The hansom drove swiftly along through the muddy streets. Victor sat
silently by his companion. His nature was strung up to its fullest
tension. First had come the exasperating blow--the discovery that his
jealous surmise had been right--the wife he called wife because of those
few words spoken in a registrar's office, alone, loved another
man--perhaps was even secretly his. Then had come the surprise of
Vera's beauty--grace--talent--and the conviction of her great passion
for himself.
"I will secure her," he grimly told himself. "I must tell
her--something! To know there is 'another woman' will make her
irrevocably my own." It was thus he correctly or incorrectly judged
womankind.
Vera leant back in the corner of the cab, and gazed--rapt, if
anxious--at his dark, handsome profile, visible now and again in the
moonlight which flashed white radiance upon the puddles and silvered the
wet slates of the roofs. Did he love her? Could he care for her? She
was ready to follow him like a little dog through the world--if
necessary, through disgrace unto death. For, as her sex will do, while
she had worshipped him as her hero, she had acknowledged that he could
err. When he had been "wanted" by the police she knew that he was "in
trouble," if through folly rather than ill-doing; and while he had left
his broken-down mother without a hint as to his fate, owing her the
money she had borrowed that he might not starve while in hiding, it was
Vera who had kept a roof over her widowed step-mother's head--who had
toiled and slaved for the lodgers all day, and danced and "walked on" at
the theatre all night. Yes--unconsciously she avowed that her idol had
feet of clay. But as she sat at his side, the blood raced madly through
her veins--her heart beat so strongly against her chest that she could
hardly breathe--she had to clench her hands so that they should not
clasp his arm--bite her lips lest they should play her false in furtive
kisses of the shoulder so tantalizingly near hers.
"I am a fool perhaps," she bitterly mused: "But--he is so splendid--so
delightful!" She gave an involuntary sob--it was so terribly, cruelly
convincing that her passion was unreciprocated, that while she was
trembling and palpitating with emotion he should sit gloomily gazing out
into the darkness with arms folded like Napoleon at St. Helena.
He heard it.
"You little darling, what is the matter?" he suddenly said--then his
arms closed about her, she was clasped to his breast, her cold lips were
warmed into life by a long, close kiss; and there she lay, in an earthly
heaven, until they crossed a bridge over the Thames, now a fairy river
like quivering, molten silver in the moonlight, flowing between mystic
palaces whose windows glowed red in the shadowy facades, and the cab
halted at the end of the street.
On his sudden and unexpected return, he had occupied the rooms vacated
by a lodger called away to his mother's deathbed in Wales, in the house
which was really Vera's, for she paid the rent, but which his mother
literally lived by. All the rooms except a parlour and attic she let to
students of the huge hospital in the neighbouring thoroughfare.
The windows of the little house all glittered white save one--that of
the "front parlour."
"Mother is still up," said Vera disappointedly--to cool down and behave
as a sister after that kiss was a terrible prospect! But let into the
silent house by Victor's latch-key, they found the little parlour silent
also, and empty, although one burner of the gasalier above the little
dining table neatly laid for supper was alight.
On the table was a slip of paper: "Excuse me, I am so tired--Mother,"
was written on it.
Vera trembled a little. "Come, Victor, you must have some supper," she
said coaxingly.
"Presently," he said, looking her over with a proprietary glance. "Take
off that cloak! Wait, I will do it for you."
He went to her. As he unfastened the clasp of the old evening cloak she
felt his touch upon her throat--it seemed to make her weak, almost
faint. Then he flung it aside--it fell on the floor--and seating
himself on the horsehair sofa he drew her down upon his knee.
"You are all mine! Do you understand?" he imperiously said; and his
dark eyes had a sinister, commanding expression as they gazed into hers
which frightened her a little, in spite of her unbounded faith and
adoration. "All mine! I could take you--or leave you--as I please!
You acknowledge it?"
She nodded. To know he cared enough to make love to her overcame any
poor scraps of pride that fluttered idly in the wild gale of her passion
for him.
"Yes," she murmured humbly.
"Kiss me, then--let me feel there is one woman in the world worth the
taking!" he said, with scathing irony. At that moment he told himself
scornfully that they might all be everlastingly banished to Sheol except
this one, and he would not turn a hair. He could look coolly over the
edge of space and watch their torments with less compunction than he had
felt gazing at the disembowelled horses in a Spanish bull-fight.
She threw her arms about his neck, and gazed adoringly into his eyes,
before she fell yieldingly into his embrace and allowed him to kiss her
again and again.
"Oh, I love you, I love you!" she murmured in her ecstasy. Unlike poor
Joan, she had no burdened conscience dragging her back from the
reciprocation of her lover's passion.
"You do, do you?" he asked suddenly, with one of his swift changes of
mood, loosing her, and rising to his feet, taking out his cigarette
case. "Suppose I were to test you, eh? Frankly, I don't believe in one
of your sex!" He gave a sneering laugh, as he struck a match, and,
lighting a cigarette stuck it between his lips. "Little wonder,
considering that the old gentleman below sent one of his hags to work my
downfall! Surely you--a woman--guessed that a woman was at the bottom of
all--my--trouble?"
During that silent drive in the cab he had resolved what complexion he
would put upon "that wretched business," as he termed his defalcations
and consequent flight: in other words, what lies he would tell this
trusting, devoted girl.
"W--What?" she stammered--turning deadly white and gazing at him as if
in those words she had heard her death-sentence.
"The old game! A woman pursuing a man," he said, with scornful irony.
Why would these women be so terribly tragic? It spoilt sport so
abominably! "Don't be jealous! I called her a hag--and she was one! I
won't tell you who she was--it wouldn't be fair. But she made a dead
set at me--and I kept her at bay until my good nature let me into one of
those beastly traps good-natured fellows fall into. I backed a bill for
a chum, and he played me false, and left me to pay up. I borrowed money
from the business, and then the governor suddenly came down upon me for
it. I had to take her money and her with it. Nothing would do but I
must marry her! Well, I did, and before I had had time to replace the
sum I had borrowed, the governor stole a march on me, and found it out!
I begged her to settle matters, but she refused! So there was nothing
to do but to bolt--and remain away--live with the old cat I would not!
What is the matter? She is less than nothing to me--more, I hate,
loathe, and despise her!"
She had sunk back with a groan and covered her face with her hands. He
seated himself and drew her passionately to him.
"Come, come, there is no harm done! I mean to have you, d'ye hear? And
soon! And as my wife! What else do you think? I heard to-night there is
a man in the case. I mean to be free, with a capital to make merry on
for the rest of our lives! I've only to play my cards properly, and
you've only to keep _mum_. Can you, do you think? Can you keep
everything I do and say to yourself, and help me a bit now and then? If
you can, you'll be my wife! If you can't, you won't. That's flat."
"You know what I think of you!" she moaned, gazing piteously at him.
"You know you are the whole world to me--that I would be tortured and
killed rather than betray you!"
"What is there to groan about, then?" he cried impatiently, springing
up. "Upon my word, you are enough to rile a man into chucking you, that
you are!"
"What is there to groan about?" she repeated bitterly. "What a question
to ask--when you tell me--you are married--when there is a woman alive
who has the right to call--you--husband!"
"Not for long, make your mind easy about that!" he grimly remarked. He
had made an unalterable resolve that in some way or another this girl
should atone to him for Joan's shortcomings--yet should herself benefit
to Joan's loss: and he set himself to such a lengthened course of
cajolery and fascination of his admirer then and there, that the veils
of night were shifting and lifting, furtive nightbirds crept from their
lairs and fled along the streets as if scared by the dawn--and the light
still glowed in that window of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street.