"When Leslie asks you to-night to marry him, you are to say that you will do so," said Sara, betraying no sign of having heard the bitter words.
"I shall refuse, Sara," said Hetty, every vestige of colour gone from her face.
"There is an alternative," announced the other deliberately.
"You will expose me to--him? To his family?"
"I shall turn you over to them, to let them do what they will with you. If you go as his wife, the secret is safe. If not, they may have you as you really are, to destroy, to annihilate. Take your choice, my dear."
"And you, Sara?" asked the girl quietly. "What explanation will you have to offer for all these months of protection?"
Her companion stared. "Has the prospect no terror for you?"
"Not now. Not since I have found you out. The thing I have feared all along has come to pa.s.s. I am relieved, now that you show me just where I truly stand. But, I asked: what of you?"
"The world is more likely to applaud than to curse me, Hetty. It likes a new sensation. My change of heart will appear quite natural."
"Are you sure that the world will applaud your real design? You hate the Wrandalls. Will they be charitable toward you when the truth is given out? Will Leslie applaud you? Listen, please: I am trying to save you from yourself, Sara. You will fail in everything you have hoped for. You will be more accursed than I. The world will pity me, it may even forgive me. It will listen to my story, which is more than you will do, and it will believe me. Ah, I am not afraid now. At first I was in terror. I had no hope of escape.
All that is past. To-day I am ready to take my chances with the big, generous world. Men will try me, and men are not made of stone and steel. They punish but they do not avenge when they sit in jury boxes. They are not women! Good G.o.d, Sara, is there a man living to-day who could have planned this thing you have cherished all these months? Not one! And all men will curse you for it, even though they send me to prison or to the--chair. But they will not condemn me. They will hear my story and they will set me free. And then, what of you?"
Sara stood perfectly rigid, regarding this earnest reasoner with growing wonder.
"My dear," she said, "you would better be thinking of yourself, not of me."
"Why, when I tell my story, the world will hate you, Sara Wrandall.
You have helped me, you have been good to me, no matter what sinister motive you may have had in doing so. It is my turn to help you."
"To help me!" cried Sara, astonished in spite of herself.
"Yes. To save you from execration--and even worse."
"There is no moral wrong in marriage with Leslie Wrandall," said Sara, returning to her own project.
"No moral wrong!" cried Hetty, aghast. "No, I suppose not," she went on, a moment later. "It is something much deeper, much blacker than moral wrong. There is no word for it. And if I marry him, what then? Wherein lies your triumph? You can"t mean that--G.o.d in Heaven! You would not go to them with the truth when it was too late for him to--to cast me off!"
"I am no such fool as that. The secret would be for ever safe in that event. My triumph, as you call it, we will not discuss."
"How you must hate me, to be willing to do such an infamous thing to me!"
"I do not hate you, Hetty."
"In heaven"s name, what do you call it?"
"Justification. Listen to me now. I am saying this for your good sense to seize and appreciate. Would it be right in me to allow you to marry any other man, knowing all that I know? There is but one man you can in justice marry: the one who can repair the wreck that his own blood created. Not Brandon Booth, nor any man save Leslie Wrandall. He is the man who must pay."
"I do not intend to marry," said Hetty.
"But Leslie will marry some one, and I intend that it shall be you.
He shall marry the ex-chorus girl, the artist"s model, the--the prost.i.tute! Wait! Don"t fly at me like that! Don"t a.s.sume that look of virtuous horror! Let me say what I have to say. This much of your story shall they know, and no more. They will be proud of you!"
Hetty"s eyes were blazing. "You use that name--you call me THAT--and yet you have kissed me, caressed me--loved me!" she cried hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion.
"He will ask you to-night for the second time. You will accept him.
That is all."
"You must take back what you have just said to me--of me,--Sara Wrandall. You must unsay it! You must beg my pardon for THAT!"
"I draw no line between mistress and prost.i.tute."
"But I--"
"Enough!"
"You wrong me vilely! You must let me--"
"I have an excellent memory, and it serves me well."
Hetty suddenly threw herself upon the couch and buried her face in her arms. Great sobs shook her slender frame.
Sara stood over her and watched for a long time with pitiless eyes.
Then a queer, uneasy, wondering light began to develop in those dark, ominous eyes. She leaned forward the better to listen to the choked, inarticulate words that were pouring from the girl"s lips.
At last, moved by some power she could not have accounted for, she knelt beside the quivering body, and laid her hand, almost timorously, upon the girl"s shoulder.
"Hetty,--Hetty, if I have wronged you in--in thinking that of you,--I--I--" she began brokenly. Then she lifted her eyes, and the harsh light tried to steal back into them. "No, no! What am I saying? What a fool I am to give way--"
"You have wronged me--terribly, terribly!" came in smothered tones from the cushions. "I did not dream you thought that of me."
"What was I to think?"
Hetty lifted her head and cried out: "You would not let me speak!
You refused to hear my story. You have been thinking this of me all along, holding it against me, d.a.m.ning me with it, and I have been closer to you than--My G.o.d, what manner of woman are you?"
Sara seized her hands and held them in a fierce, tense grip. Her eyes were glowing with a strange fire.
"Tell me--tell me now, on your soul, Hetty;--were you--were you--"
"No! No! On my soul, no!"
"Look into my eyes!"
The girl"s eyes did not falter. She met the dark, penetrating gaze of the other and, though dimmed by tears, her blue eyes were steadfast and resolute. Sara seemed to be searching the very soul of her, the soul that laid itself bare, denuded of every vestige of guile.
"I--I think I believe you," came slowly from the lips of the searcher. "You are looking the truth. I can see it. Hetty, Hetty, I--I don"t understand myself. It is so--so overwhelming, so tremendous. It is so incredible. Am I really believing you? Is it possible that I have been wrong in--"
"Let me tell you everything," cried the girl, suddenly throwing her arms about her.
"Not now! Wait! Give me time to think. Go away now. I want to be alone." She arose and pushed the girl toward the door. Her eyes were fixed on her in a wondering, puzzled sort of way, and she was shaking her head as if trying to discredit the new emotion that had come to displace the one created ages ago.