During tea, though there was ample opportunity for private talk at the
little table where they sat alone, Dare was careful to avoid any
reference to the business which had moved him to seek her out. He
exerted himself to entertain her; and for the time it seemed as though
Blanche actually forgot her discontent in enjoyment of the moment. But
when on paying the score Dare would have bought her a box of chocolates,
to his surprise the girl with hasty ungraciousness declined the gift.
She hated sweets, she said.
His action in purchasing chocolates for her had reminded her of Arnott
and the similar gifts he had showered on her in the past. The incident
jarred upon her; and a return of her former reserve ensued. Already she
regretted having accepted the invitation for this outing. It was not
that she disliked the man, or that she mistrusted him; but she had a
presentiment that he would urge her to tell him things which it might be
against her own interests to disclose. She sought to reassure herself
with the thought that he could not force her confidence. Nevertheless
she experienced a doubt as to her powers of reticence; she had already
allowed him against her better judgment to discover that she was to a
certain extent acquainted with Arnott's doings. And she had confessed
to some authority as to his actions. That positive affirmation of the
line he would be likely to take had been an indiscretion.
Dare was himself so quietly confident that the girl, having nothing to
conceal, would aid him with any information which it lay in her power to
give that he did not anticipate difficulty in persuading her to disclose
her knowledge. He believed that she also would wish to have the scandal
in which her name was concerned allayed finally. It could not be
agreeable for her to know the opprobrious things that were being said of
her in connection with the man. For her own sake she would wish that
stopped.
They re-entered the car and continued the journey. When they were well
out into the country, Blanche said, turning to him suddenly:
"Don't let us stop... What's the use? I don't want to walk; it's
pleasanter driving. And I must not be late in getting back."
"I will see that you are back in ample time," he answered. "But I want
you to get out here. You needn't walk far. I'll tell the man to wait
for us at the bottom of this hill."
He spoke to the chauffeur, and the car stopped. Dare got out and helped
the girl to alight. She looked at him with faint resentment in her
eyes, as they remained standing together beside the road while the car
drove swiftly away.
"I asked you not to," she said protestingly.
"I know," he said. "Forgive me for disregarding the request. I wanted
to talk with you more privately. Plainly we couldn't discuss this
matter before a third person."
"I don't wish to discuss it," she returned, getting off the road and
beginning to walk in the direction taken by the car. "I fail to see why
you, who are almost a stranger to me, should persist in discussing a
subject which you must know is unpleasant for me to listen to. It is
ungenerous of you to have brought me out with such an object."
"Oh! no," he replied. "I can't see it in that light. It is to your
interest, as well as to Mrs Arnott's, to clear up this matter."
"Please leave me out of it. Would you," she asked, looking at him
deliberately, "have taken so much trouble on my account?"
"Possibly not," he admitted. "But since it is my intention to get to
the bottom of this business, I could wish at the same time to be of
service to you. It is not good for a girl to have her name coupled with
that of a married man. You would be well advised in helping me to stop
the thing."
"It is easier to float a scandal than to stop one," she returned
impassively.
She glanced up at him as they strolled along over the coarse grass, and
smiled strangely.
"If you are acting for Mrs Arnott," she said, "you will have quite
enough to do in covering the traces of an older scandal."
He looked down at her quickly, and their eyes met in a long gaze of
challenge and inquiry. There was so much of significance in the girl's
tones, in her eyes, and in her peculiarly malicious smile, that Dare had
an uncomfortable conviction that she knew more of the Arnotts' affairs
than he had supposed. He began to think that she was not as guileless
as he had believed.
"To what do you refer?" he asked.
She stopped abruptly and confronted him with an air of sullen defiance,
an increase of angry colour in her cheeks. Dare, perforce, halted also,
and faced her, perplexed beyond measure and distinctly annoyed. This
sudden change of mood, with its suggestion of open antagonism, took him
aback. He was conscious of a revulsion of feeling which amounted almost
to disgust. He regretted that he had wasted his time in seeking her.
"I don't know by what right you question me," she said. "If you want me
to tell you certain things, you must explain your reasons. Confidence
for confidence, Mr Dare."
"Very good," he answered coolly. "I want you to furnish me with Mr
Arnott's present address, to save me trouble in discovering it for
myself."
"Why do you want his address?" she inquired.
"I thought we had gone into that already," he replied. "I wish to
persuade him to return to his home as the best and quickest means of
ending this scandal."
She shook her head.
"He won't," she answered positively. "He can't... He's ill."
This information moved Dare to a show of surprise. For a moment he was
inclined to discredit the announcement; but the girl's manner gave no
indication that she was attempting to impose on him, and he accepted the
statement as true. It was just possible that his illness accounted for
Arnott's silence.
"I left him at Pretoria," she said, starting to walk again. "He is in a
nursing home." She furnished the address. "They won't let you see him,
if you go there," she added abruptly.
He made a note of the address on the back of an envelope, and
scrutinised her with puzzled uncertainty as he returned the envelope to
his pocket.
"What's the matter with him?" he asked.
"Paralysis." She spoke curtly, with a kind of hard anger in her voice.
"He will get better, but he will never be quite well. It will be a case
for nursing--always."
He observed a rush of tears to her eyes, but there was no softening in
her manner as she went on in dull, resentful tones:
"Everything that happens to me ends like that. If it hadn't been for
this we were to have been married."
"Married!" he repeated, amazed. "You! ... But--"
"Oh! don't pretend," she interrupted impatiently, "that you don't know
they aren't properly married... His wife is dead. I made him show me
proofs of that when he asked me to marry him... He thinks I am going to
marry him still."
"And are you?" he asked.
"I don't know... I hate sickness. But--he's rich. Money makes things
so much easier."
He made a gesture of repulsion.
"You couldn't do a thing so vile as that, surely?" he said.
The horror and disgust he experienced at her callous reasoning revealed
itself in his voice, in his eyes as he stared down at her, scarce able
to credit what he heard. She looked back at him fiercely.
"How dare you talk to me like that? ... Can't you see all that such a
marriage means to a girl like me? Why shouldn't I consider myself?"
"I was thinking of the woman who for years believed herself to be his
wife," he replied coldly. "Now that he is free to marry her she has a
right to demand that he should fulfil his obligation."
"He won't," she declared.
"I think he will," he answered confidently.
"You mean--" she began, and stopped, eyeing him with quick suspicion.
"I wish I hadn't told you where he is," she cried passionately. "But
they won't let you see him. He's not in a condition to be worried. You
can't bully a man in his condition."
"I have no intention of bullying him," he answered, placing considerable
restraint upon himself. "I am going to offer him the choice between two
alternatives. If he is wise he will accept the only decent course open
to him. The consequences of refusal will be awkward for him."
"You don't take into consideration," she said, with bitter anger in her
voice, "that the threat with which you would intimidate him for your
purpose is one which I also can use to oblige him to oppose you, if I
wish. You are overlooking me."
"I simply never dreamed of insulting you by harbouring such a thought,"
he returned. "Even though you have flung the challenge, I couldn't
believe you capable of that."
"You will need to reconstruct your theories on human nature," she said
cynically.
"Oh! no. One instance of failure doesn't damn the race. I am not going
to take up your challenge. I am going to regard it as a thing uttered
with ill-considered haste. How you came by your knowledge puzzles me;
but one point I feel fairly confident on is that you won't use it.
Women don't do these things, Miss Maitland, whatever they may say in
moments of anger."
"Oh! Women!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "You are fond of
generalising. But in this case, it isn't women; it's just myself. I
have got the chance I have always longed for. Do you think I am likely
to let it slip? ... When he was taken ill so suddenly, and I feared he
was going to die, I was nearly mad with anxiety. Then they told me he
wouldn't die, that he would probably live for many years--with care...
It was almost as great a shock to know that he was going to live and
be--like that always. Do you think that woman, who calls herself his
wife, will want him like that? ... Will be ready to devote her life to
nursing him? I don't... Not when she learns the whole story."
"We will leave it to her to decide," he answered quietly.
The picture she drew of Arnott as a helpless invalid was not pleasant to
dwell upon. It appealed to Dare in the light of a horrible injustice
that Pamela should sacrifice herself to the care of an invalid husband,
a man who had deceived and deserted her, who needed to be urged even
then to return to her,--might possibly refuse to return. She would be
wiser to yield to his entreaties and become his wife. He was not quite
clear what legal relationship existed between Pamela and the man who had
married her bigamously; but he had an idea that before she could be free
of him it would be necessary for her to instigate divorce proceedings.
He was not at all sure she would do that, even if Arnott refused to
return to her. The whole affair was horribly complicated.
"The decision won't rest with her, nor with you," Blanche observed after
a brief pause. "You can't coerce a man like Mr Arnott. He won't allow
you to arrange his life."
She spoke with a sort of furtive admiration of the man whose dominating
qualities and virile personality had first attracted her to him, and
ultimately conquered her reluctance to the extent of gaining her consent
to his proposal of marriage. She had left his home to protect herself
from his less honourable intentions, had fled because she was afraid of
him and uncertain of herself; and he had followed, determined to possess
her at all costs. Finding her still obdurate, and less accessible than
when she had lived beneath his roof, he had suggested marriage. His
passion for her had become so imperative that it would brook no denial.
No argument which prudence suggested could deter him from carrying out
his purpose. He flung every consideration aside, as he had done once
before when inflamed with his desire for Pamela; and Blanche, tempted by
all that he could give her, as much as by the reciprocal passion he
inspired, consented readily to his proposal. His sudden illness had
interfered with the plan, had made it for the time being impracticable;
but though she hesitated, appalled at the thought of a querulous
invalid, husband in place of the vigorous man whose imperious strength
had formed a large part of his attractiveness, Blanche had by no means
abandoned the intention of marrying him. The worldly considerations
which had influenced her in the past proved a strong inducement still.
With a sudden desire to end the talk, she increased the pace at which
they were proceeding. Dare, as he kept step with her, maintained a
constrained silence. He felt inadequate to cope with the ugly, sinister
turn this affair had taken. He did not know what to say to the girl.
There was nothing he could say that might not give fresh offence. She
glanced up at him frowningly, incensed at this show of mute disapproval,
and remarked:
"I've told you things it would have been wiser to have kept to myself.
I don't know why I told you. You must treat what I have said as
confidential, please."
"I can't promise that," he answered. "But I will keep your name out of
this business as far as it is possible to do so. After all, there is
nothing that you have told me that was not bound to come out. You
couldn't marry a man who is known to have a wife and family, without the
whole story coming to light. As soon as the facts are known Arnott will
have to take his trial on a charge of bigamy."
She turned pale as she listened to him. It was borne in upon her that
this man was going to prove a determined and implacable enemy. She felt
instinctively that he meant to oppose her with all his strength.
"She will never prosecute him," she said, sullenly defiant.
"She won't need to," he answered convincingly. "The Crown will do
that."
"You are trying to intimidate me," she exclaimed with sudden passion.
"You have no right to threaten me."
He looked at her deliberately with a faint uplift of his brows.
"I am doing nothing of the sort," he answered. "I am merely making a
plain statement of facts in order to show you what you will bring on the
man you talk of marrying if you carry out your determination to
encourage him in his cruel desertion of the woman he married. Only
through you will the story of his crime ever come to be known."
She walked on with lowered gaze, making no reply.