BUT Mary was quite mistaken—as absolute logic is apt to be when dealing with human beings. Camelia, indeed, had gone to Perior, but on a very different errand from the one Mary’s imagination painted for her. Camelia was not thinking of herself, nor of throwing off the iron chains of that responsibility with which she felt herself manacled for life. Mary’s story had crushed every thought of self, beyond that consciousness of riveted guilt. It was of Mary alone she thought as she galloped through the mist. With terror and pity infinite she looked upon Mary’s love and the approaching death that was to end it; their tragedy filled everything, and at the feet of the majestic presences her own personality only felt itself as a cowering criminal. It was as though the ocean of another’s suffering had flooded the complacent rivers of her life. They overflowed their narrow channels; they were engulfed, effaced in the mighty desolation; never again could they find their flowering banks, their sunny horizons.

This moan of a suffering universe, heard before only in vaguest whispers, the minor key of the happy melody that she had known, making the melody all the sweeter for its half-realized web of sadness—this moan was now like the tumult of great waters above her head, and a loud outcrying of her awakened soul answered it. She was guilty—yes, as guilty as Mary knew her to be, for all the mistaken deductions of Mary’s ignorance. She loved Perior, and he did not love her; but those facts in no way touched the other unalterable facts—a cruelty, a selfishness, a blindness, hideous beyond words.

Yet now she did not think of this guilt, irrevocable as it was.

Mary—Mary—Mary. The horse’s hoofs seemed to beat out the cry! Mary and her fate. Camelia stood with Mary against that fate; but her attitude of rebellion was even fiercer, more determined than poor Mary’s flickering light could have sustained. Mary good—with nothing. Virtue not its own reward. Suffering, crushing, unmerited suffering, eating away the poor empty life. She herself bad, and the world at her feet. Camelia felt herself capable of taking the immoral universe by the throat and shaking it to death—herself along with it.

She was galloping for help, yes, to Perior. He must help her, he alone could help her, to clutch the malignant cruelty, tear it off Mary, and then give her some gleam of happiness before she died. Camelia straightened herself in the saddle at the thought. “She shall not die,” clenched her teeth on the determination. She might be saved. Who could tell? One heard of wonderful cures. And at least, at least, she should not die unhappy. Camelia would wrench happiness for her out of despair itself. She would fight the injustice of the gods until her last breath left her.

All the pitiful humanity in Camelia clung to the human hope of retribution and reward. Her mind fixed in this desperate hope, she could take no thought of the coming interview; that would have implied a retrospective glance at her last visit to the Grange, and Camelia could not think of herself, nor even of Perior.

The Grange was desolate on its background of leafless trees. Camelia, as she dismounted at the door, looked down at the whiteness which brimmed the valley; the tree-tops emerged from it as from a flood; but where she stood there was no mist—a clear, sad air, and a few faint patches of blue in a colorless sky above. She rang, holding the horse’s reins over her arm. Her habit was heavy with the wet, and her loosened hair clung damply about her throat and forehead. Old Lane, when he appeared, showed some alarm. She could infer from his expression what her own must be.

“Mr. Perior? Yes, Miss; in the laboratory with Job Masters. Just go up, Miss, and I’ll take the horse round to the stables.”

The laboratory was at the top of the house. Camelia found herself panting from the swiftness of her ascension when she reached the door. Entering, she faced the white light from the wide expanse of window, which overlooked on bright days miles of wooded, rolling country, to-day the sea of mist. Perior’s back was to her, and he was bending with an intent interest over a microscope; a collection of glass jars was on the table, and Job Masters, his elementary features lit by the intelligent gravity of close attention, was standing beside him. Perior was saying—

“Now, Job, take a look at it.” His gray head did not turn.

“It’s Miss Paton, sir,” Job volunteered. At that Perior rose hastily, and Camelia advancing, looked vaguely at Job, at the microscope, at the jars of infusoria.

A thought of the last visit had shot painfully through Perior on hearing her name, but, after one stare at her white face, his fear, freed from any selfish terror, took on a sympathetic acuteness.

“I must speak to you,” she said.

“Very well. You may go, Job,” and as Job’s heavy footsteps passed beyond the door, “What is it, Camelia?” he asked, holding her hands, his anxiety questioning her eyes.

For a moment, the press of all that must be said crowding upon her, of all that must be said with a self-control that must not waver or misinterpret through weakness, Camelia could not speak. She looked at him with a certain helplessness.

“Sit down, you are faint,” said Perior, greatly alarmed, but, shaking her head, she only put her hand on the back of a chair he brought forward.

“I have something terrible to tell you, Michael.” That she should use his name impressed him even more than her announcement, emphasized the gravity of the situation in which he was to find himself with her. In the ensuing pause their eyes met with a preparatory solemnity.

“Michael, Mary is dying.” He saw then that her eyes seized him with a deep severity of demand. The shock, though not unexpected, found him unprepared.

“She knows it?” he asked.

“Yes, she knows it. Listen. She told me everything. It was more horrible than you can imagine. She told me how cruel I had been to her—how I had neglected her—how I had cut again and again into her very soul. She hates me, she hates her life, but she is afraid of death. She is not going to die happily, hopefully, as one would have thought Mary would die. She is dying desperately and miserably, for she sees that being good means merely being trodden on by the bad. She has had nothing, and she regrets everything.” Perior dropped again into the chair by the table. He covered his eyes with his hands.

“Poor child! Unhappy child!” he said.

The shuddering horror of the morning came over Camelia. She clasped her hands, pressing them against her lips. It seemed to her suddenly that she must scream.

“What does it mean? What does a life like that mean?” Her eyes, in all their helpless guilt and terror, met his look of non-absolving pity.

“It means that if one is good one is often trodden upon. We must accept the responsibility for Mary’s unhappiness. My poor Camelia,” Perior added, in tones of saddest comprehension, and he stretched out his hand to her. But Camelia stood still.

“Accept it!” she cried, and her voice was sharp with the repressed scream. “Do you think I am trying to shirk it? Do you think that I do not see that it is I—I, who trod upon her? Don’t say ‘We’; say ‘You,’ as you think it. You need have no compunctions. I could have made her happy—happier, at least, and I have made her miserable. I have done—said—looked the cruellest things—confiding in her stupid insensibility. I have crushed her year after year. I am worse than a murderer. Don’t talk of me—even to accuse me; don’t think of me, but think of her. Oh, Michael! let us think of her! Help me to mend—a little—the end of it all!”

“Mend it?” He looked at her, taken aback by her words, the strange insistence of her eyes. “One can’t, Camelia—one can’t atone for those things.”

“Then you mean to say that life is the horror she sees it to be? She sees it! There is the pity—the awful pity of it! Not even a merciful blindness, not even the indifference of weakness! Morality is a gibe then? Goodness goes for nothing—is trampled in the mud by the herd of apes snatching for themselves! That is the world, then!” The fierce scorn of her voice claimed him as umpire. Perior put his hand to his head with a gesture of discouragement.

“That is the world—as far as we can see it.”

“And there is no hope? no redemption?”

“Not unless we make it ourselves—not unless the ape loses his characteristics.” He paused, and a deepened pity entered his voice as he added, “You have lost them, Camelia.”

“Yes; I can hear the canting moralist now, with his noisome explanation of vice and misery. Mary has been sacrificed to save my soul, forsooth! My soul!”

“Yes.” Perior’s monosyllable held neither assent nor repudiation.

“Yes? And what does my miserable soul count for against her starved and broken life?”

“I don’t know. That is for you to say.”

“I say that if virtue is to give a reward to vice, life is a nightmare.” Perior again put his hands over his eyes. The thought of poor Mary, conscious of injustice, the sight of Camelia writhing in retributory flames, made him feel shattered.

“But I didn’t come to talk about my problematic soul,” said Camelia in an altered voice; “I came to tell you about Mary.” She approached him, and stood over him as she spoke, so that he looked up quickly.

“She will probably be dead in a month. She knows it; and, Michael, she loves you.” Perior flushed a deep red, but Camelia whitened to the lips. He would have risen; she put her hand on his shoulder.

“Impossible!” he said.

“No, listen. She told me. She lashed me with it this morning—that hopeless love—for she thinks that you love me—thinks that I am playing with you. She loves you. She has loved you for years.”

“Don’t say it, Camelia!” Perior cried brokenly. “Mary’s disease explains hysteria—melancholia—a pitiful fancy—that will pass—that should never have been told to me.”

“Ah, don’t shirk it!” her hand pressed heavily on his shoulder. “Her disease made her tell me, I grant you, but you could not have doubted had you heard her!—as I did! You understand that she must never know—that I have told you.”

“I understand that, necessarily, and I must ask you from what motive you think your revelation justified; it must be a strong one, for I confess that the revelation seems to me unjustifiable—cruelly so.”

“I have a strong motive.”

“You did not come to pour out to me the full extent of poor Mary’s misfortune for the selfish sake of relieving, by confession, your self-reproach? And, indeed, in this matter I cannot see that you are responsible. It is a cruelty of fate, not yours.”

Camelia looked away from him for a moment, looked at the microscope. A swift flicker of shame went through her, one thought of self, then, resolutely raising her eyes, she said, “Am I not at all responsible? Are you sure of that?”

“Responsible for Mary loving me?” Perior stared, losing for a moment, in amazement, his deep and painful confusion.

“No; that is fate, if you will. But had I not come back last summer, had I not claimed you, monopolized you, absorbed you. Ah! you are flushing; don’t be ashamed for me! I swear to you, Michael, that I am not giving myself a thought, had I not set myself to work to make love to you—there is the fact;—don’t look away, I can bear it—can you tell me that Mary might not have had the chance she so deserved, of slipping sweetly and naturally into your heart—becoming your wife?”

“Camelia!” Perior turned white. “I never loved Mary, never could have loved her. Does that relieve you?” He keenly eyed her.

“Don’t accuse me of seeking relief! That is a cruelty I don’t deserve. If you never could have loved Mary, it is even more dreadful for me—for it is still crueller for Mary. That she should love you. That you should not care! could never have cared!”

At this Perior rose and walked up and down the room. “Don’t!” he repeated several times. His wonder at Camelia interfused intolerably his sorrow for Mary.

Camelia followed him with steady eyes. The eagerness of decisive appeal seemed to burn her lips as she said slowly—

“Ah, had you seen her! Had you heard her crying out that she was dying—that she loved you—that you did not care!”

“You must not say that.” Perior stopped and looked at her sternly, “I am not near enough. It is a desecration.”

“Ah! but how can I help her if I don’t? How can you help her? For it is you, Michael, you. Can’t you see it? You are noble enough. Michael—you will marry Mary! Oh!”—at his start, his white look of stupefaction, she flew to him, grasped his hands—“Oh, you must—you must. You can make her happy—you only! And you will—say you will. You cannot let her die in this misery! Say you cannot, Michael—oh, say it!” And, suddenly breathless, panting, her look flashed out the full significance of her demand. In all its stupefaction Perior’s face still retained something of its sternness, but he drew her hands to his breast. “Camelia, you are mad,” he said.

“Mad?” she repeated. Her eyes scorned him; then, rapidly resuming their appealing dignity, “You can’t hesitate before such a chance for making your whole life worth while.”

“Quite mad, Camelia,” he repeated with emphasis. “I could not act such a lie,” he added.

“A lie! To love, cherish that dying child! A better lie than most truths, then! You are not a coward—surely. You will not let her die so.”

“Indeed I must. Any pretence would be an insult. As it is, if Mary could see you here, she would want to kill us both.”

“Not if she understood,” said Camelia, curbing the vehemence of her terrified supplication, the very terror warning her to calm. “And what more would there be in it to hurt her?”

“That I should know—and should refuse. Good God!”

“Where is the disgrace?” Camelia’s eyes gazed at him fixedly. “Then we are both disgraced—Mary and I.” Her smile, bitterly impersonal, offered itself to no interpretations, yet before it he steadied his face with an effort. He could not silence her by the truth—that he loved her, her alone; loved now her high, frowning look, her passionate espousal of another’s cause. Mary’s tragic presence sealed his lips. He said nothing, and Camelia’s eyes, as they searched this chilling silence, incredulous of its cruel resolve, filled suddenly and piteously with tears.

“Oh, Michael,” she faltered. Scorn and defiance dropped from her face; he saw only the human soul trembling with pity and hope. He did not dare trust himself to speak—he could not answer her. Holding her hands against his breast, he looked at her very sorrowfully.

“Listen to me, Michael. I mustn’t expect you to feel it yet as I do—must I? That would be impossible. I only ask you to think. You see the pathos, the beauty of Mary’s love for you! for years—growing in her narrow life. Think how a smile from you must have warmed her heart—a look, a little kindness. She adores you. And this consciousness of death, this nearing parting from you—you who do not care—leaving even the dear sight of you. Think of her going out alone, unloved, into the darkness—the everlasting darkness and silence—with never one word, one touch, one smile, to hold in her heart as hers, meant for her, with love. Oh, I see it hurts you!—you are sorry; oh, blessed tears! You cannot bear it, can you? Michael, you will not let her go uncomforted? She is not strong, or brave, or confident. She is sick, weak, terrified—a screaming, shuddering child carried away in the night. Michael!”—it was a cry; she clasped his hands in hers—“you will walk beside her. You will kiss her, love her, and she will die happy—with her hand in yours!” Her eyes sought his wildly. He had never loved her as he loved her now, and though his tears were for Mary, the power, the freedom of his love for Camelia was a joy to him even in the midst of a great sadness. He could not have kissed her or put his arms around her; the dignity of her abasement was part of the new, the sacred loveliness, and it was more in pity than in love that he took the poor, distraught, beautiful face between his hands and looked at her a negation, pitiful and inarticulate. She closed her eyes. He saw that she would not accept the bitterness.

“I will do all I can,” he then said; “but, dear Camelia, dearest Camelia, I cannot marry her.”

It was a strange echo. Camelia drew away from him.

“What can you do? She knows you are her friend; that only hurts.”

“Does it?” He saw now, through the unconscious revelation, the greatness of her love for him, and saw that in the past he had not understood. She loved him so much that there was left her not a thought of self. Her whole nature was merged in the passionate wish that he should fulfil her highest ideal of him. He saw that she would have laid down her life for him—or for Mary, as she stood there, and, for Mary, she expected an equal willingness on his side.

“It would only be an agony to her,” Camelia said; “she would fear every moment that she would betray herself to you, as she betrayed herself to me. Can’t you see that? Understand that?” Desperately she reiterated: “You must pretend! You must lie! You must tell her that you love her! You must marry her, take her away to some beautiful country—there are places where they live for years; make a paradise about her. You must.” She looked sternly at him.

“No, Camelia, no.”

“You mean that basest no?” She was trembling, holding herself erect as she confronted him; her white face, narrowly framed by the curves of loosened hair, tragic with its look of reprobation.

“I mean it. I will not. You will see that I am right. It would be a cruel folly, a dastardly kindness, a final insult from fate. And I do not think only of Mary—I think of myself; I could not lie like that.”

Her silent woe and scorn, frozen now to a bleak despair, dwelt on him for a long moment, then, without another word, she turned from him and left him, making, by the majesty of her defeated wrong, his victorious right look ugly.