"SHE WAS A WOMAN: I WAS A COWARD!"
Again Douglas found himself face to face with a future emptied of all
delight, only this time as a saner and an older man. The growth of his
literary powers, an increased virility, following upon the greater
freedom of his life, and the cessation of those haunting fears which had
ever hung like a shadow over his earlier days in London, came to his
aid. All that was best and strongest in his character was called into
action. He faced his future like a brave man determined to make the
most of his days--to make the best use of the powers which he
undoubtedly possessed. He remodelled his manner of living to suit his
altered circumstances, took rooms in Jermyn Street which he furnished
quietly but comfortably, and although he never became a society man, he
went out often and did not indulge in an excess of solitude. He had
grown older and graver, but had lost none of his good looks, and was
particularly careful never to pose as a man of disappointments. Of
Emily de Reuss he saw or heard nothing. She seemed to have vanished
completely from her place in society, and although he ventured to make a
few careful inquiries he never chanced to come across any one who could
tell him anything about her. It was astonishing how soon she was
forgotten, even amongst those who had been her greatest admirers. He
seldom heard her name mentioned, and although he never failed to believe
that she would return some day to London, he set himself as deliberately
as possible to forget her. On the whole, he believed that he was
succeeding very well. He was a favourite amongst women, for he treated
them charmingly, always with a ready and natural gallantry, but always
with the most profound and unvarying respect. Only the very keenest
observers fancied sometimes that they detected the shadow of a past in
his far from cheerless demeanour. For Douglas held his head high, and
met the world which had turned aside to welcome him with outstretched
hands.
One evening, at a large and crowded reception, a man, whom he knew
slightly, touched him on the shoulder.
"Guest," he said, "there is a lady with whom I have been talking who
wishes to renew her acquaintance with you. May I take you to her?"
Douglas murmured a conventional acquiescence and bowed to the
pleasant-faced, grey-headed old lady with a sense of pleasure.
"I am honoured that you should have remembered me, Duchess," he said.
"It seems quite a long time since I have had the honour of meeting you."
She made room for him by her side.
"I am glad to see you again, Mr. Guest," she said pleasantly, "for your
own sake of course, and also because you were a friend of Emily de
Reuss."
Douglas looked steadily away for a moment. He had not yet come to that
stage when he could speak of her lightly as a casual friend.
"You have not heard from her lately, I suppose?" the Duchess asked. "I
hear that she writes to no one."
"I have not heard from her since before she left England," Douglas
answered.
The Duchess sighed.
"Poor Emily," she said. "You know I am amongst those few who knew her
well--you also, I think, were one of them. There was no one I was more
fond of--no one whom I have missed so much."
Again Douglas was silent. Did this woman understand, he wondered.
"It is a pleasure to me," she continued, "to find some one with whom I
can talk about her--some one who knew and appreciated her."
"Do you know," he asked, "where she is?"
"Yes."
It was amazing what effect the monosyllable had upon him. The mask
which he carried always with him fell suddenly away. He turned upon her
with an abruptness almost disconcerting. His eyes were lit with fire,
and there was a strange flush upon his cheeks.
"Where," he demanded--"where is she?" The Duchess looked at him with
sympathy. She was a kindly woman, and she had probed his secret long
ago.
"She is in a little village some five hundred miles across the frontier,
in Siberia. I had imagined that you might have known."
"Siberia!" He repeated the word in blank amazement. The Duchess nodded.
"Now I have told you something very interesting," she said, "and in
return I am going to ask you something. You quarrelled with her, did
you not?"
"Scarcely that. I asked her to marry me," he answered.
"Which of course was impossible."
"Impossible? Why?"
She raised her eyebrows.
"Is it conceivable," she exclaimed, "that you do not know?"
"I knew of no other barrier save the difference in our social
positions," he said gravely.
She was silent for a moment.
"You did not know, then--be calm, my friend--that Emily had a husband
living?"
A sharp little cry, almost immediately smothered, broke from his lips.
He looked at his companion aghast. A flood of new light seemed to be
breaking in upon him.
"Married! Emily married!" he exclaimed. "And she never told me."
"She probably meant to in her own good time," the Duchess said. "Of
course I do not know how matters were between you, only I fancied that
some change had come to her during the last few months. I hoped that
she was growing to care for somebody. She is too rare a woman to lead
for ever a lonely life."
"But her husband?" he stammered.
"She will never do more," the Duchess said gravely, "than look upon his
face through iron bars. He is a prisoner for life in one of the
gloomiest and most impregnable of Siberian fortresses. Some day, if you
like, I will tell you the story of her marriage. It was a most unhappy
one."
"Tell me now," he begged breathlessly.
She hesitated. A foreign prince bowed before her, his breast glittering
with orders. She looked up at him smiling.
"Prince," she said, "Mr. Guest and I are elaborating together the plot
of his next novel, and it is wonderfully fascinating."
He bowed low and passed on. She turned again to Douglas.
"I can tell it you," she said, "sufficiently in half a dozen sentences.
Emily was the orphan child of one of the richest and noblest Hungarian
families--the man she married was half a Pole half a Hungarian, poor,
but also of noble family. His life was a network of deceit, he himself
was a conspirator of the lowest order. He married Emily for her
money--that it might be used for what he called the Cause. When she
declined to have anything to do with it he first ill-treated her
shamefully, and afterwards deserted her. Twice he was graciously
pardoned by the Czar, twice he broke his word of honour and plunged
again into infamy. The third time it seemed that nothing could save
him, for he was caught in the act of directing a shameful conspiracy
against the man who had treated him so generously. He was sentenced to
death, but Emily crossed Europe in a special train, and after terrible
difficulties won his life from the Czar herself when every other means
had failed. He was condemned to imprisonment for life, and she gave her
word that she would never ask for any mitigation of that sentence.
Think of the generosity of that action! Although the man had treated
her vilely, and she was young and beautiful, yet she doomed herself to a
perpetual widowhood in order to save his life. I happen to know, too,
that her love for him was wholly dead."
"It was magnificent," he murmured with something that sounded like a
sob.
"She came to live in London, where her story was little known. That was
ten years ago. I think that I am almost the only person who knows the
whole truth about her, and if you ask me why I have told you, well, I
can only say that it was by instinct."
"Duchess," he said, "you have told me the story of a heroine--now let me
tell you the story of a fool. I came to London a very short time ago,
poor, friendless, and untried. She was the only person from whom I
received any spontaneous kindness whatever. She visited me when I was
ill, she asked me to her house, she encouraged me in my work, she showed
me how exquisite a thing the intelligent sympathy of a cultivated woman
can be to a man who is struggling for expression. And in
return--listen. There were others whom she had befriended--like me.
She had keen literary instincts, as you know, and it was her pleasure to
help in any way young beginners. She was also a woman and beautiful.
Some of them lost their heads; two especially. It was their fault--not
hers. They were presumptuous, and she rebuked them. They whined like
whipped curs, went wrong as it chanced afterwards, and were held up to
me as warnings. It was her vanity, they declared, which prompted her
kindness. We were all puppets to her--not men. She had no heart. When
my turn came I should be served like the rest. I loved her, Duchess;
who could help it? and the time came when we stood face to face, and I
saw the woman shining out of her eyes, and the gates of Heaven were
opened to me. Was there ever such transcendental folly as mine? I
locked the gates myself and remained--outside."
He looked away, and there was a short silence. A woman's song died
sweetly away in an ante-room beyond, the murmur of pleasant conversation
floated once more all around them. The Duchess unfurled a fan of wavy
white feathers and half sheltered him. She only saw the dimness in his
eyes as he went on.
"Those few minutes," he said, "I cannot speak of. Then there came, by
some hateful chance, a cloud over my happiness. I remembered the
warnings with which I had been pestered; the fool in me spoke whilst the
man was silent. I demanded a pledge from her. I asked her when she
would marry me. She bade me be patient, hinted at an obstacle--some day
I should know everything. The fool in me raved. I demanded her promise
to marry me as a token of her sincerity. Then she answered me as I
deserved. If I did not trust her I might go--and, God help me, I went."
Again the bitter silence, and again the feathers swelled and waved. The
band was playing softly, waltz music now. The Duchess, who was a
motherly woman, and loved young men, felt her own eyes grow dim.
"After all," she said, "you must not blame yourself too much. Emily had
her faults like other women. She was a little vain, a little imperious,
not always wise. She should have told you everything."
Douglas rose and made his adieux.
"She trusted me once, Duchess, when everything looked against me, and
never even deigned to ask for an explanation. She was a woman. When my
turn came I was a coward."