"Yes.... I don"t hear you very well.... Where are you?"
"I"m in New York, if you please, to sail for Europe next week! We left home last night.... Is that better?"
"Yes.... That"s much better."
Mr. V.V."s voice, over the long miles of wire, sounded strained and hard; but the girl noticed nothing, being full of novel thrills.
"Perhaps you can guess why I"ve called you up.... Though, you know, it was to be a secret unless you saw me again, and _I_ really don"t count a letter as seeing!..."
"I didn"t see you," came back the unfamiliar voice. "I am to blame."
"Ah, but the letter was just as good," said Carlisle, and laughed excitedly into the transmitter. And then, having never admitted any particular sense of guilt, having felt almost no "conviction of sin" as religious fellows would term it, she went on without the smallest embarra.s.sment: "You see, I flew into a panic for some reason, and didn"t mean for you ever to see me again. I ran away! And then I couldn"t get his letter out of mind--I"d never taken it in that he was so miserable, really!--and I was quite ashamed of being such a coward. And so," she said, the upward-lifting lip pressing the instrument in her eagerness, "I"ve called up now to say I want--"
His voice broke in, not with the burst of praise and thanksgiving she had looked for, but only to say abruptly and anti-climacterically:
"I can"t hear you. Will you say that again?"
However, but few words were needed, after all, to ring this climax.
Carlisle said, slowly and distinctly:
"I say I want you to tell Mr. Dalhousie now--and his father, too.
To-night, if you wish."
Then there was a desolating silence, out of which she heard something far off like a man groaning.
"h.e.l.lo!" she called sharply. "Are you there?"
"Where are you, Miss Heth?" was Dr. Vivian"s reply; and his voice was like the voice of the man who had groaned....
"Are you in your room at the hotel? Is your mother with you there?"
Singular words these, from the receiver of confidences and high favors.
There fell upon Cally a nameless fear.
"N-no--I"m alone--Why, what--"
"Could I speak to your mother a moment--first? I have some bad news. It would be better--"
"No--tell me! My mother"s at dinner. I--what are you talking about?..."
Had he betrayed her already, then? Was the town now ringing with her name? Had Colonel Dalhousie ...
Quite distinctly, though he evidently was not addressing her, she heard the man"s hard voice say: "This cannot be borne."
And then in a different voice, there came these words over the miles from Meeghan"s Grocery:
"Miss Heth;--I didn"t see you when I should have--and now we are just too late. I can"t reach Dal now."
"You--don"t mean?..."
"He is dead."
_"Dead!"_
And it was this girl"s shame, the fruit of her long fear, that her first feeling was one of base relief. So works Nature"s first law. Dal was dead; all was settled; there was nothing to tell now. And then, as by the turning of a corner, she came front to front with a sudden horror, and there unrolled before her a moment of blackness....
"You must not blame yourself too hard," came the distant voice, dropping out of s.p.a.ce like the sentences of destiny. "It"s ... cruel, the way it"s happened. But you"ll always know you had the courage and the will to set him free, when you might--"
Carlisle"s hand clenched the edge of the little table where she sat.
"Tell me," said her voice, pitifully faint. "Did he ... I--must know--Did he ...?"
There was a roaring in her ears, but through it the words came clear as flame:
"He went out of his mind. I know that. That could not be foreseen. Not waiting ... he took his own life. It was this afternoon. A telegram came--from some friend of his...."
All further words, if more there were, bounded off from the sudden iron stillness within her. Mechanically she raised the receiver to the hook, for was not her talk with Meeghan"s quite finished? Jack Dalhousie had killed himself. Sackcloth and ashes would not get a telegram to him now.... And then, some flying remembrance of the bearer of the tidings struck through her numbness, and she caught down the receiver again and said indistinctly:
"I can"t talk any more now.... I"ll be all right...."
Then all thought stopped, and her head went forward upon her hands. The yellow plume nodded bravely....
Outside the door of the booth was the brilliant corridor, and beyond a glimpse of the dining-room, pretty with shaded lights, gay with music and talk, and eyes that stared unabashed. Somewhere in there were Mrs.
Heth and Canning, dining well.
The page stood near, the call-slip offered upon his tray. He, who admired her, was aware of a subtle distortion in this lady"s winning loveliness.
"Take it, please," said she, "to the lady at the table where you found me. And say I shall not come back to dinner."
Then Carlisle found herself in the cloak-room, which happened to be empty except for the smiling maid. She had hardly entered and repelled the woman"s overtures, when she heard the hurried step of her mother, brought quickly by the b.u.t.tons" strange words.
"Cally! Are you ill? What on earth"s happened?"
Cally sat stiffly in a chair against the wall, her face colorless.
Different, this, from the telling she had contemplated, not five minutes ago. What had happened, indeed?
She said in a small flat voice: "I heard some bad news--over the telephone. A man--has died. He killed himself, this afternoon--"
Commanding even in that moment, Mrs. Heth turned upon the hovering maid and said: "A gla.s.s of water."
When the woman had pa.s.sed out of earshot, she turned again, and put her two strong hands on Cally"s shoulders.
"What man? Who was this you called up long-distance?"
"Mr. Dalhousie," said Cally"s small voice. "I called up a friend of his...." She looked up fixedly at her mother and said: "Mamma, he did it because of me."
The name of ill omen staggered the mother a little. Her voice was half harsh, half frightened: