Toni's letter was delivered to Mrs. Herrick late one afternoon; and with
a slight feeling of wonder as to her correspondent's identity, Eva broke
the seal languidly and took out the thin foreign sheet without the least
notion that this letter was to her a veritable messenger of Fate.
It did not take her long to read the few scrawled lines in which Toni
proffered her desperate request; and when she had read them, Eva let the
sheet flutter to the floor while she pondered on the strange chance
which led the woman whose life she had helped to ruin to appeal to her
for aid.
The months which had passed since Toni's flight had not been happy ones
for Eva Herrick. On hearing of the part she had played in the
culminating catastrophe, her husband had felt at first that he could
barely find it in his heart to forgive such deliberate treachery; and
for a short space of time even the malicious and reckless Eva knew what
it was to be afraid. She was afraid, not of Herrick's wrath, but of the
consequences. If, as at times she almost feared, he were to leave her,
what would her position be? Already disgraced, discredited in the eyes
of the world, she would find it impossible to face that world all alone,
without the shelter of her husband's name; and although Toni's plight
was nothing to her, there were times when she almost wished she had left
the girl alone and had not encouraged her to take the fatal step of
leaving her home.
She picked up the flimsy sheet again and re-read the pitiful words. The
letter could be answered easily enough. If she replied truthfully, she
would relate a tragic history of a winter of lonely despair lived out in
the beautiful old house, which to its solitary owner was like a body
without a soul, a mere empty shell which had once held something
precious beyond all words.
She could narrate of blank and heavy days, when Owen Rose shut himself
up in his library and refused to see a single fellow-creature save the
servants who had known and loved his pretty young wife. Eva could have
told of the dismissal of the housekeeper, Mrs. Blades, whose long
service had seemed to her sufficient to warrant an impertinent stricture
on Mrs. Rose's shameless conduct. She had learned her mistake very
quickly; and had gone forth lamenting the short-sighted folly which had
ended her long and tyrannical reign at Greenriver. Further, Eva could
have related how, when the papers were full of complimentary reviews of
Owen Rose's novel, the author himself turned away from all praise,
fulsome and discriminating alike, and took up his pen only to write such
articles as his position on the staff of the _Bridge_ rendered
necessary.
But as yet Eva did not know what form her reply would take.
Warped, distorted, malignant as her judgment too often was, there was
something very vital in that despairing cry from Italy; and in spite of
herself Eva could not banish its echo from her ears.
She might answer, briefly, that Owen was still at Greenriver, and, so
far as she knew, in good health and spirits. As she framed the words she
had a mental vision of Owen as she had last seen him, thin, pale,
haggard, with the fire of a restless despair burning in his blue eyes.
Although he went out and about, and greeted his friends much as usual,
no one could doubt that the whole man was consumed as by a devouring
flame. He had been tortured with terrible neuralgic headaches all
through the winter; but though the doctor urged him to try the effect of
a sojourn abroad, nothing would induce him to leave Greenriver.
His tentative inquiries in Italy having proved futile, he clung to the
idea that Toni was still in England; and the thought that she might
return to her home and find him gone was one which recurred to him like
a nightmare whenever he took even the short journey up to town.
"What shall I say, I wonder?" Eva sat gazing thoughtfully into the fire,
while the Spring twilight fell over the river which glided so quietly
past her windows. "If I say she is forgotten it will almost break her
heart; yet if I tell her that her husband is breaking _his_ heart to
find her, will she come to England instantly and humble herself till he
takes her back into his home?"
As she sat there Eva had a sudden vivid sense of the contrast between
her own spoilt life and that of the girl whose pitiful cry still rang in
her consciousness and would not be silenced.
Her own life was ruined, she told herself bitterly. But in that
illuminating moment Eva saw the truth for the first time. She herself
was to blame for the ruin. She had brought all the shame, all the
disgrace upon herself, and the bitter experience of her prison life had
been only the reaping of the harvest which she, by her own act, had
sown.
But Toni's happiness had been broken and spoilt by other means. It was
her very love for her husband which had made her so fatally ready to
believe that only by leaving him could she give him the freedom which he
was supposed--by his wife--to desire. And Eva knew quite well that
without her connivance and encouragement Leonard Dowson would never have
dared to utter his proposal to the young wife of Owen Rose.
Yet if she gave in now and begged Toni to return, assuring her, as she
knew she might safely do, of her husband's ready forgiveness, would not
the spectacle of Toni's ensuing happiness bring all the more cruelly
home to her the wretchedness which must be her own portion from
henceforth?
Although Jim Herrick treated her with unvarying kindness and
consideration, Eva had always the miserable conviction that his love for
her was dead; and although she never showed any feeling in their daily
intercourse, even her bitter and reckless heart was sometimes sore
within her.
Long she sat, wondering how best to treat this unexpected appeal from a
far country; and only when the trim maid who had replaced the more
haphazard Mrs. Swastika entered with the lighted lamp did Eva rouse
herself from her reverie.
Then, however, she got pen and paper and sat down at the table to frame
some sort of reply. It was not an easy task. With Toni's letter lying
before her, she found it strangely difficult to begin; and was still
sitting staring at the blank sheet of paper when a sudden deep bark from
Olga, who was lying, as usual, nose on paws, in the tiny hall, made her
start to her feet.
"Who's there, I wonder? Olga sounds excited."
She went to the door and opened it, and at the same moment the front
door was flung widely open and a man stepped into the hall, to be
greeted instantly by a torrent of wild barking from the now delighted
Borzoi.
"Steady, old girl! I say, Olga, don't take me for a wolf and tear me to
pieces!" He laughingly pushed the great dog down and hastened towards
his wife.
"Hallo, Eva! Have I startled you? I'm sorry."
"I didn't know who it was." She stared at him with dilated eyes. "I was
sitting in there, and Olga barked so loudly that I thought----"
"Thought I was a burglar!" He kissed her very kindly. "Well, I'm not.
But I've come back for a bit ... yes, put them down there, will you?"
He turned to the door, his arm through his wife's, and paid the cabman,
who had placed his portmanteaux in the hall. Then, when the man,
declining a drink, had gone, Herrick drew his wife back into the little
sitting-room.
"But--I don't understand. Is the portrait off? Aren't you going to paint
the children?"
"Yes, of course I am, but not for a bit. Fact is, the poor kiddies have
started in measles, pretty badly, too, I'm told, so as it was impossible
to get on with the picture just yet I thought I'd better come home and
let their parents send for me when the children are out of quarantine."
"I see." Eva was half pleased, half annoyed by his return. "You want
something to eat, I expect. Shall I go and hurry up dinner?"
"I wish you would, dear." He threw aside his coat as he spoke. "I had
some lunch on the train, but you know what railway lunches are. I came
down from Waterloo with Rose. Jove, Eva, that fellow looks a wreck."
"Does he?" Suddenly she remembered that Toni's letter was lying open on
the table. "I--I suppose he will get over--it--in time."
"I don't think he will. Of course he must really have been devoted to
her--to his wife--all the time, without knowing it. And I don't wonder.
She was one of the best, pluckiest, straightest girls I ever met. I
don't believe she could have done a dishonourable action to save her
life."
He had spoken quite without any ulterior meaning, carried away by his
memory of Toni as he had known and admired her; but his words sounded to
Eva like a direct and deadly insult; and her Irish blood flamed
instantly into revolt.
"Toni straight!" All softer feelings were forgotten now; again she was
the unhappy woman at war with all the world, but especially with her own
sex. "Very straight of her to elope with another man, wasn't it? And as
for pluck, why, she couldn't even stick to him when she'd done it."
"Hush, Eva!" Herrick's brow wore the frown she hated, and, secretly,
feared. "You were never fair to that unhappy girl; and both you and I
know very well that had you acted differently half this misery would
have been spared."
"I was unfair to her?" Eva's voice was choked with rage.
"Yes." He spoke deliberately, rather sadly. "From the first you treated
Toni Rose, unfairly. You knew she was very young, and not very wise in
the ways of the world, and whereas you were an older woman--very little
older in actual years, I grant you----"
"I suppose you mean older in wickedness." She spoke between her teeth.
"I mean you were old enough to have helped the child instead of
encouraging her in her foolishness," he said steadily. "But you did not.
You preferred to inflame her mind by exaggerating her woes, making her
feel herself misunderstood, unloved, unwanted ... oh, I don't know what
you said, what passed between you, but this I do know. You saw that
child shivering on the brink, as it were, of a dreadful precipice, and
not only did you refrain from pulling her back from the edge, but I'm
horribly afraid that yours was the hand which sought to push her over."
"You dare to say this to me?" Her voice was like steel, and there was a
dangerous glint in the Irish eyes which had once been so sweet and gay.
"Yes. Oh, I don't want to be hard on you, to bring it all up again." He
spoke wearily. "I suppose it was the sight of that poor fellow Rose that
made me speak like that just now. But you know, you have known all
along, that I hold you largely responsible for the whole affair, and if
any harm has come to that poor misguided girl, I'm afraid your
conscience can never be wholly clear."
"Stop!" With flashing eyes and a stormy flush on her cheeks his wife
faced him; and even Herrick recoiled a step, aghast at the picture of
evil, revengeful triumph she presented in that moment. "You are blaming
me for that affair, are you? Doubtless you and the bereft husband joined
upon your journey down in calling me all the pretty names which seem to
fit me--evil genius, bad angel, and all the rest. Well, it may surprise
you to learn that it is to me that the 'poor misguided child' turns even
now when she wants news of her loving husband. Oh, you may stare, but I
know more than all of you. I know just where the misguided Toni is at
this moment, and what she is doing into the bargain."
She had surprised him indeed. He sprang forward and seized her arm.
"You know that? Then why in God's name haven't you said so before?"
"Because I've only just got to know," she answered defiantly, "and
because although I _do_ know, I'm not going to hand on my
knowledge--now."
"What do you mean?" Her vindictive tone made his blood run cold.
"I had meant, when her letter came to-night, to show it to you, to let
you tell Mr. Rose. Wasn't I a fool?" She laughed scornfully. "Why on
earth should I give away the precious information? You don't suppose I
care whether Toni ever sees her husband again? I hope she doesn't, in
fact. Other women are unhappy--they suffer--let her suffer, too, let her
know what it is to live in hell, to wish herself dead so that she may at
least forget her misery."
"Eva!" His voice rang through the room. "You are going too far. Tell me
this moment--where is Mrs. Rose?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" While she mocked him she was endeavouring
to edge past him to reach the table on which Toni's letter still lay.
Unconsciously he frustrated her, blocking the way in an attempt to force
her to speak plainly.
"I intend to know." His voice was as cold as ice. "Come, Eva, if pity
for the girl doesn't move you, think of the man. Why condemn him to this
mental torture, when a word from you can set him free?"
Suddenly she paused before him; and to his dying day he would never
forget the hatred in her eyes.
"Did you think of that, when a word from you would have set me free? Did
you utter the word which would have condemned you to prison but would
have let me go back to the world of sunshine and freedom? Did any of the
men who sent me to that hell think of my torture, my agony? Why should I
think of anyone else now? What does it matter to me if Owen Rose and his
wife die broken-hearted? Do you think I'd raise a finger to help them to
find one another? No. No, I tell you, a hundred, thousand times--_no_."
Suddenly the man who listened was filled with a great and marvellous
compassion. Even now, it seemed, his wife could not see the justice of
her fate; but somehow her childish comparison of her own position with
that of Owen and Toni Rose seemed pitiful, tragic, rather than evil.
"See here, dear." He spoke very gently. "You are overwrought. You don't
know what you are saying. I'm sure in your heart you only want to act
kindly, nobly, by those two unfortunate people. Tell me, where is Mrs.
Rose, and when--and how--has she communicated with you?"
"She wrote to me--I got her letter to-night." There was a note of
triumph in her voice which made him uneasy. "And do you know what I'm
going to do with it? I'm going to burn it--now--before your eyes."
During her speech she had been edging nearer and nearer the table; and
as she spoke the last words she made a frantic dart at the letter and
envelope which had lain there through all the conversation. Quick as she
was, however, she was almost too late.
Suddenly awake to her meaning, Herrick had swung round in time to see
her seize the letter; and in an instant his hand was on her wrist.
"Eva! What are you going to do?"
"This." With a wild gesture she tore her hand from his; but again he was
too quick for her.
"Listen to me." He spoke quickly, wild with anxiety lest she should
carry out her threat. "You are to give me that letter--at once. At once,
do you hear? I don't want to hurt you, but I will have that letter, and
you had better give it to me of your own free will."
"You shan't--you shan't." She spoke gaspingly, using all her force to
got away from him. Handicapped by his very superiority, Herrick did not
venture to put forth his full strength, but Eva, held back by no
scruples, fought desperately to release her hands that she might fling
the letter in the fire.
Quite suddenly she found herself free. Herrick, his very soul sickened
within him at the physical encounter, had released her abruptly,
trusting, perhaps, to some instinct of generosity which should lead her
to surrender in the moment of victory.
But he trusted vainly. The second she was free Eva flung herself on to
her knees by the brightly-blazing fire; and as Herrick, maddened by her
action, bent roughly over her to try, even now, to save the precious
letter, she thrust her hand almost within the bars that the fire might
destroy the writing the more completely.
But her own haste was her undoing. The loose chiffon sleeve she wore
brushed against the glowing coals as she pushed the letter frantically
between the bars; and a bright tongue of flame shot suddenly up her arm
and ignited the masses of filmy lace which disguised the thinness of her
once softly-rounded bosom.
There was a sharp cry from Herrick, a shriek of terror from Eva; and
then, as Herrick sprang aside to snatch up the heavy travelling-coat
which would most effectually beat out the flames, Eva rushed frenziedly
to the door, screaming at the top of her voice.
Again and again he tried to fling the coat round her burning form; but
she had completely lost her head, and several valuable seconds were
wasted before he caught her finally and wrapped her completely round in
the thick, heavy folds of his big coat.
Quite suddenly he felt her collapse in his grasp; and when, having
extinguished the flames, he unwrapped the coat from her slender figure,
Herrick had a horrible conviction that he held a dead woman in his
arms....
She was still alive, however, though terribly burned about the arms and
body. For nearly a week she lay between life and death, a piteous little
figure swathed in bandages.
By some miraculous chance, although her golden curls were singed and
blackened, her face had escaped injury, and as he sat by her side in the
darkened room, Herrick could trace in the pale and suffering features
the face of the bonny Irish girl who had won his heart so completely in
those far-off days of an Irish spring.
For seven days she lay there, half-conscious at times, moaning piteously
for hours together, though for the most part under the merciful
influence of the morphia which lulled her agony; and in that terrible
week Herrick took up afresh the burden of his marriage and determined
that if Eva recovered he would give up his whole life to her service. He
would endeavour to win her back to a saner, sweeter frame of mind, to
make up to her by his unswerving patience and devotion for the misery
she had endured; and he would relinquish, once for all, the hopeless
mental attitude which had seemed to say that a life spent together must
be impossible for both of them.
After all, she was pathetically young and frail. She had sinned, but she
had paid, was paying now. Every feeble moan she uttered wrung his heart
afresh; and he longed for her to regain consciousness that he might
whisper words of love and encouragement into those fragile ears.
He had almost forgotten the cause of the catastrophe.
Toni's letter had been burned to ashes, and he had not the slightest
idea of her whereabouts; but even Toni's welfare seemed of less
importance during these days of torture; and beyond sending Owen a note
to inform him that his wife was certainly alive, since she had written
to her friend, Herrick had done nothing.
It was quite possible that Eva would die without revealing Toni's
secret; and even though she lived, what guarantee had Herrick that she
would unclose her lips even then?
Although, through her intense suffering, she had an irresistible claim
upon his compassion, her husband did not feel certain that even were Eva
herself again Toni's tragic blunder would be repaired; and although he
was fully determined to do all in his power to bring Eva's restless
spirit peace, there was a possibility that she would return to life as
callous, as heartless, as vindictive as ever.
Yet as he looked at the wan little face on the pillow, he could not
forbear a hope that this terrible disaster would mark a turning point in
Eva's life; and then, as a moan fluttered through the girl's parched
lips, he experienced a horrible fear that for Eva there would be no time
for repentance and reparation.
It was nearly one o'clock on the seventh night when Herrick, watching
closely, saw the grey Irish eyes open suddenly.
He bent over the bed, and found that for the first time his wife was
sufficiently herself to recognize him.
"Jim? Is that you?" Her voice was the merest thread.
"Yes, dear. Do you feel more comfortable now?"
"I feel ... dying," she murmured, still in that thin whisper.
"Jim ... I'm so sorry. I've been a wicked girl--but you must forgive me,
because I'm going to die."
"No, no, dear." His heart stirred within him at the startling change in
her, and he slipped to his knees beside the bed. "You are going to get
better and be my own dear little wife again. There is no need to talk of
forgiveness, Eva. That's all over long ago. Now I have only to love
you."
"I'm glad you've forgiven me." When she had spoken she closed her eyes
again; and Herrick felt himself turn cold, thinking she were dying
indeed.
Presently she re-opened those sunken eyes, and her lips moved faintly.
Bending down he caught her words.
"Jim ... I'm sorry about Toni. She's safe--in Italy--in Naples...."
"You're sure, dear?" He spoke quietly, though his heart gave a throb of
relief at her words.
"Yes. I can't remember her address." Her brows contracted pitifully.
"But she works in the library of an Italian called Zanoni--is that
enough? Can you find her from that?"
"Why, yes, dear." He knew it would only be a matter of time to trace the
girl now. "And you must not worry about her any more. Close those big
eyes of yours and go to sleep."
She gave a little sigh, and her tiny bandaged hand lifted itself feebly
as though seeking his. Instantly he laid his own warm fingers over hers;
and a moment later Eva was asleep.
* * * * *
So it happened that Eva did not die, but crept slowly back to life; and
throughout her painful and often halting convalescence she exhibited a
patience, a gentleness which won her husband's heart afresh.
It seemed as though the fire had burnt out all the evil thoughts and
desires which had ravaged her soul. Gone were all thoughts of revenge,
of callous retribution for the sufferings she had endured. No longer
bitter and hard and reckless, Eva was once again the engaging girl who
had won Herrick's love; and although it was probable she would never
again be quite so light-hearted, so thoughtless as she had been in the
days before her marriage, Herrick was very strongly attracted to this
oddly gentle, shy, wistful girl who gave him a new and passionate
gratitude and love in place of her former half-careless,
half-contemptuous affection.
* * * * *
Her first question on coming fully to herself had concerned Toni; and
within a very short space of time Herrick was able to inform her that
the girl had been found.
"Is she well--happy? Is Mr. Rose going to forgive her?"
"He has done that already," said Herrick with a smile. "By this time he
is on his way to Italy; and I have no doubt he will bring her home to
Greenriver as fast as boat and train can do it."
"Must I see her, Jim?" Into her eyes came a look of dread which touched
him oddly. "I know it was all through my wickedness that she went
away--but--must I ask her to forgive me?"
"You needn't trouble about that, dear. Mrs. Rose has forgiven you long
ago. And as soon as ever you are well enough to travel, I'm going to
take you right away where I can have you to myself and there will be no
one to bother you all the rest of your life."
"Where are we going?" Her weak voice sounded pitifully glad.
"I'm not sure--but somewhere for away--Canada, or California, or some
big, wild country where we can ride about all day and imagine ourselves
back in dear old Ireland again."
She sighed with pleasure; and two minutes later fell asleep with a
tender little smile upon her lips.