CHAPTER II
WHEN VOWS MUST YIELD
"Ask your husband. Ask Mr. Alexander Hendrie where he is."
The words beat into Monica's brain. They hammered upon her ear-drums. They rose before her eyes, mocking her.
She was back in her own home. She had gone straight to her bedroom and locked herself in. She was due at a luncheon party, and, on her return, Margaret had hurried to wait upon her. But the girl was promptly dismissed, and the luncheon forgotten. It was a matter of no importance now. Monica would go nowhere; she would receive no one. She was ill, she said, and refused to be disturbed.
So Margaret was left wondering and frightened.
Monica paced her room for hours. She was vainly endeavoring to think connectedly. She was trying desperately to fathom the meaning of the man Verdant's challenge. It was useless. All continuity of thought was gone. Her ideas, her thoughts just tumbled pell-mell through her harassed brain, eluded her grasp, and vanished in the darkness whence they had leaped.
"Ask your husband. Ask Mr. Alexander Hendrie where he is."
It was maddening; and fever coursed through her veins. Her head grew hot with her effort. It ached, as did her eyes. Things about her began to seem unreal. Even the familiar objects in the room seemed to belong to some long-past, almost forgotten period in her life. She pulled herself together, and even began to question herself. Where was she? Ah, yes, this was her husband's house —
"Ask your husband."
For a moment the fever left her cold. Then it was on her again. She must ask her husband!
A hundred times the words came back, but she could proceed no further. Instinctively she understood something of the ugliness lying beyond them.
The distraught woman endured this torture for hours. It seemed ages; and at times she believed she was struggling to keep her reason.
If her husband knew of Frank's whereabouts, then – but she dared go no further. Once she paused in her restless pacing and stood before the mirror on her dressing-table. She stared at it as though reading the man's words written there. Suddenly she became aware of her own reflection, which seemed to be mocking her. She fled precipitately and flung herself into a chair, burying her face in her hands.
But such a state of mind could not endure and sanity remain. It was the result of shock, and the worst of shocks must give way before the recuperative powers of healthy nature. So it was now.
The late afternoon sun had just fallen athwart the great bay window, when the troubled woman, with a sigh as of utter exhaustion, flung herself upon her bed in a flood of hysterical tears. For a while the storm remained unabating. It almost seemed that the flood-gates of a broken heart had been opened; as though life had no longer any joy remaining; as though all the most treasured possessions of her woman's heart had been ruthlessly torn from her bosom, so hopeless, so dreadful were her tears.
But it was the saving reaction. Within half an hour the storm had lessened. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ceased altogether.
Monica sat up.
For one painful moment she gazed stupidly about her. Then one by one the details of her room grew upon her, and, slowly, a subtle change crept into her eyes. For a moment they hardened, as though she were spurring herself to some painful resolve. Then, at last, they softened again to their natural expression. She left her bed, and passed through the doorway which led into her private bathroom.
Presently she emerged. A cold douche had done its work. She was quite calm now, and all her movements became deliberate. She walked up to her mirror, and gazed at the reflection of her swollen eyes. Then, with a weary sigh, she finally turned away and pushed the electric bell at her bedside.
Margaret obeyed the summons with suspicious alacrity. Truth to tell the devoted girl had been near by, waiting for the summons. Her mistress's unusual attitude had seriously troubled her. Now she came, hoping but anxious, and, after one glance at Monica's swollen eyes she gave vent to her distress.
"Oh, but, madam – " she cried.
She was silenced with a look.
"I'll begin to dress – now," Monica said coldly.
But the girl's anxiety was too sincere.
"But, madam, it is only half-past five! Dinner – dinner is at eight."
Monica turned away coldly, and seated herself upon the ottoman, which stood in the center of the room.
"I will dress now," she said finally.
Margaret understood her charge. It was useless to protest when Monica's mind was made up. So she set about her work at once.
Monica watched her as she threw open the wardrobes. Her eyes followed her as she vanished to prepare the bath. But it was not with any interest. The girl's movements simply conveyed a sense of activity to her. That was all. But it helped her. It helped her, in the midst of her teeming thought, as nothing else could have done.
She endured the process of her toilet like one in a dream. Nor was it until it came to the necessary selection of a gown that she displayed any real interest. Then she roused herself and startled Margaret with her peevish indecision. Nothing seemed to please her. Several new gowns, just home from the extravagant costumer, who poured "creations" upon her, were flung ruthlessly aside before the girl's dismayed eyes. She would have none of them, and Margaret was at her wit's end.
There were only a few simple black gowns left, and Margaret hated black. But what was she to do? She produced them, being careful, at the same time, to display her own disapproval. Promptly selection was made. Monica knew the value of soft black chiffon against her beautiful fair hair and fairer skin. No one knew it better.
Another uncomfortable half hour was spent while the girl dressed her mistress's hair. Never had Monica been so difficult to please. But even this was finally satisfactorily achieved, and Margaret sighed her relief.
However, her surprises were not yet done with. There was still another forthcoming. Monica surveyed herself in the mirror. She gazed at herself from every point of view. She beheld a perfectly molded figure, unusually tall, with the delicious tint of flesh like alabaster glowing warmly through the gauzy folds of the simple black chiffon of which her gown was composed. She saw a face that was slightly pale, but of exquisite, mature beauty. She saw eyes of a deep blue, full of warmth, full of that precious suggestion of passionate possibilities which no man can witness unmoved. And even in those moments of trouble she knew that she had done well in her choice of gowns. She knew that she was very beautiful.
She turned at last to the waiting girl, who was gazing at her in open admiration.
"Go and find out if Mr. Hendrie has come in yet. If he hasn't, leave word I am to be told the moment he arrives. Also, let him be told that I wish to see him in the library before he goes to dress."
The girl moved toward the door.
"One moment." Monica spoke over her shoulder. "Put the rouge out for me, and – an eye pencil."
This final order was too much for the girl's sense of the beautiful.
"But, madam," she cried. "Oh, madam is too beautiful for – "
"Do as I tell you!"
The order came sharply, almost harshly, and Margaret hastened to obey. For once Monica was stirred out of her customary kindliness. Her nerves were on edge. She had yet to face an ordeal, which, with each passing moment, was slowly sapping her courage. She knew she had none to spare, and dreaded lest her strength should fail her at the last.
Monica was standing in the archway beyond which two great French windows looked out over the street. One beautiful, rounded arm was upraised, and its bejeweled hand was nervously clutching the edge of the heavy crimson curtain. It was no pose. She was clinging to the curtain for support.
It was still daylight. The setting sun still lit the street outside. The room was lined from its polished floor to the ceiling with dark mahogany bookcases, which, with the crimson hangings, and the deep-toned Turkey carpet, helped to soften the light to a suggestion of evening.
The sound of a step in the hall beyond startled her. She clutched the curtain still more tightly. She knew that firm tread. The handle of the door turned. Instantly she yielded her hold upon the curtain. Her husband must witness no sign of her fear. The next moment a deep, familiar voice greeted her.
"I'm sorry if I kept you waiting, Mon. I – "
Hendrie broke off in astonishment. Just for a moment his eyes surveyed the wonderful picture she made. And, in that moment, Monica realized that her efforts had not been in vain. His eyes were drinking in her beauty, and she understood that never, in their brief married life, had she appealed to him more.
"Why, Mon," he cried. Then in a sudden burst of admiration. "You – you look just splendid." And after a pause. "Splendid!"
Monica smiled up at him.
"You haven't kept me waiting. I – I was anxious to see you at once, so I – I dressed early."
Hendrie had drawn nearer, as though about to embrace her. But her halting fashion of explanation checked him. All unconsciously he leaned against the edge of a table instead. It was as though something had warned him to – wait.
"I'm glad I didn't keep you waiting," he said, and something of the warmth had gone out of his tone. "Something – important?"
The woman was seized with a mad longing to flee from the room. The ordeal she was about to go through was almost more than she could bear.
"Yes – I'm afraid it is," she said, in a low, unsteady voice, while she turned away toward the window.
"Afraid?"
Monica turned again and looked up into his eyes. A sudden weakness left her knees shaking.
"Yes," she said, and stammered on. "I – I – hardly know where – to – begin."
Hendrie left the table and drew a step nearer.
"You're in some trouble, my Mon," he said kindly. "I can see it in your face. Tell me, dear."
His words had their effect. Monica's fears lessened, and something of her courage returned. Suddenly she threw up her head.
"No, no! You tell me, Alec!" she cried. "Tell me truly, as though you were answering your own soul, is there – is there a condition, a moment, a situation in life when it become wrong to keep a solemn vow given – to the dead? I hold that a vow to the dead is the most sacred thing in – life. Am I right – or wrong?"
The man's gray eyes expressed neither surprise nor curiosity. They were calmly considering, and in their calm they were painfully cold.
He shook his head.
"You are wrong," he said simply. "The most sacred thing in life is – Truth. When Truth demands, no vow to dead or living can bind."
Monica sighed.
"You are sure?"
"Sure. Quite sure."
The man was deliberate. As no answer was forthcoming, he went on —
"Come, Mon, tell me. Guess there's something behind all this. Well – I am here to listen."
The woman stirred. She clenched her hands. Then her answer came.
"And I am here to tell you," she cried, with a sharp intake of breath. "I have lost something. I have lost something which is almost as precious to me as – as your love. I have been told that you can tell me where to find – him."
"Him?" The word rang through the quiet room.
It was the man's only comment, and a dreadful inflection was laid upon the word.
There are moments in life when acts are performed, when words are spoken without thought, even without actual impulse of our own. They are, perhaps, moments when Fate steps in to guide us into the path she would have us tread. Perhaps it was such a moment in Monica's life, in Hendrie's.
Certainly the woman had spoken without thought. She had no understanding of what her words could possibly mean to her husband. And Hendrie, surely he was unaware that murder looked out of his furious gray eyes at what he believed to be the mention of the man for whose downfall he had perjured his own soul.
"Yes – him, him!" cried Monica, becoming hysterical. "My – my dead sister's child."
Hendrie recovered himself at once. He smoothed back his hair like a man at a loss.
"I – don't think I quite – get it," he said slowly. Then his bushy brows lifted questioningly. "Your sister's child? I didn't know you had a sister. You never told me. Say – how should I know where this child is?"
He was puzzled. Yet he was not without some doubts.
Monica swallowed with difficulty. Her throat and tongue were parched.
"No," she said, struggling for calmness. "I never told you because – because I had vowed to keep the secret. Questions would have followed the telling, which I could not have answered. I was bound – bound, and I could not break my promise."
"You best tell me all there is to tell," the man said coldly. "This secrecy, this promise. I don't understand – any of it."
Never had his wife's beauty appealed to Hendrie more than it did at that moment. A great depth of passionate feeling was stirring within him, but he permitted it no display. He was growing apprehensive, troubled. His doubt, too, was increasing.
Monica suddenly thrust out her hands in appeal.
"Oh, Alec, it is so hard, even now, to – to break my faith with the dead. And yet I know you are right. It – it is more than time for the truth. I think – yes, I believe if poor Elsie knew all, she would forgive me."
"Elsie?" The man's voice was sharply questioning.
"Yes, Elsie – my poor, dead sister."
"Go on."
"Yes, yes. I must go on." Monica drew a deep breath. "I can't understand. I don't seem to – Oh, tell me where he is. My Frank, my poor Frank, Elsie's boy. The boy I have brought up to manhood, the boy I have cared for all these years, the boy I have struggled and fought for. He – he is – lost. He has been spirited away as though he had never existed. And – I am told by the detectives to ask you where he is."
Hendrie's eyes were upon the carpet. He was no longer looking into the troubled face before him.
"Tell me," he said sharply; "when did you see him last?"
Monica no longer hesitated. Her husband's manner had become suddenly compelling.
"It was the last night I spent at Deep Willows," she said at once. "Just before you came home."
Hendrie raised his eyes. They were full of a dawning horror.
"The truth does demand," he cried almost fiercely. "Tell me! Tell me – as quickly as you can."
Monica was caught in the man's sudden excitement.
"Yes, yes, I will," she cried. "Oh, but it is a long story and – and a sordid one. It all happened when I was a young girl. I was only seventeen. Poor Elsie. She had been away a long time from home. Then she came home to me, her only relative. She came home to die, and dying gave birth to her son. You see, she was never married."
She paused, but went on at once at the man's prompt urging.
"She was never married, and the man left her in the hour of her direst need. Poor girl, even in her extremity she did not blame him. She loved him almost as much as she loved his little baby boy. She knew she was dying, nor did she seem to mind, except for her baby. He was her great anxiety. But even in that, her anxiety was chiefly that the child should never know of his mother's shame. So, almost with her last breath, she made me swear that I would bring him up as my own child. That I would keep her secret from him, and account for his father as being dead, with any story I chose to tell him. And I – I, a girl of seventeen, promised."
She paused. Then she hurried on as the questioning eyes of the man were again raised to her face.
"But what does it matter?" she cried suddenly. "She was my only sister and I loved her. From that day Frank became my own son, and, for nearly twenty years, I battled with the world for him. Nor in our worst trials did I feel anything but the greatest joy in our mutual love. Oh, yes, when he grew up, I had to lie to him. I have had to lie, lie, lie all through. And when you came into my life I had to lie harder than ever. It was either that, or betray my sister's secret. That I could not do – even for your love. I chose the easier path. I lied so that I should not have to give you up."
"It is not quite clear – the necessity?" The man again raised his eyes to her face, but, almost at once, they turned back to the carpet.
"It is simple enough," Monica went on dully. "If I married you, to keep my sister's secret I must keep Frank in the background. Otherwise I should have to give explanations. To keep him in the background I must tell him a story that made it necessary. I did so. So that he should know nothing of Elsie's shame, and as I had brought him up to call me 'mother,' I did the only thing that seemed to me possible. I took the whole responsibility upon myself. I told him that though he was my son I had never been married. You see, I knew his love for me. I knew his chivalrous spirit. He wanted me to be happy in my newly found love, so – he accepted the situation."
Hendrie shook his head.
"You kept the letter of your promise to your sister, and – betrayed the spirit of it."
Monica hung her head.
"I know. I did it because – I could not give you up."
Hendrie looked up with something like anguish in his eyes.
"Oh, woman, woman," he cried. "Why didn't you take me into your confidence? These lies could have been saved, and – and all these other, and even more, terrible consequences. Listen to me, and I will tell you all the rest. I can see it now. I can see it more clearly than you can tell me. He called himself Frank – Smith?"
Monica started.
"Yes. Whenever he visited me at Deep Willows. His real name was Frank Burton."
Hendrie's gaze wandered toward the window. The street lamps had just been lit. Never in his life had he known what it was to humble himself before another. Never had he known what it was to excuse himself for any act of his. Now he knew he must do both of these things.
Monica stepped eagerly forward from the shadow of the curtains.
"You – you know where he is?" she demanded.
Hendrie nodded. Then a strange thing happened. A harsh, mirthless laugh rang through the darkening room. Monica stared at the man's unsmiling face, horrified, and at a loss to understand.
"Then where is he?" she cried blankly.
"He is in the penitentiary, serving five years for breaking into Deep Willows, and robbing my safe of a bunch of money that belonged to you."
"Oh, God have mercy!"
The cry rang through the room. Monica reeled and would have fallen. In a moment her husband's arms were about her. But she flung him off, and her action was one of something like loathing. She stood up facing him, and pointing at him, while her agonized eyes challenged his.
"You – you!" she cried fiercely. Then: "Go on! Tell me – tell me quickly! It is you – you who have done this!"
Hendrie drew himself up. There was no hesitation about him, no shrinking before the story he had to tell.
"Yes, I did it," he said. "I – I! I have listened to your story. Now listen to mine, and when you blame me, you must blame yourself as well. I have loved you desperately. I love you now. God knows how I love you. If I did not I could never have endured what I have endured in the past and kept my reason. That is my excuse for what I have done.
"I saw that picture in your rooms and took the man to be an old lover. I hated him, and – I tore it up. I told you then there could only be one man in your life. I destroyed that pasteboard as I would destroy any one who came between us."
Monica remained silent while the man choked down his rising emotion.
"After we were married I became aware of the clandestine visits of a handsome man, to you, at Deep Willows. You were known to have embraced him."
"You – you spied!"
"I did not spy – then. I learned these things, nor does it matter how. I determined to crush this man I believed to be your lover. I determined to be rid of him once and for all. My love for you was so great that what I believed to be your guilt left me quite untouched. It was men I understood; men with whom I was accustomed to deal. I meant to deal with this man. So I set to work. I need not tell you how I tracked him down and kept him watched. It is sufficient that I knew of his visit to Deep Willows on the night in question. My plans were carefully laid. I left very little to chance. You were in the library with him, and Angus summoned you, to give you some important news he had received from me. I had arranged that. At the time the telephone bell rang I was beyond the window with the sheriff of Everton. The moment you left the room I entered it. I found this man with a bunch of money in his hand, and the safe open behind him. I had not hoped for such luck. I charged him then and there with the theft. Oh, I knew he had not stolen it. You had given it him, and it made me the more furious. I could have shot him where he stood. But it could not have been sufficient punishment. I meant to crush him.
"Then I did the crudest thing I could think of. I told him that I knew he had not stolen the money. I told him that he could clear himself of the charge by calling you into the witness box. In that way I knew that what I believed to be your shame would reach the whole world. But soon I was to see the stuff he was made of. He would not drag your name into the matter. He submitted to the charge with a simple declaration of his innocence, and I was well enough satisfied. The rest was sheriff's work. Within certain limits I knew I could buy the law, and I bought it. The case was kept out of the papers, and you were sent well away from any possibility of hearing of it. The name he was tried under, and which he clung to, helped further to disguise his identity. That night when you returned to the library, as I knew you would, you found the place in order, and the boy gone. You had no possible suspicion of what had occurred. You could have none. You remember I drove up later, as from Everton, in my automobile."
Hendrie ceased speaking. Monica remained silent. She stood quite still looking into his face as though she were striving to read all that lay behind it, trying to fathom to the very limits the primitive motives which had driven this man to the dreadful cruelty he had so readily inflicted. He had sent Frank, her boy, to a felon's prison. Sent him without one single scruple, without mercy. He had committed, besides, every base action he could have been guilty of to achieve his purpose, and all – for love of her.
She tried to think it all out clearly. She tried to see it through his eyes, but she could not. The hideousness of it all was too terrible. It was unforgivable.
At last she spoke. Her voice was hard and cold. In it Hendrie detected, he believed, the sentence her woman's heart had passed upon him.
"He must be released at once," she said, in a tone that warned him of all he had lost. "If you do not contrive this at once the world shall know the whole story – yours as well as mine."
The man made a slight movement. It was as though he had flinched before a blow in the face.
"He shall be released," he said.
"He must be released – at once." Monica's icy tone was final.
She turned away, moving toward the door. Then suddenly she paused, and a moan of despair broke from her.
"Oh, Alec," she cried, "how – how could you? How could you do it?"
The man was at her side in a moment.
"I love you, Mon," he cried, in deep tones. "You are more precious to me than all the world – than life itself. Can't you understand? Can't you see just something of what my eyes saw? Where you are concerned it is all so different. I could not, dared not lose you. I hated this man, who I believed had robbed me of your love."
Monica's agonized eyes were raised to his for a moment.
"But where was your faith? Where your trust?" she cried. "Why, why did you not openly accuse me?"
"Accuse you? Mon, you have yet to learn all that my love means. You think me, the world thinks me, a strong, even ruthless man. There is truth enough in the latter – God knows. But for the rest, where you are concerned, I am weak – so weak. I am more than that. I am an utter coward, too. While my heart might break at the knowledge of your infidelity, it would be incomparable to losing you out of my life. Why did I not accuse you openly? Because I was afraid to hear the truth from your lips. Do you know what would have happened had you confessed to me that you loved this man? It would have meant – murder. Oh, not your death," as Monica drew away horrified at the terrible sincerity of the threat. "That man would have died. Now can you understand? Won't you understand?"
There was a dreadful moment of doubt, of anxiety, while the man waited an answer to his appeal. No prisoner could have awaited sentence with more desperate hope. His eyes devoured the woman's averted face, while his heart hungered for the faintest gleam of hope it might hold out. And waiting he wondered. Was there anything in a woman's love at all, or was he to be condemned to a life with the doors of her soul closed and barred against him for ever?
It seemed an endless waiting. Then she gave a sign. She turned to him, and raised a pair of eyes, whose sadness and distress smote him to the heart, and looked up into his face. Then he knew, however undeserved, her love was still his.
"Perhaps I can understand, Alec, but – but give me time." Monica spoke in a deep, tender voice that was full of pain, full of suffering. "I am beginning to understand many things I did not comprehend before. You, perhaps, are not so much to blame as I thought. I have been so weak, too. A little candor and honesty on my part might have saved it all. We are both terribly to blame, and perhaps most of it lies at my door. Let us try to forget ourselves. Let us forget everything but that which we owe to Frank. We both owe him so much. Oh, when I think of the way I have fulfilled poor Elsie's trust I feel as though my heart would break."
"If ever a trust was carried out truly, yours has been, Mon."
The man's arms were about her, and he gently drew her to him. He gazed tenderly down upon her now tear-stained face.
"No woman could have done more than you have," he went on. "If things have gone awry it is no fault of yours." He smoothed her beautiful hair with one tender hand. "I give you my sacred word your Frank shall be released. I swear it by the memory of your poor dead sister. I can still undo the mischief which my mad jealousy has wrought, and your – Elsie will forgive."
He bent and kissed her upturned face, while she clung to him for support.
"Yes, yes, she will forgive. It was her nature to forgive," Monica said, in a wave of tender memory. "To the last she would not hear one word against the wretched father of her boy. Do you know, Alec, I sometimes wonder that Heaven allows such men to go about working their cruel mischief upon trusting women."
Hendrie stirred uneasily, and his arms gently released her.
"Tell me of her – of him," he said, his eyes turned upon the streaming light from the street lamps.
Monica became thoughtful.
"I know so little about him," she said, after a slight pause. "You see, I never saw him; and Elsie – she would say so little. It seems she met him in New York. I forgot to tell you Elsie was an actress. She acted under the name of Audie Thorne."
The man started. Then, slowly, his eyes came back to her face. Fortunately their expression was lost upon her, and, before she could turn in his direction, he was once more gazing out at the brilliant light which, somehow, he was no longer aware of. He was listening to his wife's voice, but her words conveyed little enough to him now. His mind was far back in a dim, almost forgotten past.
"I don't know how it all happened," Monica went on. "She was doing so well on the stage. Then she met this man, Leo. The next thing she was up in the Yukon with him. He was prospecting. Then they were traveling down country – overland – with an Indian scout. That's when he deserted her. She only managed to reach me, in San Sabatano, through the aid of the scout. He gave her money. Money paid him for the trip." Then a world of contempt crept into her voice. "I suppose it was the coming of Elsie's baby which frightened him – the cowardly brute."
Hendrie nodded, his face studiously averted.
"Perhaps," he murmured. "But one can never be sure of such a man's motives."
"Motives?" There was unutterable scorn in the woman's voice. "And while he goes free, she, poor soul, is left to suffer and die – in the – gutter!"
"But – you sheltered her? You cared for her?"
The man's voice was almost pleading.
"Thank God, I could at least do that – but it was not through any doing of his. Oh, if only I had the punishing of such – as he."
"Perhaps he will get his punishment, even as you could desire it. Perhaps he has got it."
"I pray God it may be so."
Quite suddenly Hendrie turned about and faced her. His face was thrown into the shadow by the light of the window, which was now behind him.
"These are past days, Mon," he said, in his decided fashion. "We have to do with errors, faults of the present. I must get to work at once to repair something of the damage I have done. You employed detectives. Who?"
"The Redtown Agency."
"Good. I will see them at once. You must dine alone tonight. I will report later."
The man moved suddenly across to his desk, and one hand fell heavily upon the carved mahogany of it. He looked across into the face of the woman he loved, and the fire of a great purpose shone in his eyes.
"Thank God I am the rich man I am!" he cried. "Thank God for the power of wealth. You shall see, Mon, you shall see! Leave me now, for I must – work. Hark!"
The deep note of the dinner gong rang out its opulent song in the hall.
"Dinner!" Hendrie remained standing. "You had better go – now."
Monica reluctantly moved toward the door and opened it.
"Very well, dear," she said. "You will tell me all you have done – later. Thank God, there is no more need for secrecy between us."
The brilliant light of the hall silhouetted her figure as she stood. But for once, though his eyes took in every detail of the picture she made, Alexander Hendrie remained wholly unappreciative.