Next morning, after a night journey, I called at the Douglas Hotel, in
Newcastle, and was informed that Mrs Morton had arrived on the previous
evening.
At last I had run her to earth.
She sent word that she would see me in half an hour, therefore I idled
along Grainger Street West, killing time until she made her appearance.
She approached me in the hall of the hotel smiling merrily and putting
out her hand in welcome. Her black dress seemed slightly the worse for
wear owing to her constant travelling, yet she was as neat and dainty as
ever, a woman whose striking beauty caused every head to be turned as
she passed.
We went out, turning to walk towards Blackett Street, and then amid the
bustle of the traffic began to talk. She asked me when I had arrived,
and how I had fared in London.
I told her nothing of the success of my advertisements, or the discovery
of the plot so ingeniously formed against her, and allowed her to
believe that I had only just arrived from London. I was waiting to see
whether she would explain her journey to Scotland, and her companionship
with Mrs Rumbold.
But she said nothing. We walked on together through Albion Place, and
presently found ourselves in Leazes Park, that pretty promenade, gay in
summer, but somewhat cheerless on that grey wintry morning.
"You were recognised in Carlisle," I exclaimed after we had been
chatting some time. "Tell me about it. I was surprised to get your
note, and I confess I was also somewhat alarmed. Was the person who
recognised you an enemy or a friend?"
"A friend," was her prompt reply. "But his very friendliness would, I
knew, be fatal to my interests, so I had to fly. He recognised me, even
in this dress, stopped me in the street, raised his hat and spoke. But
I discerned his intention, therefore I passed on with affected
indignation and without answering. Had I opened my mouth my voice might
have betrayed me. I went on to Glasgow."
"And there? What happened?"
She glanced at me in quick suspicion. I saw she was embarrassed by my
question.
"Happened?" she echoed, nervously. "What do you mean?"
We were in the Park, and quite alone, therefore I halted, and looking
her straight in the face exclaimed,--
"Something happened there, Sybil. Why don't you tell me?"
"Sybil," she said in a tone of reproach. "Am I no longer Tibbie to you,
as of old? You are changed, Wilfrid--changed towards me. There is
something in your manner so very unusual. What is it?"
"I desire to know the truth," I said in a hard voice. "You are trying
to keep back things from me which I ought to know. I trust you, and yet
you do not trust me in return. Indeed, it seems very much as though you
are trying to deceive me."
"I am not," she protested. "You still misjudge me, Wilfrid, and merely
because there are certain things which it would be against my own
interests to explain at this moment. Every woman is permitted to have
secrets; surely I may have mine. If you were in reality my husband,
then it would be different. Hitherto, you have been generosity itself
towards me. Why withdraw it now, at the critical moment when I most
require your aid and protection."
"Why?"
"Because in Glasgow I was recognised by one of my enemies," she said.
"Ah! you don't know what a narrow escape I had. He traced me--and came
from London to hunt me down and denounce me. Yet I managed to meet him
with such careless ease that he was disarmed, and hesitated. And while
he hesitated I escaped. He is still following me. He may be here, in
Newcastle, for all I know. It we meet again, Wilfrid," she added in a
hoarse, determined voice, "if we meet again it will all be hopeless. My
doom will be sealed. I shall kill myself."
"No, no," I urged. "Come, don't contemplate such a step as that!"
"I fear to face him. I can never face him."
"You mean John Parham."
"Who told you?" she started quickly. "How did you know his name?"
"I guessed it. They told me at the hotel that you had had a visitor,
and that you had soon afterwards escaped to the north."
"Do you actually know Parham?"
"I met him once," was my reply, but I did not mention the fellow's
connection with the house with the fatal stairs.
"Does he know that we are friends?"
"How can I tell? But why do you fear him?"
"Ah, it is a long story. I dare not face that man, Wilfrid. Surely
that is sufficient."
"No. It is not sufficient," I replied. "You managed to escape and get
up to Fort William."
"Ah! The man at the hotel told you so, I suppose," she said. "Yes, I
did escape, and narrowly. I was betrayed."
"By whom?"
"Unwittingly betrayed by a friend, I think," she replied, as we walked
on together towards the lake. On a winter's morning there are few
people in Leazes Park, therefore we had the place to ourselves, save for
the keeper strolling idly some distance away.
"Sybil," I exclaimed presently, halting again, and laying my hand upon
her shoulder, "why are you not straightforward and outspoken with me?"
I recollected the postscript of the dead man's letter which I had
secured in Manchester--the allegation that she was playing me false.
Her eyes were cast down in confusion at my plain question, yet the next
instant she assumed a boldness that was truly surprising.
"I don't understand you," she declared with a light nervous little
laugh.
"Then I suppose I must speak more plainly," I said. "It is a pity,
Sybil, that you did not tell me the truth from your own lips."
She went pale as her eyes met mine in quick anxiety.
"The truth--about what?"
"About your love for Arthur Rumbold," I said very gravely, my gaze still
fixed steadily upon hers.
In an instant her gloved hands clenched themselves, her lips twitched
nervously, and she placed her hand upon her heart as though to stop its
wild beating.
"My love?" she gasped blankly--"my love for Arthur Rumbold?"
"Yes, your love for him."
"Ah! Surely you are cruel, Wilfrid, to speak of him--after--after all
that has lately happened," she burst forth in a choking voice. "You
cannot know the true facts--you cannot dream the truth, or that man's
name would never pass your lips."
"No," I said gravely. "I do not know the truth. I am in utter
ignorance. I only know that you met Mrs Rumbold at Fort William and
travelled back with her to Dumfries."
"That is quite true," she answered. "I have no wish to conceal it."
"But your love for her son--you have concealed that!"
"A woman who loves truly does not always proclaim it to the world," was
the reply.
"Then if you love him why are you in hiding? Why are you masquerading
as my wife?" I demanded seriously. I was, I admit, piqued by her
attitude, which I perhaps misjudged as defiant.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but met my gaze unflinchingly.
"You promised me your assistance," she sighed. "If you now regret your
promise I willingly release you from it."
"I have no wish to be released," I answered. "I only desire to know the
truth. By a fortunate circumstance, Sybil, I have discovered your
secret love for Arthur Rumbold--and yet at Ryhall you said you had
decided to marry Ellice Winsloe."
"A woman does not always marry the man she really loves," she argued.
"It is a regrettable fact, but horribly true."
"Then you love this man, Arthur Rumbold? Come, do not tell me an
untruth. We are old enough friends to be frank with each other."
"Yes, we are. I am frank with you, and tell you that you have blamed
yourself for assisting me, now that you have discovered my folly."
"Folly of what?"
"Of my love. Is it not folly to love a man whom one can never marry?"
"Then he is already married, perhaps?"
She was silent, and glancing at her I saw that tears stood in her
magnificent eyes. She was thinking of him, without a doubt.
I recollected those words penned by the dead man; that allegation that
she was fooling me. Yes. What he said was correct. The scales had now
fallen from my eyes. I read the truth in her white countenance, that
face so very beautiful, but, alas! so false.
Who was Nello, the man with whom she corresponded by means of that
cipher--the man she trusted so implicitly? Was he identical with Arthur
Rumbold? Had she killed the writer of that extraordinary letter because
he knew the truth--because she was in terror of exposure and ruin?
My knowledge of Rumbold had entirely upset all her calculations. In
those moments of her hesitancy and confusion she became a changed woman.
Her admission had been accompanied by a firm defiance that utterly
astounded me.
I noticed how agitated she had become. Her small hands were trembling;
and she was now white to the lips. Yet she was still determined not to
reveal her secret.
"Ah! you can never know, Wilfrid, what I have suffered--what I am
suffering now," she said in a deep intense voice, as we stood there
together in the gardens. "You have thought me gay and careless, and
you've often told me that I was like a butterfly. Yes, I admit it--I
admit all my defects. When I was old enough to leave the schoolroom,
society attracted me. I saw Cynthia, the centre of a smart set,
courted, flattered, and admired, and like every other girl, I was
envious. I vied with her successes, until I, too, became popular. And
yet what did popularity and smartness mean? Ah! I can only think of
the past with disgust." Then, with a sigh, she added, "You, of course,
cannot believe it, Wilfrid, but I am now a changed woman."
"I do believe you, Tibbie," was my blank reply, for want of something
else to say.
"Yes," she went on, "I see the folly of it all now, the emptiness, the
soul-killing wear and tear, the disgraceful shams and mean subterfuges.
The woman who has success in our set stands alone, friendless, with a
dozen others constantly trying to hurl her from her pedestal, and ever
ready with bitter tongues to propagate grave insinuations and scandal.
It is woman to woman; and the feuds are always deadly. I'm tired of it
all, and have left it, I hope, for ever."
"Then it was some adventure in that gay circle, I take it, that is
responsible for your present position?" I said slowly.
"Ah!" she sighed in a low, hoarse voice, "I--I never dreamed of the
pitfalls set for me, and in my inexperience believed in the honesty of
everyone. But surely I was not alone! Beneath a dress shirt beats the
heart of many a blackguard, and in our London drawing-rooms are to be
found persons whose careers, if exposed, would startle the world. There
are men with world-famous names who ought to be in the criminal dock,
but whose very social position is their safeguard; and women with titles
who pose as charity patrons, but are mere adventuresses. Our little
world, Wilfrid, is, indeed, a strange one, a circle of class and
criminality utterly inconceivable by the public who only know of us
through the newspapers. I had success because, I suppose, of what
people are pleased to call my good looks, but--but, alas! I fell a
victim--I fell into a trap ingeniously set for me, and when I struggled
to set myself free I only fell deeper and deeper into the blackguardly
intrigue. You see me now!" she cried after a brief pause, "a desperate
woman who cares nought for life, only for her good name. I live to
defend that before the world, for my poor mother's sake. Daily I am
goaded on to kill myself and end it all. I should have done so had not
Providence sent you to me, Wilfrid, to aid and counsel me. Yet the blow
has again fallen, and I now see no way to vindicate myself. The net has
closed around me--and--and--I must die!"
And she burst into a sudden torrent of tears.
Were they tears of remorse, or of heart-broken bitterness?
"There is no other way!" she added in a faint, desperate voice, her
trembling hand closing upon my wrist. "You must leave me to myself. Go
back to London and remain silent. And when they discover me dead you
will still remain in ignorance--but sometimes you will think of me--
think of me, Wilfrid," she sobbed, "as an unhappy woman who has fallen
among unscrupulous enemies."
"But this is madness!" I cried. "You surely will not admit yourself
vanquished now?"
"No, not madness, only foresight. You, too, are in deadly peril, and
must leave me. With me, hope is now dead--there is only the grave."
She spoke those last words so calmly and determinedly that I was
thoroughly alarmed. I refused to leave her. The fact that Parham had
discovered her showed that all hope of escape was now cut off. This she
admitted to me. Standing before me, her countenance white and haggard,
I saw how terribly desperate she was. Her chin then sank upon her
breast and she sobbed bitterly.