"I won"t believe it of her!" he cried. "She couldn"t--"
"It"s true. He spoke to her in the woods one day; I was there and saw it. I know now that she knew him at once; and she ran away, but--not in anger. I shouldn"t be a very good friend of yours," I went on gently, "if I didn"t give you the truth. They"ve been together every day since then, and I"m afraid--miserably afraid, Ward--that her old feeling for him has been revived."
I have heard Ward use an oath only two or three times in my life, and this was one of them.
"Oh, by G.o.d!" he cried, starting to his feet; "I SHOULD like to meet Professor Keredec!"
"I am at your service, my dear sir," said a deep voice from the veranda. And opening the door, the professor walked into the room.
CHAPTER XIX
He looked old and tired and sad; it was plain that he expected attack and equally plain that he would meet it with fanatic serenity. And yet, the magnificent blunderer presented so fine an aspect of the tortured Olympian, he confronted us with so vast a dignity--the driven snow of his hair tousled upon his head and shoulders, like a storm in the higher alt.i.tudes--that he regained, in my eyes, something of his mountain grandeur before he had spoken a word in defence. But sympathy is not what one should be entertaining for an antagonist; therefore I said cavalierly:
"This is Mr. Ward, Professor Keredec. He is Mrs. Harman"s cousin and close friend."
"I had divined it." The professor made a French bow, and George responded with as slight a salutation as it has been my lot to see.
"We were speaking of your reasons," I continued, "for bringing Mr.
Harman to this place. Frankly, we were questioning your motive."
"My motives? I have wished to restore to two young people the paradise which they had lost".
Ward uttered an exclamation none the less violent because it was half-suppressed, while, for my part, I laughed outright; and as Keredec turned his eyes questioningly upon me, I said:
"Professor Keredec, you"d better understand at once that I mean to help undo the harm you"ve done. I couldn"t tell you last night, in Harman"s presence, but I think you"re responsible for the whole ghastly tragi-comedy--as hopeless a tangle as ever was made on this earth!"
This was even more roughly spoken than I had intended, but it did not cause him to look less mildly upon me, nor was there the faintest shadow of resentment in his big voice when he replied:
"In this world things may be tangled, they may be sad, yet they may be good."
"I"m afraid that seems rather a trite generality. I beg you to remember that plain-speaking is of some importance just now."
"I shall remember."
"Then we should be glad of the explanation," said Ward, resting his arms on my table and leaning across it toward Keredec.
"We should, indeed," I echoed.
"It is simple," began the professor. "I learned my poor boy"s history well, from those who could tell me, from his papers--yes, and from the bundles of old-time letters which were given me--since it was necessary that I should know everything. From all these I learned what a strong and beautiful soul was that lady who loved him so much that she ran away from her home for his sake. Helas! he was already the slave of what was bad and foolish, he had gone too far from himself, was overlaid with the habit of evil, and she could not save him then. The spirit was dying in him, although it was there, and IT was good--"
Ward"s acrid laughter rang out in the room, and my admiration went unwillingly to Keredec for the way he took it, which was to bow gravely, as if acknowledging the other"s right to his own point of view.
"If you will study the antique busts," he said, "you will find that Socrates is Silenus dignified. I choose to believe in the infinite capacities of all men--and in the spirit in all. And so I try to restore my poor boy his capacities and his spirit. But that was not all. The time was coming when I could do no more for him, when the little education of books would be finish" and he must go out in the world again to learn--all newly--how to make of himself a man of use.
That is the time of danger, and the thought was troubling me when I learned that Madame Harman was here, near this inn, of which I knew. So I brought him."
"The inconceivable selfishness, the devilish brutality of it!" Ward"s face was scarlet. "You didn"t care how you sacrificed her--"
"Sacrificed!" The professor suddenly released the huge volume of his voice. "Sacrificed!" he thundered. "If I could give him back to her as he is now, it would be restoring to her all that she had loved in him, the real SELF of him! It would be the greatest gift in her life."
"You speak for her?" demanded Ward, the question coming like a lawyer"s. It failed to disturb Keredec, who replied quietly:
"It is a quibble. I speak for her, yes, my dear sir. Her action in defiance of her family and her friends proved the strength of what she felt for the man she married; that she have remained with him three years--until it was impossible--proved its persistence; her letters, which I read with reverence, proved its beauty--to me. It was a living pa.s.sion, one that could not die. To let them see each other again; that was all I intended. To give them their new chance--and then, for myself, to keep out of the way. That was why--" he turned to me--"that was why I have been guilty of pretending to have that bad rheumatism, and I hope you will not think it an ugly trick of me! It was to give him his chance freely; and though at first I had much anxiety, it was done. In spite of all his wicked follies theirs had been a true love, and nothing in this world could be more inevitable than that they should come together again if the chance could be given. And they HAVE, my dear sirs! It has so happened. To him it has been a wooing as if for the first time; so she has preferred it, keeping him to his mistake of her name. She feared that if he knew that it was the same as his own he might ask questions of me, and, you see, she did not know that I had made this little plan, and was afraid--"
"We are not questioning Mrs. Harman"s motives," George interrupted hotly, "but YOURS!"
"Very well, my dear sir; that is all. I have explained them."
"You have?" I interjected. "Then, my dear Keredec, either you are really insane or I am! You knew that this poor, unfortunate devil of a Harman was tied to that hyenic prowler yonder who means to fatten on him, and will never release him; you knew that. Then why did you bring him down here to fall in love with a woman he can never have? In pity"s name, if you didn"t hope to half kill them both, what DID you mean?"
"My dear fellow," interposed George quickly, "you underrate Professor Keredec"s shrewdness. His plans are not so simple as you think. He knows that my cousin Louise never obtained a divorce from her husband."
"What?" I said, not immediately comprehending his meaning.
"I say, Mrs. Harman never obtained a divorce."
"Are you delirious?" I gasped.
"It"s the truth; she never did."
"I saw a notice of it at the time. "A notice?" I saw a hundred!"
"No. What you saw was that she had made an application for divorce. Her family got her that far and then she revolted. The suit was dropped."
"It is true, indeed," said Keredec. "The poor boy was on the other side of the world, and he thought it was granted. He had been bad before, but from that time he cared nothing what became of him. That was the reason this Spanish woman--"
I turned upon him sharply. "YOU knew it?"
"It is a year that I have known it; when his estate was--"
"Then why didn"t you tell me last night?"
"My dear sir, I could not in HIS presence, because it is one thing I dare not let him know. This Spanish woman is so hideous, her claim upon him is so horrible to him I could not hope to control him--he would shout it out to her that she cannot call him husband. G.o.d knows what he would do!"
"Well, why shouldn"t he shout it out to her?"
"You do not understand," George interposed again, "that what Professor Keredec risked for his "poor boy," in returning to France, was a trial on the charge of bigamy!"
The professor recoiled from the definite brutality. "My dear sir! It is not possible that such a thing can happen."
"I conceive it very likely to happen," said George, "unless you get him out of the country before the lady now installed here as his wife discovers the truth."
"But she must not!" Keredec lifted both hands toward Ward appealingly; they trembled, and his voice betrayed profound agitation. "She cannot!
She has never suspected such a thing; there is nothing that could MAKE her suspect it!"
"One particular thing would be my telling her," said Ward quietly.