Part 57 (2/2)

”I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. Go, go, before he comes.”

He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, fell on his knees and buried his head in her lap. He clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision of the Woman, to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over him and kissed his hair, weeping.

”Go,” she said. ”Go, my darling.”

Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, prayers were in his heart. He crushed them down.

”I love you for your pride,” she said. ”I adore you for the brave demand you made me. I could not fulfil it, Tony, for your sake.”

Then he spoke, and meant what he said, ”You have ruined my life.”

”Oh no!” she cried. ”Don't say such a thing!”

”Some day I shall kill him.” He had risen, with tears in his eyes. ”You loved me,” he challenged, ”you did love me!”

She did not dare to say ”I love you still.” She saw what the tragedy would be.

”We could not have been poor,” she said, ”could we, dear?”

He exclaimed bitterly, ”If you thought of that, you could not have cared.” And she was strong enough to take advantage of his change.

”I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or I should never have done this.”

Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, this time brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, crying to her as he had cried once before--

”Tell him how I kissed you--tell him!”

White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. ”For the love of G.o.d, Tony, go!”

And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in Windsor the bugles for some solemn festivity were blowing.

”The flowers of the forest are all wied away.”

BOOK IV

BELLA

CHAPTER I

From the Western world he heard nothing for four years. Meanwhile he brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, the result of seven years'

study and creation in the workshops of masters and in his own studio, to the sculpturing of the second tomb--the Open Door.

There were crowds around his marble in the Salon, and he mingled with them, watching them muse, discuss, criticize, grow sad and thoughtful before his conception of Life and Death. Some of them looked as poor Tom Rainsford had looked, yearningly toward the door of the tomb. Others hurried past the inscrutable beauty of the Open Door. Purely white, stainless, slender, luminous and yet cold, Molly stood immortalized by Antony. His conception made him famous.

<script>