"And so you shouldered it," she whispered.
"I knew it would come out all right," he faltered.
"A reporter rang me up just now," ran on Arsdale. "He told me the whole thing. The papers are full of it. They--they say you "re great, Donaldson, but they don"t know _how_ great!"
"If you would n"t talk about it," pleaded Donaldson.
"Talk about it? I want to scream it! I want to get out and stand in Park Row and yell it. I want every living man and woman in the world to know about it!"
"It"s all over--it"s done with!"
"No," answered Arsdale, "it"s just begun. I feel weak in the knees. I must go--I must be alone a minute and think this over."
He staggered from the room and Donaldson turning to the girl, said gently, "Go to Marie now. She will need you."
"You," she exclaimed below her breath, "you are wonderful!"
He turned away his head and she left him there alone.
CHAPTER XXIV
_The Greater Master_
In the fifteen minutes that Donaldson waited in the library, he fought out with himself the question as to whether he had the strength to remain here in the house on this the day before the end.
In his decision he took into account his duty towards the boy, the possible danger to the girl, and his own growing pa.s.sion. There was but one answer: he owed it to them all to pull free while there was yet time. It would be foolhardy to risk here a full day and an evening.
He felt the approaching crisis more than he had at any time during the week.
At times he became panic-stricken at his powerlessness to check for even one brief pendulum-swing this steady tread of time. Time was such an intangible thing, and yet what a Juggernaut! There was nothing of it which he could get hold of to wrestle, and yet it was more powerful than Samson to throw him in the end. Sly, subtle, bodiless, soulless, impersonal; expressed in the big clock above the city, and in milady"s dainty watch rising and falling upon her breast; sweeping away cities and nursing to life violets; tearing down and building up; killing and begetting; bringing laughter and tears, it is consistent in one thing alone,--that it never ceases. There is but one word big enough to express it, and that is G.o.d. Without beginning, without end, and never ceasing. At times he grew breathless, so individualized did every second become, so fraught with haste. Where was he being dragged, and in the end would the seconds rest? No, they would go on just the same, and he might hear them even in his grave.
With his decision came the even more vital question as to what he should tell this girl. With the strength of his whole nature he craved the privilege of standing white before her. He longed to tell her the whole pitiful complication that he might stand before her without shadow of hypocrisy. He could then leave with his head up to meet his doom. But even this crumb of relief was refused him. To do this might break down the boy and would leave her, if only as a friend, to bear something of the ensuing hours. He must, then, leave her in darkness, suffering the lesser stings of doubt and suspicion and bewilderment.
He must leave her in false colors to whatever she might imagine.
She came back again with her lips quivering.
"Poor Marie," she gasped. "She lies there broken hearted, praying to die."
"I am sorry for her," he said gently.
"I feel the blame of it," she answered. "Why must the curse of the house have fallen upon her?"
"It is difficult to work out such matters," he replied. "But I don"t think you should shoulder the responsibility. We each of us must bear the burden of our own acts. It makes it even harder when another tries to relieve us of this."
"But I can"t relieve her. That is the pity of it. She turns away her head from me for she has taken upon herself all the responsibility for Jacques."
"That is the mother in her. There is nothing you can do."
"She will die of grief."
"Then she will be dead. So her relief will come."
The girl drew back a little.
"She must not die. I must not let her die."
She looked up at him as though she expected him even in this emergency to suggest some way out of it. But he was speechless.
"I must go back to her," she said after a minute. "I must go and comfort her."
"Yes," he said, "that is the best you can do. Take her hand and hold it. That is all you can do. Ben is upstairs?"
"Yes. I have n"t told him yet."
"Tell him," he advised. "It will help him to have an opportunity to help another."
"Then you will excuse me?"
"Of course. But there is something that I must tell you before you go.
I must leave you both now."
"You will come back to dinner with us?"
"I "m afraid I shall be unable. I start on a long journey. I must say good bye."
She fixed her eyes upon him in a new alarm, waiting for what he should say next. But that was all. That was all he had to say. In those two words, "Good bye," he bounded all that was in the past, all that was in the future.
"You have had some sudden call?"
"Yes."
"But you will come back again. Don"t--don"t make it sound so final."
"I have no hope of coming back."
"Oh," she cried, "I thought that now you might find a little rest."
"Perhaps I shall. I do not know. But before I go I wish to insist again that you and Ben leave this house and get back into the country somewhere. Don"t think I am presuming, but I should feel better if I knew you had this in mind. I see so clearly that it is the thing for you to do."
"Don"t speak as though you were going so far," she shuddered. "What will Ben do without you?"
"Get him away from these old surroundings. Let him make friends--clean, wholesome friends. Let him pursue his hobby. There are other places besides New York where he is needed. If he is kept busy I do not fear for him."
She tried to pierce the white mask he wore. It was quite useless. She knew that there was something in him now that she could not reach. Yet she felt that there was need of it. She felt that there was need that she of all women in the world should force her way into his soul and there comfort him as he had bidden her comfort Marie. She felt this with an insurge of pa.s.sion that left her girlhood behind forever. It swept away all thoughts of Ben, all thoughts of Marie, all thoughts of herself. She heard his voice as though in the distance.