The Sherrods

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Dudley, dear, let us go to Florida next month," said Celeste one night as they drove home from the theatre. He had drooped moodily through the play and had been silent as they whirled along in the carriage. In casting about for the cause of his apparent weariness, she ascribed it to overwork.

"Do you really want to go, Celeste?" he asked, tenderly. "Will the stay down there do you good?"

"I want to get away from Chicago for awhile. I want to be where it is bright and warm. Why should we stay here through all this wretched winter when it is so easy to go to such a delightful place? You must finish your picture in time to start next month. You don't know how happy it will make me."

If he could only take Justine with them! That longing swelled his heart almost to the bursting. "If Justine could only enjoy it all with me," he groaned to himself. "If she could go! If she could go where it is warm and bright! If I could have them both with me there could be no more darkness, no more chill, no more unhappiness."

As the days dragged along, nearer and nearer the date set for the departure for Florida, he grew moodier, more dejected. But one thought filled his mind, the abandonment of Justine; not regret for the wrong he was doing Celeste, but remorse for the wrong he was doing Justine. Sleepless nights found him seeing her slaving, half-frozen, on that wretched farm, far from the bright world he had enjoyed and she would have enjoyed.

At last, a week before the day set for their departure for Florida he reached a sudden determination. He would see Justine, he would go to her in the night and kiss her and take her up in his arms and bear her to Chicago with him, there to—but no! He could not do that! He could only kiss her and take her in his arms and then steal back to the other one, a dastard. There could be but one and it was for him to choose between them.

He wondered if he could go back to the farm and live, if he could give up all he had won, if he could confess his error to Justine, if he could desert Celeste, if he could live without both of them. Selfishness told him to relinquish Justine, honor told him to strip the shackles from Celeste, even though the action broke her heart.

Then there came to his heart the design of the coward, and he could not get away from its horrible influence. It battled down manly resistance, it overthrew every courageous impulse, it made of him a weak, forceless, unresisting slave. With the fever of this malignant impulse in his blood, he stealthily began the laying of plans that were to end his troubles. But one person would be left to suffer and to wonder and she might never know the truth.

One dark night there descended from the railway coach at Glenville, a roughly clad man whose appearance was that of a stranger but whose actions were those of one familiar with the dark surroundings. There had been few changes in Glenville since the day on which Jud Sherrod left the place for the big city on the lake, but there had been a wondrous change in the man who was returning, under cover of night, to the quaint, old-fashioned home of his boyhood. He had gone away an eager, buoyant youth, strong and ambitious; he was coming back a heartsick, miserable old man, skulking and crafty.

Through unused lanes, across dark, almost forgotten fields, frozen and bleak, he sped, his straining eyes bent upon the blackness ahead, fearfully searching for the first faint flicker in a certain window. He did not know how long it took him to cover the miles that lay between the village and the forlorn cottage in the winter-swept lane. He had carefully concealed his face from the station men and there were so few people abroad in that freezing night that no one knew of the return of Justine's long-absent husband. His journey across the fields was accomplished almost before he knew it had begun, so full was his mind of the purpose that brought him there. Every sound startled and unnerved him, yet he hurried on unswervingly. He was going to the end of it all.