Part 19 (1/2)
”Ah,” said Moya in a long-drawn sigh, ”then she did not”--
”Oh, she did, explicitly! For I went on to speak of it. It was my last chance. I asked her how she--we--could possibly go through with it; how with this knowledge between us we could look each other in the face--and go on living.
”'Put this hallucination out of your mind,' she said. 'That man and I are strangers.'”
”Was that--would you call that a lie?” asked Moya fearfully.
”You can see your answer in her face. I do not say that hers was the first lie. It must always be foolish, I think, to evade the facts of life as we make them for ourselves. He refused to meet his facts, from the n.o.blest motives;--but now I'm tangling you all up again! Rest your head here, darling. This is such a business! It is a pity I cannot tell you his whole story. Half the meaning of all this is lost. But--here is a solemn declaration in writing, signed John Hagar, in which this man we are speaking of says that Adam Bogardus was his partner, who died in the woods and was buried by his hand; that he knew his story, all the scenes and circ.u.mstances of his life in many a long talk they had together, as well as he knew his own. In his delirium he must have confused himself with his old partner, and half in dreams, he said, half in the crazy satisfaction of pretending to himself he had a son, he allowed the delusion to go on; saw it work upon me, and half feared it, half encouraged it. Afterwards he was frightened at the thought of meeting my mother, who would know him for an impostor. His seeming scruples were fear of exposure, not consideration for her. This was why he guarded their interview so carefully. 'No harm's been done,' he says, 'if you'll act now like a sensible man. I'll be disappointed in you if you make your mother any trouble about this. You've treated me as square as any man could treat another. Remember, I say so, and think as kindly as you can of a harmless, loony old impostor'--and he signs himself 'John Hagar,'--which shows again how one lie leads to another. We go to find 'John Hagar.'”
”Have you shown your mother this letter? You have not? Paul, you will not rob her of her just defense!”
”I will not heap coals of fire on her head! This letter simply completes his renunciation, and he meant it for her defense. But when a man signs himself 'John Hagar' in the handwriting of my father, it shows that somebody is not telling the truth. I used to pore over the old farm records in my father's hand at Stone Ridge in the old account books stowed away in places where a boy loves to poke and pry. I know it as well as I know yours. Do you suppose she would not know it? When a man writes as few letters as he does, the handwriting does not change.” Paul laid the letter upon the coals. ”It is the only witness against her, but it loses the case.”
”She never could have loved him. I never believed she did!” said Moya.
”She thinks she can live out this deep-down, deliberate--But it will kill her, Moya. Her life is ended from this on. How could I have driven her to that excruciating choice! I ought to have listened to him altogether or not at all. There is a h.e.l.l for meddlers, and the ones who meddle for conscience' sake are the deepest d.a.m.ned, I think.”
Moya came and wreathed her arm in his, and they paced the room in silence. At length she said, ”If we go to find John Hagar, shall we not be meddling again? A man who respects a woman's freedom must love his own. It is the last thing left him. Don't hunt him down. I believe nothing could hurt him now like seeing you again.”
”He shall not see me unless he wants to, but he shall know where I stand on this question of the Impostor. It shall be managed so that even he can see I am protecting her. No, call himself what he will, the tie between him and me is another of those facts.”
”But do you love him, Paul?”
”Oh--I cannot forget him! He is--just as he used to be--'poor father out there in the cold.' We must find him and comfort him somehow.”
”For our own peace of mind? Forgive me for arguing when everything is so difficult. But he is a man--a brave man who would rather be forever out in the cold than be a burden. Do not rob him of his right to _be_ John Hagar if he wants to, for the sake of those he loves. You do not tell me it was love, but I am sure it was, in some mistaken way, that drove him into exile. Only love as pure as his can be our excuse for dragging him back. He did not want shelter and comfort from her. Only one thing. Have we got that to give him?”
”Well then, I go for my own sake--it is a physical necessity; and I go for hers. She has put it out of her own power to help him. It will ease her a little to know I am trying to reach him in his forlorn disguise.”
”But you were not going to tell her?”
”In words, no. But she will understand. There is a strange clairvoyance between us, as if we were accomplices in a crime!”
Moya reflected silently. This search which Paul had set his heart upon would equally work his own cure, she saw. Nor could she now imagine for themselves any lover's paradise inseparable from this moral tragedy, which she saw would be fibre of their fibre, life of their life. A family is an organism; one part may think to deny or defy another, but with strange pains the subtle union exerts itself; distance cannot break the thread.
They kissed each other solemnly like little children on the eve of a long journey full of awed expectancy.
Mrs. Bogardus stood holding her door ajar as Moya pa.s.sed on her way downstairs. ”You are very late,” she uttered hoa.r.s.ely. ”Is nothing settled yet?”
”Everything!” Moya hesitated and forced a smile, ”everything but where we shall go. We will start--and decide afterwards.”
”You go together? That is right. Moya, you have a genius for happiness!”
”I wish I had a genius for making people sleep who lie awake hours in the night thinking about other people!”
”If you mean me, people of my age need very little sleep.”
”May I kiss you good-night, Paul's mother?”
”You may kiss me because I am Paul's mother, not because I do not sleep.”