never to see her more.”
“But she will not let you go or go her way unless you
accompany her. And if you go yours, it will be without
Sondra and all that she represents, as well as all this
pleasant life here—your standing with your uncle, his
friends, their cars, the dances, visits to the lodges on the
lakes. And what then? A small job! Small pay! Another such
period of wandering as followed that accident at Kansas
City. Never another chance like this anywhere. Do you
prefer that?”
“But might there not be some accident here, destroying all
my dreams—my future—as there was in Kansas City?”
“An accident, to be sure—but not the same. In this instance
the plan is in your hands. You can arrange it all as you will.
And how easy! So many boats upsetting every summer—
the occupants of them drowning, because in most cases
they cannot swim. And will it ever be known whether the
man who was with Roberta Alden on Big Bittern could
swim? And of all deaths, drowning is the easiest—no noise
—no outcry—perhaps the accidental blow of an oar—the
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side of a boat. And then silence! Freedom—a body that no
one may ever find. Or if found and identified, will it not be
easy, if you but trouble to plan, to make it appear that you
were elsewhere, visiting at one of the other lakes before
you decided to go to Twelfth Lake. What is wrong with it?
Where is the flaw?”
“But assuming that I should upset the boat and that she
should not drown, then what? Should cling to it, cry out, be
saved and relate afterward that…. But no, I cannot do that—
will not do it. I will not hit her. That would be too terrible …
too vile.”
“But a little blow—any little blow under such circumstances
would be sufficient to confuse and complete her undoing.
Sad, yes, but she has an opportunity to go her own way,
has she not? And she will not, nor let you go yours. Well,
then, is this so terribly unfair? And do not forget that
afterwards there is Sondra—the beautiful—a home with her
in Lycurgus—wealth, a high position such as elsewhere you
may never obtain again—never—never. Love and
happiness—the equal of any one here—superior even to
your cousin Gilbert.”
The voice ceased temporarily, trailing off into shadow,—
silence, dreams.
And Clyde, contemplating all that had been said, was still
unconvinced. Darker fears or better impulses supplanted
the counsel of the voice in the great hall. But presently
thinking of Sondra and all that she represented, and then of
Roberta, the dark personality would as suddenly and swiftly
return and with amplified suavity and subtlety.
“Ah, still thinking on the matter. And you have not found a
way out and you will not. I have truly pointed out to you and
in all helpfulness the only way—the only way—It is a long
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lake. And would it not be easy in rowing about to eventually
find some secluded spot—some invisible nook near that
south shore where the water is deep? And from there how
easy to walk through the woods to Three Mile Bay and
Upper Greys Lake? And from there to the Cranstons’?
There is a boat from there, as you know. Pah—how
cowardly—how lacking in courage to win the thing that
above all things you desire—beauty—wealth—position—the
solution of your every material and spiritual desire. And with
poverty, commonplace, hard and poor work as the
alternative to all this.
“But you must choose—choose! And then act. You must!
You must! You must!”
Thus the voice in parting, echoing from some remote part
of the enormous chamber.
And Clyde, listening at first with horror and in terror, later
with a detached and philosophic calm as one who, entirely
apart from what he may think or do, is still entitled to
consider even the wildest and most desperate proposals for
his release, at last, because of his own mental and material
weakness before pleasures and dreams which he could not
bring himself to forego, psychically intrigued to the point
where he was beginning to think that it might be possible.
Why not? Was it not even as the voice said—a possible
and plausible way—all his desires and dreams to be made
real by this one evil thing? Yet in his case, because of flaws
and weaknesses in his own unstable and highly variable
will, the problem was not to be solved by thinking thus—
then—nor for the next ten days for that matter.
He could not really act on such a matter for himself and
would not. It remained as usual for him to be forced either
to act or to abandon this most wild and terrible thought. Yet
during this time a series of letters—seven from Roberta,
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five from Sondra—in which in somber tones in so far as
Roberta was concerned—in gay and colorful ones in those
which came from Sondra—was painted the now so sharply
contrasting phases of the black rebus which lay before him.
To Roberta’s pleadings, argumentative and threatening as
they were, Clyde did not trust himself to reply, not even by
telephone. For now he reasoned that to answer would be
only to lure Roberta to her doom—or to the attempted
drastic conclusion of his difficulties as outlined by the
tragedy at Pass Lake.
At the same time, in several notes addressed to Sondra, he
gave vent to the most impassioned declarations of love—
his darling—his wonder girl—how eager he was to be at
Twelfth Lake by the morning of the Fourth, if he could, and
so thrilled to see her there again. Yet, alas, as he also
wrote now, so uncertain was he, even now, as to how he
was to do, there were certain details in connection with his
work here that might delay him a day or two or three—he
could not tell as yet—but would write her by the second at
the latest, when he would know positively. Yet saying to
himself as he wrote this, if she but knew what those details
were—if she but knew. Yet in penning this, and without
having as yet answered the last importunate letter from
Roberta, he was also saying to himself that this did not
mean that he was planning to go to Roberta at all, or that if
he did, it did not mean that he was going to attempt to kill
her. Never once did he honestly, or to put it more
accurately, forthrightly and courageously or coldly face the
thought of committing so grim a crime. On the contrary, the
nearer he approached a final resolution or the need for one
in connection with all this, the more hideous and terrible
seemed the idea—hideous and difficult, and hence the
more improbable it seemed that he should ever commit it. It
was true that from moment to moment—arguing with
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himself as he constantly was—sweating mental sweats and
fleeing from moral and social terrors in connection with it all,
he was thinking from time to time that he might go to Big
Bittern in order to quiet her in connection with these present
importunities and threats and hence (once more evasion—
tergiversation with himself) give himself more time in which
to conclude what his true course must be.
The way of the Lake.
The way of the Lake.
But once there—whether it would then be advisable so to do
—or not—well who could tell. He might even yet be able to
convert Roberta to some other point of view. For, say what
you would, she was certainly acting very unfairly and
captiously in all this. She was, as he saw it in connection
with his very vital dream of Sondra, making a mountain—an
immense terror—out of a state that when all was said and
done, was not so different from Esta’s. And Esta had not
compelled any one to marry her. And how much better
were the Aldens to his own parents—poor farmers as
compared to poor preachers. And why should he be so
concerned as to what they would think when Esta had not
troubled to think what her parents would feel?
In spite of all that Roberta had said about blame, was she
so entirely lacking in blame herself? To be sure, he had
sought to entice or seduce her, as you will, but even so,
could she be held entirely blameless? Could she not have
refused, if she was so positive at the time that she was so
very moral? But she had not. And as to all this, all that he
had done, had he not done all he could to help her out of it?
And he had so little money, too. And was placed in such a
difficult position. She was just as much to blame as he was.
And yet now she was so determined to drive him this way.