Truer Colors

A great change had come over her. All the hardness had disappeared from her face. It was transformed by a wonderful new pity—a latent compassion, stirred for the first time by this miserable man's utter tragedy. And so transformed she was very lovely—with a loveliness that all the arts of an accomplished society woman had never bestowed upon her.

"Forgive me," she said gently. "I would not have said what I did if I had even thought ... of that."

He looked down at her, a world of agony in his tortured eyes.

"Well," he asked—"do you still want to marry me ... now?"

For an instant the old hardness flashed back. "You would have married her," she returned.

"I wonder," he said slowly. "I wonder ... if I should."

His gaze wandered vacantly round the room.

"She intoxicated me," he said. "Her memory intoxicates me still. She set fire to all my passions. She made me forget the barrier. But I think I really hated her. Perhaps ... if she hadn't died in the garden ... I might have killed her...."

The madness was leaving him, and the weakness of reaction taking its place. He put a hand on her shoulder, and leant heavily on her. His face was mild and kind—the face of the normal man.

"Phyllis," he said softly, "I mocked you, and treated you badly. But it wasn't really I. Forgive a poor madman the sins of his madness."

She made no attempt to check her tears. He took her hand, as gently as a child.

"Don't cry," he begged. "See—I am all right now. Sit down, and let us talk." Still leaning on her, he moved to a couch, and drew her down beside him.

"First," he said, "I will tell you why I lied to Inspector Fay. I did not go into the house to fill my cigarette case. I was mad. It came on me—as it often does—when I see sane people about me—a rush of hatred and despair."

He spoke dispassionately, without a trace of the terrible disorder that had possessed him a few minutes before. Only the gloom remained—the shadow that never left him.

"You can understand," he went on, "what my life has been since this cloud first settled on me. I tried to fight against it—but how could I fight against a thing that I knew to be there, creeping on me day after day—when I knew that in the end I must give way? Every hour seemed to bring some fresh proof of the madness that was in me—some proof that made resistance more and more futile and hopeless. A thousand times I have been tempted to kill myself—but always there was the dim, desperate hope that some miraculous twist of sanity might yet deliver me. I can't convey to you a tenth—a hundredth—part of the agony of that struggle. There were times when I shrank into the farthest corner of my darkest cellar, and prayed, as only a madman could pray, to be spared from the unjust curse. There were times when I stood out on the roof of my house, and defied the God I had prayed to...."

He stared straight out in front of him, a figure of unutterable pathos—a helpless accuser of Eternal Laws.

"If I were suffering for a fault of my own, I would bear my punishment uncomplaining. But I am innocent. I have done nothing to deserve this torture. And there is always the thought of what I might have been—of what I know I could have been. That is the cruelest torment of all. I have to see sane men and women wasting every minute of their lives—without the slightest appreciation of the value, or the responsibilities, of reason—who might as well be mad, for all the use they are to their fellow-creatures. And I...." He broke off. "That is enough about myself," he said. "I want to talk about you." He looked at her in surprise, as if noticing the alteration in her for the first time.

"How changed you are," he said. "You have never looked like that before. You have always been so hard. Why have you never looked like that before?"

She was silent. She bent her head, as if ashamed of betraying herself.

"Was all that hardness ... only a cloak ... to hide yourself?"

He seized her hand tightly.

"You fool! You fool!" he cried—"to make yourself hard and unfeeling and unnatural—to try to stamp all the heart out of your life—to blaspheme your sex. Don't you know that a hard woman is the most terrible thing in the world? Don't you know that while men dare to think that they have the image of God, it is women who can really have the heart of God? And to think that all the time you have disguised yourself, you have been capable of looking like that."

"I have been up against the world," she said. "I have never had enough money to be soft-hearted. No woman with feeling can get five hundred per cent. out of her income."

"What does it matter," he returned, "if she can get five hundred per cent. out of life?"

He still held her hand, his eyes fixed longingly on her face.

"If only I were not mad," he said, with all his sadness—"now I know that you are really a woman...."

"Let me go," she said brokenly, withdrawing her hand from his.

"Not yet," he returned, detaining her. "There is something more I want to do." He paused. "My dear," he said softly, "an hour ago I would not have married you even if I had been sane. Now I want to marry you although I am mad. But, since that cannot be, there is something else." He released her, and stood up. "I want you always to look like that," he said. "I want you to forget that you have ever tried to disguise yourself. I want to make it possible for you to go through the rest of your life with your heart in its proper place."

He took his check book from his pocket.

"No, no," she said quickly—"not that."

"Please," he insisted. "I would have taken it before," she said, forcing back her tears. "But not now."

"You must," he declared. "My money is no use to me. I can't do anything worth doing with it. With all my fantastic extravagancies, I only spend a small part of my income. The rest has been accumulating for years. I shall never use it, and when I die it will pass to some one I have never seen. It is doing no good—and I want it to do some good. What better thing could I do with it than give it ... to the woman I would marry if I could?"

She sprang up.

"For God's sake," she cried, "don't say that! I can't bear it!"

He laid a hand again on her shoulder.

"Do you care?" he asked slowly. "I don't think you cared before. I thought you were only sorry for me now. Do you really care?"

"I do care!" she cried recklessly. "I care—and care—and care. My God, how I care!"

He turned his face upwards, and over it passed a dreadful, mocking smile. "O God of Mercy!" he muttered—"another torment!"

He drew away from her.

"I shall do this for you," he said firmly. "I intend to do this. And then we must not see each other again. I hope that when you marry, as you must, you will marry a good, clean man—a man who can stand out among his fellow-creatures, and need not shrink away from them, as I must. I want you to be very happy and bring happy children to the world...." His voice shook. "And forget there are unfortunate people in it ... who may only gaze hungrily over the gulf that they can never cross."

He left her sobbing, and went to his writing table.

"No one will know," he said. "I will draw it to myself. The bank is quite close here. I will walk there and cash it at once."

He wrote the check, and rose.

"Wait for me here," he said. "I shall only be a few minutes." And he went out with the face of a stricken man.