I felt as if I were in a hornets' nest.
A few minutes afterwards my stepmother and Louis were announced, and Barbara ran forward to welcome them.
"I am so glad you have come! There's no need of an introduction, is there? I am John's wife, Barbara. You must call me Barbara—yes, I insist upon it. This is my brother Maxwell. Maxwell, Mrs. Fordham—how funny there should be two of us! And this is your son, Mr. Louis Fordham, John's brother. I hate formality. You mustn't be shocked at my saying that I am a bit of a Bohemian. So is Maxwell, but he goes farther than I do, of course, as he is a man. I hope you are one, too, Mr. Louis?"
"I will become one," said Louis, gallantly, "under your instructions. How do you do, John? What a pretty house you've got!"
I shook hands with him and with my stepmother. Louis was cordial enough in his manner; my stepmother was frigid. Years had passed since I had seen her or Louis, but she had not forgotten, and never would forget. Only with her death would the old animosity die out. She was no older in appearance; Louis had grown into a well-built man, and she doted on him, as she had done since his birth. A good-looking man, too, but for the scar on his forehead. As I raised my eyes to it—with no evil meaning, I am sure—the blood rushed into it, and it became scarlet, while a dark look flashed into my stepmother's eyes.
"He will bear it with him to his grave," said my stepmother.
"What a pity!" said Barbara, who had observed this bye-play. "How did it happen?"
"John gave it him," said my stepmother, coldly.
"But they were boys then," said Barbara, defending me maliciously, "and boys are so cruel."
"The boy is father to the man," remarked my stepmother, with venomous emphasis.
"Now, John," said Barbara, "what have you to say to it?"
My impulse was to reply that the story was false, but I checked myself in time, and simply said:
"Nothing. Either my memory or yours"—to my stepmother—"is at fault."
"You have a shocking memory, John," said Barbara. "Not your fault, my dear—you were born with it. We all forgive you, don't we, Mrs. Fordham—and you, too, Louis? It would be dreadful if we nursed every little grievance, and saved disagreeable things for future use against one another. Let us talk of something pleasant."
"You have the temper of an angel, Barbara," ejaculated Maxwell.
"It runs in our family," returned Barbara, casting up her eyes, "and we won't boast of it. Whether we are married or single, we don't lie on beds of roses."
By the time the dinner came to an end the inuendoes, the sly thrusts, the holding up of my wife as a martyr to my disparagement had become unbearable. The ladies retired to the drawing-room, and I refused to stop and drink with Louis and Maxwell. Strolling from the house I lit a cigar, and upon my return the guests were preparing to take their departure.
"Such a pleasant evening," said my stepmother. "I hope you will turn over a new leaf, John, and be kind to your wife. You have a treasure in her. You must come and dine with us, soon."
I stood at the street door while she and the men entered a cab together. Barbara, standing by my side, waved her handkerchief to them. The moment the cab was out of sight she turned upon me like a fury.
"You beast!" she cried. "Is that the way you treat my friends?"
And she ran into the house.
Sadly enough I followed her, in doubt of the best course to pursue. She solved the doubt by saying:
"I am going to my room. You will find the spare room ready for you."
"This is a bad commencement, Barbara," I ventured to say.
"Thank yourself for it," she retorted, and disappeared.
I possessed a small library of books, which I had sent to the house, and I endeavored to while away the time by reading. But I could not fix my attention; I turned over page after page without any comprehension of the printed words. And so I passed the time in a dull, lethargic state until eleven o'clock struck. I left my book and set myself to the old task of reviewing the incidents of the day, with the same old result. If the fault were mine there must be some defect in my understanding of passing events in which I was concerned. My melancholy musings were interrupted by the sound of Barbara's voice in the room above. She was laughing and singing—a babble of unconnected lines, the laughter of a woman under the influence of drink. The door of her room was opened and shut, and I heard Annette descend the stairs. I intercepted her.
"What is the matter with your mistress?"
"Madame is unwell."
"What is your errand now?"
"Madame has left her medicine in the dining-room; I am fetching it for her."
I left her to fulfill her errand, but kept watch on the landing above. Again I intercepted her. In her hands, as I suspected, was the decanter of brandy.
"Is that the medicine you were sent for?"
"I could not find it, monsieur. I thought this would do her good; she is depressed, and needs something strengthening."
There was no sign of confusion on the woman's face; she was calm and composed.
"Go down again and search for the medicine you were sent for," I said, taking the decanter from her.
"But, monsieur, I have already sought for it, and cannot find it."
"To search again, then, would be useless?"
"Quite useless, monsieur."
"You can go to bed, Annette. I will attend to your mistress."
"It is impossible, monsieur. Madame requires me. Madame engaged me; I am her servant."
"You are my servant also."
"Oh, no, monsieur. It is madame who orders me."
"I am master here. Do as I bid you. Go to bed."
She did not move.
While this colloquy was proceeding there was silence in Barbara's room. Suddenly the door was dashed open, and my wife appeared, her dress disordered, her eyes inflamed, her face distorted by the hysterical passion of the habitual drunkard. As in a flash, I saw the inroads the bestial vice was making upon her beauty.
"Beast, beast, beast!" she shrieked, throwing herself upon me as I recoiled from the horrible sight. By engaging in a disgraceful struggle I might have retained the decanter of brandy, but I was not equal to it. She wrested it from me, and clutching Annette's arm, she dragged her into the room, the lock of which I heard turned a moment afterwards. Then came to my ears her mad laughter at the triumph she had achieved.
If I have dwelt at greater length than I intended upon the incidents which made their fatal mark upon the early months of my married life, it is because I wish Barbara's character to be clearly understood, and because they supply a pregnant index to what followed. The first night I spent in our new home was a prelude to innumerable nights of the same nature. Safe from observation and free to indulge in her besotted habits, with a willing tool at her beck and call in the person of Annette, with a helpless protector chained to her by bonds which he could not break, she found herself absolute mistress of a drunkard's hellish heaven. She reveled in it, and gave her passions free play. Day after day, night after night, I had by my side a creature who had reached the lowest depths of bestial degradation, and whose one aim in life seemed to be to reach a lower still. She was a large-framed woman with a magnificent constitution, or she would soon have succumbed and become a driveling idiot. Throughout all, singular to say, she preserved her cunning, and the expedients by which she hedged herself in and kept her besetting vice from the knowledge of others except myself and Annette, were nothing short of marvelous in their ingenuity. The room she called her prayer room was her sanctuary, and it was there, attended by Annette, that she freely indulged. She acquired, indeed, a reputation for sanctity, and even our servants were deceived by her clever devices. Annette became housekeeper and the nominal mistress of the establishment, and from her they received their orders. They saw their real mistress only when she was sober, and then she spoke kindly and was liberal to them. When she secluded herself they were given to understand that she was ill or at her devotions. She was supposed to suffer from a mysterious disorder, and her driveling screams in the middle of the nights were attributed to pain. I subsequently learned that they were often attributed to my beating her and knocking her about.
I recall the day when she sat at the table with a livid bruise on her cheek, caused by her falling against the sharp corner of a piece of furniture. The parlor-maid assisted Annette to apply hot fomentations to the bruise, and when, later in the day, I noticed the frightened, horrified looks the girl cast at me, I knew that she had been told the lie that I had struck my wife. Against these calumnies I had no defense. In the kitchen I was regarded as a monster of cruelty, and the servants shrank aside as I passed them. Before the domestics Barbara invariably addressed me in frightened, humble tones. She kept her revilings for my private ear, the only witness of the scenes between us being Annette.
The character foisted upon me was not confined to the house. Our servants related shameful stories against me to their friends in the neighborhood, who, in their turn, poured these stories into their mistresses' ears. Wives and mothers looked darkly at me, and those with whom I had become acquainted did not return my bow. I was completely and effectually ostracised. Under these persecutions was it any wonder that I felt myself becoming hardened? My nature was changed. I grew habitually morose and savage, and by my manner defied my traducers. This made matters worse for me, and gave color to the stories of systematic cruelty laid to my charge. After awhile I slept in the spare room alone, and offered up prayers of thankfulness that we had no children. It was indeed a blessing for which I could not be sufficiently grateful.
One evening when we were at dinner, and Barbara was toying with her food and sighing in the presence of the maid who waited at table, I suggested that she should call in a doctor.
"It is not a doctor I require," she said, gazing at me with mournful significance. "Oh, John, if only you——" And then she checked herself, as if she would not say anything to my discredit before the servant.
"Finish the sentence," I said. "If I only what?"
"Do not force me to speak," she cried, in an imploring tone.
Bursting into tears she rose from the table and left the room.
What clearer evidence of my barbarity could be supplied? The maid would have been bereft of sense not to have understood the implication, and there is no doubt that she took the tale down to her fellow servants in the kitchen. Before them, at meals, she never drank, but it was a common practice with her when we and Annette were together at dinner, to help herself to copious draughts of brandy. I no longer remonstrated with her; she would have added to my distress by drinking deeper.
In all these tricks she was assisted by Maxwell and my stepmother. Louis, for the most part, was a passive spectator. Maxwell drank with her and laughed. My stepmother said:
"See what you are driving her to. You are breaking her heart. I always knew what would happen if you married."
"You are saying what is false, because you hate me," I replied.
"I am speaking the truth," she retorted, "and truly I have no cause to love you. It is my opinion you have some wicked scheme in view. But there will be a judgment upon you for all your cleverness. You robbed me; you robbed Louis of his patrimony. What good is the money doing you?"
It is well I had matters apart from my domestic affairs to occupy me, or my mind would have lost its balance entirely. In accordance with the plan Barbara had laid down for me, I took a small set of chambers in one of the streets leading from the Strand to the river—the locality she had herself proposed—consisting of three rooms, a sitting-room, bedroom, and bathroom; and there I pursued my literary labors. The chambers were at the top of the house, and the sitting-room looked out upon the river. How happy could I have been there, had it not been for the living weight which held me down! Gladly every morning did I leave my home, sadly every evening did I return to it.
At first I wrote a few short stories, which I sent to the magazines. They were refused. Every fresh rejection brought disappointment with it, but disheartened me only a short time. When my manuscripts came back to me I read them carefully, found faults in them, re-wrote them, and tried again, with the same result. Thus a year passed, and I had not advanced a step. Two or three times in the course of this year Barbara visited me.
"You are happy here," she said, and I did not gainsay her. "You like it better than your own home."
"It was your own proposition," I replied. "Will nothing satisfy you?"
"It was not my proposition," she said. "You chose this yourself, and you have assignations here with creatures you love better than me. Oh, I know why you spend the day in these rooms. Do you think I am blind to the life you are living."
She carried her venom to the length of tearing up manuscripts upon which I was engaged; I submitted to this awhile, but eventually I protected myself by locking up my papers when I heard her knock at the door. She was furious at my refusal to give her duplicate keys to the chambers.
"A clear proof," she cried.
On one of these occasions I proposed a separation, and offered to settle upon her half the money I possessed, so long as we remained apart.
"Will you give it me in a lump?" she asked.
"No," I answered, "there must be a guarantee that you will not violate the conditions of the deed, which would be drawn up and signed by both of us. You shall have the interest of the money. If I die before you it will all be yours without restriction."
"Thank you, my dear," she said. "I prefer things as they are. You will not get rid of me so easily. You would divorce me if it were in your power. Of course you won't answer that. But you will never get the chance, love. I am acquainted with the grounds upon which a divorce can be obtained. You shall have no reason to say that I am not a true and faithful wife to you."
And, indeed, upon the score of faithfulness—in its legal sense—I entertained no doubts. She had but one love—brandy.
While I was endeavoring to obtain a footing in the literary field by means of short stories, I was preparing a series of articles upon the curse of the land—drink—drawing upon actual facts and real life for my pen and ink pictures. By good fortune I obtained an introduction to the editor of a paper, the columns of which were open to social subjects, and I submitted a few of these articles to him. He approved of them, and suggesting certain alterations, which I agreed to make, consented to use them. His paper was one which did not admit of signed contributions, and had it been otherwise I should not have put my name to them, my domestic troubles on the same theme being a bar to such a course. The editor did not inquire into the source from which I obtained the facts for my descriptions of the effects of the awful vice; he was content with my method of treatment and with my literary style.
"Just one word of advice," he said, "don't shrink from speaking broadly and plainly. It is a burning question, and you can't put it too strongly. I am not so well up in the subject as yourself, but I should say, even if a man drew entirely upon his imagination, he could not paint more striking pictures than reality can supply. The successful artist paints from life and nature."
"What I describe," I replied, "is what I have seen. Nothing more horrible can be met in the Vision of Hell. This city of shame and sin is full of little hells, and if there is any truth in pulpit sermons and religious ministrations, in every little hell souls are daily being damned."
He threw a searching glance upon me. "I like that. Don't forget the metaphor; use it in one of the early articles. Some writers keep their big plums till the last; it is a mistake. Fairy tales can be written on a Swiss mountain or an Italian lake, but to do justice to such a subject as yours you must dig into Babylon's crust; you need the pest-houses of civilization, the hog-like natures of men and women familiar with crime and poverty."
"The evil is not confined to hovels," I remarked, "nor to the criminal classes. Mansions of the well-to-do supply fruitful material."
"Well, do your best," he said. "We shall create a sensation."
We did. My articles were quoted far and near. Writing under a burning sense of wrong I was not sparing of epithet and denunciation. I worked at fever heat, and was often appalled at what I wrote, but it went into print with scarcely the alteration of a word. Had I written under my own name I might have become a celebrity.
In one of my articles I touched upon the marriage tie in relation to the evil. I described a home—a type of many—in which the wife was a confirmed dipsomaniac; another, in which the husband was drunk every day of his life. They were cases which came under my own eye in the localities where I pursued my investigations. From the lips of the sufferers themselves I received the terrible details of the gradual sinking into the slough of despair. Here was the wretched husband, once a bright mechanic earning a fair wage, whose wife's filthy habits had brought ruin upon him—hopeless, irremediable ruin. Vainly had he striven to reform her, vainly had he pointed out to her the sure consequences of her dissipation. Coming home at night from his work he found his rooms in darkness, his hungry children lying almost naked on the bare boards, and his wife drunk in the nearest gin palace. It had become a common occurrence. She pawned the beds, the furniture, the children's clothes and his own, again and yet again, and when he dragged her from the public-house she lay through the night, gibbering at the awful sights her diseased imagination conjured up. He replaced the furniture, he bought new beds and clothing, he gave his children food, and when his wife was able to crawl out again, off she crept to the pawnbroker to repeat her evil work. The children had grown stunted and deformed, their rags hung loosely on their shrunken limbs, like starving dogs they nosed the gutters for offal. "My God, my God!" he cried, the tears streaming down his face. "What shall I do? How shall I save my children? How shall I save myself?" His voice sank to a whisper. "One night I shall kill her, and there will be murder on my soul!"
In the other case it was the husband who drank, who would not work, who starved his wife and children, and beat them till their flesh was covered with livid bruises. It was the wife who told me the story. "If it were not for my children," she moaned, "I would make a hole in the water." It was not my habit to make more than a passing comment upon my descriptions of real and suffering life as it is to be seen to-day in the fester-spots of London. I had wished to do so, but was requested by my editor to put some restriction upon myself in this respect. "Leave that," he said, "to the editorial pen." At the end of the article in which I narrated these two cases, I wrote: "And these poor creatures are, by the Church and the so-called laws of God, chained to a living curse which blights, destroys, and damns the innocent." The words were allowed to stand.
On the following day a powerful leading article was written by the editor, in which a change in the law of divorce was imperatively demanded.
"Confirmed drunkenness," he said, "is a crime against the true laws of God and man; it is far worse than adultery, and more than a sufficient cause for separation. It is not alone that humanity demands it, but could God make Himself heard in this sinful world there would be a Divine mandate to enforce it." Other papers took up the subject. One popular journal (the season being over, and the House not sitting) made it a theme for the usual yearly correspondence, and columns of letters were printed every day—from despairing husbands and wives approving, from the clergy protesting, from politicians shilly-shallying. Meanwhile my articles had come to an end.
There was no change in my home, except for the worse, and I grew to hate it, to hate all who visited it, to hate myself. I had as little authority in it as any chance guest. I breakfasted, dined, and slept there—and, for variation, there were the scenes I had with Barbara. The lies that were circulated as to my brutality towards her bore fruit, and I was shunned by every soul in the neighborhood. Not a person I met there had a smile or a cordial word for me, and not for one sober hour did Barbara relax her cunning. In her mad fits she was visible only to me and Annette; when she went about the house or was seen in the streets her sad, listless ways (she was always sad when sober) were apparent to all, and her conspicuous ill-health was attributed to my conduct. It was the popular belief that I was "killing her by inches." I heard the words uttered by one of our servants to a servant in the adjoining house, and the indignant comment upon them—"Brute!"
Maxwell tried to borrow money from me, but I was sufficiently incensed to refuse him. "Not another shilling while I live," I said, and he replied that I would live to repent it. Scoundrel as he was, he spoke the truth.
The cases of the two poor homes ruined by a drunken husband and a drunken wife, which I have just narrated, drove my thoughts upon my own—and indeed it may have been because of the position in which I stood that I sifted them to the bottom. They had a peculiar fascination for me.
But even if the law of divorce were so altered as to rescue those who are driven to despair, sometimes to crime, by this frightful vice—which I pray may soon be so—a man situated as I was would find no relief in it. The shame would have to be proved, and the web which had been spun around me was of so cunning a nature that proof was impossible in my case. On the contrary, indeed; all the evidence, except my bare statements, would be turned against myself.
As an instance of the base arts employed to still further entangle and incriminate me I recount the following circumstances. Whose devilish ingenuity first conceived the idea I never discovered.
The spare room in which I slept was at the back of the house, and its window faced the window of another house, used also, I believe, as a bedroom. I stood in front of this window, shaving, one morning; the blind was up and the day was bright. While the razor was at my cheek Barbara rushed into the room, crying at the top of her voice:
"John—John—John! For mercy's sake, don't!" And as she spoke she threw herself upon me.
Fearful lest the razor should cut her I threw it away, but not before I had gashed my cheek, causing blood to flow. Then, observing that she was in her nightdress and that the bosom was open, I quickly drew down the blind.
"What is the meaning of this?" I inquired, bitterly. "Do you fear that I intend to kill myself?"
Her only answer was a series of hysterical shrieks which could be heard a long distance off. For a few moments I thought she had gone mad, and I stooped to raise her from the floor, upon which she had fallen.
"For mercy's sake, for mercy's sake!" she screamed, and in the midst of the confusion Annette entered the room and led her mistress away. I followed her into the passage, the blood running down my face, and there upon the stairs were the servants, who had naturally been alarmed by Barbara's screams, and had run up to see what was the matter.
"Go down," said Annette, speaking to them in a tone of command. "Madame is ill—very, very ill. I will attend to her."
I did not see my wife again that day; the door of her room was locked against me. To all my inquiries after her Annette replied:
"She is more composed; she will recover in a few days, perhaps."
"I wish to see her, Annette."
"Madame will not be seen by any one but me. She ordered me to say so to you."
I had, perforce, to give up the attempt.
I thought of the scene during the day; it was of a different nature from those to which I was accustomed, but there was something strange in it which I could not unfathom. Finally I came to the conclusion that Barbara's malady was developing itself in a new direction, and the last thought in my mind was that anything more than generally prejudicial to my character would come of it.
Towards the end of that week I had invited my friend the editor to take a mid-day chop with me. He had put my name down as a candidate for admission into a literary club which I was anxious to join, and there was a difficulty in regard to my qualification. Had the articles I wrote for his paper been signed with my name, there would have been no question as to my being properly qualified, but they had been published anonymously, and I was personally unknown to the members. My proposer had vouched for me and had passed his word, but it was not deemed sufficient; they wanted proof positive, and this nettled him. Certain members of this committee had spoken to him privately, and had advised him to withdraw his candidate, but he had set his heart upon the matter, and was determined to carry me through. He held an influential position in the club, and it seemed to him that his influence would be weakened if he beat a retreat. And now on this day he came to tell me that the difficulty was at an end.
"Somehow or other," he said, "it has leaked out that you are the writer of those articles, and your election is assured. The committee meet in a fortnight, and the vote will be unanimous."
I was greatly disturbed. It had been my earnest desire to keep my name from being associated with the exposures I had made. Had I been unmarried and free, it would have been my pride that the world should know and give me my meed of praise, but married to Barbara, and with the curse of drink in my own home, I shrank from public gaze. A foreboding of evil stole upon me.
"The fellows are wild to meet you," continued my friend, "and every member of the committee has promised a white ball. This has set my mind at ease about you, for it is a serious matter being pilled in such a club. I know a case or two where a black ball has meant social death. I should have felt it more than you. You see, I am your sponsor. 'What do you say now to my candidate being qualified?' I said to two members who were dead against you on the score of your being a stranger. A man crept in once, and we discovered he was a blackleg. He gave us a chance, and we expelled him. Since then a strict watch has been kept upon candidates. Before it leaked out who you really were, they wanted to know whether you were a gentleman, a man of honor and good character, one it would be agreeable to mix with—what we call a clubbable man. They have no doubts now. You will be cordially welcomed by a band of as good fellows as can be met with in London, and you may look upon yourself as one of the inner circle."
"I am sorry my anonymity as a writer is destroyed," I said, speaking with reserve. "It lessens the value of one's work."
"Oh, I don't know," was his reply. "Up to a certain point it is all very well, but when a man has won his spurs everybody is ready to shake hands with him. What have you to be ashamed of, and why shouldn't you reap your reward? You wrote those things devilishly well; I was amazed at some of your word pictures. You must have had rare opportunities of studying the subject. 'That man is a vivisectionist,' said a very good judge."
It would have been better for me had I made a clean breast of it there and then, had I confided to him the awful sorrow which lay like a poisonous worm in my heart. But I let the opportunity slip.
He remained with me a couple of hours, and urged me to contribute a second series of articles on the same subject.
"You have drawn your illustrations for the first series from the poor," he said; "draw those for your second series from the rich."
"You forget," I rejoined, "that the skeletons of the rich are kept in iron closets with patent locks. The skeletons of the lower classes stand at open doors."
"Invent your instances," he suggested. "With such a rich store of material as you have at command, you can't go wrong. That is an ugly gash you have on your cheek. Cut yourself shaving, I suppose." I nodded. "Ah, I knew a man who was frightened to take a razor in his hand for fear he would cut his throat."
Inwardly resolving not to execute the commission, I promised to consider the matter, and he took his departure. I walked with him to his office, and then mounted an omnibus and rode a few miles, thinking of the disclosure that had been made and dreading to see my name in the papers. But I did not know how to prevent it. We live in an age of personalism, and very little of the private life of public men can be hidden from the Paul Prys of journalism. Almost to a certainty it would come under the notice of Maxwell and my stepmother, who would be ready to weave mischief out of it. Surely no man ever shrank from fame as I did. The prospect chilled me to the heart.
It is anticipating events by a few hours to record that on the following morning I received a letter from the editor informing me that he was over-worked and was going to Germany for a rest. He had designed to go earlier, but while there was a doubt of my election he felt it to be a point of honor not to leave London. He intended now to enjoy his holiday. I gathered from his letter that he would be absent a week.
At five o'clock I returned to my chambers, and my heart sank when I saw a huddled heap of clothes lying in front of my door—a woman in a drunken sleep.
I had no need to stoop to ascertain who it was. By her side was an empty brandy bottle, which she must have purchased on the road; the satchel on the ground was large enough only for the spirit flask I found in it—empty, as a matter of course.
I carried her into my sitting-room; her drunken stupor was of too profound a nature for her to make any resistance. It was as much as I could do to accomplish the task, for Barbara had grown very stout and unwieldy. Her condition was most disgraceful; I had seen nothing more degrading and shameful during my recent investigations. Probably to obtain ease for her feet, which she had complained of lately as being swollen, she had unlaced her boots, her clothes were torn and untidy, her hands ungloved, her hair hung loose about her bloated face, her lips and mouth were unsightly with the stains and dribble of liquor.
It was of the utmost importance that I should get her home without attracting attention to myself. A large latitude is allowed to men who occupy chambers, but in this particular house were old established offices of respectable firms, and there was a special clause in my lease as to doing anything which might cause annoyance to my neighbors.
I rang for the housekeeper, and slipping half-a-sovereign into her hand, begged her to assist me. She did not put any awkward questions to me, but called up her servant. Between them they repaired as far as they were able the disorder in my wife's dress and appearance, and, the offices in the house being closed—it was now past six o'clock—we managed to half carry, half support her to the street door, and into a four-wheel cab. Thus, on this occasion at least, was open exposure averted, but I thought, Where shall I find rest if this fresh form of persecutions be added to the list? And indeed I had an assurance of it in a subsequent scene with Barbara, during which she said, "You are living an infamous life away from your home. I will follow and disgrace you wherever you go."
A still bitterer blow was to fall upon me, a blow which drove me to the brink of despair. At the end of a week, the limit of time fixed by the editor for his holiday, I wrote him, and as no notice was taken of my letter, I concluded that he had not returned from his tour. My intention was to reveal my story, to acquaint him with Barbara's resolve to follow and disgrace me, and to request him to withdraw my name from candidature for his club. In his absence this course could not be taken, and I was compelled to await the course of events.
On the day following that on which the committee meeting was held, I received a letter from my proposer, which overwhelmed me. He informed me that I had been balloted for by the committee, and had been unanimously blackballed. He expressed his approval of this result. "I had the power," he wrote, "to withdraw your name, but having been made acquainted with the infamies you have practised, I considered it due to the committee to disclose the matters to them, expressing at the same time my sincere regret that I should have been so misled as to place your name on the candidates' book. The unanimous blackball was given as a warning to careless members to be exceedingly careful as to the character of the persons they desired to introduce into a club of gentlemen." He then proceeded with a minute narration of the charges brought against me, and I learned the names of my accusers. First, my wife; then her brother Maxwell; then my stepmother and her son Louis; then Annette; then the servants in our house; then an independent witness in the person of a gentleman who, with Maxwell and Louis, had been stationed at the window of the house opposite to that of my bedroom, and had witnessed the scene between Barbara and me when I was shaving. This scene, which had been cunningly prepared for my benefit, was construed into an attack I had made upon my wife with my razor; her agonized shrieks were appeals for mercy; my rapid drawing down of the blind was due to my fear that my barbarous behavior might be witnessed from the opposite house. It was represented that I was a man who habitually concealed his vices beneath a veil of gentle melancholy, as of one who was himself oppressed, and that my systematic cruelty had broken down my wife's health and made her a confirmed invalid.
There was a still more horrible charge. With a morbid craving for notoriety I had plied Barbara with brandy, and had made her an object lesson in the various stages of intoxication, so that my descriptions might be true to nature. She was my model, a living victim whom I was deliberately driving to madness.
It appears that Maxwell having learnt through the public journals that I was the author of the articles on Drink which had attracted general attention, called upon the editor of the paper in which they were published, and brought these accusations against me. At first the editor refused to listen, characterizing the charges as too horrible for belief and as being utterly inconsistent with the opinion he had formed of me. Maxwell, however, persisted, and the editor, impressed by his earnestness, consented to see the witnesses and hear what they had to say. For the last week a private court of inquiry had been made behind my back. The editor was convinced. Shocked at the revelations he advised my wife to apply for redress in the divorce court, but she said she would rather die than bring that shame upon me; she still clung to me, still trusted that obedience and affection would win me to a better comprehension of my duty towards her; and I was warned by my correspondent to consider my position while there was yet time, and not to lightly throw away the treasure of a good woman's love. He required, he concluded, no further contributions from my pen, and wherever his influence could be exerted it would be to prevail upon other editors not to accept my writings. His last words were—"Henceforth we are strangers."
I knew what this letter meant. The fiendish malice of the enemies in my home had brought upon me social and moral death. I wandered forth like Cain, accursed of men, and though, unlike him, there was no guilt upon my soul, the reflection brought me no comfort. My life had come to wreck. A gulf of black despair lay before me.
Men have been driven mad by physical torture, and under the pressure of mental agony some have lost their reason. Upon no other grounds can I account for my conduct after this last crushing blow fell upon me. I offer no excuses. My wife's theory—put forward in palliation of her own misconduct—that man is not responsible for his actions, is entirely opposed to my view. For what I did during that dolorous time I was and am accountable. I sinned, and have been punished; and little did I deserve the heavenly consolation administered to me in the darkest hour of my life.
I did not go home that day or night. Dazed and forlorn, I wandered, an outcast, through the streets and over the bridges.
It was well on in the afternoon when I entered my house. I had been to my chambers, and having transacted some business which the change in my affairs seemed to me to render imperative, I gave up the keys, and turned my back forever upon the brighter side of my existence. I had also visited a clergyman and a barrister with whom I had a slight acquaintance; it was waste power, time thrown away, and I must have paid the visits without the least hope of deriving any good from them.
As I walked towards my home I was overcome with faintness, and I reeled like a drunken man. Then I recollected that food had not passed my lips since breakfast yesterday morning. I entered the nearest restaurant—it happened to be a public-house—and standing at the counter ate some sandwiches and hard boiled eggs. The barmaid asked what I would take to drink and for a moment I thought of calling for brandy, but it was not on that occasion I broke my vow never to touch spirituous liquor. I drank a glass of lemonade, and pursued my homeward way.
As I entered the house I heard Barbara moaning and gibbering upstairs. The sounds were familiar to me, and it was with a sickening feeling that I entered the sitting-room. Maxwell was there and my stepmother. Maxwell was quite composed; my stepmother looked rather scared at my sudden entrance and wild appearance. They did not welcome me with effusion. Maxwell made the remark that they had been wondering what had become of me, and he inquired why I had not come home last night. I did not answer him. My stepmother volunteered the information that poor Barbara was very ill.
"You had better not go up to her," she said. "The sight of you will make her worse."
Neither did I reply to her. Their presence was so hateful to me that I left the room unceremoniously. They followed me into the passage, and, my foot on the stairs, some words of what passed between them reached my ears.
"Mad, I think," said my stepmother.
"Looks remarkably like it," responded Maxwell, pulling at his mustache. "Or, let us be charitable, and put it down to drink."
"Supposing," she said, and finished the sentence in a whisper.
I stepped back.
"Supposing you drove me mad between you," I said, "there would be an end of me, and you and my wife would have control of my property. Is that it, dear friends?"
They looked at each other, and my stepmother said, boldly: "Decidedly mad. Not a doubt of it."
"No, dear stepmother," I said, my voice and manner expressing detestation of her, "not yet mad. Sane as yourselves. You remind me of an omission which I must repair. I have not made my will; it is a thing that ought not to be neglected. Not one of you shall profit by it, I promise you. Pray let me know what you are in my house for."
"We are here to protect my sister from your brutality," said Maxwell, and it pleased me to see that I had disconcerted them.
"Indeed! From my brutality? Of which you have already given evidence in your secret court of inquiry. And your sister, too. There was a time when I fancied there was no great love on either side. You pair of scheming devils! I will show you that I am master here. Out! the pair of you! Out of my house!" And I advanced towards them with so threatening an air that they began to retreat.
"We will see what the law says to this," blustered Maxwell. "We have witnesses enough."
"False witnesses—false testimony. When you come to consider the matter it may not suit your purpose to appeal to the law. Establish that my wife lives in fear of me, and that I am systematically cruel to her, and you will succeed in obtaining a judicial separation. I shall not thwart you, for it is what I pray for. The Courts award her maintenance, the income of a third of what I am worth. Then I am free, and you and she can trouble me no more. Free! Can you understand what that means to me? Fools! I have offered her more than a third, and she has refused. Why, if I gave her cause for a complete divorce she would not avail herself of it. She is too good a wife, too pure, too mindful of her wifely duties to desert the husband she loves so well."
Had it not been that I was apprehensive of falling into deeper public disgrace I should not have spoken so openly, for it was speaking against my own interests; but, indeed, I might have spared myself this small duplicity, for nothing was farther from their wishes than to sever the bonds which bound me to Barbara. While those held firm they had, through her, some power over my purse; loosen them, and the power was gone. It was only through my enforced bondage that they could hope to gain.
"When you were a child," said my stepmother, white to the lips, "I foresaw what you would grow into."
"You did your best for me," I retorted. "You made my home a paradise—not much worse than this home is to me—you showed me daily how you loved me. I remember well your tender care of me. Truly there are men and women who are baser than beasts."
"If I were a man I would thrash you," she hissed.
"Ask your son Louis, my loving half-brother, to do it for you. Ask that reptile by your side to undertake the task. Cunning and malice have had their day. Let us try brute force."
I laughed in their faces. In this encounter we were more like animals snarling at one another than human beings. Meanwhile Barbara continued her moaning and gibbering upstairs.
"That is my work, is it not?" I went on. "It is I who have made her what she is, a living shame to decency. Before our marriage she never touched strong drink—is that the way it goes? She was an innocent, simple child of nature, and it is I who have debased and contaminated her. That is what you have made my friends believe. If it is any satisfaction to you, hear from my lips that your cowardly plot has succeeded, and that the honorable career I had mapped out for myself is at an end. Has my wife told you that on the first night of our marriage she locked herself in her room in Paris and drank herself into such a filthy state of intoxication that we were turned out of our hotel? But doubtless she kept this delectable piece of information to herself."
"Another of your abominable inventions," cried my stepmother, "as true as all the rest."
"Exactly. As true as all the rest. Women such as she, and you, should be whipped daily for the public good."
"Oh!" cried my stepmother, digging her nails into her palms. If she could have killed me with a look she would have done it—and with shame I admit that I should have deserved a greater punishment than that for expressing myself as I did. But I was stung to utter recklessness, to utter forgetfulness of what was due to one's own sense of self-respect.
"Come, come, John," said Maxwell, trying another tack, "you are over-excited. You will be sorry for this to-morrow."
"I am sorry for it to-day. It was not to be expected when I courted your sister that you should warn me of the pit into which I was falling—you were too anxious to be rid of her. I see now, but did not see then, the meaning of your covert sneers when you spoke of our married life. By the way, from time to time you borrowed money of me in those days. Are you prepared to repay it?"
"What I owe you," he replied, with a dark look, "I will repay—with interest. As for money, I never had one farthing from you." He turned to my stepmother. "He is good at invention, this John of ours."
"He is good at anything low and vile," she said. "Mark my words—one of these days he will commit murder."
"You nurse your hatred well," I responded. "And now, quit my house."
They retreated before me, and I drove them, as though they were cattle, to the street door.
"John," said Maxwell, with a sudden show of amiability, "this is all nonsense, you know. Let us be friends."
He held out his hand, and the impulse was upon me to strike it down, but I merely gave him a contemptuous look, and threw open the street door. As they stood on the threshold Louis came up, and I think for a moment that Maxwell, with this reinforcement, had an idea of forcing his way in again.
"Do you see what he is doing?" cried my stepmother to her son. "The low wretch is turning us out of the house."
"What else can you expect?" asked Louis, the scar on his forehead becoming blood-red in my frowning glance.
"We shall come back," said Maxwell, and I slammed the door in his face.
My conduct was brutal; I admit it. It would have been manlier had I behaved with dignity, but during that evil time all my impulses were evil. There is an element of savagery in every human being, and it leaped forth and mastered me, and robbed sorrow of its crown. It led me into further excesses, and had not an angel appeared and rescued me, I might have deserved all the obloquy that had been thrown upon me, and have become utterly, irretrievably lost.
It was evening, and I lingered in the passage outside Barbara's door, which was locked against me. Then I called aloud:
"Annette, are you there?"
At first no answer; then, the question repeated, the reply:
"Yes, monsieur."
"Open the door."
"But, monsieur, it is madame's orders," she began, but I did not allow her to finish.
"Open the door."
"I dare not disobey madame."
"Open the door."
This time she did not answer. I put my shoulder to the door, and exerted all my strength. It is not a thing to boast of that I am a man of great muscular power, and that on this occasion I exulted in it. The evil spirit within me urged me on. As I strained my muscles there was silence in the room; for a little while Barbara's voice was not heard. The door creaked, yielded, then burst open with a crash.
Annette stood upright, her cold, gray eyes fixed upon me. She was a woman of indomitable firmness, and in my knowledge of her she never showed the least trace of fear. My wife cowered on the floor, clad only in her nightdress, and in a more disgraceful condition than when I found her lying at the door of my chambers in the Strand. Her body was trembling and convulsed, her features twitched, there was a nameless terror in her eyes. The atmosphere of the apartment reeked with the fumes of liquor.
"You are a faithful servant," I said to Annette, "to encourage your mistress in these disgusting orgies. You have a human excuse, I suppose. It pays you."
"I am paid with ingratitude," she answered, composedly. "To keep this"—pointing to my wife—"from the other servants in the house—is not that faithful service?"
"And to give false evidence against your master," I retorted, "that also is faithful service, is it not? I know you for what you are, Annette—a panderer to vice and infamy."
"That is defamation, monsieur, I can make you pay for it."
"Do so. It will rid me of you. I am willing to pay the price."
This bickering was stopped by a piercing scream from Barbara.
"See there—see there!" the wretched creature shrieked. "Those devils are creeping in again! Keep them off—keep them off! Save me—save me!"
She bit, she snarled, she tore at the phantoms.
I cannot describe the scene. My pen halts, my fingers refuse to trace the words. I remember helping Annette to lift my wife to the bed; I remember noting with morbid curiosity the singular phase in her delirium that she clung to Annette for protection while she clawed at me; I remember her falling from the bed, and creeping under it to hide herself from the imaginary terrors which afflict the dipsomaniac; I recall her delirious entreaties for more brandy, her shrieks for mercy, her ribald utterances when, for a brief space, these terrors ceased, her shuddering paroxysms, her tears, her hysterical sobs. Good God! Can we call such beings human? Should there not be a law to put them under restraint, to treat them as we treat the mad, to free the innocent partners of their unspeakable degradation from the horrible curse which weighs like a blight upon despairing hearts?
So the night passed, and I paced the passages, the rooms, the stairs, in a frame of mind the memory of which even now, after a lapse of years, sends a shudder through me. For the time being I lost faith in human goodness. Purity and sweetness were delusions—they had no existence. Charity, virtue, kindliness, our holiest sentiments, the spiritual instinct which lifts our thoughts above sordid cares and rewards, all were mockeries, and he who believed in them was a fool. Nothing was real but corruption. Beneath the lying mask on the world's face lurked treachery and foul desire, and over this mass of impurity reigned the Spirit of Evil.
At the end of the succeeding week I broke the vow I had made never to touch spirituous liquor. To my shame be it recorded.
I had eaten scarcely anything the previous two days, and was suffering from terrible depression. It was while I was in this state, pacing the dining-room, up and down, up and down, with nerves so sensitively attuned that any sudden noise made me start, that my eyes fell upon a bottle of brandy which had just been uncorked, and inadvertently left upon the sideboard. It fascinated me. I turned from it, was drawn to it again, and for several minutes gazed fixedly at it. Here was rest, here was forgetfulness, here was at least a transient relief. An enticing devil lurked in that bottle, inviting me, tempting me, luring me on. I laid my hand upon it.
My conscience smote me, but my moral strength was sapped. Character, reputation, happiness, all were lost. Let the last remnants of self-respect go with them. In all the wide world there was not one man or woman who cared what became of me, not one human being who entertained for me a spark of affection. Whether I died the death of a dog or a martyr would not affect the judgment which had been passed upon me. My epitaph was already written, and nothing could alter it. The fiend Insomnia held me in his grip. During the past week I had not had two consecutive hours' sleep. To save myself from going mad I must have a few hours' oblivion from the misery which encompassed me.
I poured the liquor into a tumbler, and drank it neat. It burnt my throat, but almost immediately I was conscious of a riotous revulsion of spirits. Again and again I drank, forcing the liquor down my throat till the bottle was empty, when I must have fallen to the ground in a drunken stupor. I recall that it was broad daylight when I yielded to the temptation, and put the final touch to my sorrows by this act of self-degradation.
When I awoke all was dark. My throat was parched, there was a horrible racking pain in my head, a nauseating faintness at my heart. But worse than this was the torment of remorse which weighed me down. I had placed myself on a level with my curse, had proved myself worthy of it. There was no excuse for the shameful excess in which I had indulged. A hypocrite, self-convicted, I had become a willing slave to the vice I had condemned, and I could now take rank with the abandoned creatures from whom I had shrank in horror.
With difficulty I rose from the floor, upsetting furniture in the effort, and felt my way to my bedroom, where I plunged my head into a basin of cold water, keeping it there for some time, and sucking in the water like a dog. As I stood dripping, in the darkness, I heard a kind of sing-song proceeding from Barbara's room. Stealing into the passage, I listened to the drivel. "Beast John is drunk—dead, dead drunk! He preaches, preaches, preaches—Oh, the good man! Maxwell knows, his mother knows, Louis knows. Ha, ha, ha! How funny! Beast John is drunk—dead, dead drunk! Now let him preach—now let him write to the papers." There was no method in her singing, no rythmical arrangement of the insane song. The words dropped from her lips in disjointed fashion, and there was a taunting exultation in her utterance of them.
A frightful temptation assailed me—to kill her and myself, and be done with the world. "What matter?" I muttered. "There is no God! If there were He would not permit such women to live." Even at this distance of time—yes, even though I know that my days are numbered—I am thankful that some mysterious force within me leaped up to fight the demon that would have damned my soul. I was conscious of the inward conflict, the conflict of the two spirits, the good and the evil, which are said to be forever warring for supremacy in a man's heart. I hope I may say now (though I did not believe so then) that my suffering had not crushed all the good out of me, and that there was still some vitality in the better impulses of my being. I did not openly recant the impious words I had muttered; my mood was too sullen for that. I was ready for sin, but not for crime. My life was mine, and I could do with it as I pleased, but it was not within my right to dispose of the life of another mortal. Brooding upon this I fled from the house as from a pestilence.
Intent upon self-destruction, I bent my steps riverwards. It was a wretched night. Rain was falling heavily, and there was no light in the sky. The spirit of black death brooded over the city. It was as if nature favored my sinful purpose—or so I chose to interpret the signs.
There were but few persons about; I took no notice of them, nor they of me. Small incidents became unduly magnified. I had walked some three or four miles, and was in the immediate vicinity of Westminster Abbey when the cathedral clock began to strike. I paused and listened with extreme attention, standing quite motionless and counting the strokes till the hour was fully announced. It appeared to me a singular and unusual thing that it should be three o'clock; singular, also, that the rain should have ceased, and that a fog was creeping over the streets.
It was only when I was again in motion that the significance of time, in relation to the purpose I had in view, impressed me. "Three o'clock," I thought. "At four I shall be dead." Crossing the road at the top of Parliament Street a man, passing hastily, stumbled against me. In a spirit of fury I grappled and threw him to the ground—and stood over him, ready to stamp on him if he showed resistance. All my senses were alert for evil. The man did not stir, and I passed on. But I had not proceeded far before I stopped to consider whether I had killed him. I groped my way back to the spot upon which I had left him. The man was gone. I was neither glad nor sorry.
A woman—one of the misery's children—accosted me; appealed to me, for the love of God, to give her a penny for a cup of coffee. The coffee stall, which I had not seen, was within a dozen yards of us; its lights shone dim through the fog, and shadowy, ghost-like forms hung about it. I gave the woman a shilling, and continued on my way. I was now on Westminster Bridge. The fog was thickening. I could scarcely see the water. The dull reflection of the lamps on the Embankment added to the general despondency of the scene. I was enwrapped in gloom and silence. I walked to the end of the bridge, and stood on the steps leading down to the river.
Upon what a slight foundation rests a man's fate! A chance turning this way or that, a moment's hesitation, may make or mar, may lead to destruction or salvation. I heard the muffled tread of a policeman, and fearing that I had been seen, and my purpose discovered, I did not descend the steps, but crossing the road, walked slowly towards Kennington, intending presently to return and carry out my sinful design. The probability is that I had not been seen, and should not have been interrupted, for the policeman did not follow me, and the echo of his footsteps gradually died away. When I was assured of this I should have turned again towards the river had not a simple incident changed the whole current of my life. The sound of a woman's suppressed sobs fell upon my ear.
She was standing at the door of a chemist's shop, endeavoring to arouse the proprietor by repeated pulling of the night bell, pausing between each summons, and vainly endeavoring to choke back her tears. I could not see her face, but so keen and poignant was her grief that I should have been less than human had I passed by without a word. The note of suffering in her voice touched a sympathetic chord in my heart, and awoke the dormant sense of good within me.
"What are you crying for?" I inquired, stepping to her side.
My question seemed to terrify her, and she made a movement as if about to fly. But the duty upon which she was bent gave her courage.
"Don't speak to me!" she implored. "For heaven's sake, leave me!"
I knew what she intended to convey by this appeal. She mistook me for one of the human ghouls who prowl the streets in the belief that every woman is frail.
"I will not harm you," I said, and I repeated my question. "What are you crying for?"
My sad voice reassured her—so she subsequently informed me—and after a pause she answered timidly. "I have been trying for a quarter of an hour to make the chemist hear, but he will not come down. It is life or death, and he will not come down!"
"Your life or death?" I asked.
"No," she replied, "not mine; my mother's—my dear mother's!"
"Let me see what I can do," I said, and I pulled the bell, and listened, with my ear close to the door.
There was no response, and I pulled again, and failed to hear the ring. I discovered then that the night bell was broken. There was another bell on the other side of the door, and this I pulled vigorously, and beat on the door with my fist.
"What is the matter with your mother?"
"She is very ill—she has been ill for months. Are you a doctor, sir?"
"No. What does the doctor who is attending her say?"
"We have none, sir."
"But why? Surely in a matter of life or death one is necessary." I continued to ring and beat on the door.
"I know, I know," she murmured. "Oh, will he never come?"
I gathered from this mournful reply that they were poor and could not afford a doctor, which was presently confirmed. My vigorous summons was successful in arousing the chemist, who, with a sleepy and unwilling air, opened the door and admitted us. Now, by the light in the shop, I saw that the woman was young, hardly yet out of her teens, and though grief was stamped too plainly upon her countenance, that she was fair and prepossessing. So modest and gentle was she that I was filled with pity for her. Her eyes were dim with tears, her hair had become loosened and hung in lovely disorder upon her white neck, her features bore traces of exhausting vigil. With a trembling hand she held out a prescription, saying in a wistful tone:
"I am sorry to disturb you, but my mother is much worse to-night. I will pay you to-morrow—I have some work to take back."
He grumbled a little and hesitated, and I, stepping back so that the young woman could not see my action, nodded to him and held up my purse. Understanding from this that I intended to pay him he made up the medicine and gave her the bottle, with which, after expressing her gratitude, she was about to depart, when I said to her:
"Will you wait for me a moment at the door? You may trust me."
The sincerity I felt must have made itself manifest in my voice, for she bent her head slightly, and waited for me outside.
"What is the matter with her mother?" I asked.
"I cannot say," replied the chemist. "She has been ill a long time and ought to have a doctor. This is an old prescription; I have made it up several times."
"Am I right in supposing that they cannot afford 'a doctor?"
"That is evident. They are very poor. They owe me for three bottles already."
"She appears to be respectable," I said, as I paid him what was due.
"No doubt of it. She works day and night, and I should say it is as much as she can do to keep body and soul together."
At my request he wrote the address of a doctor in the neighborhood, and instructed me how to find him. Then I joined the young woman.
"You must accept my escort," I said. "It is hardly safe for you to be out on such a night. I am sincerely sorry for your trouble. I may be able to lighten it."
She trembled so violently that I feared she would fall, but she did not accept my arm. We walked side by side, in silence, till we reached one of the poorest houses in one of the poorest streets. There she stopped, and wished me good night, and thanked me for my services.
"I am going to fetch a doctor to your mother," I said. "How shall we obtain admittance?"
"I am afraid I must refuse, sir," she said. "We are not in a position to pay him."
"Leave that to me," I replied. "When one dear to you is in peril you cannot refuse to accept assistance even from a stranger. I can sympathize with honest pride, but surely this would be carrying it too far. Your mother needs a doctor. She shall see one." I looked up at the windows, and in one at the top of the house I could faintly distinguish a glimmer of light. "Is that your room?"
"Yes, sir."
"Shall I knock or ring when I come back with the doctor?"
"If you will give a gentle knock, so as not to disturb the other lodgers, I will come down." Then, after a momentary pause, "I did not believe there was such goodness in the world."
"You overrate my services. If you knew what you have saved me from——" I did not finish, but asked her to give me the name of the street and the number of the house, which she did. "And your name?"
"Cameron, sir."
"Thank you. The trust you repose in me shall not be abused."
I waited till she had let herself in with a latch-key, and then I departed on my errand.
By this time the fog was so thick that I doubt whether I should have found the street to which I had been directed had it not been for the assistance of a policeman, who accompanied me to the doctor's house. The doctor himself answered my summons, an elderly gentleman, with a careworn, benignant face, who, when he learned what was required of him, said he would come with me at once. We conversed on the way, and he informed me that he had some knowledge of the Camerons, who had called him two or three months ago to prescribe for the mother. They were respectable people, he told me, who had, like numbers of others in the locality, a hard fight to keep the wolf from the door. They belonged to the class who slaved and suffered patiently and silently; everybody spoke well of them, and the daughter was specially modest and gentle in her manners. Except that they appeared to be superior in point of conduct and education, to their neighbors, he knew nothing more of them. He was surprised, the mother being so ill, that the daughter had not come to him; but yet, on second thoughts, he was not surprised, their peculiar delicacy in money matters stopping the way. It was often so with the poor, who were hyper-sensitive in their pride.
I then explained what it was I wished him to do—to attend to the sick woman regularly, and to prescribe what was necessary in the shape of food and medicine. He was to relieve their minds in respect of his fees, which, with all other expenses, I would pay. In token of my sincerity and ability to carry out my desire I begged him to accept a couple of sovereigns in advance, to which he very willingly consented.
"My patients are not quite regular in their payments," he said in a gentle tone, "and it is not in my nature to press them. So far as gratitude goes, I am richly repaid. You are, perhaps, a relative of the Camerons."
"I am not in any way related to them," I replied.
"A friend of long standing, then."
"I have never seen the mother, and scarcely an hour ago I saw Miss Cameron for the first time—by chance," I added.
"A singular hour," he observed, "and a strange night for a chance meeting."
"Yes—but so it happened." And I related how it came about, saying nothing of myself or of the circumstances which caused me to be perambulating the streets at such a time.
He was silent for a little while, and I fancied I heard him sigh. Then he said, "You are a gentleman."
"I hope I may lay claim to the title."
"In station, by which I mean worldly circumstances, far above the Camerons—at least, so I judge."
"Well?"
"They are poor and lowly. Miss Cameron is young, and not unattractive."
"I understand you. My motives are open to suspicion."
"Is it not natural?"
"Quite, and I do not blame you for doubting me, but you must not do Miss Cameron an injustice. She is absolutely blameless. I have related the simple truth, and were you acquainted with my story—which I do not consider myself free to disclose—your doubts would vanish. Can you not credit me with a sincere desire to serve two poor and deserving persons without harboring a base thought towards them?"
As my sad voice had won Miss Cameron's confidence, so it now won the confidence of the good doctor.
"It is a censorious world," he said, "and I spoke out of its mouth. Forgive me."
Miss Cameron must have been keeping watch for us, for my soft tap on the street door was almost immediately answered. Standing in the passage, her hand shading the candle from the night air, she seemed to hesitate whether to invite me in, and I, divining—which was the case—that she and her mother occupied but one room, resolved the difficulty by saying, "I will see you bye and bye, doctor," and pulling the street door to.
Left alone in the dark street, I fell to musing upon the events of the last twenty-four hours. I could scarcely see a dozen yards before me, and even at that distance a moving form would have presented the semblance of a shadow created by the spreading fog; not a sound but that of my own footsteps disturbed the stillness of the dreary scene. And yet, dismal as were my surroundings, I was conscious that my spirits had assumed a more healthy tone. I was devoutly grateful for the change that had come over me, and I did not stop to consider whether it was due to chance or to a merciful interposition of Providence at the most critical period in my life. A heavy weight was lifted from my heart. I had been saved by a woman's face, a woman's voice; she had set free the sealed springs of sympathy and pity—I once was more human.
Do not misunderstand me. The brief interview with Miss Cameron, the few words we had exchanged, had not inspired me with love for her—that was in the future, and to be reared upon a more reasonable foundation; but it had revealed to me that there was still some worthy work for me to do, that having sinned through self-indulgence in a vice I abhorred, and having contemplated a deed the thought of which now sent a shudder through me, I might work out my redemption by simple acts of kindness to beings even more forlorn than myself.
No, it was not love I felt, but deep gratitude that an example of self-sacrifice and devotion should have crushed forever out of me the impious doubt of the existence of a beneficent Creator. It was to this I owed my salvation, and as I paced the foggy street I thought of the daughter toiling for her sick mother. I saw her patient face of suffering, heard her wistful voice saying: "I will pay you to-morrow; I have some work to take back." Ah, what a story is here revealed! I dwelt upon the modesty which caused her to shrink from the compassionate advances of a stranger, and with tears in my eyes dwelt also upon the child-like confidence she had reposed in me. She became to me an incarnation of purity. There were good women in the world—thank God for that. Through her spirit my faith in human goodness was restored, and I saw my life in a clearer light, unstained and unclouded by vice and degradation. Peace, if not happiness, might yet be mine.
To one course I pledged myself, and vowed that nothing should turn me from it. I would never live with my wife again; her revolting duplicities, her shameful debasement, should no longer torture me. I would be done with her, so far as personal association went, and with those other relatives who had systematically persecuted me and maligned me. The infamous law—wickedly and falsely called the law of God—which bound me to a living curse, to a moral pest, could not compel me to inhabit the house in which she indulged in her depravities. Of so much of my fortune as was left she should have a share, and should receive it through an agent. One visit only would I pay to what was in mockery called my home, and that for the purpose of removing my private papers. Then would I shake the dust of that earthly hell from my feet, and turn my back upon it forever.