Between Friends

What were the nights of a condemned man like? Did Graylock sleep? Did he suffer? Was the suspense a living death to him? Had he ever suspected him, Drene, of treachery after he, Graylock, had fulfilled his final part of the bargain.

For a long time, now, a fierce curiosity concerning what Graylock was thinking and doing had possessed Drene. What does a man, who is in good physical health, do, when he is at liberty to compute to the very second how many seconds of life remain for him?

Drene’s sick brain ached with the problem day and night.

In November the snow fell. Drene had not been out except in imagination.

Day after day, in imagination, he had followed Graylock, night after night, slyly, stealthily, shirking after him through busy avenues at midday, lurking by shadowy houses at midnight, burning to see what expression this man wore, what was imprinted on his features;—obsessed by a desire to learn what he might be thinking—with death drawing nearer.

But Drene, in the body, had never stirred from his own chilly room—a gaunt, fierce-eyed thing, unkempt, half-clothed, huddled all day in his chair brooding above his bitten nails, or flung starkly across his couch at night staring at the stars through the dirty crust of glass above.

One night in December when the stars were all staring steadily back at him, and his thoughts were out somewhere in the darkness following his enemy, he heard somebody laughing in the room.

For a while he lay very still, listening; but when he realized that the laughter was his own he sat up, pressing his temples between hot and trembling fingers.

It seemed to silence the laughter: terror subsided to a tremulous apprehension—as though he had been on the verge of something horrible sinking into it for a moment—but had escaped.

Again he found himself thinking of Graylock, and presently he laughed; then frightened, checked himself. But his fevered brain had been afire too long; he lay fighting with his thoughts to hold them in leash lest they slip out into the night like blood hounds on the trail of the man they had dogged so long.

Trembling, terrified, he set his teeth in his bleeding lip, and clenched his gaunt fists: He could not hold his thoughts in leash; could not control the terrifying laughter; hatred blazed like hell-fire scorching the soul in him, searing his aching brain with flames which destroy.

In the darkness he struggled blindly to his feet; and he saw the stars through the glass roof all ablaze in the midnight sky; saw the infernal flicker of pale flames in the obscurity around him, heard a voice calling for help—his own voice—

Then something stirred in the darkness; he listened, stared, striving to pierce the obscurity with fevered eyes.

Long since the cloths that swathed the clay figures in the studio had dried out unnoticed by him. He gazed from one to another, holding his breath. Then his eyes rested upon the altar piece, fell on the snowy foot, were lifted inch by inch along the marble folds upward slowly to the slim and child-like hands—

“Oh, God!” he whispered, knowing he had gone mad at last.

For, under the carven fingers, the marble folds of the robe over the heart were faintly glowing from some inward radiance. And, as he reeled forward and dropped at the altar foot, lifting his burning eyes, he saw the child-like head bend toward him from the slender neck—saw that the eyes were faintly blue—

“Mother of God!” he screamed, “my mind is dying—my mind is dying! … We were boys, he and I.... Let God judge him.... Let him be judged… mercifully.... I am worse than he.... There is no hell. I have striven to fashion one—I have desired to send him thither—Mother of God—Cecile—”

Under his fevered eyes he was confusing them, now, and he sank down close against the pedestal and laid his f ace against her small cold foot.

“I am sick,” he rambled on—“and very tired.... We were boys together, Cecile.... When I am in my right mind I would not harm him.... He was so handsome and daring. There was nothing he dared not do.... So young, and straight, and daring.... I would not harm him. Or you, Cecile.... Only I am sick, burning out, with only a crippled mind left—from being badly hurt—It never got well. … And now it is dying of its hurt—Cecile!—Mother of God!—before it dies I do forgive him—and ask forgiveness—for Christ’s sake—”

Toward noon the janitor broke in the door.

VII

It was late in December before Drene opened his eyes in his right senses. He unclosed them languidly, gazed at the footboard of his bed, then, around at the four shabby walls of his room.

“Cecile?” he said, distinctly.

The girl who had been watching him laid aside her sewing, rose, and bent over him. Suddenly her pale face flushed and one hand flew to her throat.

“Dearest?” he said, inquiringly.

Then down on her knees fell the girl, and groped for his wasted hand and laid her cheek on it, crying silently.

As for Drene, he lay there, his hollow eyes roaming from wall to wall. At last he turned his head on the pillow and looked down at her.

The next day when he opened his eyes from a light sleep his skin was moist and cool and he managed to move his hand toward hers as she bent over him.

“I want—Graylock,” he whispered. The girl flushed, bent nearer, gazing at him intently.

“Graylock,” he repeated.

“Not now,” she murmured, “not today. Rest for a while.”

“Please,” he said, looking up at her trustfully—“Graylock. Now.”

“When you are well—”

“I am—well. Please, dear.”

For a while she continued sitting there on the side of his bed, his limp hands in hers, her lips pressed against them. But he never took his eyes from her, and in them she saw only the same wistful expression, unchanging, trustful that she would do his bidding.

So at last she went into the studio and wrote a note to Graylock. It was late. She went downstairs to the janitor’s quarters where there was a messenger call. But no messenger came probably Christmas day kept them busy. Perhaps, too, some portion of the holiday was permitted them, for it was long after dinner and the full tide of gaiety in town was doubtless at its flood.

So she waited until it was plain that no messenger was coming; then she rose from the chair and stood gazing out into the wintry darkness through the dirty basement window. Clocks were striking eleven.

As she turned to go her eye fell upon the telephone. She hesitated. But the memory of Drene’s eyes, their wistfulness and trust decided her.

After a little waiting she got Graylock’s apartment. A servant asked her to hold the wire.

After an interval she recognized Graylock’s voice at the telephone, pleasant, courteous, serenely wishing her the happiness of the season.

“What are you doing this Christmas night?” she asked. “Surely you are not all alone there at home?”

“I am rather too old for anything else,” he said.

“But what are you doing? Reading?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I happened to be cleaning an automatic revolver when you called up.”

“What a gay employment for Christmas night! Is that your idea of celebrating?”

“There happens to be nothing else for me to do tonight.”

“But there is. You are requested to make a call.”

“On whom?” he asked, quietly.

“On Mr. Drene.”

For a full minute he remained silent, although she spoke to him twice, thinking the connection might have been interrupted. Then his voice came, curiously altered:

“Who asked that of me?”

“Mr. Drene.”

“Mr. Drene is very ill, I hear.”

“He is convalescent.”

“Did he ask you to call me?”

“Certainly.”

“Then—you are with him?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In his apartment. I came downstairs to the janitor’s rooms. I am telephoning from there what he wished me to ask you.”

After a pause Graylock said: “Is his mind perfectly clear?”

“Perfectly, now.”

“He asked for me?”

“Yes. Will you come?”

“He asked for me? Tonight? At eleven o’clock?”

She said: “I don’t think he knows even what month it is. He has only been conscious for a day or two. Had he known it was Christmas night perhaps he might not have disturbed you. But—will you come?”

“I am afraid it is too late—to-night.”

“Tomorrow, then? Shall I tell him?”

There was a silence. She repeated the question. But Graylock’s reply was inaudible and she thought he said good-bye instead of good night.

Somewhere in the rear of the basement the janitor and his family and probably all his relatives were celebrating. A fiddle squeaked in there; there was a steady tumult of voices and laughter.

The girl stood a while listening, a slight smile on her lips. Blessed happiness had come to her in time for Christmas—a strange and heavenly happiness, more wonderful than when a life is spared to one who loves, for it had been more than the mere life of this man she had asked of God: it had been his mind.

He lay asleep when she entered and stood by the shaded lamp, looking down at him.

After a while she seated herself and took up her sewing. But laid it aside again as there came a low knocking at the door.

Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still beside the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about singing under her breath. They both heard her.

Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak:

“I am trying to get well—to start again—better—live more—nobly. … Take your chance, too.”

“If you wish, Drene.”

“Yes. I was not—very—well. I had been ill—very—a long while … And you are not to clean the automatic.... Only your own-soul.... Ask help.... You’ll get it..... I did.... And—all that is true—what we believed—as boys.... I know. I’ve seen. And it’s all true—all true—what we believed—as little boys.”

He looked up at Graylock, then closed his eyes with the shadow of a smile in them.

“Good-bye—Jack,” he whispered.

Graylock’s mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps Drene heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once more at his boyhood friend.

“Somewhere—somebody will straighten out—all this,” he murmured, closing his eyes again: “We can’t; we can only try—to straighten out—ourselves.”

Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily erect, he turned away.

Cecile met him from the studio.

“Good night,” she said, offering her hand.... “And a happy Christmas.... I hope you will not be lonely.”

He took her hand, gravely, thanked her, and went his way forever.

For a few minutes she lingered in the doorway connecting Drene’s bedroom with the studio. She held a sprig of holly.

After a little while he opened his eyes and looked at her, and, smiling, she came forward to the bedside.

“It was a terrible dream,” he whispered—“all those years. But it was a dream.”

“You must dream no more.”

“No. Come nearer.”

She rested on the bed’s edge beside him and laid one hand on his. The other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered it.

“Dear,” she whispered, “it is Christmas night. And you did not even know it.”

Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes, and he closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had been vouchsafed to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his soul.

After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in the spell of the dream that invaded her—the exquisite vision of wifehood—she sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought.

Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender neck bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue—

“Cecile!”—he faltered—“Madonna inviolate!… The woman—between—friends—”

THE END