It is necessary to take but a cursory glance at the events that
followed. Life flowed smoothly enough in its way, but it flowed towards
higher and greater achievements for some, and that can only mean a
story of obstacles, and drawbacks and difficulties sturdily overcome.
For the three inmates of the Cromwell Road flat it held many prizes.
Alymer Hermon’s career continued to advance by leaps and bounds. The
“taking up” by Sir Philip Hall became quickly an actual fact, and he
was soon easily first among the juniors. What he lacked in years and
experience his striking presence and personal charm supplied, and his
calm gravity and self-possession went far to counteract his youthful
appearance.
Dick Bruce finished his great novel, and though it was not quite the
jumble about vegetables and babies he had prophesied, it was considered
the most original book of the year, and brought him instantaneous
recognition and fame.
Quin inherited some money, and built a wonderful East End Club House
that is all his own, and is as the apple of his eye.
If the great solution of life is to find one’s true environment, he has
at any rate found his; and in finding it knows a happiness, even amid
the squalid poverty of Shoreditch, such as is found by few.
In the meantime Hal continued to work and be independent. When Ethel
and Dudley married, they tried hard to persuade her to live with them,
but she had already bespoken a smaller sitting-room with her old
landlady, Mrs. Carr, and made up her mind to live there.
Later, when Dudley began to add to his income, they begged her to give
up her work, but she was obdurate, again expressing certain views on
the boon of steady occupation they could not gainsay.
“It is so boring sometimes,” Ethel remonstrated, and she answered:
“Not so boring as idleness in the long run, and having to make up your
mind each day what you are going to do next. The girls who only enjoy
themselves without work little know what they miss in never waking up
in the morning to say, ‘Hurray! this is a holiday.’ No! give me my work
and my play well balanced, and I’ll turn them into happiness.”
It was months before Alymer dared to speak to her of love. It had taken
him long to win her to the old fooling again; and in a sudden gladness
at some little remark or touch that seemed to show him he was truly
forgiven for his own sake, he told her the story of his love, and his
long waiting.
Hal was very taken aback, and a little unhappy, but when she had
convinced him it was really quite hopeless, he forced himself back to
the old comradeship, and took up his self-imposed burden of waiting
once more.
Then followed a period of rapid successes, during which Hal told him
seriously he must now make a choice among the bevy of beauty, wealth,
and lineage at his disposal.
“You really ought, you know,” she said, “out of consideration for all
the poor things left hoping against hope, and the numbers that are
yearly added to them!”
“I have made my choice,” he answered; “it is not my fault about the
vain hopes. It is the obstinacy of one woman, who is keeping the others
in the unfortunate condition you describe.”
But she only smiled lightly, and put him off again, concluding with:
“I should be frightened out of my life at possessing anything so
beauteous and attractive in the way of a husband.”
So Hermon worked on, and waited, believing in his star.
Yet there were times when the apparent hopelessness of it weighed
heavily on his mind—times when the very lustre of his success seemed
only to mock him, because of that one thing he craved in vain.
It was so when the greatest achievement of his life came to his hands.
It was given him to plead for a woman’s life against a charge of
poisoning her husband, pitting his youth and slender experience against
the greatest advocate of the Crown. The case caused a great stir, and
with a growing wonderment and pride she hardly dared to account for.
Hal followed the newspaper reports day by day.
The evening before the speech for the defence he came to her. She
greeted him as usual, saying little about his present notoriety, but
she noticed that he looked careworn, as if the strain were becoming too
much for him; and then suddenly he stated his errand.
“I want you to come to the court tomorrow, Hal. I—I—have a feeling I
want you to be there when I am speaking. Will you come?”
She looked up doubtfully.
“Why do you want me?”
“I hardly know. I mean to save this woman if I can. She did not give
the poison. I am quite certain of it; but we can’t prove it absolutely.
We can only appeal in such a way to the jury that they will feel the
case is not merely not proven against her, but that she is innocent. I
think it would inspire me more than anything if you were there.” He
paused, then added: “I love you so much, Hal, I feel as if I shall save
her life if you are there.”
Hal looked touched, and agreed to go if he would arrange everything,
and telephone to her what time to arrive.
The next day she went to the court with the card he had given, and
found herself received with the utmost deference, and ushered at once
to a seat reserved for her.
A few minutes afterwards Alymer stood up to make his great speech, and
then Hal heard a subdued murmur around her, and saw that the judge was
watching him with some interest and expectancy.
It was the first time she had seen him in his wig and gown, in court,
and her heart began to beat strangely. She felt suddenly and
unaccountably incensed with the women all round, who whispered and
gazed. “What was he to them anyway! How idiotic of them to murmur to
each other how splendid he looked! What did he care for their
approval?”
Her heart carried her a little farther. “What is he to you?...” it
asked. She felt a sudden warm glow of pride, and her eyes grew very
soft as she watched him.
Then he began to speak, and it seemed as if everything in heaven and
earth has paused to listen. Surely there was no big thoroughfare with
hurrying multitudes just outside, no continual stream of noisy,
hurrying traffic; no busy newspaper offices awaiting each flying
message—nothing anywhere but that crowded hall, that white-faced
accused woman waiting for death or freedom, that man in his beauty of
manhood and power straining every nerve to save her.
An hour passed. No one spoke, no one moved. Sometimes a sob, hastily
stifled, broke the oppresive hush, sometimes a stifled cough.
Alymer rarely raised his voice, for his was no impassioned, heated
declaration. It was a magnificent piece of quiet oratory, which carried
every one along by its earnestness and convincing calm, and was
intensified by the look upon his noble, resolute face.
After a time every one knew instinctively that he had won. The tension
grew less taut and more emotional. Women began to weep softly and
restrainedly. Men cleared their throats again and again. Some one
sitting next to Hal apparently knew him, and knew her.
“My God,” he breathed in her ear, “he’s magnificent. He’s saved her. I
wouldn’t have missed this for anything. I’m proud to be his friend.”
Hal’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She began to feel dazed and
faint. It had been too much for her, and the relief was overwhelming.
She thought of Lorraine, and her heart swelled to think he had so
gloriously fulfilled her vast hopes, and crowned all she had done for
him. She longed that she might have been there, and then felt
mysteriously that she not only was there, but was speaking to her. In a
vague, unreal, mystical way, Lorraine was pleading with her to give him
his happiness.
She looked again, confusedly, at the big, strong, calm man; and
something that had been growing in her heart for months took shape and
form.
What did the other women matter? He was hers—hers—hers. Why stop to
question or demur? What did anything matter but that he had loved her
so long and faithfully; and that at last she loved him?
In a stress of unendurable emotion, she got up unsteadily, and left the
court.
A quarter of an hour later, Alymer finished his speech, and sat down
instantly turning his head to look for her. Instead of the familiar,
eager face of the first hour, he saw the empty space, and his
overwrought mind sank to a dull level of bitter disappointment.
She was not impressed, then—not even interested enough to stay until
the end. Oh, what did it matter? She was hard—hard, he was a fool to
love her so.
The jury went away and came back with their verdict of “Not guilty.”
There was a rush and buzz of congratulations. He smiled, because he had
to smile, and grasped outstretched hands because he had to grasp them.
The moment it was possible to get away, he walked blindly and hurriedly
to the entrance, and got into a taxi, before the waiting crowd had had
time to recognise him.
“Where to?” a policeman asked him, and for a moment he was at a loss to
know. Then he gave Hal’s address. “Better have it out and done with,”
was his thought. Once for all he would make her tell him if it was
hopeless, and if she said yes, he would go away and try to forget her
in another country.
When he was shown into Hal’s little sitting-room, he found her
crouching on a footstool in the firelight, before the fire. He stood a
moment or two and looked at her, and then he said in a slightly harsh
voice:
“I suppose you hurried away because you were bored. I thought you would
have stayed until the end. I was a fool. Nothing I do ever has
interested you, or ever will.”
Hal did not look round. She was staring into the flames, with her chin
resting in her hands. When he paused she said calmly:
“I can’t hear what you say so far away.”
He moved across the room and stood on the hearth beside her, towering
above her, with his eyes on the opposite wall.
“I don’t know why I came here at all,” he continued; “but it didn’t
seem any use going anywhere else. Why did you run away in the middle!
Did you want to punish my presumption for wishing to try and
distinguish myself before you, as well as save a woman’s life and
honour?”
A little smile shone in Hal’s eyes, where the firelight caught them.
“I can’t hear what you say, right up there, near the ceiling.”
He looked down at the dark shapely head, and something in her poise and
in her voice made his heart suddenly begin to thump rather wildly.
“I haven’t got a beanstalk,” she added.
He leaned a little towards her.
“And if you had?” he asked tensely.
“If I had, I would perhaps climb up it.”
He leaned lower still, his heart thumping yet more wildly.
“If you climbed up a ladder like that, you would be bound to climb into
my arms.”
“Well—and what if I did?” she said.
THE END.