The train drew up slowly beside the platform at Victoria,
three-quarters of an hour late. Hugh stood by the half-opened door, in a
fume of impatience. He had telegraphed from Paris to Irene that he would
be with her at eight. It was that hour now. He must go straightway, for
he had resolved to have speech with her that night, and further delay
would render his visit untimely. A porter from the Grosvenor Hotel
came running up at his call, and took charge of his bag and hold-all.
Relieved of responsibilities of luggage, he pushed his way through the
hurrying stream of passengers on the platform, towards the cab-rank.
But before he could engage a cab, he heard the light patter of hastening
footsteps behind him, and his name uttered in a familiar voice. He
turned in astonished delight.
“Irene!”
“Another minute and I should have missed you,” she said somewhat
breathlessly.
“You have come to meet me? I never dreamed--”
“Of course not,” she said with a smile. “Your sex never does. Did you
think I could receive you at Redcliffe Gardens? Your name is anathema
there. I am only allowed on sufferance. I could not bear you to be
denied the door. Besides, I wanted to see you. So I came.”
“And you have been waiting all this time? Men are brutes, Irene. I did
not think of it. Forgive me.”
“For what? For your anxiety to serve me? You were coming straight to me
after a twenty-four hours’ journey, without stopping to wash your hands
or take food. That needs no forgiveness.”
They had been standing at the spot where they had met. He looked
anxiously into her face. It was singularly calm and tender, though the
eyes were a little weary, and the past month had brought lines about the
corners of the delicate mouth. Wonder was mingled with his feelings of
relief, for he had expected to find a woman broken down with trouble.
Then his phrase about the dull category of common women crossed his
mind, and he smiled.
“Where shall we talk, Irene?” he said, with a man’s helplessness.
“Are you going to Sunnington?”
“No. It is too far. I am putting up at the hotel.”
“Let us go there,” she said, turning, with prompt decision..
“Will it be wise?” said Hugh.
She laughed, ever so little scornfully.
“A sweep is not afraid of blacking his fingers when he handles coal. I
am past such conventionalities.”
“You are mistaken. Quite the contrary.”
“I am not mistaken, Hugh,” she replied with quiet firmness. “Please let
me have my own way in this.”
He bowed in assent, and they walked on together.
“A private sitting-room?”
“That would be more comfortable.”
There was a long silence on their way to the hotel. The reference to the
subject of their interview was a touch of ice. Presently he asked:
“How did you guess that I should come to Victoria instead of Charing
Cross?”
“You wired ‘_arrive 7.10_’ I looked in a Bradshaw. The Charing Cross
train is timed to get in five minutes later. Men haven’t all the sense,
you know.”
The flash of her old bantering manner cheered him. He laughed a little
compliment to her sagacity.
“I chose Victoria because it was nearer to you,” he said.
They reached the hotel. Hugh explained his wants at the office. A waiter
conducted them to a private sitting-room, switched on the light, drew
down the Venetian blinds, and left them to the room’s rather stiff and
imposing comforts.
“You must be very tired,” said Irene, womanlike. “Go and get something
to eat--and then we’ll talk. Do. To please me.”
Her old solicitude and kindly intimacy. The upheaval had not altered her
attitude towards him. Her steadfastness touched him deeply.
“You have a heart of gold, Irene,” he said.
But he disclaimed hunger or fatigue, and sat down in the saddle-bag
chair opposite her, wondering at the peace of mind that these few
moments of companionship could bring him, in defiance of the devastating
emotions at work below the surface. She pushed up her veil and regarded
him wistfully.
“You are looking much older. Your face has grown lined--and no wonder.”
“What I have gone through is small compared with the ruin I have brought
on you.”
“If it is in any way your doing, Hugh, you have brought me to the
truth,” she replied.
“The truth?”
“Yes. I was living in a Fool’s Paradise. I see now that disillusion was
bound to have come sooner or later. Instead of the glamour disappearing
bit by bit through unhappy years, it has all been torn off at once.
Gerard did not love me. He is quite a different being from the man I
loved. I prefer realities to shams. I have arrived at the truth, and so
I am content.”
“But he shall arrive at the truth, too,” cried Hugh, starting to his
feet. “He shall lick the dust before you--for the deadly wrong he
wants to inflict on you. I had no idea before I left. If I had seen him
yesterday when the news reached me, I should have--Perhaps it is well I
didn’t see him. Why did you send me away? Did you know at the time?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I knew. But I wanted to see whether it was merely
blind rage or whether time would bring a change. I felt it was better
for you two not to meet in hot blood.”
“I could have stopped it, at once. Given you back your happiness.”
“Do you understand me so little?” she asked with an air of reproach.
“I could have convinced him, brought him to your feet. And I
shall--to-morrow.”
“For God’s sake don’t,” she exclaimed quickly.
“I must. He shall not drag your name through the mud of the courts. I
should be a hound to allow it.”
“What can you do?”
“Prove to him where I was that night. I was in a woman’s company--not in
her arms, thank God. You are the first living soul to whom I have avowed
it. Both of you shall know her name and the reason of my silence.”
“No, no, for God’s sake, no!” cried Irene again. He stopped short,
checked in his outburst by her tone, and the intense earnestness of her
face.
“Why not?”
“Do you think I could accept his--apologies?”
“He would make reparation.”
“I will not have any. If his knowledge of me--of the love that I bore
him--was not sufficient to clear me in his eyes, do you think it would
be other than humiliation to me that he should be convinced by outside
proof?”
“I enter only too deeply into your feelings, Irene. But it will put
a stop to this unholy action. Do you suppose I can rest, while it is
hanging over you?”
“Listen, Hugh,” she said with a half smile. “Sit down and let us talk
quietly. We have been on the emotional strain too long. I don’t want
this action stopped. I blessed the instinct that made you come to me
first--so that I could tell you. I have never seen any transcendental
sacredness in marriage. You know that well enough. I regard it as the
social sanction of a man and woman living together. I would not live
with Gerard again for all the world. It would also be his last desire.
This is a blessed chance of sundering our lives, legally, for ever.
There are no children to be considered. What public dishonour the
divorce court can bring upon a woman is mine already, I have nothing to
lose, Hugh, and all to gain.”
“What have you to gain?”
“My liberty. My own life.”
“Remember that society awards less penalty to the forgiven wife than to
the divorced one.”
“I want no patronage of society,” she flashed out spiritedly. “I am not
a repentant Magdalene.” There was a long silence. Hugh lay back in his
chair, his cheek supported by his hand, his brows knit in stern thought.
She sat in more feminine attitude, slightly leaning forward, her eyes
fixed on the simpering imitation Watteau group on the fire-screen.
Suddenly she spoke, without diverting her glance.
“I was acting when I saw you last. It was an effort to be calm. Now I am
genuine.”
Her serenity had been won inch by inch; a great nature defying woman’s
weakness that clung in bleeding desperation to the shattered illusions,
finally routing it, and planting its own standard on the abandoned
citadel. The battle had been fought during the interval of utter
solitude. Yet not won without cost. She emerged calm, but weary and
wounded and aching of heart, with loss of ideals and purpose in life.
The committee of her beloved Institution, to which she had given so much
earnest enthusiasm, had written an ashamed and pained suggestion of her
resignation. She answered almost within the minute of reading, paying
bravely the penalty of her tarnished name. But the rapid dashes of the
pen were like sword thrusts through her flesh. With Gerard standing by
her side on the starry plane of sacrifice, she would have accepted such
penalties happily, for the dear friend’s sake. But alone, with Gerard
against her, she needed all her proud strength to bear the pain
unfalteringly. She had conquered, however, and could face the present
and the future undaunted. Love was dead and buried. It had been her
life. She would find a truer meaning to the strange new life upon which
she was entering. But first the old apparellings must be cast away, and
she must go forth free. She longed for the legal dissolution of the tie
that still bound her to Gerard.
With a man’s burning sense of wrong inflicted on the beloved woman, Hugh
could not appreciate the intense earnestness of her desire. To divorce
her was a deadly insult which made the barbaric man’s fingers tingle to
be at the throat of the insulter. Barbaric vanity, too, compelled his
thoughts to the pitiable figure he would cut, if he stood by silent,
and allowed this outrage to be committed. He shifted his attitude
impatiently and tugged at his moustache. The woman read him, and smiled.
“Whatever your secret is, Hugh, you must keep it to yourself,” she said
gently. “A man doesn’t face death for a trifle. That woman’s honour is
still in your keeping.”
Hugh felt the phrase like a barbed arrow. He snapped his fingers.
“That for her honour! It was not in question. My own, if you like. I
seduced no man’s wife nor dishonoured his children. I wrote you the
truth from the prison--I can’t tell you more without entering upon the
story.”
“If you did, I should hold you false to your word,” said Irene. “And
that you have never been. Let me know one true man, at any rate. I
despise Fatima curiosities with all my soul. Tell me truly. You made a
solemn promise of silence?”
“Certainly.”
“Then you must not break it. I couldn’t accept my rehabilitation with
Gerard at that price, even if I desired it.”
“I accepted a far greater sacrifice from you, Irene,” he said in a low
voice.
The tone brought the starting tears into her eyes. Impulsively she rose
from her seat, and threw herself on her knees by his side, her hands
clasping the arm of his chair.
“Yes, Hugh. It was a great thing that I did for you. But gladly, Hugh
dear, gladly. God forbid I should regret it ever. You can repay me
by granting me any request I make you in the name of what I did for
you--you could not refuse.”
“You have me in your power, Renie. My life is at your disposal.”
“Then you will serve me in the truest and deepest way by keeping
faithful to your word, and letting Gerard take this course undisturbed.
Promise me.”
He rose, raised her to her feet, and kissed her hands, bending over them
in the courtly way that recalled vividly to her mind a similar action,
years ago, when he had first pledged himself to her service.
“I promise,” he said.
She smiled shyly, and flushed in slight embarrassment at the
recollection.
“I am glad you have come back,” she said. “I shall feel much stronger. A
woman must always have something outside herself to lean on. We are poor
things.”
Hugh protested. She was apart from other women. What woman alive could
have come out of such an ordeal with her faith in humanity unshaken,
with her queenly tenderness unhardened? What woman had the crystalline
intellect that could remain undimmed by the soul’s gloom and could
pierce through it to the heart of things? The man’s pent-up passion
squandered itself in hyperbole. He raised her to transcendental heights
of greatness. She stood, with her hands clasped in front of her, her
eyes following him as he paced the room passionately declaiming her
excellencies, and felt an odd little thrill of something like happiness.
Here at least was a man who believed in her; a genuine man, who had given
startling proof of heroism. Her clear intelligence rejected the rhapsody
with an indulgent smile, but her woman’s nature, thirsting for comfort,
drank in the praise.
The chime of the black marble clock on the mantelpiece warned her of the
hour. She announced her departure.
“You will see me through this, Hugh? You are the only one left that I
can trust.”
“The only help I can give you is inaction. The hardest for an impatient
man.”
“You can talk to me and advise me.”
“Where? I cannot visit you.”
“I have taken a flat. Am busy furnishing. In a few days I shall be
installed there. Meanwhile you can help me to fix things straight, if
you will. That will be material assistance. Things like that are hard
for a woman alone.”
“It will make me almost happy and light-hearted again,” he replied.
They moved together towards the door. At the threshold he paused and
regarded her earnestly.
“Will you tell me one thing, Irene, before we part to-night--frankly and
honestly?”
“What is it?” she asked, with a sudden flutter of anxiety.
“Is it possible that all this ruin I have brought about you has not
changed your feelings towards me--turned them, ever so little, to
bitterness?”
His heart leapt at the quick radiance that came into her face.
“I have never felt till now, what our friendship really meant.”
He lay awake for some time that night, lost in a great wonder at the
staunch steel of her nature. Here was one who had lost everything the
world held dear, husband, home, good-repute, society, work, all through
him, a once rejected lover, on whom she had bestowed her friendship
for her husband’s sake, and a word of regret had never passed her
lips--still less a word of reproach; her old loyal friendship had come
bright through such a test as stains and fouls the fairest comradeship
between man and woman. Did the earth elsewhere hold humanity so
transcendent? The commoner needs of the bruised child of clay that might
have suggested a solution, the man forgot in his adoration. Up till now
she had been the great and hopeless love of his life, to which he had
been ever loyal in thought and word. Henceforward she was to be the
divinity of his impassioned worship.
The deified being, unconscious of her apotheosis, but only feeling a
heart-broken, weary woman, cheered by a dear and loyal friend, reached
her home and found two letters awaiting her. She took them to her
bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to read them. The first, a large
packet, contained a collection of tracts and religious leaflets. She
was about to throw them aside, when her eye caught a flaring title:
“The Woman who Sinned and was Saved.” The other pamphlets bore analogous
inscriptions. She flushed hot with wrath at the outrage--then rose and
tore the insulting papers across and across in a frenzy of indignation,
and threw them into the grate. The request of the committee had been a
social necessity, to which she had bowed her head in resignation. The
insult of this anonymous evangelist scorched her. Forgetting the other
letter, she proceeded to undress, anxious to get into the darkness, and
lay her burning cheek upon the pillow. She thought fiercely of Hugh,
of the savage joy it would be if he could find out and horsewhip the
offender. But before she extinguished her light, the second envelope
caught her attention. She broke it open, setting her teeth against fresh
humiliation. She read the letter. Then sat down on the bed and began to
cry, like a foolish woman. It was only a little note from Mrs. Cahusac,
urging, with delicate tact, the claims of a friend.
Hugh did not seek out Gerard. Days passed. At last they met one morning
at Sunnington station. Hugh marched up straight to him.
“You are a pretty blackguard, Gerard Merriam.”
Gerard drew up his big frame and returned his old friend’s keen gaze
with a stare.
“And you?”.
“I am an honest man, and in your heart you know it.”
“Honesty is a relative term.”
“And you know that your wife is a pure woman.”
“Who meets you on your arrival in England, and spends hours with you in
a private room of an hotel?”
“Have you been setting spies on her?” asked Hugh.
“I follow the usual course adopted by men in my position.”
The district train dashed into the station.
“Irene was right,” returned Hugh, turning contemptuously. “You are not
worth trying to convince.”
They entered different compartments, left the train at different
stations, and for some years did not meet again face to face.