XIV

BROWN'S TRIAL BY FIRE

He had gone alone into a den of Atchison's, where was kept a medley of books and pipes and weapons, a bachelor collection of trophies of all sorts. He was in search of a certain loving-cup which had been mentioned and asked for, and Atchison himself had for the moment left the apartment to see an insistent caller below. The den was at some distance from the place where the company was a.s.sembled, and Brown could hear their voices only in the remote distance as he searched. Suddenly a light sound as of the movement of silken draperies fell upon his ear, and at the same instant a low voice spoke. He swung about, to see a figure before him at sight of which, alone as he had been with it for months, he felt his unsubdued heart leap in his breast. By her face he knew she had followed him for a purpose. He let her speak.

"Donald Brown," she said--and she spoke fast and breathlessly, as if she feared, as he did, instant interruption and this were her only chance--"what you have said to-night makes me forget everything but what I want you to know."

Quite evidently her heart was beating synchronously with his, for he could see how it shook her. He stared at her, at the lovely line and colour of cheek and chin, at the wonderful shadowed eyes, at the soft darkness of her heavy hair. She was wearing misty white to-night, with one great red rose upon her breast; she was such a sight as might well blind a man, even if he were not already blind with love of her. The fragrance of the rose was in his nostrils--it a.s.sailed his senses as if it were a part of her, its fragrance hers. But he did not speak.

"You asked me something once," she went on, with an evident effort.

"Would you mind telling me if--if--"

But he would not help her. He could not believe he understood what she meant to say.

"You make it very hard for me," she murmured. "Yet I believe I understand why, if this thing is ever said at all, I must be the one to say it. Do you--Donald--do you--still--care?"

"_O G.o.d_!" he cried in his heart. "_O G.o.d! Couldn't You have spared me this_?"

But aloud, after an instant, he said, a little thickly, "I think you know without asking. I shall never stop caring."

She lifted her eyes. "Then--" and she waited.

He must speak. She had done her part. His head swam with the sudden astounding revelation that she was his for the taking, if--Ah, but the _if_! He knew too well what that must mean.

"Are you tempting me, too?" he asked, with sudden fierceness. "Do you mean--like all the rest--I may have you if--I give up my purpose and stay here?"

Mutely her eyes searched his. Dumb with the agony of it his searched hers in return. He turned away.

"Don!" Her voice was all low music. The words vibrated appealingly; she had seen what it meant to him. She put out one hand as if to touch him--and drew it back. "Listen to me, please. I know--I know--what a wonderful sacrifice you are making. I admire and honour you for it--I do.

But--think once more. This great parish--surely there is work for you here, wonderful work. Won't you do it--_with me_?"

He looked at her with sudden decision on his course.

"You left that photograph?" He spoke huskily.

She nodded.

"You left it there, in my poor house. I've cherished it there. It hasn't suffered. You wouldn't suffer. Will you live--and work--with me--_there_?"

"Oh!" She drew back. "How can you--Do you realize what you ask?"

"I don't ask it expecting to receive it. I know it's impossible--from your viewpoint. But--it's--all I have to ask--"

He broke off, fighting savagely with the desire to seize her in his arms that was all but overmastering him.

She moved away a step in her turn, standing, with down-bent head, the partial line of her profile, the curve of her neck and beautiful shoulder, presenting an even greater appeal to the devouring flame of his longing than her eyes had done. It seemed to him that he would give the heart out of his body even to press his lips upon that fair flesh just below the low-drooping ma.s.ses of her hair, flesh exquisite as a child's in contrast with the dark locks above it. All the long months of his exile pressed upon him with mighty force to urge him to a.s.suage his loneliness with this divine balm.

Suddenly she spoke, just above a whisper. "I wonder," she said, "if any woman ever humiliated herself--like this--to be so refused."

He answered that with swift, eager words: "It is the most womanly, the most wonderful thing, any woman could do for a man. I shall never forget it, or cease to honour you for it. I love you--_love you_--for it--ten thousand times more than I loved you before, if that can be. I _must_ say it. I must put it into words that you and I can both remember, or I think my heart will burst. But--Helena--I have vowed this vow to my G.o.d. I have put my hand to this plow. I can't turn back--not even for you. No man, having done that, '_and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of G.o.d_.' He isn't fit for the kingdoms of earth, either. He isn't fit for--h.e.l.l!"

Very slowly she moved away from him, her head still drooping. At the door she did not pause and look back, actress-like, to try him with one more look. She went like a wounded thing. And at the sight, the wild impulse to rush after her and cry to her that nothing in the wide universe mattered, so that she should lift that head and lay it on his breast, gripped him and wrung him, till drops of moisture started out upon his forehead, and he turned sick. Then she was out of sight, and he stood grasping the back of a chair, fighting for control. This was a dinner-party--a dinner-party! Kind G.o.d in heaven! And he and she must go back to those other people and smile and talk, must somehow cover it all up. How was it conceivably to be done?

She could do it, perhaps. After all, it could not be the soul-stirring thing to her that it was to him. She loved him enough to be his wife--under the old conditions. She did not love him enough to go with him as his wife into the new conditions. Then she could not be suffering as he was suffering. Wounded pride--she was feeling that, no doubt of it--wounded pride is not a pleasant thing to feel. She loved him somewhat, loved him enough to take the initiative in this scene to-night.

But real love--she could not know what that was, or she would follow him to the ends of the earth. It was the woman's part to follow, not the man's. Hers to give up her preference for his duty. Since she could not do this, she did not really love him. This was the bitterest drop in the whole bitter cup!

Footsteps came rapidly along the corridor, Webb Atchison appeared in the doorway. At the first sound of his return Brown had wheeled and was found standing before a cabinet, in which behind gla.s.s doors was kept a choice collection of curios from all parts of the world. He was trying to summon words to explain that he was looking for a certain loving-cup--_a loving-cup_--when one had just been presented, full to overflowing, to his thirsty lips, and he had refused to drink!

But Atchison was full of his message.

"Don, I've done my best to put the fellow off, but he will see you. Hang it!--to-night of all nights! I don't know why that following of yours should pursue you to this place. I suspect it will be considerable of a jolt to that chap to see you in an expanse of white shirt-front. But it seems somebody has been taken worse since you left, and insists on seeing you. Why in thunder did you leave an address for them to find you at?"

By the time Atchison had delivered himself of all this Brown had hold of himself, could turn and speak naturally. The news had been like a dash of cold water in the face of a fainting man.

"Who is worse--Mr. Benson?"

"Think that was the name--an old man. The messenger's waiting, though I told him you certainly couldn't go back to-night."

"I certainly shall go back to-night. Where is he?"

Expostulating uselessly, Atchison led the way. Brown found Andrew Murdison standing with a look of dogged determination on his face, which changed to one of relief when he saw Brown. Old Benson, the watchmaker, who had been convalescing from illness when Brown came away, had suffered a relapse and had probably but few hours to live.

With a brief leave-taking, in the course of which Brown held for an instant the hand of Helena Forrest and found it cold as ice in his grasp, he went away. As the train bore him swiftly back to the place he had left so recently, certain words came to him and stayed by him, fitting themselves curiously to the rhythmic roar of the train:

"_G.o.d is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it_."

And the car wheels, as they turned, seemed to be saying, mile after mile: "_A way to escape--a way to escape--a way to escape_!"

XV

BROWN'S BROWN STUDY

Standing in his kitchen doorway, Brown looked out into his back yard.

It was, in one way, an unusual back yard for that quarter of the city, and in that one way it differed from the back yards of his neighbours.

While theirs were bounded on all sides by high and ugly board fences, his was encompa.s.sed by a stone wall standing even higher, and enclosing the small area of possibly forty feet by thirty in a privacy quite unknown elsewhere in the district. This stone wall had been laid by the Englishman who had built the house, his idea of having things to himself being the product of his early life in a country where not only is every man's house his castle, but the surrounding ground thereof, as well, his domain, from which he would keep out every curious eye.

It was an evening in mid-April. Brown had opened the big oak door to let the late western light of the spring day flood his kitchen, while he washed and put away the dishes lately used for his supper--and for that of a forlorn and ill-used specimen of tramp humanity who had arrived as he was sitting down.

He was presently to address a gathering of factory girls in a near-by schoolhouse; and he was trying, as he stood in the door, with the soft spring air touching gratefully his face, to gather his thoughts together for the coming talk. But he was weary with a long day's labours, and somehow his eyes could summon no vision of the faces he was to see. Instead--

"There ought to be a garden back here," he said to himself. "If I'm to stay here for the coming year--as it looks as if I must--I should cultivate this little patch and make it smile a bit. As it is, it's doing no good to anybody, not even Bim. He's pretty careless about his bones out here, and leaves them around instead of burying 'em decently. I must teach him better. This would be a good place to bring the children into, if it had some flowers in it."