Germaine had now lashed himself into the certainty that he was that most miserable and pitiable of civilised beings, the trusting, kindly, nay more, adoring husband, whose wife betrays him with his friend.
When others had laughed, as men have laughed, and will ever laugh, at similar ironic juxtapositions of fate, Germaine had remained grave, for he had a sensitive heart—a heart which made him realise something of what lay beneath such tales. Now he told himself that so no doubt he himself was being laughed at by the many, pitied—the thought stung deeper—by the few.
As he at last turned into Curzon Street, and so was within a few yards of his house, it struck two o'clock. By now they must all be waiting for him, and Bella would be angry, as angry as she ever allowed her sweet-tempered nature to be. But Germaine told himself savagely that he didn't care,—he was sorry to be so near home, to know that in a few moments he would have to command himself, to pretend light-hearted indifference before a crowd of people most of whom he now feared—ay, feared and hated, for they must all have long suspected what he only now knew to be the truth.
Some one touched him. He started violently. It was his sister, Fanny, pouring out a confused stream of apologies and explanations. He stared at her in silence, and she thought he was so seriously annoyed, so "put out" that he could not trust himself to speak.
But though, as they stood there face to face, he dimly realised what his sister was trying to say, how she was trying to explain her failure to keep her appointment with him in the Park, Germaine could not have told, had his life depended on it, the nature of her excuse.
Together they walked side by side to the door of his house, and, as he rang the bell, as he knocked, he remembered with a pang of jealous anguish that Bella had asked him, when they moved into this house, not to use a latch-key in the daytime; she had explained to him that to do so prevented the servants keeping up to the mark, and he had obeyed her, as he always did obey her. This trifle made his anger, for the moment his impotent anger, become colder, clarified.
It was only an hour later, but at last they were all gone, these people whom Oliver Germaine had now begun to hate and suspect, each in their different measure, women and men. Everyone had left, that is, excepting Henry Buck and Fanny; and Fanny was just going away, Oliver seeing her off at the front door.
Germaine believed that he had carried himself well. True, Uvedale had said to him, "Feeling a bit chippy, old chap?" and twice he had noticed Joliffe's rather cold grey eyes fixed attentively on his face, but under the chatter of the women—Jenny Arabin was a great talker and in a harmless sort of way a great gossip, always knowing everybody's business better than they did themselves—under cover of the women's chatter, he had been able to remain silent, and, whatever the two men present had suspected,—one of the two forced thereto by his own conscience,—Bella had certainly noticed nothing. She had not even seen, as his sister had seen, that Oliver looked tired and unlike himself.
Why, just now Fanny had spoken to him solicitously about his health—blundering, tactless, Fanny had actually asked him if anything special were worrying him!
He shut the door on his sister, and crossed the little hall. The time had now come when he must have it out with Bella.
Then, suddenly, there came over Germaine a feeling as if he had been living through a hideous nightmare. If that were indeed so, then his whole life would not be too long to secretly atone to Bella for his horrible suspicion.
It seemed suddenly monstrous that he should suspect Bella on the word of a Mrs. Bliss. His wife had a right, after all, to pay her dressmaker in bank-notes if the fancy seized her. Sometimes when Bella did something that he, Oliver, did not like or approve, she explained that her mother had done the same thing, and the excuse always irritated him, left him without an answer.
Supposing that Bella were now to tell him that the late Mrs. Arabin, whose reputation for a certain daring liveliness and exceeding beauty still lingered in the ever-shifting naval and military society where he had first met his wife, always paid her bills in notes and cash rather than by cheque—what then?
He walked up the staircase; Henry Buck passed him coming down. Germaine's eyes rested on the awkward figure, the plain, good-natured face. Rabbit was certainly lacking in tact; he always outstayed all their other guests, and he never knew when Bella was tired, but still he was the one human being present at the little lunch party at whom Oliver had been able to look without a feeling of unease.
Slowly he turned the painted china knob of the drawing-room door.
Bella was standing before the Sheraton bureau which had been the gift of Peter Joliffe. She had apparently been putting something away; Germaine heard the click of the lock. She turned round quickly, and her husband thought there was a look of constraint on her face.
"Why, Oliver," she said, "I thought you were going out with Fanny this afternoon!"
"With Fanny?" he stammered, "I never thought of doing such a thing."
"But you're not going to stay in, are you?"
He looked at her attentively, and again there surged up in his heart wild jealousy and suspicion. Why did she ask whether he was going to stay in? Which of the two men who had just left the house was she expecting to come back as soon as he, poor deluded fool, was safely out of the way?
But Bella went on speaking rather quickly: "I shan't go out. I'm tired. Besides, I'm expecting some people to tea. So perhaps I'd better go and take my hat off. I shall only be a few minutes; do wait till I come back." Bella spoke rather breathlessly, moving across the room towards the door.
Then she didn't want him to go out? He had wronged her in this, at any rate. Germaine stared at the door through which his wife had just gone with a feeling of miserable uncertainty.
Then his eye travelled round to the place where she had been standing just now, in front of Joliffe's bureau. A glance at Bella's bank-book would set his mind at rest one way or the other. It would go far to prove or disprove the story Mrs. Bliss had told, for it would show if Bella were indeed in the habit of drawing considerable cheques to "self." Why hadn't he thought of this simple test before,—before shaming himself and shaming his wife by base suspicions?
And yet Oliver, for some few moments, stood in the middle of the room irresolute. Yesterday it would never have occurred to him that Bella would mind his looking at her bank-book, although, as a matter of fact he never had looked at it. She was a tidy little woman; he knew that everything under the flap which he had seen her close down so quickly just now would be exquisitely neat; he knew the exact spot where her bank-book was to be found.
With a curious feeling that he was doing something dishonourable,—and it was a feeling which sat very uneasily on Oliver Germaine,—he took hold of the little brass knob and slid up the flap of the sloping desk.
The bank-book closed the ranks of the red household books over which in old days, when they were first married, before he had come into his fortune, he had actually seen Bella shed tears.
With fingers that felt numb he took up the little vellum-bound book and opened it at the page containing the latest items.
There, on the credit side, was the sum of money which had been paid in, to his bankers' order, on the last quarter day. On the debit side were a few cheques made out to trades-people. There was not a single cheque made out to "self" on the page at which he was looking; but—but of course it was possible that Bella, like so many women, added a few pounds for change every time she settled a tradesman's account.
He turned several leaves of the little book backwards——Here was a page which bore the date of three years ago; and here, as he had feared to find, there were constant, small entries to "self"....
By the empty place on the shelf where the bank-book had stood was a gilt file for bills, a pretty little toy which had been given her, so the husband now remembered, by Uvedale. The letters composing the word "paid" were twisted round the handle—horrible symbolic word!
He took up the file and ran his fingers through the receipted bills.
Ah! here at last, was one which bore the name of Mrs. Bliss.
The amount of the bill amazed him,—eight hundred and seventy-one pounds, sixteen shillings,—and Bella had paid four hundred pounds on account about a fortnight before. It was the only bill on the file on which there still remained a balance owing. Germaine did not need to look again at his wife's bank-book to see that the majority of the receipted bills had not been paid by cheque.
These bills, so he now became aware with a frightful contraction of the heart, were for all sorts of things—expensive trifles, costly hot-house flowers, extravagantly expensive fruit—which he had enjoyed, and of which he had partaken, believing, if he thought of the matter at all—fool that he had been—that they were being paid for out of his modest income, the income which had once seemed so limitless.
"What are you doing, Oliver? You've no business to look at my things. I never look at yours." He had not heard the door open, and Bella had crept up swiftly behind him; there was some anger, but there was far more fear, in her soft voice.
Germaine turned round and looked at his wife.
Bella had changed her dress, and she was now wearing a painted muslin gown, her slender waist girdled with a blue ribbon. She looked exquisitely lovely, and so young,—a girl, a young and innocent girl.
There fell a heavy hand on her rounded shoulder.
"Oliver!" she cried, "you're hurting me!"
He withdrew his hand—quickly.
"Bella," he said, "I only want to ask you one question—I know everything,"—and in answer to a strange look that came over her face he added hurriedly, "Never mind how I found out. Ihavefound out, and now I only want to ask you one thing—I—I have a right to know who it is."
"Who it is?" she repeated. "I don't understand what you mean, Oliver? Who—what?" but as Bella Germaine asked the useless question she shrank back; for the first time in their joint lives she felt afraid of Oliver,—afraid, and intensely sorry for him.
A sob rose to her throat. What a shame it was! How on earth could he have found out? She had thought he would go on not knowing—for ever. That this should happen now, when she was so happy too,—when everything was so—so comfortable.
"Tell me—tell me at once, Bella," he said again, shaken almost out of his self-control by her pretended lack of understanding.
But Bella made no answer; she was retreating warily towards the open window; Oliver, poor angry Oliver, could not say much, he could notdoanything, out on the balcony.
But he grasped her arm. "Come back," he said, "right into the room," and forced her, trembling, down into a low chair. "Now tell me," he repeated. "Don't keep me waiting—I can't stand it. I won't hurt you." He leant over her, grasping her soft arm.
But still Bella said nothing. Her free hand was toying with the fringe of her blue sash. She had become very pale, a sickly yellow colour which made her violet eyes seem blue,—for one terrible moment Oliver thought she was going to faint.
"Why should I tell you?" she muttered at last, "you can't force me to tell you. It's a matter personal to myself. It's no business of yours. I've never spent any of the money on you,"—she unfortunately added, "at least hardly any."
Germaine took his hand from her arm. "My God!" he said, "my God!"
Did a dim gleam of what he was feeling penetrate Bella's brain?
"I don't know why you should trouble to ask me," she said defiantly. "Surely you must know well enough."
"I daresay I'm stupid, but I find it very difficult to guess which of the two, Joliffe or—or Uvedale, is your lover."
"My lover? Joliffe—Uvedale?" Bella started to her feet, the colour rushed back into her face. She was shaking with anger and indignation.
"How dare you insult me so?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have dared to say such a thing if my father had been alive! How dare you say, how dare youthink, I have a lover?" and then with quivering pain she gave a little cry, "Oh, Oliver!"
Germaine looked at her grimly enough. What a fool—what an abject fool he had been! It fed his anger to see that Bella had so poor an opinion of his intelligence as to suppose that he would believe her denial.
"I know you are lying," he said briefly. "Iknowit is either Joliffe or Uvedale."
"But, Oliver—indeed it isn't!"
She was looking at him with a very curious expression; the fear, the real terror, there had been in her face, had left it. She was staring at her husband as if she were seeking to find on his face some indication of a distraught, unhinged mind.
But he looked cool, collected, stern,—and anger again surged up in Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never—never forgive him his vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone so straight—never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all the admiration lavished on her?
There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before, when she had often rehearsed this scene, when she had been so haunted by the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare.
But never had she imagined the conversation between Oliver and herself taking the turn it now had. Never, in her most anguished dreams, had Oliver accused her of having—a lover. But she had known, only too well, with what anger and amazement he would learn the lesser truth.
"Peter Joliffe?" she said, with a certain scorn. "How little you know Peter, Oliver, if you think he would be any married woman's lover, let alone mine! Why, Peter's a regular old maid!" She laughed a little hysterically at her simile, and, to her husband, the merriment, which he felt to be genuine, lowered the discussion to a level which was hateful—sordid.
"Then it's Uvedale," he said, heavily; and this time, so he was quick to notice, Bella did not take the trouble to utter a direct denial.
"Bob Uvedale? Are you quite mad? Bob Uvedale is really fond of you, Oliver,—do you honestly think he would make love to me?"
She was actually arguing with him; he shrugged his shoulders with a hopeless gesture.
Then Bella Germaine came quite close up to her husband. She looked at him straight in the eyes.
"I'll tell you," she said. "I see you really don't know. It's—it's——" she hesitated, again a look of shame,—more, of fear,—came into her face, "The person who has been giving me money, Oliver, is Rabbit."
"Rabbit? I don't believe you!"
"You don't believe me?"
Bella drew a long breath. The worst, from her point of view, was now over. She had told the truth,—and Oliver had brushed the truth aside, so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else.
Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer—perhaps Oliver would feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not find a better use for his money than in making her happy.
She walked over to her pretty desk, and frowned a little as she saw its condition of disarray; the receipted bills which she had found her husband looking over were scattered, even the tradesmen's books had not been put back in their place on the little shelf.
She touched the spring of a rather obvious secret drawer. There had been a time when Bella Germaine had hidden very carefully what she was now about to show Oliver as the certain, triumphant proof that his revolting suspicions were false. But of late she had grown careless.
"If you don't believe me," she said coldly, "look at this, Oliver. I think it will convince you that I told the truth just now."
Bella knew she had a right to be bitterly indignant at her husband's preposterous accusation. But she told herself that now was not the time to show it; she would punish Oliver later on.
She waited a moment and then cried, "Catch!"
Oliver instinctively held out his hands. A bulky envelope fell into them. It was addressed in a handwriting he knew well,—the unformed, and yet meticulous handwriting of Henry Buck. On it was written:
"Mrs. Oliver Germaine,"19, West Chapel Street,"Mayfair."
"Mrs. Oliver Germaine,"19, West Chapel Street,"Mayfair."
In the corner were added the words:
"Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be handsomely rewarded."
"Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be handsomely rewarded."
"Open it!" she said imperiously. "Open it, and see what is inside,—he only brought it to-day."
Oliver opened the envelope. Folded in two pieces of paper was a packet of bank-notes held together with an elastic band.
Germaine looked up questioningly at his wife.
Bella hung her head. She had the grace to feel embarrassed, ashamed in this moment that she believed to be the moment of her exculpation. Her pretty little hands, laden with rings, each one of which had been given her by her husband, were again toying with the fringe of her blue sash.
The silence grew intolerable.
"I know I've been a beast,"—her voice faltered, broke into tears. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but—but you know, Oliver, Rabbit isn't like an ordinary man."
"When did he begin to give you money?" asked Oliver, in a low voice.
"A long time ago," she answered, vaguely.
"He came in one day when I was awfully upset about a bill—a bill of that old devil, Bliss,—and he was so kind, Oliver. He explained how awfully fond he was of us both. He said we were his only friends—I alwayshavebeen nice to him, you know. He said he couldn't spend the money he'd got——"
"How much have you had from him?"
"I can tell you exactly," she said eagerly, and again she moved towards her bureau.
Bella felt utterly dejected; somehow she had not expected Oliver to take the news quite in this way; he looked dreadful—not relieved, as she had thought he would do.
It was with slow lagging steps that she walked back to where her husband was still standing with the envelope and its contents crushed in his right hand.
Bella's love of tidiness and method had stood her in fatally good stead. She had put down all the sums she had received from Henry Buck, but in such a fashion that any one else looking at the figures would not have known money was in question.
Oliver stared down at the piece of paper. Insensibly he straightened his shoulders as if to meet calmly a physical blow. "Are these pounds?" he asked.
She nodded.
"But Bella, it's an enormous sum,—over four thousand."
"I suppose it is," she said listlessly.
Her husband put the paper in his breast pocket; then he hesitated a moment, and Bella thought he was perhaps going to hand her back the envelope and its contents. But that also, to her chagrin, disappeared into his pocket.
"I suppose the money Buck brought you to-day is included in this amount?"
Bella shook her head sadly. "I hadn't time to put it down," she said.
"Well, I'll see what can be done."
"I suppose you mean to pay it all back? I suppose"—her voice was trembling with self-pity—"that we shall have to go and live in the country now?"
He said nothing,—only looked at her with that same cold look of surprise and alienation.
He was leaving the room when a cry from her brought him back. She clutched his hand.
"You've never said you're sorry for the horrible thing you said to me——" and, as he looked at her, still silent, "Oliver! you surely don't think that Rabbit——Why, he's never even squeezed my hand!"
"Stop!" he cried roughly. "Don't be silly, Bella. Of course I don't think anything of the kind. I accept absolutely what you tell me of your relations with Henry Buck."
"Why, there have been no relations with Henry Buck and me," she cried, protesting. "What a hateful word to use, Oliver!"
But he was already out of the door, making his way to the only human being in whom he still felt complete confidence, who, he knew, loved him, in the good old homely sense of the word.
"My dear boy, whatisthe matter?"
Fanny sat up. She had been lying down on the sofa in the sitting-room of her lodgings. Oliver had explained to the servant that he was Mrs. Burdon's brother, and he had been allowed to make his own way up to the drawing-room floor.
"There's a good deal the matter," he said. "The fact is I've made a fool of myself, Fanny,—and I've come to you for help."
Fanny looked up at him, and what she saw checked the words on her lips. She was wide awake now, but rather painfully conscious that she looked untidy. Her smart voile gown—voile was the "smart" material that season—was crumpled. And Oliver's wife, Bella, was always so dreadfully, so unnaturally, tidy and neat,—it was one of the things that perhaps made people think her so much prettier than she really was.
"Of course I will help you," she answered briskly. "Tell me all about it."
"Have you still that five thousand pounds Cousin Andrew left you?"
"Why of course I have,—and it's rather more now, for luckily we didn't put it into Consols; we put it into a Canadian security."
"Is it invested in Dick's name?"
Dick's wife laughed. "No, of course it isn't," she said. "Why should it be?"
"Could you get at it without Dick's knowing?"
"Yes, I suppose I could." There was a touch of wonder in her voice.
"Fanny, I want you to lend me four thousand pounds." Oliver spoke huskily. He was staring out of the window.
His sister looked at him rather queerly for a moment: "Yes, of course I will," she said. And, as he turned to her, his face working,—"You needn't make a fuss about it, dear old boy. You'll pay me back all right, I know that."
"I'll insure against it, and I'll pay you proper interest for it—whatever you're getting now," he said. "And we'll get a lawyer to see that it's all made safe."
"That'll be all right," said Fanny, and then again she gave him that curious, considering look.
Germaine pulled himself together. "You'll think I've been a fool," he exclaimed abruptly,—he had to say something in answer to that look,—"and so I have. But you know—at least you don't know, luckily for you—what it's like to be mixed up with a lot of fellows who are all richer than one is oneself;" and then in a very different tone, one in which his sister felt the ring of truth, "Are you sure Dick won't know, Fanny? I don't want Dick to know."
"Of course he won't know," Fanny smiled. "You don't suppose I tell Dick everything?"
Oliver stared at his sister. He was rather shocked by her admission; till to-day he had thought that all husbands and wives who loved one another told each other everything; and yet, here was Fanny, who hadn't a thought in the world beyond Dick, the children, the dogs—and, and, yes, her brother——
"It's none of Dick's business what I choose to do with my own money—not that he'd mind."
"I think of spreading the re-payment over five years."
"That would be rather too soon," she said; and added, looking away as she spoke, "I don't think it would be fair to Bella."
Oliver reddened, a man's dusky unbecoming blush.
"Bella's been good about it," he said briefly. "She said herself that we should have to go and live in the country. Still, let's make it seven years. I say, Fanny, youarea brick," and sitting down by the table, Oliver Germaine broke into hard, painful sobs.
Fanny got up off the sofa. She felt rather shy.
"Don't be so worried," she said. "Bella's a very good sort, and awfully fond of you, old boy. She'll like the country better than you think. Her looks will last twice as long there, and, and—if I were you, Oliver—you and Bella I mean," Fanny got rather mixed, and very red—"well, I'd try and have a baby. Bella would look awfully sweet with a baby. And a baby's no trouble in the country—less trouble than a puppy!"
"Yes, that's true," he said, raising his head, and feeling vaguely comforted. His sister Fanny had a lot of sense. Oliver had always known that.
"Certainly, however, one day these present conditions of marriage will be changed. Marriage will be allowed for a certain period, say ten years."—Mr.George Meredithin theDaily Mailof September 24th, 1904.
"Certainly, however, one day these present conditions of marriage will be changed. Marriage will be allowed for a certain period, say ten years."—Mr.George Meredithin theDaily Mailof September 24th, 1904.
"Give you some heads? My dear fellow, there need be no question of heads! This is to be a model will. You need simply put down, in as few words as are legally permissible—I know nothing of such things—that I leave all of which I die possessed to my wife."
Philip Dering threw his head back, and gave the man to whom he was speaking, and opposite to whom he was standing, a confident smiling glance. Then he turned and walked quickly over to the narrow, old-fashioned, balconied window which, commanding the wide wind-blown expanse of Abingdon Street, exactly faced the great cavity formed by the arch of the Victoria Tower.
To the right lay the riverside garden, a bright patch of delicate spring colouring and green verdure, bounded by the slow-moving grey waters of the Thames; and Dering's eager eyes travelled on till he saw, detaching itself against an April afternoon horizon, the irregular mass of building formed by Lambeth Palace and the Lollards' Tower.
"I say," he exclaimed, rather suddenly, "this is better than Bedford Park, eh? I suppose a floor in one of these houses would cost us a tremendous lot; even beyondourmeans, Wingfield?" and again a happy smile came over the tense, clear-cut face, still full of youthful glow and enthusiasm.
"You wish everything to go to Louise? All right, I'll make a note of that."
The speaker, a round-faced, slightly bald, shrewd-looking lawyer, took no notice of the, to him, absurd question concerning the rent of floors in Abingdon Street. Still, he looked indulgently at his friend, as he added:
"But wait a bit,—I promise that yours shall be a model will,—only you seem to have forgotten, my dear fellow, that you may out-live your wife. Now, should you have the misfortune to lose Louise, to whom would you wish to devise this fifteen thousand pounds? It's possible, too, though not very probable, I admit, that you may both die at the same time—both be killed in a railway accident for instance."
"Such good fortune may befall us——" Dering spoke quite simply, and accepted the other's short laugh with great good-humour. "Oh! you know what I mean; I alwayshavethought husbands and wives—who care, I mean—ought to die on the same day. That they don't do so is one of the many strange mysteries which complicate life. But I say, Wingfield——"
The speaker had turned away from the window. He had again taken up his stand opposite the other's broad writing table, and not even the cheap, ill-made clothes could hide the graceful lines of the tall, active figure, not even the turned-down collar and orange silk tie could destroy the young man's look of rather subtle distinction.
"Failing Louise, I should like this money, at my death, to be divided equally between the young Hintons and your kids," and as the other made a gesture of protest, Dering added quickly:
"What better could I do? Louise is devoted to Jack Hinton's children, and I've always regarded you—I have indeed, old man,—as my one real friend. Of course it's possible now,"—an awkward shy break came into his voice—"it's possible now, I say, that we may have children of our own; I don't suppose you've ever realised how poor, how horribly poor, we've been all these years."
He looked away, avoiding the other man's eyes; then, picking up his hat and stick with a quick, nervous gesture, was gone.
After the door had shut on his friend, Wingfield went on still standing for awhile. His hands mechanically sorted the papers and letters lying on his table into neat little heaps, but his thoughts were travelling backward, through his and Dering's past lives.
The friends had first met at the City of London school, for they were much of an age, though the lawyer looked the elder of the two. Then Dering had gone to Cambridge, and Wingfield, more humbly, to take up life as an articled clerk to a good firm of old-established attorneys. Again, later, they had come together once more, sharing a modest lodging, while Dering earned a small uncertain income by contributing to the literary weeklies, by "ghosting" writers more fortunate than himself, by tutoring whenever he got the chance,—in a word, by resorting to the few expedients open to the honest educated Londoner lacking a definite profession.
The two men had not parted company till Dering, enabled to do so with the help of a small legacy, had chosen to marry a Danish girl, as good-looking, as high-minded, as unpractical as himself.
But stay, had Louise Dering proved herself so unpractical during the early years of her married life?
Wingfield, standing there, his mind steeped in memories, compared her, with an unconscious critical sigh, with his own stolid, unimaginative wife, Kate. As he did so he wondered whether, after all, Dering had not known how to make the best of both worlds; and yet he and his Louise had gone through some bad times together.
Wingfield had been the one intimate of the young couple when they began their married life in a three-roomed flat in Gray's Inn; and he had been aware, painfully so, of the incessant watchful struggle with money difficulties, never mentioned while the struggle was in being, for only the rich can afford to complain of poverty. He had admired, it might almost be said he had reverenced with all his heart, the high courage then shown by his friend's wife.
During those first difficult years, when he, Wingfield, could do nothing for them, Louise had gone without the help of even the least adequate servant. The women of her nation are taught housewifery as an indispensable feminine accomplishment, and so she had scrubbed and sung, cooked and read, made and mended, for Philip and herself.
Wingfield was glad to remember that it was he who had at last found Dering regular employment; he who had so far thrown prudence aside as to persuade one of his first and most valuable clients to appoint his clever if eccentric friend secretary to a company formed to exploit a new invention. The work had proved congenial; Dering had done admirably well, and now, when his salary had just been raised to four hundred a year, a distant, almost unknown, cousin of his dead mother's had left him fifteen thousand pounds!
At last James Wingfield sat down. He began making notes of the instructions he had just received, though as he did so he knew well enough that he could not bring himself to draw up a will by which his own children might so greatly benefit.
Then, as he sat, pen in hand, wondering with a certain discomfort as to what ought to be the practical effect of the conversation, there suddenly came a sound of hurrying feet up the shallow oak staircase, and through the door, flung open quickly and unceremoniously, strode once more Philip Dering.
"I say, I've forgotten something!" he exclaimed, and then, as Wingfield instinctively looked round the bare spacious room—"No, I didn't leave anything behind me. I simply forgot to ask you one very important question——"
He took off his hat, put it down with a certain deliberation, then drew up a chair, and placed himself astride on it, an action which to the other suddenly seemed to blot out the years which had gone by since they had been housemates together.
"As I went down your jolly old staircase, Wingfield, it suddenly occurred to me that making a will may not be quite so simple a matter as I once thought it——"
He hesitated a moment, then went on:—"So I've come back to ask you the meaning of the term 'proving a will.' What I really want to get at, old man, is whether my wife, if she became a widow, would have to give any actual legal proof of our marriage? Would she be compelled, I mean, to show her 'marriage lines'?"
Wingfield hesitated. The question took him by surprise.
"I fancy that would depend," he said, "on the actual wording of the will, but all that sort of thing is a mere formality, and of course any solicitor employed by her would see to it. By the way, I suppose you were married in Denmark?" He frowned, annoyed with himself for having forgotten a fact with which he must have been once well acquainted. "If you had asked me to be your best man," he added with a vexed laugh, "I shouldn't have forgotten the circumstances."
Dering tipped the chair which he was bestriding a little nearer to the edge of the table which stood between himself and Wingfield; a curious look, a look half humorous, half deprecating, but in no sense ashamed, came over his sensitive, mobile face.
"No," he said, at length, "we were not married in Denmark. Neither were we married in England. In fact, there was no ceremony at all."
The eyes of the two men, of the speaker and of his listener, met for a moment; but Wingfield, to the other's sudden uneasy surprise, made no comment on what he had just heard.
Dering sprang up, and during the rest of their talk he walked, with short, quick strides, from the door to the window, from the window to the door.
"I wanted to tell you at the time, but Louise would not have it; though I told her that in principle—not, of course, in practice—you thoroughly agreed with me—I mean with us. Nay, more, that you, with your clear, legal mind, had always realised, even more than I could do, the utter absurdity of making such a contract as that of marriage—which of all contracts is the most intimately personal, and which least affects the interests of those outside the contracting parties—the only legal contract which can't be rescinded or dissolved by mutual agreement! Then again, you must admit that there was one really good reason why we should not tell you the truth; you already liked Kate, and Louise, don't you remember, used to play chaperon. Now, Kate's people, you know——!"
All the humour had gone out of Dering's face, but the deprecating look had deepened.
The lawyer made a strong effort over himself. He had felt for a moment keenly hurt, and not a little angry.
"I don't think," he said quietly, "that there is any need of explanations or apologies between us. Of course, I can't help feeling very much surprised, and that in spite of our old theoretical talks and discussions, concerning—well, this subject. But I don't doubt that in the circumstances you did quite right. Mind you, I don't mean about the marriage," he quickly corrected himself, "but only as to the concealment from me."
He waited a moment, and then went on, hesitatingly: "But even now I don't really understand what happened—I should like to know a little more——"
Dering stayed his walk across the room, and stood opposite his friend. He felt a great wish to justify himself, and to win Wingfield's retrospective sympathy.
"I will tell you everything there is to tell!" he cried eagerly; "indeed, it can all be told in a moment. My wife and I entered into a personal contract together, which we arranged, provisionally, of course, should last ten years. Louise was quite willing, absolutely willing...." For the first time there came a defensive note in the eager voice. "You see the idea—that of leasehold marriage? We used to talk about it, you and I, of course only as a Utopian possibility. All I can say is that I had the good fortune to meet with a woman with whom I was able to try the experiment; and all I can tell you is—well, I need not tellyou, Wingfield, that there has never been a happier marriage than ours." Again Dering started pacing up and down the room. "Louise has been everything—everything—everything—that such a man as myself could have looked for in a wife!"
"And has no one ever guessed—has no one ever known?" asked the other, rather sternly.
"Absolutely no one! Yes, wait a moment—there has been one exception. Louise told Gerda Hinton. You know they became very intimate after we went to Bedford Park, and Louise thought Gerda ought to know. But it made no difference—no difference at all!" he added, emphatically; "for in fact poor Gerda practically left her baby to Louise's care."
"And that worthless creature, Jack Hinton—does he know too?"
"No, I don't think so; in fact I may say most decidedly not—but of course Gerda may have told him, though for my part I don't believe that husbands and wives share their friends' secrets. Still, you are quite at liberty to tell Kate."
"No," said Wingfield, "I don't intend to tell Kate, and there will be no reason for doing so if you will take my advice—which is, I need hardly tell you, to go and get married at once. Now that you have come into this money, your marrying becomes a positive duty. Are you aware that if you were run over and killed on your way home to-day Louise would have no standing? that she would not have a right to a penny of this money, or even to any of the furniture which is in your house? Let me see, how long is it that you have been"—he hesitated awkwardly—"together?"
Dering looked round at him rather fiercely. "We have beenmarriednine years and a half," he said. "Our wedding day was the first of September. We spent our honeymoon in Denmark. You remember my little legacy?"
Wingfield nodded his head. His heart suddenly went out to his friend—the prosperous lawyer had reason to remember that hundred pounds legacy, for ten pounds of it had gone to help him out of some foolish scrape. But Dering had forgotten all that; he went on speaking, but more slowly:
"And then, as you know, we came back and settled down in Gray's Inn, and though we were horribly poor, perhaps poorer than even you ever guessed, we were divinely happy." He turned his back to the room and stared out once more at the greyness opposite.
"But you're quite right, old man, it's time we did like our betters! We'll be married at once, and I'll take her off for another and a longer honeymoon, and we'll come back and be even happier than we were before."
Then again, as abruptly as before, he was gone, shutting the door behind him, and leaving Wingfield staring thoughtfully after him.
That his friend, that the Philip Dering of ten years ago, should have done such a thing, was in no way remarkable, but that Louise—the thoughtful, well-balanced, intelligent woman, who, coming as a mere girl from Denmark, had known how to work her way up to a position of great trust and responsibility in a City house, so winning the esteem and confidence of her employers that they had again and again asked her to return to them after her marriage—that she should have consented to such—to such.... Wingfield even in his own mind hesitated for the right word ... to such an arrangement—seemed to the lawyer an astounding thing, savouring indeed of the fifth dimension.
No, no, he would certainly not tell Kate anything about it. Why should he? He knew very well how his wife would regard the matter, and how her condemnation would fall, not on Louise—Kate had become exceedingly fond of Louise—no, indeed, but on Dering. Kate had never cordially "taken" (a favourite word of hers, that) to Wingfield's friend; she thought him affected and unpractical, and she laughed at his turned-down collars and Liberty ties. No, no, there was no reason why Kate should be told a word of this extraordinary, this amazing story.
On leaving Abingdon Street, Philip Dering swung across the broad roadway, and made his way, almost instinctively, to the garden which lay so nearly opposite his friend's office windows. He wanted to calm down, to think things over, and to recover full possession of himself before going home.
It had cost him a considerable effort to tell Wingfield this thing. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he and Louise had done—on the contrary, he was very proud of it—but he had often felt, during all those years, that he was being treacherous to the man who was, after all, his best friend; and there was in Dering enough of the feminine element—that element which Kate Wingfield so thoroughly despised in him—to make him feel sorry and ashamed.
However, Wingfield had taken it very well, just as he would have wished him to take it, and no doubt the lawyer had given thoroughly sound advice. This unexpected, this huge legacy made all the difference. Besides, Dering knew well enough, when he examined his own heart and conscience, that he felt very differently about all manner of things from what he had been wont to feel say ten years ago.
After all, he was following in the footsteps of men greater and wiser than he. It is impossible to be wholly consistent. If he had been consistent he would have refused to pay certain taxes—in fact, to have been wholly consistent during the last ten years would have probably landed him, England being what it is, in a lunatic asylum. He shuddered, suddenly remembering that for awhile his own mother had been insane.
Still, as he strode along the primly kept paths of the Thames-side garden, he felt a great and, as he thought, a legitimate pride in the knowledge that in this one all-important matter, so deeply affecting his own and Louise's life, he and she had triumphantly defied convention, and had come out victorious.
The young man's thoughts suddenly took a softer, a more intimate turn; he told himself, with intense secret satisfaction, that Louise was dearer, ay, far dearer and more indispensable to him now than she had been during the days when she was still the "sweet stranger whom he called his wife." He remembered once saying to Wingfield that the ideal mate should be the improbable, be able at once to clean a grate, to cook a dinner, and to discuss Ibsen! Well, Louise had more than fulfilled this early and rather absurd ideal.
From the day when they had first met and made unconventional acquaintance, with no intervening friend to form a gossip-link of introduction, Dering had found her full of ever-recurrent and enchanting surprises. Her foreign birth and upbringing gave her both original and unsuspected points of view about everything English, and he had often thought, with good-humoured pity, of all those unfortunate friends of his, Wingfield included, whose lot it had perforce been to choose their wives among their own country-women.
Dering had not seen much of Denmark, but everything he had seen had won his enthusiastic approval. Where else were modern women to be found at once so practical and so cultivated, so pure-minded and so large-hearted? Perhaps he was half aware that his heaven was of his own creation, but that, in his present exalted mood, was only an added triumph; how few human beings can evolve, and preserve at will, their own stretch of blue sky!
Of course it was not always as easy as it seemed to be to-day; lately Louise had been listless and tired, utterly unlike herself—even, he had once or twice thought with dismay, slightly hysterical! But all that would disappear, utterly, during the first few days of their coming travels; and even he, so he now reminded himself, had felt quite unlike his usual sensible self—Dering was very proud of his good sense—since had come the news of this wonderful, this fairy-gift-like legacy.
The young man passed out of the garden, his feet stepping from the soft shell-strewn gravel on to the wide pavement which borders the Houses of Parliament. He made his way round swiftly, each buoyant step a challenge to fate, to the Members' Entrance, and so across the road to the gate which leads into what was once the old parish churchyard of Westminster. It was still too cold to sit out of doors, and after a momentary hesitation he turned into Westminster Abbey by the great north door.
Dering had not been in the Abbey since he was a child, and the spirit of quietude which fills the broad nave and narrow aisles on early spring days soothed his restlessness. But that, alas! only for a moment; as soon as his busy brain began to realise all that lay about him, he was filled with a sincere if half voluntarily comic indignation. It annoyed him to feel that this national heritage was still a church; why could not Westminster Abbey be treated as are the Colosseum in Rome and the Panthéon in Paris? And so, as he sat down in one of the pews which roused his resentment, he began to think over all the improvements which he would effect, were he given, if only for a few days, a free hand in Westminster Abbey!
Suddenly he saw, at right angles with himself, and moving across the choir, a group of four people, consisting of a man, a woman, and two children.
The man was Jack Hinton, the idle, ill-conditioned artist neighbour of his in Bedford Park, to whom there had been more than one reference in his talk with Wingfield; the children were Agatha and Mary Hinton, the motherless girls of the Danish woman to whom Louise had been so much devoted; and the fourth figure was that of Louise herself. His wife's back was turned to Dering, but even without the other three he would have known the tall, graceful figure, if only by the masses of fair, almost lint-white hair, arranged in low coils below her neat hat.
Dering felt no wish to join the little party. He was still too excited, too interested in his own affairs, to care for making and hearing small talk. Still, a look of satisfaction came over his face as he watched the four familiar figures finally disappear round a pillar. How pleased Louise would be when he told her of his latest scheme, that of commissioning the unfortunate Hinton to paint her portrait! If only the man could be induced to work, he might really make something of his life after all. Dering meant to give the artist one hundred pounds, and his heart glowed at the thought of what such a sum would mean in the untidy, womanless little house in which his wife took so tender and kindly an interest.
Dering and Jack Hinton had never exactly hit it off together, though they had known each other for many years, and though they had both married Danish wives. The one felt for the other the worker's worldly contempt for the incorrigible idler. Yet, Dering had been very sorry for Hinton at the time of poor Mrs. Hinton's death, and he liked to think that now he would be able to do the artist a good turn. He had even thought very seriously of offering to adopt the youngest Hinton child, a baby now nearly a year old; but a certain belated feeling of prudence, of that common sense which often tempers the wind to the reckless enthusiast, had given him pause.
After all, he and Louise might have children of their own, and then the position of this little interloper might be an awkward one. Louise had always intensely wished to have a child—nay, children—and now, if it only depended on him, and if Nature would only be kind, she should have her wish. Perhaps that would be the most tangible good this legacy would bring them.
Dering left the Abbey by the door which gives access to the Cloisters. There he spent half an hour in pleasant meditation before he started home, for the place which he knew to be so much dearer to his wife than to himself. Dering was a Londoner, the son of a doctor who had practised for many years in one of the City parishes, and in his heart he had much preferred the rooms in Gray's Inn which had been their first married home to the trim little villa, of which the interior had acquired an absurd and touching resemblance to that of a Danish homestead.
Those who declare that the borderlands of London lack physiognomy are strangely mistaken. Each suburban district has an individual character of its own, and of none is this more true than of Bedford Park. Encompassed by poor and populous streets, within a stone's throw of what is still one of the great highways out of the town, this oasis, composed of villas set in gardens, has the tranquil, rather mysterious, charm of a river backwater.
The amazing contrast between the stir and unceasing sound of the broad High Road and the stillness of Lady Rich Road—surely the man who laid out Bedford Park must have been a Cromwell enthusiast—struck Dering with a sense of unwonted pleasure. As he put his latch-key in the front door he remembered that his wife had told him that their young Danish servant was to have that day her evening out. Well, so much the better; they would have their talk, their discussion concerning their future plans, without fear of eavesdropping or interruption.
Various little signs showed that Louise was already back from town. Dering went straight upstairs, and, as he began taking off his boots, he called out to her, though the door between his room and hers was shut: "Do come in here, for I have so much to tell you!" But this brought no answering word, and after a moment he heard his wife's soft footsteps going down the house.
Dering dressed himself with some care; it had always been one of his theories that a man should make himself quite as formally agreeable at home as he does elsewhere, and he and Louise had ever practised, the one to the other, the minor courtesies of life. Before going downstairs he also tidied his room, as far as was possible for him to do so, and, delicately picking up his dusty boots, he took them down into the kitchen so as to save their young servant the trouble.
Then, at last, he went through into the dining-room, where he found Louise standing by the table on which lay spread their simple supper.
She gave him a quick, questioning glance, then: "I saw you in the Abbey," she said in a constrained, hesitating voice; "why did you not come up and speak to us? Mr. Hinton was on his way to some office, and I brought the children back alone."
"If I had known that was going to be the case," said Dering frankly, "I should have joined you, but I had just been spending an hour with Wingfield, and—well, I didn't feel in the mood to make small talk for Hinton!"
He waited a moment, but she made no comment.
Louise had always been a silent, listening woman, and this had made her seem, to eager, ardent Philip, a singularly restful companion.
He went on, happily at first, rather nervously towards the close of his sentence, "Well, everything is settled—even to my will. But I found Wingfield had to know—I mean about our old arrangement."
"Then you told him? I do not think you should have done that." Louise spoke very slowly, and in a low voice. "I asked you if I might do so before telling Gerda Hinton."
Dering looked at her deprecatingly. He felt both surprised and sorry. It was almost the first time in their joint lives that she had uttered to him anything savouring of a rebuke.
"Please forgive my having told Wingfield without first consulting you," he said at once; "but you see the absurd, the abominable state of the English law is such that in case of my sudden death you would have no right to any of this money. Besides, apart from that fact, if I trusted to my own small legal knowledge and made a will in which you were mentioned, you would probably have trouble with those odious relations of mine. So I simply had to tell him."
Dering saw that the discussion was beginning to be very painful and disagreeable; he felt a pang of impatient regret that he had spoken to his wife now, instead of waiting until she had had a thorough change and holiday.
Louise was still standing opposite to him, looking straight before her and avoiding his anxious glances. Suddenly he became aware that her lip was trembling, and that her eyes were full of tears; quickly he walked round to where she was standing, and put his hand on her shoulder.
"I am sorry, very sorry, that I had to tell Wingfield," he said; "but, darling, why should you mind so much? He was quite sympathetic; he thoroughly understood; I think I might even say that he thoroughly agrees with our point of view; but I fancy he felt rather hurt about it, and I couldn't help wishing that we had told him at the time."
Dering's hand travelled from his wife's shoulder to her waist, and he held her to him, unresisting but strangely passive, as he added:
"You can guess, my dearest, what Wingfield, in his character of solicitor, advises us to do? Of course, in a sense it will be a fall from grace,—but, after all, we shan't love one another the less because we have been to a registry office, or spent a quarter of an hour in a church! I do think that we should follow his advice. He will let me know to-morrow what formalities have to be fulfilled to carry the thing through, and then, dear heart, we will go off for a second honeymoon. Sometimes I wonder if you realise what this money means to us both—I mean in the way of freedom and of added joy."
But Louise still turned from him, and, as she disengaged herself from the strong encircling arm, he could see the slow, reluctant tears rolling down her cheek.
Dering felt keenly distressed. The long strain, the gallantly endured poverty, the constant anxiety, had evidently told on his wife more than he had known.
"Don't let's talk about it any more!" he exclaimed. "There's no hurry about it now, after all."
"I would rather talk about it now, Philip. I don't—I don't at all understand what you mean. It is surely too late for us now to talk of marriage. The time remaining to us is too short to make it worth while."
Dering looked at her bewildered. Well as she spoke the language, she had remained very ignorant of England and of English law.
"I will try and explain to you," he said gently, "why Wingfield has made it quite clear to me that we shall have to go through some kind of a legal ceremony——"
"But there are so few months," she repeated, and he felt her trembling; "it is not as if you were likely to die before September; besides, if you were to do so, I should not care about the money."
For the first time a glimmer of what she meant, of what she was thinking, came into Dering's mind. He felt strongly moved and deeply touched. This, then, was why she had seemed so preoccupied, so unlike herself, of late.
"My darling, surely you do not imagine—that I am thinking ... of leaving you?"
"No," and for the first time Louise, as she uttered the word, looked up straight into Dering's face. "No, it was not of you that I was thinking—but of myself...."
"Let us sit down." Dering's voice was so changed, so uneager, so cold, that Louise, for the first time during their long partnership, felt as if she was with a stranger. "I want to thoroughly understand your point of view. Do you mean to say that when we first arranged matters you intended our—our marriage to be, in any case, only a temporary union?"
He waited for an answer, looking at her with a still grimness, an unfamiliar antagonism, that raised in her a feeling of resentment, and renewed her courage. "Please tell me," he said again, "I think you owe me the truth, and I really wish to know."
Then she spoke. And though her hands still trembled, her voice was quite steady.
"Yes, Philip, I will tell you the truth, though I fear you will not like to hear it. When I first accepted the proposal you made to me, I felt convinced that, as regarded myself, the feeling which brought us together would be eternal, but I as fully believed that with you that same feeling would be only temporary. I was ready to remain with you as long as you would have me do so; but I felt sure that you would grow tired of me some day, and I told myself—secretly, of course, for I could not have insulted you or myself by saying such a thing to you then—I told myself, I say, that when that day came, the day of your weariness of me, I would go away, and make no further demand upon you."
"You really believed that I should grow tired of you,—that I should wish to leave you?"
Dering looked at her as a man might look at a stranger who has suddenly revealed some sinister and grotesque peculiarity of appearance or manner.
"Certainly I did so. How could I divine that you alone would be different from all the men of whom I had ever heard? Still, I loved you so well—ah, Philip, I did love you so—that I would have come to you on any terms, as indeed I did come on terms very injurious to myself. But what matters now what I then thought? I see that I was wrong—you have been faithful to me in word, thought, and deed——"
"Yes," said Dering fiercely, "by God, that is so! Go on!"
"I also have been faithful to you——" she hesitated. "Yes, I think I may truly say it, in thought, word, and deed,——"
Dering drew a long breath, and she went slowly on: "But I have realised, and that for some time past, that the day would come when I should no longer wish to be so—when I should wish to be free. I have gradually regained possession of myself, and, though I know I must fulfil all my obligations to you for the time I promised, I long for the moment of release, for the moment when I shall at last have the right to forget, as much as such things can ever be forgotten, these ten years of my life."
As she spoke, pronouncing each word clearly in the foreign fashion, her voice gained a certain sombre confidence, and a flood of awful, hopeless bitterness filled the heart of the man sitting opposite to her.
"And have you thought," he asked in a constrained voice, "what you are going to do? I know you have sometimes regretted your work; do you intend—or perhaps you have already applied to Mr. Farningham?"
"No," she answered, and, unobserved by him, for he was staring down at the tablecloth with unseeing eyes, a deep pink flush made her look suddenly girlish, "that will not be necessary. I have, as you know, regretted my work, and of late I have sometimes thought that, things being as they were, you acted with cruel thoughtlessness in compelling me to give it all up. But in my new life there will be much for me to do."
"I do not ask you," he said, suddenly, hoarsely; "I could not insult you by asking...."
"I do not think," she spoke slowly, answering the look, the intonation, rather than the words, "that I am going to do anything unworthy."
But Dering, with sharp suspicion, suddenly became aware that she had changed colour, and that from pale she had become red. His mind glanced quickly over their comparatively small circle of friends and acquaintances—first one, then another familiar figure rose, hideously vivid, before him. He felt helpless, bewildered, fettered.
"Do you contemplate leaving me for another man?" he asked quietly.
Again Louise hesitated for a moment.
"Yes," she said at length, "that is what I am going to do. I did not mean to tell you now—though I admit that later, before the end, you would have had a right to know. The man to whom I am going, and who is not only willing, but anxious, to make me his wife, I mean his legal wife,"—she gave Dering a quick, strange look—"has great need of me, far more so than you ever had. My feeling for him is not in any way akin to what was once my feeling for you; that does not come twice, at any rate to such a woman as I feel myself to be; but my affection, my—my regard, will be, in this case, I believe, more enduring; and, as you know, I dearly love his children, and promised their mother to take care of them."
While she spoke, Dering, looking fixedly at her, seemed to see a shadowy group of shabby forlorn human beings form itself and take up its stand by her side—Jack Hinton, with his weak, handsome face, and shifty, pleading eyes; his two plain, neglected-looking girls; and then, cradled as he had so often seen it in Louise's arms, the ugly and to him repulsive-looking baby.
What chance had he, what memories had their common barren past, to fight this intangible appealing vision?
He raised his hand and held it for a moment over his eyes, in a vain attempt to shut out both that which he had evoked, and the sight of the woman whose repudiation of himself only seemed to make more plainly visible the bonds which linked them the one to the other. Then he turned away, with a certain deliberation, and, having closed the door, walked quickly through the little hall, flinging himself bare-headed into the open air.
For the second time that day Philip Dering felt an urgent need of solitude in which to hold communion with himself. And yet, when striding along the dimly-lighted, solitary thoroughfares, the stillness about him seemed oppressive, and the knowledge that he was encompassed by commonplace, contented folk intolerable.
And so, scarcely knowing where his feet were leading him, he made his way at last into the broad, brilliantly lighted High Road, now full of glare, of sound, and of movement, for throngs of workers, passing to and fro, were seeking the amusement and excitement of the street after their long, dull day.
Very soon Dering's brain became abnormally active; his busy thoughts took the shape of completed half-uttered sentences, and he argued with himself, not so loudly that those about him could hear, but still with moving lips, as to the outcome of what Louise had told him that evening.
He was annoyed to find that his thoughts refused to marshal themselves in due sequence. Thus, when trying to concentrate his mind on the question of the immediate future, memories of Gerda Hinton, of the dead woman with whom he had never felt in sympathy, perhaps because Louise had been so fond of her, persistently intervened, and refused to be thrust away. His own present intolerable anguish made him, against his will, retrospectively understand Gerda's long-drawn-out agony. He remembered, with new sharp-edged concern and pity, her quiet endurance of those times of ignoble poverty brought about by Hinton's fits of idleness; he realised for the first time what must have meant, in anguish of body and mind, the woman's perpetual child bearing, and the deaths of two of her children, followed by her own within a fortnight of her last baby's birth.
Then, with sudden irritation, he asked himself why he, Philip Dering, should waste his short time for thought in sorrowing over this poor dead woman? And, in swift answer, there came to him the knowledge why this sad drab ghost had thus thrust herself upon him to-night—
A feeling of furious anger, of revolt against the very existence of Jack Hinton, swept over him. So base, so treacherous, so selfish a creature fulfilled no useful purpose in the universe. Men hung murderers; and was Hinton, who had done his wife to death with refinement of cruelty, to go free—free to murder, in the same slow way, another woman, and one who actually belonged to Dering's own self?
He now recognised, with bewilderment, that had Louise become his legal wife ten years ago, the thought of what she proposed to do would never have even crossed her mind.
The conviction that Hinton was not fit to live soon formed itself into a stable background to all Dering's subsequent thoughts, to his short hesitations, and to his final determination.
After a while he looked at his watch, and found, with some surprise, that he had been walking up and down for over an hour; he also became aware, for the first time, that his bare, hatless head provoked now and again good-natured comment from those among whom he was walking.
He turned into a side-street, and taking from his pocket a small notebook, wrote the few lines which later played an important part in determining, to the satisfaction of his friends, the fact that he was, when writing them, most probably of unsound mind.
What Dering wrote down in his pocket-book ran as follows:
1. I buy a hat at Dunn's, if Dunn be still open (which is probable).2. I call on the doctor who was so kind to the Hintons last year and settle his account. It is doubtful if Hinton ever paid him—in fact, there can be no doubt that Hinton didnotpay him. I there make my will and inform the doctor that he will certainly be wanted shortly at Number 8, Lady Rich Road.3. I buy that revolver (if guaranteed in perfect working order) which I have so frequently noticed in the pawnbroker's window, and I give him five shillings for showing me how to manage it. Mem. Remember to make him load it, so that there may be no mistake.4. I wire to Wingfield. This is important. It may save Louise a shock.5. I go to Hinton's place, and if the children are already in bed I lock the door, and quietly kill him and then kill myself. If the children are still up, I must, of course, wait a while. In any case the business will be well over before the doctor can arrive.
1. I buy a hat at Dunn's, if Dunn be still open (which is probable).
2. I call on the doctor who was so kind to the Hintons last year and settle his account. It is doubtful if Hinton ever paid him—in fact, there can be no doubt that Hinton didnotpay him. I there make my will and inform the doctor that he will certainly be wanted shortly at Number 8, Lady Rich Road.
3. I buy that revolver (if guaranteed in perfect working order) which I have so frequently noticed in the pawnbroker's window, and I give him five shillings for showing me how to manage it. Mem. Remember to make him load it, so that there may be no mistake.
4. I wire to Wingfield. This is important. It may save Louise a shock.
5. I go to Hinton's place, and if the children are already in bed I lock the door, and quietly kill him and then kill myself. If the children are still up, I must, of course, wait a while. In any case the business will be well over before the doctor can arrive.
Dering shut the notebook with a sigh of relief. The way now seemed clear before him, for he had put down exactly what he meant to do, and in case of doubt or forgetfulness he need only glance at his notes to be set again in the right way.
He spent a few moments considering whether it was his duty to write a letter to his employer. Finally he decided that there was no need to do so. They knew of his legacy; they were aware that he was leaving them; and everything, even now, was in perfect order for his successor.
As he walked slowly along the unlovely narrow streets which run parallel to the High Road, his emotional memory brought his wife vividly before him. He began wondering painfully if she would ever understand, if she would realise, from what he had saved her by that which he was about to do. His knowledge of her character made him feel sure—and there was infinite comfort in the thought—that she would remain silent, that she would never yield to any foolish impulse to tell Wingfield the truth. It was good to feel so sure that his old friend would never know of his failure, of his great and desolate humiliation.
Dering spent the next hour exactly as he had planned; in fact, at no point of the programme did his good fortune desert him. Thus, even the doctor, a man called Johnstone, who might so easily have been out, was at home; and, though actually giving a little stag party, he good-naturedly consented to leave his guests for a few moments, in spite of the fact that the stranger waiting in the surgery had refused to state his business.
"My name is Dering. I think you must have often met my wife when you were attending the late Mrs. Hinton. In fact I've come to-night to settle the Hintons' account. I fancy it is still owing?"
Dering spoke with abrupt energy, looking straight, and almost with a frown, as he spoke, into the other's kindly florid face. It seemed strange, at that moment intolerably hard, that this man, who looked so much less alive, so much less intellectually keen than himself, should be destined to find him within a few hours lying dead, obliterated into nothingness.
"Oh, yes, the account is still owing," Dr. Johnstone spoke with a certain eagerness. "Then do I understand that you are acting for Mr. Hinton in the matter? The amount is exactly ten pounds——"
He paused awkwardly, and not till the two bank-notes were actually lying on his surgery table before him did he believe in his good fortune. The Hintons' account had long since passed into that class of doctor's bills which is only kept on the books with a view to the ultimate sale of the practice, and this last quarter the young man had not even troubled to send it in again.
Johnstone remembered poor Mrs. Hinton's friend very well; Mrs. Dering had been splendid, perfectly splendid, as nurse and comforter to the distracted household. And then such a pretty woman, too, the very type—quiet, sensible, self-contained, and yet feminine—whom Dr. Johnstone admired; he was always pleased when he met her walking about the neighbourhood.
This, then, was her husband? The doctor stared across at Dering with some curiosity. Well, he also, though, of course, in quite another way, was uncommon and attractive-looking. What was it he had heard about these people quite lately, in fact, that very day? Why, of course. One of his old lady patients in Bedford Park had told him that her opposite neighbours, this Mr. and Mrs. Dering, had come into a large fortune—something like fifty thousand pounds!
Dr. Johnstone looked at his visitor with a sudden accession of respect. If he could have foreseen this interview, he might have made his account with Mr. Hinton bear rather more relation to the actual number of visits he had been compelled to pay to that unfortunate household. Still, he reminded himself that even ten pounds were very welcome just now, and his heart warmed to Mr. Hinton's generous friend.