CHAPTER XIX
THE FACE IN THE LOCKET
Left alone in the room she sat down again before the fire and drew fromher pocket the packet of letters. She knew them by heart, she had readand re-read them often when she had been alone. They had fascinated her.They were letters from some other man to this man's wife. They weresigned by an initial only and the identity of the writer was quiteunknown to her. The woman's replies were not with the others, but it waseasy enough to see what those replies had been. All the passion of whichthe woman had been capable had evidently been bestowed upon the writerof the letters she had treasured.
Her story was quite plain. She had married Newbold in a fit of pique. Hewas an Eastern man, the best educated, the most fascinating andinteresting of the men who frequented the camp. There had been a quarrelbetween the letter writer and the woman, there were always quarrels,apparently, but this had been a serious one and the man had savagelyflung away and left her. He had not come back as he usually did. Shehad waited for him and then she had married Newbold and then he hadcome back--too late!
He had wanted to kill the other, but she had prevented, and whileNewbold was away he had made desperate love to her. He had besought herto leave her husband, to go away with him. He had used every argumentthat he could to that end and the woman had hesitated and wavered, butshe had not consented; she had not denied her love for him any more thanshe had denied her respect and a certain admiration for her gallanttrusting husband. She had refused again and again the requests of herlover. She could not control her heart, nevertheless she had kept to hermarriage vows. But the force of her resistance had grown weaker and shehad realized that alone she would perhaps inevitably succumb.
Her lover had been away when her husband returned prior to that lastfateful journey. Enid Maitland saw now why she had besought him to takeher with him. She had been afraid to be left alone! She had not dared todepend upon her own powers any more, her only salvation had been to gowith this man whom she did not love, whom at times she almost hated, tokeep from falling into the arms of the man she did love. She had beenmore or less afraid of Newbold. She had soon realized, because she wasnot blinded by any passion as he, that they had been utterly mismated.She had come to understand that when the same knowledge of the truthcame to him, as it inevitably must some day, nothing but unhappinesswould be their portion.
Every kind of an argument in addition to those so passionately adducedin these letters urging her to break away from her husband and to seekhappiness for herself while yet there was time, had besieged her heart,had seconded her lover's plea and had assailed her will, and yet she hadnot given way.
Now Enid Maitland hated the woman who had enjoyed the first young loveof the man she herself loved. She hated her because of her priority ofpossession, because her memory yet came between her and that man. Shehated her because Newbold was still true to her memory, because Newbold,believing in the greatness of her passion for him, thought it shame anddishonor to his manhood to be false to her, no matter what love andlonging drew him on.
Yet there was a stern sense of justice in the bosom of this young woman.She exulted in the successful battle the poor woman had waged for thepreservation of her honor and her good name, against such odds. It was asex triumph for which she was glad. She was proud of her for the sternrigor with which she had refused to take the easiest way and thedesperation with which she had clung to him she did not love, but towhom she was bound by the laws of God and man, in order that she mightnot fall into the arms of the man she did love, in defiance of right.
Enid Maitland and this woman were as far removed from each other as theopposite poles of the earth, but there was yet a common quality in eachone, of virtuous womanhood, of lofty morality. Natural, perhaps, in theone and to be expected; unnatural, perhaps, and to be unexpected in theother, but there! Now that she knew what love was and what its power andwhat its force--for all that she had felt and experienced and dreamedabout before were as nothing to what it was since he had spoken--shecould understand what the struggle must have been in that woman's heart.She could honor her, reverence her, pity her.
She could understand the feeling of the man, too, she could think muchmore clearly than he. He was distracted by two passions, for his prideand his honor and for her; she had as yet but one, for him. And as therewas less turmoil and confusion in her mind, she was the more capable oflooking the facts in the face and making the right deduction from them.
She could understand how in the first frightful rush of his grief andremorse and love the very fact that Newbold had been compelled to killhis wife, of whom she guessed he was beginning to grow a little weary,under such circumstances had added immensely to his remorse andquickened his determination to expiate his guilt and cherish her memory.She could understand why he would do just as he had done, go into thewilderness to be alone in horror of himself and in horror of his fellowmen, to think only, mistakenly, of her.
Now he was paying the penalty of that isolation. Men were made to livewith one another, and no one could violate that law natural, or by solong an inheritance as to have so become, without paying that penalty.His ideas of loyalty and fidelity were warped, his conceptions of hisduty were narrow. There was something noble in his determination, it istrue, but there was something also very foolish. The dividing linebetween wisdom and folly is sometimes as indefinite as that betweencomedy and tragedy, between laughter and tears. If the woman he hadmarried and killed had only hated him and he had known, it would havebeen different, but since he believed so in her love he could do nothingelse.
At that period in her reflections Enid Maitland saw a great light. Thewoman had not loved her husband after all, she had loved another. Thatpassion of which he had dreamed had not been for him. By a strange chainof circumstances Enid Maitland held in her hand the solution of theproblem. She had but to give him these letters to show him that hisgolden image had stood upon feet of clay, that the love upon which hehad dwelt was not his. Once convinced of that he would come quickly toher arms. She cried a prayer of blessing on old Kirkby and started toher feet, the letters in hand, to call Newbold back to her and tell him,and then she stopped.
Woman as she was, she had respect for the binding conditions and laws ofhonor as well as he. Chance, nay, Providence, had put the honor of thiswoman, her rival, in her hands. The world had long since forgotten thispoor unfortunate; in no heart was her memory cherished save in that ofher husband. His idea of her was a false one, to be sure, but not evento procure her own happiness could Enid Maitland overthrow that ideal,shatter that memory.
She sat down again with the letters in her hand. It had been very simplea moment since, but it was not so now. She had but to show him thoseletters to remove the great barrier between them. She could not do it.It was clearly impossible. The reputation of her dead sister who hadstruggled so bravely to the end was in her hands, she could notsacrifice her even for her own happiness.
Quixotic, you say? I do not think so. She had blundered unwittingly,unwillingly, upon the heart secret of the other woman, she could notbetray it. Even if the other woman had been really unfaithful in deed aswell as in thought to her husband, Enid could hardly have destroyed hisrecollection of her. How much more impossible it was since the otherwoman had fought so heroically and so successfully for her honor.Womanhood demanded her silence. Loyalty, honor, compelled her silence.
A dead hand grasped his heart and the same dead hand grasped hers. Shecould see no way out of the difficulty. So far as she knew, no humansoul except old Kirkby and herself knew this woman's story. She couldnot tell Newbold and she would have to impose upon Kirkby the samesilence as she herself exercised. There was absolutely no way in whichthe man could find out. He must cherish his dream as he would. She wouldnot enlighten him, she would not disabuse his mind, she could notshatter his ideal, she could not betray his wife. They might love asthe angels of heaven and yet be kept forever apart--by a scruple, anidea, a principle, an abstraction, honor, a name.
&nbs
p; Her mind told her these things were idle and foolish, but her soul wouldnot hear of it. And in spite of her resolutions she felt that eventuallythere would be some way. She would not have been a human woman if shehad not hoped and prayed that. She believed that God had created themfor each other, that He had thrown them together. She was enough of afatalist in this instance at least to accept their intimacy as theresult of His ordination. There must be some way out of the dilemma.
Yet she knew that he would be true to his belief, and she felt that shewould not be false to her obligation. What of that? There would be someway. Perhaps somebody else knew, and then there flashed into her mindthe writer of the letters. Who was he? Was he yet alive? Had he any partto play in this strange tragedy aside from that he had already essayed?
Sometimes an answer to a secret query is made openly. At this junctureNewbold came back. He stopped before her unsteadily, his face now markednot only by the fierceness of the storm outside, but by the fiercergrapple of the storm in his heart.
"You have a right," he began, "to know everything now. I can withholdnothing from you."
He had in his hand a picture and something yellow that gleamed in thelight. "There," he continued, extending them toward her, "is the pictureof the poor woman, who loved me and whom I killed, you saw it oncebefore."
"Yes," she nodded, taking it from him carefully and looking again in astrange commixture of pride, resentment and pity at the bold, somewhatcoarse, entirely uncultured, yet handsome face which gave no evidence ofthe moral purpose which she had displayed.
"And here," said the man, offering the other article, "is something thatno human eye but mine has ever seen since that day. It is a locket Itook from her neck. Until you came I wore it next my heart."
"And since then?"
"Since then I have been unworthy her as I am unworthy you, and I haveput it aside."
"Does it contain another picture?"
"Yes."
"Of her?"
"A man's face."
"Yours?"
He shook his head.
"Look and see," he answered. "Press the spring."
Suiting action to word the next second Enid Maitland found herselfgazing upon the pictured semblance of Mr. James Armstrong!
She was utterly unable to suppress an exclamation and a start ofsurprise at the astonishing revelation. The man looked at her curiously,he opened his mouth to question her, but she recovered herself in partat least and swiftly interrupted him in a panic of terror lest sheshould betray her knowledge.
"And what is the picture of another man doing in your wife's locket?"she asked to gain time, for she very well knew the reply; knew it,indeed, better than Newbold himself; who, as it happened, was equally inthe dark both as to the man and the reason.
"I don't know," answered the other.
"Did you know this man?"
"I never saw him in my life that I can recall."
"And have you--did you--"
"Did I suspect my wife?" he asked. "Never. I had too many evidences thatshe loved me and me alone for a ghost of suspicion to enter my mind. Itmay have been a brother, or her father in his youth."
"And why did you wear it?"
"Because I took it from her dead heart. Some day I shall find out whothe man is, and when I shall I know there will be nothing to herdiscredit in the knowledge."
Enid Maitland nodded her head. She closed the locket, laid it on thetable and pushed it away from her. So this was the man the woman hadloved, who had begged her to go away with him, this handsome Armstrongwho had come within an ace of winning her own affection, to whom she wasin some measure pledged!
How strangely does fate work out its purposes. Enid had come from theAtlantic seaboard to be the second woman that both these two men loved!
If she ever saw Mr. James Armstrong again, and she had no doubt that shewould, she would have some strange things to say to him. She held in herhands now all the threads of the mystery, she was master of all thesolutions, and each thread was as a chain that bound her.
"My friend," she said at last with a deep sigh, "you must forget thisnight and go on as before. You love me, thank God for that, but honorand respect interpose between us. And I love you, and I thank God forthat, too, but for me as well the same barrier rises. Whether we shallever surmount these barriers God alone knows. He brought us together, Heput that love in our hearts, we will have to leave it to Him to do asHe will with us both. Meanwhile we must go on as before."
"No," cried the man, "you impose upon me tasks beyond my strength; youdon't know what love like mine is, you don't know the heart hunger, theawful madness I feel. Think, I have been alone with a recollection forall these years, a man in the dark, in the night, and the light comes,you are here. The first night I brought you here I walked that room onthe other side of that narrow door like a lion pent up in bars of steel.I had only my own love, my own passionate adoration to move me then, butnow that I know you love me, that I see it in your eyes, that I hear itfrom your lips, that I mark it in the beat of your heart, can I keepsilent? Can I live on and on? Can I see you, touch you, breathe the sameair with you, be shut up in the same room with you hour after hour, dayafter day, and go on as before? I can't do it; it is an impossibility.What keeps me now from taking you in my arms and from kissing the colorinto your cheeks, from making your lips my own, from drinking the lightfrom your eyes?" He swayed near to her, his voice rose, "What restrainsme?" he demanded.
"Nothing," said the woman, never shrinking back an inch, facing him withall the courage and daring with which a goddess might look upon a man."Nothing but my weakness and your strength."
"Yes, that's it; but do not count too much upon the one or the other.Great God, how can I keep away from you. Life on the old terms isinsupportable. I must go."
"And where?"
"Anywhere, so it be away."
"And when?"
"Now."
"It would be death in the snow and in the mountains to-night. No, no,you can not go."
"Well, to-morrow then. It will be fair, I can't take you with me, but Imust go alone to the settlements, I must tell your friends you are here,alive, well. I shall find men to come back and get you. What I cannot doalone numbers together may effect. They can carry you over the worst ofthe trails, you shall be restored to your people, to your world again.You can forget me."
"And do you think?" asked the woman, "that I could ever forget you?"
"I don't know."
"And will you forget me?"
"Not as long as life throbs in my veins, and beyond."
"And I too," was the return.
"So be it. You won't be afraid to stay here alone, now."
"No, not since you love me," was the noble answer. "I suppose I must,there is no other way, we could not go on as before. And you will comeback to me as quickly as you can with the others?"
"I shall not come back. I will give them the direction, they can findyou without me. When I say good-by to you to-morrow it shall beforever."
"And I swear to you," asserted the woman in quick desperation, "if youdo not come back, they shall have nothing to carry from here but my deadbody. You do not alone know what love is," she cried resolutely, "and Iwill not let you go unless I have your word to return."
"And how will you prevent my going?"
"I can't. But I will follow you on my hands and knees in the snow untilI freeze and die unless I have your promise."
"You have beaten me," said the man hopelessly. "You always do. Honor,what is it? Pride, what is it? Self respect, what is it? Say the wordand I am at your feet, I put the past behind me."
"I don't say the word," answered the woman bravely, white faced, palelipped, but resolute. "To be yours, to have you mine, is the greatestdesire of my heart, but not in the coward's way, not at the expense ofhonor, of self respect--no not that way. Courage, my friend, God willshow us the way, and meantime good night."
"I shall start in the morning."
"Yes," she nodded
reluctantly but knowing it had to be, "but you won'tgo without bidding me good-bye."
"No."
"Good night then," she said extending her hand.
"Good night," he whispered hoarsely and refused it backing away. "Idon't dare to take it. I don't dare to touch you again. I love you so,my only salvation is to keep away."
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado Page 23