Half an hour after Derek's return Diane was summoned into his presence in the little room where she had arranged his letters in the afternoon. The door was standing open, and she went in slowly, her head high. She was dressed as when she had parted from him; and the whiteness of her neck and shoulders, free from jewels, collar, or chain, was the more brilliant from contrast with the severe line of black. In her pale face all expression was focussed into the pained inquiry of her eyes.
She entered so silently that he did not hear her, or lift his head from the hand on which it leaned wearily, as he rested his elbow on the desk. Pausing in the middle of the room, she had time to notice that he had opened a few of the letters lying before him, but had thrust them impatiently from him, evidently unread. The cablegram she had laid where his glance would immediately fall upon it was between his fingers, but the envelope was unbroken. His attitude was so much that of a man tired and dispirited that her heart went out to him.
It was perhaps the involuntary sigh that broke from her lips that caused him to look up. When he did so his eyes fixed themselves on her with a dazed stare, as though he wondered whence and for what she had come. In the eager attention with which she regarded him she noted subconsciously that he was unshaven and ill-kempt, and that his eyes, as Dorothea had said, were bloodshot.
He dragged himself to his feet, and with forced courtesy asked her to sit down. She allowed herself to sink mechanically to the edge of the divan where, only an hour ago, Dorothea and she had exchanged happy confidences. In the minutes of silence that followed, when he had resumed his own seat, she felt as if she were in some queer nightmare, where nothing could be explained.
"Did you ever hear of a young French explorer named Persigny?"
She nodded, without speaking. The irrelevancy of the question was in keeping with the odd horror of the dream.
"Did you know he was exploring in Brazil?"
"I think I may have heard so."
"He came up from Rio with me--on the same steamer."
She listened, with eyes fixed fast upon him, wondering what he meant.
"He wasn't alone," Derek went on, speaking in a lifeless monotone. "There were others of his party with him. There was one, especially, with whom I became on terms that were almost--intimate."
For the first time it occurred to her that he was trying to see through her thoughts; but in her bewilderment at his words, she met his gaze steadily.
"There was something about this young man that attracted me," he continued, in the same dull voice, "and I listened to his troubles. In particular he told me why he had fled from Paris to hide himself in the forests of the Amazon. Shall I tell you the reason?"
"If you like."
"It was an old story; in some respects a vulgar story. He had got into the toils of an unscrupulous woman."
Her sudden perception of what he was leading up to forced her into a little involuntary movement.
"I see you understand," he said, quickly, with the glimmer of a smile. "I thought you would; for, as a matter of fact, much of what he said brought back our conversation on the night before I sailed. There was not a little in it that was mystery to me at the time, which he--illumined."
She sat with lips parted and bosom heaving, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. If she was conscious of any sensation, it was of terrible curiosity to know how the tale was to be turned.
"What you said to me then," he pursued, in the same cruel quietness of tone--"what you said to me then, as to the influence of a bad woman in a man's life, seemed to me--what shall I say?--not precisely exaggerated, but somewhat overwrought. I didn't know it could be so true to the actual facts of experience. My friend's words at times were almost an echo of your own. He had been the lover of a woman--"
Once more she started, raising her hand in silent protest against the words.
"He--had--been--the--lover--of--a--woman," he repeated, with slow emphasis, "who, after having ruined her husband's life, was preparing to ruin his. She would have ruined his as she had ruined the lives of other men before him. When he endeavored to elude her, she set on her husband to call him out. There was a duel--or the semblance of a duel. My friend fired into the air. The poor devil of a husband shot himself. It appears that he had every reason for doing so."
"My husband didn't shoot himself."
"Your husband?" he asked, with an ironical lifting of the eyebrows. "What makes you think I've been speaking of him?"
"The man whom you call your friend is the Marquis de Bienville--"
"He didn't mention your name; but I see you're able to tell me his. It's what I was afraid of. I've repeated only a very little of what he said; but since you recognize its truth already, it isn't necessary to continue."
She passed her hand over her forehead, with the gesture of one trying desperately to see aright.
"I must ask you to tell me plainly: Was I the--the unscrupulous woman into whose toils Monsieur de Bienville fell?"
"He didn't say so."
"Then why--why have you spoken of this to me?"
"Because what I heard from him fitted in so exactly with what I had heard from you that it made an entire story. It was like the two parts of a puzzle. The one without the other is incomplete and perplexing; but having both, you can see the perfect whole. I will be frank enough to tell you that many of your sayings were dark to me until I had his to lend them light."
"Would it be of any use to say that what he told you wasn't true?"
"I don't know that it would be of any use to say it, unless it could be proved."
"Did you ask him to give you proof?"
"No; because you had already provided me with that.
"How?"
"Surely you must remember telling me that you had ruined one rich man, and might ruin another: that no man could cope with a woman such as you were two or three years ago. There were these things--there were other things--many other things--"
"And that's what you understood from them?"
"I understood nothing whatever. If I thought of such words at all, it was to attribute them to a morbid sensibility. It wasn't until I got their interpretation that they came back to me. It wasn't until I had met some one who knew you before I did, and better than I did--"
"It wasn't till then that you thought of me what no man ever thinks of a woman until he is ready to trample her in the mire, under his feet."
Straightening himself up, as a man who defends his position, he took an argumentative tone.
"What motive would Bienville have for lying?--to a stranger?--and about a stranger? There are moments when you know a man is telling you the truth, as if he were in the confessional. He wasn't speaking of you, but of himself. Not only were no names mentioned, but he had no reason to think I had ever heard of the woman he talked to me about, nor has he yet. If it hadn't been for your own half-hints, your own half-confessions, I doubt if I should ever have had more than a suspicion of--of--the truth."
"I could have explained everything," she said, with a break in her voice. "I've never concealed from you the fact that there was a time in my life when I was very indiscreet. I lived like the women of fashion around me. I was inconsiderate of other people. I did things that were wrong. But before I knew you I had repented of them."
"Quite so; but, unfortunately, what is conventionally known as a repentant woman is not the sort of person I would have chosen to be near my child."
She rose, wearily, dragging herself toward the desk. "Now that I've heard your opinion of me," she said, quietly, "I suppose you have no reason for detaining me any longer."
"Are you going away?" he asked, sharply.
"What else is there for me to do?"
"Have you nothing to say in your own defence?"
"You haven't asked me to say anything. You've tried and condemned me unheard. Since you adopt that method of justice I'm forced to abide by it. I'm not like a person who has rights or who can claim protection from any outside authority. You're not only judge and jury to me, but my final court of appeal. I must take what you mete out to me--and bear it."
"I don't want to be hard on you," he groaned.
"No; I can believe that. I dare say the situation is just as cruel for you as for me. When circumstances become so entangled that you can't explain them, everybody has to suffer."
"I'm glad you can do me that justice. My life for the past week--ever since Bienville began to talk to me--has been hell."
"I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry to have brought it on you. I'm afraid, too, that the future may be harder for you still; for no man can do a woman such wrong as you're doing me, and not pay for it."
"Wrong? Can you honestly say I'm doing you wrong, Diane? Isn't it true--you'll pardon me if I put my questions bluntly, the circumstances don't permit of sparing either your feelings or my own--isn't it true that for two or three years before your husband's death your name in Paris was nothing short of a byword?"
"I'm not sure of what you mean by a byword. I acknowledge that I braved public opinion, and that much ill was said of me--often, more than I deserved."
"Isn't it true that your name was connected with that of a man called Lalanne, and that he was killed in a duel on your account?"
"It's true that Monsieur Lalanne made love to me; it's also true that he was killed in a duel; but it's not true that it was on my account. The instance is an excellent illustration of the degree to which the true and the false are mixed in Parisian gossip--perhaps in all gossip--and a woman's reputation blasted. Unhappily for me, I felt myself young and strong enough to be indifferent to reputation. I treated it with the neglect one often bestows upon one's health--not thinking that there would come a day of reckoning."
"If there had been only one such case it might have been allowed to pass; but what do you say of De Cretteville? what of De Melcourt? what of Lord Wendover?"
"I have nothing to say but this: that for such scandal I've a rule, from which I have no intention of departing even now: I neither tell it, nor listen to it, nor contradict it. If it pleases the Marquis de Bienville to repeat it, and you to give it credence, I can't stoop to correct it, even in my own defence."
"God knows I'm not delving into scandal, Diane. If I bring up these miserable names, it's only that you may have the opportunity to right yourself."
"It's an opportunity impossible for me to use. If I were to attempt to unravel the strand of truth from the web of falsehood, it would end in your condemning me the more. The canons of conduct in France are so different from those in America that what is permissible in one country is heinous in the other. In the same way that your young girls shock our conceptions of propriety, our married women shock yours. It would be useless to defend myself in your eyes, because I should be appealing to a standard to which I was never taught to conform."
"I thought I had taken that into consideration. I'm not entirely ignorant of the conditions under which you've lived, and I meant to have allowed for them. But isn't it true that you exceeded the very wide latitude recognized by public opinion, even in a place like Paris?"
"I didn't take public opinion into account. I was reckless of its injustice, as I was careless of its applause. I see now, however, that indifference to either brings its punishment."
"Those are abstract ideas, and I'm trying to deal with concrete facts. Isn't it true that George Eveleth was a rich man when you married him, and that your extravagance ruined him?"
"It helped to ruin him. I plead guilty to that. I had no knowledge of the value of money; but I don't offer that as an excuse."
"Isn't it true that the Marquis de Bienville was your lover, and that you were thinking of deserting your husband to go with him?"
"It's true that the Marquis de Bienville asked me to do so, and that I was rash enough to turn him into ridicule. I shouldn't have done it if I had known that there was a man in the world capable of taking such a revenge upon a woman as he took on me."
"What revenge?"
"The revenge you're executing at this minute. He said--what very few men, thank God, will say of a woman, even when it's true, and what it takes a dastard to say when it's not true. Even in the case of the fallen woman there's a chivalrous human pity that protects her; while there's something more than that due to the most foolish of our sex who has not fallen. I took it for granted that, at the worst, I could count on that, until I met your friend. His cup of vengeance will be full when he learns that he has given you the power to insult me."
"I don't mean to insult you," he said, in a dogged voice, "but I mean, if possible, to know the truth."
"I'm not concealing it. I'm ready to tell you anything."
"Then, tell me this: isn't it the case that when George Eveleth discovered your relations with Bienville, he challenged him?"
"It's the case that he challenged him, not because of what he discovered, but of what Monsieur de Bienville said."
"At their encounter, didn't Bienville fire into the air--?"
"I've never heard so."
"And didn't George Eveleth fall from a self-inflicted shot?"
"No. He died at the hand of the Marquis de Bienville."
"So you told me once before, though you didn't tell me the man's name. But, Diane, aren't you convinced in your heart that George Eveleth knew that which made his life no longer worth the living?"
"Do you mean that he knew something--about me?"
"Yes--about you."
"That's the most cruel charge Monsieur de Bienville has invented yet."
"Suppose he didn't invent it? Suppose it was a fact?"
"Have you any purpose in subjecting me to this needless torture?"
"I have a purpose, and I'm sorry if it involves torture; but I assure you it isn't needless. I must get to the bottom of this thing. I've asked you to marry me; and I must know if my future wife--"
"But I'm not--your future wife."
"That remains to be seen. I can come to no decision--"
"But I can."
"That must wait. The point before us is this: Did, or did not, George Eveleth kill himself?"
"He did not."
"You must understand that it would prove nothing if he did."
"It would prove, or go far to prove, what you said just now--that I had made his life not worth the living."
"His money troubles may have counted for something in that. What it would do is this: it would help to corroborate Bienville's word against--yours."
"Fortunately there are means of proving that I'm right. I can't tell you exactly what they are; but I know that, in France, when people die the registers tell just what they died of."
"I've already sent for the necessary information. I've done even more than that. I couldn't wait for the slow process of the mails. I cabled this morning to Grimston, one of my Paris partners, to wire me the cause of George Eveleth's death, as officially registered. This is his reply."
He held up the envelope Diane had placed on the desk earlier in the evening.
"Why don't you open it?" she asked, in a whisper of suspense.
"I've been afraid to. I've been afraid that it would prove him right in the one detail in which I'm able to put his word to the test. I've been hoping against hope that you would clear yourself; but if this is in his favor--"
"Open it," she pleaded.
With the silver dagger she had laid ready to his hand he ripped up the envelope, and drew out the paper.
"Read it," he said, passing it to her, without unfolding it.
Though it contained but one word, Diane took a long time to decipher it. For minutes she stared at it, as though the power of comprehension had forsaken her. Again and again she lifted her eyes to his, in sheer bewilderment, only to drop them then once more on the all but blank sheet in her hand. At last it seemed as if her fingers had no more strength to hold it, and she let it flutter to the floor.
"He was right?"
The question came in a hoarse undertone, but Diane had no voice in which to reply. She could only nod her head in dumb assent.
It grew late, and Derek Pruyn still sat in the position in which Diane had left him. His hands rested clinched on the desk before him, while his eyes stared vacantly at the cluster of electric lights overhead. He was living through the conversations with Bienville on shipboard. He began with the first time he had noticed the tall, brown-eyed, black-bearded young Frenchman on the day when they sailed out of the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. He passed on to their first interchange of casual remarks, leaning together over the deck-rail, and watching the lights of Para recede into the darkness. It was in the hot, still evenings in the Caribbean Sea that, smoking in neighboring deck-chairs, they had first drifted into intimate talk, and the young man had begun to unburden himself. They had been distinctly interesting to Derek, these glimpses of a joyous, idle, light-o'-love life, with a tragic element never very far below its surface, so different from his own gray career of business. They not only beguiled the tedious nights, but they opened up vistas of romance to an imagination growing dull before its time, in the seriousness of large practical affairs. In proportion as the young Frenchman showed himself willing to narrate, Derek became a sympathetic listener. As Bienville told of his pursuit, now of this fair face, and now of that, Derek received the impression of a chase, in which the hunted engages not of necessity, but, like Atalanta, in sheer glee of excitement. Like Atalanta, too, she was apt to over-estimate her speed, and to end in being caught.
It was not till after he had recounted a number of
petites histoires, more or less amusing, that Bienville came to what he called "
l'affaire la plus serieuse de ma vie," while Derek drank in the tale with all the avidity the jealous heart brings to the augmentation of its pain. To the idealizing purity of his conception of Diane any earthly failing on her part became the extremity of sin. He had placed her so high that when she fell it was to no middle flight of guilt; as to the fallen angel, there was no choice for her, in his estimation, between heaven and the nether hell.
Outwardly he was an ordinary passenger, smoking quietly in a deck-chair, in order to pass the time between dinner and the hour for "turning in." His voice, as he plied Bienville with questions, betrayed his emotions no more than the darkened surface of the sea gave evidence of the raging life within its depths. To Bienville himself, during these idle, balmy nights, there was a threefold inspiration, which in no case called for strict exactitude of detail. There was, first, the pleasure of talking about himself; there was, next, the desire to give his career the advantage of a romantic light; and there was, thirdly, the story-teller's natural instinct to hold his hearer spellbound. The little more or the little less could not matter to a man whom he didn't know, in talking about a woman whose name he hadn't given; while, on the other hand, there was the satisfaction, to which the Latin is so sensitive, of showing himself a lion among ladies.
Moreover, he had boasted of his achievements so often that he had come to believe in them long before giving Derek the detailed account of his victory on the gleaming Caribbean seas. On his part, Derek had found no difficulty in crediting that which was related with apparent fidelity to fact, and which filled up, in so remarkable a manner, the empty spaces between the mysterious, broken hints Diane had at various times given him of her own inner life. The one story helped to tell the other as accurately as the fragments of an ancient stele, when put together, make up the whole inscription. The very independence of the sources from which he drew his knowledge negatived the possibility of doubt. There was but one way in which Diane could have put herself right with him: she could have swept the charge aside, with a serene contemptuousness of denial. Had she done so, her assertion would have found his own eagerness to believe in her ready to meet it half-way. As it was, alas! her admissions had been damning. Where she acknowledged the smoke, there surely must have been the fire! Where she owned to so much culpability, there surely must have been the entire measure of guilt!
For the time being, he forgot Bienville, in order to review the conversation of the last half-hour. Diane had not carried herself like a woman who had nothing with which to reproach herself; and that a woman should be obliged to reproach herself at all was a humiliation to her womanhood. In the midst of this gross world, where the man's soul naturally became stained and coarsened, hers should retain the celestial beauty with which it came forth from God. That, in his opinion, was her duty; that was her instinct; that was the object with which she had been placed on earth. A woman who was no better than a man was an error on the part of nature; and Diane--oh, the pity of it!--had put herself down on the man's level with a naivete which showed her unconscious of ever having been higher up. She had confessed to weaknesses, as though she were of no finer clay than himself, and spoke of being penitent, when the tragedy lay in the fact that a woman should have anything to repent of.
The minutes went by, but he sat rigid, with hands clinched before him, and eyes fixed in a kind of hypnotic stare on the cluster of lights, taking no account of time or place. Throughout the house there was the stillness of midnight, broken only by the rumble of a carriage or the clatter of a motor in the street. The silence was the more ghostly owing to the circumstance that throughout the empty rooms lights were still flaring uselessly, welcoming his return. Presently there came a sound--faint, soft, swift, like the rustle of wings, or a weird spirit footfall. Though it was scarcely audible, it was certain that something was astir.
With a start Derek came back from the contemplation of his intolerable pain to the world of common happenings. He must see what could be moving at this unaccustomed hour; but he had barely risen in his place when he was disturbed by still another sound, this time louder and heavier, and characterized by a certain brusque finality. It was the closing of a door; it was the closing of the large, ponderous street-door. Some one had left the house.
In a dozen strides he was out in the hail and on the stairway. There, on the landing, where an hour or two ago he had turned to look down upon Diane, stood Dorothea in her night-dress--a little white figure, scared and trembling.
"Oh, father, Diane has gone away!"
For some seconds he stared at her blankly, like a man who puzzles over something in a strange language. When he spoke, at last, his voice came with a forced harshness, from which the girl shrank back, more terrified than before:
"She was quite right to go. You run back to bed."