It was not execution he feared, for any clever lawyer could persuade a jury into a certain degree of leniency, but long years in prison for the sake of a dead ideal. In spite of his hard common sense and severely practical life he would almost have welcomed the exaltation of soul which must accompany a great sacrifice impelled by perfect love. But to turn one's back on life for ever and walk deliberately into a dungeon, change one's name for a number and become a thing, for the sake of barren honour, to drag out his years with a dead soul, to despise himself for a fool, too old and too tired to console himself with a memory of a duty well done,—he felt such a sudden disgust for life and for that ill-regulated product, human nature, that he struck a heavy blow at a tree and brought a shower of snow about his head.
If he could but have continued to love the woman and accept the grim and bitter fate with joy in his soul! And if only that were the worst! If he could turn his back on life with no regret save for its lost opportunities for power and fame.
He paused in his rapid irregular walk and pushed his cap up from his ear. He half swung on his heel; then, his face settling into its familiar lines, he walked slowly toward a faint crackling that had arrested his attention.
He came presently upon the glade Alys Crumley had painted in its summer mood; the little picture hung facing his bed. The scene was white to-day; all the lovely shades of green and gold had been rubbed out and replaced with the bright sparkle of snow, and the brook was frozen. But although Rush loved the winter woods and responded to their white appeal as keenly as to their yearly renewal of verdant youth and gorgeous maturity, they left him quite unmoved at this moment. Alys Crumley, as he had half expected, stood in the little dell.
Her face was more like old ivory than ever against the dazzling whiteness of the snow and under her low fur turban. It looked both pinched and nervous, but she kept her hands in her muff. Nor did Rush remove his from his pockets, although his determination not to betray himself was subconscious. At the moment, his mind, conquering a tendency to race, informed itself merely that even in heavy winter clothes, with but a deep pink rose in her stole for colour, she managed to look dainty and alluring. It recalled visions of her on summer nights clad in the soft transparencies of lawn, with ribbons somewhere that always brought out the strange olive tints of her eyes and hair....
"I followed you," she said.
"Did you?"
"When I saw you pass in the trolley, I guessed. The Gifnings had invited me to go out to the Club with them. I asked them to put me down at a path near here."
He made no reply but continued to stare at her, recalling other pictures,—in the studio, in the green living-room,—marvelling at her endless variety, and not only of effect. Yet she was always the same, surcharged with the magnetism of youth and young womanhood.