He glared at them for a moment before he fully took it in. The Seer, thus suddenly surprised, loosed his hold on Linnet, and drew back instinctively. But an awful feeling of doubt came over Linnet’s mind. The position was most equivocal—nay, even compromising. Would Andreas misunderstand what this man was doing with her—one hand held on her wrist, and one clutching at her bosom?
But Andreas knew that simple loyal nature too well to doubt her relations with anyone—except Will Deverill. As he stood there and stared, he saw only that the American had been offering violence—personal violence—to Linnet. His hot Tyrolese blood boiled at once at that insult. He sprang forward and caught Joaquin Holmes by the throat. “You scoundrel!” he cried through his clenched teeth; “what are you doing to my wife? How dare you touch her like that? How dare you lay your blackguard hands upon her?”
The Coloradan freed himself with a jerk, and shook off his assailant, for he was a powerful man, too, though less sturdy than Andreas. He drew back half-a-pace, and faced the infuriated husband. His hand wandered half mechanically to the faithful six-shooter, which after all those years in civilised England old habit still made him carry always in his pocket. But he thought better of it after a moment—these Britishers have such a nasty insular way of stringing one up for the merest accident!—and answered instead, with an ugly smile, “It’sherfault, not mine. She snatched a letter away from me. It’s my own, and I want it back. She won’t give it up to me.”
Andreas Hausberger had his faults; but he had too much sense of dignity to bandy words with an intruder who had insulted his wife—above all, to bandy them in his wife’s very presence. It mattered little to him just then what that question about the letter might really import. He stepped forward in his wrath once more, and caught the Seer by the shoulders. “You cur!” he cried, pushing him before him. “How dare you answer me like that?” And, with a sudden wrench, he flung the fellow against the door, bruising and hurting him violently.
The Coloradan rushed back on him. There was a short, sharp scuffle. Then Andreas, getting the better, opened the door with a dash, and dragged his opponent after him. At the head of the stairs, he paused, and gave him a sounding kick. The Coloradan writhed and squirmed, but, strong as he was, he found himself no match for the gigantic Tyroler. Besides, he was less used than his antagonist to these hand-to-hand struggles. Andreas, for his part, was quite in his element. “AWirthwho can’t turn out a noisy or drunken guest, isn’t worth his salt,” he had said one day to Florian long ago in the Zillerthal; he was well used, indeed, of old to such impromptu encounters. The Seer on the contrary was more accustomed to the bowie and the six-shooter than to wrestling and scuffling. He yielded after a moment to Andreas’s heavy hand, only stopping to shout back through the open drawing-room door, “Then you owe me fifty pounds, Signora, for that letter!”
Andreas hauled him down the stairs, dragged him, half-resisting, through the hall and vestibule, opened the front door with one free hand, hastily, and kicked his man down the steps with a volley of angry oaths in his native German. Then he slammed the door in the face of the discomfited Seer (who had rushed back again to assault him), and went upstairs once more, as outwardly cool as he could, but hot in the face and hotter at heart, to Linnet.
Linnet was really grateful to him. The man had frightened her. For the first time in her life, she admired her husband. The natural admiration that all her sex feel for physical strength and prowess in men was exceptionally marked in her, as in most other women of primitive communities. “Thank you,” she said simply, as Andreas strolled in, trying to look unconcerned, with his hands in his pockets, and confronted her stonily. “The man hurt my wrist. If you hadn’t come in, I don’t know what on earth he might ever have done to me.”
Andreas stared at her in silence with close-knit brows for half-a-minute. Then he said in an insolent tone, “Now, tell me, what’s all this fuss he was making about some letter?”
His question brought Linnet back to herself with a sudden revulsion of feeling. In the tremulousness of those two scuffles, she had almost forgotten for the moment all about the first cause of them. But now, she looked her husband back straight in the face, and, without flinching or hesitating, she answered him in a scarcely audible voice, “He brought me the last letter you wrote to Philippina. The one making an appointment at the usual place for three to-morrow. I don’t know how he got it, but he wanted to sell it to me.”
Andreas never moved a muscle of that impassive face, but his colour came and went, and his breath stopped short, as he stood still and stared at her. “My last letter to Philippina!” he repeated, with a glow of shame. “And that fellow dared to show it to you! I’d have choked him if I’d known! The mean scoundrelly eavesdropper!”
Linnet folded her hands in front of her where she sat on her low chair. Her air was resigned. She hardly seemed to notice him. “You needn’t be afraid,” she said. “It’s no matter to me. I guessed all that long ago. I didn’t want your letters, or hers either, to prove it to me. I told him as much. To me, at least, it’s no matter.”
“And he offered to sell it you?” Andreas cried, growing in wrath. “He tried to make money of it! What did he want you to buy it for?”
“He said I could get a divorce with it,” Linnet answered simply.
“A divorce!” Andreas shouted, losing control of himself for once. That word went straight home to all the deepest chords in his sordid nature. “He wanted to egg you on, then, to try and get a divorce from me! He wanted to cheat me of all I’ve worked and toiled for!” He flung himself into a chair, and clenched his fists, and ground his teeth. “The damned rogue!” he cried once more. “When I get at him, oh, I’ll throttle him!”
He sat for a minute or two revolving many things angrily in his own burning soul. He had not only Linnet to think of now, but Philippina, too, and her husband. Heaven only knew what harm that man might do him in revenge for his drubbing—what scandal he might raise, what devils he might let loose upon him. If Linnet left him now, all the world would say she was amply justified. And the English law would allow her a divorce! No; not without cruelty! and he had never been cruel to her. There was comfort in that: he consoled himself in part with it. He had spoken harshly to her at times, perhaps, and taken care of her money for her—women are so reckless that a man must needs look after them. But cruel! oh no, no; she could never provethatagainst him!
“Divorce!” he said slowly, knitting his brows, and leaning forward. “He talked to you of divorce, Linnet! That’s all pure gammon. There’s no divorce for a woman, by English law, without cruelty or desertion. I’ve never been cruel to you, and I’m not likely to desert you. You can’t get a divorce, I say. You can’t get a divorce! You surely didn’t promise him fifty pounds for that letter!”
“No; I didn’t,” Linnet answered. “I told him I didn’t want it. Divorce would be no use in the world to me. I’m a Catholic, as you know, and I believe my religion.”
Andreas stared at her hard. He fingered his chin thoughtfully. She had struck the right chord. How foolish of him in his haste not to have thought of that by pure instinct! Divorce, indeed! Why, of course, the Church wouldn’t hear of it. To think that a Tyrolese woman would accept the verdict of a mere earthly court to dissolve a holy sacrament! “You’re quite right,” he muttered slowly, nodding his head once or twice; “divorce is pure sacrilege. There’s no such thing known in the Catholic Church; there’s no such thing known in the Austrian Empire.”
He subsided for a moment. Then, all at once, with a bound, another emotion got the better of him. He must go out without delay and inquire how all this bother got abroad from Philippina. And yet—’twas hard to know how he could govern himself aright. Not for worlds would he let Will Deverill come to the house in his absence now, after all that had happened. Linnet hadn’t seen him yet since her return from Italy. If he came in, as things stood, and found her in her present mood, Andreas felt he himself couldn’t answer for the consequences.
He paused, and reflected. For Philippina’s sake, for his own, nay, even for Linnet’s, he knew he must go out without one minute’s delay, to prevent further mischief with Theodore Livingstone. But still—it was dangerous to go away from Linnet. Yet he must make up his mind one way or the other; and he made it up quickly. “I’m going out,” he said in his curt tone, turning sharply to his wife, without one word of apology or explanation; “but before I go, I’ve a message to give the housemaid.”
“Go when you like,” Linnet answered coldly. Little as she cared for him now, little as she ever cared for him, it hurt her feelings none the less that he shouldn’t even try to explain or to excuse himself. His very silence was insolent. She felt it keenly.
Andreas rang the bell, and then crossed his arms in a sullen fashion. That attitude alone seemed to exasperate Linnet. The housemaid answered the bell. He looked up at her with a scowl. “Ellen,” he said, in a very slow and deliberate voice, “If Mr Will Deverill should call while I’m out, will you tell him the Signora’s not at home to-day? She’s never at home to him, you may say, except when I’m present.”
Linnet’s blood was boiling. These perpetual insults before her own servants’ eyes were driving her fast into open rebellion. She answered not a word, but rose with dignity, and went over like a queen to her davenport in the corner. “Stop, Ellen,” she said calmly, restraining herself with an effort. “I’ve a note I want you to post. Stand there, and wait till I’ve written it.” She turned to her husband, whose hand was on the door-handle. “Don’t go, Andreas,” she said in her most authoritative voice. “I wish you to read it before I have it posted.”
She sat down and wrote hastily. Then she directed an envelope. She was prepared for a scene; but if a scene arose, she was determined it should be before a friendly witness Ellen stood by, demure, in her cap and apron. Linnet spoke in English, that she might know what happened.
“I’ve written to Mr Deverill,” she said, as calmly as she could manage, though her voice trembled somewhat. “We haven’t seen him yet since we came back to London. And this is what I’ve said: I hope you’ll approve of it:—
“ ‘My dear Mr Deverill,—It will give my husband and myself great pleasure if you’ll lunch with us here at two next Thursday. We want to talk over our Italian experiences.—Yours sincerely,Linnet Hausberger.’ ”
“ ‘My dear Mr Deverill,—It will give my husband and myself great pleasure if you’ll lunch with us here at two next Thursday. We want to talk over our Italian experiences.—
Yours sincerely,
Linnet Hausberger.’ ”
Andreas darted at her, livid with rage and jealousy. “You shall not send that note!” he exclaimed, in German. “I forbid him the house. He shall not come near you.”
Linnet darted aside, for her part, and held the note out to Ellen. The girl, terrified at such a scene, and at her master’s loud voice, drew back, not daring to interpose or to take it. Linnet held it at arm’s-length. Andreas seized her arm and wrenched it. “You shan’t send it,” he cried once more, clutching her wrist with his hand till his nails drew blood from it. He tried to seize the note again, but Linnet was strong and resisted him. He flung her violently to the ground; but still she held it out, crying, “Here, post it, Ellen!” Andreas was beside himself now with rage and fury. He struck her several times; he hit her wildly with his fist; he caught her by the hair and shook her angrily like a bulldog. The marks of his hands showed red through her thin dress upon her neck and shoulders. At last he seized the note, and tore it into shreds, flung the tatters into her face, and struck her again heavily. Linnet bent down and let him strike. Her blood was up now. She was angry too. And she also had inherited the hot heart of the Tyrol.
At last, Andreas’s passion cooled down of pure fatigue, and, with a final oath or two, he turned on his heel and left her. As he quitted the room, he stood for a second with his hand on the door, looking round at the startled and horrified maid-servant. “Mind, Ellen,” he said, huskily, “post no letters for your mistress this afternoon; and if the man Deverill calls, she isn’t at home to him.”
But, as the front door closed with a snap behind him, it came back to him all at once, that wise and prudent man, that he had played into her rebellious hands all unawares; he had given her the one plea she still needed for a divorce—the plea of cruelty.
Linnet took less than one minute to make up her mind. Not twice in his life should Andreas treat her so before her own servants. She was too proud to cry; but as soon as her husband had left the room she picked herself up from the floor where he had brutally flung her, wiped the blood from her arm, smoothed her hair with her hand, and motioned silently to Ellen to follow her into her bedroom. She motioned to her, because she couldn’t trust herself to speak without crying, and never now should she allow that hateful man to wring a single tear from her. In those few brief moments, she had decided once for all what she meant to do. After all that had passed just now, she must leave him instantly. The crisis had come; Andreas Hausberger should suffer for it.
Hastily, with Ellen’s aid, she packed a few things into her little portmanteau. She put in just what she would most need for some evenings’ stay; she put in also her diamonds and the rest of her jewellery, not omitting the coral necklet Will Deverill gave her long ago in the Tyrol. Luckily, she had in her desk the week’s money for the housekeeping. She took it out—it was her own—and turned more calmly to Ellen. “My child,” she said, laying two sovereigns in her hand, “will you come with me where I go? Remember, Mr Hausberger says you’rehisservant.”
And the girl, looking up at her with a burst of compassion and enthusiastic affection, made answer at once: “I’d go with you, Signora, if they was to cut off my head for it. How dare he ever treat you so—such a man as him—and you a lady anyone ’ud love to die for!”
“Thank you, dear,” Linnet said, much touched; for to her, even her servants were perfectly human. “Then run up and put your things on as fast as you can, and ask Maria to call a hansom.”
When it came to the door, she stepped in, and Ellen after her. “Where shall I drive, Mum?” the cabman asked. And Linnet, through the flap, made answer boldly, “To Duke Street, St James’s.”
“That’s where Mr Deverill lives, ma’am, isn’t it?” Ellen interposed, somewhat tremulously.
“Yes, child,” Linnet answered, with a choking voice, but very firmly still, for she had quite made her mind up. “Mr Deverill lives there—and I’m going to Mr Deverill’s. I’ve no right to go—but I’m going, all the same. If you’d rather not come, you can leave me at the door. You know what it means. Perhaps it would be better.”
The girl glanced back at her, all flushed. “I don’t care a pin whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong,” she answered warmly. “I’ll go with you to the world’s end. I’ll go with you anywhere. I’d go with you if you was going to the worst house in London.”
Linnet answered nothing. She was red with shame—the very words appalled her—but she meant to go through with it. Too long had she trampled her own heart under foot; now her heart would have its way, and she meant to allow it. Her fiery Southern blood had got the better of her. She would fly from the man who had married her only for what he could make of her, to the man she had always truly loved—the man who had always truly loved her.
“Is Mr Deverill in?” she asked with a beating heart of the servant at the lodgings. And when the man answered, “Yes, ma’am,” in an unconcerned tone, her heart rose like a lump in her throat within her.
But she kept her exterior coolness. “Bring in the portmanteau, Ellen,” she said, with a quiet air of command; and the girl obeyed her. “Now, sit there in the hall till I come down again and call you.”
She trod the stairs like a queen. Will Deverill was seated at his desk at work, when the servant flung open the door with a flourish, and announced, in his most grandiose tone, “Signora Casalmonte!”
Will looked up in surprise, and saw Linnet before him.
Her face, which had been flushed five minutes earlier, was now pale and bloodless with intense excitement. Marks of fingers stood out on her neck and wrists; a slight bruise scarred the surface of her smooth left temple. But she was beautiful still, in spite of all such accidents—very beautiful and winning. She stood a second and gazed at him. At sight of her one true love, her bosom rose and fell; that strange wave of delight she had felt at Innsbruck, and again at the Harmony, thrilled once more through and through her. Of a sudden, as she paused, her face flushed rosy red again, her eyes grew bright, her full throat heaved and panted. She spread out her arms towards him with a hasty little quiver. “O Will, Will, Will,” she cried, in a voice of complete and intense self-surrender; “at last—I have come to you!”
Will rose in surprise and moved across to her, trembling. He seized her two hands in his and gazed at her longingly. “Linnet, dear Linnet,” he cried, drawing a very deep breath; “what has brought you here to-day? What on earth do you mean by it?”
But Linnet had flung away all artificial restraints and conventions now. She abandoned herself to her love with the perfect abandonment of a pure and good woman, when once she has made up her mind to repress nature no longer. With a wild impulse of delight, she flung herself bodily into her lover’s arms. She flung herself into Will’s arms, and buried her head confidingly on his tender shoulder. Then she broke into a storm of deep-drawn sobs. “It means,” she cried, between little bursts, “I’ve left him for ever. That man I never loved, I’ve left him for ever. And I’ve come home at last where I ought to have come to nestle long ago. Will, Will, dear Will—will you take me? May I stop with you?”
In a transport of joy, Will clasped her to his bosom. Not to have done so, indeed, would have been more—or less—than human. No man can even pretend to be otherwise than overjoyed when the woman he loves flings herself into his arms for the first time in a fierce access of passion. He clasped her long and hard, breast pressed against heaving breast, and lips meeting lips in a sharp shower of kisses. For some minutes they neither knew, nor felt, nor remembered, nor thought of anything else on earth save their present intoxication. But surely those minutes were in themselves worth living for! What mattered so many years of cruel and unnatural repression beside that one fierce draught at the hot wine of passion?
After a while, however, Will woke up to a true sense of the situation. Man though he was, and therefore aggressive, it was his duty first of all to think of protecting Linnet. He must protect her, if need were, even against her own impulses. He must learn what she meant, and what could have led her so suddenly to this strange decision—so unlike herself, so untrue, as it seemed, to her whole past history.
He unwound his arms gently, and placed the poor sobbing, throbbing girl, half-unresisted, in an arm-chair by the fireplace. Then he drew up a seat for himself very close by her side, took her hand in his, and soothed it gently with his other one. “He’s been cruel to you, Linnet, I can see,” he murmured softly at her ear. “Now, what has led you to this? Tell me all he has done to you.”
Thereat, Linnet, holding his hand hard, and looking deep into his eyes, yet crimson for very shame, began in her own tongue the story of their interview. She hid nothing from Will, and extenuated nothing. She told him in full how Joaquin Holmes had brought her Andreas’s letter to Philippina and offered it for sale; how she had refused to buy it, or have anything to do with it; how he had dropped it by accident and she had picked it up before him, intending to restore it to its rightful owner; how a scuffle had ensued, in the midst of which Andreas had unexpectedly entered; how in his wrath at being discovered, he had fairly lost his temper, and provoked her for once to an act of rebellion; and how in his rage at her note he had turned upon her bodily, and inflicted the marks Will could see so plainly now upon her person. Only the question of divorce she never touched on; a certain feminine delicacy made her shrink from alluding to it. Will listened to every word with profound attention, letting her tell her own tale her own way, unquestioned, but stroking her hand from time to time very gently with his own, or smoothing her fiery cheeks with the tips of his fingers in silent sympathy.
At last she ceased, and looked hard at Will, inquiringly.
“So I’ve come to you, Will,” she said, in her simple way, with childlike confidence; “and, now I’ve come, may I stop with you always? May I never go away again?”
Will’s heart beat high. Her loving trust, her perfect self-surrender, could not fail to touch him. Yet he gazed at her ruefully. “My darling,” he said with a burst, belying his words as he spoke by laying her soft head once more in the hollow of his shoulder; “you shouldn’t have come to me. You’ve done very very wrong—very foolishly I mean. I’m the exact last person on earth you should have come to.”
Linnet nestled to him close. “But Iloveyou,” she cried, pleadingly. “You’re the only living soul I’d have cared to come to.”
“Yes, yes; I know,” Will answered hastily. “I didn’t mean that, of course. You’re mine, mine, mine! Sooner or later, now, you must certainly come to me. But for the present, darling, I mean, it’s so unwise, so foolish. It’ll prejudice your case, if it ever comes to be heard of. We must take you somewhere else—somewhere free from all blame, don’t you see—for the immediate future.”
“Prejudice my case!” Linnet exclaimed, looking up at him in amazement, and growing more shamefaced still with awe at her own boldness. “You must take me somewhere else! Ah, Will, I don’t understand you. No, no; I must stop here—I must stop here with you for ever. I’ve broken away from him now; I’ve broken away from everything. I can never, never go back. I’m yours, and yours only.”
“No; you can never go back, Linnet,” Will answered decisively. “You’re mine, darling, mine, mine, mine only”; and he kissed her again fervently. “But we must be prudent, of course, if we’re to make this thing straight before the eyes of the world; and foryoursake, dearest, you must see yourself how absolutely necessary it is that we should make it so.”
Linnet gazed at him once more in childlike astonishment. She failed utterly to comprehend him. “What do you mean, Will?” she faltered out. “You don’t mean to say I’m not to stop with you?”
Her eyes filled fast with tears, and her face looked up at his, full of wistful pleading. She clung to him so tight, in her love and her terror, that Will bent over her yet again and covered her with kisses. “Yes, darling; you’re to stop with me,” he cried; “to stop with me all your life—but not just at present. We must make this thing straight in the regular way first. Meanwhile, you must stay with some friend—some lady whose name is above suspicion. All must be carefully arranged. Even to have come here to-night may be positively fatal. We must play our cards cautiously. You’ve kept the letter?”
Linnet drew it, much crumpled, from the folds of her bosom, and handed it to him at once, without a moment’s hesitation. What he meant, she couldn’t imagine. Will ran his eye over it hastily. Then he glanced at the deep red marks on her neck, and her half-bared arm—for she had rolled back her sleeve like a child to show him. “This is conclusive,” he said slowly. “Prudent man as he is, he has cut his own throat. And you had a witness, too—a friendly witness; that’s lucky. We must take you to a doctor, and let him see you to-night, as soon as ever we’ve arranged where you can sleep this evening. The evidence of cruelty—and of the other thing—is more than sufficient. No court in England would refuse you a divorce upon such conduct.”
Linnet started at the word. “Divorce!” she cried, growing redder and still redder with shame. “Oh, Will, not that, not that! You don’t understand me. Divorce would be no use in the world tome. I’m a Catholic, you must remember, and I could never, nevermarryyou. If I did, it would only be a mockery and a snare. It would be worse than sin; it would be open rebellion. I want no divorce; I want only to be allowed to stop here with you for ever.”
She laid her hand on his arm, as if to draw him to herself in some natural symbolism. Her face was flushed with her womanly modesty. She hid it once more like a shy child on his shoulder. Will looked at her, sore puzzled. How strange that this pure and passionate nature should see things in a light that to him was so unfamiliar! But he remembered what she had said to him in Philippina’s trouble, and began to understand now in what manner she regarded it.
“Well, but, Linnet,” he cried eagerly lifting her head from where she put it, and laying her cheek against his own, “you must see for yourself how much better it would be, if only from the mere worldly point of view, to arrange this matter as the world would arrange it. Granting even that a marriage after an English divorce would mean to you, from the strictly religious standpoint, simply nothing—why, surely, even then, it must be no small matter to set oneself right with the world, to be received and acknowledged as an honest woman, and my wife, in ordinary English society. If we get a divorce, we can do all that; and to get a divorce, we must act now circumspectly. But if we don’t get one, and if you try to stop here with me without it—remember, dear, the penalty; you lose position at once, and become for society an utter outcast.”
Linnet flung herself upon him once more in a perfect fervour of abandonment. Her love and her shame were fighting hard within her. Her passionate Southern nature overcame her entirely. “Will, Will, dear Will,” she cried, hiding her face from him yet again, “you don’t understand; you can’t fathom the depth of the sacrifice I would make for you. I come to you to-day bringing my life in my hand—my eternal life, my soul, my future; I offer you all I have, all I am, all I will be. For you I give up my good name, my faith, my hopes of salvation. For you I will endure the worst tortures of purgatory. I’ve tried to keep away—I’ve tried hard to keep away—Our Dear Lady knows how hard—all these months, all these years—but I can keep away no longer. Two great powers seemed to pull different ways within me. My Church said to me plainly, ‘You must never think of him; you must stop with Andreas.’ My heart said to me no less plainly, but a thousand times more persuasively, ‘You must fly from that man’s side; you must go to Will Deverill.’ I knew, if I followed my heart, the fires of hell would rise up and take hold of me. I haven’t minded for that; I’ve dared the fires of hell; the two have fought it out—the Church and my heart—and, my heart has conquered.”
She paused, and drew a great sigh. “Dear Will,” she went on softly, burying her head yet deeper in that tender bosom, “if I got a divorce, the divorce would be nothing to me—a mere waste paper. What people think of me matters little, very little in my mind, compared to what God and my Church will say of me. If I stop with you here, I shall be living in open sin; but I shall be living with the man my heart loves best; I shall have at least my own heart’s unmixed approval. While I lived with Andreas, the Church and God approved; but my own heart told me, every night of my life, I was living in sin, unspeakable sin against human nature and my own body. Oh, Will, I don’t know why, but it somehow seems as if God and our hearts were at open war; you must live by one or you must live by the other. If I stop with you, I’m living by my own heart’s law; I will take the sin upon me; I will pay the penalty. If God punishes me for it at last—well, I will take my punishment and bear it bravely; I won’t flinch from pain; I won’t shrink from the fires of hell or purgatory. But, at least, I do it all with my eyes wide open. I know I’m disobeying God’s law for the law of my own heart. I won’t profane God’s holy sacrament of marriage by asking a heretical and un-Catholic Church to bless a union which is all my own—my own heart’s making, not God’s ordinance, God’s sacrament. I love you so well, darling, I can never leave you. Let me stop with you, Will; let me stop with you! Let me live with you; let me die with you; let me burn in hell-fire for you!”
A man is a man. And the man within Will Deverill drove him on irresistibly. He clasped her hard once more to his straining bosom. “As you wish,” he said, quivering. “Your will is law, Linnet.”
“No, no,” she cried, nestling against him, with a satisfied sigh of delight. “My law is Will.” And she looked up and smiled at her own little conceit. “You shall do as you wish with me.”
It was a trying position for Will. He hardly knew what to do. Duty and love pulled him one way, chivalry and the hot blood of youth the other. When a beautiful woman makes one an offer like that, it would be scarcely human, scarcely virile to resist it. And Will was not only a man but also a poet—for a poet is a man with whom moods and impulses are stronger than with most of us. As poet, he cared little for mere conventional rules; it was the consequences to Linnet herself he had most to think about. But he saw it was no use talking to her from the standpoint he would have adopted with most ordinary Englishwomen. It was no use pointing out to her what he himself realised most distinctly, that her union with Andreas was in its very essence an unholy one, an insult to her own body, a treason against all that was truest and best in her being. It ran counter from the very first to the dictates of her own heart, which are the voice of Nature and of God within us. But to Linnet, those plain truths would have seemed but the veriest human sophisms. She looked upon her marriage with Andreas as a holy sacrament of the Church; and any attempt to set aside that sacrament by an earthly court, and to substitute for it a verbal marriage that was no marriage at all to her, but a profound mockery, would have seemed to her soul ten thousand times worse than avowed desertion and unconcealed wickedness. Better live in open sin, she thought, though she paid for it with her body, than insult her God by pretending to invoke his aid and blessing on an adulterous union.
Will argued feebly with her for a while, but it was all to no purpose. The teachings of her youth had too firm a hold upon her. He saw she was quite fixed in her own mind upon one thing; she might stop with him or she might go back, but she was Andreas Hausberger’s wife by the Church’s act, and no earthly power could make anything else of her. So Will gave up the attempt to convince her, as all in vain, at least for the present. He saw what he had to do first was to provide at once for the immediate future. Linnet couldn’t remain in his rooms alone with him that night; to him, at least, so much was certain. For her own dear sake, he must save her from herself; he must throw at least some decent veil for the moment over the relations between them.
For Linnet herself, long before this, the die was cast. She felt she had already deserted her husband; she had sinned in her heart the unspeakable sin; all the rest was in her eyes mere detail and convention. But she realised gratefully none the less Will’s goodness and kindness to her. “You are better to me far than I’ve been to myself,” she cried, clinging hard to him still; “I’ve wrecked my own soul, and you would try to save my poor earthly body.” And yet, in the mere intoxication of being near him and touching him, she more than half-forgot all else on earth; her warm Southern nature rejoiced in the light of her poet’s presence. She cared for nothing now; she thought of nothing, feared nothing; with Will by her side, she would gladly give her soul to burn for ever in nethermost hell, for the sake of those precious, those fleeting moments.
“I must find some place for you to spend the night in, Linnet,” Will said at last seriously. “Even if it were only to save scandal for the immediate future, I should have to do that; by to-morrow, all the world in London would be talking of it. But I hope, after a while, when I’ve reasoned this thing out with you, you may see it all differently—you may come round to my point of view; and then, you’ll be glad I arranged things now so as to leave the last loophole of divorce and re-marriage still open before you.”
Linnet shook her head firmly. “I’m a Catholic,” she said, with a sigh, “and to me, dear Will, religion means simply the Catholic faith and the Catholic practice. If I gave up that, I should give up everything. Either marriage is a sacrament, or it’s nothing at all. It’s to the sacrament alone that I attach importance. But if you wish me to go, I’ll go anywhere you take me; though, if I obeyed my own heart, I’d never move away from your dear side again, my darling, my darling!”
She clung to him with passionate force. Will felt it was hard to drive her from him against her will—how hard, perhaps, no woman could ever tell; for with women, the aggressiveness of love is a thing unknown; but for the love’s sake he bore her, he kept down his longing for her. “Have you brought any luggage with you?” he asked at last, drawing himself suddenly back, and descending all at once to the level of the practical.
“A little portmanteau, and—all I need for the night,” Linnet answered with a deep blush, still clinging hard to him. “My maid’s in the passage.”
“But how about the theatre this evening?” Will inquired with a little start. “You know, this was to have been your first appearance this season.”
Linnet opened her palms outward with a speaking gesture. “The theatre!” she cried, half-scornfully. “What do I care for the theatre? Now I’ve come toyou, Will, what do I care for anything? If I had my own way, I’d stop here withyoufor ever and ever. The theatre—well, the theatre might do as best it could without me!”
Will paused, and reflected. He saw he must absolutely take measures to protect this hot passionate creature against the social consequences of her own hot passion. “You’ve got an understudy, I suppose,” he said; “someone who could fill the part pretty decently in your enforced absence? They don’t depend altogether upon you, I hope, for to-night’s performance.”
“Yes; I’ve got an understudy,” Linnet answered, in a very careless voice, clasping his hand tight in hers, and gripping it hard now and again, as though understudies were a matter of the supremest indifference to her. “She doesn’t know her part very well, and I’m the soul of the piece; but I daresay they could get along with her very tolerably enough somehow. Besides,” she added, in a little afterthought, looking down at her wounded arm, “after what Andreas has done to me, I’m too ill and too shaken to appear to-night, whatever might have happened. Even if I’d stopped at home, instead of coming here, I couldn’t possibly have undertaken to sing in public this evening.”
“Very well, then,” Will replied, making up his mind at once. “We must act accordingly. If that’s the case, the best thing I can do is to go out and telegraph to the management, without delay, that Signora Casalmonte is seriously indisposed, and won’t be able to appear inCarmenthis evening.”
“To go out!” Linnet cried, clutching his arm in dismay. “Oh, dear Will, don’t do that! Don’t leave me for a moment. Suppose Andreas were to come, and to find me here alone? What on earth could I do? What on earth could I say to him?”
Will stroked her cheek once more, that beautiful soft cheek that he loved so dearly, as he answered in a grave and very serious tone, “Now, Linnet, you must be brave; and, above all, you must be practical. This is a crisis in our lives. A great deal depends upon it. If you love me, you must do as I advise you in this emergency. You have done quite right to come away from Andreas—instantly, the very moment you discovered this letter—the very moment he offered you such unmanly violence. In that, you were true woman. You’re in the right now, and if you behave circumspectly, all the world will admit it; all the world will say so. But you mustn’t stop here one second longer than is absolutely necessary. You must spend the night with some friend whom we know, some lady of position and unblemished reputation; and the world must think you went straight from your husband’s roof to hers, when all these things happened.”
Linnet drew back, all aghast. “What, go from you!” she cried: “this first night of our love. O Will, dear Will! Go, go right away from you!”
“Yes,” Will answered firmly. “For the moment, the one thing needful is to find such a shelter for you. If you took refuge in a hotel or private lodging to-night, people would whisper and hint—you know what they would hint; we must stop their hateful whisperings! Now, darling, you mustn’t sayno; you must act as I advise. I’m going out at once to find that lady. I shall ask my sister first—she’s a clergyman’s wife, and nothing looks so well as a clergyman’s wife in England. But ifsheobjects, I must try some other woman. You’re agitated to-night, and I should be doing you a gross wrong if I took advantage now of your love and your agitation. Though it isn’t you and myself I’m thinking of at all; you and I know, you and I understand one another. Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment; it isn’t that that I trouble for—it’s the hateful prying eyes and lying tongues of other people. For myself, darling, my creed is quite other than your priests’; I hold that, here to-night, you are mine, and I am yours; God and Nature have joined us, by the witness of our own hearts”; his voice sank solemnly, “and whom God hath joined together,” he added, in a very grave tone, “let not man put asunder.” He paused and hesitated. “But, for to-night,” he went on, “we must make some temporary arrangement; to-morrow and afterwards, we may settle for the future with one another at our leisure. When you look at it more calmly, dearest, you may change your mind about the matter of the divorce; till then, we must be cautious, and, in any case, we must take care to give the wicked world no handle against you.”
Linnet clutched him tight still. “But if you go,” she cried, all eagerness, “you won’t leave me; I may go with you.”
Her voice was so pleading, it cut Will to the quick to be obliged to refuse her. He leant over her tenderly. “My Linnet,” he cried, caressing her with one strong hand as he spoke, “I’d give worlds to be able to sayyes; I can’t bear to saynoto you. But for your own dear sake, once more, I must, I must. I can’t possibly let you go with me. Just consider this; how foolish it would be for me to let you be seen with me, to-night, on foot or in a cab, in the streets of London. All the world would say—with truth—you’d run away from your husband, and rushed straight into the arms of your lover. You and I know you’ve done perfectly right in that. But the world—the world would never know it. We must never let them have the chance of saying what, after their kind, we feel sure they would say about it.”
He rose from his chair. She clung to him, passionately. “Oh, take me with you, Will!” she cried, in a perfect fever of love. “Suppose Andreas was to come! Suppose he was to try and carry me off by force against my will! Oh, take me, take me with you!—don’t leave me here, alone, to Andreas!”
Sadly against his wish, Will disengaged her arms and untwined her fingers. He did it very tenderly but with perfect firmness. “No, darling,” he said, in a quiet tone of command; “let go! I must leave you here alone; it’s imperative. And it’s wisest so; it’s right; it’s the best thing to do for you. You are mine in future—you were always mine—and we shall have plenty of time to love one another as we will, hereafter. But to-night I must see you suffer no harm by this first false step of yours. My servant knows your husband well. He shall wait in the hall; and, if Andreas comes, deny us both to him. Your maid can come up here with you. I’ll take care no evil happens to you in any way in my absence. Trust me, trust me for this, Linnet; you needn’t be afraid of me.”
With a sudden change of front, Linnet held up her face to him. “I can always trust you, dear Will,” she cried. “I have always trusted you. All these long, long years I’ve known and seen how you yearned for one kiss—and would never take it. All these long, long years, I’ve known how you hungered and thirsted for my love—and kept down your own heart, letting only your eyes tell me a little—a very little—while your lips kept silence. The other men asked me many things, and asked me often—you know a singer’s life, what it is, and what rich people think of us, that they have but to offer us gold, and we will yield them anything. I never gave to one of them what I was keeping for you, my darling; I said to myself, ‘I am Andreas’s by the sacrament of the Church; but Will’s, Will’s, Will’s, by my own heart, and by the law of my nature!’ I trusted you then; I’ll trust you always. Good-bye, dear heart; go quick: come back again quick to me!”
She held the ripe red flower of her lips pursed upward towards his face. Will printed one hard kiss on that rich full mouth of hers. Then, sorely against his will, he tore himself away, and, in a tumult of warring impulses, descended the staircase.
Will hailed a cab in St James’s Street, and drove straight to his sister’s, only pausing by the way to despatch a hasty telegram to the management of the Harmony: “Signora Casalmonte seriously indisposed. Quite unable to sing this evening. Must fill up her place for to-night, at least, and probably for to-morrow as well, by understudy.”
Then he went on to Maud’s. “Mrs Sartoris at home?”
“Yes, sir; but she’s just this minute gone up to dress for dinner.”
“Tell her I must see her at once,” Will exclaimed with decision,—“on important business. Let her come down just as she is. If she’s not presentable, ask her to throw a dressing-gown round her, or anything, to save time, and run down without delay, as I must speak with her immediately on a most pressing matter.”
The maid, smiling incredulity, ran upstairs with his message. Will, with heart on fire, much perturbed on Linnet’s account, walked alone into the drawing-room, to await his sister’s coming. He was too anxious to sit still; he paced up and down the room, with hands behind his back, and eyes fixed on the carpet. A minute . . . two minutes . . . four, five, ten passed, and yet no Maud. It seemed almost as if she meant to keep him waiting on purpose. He chafed at it inwardly; at so critical a juncture, surely she might hurry herself after such an urgent message.
At last, Maud descended—ostentatiously half-dressed. She wore an evening skirt—very rich and handsome; but, in place of a bodice, she had thrown loosely around her a becoming blue bedroom jacket, trimmed with dainty brown facings. Arthur Sartoris, in full clerical evening costume and spotless white tie, followed close behind her. Maud burst into the room with a stately sweep of implied remonstrance. “This is very inconvenient, Will,” she said in her chilliest tone, holding up one cheek as she spoke in a frigid way for a fraternal salute, and pulling her jacket together symbolically—“very, very inconvenient. We’ve the Dean and his wife coming to dine, as you know, in a quarter of an hour—and the Jenkinses, and the Macgregors, and those people from St Christopher’s. Fortunately, I happened to go up early to dress, and had got pretty well through with my hair when your name was announced, or I’m sure I don’t know how I could ever have come down to you. Oh, Arthur—you’re ready—run and get me the maiden-hair and the geranium from my room; I can be sticking them in before the glass, while Will’s talking to me about this sudden and mysterious business of his. They’re in the tumbler on the wash-hand-stand, behind the little red pot; and—wait a moment—of course I shall want some hairpins—the thin twisted American ones. You know where I keep them—in the silver-topped box. Go quick, there’s a dear. Well, Will, what do you want me for?”
This was a discouraging reception, to be sure, and boded small good for his important errand. Will knew well on a dinner night the single emotion of a British matron! Church, crown, and constitution might fall apart piecemeal before Maud Sartoris’s eyes, and she would take no notice of them. Still at least he must try, for Linnet’s sake he must try; and he began accordingly. In as brief words as he could find, he explained hastily to Maud the nature and gravity of the existing situation. Signora Casalmonte, that beautiful, graceful singer who had made the success ofCophetua’s Adventure—Signora Casalmonte (he never spoke of her as “Linnet” to Maud, of course,) had long suffered terribly at the hands of her husband, whose physical cruelty, not to mention other things, had driven her to-day to leave his house hurriedly, without hope of return again. Flying in haste from his violence, and not knowing where to look for aid in her trouble, she had taken refuge for the moment—Will eyed his sister close—it was an error of judgment—no more—at his rooms in St James’s. “You recollect,” he said apologetically, “we were very old friends; I had known her in the Tyrol, and had so much to do with her while she was singing in my opera.”
Maud nodded assent, and went on unconcerned, with a quiet smile on her calm face, arranging the geranium and maiden-hair in a neat little spray at one side of her much frizzed locks, with the profoundest attention.
“Well?” she said inquiringly at last, as Will, floundering on, paused for a moment and glanced at her. “So the lady with many names—Casalmonte, Hausberger, Linnet, Carlotta, and so forth—is this moment at your rooms, and I suppose is going to sup there. A queer proceeding, isn’t it? It’s no business of mine, of course, but I certainly must say I should have thought your own sister was the last person in the world evenyouwould dream of coming to tell about this nice little escapade of yours.”
“Maud,” Will said, very seriously, “let’s be grave; this is no laughing matter.” Then, in brief words once more, he went on to explain the difficulty he felt as to Linnet’s arrangements for the immediate future. He said nothing about the divorce, of course; nothing about his love and devotion towards Linnet. Those chords could have struck no answering string in the British matron’s severely proper nature. He merely pointed out that Linnet was a friend in distress, whose good name he wished to save against unjust aspersions. Having left her husband she ought to go somewhere to a responsible married woman—“And I’ve come to ask you, Maud,” he concluded, “as an act of Christian charity to a sister in distress, will you take her in, for to-night at least, till I can see with greater clearness what to do with her in future?”
Maud stared at him in blank horror. “My dear boy,” she cried, “are you mad? What a proposal to make to me! How on earth can you ever think I could possibly do it?”
“And it would be such a splendid chance, too,” Will cried, carried away by his enthusiasm—“the Dean coming to dinner and all! in a clergyman’s house, with such people to vouch for her! Why, with backers like that, scandal itself couldn’t venture to wag its vile tongue at her!”
Maud looked at him with a faint quiver in her clear-cut nostrils. “That’s just it!” she answered promptly. “But there, Will, you’re a heathen! You’ll never understand! You have quite a congenital incapacity for appreciating and entering into the clerical situation. Isn’t that so, dear Arthur? You belong to another world—the theatrical world—where morals and religion are all topsy-turvy, anyhow! How could you suppose for a moment a clergyman’s wife could receive into her house, on such a night as this, an opera-singing woman with threealiasesto her name, who’s just run away in a fit of pique from her lawful husband! Whether she’s right or wrong, she’s not a person one could associate with! To mix oneself up like that with a playhouse scandal! and the Dean coming to dine, whose influence for a canonry’s so important to us all! The dear, good Dean! Now Arthur, isn’t Will just too ridiculous for anything?”
“It certainlywouldseem extremely inconsistent,” Arthur Sartoris replied, fingering that clerical face dubiously; “extremely inconsistent.” But he added after a pause, with a professional afterthought, “Though, of course, Maud, if she’s leaving him on sufficient grounds—compelled to it, in fact, not through any fault of her own, but through the man’s misconduct—and if she thinks it would be wrong to put up with him any longer, yet feels anxious to avoid all appearance of evil, why, naturally,asChristians, we sympathise with hermostdeeply. But as to taking her into our house—now really, Will, you must see—I put it to you personally—would you do it yourself if you were in our position?”
Maud for her part, being a woman, was more frankly worldly. “And it’d get into the papers, too!” she cried. “Labby’d put it in the papers. . . . Just imagine it inTruth, Arthur!—‘I’m also told, on very good authority, that the erring soul, having drifted from her anchorage, went straight from her husband’s house to Mrs Arthur Sartoris’s. Now, Mrs Arthur Sartoris, it may be necessary to inform the innocent reader, is Mr Deverill’s sister; and Mr Deverill is the well-known author and composer ofCophetua’s Adventure,—in which capacity he must doubtless have enjoyed, for many months, abundant opportunities for making the best of the Signora’s society.Verbum sap.—but I would advise the Reverend Arthur to remember in future the Apostle’s injunctions on the duty of ruling his own house well, and having his children in subjection with all gravity.’ That’s just about what Labby would say of it!”
Will’s face burned bright red. If his own sister spoke thus, what things could he expect the outer world to say of his stainless Linnet. “You forget,” he said, a little angrily, “the Apostle advises, too, in the self-same passage, that a bishop should be given to hospitality; and that his wife should be grave; not a slanderer; sober and faithful in all things. I came to you to-night hoping you would extend that hospitality to an injured wife who desires to take refuge blamelessly from an unworthy husband. If you refuse her such aid, you are helping in so far to drive her into evil courses. I asked you as my sister; I’m sorry you’ve refused me.”
“But, my dear boy,” Maud began, “you must see for yourself that for a clergyman’s wife to have her name mixed up—oh, good gracious, there’s the bell! They’re coming, Will, I’m sure. I must rush up this very moment, and put on my bodice at once. Thank goodness, Arthur, you’re dressed, or what ever should I do? Stop down here and receive them.”
“Then you absolutely refuse?” Will cried, as she fled, scuffling, woman-wise, to the door.
“I absolutely refuse!” Maud answered from the landing. “I’m surprised that you should even dream of asking your sister to take into her house, under circumstances like these, a runaway actress-woman!” And, with a glance towards the hall, she scurried hastily upstairs, with the shuffling gait of a woman surprised, to her own bedroom.
Mechanically, Will shook hands with that irreproachable Arthur Sartoris, passed the Dean, all wrinkled smiles, in the vestibule below, and returned again with a hot heart to his waiting hansom. “Hans Place, Chelsea!” he cried through the flap: and the cabman drove him straight to Rue’s miniature palace.
Mrs Palmer was at home; yes, sir; but she was dressing for dinner. “Say I must see her at once!” Will cried with a burst. And in less than half-a-minute Rue descended, looking sweet, to him.
She had thrown a light tea-gown rapidly around her to come down; her hair was just knotted in a natural coil on top; she was hardly presentable, she said, with an apologetic smile, and a quick glance at the glass; but Will thought he had never seen her look prettier or more charming in all his life than she looked that moment.
“I wouldn’t keep you waiting, Will,” she cried, seizing both his hands in hers. “I knew if you called at this unusual hour, you must want to see me about something serious.”
“Itisserious,” Will answered, with a very grave face. “Rue, I’ve something to tell you that may surprise you much. That wretch Hausberger has been very, very cruel to Linnet. He’s offered her bodily violence to-day. And that’s not all;—she has proof, written proof of his intimacy with Philippina. He’s thrown her on the floor, and struck her and bruised her. So she’s left him at once—and she’s now at my chambers.”
A sudden shade came over Rue’s face. The shock was a terrible one. This news was different, very different indeed from what she expected to hear. Could Will have found out, she asked herself with a flutter, as she put on her tea-gown, that he loved her at last, better even than Linnet? Linnet had been away one whole long winter; and when he dined here last week, he was so kind and attentive! So she came down with a throbbing heart, all expectant of results. That was why Will had never seen her look so pretty before. And now, to find out it was all for Linnet he had come! All for Linnet, not for her! Ah me, the pity of it!
Yet she bore up bravely, all the same, though her lips quivered quick, and her eyelids blinked hard to suppress the rising moisture. “At your chambers!” she cried, with a jump of her heart. “O Will, she mustn’t stop there!”
She sank into a chair, and looked across at him piteously. Will, dimly perceptive, seized her hands once more, and held them in his own with a gentle pressure. Then he went on to explain, in very different words from those he had used to Maud, all that had happened that day to himself and to Linnet. He didn’t even hide from Rue the question of divorce, or the story of Linnet’s complete self-surrender. He knew Rue would understand; he knew Linnet herself would not be afraid of Rue’s violating her confidence. He said everything out, exactly as he felt it. Last of all, he explained how he had been round to Maud’s, what he had asked of Maud, and what answer Maud had made to him.
He had got so far when Rue rose and faced him. Her cheeks were very white, and she trembled violently. But she spoke out like a woman, with a true woman’s heart. “She must come here at once, Will,” she cried. “There’s not a moment to lose. She must come here at once. Go quick home and fetch her.”
“You’requitesure you can take her in, Rue?” Will asked, with a very guilty feeling, seizing her hands once more. “I can’t bear to ask you; but since you offer it of your own accord——”
Rue held his hands tremulously in her own for awhile, and gazed at him hard with a wistful countenance. “Dear Will,” she faltered out in a half-articulate voice, “I invite her here myself; I beg of you to bring her. Though it breaks my own heart—it breaks my heart. Yet I ask you all the same—bring her here, oh, bring her!”
Heart-broken she looked, indeed. Will leant forward automatically. “Dear Rue,” he cried, “you’re too good—too good and kind for anything; I never knew till this moment how very good and kind you were. And I love you so much!” He held forward his face. “Only once!” he murmured, drawing her towards him with one arm. “Just this once! It’s so good of you!”
Rue held up her face in return, and answered him back in a choking voice, “Yes, yes; just this once, O Will, my Will—before I feel you’re Linnet’s for ever!”
He clasped her tight in his arms. Rue let him embrace her unresistingly. She kissed him long and hard, and nestled there tenderly. For fifty whole seconds she was in heaven indeed. At last, with a little start, she broke away and left him. “Now go,” she said, standing a yard or two off, and gazing at him, tearfully. “Go at once and fetch her. Every moment she stops in your rooms is compromising. . . . Go, go; goodbye! . . . You’re mine no longer. But, Will, don’t be afraid I shall be sad when she comes! I’ll have my good cry out in my own room first; and, by the time she arrives, I’ll be smiling to receive her!”