Lady Jean is right. Keith Athelstone has _not_ left England. His
passage was taken, all his preparations made, and then the very day
before he was to sail he found himself laid prostrate by brain fever.
He was taken ill in Liverpool, and his servant, being one of that
rare class who can give faithful attendance, nursed him devotedly.
For weeks he lay hovering between life and death, the strength and
vigour of the body fighting against the ravages of mental suffering,
and the long, painful strain on brain and heart against which he had
so long struggled. In his delirious frenzy his whole cry was for
Lauraine. It was pitiful to see that strong young manhood bowed down
to a child's weakness. As dependent as an infant on the hired
services which his wealth procured, but which was so different to the
tender ministry of love and friendship.
The discreet valet at times felt inclined to send to Lady Vavasour,
and acquaint her with his young master's danger; but prudence
withheld him. He knew she was married, and he feared to draw down
his master's anger by officious interference.
At last the doctors gave hope, and Keith struggled back by slow
degrees into convalescence, and saw his life given back to his own
keeping once more--life dull of hue and sad enough, with all its
gladness and colour painted out by the ruthless hand of
disappointment--life for which he was in no way glad or grateful to
the mercy that had spared it; but still, life that he had to accept
and take up, with all its tangled threads and broken hopes.
In the long, dreary days of convalescence he thought of Lauraine as
he had never thought of her yet--for a wide gulf seemed to stretch
between them now. He saw the headlong and undisciplined passion of
his love for her in its true colours--saw to what lengths it would
have gone, to what ruin it would have dragged her, and a sense of
shame and self-reproach filled his heart.
Some such thoughts as these came to Keith now as he lay stretched on
his couch during these dark winter days. He felt weak enough to have
uttered any prayer just for Lauraine's presence, just to see the pity
in her eyes, to hear the thrill in her voice as she would look at his
changed face, and speak her gentle compassion. At times like these
the slow hot tears of weakness would creep into his eyes until he was
fain to turn his head away from his attendant's gaze, and make
pretence of sleep in order to have freedom to indulge his grief at
leisure.
"I must never see her again, never, unless I have grown dull and
cold, and can greet her as a stranger," he thinks to himself. "How
strange that I should love her so. I wonder will I ever be cured, or
will this be the 'one passion of my life,' going down to my grave
with me even as it has filled all my days and hours? Somehow, I
think it will. I find it so hard to forget anything concerning her.
Forget! Why there is not a look in her eyes, a word from her lips,
not a dress or a flower she has worn that I can forget; not a summer
day or a spring morning, not a season in the year that is not full of
some memory of her. Oh, my love, my love, and to think that you can
be nothing to me--nothing!
"Shall I ever be old, I wonder?--and then shall I have ceased to
care? Out of all the world of women will there be only one for whom
my heart will beat, my pulses thrill, my whole soul long and love? I
have tried to love other women--I have told them I love them; but I
don't think for one moment I deceived myself, or them. Men say the
sins and follies of youth come back to smite us as scourges in the
after years; but I suppose my love has kept me pure in a way, and
will do so. It was never sin to me till her own act made it so, for
she seemed always mine in my thoughts and dreams, and I alone seemed
to have the right to her. But now--well, she was wiser than I when
she bade me leave her. This last year has only made us both more
wretched. And she is not happy--my darling! Ah, when she loved me
there was not that sad look in her eyes, and that brute is not even
faithful. But of that she knows nothing, and, bad as I am, I
wouldn't tell her so. Let her keep her faith unshaken, and live her
life of duty. Why should I make it harder than it is? .... Every
year now will take her further and further from me, and yet I know
she loves me. I wonder what held me back when I bade her farewell?
I could have taught her forgetfulness then, if never before; and
yet--and yet, thank God, I did not. I think to see her eyes reproach
me would be worse than this; I should feel inclined to kill myself
and--her. Oh, God! what fools men can be for a woman's sake!"
Some one comes softly into the room; it is Andrews the careful and
attentive. He brings a letter in his hand, and lays it down on the
table by his young master's side. Keith turns towards him, and holds
out a thin transparent hand for the missive. He tears open the
envelope, and as he looks at the address a flush of colour steals
over his face.
"Falcon's Chase, Brockfield,
"Northumberland.
"MY DEAR ATHELSTONE,
"We have only just heard of your illness, and are much concerned
about it, more especially as you are alone at an hotel, and must be
dependent on quite alien services. As soon as ever your health
permits, will you come to us here, and let us try to nurse you back
to health once more? As the weather is so unusually mild, I do not
think you will find the air of Northumberland too bracing. Lauraine,
of course, joins with me in this invitation. In fact, we can't hear
of a refusal. I will meet you in London, and come down with you as
soon as ever your physicians give you permission for the journey.
With my kindest regards, and sympathy from all mutual friends here,
"Believe me, very sincerely yours,
"FRANCIS S. VAVASOUR."
Keith reads the letter steadily through to the end, and his face
grows white as the paper as he so reads it. But a new, stern look
comes into his eyes, and his lips close tight under their thick
moustache.
"What does it mean?" he thinks, as he reads the subtle tempting.
"Can Lauraine _really_ have had any hand in this? I don't believe
it. No; I will not go. The snare is too plainly set." And before
he can have time to alter his mind he asks for pen and ink, and
dashes off a firm but courteous refusal on the plea of his physicians
ordering him to a warm climate.
"She shall never have to reproach me again if I can help it," he says
to himself, as exhausted with even this small exertion, he sinks back
on his pillows. "She called me selfish once. Will she do so
now?--now, when for her sake----"
There is only a very small house party at Falcon's Chase when Keith
Athelstone's letter arrives, and the master of the house reads it
with a clouded brow. He has insisted upon his wife's asking Lady
Jean down, and, despite her recent bereavement, the Lady Jean accepts
the invitation. She is very subdued, very mournful, lives a great
deal in her own rooms, and altogether affords a very unobtrusive
spectacle of chastened sorrow. She is more than ever gracious to her
hostess, and dignified to her host, and even Lady Etwynde's observant
eyes can see nothing in any way suspicious.
On the morning that Keith's letter arrives Lady Jean is not at the
breakfast-table and Sir Francis is impatient to tell her the news--so
impatient in fact, that for once he forgets the prudence she has so
strictly enjoined, and sends her a note by her maid asking her to
come into the small study adjoining the library as soon as she can.
Lady Jean is annoyed at his imprudence, and in no way hurries herself
to suit his wishes. When she at last enters the study she finds Sir
Francis fuming at being kept waiting, and decidedly unamiable.
"Well, what is it?" she asks.
He hands her Keith's letter, and she reads it through. Her brows
cloud; she throws it aside impatiently.
"The young fool!" she mutters.
On entering the smaller room she has drawn the door after her, but
not quite closed it. The velvet curtains sweep down, and no one from
the library can see them, but the sound of their voices is audible.
It happens that Lauraine enters the outer room for a book, and is
just taking it down from the case when the sound of her own name,
uttered by Lady Jean's voice, strikes sharply on her ear.
"Does Lauraine know?"
"No," answers her husband's voice. "As you advised, I said nothing
about it. Had Athelstone accepted, I would have told her that I had
heard of his dangerous illness, and asked him here to set him up
again."
"How excessively provoking!" continues Lady Jean. "Depend on it,
Frank, this is a blind. Either Keith suspects we know of his love
for your wife, or she has been beforehand."
"My dear Jean!" exclaims Sir Francis.
Lauraine waits to hear no more. Astonishment has kept her
spellbound. Now she turns from the room with a sickening, horrible
sense of shame in her heart, with the blood dyeing her white face,
with all the dignity and pride of womanhood stung and outraged by
this unexpected discovery. Her husband and Lady Jean are cognizant
of Keith's mad passion for herself, have actually plotted to bring
him under her roof, to throw them together once again. For what
purpose?
Like a lightning flash the whole terrible truth seems to burst upon
her. Suspicions, hints, all take new shape by the light of this new
discovery--her husband's long friendship for Lady Jean, his
indifference to herself. But that he could have stooped so low as to
plan his wife's dishonour for the sake of his own freedom---- It
seems to her almost incredible.
The whole pitfall opened for her feet now confronts her fully and
clearly. If Keith had accepted, if he had come here--she unconscious
of the invitation, and unable to oppose it once so accepted--what
then?
"Oh, my darling," she half sobs, "thank God you were brave and true
to your better self! They may suspect our love, but, as there is a
Heaven above, they shall never shame it to their own baseness!"
She kneels by her bed in an agony of weeping. Fear, shame, rage,
disgust, sweep over her by turns. She sees the whole plot, and her
own long blindness, and yet she knows she is powerless to resent
either! If her husband accuses her of loving Keith she cannot deny
it, and to explain to a mind so coarse and base the struggle and the
sufferings that love has cost her, would only bring down ridicule and
win her no belief.
She feels quite helpless. Her enemy knows her secret, and her evil
mind will colour it and send it flying abroad, and she is powerless
to resent, or to deny.
A loathing, a horror of herself--of them--comes upon her. It seems
to her scarcely possible that they could have sunk so low, could have
plotted anything so evil. And then bitter thoughts come into her
mind. Of what use to try and do right, to struggle, and sacrifice as
she has done? Duty has brought to her only added shame, only a
crueller trial!
There is but one grain of comfort to her now in all her sorrow. It
is that Keith has been brave and true to his word, that for _her_
sake he has forfeited self for once.
"Had he listened, had he come, he would have been a coward," she says
to herself, and then the thought of his danger, his weakness, comes
over her, and she weeps wildly and passionately in her loneliness.
She dares say no word of sympathy, dares show no sign; she, too, must
appear cold, unmoved, uncaring.
"Oh, dear Heaven!" she prays in her sorrow and her pain. "Where will
it end--where will it end? Will my strength endure for my life?"
She had never felt so helpless, so desperate as now.
She could not think of any course of action to pursue, and yet she
knew she could not overlook this outrage to herself. That she should
have under her roof as guest a woman whose position with her own
husband she could no longer doubt, was impossible. All her pride
rose in arms against such a possibility, and yet beyond all things
she dreaded to explain to Sir Francis her reasons, and hear his
hateful taunts and sneers against herself.
"And I am not blameless," she moans, pressing her hands against her
hot and throbbing temples. "What can I say for myself?" As she
kneels there, a knock comes at her door. She rises hurriedly, and
opens it, and confronts--her husband.
He comes in. He does not look at her.
"Lauraine," he begins, "I just wanted to say a word to you. I have
heard some bad news of young Athelstone I wanted to tell you. He has
been dangerously ill--is lying alone and friendless at an hotel in
Liverpool. I wish you would write and ask him to come here as soon
as he can travel--it seems such a sad thing, you know."
He stops abruptly. He has repeated his lesson, and feels a little
uncomfortable.
Lauraine lifts her head very proudly. Her voice, as she speaks, goes
through him like the touch of ice.
"Has Lady Jean counselled you to say all this? Her anxiety
and--yours, for Mr. Athelstone are really most praiseworthy. All the
same, you have had _his_ answer to your disinterested invitation. It
is scarcely necessary for me to repeat it, even if I wished."
He looks at her with a dark flush mounting to his brow, but flinches
beneath the steady challenge of her eyes.
"What do you mean?" he demands hoarsely.
"I was in the library half-an-hour ago," says Lauraine calmly. "Only
for a moment--do not fancy I stooped to intentional eaves-dropping.
I think it is for you to say whether Lady Jean Salomans--or I--leave
your house immediately."