The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE LARGER VISION

  His mind had just settled into this attitude of alert watchfulness towardCleo when the first danger the doctor dreaded for his wife began to takeshape.

  The feverish brightness in her eyes grew dimmer and her movements lessvigorous. The dreaded reaction had come and the taut strings of weakenednerves could bear the strain no longer.

  With a cry of despair she threw herself into his arms:

  "Oh, Dan, dear, it's no use! I've tried--I've tried so hard--but I can't doit--I just don't want to live any more!"

  He put his hands over the trembling, thin lips:

  "Hush, dearest, you mustn't say that--it's just a minute's reaction. You'reblue this morning, that's all. It's the weather--a dreary foggy day. Thesun will be shining again to-morrow. It's shining now behind the mists ifwe only remember it. The trees are bare, but their buds are swelling andthese days of cold and fog and rain must come to make them burst in glory.Come, let me put your shawl around you and I'll show you how the flowershave pushed up in the sheltered places the past week."

  He drew the hands, limp and cold, from his neck, picked up her shawl,tenderly placed it about her shoulders, lifted her in his strong arms, andcarried her to the old rose garden behind the house.

  Don sniffed his leg, and looked up into his face with surprise at theunexpected frolic. He leaped into the air, barked softly and ran in frontto show the way.

  "You see, old Don knows the sun is shining behind the clouds, dear!"

  She made no answer. The blonde head drooped limply against his breast. Hefound a seat on the south side of the greenhouse on an old rustic bench hisfather had built of cedar when he was a boy.

  "There," he said cheerfully, as he smoothed her dress and drew her close byhis side. "You can feel the warmth of the sun here reflected from theglass. The violets are already blooming along the walks. The jonquils areall gone, and the rose bushes have begun to bud. You mustn't talk aboutgiving up. We haven't lived yet."

  "But I'm tired, Dan, tired----"

  "It's just for a moment, remember, my love. You'll feel differentlyto-morrow. The world is always beautiful if we only have eyes to see andears to hear. Watch that smoke curling straight up from the chimney! Thatmeans the clouds are already lifting and the sun will burst through themthis afternoon. You mustn't brood, dearest. You must forget the misery thathas darkened our world for a moment and remember that it's only the dawn ofa new life for us both. We are just boy and girl yet. There's nothingimpossible. I'm going to prove to you that my love is the deathless thingin me--the thing that links me to God."

  "You really love me so?" she asked softly.

  "Give me a chance to prove it. That's all I ask. Men sometimes wait untilthey're past forty before they begin to sow their wild oats. I am onlytwenty-five now. This tragic sin and shame has redeemed life. It's yoursforever--you must believe me when I say this, dearest----"

  "I try," she broke in wearily. "I try, Dan, but it's hard to believeanything now--oh, so hard----"

  "But can't you understand, my love, how I have been headstrong and selfishbefore the shock of my fall brought me to my senses? And that the terror oflosing you has taught me how deep and eternal the roots of our love havestruck and this knowledge led me into the consciousness of a larger andmore wonderful life--can't--can't you understand this, dearest?"

  His voice sank to the lowest reverent whisper as he ceased to speak. Shestroked his hand with a pathetic little gesture of tenderness.

  "Yes, I believe you," she said with a far-away look in her eyes. "I knowthat I can trust you now implicitly, and what I can't understand isthat--feeling this so clearly--still I have no interest in life. Somethinghas snapped inside of me. Life doesn't seem worth the struggle anylonger----"

  "But it is, dear! Life is always good, always beautiful, and always worththe struggle. We've but to lift our eyes and see. Sin is only our stumblingin the dark as we grope toward the light. I'm going to be a humbler andbetter man. I am no longer proud and vain. I've a larger and sweetervision. I feel my kinship to the weak and the erring. Alone in the night mysoul has entered into the fellowship of the great Brotherhood through thegates of suffering. You must know this, Jean--you know that it's true as Ithus lay my heart's last secret bare to you to-day.

  "Yes, Dan," she sighed wearily, "but I'm just tired. I don't seem torecognize anything I used to know. I look at the baby and he don't seem tobe mine. I look at you and feel that you're a stranger. I look at my room,the lawn, the street, the garden--no matter where, and I'm dazed. I feelthat I've lost my way. I don't know how to live any more."

  For an hour he held her hand and pleaded with all the eloquence of his lovethat she would let him teach her again, and all she could do was to comeback forever in the narrow circle her mind had beaten. She was tired andlife no longer seemed worth while!

  He kissed the drooping eyelids at last and laughed a willful, daring laughas he gathered her in his arms and walked slowly back into the house.

  "You've got to live, my own! I'll show you how! I'll breathe my fiercedesire into your soul and call you back even from the dead!"

  Yet in spite of all she drooped and weakened daily, and at the end of afortnight began to complain of a feeling of uneasiness in her throat.

  The old doctor said nothing when she made this announcement. He drew hisbeetling eyebrows low and walked out on the lawn.

  Pale and haggard, Norton followed him.

  "Well, doctor?" he asked queerly.

  "There's only one thing to do. Get her away from here at once, to the mostbeautiful spot you can find, high altitude with pure, stimulating air. Thechange may help her. That's all I can say"--he paused, laid his hand on thehusband's arm and went on earnestly--"and if you haven't discussed thataffair with her, you'd better try it. Tear the old wound open, go to thebottom of it, find the thing that's festering there and root it out if youcan--the thing that's caused this break."

  The end of another week found them in Asheville, North Carolina.

  The wonderful views of purple hills and turquoise sky stretching away intothe infinite thrilled the heart of the little invalid.

  It was her first trip to the mountains. She never tired the first two daysof sitting in the big sun-parlor beside the open fire logs and gazing overthe valleys and watching the fleet clouds with their marvelous coloring.The air was too chill in these early days of spring for her to feelcomfortable outside. But a great longing began to possess her to climb themountains and feel their beauty at closer range.

  She sat by his side in her room and held his hand while they watched theglory of the first cloud-flecked mountain sunset. The river lay a crookedsilver ribbon in the deepening shadows of the valley, while the skystretched its dazzling scarlet canopy high in heaven above it. The scarletslowly turned to gold, and then to deepening purple and with each changerevealed new beauty to the enraptured eye.

  She caught her breath and cried at last:

  "Oh, it is a beautiful world, Dan, dear--and I wish I could live!"

  He laughed for joy:

  "Then you shall, dearest! You shall, of course you shall!"

  "I want you to take me over every one of those wonderful purple hills!"

  "Yes, dear, I will!"

  "I dream as I sit and look at them that God lives somewhere in one of thosedeep shadows behind a dazzling cloud, and that if we only drive along thoseragged cliffs among them we'd come face to face with Him some day----"

  He looked at her keenly. There was again that unnatural brightness in hereyes which he didn't like and yet he took courage. The day was a gloriousone in the calendar. Hope had dawned in her heart.

  "The first warm day we'll go, dear," he cried with the enthusiasm of a boy,"and take mammy and the kid with us, too, if you say so----"

  "No, I want just you, Dan. The long ride might tire the baby, and I mightwish to stay up there all night. I shall never grow tired of those hills."

  "It's sweet to hear y
ou talk like that," he cried with a smile.

  He selected a gentle horse for their use and five days later, when the sunrose with unusual warmth, they took their first mountain drive.

  Along the banks of crystal brooks that dashed their sparkling waters overthe rocks, up and up winding, narrow roads until the town became a mottledwhite spot in the valley below, and higher still until the shining cloudsthey had seen from the valley rolled silently into their faces, meltinginto the gray mists of fog!

  In the midst of one of these clouds, the little wife leaned close andwhispered:

  "We're in heaven now, Dan--we're passing through the opal gates! Ishouldn't be a bit surprised to see Him at any moment up here----"

  A lump suddenly rose in his throat. Her voice sounded unreal. He bentclose and saw the strange bright light again in her eyes. And the awfulthought slowly shaped itself that the light he saw was the shining image ofthe angel of Death reflected there.

  He tried to laugh off his morbid fancy now that she had begun to find theworld so beautiful, but the idea haunted him with increasing terror. Hecouldn't shake off the impression.

  An hour later he asked abruptly:

  "You have felt no return of the pain in your throat, dear?"

  "Just a little last night, but not to-day--I've been happy to-day."

  He made up his mind to telegraph to New York at once for the specialist toexamine her throat.

  The fine weather continued unbroken. Every day for a week she sat by hisside and drifted over sunlit valleys, lingered beside beautiful waters andclimbed a new peak to bathe in sun-kissed clouds. On the top of one ofthese peaks they found a farmhouse where lodgers were allowed for thenight. They stayed to see the sunrise next morning. Mammy would not worry,they had told her they might spend the night on these mountain trips.

  The farmer called them in time--just as the first birds were waking in thetrees by their window.

  It was a climb of only two hundred yards to reach the top of a greatboulder that gave an entrancing view in four directions. To the west laythe still sleeping town of Asheville half hidden among its hills and trees.Eastward towered the giant peaks of the Blue Ridge, over whose raggedcrests the sun was climbing.

  The young husband took the light form in his strong arms and carried herto the summit. He placed his coat on the rocky ledge, seated her on it, andslipped his arm around the slim waist. There in silence they watched thechanging glory of the sky and saw the shadows wake and flee from thevalleys at the kiss of the sun.

  He felt the moment had come that he might say some things he had waitedwith patience to speak:

  "You are sure, dear, that you have utterly forgiven the great wrong I didyou?"

  "Yes, Dan," she answered simply, "why do you ask?"

  "I just want to be sure, my Jean," he said tenderly, "that there's not asingle dark corner of your heart in which the old shadows lurk. I want todrive them all out with my love just as we see the sun now lighting withglory every nook and corner of the world. You are sure?"

  The thin lips quivered uncertainly and her blue eyes wavered as he searchedtheir depths.

  "There's one thing, Dan, that I'll never quite face, I think"--she pausedand turned away.

  "What, dear?"

  "How any man who had ever bent over a baby's cradle with the tenderness andlove I've seen in your face for Tom, could forget the mother who gave thelife at his command!"

  "I didn't forget, dearest," he said sadly. "I fought as a wounded man,alone and unarmed, fights a beast in the jungle. With her sweet spiritualideal of love a sheltered, innocent woman can't remember that man is stillan animal, with tooth and claw and unbridled passions, that when put to thetest his religion and his civilization often are only a thin veneer, thatif he becomes a civilized human being in his relations to women it is notby inheritance, for he is yet in the zoological period of development--butthat it is by the divine achievement of character through struggle. Try,dearest, if you can, to imagine such a struggle. This primeval man, in theshadows with desires inflamed by hunger, meets this free primeval woman whois unafraid, who laughs at the laws of Society because she has nothing tolose. Both are for the moment animals pure and simple. The universal in himfinds its counterpart in the universal in her. And whether she be fair ordark, her face, her form, her body, her desires are his--and, above all,she is near--and in that moment with a nearness that overwhelms by itsenfolding animal magnetism all powers of the mind to think or reflect. Twosuch beings are atoms tossed by a storm of forces beyond their control. Aman of refinement wakes from such a crash of elemental powers dazed andhumiliated. Your lips can speak no word as vile, no curse as bitter as Ihave hurled against myself----"

  The voice broke and he was silent. A little hand pressed his, and her wordswere the merest tender whisper as she leaned close:

  "I've forgiven you, my love, and I'm going to let you teach me again tolive. I'll be a very docile little scholar in your school. But you know Ican't forget in a moment the greatest single hour that is given a woman toknow--the hour she feels the breath of her first born on her breast. It'sthe memory of that hour that hurts. I won't try to deceive you. I'll getover it in the years to come if God sends them----"

  "He will send them--he will send them!" the man broke in with desperateemotion.

  Both were silent for several minutes and a smile began to play about theblue eyes when she spoke at last:

  "You remember how angry you were that morning when you found a doctor and anurse in charge of your home? And the great fear that gripped your heart atthe first mad cry of pain I gave? I laughed at myself the next moment. Andthen how I found your hand and wouldn't let you go. The doctor stormed andordered you out, and I just held on and shook my head, and you stayed. Andwhen the doctor turned his back I whispered in your ear:

  "''You won't leave me, Dan, darling, for a single moment--promise me--swearit!'

  "And you answered:

  "'Yes, I swear it, honey--but you must be very brave--braver than I am, youknow'----

  "And you begged me to take an anesthetic and I wouldn't, like a littlefool. I wanted to know all and feel all if it killed me. And the anguish ofyour face became so terrible, dear--I was sorrier for you than for myself.And when I saw your lips murmuring in an agony of prayer, I somehow didn'tmind it then----"

  She paused, looked far out over the hills and continued:

  "What a funny cry he gave--that first one--not a real baby cry--just afunny little grunt like a good-natured pig! And how awfully disappointedyou were at the shapeless bundle of red flesh that hardly looked human! ButI could see the lines of your dear face in his, I knew that he would beeven handsomer than his big, brave father and pressed him close and laughedfor joy----"

  She stopped and sighed:

  "You see, Dan, what I couldn't understand is how any man who has felt thepain and the glory of this, with his hand clasped in the hand of the womanhe loves, their two souls mirrored in that first pair of mysterious littleeyes God sent from eternity--how he could forget the tie that binds----"

  He made no effort to interrupt her until the last bitter thought that hadbeen rankling in her heart was out. He was looking thoughtfully over thevalley. An eagle poised above the field in the foreground, darted to thestubble with lightning swiftness and rose with a fluttering brown quail inhis talons. His shrill cry of triumph rang pitilessly in the stillness ofthe heights.

  The little figure gave an unconscious shiver and she added in low tones:

  "I'm never going to speak of this nameless thing again, Dan, but you askedme this morning and I've told you what was in my heart. I just couldn'tunderstand how you could forget----"

  "Only a beast could, dearest," he answered with a curl of the lip. "I'msomething more than that now, taught by the bitterness of experience.You're just a sweet, innocent girl who has never looked the world as it isin the face. Reared as you were, you can't understand that there's adifference as deep as the gulf between heaven and hell, in the divine lovethat binds my
soul and body and life to you and the sudden passing of astorm of passion. Won't you try to remember this?"

  "Yes, dear, I will----"

  She looked into his eyes with a smile of tenderness:

  "A curious change is coming over you, Dan. I can begin to see it. Thereused to be a line of cruelty sometimes about your mouth and a flash of itin your eyes. They're gone. There's something strong and tender, wise andsweet, in their place. If I were an artist I could paint it but I can'tjust tell you what it is. I used to think the cruel thing I saw in you wasthe memory of the war. Your eyes saw so much of blood and death and painand cruelty----"

  "Perhaps it was," he said slowly. "War does make men cruel--unconsciouslycruel. We lose all sense of the value of human life----"

  "No, it wasn't that," she protested, "it was the otherthing--the--the--Beast you've been talking about. It's not there any more,Dan--and I'm going to be happy now. I know it, dear----"

  He bent and kissed the slender fingers.

  "If this old throat of mine just won't bother me again," she added.

  He looked at her and turned pale:

  "It's bothering you this morning?"

  She lifted the delicately shaped head and touched her neck:

  "Not much pain, but a sense of fullness. I feel as if I'm going to chokesometimes."

  He rose abruptly, a great fear in his heart:

  "We'll go back to town at once. The doctor should arrive at three from NewYork."

  "Let's not hurry," she cried smiling. "I'm happy now. You're my oldsweetheart again and I'm on a new honeymoon----"

  He gazed at the white slender throat. She was looking unusually well. Hewondered if this were a trick of the enemy to throw him off his guard. Hewondered what was happening in those tiny cells behind the smooth roundlines of the beautiful neck. It made him sick and faint to think of thepossibility of another attack--just when the fight was over--just when shehad begun to smile and find life sweet again! His soul rose in fiercerebellion. It was too horrible for belief. He simply wouldn't believe it!

  "All right!" he exclaimed with decision. "We'll stay here till two o'clock,anyhow. We can drive back in three hours. The train will be late--it alwaysis."

  Through the long hours of a wonderful spring morning they basked in the sunside by side on a bed of leaves he piled in a sheltered spot on themountain side. They were boy and girl again. The shadows had lifted and theworld was radiant with new glory. They talked of the future and the life ofperfect mutual faith and love that should be theirs.

  And each moment closer came the soft footfall of an unseen angel.