Part 36

When at length Millard found himself in front of Mrs. Callender's, and saw by the light that the family were sitting together in the front basement, his heart failed him, and he walked past the house and as far as the next corner, where his Fate, his Dæmon, his blind impulsion, turned him back, and he did not falter again until he had rung the door-bell; and then it was too late to withdraw.

"You are wet, Charley; sit nearer the register," said Phillida, when she saw how the rain had beaten upon his trousers and how recklessly he had plunged his patent-leather shoes into the street puddles. This little attention to his comfort softened Millard's mood, but it was impossible long to keep back the torrent of feeling. Phillida was alarmed at his ominous abstraction.

"I don't care for the rain," he said.

"But you know there is a good deal of pneumonia about."

"I--I am not afraid of pneumonia," he said. "I might as well die as to suffer what I do."

"What is the matter, Charley?" demanded Phillida, alarmed.

"Matter? Why, I have to sit in the club and hear you called a crank and an impostor."

Phillida turned pale.

"Vulgar cads like Meadows," he gasped, "not fit for association with gentlemen, call you a quack seeking after money, and will not be set right. I came awfully near to punching his head."

"Why, Charley!"

"I should have done it, only I reflected that such an affray might drag you into the newspapers. I tell you, Phillida, it is unendurable that you should go on in this way."

Phillida's face was pale as death. She had been praying all the afternoon that the bitterness of this cup might not be pressed to her lips. She now saw that the issue was joined. She had vowed that not even her love for the man dearest to her should swerve her from her course. The abyss was under her feet, and she longed to draw back. She heard the voice of duty in the tones of Mrs. Frankland saying: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple." It was a cruel alternative that was set before her, and she trembled visibly.

"I--I can't neglect what I believe to be duty," she said. She wished that, by some circumlocution or some tenderness in the tone, she could have softened the words that she spoke, but all her forces had to be rallied to utter the decision, and there was no power left to qualify the bare words which sounded to Millard hard and cruel. A suspicion crossed his mind that Phillida wished to be released from the engagement.

"You do not consider that you owe any duty to me at all," he said in a voice smothered by feeling.

Phillida tried to reply, but she could not speak.

Millard was now pacing the floor. "It is all that Mrs. Frankland's work. She isn't worthy to tie your shoes. She never fed the hungry, or clothed the naked, or visited the sick. It's all talk, talk, talk, with her. She talks beautifully, and she knows it. She loves to talk and to have people crowd around her and tell her how much good she is doing. She denies herself nothing; she feeds her vanity on the flattery she gets, and then thinks herself a saint besides. She exhorts people to a self-sacrifice she wouldn't practise for the world. She's making more money out of her piety than her husband can out of law. And now she comes with her foolish talk and breaks up the happiness you and I have had." This was spoken with bitterness. "We can not go on in this way," he said, sitting down exhausted, and looking at her.

Phillida had listened in silence and anguish to his words, spoken hurriedly but not loudly. What he said had an effect the opposite of what he had expected. The first impression produced by his words was that the engagement had become a source of misery to Millard; the second thought was that, considering only her duty to him, she ought to release him from bonds that had proved so painful. His last words seemed to indicate that he wished the engagement broken, and after what he had said it was evident that she must break with him or swerve from the duty she had vowed never to desert. Taking up the word where he had left off, she said in a low, faltering voice:

"We certainly can not go on in this way."

Then, rising, she turned to the antique desk in the corner of the parlor. With a key from her pocket she unlocked a drawer, and from it took hurriedly every keepsake she had had from her lover, not allowing herself to contemplate them, but laying them all at last on the ancient center-table in the middle of the room. With a twinge of regret, visible to Millard, she drew her engagement ring from her finger, and with an unsteady hand laid it softly down with the rest.

Millard was too much startled at first to know what to say. Had she misunderstood the intent of his last remark? Or did she wish to be released?

"It is all over, Mr. Millard. Take them, please."

"I--I have not--asked you to release me, Phillida."

"You have said that we can not go on in this way. I say the same. It--" she could not speak for a quarter of a minute; then she slowly finished her sentence with an effort of desperation and without raising her eyes to his--"it is better that it is over."

"Is it over?" he asked, stunned. "Think what you say."

"We have agreed that we can not go on," she answered. "You must take these. I can not keep them."

"Don't make me take them. Why not keep them?"

"I will send them to-morrow. I can not retain them."

Millard could not take them. He would have felt much as he might in rifling a grave of its treasures had he lifted those tokens from the table. But he saw, or thought he saw, that remonstrances might make Phillida more unhappy, but that it would be perfectly useless. It was better to accept his fate, and forbear. He tried to say something to soften the harshness of parting, but his powers of thought and speech deserted him, and he knew that whatever he would say must be put into one or two words. He looked up, hesitatingly stretched out his hand, and asked huskily: