Gibbs George
The Splendid Outcast

CHAPTER VII
AWAKENING

Moira moved about in a daze, attempting in the commonplaces of the daily routine to forget the thought of the revelation which she knew could not be long delayed. She had lain all night on the divan in the studio, listening and waiting for the return of the soldier, and at last, toward daylight, from sheer exhaustion of mind and body, had fallen asleep. When she awoke, her first impulse was to go to the room in the hallway and knock. She opened the door. The bed had not been occupied.

Slowly, thoughtfully, she went back to the studio and the business of preparing the coffee – for herself – and for Harry – when he should arrive. Her mind was filled with strange doubts, – not of him, because she had learned to have a complete, a perfect faith in this soldier that she had married, who had left New York under a cloud of uncertainties and suspicions and had come back to her spiritually reborn. The doubts in her mind were those that he had purposely created in it, and fragments of phrases that he had uttered in their moments of tenderness came back to alarm and disturb her, because if he hadn't thought it necessary to alarm and disturb her, he would have remained silent and permitted himself to enjoy with her the hours that had been theirs together. Yes … there was something that had come to thrust itself between them – some impediment to their union. She smiled softly at the memory of the restraint in his caresses, the purity of his smile and the gentleness of his abnegation… He had underestimated the quality of her new faith in him.

Was this shadow out of the past? Perhaps. But it wouldn't matter. Together they would exorcise it. Only the future mattered now – their future together.

She stopped for a moment in her work of putting the studio to rights and listened. She thought that she heard a step upon the stair. She waited a while and then went to the door and peered out. No one. It was a little cruel that he had not sent her a message – a note, a petit bleu even, telling when she must expect him, whatever his appearance might bring. For this, she realized, was the "to-morrow" of which he had spoken yesterday … the day of revelations…

She tried to sing at her work but the effort was a failure. A morbid fear of the thing that was to happen, if it hadn't already happened, obsessed and held her. Nine – ten o'clock – eleven… With a courage born of desperation she went into her room and put on her hat. It was insupportable, the suspense. There were some things to buy. She must order them. And leaving word with Madame Toupin that she would return within the hour, she walked briskly forth, breasting the keen air and trying to smile. But even her walk was a failure, and in a short while she was back, eagerly questioning Madame Toupin. No, Monsieur le Lieutenant had not arrived. No doubt he was busy about the ceremony of the presentation of the medals. Moira inquired and Madame Toupin showed her an article in the paper about the honors to be given both French and American officers next week in the Place de la Concord. There was his name, "Henry G. Horton – Croix de Guerre." Madame Toupin let her have the paper and she ran up to the studio, where she read it eagerly, thrilling with pride.

Of course he had his reasons for not coming to her and telling her everything. She must be patient – her faith in him unwavering. He would come to her to-night again – and whatever he told her was to make no difference in her love and faith in him – whatever he told her – she swore it.

* * * * *

Late that night he came. She had built a fire of fagots against the chill of the night and was sitting in the big armchair by the hearth when she heard a knock at the studio door. With a cry of welcome she rose and rushed to greet him, throwing herself impulsively into his arms.

"Harry," she gasped happily, "at last!"

She couldn't help noting the slight movement of recoil before her tenderness. Then, bending his head,

"Hello, Moira," he muttered.

She helped him off with his overcoat and led him over to the fire, making him sit in the big arm-chair. He obeyed awkwardly, as one in a daze, his brows frowning. The light was uncertain, but what she saw alarmed her.

"Harry! What has happened to you?" she cried, catching him by the hands and holding them. "You're ill – your fingers are cold – you look as though – What has happened?"

"Nothing," he murmured with an attempt at a smile. "Nothing at all." But even the smile was different, as though the muscles acted in obedience to an effort.

She had struck a match to make a light.

"What – what are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to see what's the matter with you. You look sick. You need medicine."

"No," he protested. "I'm just tired. A drink of whisky if you've got one – "

She went into Barry Quinlevin's room and brought forth a bottle, a glass and a pitcher of water. With a hand that trembled a little, he poured himself a drink and took it at a draught, and then gave a gasp of relief. She had sat down near him and was regarding him with an expression of intentness and eagerness, though the pucker at her brows indicated a doubt and a fear. The gas light was at his back and she could not clearly see his face, but there was something strange about him that she had missed at his first entrance, a brooding sullenness, remote, self-centered, that even the smile could not temper with sweetness. And even while she watched he poured out another glass of whisky.

"What is it, Harry?" she asked. "Tell me."

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm all in, I've had some worries. I'll be all right.'

"Have you had something to eat?"

"Yes. I'm not hungry."

His voice too … thin, weary, somber.

Now greatly alarmed, she caught his hand in both of hers.

"You must tell me everything, Harry. I don't care what it is – I – I've got to know. You told me that you'd tell me to-day – to-night, and now you must keep your promise. I've tried so hard not to worry and – and when you didn't come back to me last night, I – I was really frightened – "

"Were you?" he said, with a frown. "I was all right."

"I'm glad. But it was cruel of you not to send me a message."

"I couldn't. But I'm here now, Moira. So there's no need worrying any more."

He put his hand over hers and leaned toward her. His words, which last night would have given her happiness, seemed somehow to mean nothing to her to-night. For his very presence in this condition was a threat against her peace of mind. And his fingers might have been wax for all that their touch meant to her.

"You – you're trying to make things seem better than they are," she said steadily, wondering at her own words. "I – I'm not easily deceived. Last night I knew that something had come between us. I know now that it's still between us, Harry, whatever you say."

He turned away toward the glass at his elbow,

"No," he murmured, "that difficulty – has been removed."

He couldn't repress the smile of triumph as he took his drink, and she saw it. It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"Come," he went on more easily, "aren't you glad to see me?"

"I – God knows whether I am or not. Something has happened to you – to me… You've been through something terrible – since yesterday – something that has burnt the soul of you. What is it? What is it? The touch of your fingers – your voice, they come from a distance-like, with nothing of you in them. Am I ill that I should be thinking of you so? Take me in your arms, Harry, and shield me from this terror that you're not yourself, but some one else."

He obeyed, putting his arms around her and holding her close to him. But at the touch of his lips to hers, she struggled free and faced him by the hearth, pale as death. The look of bewilderment at her brows had intensified into a steady gaze, almost of terror at the thought that had suddenly mastered her. And yet she did not dare give utterance to it. It was so outlandish, so mad and incomprehensible.

She saw the frown of anger, quickly masked in a smile of patience as she broke away from him, and that confirmed her in her madness. She was reading him keenly now from top to toe, missing nothing. And the thought that dominated her was that the man with whom she had mated during the past weeks, the man who had passed through the shadow of death, reborn in body and spirit, the Harry that she had recently learned to love – was dead; and that this man who had come to take his place – this man – was what he might have been if God's grace had not fallen on him. Madness? Perhaps. And yet how otherwise would the touch of his lips, which last night she had sought in tenderness, have been so repellent to her? Harry – her husband – unregenerate – the same Harry that…

She kept her gaze fixed upon him and she saw his look flicker and fade.

If this reality was Harry, her husband, then were all the weeks that had passed since she found him in the hospital merely a dream, was yesterday a dream – last night?

"I – I don't know – what is the matter," she said at last, passing a hand across her brows. "I – I am not well, perhaps. But you – you're not the – not the same. I know it. The thoughts that I have of you frighten me."

He forced a laugh and sank into his chair again, lighting a cigarette with an assumption of ease.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She only stood staring at him, her deep blue eyes never wavering from his face, which was still averted from the light. He met that gaze once – a second time, and then looked away, but still they stared at him, wide like a child's, but full of a dawning wisdom.

"You – you are Harry Horton – my – my husband?" she whispered in a kind of daze.

"Well, rather."

She paused another long moment as though on the verge of a difficult decision and then spoke searchingly.

"If you are Harry – my husband – then who —who is the other?"

Harry Horton started. "The other – ?"

"The other – who was here with me yesterday, who was ill in the hospital at Neuilly, wounded – the hero of Boissière wood?"

"Moira," he said, rising, "this is serious. There has been no other here."

"Yes," she repeated doggedly, "the other has been here – your twin – " The word seemed born of her necessity. "Your twin," she repeated.

He winced at the word and she saw the change in his expression.

"Tell me the truth of this thing," she went on quickly, "he said yesterday that something was to come between us. It was you." And then, as he made no reply, "For God's sake, speak – "

He turned away from the light.

"I'm your husband," he muttered hoarsely.

"Show me your wounds," she gasped suddenly, reasoning with singular directness.

He glanced at her once, then bent forward. There upon the left side of his head in a shaved spot was a cross of adhesive tape. She touched it aimlessly with her fingers and then suddenly, before he could rise, with a quick deft movement tore it away from his skull. And quickly as he straightened she had seen enough.

There was no wound.

"What's this deviltry?" he muttered, his face an angry red.

But the look that he met in her eyes pierced all subterfuge.

"You have not been wounded," she gasped.

He leaned forward in his fury as though to strike her, but she stood up to him resolutely until the color faded from his face and he straightened slowly.

"Well," he muttered with a shrug, "I haven't." And then, folding his arms he found her gaze. "What of it?" he asked shortly.

She glanced down at the slips of adhesive tape and then let them fall through her fingers.

"I'm glad," she said coolly, "that you've decided not to carry on the lie – "

He laughed again. "Well, it looks as though it were hardly worth while."

Already all her thoughts were beyond him.

"Who – who is the other?" she asked at last, with a cold precision that might have come from a disembodied spirit.

He waited a moment before replying and then his tone matched her own.

"I can hardly wonder at your interest after the warmth of your greeting when I came in."

The shot told and she colored painfully.

"Who – who is he?" she repeated with an effort.

He smiled. "There's no harm in your knowing, since you've guessed the rest. He's my twin brother, Jim Horton."

"Jim," she gasped below her breath.

"We met in the confusion on the battlefield," he went on. "I had been shell-shocked and he put on my uniform to lead my men – "

"Shell – shock – "

"Yes. He took my uniform. It was a fool proceeding. When I came to, everything was in confusion. He would have been courtmartialed and shot if I had turned up, so I went back to the lines and came to Paris – "

"While he won you the Croix de Guerre. And you're going to step into his shoes – "

"They're my shoes. It's not my fault – "

"And he – what's to become of him?"

"That's his lookout. He merely disappears from the scene."

She leaned heavily against the mantel shelf, breathing fast. But she had no reply, and so he went on unpleasantly.

"Now, perhaps you would like to explain."

"I have nothing to explain."

"Not the joy in your eyes when I came in? The kisses you gave me that you thought were for him?"

"I ask no forgiveness," she said in a hollow tone.

"Of course you thought he was your husband. And he let you think so."

"Yes. He let me think so," she repeated, parrot-like.

And all the while her horror of her situation increased – her anger at "the other" who had dared to place her in this false position.

She saw her husband's bony fingers clasp the chair arm.

"You were easily deceived," he went on. "It's hardly flattering to me. I would like to know – "

He stopped suddenly, his question in abeyance before the challenge in her eyes, aroused by the tone of his voice. She read his thought and answered him.

"He came here from the hospital night before last. He wanted to go to a pension but I would not permit it – "

"That was kind of you. But I'm not blind. And your kisses for him were warm on your lips when you greeted me."

She paled and drooped in her shame.

"What have you to say about that?" he went on tensely. "Do you think that I'm the kind to stand by idly and see a man take my wife's kisses?"

"No. You're not," she answered slowly. "You've already answered me." And then, with a painful effort, "What have you done with him?"

He sank into the armchair with a laugh. "With him? Nothing. He has gone. That's all."

"I don't believe you."

"That's your privilege. He has gone. He thought he had gone about far enough. And I'm almost ready to believe that you agree with him."

"No," she stammered, pleading against her own will, against her outraged pride. "There was a reason for what he did – an honorable reason. There must have been."

"The marks of it are not very clear to me. If you can see anything honorable in trying to steal the love of one's brother's wife – "

He paused, for he saw the danger signals flying in her eyes, and tried to shrug his anger off. "What's the use? I'm no fool. Whether he tried to win you or not, it's clear that neither of you was over-scrupulous about me."

She didn't reply at once and when she did speak her words came slowly and with dignity.

"I don't know why it is that he should have kept silent about you. He has done me a hurt – irreparable. When I visited him in the hospital, it was you that I visited, you that I went to cheer, to take my place by your side. I thanked God when I saw you that you had grown to be – what you were, what I had wanted you to be. And I loved you for what you had suffered."

He started up from his chair.

"Moira – "

"Wait a moment," she insisted, still struggling to give her thoughts expression. "I want you to understand. I thought that it was you who had come back to me – as I wished you to come back – in honor and pride of your service of your country. And instead of you I find – another – with your wounds, your honors – if it was your brother – in spite of the false position he's placed me in – I honor him for those wounds as I would have honored you – and I honor him still more – because he has thought enough of his honor and of mine – to give up everything that he has won and gone out into the darkness – alone."

At this, Harry Horton's fury relaxed in a laugh. He poured himself out another drink.

"You can spare him these new honors."

She glanced at him keenly but he was too angry to notice.

"He went – away – because he had to," he muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. It was getting too hot for him."

The meaning under his words came to her slowly. She watched him for a moment curiously, leaning toward him, studying the ugly lines at lip and brow that he no longer took pains to conceal. And then she guessed at the truth.

"What have you done with him?" she whispered.

"N – nothing."

"You lie." She knew no fear of him now, and leaned forward, clutching at his shoulder. "You've dealt unfairly with him – you've – " She halted in terror of her thoughts.

"He got what he deserved," he muttered sullenly.

"What have you done?" she repeated.

"Put him where he won't mess in my affairs again. See here, Moira," he caught her wrists and held her, "I'm just about fed up with this. I've been patient about long enough. You're my wife. And I'm going to keep you. Do you think after all I've suffered I'm going to stand for this kind of treatment now?"

"Let go my wrists – you're hurting me – "

"No – " Instead, he drew her closer to him. "I don't care about this foolishness with Jim. I think you can see that you've made a fool of yourself and of me. But I'm willing to forget it, if you'll do the square thing. I'm back here and I'm back to stay – and I'm going to make you love me whether you want to or not."

"Let me go, Harry."

"Kiss me."

"No." She struggled in his arms, but he only held her the more closely. "Moira. I want you. You're mine. You belong to me by every law – "

"No – no."

But he mastered her, pressing her throat back and kissing her upon the lips. She lay quiet in his arms, weak from the struggle. He took her immobility for acquiescence and caught her more tightly in his arms.

"Let me go," she gasped. "Do you hear?"

A saner man would have caught the warning note. But Harry Horton was beyond warnings. She fought with renewed strength and then, all else failing, struck him full in the face with her clenched fist.

His arms relaxed in astonishment and she sprang away, putting a small table between them.

Breathing rapidly, she saw him put his fingers to his cheek and then look at them in a bewildered way.

"I see," she heard him muttering to himself, "so that's the way of it – "

The blow brought him to his senses, and he stared at her for a moment as though at a person he had never seen before. Her eyes burned like a blue flame in the pallor of her face and the hand that clutched the table trembled violently. And yet it was not the fear of him that made her tremble, but the fear of herself and of the sudden dreadful awakening at the edge of the chasm that yawned between them.

CHAPTER VIII
THREATS

The silence seemed endless and yet she dared not trust herself to speak. Her throat closed and it seemed that the blood from her heart was drowning her. And yet she watched him tensely, aware of the crisis, aware too of the revelations that seemed to have laid her heart bare to all the world.

Her husband reached the large table and poured out what remained of the whisky. Then she heard his laugh again, and saw him leering at her over his glass.

"Lucky dog, I am. Pretty little devil to come home to. Love tap!" He shrugged and raised his glass. "To our better acquaintance!"

She made no sound, but while her eyes watched, her mind was working rapidly. His air was braggart, but she could see that he wasn't any too sure of himself. He had thought to come here and by the ruse of the adhesive plaster merge his identity into that of his brother Jim. The lapse of time since she had seen him and the illness had deceived her in the hospital. And so he had figured on the remarkable resemblance to his brother to help him carry off this situation with a careless hand. But he hadn't reckoned with the alertness of her woman's intuitions, or – God help her – the tenderness of yesterday, which held the image of the brother so close to her heart. Something of what was passing in her mind seemed to come to him.

"So you've fallen in love with my pretty brother?" he muttered.

"No."

"Complaisant husband —mari complaisant. You wanted Jim to take you in his arms – and you only had me. You don't care for my kisses. Why not? We're just alike – as like as two peas in a pod. What's the difference? Come now. Tell me. I'll be a good sport."

"We – we've got to come to an understanding – " she gasped at last desperately.

"Exactly – an understanding. That's what I'm getting at – " he laughed and sank into a chair by the lay figure. "Oh, don't be disturbed. I'm not going to try to kiss you again. It's too dangerous."

She watched him intently while he took out a package of cigarettes and lighted one. And then, with a wave of the hand, "An understanding – by all means. Fire away."

"It isn't necessary to go into the past, except to say what you know already – that our marriage was a horrible mistake. But we did have an understanding then – that you were to wait – that you were to – to make good – and that I was to try to – to care for you."

"Quite so. And we've both failed?"

"Thanks. We – we have both failed," she repeated. "I can't say I ever really believed we should succeed until – "

"Until you went to the hospital."

She bent her head. "The main thing is," she went on more evenly as she gathered courage, "that whatever my hopes were for you, now at least you've forfeited all claim to consideration."

"Why? Because I take a fancy to my own uniform – my own personality?"

"Because you – " she paused to catch her breath, "because you've stooped to something – something unworthy – something vile and terrible, perhaps – God knows, to get rid of a man – your own brother, – who did you a service; and because you'll dare to receive honors that don't belong to you." And then, as he started up, "One moment. I don't know what happened on the battlefield. If you were injured, it was a glorious – foolish thing Jim Horton did for you. But whatever he did and whatever his motive, it deserves something of you – something different from what you've confessed. Tell me what you have done with him and I'll try to believe you."

"He's quit, I told you," he protested. "There wasn't anything else for him – "

"Where is he?"

"What does it matter? He's out of your life – out of mine."

"No – not out of your life – " she paused.

"What do you mean?"

"Merely that the truth of this thing must be told."

"Impossible. It would ruin us both."

She gave a little gasp of relief.

"Tell me where he is."

"He's safe – "

She deliberated a moment.

"You've got to prove it to me. He said he was coming back to the studio to-day. Instead, you came – in the uniform he wore. He didn't give it to you willingly – "

"Yes," he lied sullenly. "He gave it to me. There wasn't anything else to do when I turned up. He realized he couldn't stay here – with you." And then, "Oh, he was square enough about it."

There was a long pause. He didn't ring true. She had almost forgotten, as he had, what he had said in the fury of his jealousy. She was aware that he had risen unsteadily from his chair and was approaching her.

"So here, Moira," he said in an ingratiating tone. "I'm not a bad sort – really I'm not. I – I was out of my head awhile ago – the way you came up to me, thinking I was him. I guess I wanted to hurt you – the way you had hurt me. I'm sorry. I won't touch your fingers even, if you don't want me to. I was a rotter to try to kiss you. I ought to have known you didn't want me to – when I – I had had one or two too many. I've been worried too – devilish worried about the whole thing. Let's forget it and talk the thing over sensibly. There may be a way out. I don't want any honors that don't belong to me, but I don't want to be dismissed from the service, either, or shot – on Jim's account. But we've got to keep this thing quiet."

She understood his drift. The facts in her possession made her dangerous.

"It can't be kept quiet, so long as Jim Horton is in danger."

"Who said he was in danger? I said he'd quit – "

"But you lied. He hasn't quit. He isn't the quitting kind. He was to have come to me to-day, and told me the truth – I didn't know what it all meant then. But I do now. He has got to have his chance."

She saw him glare at her somberly.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Take me to him – to-night."

"That's impossible. I couldn't find him."

"Yes. You can find him. Or he would have found me."

He smeared out the ash of his cigarette in a receiver and rose, his face livid.

"You seem very sure of him – and of yourself. And if I don't find him for you, what are you going to do?"

"I shall tell what I know to the proper authorities."

He stood for a moment balked and then before she knew what he was about he stumbled to the studio door and turning the key in the lock put it in his pocket. She was frightened by the significance of the action, and ran quickly toward the door of her own room. He turned and moved to intercept her but awkwardly and she slammed the door in his face, catching the bolt on the inside.

She was frightened now, desperately frightened, but resolved to escape and tell what she knew. The brother – Jim – was in danger – a prisoner somewhere – otherwise he would have come to her. Much as his silence had injured her, deeply as her pride was hurt at the position in which he had placed her, she knew now that he had intended to tell the truth from his own lips and warn her of Harry's return before he left her and went away alone. He loved her… It was his love that had sought to spare her the humiliation of this very knowledge that had come to her. Shell-shock! There was another reason for the substitution. What? But whatever it was, there seemed little difficulty in choosing between them. The other – Jim – the man she loved … she acknowledged it in every impulse … would have come to her. She had to find him. Just what she meant to do she didn't know, except to get away from Harry. He was hammering on the door now – pleading with her. But she didn't answer. Catching up her hat and a heavy coat, she went quietly to her own door into the hall, and, while he still hammered and pleaded, fled quickly down the stairs and into the lodge of the concierge.

Madame Toupin, aroused suddenly from her doze, started up in amazement.

"Madame Horton, what is it?" she asked in French.

"It is a game we play, Madame Toupin. You shall hide me in your closet. And when Monsieur le Lieutenant comes you shall say that I have run out into the street. You understand?"

"Parfaitement, Madame. Ah, les jeux d'amour. Entrez vite." And she opened the door of the closet which Moira entered quickly.

Then Madame Toupin with a smile of wisdom composed herself to read her paper. And in a moment a clatter of boots upon the stairway and the sound of footsteps upon the paving of the courtyard announced the approach of the officer. Through a crack in the door Moira listened to the conversation which Madame conducted with her amiable smile, and presently Harry Horton withdrew frowning and went out hurriedly into the Rue de Tavennes.

But while she stood upright in the closet listening, Moira had formulated a plan. It was clear from the tone of Harry's voice and his haste to go that her escape had frightened him. For his judgment was not amiss when he decided that Moira was fully capable of carrying out her threat to tell the whole story to the military authorities. But instead of clinging to her original intention, a new idea had come to her.

If she followed him, she could perhaps get a clue to the mystery of Jim Horton's disappearance. She couldn't understand yet – couldn't make herself believe that this man that she had married could be capable of a thing so vile. But the evidence – his own words stammered in his fury, were damning. The familiar formulas seemed to have no bearing now. The war had made men demi-gods or devils and Harry… It did not seem very difficult to decide to-night what Harry was.

She slipped on her heavy coat and the hat she had brought and with a word of explanation and caution to Madame Toupin, she went out into the street. Far down upon the opposite sidewalk she saw a tall figure striding away into the darkness. She followed, keeping at a distance, her coat collar turned up and her broad-brimmed hat pushed well down over her eyes. She hurried along, keeping in the shadow of the opposite side of the street, trembling with the excitement of her venture and wondering what was to be its outcome, but sure from his gait that the situation she had created had developed in Harry Horton's hazy brain some definite plan of action. She noticed too that he no longer swayed or stumbled and that he glanced furtively to left and right at the street corners, peering back toward her from time to time. But she matched her wits to his, crouching into corners as he turned and then running forward breathlessly in the dark places, keeping him in sight. He turned into the narrow reaches of the Rue de Monsieur le Prince, past the Lycéeand the École de Médicine, and crossed the Boulevard St. Germain into the network of small streets in the direction of the river, twisting and turning in a way which confirmed her belief in the dishonesty of his purposes. It was now long after midnight, and the streets into which they moved were quiet and almost deserted. From the direction of the Boule' Miche' came a rumble of vehicles, the glare of lights, the distant grunt of an automobile-horn, the clatter of a cab horse down an echoing street. The neighborhood was unfamiliar to her, a part of old Paris near the Isle de la Cité, where the houses, relics of antiquity, were huddled into ghostly groups, clinging to one another, illumined fitfully by murky bracket-lamps which only served to make their grim façades more somber and fantastic. Dark shapes emerged from darker shadows and leered at her – evil figures, bent and bedraggled, or painted and bedizened, the foul night-creatures of the city, the scavengers, the female birds of prey, the nighthawks, the lepers. Twice she was accosted, once by a vile hag that clutched at her arm with skinny talons, and again by a man who tried to bar her way, but with a strength born of her desperation she thrust him aside and ran on, her gaze seeking the tall figure that she followed.