Sanctuary | Page 7

he flung his defence at her: a defence improvised, pieced together as he went along, to mask the crude instinctiveness of his act. For with increasing clearness Kate saw, as she listened, that there had been no real struggle in his mind; that, but for the grim logic of chance, he might never have felt the need of any justification. If the woman, after the manner of such baffled huntresses, had wandered off in search of fresh prey, he might, quite sincerely, have congratulated himself on having saved a decent name and an honest fortune from her talons. It was the price she had paid to establish her claim that for the first time brought him to a startled sense of its justice. His conscience responded only to the concrete pressure of facts.
It was with the anguish of this discovery that Kate Orme locked herself in at the end of their talk. How the talk had ended, how at length she had got him from the room and the house, she recalled but confusedly. The tragedy of the woman's death, and of his own share in it, were as nothing in the disaster of his bright irreclaimableness. Once, when she had cried out, "You would have married me and said nothing," and he groaned back, "But I have told you," she felt like a trainer with a lash above some bewildered animal.
But she persisted savagely. "You told me because you had to; because your nerves gave way; because you knew it couldn't hurt you to tell." The perplexed appeal of his gaze had almost checked her. "You told me because it was a relief; but nothing will really relieve you--nothing will really help you--till you have told some one who--who will hurt you."
"Who will hurt me--?"
"Till you have told the truth as--as openly as you lied."
He started up, ghastly with fear. "I don't understand you."
"You must confess, then--publicly--openly--you must go to the judge. I don't know how it's done."
"To the judge? When they're both dead? When everything is at an end? What good could that do?" he groaned.
"Everything is not at an end for you--everything is just beginning. You must clear yourself of this guilt; and there is only one way--to confess it. And you must give back the money."
This seemed to strike him as conclusive proof of her irrelevance. "I wish I had never heard of the money! But to whom would you have me give it back? I tell you she was a waif out of the gutter. I don't believe any one knew her real name--I don't believe she had one."
"She must have had a mother and father."
"Am I to devote my life to hunting for them through the slums of California? And how shall I know when I have found them? It's impossible to make you understand. I did wrong--I did horribly wrong--but that is not the way to repair it."
"What is, then?"
He paused, a little askance at the question. "To do better--to do my best," he said, with a sudden flourish of firmness. "To take warning by this dreadful--"
"Oh, be silent," she cried out, and hid her face. He looked at her hopelessly.
At last he said: "I don't know what good it can do to go on talking. I have only one more thing to say. Of course you know that you are free."
He spoke simply, with a sudden return to his old voice and accent, at which she weakened as under a caress. She lifted her head and gazed at him. "Am I?" she said musingly.
"Kate!" burst from him; but she raised a silencing hand.
"It seems to me," she said, "that I am imprisoned--imprisoned with you in this dreadful thing. First I must help you to get out--then it will be time enough to think of myself."
His face fell and he stammered: "I don't understand you."
"I can't say what I shall do--or how I shall feel--till I know what you are going to do and feel."
"You must see how I feel--that I'm half dead with it."
"Yes--but that is only half."
He turned this over for a perceptible space of time before asking slowly: "You mean that you'll give me up, if I don't do this crazy thing you propose?"
She paused in turn. "No," she said; "I don't want to bribe you. You must feel the need of it yourself."
"The need of proclaiming this thing publicly?"
"Yes."
He sat staring before him. "Of course you realize what it would mean?" he began at length.
"To you?" she returned.
"I put that aside. To others--to you. I should go to prison."
"I suppose so," she said simply.
"You seem to take it very easily--I'm afraid my mother wouldn't."
"Your mother?" This produced the effect he had expected.
"You hadn't thought of her, I suppose? It would probably kill her."
"It would have killed her to think