Part 54 (1/2)

”Open your eyes, Christine! Look at me.” She looked up, utter desolation in her eyes. ”Nothing on earth can keep you from being my wife--nothing! I couldn't give you up. What am I for, if not to cherish and protect and comfort you? What is the real meaning of the word 'love'? Husband! What does that stand for? A stone wall between pain and peril and trouble; that's what it means. And I'm going to be all of that to you--a stone wall for all your life, Christine. It is settled.

The strongest man in the world is not strong enough for the weakest woman. I will never cease being proud of the fact that you are my wife.

Don't speak! Lie quiet, dearest. Nothing can change things for you and me.”

”It cannot be, David,--it cannot be!” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. He held her there, sobbing, against his breast.

Meanwhile Thomas Braddock was pacing the floor of the library almost directly beneath them. His wife watched him in silence; her eyes followed the tall, bent figure as it swung back and forth with the steadiness of a clock's pendulum. He had not spoken since they entered the room, nor had she moved from the spot where he left her when he released her hand. All this time she had been holding the wrist he had grasped so cruelly. It pained her, but she was only physically conscious of the fact; her mind was not comprehending it.

It was the first time she had seen him in five years. A curious a.n.a.lysis was going on in her perturbed brain. The change in him! She could not take her eyes from the haggard, heavily-lined face, so unlike the blithe, youthful one she had loved, or the bloated, b.e.s.t.i.a.l one she had feared and despised. The coa.r.s.eness, the flabbiness, the purplish hues were no longer there. The bulging, bleary eyes, on which the glaze of continuous dissipation had once settled as if to stay, were not as she remembered them. Instead, they were bright and clear, and lay deep in their sockets. The lips, now beardless, were no longer thick and repulsive. She marveled. This was not the vacillating, whiskey-willed man she had known for so long; here was a determined character, swelling with force, fierce in the resources of a belated integrity of purpose. No longer the careless, handsome youth, nor the honorless man, but a power! Whether that power stood for good or evil, it mattered not; he was a man such as she had never expected him to be.

She was sensitive to one thing in particular, although the realization of it did not come to her at once, she was so taken up with the study of him as a whole: she missed the cigar from the corner of his mouth.

He stopped in front of her.

”This is the first time I have ever been asked into this house,” he said, his lips curling in a bitter, unfriendly smile. ”Where is your father?”

”His rooms are in the other end of the house, upstairs. He sleeps till noon,” she answered mechanically.

”Umph!” he grunted, resuming his walk.

”Tom,” she said, taking a firm grasp on her nerves, ”let us talk it over quietly. Sit down.”

He halted. ”I can talk better standing,” he said grimly. He came up close to her. She stood her ground, looking him squarely in the eyes.

”There isn't much to say, Mary. You know me for what I am, and you know who made me so. He's got to pay, that's all. We won't go into the past.

It's not easily forgotten. I guess we remember everything.”

”Everything,” she said.

”I'm not excusing myself. I'm past that, and besides it wouldn't go down with you. You know where I've been, and you must give me credit for trying to s.h.i.+eld Christine a little bit. I took my medicine, and n.o.body but you and Grand knew that her father was up there until now, excepting d.i.c.k. I want to say to you, Mary, I was railroaded for a crime I didn't commit. I was jobbed. He was at the back of it. He was afraid of me--and well he might have been. I did a lot of rotten things while you and I were ploddin' along through those last two years with the show--you know what they were. But it was whiskey! I took money that didn't belong to me--yours and Christine's, and Grand's, and Jenison's. I did worse than that, Mary. I sold you out to Bob Grand--you knew that, too. But I'm going to try to pay up all my debts--all of 'em, in a day or two. I owe you my ugly, worthless life.

I'm going to pay you in full by ending it. I owe Colonel Grand for everything I was, for what I am. I'm going to pay him, so help me G.o.d.

Don't interrupt! My mind's made up. Nothing above h.e.l.l can change it. I came here to ask you just two questions. I want you to answer them. I'm going to believe you. You never lie, I know that.”

”I will answer them, Tom.”

He hesitated, his gaze wavering for the first time. ”I--I hate to ask you this first one, Mary,” he said.

”Go on. Ask it.”

”It's a mean question, but I've just _got_ to hear you say no. Did you go to England with Bob Grand?”

”No.”

He breathed deeply. ”That's one,” he said.

”Here's the other. Did he give you money to live on, to educate Christine with, abroad?”

”No.”,

”I'll ask still another. Where did you get the money?”