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diff --git a/41415-0.txt b/41415-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..adaab3f --- /dev/null +++ b/41415-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6875 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41415 *** + + Studies in Wives + + By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + + + NEW YORK + MITCHELL KENNERLEY + _2 East 29th Street_ + + _Copyright, 1910, by Mitchell Kennerly_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. ALTHEA'S OPPORTUNITY 1 + + II. MR. JARVICE'S WIFE 47 + + III. A VERY MODERN INSTANCE 93 + + IV. ACCORDING TO MEREDITH 151 + + V. SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR? 205 + + VI. THE DECREE MADE ABSOLUTE 277 + + + + +I + +ALTHEA'S OPPORTUNITY + + "His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall + bring him to the king of terrors."--JOB xviii. 14. + + +There came the sound of a discreet, embarrassed cough, and Althea Scrope +turned quickly round from the window by which she had been standing +still dressed in her outdoor things. + +She had heard the door open, the unfolding of the tea-table, the setting +down of the tea-tray, but her thoughts had been far away from the old +house in Westminster which was now her home; her thoughts had been in +Newcastle, dwelling for a moment among the friends of her girlhood, for +whom she had been buying Christmas gifts that afternoon. + +The footman's cough recalled her to herself, and to the present. + +"Am I to say that you are at home this afternoon, ma'am?" + +Althea's thoughtful, clear eyes rested full on the youth's anxious face. +He had not been long in the Scropes' service, and this was the first +time he had been left in such a position of responsibility, but Dockett, +the butler, was out, a rare event, for Dockett liked to be master in his +master's house. Before the marriage of Perceval Scrope, Dockett had been +Scrope's valet, and, as Althea was well aware, the man still regarded +her as an interloper. Althea did not like Dockett, but Perceval was very +fond of him, and generally spoke of him to his friends as "Trip." Althea +had never been able to discover the reason of the nickname, and she had +not liked to ask; her husband often spoke a language strange to her. + +"I will see Mr. Bustard if he comes," she said gently. + +Dockett would not have disturbed her by asking the question, for Dockett +always knew, by a sort of instinct, whom his master and mistress wished +to see or to avoid seeing. + +Again she turned and stared out of the high, narrow, curtainless +windows. Perceval Scrope did not like curtains, and so of course there +were no curtains in his wife's drawing-room. + +Snow powdered the ground. It blew in light eddies about the bare +branches of the trees marking the carriage road through St. James's +Park, and was caught in whirling drifts on the frozen sheet of water +which reflected the lights on the bridge spanning the little lake. Even +at this dreary time of the year it was a charming outlook, and one which +most of Althea's many acquaintances envied her. + +And yet the quietude of the scene at which she was gazing so intently +oppressed her, and, suddenly, from having felt warm after her walk +across the park, Althea Scrope felt cold. + +She moved towards the fireplace, and the flames threw a red glow on her +tall, rounded figure, creeping up from the strong serviceable boots to +the short brown skirt, and so to the sable cape which had been one of +her husband's wedding gifts, but which now looked a little antiquated in +cut and style. + +It is a bad thing--a sign that all is not right with her--when a +beautiful young woman becomes indifferent to how she looks. This was the +case with Althea, and yet she was only twenty-two, and looked even +younger; no one meeting her by chance would have taken her to be a +married woman, still less the wife of a noted politician. + +She took off her fur cape and put it on a chair. She might have sent for +her maid, but before her marriage she had always waited on herself, and +she was not very tidy--one of her few points of resemblance with her +husband, and not one which made for harmony. But Mrs. Scrope, if untidy, +was also conscientious, and as she looked at the damp fur cloak her +conscience began to trouble her. + +She rang the bell. "Take my cloak and hang it up carefully in the hall," +she said to the footman. And now the room was once more neat and tidy as +she knew her friend, Mr. Bustard, would like to see it. + +It was a curious and delightful room, but it resembled and reflected the +woman who had to spend so much of her life there as little as did her +quaint and fanciful name of Althea. Her husband, in a fit of petulance +at some exceptional density of vision, had once told her that her name +should have been Jane--Jane, Maud, Amy, any of those old-fashioned, +early Victorian names would have suited Althea, and Althea's outlook on +life when she had married Perceval Scrope. + +Althea's drawing-room attained beauty, not only because of its +proportions, and its delightful outlook on St. James's Park, but also +because quite a number of highly intelligent people had seen to it that +it should be beautiful. + +Although Scrope, who thought he knew his young wife so well, would have +been surprised and perhaps a little piqued if he had been told it, +Althea preferred the house as it had been before her marriage, in the +days when it was scarcely furnished, when this room, for instance, had +been the library-smoking-room of its owner, an owner too poor to offer +himself any of the luxurious fitments which had been added to make it +suitable for his rich bride. + +As soon as Scrope's engagement to the provincial heiress Althea then was +had been announced, his friends--and he was a man of many friends--had +delighted to render him the service of making the pleasant old house in +Delahay Street look as it perchance had looked eighty or a hundred years +ago. The illusion was almost perfect, so cleverly had the flotsam of +Perceval Scrope's ancestral possessions been wedded to the jetsam +gathered in curiosity shops and at country auctions--for the devotion of +Scrope's friends had gone even to that length. + +This being so, it really seemed a pity that these same kind folk had not +been able to--oh! no, not _buy_, that is an ugly word, and besides it +had been Perceval who had been bought, not Althea--to acquire for Scrope +a wife who would have suited the house as well as the house suited +Scrope. + +But that had not been possible. + +Even as it was, the matter of marrying their friend had not been easy. +Scrope was so wilful--that was why they loved him! He had +barred--absolutely barred--Americans, and that although everybody knows +how useful an American heiress can be, not only with her money, but with +her brightness and her wits, to an English politician. He had also +stipulated for a country girl, and he would have preferred one straight +out of the school-room. + +Almost all his conditions had been fulfilled. Althea was nineteen at the +time of her marriage, and, if not exactly country-bred--she was the only +child of a Newcastle magnate--she had seen nothing of the world to which +Scrope and Scrope's Egeria, the woman who had actually picked out Althea +to be Scrope's wife, had introduced her. + +Scrope's Egeria? At the time my little story opens, Althea had long +given up being jealous--jealous, that is, in the intolerant, passionate +sense of the word; in fact, she was ashamed that she had ever been so, +for she now felt sure that Perceval would not have liked her, Althea, +any better, even if there had not been another woman to whom he turned +for flattery and sympathy. + +The old ambiguous term was, in this case, no pseudonym for another and +more natural, if uglier, relationship on the part of a married man, and +of a man whom the careless public believed to be on exceptionally good +terms with his young wife. + +Scrope's Egeria was twenty-four years older than Althea, and nine years +older than Scrope himself. Unfortunately she had a husband who, unlike +Althea, had the bad taste, the foolishness, to be jealous of her close +friendship with Perceval Scrope. And yet, while admitting to herself the +man's folly, Althea had a curious liking for Egeria's husband. There +was, in fact, more between them than their common interest in the other +couple; for he, like Althea, provided what old-fashioned people used to +call the wherewithal; he, like Althea, had been married because of the +gifts he had brought in his hands, the gifts not only of that material +comfort which counts for so much nowadays, but those which, to Scrope's +Egeria, counted far more than luxury, that is, beauty of surroundings +and refinement of living. + +Mr. and Mrs. Panfillen--to give Egeria and her husband their proper +names--lived quite close to Althea and Perceval Scrope, for they dwelt +in Old Queen Street, within little more than a stone's throw of Delahay +Street. + +Joan Panfillen, unlike Althea Scrope, was exquisitely suited to her +curious, old-world dwelling. She had about her small, graceful person, +her picturesque and dateless dress, even in her low melodious voice, +that harmony which is, to the man capable of appreciating it, the most +desirable and perhaps the rarest of feminine attributes. + +There was one thing which Althea greatly envied Mrs. Panfillen, and that +was nothing personal to herself; it was simply the tiny formal garden +which divided the house in Old Queen Street from Birdcage Walk. This +garden looked fresher and greener than its fellows because, by Mrs. +Panfillen's care, the miniature parterres were constantly tended and +watered, while the shrubs both summer and winter were washed and +cleansed as carefully as was everything else likely to be brought in +contact with their owner's wife. + +In spite of the fact that they lived so very near to one another, the +two women were not much together, and as a rule they only met, but that +was, of course, very often, when out in the political and social worlds +to which they both belonged. + +Althea had a curious shrinking from the Panfillens' charming house. It +was there, within a very few weeks of her father's death, that she had +first met Perceval Scrope--and there that he had conducted his careless +wooing. It was in Mrs. Panfillen's boudoir, an octagon-shaped room on +the park side of the house, that he had actually made his proposal, and +that Althea, believing herself to be "in love," and uplifted by the +solemn and yet joyful thought of how happy such a marriage--her marriage +to a member of the first Fair Food Cabinet--would have made her father, +had accepted him. + +From Old Queen Street also had taken place her wedding, which, if +nominally quiet, because the bride still chose to consider herself in +deep mourning, had filled St. Margaret's with one of those gatherings +only brought together on such an occasion--a gathering in which the +foemen of yesterday, and the enemies of to-morrow, unite with the +friends of to-day in order to do honour to a fellow-politician. + +Althea had darker memories connected with Mrs. Panfillen's house. She +had spent there, immediately after her honeymoon, an unhappy fortnight, +waiting for the workpeople to leave her future home in Delahay Street. +It was during that fortnight that for the first time her girlish +complacency had forsaken her, and she had been made to understand how +inadequate her husband found her to the position she was now called upon +to fill. It was then that there had first come to her the humiliating +suspicion that her bridegroom could not forgive her his own sale of +himself. Scrope and Joan Panfillen were subtle people, living in a world +of subtleties, yet in this subtle, unspoken matter of Scrope's +self-contempt concerning his marriage, the simple Althea's knowledge far +preceded theirs. + +In those days Joan Panfillen, kindest, most loyal of hostesses, had +always been taking the bride's part, but how unkind--yes, unkind was the +word--Perceval was, even then! + +Althea had never forgotten one little incident connected with that time, +and this afternoon she suddenly remembered it with singular vividness. +Scrope had been caricatured in _Punch_ as Scrooge; and--well--Althea had +not quite understood. + +"Good Lord!" he had exclaimed, turning to the older woman, "Althea +doesn't know who Scrooge was!" and quickly he had proceeded to put his +young wife through a sharp, and to her a very bewildering examination, +concerning people and places some of whom she had never heard of, while +others seemed vaguely, worryingly familiar. He had ended up with the +words, "And I suppose you consider yourself educated!" A chance muttered +word had then told her that none of these places were real--that none of +these people Perceval had spoken of with such intimate knowledge, had +ever lived! + +Althea had felt bitterly angered as well as hurt. Tears had welled up +into her brown eyes; and Mrs. Panfillen, intervening with far more eager +decision than she generally showed about even important matters, had +cried, "That's not fair! In fact you are being quite absurd, Perceval! +I've never cared for Dickens, and I'm sure most people, at any rate most +women, who say they like him are pretending--pretending all the time! I +don't believe there's a girl in London who could answer the questions +you put to Althea just now, and if there is such a girl then she's a +literary monster, and I for one don't want to know her." + +As only answer Scrope had turned and put a thin brown finger under +Althea's chin. "Crying?" he had said, "Baby! She shan't be made to +learn her Dickens if she doesn't want to, so there!" + +At the time Althea had tried to smile, but the words her husband had +used had hurt her, horribly, for they had seemed to cast a reflection on +her father--the father who thought so much of education, and who had +been at such pains to obtain for his motherless only child an ideal +chaperon-governess, a lady who had always lived with the best families +in Newcastle. Miss Burt would certainly have made her pupil read Dickens +if Dickens were in any real sense an educating influence, instead of +writing, as Althea had always understood he did, only about queer and +vulgar people. + +Not educated? Why, her father had sent her away from him for a whole +year to Dresden, in order that she might learn German and study music to +the best possible advantage! True, she had not learnt her French in +France, for her father had a prejudice against the French; he belonged +to a generation which admired Germany, and disliked and distrusted the +French. She had, however, been taught French by an excellent teacher, a +French Protestant lady who had lived all her life in England. Of course +Althea had never read a French novel, but she could recite, even now, +whole pages of Racine and Corneille by heart. + +And yet, even in this matter of languages, Perceval was unfair, for some +weeks after he had said that cruel thing to her about education, and +when they were at last settling down in their own house, arranging the +details of their first dinner party, he had said to her with a certain +abrupt ill-humour, "The one language I thought you _did_ know was +menu-French!" + +Joan Panfillen was also disappointed in Althea. Scrope's Egeria had +hoped to convert Scrope's wife, not into a likeness of herself--she was +far too clever a woman to hope to do that--but into a bright, cheerful +companion for Perceval Scrope's lighter hours. She had always vaguely +supposed that this was the rôle reserved to pretty, healthy young women +possessed of regular features, wavy brown hair, and good teeth.... + +But Mrs. Panfillen had soon realised, and the knowledge brought with it +much unease and pain, that she had made a serious mistake in bringing +about the marriage. And yet it had been necessary to do something; there +had come a moment when not only she, but even Scrope himself, had felt +that he must be lifted out of the class--always distrusted and despised +in England--of political adventurers. Scrope required, more than most +men, the solid platform, nay, the pedestal, of wealth, and accordingly +his Egeria had sacrificed herself and, incidentally, the heiress, +Althea. + +But, as so often happens to those who make the great renouncement, Joan +Panfillen found that after all no such thing as true sacrifice was to be +required of her. + +After his marriage, Scrope was more often with her than he had ever +been, and far more willing, not only to ask but to take, his Egeria's +advice on all that concerned his brilliant, meteoric career. He seldom +mentioned his wife, but Mrs. Panfillen knew her friend far too well not +to know how it was with him; Althea fretted his nerves, offended his +taste, jarred his conscience, at every turn of their joint life. + +There were, however, two meagre things to the good--Althea's fortune, +the five thousand a year, which now, after four years, did not seem so +large an income as it had seemed at first; and the fact that Scrope's +marriage had extinguished the odious, and, what was much more unpleasant +to such a woman as was Joan Panfillen, the ridiculous, jealousy of +Joan's husband. + +Thomas Panfillen greatly admired Althea; he thought her what she was--a +very lovely young woman, and the fact that he had known her father made +him complacently suppose that he had brought about her marriage to the +peculiar, he was told the remarkably clever, if rather odd, Perceval +Scrope. + +Baulked of certain instinctive rights, the human heart seeks +compensation as surely as water seeks its level. Althea, unknown to +herself, had a compensation. His name was John Bustard. He was in a +public office--to be precise, the Privy Council Office. He lived in +rooms not far from his work, that is, not far from Delahay Street, and +he had got into the way of dropping in to tea two, three, sometimes even +four times a week. + +The fact that Bustard was an old schoolfellow of Scrope's had been his +introduction to Althea in the early days when she had been +conscientiously anxious to associate herself with her husband's +interests past and present. But of the innumerable people with whom +Scrope had brought her into temporary contact, Mr. Bustard--she always +called him Mr. Bustard, as did most other people--was the one human +being who, being the fittest as regarded herself, survived. + +And yet never had there been a man less suited to play the part of +hero, or even of consoler. Mr. Bustard was short, and his figure was +many years older than his age, which was thirty-four. While forcing +himself to take two constitutionals a day, he indulged in no other +manlier form of exercise, and his contempt for golf was the only thing +that tended to a lack of perfect understanding between his colleagues +and himself. He was interested in his work, but he tried to forget it +when he was not at the office. Bustard was a simple soul, but blessed +with an unformulated, though none the less real, philosophy of life. + +Of the matter nearest his heart he scarcely ever spoke, partly because +he had always supposed it to be uninteresting to anyone but himself, and +also on account of a certain thorny pride which prevented his being +willing to ask favours from the indifferent. + +This matter nearest Mr. Bustard's heart concerned his two younger +brothers and an orphan sister whom he supremely desired to do the best +for, and to set well forward in life. + +It was of these three young people that he and Althea almost always +talked, and if Althea allowed herself to have an ardent wish, it was +that her husband would permit her to invite Mr. Bustard's sister for a +few weeks when the girl left the German finishing school which she and +Mr. Bustard had chosen, after much anxious deliberation, a year before. + +It soothed Althea's sore heart to know that there was at least one +person in her husband's circle who thought well of her judgment, who +trusted in her discretion, and who did her the compliment of not only +asking, but also of taking her advice. + +John Bustard had formed a very good opinion of Althea, and, +constitutionally incapable of divining the causes which had determined +the choice of Scrope's wife, he considered Mrs. Scrope a further proof, +if indeed proof were needed, of his brilliant schoolfellow's acute +intelligence. He had ventured to say as much to Scrope's late official +chief, one of the few men to whom Mr. Bustard, without a sufficient +cause, would have mentioned a lady's name. But he had been taken aback, +rather disturbed, by the old statesman's dry comment: "Ay, there's +always been method in Scrope's madness. I agree that he has made, from +his own point of view, a very good marriage." + +His wife's friendship with Mr. Bustard did not escape Perceval Scrope's +ironic notice. He affected to think his old schoolfellow a typical +member of the British public, and he had nicknamed him "the +Bullometer," but, finding that his little joke vexed Althea, he had, +with unusual consideration, dropped it. + +Unfortunately the one offensive epithet was soon exchanged for another; +in allusion doubtless to some historical personage of whom Althea had no +knowledge, Scrope began to call Bustard her fat friend. "How's your fat +friend?" he would ask, and a feeling of resentment filled Althea's +breast. It was not John Bustard's fault that he had a bad figure; it was +caused by the sedentary nature of his work, and because, instead of +spending his salary in the way most civil servants spend theirs, that is +in selfish amusements, he spent it on his younger brothers, and on his +little sister's education. + + * * * * * + +Althea again went over to the window and looked out. It had now left off +snowing, and the mists were gathering over the park. Soon a veil of fog +would shut out the still landscape. If Mr. Bustard were coming this +afternoon she hoped he would come soon, and so be gone before Perceval +came in. + +Perceval was going to make a great speech in the House to-night, and +Althea was rather ashamed that she did not care more. He had been put +up to speak against those who had once been of his own political +household and who now regarded him as a renegade, but the subject was +one sure to inspire him, for it was that which he had made his own, and +which had led to his secession from his party. Althea and Mrs. Panfillen +were going together to hear the speech, but, to his wife's surprise, +Scrope had refused to dine with the Panfillens that same evening. + +Perceval Scrope had not been well. To his vexation the fact had been +mentioned in the papers. The intense cold had tried him--the cold, and a +sudden visit to his constituency. + +Althea could not help feeling slightly contemptuous of Perceval's +physical delicacy. Her husband had often looked ill lately, not as ill +as people told her he looked, but still very far from well. Only to +herself did Althea say what she felt sure was the truth, namely that +Perceval's state was due to himself, due to his constant rushing about, +to the way in which he persistently over-excited himself; last, but by +no means least, to the way he ate and drank when the food and drink +pleased him. + +Althea judged her husband with the clear, pitiless eyes of youth, but +none of those about her knew that she so judged him. Indeed, there were +some in her circle, kindly amiable folk, who believed, and said perhaps +a little too loudly, that Althea was devoted to Perceval, and that their +marriage was one of those delightful unions which are indeed made in +Heaven.... + +From the further corner of the room there came the sharp ring of the +telephone bell. No doubt a message saying that Perceval had altered his +plans and was dining out, alone. + +Insensibly Althea's lips tightened. She thought she knew what her +husband was about to suggest. She felt sure that he would tell her, as +he had told her so many times before when he had failed her, to offer +herself to Mrs. Panfillen for dinner. + +But no--the voice she heard calling her by name was not that of Perceval +Scrope. It was a woman's voice, and it seemed to float towards her from +a far distance. "Althea," called the strange voice, "Althea." + +"Yes?" she said, "who is it? I can hardly hear you," and then, with +startling closeness and clearness--the telephone plays one such +tricks--came the answer in a voice she knew well, "It is I--Joan +Panfillen! Are you alone, Althea? Yes? Ah! that's good! I want you to +do me a kindness, dear. I want you to come round here now--at once. +Don't tell anyone you are coming to me. I have a reason for this. Can +you hear what I say, Althea?" + +"Yes," said the listener hesitatingly, "yes, I hear you quite well now, +Joan." + +"Come in by the park side, I mean through the garden--the gate is +unlocked, and I will let you in by the window. Be careful as you walk +across the flags, it's very slippery to-night. Can you come now, at +once?" + +Althea hesitated a moment. Then she answered, in her low, even voice, +"Yes, I'll come now, at once." + +A kindness? What kindness could she, Althea Scrope, do Joan Panfillen? +The fear of the other woman, the hidden distrust with which she regarded +her, gathered sudden force. Not lately, but in the early days of +Scrope's marriage, Mrs. Panfillen had more than once tried to use her +friend's wife, believing--strange that she should have made such a +mistake--that Althea might succeed where she herself had failed in +persuading Scrope for his own good. Althea now told herself that no +doubt Joan wished to see her on some matter connected with Perceval's +coming speech. + +As this thought came to her Althea's white forehead wrinkled in vexed +thought. It was too bad that she should have to go out now, when she was +expecting Mr. Bustard, to whom she had one or two rather important +things to say about his sister----But stay, why should he be told that +she was out? Why indeed should she be still out when Mr. Bustard did +come? It was not yet five o'clock, and he seldom came before a quarter +past. With luck she might easily go over to Joan Panfillen's house and +be back before he came. + +Althea walked quickly out of the drawing-room and down into the hall. +Her fur cloak had been carefully hung up as she had directed. Perceval +always said Luke was a stupid servant, but she liked Luke; he was +careful, honest, conscientious, a very different type of man from the +butler, Dockett. + +Althea passed out into the chilly, foggy air. Delahay Street, composed +of a few high houses, looked dark, forbidding, deserted. She had often +secretly wondered why her husband chose to live in such a place. Of +course she knew that their friends raved about the park side of the +house, but the wife of Perceval Scrope scarcely ever went in or out of +her own door without remembering a dictum of her father's: "Nothing +makes up for a good front entrance." + +Althea walked quickly towards Great George Street; to the left she +passed Boar's Head Yard, where lived an old cabman in whom she took an +interest, and whose cab generally stood at Storey's Gate. + +How strange to think that here had once stood Oliver Cromwell's house! +Her husband had told her this fact very soon after their marriage; it +had seemed to please him very much that they lived so near the spot +where Cromwell had once lived. Althea even at the time had thought this +pleasure odd, in fact affected, on Perceval's part. + +If the great Protector's house stood there _now_, filled with +interesting little relics of the man, she could have understood, perhaps +to a certain extent sympathised with, Perceval's feeling, for Cromwell +had been one of her father's heroes. But to care or pretend to care for +a vanished association----! + +But Perceval was like that. No man living--or so Althea believed--was so +full of strange whimsies and fads as was Perceval Scrope! And so +thinking of him she suddenly remembered, with a tightening of the heart, +how often her husband's feet had trodden the way she was now treading, +hastening from the house which she had just left to the house to which +she was now going. + +Jealous of Joan Panfillen? Nay, Althea assured herself that there was no +room in her heart for jealousy, but it was painful, even more, it was +hateful, to know that there were people who pitied her because of this +peculiar intimacy between Perceval and Joan. Why, quite lately, there +had been a recrudescence of talk about their friendship, so an ill-bred +busybody had hinted to Althea only the day before. + +The wife was dimly aware that there had been a time when Mrs. Panfillen +had hoped to form with her an unspoken compact; each would have helped +the other, that is, to "manage" Perceval; but the moment when such an +alliance would have been possible had now gone for ever--even if it had +ever existed. Althea would have had to have been a different +woman,--older, cleverer, less scrupulous, more indifferent than she was, +even now, to the man she had married, to make such a compact possible. + +When about to cross Great George Street she stopped and hesitated. Why +should she do this thing, why leave her house at Joan Panfillen's +bidding? But Althea, even as she hesitated, knew that she would go on. +She had said that she was coming, and she was not one to break lightly +even a light word. + +As she crossed Storey's Gate, she noticed the stationary cab of the old +man who lived in Boar's Head Yard. It had been standing there when she +had come in from her walk, and she felt a thrill of pity--the old man +made a gallant fight against misfortune. She and Joan Panfillen were +both very kind to him. + +Althea told herself that this sad world is full of real trouble, and the +thought made her ashamed of the feelings which she had just allowed to +possess and shake her with jealous pain. And yet--yet, though many +people envied her, how far from happy Althea knew herself to be, and how +terribly grey her life now looked, stretching out in front of her. + +As she passed into Birdcage Walk, and came close to the little iron gate +which Mrs. Panfillen had told her was unlocked, she saw that a woman +stood on the path of the tiny garden behind the railings. + +Of course it was not Joan herself; the thought that Joan, delicate, +fragile as she was, would come out into the cold, foggy air was +unthinkable; scarcely less strange was it to see standing there, +cloakless and hatless, Joan's maid, a tall, gaunt, grey-haired woman +named Bolt, who in the long ago had been nurse to the Panfillens' dead +child. Scrope had told Althea the story of the brief tragedy very early +in his acquaintance with her; he had spoken with strong feeling, and +that although the child had been born, had lived, and had died before he +himself had known Joan. + +In the days when she had been Mrs. Panfillen's guest, that is before her +marriage, Althea had known the maid well, known and liked her grim +honesty of manner, but since Althea's marriage to Perceval Scrope there +had come a change over Bolt's manner. She also had made Althea feel that +she was an interloper, and now the sight of the woman standing waiting +in the cold mist disturbed her. + +Bolt looked as if she had been there a very long time, and yet Althea +had hurried; she was even a little breathless. As she touched the gate, +she saw that it swung loosely. Everything had been done to make her +coming easy; how urgent must be Joan's need of her! + +Althea became oppressed with a vague fear. She looked at the maid +questioningly. "Is Mrs. Panfillen ill?" she asked. The other shook her +head. "There's nothing ailing Mrs. Panfillen," she said in a low voice. + +Together, quite silently, they traversed the flagged path, and then Bolt +did a curious thing. She preceded her mistress's visitor up the iron +steps leading to the boudoir window, and leaving her there, on the +little balcony, went down again into the garden, and once more took up +her station near the gate as if mounting guard. + +The long French window giving access to the boudoir was closed, and in +the moment that elapsed before it was opened from within Althea Scrope +took unconscious note of the room she knew so well, and of everything in +it, including the figure of the woman she had come to see. + +It was a panelled octagon, the panels painted a pale Wedgwood blue, +while just below the ceiling concave medallions were embossed with +flower garlands and amorini. + +A curious change had been made since Althea had last seen the room. An +old six-leaved screen, of gold so faded as to have become almost silver +in tint, which had masked the door, now stood exactly opposite the +window behind which Althea was standing. It concealed the straight +Empire sofa which, as Mr. Panfillen was fond of telling his wife's +friends, on the very rare occasions when he found himself in this room +with one of them, had formerly stood in the Empress Josephine's boudoir +at Malmaison; and, owing to the way it was now placed, the old screen +formed a delicate and charming background to Mrs. Panfillen's figure. + +Scrope's Egeria stood in the middle of the room waiting for Scrope's +wife. She was leaning forward in a curious attitude, as if she were +listening, and the lemon-coloured shade of the lamp standing on the +table threw a strange gleam on her lavender silk gown, fashioned, as +were ever the clothes worn by Joan Panfillen, with a certain austere +simplicity and disregard of passing fashion. + +Althea tapped at the window, and the woman who had sent for her turned +round, and, stepping forward, opened the window wide. + +"Come in!" she cried. "Come in, Althea--how strange that you had to +knock! I've been waiting for you so long." + +"I came as quickly as I could--I don't think I can have been five +minutes." + +Althea stepped through the window, bringing with her a blast of cold, +damp air. She looked questioningly at Mrs. Panfillen. She felt, she +hardly knew why, trapped. The other's look of anxious, excited scrutiny +disturbed her. + +Mrs. Panfillen's fair face, usually pale, was flushed. + +So had she reddened, suddenly, when Althea had come to tell her of her +engagement to Perceval Scrope. So had she looked when standing on the +doorstep as Althea and Perceval started for their honeymoon, just after +there had taken place a strange little scene--for Scrope, following the +example of Thomas Panfillen, who had insisted on what he called saluting +the bride, had taken Panfillen's wife into his arms and kissed her. + +"Althea"--Joan took the younger woman's hand in hers and held it, +closely, as she spoke, "don't be frightened,--but Perceval is here, +ill,--and I've sent for you to take him home." + +"Ill?" A look of dismay came over Althea's face. "I hope he's not too +ill to speak to-night--that would be dreadful--he'd be terribly upset, +terribly disappointed!" Even as she spoke she knew she was using words +which to the other would seem exaggerated, a little childish. + +"I'm sure he'd rather you took him home, I'm sure he'd rather not be +found----" Mrs. Panfillen hesitated a moment, and again she said the +words "'ill', 'here'," and for the first time Althea saw that there was +a look of great pain and strain on Joan's worn, sensitive face. + +"Of course not!" said the young wife quickly. "Of course he mustn't be +ill here; he must come home, at once." + +Althea's pride was protesting hotly against her husband's stopping a +moment in a house where he was not wanted--pride and a certain +resentment warring together in her heart. How strange London people +were! This woman whom folk--the old provincial word rose to her +lips--whom folk whispered was over-fond of Perceval--why, no sooner was +he ill than her one thought was how to get rid of him quietly and +quickly! + +Mrs. Panfillen, looking at her, watching with agonised intensity the +slow workings of Althea's mind, saw quite clearly what Perceval's wife +was feeling, saw it with a bitter sense of what a few moments ago she +would have thought inconceivable she could ever feel again--amusement. + +She went across to the window and opened it. As if in answer to a +signal, the little iron gate below swung widely open: "Bolt has gone to +get a cab," she said, without turning round; "we thought that it would +be simplest. The old cabman knows us all--it will be quicker." She spoke +breathlessly, but there was a tone of decision in her voice, a gentle +restrained tone, but one which Althea knew well to spell finality. + +"But where _is_ Perceval?" + +Althea looked round her bewildered. She noticed, for the first time, +that flung carelessly across two chairs lay his outdoor coat, his +gloves, his stick, his hat. Then he also had come in by the park side of +the house? + +Mrs. Panfillen went towards her with slow, hesitating steps. + +"He is here," she said in a low tone, "behind the screen. He was sitting +on the sofa reading me the notes of his speech, and--and he fell back." +She began moving the screen, and as she did so she went on, "I sent for +Bolt--she was a nurse once, you know, and she got the brandy which you +see there----" + +But Althea hardly heard the words; she was gazing, with an oppressed +sense of discomfort and fear, at her husband. Yes, Perceval looked +ill--very ill,--and he was lying in so peculiar a position! "I suppose +when people faint they have to put them like that," thought Althea to +herself, but she felt concerned, a little frightened.... + +Perceval Scrope lay stretched out stiffly on the sofa, his feet resting +on a chair which had been placed at the end of the short, frail-looking +little couch. His fair, almost lint white, hair was pushed back from his +forehead, showing its unusual breadth. The grey eyes were half closed, +and he was still wearing, wound about his neck so loosely that it hid +his mouth and chin, a silk muffler. + +Althea had the painful sensation that he did not like her to be there, +that it must be acutely disagreeable to him to feel that she saw him in +such a condition of helplessness and unease. And yet she went on looking +at him, strangely impressed, not so much by the rigidity, as by the +intense stillness of his body. Scrope as a rule was never still; when he +was speaking, his whole body, each of his limbs, spoke with him. + +By the side of the sofa was a small table, on which stood a decanter, +unstoppered. + +"Has he been like that long?" Althea whispered at length. "He--he looks +so strange." + +Joan Panfillen came close up to the younger woman; again she put her +hand on her companion's arm. + +"Althea," she said, "don't you understand? Can't you see the dreadful +thing that has happened?"--and as the other looked down into the +quivering face turned up to hers, she added with sudden passion, "Should +I want you to take him away if he were still here?--should I want him to +go if there were anything left that I could do for him?" + +And then Althea at last understood, and so understanding her mind for +once moved quickly, and she saw with mingled terror and revolt what it +was that the woman on whose face her eyes were now riveted was requiring +of her. + +"You sent for me to take him home--dead?" + +It was a statement rather than a question. Mrs. Panfillen made a +scarcely perceptible movement of assent. "It is what he would have +wished," she whispered, "I am quite sure it is what he would have wished +you to do." + +"I--I am sorry, but I don't think I can do that." + +Althea was speaking to herself rather than to the other woman. She was +grappling with a feeling of mortal horror and fear. She had always been +afraid of Perceval Scrope, afraid and yet fascinated, and now he, dead, +seemed to be even more formidable, more beckoning, than he had been +alive. + +She turned away and covered her eyes with her hand. "Why did you tell +me?" she asked, a little wildly. "If you hadn't told me that he was dead +I should never have known. I should even have done the--the dreadful +thing you want me to do." + +"Bolt thought that--Bolt said you would not know," Mrs. Panfillen spoke +with sombre energy. "She wished me to allow her to take him down into +the garden to meet you in the darkness----But,--but Althea, that would +have been an infamous thing from me to you----" She waited a moment, and +then in a very different voice, in her own usual measured and gentle +accents, she added, "My dear, forgive me. We will never speak of this +again. I was wrong, selfish, to think of subjecting you to such an +ordeal. All I ask"--and there came into her tone a sound of shamed +pleading--"is that you should allow Tom--Tom and other people--to think +that you were here when it happened." + +Althea remained silent. Then, uncertainly, she walked across to the +window and opened it. The action was symbolic--and so it was understood +by the woman watching her so anxiously. + +But still Althea said nothing. She stood looking out into the darkness, +welcoming the feel of the cold damp air. She gave herself a few brief +moments--they seemed very long moments to Joan Panfillen--before she +said the irrevocable words, and when she did say them, they sounded +muffled, and uttered from far away, for Althea as she spoke did not turn +round; she feared to look again on that which might unnerve her, render +her unfit for what she was about to do. + +"Joan," she said, "I will do what you ask. You were right just +now--right, I mean, in telling me what Perceval would have wished." + +She spoke with nervous, dry haste, and, to her relief, the other woman +spared her thanks.... + +There was a long silence, and then Mrs. Panfillen crept up close to +Althea and touched her, making her start violently. "Then I will call +Bolt," she said, and made as if to pass through the window, but Althea +stopped her with a quick movement of recoil--"No, no!" she cried, "let +me do that!" and she ran down the iron steps; it was good to be out of +sight even for a moment of the still presence of the dead--the dead +whose mocking spirit seemed to be still terribly alive. + +But during the long, difficult minutes that followed, it was Joan +Panfillen, not Althea Scrope, who shrank and blenched. It was Althea who +put out her young strength to help to lift the dead man, and, under +cover of the sheltering mist, to make the leaden feet retrace their +steps down the iron stairway, and along the narrow path they had so +often leapt up and along with eager haste. + +To two of the three women the progress seemed intolerably slow, but to +Althea it was all too swift; she dreaded with an awful dread the +companioned drive which lay before her. + +Perhaps something of what she was feeling was divined by Mrs. Panfillen, +for at the very last Scrope's Egeria forgot self, and made, in all +sincerity, an offer which on her part was heroic. + +"Shall I come with you?" she whispered, averting her eyes from that +which lay huddled up by Althea's side, "I will come, willingly; let me +come--Althea." + +But Althea only shook her head in cold, hurried refusal. She felt that +with speech would go a measure of her courage. + +Afterwards Althea remembered that there had come a respite,--what had +seemed to her at the time an inexplicable delay. A man and a girl had +gone slowly by, staring curiously at the two bare-headed women standing +out on the pavement, and on whose pale faces there fell the quivering +gleam of the old-fashioned cab lamp. Then, when the footfalls of these +passers-by had become faint, Bolt spoke to the driver, and handed him +some money. Althea heard the words as in dream, "Get along as quick as +you can to 24, Delahay Street, there's a good man," and then the clink +of silver in the stillness, followed by the full sound of the man's +wheezy gratitude. + +There came a sudden movement and the dread drive began, the horse +slipping, the cab swaying and jolting over the frozen ground. + +With a gesture which was wholly instinctive, Althea put out her +arm,--her firm, rounded, living arm,--and slipped it round the inert, +sagging thing which had been till an hour ago Perceval Scrope. And, as +she did so, as she pressed him to her, and kept from him the ignominy of +physical helplessness, there came a great lightening of her spirit. + +Fear, the base fear bred of the imagination, fell away from her. For the +first time there came the certainty that her husband was at last +satisfied with her; for the first time she was able to do Perceval +Scrope dead what she had never been able to do Perceval Scrope alive, a +great service--a service which she might have refused to do. + +Once or twice, very early in their married life, Perceval had praised +her, and his praise had given Althea exquisite pleasure because it was +so rare, so seldom lavished; and this long-lost feeling of joy in her +husband's approval came back, filling her eyes with tears. Now at last +Althea felt as if she and Perceval Scrope were one, fused in that kindly +sympathy and understanding which, being the manner of woman she was, +Althea supposed to be the very essence of conjugal love. + +As they were clasped together, she, the quick, he, the dead, Althea lost +count of time; it might have been a moment, it might have been an hour, +when at last the jolting ceased. + +As the old man got off the box of his cab, and rang the bell, Big Ben +boomed out the quarter-past five. + +Since she had last gone through that door a yawning gap had come in +Althea's life, a gap which she had herself bridged. Fear had dropped +from her; she could never again be afraid as she had been afraid when +she, Joan and Perceval had formed for the last time a trinity. The +feeling which had so upheld her, the feeling that for the first time she +and her husband were in unison, gave her not only courage but serenity +of spirit. Althea shrank from acting a lie, but she saw, for the first +time, through Perceval Scrope's eyes, and she admitted the necessity. + +As the door opened, she remembered, almost with exultation, that +Dockett, the butler, was out, and that it was only with Luke, the slow +young footman, that she would have to deal. As she saw his tall, thin +figure emerge hesitatingly into the street, Mrs. Scrope called out in a +strong, confident voice, "Luke--come here! Help me to get Mr. Scrope +indoors. He is ill; and as soon as we have got him into the morning +room, you must go off for a doctor, at once----" + +She waved aside the cabman almost impatiently, and it was Althea, Althea +helped by Luke, who carried Perceval Scrope over the threshold of his +own house, and so into a small room on the ground floor, a room opening +out of the hall, and looking out on to the street. + +"He looks very bad, don't 'e, ma'am?" Luke was startled out of his +acquired passivity. "I'd better go right off now." She bent her head. + +And then Althea, again alone with the dead man, suddenly became +oppressed once more with fear, not the physical terror which had +possessed her when Joan Panfillen had told her the awful truth, but none +the less to her a very agonising form of fear. Althea was afraid that +now, when approaching the end of her ordeal, she would fail Scrope and +the woman he had loved. What was she to say, what story could she invent +to tell those who would come and press her with quick eager questions? +She knew herself to be incapable, not only of untruth, but of invention, +and yet now both were about to be required of her. + +Althea turned out the lights, and wandered out into the hall. She felt +horribly lonely; with the exception of the kindly, stupid youth who had +now gone to find a doctor, there was not a member of her considerable +household in sufficient human sympathy with her to be called to her aid. + +She remembered with a pang that this question of their servants had been +one of the many things concerning which there had been deep fundamental +disagreement between her husband and herself. She had been accustomed +to a well-ordered, decorous household, and would even have enjoyed +managing such a one; but Perceval--Perceval influenced by Dockett--had +ordained otherwise, and Althea had soon become uneasily aware that the +order and decorum reigning below stairs were only apparent. Even now +there came up from the basement the sound of loud talking, of +unrestrained laughter. + +Suddenly someone knocked at the door, a loud double knock which stilled, +as if by magic, the murmur of the voices below. + +Althea looked around her doubtfully, then she retreated into the +darkened room, but no one came up, and she remembered that the other +servants of course supposed Luke to be on duty. It might be--nay, it +almost certainly was--the doctor. With faltering steps she again came +out into the hall and opened the front door; and then, when she saw who +it was who stood there, his kind honest eyes blinking in the sudden +light, Althea began to cry. + +The tears ran down her cheeks; she sighed convulsively, and John +Bustard, looking at her with deep concern and dismay, was quite +unaware--he does not know even to this day--that it was with relief. + +"What is it?" he said. "My dear Mrs. Scrope--what is the matter? Would +you like me to go away--or--or can I be of any use?" + +"Oh, yes," she said piteously. "Indeed you can be of use. Don't go +away--stay with me--I'm--I'm so frightened, Mr. Bustard. Perceval--poor +Perceval is--is ill, and I'm afraid to stay in there with him." + +And it was Mr. Bustard who at once took command--command of Althea, whom +he ultimately ordered to bed; command of the excited household, whose +excitement he sternly suppressed; it was Mr. Bustard who, believing he +told truth, lied for Althea, first to the doctor, and later to the +coroner. + +"How fortunate it was for poor Althea that Mr. Bustard, that nice little +man in the Privy Council Office, was actually in the house when poor +Perceval Scrope's death took place!" bold and cruel people would say to +Mrs. Panfillen, watching the while to see how she took their mention of +the dead man's name. + +"Yes," she would answer them quietly. "Very fortunate indeed. And it was +so kind of Mr. Bustard to get his sister to go away with Althea. Poor +Althea is so alone in the world. I hope she will come and stay with us +when she comes back to town; we were Perceval Scrope's oldest, I might +say closest, friends. You know that their marriage--his and +Althea's--took place from our house?" + +The only human being who scented a mystery was Dockett--Dockett, who was +mindful, as he had a right to be, of his lawful perquisites, and who +will never forgive himself for having been out on that fateful +afternoon. + +"I'd give something to know the whereabouts of Mr. Scrope's overcoat, to +say nothing of his hat and stick. That common ash stick's a relic--it +may be worth money some day!" he observed threateningly to the footman. +But Luke, as only answer, stared at him with stolid dislike. + +Luke had seen nothing of the hat and stick; no doubt they had been left +in the cab in which Mr. Scrope had come back, ill, from the House. As +for the overcoat, it had probably disappeared in the confusion, the +hurried coming and going, of that evening when Luke had been almost run +off his legs answering the door, and his head made quite giddy answering +enquiries. But it was not Luke's business to say what he thought or did +not think. With such a man as Mr. Dockett, it only led to +unpleasantness. + + + + +II + +MR. JARVICE'S WIFE + + +I + +"About that letter of your uncle's? I take it you have no one to +suggest?" + +Thomas Carden glanced anxiously at the son in whom he had so strong a +confidence, and who was the secret pride of his eyes, the only love of +his austere, hard-working life. + +The two were a great contrast to one another. The older man was short +and slight, with the delicate, refined, spiritual face, so often seen in +the provincial man of business belonging to that disappearing generation +of Englishmen who found time to cultivate the things of the mind as well +as the material interests of life. A contrast, indeed, to the tall, +singularly handsome, alert-looking man whom he had just addressed, and +whose perfect physical condition made him appear somewhat younger than +his thirty-two years. + +And yet, in spite or perhaps because of this contrast between them, the +two were bound in the closest, if not exactly in the most confidential, +ties of affection. And, as a matter of course, they were partners in the +great metal-broking business of Josh. Carden, Thomas Carden and Son, +which had been built up by three generations of astute, self-respecting +citizens of Birmingham. + +It was Easter Monday, and the two men were lingering over breakfast, in +a way they seldom allowed themselves time to do on ordinary week-days, +in the finely proportioned, book-lined dining-room of one of those +spacious old houses which remain to prove that the suburb of Edgbaston +was still country a hundred years ago. + +Theodore Carden looked across the table meditatively. He had almost +forgotten his uncle's letter, for, since that letter had been read and +cursorily discussed, he and his father had been talking of a matter +infinitely more important to them both. The matter in question was the +son's recent engagement and coming marriage, a marriage which was a +source of true satisfaction to the older man. His father's unselfish joy +in the good thing which had befallen him touched Theodore Carden keenly, +for the niche occupied in most men's minds by their intimate feminine +circle was filled in that of the young man by the diminutive figure of +the senior partner of Carden and Son. + +As is perhaps more often the case than those who despise human nature +believe, many have the grace to reverence and admire the qualities in +which they know themselves to be deficient. Such a man was the younger +Carden. + +To-day the depths had been stirred, and he let his mind dwell with a +certain sense of shame and self-rebuke on his own and his father's +ideals of human conduct. Even as a schoolboy, Theodore had come to +realise how much more he knew of the ugly side of life than did his +father. But then, old Mr. Carden was quite exceptional; he knew +nothing--or so at least his son believed, and loved him for it--of the +temptations, conflicts, victories, and falls of the average sensual man. + +Theodore's father had been engaged, at twenty, to a girl of his own age +whom he had not been able to marry till twelve years later; she had left +him a widower with this one child after five years of married life, and +Thomas Carden, as he had himself once told his son in a moment of +unwonted confidence, had been absolutely faithful to her before the +marriage and since her death. + +The woman--many people would have said the very fortunate young +woman--who was so soon to become Mrs. Theodore Carden would not possess +such a husband as Thomas Carden had been to his wife. + +And yet, in his heart, Theodore was well aware that the gentle girl he +loved would probably be a happier woman than his own mother had been, +for he, unlike his father, in his dealings with the other sex could call +up at will that facile and yet rather rare gift of tenderness which +women, so life had taught him, value far more than the deeper, +inarticulate love.... + +Carden came back to the prosaic question of his uncle's letter with a +distinct effort. + +"Have I anyone to suggest?" he echoed. "I have no one to suggest, +father. I know, of course, exactly the sort of man Uncle Barrett is +looking for; he's asking us to find him the perfect clerk every man of +business has sought for at some time or other. If I were you I should +write and tell him that the man he wants us to find never has to look +outside England for a job, and, what is more, would rather be a clerk +here--if he's any sense--than a partner in New Zealand!" + +A smile quivered for a moment over the young man's shrewd face; his +uncle was evidently seeking such a man as he was himself, but such men, +so Theodore Carden was able to tell himself without undue conceit, were +not likely to go into voluntary exile even with the bribe of eventual +partnership in a flourishing business. + +There was a pause, and then again the older man broke the silence with +something entirely irrelevant to the subject which was filling the minds +of his son and himself. + +"You haven't looked at the _Post_ this morning? There's nothing in it. +Dearth of real news is, I suppose, responsible for this?" and he +pointed, frowning as he spoke, to a column on the middle page headed +"The Jarvice Mystery. New Developments." + +Again a shrewd, good-humoured smile quivered on his son's firm mouth. + +"In these days newspapers have to follow, not lead, the public taste. +Very few people are honestly as indifferent as you are, father, to that +sort of story. Now even I, who never met poor old Jarvice, cannot help +wondering how he came by his death; and yet you, who knew the man----" + +"I knew him," said the other with a touch of impatience, "as I know, and +as you know, dozens of our fellow-townsmen." + +"Never mind; you, at any rate, can put a face to the man's name; and yet +the question as to whether he was or was not poisoned by his wife, is +one of indifference to you! Now I submit that in this indifference you +are really a little----" he hesitated for a word, but found that none so +well expressed his thought as that which had first arisen to his +lips--"peculiar, father." + +"Am I?" said Thomas Carden slowly; "am I so, Theodore? Nay, nay, I deny +that I am indifferent! Lane"--Major Lane was at that time Head Constable +of Birmingham, and a lifelong friend of the speaker--"Lane was quite +full of it last night. He insisted on telling me all the details of the +affair, and what shocked me, my boy, was not so much the question which, +of course, occupied Lane--that is, as to whether that unhappy young +woman poisoned her husband or not--but the whole state of things which +he disclosed about them. Lane told me certain facts concerning Jarvice, +whom, as you truly say, I have known, in a sense, for years, which I +should not have thought possible of any man--vile things, which should +have prevented his thinking of marriage, especially of marriage with a +young wife." + +Theodore Carden remained silent; he never discussed unsavoury subjects +with his father. Moreover, he had no liking for Major Lane, though he +regarded him with considerable respect, and even with a feeling of +gratitude. Some years before, the Head Constable had helped the young +man out of a serious scrape, the one real scrape--so Carden was +complacently able to assure himself--engendered by his systematic and +habitual pursuit of women. + +Even now he could not recall, without wincing, the interview he had had +on that occasion with his father's friend. During that interview Carden +had felt himself thoroughly condemned, and even despised, by the older +man, and he had been made to feel that it was only for the sake of his +father--his high-minded, unsuspicious father--that he was being saved +from the public exposure of a peculiarly sordid divorce suit. + +But it was in all sincerity that the young man now felt indignant with +Major Lane for having distressed such a delicately spiritual soul as was +Thomas Carden with the hidden details of the Jarvice story. After all, +what interested the public was not the question of Jarvice's moral +character, but whether a gently nurtured and attractive woman had +carried through a sinister and ingenious crime, which, but for a mere +accident, would have utterly defied detection. + +Theodore Carden got up from the breakfast table and walked over to a +circular bow window which commanded charming views of the wide sloping +garden, interspersed with the streams and tiny ponds, which gave the +house its name of Watermead, and which enabled old Mr. Carden to indulge +himself with especial ease in his hobby of water gardening. + +Standing there, the young man began wondering what he should do with +himself this early spring day. + +His _fiancée_ had just left the quiet lodgings, which she and her +mother, a clergyman's widow, had occupied in Birmingham during the last +few weeks, to pay visits to relatives in the south of England. The +thought of going to any of the neighbouring houses where he knew himself +to be sure of a warm welcome, and where the news of his engagement would +be received with boisterous congratulations, tempered in some cases with +an underlying touch of regret and astonishment, filled him with +repugnance. + +The girl he had chosen to be his wife was absolutely different from the +women who had hitherto attracted him; he reverenced as well as loved +her, and hitherto Theodore Carden had never found reverence to be in any +sense a corollary of passion, while he had judged women by those who +were attractive to, or, as was quite as often the case, attracted by, +himself. + +The last few days had brought a great change in his life, and one which +he meant should be permanent; and yet, in spite or perhaps because of +this, as he stood staring with absent eyes into his father's charming +garden, he found his mind dwelling persistently on the only one of his +many amorous adventures which had left a deep, an enduring, and, it must +be admitted, a most delightful mark on the tablets of his memory. + +The whole thing was still so vivid to him that half-involuntarily he +turned round and looked down the long room to where his old father was +sitting. How amazed, above all how shocked and indignant, the man for +whom he had so great an affection and respect would feel if he knew the +pictures which were now floating before his son's retrospective vision! + +Like most thinking human beings, Theodore Carden had not lived to his +present age without being struck by the illogical way the world wags. +Accordingly, he was often surprised and made humorously indignant by +the curious moral standards--they had so many more than one--of the +conventional people among whom it was his fate to dwell and have his +social being. + +Not one of the men he knew, with the exception of his father, and of +those others--a small number truly--whom he believed to be sincerely, +not conventionally, religious, but would have envied him the astonishing +adventure which reconstituted itself so clearly before him to-day--and +yet not one of them but would have been ready to condemn him for having +done what he had done. Theodore Carden, however, so often tempted to +kiss, never felt tempted to tell, and the story of that episode remained +closely hidden, and would so remain, he told himself, to the end of his +life. + + * * * * * + +What had happened had been briefly this. + +One day in the previous October, Carden had taken his seat in the +afternoon express which stops at Birmingham on its way from the north to +Euston, or rather, having taken a leisurely survey of the train, which +was, as he quickly noted, agreeably empty, he had indicated to the +porter carrying his bag a carriage in which sat, alone, a singularly +pretty woman. + +As he afterwards had the delight of telling her, and, as he now reminded +himself with a retrospective thrill of feeling, he had experienced, when +his eyes first met those of the fair traveller, that incommunicable +sensation, part physical, part mental, which your genuine Lothario, if +an intelligent man, always welcomes with quickening pulse as a foretaste +of the special zest to be attached to a coming pursuit. + +Carden's instinct as to such delicate matters had seldom played him +false; never less so than on this occasion, for, within an hour, he and +the lovely stranger had reached that delightful stage of intimacy in +which a man and woman each feels that he and she, while still having +much to learn about the other, are on the verge of a complete +understanding. + +During the three hours' journey, Carden's travelling companion told him +a great deal more about herself than he had chosen to reveal concerning +his own life and affairs; he learnt, for instance, that she was the +young wife of an old man, and that the old man was exceedingly jealous. +Further, that she found the life she was compelled to lead "horribly +boring," and that a widowed cousin, who lived near London, and from whom +she had "expectations," formed a convenient excuse for occasional +absences from home. + +Concerning three matters of fact, however, she completely withheld her +confidence, both then, in those first delicious hours of their +acquaintance, and even later, when their friendship--well, why not say +friendship, for Carden had felt a very strong liking as well as an +over-mastering attraction for this Undine-like creature?--had become +much closer. + +The first and second facts which she kept closely hidden, for reasons +which should perhaps have been obvious, were her surname--she confided +to him that her Christian name was Pansy--and her husband's profession. +The third fact which she concealed was the name of the town where she +lived, and from which she appeared to be travelling that day. + +The trifling incidents of that eventful October journey had become to a +great extent blurred in Theodore Carden's memory, but what had followed +was still extraordinarily vivid, and to-day, on this holiday morning, +standing idly looking out of the window, he allowed his mind a certain +retrospective licence. + +From whom, so he now asked himself, had first come the suggestion that +there should be no parting at Euston between himself and the strange +elemental woman he found so full of unforced fascination and disarming +charm? + +The answer soon came echoing down the corridors of remembrance: from +himself, of course. But even now the memory brought with it shame-faced +triumph as he remembered her quick acquiescence, as free, as unashamed, +as joyous as that of a spoilt child acclaiming an unlooked-for treat. + +And, after all, what harm had there been in the whole halcyon +adventure--what injury had it caused to any human being? + +Carden put the husband, the fatuous old man, who had had the incredible +folly to marry a girl thirty-five years younger than himself, out of +court. Pansy, light-hearted, conscienceless Pansy--he always thought of +her with a touch of easy tenderness--had run no risk of detection, for, +as he had early discovered, she knew no one in London with the solitary +exception of the old cousin who lived in Upper Norwood. + +As for his own business acquaintances, he might, of course, have been +seen by any of them taking about this singularly attractive woman, for +the two went constantly to the theatre, and daily to one or other of the +great restaurants. But what then? Excepting that she was quieter in +manner, far better dressed, and incomparably prettier, Pansy might have +been the wife or sister of any one of his own large circle of relations, +that great Carden clan who held their heads so high in the business +world of the Midlands. + +Nay, nay, no risk had been run, and no one had been a penny the worse! +Indeed, looking back, Theodore Carden told himself that it had been a +perfect, a flawless episode; he even admitted that after all it was +perhaps as well that there had been no attempt at a repetition. + +And yet? And yet the young man, especially during the first few weeks +which had followed that sequence of enchanting days, had often felt +piqued, even a little surprised, that the heroine of his amazing +adventure had not taken advantage of his earnest entreaty that she would +give him the chance of meeting her again. He had left it to her to be +mysterious; as for himself, he had seen no reason why he should conceal +from her either his name or his business address. + +Many men would not have been so frank, but Theodore Carden, too wise in +feminine lore to claim an infallible knowledge of women, never +remembered having made a mistake as to the moral social standing of a +new feminine acquaintance. + +During the few days they had been together, everything had gone to prove +that Pansy was no masquerader from that under-world whose denizens +always filled him with a sensation of mingled aversion and pity. He +could not doubt--he never had doubted--that what she had chosen to tell +him about herself and her private affairs was substantially true. No +man, having heard her speak of it, could fail to understand her +instinctive repulsion from the old husband to whom she had sold herself +into bondage; and as human, if not perhaps quite as worthy of sympathy, +was her restless longing for freedom to lead the pleasant life led by +those of her more fortunate contemporaries whose doings were weekly +chronicled in the society papers which seemed to form her only reading. + +Once only had Carden felt for his entrancing companion the slightest +touch of repugnance. He had taken her to a play in which a child played +an important part, and she had suddenly so spoken as to make him realise +with a shock of surprise that she was the mother of children! Yet the +little remark made by her, "I wonder how my little girls are getting +on," had been very natural and even womanly. Then, in answer to a +muttered word or two on his part, she had explained that she preferred +not to have news of her children when she was absent from home, as it +only worried her; even when staying with the old cousin at Upper +Norwood, she made a point of being completely free of all possible home +troubles. + +Hearing this gentle, placid explanation of her lack of maternal anxiety, +Carden had put up his hand to his face to hide a smile; he had not been +mistaken; Pansy was indeed the thorough-going little hedonist he had +taken her to be. Still, it was difficult, even rather disturbing, to +think of her as a mother, and as the mother of daughters. + +Yet how deep an impression this unmoral, apparently soulless woman had +made on his mind and on his emotional memory! Even now, when he had no +desire, and, above all, must not allow himself to have any desire, ever +to see her again, Theodore Carden felt, almost as keenly as he had done +during the period of their brief intimacy, a morbid curiosity to know +where she lived and had her being. + + * * * * * + +It was late in the afternoon of Easter Monday. + +Theodore Carden had just come in from a long walk, and, as he passed +through the circular hall around which Watermead was built, he heard the +low sound of voices, those of his father and some other man, issuing +from the square drawing-room always occupied by the father and son on +such idle days as these. He stayed his steps, realised that the visitor +was Major Lane, and then made up his mind to go up and change, instead +of going straight in to his father, as he would have done had the latter +been alone. + +As he came down again, and crossed the now lighted hall, he met the +parlour-maid, an elderly woman who had been in Thomas Carden's service +ever since his wife's death. "I wonder if I can take in the lamps now, +Mr. Theodore? It's getting so dark, sir." + +There was a troubled sound in her voice, and the young man stopped and +looked at her with some surprise. + +"Of course you can, Kate," he said quickly, "why not? Why haven't you +taken them in before?" + +"I did go in with them half an hour ago, sir, but the master told me to +take them out again. There's firelight, to be sure, and it's only Major +Lane in there, but he's been here since three o'clock, and master's not +had his tea yet. I suppose they thought they'd wait till you came in." + +"Oh! well, if my father prefers to sit in the dark, and to put off tea +till he can have my company, you had better wait till I ring, and then +bring in the lamps and the tea together." + +He spoke with his usual light good-nature, and passed on into the room +which was the only apartment in the large old house clearly associated +in his mind with the graceful, visionary figure of his dead mother. + +Thomas Carden and the Head Constable were sitting in the twilight, one +on each side of the fireplace, and when the young man came in, they both +stirred perceptibly, and abruptly stopped speaking. + +Theodore came forward and stood on the hearth-rug. "May Kate bring in +the lamps, father?" + +"Yes, yes, I suppose so." + +And the lamps were brought in. Then came the tea-tray, placed by Kate on +a large table many paces from the fire; womanless Watermead was lacking +in the small elegancies of modern life, but now that would soon be +remedied, so the younger Carden told himself with a slight, happy +smile. + +Very deliberately, and asking no questions as to milk or sugar, for well +he knew the tastes of his father and of his father's friend, he poured +out two cups of tea, and turning, advanced, a cup balanced in each +steady hand. + +But halfway up the room he stopped for a moment, arrested by the sound +of his father's voice-- + +"Theo, my boy, I want to ask you something." + +The mode of address had become of late years a little unusual, and there +was a note in Thomas Carden's accents which struck his son as +significant--even as solemn. + +"Yes, father?" + +"Did you not tell me this morning that you had never met Jarvice?" + +The one onlooker, hatchet-faced Major Lane, suddenly leaned a little +forward. + +He was astonished at his old friend's extraordinary and uncalled-for +courage, and it was with an effort, with the feeling that he was bracing +himself to see something terrible take place, that he looked straight at +the tall, fine-looking man who had now advanced into the circle of light +thrown by the massive Argand lamps. + +But Theodore Carden appeared quite unmoved, nay more, quite +unconcerned, by his father's question. + +"Yes," he said, "I did tell you so. I suppose I knew the old fellow by +sight, but I certainly was never introduced to him. Are there any new +developments?" + +He turned to Major Lane with a certain curiosity, and then quite +composedly handed him the cup of tea he held in his right hand. + +"Well, yes," answered the other coldly, "there are several new +developments. We arrested Mrs. Jarvice this morning." + +"That seems rather a strong step to have taken, unless new evidence has +turned up since Saturday," said Theodore thoughtfully. + +"Such new evidence has come to hand since Saturday," observed Major Lane +drily. + +There was a pause, and again Thomas Carden addressed his son with that +strange touch of solemnity, and again Major Lane, with an inward +wincing, stared fixedly at the young man now standing on the hearth-rug, +a stalwart, _debonair_ figure, between himself and his old friend. + +"Can you assure me--can you assure us both--that you never met Mrs. +Jarvice?" + +Carden looked down at his father with a puzzled expression. + +"Of course I can't assure you of anything of the kind," he said, still +speaking quite placidly. "I may have met her somewhere or other, but I +can't remember having done so; and I think I should have remembered it, +both because the name is an uncommon one, and because"--he turned to +Major Lane--"isn't she said to be an extraordinarily pretty woman?" + +As the last words were being uttered an odd thing happened. Thomas +Carden suddenly dropped the cup he was holding in his hand; it rang +against the brass fender and broke in several pieces, while the spoon +went clattering into the fireplace. + +"Father!" exclaimed Theodore, and then quickly he added, "Don't trouble +to do that," for the old man was stooping over the rug, and fumbling +with the broken pieces. But Thomas Carden shook his head; it was evident +that he was, for the moment, physically incapable of speech. + +A great fear came into the son's mind; he turned to Major Lane, and +muttered in an urgent, agonised whisper, "Is it--can it be a seizure? +Hadn't I better go and try to find Dr. Curle?" + +But the other, with a dubious expression on his face, shook his head. +"No, no," he said; "it's nothing of the kind. Your father's getting +older, Carden, as we all are, and I've had to speak to him to-day about +a very disagreeable matter." + +He looked fixedly, probingly, at the young man. + +"I think it's thoroughly upset him." The speaker hesitated, and then +added: "I daresay he'll tell you about it; in any case, I'd better go +now and come back later. If you can spare me half an hour this evening, +I should like to have a talk with you--about the same matter." + +During the last few moments Major Lane had made up his mind to take a +certain course, even to run a certain risk, and that not for the first +time that day, for he had already set his own intimate knowledge of +Thomas Carden, the lifelong friend whose condition now wrung him with +pity, against what was, perhaps, his official duty. + +Some two hours before, the Head Constable had entered the house where he +had been so constantly and so hospitably entertained, with the firm +conviction that Theodore Carden had been the catspaw of a clever, +unscrupulous woman; in fact that there had come a repetition, but a +hundred times more serious, of that now half-forgotten entanglement +which had so nearly brought Carden to grief some seven or eight years +before. Once more he had come prepared to do his best to save his +friend's son, so far as might be possible, from the consequences of his +folly. + +But now? Ah, now, the experienced, alert official had to admit to +himself that the incidents of the last ten minutes had completely +altered his view of the matter. He realised that in any case Theodore +Carden was no fool; for the first time that day the terrible suspicion +came into Major Lane's mind that the man before him might, after all, be +more closely connected with the Jarvice mystery than had seemed +possible. + +Never, during his long connection with crime, had the Head Constable +come across as good an actor, as cool a liar, as he now believed this +man of business to be. + +Well, he would give Theodore Carden one more chance to tell the truth; +Theodore was devoted to his father, so much was certainly true, and +perhaps his father would be able to make him understand the gravity of +the case. Major Lane felt bitterly sorry that he had come first to the +old man--but then, he had so completely believed in the "scrape" +theory; and now he hardly knew what to believe! + +For the moment, at any rate, so the Head Constable told himself, the +mask had fallen; Theodore Carden could not conceal his relief at the +other's approaching departure. + +"Certainly," he said hastily, "come in this evening by all means; I +won't ask you to stay to dinner, for I mean to try and make father go to +bed, but later I shall be quite free. If, however, you want to ask me +anything about the Jarvice affair, I'm afraid I can't help you much; +I've not even read the case with any care." + +The old man, still sitting by the fire, had caught a few of the muttered +words, and before Major Lane could leave the room Thomas Carden had +risen from his chair, his face paler, perhaps, than usual, but once more +his collected, dignified self. + +"Stay," he said firmly; "having gone so far, I think we should now +thresh the matter out." + +He walked over to where his son and his friend were standing, and he put +his hand on the older man's arm. + +"Perhaps I cannot expect you, Lane, to be convinced, as I, of course, +have been convinced, by my son's denials. It is, as I told you this +afternoon, either a plot on the part of someone who bears a grudge +against us, or else--what I think more likely--there are two men in this +great town each bearing the name of Theodore Carden. But I appreciate, I +deeply appreciate, the generous kindness which made you come and warn us +of this impending calamity; but you need not fear that we shall fail to +meet it with a complete answer." + +"Father! Major Lane! What does this mean?" + +For the first time a feeling of misgiving, of sudden fear, swept over +Theodore Carden's mind. Without waiting for an answer, he led the way +back to the fireplace, and, deliberately drawing forward a chair, +motioned to Major Lane to sit down likewise. + +"Now then," he said, speaking with considerable authority and decision, +"I think I have a right to ask what this is all about! In what way are +we, my father and myself, concerned in the Jarvice affair? For my part, +Major Lane, I can assure you, and that, if you wish it, on oath, that I +did not know Mr. Jarvice, and, to the best of my belief, I have never +seen, still less spoken to, Mrs. Jarvice----" + +"If that be indeed so," said the man whom he addressed, and who, for +the first time, was beginning to feel himself shaken in his belief, nay, +in his absolute knowledge, that the young man was perjuring himself, +"can you, and will you, explain these letters?" and he drew out of his +pocket a folded sheet of foolscap. + +Carden bent forward eagerly; there was no doubt, so the Head Constable +admitted to himself, as to his eagerness to be brought face to face with +the accusation--and yet, at that moment, a strong misgiving came over +Major Lane. + +Even if Theodore Carden could continue to be the consummate actor he had +already proved himself, was it right, was it humane, to subject him to +this terrible test, and that, too, before his old father? Whatever the +young man's past relation to Mrs. Jarvice, nay, whatever his connection +might be with the crime which Major Lane now knew to have been +committed, Carden was certainly ignorant of the existence of these +terrible, these damnatory documents, and they constituted so far the +only proof that Carden had been lying when he denied any knowledge of +Mrs. Jarvice. But then, alas! they constituted an irrefutable proof. + +With a sudden movement Major Lane withdrew his right hand, that which +held the piece of paper. + +"Stop a moment, Theodore; do you really wish this discussion to take +place before your father? I wonder if you remember"--he paused, and then +went on firmly, "an interview you and I had many years ago?" + +For the first time the younger man's whole manner changed; a look of +fear, of guilt, came over his strong, intelligent face. + +"Father," he said imploringly, "I beg you not to listen to Major Lane. +He is alluding to a matter which he gave me his word--his word of +honour--should never be mentioned to anyone, least of all to you;" then, +turning with an angry gesture to the Head Constable, "Was that not so?" +he asked imperiously. + +"Yes, I admit that by asking you this question I have broken my word, +but good God! man, this is no passing scrape that we have to consider +now; to-morrow morning all Birmingham will be ringing with your +name--with your father's name, Theodore--for by some horrible mischance +the papers have got hold of the letters in question. I did my best, but +I found I was powerless." + +He turned and deliberately looked away, as he added in a low, +hesitating voice: "And now, once more I ask you whether we had not +better delay this painful discussion until you and I are alone?" + +"No!" cried Carden, now thoroughly roused, "certainly not! You have +chosen to come and tell my father something about me, and I insist that +you tell me here, and at once, what it is of which I am accused." + +He instinctively looked at his father for support, and received it in +full measure, for at once the old man spoke. + +"Yes, Lane, I think my son is right; there's no use in making any more +mystery about the matter. I'm sure that the letters you have brought to +show Theodore will puzzle him as much as they have me, and that he will +be able to assure you that he has no clue either to their contents or to +their writer." + +Very slowly, with a feeling of genuine grief and shame for the man who +seemed incapable of either sorrow or shame, Major Lane held out the +folded paper; and then in very pity he looked away as his old friend's +son eagerly unrolled the piece of foolscap, placing it close under the +lamp-shade in order that he might thoroughly master its contents. + +As Theodore Carden completed the trifling action, that of unrolling the +piece of paper which was to solve the mystery, he noted, with a curious +feeling of relief, that the documents (or were they letters?) regarded +by the Head Constable as so damnatory, were but two, the first of some +length, the second consisting of a very few lines, and both copied in +the fair round hand of Major Lane's confidential clerk. + +And then, with no premonitory warning, Carden became the victim of a +curious physical illusion. + +Staring down at the long piece of blue paper, he found that he was only +able to master the signature, in both cases the same, with which each +letter terminated. Sometimes only one word, one name--that of +_Pansy_--stood out clearly, and then again he seemed only to see the +other word, the other name--that of _Jarvice_. The two names appeared to +play hide-and-seek with one another, to leap out alternately and smite +his eyes, pressing and printing themselves upon his brain. + +At last, while he was still staring silently, obstinately, at the black +lines dancing before him, he heard the words, and they seemed to be +coming from a long way off, "Theodore! Oh, my boy, what is the matter?" +and then Major Lane's voice, full of rather angry concern, "Rouse +yourself, Carden, you are frightening your father." + +"Am I?" he said dully; "I mustn't do that;" then, handing back the sheet +of foolscap to the Head Constable, he said hoarsely, "I can't make them +out. Will you read them to me?" + +And Major Lane, in passionless accents, read aloud the two letters which +he already almost knew by heart. + + 6, LIGHTWOOD PLACE, + + _January 28th_. + + You told me to write to you if ever I was in real trouble and + thought you could help me. Oh! Theo, darling, I am in great + trouble, and life, especially since that happy time--you know when + I mean--is more wretched than ever. You used to say I was + extraordinarily pretty, I wonder if you would say so now, for I am + simply ill--worn out with worry. He--you know who--has found out + something; such a little insignificant thing; and since then he + makes my life unbearable with his stupid jealousy. It isn't as if + he knew about you and me, that would be something real to grumble + at, wouldn't it, darling? Sometimes I feel tempted to tell him all + about it. How he would stare! He is incapable of understanding + anything romantic. However, I'm in no mood for laughing now. He's + got a woman in to watch me, a governess, but luckily I've quite + got her to be on my side, though of course I haven't told her + anything about my private affairs. + + Will you meet me one day this week, to-morrow if you can, at No. + 15, Calthorpe Street? Four o'clock is the safest time for me. + Between the two small shops you will see a swing door with "Madame + Paula, Milliner," on it; push it open and go straight upstairs. On + the first landing you will see a door with "Gone out, enquire + upstairs," on it. Push up the door knob (don't try to turn it) and + walk in. The room will be empty, but you will see a door leading to + a back room; push _up_ the knob and there--there you will find your + poor little Pansy, fainting with joy at seeing her big strong Theo + again. + + Send me a postcard, saying, "Mrs. Jarvice can be fitted on (day you + select)." If posted before eleven, it will reach me in time. Of + course, I'm running a risk in meeting you _here_, so near my home, + but I _must_ see you, for I have a great favour to ask you, Theo, + and I dare not propose going away even for one day. + + PANSY JARVICE. + +Major Lane paused a moment, then went on: + + Theo, I wrote to you ten days ago, but I have had no answer. I am + dreadfully worried; I know you are in Birmingham, for I saw your + name in a paper before I wrote to you. I have gone through such + terrible days waiting for the postcard I asked you to send me. + Write, if only to say you don't want to hear again of poor + miserable + + PANSY JARVICE. + +"I suppose you will now admit that you know who wrote these letters?" +asked Major Lane sternly. + +"Yes--at least I suppose they were written by Mrs. Jarvice." + +Theodore Carden spoke with a touch of impatience. The question seemed to +him to be, on the part of his father's old friend, a piece of useless +cruelty. + +"And can you suggest to whom they were written, if not to yourself?" + +"No, of course not; I do not doubt that they were written to me," and +this time his face was ravaged with a horror and despair to which the +other two men had, so far, no clue. "And yet," he added, a touch of +surprise in his voice, "I never saw these letters--they never reached +me." + +"But of course you received others?" + +Major Lane spoke with a certain eagerness; then, as the young man seemed +to hesitate, he added hastily: "Nay, nay--say nothing that might +incriminate yourself." + +"But indeed--indeed I have never received a letter from her--that +perhaps is why I did not know the handwriting." + +"Theodore!" cried his father sharply, "think what you are saying! What +you've been shown are only copies--surely you understood that? What Lane +has just shown you are copies of letters which purport to have been +addressed to you, but which were intercepted on their way to the +post--is that not so?" and he turned to the Head Constable. + +"Yes," said Major Lane; then he added, very deliberately. + +"The originals of these two letters, which were bought for a large sum +from Mrs. Jarvice's governess, evidently the woman referred to in the +first letter, are now in the hands of the news editor of the _Birmingham +Dispatch_. I was shown them as a great favour"--a grim smile distorted, +for a moment, the Head Constable's narrow jaw. + +"I did my best--for your father's sake, Theodore--to frighten these +people into giving them up; I even tried to persuade them to hold them +over, but it was no good. I was told that no Birmingham paper had ever +had such a--'scoop', I believe, was the word used. You and your father +are so well known in this city." And again Theodore Carden marvelled at +the cruelty of the man. + +Thomas Carden broke in with a touch of impatience: + +"But nothing else has been found, my boy! Lane should tell you that the +whole theory of your having known Mrs. Jarvice rests on these two +letters--which never reached you." + +Father and son seemed suddenly to have changed places. The old man spoke +in a strong, self-confident tone, but the other, his grey face supported +on his hands, was staring fixedly into the fire. + +"Yes," said Major Lane, more kindly, "I ought perhaps to tell you that +within an hour of my being shown these letters I had Mrs. Jarvice's +house once more searched, and nothing was found connecting you with the +woman, excepting, I am sorry to say, this;"--and he held out an envelope +on which was written in Theodore Carden's clear handwriting the young +man's name and business address. + +"Now, I should like you to tell me, if you don't mind doing so, where, +when, and how this name and address came to be written?" + +"Yes, I will certainly tell you." + +The young man spoke collectedly; he was beginning to realise the +practical outcome of the conversation. + +"I wrote that address about the middle of last October, in London, at +Mansell's Hotel in Pall Mall East." + +"The poor fellow's going to make a clean breast of it at last," so +thought Major Lane with a strange feeling of relief, for on the flap of +the envelope, which he had kept carefully turned down, was stamped +"Mansell's Hotel." + +It was in a considerate, almost kindly tone, that the Head Constable +next spoke. + +"And now, I beg you, for your own sake, to tell me the truth. Perhaps I +ought to inform you, before you say anything, that, according to our +theory, Mrs. Jarvice was certainly assisted in procuring the drug with +which there is no doubt she slowly poisoned her husband. As yet we have +no clue as to the person who helped her, but we have ascertained that +for the last two months, in fact, from about the date of the first +letter addressed to you, a man did purchase minute quantities of this +drug at Birmingham, at Wolverhampton, and at Walsall. Now, mind you, I +do not suspect, I never have suspected, you of having any hand in that, +but I fear you'll have to face the ordeal of being confronted with the +various chemists, of whom two declare most positively that they can +identify the man who brought them the prescription which obtained him +the drug in question." + +While Major Lane was speaking, Theodore Carden had to a certain extent +regained his self-possession; here, at least, he stood on firm ground. + +"Of course, I am prepared to face anything of the kind that may be +necessary." He added almost inaudibly: "I have brought it on myself." + +Then he turned, his whole voice altering and softening: "Father, perhaps +you would not mind my asking Major Lane to go into the library with me? +I should prefer to see him alone." + + +II + +And then the days dragged on, a week of days, each containing full +measure of bitter and public humiliation; full measure also of feverish +suspense, for Theodore Carden did not find it quite so easy as he had +thought it would be to clear himself of this serious, and yet +preposterous accusation of complicity in murder. + +But Major Lane was surprised at the courage and composure with which the +young man faced the ordeal of confrontation with the various men, any +one of whom, through a simple mistake or nervous lapse of memory, might +compel his presence, if not in the dock, then as a witness at the coming +murder trial. + +At last the awful ordeal was over, for, as a matter of fact, none of +those brought face to face with him in the sordid promiscuity of such +scenes, singled out Theodore Carden as resembling the mysterious +individual who had almost certainly provided Mrs. Jarvice with the means +wherewith to poison her husband. + +But it was after the need for active defence had passed away that +Theodore Carden's true sufferings began.... The moment twilight fell he +was haunted, physically and mentally possessed, by the presence of the +woman he had known at once so little and so well--that is, of her he now +knew to be Pansy Jarvice. + +Especially terrible were the solitary evenings of those days when his +father was away, performing the task of breaking so much of the truth as +could be told to the girl to whom his son had been engaged. + +As each afternoon drew in Theodore found himself compelled to remain +more or less concealed in the room which overlooked the garden of +Waterhead. For, with the approach of night, the suburban road in front +of the fine old house was filled by an ever coming and going crowd of +bat-like men and women, eager to gaze with morbid curiosity at the +dwelling of the man who had undoubtedly been, if not Mrs. Jarvice's +accomplice--that, to the annoyance of the sensation-mongers, seemed +decidedly open to question--then, her favoured lover. + +But to these shameful and grotesque happenings Theodore Carden gave +scarce a thought, for it was when he found himself alone in the +drawing-room or library that his solitude would become stealthily +invaded by an invisible and impalpable wraith. + +So disorganised had become his nerves, so pitiable the state of his body +and mind, that constantly he seemed conscious of a faint, sweet odour, +that of wood violets, a scent closely associated in his thoughts with +Pansy Jarvice, with the woman whom he now knew to be a murderess. + +He came at last to long for a tangible delusion, for the sight of a +bodily shape which he could tell himself was certainly not there. But +no such relief was vouchsafed him; and yet once, when sitting in the +drawing-room, trying to read a book, he had felt a rounded cheek laid +suddenly to his, a curl of silken, scented hair had touched his neck.... + +Terrifying as was the peopled solitude of his evenings, Carden dreaded +their close, for at night, during the whole of each long night, the +woman from whom he now felt so awful a repulsion held him prisoner. + +From the fleeting doze of utter exhaustion he would be awakened by +feeling the pressure of Pansy's soft, slender arms about his neck; they +would wind themselves round his shuddering body, enclosing him slowly, +inexorably, till he felt as if he must surely die under their gyves-like +pressure. + +Again--and this, perhaps, was what he learnt to dread in an especial +degree--he would be suddenly roused by Pansy's liquid, laughing voice, +whispering things of horror in his ear; it was then, and then only, that +he found courage to speak, courage to assure her, and so assure himself, +that he was in no sense her accomplice, that he had had naught to do +with old Jarvice's death. But then there would come answer, in the eager +tones he remembered so well, and the awful words found unwilling echo +in his heart: "Yes, yes, indeed you helped!" + + * * * * * + +And now the last day, or rather the last night, had come, for the next +morning Theodore Carden was to leave Birmingham, he hoped for ever, for +New Zealand. + +The few people he had been compelled to see had been strangely kind; +quiet and gentle, as folk, no doubt, feel bound to be when in the +presence of one condemned. As for Major Lane, he was stretching--no one +knew it better than Carden himself--a great point in allowing the young +man to leave England before the Jarvice trial. + +During those last days, even during those last hours, Theodore +deliberately prevented himself from allowing his mind to dwell on his +father. He did not know how much the old man had been told, and he had +no wish to know. A wall of silence had arisen between the two who had +always been so much, nay, in a sense, everything, to one another. Each +feared to give way to any emotion, and yet the son knew only too well, +and was ashamed of the knowledge, with what relief he would part from +his father. + +There had been a moment when Major Lane had intimated his belief that +the two would go away and make a new life together, but Theodore Carden +had put aside the idea with rough decision. Perhaps when he was far away +on the other side of the world, the former relations of close love and +sympathy, if not of confidence, might be re-established between his +father and himself, but this, he felt sure, would never be while they +remained face to face. + +And now he was lying wide awake in the darkness, in the pretty peaceful +room which had once been his nursery, and where he had spent his happy +holidays as a schoolboy. + +His brain remained abnormally active, but physically he was oppressed by +a great weariness; to-night, for the first time, Carden felt the +loathsome wraith that haunted him, if not less near, then less +malicious, less watchful than usual, above all less eager to assert her +power.... Yet, even so, he lay very still, fearing to move lest he +should once more feel about his body the clinging, enveloping touch he +dreaded with so great a dread. + + * * * * * + +And then, quite suddenly, there came a strange lightening of his heart. +A space of time seemed to have sped by, and Carden, by some mysterious +mental process, knew that he was still near home, and not, as would have +been natural, in New Zealand. Nay, more, he realised that the unfamiliar +place in which he now found himself was Winson Green Gaol, a place +which, as a child, he had been taught to think of with fear, fear +mingled with a certain sense of mystery and excitement. + +Theodore had not thought of the old local prison for years, but now he +knew that he and his father were together there, in a small cell lighted +by one candle. The wall of silence, raised on both sides by shame and +pain, had broken down, but, alas! too late; for, again in some curious +inexplicable way, the young man was aware that he lay under sentence of +death, and that he was to be hanged early in the morning of which the +dawn was only just now breaking. + +Yet, strange to say, this knowledge caused him, personally, but little +uneasiness, but on his father's account he felt infinitely distressed, +and he found himself bending his whole mind to comfort and sustain the +old man. + +Thus, he heard a voice, which he knew to be his own, saying in an +argumentative tone, "I assure you, father, that an extraordinary amount +of nonsense is talked nowadays concerning--well, the death penalty. Is +it possible that you do not realise that I am escaping a much worse +fate--that of having to live on? I wish, dear dad, that I could persuade +you of the truth of this." + +"If only," muttered the old man in response, "if only, my boy, I could +bear it for you;" and Carden saw that his father's face was seared with +an awful look of terror and agony. + +"But, indeed, father, you do not understand. Believe me, I am not +afraid--it will not be so bad after all. So do not--pray, pray, father, +do not be so distressed." + +And then, with a great start, Theodore Carden awoke--awoke to see the +small, spare figure of that same dear father, clothed in the long, +old-fashioned linen nightshirt of another day, standing by his bedside. + +The old man held a candle in his hand, and was gazing down at his only +child with an expression of unutterable woe and grief. + +"I will try--I am trying, my boy, not to be unreasonably distressed," he +said. + +Theodore Carden sat up in bed. + +Since this awful thing had come on him, he had never, even for an +instant, forgotten self, but now he saw that his sufferings were small +compared with those he had brought on the man into whose face he was +gazing with red-rimmed, sunken eyes. + +For a moment the wild thought came to him that he might try to explain, +to justify himself, to prove to his father that in this matter he had +but done as others do, and that the punishment was intolerably heavier +than the crime; but then, looking up and meeting Thomas Carden's +perplexed, questioning eyes, he felt a great rush of shame and horror, +not only of himself, but of all those who look at life as he himself had +always looked at it; for the first time, he understood the mysterious +necessity, as well as the beauty, of abnegation, of renunciation. + +"Father," he said, "listen. I will not go away alone; I was mad to think +of such a thing. We will go together, you and I,--Lane has told me that +such has been your wish,--and then perhaps some day we will come back +together." + +After this, for the first time for many nights, Theodore Carden fell +into a dreamless sleep. + + + + +III + +A VERY MODERN INSTANCE + + +Oliver Germaine walked with long, even strides from the Marble Arch to +Grosvenor Gate. It was Sunday morning, early in July, and the +comparatively deserted portion of the Park which he had chosen was, even +so, full of walkers. A good many people, men as well as women, looked at +him pleasantly as he went by, for the young man was an attractive, even +an arresting personality to the type of person who takes part in Church +Parade. + +Germaine was tall, slim, dark, so blessed by fate in the mere matter of +eyes, nose and mouth, that his looks were often commented on when his +wife's beauty was mentioned. + +So it was that, as he walked quickly by, a rather vexed expression on +his handsome face, almost every man who saw him envied him--if not his +looks then his clothes, if not his clothes then his air of being young, +healthy, and, to use an ugly modern phrase, in perfect condition. + +A nursemaid who watched him pass to and fro several times told herself, +rather wistfully, that he was waiting for a loved one, and that the +lady, as is the way with loved ones, was late. + +The nursemaid was right in one sense, wrong in another. Oliver Germaine +was waiting for a lady, but the lady was his married sister. Her name +was Fanny Burdon, and her home was in Shropshire. Germaine had a loved +one, but she was already his wife, his beautiful, clever Bella, with +whom he would so much rather have been now, sitting in their pretty +house in West Chapel Street than waiting in the Park for his sister +Fanny. + +It was really too bad of Fanny to be late! The more so that she would +certainly feel aggrieved if, when she did come, her brother made her go +straight home with him, instead of taking her down into the crowd of +people who were now seething round the Achilles statue. But if Fanny +didn't come at once, go home they must, for Bella wouldn't like them to +be late--quite a number of people were coming to lunch. + +Germaine did not quite know whom, among their crowds of friends, Bella +had asked to come in to-day. But certain people, four or five perhaps, +would assuredly be there--Mrs. Slade, Bella's great "pal," a nice +pretty little woman, with big appealing eyes; also Jenny and Paul +Arabin, distant relations of his wife, and once the young couple's only +link with the exclusive world of which they now formed so intimate a +part. + +Then there would be Uvedale. + +Germaine's mind dwelt on Uvedale. Bob Uvedale was one of his wife's +admirers--in fact Uvedale made no secret of his infatuation for the +beautiful Mrs. Germaine, but he was a good fellow, and never made either +Bella or himself ridiculous. + +Oliver Germaine had remained very simple at heart. He felt sure that +Bella could take care of herself; she always behaved with extraordinary +prudence and sense,--in fact Oliver was now far less jealous of Bella +than he had been in the old days, before she had blossomed into a famous +beauty. She was then rather fond of flirting--but her husband had proved +the truth of the comfortable old adage concerning safety in numbers. +Bella now simply had no time for flirtation! There was no necessity for +her to exert herself, she had only to sit still and be admired and +adored,--adored, that is, in platonic fashion, admired as you admire a +work of art. + +Another man who would certainly be lunching with them to-day was Peter +Joliffe. + +Joliffe was a clever, quaint fellow, whose mission in life was to make +people laugh by saying funny things in a serious tone. Joliffe was +always fluttering round Bella. He had established himself as a tame cat +about the house, and he had, as a matter of fact, been very useful to +the young couple, piloting Bella when she was only "the new beauty" amid +social quicksands and shallows of which she naturally knew nothing. + +Nay, more, Peter Joliffe had introduced the Germaines to some of the +very nicest people they knew,--old-fashioned, well-established people, +delightful old ladies who called Bella "My pretty dear," courtly old +gentlemen who paid her charmingly-turned compliments. Yes, it was nice +to think Joliffe would be there to-day; he always helped to make a party +go off well. + +As for Oliver's sister, Fanny, she would have to sit next Henry Buck. +For a brief moment Germaine considered Henry Buck,--Buck who was always +called "Rabbit" behind his back, and sometimes to his face. + +Germaine hardly knew how it was that they had come to know poor old +Rabbit so well. They had met him soon after they were married, and ever +since he had stuck to them both with almost pathetic insistence. Oddly +enough, he, Oliver, did not reciprocate Henry Buck's feelings of +admiring friendship. It was not that he disliked the man, but he had a +sort of physical antipathy to him. + +The only interesting thing about Henry Buck was his wealth. But then to +many people that made him very interesting, for he was really immensely +rich, and one of those rather uncommon people, who don't know how to +spend their money! Poor Rabbit had been educated at home by a foolish, +widowed mother, who had been afraid of letting him play rough games. +This was perhaps why he was so dull and awkward--not quite like other +people. + +Germaine felt rather sorry that Henry Buck would certainly be there +to-day. Considering how very little he did for them--no, that was a +beastly thing to say, even to oneself!--but considering how very +unornamental and uninteresting poor old Rabbit was, it was really very +nice of Bella to be so kind to him. She never seemed to mind his being +there, and she had even managed to force his company on certain people +whose one object in life was to avoid a bore, and who didn't care a +button whether a man was a pauper or a millionaire. + +Of course Germaine guessed what had happened to Fanny. She had almost +certainly gone to hear some fashionable preacher--for Fanny was the sort +of woman who likes to cram everything into a visit to London. She was +disappointed if every waking hour did not bring with it some new +sensation, some new amusement, and this was odd--or so her +simple-hearted brother told himself--because all the rest of the year +Fanny was content to lead the dull, stodgy life of a small Shropshire +squire's wife. + +Oliver's irritation increased. It was foolish of Fanny to have come to +London just now, in the middle of the season! Hitherto, she and her +husband had always come up for a fortnight just before Christmas, and +then perhaps again just before Easter. Now she had come up alone, and +settled herself into dull lodgings in Marylebone; and then--well, the +young man was vaguely aware that Fanny's visit to town was really a +scouting expedition. She evidently wanted to see for herself how her +brother Oliver and his beautiful wife were "getting on." + +Strange to say, Fanny was not quite pleased at Bella's sudden social +success--not pleased, and yet quite willing to profit by it. How queer +that was! How queer, for the matter of that, most women were! But Bella +was not queer--in fact, Bella had been most awfully nice about Fanny, +and had never allowed her to suspect, even by as much as a look, that +her presence was not welcome. Yet Fanny naturally proved "odd man out" +at all those little gatherings to which her lovely sister-in-law made +her so carelessly welcome. Fanny knew nothing of the delightful world in +which Oliver and Bella now moved; she was quite convinced that she +belonged to the very best, exclusive set, and so she did--in Shropshire. +But here in town? Why, she was even ignorant of the new social +shibboleths; all her notions as to what it was the right thing to do, or +to avoid doing, belonged to the year before last! + +Take to-day. Fanny would certainly feel cross and disappointed that +Bella was not there, in the Park, too; and, as a matter of fact, +Germaine had tried to make his wife please his sister in the little +matter of Church Parade--but Bella had shaken her head smilingly. + +"You know I would do anything for Fanny," she had said, "but really, +darling, you mustn't ask me to do _that_--to go into that big, horrid, +staring crowd. Why should I? It makes one look so cheap! It would only +bore me, and I don't think Fanny would really enjoy having me there," +and Bella had smiled a little smile. + +Germaine had smiled too,--he really couldn't help it! It was quite true +that Fanny would not enjoy seeing Bella looked at, followed,--in a word, +triumphing, in the way she did triumph every time she appeared in a +place where she was likely to be recognised. + +Of course it was odd, when one came to think of it, that Bella, who had +been just as pretty two years ago as she was now, should, for some +mysterious reason, have been suddenly discovered, by those whose word is +law in such matters, to be astonishingly, marvellously beautiful! + +An involuntary smile again quivered across Oliver Germaine's +good-looking face. He had but little sense of humour, and yet even he +saw something almost comic about it--the way that Bella, his darling, +pretty little Bella, had suddenly been exalted--hoisted up, as it were, +on to a pinnacle. She was now what the Londoners of a hundred years ago +would have called "the reigning toast"--so an amusing old fellow, who +was a great authority on history, had told him a few days ago. + +Still, he ought to make allowances for his sister Fanny. It was not in +human nature--or so Oliver believed--for any woman, even for such a good +sort as Fanny undoubtedly was, to be really pleased at another woman's +triumph. + +Small wonder that, to use his sister's favourite expression, Fanny could +not make it out! It was unfortunate that Bella's fame--that fame of +which the young husband was half ashamed and half proud--had actually +penetrated to the dull village where his only sister held high state as +wife of the lord of the manor. + +Since Fanny had been in town she had said little things to him about +Bella's position as reigning beauty--not altogether kindly or nice +little things. Even yesterday she had observed, with a touch of sharp +criticism in her voice, "I wonder, dear old boy, why you allow Bella's +photograph to appear in all those low papers!" and Oliver had shrugged +his shoulders, not knowing what to answer, but comfortably sure, in a +brotherly way, that Fanny would have been quite willing to see her own +fair features reproduced in similar fashion, had it occurred to any of +the editors of these same enterprising papers to ask for the loan of her +photograph. + +As a matter of fact, he had remembered, even while she was speaking, a +monstrously ugly photograph of Fanny,--Fanny surrounded by her dogs and +children,--which had appeared in a well-known lady's paper. Why, she had +actually sent the paper to him, marked! But Oliver magnanimously +refrained from reminding her of this,--the more so, that Fanny had +hurried on from the trifling question of Bella's portrait to the more +serious and unpleasant one of her brother's moderate income. + +But, as Germaine now told himself complacently, he had been very short +with her. In fact he had administered a good brotherly snub to +inquisitive Fanny. She had no business to ask him a lot of questions +concerning the way he and Bella chose to spend their income; it was no +business of hers how the money was spent. Unfortunately Fanny did +consider it her business, simply owing to the fact that she was Oliver's +only sister, and very fond of him,--that went without saying,--and that +unluckily her husband was Oliver's trustee. So it was that she had shown +extraordinary curiosity as to how her brother and his wife managed to +live in the way they did, on the income she knew they had. + +"Do you know," she had said gravely, "exactly what your income is?" +Oliver had nodded impatiently. Of course he knew, roughly speaking, that +he and Bella had a little over two thousand a year---- + +"Two thousand and sixty-one pounds, eighteen shillings," she had gone on +impressively. "At least that was what it was last year, for I asked +Dick." Now Dick was Fanny's husband, and a most excellent fellow, but +hopelessly under Fanny's thumb. + +Oliver Germaine had not always been so well off. In fact, when he first +met Bella--something like six years ago--he had been a subaltern, with a +very small private income, in a Line regiment. And it was on that small +income that the loveliest girl in Southsea--now the most beautiful woman +in London--had married him. Then had come an immense, unlooked-for piece +of good fortune! + +A distant Scotch cousin, a crusty old chap, of whom all the Germaines +were afraid, and who had constantly declared it to be his intention to +leave his money outside his own family, had chosen to make Oliver his +heir, and had appointed Fanny's husband, the steady-going, rather dull +Shropshire squire, as trustee. + +Of course Oliver, and even more Bella, knew now that the fortune which +had seemed then to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, was not +so very much after all. But still, at first, it had been plenty--plenty +for everything they could reasonably require. + +But when Bella had become a famous beauty, they had of course to spend +rather more, and about a year ago they had gone through rather a +disagreeable moment. The little house in West Chapel Street which had +seemed so cheap had proved more expensive than they had expected. +However, Dick, as trustee, had stretched a point in his brother-in-law's +favour, and the slight shrinkage which had resulted in the Germaines' +income mattered not at all from the practical point of view, for the +simple reason that they went on spending as much as, in fact rather more +than, they had done before--but it was tiresome having to pay, as they +now had to do, an insurance premium. + +Still, it was too bad of Fanny to have spoken as she had done, for Bella +was wonderfully economical. Take one simple matter; all their friends, +or at any rate the majority of them, had motors as a matter of course, +but Bella, when she was not driving, as she generally did, in a car lent +her by some kind acquaintance, contented herself with jobbing an +old-fashioned brougham. + +This restraint was the more commendable inasmuch that a friend had +lately pointed out to her a way in which one could run a motor brougham +in town on almost nothing at all. One bought a second-hand car for about +seventy-five pounds; it was kept for one at a garage for fifteen +shillings a week, and one looked out for a gentleman chauffeur who loved +motoring for its own sake, and who had some little means of his own. +With care the whole thing need not cost more than a hundred and fifty +pounds the first year, and less the second. They could not afford to do +this just yet, though Bella was convinced it would be true economy, but +Oliver hoped to start something of the kind the following winter. + +Of course Oliver was never exactly easy about money. Everything always +cost just a little more than he expected. It sounded absurd, and he +would not have said so to anyone but himself, but they had to live up to +Bella's reputation--that is, they had to go everywhere, and do +everything. Yet neither of them lacked proper pride. They differed from +some people they knew--that is, they did not (more than they could help) +live on their rich friends. Their only real extravagance last year had +been sharing a house during Goodwood week. That had let them in for a +great deal more than they had expected--in fact, not to put too fine a +point on it, they had been rooked, regularly rooked, and by people whom +they had thought their intimate friends! + +Germaine sighed impatiently. This little uneasiness about money was the +one spot on a very bright sun. But he had no wish to confide this fact +to Fanny! Fanny would be certain to blame Bella. He remembered very +well, though she had apparently forgotten it, the way Fanny had behaved +at the time of his marriage. + +The fact that the girl he wished so ardently to make his wife was lovely +(no one could have denied that even then), and quite sufficiently well +connected, had not counterbalanced, from the prudent sister's point of +view, Bella Arabin's lack of fortune and her having been brought up in +such a "mixed" place (whatever that might mean) as Southsea. + +But Bella had never borne malice; and far from being spoilt or rendered +"uppish" by her sudden intoxicating success, Bella was, if anything, +nicer than before. She and Oliver were still devoted, still happier +together than apart; their quarrels, so far, had been only lovers' +quarrels.... + +Germaine grew restless--restless and tired. He had not had such a +thinking bout for a long time. Just as he reached Grosvenor Gate for the +fifth or sixth time, it struck a quarter-past one. In a sense there was +plenty of time, for they lunched at a quarter to two; he would give +Fanny ten more minutes and then go off home without her. + +The young man looked round. Every bench was full, but there were plenty +of empty chairs. He dragged one of them forward, and placed it with its +back to a large tree. From there he could see everyone who came in and +out of the gate, and so he and Fanny would not lose a moment looking for +one another. But, though many went out, very few came in; the Park was +beginning to empty. + +Suddenly two middle-aged women, the one very stout, the other very thin, +walked slowly through the gate. They struck across Germaine's line of +vision, and for a moment his dark eyes rested on them indifferently. +Then his gaze changed into something like attention, for he had a vague +impression of having seen the elder of these two women before. What was +more, he felt certain he had seen her in some vaguely unpleasant +connection. + +For a moment he believed her to be one of the cook-housekeepers with +whom he and Bella had grappled during the earlier days of their married +life. But no, this short stout woman with the shrewd, powerful face +Germaine seemed to know, did not look like a servant. Even he could see +that her black clothes were handsome and costly, if rather too warm for +a fine July day. Her thin, nervous-looking companion was also dressed +with some pretension and research, but she lacked the other's look of +stout prosperity. + +They were typical Londoners, of the kind to be seen on the route of +every Royal procession, and standing among the crowd outside the church +door at every fashionable marriage--women who, if they had lived in the +London of the Georges, would have walked a good many miles to see a +fellow-creature swing. But to Oliver Germaine they were simply a couple +of unattractive-looking women, one of whom he thought he had seen +before, and whose proximity was faintly disagreeable. + +Germaine's mind had dwelt on them longer than it would otherwise have +done because, when just in front of him, they stopped short and +hesitated; then, looking round them much as Germaine himself had looked +round a few minutes before, and, the elder woman taking the lead, each +dragged a chair forward, and sat down a yard or so to the young man's +right, the trunk of the tree stretching its gnarled grey girth between. + +Seven minutes of the ten Oliver meant to allow Fanny had now gone by, +and he felt inclined to cut the other three minutes short, and go +straight home. After all, it was too bad of her to be so unpunctual! + +And then, striking on his ear, shreds of the conversation which was +taking place between the two women sitting near him began to penetrate +Oliver Germaine's brain. Names fell on his ear--Christian names, +surnames, with which he was familiar, evoking the personalities of men +and women with whom he was on terms of acquaintance, in some cases of +close friendship. + +Unconsciously his clasped hands tightened on the knob of his stick, and +he caught himself listening--listening with a queer mixture of morbid +interest and growing disgust. + +It was the elder woman who spoke the most, and she was a good speaker, +with that trick,--self-taught, instinctive,--of making the people of +whom she was speaking leap up before the listener. Now and again she was +interrupted by little shrieks of astonishment and horror--her +companion's way of paying tribute to the interesting nature of the +conversation. + +How on earth--so Oliver Germaine asked himself with heating cheek--had +the woman obtained her peculiarly intimate knowledge of those of whom +she was speaking? The people, these men and women, especially women, +whose lives, the inner cores of whose existences, were being probed and +ruthlessly exposed, almost all belonged to the Germaines' own particular +set,--if indeed such a prosperous and popular couple as were Oliver and +Bella, could be said to have a particular set in that delightful world +into which they had only comparatively lately effected an entrance, and +of which the strands all intermingle the one with the other. + +Germaine was too young, he had been too happy, he was too instinctively +kindly, to concern himself with other people's private affairs, save in +a wholly impersonal fashion. He had always avoided the hidden, unspoken +side of life; when certain secrets were confided to him they dropped +quickly out of his mind; ugly gossip passed him by. + +Yet now he found himself listening to very ugly gossip; some feeling +outside himself, some instinct which for the moment mastered him, made +him stay on there, eavesdropping. + +For the moment the stream of venom was directed against Mrs. Slade, the +pretty, harmless little woman whom he would see within the next hour +sitting at his own table. She was one of Bella's special friends, and +Oliver had got quite fond of her, the more so that he was well aware +that she was in a difficult position, owing to the fact, not of her +seeking, or so the Germaines believed, that her husband spent most of +his life away from her, abroad. + +In this special case, Germaine knew something of the hidden wounds; it +was horrible to hear this--this old devil engaged in plucking the scabs +from these same wounds, and exposing to her vulgar companion the shifts +to which the unfortunate little woman was put. Nay, more, she said +certain things concerning Mrs. Slade which, if they were true, or even +only half true, made the poor little soul under discussion no fit friend +or companion for Germaine's own spotless wife, Bella.... + +The burden of the old woman's talk was money, how people got money, how +they spent money, how they did without money. That was the idea running +through all her conversation, although it was, of course, concerned with +many uglier things than money. + +Had they been men speaking Germaine would have been sufficiently filled +with righteous indignation to have found words with which to rebuke, +even to threaten them, but they were women, common women, and he felt +tongue-tied, helpless. + +And then, suddenly, there leapt into the conversation his own name, or +rather that of his wife, the woman of whom he felt so exultantly, so +selflessly proud. The allusion came in the form of a question, a +question spoken in a shrill and odious Cockney accent. + +"I should like to see that Mrs. Germaine. I wonder if she ever comes +into the Park----" + +"Not she! At any rate not on Sunday. Why she'd be mobbed!" snapped out +the other. + +"You don't say so! Do people run after her as much as that?" + +"There's been nothing like it since Mrs. Jersey. I used to see people +get up on chairs to see Mrs. Jersey go by. Not that I ever thought much +of her figure--great, ugly, square shoulders. She started those square +shoulders, and they've never really died out." + +"Mrs. Germaine's quite another sort of beauty, the pocket Venus style, +isn't she? I suppose you've had a lot to do with making her the rage," +said the friend admiringly. + +"I don't know about that--her kind of figure dresses itself. She's the +sort that gets there anyhow. She's got that 'jennysayquoy' air, as the +French put it, that makes folk turn round and stare. She gets her looks +from her mother; I remember the mother--her name was Arabin--when I was +with Cerise. They weren't London people--they was military. Mrs. Arabin +had such pretty coaxing ways, same as the daughter has. Cerise used to +let her have the things ever so much cheaper than she charged her other +customers, but it paid her too." + +Germaine breathed a little more easily. He knew now who this woman was. +She was a certain Mrs. Bliss, Bella's dressmaker, in her way a famous +old lady, whom Bella's set greatly preferred to the other dressmakers in +vogue. It was Mrs. Bliss, so he remembered having heard, who had +introduced some years ago the picturesque style of dressing with which +his sister Fanny found such fault, and which remains loftily +indifferent to the fashion. + +Oliver recollected now where and when he had seen her; there had been +some little trouble about an item in his wife's bill, and Bella had made +him go with her to face the formidable Mrs. Bliss in the old-fashioned +house in Sackville Street where the dressmaker wielded her powerful +sceptre. That was before Bella had become a fashionable beauty, and Mrs. +Bliss had been rather short with them both, unwilling to admit that she +was wrong, although the figures proving her so stared her in the face. + +And then Germaine remembered other occasions with which Mrs. Bliss's +name, though not her personality, were associated. He had made out +cheques to her, larger cheques than Bella could manage out of her +allowance. But that was some time ago; his wife must now have given up +dealing with her; and he felt glad, very glad, that this was so. A woman +with such a tongue was a danger to society,--not that anyone need +believe a word she said.... + +Suddenly the shrill Cockney voice asked yet another question concerning +the beautiful Mrs. Germaine. It was couched in what the speaker would +probably have described as perfectly ladylike and delicate language, +but its purport was unmistakable, and Germaine made a restless movement; +then he became almost rigidly still--a man cannot turn and strike a +woman on the mouth. + +"N-o-o, I don't think so." Mrs. Bliss spoke guardedly. "She's a lot of +gentlemen buzzing around her, but that's only to be expected; and as far +as I can hear there's not one that buzzes closer than another. To tell +you the truth, Sophy, I'm puzzled about those Germaines. It's no +business of mine, of course, but she spends three times as much as she +did when I first began dressing her and she don't mind now what she does +pay,--very different to what she used to do! It's only the best that's +good enough for my lady now." + +"Germaine's an army chap, isn't he?" + +"He was--and a handsome fellow he is, too. He came into a good bit of +money just after they got married, but that must be melting pretty +quick. Why, she goes everywhere! Last season she really wore her clothes +out. They"--she waved her hand comprehensively round a vague area +comprising Marylebone and Mayfair--"scratched and fought with each other +in order to get her." + +"Then I suppose you don't bother about your money." + +"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Bliss shortly. "I'm not that kind; I don't work +for the King of Prussia, as my French tailor used to say." + +There was a pause, and then in a rather different voice Mrs. Bliss went +on, "I _do_ get my money from Mrs. Germaine, but lately,--well, I won't +say lately, but for the last eighteen months or so, _she's always paid +me in notes_, two, three, sometimes four hundred pounds at a time, +always in five-pound notes." + +She spoke in a low voice, and yet, to Oliver Germaine, it seemed as if +she shouted the words aloud. + +The young man got up, and, careless of the lateness of the hour, walked +away without looking around towards the Marble Arch; so alone could he +be sure that Mrs. Bliss would not see him, and perchance leap to the +recollection of who he was. + +The words the woman had said so quietly seemed to be reverberating with +loud insistence in his ear: "_She's always paid me in notes._" "_Two, +three, sometimes four hundred pounds._" + +What exactly had Mrs. Bliss meant by this statement? What significance +had she intended it to carry? There had been a touch of regret in the +hard voice, a hesitation in the way she had conveyed the pregnant +confidence, which made Oliver heartsick to remember. + +But after a time, as Oliver Germaine walked quickly along, uncaring as +to which way he was going, almost running in his desire to outstrip his +own thoughts, there came a little lightening of his bewildered misery. +It was possible, just possible, that Mrs. Bliss was really thinking of +some other customer. + +Notes? The idea was really absurd to anyone who knew Bella, as he, +Oliver, thank God, knew his wife! Why, there was never any loose money +in the house, both he and Bella were always running short of petty cash. + +Then the young man remembered, with a sudden tightening of the heart, +that this had not been the case lately. During the last few months, +since they had moved into their new house, Bella had always had +money--plenty of sixpences and shillings, half crowns and half +sovereigns--at his disposal. Nay more, looking back, he realised that +his wife no longer teased him, as she had once perpetually teased him, +for supplements, large or small, to her allowance; he had to face the +fact that of late Bella's allowance had borne a surprising resemblance +to the widow's cruse; it had actually sufficed for all her wants. + +But he had been unsuspecting, utterly unsuspecting, and even now he +hardly knew what he did suspect. + +The horrible things he had heard Mrs. Bliss say about other people acted +and reacted on Germaine's imagination. If these things were true, then +the world in which he and Bella lived was corrupt and rotten; and, as +even Oliver Germaine knew by personal experience, pitch defiles. If +Daphne Slade did the things Mrs. Bliss implied she did, Bella must know +it,--know it and condone it. Bella was far too clever to be taken in, as +he, Oliver, had been taken in, by Mrs. Slade's pretty pathetic manner, +and appealing eyes. If Mrs. Slade took money from men, what an example, +what a model----Germaine's mind refused to complete the thought. + +Certain of Oliver's and Bella's old acquaintances--people whom they were +too kind to drop, but of whom they couldn't see as much now as they had +once done, in the days before Bella became a famous beauty--would +sometimes hint darkly as to the wickedness of some of the people they +knew. Even Fanny had told him bluntly that Bella had got into a very +fast set. "Fast" was the word his sister had used, and it had diverted +him. + +But was it possible that these people, whom he had thought envious and +silly--and that Fanny, his rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned +sister,--had been right after all? Was it possible that like so many +husbands of whom he had heard, for whom he had felt contempt and pity, +he had--as regarded his own cherished wife--lived in a fool's paradise? + +Germaine now remembered several things that he had known--known and +thought forgotten--for they had been completely apart from his own life. +He recalled the case of a man in his own regiment who had shot himself +three days after his wife's death. It had been publicly given out that +the poor fellow had been mad--distraught with grief; but there had been +many to mutter that the truth was far other, and that the man had made a +shameful discovery among his dead wife's papers.... + +Concerning any other woman than Bella, Germaine would have admitted, +perhaps reluctantly,--but still, if asked the plain question, he would +have admitted, that women are damned tricky creatures, and that--well, +that you never can tell! + +Again, out of the past, there came back to him, with horrid vividness, +the memory of a brief episode which at the time had filled him with a +kind of pity, even sympathy. + +It was at a ball; he was quite a youngster, in fact it was the year +after he had joined, and a woman sitting out with him in a conservatory +had fallen into intimate talk, as people so often do amid unfamiliar +surroundings. There came a moment when she said to him, with burning, +unhappy eyes, "People think I'm a good woman, but I'm not." And she had +hurried on to make the nature of her sinning quite clear; she had not +passion for her excuse--only lack of means and love of luxury. He had +been startled, staggered by the unasked-for confidence--and yet he had +not thought much the worse of her; now, retrospectively, he judged her +with terrible severity. + +But _Bella_? The thought of Bella in such company was inconceivable; and +yet, deep in Oliver Germaine's heart, there grew from the seed sown by +Mrs. Bliss a upas tree which for the moment overshadowed everything. He +was torn with anguished jealousy, which made him forget, excepting as +affording a proof of what he feared, the sordid, horrible question of +the money. + +Germaine had already been jealous of Bella, jealous before their +marriage, and jealous since, but that feeling had been nothing, +_nothing_ to that which now held him in its grip. + +As a girl, Bella had been a flirt, and, as she had since confessed more +than once, she had loved to make Oliver miserable. Then, for some time +after their marriage he had been angered at the way she had welcomed and +courted admiration. But he had never doubted her, never for a moment +thought that her love was leaving him, still less that her flirtations +held any really sinister intent. He now remembered how a man, a fool of +a fellow, had once brought her a beautiful jewel by way of a Christmas +gift; but it had annoyed her, and, without saying anything about it to +Oliver at the time, she had actually made the man take back his present! + +Was it conceivable that in three or four short years Bella could have +entirely altered--have become to all intents and purposes, not only +another woman, but a woman of a type,--as even he was well aware, a very +common type,--he would not have cared to hear mentioned in her +presence? + +Germaine was now at the Marble Arch. After a moment's bewildered +hesitation, he went up Oxford Street, and then took a turning which +would ultimately lead him home; home where Bella must be impatiently +awaiting him--home where their intimates had already doubtless gathered +together for lunch. + +And then, during his walk through the now deserted and sun-baked streets +and byways of Mayfair, Oliver Germaine passed in slow review the men and +the women who composed his own and Bella's intimate circle. They rose in +blurred outline against the background of his memory, and gradually the +women fell out, and only the men remained,--two men, for Henry Buck did +not count. + +Which of these two men who came about his house in the guise of close +friends, had planned to steal, to buy, the wife on whose absolute purity +and honour he would an hour ago have staked his life? + +Germaine's fevered mind leapt on Bob Uvedale. What were Uvedale's +relations, his real relations, with Bella? Oliver, so he now told +himself sorely, was not quite a fool; he had known men who hid the +deepest, tenderest--he would not say the most dishonourable--feelings, +towards a married woman, under the skilful pretence of frank laughing +flirtation. + +Uvedale, when all was said and done, was an adventurer, living on his +wits. He talked of his poverty, talked of it over-much, but he often +made considerable sums of money; in fact twice, in moments of unwonted +expansiveness, Uvedale had offered to put Germaine on to a "good thing," +to share with him a tip which had been given him by one of his financial +friends. Germaine now remembered, with a sick feeling of anger, how +seriously annoyed Bella had been to find that her husband had refused to +have anything to do with it; nay more, how she had taunted him +afterwards when the "good thing" had turned out good after all. But that +was long ago, when they had first known Uvedale. + +They now knew Uvedale too well--at least Bella did. Oliver was an +outdoor man; he hated crowds. He remembered how often Uvedale took his +place as Bella's companion at those semi-public gatherings, charity +fêtes, and so on, which apparently amused her, and where the presence of +the beautiful Mrs. Germaine was always eagerly desired. + +Germaine's mind next glanced with jealous anguished suspicion at another +man who was constantly with Bella--Peter Joliffe. + +There was a great, almost a ludicrous, contrast between Uvedale and +Joliffe. Uvedale, so Germaine dimly realised even now, was a man with a +wider, more generous, outlook on life than the other, capable of deeper +depths, of higher heights. + +Joliffe was well off; and, as the Germaines had been told very early in +their acquaintance with him, he had the reputation of being "near." But +Bella and Oliver had both agreed that this was not true. Only the other +day Bella had spoken very warmly of Joliffe; when they had moved into +their new house he had given them a Sheraton bureau, a very charming and +certainly by no means a cheap piece of old furniture. Oliver had +supposed it to be a delicate way of paying back some of their constant +hospitality, for Joliffe was perpetually with Bella. + +Time after time Germaine had come in and found Joliffe sitting with her; +walking through the hall he had heard her peals of laughter at Joliffe's +witticisms, the funny things he said with his serious face. + +But after all jesters are men of like passions to their melancholy +brethren; they can, and do, throw off the grinning mask. Bella had said, +only yesterday, "There's more in Peter than you think, Oliver. Believe +me, there is!" Bella always called Joliffe Peter,--she was more formal +with Bob Uvedale. + +Germaine now reminded himself that Joliffe did not like Uvedale, and +that Uvedale did not like Joliffe. There seemed a deep, unspoken +antagonism between the two men, who were yet so constantly meeting. +Joliffe had gone so far as to say something--not exactly disagreeable, +but condemnatory--of Uvedale's city connections, to Germaine. Joliffe +was annoyed, distinctly annoyed at the way Bella went about with +Uvedale, and by the fact that she often introduced him to people whose +acquaintance she had herself made through Joliffe. + +What had he, Oliver Germaine, been about, to allow his wife to become so +intimate with two men, of whom he knew nothing? Yesterday he would have +said Uvedale and Joliffe were his closest pals. But what did he really +know of either of them--of their secret thoughts--their deep desires and +ambitions--their shames and secret sins? Nothing--nothing. Bella's +husband knew as little of Uvedale and Joliffe--in fact, till to-day, +far less than they knew of him, for one or the other of these men was +his enemy, and had betrayed, very basely, his hospitality. + +Germaine had now lashed himself into the certainty that he was that most +miserable and pitiable of civilised beings, the trusting, kindly, nay +more, adoring husband, whose wife betrays him with his friend. + +When others had laughed, as men have laughed, and will ever laugh, at +similar ironic juxtapositions of fate, Germaine had remained grave, for +he had a sensitive heart--a heart which made him realise something of +what lay beneath such tales. Now he told himself that so no doubt he +himself was being laughed at by the many, pitied--the thought stung +deeper--by the few. + +As he at last turned into Curzon Street, and so was within a few yards +of his house, it struck two o'clock. By now they must all be waiting for +him, and Bella would be angry, as angry as she ever allowed her +sweet-tempered nature to be. But Germaine told himself savagely that he +didn't care,--he was sorry to be so near home, to know that in a few +moments he would have to command himself, to pretend light-hearted +indifference before a crowd of people most of whom he now feared--ay, +feared and hated, for they must all have long suspected what he only now +knew to be the truth. + +Some one touched him. He started violently. It was his sister, Fanny, +pouring out a confused stream of apologies and explanations. He stared +at her in silence, and she thought he was so seriously annoyed, so "put +out" that he could not trust himself to speak. + +But though, as they stood there face to face, he dimly realised what his +sister was trying to say, how she was trying to explain her failure to +keep her appointment with him in the Park, Germaine could not have told, +had his life depended on it, the nature of her excuse. + +Together they walked side by side to the door of his house, and, as he +rang the bell, as he knocked, he remembered with a pang of jealous +anguish that Bella had asked him, when they moved into this house, not +to use a latch-key in the daytime; she had explained to him that to do +so prevented the servants keeping up to the mark, and he had obeyed her, +as he always did obey her. This trifle made his anger, for the moment +his impotent anger, become colder, clarified. + +It was only an hour later, but at last they were all gone, these people +whom Oliver Germaine had now begun to hate and suspect, each in their +different measure, women and men. Everyone had left, that is, excepting +Henry Buck and Fanny; and Fanny was just going away, Oliver seeing her +off at the front door. + +Germaine believed that he had carried himself well. True, Uvedale had +said to him, "Feeling a bit chippy, old chap?" and twice he had noticed +Joliffe's rather cold grey eyes fixed attentively on his face, but under +the chatter of the women--Jenny Arabin was a great talker and in a +harmless sort of way a great gossip, always knowing everybody's business +better than they did themselves--under cover of the women's chatter, he +had been able to remain silent, and, whatever the two men present had +suspected,--one of the two forced thereto by his own conscience,--Bella +had certainly noticed nothing. She had not even seen, as his sister had +seen, that Oliver looked tired and unlike himself. + +Why, just now Fanny had spoken to him solicitously about his +health--blundering, tactless, Fanny had actually asked him if anything +special were worrying him! + +He shut the door on his sister, and crossed the little hall. The time +had now come when he must have it out with Bella. + +Then, suddenly, there came over Germaine a feeling as if he had been +living through a hideous nightmare. If that were indeed so, then his +whole life would not be too long to secretly atone to Bella for his +horrible suspicion. + +It seemed suddenly monstrous that he should suspect Bella on the word of +a Mrs. Bliss. His wife had a right, after all, to pay her dressmaker in +bank-notes if the fancy seized her. Sometimes when Bella did something +that he, Oliver, did not like or approve, she explained that her mother +had done the same thing, and the excuse always irritated him, left him +without an answer. + +Supposing that Bella were now to tell him that the late Mrs. Arabin, +whose reputation for a certain daring liveliness and exceeding beauty +still lingered in the ever-shifting naval and military society where he +had first met his wife, always paid her bills in notes and cash rather +than by cheque--what then? + +He walked up the staircase; Henry Buck passed him coming down. +Germaine's eyes rested on the awkward figure, the plain, good-natured +face. Rabbit was certainly lacking in tact; he always outstayed all +their other guests, and he never knew when Bella was tired, but still he +was the one human being present at the little lunch party at whom Oliver +had been able to look without a feeling of unease. + +Slowly he turned the painted china knob of the drawing-room door. + +Bella was standing before the Sheraton bureau which had been the gift of +Peter Joliffe. She had apparently been putting something away; Germaine +heard the click of the lock. She turned round quickly, and her husband +thought there was a look of constraint on her face. + +"Why, Oliver," she said, "I thought you were going out with Fanny this +afternoon!" + +"With Fanny?" he stammered, "I never thought of doing such a thing." + +"But you're not going to stay in, are you?" + +He looked at her attentively, and again there surged up in his heart +wild jealousy and suspicion. Why did she ask whether he was going to +stay in? Which of the two men who had just left the house was she +expecting to come back as soon as he, poor deluded fool, was safely out +of the way? + +But Bella went on speaking rather quickly: "I shan't go out. I'm tired. +Besides, I'm expecting some people to tea. So perhaps I'd better go and +take my hat off. I shall only be a few minutes; do wait till I come +back." Bella spoke rather breathlessly, moving across the room towards +the door. + +Then she didn't want him to go out? He had wronged her in this, at any +rate. Germaine stared at the door through which his wife had just gone +with a feeling of miserable uncertainty. + +Then his eye travelled round to the place where she had been standing +just now, in front of Joliffe's bureau. A glance at Bella's bank-book +would set his mind at rest one way or the other. It would go far to +prove or disprove the story Mrs. Bliss had told, for it would show if +Bella were indeed in the habit of drawing considerable cheques to +"self." Why hadn't he thought of this simple test before,--before +shaming himself and shaming his wife by base suspicions? + +And yet Oliver, for some few moments, stood in the middle of the room +irresolute. Yesterday it would never have occurred to him that Bella +would mind his looking at her bank-book, although, as a matter of fact +he never had looked at it. She was a tidy little woman; he knew that +everything under the flap which he had seen her close down so quickly +just now would be exquisitely neat; he knew the exact spot where her +bank-book was to be found. + +With a curious feeling that he was doing something dishonourable,--and +it was a feeling which sat very uneasily on Oliver Germaine,--he took +hold of the little brass knob and slid up the flap of the sloping desk. + +The bank-book closed the ranks of the red household books over which in +old days, when they were first married, before he had come into his +fortune, he had actually seen Bella shed tears. + +With fingers that felt numb he took up the little vellum-bound book and +opened it at the page containing the latest items. + +There, on the credit side, was the sum of money which had been paid in, +to his bankers' order, on the last quarter day. On the debit side were a +few cheques made out to trades-people. There was not a single cheque +made out to "self" on the page at which he was looking; but--but of +course it was possible that Bella, like so many women, added a few +pounds for change every time she settled a tradesman's account. + +He turned several leaves of the little book backwards----Here was a page +which bore the date of three years ago; and here, as he had feared to +find, there were constant, small entries to "self".... + +By the empty place on the shelf where the bank-book had stood was a gilt +file for bills, a pretty little toy which had been given her, so the +husband now remembered, by Uvedale. The letters composing the word +"paid" were twisted round the handle--horrible symbolic word! + +He took up the file and ran his fingers through the receipted bills. + +Ah! here at last, was one which bore the name of Mrs. Bliss. + +The amount of the bill amazed him,--eight hundred and seventy-one +pounds, sixteen shillings,--and Bella had paid four hundred pounds on +account about a fortnight before. It was the only bill on the file on +which there still remained a balance owing. Germaine did not need to +look again at his wife's bank-book to see that the majority of the +receipted bills had not been paid by cheque. + +These bills, so he now became aware with a frightful contraction of the +heart, were for all sorts of things--expensive trifles, costly hot-house +flowers, extravagantly expensive fruit--which he had enjoyed, and of +which he had partaken, believing, if he thought of the matter at +all--fool that he had been--that they were being paid for out of his +modest income, the income which had once seemed so limitless. + + * * * * * + +"What are you doing, Oliver? You've no business to look at my things. I +never look at yours." He had not heard the door open, and Bella had +crept up swiftly behind him; there was some anger, but there was far +more fear, in her soft voice. + +Germaine turned round and looked at his wife. + +Bella had changed her dress, and she was now wearing a painted muslin +gown, her slender waist girdled with a blue ribbon. She looked +exquisitely lovely, and so young,--a girl, a young and innocent girl. + +There fell a heavy hand on her rounded shoulder. + +"Oliver!" she cried, "you're hurting me!" + +He withdrew his hand--quickly. + +"Bella," he said, "I only want to ask you one question--I know +everything,"--and in answer to a strange look that came over her face +he added hurriedly, "Never mind how I found out. I _have_ found out, and +now I only want to ask you one thing--I--I have a right to know who it +is." + +"Who it is?" she repeated. "I don't understand what you mean, Oliver? +Who--what?" but as Bella Germaine asked the useless question she shrank +back; for the first time in their joint lives she felt afraid of +Oliver,--afraid, and intensely sorry for him. + +A sob rose to her throat. What a shame it was! How on earth could he +have found out? She had thought he would go on not knowing--for ever. +That this should happen now, when she was so happy too,--when everything +was so--so comfortable. + +"Tell me--tell me at once, Bella," he said again, shaken almost out of +his self-control by her pretended lack of understanding. + +But Bella made no answer; she was retreating warily towards the open +window; Oliver, poor angry Oliver, could not say much, he could not _do_ +anything, out on the balcony. + +But he grasped her arm. "Come back," he said, "right into the room," and +forced her, trembling, down into a low chair. "Now tell me," he +repeated. "Don't keep me waiting--I can't stand it. I won't hurt you." +He leant over her, grasping her soft arm. + +But still Bella said nothing. Her free hand was toying with the fringe +of her blue sash. She had become very pale, a sickly yellow colour which +made her violet eyes seem blue,--for one terrible moment Oliver thought +she was going to faint. + +"Why should I tell you?" she muttered at last, "you can't force me to +tell you. It's a matter personal to myself. It's no business of yours. +I've never spent any of the money on you,"--she unfortunately added, "at +least hardly any." + +Germaine took his hand from her arm. "My God!" he said, "my God!" + +Did a dim gleam of what he was feeling penetrate Bella's brain? + +"I don't know why you should trouble to ask me," she said defiantly. +"Surely you must know well enough." + +"I daresay I'm stupid, but I find it very difficult to guess which of +the two, Joliffe or--or Uvedale, is your lover." + +"My lover? Joliffe--Uvedale?" Bella started to her feet, the colour +rushed back into her face. She was shaking with anger and indignation. + +"How dare you insult me so?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have dared to say +such a thing if my father had been alive! How dare you say, how dare you +_think_, I have a lover?" and then with quivering pain she gave a little +cry, "Oh, Oliver!" + +Germaine looked at her grimly enough. What a fool--what an abject fool +he had been! It fed his anger to see that Bella had so poor an opinion +of his intelligence as to suppose that he would believe her denial. + +"I know you are lying," he said briefly. "I _know_ it is either Joliffe +or Uvedale." + +"But, Oliver--indeed it isn't!" + +She was looking at him with a very curious expression; the fear, the +real terror, there had been in her face, had left it. She was staring at +her husband as if she were seeking to find on his face some indication +of a distraught, unhinged mind. + +But he looked cool, collected, stern,--and anger again surged up in +Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never--never forgive him his +vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone +so straight--never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all +the admiration lavished on her? + +There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before, +when she had often rehearsed this scene, when she had been so haunted by +the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare. + +But never had she imagined the conversation between Oliver and herself +taking the turn it now had. Never, in her most anguished dreams, had +Oliver accused her of having--a lover. But she had known, only too well, +with what anger and amazement he would learn the lesser truth. + +"Peter Joliffe?" she said, with a certain scorn. "How little you know +Peter, Oliver, if you think he would be any married woman's lover, let +alone mine! Why, Peter's a regular old maid!" She laughed a little +hysterically at her simile, and, to her husband, the merriment, which he +felt to be genuine, lowered the discussion to a level which was +hateful--sordid. + +"Then it's Uvedale," he said, heavily; and this time, so he was quick to +notice, Bella did not take the trouble to utter a direct denial. + +"Bob Uvedale? Are you quite mad? Bob Uvedale is really fond of you, +Oliver,--do you honestly think he would make love to me?" + +She was actually arguing with him; he shrugged his shoulders with a +hopeless gesture. + +Then Bella Germaine came quite close up to her husband. She looked at +him straight in the eyes. + +"I'll tell you," she said. "I see you really don't know. It's--it's----" +she hesitated, again a look of shame,--more, of fear,--came into her +face, "The person who has been giving me money, Oliver, is Rabbit." + +"Rabbit? I don't believe you!" + +"You don't believe me?" + +Bella drew a long breath. The worst, from her point of view, was now +over. She had told the truth,--and Oliver had brushed the truth aside, +so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that +he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else. + +Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a +mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer--perhaps Oliver would +feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not +find a better use for his money than in making her happy. + +She walked over to her pretty desk, and frowned a little as she saw its +condition of disarray; the receipted bills which she had found her +husband looking over were scattered, even the tradesmen's books had not +been put back in their place on the little shelf. + +She touched the spring of a rather obvious secret drawer. There had been +a time when Bella Germaine had hidden very carefully what she was now +about to show Oliver as the certain, triumphant proof that his revolting +suspicions were false. But of late she had grown careless. + +"If you don't believe me," she said coldly, "look at this, Oliver. I +think it will convince you that I told the truth just now." + +Bella knew she had a right to be bitterly indignant at her husband's +preposterous accusation. But she told herself that now was not the time +to show it; she would punish Oliver later on. + +She waited a moment and then cried, "Catch!" + +Oliver instinctively held out his hands. A bulky envelope fell into +them. It was addressed in a handwriting he knew well,--the unformed, and +yet meticulous handwriting of Henry Buck. On it was written: + + "Mrs. Oliver Germaine, + "19, West Chapel Street, + "Mayfair." + +In the corner were added the words: + + "Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be + handsomely rewarded." + +"Open it!" she said imperiously. "Open it, and see what is inside,--he +only brought it to-day." + +Oliver opened the envelope. Folded in two pieces of paper was a packet +of bank-notes held together with an elastic band. + +Germaine looked up questioningly at his wife. + +Bella hung her head. She had the grace to feel embarrassed, ashamed in +this moment that she believed to be the moment of her exculpation. Her +pretty little hands, laden with rings, each one of which had been given +her by her husband, were again toying with the fringe of her blue sash. + +The silence grew intolerable. + +"I know I've been a beast,"--her voice faltered, broke into tears. "I +knew you wouldn't like it, but--but you know, Oliver, Rabbit isn't like +an ordinary man." + +"When did he begin to give you money?" asked Oliver, in a low voice. + +"A long time ago," she answered, vaguely. + +"He came in one day when I was awfully upset about a bill--a bill of +that old devil, Bliss,--and he was so kind, Oliver. He explained how +awfully fond he was of us both. He said we were his only friends--I +always _have_ been nice to him, you know. He said he couldn't spend the +money he'd got----" + +"How much have you had from him?" + +"I can tell you exactly," she said eagerly, and again she moved towards +her bureau. + +Bella felt utterly dejected; somehow she had not expected Oliver to take +the news quite in this way; he looked dreadful--not relieved, as she had +thought he would do. + +It was with slow lagging steps that she walked back to where her husband +was still standing with the envelope and its contents crushed in his +right hand. + +Bella's love of tidiness and method had stood her in fatally good stead. +She had put down all the sums she had received from Henry Buck, but in +such a fashion that any one else looking at the figures would not have +known money was in question. + +Oliver stared down at the piece of paper. Insensibly he straightened his +shoulders as if to meet calmly a physical blow. "Are these pounds?" he +asked. + +She nodded. + +"But Bella, it's an enormous sum,--over four thousand." + +"I suppose it is," she said listlessly. + +Her husband put the paper in his breast pocket; then he hesitated a +moment, and Bella thought he was perhaps going to hand her back the +envelope and its contents. But that also, to her chagrin, disappeared +into his pocket. + +"I suppose the money Buck brought you to-day is included in this +amount?" + +Bella shook her head sadly. "I hadn't time to put it down," she said. + +"Well, I'll see what can be done." + +"I suppose you mean to pay it all back? I suppose"--her voice was +trembling with self-pity--"that we shall have to go and live in the +country now?" + +He said nothing,--only looked at her with that same cold look of +surprise and alienation. + +He was leaving the room when a cry from her brought him back. She +clutched his hand. + +"You've never said you're sorry for the horrible thing you said to +me----" and, as he looked at her, still silent, "Oliver! you surely +don't think that Rabbit----Why, he's never even squeezed my hand!" + +"Stop!" he cried roughly. "Don't be silly, Bella. Of course I don't +think anything of the kind. I accept absolutely what you tell me of your +relations with Henry Buck." + +"Why, there have been no relations with Henry Buck and me," she cried, +protesting. "What a hateful word to use, Oliver!" + +But he was already out of the door, making his way to the only human +being in whom he still felt complete confidence, who, he knew, loved +him, in the good old homely sense of the word. + + * * * * * + +"My dear boy, what _is_ the matter?" + +Fanny sat up. She had been lying down on the sofa in the sitting-room of +her lodgings. Oliver had explained to the servant that he was Mrs. +Burdon's brother, and he had been allowed to make his own way up to the +drawing-room floor. + +"There's a good deal the matter," he said. "The fact is I've made a fool +of myself, Fanny,--and I've come to you for help." + +Fanny looked up at him, and what she saw checked the words on her lips. +She was wide awake now, but rather painfully conscious that she looked +untidy. Her smart voile gown--voile was the "smart" material that +season--was crumpled. And Oliver's wife, Bella, was always so +dreadfully, so unnaturally, tidy and neat,--it was one of the things +that perhaps made people think her so much prettier than she really was. + +"Of course I will help you," she answered briskly. "Tell me all about +it." + +"Have you still that five thousand pounds Cousin Andrew left you?" + +"Why of course I have,--and it's rather more now, for luckily we didn't +put it into Consols; we put it into a Canadian security." + +"Is it invested in Dick's name?" + +Dick's wife laughed. "No, of course it isn't," she said. "Why should it +be?" + +"Could you get at it without Dick's knowing?" + +"Yes, I suppose I could." There was a touch of wonder in her voice. + +"Fanny, I want you to lend me four thousand pounds." Oliver spoke +huskily. He was staring out of the window. + +His sister looked at him rather queerly for a moment: "Yes, of course I +will," she said. And, as he turned to her, his face working,--"You +needn't make a fuss about it, dear old boy. You'll pay me back all +right, I know that." + +"I'll insure against it, and I'll pay you proper interest for +it--whatever you're getting now," he said. "And we'll get a lawyer to +see that it's all made safe." + +"That'll be all right," said Fanny, and then again she gave him that +curious, considering look. + +Germaine pulled himself together. "You'll think I've been a fool," he +exclaimed abruptly,--he had to say something in answer to that +look,--"and so I have. But you know--at least you don't know, luckily +for you--what it's like to be mixed up with a lot of fellows who are all +richer than one is oneself;" and then in a very different tone, one in +which his sister felt the ring of truth, "Are you sure Dick won't know, +Fanny? I don't want Dick to know." + +"Of course he won't know," Fanny smiled. "You don't suppose I tell Dick +everything?" + +Oliver stared at his sister. He was rather shocked by her admission; +till to-day he had thought that all husbands and wives who loved one +another told each other everything; and yet, here was Fanny, who hadn't +a thought in the world beyond Dick, the children, the dogs--and, and, +yes, her brother---- + +"It's none of Dick's business what I choose to do with my own money--not +that he'd mind." + +"I think of spreading the re-payment over five years." + +"That would be rather too soon," she said; and added, looking away as +she spoke, "I don't think it would be fair to Bella." + +Oliver reddened, a man's dusky unbecoming blush. + +"Bella's been good about it," he said briefly. "She said herself that we +should have to go and live in the country. Still, let's make it seven +years. I say, Fanny, you _are_ a brick," and sitting down by the table, +Oliver Germaine broke into hard, painful sobs. + +Fanny got up off the sofa. She felt rather shy. + +"Don't be so worried," she said. "Bella's a very good sort, and awfully +fond of you, old boy. She'll like the country better than you think. Her +looks will last twice as long there, and, and--if I were you, +Oliver--you and Bella I mean," Fanny got rather mixed, and very +red--"well, I'd try and have a baby. Bella would look awfully sweet with +a baby. And a baby's no trouble in the country--less trouble than a +puppy!" + +"Yes, that's true," he said, raising his head, and feeling vaguely +comforted. His sister Fanny had a lot of sense. Oliver had always known +that. + + + + +IV + +ACCORDING TO MEREDITH + + "Certainly, however, one day these present conditions of marriage + will be changed. Marriage will be allowed for a certain period, say + ten years."--Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH in the _Daily Mail_ of September + 24th, 1904. + + +"Give you some heads? My dear fellow, there need be no question of +heads! This is to be a model will. You need simply put down, in as few +words as are legally permissible--I know nothing of such things--that I +leave all of which I die possessed to my wife." + +Philip Dering threw his head back, and gave the man to whom he was +speaking, and opposite to whom he was standing, a confident smiling +glance. Then he turned and walked quickly over to the narrow, +old-fashioned, balconied window which, commanding the wide wind-blown +expanse of Abingdon Street, exactly faced the great cavity formed by the +arch of the Victoria Tower. + +To the right lay the riverside garden, a bright patch of delicate spring +colouring and green verdure, bounded by the slow-moving grey waters of +the Thames; and Dering's eager eyes travelled on till he saw, detaching +itself against an April afternoon horizon, the irregular mass of +building formed by Lambeth Palace and the Lollards' Tower. + +"I say," he exclaimed, rather suddenly, "this is better than Bedford +Park, eh? I suppose a floor in one of these houses would cost us a +tremendous lot; even beyond _our_ means, Wingfield?" and again a happy +smile came over the tense, clear-cut face, still full of youthful glow +and enthusiasm. + +"You wish everything to go to Louise? All right, I'll make a note of +that." + +The speaker, a round-faced, slightly bald, shrewd-looking lawyer, took +no notice of the, to him, absurd question concerning the rent of floors +in Abingdon Street. Still, he looked indulgently at his friend, as he +added: + +"But wait a bit,--I promise that yours shall be a model will,--only you +seem to have forgotten, my dear fellow, that you may out-live your wife. +Now, should you have the misfortune to lose Louise, to whom would you +wish to devise this fifteen thousand pounds? It's possible, too, though +not very probable, I admit, that you may both die at the same time--both +be killed in a railway accident for instance." + +"Such good fortune may befall us----" Dering spoke quite simply, and +accepted the other's short laugh with great good-humour. "Oh! you know +what I mean; I always _have_ thought husbands and wives--who care, I +mean--ought to die on the same day. That they don't do so is one of the +many strange mysteries which complicate life. But I say, Wingfield----" + +The speaker had turned away from the window. He had again taken up his +stand opposite the other's broad writing table, and not even the cheap, +ill-made clothes could hide the graceful lines of the tall, active +figure, not even the turned-down collar and orange silk tie could +destroy the young man's look of rather subtle distinction. + +"Failing Louise, I should like this money, at my death, to be divided +equally between the young Hintons and your kids," and as the other made +a gesture of protest, Dering added quickly: + +"What better could I do? Louise is devoted to Jack Hinton's children, +and I've always regarded you--I have indeed, old man,--as my one real +friend. Of course it's possible now,"--an awkward shy break came into +his voice--"it's possible now, I say, that we may have children of our +own; I don't suppose you've ever realised how poor, how horribly poor, +we've been all these years." + +He looked away, avoiding the other man's eyes; then, picking up his hat +and stick with a quick, nervous gesture, was gone. + + * * * * * + +After the door had shut on his friend, Wingfield went on still standing +for awhile. His hands mechanically sorted the papers and letters lying +on his table into neat little heaps, but his thoughts were travelling +backward, through his and Dering's past lives. + +The friends had first met at the City of London school, for they were +much of an age, though the lawyer looked the elder of the two. Then +Dering had gone to Cambridge, and Wingfield, more humbly, to take up +life as an articled clerk to a good firm of old-established attorneys. +Again, later, they had come together once more, sharing a modest +lodging, while Dering earned a small uncertain income by contributing to +the literary weeklies, by "ghosting" writers more fortunate than +himself, by tutoring whenever he got the chance,--in a word, by +resorting to the few expedients open to the honest educated Londoner +lacking a definite profession. + +The two men had not parted company till Dering, enabled to do so with +the help of a small legacy, had chosen to marry a Danish girl, as +good-looking, as high-minded, as unpractical as himself. + +But stay, had Louise Dering proved herself so unpractical during the +early years of her married life? + +Wingfield, standing there, his mind steeped in memories, compared her, +with an unconscious critical sigh, with his own stolid, unimaginative +wife, Kate. As he did so he wondered whether, after all, Dering had not +known how to make the best of both worlds; and yet he and his Louise had +gone through some bad times together. + +Wingfield had been the one intimate of the young couple when they began +their married life in a three-roomed flat in Gray's Inn; and he had been +aware, painfully so, of the incessant watchful struggle with money +difficulties, never mentioned while the struggle was in being, for only +the rich can afford to complain of poverty. He had admired, it might +almost be said he had reverenced with all his heart, the high courage +then shown by his friend's wife. + +During those first difficult years, when he, Wingfield, could do +nothing for them, Louise had gone without the help of even the least +adequate servant. The women of her nation are taught housewifery as an +indispensable feminine accomplishment, and so she had scrubbed and sung, +cooked and read, made and mended, for Philip and herself. + +Wingfield was glad to remember that it was he who had at last found +Dering regular employment; he who had so far thrown prudence aside as to +persuade one of his first and most valuable clients to appoint his +clever if eccentric friend secretary to a company formed to exploit a +new invention. The work had proved congenial; Dering had done admirably +well, and now, when his salary had just been raised to four hundred a +year, a distant, almost unknown, cousin of his dead mother's had left +him fifteen thousand pounds! + + * * * * * + +At last James Wingfield sat down. He began making notes of the +instructions he had just received, though as he did so he knew well +enough that he could not bring himself to draw up a will by which his +own children might so greatly benefit. + +Then, as he sat, pen in hand, wondering with a certain discomfort as to +what ought to be the practical effect of the conversation, there +suddenly came a sound of hurrying feet up the shallow oak staircase, and +through the door, flung open quickly and unceremoniously, strode once +more Philip Dering. + +"I say, I've forgotten something!" he exclaimed, and then, as Wingfield +instinctively looked round the bare spacious room--"No, I didn't leave +anything behind me. I simply forgot to ask you one very important +question----" + +He took off his hat, put it down with a certain deliberation, then drew +up a chair, and placed himself astride on it, an action which to the +other suddenly seemed to blot out the years which had gone by since they +had been housemates together. + +"As I went down your jolly old staircase, Wingfield, it suddenly +occurred to me that making a will may not be quite so simple a matter as +I once thought it----" + +He hesitated a moment, then went on:--"So I've come back to ask you the +meaning of the term 'proving a will.' What I really want to get at, old +man, is whether my wife, if she became a widow, would have to give any +actual legal proof of our marriage? Would she be compelled, I mean, to +show her 'marriage lines'?" + +Wingfield hesitated. The question took him by surprise. + +"I fancy that would depend," he said, "on the actual wording of the +will, but all that sort of thing is a mere formality, and of course any +solicitor employed by her would see to it. By the way, I suppose you +were married in Denmark?" He frowned, annoyed with himself for having +forgotten a fact with which he must have been once well acquainted. "If +you had asked me to be your best man," he added with a vexed laugh, "I +shouldn't have forgotten the circumstances." + +Dering tipped the chair which he was bestriding a little nearer to the +edge of the table which stood between himself and Wingfield; a curious +look, a look half humorous, half deprecating, but in no sense ashamed, +came over his sensitive, mobile face. + +"No," he said, at length, "we were not married in Denmark. Neither were +we married in England. In fact, there was no ceremony at all." + + * * * * * + +The eyes of the two men, of the speaker and of his listener, met for a +moment; but Wingfield, to the other's sudden uneasy surprise, made no +comment on what he had just heard. + +Dering sprang up, and during the rest of their talk he walked, with +short, quick strides, from the door to the window, from the window to +the door. + +"I wanted to tell you at the time, but Louise would not have it; though +I told her that in principle--not, of course, in practice--you +thoroughly agreed with me--I mean with us. Nay, more, that you, with +your clear, legal mind, had always realised, even more than I could do, +the utter absurdity of making such a contract as that of marriage--which +of all contracts is the most intimately personal, and which least +affects the interests of those outside the contracting parties--the only +legal contract which can't be rescinded or dissolved by mutual +agreement! Then again, you must admit that there was one really good +reason why we should not tell you the truth; you already liked Kate, and +Louise, don't you remember, used to play chaperon. Now, Kate's people, +you know----!" + +All the humour had gone out of Dering's face, but the deprecating look +had deepened. + +The lawyer made a strong effort over himself. He had felt for a moment +keenly hurt, and not a little angry. + +"I don't think," he said quietly, "that there is any need of +explanations or apologies between us. Of course, I can't help feeling +very much surprised, and that in spite of our old theoretical talks and +discussions, concerning--well, this subject. But I don't doubt that in +the circumstances you did quite right. Mind you, I don't mean about the +marriage," he quickly corrected himself, "but only as to the concealment +from me." + +He waited a moment, and then went on, hesitatingly: "But even now I +don't really understand what happened--I should like to know a little +more----" + +Dering stayed his walk across the room, and stood opposite his friend. +He felt a great wish to justify himself, and to win Wingfield's +retrospective sympathy. + +"I will tell you everything there is to tell!" he cried eagerly; +"indeed, it can all be told in a moment. My wife and I entered into a +personal contract together, which we arranged, provisionally, of course, +should last ten years. Louise was quite willing, absolutely willing...." +For the first time there came a defensive note in the eager voice. "You +see the idea--that of leasehold marriage? We used to talk about it, you +and I, of course only as a Utopian possibility. All I can say is that I +had the good fortune to meet with a woman with whom I was able to try +the experiment; and all I can tell you is--well, I need not tell _you_, +Wingfield, that there has never been a happier marriage than ours." +Again Dering started pacing up and down the room. "Louise has been +everything--everything--everything--that such a man as myself could have +looked for in a wife!" + +"And has no one ever guessed--has no one ever known?" asked the other, +rather sternly. + +"Absolutely no one! Yes, wait a moment--there has been one exception. +Louise told Gerda Hinton. You know they became very intimate after we +went to Bedford Park, and Louise thought Gerda ought to know. But it +made no difference--no difference at all!" he added, emphatically; "for +in fact poor Gerda practically left her baby to Louise's care." + +"And that worthless creature, Jack Hinton--does he know too?" + +"No, I don't think so; in fact I may say most decidedly not--but of +course Gerda may have told him, though for my part I don't believe that +husbands and wives share their friends' secrets. Still, you are quite at +liberty to tell Kate." + +"No," said Wingfield, "I don't intend to tell Kate, and there will be no +reason for doing so if you will take my advice--which is, I need hardly +tell you, to go and get married at once. Now that you have come into +this money, your marrying becomes a positive duty. Are you aware that if +you were run over and killed on your way home to-day Louise would have +no standing? that she would not have a right to a penny of this money, +or even to any of the furniture which is in your house? Let me see, how +long is it that you have been"--he hesitated awkwardly--"together?" + +Dering looked round at him rather fiercely. "We have been _married_ nine +years and a half," he said. "Our wedding day was the first of September. +We spent our honeymoon in Denmark. You remember my little legacy?" + +Wingfield nodded his head. His heart suddenly went out to his +friend--the prosperous lawyer had reason to remember that hundred pounds +legacy, for ten pounds of it had gone to help him out of some foolish +scrape. But Dering had forgotten all that; he went on speaking, but +more slowly: + +"And then, as you know, we came back and settled down in Gray's Inn, and +though we were horribly poor, perhaps poorer than even you ever guessed, +we were divinely happy." He turned his back to the room and stared out +once more at the greyness opposite. + +"But you're quite right, old man, it's time we did like our betters! +We'll be married at once, and I'll take her off for another and a longer +honeymoon, and we'll come back and be even happier than we were before." + +Then again, as abruptly as before, he was gone, shutting the door behind +him, and leaving Wingfield staring thoughtfully after him. + +That his friend, that the Philip Dering of ten years ago, should have +done such a thing, was in no way remarkable, but that Louise--the +thoughtful, well-balanced, intelligent woman, who, coming as a mere girl +from Denmark, had known how to work her way up to a position of great +trust and responsibility in a City house, so winning the esteem and +confidence of her employers that they had again and again asked her to +return to them after her marriage--that she should have consented to +such--to such.... Wingfield even in his own mind hesitated for the +right word ... to such an arrangement--seemed to the lawyer an +astounding thing, savouring indeed of the fifth dimension. + +No, no, he would certainly not tell Kate anything about it. Why should +he? He knew very well how his wife would regard the matter, and how her +condemnation would fall, not on Louise--Kate had become exceedingly fond +of Louise--no, indeed, but on Dering. Kate had never cordially "taken" +(a favourite word of hers, that) to Wingfield's friend; she thought him +affected and unpractical, and she laughed at his turned-down collars and +Liberty ties. No, no, there was no reason why Kate should be told a word +of this extraordinary, this amazing story. + + * * * * * + +On leaving Abingdon Street, Philip Dering swung across the broad +roadway, and made his way, almost instinctively, to the garden which lay +so nearly opposite his friend's office windows. He wanted to calm down, +to think things over, and to recover full possession of himself before +going home. + +It had cost him a considerable effort to tell Wingfield this thing. Not +that he was in the least ashamed of what he and Louise had done--on the +contrary, he was very proud of it--but he had often felt, during all +those years, that he was being treacherous to the man who was, after +all, his best friend; and there was in Dering enough of the feminine +element--that element which Kate Wingfield so thoroughly despised in +him--to make him feel sorry and ashamed. + +However, Wingfield had taken it very well, just as he would have wished +him to take it, and no doubt the lawyer had given thoroughly sound +advice. This unexpected, this huge legacy made all the difference. +Besides, Dering knew well enough, when he examined his own heart and +conscience, that he felt very differently about all manner of things +from what he had been wont to feel say ten years ago. + +After all, he was following in the footsteps of men greater and wiser +than he. It is impossible to be wholly consistent. If he had been +consistent he would have refused to pay certain taxes--in fact, to have +been wholly consistent during the last ten years would have probably +landed him, England being what it is, in a lunatic asylum. He shuddered, +suddenly remembering that for awhile his own mother had been insane. + +Still, as he strode along the primly kept paths of the Thames-side +garden, he felt a great and, as he thought, a legitimate pride in the +knowledge that in this one all-important matter, so deeply affecting his +own and Louise's life, he and she had triumphantly defied convention, +and had come out victorious. + +The young man's thoughts suddenly took a softer, a more intimate turn; +he told himself, with intense secret satisfaction, that Louise was +dearer, ay, far dearer and more indispensable to him now than she had +been during the days when she was still the "sweet stranger whom he +called his wife." He remembered once saying to Wingfield that the ideal +mate should be the improbable, be able at once to clean a grate, to cook +a dinner, and to discuss Ibsen! Well, Louise had more than fulfilled +this early and rather absurd ideal. + +From the day when they had first met and made unconventional +acquaintance, with no intervening friend to form a gossip-link of +introduction, Dering had found her full of ever-recurrent and enchanting +surprises. Her foreign birth and upbringing gave her both original and +unsuspected points of view about everything English, and he had often +thought, with good-humoured pity, of all those unfortunate friends of +his, Wingfield included, whose lot it had perforce been to choose their +wives among their own country-women. + +Dering had not seen much of Denmark, but everything he had seen had won +his enthusiastic approval. Where else were modern women to be found at +once so practical and so cultivated, so pure-minded and so +large-hearted? Perhaps he was half aware that his heaven was of his own +creation, but that, in his present exalted mood, was only an added +triumph; how few human beings can evolve, and preserve at will, their +own stretch of blue sky! + +Of course it was not always as easy as it seemed to be to-day; lately +Louise had been listless and tired, utterly unlike herself--even, he had +once or twice thought with dismay, slightly hysterical! But all that +would disappear, utterly, during the first few days of their coming +travels; and even he, so he now reminded himself, had felt quite unlike +his usual sensible self--Dering was very proud of his good sense--since +had come the news of this wonderful, this fairy-gift-like legacy. + +The young man passed out of the garden, his feet stepping from the soft +shell-strewn gravel on to the wide pavement which borders the Houses of +Parliament. He made his way round swiftly, each buoyant step a challenge +to fate, to the Members' Entrance, and so across the road to the gate +which leads into what was once the old parish churchyard of Westminster. +It was still too cold to sit out of doors, and after a momentary +hesitation he turned into Westminster Abbey by the great north door. + +Dering had not been in the Abbey since he was a child, and the spirit of +quietude which fills the broad nave and narrow aisles on early spring +days soothed his restlessness. But that, alas! only for a moment; as +soon as his busy brain began to realise all that lay about him, he was +filled with a sincere if half voluntarily comic indignation. It annoyed +him to feel that this national heritage was still a church; why could +not Westminster Abbey be treated as are the Colosseum in Rome and the +Panthéon in Paris? And so, as he sat down in one of the pews which +roused his resentment, he began to think over all the improvements which +he would effect, were he given, if only for a few days, a free hand in +Westminster Abbey! + +Suddenly he saw, at right angles with himself, and moving across the +choir, a group of four people, consisting of a man, a woman, and two +children. + +The man was Jack Hinton, the idle, ill-conditioned artist neighbour of +his in Bedford Park, to whom there had been more than one reference in +his talk with Wingfield; the children were Agatha and Mary Hinton, the +motherless girls of the Danish woman to whom Louise had been so much +devoted; and the fourth figure was that of Louise herself. His wife's +back was turned to Dering, but even without the other three he would +have known the tall, graceful figure, if only by the masses of fair, +almost lint-white hair, arranged in low coils below her neat hat. + +Dering felt no wish to join the little party. He was still too excited, +too interested in his own affairs, to care for making and hearing small +talk. Still, a look of satisfaction came over his face as he watched the +four familiar figures finally disappear round a pillar. How pleased +Louise would be when he told her of his latest scheme, that of +commissioning the unfortunate Hinton to paint her portrait! If only the +man could be induced to work, he might really make something of his life +after all. Dering meant to give the artist one hundred pounds, and his +heart glowed at the thought of what such a sum would mean in the +untidy, womanless little house in which his wife took so tender and +kindly an interest. + +Dering and Jack Hinton had never exactly hit it off together, though +they had known each other for many years, and though they had both +married Danish wives. The one felt for the other the worker's worldly +contempt for the incorrigible idler. Yet, Dering had been very sorry for +Hinton at the time of poor Mrs. Hinton's death, and he liked to think +that now he would be able to do the artist a good turn. He had even +thought very seriously of offering to adopt the youngest Hinton child, a +baby now nearly a year old; but a certain belated feeling of prudence, +of that common sense which often tempers the wind to the reckless +enthusiast, had given him pause. + +After all, he and Louise might have children of their own, and then the +position of this little interloper might be an awkward one. Louise had +always intensely wished to have a child--nay, children--and now, if it +only depended on him, and if Nature would only be kind, she should have +her wish. Perhaps that would be the most tangible good this legacy would +bring them. + +Dering left the Abbey by the door which gives access to the Cloisters. +There he spent half an hour in pleasant meditation before he started +home, for the place which he knew to be so much dearer to his wife than +to himself. Dering was a Londoner, the son of a doctor who had practised +for many years in one of the City parishes, and in his heart he had much +preferred the rooms in Gray's Inn which had been their first married +home to the trim little villa, of which the interior had acquired an +absurd and touching resemblance to that of a Danish homestead. + + * * * * * + +Those who declare that the borderlands of London lack physiognomy are +strangely mistaken. Each suburban district has an individual character +of its own, and of none is this more true than of Bedford Park. +Encompassed by poor and populous streets, within a stone's throw of what +is still one of the great highways out of the town, this oasis, composed +of villas set in gardens, has the tranquil, rather mysterious, charm of +a river backwater. + +The amazing contrast between the stir and unceasing sound of the broad +High Road and the stillness of Lady Rich Road--surely the man who laid +out Bedford Park must have been a Cromwell enthusiast--struck Dering +with a sense of unwonted pleasure. As he put his latch-key in the front +door he remembered that his wife had told him that their young Danish +servant was to have that day her evening out. Well, so much the better; +they would have their talk, their discussion concerning their future +plans, without fear of eavesdropping or interruption. + +Various little signs showed that Louise was already back from town. +Dering went straight upstairs, and, as he began taking off his boots, he +called out to her, though the door between his room and hers was shut: +"Do come in here, for I have so much to tell you!" But this brought no +answering word, and after a moment he heard his wife's soft footsteps +going down the house. + +Dering dressed himself with some care; it had always been one of his +theories that a man should make himself quite as formally agreeable at +home as he does elsewhere, and he and Louise had ever practised, the one +to the other, the minor courtesies of life. Before going downstairs he +also tidied his room, as far as was possible for him to do so, and, +delicately picking up his dusty boots, he took them down into the +kitchen so as to save their young servant the trouble. + +Then, at last, he went through into the dining-room, where he found +Louise standing by the table on which lay spread their simple supper. + +She gave him a quick, questioning glance, then: "I saw you in the +Abbey," she said in a constrained, hesitating voice; "why did you not +come up and speak to us? Mr. Hinton was on his way to some office, and I +brought the children back alone." + +"If I had known that was going to be the case," said Dering frankly, "I +should have joined you, but I had just been spending an hour with +Wingfield, and--well, I didn't feel in the mood to make small talk for +Hinton!" + +He waited a moment, but she made no comment. + +Louise had always been a silent, listening woman, and this had made her +seem, to eager, ardent Philip, a singularly restful companion. + +He went on, happily at first, rather nervously towards the close of his +sentence, "Well, everything is settled--even to my will. But I found +Wingfield had to know--I mean about our old arrangement." + +"Then you told him? I do not think you should have done that." Louise +spoke very slowly, and in a low voice. "I asked you if I might do so +before telling Gerda Hinton." + +Dering looked at her deprecatingly. He felt both surprised and sorry. It +was almost the first time in their joint lives that she had uttered to +him anything savouring of a rebuke. + +"Please forgive my having told Wingfield without first consulting you," +he said at once; "but you see the absurd, the abominable state of the +English law is such that in case of my sudden death you would have no +right to any of this money. Besides, apart from that fact, if I trusted +to my own small legal knowledge and made a will in which you were +mentioned, you would probably have trouble with those odious relations +of mine. So I simply had to tell him." + +Dering saw that the discussion was beginning to be very painful and +disagreeable; he felt a pang of impatient regret that he had spoken to +his wife now, instead of waiting until she had had a thorough change and +holiday. + +Louise was still standing opposite to him, looking straight before her +and avoiding his anxious glances. Suddenly he became aware that her lip +was trembling, and that her eyes were full of tears; quickly he walked +round to where she was standing, and put his hand on her shoulder. + +"I am sorry, very sorry, that I had to tell Wingfield," he said; "but, +darling, why should you mind so much? He was quite sympathetic; he +thoroughly understood; I think I might even say that he thoroughly +agrees with our point of view; but I fancy he felt rather hurt about it, +and I couldn't help wishing that we had told him at the time." + +Dering's hand travelled from his wife's shoulder to her waist, and he +held her to him, unresisting but strangely passive, as he added: + +"You can guess, my dearest, what Wingfield, in his character of +solicitor, advises us to do? Of course, in a sense it will be a fall +from grace,--but, after all, we shan't love one another the less because +we have been to a registry office, or spent a quarter of an hour in a +church! I do think that we should follow his advice. He will let me know +to-morrow what formalities have to be fulfilled to carry the thing +through, and then, dear heart, we will go off for a second honeymoon. +Sometimes I wonder if you realise what this money means to us both--I +mean in the way of freedom and of added joy." + +But Louise still turned from him, and, as she disengaged herself from +the strong encircling arm, he could see the slow, reluctant tears +rolling down her cheek. + +Dering felt keenly distressed. The long strain, the gallantly endured +poverty, the constant anxiety, had evidently told on his wife more than +he had known. + +"Don't let's talk about it any more!" he exclaimed. "There's no hurry +about it now, after all." + +"I would rather talk about it now, Philip. I don't--I don't at all +understand what you mean. It is surely too late for us now to talk of +marriage. The time remaining to us is too short to make it worth while." + +Dering looked at her bewildered. Well as she spoke the language, she had +remained very ignorant of England and of English law. + +"I will try and explain to you," he said gently, "why Wingfield has made +it quite clear to me that we shall have to go through some kind of a +legal ceremony----" + +"But there are so few months," she repeated, and he felt her trembling; +"it is not as if you were likely to die before September; besides, if +you were to do so, I should not care about the money." + +For the first time a glimmer of what she meant, of what she was +thinking, came into Dering's mind. He felt strongly moved and deeply +touched. This, then, was why she had seemed so preoccupied, so unlike +herself, of late. + +"My darling, surely you do not imagine--that I am thinking ... of +leaving you?" + +"No," and for the first time Louise, as she uttered the word, looked up +straight into Dering's face. "No, it was not of you that I was +thinking--but of myself...." + + * * * * * + +"Let us sit down." Dering's voice was so changed, so uneager, so cold, +that Louise, for the first time during their long partnership, felt as +if she was with a stranger. "I want to thoroughly understand your point +of view. Do you mean to say that when we first arranged matters you +intended our--our marriage to be, in any case, only a temporary union?" + +He waited for an answer, looking at her with a still grimness, an +unfamiliar antagonism, that raised in her a feeling of resentment, and +renewed her courage. "Please tell me," he said again, "I think you owe +me the truth, and I really wish to know." + +Then she spoke. And though her hands still trembled, her voice was quite +steady. + +"Yes, Philip, I will tell you the truth, though I fear you will not like +to hear it. When I first accepted the proposal you made to me, I felt +convinced that, as regarded myself, the feeling which brought us +together would be eternal, but I as fully believed that with you that +same feeling would be only temporary. I was ready to remain with you as +long as you would have me do so; but I felt sure that you would grow +tired of me some day, and I told myself--secretly, of course, for I +could not have insulted you or myself by saying such a thing to you +then--I told myself, I say, that when that day came, the day of your +weariness of me, I would go away, and make no further demand upon you." + +"You really believed that I should grow tired of you,--that I should +wish to leave you?" + +Dering looked at her as a man might look at a stranger who has suddenly +revealed some sinister and grotesque peculiarity of appearance or +manner. + +"Certainly I did so. How could I divine that you alone would be +different from all the men of whom I had ever heard? Still, I loved you +so well--ah, Philip, I did love you so--that I would have come to you on +any terms, as indeed I did come on terms very injurious to myself. But +what matters now what I then thought? I see that I was wrong--you have +been faithful to me in word, thought, and deed----" + +"Yes," said Dering fiercely, "by God, that is so! Go on!" + +"I also have been faithful to you----" she hesitated. "Yes, I think I +may truly say it, in thought, word, and deed,----" + +Dering drew a long breath, and she went slowly on: "But I have realised, +and that for some time past, that the day would come when I should no +longer wish to be so--when I should wish to be free. I have gradually +regained possession of myself, and, though I know I must fulfil all my +obligations to you for the time I promised, I long for the moment of +release, for the moment when I shall at last have the right to forget, +as much as such things can ever be forgotten, these ten years of my +life." + +As she spoke, pronouncing each word clearly in the foreign fashion, her +voice gained a certain sombre confidence, and a flood of awful, +hopeless bitterness filled the heart of the man sitting opposite to her. + +"And have you thought," he asked in a constrained voice, "what you are +going to do? I know you have sometimes regretted your work; do you +intend--or perhaps you have already applied to Mr. Farningham?" + +"No," she answered, and, unobserved by him, for he was staring down at +the tablecloth with unseeing eyes, a deep pink flush made her look +suddenly girlish, "that will not be necessary. I have, as you know, +regretted my work, and of late I have sometimes thought that, things +being as they were, you acted with cruel thoughtlessness in compelling +me to give it all up. But in my new life there will be much for me to +do." + +"I do not ask you," he said, suddenly, hoarsely; "I could not insult you +by asking...." + +"I do not think," she spoke slowly, answering the look, the intonation, +rather than the words, "that I am going to do anything unworthy." + +But Dering, with sharp suspicion, suddenly became aware that she had +changed colour, and that from pale she had become red. His mind glanced +quickly over their comparatively small circle of friends and +acquaintances--first one, then another familiar figure rose, hideously +vivid, before him. He felt helpless, bewildered, fettered. + +"Do you contemplate leaving me for another man?" he asked quietly. + +Again Louise hesitated for a moment. + +"Yes," she said at length, "that is what I am going to do. I did not +mean to tell you now--though I admit that later, before the end, you +would have had a right to know. The man to whom I am going, and who is +not only willing, but anxious, to make me his wife, I mean his legal +wife,"--she gave Dering a quick, strange look--"has great need of me, +far more so than you ever had. My feeling for him is not in any way akin +to what was once my feeling for you; that does not come twice, at any +rate to such a woman as I feel myself to be; but my affection, my--my +regard, will be, in this case, I believe, more enduring; and, as you +know, I dearly love his children, and promised their mother to take care +of them." + +While she spoke, Dering, looking fixedly at her, seemed to see a shadowy +group of shabby forlorn human beings form itself and take up its stand +by her side--Jack Hinton, with his weak, handsome face, and shifty, +pleading eyes; his two plain, neglected-looking girls; and then, cradled +as he had so often seen it in Louise's arms, the ugly and to him +repulsive-looking baby. + +What chance had he, what memories had their common barren past, to fight +this intangible appealing vision? + +He raised his hand and held it for a moment over his eyes, in a vain +attempt to shut out both that which he had evoked, and the sight of the +woman whose repudiation of himself only seemed to make more plainly +visible the bonds which linked them the one to the other. Then he turned +away, with a certain deliberation, and, having closed the door, walked +quickly through the little hall, flinging himself bare-headed into the +open air. + + * * * * * + +For the second time that day Philip Dering felt an urgent need of +solitude in which to hold communion with himself. And yet, when striding +along the dimly-lighted, solitary thoroughfares, the stillness about him +seemed oppressive, and the knowledge that he was encompassed by +commonplace, contented folk intolerable. + +And so, scarcely knowing where his feet were leading him, he made his +way at last into the broad, brilliantly lighted High Road, now full of +glare, of sound, and of movement, for throngs of workers, passing to and +fro, were seeking the amusement and excitement of the street after their +long, dull day. + +Very soon Dering's brain became abnormally active; his busy thoughts +took the shape of completed half-uttered sentences, and he argued with +himself, not so loudly that those about him could hear, but still with +moving lips, as to the outcome of what Louise had told him that evening. + +He was annoyed to find that his thoughts refused to marshal themselves +in due sequence. Thus, when trying to concentrate his mind on the +question of the immediate future, memories of Gerda Hinton, of the dead +woman with whom he had never felt in sympathy, perhaps because Louise +had been so fond of her, persistently intervened, and refused to be +thrust away. His own present intolerable anguish made him, against his +will, retrospectively understand Gerda's long-drawn-out agony. He +remembered, with new sharp-edged concern and pity, her quiet endurance +of those times of ignoble poverty brought about by Hinton's fits of +idleness; he realised for the first time what must have meant, in +anguish of body and mind, the woman's perpetual child bearing, and the +deaths of two of her children, followed by her own within a fortnight of +her last baby's birth. + +Then, with sudden irritation, he asked himself why he, Philip Dering, +should waste his short time for thought in sorrowing over this poor dead +woman? And, in swift answer, there came to him the knowledge why this +sad drab ghost had thus thrust herself upon him to-night-- + +A feeling of furious anger, of revolt against the very existence of Jack +Hinton, swept over him. So base, so treacherous, so selfish a creature +fulfilled no useful purpose in the universe. Men hung murderers; and was +Hinton, who had done his wife to death with refinement of cruelty, to go +free--free to murder, in the same slow way, another woman, and one who +actually belonged to Dering's own self? + +He now recognised, with bewilderment, that had Louise become his legal +wife ten years ago, the thought of what she proposed to do would never +have even crossed her mind. + +The conviction that Hinton was not fit to live soon formed itself into a +stable background to all Dering's subsequent thoughts, to his short +hesitations, and to his final determination. + +After a while he looked at his watch, and found, with some surprise, +that he had been walking up and down for over an hour; he also became +aware, for the first time, that his bare, hatless head provoked now and +again good-natured comment from those among whom he was walking. + +He turned into a side-street, and taking from his pocket a small +notebook, wrote the few lines which later played an important part in +determining, to the satisfaction of his friends, the fact that he was, +when writing them, most probably of unsound mind. + +What Dering wrote down in his pocket-book ran as follows: + + 1. I buy a hat at Dunn's, if Dunn be still open (which is + probable). + + 2. I call on the doctor who was so kind to the Hintons last year + and settle his account. It is doubtful if Hinton ever paid him--in + fact, there can be no doubt that Hinton did _not_ pay him. I there + make my will and inform the doctor that he will certainly be wanted + shortly at Number 8, Lady Rich Road. + + 3. I buy that revolver (if guaranteed in perfect working order) + which I have so frequently noticed in the pawnbroker's window, and + I give him five shillings for showing me how to manage it. Mem. + Remember to make him load it, so that there may be no mistake. + + 4. I wire to Wingfield. This is important. It may save Louise a + shock. + + 5. I go to Hinton's place, and if the children are already in bed I + lock the door, and quietly kill him and then kill myself. If the + children are still up, I must, of course, wait a while. In any case + the business will be well over before the doctor can arrive. + +Dering shut the notebook with a sigh of relief. The way now seemed clear +before him, for he had put down exactly what he meant to do, and in case +of doubt or forgetfulness he need only glance at his notes to be set +again in the right way. + +He spent a few moments considering whether it was his duty to write a +letter to his employer. Finally he decided that there was no need to do +so. They knew of his legacy; they were aware that he was leaving them; +and everything, even now, was in perfect order for his successor. + +As he walked slowly along the unlovely narrow streets which run parallel +to the High Road, his emotional memory brought his wife vividly before +him. He began wondering painfully if she would ever understand, if she +would realise, from what he had saved her by that which he was about to +do. His knowledge of her character made him feel sure--and there was +infinite comfort in the thought--that she would remain silent, that she +would never yield to any foolish impulse to tell Wingfield the truth. It +was good to feel so sure that his old friend would never know of his +failure, of his great and desolate humiliation. + + * * * * * + +Dering spent the next hour exactly as he had planned; in fact, at no +point of the programme did his good fortune desert him. Thus, even the +doctor, a man called Johnstone, who might so easily have been out, was +at home; and, though actually giving a little stag party, he +good-naturedly consented to leave his guests for a few moments, in spite +of the fact that the stranger waiting in the surgery had refused to +state his business. + +"My name is Dering. I think you must have often met my wife when you +were attending the late Mrs. Hinton. In fact I've come to-night to +settle the Hintons' account. I fancy it is still owing?" + +Dering spoke with abrupt energy, looking straight, and almost with a +frown, as he spoke, into the other's kindly florid face. It seemed +strange, at that moment intolerably hard, that this man, who looked so +much less alive, so much less intellectually keen than himself, should +be destined to find him within a few hours lying dead, obliterated into +nothingness. + +"Oh, yes, the account is still owing," Dr. Johnstone spoke with a +certain eagerness. "Then do I understand that you are acting for Mr. +Hinton in the matter? The amount is exactly ten pounds----" + +He paused awkwardly, and not till the two bank-notes were actually lying +on his surgery table before him did he believe in his good fortune. The +Hintons' account had long since passed into that class of doctor's bills +which is only kept on the books with a view to the ultimate sale of the +practice, and this last quarter the young man had not even troubled to +send it in again. + +Johnstone remembered poor Mrs. Hinton's friend very well; Mrs. Dering +had been splendid, perfectly splendid, as nurse and comforter to the +distracted household. And then such a pretty woman, too, the very +type--quiet, sensible, self-contained, and yet feminine--whom Dr. +Johnstone admired; he was always pleased when he met her walking about +the neighbourhood. + +This, then, was her husband? The doctor stared across at Dering with +some curiosity. Well, he also, though, of course, in quite another way, +was uncommon and attractive-looking. What was it he had heard about +these people quite lately, in fact, that very day? Why, of course. One +of his old lady patients in Bedford Park had told him that her opposite +neighbours, this Mr. and Mrs. Dering, had come into a large +fortune--something like fifty thousand pounds! + +Dr. Johnstone looked at his visitor with a sudden accession of respect. +If he could have foreseen this interview, he might have made his account +with Mr. Hinton bear rather more relation to the actual number of visits +he had been compelled to pay to that unfortunate household. Still, he +reminded himself that even ten pounds were very welcome just now, and +his heart warmed to Mr. Hinton's generous friend. + +Suddenly Dering began speaking: "I forget if I told you that I am +starting this very night for a long journey, and before doing so I want +to ask you to do me a favour----" + +His host became all pleased attention. + +"Would you kindly witness my will? I have just come into a sum of money, +and--and, though my will is actually being drawn up by a friend, who is +also a lawyer, I have felt uneasy----" + +"I quite understand. You have thought it wise to make a provisional +will? Well, that's a very sensible thing to do! We medical men see much +trouble caused by foolish postponement of such matters. Some men seem to +think that making a will is tantamount to signing their own +death-warrant!" + +But no answering smile brightened Dering's fiercely set face; he did not +seem to have heard what the doctor had said. "If I might ask you for a +sheet of notepaper. I see a pen and blotting-pad over there----" + +A sudden, instinctive misgiving crossed the other's mind. + +"This is rather informal, isn't it? Of course, I have no call to +interfere, Mr. Dering; but if a large sum is involved might it not be +better to wait?" + +Dering looked up. For the first time he smiled. + +"I don't wish to make any mystery about it, Dr. Johnstone. I am leaving +everything to my wife, and after her to sundry young people in whom we +are both interested. If I die intestate, I understand that distant +relatives of my own--people whom I don't like, and who have never done +anything for me--are bound to benefit." + +Even as he spoke he was busy writing the words, "To Louise Larsen +(commonly known as Mrs. Philip Dering), of 9, Lady Rich Road, Bedford +Park, and after her death to be divided equally between the children of +my esteemed friend, James Wingfield, solicitor, of 24, Abingdon Street, +Westminster, and the children of the late Mrs. John Hinton, of 8, Lady +Rich Road, Bedford Park." + +Short as was Dering's will, the last portion of it was written on the +inner sheet of the piece of note paper bearing the doctor's address, and +the two witnesses, Johnstone himself, and a friend whom he fetched out +of his smoking-room for the purpose, could not help seeing what generous +provision the testator had made for the younger generation. + +As the doctor opened the front door for his, as he hoped, new friend, +Dering suddenly pulled a notebook out of his breast pocket. + +"I have forgotten a most important thing----" there was real dismay in +his fresh, still youthful voice--"and that is to ask you kindly to look +round at No. 8, Lady Rich Road, after your friends have left you +to-night. I should think about twelve o'clock would do very well. In +fact, Hinton won't be ready for you before. And, Dr. Johnstone--in view +of the trouble to which you may be put----" Dering thrust another +bank-note into the other man's hand. "I know you ought to have charged a +lot more than that ten pounds----" and then, before words of thanks +could be uttered, he had turned and gone down the steps, along the +little path, through the iron gate which swung under the red lamp, into +the darkness beyond. + + * * * * * + +Down the broad and now solitary High Road, filled with the strange +brooding stillness of a spring dawn, clattered discordantly a hansom +cab. There was promise of a bright warm day, such a day as yesterday had +been, but Wingfield, leaning forward, unconsciously willing the horse to +go faster, felt very cold. + +At last, not for the first time during this interminable journey, he +took from his breast pocket the unsigned telegram which was the cause of +his being here, driving, oh! how slowly, along this fantastically empty +thoroughfare, through the chill morning air, instead of lying sound +asleep by Kate's side in his comfortable bed at home. + +"_Philip Dering is dead please come at once at once at once to eight +Lady Rich Road._" + +Wingfield, steadying the slip of paper as it fluttered in his hand, +looked down with frowning puzzled eyes at the pencilled words. + +The message had been set off just before midnight, and had reached his +house, he supposed, an hour and a half later, for the persistent +knocking at his front door had gone on for some time before he or his +wife realised that the loud hammering sound concerned themselves. Even +then it had been Kate who had at last roused herself and gone +downstairs; Kate who had rushed up breathless, whispering as she thrust +the orange envelope into his hand:--"Oh, James, what can it be? Thank +God, all the children are safe at home!" + +No time had been lost. While he was dressing, his wife had made him a +cup of tea, kind and solicitous for his comfort, but driving him nearly +distracted by her eager, excited talk and aimless conjectures. It had +seemed long before he found a derelict cab willing to drive him from +Regent's Terrace to Bedford Park, but now--well, thank God, he was at +last nearing the place where he would learn what had befallen the man +who had been, next to his own elder boy, the creature he had loved best +in his calm, phlegmatic life. + +Wingfield went on staring down at the mysterious and yet explicit +message, of which the wording seemed to him so odd--in some ways +recalling Dering's familiar trick of reiteration. Then suddenly he +thought of Hinton, the artist for whom both he and his friend had had +reason to feel so deep if wordless a contempt, and yet whom they had +both tried, over and over again, to help and set on his feet. + +With a sudden revulsion of feeling, the lawyer folded up the telegram +and put it back into his breast pocket--this mysterious, unsigned +request for his immediate presence had obviously been despatched by +Hinton, who might just as well have waited for morning. How stupid of +him not to have realised this at once, the more so that No. 8, Lady Rich +Road, was Hinton's address, not that of Dering. Quickly he raised his +hand to the trap-door above his head; "Pull up at No. 8, not as I told +you, at No. 9, Lady Rich Road," he shouted. + + * * * * * + +The radiance of an early spring morning, so kind to everything in +nature, is pitiless to that which owes its being to the ingenuity and +industry of human hands. Dr. Johnstone, standing opposite a police +inspector in what had been poor Mrs. Hinton's cherished, if untidy and +shabby, little sitting-room, felt his wretchedness and shame--for he +felt very deeply ashamed--perceptibly increased by the dust-laden +sunbeams dancing slantwise about him. + +The inspector was really sorry for him, though a little contemptuous +perhaps of a medical man capable of showing such emotion and horror in +the face of death. + +"Why, doctor, you mustn't take on so! How could you possibly have told +what was in the man's mind? You weren't upset like this last year over +that business in Angle Alley, and that was a sight worse than this, eh?" + +But Johnstone had turned away, and was staring out of the bow window. +"It isn't that poor wretch Hinton that's upset me," he muttered, "I +don't mind death. It's--it's--Dering--Dering and Mrs. Dering." +Reluctant tears filled his tired, red-rimmed eyes. + +"I'm sorry, too. Very sorry for the lady, that is; as for the +other--well, I'm pretty sure he'll cheat Broadmoor, and that without +much delay, eh, doctor? Hullo! who's this coming now?" + +The tone suddenly changed, became at once official and alert in quality, +as the sound of wheels stopped opposite the little gate. When the front +door bell pealed through the house he added, "You go to the door, +doctor; whoever it is had better not see me at first." And Johnstone +found himself suddenly pushed out of the room and into the little hall. + +There he hesitated for a moment, looking furtively round at the +half-open door which led into the back room fitted up as a studio, where +still lay, in dreadful juxtaposition, the dead and the dying, Hinton and +his murderer, alone, save for the indifferent yet watchful presence of a +trained nurse. + +From the kitchen beyond came the sound of eager, lowered voices, those +of the two young servants who had of late coped with the difficulties of +the Hinton household, and whose scanty wages had been paid, so +Johnstone had learned in the last hour, by Mrs. Dering herself. + +Another impatient peal of sound echoed through the house, and the +doctor, walking slowly forward, opened the front door. + +"Can I see Mr. Hinton? Or is he next door? I have driven down from town +in response to this telegram. I was Mr. Philip Dering's oldest friend +and solicitor----" + +"Then--then it was _you_ who were making his will?" + +The question struck Wingfield as unseemly. How had this young man, whom +he took to be one of Hinton's dissipated friends, learnt even this one +fact concerning poor Dering's affairs? + +"Yes," he said shortly, as he walked through into the hall, "that was +the case. But, of course--well, perhaps, you will kindly inform me where +I can see Mr. Hinton?" he repeated impatiently. "I suppose he is with +Mrs. Dering, at No. 9?" and the other noticed that he left the door open +behind him, evidently intending to leave Hinton's house as soon as he +had obtained a reply to his question. + +For a moment the two men looked at one another in exasperated silence. +Then, very suddenly, Johnstone did that of which he was afterward sorry +and self-reproachful. But his nerve was completely gone; for hours he +had been engaged in what had proved both a terrible and a futile task, +that of attempting to relieve the physical agony of a man for whose +state he partly held himself to be responsible. He wished to avoid, at +any rate for the present, the repetition to this stranger of what had +happened the night before. + +And so, "Please come this way," he muttered hoarsely. "I ought perhaps +to warn you--to prepare you for something of a shock." And, turning +round, beckoning to the other to follow him, he opened the door of the +studio, stepping aside to allow Wingfield to pass in before him. + +But once through the doorway the lawyer suddenly recoiled and stopped +short, so dreadful and so unexpected was the sight which met his eyes. + +What Wingfield saw remained with him for weeks, and even for months, an +ever-present, torturing vision, full of mingled horror and mystery, a +mystery to which he was destined never to find the solution. + +Focussed against a blurred background made up of distempered light green +walls, a curtainless, open window, and various plain deal studio +properties pushed back against the wall, lay, stretched out on some kind +of low couch brought forward into the middle of the room, a rigid, +motionless figure. + +The lower half of the figure, including the feet, which rested on a +chair placed at the bottom of the couch, was entirely covered by a +blanket; but the chest and head, slightly raised by pillows, seemed +swathed and bound up in broad strips of white linen, which concealed +chin and forehead, hair and ears, while the head was oddly supported by +a broad band or sling fastened with safety-pins--Wingfield's eyes took +note of every detail--to the side of the couch. Under the blanket, which +was stretched tightly across the man's breast, could be seen the feeble +twitching of fingers, but even so, the only sense of life and feeling +seemed to the onlooker centred in the eyes, whose glance Wingfield found +himself fearing yet longing to meet. + +To the right of the couch a large Japanese screen had been so placed as +to hide some object spread out on the floor. To the left, watching every +movement of the still, recumbent figure, stood a powerful-looking woman +in nursing dress. Wingfield's gaze, after wandering round the large, +bare room, returned and again clung to the sinister immobile form which +he longed to be told was that of Hinton, and as he gazed he forced +himself to feel a fierce gladness and relief in the knowledge that +Dering was dead,--that in his pocket lay the telegram which proved it. + +At last, to gain courage and to stifle a horrible doubt, he compelled +himself to meet those at once indifferent and appealing eyes, which +seemed to stare fixedly beyond the group of men by the door; and +suddenly the lawyer became aware that just behind him hurried whispered +words were being uttered. + +"This gentleman is Mr. Dering's solicitor; perhaps he will be able to +throw some light on the whole affair," and he felt himself being plucked +by the sleeve and gently pulled back into the hall. + +"It is--isn't it?--poor Hinton?" and he looked imploringly from one man +to the other. + +"Hinton?" said the doctor sharply. "He's there, sure enough--but you +didn't see him, for we put him under a sheet, behind that screen. Your +friend shot him dead first, and then cut his own throat, but he didn't +set about that in quite the right way, so he's alive still, as you can +see." + +Wingfield drew a long breath of something like relief. The torturing +suspense of the last few moments was at an end. + +"And where is Mrs. Dering?" he spoke in a quiet, mechanical voice; and +Johnstone felt angered by his callousness. + +"We've just sent her back into the next house," he answered curtly, "and +made her take the Hinton children with her. For--well, it often is so in +such cases, you know--the presence of his wife seems positively to +distress Mr. Dering; besides, the nurse and I can do, and have done, all +that is possible." + +"And have you no clue to what has happened? Has Dering been able to give +no explanation of this--this--horrible business?" + +Johnstone shook his head. "Of course he can't speak. He will never speak +again. He wrote a few words to his wife, but they amounted to nothing +save regret that he had bungled the last half of the affair." + +"And what do you yourself think?" + +Wingfield spoke calmly and authoritatively. He had suddenly become +aware, during the last few moments, that he was talking to a medical +man. + +"I haven't had time to think much about it;" the tone was rough and +sore. "Mr. Dering seems to have come into a large sum of money, and +such things have been known to upset men's brains before now." + +"Still, he might write something of consequence, now that this gentleman +has come," interposed the inspector. + +But when Wingfield, standing by that which he now knew was indeed his +friend, watched the painful, laboured moving of the pencil across the +slate which had been hurriedly fetched some two hours before from the +young Hintons' nursery, all he saw, traced again and again, were the +words: + +"Look after Louise. Look after Louise ..." and then at last: "I mean to +die. I mean to die. I mean to die." + + + + +V + +SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR? + + "Yes; there; wives be such a provoking class of society, because + though they be never right, they be never more than half + wrong."--THE TRANTER in _Under the Greenwood Tree_. + + +I + +The fact that it was Mrs. Rigby's Silver Wedding Day, and that she was +now awaiting her only brother who was to be the fourth at the dinner she +and her husband, the respected Town Clerk of Market Dalling, were giving +in honour of the event, appeared to her no reason why she should sit in +her parlour with hands idle in her lap. There was a large work-basket on +a table close to her elbow, and with quick, capable fingers she was +engaged in mending a pillow-case. + +It was late June, and Mrs. Rigby sat by the widely open French windows +which gave access to her garden--one of those fragrant walled gardens +which still embellish the rear of the High Street in a very typically +English market town. + +Now and again the work would drop between her hands, and lie unheeded +on her knee, while she looked out, focussing her dark, bright eyes on +the distant figure of a woman who sat in a summer-house situated at the +extreme end of the garden; and as Mrs. Rigby gazed thoughtfully at this, +her other wedding guest, her whole face would soften--so might a mother +look at a daughter whom instinct prompted her to love, and reason to +condemn as foolish. + +And yet the sitting figure was that of a contemporary of Mrs. Rigby, +being, as a matter of fact, a certain Matilda Wellow, who had been her +bridesmaid twenty-five years ago to-day, and who was now, in more than +one sense of the term, the most substantial spinster of Market Dalling. + +The sound of the door behind her quietly opening and shutting made Mrs. +Rigby turn round, and a moment later she was looking up at a tall, +straight, still young-looking man, who, clad in evening dress, stood +smiling down at her. He was David Banfield, her half-brother. + +"Why, you've put on all your war-paint!" she exclaimed in half-pretended +dismay. "Didn't you know that there was only Matilda Wellow coming?" + +"I don't know that I thought anything about it," he answered, more gaily +than his sister was now in the habit of hearing him speak. "I dressed +out of compliment to you, Kate, and because--well, I've got into the way +of it lately. But pray don't let Matt think that he must needs follow my +example!" + +Then he sat down by Mrs. Rigby, and gazed out with quick, sensitive +appreciation at the old walled garden. + +"You're a wonderful gardener, Kate," he said suddenly. + +"There's a lot of nonsense talked now about gardening," she said drily. +"With the grand ladies you see such a lot of, Dave, it's just a passing +fad." + +Her brother made no answer; he looked down at her with uncritical and +yet dissatisfied eyes. She was a handsome woman, and even now only +forty-six, and yet she managed to convey an impression of age. This was +partly owing to her unsuitable dress, for Mrs. Rigby was wearing a dark +blue silk gown, chosen, not only to grace her silver wedding day, but +also with a view to being her best dress during the coming autumn and +winter. + +Kate Rigby loved her half-brother, David Banfield, as only a childless +woman can love the creature to whom she has stood for long years in the +place of mother. David was twelve years younger than herself, and, with +one exception, he had never caused her a moment's real unhappiness or +unease. The exception, however, had been paramount, for with him had +been connected Mrs. Rigby's only taste of sharp pain and sorrow, and, +worse still, to such a woman as herself, of disgrace. + +The young man's marriage to an Irish singer, which had taken place +without his sister's knowledge, had proved disastrous. Rosaleen Tara--to +give her the stage name by which her charming rendering of the old +national ballads had made her widely known--had never liked, or been +suited to, life as led at Market Dalling; and to make matters worse, she +was a Roman Catholic. + +After a few years' unsatisfactory married life, and the birth of one +child, a girl, Mrs. David Banfield had returned, with her husband's +grudging consent, to the musical stage. Then, on the very day Banfield +had been expecting his wife home for a short holiday, there had come +from her a letter telling him shortly, bluntly, cruelly, that she had +been unfaithful to her marriage vow, and that she hoped he would forget +her. + +Had he forgotten her? No. It had only been owing to his sister's +urgency, and to Matthew Rigby's more measured advice, that Banfield had +at last consented to take the step of divorcing his wife. + +This step Mrs. Rigby had not only never regretted, but--and in this she +was more fortunate than her husband--no doubt had ever crossed her mind +of its having been the wisest thing for her brother's happiness and +peace. But Matthew Rigby, cautious member of a cautious profession, had +learned very early in his married life the futility of disagreeing with +the wife with whom Providence had blessed him. + +Now Banfield lived in solitary state with his little girl, his household +managed by the child's nurse, an old Irishwoman, who, if devoted to the +child, was incapable of managing such a decorous household as should +have been that of the Brew House. + +Any day, any hour, Mrs. Rigby would have bartered her personal happiness +for that of her half-brother, and yet the two seldom met--and they met +almost daily--without the saying on her part of something likely either +to wound or to annoy him. + +"I suppose Rosy is well? I thought you meant sending the child in to see +me to-day?" + +"Didn't she come?" A look of worry and anger crossed Banfield's dark, +mobile face. "I can't think what prevented it, unless--well, there's +been rather an upset at the Brew House, and perhaps Mary Scanlan didn't +like to go out." + +"I heard there had been an upset," observed his sister drily, "for baker +told cook. He said your housekeeper turned the younger maid, old +Hornby's daughter, out of the house last night, and that the girl could +be heard crying all down the street." + +Mrs. Rigby let her work fall unheeded on the floor; quite unconscious of +her action she clasped her hands tightly together. + +"David! How long is this sort of thing to go on?" she asked, in a low, +tense voice. "It's the talk of the whole town, and it can't be good for +your child." + +"But what would you have me do?" He had hoped that to-day--his sister's +silver wedding day--his domestic trials would be forgotten, or, at any +rate, not mentioned. "I can't dismiss Mary Scanlan now--she must stay on +till Rosy goes to school. That won't be for very long, for, as you know, +I promised"--he averted his face as he spoke--"to send the child to a +convent school as soon as she was twelve years old." + +The idea that her brother, the wealthy, highly-thought-of brewer of +Market Dalling, should confess himself worsted by the old and +ill-tempered Irishwoman, who, together with little Rosy, had been his +wife's--his unfaithful wife's--only legacy to him, was horrible to his +sister. + +Even now, when bitter, disconnected thoughts crowded one on another, +Mrs. Rigby, half-unconsciously, evoked in her mind the strong +personality of the one human being who ever really "stood up" to her. +She had had the notion, so curiously common in England, that your +Irishwoman is invariably slatternly, untruthful, and good-natured; but +in Mary Scanlan she had found a human being as scrupulously neat, +truthful, and high-minded as herself, while at the same time far more +ill-tempered, and equally determined to have her own way. + +While Mrs. Rigby was allowing a flood of very bitter thoughts to surge +up round her, David Banfield was watching her face, and awaiting her +next words with some anxiety. + +But when Kate Rigby at last spoke, she seemed to have forgotten the +immediate question under discussion. + +"I suppose," she said slowly, "that you have never thought, Dave, that +there might be a simple way out of your difficulties?" + +"You mean that I might marry again? Well, Kate, yes--I have thought of +it. I suppose there's no man, situated as I have been these last four +years, but thinks of a second marriage as a way out; but--but, apart +from other considerations, I don't feel as if I could bring myself to do +it." + +"And why not, pray?" asked Mrs. Rigby in a low voice. + +"Well, it's difficult to explain the way I look at it. Of course, no one +can answer for another, and yet, Kate, if anything happened to Matt, I +don't see you marrying again----?" + +David Banfield was aware that he had not chosen a very happy simile with +which to point his meaning, and perhaps, in his heart of hearts, he +hoped that what he had said would put an end to a painful discussion. +But any such hope was destined to be grievously disappointed, for his +sister, with suddenly heightened colour, turned on him very sharply. + +"Don't talk nonsense!" she exclaimed. "I'm an old woman, and you're a +young man!" and she set back her vigorous, powerful shoulders. + +"You know very well that if Matthew had dared to treat me as you were +treated by Rosal----" something in her brother's face caused his wife's +name to die away on her lips--"I should have felt myself free to do +exactly what suited me best! Surely, when you go out among your grand +county friends, you must meet nice young ladies who would be only too +pleased to become Mrs. David Banfield, and to step into such a home as +the Brew House?" + +Mrs. Rigby looked eagerly, furtively, at her brother. + +The way in which he had been welcomed, to a certain extent absorbed, in +the rather dull county society round Market Dalling, had been, to his +sister, a source of mingled pride and jealousy, the more so that it had +begun in the days of his pretty wife, whose modest professional fame had +preceded her, and made her a welcome addition to county gatherings and +dinner-parties. Then had come the great break of the war, and in South +Africa Banfield had been naturally thrown with the landowners of his own +part of the world. + +So it was that during the first few months which had followed on his +return home, Mrs. Rigby had fully expected her brother to make another, +maybe as disastrous a matrimonial experiment as before, and in a class +which was as little his own as that of his Irish wife had been. + +But time had gone on, and David Banfield had shown no disposition to +make a second marriage, either in the county set, or in the little town +world of Market Dalling, where the Rigbys themselves lived and had their +important being. + +"Kate--you don't understand," he said at last, and, even as he uttered +the words, they seemed to him painfully inadequate. "In fact, you never +_did_ understand"--there came a sudden touch of passion into his voice, +and he got up and walked up and down the room--"how I felt--how for the +matter of that I still feel--about Rosaleen. But for the war--but for +the getting clear away--I don't know what I should have done! Once, when +I was out there in a little out-of-the-way station, I saw an old bill +with her name on it, put up, of course, before I met her, when she was +touring in South Africa. Well, I can tell you one thing--if we had been +back in the days when a soldier could get killed so much more easily +than he can now, you would never have seen me again. For days and days I +couldn't get her out of my mind--she's never out of my mind now----" + +Mrs. Rigby was frightened, almost awed, not so much by the violence of +his feeling, as by the outspoken expression of that feeling. + +She got up and walked quickly to him. + +"Perhaps I understand more than you think," she said in a moved voice, +"but now, David, you must turn your back on all that. For good or evil, +it's over and done with, and your duty is to your child. I won't say a +word against Mary Scanlan,--I know she's been a faithful servant to +you,--but wouldn't it be better for Rosy if you had someone who could +look after the house, as well as after her? Even you admit that you +cannot go on at the Brew House as you've been doing lately. I know you +can't feel to anyone else as you felt to--to Rosaleen, but surely it +would be best for the child, to say nothing of yourself, to have some +kind, nice woman about the place, instead of one who's only a servant +after all." + +"Of course, it would be better," he said sombrely. "Don't you think I +know that? But where am I to find the 'nice, kind woman'? As for the +girls I meet, it's out of the question." + +As he spoke, he unconsciously glanced round the room in which he and his +sister were standing. Mrs. Rigby had not inherited the good taste which +had distinguished her Banfield forefathers. The Brew House was full of +fine old furniture, furniture which some of the young brewer's "grand" +friends envied him; but that which the Rigbys had gradually accumulated +had the mean and yet rather pretentious commonness which belonged to the +period in which they had married. + +"There's one whom you've never thought of, but who often thinks of you," +said Mrs. Rigby, her voice sinking to a whisper. + +Banfield looked at his sister attentively. His fastidious mind passed in +review the various young women who composed the little society of Market +Dalling. He regarded them all with indifference, rising in some cases to +positive dislike, and since his matrimonial misfortunes he had, as far +as was possible, avoided every kind of social gathering held in his +native place. + +"I don't know whom you mean," he said at last with some discomfiture. +"In the old days you were always apt to fancy that the girls were after +me, and I can't say that you ever gave them much encouragement,"--he +added with a rather clumsy attempt at playfulness. + +"The person I have in my mind," persisted Mrs. Rigby, "isn't exactly a +girl; she's just what we were talking about--a nice, kind woman--and you +never seem to mind meeting her." + +"Do you--can you possibly mean----" + +"--Matilda Wellow? Yes, of course I do. It's astonishing to me, it's +even surprising to Matthew, that you've never noticed how much she likes +you. Why, she's the only person in Market Dalling who ever takes any +trouble about little Rosy, or who ever gives the child anything; Rosy +always calls her Auntie Tiddy." + +"Matilda Wellow?" he repeated, honestly bewildered. "Why, of course I +like her, and think well of her, but I've never thought of her--and +don't believe she's ever thought of me, Kate--in that way!" + +"Don't you?" she said drily. "There's none so blind as those who won't +see." + +Then, prompted by a shrewd instinct, she remained quite silent, and +withdrew her anxious gaze from her brother's face. + +Only to-day Banfield had received a letter from South Africa which had +sorely tempted him to throw up everything and make a home in the +country which, perhaps unfortunately for himself, held none of the +glamour of the unknown. As a matter of fact, the letter was now in his +pocket, and he felt guiltily aware of the angry pain with which his +sister would regard the offer, especially if she guessed how tempting +was its effect on his imagination. + +But during their strange conversation he had realised, as he had never +done before, that there were only two ways open to him--either to go +away and make a new life, or to attempt some such solution of his +troubles as that which his sister had just proposed to him. + +So it was that during those moments of tense silence Matilda Wellow +assumed in David Banfield's mind the importance of an only alternative. +Perhaps the very fact that the young man was so familiar with her +personality, while always regarding her as a contemporary of his sister, +made it easier for him to come to a sudden decision. + +To another important fact--never forgotten for a moment by Mrs. +Rigby--namely, that Miss Wellow was the wealthiest spinster in Market +Dalling, Banfield gave no thought, and it certainly played no part in +his hurried, anxious self-communing. + +"I confess," he said at last, "that this is a new idea to me--but that's +no reason why it should be a bad idea. And if you really believe that it +would be better for Rosy, and that Miss Wellow would not--" he hesitated +awkwardly, "think it strange of me, I will do as you advise, Kate. But +you must let me take my own time. Perhaps when she's heard what I've got +to say, she won't feel about it as you believe she's likely to do. I +cannot pretend that I--well, that I--" his lips refused to form the +word--to him the infinitely sacred word--of love. + +Mrs. Rigby was bewildered, awed into deep joy. No piece of good fortune +which could have befallen herself would have given her so acute a +feeling--it almost amounted to pain--of passionate relief, and David +Banfield, dimly gathering that it was so, felt exceedingly moved. Surely +it was worth almost anything in the way of self-sacrifice to have +brought such a look to his sister's face? + +They both moved more closely to one another and she, so chary of caress, +put her arms round his neck. + +"I'm quite sure," she spoke with a catch in her voice, "quite, quite +sure that you will never regret it! After all, life does get smoothed +out, doesn't it? I'll tell you something about myself that I've never +told anybody. Before Matthew came along, there was someone else I +loved--loved, maybe, just as dearly as you loved Rosaleen." + +"I know," said her brother, wincing at the sound of his late wife's +name, "you mean Nat Bower?" + +"Why, how did you ever guess that?" she asked, surprised. + +"Oh! he used to take me walks when I was a kid, and he always talked +about you." + +Had Mrs. Rigby left the matter there, she would have been a wiser woman, +but something prompted her to draw a moral. + +"And don't you think I'm glad now?" she cried. "Think of what that poor +fellow has become, and what Matthew is now!" + +But this was too much for David Banfield. + +"I don't think that's fair!" he exclaimed. "What you ought to say +is--'Think of what that poor fellow might have become if he had married +me!' I don't believe any man could have helped going straight with you, +Kate. If I'd been more like you----" + +Then, to the young man's relief, his brother-in-law, Matthew Rigby, came +into the room, with a smile on his thin lips, a joke on his tongue. + +Mrs. Rigby went out into the garden. "Matilda!" she cried. "Tiddy dear, +come in! Matt is here. Dinner will be ready in a minute." + +But as the two women met, and together walked down the path, the hostess +gave her guest no hint of the good fortune which lay in wait for +her--indeed, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her moment of +softening, she was sharply, almost cruelly, intolerant of Miss Wellow's +sentimental references to that ceremony of which they were about to +celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary. + + * * * * * + +And now the Silver Wedding festivity was drawing to a close. + +The dinner, in its old-fashioned way, had been really excellent, for +Kate Rigby was a notable housewife; but not even that fact, nor the +equally excellent champagne--for Matthew Rigby was too shrewd a man to +drink bad wine--had had the effect of brightening the little party, and +a certain constraint now sat on the four people who were linked so +closely together. + +The host, a man of equable temperament, felt faintly uncomfortable; as +he looked from one to the other, he told himself that something was +wrong. + +His brother-in-law was certainly oddly unlike himself, yet surely David +Banfield was too sensible, and by this time too well accustomed to his +sister's ways, to have taken offence at anything she might have said +concerning the well-worn subject of Brew House domestic difficulties. +Mrs. Rigby was also unnaturally silent, and during the long course of +the meal she uttered none of the sharp pungent sayings with which she +generally enlivened each one of her husband's repasts and which, it must +be admitted, never to him lost their savour. Last, but not least, Miss +Wellow, whose flowered muslin gown was as much too youthful as that of +her hostess was too old, seemed more sentimental and more foolish than +usual. + +Mr. Rigby told himself with much satisfaction that his Kate had +certainly worn better than Tiddy Wellow. And yet----? Yet, twenty-five +years ago, Tiddy had been such a pretty girl! Soft and round, with dewy +brown eyes and pink dimpled cheeks. She still had the appealing, +inconsequent manner which, so charming in a girl, is apt to be absurd in +a woman--and then she had grown stout! Mr. Rigby liked a woman to have +a neat trim figure--his Kate had kept hers--but Tiddy. Alas! Tiddy had +not been so fortunate. + +So it was that Mr. Rigby paid poor Miss Wellow but little attention, +regarding her with a curious mixture of affectionate contempt and +respect, the former due to his knowledge of her character, and the +latter to his knowledge of her very considerable fortune. + +Even to such a man as Matthew Rigby,--that is, to a man whose profession +implies the constant hearing of family secrets, and the coming across of +strange, almost inconceivable human occurrences,--the melancholy +domestic story of David Banfield remained painfully vivid. On him had +fallen all the arrangements which had finally resulted in the divorce, +and, unlike his wife, he had sometimes doubted the wisdom of what he and +she had brought about, for Banfield, left to himself, would never have +severed the legal tie between himself and the mother of his child. + +Even now, during the course of his Silver Wedding dinner, Matthew Rigby +wondered uneasily whether his wife's constrained silence, and his +brother-in-law's odd, abstracted manner, meant that any tidings had +been received of the woman who had now so completely passed out of their +lives. But Mr. Rigby was compelled to bide his time. He knew that +whatever explanation there was would be given to him once he and Kate +were alone together. + +Sure enough, when the two men joined the ladies in the now twilit +sitting-room, the hostess lost no time in unceremoniously turning her +brother and Miss Wellow out into the garden. + +And then, at once, Matthew Rigby realised that something of real +importance and moment had indeed occurred. For the first time since the +great day when her brother's divorce had become an absolute fact, Mrs. +Rigby seemed inclined to be soft and tender in her manner to the man +who, she would have been the first to admit, had been to her the most +admirable of husbands. + +There are certain human beings, men perhaps, more than women, who use +those they love as princes of old used their whipping boys, and among +these human beings Mrs. Rigby could certainly have claimed a high place. +Matthew Rigby was, therefore, the more surprised, even, perhaps, a +little relieved, when he noted the unwonted tenderness with which she +slipped her arm through his; it couldn't be anything so very bad after +all! + +"I don't suppose I need tell you, Matt, what has happened--or what is +just going to happen--to our David and Tiddy Wellow?" and she nodded her +head significantly towards the two figures which were now disappearing +into the rustic arbour, which, erected by Mrs. Rigby's father-in-law, +some thirty years ago, had always vexed her thrifty soul as an +extravagant and useless addition to her garden; just now, however, she +would have admitted that even arbours have their uses. + +"Phew----!" exclaimed Matthew Rigby, and had it not been for the +presence of his wife, he would certainly have sworn some decorous form +of oath to express his extreme surprise. His pause prolonged itself, and +then, with a certain effort, he exclaimed: "You're an even cleverer +woman than I took you for, Kate, and that's saying a good deal!" + +Mrs. Rigby turned and looked at him steadily. Their heads were almost on +a level, but even she could guess nothing from his expression. It was +his tone, rather, that jarred on her very true contentment. + +"Surely you think it's the best thing that could happen to him?" she +asked, a note of wistful anxiety in her voice. "Why, you and I have +talked it over dozens of times!" + +"I've heard _you_ say that you thought Matilda Wellow was the very woman +for him, time and again, but--but I don't think, Kate, you ever heard +_me_ say so. Still, I daresay it's all right; you generally know +best,"--and the husband spoke with less irony than might have been +expected. Twenty-five years of married life had taught him that, on the +whole, his wife generally did know best. + +"And surely you think so, too?" and she pressed more closely to him, +"surely, Matt, you don't doubt that Matilda Wellow will make him a good +wife, and be kind to the child?" + +"Of course, I've no doubt about that," he answered reassuringly. "But +still, she's not exactly the woman I'd have chosen for myself, and, +after all, David was very fond of that queer, cold little hussy." + +Mrs. Rigby was given no time for a reply, for her brother and Miss +Wellow were coming slowly towards the house. She turned up the gas with +a quick movement, and when they approached the window a glance at her +future sister-in-law's face was enough. She saw that David had spoken, +but she also saw that he had had the power--and unconsciously her +respect for her brother grew--to stifle in his companion the mingled +emotions his offer of marriage had called forth. + +Not till the long dull evening was over, not till Banfield and Miss +Wellow were actually bidding the Rigbys good-night, did the young man +say the word which let loose Matilda's incoherent words of pathetic joy, +of rather absurd amazement, at the good fortune which had befallen her. + +Mrs. Rigby bustled out the two men into the hall. + +"Matilda! Don't be silly!" she commanded. + +But her words had no effect. + +"It's just a dream--" gasped Miss Wellow, "just a dream come true! I +never thought, Kate, to be so happy--and dear little Rosy, too----" + +The other woman checked her harshly. + +"Don't be a fool, Tiddy!" she said in a low, stern voice; "if my brother +were a different kind of man he'd make you remember this to your dying +day. You're lowering yourself--and you're not raising him. Don't go +behaving like a pullet that's just laid her first egg!" + +Then, seeing the other's face redden into a painful blush, "There, +there, I shouldn't have said that, I know. But I can't bear to see a +woman cheapen herself to a man!" + + * * * * * + +Banfield and his new betrothed walked arm in arm through the now +sleeping town to the garden gate of the old Georgian house where Miss +Wellow had now lived for some five years in solitary spinster state, and +where her forefathers had led lives of agreeable, if monotonous, +respectability for over a hundred years. + +When they reached the gate, each hesitated a moment. Miss Wellow longed +to ask him in, but like most maiden ladies possessed of means, she had a +tyrant, a Cerberus in the shape of a faithful servant who would now be +sitting up waiting sulkily for her mistress's return. Banfield was +awkwardly debating with himself whether Matilda expected him to kiss +her; on the whole he thought--he hoped--not. + +But he was spared the onus of decision concerning this delicate point; +for suddenly he felt himself drawn on one side, and there, in the deep +shadow of the wall, his companion threw her arms about him, murmuring, +with a catch in her voice, "I know you don't love me yet, +but--but--David, I'll _make_ you love me," and the face turned up to his +in the half darkness was full of eager yearning. + +Feeling a traitor--to himself, to Rosaleen, above all, to the poor soul +now leaning on his breast--Banfield bent and kissed her; then he turned +on his heel, leaving her to make her way as best she could up the trim +path leading to her front door. + +Hardly aware of what he was doing, he walked away quickly, taking the +opposite direction to that of the quiet lane of houses which would have +led him straight home. Instead he struck out, instinctively, towards the +flat open country, for he had a fierce, unreasoning desire to be +alone--far away from all humankind. As he strode along, his eyes having +become so fully accustomed to the dim light that he could see every +detail of the white-rutted road gleaming between low hedges, Banfield's +feeling of bewilderment, even of horror, grew and grew, making him feel +physically cold in the warm, scented night. + +For the first time there swept over him that awful sense of unavailing +repentance for the word said which might so well have been left unsaid, +which most human beings are fated to feel at some time of their lives. + +Not even over his divorce had he felt so desperate a passion of revolt, +for that act, or so he had believed, was forced on him by Rosaleen +herself. But to-night he realised that before doing what he had just +done he had been free--free to remain free--and he now saw with a sense +of impotent anger how deliberately he had given himself into slavery. + +As he strode along, eager to escape from the material surroundings of +his surrender, Banfield remembered each word of his talk with his +sister, and so remembering, he was amazed at his own weak folly. + +What were the trifling troubles connected with his Irish servant, Mary +Scanlan, compared to those which lay before him?--to the awful knowledge +that he was now the prisoner--henceforth the body and soul prisoner--of +Matilda Wellow? How sluggish had been his imagination when he had +thought of the woman, whose tears had but just now scalded his lips, as +of a kind, unobtrusive lady housekeeper! He was now aware that there was +another Matilda Wellow, of whom till to-night he had been ignorant, and +it was this stranger who was demanding as a right, and indeed had the +right to demand, that tenderness and devotion which he knew himself +incapable of bestowing on any woman except on the elusive, cold-natured +woman who had been his wife. + +And then a strange thing happened to David Banfield. + +The near image of Matilda Wellow faded, giving place to the distant, and +yet in a spiritual and even physical sense poignantly present, +personality of Rosaleen. + +As far as was possible, Banfield till to-night had banished his wife's +image from his emotional memory. But what he had just done--that is, his +own lack of constancy--had the odd effect of making him feel lowered to +the level to which those about him regarded Rosaleen as fallen. He told +himself that now he and Rosaleen were quits--and deliberately he yielded +to the cruel luxury of recollection. + +His mind travelled back to the early days of their acquaintance, to the +pretence at a "friendship" which on his side had so soon become +overwhelming passion. Then had come his formal offer of marriage, and +for a long time she had played with him, saying neither yes nor no. Then +for a while he had flung everything to the winds in order to be with +her--on any terms. He remembered with a pang of pain the trifling +reasons which at last made her quite suddenly consent to become his +wife. A quarrel with the manager of the concert company to which she +then belonged, followed by a bad notice in the local paper of the town +to which he, David Banfield, undeterred by more than one half-laughing +refusal, had come to make what he intended should be a final +offer--these, it seemed, had brought Rosaleen to the point of decision. + +Even now, Banfield never heard the name of that little Sussex town +without a leap of the heart, for it was there that had taken place their +marriage, the quietest and least adorned of weddings, celebrated in a +small, bare Roman Catholic chapel, the incumbent of which, a wise old +man, had spoken to Banfield very seriously, asking him to give the young +Irishwoman more time for thought, and impressing upon him the gravity of +the promises which he, a Protestant, had consented to make concerning +their future married life. + +With regard to the latter, Banfield had been scrupulously honourable, +going, indeed, out of his way to remind Rosaleen of her religious +obligations, and at the time of the divorce acting, in the matter of +their child's future education, according to the spirit rather than the +letter of his promise.... + +With bent head and eyes fixed on the white road, David Banfield +insensibly slackened his steps while his mind concerned itself with the +five years he and Rosaleen had spent together at Market Dalling. They +had been years of secret drama, on his part of almost wordless struggle +for some kind of response to the passion which her mysterious +aloofness--to so many men the greater part of a woman's +attraction--evoked and kept alive in him. + +He now remembered how during these years there had been minor causes of +disagreement, trifling matters--or so he had considered them--to which +Rosaleen attached far more importance than he had done. + +The constant criticism and interference of his half-sister, the dislike +and jealousy of those town folk who regarded themselves as having a +right to the close friendship and intimacy of David Banfield's young +wife, these were the things--forming such unimportant asides to the +course of that hidden struggle--which Rosaleen had brought forward when +begging her husband, with passionate energy, to allow her to go back to +her profession. + +But to-night, the grey fear with which he now regarded his own future +life at Market Dalling brought to David Banfield a sudden understanding +of what Rosaleen had felt, caged, as he had caged her, in the little +town to which he was now reluctantly turning his laggard steps, and +which had been, till so few years ago, the centre of his universe. + +He told himself that had he had the courage, had he been possessed of +the necessary imagination, to make another life for himself and for her, +none of this need have happened. + +But why torture himself uselessly? He and Rosaleen had now drifted as +far apart as a man and a woman can drift. What he had done to-night was +in its way as irrevocable as what she on her side had done--nay more, +the very fact that he had Matilda Wellow so completely at his mercy made +Banfield feel, as a less simple-hearted, generous-minded man would never +have felt, how impossible it was for him to draw back.... + +While returning to what had now become his place of bondage, David +Banfield made a determined effort to dam the mental floodgates through +which had run so strange a stream of violent revolt and emotion, and he +was so far rewarded that almost at once something occurred which had the +effect of bracing him up, of hardening him in his determination to do +what he believed to be right. + +As he walked down the silent, shuttered High Street at the end of which +stood the Brew House, he saw that his hall light had not been +extinguished; and as he opened the front door, he was confronted with +the spare form and the gaunt, though not ill-visaged countenance of Mary +Scanlan, the elderly Irishwoman who had for so long waged triumphant +battle with her master's sister, Mrs. Rigby. Utterly different as the +two women were, they yet, as Banfield sometimes secretly told himself, +not without a certain sore amusement, had strong points of resemblance +the one with the other. + +Impelled by some obscure instinct that thus was he certain to be +strengthened in the course of action to which he had just pledged +himself, Banfield invited the woman into the dining-room, which had +been, since his first wife's departure, used by him as living and eating +room in one. + +Very deliberately he lit the gas, and then turned and faced his +housekeeper. "I think it right that you should be among the first to +know," he said, "that I am going to be married again--to Miss Wellow." + +There was a moment's pause. Banfield expected either a word of sullen +acquiescence or an outburst of anger; he had known Mary Scanlan in both +moods, but now she surprised him by assuming a very disconcerting +attitude. + +"If that's the case," she said slowly, twisting and untwisting a corner +of the black apron that she was wearing, "I will be getting ready little +Rosy's clothes, for you will be sending her to the convent rather +sooner, I reckon, than you meant to do. I make no doubt the nuns will +let me stay there for a week or two till the child gets accustomed to +the place--that is, if you have no objection, Mr. Banfield?" + +Banfield looked at the woman in some perplexity. + +"But I've no thought of sending Rosy to school yet!" he exclaimed--then +added: "Of course, I mean to keep my promise to her mother, but--but the +child's a little thing yet--too young to go to school." + +Mary Scanlan was the only woman to whom Banfield ever spoke of his wife, +and Mrs. Rigby would have been amazed indeed had she known how often +these allusions and semi-allusions were made, for to Kate, much as he +trusted and respected his sister, Banfield had never till that day bared +his heart. + +"I am going to ask you," he went on, "to stay in my service, simply to +look after the child. I know well, Mary, how devoted you are to my +little girl, and how good you've been to her. When Miss Wellow has +become--" he hesitated awkwardly, and then with a certain effort, +uttered the words "my wife--she will, of course, take charge of the +house, and I suppose she will bring her own servants with her. I shall +no longer have any need for a housekeeper--but I know she will be only +too glad if you will stay on with Rosy." + +"I don't think I can do that, sir." + +Banfield moved uneasily. Mary Scanlan almost invariably called him "Mr. +Banfield"; it was one of the woman's many Irish idiosyncrasies which +irritated his sister. + +"I don't think I can stay on here, sir," repeated Mary Scanlan in a low, +hesitating voice. "I don't hold with a man, a gentleman I mean, having +two wives. I can't say a word of excuse for my poor Miss Rosaleen--I +beg your pardon, sir, I mean Mrs. Banfield. I know she behaved very +wickedly and strangely, but still you see, Mr. Banfield, to my thinking +and according to my holy religion, she's the woman who owns you, sir, +and no one else can ever take her place." + +"I know, I know," he said hastily. "But Mary, why don't you consult your +priest? If you explain the circumstances to him, he may take a different +view of the matter to what you do." + +"No, that he wouldn't!" exclaimed Mary Scanlan, with a touch of her old +passionate temper, "and if he did, I shouldn't be said by him!" + +She hesitated, and then in a low tone asked the strange question, made +the amazing suggestion, "I suppose you wouldn't be after seeing Miss +Rosaleen, Mr. Banfield? Not if I gave you her address?" + +Banfield made a nervous movement of recoil. + +"Mary," he said sternly, "you forget yourself!" and turning, left her in +possession of the room. + + * * * * * + +How describe the days that followed?--short days full of intense joy and +looking forward to Matilda Wellow, long days filled with perplexed +misgiving and self-reproach to David Banfield. + +Men and women of British birth generally prefer to conduct their +courtships in the way that best suits themselves, but those whom Mrs. +Rigby collectively dubbed as "foreigners" have long ago realised the +advantage of having so important an episode of human life as that of +betrothal "stage-managed" by someone more experienced in such matters +than the two most interested. + +Mrs. Rigby had no kind of sympathy with foreign fashion, and in theory +thoroughly disapproved of the way in which the French, for instance, +arrange their matrimonial affairs. But this engagement of her brother +David Banfield and of Matilda Wellow was one of the supreme exceptions +which prove a rule, and so she stage-managed every entrance, every exit, +and, to pursue the analogy to its bitter end, every bit of "business" +connected with the affair. + +Her stern eyes, her rough tongue, kept the bride-elect in order, but her +watchful fear lest Matilda should get on David's nerves before she +became securely bound to him for ever had one curious effect; it made +Banfield sorry for his betrothed, and caused him to feel more kindly to +her than he would otherwise have done. + +Then he was touched and surprised by Matilda's great loyalty to himself; +he soon discovered that, far from discussing him with his sister, she +often irritated the latter by her assumption that already she, Matilda, +and he, David, had a joint life in which Kate Rigby played no part. This +angered Mrs. Rigby keenly, and it is a pathetic fact that the only tears +Matilda Wellow shed during the course of her engagement were caused by +the woman who was her oldest friend, and to whom she was dimly aware +that she owed her good-fortune. + +Blinded by that most blinding of master passions, jealousy, Mrs. Rigby +actually came to believe that her brother was now attached, in a far +truer sense than he had been to Rosaleen, to the fond, foolish woman who +was so soon to become his wife. + +"He's getting quite silly about her," she observed angrily to her +husband; "he goes up there every evening, however busy he may be, or +however much I may want to have him here. And now he says he won't go to +that good London tailor for his wedding clothes! It's clear he doesn't +want to leave Tiddy--even for three days!" + +But Mr. Rigby, as was his prudent wont when he disagreed with his wife, +only looked at her, and thoughtfully wagged his head. + +"Why don't you say something?" she asked crossly. + +"Why should David go to London?" observed Mr. Rigby mildly. "He's a +personable fellow; any tailor could fit David. If I were you, Kate, I'd +let him be." But Kate, to her lasting sorrow, did not let David be. + +Both her husband and even Matilda Wellow herself could have told Mrs. +Rigby that it was in London that her brother had spent his honeymoon +with his wife; but though she had been made vividly aware of the +circumstance--for it was from there that the news of his hasty marriage +had reached her--that fact would not have seemed to her any reason why +David should not now do the right and proper thing by his second bride. + +Thus it was owing to Mrs. Rigby that Matilda was at last roused to a +sense of what was due to herself. Banfield, with some discomfiture, +discovered that Miss Wellow would take it ill of him not to pay her the +compliment of going to the London tailor for his wedding clothes--"and +then," had observed his sister briskly, "you'll be able to bring Tiddy +back something handsome in the way of jewellery; for that's a thing you +owe not only to her, David, but also to yourself." + + +II + +David Banfield, just arrived in London, stood in an hotel bedroom +overlooking the trees in Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Staring out at the leafy screen, which seemed to him so lacking in +country freshness, there came to his mind poignant memories of a very +different room and a very different outlook not half a mile away from +where he stood, for he and Rosaleen had spent the first days of their +married life in one of those vast hotels which, overlooking the +Embankment and the river, are filled with light and air, as well as +instinct with a certain material luxury which had pleased his young +wife's taste more than his own. + +With a quick movement he pushed up the old-fashioned guillotine window +as far as it would go, and leaned out dangerously far; then he drew back +sharply, feeling, as he now often felt when he was alone, that he was +living through an unreal, a nightmare stage of his life, one which was +bound to come sooner or later to an abrupt end, but which now must be +lived through.... + +With unseeing eyes and unthinking mind he walked across to the shadowed +corner where had been placed his portmanteau. Slowly, indifferently, he +turned the key in the lock and raised the lid,--then quickened into +alert, painful attention. + +Lying on the top of its neatly folded contents was an envelope so placed +that it could not but attract his attention, and on it was written--in +the sprawling, unformed handwriting which was, perhaps, the only marked +betrayal of Mary Scanlan's early lack of education--the one word +"Important." + +At once there leapt into Banfield's mind the certain knowledge of what +the envelope contained. If he opened it, there most surely would he find +his wife Rosaleen's address. It was this, then, that the Irishwoman had +in her thoughts when she had asked him the unseemly question to which he +had given so short and stern an answer. + +But Mary Scanlan had not understood the type of man with whom she had to +deal. + +As he stood there, longing with a terrible longing to verify his +belief, telling himself, with a leap of the heart, that, if he were not +mistaken, then Rosaleen must be living alone, for if this had not been +so the old servant would never have thought of trying to bring them +together again--the claims of others, especially those of the woman from +whom he had only parted that morning, became paramount. He told himself +that, from the point of view of those who loved him, and whom he +respected, it was his duty to destroy unopened the envelope lying before +him. + +Banfield turned away, and once more walked across to the window; and +then his agitation suddenly became puerile in his eyes. + +What the Irishwoman had regarded as important when packing his bag might +well be a trifling matter, something wanted, maybe, for the child. The +uncertainty seemed to steady his conscience; _he felt that he must +know_. + +Bending down, he took up the envelope; the flap was open, and out of it +there slipped into his hand a shabby little card on which was printed: + + MISS ROSALEEN TARA (The Colleen Bawn), + 18, Abbey Street, + Westminster, S. W. + +There followed for David Banfield three days of agonising struggle and +temptation. All the feelings and instincts he had battened down, put +determinedly from him for so long, sprang into life. Now that he knew +where to find her, he became possessed by a deep, unreasoning longing to +see Rosaleen once more--even if a meeting could only result in pain for +him, in shame for her. + +On the second day of his stay in London, he offered conscience a salve +in the form of a fine ruby ring, which was despatched to Miss Wellow in +lieu of the letter which he knew only too well she must be anxiously +awaiting. + +Had Banfield been a stronger man he would have left London. But that, or +so he told himself, there was no need to do; and as the hours dragged +on, bringing him closer to the moment which must see his return to +Market Dalling--to Matilda Wellow--the fact that he and Rosaleen were in +a material sense so near to one another began to affect his imagination +in strangest and most poignant fashion. + +Walking aimlessly along the hot airless streets of London in July, he +found himself ever furtively seeking her.... Such chance meetings are +not impossible; they happen every day. Why should such a thing not come +to him as well as to another? + +And so in the summer twilight, not once but many times, some woman's +form--slender, graceful, light-footed as was Rosaleen's--would create +for a moment the illusion that she was there, close to him, would bring +the wild hope that in a moment his hungry heart would be satisfied, his +conscience cheated. And then the woman in whom he had seen for a moment +his poor lost love, would turn her head--and Banfield, cast down but +undismayed, would again pursue his eager, aimless search. + +On the last evening of his stay in London, this obsession became so +intense that Banfield saw Rosaleen in every woman's shape that passed +him by. He grew afraid; and after an hour spent in the peopled streets, +he told himself that that way madness lay. + +With eyes fixed on the dusty pavements, he made his way back to his +hotel, and sitting down he wrote a letter--a kind, cheerful letter--to +Matilda Wellow, telling her that he would be with her the next afternoon +at five o'clock. And then, for the first time since he had known that +Rosaleen was in London, his sleep was restful and unbroken. But in the +early morning he dreamed a curious dream; Rosaleen, the beloved, the +longed-for woman, was again with him,--elusive, mysterious, teasing as +she had ever been,--and Banfield, waking in the early dawn, felt tears +of joy standing on his face. + +When he got up in the morning, and faced the day which was to see him go +back to Market Dalling, he felt as must feel a man who sees stretching +before him a lifelong period of servitude; but with that feeling came +the gloomy belief that he had conquered the temptation that had so beset +him, and this being so, he argued that he had at least a right to see +the place where Rosaleen now lived. + +Having come to this specious understanding with himself, Banfield felt +his heart lighten. He told himself that he would wait till he was within +some two hours of the time when he knew he must leave London, and, +having so decided, he checked his impatience by various devices, packing +his portmanteau, paying his bill, doing first one thing and then +another, till the moment came for him to start walking along the +Embankment to Westminster. + +When at last he reached the broad, wind-swept space out of which he had +been told turned Abbey Street, quietest and most sequestered of urban +backwaters, he lingered for awhile, suddenly filled with an obscure fear +of that for which he had so longed--a chance meeting with his wife. + +After a few moments of indecision, he started walking slowly down the +middle of the street, his footfalls echoing on the cobblestones. + +Banfield looked about him curiously. To the right stretched the rough +grey wall of London's oldest garden, framing a green oasis opposite the +row of small eighteenth-century houses which stood on the other side of +the street. They were quaint, shabby little dwellings, and against more +than one fanlight was displayed a card bearing the word "Lodgings." + +When Banfield came opposite No. 18, he stopped and looked up at the +windows with beating heart and the colour rushed into his face, flooding +it under the sunburn; following a sudden, an irresistible impulse, he +stepped up on to the pavement, and with a nervous movement pulled the +bell. + +Then followed what seemed to him a long wait on the doorstep, but at +last a thin, fretful woman came to the door and enquired his business. + +"Does Miss Rosaleen Tara live here? Can I see her?" + +"Yes, she lives 'ere right enough,"--the woman spoke with weary +indifference,--"come this way." + +Banfield paused; he had never thought the access to Rosaleen would be so +simple, and he was bewildered by the ease with which this, to him so +momentous a step, had been compassed. + +He followed the woman up the narrow, wainscoted staircase to a tiny +landing. "Stop," he said almost inaudibly, "I must tell you what to +say--you must not show me straight in to her, like this." + +But even as he spoke, there was another tinkle of the bell, and the +woman began running heavily down the little staircase, leaving him +standing in front of the door. + +He knocked, but there came no answer, and at last he turned the handle, +and walked into the room. It was empty of human presence, and yet his +wife had stamped something of herself on the shabbily furnished +sitting-room. Certain dainty trifles which he had known as hers were +there, and before him, on the piano, was a music-case which he himself +had given her. + +The sight of this, his own gift, affected Banfield oddly, giving him a +feeling that he had a right to be there. After a moment's hesitation, he +walked over to the window, and looked out into the old Abbey garden. +There he would wait patiently--for hours if need be--till Rosaleen came +in. + +Then, quite suddenly, there fell on his ear the voice which he had so +often heard in dreams, and which he had of late so passionately longed +to hear. He turned sharply round, and noticed for the first time that +the door of the inner room was ajar. It was from thence that the light, +indifferent tones floated impalpably towards him. + +"Ah! but it's kind of you, doctor, to come so soon after Miss Lonsdale +asked you to see me! I've only just come in, but I won't be a moment--I +didn't expect you yet. Miss Lonsdale will be in long before you leave, I +hope; she's almost as anxious about my voice as I am--and the faith she +has in you, why, it's something wonderful!" + +To Banfield, the words recalled, not Rosaleen his wife, but Rosaleen the +girl, the dear bewitching stranger he had first known and wooed, though +never won. Unconsciously he visualised the speaker; he seemed to see the +quick, bird-like movements with which she was taking off her hat and +smoothing her hair before the glass. He even saw her smiling--smiling as +she used to smile at him in the very early days of their acquaintance. + +He knew that he ought to cry out--tell her that it was he, her husband, +David Banfield, who was there, and not the stranger whom she had +apparently been expecting; but though he opened his lips, no word would +come. + +At last the door swung open quickly, and for a moment Banfield saw her +face, lit up by that touch of wholly innocent coquetry of which your +pretty Irishwoman seems to have the secret. + +Then, as suddenly she realised the identity of the tall man standing +between her and the window, a peculiar--to Banfield a very +terrible--change of expression stiffened Rosaleen's face into watchful +fear and attention. + +"What is it?" she asked. "Tell me quickly, David! Is Rosy ill, or--or +dead?" + +"Rosy?" he stammered. "She's all right. I heard this morning----" + +"--And I yesterday," she breathed quickly. Then she sat down, and +Banfield let his eyes rest on her with a painful, yearning scrutiny. + +He had thought to find her altered, coarsened by the experience he +believed her to have gone through, but she had the same look of +delicate, rather frigid refinement, which had first attracted him. He +noted the perfection of her delicate profile, the determined, +well-shaped mouth,--then saw with a pang that there were a few threads +of white in the dark curly hair which, with her bright blue eyes, had +always been Rosaleen's principal beauties; and yet she looked scarcely +older than on the day he had last seen her--that on which he had +accompanied her with a heavy heart to the station at Market Dalling to +see her off to London. + +Now, looking at her, it stabbed him to remember how even then she had +shown an almost childish joy in leaving him. She had put her arms round +his neck and kissed him in sign of gratitude. "It's kind of you to let +me go, Dave!" she had whispered. He had often thought of those last +words, the last he had heard her speak. Now he again remembered them. +Alas! alas! why had he let her go? + +She sat, looking away from him, her eyes fixed on the empty grate. + +"You frightened me," she said plaintively. "Why did you come here, +David, and frighten me like this? Why have you come here at all +after--after what you did to me?" + +"What I did to you?" he stammered confusedly, and there came over him +the shamed fear that she had already heard of his coming marriage with +Matilda Wellow. + +"Yes, what you did to me--the documents you sent me--divorce papers +they're called----" He felt, rather than saw, that his wife's eyes were +filling, brimming over with indignant tears. "We don't have those things +at home--in Ireland, I mean. And then reading out my letter--the mad +letter I sent you--before a lot of men!" + +Rosaleen had always possessed the wifely art of being able to make David +Banfield feel himself in the wrong, and now, on hearing her last words, +the man before her told himself with a pang that he had indeed acted in +an unkind, even an unmanly, fashion to the fragile-looking woman who sat +with her face averted from him. + +"I thought--of course I thought"--he plucked up courage as he +spoke--"that you wanted to be free. You said you hoped I should forget +you." + +"--And so I did," she said quickly, "I did wish to be free--not so much +from you, as from the miserable, the stiflingly dull life you made me +lead at Market Dalling. That's why I wrote that foolish--that wicked +letter. I thought it would make you leave me alone. But, David," she +made a restless movement, "I didn't understand. However, I've been well +punished." + +There was a short, strained silence. Then Rosaleen got up. + +"I'm afraid I can't ask you to stay on much longer," she began +nervously, "for I'm expecting a doctor who was very kind to me once when +I was ill before. He's a friend of Carrie Lonsdale--you remember her, +David? The truth is, my voice has given out, and I've been trying to +give lessons, but Carrie thinks he will be able to make it come back +again soon." + +"And what will you do," asked Banfield in a very low voice, "if he +fails?" + +She turned and looked up at him, her eyes meeting his in direct +challenge. + +"Whatever I do," she said proudly, "you need not fear that I shall come +to you for any help." + +And then David Banfield felt shaken, overwhelmed by a fierce spasm of +violent, primitive jealousy. The name of the other man had never been +forthcoming; Rosaleen's letter had sufficed to win the undefended suit. + +"I suppose," he said brutally, "that you can always depend on getting +help from your lover?" + +Rosaleen's eyes dropped, her face flushed darkly as she saw the change +which came over her husband's face and as there came into his voice +accents she had never heard there. + +She sprang up. "How dare you insult me? You have no right to say such a +thing to me! I am free to do exactly what I like and to go to whom I +choose--you yourself made me free!" + +But a very different man from the man she had believed David Banfield to +be now stood before her. + +Of the words she had said, the last alone remained with him. Free? Nay, +nay, Rosaleen was in no sense free; his whole nature rose up and +protested against such a statement. There could be no question of +choice, for she belonged to him, only to him, solely to him, and that +even if she had in a moment of aberration, of madness--his mind refused +to follow the thought to its logical conclusion--not even in the most +secret recess of his imagination had Banfield ever consented to dwell +on what he believed had been. Not till the last few moments had he seen +the torturing vision which almost always haunts the man who has been +betrayed by a beloved woman. + +He came yet closer, and put his hand on her shoulder. + +"Rosaleen," he said hoarsely, "you don't understand. You want to know +why I came here to-day? Well, I came to say that I am thinking of +leaving Market Dalling. I came to ask you if you are willing to come +back to me--to make a fresh start. You said just now that it was Market +Dalling and our life there that you hated--not me. I've had a very good +offer to go to South Africa, to Durban, and settle there. There's even a +house waiting for us, and a convent school for Rosy. But whether I go or +not depends on you, Rosaleen. If you are willing to come with us, we'll +all go together--if not, I mean to stay at Market Dalling." + +Rosaleen remained quite still. She made no effort to move away from his +touch. + +"Did you really come to ask me to do that, David, and that although you +think so ill of me?" There was a wondering doubt, a softer, kindlier +note, than Banfield had ever heard in his wife's voice. + +He set his teeth and lied. + +"Yes," he said, "that is why I came. Mary Scanlan gave me your address." + +"Poor old Mary!" she exclaimed. "I suppose everyone at Market Dalling +thinks I'm a bad woman? Your sister, of course, always hoped that I was +a bad woman?" + +She looked at him as if half expecting him to make some kind of denial. +But he remained silent. What answer, what denial could he make? Of +course, everyone at Market Dalling thought Rosaleen a bad woman. For the +matter of that, none of them had ever thought well of her, not even his +own people, not even his sister and her husband had made any attempt to +understand her. + +Rosaleen's imprudent question made yet another matter, one which +Banfield had succeeded for a few moments in completely forgetting, +become once more very present to him. With a feeling of terrible +self-reproach there rose before him the helpless figure of Matilda +Wellow. + +"It's not only you," he said slowly, "but I myself who need to make a +fresh start. I haven't so much right to blame you as you, Rosaleen, +perhaps think--for I myself did a very wrong, a wicked thing----" + +She slipped away from under his hand and got up, facing him. + +"It's absurd for you to say that," she exclaimed petulantly, "why, you +couldn't do anything wicked, David, if you tried! For the matter of +that, I never could see--I never have seen--why people are--why people +make----" she seemed to be seeking for a word, a phrase; and it was in a +whisper that she added the words, "beasts of themselves." + +Banfield stared at her, not understanding; for the moment he was too +absorbed in his own feelings, in his own remorse, to take much heed of +what she was saying. + +"Well?" he asked, "well, Rosaleen, shall we both forgive each other--and +make a fresh beginning?" + +"Yes," she whispered, hanging her head as might have done a naughty +child. With a gesture of surrender, she held out her hands. "I'm ashamed +of what I did, David--and I'll try to be a better wife to you than I've +been up to now." + +Poor Banfield! As he took her in his arms his heart beat with +suffocating joy; almost any other man would have felt her words, her +implied prayer for forgiveness, curiously inadequate. + +She looked at him with a peculiar, earnest look, as if trying to make up +her mind to a certain course, and then, with a quick movement, she shook +herself free and disappeared into the back room. + +He heard the sound of a drawer opening, the fumbling of a key. A moment +later she came back and thrust a small packet into his hand. + +"There," she said, "open that, read what's inside, and then we'll +burn it. Thank God, Rosy will never know now the shame you put on +her mother. I've often thought how you would feel reading it, if +I--died--before--you did!" and each word was punctuated by an angry sob. + +The little packet which Rosaleen had placed in Banfield's hand was tied +with blue ribbon, and on it was written: "In case of my death, to be +forwarded to Mr. Banfield, The Brew House, Market Dalling." + +It was Rosaleen's fingers which untied the knotted ribbon and which +showed him, laid amid her little store of jewellery,--he had noticed +that she still wore her wedding ring,--a sheet of notepaper on which +was an attestation, sworn before a Commissioner of Oaths, that the +letter which she had written to him, the confession which had sufficed +to procure him his divorce, had been--false. + +"But why?" he stammered. "Rosaleen--why?" + +"Because I hated the life you made me lead at Market Dalling! I hate +Market Dalling and the hateful people who live there! You wouldn't even +let me play or sing on Sunday. And then, your sister Kate! She never +gave me a kind word or look! D'you think that was pleasant?" she asked +fiercely,--then more gently she added, "But I'm ashamed, I've always +been ashamed of that letter, and I'd no idea, Dave, that it would make +you do what it did." + +The door behind them opened. Rosaleen turned around; she brushed the +angry tears from her cheeks; there came over her tremulous mouth a +charming, rather shy smile. + +"Doctor," she said quietly, "you've just come in time to see my husband. +David, this is Dr. Bendall, who was so kind to me when I was ill." + +Banfield held out his hand.... + + +III + +It was the late afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Rigby was sitting as +she had sat on her silver wedding day, close to the window of her +sitting-room, her busy hands engaged now, as then, in mending +house-linen. Now, as then also, she was expecting her brother and +Matilda Wellow to dinner, for before Banfield left for London it had +been arranged that he and his betrothed should spend that evening with +the Rigbys. + +Mrs. Rigby allowed the work she was holding to fall on her lap. She +looked into her garden with a preoccupied air. The month which had +elapsed since her silver wedding day had brought with it great changes +in her life, and what she saw before her seemed, in a sense, symbolic of +those changes, for in spite of her careful watering and constant +attention, the flower-beds, and above all the beautiful herbaceous +borders of which she was so proud, were beginning to look parched and +withered. + +To-night more than ever Mrs. Rigby realised that the marriage of David +and Matilda would alter her own life, and that not for the better. Why, +in old days David would of course have come in to see his sister on his +way from the station, and that even in the now forgotten time when +Rosaleen was mistress of the Brew House. To-day her brother had +evidently gone straight to Matilda Wellow.... + +But Mrs. Rigby reminded herself that, taken as a whole, her garden was +incomparably fresher and greener than were those of her neighbours on +either side; and as to David and Tiddy, she now told herself, almost +speaking the words aloud in her anxiety to make them true, that she was +pleased--very pleased--with the way everything was going on. + +Thus she was glad that the rather absurd secrecy, so insisted on by her +brother, would come to an end to-morrow. Of course a few old friends had +been told in confidence of the engagement--but considering that this was +so, the secret had been very well kept. It was not as if David were a +real widower; Mrs. Rigby could not help hoping that he would be spared +some of the silly remarks, the foolish congratulations, which fall to +the ordinary engaged man. It must be bad enough for him, so the sister +told herself, to put up with Tiddy's sentimental raptures. Still, it was +a comfort to know that Matilda Wellow was well aware that she was in +luck's way! How Tiddy studied David in everything--any other man would +have been spoilt! + +For the first time, a smile, not a very kind smile, came over Mrs. +Rigby's shrewd, rather hard face. + +During the last month, Matilda had actually given up eating potatoes and +butter, because some fool had told her that in that way she might hope +to regain the youthful slenderness of her figure! As for David, his +betrothed's little attentions evidently touched him, and no one could +say that he was not an attentive lover. Think of the ring he had sent +Tiddy, the ruby ring which had arrived yesterday morning, and which must +have cost--so Matt, who was learned in such things, declared--not a +penny less than £50! + +The exact date of the wedding would probably be fixed to-night, for it +had been arranged that the marriage was to follow very soon after the +announcement of the engagement. There was no reason for delay. Mrs. +Rigby had herself chosen the 3rd of August as the best date, and she had +little doubt that she would be able to persuade Dave and Tiddy that no +other day would suit them so well. + +Suddenly her quick ears caught the sound of footsteps treading down the +path to the left, a path hidden from the place where she was now +sitting, and a slight frown came over her face. Mrs. Rigby liked her +husband to come straight in to her from the office; but lately, he had +taken to the tiresome habit of going out by the back way, into the +garden, and then suddenly popping round on her. + +She looked out expectantly, but the sound of footsteps died away. It +must have been one of the maids going down to the extreme end of the +garden in search of some kitchen stuff. + +Mrs. Rigby again took up her work and began sewing diligently. Yes, the +marriage should take place quite quietly on the 3rd of August. +Everything was ready--in fact, there was nothing left to wait for. Even +Tiddy's wedding gown and headgear had come home. + +David had showed himself oddly interested in this wholly feminine +question of his bride's attire. + +He had actually been to the trouble of choosing the material of which +Tiddy's wedding gown was to be made; a white and grey stripe, a thin, +gauzy stuff not nearly substantial enough--or so Mrs. Rigby had +thought--for the purpose to which it was destined. And then he had +persuaded Matilda to go to a new dressmaker, a Frenchwoman who had been +lady's maid to one of his grand county acquaintances, and who had just +set up for herself in Market Dalling. More wonderful still, David had +made a rough drawing from some old picture that had taken his fancy of +the hat he desired Matilda to wear on her wedding day! It was a white +hat trimmed with long grey feathers, quite unlike Tiddy's usual +style.... + +Suddenly looking up, Mrs. Rigby felt a thrill of something like +superstitious fear, for there, making her way round the corner from the +summer-house, came, walking very slowly, a woman at once like and unlike +Matilda Wellow, clad in a silvery-looking gown and wearing a white hat +trimmed with long grey feathers. + +As the figure advanced down the path, it took unmistakable shape and +substance; here, without a doubt, was Matilda wearing what were to be +her wedding garments, and, as Mrs. Rigby suddenly became aware, a +Matilda quite unlike her usual homely self! + +Who would have thought that simply leaving off potatoes and butter for a +month would have made such a change! Or was that change due to the art +of the French dressmaker? The silvery-flounced skirt fell in graceful, +billowy folds to the ground, for Miss Wellow was not even holding up her +gown, as a more sensible woman would have done. The muslin kerchief +edged with real lace, outlined the wearer's still pretty shoulders, and +the hat--well, the hat was certainly becoming, especially now that +Tiddy's cheeks were flushed--as well they might be, considering what a +fool the woman was making of herself! + +Mrs. Rigby felt rather cross at having been so startled; she got up, and +walked out to meet her guest, determined not to be drawn into any praise +of the becoming hat and gown. + +"I hope David won't keep us waiting long," she said tartly. "I suppose +he thought that he must put on his dress suit," and her expression +showed clearly that in the matter of overdressing there was not much to +choose between her brother and the woman who was to become his wife. + +"David will not be here to-night, Kate. He came, but he has gone away +again--back to London." + +Miss Wellow spoke in a low, collected voice, and certain little +irritating mannerisms with which she usually punctuated her words were +absent. Perhaps it was the quiet, expressionless way in which she made +her surprising statement that caused Mrs. Rigby, as she afterwards +averred to her husband, at once to feel that something was wrong. + +"Gone back to London?" the sister repeated. "Why, whatever has he done +that for? What business took him back to London, to-day?" and she looked +searchingly at the other's flushed face. + +"Kate," said Miss Wellow, again speaking in the soft, emotionless voice +which was so unlike her own, "I have got to tell you something which I +fear will upset you--and make you very angry with poor David. Kate--he +has gone back to Rosaleen." + +Mrs. Rigby withdrew her eyes quickly from Matilda Wellow's face. She did +not then realise that the words which had just been spoken would for +ever spoil to her this fragrant, familiar corner of her garden. All she +felt now was a fierce, instinctive wish to get under shelter,--to hear +whatever shameful thing had to be heard within four walls,--and so she +put out her right hand and pushed her visitor before her into the +sitting-room. + +Then, keeping her back to the window, she forced Miss Wellow to turn +round. + +"Now tell me the truth," she commanded, "and Tiddy--above all, don't let +yourself be upset, and don't get hysterical! I know what it is--you and +David have had some silly quarrel. I saw from the first that you were +making yourself too cheap! He can't go back to Rosaleen; he divorced +her--and she's with another man. Besides, David is my brother! He +wouldn't dare do such a wicked thing! You have no right, Tiddy, to +accuse him of such shameful behaviour!" She spoke with quick, savage +decision. + +But Miss Wellow faced her with a strange, untoward courage--"I won't +have you speak so of him--of David, I mean!" she exclaimed passionately, +"you're his sister and ought to take his part!" + +Then her voice broke, and with a touch of her old feebleness she added, +"If you had heard him telling me about it, even you, Kate, who are so +hard, would maybe have understood and felt sorry for him. _I_ felt very +sorry for him----" + +"_You!_"--said Mrs. Rigby, with what appeared to the other withering +contempt, "_you!_----" + +"He put it very beautifully," continued Miss Wellow; her voice was now +almost inaudible, but Mrs. Rigby caught the word and repeated it with +terrible irony: + +"Beautifully!" she said,--"beautifully!" + +Matilda shrank back as though she feared the other was about to strike +her, but Mrs. Rigby did not see the gesture. + +"And did he tell you when he proposes to bring----" she made a scarcely +perceptible pause and then shot out the words--"his bride home. If it's +to-morrow, I'll make Matt take me away to-night!" + +"He's not going to bring her home," said Matilda, quietly. "He's never +coming back himself; they are going right away--out of England." + +"A good thing too!" said Mrs. Rigby. + +"He says that will be more respectful to me; he has considered my +feelings, Kate--he has indeed." + +"Has he? Why----" she suddenly held up a warning finger, for there was a +sound of footsteps in the passage; the sound stopped outside the door, +and both women instinctively held their breath, united by a common fear +of servants' gossip. + +There was a long pause, and then the handle of the door was slowly +turned, and Mr. Rigby came into the room, his ruddy colour gone, or +rather lying in curious streaks across his face, a nervous smile +hovering over his lips. + +He shut the door behind him and looked, with a world of interrogation +and anxiety in his eyes, at his wife. + +"You needn't smile," she said sharply; "this is no smiling matter!" + +His eyes fell; instinctively he turned to the other, the weaker vessel. +But the reproof which Mrs. Rigby had just addressed to her husband +penetrated Miss Wellow's brain. + +"I'm afraid I do look rather silly!" she said nervously, "wearing this +dress, I mean. But, you see, knowing that now I shall never wear it, I +thought I would put it on to-night." + +The odd collocation of her words passed unnoticed; indeed, Mr. Rigby, +even had he wished to answer her, was not given time to do so, for his +wife had turned on him and was avenging in his person the heaped-up +wrongs of her sex. + +"It's all your fault, Matt! You were always against David going to +London from the first, and you ought to have prevented his doing so! +But no--you stood aside and did nothing! I suppose you guessed he might +meet that--that----" her lips snapped together she would not soil them +by uttering the word which to her mind alone described Rosaleen. + +As her husband did not answer, suspicion grew into certainty. + +"Did you know that she was there? Did you think he would see her?" she +demanded. + +Mr. Rigby looked mildly at his Kate. "I didn't know anything, but I did +just think it possible," he said. + +But his triumph, if triumph it was, was short-lived. + +"Why didn't you tell me then? A decent woman would never have thought of +such a thing, but men have such disgusting minds!" cried his wife +sharply. She added suspiciously, "But how did you learn what's happened? +Did David write to you?" + +"He came into the office on his way back to the station," said Mr. +Rigby, briefly. "And, Kate--I've promised to see to things for him. Rosy +will join them"--he gave a little cough--"the day after to-morrow, and +they will all sail for South Africa as soon as matters can be settled +up. It's better so, my dear." + +Suddenly Miss Wellow bent down. Her hand fumbled blindly among the soft, +voluminous flounces of her skirt. + +"I've got something here," she said in a muffled voice, "that I want you +to give Rosy, Matt. But though I know it's there, I can't find the +pocket; you know I had one put in because David once said that he didn't +like a woman without a pocket in her dress. I've found it--here it +is!"--she took a step forward, and standing close to her old friend, +thrust into his unresisting hand a small hard substance. He looked down +and saw it was the ruby ring. "You can give this to the child," she said +breathlessly, "I don't want to see her again--with love from Auntie +Tiddy." + +But this was more than Mrs. Rigby could stand. + +"Well, it's a good thing," she exclaimed to her husband, "that Tiddy +takes it like that! No man would ever have dared to treat me so! But as +long as she doesn't care--still, she needn't take David's part against +his own sister, who has the right----" + +But what right David's sister had was never explained, for Miss Wellow +suddenly swayed forward; she would have fallen to the ground had not Mr. +Rigby caught her. + +"Why, she's fainted!" he said pitifully; "she does care--more than you +think, Kate. But she will come round soon--too soon," he muttered to +himself. + + * * * * * + +It was the same night, or rather the next morning, for the dawn was +beginning to make its grey way into the bed-chamber of Mr. and Mrs. +Rigby; it threw into dim relief the large, almost square four-poster, +under the chintz-covered canopy of which the husband and wife lay, rigid +as if carved in stone. + +"Kate," said Matt, "are you awake?" + +He could just see her head lying on the other pillow beside him. Her +still abundant hair was loosened and gave her a look of youth. Tears had +made a furrow down her cheeks. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Rigby, "I am awake, Matt. What is it you want?" + +"I'm afraid, my dear, that you are very much upset." There were +understanding, sympathy, ay, and tenderness expressed in the way Mr. +Rigby uttered the homely word. + +His wife, for the first time in their twenty-five years of married life, +felt a responsive thrill. For the first time she was unfaithful to Nat +Bower. + +"It's of you I'm thinking," she whispered. "I've been trying all night +to forget David,--my poor little David,--but it's terrible to me to +think that you, Matt, married into a family that could be guilty of such +shameful behaviour!" + + + + +VI + +THE DECREE MADE ABSOLUTE + + +James Tapster was eating his solitary, well-cooked dinner in his +comfortable and handsome house, a house situated in one of the half-moon +terraces which line and frame the more aristocratic side of Regent's +Park, and which may indeed be said to have private grounds of their own, +for each resident enjoys the use of a key to a portion of the Park +entitled locally "The Enclosure." + +Very early in his life Mr. Tapster had made up his mind that he would +like to live in Cumberland Crescent and now he was living there; very +early in his life he had decided that no one could order a plain yet +palatable meal as well as he could himself, and now for some months past +Mr. Tapster had given his own orders, each morning, to the cook. + +To-night Mr. Tapster had already eaten his fried sole, and he was about +to cut himself off a generous portion of the grilled under-cut before +him, when he heard the postman's steps hurrying round the Crescent. He +rose with a certain quick deliberateness, and going out into the hall, +opened the front door just in time to avoid the rat-tat-tat. Then, the +one letter he had expected duly in his hand, he waited till he had sat +down again in front of his still empty plate before he broke the seal +and glanced over the typewritten sheet of notepaper. + + SHORTERS COURT, THROGMORTON ST., + + _November 4th, 190--_. + + DEAR JAMES, + + In reply to your letter of yesterday's date, I have been to Bedford + Row and seen Greenfield, and he thinks it probable that the decree + will be made absolute to-day; in that case you will have received a + wire before this letter reaches you. + + Your affect. Brother, + + WM. A. TAPSTER. + +In the same handwriting as the signature were added two holograph lines: +"Glad you have the children home again. Maud will be round to see them +soon." + +Mr. Tapster read over once again the body of the letter, and there came +upon him an instinctive feeling of intense relief; then, with a not less +instinctive feeling of impatience, his eyes travelled down again to the +postscript--"Maud will be round to see them soon." + +Well, he would see about that! But he did not exclaim, even mentally, +as most men feeling as he then felt would have done, "I'll be damned if +she will!" knowing the while that Maud certainly would. + +His brother's letter, though most satisfactory as regarded its main +point, put Mr. Tapster out of conceit with the rest of his dinner; so he +rang twice and had the table cleared, frowning at the parlour-maid as +she hurried through her duties, and yet not daring to rebuke her for +having neglected to answer the bell the first time he rang. + +After a pause, he rose and turned towards the door--but, no, he could +not face the large, cheerless drawing-room upstairs; instead, he sat +down by the fire, and set himself to consider his future, and, in a more +hazy sense, that of his now motherless children. + +But very soon, as generally happens to those who devote any time to that +least profitable of occupations, Mr. Tapster found that his thoughts +drifted aimlessly, not to the future where he would have them be, but to +the past--that past which he desired to forget, to obliterate from his +memory. + +Till rather more than a year ago few men of his age--he had then been +sixty, he was now sixty-one--enjoyed a pleasanter and, from his own +point of view, a better-filled life than James Tapster. How he had +scorned the gambler, the spendthrift, the adulterer,--in a word, all +those whose actions bring about their own inevitable punishment! He had +always been self-respecting and conscientious,--not a prig, mind you, +but inclined rather to the serious than to the flippant side of life, +and so inclining he had found contentment and great material prosperity. + +Not even in those days to which he was now looking back so regretfully +had Mr. Tapster always been perfectly content; but now the poor man +sitting alone by his dining-room fire, only remembered what had been +good and pleasant in his former state. He was aware that his brother +William--and William's wife, Maud--both thought that even now he had +much to be thankful for; his line of business was brisk, scarcely +touched by foreign competition, his income increasing at a steady rate +of progression, and his children were exceptionally healthy. + +But, alas! now that, in place of a pretty little Mrs. Tapster on whom to +spend easily-earned money, his substance was being squandered by a crowd +of unmanageable and yet indispensable thieves,--for so Mr. Tapster +voicelessly described the five servants whose loud talk and laughter +were even now floating up from the basement below,--he did not feel his +financial stability so comfortable a thing as he had once done. + +His very children, who should now be, as he told himself complainingly, +his greatest comfort, had degenerated from two sturdy, well-behaved +little boys and a charming baby girl, into three unruly, fretful imps, +setting him at defiance, and terrorising their two attendants, who, +though carefully chosen by their Aunt Maud, did not seem to manage them +as well as the old nurse who had been an ally of the ex-Mrs. Tapster. + +Looking back at the whole horrible affair, for so in his own mind Mr. +Tapster justly designated the divorce case in which he had figured as +the successful petitioner, he wondered uneasily if he had done quite +wisely--wisely, that is, for his own repute and comfort. + +He knew very well that had it not been for William--or rather for +Maud--he would never have found out the dreadful truth. Nay, more; he +was dimly aware that but for them, and for their insistence on it as the +only proper course open to him, he would never have taken action. All +would have been forgiven and forgotten had not William--and more +especially Maud--said he must divorce Flossy, if not for his own sake, +ah! what irony! then for that of his children. + +Of course he felt grateful to his brother William and to his brother's +wife for all they had done for him since that sad time. Still, in the +depths of his heart, Mr. Tapster felt entitled to blame, and sometimes +almost to hate, his kind brother and sister. To them both--or rather to +Maud--he really owed the break-up of his life, for, when all was said +and done, it had to be admitted (though Maud did not like him to remind +her of it) that Flossy had met the villain while staying with the +William Tapsters at Boulogne. Respectable London people should have +known better than to take a furnished house at a disreputable French +watering-place--a place full of low English! + +Sometimes it was only by a great exercise of self-control that he, James +Tapster, could refrain from telling Maud what he thought of her conduct +in this matter, the more so that she never seemed to understand how +greatly she--and William--had been to blame. + +On one occasion Maud had even said how surprised she had been that James +had cared to go away to America, leaving his pretty young wife alone +for as long as three months. Why hadn't she said so at the time, then? +Of course, he had thought that he could leave Flossy to be looked after +and kept out of mischief by Maud--and William. But he had been--in more +than one sense, alas!--bitterly deceived. + +Still, it's never any use crying over spilt milk, so Mr. Tapster got up +from his chair and walked round the room, looking absently, as he did +so, at the large Landseer engraving of which he was naturally proud. If +only he could forget--put out of his mind for ever--the whole affair! +Well, perhaps with the Decree being made Absolute would come oblivion. + +He sat down again before the fire. Staring at the hot embers, he +reminded himself that Flossy, wicked, ungrateful Flossy, had disappeared +out of his life. This being so, why think of her? The very children had +at last left off asking inconvenient questions about their mamma---- + +By the way, would Flossy still be their mamma after the Decree had been +made Absolute?--so Mr. Tapster now suddenly asked himself. He hesitated +perplexed. + +But yes, the Decree being made Absolute would not undo, or even efface, +that fact. The more so, though surely here James Tapster showed himself +less logical than usual--the more so that Flossy, in spite of what Maud +had always said about her, had been a loving and, in her own +light-hearted way, a careful mother. But though Flossy would remain the +mother of his children--odd that the Law hadn't provided for that +contingency--she would soon be absolutely nothing, and less than +nothing, to him, the father of those children. Mr. Tapster was a great +believer in the infallibility of the Law, and he subscribed +whole-heartedly to the new reading, "What Law has put asunder, let not +man join together." + +To-night Mr. Tapster could not help looking back with a certain +complacency to his one legal adventure. Nothing could have been better +done, or more admirably conducted, than the way the whole matter had +been carried through. His brother William, and William's solicitor, Mr. +Greenfield, had managed it all so very nicely. True, there had been a +few uncomfortable moments in the witness-box, but everyone, including +the Judge, had been most kind. + +As for his Counsel, the leading man who makes a specialty of these sad +affairs, not even James Tapster himself could have put his own case in a +more delicate and moving fashion. "A gentleman possessed of considerable +fortune," so had he been justly described, and Counsel, without undue +insistence on irrelevant detail, had drawn a touching--and a +true--picture of Mr. Tapster's one romance, his marriage eight years +before to the twenty-year-old daughter of an undischarged bankrupt. Even +the Petitioner had scarcely seen Flossy's dreadful ingratitude in its +true colours till he had heard his Counsel's moderate comments on the +case. + +This evening Mr. Tapster saw Flossy's dreadful ingratitude terribly +clearly, and he wondered, not for the first time, how his wife could +have had the heart to break up his happy home! + +Why, but for him and his offer of marriage, Flossy Ball--that had been +his wife's maiden name--would have had to have earned her own living! +And as she had been very pretty, very "fetching," she would probably +have married some good-for-nothing young fellow of her own age lacking +the means to support a wife in decent comfort,--such a fellow, for +instance, as the wretched "Co." in the case. While with Mr. +Tapster--why, she had had everything the heart of woman could wish for, +a good home, beautiful clothes, and the being waited on hand and foot. A +strange choking feeling came into his throat as he thought of how good +he had been to Flossy, and how very bad had been her return for that +kindness. + +But this--this was dreadful! He was actually thinking of her again, and +not, as he had meant to do, of himself and his poor, motherless +children. Time enough to think of Flossy when he had news of her again. +If her lover did not marry her--and from what Mr. Greenfield had +discovered about him, it was most improbable that he would ever be in a +position to do so--she would certainly reappear on the Tapster horizon; +Mr. Greenfield said "they" always did. In that case, it was arranged +that William should pay her a weekly allowance. Mr. Tapster, always, as +he now reminded himself sadly, ready to do the generous thing, had fixed +that allowance at three pounds a week--a sum which had astonished, in +fact quite staggered, Mr. Greenfield's head clerk, a very decent fellow, +by the way. + +"Of course, it shall be as you wish, Mr. Tapster, but you should think +of the future and of your children. A hundred and fifty pounds a year +is a large sum; you may feel it a tax, sir, as years go on----" + +"That is enough," Mr. Tapster had answered, kindly but firmly; "you have +done your duty in laying that side of the case before me. I have, +however, decided on the amount named; should I see reason to alter my +mind, our arrangement leaves it open to me at any time to lower the +allowance." + +But though this conversation had taken place some months ago, and though +Mr. Tapster still held true to his generous resolve, as yet Flossy had +not reappeared. + +Mr. Tapster sometimes told himself that if he only knew where she was, +what she was doing,--whether she was still with that young fellow, for +instance,--he would think much less about her than he did now. Only last +night, when going for a moment into the night nursery,--poor Mr. Tapster +now only enjoyed his children's company when he was quite sure that they +were asleep,--he had had an extraordinary, almost a physical, impression +of Flossy's presence; he certainly had felt a faint whiff of her +favourite perfume. Flossy had been fond of scent, and though Maud always +said that the use of scent was most unladylike, he, James, did not +dislike it. + +With sudden soreness Mr. Tapster now recalled the one letter Flossy had +written to him just before the actual hearing of the divorce suit. + +It had been a wild, oddly-worded appeal to him to take her back, not--as +Maud had at once perceived on reading the letter--because she was sorry +for the terrible thing she had done, but simply because she was +beginning to hanker after her children. Maud had described the letter as +shameless and unwomanly in the extreme; and even William, who had never +judged his pretty young sister-in-law as severely as his wife had always +done, had observed sadly that Flossy seemed quite unaware of the +magnitude of her offence against God and man. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tapster, who prided himself on his sharp ears, suddenly heard a +curious little sound--he knew it for that of the front door being first +opened and then shut again, extremely quietly. He half rose from his +chair by the fire, then sat down again, heavily. + +By Maud's advice he always locked the area gate himself, when he came +home each evening. But how foolish of Maud--such a sensible woman +too,--to think that servants and their evil ways could be circumvented +so easily! Of course, the maids went in and out by the front door in the +evening, and the policeman--a most respectable officer standing at point +duty a few yards lower down the road--must be well aware of these +disgraceful "goings on." + +For the first two or three months of his widowerhood (how else could he +term his present peculiar wifeless condition?) there had been a constant +coming and going of servants, first chosen, and then dismissed, by Maud. +At last she had suggested that her brother-in-law should engage a lady +housekeeper, and the luckless James Tapster had even interviewed several +applicants for the post after they had been chosen--sifted out, as it +were--by Maud. Unfortunately they had all been each more or less of his +own age; and plain--very plain; while he, naturally enough, would have +preferred to see something young and pretty about him again. + +It was over this housekeeper question that he had at last escaped from +Maud's domestic thraldom, for his sister-in-law, offended by his +rejection of each of her candidates, had declared that she would take no +more trouble about his household affairs! Nay, more; she had reminded +him with a smile which she had honestly tried to make pleasant, that +there is, after all, no fool like an old fool--about women! This +insinuation had made Mr. Tapster very angry, and straightway he had +engaged a respectable cook-housekeeper, and, although he had soon become +aware that the woman was feathering her own nest,--James Tapster, as you +will have divined ere now, was fond of good workaday phrases,--yet she +had a pleasant, respectful manner, and kept rough order among the +younger servants. + +Mr. Tapster's sister-in-law only now interfered where his children were +concerned. Never having been herself a mother, she had, of course, been +able to form a clear and unprejudiced judgment as to how children, and +especially as to how little boys, should be physically and mentally +trained. + +As yet, however, Maud had not been very successful with her two nephews +and infant niece, but this was doubtless owing to the fact that there +had been something gravely amiss with each of the five nurses who had +been successively engaged by her during the last year. + +The elder of Mr. Tapster's sons was six and the second four; the +youngest child, a little girl named unfortunately Flora after her +mother, was three years old. There had been a fourth, Flossy's second +baby, also a girl, who had only lived one day. All this being so, was it +not strange that a young matron who had led, for some four years out of +the eight years her married life had lasted, so wholly womanly and +domestic an existence as had fallen to the lot of Flossy, should have +been led astray by the meretricious allurements of unlawful +love?--Maud's striking thought and phrase this. + +And yet Flossy, in spite of her frivolity, had somehow managed the +children far better than Maud was now able to do. At the present time, +so Mr. Tapster admitted to himself with something very like an inward +groan, his two sons possessed every vice of which masculine infancy is +capable. They had become--so he was told by their indignant nurses--the +terror of the well-behaved children who shared with them the pleasures +of the Park Enclosure, where they took their daily exercise; and Baby, +once so sweet and good, was now very fretful and peevish. + + * * * * * + +Again the train of Mr. Tapster's mournful thoughts was disturbed by a +curious little sound--that of someone creeping softly down the staircase +leading from the upper floors. + +Once more he half rose from his chair, only to fall heavily back again +with a look of impotent annoyance on his round, whiskered face. Where +was the use of his going out into the hall and catching Nurse on her way +to the kitchen? Maud had declared, very early in the day, that there +should be as little communication as possible between the kitchen and +the nursery; but Mr. Tapster sometimes found himself in secret sympathy +with the two women whose disagreeable duty it was to be always with his +three turbulent children. + +Mr. Tapster frowned and stared gloomily into the fire; then he suddenly +pulled himself together rather sharply, for the door behind him had +slowly swung open. This was intolerable! The parlour-maid had again and +again been told that, whatever might have been the case in her former +places, no door in Mr. Tapster's house was to be opened without the +preliminary of a respectful knock. + +Fortified by the memory of what had been a positive order, he turned +round and nerved himself to deliver the necessary rebuke; but instead of +the shifty-eyed, impudent-looking woman he had thought to see, there +stood close to him, so close that he could almost have touched +her--Flossy, his wife, or rather the woman who, though no longer his +wife, had still, as he had been informed to his discomfiture, the right +to bear his name. + +A very strange feeling, and one so complicated that it sat uneasily upon +him, took instant possession of Mr. Tapster--anger, surprise, and relief +warred with one another in his heart. + +Then he began to think that his eyes must be playing him some curious +trick, for the figure at which he was staring remained strangely still +and motionless. + +Was it possible that his mind, dwelling constantly on Flossy, had evoked +her wraith? But, no; looking up in startled silence at the still figure +standing before him, he realised that not so would memory have conjured +up the pretty, bright little woman of whom he had once been proud. +Flossy still looked pretty, but she was thin and pale, and there were +dark rings round her eyes; also her dress was worn, her hat curiously +shabby. + +As Mr. Tapster stared up at her, noting these things, one of her hands +began playing nervously with the fringe of the dining-table cover, and +the other sought the back of what had once been one of her dining-room +chairs. + +As he watched her making these slight movements, nature so far +reasserted itself that a feeling of poignant regret, of pity for +her--as well as, of course, a much larger share of pity for +himself--came over James Tapster. + +Had Flossy spoken then,--had she possessed the intuitive knowledge of +men which is the gift of so many otherwise unintelligent women,--the +whole of Mr. Tapster's future, to say nothing of her own, might have +been different, and, it may be suggested, happier. + +But the moment of softening and mansuetude slipped quickly by, and was +succeeded by a burst of anger, for Mr. Tapster suddenly became aware +that Flossy's left hand, the little thin hand resting on the back of the +chair, was holding two keys which he recognised at once as his property. +The one was a replica of the latch-key which always hung on his +watch-chain, while the other and larger key, to which was attached a +brass tab bearing the name of Tapster and the address of the house, gave +access to the Enclosure Garden opposite Cumberland Crescent. + +Avoiding her eager, pitiful look, Mr. Tapster set himself to realise, +with a shrewdness for which William and Maud would never have given him +credit, what Flossy's possession of those two keys had meant during the +last few months. + +This woman, who both was and was not Mrs. Tapster, had retained the +power to come freely in and out of _his_ house! She had been able to +make her way, with or without the connivance of the servants, into _his_ +children's nursery at any hour of the day or night convenient to +herself. With the aid of that Enclosure key she had no doubt often seen +the children during their daily walk! In a word, Flossy had been able to +enjoy all the privileges of motherhood while having forfeited all those +of happy wifehood! + +His mind hastened heavily on--what a fool he must have looked before his +servants, how they must have laughed to think that he was being so +deceived and taken in! Why, even the policeman who stood at point duty +outside must have known all about it! + +Small wonder that Mr. Tapster felt extremely incensed; small wonder that +his heart, hardening, solidifying, expelled any feeling of pity provoked +by Flossy's sad and downcast appearance. + +"I must request you," he said, in a voice which even to himself sounded +harsh and needlessly loud, "to give up those keys which you hold in your +hand. You have no right to their possession, and I grieve to think that +you took advantage of my great distress of mind not to return them with +the things of which I sent you a list by my brother William. I cannot +believe"--and now Mr. Tapster lied as only the very truthful can lie on +occasion--"I cannot believe, I say, that you have taken advantage of my +having overlooked them, and that you have ever before to-night forced +yourself into this house! Still less can I believe that you have taught +our--_my_--children to deceive their father!" + +Even when uttering his first sentence he had noticed that there had come +over Flossy's face--which was thinner, if quite as pretty and +youthful-looking as when he had last seen it--an expression of obstinacy +which he had once well known and always dreaded. It had been Flossy's +one poor weapon against her husband's superior sense and power of +getting his own way, and sometimes it had vanquished him in that fair +fight which is always being waged between the average husband and wife. + +"You are right," she cried passionately; "I have not taught the children +to deceive you! I have never come into this house until I felt sure that +they were asleep and alone, though I've often wondered that they never +woke up and knew that their own mother was there! But more than once, +James, I've felt like going after that Society which looks after +badly-treated children--for the last nurse you had for them was so +cruel! If she hadn't left you soon I should have _had_ to do something. +I used to feel desperate when I saw her shake Baby in her pram; why, one +day, in the Enclosure, a lady spoke to her about it, and threatened to +tell her--her mistress----" + +Flossy's voice sank to a shamed whisper. The tears were rolling down her +cheeks; she was speaking in angry gasps, and what she said actually made +James Tapster feel, what he knew full well he had no reason to feel, +ashamed of himself. + +"That is why"--she went on--"that is why I have, as you say, forced +myself into your house, and why, too, I have now come here to ask you to +forgive me--to take me back--just for the sake of the children." + +Mr. Tapster's mind was one that travelled surely if slowly. He saw his +chance and seized it. + +"And why," he said impressively, "had that woman--the nurse, I mean--no +mistress? Tell me that, Flossy. You should have thought of all that +before you behaved as you did!" + +"I didn't know--I didn't think----" + +Mr. Tapster finished the sentence for her. "You didn't think," he +observed impressively, "that I should ever find you out." + +Then there came over him a morbid wish to discover--to learn from her +own lips--why Flossy had done such a shameful and extraordinary thing as +to be unfaithful to her marriage vow. + +"Whatever made you behave so?" he asked in a low voice. "I wasn't unkind +to you, was I? You had a nice, comfortable home, hadn't you?" + +"I was mad," she answered with a touch of sharp weariness. "I don't +suppose I could ever make you understand, and yet"--she looked at him +deprecatingly--"I suppose, James, that you too were young once, +and--and--mad?" + +Mr. Tapster stared at Flossy. What extraordinary things she said! Of +course he had been young once; for the matter of that he didn't feel +old--not to say old--even now. But he had always been perfectly +sane--she knew that well enough! As for her calling herself mad, that +was a mere figure of speech. Of course, in a sense she had been mad to +do what she had done, and he was glad that she now understood this, but +her saying so simply begged the whole question, and left him no wiser +than he was before. + +There was a long, tense silence between them. Then Mr. Tapster slowly +rose from his armchair and faced his wife. + +"I see," he said, "that William was right. I mean, I suppose I may take +it that that young fellow has gone and left you?" + +"Yes," she said, with a curious indifference, "he has gone and left me. +His father made him take a job out in Brazil just after the case was +through." + +"And what have you been doing since then?" asked Mr. Tapster +suspiciously. "How have you been living?" + +"His father gives me a pound a week." Flossy still spoke with that +curious indifference. "I tried to get something to do"--she hesitated, +then offered the lame explanation, "just to have something to do, for +I've been awfully lonely and miserable, James. But I don't seem to be +able to get anything." + +"If you had written to Mr. Greenfield or to William, they would have +told you that I had arranged for you to have an allowance," he said, and +then again he fell into silence.... + +Mr. Tapster was seeing a vision of himself magnanimous, +forgiving,--taking the peccant Flossy back to his heart, and becoming +once more, in a material sense, comfortable! If he acceded to her wish, +if he made up his mind to forgive her, he would have to begin life all +over again, move away from Cumberland Crescent to some distant place +where the story was not known,--perhaps to Clapham, where he had spent +his boyhood. + +But how about Maud? How about William? How about the very considerable +expense to which he had been put in connection with the divorce +proceedings? Was all that money to be wasted? + +Mr. Tapster suddenly saw the whole of his little world rising up in +judgment, smiling pityingly at his folly and weakness. During the whole +of a long and of what had been, till this last year, a very prosperous +life, Mr. Tapster had always steered his safe course by what may be +called the compass of public opinion, and now, when navigating an +unknown sea, he could not afford to throw that compass overboard, so---- + +"No," he said. "No, Flossy. It would not be right for me to take you +back. _It wouldn't do._" + +"Wouldn't it?" she asked piteously. "Oh! James, don't say no like that, +all at once! People do forgive each other--sometimes. I don't ask you to +be as kind to me as you were before; only to let me come home and see +after the children!" + +But Mr. Tapster shook his head. The children! Always the children! He +noticed, even now, that she didn't say a word of wanting to come back to +_him_; and yet he had been such a kind, nay, if Maud were to be +believed, such a foolishly indulgent, husband. + +And then Flossy looked so different. Mr. Tapster felt as if a stranger +were standing there before him. Her appearance of poverty shocked him. +Had she looked well and prosperous, he would have felt injured, and yet +her pinched face and shabby clothes certainly repelled him. So again he +shook his head, and there came into his face a look which Flossy had +always known in the old days to spell finality; when he again spoke she +saw that her knowledge had not misled her. + +"I don't want to be unkind," he said ponderously. "If you will only go +to William, or write to him if you would rather not go to the +office,"--Mr. Tapster did not like to think that anyone once closely +connected with him should "look like that" in his brother's +office,--"he will tell you what you had better do. I'm quite ready to +make you a handsome allowance--in fact, it's all arranged. You need not +have anything more to do with that fellow's father--an Army Colonel, +isn't he?--and his pound a week; but William thinks, and I must say I +agree, that you ought to go back to your maiden name, Flossy, as being +more fair to me." + +"And am I never to see the children again?" she asked. + +"No; it wouldn't be right for me to let you do so." + +He hesitated, then added, "They don't miss you any more now,"--with no +unkindly intent he concluded, "soon they'll have forgotten you +altogether." + +And then, just as Mr. Tapster was hesitating, seeking for a suitable and +not unkindly sentence of farewell, he saw a very strange, almost a +desperate, look come over Flossy's face, and, to his surprise, she +suddenly turned and left the room, closing the door very carefully +behind her. + +He stared after her. How very odd of her to say nothing! And what a +queer look had come over her face! He could not help feeling hurt that +she had not thanked him for what he knew to be a very generous and +unusual provision on the part of an injured husband.... Mr. Tapster took +a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and passed it twice over his face, +then once more he sought and sank into the armchair by the fire. + +Even now he still felt keenly conscious of Flossy's nearness. What could +she be doing? Then he straightened himself and listened. + +Yes, it was as he feared; she had gone upstairs--upstairs to look at the +children, for now he could hear her coming down again. How obstinate she +was--how obstinate and ungrateful! Mr. Tapster wished he had the courage +to go out into the hall and face her in order to tell her how wrong her +conduct was. Why, she had actually kept the keys--those keys that were +his property! + +Suddenly he heard her light footsteps hurrying down the hall; now she +was opening the front door,--it slammed, and again Mr. Tapster felt +pained to think how strangely indifferent Flossy was to his interests. +Why, what would the servants think, hearing the front door slam like +that? + +But still, now that it was over, he was glad the interview had taken +place, for henceforth--or so at least Mr. Tapster believed--the Flossy +of the past, the bright, pretty, prosperous Flossy of whom he had been +so proud, would cease to haunt him. + +He remembered with a feeling of relief that she was going to his brother +William; of course she would then, among greater renunciations, be +compelled to return the two keys, for they--that is, his brother and +himself--would have her in their power. They would not behave unkindly +to her--far from it; in fact, they would arrange for her to live with +some quiet, religious lady in a country town a few hours from London. +Mr. Tapster had not evolved this scheme for himself; it had been done in +a similar case--one of those cases which, in the long ago, when he was +still a single man, had aroused his pitying contempt for husbands who +allow themselves to be deceived. + +Then Mr. Tapster began going over each incident of the strange little +interview, for he wanted to tell his brother William exactly what had +taken place. + +His conscience was quite clear except with regard to one matter, and +that, after all, needn't be mentioned to William. He felt rather ashamed +of having asked the question which had provoked so wild an answer--so +unexpected a retort. + +Mad? What had Flossy meant by asking him if he had ever been mad? No +one had ever used the word in connection with James Tapster before--save +once. Oddly enough, that occasion also had been connected with Flossy in +a way; for it had happened when he had gone to tell William and Maud of +his engagement. + +It was on a fine day nine years ago come this May, and he had found +William and William's wife walking in their garden on Haverstock Hill. +His kind brother, as always, had been most sympathetic, and had even +made a suitable joke--Mr. Tapster remembered it very sadly +to-night--concerning the spring and a young man's fancy; but Maud had +been really disagreeable. She had said, "It's no use talking to you, +James, for you're mad--quite mad!" He had argued the matter out with her +good-temperedly, and William had supported him in pointing out that he +was doing an eminently sane thing in marrying Flossy Ball. But Maud +again and again had exclaimed, in her determined, aggravating voice, "I +say you are mad. They don't let lunatics marry--and just now you _are_ a +lunatic, James!" + +Strange that he should remember all this to-night; for, after all, it +had nothing to do with the present state of affairs. + +Mr. Tapster felt rather shaken and nervous; he pulled out his repeater +watch; but, alas! it was still very early--only ten minutes to nine. He +couldn't go to bed yet. Perhaps he would do well to join a club. He had +always thought rather poorly of men who belonged to clubs,--most of them +were idle, lazy fellows; but still, circumstances alter cases. + +Suddenly he began to wish that Flossy had remained a little longer. + +He thought of all sorts of things--improving, kindly remarks--he would +have liked to say to her. He blamed himself for not having offered her +any refreshment; she would probably have refused to take anything, but +still, it was wrong on his part not to have thought of it. A pound a +week for everything! No wonder she looked half starved. Why, his own +household bills, exclusive of wine or beer, had worked out, since he had +had this new expensive housekeeper, at something like fifteen shillings +a head--a fact which he had managed to conceal from Maud, who "did" her +William so well on exactly ten shillings and nine-pence all round! + + * * * * * + +It struck nine from the neighbouring church where Mr. Tapster had +sittings,--but where he seldom was able to go on Sunday mornings, for +he was proud of being among those old-fashioned folk who still regard +Sunday as essentially a day of rest,--and there came a sudden sound of +hoarse shouting from the road outside. + +Though he was glad of anything that broke the oppressive silence with +which he felt encompassed, Mr. Tapster found time to tell himself that +it was disgraceful that vulgar street brawlers should invade so quiet a +residential thoroughfare as Cumberland Crescent. But order would soon be +restored, for the sound of a policeman's whistle cut sharply through the +air. + +The noise, however, continued. He could hear the tramp of feet hurrying +past his house, and then leaving the pavement for the other side of the +road. What could be the matter? Something very exciting must be going on +just opposite his front door--that is, close to the Enclosure railings. + +Mr. Tapster got up from his chair, and walked in a leisurely way to the +wide window; he drew aside the thick red rep curtains, and lifted a +corner of the blind. + +Then, through the slightly foggy haze, he saw that which greatly +surprised him and made him feel actively indignant, for a string of +people, men, women, and boys, were hurrying into the Enclosure +garden--that sacred place set apart for the exclusive use of the +nobility and gentry who lived in Cumberland Crescent and the adjoining +terraces. + +What an abominable thing! Why, the grass would be all trampled down; and +these dirty people, these slum folk who seem to spring out of the earth +when anything of a disagreeable or shameful nature is taking place--a +fire, for instance, or a brawl--might easily bring infectious diseases +on to those gravel paths where the little Tapsters and their like run +about playing their innocent games. Some careless person had evidently +left the gate unlocked, and the fight, or whatever it was, must be +taking place inside the Enclosure! + +Had this been an ordinary night, Mr. Tapster would have gone back to the +fire, but now the need for human companionship was so strong upon him +that he stayed at the window, and went on staring at the curious +shadow-filled scene. + +Soon he saw with satisfaction that something like order was to be +restored. A stalwart policeman--in fact, his friend the officer who was +always at point duty some yards from his house--now stood at the gate +of the Enclosure, forbidding any further passing through. + +Mr. Tapster tried in vain to see what was going on inside the railings, +but everything beyond the brightly-lighted road was wrapped in grey +darkness. Someone suddenly held up high a flaming torch, and the watcher +at the window saw that the shadowy crowd which had managed to force its +way into the Park hung together, like bees swarming, on the further lawn +through which flowed the ornamental water. With the gleaming of the +yellow, wavering light there had fallen a sudden hush and silence, and +Mr. Tapster wondered uneasily what those people were doing there, and +what it was they were pressing forward so eagerly to see. + +Then he realised that it must have been a fight after all, for now the +crowd was parting in two, and down the lane so formed Mr. Tapster saw +coming towards the gate, and so in a sense towards himself, a rather +pitiful little procession. Someone had evidently been injured, and that +seriously, for four men, bearing a sheep-hurdle on which lay a huddled +mass, were walking slowly towards the guarded gate, and he heard +distinctly the gruffly uttered words: "Stand back, please--stand back +there! We're going to cross the road." + +The now large crowd suddenly swayed forward; indeed, to Mr. Tapster's +astonished eyes, they seemed to be actually making a rush for his house; +and a moment later they were pressing round his area railings. + +Looking down on the upturned faces below him, Mr. Tapster was very glad +that a stout pane of glass stood between himself and the +sinister-looking men and women who seemed to be staring up at him, or +rather at his windows, with faces full of cruel, wolfish curiosity. + +He let the blind fall to gently. His interest in the vulgar, sordid +scene had suddenly died down; the drama was now over; in a moment the +crowd would disperse, the human vermin--but Mr. Tapster would never have +used, even to himself, so coarse an expression--would be on their way +back to their burrows. But before he had even time to rearrange the +curtains in their right folds, there came a sudden, loud, persistent +knocking at his front door. + +Mr. Tapster turned sharply round, feeling justly incensed. Of course he +knew what it was,--some good-for-nothing urchin finding a vent for his +excited feelings. While it was quite proper that the police should have +hurried on with their still burden to the nearest hospital or workhouse +infirmary, they should have left at least one constable to keep order. +His parlour-maid, who was never in any hurry to open the door--she had +once kept him waiting ten minutes when he had forgotten his +latch-key--would certainly take no notice of this unseemly noise, but +he, James Tapster, would himself hurry out and try and catch the +delinquent, take his name and address, and thoroughly frighten him. + +As he reached the door of the dining-room Mr. Tapster heard the front +door open--open, too, and this was certainly very surprising, from the +outside! In the hall he saw that it was a policeman--in fact, the +officer on point duty close by--who had opened his front door, and +apparently with a latch-key. + +In the moment that elapsed before the constable spoke, Mr. Tapster's +mind had had time to formulate a new theory. How strange he had never +heard that the police have means of access to every house on their beat! +The fact surprised but did not alarm him, for our hero was one of the +great army of law-abiding citizens in whose eyes a policeman is no human +being, subject to the same laws, the same temptations and passions which +afflict ordinary humanity. No, no; in Mr. Tapster's eyes a constable +could do no wrong, although he might occasionally stretch a point to +oblige such a man as was Mr. Tapster himself. + +But what was the constable saying--speaking, as constables always do to +the Mr. Tapsters of this world, in respectful and subdued tones? + +"Can I just come in and speak to you, sir? There's been a sad +accident--your lady fallen in the water; we found these keys in her +pocket, and then someone said she was Mrs. Tapster,"--and the policeman +held out the two keys which had played a not unimportant part in Mr. +Tapster's interview with Flossy. + +"A man on the bridge saw her go in," went on the policeman, "so she +wasn't in the water long--something like a quarter of an hour--for we +soon found her. I suppose you would like her taken upstairs, sir?" + +"No, no," stammered Mr. Tapster, "not upstairs. The children are +upstairs." + +Mr. Tapster's round, prominent eyes were shadowed with a great horror +and an even greater surprise. He stood staring at the man before him, +his hands clasped in a wholly unconscious gesture of supplication. + +The constable gradually edged himself backwards into the dining-room. +Realising that he must take on himself the onus of decision, he gave a +quiet look round. + +"If that's the case," he said firmly, "we had better bring her in here. +That sofa that you have there, sir, will do nicely, for her to be laid +upon while they try to bring her round. We've got a doctor already----" + +Mr. Tapster bent his head; he was too much bewildered to propose any +other plan; and then he turned--turned to see his hall invaded by a +strange and sinister quartette. It was composed of two policemen and of +two of those loafers of whom he so greatly disapproved; they were +carrying a hurdle, from which Mr. Tapster quickly averted his eyes. + +But though he was able to shut out the sight he feared to see, he could +not prevent himself from hearing certain sounds--those, for instance, +made by the two loafers, who breathed with ostentatious difficulty as if +to show they were unaccustomed to bearing even so comparatively light a +burden as Flossy drowned. + +There came a sudden short whisper-filled delay; the doorway of the +dining-room was found to be too narrow, and the hurdle was perforce left +in the hall. + +An urgent voice, full of wholly unconscious irony, muttered in Mr. +Tapster's ear: "Of course you would like to see her, sir," and he felt +himself being propelled forward. Making an effort to bear himself so +that he should not feel afterwards ashamed of his lack of nerve, he +forced himself to stare with dread-filled yet fascinated eyes at that +which had just been laid upon the leather sofa. + +Flossy's hat--the shabby hat which had shocked Mr. Tapster's sense of +what was seemly--had gone; her fair hair had all come down, and hung in +pale, gold wisps about the face already fixed in the soft dignity which +seems so soon to drape the features of those who die by drowning. Her +widely-opened eyes were now wholly emptied of the anguish with which +they had gazed on Mr. Tapster in this very room less than an hour ago. +Her mean brown serge gown, from which the water was still dripping, +clung closely to her limbs, revealing the slender body which had four +times endured, on behalf of Mr. Tapster, the greatest of woman's natural +ordeals. But that thought, it is scarcely necessary to say, did not come +to add an extra pang to those which that unfortunate man was now +suffering; for Mr. Tapster naturally thought maternity was in every +married woman's day's work--and pleasure. + + * * * * * + +It might have been a moment, for all that he knew, or it might have been +an hour, when at last something came to relieve the unbearable tension +of Mr. Tapster's feelings. He had been standing aside helpless, aware of +and yet not watching the efforts made to restore Flossy to +consciousness. + +The doctor raised himself and straightened his cramped shoulders and +tired arms. With a look of great concern on his face he approached the +bereaved husband. + +"I'm afraid it's no good," he said; "the shock of the plunge in the cold +water probably killed her. She was evidently in poor health, and--and +ill-nourished. But, of course, we shall go on for some time longer, +and----" + +But whatever he had meant to say remained unspoken, for a telegraph boy, +with the impudence natural to his kind, was forcing his way into and +through the crowded room. + +"James Tapster, Esquire?" he cried in a high, childish treble. + +The master of the house held out his hand mechanically. He took the buff +envelope and stared down at it, sufficiently master of himself to +perceive that some fool had apparently imagined Cumberland Crescent to +be in South London; before his eyes swam the line, "Delayed in +transmission." Then, opening the envelope, he saw the message for which +he had now been waiting so eagerly for some days, but it was with +indifference that he read the words: + +"_The Decree has been made Absolute._" + + * * * * * + + + + +_BY MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES_ + +THE UTTERMOST FARTHING + +THE PULSE OF LIFE + +BARBARA REBELL + +THE HEART OF PENELOPE + +STUDIES IN WIVES + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Studies in Wives, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41415 *** |