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"Your loving sister,
"Isabel."
Robert found this letter beside his dinner plate, and after he had taken his soup he deliberately opened it. He knew it was Isabel's writing, and the post-marks showed him she was at home again. He knew also that it would contain an invitation to Wynton, and before he was sure of it, he made a vow to himself that he would not go.
"Sir Thomas will prose about the persons and places he has seen, and Isabel will smile and admire him, and I shall have to be congratulatory and say a hundred things I do not want to say. I do not care a farthing for Sir Thomas and his partnership now, and I will not have his patronage." Thus he talked to himself, as he opened the letter, and gave his order for boiled mutton and caper sauce.
When the mutton came he could not taste it. He looked dazed and shocked, and the waiter asked: "Are you ill, sir?"
"Yes," was the answer. "Give me a glass of wine."
The wine did not help him, and he lifted the letter and went to his room. There he threw himself upon the bed and lay motionless for an hour. He was not thinking, he could not think; he was gathering his forces physical and mental together, to enable him to overcome the shock of Isabel's news, and decide on his future course.
For the information which Isabel had given him in a very prosaic way had shaken the foundations of his life, though he could not for awhile tell whether he regarded it as welcome, or unwelcome. But as he began to recognize its import, and its consequences, his feelings were certainly not those of pleasure, nor even of satisfaction. He had rid himself of all the encumbrances Theodora had left behind her. He had given his home away and reduced the obligations to his kindred to a minimum, for a visit once a week satisfied his mother and Christina; and if he missed a week, no one complained or asked for the reason. At his club he was well served, all his likes and dislikes were studied and pandered to. There was no quarrelling at the club, no injured wife, no sick child, no troublesome servants. He was leading a life that suited him, why should he change it for Theodora?
If Theodora had been in poverty and suffering, he felt sure he would have had no hesitation, he would have hurried to her side, but a Theodora happy, handsome, and prosperous, was a different problem. Why had she not sent him a letter by Isabel? She must have known, that Isabel would certainly reveal her residence, why then did she not do it herself? "She ought to have written to me," he muttered, "it was her duty, and until she does, I will not take any notice of Isabel's information."
With this determination he fell into an uneasy sleep, and lo, when he awoke, he was in quite a different mood! Theodora, in her most bewitching and pathetic moods, was stirring his memory, and he said softly, yet with an eager passion: "I must go where Dora is! I must go to her! I cannot go too quickly! I will see Isabel to-day, and get all necessary information from her."
He found Isabel enthusiastically ready to hasten him. She described the Newton home – its beauty, comfort, peace, and happiness. She went into italics about David – he was a young prince among boys of his age. He rode wondrously, he could do anything with a rifle that a rifle was made for, he was a good English scholar for his age, and was learning Latin and German. She said his grandfather was his tutor, and that the two were hardly ever apart.
At this point Robert had a qualm of jealousy. The boy was his boy, and he ought to be with him, and not with his grandfather. He was defrauded on every side. He said passionately, he would go for the boy, and bring him home at any rate; and Isabel told him plainly it could not be done. "And as for Theodora," she continued, "she looks younger and lovelier than when you married her. You should see her in white lawn with flowers on her breast, or in her wonderful hair; or still better, on horseback, with David riding at her side. Oh, Robert! You never knew the lovely Theodora of to-day."
"If she had any lover," he said slowly, "if she had any lover, you would have discovered that fact, Isabel?"
"Lover! That is nonsense. Her time and interests are taken up with her teaching, writing, and her care of her child. She is educating five girls, daughters of wealthy men living near, and she has published one novel, and is writing another; and she helps Mr. Newton with his manuscripts, and Mrs. Newton with her house. She is as busy as she is happy. We stayed two weeks with her, and I saw no one like a lover. I do remember at the hotel where I first saw her, there was a very handsome dark man, who seemed to be on the most friendly, even familiar terms with both Theodora and Mr. Newton. I asked her once who the man was, and she said he was a neighbor, and that she was educating his two daughters. Then I asked if he was likely to call and she told me he had gone to his mine, and that was the reason we had not seen him every day. She said she was sorry it had so happened, because he would have made our visit much pleasanter."
"No doubt," he answered. "Much pleasanter, of course. Thank you, Isabel. I owe you more than I can ever pay. I shall go to San Francisco, and see with my own eyes how things are."
"You will see nothing wrong, Robert. Be sure of that. Dora is as good as she is beautiful. I did not love her when I thought her an intruder into my home, but in her own home, she is adorable. Every one loves her."
"I object to every one loving her. She is mine. I am going to bring her to her own home – where she ought to be."
He would not remain to dinner. He was in haste to reach a solitude in which he could commune with his own heart. For Isabel's words had roused a fiery jealousy of his wife, and he had suddenly remembered his mother's first question when she heard of Theodora's flight: "Has she gone with that black-a-visored dandy staying at the Oliphants'?" He had then scornfully denied the supposition – had felt as if it was hardly worth denying. But at this hour, it assumed an importance that tortured him. His mother had called him black-a-visored, and Isabel had called him dark. The two were the same man, and this conviction came with that infallible assurance, that turns a suspicion into a truth, beyond inquiry or doubt.
He got back to Glasgow – he hardly knew how. He was a little astonished to find himself there. But something, held in abeyance while he was out of the city, returned to him the moment he felt his feet on the wet pavements, and breathed the foggy atmosphere. He knew himself again as Robert Campbell, and with an accented display of his personality went into the discreet, non-observant refuge of his club. He was hungry, and he ate; in a whirl of intense feeling, and he drank to steady himself. Then he went to see his mother. He wanted a few words with her, about "the black-a-visored dandy."
He found Traquair House topsy-turvy. Christina was giving a dance and there was no privacy anywhere, but in his mother's room. She was dressed for the occasion, and wearing her pearl and diamond ornaments, and he had a moment's surprise and pleasure in her appearance.
"Christina is giving a bit dance," she said apologetically, "and the house is at sixes and sevens. It is the way o' young things. They must turn everything upside down. You look badly, Robert. What's wrong wi' you?"
"I have found Theodora."
"No wonder you look miserable. Where is she?"
"In California."
"Just the place for the like o' her. It is not past my memory, Robert, when the scum o' the whole earth was running there. She did right to go where she belongs."
"Hush, mother! The Wyntons have been staying with her for two weeks – and they were well entertained. She has a beautiful home, Isabel says."
"Have you seen Isabel?"
"For an hour or two. She sent her love to you."
"She can keep it. If it isn't worth bringing, it isn't worth having."
"Mother, you once spoke to me of a dark man staying at the Oliphants', and asked if Theodora had gone away with him. What made you ask that question?"
"Weel, Robert, she was always flitting quiet-like between this house and the Oliphants'; and twice he walked with her to the top o' the street, and they were a gey long time in holding hands, and saying good-bye."
"Why did you not tell me then?"
"I wanted to let the cutty tak' her run, and to see how far she would go. I had my een on her."
"I feel sure he is living near her, in California."
"Very close, indeed, no doubt o' that – pitying and comforting her. Why don't you do your own pitying?" she asked scornfully.
"I am going to California to-morrow."
"Don't! You'll get yoursel' shot, or tarred and feathered, or maybe lynched. Those West Americans are an unbidable lot; they are a law to themselves, and a very bad law, generally speaking. Bide at hame, and save your life. What for will you go seeking sorrow?"
"I want my son. Isabel says he is a very prince among boys of his age."
"No doubt o' it. There's enough Campbell in him to set him head and shoulders over ordinary lads. But you send men now, that you know where to send them, and let them get the lad away. They'll either coax or carry him."
"I want to see Theodora."
"If you have a thimbleful o' sense, let her alone. Old love is a dangerous thing to touch. She'll gie you the heartache o' the world again, and you'll be down at her feet for comfort."
"Did I ever down at her feet for anything?"
"If you are tired o' freedom, and easy days, tak' yoursel' to California. And what about the works, while you are seeking dool and sorrow?"
"I shall only be gone about six weeks."
"Fiddlesticks! You are going into captivity – settle your business before you go, and see that you don't forget your mother and sisters' bed and board is in it."
"I shall be back in six weeks. Good-bye, mother. Give my love to Christina and Jamie, I will not trouble them now."
"They are full o' their ain to-do at the present. I'll gie them your message. Good-bye, and see you are home, ere I send after you."
He went hastily downstairs, and could hardly believe he was walking through Traquair House. Pretty girls in dancing dresses were constantly passing him, young men were standing about in groups laughing and talking, and there was the sound of fiddles tuning up in the distance. It was all so unnatural that it affected him like the phantasmal background of a dream. And he was suffering as he had never before suffered in all his life, for jealousy, that brutal, overwhelming passion, had seized him, and he was in a fire constantly growing fiercer. Every thought he now had of Theodora fed it, and he hastened to his club and locked himself in his room. It was clear to him, that he must reach San Francisco by the swiftest means possible. In his condition, he felt delay might mean severe illness, if not insanity.
On the third morning after this determination, when he awoke he was out of sight of land. The wind was high, and the sea rough, but he was not sick, and the tumult of the elements suited his mood very well. He made no friends, and his trouble had such a strong personality, that many divined its reason.
"He looks as if he was after a runaway wife," said one man, and his companion answered: "I do not envy the fellow who has run away with her, he will get no mercy from yonder husband, and as for the wife!"
"God help her!"
"It is Campbell of the Campbell Iron Works near Glasgow," said a third. "I never heard that he had a wife. I shouldn't think he would care for one. He lives only for those black, blasted furnaces. He is happy enough among their slag and cinders, and smoke and flame. The country round them is like Gehenna, but it suits him better than green pastures and still waters. He isn't such a big man physically, but when he is marching round among his workers, ordering this, and abusing that, you would think he was ten feet high, and the men are sure of it. But Campbell isn't a bad fellow take him by and long; he goes to Kirk regular, and when he feels like giving, gives with both hands."
"We might ask him to join us in a game of whist."
"Nay, we had better let him alone. I think some American has maybe stolen one o' his patents, or got ahead o' him in some way or other; and he is going to have it out with him face to face – that would be like Robert Campbell. He is in a fighting mood anyway, and he wouldn't help our pleasure; far from it."
This opinion seemed the general one, so on the voyage he made no acquaintances, and when the steamer reached New York, he went directly from her to the railway station, and bought a ticket for San Francisco. His train was nearly ready, and in half-an-hour he was speeding westwards. For a few days he noticed nothing, but after he had passed St. Louis, he began to be astonished, and even slightly terrified at the immense space separating him from all he knew and loved. Often he had an urgent feeling that he must at once turn back, and he might have done so, if a still stronger feeling had not urged him forward. A journey from London to Edinburgh had always appeared to him a long one, and he had even felt Sheffield very far from Scotland; but the vastness of the present journey stupefied him. Before he reached San Francisco, he was subject to attacks of sentiment about his native city and country. He felt that he might never see them again.
But the end came at last, and San Francisco itself was the climax to all his wanderings. What could induce men to travel to the extremity of creation, and then build there a city so large and so splendid? How could they live and trade and make money so far from London and Paris and the centre of the civilized world? He went to the hotel at which his sister had stayed, and was obliged to admit that neither Glasgow, London, nor Paris had anything to rival its luxury and splendor. He began to be interested. He thought it might be worth while to dress a little for dinner.
For to a man as insular in mind as Robert Campbell, the scene was amazing. He could have gone every day for fifty years to Glasgow Exchange, and never witnessed anything like its cosmopolitan variety. There did not seem to be two persons alike in nationality, caste, or occupation. Even the Americans present were as diverse as the states from which they came. For the first time in his life it struck Robert Campbell, that Scotchmen might not possibly be the dominant race in all the world's great business thoroughfares.
He forgot his absorbing trouble for awhile, or at least it blended itself with elements that diluted and even changed its character. Thus, he began to fancy Theodora in her loveliest, proudest mood walking through this motley crowd. How would she regard him in it? How would the crowd regard her? He was busy with this question, when his attention was attracted by a man who reminded him of something known and familiar. "He at least has the look of a Scotchman," he mused. "I must have seen him before somewhere." If he had kept any memory of his own face and figure, perhaps he might have traced the resemblance home. But often as we look in our mirrors, who does not straightway forget what manner of man, or woman, they are?
For the stranger who had been able to interest Robert Campbell was his brother David. He was talking earnestly to two men whom Robert could not classify. They wore no coats, or vests, and the wide, strong leather belts with which they were girdled had somehow a formidable look; for though quite innocent of offensive weapons, they appeared to promise or threaten them. David was evidently their superior, perhaps their employer, but there was a kind of equality unconsciously exhibited which Robert wondered at, and did not approve. He felt that under no circumstances would he have been seen talking familiarly to men so manifestly of the lower classes.
But when they went away, David shook hands with them and then stood still a moment as if undecided about his next movement; and Robert watched him so fixedly, that he probably compelled his brother's attention. For he suddenly lifted his eyes, and they met Robert's eyes, and his face brightened, and he walked rapidly forward, till he placed his hands on Robert's shoulders, and with a glad smile cried:
"Robert, Robert Campbell! Don't you know me, Robert? Don't you know me?"
And Robert gazing into his eager face answered slowly: "Are you David – my brother? Are you David Campbell, my brother David?"
"Sit down, dear lad! I am David Campbell. Sure as death, I am your brother David. Get yourself together, and we will go and have dinner. You look as if you were going to faint – why, Robert!"
"I forgot dinner. I have had nothing to-day but a cup of coffee. Oh, David, David! what a Providence you are! How did you happen in here?"
"I came to watch for you. I have been coming every day for three weeks. Can you walk a few steps now? You are requiring food. What made you forget to eat?"
"Trouble, great trouble – crazy love, and crazy jealousy. My wife and my child have left me!"
"I know."
"How do you know?"
"They are my dearest neighbors."
"Then you saw Isabel?"
"I did not. I was at the mine, but Theodora told me all about her visit, and as I knew Isabel would tell you where your wife and child were living, I have been watching for your arrival. Come now, and let us have something to eat. Afterwards we will talk."
"What a splendid dining-room!"
"Isn't it? And you will get a splendid meal!" He called a negro and said: "Tobin, bring us the best dinner you can serve."
The order was promptly and amply obeyed, and before dinner was half over Robert's irritability and faintness had vanished, and he was the usual assertive, domineering Robert Campbell. But not until they had finished eating, and were sitting in the shady court with their cigars would David allow their personal conversation to be renewed. He began it by saying:
"You will wish to see Theodora to-morrow, I suppose?"
"I wish to see her at once – to-night."
"That will not do! You want a good sleep, you want a bath and a barber, and some decent clothes on you."
"I am not going courting, David."
"Then you need not go at all. You will require to do the best courting you ever did, or ever can do, if you hope to get a hearing from Theodora."
"She is my wife, David, and she – "
"Will be far harder to win, than ever Miss Newton was."
"Win! She was won long ago."
"Won – and lost. You will not find this second winning an easy one."
"How do you know so much about her?"
"I knew all about her miserable life, before I knew her; but I finally met her at my friend Oliphant's."
"And it was the Oliphants who told you all her complainings. Mother never trusted them. It seems she was right – as usual."
"The Oliphants told me nothing. I heard all her life with you from my foster-mother, McNab."
"McNab, your foster-mother, David?"
"McNab nursed, and mothered me. She was the only mother I ever had."
"McNab! McNab! Now I begin to understand – and the Oliphants are your friends? And you stayed with them when in Glasgow?"
"Always. John Oliphant and I have been acquainted since we were lads together."
Then Robert burst into uncanny laughter and answered: "You are the man, David, I have been wanting to kill all the way across the Atlantic and across the continent." David looked at his brother full in the eyes, as men look at a wild animal, and asked slowly: "Why did you want to kill me, Robert? What harm had I done you?"
"When I told mother Theodora had gone away from me, her first words were: 'Has that black-a-visored dandy, staying at the Oliphants', gone with her?' She added, that she had 'seen you with Theodora and that at parting you held her hand – and seemed very loth to leave her.'"
"Mother was altogether wrong. I never was on any street in Glasgow with your wife. I was never seen in public with her anywhere. I respected your honor, as well as my own, and never by word, deed, or even thought wronged it."
"Why should mother have told such a – lie?"
"Because it is her nature to make all the trouble she can."
"But you advised Theodora to leave me?"
"Never. She acted entirely on her father's and mother's advice. But when I saw they had resolved to come to the United States, and knew nothing of the country, I told Mr. Newton about California, and advised him to make a home here. And as I and my daughters were travelling the same road, I did do all I could, to make the long journey as easy as possible. Could any man seeing a party like the inexperienced minister, and his invalid wife, daughter, and her child, do less than help them all he could? You owe me some thanks, Robert, when you get sane enough to pay your debt."
"I do thank you, David, and what other debt do I owe you? Theodora had no money."
"Her father gave me money to buy two of the best staterooms for them. He paid all their expenses of every kind, and he bought the house in which they are now living, and paid for it. Since then he has preached, and lectured, and written, and made a very good living. He has had no necessity to be indebted to any one. Yet if he had needed money, I would have gladly loaned him all he required."
"Oh, David, David! Forgive me. I am in a fever. I do not know what I am saying. Ever since my wife left me, and wronged me – "
"Stop, Robert. Your wife never wronged you. She allowed you to wrong her six years too long. If she had not left you, she would have been dead long ago. To-morrow, you will see what love, and peace, and this splendid climate have done for her."
"And what has her desertion done for me?"
"If it has not taught you the priceless worth of the loving woman you were torturing daily, it has done nothing. Wait till you see your son, and then try and imagine the wretched child he would have been, if his mother had not braved everything for his sake and taken him beyond the power of the unnatural woman who hated him."
"She hated him because he was called David."
"And she hated me because she wronged me. If she had nursed me, she would have loved me. She sent me to Lugar Hill School because she hated me, and she would have sent your David there for the same reason. Theodora did well, did right to take any means to save the child from such a terrible life. If she had not done so, she would have been as cruel as his grandmother – and father."
"My head burns, and my heart aches! I can say no more now, David."
"Poor lad! My heart aches for you. But there is a happy future for Robert Campbell yet. I am sure of it. Put all thought and feeling away until the morning, and sleep, and sleep, as long as you can."
"I want to see Theodora early in the day."
"You cannot. As I told you before, the bath and the barber and the tailor are necessary. Have you forgotten the spotless neatness and delicacy of Theodora's toilet? You are going a-wooing, and you must be more careful in dressing for Theodora Campbell than you were in dressing for Theodora Newton."
"I cannot think any longer. I will consider what you say in the morning."
"You will be a new man, and begin a new life to-morrow."
"I want the old life."
"You do not. And you will never get it. The old life has gone forever."
In the morning he did not even want it. He he had slept profoundly, and when he had made all preparations for his visit to Theodora, he was quite pleased with his renovated appearance. David spoke of sending a message to her, but Robert thought a surprise visit would be best for himself. He would not give his wife an opportunity to sit down and recall all his past offences, and arrange the mood in which she would meet him, and the words she would say.
"We do not require to hurry," said David. "She is dismissing her classes for the summer holidays to-day, and will not be at liberty until near three o'clock. So we will eat lunch here, and then drive leisurely over to Newton Place."
Robert shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He thought his brother was much too leisurely, but when they were rolling pleasantly along through the beautiful land, he was not disposed to complain. It was indeed a New World to him. Half-a-mile from the Newton dwelling, they heard voices and laughter, and the clatter of horses' feet going at full speed, and immediately there came into view three young riders – two girls, and a tall, gallant-looking lad as their escort.