Winged Victory/Chapter 14

“We've got to face this out!”

She repeated the words mechanically. As yet they conveyed nothing to her. She understod [sic] only that the dead had risen, had been at her side, unrecognized, through the long weeks, and that now at a single word the veil had been torn from her eyes and she had seen the miracle. In the first instant her very reason had been threatened, but the touch of his hands was warm and human, the eyes that gazed into hers full of remembered tenderness. With that look, that upright bearing, that change of voice, neither scar nor beard could hide him from her. In that moment of relief at a danger past he had betrayed himself, and now she saw him as he had been in her memory—older and marked with pain, but no less the image of her dreams.

“My husband!” she whispered. “My husband! I can't believe—I can't understand—but you're there—you're real! I can feel you. I'm not mad, not dreaming. If I am, let me go on dreaming. I don't want to wake, Fenton!”

“It's not a dream,” he answered. “I'm real enough. I didn't mean that you should ever know. But to-night He was our son, and, when I held him in my arms, I forgot everything except that he was safe and that I was bringing him back to you. I did wrong. Forgive me.”

“Forgive you!” She laughed brokenly. “Oh, Fenton, it's like waking from an awful nightmare. My dear, I don't want to understand or”

“You must!” His hands tightened on hers as if they were gripping on some stabbing pain. “Listen, Eileen. Submarine D went down without me. I was not on board. Throughout the war I was in France, penniless, helpless. I had been trapped by the very men who are trying now to win my secret from Oscar. But I knew that would not exonerate me. When I came back to England, I believed that it was to disgrace and ruin. Instead, I found that I was dead and honorably buried.”

“Who told you that?”

“Oscar.”

“When was that?”

He bowed his head so that she should not see his face.

“Just a year later, Eileen.”

“Then—I was still—your wife?”

“Yes.”

“And he knew?” He made no answer, and she stifled a cry of bitter anguish. “Fenton—and you—why did you not come Didn't you think of me?”

“I thought of you always. It was you who sent me away. You hadn't cared in the days of prosperity—you wouldn't have cared in the days of dishonor and ruin.”

“Fenton—didn't he tell you—I had learned my lesson—that you were in my thoughts night and day? There wasn't an hour when I didn't suffer all the grief and remorse of the» world! Didn't he tell you? He knew it!”

“He told me you had learned to forget.”

“Fenton!”

He gazed pityingly into the gathering horror in her eyes.

“Eileen—my wife—we mustn't judge too harshly. He was tempted. Our old friendship was at an end. The chance came to him—and he took it. And I—well, I thought it better so. I didn't understand—I didn't know what I know—now.”

“You know now that I love you, Fenton,” she said triumphantly. “Thank God, I told you so when I believed you dead! Thank God, you've seen and heard with your own eyes and ears! I was foolish and cruel, Fenton, but there's never been any one else in my life. You know that now?”

His reserve and stern self-control broke down. He clasped her to him with the passion of despair.

“I know now. I've seen it and it's been torture, Eileen. I'd come back to catch a glimpse of your happiness, so that I might go my way in peace—and I saw what I had done—and it was too late.”

“Not too late!” She lifted her flushed face to his, brushing away the blinding tears. “We've all our lives before us, you and I. We'll begin again—far away from here—a new life. Let's go now, dear. Take me with you”

She clung to him, but he freed himself almost violently, standing away from her as from a newly arisen danger.

“There's our son,” he said sharply. “You've forgotten that!”

“I've not forgotten.” Her eyes rested for an instant on the tiny figure curled up in a heavy sleep of fright and exhaustion, and a faint smile quivered around her lips. “He'll be glad, too, Fenton. He knew you and loved you when I was blind”

“He must never know, dear.”

The smile died. She looked at his white, strained face with a dawning fear.

“Fenton—I don't understand!”

“We've got to think of our son,” he said. “We've got to consider him before and above ourselves. We've had our chance of happiness and lost it. We've no right to spoil his chance. It was of our son that I thought when I let you believe me dead—not of you only. You and I had our duty to each other; we had a greater one toward him. We owed him a fair start—an honorable name; we owe him that now. That's what we have to face out.”

“Fenton—you frighten me”

“I don't mean to—I can't help myself. His father died an honorable death and his mother married another man. It must remain so, Eileen—for his sake.”

For a moment she stood motionless, frozen by the hopeless finality of his reasoning. Then she stretched out her hands toward him blindly, despairingly.

“Fenton—it isn't possible! You're my husband. I can't let you go!”

“You must! We've no right to sacrifice him. In your heart you know that.”

“Even if I knew it—I've suffered enough. My heart will break, Fenton!” And then, as she saw the white, tortured face of the man before her, she steadied, and her own features became masklike in their desperate composure. “Is there no other way?”

“None!” He waited, watching her intently. “You will help me? You won't make it harder?”

“No. You must do what is right—what you must—for his sake”

Each sentence seemed to be dragged from her by force. He came to her, but she no longer clung to him. She hung heavy in his arms.

“You'll be brave—I know that. Wherever we are—however far-apart—we'll bear it together. And we'll know that it was right. And when he is a man and speaks of me—perhaps a little proudly—you will be glad.”

“Yes,” she answered tonelessly.

He bent and kissed her.

“My wife! I can say it now—for the last time!”

“My husband!”

He led her gently to the couch and bent over the unconscious child.

“He's ours, Eileen. That's something for us both to remember. We've not lost everything.”

“You're going now? Are we not to meet again—Fenton?”

He straightened.

“It's better not. It hurts too much, and we must keep our secret. I'll finish my work here—and go.”

“And—all your hopes—all mine?”

He smiled wearily.

“The monoplane is safe. I shall fly it to victory. You trust me now?”

“For always, Fenton. I shall be watching you!”

“I shall know that, dear.”

A moment later the door had closed on him. As if he dared not hesitate, he passed swiftly down the corridor to Delisle's room. He was once more bent and misshapen, and, as he entered, the man who staggered to his feet saw no change in him.

“It's you—Rogers? Come to be congratulated—eh? Noble fellow—I warrant you've had your share of gratitude”

“I've come neither for congratulation nor for gratitude,” was the stern interruption. “The child is safe, but if that does not interest you, there is something else that may. I have one more condition to make before the monoplane is finished, Captain Delisle.”

“Well—and that is?”

“When the trial day comes, I fly the machine myself.”

Delisle drew himself slowly erect. His clenched fists rested on the table in front of him, and for an instant the two men measured each other.

“And if I refuse?”

“The machine will never be completed; that's all.”

A dark flush of passion mounted to Delisle's eyes. His hand had flown out to the empty glass as if he would have flung it in his opponent's face, but instead he burst into a fit of rough laughter.

“As you wish. Either way, it comes to the same. You shall fly the machine, my friend. But I shall be your passenger. That much you will not deny me, I hope.”

“By no means, Captain Delisle.”

Again a swift, silent challenge. Delisle's gaze sank.

“I am grateful. No, don't go for a moment. There's something I want to ask. You were Fenton Villiers' friend, you say.”

“Yes.”

“He is dead. You're sure of that?”

“Fenton Villiers is dead.”

“Yes—you told me. I—I have had a strange feeling to-night—a delusion, if you will. Perhaps I'm going mad. I thought I heard his voice.”

“In a storm like this one hears many things.”

“That's true. Well, you shall have your way. Good night!”

“Good night!”

Rogers went slowly toward the door. There he paused and looked back.

“Captain Delisle,” he said quietly, “I knew Fenton Villiers well. I knew what was in his thoughts—when he died. The memory of the old friendship was strong in him. He believed that you yielded to great temptation. He sent you his understanding—his forgiveness.”

Delisle made no sound. He stood stiffly erect, his face averted, his hands clenched again in desperate self-mastery.

“He believed that in the end you would make good,” Rogers went on. “That was his message to you. Good night!”

Still Delisle made no answer. But as the door closed, he dropped down by the table, his face buried in his hands.