Kildares of Storm Part 6

She recoiled from him, repeating stupidly, "You _killed_ them? Killed your own dog because her puppies were mongrels? Basil! I--I--don't think I understand."

"Time you learned something about breeding," he muttered impatiently.

"Don't you know she might never have had another decent pup? Storm's got its reputation to sustain. I can't have the place overrun by a lot of curs."

He pa.s.sed her, and went into the house.

She followed, stunned. All through supper, as she sat opposite her husband, listening, answering, serving his needs, the vision was before her of the great hound's eyes as they must have looked when, one by one, he took her puppies from her; when at last she felt the beloved hand at her own throat.

She looked at her husband furtively. It seemed to her that she had never really seen him before. The coa.r.s.e, hairy hands, the face with its cruel lips, its low brow above which the hair waved up strongly like a black plume, its eyes, handsome and bright and shallow, like the eyes of certain animals of the cat-tribe--surely those eyes were growing too bright? People called this family "the wild Kildares," sometimes "the mad Kildares." _Were_ they mad? Did that explain?

Slowly a great horror of the man seized her; a fear which never afterwards went away. He was her master, as he had been Juno's. She was at his mercy, his thing, his creature. If she displeased him, if her children displeased him....

He fell asleep presently in a chair, according to his wont, snoring like a well-fed animal. She sat and watched him for a while, s.h.i.+vering.

Suddenly she gave a little choked cry, and ran out of the house. She stumbled down the hill, through the ravine below, along the road to where a lighted window shone through the darkness. It was the window of Jacques Benoix' study. She did not pause to realize why she was going.

She wanted only to be near her friend.

He sat beside a lamp, reading to his wife, who lay on her couch beyond.

Against his shoulder leaned his boy, rubbing a cheek upon the rough coat as if he loved to touch it. The light fell on the two dark heads so close together, the cl.u.s.tering boyish curls, the strong, curved lips, as sweet as any woman's. Kate pressed her white face against the window, drinking in the homely comfort of the scene. She had no wish to speak to him, no disloyal thought of betraying to her friend this new and terrible knowledge of her husband. It was enough to know that help was within reach; always within reach.

The invalid's cough sounded from the couch. Benoix laid his took aside and went to adjust her pillows. He bent over his wife and kissed her.

Then Kate knew. This stabbing shock in her heart--it was not friends.h.i.+p.

It was jealousy; love.

She started away from the window. She must have made some slight sound, for Jacques looked up suddenly, and after a moment came out into the darkness.

He almost stumbled over her in the ravine, face downward among dead leaves, shaken with dry sobbing. He went on his knees beside her, gripping his hands together behind him so that he should not touch her.

But his voice was beyond his control. It broke into little sounds of tenderness and dismay.

"Kate--you! But what has happened? Tell me! What is wrong with you?

What?"

His nearness, the trembling of his voice, filled her with an exquisite terror. If she could have risen and run away she would have done so, but she dared not trust her legs. Nor could she look at him, there in the starlight, with this new secret in her eyes. She clutched desperately at her self-command.

He bent closer. "Kate, tell me! You are hurt. _Dieu!_ That man--" It was the first time she had heard a trace of accent in his speech. "What has he done to you?"

Still she could not trust herself to speak. In the silence she heard his breath come hard. When he said, in a crisp, queer staccato that was not his voice at all:

"If Basil Kildare has hurt you, I shall kill him."

"No, no," she gasped out. "It is not Basil. It is you!" She would have given years of her life to recall the words the instant they were spoken.

"I? _I_ have hurt you, I, who would--But tell me! You must tell me!"

His will was stronger than hers. She told him.

"I saw you--kiss her."

"Kiss--"

"Your wife." She was close to hysteria now, all hope of self-command gone. She caught him by the arm. "Jacques, do you love her? I never knew, I never thought--Oh, but you _can't_ love her! It is impossible, Jacques. Why don't you answer me?"

He was s.h.i.+vering as if with a chill. "That is a question you have no right to ask."

"I--no right?" She laughed aloud. "What do rights matter? Besides, I have every right, because it is me you love, me! I know it by your eyes, your voice. See, you are afraid to touch me. And yet you kiss her! Why?

Why?"

She could barely hear the answer. "Because--it makes her a little happy."

She laughed again, brokenly. "You hypocrite!"

"No, not quite a hypocrite--" he got it out in jerks. "She cares for me.

She needs me. She has given me our son. If one cannot have--the moon--at least there are stars."

She knelt facing him, with her hands out, whispering desperately, "But if you can have the moon, if you can--? Oh, my dear, my dear! Why don't you take me?"

He took her then, held her so close that his heart shook her body as if it were her own, kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips, until she was ashamed and put up her hands before her face so that he might kiss only them.

At last he put her from him, and went without a word back to his wife.

CHAPTER VI

The older Kate, looking from her eyrie at that other self of hers as at some stranger she had once known and pitied, saw a girl who wore her secret in her face, careless of who might read. Indeed she rather hoped the world would read; she had no shame of loving.

The negroes, sensitive as devoted dogs to the mood of their mistress, vied with each other in serving her, and whispered uneasily behind her back. Several times the mulatto nurse, Mahaly, more often with her than the others, seemed about to speak to her of something, but lost courage.

Kate did not notice. She noticed very little that went on around her in those days. Sometimes, indeed, she caught the hard, shallow gaze of her husband fixed upon her, curiously. But if he drew his own conclusions from her pallor, her starry eyes, her long fits of brooding, he at least did not trouble her with questions. Which perhaps was just as well. She would have answered them.

For a while she went about in a sort of daze, living over again what had pa.s.sed in the ravine, wondering what she and Jacques would say to each other when he came to her. Then she began to wonder why he did not come to her. A week pa.s.sed--two weeks. She grew troubled, frightened; for the first time a little ashamed. What if it were not love with him? The girl had learned in a hard school the difference between love and the thing that is called love.

She spent hours out under the juniper tree, listening for the pit-a-patter of a racking horse. She heard it often, but it did not stop. The baby playing near heard it, too; and when it pa.s.sed she murmured with a tragic droop of the little mouth: "Aw--gone--by-by, Muddy! Aw--gone--by-by!"

Presently Kate lost all sense of shame; ordered out a saddle-horse in defiance of doctor's advice, and took to haunting the crossroads and the village on the chance of meeting him alone. This never happened. Fate, rather late in the day, seemed to have taken her good name into its keeping. They met, of course, but under the furtive, curious gaze of others. Usually, too, Jacques had his boy beside him. It was as if he were afraid to go alone.

So Kate had nothing to feed her heart upon but an occasional grave "Good morning," or a meeting of eyes that were instantly wrenched apart. It was enough for her, however. This was no mere emotion she had stirred.

The man's face was worn as by a long illness. The least touch of his eyes was a caress.

She grew to pity him more than herself. "Poor Jacques!" she thought tenderly. "Poor, miserable, foolish Jacques!--" and longed to comfort, to rea.s.sure him. She felt in herself the strength for two.

At last she wrote to him:

When are you coming, Jacques? I miss you so! Do not be afraid.

Friends need be none the less friends because they love each other.

Don't you trust me?