CHAPTER VII

The peace of that quiet time with her lover remained with Kate through the days that followed, even as he had intended it should, guarding her like an armor from the seething excitement of the world beyond her door.

Wailing servants, friends arriving from far and near, people filling the house with lamentations (for the kindly magic of Death had transformed Kildare for the moment into the n.o.blest of mortals)--all this stopped at the door of the quiet room where Mahaly mounted guard over the mistress she had betrayed.

None entered that room save the old doctor, and later Kate's mother, become suddenly an old woman, broken by the terrible rumors which had penetrated her peaceful Bluegra.s.s home. She was shocked beyond words to find her newly widowed daughter serene as some Madonna out of a painting, wrapped in a rose-colored dressing-gown that would better have suited a bride.

"Whatever comes, you will remember how I love you," Benoix had said.

Kate was remembering.

She lay dreaming of the future, thinking sometimes of her husband, not unkindly, but with pity, as one thinks of poor, blundering people who have gone through life unloving and unloved. Of his death she thought not at all. It was what he would have chosen, painless and quick, a fall from his horse within sight of his own house. So her mother found her, calm and very beautiful, placidly nursing her child.

Only once was the agitated lady able to p.r.i.c.k her serenity. It was when she began to babble of Kildare's will. This stipulated that in case of re-marriage, Kate and her children were to be deprived of any interest in the estate save only that provided by law, in which event Storm was to become an endowed home for crippled children.

At this news, indeed, Kate winced. Her husband had managed to strike at her one last time from his grave, and in a vulnerable spot--her maternity. He was forcing her to rob her children.

But she regained her calm. Surely such a father as Jacques Benoix was a better gift to her children than houses and lands and cattle!

"I can't understand it," her bewildered mother moaned. "It's a cruel will, almost an insulting will, daughter! It is almost as if he--suspected you of something. What was Mr. Kildare thinking of? You are so young, you have a right to re-marry! Surely he could have had no--reason?"

Kate told her mother the reason; partly out of justice to her husband, partly because her love was a thing she wished to confess.

The other rose to her feet, staggered, gasping: "Then they are true, those dreadful rumors! You with a lover--you a married woman! Ah, my little girl--my little girl! Such things do not happen in our family.

They do not! A scandal--a murder? Thank Heaven your father died in time!"

It was Kate who comforted her mother. But in the midst of her soothing caresses, a sudden trembling seized her. The color fled out of her cheeks.

"Mother! What was that you said--A _murder_--?"

So at last the truth came, the truth which Mahaly and the few who loved Kate had tried to keep out of that peaceful chamber. Jacques Benoix had gone from her side to prison for the killing of her husband.

As soon as she was strong enough to travel--indeed before she was strong enough to travel--Kate went to her lover in prison; saw him for ten minutes alone.

She wasted not a moment in preliminaries; there had already developed in her that ability for affairs that was later to make her one of the foremost women of her State.

"I have engaged the best lawyers to be had for money," she said. "You will never go to the penitentiary, Jacques!"

He shook his head, his eyes roaming over her hungrily, imprinting every detail of her beauty on his memory to stay. "It is of no use, my dear one."

She blenched a little. "You mean--you did kill Basil? But no! I don't believe it. _You_ kill a man?" she laughed. "Why, you could not kill a fox, a rabbit!"

"Nevertheless," he said, "I fear that I did kill Basil."

She caught at the doubt in his words. "You 'fear'--you do not _know_, Jacques?"

"I know only that I tried."

He told her the story then. Others had wished to tell her, but she would listen to n.o.body, saying proudly, "Jacques shall explain to me...."

He had been waiting at the foot of Storm hill, watching her window, desperate for news of how she did, when Kildare came galloping down the road. Before Benoix could speak, he had reined in his horse, crying out; "You, is it? I thought I'd catch you skulking around. You'll find a new brat at the house; female, of course. If it's yours, you're welcome to it--d.a.m.n you!"

Benoix, blind with sudden fury, tried to drag him from his horse.

Kildare struck with his whip, broke away, jeering back over his shoulder. Then Benoix found to his hand a jagged piece of rock, and flung it straight at the grinning face that mocked him. Kildare's horse reared, toppled...

A negro who had seen it all came trembling out of the hedge and found the French doctor striving to staunch a wound in Kildare's temple, from which blood and brains oozed together.

Benoix finished with Kate's face hidden on his breast "Oh, Jacques, Jacques!" she shuddered. "It was for me, then--you tried to defend me!

But--perhaps the fall killed him, not your stone?"

"Perhaps," said her lover, soothing her.

In a moment she lifted her head. "Now," she cried, "we will face this thing together!" She proposed that he should marry her at once.

He knew nothing of Kildare's will; but he refused, would not listen, hid his eyes with his hand so that the pleading of her face would not weaken him.

"I've dragged you low enough without that, my Kate. Remember your children," he bade her, sternly, "Remember my boy. We have more than ourselves to consider."

She could not move him, neither with tears nor with kisses. The jailor came.

As they led him away, her voice followed him so that the grim place rang with it! "Your boy shall be mine till you come for us both. Jacques, I'll wait, I'll wait!"

Benoix was right. The best lawyers to be had could not keep him from the penitentiary. The judge, a just and troubled man who had known Kildare from boyhood, laid what emphasis he could on the uncertainty of the case, the probability that Benoix had fought in self-defense. The jury would have none of it. Popular prejudice had transformed the master of Storm into a hero, a martyr to the unwritten law, who had given his life to defend the sanct.i.ty of his home. It did not help the accused that he was a stranger in the State, reputed to be an atheist, had not even a decent, p.r.o.nounceable English name, was--of all things!--a Frenchman.

"A Creole American," corrected the accused, quietly. It was his one word in his own behalf.

Kate was in the courtroom when the jury brought in its verdict. She rose to receive it as if she were the accused, and more than one member of the jury, glancing at her, pursed virtuous lips.

The sentence was a life term in the penitentiary.

Mrs. Kildare, now famous and infamous throughout the country, made one more public appearance, this time in the church where she had been christened, confirmed, and married. She did not wear mourning, but her face was like marble against the bright color of her dress. The congregation began to whisper. She had brought her two children to be christened.

She was not quite alone. Two friends entered with her and stood at her side: her mother, and a young man named Thorpe, who had been the least among her girlhood adorers, and was the first to offer his support in her disgrace. It was he, as G.o.dfather, who spoke the children's names: "Jemima" for the elder, and for the younger, "Jacqueline Benoix."

At this there was a rustle throughout the church. Was it possible that she was actually naming her child for the condemned lover? The old minister's voice faltered, almost stopped, in his dismay. Afterwards, she had to brave the blank, frozen glances of people who had known her since her birth, and who now, it seemed, knew her no longer.

Not until that moment did Kate realize what interpretation the world might put upon her act of public loyalty to the man who had gone for her sake into a living death.

She had, indeed, her answer for the world; but it was an answer that must wait many years, until the baby Jacqueline was old enough to marry Benoix' son.

CHAPTER VIII

On the gallery at Storm stood two anxious girls with eyes fixed upon the big juniper-tree less patiently than the eyes of the waiting dogs. Their mother was invisible, but the presence of the dogs betrayed her.

"We'll have to do it, Jack," murmured the elder of the girls. "I hate to disturb her, but--there they come!"