Once more the image of Kate Seton had risen up before his mind’s eye, and, for the first time it brought him no satisfaction. For the first time he had associated the probable object of his plans with her. Charlie Bryant was no longer a mere offender against the law in his mind. In concentrating his official efforts against him he realized the jeopardy in which his own regard for Kate Seton placed him. He saw that his success now in ridding the district of the whisky-runner would, at the same time, rob him of all possible chance of ever obtaining the regard of this woman he loved. It meant an ostracism based upon the strongest antipathy—the antipathy of a woman wounded in her tenderest emotions, that wonderful natural instinct which is perhaps beyond everything else in her life.
The more than pity of it. Kate’s interest in Charlie Bryant had assumed proportions which threatened to overwhelm his whole purpose. It became almost a tragedy. Pondering upon this ominous realization a sort of panic came near to taking hold of him. Apart from his own position, the pain and suffering he knew he must inflict upon her set him flinching.
Her protestations of Charlie’s innocence were very nearly absurd. To a mind trained like his there was little enough doubt of the man’s offense. He was a rank “waster,” but, as in the case of all such creatures, there was a woman ready to believe in him with all the might of feminine faith. It was a bitter thought that in this case Kate Seton should be the woman. She did believe. He was convinced of her honesty in her declaration. She believed from the bottom of her heart, she, a woman of such keen sense and intelligence. It was—yes, it was maddening. Through it all he saw his duty lying plainly before him. His whole career was at stake, that career for which only he had hitherto lived, and which, eventually, he had hoped to lay at Kate’s feet.
What could he do? There was no other way. He—must—go—on. His dream was wrecking. It was being demolished before his eyes. It was not being sent crushing at one mighty stroke, but was being torn to shreds and destroyed piecemeal.
He strove to stiffen himself before the blow, and his very attitude expressed something of his effort. He told himself a dozen times that he must accept the verdict, and carry his duty through, his duty to himself as well as to his superiors. But conviction was lacking. The human nature in him was rebelling. For all his discipline it would not be denied. And with each passing moment it was gaining in its power to make itself felt and heard.
Its promptings came swiftly, and in a direction hardly conceivable in a man of his balance of mind. But the more sure the strength of the man, the more sure the strength of the old savage lurking beneath the sanest thought. The savage rose up in him now in a reckless challenge to all that was best and most noble in him. A cruel suspicion swept through his mind and quickly permeated his whole outlook. What if he had read Kate’s regard for the man Bryant wrong? What if he had read it as she intended him to read it, seeking to blind him to the true facts? He knew her for a clever woman, a shrewd woman, even a daring woman. What if she had read through his evident regard for her, and had determined to turn it to account in saving her lover from disaster, by posing with a maternal, or sisterly regard for his welfare? Such things he felt had been done. He was to be a tool, a mere tool in her hands, the poor dupe whose love had betrayed him.
He sprang from his seat.
No, a thousand times no, he told himself. His memory of her beautiful, dark, fearless eyes was too plainly in his mind for that. The honesty of her concern and regard for the man was too simply plain to hold any trace of the perfidy which his thought suggested. He told himself these things. He told himself again and again, and—remained unconvinced. The savage in him, the human nature was gaining an ascendancy that would not be denied, and from the astute, disciplined man he really was, at a leap, he became the veriest doubting lover.
He threw his powerful arms out, and stretched himself. His movements were the movements of unconcern, but there was no unconcern within him. A teeming, harassing thought was urging him, driving him to the only possible course whereby he could hope to obtain a resumption of his broken peace of mind.
He must see Kate. He must see her again, without delay.