Liot is in the shelter of Gods hand; he need not fear what you can do to him. He can prove you liar far easier than you can prove him murderer. On the last day of Beles life Liot was at sea all day, and there were three men with him. He spent the evening with John Twatt and myself, and then sat until the midnight with Paul Borson.
For all that, he was with Bele Trenby! I know it! My heart tells me so.
Your heart has often lied to you before this. I see, however, that our talk had better come to an end once for all. I will never come here again.
I shall be the happier for that. Why did you come at this time?
I thought that you were in trouble about Bele. I was sorry for you. I wished to be friends with every one before I married.
I want no pity; I want vengeance; and from here or there I will compass it. While my head is above the mold there is no friendship possible between usno, nor after it. Do you think that Bele is out of your way because he is out of the body? He is now nearer to you than your hands or feet. And let Liot Borson look to himself. The old thralls curse was evil enough, but Bele Trenby will make it measureless.
Such words are like the rest of your lying; I will not fear them, since God is himself, and he shall rule the life Liot and I will lead together. When a girl is near her bridal every one but you will give her a blessing. I think you have no heart; surely you never loved any one.
I have lovedyes! Then she stood up and cried passionately: Begone! I will speak no more to youonly this: ask Liot Borson what was the ending of Bele Trenby.
She was the incarnation of rage and accusation, and Karen almost fled from her presence. Her first impulse was to go to Liot with the story of the interview, but her second was a positive withdrawal of it. It was the eve of her bridal day, and the house was already full of strangers. Paul Borson was spending his money freely for the wedding-feast. In the morning she was to become Liots wife. How could she bring contention where there should be only peace and good-will?
Besides, Liot had told her it was useless to visit Matilda; he had even urged her not to do so, for all Lerwick knew how bitterly she was lamenting the loss of her adopted son Bele; and Liot had said plainly to Karen: As for her good-will, there is more hope of the dead; let her alone. As she remembered these words a cold fear invaded Karens heart; it turned her sick even to dismiss it. What if Liot did know the ending of Bele! She recalled with a reluctant shiver his altered behavior, his long silences, his gloomy restlessness, the frequent breath of some icy separation between them. If Matilda was right in any measureif Liot knew! Merciful God, if Liot had had any share in the matter! She could not face him with such a thought in her heart. She ran down to the sea-shore, and hid herself in a rocky shelter, and tried to think the position down to the bottom.
It was all a chaos of miserable suspicion, and at last she concluded that her fear and doubt came entirely from Matildas wicked assertions. She would not admit that they had found in her heart a condition ready to receive them. She said: I will not again think of the evil words; it is a wrong to Liot. I will not tell them to him; he would go to Matilda, and there would be more trouble, and the why and the wherefore spread abroad; and God knows how the wicked thought grows.
Then she stooped and bathed her eyes and face in the cold salt water, and afterward walked slowly back to Paul Borsons. The house was full of company and merry-making, and she was forced to fall into the mood expected from her. Women do such things by supreme efforts beyond the power of men. And Karens smiles showed nothing of the shadow behind them, even when Liot questioned her about her visit.
She is a bad woman, Liot, answered Karen, and she said many temper-trying words.
That is what I looked for, Karen. It is her way about all things to scold and storm her utmost. Does she trouble you, dear one?
I will not be word-sick for her. There is, as you said, no love lost between us, and I shall not care a rap for her anger. Thanks to the Best, we can live without her. And in this great trust she laid her hand in Liots, and all shadows fled away.
It was then a lovely night, bright with rosy auroras; but before morning there was a storm. The bridal march to the kirk had to be given up, and, hooded and cloaked, the company went to the ceremony as they best could. There was no note of music to step to; it was hard enough to breast the gusty, rattling showers, and the whole landscape was a little tragedy of wind and rain, of black, tossing seas and black, driving clouds. Many who were not at the bridal shook their heads at the storm-drenched wedding-guests, and predicted an unhappy marriage; and a few ventured to assert that Matilda Sabiston had been seen going to the spaewife Asta. And what for, they asked, but to buy charms for evil weather?
All such dark predictions, however, appeared to be negatived by actual facts. No man in Lerwick was so happy as Liot Borson. The home he had built Karen made a marvel of neatness and even beauty; it was always spotless and tidy, and full of bits of bright colorgay patchwork and crockery, and a snow-white hearth with its glow of fiery peat. Always she was ready to welcome him home with a loving kiss and all the material comforts his toil required. And they loved each other! When that has been said, what remains unsaid? It covers the whole ground of earthly happiness.
How the first shadow crossed the threshold of this happy home neither Liot nor Karen could tell; it came without observation. It was in the air, and entered as subtly and as silently. Liot noticed it first. It began with the return of Brent. When he gave Bele the piece of cloth and the gold brooch for his wife, he was on the point of leaving Amsterdam for Java. Fever and various other things delayed his return, but in the end he came back to Lerwick and began to talk about Bele. For Auda, reticent until her husbands return, then told him of Beles visit; and one speculation grew on the top of another until something like the truth was in all mens minds, even though it was not spoken. Liot saw the thought forming in eyes that looked at him; he felt it in little reluctances of his mates, and heard it, or thought he heard it, in their voices. He took home with him the unhappy hesitation or misgiving, and watched to see if it would touch the consciousness of Karen. The loving wife, just approaching the perilous happiness of maternity, kept asking herself, What is it? What is it? And the answer was ever the samethe accusing words that Matilda Sabiston had said, and the quick, sick terror of heart they had awakened.
On Christmas day Karen had a son, a child of extraordinary beauty, that brought his soul into the world with him. The women said that his eyes instantly followed the light, and that his birth-cry passed into a smile. Liot was solemnly and silently happy. He sat for hours holding his wifes hand and watching the little lad sleeping so sweetly after his first hard travail; for the birth of this child meant to Liot far more than any mortal comprehended. He knew himself to be of religiously royal ancestry, and the covenant of God to such ran distinctly, To you and your children. So, then, if God had refused him children, he would certainly have believed that for his sin in regard to Bele Trenby the covenant between God and the Borsons was broken. This fair babe was a renewal of it. He took him in his arms with a prayer of inexpressible thanksgiving. He kissed the child, and called him David with the kiss, and said to his soul, The Lord hath accepted my contrition.