She rose from the bench quickly and shortened in the leashes of her dogs.
“You—you dislike me so much as that?” he asked dully.
“Dislike and—and fear you, Mr. Gallatin. If you’ll excuse me——”
She turned away and Gallatin started up. Dusk had fallen and they were quite alone.
“I can’t let you go like this,” he whispered, standing in front of her so that she could not pass him. “I can’t. You mean that you fear me because of what—happened—My God! Haven’t I proved to you that it was madness, the madness of the Gallatin blood, which strikes at the happiness of those it loves the best? I love you, Jane. It’s true. Night and day——”
“You’ve told me that before,” she broke in fearlessly. “Must you insult me again. For shame! Let me pass, please.”
It was the assurance of utter contempt. Gallatin bowed his head and drew aside. There was nothing left to do.
He stood there in the dusk, his head uncovered, and watched her slender figure as it merged into the darkness. Only the dog, Chicot, stopped, struggling, at his leash, but its mistress moved on hurriedly without even turning her head and was lost in the crowd upon the street. Gallatin lingered a moment longer immovable and then turned slowly and walked into the depths of the Park, his face pale, his dark eyes staring like those of a blind man.
Night had fallen swiftly, but not more swiftly than the shadows on his spirit, among which he groped vaguely for the elements that had supported him. He crept into the night like a stricken thing, his feet instinctively guiding him away from the moving tide of his fellow-beings—one of whom had just denied him charity—without which his own reviving faith in himself was again in jeopardy. For two months he had fought his battle silently with her image in his mind—the image of a girl who had once given him faith and friendship, whose fingers had soothed him in fever, and whose eyes had been dark with compassion—the girl who had taught him the uses of responsibility and the glorification of the labor of his hands. That silent battle had magnified the image, vested it with sovereign rights, given it the gentle strength by which he had conjured, and he had fought joyfully, with a new belief in his own destiny, a real delight in conquest. His heart glowed with a dull wrath. Was it nothing that he had come to her clean-handed again? The image that he had conjured was fading in the sullen glow in the West out of which she had come to him. Was this Jane? The Jane he knew had sorrowed with the falling of a bird, mourned the killing of a squirrel and wept over the glazed eyes of a dead deer. Was this Jane? This disdainful woman with the modish hat and cold blue eye, this scornful daughter of convention who sneered at sin and mocked at the tokens of repentance?