Africa--that was three years ago. Word came that +he was drowned off the coast of Madagascar, but there is nothing sure, and +the woman would not believe that he was dead unless she saw him so or some +one she could trust had seen him buried. Yet people call her a widow--who +wears no mourning" (she smiled bitterly) "nor can until"-- + +Hagar came to his feet. "You have trusted me," he said, "and I will honor +your confidence. To the world the story I tell on this canvas shall be my +own." + +"I like to try and believe," she said, "that there are good men in the +world. But I have not done so these many years. Who would think that of +me?--I who sing merry songs, and have danced and am gay--how well we wear +the mask, some of us!" + +"I am sure," he said, "that there are better days coming for you. On my +soul I think it." + +"But he is here," she said. "What for? I cannot think there will be +anything but misery when he crosses my path." + +"That duel," he rejoined, the instinct of fairness natural to an honorable +man roused in him; "did you ever hear more than one side of it?" + +"No; yet sometimes I have thought there might be more than one side. +Fairfax Detlor was a coward; and whatever that other was,"--she nodded to +the picture--"he feared no man." + +"A minute!" he said "Let me make a sketch of it." + +He got to work immediately. After the first strong outlines she rose, came +to him and said, "You know as much of it as I do--I will not stay any +longer." + +He caught her fingers in his and held them for an instant. "It is brutal +of me. I did not stop to think what all this might cost you." + +"If you paint a notable picture and gain honor by it, that is enough," she +said. "It may make you famous." She smiled a little wistfully. "You are +very ambitious. You needed, you said to me once, a simple but powerful +subject which you could paint in with some one's life' blood--that sounds +more dreadful than it is * * * well? * * * You said you had been +successful, but had never had an inspiration"-- + +"I have one!" + +She shook her head. "Never an inspiration which had possessed you as you +ought to be to move the public * * * well? * * * do you think I have +helped you at all? I wanted so much to do something for you." + +To Hagar's mind there came the remembrance of the pure woman who, to help +an artist, as poverty stricken as he was talented, engaged on the "Capture +of Cassandra," came into his presence as Lady Godiva passed through the +streets of Coventry, as hushed and as solemn. A sob shook in his +throat--he was of few but strong emotions; he reached out, took her +wrists in his hands, and held them hard. "I have my inspiration now," he +said; "I know that I can paint my one great picture. I shall owe all to +you. And for my gratitude, it seems little to say that I love you--I love +you, Marion." + +She drew her hands away, turned her head aside, her face both white and +red. "Oh, hush, you must not say it!" she said. "You forget; do not make +me fear you and hate myself. * * * I wanted to be your friend--from the +first, to help you, as I said; be, then, a friend to me, that I may +forgive myself." + +"Forgive yourself--for what? I wish to God I had the right to proclaim my +love--if you would have it, dear--to all the world. * * * And I will know +the truth, for I will find your husband, or his grave." + +She looked up at him gravely, a great confidence in her eyes. "I wish you +knew how much in earnest I am--in wishing to help you. Believe me, that is +the first thought. For the rest I am--shall I say it?--the derelict of a +life; and I can only drift. You are young, as young almost as I in years, +much younger every other way, for I began with tragedy too soon." + +At that moment there came a loud knock at the outer door, then a ring, +followed by a cheerful voice calling through the window--"I say, Hagar, +are you there? Shall I come in or wait on the mat till the slavey arrives. +* * * Oh, here she is--Salaam! Talofa! Aloha!--which is heathen for How +do you do, God bless you, and All hail!" + +These remarks were made in the passage from the door through the hallway +into the room. As Baron entered, Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were just coming +from the studio. Both had ruled their features into stillness. + +Baron stopped short, open mouthed, confused, when he saw Mrs. Detlor. +Hagar, for an instant, attributed this to a reason not in Baron's mind, +and was immediately angry. For the man to show embarrassment was an ill +compliment to Mrs. Detlor. However, he carried off the situation, and +welcomed the Afrikander genially, determining to have the matter out with +him in some sarcastic moment later. Baron's hesitation, however, +continued. He stammered, and was evidently trying to account for his call +by giving some other reason than the real one, which was undoubtedly held +back because of Mrs. Detlor's presence. Presently he brightened up and +said, with an attempt to be convincing, "You know that excursion this +afternoon, Hagar? Well, don't you think we might ask the chap we met this +morning--first rate fellow--no pleb--picturesque for the box seat--go down +with the ladies--all like him--eh?" + +"I don't see how we can," replied Hagar coolly. Mrs. Detlor turned to the +mantelpiece. "We are full up; every seat is occupied--unless I give up my +seat to him." + +Mrs. Detlor half turned toward them again, listening acutely. She caught +Hagar's eyes in the mirror and saw, to her relief, that he had no +intention of giving up his seat to Mark Telford. She knew that she must +meet this man whom she had not seen for twelve years. She felt that he +would seek her, though why she could not tell; but this day she wanted to +forget her past, all things but one, though she might have to put it away +from her ever after. Women have been known to live a lifetime on the joy +of one day. Her eyes fell again on the mantelpiece, on Hagar's unopened +letters. At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost +envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them. She had +seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other, +never to be mistaken. It turned her sick. Her fingers ran up to the +envelope, then drew back. She felt for an instant that she must take it +and open it as she stood there. What had the writer of that letter to do +with George Hagar? She glanced at the postmark. It was South Hampstead. +She knew that he lived in South Hampstead. The voices behind her grew +indistinct; she forgot where she was. She did not know how long she stood +there so, nor that Baron, feeling, without reason, the necessity for +making conversation, had suddenly turned the talk upon a collision, just +reported, between two vessels in the Channel. He had forgotten their names +and where they hailed from--he had only heard of it, hadn't read it; but +there was great loss of life. She raised her eyes from the letter to the +mirror and caught sight of her own face. It was deadly pale. It suddenly +began to waver before her and to grow black. She felt herself swaying, and +reached out to save herself. One hand caught the side of the mirror. It +was lightly hung. It loosened from the wall, and came away upon her as she +wavered. Hagar had seen the action. He sprang forward, caught her, and +pushed the mirror back. Her head dropped on his arm. + +The young girl ran forward with some water as Hagar placed Mrs. Detlor on +the sofa. It was only a sudden faintness. The water revived her. Baron +stood dumbfounded, a picture of helpless anxiety. + +"I oughtn't to have driveled about that accident," he said. "I always was +a fool." + +Mrs. Detlor sat up, pale, but smiling in a wan fashion. "I am all right +now," she said. "It was silly of me--let us go, dear," she added to the +young girl; "I shall be better for the open air--I have had a headache all +morning. * * * No, please, don't accuse yourself, Mr. Baron, you are not +at all to blame." + +"I wish that was all the bad news I have," said Baron to himself as Hagar +showed Mrs. Detlor to a landau. Mrs. Detlor asked to be driven to her +hotel. + +"I shall see you this afternoon at the excursion if you are well enough +to go," Hagar said to her. + +"Perhaps," she said with a strange smile. Then, as she drove away, "You +have not read your letters this morning." He looked after her for a +moment, puzzled by what she said and by the expression on her face. + +He went back to the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair, +smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel +and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor's last words. +"You haven't read your letters this morning," he repeated to himself. He +glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor. + +"From Mrs. Gladney!" he said to himself. He glanced at the other letters. +They were obviously business letters. He was certain Mrs. Detlor had not +touched them and had, therefore, only seen this one which lay on top. +"Could she have meant anything to do with this?" He tapped it upward with +his thumb. "But why, in the name of heaven, should this affect her? What +had she to do with Mrs. Gladney, or Mrs. Gladney with her?" + +With this inquiry showing in his eyes he turned round and looked at Baron +meditatively but unconsciously. Baron, understanding the look, said, "Oh, +don't mind me. Read your letters. My business'll keep." + +Hagar nodded, was about to open the letter, but paused, went over to the +archway and drew the curtains. Then he opened the letter. The body of it +ran: + + DEAR MR. HAGAR--I have just learned on my return from the Continent + with the Branscombes that you are at Herridon. My daughter Mildred, + whom you have never seen--and that is strange, we having known each + other so long--is staying at the View House there with the Margraves, + whom, also, I think, you do not know. I am going down to-morrow, and + will introduce you all to each other. May I ask you to call on me + there? Once or twice you have done me a great service, and I may prove + my gratitude by asking you to do another. Will this frighten you out + of Herridon before I come? I hope not, indeed. Always gratefully + yours, + + IDA GLADNEY. + + +He thoughtfully folded the letter up, and put it in his pocket. Then he +said to Baron, "What did you say was the name of the pretty girl at the +View House?" + +"Mildred, Mildred Margrave--lovely, 'cometh up as a flower,' and all that. +You'll see her to-night." + +Hagar looked at him debatingly, then said, "You are in love with her, +Baron. Isn't it--forgive me--isn't it a pretty mad handicap?" + +Baron ran his hand over his face in an embarrassed fashion, then got up, +laughed nervously, but with a brave effort, and replied: "Handicap, my +son, handicap? Of course, it's all handicap. But what difference does that +make when it strikes you? You can't help it, can you? It's like loading +yourself with gold, crossing an ugly river, but you do it. Yes, you do it +just the same." + +He spoke with an affected cheerfulness, and dropped a hand on Hagar's +shoulder. It was now Hagar's turn. He drew down the hand and wrung it as +Baron had wrung his in the morning. "You're a brick, Baron," he said. + +"I tell you what, Hagar. I'd like to talk the thing over once with Mrs. +Detlor. She's a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the +angels, or I'm a Zulu. I fancy she'd give a fellow good advice, eh?--a +woman like her, eh?" + +To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar. He was about to +speak, but Baron, whose foible was hurriedly changing from one subject to +another, pulled a letter out of his pocket and said: "But maybe this is of +more importance to Mrs. Detlor than my foolishness. I won't ask you to +read it. I'll tell you what's in it. But, first, it's supposed, isn't it, +that her husband was drowned?" + +"Yes, off the coast of Madagascar. But it was never known beyond doubt. +The vessel was wrecked and it was said all hands but two sailors were +lost." + +"Exactly. But my old friend Meneely writes me from Zanzibar telling me of +a man who got into trouble with Arabs in the interior--there was a woman +in it--and was shot but not killed. Meneely brought him to the coast, and +put him into a hospital, and said he was going to ship him to England +right away, though he thinks he can't live. Meneely further remarks that +the man is a bounder. And his name is Fairfax Detlor. Was that her +husband's name?" + +Hagar had had a blow. Everything seemed to come at once--happiness and +defeat all in a moment. There was grim irony in it. "Yes, that was the +name," he said. "Will you leave the telling to me?" + +"That's what I came for. You'll do it as it ought to be done; I couldn't." + +"All right, Baron." + +Hagar leaned against the mantel, outwardly unmoved, save for a numb kind +of expression. Baron came awkwardly to him and spoke with a stumbling kind +of friendliness. "Hagar, I wish the Arabs had got him, so help me!" + +"For God's sake think of what you are saying." + +"Of course it doesn't sound right to you, and it wouldn't sound right +from you; but I'm a rowdy colonial and I'm damned if I take it back!--and +I like you, Hagar!" and, turning, he hurried out of the house. + +Mrs. Detlor had not staid at the hotel long; but, as soon as she had +recovered, went out for a walk. She made her way to the moor. She wandered +about for a half hour or so and at last came to a quiet place where she +had been accustomed to sit. As she neared it she saw pieces of an envelope +lying on the ground. Something in the writing caught her eye. She stopped, +picked up the pieces and put them together. "Oh," she said with misery in +her voice, "What does it all mean? Letters everywhere, like the writing on +the wall!" + +She recognized the writing as that of Mark Telford. His initials were in +the corner. The envelope was addressed to John Earl Gladney at Trinity +hospital, New York. She saw a strange tangle of events. John Earl Gladney +was the name of the man who had married an actress called Ida Folger, and +Ida Folger was the mother of Mark Telford's child! She had seen the mother +in London; she had also seen the child with the Margraves, who did not +know her origin, but who had taken her once when her mother was ill and +had afterward educated her with their own daughter. What had Ida Folger to +do with George Hagar, the man who (it was a joy and yet an agony to her) +was more to her than she dared to think? Was this woman for the second +time to play a part--and what kind of part--in her life? What was Mark +Telford to John Gladney? The thing was not pleasant to consider. The lines +were crossing and recrossing. Trouble must occur somewhere. She sat down +quiet and cold. No one could have guessed her mind. She was disciplining +herself for shocks. She fought back everything but her courage. She had +always had that, but it was easier to exercise it when she lived her life +alone--with an empty heart. Now something had come into her life--but she +dared not think of it! + +And the people of the hotel at her table, a half hour later, remarked how +cheerful and amiable Mrs. Detlor was. But George Hagar saw that through +the pretty masquerade there played a curious restlessness. + +That afternoon they went on the excursion to Rivers abbey--Mrs. Detlor, +Hagar, Baron, Richmond and many others. They were to return by moonlight. +Baron did not tell them that a coach from the View hotel had also gone +there earlier, and that Mark Telford and Mildred Margrave with her friends +were with it. There was no particular reason why he should. + +Mark Telford had gone because he hoped to see Mrs. Detlor without (if he +should think it best) being seen by her. Mildred Margrave sat in the seat +behind him--he was on the box seat--and so far gained the confidence of +the driver as to induce him to resign the reins into his hands. There was +nothing in the way of horses unfamiliar to Telford. As a child he had +ridden like a circus rider and with the fearlessness of an Arab; and his +skill had increased with years. This six in hand was, as he said, "nuts to +Jacko." Mildred was delighted. From the first moment she had seen this man +she had been attracted to him, but in a fashion as to gray headed Mr. +Margrave, who sang her praises to everybody--not infrequently to the wide +open ears of Baron. At last she hinted very faintly to the military +officer who sat on the box seat that she envied him, and he gave her his +place. Mark Telford would hardly have driven so coolly that afternoon if +he had known that his own child was beside him. He told her, however, +amusing stories as they went along. Once or twice he turned to look at +her. Something familiar in her laugh caught his attention. He could not +trace it. He could not tell that it was like a faint echo of his own. + +When they reached the park where the old abbey was, Telford detached +himself from the rest of the party and wandered alone through the paths +with their many beautiful surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes, +rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a +stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the +end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern +Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who +had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his +companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be +here. His life, since the day he left his home in the south, had been +sometimes as useless as creditable. However, he was not of such stuff as +to spend an hour in useless remorse. He had made his bed, and he had lain +on it without grumbling, but he was a man who counted his life +backward--he had no hope for the future. The thought of what he might have +been came on him here in spite of himself, associated with the woman--to +him always the girl--whose happiness he had wrecked. For the other woman, +the mother of his child, was nothing to him at the time of the discovery. +She had accepted the position and was going away forever, even as she did +go after all was over. + +He expected to see the girl he had loved and wronged this day. He had +anticipated it with a kind of fierceness, for, if he had wronged her, he +felt that he too had been wronged, though he could never, and would never, +justify himself. He came down from the pathway and wandered through the +long silent cloisters. + +There were no visitors about; it was past the usual hour. He came into the +old refectory, and the kitchen with its immense chimney, passed in and out +of the little chapels, exploring almost mechanically, yet remembering what +he saw, and everything was mingled almost grotesquely with three scenes +in his life--two of which we know; the other, when his aged father turned +from him dying and would not speak to him. The ancient peace of this place +mocked these other scenes and places. He came into the long, unroofed +aisle, with its battered sides and floor of soft turf, broken only by some +memorial brasses over graves. He looked up and saw upon the walls the +carved figures of little grinning demons between complacent angels. The +association of these with his own thoughts stirred him to laughter--a low, +cold laugh, which shone on his white teeth. + +Outside a few people were coming toward the abbey from both parties of +excursionists. Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were walking by themselves. Mrs. +Detlor was speaking almost breathlessly. "Yes, I recognized the writing. +She is nothing, then, to you, nor has ever been?" + +"Nothing, on my honor. I did her a service once. She asks me to do +another, of which I am as yet ignorant. That is all. Here is her letter." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +NO OTHER WAY. + + +George Hagar was the first to move. He turned and looked at Mrs. Detlor. +His mind was full of the strangeness of the situation--this man and woman +meeting under such circumstances after twelve years, in which no lines of +their lives had ever crossed. But he saw, almost unconsciously, that she +had dropped his rose. He stooped, picked it up and gave it to her. With a +singular coolness--for, though pale, she showed no excitement--she quietly +arranged the flower at her throat, still looking at the figure on the +platform. A close observer would occasionally have found something +cynical--even sinister--in Mark Telford's clear cut, smoothly chiseled +face, but at the moment when he wheeled slowly and faced these two there +was in it nothing but what was strong, refined and even noble. His eyes, +dark and full, were set deep under well hung brows, and a duskiness in the +flesh round them gave them softness as well as power. Withal there was a +melancholy as striking as it was unusual in him. + +In spite of herself Mrs. Detlor felt her heart come romping to her throat, +for, whatever this man was to her now, he once was her lover. She grew hot +to her fingers. As she looked, the air seemed to palpitate round her, and +Mark Telford to be standing in its shining hot surf tall and grand. But, +on the instant, there came into this lens the picture she had seen in +George Hagar's studio that morning. At that moment Mildred Margrave and +Baron were entering at the other end of the long, lonely nave. The girl +stopped all at once and pointed toward Telford as he stood motionless, +uncovered. "See," she said, "how fine, how noble he looks!" + +Mrs. Detlor turned for an instant and saw her. + +Telford had gazed calmly, seriously, at Mrs. Detlor, wondering at nothing, +possessed by a strange, quieting feeling. There was, for the moment, no +thought of right or wrong, misery or disaster, past or future, only--this +is she! In the wild whistle of arctic winds he had sworn that he would +cease to remember, but her voice ran laughing through them as it did +through the blossoms of the locust trees at Tellavie, and he could not +forget. When the mists rose from the blue lake on a summer plain, the rosy +breath of the sun bearing them up and scattering them like thistledown, he +said that he would think no more of her; but, stooping to drink, he saw +her face in the water, as in the hill spring at Tellavie, and he could not +forget. When he rode swiftly through the long prairie grass, each pulse +afire, a keen, joyful wind playing on him as he tracked the buffalo, he +said he had forgotten, but he felt her riding beside him as she had done +on the wide savannas of the south, and he knew that he could not forget. +When he sat before some lodge in a pleasant village and was waited on by +soft voiced Indian maidens and saw around him the solitary content of the +north, he believed that he had ceased to think; but, as the maidens danced +with slow monotony and grave, unmelodious voices, there came in among them +an airy, sprightly figure, singing as the streams do over the pebbles, and +he could not forget. When in those places where women are beautiful, +gracious and soulless, he saw that life can be made into mere convention +and be governed by a code, he said that he had learned how to forget; but +a pale young figure rose before him with the simple reproach of falsehood, +and he knew that he should always remember. + +She stood before him now. Maybe some premonition--some such smother at +the heart as Hamlet knew--came to him then, made him almost statue-like in +his quiet and filled his face with a kind of tragical beauty. Hagar saw it +and was struck by it. If he had known Jack Gladney and how he worshiped +this man, he would have understood the cause of the inspiration. It was +all the matter of a moment. Then Mark Telford stepped down, still +uncovered, and came to them. He did not offer his hand, but bowed gravely +and said, "I hardly expected to meet you here, Mrs. Detlor, but I am very +glad." + +He then bowed to Hagar. + +Mrs. Detlor bowed as gravely and replied in an enigmatical tone, "One is +usually glad to meet one's countrymen in a strange land." + +"Quite so," he said, "and it is far from Tellavie."' + +"It is not so far as it was yesterday," she added. + +At that they began to walk toward the garden leading to the cloisters. +Hagar wondered whether Mrs. Detlor wished to be left alone with Telford. +As if divining his thoughts, she looked up at him and answered his mute +question, following it with another of incalculable gentleness. + +Raising his hat, he said conventionally enough: "Old friends should have +much to say to each other. Will you excuse me?" + +Mrs. Detlor instantly replied in as conventional a tone: "But you will +not desert me? I shall be hereabout, and you will take me back to the +coach?" + +The assurance was given, and the men bowed to each other. Hagar saw a +smile play ironically on Telford's face--saw it followed by a steellike +fierceness in the eye. He replied to both in like fashion, but one would +have said the advantage was with Telford--he had the more remarkable +personality. + +The two were left alone. They passed through the cloisters without a word. +Hagar saw the two figures disappear down the long vista of groined arches. +"I wish to heaven I could see how this will all end," he muttered. Then he +joined Baron and Mildred Margrave. + +Telford and Mrs. Detlor passed out upon a little bridge spanning the +stream, still not speaking. As if by mutual consent, they made their way +up the bank and the hillside to the top of a pretty terrace, where was a +rustic seat among the trees. When they reached it, he motioned to her to +sit. She shook her head, however, and remained standing close to a tree. + +"What you wish to say--for I suppose you do wish to say something--will be +brief, of course?" + +He looked at her almost curiously. + +"Have you nothing kind to say to me, after all these years?" he asked +quietly. + +"What is there to say now more than--then?" + +"I cannot prompt you if you have no impulse. Have you none?" + +"None at all. You know of what blood we are, we southerners. We do not +change." + +"You changed." He knew he ought not to have said that, for he understood +what she meant. + +"No, I did not change. Is it possible you do not understand? Or did you +cease to be a southerner when you became"-- + +"When I became a villain?" He smiled ironically. "Excuse me. Go on, +please." + +"I was a girl, a happy girl. You killed me. I did not change. Death is +different. * * * But why have you come to speak of this to me? It was ages +ago. Resurrections are a mistake, believe me." She was composed and +deliberate now. Her nerve had all come back. There had been one swift wave +of the feeling that once flooded her girl's heart. It had passed and left +her with the remembrance of her wrongs and the thought of unhappy +years--through all which she had smiled, at what cost, before the world! +Come what would, he should never know that, even now, the man he once was +remained as the memory of a beautiful dead thing--not this man come to her +like a ghost. + +"I always believed you," he answered quietly, "and I see no reason to +change." + +"In that case we need say no more," she said, opening her red parasol and +stepping slightly forward into the sunshine as if to go. + +There ran into his face a sudden flush. She was harder, more cruel, than +he had thought were possible to any woman. "Wait," he said angrily, and +put out his hand as if to stop her. "By heaven, you shall!" + +"You are sudden and fierce," she rejoined coldly. "What do you wish me to +say? What I did not finish--that southerners love altogether or--hate +altogether?" + +His face became like stone. At last, scarce above a whisper, he said: "Am +I to understand that you hate me, that nothing can wipe it out--no +repentance and no remorse? You never gave me a chance for a word of +explanation or excuse. You refused to see me. You returned my letter +unopened. But had you asked her--the woman--the whole truth"-- + +"If it could make any difference, I will ask her to-morrow." + +He did not understand. He thought she was speaking ironically. + +"You are harder than you know," he said heavily. "But I will speak. It is +for the last time. Will you hear me?" + +"I do not wish to, but I will not go." + +"I had met her five years before there was anything between you and me. +She accepted the situation when she understood that I would not marry her. +The child was born. Time went on. I loved you. I told her. She agreed to +go away to England: I gave her money. The day you found us together was +to have been the last that I should see of her. The luck was against me. +It always has been in things that I cared for. You sent a man to kill +me"-- + +"No, no. I did not send any one. I might have killed you--or her--had I +been anything more than a child, but I sent no one. You believe that, do +you not?" + +For the first time since they had begun to speak she showed a little +excitement, but immediately was cold and reserved again. + +"I have always believed you," he said again. "The man who is your husband +came to kill me"-- + +"He went to fight you," she said, looking at him more intently than she +had yet done. + +A sardonic smile played for a moment at his lips. He seemed about to +speak through it. Presently, however, his eyes half closed as with a +sudden thought he did not return her gaze, but looked down to where the +graves of monks and abbots, and sinners maybe, were as steps upon the +river bank. + +"What does it matter?" he thought. "She hates me." But he said aloud: +"Then, as you say, he came to fight me. I hear that he is dead," he added +in a tone still more softened. He had not the heart to meet her scorn with +scorn. As he said, it didn't matter if she hated him. It would be worth +while remembering, when he had gone, that he had been gentle with her and +had spared her the shame of knowing that she had married not only a +selfish brute, but a coward and a would be assassin as well. He had only +heard rumors of her life since he had last seen her, twelve years before, +but he knew enough to be sure that she was aware of Fairfax Detlor's true +character. She had known less still of his life, for since her marriage +she had never set foot in Louisiana, and her mother, while she lived, +never mentioned his name or told her more than that the Telford plantation +had been sold for a song. When Hagar had told him that Detlor was dead, a +wild kind of hope had leaped up in him that perhaps she might care for him +still and forgive him when he had told all. These last few minutes had +robbed him of that hope. He did not quarrel with the act The game was +lost long ago, and it was foolish to have dreamed for an instant that the +record could be reversed. + +Her answer came quickly: "I do not know that my husband is dead. It has +never been verified." + +He was tempted again, but only for an instant. "It is an unfortunate +position for you," he replied. + +He had intended saying it in a tone of sympathy, but at the moment he saw +Hagar looking up toward them from the abbey, and an involuntary but +ulterior meaning crept into the words. He loved, and he could detect love, +as he thought. He knew by the look that she swept from Hagar to him that +she loved the artist. She was agitated now, and in her agitation began to +pull off her glove. For the moment the situation was his. + +"I can understand your being wicked," she said keenly, "but not your being +cowardly. That is and was unpardonable." + +"That is and was," he repeated after her. "When was I cowardly?" He was +composed, though there was a low fire in his eyes. + +"Then and now." + +He understood well. "I, too, was a coward once," he said, looking her +steadily in the eyes, "and that was when I hid from a young girl a +miserable sin of mine. To have spoken would have been better, for I could +but have lost her, as I've lost her now forever." + +She was moved, but whether it was with pity or remembrance or reproach he +did not know and never asked, for, looking at her ungloved hand as she +passed it over her eyes wearily, he saw the ring he had given her twelve +years before. He stepped forward quickly with a half smothered cry and +caught her fingers. "You wear my ring!" he said. "Marion, you wear my +ring! You do care for me still?" + +She drew her hand away. "No," she said firmly. "No, Mark Telford, I do not +care for you. I have worn this ring as a warning to me--my daily +crucifixion. Read what is inside it." + +She drew it off and handed it to him. He took it and read the words, +"You--told--a--lie." This was the bitterest moment in his life. He was +only to know one more bitter, and it would come soon. He weighed the ring +up and down in his palm and laughed a dry, crackling laugh. + +"Yes," he said, "you have kept the faith--that you hadn't in me--tolerably +well. A liar, a coward, and one who strikes from behind--that is it, isn't +it? You kept the faith, and I didn't fight the good fight, eh? Well, let +it stand so. Will you permit me to keep this ring? The saint needed it to +remind her to punish the sinner. The sinner would like to keep it now, for +then he would have a hope that the saint would forgive him some day." + +The bitterness of his tone was merged at last into a strange tenderness +and hopelessness. + +She did not look at him. She did not wish him to see the tears spring +suddenly to her eyes. She brought her voice to a firm quietness. She +thought of the woman, Mrs. Gladney, who was coming; of his child, whom he +did not recognize. She looked down toward the abbey. The girl was walking +there between old Mr. Margrave and Baron. She had once hated both the +woman and the child. She knew that to be true to her blood she ought to +hate them always, but there crept into her heart now a strange feeling of +pity for both. Perhaps the new interest in her life was driving out +hatred. There was something more. The envelope she had found that day on +the moor was addressed to that woman's husband, from whom she had been +separated--no one knew why--for years. What complication and fresh misery +might be here? + +"You may keep the ring," she said. + +"Thank you," was his reply, and he put it on his finger, looking down at +it with an enigmatical expression. "And is there nothing more?" + +She willfully misconstrued his question. She took the torn pieces of +envelope from her pocket and handed them to him. "These are yours," she +said. + +He raised his eyebrows. "Thank you again. But I do not see their value. +One could almost think you were a detective, you are so armed." + +"Who is he? What is he to you?" she asked. + +"He is an unlucky man, like myself, and my best friend. He helped me out +of battle, murder and sudden death more than once, and we shared the same +blanket times without number." + +"Where is he now?" she said in a whisper, not daring to look at him lest +she should show how disturbed she was. + +"He is in a hospital in New York." + +"Has he no friends?" + +"Do I count as nothing at all?" + +"I mean no others--no wife or family?" + +"He has a wife, and she has a daughter. That is all I know. They have been +parted through some cause. Why do you ask? Do you know him?" + +"No, I do not know him." + +Do you know the wife? Please tell me, for at his request I am trying to +find her, and I have failed." + +"Yes, I know her," she said painfully and slowly. "You need search no +longer. She will be at your hotel to-night." + +He started. Then he said: "I'm glad of that. How did you come to know? Are +you friends?" + +Though her face was turned from him resolutely, he saw a flush creep up +her neck to her hair. + +"We are not friends," she said vaguely. "But I know that she is coming to +see her daughter." + +"Who is her daughter?" + +She raised her parasol toward the spot where Mildred Margrave stood and +said, "That is her daughter." + +"Miss Margrave? Why has she a different name?" + +"Let Mrs. Gladney explain that to you. Do not make yourself known to the +daughter till you see her mother. Believe me, it will be better for the +daughter's sake." + +She now turned and looked at him with a pity through which trembled +something like a troubled fear. "You asked me to forgive you," she said. +"Good-bye. Mark Telford, I do forgive you." She held out her hand. He took +it, shaking his head a little over it, but said no word. + +"We had better part here and meet no more," she added. + +"Pardon, but banishment," he said as he let her hand go. + +"There is nothing else possible in this world," she rejoined in a muffled +voice. + +"Nothing in this world," he replied. "Good-bye till we meet +again--somewhere." + +So saying, he turned and walked rapidly away. Her eyes followed him, a +look of misery, horror and sorrow upon her. When he had disappeared in the +trees, she sat down on the bench. "It is dreadful," she whispered, +awestricken. "His friend her husband! His daughter there, and he does not +know her! What will the end of it be?" + +She was glad she had forgiven him and glad he had the ring. She had +something in her life now that helped to wipe out the past--still, a +something of which she dared not think freely. The night before she had +sat in her room thinking of the man who was giving her what she had lost +many years past, and, as she thought, she felt his arm steal round her and +his lips on her cheek, but at that a mocking voice said in her ear: "You +are my wife. I am not dead." And her happy dream was gone. + +George Hagar, looking up from below, saw her sitting alone and slowly made +his way toward her. The result of the meeting between these two seemed +evident. The man had gone. Never in his life had Hagar suffered more than +in the past half hour. That this woman whom he loved--the only woman he +had ever loved as a mature man loves--should be alone with the man who had +made shipwreck of her best days set his veins on fire. She had once loved +Mark Telford. Was it impossible that she should love him again? He tried +to put the thought from him as ungenerous, unmanly, but there is a maggot +which gets into men's brains at times, and it works its will in spite of +them. He reasoned with himself. He recalled the look of perfect confidence +and honesty with which she regarded him before they parted just now. He +talked gayly to Baron and Mildred Margrave, told them to what different +periods of architecture the ruins belonged, and by sheer force of will +drove away a suspicion--a fear--as unreasonable as it was foolish. Yet, as +he talked, the remembrance of the news he had to tell Mrs. Detlor, which +might--probably would--be shipwreck to his hopes of marriage, came upon +him, and presently made him silent, so that he wandered away from the +others. He was concerned as to whether he should tell Mrs. Detlor at once +what Baron had told him or hold it till next day, when she might, perhaps, +be better prepared to hear it, though he could not help a smile at this, +for would not any woman--ought not any woman to--be glad that her husband +was alive? He would wait. He would see how she had borne the interview +with Telford. + +Presently he saw that Telford was gone. When he reached her, she was +sitting, as he had often seen her, perfectly still, her hands folded in +her lap upon her parasol, her features held in control, save that in her +eyes was a bright, hot flame which so many have desired to see in the eyes +of those they love and have not seen. The hunger of these is like the +thirst of the people who waited for Moses to strike the rock. + +He sat down without speaking. "He is gone," he said at last. + +"Yes. Look at me and tell me if, from my face, you would think I had been +seeing dreadful things." She smiled sadly at him. + +"No, I could not think it. I see nothing more than a kind of sadness. The +rest is all beauty." + +"Oh, hush!" she replied solemnly. "Do not say those things now." + +"I will not if you do not wish to hear them. What dreadful things have +you seen?" + +"You know so much you should know everything," she said, "at least all of +what may happen." + +Then she told him who Mildred Margrave was; how years before, when the +girl's mother was very ill and it was thought she would die, the Margraves +had taken the child and promised that she should be as their own and a +companion to their own child; that their own child had died, and Mildred +still remained with them. All this she knew from one who was aware of the +circumstances. Then she went on to tell him who Mildred's mother and +father were, what were Telford's relations to John Gladney and of his +search for Gladney's wife. + +"Now," she said, "you understand all. They must meet." + +"He does not know who she is?" + +"He does not. He only knows as yet that she is the daughter of Mrs. +Gladney, who, he thinks, is a stranger to him." + +"You know his nature. What will he do?" + +"I cannot tell. What can he do? Nothing, nothing!" + +"You are sorry for him? You"-- + +"Do not speak of that," she said in a choking whisper. "God gave women +pity to keep men from becoming demons. You can pity the executioner when, +killing you, he must kill himself next." + +"I do not understand you quite, but all you say is wise." + +"Do not try to understand it or me. I am not worth it." + +"You are worth, God knows, a better, happier fate." + +The words came from him unexpectedly, impulsively. Indirect as they were, +she caught a hidden meaning. She put out her hand. + +"You have something to tell me. Speak it. Say it quickly. Let me know it +now. One more shock more or less cannot matter." + +She had an intuition as to what it was. "I warn you, dear," he said, "that +it will make a difference, a painful difference, between us." + +"No, George"--it was the first time she had called him that--"nothing can +make any difference with that." + +He told her simply, bravely--she was herself so brave--what there was to +tell, that two weeks ago her husband was alive, and that he was now on his +way to England--perhaps in England itself. She took it with an unnatural +quietness. She grew distressingly pale, but that was all. Her hand lay +clinched tightly on the seat beside her. He reached out, took it, and +pressed it, but she shook her head. + +"Please do not sympathize with me," she said. "I cannot bear it. I am not +adamant. You are very good--so good to me that no unhappiness can be all +unhappiness. But let us look not one step farther into the future." + +"What you wish I shall do always." + +"Not what I wish, but what you and I ought to do is plain." + +"I ask one thing only. I have said that I love you, said it as I shall +never say it to another woman, as I never said it before. Say to me once +here, before we know what the future will be, that you love me. Then I can +bear all." + +She turned and looked him full in the eyes, that infinite flame in her own +which burns all passions into one. "I cannot, dear," she said. + +Then she hurriedly rose, her features quivering. Without a word they went +down the quiet path to the river and on toward the gates of the park +where the coach was waiting to take them back to Herridon. + +They did not see Mark Telford before their coach left. But, standing back +in the shadow of the trees, he saw them. An hour before he had hated Hagar +and had wished that they were in some remote spot alone with pistols in +their hands. Now he could watch the two together without anger, almost +without bitterness. He had lost in the game, and he was so much the true +gamester that he could take his defeat when he knew it was defeat quietly. +Yet the new defeat was even harder on him than the old. All through the +years since he had seen her there had been the vague conviction, under all +his determination to forget, that they would meet again, and that all +might come right. That was gone, he knew, irrevocably. + +"That's over," he said as he stood looking at them. "The king is dead. +Long live the king!" + +He lit a cigar and watched the coach drive away, then saw the coach in +which he had come drive up also and its passengers mount. He did not stir, +but smoked on. The driver waited for some time, and when he did not come +drove away without him, to the regret of the passengers and to the +indignation of Miss Mildred Margrave, who talked much of him during the +drive back. + +When they had gone, Telford rose and walked back to the ruined abbey. He +went to the spot where he had first seen Mrs. Detlor that day, then took +the path up the hillside to the place where they had stood. He took from +his pocket the ring she had given back to him, read the words inside it +slowly, and, looking at the spot where she had stood, said aloud: + +"I met a man once who imagined he was married to the spirit of a woman +living at the north pole. Well, I will marry myself to the ghost of Marion +Conquest." + +So saying, he slipped the ring on his little finger. The thing was +fantastic, but he did it reverently; nor did it appear in the least as +weakness, for his face was, strong and cold. "Till death us do part, so +help me God!" he added. + +He turned and wandered once more through the abbey, strayed in the +grounds, and at last came to the park gates. Then he walked to the town a +couple of miles away, went to the railway station and took a train for +Herridon. He arrived there some time before the coach did. He went +straight to the View House, proceeded to his room and sat down to write +some letters. Presently he got up, went down to the office and asked the +porter if Mrs. John Gladney had arrived from London. The porter said she +had. He then felt in his pocket for a card, but changed his mind, saying +to himself that his name would have no meaning for her. He took a piece of +letter paper and wrote on it, "A friend of your husband brings a message +to you." He put it in an envelope, and, addressing it, sent it up to her. +The servant returned, saying that Mrs. Gladney had taken a sitting room +in a house adjacent to the hotel and was probably there. He took the note +and went to the place indicated, sent in the note and waited. + +When Mrs. Gladney received the note, she was arranging the few +knick-knacks she had brought. She read the note hurriedly and clinched it +in her hand. "It is his writing--his, Mark Telford! He, my husband's +friend! Good God!" + +For a moment she trembled violently and ran her fingers through her golden +hair distractedly, but she partly regained her composure, came forward and +told the servant to show him into the room. She was a woman of instant +determination. She drew the curtains closer, so that the room would be +almost dark to one entering from the sunlight. Then she stood with her +back to the light of the window. He saw a figure standing in the shadow, +came forward and bowed, not at first looking closely at the face. + +"I have come from your husband," he said. "My name is Mark Telford"-- + +"Yes, I know," she interrupted. + +He started, came a little nearer and looked curiously at her. "Ida--Ida +Royal!" he exclaimed. "Are you--you--John Gladney's wife?" + +"He is my husband." + +Telford folded his arms, and, though pale and haggard, held himself +firmly. "I could not have wished this for my worst enemy," he said at last +"Gladney and I have been more than brothers." + +"In return for having"-- + +"Hush!" he interrupted. "Do you think anything you may say can make me +feel worse than I do? I tell you we have lain under the same blankets +month in, month out, and he saved my life." + +"What is the message you bring?" she asked. + +"He begs you to live with him again, you and your child. The property he +settled on you for your lifetime he will settle on your child. Until this +past few days he was himself poor. To-day he is rich--money got honestly, +as you may guess." + +"And if I am not willing to be reconciled?" + +"There was no condition." + +"Do you know all the circumstances? Did he tell you?" + +"No, he did not tell me. He said that he left you suddenly for a reason, +and when he wished to return you would not have him. That was all. He +never spoke but kindly of you." + +"He was a good man." + +"He is a good man." + +"I will tell you why he left me. He learned, no matter how, that I had not +been married, as I said I had." + +She looked up, as if expecting him to speak. He said nothing, but stood +with eyes fixed on the floor. + +"I admitted, too, that I kept alive the memory of a man who had played an +evil part in my life; that I believed I cared for him still, more than for +my husband." + +"Ida, for God's sake, you do not mean"-- + +"Yes, I meant you then. But when he went away, when he proved himself so +noble, I changed. I learned to hate the memory of the other man. But he +came back too soon. I said things madly--things I did not mean. He went +again. And then afterward I knew that I loved him." + +"I am glad of that, upon my soul!" said Telford, letting go a long breath. + +She smiled strangely and with a kind of hardness. "A few days ago I had +determined to find him if I could, and to that end I intended to ask a man +who had proved himself a friend, to learn, if possible, where he was in +America. I came here to see him and my daughter." + +"Who is the man?" + +"Mr. George Hagar." + +A strange light shot from Telford's eyes. "Hagar is a fortunate man," he +said. Then dreamily: "You have a daughter. I wish to God that--that ours +had lived." + +"You did not seem to care when I wrote and told you that she was dead." + +"I do not think that I cared then. Besides"-- + +"Besides you loved that other woman, and my child was nothing to you," she +said with low scorn. "I have seen her in London. I am glad--glad that she +hates you. I know she does," she added. "She would never forgive you. She +was too good for you, and you ruined her life." + +He was very quiet and spoke in a clear, meditative voice. "You are right. +I think she hates me. But you are wrong, too, for she has forgiven me." + +"You have seen her?" She eyed him sharply. + +"Yes, to-day." His look wandered to a table whereon was a photograph of +her daughter. He glanced at it keenly. A look of singular excitement +sprang to his eyes. "That is your daughter?" + +She inclined her head. + +"How old is she?" He picked up the photograph and held it, scrutinizing +it. + +"She is seventeen," was the reply in a cold voice. + +He turned a worn face from the picture to the woman. "She is my child. +You lied to me." + +"It made no difference to you then. Why should it make any difference now? +Why should you take it so tragically?" + +"I do not know, but now"--His head moved, his lips trembled. + +"But now she is the daughter of John Gladney's wife. She is loved and +cared for by people who are better, infinitely better, than her father and +mother were or could be. She believes her father is dead. And he is dead!" + +"My child! My child!" he whispered brokenly over the photograph. "You will +tell her that her father is not dead. You"-- + +She interrupted. "Where is that philosophy which you preached to me, Mark +Telford, when you said you were going to marry another woman and told me +that we must part? Your child has no father. You shall not tell her. You +will go away and never speak to her. Think of the situation. Spare her, if +you do not spare me or your friend John Gladney." + +He sat down in a chair, his clinched hands resting on his knees. He did +not speak. She could see his shoulder shaking a little, and presently a +tear dropped on his cheek. + +But she did not stir. She was thinking of her child. "Had you not better +go?" she said at last. "My daughter may come at any moment." + +He rose and stood before her. "I had it all, and I have lost it all," he +said. "Good-bye." He did not offer his hand. + +"Good-bye. Where are you going?" + +"Far enough away to forget," he replied in a shaking voice. He picked up +the photograph, moved his hand over it softly as though he were caressing +the girl herself, lifted it to his lips, put it down, and then silently +left the room, not looking back. + +He went to his rooms and sat writing for a long time steadily. He did not +seem excited or nervous. Once or twice he got up and walked back and +forth, his eyes bent on the floor. He was making calculations regarding +the company he had floated in London and certain other matters. When he +had finished writing, three letters lay sealed and stamped upon the +table. One was addressed to John Gladney, one to the Hudson Bay company +and one to a solicitor in London. There was another unsealed. This he put +in his pocket. He took the other letters up, went downstairs and posted +them. Then he asked the hall porter to order a horse for riding--the best +mount in the stables--to be ready at the door in an hour. He again went to +his room, put on a riding suit, came down and walked out across the +esplanade and into the street where Hagar's rooms were. They were lighted. +He went to the hall door, opened it quietly and entered the hall. He +tapped at the door of Hagar's sitting room. As he did so a servant came +out, and, in reply to a question, said that Mr. Hagar had gone to the +Tempe hotel and would be back directly. He went in and sat down. The +curtains were drawn back between the two rooms. He saw the easels, with +their backs to the archway. He rose, went in and looked at the sketches in +the dim light. + +He started, flushed, and his lips drew back over his teeth with an +animallike fierceness, but immediately he was composed again. He got two +candles, brought them and set them on a stand between the easels. Then he +sat down and studied the paintings attentively. He laughed once with a dry +recklessness. "This tells her story admirably. He is equal to his subject. +To be hung in the academy. Well, well!" + +He heard the outer door open, then immediately Hagar entered the room and +came forward to where he sat. The artist was astonished, and for the +instant embarrassed. Telford rose. "I took the liberty of waiting for you, +and, seeing the pictures, was interested." + +Hagar bowed coldly. He waved his hand toward the pictures. "I hope you +find them truthful." + +"I find them, as I said, interesting. They will make a sensation. And is +there anything more necessary? You are a lucky man, and you have the +ability to take advantage of it. Yes, I greatly admire your ability. I can +do that, at least, though we are enemies, I suppose." + +His words were utterly without offense. A melancholy smile played on his +lips. Again Hagar bowed, but did not speak. + +Telford went on. "We are enemies, and yet I have done you no harm. You +have injured me, have insulted me, and yet I do not resent it, which is +strange, as my friends in a wilder country would tell you." + +Hagar was impressed, affected. "How have I injured you? By painting +these?" + +"The injury is this: I loved a woman and wronged her, but not beyond +reparation. Years passed. I saw her and loved her still. She might still +have loved me, but another man came in. It was you. That was one injury. +Then"--He took up a candle and held it to the sketch of the discovery. +"This is perfect in its art and chivalry. It glorifies the girl. That is +right." He held the candle above the second sketch. "This," he said, "is +admirable as art and fiction. But it is fiction. I have no hope that you +will change it. I think you would make a mistake to do so. You could not +have the situation, if the truth were painted. Your audience will not have +the villain as the injured man." + +"Were you the injured man?" + +Telford put the candle in Hagar's hand. Then he quickly took off his coat, +waistcoat and collar and threw back his shirt from his neck behind. + +"The bullet wound I received on that occasion was in the back," he said. +"The other man tried to play the assassin. Here is the scar. He posed as +the avenger, the hero, and the gentleman. I was called the coward and the +vagabond! He married the girl." + +He started to put on his waistcoat again. Hagar caught his arm and held +it. The clasp was emotional and friendly. "Will you stand so for a +moment?" he said. "Just so, that I may"-- + +"That you may paint in the truth? No. You are talking as the man. As an +artist you were wise to stick to your first conception. It had the heat of +inspiration. But I think you can paint me better than you have done, in +these sketches. Come, I will give you a sitting. Get your brushes. No, no, +I'll sit for nothing else than for these scenes as you have painted them. +Don't miss your chance for fame." + +Without a word Hagar went to work and sketched into the second sketch +Telford's face as it now was in the candlelight--worn, strong, and with +those watchful eyes sunk deep under the powerful brows. The artist in him +became greater than the man. He painted in a cruel, sinister expression +also. At last he paused. His hand trembled. "I can paint no more," he +said. + +Telford looked at the sketch with a cold smile. "Yes, that's right," he +said. "You've painted in a good bit of the devil too. You owe me something +for this. I have helped you to a picture and have given you a sitting. +There is no reason why you should paint the truth to the world. But I ask +you this: When you know that her husband is dead and she becomes your +wife, tell her the truth about that, will you? How the scoundrel tried to +kill me--from behind. I'd like to be cleared of cowardice some time. You +can afford to do it. She loves you. You will have everything, I +nothing--nothing at all." + +There was a note so thrilling, a golden timbre to the voice, an +indescribable melancholy so affecting that Hagar grasped the other's hand +and said, "So help me God, I will!" + +"All right." + +He prepared to go. At the door Hagar said to him, "Shall I see you again?" + +"Probably in the morning. Good-night." + +Telford went back to the hotel and found the horse he had ordered at the +door. He got up at once. People looked at him curiously, it was peculiar +to see a man riding at night for pleasure, and, of course, it could be for +no other purpose. "When will you be back, sir?" said the groom. + +"I do not know." He slipped a coin into the groom's hand. "Sit up for me. +The beast is a good one?" + +"The best we have. Been a hunter, sir." + +Telford nodded, stroked the horse's neck and started. He rode down toward +the gate. He saw Mildred Margrave coming toward him. + +"Oh, Mr. Telford!" she said. "You forsook us to-day, which was unkind. +Mamma says--she has seen you, she tells me--that you are a friend of my +stepfather, Mr. Gladney. That's nice, for I like you ever so much, you +know." She raised her warm, intelligent eyes to his. "I've felt since you +came yesterday that I'd seen you before, but mamma says that's impossible. +You don't remember me?" + +"I didn't remember you," he said. + +"I wish I were going for a ride, too, in the moonlight. I mean mamma and I +and you. You ride as well as you drive, of course." + +"I wish you were going with me," he replied.--He suddenly reached down his +hand. "Good-night" Her hand was swallowed in his firm clasp for a moment +"God bless you, dear!" he added, then raised his hat quickly and was gone. + +"I must have reminded him of some one," the girl said to herself. "He +said, 'God bless you, dear!'" + +About that time Mrs. Detlor received a telegram from the doctor of a +London hospital. It ran: + + Your husband here. Was badly injured in a channel collision last + night. Wishes to see you. + +There was a train leaving for London a half hour later. She made ready +hastily, inclosed the telegram in an envelope addressed to George Hagar, +and, when she was starting, sent it over to his rooms. When he received +it, he caught up a time table, saw that a train would leave in a few +minutes, ran out, but could not get a cab quickly, and arrived at the +station only to see the train drawing away. "Perhaps it is better so," he +said, "for her sake." + +That night the solitary roads about Herridon were traveled by a solitary +horseman, riding hard. Mark Telford's first ambition when a child was to +ride a horse. As a man he liked horses almost better than men. The cool, +stirring rush of wind on his face as he rode was the keenest of delights. +He was enjoying the ride with an iron kind of humor, for there was in his +thoughts a picture. "The sequel's sequel for Hagar's brush to-morrow," he +said as he paused on the top of a hill to which he had come from the +highroad and looked round upon the verdant valleys almost spectrally quiet +in the moonlight. He got off his horse and took out a revolver. It clicked +in his hand. + +"No," he said, putting it up again, "not here. It would be too damned +rough on the horse, after riding so hard, to leave him out all night." + +He mounted again. He saw before him a fine stretch of moor at an easy +ascent. He pushed the horse on, taking a hedge or two as he went. The +animal came over the highest point of the hill at full speed. Its blood +was up, like its master's. The hill below this point suddenly ended in a +quarry. Neither horse nor man knew it until the yielding air cried over +their heads like water over a drowning man as they fell to the rocky bed +far beneath. + +An hour after Telford became conscious. The horse was breathing painfully +and groaning beside him. With his unbroken arm he felt for his revolver. +It took him a long time. + +"Poor beast!" he said, and pushed the hand out toward the horse's head. +In an instant the animal was dead. + +He then drew the revolver to his own temple, but paused. "No, it wasn't to +be," he said. "I'm a dead man anyway," and fell back. + +Day was breaking when the agony ceased. He felt the gray damp light on his +eyes, though he could not see He half raised his head. "God--bless--you, +dear!" he said. And that ended it. + +He was found by the workers at the quarry. In Herridon to this day--it all +happened years ago--they speak of the Hudson Bay company's man who made +that terrible leap, and, broken all to pieces himself, had heart enough to +put his horse out of misery. The story went about so quickly, and so much +interest was excited because the Hudson Bay company sent an officer down +to bury him, and the new formed Aurora company was represented by two or +three titled directors, that Mark Telford's body was followed to its grave +by hundreds of people. It was never known to the public that he had +contemplated suicide. Only John Gladney and the Hudson Bay company knew +that for certain. + +The will, found in his pocket, left everything he owned to Mildred +Margrave--that is, his interest in the Aurora mines of Lake Superior, +which pays a gallant dividend. The girl did not understand why this was, +but supposed it was because he was a friend of John Gladney, her +stepfather, and perhaps (but this she never said) because she reminded +him of some one. Both she and John Gladney when they are in England go +once a year to Herridon, and they are constantly sending flowers there. + +Alpheus Richmond showed respect for him by wearing a silk sash under his +waistcoat, and Baron by purchasing shares in the Aurora company. + +When Mark Telford lay dead, George Hagar tried to take from his finger the +ring which carried the tale of his life and death inside it, but the hand +was clinched so that it could not be opened. Two years afterward, when he +had won his fame through two pictures called "The Discovery" and "The +Sequel," he told his newly married wife of this. And he also cleared Mark +Telford's name of cowardice in her sight, for which she was grateful. + +It is possible that John Gladney and George Hagar understood Mark Telford +better than the woman who once loved him. At least they think so. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPARDONABLE LIAR*** + + +******* This file should be named 15793.txt or 15793.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/7/9/15793 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/15793.zip b/15793.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b11f55 --- /dev/null +++ b/15793.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..657a900 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #15793 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15793) |