"The fact that the world contains an appreciable number of wretches
who ought to be exterminated without mercy when an opportunity
occurs, is not quite so generally understood as it ought to be, and
many common ways of thinking and feeling virtually deny it."
Richard Maule turned the handle of his wife's bedroom door. A glance
assured him that the beautiful room was empty. So far the gods whose
sport he believed himself to be had been kind, for he had met no one
during his slow, painful progress through the house, and Athena, as he
knew well, would not be up for another hour.
Standing just within the door, he looked round the room with a terrible,
almost a malignant, curiosity. The fire had evidently just been built
up; it threw dancing shafts of light over the rose-red curtains of the
low First Empire bed, at once vivifying and softening the brilliant
colouring of the room.
Till to-night, the owner of Rede Place had never seen this oval
bedchamber since it had been transformed nearly nine years before in
view of the home-coming of his wife--the home-coming which had been
delayed for two years after their marriage.
He had planned out with infinite care and lingering delight every detail
of the decoration, taking as his model the bedchamber of the Empress
Josephine at Malmaison. He and the expert who had helped him in his
labour of love had journeyed out--even now he remembered the journey
vividly--to the country house near Paris where Napoleon spent his
happiest hours.
As for the room next door, the room which was to have been his, it had
long ago been dismantled, and was now the sewing-room of his wife's
maid.
Athena had arranged her life in a way that exactly suited her. She had
lived on unruffled by the thunder-bolt, hurled unwittingly by herself,
which had destroyed him. But a tree blasted by lightning outstands the
most radiant of living blossoms....
He felt a wave of hatred heat his blood. Stepping slowly over the
garlanded Aubusson carpet, he moved across the room till he stood by the
side of the low, wide bed.
On a gilt-rimmed table was placed a crystal tray he well remembered, and
on the tray were a decanter of water, a medicine glass, and a bottle of
chloral. Above the wick of a spirit-lamp stood a tiny gold kettle filled
with the chocolate which Mrs. Maule always heated and drank after she
was in bed.
Her intimate ways of life were very present to her husband's memory. It
was not likely that time had modified any habit governing Athena's
appearance and general well-being.
He remembered the day they had first seen the gold kettle. It had been
at a sale held in the house of one of those frail Parisian beauties who,
following a fashion of the moment, had put up her goods to auction. The
notion that his wife should possess anything that had once belonged to
such a woman had offended Richard Maule's taste, and he had resisted
longer than he generally did any wish of hers. But she had cajoled him,
as she always in those days could cajole him into anything.
He put out his thin hand and noted with satisfaction that it was shaking
less than usual. Slowly he lifted back the lid of the gold kettle.
Yes--there was the chocolate still warm, still in entire solution.
Straightening himself, Richard Maule stood for a moment listening....
Silence reigned within and without Rede Place. Steadying his right hand
with his left, he shook the crystals of chloral he had brought with him
into the dark liquid. Then he turned, and walked languidly towards the
fire. The emotion caused by his short conversation with Dick Wantele had
wearied him.
* * * * *
Suddenly there fell on his listening ears the sound of footsteps in the
corridor. He knew them for those of his wife. But it was hate, not
fear, that heralded Athena.
He turned round slowly, uncertain for a moment how to explain his
presence there.
She swept in--God! how superb, how radiantly alive--and then gave a
swift cry. "Richard! You have frightened me!" But she faced him proudly.
"I've come up to find something I wish to show General Lingard----"
She turned on the lights, and Richard Maule, looking at her fixedly,
found his first quick impression modified. Her lovely face was thin and
strained. There were shadows under her dark, violet eyes. But even so,
how strong she was, how full of vibrating vitality! By her side Richard
Maule felt that he must appear dead, or worse, ill to death.
Athena was dressed in the purple gown she had worn the night Lingard had
first come to Rede Place. So had she looked when she had opened the door
of the Greek Room and led in their--hers and Richard's--illustrious
guest.
There was something desperate, defiant in the look she now cast on him.
She was telling herself how awful it was to know that this wreck of a
man standing before her could hold the whole of her future in his weak
and yet tenacious grasp! How cruel that this--this cripple should
possess the right to grant or to deny what had become the crowning wish
of her heart!
Perhaps something of what was in her mind penetrated to Richard Maule's
quick brain.
"The ailing and the infirm," he said, staring at her fixedly, "are
treated by the kind folk about them like children. They are never left
alone. I do not choose that our household should know that I desire to
have a private interview with you, and so I thought the simplest thing
would be to come here and wait for you----"
"What is it you wish to say to me?" Her voice shook with suspense. She
clasped her hands together with an unconscious gesture of supplication.
"I have brought you--I have brought us all--the order of release."
A feeling of exultant joy--of relief which pierced so keenly that it was
akin to pain, filled Athena Maule's soul. She had indeed been well
inspired to tell Jane all that was in her heart--and Hew's. And here was
Richard actually saying so! For, "You chose a most excellent Mercury,"
he observed dryly.
"You mean Jane Oglander?" her voice again shook a little. "She was not
my messenger. She asked my permission to speak to you----"
"Yes, I mean Jane Oglander. She showed me where my duty lay. For a while
I hesitated between two courses--for you know, Athena, there were two
courses open to me."
She looked at him without speaking. How cruel, how--how unmanly, of
Richard to say this! And how futile. There was only one moment when he
could have divorced her. Providence had stood her friend by choosing
just that moment to make him ill. Since then--she thought she had learnt
enough English law to know that--he would be held to have condoned.
But her look made him feel ashamed. The javelin does not thus play with
its victim.
"I beg your pardon," he muttered almost inaudibly.
"I know you have always hated me," she said passionately.
"You have not known that always," he answered sombrely--and for a moment
she hung her head.
"Perhaps now, Richard, we may be better friends."
She reminded herself that in old days--in the days when she had been his
idol, his goddess--she had had a certain contemptuous fondness for her
husband. She would be generous--now. Jane had taught her that it was
good to be generous.
How true a friend had Jane Oglander been to her! Athena felt a rush of
warm gratitude to the woman who still--how strange, how absurd it
seemed--was engaged to Lingard. Jane, like the angel she was, would help
them--Athena and Hew Lingard--over what must be for some time to come
very delicate ground. Their progress, albeit that of happy and, what was
so satisfactory, of innocent lovers, would be hampered with small
difficulties. How fortunate it was, how more than fortunate, that
Lingard's engagement to Jane had not yet been publicly announced....
"Have you told Dick?" she asked nervously. Her husband--he was still her
husband--had smiled strangely as only reply to her kindly words. "Was it
about that you wished to see him to-night?"
"No, I have not yet told Dick of my decision."
"I suppose it can all be managed very quietly?" she said plaintively. "I
hope I shan't have to go and appear before a judge--or shall I?"
Richard Maule looked at her thoughtfully. "That is a thing I cannot tell
you," he said slowly. "Many would say to you most confidently--yes, that
you will have to appear before the Judge."
"I thought there was a thing in England called taking evidence on
commission. You yourself, Richard, could not possibly appear in person.
And then--I want to know, it is rather important that I should
know"--her husband bent his head gravely--"if there will be any delay?"
"You mean any lapse of time before the decree can be obtained?"
Her eyes dropped. "Yes, that is what I do mean." In old days it had
always been better to be quite frank with Richard.
"I think not. In this kind of case I think there is no delay. The legal
procedure is quite simple."
He waited a moment. "You of course will bring the suit, and I shall not
oppose it. You see, Athena,--no doubt you have been at the pains to
inform yourself of the fact, for to my surprise Jane Oglander was aware
of it,--the dissolution of a marriage carries with it no stain--no
stain, that is, on the wife who has been so poorly used."
There came a look of raillery on his white face, and Athena again told
herself that he was very cruel--cruel and heartless.
"The wife, I repeat, goes out into the world unsullied, ready, if so the
fancy takes her, to become another man's bride--his wife in reality as
well as in name."
He looked at her significantly, and added, more lightly, "The world has
become more liberal since the days of my youth. I am sure there will be
great sympathy felt for you, Athena. Such a marriage as ours is in truth
a monstrous thing. I did not need Jane to tell me that, though it was
odd of Jane to have thought of it."
There came over him a terrible feeling of lassitude. "And now I'm afraid
I must ask you to help me to get back to my room."
This punishment he put on himself. He must not be met coming out of his
wife's room alone.
"Of course!" she cried eagerly. "You know I would have done much more
for you--I mean since you became ill--if you had only allowed it! But
Dick was always jealous--Dick has always hated me!"
"Surely not always?" he said mildly.
"Yes, always!"
He would not take her arm, or lean on her. She simply walked by his
side, her mind in a whirl of amazement, of gratitude, of almost
hysterical excitement, till he dismissed her, curtly, at his door.
* * * * *
The hour that followed was perhaps the happiest hour of Athena Maule's
not unhappy life. It bore a curious resemblance to that which had
immediately followed Richard Maule's proposal of marriage, the proposal
for which her father and mother, as well as herself, had watched and
waited so anxiously. But now there was added what had been quite lacking
before--a sufficiently strong feeling of attraction to the man who would
place her in the position she longed feverishly to enjoy and adorn.
That Lingard, in the throes of his passion for her, should go through
moments of acute self-depreciation and remorse, only made her feel her
power, her triumph, the more.
She now came down to him gentle, subdued, as he had never yet seen
her,--Nature provides such women with a wonderfully complex and full
armoury--and Lingard, alas! once more under the spell, sprang towards
her. The unexpected departure of Jane to the Small Farm had angered
him.
"I have seen Richard." The pregnant words were uttered solemnly. "I
found him, for the first time in my life, in--in my room. Jane spoke to
him to-day, and he is going to release me, to let me out of prison--at
last!" and then, not till then, Athena allowed herself to fall on
Lingard's breast, and feel the clasp of his strong arms about her.
It mattered naught to her that the man who was now murmuring wild,
broken words of love and passionate joy at her release from intolerable
bonds, felt what the traitor feels--that his intoxication was even now
seared with livid streaks of self-loathing and self-contempt.
She knew well that he would not trouble her overmuch with his remorse.
She could almost hear him, in his heart, say the words he had said the
night before Jane Oglander had come to disturb and trouble the sunlit
waters into which they two had already glided. "It is not your
fault,--any fault there may be is mine."
But just before they said good-night Lingard frightened Athena Maule,
and sent her away from him cold, almost angry.
"If I were the brave man men take me to be," he said suddenly,
unclasping the hands which lay in his, "I should go out into the night
and shoot myself."
She had made him beg, entreat, her forgiveness for his wild, wicked
words. But they frightened her--dashed her deep content.
Athena Maule did not know Hew Lingard with the intimate knowledge she
had known other men who had loved her. But there was this comfort--about
this man she would be able to consult Jane--Jane who was so kind, so
reasonable, and who only wished to do the best for them both.
She reminded herself that men are always blind where women are
concerned. If nothing else would convince Hew Lingard that Jane, after
all, did not care so very much, then Jane must be persuaded, after a
decent interval, to marry Dick Wantele. After what had happened to-day,
everything was possible....
Athena, to-night, was "fey." She felt as if she held the keys of fate in
her hands. But even so, she went on thinking of Lingard's bitter words
long after they had parted, and when, having dismissed her maid, she was
heating the cup of chocolate which sometimes sent her to sleep without
an opiate.
And then, as she lay down among her pillows, there came over Athena
Maule the curious sensation that she was not alone. Bayworth Kaye--poor
Bayworth, of whom she had thought so kindly, so regretfully, only two
nights ago--seemed to be there, close to her, watching, waiting....
Athena did not believe in ghosts, and so she did not feel frightened,
only surprised--very much surprised.
She turned on the light and sat up in bed.
This feeling of another presence close to her--how strong it still
was!--must be a result of the emotion she had just gone through, of her
exciting little scene with Hew Lingard.
It was strange that she should think of Bayworth Kaye here, in this room
where he had never been but once, and then only for a moment on a June
night when they had both been more reckless than usual. It would have
been so much more natural to have felt a survival of Bayworth's presence
downstairs--when she had been in Lingard's arms....
Suddenly she was overwhelmed with an intense, an overmastering
drowsiness, and, quite unconscious of what was happening to her, she
fell back, asleep.
The light above the low rose-red bed was still burning when they found
her in the morning.