Kathryn had wandered to where the white blooms cl.u.s.tered thickest. She was thinking--thinking deeply, bitterly. Elinor drew closer to Blake.

"I like you, Tom," she said, softly. "You're a good man--a decent man--a clean man--and they're mighty scarce these days.... All that Kate may have owed to John Schuyler, she long since paid to the last sad penny....

All your life you have been paying the things that you did not owe....

There is happiness, somewhere; a happiness that can be found." She thrust out her hand. "Tell her what to do," she said. "Tell her the right thing to do--the thing that should be done." And she turned on her heel, and went away.

For a long, long time Blake stood motionless. Of that which was going on within his soul, no one might know. The expression of his face remained the same, and of his body. Only his hands clenched, and unclenched, and clenched again. It was a difficult position in which he found himself-- how difficult only he might know. There lay before him a vast, spreading vista of golden possibility--a possibility of which he had never dared to think--even to dream. Possibly it were but a possibility--and yet surely it was that. A word from him would so make it. That he knew. On the other hand--

For yet a longer time, he stood, hands clenching, unclenching, clenching.... Slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood, slender white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant whiteness.

She turned, a little. Violet eyes slowly lifted.... He looked into their depths.... His hands clenched, and unclenched more swiftly.

"Kate," he said, at length, slowly, very slowly, "do you want me to tell you what to do?"

She answered, with infinite weariness:

"I--I don't know, Tom.... I'm tired--so, so tired...." And then, abruptly: "Tell me.... Yes, tell me. What shall I do?"

She waited, deep eyes lifted, little head poised wearily upon white, rounded throat.

He answered, very slowly--with effort that even he could not conceal:

"Kate, do you remember that day in June, eight years ago, when you walked down the aisle of Old Trinity. Do you remember how the sun shone in at the windows, flecking the darkness of the old pews with golden motes?

John Schuyler met you at the altar; and to him you said, 'For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.'"

Gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder, with great tenderness.

"Stick, Kate," he advised, softly. "Stick."

And that was all.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

THE SHROUD OF A SOUL.

It had been arranged that Blake, again, was to go to him first. Little had been heard of John Schuyler, of late. A drop to desuetude may of its last half be far more silent than of its first. One gathers momentum, as one descends, whether the descent be physical, or moral. At the inception comes the gradual slipping--the vast, frantic effort to stay that slipping--the exertion, the hysteria, the fright, the remorse, the stretching out of hands to aid and of souls to help.... Then, things become different. There comes a vast silence. The hands draw back; the souls are hidden; and when Hope itself lifts its pinions and soars away, then there be little left indeed.

John Schuyler, deserted of friends, deprived of all usefulness in the life that he had loved, found it to be so; and, finding, tried to think no more.... If only the Great G.o.d would take from him his brain! ... But He did not....

All were gone from him now save She--The Woman. The doctor came occasionally when summoned by Parks--Parks who had known and loved in other days. And the coming of the doctor, and of Her, were the only things that marked the beginning of the days, and the ending thereof. He lived in the study a part of the time, a part of the time in his rooms.

The rest of the house knew him not; and the great out-of-doors, even in its warrenated streets of the city, but seldom. And from the study, at least, all save She were excluded.

He had been worse that day--much worse. Parks had stayed indoors all day, listening. As night came on, he had become frightened. The telephone in the hall had been out of order; and he had taken upon himself the liberty of entering the forbidden demesne; for the doctor must be called.

The door of the library-study creaked as he opened it.... He stopped upon the threshold, aghast.

This could not be the same room that he had seen so short a time before.

He looked about him, in horrified disbelief. Before him there lay the very essence of dirt and disorder. Furniture was broken, overturned. Rugs were askew, wrinkled. The desk, upbearing broken bottles and a cluttered mess of paper, letter and debris of all description, was scratched and dented. Pictures sagged drunkenly upon the walls; hangings were torn, and draggled, and over all lay a pall of dust, dank, choking.

Slowly, dreadingly, horror gripping his heart, Parks crossed the room to the desk. He picked up the telephone from where it rested amid the litter and placed the receiver to his ear. The voice of the operator came to him across the wire.

"h.e.l.lo," he called, "Give me 2290 Plaza, please."

At length there came to him an answer. He inquired:

"Is this Dr. Grenelle's office?" It was the doctor himself. "This is Parks--Mr. Schuyler's secretary.... He is worse--much worse.... You had better send someone to take care of him. I am going away.... Yes, that's all. Goodbye."

Hanging up the receiver, Parks sought amid the confusion of the desk for a sheet of paper, and envelope. At length he found them; but the pens on the desk were beyond use, and the ink-stands dried and dusty.

It had taken Parks a long time to come to the decision that he should leave this house. Long, and faithfully, and well had he served John Schuyler. He had served him gladly, and given of his best. And, until It had come, had he received besides generous pecuniary rewards, the more grateful compensation of pleasant treatment, consideration, good- fellowship, friendliness. He could not have cared more for John Schuyler had he been of kin to him.... But the disintegration of a man's soul, and brain, and body, is not a pleasant thing to watch. It had come to a place where Parks, in his heart, felt that he could do no more. For the rest, there was nothing to detain him longer.

At first Parks, as most, had come to think that the man was innately a libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set the tinder aglow--the tinder that would burn, and consume, and destroy.

He had known of men like that--of men who went the even pathway of their lives until there crossed it another who tore them from it; and that one they followed, leaving soul and morals and decency and cleanliness forever behind them. This, at first, he had thought to be John Schuyler.

For the woman was beautiful--beautiful as an animal is beautiful.... But then he had not been so sure. His confidence had been shaken; for she had looked into his eyes, too, playfully; and he had felt his very being rock upon its foundation, and he had slunk away, chilled, helpless, horror- ridden.... After that he had avoided her. She had paid no attention to him....

So the anger--the disgust--the resentment that at first he had felt had at length been altered to sorrow, and grief, and pity beyond utterance .... Yet there had been nothing that he could do--nothing.... He could not sleep, of nights.... It was killing him, too....

Upon the soiled, rumpled sheet he wrote.... Came a noise behind him. He looked up, quickly, frightenedly.... It was Blake; and quick relief sprang to the clean-cut face.

But the horror of it was in Blake's. Even as had Parks', his eyes wandered dreadingly about the room. The horror of it all was in his soul, too.... For a long time he said no word. He only looked. He thrust the curtains aside.... The dust, impalpable, strangling, fell about him ....

"Good G.o.d!" he muttered. "Good G.o.d in heaven!"

He saw Parks.

"Has it been like this for long?" he asked.

Parks shook his head.

"I don't know," he answered.... And then: "It must have been. The servants are all gone."

"Servants gone?"

"Yes; there's been no one below stairs for a fortnight. They irritated him, and he discharged them, one and all."

"His valet?"

"Went last night. I go to-morrow.... To have known him as he was--and then to see him as he is--I couldn't stand it any longer."

There was a pause. Blake looked about him. At length he spoke:

"Does--she come here, now?"

"Seldom. No one else ever comes. It's a lonely place, sir--frightfully lonely."