There are times when trouble accumulates as an avalanche, or like water in one of those natural intermittent springs that break out plentifully, and dry up altogether in a sort of alternation. But the spring has its regular period, and trouble has not, and in an avalanche of disasters it is impossible to say at any moment whether the big boulders have all passed in the sliding drift of smaller stuff, or whether the biggest of all may not be yet coming.
There are days in a lifetime which decide all the rest, and sometimes explain all that has gone before, happy days, or days of tears, as the case may be. Perhaps they are the most interesting days to describe, after all, for they are the ones which generally terminate a period in existence. But many say that in real life situations, as they are called, never have any satisfactory termination, and that the story which is most true of men and women is that one which has neither beginning nor end. The fact is that what appears to be the beginning is often in reality the termination of a long series of events. Novels often end in marriage, yet real life frequently begins there. There is a very old proverb to that effect.
On such days all sorts of things happen that never occurred before and perhaps never occur again, and every one who has had one or two such short and eventful periods of confusion can remember how a host of unforeseen trifles thrust themselves forward to disturb him. It was as though nothing could turn out right, as if nobody could take a message without a mistake, as if the post and the telegraph had conspired together to send letters and telegrams to wrong addresses, and altogether all things, including the most sober and reliable institutions, seem to work backwards against results instead of for them. Those are bad times. When they last long, people come to grief. When they are soon over, people laugh at them. When they decide a whole life, as they sometimes do, people can afterwards trace the causes of happiness or disaster to some very small lucky coincidence or unfortunate mistake over which they themselves had no control.
When Colonel Wimpole had left Helen so abruptly, he had looked upon his going away as a mere interruption of his visit, necessary, because he could not be sure of controlling himself just then, but not meant to last any length of time. But after so suddenly learning the change in Harmon's condition, he would have waited till the evening before going back, if his sister had not been so absurdly nervous about the price of the hat, insisting that he should go at once and return the money. He had gone to his own room in a disturbed state of mind and had stayed there an hour, after which Miss Wimpole, judging that he must be sufficiently rested, had knocked at his door and urged him to go at once to see Mrs. Harmon. As he had no very good reason to give for refusing to do so, he had made the attempt and had been refused admittance. He went for a walk along the lake and came back again after an hour, and wrote on his card a special request.
"May I see you now? It is about a rather awkward little matter."
It was growing late. Helen reflected that he could not stay long before his own dinner time and hers, that he evidently had something especial to say, and that she was certainly strong enough to keep her own counsel for a quarter of an hour if she made up her mind to do so. Besides, it must seem strange to him to be refused a second time; he would infer that something was wrong and would ask questions when they next met. She decided to see him.
His face was grave, and he was quite calm again. As he took her hand and spoke, there was a sort of quiet tenderness in his manner and tone, a little beyond what he usually showed, perceptible to her, who longed for it, though it could hardly have been noticed by any one else.
"It is rather an awkward little matter," he said, repeating the words he had written.
Then he saw her face in the twilight, and he guessed that she had seen the newspaper.
"You are in trouble," he said quickly.
She hesitated and turned from him, for she had forgotten that her face must betray her distress.
"Yes," she answered, but she said no more than that.
"Can I help you?" he asked after a short pause.
"Please do not ask me."
She sat down, and Wimpole sighed audibly as he took his seat at a little distance from her. He knew that she must have seen the paragraph about Harmon's recovery.
"Then I will explain my errand," he said. "May I?"
It seemed rather a relief to have so small a matter ready to hand.
"Yes. It will not take long, will it?" she asked rather nervously, for she felt how his presence tempted her to confidence. "It--it will soon be dinner time, you know."
"I shall not stay long," said the colonel, quietly. "It is rather an awkward little matter. You know Archie was with you this morning when I saw you in the shop and got that miniature."
Helen looked at him suddenly with a change of expression, expecting some new trouble.
"Yes, Archie was with us. What is it?" Her voice was full of a new anxiety.
"It is nothing of any great importance," answered Wimpole, quickly, for he saw that she was nervous. "Only, he went out by himself afterwards, and came across my sister and Sylvia in a milliner's shop--"
"What was he doing in a milliner's shop?" interrupted Helen, in surprise.
"I don't know," said the colonel. "I fancy he saw them through the window and went in to speak to them. Sylvia was trying on a hat, you know, and she liked it, and Archie, without saying anything, out of pure goodness of heart, I suppose--"
He hesitated. On any other day he would have smiled, but just now he was as deeply disturbed as Helen herself, and the absurd incident of the hat assumed a tremendous importance.
"Well? What did he do?" Helen's nerves were on edge, and she spoke almost sharply.
"He paid for the hat," answered Wimpole, with an air of profound sorrow, and even penitence, as if it had been all his fault. "And then he went off, before they knew it."
Helen bit her lip, for it trembled. He had not told the story very clearly or connectedly, but she understood. Archie had just been talking to her strangely about Sylvia, and she had seen that he had fallen in love with his old playmate, and she was afraid. And now, she was horribly ashamed for him. It was so stupid, so pitifully stupid.
The colonel, guessing what greater torment was tearing at her heart, sat still in a rather dejected attitude, waiting for her to speak, but not watching her.
The matter which had brought him was certainly not very terrible in itself, but it stirred and quickened all the ever-growing pain for her son which was a part of her daily life. It knitted its strength to that of all the rest, to hurt her cruelly, and the torture was more than she could bear.
She turned suddenly in her seat and half buried her face against the back of the chair, so that Wimpole could not see it, and she bit the coarse velvet savagely, trying to be silent and tearless till he should go away. But he knew what she was doing. If he had not spoken, she could still have kept back the scalding tears awhile. But he did speak, and very gently.
"Helen--dear Helen--what is it?"
"My heart is breaking," she said, almost quietly.
But then the tears came, and she shook once or twice, like an animal that has a deep wound but cannot die. The tears came slowly, and burned her like drops of fire. She kept her face turned away.
Wimpole was beside her and held her passive hand. It twitched painfully as it lay in his, and every agonized movement of it shot through him, but he could not say anything at first. Besides, she knew he was there and would help her if he could. At last he spoke his thought.
"I will keep him from you," he said. "He shall not come near you."
Her hand tightened upon his, instantly, and she sat up in her chair, turning her face to him, quite white in the dusk, by the open window.
"Then you know?" she asked.
"Yes. It is in the Paris paper to-day. But it is only a report. I do not believe it is true."
She rose, mastering herself, as she withdrew her hand, and steadied herself a moment against the chair beside him.
"It is true," she said. "He has recovered. He has written to me."
Wimpole felt as if he had been condemned to death without warning.
"When?" he managed to ask.
"I got the letter this afternoon."
Their voices answered each other, dull and colourless in the gloom, and for some moments neither spoke. Helen went to the window and leaned upon the broad marble sill, breathing the evening air from the lake, and Wimpole followed her. The electric lamps were lighted in the street, glaring coldly out of the grey dusk, and many people were moving slowly along the pavement below, in little parties, some gay, some silent.
"That is why I did not let you come up," said Helen, after a long time. "But now--since you know--" She stopped, still hesitating, and he tried to see her expression, but there was not enough light.
"Yes?" he said, with a question, not pressing her, but waiting.
"Since you know," she answered at last, "you can guess the rest."
A spasm of pain half choked her, and Wimpole put out his hand to lay it gently upon her arm, but drew it back again. He had never done even that much in all those years, and he would not do it now.
"I will keep him from you," he said again.
"No. You must not do that." Her voice was steady again. "He will not come to me against my will."
Wimpole turned sharply as he leaned on the window-sill beside her, for he did not understand.
"You cannot possibly be thinking of writing to him, of letting him come back?"
"Yes," she said. "That is what I am thinking of doing."
She hardly dared think that she still could hesitate, now that Wimpole was beside her. If he had not come, it might have been different. But he was close to her now, and she knew how long and well he had loved her. Alone, she could have found reasons for refusing ever to see Harmon again, but they lost their look of honour now that this man, who was everything to her, was standing at her elbow. Exaggerating her danger, she feared lest Wimpole should influence her, even unintentionally, if she left the question open. And he, for her own happiness and honourably setting all thoughts of himself aside, believed that he ought to use whatever influence he had, to the utmost.
"You must not do it," he said. "I implore you not to think of it. You will wreck your life."
She did not move, for she had known what he would say.
"If you are my friend," she answered, after a pause, "you should wish me to do what is right."
It was a trite commonplace, but she never tried to be original, at any time, and just then the words exactly expressed her thought. He resented it.
"You have done more than enough of that sort of right already. It is time you thought a little of yourself. I do not mean only of your happiness, but of your safety. You are not safe with that man. He will drink again, and he may kill you."
She turned her white face deliberately towards him in the gloom.
"And do you think I am afraid of that?" she asked slowly.
There was a sort of reproach in the tone, and a great good pride with it. Wimpole did not know what to say, and merely bent his head gravely.
"Besides," she added, "he is in earnest. He is sorry. He was mad then, and he asks me to forgive him now. How can I refuse? He was really mad, really insane. No one can deny it. Shall I?"
"You can forgive him without going back to him. Why should you risk your life?"
"It is the only way of showing him that I forgive him, and my life will not be in danger."
"Do you think that you can ever be happy again, if you go back to him?" asked Wimpole.
"My happiness is not the question. The only thing that matters is to do right."
"It seems to me that right is more or less dependent on its results--"
"Never!" cried Helen, almost fiercely, and drawing back a little against the side of the window. "If one syllable of that were true, then we could never know whether we were doing right or not, till we could judge the result. And the end would justify the means, always, and there would be no more right and wrong at all in the world."
"But when you know the results?" objected Wimpole. "It seems to me that it may be different."
"Then it is fear! Then one is afraid to do right because one knows that one risks being hurt! What sort of morality would that be? It would be contemptible."
"But suppose that it is not only yourself who may be hurt, but some one else? One should think of others first. That is right, too." He could not help saying that much.
Helen hesitated a moment.
"Yes," she answered presently. "But no one else is concerned in this case."
"I will leave your friends out of the question," said Wimpole. "Do you think it will do Archie any good to live under the same roof with his father?"
Helen started perceptibly.
"Oh, why did you say that!" she exclaimed in a low voice, and as she leaned over the window-sill again she clasped her hands together in a sort of despairing way. "Why did you say that!" she repeated.
Wimpole was silent, for he had not at first realized that he had found a very strong argument. As yet, being human, she had thought only of herself, in the first hours of her trouble. He had recalled all her past terrors for her unfortunate son, and the memory of all she had done to keep him out of his father's way in old days. He had been a mere boy, then, and it had been just possible, because his half-developed mind was not suspicious. Now that he was grown up, it would be another matter. The prospect was hideous enough, if Harmon should take a fancy to the young man, and make him his companion, and then fall back into his old ways.
"Why did you say it? Why did you make me think of that?" Helen asked the questions almost piteously. "I should have to send Archie away--somewhere, where he would be safe."
"How could he be safe without you?" The argument was pitilessly just.
But, after all, her life and happiness were at stake. Wimpole saw right in everything that could withhold her from the step to which she had evidently made up her mind.
"And if I refuse to go back to my husband, what will become of him?" she asked, still clasping her hands hard together.
"He could be properly taken care of," suggested Wimpole.
"And would that be forgiveness?" Helen turned to him again energetically.
"It would be wisdom, at all events."
"Ah, now you come back to your argument!" Her voice changed. "You are pressing me to do what is wise, not what is right. Don't do that! Please don't do that!"
"Do you forgive him?" asked the colonel, very gravely.
Again she paused before answering him.
"Why should you doubt it?" she asked in her turn. "Don't you see that I wish to go back to him?"
"You know what I mean. It is not the same thing. You are a very good woman, and by sheer force of goodness you could make an enormous sacrifice for the sake of what you thought right."
"And would not that be forgiveness?"
"No. If you freely forgave him, it would be no sacrifice, for you would believe in him again. You would have just the same faith in Harmon which you had on the day you married him. If forgiveness means anything, it means that one takes back the man who has hurt one, on the same real, inward terms with oneself on which one formerly lived with him. You cannot do that, for it would not be sane."
"No, I cannot quite do that," Helen answered, after a moment's thought. "It would not be true to say that I had even thought I could. But then, if you put it in that way, it would be hard to forgive any one, and it would generally be foolish. There is something wrong about your way of looking at it."
"I am not a woman," said Wimpole, simply. "That is what is the matter. At the same time, I do not see how you, as a woman, are ever going to reconcile what you believe to be your duty to Harmon with what is certainly your duty to your son."
"I must," said Helen. "I must."
"Then you must do it before you write to Harmon, for afterwards it will be impossible. You must decide first what you will do with Archie to keep him out of danger. When you have made up your mind about that, if you choose to sacrifice yourself, nobody can prevent you. At least you will not be ruining him, too."
He saw no reason for not putting the case plainly, since what he said was true. Yet as he felt his advantage, he knew that by pressing it he was increasing her perplexity. In all his life he had never been in so difficult a position. She stood close beside him, her arm almost touching his, and he had loved her all his life, as few men love, with an honesty and purity that were more than quixotic. What there was left, he could have borne for her sake, even to seeing her united again with Henry Harmon. But the thought of the risk she was running was more than he could bear. He would use argument, stratagem, force, anything, to keep her out of such a life; and when he had succeeded in saving her, he would be capable of denying himself even the sight of her, lest his conscience should accuse him of having acted for himself rather than for her alone.
He remembered Harmon's face as he had last seen it, coarse, cunning, seamed with dissipation, and he looked sideways at Helen, white, weary, bruised, a fast fading rose of yesterday, as she had called herself. The thought of Harmon's touch was more than he could bear.
"You shall not do it!" he exclaimed, after a long silence. "I will make it impossible."
Almost before he spoke the last words, he had repented them. Helen drew herself up and faced him, one hand on the window-sill.
"Colonel Wimpole," she said, "I know that you have always been my best friend. But you must not talk in that way. I cannot allow even you to come between me and what I think is right."
He bent his head a little.
"I beg your pardon," he answered, in a low voice. "I should have done it--not said it."
"I hope you will never think of it again," said Helen.
She left the window, and felt in the dark for matches, on the table, to light a small candle she used for sealing letters. It cast a faint light up to her sad face. Wimpole had stayed by the window, and watched her now, while she looked towards him over the little flame.
"Please go, now," she said gravely. "I cannot bear to talk about this any longer."