I unlocked the door, and opening it, met the love of my youth standing
there in the darkness.
"Wilfrid!" she gasped, in a low whisper, "I--I want to speak to you.
Forgive me, but it is very urgent. Come along here--into the blue room.
Come, there is no time to lose."
Thus impelled, I followed her along the corridor to the small
sitting-room at the end, where she had apparently left her candle.
By its light I saw that she was dressed in a black tailor-made gown, and
that her face was white and haggard. She closed the door, and noticing
that I was still dressed, said,--
"Have you only just come up to bed?"
"Yes," was my answer. "Eric and I have been gossiping. The others went
up long ago, but he began telling me some of his African yarns."
"But everyone is in bed now?" she inquired, quickly.
"Of course," I answered, wondering why she had come to me thus, in the
middle of the night. She had changed her dinner-gown for a walking
dress, but there was still the bow of blue velvet in her gold-brown hair
which she had apparently forgotten to remove.
"Wilfrid!" she said, in a low, hard voice, suddenly grasping both my
hands. "Although you refused to marry me you are still my friend, are
you not?"
"Your friend! Of course I am," I answered rather hoarsely. "Did I not
tell you so before dinner?"
"I know you did, but--" and she dropped her fine eyes, still holding my
hands in hers. Her own hands trembled, and apparently she dared not
look me full in the face.
"But what--?" I asked. "What troubles you? Why are you dressed like
this?"
"I--I have been very foolish," she whispered. "I am, after all, a
woman, and very weak. Ah! Wilfrid--if I only dare tell you the truth--
if I only dare?" she gasped, and I saw how terribly agitated she was.
"Why not? Why not confide in me?" I urged, seriously. "I can keep a
secret, you know."
"No, no," she cried. "How can I? No, I only beg and implore of you to
help me, and not to misjudge me."
"Misjudge you, why? I don't understand," I said, in pretence of
ignorance.
"Ah! of course not. But to-morrow you will know everything, and--" but
she did not conclude her sentence.
There was a change in her countenance, and I saw that she was fainting.
I drew her to a big armchair, and a second later she sank into it
unconscious.
Next instant I dashed along to my room for the water-bottle, whispered
to Eric what had taken place and ran back to assist my little friend.
Ten minutes later she opened her eyes again and gazed steadily at the
candle. Then, finding me at her side, she whispered,--
"Yes, ah--yes, I remember. How very foolish I have been. Forgive me,
Wilfrid, won't you? I miscalculated my strength. I thought myself
stronger," and her soft hand again sought mine, and she looked into my
eyes steadily, with a long, earnest gaze.
"You are in distress, Tibbie," I said, as kindly as I could. "What is
it? How can I help you?"
"You can save me," she said in an intense, earnest voice. "You can save
my life if you will."
"If I will? Why, of course I will," was my quick response.
"Then you will really help me?"
"Only tell me what you wish me to do and I'll do it at once," I replied.
"You will have no fear?"
"Fear of what?"
"Well," she exclaimed, hesitating, "suppose you were suspected of
something--that the police believed you to be guilty of a crime?"
"Guilty of a crime?" I echoed, with a forced smile. "Well, they might
suspect whatever they like, so long as I was innocent."
"Then you are really prepared to bear any suspicion if it would be for
my salvation?"
"Have I not already said that I am quite ready to help you, Tibbie?"
"Ah, yes, because you do not yet realise your grave peril," she said.
"If only I dare be frank with you--if only I dare tell you the awful,
bitter truth! Yet I can't, and you must remain in ignorance. Your very
ignorance will cause you to court danger, and at the same time to
misjudge me."
"I shall not misjudge you," I assured her. "But at the present I am, as
you say, entirely in the dark. What is it you want me to do?"
For a moment she was silent, apparently fearing to make the suggestion
lest I should refuse. At last she looked straight into my face and
said,--
"What I ask you to do is to make a great sacrifice in order to save me.
I am in peril, Wilfrid, in a grave, terrible peril. The sword of fate
hangs over me, and may fall at any instant. I must fly from here--I
must fly to-night and hide--I--"
She hesitated again. Her words were an admission of her guilt. She was
a murderess. That unknown man that I had left lying cold and dead
beneath the trees had fallen by her hand.
"Well?" I asked, rather coldly, I fear.
"I must hide. I must efface my identity, and for certain reasons--
indeed to obtain greater security I must marry."
"Marry!" I echoed. "Well, really, Sybil, I don't understand you in the
least. Why?"
"Because I can, I hope, save myself by marrying," she went on quickly.
"To-night I am going into hiding, and not a soul must know of my
whereabouts. The place best of all in which to hide oneself is London,
in one of the populous working districts. They would never search for
me there. As the wife of an industrious working-man I should be safe.
To go abroad would be useless."
"But why should you leave so hurriedly?" I asked her.
"Ah! you will know in due course," was her answer. "Ask me no questions
now, only help me to escape."
"How?"
"Listen, and I will tell you of the plans I have formed. To-night I
have thought it all out, and have made resolve. The car is in the shed
over against the kennels. I backed it in yesterday, therefore it will
run down the hill along the avenue, and right out through the lodge
gates without petrol and noiselessly. Once in the Chichester road, I
can drive it away without awakening either the house or the Grants who
keep the gate. You'll come with me."
"Where?"
"To London."
"And what would people say when it was known that you and I left
together in the middle of the night?"
"Oh! they'd only say it was one of Tibbie's mad freaks. It is useful
sometimes," she added, "to have a reputation for eccentricity. It saves
so many explanations."
"Yes, that's all very well, but it is not a judicious course in any
way."
Suddenly I recollected the woman Mason whom I saw at all costs must be
got out of the way. As a servant she might get a view of the dead man
out of curiosity and identify him as her mistress's lover.
"No," I added, after a moment's reflection. "If you really want to
escape to London go in exactly the opposite direction. Run across the
New Forest to Bournemouth, for instance. Take Mason with you. Go to
the Bath Hotel, and then slip away by train say up to Birmingham, and
from there to London."
"Yes, but I can't take Mason. She must remain in ignorance. She knows
far too much of my affairs already."
"Well, I can't go with you. It would be madness. And you cannot go
alone."
She was silent, her lips pressed together, her brows knit. Her
countenance was hard and troubled, and there was a look of unmistakable
terror in those wonderful eyes of hers.
"And if I act on your advice, Wilfrid, will you meet me in secret in
London to-morrow or the next day?"
"Certainly. I will do all I can to help you--only accept my advice and
take Mason with you. Mislead her, just as you are misleading everyone."
"You will not think ill of me if I ask you something?" she said,
seriously, looking very earnestly up into my face.
"Certainly not. You can be perfectly open and straightforward with me,
surely."
"Then I want you to do something--although I'm almost afraid to ask
you."
"And what's that?"
"I have no one else I can trust, Wilfrid, as I trust you. You are a man
of honour and I am an honest woman, even though my enemies have
whispered their calumnies regarding me. You are my friend; if you were
not I surely dare not ask you to help me in this," and her voice
faltered as she averted her gaze. "I want you--I want you to pretend
that you are my husband."
"Your husband," I exclaimed, staring at her.
"Yes," she cried quickly. "To place myself in a position of safety I
must first live in a crowded part of London where I can efface my
identity; and secondly, for appearances' sake, as well as for another
and much stronger motive, I must have a husband. Will you, Wilfrid,
pretend to be mine?"
Her request utterly nonplussed me, and she noticed my hesitation.
"If you will only consent to go into hiding with me I can escape," she
urged, quickly. "You can easily contrive to live in Bolton Street and
pose as my husband in another part of the world; while I--well, I simply
disappear. There will be a loud hue and cry after me, of course, but
when I'm not found, the mater and the others will simply put my
disappearance down to my eccentricity. They will never connect us, for
you will take good care to be seen in London leading your usual life,
and indeed seriously troubled over my disappearance. They will never
suspect."
"But why must you appear to have a husband?" I asked, extremely
puzzled.
"I have a reason--a strong one," she answered, earnestly. "I have
enemies, and my hand will be strengthened against them the instant they
believe that I have married."
"That may be so," I said, dubiously. "But where do you suggest taking
up your abode?"
"Camberwell would be a good quarter," she responded. "There is a large
working-class population there. We could take furnished apartments with
some quiet landlady. You are a compositor on one of the morning
newspapers, and are out at work all night. Sometimes, too, you have to
work overtime--I think they call it--and then you are away the greater
part of the day also. I don't want you to tie yourself to me too much,
you see," she added, smiling. "We shall give out that we've been
married a year, and by your being a compositor, your absence won't be
remarked. So you see you can live in Bolton Street just the same, and
pay me a daily visit to Camberwell, just to cheer me up."
"But surely you could never bear life in a back street, Tibbie," I said,
looking at her utterly bewildered at her suggestion. "You would have to
wear print dresses, cook, and clean up your rooms."
"And don't you think I know how to do that?" she asked. "Just see
whether I can't act the working-man's wife if you will only help to save
me from--from the awful fate that threatens me. Say you will, Wilfrid,"
she gasped, taking my hand again. "You will not desert me now, will
you? Remember you are the only friend I dare go to in my present
trouble. You will not refuse to be known in Camberwell as my husband--
will you?"
I was silent. Was any living man ever placed in dilemma more difficult?
What could I reply? That she was in real deep earnest I saw from her
white, drawn countenance. The dark rings around her eyes told their own
tale. She was desperate, and she declared that by acting as she
suggested I could save her.
The dead, staring, clean-shaven countenance of that man in the wood
arose before me, and I held my breath, my eyes fixed upon hers.
She saw that I hesitated to compromise her and implicate myself.
Then slowly she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, saying in a
strange voice, so low that I hardly caught the words,--
"Wilfrid, I--I can tell you no more. My life is entirely in your hands.
Save me, or--or I will kill myself. I dare not face the truth. Give
me my life. Do whatever you will. Suspect me; hate me; spurn me as I
deserve, but I crave mercy of you--I crave of you life--life!"
And releasing me she stood motionless, her hands clasped in
supplication, her head bent, not daring to look me again in the face.
What could I think? What, reader, would you have thought? How would
you have acted in such circumstances?