The Hills of Desire

by Richard Aumerle Maher

Never had Augusta's sweetness and the dear simple beauty of her faith in him been so precious to him as in those minutes. He hated the other woman unreasoningly, viciously; and yet more he hated himself, because, somehow, he seemed to have thrown a slur upon Augusta. That day, when her heart was high and sweet with its sacrifice for him, he had forced her, in some shameful way it seemed, to take something—money in fact—which he had taken from another woman.

He knew, even in that walk home, that he had done a fatal thing. And the anxieties and the nightmares of the winter that followed came upon him inexorably and without surprise.

In alternate letters, and often alternately in the same letter, the other woman upbraided him for having deceived her, in being married, and being well, and on the other hand vowed that she did not believe a word of what he told her but was sure that he was there sick and alone and that she must come to see.

Through all that winter and into the spring he lived under the constant dread that the woman might come, and he was obliged to answer every letter, profusely and carefully, lest something which he omitted to answer might give her the impulse that would bring her flying to find him. That the whole business was melodramatic, and entirely foolish, did not lighten the matter in the least. And at all times he was convinced with a miserable dull certainty that all he did was useless. Augusta would inevitably come to know, anyhow. He had never expected to be able to hide anything from her. He had sworn that he never would have anything to hide from her. He was certain that she would come to know of this, and in the most shameful and pitiless way. He had no hope that it would be otherwise.

Even now, as he watched the German gun being poked into its place above the line of the dirt on the far hillside, he shuddered at the humiliation and the ignominy of that winter. Augusta had known that there was something wrong. She had, of course, seen it in his eyes and sensed it in the air about him, from the very beginning. But he had never been able to tell her. He knew Augusta's peculiar jealousy. It was not the usual property-holding interest by which the average woman clings to her rights in a man, because she is afraid of the consequences of letting him slip away from her.

Augusta was in this, as in so many things, different from any woman whom Wardwell had ever known or imagined. Like all people that live a great deal within themselves, the things that were her own, even the little things, had a sacred and a touching value to Augusta. If a thing was not entirely her own she did not care for it at all. She wanted nothing near her that she had to share in any way with another person. Wardwell remembered that she had once given away her best coat because another girl had put it on herself just for a moment to see how she would look in it. And as for the loaf of her love, so far from being able to think of sharing it with anyone, he knew that the thought that another had even looked at it would be enough to spoil it for Augusta.

And he, with this full knowledge of her fiercely proud little heart, had brought another woman in to despoil the sacred shrine of Augusta's love. He knew that she had thanked him for getting her pet back for her as the dearest thing he had ever done for her. And now when she should come to know the truth—as she would—it would embitter her to know that she owed it to another woman.

As the letters continued to come and the worry and humiliation of keeping up what seemed like an intrigue grew upon him he moodily wished that Augusta might learn the truth.

He could not tell her, for the very fact that must be his excuse, that he had done what he did for the love of her, would be the very reason why Augusta would resent his going to another woman. Explanations were always useless to Augusta. She cared not at all for the details. She would understand instantly, he thought, and understand more justly than he could tell her. But she would be mortally hurt.

It did not occur to him that Augusta would be just like every other woman. He never thought that Augusta in the supreme test when her love was threatened, would lose her almost inspired insight and go blind to everything except the one condemning fact—that he was corresponding secretly with another woman.