"He never knew," repeated Vivian, in a voice suddenly mechanical.

No doubt it was by his good fortune alone that he had avoided any alarming change of expression, as he listened to the announcement which seemed to shake and stagger his visible world. The girl was soaring upon her unimagined moment of spiritual adventure. But V. Vivian stood like a man turned to stone, gazing blind into a void....

Presently, out of the general chaos the young man's dazed mind stirred; leapt to life. Thought shook him through like waves of pain. It came upon him first, with crushing force, that this sweet-voiced girl with a face like all the angels had after all coldly lied, murderously lied, and maintained her lie through many months. Hard upon that, blotting it out, there swept the juster knowledge that, no matter what she had done, truth had triumphed at last; what was good in her had overcome her poor weakness. Lastly, he thought of Jack Dalhousie who, from the clouds, had received his release from prison. Yes, old Dal could come home now....

"He never knew," said V.V., in his curious voice. "I'm so glad ... This clears him ... I never understood how he could have ... I'm so glad to--have it settled...."

If he was so glad, his face libelled him past forgiveness. But Cally Heth still soared, too high in the unplumbed blue to note, even now, what house was this she had destroyed.

"I really didn't realize at all at the time," she said, with the same simplicity. "It all happened so quickly, and it was so bewildering, and I didn't have time to think. The story about him just seemed to spring up of itself, and then it grew and grew all the time. I've worried a great deal about it, all along...."

A kind of pa.s.sion came into the man's face, and he said:

"Thank G.o.d, there's still time to make it all right."

Then his look brought her down a little.... "To make it all right?"

Vivian gazed down. He thought of what lay ahead for her now; and his heart seemed to turn within him.... However, sympathy was not desired of him: his lot was but to strengthen the hands of the brave.

"Miss Heth--indeed, I could envy you all the happiness you are going to give. Think--just think what it means ... I know you must be eager--to begin, to--"

"To begin?" she echoed again, feeling somehow that their privacy was being invaded. "Why--what do you mean?... I don't understand."

"I jump ahead too fast, of course. But--you must be so anxious ... to have it all off your mind, and not think of it any more. I know you must be impatient to get word to Dal at the first possible moment--it means so much to him. More than meat and drink.... And then there's his poor old father ..."

Cally stared at him, speechless. There was no exaltation now; no more soaring. Rooted in her tracks she stood, yet seemed to herself to shrink and recoil from him, in her sudden self-horror. What, oh what, had she done?

And by chance at this very moment--doubtless through some Settlementer's opening a door for air--there came floating down to her the distinct voice of her mother, the strong voice of authority and no nonsense, the voice of Wealth and Permanence, of the victorious knowledge that G.o.d thinks twice before he condemns a person of quality.... "_In accepting the Chairmanship of the Finance Committee, I desire to say_ ..."

Cally raised a gloved little hand to her veiled lips. Plainer than speech her frightened eyes said: _Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?_

"You--you've misunderstood. No ... no! I didn't mean that at all."

"Oh!... Do you mean--you don't wish to see Colonel Dalhousie--personally? Of course not!... It wouldn't be necessary in the least. Perhaps you would let me.... And as to a telegram to Dal--"

"_No_--_no!_... You mustn't go to see him. You mustn't send a telegram.

I can't allow that--you've misunderstood entirely. _You mustn't tell anybody_...."

They stared at each other with the same colorless faces, and again the rain became audible. In the man's too-confiding eyes, hope died hard.

"Not tell anybody? Why, I don't see ... There's no other way of making it right, I'm afraid.... And you have told me--"

"But I didn't tell you to tell anybody else. I didn't. I only meant to tell _you_, don't you see?..."

This subtlety was past the vision of the donator of the Dabney House.

North, south, east, or west, he could see nothing but a seraph-faced girl whose misery it was to feel the penitential pangs, yet not be able quite to rise to the fulness of reparation. That she had reached for that fulness was to him the one thing certain in all the world. What want of delicacy in him had caused her to falter and look backward?...

Into the lucid gray of his eyes had come that look which more than once before Carlisle Heth had found intolerable. Little she recked for it now. Was not this the heart of her present dilemma, that she had already followed his ocular incitements too fatally far? By what religious prestidigitation he had trapped her secret from her must remain a thick mystery now. Nothing mattered but that he, having deceitfully seemed to agree that it was all a matter between herself and him, should not now turn and betray her.... _Tell now?_ The sudden vista of scandal horrified her. How would she ever face mamma again? How would Hugo, whose bride and pride she was, regard her then?...

"Don't you see?" she said, with gathering tensity--"I--I meant it as _a confidence to you_. You mustn't dream of telling anybody else...."

"But neither you nor I own the truth. This belongs to Dalhousie...."

"Oh, it doesn't!--it doesn't! How can you! You misunderstand!--What I said to you gave you a totally wrong impression. He was entirely to blame for my upsetting. _Entirely!_ He behaved abominably--and I--"

"_Tell now!" _cried the man, with his strange stern pa.s.sion. "Once it's done, you'll always be glad. Don't you know you _must_, now! Don't you see you can't be happy, till you let the truth be known?..."

There came from above the unmistakable movement of chairs, the sound of many feet. It appeared that the Settlement meeting was breaking up. The man's entreaties bounded back dead.

"I couldn't!--Don't you understand? There's nothing to tell. It was not my fault. The story was distorted, distorted, and distorted! I regretted that as much as any one. But I could do nothing, nothing to stop it. And don't you understand I couldn't possibly tell this broadcast _now_, when it's been done with for _months!_ What would people think of me?

Don't you--"

"What will you have to think of yourself if you don't tell?"

But the hard shot missed fire, the reason being that what she thought of herself did not matter in the least just now. She was mamma's daughter, Hugo Canning's betrothed, fighting for her own: and now that movement upstairs warned her that she had no moment to lose.

Carlisle seized the slum doctor's arm with a resolute little hand. Her voice, though panicky, was as inexorable as mamma's own.

"Promise me," said she, "that you will never repeat to anybody what I told you in confidence."

The face of the young man, which was usually so harmless-looking, had suddenly become quite stern. He looked as if he might ask G.o.d to pity her again, given a very little more. When he spoke, he spoke brusquely:

"What you ask is a conspiracy of silence. I cannot make such a promise.

I cannot."

"Oh, how _can_ you be so hard! You've never meant anything but trouble to me since the first minute I saw you! It isn't fair, don't you see it isn't? This has happened so suddenly--I _must_ have time to think.

Promise that you won't say anything--at least till you hear from me again...."

Silence. And then V. Vivian said, in a suddenly hopeless voice:

"I will agree to say nothing without first seeing you...."

Cally Heth dropped his arm instantly, turned from him. She fled, not up the grand stairway, but over the court for the doors, with the protecting arms of the House of Heth beyond. And none of her other routs from the family enemy had been quite like this one.

XVIII

Night-Thoughts on the Hardness of Religious Fellows, compelling you to be Hard, too; Happier Things again, such as Hugo, Europe, Trousseaux, etc.; concluding with a Letter from Texas and a Little Vulgarian in a Red Hat.

The tireless William retraced the wet streets to the Dabney House in ample time for Mrs. Heth, but the Chairman of the Finance Committee, being in agreeable converse with fellow philanthropists, came home in Mrs. Byrd's car instead, after all. Accordingly she did not say to William, "Miss Carlisle decided not to come, Banks?"--which she liked to call William for the English sound of it--and Banks, or William, did not look respectfully surprised and say, "Yas'm, she came ..."

Arriving at home, the good little lady presently ascended to the third floor, where she entered her daughter's room without knocking, according to her wont. However, Carlisle had been ready for her for some time.

"You stayed," was mamma's arch conjecture, "to write a ream to Hugo, dear fellow, I suppose?..."

"No, I went!" said Cally, now in the last stages of an evening toilette.