Kathlyn Rhodes

“ Chloe Carstairs was in love, overwhelmingly, irresistibly in love with her husband; and now Anstice was able to gauge something of the bitterness of the life she had led for the last few months. Where he had thought her cold she had been indeed suffering. Her assumed cynicism, her weary indifference had been the cloak of a sharp and almost hopeless misery; and at the thought of her heroic acceptance of her husband's unbelief, an unbelief which must have been almost unbearably galling, Anstice paid her in his heart a higher tribute than he had hitherto bestowed on any woman. ”

“ Eva know very well, had known all along, that there could be no happiness for Toni in such a step; and she fully believed that the girl would come to hate and fear the life in front of her. But Eva never for one moment experienced a thrill of pity for the misguided Toni. Rather the thought of the certain misery which faced her filled Eva's perverted mind with a wretched triumph; and her only strong emotion at this juncture was a passionate hope that Owen would not learn the truth in time to save his wife from the worst consequence of her ill-considered action. ”

“ For all her youth, all her grace, her black and white distinction, Chloe was a woman, and no one looking at her would have doubted that to her had come some of the most vital moments of a woman's life. But Iris Wayne was only a girl, an untried warrior in the battle of existence. The glance of her large and radiant eyes was far more akin to that of the child Cherry's brown orbs than to the serious, rather cynical regard which habitually dwelt in Mrs. Carstairs' sapphire-blue eyes; and in every look, every word, was the delicious freshness of a joyous youth. ”

“ Toni is an out-and-out good sort, as straight as a die, and a merry, light-hearted little thing into the bargain; but she's bound to turn out a disappointment to her husband all the same."
"I don't see why," said Herrick after a moment's pause. "Lots of clever men marry feather-headed women and manage to get along all right."
"Yes, but Owen's not that sort. He's a fellow who will want his wife to be a companion, a real comrade, able to go forward side by side with him, understand his aims, sympathize with his ideals and so on; and this girl can't do it." ”

“ Such a moment was this one in which the two men who were bound together by so tragic a link came face to face in Chloe Carstairs' drawing-room.
Each had been quite sincere in his dread of any future meeting; but whereas Bruce Cheniston had been the victim of as cruel a circumstance as ever deprived lover of his beloved, Anstice was the more to be pitied, inasmuch as to his own burden of regret must be added the knowledge that through his premature action he had given another man the right to execrate his name so long as they both should live. ”

“ Instantly Toni's anger melted away and a rush of affection and sympathy took its place.
"I'm sorry, Owen—I didn't mean to be cross. I was talking nonsense—of course you must have Miss Loder, I suppose I am jealous of her—because she is so clever, and I'm such a little idiot."
"I don't want a clever wife, thank you," laughed Owen, little dreaming how his careless words cut into the quivering soul of the girl beside him. "I want a pretty, lively, jolly little girl—half Italian for choice—who is a cross between a wood-nymph and—sometimes—a tiger-cat—or kitten! ”

“ Iris knew that Chloe had told Anstice her story. "She has suffered as very few people like her have to do, but I don't think it has made her exactly what you call sympathetic."
"That is just what I mean," said Anstice. "Somehow I think suffering is apt to destroy one's nerve of sympathy for others. It atrophies, withers away in the blast of one's personal tragedy; and although Mrs. Carstairs might be able to enter into the feelings of another unhappy woman more fully than—well, than you could do, I think you would be more likely to feel what we call 'sorry for' that woman than she would be." ”

“ Acting on a hint from Barry, Owen had taken his bride straight away from the Registrar's dingy office to Paddington, thence to Cornwall; and he would never forget the sight of Toni's face when first she saw the sea, lying purple and green beneath a stormy sky.
During the long journey she had said very little, shyness enveloping her as in a mantle; but when the train began to run along the sea shore, so that the whole expanse of ocean lay spread before the window, Toni's face changed, her eyes sparkled, and she turned to Owen with a spontaneous expression of delight. ”

“ Ah, well, we all have our private memories—ghosts which haunt us and will not be laid; and at least there is no disgrace in that story of his. At the worst it could only be called a miscalculation—a mistake. But what if my mistake has been a more grievous one—what if Chloe is innocent and I have misjudged her cruelly? If that should be so," said Major Carstairs, "then my ghost will never be laid. The man who shot Hilda Ryder will be forgiven for his too hasty deed. But for a mistake such as mine there could be no forgiveness." ”

“ Land and sea alike smiled in the glorious sunshine. It was a day on which life seemed a very sweet and desirable opportunity; but in Toni's face there was no hint of gladness, none of her former almost pagan delight in the beautiful out-of-door world around her.
Although her skin was delicately warmed and coloured by the genial Southern sun, the becoming tan could not hide the thinness of the once rounded cheeks, nor disguise the hopeless droop of the lips which had been used to smile so readily. Toni looked, indeed, the ghost of her former self as she sat gazing out over the Mediterranean ”

“ Sir Richard approved of his quiet and reserved manner, and was not inclined to quarrel with his occasional fits of moodiness—for there were times when the ghosts which haunted him refused to be exorcised, and Anstice felt himself unfit, by reason of the handicap which Fate had imposed upon him, to mingle with the happy, the careless, the innocent ones of the earth.
To Sir Richard, kind-hearted, uncritical, undiscerning, such fits of silence, even of gloom, were natural enough in a man whose life was spent largely in the service of the sick and suffering among humanity. ”

“ You look astonished, Barry! Why shouldn't I marry? Ah, I see! You think because one woman's turned me down no one else will care to risk her happiness with me! Well, of course my value is considerably depreciated, no doubt; but after all, men are in the minority, and I daresay I'll be able to find some girl to take pity on me!"
"Don't talk like that, Owen!" Barry spoke hastily, and his blue eyes looked rather stern. "You don't want a girl to take you out of pity, do you? That's not much of a basis for a happy marriage, is it?"
"No, Barry." He took the rebuke well. "I was talking like a fool. ”

“ A big white owl flow, hooting, across the path, and Chloe shivered.
"I hate owls—I always think them unlucky, harbingers of evil," she said, and her face, as she spoke, was quite pale.
In an ordinary way Anstice would have deemed it his duty to scoff at such superstition; but to-night, his nerves unstrung, by the happenings of the last few days, his bodily vigour at a low ebb, his mind a chaos of miserable, hopeless memories and fears, Chloe's words woke a quite unexpected response in his soul.
"Don't say that, Mrs. Carstairs!" He spoke sharply. ”

“ Would she be obliged to marry a man for whom she felt only a tepid friendship, unwarmed by the smallest coal from the fire of love? She had found life sad even when married to the man she loved; but what would it be to her as the wife of a man to whom she was almost completely indifferent?
Quite unconsciously Toni was exaggerating Owen's attitude towards his marriage, was accepting as his last word a few irritable sentences wrung from him by fatigue and annoyance at having seen the corrected proofs destroyed in a fit of childish temper on the part of his wife. ”

“ And as he looked at the little picture, the presentment of the girl he loved caught and imprisoned by the magic of the sun, Anstice felt the full bitterness of his hopeless love surge over his soul in a flood whose onrush no philosophy could stem. To him Iris would always be the one desired woman in the world. No other woman, be she a hundred times more beautiful, could ever fill the place held in his heart by this grey-eyed girl. ”

“ As the summer glided by, in a succession of golden, cloudless days, Owen began to ask himself, rather drearily, whether his marriage was going to turn out a success or an irretrievable failure.
When once the novelty of Toni's companionship had worn off, when he had grown used to her pretty, childish ways, accustomed to the sense of youth and light-hearted joy which she diffused about the old house, he began to find, to his dismay, that these were not all the attributes a man looked for in the woman he had made his wife. ”

“ With a sigh Cheniston closed his eyes, and appeared to relapse once more into a kind of stupor; and when, in obedience to a silent gesture, Iris withdrew to the window, Anstice joined her there immediately.
Such remedies as yet remained to be tried Anstice determined to employ; but though he told himself fiercely that if mortal man could save Bruce Cheniston from the grave he should assuredly be saved, he experienced that hopeless feeling which all who gaze in the very face of death know only too well; and he did not dare to meet Iris' eyes as he conversed with her in a carefully-lowered tone. ”

“ Fairly late that night Barry Raymond jumped off his motorcycle at the gate of the bungalow known locally as the Hope House. It was a perfect June night, and as he unlatched the gate Barry heard a nightingale singing its love-song to the moon, the deliciously pure notes ringing across the river with a fascinating, almost unearthly, effect.
The garden of the bungalow was full of sleeping flowers, and their fragrance stole gently out like a tender welcome to Barry as he strode up the path between their ranks, pale-coloured in the moonlight, though full of rich, glowing colour beneath the sun. ”

“ A woman of that sort who is supplanted by a rival is about the most dangerous being on the face of the earth. She sticks at nothing—carries a knife in her garter, a phial of poison in her handbag, and will quite cheerfully sacrifice her own life if she may mutilate or destroy the aforesaid hated rival."
"So I have always understood. But in this case, if you will excuse me pointing it out, there is no possibility of love entering into it. To begin with, Tochatti is a middle-aged woman; and of course there could not be any question of rivalry between her and her mistress." ”

“ She was careful to speak lightly. "If you went away with another man——" for a moment even her nerve failed her, but she conquered her weakness and went on calmly, and her grey Irish eyes were as cold as ice as she looked at Toni. "Then your husband would probably divorce you, and devote himself to his career."
For a second Toni's pallor alarmed her. All the girl's colour died away, leaving her curiously white round the mouth, a sign of emotion to which Eva was not blind; and Mrs. Herrick wondered, uneasily, if Toni were about to faint. ”

“ For Anstice's revolver had spoken; and the swarthy Bedouin fell headlong to the earth, shot, unerringly, through the heart.
Anstice heard Iris give a faint gasp at his side; but now his blood was up and he had no time to reassure even the one beloved woman. Something strange, unexpected, had happened to him. Suddenly he too was primitive man, even as these desert men were magnificently primitive. Gone was all the veneer of civilization, the humanity which bids a man respect a fellow-creature's life. ”

“ Toni revolted inwardly against her callousness.
"Oh, I suppose he's told you some tale or other." Mrs. Herrick spoke fiercely, and all her childish beauty waned beneath her passion; "Well, whatever he says, it is I who have paid the bill. Prison! My God, you don't know what it is to be shut up in a cell like a beast—to be ordered about like a dog, to be starved on coarse food, made to sleep on a bed you wouldn't dare to give your servant!" ”

“ The invitation so heartily given was accepted with a pleasure to which Anstice had long been a stranger; and then he said good-bye to his kind host and left Greengates feeling that he had found two unexpectedly congenial friends in Iris Wayne and her father.
He had been deeply, genuinely interested in Sir Richard's story, that unhappy story in which Chloe Carstairs figured so tragically; yet as he made his way homewards between the blossoming hedgerows his mind dwelt upon another woman, a younger, happier woman than the pale mistress of Cherry Orchard. ”

“ On a beautiful midsummer morning Antonia Rose crept softly down the broad old staircase of Greenriver and crossed the hall with so fairy-light a tread that never a soul in the house could hear a footstep.
It was very early, barely half-past five; but the glorious summer morning was calling, calling insistently to Toni to come and share its glories; and the call was not one to be disregarded, by Antonia at least.
Not a thing stirred. In the gallery the Ten Little Ladies grew wan and faded before the vitality of the daylight ”

“ For the second time I had forgotten that you were the victim of this latest outrage of Tochatti's——"
"Mrs. Carstairs—please!" In his haste to explain himself Anstice spoke rather incoherently. "If you are willing to let this matter drop—why, so am I. For your own sake I think, while you are behaving nobly, you are making a mistake—a most generous, chivalrous mistake—in not proving your entire innocence before all the world, but if you are really resolved on it, do let me make you understand that personally I am only too ready to let the whole thing slide into the oblivion it deserves!" ”

“ In the fog it would be easy indeed to miss one's road—with tragic results. One false step off the towing-path, for instance, and the river, dark and silent, would flow on its way, carrying with it a burden hardly more animated, yet a hundred times more precious, than the sticks and leaves which floated down with the current....
Suddenly Herrick sprang up, unable to bear this haunted solitude any longer. He felt as though he must go forth to make inquiries for himself, to ascertain whether Toni had returned or no, whether all possible measures had been taken for her safety. ”

“ A spasm of uncontrollable anguish convulsed his features for a moment; but Cheniston was too intent on his own self-revelation to notice.
"Life—without—Hilda seems impossible somehow." He laughed drearily. "We have always been so happy together ... I can't imagine going on without her."
He paused, but Anstice said nothing. He did not know what to say.
"I wonder—can I go on? Is it really required of me that I should continue to hang on to an existence which is absolutely devoid of all attraction, of all meaning?" He fixed his blue eyes on the other's face. "You're a doctor, aren't you?" ”

“ At that moment Toni felt she would have asked nothing better than to jump into the car and journey up to town with Owen to take her old place behind the typewriter in Owen's room. She hated to see him leaving her, longed to beg him to stay; but something stronger than personal longing held her back. A wife, she told herself, must be a help, not a hindrance; and since Owen saw fit to leave her, to carry on the work in which she had now no place, her duty, plainly, was to remain at home and keep everything in her little world in order for his return. ”

“ For a second Chloe sat silently in her corner of the couch; and in her face were the traces of the conflicting emotions which made for a moment a battlefield of her soul.
After all Chloe Carstairs was a very human woman; and it is not in human nature to suffer a great wrong and feel no resentment against those who have inflicted that wrong. Had she been able to forgive Tochatti immediately, to condone her wickedness, to restore the woman to her old place in her esteem, Chloe had been something less—or more—than human ”

“ Owen stared at him. "Good God, man, what do you take me for? A man doesn't wilfully hurt his wife—the woman he loves. And to hurt Toni would be like hurting a child."
"Mr. Rose"—Herrick took a resolution to speak plainly—"are you sure you did not treat your wife rather too much as a child? Are you sure you didn't deny her the right of a woman, the right to share your life, your work, your aims? Are you quite sure you never made her feel her inferiority to you in different ways, never let her see that in some matters she was perhaps hardly your equal? ”

“ The tone of her deep voice, so oddly gentle, the compassionate expression in her usually cold blue eyes, were too much for Anstice, whose endurance was nearly at the breaking point; and he turned to her with a look in his face which dismayed her, so tragic was it.
"Mrs. Carstairs, this day I have been in—hell!" The word sounded cruelly out of place in the quiet moonlit night. "Once before I fancied I had reached the point at which a man may turn his back on life and its horrors without thinking himself a pitiful coward. ”

“ To the end of her life Toni would never be bookish. She would always prefer living to reading about life; and it was fortunate that her work in this new library consisted largely of translating, roughly, from books in Italian and English, or in typing, from dictation, in either language.
She grew to like her employment in the quiet, mediæval-looking room. Her employer, a gentle, sad-eyed elderly man with an invalid daughter, treated her with the utmost kindness; and if it had not been that every fibre in her being cried out incessantly for Owen, she might in time have been content. ”

“ Chloe looked at him with a hint of cynicism in her eyes.
"Even Tochatti is human," she said, "and when one has had a fright one's natural impulse, on being reassured, is to scold somebody. Besides, Tochatti, in her way, is implacable. She never forgives what she really considers an injury."
These words, fitting in so curiously with their conversation a little earlier, caused the men to glance surreptitiously at one another; but Chloe, whose eyes were as sharp as her wits, intercepted the look.
"Sir Richard, why do you and Dr. Anstice look at one another?" ”

“ With a long shudder Toni descended the last step of the great staircase, and drifted slowly across the hall in the direction of the front door. Jock, following, pressed a little too closely against her, and turning, Toni saw, the faithful little friend whom she was about to leave gazing at her with a human appeal in his honest face.
"Take me! Let me go with you where you go! Why go out into the dim cold night alone, when you can have beside you one to protect you and give you love?" ”

“ He's an engineer—in the Irrigation Department—and the best man in all the world!" For a moment love triumphed over death, and its glory illuminated the gloom of that fatal place of imprisonment with a hint of immortality. "That's my ambition, Dr. Anstice—to love him and marry him, and be a true and faithful wife—and perhaps"—her voice sank a note—"perhaps in time to bear his children. That"—said Hilda Ryder, and now her eyes were full of dreams—"would be to me the most glorious destiny in the world!" ”

“ As he watched her gravely attending to the duties of the tea-tray, Owen told himself that he might have made a worse choice.
He had long ago surprised her secret—although Toni had no idea of her self-betrayal. At this stage of her development Toni was pure emotion—a mere lamp through which love might shine unchecked, casting its beams unashamedly upon the object of its devotion. Later she might learn, as many women do, to interpose a veil between her soul and the world. ”

“ He bent over the bed and spoke gently; but Cheniston was too ill to pay any heed; and with a sigh Anstice stood upright and turned to Iris rather helplessly.
"Mrs. Cheniston"—he forced himself to speak truthfully—"I am afraid your husband is no better. In fact"—he hesitated, hardly knowing how to put his fears into words—"I think—perhaps—you must be prepared for the worst."
"You mean he will die?" She spoke steadily, though her eyes looked suddenly afraid. "Dr. Anstice, is there no hope? Can you do nothing more for him?"
"There is so little to be done," he said. ”