No matter how great a control a man exercises over himself in ordinary
circumstances, brought face to face with the painfully unexpected it is
frequently the self-contained man who loses the grip on his emotions,
and with it his more extended outlook in favour of an immense
concentration upon the personal factor created by the new development.
The story which Pamela unfolded produced some such effect on Dare. The
emotions which moved him while listening to the sordid, pitiful tale
were varied. The story of Arnott's bigamous marriage enraged him. The
personal factor crept into that. The man had not only cheated the girl,
he had cheated him,--robbed him of the only woman he had ever wished to
marry. He had stolen her from him, having no right to her. This
thought filled him with a bitter sense of personal loss, of personal
injury. The element of self threw his imagination out of focus for the
time. He had a very strong feeling that he wanted to, that he had to,
punish Arnott for that mean deception. He would have enjoyed coming to
grips with the man.
Then he became acutely aware that Pamela was still talking, telling him
other things of an equally painful nature. With an effort he brought
his mind back to the subject.
This part of the story was more difficult to tell. Pamela told it in
short fragmentary sentences. She concealed nothing. She spoke of her
enlightenment, of the difficult choice offered her, and her inability to
choose the right course, in low strained tones and with downcast eyes.
She did not look at Dare while she spoke. He was standing in front of
the window, with his back to the opening, watching her with grave intent
face which betrayed little of what he was feeling as he listened to the
difficult recital. He was endeavouring, despite the disappointment her
confession caused him, to excuse, even to defend, her choice. As she
urged, there had been the child to consider, and at that time she loved
the man.
Then she spoke of the waning of Arnott's love, of his frequent
unkindness, and her own increasing indifference. Again Dare was
conscious of his personal interest in this part of the story. The
self-confessed decrease in her love for the man who was not her husband,
affected him directly. He felt glad that she had told him that.
She passed on to Arnott's infatuation for the girl, who was her
children's governess, of their disappearance on the same day, and the
inevitable conclusion which, against her own will, she had arrived at in
connection with that circumstance, and the fact that he had not written,
nor sent any explanation of his absence.
Then came the most difficult part of the whole narrative. Pamela had
fetched the cablegram, which she had found in Arnott's desk and
transferred to the safe, and this she placed in Dare's hand as the
simplest way of explaining the duplicity she found impossible to put
into words.
"You see," she said, "that cablegram is a year old. He received that
ten months before he left home... And he never told me. I found it
after he had gone. He did not intend to take advantage of that
knowledge... He didn't care."
Tears, the first she had shed, came into her eyes. She wiped them away
quietly.
"He doesn't care," she said, "what becomes of me and the children."
Dare, as he held in his hands the cablegram which assured him that the
man who had tricked this woman to whom he was not lawfully married, was
now free to fulfil his obligation, realised perfectly that of all people
calculated to be of service to her in the present crisis he was the
worst chosen. He was only conscious of a feeling of regret that the
barrier had been removed. It swamped for the time the more chivalrous
emotion of pity for Pamela in her helpless position. He stared at the
cablegram for a long while without speaking. Then he said, still
without looking at her--
"I am afraid there isn't any reason for doubting the correctness of your
deduction in this instance. The evidence is damning." He lifted his
eyes from the paper suddenly and fixed them upon her. "This matter
wants thinking over carefully," he said. "I wasn't prepared for this.
It's worse than anything I had anticipated."
The sight of her distressed face, of the slow tears raining over her
cheeks, unnerved him, and at the same time called forth his better
qualities. He forgot himself in the more worthy emotion of compassion
for her in her affliction.
"I hadn't any idea that things were as bad as this," he said. "Thank
God! you told me. I'll have to think out what's best to be done. I'm
unprepared, you see... But we've got to straighten the muddle somehow."
He had in his mind a plan, which had presented itself when she confessed
to the bogus nature of her marriage, whereby the muddle could be
straightened in, what seemed to him in the circumstances, the simplest
way; but in view of her present distress he hesitated to speak of that
now. The knowledge of the death of Arnott's wife complicated things.
"Oh!" she cried, with soft vehemence. "The comfort of having some one
to confide in,--some one I can trust! I've been eating my heart out
these last two months. The Carruthers are very kind,--but I couldn't
tell them what I have told you. And Mr Carruthers wouldn't be able to
advise me. He would wish me to consult a lawyer." She clasped her
hands tightly in her lap. "I couldn't have all these intimate,
disgraceful details publicly exposed."
"No," he said reassuringly; "of course not."
But he did not see how without publicity the matter could possibly be
satisfactorily arranged. She might, he decided, have to agree to that
later. But he refrained from troubling her at the present stage with
any such alternative.
"It appears to me," he said slowly, "that the first thing to be done is
to find Arnott. Until I have seen him it is impossible to come to any
decision... Have I your permission to let him know that I am in full
possession of the facts you have related?"
She looked a little frightened.
"Oh!" she said. "Must you tell him that? He will never forgive me."
"Do you think that matters?" He tapped the cablegram he still held.
"In face of this, I don't think you have much to expect from him save
what is gained through compulsion. We shall be forced to use our
knowledge."
She gazed up at him, faintly perplexed.
"What do you mean to do?" she asked.
"What do you want me to do?"
Pamela hesitated. Any love which had remained from the wreckage of the
past had died with the finding of the cablegram after Arnott's
desertion. It seemed to her that all sense of feeling had died with it,
except only the jealous maternal love, which gathered strength with the
decline of the rest.
"I want only one thing from him," she answered presently, her eyes
evading his without however falling... "I've a right to that--his name.
Don't you think I am within my right in demanding that?"
"Yes," he agreed, "but--"
Pamela glanced at him swiftly.
"You think he won't consent?" she asked.
"I wasn't thinking that. I imagine if it came to the point, we could
oblige him to consent. But are you quite sure that course would be
wise? Wouldn't it, perhaps, entail fresh suffering on you?"
"I was not considering myself," she said. "It doesn't seem to matter
much what becomes of me."
He approached her, and stood over her, all the love that was in his
heart revealed in his earnest eyes. He had not intended to speak of his
love then; the time occurred to him as ill chosen; but while she
discussed in such calm, dispassionate tones the only solution which
presented itself to her mind, it seemed to him, if he delayed showing
her another way out of her present trouble, the opportunity might not
offer itself again.
"Won't you," he said very quietly, "take my name instead?"
He seated himself on the sofa beside her, and possessed himself of her
hands, which he held in both his. Pamela made no attempt to withdraw
them. White and distressed and manifestly disconcerted, she averted her
gaze from his and stared past him out at the sunshine. Her sole reason
for hesitating to write to Dare had resulted from the conviction that
his regard for her was deeper than that of a friend. Her feeling for
him did not bear analysis either. He was a man whom from the first she
had liked and respected; the respect remained unaltered, but the liking
had increased insensibly until it assumed an importance in her thoughts
which she found it best to discourage. Not for a moment did it strike
her that he made this offer out of pity for her. She knew that he loved
her,--that he wanted her. His proposal filled her less with surprise
than concern. She was sorry to know that her own broken life might
embitter his.
"Won't you," he repeated in the same quiet voice as before, "accept my
name? I think you know that I love you. I have loved you for a great
many years. I shouldn't speak of that now; only it seems to me such a
tragic mistake you are making. The life you contemplate would be a
wretched business. You will spoil the happiness of two lives--yours and
mine--if you persist in it... I think I could make you happy, Pamela,
if you would let me try."
Deliberately she faced round and met his gaze with sad blue eyes which
seemed to have lost entirely their old happy expression.
"I know you could," she answered, her voice almost a whisper. "If it is
any sort of satisfaction to you to hear it, I love you too. But I can't
do what you ask. For the sake of my children I must marry their father.
Don't you see the difference it makes to them?"
"I thought it might be that," he said. "But consider, Pamela,--they are
so young. Don't you think they would be as happy and as safe under my
guardianship?"
"That isn't the point to consider," she answered steadily. "When a
woman has been circumstanced as I have been she realises the enormous
difference these things make. I've felt the sting of it,--the dread of
discovery,--the overwhelming sense of shame. I should be a selfish
mother if I exposed my children to that. In whatever light you stood to
them, you could never make good the position which they have a right to
as their father's children. Later, when they grow up, the world will
make them feel that loss. If there were only myself to think of I
wouldn't hesitate. But we take upon ourselves a great responsibility
when we bring a life into the world... It's for the sake of the
children... Oh! believe me, dear, it's only for their sakes I refuse."
The earnestness of her manner, the tears which dimmed her eyes and were
with difficulty restrained, affected him deeply. He realised that the
barrier which stood between them was insuperable as she saw it; but he
was far from satisfied that she was right. Why in later years should
the question of the children's parentage arise? He would take them away
from Africa, and adopt them legally. He endeavoured to explain this to
her. Pamela listened quietly; but he felt that he failed in convincing
her.
"It is dear of you," she said, and pressed his hand. "But there is only
one way in which I can hope to retrieve my mistake. I can't help
thinking that it is best for your sake that I cannot do what you ask.
The past clings to a woman. She never succeeds in burying it. I love
you for loving me. I love you for wanting to marry me in spite of all
you know. It is difficult for me to refuse; but it is better so."
"Oh! Pamela," he said; "you are just racking me. My happiness is bound
up in you. I've nursed my love for you hopelessly for years, until
everything else has become subordinated to it. It's part of myself.
And now that you have it in your power to grant what I ask, you refuse.
I want you, and you won't come to me."
"Don't make it harder for me," she pleaded. "It isn't easy to refuse.
Can't you see, dear, I don't belong to myself any longer? I belong to
the man who took my life and threw it aside when he had no further use
for it. He has had the best of me,--my youth--my love." He winced.
"Yes. I loved him once--passionately. I didn't believe it possible
that I could ever love any one as I loved him. But I love you... not in
the same way." She leaned towards him, and her eyes shone mistily, like
sapphires gleaming in some translucent pool. "I was always a little
afraid of him. Perfect love does not know fear. I wish I could marry
you; but it isn't possible... I belong to him--the father of my
children. I've got to live for the children now. Their claim on me
counts above every other consideration."
He drew her nearer to him by the hands he still held clasped in his, and
looked steadily into her face.
"And if he refuses?" he said hoarsely... "Pamela, if he refuses to
agree to your demand?"
Pamela's eyes lingered on his for a while, the doubt which his question
aroused calling up a dread of numberless possibilities.
"Oh!" she said, and paused dismayed. "He can't refuse," she added in
strained sharpened tones.
She turned her head aside, and quite suddenly, without premonition, she
was weeping in a furtive, frightened fashion that was immensely
disconcerting to Dare. Her tears stabbed him. He got up and wandered
away to the window and stood with his back to her in an attitude of deep
dejection. A tormenting remorse gripped him.
"He can't refuse," he said reassuringly. "That will be all right. He
can't on the face of things refuse..."