“Ah!--Now, what is the last thing you can remember in France? You were
in the trenches, I suppose?”
“No--we had left the trenches behind us. We were fighting in the
forest--I can remember that--a sort of ravine with splintered trees--we
were attacking----” A new note of interest came into his voice, a
satisfaction at recovering these memories. “By George, yes! Of course,
there was a terrific attack on--we were going for the Kriemhild Line.
What happened----?” He hesitated. “I was running forward--the Boche was
shelling like mad----” He seemed to be visualizing a scene, his face
screwed up, his eyes narrowed, his lower lip between his teeth. “I saw
a whole bunch go down--and then----” He stopped.
“And then?”
“A sheet of flame. I--I can’t remember anything more. I--I must have
been hit, I suppose----”
“I see. Now, can you remember what you were wearing just then?”
“I was in shirt and breeches. My tunic had been torn off the day
before--breaking through the undergrowth. I remember that perfectly.”
Satterthwaite nodded.
“And your identity disc?”
“I’d lost that the day before also--I remember thinking I should have
to get a new one.”
Satterthwaite smiled.
“We’re coming to it,” he said, encouragingly. “Now--just before you
came into this flat, where were you?”
“In a street-car. I got off at the corner in the usual way, and let
myself in with my key.”
“You had that key in France, I suppose?”
“Yes, I had it with a few others on a ring in my breeches-pocket. I
kept it for the day I should come back.”
“Quite. Now--before you got into that street-car, where were you? Where
had you been?”
Tremaine hesitated again.
“I can’t for the life of me remember!--I--I sort of woke up in that
street-car, as if I had been to sleep on my way home. I remember
looking out and thinking to myself--of course, that’s where I
am--nearly home. It seemed quite natural.”
Obviously, the man himself was puzzled. There was a short silence, and
then Satterthwaite spoke again.
“And you remember nothing of what you did between the day you attacked
the Kriemhild Line--and finding yourself in the street-car?”
Tremaine frowned in a desperate effort to collect his thoughts.
“No,” he said at last. “It’s an extraordinary thing but my mind seems a
complete blank!”
“Can you remember the date of that attack upon the Kriemhild Line--the
day you saw that sheet of flame go up?”
“October tenth,” came the reply without hesitation.
“What year?”
“1918, of course.”
Satterthwaite smiled.
“Do you know what year this is?”
The other stared at him, a sudden fear in his eyes.
“Not 1919?” he cried. “Don’t say I’ve lost a year?”
“1920!”
“Good God!” He jumped up, gripped in a panic that drove the blood out
of his face, and switched round to his wife. “Evelyn! Where have I
been? Haven’t I been here all this time?”
She took a deep breath.
“I see you to-day for the first time since you sailed in April, 1918,
Harry,” she said, steadily.
He stood swaying on his feet, hand pressed to his brow, through a long
moment of realization. No one spoke. Then he dropped his hand, turned
to his wife again.
“And you?--When----?” he indicated Satterthwaite with a helpless
gesture, “when did this happen?”
She met his eyes bravely.
“I married--Jack--a year ago to-day!” she answered. The effort of her
speech was obvious.
“But you couldn’t!” he exclaimed. “It’s bigamy!”
Satterthwaite went without a word to the escritoire standing in a
corner of the room and took out a paper. He came back with it, handed
it silently to Tremaine. It was an official War Department notification.
Tremaine stared at it.
“My God!” he muttered, appalled.
“You are dead, my friend!” said Satterthwaite, grimly. “Killed in
action, October 10th, 1918.”
Again there was a long silence. Tremaine sank heavily into a chair,
stared straight in front of him. An expression of combativeness came
slowly into his face, his jaw set. At last he uttered an aggressive
grunt.
“Well, I’m not!” he said. “I’m very much alive. So that’s that!
Whatever has happened, I’ve come back! This is my flat--and my wife and
child. And you can clear out just as soon as you like!” His eyes flamed
hostility as they met Satterthwaite’s. “Quit!”
His wife sprang forward.
“Harry!” she cried, imploring she scarcely knew what.
He turned to her.
“I’ll talk to you presently,” he said, in a voice of smouldering
resentment. “I’m not blaming you--but I guess you might have waited a
bit. We’ll square this out by ourselves when he’s gone.”
Satterthwaite smiled, and his smile was by no means acquiescent.
“I guess you’ll have to wait for that, Mr. Tremaine,” he said, in even
tones that had an edge to them. “I’m not going just yet.”
Tremaine glared up at him.
“What?” he cried, incredulously.
“I’m not going,” repeated Satterthwaite. “You don’t realize the
situation, my friend. This woman has been living with me for a year
as my wife. I do not propose to make her name a public scandal.
Officially, you are dead. Well--remain dead!”
Tremaine laughed mockingly.
“And leave you my wife, my child--all this!” He waved his hand round
the flat. “Thank you!”
Satterthwaite shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll buy your property of you at your own valuation. Your will has
been proved. The amount of your estate, plus interest, shall be
refunded to you. I’ll give you, in addition, any reasonable amount as
compensation. You are the victim of circumstances, my friend--but, as a
straight man, there’s only one thing for you to do. You can’t ruin this
woman’s life!”
Both men, following their thought, turned to glance at her. She stood
tense, deathly pale, looking from one to the other, evidently in an
atrocious dilemma, unable to utter a word.
Tremaine swung round again to his rival, sneered scornfully.
“What kind of fool do you take me for? Do you expect me to give up my
wife and child, my home--give up my whole existence and pretend to be
someone else--just to oblige you? You must be mad!--I’ve come back
and here I am--come to stay,” he ended, doggedly, “to pick up my life
again!”
There was a shade of sympathy in Satterthwaite’s eyes as he
contemplated him.
“But can’t you see that it’s impossible to pick it up again where you
left off?” he said. “Can’t you see that as Harry Tremaine you can never
be happy again? You can’t get away from what has happened--it will
always be there, haunting you--and you’ll be reminded of it--pointed
at. The other women will make your wife’s life a hell in the thousand
little subtle ways they have. And besides, _what have you been doing
for the past two years_? You’ve been living somewhere--as somebody.
That existence will always be waiting in the background--ready to
spring out on you--and you can’t guard against it, for you don’t even
know what it was!”
The young woman bent forward.
“Can’t you remember, Harry?--Can’t you think where you’ve been--what
you’ve been doing?” she asked, anxiously. “Oh!” she added, with a
little despairing gesture, “I only want to do what is right--what is
best for all of us!”
Tremaine shook his head.
“I haven’t the remotest idea of where I was at lunchtime to-day!” he
said. “I may have come straight out of hospital, for all I know.”
Satterthwaite nodded, humouring him.
“You may--of course,” he said. “But it’s highly improbable. Two years
is a long time to stay in hospital. Almost certainly you have been
living somewhere, in new relationships. Be reasonable, my friend. Can’t
you see that the only thing is to sell out to me--and clear off, go
right away--start a fresh life?”
Tremaine revolted.
“I’m damned if I do!” he replied. “Right is right--you can’t get
away from it. I’m Harry Tremaine--and I’ve come back to my wife and
child--to my own existence--and I’ve got a right to them!” He rose from
his chair. “Enough of this talk! I’m master of this flat--and I give
you just time enough to pack up your traps. Get a move on!” His voice
quivered with an anger he instinctively accentuated as a protection
against the other man’s arguments. “I want to be alone with my wife!
Get out!” He moved forward menacingly.
Satterthwaite did not stir.
“I think not,” he said, steadily. “Not like that.”
Tremaine’s anger flamed up in him.
“Get out!--or I’ll throw you out!”
Satterthwaite smiled.
“If you wish to fight for her----?” he said, grimly inviting.
With a savage snarl, Tremaine tore off his coat.
His wife sprang forward in terrified appeal.
“Harry!”
He flung her off brutally.
“Stand out of this!” he said. “This is a man’s fight! I’ll deal with
you afterward!”
An atmosphere of primitive passion filled the room. She cowered
away, watching the rivals with fascinated eyes, like a squaw for
whom two braves unsheath their knives. Both were big, powerful men.
Satterthwaite made no movement while Tremaine flung aside his coat and
rolled up his shirt-sleeves--but his eyes were warily alert and his
fists clenched massively at the end of the arms held loosely ready for
sudden action.
With a savage bellow of maddened hatred, Tremaine rushed at him
blindly. Satterthwaite’s right arm jerked up to guard--and like
lightning his left fist shot out from the shoulder, crashed full
between his adversary’s eyes. Tremaine went over backward, arms in the
air, his head striking the table with an impact that shattered glass
and crockery, rolled over to the floor. He lay motionless.
His wife had darted to his side, bent over him.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried, looking up to the victor. “You haven’t killed
him?”
Satterthwaite bent over him also.
“No,” he said. “Get some water!”
She took the jug from the table and Satterthwaite splashed his face.
Tremaine drew a difficult breath, opened his eyes, looked up and around
him, dazed.
“Where am I?” he asked, feebly.
“You’re all right,” said Satterthwaite, bathing away the blood which
trickled down his nose. “Don’t worry.”
Still half-stunned, the stricken man made an abortive, ill-coördinated
effort to rise.
“Here, let me help you,” said Satterthwaite. “Get into this chair.”
He lifted him up, supported him to a big armchair by the fireplace,
deposited him in it.
“Thanks,” said Tremaine, feebly, “--extremely good of you.” He looked
around him with vacant eyes. “Where am I? What happened?--I--I was in a
street-car----”
Satterthwaite shot a swift glance of intelligence to the young woman
who was, after all, his wife as well. She drew near, her breath held at
a sudden possibility, her eyes searching the face of this man who but a
moment before had so uncompromisingly claimed her. Had he----?
“Don’t worry about anything now,” said Satterthwaite, kindly. “You’ll
feel better in a moment.”
His erstwhile adversary smiled up vacantly into his face.
“I’m better now,” he said, passing his hand gropingly across his brow.
Then, as he removed it, he stared stupidly at the blood upon his
fingers. “What happened?” he asked, weakly. “How did I get here? I was
in a street-car--was there an accident?--I remember the street-car----”
“You’ll remember all about it presently,” Satterthwaite assured him,
watching him narrowly with critical eyes.
“I suppose you brought me here,” he continued in his dazed voice. “Very
kind of you--I’m much obliged.” He looked round, perceived the young
woman with the water-jug in her hand, and smiled feebly. “Your wife, I
presume?--I’m very sorry, madam,” he added, politely, “to put you to so
much inconvenience.”
She stared at him for a moment as though suspecting his sincerity, and
then turned away her head, a wild expression in the eyes that sought
Satterthwaite’s face. He signalled back discretion.
“Here’s your coat,” he said, holding it out. “Let me help you on with
it.”
Tremaine gazed at it, obviously puzzled, and then glanced down to his
rolled-back shirt-sleeves.
“Was there a row, then?” he asked, mystified. “A fight?”
“There was a little trouble,” conceded Satterthwaite.
“And you took me out of it, I suppose?” he said, with genuine
gratitude. “I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir--going to this bother
for a complete stranger.”
“Not at all--not at all,” said Satterthwaite, easily. “Here, let me
help you.”
The assistance was accepted. Tremaine rose shakily to his feet, stood
docilely while Satterthwaite guided his arms into the sleeves of his
coat. There was a curiously subtle difference in his expression;
quite another, a gentler, more courteous personality looked out of
those features which were Tremaine’s with a placid smile such as Mrs.
Tremaine had never seen. Close though his head was to Satterthwaite’s,
he evinced not the slightest sign of recognition.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll get along now.”
“Where do you live?” asked Satterthwaite, with a veiled glance at the
young woman.
She held her breath, on this opening threshold of the mystery of the
past two years.
“At the Newport Hotel,” he replied. He took a few steps and then
stopped, his hand pressed to his brow. He turned to Satterthwaite. “I
wonder whether you would mind my sitting here a little longer, sir?” he
asked, apologetically. “I still feel somewhat faint and dizzy.”
“By all means,” replied Satterthwaite. “You are quite welcome to stay
until you are recovered.”
The young woman marvelled at the quiet self-control of his voice. She
felt as though she must shriek to break a nightmare.
“You are very kind,” he said. “I am afraid my wife will be anxious
about me----”
His wife! The young woman choked back a cry. _His wife!_ Then----
“Is it too much to ask if you would telephone to her, sir?” he
continued. “She would come and fetch me.”
“Certainly I will,” replied Satterthwaite, his face an impassive mask.
“My name is Durham--Room 363 at the hotel.”
“Right. Come and sit down in here.” He led the way into the adjoining
drawing-room. “Make yourself comfortable whilst I ring through to Mrs.
Durham.”
He hospitably settled his guest in the most luxurious chair of the
elegantly furnished room, and then went out, closing the door after him.
His wife was awaiting him outside. Her face was white. Her eyes,
preternaturally large, implored him. She clasped her hands tensely
against her breast.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried, her voice nevertheless held too low to be
overheard. “We can’t let him go like that! It is Harry--after all!”
He moved forward, and she followed him to the telephone.
“It is Harry all right,” he agreed. “It’s clear enough what has
happened. He was shell-shocked. The hospital authorities found nothing
on him by which to identify him. No one happened to recognize him.
When he recovered consciousness he thought he was someone else--was,
in fact, someone else. There are half-a-dozen cases on record, to my
knowledge--cases that have nothing to do with the war. Dissociation
of personality is the technical term of it. He just ceases to be
Tremaine--and becomes Durham, with all its implications.”
“But, Jack!” she expostulated. “We _know_ he’s not Durham!”
He shrugged his shoulders as he lifted up the telephone receiver.
“What good will it do to proclaim our knowledge?” he asked. “It insists
merely on double bigamy--smash-up all round!”
“Then----?” she clutched at him. “You’re going to----?”
He turned to answer the challenge of the telephone operator, gave a
number.
“Hallo!--The Newport Hotel--Will you ask Mrs. Durham to come to the
telephone, please?--She’s staying at Room 363--right!--I’ll hold on!”
“Jack! Jack!” His wife implored him. “It’s not right--it _can’t_ be
right!--We must tell her!”
His attention was claimed by the telephone.
“Hallo!--Is that Mrs. Durham?--My name’s Satterthwaite, no, you won’t
recognize it.--Your husband has met with a slight accident--nothing
serious--he’s here and he wants to know if you’ll come round and
fetch him as he feels rather shaky--yes----” he gave the address,
“--yes--ground-floor flat. Very good. We’ll expect you.”
He put up the receiver, turned to his wife with a grim smile.
“Now we shall see what Harry’s other choice is like,” he said.
She was not to be diverted.
“But, Jack--you’ll tell her?--You _must_ tell her!” she implored.
He looked her full in the eyes. His voice was grave.
“Evelyn! Are you tired of our life together? Do you prefer him to me?”
She turned away her head with a hopeless gesture.
“Oh, don’t ask me! Don’t tempt me!--I don’t want to think of myself--I
only want to do what is right! And how can it be right to--to let him
go away like a stranger from all that was his!”
He laid his hands upon her shoulders, forced her gaze to meet his again.
“And is it right, Evelyn, to break your life, to break my life, to
break this woman’s life--to put Harry himself into an impossible
position--out of a quixotic regard for pure ethics?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” she said, shaking her head in mental anguish. “I
only know that he’s Harry--and that we’re disowning him----”
“But he does not know that he is Harry Tremaine--he’s quite content to
be Durham!”
“And if he wakes up again and remembers?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Wait till it happens. We can only deal with the actual situation. At
the present time he’s quite happily Durham!--Now, dear,” he smiled
affection, “trust me! Leave it all to me--just keep quiet!” He kissed
her on the brow. “It will all work out.”
She turned away, shuddering.
“He was my husband,” she said, drearily.
“He _was_!--And your husband was killed in action on October 10th,
1918. The man in the drawing-room is a complete stranger by the name of
Durham.--Now, let us go in to him.”
She resigned herself, with one last protest.
“I don’t like it, Jack! I won’t promise! Right is right!”
“In this case it is wrong! Come!”
He led her back to the drawing-room. Their visitor rose politely from
his chair.
“Don’t get up,” said Satterthwaite. “Your wife is coming along.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “It is very good of you to take so much
trouble. I shall be quite all right when my wife arrives to take charge
of me.” He smiled in half-serious self-depreciation.
The three of them sat down. The Durham personality was amiably
loquacious. The young woman watched him speechlessly, noting, with an
icy chill at her heart, a hundred little familiarities of gesture as he
sat in that old familiar chair all unconscious of any previous presence
in it.
“I’m very muddled still,” he confided. “I can’t remember anything since
being in that street-car. The row, whatever it was, is a complete blank
to me--I can’t imagine even how I got into this street. Extraordinary,
isn’t it?”
“Very,” agreed Satterthwaite, coolly.
“It’s not the first time I’ve had a lapse of memory like this,” he went
on. “A shock does it. I went through the war--and--would you believe
it?--I woke up one day in hospital utterly unable to remember anything
about myself except that my name was Durham! I couldn’t remember
where I came from--nor whether I had any relatives--couldn’t remember
anything except just my name. And--this is the strange part of it--I
never have remembered. They discharged me from hospital--shell-shock
it was--and I just started life afresh.” He smiled confidently at
the young woman. “I sometimes wonder whether I was married before,
madam--but I hope not. I couldn’t part with the wife I’ve got. I
married her eighteen months ago and she’s everything to me. I don’t
think there’s another woman like her in the world! And she feels the
same about me. That’s the right sort of married life, isn’t it?”
He waited for her agreement. Her tongue seemed to be sticking to the
roof of her dry mouth. She could only nod, speechlessly, and try to
smile. Something seemed to be crying out in her: “Harry! Harry!”
Another part of her consciousness prayed desperately for guidance.
Should she--could she--ought she to speak--to break this pathetic
little idyll he sketched for her?
She looked curiously at his clothes. They were cheap and
ill-fitting--frayed at the trouser-ends. So different from the spruce
Harry she had known!
As though something of her thought had communicated itself to him, he
clapped his hand suddenly to his breast-pocket, fished out a wallet,
glanced into it, put it back.
“Whew!” he breathed in deep relief. “I had a nasty turn--thought
perhaps I had lost that in the row. It contains all I own in the
world!” He smiled. “It’s all right, though!” He glanced around him
appreciatively. “But it wouldn’t buy the things you’ve got in this
room, all the same. I admire your taste, if you’ll pardon my saying so,
madam. I’m glad my wife is coming round--I’ll show her the sort of
drawing-room we’re going to have some day, when we’ve made good!”
His cheerful smile was heart-breaking. She felt as though she must jump
up and run across to him, shrieking that it was his--all his! That he
and she had bought it all together, every bit of it. And yet she could
not stir--could only stare at him in a fascination that was dumb.
Satterthwaite sat apparently unmoved, but his jaw was set hard.
“Perhaps you’ll come in for a legacy some day,” he said, casually.
His wife glanced at him, reading his thought. Of course, Jack would not
do anything mean, would compensate him somehow! She was suddenly very
grateful to him. The idea of a future anonymous restitution lightened
her conscience a little.
“It’s not likely!” said their visitor, indifferently. “We have neither
of us any relatives--my wife and I. And I don’t care so long as I’ve
got her. When we get some youngsters we shall be the happiest family
going!” He smiled--and she thought of Dorothy, peacefully asleep in the
other room. She shut out the picture with an effort.
The door-bell rang, and, with an enormous relief, she sprang up to
answer it. Anything to put an end to this torture! For one moment, in
the hall, she hesitated.
“Help me! help me, O God, to do what is right!” she prayed in
dumb agony. And the question came up inexorably before her, vast,
overpowering, not to be solved. Right!--what was right?
She opened the door.
An insignificant-looking little woman of the lower middle-class stood
on the threshold, nervously agitated, her eyes wild with alarm.
“My husband?” she asked, breathlessly. “Mr. Durham?”
“He’s here,” replied Mrs. Satterthwaite, coldly. “This way.”
She led her to the drawing-room and Harry Tremaine’s two wives entered
together, the one beautiful, refined, exquisitely dressed--the other
commonplace, dowdy, the cheaply attired product of a cheap city suburb,
good-hearted vulgarity in every line of her. Mrs. Satterthwaite looked
from the man who had been her husband to the woman who was now his
wife--and her heart turned suddenly to stone.
“Here is Mr. Durham,” she said. With something of a shock,
Satterthwaite admired her consummate ease of manner.
The little woman had rushed forward to her husband.
“Oh, Ed, Ed!” she cried, ignoring Satterthwaite, who stood up politely.
“What is the matter?--You’re not hurt?--Not badly?”
“I’m all right, dear,” he said, embracing her. “I’ll tell you all about
it presently. These kind people took me in and looked after me.”
She turned to them.
“Oh, thank you so much!” she said, effusively. “It _is_ good of
you!--And I don’t know what _would_ have happened if anything serious
had gone wrong with Ed to-night!--You see, we’re sailing for Buenos
Ayres to-morrow! And he’s got such a good post--an agency--and if
anything had prevented his going----”
“Never mind that, my dear,” said Durham, cutting short her loquacity.
“These kind people do not want to go into our private affairs. Come
along. I’ve inconvenienced them enough already.” He held out his hand
to Mrs. Satterthwaite. “Good-bye, madam--and many thanks.”
She looked him in the eyes as she took his hand. They were the eyes of
a stranger.
“Good-bye, Mr. Durham,” she said, and turned away.
Satterthwaite escorted the couple to the door.
“Your hat is here,” he said, as he took it off the clothes-peg where
Tremaine had hung it. “Good-bye.--Good-bye, Mr. Durham.--What boat do
you sail by to-morrow?” The enquiry was in the most casual tone of
courteous interest.
“The _Manhattan_.”
“Pleasant voyage--and good luck to you both!” he said, cheerfully, and
closed the door. He stood for a moment listening to their happy voices
as they went out of the building and then turned to find his wife
standing by his side.