Exactly a fortnight later Laline stood for the last time within the
little room in which she had slept during her stay in Mrs. Vandeleur's
house. Within an hour she would have turned her back on St. Mary's
Crescent forever. Now, as she gazed for the last time round the
simply-furnished room, it seemed as though she had lived, not a few
weeks only, but a whole lifetime within the four walls of the old
house in Kensington. Love, joy, and hope, terror, hatred, and dumb
despair, were mere names to her until she became an inmate of Mrs.
Vandeleur's household, and the first three of these she was leaving
behind her as it seemed forever.
She moved mechanically about, putting the finishing touches to her
packing. Clare's help she had declined, for Clare's malevolent
satisfaction at the turn things had taken was more than Laline could
bear. Of Lorin she had seen nothing since that interview which Wallace
had interrupted; but she knew that he had left London. Old Mr. Wallace
had told her that when he had come to visit her, ready and willing to
forgive all Wallace's past lies and deception, and to welcome Wallace's
wife with open arms. He had distracted her with questions, and striven
hard to induce her to alter her determination to leave England with her
husband immediately, but to no purpose.
"I cannot stay in England," she had said; "but, if you can find your
nephew an opening abroad, I will go with him, and will do my best
to make him happy and to help him to lead a new life amid fresh
surroundings."
As to Wallace, he was tired of London, so he declared, and perfectly
willing to leave it. Once away from his uncle's and his cousin's eyes,
he could dispense with all make-believe of working, and settle down
comfortably to spend the liberal allowance which old Alexander would
settle upon the wife of his favourite nephew. In a few years' time, so
the old man stipulated, the young couple must return--if not for good,
at least for a long visit.
"I must have my children about me when I die!" he had pleaded.
And to this Laline had agreed. She would have agreed to anything only
to put the sea between her and the man she loved, but of whom she
would not even let herself think now.
She had sent him back his ring without a word; and now, within a few
hours of leaving London for Liverpool on her way to Canada, a letter
from Lorin had arrived with the postmark "Rome."
She would not open it at first, but held it in her hand as she walked
about the room. She had reached a passive stage of grief, a point at
which all feeling seemed to have left her, and she could look forward
without either interest, curiosity, or even dread to her future
existence.
By a succession of cablegrams Alexander Wallace had secured for his
ne'er-do-weel nephew an opening in Toronto in the office of an old
friend and client. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were to travel from London
that evening, and sail from Liverpool for New York early on the
following day.
And now, just as Laline had reached the stage of dull, feelingless
acquiescence which usually follows a storm of emotion, the sight of
Lorin's handwriting on the envelope made her heart quiver and ache,
awakening to pain again.
Yet his words, when she could summon up courage to read them, were few
and restrained.
"I received the ring," he wrote, "and I am sorry you did not care to
keep it. My uncle writes that you are going to Canada. I hope with
all my heart that you will be happy there--happy and prosperous.
You will no doubt be writing sometimes to my uncle, so that I shall
be able to hear about you. I shall be in Italy some weeks, or I may
cross to Spain. I do not very much care where I go, but I may have
to cut my wanderings short for Uncle Alec's sake. He is used to
me and may be lonely. I shall not be writing again; but you will
remember--will you not?--that at any time, while we both live, if
there is anything in the world you wish me to do it shall be done.
"Wallace Lorin Armstrong."
She read the letter with hot dry eyes. Then she sat down and learned
it by heart--every word. That done, she tore it into little pieces and
burned them one by one in the candle she lit for the purpose. Not one
tear did she shed during the work, and her eyes were still tearless
when she descended to the study to take leave of Mrs. Vandeleur.
To all appearance that lady was far more agitated than she.
"You are really going to him!" she exclaimed, rising hurriedly
and coming over to where Laline stood, white as death, in her
travelling-costume. "To the last I thought you would escape. Lina, you
don't know what it is to live with a wholly uncongenial nature. You and
your husband were born under opposing stars; he is wholly animal, you
are as wholly spiritual. My poor dear child, my heart bleeds for you,
and I feel as though I had brought all this upon you!"
The little lady had indeed bitterly reproached herself for having
permitted her treacherous niece to be present on the occasion when
Laline, under the influence of hypnotism, had confessed her marriage.
"You have always been very kind to me," Laline said, in dull steady
tones. "I ought to have confided in you fully from the first; but it is
useless to speak of that now."
"You seem so strangely resigned," the little lady exclaimed, peering
at her curiously--"almost as though you did not realise what you are
doing! It is a terrible thing to give your whole life into the keeping
of a man you can neither love nor respect; but perhaps your feelings
towards him have changed."
A shiver ran through Laline's frame. For a moment her dry lips refused
to speak. Then at last she answered in unnaturally low level tones--
"Love is not everything! I want to do my duty!"
"It is so difficult to say what is one's duty," the elder woman said.
"We owe duty to ourselves first of all. We may starve our own souls
while fulfilling what we imagine to be our duty towards others. Is your
mind quite made up?"
"Quite!"
"Take this, then, as a parting gift."
With a little key which hung at her watch-chain Mrs. Vandeleur unlocked
a glass-covered table in which she kept some of the more valuable of
her amulets and charms. Drawing out a slender gold chain of Eastern
workmanship, from which a five-pointed star in beaten gold open-work
depended, she flung it round the girl's neck. On the star some words
were inscribed in Oriental letters.
"It is a charm," she whispered--"a charm which will preserve its wearer
against the wickedness of evil minds. Wear it for my sake. Good-bye, my
poor child! Remember, if you find the life impossible, you have always
a home with me."
"Good-bye," Laline said, with a pale smile--"and thank you! But I shall
not come back."
Her mind was resolutely fixed upon the line in life which she must
follow, nor would she allow any room in it for regrets over the past
or dread of the future. She had seen a good deal of Wallace during the
past few days when he had called at St. Mary's Crescent. By Laline's
request Mrs. Vandeleur had generally been present on these interviews,
and Wallace had always been on his best behaviour, assiduously acting
the part of a man of good and kindly impulse, whom weakness and neglect
had caused to deviate from the straight path.
Yet, school himself though he might, here and there a look, a chance
phrase, betrayed his real nature--selfish, cynical, and callous--and
struck a chill fear into Laline's heart. That good existed in him
she could not doubt, nor did he lack appreciation of goodness in
others. And in yet another fact there lay hope for his future--he was
unmistakably in love with his wife. Possibly his love, strong as it
was, was of its nature ephemeral, too fitful and violent to last; but
it was none the less certain that Wallace loved Laline, after his own
fashion, with a jealous and exacting passion, stronger than he had ever
yet felt for any woman.
Yet his love was very far from bringing happiness along with it. So far
in life he had accustomed himself to despising the entire female sex,
and the conviction that this woman, who was by law his property, was
immeasurably above him, that only her religion and duty constrained her
to tolerate him, that he might kill her pride and break her spirit, but
that never could he hope to win the love she had so freely lavished
upon his cousin, irritated him at times almost to madness.
He was her husband; she would follow him through the world, link
her life to his broken fortunes, bear with his furious temper, his
drunkenness, and his brutality, be proudly silent under his ill-usage,
and remain throughout her whole existence faithful to him in word and
deed, and yet he knew already that of her mind and heart he would never
be master, that she would be kind to him, pitiful, and patient, but
that her love he might not hope to gain.
Sometimes, after leaving Mrs. Vandeleur's little oak-panelled
sitting-room, in the scented air and amid the weird accessories of
which he felt strangely out of place, he would give way to a furious
access of rage against his wife as he recalled her image, sitting there
in her low chair by the fire facing Mrs. Vandeleur, and looking at him
with those soft, searching dark eyes of hers. She was always kind to
him; she listened to him with a great effort to appear interested in
the unfolding of his plans for their future; but it was very difficult
to lie to her, and sometimes an impotent rage against her kept him
silent, lest he should break into curses against her cold quiet purity
and aloofness from such a man as he.
His nerves were broken by the life he had led, and now and then he
absolutely dreaded lest the mingled love and hate with which she
inspired him might move him to strike the light out of that beautiful
pale face of hers. Through all her gentleness he fancied he could read
her dislike of him and the strain his presence inflicted upon her, and
the thought stung his pride and self-love intolerably.
Thus the time had passed with him until the very day fixed for their
departure from London. It had been arranged that Laline should call in
a cab at her husband's rooms, and that they should proceed together
to the station to catch the train for Liverpool. The arrangement was
Laline's. She especially wished that Wallace should not come for her
to St. Mary's Crescent. Between him and Clare there appeared always
to be a kind of secret understanding, which puzzled and distressed
Laline, who had no suspicion of the part Clare had played in the recent
events of her life. Unpunctuality was one of Wallace's distinguishing
characteristics, and, to guard against this, it had been arranged that
Mrs. Wallace Armstrong should call with her luggage on the cab at nine
o'clock, as the train for Liverpool left Euston Station at ten.
On the stroke of nine, therefore, a four-wheeled cab drew up at the
door of Wallace's rooms in the dreary side street off the Strand. The
elderly landlady opened the door so promptly that it was plain she had
been on the watch, and her manner to Laline was very different from
what it had been towards Clare Cavan on the occasion of that young
lady's flying visit a fortnight before.
"Mr. Armstrong's things are all packed, ma'am, according to his orders.
But Mr. Armstrong is not in just now. I expect him every minute. He
went out about ten this morning and hasn't yet returned. But he expects
you, ma'am. Please step inside and let me give you a cup of tea."
As she spoke she opened the door of a sitting-room on the ground-floor,
a room furnished in the depressing fashion peculiar to London lodgings.
Something in the untidy and neglected air of it, in the odour of stale
spirits and tobacco, and the quantity of newspapers strewn around, took
Laline's thoughts back instantly to the old Boulogne life with her
father. There was plenty of time yet, and her head throbbed with a dull
incessant pain. She therefore accepted the landlady's offer of tea and
sat down in a shiny black horsehair arm-chair, with her eyes fixed on
the clock, to wait for her husband.
The minutes ticked by. Tea was brought in. Laline drank it and
dismissed the sympathetic but inquisitive landlady, who opined that
"gentlemen do get detained like when they meet a friend in the
Strand--especially gentlemen that are going abroad. It's 'Good luck
to you!' and a glass here and a glass there, until many a gentleman
doesn't rightly know the time of day or whether he's on his head or his
heels."
Still the minutes ticked by. The half-hour struck, the quarter, and
finally the hour. The train which was to take them on the first stage
of their journey towards that new life in the West had left the station
by this time, Laline knew. Motionless she sat, watching the hands of
the clock, while the cab waited outside with her luggage, until the
full pain and humiliation of her position suddenly burst upon her with
overwhelming force.
Wallace was spending the day drinking, and had probably forgotten all
about the appointment. The landlady outside, peeping curiously at her
every now and then through the chink in the folding-doors leading to
the adjoining room, knew it, and pitied her. She could not go back
to Mrs. Vandeleur's--she had burned her ships. By this time every
one believed that she and her husband had left London. This was the
beginning of the ordeal she must go through, and, coming after a long
period of intense strain and suffering, it seemed more than Laline
could bear.
Suddenly slipping on her knees before the chair on which she had been
sitting, she stretched up her arms in a despairing prayer to Heaven.
"Help me! Help me! I cannot bear it! My heart will break!"
She did not hear the folding-doors open; she did not see the shambling
figure standing in the aperture with haggard eyes fixed upon her. She
never guessed that Wallace had come home after a day spent in wild
excess, and that, hearing of her presence, he had crept first into the
bedroom and endeavoured, by plunging his head in cold water, to make
himself presentable to his wife. He had forgotten the time fixed for
the train, but he retained an uneasy sense of a last chance lost.
The cold water partly sobered him, but right through his dull blurred
senses Laline's heart-breaking cry pierced to his very soul.
He had spoiled his own life, and no new one was possible. He knew in
his secret heart that he should go on in the old way again and drag her
life down in the misery of his. She had come to him to save him, and
already her heart was breaking. Lorin, too, who had been his friend
through everything, was breaking his heart away from his home and his
love. He turned back into the room and looked at himself in a strip of
glass affixed to the wardrobe. Gray-haired, pallid, with shaking hands
and bloodshot eyes, was he worth the sacrifice this girl was making for
him?
Every nerve in his body thundered "No!" And, moved by the first
unselfish impulse of his life, he crept out into the darkness and
slippery rain of the thaw outside.
"'Found drowned,' that's what they'll call it. And she need never know."
So his horrid stumbling footsteps led him down to the embankment, and
the turbid waters closed that night over one more wasted life.
* * * * *
One year later Laline Armstrong, a widow but never a wife, was married
very quietly to Lorin in the presence of his uncle and Mrs. Vandeleur.
Clare Cavan was not present. She had not indeed been invited, but was
consoled about that time by an offer of marriage from an elderly and
wealthy stock-broker, which she at once accepted. Rumour has it that it
has proved a miserable union, and that Clare's husband's jealousy is
beyond parallel. But, at least, her toilettes are much admired.
As to Lorin and Laline, we may leave them with a quiet mind, sure that
for them--
"Life will just hold out the proving both their powers, alone and blended;
And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended."
THE END.
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