I
"... _and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a word of it._"
"About that letter of your uncle's? I take it you have no one to
suggest?"
Thomas Carden glanced anxiously at the son in whom he had so great a
confidence, and who was the secret pride of his eyes, the only love of
his austere, hard-working life.
The two were a great contrast to one another. The older man was short
and slight, with the delicate, refined, spiritual face so often seen
in the provincial man of business belonging to that disappearing
generation of Englishmen who found time to cultivate the things of the
mind as well as the material interests of life; a contrast, indeed, to
the tall, singularly handsome, alert-looking man whom he had just
addressed, and whose perfect physical condition made him appear
somewhat younger than his thirty-two years.
And yet, in spite or perhaps because of this contrast between them,
the two were bound in the closest, if not exactly in the most
confidential, ties of affection. And, as a matter of course, they were
partners in the great metal-broking business of Josh. Carden, Thomas
Carden and Son, which had been built up by three generations of
astute, self-respecting citizens of Birmingham.
It was Easter Monday, and the two men were lingering over breakfast,
in a way they seldom allowed themselves time to do on ordinary
week-days, in the finely proportioned, book-lined dining-room of one
of those spacious old houses which remain to prove that the suburb of
Edgbaston was still country a hundred years ago.
Theodore Carden looked across the table meditatively. He had almost
forgotten his uncle's letter, for, since that letter had been read and
cursorily discussed, he and his father had been talking of a matter
infinitely more important to them both. The matter in question was the
son's recent engagement and coming marriage, a marriage which was a
source of true satisfaction to the older man. His father's unselfish
joy in the good thing which had befallen him touched Theodore Carden
keenly, for the niche occupied in most men's minds by their intimate
feminine circle was filled in that of the young man by the diminutive
figure of the senior partner of Carden and Son.
As is perhaps more often the case than those who despise human nature
believe, men sometimes have the grace to reverence and admire those
qualities in which they know themselves to be deficient. Such a man
was the younger Carden. To-day the depths had been stirred, and he let
his mind dwell with a certain sense of shame and self-rebuke on his
own and his father's ideals of human conduct. Even as a schoolboy,
Theodore had come to realize how much more he knew of the ugly side of
life than did his father. But then, old Mr. Carden was quite
exceptional; he knew nothing--or so, at least, his son believed, and
loved him for it--of the temptations, conflicts, victories, and falls
of the average sensual man. Theodore's father had been engaged, at
twenty, to a girl of his own age whom he had not been able to marry
till twelve years later; she had left him a widower with this one
child after five years of married life; and Thomas Carden, as he had
himself once told his son in a moment of unwonted confidence, had been
absolutely faithful to her before the marriage and since her death.
The woman--many people would have said the very fortunate young
woman--who was so soon to become Mrs. Theodore Carden would not
possess such a husband as Thomas Carden had been to his wife. And yet,
in his heart, Theodore was well aware that the gentle girl he loved
would probably be a happier woman than his own mother had been, for
he, unlike his father, in his dealings with the other sex could call
up at will that facile and yet rather rare gift of tenderness which
women, so life had taught him, value far more than the deeper,
inarticulate love....
Carden came back to the prosaic question of his uncle's letter with a
distinct effort. "Have I any one to suggest?" he echoed. "I have no
one to suggest, father. I know, of course, exactly the sort of man
Uncle Barrett is looking for; he's asking us to find him the perfect
clerk every man of business has sought for at some time or other. If I
were you, I should write and tell him that the man he wants us to find
never has to look outside England for a job, and, what is more, would
rather be a clerk here--if he's any sense--than a partner in New
Zealand!"
A smile quivered for a moment over the young man's shrewd face; his
uncle was evidently seeking such a man as he was himself, but such
men, so Theodore Carden was able to tell himself without undue
conceit, were not likely to go into voluntary exile, even for the
bribe of eventual partnership in a flourishing business.
There was a pause, and then again the older man broke the silence with
something entirely irrelevant to the subject which was filling the
minds of his son and himself.
"You haven't looked at the _Post_ this morning? There's nothing in it.
Dearth of real news is, I suppose, responsible for this?" and he
pointed, frowning as he spoke, to a column on the middle page headed,
"The Garvice Mystery. New Developments."
Again a shrewd, good-humoured smile quivered on his son's firm mouth.
"In these days newspapers have to follow, not lead, the public taste.
Very few people are honestly as indifferent as you are, father, to
that sort of story. Now, even I, who never met poor old Garvice,
cannot help wondering how he came by his death; and yet you, who knew
the man----"
"I knew him," said the other with a touch of impatience, "as I know,
and as you know, dozens of our fellow-townsmen."
"Never mind; you, at any rate, can put a face to the man's name; and
yet the question as to whether he was or was not poisoned by his wife
is one of indifference to you! Now I submit that in this indifference
you are really a little--" he hesitated for a word, but found that
none so well expressed his thought as that which had first risen to
his lips--"peculiar, father."
"Am I?" said Thomas Carden slowly; "am I so, Theodore? Nay, nay, I
deny that I am indifferent! Lane"--Major Lane was at that time Head
Constable of Birmingham, and a life-long friend of the speaker--"Lane
was quite full of it last night. He insisted on telling me all the
details of the affair, and what shocked me, my boy, was not so much
the question which, of course, occupied Lane--that is, as to whether
that unhappy young woman poisoned her husband or not--but the whole
state of things which he disclosed about them. Lane told me certain
facts concerning Garvice, who, as you truly say, I have known, in a
sense, for years, which I should not have thought possible of any
man--vile things, which should have prevented his thinking of
marriage, especially of marriage with a young wife."
Theodore Carden remained silent; he never discussed unsavory subjects
with his father. Moreover, he had no liking for Major Lane, though he
regarded him with considerable respect, and even with a feeling of
gratitude. Some years before, the Head Constable had helped the young
man out of a serious scrape, the one real scrape--so Carden was
complaisantly able to assure himself--engendered by his systematic
pursuit of women. Even now he could not recall, without wincing, the
interview he had had on that occasion with his father's friend. During
that interview Carden had felt himself thoroughly condemned, and even
despised, by the older man, and he had been made to feel that it was
only for the sake of his father--his high-minded, unsuspicious
father--that he was being saved from the public exposure of a
peculiarly sordid divorce suit.
But it was in all sincerity that the young man now felt indignant with
Major Lane for having distressed such a delicately spiritual soul as
was Thomas Carden with the hidden details of the Garvice story. After
all, what interested the public was not the question of Garvice's
moral character, but whether a gently nurtured and attractive woman
had carried through a sinister and ingenious crime, which, but for a
mere accident, would have utterly defied detection.
Theodore Carden got up from the breakfast table and walked over to a
circular bay-window which commanded charming views of the wide,
sloping garden, interspersed with the streams and tiny ponds which
gave the house its name of Watermead, and which enabled old Mr. Carden
to indulge himself with especial ease in his hobby of water
gardening.
Standing there, the young man began wondering what he should do with
himself this early spring day. His fiancee had just left the quiet
lodgings which she and her mother, a clergyman's widow, had occupied
in Birmingham during the last few weeks, to pay visits to relatives in
the South. The thought of going to any of the neighbouring houses,
where he knew himself to be sure of a warm welcome, and where the news
of his engagement would be received with boisterous congratulations,
tempered in some cases with an underlying touch of regret and
astonishment, filled him with repugnance. The girl he had chosen to be
his wife was absolutely different from the women who had hitherto
attracted him; he reverenced as well as loved her, and hitherto
Theodore Carden had never found reverence to be in any sense a
corollary of passion.
The last few days had brought a great change in his life, and one
which he meant should be permanent; and yet, in spite or perhaps
because of this, as he stood staring with absent eyes into his
father's charming garden, he found his mind dwelling persistently on
the only one of his many amorous adventures which had left a deep, an
enduring, and, it must be admitted, a most delightful mark on the
tablets of his memory.
The whole thing was still so vivid to him that half-involuntarily he
turned round and looked down the long room to where his old father was
sitting. How amazed, above all, how shocked and indignant the man for
whom he had so great an affection and respect would feel, if he knew
the picture which was now floating before his son's retrospective
vision!
* * * * *
What had happened had been briefly this: One day in the previous
October, Carden had taken his seat in the afternoon express which
stops at Birmingham on its way from the north to Euston, or rather,
having taken a leisurely survey of the train, which was, as he quickly
noted, agreeably empty, he had indicated to the porter carrying his
bag a carriage in which sat, alone, a singularly pretty woman.
As he afterwards had the delight of telling her, and, as he now
reminded himself with a retrospective thrill of feeling, he had
experienced, when his eyes first met those of the fair traveller, that
incommunicable sensation, part physical, part mental, which your
genuine Lothario, if an intelligent man, always welcomes with
quickening pulse as the foretaste of special zest to be attached to a
coming pursuit.
Carden's instinct as to such delicate questions had seldom played him
false; never less so than on this occasion, for, within an hour, he
and the lovely stranger had reached that delightful stage of intimacy
in which each feels that he and she, while still having much to learn
about the other, are on the verge of a complete understanding.
During the journey of between two and three hours, his travelling
companion had told him a great deal more about herself than he had
chosen to reveal concerning his own life and affairs; he learned, for
instance, that she was the young wife of an old man, and that the old
man was exceedingly jealous. Further, that she found the life she was
compelled to lead "horribly boring," and that a widowed cousin, who
lived near London, and from whom she had "expectations," formed a
convenient excuse for occasional absences from home.
Concerning three matters of fact, however, she completely withheld her
confidence, both then, in those first delicious hours of their
acquaintance, and even later, when their friendship--well, why not say
friendship? for Carden had felt a very strong liking as well as an
over-mastering attraction toward this Undine-like creature--had become
much closer. The first and second facts which she kept closely hidden,
for reasons which should perhaps have been obvious, were her
surname--she confided to him that her Christian name was Pansy--and
her husband's profession. The third, about which she might surely have
been less reticent, was the name of the town where she lived and from
which she appeared to be travelling that day.
The actual incidents of that eventful October journey had become, to a
certain extent, blurred in Theodore Carden's memory, but what had
followed was still extraordinarily vivid, and to-day, on this holiday
morning, standing idly looking out of the window, he allowed his mind
a certain retrospective licence.
From whom, so he now asked himself, had first come the suggestion that
there should be no parting at Euston between himself and the strange,
elemental woman he had found so full of unforced fascination and
disarming charm? The answer soon came echoing down the corridors of
memory: from himself, of course--but then, and even now the memory
brought with it shamefaced triumph, he remembered her quick
acquiescence, as free, as unashamed, as joyous as that of a spoilt
child acclaiming an unlooked-for treat.
And, after all, what harm had there been in the whole halcyon
adventure--what injury had it caused to any human being? Carden put
the husband, the fatuous old man who had had the incredible folly to
marry a girl thirty-five years younger than himself, out of court.
Pansy, light-hearted, conscienceless Pansy--he always thought of her
with a touch of easy tenderness--had run no risk of detection, for, as
he had early discovered, she knew no one in London, with the solitary
exception of the old cousin who lived in Upper Norwood. As for his own
business acquaintances, he might, of course, have been seen by any of
them taking about this singularly attractive woman, for the two went
constantly to the theatre, and daily to one or other of the great
restaurants. But what then? Excepting that she was quieter in manner,
far better dressed, and incomparably prettier, Pansy might have been
the wife or sister of any one of his own large circle of relations,
that great Carden clan who held their heads so high in the business
world of the Midlands.
Nay, nay, no risk had been run, and no one had been a penny the worse!
Indeed, on looking back, Theodore Carden could tell himself that it
had been a perfect, a flawless episode, and perhaps after all it was
well that there had been no attempt at a repetition. And yet? And yet
the young man, especially during the first few weeks which had
followed that sequence of enchanting days, had often felt piqued, even
a little surprised, that the heroine of this amazing experience had
not taken advantage of his earnest entreaty that she would give him
the chance of meeting her again. He had left it to her to be
mysterious; as for himself, he had seen no reason why he should
conceal from her either his name or his business address.
Many men, doubtless, would not have been so frank, but Theodore
Carden, too wise in feminine lore to claim an infallible knowledge of
women, never remembered having made a mistake as to the moral social
standing of a new feminine acquaintance. During the few days they had
been together, everything had gone to prove that Pansy was no
masquerader from that under-world whose denizens always filled him
with a sensation of mingled aversion and pity. He could not doubt--he
never had doubted--that what she had chosen to tell him about herself
and her private affairs was substantially true. No man, having heard
her speak of it, could fail to understand her instinctive repulsion
from the old husband to whom she had sold herself into bondage; and as
human, if not perhaps quite as worthy of sympathy, was her restless
longing for freedom to lead the pleasant life led by those of her more
fortunate contemporaries whose doings were weekly chronicled in the
society papers which seemed to form her only reading.
Once only had Carden felt for his entrancing companion the slightest
touch of repugnance. He had taken her to a play in which a child
played an important part, and she had suddenly so spoken as to make
him realise with a shock of surprise that she was the mother of
children! Yet the little remark made by her, "I wonder how my little
girls are getting on," had been very natural and even womanly. Then,
in answer to a muttered word or two on his part, she had explained
that she preferred not to have news of her children when she was
absent from home, since it only worried her; even when staying with
the old cousin at Upper Norwood, she made a point of being completely
free of all possible home troubles. Hearing this gentle, placid
explanation of her lack of maternal anxiety, Carden had put up his
hand to his face to hide a smile; he had not been mistaken; Pansy was
indeed the thorough-going little hedonist he had taken her to be.
Still, it was difficult, even rather disturbing, to think of her as a
mother, and as the mother of daughters.
Yet how deep an impression this unmoral, apparently soulless woman had
made on his mind and on his emotional memory! Even now, when he had no
desire, and, above all, must not allow himself to have any desire,
ever to see her again, Theodore Carden felt almost as keenly as he had
done during the period of their brief intimacy a morbid curiosity to
know where she lived and had her being.
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon of the same day. Theodore Carden had just
come in from a long walk, and, as he passed through the circular hall
round which Watermead was built, he heard the low sound of voices,
those of his father and some other man, issuing from the square
drawing-room always occupied by the father and son on such idle days
as these. He stayed his steps, realized that the visitor was Major
Lane, and then made up his mind to go up and change, instead of going
straight in to his father, as he would have done had the latter been
alone.
As he came down again, and crossed the now lighted hall, he met the
parlourmaid, an elderly woman who had been in Thomas Carden's service
ever since his wife's death.
"I wonder if I can take in the lamps now, Mr. Theodore? It's getting
so dark, sir."
There was a troubled sound in her voice, and the young man stopped and
looked at her with some surprise. "Of course you can, Jane," he said
quickly, "why not? Why haven't you taken them in before?"
"I did go in with them half an hour ago, sir, but the master told me
to take them out again. There's firelight, to be sure, and it's only
Major Lane in there, but he's been here since three o'clock, and
master's not had his tea yet. I suppose they thought they'd wait till
you came in."
"Oh! well, if my father prefers to sit in the dark, and to put off tea
till he can have my company, you had better wait till I ring, and then
bring in the lamps and the tea together." He spoke with his usual
light good-nature, and then passed on, and so into the room which was
the only apartment in the large old house clearly associated in his
mind with the graceful, visionary figure of his young mother.
Thomas Carden and the Head Constable were sitting in the twilight, one
on each side of the fireplace, and when the young man came in they
both stirred perceptibly and abruptly stopped speaking.
Theodore came forward and stood on the hearth-rug.
"May Jane bring in the lamps, father?"
"Yes, yes, I suppose so."
And the lamps were brought in. Then came the tea-tray, placed by Jane
on a large table several paces from the fire. Very deliberately, and
asking no questions as to milk or sugar, for well he knew the tastes
of his father and of his father's friend, he poured out two cups of
tea, and, turning, advanced, a cup balanced in each steady hand.
But halfway across the room he stopped for a moment, arrested by the
sound of his father's voice:
"Theo, my boy, I want to ask you something." This mode of address had
become of late years a little unusual, and there was something in
Thomas Carden's accents which struck his son as significant, even as
rather solemn.
"Yes, father?"
"Did you not tell me this morning that you had never met Garvice?"
The one onlooker, hatchet-faced Major Lane, suddenly leaned a little
forward. He was astonished at his old friend's extraordinary and
uncalled-for courage, and it was with an effort, with the feeling that
he was bracing himself to see something terrible take place, that he
looked straight at the tall, fine-looking man who had now advanced
into the circle of light thrown by the tall Argand lamps.
But Theodore Carden appeared quite unmoved, nay, more, quite
unconcerned by his father's question.
"Yes," he said, "of course I told you so. I suppose I knew the old
fellow by sight, but I certainly was never introduced to him. Are
there any new developments?" He turned to Major Lane with a certain
curiosity, and then quite composedly handed him the cup of tea he held
in his right hand.
"Well, yes," answered the other coldly, "there are. We arrested Mrs.
Garvice this morning."
"That seems rather a strong step to have taken, unless new evidence
has turned up since Saturday," said Theodore thoughtfully.
"Such new evidence has come to hand since Saturday," observed Major
Lane significantly.
There was a pause, and again Thomas Carden addressed his son with that
strange touch of solemnity, and again Major Lane, with some inward
wincing, stared fixedly at the young man now standing, a stalwart,
debonair figure, between himself and his old friend.
"Can you assure me--can you assure us both--that you never met Mrs.
Garvice?"
Carden looked down at his father with a puzzled expression. "Of
course, I can't assure you of anything of the kind," he said, still
speaking quite placidly. "I may have met her somewhere or other, but I
can't remember having done so; and I think I should have remembered
it, both because the name is an uncommon one, and because"--he turned
to Major Lane--"isn't she said to be an extraordinarily pretty
woman?"
As the last words were being uttered, an odd thing happened. Thomas
Carden suddenly dropped the cup he was holding in his hand; it rang
against the brass fender and broke in several pieces, while the spoon
went clattering into the fireplace.
"Father!" exclaimed Theodore, and then quickly he added, "Don't
trouble to do that," for the old man was stooping over the rug and
fumbling with the broken pieces. But Thomas Carden shook his head; it
was evident that he was, for the moment, physically incapable of
speech.
A great fear came into the son's mind; he turned to Major Lane and
muttered in an urgent, agonised whisper, "Is it--can it be a seizure?
Hadn't I better go and try to find Dr. Curle?" But the other, with a
dubious expression on his face, shook his head. "No," he said; "it's
nothing of the kind. Your father's getting older, Carden, as we all
are, and I've had to speak to him to-day about a very disagreeable
matter." He looked fixedly, probingly, at the young man, but again
Theodore showed no sign of having understood. "I think it's thoroughly
upset him." The speaker hesitated, and then added: "I daresay he'll
tell you about it; in any case, I'd better go now and come back later.
If you can spare me half an hour this evening, I should like to have a
talk with you."
During the last few moments Major Lane had made up his mind to take a
certain course, even to run a certain risk, and that not for the first
time that day, for he had already set his own intimate knowledge of
the life-long friend whose condition now wrung him with pity against
what was, perhaps, his official duty.
Some two hours before, the Head Constable had entered the house, where
he had been so constantly and so hospitably entertained, with the firm
conviction that Theodore Carden had been the catspaw of a clever,
unscrupulous woman; in fact, that there had come a repetition, but a
hundred times more serious, of that now half-forgotten entanglement
which had so nearly brought Carden to grief some seven or eight years
before. Once more he had come prepared to do his best to save his
friend's son, so far as might be possible, from the consequences of
his folly.
But now? Ah, now, the experienced, alert official had to admit to
himself that the incidents of the last ten minutes had completely
altered his view of the matter. He realised that in any case Theodore
Carden was no fool; for the first time that day the terrible suspicion
came into Major Lane's mind that the man before him might, after all,
be more closely connected with the Garvice mystery than had seemed
possible.
Never, during his long connection with crime, had the Head Constable
come across as good an actor, as cool a liar, as he now knew this
young man of business to be. Well, he would give Carden one more
chance to tell the truth; Theodore was devoted to his father, so much
was certainly true, and perhaps his father would be able to make him
understand the gravity of the case. Major Lane felt bitterly sorry
that he had come first to the old man--but, then, he had so completely
believed in the "scrape" theory; and now he hardly knew what to
believe!
The old man, still sitting by the fire, had caught a few of the
muttered words, and before Major Lane could leave the room Thomas
Carden had risen from his chair, his face paler, perhaps, than usual,
but once more his collected, dignified self. "Stay," he said firmly;
"having gone so far, I think we should now thresh the matter out."
He walked over to where his son and his friend were standing, and he
put his hand on the older man's arm. "Perhaps I cannot expect you,
Lane, to be convinced, as I, of course, have been convinced, by my
son's denials. It is, as I told you this afternoon, either a plot on
the part of some one who bears a grudge against us, or else--what I
think more likely--there are two men in this great town each bearing
the name of Theodore Carden. But I appreciate, I deeply appreciate,
the generous kindness which made you come and warn us of this
impending calamity; but you need not fear that we shall fail to meet
it with a complete answer."
"Father! Major Lane! What do you mean?" For the first time a feeling
of misgiving swept over Theodore Carden's mind. Without waiting for an
answer, he led the way back to the fireplace and, deliberately drawing
forward a chair, motioned to Major Lane to sit down likewise.
"Now then," he said, speaking with considerable authority and
decision, "I think I have a right to ask what this is all about. In
what way are we, my father and myself, concerned in the Garvice
affair? For my part, Major Lane, I can assure you, and that, if you
wish it, on oath, that I did not know Mr. Garvice, and, to the best of
my belief, I have never seen, still less spoken to, Mrs. Garvice----"
"If that be indeed so," said the man whom he addressed, and who, for
the first time, was beginning to feel himself shaken in his belief,
nay, in his absolute knowledge, that the young man was perjuring
himself, "can you, and will you, explain these letters?" and he drew
out of his pocket a folded sheet of foolscap.
Carden bent forward eagerly; there was no doubt, so the Head Constable
admitted to himself, as to his eagerness to be brought face to face
with the accusation--and yet, at that moment, a strong misgiving came
over Major Lane. Was it right, was it humane, to subject him to this
terrible test, and that, too, before his old father? Whatever the
young man's past relation to Mrs. Garvice, nay, whatever his
connection might be with the crime which Major Lane believed to have
been committed, Carden was certainly ignorant of the existence of
these terrible, these damnatory documents, and they constituted so far
the only proof that Carden had been lying when he denied any knowledge
of Mrs. Garvice. But then, alas! they constituted an irrefutable
proof.
With a sudden movement Major Lane withdrew his right hand, that which
held the piece of paper: "Stop a moment, Carden; do you really wish
this discussion to take place before your father? I wonder if you
remember--" he paused, and then went on firmly--"an interview you and
I had many years ago?"
For the first time Theodore Carden's whole manner changed; a look of
fear, even of guilt, came over his strong, intelligent face.
"Father," he said imploringly, "I beg you not to listen to Major Lane.
He is alluding to a matter which he gave me his word--his word of
honour--should never be mentioned to any one, least of all to you";
then, turning with an angry gesture to the Head Constable, "Was that
not so?" he asked imperiously.
"Yes, I admit that by making this allusion I have broken my word, but
good God! man, this is no passing scrape that we have to consider now;
to-morrow morning all Birmingham will be ringing with your name--with
your father's name, Theodore--for by some damnable mischance the
papers have got hold of the letters in question. I did my best, but I
found I was powerless." He turned and deliberately looked away, as he
added in a low, hesitating voice: "And now, once more I ask you
whether we had better not delay this painful discussion until you and
I are alone?"
"No!" cried Carden, now thoroughly roused, "certainly not! You have
chosen to come and tell my father something about me, and I insist
that you tell me here, and at once, what it is of which I am
accused."
He instinctively looked at his father for support, and received it in
full measure, for at once the old man spoke. "Yes, Lane, I think my
son is right; there's no use in making any more mystery about the
matter. I'm sure that the letters you have brought to show Theodore
will puzzle him as much as they have me, and that he will be able to
assure you that he has no clue either to their contents or to their
writer."
Very slowly, with a feeling of genuine grief and shame for the man who
seemed to feel neither sorrow nor shame, Major Lane held out the
folded paper, and then again, in very pity, he looked away as his old
friend's son eagerly unrolled the piece of foolscap, placing it close
under the lampshade in order that he might thoroughly master its
contents.
As Theodore Carden completed the trifling action, that of unrolling
the piece of paper which was to solve the mystery, he noted, with a
curious feeling of relief, that the documents (or were they letters?)
regarded by the Head Constable as so damnatory, were but two, the
first of some length, the second consisting of a very few lines, both
copied in the fair round hand of Major Lane's confidential clerk.
And then, with no premonitory warning, Carden became the victim of a
curious physical illusion. Staring down at the long piece of blue
paper, he found that he was only able to master the signature, in both
cases the same, with which each letter terminated. Sometimes only one
word, one name--that of _Pansy_--stood out clearly, and then again he
seemed only to see the other word, the other name--that of _Garvice_.
The two names appeared to play hide-and-seek with one another, to leap
out alternately and smite his eyes, pressing and printing themselves
upon his brain.
At last, while he was still staring silently, obstinately, at the
black lines dancing before him, he heard the words, and they seemed to
be coming from a long way off, "Theodore! Oh, my boy, what is the
matter?" and then Major Lane's voice, full of rather angry concern,
"Rouse yourself, Carden, you are frightening your father."
"Am I?" he said dully, "I mustn't do that"; then, handing back the
sheet of foolscap to the Head Constable, he said hoarsely, "I can't
make them out. Will you read them to me?" And Major Lane, in
passionless accents, read aloud the two letters which he already
almost knew by heart:
6, Lightwood Place, January, 28th.
You told me to write to you if ever I was in real trouble and
thought you could help me. Oh, Theo, darling, I am in great
trouble, and life, especially since that happy time--you know when
I mean--is more wretched than ever. You used to say I was
extraordinarily pretty, I wonder if you would say so now, for I am
simply ill--worn out with worry. He--you know who--has found out
something; such a little insignificant thing; and since then he
makes my life unbearable with his stupid jealousy. It isn't as if
he knew about you and me, that would be something real to grumble
at, wouldn't it, darling? Sometimes I feel tempted to tell him all
about it. How he would stare! He is incapable of understanding
anything romantic. However, I'm in no mood for laughing now. He's
got a woman in to watch me, but luckily I've quite got her to be
on my side, though of course I haven't told her anything about my
private affairs.
Will you meet me one day this week, to-morrow if you can, at No.
15, Calthorpe Street? Four o'clock is the safest time for me.
Between the two small shops you will see a swing door with "Madame
Paula, Milliner," on it; push it open and go straight upstairs. On
the first landing you will see a door with "Gone out, enquire
upstairs," on it. Push up the door knob (don't try to turn it) and
walk in. The room will be empty, but you will see a door leading
to a back room; push _up_ the knob and there--there you will find
your poor little Pansy, fainting with joy at seeing her big strong
Theo again.
Send me a postcard, saying "Mrs. Garvice can be fitted on (day you
select)." If posted before eleven, it will reach me in time. Of
course, I'm running a risk in meeting you _here_, so near my home,
but I _must_ see you, for I have a great favour to ask you, Theo,
and I dare not propose going away even for one day.