ROCHESTER'S ULTIMATUM
The Park into which they turned was almost deserted. Pauline stopped
the carriage and got out.
"Come and walk with me a little way," she said to Rochester. "We will
go and sit amongst that wilderness of empty chairs. I want to talk. I
must talk to someone. We shall be quite alone there."
Rochester walked by her side, puzzled. He had never seen her like
this.
"I suppose I am hysterical," she said, clutching at his arm for a
moment as they passed along the walk. "There, even that does me good.
It's good to feel--oh, I don't know what I'm talking about!" she
exclaimed.
"Where have you been this afternoon?" he asked gravely.
"To hear that awful man Naudheim," she answered. "Henry, I wish I'd
never been. I wish to Heaven you'd never asked Bertrand Saton to
Beauleys."
Rochester's face grew darker.
"I wish I'd wrung the fellow's neck the first day I saw him," he
declared, bitterly. "But after all, Pauline, you don't take this sort
of person seriously?"
"I wish I didn't," she answered.
"He's an infernal charlatan," Rochester declared. "I'm convinced of
it, and I mean to expose him."
She shook her head.
"You can call him what you like," she said, "but there is Naudheim
behind him. There is no one in Europe who would dare to call Naudheim
a charlatan."
"He is a wonderful man, but he is mad," Rochester said.
"No, he is not mad," she said. "It is we who are mad, to listen a
little, to think a little, to play a little with the thoughts he gives
us."
"I know of Naudheim only by reputation," Rochester said. "And so far
as regards Saton, nothing will convince me that he is not an
impostor."
She sighed.
"There may be something of the charlatan in his methods," she said,
"but there is something else. Henry, why can't we be content with the
things that we know and see and feel?"
He smiled bitterly.
"I am," he answered. "I thank God that I have none of that insane
desire for probing and dissecting nature to discover things which we
are not fit yet to understand, if, even, they do exist. It's a sort of
spiritual vivisection, Pauline, and it can bring nothing but disquiet
and unhappiness. Grant for a moment that Naudheim, and that even this
bounder Saton, are honest, what possible good can it do you or me to
hang upon their lips, to become their disciples?"
"Oh, I don't know!" she answered. "Yet it's hideously fascinating,
Henry--hideously! And the man himself--Bertrand Saton. I can't tell
what there is about him. I only know----"
She broke off in the middle of her sentence. Rochester caught her by
the wrist.
"Pauline," he said, "for God's sake, don't tell me that that fellow
has dared to make love to you."
"I don't know," she answered. "Sometimes I hate the very sight of him.
Sometimes I feel almost as you do. And at others, well, I can't
explain it. It isn't any use trying."
"Pauline," he said, "you see for yourself the state to which you have
been reduced this afternoon. Tell me, is there happiness in being
associated with any science or any form of knowledge the study of
which upsets you so completely? There are better things in life.
Forget this wretched little man, and his melodramatic talk."
"If only I could!" she murmured.
They sat side by side in silence. Strong man though he was, Rochester
was struggling fiercely with the wave of passionate anger which had
swept in upon him. For years he had treated this woman as his dearest
friend. The love which was a part of his life lay deep down in his
heart, a thing with the seal of silence set upon it, zealously
treasured, in its very voicelessness a splendid oblation to the man's
chivalry. And now this unmentionable creature, this Frankenstein of
his own creation, the boy whom he had pitchforked into life, had dared
to be guilty of this unspeakable sacrilege. It was hard, indeed, for
Rochester to maintain his self-control.
"Pauline," he said, "I cannot stand by and see your life wrecked. You
are too sane, too reasonable a woman to become the prey of such a
pitiful adventurer. Won't you listen to me for a moment?"
"Indeed I am listening," she faltered.
"Give yourself a chance," he begged. "Leave England this
week--to-morrow, if you can. Go right away from here. You have friends
in Rome. I heard your cousin ask you not long ago to pay her a visit
at her villa on the Adriatic. Start to-morrow, and I promise that you
will come back a sane woman. You will be able to laugh at Saton, to
see through the fellow, and to realise what a tissue of shams he's
built of. You will be able to feel a reasonable interest in anything
Naudheim has to say. Just now you are unnerved, these men have
frightened you. Believe me that your greatest and most effectual
safety lies in flight."
A sudden hope lit up her face. She turned towards him eagerly. She was
going to consent--he felt it, he was almost conscious of the words
trembling upon her lips. Already his own personal regrets at her
absence were beginning to cloud his joy. Then her whole expression
changed. Something of the look settled upon her features which he had
seen when first she had stopped the carriage. Her lips were parted,
her eyes distended. She looked nervously around as though she were
afraid that some one was following them.
"I cannot do that, Henry," she said. "In a way it would be a relief,
but it is impossible. I cannot, indeed."
She led the way to the carriage. They walked in absolute silence for
nearly a minute. He felt that he had lost a great part of his
influence over her and he was bitter.
"Tell me why you almost consented," he asked, abruptly, "and then
changed your mind? In your heart you must know that it is for your
good."
"I only know," she answered, slowly, "that at first I longed to say
yes, and now, when I come to think of it, I see that it is
impossible."
"You are going to allow yourself, then, to be the prey of these morbid
fancies? You are going to treat this creature as a human being of your
own order? You are going to let him work upon your imagination?"
"It is no use," she said wearily. "For the present, I cannot talk any
more about it. I do not understand myself at all."
They stood for a moment by the carriage.
"We shall meet to-night," he reminded her.
She gave him a doubtful little smile.
"You are really coming to the Wintertons?" she asked.
"I have promised," he answered. "Caroline has bribed me. I am going to
take you in to dinner."
"Will you drive home with me now?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"I have another call to make," he said, a little grimly.
Saton was still in the half darkened library, sitting with his back
turned to the light, and his eyes fixed with a curious stare into
vacancy, when the door opened, and Rochester entered unannounced.
Saton rose at once to his feet, but the interrogative words died away
upon his lips. Rochester's fair, sunburnt face was grim with angry
purpose. He had the air of a man stirred to the very depths. He came
only a little way into the room, and he took up his position with his
back to the door.
"My young friend," he said, "it is not many hours since you and I came
to an understanding of a sort. I am here to add a few words to it."
Saton said nothing. He stood immovable, waiting.
"Whatever your game in life may be," Rochester continued, "you can
play it, for all I care, to the end. But there is one thing which I
forbid. I have come here so that you shall understand that I forbid
it. You can make fools of the whole world, you can have them kneeling
at your feet to listen to your infernal nonsense--the whole world save
one woman. I am ashamed to mention her name in your presence, but you
know whom I mean."
Saton's lips seemed to move for a moment, but he still remained
silent.
"Very well," Rochester said. "There shall be no excuse, no
misunderstanding. The woman with whom I forbid you to have anything
whatever to do, whom I order you to treat from this time forward as a
stranger, is Pauline Marrabel."
Saton was still in no hurry to speak. He leaned a little forward. His
eyes seemed to burn as though touched with some inward fire.
"By what right," he asked, "do you come here and dictate to me? You
are not my father or my guardian. I do not recognize your right to
speak to me as one having authority."
"It was I who turned you loose upon the world," Rochester answered. "I
deserve hanging for it."
"I should be sorry," Saton said coldly, "to deprive you of your
deserts."
"You have learned many things since those days," Rochester declared.
"You have acquired the knack of glib speech. You have become a past
master in the arts which go to the ensnaring of over-imaginative
women. You have mixed with quack spiritualists and self-styled
professors of what they term occultism. Go and practise your arts
where you will, but remember what I have told you. Remember the
person's name which I have mentioned. Remember it, obey what I have
said, and you may fool the whole world. Forget it, and I am your
enemy. Understand that."
"And you," Saton answered with darkening face, "understand this from
me, Rochester. I do not for a moment admit your right to speak to me
in this fashion. I admit no obligation to you. We are simply man and
man in the world together, and the words which you have spoken have no
weight with me whatever."
"You defy me?" Rochester asked calmly.
"If you call that defiance, I do," Saton answered.
Rochester came a step further into the room.
"Listen, my young friend," he said. "You belong to the modern
condition of things, to the world which has become just a little
over-civilized. You may call me a boor, if you like, but I want you to
understand this. If I fail to unmask you by any other means, I shall
revert to the primeval way of deciding such differences as lie between
you and me, the differences which make for hate. I can wield a
horse-whip with the strongest man living, and I am in deadly earnest."
"The lady whose name you have mentioned," Saton said softly--"is she
also your ward? You are related to her, perhaps?"
"She is the woman I love," Rochester answered. "Our ways through life
may lie apart, or fate may bring them together. That is not your
business or your concern. When I tell you that she is the woman I
love, I mean you to understand that she is the woman whom I will
protect against all manner of evil, now and always. Remember that if
you disregard my warning, in the spirit or in the letter, so surely as
we two live you will repent it."
Saton crossed the room with noiseless footsteps. He leaned toward the
wall and touched an electric bell.
"Very well," he said. "You have come to deliver an ultimatum, and I
have received it. I understand perfectly what you will accept as an
act of war. There is nothing more to be said, I think?"
"Nothing," Rochester answered, turning to follow the servant whom
Saton's summons had brought to the door.