CHAPTER I.

IN A YEAR.

The room fronted the west, but a black cloud, barred with red, robbed

the hour of twilight's tranquil charm. Shadows haunted it, lurking in

corners like spies set there to watch the man who stood among them mute

and motionless as if himself a shadow. His eye turned often to the

window with a glance both vigilant and eager, yet saw nothing but a

tropical luxuriance of foliage scarcely stirred by the sultry air heavy

with odors that seemed to oppress not refresh. He listened with the same

intentness, yet heard only the clamor of voices, the tramp of feet, the

chime of bells, the varied turmoil of a city when night is defrauded of

its peace by being turned to day. He watched and waited for something;

presently it came. A viewless visitant, welcomed by longing soul and

body as the man, with extended arms and parted lips received the

voiceless greeting of the breeze that came winging its way across the

broad Atlantic, full of healthful cheer for a home-sick heart. Far out

he leaned; held back the thick-leaved boughs already rustling with a

grateful stir, chid the shrill bird beating its flame-colored breast

against its prison bars, and drank deep draughts of the blessed wind

that seemed to cool the fever of his blood and give him back the vigor

he had lost.

A sudden light shone out behind him filling the room with a glow that

left no shadow in it. But he did not see the change, nor hear the step

that broke the hush, nor turn to meet the woman who stood waiting for a

lover's welcome. An indefinable air of sumptuous life surrounded her,

and made the brilliant room a fitting frame for the figure standing

there with warm-hued muslins blowing in the wind. A figure full of the

affluent beauty of womanhood in its prime, bearing unmistakable marks of

the polished pupil of the world in the grace that flowed through every

motion, the art which taught each feature to play its part with the ease

of second nature and made dress the foil to loveliness. The face was

delicate and dark as a fine bronze, a low forehead set in shadowy waves

of hair, eyes full of slumberous fire, and a passionate yet haughty

mouth that seemed shaped alike for caresses and commands.

A moment she watched the man before her, while over her countenance

passed rapid variations of pride, resentment, and tenderness. Then with

a stealthy step, an assured smile, she went to him and touched his hand,

saying, in a voice inured to that language which seems made for lovers'

lips--

"Only a month betrothed, and yet so cold and gloomy, Adam!"

With a slight recoil, a glance of soft detestation veiled and yet

visible, Warwick answered like a satiric echo--

"Only a month betrothed, and yet so fond and jealous, Ottila!"

Unchilled by the action, undaunted by the look, the white arm took him

captive, the beautiful face drew nearer, and the persuasive voice asked

wistfully--

"Was it of me you thought when you turned with that longing in your

eye?"

"No."

"Was it of a fairer or a dearer friend than I?"

"Yes."

The black brows contracted ominously, the mouth grew hard, the eyes

glittered, the arm became a closer bond, the entreaty a command.

"Let me know the name, Adam."

"Self-respect."

She laughed low to herself, and the mobile features softened to their

former tenderness as she looked up into that other face so full of an

accusing significance which she would not understand.

"I have waited two long hours; have you no kinder greeting, love?"

"I have no truer one. Ottila, if a man has done unwittingly a weak,

unwise, or wicked act, what should he do when he discovers it?"

"Repent and mend his ways; need I tell you that?"

"I have repented; will you help me mend my ways?"

"Confess, dear sinner; I will shrive you and grant absolution for the

past, whatever it may be."

"How much would you do for love of me?"

"Anything for you, Adam."

"Then give me back my liberty."

He rose erect and stretched his hands to her with a gesture of entreaty,

an expression of intense desire. Ottila fell back as if the forceful

words and action swept her from him. The smile died on her lips, a

foreboding fear looked out at her eyes, and she asked incredulously--

"Do you mean it?"

"Yes; now, entirely, and forever!"

If he had lifted his strong arm and struck her, it would not have

daunted with such pale dismay. An instant she stood like one who saw a

chasm widening before her, which she had no power to cross. Then as if

disappointment was a thing impossible and unknown, she seized the

imploring hands in a grasp that turned them white with its passionate

pressure as she cried--

"No, I will not! I have waited for your love so long I cannot give it

up; you shall not take it from me!"

But as if the words had made the deed irrevocable, Warwick put her away,

speaking with the stern accent of one who fears a traitor in himself.

"I cannot take from you what you never had. Stand there and hear me. No;

I will have no blandishments to keep me from my purpose, no soft words

to silence the hard ones I mean to speak, no more illusions to hide us

from each other and ourselves."

"Adam, you are cruel."

"Better seem cruel than be treacherous; better wound your pride now than

your heart hereafter, when too late you discover that I married you

without confidence, respect, or love. For once in your life you shall

hear the truth as plain as words can make it. You shall see me at my

best as at my worst; you shall know what I have learned to find in you;

shall look back into the life behind us, forward into the life before

us, and if there be any candor in you I will wring from you an

acknowledgment that you have led me into an unrighteous compact.

Unrighteous, because you have deceived me in yourself, appealed to the

baser, not the nobler instincts in me, and on such a foundation there

can be no abiding happiness."

"Go on, I will hear you." And conscious that she could not control the

will now thoroughly aroused, Ottila bent before it as if meekly ready to

hear all things for love's sake.

A disdainful smile passed over Warwick's face, as with an eye that fixed

and held her own, he rapidly went on, never pausing to choose smooth

phrases or soften facts, but seeming to find a relish in the utterance

of bitter truths after the honeyed falsehood he had listened to so long.

Yet through all the harshness glowed the courage of an upright soul, the

fervor of a generous heart.

"I know little of such things and care less; but I think few lovers pass

through a scene such as this is to be, because few have known lives like

ours, or one such as we. You a woman stronger for good or ill than those

about you, I a man untamed by any law but that of my own will. Strength

is royal, we both possess it; as kings and queens drop their titles in

their closets, let us drop all disguises and see each other as God sees

us. This compact must be broken; let me show you why. Three months ago I

came here to take the chill of an Arctic winter out of blood and brain.

I have done so and am the worse for it. In melting frost I have kindled

fire; a fire that will burn all virtue out of me unless I quench it at

once. I mean to do so, because I will not keep the ten commandments

before men's eyes and break them every hour in my heart."

He paused a moment, as if hotter words rose to his lips than generosity

would let him utter, and when he spoke again there was more reproach

than anger in his voice.

"Ottila, till I knew you I loved no woman but my mother; I wooed no

wife, bought no mistress, desired no friend, but led a life austere as

any monk's, asking only freedom and my work. Could you not let me keep

my independence? Were there not men enough who would find no degradation

in a spiritual slavery like this? Would nothing but my subjection

satisfy your unconquerable appetite for power?"

"Did I seek you, Adam?"

"Yes! Not openly, I grant, your art was too fine for that; you shunned

me that I might seek you to ask why. In interviews that seemed to come

by chance, you tried every wile a woman owns, and they are many. You

wooed me as such as you alone can woo the hearts they know are hardest

to be won. You made your society a refreshment in this climate of the

passions; you hid your real self and feigned that for which I felt most

honor. You entertained my beliefs with largest hospitality; encouraged

my ambitions with a sympathy so genial that I thought it genuine;

professed my scorn for shammery, and seemed an earnest woman, eager to

find the true, to do the right; a fit wife for any man who desired a

helpmate, not a toy. It showed much strength of wit and will to conceive

and execute the design. It proved your knowledge of the virtues you

could counterfeit so well, else I never should have been where I am

now."

"Your commendation is deserved, though so ungently given, Adam."

"There will be no more of it. If I am ungentle, it is because I despise

deceit, and you possess a guile that has given me my first taste of

self-contempt, and the draught is bitter. Hear me out; for this

reminiscence is my justification; you must listen to the one and accept

the other. You seemed all this, but under the honest friendliness you

showed lurked the purpose you have since avowed, to conquer most

entirely the man who denied your right to rule by the supremacy of

beauty or of sex alone. You saw the unsuspected fascination that

detained me here when my better self said 'Go.' You allured my eye with

loveliness, my ear with music; piqued curiosity, pampered pride, and

subdued will by flatteries subtly administered. Beginning afar off, you

let all influences do their work till the moment came for the effective

stroke. Then you made a crowning sacrifice of maiden modesty and owned

you loved me."

Shame burned red on Ottila's dark cheek, and ire flamed up in her eyes,

as the untamable spirit of the woman answered against her will--

"It was not made in vain; for, rebellious as you are, it subdued you,

and with your own weapon, the bare truth."

He had said truly, "You shall see me at my best as at worst." She did,

for putting pride underneath his feet he showed her a brave sincerity,

which she could admire but never imitate, and in owning a defeat

achieved a victory.

"You think I shall deny this. I do not, but acknowledge to the uttermost

that, in spite of all resistance, I was conquered by a woman. If it

affords you satisfaction to hear this, to know that it is hard to say,

harder still to feel, take the ungenerous delight; I give it to you as

an alms. But remember that if I have failed, no less have you. For in

that stormy heart of yours there is no sentiment more powerful than that

you feel for me, and through it you will receive the retribution you

have brought upon yourself. You were elated with success, and forgot too

soon the character you had so well supported. You thought love blinded

me, but there was no love; and during this month I have learned to know

you as you are. A woman of strong passions and weak principles; hungry

for power and intent on pleasure; accomplished in deceit and reckless in

trampling on the nobler instincts of a gifted but neglected nature.

Ottila, I have no faith in you, feel no respect for the passion you

inspire, own no allegiance to the dominion you assert."

"You cannot throw it off; it is too late."

It was a rash defiance; she saw that as it passed her lips, and would

have given much to have recalled it. The stern gravity of Warwick's face

flashed into a stern indignation. His eye shone like steel, but his

voice dropped lower and his hand closed like a vice as he said, with the

air of one who cannot conceal but can control sudden wrath at a taunt to

which past weakness gives a double sting--

"It never is too late. If the priest stood ready, and I had sworn to

marry you within the hour, I would break the oath, and God would pardon

it, for no man has a right to embrace temptation and damn himself by a

life-long lie. You choose to make it a hard battle for me; you are

neither an honest friend nor a generous foe. No matter, I have fallen

into an ambuscade and must cut my way out as I can, and as I will, for

there is enough of this Devil's work in the world without our adding to

it."

"You cannot escape with honor, Adam."

"I cannot remain with honor. Do not try me too hardly, Ottila. I am not

patient, but I do desire to be just. I confess my weakness; will not

that satisfy you? Blazon your wrong as you esteem it; ask sympathy of

those who see not as I see; reproach, defy, lament. I will bear it all,

will make any other sacrifice as an atonement, but I will 'hold fast

mine integrity' and obey a higher law than your world recognizes, both

for your sake and my own."

She watched him as he spoke, and to herself confessed a slavery more

absolute than any he had known, for with a pang she felt that she had

indeed fallen into the snare she spread for him, and in this man, who

dared to own his weakness and her power, she had found a master. Was it

too late to keep him? She knew that soft appeals were vain, tears like

water on a rock, and with the skill that had subdued him once she

endeavored to retrieve her blunder by an equanimity which had more

effect than prayers or protestations. Warwick had read her well, had

shown her herself stripped of all disguises, and left her no defence but

tardy candor. She had the wisdom to see this, the wit to use it and

restore the shadow of the power whose substance she had lost. Leaving

her beauty to its silent work, she fixed on him eyes whose lustre was

quenched in unshed tears, and said with an earnest, humble voice--

"I, too, desire to be just. I will not reproach, defy, or lament, but

leave my fate to you. I am all you say, yet in your judgment remember

mercy, and believe that at twenty-five there is still hope for the noble

but neglected nature, still time to repair the faults of birth,

education, and orphanhood. You say, I have a daring will, a love of

conquest. Can I not will to overcome myself and do it? Can I not learn

to be the woman I have seemed? Love has worked greater miracles, may it

not work this? I have longed to be a truer creature than I am; have seen

my wasted gifts, felt my capacity for better things, and looked for help

from many sources, but never found it till you came. Do you wonder that

I tried to make it mine? Adam, you are a self-elected missionary to the

world's afflicted; you can look beyond external poverty and see the

indigence of souls. I am a pauper in your eyes; stretch out your hand

and save me from myself."

Straight through the one vulnerable point in the man's pride went this

appeal to the man's pity. Indignation could not turn it aside, contempt

blunt its edge, or wounded feeling lessen its force; and yet it failed:

for in Adam Warwick justice was stronger than mercy, reason than

impulse, head than heart. Experience was a teacher whom he trusted; he

had weighed this woman and found her wanting; truth was not in her; the

patient endeavor, the hard-won success so possible to many was hardly so

to her, and a union between them could bring no lasting good to either.

He knew this; had decided it in a calmer hour than the present, and by

that decision he would now abide proof against all attacks from without

or from within. More gently, but as inflexibly as before, he said--

"I do put out my hand and offer you the same bitter draught of

self-contempt that proved a tonic to my own weak will. I can help, pity,

and forgive you heartily, but I dare not marry you. The tie that binds

us is a passion of the senses, not a love of the soul. You lack the

moral sentiment that makes all gifts and graces subservient to the

virtues that render womanhood a thing to honor as well as love. I can

relinquish youth, beauty, worldly advantages, but I must reverence above

all others the woman whom I marry, and feel an affection that elevates

me by quickening all that is noblest and manliest in me. With you I

should be either a tyrant or a slave. I will be neither, but go solitary

all my life rather than rashly mortgage the freedom kept inviolate so

long, or let the impulse of an hour mar the worth of coming years."

Bent and broken by the unanswerable accusations of what seemed a

conscience in human shape, Ottila had sunk down before him with an

abandonment as native to her as the indomitable will which still refused

to relinquish hope even in despair.

"Go," she said, "I am not worthy of salvation. Yet it is hard, very

hard, to lose the one motive strong enough to save me, the one sincere

affection of my life."

Warwick had expected a tempestuous outbreak at his decision; this entire

submission touched him, for in the last words of her brief lament he

detected the accent of truth, and longed to answer it. He paused,

searching for the just thing to be done. Ottila, with hidden face,

watched while she wept, and waited hopefully for the relenting sign. In

silence the two, a modern Samson and Delilah, waged the old war that has

gone on ever since the strong locks were shorn and the temple fell; a

war which fills the world with unmated pairs and the long train of evils

arising from marriages made from impulse, and not principle. As usual,

the most generous was worsted. The silence pleaded well for Ottila, and

when Warwick spoke it was to say impetuously--

"You are right! It is hard that when two err one alone should suffer. I

should have been wise enough to see the danger, brave enough to fly from

it. I was not, and I owe you some reparation for the pain my folly

brings you. I offer you the best, because the hardest, sacrifice that I

can make. You say love can work miracles, and that yours is the

sincerest affection of your life; prove it. In three months you

conquered me; can you conquer yourself in twelve?"

"Try me!"

"I will. Nature takes a year for her harvests; I give you the same for

yours. If you will devote one half the energy and care to this work that

you devoted to that other,--will earnestly endeavor to cherish all that

is womanly and noble in yourself, and through desire for another's

respect earn your own,--I, too, will try to make myself a fitter mate

for any woman, and keep our troth unbroken for a year. Can I do more?"

"I dared not ask so much! I have not deserved it, but I will. Only love

me, Adam, and let me save myself through you."

Flushed and trembling with delight she rose, sure the trial was safely

passed, but found that for herself a new one had begun. Warwick offered

his hand.

"Farewell, then."

"Going? Surely you will stay and help me through my long probation?"

"No; if your desire has any worth you can work it out alone. We should

be hindrances to one another, and the labor be ill done."

"Where will you go? Not far, Adam."

"Straight to the North. This luxurious life enervates me; the pestilence

of slavery lurks in the air and infects me; I must build myself up anew

and find again the man I was."

"When must you go? Not soon."

"At once."

"I shall hear from you?"

"Not till I come."

"But I shall need encouragement, shall grow hungry for a word, a thought

from you. A year is very long to wait and work alone."

Eloquently she pleaded with voice and eyes and tender lips, but Warwick

did not yield.

"If the test be tried at all it must be fairly tried. We must stand

entirely apart and see what saving virtue lies in self-denial and

self-help."

"You will forget me, Adam. Some woman with a calmer heart than mine will

teach you to love as you desire to love, and when my work is done it

will be all in vain."

"Never in vain if it be well done, for such labor is its own reward.

Have no fear; one such lesson will last a lifetime. Do your part

heartily, and I will keep my pledge until the year is out."

"And then, what then?"

"If I see in you the progress both should desire, if this tie bears the

test of time and absence, and we find any basis for an abiding union,

then, Ottila, I will marry you."

"But if meanwhile that colder, calmer woman comes to you, what then?"

"Then I will not marry you."

"Ah, your promise is a man's vow, made only to be broken. I have no

faith in you."

"I think you may have. There will be no time for more folly; I must

repair the loss of many wasted days,--nay, not wasted if I have learned

this lesson well. Rest secure; it is impossible that I should love."

"You believed that three months ago and yet you are a lover now."

Ottila smiled an exultant smile, and Warwick acknowledged his proven

fallibility by a haughty flush and a frank amendment.

"Let it stand, then, that if I love again I am to wait in silence till

the year is out and you absolve me from my pledge. Does that satisfy

you?"

"It must. But you will come, whatever changes may befall you? Promise me

this."

"I promise it."

"Going so soon? Oh, wait a little!"

"When a duty is to be done, do it at once; delay is dangerous. Good

night."

"Give me some remembrance of you. I have nothing, for you are not a

generous lover."

"Generous in deeds, Ottila. I have given you a year's liberty, a dear

gift from one who values it more than life. Now I add this."

He drew her to him, kissed the red mouth and looked down upon her with a

glance that made his man's face as pitiful as any woman's as he let her

lean there happy in the hope given at such cost. For a moment nothing

stirred in the room but the soft whisper of the wind. For a moment

Warwick's austere life looked hard to him, love seemed sweet, submission

possible; for in all the world this was the only woman who clung to him,

and it was beautiful to cherish and be cherished after years of

solitude. A long sigh of desire and regret broke from him, and at the

sound a stealthy smile touched Ottila's lips as she whispered, with a

velvet cheek against his own--

"Love, you will stay?"

"I will not stay!"

And like one who cries out sharply within himself, "Get thee behind me!"

he broke away.

"Adam, come back to me! Come back!"

He looked over his shoulder, saw the fair woman in the heart of the warm

glow, heard her cry of love and longing, knew the life of luxurious ease

that waited for him, but steadily went out into the night, only

answering--

"In a year."