My feelings when I reached my room that night were not to be envied. I
was as firmly convinced of the identity of the woman as I was of the
shining of the sun. There could not be any mistake; I had seen her face
quite plainly in the moonlight, and it had been too deeply impressed on
my mind for me to forget it, or to mistake it for another. Indeed, the
horror of the discovery was still upon me; my nerves were trembling; my
blood was cold. How could it be that my old friend Lance had made so
terrible a mistake? How could I bear to know that the wife whom he
worshiped was a murderess? What else she had been, I did not care even
to think; whose child it was, or why she had drowned it, I could not,
dare not think.
I could not sleep or rest; my mind and brain were at variance with
themselves. Frances Fleming seemed to me a fair, kind-hearted, loving,
woman, graceful as fair; the woman I had seen on the Chain Pier was a
wild, desperate creature, capable of anything. I could not rest; the
soft bed of eiderdown, the sheets of pure linen perfumed with lavender,
the pillows, soft as though filled with down from the wings of a bird,
could bring no rest to me.
If this woman were anything but what she seemed to be, if she were
indeed a murderess, how dare she deceive Lance Fleming? Was it right,
just or fair that he should give the love of his honest heart, the
devotion of his life, to a woman who ought to have been branded? I
wished a thousand times over that I had never seen the Chain Pier, or
that I had never come to Dutton Manor House; yet it might be that I was
the humble instrument intended by Providence to bring to light a great
crime. It seemed strange that of all nights in the year I should have
chosen that one; it seemed strange that after keeping the woman's face
living in my memory for so long I should so suddenly meet it in life.
There was something more than mere coincidence in this; yet it seemed a
horrible thing to do, to come under the roof of my dearest friend and
ruin his happiness forever.
Then the question came--was it not better for him to know the truth than
to live in a fool's paradise--to take to his heart a murderess--to live
befooled and die deceived? My heart rose in hot indignation against the
woman who had blighted his life, who would bring home to him such shame
and anguish as must tear his heart and drive him mad.
I could not suppose, for one moment, that I was the only one in the
world who knew her secret--there must be others, and, meeting her
suddenly, one of these might betray her secret, might do her greater
harm and more mischief than I could do. After hours of weary thought, I
came to this conclusion, that I must find out first of all whether my
suspicions were correct or not. That was evidently my first duty. I must
know whether there was any truth in my suspicions or not. I hated myself
for the task that lay before me, to watch a woman, to seek to entrap
her, to play the detective, to seek to discover the secret of one who
had so frankly and cordially offered me friendship.
Yet it was equally hateful to know that a bad and wicked woman, branded
with sin, stained with murder, had deceived an honest, loyal man like
Lance Fleming. Look which way I would, it was a most cruel
dilemma--pity, indignation, wonder, fear, reluctance, all tore at my
heart. Was Frances Fleming the good, pure, tender-hearted woman she
seemed to be, or was she the woman branded with a secret brand? I must
find out for Lance's sake. There were times when intense pity softened
my heart, almost moved me to tears; then the recollection of the tiny
white baby lying all night in the sea, swaying to and fro with the
waves, steeled me. I could see again the pure little waxen face, as the
kindly woman kissed it on the pier. I could see the little green grave
with the shining cross--"Marah, found drowned," and here beside me,
talking to me, tending me with gentle solicitude, was the very woman, I
feared, who had drowned the child. There were times--I remember one
particularly--when she held out a bunch of fine hothouse grapes to me,
that I could have cried out--"It is the hand of a murderess; take it
away," but I restrained myself.
I declare that, during a whole fortnight, I watched her incessantly; I
scrutinized every look, every gesture; I criticised every word, and in
neither one nor the other did I find the least shadow of blame. She
seemed to me pure in heart, thought and word. At times, when she read or
sang to us, there was a light such as one fancies the angels wear. Then
I found also what Lance said of her charity to the poor was perfectly
true--they worshipped her. No saint was a greater saint to them than the
woman whom I believed I had seen drown a little child.
It seemed as though she could hardly do enough for them; the minute she
heard that any one was sick or sorry she went to their aid. I have known
this beautiful woman, whose husband adored her, give up a ball or a
party to sit with some poor woman whose child was ill, or was ill
herself. And I must speak, too, of her devotion--to see the earnest,
tender piety on her beautiful face was marvelous.
"Look, John," Lance would whisper to me; "my wife looks like an angel."
I was obliged to own that she did. But what was the soul like that
animated the beautiful body?
When we were talking--and we spent many hours together in the garden--I
was struck with the beauty and nobility of her ideas. She took the right
side of everything; her wisdom was full of tenderness; she never once
gave utterance to a thought or sentence but that I was both pleased and
struck with it. But for this haunting suspicion I should have pronounced
her a perfect woman, for I could see no fault in her. I had been a
fortnight at Dutton Manor, and but for this it would have been a very
happy fortnight. Lance and I had fallen into old loving terms of
intimacy, and Frances made a most lovable and harmonious third. A whole
fortnight I had studied her, criticised her, and was more bewildered
than ever--more sure of two things: The first was that it was next to
impossible that she had ever been anything different to what she was
now; the second, that she must be the woman I had seen on the pier.
What, under those circumstances, was any man to do?
No single incident had happened to interrupt the tranquil course of
life, but from day to day I grew more wretched with the weight of my
miserable secret.
One afternoon, I remember that the lilacs were all in bloom, and Lance
sat with his beautiful wife where a great group of trees stood. When I
reached them they were speaking of the sea.
"I always long for the sea in summertime," said Lance; "when the sun is
hot and the air full of dust, and no trees give shade, and the grass
seems burned, I long for the sea. Love of water seems almost mania with
me, from the deep blue ocean, with its foaming billows, to the smallest
pool hidden in a wood. It is strange, Frances, with your beauty-loving
soul, that you dislike the sea."
She had gathered a spray of the beautiful lilac and held it to her lips.
Was it the shade of the flower, or did the color leave her face? If so,
it was the first time I had seen it change.
"Do you really dislike the sea, Mrs. Fleming?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, laconically.
"Why?" I asked again.
"I cannot tell," she answered. "It must be on the old principle--
"'I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why--I cannot tell!
But only this I know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell!'"
"Those lines hardly apply to the sea," I said. "I thought love for the
sea was inborn with every man and woman in England."
"It is not with me," she said.
She spoke quite gently. There was not the least hurry or confusion, but
I was quite sure the color had faded from her face. Was it possible that
I had found a hole the strong armor at last?
Lance turned a laughing face to me.
"My wife is as strong in her dislikes as in her likes," he said. "She
never will go to the sea. Last year I spent a whole month in trying to
persuade her; this year I have begun in good time, and I intend to give
it three months' good trial, but I am afraid it will be quite in vain."
"Why do you dislike the sea?" I repeated. "You must have a reason."
"I think," she replied, "it makes me melancholy and low spirited."
"Well it might!" I thought, for the rush and fall of the waves must be
like a vast requiem to her.
"That is not the effect the sea has upon most people," I said.
"No, I suppose not; it has upon me," she answered. Then smiling at me as
she went on: "You seem to think it is my fault, Mr. Ford, that I do not
love the sea."
"It is your misfortune," I replied, and our eyes met.
I meant nothing by the words, but a shifting, curious look came into her
face, and for the first time since I had been there her eyes fell before
mine.
"I suppose it is," she said, quietly; but from the moment we were never
quite the same again. She watched me curiously, and I knew it.
"Like or dislike, Frances, give way this time," said Lance, "and John
will go with us."
"Do you really wish it?" she asked.
"I should like it; I think it would do us all good. And, after all,
yours is but a fancy, Frances."
"If we go at all," she said, "let us go to the great Northern sea, not
to the South, where it is smiling and treacherous."
"Those southern seas hide much," I said; and again she looked at me with
a curious, intent gaze--a far-off gaze, as though she were trying to
make something out.
"What do they hide, John?" asked Lance, indifferently.
"Sharp rocks and shifting sands," I answered.
"So do the Northern seas," he replied.
A soft, sweet voice said: "Every one has his own taste. I love the
country; you love the sea. I find more beauty in this bunch of lilac
than I should in all the seaweed that was ever thrown on the beach; to
me there is more poetry and more loveliness in the ripple of the leaves,
the changeful hues of the trees and flowers, the corn in the fields, the
fruit in the orchards, than in the perpetual monotony of the sea."
"That is not fair, Frances," cried Lance. "Say what you will, but never
call the sea monotonous--it is never that; it always gives on the
impression of power and majesty."
"And of mystery," I interrupted.
"Of mystery," she repeated, and the words seemed forced from her in
spite of herself.
"Yes, of mystery!" I said. "Think what is buried in the sea! Think of
the vessels that have sank laden with human beings! No one will know
one-third of the mysteries of the sea until the day when she gives up
the dead."
The spray of lilac fell to the ground. She rose quickly and made no
attempt to regain it.
"It is growing chilly," she said; "I will go into the house."
"A strange thing that my wife does not like the sea," said Lance.
But it was not strange to my mind--not strange at all.