Presently, however, the food had its effect. Weakness pa.s.sed; and Kate found that her anger had dissipated, leaving only a great, aching sorrow, not only for her daughter, but with her. Philip receded to the back of her mind. Channing was there only as one is aware of the presence of some crawling, hidden thing in the gra.s.s, whom one intends presently to crush with a heel. All her thoughts rested now upon Jacqueline.

She saw her as she had cowered away from that torrent of wrath, her tearless, strained eyes fixed incredulously upon the mother who was hurting her. She remembered all her little tender, clinging ways, her piteous loyalty to the man who had deserted her, her gallant effort to bear gaily the load of fear that must for so long have been upon her heart. She remembered farther back than that--her fierce rage with the accusing Jemima, her arms wound tight about the mother whose weakness she had learned, her cry, "If she is bad, then I'll be bad, too! I'd rather be bad like her than good as--as G.o.d!"

Kate began to shiver. She, the defender of Mag Henderson, of all weak and helpless creatures, she had failed her own daughter!...

Her mind went still further back into the past, and recalled the scene between herself and Jacques Benoix, when she had offered herself to him, when only the fact that her lover was stronger than herself had kept her from far worse sinning than Jacqueline's--worse, because less ignorant.

What right had she, Kate Leigh, reckless, headstrong, hot-hearted, to expect of her child either the sort of strength that resists temptation, or the sort that declines to shield itself at the expense of another?

Gradually she came to absolve Jacqueline from blame even in the matter of Philip. She had not sought Philip's help, she had only accepted what had been offered her--what her mother had prompted him to offer. Poor little victim, pa.s.sive in the hands of stronger natures, in the hands of circ.u.mstance, heredity, character--that Fate which the ancient G.o.ds surely meant by their cryptic saying: "The fate of all men we have hung about their necks...."

If it had not been so late she would have gone to her daughter then, and begged for forgiveness. Instead she sat on before the dying fire, shivering without knowing it, sometimes unconsciously beating her breast with her hand, as Catholics beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s during the ma.s.s, when they murmur, "_Mea culpa, mea culpa_."

It was almost dawn when she realized that the fire was out, and went stiffly up to bed, careful not to wake Mag's baby, who slept beside her in the crib that had held in turn each of her own children.

CHAPTER XLV

It was so rarely that the Madam overslept herself that her servants had no precedent to follow in the matter. The housewoman, who finally entered on tiptoe to remove the placidly protesting Kitty, reported the Madam sleeping "like a daid pusson, and mighty peaked-lookin' in the face." So it was decided not to disturb her; and the morning was well advanced before Kate reached the Rectory, where her thoughts had been hovering since her first waking moment.

The counsels of the night had taught her a new humility. She came to Jacqueline as a suppliant, begging to be forgiven not only for her moment of cruel anger but for her stupid and bungling interference in her child's life. Nothing was very clear in her mind except that Philip must be told the truth, and that, whatever happened, she and her child would bear it together.

She was disappointed to find that both Jacqueline and Philip were out, Jacqueline having driven away soon after Philip left the house.

"Driven? She was not riding?" asked Kate in some surprise. Jacqueline, like her mother, rarely used a vehicle if a saddle-horse was at hand.

"She tooken de buggy, an' she tooken Lige, too," explained Ella. "No'm, I dunno whar she went at, kase I wa'n't here when dey lef', but I reckon she'll be gone a right smart while, 'cause she lef' me word jes what I was to feed dat puppy. As ef a pusson raised at Sto'm wouldn't know how to take keer of puppy-dawgs!" She exchanged with her former mistress a smile of indulgent amus.e.m.e.nt. "I 'lows she's goin' to tek her dinner with you-all like she ginally does, ain't she?"

Kate doubted it, after what had pa.s.sed; but she went back to her house and waited, hopefully.

At about the dinner-hour she was called to the telephone, and for a moment failed to recognize Philip's voice over the wire. It sounded unnatural.

"Is Jacqueline there?"

"Why, no. Not yet. Is she coming?"

"I--I don't know. Look here!--don't worry, but she's been gone for some hours, and she 's taken a trunk with her."

"A trunk?" cried Kate.

"Yes. Do you know anything about it? Has she spoken to you of making a visit, or anything?" He repeated his question, patiently; but Kate could not find her voice to answer. A premonition of disaster struck her dumb.

"You're not to worry," said Philip again. "Lige drove her over to the trolley-line, and he should be back soon. I'll telephone you what he has to say."

But Kate could not wait. She ran out to the stables and saddled a horse with her own hands, impatiently pushing aside the slower negroes.

Halfway to the rectory she met Philip, in the Ark. He held out to her an open letter.

"Lige brought it back to me. It's from Jacqueline. Read it," he said, dully.

Seated upon a restive horse that backed and filled nervously about the puffing engine, the paper fluttering in her fingers, Kate read aloud Jacqueline's farewell to her husband, only half grasping its meaning:

I didn't mean to be dishonorable, darling Philip; I didn't know I was being, till mother told me. I never thought. I only thought, suppose I have a baby, and it's a poor little thing without a father, like Mag's, that n.o.body wants except me, and that mother and Jemmy and everybody would be ashamed of? I couldn't bear it!--And I didn't know mother asked you to marry me--I thought you wanted to, because you were unhappy and wanted me for company--we're so used to each other. Truly, I thought that! And I thought you knew, Philip. It seemed to me that you knew, without my telling you.

Kate looked up here. "Did you know?" she asked.

He nodded, without speaking.

Kate's head drooped over the letter. "And her mother didn't," she thought.

But it's all been wrong, somehow, and the only way I know to make it right is to go away, as your father did. Please, please let that make it right! You don't believe in divorce, of course, but I know enough to know this marriage of ours is not a real marriage, and could be put aside if people knew what sort of girl I have been.

The Bishop will help you, I am sure. So I have written him all about it.

Kate gasped; but the courage of it brought up her drooping head again.

You must forgive me if you can, darling Philip, and thank you, thank you, thank you for being so sweet to me always! You must never worry about me, either. I am not going to die or anything like that. There is somebody who will help me, who always would have, only I didn't know it. I did him an injustice. Mother did not tell me. I can't forgive mother for that quite yet, but I will some day; and some day, perhaps, she will forgive me. You'll make her, won't you, Phil?

Oh, I do love you both so much! It nearly breaks my heart to go away from the precious little house, and the puppy, and Storm, and baby Kitty, and everything. I've never been away before.--You won't take off your winter flannels till the frost is out of the ground, will you? Promise me! And don't try to find me, because I _don't want to be found_. Only don't let mother fret about me. I shall think about you always, no matter where I am.

JACQUELINE.

The two stared at each other for a moment without a word. Then Philip said hoa.r.s.ely, "She means Channing, of course!"

"No, no!" muttered the mother, shrinking, fighting against her own conviction. "She loves you too much for that. It is you she loves, now.

She couldn't! She must have gone to Jemima. Oh, I am sure she has gone to Jemima! Come, we'll telegraph."

She started for the Rectory at a gallop, her thoughts as usual translating themselves into action. Over the telephone she dictated a long wire to Jemima, carefully worded so that the curiosity of a country telegraph operator should not be aroused. Her brain never worked better than in an emergency.

"Now," she said briskly, turning to the dazed and silent Philip, "come up and show me what you want in your bag."

"Where am I to go?" he asked vaguely.

"I'll tell you as soon as I hear from Jemima. But there is no time to waste."

He stood quite idle in the little rose and white bower he had prepared for his bride, watching Kate hurrying about his own room beyond, packing necessities into his worn old leather satchel, somewhat hampered by the activities of Jacqueline's puppy, who made constant playful lunges at her feet.

He could not quite realize what had happened--that Jacqueline, his playmate, his little friend, his wife, had gone out of the safe haven of his home back to the man who had betrayed and deserted her. It seemed like a hideous dream from which he must soon awake. How had he failed her? What desperate unhappiness must have hidden itself in this pretty white room where he had hoped she might be happy!

At intervals during the night before, he had waked to hear her softly stirring about, and wondered why she did not come to him as usual, to be soothed into drowsiness. Once he had almost broken his custom and gone in to her, feeling that she had need of him. How he wished now that he had followed this impulse! Yes, and many another like it....

Looking about, he noticed that her gla.s.s lamp was quite empty of oil, and that her darning basket stood beside it, full to overflowing with neatly darned and rolled socks of his own. So that was how she had spent the night, doing her best to leave him comfortable! A great lump rose in his throat. He saw, too, that both his own photograph and that of her mother were gone. She had taken them with her.

His daze began to break. He remembered phrases in Jacqueline's letter: "I didn't mean to be dishonorable ... I didn't know mother _asked_ you to marry me ... I did him an injustice."

He went in to Kate, and demanded abruptly to know how this thing had come about.