She started to reply, but as quickly checked herself. "There is nothing for me to tell," she said, at length, without looking up. "I will send Helen to you," she added, as she hastened away.

Armstrong again threw himself upon the couch, and, trying to a.s.sume the same position, closed his eyes in a vain endeavor to summon back the vision he had seen. If it had only continued a little longer he might have learned all! The fugitive nature of his quest proved a fascination, and day after day he exerted every effort to gratify his whim.

Inez clearly avoided him. Whether or not this was apparent to the other members of the family he could not tell, but it was quite obvious to him. There must be some reason beyond what he knew, and he had almost stumbled upon it! Another week pa.s.sed by, more rapidly than any since his convalescence began because of the determination with which he pursued his baffling problem.

Again he lay upon his couch in the garden, his eyes closed, but with his mind fixed upon its one desire. Suddenly he felt the presence of some one. A thrill of expectation pa.s.sed through him, but he dared not open his eyes lest the impression should disappear. For what seemed a long time he was conscious of this person standing beside him, and he knew that whoever it might be was gazing at him intently. Then he felt a hand gently take his arm, which was hanging over the side of the couch, and, raising it carefully, place it in a more comfortable position. Then the hand rested for a moment on his forehead.

Opening his eyes a little, as if by intuition, he saw Miss Thayer tiptoeing along the path toward the house. He closed his eyes again, and as he did so he felt a sudden return of the subconscious impression.

Now, in his mind's eye he saw a cheaply furnished room, and Miss Thayer leaning, with ashen face and dishevelled hair, against a closed door. He saw her sink upon the floor and pa.s.s through a paroxysm of grief. She murmured some incoherent words, and then stood erect, looking straight at him as he lay upon the bed. Then she lifted his arm, just as she had a moment before, and covered his hand with kisses, sobbing the while with no attempt at control.

"Speak to me!" he seemed to hear her say. "Tell me that you are not dead!" He could feel the intensity of her gaze even as he lay there.

"Jack, my beloved; you are mine, dear--do you hear?--and I am yours."

Beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead. "How I have loved you all these weeks!... Now I can tell you of it, dear--it will do no harm!"

Held by a force he could not have broken had he wished, Armstrong watched the progress of the tragedy.

"My darling, my beloved!" he heard Inez whisper; "open your eyes just once, and tell me that I may call you mine if only for this one terrible moment.... This is our moment, dear--no one can take it from us!... Have you not seen how I have loved you, how I have struggled to keep you from knowing it?... Jack! Jack! this is the beginning and the end!"

He could endure the scene no longer. With a look of horror on his face, he sprang to his feet and glanced about him. He was alone in the garden.

He stumbled rather than walked to the retaining wall, and rested against it for support.

"Great G.o.d!" he cried, aloud, "have I regained my mind only to lose it again?"

He glanced toward the house. There was no one in sight, but Helen was playing Debussy's "Claire de Lune" upon the piano in the hall, and the sound of the music soothed him.

"Dreams--hallucinations," he repeated to himself. "G.o.d! what an experience!"

XXVI

With Armstrong's convalescence progressing so satisfactorily, Helen returned to her music with a clear conscience. She was determined that the influence upon him of her personal presence should be reduced as nearly as possible to a minimum. Naturally, during the period of his illness and the attendant weakness, she had been with him almost constantly; naturally he had turned to her with what seemed to be his former affection. But the die was cast, and the accident which for the time being interrupted the progress of events predestined to occur could in no way prevent their final accomplishment. Helen thought often of Uncle Peabody's optimistic suggestion that the present condition was bound to straighten matters out, but she refused to be buoyed up by false hopes, only to suffer a harder blow when once again Armstrong became what she believed to be himself. She saw no gain in tuning up the heart-strings to their former pitch, when neither she nor Jack could again play upon them with any degree of harmony.

Helen was with her husband for whatever portion of the day he needed her, whether it was to read aloud to him, or to converse, or to wander about the garden. She served each meal to him with her own hands, and watched the progress of his improvement so carefully that nothing remained undone. Yet, with deliberate intention, she was with him no more than this. Whenever she found him interested in something or with some one who engaged his attention for the time being, she slipped away so quietly that he scarcely noticed it and devoted herself to her own interests, which she was desperately trying to make fill the void in her life. Her music was her greatest solace, for in it she found a response to her every mood. In the dim-lit hall of the villa she sat for hours at the piano, her fingers running over the keys, her mind pondering upon her complex problem--each action apparently separated from the other, yet in exact accord. Sometimes it was a nocturne of Chopin's, sometimes an impromptu of Schubert's; but always she found in the unspoken, poetic expression of the composer's soul an answering sympathy which was lacking in other forms more tangible.

Inez interrupted one of these communions, when Helen supposed herself alone with Debussy. Lately she had found herself turning to the charm and mystery of his atmosphere, the strangeness of his idiom, the vagueness of his rhythms, and the fugitive grace and fancy of his harmonic expression with an understanding and a surrender which she had never before felt. The music reflected upon her its delicate perception of nature in all its moods--the splash of the waves upon the sh.o.r.e, the roaring of the surf, the gloom of the forests relieved by the moonlight on the trees.

"Don't, Helen--I beg of you!" Inez exclaimed, suddenly. "Say it to me, but don't torture me with those weird reproaches. Every note almost drives me wild!"

"Why, Inez, dear!" cried Helen, startled by the girl's words no less than by the suddenness of the interruption. "What in the world do you mean? You should have told me before if my playing affected you so."

"I love it, Helen," she replied; "but lately it has hurt me through and through. I can hear your voice echoing in every note you strike, and I feel its bitter reproach."

Helen tried to draw Inez beside her, but the girl sank upon the floor, resting her elbows on Helen's knees and looking up into her face with tense earnestness.

"You have been terribly unstrung these days, dear," Helen replied, "and you are unstrung now or you would not discover what does not exist. It is your instinctive sympathy for poor Melisande that makes you feel so--you see her, as I do, floating resistlessly over the terraces and fountains, the plaything of Fate, a phantom of love and longing and uncertainty. That is what you feel, dear."

Helen took Inez' face between her hands and looked into her eyes for a moment. "People call it mystical and unreal," she continued, "but I believe that some of us have it in our own lives, don't you?"

Inez did not reply directly, and struggled to escape the searching gaze.

"Helen," she said, abruptly, "I simply cannot stay on here; I shall go mad if I do. Each time I suggest going you say that you need me, and it seems ungrateful, after all you have done for me, to speak as I do. But you cannot understand. I am not myself, and I am getting into a condition which will make me a burden to you instead of a help."

"I do need you, dear," Helen replied, quietly, "but certainly not at the expense either of your health or your happiness. The effects of the accident have lasted much longer than I thought they would. I wanted you to be quite recovered before you left us."

"If the accident were all!" moaned Inez, burying her face in Helen's lap.

Helen made no response, but laid her hand kindly upon Inez' head. After a few moments the girl straightened up. Her eyes burned with the intensity of her sudden resolve, and she spoke rapidly, as if fearful that her courage would prove insufficient for the task she had set for herself to do.

"Helen!" she cried, "I am going to tell you something which will make you hate me. You will want me to leave you, and our friendship will be forever ended."

"Wait, dear," urged Helen--"wait until you are calmer; then, if you choose, tell me all that you have in your heart."

"No; I must tell you now. I love Jack, Helen--do you understand? I love your husband, and, fight it as I do, I cannot help it. Think of having to make a confession like that!"

Helen's face lighted up with glad relief.

"I am so glad that you have told me this," she said, quietly.

Inez gazed at Helen in wonder, amazed by her calmness and her unexpected words.

"But I must tell you more," she continued, wildly; "I have loved him for weeks--almost since I first came here!"

"I know you have, Inez." Helen pressed a kiss upon the girl's forehead.

"I have known it for a long time; but I have also seen your struggle against it, and your loyalty to me--and to him."

"You have known it?" Inez asked, faintly. Then her voice strengthened again. "But you have not known all! I did fight against it, as you say, and I was loyal until"--her voice broke for a moment--"until that day of the accident--in the cottage--I thought him dead--"

"Yes," encouraged Helen, eagerly.

"Until then I was loyal, but when I was alone with him, and thought him dead, I--oh, Helen, you will hate me as I hate myself--then I kissed him, and I told him of my love, and I--"

"Yes, I know, dear," Helen interrupted, her voice full of tenderness.

"No one can blame you for what you did under such awful circ.u.mstances. I suspected what had happened when I found you where you had fainted across his body. But you can't imagine how glad I am that you have told me all this. I felt sure you would, some day."

"You will let me go now, won't you? You can see how impossible it is for me to stay."

"I need you now more than ever," replied Helen, firmly. "If you insist on leaving I shall not urge you to stay, but even you--knowing what you do--cannot know how much I need you."

"How did you know?" Inez asked, weakly.

"From what Ferdy said first, then from what I saw myself."

"Why did you not send me away, then?"

"I had no right to do so, Inez."