"You have your eyes, Peter," she exclaimed exultingly. "She can"t take those away from you again!"
"Hush," he warned. "You must never blame her for anything."
"You mean you still--"
"Still and forever, little sister," he answered. "But we must not talk of that."
"Poor Peter," she trembled.
"Rich Peter!" he corrected, with a wan smile. "There are so many who have n"t as much as that."
He went back to his room. The next thing to do was to write some sort of explanation to Covington. His ears burned as he thought of the other letter he had sent. How it must have bored into the man! How it must have hurt! He had been forced to read the confession of love of another man for his wife. The wonder was that he had not taken the next train back and knocked down the writer. It must be that he understood the hopelessness of such a pa.s.sion. Perhaps he had smiled!
Only that was not like Covington. Rather, he had gripped his jaws and stood it.
But if it had hurt and he hankered for revenge, he was to have it now.
He, Noyes, had bared his soul to the husband and confessed a love that now he must stand up and recant. That was punishment enough for any man. He must do that, too, without violating any of Marjory"s confidences--without helping in any way to disentangle the pitiful snarl that it was within his power to disentangle. She whose happiness might partly have recompensed him for what he had to do, he must still leave unhappy. As far as he himself was concerned, however, he was ent.i.tled to tell the truth. He could not recant his love. That would be false. But he had no right to it--that was what he must make Covington understand.
_Dear Covington_ [he began]: I am writing this with my eyes open. The miracle I spoke of came to pa.s.s. Also a great many other things have come to pa.s.s. You"ll realize how hard it is to write about them after that other letter, when I tell you I have learned the truth: that Marjory is Mrs. Covington. She told me herself, when our relations reached a crisis where she had to tell.
I feel, naturally, as if I owed you some sort of apology; and yet, when I come to frame it, I find myself baffled. Of course I"m leaving for home as soon as possible--probably to-morrow. Of course if I had known the truth I should have left long ago, and that letter would never have had any occasion for being written. I"m a.s.suming, Covington, that you will believe that without any question. You knew what I did not know and did not tell me even after you knew how I felt. I suppose you felt so confident of her that you trusted her absolutely to handle an affair of this sort herself.
I want to say right here, you were justified. Whatever in that other letter I may have said to lead you to believe she had come to care for me in the slightest was a result solely of my own self-delusion and her innate gentleness. I have discovered that my sister, meaning no harm, went to her and told her that the restoration of my sight depended upon her interest in me. It was manifestly unfair of my sister to put it that way, but the little woman was thinking only of me. I"m sorry it was done. Evidently it was the basis upon which she made the feeble promise I spoke of, and which I exaggerated into something more.
She cared for me no more than for a friend temporarily afflicted.
That"s all, Covington. Neither in word nor thought nor deed has she ever gone any further. Looking back upon the last few days now, it is clear enough. Rather than hurt me, she allowed me to talk--allowed me to believe. Rather, she suffered it. It was not pleasant for her.
She endured it because of what my sister had said. It seems hard luck that I should have been led in this fashion to add to whatever other burdens she may have had.
I ask you to believe--it would be an impertinence, except for what I told you before--that on her side there has been nothing between us of which you could not approve.
Now for myself. In the light of what I know to-day, I could not have written you of her as I did. Yet, had I remained silent, all I said would have remained just as much G.o.d"s truth as then. Though I must admit the utter hopelessness of my love, I see no reason why I should think of attempting to deny that love. It would n"t be decent to myself, to you, or to her. It began before you came into her life at all. It has grown bigger and cleaner since then. It persists to-day.
I"m talking to you as man to man, Covington. I know you won"t confuse that statement with any desire on my part--with any hope, however remote--to see that love fulfilled further than it is fulfilled to-day.
That delusion has vanished forever. I shall never entertain it again, no matter what course your destiny or her destiny may take. I cannot make that emphatic enough, Covington. It is based upon a certain knowledge of facts which, unfortunately, I am not at liberty to reveal to you.
So, as far as my own emotions are concerned then, I retract nothing of what I told you. In fact, to-day I could say more. To me she is and ever will be the most wonderful woman who ever lived. Thinking of you before, I said there ought to be two of her, so that one might be left for you. Now, thinking of myself, I would to G.o.d there were two of her, so that one might be left for me. Yet that is inconceivable. It might be possible to find another who looked like her; who thought like her; who was willing for the big things of life like her. But this other would not be Marjory. Besides everything else she has in common with other women, she has something all her own that makes her herself.
It"s that something that has got hold of me, Covington.
I don"t suppose it"s in particularly good taste for me to talk to you of your wife in this fashion; but it"s my dying speech, old man, as far as this subject is concerned, and I "m talking to you and to no one else.
There"s just one thing more I want to say. I don"t want either you or Marjory to think I"m going out of your lives a martyr--that I"m going off to pine and die. The first time she left me I made an a.s.s of myself, and that was because I had not then got hold of the essential fact of love. As I see it now, love--real love--does not lie in the personal gratification of selfish desires. The wanting is only the first stage. Perhaps it is a ruse of Nature to entice men to the second stage, which is giving.
Until recently my whole thought was centered on getting. I was thinking of myself alone. It was baffled desire and injured vanity that led me to do what I did before, and I was justly punished. It was when I began to think less about myself and more about her that I was reprieved. I"m leaving her now with but one desire: to do for her whatever I may, at any time and in any place, to make her happy; and, because of her, to do the same for any others with whom for the rest of my life I may be thrown in contact. Thus I may be of some use and find peace.
I"m going away, Covington. That will leave her here alone. Wherever you are, there must be trains back to Nice--starting perhaps within the hour.
So long.
PETER J. NOYES.
CHAPTER XXVI
FREEDOM
With the departure of Peter and his sister--Peter had made his leave-taking easy by securing an earlier train than she had expected and sending her a brief note of farewell--Marjory found herself near that ideal state of perfect freedom she had craved. There was now no outside influence to check her movements. If she remained where she was, there was no one to interrupt her in the solitary pursuit of her own pleasure. Safe from any possibility of intrusion, she was at liberty to remain in the seclusion of her room; but, if she preferred, she could walk the quay without the slightest prospect in the world of being forced to recognize the friendly greeting of any one.
Peter was gone; Beatrice was gone; and Monte was gone. There was no one else--unless by some chance poor Teddy Hamilton should turn up, which was so unlikely that she did not even consider it. Yet there were moments when, if she had met Teddy, she would have smiled a welcome. She would not have feared him. There was only one person in the world now of whom she stood in fear, and he was somewhere along the English coast, playing a poor game of golf.
She was free beyond her most extravagant dreams--absolutely free. She was so free that it seemed aimless to rise in the morning, because there was nothing awaiting her attention. She was so free that there was no object in breakfasting, because there was no obligation demanding her strength. She was so free that whether she should go out or remain indoors depended merely upon the whim of the moment. There was for her nothing either without or within.
For the first twenty-four hours she sat in a sort of stupor.
Marie became anxious.
"Madame is not well?" she asked solicitously.
"Perfectly well," answered Marjory dully.
"Madame"s cheeks are very white," Marie ventured further.
Madame shrugged her shoulders.
"Is there any harm in that?" she demanded.
"It is such a beautiful day to walk," suggested Marie.
Marjory turned slowly.
"What do you mean by beautiful?"
"Ma foi, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, the birds singing,"
explained Marie.
"Do those things make a beautiful day?"
"What else, madame?" inquired the maid, in astonishment.
"I do not know," sighed madame. "All I know is that for me those things do not count at all."
"Then," declared Marie, "it is time to call a doctor."
"For what?"
"To make madame see the blue sky again and hear the birds."
"But I do not care whether I see them or not," concluded madame, turning away from the subject.