<h2><SPAN name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></SPAN>XXVIII</h2>
<h2>BY THE LIGHT OF A GUTTERING CANDLE</h2>
<div class="figleft"><ANTIMG src="images/image_m.jpg" alt="M" width-obs="53" height-obs="50" /></div>
<p>y amazement was unaffected, and so overwhelming I hardly understood
myself. His wife, Mille-fleurs! Alas, then, for Hope, who, in her
unthinking if generous love for this man, was prepared for any other
grief than this! Yet why "alas"? Had she not told me that her greatest
wish, her supreme desire, was to see his character restored to its old
standing in her eyes, and had he not at this moment cleared himself of
the one sin her womanly heart would find it hardest to pardon? The cry
of "poor Hope!" with which my heart was charged changed to "happy
Hope," and my composure, which had been sadly shaken, was slowly
returning, when the insoluable mystery of the situation absorbed me
again, and I glanced at Mr. Gryce to see how he had been affected by
Mr. Gillespie's announcement.</p>
<p>This aged detective, who, when I last looked his way, was standing
alone in the doorway, now had Sweetwater at his side,—that agile
young man having bounded into the room before the words which had made
so great a change in the situation had fully left Mr. Gillespie's
lips; and the contrast of expression as seen in the two faces was
noticeable. Sweetwater,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</SPAN></span> young in experience, young in feeling,
reflected in look and attitude the sensations of awakening sympathy
and interest with which I own my own breast was full, while the older
detective, with characteristic prudence, withheld his judgment, and,
consequently, his sympathy, for the explanations which such an avowal
from such a man certainly demanded.</p>
<p>Indeed, the situation might very naturally suggest to one so
accustomed to the seamy side of human nature, that this sudden demise
of an inconvenient witness chimed in too opportunely with the need of
the man he had come there to arrest, for it to be viewed without
suspicion.</p>
<p>There was, however, only a tinge of this feeling in his voice as he
quietly remarked:</p>
<p>"I thought you buried your <i>wife</i> five years ago in Cornwall."</p>
<p>"And I thought so also," was Leighton Gillespie's quiet reply. "For
many, many wretched weeks and months I believed this in common with
all my friends. Then—but it is a long story, Mr. Gryce. Do you
require me to relate it now and <i>here</i>?"</p>
<p>The reverence with which he allowed his hand to touch rather than fall
on the breast he had so carefully covered from our curious gaze spoke
volumes. At the sight of this simple action, both men bent their
heads. I doubt if he noticed it. A stray lock which had escaped from
the coverlet and now hung curling and glittering over the straw which
protruded from the wretched pallet, had attracted his eye. Lifting it
with a lingering touch, he put it softly out of sight; then he quietly
said:<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I would like to have one fact made known to the public. My father was
ignorant to the last that it was a stranger and not my wife we buried
in Cornwall. There were reasons which made it difficult for me to tell
him that Mrs. Gillespie still lived; and while I make no excuses for
the silence I maintained towards him on this subject, I acknowledge
that to it are due my present position and the misery I am now under
of seeing the darling of my heart die in an attic where I would not
house a dog."</p>
<p>The accents of heartfelt sorrow are not to be mistaken. The air of
severity with which Mr. Gryce had hitherto surveyed this supposed
criminal softened into a look more in keeping with his native
benevolence, but he had no reply ready, and the silence became
painful. Indeed, the situation was not an easy one for even so
experienced a man as Mr. Gryce to handle, and, noting his
embarrassment, I bounded into the room and took my place at his side,
much as Sweetwater had done.</p>
<p>Mr. Gillespie scarcely remarked this new inroad upon his privacy. He
doubtless took me for another police-officer, and as such not to be
noted or counted. But the detectives showed some surprise at my
intrusion, which seeing, I turned to Mr. Gryce and said:</p>
<p>"If you will excuse my presumption I should like to speak to Mr.
Gillespie."</p>
<p>The latter started, possibly at my tone, and, wheeling about, gazed at
my bare head and drenched figure with sharp curiosity in which a
growing recognition soon became visible.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>I at once bowed.</p>
<p>"You remember me," I suggested. "I am Mr. Outhwaite. If you will
pardon my method of entrance and the proof which it gives of my
connection with these men, I should like to offer you my assistance at
this crisis. Mr. Gryce evidently wishes some conversation with you,
which you rightly hesitate to accord him in a place made sacred by the
presence of your dead wife. If you will have confidence in me, I will
watch this room while you go below. No one shall approach the bed and
no one shall enter the room, if Mr. Gryce will leave a guard at the
door. Will you accept this service? It is sincerely tendered."</p>
<p>He stood perplexed, eyeing me with mingled doubt and astonishment;
then, turning with an inexpressible look of longing towards the one
object of his care, he cried:</p>
<p>"You do not understand or you would not ask me to leave her, not for a
moment. I have not had her so near me, so near my hand, so near my
heart, these many minutes in years. She cannot rise and run away from
me now. She does not even wish to. This is a happiness to me you
cannot appreciate, a happiness I cannot endure seeing cut short. Leave
me, then, I pray, and come again when she has been laid in her grave.
You will find me ready to receive you, ready to explain——"</p>
<p>"You ask the impossible," interrupted Mr. Gryce. "Some explanations
will not bide the convenience of even so recent a mourner as yourself.
If you do not wish to be taken immediately from this place,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</SPAN></span> you will
make some few things clear to us. What has this woman had to do with
your father's death?"</p>
<p>"Nothing."</p>
<p>The fire with which Leighton Gillespie uttered this word made us both
start. Aghast at what struck me as a direct falsehood, I instinctively
opened my lips. But Mr. Gryce made me an imperceptible gesture, and I
refrained from carrying out my inconsiderate impulse.</p>
<p>"I see," continued the unhappy man, "that suspicions which I had
supposed confined to my brothers and myself have involved my innocent
wife. This is more than I can bear. I will at once make known to you
my miserable story."</p>
<p>Mr. Gryce drew up a chair and sat down. As there was no other in the
room we knew what that meant. The damp air was beginning to tell upon
the rheumatic old man. Attention being thus called to the open window,
Sweetwater moved over and closed it. Never shall I forget the look
which Leighton Gillespie cast towards the bed as that broken and
ill-fitting sash came rattling down.</p>
<p>"See if the hall is clear," said Mr. Gryce.</p>
<p>The young detective crossed to the door. As he opened it and looked
out, a gust of noisy laughter rose from below, mingled with the shrill
sound of a woman's singing, the same, doubtless, which we had
previously heard in front. These tones, heard amid brawl and shouting,
seemed to pierce Mr. Gillespie to the heart. Mr. Gryce, who saw
everything, motioned to Sweetwater to close the door as he had the
window. Sweetwater complied by shutting himself out. This<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</SPAN></span> was an act
of self-denial which I felt called upon to emulate.</p>
<p>"Shall I join Mr. Sweetwater?" I asked.</p>
<p>It was Mr. Gillespie who replied:</p>
<p>"No. I wish more than one listener; let the lawyer stay."</p>
<p>I was only too happy to remain. Wet as I was, I felt anxious to hear
what this man so singled out by Hope had to say in explanation of his
relations to the wretched woman he now acknowledged to be his wife.</p>
<p>He seemed in haste to make them.</p>
<p>"Seven years ago this fall," he began, "I met this woman, then a
girl."</p>
<p>"Wait!" put in Mr. Gryce; "there is a point which must first be
settled." And, advancing to the cot guarded so jealously by the man
before him, he laid his hand upon the coverlet. "You will allow me,"
he said firmly, as with a gentle enough touch he drew it softly aside.</p>
<p>"How came this woman—pardon me, how came Mrs. Gillespie to die thus
suddenly?"</p>
<p>The unhappy husband, after his first recoil of outraged feeling,
forced himself into a recognition of the detective's rights, and, with
apparent resignation, rejoined:</p>
<p>"I should have come to that in time. She died, as you can readily
perceive, from exposure. Driven from Mother Merry's miserable quarters
by some terror for which, perhaps, she had no name, she wandered in
and out among the docks for two wretched days and nights, often
dragging her feet through the ooze<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</SPAN></span> of the river, so that her garments
were never dry and are not so yet. At last she came here, where once
before she had found shelter in a biting storm. <i>Here!</i> But it is a
better place than the wharves, and I am glad God guided her to even so
poor a refuge. She was raving with fever when she came straggling into
the room below. But after the warmth struck her and she had tasted
something, she came to herself again, and then—and then she sent for
me."</p>
<p>He paused. I did not yet understand him or the circumstances which
made this situation possible, but a strange reverence began to mingle
with my wonder,—not for the man—I could not feel that yet; but for a
love which could infuse such feeling into the lightest allusion he
made to this beloved, if wretched waif.</p>
<p>"There was a doctor here when I came," he speedily continued. "You can
find him;—he will tell no different tale from mine—but no doctor
could help her after those nights of bitter cold and exposure, and I
paid him to leave me alone with her; and she died in my arms. May I
tell you why this was everything to me? Why, the happiness of having
received her last sigh is so great, that I have no room for resentment
against you for this intrusion, and hardly feel the shame of being
found in this place, with my dead darling lying in her miserable rags
on this hideous pallet!"</p>
<p>"You may tell us," assented Mr. Gryce, replacing the coverlet over the
face upon which was fast settling that look of peace which is Death's
last gift to the living.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Mr. Gillespie's tone grew deeper; it could hardly have grown more
tender or more solemn.</p>
<p>"I loved this woman. She was young when I first saw her. So was I.
There were no haggard lines about her dancing eyes and laughing lips
then. She was a vision of—well, I will not say beauty; she was never
beautiful—but of—I cannot tell you what; I can only say that my life
began on that day, not to end till she died, a half-hour ago.</p>
<p>"I married her. She was not a woman to take into my father's house;
perhaps not into any family circle. The stage was her home, the stage
from which I took her; but I did not know this; I simply knew that she
was wild in spirit, and unused to household ways and social
restrictions. But had I understood her then as I do now, I doubt if I
would have acted any differently. I was headstrong in those days and
quite reckless enough to grasp at what I felt to be my own, even if
aware it would fall to nothing in my frenzied clutch.</p>
<p>"I took her into my father's family. I took this wild bird out of its
native air, and shut it up behind the strict bars of a conventional
household. One promise only I exacted from her as the price of this
gracious act on my part. She was never under any pretext, not even in
the event of my death, to return to the stage. Poor child! she has
kept that promise. Perhaps it is all she has kept: kept it, though
hungry; kept it when the wild craving for morphine tore at her breast
and brain and she could have got the drug for one strain from her
marvellous voice; kept it, though her veins burned with longing for<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</SPAN></span>
the movement that was her life, and the weights on her tongue lay
heavy on her heart, which beat truly only while she was dancing or
singing. It was her dancing and singing which had won my heart; or,
rather, the woman when dancing and singing; yet I cut her off from
these natural expressions of the turbulent joy springing from her
exuberant nature, and expected her to be satisfied with my love and
the routine of a well-regulated household. This was my folly; a folly
born of the delight I took in her simple presence. I thought that she
loved me as I did her, and found in love's madness the recompense for
what she had laid aside. But I had not read her nature. No man could
fill her heart as she filled mine. She was a genius,—an untamable
one,—and the restiveness of her temperament made demands which could
only find relief in spontaneous song or rhythmic movement.</p>
<p>"My father, who loved quiet women—women like my mother, whose force
lay hidden in such sweetness that she shines with almost a saint's
glory in our memory—could not understand my wife's temperament; and,
consequently, could not show even common patience towards her. He was
not harsh in his treatment of her, but he failed to give her credit
for so much as wishing to conform to his ways and the habits of the
people she must meet in our house. When he came upon her, stealthily
posing before our long mirror in the drawing-room, or caught floating
down the stairs a faint echo of her magical voice in one of the tragic
strains she best loved to sing, he showed such open shrinking and
distaste that she flew for comfort to the one resource capable of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</SPAN></span>
undermining for me all hope of a better future. I allude to her use of
morphine.</p>
<p>"She had taken it before our marriage, but the fact was kept from me.
When I awoke to a realisation of the horror menacing my happiness, I
devoted time, strength, and every means I then knew, to win her from
this practice. But I only partially succeeded. She did not realise the
harmfulness of this habit and could not be made to. Eluding my
vigilance, she resorted more and more to the drug I could never
succeed in keeping out of her grasp, and it fell to me to stand in the
breach thus made and keep the knowledge of this crowning humiliation
from my father and brothers.</p>
<p>"Meanwhile my father, who was strictness itself in all matters of
propriety, insisted upon her sitting opposite him at the table and
comporting herself in every way as the lady of the house. Just because
he so dreaded comment and had so much pride in his own social standing
and that of his sons, he kept her continually on view and carried her
to parties and balls, thinking that his prestige would cause
recognition to be given her by his friends. And it did—but
grudgingly! Admired for what she was not, she was scorned for what she
was. I have seen her petted by some would-be society fine lady till my
blood boiled, then marked the smile of supercilious sarcasm which
would be thrown back upon her when her beautiful shoulders were
turned. Yet I had hopes, strong hopes of better days after the first
strangeness of the new life should have worn away and her good
impulses had had time to develop into motive powers for<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</SPAN></span> kind actions.
But it was not to be; never was to be. The fiend whose power I had set
myself to combat was far stronger than any force I could bring against
him. She grew worse—appeared once in public as she never before had
appeared outside her own room, and my father, who was with her, never
attempted to hold up his head again in his former unmoved fashion.
Claire, who came to us later, had no power to hold her mother back,
and while she was still an infant, the inevitable occurred—my wife
ran away from us.</p>
<p>"It was the first overwhelming shock my hitherto unfailing faith had
had to sustain. She had slipped away at nightfall without money and
almost without farewell. The merest note left on the piano in our
little room on the third floor told me she had tried to be happy in a
domestic life, but had failed; and begged me not to seek her, for she
was stifling for air and freedom.</p>
<p>"And I have no doubt she was. Seeing, since, where she has found
pleasure, and under what conditions the old gay smile has revisited
her lips, I have no doubt that the very luxury we prized was
oppressive to her. But then I only thought of the dangers and
privations she must encounter away from my protection; and, confiding
to no one the calamity which had befallen me, I rushed from the house
and sought her in every place which suggested itself to me as a
possible refuge. It was a frenzied search, and ended in my coming upon
her, ten days after her disappearance, in a plain but decent
lodging-house. Her money was gone, and she lay in that heavy sleep<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</SPAN></span>
which has no such hallowing effect upon the beauty as this we look
upon now.</p>
<p>"Some men's love would have sickened and failed them at this degrading
sight. But though a change took place in the feeling which had held me
in an entranced state ever since my marriage, it was a change which
deepened, rather than deadened, the affection with which I regarded
her. From a creature whose untold charm bewitched and bewildered me,
she became to me a sacred charge for which I was responsible to God
and man; and while she still lay there and I stood in a maze of misery
before her, I vowed that, come what would, I would remain true to her
and by means of this faith and through the unfailing patience it would
call forth, make what effort I could to stay her on the brink of that
precipice she seemed doomed to perish by.</p>
<p>"But I was to be tried in ways I had little foreseen. She was glad to
see me when she woke, and readily consented to return to her home and
her child. But in two months she was off again, and this time I did
not find her so easily. When I did, she was in such a hopeless
condition of mental and moral degradation that I took her to a
sanitarium, where I had every reason to expect that a proper secrecy
would be maintained as to her real complaint and unhappy condition.
For my pride was still a torment to me, and an open rupture with my
father too undesirable for me to risk a revelation of the true extent
of the vagaries indulged in by his unwelcome daughter-in-law. Her
escapades, serious as they were, had affected him but little. For I
had so closely followed her in her<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</SPAN></span> sudden flittings that we were
looked upon as having left home together on some hurried tour or at
the call of some thoughtless impulse. He had believed us out of town,
while I was engaged in hunting the city through for her.</p>
<p>"But after a week spent in the sanitarium, I perceived by the looks I
encountered, on every side, that my secret was discovered; and was
thus in a measure prepared when the door of my room opened one day
upon the stern figure of my father. He had heard the true cause of my
wife's condition, and a stormy scene was before me.</p>
<p>"It was then that I regretted that my early opportunities had been
slighted, and that, instead of being independent of his bounty, I was
not considered capable of earning my own living. Had my home been one
of my own making, I might have stood up and faced him at that hour
with a resolution to hold by my wife, which in itself might have
ensured his respect. But I was tied hand and tongue by the realisation
of all I owed him, was owing him, and was likely to owe him to the end
of my days. I was not master of my own life; how, then, could I
propose to be the master of another's?</p>
<p>"My father, whose favourite I had never been, could not be expected to
know what was passing in my heart; but he was not without a
realisation of what he might find in the adjoining room, and, casting
a glance that way, he asked coldly:</p>
<p>"'Is she—Mrs. Gillespie—(he never called her by her given name)
<i>awake</i>?'</p>
<p>"No question could have pierced my heart more<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</SPAN></span> poignantly. It was not
the hour for sleep, and the use of the word had intention in it. But I
subdued all signs of distress, and, calling her by name, bade her come
out and greet father; after which I stood breathless, waiting for her
appearance, conscious that it might be a smiling one, and equally that
it might be—I dared not think what. She was not always to be depended
upon.</p>
<p>"She did not appear at once. 'Sit down, father,' I begged. 'She may be
dressing.'</p>
<p>"And she was. In a minute or two, as we stood watching, she threw open
the door, and in an instant I saw that whatever hope I may have
cherished of her creating a good impression in her partially recovered
state, was an ill-founded one. She was not in one of her depressed
moods, but, what was worse, perhaps, in one of her ecstatic ones. All
her genius, and she had much, had taken fire under some impulse of her
erratic brain, and she came into the room prepared to conquer in the
only way she knew how. Still young, still beautiful in her own way,
which was that of no other woman, she glided into our presence in one
rapturous whirl, a scarf floating from her neck, and a wreath of wild
vine about her head. I rushed to prevent her, but it was too late. She
<i>would</i> dance, and she did, while my father, who had never seen her in
this glowing state, drew me aside and watched with hard eyes, while
she swayed and dipped and palpitated in what would have been a
glorious ebullition of pure delight, had she not been my wife, and the
man at my side as cold to her charm as the dew which stood out on my
wretched forehead. When I could bear no<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</SPAN></span> more, I flung my arms about
her and she stopped, panting and frightened, like a bird caught in
full flight. 'Sing,' I whispered to her; 'sing that air from <i>Ænone</i>'.
I thought the tragic pathos of her tones might make her dancing
forgotten. And they did in a way. My father had never listened to any
such dramatic rendering of a simple song before, and I saw that he was
subdued by the feelings it awakened. But I gathered no hope from this.
He had too little liking for public exhibitions of this kind on the
part of women, for him to be affected long by any singing which was
not that of the boudoir; and when, her first ebullition passed, she
began to droop under the heavy reaction which inevitably followed
these impulsive performances, I drew her into the other room, and shut
the door. Then I came back and faced him.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="pic_6" id="pic_6"></SPAN> <ANTIMG src="images/image_006.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="779" alt=""SHE GLIDED INTO OUR PRESENCE IN ONE RAPTUROUS WHIRL"" title="" /> <span class="caption">"SHE GLIDED INTO OUR PRESENCE IN ONE RAPTUROUS WHIRL"</span></div>
<p>"He was standing in the window of the large but unlovely room,
drumming restlessly on the panes before him. As the light struck his
head it brought to view the silver rapidly making its way through the
dark locks he had been accustomed to pride himself upon, and a pang
struck me at this sight, which made me quite dumb for the instant. I
felt as if I, and not she, had been dancing over his heart. Then my
ever-present thought of the woman I had sworn to cherish returned and
held me steady while he said:</p>
<p>"'It is well that I have seen your wife once when the full spell was
upon her. Now I know what has come into the Gillespie family.
Leighton, do you love this woman?'</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"'Enough to bear your condemnation if you choose to condemn us,' I
assured him.</p>
<p>"'Then take her away out of my sight and from the possible sight of my
growing grandchild. A dancing menad can be no mother to Claire.'</p>
<p>"'I will take her away,' I promised him. 'When this place has done all
for her it can, I will carry her where she can offend no one but
strangers.'</p>
<p>"'I would suggest an asylum,' he muttered. It was the only unjust
thing I ever knew him to propose.</p>
<p>"'She is not insane,' I objected.</p>
<p>"'She is not sane,' he rejoined. 'No opium-eater is. But I will not
force your conscience; only—let me never again see her in our home in
Fifth Avenue. <i>You</i> will always be welcome.'</p>
<p>"I could not retort that I would enter no house from which she was
thus peremptorily excluded. The house in Fifth Avenue was my home, the
home of my child; and about it clustered every dear association of my
heart save those connected with my unhappy love.</p>
<p>"'A man who marries for a whim must expect unpleasant results,' my
father resumed. 'You shall have what money you need for her
establishment elsewhere; but this hemisphere is too narrow to harbour
both her and myself. Go to Europe, Leighton; there is more room there
for your wife to dance in.'</p>
<p>"And I meant to follow this suggestion, but her health was not good
enough for me to risk a voyage at this juncture, and we drifted West
and put up at a place called Mountain Springs. It was during our stay
there, that, so far as the world is concerned,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</SPAN></span> the story of my
married life ended. But for me it had only begun. The facts regarding
my wife and her connection with that great catastrophe which robbed
more than one household of wife and mother differed much in reality
from those reported to the world and accepted by my own family. She
did not perish in that wreck, though I thought she had, and mourned
her loss for many months. She had merely taken advantage of the
circumstances to effect another escape. How, I will endeavour to
relate, hard as it is to disclose the failings of one so dear to me.</p>
<p>"My wife, whose natural longings had been modified rather than
extinguished by her experiences at the sanitarium, soon awakened to
the old sense of restraint and a desire to enjoy again the
irresponsibilities of her early Bohemian life. But having gained
wisdom by her past experiences, she allowed no expression of her
feelings to escape her; and, relying on the effect produced upon me by
her apparent content, merely asked the privilege of enjoying the
sports indulged in by the other boarders. Fearing to cross her too
much, I gave her all possible liberty, but when she begged to go on a
certain excursion—the excursion which ended so disastrously for all
concerned—I felt forced to refuse her, for I had made an arrangement
that day which would prevent me from accompanying her. However, after
repeated solicitation, I yielded to her importunities and gave her my
consent, at which she showed much joy, and lavished many expressions
of fondness upon me. Had my suspicions not been lulled by the
undisturbed peacefulness of the last few months,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</SPAN></span> these open
demonstrations of affection might have occasioned me some alarm, for
they were not without a suggestion of remorse. But I mistrusted
nothing; I was too happy, and when I parted from her it was with the
full intention of sacrificing for her pleasure the first real business
engagement I had ever entered upon. But I did not carry out this
impulse; I merely made arrangements for the train to stop for me at
the little station on the mountains where my affairs led me. But I did
not confide this plan to her till I was upon the point of leaving.
Then I told her she might look for me on the train immediately after
passing Buckley, and while I wondered at the way she received my
words, I thought the embarrassment she showed was due to surprise.
Alas! it sprang from much deeper sources. She had planned to leave me
again, this time forever; and, baffled as she thought in the attempt,
she succumbed for a little while to despair. Then her fertile brain
suggested an expedient. Two trains left Mountain Springs that morning,
one north and one south. She would take the southern train, and lest
she should be prematurely discovered in her flight and so be followed
before she had found a refuge, she prevailed upon a girl over whom she
had some influence, to exchange garments with her and take her place
among the excursionists. She little dreamed what lay before those
excursionists. As little did I realise that it was in behalf of a
stranger I entered upon that mad chase after the runaway cars I had
seen slip from the engine and go crashing down towards the train on
which I believed my wife<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</SPAN></span> to be. I knew those cars to be loaded with
dynamite, for it was in connection with this fact I had come to this
place, and the thought that they were destined to prove the
destruction of the life I so much prized maddened me to such an extent
that it was a mere matter of instinct for me to leap upon the engine I
saw bounding to her rescue. Had time been given me to think, I might
not have shown such temerity, for I knew nothing of a fireman's duties
or what would be expected of me by the engineer. But I did not pause
to think; I only stood ready to hazard my life for the woman I
loved,—the woman whom I believed to be on the train I even then could
see advancing up the valley. Of that ride, its swirl and whirlwind
rush, I remember little; every thought, every fear, was engrossed in
the one question, How were we to save that train? But two methods
suggested themselves to me in my ignorance and isolation from the
brave engineer. Either we must overtake the cars and by coupling to
them stay their downward rush to the main track below—a trick I did
not understand—or we must crush so fiercely into them as to explode
the dynamite with which they were loaded before they had a chance to
collide with the advancing train. That the latter catastrophe did not
happen was not owing to any precaution on my part, for I do not
remember that I had the least dread of personal destruction. As I have
just said, my one thought, my only thought in that dizzy descent, was
to save her. And I failed to do it; or so I had reason to think. As
you remember, all our efforts were in vain; the unspeakable occurred,
and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</SPAN></span> wreck, death, and disaster met my eyes when, after a period of
blank darkness, I rose from the ground where I had been hurled by the
force of that dynamite explosion. Amid this wreck, in face of this
death, I plunged in my search for her, and, as I believed, found her.
A loving husband cannot be deceived in his wife's clothes, and the
fragments I handled told their tale, as I thought, only too well. But,
as you now know, it was not my wife who wore these clothes, though we
buried her as such, and I mourned my lost love as no one who has not
fixed his whole heart upon one object can possibly understand.</p>
<p>"My father, whose relief at this release can be readily imagined,
endeavoured to calm my grief, not by sympathy, for that he could not
feel, but by an unvarying kindness which assured me that, now that
this obstacle to a right understanding between us had been removed, I
might hope for the establishment of more cordial relations between us.
I was older now, and he more considerate of my many uncongenial ways
and habits; besides, Claire made a tender bond between us, and with
one of her baby smiles healed many a breach that might otherwise have
separated us.</p>
<p>"I began to be content, when, having some business in a strange
quarter of the city, I chanced to walk down East Fourteenth Street. It
was a holiday of some kind and there had been a procession. The stir
in the streets was just what usually follows the breaking up of long
lines of people. But this did not disturb me. Claire had been
unusually<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</SPAN></span> engaging that morning, and I was just rejoicing in the
memory of her innocent prattle, when the band in the far distance
broke out into a merry strain, and I saw on the sidewalk before me a
cluster of people separate into a sort of ring, in the middle of which
a woman stood poised with swaying arms, so like the image that was day
by day receding farther and farther into the deep recesses of my
memory, that a species of faintness came over me and I drew back, sick
and half-blinded, directly in the path of the people pressing in my
rear. This caused me to receive a push from behind which effectually
roused me and gave me strength to look again at one who could recall
my lost Mille-fleurs. I expected—how could I expect anything
else?—to be met by a strange face and an unknown smile. But it was
<i>her</i> face, <i>her</i> smile; and the figure, clad in such clothes as I had
never, even in my worst dreams, associated with the woman to whom I
had given my name, was <i>hers</i>. Had God made two such women? Two with
such eyes, such hair, such instincts, and such genius? Was this a
sister of Mille-fleurs; a twin of my lost darling, of whose existence
I had never heard? God grant not! I had buried Mille-fleurs, and with
her, memories which this creature would only bring back to the
destruction of my peace. I dared not give way for one instant to the
thought that this likeness was anything but a passing illusion which
the next moment would dispel. I dared not for my life. And yet I stood
staring; hearing and not hearing the shouts of wild applause rising
around me, and was looking, yes, looking directly into her eyes,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</SPAN></span> when
they suddenly turned my way in startled recognition. It was
Mille-fleurs! Mille-fleurs! The woman I had buried was a stranger, and
she who was making pastime for the passing crowd was <i>my wife</i>!</p>
<p>"I made no scene. I accepted the fact as we accept any unforeseen
catastrophe that comes upon us unawares, tearing up our peaceful
present and making a chaos of the future. As she was still dancing,
though fitfully and with curious breaks, I stopped her by my steady
look and held her so, till the crowd had melted away sufficiently for
me to take her by the hand and lead her under the cover of the first
small shop we came to. Then I questioned her closely, and, when I
understood all, asked her if she would go with me and be clothed and
fed. She answered with a startled look. 'I cannot!' she cried, and
wearily drooped her head. 'I am not worthy.'</p>
<p>"God knows what passed through my mind then. I stood there in the
wretchedness of this low shop, beside a counter from which the smell
of stale tobacco rose in nauseous fumes, together with the sickening
smell of partially decayed fruits—a flower in my button-hole (put
there by little Claire), and before me this woman, loved as few of
earth's best and worthiest have been, telling me with trembling lips
what explained her rags, the degradation which had fallen on her
beauty, and the whole pitiable downfall of a womanhood which once
struck my heart as ideal and worthy of a man's unselfish worship.</p>
<p>"Drawing the flower from my button-hole, I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</SPAN></span> crushed it in my hand. If
I could have donned the clothes of some of the men lolling about us in
greedy curiosity, I would have done so at that moment, if only the
contrast between our outer selves might have been less apparent. But
this was impossible, and I could only stand in silence in face of this
wreck of bygone delights, and in one moment and under the gaze of a
dozen pairs of eyes peering from behind the counter and gaping in at
the doorway, live down my bitter humiliation at this untoward
resurrection of a love I had learned to rejoice in as buried. For this
was no wretched waif of the streets I could pity and leave. This was
my wife, the mother of my child; the woman whom I had once vowed to
hold in honour to the end, and to succour, no matter what her need or
to what degradation she might come. Besides, there was an appeal in
her drooping attitude and quivering mouth which touched my heart in
spite of my judgment. I felt her misery as I had never felt my own; a
misery all the more pronounced because of the joy so openly preceding
it; and, feeling a fresh thrill in the old cord of union that had made
our hearts one, I quietly asked her if she had lost all love for me.
She gave me one quick look; and I saw her eye quicken as she softly
faltered, 'No. Only,' she made haste to add, 'I cannot live in big
houses under the eyes of people who think my ways odd and wrong. If
you take me back to him I cannot help going wrong again. But I would
like something pretty to wear and something good to eat.'</p>
<p>"I took her to an East Side hotel. I bought her<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</SPAN></span> clothes and gave her
food, over which she laughed like a child. Then I told her what I
meant to do for her. I would buy her a home in a pretty country place,
where she need not fear intruding eyes. There she should live with
some woman I could trust and who would be kind to her. A piano, music,
flowers, books—she should have all, and if, in the course of time,
she came to wish it, I would bring our child to see her. Did she think
she could be contented in a home like this? Wouldn't it be better than
the cold and squalor of the streets and these wild dances before
unsympathetic eyes?</p>
<p>"She answered with a burst of affection which was real enough at the
time; then asked if I was going to let my father know she was living.
This brought to light the spectre which had stood over against us ever
since I first recognised her as the woman I had sworn to love and
cherish. Could I tell my father? Could I bring down again upon myself
the old coldness, the old distrust, the old sense of a division that
was gall to me because of the reverence and love I naturally felt for
him?</p>
<p>"I could not; I recognised the cowardice of it, but I could not. I was
ready to give her succour; I was ready to devote time, money, and care
to her establishment and well-being; I could deny myself the pleasures
and pursuits natural to men of my age, and even the uninterrupted
enjoyment of the home I had come to prize, but I could not tell my
father that the wild-eyed creature he was forcing himself to forget,
still lived, and might any day bring down fresh humiliation upon him.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"She saw my doubt and smiled as in the early days of her untrammelled
youth.</p>
<p>"'Better so,' she cried; 'then if I fail to be good it will not so
much matter. And I may fail; it is in my blood, Leighton; in my
unfortunate Bohemian blood. Oh, why did you ever care for me?'</p>
<p>"Such gusts of feeling and regret over the havoc she had caused were
common to her. They made it impossible for me to hope in her ultimate
restoration to respectability and a quiet life. But, alas! they were
but gusts, and after a few months of peaceful harbourage in the
rose-covered cottage I found for her, she fled from me again and was
lost for <i>years</i>. But I never ceased searching for her. The unrest of
knowing she was restless under the roof I had provided for her was
nothing to the restlessness of not knowing where she was and in what
misery and under what deprivation she was pining away in the dark
holes where alone she could find refuge. I have sat hours under my
father's eye, talking of stocks and bonds and railway shares, while my
every thought and feeling were with her whom in my fancy I saw
wandering from river to river, in dark nights and in cold;—rain on
the pavements or slush in the streets,—drawing up to lighted doors
for warmth or hiding her brown head with its flying curls under sheds
a dog might be glad to fly from.</p>
<p>"It has happened to me often to be in the presence of women, at church
or concert or festival, and with their eyes on my face and the perfume
of their presence floating about me, to behold in my mind's
perspective a solitary figure poised on the edge of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</SPAN></span> some dock, in
whose lifted arms and upstrained countenance I read despair, the
despair that leads to death; and, forgetting where I was and to whom
my words were due, have rushed out to do—what? Wander those down-town
streets and the bleak places I had seen in my fancy, in the hope of
coming once again upon the being who, unaccountably to myself, still
held the cord whose other end was bound indissolubly to my heart. What
wonder that I was looked upon as eccentric, moody, strange, or that my
father, who naturally explained these freaks according to his own
lights, showed displeasure at my unaccountable whims? Yet I went on
with my search, and finally the day arrived when my perseverance was
rewarded and I came upon her once again.</p>
<p>"She was in a low dance-hall, but she was not dancing. She was simply
gazing at another woman attempting those dizzy whirls which, under the
sway of her own genius, had once attracted the applause of a different
crowd from this. There was infinite longing in her eyes, mixed with
the sadness which will sometimes creep over those who are homeless
through their own choice. When she saw me, and this was perhaps sooner
than was best for either herself or me, I saw the old look of terror
rise in her eyes, but mingled with it was a certain recognition of my
faithfulness and self-forgetful care for her which melted the ice
about my heart and reawakened the old hope for her. But she did not
follow me when I beckoned her out; nor could I induce her to do so
without risking a scene which would necessarily<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</SPAN></span> attract all eyes to
us. But she promised, if I gave her money, to return the next day to
the little house in New Jersey.</p>
<p>"And she did; but her stay was short, and it became a common thing for
her to drift back there for a day or so, and then to flee away again,
to return when the fancy seized her or the devils of discomfort drove
her to seek a respite from the horrors which had now become for her
synonymous with freedom.</p>
<p>"She always found something to reward her for these visits; some
surprise in the shape of a new article or some fresh source of
amusement. Money to me was only valuable as it gave me power to rivet
another link to the chain with which I endeavoured to hold her to a
better life; and though I knew the false construction which might be
put upon these expenditures, not only by my father but others, I
spared no means, stopped at no extravagance which might add one more
allurement to the nest I had made for my weary and bedraggled one.</p>
<p>"The woman who had orders to keep this house in a continual state of
readiness for its fitful visitant was as discreet as she was
sympathetic. She may have surmised my secret, or she may have supposed
all these efforts the result of an ill-conceived philanthropy.</p>
<p>"I could never tell by her manner. But I knew she treated my poor one
well. Time after time has she opened the door to a disordered and
dishevelled creature, whom next morning I found sitting in a bower of
roses, fitted out in dainty cashmeres, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</SPAN></span> with her long locks combed
till they shone and shone again. Nay, I have come upon her on her
knees before the bruised and frozen feet upon which she was thrusting
slippers of downy softness, which made my darling laugh until their
very softness became a burden, and she threw them off to dance. I have
never lingered over these sights, but I have imagined them over and
over with tear-filled eyes, for, explain it as you will, every
backward slip made by my darling toward the precipice I ever saw
yawning for her strengthened the hold she had upon my heart, till the
pity with which I regarded her filled my whole bosom to bursting.</p>
<p>"But the wild hawk cannot be tamed. She would vanish from our care
just when we thought it was becoming dear to her, and my wild pursuit
would begin again, to be followed by chance findings and renewed
disappointments. She was not to be held, though in the hope of doing
so I have spent many stolen hours in the little house, reading to her,
talking to her, playing with her, sacrificing my good name and the
regard of my relatives just to win back one innocent look to her face
and keep her amused and contented without the help of the accursed
drug. She slipped away from us in spite of all our efforts, and during
this last year returned only once.</p>
<p>"Yet I think she has felt more drawn to me this year than in all the
time of our marriage. But she felt her unworthiness more. She had
listened to the hymns sung by the Salvation Army on some of the
down-town corners, and, being susceptible to impressions of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</SPAN></span> this
nature, had followed the singers into their halls and heard some of
the good words that are uttered there. Sometimes, I am told, she
laughed at what she heard, but oftener was seen to cry, and once she
herself sang till, as they said, the very heavens seemed to open. When
I heard this, I could not keep away from these meetings, though I
never came upon her at any one of them either on the East or West
side. She seemed to anticipate my approach there as elsewhere, for
often have I been assured that she had just that minute gone out, and
must be somewhere near, though I never succeeded in finding her.</p>
<p>"This looked to me then like hate, but now I think it was simply
shame; for when she knew that death was upon her she sent for me; and,
seeing the old look of forbearance on my face, she threw up her wasted
arms, and, panting like a child who has reached its mother's arms at
last, turned her tired, tired face towards my breast with a feeble
'Forgive!' and died.</p>
<p>"You cannot know the heart of a man who has followed his lost lamb for
years through tangled thickets and by headlong precipices, and it may
seem strange for me to pour into ears so hardened and necessarily so
unsympathetic the sacred secrets of my soul. But my position is a
strange one and my story one that must be told in its entirety for you
to understand why that smile upon her face is so much to me that my
sole prayer at this time is to be allowed to remain in sight of it for
one hour. She has loved me always; not as I loved her, not to the
point of saving me one heartache or sparing me one erratic impulse of
her ungoverned nature, but still better<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</SPAN></span> than I feared; better than
her conduct would show. For when I came to lay her head down again
upon its pillow, I found tied about her neck and fast clutched in her
chilling palm, <i>this</i>.</p>
<p>"Our wedding ring," he murmured. "She might have pawned it for a
dollar during any of the many crises of her miserable life."</p>
<p>He paused, put the token back in his breast, and added but one more
word. "When she was alive and well, with vigour in her dancing foot,
and a deathless unrest in her gypsy heart, she chafed at my presence
and fled from my protection. But when the final shadow settled and she
felt all other props give way, then her poor arms rose in recognition
of the love which had never failed her." There was an indescribable
tone of triumph in his tones. "She had need of me in her dying hours;
she smiled——"</p>
<p>He paused, and his eyes, which had been fixed on her form, rose
instinctively, not to the dingy rafters overhead, but to the heaven he
saw above those rafters. For him her spirit had fled upward. Whatever
we might think of her, to him she was henceforth a being blessed and
gathered into a refuge from which she would nevermore seek or wish to
escape.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>It was hard to break into this calm hopefulness with words of stern or
sinister meaning. But Mr. Gryce had no choice.</p>
<p>"What, then, is your special desire?" asked that officer.</p>
<p>Mr. Gillespie's eyes fell, and for a moment he stood thinking, then he
said;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I have retribution to make to her memory. I wish to take her to my
own house and bury her from there as my wife. The humiliation from
which my pride recoiled in the old days has been meted out to me
ten-fold. I no longer wish to evade my responsibilities."</p>
<p>His expression as he said this was very different from the smile I had
surprised on his face the night he stooped over his dead father. Yet
the one brought up the other, and, in a measure, acted as a mutual
interpretation. By means of it and the determination he had just
expressed, I could comprehend the feeling of that moment, when with
police in the house and the whole family subjected to a suspicion
which involved it in the utmost disgrace, he contemplated the features
of the man whose pride found the hemisphere in which he lived too
small to hold both himself and the daughter whose worst fault was a
proclivity to dance and sing.</p>
<p>Mr. Gryce, who had no such memories to reconcile, was meanwhile
surveying the young man with a curious hesitation.</p>
<p>"I regret," said he, "the presence of an obstacle to your very natural
wish to bury your wife from your own house. Mr. Gillespie, it is my
duty to inform you that we are not here on a simple errand of
surveillance: my orders were to arrest you on the charge of murdering
your father."</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</SPAN></span></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />