"Credit, Beth!" he said rousingly. "I told Vina I could worship you for it!"

"Don't, please--David. I don't need it. I'm too happy over you both....

And then, it wasn't all mine, you know. I think Mr. Bedient saw you together in his mind. I think he meant me to startle you to your real empire----"

"Did he?" Cairns asked eagerly.

"Hasn't it turned out perfectly?"

Beth did not miss the gladness which this hint gave him. She knew that Bedient's thought of it would be like an authority to Vina as well....

She felt herself drawing farther and farther back from the lives of the elect, but joyously she urged David to tell about their house in Nantucket.

"And, Beth," he said intensely. "That was Bedient's doing, too. I have--all I have seems to be the happiness part."

"Poor dear boy--how hard!"

"...I was telling him how Vina loved Nantucket," Cairns went on, "some of the rare things she said about the Island and the houses in Lily Lane, and how I planned to go over and find her there this month. He knew we were coming on very well.... One night at the Club, he asked me why I didn't buy one of those houses in Lily Lane, fix up a studio in one of the upper rooms, and then show it to her some summer morning and let it seep in slowly that it was hers--and my heart, too----"

"Beautiful!" Beth exclaimed. A trace of color came to her face.

"I'm telling it badly. Vina will tell you better. Anyway, he wouldn't let me go over alone. You remember when we went away together--for three or four days early in June?"

"I didn't know you--were you with him?"

"Yes, we went together--found the house in Lily Lane----"

"And he went back to Equatoria--right after that?"

Her tone had risen, the words rapid.

"Yes--and without letting me know."

Cairns noted vaguely that Beth's face seemed farther away.

"David, you were with him--those three days, beginning Monday, the first week in June--you--were--with--with--him----?"

"Every minute, Beth----"

"David, how did Mrs. Wordling know--you were going?"

"Why, Beth, she didn't. No one knew----"

"Are you sure? Isn't there some way she could have heard--at the Club?"

He hesitated. He had caught her eyes. They horrified him.... He remembered.

"Why, yes. We were talking--it was the night he first spoke of going over to Nantucket with me. Mrs. Wordling was behind at a near table. I told him we'd better talk lower----"

No sound escaped her. Cairns sprang up at the sight of her uplifted face.... Her eyes turned vaguely toward the door of the little room. He was standing before it. She seemed only to know--like some half-killed creature--that she was hunted and must hide. She couldn't pa.s.s him into the little room, but turned behind the screen. He did not hear her step, but something like the rush of a skirt, or a sigh.

There was no sound from the kitchenette. Cairns could not think in this furious stress. After a moment he called.

No answer.

It did not occur to him to go to her. Scores of times he had been in the studio, but he had never pa.s.sed that screen.

He called again.... Not a breath nor movement in answer. He did not think of her as dead, but stricken with some awful madness. She had stood transfixed.... Yet her old authority was about her. He feared her anger.

"Dear--Beth,--won't you let me come--or do something?... In G.o.d's name--what is it?"

He listened intently.

"Beth, I'll go and get Vina--shall I?"

Terrible seconds pa.s.sed; then her voice came to him--trailed forth, high-pitched, slow--an eerie thing in his brain:

"_I thought I was a good queen, but I have been hard and wicked as h.e.l.l. I'm b.l.o.o.d.y Beth.... He asked for bread and I gave him a stone....

b.l.o.o.d.y Beth of the Middle Ages_."

"Beth--please!" he cried.

"Go away--oh, go away!"

Cairns' only thought was to bring Vina to her. Some awful hatred for himself came forth from the back room. He turned to the outer door, saying, aloud:

"Yes, Beth, I'll go."

The door shut and clicked after him--without his touch--it seemed very quickly. He descended the steps--a sort of slave to the routine of death--as one who finds death, must run to perform certain formalities.

At the front door he stopped a second or two, as if his name had been called faintly. He thought it a delusion--and went out. Crossing the street, he heard it again:

"David!"

It was just enough for him to hear--a queer high quality.

He glanced up. Beth was leaning out of the lofty window.... More than ever it was like death to him--the old newspaper days when he was first at death--the mute face aloft, the gesture, the instant vanishing, when he was seen to comprehend.

Her door was ajar. She called for him to come in, as he halted in the hall. Beth came forth from the little room, after a moment, and stood before him, leaning against the piano. Her face was grayish-white, but she was controlled.

"Once you told me you loved me," she said. "A happy man should be ready to do something for a woman he once told that."

"Anything, Beth."

"It came forth from your happiness--so suddenly. You have found me out.... You made me see--that I believed the lie of a worthless woman----"

She halted. The last words had a familiar ring.

"I believed a despicable thing of Andrew Bedient--and sent him away....

He must never know. I could not live and have him know that I believed it. I am paying. I shall pay. I only ask you to keep it, forever--all that you saw--all that was said--to-day----"