LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS.
When Mrs. Davenport left Paulton she walked straight to Herne Hill
railway station. She asked when the next train would start for
Victoria, and having learned there would be one in ten minutes, she
took a ticket for that terminus, and then sat down on one of the
seats on the platform.
It was cold, raw, dull, rainless February weather, and she was
lightly clad, but she did not mind that. Her thoughts were turned
inward, and she had but a dimly reflected idea of things surrounding
her.
When the train steamed into the station, she rose in a quick but
mechanical way, and took her seat in an empty compartment. Upon
arriving at Victoria, she left the train in the same quick,
mechanical way, got into a cab, and drove to a house in Jermyn
Street. Having engaged a bed-room and sitting-room here, she sat down
at once and wrote a letter.
As soon as the letter was finished she left the house, dropped the
letter into the first post-pillar, and then ascended to the middle
section of Regent Street. She visited several shops, bought many
things, and ordered many more. When this was done she paused,
seemingly at a loss.
"My letter," she thought, "will not be there until night. In the
meantime, what shall I do?" She walked slowly down Regent Street. At
last she started. "How stupid," she thought, "I have been not to
telegraph! If I had telegraphed I could have had an answer in an
hour."
She hastened forward, asked a policeman where the nearest telegraph
office was, and on arriving there despatched a message. Then she went
back to Jermyn Street, and, laying aside her bonnet and mantle,
waited.
In an hour and a half a reply came. It ran:
"_I shall be with you almost as soon as this_."
When she read the message she got up and walked about the room in a
state of great excitement. It was now dark, and the gas had not yet
been lighted in the room. As she paced up and down she wrung her
hands and moaned. After a while she became calmer, but still
continued walking up and down. She had eaten nothing that day, yet
she felt no want of food. In fact, when the servant, upon her return,
suggested that she had better order dinner, she had refused to do so
with a shudder. She knew she should need for the coming interview all
her strength, but she could not bear the notion of food. She had not
slept during the whole night, yet she felt no want of sleep.
"I feel," she thought, "as though my sorrows were immortal, and that
I shall require earthly succour no more."
She had not long to wait in solitude. A hansom drove up to the door,
a man jumped out, and in a few minutes he was ushered into the room.
He found her still in the dark, leaning on the mantelshelf.
"Marion," he said--"are you here, Marion?"
"Yes," she answered, "I am here."
"I cannot see you, it is so dark."
"It is very dark. It never has been darker in all my life, and you
know it."
"Will you not shake hands with me and order lights?"
"Neither. What is to be said can best be said in the dark. It is in
the nature of darkness itself. Sit down. I prefer to stand; I wish
you to sit. Sit down."
His eyes were now becoming accustomed to the obscurity. He found a
chair, and sat down.
"Are you alone?" he asked, looking up at where she stood, motionless,
by the mantelpiece.
"_Absolutely_," she answered, in a cold, hard voice. "And you know
it."
"How could I know it? I got your telegram, and came at once. Marion,
you are speaking to me in a tone I am unused to from you."
"Ay," she said, "I am unused to my own voice in its present tone. I
am risking much for you, and you do not deserve that I should risk
anything for you."
"Marion," he cried, half-rising, "you have not left him? You have not
resolved to throw your fate in with mine at last? Marion, my darling!
Marion, let me come to you."
"Stay where you are," she said, in a tone of perplexity, and with a
shudder. "If you move from that chair, it must only be for the door.
Remember this once for all."
"You are very hard, Marion--very hard. It is a long day since we met,
and now you will not even give me your hand. You would give your hand
to the most ordinary friend you have: think of what we were once."
His voice had a firm, manly, straightforward ring in it, and withal
an undertone of passionate entreaty.
"I have thought too much of what has been once. I have thought too
much of what was between you and me long ago. I have another matter
to think of to-night."
"And what is that, Marion?"
"I have to think of last night."
He uttered a cry of surprise and half rose from his chair.
"Did you know I was there? I thought you were asleep. He said you
were. Did he tell you I was there?"
She paused a moment and made a powerful effort to control herself.
When she spoke, her voice was unsteady, and showed that a violent
conflict was going on in her breast.
"He told me nothing," she said. "I have sent for you in order that
you may tell me all. Now go on. All, remember."
"All?" he asked. "I would rather not tell you all. I never told you a
lie yet."
"All," she said--"all, or go."
He shifted uneasily for a few minutes on his chair, and then spoke:
"Well, Marion, since you will have it all, you shall. I am no better
than ever I was. I leave it to you to say if I could, being only
human, be much worse. You might have made a different man of me once.
You wouldn't. Let that pass."
"Yes, let that pass, and let it pass quickly. I did not sell you for
a sum of money."
Her voice was scornful.
"No, you did not. You did better. You sold yourself for a sum of
money. Shall we cry truce?"
"Yes; go on."
"I've been a good deal on the Continent. I've been doing a great many
things I should not do. Amongst others, I have been gambling; and,
worst of all, I have lost. There are many excuses for a man gambling.
There is no excuse for a man losing. Well, I got cleaned out, and I
came home--I mean I went back to Ireland.
"Naturally I faced south. Naturally I went on to Waterford. Naturally
I found myself in Kilcash."
She made a gesture of dissent. But it was too dark for him to see.
She said: "Most unwise and most unnatural."
"It may have been unwise, but it was most natural. What can be more
natural than that a man should go where his heart---- But if I say
any more in this strain, you will be angry?"
"Most assuredly,"
"Well, when I got to Kilcash, I kept my ears open, and soon I heard
that you were about to leave Kilcash House and take a house in or
near London. I inquired still further, found out the day you were to
leave, and got the address of the house you had taken. I came on to
London.
"I arrived here the night before last. I knew you could not be in
your new house until late in the day. I wanted to call most
particularly. There was not an hour to be lost. It was neck or
nothing with me. I resolved to call at Crescent House that very
night, and I did."
"You did?" she said, in a voice like a terrified echo.
"You knew I was there. He told you?"
"No; go on. Go on, I say. You did not ask for me?"
"No. I wanted to see him."
"It was close to eleven, or after it then?"
"After it."
"And you wanted to see him at such an hour, and you knew he was an
invalid?" she said, scornfully.
"I was an invalid myself."
"You! What was the matter with you?"--again that tone of scorn.
"A worse disease than his--poverty."
"What!" she cried, leaving the mantelpiece, and going a step towards
him in the dark. "I thought you got the price of your--of _me_
before."
"Marion, you are unjust--cruelly unjust. When I called on your
husband last night, it was not to _beg_ or to try and get money from
him, because of anything in which you or I ever took part. I had a
claim with which you have no connection, and the nature of which I
will not divulge to you. He may if he likes."
"He never will," she said, with something between a laugh and a sob.
"So be it. It may be all the better the matter should never be spoken
of. But to proceed. I knocked and he let me in. He explained that you
were gone to bed, and that he and you were alone in the house. He was
very polite, for he had an idea of why I came--or rather of the card
of introduction, so to speak, that I brought with me. He made me take
a chair, told me he was not well enough to lie down, as he had one of
his bad attacks of asthma, though by no means a very bad one, and we
had a pleasant general conversation for half-an-hour or so."
"Pleasant conversation!" she cried, falling back to her old position
at the chimney-piece.
"Yes, I assure you it was quite a pleasant conversation. He told me
all the incidents of your journey over from Ireland, and I amused him
with my experiences on the Continent."
"This is too ghastly," she said. "Do not tell me any more about it.
Did he give you--what you came for?"
"Oh, yes, or part of it."
"And then?" she asked, in a hard, constrained voice.
"And then after a few more words I stood up and said good-bye, left
the house, and came back to town."
"Wait," she said. "I will give you another chance. Sit where you are.
I shall be back in a few minutes."
"In the dark?" he asked.
"Yes. Is there anything in the dark that frightens you?"
"No," he answered; "but it is stupid to sit in the dark alone."
"Perhaps when I am gone you may not be quite alone. You may have
memories for company."
There was great meaning in her voice.
He said merely "Perhaps," and she was gone.
While she was away he sat perfectly still. There was little or no
light from the dull low fire, and as the blinds were down and
curtains drawn, none reached the room from the street.
In a few minutes he heard the door open and some one enter. She came
to her old position by the chimney-piece and said:
"Now, if you can find a match, you may light the gas."
He had wax cigar-lights in his pocket. He struck one, and in a moment
the gas flared up. He looked at her, and cried, starting back:
"Merciful heavens, Marion, what masquerade is this!"
"No masquerade," she said calmly, scrutinizing him. "These are my
widow's weeds come from the mourning warehouse a few minutes ago.
They say you ought to be prepared to see me in them."
"I--I!--prepared to see you in widow's weeds! Is Davenport dead?"
"Women whose husbands are living do not wear such things as these.
They say you ought to be prepared to see me dressed as I am now."
She touched the streamers of her cap and pointed to the crape of her
dress.
"What do you mean by saying _they_ say I ought to be prepared for
this? Who are _they?_--and what do you mean?"
"As I left the room a moment ago, a servant brought me this note.
Read it."
He took the note and read it first quickly, a second time slowly.
Then, letting it fall from his grasp, he threw his hands above his
head, and crying out, "Oh, God!" fell back on a chair.