Part 23 (1/2)

”There are different ways of suffering,” he explained. ”With a woman, it is most often spread out over a long period. The quick, clean-cut stroke is seldom given to a woman--she suffers less and longer than a man. With him, I'm thinking, it has come, or will come, all at once.”

”If it does,” she cried, her frail body quivering, ”what a day for him, oh, what a day!”

Her voice was trembling with the hideous pa.s.sion for revenge, and the Piper read her, unerringly. ”Lady,” he said, sadly, ”'t is a long way to the light, but I'm here to help

you find it. We'll be going now.

Laddie and I, but we'll come back soon.”

He whistled to the dog and the two went off downhill together. She watched him from the gate until the bobbing red feather turned a corner at the foot of the hill, and the cheery whistle had ceased.

The stillness was acute, profound. It was so deep that it seemed positive, rather than negative. She went back into the house, her steps dragging painfully.

As in a vision she saw the days pa.s.sing her while she stood upon a height. All around her were bare rocks and fearful precipices; there was nothing but a narrow path in front. Day by day, they came, peacefully, contentedly; till at last dawned that terrible one which had blasted her life. Was it true that she still held that day by the garment, and could not unclasp her hands?

One by one they had pa.s.sed her, leaving no gifts, because she still clung to one. If she could let go, what gifts would the others bring?

Joy? Never--there was no joy in the world for her.

Sometime that mystical procession must come to an end. When the last day pa.s.sed on, she would follow, too, and go into the night of Yesterday, where, perhaps, there was peace. As never before, she craved the last gift, praying to see the uplifted head and stately figure of the last Day--grave, silent, unfathomable, tender; the Day with the veiled face, bearing white poppies in her hands.

XVII

Loved by a Dog

Anthony Dexter sat on the porch in front of his house, alone. Ralph had been out since early morning, attending to his calls. It was the last of April and the trees were brave in their panoply of new leaves.

Birds were singing and the very air was eloquent with new life.

Between Anthony Dexter and the lilac bush at the gate, there moved perpetually the black, veiled figure of Evelina Grey. He knew she was not there and he was fully certain of the fact that it was an hallucination, but his a.s.surance had not done away with the phantom.

How mercilessly she followed him! Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so plainly. Ralph had laughed at him, once, for taking a long, awkward jump from rug to rug.

Within the line of his vision she moved horizontally, but never back and forth. Sometimes her veiled face was averted, and sometimes, through the eternal barrier of chiffon, he could feel her burning eyes fixed pitilessly upon his.

He never slept, now, without drugs. Gradually he had increased the dose, but to no purpose. Evelina haunted his sleep endlessly and he had no respite. Through the dull stupor of the night, she was never for a moment absent, and in every horrible dream, she stood in the foreground, mute, solitary, accusing.

He was fully aware of the fact that he was in the clutches of a drug addiction, but that was nothing to be feared in comparison with his veiled phantom. He had exhausted the harmless soporifics long ago, and turned, perforce, to the swift and deadly ministers of forgetfulness.

The veiled figure moved slowly back and forth across the yard, lifting its skirts daintily to avoid a tiny pool of water where a thirsty robin was drinking. The robin, evidently, did not fear Evelina. He could hear the soft, slow footfalls on the turf, and the echo of three or four steps upon the brick walk, when she crossed. She kept carefully within the line of his vision; he did not have to turn his head to see her. When he did turn his head, she moved with equal swiftness. Not for a single pitying instant was she out of his sight.

Farther on, doubtless, as he thought, she would come closer. She might throw back her veil as she had done on that terrible night, or lay her cold hand on his--she might even speak to him. What hideous conversations they might have--he and the woman he had once loved and to whom he was still bound! Anthony Dexter knew now that even his marriage had not released him and that Evelina had held him, through all the five-and-twenty years.

Such happiness as he had known had been purely negative. The thrill of joyous life had died, for him, the day he took Evelina into the laboratory. He was no longer capable of caring for any one except Ralph. The remnant of his cowardly heart was pa.s.sionately and wholly given to his son.

He meditated laying his case before Ralph. as one physician to another, then the inmost soul of him shuddered at the very thought.

Rather than have Ralph know, he would die a thousand deaths. He would face the uttermost depths of h.e.l.l, rather than see those clear, honest eyes fixed upon him in judgment.

He might go to the city to see a specialist--it would be an easy matter to accomplish, and Ralph would gladly attend to his work. Yes, he might go--he and Evelina. He could go to a brother physician and say:

”This woman haunts me. She saved my life and continually follows me.

I want her kept away. What, do you not see her, too?”