What could I say? What would you have said?
I was silent. I knew not what words to utter. This scoundrelly young
groom, the ne'er-do-well son of the respectable old seafarer who spent
the evening of his days at the crossways, was actually the husband of
the millionaire's daughter! It seemed utterly incredible, yet, on
recollecting that midnight scene in Mayvill Park, I at once recognised
how powerless she was in the hands of that low, arrogant cad, who, in a
moment of mad frenzy, had made such a desperate attempt upon her.
I recognised, too, that the love between them, if any, had ever existed,
had disappeared long ago, and that the man's sole idea was to profit by
the fact of his union with her, and blackmail her just as so many
wealthy and upright women are being blackmailed in England at this very
moment. It flashed through my mind that the reason she did not follow
and punish the fellow for that dastardly attempt on her life was now
made plain.
She was his wife!
The very thought convulsed me with jealousy, regret and hatred, for I
loved her with all the passion, honest and true, of which a man is
capable. Since Mrs. Percival had revealed to me the truth, I had lived
only for her, to meet her again and openly declare my love.
"Is this the truth?" I asked her at last in a voice the hardness of
which I could not control. I took her cold, inert hand in my own and
glanced at her bowed head.
"Alas for me it is," was her faltering response. "He is my husband,
therefore all love between us is debarred," she added. "You have always
been my friend, Mr. Greenwood, but now that you have forced me to
confess the truth our friendship is at an end."
"And your husband, is he here with you?"
"He has been here," was her answer, "but has gone."
"You left London in secret to join him, I suppose?" I remarked
bitterly.
"At his demand. He wished to see me."
"And to obtain money from you by threats as he attempted on that night
at Mayvill?"
The broken, white-faced girl nodded in the affirmative.
"I came to this place," she explained, "as a paying-guest. A girl I
knew at school, Bessie Wood, lives here with her mother. They believe I
made a runaway match, and have been extremely kind to me these last two
years."
"Then you've been a wife for two whole years!" I exclaimed in blank
surprise, utterly amazed at the manner in which I had been deceived.
"For nearly that time. We were married at Wymondham in Norfolk."
"Tell me the whole story, Mabel," I urged, after a long pause,
endeavouring to preserve an outward calm, which certainly did not
coincide with my innermost feelings.
Her breast heaved and fell beneath its lace and chiffons, her great
wonderful eyes were filled with tears. For fully five minutes she was
overcome by her emotion and quite unable to speak. At last, in a low,
hoarse voice, she said--
"I don't know what you must think of me, Mr. Greenwood. I'm ashamed of
myself, and of the manner in which I've deceived you. My only excuse is
that it was imperative. I married because I was forced to by a chain of
circumstances, as you will realise when you know the truth." Then she
was silent again.
"But you'll tell me the truth, won't you?" I urged. "I, as your best
friend, as indeed the man who has loved you, have surely a right to
know!"
She only shook her head in bitter sorrow, and looking at me through her
tears, answered briefly--
"I have told you the truth. I am married. I can only ask your pardon
for deceiving you and explain that I was compelled to do so."
"You mean that you were compelled to marry him? Compelled by whom?"
"By him," she faltered. "One morning two years ago I left London alone
and met him at Wymondham, where I had previously been staying for a
fortnight while my father was fishing. Herbert met me at the station,
and we were married in secret, two men, picked at haphazard from the
street, acting as witnesses. After the ceremony we parted. I took off
my ring and returned home, no one being the wiser. We had a
dinner-party that evening. Lord Newborough, Lady Rainham and yourself
were there, and we went to the Haymarket afterwards. Don't you
recollect it? As we sat in the box you asked me why I was so dull and
thoughtful, and I pleaded a headache. Ah! if you had but known!"
"I recollect the night perfectly," I said, pitying her. "And it was
your wedding evening? But how did he compel you to marry him? The
motive is, of course, quite plain. He wished either to profit by the
fact that you could not afford to allow the truth to be known that you
were the wife of a groom, or else his intention was to gain possession
of your money at your father's death. Yours is certainly not the first
marriage of the sort that has been contracted," I added, with a feeling
of blank dismay.
At the very moment when my hopes had been raised to their highest level
by Mrs. Percival's statement the blow had fallen, and in an instant I
saw that love was impossible. Mabel, the woman I loved so fondly and so
well, was the wife of a loutish brute who was torturing her to madness
by his threats, and would, as already had been proved, hesitate at
nothing in order to gain his despicable ends.
My feelings were indescribable. No words of mine can give any adequate
idea of how torn was my heart by conflicting emotions. Until that
moment she had been beneath my protection, yet now that she was the wife
of another I had no right to control her actions, no right to admire, no
right to love.
Ah! if ever man felt crushed, despairing and hopeless, if ever man
realised how aimless and empty his lonely life had been, I did at that
moment.
I tried to induce her to tell me how the fellow had compelled her to
marry him, but the words stuck in my throat and choked me. Tears must,
I suppose, have stood in my eyes, for with a sudden sympathy, an
outburst of that womanly feeling so strong within her, she placed her
hand tenderly upon my shoulder and said in a low, calm voice--
"We cannot recall the past, therefore why reflect? Act as I asked you
to act in my letter. Forgive me and forget. Leave me to my own
sorrows. I know now that you have loved me, but it is--"
She could not finish the sentence, for she burst into tears.
"I know what you mean," I said blankly. "Too late--yes, too late. Both
our lives have been wrecked by my own folly--because I hid from you what
I as an honest man, should have told you long ago."
"No, no, Gilbert," she cried, calling me for the first time by my
Christian name, "don't say that. The fault is not yours, but mine--
mine," and she covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud.
"Where is this husband of yours--this man who tried to kill you?" I
demanded fiercely a few moments later.
"Somewhere in the North, I think."
"He has been here. When?"
"He came a week ago and remained a couple of hours."
"But he shall not blackmail you in this manner! If I cannot remain your
lover. I'll nevertheless still stand your champion, Mabel!" I cried in
determination. "He shall reckon with me."
"Ah no!" she gasped, turning to me in quick apprehension. "You must do
nothing. Otherwise he may--"
"What may he do?"
She was silent, gazing aimlessly out of the window across the broad
meadow-lands, now misty and silent in the dusk.
"He may," she said, in a low, broken voice, "he may tell the world the
truth!"
"What truth?"
"The truth he knows--the knowledge by which he compelled me to become
his wife," and she held her hand to her breast, as though to stay the
wild beating of her young heart.
I tried to induce her to reveal that secret to me, her most devoted
friend, but she refused.
"No," she said in a low, broken voice, "do not ask me, Gilbert--for I
know now that I may be permitted to call you by your Christian name--
because I cannot tell you of all men. It is for me to remain silent--
and to suffer."
Her face was very pale, and I saw by her look of determination that her
mind was made up; even though she trusted me as she did, nevertheless no
power would induce her to reveal the truth to me.
"But you know what reason your father had in appointing his friend
Dawson to be controller of your fortune," I said. "I felt confident
that a word from you would result in his withdrawal from the office he
now holds. You cannot affect ignorance of this mysterious motive of
your father's?"
"I have already told you. My poor father also acted under compulsion.
Mr. Leighton also knows that."
"And you are aware of the reason?"
She nodded in the affirmative.
"Then you could checkmate the fellow's plans?"
"Yes, I might," she answered slowly, "if I only dared."
"What do you fear?"
"I fear what my father feared," was her answer.
"And what was that?"
"That he would carry out a certain threat he has many times made to my
father, and later to myself. He threatened me on the day I left home--
he dared me to breathe a single word."
Yes, that one-eyed man held power complete and absolute over her, just
as he had boasted to Mrs. Percival. He also knew the truth concerning
the Cardinal's secret.
We sat together in that small, low, old-fashioned room, until dusk
darkened into night, when she rose wearily and lit the lamp. Then I was
startled by discovering by its light how her sweet face had changed.
Her cheeks had grown wan and pale, her eyes were red and swollen, and
her whole countenance betrayed a deep, burning anxiety a terror of what
the unknown future held for her.
Surely hers was a strange, almost inconceivable position--a pretty young
woman with a balance of over two millions at her bankers, and yet
hounded by those who sought her ruin, degradation and death.
The fact that she was married had struck me a staggering blow. To her I
could now be no more than a mere friend like any other man, all thoughts
of love being bebarred, all hope of happiness abandoned. I had never
sought her for her fortune, that I can honestly avow. I had loved her
for her own sweet, pure self, because I knew that her heart beat true
and loyal; that in strength of character, in disposition, in grace and
in beauty she was peerless.
For a long time I held her hand, feeling, I think, some satisfaction in
thus repeating the action of other times, now that I had to bid farewell
to all my hopes and aspirations. She sat silent, troubled sighs
escaping her as I spoke, telling her of that strange, midnight adventure
in the streets of Kensington, and of how near I had been to death.
"Then, knowing that you have gained the secret written upon the cards,
they have made an attempt to seal your lips," she said at last, in a
hard, mechanical voice, almost as though speaking to herself. "Ah! did
I not warn you of that in my letter? Did I not tell you that the secret
is so well and ingeniously guarded that you will never succeed in either
learning it or profiting by it?"
"But I intend to persevere in the solution of the mystery of your
father's fortune," I declared, still with her hand in mine, in sad and
bitter farewell. "He left his secret to me, and I have determined to
start out to Italy to-morrow to search the spot indicated, and to learn
the truth."
"Then you can just save yourself that trouble, mister," exclaimed the
voice of a common, uneducated man, startling me, and on turning
suddenly, I saw that the door had opened noiselessly, and there upon the
threshold, watching us with apparent satisfaction, was the man who stood
between me and my well-beloved--that clean-shaven, skulking fellow who
claimed her by the sacred name of wife!