XX

In the silence and privacy of her room Alice was sobbing her life away.

Like an opium eater, she had sought magnificent dreams, had surrendered

herself to beautiful illusions, had duped herself supremely. But the

awakening was fraught with fever and suffering.

On that memorable afternoon when her father had brought home the

wonderful announcement that Wyndham was to follow him, Alice had looked

at herself in the glass, and though her favourite dress lay ready for

her, she knew he would not of his own impulse bestow a second glance

upon her.

The evening had come and passed. As by some enchantment Wyndham had

appeared, was seated at the same table with herself, engaged in intimate

conversation with the family, left alone to wine and cigars with her

father; rejoining them in the drawing-room, listening to her playing,

singing to her accompaniment! Then, lo, he was gone; and she was left to

ponder on the swift, surprising turn of events. After all these years of

emotion, the acquaintanceship was an accomplished fact. She was to

penetrate within his door at last, to become, for the time being, part

of the very business of his life!

She retired that night still with the sense of miracle; yet infinitely

grateful to her father for his charming concession to her whim. And her

first subtle move had been crowned with success! At least there was work

where work was needed so sorely; work, too, that brought her so near to

him, annihilating a distance she had reconciled herself to think of as

impassable, and opening up potentialities of service which her fertile

wits would not be slow to seize upon. Would it not be a joy to help him

to a firm footing again, to raise this gifted life of which she had

watched the long slow sinking! It was miraculous that this privilege

should fall to her! But everything must appear to flow naturally to him

of itself; he should never suspect that the unseen hand at work was

hers, any more than he should ever know that this was what she, who

loved him, had for years worked out in fancy.

And she!--she should have no thought but the unselfish desire of serving

him! What matter if she carried in her heart the cold conviction that he

could never love her--since all she had dared aspire to had fallen to

her lot! For who was she to cherish vain hopes? She had not the

commonest touch of beauty; she was hopelessly out of his sphere. She

felt herself appallingly ignorant and inexperienced. In her easy shelter

the years had slipped by in monotonous quiet. In the world outside there

beat a life that was strenuous, entrancing, dramatic--the struggle of

the realm of affairs, the pomp and colour of courts and society, the

important events of politics, the field of view that opened in the

novels, or lay spread behind the footlights of the theatres. Wyndham

belonged to all this brilliant universe, had walked with firm tread amid

it all, breathing its airs with an assurance born of right and nature.

No poverty could destroy his inalienable privileges, could render him

less by a hair's breadth; indeed, save for the manifest inconveniences

of the former, poverty or riches seemed irrelevant on that plane of high

humanity; where differences of fortune were obscured by the highness of

the humanity, however fertile in distinctions these differences might be

in a lower world.

But as the acquaintance ripened, as she tasted of the gracious intimacy

of the long sittings, his perfect kindness, his chivalry, his constant

solicitude began to undermine the attitude with which she had embarked

on the adventure. They had become such good friends, and she could not

blind herself to the fact that he was pressing his personality on her

beyond what mere courtesy and friendliness demanded. But she still

fought to stand firm, and her humility was her strength. It was even

more than her strength--it read for her his doubts and hesitations.

Not that she crudely supposed that, in his conduct to her, he was swayed

by ulterior considerations. She saw that he had genuinely an affection

for her, more kind and brotherly than a lover's affection; she knew that

he was trying to like her better, to raise her in his estimation far

higher than the truth. And she conceded that his hesitation was natural,

that she was no mate for him, that his world would openly despise her.

No, he must not marry her for the safety her fortune would bring him.

She would marry only for love, and, as that she could never win, she

would consequently never marry.

She dreaded now lest the situation should take a more definite turn,

lest he should begin to woo her in earnest. She wished to be left in

contentment with her deep secret happiness which could never be effaced

from her life. She had had her way. It was she who had brought him the

succour he needed; she--of whose existence he had never dreamed, whom he

had often met face to face yet never glanced at. It was she who had

rescued for the world's benefit this splendid genius that the world had

rejected. This was joy enough. To anything else the end must be

disillusion.

For awhile she lived in terror lest he might speak. But as the work

progressed, and he became more and more enthusiastic over her portrait,

she could not but fall a victim to the subtle implication, and begin to

believe that he must really think more of her than she had ever dared to

imagine. It was then that her stern control of herself began to slip

away. Wilfully she shut her eyes to all that she understood only too

well, and surrendered herself to the spell and wonder of the vista that

opened before her. It was the best thing that life had brought her, she

told herself, and in an impulse of pagan desire she was impelled to

wring from it the last drop of passionate happiness it could afford her.

Her love for him reached out into new depths; the dull, despairing,

impossible love of before became a fever, a frenzy, a great yearning

passion that must pour itself out or kill her.

Then came the supreme moment in which she let the belief that he loved

her seize entire possession of her. Must he not have for his mate a

woman who would love him and make him a perfect wife? He was a being

apart from his own world, devoted to serener and higher ambitions. Had

she not seen the glow with which he expounded his ideas and purposes,

forgetting she was a humble, uninstructed listener, and surrounding her

soul with the sweet unction of the implied perfect equality? Perhaps it

had dawned upon him at last that devotion greater than hers the world

could not hold. In his consecration to his high calling he did not need

a wife to figure brilliantly amid social pleasures and functions, but a

helpmeet whom perhaps he could not so easily find in those exalted

spheres; one who needed no pleasures for herself, no triumphs; who had

no purposes of her own, no desires, save the supreme end of

self-sacrifice on the altar of his happiness and achievement. Only a

woman absolutely capable of such self-effacement could understand the

perfect bliss of it. If every man could find such faithfulness at his

own hearth, how the world would thrive and grow blessed! And she thanked

Heaven for the little fortune she could bring him, for this precious

money to establish his life on a safe and sure footing.

And when he had spoken at last, she, casting away the last doubt, had

thrown herself headlong into the dream. With her arms round him, and her

lips to his, she felt that she had always been destined for this high

bliss, that rendered by contrast the quiet stream of her life a mockery

of life.

The joyous period of intoxication was all too short. With the sobering

of the world to its work again in the new year, she, too, sobered a

little, and the old questioning revived in her. Was it really the truth

that he loved her? Where was the note of passion she herself had poured

out so recklessly? His personal magnetism, his urbane, affectionate

friendliness, the caressing vibrations of his voice, his delicate and

considerate dealing with the gaps of ignorance she daily revealed--all

this held her in an invincible spell. But the deep, irresistible

conviction for which her heart yearned was unmistakably absent in his

whole relation to her.

Perhaps some terrible struggle was going on within him. Was he recoiling

in terror sometimes from the thought of the mate he had chosen? Surely

at times he was arguing himself into acceptance and contentment. What

meant the strange, furtive glances he sometimes directed at her?--not

the soft glances of love, but glances bewildering, baffling! She watched

him with a supernaturally sensitive insight, appraising his every

expression, following the imagined see-saw of his doubts and

reassurances.

Yet when he had told her of his meeting with Lady Lakeden again, and of

the new portrait he had engaged upon, no shade of jealousy had arisen in

her. Her sense of the calamity that had befallen Lady Lakeden was so

infinitely distressing that she could have fallen upon her knees and

prayed. To lose a dear husband after only a few months of wedded

happiness!--what more crushing grief could a woman's destiny hold? She

shut her eyes and shuddered, as she tried to realise the depths of its

meaning. It seemed to her that no wife with the least spark of womanhood

could recover from such a blow; that sorrow and weeping must be her

portion for the rest of her days.

She redoubled her devotion to Wyndham, suddenly full of fear lest she

should have been betrayed into injustice to him out of mere morbidity.

And her mind lingered gently on the figure of this other woman whom she

had never seen, but to whom her heart went out in an impulsive flood of

love and pity. If only she could know her, and let her understand how

deeply she realised her grief! But Wyndham had made no response to her

first involuntary expression of this desire, and she was too diffident

to recur to the point again. Perhaps if she waited patiently he might

suggest such a meeting of his own accord. But the days went, and Wyndham

was silent.

And not only silent, but changed. "Yes, yes. He is changed in a hundred

ways," she cried, "though he does not know he has shown it."

If, for a moment, she had been willing to take refuge in the belief that

over-sensitiveness and diffidence had been leading her into distrust of

the situation, her eyes were suddenly too wide open to allow of any

further indulgence in comfort of that kind. There was no mistaking this

unprecedented self-abstraction, the curious, far-away expression that

was almost stereotyped on his features, the continued inattentiveness to

her words that often required her to repeat her remarks and not

unfrequently ignored them, so that she was continually shrinking into

herself, too wounded to insist again. By the side of this, his former

attitude, little as it had satisfied her, seemed impulsive and

passionate!

His face was grave and sad for the most part, but sometimes it shone

with a rapture which she knew had not been inspired by her! He was not

himself in any way; his smile and laugh had not the old spontaneous

charm. Every note of his affection rang false. And yet, in form, his

solicitude and loving care for her remained the same as always. But this

could not blind her; she knew he was trying his best, but his heart and

mind were not with her. Ah, well, if he cared for anybody, it was

certainly not for her!

"Who has drawn him away from me? Who has robbed me?--who has robbed me?"

For days she had pondered and pondered, her mind faltering, her lips

dreading to whisper the name. Wyndham was painting Lady Lakeden. She was

young; she must be interesting and beautiful.

"He is in love with Lady Lakeden!" It escaped from her lips at last, and

then she remained ashen--trembling.

Nay, surely he had loved Lady Lakeden in the old days--loved her

secretly and despairingly, seeing her often, but too poor to woo her!

Moreover, Lady Lakeden had then loved another. "Yes, yes, that is the

truth--the truth!" she cried; "And now he has been seeing her again

daily, and the old love has been reborn!"

A pall descended over Alice's spirit. What a cruel situation! Here was

Wyndham pledged to a woman he could not care for, yet in love with

another whose whole heart was with the dear husband that had been taken

from her. "He is struggling bravely to be true to me--I see it all

now--he is breaking his heart. It is my duty to release him from his

word--ah! no, no!" She shuddered and covered her face, shaken and

shaken. "Even if I gave him his freedom," she argued presently, clinging

on to the wreck with might and main, "it would only be freedom to find

despair. Lady Lakeden loved her husband. I know she is great and true.

She knows he is mine. I trust her--I must trust her--I will pray for

strength to trust her. Heaven help me!--Heaven help me!"

A terrible pang of jealousy smote her. Detesting herself for it, she

tried hard to repress the flood of bitter hatred she felt rising in her

against Lady Lakeden. Poor Lady Lakeden! She had suffered enough and was

blameless. She could not help it if Wyndham loved her.

An overwhelming curiosity to know what manner of woman Lady Lakeden was,

took possession of her. Of course, she was young and beautiful. But what

colour were her eyes? Were they large and deep and brilliant? What

expression had she habitually? What colour was her hair? And was it

abundant? And how arranged? Was she slim and tall? How did she dress?

And in what costume was Wyndham painting her? Were not these the

questions that had been a thousand times on her lips, and yet remained

unuttered?

And why had she not asked of him these questions as clearly and boldly

as she had thought them? Had there been some obscure suspicion in her

mind all along, and she had feared to embarrass her affianced husband?

Poor Wyndham! She told herself she had the most perfect understanding of

his mind. She held him in honour as a noble gentleman, and knew surely

that he would fret his heart away rather than wound her by word or deed.

She would have put her hand in the fire for the certainty that he would

never withdraw from the compact; that he would go through with the

marriage, and die rather than relax the effort to simulate perfect

happiness in their after life.

Could she accept such a sacrifice? Could she spoil his life for him,

when she had only meant to set it straight, and had asked for no greater

privilege? Would that she had been able, by some miracle, to help him

from across the old impassable distance without coming into his life at

all! It was for her to choose--to keep him and all that the future with

him might hold, or to tell him frankly that she thought it best to set

him free and return to the simple paths of her old existence.

But, ah, no, she could not give him up--she could not give him up! She

had possessed his lips, she had possessed his thought and solicitude.

The echoes of his voice caressed her. Break with him! She shut her eyes

and shuddered again; her whole soul grew sick, and she writhed in

agony.