The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  XXXV

  The summer passed slowly. To David and Elizabeth it was a long waiting,but with this difference, that David was kept alive by hope, and thatElizabeth felt sometimes that hope was killing her. To David each daywas a new day, and might hold Dick. To Elizabeth, after a time, each daywas but one more of separation.

  Doctor Reynolds had become a fixture in the old house, but he was notlike Dick. He was a heavy, silent young man, shy of intruding into thefamily life and already engrossed in a budding affair with the Rossitergirl. David tolerated him, but with a sort of smouldering jealousyincreased by the fact that he had introduced innovations David resented;had for instance moved Dick's desk nearer the window, and instead ofdoing his own laboratory work had what David considered a damnably lazyfashion of sending his little tubes, carefully closed with cotton, to ahospital in town.

  David found the days very long and infinitely sad. He wakened eachmorning to renewed hope, watched for the postman from his upper window,and for Lucy's step on the stairs with the mail. His first glimpseof her always told him the story. At the beginning he had insisted ontalking about Dick, but he saw that it hurt her, and of late they hadfallen into the habit of long silences.

  The determination to live on until that return which he never ceasedto expect only carried him so far, however. He felt no incentive toactivity. There were times when he tried Lucy sorely, when she feltthat if he would only move about, go downstairs and attend to his officepractice, get out into the sun and air, he would grow stronger. Butthere were times, too, when she felt that only the will to live wascarrying him on.

  Nothing further had developed, so far as they knew. The search had beenabandoned. Lucy was no longer so sure as she had been that the house wasunder surveillance, against Dick's possible return. Often she lay inher bed and faced the conviction that Dick was dead. She had neverunderstood the talk that at first had gone on about her, when Bassettand Harrison Miller, and once or twice the psycho-analyst David hadconsulted in town, had got together in David's bedroom. The mind was themind, and Dick was Dick. This thing about habit, over which David poredat night when he should have been sleeping, or brought her in to listento, with an air of triumphant vindication, meant nothing to her.

  A man properly trained in right habits of thinking and of action couldnot think wrong and go wrong, David argued. He even went further. Hesaid that love was a habit, and that love would bring Dick back to him.That he could not forget them.

  She believed that, of course, if he still lived. But hadn't Mr. Bassett,who seemed so curiously mixed in the affair, been out again to Noradawithout result? No, it was all over, and she felt that it would be acomfort to know where he lay, and to bring him back to some well-lovedand tended grave.

  Elizabeth came often to see them. She looked much the same as ever,although she was very slender and her smile rather strained, and sheand David would have long talks together. She always felt rather like anempty vessel when she went in, but David filled her with hope and senther away cheered and visibly brighter to her long waiting. She ratheravoided Lucy, for Lucy's fears lay in her face and were like a shadowover her spirit. She came across her one day putting Dick's clothingaway in camphor, and the act took on an air of finality that almostcrushed her.

  So far they had kept from her Dick's real identity, but certain thingsthey had told her. She knew that he had gone back, in some strange way,to the years before he came to Haverly, and that he had temporarilyforgotten everything since. But they had told her too, and seemed tobelieve themselves, that it was only temporary.

  At first the thought had been more than she could bear. But she had tolive her life, and in such a way as to hide her fears. Perhaps it wasgood for her, the necessity of putting up a bold front, to join theconspiracy that was to hold Dick's place in the world against the hopeof his return. And she still went to the Sayre house, sure that thereat least there would be no curious glances, no too casual questions.She could not be sure of that even at home, for Nina was constantlyconjecturing.

  "I sometimes wonder-" Nina began one day, and stopped.

  "Wonder what?"

  "Oh, well, I suppose I might as well go on. Do you ever think that ifDick had gone back, as they say he has, that there might be somebodyelse?"

  "Another girl, you mean?"

  "Yes. Some one he knew before."

  Nina was watching her. Sometimes she almost burst with the drama shewas suppressing. She had been a small girl when Judson Clark haddisappeared, but even at twelve she had known something of the story.She wanted frantically to go about the village and say to them: "Do youknow who has been living here, whom you used to patronize? Judson Clark,one of the richest men in the world!" She built day dreams on thatfoundation. He would come back, for of course he would be found andacquitted, and buy the Sayre place perhaps, or build a much larger one,and they would all go to Europe in his yacht. But she knew now that thewoman Leslie had sent his flowers to had loomed large in Dick's past,and she both hated and feared her. Not content with having given her,Nina, some bad hours, she saw the woman now possibly blocking herambitions for Elizabeth.

  "What I'm getting at is this," she said, examining her polished nailscritically. "If it does turn out that there was somebody, you'd have toremember that it was all years and years ago, and be sensible."

  "I only want him back," Elizabeth said. "I don't care how he comes, sohe comes."

  Louis Bassett had become a familiar figure in the village life by thattime. David depended on him with a sort of wistful confidence thatset him to grinding his teeth occasionally in a fury at his ownhelplessness. And, as the extent of the disaster developed, as he sawDavid failing and Lucy ageing, and when in time he met Elizabeth, thefeeling of his own guilt was intensified.

  He spent hours studying the case, and he was chiefly instrumental insending Harrison Miller back to Norada in September. He had struck up afriendship with Miller over their common cause, and the night he was todepart that small inner group which was fighting David's battle forhim formed a board of strategy in Harrison's tidy living-room; WalterWheeler and Bassett, Miller and, tardily taken into their confidence,Doctor Reynolds.

  The same group met him on his return, sat around with expectant faceswhile he got out his tobacco and laid a sheaf of papers on the table,and waited while their envoy, laying Bassett's map on the table,proceeded carefully to draw in a continuation of the trail beyond thepass, some sketchy mountains, and a small square.

  "I've got something," he said at last. "Not much, but enough to workon. Here's where you lost him, Bassett." He pointed with his pencil."He went on for a while on the horse. Then somehow he must have lost thehorse, for he turned up on foot, date unknown, in a state of exhaustionat a cabin that lies here. I got lost myself, or I'd never have foundthe place. He was sick there for weeks, and he seems to have stayed onquite a while after he recovered, as though he couldn't decide what todo next."

  Walter Wheeler stirred and looked up.

  "What sort of condition was he in when he left?"

  "Very good, they said."

  "You're sure it was Livingstone?"

  "The man there had a tree fall on him. He operated. I guess that's theanswer."

  He considered the situation.

  "It's the answer to more than that," Reynolds said slowly. "It shows hehad come back to himself. If he hadn't he couldn't have done it."

  "And after that?" some one asked.

  "I lost him. He left to hike to the railroad, and he said nothing of hisplans. If I'd been able to make open inquiries I might have turnedup something, but I couldn't. It's a hard proposition. I had troublefinding Hattie Thorwald, too. She'd left the hotel, and is living withher son. She swears she doesn't know where Clifton Hines is, and hasn'tseen him for years."

  Bassett had been listening intently, his head dropped forward.

  "I suppose the son doesn't know about Hines?"

  "No. She warned me. He was surly and suspicious. The sheriff had sentfor him and question
ed him about how you got his horse, and I gatheredthat he thought I was a detective. When I told him I was a friend ofyours, he sent you a message. You may be able to make something out ofit. I can't. He said: `You can tell him I didn't say anything about theother time.'"

  Bassett sat forward.

  "The other time?"

  "He is under the impression that his mother got the horse for you oncebefore, about ten days before Clark escaped. At night, also."

  "Not for me," Bassett said decisively. "Ten days before that I was--" hegot out his notebook and consulted it. "I was on my way to the cabinin the mountains, where the Donaldsons had hidden Jud Clark. I hired ahorse at a livery stable."

  "Could the Thorwald woman have followed you?"

  "Why the devil should she do that?" he asked irritably. "She didn't knowwho I was. She hadn't a chance at my papers, for I kept them on me. Ifshe did suspect I was on the case, a dozen fellows had preceded me, andhalf of them had gone to the cabin."

  "Nevertheless," he finished, "I believe she did. She or Hines himself.There was some one on a horse outside the cabin that night."

  There was silence in the room, Harrison Miller thoughtfully drawing atrandom on the map before him. Each man was seeing the situation from hisown angle; to Reynolds, its medical interest, and the possibility ofhis permanency in the town; to Walter Wheeler, Elizabeth's spoiled younglife; to Harrison Miller, David; and to the reporter a conviction thatthe clues he now held should lead him somewhere, and did not.

  Before the meeting broke up Miller took a folded manuscript from thetable and passed it to Bassett.

  "Copy of the Coroner's inquiry, after the murder," he said. "Thought itmight interest you..."

  Then, for a time, that was all. Bassett, poring at home over the inquestrecords, and finding them of engrossing interest, saw the futility ofsaving a man who could not be found. And even Nina's faith, that thefabulously rich could not die obscurely, began to fade as the summerwaned. She restored some of her favor to Wallie Sayre, and even listenedagain to his alternating hopes and fears.

  And by the end of September he felt that he had gained real headway withElizabeth. He had come to a point where she needed him more than sherealized, where the call in her of youth for youth, even in trouble, wasinsistent. In return he felt his responsibility and responded to it. Inthe vernacular of the town he had "settled down," and the general trendof opinion, which had previously disapproved him, was now that Elizabethmight do worse.

  On a crisp night early in October he had brought her home from Nina's,and because the moon was full they sat for a time on the steps of theveranda, Wallie below her, stirring the dead leaves on the walk with hisstick, and looking up at her with boyish adoring eyes when she spoke.He was never very articulate with her, and her trouble had given her astrange new aloofness that almost frightened him. But that night, whenshe shivered a little, he reached up and touched her hand.

  "You're cold," he said almost roughly. He was sometimes rather savage,for fear he might be tender.

  "I'm not cold. I think it's the dead leaves."

  "Dead leaves?" he repeated, puzzled. "You're a queer girl, Elizabeth.Why dead leaves?"

  "I hate the fall. It's the death of the year."

  "Nonsense. It's going to bed for a long winter's nap. That's all. I'llbring you a wrap."

  He went in, and came out in a moment with her father's overcoat.

  "Here," he said peremptorily, "put this on. I'm not going to be calledon the carpet for giving you a sniffle."

  She stood up obediently and he put the big coat around her. Then,obeying an irresistible impulse, he caught her to him. He released herimmediately, however, and stepped back.

  "I love you so," he stammered. "I'm sorry. I'll not do it again."

  She was startled, but not angry.

  "I don't like it," was all she said. And because she did not want him tothink she was angry, she sat down again. But the boy was shaken. He gotout a cigarette and lighted it, his hands trembling. He could not thinkof anything to say. It was as though by that one act he had cut a bridgebehind him and on the other side lay all the platitudes, the small giveand take of their hours together. What to her was a regrettable incidentwas to him a great dramatic climax. Boylike, he refused to recognize itsunimportance to her. He wanted to talk about it.

  "When you said just now that you didn't like what I did just then, doyou mean you didn't like me to do it? Or that you don't care for thatsort of thing? Of course I know," he added hastily, "you're not thatkind of girl. I--"

  He turned and looked at her.

  "You know I'm still in love with you, don't you, Elizabeth?"

  She returned his gaze frankly.

  "I don't see how you can be when you know what you do know."

  "I know how you feel now. But I know that people don't go on lovinghopelessly all their lives. You're young. You've got"--he figuredquickly--"you've got about fifty-odd years to live yet, and some ofthese days you'll be--not forgetting," he changed, when he saw her quickmovement. "I know you'll not forget him. But remembering and loving aredifferent."

  "I wonder," she said, her eyes on the moon, and full of young tragedy."If they are, if one can remember without loving, then couldn't one lovewithout remembering?"

  He stared at her.

  "You're too deep for me sometimes," he said. "I'm not subtle, Elizabeth.I daresay I'm stupid in lots of things. But I'm not stupid about this.I'm not trying to get a promise, you know. I only want you to know howthings are. I don't want to know why he went away, or why he doesn'tcome back. I only want you to face the facts. I'd be good to you," hefinished, in a low tone. "I'd spend my life thinking of ways to make youhappy."

  She was touched. She reached down and put her hand on his shoulder.

  "You deserve the best, Wallie. And you're asking for a second best. Eventhat--I'm just not made that way, I suppose. Fifty years or a hundred,it would be all the same."

  "You'd always care for him, you mean?"

  "Yes. I'm afraid so."

  When he looked at her her eyes had again that faraway and yet flaminglook which he had come to associate with her thoughts of Dick. Sheseemed infinitely removed from him, traveling her lonely road pastloving outstretched hands and facing ahead toward--well, toward fiftyyears of spinsterhood. The sheer waste of it made him shudder.

  "You're cold, too, Wallie," she said gently. "You'd better go home."

  He was about to repudiate the idea scornfully, when he sneezed! She gotup at once and held out her hand.

  "You are very dear to feel about me the way you do" she said, ratherrapidly. "I appreciate your telling me. And if you're chilly when youget home, you'd better take some camphor."

  He saw her in, hat in hand, and then turned and stalked up the street.Camphor, indeed! But so stubborn was hope in his young heart that beforehe had climbed the hill he was finding comfort in her thought for him.

  Mrs. Sayre had been away for a week, visiting in Michigan, and he hadnot expected her for a day or so. To his surprise he found her on theterrace, wrapped in furs, and evidently waiting for him.

  "I wasn't enjoying it," she explained, when he had kissed her. "It'sa summer place, not heated to amount to anything, and when it turnedcold--where have you been to-night?"

  "Dined at the Wards', and then took Elizabeth home."

  "How is she?"

  "She's all right."

  "And there's no news?"

  He knew her very well, and he saw then that she was laboring undersuppressed excitement.

  "What's the matter, mother? You're worried about something, aren't you?"

  "I have something to tell you. We'd better go inside." He followed herin, unexcited and half smiling. Her world was a small one, of minordomestic difficulties, of not unfriendly gossip, of occasional moneyproblems, investments and what not. He had seen her hands tremble over amatter of a poorly served dinner. So he went into the house, closed theterrace window and followed her to the library. When she closed the doorhe rec
ognized her old tactics when the servants were in question.

  "Well?" he inquired. "I suppose--" Then he saw her face. "Sorry, mother.What's the trouble?"

  "Wallie, I saw Dick Livingstone in Chicago."