A white face, drawn and set into a look which pitifully travestied
the calmness of despair; bloodshot eyes with something in them of the
incomprehending agony of a hunted animal; quivering lips which would not
take the rigid line at which they aimed, and from which seemed to radiate
an indescribable suggestion of youthfulness, which made the bewildered
desperation of the face infinitely piteous. Two hours had passed, and
Julian was seated at his writing-table in his room at the Temple. He held
a pen in his hand, and before him lay a sheet of paper bearing three
words only, “My dear Clemence.” On the table behind him lay a roughly
packed travelling-bag and a “Bradshaw.”
Flight, instant flight, was the one course that had occurred to him.
Such a necessity had been present to him from the first, and in the
almost insane terror which had mastered him on finding himself deserted
by Ramsay, thoughts which had lain dormant in his mind during the last
ten days had taken shape almost without volition on his part, and he had
made his plans with wild haste. He knew nothing, he thought of nothing
but that he must go at once, that at any moment he might find himself
stopped, at any moment it might be too late!
No thought of that last refuge of the detected criminal, suicide,
presented itself to him. The realities of life were as yet strange to
him; wrenched from his moorings, tossed away to drift on the pitiless
sea, he could not realise what was the depth of that sea, how futile must
be his struggles to keep himself afloat. The reality of death had never
touched his superficial nature.
He made his preparations with the promptitude of desperation, and as
each detail was despatched, one deed that must be done began to prick
into his consciousness. Some word must be sent to Clemence. With this
necessity he found himself at last confronted with no further possibility
of postponement.
But no words would come to him. Little as he understood it, all the
bewildered misery of his heart was what he wanted to convey to her; all
the incoherent horror which was tossing him to and fro. What words were
possible where there was no reason, only blind, agonised feeling? There
was one aspect of his shipwreck now in which it appeared only as the end
and consummation of his ten weeks of silence towards Clemence; those ten
weeks in which he saw, now, only cruelty and futility where he had seen
before wisdom and necessity. His failure, his ruin, had a side on which
they touched him only in his connection with her; it became the failure
to keep the promise he had made her when he saw her last; the ruin of
his vision of a life with her. He sat there, staring stupidly at the
paper, and gradually all thoughts slipped away from him but the thought
of Clemence herself. A hunger, such as his selfish young heart had never
known, rose in him for her presence, her pity. His misery turned to
her, stretching forth empty, despairing hands, until the sick longing
dominated his whole consciousness.
Then out of the aching yearning there came to him suddenly a recollection
of the letter he had received ten days before; the letter which he had
thrust into a drawer, in his blind, foolhardy determination, unopened.
The end on which he had set himself to wait had vanished for ever.
Everything by which he had held was overturned and submerged. But the
letter was there still. The letter had come from Clemence.
He unlocked with trembling eagerness the drawer in which he had placed
it, drew out the envelope and tore it open. That it could bring no
comfort to him, that there could, indeed, be only aggravation of his
wretchedness in it, was as nothing to him. It was to touch Clemence that
he wanted; Clemence, and Clemence only was the cry of his whole being.
The letter was very short, a few lines only. He ran his eyes over it
with hungry avidity, and then they seemed to stop suddenly, and all the
quivering life seemed to freeze on his features. A moment passed and a
great, dry sob broke from him; he dashed his head down upon the table
with a bitter boyish cry:
“Clemmie! Clemmie!”
Simple, beautiful with that wonderful new tenderness which comes to
a woman with the consummation of her womanhood, pathetic in their
gentleness beyond all words, the few brief lines brought him from
Clemence the most sacred tidings that can pass between husband and wife,
tidings of the birth of their child.
“Clemmie!”
The word broke from him again, a pitiful, despairing sob, and then he lay
there, long, dry sobs shaking him from head to foot as that bitterest of
all waves, the unavailing realisation of what might have been contrasted
with what is, swept over him and overwhelmed him. The reality, touched
into life by her letter as though Clemence’s voice had spoken to him,
which he had thrown away; the reality on which, in doing so, he had
hurled himself; stood out before him in pitiless distinctness; and in
his ignorance and blindness, in his utter want of comprehension of the
moral aspect of his acts and the stern justice of the retribution he was
meeting, there was no light or cohesion for him anywhere in the world,
and darkness and chaos had closed about him.
Nearly an hour passed before he moved, and lifted a white, haggard face,
marred with the agony of impotent regret. He looked about him vaguely,
pushing his hair back heavily from his forehead, and as his eye fell upon
the travelling-bag that instinctive sense of the necessity upon him,
which had stirred him with no consciousness on his part, deepened into a
mechanically active impulse. He must go. He paused a moment, and then he
drew out a fresh sheet of paper.
“Falconer!” he muttered. “Falconer will see to them. There’s no one else!”
It was as though the fire through which he was passing had burnt away
from him all recollection, even, of his mother. He had thought of her for
long only as the source of all that was unpleasant in his life. Now in
the sharpness of his pain a haze had spread itself over the past, and all
thought of the means by which the present position had been brought about
was obliterated.
He wrote for a few minutes, rapidly, desperately, in a handwriting which
was hardly legible; then he thrust the letter into an envelope, which he
directed to Dennis Falconer; and rose. His original intention of writing
to Clemence had left him. It had become an impossibility. And side by
side with his sense of his utter incapacity to find any words in which to
speak to her, there had risen in him a heart-broken impulse to see her
face once more and for the last time.
The sunshine of the day had given place to a drizzling rain when he
turned into that quiet little street which had witnessed their last
meeting. The dazed sense of the necessity for flight was strong upon him.
Darkness had fallen; he had left his room for the last time; in another
hour he would be in the Liverpool train, a fugitive from justice; and in
the terror and confusion of the realisation of that one all-absorbing
fact, the only other thought that lived in him was his blind desire for
one sight of Clemence. He had come to the little street unreasoningly,
weighing no probabilities as to whether or no she would be at work;
not even understanding that there were probabilities to weigh; coming
there simply because he had seen her there before and knew of no other
chance of seeing her. He took up his position in a doorway by which she
must pass, and waited. It seemed to him that he had been standing there,
utterly alone, for hours, when the door, from which his haggard, sunken
eyes had never stirred, opened.
As on that other occasion Clemence was the last to come out, but she
came this time walking quickly and eagerly. For an instant as she passed
beneath the lamp the light fell on her face, and as Julian’s eyes rested
on it for that instant, he clutched at the railing by which he stood.
Then she came on in the shadow, still followed by those hungry eyes.
Perhaps she felt their gaze. Perhaps her own heart felt the pang that
was rending his. In the very act of passing him she stopped suddenly and
turned towards him, looking into the dimness in which he was shrouded.
She stretched out her hands with a low, inarticulate cry.
He had her in his arms in an instant, straining her to him with a
despairing passion which he had never known before, and she clung to him
half frightened by his touch.
“Julian!” she whispered. Then as no word came from him, only his burning
kisses pressed upon her upturned face, she went on softly: “Dear, weren’t
you going to speak to me?” Still he did not speak, and with a look and
accent indescribably beautiful in their tender womanliness, she said:
“You didn’t think I would reproach you?”
“It’s good-bye, Clemmie,” he muttered hoarsely. “Good-bye! I--I’m going
away for--for a little while.”
He could as easily have killed her, at that moment, as have told her the
truth.
“Going away!” she echoed, with a little catch in her breath. “Where,
dear?”
“To--to America.” He could not tell her all the truth, but there was no
power in him to originate an unnecessary lie. He felt her arms tighten
about him, and he answered the appeal hoarsely, hurrying out the words.
“I--I’m leaving a letter about you, and----” his voice died away in his
throat as he tried to speak of his child, and then he went on rapidly
and unevenly: “It will be--all right. Clemence! Clemence! try to forgive
me. Good-bye, dear, good-bye!”
He drew her hands from about his neck, kissing them wildly. Her hold
tightened instinctively upon his fingers, and she was trembling very much.
“You’re not going--now?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he answered hoarsely. “Now!”
Then, as he saw the look which came over her face, the desperate
necessity for reassuring her came upon him. He tried to smile.
“America is nothing nowadays, you know,” he said in a harsh, unnatural
tone. “It’s no distance. I shall be--back directly. Say good-bye to me,
won’t you? I must go.”
She let her face fall on his shoulder, pressing it closer and closer, as
though she could never tear herself away.
“I’m frightened for you, dear,” she said. “I’m frightened. Are you sure,
sure, there is nothing--wrong?”
“Quite sure--of course.”
“You will be back soon?”
“Quite soon.”
There was a moment’s quivering silence, and then Clemence slowly lifted
her face. He took her in his arms again, and their lips met in one long
agonised kiss. Neither spoke again. When he released her, Julian, with
a face like death, turned and went away down the street, his head bent,
his whole figure tense as though he were facing a blinding wind. Clemence
stood for a moment still as a statue, her eyes wide, her face quite
quiet. Then she too went away through the night.