CHAPTER XLIV

At Will’s chambers, meanwhile, Linnet sat and waited, her flushed face in her hands, her hot ears tingling. She had plenty of time in Will’s absence to reflect and to ruminate. Horror and shame for her own outspokenness began to overcome her. If Will had accepted her sacrifice, indeed, as frankly as she offered it, that profound emotional nature would have felt nothing of the kind: her passion would have hallowed and sanctified her love in her own eyes⁠—⁠not as the Church could have done, to be sure; not from the religious side at all; but still, from the alternative point of view of the human heart, which to her was almost equally sacred in its way, ’twould have hallowed and sanctified it. Linnet would have regarded her union with Will as sinful and wrong, but not as impure or unholy; she wouldn’t have attempted to justify it, but she would never have felt ashamed of it. She recognised it as the union imposed upon her by the laws of her own highest nature; the laws of God, as she understood them, might forbid it and punish it⁠—⁠they never could make it anything else for her than pure and beautiful and true and ennobling.

But Will’s refusal, for her own sake, to accept her self-surrender, filled her soul with shame for her slighted womanhood. She understood Will’s reasons; she saw how unselfish and kind were his motives; but still, the sense remained that she had debased herself before him, all to no purpose. She had offered him the most precious gift a woman can offer to any man⁠—⁠andhe, he had rejected it. Linnet bowed down her head in intense humiliation. On her own scheme of life, she would have been far less dishonoured by Will’s accepting her then and there, in a hot flood of passion, than by his proposal to wait till she could get a purely meaningless and invalid release from her sacrament with Andreas. Having once made up her mind to desert her husband and follow her own heart, in spite of ultimate consequences, it seemed to her almost foolish that Will should shrink on her account from the verdict of the world, when she herself did not shrink⁠—⁠so great was her love⁠—⁠from the wrath of heaven and eternal punishment.

But, as she sat there and ruminated, it began gradually to dawn upon her that in some ways Will was right; even if she sinned boldly and openly, as she was prepared to sin, before Our Lady and the Saints, it might be well for her immediate comfort and happiness to keep up appearances before English society. Perhaps it was desirable for the next few days, till the talk blew over, to go, as Will said, under some married woman’s protection. But what married woman? Not that calmly terrible Mrs Sartoris, at any rate. She dreaded Will’s sister, more even than she dreaded the average middle-aged British matron. She knew how Maud would treat her, if she took her in at all; better anything at that moment of volcanic passion than the cold and cutting repose, the icy calmness of the British matron’s unemotional demeanour.

As Linnet was sitting there with her face in her hands, longing for Will’s return, and half-doubting in her own heart whether she had done quite right, even from her own heart’s standpoint, in coming straight away to him⁠—⁠Florian Wood, in a faultless frock-coat, with a moss-rose in his buttonhole, strolled by himself in a lazy mood down Piccadilly. It was Florian’s way to lounge through life, and he was lounging as usual. He pulled out his watch. Hullo! time for dinner! Now, Florian was always a creature of impulse. He hesitated for a moment, with cane poised in his dainty hand, which of three courses to pursue that lay open before him. Should he drop into the Savile for his evening meal; should he go home by himself to Grosvenor Gardens; or should he take pot-luck with Will Deverill in Duke Street? Bah! the dinner at the Savile’s a mere badtable d’hôte. At home, he would be lonely with a solitary chop. The social instinct within him impelled him at once to seek for society with his old friend in St James’s.

He opened the door for himself, for he had a latch-key that fitted it. In the hall, Ellen was seated, and the man-servant of the house was standing by and flirting with her. “Mr Deverill’s not at home, sir,” he said, with a hurried start, as Florian entered.

“Never mind,” the Epicurean philosopher replied, with his bland, small smile. “Pretty girl on the chair there. He’s coming back to dinner, I suppose, at the usual hour. Very well, that’s right; I’ll go up and wait for him. You can tell Mrs Watts to lay covers for two. I purpose to dine here.”

“Beg your pardon, sir,” the man said, placing himself full in front of Florian’s delicate form, so as to half-block the passage; “there’s a lady upstairs.” He hesitated, and simpered. “I rather think,” he continued, very doubtful how to proceed, “Mr Deverill wished nobody to go up till he came back again. Leastways, I had orders.”

“Why, it’s Signora Casalmonte!” Florian broke in, interrupting him; for he recognised the pretty girl on a second glance as the housemaid at Linnet’s. An expansive smile diffused itself over his close-shaven face. This was indeed a discovery! Linnet come to Will Deverill’s! And with a portmanteau, too!⁠—⁠Will, whose stern morality had read him so many pretty lectures on conduct in the Tyrol. And Linnet⁠—⁠that devout Catholic, so demure, so immaculate, the very pink of public singers, the pure flower of the stage! Who on earth would have believed it? But there, it’s these quiet souls who are always the deepest! While Florian himself, for all his talk, how innocent he was, how harmless, how free from every taint of guile, wile, or deception! What reconciled him to life, as he grew older every day, was the thought that, after all, ’twas so very amusing.

The man hesitated still more. “I don’t think you must go up, sir,” he said, still barring the way, “Mr Deverill told me if Hare Houseberger called, to say he wasn’t at home to him.”

Florian’s face was a study. It rippled over with successive waves of stifled laughter. But Ellen, with feminine quickness, saw the error of the man’s clumsy male intelligence. It would never do for Mr Wood, that silver-tongued man-about-town to go away and explain at every club in London how he’d caught the Casalmonte, with her maid and her portmanteau, on a surreptitious visit to Will Deverill’s chambers. Better far he should go up and see the Signora herself. Principals, in such cases, should invent their own lies, untrammelled by their subordinates. The Signora might devise what excuse she thought best to keep Florian’s mouth shut; and Will himself might come back before long to corroborate it.

“No, no,” she said hastily, with much evident artlessness. “You can go up, sir, of course. The Signora’s just waiting to see Mr Deverill.”

Florian brushed past the man with a spring, and ran lightly up the stairs, with quite as much agility as so small a body can be expected to compass. He burst into the room unannounced. Linnet rose, in very obvious dismay, to greet him. She was taken aback, Florian could see⁠—⁠and glad indeed he was to notice it. This littlecontretempswas clearly the wise man’s opportunity. Providential, providential! He grasped her hand with warmth, printing a delicate little squeeze on the soft bit of muscle between thumb and fingers. “What, Linnet!” he cried, “alone, and in Will Deverill’s rooms! How lucky I am to catch you! This is really delightful!”

Linnet sank back in her chair. She hardly knew what to say, how to cover her confusion. But excuse herself she must; some portion at least of what had passed she must explain to him. In a faltering voice, with many pauses and hesitations, she told him a faint outline of what had happened that day⁠—⁠her quarrel with Andreas, his cruel treatment, how he had struck her and hurt her, how she had fled from him precipitately. She hinted to him even in her most delicate way some dim suggestion of her husband’s letter to Philippina. Florian stroked himself and smiled; he nodded wisely. “We knew all that before,” he put in at last, with a knowing little air of sagacious innuendo. “We knew Friend Hausberger’s little ways. Though, how quiet he kept over them! A taciturn Don Juan! a most prudent Lothario!” It was the wise man’s cue now to set Linnet still further against her husband.

“So I left him,” Linnet went on simply, with transparentnaïveté; “I left him, and came away, just packing a few clothes into my portmanteau, hurriedly. I didn’t know where to go, so I came straight to Mr Deverill’s. He was always a good friend of mine, you know, was Mr Deverill.” She paused, and blushed. “I’ve sent him out,” she continued, with a little pardonable deviation from the strictest veracity, “to see if he can find me some house among his friends⁠—⁠some English lady’s⁠—⁠where I can stop for the present, till I know what I mean to do, now I’ve come away from Andreas. He’s going to his sister’s first, to see if she can take me in; after that, if she can’t, he’s going to look about elsewhere.”

She gazed up at him timidly. She felt, as she spoke, Will was right after all. How could she brave the whole world’s censure, openly and frankly expressed, if she shrank so instinctively from the prying gaze of that one man, Florian? God, who reads all hearts, would know, if she sinned, she sinned for true love; but the world⁠—⁠that hateful world⁠—⁠Linnet leant back in her seat and shut her eyes with horror.

As for Florian, however, he seized the occasion with avidity. He saw his chance now. He was all respectful sympathy. The man Hausberger was a wretch who had never been fit for her; he had entrapped her by fraud; she did right to leave him. What horrid marks on her arm, and on that soft brown neck of hers! Did the cur do that? What a creature, to lay hands on so divine a woman! Though, of course, it was unwise of her to come round to Will’s; the world⁠—⁠and here Florian assumed his most virtuously sympathetic expression of face⁠—⁠the world is so cruel, so suspicious, so censorious. For themselves, they two moved on a higher plane; they saw through the conventions and restrictions of society. Still, it was always well to respect theconvenances. Mrs Sartoris! Oh, dear, no! unsympathetic, out of touch with her! And yet, oh, how dangerous to stop here in these rooms one moment longer. With dexterous little side hints the wise man worked upon Linnet’s fears insensibly. That fellow in the passage, now⁠—⁠the people of the house⁠—⁠so unwise, so uncertain; who could tell friend from enemy?

As he spoke, Linnet grew every moment more and more uneasy. “I wish Will would come back!” she cried. “I wish I had somewhere to go! It makes me so afraid, you see⁠—⁠this delay, this uncertainty.”

Florian played a trump card boldly. “Why not come off with me at once, then,” he suggested, “to my sister’s?”

“Your sister’s?” Linnet asked. “But I didn’t know you had one!”

Florian waved his hand airily, with a compulsive gesture, as if he could call sisters to command from the vasty deep, in any required quantity⁠—⁠as indeed was the case. “Oh dear, yes,” he answered. “She hasn’t been long in town. She⁠—⁠er⁠—⁠she lives mostly in Brittany.” He paused for a second to give his fancy free play. Ah, happy thought! just so!⁠—⁠a clergyman’s wife would be the very thing for the purpose. “Her husband’s chaplain at Dinan,” he went on, with his bland smile, romancing readily. “She doesn’t often come over. She’s not well off, poor dear; but this year she’s taken a house for the season . . . in Pimlico. You might go round there, at least, while you’re waiting for Will. It’s less compromising than this; and we could leave a note behind to tell him where he could find you.”

Linnet debated internally. Florian paused, and looked judicial. “What sort of person is she?” Linnet asked at last, hesitating. “Kind⁠—⁠nice⁠—⁠sympathetic?”

“You’ve summed her up in one word!” Florian answered with a flourish. “Sympathetic⁠—⁠that’s just it; she’s bubbling over with sympathy. She goes out to all troubled souls. Though I’m her own brother, and therefore naturally prejudiced against her, I never knew anyone so intensely capable of throwing herself forth towards other people as my sister Marian. She’s the exact antipodes of that unspeakable Sartoris woman; human, human, human, above all things human; she brims and overflows with the milk of human kindness! And she took such a fancy to you, too, when she saw you one night, inCophetua’s Adventure. She said to me, ‘O Florian, do you think she’d come and stay with us? I’d give anything to know that sweet creature personally.’ I told her, of course, you never stayed with anybody under the rank of a crowned head or a millionaire soap-boiler. She was quite disappointed, and she’d be only too delighted now, I’m sure, if she could be of any service to you.”

He looked at her hard. He had provided a sister, mentally. As a matter of fact, he knew a lady⁠—⁠a most obliging lady⁠—⁠tolerably reputable, too⁠—⁠in a side street in Pimlico, who would be willing (for a slight consideration) to take Linnet in, and adopt any relation she was told to Florian. Once get a married woman (and a singer-body at that) away from her husband, into a house of your own choosing, and⁠—⁠given agreeable manners and a persuasive tongue⁠—⁠you can do before long pretty much what you like with her. So, at least, Florian’s philosophy had always instructed him. He chuckled to himself to think pure chance should have enabled him thus to anticipate Will Deverill. And if Will was playing this game, this simple little game, why on earth shouldn’theplay it too, and outwit his rival?

He went on to expatiate very enthusiastically to Linnet on the imaginary sister’s sympathetic virtues. In a few minutes he had made her so absolutely charming⁠—⁠for he was a fluent talker⁠—⁠that at last Linnet, who, like all Tyrolese, was impulsive at heart, jumped up from her seat and exclaimed with a sudden burst, “Very well, then; I’ll go there. It’s safer there than here. We can leave a line for Will to let him have the address. I’ll sit down and write it.”

“No, no,” Florian cried, eagerly, seizing a pen in haste. “I’ll write it myself. Then we’ll take a cab outside, and go round there together.”

For if once Linnet was seen with him in a hansom in the street⁠—⁠after leaving her husband⁠—⁠her fate was sealed. She might as welldowhat all the world would immediately say she was bent on doing.

As Florian sat there, scribbling off a few lines of apology for their hasty departure, the door opened of a sudden⁠—⁠and Will Deverill entered.

Florian rose, a little abashed⁠—⁠though, to be sure, it took a good deal to abash Florian. He stood by the desk, hesitating, with his unfinished letter dangling idly in his hand, while he debated inwardly what plausible lie he could invent on the spur of the moment and palm off to excuse himself. But before he could make up his mind to a suitable story, Linnet⁠—⁠that impulsive southern Linnet⁠—⁠had rushed forward, all eager, with her own version of the episode. “O Will,” she cried, spoiling all by her frank avowal, “I’m so glad you’ve come at last! I couldn’t bear to wait here in doubt any longer; and Florian’s so kind: he was just going to take me off for the night to his sister’s!”

Will turned from her and gazed at Florian for a brief space in blank surprise. Then, as by degrees it dawned upon him what this treachery really meant, his face changed little by little to one of shocked and horrified incredulity. “Florian,” he said, in a very serious voice, “come out here into the passage. This thing must be explained. I want to speak with you.”

Florian followed him on to the landing, hardly knowing what he did. Will’s eye was cold and stern. “Now, look here,” he said, frigidly, fixing his man with his icy gaze, “it’s no use lying to me. I know as well as you do, you’ve got no sister.”

Florian smiled imperturbable. “Well, no,” he said, blandly; “but⁠—⁠I thought I might improvise one.”

Will took him in at a glance. He pointed with one hand to the stairs, impressively, “Go! without another word,” he said. “You’ve behaved like a cad. Instead of trying to save and help this poor girl, you’ve concocted a vile plan in my absence to ruin her.”

Florian turned to him, cynically. “You were looking out for a house to take her to yourself,” he answered. “I don’t supposeyoumeant to return her to her husband. Ifyoumay do it, why notIas well? Two can play at that game, you know. It’s quits between us. You needn’t pretend to such high morality at the very moment when you’re engaged in enticing another man’s wife away from her husband.”

Will didn’t deign any further to bandy words with the fellow. “Go!” he said, once more, pointing sternly to the doorway. Florian turned on his heel, and slunk down the stairs, as jauntily as he could, but looking for all that just a trifle disconcerted. Will leant over the banisters, as he went, with a sudden afterthought. “And if ever you dare to say anything to anyone on earth about having seen Linnet here, at my rooms, to-night,” he called out, very pointedly, “I shall think you, if possible, even a greater cad than I think you now, and not hesitate to say so.”

He returned to Linnet in his sitting-room. He wouldn’t speak before her to Florian because he couldn’t bear she should even suspect how bad an opinion the man had had of her, and what plot he had laid for her.

“You shall go round to Mrs Palmer’s, Linnet,” he said, taking her hand in his. “The place Florian spoke of isn’t at all the right place for a girl like you. But Rue will receive you like a sister till we can arrange some other plan for you. Atherhouse, you’ll be safe from every whisper of scandal.”

“You’ll take me there, won’t you?” Linnet inquired, gazing wistfully at him.

On that point, however, Will was firm as a rock. “No, dearest,” he answered, laying one hand on her full round arm, persuasively. “You must go there alone, with only your maid. It’s better so. Rue has a friend or two coming in to dine with her to-night. They’ll see you arrive at her door by yourself; and if any talk comes of it, they’ll know how to answer it.”

Linnet flung herself upon him once more, in a last clinging embrace. She was wildly in love with him. Will pressed her hard to his heart; then he gently disengaged himself, and led her to the door. A cab was in waiting⁠—⁠the cab that brought him there. Linnet got into it at once, and drove off with Ellen. In twenty minutes more, she was in Rue’s pretty drawing-room.

That night, when all the rest were gone, she and Rue sat up long and late, talking together earnestly. Their talk was of Will. Linnet didn’t try to conceal from her new friend how much she loved him. Rue listened sympathetically, suppressing her own heart, so that Linnet ceased even to remember to herself how she had thought once of the grand lady as her most dangerous rival.

But all the time, Rue preached to her one line of action alone: “You must get a divorce, of course, dear, and marry Will Deverill.” And all the time, Linnet shook her head, and answered through her tears, “A divorce to me is a mockery and a delusion. I’d rather stop with him openly, and defy the world and the Church together, than affront my God by pretending to marry him, when I know in my heart Andreas Hausberger is and must always be my one real husband.”

At last they went to bed. Neither slept much that evening. Linnet thought about Will; Rue thought about Linnet. As things now stood, Rue would give much to help them. Since Will loved this woman far more than he lovedher, she wished indeed Linnet might be freed at last from that hateful man, and they two might somehow be happy together. Only the Church stood in the way⁠—⁠that implacable Church, with its horrible dogma of indissoluble marriage.

Next day, Linnet spent very quietly at Rue’s. Will never came near the house; but he wrote round a long and earnest letter to Linnet, urging her with all the force and persuasiveness he knew to go down that night as usual to the theatre. It was best, he said, in order to avoid a scandal, that she should appear to have left her unworthy husband on grounds of his own misconduct alone, and be anxious to fulfil in every other way all her ordinary engagements.

Linnet went, sick at heart. She hardly knew how she was to get throughCarmen. But when she saw Will’s face in a box at the side, watching her with eager anxiety, she plucked up heart, and, fired by her own excitement, sang her part in that stirring romance as she had never before sung it. She rushed at her Toreador as she would have rushed at Will Deverill. At times, too, as in the cigar factory scene, she was defiant with a wonderful and life-like defiance; for she marked another face in the stalls before her⁠—⁠Andreas Hausberger’s hard face, gazing up at his flown bird with intense determination. Rue had come to see her through. At the end of the performance, Rue waited at the door for her. Will passed by, and spoke casually just a few simple words of friendly congratulation on her splendid performance; then she drove away, flushed, to Hans Place, in Rue’s carriage.

It didn’t escape her notice, however, that, as she stepped in, Andreas Hausberger stood behind, with his hand on the door of their own hired brougham. As Linnet drove off, he leaned forward to the coachman. “Follow the green livery,” he called out in so loud a voice that Linnet overheard it. When they drew up at Rue’s door, he was close behind them. But he noted the number, that was all; he had been there before, indeed, to Rue’s Sunday afternoons, and only wished to make sure of the house, and that Linnet was stopping there. “Drive on home,” he called to the man; and disappeared in the distance. Linnet looked after him and shuddered. She knew what that meant; and she trembled at the thought. He would come back to fetch her.

She was a Catholic still. If he came and bid her follow him⁠—⁠her lawful husband⁠—⁠how could she dare refuse him?

All that night long, she lay awake and prayed, torturing her pure soul with many doubts and terrors. In the lone hours of early morning, ghastly fears beset her. The anger of Heaven seemed to thunder in her ears; the flames of Hell rose up to take hold of her. She would give her very life to go back again to Will; and the nether abyss yawned wide its fiery mouth to receive her as she thought it. She would go back to Will, let what would, come;⁠—⁠but she knew it was wrong; she knew it was wicked; she knew it was the deadly, unspeakable sin; she knew she must answer before the throne of God for it.

Oh, how could she confess it, even to her own parish priest! How ask for penance, absolution, blessing, when she meant in her heart to live, if she could, every day of her life in unholy desire or unholy union! O God, God, God, how could she face his anger!

She rose next morning, very pale and haggard. Rue tried to console her. But no Protestant consolation could touch those inner chords of her ingrained nature. Strange to say, all those she loved and trusted most were of the alien creed; and in these her deepest doubts and fears and troubles they could give her no comfort. About eleven o’clock came a knock at the door. Linnet sat in the breakfast-room; she heard a sound of feet on the staircase hard by⁠—⁠two men being shown up, as she guessed, into the drawing-room.

The servant brought down two cards. Linnet looked at them with a sinking heart. One was Andreas Hausberger’s; the other bore the name of her London confessor, a German-speaking priest of the pro-Cathedral at Kensington.

She passed them to Rue with a sigh. “I may go up with you?” Rue cried, for she longed to protect her.

But Linnet shrank back. “Oh no, dear,” she answered, shaking her head very solemnly. “How I wish you could come! You could sit and hold my hand. It would do me so much good. But this is a visit of religion. My priest wouldn’t like it.”

She went upstairs with a bold step, but with a throbbing heart. Rue followed her anxiously, and took a chair on the landing. What happened next inside, she couldn’t hear in full, but undertones of it came wafted to her through the door indistinctly. There was a blur of sounds, among which Rue could distinguish Andreas Hausberger’s cold tone, not angry, indeed, but rather low and conciliatory; the priest’s sharp German voice, now inquiring, now chiding, now hortative, now minatory; and Linnet’s trembling speech, at first defiant, then penitently apologetic, at last awestruck and terrified. Rue leant forward to listen. She could just distinguish the note, but not the words. Linnet was speaking now very earnestly and solemnly. Then came a pause, and the priest spoke next⁠—⁠exhorting, threatening, denouncing, in fierce German gutturals. His voice was like the voice of the angry Church, reproving the sins of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the lusts of the body. Linnet bowed her head, Rue felt sure, before that fierce denunciation. There was a noise of deep sobs, the low wail of a broken heart. Rue drew back, aghast. The Church was having its way. They had terrified Linnet.

For the first time in her life, the gentle-hearted American felt herself on the side of the sinners. She would have given anything just that moment to get Linnet away from those two dreadful men, and set her down unawares in Will’s chambers in Duke Street. She tried hard to open the door, but the key was turned. “Linnet, Linnet!” she cried, knocking loud, and calling the poor girl by her accustomed pet name, “let me in! I want to speak to you!”

“No, dear; I can’t!” Linnet answered through the door, gulping down a great sob. “I must fight it out by myself.Mysin;mypunishment.”

The voices went on again, a little lower for a while. Then sobs came thick and fast. Linnet was crying bitterly. Rue strained her ear to hear; she couldn’t catch a single syllable. The priest seemed to be praying, as she thought,⁠—⁠praying in Latin. Then Linnet appeared to answer. For more than an hour together they wrestled with one another. At the end of that time, the tone of the priest’s voice changed. It was mild; it was gracious. In an agony of horror, Rue realised what that meant. She felt sure he must be pronouncing or promising absolution.

So Linnet must have confessed!⁠—⁠must have renounced her sin!⁠—⁠must have engaged to go back and live with that man Andreas!

Right or wrong, crime or shame, Rue would have given ten thousand pounds that moment⁠—⁠to take her back to Will Deverill’s.

As Rue thought that thought, the door opened at last, and the three came forth right before her on the landing.

Andreas and the priest wore an air of triumph. Linnet walked out in front of them, red-eyed, dejected, miserable. The Church had won; but, O God, what a victory!

Rue sprang at her and seized her hand. “Linnet, Linnet!” she cried agonised, “don’t tell me you’ve let these two men talk you over! Don’t tell me you’re going back to that dreadful man! Don’t tell me you’re going to give up Will Deverill for such a creature!”

Linnet fell upon her neck, weeping. “Rue, Rue, dear Rue,” she sobbed out, heart-broken, and half beside herself with love and religious terror, “it is not tohimthat I yield, O lieber Gott, not tohim, but to the Church’s orders.”

“But you mustn’t!” Rue cried, aghast, and undeterred by the frowning priest. “You must stop here with me, and get a divorce, and marry him!” And she flung herself upon her.

“There! what did I say?” Andreas interposed, with a demonstrative air, turning round to the man of God. “I told you I must take her away from London at once, at all costs, at all hazards⁠—⁠if you didn’t want her to fall into deadly sin, and the Church to lose its hold over her soul altogether.”

The priest looked at Rue with a most disapproving eye. “Madam,” he said, curtly, in somewhat German English, “with exceeding great difficulty have I rescued this erring daughter from the very brink of mortal sin⁠—⁠happily, as yet unconsummated; and now, will you, a married woman yourself, who know what all this means, drive her back from her husband into the arms of her lover?”

“Yes, yes;I will!” Rue cried boldly⁠—⁠and, oh, how Linnet admired her for it! “I will! I will! I’ll drive her back to Will Deverill! Anything to get her away from that man whom she hates! Anything to get her back to the other whom she loves! Linnet, Linnet, come away from them! Come up with me to my bedroom!”

But Linnet drew back, trembling. “Yes, yes; I hate him!” she wailed out passionately, looking across at her husband. “I hate him! Oh, I hate him! And yet, I will go with him. Not forhim, but for the Church! Oh, I hate him! I hate him!”

The priest turned to Andreas. “I absolved her too soon, perhaps,” he said, in German. “Her penitence is skin-deep. She is still rebellious. Quick, quick, hurry her off from this sinful adviser. You’ll do well, as you say, to get her away as soon as you can⁠—⁠clear away from London. It’s no place for her, I’m sure, so long as this man . . . and his friends and allies . . . are here to tempt her.”

Rue clung hard to her still. “Linnet, dear,” she cried, coaxingly, “come up to my room! You’re not going with them, are you?”

“Yes; I am, dear,” Linnet sobbed out, in a heart-broken tone. “Oh, how good you are!⁠—⁠how sweet to me! But I must go. They have conquered me.”

“Then I’ll go round this very minute,” Rue burst forth through her tears, “and tell Will what they’re doing to you. If it was me, I’d defy them and their Church to their faces. I’ll go round and tell Will⁠—⁠and Will’ll come and rescue you!”

The priest motioned Linnet hastily with one hand down the stairs. “Sie haben recht, Herr Hausberger,” he murmured low. “Apage retro, Satanas!With temptations like these besetting her path, we shall be justified in hurrying away this poor weak lamb of our flock from the very brink of a precipice that so threatens to fall with her.”

Andreas Hausberger was always a wise man in his generation. The moment he knew Linnet had left his house, he realised forthwith that the one great danger to his interests lay in the chance of her obtaining a divorce, and marrying Will Deverill. To prevent such a catastrophe to his best investment was now the chief object in life of the prudentimpresario. He had hurried away from home that first afternoon, it is true, to make sure how things stood with Philippina and her husband; but as soon as he found out no serious danger menaced him there, he rushed back to Avenue Road⁠—⁠to find Linnet flown, without a word to say whither. Now, Andreas, being a very wise man, and knowing his countrywomen well, felt tolerably sure Linnet was by far too good a Catholic to agree to a divorce, even if Will suggested it. She might run away to her lover in a moment of pique⁠—⁠and so shut herself out from the benefit of the English law on the subject by misconducting herself in return; but fly in the face of the Church, insult her creed, defy its authority, annul its sacraments⁠—⁠oh, never! never! Andreas was certain Linnet would do⁠—⁠just what Linnet really did; fling herself frankly upon Will Deverill’s mercy, but refuse to marry him.

Moreover, with his usual worldly wisdom, thewirthof St Valentin saw at a glance that the Church was the only lever which could ever bring his revolted wife back to him. She had always disliked him; she now hated and despised him. But he was still, and must always be, in the sight of God, her lawful husband. Linnet feared and obeyed the Church, with the unquestioning faith of the genuine Tyrolese; it was to her a pure fetish⁠—⁠authoritative, absolute, final. Andreas recognised clearly that his proper course now was to enlist this mighty engine, if possible, in his own favour. To guard against all adverse chances, he must get Linnet back into his power at once, must carry her away from the sphere of Will’s influence, and, if luck permitted, must hurry her off to some land where divorce was impossible.

Quick as lightning, he made up his mind. To throw up all her engagements in London forthwith would, of course, cost money⁠—⁠for she was engaged under forfeit⁠—⁠and to lose money was indeed a serious consideration. Still, in the present crisis, the temporary loss of a few stray hundreds was as nothing in Andreas’s eyes compared with the possible prospective loss of Linnet’s future earnings. He must risk that and more in order to snatch her from Will Deverill’s clutches. He had meant to take his wife to America, on tour, a little later in the year; and he adhered to that programme: but not till she had quite got over her present fit of rebellion. For the moment, he judged it best on many grounds to venture on a bold step⁠—⁠no less a step than to go back with her to St Valentin. For this sudden resolve, he had ample reasons. In the first place, he would have her there under the thumb of Austrian law; divorce would be impossible⁠—⁠nay, even unthinkable. But, in the second place⁠—⁠and on this point Andreas counted far more⁠—⁠he would have her there in an atmosphere of unquestioning Catholicism, where all the world would take it for granted that to marry Will Deverill by judgment of an English court was an insult to Providence ten thousand times worse than to sin and repent⁠—⁠nay, even than to sin without pretence of repentance, but without the vain mockery of a heretical marriage. A few weeks in the Tyrol, Andreas thought in his wise way, surrounded by all the simple ideas of her childhood, and exposed to the exhortations of her old friend, the Herr Vicar, would soon bring Linnet back from this flight of unbridled fancy to a proper frame of mind again. Besides, the mountain air would be good for her health after so stormy an episode⁠—⁠ozone, ozone, ozone!⁠—⁠and he wanted her to be in first-rate singing voice, before he launched her on the fresh world of New York and Chicago. Lots of money to be made in New York and Chicago! Once get her well across the Atlantic in a White Star Liner, and all would be changed; she’d soon forget Will in the new free life of that Western Golconda.

To enlist the Church on his side was therefore Andreas Hausberger’s first and chief endeavour. With this object in view, he took the unwonted step of confessing himself in due form to the priest of the pro-Cathedral the very day after Linnet left him. ’Twas a well-timed confession. Andreas admitted to the full his own misconduct⁠—⁠admitted it with a most exemplary and edifying show of masculine contrition. But then he went on to point out to the priest that between his wife’s case and his there was a great gulf fixed, from the point of view of the ecclesiastical vision.Hehad sinned, it was true, and deserved reprehension; but he was anxious, all the same, to remain in close union as ever with his wife, to admit the obligation and sanctity of the sacrament. Frau Hausberger, on the other hand, had left his hearth and home, and seemed now on the very point of falling into the hands of heretics, who might persuade her to accept the dissolving verdict of a mere earthly court, and to marry again during her husband’s lifetime, in open defiance of the Church’s authority. Her soul was thus placed in very serious jeopardy. If she continued to remain with Will or with Will’s friends, and if they over-persuaded her to obtain a divorce, she would become a Protestant, or at any rate would enter into an irregular union which no Catholic could regard as anything other than legalised adultery.

The justness and soundness of Herr Hausberger’s views deeply impressed the candid mind of his confessor. It is pleasant indeed, in these degenerate days, to find a layman who so thoroughly enters into the Church’s idea as to the obligation of the sacraments. Moreover, to let a well-known lamb of the flock thus stray from the fold before the eyes of all Europe⁠—⁠and on such a question⁠—⁠the confessor saw well would be a serious calamity. Indeed, the Church had somewhat prided itself in its way on Signora Casalmonte. It had pointed to her more than once as a conspicuous example of pure Catholic life under trying circumstances. A Tyrolese peasant-girl, brought up in a country where Catholic influences still bear undisputed sway, and transplanted to the most dangerous and least approved of professions, she had comported herself on the stage, in spite of every temptation, with conspicuous modesty and religious feeling. Beautiful, graceful, much admired, much sought after in all the capitals of Europe, she had resisted the many snares that beset a singer’s career, and had shown a singular instance of pure domestic life in a sphere where such life is, alas, too uncommon. So much could the lessons of the Church effect; so great was the lasting power of early Catholic influences.

And now, if they must eat their own words publicly, and go back on their own encomiums, if Linnet, on whom they had prided themselves as a shining example of the success of their method, was to go off before the eyes of all the world with a non-Catholic poet⁠—⁠worse still, if she was to fly in the face of their most cherished principles, and request a divorce at the hands of purely secular judges, Catholicism itself would receive a serious blow in the eyes of many doubtful or wavering adherents. A person like the Casalmonte commands public attention. Of course, if the worst came to the worst, it would be easy enough for the Church to disown her; easy enough to remark, with a casual little sneer, that Rome had never approved of the theatrical profession⁠—⁠above all, for women. Still, it is a good pastor’s duty, if possible, to save, above all things, the souls of his flock; and the first thing to do, it was clear, the confessor thought, was to bring the Casalmonte back again into subjection to her own husband. They must strain every nerve to prevent her obtaining or even demanding a divorce; they must strive, if they could, to obviate a gross and open scandal.

Actuated by such motives, and by many others of a more technical character, the confessor, after some demur, consented at last to the somewhat unusual course of calling upon the lost lamb, if her whereabouts could be found, and endeavouring to save her either from open sin or still more open rebellion. As soon as he learned she hadn’t gone off with Will Deverill, but was quietly staying with a wealthy American lady, an intimate friend of her suspected lover’s, the priest made up his sapient mind at once this meant a determination to seek a divorce, which must instantly be combated by every means in his power. So he worked upon Linnet’s susceptible Southern nature by striking successively all the profoundest chords of religion, shame, penitence, remorse, and terror. He appalled her with the authoritative voice of the Church; he convicted her of sin; he overawed her with the mysterious sanctity of a divine sacrament. Before he had finished his harangue, Linnet crouched and cowered in abject fear before him. She loved Will with all her heart: she would always love him; she hated Andreas with all her soul: she couldn’t help but hate him. Still, if God and the Church so ordained, she would follow that man she hated, till death them did part; she would forsake that man she loved, though her heart broke with love for him.

Andreas seized his opportunity; he struck while the iron was hot. His brougham was at the door; he had sent their luggage on to Charing Cross before him. In haste and trembling, he hurried Linnet away, hardly even waiting for Ellen to bring down the portmanteau with her jewellery and necessaries. They drove straight to Charing Cross, and took the Club train southwards. That night they spent in Paris. Linnet, heart-broken but calm, insisted on separate rooms; for that, at least, she must stipulate; she would follow him, she said, as the Church directed, to the bitter end, but never again while he lived should he dare to lay those heavy hands of his upon her. Next morning, they took the early express to Innsbruck,viaZurich and the Vorarlberg. Two evenings later, they sat together at St Valentin.

How strange it all seemed to her now, that familiar old world of her own native Tyrol! Everything was there, just as of yore, to be sure⁠—⁠land, people, villages⁠—⁠but oh, how small, how petty, how mean, how shrunken! St Valentin had dwindled down to a mere collection of farm-houses; the church, whose green steeple once looked so tall and great, had grown short and stumpy and odd and squalid-looking; theWirthshaus, that once prosperous and commodious inn, seemed in her eyes to-day a mere fourth-rate little simple country tavern. To all of us, when we revisit well-known scenes of our childhood, space seems to have shrunk, the world to have grown smaller and meaner and uglier. But to Linnet, the change seemed even greater than to most of us. She had been taken straight away from that petty hamlet, and elevated with surprising rapidity into European fame⁠—⁠a popular favourite of Milan and Naples, Rome and Paris, Munich and Brussels, London and Vienna. The break in her life had been sudden and enormous; she had passed at once, as it were, from the village inn to the courts of kings and the adulation of great cities. And now, when she came back again, all was blank and dreary. The dear mother was dead; Will Deverill was away, and she might not see him; the Herr Vicar turned out a greasy, frowsy Austrian parish priest; Cousin Fridolin had a fat wife and two dirty-faced babies. The poetry seemed to have faded out of the Tyrol she once knew; the very cow-bells rang harsh⁠—⁠and Will Deverill, who could make music of them, was away over in London.

Only Nature itself remained to console her. And Andreas in his wisdom allowed her to commune much with Nature. The eternal hills had still some slight balm for her wounded spirit. Linnet and her husband stopped as guests at theWirthshaus; it was Andreas’s still, but he had let it to Cousin Fridolin. In the morning, after Linnet had gulped down the coffee and roll that seemed to half choke her, she would stroll up the hill behind the village inn, and sit on the boulders, just above the belt of pine wood, where she had sat long ago hand in hand with Will Deverill. The village children sometimes came and gazed at her, and whispered to one another in an awestruck undertone how this was Lina Telser, who once minded cows in a châlet on the Alps, and who was now the Casalmonte, a great, rich singer in England, with diamonds in her box, and grand rings on her fingers. Linnet dressed very simply for this mountain life, and tried to seem the same as of yore to Cousin Fridolin, and the priest, and the good old neighbours: but, ah me, how changed was the world of the Tyrol! And how curious it seemed to hear the same familiar chatter still running on about the same old gossips, the same petty jealousies, the same narrow hopes, and fears, and ideals, when she herself had passed through so much, meanwhile⁠—⁠had known other men, new ideas, strange cities!

So for a fortnight, Linnet lived on, scarcely speaking to Andreas, but sitting by herself on those springtide hills, where the globe-flowers scattered gold with a stintless hand and the orchids empurpled whole wide tracts of the meadows. She sat there⁠—⁠and thought of Will⁠—⁠and obeyed the Church⁠—⁠and followed Andreas. Yet, oh, how strange that God and our hearts should be thus at open war! that Nature should tell us one thing and the Church another! ’Twas a consequence of the Fall of Man, the Herr Vicar assured her; for the heart, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And it was desperately wicked of her, no doubt, to think so much about Will; but there⁠—⁠Church or no Church, Linnet couldn’t help thinking of him.

She was resigned, in a way; very much resigned; her heart had been crushed once for all when she married Andreas. It had flared up in a fitful flicker of open rebellion when she left his house and flung herself fiercely on Will Deverill’s bosom; and then⁠—⁠Will himself had bruised the broken reed, had quenched the smoking flax, and sent her away hurt, bleeding, and humiliated. He did it for her own sake, she knew, but, oh, she would have loved him better if he’d been a little less thoughtful for her, less noble, less generous! Loved him better? Oh no; to love him better would be impossible! But they would both have been happier, with the world well lost, and present love for the reward of Paradise closed to them hereafter.

Purgatory? Ah, what did she care for their purgatory now! To count one year of love fulfilled with Will, she would gladly give her poor body to be burnt in burning hell for ever and ever. It was the Church that intervened to prevent it, not she; for herself, she was Will’s; she could live for him, she could die for him, she could lose her own soul for him.

She never said a word to Cousin Fridolin and his wife, or to the people of St Valentin, of her relations with Andreas. Still, the villagers guessed them all. Simple villagers know more of the world than we reckon. She was rich, she was grand, they said, since she’d married theWirth, and become a great lady: but she wasn’t happy with Herr Andreas; he was cold and unkind to her. Those marks on her little wrists⁠—⁠they were surely the impress of Herr Andreas’s big fingers; those red eyes, that pale face⁠—⁠they were surely the result of Herr Andreas’s infidelities. Money, after all, isn’t everything in this world: Lina Telser had diamonds and pearls at command, and she drank fine red wine, specially brought from Innsbruck; but she would have been happier, people thought at St Valentin in the Zillerthal, if she’d married Cousin Fridolin, or even Franz Lindner!

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