"If I have sinned," muttered Armstrong, as he leaned back in his chair,
for when from time to time he tried to walk about, a painful sensation
of giddiness seized upon him, "I am having a foretaste of my punishment.
How long he is--how long he is!"
But still Leronde did not come, and to occupy his mind, the sufferer sat
and thought out a plan for their journey, which he concluded would mean
a cab to Liverpool Street, then the express to Harwich, the boat to
Ostend; next, where the seconds willed: and afterwards--
"What?" said the wretched man, with a strange smile. "Ah, who knows!
If it could only be oblivion--rest from all this misery and despair!"
He rose to try and write a letter or two, notably one to Cornel, but the
effort was painful, and he crept back to his chair.
"She will know--she will divine--that I preferred to die," he muttered,
"Ah, at last! Why, he has been hours."
For there was a step outside, and then the door was thrown open, as he
lay back, with his aching eyes shaded by his hand.
"Come at last, then!" he sighed; and the next moment he started, for the
studio door was banged to, and locked. "You, Joe?"
"Yes, I've come at last," cried Pacey, thrusting his hands into his
pockets, and striding up, to stand before him with his legs far apart.
"Well, then, shake hands and go," said Armstrong quietly. "I'm not
well. I've had an accident."
"Accident?" roared Pacey. "Yes, you have had an accident, the same as a
man has who goes and knocks his head against a wall."
"What do you mean?" cried Armstrong, starting.
"Mean? I mean that you're the biggest fool that fortune ever pampered
and spoiled."
"Joe Pacey!"
"Hold your tongue, idiot, and listen to me. Here you are, gifted by
nature with ten times the brains of an ordinary man; you can paint like
Raphael or Murillo; fame and fortune are at your feet; and you have the
love waiting for you of one of the sweetest, most angelic women who ever
stepped this earth."
"Pacey!"
"Hold your tongue, boy! Haven't I been like a father to you ever since
you came into this cursed village? Haven't I devoted myself to you as
soon as I saw you were a good fellow, full of genius? I'm a fool to say
so, but in my wretched, wrecked life, I felt that I'd found something to
live for at last, and that I could be proud and happy in seeing you, who
are as much an Englishman as I am in blood, rise to the highest pitch of
triumph; while, if you grew proud then and forgot me, it wouldn't
matter; I could afford it, for you had achieved success."
"You've been a good true adviser to me, Joe, ever since I have known
you."
"And you have turned out the most ungrateful dog that ever breathed.
Morals? You've no more morals than a mahlstick. You had everything man
could wish for, and then you must kick it all over, and break the heart
of an angel."
"Let her rest. Say what you like to bully me, Joe. It's all true. I
don't fight against it. But you can't understand it all. Say what you
like, only go and leave me. I want to be alone."
"Do you?" cried Pacey excitedly. "Then I don't want you to be. So the
Conte gave you that crack on the head, did he?"
"What!" cried Armstrong, springing up. "How came you to think that?"
"How came I to think that? Why, I was told by a chattering French ape."
"Leronde? Told you?"
"Of course he did. Came to me to be your other second."
"The idiot! Where is he?"
"Locked up where he'll stay till I let him loose."
Armstrong used a strong expression.
"And so we must have a duel, must we? Go out to Belgium to fight this
Italian organ-grinder. Curse him, and his Jezebel of a wife!"
"Silence, man!" cried Armstrong excitedly. "Pacey, no more of this!
Where is Leronde? He must be set free at once. My honour is at stake."
"His what?" cried Pacey, bursting into a roar of ironical laughter. "My
God! His honour! You adulterous dog, you talk to me of your honour and
duelling, and all that cursed, sickly, contemptible code that ought to
have been dead and buried, and wondered at by us as a relic of the dark
ages--you talk to me of that? Why, do you know what it means? First
and foremost, murdering Cornel Thorpe: for, as sure as heaven's above
us, that organ-man will shoot you like the dog you are, and in killing
you he'll kill that poor girl. I swear it. She can't help it. She
gave her love to you, poor lassie, and she's the kind of woman who loves
once and for all. There's the first of it. As for you, well, the best
end of you is that you should be buried at once, out of the way, as you
would be if I let you go to meet this man."
"If you let me?" raged Armstrong.
"Yes, if I let you; for I won't. Why, you're mad. That Jezebel has
turned your brain, and I'll have you in a strait waistcoat, and then in
a padded room, before I'll let you go to save your honour and his. Ha,
ha! His honour! The Italian greyhound! He never took any notice of
his wife till he found she had a lover, but was after as many
light-famed creatures as there are cards in the devil's books. Then--
his honour! Ha, ha! his honour! Why, the whole gang of French and
Italian monkeys never knew what honour is, and never will. Now then, I
said I'd thrash you, and I have. I only wish Dellatoria had jolly well
fractured your skull, so as to make you an invalid for six months. Look
here; I've locked up Leronde, I'll lock up you, and if the Conte comes
here, I'll kick him downstairs."
"You are mad. I must meet him."
"I'm not mad, and you shan't meet him."
"You mean well, Pacey, but it is folly to go on like this. Run back and
set Leronde at liberty."
"I'm going to do what I like, not what you like," cried Pacey fiercely,
pulling out a knife; "and first of all, I'll finish that cursed
picture."
He swung the great easel round, and in a few minutes had slashed the
canvas to ribbons, and torn it from the frame.
"There's an end of that!" he roared.
"So much the better," said Armstrong, who had looked on unmoved.
"Oh! you like that, then?" cried Pacey. "You're coming round."
"Now go," said Armstrong, "and end this folly."
"You'll swear first of all that you will not meet this man?"
"I'll swear I will," said Armstrong coldly.
"He'll shoot you dead."
"I hope so."
"Armstrong, lad, listen to me," said Pacey, calming down. "You'll be
sensible?"
"Yes."
"And give it up? For poor Cornel's sake?"
"Silence! or you'll drive me really mad."
"Now then, get your hat, and come with me."
"Will you go?"
"Will you come with me?"
"Look here," said Armstrong. "I can bear no more. I want to be cool
and act like a man to the end, but you are pushing me to the very
brink.--Will you go?"
"Yes," said Pacey, buttoning up his coat. "I'm off now, boy."
"Where?"
"Straight to the police. I'll swear a breach of the peace against you
both, and have you seized, or bound over, or something. This meeting
shan't take place. For Cornel's sake--do you hear? For her sake, so
there!"
He strode to the door, unlocked it, opened, and banged it loudly behind
him, and Armstrong stood thinking what course he ought to pursue, while
Pacey went straight away, not to the police, but to Thorpe's hotel,
where he told the doctor how matters stood.
"I don't know what you are to do, sir," said Thorpe coldly. "I wash my
hands of the whole business. He has behaved horribly to my poor sister,
and turned her brain. Let him go and be shot."
"Likely," growled Pacey. "Nice Christian advice to give. Why, it would
kill her."
"Not it. She has too much womanly determination in her, poor girl. But
I can do nothing. She has been to him again and again in opposition to
my wishes--forgotten all her woman's dignity."
"To try and save your old schoolfellow, her lover."
"Bah! she has cast him off, sir, as the scoundrel deserves."
"Not she," said Pacey. "She loves him still in spite of all, and in
time she would forgive him, if he behaved like a man."
"Not if I can prevent it," retorted Thorpe. "She shall not forgive
him."
"Well, sir," said Pacey, "I have not come to dispute with you about
that. He is almost your brother, and he is in deadly peril of his life.
That Italian has challenged him; they will fight, as sure as we stand
here, and the malignant, spiteful scoundrel will shoot Armstrong like a
dog."
"Nonsense! What can he care for such a wife?"
"Nothing; but his honour is at stake."
"His honour!" cried Thorpe contemptuously.
"Exactly so. What such men call their honour. Armstrong will evade me
somehow, and go off to Belgium, I am sure; and if he does, he is so
careless of his own life now, in his despair, misery, and degradation,
that he will never come back alive."
"Pish!"
"It is a fact, sir. I have heard that Dellatoria is deadly with sword
or pistol, and he has been out more than once before--Good heavens, Miss
Thorpe! are you there?"
"Yes," said Cornel slowly, as she came forward from the door leading
into an inner room. "I have heard every word."