I was far from well next morning and Price wished to keep me in bed, but
I got up immediately when I heard that my husband was talking of
returning to London.
Our journey was quite uneventful. We three sat together in the railway
carriage and in the private cabin on the steamer, with no other company
than Bimbo, my husband's terrier, and Prue, Alma's Pekinese spaniel.
Although he made no apology for his conduct of the day before my husband
was quiet and conciliatory, and being sober he looked almost afraid, as
if telling himself that he might have to meet my father soon--the one
man in the world of whom he seemed to stand in fear.
Alma looked equally frightened, but she carried off her nervousness with
a great show of affection, saying she was sorry I was feeling "badly,"
that France and the South did not agree with me, and that I should be
ever so much better when I was "way up north."
We put up at a well-known hotel near Trafalgar Square, the same that in
our girlhood had been the subject of Alma's dreams of future bliss, and
I could not help observing that while my husband was selecting our rooms
she made a rather ostentatious point of asking for an apartment on
another floor.
It was late when we arrived, so I went to bed immediately, being also
anxious to be alone that I might think out my course of action.
I was then firmly resolved that one way or other my life with my husband
should come to an end; that I would no longer be befouled by the mire he
had been dragging me through; that I should live a clean life and drink
a pure draught, and oh, how my very soul seemed to thirst for it!
This was the mood in which I went to sleep, but when I awoke in the
morning, almost before the dawn, the strength of my resolution ebbed
away. I listened to the rumble of the rubber-bound wheels of the
carriages and motor-cars that passed under my window and, remembering
that I had not a friend in London, I felt small and helpless. What could
I do alone? Where could I turn for assistance?
Instinctively I knew it would be of no use to appeal to my father, for
though it was possible that he might knock my husband down, it was not
conceivable that he would encourage me to separate from him.
In my loneliness and helplessness I felt like a shipwrecked sailor, who,
having broken away from the foundering vessel that would have sucked him
under, is yet tossing on a raft with the threatening ocean on every
side, and looking vainly for a sail.
At last I thought of Mr. Curphy, my father's advocate, and decided to
send a telegram to him asking for the name of some solicitor in London
to whom I could apply for advice.
To carry out this intention I went down to the hall about nine o'clock,
when people were passing into the breakfast-room, and visitors were
calling at the bureau, and livened page-boys were shouting names in the
corridors.
There was a little writing-room at one side of the hall and I sat there
to write my telegram. It ran--
"Please send name and address reliable solicitor London whom I can
consult on important business."
I was holding the telegraph-form in my hand and reading my message again
and again to make sure that it would lead to no mischief, when I began
to think of Martin Conrad.
It seemed to me that some one had mentioned his name, but I told myself
that must have been a mistake,--that, being so helpless and so much in
need of a friend at that moment, my heart and not my ears had heard it.
Nevertheless as I sat holding my telegraph-form I became conscious of
somebody who was moving about me. It was a man, for I could smell the
sweet peaty odour of his Harris tweeds.
At length with that thrill which only the human voice can bring to us
when it is the voice of one from whom we have been long parted, I heard
somebody say, from the other side of the desk:
"Mary, is it you?"
I looked up, the blood rushed to my face and a dazzling mist floated
before my eyes, so that for a moment I could hardly see who was there.
But I _knew_ who it was--it was Martin himself.
He came down on me like a breeze from the mountain, took me by both
hands, telegram and all, and said:
"My goodness, this is stunning!"