"That's not the way," I said. "I've got my code, as I told you before."
"Does the code forbid suicide?" he asked.
"That's a different thing."
"Not at all. The man who commits suicide kills an unarmed man."
"But the unarmed man happens to be himself."
"Suppose that in this instance your distinction won't work? Look here,"
he went on, as I pushed back my chair impatiently, "I have one truth
more for you. I swear I believe that what we have hated, we two, is not
each other, but ourselves or our own likeness. I swear I believe we two
have so shared natures in hate that no power can untwist and separate
them to render each his own. But I swear also I believe that if you
lift that revolver to kill, you will take aim, not at me, but by
instinct at a worse enemy--yourself, vital in my heart."
"You have some pretty theories to-night," I sneered. "Perhaps you'll go
on to tell me which of us two has been Elaine's husband, feeding
daintily in Lennox Gardens, clothed in purple and fine linen, while the
other--"
He interrupted me by picking up his revolver and striding to the
fireplace again.
"So be it, since you will have it so. Kill me," he added, with a queer
look, "and perhaps you may go back to Lennox Gardens and enjoy all these
things in my place."
I took my station. Both revolvers were levelled now. I took sight
along mine at his detested face. It was white but curiously eager--
hopeful even. I lowered my arm, scanning his face still; and still
scanning it, set my weapon down on the table.
"I believe you are mad," said I slowly. "But one thing I see--that, mad
or not, you're in earnest. For some reason you want me to kill you;
therefore that shall wait. For some reason it is torture to you to live
and do without me: well, I'll try you with that. It will do me good to
hurt you a bit." I slipped the revolver into my pocket and tapped it.
"Though I don't understand them, I won't quarrel with your sentiments so
long as you suffer from them. When that fails, I'll find another
opportunity for this. Good night." I stepped to the door. "Reggie!"
I shut the door on his cry: crossed the corridor, and climbing out
through the window, let myself drop into the lane.
As my feet touched the snow a revolver-shot rang out in the room behind
me.
I caught at the frozen sill to steady myself: and crouching there,
listened. Surely the report must have alarmed the house! I waited for
the sound of footsteps: waited for three minutes--perhaps longer.
None came. To be sure, the room stood well apart from the house: but it
was incredible that the report should have awakened no one! My own ears
still rang with it.
Still no footsteps came. The horse in the stable close by was still
shuffling his hoof on the cobbles. No other sound . . .
Very stealthily I hoisted myself up on the sill again, listened, dropped
inside, and tip-toed my way to the door. The candles were still burning
in the Room of Mirrors. And by the light of them, as I entered, Gervase
stepped to meet me.
"Ah, it's you," I stammered. "I heard--that is, I thought--"
And with that I saw--recognised with a catch of the breath--that the
figure I spoke to was not Gervase, but my own reflected image, stepping
forward with pale face and ghastly from a mirror. Yet a moment before I
could have sworn it was Gervase.
Gervase lay stretched on the hearthrug with his hand towards the fire.
I caught up a candle, and bent over him. His features were not to be
recognised.
As I straightened myself up, with the candle in my hand, for an instant
those features, obliterated in the flesh, gazed at me in a ring, a
hundred times repeated behind a hundred candles. And again, at a second
glance, I saw that the face was not Gervase's but my own.
I set down the candle and made off, closing the door behind me.
The horror of it held me by the hair, but I flung it off and pelted down
the lane and through the mews. Once in the street I breathed again,
pulled myself together, and set off at a rapid walk, southwards, but not
clearly knowing whither.
As a matter of fact, I took the line by which I had come: with the
single difference that I made straight into Berkeley Square through
Bruton Street. I had, I say, no clear purpose in following this line
rather than another. I had none for taking Lennox Gardens on the way to
my squalid lodgings in Chelsea. I had a purpose, no doubt; but will
swear it only grew definite as I came in sight of the lamp still burning
beneath Gervase's portico.
There was a figure, too, under the lamp--the butler--bending there and
rolling up the strip of red carpet. As he pulled its edges from the
frozen snow I came on him suddenly.
"Oh, it's you, Sir!" He stood erect, and with the air of a man
infinitely relieved.
"Gervase!"
The door opened wide and there stood Elaine in her ball-gown, a-glitter
with diamonds.
"Gervase, dear, where have you been? We have been terribly anxious--"
She said it, looking straight down on me--on me--who stood in my
tattered clothes in the full glare of the lamp. And then I heard the
butler catch his breath, and suddenly her voice trailed off in wonder
and pitiful disappointment.
"It's not Gervase! It's Reg--Mr. Travers. I beg your pardon.
I thought--"
But I passed up the steps and stood before her: and said, as she drew
back--
"There has been an accident. Gervase has shot himself." I turned to
the butler. "You had better run to the police station. Stay: take this
revolver. It won't count anything as evidence: but I ask you to examine
it and make sure all the chambers are loaded."
A thud in the hall interrupted me. I ran in and knelt beside Elaine,
and as I stooped to lift her--as my hand touched her hair--this was the
jealous question on my lips--
"What has _she_ to do with it. It is _I_ who cannot do without him--who
must miss him always!"