She had bowed her head upon her arms amid the sofa cushions and was crying. He sprang to his feet and bent over her.
"Why, Madeline," he said again, "I beg your pardon. I"m sorry--"
"Oh, it isn"t that," she sobbed. "It isn"t that. I don"t care what you said."
"What is it, then?"
She raised her head and looked at him.
"It is you," she cried. "It is myself. It is everything. It is all wrong. I--I was so happy and--and now I am miserable. Oh--oh, I wish I were dead!"
She threw herself upon the cushions again and wept hysterically. He stood above her, stroking her hair, trying to soothe her, to comfort her, and all the time he felt like a brute, a heartless beast. At last she ceased crying, sat up and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief.
"There!" she exclaimed. "I will not be silly any longer. I won"t be! I WON"T! ... Now tell me: Why have you changed so?"
He looked down at her and shook his head. He was conscience-stricken and fully as miserable as she professed to be.
"I don"t know," he said. "I am older and--and--and I DON"T see things as I used to. If that book of mine had appeared three years ago I have no doubt I should have believed it to be the greatest thing ever printed.
Now, when people tell me it is and I read what the reviewers said and all that, I--I DON"T believe, I KNOW it isn"t great--that is, the most of it isn"t. There is some pretty good stuff, of course, but--You see, I think it wasn"t the poems themselves that made it sell; I think it was all the fool tommyrot the papers printed about me, about my being a hero and all that rubbish, when they thought I was dead, you know. That--"
She interrupted. "Oh, don"t!" she cried. "Don"t! I don"t care about the old book. I"m not thinking about that. I"m thinking about you. YOU aren"t the same--the same toward me."
"Toward you, Madeline? I don"t understand what you mean."
"Yes, you do. Of course you do. If you were the same as you used to be, you would let Father help you. We used to talk about that very thing and--and you didn"t resent it then."
"Didn"t I? Well, perhaps I didn"t. But I think I remember our speaking sometimes of sacrificing everything for each other. We were to live in poverty, if necessary, and I was to write, you know, and--"
"Stop! All that was nonsense, nonsense! you know it."
"Yes, I"m afraid it was."
"You know it was. And if you were as you used to be, if you--"
"Madeline!"
"What? Why did you interrupt me?"
"Because I wanted to ask you a question. Do you think YOU are exactly the same--as you used to be?"
"What do you mean?"
"Haven"t YOU changed a little? Are you as sure as you were then--as sure of your feeling toward me?"
She gazed at him, wide-eyed. "WHAT do you mean?"
"I mean ARE you sure? It has seemed to me that perhaps--I was out of your life for a long time, you know, and during a good deal of that time it seemed certain that I had gone forever. I am not blaming you, goodness knows, but--Madeline, isn"t there--Well, if I hadn"t come back, mightn"t there have been some one--else?"
She turned pale.
"What do--" she stammered, inarticulate. "Why, why--"
"It was Captain Blanchard, wasn"t it?"
The color came back to her cheeks with a rush. She blushed furiously and sprang to her feet.
"How--how can you say such things!" she cried. "What do you mean? How DARE you say Captain Blanchard took advantage of--How--how DARE you say I was not loyal to you? It is not true. It is not true. I was. I am.
There hasn"t been a word--a word between us since--since the news came that you were--I told him--I said--And he has been splendid! Splendid!
And now you say--Oh, what AM I saying? What SHALL I do?"
She collapsed once more among the cushions. He leaned forward.
"My dear girl--" he began, but she broke in.
"I HAVEN"T been disloyal," she cried. "I have tried--Oh, I have tried so hard--"
"Hush, Madeline, hush. I understand. I understand perfectly. It is all right, really it is."
"And I should have kept on trying always--always."
"Yes, dear, yes. But do you think a married life with so much trying in it likely to be a happy one? It is better to know it now, isn"t it, a great deal better for both of us? Madeline, I am going to my room. I want you to think, to think over all this, and then we will talk again. I don"t blame you. I don"t, dear, really. I think I realize everything--all of it. Good night, dear."
He stooped and kissed her. She sobbed, but that was all. The next morning a servant came to his room with a parcel and a letter. The parcel was a tiny one. It was the ring he had given her, in its case.
The letter was short and much blotted. It read:
Dear Albert:
I have thought and thought, as you told me to, and I have concluded that you were right. It IS best to know it now. Forgive me, please, PLEASE. I feel wicked and horrid and I HATE myself, but I think this is best. Oh, do forgive me. Good-by.
MADELINE.
His reply was longer. At its end he wrote:
Of course I forgive you. In the first place there is nothing to forgive.
The unforgivable thing would have been the sacrifice of your happiness and your future to a dream and a memory. I hope you will be very happy.
I am sure you will be, for Blanchard is, I know, a fine fellow. The best of fortune to you both.
The next forenoon he sat once more in the car of the morning train for Cape Cod, looking out of the window. He had made the journey from New York by the night boat and had boarded the Cape train at Middleboro. All the previous day, and in the evening as he tramped the cold wind-swept deck of the steamer, he had been trying to collect his thoughts, to readjust them to the new situation, to comprehend in its entirety the great change that had come in his life. The vague plans, the happy indefinite dreams, all the rainbows and roses had gone, shivered to bits like the reflection in a broken mirror. Madeline, his Madeline, was his no longer. Nor was he hers. In a way it seemed impossible.
He tried to a.n.a.lyze his feelings. It seemed as if he should have been crushed, grief-stricken, broken. He was inclined to reproach himself because he was not. Of course there was a sadness about it, a regret that the wonder of those days of love and youth had pa.s.sed. But the sorrow was not bitter, the regret was but a wistful longing, the sweet, lingering fragrance of a memory, that was all. Toward her, Madeline, he felt--and it surprised him, too, to find that he felt--not the slightest trace of resentment. And more surprising still he felt none toward Blanchard. He had meant what he said in his letter, he wished for them both the greatest happiness.
And--there was no use attempting to shun the fact--his chief feeling, as he sat there by the car window looking out at the familiar landscape, was a great relief, a consciousness of escape from what might have been a miserable, crushing mistake for him and for her. And with this a growing sense of freedom, of buoyancy. It seemed wicked to feel like that. Then it came to him, the thought that Madeline, doubtless, was experiencing the same feeling. And he did not mind a bit; he hoped she was, bless her!
A youthful cigar "drummer," on his first Down-East trip, sat down beside him.