I tried to take refuge in religion. Every day and all day I humbly
besought the pardon of heaven for the sin of loving Martin Conrad.
The little religious duties which I had neglected since my marriage
(such as crossing myself at rising from the table) I began to observe
afresh, and being reminded by Martin's story that I had promised my
mother to say a De Profundis for her occasionally I now said one every
day. I thought these exercises would bring me a certain relief, but they
did not.
I searched my Missal for words that applied to my sinful state, and
every night on going to bed I prayed to God to take from me all unholy
thoughts, all earthly affections. But what was the use of my prayers
when in the first dream of the first sleep I was rushing into Martin's
arms?
It was true that my love for Martin was what the world would call a pure
love; it had no alloy of any kind; but all the same I thought I was
living in a condition of adultery--adultery of the heart.
Early every morning I went to mass, but the sense I used to have of
returning from the divine sacrifice to the ordinary occupations of life
with a new spirit and a clean heart I could feel no longer.
I went oftener to confession than I had done before--twice a week to
begin with, then every other day, then every day. But the old joy, the
sense of purity and cleansing, did not come. I thought at first the
fault might be with my Confessor, for though I knew I was in the
presence of God, the whispering voice behind the grating, which used to
thrill me with a feeling of the supernatural, was that of a young man,
and I asked myself what a young priest could know by experience of the
deep temptations of human love.
This was at the new Cathedral at Westminster, so I changed to a little
Catholic church in a kind of mews in Mayfair, and there my Confessor was
an older man whose quivering voice seemed to search the very depths of
my being. He was deeply alarmed at my condition and counselled me to
pray to God night and day to strengthen me against temptation.
"The Evil One is besieging your soul, my child," he said. "Fight with
him, my daughter."
I tried to follow my ghostly father's direction, but how hard it was to
do so! Martin had only to take my hand and look into my eyes and all my
good resolutions were gone in a moment.
As a result of the fierce struggle between my heart and my soul my
health began to fail me. From necessity now, and not from design, I had
to keep my room, but even there my love for Martin was always hanging
like a threatening sword over my head.
My maid Price was for ever singing his praises. He was so bright, so
cheerful, so strong, so manly; in fact, he was perfect, and any woman in
the world might be forgiven if she fell in love with him.
Her words were like music in my ears, and sometimes I felt as if I
wanted to throw my arms about her neck and kiss her. But at other
moments I reproved her, telling her it was very wicked of her to think
so much of the creature instead of fixing her mind on the Creator--a
piece of counsel which made Price, who was all woman, open her sparkling
black eyes in bewilderment.
Nearly every morning she brought me a bunch of flowers, which Martin had
bought at Covent Garden, all glittering from the sunshine and damp with
the dew. I loved to have them near me, but, finding they tempted me to
think more tenderly of him who sent them, I always contrived by one
excuse or another to send them into the sitting-room that they might be
out of my sight at all events.
After a while Price, remembering my former artifice, began to believe
that I was only pretending to be ill, in order to draw Martin on, and
then taking a certain liberty with me, as with a child, she reproved me.
"If I were a lady I couldn't have the heart," she said, "I really
couldn't. It's all very well for us women, but men don't understand such
ways. They're only children, men are, when you come to know them."
I began to look upon poor Price as a honeyed fiend sent by Satan to
seduce me, and to say the truth she sometimes acted up to the character.
One day she said:
"If I was tied to a man I didn't love, and who didn't love me, and
somebody else, worth ten of him was ready and waiting, I would take the
sweet with the bitter, I would. We women must follow our hearts, and why
shouldn't we?"
Then I scolded her dreadfully, asking if she had forgotten that she was
speaking to her mistress, and a married woman; but all the while I knew
that it was myself, not my maid, I was angry with, for she had only been
giving voice to the thoughts that were secretly tormenting me.
I had been in bed about a week when Price came with a letter in her hand
and a look of triumph in her black eyes and said:
"There, my lady! What did I tell you? You've had it all your own way and
now you've driven him off. He has left the hotel and gone to live on his
ship."
This frightened me terribly, and partly for that reason I ordered her
out of the room, telling her she must leave me altogether if she ever
took such liberties again. But I'm sure she saw me, as she was going
through the door, take up Martin's letter, which I had thrown on to the
table, and press it to my lips.
The letter was of no consequence, it was merely to tell me that he was
going down to Tilbury for a few days, to take possession of his old ship
in the name of his company, but it said in a postscript:
"If there's anything I can do for you, pass me the word and I'll come up
like quick-sticks."
"What can I do? What can I do?" I thought. Everything my heart desired
my soul condemned as sinful, and religion had done nothing to liberate
me from the pains of my guilty passion.
All this time my husband and Alma were busy with the gaieties of the
London season, which was then in full swing, with the houses in Mayfair
being ablaze every night, the blinds up and the windows open to cool the
overheated rooms in which men and women could be seen dancing in
closely-packed crowds.
One night, after Alma and my husband had gone to a reception in
Grosvenor Square, I had a sudden attack of heart-strain and had to be
put to bed, whereupon Price, who had realised that I was really ill,
told Hobson, my husband's valet, to go after his master and bring him
back immediately.
"It'll be all as one, but I'll go if you like," said Hobson.
In half an hour he came back with my husband's answer. "Send for a
doctor."
This put Price into a fever of mingled anger and perplexity, and not
knowing what else to do she telegraphed to Martin on his ship, telling
him that I was ill and asking what doctor she ought to call in to see
me.
Inside an hour a reply came not from Tilbury but from Portsmouth saying:
"Call Doctor ---- of Brook Street. Am coming up at once."
All this I heard for the first time when Price, with another triumphant
look, came into my bedroom flourishing Martin's telegram as something
she had reason to be proud of.
"You don't mean to say that you telegraphed to Mr. Conrad?" I said.
"Why _not?_" said Price. "When a lady is ill and her husband pays no
attention to her, and there's somebody else not far off who would give
his two eyes to save her a pain in her little finger, what is a woman to
do?"
I told her what she was _not_ to do. She was not to call the doctor
under any circumstances, and when Martin came she was to make it plain
to him that she had acted on her own responsibility.
Towards midnight he arrived, and Price brought him into my room in a
long ulster covered with dust. I blushed and trembled at sight of him,
for his face betrayed the strain and anxiety he had gone through on my
account, and when he smiled at seeing that I was not as ill as he had
thought, I was ashamed to the bottom of my heart.
"You'll be sorry you've made such a long journey now that you see
there's so little amiss with me," I said.
"Sorry?" he said. "By the holy saints, I would take a longer one every
night of my life to see you looking so well at the end of it."
His blue eyes were shining like the sun from behind a cloud, and the
cruellest looks could not have hurt me more.
I tried to keep my face from expressing the emotion I desired to
conceal, and asked if he had caught a train easily from Portsmouth,
seeing he had arrived so early.
"No. Oh no, there was no train up until eleven o'clock," he said.
"Then how did you get here so soon?" I asked, and though he would not
tell me at first I got it out of him at last--he had hired a motor-car
and travelled the ninety miles to London in two hours and a half.
That crushed me. I could not speak. I thought I should have choked.
Lying there with Martin at arm's length of me, I was afraid of myself,
and did not know what I might do next. But at last, with a great effort
to control myself, I took his hand and kissed it, and then turned my
face to the wall.