Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories Part 33

"You--you were going away without saying good-by to--your old friends?" Her lips were white, and her brave attempt to smile would have told him the truth had he seen it, but he only had her tone to go by, so he answered, indifferently:

"All my arrangements were made; I couldn't wait."

"You are offended with me," Miss Moore said, after a pause. "How have I hurt you? What is it; please? I--I have been too forward, perhaps?"

Austin dared not trust himself to answer, and when he made no sign the girl went on, painfully:

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to seem bold. I owe you so much; we were such good friends--" In spite of her efforts her voice showed her suffering.

The man felt his lonely heart swell with the wild impulse to tell her all, to voice his love in one breathless torrent of words that would undeceive her. The strain of repression lent him added brusqueness when he strove to explain, and his coldness left her sorely hurt.

His indifference filled her with a sense of betrayal; it chilled the impulsive yearning in her breast. She had battled long with herself before coming and now she repented of her rashness, for it was plain he did not need her. This certainty left her sick and listless, therefore she bade him adieu a few moments later, and with aching throat went blindly out and down the stairs.

The instant she was gone Austin leaped to his feet; the agony of death was upon his features. Breathlessly he began to count:

"One! Two! Three--!"

He felt himself smothering, and with one sweep of his hand ripped the collar from his throat.

"Five! Six! Seven--!"

He was battling like a drowning man, for, in truth, the very breath of his life was leaving him. A drumming came into his ears. He felt that he must call out to her before it was too late. He was counting aloud now, his voice like the moan of a man on the rack.

"Nine! Ten--!"

A frenzy to voice his sufferings swept over him, but he held himself.

Only a moment more and she would be gone; her life would be spared this dark shadow, and she would never know, but he--he would indeed be face to face with darkness.

Toward the last he was reeling, but he continued to tell off the seconds with the monotonous regularity of a timepiece, his every power centered on that process. The idea came to him that he was counting his own flickering pulse-throbs for the last time. With a tremendous effort of will he smoothed his face and felt his way to the open window, for by now she must be entering the landau. A moment later and she would turn to waft him her last adieu. Her last! G.o.d! How the seconds lagged! That infernal thumping in his ears had drowned the noises from the street below. He felt that for all time the torture of this moment would live with him.

Then he smiled! He smiled blindly out into the glaring sunlight, and bowed. And bowed and smiled again, clinging to the window-casing to support himself. By now she must have reached the corner. He freed one hand and waved it gaily, then with outflung arms he stumbled back into the room, the hot tears coursing down his cheeks.

Marmion Moore halted upon the stairs and felt mechanically for her gold chatelaine. She recalled dropping it upon the center-table as she went forward with hands outstretched to Austin; so she turned back, then hesitated. But he was leaving to-morrow; surely he would not misinterpret the meaning of her reappearance. Summoning her self-control, she remounted the stairs quickly.

The door was half ajar as she had left it in her confusion. Mustering a careless smile, she was about to knock, then paused. Austin was facing her in the middle of the room, beating time. He was counting aloud--but was that his voice? In the brief instant she had been gone he had changed astoundingly. Moreover, notwithstanding the fact that she stood plainly revealed, he made no sign of recognition, but merely counted on and on, with the voice of a dying man. She divined that something was sadly amiss; she wondered for an instant if the man had lost his senses.

She stood transfixed, half-minded to flee, yet held by some pitying desire to help; then she saw him reach forward and grope his way uncertainly to the window. In his progress he stumbled against a chair; he had to feel for the casing. Then she knew.

Marmion Moore found herself inside the room, staring with wide, affrighted eyes at the man whose life she had spoiled. She pressed her hands to her bosom to still its heavings. She saw Austin nodding down at the street below; she saw his ghastly attempt to smile; she heard the breath sighing from his lungs and heard him muttering her name.

Then he turned and lurched past her, groping, groping for his chair.

She cried out, sharply, in a stricken voice:

"Mr. Austin!"

The man froze in his tracks; he swung his head slowly from side to side, as if listening.

"What!" The word came like the crack of a gun. Then, after a moment, "Marmion!" He spoke her name as if to test his own hearing. It was the first time she had ever heard him use it.

She slipped forward until within an arm's-length of him, then stretched forth a wildly shaking hand and pa.s.sed it before his unwinking eyes, as if she still disbelieved. Then he heard her moan.

"Marmion!" he cried again. "My G.o.d! little girl, I--thought I heard you go!"

"Then this, _this_ is the reason," she said. "Oh-h-h!"

"What are you doing here? Why did you come back?" he demanded, brutally.

"I forgot my--No! G.o.d sent me back!"

There was a pause, during which the man strove to master himself; then he asked, in the same harsh accents:

"How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to see--and to understand."

"Well, you know the truth at last. I--have gone--blind." The last word caused his lips to twitch. He knew from the sound that she was weeping bitterly. "Please don't. I've used my eyes too much, that is all. It is--nothing."

"No! No! No!" she said, brokenly. "Don't you think I understand? Don't you think I see it all now? But why--why didn't you tell me? Why?"

When he did not answer she repeated: "G.o.d sent me back. I--I was not meant to be so unhappy."

Austin felt himself shaken as if by a panic. He cried, hurriedly: "You see, we've been such good friends. I knew it would distress you.

I--wanted to spare you that! You were a good comrade to me; we were like chums. Yes, we were chums. No friend could have been dearer to me than you, Miss Moore. I never had a sister, you know. I--I thought of you that way, and I--" He was struggling desperately to save the girl, but his incoherent words died on his lips when he felt her come close and lay her cheek against his arm.

"You mustn't try to deceive me any more," she said, gently. "I was here. I know the truth, and--I want to be happy."

Even then he stood dazed and disbelieving until she continued:

"I know that you love me, and that I love you."

"It is pity!" he exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely. "You don't mean it."

But she drew herself closer to him and turned her tear-stained face up to his, saying, wistfully, "If your dear eyes could have seen, they would have told you long ago."

"Oh, my love!" He was too weak to resist longer. His arms were trembling as they enfolded her, but in his heart was a gladness that comes to but few men.

"And you won't go away without me, will you?" she questioned, fearfully.

"No, no!" he breathed. "Oh, Marmion, I have lost a little, but I have gained much! G.o.d has been good to me."

THE REAL AND THE MAKE-BELIEVE

On his way down-town Phillips stopped at a Subway news-stand and bought all the morning papers. He acknowledged that he was vastly excited. As he turned in at the stage door he thrilled at sight of the big electric sign over the theater, pallid now in the morning suns.h.i.+ne, but symbolizing in frosted letters the thing for which he had toiled and fought, had hoped and despaired these many years. There it hung, a dream come true, and it read, "A Woman's Thrall, By Henry Phillips."

The stage-door man greeted him with a toothless smile and handed him a bundle of telegrams, mumbling: "I knew it would go over, Mr. Phillips.

The notices are swell, ain't they?"