CHAPTER XXV. TEMPTED.
For a time Marrion Latham stood in a sad reverie; then he slowly went back to the house, following the path Cherokee had taken.
He entered the house unobserved, and went directly to his room, from which he did not emerge until the clock told him that the hour was eleven. He was going to leave; upon that point he was decided. The midnight train would take him to the city. He took his grip, and crept out stealthily without a word, for he could not now own what was forcing him to leave. Of course it would seem strange to Robert, but written lines could not clear it up. It would take more than a note to explain such an offense as this would seem; it could only be made plain in person. It needed the voice, the eye, the spirit breathing through the words to make them effective.
He had decided to wait until the artist returned to New York. As he stepped out on the piazza he noticed that the blinds of the studio were open and the window up.
“I will take a last look,” he thought, as he went up to the window.
“Cherokee, Cherokee,” but his whisper was too deep, she did not hear. There she stood before the painting, her arms wide open as though ready to enfold the image; then she drew back, and her low sobbing was heard—not despair, not sorrow, not even loss flowed in those relieving tears—they came as a balm, allowing the pent-up force of suffering to ooze out.
The very purity of her adoration was pitiful to see. Marrion stood outside and watched her; wrong as it might be to stay he was tempted to bide the result and remain.
Everything around was still; the wind, even, ceased to dip into the lustrous gloom of the laurels. He could scarcely hear the stream below, drawing its long ripples of star-kindled waves from the throat of the forest. Not a human sound interposed one pulse of its beating between these two silent souls.
“I must, I must touch her—just to say good-bye again.”
But through the gentle silence there throbbed a warning. He battled with it; the mad desire grew upon him, the stress, the self-torture was getting beyond control. Reckless inconsideration told him to enter.
The palpitating misery that swayed through every wave of his blood, cried in almost an ecstacy of terror: “Go in, she is yours.” He knew he could not resist what love counseled if he remained much longer, and he hung his head for very shame.
When a proud man finds out he is but a child in the midst of his strength, but a fool in his wisdom, it is humiliating to own it even to himself.
While every passion held him enslaved, he felt a vague desire to escape, a yearning, almost insane, to get out from his own self.
“Why should you not have her, when you love her so dearly?” the tempter asked.
But he knew the voice and shrank from it. Then he murmured inwardly:
“Great and good God, I turn to you,” and before he knew it, his unaccustomed lips had framed a prayer.
With a feeling of renewed strength he took one last look at her and walked away. He had scarcely time to catch that midnight train. He was leaving heaven behind, but he was doing what was best for all. There was something in that, and Robert must never know what his poor services had cost him.