54-40 or Fight Part 33

"No, I am alone, Madam. I never shall be married."

There may have been some slight motion of a hand which beckoned me to a seat at the opposite side of the table. As I sat, I saw her search my face carefully, slowly, with eyes I could not read. At last she spoke, after her frequent fas.h.i.+on, half to herself.

"It succeeded, then!" said she. "Yet I am not happy! Yet I have failed!"

"I pause, Madam," said I, smiling. "I await your pleasure."

"Ah, G.o.d! Ah, G.o.d!" she sighed. "What have I done?" She staggered to her feet and stood beating her hands together, as was her way when perturbed. "What have I _done_!"

"Threlka!" I heard her call, half chokingly. The old servant came hurriedly.

"Wine, tea, anything, Threlka!" She dropped down again opposite me, panting, and looking at me with wide eyes.

"Tell me, do you know what you have said?" she began.

"No, Madam. I grieve if I have caused you any pain."

"Well, then, you are n.o.ble; when look, what pain I have caused you! Yet not more than myself. No, not so much. I hope not so much!"

Truly there is thought which pa.s.ses from mind to mind. Suddenly the thing in her mind sped across to mine. I looked at her suddenly, in my eyes also, perhaps, the horror which I felt.

"It was you!" I exclaimed. "It was you! Ah, now I begin to understand!

How could you? You parted us! _You_ parted me from Elisabeth!"

"Yes," she said regretfully, "I did it It was my fault."

I rose and drew apart from her, unable to speak. She went on.

"But I was not then as I am now. See, I was embittered, reckless, desperate. I was only beginning to think--I only wanted time. I did not really mean to do all this. I only thought--Why, I had not yet known you a day nor her an hour. 'Twas all no more than half a jest"

"How could you do it?" I demanded. "Yet that is no more strange. How _did_ you do it?"

"At the door, that first night. I was mad then over the wrong done to what little womanhood I could claim for my own. I hated Yturrio. I hated Pakenham. They had both insulted me. I hated every man. I had seen nothing but the bitter and desperate side of life--I was eager to take revenge even upon the innocent ones of this world, seeing that I had suffered so much. I had an old grudge against women, against women, I say--against _women!_"

She buried her face in her hands. I saw her eyes no more till Threlka came and lifted her head, offering her a cup of drink, and so standing patiently until again she had dismissal.

"But still it is all a puzzle to me, Madam," I began. "I do not understand."

"Well, when you stood at the door, my little shoe in your pocket, when you kissed my hand that first night, when you told me what you would do did you love a woman--when I saw something new in life I had not seen--why, then, in the devil's resolution that no woman in the world should be happy if I could help it, I slipped in the body of the slipper a little line or so that I had written when you did not see, when I was in the other room. 'Twas that took the place of Van Zandt's message, after all! Monsieur, it was fate. Van Zandt's letter, without plan, fell out on my table. Your note, sent by plan, remained in the shoe!"

"And what did it say? Tell me at once."

"Very little. Yet enough fora woman who loved and who expected. Only this: '_In spite of that other woman, come to me still. Who can teach yon love of woman as can I? Helena._' I think it was some such words as those."

I looked at her in silence.

"You did not see that note?" she demanded. "After all, at first I meant it only for _you_. I wanted to see you again. I did not want to lose you. Ah, G.o.d! I was so lonely, so--so--I can not say. But you did not find my message?"

I shook my head. "No," I said, "I did not look in the slipper. I do not think my friend did."

"But she--that girl, did!"

"How could she have believed?"

"Ah, grand! I reverence your faith. But she is a woman! She loved you and expected you that hour, I say. Thus comes the shock of finding you untrue, of finding you at least a common man, after all. She is a woman.

'Tis the same fight, all the centuries, after all! Well, I did that."

"You ruined the lives of two, neither of whom had ever harmed you, Madam."

"What is it to the tree which consumes another tree--the flower which devours its neighbor? Was it not life?"

"You had never seen Elisabeth."

"Not until the next morning, no. Then I thought still on what you had said. I envied her--I say, I coveted the happiness of you both. What had the world ever given me? What had I done--what had I been--what could I ever be? Your messenger came back with the slipper. The note was in the shoe untouched. Your messenger had not found it, either. See, I _did_ mean it for you alone. But now seine sudden thought came to me. I tucked it back and sent your drunken friend away with it for her--where I knew it would be found! I did not know what would be the result. I was only desperate over what life had done to me. I wanted to get _out_--out into a wider and brighter world."

"Ah, Madam, and was so mean a key as this to open that world for you?

Now we all three wander, outside that world."

"No, it opened no new world for me," she said. "I was not meant for that. But at least, I only acted as I have been treated all my life. I knew no better then."

"I had not thought any one capable of that," said I.

"Ah, but I repented on the instant! I repented before night came. In the twilight I got upon my knees and prayed that all my plan might go wrong--if I could call it plan. 'Now,' I said, as the hour approached, 'they are before the priest; they stand there--she in white, perhaps; he tall and grave. Their hands are clasped each in that of the other. They are saying those tremendous words which may perhaps mean so much.' Thus I ran on to myself. I say I followed you through the hour of that ceremony. I swore with her vows, I pledged with her pledge, promised with her promise. Yes, yes--yes, though I prayed that, after all, I might lose, that I might pay back; that I might some time have opportunity to atone for my own wickedness! Ah! I was only a woman. The strongest of women are weak sometimes.

"Well, then, my friend, I have paid. I thank G.o.d that I failed then to make another wretched as myself. It was only I who again was wretched.

Ah! is there no little pity in your heart for me, after all?--who succeeded only to fail so miserably?"

But again I could only turn away to ponder.

"See," she went on; "for myself, this is irremediable, but it is not so for you, nor for her. It is not too ill to be made right again. There in Montreal, I thought that I had failed in my plan, that you indeed were married. You held yourself well in hand; like a man, Monsieur. But as to that, you _were_ married, for your love for her remained; your pledge held. And did not I, repenting, marry you to her--did not I, on my knees, marry you to her that night? Oh, do not blame me too much!"

"She should not have doubted," said I. "I shall not go back and ask her again. The weakest of men are strong sometimes!"

"Ah, now you are but a man! Being such, you can not understand how terribly much the faith of man means for a woman. It was her _need_ for you that spoke, not her _doubt_ of you. Forgive her. She was not to blame. Blame me! Do what you like to punish me! Now, I shall make amends. Tell me what I best may do. Shall I go to her, shall I tell her?"

"Not as my messenger. Not for me."

"No? Well, then, for myself? That is my right. I shall tell her how priestly faithful a man you were."

I walked to her, took her arms in my hands and raised her to my level, looking into her eyes.

"Madam," I said, "G.o.d knows, I am no priest. I deserve no credit. It was chance that cast Elisabeth and me together before ever I saw you. I told you one fire was lit in my heart and had left room for no other. I meet youth and life with all that there is in youth and life. I am no priest, and ask you not to confess with me. We both should confess to our own souls."

"It is as I said," she went on; "you were married!"

"Well, then, call it so--married after my fas.h.i.+on of marriage; the fas.h.i.+on of which I told you, of a cabin and a bed of husks. As to what you have said, I forget it, I have not heard it. Your sort could have no heart beat for one like me. 'Tis men like myself are slaves to women such as you. You could never have cared for me, and never did. What you loved, Madam, was only what you had _lost_, was only what you saw in this country--was only what this country means! Your past life, of course, I do not know."

"Sometime," she murmured, "I will tell you."