Up The Hill And Over Part 39

Bending over the form of his lost wife, Henry Callandar forgot Esther.

His mind, careful of its sanity, removed her instantly from the possibility of thought. She was gone--whisked away by some swift genie and, with her, vanished the world of blue and gold inhabited by lovers.

There remained only that white, faded face among the daisies. With careful hands he removed the crushed hat and loosened the collar at the neck. It was Molly. Not a doubt of that. Not Molly as he remembered her but Molly from whom the years had taken more than their toll, giving but little in return. He could not think beyond this fact, as yet. And he felt nothing, nothing at all. Both heart and mind lay mercifully numb under the anaesthetic of the shock.

Deftly he did the few things necessary to restore the swooning woman, noting with a doctor's eye the first faint flush of pink under the dead white nails, then the flutter of breath through the parted lips and the slow unclosing of the hazel eyes which, at sight of him, sprang widely, vividly into life.

"Harry!" The name was the merest whisper and held a quiver of fear. He remembered, stolidly, that just so had she whispered it upon the evening of their hurried marriage.

"Yes, Molly. It is all right. Don't be frightened!"--Just so had he soothed her.

She closed her eyes a moment while strength came back and then, raising herself, slipped out of his arms with a little breathless movement of avoidance. She seemed indeed to cower away and the fear in her eyes hurt him with a physical pang. Instinctively he put out his hand to rea.s.sure her, repeating his entreaty that she should not be frightened.

"But I am frightened!" Her voice was hoa.r.s.e. "You terrified me! You had no right to come like that. You should have let me know--sent word--or--or something."

"Sent word?" He repeated the words, in a dazed way. "How could I? How could I know?"

"How could you come if you didn't know?" Already the miracle of readjustment which in women is so marvellously quick, had given back to Mary Coombe something of her natural manner. Besides, she had always known that some day he might find her--if he cared to look.

"Why should you come at all?" she flashed, raising defiant eyes. "The time to come was long ago."

"I did come." Callandar spoke slowly. "I came--" he paused, for how could he tell her that his coming had been to a house of death.

The bald answer, the strangeness of his gaze stirred her fear again. For a moment they stared at each other, each busy with the s.h.i.+fting puzzle.

Then her quicker intuition abandoned the mystery of the present meeting to straighten out the past.

"Then you followed the letter?"

"Yes, I followed the letter."

"And you saw her--my mother?"

"Yes, I saw your mother."

Impulsively he moved toward her but she shrank back, plainly terrified.

"Don't! I didn't know. I swear I did not know. I never saw the letter--until last night. And I don't understand. What--what did my mother tell you when you came?"

"There was only one thing which would have kept me from you, Molly."

"Only one thing? What?" she almost whispered.

"She told me you were dead."

The flash of understanding on her face showed that she, at least, had s.h.i.+fted part of the puzzle into place.

"I see now," she said slowly, "I have wondered ever since I saw the letter. But I did not think she would go that far. Yet it was the simplest way. There was no date on the letter--but I guessed that it must have come too late."

"Too late?"

"Yes, or she would never have dared. Besides she might not have wanted to. She didn't know. I never had the courage to tell her. But if the letter had come in time--"

She faltered, growing confused under his intense gaze.

"In time for what?" he prompted patiently.

She brushed the question aside.

"Did you believe her when she said that?"

"Yes. Why should I have doubted? It seemed to be the end. I fainted on the doorstep. A long illness followed, when it was at its worst a friend came--helped me to pull out. When I was well again, I searched for your mother, employed detectives, but we never found her. Neither did we find anything upon which to hang a doubt of what she had told me."

"No. She was very clever."

"But _why?_ For G.o.d's sake, why? Why should she lie to me? I had never harmed her. We were married. I could give you a home. She knew it. I told her. Why should she do this senseless, horrible thing?"

She looked at him with wide eyes and stammered,

"Don't--don't you know?"

A sense of some hitherto undreamed horror came to him with that stammering whisper. The spur of it brought some of his firmness back.

"I do not know. There must have been a reason. You must tell me."

He forced her, through sheer will, to lift her eyes to his. They were startled and sullen. With a start he saw, what he had missed before, that this woman, his wife, was a stranger. But he had himself well in hand now and his gaze did not falter. There was no escaping its demands.

Her answer came in a little burst of defiance.

"Yes, there was a reason. You may as well know it. Your letter and your coming were both too late. I was married."

The doctor was not quick enough for this--

"Yes, of course you were, but--"

"Oh, not to you! Can't you understand? I was married to another man....

You need not look like that! What did you expect? I warned you. I knew I could never defy mother. I told you so. But you said it wouldn't be long--that she need never know. And I waited and waited. I could have married more than once but I wouldn't. I faced mother and said I wouldn't. But every time it was harder. I couldn't keep it up. And you didn't come. Then when he came and we thought he was so rich she made me marry him. She _made_ me. I thought you were never coming back anyway. I wrote you once telling you to come. You didn't answer."

She paused breathless but he could find nothing to say. It seemed a small thing that the letter must have missed him somewhere, his whole mind was absorbed in trying to comprehend one stupendous fact. The puzzle had s.h.i.+fted into place indeed.

"I thought you didn't care any more," her words raced as if eager to be done, "and mother gave me no peace. You will never understand how terrified I was of mother. And he seemed so kind and was going to be rich. He owned part of a gold mine--mother was sure it would mean millions. But it didn't. Mother was fooled there!" with a gleam of malice. "The mine turned out to be worthless--after we were married."

Callandar drew a sharp breath and shook himself as if to throw off the horror of some enthralling nightmare.

"You married him--this man--knowing that you were a wife already?"

"A fine sort of wife!" He quivered at the coa.r.s.eness of meaning in her tone. "We were never really married."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it was all a farce. What's a ceremony? For all I knew it wasn't even legal. When you did not answer my letter I thought that was what your silence meant. I asked a girl to ask her father who was a lawyer if a marriage was legal when the girl was under age and the parents didn't know about it. He said sometimes it wasn't."