Cynthia had already despatched a little note to Hubert asking him to
visit her at a certain hour that afternoon--hence the certainty with
which she spoke of his visit to her father. After what had passed
between them, she did not think that he would fail to come.
She wanted him at half-past five precisely, because at that hour Madame
had promised to go for a drive in the Park with one of her most
fashionable pupils and her friends, and Cynthia knew that she could then
see him alone. And she was right in thinking that he would come. Just as
the half-hour struck, Hubert knocked at Madame della Scala's door, and
was immediately ushered into a tiny little room on the ground-floor
which was always called "Miss West's parlor," and which contained little
furniture except a piano and table and a couple of chairs. It was here
that Cynthia practised and studied, and sat when she wanted to be alone.
Two or three photographs of the heads of great singers and musicians
were the sole decorations of the walls; a pile of music and some books
lay on the table. The place had a severely business-like air; and yet
its very simplicity and the sombreness of its tints had hitherto always
given Hubert, who knew the room, a sense of pleasure. But he knitted his
brows when he was taken to it on this occasion. It seemed to him that
Cynthia wanted to give her interview with him also a business-like
character. But perhaps, he reflected, it was only that she wanted a
peculiarly confidential talk.
He looked at her a little anxiously when she came in, and was rather
puzzled by her face. She was pale, and she had been crying, for her
eyelids were red; but she gave him a peculiarly sweet and winning smile,
and there was a pleading softness in the lovely eyes under the wet
lashes which melted his heart to her at once, although she offered him
her hand only and would not allow him to kiss her cheek.
"What--not one kiss for me this afternoon? I thought I was forgiven!" he
said reproachfully.
"It is I who want forgiveness," she answered, "for being so bad-tempered
and cross and rude last night."
"Take my forgiveness then," said Hubert almost gaily in his relief at
hearing the sweetness of her voice--"and take it in this form."
He would not be denied; and Cynthia had no heart to struggle. She let
him enfold her in his arms for a moment, and press a dozen kisses on her
lips and cheek; then she drew herself away. He felt the movement;
although he did not let her go.
"My dearest, you do not speak naturally--and you want to get away from
me. What does this mean?"
"I don't know that I exactly want to get away from you," said Cynthia,
smiling; "but I think that perhaps I must."
The smile was a very woeful little affair after all.
"Must! I don't think I shall ever let you go again!"
He tightened his clasp. She looked up into his face with beseeching
eyes.
"Do take away your arm, please, Hubert! I want to talk to you, and I
cannot if it is there."
"Then we will leave it there. I don't think I want to talk, darling. I
am very tired--I think I must have walked miles last night before I came
back to this door to hand my lady out of her carriage, and I want to be
petted and spoken to kindly."
Cynthia's fingers twitched and she turned her head aside, but not before
Hubert had noticed the peculiar expression that crossed her face. Being
a play-writer and constant theatre-goer, his mind was full of theatrical
reminiscences. He remembered at that moment to have noticed that
peculiar twitch, that odd expression of countenance, in Sarah Bernhardt
when she was acting the part of a profoundly jealous woman. It had then
meant, "Go to my rival, to her whom you love, and be comforted--do not
come to me!" But there was no likeness between the great tragic actress
and Cynthia West either of character or of circumstance; and Cynthia had
no cause to be jealous. But he thought of the momentary impression
afterwards.
She turned her face back again with as sweet a smile as ever.
"You think you must always have your own way; but I want to be
considered too. I have something to tell you, and I shall not be happy
until it is said. If you are tired, you shall sit down in this chair--it
is much more comfortable than it looks--and have some tea, and then we
can talk. But Madame may be in by half-past six, and I want to get it
all over before she comes."
"'Getting it all over' sounds as if something disagreeable were to
follow!" said Hubert, releasing her and taking the chair she proffered.
"No tea, thank you; I had some at my club before I came. Now what is it,
dear? But sit down; I can't sit, you know, if you stand."
"I must stand," said Cynthia, with a touch of imperiousness. "I am the
criminal, and you are the judge. The criminal always stands."
"It is a very innocent criminal and a very unworthy judge in this
instance. 'Sit, Jessica.'"
She laughed and drew a chair forward. Sitting down, he saw that her
figure fell at once into a weary, languid attitude, and that the smile
faded suddenly from her face. He put his hand on hers.
"What is it, my dearest?" he said, seriously this time.
She raised her eyes, and they were full of tears.
"It is of no use trying to speak lightly about it," she said. "I may as
well tell you that it is a very important matter, Hubert. I sent for you
to-day to tell you that we must part."
"Nonsense, Cynthia!"
"We must indeed! The worst is that we might have avoided all this
trouble--this misery--if I had been candid and open with you from the
first. If I had told you all about myself, you would perhaps never have
helped me--or at least--for I won't say that exactly--you would have
helped me from a distance, and never cared to see me or speak to me at
all."
"Of course you know that you are talking riddles, Cynthia."
"Yes, I know. But you will understand in a minute or two. I only want to
say, first, that I had no idea who--who you were."
"Who I am, dear? Myself, Hubert Lepel, and nobody else."
"And cousin"--she brought the words out with difficulty--"cousin to the
Vanes of Beechfield."
"Well, what objection have you to the Vanes of Beechfield?"
"They have the right to object to me; and so have you. Do you remember
the evening when I spoke to you in the street outside the theatre? Did
it never cross your mind that you had seen and spoken to me before? You
asked me once if I knew a girl called Jane Wood. Now don't you remember
me? Now don't you know my name?"
Hubert had risen to his feet. His face was ghastly pale; but there was a
horror in it which even Cynthia could not interpret aright.
"You--you, Jane Wood!" he gasped. "Don't trifle with me, Cynthia! You
are Cynthia West!"
"Cynthia Janet Westwood, known at St. Elizabeth's as Janie Wood."
"You--you are Westwood's child?"
She silently bowed her head.
"Oh, Cynthia, Cynthia, if you had but told me before!"
He sank down into his chair again, burying his face in his hands with
his elbows on his knees. There was a look of self-abasement, of shame
and sorrow in his attitude inexplicable to Cynthia. Finding that he did
not speak, she took up her tale again in low, uneven tones.
"I knew that I ought to tell you. I said that I would tell you
everything before--before we were married, if ever it came to that. I
ought to have done so at once; but it was so difficult. They had changed
my name when I went to school so that nobody should know; they told me
that it would be a disgrace to have it known. I ran away from St.
Elizabeth's because I had been fool enough to let it out. I could not
face the girls when they knew that--that my father was called a
murderer."
Hubert drew his breath hard. She tried to answer what she thought was
the meaning of that strange sound, half moan, half sigh.
"I never called him so," she said. "You will not believe it, of course;
but I know that my father would never have done the deed that you
attribute to him. He was kind, good, tender-hearted, although he lived
in rebellion against some of the ordinary laws of society. There was
nothing base or mean about him. If he had killed a man, he would not
have told lies about it; he would have said that he had done it and
borne the punishment. He was a brave man; he was not a murderer."
Still Hubert did not answer. He dared not let her see his face; she must
not know the torture her words inflicted on him. She went on.
"Lately I have thought that it would be better for me to face the whole
thing out, and not act as if I were ashamed of my father, who is no
murderer, but a martyr and an innocent man. I took my first step last
night by telling your aunt Miss Vane that 'West' was only an assumed
name. I had never said that before. Do you remember how she looked at
me--how she hated me--when we stood outside the gates of Beechfield Park
that afternoon? The sight of me made her ill; and, if she knew me by my
right name, it would make her ill again. If I had known that you were
their cousin, I would never have let you see my face!"
"Cynthia, have a little mercy!" cried Hubert, suddenly starting up, and
dashing his hair back from his discolored, distorted face. "Do you think
I am such a brute? What does it matter to me about your father? Was I so
unkind, so cruel to you when you were a child that you cannot trust me
now?"
"No," she said, looking at him gently, but with a sort of aloofness
which he had never seen in her before; "you were very good to me then.
You saved me from the workhouse; you would not even let me go to the
charity-school that Mrs. Rumbold recommended. You told me to be a good
girl, and said that some day I should see my father again." She put her
hand to her throat, as if choked by some hysteric symptom, but at once
controlled herself and went on. "I see it all now. It was through you, I
suppose, that I was sent to St. Elizabeth's, where I was made into
something like a civilised being. It was you to whom they applied as to
whether I should be removed from the lower to the upper school; and
you--out of your charity to the murderer's daughter--you paid for me
forty pounds a year. I did not know that I had so much to be grateful
for to you. I have taken gifts from you since, not knowing; but this is
the last of it--I will never take another now!"
"Are you so proud, Cynthia, that you cannot bear me to have helped you a
little? My love, I did not know, I never guessed that you were
Westwood's daughter. But can you never forgive me for having done my
best for you. Do you think I love you one whit the less?"
"Oh, I see--you think that I am ungenerous," cried Cynthia, "and that it
is my pride which stands in your way! Well, so it is--this kind of
pride--that I will not accept gifts from those who believe my father to
be a guilty man when I believe in his innocence. They did well never to
tell me who was my benefactor--for whom I was taught to pray when I was
at St. Elizabeth's. If I had known, the place would not have held me for
a day when I was old enough to understand! At first I was too ignorant,
too much stupefied by the whole thing to understand that the Vanes were
keeping me at school and supporting me. It is horrible--it is
sickening--to send my father to prison, to the gallows, and his child to
school! Much better have let me go to the workhouse! Do you think I wish
to be indebted to people who think my father a murderer?"
"You mistake!" said Hubert quickly. "The Vanes knew nothing about it. If
Mrs. Rumbold ever said so, it was my fault. I did not like her to think
that I was doing it alone. And, as for me, Cynthia, I never thought your
father guilty--never!"
He trembled beneath the burning gaze she turned on him, and his color
changed from white to red, and then to white again. He felt as if he had
been guilty of the meanest subterfuge of his whole life.
"You never thought so?" she said, with a terrible gasp. "Then who was
guilty? Who did that murder, Hubert? Do--you--know?"
She could not say, "Was your sister guilty, and are you shielding her?"
He looked at her helplessly. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth;
he could not speak. With a bitter cry she fell upon her knees before him
and seized his hands.
"You know--you know! Oh, Hubert, clear my father's name! Never mind whom
you sacrifice! Let the punishment fall on the head of the wrong-doer not
on my dear, dear father's! I will forgive you for having been silent so
long, if now you will only speak. I will love you always, I will give
you my life, if you will but let the truth be known!"
He gathered his forces together by an almost superhuman effort, and
managed to speak at last; but the sweat stood in great drops on his
brow.
"Cynthia, don't--don't speak so, for God's sake! I know nothing, I have
nothing to say!"
Clinging to his knees, she looked up at him, her eyes full of
supplication.
"Is the cost too great?" she cried. "Will you not tell the truth for my
sake--for Cynthia's sake?"
Scarcely knowing what he did, he pushed back his chair, and wrenched
himself free from her entreating hands.
"I cannot bear this, Cynthia! If I could---- But it is of no use; I have
nothing--nothing to tell."
He had moved away from her; but he came back when he saw that she had
fallen forward with her face on the chair where he had been sitting. He
leaned over her. At first he thought that she had fainted; but presently
the movement of her shoulders showed him that she was but vainly
endeavoring to suppress a burst of agonising sobs.
"Cynthia," he said, "believe in my love, darling! If you believe in
nothing else, you may be sure of that."
He laid his hand gently round her neck, and, finding that she did not
repulse him, knelt beside her and tried to draw her to his breast. For a
few minutes she let her head rest on his shoulder, and clung to him as
if she could not let him go. When she grew calmer, he began to whisper
tender words into her ear.
"Cynthia, I will give up all the world for your dear sake! Let us go
away from England together, and live only for each other, darling! We
could be happy somewhere, away from the toil and strife of London, could
we not? I love you only, dearest--only you! If you like, we would go to
America and see whether we could not find your poor father, who, I have
heard, is living there; and we could cheer his last days together. Will
you not make me happy in this way, Cynthia? Be my wife, and let us
forget all the world beside."
She shook her head. She had wept so violently that at first she could
not speak.
"Why do you shake your head? You do not doubt my love? My darling, I
count the world well lost for you. Do not distrust me again! Do you
think I mind what the world says, or what my relatives say? You are
Cynthia and my love to me, and whose daughter you are matters
nothing--nothing at all!"
"But it matters to me," she whispered brokenly--"and I cannot consent."
"Dearest, don't say that! You must consent! Your only chance of
happiness lies with me, and mine with you."
"But you have promised yourself," she murmured, "to Enid Vane."
"Conditionally; and I am certain--certain that she does not care for
me."
"I am not certain," she whispered.
Then there was a little pause; during which he felt that she was bracing
herself to say something which was hard for her to say.
"I have made up my mind," she said at length, "to take nothing away from
Enid Vane that is dear to her. Do you remember how she pleaded with you
for me? Do you remember how good she was--how kind? She gave me her
shilling because I had had no food that day. I never spent it--I have
that shilling still. I have worn it ever since, as a sort of talisman
against evil." She felt in her bosom and brought out the coin attached
by a little string around her neck. "It has been my greatest treasure! I
have had so few treasures in my life. And do you think I am going to be
ungrateful? If it broke my heart to give you up, I would not hesitate
one moment, when I had reason to think that you were plighted to Enid
Vane."
She drew herself away from him as she spoke, and rose to her full
height. Hubert stood before her, his eyes on the floor, his lips white
and tremulous. What could he say? He had nothing but his love to
plead--and his love looked a poor and common thing beside that purity of
motive, that height of purpose, that intensity of noble passion which at
that moment made Cynthia's face beautiful indeed.
"I will see you no more," she said. "You must go back to Enid Vane, and
you must make her happy. For me, I have another work to do. In my own
way I--I shall be happy too. There is a double barrier between us, and
we must never meet again."
"Is it a barrier that can never be broken down, Cynthia?"
"No," she said--"not unless my father is shown to be innocent to the
world and the stain removed from his name--not unless we are sure--sure
that Enid Vane has no affection for you save that of a cousin and a
friend. And those things are impossibilities; so we must say good-bye."
It seemed as if he had not understood her words. He muttered something,
and clutched at the table behind him as if to keep himself from falling.
"Impossibilities indeed!" he said hoarsely, after a moment's pause.
"Good-bye, Cynthia!"
Struck with pity for his haggard face and hollow eyes, Cynthia came up
to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed his cheek.
"I was mad just now! I said more than I think I meant, Hubert. Forgive
me before you go; but never come here again."
Their eyes met, and then some instinct prompted her to whisper very
low--"Could you not, even now, save my father if you tried?"
Surely his good angel pleaded with him in Cynthia's guise, and, looking
into her face, he answered as he had never thought to answer in this
world--
"Yes, Cynthia; if I took his place, I could."