Chapter XXXVIII

Oh, it couldn't be true! There must be some mistake! Things like that didn't happen in this warm, sunny world with, its blue sky and its June roses everywhere

And that it should happen to May of all people! Careless, carefree May, who was like a yellow butterfly that did nothing but dance in the sun....

But May was a butterfly crushed on the wheel when Gloria saw her that June morning.

She lay with her face turned to the wall in her darkened bedroom. She made no sound at all when Sarah, the old laundress, opened the door to let Gloria in.

"My dear," the girl said, leaning over her, "I'm so sorry...."

May didn't answer. She lay motionless in her frivolous pink silk nightgown. Gloria sat down beside the bed and began to stroke her arm.

"Don't cry, dear," she murmured. There were tears in her own eyes.

But May was not crying. The face that she turned to Gloria at last, was hard and white as flint.

"I killed him," she said dully. "You know that, don't you? Just as surely as if I'd held the gun!"

"Hush, dear," Gloria begged, "You don't know what you're saying."

May made a noise in her throat that was halfway between a sob and a laugh—a terrible sound.

"I killed him!" she said again, clearly. "Jim Carewe..."

Her voice broke on the name. She suddenly burst into a storm of frightful sobs, and threw herself back on the bed, waving her arms like a crazed woman. She tore at her hair.

Gloria rushed out into the hall for help. A nurse in uniform was running upstairs. It was Mrs. O'Hara—Dr. John's "boss" nurse.

"You'd better go," she said to Gloria over her shoulder, as she went into May's room.

Shaking all over, Gloria hurried downstairs.

Lola Hough came out of Dr. John's little office back of the dining-room. She had on a bungalow apron, and she looked as if she had been crying.

"Hello, Gloria," she said quietly. "What's happened up there?" She jerked her head toward the second floor.

"May's crying, that's all," Gloria answered. "Lola, how did this thing happen? Do you know?"

Lola looked at her steadily for a minute with her moist blue eyes.

"Yes, I do," she said. "I was here when it happened last night ... alone with May."

Gloria sat down weakly on the hall seat. "How terrible for you!" she gasped.

But Lola shook her head. "No," she said. "I was glad May wasn't here alone with—him. And it was just by chance that I happened to be here. It was almost midnight, and the baby had the colic. I knew the drugstore would be closed at that hour, so I ran over here to get some peppermint from Dr. John."

Lola paused for a moment. She wet her dry lips with her tongue and went on. "As I came up the street, I saw Jim Carewe's car leaving the house. And May still had on her hat when she let me in.... Of course, she'd been out riding with Jim! But anyway, I'd hardly set foot inside the house when we heard a shot in Dr. John's office. I looked in...."

"And was he dead when you looked?" asked Gloria, shocked to her finger ends.

"Stone dead," Lola answered. "I called the police, and then I thought we ought to have Dr. John's lawyer. So I phoned Dick."

"How did you know he was at his office?" Gloria asked sharply.

"I didn't, but your house didn't answer, Central said," Lola explained. "So I took a chance on the office, and got him. He came right over."

So this was where Dick had been! All of the time when Gloria had pictured him with Susan Briggs, either in his office or walking home with her under the stars!

"Our phone didn't ring last night at all," Gloria said, presently, "and it wasn't out of order, because I was talking to May at half past nine, or so ... just before she went out with Jim, I suppose.... Oh, I'll bet the burglar cut the wires!"

Lola's blue eyes showed their whites with surprise.

"Now, don't tell me you had burglars last night!" she cried.

"We certainly did!" Gloria replied. "They stole all our flat silver.... I heard 'em! I was waiting up for Dick to come home—worried to death, because I didn't know where he was!"

Lola smiled bitterly. "I guess you don't have to do much worrying about where Dick is at night!" she said. "He's a man in a million ... I wish Bill behaved himself half as well as Dick Gregory does!"

She laughed with sudden nervousness. "Bill's having a terrible time to-day," she said. "He stayed home with toothache. So I left him in charge of the kids for a while. The baby's tummy ache is gone, and he was asleep when I left. But the twins'll keep Bill busy.... He'll get a taste of my job and its joys!"

But there was no laughter in Gloria that morning.

"Lola," she said, shuddering, "why do you suppose Dr. John did this terrible thing?"

Lola was not the kind of woman who balked at the truth. She said what other people only thought. She said it now.

"Why, because of Jim Carewe, of course!" she rapped out. "He knew May was crazy about Jim. He'd forbidden her to see Jim. But you know May.... She does as she pleases. And I suppose Dr. John sat here alone for hours last night, brooding, until he just didn't know what he was doing. That's the way I've figured it out, anyway!"

"Yes, but to kill himself! He must have been out of his mind!" Gloria shook her head. "Honestly, Lola, I never thought Dr. John cared if May ran around with Jim. I used to wonder why he didn't."

"Oh, he cared, all right enough," Lola answered, "but you never can tell what those quiet men are thinking about. They bottle everything up inside themselves ... until they do something like this!"

Out in the cheerful, sunny street again, Gloria thought over what Lola had said about Dr. John.

... Dick was the quiet kind of man, too! The kind of man who bottled up everything within himself! ... Gloria wondered if he had brooded about her, as Dr. John must have brooded over May for long months. The thought almost took her breath away.

She would go to Dick now, and beg him to let bygones be bygones! She would make him love her again, as he had loved her in the early days of their life together ... the days when he trembled if he touched her. He had been under her spell once. He would be under it again.

But the sight of Miss Briggs sitting at her desk in Dick's office shook Gloria's confidence in herself, a little. Miss Briggs was actually pretty to-day! ... Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were filled with sparkle.

"Well," Gloria said, "you don't look as if you'd worked half the night!"

"I didn't," Miss Briggs answered demurely. "Mr. Gregory sent me home at ten in a cab. He's very considerate."

Hmm! Like ice he was considerate, thought Gloria.... He could send his secretary home in a cab, but his wife could walk, for all he cared! ... But, perhaps he thought that she had driven downtown in her little car, last night. He probably did think that.

Gloria opened the door of Dick's private office and looked in. It was empty.

"Where is Mr. Gregory?" she asked, turning to Miss Briggs.

"Mr. Gregory's gone out to lunch," Miss Briggs told Gloria. "But he ought to be back soon. If you'd like to, you can sit down and wait for him. You won't disturb me at all."

She went on with her typewriting.

Gloria glared down at her smooth head, bent over the machine.

... She guessed she had a perfect right to sit in her own husband's office without waiting for Miss Briggs' permission! And if she wanted to disturb Miss Briggs, she could do that, too. Watch her!

She took off her hat and tossed it down carelessly on Miss Briggs' desk. It bounded off onto the floor.

Gloria picked it up and handed it to Miss Briggs.

"Just brush that thing off," she said impudently.

Miss Briggs looked up at her in surprise. Then she flushed deeply. But without a word she wiped the dust from Gloria's hat with a hand-towel that she took from a drawer of her desk.

Then she hung it on the rack behind her.

"Look up our burglary insurance, while you're on your feet, Miss Briggs!" Gloria snapped.

From under her thick lashes she watched Miss Briggs go to the files on the other side of the room, and look for the insurance papers.

"Here they are, Mrs. Gregory," she said quietly, as she handed them to Gloria.

"And now call up the police and tell them we had a robbery at our house last night," Gloria directed her. "Tell them all our table silver was stolen. It was worth about $200 ... in case they ask you."

Miss Briggs stood looking down at her for a moment.

"Wouldn't it be better if you talked to them yourself, Mrs. Gregory?" she asked in a low tone. "They're sure to ask a lot of questions that I won't know how to answer."

Gloria met her look, coldly. "Will you please do what I told you to?" she drawled.

Miss Briggs bit her lips. It was on the end of her tongue to tell Gloria that not she, but Dick, was her employer. But, because of Dick, she said nothing.

She picked up the phone and called the police. They asked a dozen questions, and at last Gloria took the instrument from her, and answered them.

"I'll send a man out right away to look things over," the deep, masculine voice at the other end of the wire told her. "There have been a lot of burglaries in that neighborhood lately."

As Gloria turned away from the telephone, it suddenly occurred to her that there was no one at the house to admit the man from police headquarters when he got there.

"Oh, well," she thought, carelessly, "what's the diff? He can come back later." She didn't want him going through her house, now, anyway. The beds were still unmade, although it was afternoon, and the dirty dishes from yesterday's lunch were still piled in the greasy sink.

For some reason or other, an old English poem that her mother used to tell her when she was lazy, flashed into Gloria's brain. It was told about a collier's sloppy wife, who loved to gossip and hated to work. One evening he was killed at the mine. And when they brought his body home "the slut ran up to make the bed," the poem said with brutal frankness. Oh, well, after she had seen Dick and fixed things up with him, she'd go home and straighten the house, Gloria promised herself. She would honestly try to be a better housewife from now on....

"Won't you have a lettuce sandwich?" Miss Briggs' low voice broke in upon her thoughts.

She had opened a package of sandwiches, and a thermos bottle stood on her desk. From it came a thin curl of steam and the fragrant smell of coffee.

"I always bring my lunch from home, Mrs. Gregory. I find I can't afford to eat around at restaurants.... Will you have some coffee with me?"

"No, thanks," Gloria answered coldly. She was very hungry but she couldn't very well eat salt with Miss Briggs when she hated her as she did.

And she did hate her! She hated Miss Briggs' lovely voice and the dainty way she ate ... everything about her.

Gloria watched her slyly. There really was something attractive about the woman. But, of course, she wasn't pretty the way Gloria was!

She curled herself up like a kitten in a big chair in the sunny corner by the windows. She took out her vanity case and looked at herself in its little mirror. Then her eyes traveled to Miss Briggs' face.

No—Susan Briggs at her best couldn't hold a candle to her when it came to looks. Her eyes were lovely, but there were fine crow's-feet at the corners of them. And there were shadows at the corners of Miss Briggs' mouth that would be deep, carved wrinkles in a few years.

... Was it possible that Dick was in love with this plain little woman who was at least eight years older than his beautiful young wife?

But perhaps he had tired of her just because she was his wife, Gloria thought bitterly. She had heard May Seymour often say in her flip, bitter way that no man loved his wife after the first flush of married life was gone....

May Seymour! She of all women, had least reason for saying a thing like that! She must have known all along how desperately Dr. John cared for her.

A folded newspaper lay on the sill beside Gloria. She picked it up. It was full of the ugly details of Dr. John's suicide. On the first page was a large photograph of May in a plumed picture hat.

Poor May! She was fair game for any gossip to-day! Everybody's tongue was wagging about her.

What a life she was facing! For years and years and years people would remember that her husband had killed himself because of her love affair with another man ... the story would hound her to the very day she died.

No matter where she went, the tale would follow her. No matter in what remote corner of the world she tried to hide, there would always be some one who knew all about her. For there always was somebody.... People never let you forget your shame.

... Gloria wondered if Jim Carewe was worth the misery that was waiting for May. Was any man ... any happiness ... worth such misery?

And what would Jim do now? Would he marry May when the scandal had quieted down? ... Gloria doubted it. Jim wasn't the "marrying kind."

And suppose he did marry May?

Wouldn't the memory of Dr. John always be between them, like a ghostly hand keeping them apart? Of course it would....

He hadn't been able to keep his wife away from Jim Carewe while he lived. But now that he was dead, it would probably be easy enough.

"Ugh!" Gloria shivered at the thought of the power the dead can have over the living.

Miss Briggs looked up at her. She had cleared away her lunch, and was reading a thin little book.

"I suppose," she said to Gloria, "you've been reading that piece in the paper about Dr. Seymour's suicide. Terrible thing, wasn't it?"

"Horrible," Gloria agreed. It was a relief to talk about it to any one. "Why do you suppose he did such a thing ... a successful doctor, still young, and with everything to live for?"

Miss Briggs let her hands fall idly on her desk. They were lovely, sensitive hands ... her one vanity.

"Perhaps he didn't have everything," she said very quietly. "Nobody has everything he wants in this world, nobody! And besides, I've heard that Dr. Seymour and his wife didn't get along very well together."

Now who had told her that.... Dick? Oh, no, Mrs. O'Hara, of course! She was Miss Briggs' sister as well as Dr. John's "boss" nurse. She had probably known all about his troubles, Gloria said to herself. These nurses, they found out everybody's business....

"Miss Briggs," Gloria asked abruptly. "Did you ever know why Dr. Seymour and his wife didn't get along?"

Miss Briggs opened her candid eyes. "Why, yes," she answered. "There was some sort of love affair between Mrs. Seymour and a Mr. Carewe, wasn't there? I've heard there was."

Gloria shook her head.

"It wasn't a love affair," she said. "Not what I'd call a love affair, at least. May Seymour is my best friend, and I happen to know she wasn't in love with Jim Carewe. She used to tear around with him because she was lonely. Dr. John was never at home, and May didn't have many women friends.... She called Jim her 'little boy friend' and that's all he was to her. I know!"

Miss Briggs looked at her with indignant, angry eyes.

"Oh, that's beastly!" she cried.

"What's beastly?" asked Gloria, bewildered. She didn't know what Miss Briggs was talking about.

"Oh, I mean that you could almost forgive a woman for a great big love affair that had swept her off her feet!" Susan Briggs said. "But when you think of a fine man like Dr. John Seymour killing himself over a 'parlor sheik' who happened to amuse his wife.... Oh, it's sickening! And what a hideous waste! ... For Dr. John was needed. He was of some use in the world...."

"Oh, May's not so bad!" Gloria said. She wanted to defend May, but she didn't see just what defense of her there was.

"She's just made a botch of things..." she finished, weakly. "I guess I won't wait any longer for Dick. I ought to go home."

She put on her hat before the mirror, fluffed out the dark reddish gold curls around her ears.

As she passed Miss Briggs' desk her eye was caught by the bright cover of the book she was reading. It was Robert Louis Stevenson's "Vailima Letters."

"Did Dick lend you that?" Gloria asked sharply. She didn't much care for the idea that Dick let Sue Briggs take his precious books.

"No, I bought it," Miss Briggs answered, blushing furiously. "I was interested in it because..." She stopped.

"Because Dick likes Stevenson? Is that what you're trying to say?" Gloria asked, cruelly. She saw in a flash that she had hit upon the truth. For Miss Briggs broke down.

She put her handkerchief up to her face and sobbed, tearless.

Gloria just barely touched her hand with one of hers.

"There's nothing for you to cry about," she said. "I've known for a long time that you're in love with Dick."

Miss Briggs stood up then, and faced Gloria.

The flush in her cheeks had gone, and her eyes were the cold blue of a Polar lake.

"What right have you to say such a thing to me?" she asked.

Gloria's laugh was taunting. "Well, it's the truth, isn't it? You are in love with Dick, aren't you?" she asked.

She could see Miss Briggs' breast heave under her plain blue dress.

"What if I am?" she asked. "I'd never let him know it! It wouldn't hurt any one...."

She seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. Then her eyes flashed with spirit.

"I am in love with him—you may as well know it!" she cried. "I do care about him!"

Gloria wouldn't have believed that such a tone could have been wrung from the sedate and proper Miss Briggs. It was vibrant with tenderness.

"I do love him!" she said, again, as if it gave her a certain fierce satisfaction to say the words she had been waiting to say for years.

Gloria blinked with surprise. She couldn't imagine Miss Briggs telling her secret to the wife of the very man she loved. There must be something back of it.... Perhaps Dick loved her. And she knew it, and didn't care who else knew it!

"And Dick?—Is he in love with you?" Gloria asked. "Does he make love to you down here in this office when you're alone with him all day?"

A queer expression of disgust went over Miss Briggs' white face.

"Oh, no!" she said. "I wouldn't care for him if he were that kind of a man! ... I'm just the woman who works for him. And I'm contented to be just that—for him."

The whole spirit of her love for him was in the words. They filled Gloria with pity for her.

"Miss Briggs," she said. "I'm truly sorry for you.... You'd rather hoped to marry Dick all those years when he was a bachelor, hadn't you?"

Miss Briggs smiled a wry little smile that twisted her mouth up at one corner.

"I suppose I had, without quite knowing it," she said. "Oh, let's stop talking about it ... you'll never speak of it to Mr. Gregory, will you? Please, I'd die of shame!"

"We-ll, I'm not so sure you ought to go on working for him, feeling about him as you do," Gloria answered. "Do you think you should, yourself?"

Miss Briggs looked at her long and gravely. She could scarcely believe that, in her moment of weakness, she had told Dick's wife that she loved him.

"I've felt that way for a good many years ... and it hasn't done any one any harm," she said, miserably.

"It has done you harm!" Gloria told her. "If it hadn't been for Dick, you'd probably have married long ago."

"Oh, no!" Miss Briggs cried. "You see, this was my first job. Mr. Gregory's been my whole life for years. I couldn't have thought of marrying...."

"That's just it," said Gloria. "If a girl happens to work for a young, good-looking man, she's so likely to fall in love with him! She's a sort of a day-time wife to him, looking after his comfort, reminding him of his engagements, keeping his pencils sharpened.... Oh, I know! I used to be a stenographer, myself, you know."

"And were you in love with the man you worked for?"

"Heavens, no! You should have seen him! Old as Methuselah, and crosser than two sticks!" Gloria answered. "Well, I guess I'd better be going—tell Dick I stopped in to see him, will you?"

Miss Briggs nodded, dumbly. She looked as if she wanted to say something else. But before she could frame the words, Gloria was gone.

She sat quietly at her desk, when the sound of Gloria's high heels had died away down the corridor. All around her was a blankness that left her brain naked to outward impressions ... the loud ticking of a clock in Dick's private office, the clanging sound of the elevator outside the door.

"I shouldn't have told her," she thought at last. "How did I happen to tell her ... of all people? I must be losing my mind."

She got up and walked, in her small dignity, to the clothes rack, and took down her hat.

She closed her desk, and went out of the office. She knew she couldn't face Dick that day.

But she faced the world with a high bravery. She smiled at the elevator boy, and told him it was a lovely day and she was going out to enjoy it—to play hookey for once. From sheer habit, she bought a paper.

... She wondered if she would ever enjoy anything again. Her heart was breaking. And her pride was broken, too.

"I suppose I'll lose my job," she thought dully. "She's sure to tell Mr. Gregory. She'll make him discharge me, sure as death."

It was characteristic of Susan Briggs that she never thought of the man she loved except as "Mr. Gregory." She never had.