Berenice seemed to dwell always in the twilight. At first Matravers
thought that the room was empty, and he advanced slowly towards the
window. And then he stopped short. Berenice was lying in a crumpled
heap on the low couch, almost within touch of his hands. She was lying
on her side, her supple figure all doubled up, and the folds of her
loose gown flowing around her in wild disorder. Her face was half
hidden in her clasped hands.
"Berenice," he cried softly.
[Illustration: Berenice was lying in a crumpled heap on the low couch]
She did not answer. She was asleep. He stood looking down upon her,
his heart full of an infinite tenderness. She, too, had suffered,
then. Her hair was in wild confusion, and there were marks of recent
tears upon her pale cheeks. A little lace handkerchief had slipped
from her fingers down on to the floor. He picked it up. It was wet!
The glow of the heavily-shaded lamp was upon her clasped white fingers
and her bowed head. He watched the rising and falling of her bosom as
she slept. To him, so great a stranger to women and their ways, there
was a curious fascination in all the trifling details of her toilette
and person, the innate daintiness of which appealed to him with a very
potent and insidious sweetness. Whilst she slept, he felt as one far
removed from her. It was like a beautiful picture upon which he was
gazing. The passion which had been raging within him like an autumn
storm was suddenly stilled. Only the purely aesthetic pleasure of her
presence and his contemplation of it remained. It seemed to him then
that he would have had her stay thus for ever! Before his fixed eyes
there floated a sort of mystic dream. There was another world--was it
the world of sleep or of death?--where they might join hands and dwell
together in beautiful places, and there was no one, not even their
consciences, to say them nay. The dust of earthly passion and sin, and
all the commonplace miseries of life, had faded for ever from their
knowledge. It was their souls which had come together ... and there
was a wonderful peace.
Then she opened her eyes and looked up at him. There was no more
dreaming! The old, miserable passion flooded his heart and senses. His
feet were upon the earth again! The whole world of those strange,
poignant sensations, stronger because of their late coming, welled up
within him.
"Berenice!"
She was only half awake, and she held up her soft, white arms to him,
gleaming like marble through the lace of her wide sleeves. She looked
up at him with the faint smile of a child.
"My love!"
He stooped down, and her arms closed around him like a soft yoke. But
he kissed her forehead so lightly that she scarcely realized that this
was almost his first caress.
"Berenice, you have been angry with me!"
She sat up, and the lamplight fell upon his face.
"You have been ill," she cried in a shocked tone.
"It is nothing. I am well. But to-night--I had a shock; I saw you
with--Mr. Thorndyke!"
Her eyes met his. The hideous phantom which had been dogging his steps
was slain. He was ashamed of that awful but nameless fear.
"It is true. Mr. Thorndyke has offered me an apology, which I am
forced to believe sincere. He has asked me to be his wife! I was
sorry for him."
"He is a bad man! He has spoken ill of you! He has already a wife!"
"I am glad of it. I can obey my instincts now, and see him no more.
Personally he is distasteful to me! I had an idea he was honest! It is
nothing!"
She dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. To her it was
altogether a minor matter. Then she looked at him.
"Well!"
"You never answered my letter."
"No, there was no answer. I came back."
"You did not let me know."
"You will find a message at your rooms when you get back."
He walked up and down the room. He knew at once that all he had done
hitherto had been in vain. The battle was still before him. She sat
and watched him with an inscrutable smile. Once as he passed her, she
laid her hand upon his arm. He stopped at once.
"Your white flower was born to die and to wither," she said. "A
night's frost would have killed it as surely as the lowland air. It is
like these violets." She took a bunch from her bosom. "This morning
they were fresh and beautiful. Now they are crushed and faded! Yet
they have lived their life."
She threw them down upon the floor.
"Do you think a woman is like that?" she said softly. "You are very,
very ignorant! She has a soul."
He held out his hand.
"A soul to keep white and pure. A soul to give back--to God!"
Again she smiled at him slowly, and shook her dark head. "You are like
a child in some things! You have lived so long amongst the dry bones
of scholarship, that you have lost your touch upon humanity. And of
us women, you know--so very little. You have tried to understand us
from books. How foolish! You must be my disciple, and I will teach
you."
"It is not teaching," he cried; "it is temptation."
She turned upon him with a gleam of passion in her eyes.
"Temptation!" she cried. "There spoke the whole selfishness of the
philosopher, the dilettante in morals! What is it that you fear? It is
the besmirchment of your own ideals, your own little code framed and
moulded with your own hands. What do you know of sin or of purity,
you, who have held yourself aloof from the world with a sort of
delicate care, as though you, forsooth, were too precious a thing to
be soiled with the dust of human passion and human love! That is where
you are all wrong. That is where you make your great mistake. You
have judged without experience. You speak of a soul which may be
stained with sin; you have no more knowledge than the Pharisees of old
what constitutes sin. Love can never stain anything! Love that is
constant and true and pure is above the marriage laws of men; it is
above your little self-constructed ideals; it is a thing of Heaven and
of God! You wrote to me like a child,--and you are a child, for until
you have learnt what love is, you are without understanding."
Suddenly her outstretched hands dropped to her side. Her voice became
soft and low; her dark eyes were dimmed.
"Come to me, and you shall know. I will show you in what narrow paths
you have been wandering. I will show you how beautiful a woman's love
can make your life!"
"If we can love and be pure," he said hoarsely, "what is sin? What is
that?"
He was standing by the window, and he pointed westwards with shaking
finger. The roar of Piccadilly and Regent Street came faintly into the
little room. She understood him.
"You have a great deal to learn, dear," she whispered softly.
"Remember this first, and before all, Love can sanctify everything."
"But they too loved in the beginning!"
She shook her head.
"That they never could have done. Love is eternal. If it fades or
dies, then it never was love. Then it was sin."
"But those poor creatures! How are they to tell between the true love
and the false?"
She stamped her foot, and a quiver of passion shook her frame.
"We are not talking about them. We are talking about ourselves! Do you
doubt your love or mine?"
"I cannot," he answered. "Berenice!"
"Yes!"
"Did you ever tell--your husband that you loved him?"
"Never!"
"Did he love you?"
"I believe, so far as he knew how to love anything,--he did."
"And now?"
She waved her hand impatiently.
"He has forgotten. He was shallow, and he was fond of life. He has
found consolation long ago. Do not talk of him. Do not dare to speak
of him again! Oh, why do you make me humble myself so?"
"He may not have forgotten. He may have repented. He may be longing
for you now,--and suffering. Should we be sinless then?"
She swept from her place, and stood before him with flashing eyes.
"I forbid you to remind me of my shame. I forbid you to remind me
that I, too, like those poor women on the street, have been bought and
sold for money! I have worked out my own emancipation. I am free. It
was while I was living with him as his wife that I sinned,--for I
hated him! Speak to me no more of that time! If you cannot forget it,
you had better go!"
He stretched out his hands and held hers tightly.
"Berenice, if you were alone in the world, and there was some great
barrier to our marriage, I would not hesitate any longer. I would take
you to myself. Don't think too hardly of me. I am like a man who is
denying himself heaven. But your husband lives. You belong to him. You
do not know whether he is in prosperity, or whether he has forgotten.
You do not know whether he has repented, or whether his life is still
such as to justify your taking the law into your own hands, and
forsaking him for ever. Listen to me, dear! If you will find out these
things, if you can say to yourself and to me, and to your conscience,
'he has found happiness without me, he has ignored and forgotten the
tie between us, he does not need my sympathy, or my care, or my
companionship,' then I will have no more scruples. Only let us be sure
that you are morally free from that man."
She wrenched her hands away from his. There was a bright, red spot of
colour flaring on her cheeks. Her eyes were on fire.
"You are mad!" she cried; "you do not love me! No man can know what
love is who talks about doubts and scruples like you do! You are too
cold and too selfish to realize what love can be! And to think that I
have stopped to reason, to reason with you! Oh! my God! What have I
done to be humbled like this?"
"Berenice!"
"Leave me! Don't come near me any more! I shall thrust you out of my
life! You never loved me! I could not have loved you! Go away! It has
been a hideous mistake!"
"Berenice!"
"My God! Will you leave me?" she moaned. "You are driving me mad! I
hate you!"
Her white hand flashed out into the darkness, as though she would have
struck him! He bowed his head and went.