For a few seconds Jill sat mute, too thoroughly taken by surprise even
to move. No lurking suspicion had ever entered her pure, wholesome,
unspoilt mind that any man could so insult a decent woman. Even then it
struck her that in some way she must have unconsciously given him an
opening. How else would he have dared to make love to her, and to seem
so assured that his love would be returned?
She drew herself away from him, not violently, but with a cold
displeasure that carried more weight than any fierce resentment could
have done, and in a voice that trembled slightly with repressed anger
exclaimed as she rose and faced him,--
"Mr Markham, you have insulted me past forgiveness. If any action or
word of mine has led you to speak as you have done I deplore it with my
whole heart--I couldn't feel more humiliated even if such were the case;
I feel so abjectly debased as it is. How dare you imply that I do not
get on with my husband? I love him with the whole force of my being. I
doubt if you could understand or appreciate such love as ours."
"I doubt it too," he sneered. "My love is not of the kind that can so
readily efface itself. You are rather unreasonable, I think; a man
can't help his feelings. Some women would take it as a compliment."
"I am sorry for the sort of women you seem acquainted with," she
answered rather sadly. "You have formed a very low opinion of the sex.
It is not a compliment that you have paid me, and you know it. Don't
say anything more please; I decline to discuss that, or any other
subject with you. I must request you to leave my rooms, and never to
enter them again. You have made further intercourse an impossibility,
and our past friendship something to be remembered only with regret."
"Don't say that," he began pleadingly; but Jill cut him short.
"Please understand that I am quite in earnest," she said. "When Jack
comes home I shall explain to him what has happened; it is well that he
should understand the true character of his friend. I can never thank
heaven sufficiently that my husband is both a man of honour, and a
gentleman."
"For that matter so should I have been if I had met you first," he
answered gloomily. "You are rather hard on me, Jill. Perhaps I have
been too precipitate; but I love you so madly, and to-day you seemed so
sad, and sweet, and lonely, that I wanted to comfort you."
"Enough!" exclaimed Jill excitedly. "If you don't go I shall ask Mr
Thompkins to come and protect me from further indignity. How
contemptible you are!--how mean! Why don't you insult me when my
husband is at home? The sight of you is hateful to me. Why won't you
go?"
"I will," he answered quietly, "as you wish it. I do not want to
frighten you; but remember--always remember that I love you with all my
heart."
Jill stood quite still and watched him as he gravely quitted her
presence, and then listened dully to his footsteps clattering down the
stairs. When they died away along the narrow passage and she heard the
street door bang behind him she put her hand to her forehead in a dazed
kind of way, and glanced vaguely round the little room seeing nothing
but Markham's cynical face with the ugly expression in his eyes that was
in the painted eyes of the canvas on the easel. Her glance travelled to
the portrait, and rested there for a moment. The sight of it seemed to
rouse her into action, and, with a catch in her voice that sounded like
an angry sob, she took up a brush, and in a few vigorous strokes painted
the whole thing out again as she would have liked to blot the incident
from her memory.
To Jill the fact that Markham loved her was anything but a
congratulatory matter. The red blood surged to her temples in a flood
of indignant colour at the mere thought of such an outrage to her
wifehood. She was very angry; her calmness and self-possession had
entirely deserted her leaving her excited and wholly unlike herself.
She did not expect St. John home for some time; he had told her not to
wait tea, he should be late; and so she seated herself in the big chair
by the window to watch for his return, too upset to think of getting tea
for herself, too miserable to feel the need of it. St. John was not
very late however. He had promised Thompkins to be back by six, and at
a few minutes to the hour he arrived. Jill saw him coming but she did
not move. She remained where she was until she heard his footstep on
the stairs, then she rose and walking quickly to the door threw it open.
He was going into the bedroom to change his coat for the old one he did
his work in. Jill called to him softly, but he went on as though he had
not heard. She set her lips tightly and followed him, determined to
clear up the misunderstanding that existed between them at any cost, and
to tell him what had occurred during the afternoon.
"Jack," she said, "I want to talk to you."
"Sorry," he answered, "but I haven't time. I have a lot of work to do."
His manner was anything but encouraging. At another time she would have
turned away and allowed the breach to widen, but to-day she was sick of
quarrelling about nothing, and longed for a complete reconciliation, and
so she persevered.
"You are not very kind to me, dear," she said. "I think the work can
wait a few minutes longer, and what I have to say is most important. I
have had a very unpleasant experience to-day, Jack, and feel quite
worried and upset about it--if you only knew how worried I am sure you
would give me your attention."
St. John turned towards her, an expression of surprise on his face. He
was in his shirt sleeves, and looked handsome, bad-tempered and ill at
ease, his afternoon with Evie had apparently not conduced to
exhilaration of spirits.
"What on earth can be worrying you?" he exclaimed. "Didn't Markham turn
up?"
"Yes, he turned up," answered Jill sharply. "That is the trouble. I
had to send him away again. You, who knew him so intimately, had no
right to leave me alone with such a man--no right to introduce me to him
at all. He insulted me--he actually tried to make _love_ to me."
She broke off abruptly. Her voice shook a little, and she put up a hand
to her burning face. St. John swore. He dropped the jacket he was
holding on to the floor, and began struggling fiercely into his outdoor
coat again. Jill watched him anxiously. Then she laid a restraining
hand upon his arm.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Find him and--give him a lesson."
He looked so fierce and determined that Jill felt frightened. She was
nervous and unstrung with the excitement of the afternoon, and she
trembled slightly as she clung tenaciously to his arm.
"Let him alone," she cried quickly. "I will not have my name dragged
into any dispute. We have done with him; that is enough. The matter
must end there."
"That is all very well," he retorted, "but do you suppose I am going to
stand quietly by and allow any cad to make love to my wife?"
"If you had not stood quietly by it might never have happened," she
answered. "I don't quite know what it is we have been quarrelling
about, but I do know that lately we have drifted apart, and he noticed
it--he said so. He thought that I had found out that our marriage had
been a mistake."
She looked up to meet St. John's gaze riveted upon her face, with an
expression in his eyes that puzzled her, it was so unlike anything she
had seen in them before. He looked as a man might look when someone he
has loved and trusted deals him a blow on the face, so stern and white
and miserable, and so full of an unspeakable shame.
"Jack," she half-whispered, "what is it? What is the matter, dear?"
"Forgive me," he cried brokenly, "If I have misjudged you; but I
thought--as Markham thinks. And, my God, I think so still."
Jill drew away from him, wounded into silence by what she heard. For a
few moments she stood irresolute, struck motionless with an anguish too
deep for words; then with a half articulate cry she tottered forward,
and fell, a forlorn little bundle, at his feet St. John stooped swiftly,
and gathering her up, laid her tenderly upon the bed, and, bending over
her with a face even whiter than her own, stared down, awed and humbled,
at the motionless, unconscious form.
He was almost too stunned at first to realise that there was anything
serious the matter; but it gradually dawned upon him that she ought not
to be allowed to lie there as she was without calling in some
assistance, and so, not pausing to put on his coat, he ran out of the
bedroom on to the landing, and stood there in his shirt sleeves, in
terrified and breathless anxiety.
"Thompkins!" he cried excitedly. "Thompkins!"
"Hallo!" answered a voice from the bottom of the stairs, a voice of calm
and unruffled serenity.
"For God's sake run for the doctor," St. John called back.
There was silence for a few seconds; then the street door was opened and
banged to again, and St. John returned to the room to watch by his wife
and wait.