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With a casual nod to Mrs. Marteen, he called to the nurse and led her
from the room, his finger rapidly tapping the sick-room chart, as if
medical directions were first in his mind.
Left alone, Gard approached the bed, and in answer to the unspoken
question in her eyes, fumbled in his pocket and brought forth the
thin packets of letters and the folded yellow cheques. One by one he
laid them where her hands could touch them. He dared not look at
her. He felt that her newly awakened soul was staring from her eyes
at the mute evidence of a degrading past.
A moment passed in silence that seemed a year of pain; then,
without a sob, without a sigh, she slowly handed him a bundle of
papers, withholding them only a moment as she verified the count;
then, with a slight movement she indicated the fireplace. He crossed
to it and placed the papers on the coals, where they flared a moment,
casting wavering shadows about the silent room, and died to black
wisps. Again and again he made the short journey from the bed to
the grate; each time she verified the contents of the envelopes before
delivering them to his hand.
127
Out of the Ashes
Last of all the two yellow cheques crisped to ashes. He stood looking
down upon them as they dropped and collapsed into cinders, and
from their ashes rose the phoenix of happiness. A glow of joyful
relief lighted his spirit. There, in those dead ashes, lay a dead past a
past that might have been the black future, but was now
relinquished forever, voluntarily gone gone! He realized a
supreme moment, a turning point. Fate looked him in the eyes.
He turned, and saw a face transfigured. There was a light in Mrs.
Marteen s eyes that matched the glow in his own heart. Very
reverently he raised her hand and kissed it; two sudden tears fell hot
upon her cheeks and her lips quivered.
He had never seen her show emotion, and it went to his heart. He
saw her gaze at her hands with dilating eyes, and divined before she
spoke the question she whispered:
 Who killed Victor Mahr?
He bent above her gravely.  His wife. The wife he had cruelly
wronged his wife, who escaped at last from an asylum. She is quite
mad now. She is in our hands, and to-night, at eleven o clock, the
district attorney will be at my house to see her and have the evidence
laid before him to save Teddy, he added quickly.
She looked at him wildly.  His wife the wife that I 
He took her hand quickly. He feared to hear the words that he knew
she was about to say.
 Yes, he nodded.  Yes she killed him.
Mrs. Marteen sank slowly back upon her pillows and lay with closed
eyes. A heavy pulse beat in the arteries at her throat, and a scarlet
spot burned on either cheek.
 Nemesis, she murmured.  Nemesis. She lay still for a moment.
 Thank God! she said at length, and let her hands fall relaxed upon
the counterpane. She seemed as if asleep but for the quick intake of
her breath.
128
Out of the Ashes
Gard gazed upon her with infinite tenderness, yet with sudden bitter
consciousness of the isolation of each individual soul. She was
remote, withdrawn. Even his eager sympathy could not reach the
depths of her self-tortured heart. But now at last he knew her, a
completed being. The soul was there, palpitant, awake. The
something he had so sorely missed was the living and real presence
of spirit. It came over him in a wave of realization that he, too, had
been unconscious of his own higher self until his love had made him
feel the need of it in her. They two, from the depths of self-satisfied
power, had gone blindly in their paths of self-seeking till each had
awakened the other. A strange, retarded spiritual birth.
He looked back over his long career of remorseless success with
something of the self-horror he had read in her eyes as he had placed
the incriminating papers in her frail hands. And as she had cast
contamination from her, so he promised himself he would thrust
predatory greed from his own life. They were both born anew. They
would both be true to their own souls.
129
Out of the Ashes
XVI
The softened electric light suffused a glamour of glowing color over
the rich brocade of the walls of Marcus Gard s library, catching a
glint here and there on iridescent plaques, or a mellow high light on
the luscious patine of an antique bronze. The stillness, so
characteristic of the place, seemed to isolate it from the whole world,
save when a distant bell musically announced the hour.
Brencherly sat facing his employer, respecting his anxious silence,
while they waited the coming of the district attorney, to whose
clemency they must appeal surely common humanity would
counsel protective measures, secrecy, in the proceeding of the law.
The links in the chain of evidence were now complete, but more than
diplomacy would be required in order to bring about the legal
closing of the affair without precipitating a scandal. Gard s own
hasty actions led back to his fear for Mrs. Marteen, that in turn
involved the cause of that suspicion. To convince the newsmongers
that the crime was one of an almost accidental nature, he felt would
be easy. An escaped lunatic had committed the murder. That
revenge lay behind the insane act would be hidden. If necessary, the
authorities of the asylum could be silenced with a golden gag but
the law?
Neither of the two men, waiting in the silent house, underestimated
the importance of the coming interview.
The night was already far spent, and the expected visitor still
delayed. At length the pale secretary appeared at the door to
announce his coming.
Gard rose from his seat, and extended a welcoming hand to gray-
haired, sharp-featured District Attorney Field.
Brencherly bowed with awkward diffidence.
Gard s manner was ease and cordiality itself, but his heart misgave
him. So much depended upon the outcome of this meeting. He
would not let himself dwell upon its possibilities, but faced the
situation with grim determination.
130
Out of the Ashes
 Well, Field, he said genially,  let me thank you for coming. You
are tired, I know. I m greatly indebted to you, but I m coming
straight to the point. The fact is, we, and he swept an including
gesture toward his companion,  have the whole story of Victor
Mahr s death. Brencherly is a detective in my personal employ.
Field bowed and turned again to his host.  The person of the
murderer is in our care, Gard continued.  But before we make this
public before we draw in the authorities, there are things to be
considered.
He paused a moment. The district attorney s eyes had snapped with
surprise.
 You don t mean to tell me, he said slowly,  that you have the key
to that mystery! Have you turned detective, Mr. Gard? Well, nothing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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