Where the Path Breaks

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

“Oh!” she said, and covered her face with her hands, shivering, though the sun outside the deserted house was warm. When her hands fell, there were no tears in her eyes, but they were like blind eyes yearning for sight.

It seemed to her that the house was trying to tell the secret of what had happened. Stripped as it was, she had the impression that it was full of intelligence and kindness. She listened at the foot of the stairs. Perhaps the owner of the house had not really gone yet. Perhaps he was up there. Perhaps for some reason he had to leave this place, but was waiting for Some One he expected. Surely that must be so! Surely he would not go away, just at this time?

When she had listened, and heard nothing, she called his name, softly at first, then more loudly. But there was no answer. If he were in the room above, he must have heard. Oh, the poor little room with the balcony, where a child had looked out over the garden, and played that fairies lived in the olive trees!

The girl was slightly made and light of foot, but she went up the steep steps heavily, like a weary woman who feels herself old, very old. The door of the balconied bedroom was shut. Maybe, after all, he might not have heard her call! She knocked, once, twice, then turned the knob and timidly pushed open the door. She could see nothing inside the room but a packing-case, with a wooden cover propped against it, and a box of bright new nails beside it on the bare, tiled floor.

The intruder stepped over the threshold, and saw that, at the further end of the room out of sight from the door, stood a small leather portmanteau—pathetically small, somehow—and a still smaller suitcase. He had not gone, then!—and she had no right to be here, in his room. She turned hastily to go out, and facing the door—blown partly shut by the breeze from an open window, she also faced a portrait framed in a wonderful frame of ruddy, rippled wood, like the auburn hair of a woman. The eyes of the portrait—smoke-blue eyes—looked straight into hers. And as she looked back into them, it was like seeing herself in a mirror, a mysterious mirror which refused to reflect her mourning clothes, and gave her instead a white dress.

This was so strange a thing, that the girl could not believe she really saw it. She thought that she must be asleep in the train, on the way to Santa Barbara, and that in her eager impatience she had dreamed ahead. This would explain the deserted house. She was only dreaming that she had walked up the garden path, and had found her friend gone—gone to avoid her. How like a dream!—the strain to succeed, and then failure and vague disappointment wherever one turned! How like a dream that her portrait should be found hanging in a marvelous frame, in the house of a man who had never seen her, never even had her description! She would wake up presently, of course, and find herself shaking about in the train. How glad, how glad she must be that this was a dream, because when she did indeed come to the Mirador, there would be curtains and furniture and pictures and books, such as John Sanbourne had written about, and John Sanbourne himself would be there expecting her! Still, it was astonishing that the dream went on and on being so vivid. She could not wake up!

As she stared at the eyes of the portrait, hypnotized by them, a stronger breeze slammed the door shut. Now she would surely wake! Noises always waked one. They had no place in dreams. But no. The scene remained the same, except that the handle of the door was being slowly turned. Some one was opening it from the outside. The dream was to go on, to another phase. The girl clasped her hands, and pressed them against her breast. So she stood when the door opened wide, and a man, stopped by the sight of her, stepped back in crossing the threshold.

“Barbara!”

The name sprang to Denin’s lips, but he did not utter it.

He had meant to go away in time. He had tried to spare her this; yet he had in his secret heart thought that, if she did come, it would be heaven to see her. But now it was not so. There was one brief flash of joy in her beauty; then horror of himself overpowered it. Her very loveliness seemed to make his guilt more hateful—a lifetime of guilt! He saw himself as the murderer of this girl’s youth and happiness. It seemed to him that no man had ever sinned as he had sinned. He had crept away and hidden in the dark when she most needed him. Defenseless, she had in all good faith married another man. And because of his weakness she had sinned against the law. She had done a thing which, if known, would ruin her life in the world she knew. It was his fault, not hers, yet she had suffered for it, and now she would suffer more than she had suffered yet. If she had thought she loved the dead man, from this moment she would hate the living one, who had deceived her.