Part 63 (1/2)
It was a question she had been dreading, but she answered it fully and frankly, sparing herself not at all. He listened with an oddly judicial air, new in her experience of him. When she described her share in Channing's disappearance, he interrupted her quickly.
”You deceived her?”
”Yes. I know now that it was wrong.”
He made no comment; but when she came to her confession to Jacqueline that it was she who had suggested their marriage and not Philip, he interrupted her again.
”Kate,” he said slowly and incredulously, ”you have been cruel!”
At any other time he would have noticed how her never-idle hands were shaking, the paleness of her lips, the dark shadow of pain in her eyes.
But just then he was not thinking of her. He was thinking of Jacqueline.
He turned away abruptly, and looked over the portmanteau she had been packing. On the top lay the peppermint-striped silk s.h.i.+rt his wife had made for him. He saw it through a sudden blur of tears.
”There's one thing you've forgotten to pack,” he muttered, and slipped into the bag something which Kate removed as soon as his back was turned. It was a pistol.
She was startled by this. ”Perhaps I'd better go after Jacqueline myself,” she suggested.
”It is my right. I am her husband,” was the stern answer.
In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, the telephone rang with Jemima's return message.
No word from Jack. P. C.'s address in New York is No. 5, Ardmore Apartments. James and I will meet her there. Don't worry.
”Thank Heaven for Jemima!” uttered her mother, turning from the telephone. ”You'll have time to catch the evening train in Frankfort for New York, Philip. I'll meet you at the trolley station with money and all that.”
He had not thought of money, would have started upon his quest with empty pockets. But it was characteristic of a new era that he accepted her financial help now quite simply, without demur, without thought, even, as he might have accepted it from his own mother.
The last thing he saw as the train pulled out of the station was Kate's face gazing up at him whitely from the platform, and he leaned far out of the window to promise, ”I will not come back without her!”
But not then, nor until long afterwards, did he realize that for hours he had been with his dear lady at a time of great distress to her, without once realizing her presence; his thoughts yearning and his heart aching for another woman, for his wife, Jacqueline.
It was the moment of Kate's justification, of her triumph, had she but known it. But she did not know it.
She rode home slowly and yet more slowly through the twilight world, into which came presently a pale winter moon, serene and beautiful and mocking. There was no longer need of action, to stimulate her. She had reached the end of her strength.
The sensitive horse beneath her moved with increasing care, sedately and cautiously, as if he realized that he must be brains as well as feet for two. He was an experienced animal, and had known what it was to carry children on his back.
When he came to the front door of Storm, he paused of his own accord, and nickered anxiously.
So the servants found the Madam, and when they saw that she could not dismount, it was Big Liza who lifted her down in her strong old arms, as she had lifted her once before when she came, a bride, to Storm. She carried her in to a couch, moaning over her, ”Oh, my lamb, my po' lamb; what is dey done to you now?”
The Madam could not answer.
Jemima Thorpe reached her mother's bedside two days later, greatly to the relief of the household, and of Dr. Jones.
”No, it does not seem to have been a stroke of any sort,” explained that worthy and anxious man. ”If Mrs. Kildare were an ordinary woman, I should call it hysteria, but she's not the neurotic type. It appears to be acute exhaustion, following, possibly, a shock of some kind.” He looked at Jemima inquisitively, but without eliciting the information he sought. ”At any rate, I am glad you have come, and I should suggest that Benoix and his wife be sent for. I hear they've gone off on a trip to New York?”