by Rex Beach
OUT OF THE NIGHT
"There is but one remedy for your complaint." Doctor Suydam settleddeeper into his chair. "Marry the girl."
"That is the only piece of your professional advice I ever cared tofollow. But how?"
"Any way you can--use force if necessary--only marry her. Otherwise Ipredict all sorts of complications for you--melancholia, brain-fag,bankruptcy--"
Austin laughed. "Could you write me a prescription?"
"Oh, she'll have you, Bob. You don't seem to realize that you are agood catch."
Austin finished buckling his puttee before rising to his full height."That doesn't mean anything to her. She doesn't need to make a catch."
"Nonsense! She's just like all the others, only richer and nicer. Goat her as if she were the corn-market; she won't be half so hard tocorner. You have made a name for yourself, and a blamed sight moremoney than you deserve; you are young--comparatively, I mean."
The elder man stroked his shock of iron-gray hair for answer.
"Well, at any rate you are a picturesque personage, even if you can'twear riding-clothes."
"Doesn't a man look like the devil in these togs?" Austin posedawkwardly in front of a mirror.
"There's only one person who can look worse in riding-clothes than aman--that's a woman."
"What heresy, particularly in a society doctor! But I agree with you.I learned to ride on her account, you know. As a matter of fact, Ihate it. The sight of a horse fills me with terror."
Doctor Suydam laughed outright at this. "She tells me that you have avery good seat."
"Really!" Austin's eyes gleamed suddenly. "You know I never hada chance to ride when I was a youngster--in fact, I never had anopportunity to do anything except work. That's what makes me so crudeand awkward. What I know I have picked up during the last few years."
"You make me tired!" declared the former. "You aren't--"
"Oh, I don't skate on waxed floors nor spill tea, nor clutch at mychauffeur in a tight place, but you know what I mean. I feel lonesomein a dress-suit, a butler fills me with gloom, and--Well, I'm not oneof you, that's all."
"Perhaps that's what makes a hit with Marmion. She's used to the otherkind."
"It seems to me that I have always worked," ruminated the formerspeaker. "I don't remember that I ever had time to play, even afterI came to the city. It's a mighty sad thing to rob a boy of hischildhood; it makes him a dull, unattractive sort when he grows up.I used to read about people like Miss Moore, but I never expected toknow them until I met you. Of course, that corn deal rather changedthings."
"Well, I should rather say it did!" Suydam agreed, with emphasis.
"The result is that when I am with her I forget the few things I havedone that are worth while, and I become the farm-hand again. I'mnaturally rough and angular, and she sees it."
"Oh, you're too sensitive! You have a heart like a girl underneaththat saturnine front of yours, and while you look like the Sphinx,you are really as much of a kid at heart as I am. Where do you rideto-day?"
"Riverside Drive."
"What horse is she riding?"
"Pointer."
The doctor shook his head. "Too many automobiles on the Drive. He's arotten nag for a woman, anyhow. His mouth is as tough as a stirrup,and he has the disposition of a tarantula. Why doesn't she stick tothe Park?"
"You know Marmion."
"Say, wouldn't it be great if Pointer bolted and you saved her life?She couldn't refuse you then."
Austin laughed. "That's not exactly the way I'd care to win her.However, if Pointer bolted I'd probably get rattled and fall off myown horse. I don't like the brutes. Come on, I'm late."
"That's right," grumbled the other, "leave me here while you makelove to the nicest girl in New York. I'm going down to the office andamputate somebody."
They descended the single flight to the street, where Austin's groomwas struggling with a huge black.
"It's coming pretty soft for you brokers," the doctor growled, as hiscompanion swung himself into the saddle. "The next time I get a friendI'll keep him to myself."
Austin leaned forward with a look of grave anxiety upon his ruggedfeatures and said: "Wish me luck, Doc. I'm going to ask her to-day."
"Good for you, old fellow." There was great fondness in the youngerman's eyes as he wrung the rider's hand and waved him adieu, thenwatched him disappear around the corner.
"She'll take him," he mused, half aloud. "She's a sensible girl evenif all New York has done its best to spoil her." He hailed a taxicaband was hurried to his office.
It was perhaps two hours later that he was called on the telephone.
"Hello! Yes, yes! What is it?" he cried, irritably. "Mercy Hospital!_What_?" The young physician started. "Hurt, you say? Run-away? Go on,quick!" He listened with whitening face, then broke in abruptly: "Ofcourse he sent for me. I'll be right up."
He slammed the receiver upon its hook and, seizing his hat, bolted outthrough a waiting-room full of patients. His car was in readiness, andhe called to his chauffeur in such tones that the fellow vaulted tohis seat.
"Go up Madison Avenue; there's less traffic there. And for God's sake_hurry_!"
During two years' service with New York's most fashionable physicianthe driver had never received a command like this, and he opened uphis machine. A policeman warned him at Thirty-third Street and the carslowed down, at which Suydam leaned forward, crying, roughly:
"To hell with regulations! There's a man dying!"
The last word was jerked from him as he was snapped back into hisseat. Regardless of admonitory shouts from patrolmen, the Frenchcar sang its growing song, while truck-drivers bellowed cursesand pedestrians fled from crossings at the scream of its siren. Across-town car blocked them, and the brakes screeched in agony, whileDoctor Suydam was well-nigh catapulted into the street; then they wereunder way again, with the car leaping from speed to speed. It was thefirst time the driver had ever dared to disregard those upraised,white-gloved hands, and it filled his joy-riding soul with exultation.A street repair loomed ahead, whereupon, with a sickening skid, theyswung into a side street; the gears clashed again, and an instantlater they shot out upon Fifth Avenue. At the next corner they laymotionless in a blockade, while the motor shuddered; then they dodgedthrough an opening where the mud-guards missed by an inch and werewhirling west toward Broadway. At 109th Street a bicycle officerstared in amazement at the dwindling number beneath the rear axle,then ducked his head and began to pedal. He overhauled the speedingmachine as it throbbed before the doors of Mercy Hospital, to begreeted by a grinning chauffeur who waved him toward the building andtold of a doctor's urgency.
Inside, Doctor Suydam, pallid of face and shaking in a mostunprofessional manner, was bending over a figure in riding-clothes,the figure of a tall, muscular man who lay silent, deaf to his wordsof greeting.
They told him all there was to tell in the deadly, impersonal wayof hospitals, while he nodded swift comprehension. There had been arunaway--a woman on a big, white-eyed bay, that had taken fright at anautomobile; a swift rush up the Driveway, a lunge over the neck ofthe pursuing horse, then a man wrenched from his saddle and draggedbeneath cruel, murderous hoofs. The bay had gone down, and the womanwas senseless when the ambulance arrived, but she had revived andhad been hurried to her home. In the man's hand they had found thefragment of a bridle rein gripped with such desperation that theycould not remove it until he regained consciousness. He had askedregarding the girl's safety, then sighed himself into oblivion again.They told Suydam that he would die.
With sick heart the listener cursed all high-spirited women andhigh-strung horses, declaring them to be works of the devil, likeautomobiles; then he went back to the side of his friend, where otherhands less unsteady were at work.
"Poor lonely old Bob!" he murmured. "Not a soul to care except Marmionand me, and God knows whether she cares or not."
* * * * *
But Robert Austin did not die, alt
hough the attending surgeons saidhe would, said he should, in fact, unless all the teachings of theirscience were at fault. He even offended the traditions of the hospitalby being removed to his own apartments in a week. There Suydam, whohad watched him night and day, told him that Miss Moore had a brokenshoulder and hence could not come to see him.
"Poor girl!" said Austin, faintly. "If I'd known more about horses Imight have saved her."
"If you'd known more about horses you'd have let Pointer run,"declared his friend. "Nobody but an idiot or a Bob Austin would havetaken the chance you did. How is your head?"
The sick man closed his eyes wearily. "It hurts all the time. What'sthe matter with it?"
"We've none of us been able to discover what isn't the matter with it!Why in thunder did you hold on so long?"
"Because I--I love her, I suppose."
"Did you ask her to marry you?" Suydam had been itching to ask thequestion for days.
"No, I was just getting to it when Pointer bolted. I--I'm slow at suchthings." There was a moment's pause. "Doc, what's the matter with myeyes? I can't see very well."
"Don't talk so much," ordered the physician. "You're lucky to be hereat all. Thanks to that copper-riveted constitution of yours, you'llget well."
But it seemed that the patient was fated to disappoint the predictionsof his friend as well as those of the surgeons at Mercy Hospital. Hedid not recover in a manner satisfactory to his medical adviser, andalthough he regained the most of his bodily vigor, the injury to hiseyes baffled even the most skilled specialists.
He was very brave about it, however, and wrung the heart of DoctorSuydam by the uncomplaining fortitude with which he bore examinationafter examination. Learned oculists theorized vaporously about opticatrophies, fractures, and brain pressures of one sort and another; andmeanwhile Robert Austin, in the highest perfection of bodily vigor, inthe fullest possession of those faculties that had raised him from anunschooled farm-boy to a position of eminence in the business world,went slowly blind. The shadows crept in upon him with a deadly,merciless certainty that would have filled the stoutest heart withgloom, and yet he maintained a smiling stoicism that deceived all buthis closest associates. To Doctor Suydam, however, the incontestableprogress of the malady was frightfully tragic. He alone knew the man'sabundant spirits, his lofty ambitions, and his active habits. He aloneknew of the overmastering love that had come so late and wasdestined to go unvoiced, and he raved at the maddening limits of hisprofession. In Austin's presence he strove to be cheerful and tolighten the burden he knew was crushing the sick man; but at othertimes he bent every energy toward a discovery of some means to checkthe affliction, some hand more skilled than those he knew of. In time,however, he recognized the futility of his efforts, and resignedhimself to the worst. He had a furious desire to acquaint MarmionMoore with the truth, and to tell her, with all the brutal franknesshe could muster, of her part in this calamity. But Austin would nothear of it.
"She doesn't dream of the truth," the invalid told him. "And I don'twant her to learn. She thinks I'm merely weak, and it grieves herterribly to know that I haven't recovered. If she really knew--itmight ruin her life, for she is a girl who feels deeply. I want tospare her that; it's the least I can do."
"But she'll find it out some time."
"I think not. She comes to see me every day--"
"Every day?"
"Yes. I'm expecting her soon."
"And she doesn't know?"
Austin shook his head. "I never let her see there's anything thematter with my sight. She drives up with her mother, and I wait forher there in the bay-window. It's getting hard for me to distinguishher now, but I recognize the hoofbeats--I can tell them every time."
"But--I don't understand."
"I pretend to be very weak," explained the elder man, with a guiltyflush. "I sit in the big chair yonder and my Jap boy waits on her. Sheis very kind." Austin's voice grew husky. "I'm sorry to lose sight ofthe Park out yonder, and the trees and the children--they're growingindistinct. I--I like children. I've always wanted some for myself.I've dreamed about--that." His thin, haggard face broke into a wistfulsmile. "I guess that is all over with now."
"Why?" questioned Suydam, savagely. "Why don't you ask her to marryyou, Bob? She couldn't refuse--and God knows you need her."
"That's just it; she couldn't refuse. This is the sort of thing afellow must bear alone. She's too young, and beautiful, and fine to beharnessed up to a worn-out old--cripple."
"Cripple!" The other choked. "Don't talk like that. Don't be so blamedresigned. It tears my heart out. I--I--why, I believe I feel this morethan you do."
Austin turned his face to the speaker with a look of such tragicsuffering that the younger man fell silent.
"I'm glad I can hide my feelings," Austin told him, slowly, "for thatis what I have to do every instant she is with me. I don't wish toinflict unnecessary pain upon my friends, but don't you suppose I knowwhat this means? It means the destruction of all my fine hopes, thedeath of all I hold dear in the world. I love my work, for I am--or Iwas--a success; this means I must give it up. I'm strong in body andbrain; this robs me of my usefulness. All my life I have prayed thatI might some time love a woman; that time has come, but this meansI must give her up and be lonely all my days. I must grope my waythrough the dark with never a ray of light to guide me. Do you knowhow awful the darkness is?" He clasped his hands tightly. "I must gohungering through the night, with a voiceless love to torture me. Justat the crowning point of my life I've been snuffed out. I must fallbehind and see my friends desert me."
"Bob!" cried the other, in shocked denial.
"Oh, you know it will come to that. People don't like to feel pityforever tugging at them. I've been a lonely fellow and my friends arenumbered. For a time they will come to see me, and try to cheer me up;they will even try to include me in their pleasures; then when it isno longer a new story and their commiseration has worn itself out theywill gradually fall away. It always happens so. I'll be 'poor BobAustin,' and I'll go feeling my way through life an object of pity, astumbling, incomplete thing that has no place to fill, no object towork for, no one to care. God! I'm not the sort to go blind! Where'sthe justice of it? I've lived clean. Why did this happen to me? Why?Why? I know what the world is; I've been a part of it. I've seen thespring and the autumn colors and I've watched the sunsets. I've lookedinto men's faces and read their souls, and when you've done that youcan't live in darkness. I can't and--I won't!"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going away."
"When? Where?"
"When I can no longer see Marmion Moore and before my afflictionbecomes known to her. Where--you can guess."
"Oh, that's cowardly, Bob! You're not that sort. You mustn't! It'sunbelievable," his friend cried, in a panic.
Austin smiled bitterly. "We have discussed that too often, and--I'mnot sure that what I intend doing is cowardly. I can't go now, for thething is too fresh in her memory, she might learn the truth and holdherself to blame; but when she has lost the first shock of it I shallwalk out quietly and she won't even suspect. Other interests will comeinto her life; I'll be only a memory. Then--" After a pause he wenton, "I couldn't bear to see her drop away with the rest."
"Don't give up yet," urged the physician. "She is leaving for thesummer, and while she is gone we'll try that Berlin chap. He'll behere in August."
"And he will fail, as the others did. He will lecture some clinicabout me, that's all. Marmion will hear that my eyes have given outfrom overwork, or something like that. Then I'll go abroad, and--Iwon't come back." Austin, divining the rebellion in his friend'sheart, said, quickly: "You're the only one who could enlighten her,Doc, but you won't do it. You owe me too much."
"I--I suppose I do," acknowledged Suydam, slowly. "I owe you more thanI can ever repay--"
"Wait--" The sick man raised his hand, while a sudden light blazed upin his face. "She's coming!"
To the doctor's trained ear the noises of
the street rose in aconfused murmur, but Austin spoke in an awed, breathless tone, almostas if he were clairvoyant.
"I can hear the horses. She's coming to--see me."
"I'll go," exclaimed the visitor, quickly, but the other shook hishead.
"I'd rather have you stay."
Austin was poised in an attitude of the intensest alertness, hisangular, awkward body was drawn to its full height, his lean face waslighted by some hidden fire that lent it almost beauty.
"She's getting out of the carriage," he cried, in a nervous voice;then he felt his way to his accustomed arm-chair. Suydam was about togo to the bay-window when he paused, regarding his friend curiously.
"What are you doing?"
The blind man had begun to beat time with his hand, counting under hisbreath: "One! Two! Three!--"
"She'll knock when I reach twenty-five. 'Sh! 'sh!" He continued hispantomime, and Suydam realized that from repeated practice Austin hadgauged to a nicety the seconds Marmion Moore required to mount thestairs. This was his means of holding himself in check. True toprediction, at "Twenty-five" a gentle knock sounded, and Suydam openedthe door.
"Come in, Marmion."
The girl paused for the briefest instant on the threshold, and thedoctor noted her fleeting disappointment at seeing him; then she tookhis hand.
"This _is_ a surprise," she exclaimed. "I haven't seen you for ever solong."
Her anxious glance swept past him to the big, awkward figure againstthe window's light. Austin was rising with apparent difficulty, andshe glided to him.
"Please! Don't rise! How many times have I told you not to exertyourself?"
Suydam noted the gentle, proprietary tone of her voice, and it amazedhim.
"I--am very glad that you came to see me." The afflicted man's voicewas jerky and unmusical. "How are you to-day, Miss?"
"He shouldn't rise, should he?" Miss Moore appealed to the physician."He is very weak and shouldn't exert himself."
The doctor wished that his friend might see the girl's face as he sawit; he suddenly began to doubt his own judgment of women.
"Oh, I'm doing finely," Austin announced. "Won't you be seated?" Hewaved a comprehensive gesture, and Suydam, marveling at the mannerin which the fellow concealed his infirmity, brought a chair for thecaller.
"I came alone to-day. Mother is shopping," Miss Moore was saying."See! I brought these flowers to cheer up your room." She held up agreat bunch of sweet peas. "I love the pink ones, don't you?"
Austin addressed the doctor. "Miss Moore has been very kind to me; I'mafraid she feels it her duty--"
"No! No!" cried the girl.
"She rarely misses a day, and she always brings flowers. I'm very fondof bright colors."
Suydam cursed at the stiff formality in the man's tone. How could anywoman see past that glacial front and glimpse the big, achingheart beyond? Austin was harsh and repellent when the least bitself-conscious, and now he was striving deliberately to heighten theeffect.
The physician wondered why Marmion Moore had gone even thus far inshowing her gratitude, for she was not the self-sacrificing kind. Asfor a love match between two such opposite types, Suydam could notconceive of it. Even if the girl understood the sweet, simple natureof this man, even if she felt her own affections answer to his, Suydambelieved he knew the women of her set too well to imagine that shecould bring herself to marry a blind man, particularly one of noaddress.
"We leave for the mountains to-morrow," Marmion said, "so I came tosay good-by, for a time."
"I--shall miss your visits," Austin could not disguise his genuineregret, "but when you return I shall be thoroughly recovered. Perhapswe can ride again."
"Never!" declared Miss Moore. "I shall never ride again. Think of thesuffering I've caused you. I--I--am dreadfully sorry."
To Suydam's amazement, he saw the speaker's eyes fill with tears. Adoubt concerning the correctness of his surmises came over him and herose quickly. After all, he reflected, she might see and love the realBob as he did, and if so she might wish to be alone with him in thislast hour. But Austin laughed at his friend's muttered excuse.
"You know there's nobody waiting for you. That's only a pretense tofind livelier company. You promised to dine with me." To Miss Moore heexplained: "He isn't really busy; why, he has been complaining for anhour that the heat has driven all his patients to the country, andthat he is dying of idleness."
The girl's expression altered curiously. She shrank as if wounded; shescanned the speaker's face with startled eyes before turning with astrained smile to say:
"So, Doctor, we caught you that time. That comes from being ahigh-priced society physician. Why don't you practise among themasses? I believe the poor are always in need of help."
"I really have an engagement," Suydam muttered.
"Then break it for Mr. Austin's sake. He is lonely and--I must begoing in a moment."
The three talked for a time in the manner all people adopt for asick-room, then the girl rose and said, with her palm in Austin'shand:
"I owe you so much that I can never hope to repay you, but you--youwill come to see me frequently this season. Promise! You won't hideyourself, will you?"
The blind man smiled his thanks and spoke his farewell withmeaningless politeness; then, as the physician prepared to see her toher carriage, Miss Moore said:
"No! Please stay and gossip with our invalid. It's only a step."
She walked quickly to the door, flashed them a smile, and was gone.
Suydam heard his patient counting as before.
"One! Two! Three--!"
At "Twenty-five" the elder man groped his way to the open bay-windowand bowed at the carriage below. There came the sound of hoofs androlling wheels, and the doctor, who had taken stand beside his friend,saw Marmion Moore turn in her seat and wave a last adieu. Austincontinued to nod and smile in her direction, even after the carriagewas lost to view; then he felt his way back to the arm-chair and sanklimply into it.
"Gone! I--I'll never be able to see her again."
Suydam's throat tightened miserably. "Could you see her at all?"
"Only her outlines; but when she comes back in the fall I'll be asblind as a bat." He raised an unsteady hand to his head and closed hiseyes. "I can stand anything except that! To lose sight of her dearface--" The force of his emotion wrenched a groan from him.
"I don't know what to make of her," said the other. "Why didn't youlet me go, Bob? It was her last good-by; she wanted to be alone withyou. She might have--"
"That's it!" exclaimed Austin. "I was afraid of myself; afraid I'dspeak if I had the chance." His voice was husky as he went on. "It'shard--hard, for sometimes I think she loves me, she's so sweet and sotender. At such times I'm a god. But I know it can't be; that it isonly pity and gratitude that prompts her. Heaven knows I'm uncouthenough at best, but now I have to exaggerate my rudeness. I playa part--the part of a lumbering, stupid lout, while my heart isbreaking." He bowed his head in his hands, closing his dry, feverisheyes once more. "It's cruelly hard. I can't keep it up."
The other man laid a hand on his shoulder, saying: "I don't knowwhether you're doing right or not. I half suspect you are doingMarmion a bitter wrong."
"Oh, but she can't--she _can't_ love me!" Austin rose as iffrightened. "She might yield to her impulse and--well, marry me, forshe has a heart of gold, but it wouldn't last. She would learn sometime that it wasn't real love that prompted the sacrifice. Then Ishould die."
The specialist from Berlin came, but he refused to operate, declaringbluntly that there was no use, and all during the long, hot summerdays Robert Austin sat beside his open window watching the lightdie out of the world, waiting, waiting, for the time to make hissacrifice.
Suydam read Marmion's cheery letters aloud, wondering the while at thewistful note they sounded now and then. He answered them in his ownhandwriting, which she had never seen.
One day came the announcement that she was returning the first week inOctober. Alr
eady September was partly gone, so Austin decided to sailin a week. At his dictation Suydam wrote to her, saying that thestrain of overwork had rendered a long vacation necessary. The doctorwrithed internally as he penned the careful sentences, wondering ifthe hurt of the deliberately chosen words would prevent her sensingthe truth back of them. As days passed and no answer came he judged ithad.
The apartment was stripped and bare, the trunks were packed on theafternoon before Austin's departure. All through the dreary mockery ofthe process the blind man had withstood his friend's appeal, his sternface set, his heavy heart full of a despairing stubbornness. Now,being alone at last, he groped his way about the premises to fix themin his memory; then he sank into his chair beside the window.
He heard a knock at the door and summoned the stranger to enter, thenhe rose with a gasp of dismay. Marmion Moore was greeting him withsweet, yet hesitating effusiveness.
"I--I thought you were not coming back until next week," he stammered.
"We changed our plans." She searched his face as best she could in theshaded light, a strange, anxious expression upon her own. "Your lettersurprised me."
"The doctor's orders," he said, carelessly. "They say I have brokendown."
"I know! I know what caused it!" she panted. "You never recovered fromthat accident. You did not tell me the truth. I've always felt thatyou were hiding something from me. Why? Oh, why?"
"Nonsense!" He undertook to laugh, but failed in a ghastly manner."I've been working too hard. Now I'm paying the penalty."
"How long will you be gone?" she queried.
"Oh, I haven't decided. A long time, however." His tone bewilderedher. "It is the first vacation I ever had; I want to make the most ofit."
"You--you were going away without saying good-by to--your oldfriends?" Her lips were white, and her brave attempt to smile wouldhave told him the truth had he seen it, but he only had her tone to goby, so he answered, indifferently:
"All my arrangements were made; I couldn't wait."
"You are offended with me," Miss Moore said, after a pause. "How haveI hurt you? What is it; please? I--I have been too forward, perhaps?"
Austin dared not trust himself to answer, and when he made no sign thegirl went on, painfully:
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to seem bold. I owe you so much; we weresuch good friends--" In spite of her efforts her voice showed hersuffering.
The man felt his lonely heart swell with the wild impulse to tell herall, to voice his love in one breathless torrent of words that wouldundeceive her. The strain of repression lent him added brusquenesswhen he strove to explain, and his coldness left her sorely hurt.His indifference filled her with a sense of betrayal; it chilled theimpulsive yearning in her breast. She had battled long with herselfbefore coming and now she repented of her rashness, for it was plainhe did not need her. This certainty left her sick and listless,therefore she bade him adieu a few moments later, and with achingthroat went blindly out and down the stairs.
The instant she was gone Austin leaped to his feet; the agony of deathwas upon his features. Breathlessly he began to count:
"One! Two! Three--!"
He felt himself smothering, and with one sweep of his hand ripped thecollar from his throat.
"Five! Six! Seven--!"
He was battling like a drowning man, for, in truth, the very breath ofhis life was leaving him. A drumming came into his ears. He felt thathe must call out to her before it was too late. He was counting aloudnow, his voice like the moan of a man on the rack.
"Nine! Ten--!"
A frenzy to voice his sufferings swept over him, but he held himself.Only a moment more and she would be gone; her life would be sparedthis dark shadow, and she would never know, but he--he would indeed beface to face with darkness.
Toward the last he was reeling, but he continued to tell off theseconds with the monotonous regularity of a timepiece, his every powercentered on that process. The idea came to him that he was countinghis own flickering pulse-throbs for the last time. With a tremendouseffort of will he smoothed his face and felt his way to the openwindow, for by now she must be entering the landau. A moment laterand she would turn to waft him her last adieu. Her last! God! How theseconds lagged! That infernal thumping in his ears had drowned thenoises from the street below. He felt that for all time the torture ofthis moment would live with him.
Then he smiled! He smiled blindly out into the glaring sunlight, andbowed. And bowed and smiled again, clinging to the window-casing tosupport himself. By now she must have reached the corner. He freed onehand and waved it gaily, then with outflung arms he stumbled back intothe room, the hot tears coursing down his cheeks.
Marmion Moore halted upon the stairs and felt mechanically for hergold chatelaine. She recalled dropping it upon the center-table as shewent forward with hands outstretched to Austin; so she turned back,then hesitated. But he was leaving to-morrow; surely he wouldnot misinterpret the meaning of her reappearance. Summoning herself-control, she remounted the stairs quickly.
The door was half ajar as she had left it in her confusion. Musteringa careless smile, she was about to knock, then paused. Austin wasfacing her in the middle of the room, beating time. He was countingaloud--but was that his voice? In the brief instant she had been gonehe had changed astoundingly. Moreover, notwithstanding the fact thatshe stood plainly revealed, he made no sign of recognition, but merelycounted on and on, with the voice of a dying man. She divined thatsomething was sadly amiss; she wondered for an instant if the man hadlost his senses.
She stood transfixed, half-minded to flee, yet held by some pityingdesire to help; then she saw him reach forward and grope his wayuncertainly to the window. In his progress he stumbled against achair; he had to feel for the casing. Then she knew.
Marmion Moore found herself inside the room, staring with wide,affrighted eyes at the man whose life she had spoiled. She pressed herhands to her bosom to still its heavings. She saw Austin nodding downat the street below; she saw his ghastly attempt to smile; she heardthe breath sighing from his lungs and heard him muttering her name.Then he turned and lurched past her, groping, groping for his chair.She cried out, sharply, in a stricken voice:
"Mr. Austin!"
The man froze in his tracks; he swung his head slowly from side toside, as if listening.
"What!" The word came like the crack of a gun. Then, after a moment,"Marmion!" He spoke her name as if to test his own hearing. It was thefirst time she had ever heard him use it.
She slipped forward until within an arm's-length of him, thenstretched forth a wildly shaking hand and passed it before hisunwinking eyes, as if she still disbelieved. Then he heard her moan.
"Marmion!" he cried again. "My God! little girl, I--thought I heardyou go!"
"Then this, _this_ is the reason," she said. "Oh-h-h!"
"What are you doing here? Why did you come back?" he demanded,brutally.
"I forgot my--No! God sent me back!"
There was a pause, during which the man strove to master himself; thenhe asked, in the same harsh accents:
"How long have you been here?"
"Long enough to see--and to understand."
"Well, you know the truth at last. I--have gone--blind." The last wordcaused his lips to twitch. He knew from the sound that she was weepingbitterly. "Please don't. I've used my eyes too much, that is all. Itis--nothing."
"No! No! No!" she said, brokenly. "Don't you think I understand? Don'tyou think I see it all now? But why--why didn't you tell me? Why?"When he did not answer she repeated: "God sent me back. I--I was notmeant to be so unhappy."
Austin felt himself shaken as if by a panic. He cried, hurriedly:"You see, we've been such good friends. I knew it would distress you.I--wanted to spare you that! You were a good comrade to me; we werelike chums. Yes, we were chums. No friend could have been dearer to methan you, Miss Moore. I never had a sister, you know. I--I thought ofyou that way, and I--" He was struggling desperately to save the girl,but his incohere
nt words died on his lips when he felt her come closeand lay her cheek against his arm.
"You mustn't try to deceive me any more," she said, gently. "I washere. I know the truth, and--I want to be happy."
Even then he stood dazed and disbelieving until she continued:
"I know that you love me, and that I love you."
"It is pity!" he exclaimed, hoarsely. "You don't mean it."
But she drew herself closer to him and turned her tear-stained face upto his, saying, wistfully, "If your dear eyes could have seen, theywould have told you long ago."
"Oh, my love!" He was too weak to resist longer. His arms weretrembling as they enfolded her, but in his heart was a gladness thatcomes to but few men.
"And you won't go away without me, will you?" she questioned,fearfully.
"No, no!" he breathed. "Oh, Marmion, I have lost a little, but I havegained much! God has been good to me."