The radiant finger stole softly up her dress, across her lap, and made a little pool of brightness in the heart of which the letter lay; outside in the dove-cote a pigeon cooed sleepily to his mate.
What was that tale of long ago that was coming strangely back to her? A girl, one whom they all knew and loved, had been separated from her husband after several years of misery, bravely borne. Her husband had been a confirmed drunkard, and in his cups was as one possessed with devils. They had grieved over Clare, and when her husband's brutality grew such that her brother interfered and insisted on her procuring a divorce for the protection of herself and her children, they had felt that it was right; and while they deplored the necessity, they had sided with Clare throughout. But when, two years later, wedding cards had come from Clare, from some place in the West, whither she had moved with her children; it had been a grievous shock, for the drunkard still lived. It had seemed a strange and monstrous thing, and their judgment had been severe—their censure scathing. Poor Clare! She understood her temptation better now. Poor little Clare!
What was it Jim had said? The men had been guarded in the expression of their opinion before her; they were fastidious in conversation before women. This, he had said in an under-tone to Berkeley, but she had caught it, and caught also the scorn of the hazel eye, and knew that the lip curled under the brown mustache. He had said—"To a woman of innate purity the thing would be impossible. There is a coarseness in the situation which is revolting."
What would he think of her? She was weighing the matter—canvassing its possibility. Was her nature deteriorating? Was she growing coarser, less pure? Would her old friend, whose standard was so high, despise her? Would she be lowered in the eyes of those whose influence and opinions had, heretofore, molded her life? The associations of years are not uprooted and cast aside in days or in months. Responsibilities engendered by the past environed her, full-grown, comprehensible, insistent; responsibilities which might be engendered by the future, lay in her mind a tiny germ in which the embryo life had scarcely begun to stir. The duty to the old life seemed to her plain and clear; a beaten track along which she might safely travel. The duty to another life which might, in time, be equally plain and clear, was now a bewildering mist through which strange shapes passed, like phantasmagoria. She could not think; her mind was benumbed; right and wrong, apparently, had changed places and commingled so, that, for the time, their identity was confused, indistinguishable: she could not guide herself, as yet; she could only hold blindly to the old supports.
The silver finger had lifted itself from her lap and rested on her breast, forming a shining pathway from her heart, through the open window, out into the silence and beauty of the night.
CHAPTER XX.
Winter again; the city dull, listless and sodden of aspect in the gloom of a January evening. In the country, and nature's quiet places, the dusk was throwing a veil over the cheerlessness of earth, as a friend covers a friend's deficiencies with love; but here, in the haunts of men, garish electric lights made plain the misery. The air was a depressing compound which defied analysis; but was apparently composed of equal parts of snow, drizzle, and stinging sleet; the wind caught it in sudden whirls, and dashed it around corners and into the eyes and the coat collars of wayfarers with gusty malevolence.
The streets were comparatively deserted, only such people being abroad as could not help themselves, and these plodded along with bent heads, and silent curses on the night. Even the poor creatures who daily "till the field of human sympathy" kept close within the shelter of four walls, no matter how forlorn, and left the elements to hold Walpurgis night in the thoroughfares alone.
In a comfortable easy chair, in the handsome parlor of an elegant up-town mansion, sat Ethel Cumberland, reading a novel. Since her second marriage, life had gone pleasantly with her and she was content. Cecil never worried her about things beyond her comprehension, or required other aliments for his spiritual sustenance than that which she was able and willing to furnish; he was a commonplace man and his desires were commonplace—easily understood and satisfied. He liked a pretty wife, a handsome house, a good dinner with fine wine and jolly company; he liked high-stepping horses, a natty turn-out, and the smile of Vanity Fair. Ethel's tastes were similar, and their lives so far had fitted into each other without a single crevice. The Cumberlands were grim and unbending, it is true, and after that one concession to fraternal feeling, made no more; they held themselves rigidly aloof from the pair, and invested all intercourse with paralyzing formality. Ethel did not care a pin for them or their opinion; if they chose to be old-fogyish and disagreeable, they were quite welcome to indulge their fancy. As long as society smiled upon her, Madam Ethel was superbly indifferent to the Cumberland frown.
Cecil worried over it, as men will worry, who have been accustomed to the adulation of their womenkind, when that adulation is withdrawn. He grumbled and fumed over their "damned nonsense," as he called it, and bored his wife no little with conjectures as to their reasons for being stiff and unpleasant when nobody else was.