Her first impression was of a warm, tender hand holding a cold cloth to her temples. She reached up and seized it; but it was jerked from her grasp. She opened her eyes and looked into Professor Bulkeley's face bending over her. Instantly he rose to his feet.
"You'll be all right now," he said coldly, and left her.
It was so cruel. She wanted to cry out against him. But across the room she could see him and the cook bending over the prostrate form of her husband. A vague sense of the emotions that must be controlling the Professor closed her lips. The cook retreated to the kitchen, and they heard him close the back door and pass rapidly away toward the ranch buildings.
The Professor lifted Cockney against the wall. He was partly conscious now, a large bandage covering the upper part of his head. He looked over at his wife, puzzled. Memory returned to him in a wave, and he struggled to stand up. But the Professor's strong hand pressed him back.
"Wait, Jim Cathers! There are things you should know."
He drew from an inside pocket a newspaper clipping carefully folded in a piece of stiff paper, and held it out to Cockney.
"You'll know by that that I'm not the man to insult any man's wife. Perhaps you'll realise how I've held myself these many weeks."
He thrust the clipping into Cockney's nerveless hand.
"I believe I can trust it to you now—as well as the next move. You're a free man. It's an open race between us now.... But you've the inside track—and I'll leave you there till the decision's made. I think I know Cockney Aikens, if I didn't Jim Cathers."
Without looking at Mary he went out, though she hungered for his eyes. Cockney staggered to his feet and sank into a chair, staring at the clipping. Once or twice as he read, the back of his hand pressed against his forehead, and at the end he closed his eyes. Mary Aikens stood leaning on the piano, scarcely breathing.
Presently he looked at her.
"Sit down, Mary." His voice was like the old courting days. "I have a—a story to tell you."
She sank to the piano seat, her arms outstretched over the keyboard.
"It's a story that suffers from being withheld from you so long. You should have known it—Mary Merrill—before you—you consented to come here—no, you should never have heard it, for it should never have been necessary to tell you.... I thought the only one who knew it was myself—it was my story—the story of a broken, degraded life. It is better—and worse than I thought....
"You are not my wife."
She was conscious of a numbing chaos or emotions that clouded her brain—but there was joy there with the bewilderment; joy—and shame.
He drew a broken breath.
"You are not my wife—unless—unless ... I was born in England—in Surrey—you need know nothing more definite than that. My name is Jim Cathers—you heard it. My people had money—too much of it for my good. There are many in England like that.... I was spoilt—spoilt as a baby, as a boy, as a youth.... It was in my youth it began to twist my life. My money—everyone knew of it. That was part of my parents' creed. The girls about knew that Jim Cathers was the catch of the country-side—they thought of nothing but my money.... Money—and position—count so much more in love over there—because all men are not equal. Love is more impersonal, I suppose....
"There was one—Dorothy Swaine. She was a—a publican's daughter. I have only this excuse—a miserable one—that the publican over there is rated differently from where you were raised. I met her on one of my orgies. She was pretty; I was a fool. She wanted my money and name. I—I wanted ... Mary Merrill. I loved her as much as my shallow nature in those days knew how.... I married her."
He swallowed hard, and crushed the bit of paper in his nervous hand, but smoothed it out again carefully on his knees.
"We scarcely lived together. Father and mother were disgusted—insulted—disgraced. In our family had been an actress or two of no great reputation, it is true, morally or artistically, and one of my uncles had married a maid. But always something was done to gloss it over—money and position are called on so often to do that—and the upper lips of the Cathers remained stiff....
"Father brought me back from France—where we had gone on our brief honeymoon—when the money was spent.... Dorothy ... she was handed a sum of money.... She took it hanging round my neck with the wails of a broken heart. I didn't suspect—about the money, and I swore I'd return when I could keep her.... You see, I had been trained to no profession. I'd been to a Public School, an expensive and exclusive one ... and they—that kind—do nothing to correct a foolish lad's sense of proportion. I was one of a vast body over there whose only profession is to uphold the family traditions and to spend. That meant the Army—or the Church....
"The longer I was kept from her, the more madly I thought I loved her.... Yes—the more I loved her. I want to be square: I did love her. One night I could stand it no longer. I stole away from the house.... I remember how I thrilled at the sight of the lights of her father's inn. I pictured her joy at sight of me. I swore to myself never to leave her again. There would be some way of making a home for the rest of our lives. You see, I didn't know then she had taken the money. I crept up to the inn through the darkness, partly to surprise her, partly that inquisitive eyes might not carry back the story to my father. Nine out of ten of the neighbourhood would have leaped at the opportunity of winning father's favour...
"I found her almost as I had pictured her—leaning on the gate ... almost ... almost ... She was not alone...."
Mary Aikens was listening with drumming ears. "You are not my wife—you are not my wife!" It kept ringing down everything else, so that she heard him only as against a strong wind that steals words and phrases.
"There was a man with her.... I heard what they were saying.... I followed them...."
His voice trailed off to a whisper; his unseeing eyes stared far through the paper spread on his knee.
"When he was gone I—I took her by the throat—I was a big, strong fellow even then—and I squeezed—squeezed—squeezed. I could feel her breath bubbling through my fingers ... and then it ceased.... I flung her on the ground and ran. I told father. He crammed all the money he had in my pocket and started me off for Liverpool.... I turned up here in Canada as Jim Aikens....
"There isn't much more. Father kept me supplied with money through a firm of Winnipeg lawyers. There has been no stinting—the name of Cathers must never be sullied again—so long as I stayed away.
"For years I thought I had killed her—my wife. Not a word in all that time have I heard directly from home. I dared not write for fear my letters would be traced, and neither father nor mother have written me—ever told me Dorothy did not die. Until a year after I married you I thought I was free to marry."
Her hands fell from her face, a gasp of relief broke from her. He understood.
"Oh, Mary! I never was brute enough to marry you, knowing—my wife to be alive. You are innocent—as I am—of that.... More than a year ago I saw her picture in a New York paper. She was on the stage—she'd come to America—perhaps to look for me.... For some reason she had clung to her own name—perhaps she expected me to recognise her, for she was well known then. I knew her cruel smile, her smirking innocence, her shameless invitation. And I—I was a bigamist.... You were not my wife.... After that I went to the dogs. It was bad enough to have murdered her, even for the cause I had; it was worse to realise what I had done to you.... I married you too hastily, Mary. I wanted to stifle that gurgling breath that was always ringing in my ears, to feel that I was bound at last—everlastingly—to a woman I could safely cherish.... I didn't love you for yourself in those days, Mary, as I have learned to since. And by the time I knew you were not my wife I loved you too much to let you love me until—until somehow I was purged, I didn't figure how. If separation must come to us, I didn't want you to suffer as I would. I wouldn't let you love me."
He bowed his head in his hands, and his great shoulders shook.
"That is why I've—I've played the brute, Mary. God knows it hurt me more than it did you. But—but it was coming easier lately. A man can't lower himself to that, even for virtue's sake, without sinking a step. Of late I've sunk several. One was jealousy. You weren't mine, but I wouldn't let anyone else have you. I hated that man—and now I know why. I've hated everyone, even the men who look at you in town. I think I've been going mad for love of you, Mary.... And now—now——"
He was reading the clipping again.
"What have you there?" she asked, and her voice was dead, hopeless.
"Dorothy Swaine is dead. And I am free—free!"
He rose to his feet. A radiant light was in his eyes, and his arms stretched out to her.
"Mary, do you understand? I am free. We can look the world in the face——"
But in Mary Merrill's face was no answering light.
"Jim! Jim!" she wailed. "Why—oh, why didn't you trust me? Why didn't you tell me a year ago?"
He pulled up, swaying, and his hands fell slowly to his side.
"Why—Mary!"
It was the moan of despair, of freshly-lit fires for ever extinguished.
Mary Merrill rose from the piano seat, her hands tight against her cheeks, and tottered to her room. For a full minute he stared unbelievingly at the locked door, then he lifted his Stetson slowly from the floor and stumbled out.