The long way

by Mary Imlay Taylor

Rachel bent her head and passed out. Belhaven closed the door behind her and threw himself into the nearest chair with a groan.

"You and I alone know that she's innocent and you and I are forced to protect her!" Could Rachel have invented a more refined torment? He thought not. He saw himself as in a mirror; she had held it up to reflect his image and he found it hideous. He was a coward! It burns a man's soul to realize that. We are fond of heroics, we like to picture ourselves undaunted in the firing line; more causes have been won in day-dreams than were ever lost in reality, more forlorn hopes have found a leader than there were hopes of any kind to lead. But when the crisis comes, the hero suddenly collapses, the old cowardly self comes out from behind the hayrick, is affrighted and runs back. Belhaven had never known himself until those three awful hours when Astry kept him a prisoner in that same room waiting for Rachel's decision, waiting for a woman to save him for her sister's sake; not even for his own sake, but for some one else's. Alone he was obviously not worth saving; she had told him so. Belhaven, left alone in the most uncomfortable moment of his life, began to realize forcibly that he was not worth it; he was marooned on an island of sentimental purpose and he had no sentiment. He was thirty-two and he had never done a useful thing in his life unless it was to give his old clothes to his man servant, whom they fitted rather better than most cast-off clothes do. He had lived hard, drank hard, spent his money hard; he would have spent all of it, if a wise and frugal parent had not trusteed a large portion of the principal so that the worst that could happen were periods of impecuniosity, seasons of financial drought, like a summer after a dry St. Swithin's day, before the interest from those trusteed thousands began to come in again.

Yet Belhaven was not vicious, he was not even hardened, and he had fallen foolishly in love with Eva Astry chiefly because she wanted him to fall in love with her. Like most of his predecessors in flirtation, he did not know that that was her perpetual attitude; he supposed that he was an exception, he thought Eva really loved him better than herself. But Rachel knew better; something in her manner told him that she knew better, but she did not dream that her sister was anything but innocent. Belhaven had caught a glimpse of her soul, he had dimly discerned the mental attitude; he knew that Eva had deceived her and he was deeply ashamed. Yet he was not strong enough to go out and face Astry; his three hours with Astry had almost been the death of him; the man was as relentless as an Indian and as clever as a devil.

Belhaven got up and walked about the library. What should he do? If he went away it would do no good; it was cowardly and it would do no good, Astry would pursue him and blazon out the truth. If he refused to marry Rachel, Astry would kill him. If Eva—his mind stopped there; Eva had betrayed him. At the last ditch, the hardest pinch, she had bargained with the enemy for her own safety; she had delivered him, bound hand and foot, to Astry. She was cruel. Eva, the darling, little creature, the soft pink and white beauty, whose tender flesh could endure no pain, whose heart could endure no suffering,—this paragon had suddenly failed him. She had left him in the lurch, she had gathered up her skirts and fled before the deluge. He began dimly to understand Eva; he was slowly, painfully, laboriously, to climb the road which Astry had traveled before him. It is a long road and it is well worn by the footprints of many pilgrims; he whose feet are once set upon this road, turns not back.

IV

Rachel was very tired when she opened the door of her room and found her maid still engaged in folding up and rearranging her clothes.

Bantry, a tall, gaunt, Scotchwoman, was an old servant; she had been in the Leven family before the two girls were born and naturally claimed the privileges of long and faithful service. A glance at her face told Rachel that the end was not yet.

"What is it?" she asked involuntarily.

Bantry closed the door and locked it, her homely face magenta color. "Miss Rachel, that French girl of Miss Eva's ought to be dismissed. I beg your pardon for bringing it to you, but I must,—" the big woman's eyes filled with tears,—"I'm thinking of you, my lamb."

Rachel sank down into the big, winged chair that had received Eva the night before. "I hate servants' gossip, Bantry; is it really necessary to mention it to me?"