CHAPTER XXVI.
“It is hard, Gertrude; very hard! But I must be in London a week from to-day.”
Gertrude Van Vleck looked up at her father as he uttered these words, and her face grew a shade paler, while the tears started to her eyes. She was clad in a travelling costume that was extremely becoming to her tall and graceful figure. In her hand she held an almost undecipherable scrawl. It was from Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, and ran as follows:—
“My dear Gertrude,—Perhaps you have already heard the awful news. My husband died suddenly at the Union Club last night. I am so utterly stunned that I cannot write coherently, but one insistent thought is with me at this sad time. You must not change your plans on my account. I long for you at this moment with my whole heart, but my selfishness must have no weight with you. If you really wish it, I will join you in London soon; but I can make no special arrangements just now. I will write to you or send you a cable message as soon as I have the strength and opportunity to think of the future.”
“Listen, Gertrude,” continued Mr. Van Vleck, almost sternly, “We have no time to lose. Don’t think me heartless, my child; but I must be in London on the date I have set, for many reasons that would not interest you. Sit down and write to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett at once. Tell her that we will wait for her in London, and take her to the Continent with us. I absolutely cannot wait over a steamer at this time. Poor little woman, I am sorry that there is no other way.”
With a heavy heart Gertrude Van Vleck penned a note—how inadequate, almost heartless, it appeared to her as she re-read it—and despatched it by a messenger to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett. The generous, affectionate heart of the girl rebelled against the necessity that compelled her to take this course; but there seemed to be, at the moment, no alternative.
Gertrude had had but little personal contact with that mysterious thing we call death. The suddenness of her friend’s bereavement appalled her. There comes a time in every one’s experience, early or late, when the insignificance of one human life in the make-up of the illimitable universe is emphasized with a stunning force that leaves us wiser, perhaps, but infinitely more sad. Gertrude Van Vleck had thought much about the strange problems that the life of the world presents, but the final and most significant riddle that haunts the mind of man, the awful question that death asks, had never touched her deeply. But now it had come to her in a new guise, and she felt crushed and hopeless with the pitiless suddenness of the shock.
The drive to the steamer seemed almost interminable. The noises of the streets, the disjointed exclamations of her father, the feverish throbbing in her head, caused Gertrude the most acute suffering. The bustle and excitement at the pier aggravated the restlessness and discontent that made her whole being ache. There seemed to be something childish in the vivacity of the men and women around her, who came and went, laughed and cried, were silent or loquacious, as if a voyage across the Atlantic were a thing of great moment. What was it compared with that mysterious journey into the unknown that we must all take to-day, or to-morrow, or a few years hence?
It was not until the steamer was well down the bay, and the cool, salt breeze that swept the decks had begun to bring the color back to Gertrude’s cheeks, that she was able to throw off the dreary thoughts that oppressed her. And even then it was not with a cheerful gleam in her eyes that she gazed out upon the throbbing sea. Her heart cried out in revolt against the fate that had followed her. She was leaving behind her all that had made life interesting of late. The only woman she really cared for, and the only man she had ever felt that she could love, were going out of her life, as the great city sank toward the horizon in the west. It was very hard. She gazed down upon the waters rushing backward in her sight, while the hot tears filled her eyes, and the sea-breeze kissed them cold against her cheek.
“This is a weird and inexplicable world,” she heard a voice that thrilled her with mingled amazement and joy saying at her side. She started, for the words seemed to give expression to her very thought, and turning, she beheld John Fenton, his face reflecting the wonder and delight that filled her soul. Her hand trembled as she placed it in his for a moment.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said simply, but her voice trembled with the nervous reaction that affected her. “I—I—did not know that you were going abroad.”
John Fenton kept her cold hand in his much longer than perfect etiquette warranted. Words come less readily to a man than to a woman at a great and unexpected crisis, and he was silent for some time. Finally he said, as he leaned against the rail and looked at her white face, that still bore traces of her despairing mood,—
“What is to be, will be. Tell me, are you a fatalist?”
“I hardly know,” she answered. “Everything seems inexplicable and unnatural to me at this moment. You have heard that Percy-Bartlett is dead?”
“Yes,” answered Fenton, gazing seaward for a moment. “I received a note from Richard Stoughton this morning. He was coming with me, you know. He has postponed the voyage for a week or so.”
Gertrude’s blue eyes looked into his questioningly.
“He was there last evening?” she asked.
“Yes. He was just leaving when Mrs. Percy-Bartlett received a note from Buchanan Budd saying that her husband had died suddenly at the club.”
“I am very glad that Mr. Stoughton did not sail,” she said, more to herself than to Fenton. It was strange how much the salt air had done to restore the color to her face and the light of contentment to her eyes. “She—that is Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, you know—is coming over to us at once.”
There was silence for a time. As they looked down at the surging waters, the strange coincidence that had thrown them together again seemed to them both to take on a supernatural character.
“You were going away without bidding me good-by,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes met his reproachfully.
“You do me an injustice,” he returned. “I wrote to you this morning.”
She turned from him, and her eyes sought the horizon. She felt that his words had placed her in an embarrassing position. She could not ask him what his letter said; but she longed to know.
They stood without speaking for some time. He was gazing at her clear-cut profile, and, as he looked, the scruples that had led him to make a great renunciation for her sake seemed to him at that moment to be strained and illogical. Had he not made every sacrifice on the altar of his Quixotic creed? And had not fate rendered his efforts futile? Surely he and Gertrude Van Vleck would not be standing together on the deck of an ocean steamer, outward bound, if the stars in their courses had not ordained that he should tell her what was in his heart.
“I wish,” he said at length, “that you would do me a favor.”
She turned to him with a puzzled smile on her face.
“Promise me,” he continued earnestly, “that, if the letter I sent to you this morning ever comes to your hand, you will destroy it unopened.”
The smile died away from her face. He saw that he had placed himself in the position of being misunderstood. What could he do but explain himself? His face was pale with emotion, and he grasped the rail nervously.
“Gertrude,” he said in a low voice, vibrant with suppressed passion, “Gertrude, I love you! Tell me, will you—can you give me hope?”
She was gazing seaward, with eyes that were moist with the tears of happiness.
Presently he felt a cold, trembling hand in his and the sun on the instant broke through the clouds and kissed the smiling sea, as their grasp grew firm with the fervor of their love.