# The Secret's Price

Extracted from The Cavalier magazine, 1908 Oct, pp. 77–86. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
THE SECRET'S PRICE
BY I. A. R. WYLIE
A SHORT STORY.
MRS. REED turned with an emphatic gesture to the man seated comfortably in the cane chair. Her round, kindly face was aglow with eagerness and genuine anxiety.
“Of course, colonel, I know it isn't of much use asking your opinion,” she said. “What in the world should you know about children? I dare say you would give the poor thing a dose of your everlasting quinin. But do, at any rate, prove your common sense by agreeing with me. Little Erica simply cannot stay in this heat. She must come up to the hills with me and my own babes. Now, do put in your word!”
At this impulsive appeal, Colonel Stanhope, looked across the room, his expression at once softening and saddening as his eyes met those of the woman seated opposite him.
“As you intimate, I am only an ignorant mortal man,” he began, “but, in my opinion, a change is absolutely necessary. Does not the doctor say so, Mrs. Atherton?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Atherton answered quietly.
Almost as though she wished to avoid his searching glance, she bent down to the little girl at her feet and began to pass her hand caressingly over the smooth, blue-veined forehead. In the shadowy room, mother and child, so strongly resembling each other, formed a beautiful picture. The Indian sun had spared the delicate transparency of their complex ion, and that, with their fair hair and the simple white in which they were clad, made them seem to the man beings of another and purer world. Both faces, too, bore the same impress of pain, only on the child's the pain was that of failing health, and on the mother's that of ceaseless anxiety.
“Yes,” Mrs. Atherton repeated, “that is what the doctor says.”
“You see!” Mrs. Reed Cried triumphantly. “If the doctor says so, the matter is settled.”
Colonel Stanhope's brows contracted. Mrs. Reed's loud, motherly enthusiasm, kind as it was, jarred on him.
“Is it really not possible?” he asked. “Could it not be managed somehow?”
Mrs. Atherton looked up at him, a faint light of haughty challenge in her eyes.
“Knowing how much depends on it, do you think I would not do everything I could?” she said. “But circumstances—circumstances at present beyond my control—make it out of the question. Erica must stay here with me.”
Mrs. Reed, who, like most good-natured people, became easily offended when her good-nature was rejected, prepared to take her leave.
“Well, you have still twenty-four hours to think over it,” she said. “I am starting to-morrow evening. If you decide to let Erica come, I can still take her. Mrs. Atherton, you are young, and I feel it my duty to warn you that the matter is a very serious one for the child.”
With that, she rustled stormily from the room. A few minutes later they heard her driving her dog-cart down the road with more than usual haste.
Colonel Stanhope lingered, though Mrs. Atherton scarcely seemed to notice him. She picked up the child and laid her on the lounge-chair. The tired little form sank unresistingly among the cushions, and, as though moved by a sudden tenderness, the mother bent down and kissed the pale face passionately.
“As though I would not give the world for you!” she said under her breath.
The child opened her eyes and turned them languidly in Stanhope's direction.
“Colonel!” she called.
Stanhope saw Mrs. Atherton's start of remembrance and of annoyance, but he came forward, a curious gratitude in his heart.
“Yes, little woman,” he said, “what is it? Do you want me?”
“Yes, colonel.” She put out her baby hand, and he held it in his own big one. “Stay there, colonel. I am so tired—”
Mrs. Atherton drew back. She went over to the window and stood there, her lips tightly compressed, her eyes somber and overcast.
Stanhope waited until the child's quieter breathing assured him that she slept, then he put the hand he held gently down and came over to Mrs. Atherton's side.
“Mrs. Atherton,” he said in an undertone, “I want to speak with you an instant.”
She turned sharply. Her head was thrown a little back, and he saw again in the white, delicate face the expression he knew too well—a mingling of defiance, fear, and something else which he had never been able to define.
“If you have anything to say, I shall be pleased to listen to you,” she said.
He bowed, and went on quietly: “Thank you, I can be very brief. Mrs. Atherton, I know your feelings toward me, though I do not understand them. Therefore I want you to understand I do not speak to you as a man seeking to win your love. That I know, better now than ever, is impossible. I come to you as a simple friend who would do any thing to help you. Will you believe me?” She looked away from him, so that he could see nothing but the gravely com posed. profile. There was no answer. “You see, we have known each other a long time. Does not that—even under the circumstances—make a difference between us? Does it not make it possible for you to trust me a little more than the others?”
She looked at him again. “What do you want me to do?” she demanded.
“Just to trust me—to tell me the real reason why you cannot send little Erica to the hills.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I wish to help you.”
“I tell you—you cannot.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you will not confide in me?”
“No.”
He took a deep breath, and his shoulders squared themselves.
“You force my hand, Mrs. Atherton,” he said. “You force me to tell you that I know the truth. You cannot send little Erica because you have no money—and you will not beg.”
Her hands clenched, and the furious red mounted her cheeks. “You make good use of your self-arrogated privileges,” she said bitterly.
“Yes. I cannot do otherwise.”
“What right have you—”
He interrupted her with a determined gesture. “I do not care what right I have, when your child's life hangs in the balance.”
She smothered a startled exclamation, and the color faded from her face as swiftly as it had come. He saw her glance at the sleeping form upon the lounge as though she feared it might have vanished, and her eyes grew large with a new fear.
“Mrs. Atherton, let me help you!” he pleaded earnestly. “I am comfortably off. I can well afford it. It need only be a loan. You can pay me back.”
“I refuse,” she said almost roughly.
“For little Erica's sake—”
“Not even for her sake.”
He stood silent and helpless. He had made a supreme effort to force the iron gates which she had closed against him, and had failed. There was only one thing left.
“You have refused my help,” he said. “Very well. Of that I will say no more, but I have a last suggestion to make. Mrs. Atherton, have you anything you could dispose of—anything, it doesn't matter what? Try and think. Is there anything that your husband left in your keeping, anything that could be of value?”
His tone was heavy with significance. He half-started before the look in the eyes turned suddenly upon him. There was no doubting what the look implied—a clear, undisguised distrust and contempt.
“And if I had—” she began breathlessly, when the curtains at the far end of the room were drawn back and an Indian servant stood on the threshold.
“Meyer Sahib!” he announced, and stood on one side as though waiting.
There was a short, marked silence. Stanhope had taken an unconscious step back, his expression that of a man who, already bewildered and uneasy, suddenly finds himself confronted with a new and unexpected danger. It was only an instant's hesitation.
“I do not understand your attitude toward me,” he said rapidly, “but I implore you, for all our sakes, to listen to me before you meet this—this visitor.”
Mrs. Atherton had recovered her composure. She walked across the room and arranged one of the shabby cushions.
“Mr. Meyer is here on business,” she said. “I cannot, even if I would, accede to your request.”
Goaded by her tone, and the knowledge that only an instant remained to him, Stanhope followed her and faced her. His strongly marked, somewhat gaunt features seemed to have aged under the stress of powerful feeling.
“You stand at the edge of a crisis, and you will not trust me,” he stammered. “Is that all my friendship deserves? Have you no instinct to guide you to those who would truly serve you?”
“Instinct?” she echoed.
For a moment he thought she wavered. A shadow of doubt and anxiety swept over her face, leaving her again pale and quiet.
“Please—would you go?” she said.
Stanhope gazed at her with angry, passionate eyes. It had been a blow—a direct defiance and repulse—and his pride was up in arms. He went toward the parted curtain without a movement of salutation. On the way he passed the sleeping child, who stirred and looked up at him.
“Going, colonel?” she asked dreamily.
“Yes,” he answered between his teeth.
“Coming soon again?”
“No—I think not.”
He went on, forgetting those clumsy tokens of affection he was wont to show his favorite. At the door he came to an abrupt halt.
II.
Heinrich Meyer had appeared on the threshold, and stood there in apparent polite hesitation, his burly figure seeming to dominate the whole room.
The two men stared at each other without any sign of recognition. A sudden new-born hatred leaped up in both faces and for a breathing space thrust aside the formalities with which civilization seeks to chain the elemental passions. Then Meyer, with a bow, stood back, allowing the officer to pass.
Stanhope went out into the deserted and neglected garden. His helmet was still in his hand, and the sun blazed down on his uncovered head. He hardly noticed it. He glanced back at the dreary little bungalow. Behind its drab walls, in the room he had just left, a woman's careless, unguided fingers were weaving fate for herself, for him, perhaps for a nation!
And he could do nothing. He had been defeated by an unseen, unknown enemy, who had driven him from the field almost before he was aware the battle had begun. The thought was like the prick of a spur. He strode on, tortured by a growing fear and the sense of his own powerlessness.
Meanwhile, Heinrich Meyer, gentleman at large and all-round amateur, had taken his seat by the open window. He was leaning a little forward, his square-tipped fingers pressed precisely one against the other, his florid, somewhat oriental, face expressive of nothing save placid content and pleasure.
“I had your message, dear Mrs. Atherton,” he said. “I cannot tell you how delighted I was to find that you had considered my proposal, after all. But you know—I thought you would. I am rarely mistaken.”
“Indeed!” She had seated herself opposite her guest, her hands clasped on her lap. She raised one hand now as though to smooth back the hair from her forehead, and his keen, watching eyes saw that it trembled. “In any case,” she went on in a low voice, “I am prepared to—sell you those of my husband's papers you require. I neither know their value, nor how you came to know of their existence, but—”
Heinrich Meyer waved his fat hand by way of interruption. “Both points are easily explained, my dear lady,” he said. “I was, as perhaps you know, slightly acquainted with your husband, and it was from him that I heard of his invention. Had he lived, I am sure he would have confided it into my hands. As regards the value”—he shrugged his shoulders—“you know I take a purely amateur interest in chemicals of this sort, and am therefore prepared to pay a fancy price—also out of quite personal and friendly reasons.”
He smiled at her, and, as though moved by uncontrollable irritation, Mrs. Atherton rose and crossed to a table on which lay a little iron box. She unlocked it, and came back with a bundle of papers in her hand.
“These, I think, are what you mean,” she said.
Meyer nodded. His eyes, which until now had been fixed in somewhat insolent admiration on her face, were now turned on the papers she held toward him. There was something greedy, almost savage, in the movement, and a sudden instinct made her draw back under the pretense of loosening the strings with which the papers were bound.
“I do not know what this invention is,” she said, “but my husband set great store on it. I do not ask a fancy price, only a just one.”
“Ah, a just one! May I see a moment, Mrs. Atherton?”
She gave him the papers with a reluctance she herself could not explain. He turned over the sheets carelessly enough, but a faint flush spread over his features.
“Yes, these are what I wished. Quite a good idea—undeveloped, you under stand, but, with a little polishing, might be of some use. What do you say? For friendship's sake—two hundred pounds?”
“Not for friendship's sake!” she exclaimed sharply, yet the sound of two hundred pounds' echoed in her ears. It meant salvation both for her and for the fading life at her side. She composed herself with an effort.
“Well, then—for business' sake!” he said impatiently.
“I am ignorant, and trust you to deal honestly with me,” she answered with stiff lips. “If two hundred pounds is a just price, I am satisfied.”
“One question first—no one has ever seen these papers but yourself?”
“Only my husband. It was his invention. So much I am sure of.”
Meyer nodded. He crammed the papers into his capacious pocket, and then drew out a leather case.
“There—count for yourself,” he said, pushing the notes across the table to her.
She made a pretense of counting, but in reality she saw nothing for the mist before her eyes. God had indeed heard her, and her heart beat out a hymn of thanksgiving.
Meyer rose. His face expressed a more than ordinary satisfaction.
“Now that business is settled,” he went on easily, “I have something else to speak of. I refer, of course, dear Mrs. Atherton, to the matter I touched on before, the matter of a closer relationship between us.”
Mrs. Atherton rose also. The mist seemed to have been swept away, and she looked him steadily in the eyes.
“Our business is settled,” she repeated, “and any relationship other than that of business is out of the question. I told you that once before, if you remember.”
Meyer shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“You refuse? Ah, well, two hundred pounds will not last forever. What then?”
“Then I will pray for other help,” she answered bravely.
“Then you will come to me!” he retorted from the door. “You also will remember what I said. I can wait—and when you come, we will make a good bargain, you and I.”
She stood motionless until his burly figure had disappeared. Then she bent down over the sleeping child and caught her in her arms. As in a vision, she saw the red glow of reviving life creep back into the pale cheeks, the light flash again in the heavy eyes.
“My baby!” she murmured passionately. “Think, little one! To-morrow we shall be climbing higher and higher in the pure air—up in the glorious mountains, where you won't feel tired any more, where we can forget every one, save just each other. And then home—home to England, our dear home, little one!”
The child nestled close with a contented sigh. “And colonel—colonel will be there, too?” she asked.
Mrs. Atherton made no answer. Quite suddenly—perhaps it was the reaction—she buried her face in her hands, and broke into a storm of tears.
III.
Colonel Stanhope
refused the chair she offered him. He stood stiffly upright, his rugged face set and stern.
“I swore to myself I would never enter your house again,” he said. “I had no wish to force myself or my help upon you when both were distasteful. Fate has been stronger than my oath—Fate, and a great danger. The time is past when we might speak to each other from behind masks—it is face to face now. Mrs. Atherton, I know that you have in your possession papers of your husband which are of the utmost value—”
She interrupted him with the old haughty gesture of defiance. “You know! How do you know?” she demanded. For the first time, his eyes sank. He looked away, and she laughed shortly and with intense bitterness.
“Does that matter?” he said. She did not reply, and he went on: “It is surely enough that I do know. I have reason to believe that you have no idea of their real value. For your sake I must interfere.”
“For my sake!” she repeated. He heard the mockery in her voice, and lifted his head.
“Not for your sake, then,” he said, “but for the sake of the country which is yours and mine.”
She faltered before the fire in his eyes and the unswerving resolution which his manner conveyed.
“What do you mean?” she stammered.
“This much: those papers contain the particulars of a discovery which may change the whole method of warfare. The nation into whose hands they fall will become at one blow the domineering power, against whom the others, at any rate for a time, will be helpless. That discovery is by right England's. It is in your hands, in your keeping. You are responsible for it. Mrs. Atherton, I have come to warn you—”
He stopped, arrested by the expression on her face. She had grown as white as the dress she wore, and he saw her hand rise gropingly as though seeking support.
“Mrs. Atherton!” he cried out sharply, and then as a dawning fear crept over her features: "You have those papers—”
“No.”
“Where are they—what have you done with them?”
“I—have sold them.”
“You sold them!” He strode across the room to her side and caught her hand in an iron grasp. He was conscious of nothing, save that the catastrophe whose warning thunder he had heard that very day had broken over them both with all its annihilating force. “You sold them!” he repeated passionately. “I know to whom—to that German spy! How dared you?”
She flung herself free from him, and faced him with a new courage born of conviction.
“How dared I?” she cried. “They were mine to sell. And it was for baby's sake—for her life. What matters more to me than that?”
“One thing matters more,” he said—“your country.”
His voice had lost its harshness. He had given utterance to the code which governed his life, whose articles were woven into every fiber of his being. As she looked at him, a light seemed to flash over his face which smoothed away the hard and rugged lines, leaving it almost beautiful in its sudden serenity. He no longer saw her—his eyes were fixed far ahead, as though on something splendid seen only by himself.
“Mrs. Atherton,” he went on very quietly, “I want to tell you the story of that invention. It is quite simple, and I do not think you have ever heard it. The man who owned it once did not come upon it suddenly. He gave up his life to its discovery. Some instinct told him it was somewhere hidden in the darkness, only waiting a steady, devoted patience to find it. So he was patient and devoted, not for himself, but for the country whose servant he was. He loved that country. He wanted to see her greatness shielded by a new strength. When he at last found that strength, that new defense against hatred and malice, he was happy and grateful. He thanked God.”
His voice sank and died away. For a moment neither spoke. The man seemed to have forgotten everything save the memory whose shadow he had called up. Only when a stifled sob reached his ears did he realize that Mrs. Atherton had buried her face in her hands.
“Don't!” he said huskily. “It wasn't your fault. You did not know—how should you?”
“I sold my husband's secret, for which he gave his life, for two hundred pounds—to an enemy!” she answered.
His intuition told him the agony she could not express. Almost unconsciously his big hand rested on her shoulder, pityingly, and with an unmeasured tenderness.
“It was my fault—I should not have let you. I let your coldness and my own miserable pride drive me from you. I should have braved everything, knowing what hung in the balance. But you would not trust me.” Then the suppressed bitterness of four long, silent years of waiting broke from him. “Why did you not trust me? Why?”
She looked up at him. Through the dimness of tears he saw that light of doubt he had learned to dread.
“Yes, I distrusted you—I dare not hide it from you—I distrust you to this hour."
“Why? I have the right to ask.”
She gathered herself together as though for a supreme effort. He saw her lips twitch with pain.
“My husband was dying when he gave me those papers. They and this little home were my only heritage. He bade me swear never to trust one man. That man was you.”
“I?”
“He told me you would do everything in your power to get those papers or even see their contents. He said you would ruin baby and me—because you were his enemy.”
“You believed that?”
She threw back her head proudly. “I believed—I believe him. My husband was an honorable man.”
He made no answer. His face was turned away. She could see nothing save the broad shoulders and dark head.
“Colonel Stanhope, it's without mask now. A great crisis is on us. Won't you be honest? See, I will break my promise. I will believe you—only tell me the truth. Had my husband reason to fear you?” There was a brief silence.
“Yes,” he answered in a stifled voice.
She had leaned forward in eager feverish expectation. She drew back now, her white face relaxing as though from a great tension.
Suddenly he turned upon her. “Has that—that thing made a difference? Could you have answered me differently three years ago had it not been for that?”
She covered her face with her hands.
Stanhope groaned, turned sharply on his heel, and stood motionless, staring out at the arid stretch of compound.
There was a long silence, which she at length broke. “That must be forgotten,” she said unsteadily. “All that concerns our two selves must be forgotten. Only one thing must be done and thought of—the recovery of the papers.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You do not know with whom you have to deal. I do. Meyer knows that his government will give tens of thousands where he has given hundreds for his secret. What price have you to offer in comparison to that?”
She rose and came toward him, swaying a little as she came. “I think—I have the price,” she said.
He stared down at her, wondering at the resolution written on the frail woman's face.
“You?”
“He asked me to be his wife,” she went on, scarcely audibly. “He said he would pay anything for that—that he would make the bargain a good one. Perhaps—” she broke off, unable to finish.
For a minute he did not understand. Then, as her meaning dawned on him, his whole face flushed and darkened with the storm of passionate protest.
“You cannot—you shall not!” he cried fiercely. “You must be mad! You shall not sell yourself. It would be a crime against yourself, against me”—he halted an instant—“no, not against me, for I am nothing in your life, but against your child.”
She looked at him steadily. “Do you not remember—you said only a few minutes ago that there is one thing that matters more than ourselves, our loves, our lives—something that demands the highest of all sacrifices—our country? Have you so soon forgotten?”
He put up his hand as though to ward off a crushing blow. “My God!” he said under his breath. “No, I have not forgotten!”
“So, you will not try to persuade me. You will let me do what is right. If I succeed, I shall give the papers to the English government. In any case—it is good-by between us two.” She held out a white, cold hand, and he took it.
They looked at each other with the despair of two beings seeking each to read the secret in the other's soul. Perhaps in that moment's silent communion a little of the truth, till now hidden, was revealed to both.
“He said you were my enemy,” she went on gently. “You have not denied it—it must be true. Still, I have trusted you—almost, I think, I am counting on your strength to help me to be strong. I do not know why—I cannot help it.”
He nodded, white to the lips. Thank you,” he said.
He picked up his helmet and went toward the door, groping like a man in overpowering darkness. At the door he turned an instant. “You are a brave woman,” he said.
After that a veil seemed to drop before his eyes. He was conscious only of painful, dazzling sunshine, and a blurred, dusty road stretching out before him in endless monotony. He felt that an eternity separated him from the time when he had tramped toward the little bungalow, his heart torn between fear and unquenchable human hope. Now the worst—the very worst his brain could conceive—had come to pass. The innocent woman he loved, and had loved faithfully half his life, was to be the victim of a long chain of circumstance, crime, and error. The fact that she was to be the all-atoning sacrifice for a time stunned him.
Then as he walked, his mind clouded with black visions of the future, the man's natural energy and stubborn courage urged him to plant himself once more in Fate's path and make a final effort to turn her destroying hand.
IV.
He made his way to Heinrich Meyer's bungalow, a whitewashed building surrounded by a lovely rose-filled garden. Heinrich Meyer, the wealthy amateur, professed a passion for such flowers, though no one had ever seen him look at them.
Stanhope made no attempt to call a servant, but went resolutely through the open door into the cool and shady house. A former visit made him well acquainted with the rooms. Without knocking, he opened a door on the left, and, entering, closed and locked it swiftly after him.
Heinrich Meyer was deeply engrossed in an important document addressed to the German government, and Stanhope's entrance had somewhat the effect of a bursting bomb. He swung hastily round in his chair, his eyes dilating, his florid face grown livid. He had no liking for unexpected visitors, or, indeed, anything unexpected and outside his own plans. And there was something about this visitor's expression which did not help to reassure him.
Stanhope gave his host no time to speak. He came forward and seated himself directly opposite him, at the same time laying a revolver on the table.
“I want to speak with you,” he said curtly.
“So I see,” Meyer stammered, with unwieldy sarcasm.
“The revolver is not a threat,” Stanhope went on—“at least, not directly. I have no actual intention of murdering you. I merely put it there as an intimation that I am serious—also desperate. Are you going to listen to me?”
Meyer leaned back, his coarse hands playing nervously with the half-finished document. “There is not much choice,” he said.
“No—and there isn't much use in trying to call for help. Now, we are going to be quite open with each other. I have no objection to laying my hand down, weak cards and all, if you do the same.”
Meyer waved his hands. “I don't know what you are talking about,” he said.
“You will in a minute. You cheated a woman this afternoon. Don't be excited. You know you are not really insulted—you are rather flattered. You gave her a miserable two hundred pounds for what you know her government and yours would give thousands. You cheated her. That is why I am dealing in this summary way with you. Now, I want those papers back.”
Meyer laughed.
“It seems absurd, doesn't it?” Stanhope went on. “But you will admit one thing. If I wrote to the same place I see you are writing to, and told them that your secret was not a secret at all, but already known to the English, the chance of their paying you more than a few hundreds would be rather remote.”
“No one knows the secret!” burst out Meyer.
“One man does.”
“A dead man—yes.”
“No—a living man.”
“Who?”
“I myself.”
“Prove it!”
“Certainly. Take the papers. Now listen.”
Meyer sat as though paralyzed. Quietly and without haste, Stanhope began to recite the contents. At the end of five minutes Meyer flung the papers down with a curse.
“It is not Mrs. Atherton, but I, who am cheated!” he cried in a paroxysm of rage. “She cheated me!”
“She did not—not knowingly.”
“If you expect me to believe you, you must tell me the truth. How could you be in possession of the secret without her knowledge?”
Stanhope rose suddenly to his feet. “The invention is mine,” he said.
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“You are the inventor?”
For one instant Stanhope hesitated. Then he nodded.
“But, Atherton—” Meyer left the sentence unfinished. He saw the other's face, and his keen eyes, trained to pierce every depth of the human heart, read the truth in the gray, set features. “Man—it was stolen from you!” he cried out. “Atherton stole it—that is what you mean!” Stanhope did not answer. “And you kept silence all these years—” He stopped again. The light was dawning faster, and his hardened, calculating nature stood bewildered before the revelation of sacrifice.
Stanhope looked up, his features relaxing into a painful smile. “He was my friend,” he said, “and his wife—but I do not expect you to understand all that. The point is this—Mrs. Atherton must have the papers back. They can only be of value to one of us if the other consents to keep silence. These are my strong cards. First, you do not know the secret by heart. I do. Therefore you can never take my knowledge from me. Second, it would be a pretty bad blow for you if you were thrown out of here, and I know enough of your transactions to make India too hot for you. They are not bad cards, are they? Besides, I am prepared to pay. What is your price?”
Meyer made a rapid calculation. “The game is yours for eight thousand pounds,” he said. “That means seven thousand eight hundred pounds plus my two hundred pounds.”
Stanhope drew out his check-book. “I am not going to haggle,” he said. “You know your strong cards, too, I suppose. But you have touched the limit.” He took up a pen and wrote the check. Then he pocketed his revolver and began to collect the papers on the table.
“No copies? No, of course not—you had no time. I was too prompt. For our own sakes we shall keep this interview private. Good-by.”
V.
Five minutes later he was again on the dusty highroad, his eyes clear and his pulses throbbing with the old elation of battle. It had been a good fight, and he had conquered with his one weapon—the truth.
For years he had kept this truth to himself. He had tried to spare the sacred memory of the dead, hoping that the day would come when the living would trust him with what was his own. Now at last he had spoken—to save her. He walked rapidly. The sun no longer dazzled him. It seemed a joyful setting to his own thankfulness. An hour ago he had been fairly well off, as the world goes. Now he had nothing, and henceforth life would mean a hard, lonely struggle.
And she distrusted him. Even that last, bitterest of all blows lost its sting. He had saved her, though she did not know it, and should never know it. Therein lay his happiness and his reward Presently, as he drew near his bungalow, he saw her come out of the deserted little garden. He knew her errand. She tried to go swiftly past him, but he stopped her, the papers in his hand.
“I was coming to you,” he said quietly. “Mrs. Atherton, the great sacrifice is not asked of you.”
She took the package almost mechanically.
He saw a swift wave of emotion sweep over her face—fear, doubt, finally an endless relief.
“I have a little influence with Meyer,” he went on with a faint smile. “He was quite amenable. Though you distrust me, take my advice. Give the papers at once to the English government. They will make you a rich woman. As for the two hundred pounds, they are yours until that time comes. Once you refused my help. Now you cannot—dare not. You have been too near a great catastrophe.” He saluted gravely and stiffly, and went on his way.
He had given her no time to speak, and she stood there gazing after him, the precious package clasped in her hands.
The crisis was over. Now came the hour of reaction, when pain, the memory of the past, and of vain regret, surged up stronger than his will. He stood in the shadow of the trees, his arms resting on the wall, his eyes fixed somberly on the dark windows of her home.
The dusk had already begun to envelope all in shadow, yet his imagination saw her, as he had so often seen her, standing amid the wild flowers, the child at her side. It was his last weakness, his last farewell. He was not ashamed to stand there and read over the simple romance of his hard life before he tore it up and cast it away. He was not ashamed in the lonely silence to let the stern lines fade from his face, and all the poetry, all the profound tenderness which he bore within him, rise to his eyes.
So he dreamed, and in his dream he saw her stand on the broken veranda and come down toward him, a white spirit, purified in trial and suffering. The weeds and grasses seemed to part and make way for her. Something caught at his throat and choked him. The pain of it was almost more than he could bear. She spoke, and he started awake.
He knew then that it was no dream—that it was no spirit, but a woman, who stood before him, her face lifted to his, her hand upon his arm.
“I did not see you,” he heard her say, and her voice sounded far off, “but I knew that you would come. It was instinct told me—the instinct which made my heart turn to you and trust you—in spite of the whole world.”
He did not answer. He would have turned and left her, but he could not. There was something in the Indian night of heavy perfumed air which held him in wordless, breathless waiting.
“I know all,” she said—“all you hid from me. You sacrificed everything—ambition and wealth. Meyer told me. I could not rest. I knew there was a secret I could not penetrate. Now I know.”
“Poor little woman!” he said beneath his breath.
“No, no—not poor. You tried to shield a false memory. You tried to guard a clay idol I had set up in my heart. It is shattered, but you have raised another and a better in its place.” She drew a little package of papers from the bosom of her dress and placed it in his hands. “It is yours—it was yours always. Take it—and forgive all the evil I have thought of you.” He tried to resist. “Take it,” she repeated brokenly—“that and everything I can give and your heart desires.”
The darkness was fading. He saw nothing but the white face illumined with a growing wonderful happiness, that transfigured it.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“Helen, do you know what that means? Are you sure?”
“Dear—if you only knew how hard it has been to refuse you that everything!" she answered him.
Then he understood the full measure of her gift. He put his arm about her and led her through the garden wilderness home.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1959, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 64 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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