Paradise Garden Part 62

"Have pity, Jerry," she whimpered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Have pity, Jerry,' she whimpered."]

"Pity, yes," he laughed wildly. "Kiss me. You want to be kissed. I'll kill you with kissing. Death like this--such a death--!"

She struggled more furiously, struck, kissed and struck again. But Jerry's madness triumphed--her own.

At this point Jerry hid his face in his hands, trembling violently.

"I was out of my head, Roger. Tell me that I was, for the love of G.o.d.

I must have been. It was horrible. I did not know. I can scarcely remember now. Death would have been better--for her, for me--than that. My G.o.d! If only you had told me, something. I could have gone away, I think--before--But to have knowledge come like that, engulfing, flooding, drowning with its terrible bitterness. And Marcia--" He raised his head piteously, "I asked her to marry me, Roger--at once. But she only looked at me with strange eyes.

"'Marriage!' she said, 'My G.o.d!' It was almost as though I had uttered a sacrilege.

"I pleaded with her gently, but she shook me off. A fearful change had come over her. She drew away and looked at me with alien eyes.

"'Marriage!' she repeated. '_You!_'

"'Marry me tomorrow, Marcia--'

"She thrust her naked arms in front of her, their tatters flying, the rags of her honor.

"'Oh, G.o.d! How I loathe you!'

"'Marcia!'

"'Go away from me. Go!'

"She put her arm before her eyes as though to shut out the sight of me.

"'For G.o.d's sake, go,' she repeated, with words that cut like knives.

'Leave me alone, alone.'

"'I must see you--tomorrow.'

"She turned on me furiously.

"'No, no, no,' she screamed, 'not tomorrow--or ever. It would kill me to see you. Kill me. Go away--never comeback. Do you hear? Never!

Never!'

"She was in a harrowing condition now, mad where I was quite sane.

There was nothing left for me to do. I turned as in a daze into the woods and wandered around as though only half-awake, stupidly trying to plan. At last I went back to the spring. Marcia had gone--gone out of my life--

"That's all, Roger. I wrote to her from New York, from Manitoba, from the ranch in Colorado, repeating my offer of marriage, but she has never answered me. You know the rest--" a slow and rather bitter smile crossed his features. "She goes about--with Lloyd--and others.

She is gay. Her picture is in the papers and magazines--at hunt-meets--bazaars. She has forgotten--and I--No, I can never forget.

She will dwell with me all the days I live. I can't forget or forgive--myself. Why, Roger, the Mission--the place that I'm giving money to support--to keep those women. You understand--I know now.

_She_ might be one of them and I--I would have brought her there."

I had been stricken dumb by the fearful revelation of Jerry's sin. I was silent, thinking of new words of comfort for him and for myself--for I was not innocent--but they would not come, and Jerry rose and walked the length of the room. "I've got to get away from it all again--somewhere. I can't stay here. Everything brings it all back. I'm going away."

"Going, Jerry? Where?"

"I don't know. I've made a kind of plan. But I mustn't tell. I don't want you to know or anyone. But I've got to leave here." He smiled a little as he saw the anxious look in my eyes. "Oh, don't worry. I'm going to be all right, I don't drink, you know."

I think he was really a little proud of that admission.

"Are you sure, Jerry," I asked after awhile, "that you care nothing for Marcia?"

He took a turn up and down the room before he replied. And then, quite calmly:

"It's curious, Roger. She has gone out of my life. Gone like--like a burned candle. I do not love her, nor ever could again, and yet I would marry her tomorrow if she would have me. I wrote her again yesterday, and I'm going to try to see her in New York. But I'll fail.

My face would always be a reproach to her. I know. She is like that--bitter. I don't know that I can blame her."

It was long past midnight. Jerry went to bed. But I sat oblivious of the pa.s.sing hours, wide awake, somber, my gaze fixed upon the square of the window which turned from moonlight to dark and then at last s.h.i.+mmered with the dusk of the dawn.

CHAPTER XXVII

REVELATIONS

It was at Jerry's request that I stayed on at Horsham Manor, working as I could upon my book, and now I think with a new knowledge of the meaning of life as I had learned it through Jerry's failure. I discovered comfort in the words of St. Paul, and prayed that out of spiritual death the seed of a new life might germinate. Jerry had told me nothing on leaving the Manor of his plans or purposes, and I made no move to seek him out, aware of a new confidence growing in me that wherever Jerry was, whatever he was doing, no new harm would come to him. He had found himself at last.

Upon the occasion of my infrequent visits to the city I did myself the honor of calling at the house in Was.h.i.+ngton Square, where I made the acquaintance of a fair majority of the feminine Habberton family, enjoying long chats with Una in which the bonds of our friends.h.i.+p were still more firmly cemented. She told me much of her work and of course we spoke of Jerry, but if she had any news of him she gave no sign of it, and I always left the house no wiser as to his occupation or whereabouts than when I had entered it. But in the early days of the following autumn something in her manner, I cannot tell what, perhaps the very quality of her content, advised me that she was in some sort of communication with Jerry and that she was no longer borrowing trouble in his behalf. As I made my way back to the Manor in the train next day, I found the conviction growing in my mind that Jerry must be somewhere in New York. Una's...o...b..t had not changed. Could it be that Jerry's was adapting itself to hers? Jack Ballard had told me that Jerry had not been seen at the office and that Ballard, Senior, had washed his hands of him in despair, but had agreed to have large amounts deposited at stated intervals in the bank. Of course this proved nothing, for Jerry might have been using his bank for a forwarding address, but the little I knew fitted surprisingly well with my own guesses as to Jerry's destiny. Perhaps the wish was father to the thought. At any rate, I returned to the Manor and resumed my work with a singularly tranquil mind, aware for the first time in months of a quiet exhilaration which made the mere fact of existence a delight. Perhaps after all I--my philosophy--Jerry--were still to be vindicated!

It was not until the following summer that I learned the truth. An item in the evening paper caught my eye. It told of the wonderful boys' club that was being erected in Blank Street, by an unknown philanthropist. The building was six stories in height, covering half a block, and was to contain a large gymnasium, a marble swimming pool, an auditorium, school-rooms, drill hall for the Boy Scout organization, clubrooms, billiard and pool tables, and sleeping quarters for a small army. The story was written in the form of an interview with the representative of the philanthropist, a Mr. John V.

Gillespie, who was seeing personally to every detail of the planning and construction. The boys' club had already been in existence for a year, occupying hired quarters, also under the supervision and control of the aforesaid Gillespie, who, it seemed, had the destinies of the young males of the district in which the building was situated, already in the hollow of his hand. The unknown philanthropist was Jerry, of course. I read between the lines, the marble pool which Una had envied us, the gymnasium, with "ropes to pull." Jerry and Una had frequently discussed the further needs of the district and the prospective boys' club, I knew, was one of her hobbies and his.

As may be imagined not many hours elapsed before I made a pilgrimage to the city and visited the wonderful new structure, already under roof, which was to house the heirs of Jerry's munificence. It was of truly splendid proportions and already gave roughly the shape of its different rooms, which in point of dimensions left nothing to be desired. The operation would, I should think, make short work of a million dollars and, with its endowment, two million perhaps! Jerry was beginning well.

I inquired of the superintendent for Mr. Gillespie and was informed that that gentleman could probably be found at the temporary building in the adjoining street. Thither, therefore, I went, sure that after so great a lapse of time Jerry must pardon my interest and intrusion.

I was not surprised to discover that Mr. John V. Gillespie was no less a person than Jerry himself, who was at the moment of my arrival busily engaged with a Scoutmaster, helping to teach the setting-up exercises. I slipped into the room un.o.btrusively, a place at the rear of the building--a dance hall it had once been, as I afterwards learned--and patched the youngsters going through their drill. Jerry walked around among them, with a word here, a touch on a shoulder there, while the boys struggled manfully for perfection. Jerry was so interested that he would not have seen me had I not risen as he pa.s.sed my way and offered my hand.

"Roger! By George!"

He clapped his arms around me at once and gave me a bear hug.

"Good old Dry-as-dust!" he cried, "I was wondering how soon you'd find me out."

"You're not angry?"

"Bless your heart! I've been thinking of writing you about everything, but I wanted to wait until things were a little further along."

"But Jerry--"