The brutality of the arraignment shook her. She leaned against the chair for support. She felt hopeless, helpless, defenseless, and it was because the need for justice still impelled her, that she protested anew.
“Gulian, if only you knew! If only you had had that letter! Had it reached you, you would know that there was no deceit, that I left you for your sake as well as my own. Gulian, if I had not gone you would have seen and made me tell you, and then it may be you would have taken me and thrown me with you from the yacht.”
There were tears in her words. With one hand she held to the chair, the other she raised to her head. It pained her. She felt bruised and looked it.
“Ecce panis Angelorum
Factus cibus viatorum—”
Beyond, sustained by the arpeggios of the organ, the voice of a singer mounted sheerly like a thread of gold. It lowered and heightened. Presently, on a note, as if abruptly snapped, it ceased. The organ continued. It renewed the canticle. It projected a scale that ascended slowly, as though upward and onward, over the limitless steps of eternity, it were lifting the soul of the dead.
Leilah wished it were her own. Sadly she added:
“God knows it would have been better. Anything would be better than that you should speak to me as you do.”
There is an innocence that appeals, a sincerity that disarms, a candour that outfaces every proof, and Verplank, who had been bent on overwhelming this woman with a contempt which he felt wholly deserved, was impressed, in spite of himself, by the evident ingenuousness, by the evident wretchedness, too, of her words.
He moved back.
“You say I would have made you tell me?”
“Yes. Yes. You would have.”
“But made you tell me what?”
Leilah, still holding one hand to her head, raised the other from the chair, and with it made a gesture slight, yet desolate.
“What was it?” he asked.
Before replying, she looked away.
“What I hid from you rather than repeat.”
“But repeat what?”
Her face still turned from him, she answered:
“Something, my—something Mr. Ogston sent me.”
“Mr. Ogston!” Verplank exclaimed. The formality of the statement astounded him. “Do you mean your father? What did he send you?”
But Leilah would not or could not speak. Her mouth contracted as though she were choking, and she put a hand to her throat.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
She turned, and beseechingly she looked at him.
“Gulian, I cannot.”
At that Verplank moved nearer, and so dominatingly that again she extended her hands.
“Gulian, I will get someone else to tell you. I had intended to. Believe me, it is better so.”
“It concerns me?”
“Yes, you.”
“And you?”
“Yes, both of us.”
“Then you shall tell me, and tell me now. Do you hear?”
“Gulian!” she cried. She raised her clasped hands to him. “Gulian!”
But Verplank, his jaw ominously square, confronted her.
“I say you shall.”
“Don’t look at me then,” she pleaded. “Bend your head, bend it lower. One second, then I will. One second—one. Ah, God! I cannot.”
Verplank, who at her bidding had stooped, straightened himself, and caught at her.
“I say you shall.”
“Gulian, a moment. Give me a moment. Now bend your head again. One moment, Gulian; your father, your father—My mother loved him.”
“Your mother loved my father!”
“Gulian, I am his daughter.”
“You are what?”
“I am your sister.”
As she whispered it, she covered her face. Verplank started, straightened again, raised his arm, and, with a gesture wide, elemental, absurd, and human, struck at the empty air.
Savagely he turned to her.
“And you believe this?”
Leilah, her head bowed, her face covered, shook with sobs.
“You believe it?” he repeated.
“There were letters,” she stammered. “Three letters. No one could read them and not—and not—”
“And it was for this you left me?”
A fresh access seized her. He could not see her tears, he heard them.
“And it was for this you got a divorce?”
On the chair beside her was her bag. She felt in it, and got out a handkerchief.
“And it was for this you took that cad?”
Slowly, with infinite hesitations, the bit of cambric held to a face that was wet and white, she turned to him.
“I thought you would forget. I thought you would marry. I thought you would be happy. I hoped so that you would. But my leaving you, the divorce, the marriage, these things were done with no idea of happiness. They were to serve as barriers between us.”
Impotently he stamped a foot. He was furious still. But his anger had deflected. He was enraged less at her than at circumstances.
“Rubbish! That’s what your barriers are.”
Leilah, wiping her eyes, turned from him. The barriers, however fragile, were not rubbish to her.
Violently he continued:
“As for Barouffski—”
But Leilah, turning to him again, interrupted:
“Gulian, let me tell you. Last night I planned to have someone ask you, for my sake, to go away. Gulian, I thought you would, but I determined if you would not that I would go.”
Verplank moved back.
“Go! Go where?”
“Ah! God knows! Anywhere. Wherever I could hide myself. Wherever I could hide my love for you.”
Her eyes had been raised to his. At the confession they lowered of themselves. Then again she looked him in the face.
“Gulian, it is that which cried shame at me. It is that which scourged me with rods bitterer than those of which you spoke. You say the barriers are nothing. Gulian, you are wrong. To me they are eternal.”
“Yes,” he angrily retorted. “Yes, if your story were true. But it isn’t. It’s arrant nonsense.”
In miserable protest, she half raised a hand.
“Gulian, when I read those letters my youth died in me. Never since they reached me have I had the heart to smile. If you had seen them you would have felt the truth in every line.”
“I would have felt nothing of the kind; the fact that you still care for me ought to show you that they are false.”
“Gulian, I tried to think that, too; but even in trying I felt that
