Book Four—Chapter Thirty.Time passed, and the Sinclair menage increased its numbers by one. A baby girl was born to Esmé, and was christened, despite its father’s protests, Georgina.The baby ruled the household, and tyrannised over its parents, and made slaves of its godparents, who were amazingly interested in this small cousin of theirs. Mary, a pretty girl of nineteen, with all her sex’s partiality for babies, worshipped at the shrine of the new arrival; John, with masculine mistrust of humanity in miniature, regarded the infant doubtfully, until, with its further development, it captivated him with its smile. From the moment when the baby first smiled at him, John lost his awe of it. He found it infinitely more amusing than any puppy. He carried it about the garden, bundled under one arm like a parcel, to its intense gratification. It was a good-tempered mite, and seldom cried.The coming of her baby brought complete happiness to Esmé. It entirely changed the current of her thoughts, and drew her closer in love and sympathy to George, cementing their union with the strongest bond which married life can forge. Her love for George, as the father of her child, became a fine and tender emotion. She loved him in relation to the child. The great desire of her life was granted. She had her baby: life could give her no greater happiness.Sinclair took very kindly to the parental rôle. Young things appealed to him; and he was immensely proud of his daughter, whose coming had completed the home circle, had indeed filled the home and banished for ever the quiet of former days. He never tired of watching Esmé with the child. She suggested the incarnate picture of motherhood, with the brooding look of love and contentment in her eyes.The gap was filled; and the old life with Paul slipped further into the background of her thoughts.And in England a man, newly released from a German prison camp, ill, half-starved, with nerves racked and shaken, a physical wreck, was thinking of his wife in Africa, and wondering how life had gone with her in the years since he had left her because he had felt himself to be unfit to breathe the same air with her.Had she grieved for him, he wondered? Or had she felt contempt for his weakness, blamed him for a coward, for leaving her secretly like a criminal? The years since he had left his home were so many that it was more than possible she believed him to be dead. Several times since he was made a prisoner, dining the early days of war, he had written to her; but, receiving no replies to his communications, he concluded that these, for some obscure reason of his captors, were never sent. Many men, like himself, had been similarly cut off from all communication with their friends. He had considered the question of writing after his release; but decided against it; he would wait until he saw her. His return would prove a shock in any case. He preferred to reserve explanations until he could offer them in person and comfort her for the sorrow of their years of separation.Not once did it ever enter Paul Hallam’s thoughts that his wife, even though she might believe him to be dead—which he considered likely—would have married again. It simply did not occur to him.For some months he remained in a convalescent home in England, recovering slowly from the privations of prison life in Germany: for a further period he waited for the purpose of proving for his own satisfaction that, with every facility to indulge his former vice, the desire no longer tormented him. Then, in a mood of deep thankfulness, with a heart surcharged with love, and with an intense longing for Esmé exciting his imagination, he sailed for Cape Town in the first available ship.Strangely, at the time of Hallam’s sailing and during the weeks the voyage occupied, Esmé was troubled with dreams of him. Night after night she woke trembling in the darkness, with the vision, which sleep had brought to her lingering in her imagination, of Paul standing before her and gazing at her and turning away from her. Always the dream was the same. Suddenly the vision would appear; his eyes would gaze into her eyes, then abruptly he would turn about; and she would wake to darkness, to the stillness of the night, and to her own nervous fears. Why should the dream haunt her now, when she was learning to forget?And Hallam, on board the ship which steered its difficult course slowly to avoid the danger of floating mines, looked across the blue waste of waters with the image of his wife’s face ever before him, and the thought of her in his mind during every wakeful hour. He, too, awoke in the night, thinking of her, and lay awake in the darkness to the sound of the swish of the waves, picturing his return and the wonderful gladness he anticipated as shining in her eyes at sight of him. All the distress and horror of the past would be wiped out and forgotten in the happiness of their reunion. He would never again give her cause for a moment’s anxiety. He would fill her life with love; there should be nothing to give her sorrow any more.Slowly the blue distance which separated them narrowed, narrowed until the land came within sight, mistily, like a cloud against the deep azure of the sky, a cloud which resolved itself into a square mass of rock, blue-grey in the sunlight which shone upon the city at the base of the mountain, shone upon the sea, lit everything with a blaze of golden light. The ship glided past the breakwater into dock.Hallam was among the first to go ashore. Before sailing he had cabled to his solicitor to inform him that he was coming out. He drove now direct to the lawyer’s office. He wanted news of his wife before seeing her, wanted to glean some idea as to what his long absence and unaccountable silence was attributed to; whether Esmé and others supposed him to be dead; in which event it might be inadvisable to appear before her suddenly and without any preparation.The reception which he received from his man of business and one-time friend surprised him. Mr Huntley, of the firm of Huntley and Thorne, was manifestly embarrassed by the sight of his former client, whom he interviewed in his private office, after issuing the strictest orders against interruption. His obvious nervousness, and the absence of any sign of welcome in his manner, impressed Hallam oddly. Had the man been guilty of embezzling trust money, which Hallam knew him to be incapable of, he could not have betrayed greater dismay at the meeting.“This is immensely surprising, Hallam,” he said. “I have not yet recovered from the amazement which the receipt of your cablegram caused me. You see, I—we all concluded you were dead. The mistake was perfectly natural.”“I grant that,” Hallam answered, considerably mystified and a little annoyed by the other’s manner. “At the same time I don’t see why it should be regarded in the light of a misfortune that I am not dead.”“My dear fellow! Certainly not. But you must allow for a certain—astonishment. I might even put it more strongly. Your return after so long a period calls for such an abrupt readjustment. There have been changes. I don’t see how you can expect otherwise. I’ve sat in this chair day after day since receiving your cable trying to resolve some way out of the muddle. I haven’t communicated with—with your wife. You didn’t instruct us, so I’ve done nothing.”“Quite right,” Hallam said.“I prefer to see her myself.”“You haven’t written?”“No. I am going home when I leave here.”“But Mrs Hallam has left Cape Town. She gave up the house and went round to Port Elizabeth and took a house there. Since then she—she has given up that house also, I believe. In fact I know she has. We manage her affairs for her.”Hallam nodded.“I see nothing very extraordinary in these changes,” he said. “It was not to be expected that she should remain in Cape Town alone. She has relations at the Bay.”Mr Huntley was silent. He took up from the desk before him, and put down again, a little sheaf of papers, and fidgeted with a pen lying beside the blotting-pad. He looked as he felt, immensely embarrassed.“My dear Hallam,” he burst forth at length, “I don’t wish to appear to criticise your actions, but your absence—your complete disappearance, in fact, seems to me inexplicable. That is how it would strike any unbiassed person. Whatever your private reasons were for leaving your home, you might at least have kept us informed as to your whereabouts. It would have prevented a great deal of subsequent distress.”Hallam looked at the speaker in surprise. The last thing he had anticipated was this tone of rebuke from his old friend. That Huntley should suppose he had deliberately suppressed all information relating to himself struck him as an unjust view to take; he resented it.“I have been a prisoner in Germany since the beginning of the war,” he said quietly. “I wrote home many letters in the early days of my captivity. I wrote to you. Oh! there’s no need to tell me you never received it. I got no replies to anything I sent out; so I left off writing after a time. My case was not exceptional.”Huntley leaned with his arm along the desk and looked earnestly into Hallam’s eyes: his own eyes expressed an immense sympathy.“Good God, Hallam!” he said.Suddenly he grasped Hallam’s hand and wrung it hard.“I don’t know how to tell you,” he added. “But the thing has got to be faced. Your body was found, and identified by your brother-in-law. You’ve been dead these many years. And your wife—”“Yes?” Hallam said, in a tone of deadly quiet.“Your wife married again, and is living in Uitenhage.”
Time passed, and the Sinclair menage increased its numbers by one. A baby girl was born to Esmé, and was christened, despite its father’s protests, Georgina.
The baby ruled the household, and tyrannised over its parents, and made slaves of its godparents, who were amazingly interested in this small cousin of theirs. Mary, a pretty girl of nineteen, with all her sex’s partiality for babies, worshipped at the shrine of the new arrival; John, with masculine mistrust of humanity in miniature, regarded the infant doubtfully, until, with its further development, it captivated him with its smile. From the moment when the baby first smiled at him, John lost his awe of it. He found it infinitely more amusing than any puppy. He carried it about the garden, bundled under one arm like a parcel, to its intense gratification. It was a good-tempered mite, and seldom cried.
The coming of her baby brought complete happiness to Esmé. It entirely changed the current of her thoughts, and drew her closer in love and sympathy to George, cementing their union with the strongest bond which married life can forge. Her love for George, as the father of her child, became a fine and tender emotion. She loved him in relation to the child. The great desire of her life was granted. She had her baby: life could give her no greater happiness.
Sinclair took very kindly to the parental rôle. Young things appealed to him; and he was immensely proud of his daughter, whose coming had completed the home circle, had indeed filled the home and banished for ever the quiet of former days. He never tired of watching Esmé with the child. She suggested the incarnate picture of motherhood, with the brooding look of love and contentment in her eyes.
The gap was filled; and the old life with Paul slipped further into the background of her thoughts.
And in England a man, newly released from a German prison camp, ill, half-starved, with nerves racked and shaken, a physical wreck, was thinking of his wife in Africa, and wondering how life had gone with her in the years since he had left her because he had felt himself to be unfit to breathe the same air with her.
Had she grieved for him, he wondered? Or had she felt contempt for his weakness, blamed him for a coward, for leaving her secretly like a criminal? The years since he had left his home were so many that it was more than possible she believed him to be dead. Several times since he was made a prisoner, dining the early days of war, he had written to her; but, receiving no replies to his communications, he concluded that these, for some obscure reason of his captors, were never sent. Many men, like himself, had been similarly cut off from all communication with their friends. He had considered the question of writing after his release; but decided against it; he would wait until he saw her. His return would prove a shock in any case. He preferred to reserve explanations until he could offer them in person and comfort her for the sorrow of their years of separation.
Not once did it ever enter Paul Hallam’s thoughts that his wife, even though she might believe him to be dead—which he considered likely—would have married again. It simply did not occur to him.
For some months he remained in a convalescent home in England, recovering slowly from the privations of prison life in Germany: for a further period he waited for the purpose of proving for his own satisfaction that, with every facility to indulge his former vice, the desire no longer tormented him. Then, in a mood of deep thankfulness, with a heart surcharged with love, and with an intense longing for Esmé exciting his imagination, he sailed for Cape Town in the first available ship.
Strangely, at the time of Hallam’s sailing and during the weeks the voyage occupied, Esmé was troubled with dreams of him. Night after night she woke trembling in the darkness, with the vision, which sleep had brought to her lingering in her imagination, of Paul standing before her and gazing at her and turning away from her. Always the dream was the same. Suddenly the vision would appear; his eyes would gaze into her eyes, then abruptly he would turn about; and she would wake to darkness, to the stillness of the night, and to her own nervous fears. Why should the dream haunt her now, when she was learning to forget?
And Hallam, on board the ship which steered its difficult course slowly to avoid the danger of floating mines, looked across the blue waste of waters with the image of his wife’s face ever before him, and the thought of her in his mind during every wakeful hour. He, too, awoke in the night, thinking of her, and lay awake in the darkness to the sound of the swish of the waves, picturing his return and the wonderful gladness he anticipated as shining in her eyes at sight of him. All the distress and horror of the past would be wiped out and forgotten in the happiness of their reunion. He would never again give her cause for a moment’s anxiety. He would fill her life with love; there should be nothing to give her sorrow any more.
Slowly the blue distance which separated them narrowed, narrowed until the land came within sight, mistily, like a cloud against the deep azure of the sky, a cloud which resolved itself into a square mass of rock, blue-grey in the sunlight which shone upon the city at the base of the mountain, shone upon the sea, lit everything with a blaze of golden light. The ship glided past the breakwater into dock.
Hallam was among the first to go ashore. Before sailing he had cabled to his solicitor to inform him that he was coming out. He drove now direct to the lawyer’s office. He wanted news of his wife before seeing her, wanted to glean some idea as to what his long absence and unaccountable silence was attributed to; whether Esmé and others supposed him to be dead; in which event it might be inadvisable to appear before her suddenly and without any preparation.
The reception which he received from his man of business and one-time friend surprised him. Mr Huntley, of the firm of Huntley and Thorne, was manifestly embarrassed by the sight of his former client, whom he interviewed in his private office, after issuing the strictest orders against interruption. His obvious nervousness, and the absence of any sign of welcome in his manner, impressed Hallam oddly. Had the man been guilty of embezzling trust money, which Hallam knew him to be incapable of, he could not have betrayed greater dismay at the meeting.
“This is immensely surprising, Hallam,” he said. “I have not yet recovered from the amazement which the receipt of your cablegram caused me. You see, I—we all concluded you were dead. The mistake was perfectly natural.”
“I grant that,” Hallam answered, considerably mystified and a little annoyed by the other’s manner. “At the same time I don’t see why it should be regarded in the light of a misfortune that I am not dead.”
“My dear fellow! Certainly not. But you must allow for a certain—astonishment. I might even put it more strongly. Your return after so long a period calls for such an abrupt readjustment. There have been changes. I don’t see how you can expect otherwise. I’ve sat in this chair day after day since receiving your cable trying to resolve some way out of the muddle. I haven’t communicated with—with your wife. You didn’t instruct us, so I’ve done nothing.”
“Quite right,” Hallam said.
“I prefer to see her myself.”
“You haven’t written?”
“No. I am going home when I leave here.”
“But Mrs Hallam has left Cape Town. She gave up the house and went round to Port Elizabeth and took a house there. Since then she—she has given up that house also, I believe. In fact I know she has. We manage her affairs for her.”
Hallam nodded.
“I see nothing very extraordinary in these changes,” he said. “It was not to be expected that she should remain in Cape Town alone. She has relations at the Bay.”
Mr Huntley was silent. He took up from the desk before him, and put down again, a little sheaf of papers, and fidgeted with a pen lying beside the blotting-pad. He looked as he felt, immensely embarrassed.
“My dear Hallam,” he burst forth at length, “I don’t wish to appear to criticise your actions, but your absence—your complete disappearance, in fact, seems to me inexplicable. That is how it would strike any unbiassed person. Whatever your private reasons were for leaving your home, you might at least have kept us informed as to your whereabouts. It would have prevented a great deal of subsequent distress.”
Hallam looked at the speaker in surprise. The last thing he had anticipated was this tone of rebuke from his old friend. That Huntley should suppose he had deliberately suppressed all information relating to himself struck him as an unjust view to take; he resented it.
“I have been a prisoner in Germany since the beginning of the war,” he said quietly. “I wrote home many letters in the early days of my captivity. I wrote to you. Oh! there’s no need to tell me you never received it. I got no replies to anything I sent out; so I left off writing after a time. My case was not exceptional.”
Huntley leaned with his arm along the desk and looked earnestly into Hallam’s eyes: his own eyes expressed an immense sympathy.
“Good God, Hallam!” he said.
Suddenly he grasped Hallam’s hand and wrung it hard.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” he added. “But the thing has got to be faced. Your body was found, and identified by your brother-in-law. You’ve been dead these many years. And your wife—”
“Yes?” Hallam said, in a tone of deadly quiet.
“Your wife married again, and is living in Uitenhage.”
Book Four—Chapter Thirty One.Hallam recoiled from the news of Esmé’s marriage as a man might recoil from the effects of a blow. The thing staggered him. His first thought was to disappear again, to walk away from Huntley’s office, and turn his back for ever on the country which was home to him no longer and held no place for him. He felt dazed with grief and anger. The thought of Esmé as the wife of another man was intolerable. He could not reconcile it with his knowledge of her that she should seek consolation elsewhere. It was like some hideous nightmare, some terrible hoax, that was being practised on him for the purpose of torturing him.He could not determine how to act in the circumstances; he could not think; his mind was blank with despair. And then jealousy awoke; his thoughts gained stimulus, and worked in a new direction along fines that were fiercely personal and possessive in outlook. After all, she was his wife. This man had no claim on her; she belonged to him. He was not going to allow any one to hold what was lawfully his.This sense of urgency to resume possession spurred him to a fever of aggressive activity, in which mood, and with the settled purpose of interviewing his brother-in-law, he went round to Port Elizabeth, and called on Jim Bainbridge at the latter’s place of business as soon as he arrived.To say that Jim Bainbridge was amazed at the sight of him, were to express his emotions as inadequately as it would be to describe a violent explosion as disquieting to the unfortunate persons within the affected area: the effect on him was rather similar to the effects of an explosion; he was literally bowled over on beholding a dead man returned to the world of the living. Had he been given to the cult of the supernatural he would have imagined that he saw Paul Hallam’s ghost, when Hallam walked into his office. But he did not believe in ghosts; and there was something uncomfortably lifelike in the hostile gleam of Hallam’s eyes, as he turned from shutting the door and regarded the man seated in his swivel-chair, with jaw dropped, and with protruding eyes which stared back at him stupidly.“Oh hell!” muttered Jim Bainbridge, and collapsed in his seat in a crumpled heap.Hallam advanced deliberately, and seated himself opposite his dumbfounded brother-in-law.“I knew I was bound to give you an unpleasant surprise,” he said, “so I didn’t make an appointment. I’ve come for news of my wife.”Bainbridge’s jaw dropped lower in his increasing consternation. The man’s florid countenance had turned the colour of putty.“Your—Oh lord!”The words gurgled in his throat. He gripped the arms of his chair and attempted to sit up straighter and to get control of himself. Compared with his nervous collapse the calm of Hallam’s demeanour was remarkable.“Look here,” he muttered, fumbling for words, his bewildered gaze fixed upon the other’s face. “Don’t you try to rush things. I’ve got to get used to this idea. I’m all abroad. When a man has been missing for years one doesn’t expect to see him walk in as if he had been away on a holiday. What in hell do you mean by turning up here after all this time? Where’ve you been? Man, you were found—dead—and buried. There’s a stone erected to your memory out on the veld beyond Bulawayo. You’ve no right to disappear and turn up again after six years. It’s indecent.”“It’s awkward, I admit,” Hallam returned grimly, and regarded the other sternly with the angry light of accusation in his keen eyes. “I want an explanation of your reasons for swearing falsely to my identity. You buried another man under my name—why?”“Paul, I swear I thought it was you—believe me, or not, as you will.” Suddenly Bainbridge turned with quick suspicion in his look, and smote the arm of his chair fiercely. “You put that trick on us—to deceive us. Why was that man dressed in your clothes, and carrying your papers? Poor devil! there wasn’t anything else left of him that one could swear to.”“I see. No,” Hallam shook his head; “you are on the wrong track. I owe my life to the man you buried—I don’t know his name. I don’t know how he came by his death. I know nothing about him; save that he came to my aid when I was past aiding myself. Then he left me to the care of natives, and robbed me; left me with his old clothes, and nothing of my own but my boots, which, presumably, didn’t fit him. Oddly, he didn’t discover that the boots had double soles and were lined with notes. He stole all the money I had on me, which was considerable, and which possibly cost him his life. He did me good service; though through his death he injured me more than he could have done had he murdered me. It’s a grim mistake; and it’s going to lead to grim consequences.”Bainbridge stared hard at the speaker.“The muddle is of your own making,” he said sullenly. “Why did you never send a line? Esmé fretted her heart out for news of you.”“She soon recovered from her distress,” Hallam replied.“You’ve heard?”—Bainbridge broke off in his question abruptly.“That she married Sinclair—yes. That is what I have come to talk over with you.”“Well, look here!” Jim Bainbridge leaned his head on his hand and thought hard. “Why didn’t you send a line?” he repeated in tones of exasperation. “Man, don’t you see how a word from you would have saved the situation? It’s your own fault, Paul. You’ve brought this on yourself.”“I acknowledge the justice of that. I might have written—in the early days. But, for reasons which Esmé alone could appreciate, I refrained from writing then. Later communication became impossible. I went to England and joined up. I didn’t mean to join up. But if you’d been on the spot you’d understand the pressing urgency that impelled a man to go. I was among the first batch of prisoners taken by the Germans. It’s a long story anyhow. I’ll tell it to her. She will understand.”But that was exactly what Jim Bainbridge intended to dissuade him from doing. The moral rights of the case were too subtle for him to grasp; but he appreciated fully the insuperable difficulties of a readjustment under existing conditions. The lives of three people would be upset and the happiness of none secured. The only way to avoid further muddle was to allow the present muddle to go on. That was how he saw it; and he hoped to persuade Hallam into taking his view.“Do many people know of your return?” he asked.Hallam looked surprised.“Only Huntley and yourself.”“In your place, I should clear out,” Bainbridge advised. “Why not leave the country altogether, Paul? I’ll keep my mouth shut.”As the drift of his meaning dawned on him, Hallam’s face hardened; the grey eyes shone steel-like. Jim Bainbridge, observing him closely, realised that the task he had set himself would prove no easy matter; but he braced himself to fight for the peace of mind of the woman whose happiness hung in the balance.“You know,” he added, after a brief moment for reflection, “your long absence, your silence, amount pretty near to desertion. I don’t know much about the blooming divorce laws in this country; but I fancy if we stretched our imaginations a bit we could make out a good case. Clear out, Paul. Make it a case of desertion proper. It’s the only decent course to take. You don’t want to injure Esmé further. Leave her alone.”“And condone a bigamy—in which my own wife is concerned! Sheismy wife. I will agree to a divorce only if she wishes it.”“Man, can’t you see the unnecessary cruelty of letting her know you’re alive? She’s got used to thinking of you as dead. She’s happy.” Bainbridge leaned nearer to him and threw out a protesting hand. “It’s hard on you. I admit it’s hard on you—damned hard. But—hang it all!—you created the muddle. If it were only a matter of your claim against George’s, I wouldn’t offer advice; but it isn’t. It’s a case which would baffle Solomon himself. There’s a kid—a baby girl. If I’m not mistaken, the baby’s got a stronger claim than either of you two men. Some women are like that. Esmé lives for the child.”He broke off, heated by his unusual eloquence, and uncomfortably aware of the expression of black hate on his listener’s face. Hallam sat silent, staring straight before him. The news of the child was the last dreg of bitterness in the cup which he was forced to drain. The thought of the child infuriated him, filled him with intolerable jealousy. Esmé, his wife,—with a child—which was not his! The thing would not bear thinking about. And yet it stuck in his thoughts, tormented his thoughts, would not be dismissed however much he strove to thrust it aside. In the moment when Jim Bainbridge let fall this bomb Hallam’s feeling for his wife underwent a sudden revulsion. It seemed to him that his love died as surely as if it had never been. It seemed to him, too, though he knew the thought to be an injustice, that the wife he had loved was unworthy, was no better than a light woman. She had consoled herself very speedily. His years of self-discipline had been spent in vain. He had gained a victory over himself at a terrible price—the price of his wife. He had lost the fruits of his labour; even as a man who will sometimes strive, putting all his endeavour into one harvest, to be ruthlessly cheated of the profit of his toil by some unforeseen calamity, such as drought or other disaster. These things happen: it is the throw of the dice of chance.“You had to know,” remarked Jim Bainbridge abruptly, feeling the urgency to say something to end the strained silence which had followed upon his disclosure, and busying himself with his pipe in order to avoid seeing the play of bitter emotion which disfigured the other man’s features. “Some one had to tell you. It complicates matters.”“Yes.” Hallam stood up. “I wasn’t prepared for this,” he said. “I’ve got to think about it. I’ll see you again some other time. If you want me, I’m staying at the ‘Grand.’”“Man, I’m sorry about this,” Bainbridge said, and held out his hand.Hallam did not even see it. Like a man in a trance he turned and walked out of the place.
Hallam recoiled from the news of Esmé’s marriage as a man might recoil from the effects of a blow. The thing staggered him. His first thought was to disappear again, to walk away from Huntley’s office, and turn his back for ever on the country which was home to him no longer and held no place for him. He felt dazed with grief and anger. The thought of Esmé as the wife of another man was intolerable. He could not reconcile it with his knowledge of her that she should seek consolation elsewhere. It was like some hideous nightmare, some terrible hoax, that was being practised on him for the purpose of torturing him.
He could not determine how to act in the circumstances; he could not think; his mind was blank with despair. And then jealousy awoke; his thoughts gained stimulus, and worked in a new direction along fines that were fiercely personal and possessive in outlook. After all, she was his wife. This man had no claim on her; she belonged to him. He was not going to allow any one to hold what was lawfully his.
This sense of urgency to resume possession spurred him to a fever of aggressive activity, in which mood, and with the settled purpose of interviewing his brother-in-law, he went round to Port Elizabeth, and called on Jim Bainbridge at the latter’s place of business as soon as he arrived.
To say that Jim Bainbridge was amazed at the sight of him, were to express his emotions as inadequately as it would be to describe a violent explosion as disquieting to the unfortunate persons within the affected area: the effect on him was rather similar to the effects of an explosion; he was literally bowled over on beholding a dead man returned to the world of the living. Had he been given to the cult of the supernatural he would have imagined that he saw Paul Hallam’s ghost, when Hallam walked into his office. But he did not believe in ghosts; and there was something uncomfortably lifelike in the hostile gleam of Hallam’s eyes, as he turned from shutting the door and regarded the man seated in his swivel-chair, with jaw dropped, and with protruding eyes which stared back at him stupidly.
“Oh hell!” muttered Jim Bainbridge, and collapsed in his seat in a crumpled heap.
Hallam advanced deliberately, and seated himself opposite his dumbfounded brother-in-law.
“I knew I was bound to give you an unpleasant surprise,” he said, “so I didn’t make an appointment. I’ve come for news of my wife.”
Bainbridge’s jaw dropped lower in his increasing consternation. The man’s florid countenance had turned the colour of putty.
“Your—Oh lord!”
The words gurgled in his throat. He gripped the arms of his chair and attempted to sit up straighter and to get control of himself. Compared with his nervous collapse the calm of Hallam’s demeanour was remarkable.
“Look here,” he muttered, fumbling for words, his bewildered gaze fixed upon the other’s face. “Don’t you try to rush things. I’ve got to get used to this idea. I’m all abroad. When a man has been missing for years one doesn’t expect to see him walk in as if he had been away on a holiday. What in hell do you mean by turning up here after all this time? Where’ve you been? Man, you were found—dead—and buried. There’s a stone erected to your memory out on the veld beyond Bulawayo. You’ve no right to disappear and turn up again after six years. It’s indecent.”
“It’s awkward, I admit,” Hallam returned grimly, and regarded the other sternly with the angry light of accusation in his keen eyes. “I want an explanation of your reasons for swearing falsely to my identity. You buried another man under my name—why?”
“Paul, I swear I thought it was you—believe me, or not, as you will.” Suddenly Bainbridge turned with quick suspicion in his look, and smote the arm of his chair fiercely. “You put that trick on us—to deceive us. Why was that man dressed in your clothes, and carrying your papers? Poor devil! there wasn’t anything else left of him that one could swear to.”
“I see. No,” Hallam shook his head; “you are on the wrong track. I owe my life to the man you buried—I don’t know his name. I don’t know how he came by his death. I know nothing about him; save that he came to my aid when I was past aiding myself. Then he left me to the care of natives, and robbed me; left me with his old clothes, and nothing of my own but my boots, which, presumably, didn’t fit him. Oddly, he didn’t discover that the boots had double soles and were lined with notes. He stole all the money I had on me, which was considerable, and which possibly cost him his life. He did me good service; though through his death he injured me more than he could have done had he murdered me. It’s a grim mistake; and it’s going to lead to grim consequences.”
Bainbridge stared hard at the speaker.
“The muddle is of your own making,” he said sullenly. “Why did you never send a line? Esmé fretted her heart out for news of you.”
“She soon recovered from her distress,” Hallam replied.
“You’ve heard?”—Bainbridge broke off in his question abruptly.
“That she married Sinclair—yes. That is what I have come to talk over with you.”
“Well, look here!” Jim Bainbridge leaned his head on his hand and thought hard. “Why didn’t you send a line?” he repeated in tones of exasperation. “Man, don’t you see how a word from you would have saved the situation? It’s your own fault, Paul. You’ve brought this on yourself.”
“I acknowledge the justice of that. I might have written—in the early days. But, for reasons which Esmé alone could appreciate, I refrained from writing then. Later communication became impossible. I went to England and joined up. I didn’t mean to join up. But if you’d been on the spot you’d understand the pressing urgency that impelled a man to go. I was among the first batch of prisoners taken by the Germans. It’s a long story anyhow. I’ll tell it to her. She will understand.”
But that was exactly what Jim Bainbridge intended to dissuade him from doing. The moral rights of the case were too subtle for him to grasp; but he appreciated fully the insuperable difficulties of a readjustment under existing conditions. The lives of three people would be upset and the happiness of none secured. The only way to avoid further muddle was to allow the present muddle to go on. That was how he saw it; and he hoped to persuade Hallam into taking his view.
“Do many people know of your return?” he asked.
Hallam looked surprised.
“Only Huntley and yourself.”
“In your place, I should clear out,” Bainbridge advised. “Why not leave the country altogether, Paul? I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
As the drift of his meaning dawned on him, Hallam’s face hardened; the grey eyes shone steel-like. Jim Bainbridge, observing him closely, realised that the task he had set himself would prove no easy matter; but he braced himself to fight for the peace of mind of the woman whose happiness hung in the balance.
“You know,” he added, after a brief moment for reflection, “your long absence, your silence, amount pretty near to desertion. I don’t know much about the blooming divorce laws in this country; but I fancy if we stretched our imaginations a bit we could make out a good case. Clear out, Paul. Make it a case of desertion proper. It’s the only decent course to take. You don’t want to injure Esmé further. Leave her alone.”
“And condone a bigamy—in which my own wife is concerned! Sheismy wife. I will agree to a divorce only if she wishes it.”
“Man, can’t you see the unnecessary cruelty of letting her know you’re alive? She’s got used to thinking of you as dead. She’s happy.” Bainbridge leaned nearer to him and threw out a protesting hand. “It’s hard on you. I admit it’s hard on you—damned hard. But—hang it all!—you created the muddle. If it were only a matter of your claim against George’s, I wouldn’t offer advice; but it isn’t. It’s a case which would baffle Solomon himself. There’s a kid—a baby girl. If I’m not mistaken, the baby’s got a stronger claim than either of you two men. Some women are like that. Esmé lives for the child.”
He broke off, heated by his unusual eloquence, and uncomfortably aware of the expression of black hate on his listener’s face. Hallam sat silent, staring straight before him. The news of the child was the last dreg of bitterness in the cup which he was forced to drain. The thought of the child infuriated him, filled him with intolerable jealousy. Esmé, his wife,—with a child—which was not his! The thing would not bear thinking about. And yet it stuck in his thoughts, tormented his thoughts, would not be dismissed however much he strove to thrust it aside. In the moment when Jim Bainbridge let fall this bomb Hallam’s feeling for his wife underwent a sudden revulsion. It seemed to him that his love died as surely as if it had never been. It seemed to him, too, though he knew the thought to be an injustice, that the wife he had loved was unworthy, was no better than a light woman. She had consoled herself very speedily. His years of self-discipline had been spent in vain. He had gained a victory over himself at a terrible price—the price of his wife. He had lost the fruits of his labour; even as a man who will sometimes strive, putting all his endeavour into one harvest, to be ruthlessly cheated of the profit of his toil by some unforeseen calamity, such as drought or other disaster. These things happen: it is the throw of the dice of chance.
“You had to know,” remarked Jim Bainbridge abruptly, feeling the urgency to say something to end the strained silence which had followed upon his disclosure, and busying himself with his pipe in order to avoid seeing the play of bitter emotion which disfigured the other man’s features. “Some one had to tell you. It complicates matters.”
“Yes.” Hallam stood up. “I wasn’t prepared for this,” he said. “I’ve got to think about it. I’ll see you again some other time. If you want me, I’m staying at the ‘Grand.’”
“Man, I’m sorry about this,” Bainbridge said, and held out his hand.
Hallam did not even see it. Like a man in a trance he turned and walked out of the place.
Book Four—Chapter Thirty Two.Jim Bainbridge whistled. He filled his pipe and lighted it, and let it go out again. He repeated this performance until he had exhausted all the matches in his box; then he put the pipe down and sat back in his seat, with his thumbs in his braces, and cogitated.It was a hell of a mess. No other phrase described the situation so aptly. Itwasa hell of a mess. He could not see how it was to be cleaned up exactly. Why the devil, instead of being taken prisoner, could not the fellow have stopped a bullet? That would have been a creditable finish. Well, he hadn’t. He was back again; and it looked as though there was going to be the hell of a fuss.For several minutes Jim Bainbridge ceased from his meditations and coloured the air luridly with the variety and force of his expressions; then he cooled down again, and fell once more into thought. This thing had to be kept from his wife. The fewer the people in possession of the uncomfortable facts the better for the present. There was no need to confess to a cat in the bag until the brute mewed.It wasn’t his affair anyway.Suddenly he remembered, with a distinct disinclination to face Esmé in the circumstances, that they were dining at the Sinclairs’ that night. It was a memorable occasion—the baby’s first birthday. A nice sort of birthday surprise he had up his sleeve!“Blast the baby!” he muttered; and immediately felt ashamed of himself. It was most assuredly none of the baby’s fault.The case, looked at from any point, looked at all the way round, presented no possible solution to his mind. He had not liked the look in Hallam’s eyes when the latter walked out. He did not feel sure of the man, of how he would act, what his purpose was. There was trouble in the air; the atmosphere was heavy with it. He stared out of the window. It was a bright sunny day, hot and clear; it ought to have been thunder weather; and it was not: the thunder was all within—in the minds of men, in Hallam’s mind in particular. What was he going to do?Bainbridge kicked the desk in front of him savagely, and got up and put his coat on. If he sat there any longer he would be moved to do something ridiculous. He would go out, walk along the Main Street, and talk with any one he chanced to meet. He must get a grip on himself before he faced Rose, or she would draw the whole thing out of him. And Lord knew what would happen then! For her own sake he wanted to keep his wife in ignorance of this wretched business until secrecy was no longer possible.“There’s no sense in unfurling an umbrella before the rain falls,” he soliloquised. “There is always a chance that the cloud won’t burst.”The abstraction of his manner at lunch that day excited general comment. Rose jumped to the conclusion that business was worrying him, and showed immediate concern for the family finances; and so exasperated him that he left the house in a rage and went back to his office in an irritable frame of mind.“The old man’s temper is getting a bit frayed at the edges,” John observed, with filial candour.“Oh! daddy’s all right,” said Mary, “if you don’t take his little moods seriously. He is always excitable when he is going to a party.”The irritability had worn off, but the abstraction deepened when Jim Bainbridge escorted his family to the Sinclairs’ house that evening. It was entirely a family gathering. Sinclair’s sister and her husband were present, beside his wife’s relations; there were no other guests. Jim Bainbridge, when he kissed his sister-in-law, had an odd feeling that there was another uninvited guest there, a hovering presence of which he alone was aware. This sinister, lurking shadow stood between Esmé and the man who, all unconscious of the danger which threatened his happiness, welcomed his wife’s relations with frank cordiality. Bainbridge wrung his hand hard on an impulse of genuine sympathy. He liked George. It distressed him to think of the blow which might fall at any moment. The calm happiness of Esmé’s face, George’s genial smile, arrested his attention, played on his imagination to an unusual degree. It was not his wont to notice such things; but to-night he was stirred out of his phlegmatic indifference to a very vivid and human interest in the concerns of these people, whose lives were overshadowed by a tremendous crisis.The references to the baby, the laughing congratulations of the guests, jarred on his nerves. He refrained from any mention of the child. And at dinner, when Georgina’s health was drunk in champagne, he alone ignored the toast. For the life of him, he could not have joined in the farce of the general rejoicing. Later, in the drawing-room, Esmé sat down beside him and rallied him on his preoccupation.“You are bored, Jim,” she said. “I believe you are longing to be home and in bed.”“No. But I’ve got the toothache,” he lied.“Poor old dear! I’m sorry. Come upstairs and have a peep at the babe asleep. She looks such a duck in her cot.”He followed her from the room and upstairs to the nursery. There was a nurse in charge, but she withdrew when they entered, to Jim Bainbridge’s infinite relief. Esmé pulled aside the mosquito net and bent over the cot. Her eyes, the man observed, were soft with mother-love as she leaned down towards the sleeping child. He did not look at the child; he was intent upon her.“Isn’t she sweet?” she said, and glanced up at him, smiling.His own face was grave, even stern in expression. He was watching her attentively, wondering about her, wondering how the news of Paul’s return would affect her when she knew.“I believe you care more for that kid than you do for—any one,” he said gruffly. “If you could go back... If it were possible, say, to begin again—with Paul... Would you be willing to give up the kid—for him?”Abruptly she straightened herself and stood beside the cot, holding the mosquito net in her hand, and looking at him fixedly with an air of troubled surprise.“Jim,” she said, and her face saddened, “what put it into your mind to ask me that question? One can never go back. I wish you hadn’t said that—to-night. What brought that idea into your mind?”“I don’t know.”He fidgeted nervously with his collar and avoided her gaze. She was looking at him with a puzzled, questioning expression in her eyes, with no suspicion of his purpose in mentioning Paul’s name, but struck by the coincidence that Paul should be in his thoughts, even as he was in hers.“It’s strange you should have said that,” she continued. “Lately I have been dreaming of Paul. I dream of him nearly every night.”“Dream of him!” he echoed blankly. “Do you mean that you dream that he’s alive?”“I dream that I see him looking at me,” she answered. “He looks into my eyes and turns away; and then I wake and lie in the darkness, trembling. The dream is always the same.”“I say! that’s queer,” he said, staring at her, as earlier in the day he had stared at Hallam, as if he saw a ghost. These things were making him superstitious. “What should make you do that, I wonder?”“Who can say? It’s a matter of nerves, I suppose.” She dropped the net she was holding and put a hand on his arm and drew him towards the door. “Come along down, old thing,” she said. “We are not good company for one another to-night. For your toothache, and my heartache, we must seek an anodyne in the society of the others.”But for Bainbridge’s imaginary toothache there was no effective anodyne: the complexities of the situation were altogether beyond his efforts at elucidation. There was nothing for it but to stand by and wait for the blow to fall.He sat on the stoep and talked with Lake, George’s brother-in-law, about the native labour unrest, and the advisability of adopting strong measures in quelling the agitation.“This native question is going to be a big problem in the near future,” Lake opined. “We give the coloured man too much power.”“What other course is possible with a civilised system of government?” Bainbridge contended.“But the coloured man isn’t properly civilised,” Lake insisted; “that’s the point. He hasn’t grasped the rudiments of citizenship yet.”“Well, we’ve got to teach him. He’s learning.”Bainbridge’s mood forced him into a reluctant opposition. He was not in sympathy with the coloured man, but he took up his defence warmly. He and Lake plunged into argument; while in the room behind them Mary sang in a fresh, sweet soprano voice to Esmé’s accompaniment, and the rest sat about and listened and joined in the popular choruses.And, a few miles away, walking along the shore in the darkness, a man, alone and with a mind black with despair, thought of the wife he had come back to claim, and of a child which was not his...
Jim Bainbridge whistled. He filled his pipe and lighted it, and let it go out again. He repeated this performance until he had exhausted all the matches in his box; then he put the pipe down and sat back in his seat, with his thumbs in his braces, and cogitated.
It was a hell of a mess. No other phrase described the situation so aptly. Itwasa hell of a mess. He could not see how it was to be cleaned up exactly. Why the devil, instead of being taken prisoner, could not the fellow have stopped a bullet? That would have been a creditable finish. Well, he hadn’t. He was back again; and it looked as though there was going to be the hell of a fuss.
For several minutes Jim Bainbridge ceased from his meditations and coloured the air luridly with the variety and force of his expressions; then he cooled down again, and fell once more into thought. This thing had to be kept from his wife. The fewer the people in possession of the uncomfortable facts the better for the present. There was no need to confess to a cat in the bag until the brute mewed.
It wasn’t his affair anyway.
Suddenly he remembered, with a distinct disinclination to face Esmé in the circumstances, that they were dining at the Sinclairs’ that night. It was a memorable occasion—the baby’s first birthday. A nice sort of birthday surprise he had up his sleeve!
“Blast the baby!” he muttered; and immediately felt ashamed of himself. It was most assuredly none of the baby’s fault.
The case, looked at from any point, looked at all the way round, presented no possible solution to his mind. He had not liked the look in Hallam’s eyes when the latter walked out. He did not feel sure of the man, of how he would act, what his purpose was. There was trouble in the air; the atmosphere was heavy with it. He stared out of the window. It was a bright sunny day, hot and clear; it ought to have been thunder weather; and it was not: the thunder was all within—in the minds of men, in Hallam’s mind in particular. What was he going to do?
Bainbridge kicked the desk in front of him savagely, and got up and put his coat on. If he sat there any longer he would be moved to do something ridiculous. He would go out, walk along the Main Street, and talk with any one he chanced to meet. He must get a grip on himself before he faced Rose, or she would draw the whole thing out of him. And Lord knew what would happen then! For her own sake he wanted to keep his wife in ignorance of this wretched business until secrecy was no longer possible.
“There’s no sense in unfurling an umbrella before the rain falls,” he soliloquised. “There is always a chance that the cloud won’t burst.”
The abstraction of his manner at lunch that day excited general comment. Rose jumped to the conclusion that business was worrying him, and showed immediate concern for the family finances; and so exasperated him that he left the house in a rage and went back to his office in an irritable frame of mind.
“The old man’s temper is getting a bit frayed at the edges,” John observed, with filial candour.
“Oh! daddy’s all right,” said Mary, “if you don’t take his little moods seriously. He is always excitable when he is going to a party.”
The irritability had worn off, but the abstraction deepened when Jim Bainbridge escorted his family to the Sinclairs’ house that evening. It was entirely a family gathering. Sinclair’s sister and her husband were present, beside his wife’s relations; there were no other guests. Jim Bainbridge, when he kissed his sister-in-law, had an odd feeling that there was another uninvited guest there, a hovering presence of which he alone was aware. This sinister, lurking shadow stood between Esmé and the man who, all unconscious of the danger which threatened his happiness, welcomed his wife’s relations with frank cordiality. Bainbridge wrung his hand hard on an impulse of genuine sympathy. He liked George. It distressed him to think of the blow which might fall at any moment. The calm happiness of Esmé’s face, George’s genial smile, arrested his attention, played on his imagination to an unusual degree. It was not his wont to notice such things; but to-night he was stirred out of his phlegmatic indifference to a very vivid and human interest in the concerns of these people, whose lives were overshadowed by a tremendous crisis.
The references to the baby, the laughing congratulations of the guests, jarred on his nerves. He refrained from any mention of the child. And at dinner, when Georgina’s health was drunk in champagne, he alone ignored the toast. For the life of him, he could not have joined in the farce of the general rejoicing. Later, in the drawing-room, Esmé sat down beside him and rallied him on his preoccupation.
“You are bored, Jim,” she said. “I believe you are longing to be home and in bed.”
“No. But I’ve got the toothache,” he lied.
“Poor old dear! I’m sorry. Come upstairs and have a peep at the babe asleep. She looks such a duck in her cot.”
He followed her from the room and upstairs to the nursery. There was a nurse in charge, but she withdrew when they entered, to Jim Bainbridge’s infinite relief. Esmé pulled aside the mosquito net and bent over the cot. Her eyes, the man observed, were soft with mother-love as she leaned down towards the sleeping child. He did not look at the child; he was intent upon her.
“Isn’t she sweet?” she said, and glanced up at him, smiling.
His own face was grave, even stern in expression. He was watching her attentively, wondering about her, wondering how the news of Paul’s return would affect her when she knew.
“I believe you care more for that kid than you do for—any one,” he said gruffly. “If you could go back... If it were possible, say, to begin again—with Paul... Would you be willing to give up the kid—for him?”
Abruptly she straightened herself and stood beside the cot, holding the mosquito net in her hand, and looking at him fixedly with an air of troubled surprise.
“Jim,” she said, and her face saddened, “what put it into your mind to ask me that question? One can never go back. I wish you hadn’t said that—to-night. What brought that idea into your mind?”
“I don’t know.”
He fidgeted nervously with his collar and avoided her gaze. She was looking at him with a puzzled, questioning expression in her eyes, with no suspicion of his purpose in mentioning Paul’s name, but struck by the coincidence that Paul should be in his thoughts, even as he was in hers.
“It’s strange you should have said that,” she continued. “Lately I have been dreaming of Paul. I dream of him nearly every night.”
“Dream of him!” he echoed blankly. “Do you mean that you dream that he’s alive?”
“I dream that I see him looking at me,” she answered. “He looks into my eyes and turns away; and then I wake and lie in the darkness, trembling. The dream is always the same.”
“I say! that’s queer,” he said, staring at her, as earlier in the day he had stared at Hallam, as if he saw a ghost. These things were making him superstitious. “What should make you do that, I wonder?”
“Who can say? It’s a matter of nerves, I suppose.” She dropped the net she was holding and put a hand on his arm and drew him towards the door. “Come along down, old thing,” she said. “We are not good company for one another to-night. For your toothache, and my heartache, we must seek an anodyne in the society of the others.”
But for Bainbridge’s imaginary toothache there was no effective anodyne: the complexities of the situation were altogether beyond his efforts at elucidation. There was nothing for it but to stand by and wait for the blow to fall.
He sat on the stoep and talked with Lake, George’s brother-in-law, about the native labour unrest, and the advisability of adopting strong measures in quelling the agitation.
“This native question is going to be a big problem in the near future,” Lake opined. “We give the coloured man too much power.”
“What other course is possible with a civilised system of government?” Bainbridge contended.
“But the coloured man isn’t properly civilised,” Lake insisted; “that’s the point. He hasn’t grasped the rudiments of citizenship yet.”
“Well, we’ve got to teach him. He’s learning.”
Bainbridge’s mood forced him into a reluctant opposition. He was not in sympathy with the coloured man, but he took up his defence warmly. He and Lake plunged into argument; while in the room behind them Mary sang in a fresh, sweet soprano voice to Esmé’s accompaniment, and the rest sat about and listened and joined in the popular choruses.
And, a few miles away, walking along the shore in the darkness, a man, alone and with a mind black with despair, thought of the wife he had come back to claim, and of a child which was not his...
Book Four—Chapter Thirty Three.Throughout that night Hallam tramped along the shore, struck inland, came back to the sea, retraced his steps over the same ground; walking with tireless energy while he considered the position, so hopelessly complicated by the birth of the child.His feeling for Esmé oscillated between love and hate. He thought of her as his dear wife, and wanted her urgently; again he thought of her as the mother of Sinclair’s child, and his heart turned from her, grew hard with bitter jealousy and revulsion. The thought of the child infuriated him—the child who stood between him and the woman whom he loved and who belonged to him. She was his wife; he could claim her. But would she give up the baby for him? Would she forsake all the new love which had come into her life for the sake of the old love, so unexpectedly come back to her, almost like a gift from the grave? He could not tell. Intimately as he knew her nature, confident in his assurance that the best of her love had been given to him, there was yet a side of her character with which he was wholly unfamiliar, the maternal side. He had no means of judging how far her motherhood would influence her. That the maternal instinct was deep-rooted with her he knew; that much she had revealed to him during their married life. She had hungered for a child...He stood still on the sands, looking seaward, with hands clasped behind him, his shoulders bent. He became suddenly conscious of great physical fatigue. He had walked far and for many hours—walked, as he had been thinking, in a circle which brought him back to the starting point, no whit further advanced towards the solving of the problem which harassed his mind, and which, on setting forth, he had determined to solve before another dawn broke. And already the first sign of dawn showed in the pallid skyline where it touched the sea. The feel of the air was fresh and pure; it followed upon the hot darkness of the passing night like a revivifying breath. Hallam felt its coolness on his forehead and lifted his face to meet it, and beheld the stars glowing fainter, and the darkness yielding reluctantly to the grey of the creeping dawn.Another day was advancing upon him, another day of perplexity and doubt and bitter torment; creeping upon him like a cold shadow out of the darker shadows, bringing with it no hope, only a deeper sense of despair.What ought he to do?Was it clearly his duty, as Bainbridge had sought to indicate, to leave Esmé in the undisturbed belief in his death and in her false position as George Sinclair’s wife? That course raised so many points, legal and ethical, which made its adoption difficult, if not impossible. There was the question of income. Why should his income, as well as his wife, be enjoyed by the man who, even though unwittingly, had nevertheless robbed him of everything? There was the other resource of collusive divorce. But that was only practicable by agreement, which would involve the disturbing of Esmé’s peace of mind, and invest her with the responsibility of decision. There was the third course of claiming her as his wife. Here again the difficulty of the child obtruded itself, an insuperable barrier to the happiness of all concerned. He wanted his wife, but he did not want the child; on that point he was firmly resolved. It was the one point in the series of complications upon which he entertained no doubt. The child was not his; he had no thought of adopting it as his: he was jealous of it, more jealous of it than he was of Sinclair. Its very helplessness made it a tremendous factor in the case.He wondered dully how Esmé, when she learned of it, would receive the news of his return? Judged by ordinary standpoints, his manner of leaving her, of allowing her to remain uninformed as to his whereabouts, was unpardonable. Practically it amounted to desertion, as Bainbridge said. But his mental condition at the time he left his home was responsible for his amazing conduct. The voyage to England had been undertaken for the purpose of regaining strength, of regaining control of his nerves; the rest had been due to the unfortunate accident of circumstances: it might have happened to any one; it had happened to other men. Plenty of fellows reported missing had turned up again. He wondered whether any man, beside himself, had returned to his home to find his wife married again? And, if so, how he had acted? No precedent could have aided him in his dilemma; each case called for individual action which must be governed largely by circumstances. The big stumbling block in his own case was the child. Everything worked round to that one point and stuck there; it formed a cul-de-sac to every line of thought.Wearily Hallam returned to his hotel and went to bed and fell into the heavy, unrefreshing sleep of physical and mental exhaustion.Later in the day he went again to Jim Bainbridge’s office. Bainbridge was not in; his return was expected any minute. Hallam decided to wait for him. He waited a long time. No one came to disturb him. His presence was, as a matter of fact, forgotten in the excitement of the unusual doings outside the Court House. The Square and the streets leading to it were choked with natives, agitators, angrily demanding the release of their leader, whom the authorities had arrested as a disturber of, and a menace to, the peace of the community.Hallam knew of these matters only through the talk overheard at the hotel. He had noticed an unusually large crowd of natives when he descended the hill on his way to see Bainbridge. The crowd had swelled its numbers since then, though it had not yet attained to the dangerous proportions which it did later, when the serious rioting took place, and the massed ranks of dark forms surged in ugly rushes upon the building which was held by a brave handful of Europeans.The angry murmur of the mob rose and died down, and rose again, louder and more continuous. The sounds penetrated to the quiet room where Hallam sat, so engrossed with the turmoil of his own thoughts that these signs of men’s passions aroused beyond control excited in him merely a faint curiosity. He rose and went out into the street to ascertain what the disturbance was about.The sight of the vast concourse of natives amazed him. From every direction dark running figures appeared, many of them armed with sticks, and all making for the same point, wedging themselves into the crowd like stray pieces in one gigantic whole. There was no possibility of getting past them; it would be dangerous, he realised, to go among them. Their attitude was threatening. He had had experience of the native when he was out of control. Lacking in discipline and all sense of responsibility, and with an utter disregard for consequences, he was a difficult proposition to tackle.Hallam turned down a side street, which was silent and deserted, passed a number of warehouses, and came out upon the fringe of the crowd. So far nothing had happened to fan the smouldering hate into a conflagration. It needed only, the white man realised, the throwing of a missile or the random discharge of a firearm, to rouse the mob to a frenzy of murderous activity. But so far the situation was in hand; the rioting came later.It was difficult to say who started it, from which direction came that first shot that turned the sea of black swaying figures into a frenzied rabble of monomaniacs with a common enemy, the white man, the ruler, who, terribly outclassed in numbers, yet held the coloured man at bay. They were there, behind the walls, a handful of white men, police and ex-soldiers, armed, determined, cool-headed, maintaining law and authority against the vast rabble of native insurgents.Hallam heard several shots fired; heard the yells of the mob; watched the ugly rush as it surged forward in one mighty wave of humanity. Sticks were wielded freely, stones and other missiles came into use; the noise swelled to pandemonium. To remain in the streets was unsafe. A white man would receive no quarter if the mob got hold of him. Aware of his danger, Hallam turned to retreat; and, as he made for the side street down which he had come, the sound of a woman’s scream arrested his attention. He halted and looked round. A white woman was struggling with a native a few yards from where he stood. It was the work of a minute to reach her; the next, he had the native by the throat and was choking the life out of him. The woman had fallen to the ground. She might be hurt, or she might have fainted: Hallam did not pause to find out. A couple of natives had seen them and were running towards them; if they came up with them, though he might succeed in shooting them, for he carried a revolver, it would bring the crowd upon them; and he and the woman he had rescued would inevitably perish. Stooping, he picked her up in his arms, and ran with her up the street, darting through the open door of a wool-shed, where he dropped her unceremoniously on a bale of hides and ran back to the door and secured it.But there was no sign without of their pursuers. The chase of fugitive whites was less exciting than the bigger business in hand. The street was quiet, and wore an air of desertion, as if every man had left his post for the scene of greater activity.Hallam turned from securing the door, and leaned with his shoulders against it, breathing hard, in quick short breaths. With the abrupt shutting out of the sunlight the interior of the building appeared dark; the insufficient light, which penetrated through the dirty windows, revealed everything dimly, like objects seen in the dusk. Neither Hallam nor the woman had spoken. They did not speak now. She was sitting up, looking about her with dazed eyes. She put a hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the tall figure confronting her, uncovered them again, and looked straight into the eyes of the man, who stood with his shoulders against the door, watching her.He had recognised her when he stooped over her in the street to lift her; she had recognised him sooner. But to her it had seemed that fear had deranged her reason; she believed that her imagination had given to her rescuer the features of some one whom she knew to be dead. Now, while she watched him, listened to his deep breathing, conviction came to her that this was Paul himself, no creation of her fancy; and suddenly, while she looked at him, the room grew dark about her, his face faded in a mist, disappeared: she dropped back on the hides and lay still.
Throughout that night Hallam tramped along the shore, struck inland, came back to the sea, retraced his steps over the same ground; walking with tireless energy while he considered the position, so hopelessly complicated by the birth of the child.
His feeling for Esmé oscillated between love and hate. He thought of her as his dear wife, and wanted her urgently; again he thought of her as the mother of Sinclair’s child, and his heart turned from her, grew hard with bitter jealousy and revulsion. The thought of the child infuriated him—the child who stood between him and the woman whom he loved and who belonged to him. She was his wife; he could claim her. But would she give up the baby for him? Would she forsake all the new love which had come into her life for the sake of the old love, so unexpectedly come back to her, almost like a gift from the grave? He could not tell. Intimately as he knew her nature, confident in his assurance that the best of her love had been given to him, there was yet a side of her character with which he was wholly unfamiliar, the maternal side. He had no means of judging how far her motherhood would influence her. That the maternal instinct was deep-rooted with her he knew; that much she had revealed to him during their married life. She had hungered for a child...
He stood still on the sands, looking seaward, with hands clasped behind him, his shoulders bent. He became suddenly conscious of great physical fatigue. He had walked far and for many hours—walked, as he had been thinking, in a circle which brought him back to the starting point, no whit further advanced towards the solving of the problem which harassed his mind, and which, on setting forth, he had determined to solve before another dawn broke. And already the first sign of dawn showed in the pallid skyline where it touched the sea. The feel of the air was fresh and pure; it followed upon the hot darkness of the passing night like a revivifying breath. Hallam felt its coolness on his forehead and lifted his face to meet it, and beheld the stars glowing fainter, and the darkness yielding reluctantly to the grey of the creeping dawn.
Another day was advancing upon him, another day of perplexity and doubt and bitter torment; creeping upon him like a cold shadow out of the darker shadows, bringing with it no hope, only a deeper sense of despair.
What ought he to do?
Was it clearly his duty, as Bainbridge had sought to indicate, to leave Esmé in the undisturbed belief in his death and in her false position as George Sinclair’s wife? That course raised so many points, legal and ethical, which made its adoption difficult, if not impossible. There was the question of income. Why should his income, as well as his wife, be enjoyed by the man who, even though unwittingly, had nevertheless robbed him of everything? There was the other resource of collusive divorce. But that was only practicable by agreement, which would involve the disturbing of Esmé’s peace of mind, and invest her with the responsibility of decision. There was the third course of claiming her as his wife. Here again the difficulty of the child obtruded itself, an insuperable barrier to the happiness of all concerned. He wanted his wife, but he did not want the child; on that point he was firmly resolved. It was the one point in the series of complications upon which he entertained no doubt. The child was not his; he had no thought of adopting it as his: he was jealous of it, more jealous of it than he was of Sinclair. Its very helplessness made it a tremendous factor in the case.
He wondered dully how Esmé, when she learned of it, would receive the news of his return? Judged by ordinary standpoints, his manner of leaving her, of allowing her to remain uninformed as to his whereabouts, was unpardonable. Practically it amounted to desertion, as Bainbridge said. But his mental condition at the time he left his home was responsible for his amazing conduct. The voyage to England had been undertaken for the purpose of regaining strength, of regaining control of his nerves; the rest had been due to the unfortunate accident of circumstances: it might have happened to any one; it had happened to other men. Plenty of fellows reported missing had turned up again. He wondered whether any man, beside himself, had returned to his home to find his wife married again? And, if so, how he had acted? No precedent could have aided him in his dilemma; each case called for individual action which must be governed largely by circumstances. The big stumbling block in his own case was the child. Everything worked round to that one point and stuck there; it formed a cul-de-sac to every line of thought.
Wearily Hallam returned to his hotel and went to bed and fell into the heavy, unrefreshing sleep of physical and mental exhaustion.
Later in the day he went again to Jim Bainbridge’s office. Bainbridge was not in; his return was expected any minute. Hallam decided to wait for him. He waited a long time. No one came to disturb him. His presence was, as a matter of fact, forgotten in the excitement of the unusual doings outside the Court House. The Square and the streets leading to it were choked with natives, agitators, angrily demanding the release of their leader, whom the authorities had arrested as a disturber of, and a menace to, the peace of the community.
Hallam knew of these matters only through the talk overheard at the hotel. He had noticed an unusually large crowd of natives when he descended the hill on his way to see Bainbridge. The crowd had swelled its numbers since then, though it had not yet attained to the dangerous proportions which it did later, when the serious rioting took place, and the massed ranks of dark forms surged in ugly rushes upon the building which was held by a brave handful of Europeans.
The angry murmur of the mob rose and died down, and rose again, louder and more continuous. The sounds penetrated to the quiet room where Hallam sat, so engrossed with the turmoil of his own thoughts that these signs of men’s passions aroused beyond control excited in him merely a faint curiosity. He rose and went out into the street to ascertain what the disturbance was about.
The sight of the vast concourse of natives amazed him. From every direction dark running figures appeared, many of them armed with sticks, and all making for the same point, wedging themselves into the crowd like stray pieces in one gigantic whole. There was no possibility of getting past them; it would be dangerous, he realised, to go among them. Their attitude was threatening. He had had experience of the native when he was out of control. Lacking in discipline and all sense of responsibility, and with an utter disregard for consequences, he was a difficult proposition to tackle.
Hallam turned down a side street, which was silent and deserted, passed a number of warehouses, and came out upon the fringe of the crowd. So far nothing had happened to fan the smouldering hate into a conflagration. It needed only, the white man realised, the throwing of a missile or the random discharge of a firearm, to rouse the mob to a frenzy of murderous activity. But so far the situation was in hand; the rioting came later.
It was difficult to say who started it, from which direction came that first shot that turned the sea of black swaying figures into a frenzied rabble of monomaniacs with a common enemy, the white man, the ruler, who, terribly outclassed in numbers, yet held the coloured man at bay. They were there, behind the walls, a handful of white men, police and ex-soldiers, armed, determined, cool-headed, maintaining law and authority against the vast rabble of native insurgents.
Hallam heard several shots fired; heard the yells of the mob; watched the ugly rush as it surged forward in one mighty wave of humanity. Sticks were wielded freely, stones and other missiles came into use; the noise swelled to pandemonium. To remain in the streets was unsafe. A white man would receive no quarter if the mob got hold of him. Aware of his danger, Hallam turned to retreat; and, as he made for the side street down which he had come, the sound of a woman’s scream arrested his attention. He halted and looked round. A white woman was struggling with a native a few yards from where he stood. It was the work of a minute to reach her; the next, he had the native by the throat and was choking the life out of him. The woman had fallen to the ground. She might be hurt, or she might have fainted: Hallam did not pause to find out. A couple of natives had seen them and were running towards them; if they came up with them, though he might succeed in shooting them, for he carried a revolver, it would bring the crowd upon them; and he and the woman he had rescued would inevitably perish. Stooping, he picked her up in his arms, and ran with her up the street, darting through the open door of a wool-shed, where he dropped her unceremoniously on a bale of hides and ran back to the door and secured it.
But there was no sign without of their pursuers. The chase of fugitive whites was less exciting than the bigger business in hand. The street was quiet, and wore an air of desertion, as if every man had left his post for the scene of greater activity.
Hallam turned from securing the door, and leaned with his shoulders against it, breathing hard, in quick short breaths. With the abrupt shutting out of the sunlight the interior of the building appeared dark; the insufficient light, which penetrated through the dirty windows, revealed everything dimly, like objects seen in the dusk. Neither Hallam nor the woman had spoken. They did not speak now. She was sitting up, looking about her with dazed eyes. She put a hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the tall figure confronting her, uncovered them again, and looked straight into the eyes of the man, who stood with his shoulders against the door, watching her.
He had recognised her when he stooped over her in the street to lift her; she had recognised him sooner. But to her it had seemed that fear had deranged her reason; she believed that her imagination had given to her rescuer the features of some one whom she knew to be dead. Now, while she watched him, listened to his deep breathing, conviction came to her that this was Paul himself, no creation of her fancy; and suddenly, while she looked at him, the room grew dark about her, his face faded in a mist, disappeared: she dropped back on the hides and lay still.
Book Four—Chapter Thirty Four.As Hallam looked down on the white face, with the eyes closed, and the dark lashes resting on the colourless cheeks, there came back very vividly to his memory a picture of his wife lying senseless at the foot of the stairs, and the horror which had gripped his heart at the sight of her lying thus, the remorse and the self-accusation which had all but unhinged his reason. In recalling these painful memories he felt his heart softening towards her; the jealousy which had embittered his thoughts of her yielded to the more generous instincts of love and a pitiful tenderness, which desired only to shield her from the distress and embarrassment of her position.Fate had resolved the point as to whether she should know of his return; the responsibility of decision had been lifted from his shoulders. At least his presence had been the means of saving her from a dreadful and violent death. It was horrible to contemplate what might have happened had he not been on the spot.Deliberately he moved away from the door and approached the unconscious figure lying on the pile of evil-smelling hides. For a while he remained standing, looking down on the quiet form; then he took a seat on the hides and sat still and watched for a sign of returning consciousness. As soon as she was equal to walking he meant to take her to Jim Bainbridge’s office. He was not satisfied of their safety while they remained where they were.Esmé recovered from her faint to find him seated beside her, watching her with those keen eyes which seemed to search her soul. She lay still for a while, staring back at him, too bewildered to realise at once where she was and what had happened. Then abruptly memory came sweeping back in a confusing rush, and the events immediately preceding her swoon crowded into her mind. She sat up; and the man and the woman looked steadily at one another.“Paul!” she whispered.“Esmé!”Her eyes filled with tears.“Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear!” she wailed.She broke down and cried uncontrollably. He made no move to comfort her, or to attempt explanations; he let her cry; tears were more often a relief than otherwise. And there was nothing he could find to say. There was nothing, it seemed to him, to be said. Matters had reached a deadlock. Here they were, husband and wife, together after long years of separation; and, dividing them more effectually than the years, was the fact of Esmé’s second marriage and the existence of her child.Presently she looked up at him through her tears with eyes that were infinitely sad, that held, too, in their look an expression of yearning tenderness for this man, whom she had loved in the past, whom she still loved better than any one in the world. The sight of him brought back so many memories of the happiness which their great love for one another had put into their lives. Why had she forgotten? The memory of the beauty of their love should have satisfied her. What had she done by forgetting so soon?“They told me you were dead,” she said.“I know.”“At first I wouldn’t believe it. But you sent no word, and the years passed... Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear! Why did you leave me like that?—without a word or a sign from you all these years?”“I will explain later,” he answered, speaking as calmly as his emotion permitted. “For the present you must just believe that it wasn’t altogether my fault. I was ill for a long time after I left home. It was touch and go. If there is a purpose which governs our destinies, I suppose there was some reason why I should live. Anyhow I pulled through with all the odds against me. And again, when men were dying all about me, my life was preserved—I know not why, nor for what. I have no place in the world. I am just so much dust encumbering the earth. My return is only a distress to you. I come back to find you gone from me.”She hid her face in her hands and wept afresh. Gone from him! That was how he saw it. She had not been faithful to his memory even.“Tell me about yourself,” she pleaded. “I want you to fill in the blank. I want to know where you’ve been—all about everything. I don’t understand. Tell me.”“Not now—nor here,” he said, rising. “It’s a long story; and we should be moving out of this. Can you walk as far as Jim’s office? I think we should be safer there.”As though reminded by his caution of the disturbance in the streets, which the sight of him had driven temporarily from her thoughts, she stood up and remained in an attentive attitude, listening to the din, which penetrated to their quiet shelter with horrible distinctness. Men were out there a few yards away, fighting and being injured, killed perhaps, as she might have been but for Paul. She lifted frightened eyes to his face.“What is it?” she asked. “What is happening?”“It’s a riot,” he answered. “The gaol will be overfull as a result of this noisy disturbance. I hope some of the brutes will get shot.”“You saved my life, Paul,” she said, looking at him gravely.He made no answer to that. He went to the door and unfastened it and looked out into the street. With the opening of the door the tumult seemed to swell in volume, but the street itself was quiet; there was no one within sight. He turned to her swiftly and took hold of her arm and led her outside.“There is nothing to be nervous about,” he said. “We shan’t meet a soul. I came this way just before I saw you.”None the less, he carried his revolver in his hand, and hurried her up the street, keeping a sharp look-out against surprise, until he got her safely to Bainbridge’s office. The room when they entered it was empty as when he had left it, and showed no sign of its owner having been there.Esmé sat down, white and shaken, and leaned back in her chair without speaking. A clerk came to the door and inquired whether he could do anything. Her appearance, hatless and dishevelled and white, had struck him when she entered. She asked for water; and he went away to fetch it. Hallam took the glass from him when he returned with it and carried it to her himself.“Mrs Sinclair isn’t hurt, I hope?” the clerk asked.“No,” Hallam answered curtly; and the clerk withdrew.At the sound of her name, Esmé’s eyes sought Hallam’s face. She saw it harden, saw the lips compress themselves, as he turned with the glass in his hand and approached her chair. She took the glass from him with a word of thanks, and drank the contents slowly, while he paced the carpet with long, uneasy strides, backwards and forwards, before the open window.“Paul,” she asked suddenly, “have you seen Jim?”“I saw him yesterday,” he answered, without pausing in his walk.“Yesterday!” she echoed, her thoughts reverting to the dinner party, and to the curious preoccupation of her brother-in-law’s manner. Jim had known yesterday that Paul was alive; and he had said nothing.“He told you—about me?” she said.“Yes—everything that matters.”She put the glass down on the desk and stood up and confronted him.“What am I to do?” she wailed. “Oh! what am I to do?”“That,” he answered with surprising quietness, “is a question which no one can resolve but yourself. It is for you to decide.”“But I don’t know what to do,” she returned distressfully. “I—Oh, dear heaven! what a terrible position to be placed in!”She wrung her hands and turned away from him and stood leaning against the frame of the window, where the warm fresh air poured in on her, and the distant sounds of the din in the streets came to her ears like something far off, something altogether outside her own concerns. The horror of her encounter with the Kaffir was submerged, almost forgotten, in the bewilderment of Paul’s return. Paul knew of her second marriage—which was no marriage. He must know, since he had spoken with Jim, of her child. The child’s future welfare was her chief concern. She resented the injury done to it as a deliberate wrong wrought through the agency of this man by his long absence, his inexplicable silence. She felt bitter when she thought of it.“Why did you leave me in ignorance of your whereabouts?” she asked. “Was it fair to treat me like that? You had all my love, all my confidence. Surely you might have trusted me! Whatever you were doing, wherever you were, I should have understood. I would have waited patiently. I was prepared to wait after reading your letter. I judged from it that you would not return to me until you were sure of yourself, even though it meant separation for all our lives. But you could have let me know you were alive. It was cruel to keep silent all these years.”“Yes,” he allowed; “had it been intentional it would have been.”He joined her at the window, and stood opposite to her, observing her with a steady gaze which drew her eyes to his, held them: she remained looking back at him, listening to him, while he strove to make her understand the struggle and the despair of those silent years.He told her of his flight; of the unhinged state of his mind when he left home; of his physical condition which brought him to the verge of death; of how he would have died but for the care of a stranger—a poor white, who later robbed him, and was subsequently buried in his name. He told her of his slow recovery in a native hut; of the fierce craving for alcohol which assailed him as soon as he was able once more to get about.“I could not write to you then,” he said. “I felt unfit to breathe your name.”He went on to speak of the journey to England, still with his vice in the ascendant. He had given way to it in England. His illness had sapped his will-power and he was at the mercy of his desires once more. Then came the war. He joined up with the intention of making good. Until he had made good he was resolved that he would not write.The rest of the story, of his early capture and his ineffectual efforts to communicate with her, he described briefly. He gave a detailed account of the period following his release; of his tedious convalescence; of his longing for her; of his time of probation, during which he tested his endurance until satisfied that he had won a final victory over himself. He told of his voyage out; of his wish to break the news of his return to her himself.“It was unlikely that you believed me to be still alive,” he said. “And I did not want to give you a shock by writing when, by the exercise of a little patience, I could tell you all this, and—”He broke off abruptly. In his imagination he had anticipated her gladness, had pictured their mutual joy in the reunion, when, with his arms about her, he would tell her the story of his absence, and with his kisses comfort her for the sorrow that was past. This home-coming was so different from anything he had conceived.“I knew nothing of the finding of the body of a man supposed to be me,” he said. “That was one of the unforeseen accidents of circumstance which create an aftermath of deplorable consequences. We are the victims of circumstance. It is useless to impute blame to any one. The facts remain. But for Jim’s positive testimony you would not have re-married. Without some proof of my death, you would have gone on hoping, I believe.”“Paul!—Oh, Paul!” she sobbed, and held out her two hands towards him in a gesture of pathetic helplessness.He took them in his. And abruptly with the feel of her hands in his, his reserve broke down; the hardness went out of his eyes. He gathered her to him and kissed her and held her close in his embrace.
As Hallam looked down on the white face, with the eyes closed, and the dark lashes resting on the colourless cheeks, there came back very vividly to his memory a picture of his wife lying senseless at the foot of the stairs, and the horror which had gripped his heart at the sight of her lying thus, the remorse and the self-accusation which had all but unhinged his reason. In recalling these painful memories he felt his heart softening towards her; the jealousy which had embittered his thoughts of her yielded to the more generous instincts of love and a pitiful tenderness, which desired only to shield her from the distress and embarrassment of her position.
Fate had resolved the point as to whether she should know of his return; the responsibility of decision had been lifted from his shoulders. At least his presence had been the means of saving her from a dreadful and violent death. It was horrible to contemplate what might have happened had he not been on the spot.
Deliberately he moved away from the door and approached the unconscious figure lying on the pile of evil-smelling hides. For a while he remained standing, looking down on the quiet form; then he took a seat on the hides and sat still and watched for a sign of returning consciousness. As soon as she was equal to walking he meant to take her to Jim Bainbridge’s office. He was not satisfied of their safety while they remained where they were.
Esmé recovered from her faint to find him seated beside her, watching her with those keen eyes which seemed to search her soul. She lay still for a while, staring back at him, too bewildered to realise at once where she was and what had happened. Then abruptly memory came sweeping back in a confusing rush, and the events immediately preceding her swoon crowded into her mind. She sat up; and the man and the woman looked steadily at one another.
“Paul!” she whispered.
“Esmé!”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear!” she wailed.
She broke down and cried uncontrollably. He made no move to comfort her, or to attempt explanations; he let her cry; tears were more often a relief than otherwise. And there was nothing he could find to say. There was nothing, it seemed to him, to be said. Matters had reached a deadlock. Here they were, husband and wife, together after long years of separation; and, dividing them more effectually than the years, was the fact of Esmé’s second marriage and the existence of her child.
Presently she looked up at him through her tears with eyes that were infinitely sad, that held, too, in their look an expression of yearning tenderness for this man, whom she had loved in the past, whom she still loved better than any one in the world. The sight of him brought back so many memories of the happiness which their great love for one another had put into their lives. Why had she forgotten? The memory of the beauty of their love should have satisfied her. What had she done by forgetting so soon?
“They told me you were dead,” she said.
“I know.”
“At first I wouldn’t believe it. But you sent no word, and the years passed... Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear! Why did you leave me like that?—without a word or a sign from you all these years?”
“I will explain later,” he answered, speaking as calmly as his emotion permitted. “For the present you must just believe that it wasn’t altogether my fault. I was ill for a long time after I left home. It was touch and go. If there is a purpose which governs our destinies, I suppose there was some reason why I should live. Anyhow I pulled through with all the odds against me. And again, when men were dying all about me, my life was preserved—I know not why, nor for what. I have no place in the world. I am just so much dust encumbering the earth. My return is only a distress to you. I come back to find you gone from me.”
She hid her face in her hands and wept afresh. Gone from him! That was how he saw it. She had not been faithful to his memory even.
“Tell me about yourself,” she pleaded. “I want you to fill in the blank. I want to know where you’ve been—all about everything. I don’t understand. Tell me.”
“Not now—nor here,” he said, rising. “It’s a long story; and we should be moving out of this. Can you walk as far as Jim’s office? I think we should be safer there.”
As though reminded by his caution of the disturbance in the streets, which the sight of him had driven temporarily from her thoughts, she stood up and remained in an attentive attitude, listening to the din, which penetrated to their quiet shelter with horrible distinctness. Men were out there a few yards away, fighting and being injured, killed perhaps, as she might have been but for Paul. She lifted frightened eyes to his face.
“What is it?” she asked. “What is happening?”
“It’s a riot,” he answered. “The gaol will be overfull as a result of this noisy disturbance. I hope some of the brutes will get shot.”
“You saved my life, Paul,” she said, looking at him gravely.
He made no answer to that. He went to the door and unfastened it and looked out into the street. With the opening of the door the tumult seemed to swell in volume, but the street itself was quiet; there was no one within sight. He turned to her swiftly and took hold of her arm and led her outside.
“There is nothing to be nervous about,” he said. “We shan’t meet a soul. I came this way just before I saw you.”
None the less, he carried his revolver in his hand, and hurried her up the street, keeping a sharp look-out against surprise, until he got her safely to Bainbridge’s office. The room when they entered it was empty as when he had left it, and showed no sign of its owner having been there.
Esmé sat down, white and shaken, and leaned back in her chair without speaking. A clerk came to the door and inquired whether he could do anything. Her appearance, hatless and dishevelled and white, had struck him when she entered. She asked for water; and he went away to fetch it. Hallam took the glass from him when he returned with it and carried it to her himself.
“Mrs Sinclair isn’t hurt, I hope?” the clerk asked.
“No,” Hallam answered curtly; and the clerk withdrew.
At the sound of her name, Esmé’s eyes sought Hallam’s face. She saw it harden, saw the lips compress themselves, as he turned with the glass in his hand and approached her chair. She took the glass from him with a word of thanks, and drank the contents slowly, while he paced the carpet with long, uneasy strides, backwards and forwards, before the open window.
“Paul,” she asked suddenly, “have you seen Jim?”
“I saw him yesterday,” he answered, without pausing in his walk.
“Yesterday!” she echoed, her thoughts reverting to the dinner party, and to the curious preoccupation of her brother-in-law’s manner. Jim had known yesterday that Paul was alive; and he had said nothing.
“He told you—about me?” she said.
“Yes—everything that matters.”
She put the glass down on the desk and stood up and confronted him.
“What am I to do?” she wailed. “Oh! what am I to do?”
“That,” he answered with surprising quietness, “is a question which no one can resolve but yourself. It is for you to decide.”
“But I don’t know what to do,” she returned distressfully. “I—Oh, dear heaven! what a terrible position to be placed in!”
She wrung her hands and turned away from him and stood leaning against the frame of the window, where the warm fresh air poured in on her, and the distant sounds of the din in the streets came to her ears like something far off, something altogether outside her own concerns. The horror of her encounter with the Kaffir was submerged, almost forgotten, in the bewilderment of Paul’s return. Paul knew of her second marriage—which was no marriage. He must know, since he had spoken with Jim, of her child. The child’s future welfare was her chief concern. She resented the injury done to it as a deliberate wrong wrought through the agency of this man by his long absence, his inexplicable silence. She felt bitter when she thought of it.
“Why did you leave me in ignorance of your whereabouts?” she asked. “Was it fair to treat me like that? You had all my love, all my confidence. Surely you might have trusted me! Whatever you were doing, wherever you were, I should have understood. I would have waited patiently. I was prepared to wait after reading your letter. I judged from it that you would not return to me until you were sure of yourself, even though it meant separation for all our lives. But you could have let me know you were alive. It was cruel to keep silent all these years.”
“Yes,” he allowed; “had it been intentional it would have been.”
He joined her at the window, and stood opposite to her, observing her with a steady gaze which drew her eyes to his, held them: she remained looking back at him, listening to him, while he strove to make her understand the struggle and the despair of those silent years.
He told her of his flight; of the unhinged state of his mind when he left home; of his physical condition which brought him to the verge of death; of how he would have died but for the care of a stranger—a poor white, who later robbed him, and was subsequently buried in his name. He told her of his slow recovery in a native hut; of the fierce craving for alcohol which assailed him as soon as he was able once more to get about.
“I could not write to you then,” he said. “I felt unfit to breathe your name.”
He went on to speak of the journey to England, still with his vice in the ascendant. He had given way to it in England. His illness had sapped his will-power and he was at the mercy of his desires once more. Then came the war. He joined up with the intention of making good. Until he had made good he was resolved that he would not write.
The rest of the story, of his early capture and his ineffectual efforts to communicate with her, he described briefly. He gave a detailed account of the period following his release; of his tedious convalescence; of his longing for her; of his time of probation, during which he tested his endurance until satisfied that he had won a final victory over himself. He told of his voyage out; of his wish to break the news of his return to her himself.
“It was unlikely that you believed me to be still alive,” he said. “And I did not want to give you a shock by writing when, by the exercise of a little patience, I could tell you all this, and—”
He broke off abruptly. In his imagination he had anticipated her gladness, had pictured their mutual joy in the reunion, when, with his arms about her, he would tell her the story of his absence, and with his kisses comfort her for the sorrow that was past. This home-coming was so different from anything he had conceived.
“I knew nothing of the finding of the body of a man supposed to be me,” he said. “That was one of the unforeseen accidents of circumstance which create an aftermath of deplorable consequences. We are the victims of circumstance. It is useless to impute blame to any one. The facts remain. But for Jim’s positive testimony you would not have re-married. Without some proof of my death, you would have gone on hoping, I believe.”
“Paul!—Oh, Paul!” she sobbed, and held out her two hands towards him in a gesture of pathetic helplessness.
He took them in his. And abruptly with the feel of her hands in his, his reserve broke down; the hardness went out of his eyes. He gathered her to him and kissed her and held her close in his embrace.