"Illusion! I, too, have tried to reason with myself in this manner! I have tried pa.s.sionately, earnestly, feverishly. I have failed! I cannot! No one can! I know that to you I seem to be writing like a Philistine, like a man of a generation gone by! You have filled your little world with new ideals, you have lit it with the lamp of love, and it all seems very real and beautiful to you! But some day, though the lamp may burn still as brightly as ever, a great white daylight will break in through the walls. You will see things that you have never seen before, and the light of that lamp will seem cold and dim and ghostly. Nothing, nothing can ever alter the fact that your husband lives, and that your little boy is growing up with a great void in his heart. Some day he will ask for his mother; even now he may be asking for her!

Berenice, would he ever look with large, indulgent eyes upon that little world of yours! Alas!

"I have read my letter over to myself, Berenice, and I fear that it must sound to you very commonplace, even perhaps cold! Yet, believe me when I tell you that I have pa.s.sed through a very fire of suffering, and if I am calm now it is with the calm of an ineffable despair! In my life at Oxford, and later, here in London, women have never borne any share.

Part of my scheme of living has been to regard them as something outside my little cycle, an influence great indeed, but one which had pa.s.sed me by.

"Yet I am now one of the world's great sufferers, one of those who have found at once their greatest joy linked with an unutterable despair. For I love you, Berenice! Never doubt it! Though I should never look upon your face again--which G.o.d in His mercy forbid--my love for you must be for ever a part and the greatest part of my life! Always remember that, I pray you!

"It seems strange to talk of one's plans with such a great, black cloud of sorrow filling the air! But the outward form of life does not change, even when the light has gone out and one's heart is broken! I have some work before me which I must finish; when it is over I shall go abroad! But that can wait! When you are back in London, send for me! I am schooling myself to meet a new Berenice--my friend! And I have something still more to say to you!

"MATRAVERS."

CHAPTER XV

The week that followed the sending of his letter was, to Matravers, with his love for equable times and emotions, like a week in h.e.l.l! He had set himself a task not easy even to an ordinary man of business, but to him trebly difficult and hara.s.sing. Day after day he spent in the city--a somewhat strange visitor there, with his grave, dignified manner and studied fastidiousness of dress and deportment. He was unversed in the ways of the men with whom he had to deal, and he had no commercial apt.i.tude whatever. But in a quiet way he was wonderfully persistent, and he succeeded better, perhaps, than any other emissary whom John Drage could have employed. The sum of money which he eventually collected amounted to nearly fifteen hundred pounds, and late one evening he started for Kensington with a bundle of papers under his arm and a cheque-book in his pocket.

It was his last visit,--at any rate, for the present,--he told himself with a sense of wonderful relief, as he walked through the Park in the gathering twilight. For of late, something in connection with his day's efforts had taken him every evening to the shabby little house at Kensington, where his coming was eagerly welcomed by the tired, sick man and the lonely boy. He had esteemed himself a man well schooled in all manner of self-control, and little to be influenced in a matter of duty by his personal likes and dislikes. But these visits were a torture to him! To sit and talk for hours with a man, grateful enough, but peevish and commonplace, and with a curious lack of virility or self-reliance in his untoward circ.u.mstances, was trial enough to Matravers, who had been used to select his a.s.sociates and a.s.sociations with delicate and close care. But to remember that this man had been, and indeed was, the husband of Berenice, was madness! It was this man, whom at the best he could only regard with a kindly and gentle contempt, who stood between him and such surprising happiness, this man and the boy with his pale, serious face and dark eyes. And the bitterness of fate--for he never realized that it would have been possible for him to have acted otherwise--had made him their benefactor!

Just as he was leaving the Park he glanced up at the sound of a carriage pa.s.sing him rapidly, and as he looked up he stood still!

It seemed to him that life itself was standing still in his veins.

Berenice had been silent. There had come no word from her! But nothing so tragic, so horrible as this, had ever occurred to him! His heart had been full of black despair, and his days had been days of misery; but even the possibility of seeking for himself solace, by means not altogether worthy, had never dawned upon him. Nor had he dreamed it of her! Yet the man who waved his hand from the box-seat of the phaeton with a courtesy seemingly real, but, under the circ.u.mstances, brutally ironical, was Thornd.y.k.e, and the woman who sat by his side was Berenice!

The carriage pa.s.sed on down the broad drive, and Matravers stood looking after it. Was it his fancy, or was that, indeed, a faint cry which came travelling through the dim light to his ears as he stood there under the trees--a figure turned to stone. A faint cry, or the wailing of a lost spirit! A sudden dizziness came over him, and he sat down on one of the seats close at hand. There was a singing in his ears, and a pain at his heart. He sat there with half-closed eyes, battling with his weakness.

Presently he got up, and continued his journey. He found himself on the doorstep of the shabby little house, and mechanically he pa.s.sed in and told the story of his day's efforts to the man who welcomed him so eagerly. With his pocket-book in his hand he successfully underwent a searching cross-examination, faithfully recording what one man had said and what another, their excuses and their protestations. He made no mistakes, and his memory served him amply. But when he had come to the end of the list, and had placed the cheque-book in John Drage's fingers, he felt that he must get away. Even his stoical endurance had a measurable depth. But it was hard to escape from the man's most unwelcome grat.i.tude. John Drage had not the tact to recognize in his benefactor the man to whom thanks are hateful.

"And I had no claim upon you whatever!" the sick man wound up, half-breathless. "If you had cut me dead, after my Oxford disgrace, it would only have been exactly what I deserved. That's what makes it so odd, your doing all this for me. I can't understand it, I'm d.a.m.ned if I can!"

Matravers stood over him, a silent, unresponsive figure, seeking only to make his escape. With difficulty he broke in upon the torrent of words.

"Will you do me the favour, Mr. Drage," he begged earnestly, "of saying no more about it. Any man of leisure would have done for you what I have done. If you really wish to afford me a considerable happiness, you can do so."

"Anything in this world!" John Drage declared vehemently.

Matravers thought for a moment. The proposition which he was about to make had been in his mind from the first. The time had come now to put it into words.

"You must not be offended at what I am going to say," he began gently.

"I am a rich man, and I have taken a great fancy to your boy. I have no children of my own; in fact, I am quite alone in the world. If you will allow me, I should like to undertake Freddy's education."

A light broke across the man's coa.r.s.e face, momentarily transfiguring it. He raised himself on his elbow, and gazed at his visitor with eager scrutiny. Then he drew a deep sigh, and there were tears in his eyes. He did not say a word. Matravers continued.

"It will be a great pleasure for me," he said quietly. "What I propose is to invest a thousand pounds for that purpose in Freddy's name. In fact, I have taken the liberty of already doing it. The papers are here."

Matravers laid an envelope on the little table between them. Then he rose up.

"Will you forgive me now," he said, "if I hurry away? I will come and see you again, and we will talk this over more thoroughly."

And still John Drage said nothing, but he held out his hand. Matravers pressed the thin fingers between his own.

"You must see Freddy," he said eagerly. "I promised him that he should come in before you went."

But Matravers shook his head. There was a pain at his heart like the cutting of a knife.

"I cannot stay another instant," he declared. "Send Freddy over to my rooms any time. Let him come and have tea with me!"

Then they parted, and Matravers walked through a world of strange shadows to Berenice's house. Her maid, recognizing him, took him up to her room without ceremony. The door was softly opened and shut. He stood upon the threshold. For a moment everything seemed dark before him.

CHAPTER XVI

Berenice seemed to dwell always in the twilight. At first Matravers thought that the room was empty, and he advanced slowly towards the window. And then he stopped short. Berenice was lying in a crumpled heap on the low couch, almost within touch of his hands. She was lying on her side, her supple figure all doubled up, and the folds of her loose gown flowing around her in wild disorder. Her face was half hidden in her clasped hands.

"Berenice," he cried softly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Berenice was lying in a crumpled heap on the low couch]

She did not answer. She was asleep. He stood looking down upon her, his heart full of an infinite tenderness. She, too, had suffered, then. Her hair was in wild confusion, and there were marks of recent tears upon her pale cheeks. A little lace handkerchief had slipped from her fingers down on to the floor. He picked it up. It was wet!

The glow of the heavily-shaded lamp was upon her clasped white fingers and her bowed head. He watched the rising and falling of her bosom as she slept. To him, so great a stranger to women and their ways, there was a curious fascination in all the trifling details of her toilette and person, the innate daintiness of which appealed to him with a very potent and insidious sweetness. Whilst she slept, he felt as one far removed from her. It was like a beautiful picture upon which he was gazing. The pa.s.sion which had been raging within him like an autumn storm was suddenly stilled. Only the purely aesthetic pleasure of her presence and his contemplation of it remained. It seemed to him then that he would have had her stay thus for ever! Before his fixed eyes there floated a sort of mystic dream. There was another world--was it the world of sleep or of death?--where they might join hands and dwell together in beautiful places, and there was no one, not even their consciences, to say them nay. The dust of earthly pa.s.sion and sin, and all the commonplace miseries of life, had faded for ever from their knowledge. It was their souls which had come together ... and there was a wonderful peace.

Then she opened her eyes and looked up at him. There was no more dreaming! The old, miserable pa.s.sion flooded his heart and senses. His feet were upon the earth again! The whole world of those strange, poignant sensations, stronger because of their late coming, welled up within him.

"Berenice!"

She was only half awake, and she held up her soft, white arms to him, gleaming like marble through the lace of her wide sleeves. She looked up at him with the faint smile of a child.

"My love!"

He stooped down, and her arms closed around him like a soft yoke. But he kissed her forehead so lightly that she scarcely realized that this was almost his first caress.

"Berenice, you have been angry with me!"

She sat up, and the lamplight fell upon his face.

"You have been ill," she cried in a shocked tone.

"It is nothing. I am well. But to-night--I had a shock; I saw you with--Mr. Thornd.y.k.e!"

Her eyes met his. The hideous phantom which had been d.o.g.g.i.ng his steps was slain. He was ashamed of that awful but nameless fear.

"It is true. Mr. Thornd.y.k.e has offered me an apology, which I am forced to believe sincere. He has asked me to be his wife! I was sorry for him."