"Tell me," I said at last, full of sympathy for her in her dire
unhappiness, "tell me, Tibbie, about this man Rumbold."
For some moments she was silent. Her pale lips trembled.
"What is there to tell?" she exclaimed hoarsely. "There was nothing
extraordinary in our meeting. We met at a country house, as I met a
hundred other men. Together we passed some idle summer days, and at
last discovered that we loved each other."
"Well?"
"Well--that is all," she answered in a strange, bitter voice. "It is
all at an end now."
"I never recollect meeting him," I remarked, reflectively.
"No--you never have," she said. "But please do not let us discuss him
further," she urged. "The memories of it all are too painful. I was a
fool!"
"A fool for loving him?" I asked, for so platonic were our relations
that I could speak to her with the same frankness as her own brother.
"For loving him!" she echoed, looking straight at me. "No--no. I was a
fool because I allowed myself to be misled, and believed what I was told
without demanding proof."
"Why do you fear the man who found you in Glasgow?"
"Ah! That is quite another matter," she exclaimed quickly. "I warn you
to be careful of John Parham. A word from me would place him under
arrest; but, alas! I dare not speak. They have successfully closed my
lips!"
Was she referring, I wondered, to that house with the fatal stairs?
"He is married, I suppose?"
"Yes--and his wife is in utter ignorance of who and what he is. She
lives at Sydenham, and believes him to be something in the City. I know
the poor woman quite well."
It was upon the tip of my tongue to make inquiry about Miss O'Hara, but
by so doing I saw I should admit having acted the spy. I longed to put
some leading questions to her concerning the dead unknown in Charlton
Wood, but in view of Eric's terrible denunciation how could I?
Where was Eric? I asked her, but she declared that she was in
ignorance.
"Some time ago," she said, "I heard that he was in Paris. He left
England suddenly, I believe."
"Why?"
"The real reason I don't know. I only know from a friend who saw him
one day sitting before a _cafe_ in the Boulevard des Italiens."
"Your friend did not speak to him?" I inquired quickly.
"No."
"Then it might have been a mistake. The person might, I mean, have
merely resembled Eric Domville. Was your informant an intimate friend?"
"A friend--and also an enemy."
"Ah! Many of us have friends of that sort!" I remarked, whereat she
sighed, recollecting, no doubt, the many friends who had played her
false.
The wild, irresponsible worldliness, the thoughtless vices of the smart
woman, the slangy conversation and the loudness of voice that was one of
the hall-marks of her go-ahead circle, had now all given place to a
quietness of manner and a thoughtful seriousness that utterly amazed me.
In her peril, whatever it was, the stern realities of life had risen
before her. She no longer looked at men and things through
rose-coloured spectacles, she frankly admitted to me, but now saw the
grim seriousness of life around her.
Dull drab Camberwell had been to her an object-lesson, showing her that
there were other peoples and other spheres beside that gay world around
Grosvenor Square, or bridge parties at country houses. Yet she had,
alas! learned the lesson too late. Misfortune had fallen upon her, and
now she was crushed, hopeless, actually seriously contemplating suicide.
This latter fact caused me the most intense anxiety.
Apparently her interview with Arthur Rumbold's mother had caused her to
decide to take her life. The fact of Parham having found her in Glasgow
was, of course, a serious _contretemps_, but the real reason of her
decision to die was the outcome of her meeting with Mrs Rumbold.
What had passed between the two women? Was their meeting at Fort
William a pre-arranged one, or was it accidental? It must have been
pre-arranged, or she would scarcely have gone in the opposite direction
to that of which she left word for me.
The situation was now growing more serious every moment. As we stood
together there I asked her to release me from my imposture as her
husband, but at the mere suggestion she cried,--
"Ah! no, Wilfrid! You surely will not desert me now--just at the moment
when I most need your protection."
"But in what way can this pretence of our marriage assist you?"
"It does--it will," she assured me. "You do not know the truth, or my
motive would be quite plain to you. I have trusted you, and I still
trust in you that you will not desert or betray me."
"Betray you? Why, Tibbie, what are you saying?" I asked, surprised.
Could I betray her? I admired her, but I did not love her. How could I
love her when I recollected the awful charge against her?
"Do you suspect that I would play you false, as some of your friends
have done?" I asked, looking steadily into her fine eyes.
"No, no; forgive me, Wilfrid," she exclaimed earnestly, returning my
gaze. "I sometimes don't know what I am saying. I only mean that--you
will not leave me."
"And yet you asked me to go back to London only a few minutes ago!" I
said in a voice of reproach.
"I think I'm mad!" she cried. "This mystery is so puzzling, so
inscrutable, and so full of horror that it is driving me insane."
"Then to you also it is a mystery!" I cried, utterly amazed at her
words. "I thought you were fully aware of the whole truth."
"I only wish I knew it. If so, I might perhaps escape my enemies. But
they are much too ingenious. They have laid their plans far too well."
She referred, I supposed, to the way in which those scoundrels had
forced money from her by threats. She was surely not alone in her
terrible thraldom. The profession of the blackmailer in London is
perhaps one of the most lucrative of criminal callings, and also one of
the safest for the criminal. A demand can cleverly insinuate without
making any absolute threat, and the blackmailer is generally a perfect
past-master of his art. The general public can conceive no idea of the
widespread operations of the thousands of these blackguards in all
grades of society. When secrets cannot be discovered, cunning traps are
set for the unwary, and many an honest man and woman is at this moment
at the mercy of unscrupulous villains, compelled to pay in order to hush
up some affair of which they are in reality entirely innocent. No one
is safe. From the poor squalid homes of Whitechapel to the big mansions
of Belgravia, from garish City offices to the snug villadom of Norwood,
from fickle Finchley to weary Wandsworth, the blackmailer takes his
toll, while it is calculated that nearly half the suicides reported
annually in London are of those who take their own lives rather than
face exposure. The "unsound mind" verdict in many instances merely
covers the grim fact that the pockets of the victim have been drained
dry by those human vampires who, dressed smugly and passing as
gentlemen, rub shoulders with us in society of every grade.
I looked at Sybil, and wondered what was the strange secret which she
had been compelled to hush up. Those letters I had filched from the
dead man were all sufficient proof that she was a victim. But what was
the story? Would she ever tell me? I looked at her sweet, beautiful
face, and wondered. We moved on again, slowly skirting the picturesque
lake. She would not allow me to release myself from my bond, declaring
that I must still pose as William Morton, compositor.
"But everyone knows we are not married," I said. "Mrs Rumbold, for
instance!"
"Not everyone. There are some who believe it, or they would not
hesitate to attack me," was her vague and mysterious response.
"For my own part, Tibbie, I think we've carried the masquerade on quite
long enough. I'm beginning to fear that Jack, or some of his friends,
may discover us. Your description is circulated by the police,
remember; besides, my prolonged absence has already been commented upon
by your people. Jack and Wydcombe have been to my rooms half a dozen
times, so Budd says."
"No. They will not discover us," she exclaimed, quite confidently.
"But walking here openly, and travelling up and down the country is
really inviting recognition," I declared. "You were recognised, you'll
remember, in Carlisle, and again in Glasgow. To-morrow you may be seen
by one of your friends who will wire to Jack. And if we are found
together--what then?"
"What then?" she echoed. "Why, I should be found with the man who is my
best--my only friend."
"But a scandal would be created. You can't afford to risk that, you
know."
"No," she answered slowly in a low, hard voice, "I suppose you are
right, I can't. Neither can you, for the matter of that. Yes," she
added, with a deep sigh, "it would be far better for me, as well as for
you, if I were dead."
I did not reply. What could I say? She seemed filled by a dark
foreboding of evil, and her thoughts now naturally reverted to the
action over which she had perhaps for weeks or months been brooding.
I had endeavoured to assist her for the sake of our passionate idyllic
love of long ago, but all was in vain, I said. I recognised that sooner
or later she must be discovered, and the blow--the exposure of her
terrible crime--must fall. And then?
She had killed the man who had held her in thraldom. That was an
undoubted fact. Eric had fully explained it, and could testify to the
deed, although he would, I knew, never appear as witness against her.
The unknown blackguard scorning her defiance had goaded her to a frenzy
of madness, and she had taken her revenge upon the cowardly scoundrel.
Could she be blamed? In taking a life she had committed a crime before
God and man, most certainly. The crime of murder can never be pardoned,
yet in such circumstances surely the reader will bear with me for
regarding her action with some slight degree of leniency--with what our
French neighbours would call extenuating circumstances.
And the more so when I recollected what the dead unknown had written to
his accomplice in Manchester. The fellow had laid a plot, but he had
failed. The woman alone, unprotected and desperate, had defended
herself, and he had fallen dead by her hand.
In my innermost heart I decided that he deserved the death.
Why Ellice Winsloe had recognised the body was plain enough now. The
two men were friends--and enemies of Sybil Burnet.
I clenched my fingers when I thought of the dangerous man who was still
posing as the chum of young Lord Scarcliff, and I vowed that I would
live to avenge the wrong done to the poor trembling girl at my side.
She burst into hot tears again when I declared that it would be better
for us to return again to the obscurity of Camberwell.
"Yes," she sobbed. "Act as you think best, Wilfrid. I am entirely in
your hands. I am yours, indeed, for you saved my life on--on that night
when I fled from Ryhall."
We turned into the town again through Gallowgate when she had dried her
eyes, and had lunch at a small eating-house in New Bridge Street, she
afterwards returning to her hotel to pack, for we had decided to take
the afternoon train up to King's Cross.
She was to meet me at the station at half-past three, and just before
that hour, while idling up and down Neville Street awaiting the arrival
of her cab, of a sudden I saw the figure of a man in a dark travelling
ulster and soft felt hat emerge from the station and cross the road to
Grainger Street West.
He was hurrying along, but in an instant something about his figure and
gait struck me as familiar; therefore, walking quickly after him at an
angle before he could enter Grainger Street, I caught a glimpse of his
countenance.
It was John Parham! And he was going in the direction of the Douglas
Hotel.
He had again tracked her down with an intention which I knew, alas! too
well could only be a distinctly evil one.