Out of the Ashes

by Ethel Watts Mumford Grant

"Two P.M.--I'm in my cabin all the time. I think that I shall go mad. That sounds conventional, doesn't it--reminiscent of melodrama! I assure you it's worse than real. I feel as if for years and years I've been asleep, and now've wakened up into a nightmare. I can write to you; that's the one thing that gives me relief. Your kindness seems a shield behind which I can crawl. I can't sleep; I can only--not think--no, it isn't thinking I do--it's realizing--and everything is terrible. The sunlight makes ripples on my cabin ceiling; they weave and part and wrinkle. I try to fix my attention on them, and hypnotize myself into lethargy. Sometimes I almost succeed, and then I begin realizing again. And in the night I stare at the electric light till my eyes ache, and try to numb my thoughts. Must my little girl know what I am? Can't that be averted? I know it can't--I know, and yet I pray and pray--I--pray!"

Another sheet, evidently torn from a pad: "The wireless is out of order; they couldn't send my messages. You don't know the despair that has taken hold of me. My mind feels white--that's the only way I can describe it--cold and white--frozen, a blank. My body is that way, too. I hold my hands to the light, and it doesn't seem as if there was even the faintest red. They are the hands of a dead person--I wish they were! But I must know--must know. We are due in Havana to-morrow. I shall take the first boat out--to anywhere, where I can get a train, that's the quickest. Oh, you, who have so often told me I must stop and think and realize things! Did you know what it was you wanted me to do? Have you any idea what torture is? You couldn't! I don't believe even Mahr would have done this to me--if he had known; nobody could--nobody could. Now, all sorts of things are assailing me; not only the horror that Dorothy should know, but the horror of having done such things. I can't feel that it was I; it must have been somebody else. Why, I couldn't have; it's impossible; and yet I did, I did, I did! Sometimes I laugh, and then I am frightened at myself--I did it just then; it was at the thought that here am I, writing letters--I, who have always thought letters that incriminate were the weakness of fools, the blind spot of intelligence--I, who have profited by letters--written in anger, in love, in the passion of money-getting--everything--I'm writing--writing from my bursting heart. Ah, you wanted me to realize; I'm fulfilling your wish. Oh, good, kind soul that you are, forgive me! I'm clinging to the thought of you to save me; I'm trusting in you blindly. It's five days since I left."

The sheet that followed was on beflagged yachting paper:

"What luck! I happened on the Detmores the moment I landed. They were just sailing. I transferred to them. I'm on board and homeward bound. We reach St. Augustine to-morrow night; then I'm coming through as fast as I can. I've thought it all over now. Since the wireless messages weren't sent, I shall send no cable or telegram. I shall find out what the situation is, and perhaps it will be better for me just to disappear. It may be best that Dorothy shall never see me again. I shall go straight home. I'm posting this in St. Augustine; it will probably go on the same train with me. When you receive this and have read it, come to me. I shall need you, I know--but perhaps you won't care to; perhaps you won't want to be mixed up in an affair that may already be the talk of the town. It's one thing to know a criminal who goes unquestioned and another to befriend one revealed and convicted. Don't come, then. I am at the very end of my endurance now. What sort of a wreck will walk into that disgraced home of mine? And still I pray and pray--"

Gard stood up. A sudden dizziness seized him. Go to her! Of course he must, at once, at once; there was not a moment to be lost. He calculated the length of time the letter had taken to reach him since its delivery in the city--hours at least. And she had returned home to find--what? He almost cried out in his anguish--to find Dorothy gone, no one at the house knew where. What must she think?

He snatched up the telephone and called her number, his voice shaking in spite of his effort to control it.

The butler answered. Yes; madam had returned suddenly; had gone to the library for something; had asked for Miss Dorothy, and when she heard she was away, had made no comment, and left shortly afterwards. Yes, she appeared ill, very ill.

"I'm coming over," Gard cut in. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

He rang, ordered the servant to stop the first taxi, seized his coat and hat, left a peremptory order to his physician not to be beyond call, tumbled into his outer garments and made for the street. The taxi sputtered at the curb, but just as he dashed down the steps a limousine drew up, and Denning sprang from its opened door. His hand fell heavily upon Gard's shoulder as he stooped to enter the cab. Gard turned, his overwrought nerves stinging with the shock of the other's restraining touch.

Denning's hand fell, for the face of his friend was distorted beyond recognition. The words his lips had framed to speak died upon his tongue, as with a furious heave Gard shook him off, entered the cab and slammed the door. Denning stood for a moment surprised into inaction, then, with an order to follow, he leaped into his own car and started in pursuit.