"I fought with my friend last night.And it was not with honest swords;No steel sprang out to gleam and biteWe fought with poor, mean words."
"I fought with my friend last night.And it was not with honest swords;No steel sprang out to gleam and biteWe fought with poor, mean words."
"I fought with my friend last night.
And it was not with honest swords;
No steel sprang out to gleam and bite
We fought with poor, mean words."
THERE was a moment's silence, then Feathers went forward. The riotous blood in his veins had quieted and he felt a little cold and breathless.
"Hullo!" he said.
Chris looked up.
"Hullo! I thought I'd wait till you came in as they said you'd only just gone out."
"Yes . . . yes . . . I went down to the end of the road, that's all."
He poured out two whiskies with a hand that shook badly, and pushed one across to Chris.
"Have a drink?"
Chris tasted it and made a wry face.
"Lord! That's a strong dose," he said. He added more soda to it, but Feathers drained his at a gulp.
"Well, how goes it?" he asked. He sat down on the other side of the table, so that his face was out of the light. The room to him seemed filled with Marie's presence. It was so real that he wondered Chris did not guess she had been here.
Chris stood up, his shoulders against the mantelshelf.
His handsome eyes met his friend's with haggard pain.
"I've got something to tell you," he said. "I'm telling you because you've always been—been my best friend."
There was a little silence, then:
"Yes," said Feathers hoarsely. Chris told his story abruptly.
"Mrs. Heriot went to our place two days ago. You know Miss Webber267and I were golfing with them the day before."
"Yes."
Chris flushed and his eyes wavered.
"A damnable incident happened when we were down there—Miss Webber . . ." He could not go on.
Feathers nodded.
"I know. Don't trouble to explain. I could see it in Scotland. She thinks she is in love with you—is that it? and told you so? Mrs. Heriot overheard, or saw, and told . . . your wife . . . Go on."
Chris looked relieved.
"That's it, more or less. I swear to you that there was nothing in it on my side at all! I've never given the girl a thought, beyond to play golf with her; you know that!"
"Yes, go on!" There was a long silence.
"Marie won't believe me——" Chris said then brokenly. "She won't even let me explain. Miss Webber's brother died unexpectedly, and I took her back home. I only went because Marie and Aunt Madge both seemed to think I ought to. I never spoke a dozen words to the wretched girl the whole way; I didn't want to go with her. I stayed at an inn in Chester that night—her home is in Chester—and came back as soon as I could the next morning, and this is what I got! . . ." He dropped back into his chair despairingly. "She's done with me," he said hoarsely.
Feathers stared at his friend with strained eyes, and after a moment Chris started up once more.
"I'll kill that Heriot woman if I ever see her again," he broke out passionately. "I loathe women! They're cruel devils to each other! Why did she want to go and hurt Marie Celeste like that? We were getting on better together—things would have been all right, and then that hell-cat must needs come in and ruin everything . . ." His voice was choked and broken.
"She said she hated me—Marie said so," he stumbled on. "She looked as if she meant it, too . . . My God, you don't know what it was like, to have to stand there and listen! I think I went mad—I268know I hurt her, but I didn't know what I was doing . . . I'd give my soul to undo the past three months and start again. It's all been my fault!" He brought his clenched fist down on the table with a crash. "Blind, insensate fool that I am! I never knew that she was more to me than anything on earth . . ."
Feathers closed his eyes, and for a moment there was absolute silence. He had never heard Chris speak with such passionate despair before; had not believed him to be capable of so much feeling, and it drove home to him with brutal force the terrible tragedy upon the brink of which they now stood.
It was not merely his own happiness, or Marie's that was involved, but that of his friend as well, for Feathers knew with unerring instinct that Chris had only spoken the simple truth when he said that he loved his wife. He had been slow to realize it perhaps, but now it had come Feathers knew him sufficiently well to know that it would be deep and lasting.
He braced himself for the thing which he knew was yet to come, and a terrible feeling of enmity rose in his heart against this friend of his, who had never discovered that he loved Marie until the fact that he stood in great danger of losing her, had been driven home to him.
Half an hour ago Feathers had told himself that he must give her up, but now he had forgotten that, and all his love and strength rose in defense of her. She was his—he would hold her against all the world.
Chris was pacing the room agitatedly, and after a moment he broke out again:
"That isn't all—it isn't the worst—" he swung round looking at Feathers with haggard eyes. "How would you feel," he demanded hoarsely, "if your own wife told you that she cared for another man?"
There was a poignant silence, and as their eyes held one another, the realization came home to Feathers with overwhelming shock, that in spite of everything he had heard, in spite of what Marie herself had told him, Chris still trusted him and believed in him. He tried to find his voice, but it seemed to have deserted him, and as he269cast desperately about for words, Chris turned away and flung himself down into a chair, his face buried in his hands.
There was a long silence, then he said in a dreary, muffled voice:
"It's only what I deserve, I know—but . . ." He could not go on. He was up again, pacing the room in a frenzy of impotence.
Feathers watched him for a moment with beaten eyes, then he said jerkily:
"You didn't—didn't care for her when you were married, Chris? I thought—wasn't it—just to get the money?"
Chris turned his haggard face.
"To get what money?" he asked vaguely.
Feathers tried to explain.
"I was told—I understood—that the money was left to your wife—to your wife alone I mean, unless she consented to marry you, and that then . . . then you divided it."
Chris laughed mirthlessly.
"Good lord, it was the other way about," he said in a hard voice. "Her father was always a crank, and he never forgave her for not being a boy—that was why he adopted me. He left every farthing to me—and I knew how proud she was—knew she'd never take a shilling if she was told the truth about the will, so . . . so I married her to settle it! It seemed the best way out at the time," he added hopelessly. "I thought I was being rather clever . . . I know now what a damned fool I was."
Feathers got up slowly and, walking across to Chris, put his hands heavily on his shoulders, looking at him with desperate eyes.
"Is that the truth?" he asked hoarsely. "Will you swear that it's the truth?"
Chris stared at him in blank amazement.
"What on earth do you mean? Of course it's the truth. Ask Miss Chester if you don't believe me—she's known about it all along. It was she who first suggested keeping it from Marie . . . Here, I270say, what's the matter?"
"Nothing . . . I wish I'd known before, that's all." He laughed grimly. "Aston Knight told me a very different yarn," he broke out with violence after a moment. "He said that the money had been left to your wife, which was why you had married her—and I believed him! My God, what a fool!"
Chris was watching him with angry mystification.
"I don't know what you're driving at," he said shortly. "But I'm much obliged to you for the compliment, I'm sure. Marie hadn't a farthing when I married her—but I settled half of everything on her on our wedding day."
Feathers turned his white face.
"Why didn't you tell her the truth?" he asked with difficulty. "No good ever comes of lying and subterfuge and deceit . . ." He laughed grimly at his own words! He was a fine one to get up in the pulpit and preach when in another twenty-four hours he would have broken every code of honor and friendship.
It was trembling on his lips to tell Chris the whole truth, to keep back nothing from that first moment in the hotel lounge, when his too-ready tongue had started all the mischief.
But for him and his blundering, Chris and his wife would have been happy enough now. He seemed to see it all as plainly as if it were a picture unraveled before his eyes.
Marie had turned against Chris from the moment when she had overheard what he had said to Atkins. All her pride had been up in arms and had gone on increasing from that day until to-night, when in her desperation and unhappiness she had come to him.
"I don't know that it matters about not telling her," Chris said wretchedly. "She told me afterwards that she had known all the time, though God alone knows who told her."
There was a little silence; then:
"I did," said Feathers quietly.
271"You!" The blood rushed to Chris' face. He swung round and stared at his friend with hot eyes.
"You!" he said again.
"Yes; I was talking to Atkins in the lounge the first night you were married. I repeated to him what Aston Knight had told me—that you had married your wife for her money . . . and she overheard."
He looked at Chris' incredulous face.
"It's the truth," he said. "I never knew until weeks afterwards that she had overheard, until she told me herself, and even then I believed that I had only repeated what was true."
He smiled painfully. "Go on, curse me to all eternity; I deserve it; I've been at the bottom of all the mischief."
There was a terrible silence. Chris understood well enough now without further explanations, and for a moment he saw the world red. He broke out savagely:
"Then it's you I've got to thank! You, with your damned humbugging pretense of friendship trying to steal my wife——"
He raised his fist in blind passion, and Feathers broke out in an agony:
"Chris! for God's sake . . ."
There was something so tragic in his ugly face, that Chris' hand fell limply, and he turned away, leaning his arms on the mantelshelf and hiding his face.
"It's absurd to say I'm sorry," Feathers said after a moment dully. "One can't find adequate words for—for a thing like this . . . There's only one reparation I can make, Chris . . . to tell—your wife."
Chris did not answer, and he went on. "I should like to feel that you still trust me sufficiently to—to allow me to tell her."
Chris flung up his head.
"Nothing will do any good. She hates the sight of me—and I don't wonder—if that is what she thought." There was something like a sob in his voice, and Feathers winced.
The delirium of that hour with Marie seemed like a dream. What madness had possessed him? Her love had been given to Chris and no272one else. It was only in her unhappiness that she had turned to him, as a sick child will often turn to a stranger away from the one it really loves best in all the world.
The thought hurt unbearably, but he knew it was the truth—knew that his only reparation was to give her back to Chris.
Chris turned suddenly, his young face aged by pain and despair.
"She told me that she hated me." he said again. It seemed as if the fact was engraved on his heart and mind, to the exclusion of everything else. He broke off, breathing hard, as if he were choking. "She told me that she loved you—you who ruined my happiness and set her against me . . . Curse you, I say! Curse you to all eternity . . ."
"Chris, for God's sake!"
Chris turned away. He was shaking with passion, and for a long time neither of them spoke.
Then Feathers got up from the table and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Marie has never loved anyone but you," he said slowly. "She's been desperately unhappy, and when—when a woman is unhappy, she turns to the first friend who will listen to her! . . . Your wife turned to me . . . If I had been any other man, she would have done just the same. Will you believe me when I tell you that I know things are going to be all right? . . . Chris, for God's sake, believe me."
Chris shook his hand off impatiently.
"But when? How? You can't take away hatred with words." he said. "And she meant what she said . . . She's never looked at me like that in her life before . . ."
Feathers walked over to the window and looked out into the darkness. The stars seemed to be watching him with sympathetic eyes—the stars that were as far removed from him as was the woman he loved.
Chris spoke again presently:
"I'll get off. If I talk till Doomsday nothing can be done." He turned to the door. "Good-night." he said gruffly.
273Feathers held out his hand, but Chris would not see it, and he went out, shutting the door hard behind him.
Feathers stood at the window and listened to his steps dying away down the street. It was the end of their friendship, he knew, and the knowledge cut him to the heart.
He sat up all night, trying to make some sort of order out of his tangled thoughts. He would never see Marie again! He would write to her and explain.
But he knew she would be unconvinced by a letter, and, after all, what could he say that he would give her back her lost happiness, poor child!
He waited till ten o'clock the following morning and rang Chris on the 'phone.
The servant who answered it said that Mr. Lawless had gone out. "And—Mrs. Lawless?" Feathers asked.
"She has gone out, too—for the day," she said.
"With—with her husband?"
"Oh, no, sir!"
The surprise in the girl's voice was like a knife in his heart. So the servants knew how seldom Chris and his wife went about together; and it was all his doing!
Marie had gone out for the day! He knew only too well what that meant—that she had already left home forever, to join her life with his.
It was impossible to stop her now. He would have to go and meet her, as they had arranged last night.
He had told her to meet him at a little inn on the Oxford road. He had arranged to drive the car down in the evening and take her away!
Last night it had sounded like sense! But this morning . . .
Madness!—utter madness!
Twice during the morning he rang Chris again, but each time he was still out, and finally Feathers wrote to him.
He sent the note by a boy who lived in the house, and went round to the garage to fetch his car.
If Marie had gone to the inn earlier than he had told her, there was still time to tell her the truth and take her back home.
274It was afternoon then; an unusually hot day for September, with a curiously humid feeling in the air.
Feathers drove like a man in a dream. Everything seemed so unreal and impossible. He wondered what the end of it all would be.
It was only four o'clock when he reached the inn, but Marie was not there. He supposed he could hardly have expected her to be, seeing that he had not told her to meet him until eight that evening.
He remembered how he had calculated that it would be dark and that they could make their escape under cover of the friendly night. His whole soul writhed now as he thought of it. The shame of what he had done overwhelmed him.
He never knew how he got through the long hours. He could not keep still for a moment. In and out he wandered, looking up and down the long road by which she must come.
It seemed to get dark early. The river flowed close to the inn, and a curious gray mist rose from the fields and the water till almost a fog lay over the countryside.
Feathers suffered the tortures of the damned. His heart was sick with mingled dread and longing. One moment he was praying that she would not come, that at the last moment she would change her mind and not dare to face it, and the next his soul was in agony lest he should never see her again. A thousand times he went into the quiet little inn parlor and looked at the clock. It was five minutes to eight, and he had told Chris to be there at half-past seven! It had seemed the only way! If Chris came, between them they could tell her the whole story, but the clock struck the hour and there was no sign of Chris, no sign of Marie.
Feathers went to the door again. He was shaking as if with ague and his lips were like ice.
Had anything happened to her? He thought he should go mad with dread. He paced back into the inn again. Perhaps the clock was wrong—perhaps . . .
"Mr. Dakers," said a timid voice, and he turned slowly to find Marie beside him.
275
"I am old and very tired, though to strangers I am young;Life was just a sporting gamble, but for me the game is done;It was worth it, and I'm scoffing now the reckoning has come;That's the worst of too much loving—Hurts like Hades when it's done."
"I am old and very tired, though to strangers I am young;Life was just a sporting gamble, but for me the game is done;It was worth it, and I'm scoffing now the reckoning has come;That's the worst of too much loving—Hurts like Hades when it's done."
"I am old and very tired, though to strangers I am young;
Life was just a sporting gamble, but for me the game is done;
It was worth it, and I'm scoffing now the reckoning has come;
That's the worst of too much loving—
Hurts like Hades when it's done."
FEATHERS' relief was so great that at first he could not speak, and she went on tremulously: "I've been here ever so long, walking up and down the road." She cast a timid glance behind her. "I saw you"—she went on almost whispering. "But I was afraid. I thought— oh, I thought so many dreadful things." He could see how she was trembling, and he took her hand into a warm clasp. "Oh, I am so glad to be with you," she said passionately.
He drew her into the parlor, closing the door. Though the evening was warm a fire burned in the old-fashioned open grate, its flames throwing fantastic shadows on walls and low ceiling.
Feathers put Marie into a chair, and stood beside her.
"There is nothing to be afraid of," he said gently. "You are quite safe with me"—but he looked away from her as he spoke, and the devil of desire rose again in his heart, turning his blood to fire, and forcing his pulse to racing speed. In that moment he fought the hardest battle of his life, as he stood there, her soft fingers clinging to his, in the intimacy of the firelit room, and with the silent country lying all around them outside.
He was an ugly man, with a hulking, grotesque body, but there was something of the angel in his eyes when presently he looked down at the girl's bowed head.
"Marie—will you answer me one question?"
She nodded, her lips were trembling too much to speak.
276"Are you sure—can you tell me truthfully, with all your heart and soul, that you wish to come away with me to-night? that you know it is for your complete happiness?—that you have not one single fear, or regret?"
She nodded again, not looking at him.
"When you left me—last night," he insisted gently, "were you still quite happy?—perfectly happy?"
Silence now, then suddenly she looked up.
"Were you?" she whispered.
"No."
He never knew how he forced the word to his lips. The old longing was rending his heart, the old tempting whispers torturing him. Marie hid her face in her shaking hands.
Feathers sat down beside her. He put an arm round her shrinking figure as a big brother might have done, and his voice when he spoke was infinitely gentle.
"Last night was a dream," he said. "Let us forget it. I alone am to blame. No, no—let me go on," as she would have spoken. "No matter how much we might—I might love you, there are other things that count even more in the sum total of happiness—things I should be powerless to give you, and so . . . so we must forget . . . last night . . . and go back . . . . But you know that, Marie—without my telling you."
She looked up at him then, and suddenly she broke out wildly:
"It isn't that I don't love you—that I didn't mean it when I said I loved you. Oh, don't think that—don't think that!"
Feathers rose abruptly. He walked away from her, and his face was white, as Marie went on hopelessly.
"I can't explain myself—I don't understand myself. I only know that I've never been so happy in all my life as—as I was last night when—when you kissed me—I shall always remember it, always— It's too late to hope that I shall ever be happy with . . . with Chris—even if—if I wanted to; but—but he is my husband, and so . . ." She half turned, flinging despairing arms towards him. "Oh,277help me, please help me," she said sobbing.
Feathers came back to her, knelt down beside her, and took both her hands in his. The pallor had not left his face, but it was wonderful in its tenderness and his voice was infinitely gentle when he spoke.
"Chris came to my rooms last night—after . . . after you had gone." She looked up with terrified eyes.
"Chris!"
"Yes." Feathers drew a hard breath. "Marie, you know that . . . that he loves you, too?"
"Loves me!" she laughed harshly. "When he married me for my money— when he left me alone all those weeks! If it hadn't been for you . . ." She pushed his arm away and rose to her feet. "Oh, I don't want to talk about him. I never wish to see him any more."
Feathers stood up, so that his big figure was between her and the door.
"He is coming here—this evening—to take you home," he said.
For an instant she stared at him with an ashen face; then she gave a little stifled scream.
"No, no; I can't! I never want to see him again! Let me go! Oh! Let me go! I thought you loved me, and now this is what you have done."
He put her into the chair again, keeping her hands firmly in his. He told her as briefly as possible of his conversation last night with Chris.
"It was never the truth that he married you for your money," he said. He said it over and over again, trying to drive it home to her. She looked so dazed and white, almost like a sleep-walker who had been roughly aroused.
"I alone am to blame," he insisted quietly. "But for me Chris would have found out from the first that he loved you . . . Oh, Marie, try and understand, dear—try and understand."
She looked up at him with vague eyes and nodded vacantly.
She was trying to understand; she wanted to understand, but her brain refused to work.
278She kept telling herself that she was going back home, that Chris was coming to take her home, that she was not going away with Feathers, after all, that it had just been a sweet, impossible dream, but it all sounded like so much foolishness.
How could Chris possibly love her? How could he possibly wish to take her home after all that had happened? He would hate and despise her when he knew.
She felt so cold! Her hands were like ice, and yet her head was burning hot.
Feathers went on talking to her, and she tried to listen, tried to keep her thoughts concentrated, but they would wander away; then presently—after a long while it seemed—he lifted her to her feet, and she heard him say that Chris could not be coming now after all, that it was too late—that it was past nine o'clock.
She laughed because he seemed so distressed.
"I knew he wouldn't come," she said, but it did not seem to matter.
She let him help her into the car—the same car in which she had ridden with him happily so many times before. She wished she could feel that happiness now, but her heart felt all dead and cold.
"I knew Chris wouldn't come," she said again stupidly. "Not that it matters at all," she added, with an empty little laugh.
Nothing mattered! This second bid for happiness had failed as the first had done and she wished she could die.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked, as he folded the rug round her, and he answered "Home."
He looked up and down the road with haggard eyes, his ears strained for the sound of a car that might be bringing Chris. He could not understand why he had not come. He had counted on him with such passionate certainty that it never occurred to him for a moment that his note could have miscarried. His mind was racked with torturing doubts.
And all the time Marie's words were hammering against his brain, adding to his torture.
279"It isn't that I don't love you—that I didn't mean it when I said I loved you. . . ."
Was that the truth? And if so, was he doing the right thing by sending her back to her husband?
Until to-night he had only tried to cheat himself with the belief that she loved him, but now everything seemed changed, distorted.
It was unusually dark, and a thick mist from the river made it difficult to see more than a yard ahead, in spite of the bright headlamps of the car.
Feathers had been tinkering with the engine in order to gain time, but he closed down the bonnet now, and came to the side of the car where Marie sat.
"Are you ready?" he asked hoarsely.
"Yes—" he had turned to move away, when she caught his arm.
"If—if it's good-bye—" she said, in such a faint whisper that he could hardly hear the words. "I should . . . oh, I should like to kiss you once more."
For an instant he stood like a man turned to stone, then he turned deliberately, and crushed her in his arms.
For a long moment their lips clung together, and it seemed to Marie that in that kiss, Feathers gave her his heart and himself and all that he had—forever. When he released her and she sank back, trembling and faint, she heard his hoarse "God bless you" as if in a dream, and presently he was beside her, driving slowly back through the mist and darkness.
She only spoke to him once to say:
"Supposing—supposing they won't have me at home any more?"
The blood rushed to his face.
"We won't suppose anything so impossible," he said, but a fierce exultation passed through him; for if such a thing were to happen, he knew that she would be his in very truth.
280
"And if I die first, shall death be thenA lonesome watchtower whence I see you weep?"
"And if I die first, shall death be thenA lonesome watchtower whence I see you weep?"
"And if I die first, shall death be then
A lonesome watchtower whence I see you weep?"
CHRIS had gone out that morning without seeing either Miss Chester or his wife. His first passionate bitterness and anger against Feathers had passed, leaving him more wretched than he had ever been in his life, as he remembered their long friendship.
He who had never known trouble hitherto was almost crushed to the earth by it now; and the hardest part of it all to bear was the knowledge that to a large extent he and his selfishness had been to blame.
He told himself that he had no wish to see Feathers any more, and yet it was with the sneaking hope that he would find him there that he went to the club after having mooned about the West End all the morning.
He made a pretense of lunch, and drank three whiskies and sodas, which made him feel quarrelsome, and he had just decided that he would hunt up Aston Knight and tell him what he thought of him, when one of the waiters came to him in the smoking-room.
"If you please, sir, you are wanted on the 'phone; very urgent, if you please."
Chris was up in a second. There was only one thing in the world that could be urgent to him, he knew, and that was if it concerned Marie.
It was Miss Chester's maid, Greyson, who answered his impatient hullo, and his heart seemed to stop beating as he could hear the distress in her voice.
"Oh, sir, could you come home, please? I've been trying to find you all the morning. I rang up Mr. Daker's rooms, but you weren't there."
Chris struck in roughly:
281"Well, I'm here now. What is it? Can't you speak up?"
"It's Miss Chester, sir! She was all right when I called her this morning, but when I went up again . . ."
Chris caught his breath with a sob of relief. Only Aunt Madge! Thank God nothing was wrong with Marie.
"I'll come at once," he said, not waiting to hear any more. "Send for a doctor, and I'll come at once."
He hung up the receiver and sent for a taxi. He was home in less than ten minutes, to find the doctor's car at the gate. He ran up the steps hastily and was met by Greyson, who was crying bitterly.
"Well, how is she?" he asked.
"She's dead, sir," she told him, sobbing. "She was dead when I 'phoned you. I tried to tell you on the 'phone, but you wouldn't let me."
"Dead!" The news came as an awful shock to Chris. He stood quite still, his heart slowing down sickeningly; then he went on and up the stairs to Miss Chester's room.
He had expected to find Marie there, but only the doctor and housekeeper stood by the bed.
Miss Chester was lying just as if she were asleep, her white hair parted smoothly on either side of her face, and a little smile on her lips, as if behind her closed lids she was looking into the future and could see something that pleased her well.
Chris stood silently looking down at her. He had been very fond of her and she had always been very good to him. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his throat.
The housekeeper was sobbing quietly.
Chris looked at her. "Where's—my wife?" he asked in a whisper.
She shook her head.
"I don't know, sir; she went out almost directly after breakfast. Oh—the poor lamb, it will break her heart."
When Chris turned away, she followed him on to the Landing. She was carrying a big white woolly shawl over her arm.
Chris touched it. "Was she still working?" he asked. He knew it was282the shawl without which he had hardly ever seen Miss Chester.
The woman broke into fresh tears. She held the shawl up for his inspection.
"It's finished, sir! She must have put the last stitch into it just before she died, because Greyson said she was sitting up working at it when she called her this morning. She was so anxious to get it made—she always told me it was for Marie—for . . ."
"That will do," said Chris. He went downstairs and waited about till the doctor came down.
"There was nothing to be done," the doctor told him. "If I had been sitting beside her when it happened I could not have done anything." He looked at Chris' pale face sympathetically. "It's been a shock to you," he said. "And your wife—I am afraid she will feel it very much."
"Yes—especially as she was out." Chris spoke constrainedly. He dreaded having to break the news to Marie.
The afternoon went by, and she did not come. Greyson did not know where she had gone.
"Nobody rang her up?" Chris asked, with sudden apprehension.
"No, sir; Mr. Dakers rang up twice before lunch, but he asked for you."
Chris went to the 'phone and gave Feathers' number, but Feathers had gone out in the car, so they told him, and had left no word as to when he would return.
Greyson brought Chris some tea in the smoking-room, but he left it untouched.
"There are some letters, sir," she said, as she came to take the tray away, but Chris did not even glance at them.
His heart was racked with anxiety for his wife. He wished he had insisted on seeing her that morning and he blamed himself bitterly.
Evening came, but no Marie.
"I don't want any dinner," Chris said, when the servants begged him to eat. He wandered in and out of the house restlessly. He had rung up everyone where he thought there was the slightest chance of283finding Marie, but nobody had seen her. He had rung Feathers twenty times without result.
It was approaching seven o'clock before his eyes fell on the little heap of letters on the smoking-room table, and from sheer restlessness he took them up and opened them one by one.
A bill—a note from a man asking him to play golf—a letter in Miss Chester's writing, sent back from Scotland, and a note without a stamp.
He was about to throw the last listlessly aside as of no interest, when he recognized Feathers' writing.
With his heart racing, he broke open the flap and for a moment everything swam before his eyes, so that he could not read a word.
Dear Chris,—I rang you this morning, but they said you were out, so I am writing and sending the note by hand, as I want you to get it as soon as you come in. You will know by the time you receive this that your wife has left the house. If you had not come to my rooms last night and told me what you did, God only knows in what a tragedy we might have found ourselves. This morning I did my best to set things right, but I was too late, so am writing this note to you. You know the Yellow Sheaf on the Oxford road near Somerton Lock? If you will be there this evening at half-past seven you will find Mrs. Lawless. I know this is the end of our friendship, and through my fault My only excuse is that I thought I was a strong man, but perhaps we are all weak when it comes to the test— Feathers.
Half-past seven! It was nearly seven now, and Somerton Lock was forty miles away.
Chris never knew what happened during the next hour. He only came to himself again as he was driving like a madman through the darkening night, the cool breeze stinging his face.
She had gone—and with Feathers! His best friend had failed him, had lied to him and dishonored him! There was murder in Chris' heart as he stared ahead into the darkness and tried to control his thoughts.
284Twice he took the wrong road, and had to turn back, cursing and praying, and almost sobbing in his fear.
The darkness seemed to deepen in order to hamper him. As he neared the river a slight dip in the road plunged him into a thick mist that was almost a fog.
He had to slow down—could hardly see a yard ahead of him.
Once he stopped, and with the aid of a lamp from the car found a signpost.
Somerton Lock—one mile . . .
Almost there! He tried to believe it was not too late, tried to remember that for all these years Feathers had been his loyal friend. Once the car swerved under his shaking hand, and he had to stop dead with grinding brakes, thinking he was off the road.
It was then that he heard steps running up the road towards him, and a man's voice calling through the mist and darkness.
He started the car again impatiently, but as he did so a man's figure came out of the gloom into the uncertain light of his lamps.
"There's a car in the river . . . For God's sake, sir, come. It's a mile from the lock and not a soul nearer! Lost the road in this mist they must have done." He read the refusal in Chris' face, and he broke out again passionately, "Oh, for God's sake, sir! There's a woman in it!"
As if in corroboration of his statement, a frantic cry came faintly to them through the mist.
Chris hesitated no longer. He caught up a strap which lay at the bottom of the car and, dragging a lamp from its hook, ran back along the road with the man.
"Are you sure?" he asked breathlessly as they ran. "How can a car have got into the river?"
They were at the water's edge now and holding the lamp low down, they could see the wheel tracks through the damp, short grass on the bank and the broken rushes where the car had taken its plunge.
The river was deep there, but if it had been half the depth the danger would have been almost as great, for Chris knew that the car285would in all probability have turned over had it been going even at a moderate speed. He flung off his coat and, making a cup of his hands, shouted into the darkness:
"Hullo! Hullo!" And the same terrified voice cried in answer, only weaker now, and choking, as if already the silent flowing water had begun to take its toll.
Chris caught up the strap. He fastened one end round his wrist and gave the other to the man, who stood shaking and helpless beside him:
"Here! Take this, and don't let it go! I'm going in!"
He took the plunge through the darkness blindly. The water was icy cold as it closed over his head, and he could feel the rushes and weeds clutching at him as he struggled up to the surface.
He shouted again breathlessly, and the faint cry came again close beside him this time, it seemed.
He struck out desperately, every nerve strained, and then suddenly his hand came into contact with something which at first he thought was a man's arm, but it seemed to slip beneath the water before he could grip it.
He groped round desperately, cursing the darkness, and his fingers caught in the soft silkiness of a woman's hair.
There was no mistaking it this time. Twisting it anyhow about his wrist and arm so she could not slip from him, he turned for the bank again, guided by the strap which still held.
He was hampered by his clothes and the weight of the woman, though from what he could tell she seemed small and light enough, and he was almost exhausted by the time he reached the bank.
There were several figures there now, and a lantern flashed a bright light into his face as willing hands dragged him ashore with his burden.
He fell heavily as soon as he reached the bank and lay prone for a moment, panting and exhausted.
Someone came to his help, but he waved him away.
"I'm all right—there's another out there—a man, I think."
286Presently he struggled to his feet. The mist seemed to have risen a little, and above it a pale moon gleamed faintly down on to the silent river.
A small boat had been pushed off from the bank, and Chris could hear the splash of sculls through the mist.
A group of men were bending over the figure of a girl lying on the bank—the girl he had pulled from the water, Chris supposed. He drew a little nearer, and looked down at her as she lay there, the light of the lantern falling on her upturned face. Then he gave a great cry of agony and fell on his knees beside her, clutching her limp body with desperate hands for the girl was his own wife—Marie Celeste.
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"World if you know what is right,Take me in his stead,Bury me deep out of sight,I am the one that's dead."
"World if you know what is right,Take me in his stead,Bury me deep out of sight,I am the one that's dead."
"World if you know what is right,
Take me in his stead,
Bury me deep out of sight,
I am the one that's dead."
THEY took Marie back to the Yellow Sheaf Inn, on the Oxford road, carrying her on a rough stretcher made of a broken gate, covered with coats, and Chris walked beside her, holding her hand in his.
A doctor had come from Somerton, and they took her away from him upstairs, and shut the door.
The woman who kept the inn came up to him as he stood on the landing outside her room and tried to persuade him to come away and change his wet clothes.
"You'll take your death of cold," she said in kindly anger. "There's a suit of my husband's that you're welcome to, sir, I'm sure."
Chris thanked her absently, but hardly heard what she was saying. In his heart he was sure that Marie was dead, though as yet the shock of the tragedy kept him from feeling anything acutely.
It was a nightmare as yet—that was all! And he had the childish feeling that if he were patient, he would wake up and be able to laugh at it all.
Presently the woman climbed the stairs again with a cup of steaming coffee, into which she had put a strong dose of brandy. She stood over him as if she had been his mother while he drank it.
"It's no use everyone getting ill," she scolded. "If the poor dear in there wants you, you won't be in a fit state to go to her."
She had struck the right note, and Chris went off obediently to change his clothes.
The mist seemed to have quite cleared away as he looked towards the288window for a moment, and there was bright moonlight—as bright as it had been that night when he went out on to the sea with Mrs. Heriot and the skiff broke away—so long ago it seemed!
He shivered, and went back to the door of Marie's room.
Feathers was dead—he knew that now—but as yet had not been able to realize it. He knew that down on the river bank men were still searching for him—unsuccessfully. It was a horrible thought. He knew he would never be able to rid himself of the feeling of those slimy reeds and rushes that had tried to drag him down with them.
Feathers was dead! Chris knew that it must have been his arm about which his groping fingers had first closed. He shut his eyes with a sense of physical sickness.
Where was this tragedy, which had begun with his own selfishness, going to end?
Supposing Marie died, too! He gripped his arms above his heart as if to still the terrible pain that was rending him. He did not deserve that she should live, he knew. His face was ashen when presently her door opened and the doctor came out.
He was a young man and sympathetic. He put a kindly hand on Chris' shoulder.
"It's all right," he said. "She'll be all right—thanks to you. Shock to the system, of course, but"—he gave an exclamation of concern as Chris swayed—"you'd better come downstairs and let me prescribe for you," he said bluntly. "No, you can't see your wife yet. That face of yours would only make her worse."
He would not allow Chris to see her that night
"She must be kept perfectly quiet. My dear chap, listen to reason," he urged, when Chris objected. "Do you want to kill her outright? No? Very well, then, do as I say."
He hesitated, then asked: "Were you with her—in the car?"
289"No"—Chris' voice shook—"my friend was with her," he added, turning his face away.
"I see. Terrible thing—terrible!"
Chris followed him to the door.
"And—my wife? You are sure—quite sure?" he asked in agony.
"Quite sure . . . She wants rest, of course, but it's been a most wonderful escape." He hesitated. "They haven't found the other poor fellow yet?" he asked.
"No."
He saw the grief in Chris' face, and held out his hand.
"You did your best; it was a gallant thing—going into the river like that—in the darkness. They would both have gone but for you."
"You'd best go to bed, sir," the innkeeper's wife said to Chris, as he went back upstairs. "Lie down and try to sleep: I'll call you the very minute if she asks for you."
But he would not, and in the end she brought an armchair to the door of Marie's room, and, worn out with exhaustion and emotion, Chris fell asleep in it.
He woke to daylight and the tramp of feet on the road outside. He stared up and stood listening and shaking in every limb.
He knew what it meant—they were bringing Feathers in . . .
The awfulness of it seemed to come home to him with overwhelming force as he stood there and listened.
He had lost his best friend—the man who for years had been more to him than a brother, and they had parted in anger. He had refused to shake hands with him—he would have given five years of his life now to live that moment again.
The innkeeper's wife came tiptoeing to him across the little landing as he stood looking out of the window on to the road. She had been up with Marie all night, and whispered to him now that she had fallen asleep.
"Such a lovely sleep, bless her!" she said, with pride. "And if you was to be very quiet . . ."
290No more words were needed. Chris went past her and into the room where Marie lay.
She was fast asleep, her hair spread out over the pillow like a dark wing, and Chris went down on his knees beside her and hid his face. She had nobody now in the world but him—Miss Chester had gone, and Feathers. . . Oh, he would make it up to her! He would spend his whole life trying to make up to her all she had suffered.
"I love you, I love you," he said aloud, as if she could hear, but she did not move or stir, and presently he went away again.
He had not kissed her—not even her hands. Something seemed to hold him back from doing so, until she herself should say that he might.
The news of the accident had spread like wildfire, and all the morning people were walking out from the villages round about to stare with morbid interest at the spot on the river bank where the car had plunged into the water, or to crowd outside the inn in the hope of catching a glimpse of Chris.
The doctor came again, and was very pleased with Marie's progress.
"I think she could be taken home to-day," he told Chris. "It will be just as well to get her from this place."
Chris said he would make all arrangements.
"I can see her, of course?" he asked.
"Yes." But the doctor looked away from his anxious eyes. "I should not worry her or question her at all," he said diffidently, and then he added uncomfortably: "She seems somehow afraid at the thought of seeing you."
"Afraid!" The color rushed to Chris' face.
"Yes. Perhaps it is only my fancy, but she seemed nervous, I thought, when I mentioned you." He looked at the young man kindly. "Be gentle with her," he said, "I think she has suffered very much."
Chris did not answer, and the doctor went away.
Afraid! Afraid of him, when he loved her so! It was another hard blow to Chris to feel that Marie did not wish to see him. He tried291to make allowances for her. He knew what she had suffered. With sudden impulse he ran downstairs, overtaking the doctor in the hall below.
"My wife—does she know—that . . . that Feathers was drowned?" he asked jaggedly.
"Feathers?" the other man echoed, not understanding. "Oh you mean that poor fellow. Yes—I told her——"
"What—what did she say?"
"Nothing—she just turned her face away."
"I see. Thank you." Chris went upstairs slowly. He stood for a long time at his wife's door, not daring to knock, but at last he summoned his courage.
He heard her say "Come in" in a little quiet voice, and he opened the door.
She was dressed and sitting up in a big chair. She did not look so ill as he had expected, was his first relieved thought, and yet in some strange way she seemed to have changed. Was it that she looked older? He could not determine, but her eyes met his steadily, almost as if she did not recognize him, and her voice was quite even as she answered his broken question.
"I am—much better, thank you," and then: "The doctor says I may go home."
"Yes—I will take you this afternoon."
She twisted her fingers together restlessly, her eyes downcast, then quite suddenly she raised them to his face.
"I wish you had let me drown," she said, with passionate intensity.
"Marie—Marie," said Chris, in anguish.
She seemed heedless of his pain and went on talking as if to herself. "I'm no use to anybody. I bring nothing but trouble with me! That fortune-teller was right, you see, when she told me that she could see water in my life again—that would bring trouble . . . and tears!" Her voice fell almost to a whisper.
Chris stood looking at her helplessly. She seemed in some strange292way to be a great distance from him and yet by putting out his hand he could have touched her.
"Feathers gave his life for me" she went on, in that curious sing- song tone. "He could have saved himself, but he would not leave me— and we were . . . oh, hours in that dreadful darkness!"
"Don't think of it, Marie! Oh, my dear, try and forget it all."
She raised her haunted brown eyes to his face.
"I can't! I can't hear anything any more but the sound of that dreadful river! It was like a voice, mocking us. And he was so brave!" She caught her breath with a long, shuddering sob, but no tears came.
"I am glad that he loved me," she said again presently. "It is something to be proud of—always—that Feathers loved me."
Chris could not bear to look at her tragic face She had no thought for him, he knew, but she had never been so inexpressibly dear to him as she was now.
He was at his wits' end to know what to do with her. It was impossible to take her home with Miss Chester lying dead in the house, and there seemed nobody to whom he could turn for help.
Presently, he said gently:
"I shall have to run up to Town this afternoon—only for an hour or two. I shall come back as soon as possible. You don't mind, Marie?"
"Oh, no!" She seemed surprised at the question. "I shall be quite all right."
But still he lingered. He longed to put his arms round her and speak the many wild, passionate words of remorse and grief that trembled on his lips, but the new inexplicable aloofness of that girlish figure held him back.
"You are quite sure you don't mind being left?" he asked again. He longed for her to say that she wanted him to stay, but Marie only shook her head.
"I shall be quite all right," she said, apathetically.
He left her then, and presently from the window Marie saw him driving away down the road.
293She gave a little sigh of relief, and for a moment covered her face with her hands.
She was free for a little while at last—free from the possibility of interruption. She crossed the room and opened the door. The little inn was very quiet, and nobody seemed to hear her step as she crept down the stairs and across the narrow, uneven hall to a closed door. She knew what lay behind that door, and for a moment she caught at the banisters with a sick feeling of anguish before she went steadily on and turned the handle.
294