XXXIII. ALONE
Oswald had heard nothing, seen nothing. But he took note of Doris'silence, and turning towards her in frenzy saw what had happened, and sowas in a measure prepared for the stern, short sentence which now rangthrough the room:
"Wait, Miss Scott! you tell the story badly. Let him listen to me. Frommy mouth only shall he hear the stern and seemingly unnatural part Iplayed in this family tragedy."
The face of Oswald hardened. Those pliant features--beloved for theirgracious kindliness--set themselves in lines which altered them almostbeyond recognition; but his voice was not without some of its naturalsweetness, as, after a long and hollow look at the other's composedcountenance, he abruptly exclaimed:
"Speak! I am bound to listen; you are my brother."
Orlando turned towards Doris. She was slipping away.
"Don't go," said he.
But she was gone.
Slowly he turned back.
Oswald raised his hand and checked the words with which he would havebegun his story.
"Never mind the beginnings," said he. "Doris has told all that. Yousaw Miss Challoner in Lenox--admired her--offered yourself to her andafterwards wrote her a threatening letter because she rejected you."
"It is true. Other men have followed just such unworthy impulses--andbeen ashamed and sorry afterwards. I was sorry and I was ashamed, and assoon as my first anger was over went to tell her so. But she mistook mypurpose and--"
"And what?"
Orlando hesitated. Even his iron nature trembled before the misery hesaw--a misery he was destined to augment rather than soothe. With painsaltogether out of keeping with his character, he sought in the recessesof his darkened mind for words less bitter and less abrupt than thosewhich sprang involuntarily to his lips. But he did not find them. Thoughhe pitied his brother and wished to show that he did, nothing but thestern language suitable to the stern fact he wished to impart, wouldleave his lips.
"And ended the pitiful struggle of the moment with one quick,unpremeditated blow," was what he said. "There is no other explanationpossible for this act, Oswald. Bitter as it is for me to acknowledge it,I am thus far guilty of this beloved woman's death. But, as God hearsme, from the moment I first saw her, to the moment I saw her last, I didnot know, nor did I for a moment dream that she was anything to youor to any other man of my stamp and station. I thought she despisedmy country birth, my mechanical attempts, my lack of aristocraticpretensions and traditions."
"Edith?"
"Now that I know she had other reasons for her contempt--that the wordsshe wrote were in rebuke to the brother rather than to the man, I feelmy guilt and deplore my anger. I cannot say more. I should but insultyour grief by any lengthy expressions of regret and sorrow."
A groan of intolerable anguish from the sick man's lips, and then thequick thrust of his re-awakened intelligence rising superior to theoverthrow of all his hopes.
"For a woman of Edith's principle to seek death in a moment ofdesperation, the provocation must have been very great. Tell me if I'mto hate you through life--yea through all eternity--or if I must seekin some unimaginable failure of my own character or conduct the cause ofher intolerable despair."
"Oswald!" The tone was controlling, and yet that of one strong man toanother. "Is it for us to read the heart of any woman, least of all ofa woman of her susceptibilities and keen inner life? The wish to end allcomes to some natures like a lightning flash from a clear sky. It comes,it goes, often without leaving a sign. But if a weapon chances to benear--(here it was in hand)--then death follows the impulse which, givenan instant of thought, would have vanished in a back sweep of otheremotions. Chance was the real accessory to this death by suicide.Oswald, let us realise it as such and accept our sorrow as a mutualburden and turn to what remains to us of life and labour. Work isgrief's only consolation. Then let us work."
But of all this Oswald had caught but the one word.
"Chance?" he repeated. "Orlando, I believe in God."
"Then seek your comfort there. I find it in harnessing the winds; inforcing the powers of nature to do my bidding."
The other did not speak, and the silence grew heavy. It was broken, whenit was broken, by a cry from Oswald:
"No more," said he, "no more." Then, in a yearning accent, "Send Doristo me."
Orlando started. This name coming so close upon that word comfortproduced a strange effect upon him. But another look at Oswald and hewas ready to do his bidding. The bitter ordeal was over; let him havehis solace if it was in her power to give it to him.
Orlando, upon leaving his brother's room, did not stop to deliver thatbrother's message directly to Doris; he left this for Truda to do, andretired immediately to his hangar in the woods. Locking himself in,he slightly raised the roof and then sat down before the car which wasrapidly taking on shape and assuming that individuality and appearanceof sentient life which hitherto he had only seen in dreams. But his eye,which had never failed to kindle at this sight before, shone dully inthe semi-gloom. The air-car could wait; he would first have his hourin this solitude of his own making. The gaze he dreaded, the words fromwhich he shrank could not penetrate here. He might even shout her namealoud, and only these windowless walls would respond. He was alone withhis past, his present and his future.
Alone!
He needed to be. The strongest must pause when the precipice yawnsbefore him. The gulf can be spanned; he feels himself forceful enoughfor that; but his eyes must take their measurement of it first; he mustknow its depths and possible dangers. Only a fool would ignore thesesteeps of jagged rock; and he was no fool, only a man to whom theunexpected had happened, a man who had seen his way clear to the horizonand then had come up against this! Love, when he thought such follydead! Remorse, when Glory called for the quiet mind and heart!
He recognised its mordant fang, and knew that its ravages, thoughonly just begun, would last his lifetime. Nothing could stop them now,nothing, nothing. And he laughed, as the thought went home; laughed atthe irony of fate and its inexorableness; laughed at his own defeat andhis nearness to a barred Paradise. Oswald loved Edith, loved her yet,with a flame time would take long to quench. Doris loved Oswald and heDoris; and not one of them would ever attain the delights each was sofitted to enjoy. Why shouldn't he laugh? What is left to man but mockerywhen all props fall? Disappointment was the universal lot; and it shouldgo merrily with him if he must take his turn at it. But here the strongspirit of the man re-asserted itself; it should be but a turn. A man'sjoys are not bounded by his loves or even by the satisfaction of aperfectly untrammelled mind. Performance makes a world of its own forthe capable and the strong, and this was still left to him. He, OrlandoBrotherson, despair while his great work lay unfinished! That would beto lay stress on the inevitable pains and fears of commonplace humanity.He was not of that ilk. Intellect was his god; ambition his motivepower. What would this casual blight upon his supreme contentment beto him, when with the wings of his air-car spread, he should spurn theearth and soar into the heaven of fame simultaneously with his flightinto the open.
He could wait for that hour. He had measured the gulf before him andfound it passable. Henceforth no looking back.
Rising, he stood for a moment gazing, with an alert eye now, upon suchsections of his car as had not yet been fitted into their places; thenhe bent forward to his work, and soon the lips which had uttered thatsardonic laugh a few minutes before, parted in gentler fashion, andsong took the place of curses--a ballad of love and fondest truth. ButOrlando never knew what he sang. He had the gift and used it.
Would his tones, however, have rung out with quite so mellow a sweetnesshad he seen the restless figure even then circling his retreat witheyes darting accusation and arms lifted towards him in wild but impotentthreat?
Yes, I think they would; for he knew that the man who thus expressed hishelplessness along with his convictions, was no nearer the end he hadset himself to attain than on the day he first betrayed his suspicions.
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