The Branding Iron Part 23

"She has written to me," said Jasper. "She wants her liberty. She wants it in such a way that she will fly clear and I--yes, and you, too, will be left in the mud. There's a man somewhere, of course. She thinks she has evidence, witnesses against me. I don't know what rubbish she has got together. But I'm going to fight her. I'm going to win. I'll save you if I can, Jane; if not, of course I am at your service for any amends--"

He stopped in his halting speech, for Joan had stood up and was moving across the room, her eyes fastened on the letter in his hands. She had the air of a sleep-walker.

She opened a drawer of her desk, took out an old tin box, once used for tobacco, and drew forth a small, gray envelope torn in two. Then she came back to him and said, "Let me see that letter," and he obeyed as though she had the right to ask.

She took his letter and hers and compared the two, the small, gray squares lying unopened on her knee, and she spoke incomprehensibly.

"Betty is 'the tall child,'" she said, and laughed with a catch in her breath.

Jasper looked at the envelopes. They were identical; Betty's gray note-paper crossed by Betty's angular, upright hand, very bold, very black. The torn envelope was addressed to Prosper Gael. Jasper took it, opened each half, laid the parts together, and read:

Jasper is dying. By the time you get this he will be dead. If you can forgive me for having failed you in courage last year, come back. What I have been to you before I will be again, only, this time, we can love openly. Come back.

"Jane,"--Morena spoke brokenly,--"what does it mean?"

"He built that cabin in Wyoming for her," said Joan, speaking as though Jasper had seen the canon hiding-place and known its history, "and she didn't come. He brought me there on his sled. I was hurt. I was terribly hurt. He took care of me--"

"Prosper?" Jasper thrust in. His face was drawn with excitement.

"Yes. Prosper Gael. I was there with him for months. At first I wasn't strong enough to go away, and then, after a while, I tried. But I was too lonely and sorrowful. In the spring I loved him. I thought I loved him. He wanted me. I was all alone in the world. I didn't know that he loved another woman. I thought she was dead--like Pierre. Prosper had clothes for her there. I suppose--I've thought it out since--that she was to leave as if for a short journey, and then secretly go on that long one, and she couldn't take many things with her. So he had beautiful stuffs for her--and a little suit to wear in the snow.

That's how I came to call her 'the tall child,' seeing that little suit, long and narrow.... This letter came one morning, one awfully bright morning. He read it and went out and the next day he went away.

Afterwards I found the letter torn in two beside his desk on the floor. I took it and I've always kept it. 'The tall child'! He looked so terrible when I called her that.... And she was your Betty all the time!"

"Yes," said Morena slowly. "She was my Betty all the time." He gave her a twisted smile and put the two papers carefully into an inside pocket. "I am going to keep this letter, Jane. Truly the ways of the Lord are past finding out."

Joan looked at him in growing uneasiness. Her mind, never quick to take in all the bearings and the consequences of her acts, was beginning to work. "What are you going to do with it, Mr. Morena? I don't want you to do Betty a hurt. She must have loved Prosper Gael.

Perhaps she still loves him."

This odd appeal drew another difficult smile from Betty's husband.

"Quite obviously she still loves him, Jane. She is divorcing me so that she can marry him."

"But, Mr. Morena, I don't believe he will marry her now. He is tired of her. He is that kind of lover. He gets tired. Now he would like to marry me. He told me so. Perhaps--if Betty knew that--she might come back to you, without your branding her."

Jasper was startled out of his vengeful stillness.

"Prosper Gael wants to marry you? He has told you so?"

"Yes." She was sad and humbled. "_Now_ he wants to marry me and once he told me things about marrying. He said"--Joan quoted slowly, her eyes half-closed in Prosper's manner, her voice a musical echo of his thin, vibrant tone--"'It's man's most studied insult to woman.'"

"Yes. That's Prosper," murmured Jasper.

"I wouldn't marry him, Mr. Morena, even if I could--not if I were to be--burnt for refusing him."

Jasper looked probingly at her, a new speculation in his eyes. She had begun to fit definitely into his plans. It seemed there might be a way to frustrate Betty and to keep a hold upon his valuable protegee.

"Are you so sure of that, Jane?"

"Ah!" she answered; "you doubt it because I once thought I loved him?

But you don't know all about me...."

He stood silent, busy with his weaving. At last he looked at her rather blankly, impersonally. Joan was conscious of a frightened, lonely chill. She put out her hand uncertainly, a wrinkle appearing sharp and deep between her eyes.

"Mr. Morena, please--I haven't any one but you. I don't understand very well what this divorcing rightly means. Nor what they will do to me. Will you be thinking of me a little? I wouldn't ask it, for I know you are unhappy and bothered enough, but, you see--"

He did not notice the hand. "It will come out right, Jane. Don't worry," he said with absent gentleness. "Keep your mind on your work.

I'll look out for your best interests. Be sure of that." He came near to her, his hat in his hand, ready to go. "Try to forget all about it, will you?"

"Oh, I can't do that. I feel sort of--burnt. Betty thinking--that! But I'll do my work just the same, of course."

She sighed heavily and sat, the unnoticed hand clasped in its fellow.

When he had gone she called nervously for her maid. She had a hitherto unknown dread of being alone. But when Mathilde, chosen by Betty, came with her furtive step and treacherous eyes, Joan invented some duty for her. It occurred to her that Mathilde might be one of Betty's witnesses. For some time the girl's watchfulness and intrusions had become irritatingly noticeable. And Morena was Joan's only frequent and informal visitor.

"Mathilde thinks I am--_that_!" Joan said to herself; and afterwards, with a burst of weeping, "And, of course, that is what I am." Her past sin pressed upon her and she trembled, remembering Pierre's wistful, seeking face. If he should find her now, he would find her branded, indeed--now he could never believe that she had indeed been innocent of guilt in the matter of Holliwell. Her father had first put a mark upon her. Since then the world had only deepened his revenge.

There followed a sleepless, dry, and aching night.

CHAPTER X

THE SPIDER

"Hullo. Is this Mrs. Morena?"

Betty held the receiver languidly. Her face had grown very thin and her eyes were patient. They were staring now absently through the front window of Woodward Kane's sitting-room at a day of driving April rain.

"Yes. This is Mrs. Morena."

The next speech changed her into a flushed and palpitating girl.

"Mr. Gael wishes to know, madam,"--the man-servant recited his lesson automatically,--"if you have seen the exhibition of Foster's water-colors, Fifty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue. He wants to know if you will be there this afternoon at five o'clock. No. 88 in the inner room is the picture he would especially like you to notice, madam."

Betty's hand and voice were trembling.

"No. I haven't seen it." She hesitated, looking at the downpour. "Tell him, please, that I will be there."

Her voice trailed off doubtfully.

The man at the other end clipped out a "Very well, madam," and hung up.

Betty was puzzled. Why had Prosper sent her this message, made this appointment by his servant? Perhaps because he was afraid that, in her exaggerated caution, she might refuse to meet him if she could explain to him the reason for her refusal, or gauge the importance of his request. With a servant she could do neither, and the very uncertainty would force her to accept. It was a dreadful day. n.o.body would be out, certainly not at the tea-hour, to look at Foster's pictures--an insignificant exhibition. Betty felt triumphant. At last, this far too acquiescent lover had rebelled against her decree of silence and separation.

At five o'clock she stepped out of her taxicab, made a run for shelter, and found herself in the empty exhibition rooms. She checked her wrap and her umbrella, took a catalogue from the little table, chatted for a moment with the man in charge, then moved about, looking carelessly at the pictures. No. 88 in the inner room! Her heart was beating violently, the hand in her m.u.f.f was cold. She went slowly toward the inner room and saw at once that, under a small canvas at its far end, Prosper stood waiting for her.

He waited even after he had seen her smile and quickening step, and when he did come forward, it was with obvious reluctance. Betty's smile faded. His face was haggard and grim, unlike itself; his eyes lack-l.u.s.ter as she had never seen them. This was not the face of an impatient lover. It was--she would not name it, but she was conscious of a feeling of angry sickness.

He took her hand and forced a smile.