"Why, here you have the awfulest of crimesFor nothing! Hell broke loose on a butterfly!Yet here is the monster! Why, he's a mere man—Born, bred and brought up in the usual way."—R. Browning.
It was six o'clock in the evening. Virginia stepped from the door of the Nursing Home out into Queen Anne Street with a radiant face.
She left Pansy smiling, content, in the hands of people who were not merely experts, but kind and loving. The daily improvement grew more marked. Dr. Danby that day had spoken more encouragingly than ever before. The delight of it, the fascination of watching colour steal back to the cheeks, and light to the eyes; while the awful look of pain vanished from the lines of the mouth, leaving it a child's mouth once more—this was enfolding the elder sister in a sweetness which it seemed no dark future had power to impair. Gaunt was far from her mind; she was living in the present moment—living within the walls of the room that contained Pansy.
A man came rapidly along the street towards her, on the same side of the way. Just as she turned into Portland Place she came face to face with him. It was Gerald Rosenberg. His start of surprise was admirably done. As to Virgie, in the first moment, she was merely glad to see him—ready to take him into the joy that filled her, to share with him her glow of thankfulness and hope.
"Oh!" She stopped, giving him her hand, looking into his face with those eyes that had seemed to him so fathomless as to cause him to hesitate before letting his very being drown in their depths. Now it seemed that they were changed. The girl was, somehow, mysteriously a woman. She retained all her innocence, all her girlish candour, but there was something more, something heroic and splendid. At any rate, it appeared so to the man's enchanted gaze.
"This is indeed good fortune"—he hardly knew what he said. "I heard that you were in town, but hardly hoped—why did you not let Mims know of your being here?"
"Oh, that is easily answered. I have been devoted, body and soul, to my little sister. The first few nights I was in town I spent at the Home, for we did not even know that she would live. I have not had a moment for my friends."
"But she is better now?"
"Yes, thank God! I can hardly speak of it." The tears welled up and misted the changeful eyes. "It is so wonderful—so unspeakable—seeing her, as it were, coming back to me from the grave. If she had died, I can't think what I should have done."
"I remember Mims always said you were such a devoted sister."
Virgie laughed. "So would anybody be devoted to Pansy," she replied cheerfully. "But I am consumed with curiosity. You say that you had heard I was in London. Do tell me how you heard it."
His lip curled and his expression changed. "I heard it from the person most likely to know. Mr. Gaunt told me."
"Mr. Gaunt!" It was too sudden. Usually she had herself perfectly in hand, but the thought of the Ogre, intruding upon her moment of bliss, touched her inmost feeling, and she grew as white as a sheet. Gerald's eyes never left her face. He saw that pallor, saw the fugitive glance of panic that passed across the eyes like a cloud over the sun. It was so, then; it was as he had feared, as he had secretly known! She had been bought by that malevolent-looking man—the creature who had marked her down in the picture gallery, had pursued, hunted, caught, led captive! The feelings in the young man's heart were for a moment so violent that he could not speak.
Virginia and he had turned mechanically as he uttered the fatal name, and they now began to walk down Portland Place, towards Regent's Street side by side. "Somehow," said her soft voice at last, "it seems very surprising to me that you should have met Mr. Gaunt. Do tell me how it came about. I—I believed that he was at home—in Derbyshire."
The speech showed him the measure of her apprehension. She had thought herself free of her tyrant for a while, and now supposed him to have followed her to London.
"Oh, it was in Derbyshire that I met him," he hastened to assure her. "At the house of some people called Ferris. I went down to interview Ferris about a company that he wants to float—a lead-mine. Your husband was lunching there."
"Lunching at Perley Hatch?" She seemed surprised, he thought.
"Yes. On the same line as I was, I fancy. We all went and had a look at the cave afterwards. I think my father will accept a directorship, and probably Mr. Gaunt also will come on the board."
Before reflecting, she cried, in a pleased voice: "Then does that mean that we shall see something of you? Shall you be coming down sometimes to Derbyshire?"
Gerald almost choked. There was so much to say about this that he knew he had better say nothing. Yet, as in her case, words leaped to his lips before he reflected. "I hardly know. It is a question as to how much I could bear."
"How much you could bear?" Her eyes were raised, astonished, troubled. He knew that if he said what was in his mind, his present chance might vanish in a moment. "I won't say what I meant," he replied in a low tone. "Why should I force my troubles on you? You have enough anxiety with your little sister. But is it too late to get some tea?"
"Oh, yes, I have had tea, thanks!"
"Where are you staying? "
"In Margaret Street—my mother is with me."
"Indeed? Do you think she would receive me, if I were to pay a short call?"
"I am sure she would be pleased. But you will not find her at home now; she has gone to the theatre."
"At this hour?"
"She is dining at her club first. She does not like lodging-house food."
"Do you?"
"Oh, food makes very little difference to me. I put up with it, for I am too tired to go and dine out, after a long day with Pansy."
"I wish you would come and dine with me. I know a charming place quite near here, where they give you Italian things—you are so fond of Italy. Let me take you and give you something to eat, and then you shall go straight back to your rooms and rest. There is so much I want to hear."
Her brows knit. "I have nothing to tell you," she answered slowly.
He blamed himself for having risked the last sentence.
She seemed to turn over his offer in her mind. At last: "No," she said, but he felt with reluctance. "I can't come this evening. I am tired and stupid. Some other evening, if you will ask us both."
"Then must I go and dine alone at my club? My father and Mims are in Switzerland, and I am all alone."
"Oh!" Her pity was awake at once. "I did not know."
"Because you are tired is just why you should come," he went on. "I'm not a stranger, some one whom you must exert yourself to entertain. I'm your friend, am I not, Virgie?"
The last word was hardly breathed.
"Oh, you are—and friends are precious. If you are alone—really—and don't mind a dull person——"
Even as she spoke he had hailed a taxi, and she was seated in it at his side before she well knew that she had consented.
"This is the one advantage of your being married—I can take you about," said the young man, with an air of quiet confidence. "Gaunt seemed anxious about you. He said you had been unwell, and would, I am sure, be grateful to me for looking after you, and preventing your dining on a poached egg, which is what I know to have been your immoral intention."
She laughed. "Tell him to stop a moment at Margaret Street. I must tell my maid not to keep the poached egg hot," she replied.
This was done, and he took her to Ciliani's, the most charming restaurant in London. There was no band to drown talk, the tables were arranged so that parties did not intrude upon each other. They found places near a window, and as Virgie seated herself she thought of that awful lunch with her husband at the Savoy Restaurant. The memory made her wince. She remembered her panic terror, her dread of what was to come, her timid attempts to seem at ease. Little had she known what really awaited her.
She resigned herself now to Gerald's care with a sudden beautiful sensation of relief. He was an old friend. In fact, the Rosenbergs were practically the only people she knew who belonged to the life at Lissendean as well as to more recent times. Perhaps Gerald realised how precious an asset such a link was, for he began to talk to her of Lissendean, and of those happy days when they had ridden and golfed together, had roamed the country with lunch in their pockets, and acted charades in the old hall.
All through the charm of such talk Virginia's inner self, the sentinel conscience which ruled her, was helping her to gird on her armour. She was keenly aware that Gerald's first mention of her husband had caught her unprepared, also that Gerald had seen and interpreted her confusion.
It was not until coffee had been served, and he was lighting his cigarette that the moment came. He leaned forward and spoke, composedly, but with a weight which made itself felt.
"I left you—unavoidably—at my father's command, one lovely evening in June. When we parted, there were in my heart feelings which I can't but believe you must have seen and interpreted. A fortnight later I learned that you were about to be married. Has it occurred to you to wonder whether I suffered?"
Virginia was drawing her gloves from her little beaded bag, and daintily pulling out the fingers. "But why should I suppose that you would be suffering?" she demanded quietly.
He hesitated. "Are you being quite straightforward with me, Virgie?"
Again she countered with a question. "Is there any obligation for me to be quite straightforward with you, Mr. Rosenberg? Complete straightforwardness is a large demand."
He grew nettled. His elbow rested on the table, his handsome eyes were full upon her. "Honestly, do you think you treated me fairly?" he wished to know.
"Certainly. I don't see quite what you mean," was her steady reply.
"Then—then you really did not know that I was in love with you?"
"I did not. Of course not."
"Don't try to blind me," he went on urgently, his voice a little unsteady. "I am better informed than you think. I know that you had never seen Gaunt until that day at Hertford House. You went thence, and without a word, or a sign, you engaged yourself to marry a man who was a total stranger. Do you suppose I do not guess that you were forced into that?"
"If you guess so, your guess is quite wrong. I had heard of Mr. Gaunt all my life. I had a romantic idea of him—girls do, you know. I was told, by mother, various things about him, and I knew he was unhappy and lonely. We looked at one another—in the Gallery—that day——"
Her voice tailed off, and she seemed absorbed in the diligent pushing down of the soft kid upon her fingers.
Gerald was baffled. The same idea crossed his mind which had gripped her mother's fancy. It had been then a case of mutual love at first sight, one of those strange, inexplicable attractions that seem like magnetism. He looked at the wedding-ring and the other beautiful rings upon the little hand moving so dexterously. He thought how zealously a middle-aged, unattractive man would strive to secure the affection of this wonderful creature. Could it really be that she was contented with her lot? After all, had she made her calculations? Had she realised that his own people would make difficulties, that she and he would be none too well off at first if they married? Had she deliberately chosen the richer man, as his father had insinuated?...
He recalled her husband's words, spoken only two days previously. "My wife's beauty is the least part of her charm. She is pure gold throughout." Was that true, or was Gaunt successfully hoodwinked? So deft was Virginia's parry that he could not be sure.
When first they met that evening, he had had no plan at all; he was merely filled with an aching desire to behold her face. Now it dawned upon him that, if she were the calculating, self-seeking person whom he sometimes supposed her, she could not suffer from being in his society, and there was no reason why he should not see a good deal of her.
"Love at first sight—most interesting!" was what he said aloud; and a long interval elapsed before he spoke at all.
She assented to his definition, with the least little ghost of a smile.
"How long are you likely to be in town?" he asked abruptly.
"I think I shall stay until they can take Pansy to the sea," she replied. "Dr. Danby says that in about ten days she can be moved on a water-bed in a motor-car to Cliftonville. Osbert says she is to have just what the doctor orders, so I shall arrange for her to go that way. It is, as you may suppose, very difficult for me to be so long away from Omberleigh, but my husband is very good and patient. He knows it was a matter of life and death."
"Well, as long as you are in town, I shall make it my business to see that you have some fresh air every day," he announced. "May I bring a motor to-morrow round to the Home, and take you and Mrs. Mynors to dine somewhere a little way out of town? It is still light until past eight o'clock, and in an hour or so we could get to Essendon, or Chenies, or one of those pretty little places—no need to stew in London these deadly August days."
Her eye lit up, and she began to speak impatiently, then checked herself.
"Now, say just what you were going to say."
She laughed. "I was going to be barefaced enough to ask you to take Tony as well. He has been in camp, with his O.T.C., but he comes to London to-morrow, and I want him to have a good time."
"By all means. Couldn't you get away half an hour sooner?"
She shook her head. "I must stay until they turn me out; Pansy would fret if I did not. But I will be as punctual as I can, and tell mother and Tony to come round to Queen Anne Street."
"On no account! I shall fetch them from Margaret Street on my way to you."
"You are very kind and thoughtful," she responded joyfully. "I do feel that a motor run would do me good after all those hours in the sick room."
*****
For the first few days Virginia said nothing of her meeting with Gerald in her letters to Gaunt. This was not because she wished to hide them, but because she habitually mentioned only such points as seemed essential—Pansy's progress and her own expenditure. Tony's expenses, her mother's club dinners and theatres, came out of her own private allowance. It was wonderful how far a pound could be made to go in museums and picture palaces for Tony's benefit. After a few days, however, she thought it better to mention what was going on, lest her husband should think there might be something clandestine about it. She wrote accordingly, in answer to his demand for an account of her own health:
I have been feeling very much better lately, for Mr. Rosenberg—whom I met last week in the street, and who told me he had been to Perley Hatch, and had seen you—has been taking mother and me for drives in the evening. His people are out of town, and he has the car to himself. We have been to Windsor and Burnham Beeches, to Virginia Water, and all sorts of places. The air does me a great deal of good. I am really quite well now.
Gaunt read it grimly. He told himself that he might have expected it. Was it likely that Rosenberg would leave her alone, having learned that she was in London without him?
The test was growing more acute, the shadowy tie, which bound her to him, more attenuated. She would never come back. He went into the little sitting-room, wherein the decorators were at work, and wondered at his own folly. He was carrying that folly to an absurd pitch. He was having a copy executed of the statue of Love from the Wallace collection. It was to stand upon a column in the charming semicircular bay window, looking out upon the prim terrace garden.
Should he write now—write and offer her her release?
He sneered at himself for having ascertained the limits of his own penitence. Although he was ready to swear that he would do anything for her happiness, he could not do that. Having once seen her, at his table, on the terrace, in the hall, having heard her voice in the stark silence of his desolate house, the craving to have her back was, he had to confess, even greater than the craving for her content. Besides, he argued, she had been willing once. She had accepted her destiny, had meant to do her duty, spoken of being bound by her vows. When she found that there was love—even adoration—to be lavished upon her, would she not become reconciled?
Ah! the time for that had gone by. Rosenberg had now stepped into the picture. She knew nothing of his own change of heart. To her he was a gloomy and cruel tyrant. Had he used his chance when wonderfully he had obtained it—had he not horrified her at the outset by his unmanly, despicable behaviour—what might not have been possible?
Thoughts such as these were his torment day and night; and his sleep went from him.
*****
Mrs. Mynors and Gerald Rosenberg were strolling side by side upon the North Terrace of Windsor Castle. It was growing late, and they were expecting to be ejected by officials shortly; but Virginia and Tony had gone off together to look at Eton College, and to sigh over the deplorable fact that Tony would never occupy his dead father's place in Brooke's House.
"I found it out accidentally," Mrs. Mynors was saying, "when she first came to town. She was in a terrible state of distress about Pansy, and would not go away from the nursing home when night came. They were very kind, and let her lie on a sofa in a sitting-room, and I was in an arm-chair. She dropped off to sleep a dozen times, I should think, and each time woke in a kind of nightmare, crying out to him that he might torture her as he liked, but she was going to Pansy; he might cut her to pieces when she got back."
"Good God!" said Gerald.
"It was dreadful to listen," sighed the mother. "First, she was repeating: 'I am not afraid—I am not afraid of you any more!' Then she was begging him not to make her try to walk, because she could not stand. I can't think what he can have been doing to her, but I have made up my mind that, by hook or by crook, she must not go back to him. The thing is: How to prevent it?"
The drops were standing upon the young man's forehead. He had had hints before, but this was the first time he had succeeded in being alone with Mrs. Mynors long enough to hear all.
"How could you—how could you have permitted it?" he broke out violently. "Such an inhuman sacrifice!"
"My dear Gerald, does the modern mother control her children? Oh, don't think I am saying a word to disparage my darling. I know she is a martyr; I know she sacrificed herself for us. But I implored her not to do so. If only——" She broke off. He waited, feverishly eager, and as she did not continue, broke out:
"Well, if only what?"
"If only she had never gone to London," murmured the mother in a low voice. "Then he would never have seen her, and she would never have seen—you!"
"Never have seen me?"
"Oh, I know it was not the first time you had met. But it was the fatal time. Poor innocent child! she gave you her heart, and you handed it back with a polite thank you. Did you not, dear boy?"
"Great heavens, Mrs. Mynors, do you know what you are saying? You are suggesting that Virgie loves me."
"But surely that is not news to you?" she said, with lifted brows, as one astonished at unlooked-for density of perception.
He turned impulsively away from her, leaning his arms upon the grey stone wall and gazing away into the dusk. Some moments passed in a wild kind of silence. Then the castle warder called to them that he was closing the doors. Without a word the young man moved, walking at his companion's side through the little door in the wall, under the arch, out upon the ramp which descends past St. George's Chapel to the large gate. He was as white as a sheet.
Not a soul was in sight. They paused, gazing down upon the sunk garden which now blooms in the dry moat of the Round Tower. Suddenly Gerald burst into speech. Forgetting for the moment all that his father had told him of this woman, he poured out the story of how he had been overpersuaded, how his father—urging upon him the imprudence of such a match—had coaxed him away that last night of Virgie's stay, when the confession of his feeling was trembling on the tip of his tongue.
"That was what I did," he said. "I was just waiting. I knew of no danger to her. If I had had a hint, if you had sent me a line to tell me that she was being hunted. But all the same," he broke off, his eyes burning in his head, "all the same, to me it is inconceivable that any man, however sunk, could have been cruel to her! Afterwards he might—later, but not at first—not when he had but just acquired that perfect thing for his own! Oh, it makes me mad! I daren't think of it! It's too incredibly ugly—too wild. Are you sure? You don't think those cries of hers that you overheard can have been delirium? It seems altogether outside the pale of possibility that he should have done anything but grovel at her feet!"
Mrs. Mynors had her lovely face averted. She sighed. "There is more in it than that, Gerald," she murmured in a low voice. "I fear it is worse than you think. Have you ever heard of such a thing as a secret maniac? Do you know that there are men, outwardly sane, who go about the world like other people, but who have one single streak of insanity—a bee in the bonnet, as the vulgar saying has it?"
He looked sick with horror. "Do you mean that she is bound for life to a man who isn't sane?"
"Gaunt has had a sad life. I know his story. He thought himself badly used by a woman. It made a profound impression upon him. It is his fixed idea. When I heard my child's broken ravings, the awful thought flashed through my mind—has he some horrible idea of making Virginia pay for another woman's sins?"
"If so, he must be mad, raving mad. We could get him put into an asylum," hissed Gerald.
"Not so easily as you think. Such men are very cunning. You see, he has allowed her to come away from him. He is acting, as every one would say, a most magnanimous part. I and my orphan children are the creatures of his bounty. It would be difficult, indeed, to bring home to him what he may make her endure in private."
"Unbearable," muttered Gerald. "I hardly dare let my mind dwell upon it. But you are going merely upon what you overheard. She has said nothing to you of his being unkind?"
"She is far too proud. I judge by what she does not say. Her reticence to me, her mother, can have but one explanation. He has forbidden her, on pain of certain punishment, to say anything. I know that it is so. I am certain of it."
His burning eyes, searching through the twilight which gathered thickly about them, saw the dim figures of Tony and his sister advancing through the gateway. "There they are," he muttered hoarsely. "We must drop this now, but mind, we must speak of it again. Something must be done. If all this is true, I swear she shall never go back to him. I'll see to that. She loves me! Oh, what a gigantic blunder life is!"
"Take back the love you gave, I claimOnly a memory of the same;With this beside, if you will not blame,Your leave for one more last ride with me."—Browning.
For ten days more Virginia's life floated upon a summer sea. She had Tony, she had Pansy, she had Gerald. She was away from Gaunt, and his letters made no demand upon her. He never mentioned the date, or even alluded to the fact, of her return. She had, however, set herself a limit. When Pansy went to the seaside she must go back to her prison.
The nurse who was now in charge of the case would be permitted to accompany the child, so that there would be no valid reason for Virginia to go too. Mrs. Mynors, who was having the time of her life in London, though she grumbled incessantly at the need to keep her expenditure so rigorously within bounds, was not anxious for the move. Her daughter, however, was scrupulously determined that it should take place at the earliest date which Dr. Danby would sanction. She was very grateful to her husband. Her gratitude had taken the edge off the bitterness with which she regarded him. Her fear remained, but his present generosity could not but do something to salve the wound his cruelty had made. To take undue advantage of his kindness was what she would never suffer herself to do.
Yet, when the time of parting drew near, it became evident to every one that Pansy would fret so much at her sister's departure as to make it likely that her grief might react disastrously upon her frail returning health.
This distressed Virginia terribly. She hardly knew which way her duty lay. It seemed almost as if she must stay with the child until she was strong enough to be reasoned with. At least Gaunt's health would not suffer from her absence. Yet the situation galled her. Here they all were, living upon his bounty, while he waited alone in Derbyshire bereft of his newly made wife. Had she loved him, all would have been otherwise, she would have felt it natural that he should help her, and she would not have hesitated to choose the path of duty, even if absence from him had been a misery to her. As things stood, she was uncomfortably aware that, so far, she had not fulfilled her share of the contract. He had paid her price, but she was devoted, body and soul, to Pansy and not to him.
That night she cried bitterly when alone in bed, while the conflict raged in her heart; and strangely, that night, at Omberleigh, Gaunt had the illusion that he heard her sobbing, as he had heard her upon the night when she received the news of Pansy's danger. So vivid was the impression that he got up, opened the door of her room, and stood a long moment, in the moonlight, gazing at the smooth, empty bed and the dim outlines of the furniture, before he could realise that she was not there.
Next morning she wrote to him:
I am in a difficulty. Pansy is making herself unhappy about going to the sea without me. She has fretted so that Dr. Danby spoke seriously to me yesterday, asking if I could not manage to stay a few days longer just to settle her into her new surroundings. We have found rooms very near the sea, not at Cliftonville, but at Worthing. The roads there are so nice and flat that she can be wheeled out upon the Parade every day, and the doctor says as soon as she is a little stronger she will lose this silly fancy about my leaving her. I am ashamed to mention it to you, when you have done and are doing so much. I will be guided by what you wish. I had arranged definitely to go back to Omberleigh on Monday. If you think I had better keep to that date I will do so. If I may instead take Pansy to Worthing, and stay there with her till the following Friday, returning to you on Saturday, I shall be most grateful, but I feel guilty in asking for it, when I have already made such large demands upon your patience.
The answer to this letter came by telegram:
Stay as long as advisable.—Gaunt.
Tony brought this message round to the Home from Margaret Street in the course of the morning, and great, indeed, was the joy it caused. Pansy was a different creature when she learned that "that dear old trump of an Osbert was going to let Virgie come to Worthing."
There was a tea-party in the little invalid's room that afternoon to celebrate the occasion. Gerald Rosenberg was present. The journey was to be made in his car, and he thought he would take a week's holiday at Worthing, and have a run round the country thereabout.
It was a delightful plan, and in Virginia's eyes it had no drawbacks. She was now wholly at ease with Gerald. Since that first day, he had asked no awkward questions, trenched on no dangerous ground. He had been the best of friends, and was apparently quite content to talk to her mother for long periods during which she and Tony roamed together.
Under his auspices the removal to Worthing took place most satisfactorily. The day was dull and chilly, but there was no rain, and Pansy's spirits never flagged.
For the first day or two following their arrival, there was so much to be done, the elder sister's time was so fully occupied in making all the arrangements that were necessary, that she hardly realised how time was flying. It was on Thursday morning that she awoke with a terrible sensation of depression, amounting to horror. She had dreamed of Gaunt. This had happened to her twice, and only twice, before. Once, upon the night following their first wordless encounter at Hertford House. It had been an oddly vivid dream, producing a feeling of excitement which persisted after she awoke. The second occasion was at Omberleigh. It occurred—though she naturally was unaware of the fact—on the night during which her husband wandered through the park in an agony of remorse. That dream too had left an impression which seemed disproportionate. This last was, however, the most haunting of all.
In it she found herself searching through the house at Omberleigh, looking for Gaunt, who could not be found. She went upstairs to the garrets, where Mrs. Wells had once taken her, but the rooms seemed to have been altered. In her dream she said: "If I come to the room with the Sheraton furniture in it, I shall know where I am." She could not find it, however, and after descending stairs which were the stairs of the Hertford House Gallery, she ran along a passage in search of the sitting-room she had been told she might call her own. That, too, had vanished; in its place was something pale, dim, and shapeless. All empty—Gaunt was not to be seen, and she had been made aware that it was most important that she should find him. She passed out into the garden, in a wet mist which hid everything from her sight, and she dare not hasten for fear of stepping upon his dead body. Terror took her, and she tried, as one tries in dreams, to run. Her feet were rooted to the ground, she was incapable of movement; and out of the fog came Gaunt, with his eyes closed. He was repeating words, but in so low a tone that she could not immediately hear. She listened, first attentively, then eagerly, because she knew that it was so tremendously urgent that she should understand; and at last something reached her consciousness. "Are you coming? No. I said you would not come. I never dared to think you would. But you promised—you promised——"
She tried to say: "Here I am, do you not see me?" But she failed to articulate, and awoke with the sound of his muttered words ringing in her ears.
The morning scene upon which she looked out was gay. The sun shone lazily over a calm sea, there was no wind, and the seafront was already lively with the passing figures of those who had been out for an early dip. When she went into Pansy's room she found that the child had slept without awakening the whole night through; and was greeted with a smile of content and freedom from pain which made her heart swell with joy and gratitude.
This was Gaunt's doing! Without him, this marvellous recovery would have been impossible. It was he who had not only furnished the funds, but who had sent her to Dr. Danby, perhaps the one man in the world who could have achieved so wonderful a result. For the authorities, at first so grave, now began to talk of a cure. Lameness there would always be, but the nurse was certain that the power of locomotion would be recovered. Virgie knelt by the bed, her whole mind flooded with the poignant memory of her pitiful dream. "Oh, Pansy blossom," said she, "isn't it wonderful? What do we not owe to Osbert?"
"Yes," said Pansy, turning her head eagerly, "do you know, Virgie, I was just thinking about that. Nurse talked to me a bit yesterday. She said I must not be selfish. She said how good you had been to sacrifice so much of your time to me; and how miserable it is for Osbert all alone at Omberleigh. I feel rather ashamed of myself, darling, and I can see quite plainly that I must let you go."
"Oh, Pansy!" cried Virginia brokenly, seeing her way thus unexpectedly made clear. Was she glad or sorry? Her imagination took a peep into the future, and for a minute sheer fright paralysed her. Then her dream floated before her, and she almost heard the words: "Are you coming? You promised! You promised!"
Yes, she was coming. She would keep her promise, as she had always intended; but now, for the first time, she faced the terror of it. Once away from her gaoler, in the insistence of the present moment, she had been able to forget. Other things had filled her heart. Apprehension for Pansy's safety had blotted out apprehension for Virginia's happiness. Now with vehemence her panic fear resurged.
*****
Down in the sitting-room, Mrs. Mynors, daintily attired in seaside raiment and white shoes, had just rung for breakfast. Tony and Gerald, who had been together for a swim, walked past under the window. Gerald stopped and called up that he was going along to his hotel for breakfast, and would be back in an hour, decently attired.
"Come in and have some breakfast with us, just as you are," urged Mrs. Mynors, leaning from the open casement.
"Yes, yes," cried Tony, gripping his arm joyfully.
"Don't mind if I do," answered Gerald, and ascended the stairs leisurely, while the boy dashed up to a higher floor, to put down his towels. "Tony met a pal down on the sands," remarked Rosenberg, as he shook hands with Virginia's mother. "I have taken two tickets on thechar-à-bancfor them to go to Arundel. If you will stay with Pansy the arrangements are quite complete."
"That's a splendid idea," replied Mrs. Mynors with satisfaction. "You are a good general, Gerald."
He looked somewhat doubtful, as though a cloud passed over his mood.
"I hate it," he said, "but I must do something. If I don't, she will go back to that crazy beast to-morrow as sure as the sun rises, and what can we do then?"
"My dear Gerald, why do you say that you hate it? You are not going to do anything to which anybody could take exception!"
"No, but I am going to trick her with a put-up job. If she ever found that out she would dislike it. I have seen so much of her lately, and her sincerity and simplicity are almost terrible."
Virgie's mother smiled rather superciliously. "Yet she can keep her own counsel," she remarked incisively. "I have done all that I knew to secure her confidence, and never one word has she let slip. But for the fact that she never mentions him and will not let me see letters from him, I should hardly suspect——"
"You are sure?" He turned from the window with intent expression. "Remember, I am going almost entirely upon what you tell me——"
"Gerald, it seemed to me that I must have some certainty, and I did a thing which you will probably condemn. I looked at a letter from him to her, which was accidentally left accessible. I made a copy of it to show you. This is it, word for word. There was no more."
He grew scarlet. The pretty woman was approaching him with the bit of paper. Was it taking an unfair advantage of Virgie to steal a march upon her loyalty thus? He told himself that the end justified the means. He was too deep in love now. He could not draw back. He took the paper and read:
Omberleigh.Tuesday.
Yours of 5th duly recd. Glad journey satisfactorily accomplished. Rooms seem reasonable. Suppose Mrs. M. will go back to Wayhurst in a few days, leaving child in charge of nurse. Trust you have done as I ordered you with regard to m.c. This is important.—O. G."
"That is all—absolutely all—that was written on the sheet of paper," murmured Mrs. Mynors, watching him read.
"What is m.c., do you know?"
"Have no idea. A nice letter for a man to write to his few weeks' bride, is it not?"
"It shows them to be on very peculiar terms," he admitted, with knit brows. "Yes, you must be right. The man is a bit cracked. Was there no beginning to the letter?"
"Nothing."
"Yet you think there is no chance of our being able to get him certified as of unsound mind?"
"Not the least; because he is very sane, except on this point. Have you asked Mr. Ferris what he thinks of him?"
"Ferris thinks him most able. Says he is the best magistrate in the district. They all down there seem to suppose that he is quite devoted to his wife. They laugh at him as an old bachelor hopelessly in love."
"That letter is the letter of a man in love, is it not?"
Gerald shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, I have been extremely careful to keep off the subject with her," he said. "There is one thing, however, which makes me horribly suspicious that you may be right—that he is being actually unkind to her. I mean this. She seems to believe that, when she leaves here, it is final. Now and then, when she is off her guard, she seems to assume that she will never see any of us again. I did what amounted to some pretty open fishing for an invitation to Omberleigh the other day. She was wholly unresponsive."
"She did admit to me, in one letter, that she did very wrong to marry him," slowly said Mrs. Mynors.
"She did?" he cried quickly.
"She practically admitted that her marriage was a failure as far as she was concerned. I will show you that bit of the letter, though most of it is private. I have it here."
Upon his eager assent she produced that letter from Virginia, which Gaunt had intercepted, and read a paragraph to him:
... What I have done is wrong. I know that now. I half knew it all the time. But what else was there for me to do? I believe God knows I did it for the best. I was at the end of my own strength; I was at the end of all our money. I had you all dependent upon me, and I knew I was going to break down.
I felt I had to save you, and, Oh, mother, you can't, you simply must not deny that I have done that!...
Mrs. Mynors glanced at the young man's face. It was set and hard.
"You should have shown me that before. I think it conclusive," said he. "Only a most unhappy woman could have written so." He broke off with a catch in his breath. "And to think that I had failed her, that she was in those desperate straits and I never knew! Oh, ye gods, how blind we are! But you see, don't you, that the fact of my deserting her then makes it more incumbent upon me to save her now, if I can? Mad or sane, there can be no doubt that the brute must be desperately jealous. We only want suspicious circumstances and somebody who will be sure to mention them to him. If I mistake not, Mr. Ferris is the very man for our purpose. The fact that he himself admires Virgie to the point of fatuity will give the necessary edge to his malice."
"Have you heard from him? He is coming to-day?"
"Yes, that's all right," replied Gerald hastily. "No more now; I hear her on the stairs."
Virginia came in. Happiness and returning health together had made her radiant. She wore to-day a pale mauve frock, and a hat trimmed with a garland of mauve and faint blue flowers. Like Mr. Bent on another occasion, Gerald found himself distracted with the wonder as to which of the two colours matched her eyes.
"What a day!" she said. "Oh, what a heavenly blue day, isn't it? Have you come to breakfast, Gerald? How nice!"
"Gerald is afraid he may be obliged to go back to town to-morrow," remarked her mother, as they sat down to table. "He wants to have one good day's motoring for the last, and as the driving does you so much good, I have arranged to stay with Pansy and leave you free to go with him."
"Tony and I! Oh, how splendid!" cried Virgie, sparkling. "I, too, must leave to-morrow, and I want to have a really delightful day for the last." She broke off a little abruptly, afraid lest what she said might be by implication uncomplimentary to her husband. Both her hearers remarked it, and they exchanged glances.
They did not say that Tony would not be going. Instead, Gerald produced a map from his pocket, and spread it on a corner of the table.
"I have more or less thought out a route," said he. "I wonder if you will approve. There were two places which you told me that you would particularly like to see—one was Bodiam Castle. The other was the Roman Pavement at Bignor. I have been talking to Baines (his chauffeur), and he says it would be quite possible to do both. It is a fifty-mile run to Bodiam—less than two hours. We could lunch on the way back—say at Lewes—and go on to Bignor, where we could have tea, and get back any time we like."
"How simply perfect!" laughed Virgie as she helped herself to marmalade with an appetite which was so recent an acquirement that she herself could not understand it. Nobody present noticed it. Mrs. Mynors would never have known had her daughter starved herself to death under her eyes. Across the girl's mind stole the thought of some one who had watched every mouthful, had hectored and bullied her into eating.
She leant across to Gerald, and perused the map with attention. "What a way it seems! Bodiam is in the very eastest corner of Sussex. And Bignor is more than the whole way back—positively on the other side of Worthing! Are you sure it won't be too far? I am so afraid Pansy will miss me."
"You forget," put in her mother, "Pansy is going to have the first of her electric baths to-day, and nurse says she will have to be very quiet for some hours after it. Besides, it will accustom her to the idea of being without you."
"Yes. That is true," was the reply, while a shadow crept over the gladness of the face.
"I expect Osbert is beginning to be restive, isn't he?" asked her mother, in order to gauge the effect of a sudden reference to Gaunt.
The effect, as always, was a momentary confusion, slight but evident. She soon rallied. "He is very patient," she replied, while her thoughts went obstinately back to the dream garden, veiled in mist, to the man who approached her, groping blindly, to his words, "Are you coming back? No!"
"It seems wonderful that hecanbe patient under the circumstances," observed Gerald drily. He did not pursue the subject. He was folding up his map. "I told the chauffeur to be round in exactly twenty minutes from now. I must bolt, and do a change. Can you be ready in twenty minutes?"
She eagerly assented, and he caught up his hat and ran out of the room, with a smile to her of glowing, eager anticipation which set her heart dancing in response. What a dear fellow he was! How good he had been to them all! He had saved quite a lot of Gaunt's money by taking them down to Worthing in the car. She did not ask herself why it was terrible to take her husband's money, but easy to take Gerald's.
She ran away upstairs, calling to Tony. He appeared from his room, got up in a striped flannel suit, a soft linen collar, a mostrecherchétie, and a Panama hat—a real one.
"Why, Tony, you have made yourself a swell!" cried the girl.
"Pretty decent, isn't it?" was the gratified reply. "Left me any brekker?"
"Plenty, but be quick, we have to start in twenty minutes."
"Not me, sis. I'm going with Mullins Major to Arundel."
"To Arundel! Oh, no, Tony, you are going with Gerald and me in the car!"
"Not much. This is heaps better. Good old Gerald bought us the ticket—front places, and he has given me half a sov. for our grub. Isn't he great?"
"Oh, Tony!" She stood back as the boy ran down the stairs whistling gaily. "Did Gerald give you that suit, too, and that overwhelmingly elegant hat?"
"He did. Took me into the town the first day we got here and rigged me out."
Virgie burst out laughing. She was so glad that Tony should be young—should put on a bit of "swank." How dear of Gerald to be so good to him!
Money makes life very easy. The thought turned her grave once more. Am I mercenary? she asked herself. Does love of money mean the desire to obtain good doctors and nursing, to educate a boy well, to live cleanly and keep out of debt? With a sigh she admitted that her marriage had been mercenary. Yet how small a share of life's good things would have prevented her from making so hideous a mistake—a mistake which as yet she had hardly begun to pay for. Oh, why, why, had Gerald stepped aside and failed her at the critical moment?
"If I had only had patience, if only I had waited," she told herself, "it would have come right! He as good as told me so that first night we dined together. I ought to have refused to do what I knew to be wrong, and left the consequences to God."
She made herself ready for the drive, slipped into Pansy's room, and to her relief found the child quite prepared for her going. "Gerald told me yesterday that he should take you," she said sedately.
Gerald was then heard calling for Virgie, and with a hasty kiss she ran off. Both the plotters heaved a sigh of relief when they found she took Tony's defection in good part. The boy came down from his half-eaten breakfast to see them off, and the car spun away, up to Broadwater and Sompting, and on along the northern slopes of those magical South Downs, the love of which can never fade from a Sussex heart.
Virgie's heart sang as the sunny miles whizzed past. She and Gerald were together, and who knew what might come after? She caught herself wishing that an accident might terminate the day, that she might be fatally injured, and gasp out her life in Gerald's arms. Gaunt would be legally compelled to continue the allowances to her family. The idea fascinated her, so that at length, after a long silence, she said to her companion: "Isn't there a piece of poetry about two people riding together for the last time? The man said he wished the world would end at the end of the ride—do you know it?"
"Can't say I do. I'm not much at poetry," he answered apologetically, "but he was a wise chap if he wanted to end off at the best bit. So you think we are in like case?" he stooped to look into her eyes.
She was shaken into remembrance, and stood on guard in a moment. "Oh, no, of course not! What nonsense! I was only thinking to myself in the silly way I sometimes do."
"Just so. For you the world is but just beginning. You are returning to-morrow to the arms of the man who loved you so devotedly that for the sake of calling you his own he was ready to come to the rescue of your family. For me the case is very, very different. I don't know who could blame me if I wished that this day should end my life."
She laughed. "But that is really nonsense. You are a man—you can go where you like and do as you like. I must do as some one else wills all my life long."
"You think that I can do as I like, Virgie?"
"Of course you can."
"If I did, you would be distinctly surprised. I should tell the chauffeur to change his course—or, rather, to continue on, past Lewes, to Newhaven; and I should carry you on board the first steamer that sailed, and we should vanish across the sea and start life together in some glorious new land, and you would be mine—all mine!"
He spoke half banteringly, but very tenderly, and she hardly knew how to take him.
"As I am I, and as you are you, that is out of the question, you know," he went on, almost in a whisper. "You are not the girl to break your oath and I am not the man to tempt you, even if I thought I could do it with success. So all will go on as before. We shall be together to-day and we shall part to-morrow; and for the rest of my life I shall be fully occupied in resisting the temptation to cut Gaunt's throat."
Virgie decided that she was expected to laugh, and did so, but very softly.
"Don't talk like that," she begged him wistfully. "Let us be quite happy, and think about Pansy, and how wonderful it is that she should be getting well."