Chapter XV

To get back the jewel he had thought lost, was to be born into a new life in a new world. Denin had to tell the portrait in the redwood frame, what he felt, for he dared not tell Barbara herself. To have given her a glimpse of his heart would have been to show that its fire had not been kindled by friendship. His answer to her letter was so tame, so lifeless compared to the song of his soul, that it seemed something to laugh at--or to weep over. But there was a line he must not pass. He knew this well, and that his only happiness could be in the Mirador and in Barbara's friendly letters, as long as she cared to write. Mr. Carl Pohlson Bradley might go on bidding for the Mirador up to a million if he liked. There was no chance of his getting it! Denin was as sure of that, as he was of the shape of the world, or perhaps a little surer. Then, one day, a thunderbolt fell in the garden. It was dropped by the postman, in the form of a letter.

Barbara wrote, "Everything is changed since I wrote you six days ago. I can't live here any longer, under the same roof with a man whose one pleasure is to torture and insult me. I haven't spoken about him to you lately. There was no need, but things grew no better between us--worse, rather, for he resented the calmness I was finding through you. It made him furious apparently, that he had no longer the same power over me as at first, to drive me away from him, crying, or shaking all over with shame and anger at the dreadful things he said. I hardly cared at all of late days, when he called me a hypocrite, or a liar, or a damned fool, or other names far worse. I paid him a visit morning and evening, or at other times if he sent for me, and went out motoring or driving with him when he felt well enough to go. He refused to move without me, and so, as the doctor ordered fresh air for him, I couldn't refuse. When he was at his worst--or what I thought the worst then--I could look straight ahead, and think of things you said, hardly bearing his abuse.

"'This is my "bit" to do in the war days,' I reminded myself, and thought maybe my kind of fighting was almost as hard to do as the fighting in the trenches. Besides, I never lost sight of what you answered when I first told you how hard it was, living up to obligations I'd taken on myself. You said, 'We're all sparks of the one Great Fire, some brighter than others. We can't hate each other for long without finding out that it's as bad as hating ourselves.' Truly, I quite brought myself to stop hating him. I only pitied, and tried to help, as much as he would let me. But I see now that it was all in vain. I can't do him any good by staying, and--well, I just simply can't bear it! He is too ill to be moved. This dear old house will have to be his home while he drags on his death in life--which may mean years. So I, not he, must go.

"Lest you should blame me too much, I will tell you what happened, though I wasn't sure I would do so when I began to write.

"His valet is a trained nurse, a repellent person, though competent, with dull eyes and a face which looks as if it had petrified under his skin, because his soul--if any--belongs to the Stone Age. The creature's name happens to be Stone, too; and if he has any feeling it is love of money. His master has been bribing him, it seems, to spy upon me. While I was away from the house, at my mother's funeral, Stone was searching the drawers of my desk in the octagon study I've told you about, where I like to sit because it was my dearest one's favorite room.

"I had never thought of hiding your letters. There was nothing in them which needed to be hidden. Besides, it never occurred to me that cruel suspicions and disgusting ideas of baseness were wriggling round me, like little snakes that peep out from between the rough stones in a ruined wall. There they all were, bound together in a packet, the kind, brave letters that have been my salvation! Stone took them to his master, who sent for me when I came home after the funeral.

"As soon as I saw him, I knew that something unusual had happened. He flung his 'discovery' of the letters into my face. He told me that he had burnt all but a few which he would keep to 'use' against me, and tried to frighten me into promising never to write to 'this John Sanbourne' again. Of course I gave no promise. Instead, I told him that what he had done and said freed me from him forever. Then I went out of the room and left him there, helpless on his sofa. For the first time I felt no pity for him whatever--not so much as I should feel for a crushed wasp who had stung me. I haven't seen him since. I don't intend to see him again. But when I could get my thoughts in order after the fire of fury had cooled a little, I wrote to him. I said that I was sending for a lawyer, and would make some arrangement so that he should want for nothing. I told him that he might stay at Gorston Old Hall as long as he wished, but that I was going away almost immediately. Once gone, I should never return while he was in the house. I have always thought divorce very dreadful; but now I see how one's point of view changes when one's own interest is at stake. If I could, I would divorce this man, with whom my marriage has been a tragic farce. But I have no case against him legally. I knew when I consented to call myself his wife, that I should never be his wife really, and so, my solicitor says, I could not even sue for nullity of marriage. It wasn't I who thought of that. I don't remember having heard the term mentioned, though perhaps I have, without noticing, when such things seemed as far from my life as the earth from Mars. It was the lawyer who brought up the subject, but added the instant after, that nothing could be done, in the way of legal separation of any kind. He advised me to send the man away from Gorston Old Hall, saying that I should be more than justified. But I wouldn't agree to do that. For one thing, it would be like physical cruelty to a wounded animal. For another thing--even a stronger reason--the _temptation_ to send him away was--and is--terribly strong.

"I could feel myself trying to justify the idea to my own soul, as if I were pleading a case before a tribunal. I could hear myself argue that it was unfair to let such a man enjoy the home of my Dearest, whom he had already superseded too long. But I knew, deep within myself, that my Dearest would be the very one of all others to say, 'Let him stay on,' if he could come back and speak to us. In that same deep down, hidden place, was the knowledge of my real reason for wanting the man to go. To move him might easily break off the thread of his life. _That_ was the temptation: to do a thing which might seem just to every one who heard the circumstances, and to get rid of the intolerable burden--to be absolutely free of it as I could be in no other way.

"Of my own self, I'm afraid I couldn't have resisted the temptation. I should probably have thrown all responsibility on my solicitor, and let him settle everything as he thought best. The strength to resist has come through you, and what you have taught me. So it is that this man who has insulted you, and burned your letters, owes his comforts and perhaps his life itself, to you.

"There are many things which it is hard to forgive him, but I think the hardest of all is the loss of the letters. To lose them is like losing my talisman. But the ones he was keeping as a threat, I shall have again. The solicitor says he will force the man to give them up.

"Now that my leaving this dear house is settled, the next question is, What shall I do with my life, since my services as an untrained nurse are no longer pledged here? Already, though only a few days have passed, I've decided how to answer that question. I shall go into some hospital as a probationer, and as soon as I am qualified, I shall offer my services to the Red Cross. That may be sooner than with most amateurs, for already I've learned almost as much about nursing as hospital training of a year could have taught me. Wherever I'm sent, I'm willing to go. But before I take up this new work, I have a plan to carry out. Oh, how I wonder what you will say to it!

"Only a few weeks before she went out of the world, a cousin of my father's left Mother some property in California, quite valuable property, near Bakersfield. I don't know if you have ever been there, but of course you've heard that it is a great oil country. There are big wells on this property. If it had come to Mother earlier, she would have been overjoyed, because it would have made all the difference between skimping poverty and comparative riches. It came too late for her, and for me it isn't very important, so far as the money is concerned. There's another thing that makes it important, though. The place is in California! It seems like mending a link in a broken chain, to own land in dear California again.

"Mother always said she would hate to go back, but I never felt like that. Now, it seems to be rather necessary for me to go--or to send some one, to look into things which concern the property. We hear there has been mismanagement--perhaps dishonesty. Of course I know nothing about business myself, and should be of no use. But if I went to California, I would engage some good lawyer on the spot, to take care of my interests: and, _I could meet you_, my friend. That is, I could if you were willing. Would you be? Would you welcome me if I came one day to the gate of the little garden, and begged, 'Dear Hermit of the Mirador, will you give a poor tired traveler lunch in your pergola?'

"You see now that the legacy is only an excuse. I confess it. I shouldn't go to California just to straighten out things at the oil fields--no, not even if I lost the property by not going. But to see my friend who has given me back life, and love in the sweetness of memory and hope of future usefulness, I would travel with joy across the whole world instead of half.

"I know you refused to send your photograph, because I 'might be disillusioned.' But I _couldn't_ be disillusioned, because there's no illusion. Do I care what your looks may be? If you are ugly, I'm sure it's a beautiful, brave ugliness. Anyhow, _I_ should think it so. Please, therefore, don't put me off for any such reason as you gave about the photograph. It isn't really worthy of you, or even of me. Let us dare to be frank with each other. I've told you how much I want to see you and what it would mean to me. In return you must tell me whether you want me to come, or whether, because of some _real_ reason (which you may or may not choose to explain) you wish me to stay away.

"When you get this, there will be only time to telegraph to--Yours ever in unbreakable friendship, Barbara Denin."