The actual words of greeting which passed between Elizabeth and the
man whose advent had caused her so much emotion were unimpressive. The
newcomer, with the tips of his fingers resting upon the tablecloth,
leaned slightly towards her. At close quarters, he was even more
unattractive than when Tavernake had first seen him. He was faultily
shaped; there was something a little decadent about his deep-set eyes
and receding forehead. Neither was his expression prepossessing. He
looked at her as a man looks upon the thing he hates.
“So, Elizabeth,” he said, “this pleasure has come at last!”
“I heard that you were back in England,” she replied. “Pray sit down.”
Even then her eyes never left his. All the time they seemed to be
fiercely questioning, seeking for something in his features which eluded
them. It was terrible to see the change which the last few minutes had
wrought in her. Her smooth, girlish face had lost its comeliness. Her
eyes, always a little narrow, seemed to have receded. It was such a
change, this, as comes to a brave man who, in the prime of life, feels
fear for the first time.
“I am glad to find you at supper,” he declared, taking up the menu. “I
am hungry. You can bring me some grilled cutlets at once,” he added to
the waiter who stood by his side, “and some brandy. Nothing else.”
The waiter bowed and hurried off. The woman played with her fan but her
fingers were shaking.
“I fear,” he remarked, “that my coming is rather a shock to you. I am
sorry to see you looking so distressed.”
“It is not that,” she answered with some show of courage. “You know me
too well to believe me capable of seeking a meeting which I feared. It
is the strange thing which has happened to you during these last few
months--this last year. Do you know--has any one told you--that you seem
to have become even more like--the image of--”
He nodded understandingly.
“Of poor Wenham! Many people have told me that. Of course, you know that
we were always appallingly alike, and they always said that we should
become more so in middle-age. After all, there is only a year between
us. We might have been twins.”
“It is the most terrible thing in likenesses I have ever seen,” the
woman continued slowly. “When you entered the room a few seconds ago, it
seemed to me that a miracle had happened. It seemed to me that the dead
had come to life.”
“It must have been a shock,” the man murmured, with his eyes upon the
tablecloth.
“It was,” she agreed, hoarsely. “Can't you see it in my face? I do not
always look like a woman of forty. Can't you see the gray shadows
that are there? You see, I admit it frankly. I was terrified--I am
terrified!”
“And why?” he asked.
“Why?” she repeated, looking at him wonderingly. “Doesn't it seem to you
a terrible thing to think of the dead coming back to life?”
He tapped lightly upon the tablecloth for a minute with the fingers of
one hand. Then he looked at her again.
“It depends,” he said, “upon the manner of their death.”
An executioner of the Middle Ages could not have played with his victim
more skillfully. The woman was shivering now, preserving some outward
appearance of calm only by the most fierce and unnatural effort.
“What do you mean by that, Jerry?” she asked. “I was not even
with--Wenham, when he was lost. You know all about it, I suppose,--how
it happened?”
The man nodded thoughtfully.
“I have heard many stories,” he admitted. “Before we leave the subject
for ever, I should like to hear it from you, from your own lips.”
There was a bottle of champagne upon the table, ordered at the
commencement of the meal. She touched her glass; the waiter filled
it. She raised it to her lips and set it down empty. Her fingers were
clutching the tablecloth.
“You ask me a hard thing, Jerry,” she said. “It is not easy to talk
of anything so painful. From the moment we left New York, Wenham
was strange. He drank a good deal upon the steamer. He used to talk
sometimes in the most wild way. We came to London. He had an attack of
delirium tremens. I nursed him through it and took him into the country,
down into Cornwall. We took a small cottage on the outskirts of a
fishing village--St. Catherine's, the place was called. There we lived
quietly for a time. Sometimes he was better, sometimes worse. The doctor
in the village was very kind and came often to see him. He brought a
friend from the neighboring town and they agreed that with complete rest
Wenham would soon be better. All the time my life was a miserable one.
He was not fit to be alone and yet he was a terrible companion. I did my
best. I was with him half of every day, sometimes longer. I was with him
till my own health began to suffer. At last I could stand the solitude
no longer. I sent for my father. He came and lived with us.”
“The professor,” her listener murmured.
She nodded.
“It was a little better then for me,” she went on, “except that poor
Wenham seemed to take such a dislike to my father. However, he hated
every one in turn, even the doctors, who always did their best for
him. One day, I admit, I lost my temper. We quarreled; I could not help
it--life was becoming insupportable. He rushed out of the house--it was
about three o'clock in the afternoon. I have never seen him since.”
The man was looking at her, looking at her closely although he was
blinking all the time.
“What do you think became of him?” he asked. “What do people think?”
She shook her head.
“The only thing he cared to do was swim,” she said. “His clothes and hat
were found down in the little cove near where we had a tent.”
“You think, then, that he was drowned?” the man asked.
She nodded. Speech seemed to be becoming too painful.
“Drowning,” her companion continued, helping himself to brandy, “is not
a pleasant death. Once I was nearly drowned myself. One struggles for a
short time and one thinks--yes, one thinks!” he added.
He raised his glass to his lips and set it down.
“It is an easy death, though,” he went on, “quite an easy death. By the
way, were those clothes that were found of poor Wenham's identified as
the clothes he wore when he left the house?”
She shook her head.
“One could not say for certain,” she answered. “I never noticed how he
was dressed. He wore nearly always the same sort of things, but he had
an endless variety.”
“And this was seven months ago--seven months.”
She assented.
“Poor Wenham,” he murmured. “I suppose he is dead. What are you going to
do, Elizabeth?”
“I do not know,” she replied. “Soon I must go to the lawyers and ask for
advice. I have very little more money left. I have written several times
to New York to you, to his friends, but I have had no answer. After all,
Jerry, I am his wife. No one liked my marrying him, but I am his wife.
I have a right to a share of his property if he is dead. If he has
deserted me, surely I shall be allowed something. I do not even know how
rich he was.”
The man at her side smiled.
“Much better off than I ever was,” he declared. “But, Elizabeth!”
“Well?”
“There were rumors that, before you left New York, Wenham converted very
large sums of money into letters of credit and bonds, very large sums
indeed.” She shook her head. “He had a letter of credit for about a
thousand pounds, I think,” she said. “There is very little left of the
money he had with him.”
“And you find living here expensive, I dare say?”
“Very expensive indeed,” she agreed, with a sigh. “I have been looking
forward to seeing you, Jerry. I thought, perhaps, for the sake of old
times you might advise me.”
“Of old times,” he repeated to himself softly. “Elizabeth, do you think
of them sometimes?”
She was becoming more herself. This was a game she was used to playing.
Of old times, indeed! It seemed only yesterday that these two brothers,
who had the reputation in those days of being the richest young men
in New York, were both at her feet. So far, she had scarcely been
fortunate. There was still a chance, however. She looked up. It seemed
to her that he was losing his composure. Yes, there was something of the
old gleam in his eyes! Once he had been madly enough in love with her.
It ought not to be impossible!
“Jerry,” she said, “I have told you these things. It has been so very,
very painful for me. Won't you try now and be kind? Remember that I
am all alone and it is all very difficult for me. I have been looking
forward to your coming. I have thought so often of those times we spent
together in New York. Won't you be my friend again? Won't you help me
through these dark days?”
Her hand touched his. For a moment he snatched his away as though stung.
Then he caught her fingers in his and held them as though in a vice. She
smiled, the smile of conscious power. The flush of beauty was streaming
once more into her face. Poor fellow, he was still in love, then! The
fingers which had closed upon hers were burning. What a pity that he was
not a little more presentable!
“Yes,” he muttered, “we must be friends, Elizabeth. Wenham had all the
luck at first. Perhaps it's going to be my turn now, eh?”
He bent towards her. She laughed into his face for a moment and then was
once more suddenly colorless, the smile frozen upon her lips. She began
to shiver.
“What is it?” he asked. “What is it, Elizabeth?”
“Nothing,” she faltered, “only I wish--I do wish that you were not so
much like Wenham. Sometimes a trick of your voice, the way you hold your
head--it terrifies me!”
He laughed oddly.
“You must get used to that, Elizabeth,” he declared. “I can't help
being like him, you know. We were great friends always until you came. I
wonder why you preferred Wenham.”
“Don't ask me--please don't ask me that,” she begged. “Really, I think
he happened to be there just at the moment I felt like making a clean
sweep of everything, of leaving New York and every one and starting life
again, and I thought Wenham meant it. I thought I should be able to keep
him from drinking and to help him start a new life altogether over here
or on the Continent.”
“Poor little woman,” he said, “you have been disappointed, I am afraid.”
She sighed.
“I am only human, you know,” she went on. “Every one told me that Wenham
was a millionaire, too. See how much I have benefited by it. I am almost
penniless, I do not know whether he is dead or alive, I do not know what
to do to get some money. Was Wenham very rich, Jerry?”
The man laughed.
“Oh, he was very rich indeed!” he assured her. “It is terrible that you
should be left like this. We will talk about it together presently, you
and I. In the meantime, you must let me be your banker.”
“Dear Jerry,” she whispered, “you were always generous.”
“You have not spoken of the little prude--dear Miss Beatrice,” he
reminded her suddenly.
Elizabeth sighed.
“Beatrice was a great trial from the first,” she declared. “You know how
she disliked you both--she was scarcely even civil to Wenham, and she
would never have come to Europe with us if father hadn't insisted upon
it. We took her down to Cornwall with us and there she became absolutely
insupportable. She was always interfering between Wenham and me and
imagining the most absurd things. One day she left us without a word of
warning. I have never seen her since.”
The man stared gloomily into his plate.
“She was a queer little thing,” he muttered. “She was good, and she
seemed to like being good.”
Elizabeth laughed, not quite pleasantly.
“You speak as though the rest of us,” she remarked, “were qualified to
take orders in wickedness.”
He helped himself to more brandy.
“Think back,” he said. “Think of those days in New York, the life we
led, the wild things we did week after week, month after month, the same
eternal round of turning night into day, of struggling everywhere to
find new pleasures, pulling vice to pieces like children trying to find
the inside of their playthings.”
“I don't like your mood in the least,” she interrupted.
He drummed for a moment upon the tablecloth with his fingers.
“We were talking of Beatrice. You don't even know where she is now,
then?”
“I have no idea,” Elizabeth declared.
“She was with you for long in Cornwall?” he asked.
Elizabeth toyed with her wineglass for a minute.
“She was there about a month,” she admitted.
“And she didn't approve of the way you and Wenham behaved?” he demanded.
“Apparently not. She left us, anyway. She didn't understand Wenham in
the least. I shouldn't be surprised,” Elizabeth went on, “to hear that
she was a hospital nurse, or learning typing, or a clerk in an office.
She was a young woman of gloomy ideas, although she was my sister.”
He came a little closer towards her.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “we will not talk any more about Beatrice. We will
not talk any more about anything except our two selves.”
“Are you really glad to see me again, Jerry?” she asked softly.
“You must know it, dear,” he whispered. “You must know that I loved you
always, that I adored you. Oh, you knew it! Don't tell me you didn't.
You knew it, Elizabeth!”
She looked down at the tablecloth.
“Yes, I knew it,” she admitted, softly.
“Can't you guess what it is to me to see you again like this?” he
continued.
She sighed.
“It is something for me, too, to feel that I have a friend close at
hand.”
“Come,” he said, “they are turning out the lights here. You want to know
about Wenham's property. Let me come upstairs with you for a little time
and I will tell you as much as I can from memory.”
He paid the bill, helped her on with her cloak. His fingers seemed like
burning spots upon her flesh. They went up in the lift. In the corridors
he drew her to him and she began to tremble.
“What is there strange about you, Jerry?” she faltered, looking into his
face. “You terrify me!”
“You are glad to see me? Say you are glad to see me?”
“Yes, I am glad,” she whispered.
Outside the door of her rooms, she hesitated.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, faintly,--“wouldn't it be better if you came
to-morrow morning?”
Once more his fingers touched her and again that extraordinary sense of
fear seemed to turn her blood cold.
“No,” he replied, “I have been put off long enough! You must let me in,
you must talk with me for half an hour. I will go then, I promise. Half
an hour! Elizabeth, haven't I waited an eternity for it?”
He took the keys from her fingers and opened the door, closing it again
behind them. She led the way into the sitting-room. The whole place was
in darkness but she turned on the electric light. The cloak slipped from
her shoulders. He took her hands and looked at her.
“Jerry,” she whispered, “you mustn't look at me like that. You terrify
me! Let me go!”
She wrenched herself free with an effort. She stepped back to the corner
of the room, as far as she could get from him. Her heart was beating
fiercely. Somehow or other, neither of these two young men, over whose
lives she had certainly brought to bear a very wonderful influence, had
ever before stirred her pulses like this. What was it, she wondered?
What was the meaning of it? Why didn't he speak? He did nothing but
look, and there were unutterable things in his eyes. Was he angry with
her because she had married Wenham, or was he blaming her because Wenham
had gone? There was passion in his face, but such passion! Desire,
perhaps, but what else? She caught up a telegram which lay upon her
writing desk, and tore it open. It was an escape for a moment. She read
the words, stared, and read them aloud incredulously. It was from her
father.
“Jerry Gardner sailed for New York to-day.”
She looked up at the man, and as she looked her face grew gray and the
thin sheet went quivering from her lifeless fingers to the floor. Then
he began to laugh, and she knew.
“Wenham!” she shrieked. “Wenham!”
There was murder in his face, murder almost in his laugh.
“Your loving husband!” he answered.
She sprang for the door but even as she moved she heard the click of the
bolt shot back. He touched the electric switch and the room was suddenly
in darkness. She heard him coming towards her, she felt his hot breath
upon her cheek.
“My loving wife!” he whispered. “At last!”