"Well," he mildly summed up the whole case, "I can't do more, can I, than say I'm very sorry."

She could not even gain the relief of a real scene with this flabby nerveless creature. She turned upon him with contempt.

"No," she said, "you can't do anything of course! How could you? It's a great pity that you ever _did_. People like you aren't meant to--and I trusted you!"

"Well, what _can_ I do then?" he enquired in hurt, plaintive tones.

"Go away," she blazed out, getting something like her chance; "go right away and never come near here again. Leave me alone to try and put the thing straight without your silly meddling. That's what you can do."

She sank upon the sofa and took up a magazine with very shaky fingers.

"All right then," he said, recovering his dignity, "I will." He had a kind of feeling that Brett was sure to come in soon if this went on, and he should hate a scene....

"I will go," he repeated at the door, "and I'll tell Blatchley, now, to act direct with you." With this reminder of all that he had done for her, he went out very stiffly. She did not call him back, although so soon she felt half sorry for the silly little man. He had meant well and he was fond of her.... No woman finds it too hard to forgive a man whose sins are due to those two causes.

Helena, not so comforted by this scene as she should have been, sat with the magazine held limply in her fingers and wondered with a numb brain whether there was no way out of her life's labyrinth.

Hugh would not listen. That was the whole difficulty. If only he would let her speak, she knew she could explain. She loved him; they had had such jolly times; he wasn't in the least like Zoe's husband; she hadn't realised, till that first review came, that life in the two homes had been even similar; and if----

Suddenly she gave a little happy laugh, the first for hours that seemed already months, then leapt up girlishly and ran to her bureau.

Of course! It was the very thing. Speaking was difficult, and somehow he always made her feel so young and nervous. But this was easy and he always loved things just a little different--what he called her "odd little ways."

Feverish with excitement, she sat down and wrote her Apologia:--

"MY OWN DEAREST HUGH

"(I _can_ call you that on paper and in my own heart, whatever you say about speaking.)

"Let me explain. If you can bear how things are now, I can't, and I feel so terrible because although I meant absolutely nothing, I know it's all my fault. I _am_ sorry, do believe that, go on reading, but not a word of Zoe is _me_, really honestly. It's just Fiction like your books, but it's the only sort of life I knew. Surely you can't believe I think of you like that? The Husband was imaginary, and I only did it in the winter, to pa.s.s all the hours while you were working. I never called it _The Confessions of an Author's Wife_ at all, that was the publisher and people, and they never let me see it again till it was printed or I should have cut out a lot.

"Really, my own darling husband, _it was not my fault_. It's all very awful and I am so sorry for you, but don't let's make it worse by quarrelling ourselves. I'm sure we can live it down and nothing will be worse than if we're seen to have quarrelled. We will write a note together to the papers saying it was Fiction.

"Hugh, let me be forgiven and help you through this horrid time my _stupidity_, and that's all, has brought you to. You don't know how already I long to hear your laugh and just one kind word. We've not been sloppy, have we? but no one could be fonder or prouder of her husband, and I see so little of you anyhow. Don't rob me even of that.

Come and tell me I'm forgiven and be your dear old comfy self again. I can't stand this.

"Your loving and Oh so sorry, "H."

She read it over again, laughing through tears, for now everything would be all right. Then, when she had sealed it and was about to write his name, another idea came to her. He might tear it up, unread!

On the outside she wrote:

To a very dear husband from a very sorry wife.

_Quite short._ Read it!

By now she felt almost on the old terms--and how dear they had been, she could see now--with him. This was the sort of thing he always liked so much. It made him call her "child." She had sent notes before, when she had to go out or something.

Very quietly she went to his door, slipped the note silently beneath it, then with her bent finger gave it a good flick. She heard it whizz across the polished floor. He could not fail to see or hear it, as he always did.

With a new sense of peace she went back to the drawing-room and waited.

She was ashamed to notice, in the gla.s.s, how red her eyelids were.

Did other wives spend awful hours like this or was it just that she was silly?

Minutes pa.s.sed; the hour struck; the quarter; the half-hour.

He was not coming, then, till lunch time. What a slave of habit;--or was he trying to punish her by this suspense?...

She fought that last idea: it would not be like Hugh. Possibly he had written and left it in the hall? She went out. There was nothing there.

One o'clock struck, and almost instantly she heard his door open. She half rose, then she decided to sit where she was.

Would he never come? ... He was pottering about in the hall! Tapping the gla.s.s now! ... How could men be so curious? ... At last the handle turned. What were resolves? She could not help getting up, after all; but he must speak first.

There was no need, really. His set face told her everything. He did not come beyond the door.

"Helena," he said sternly, in a low voice that obviously considered Lily, "I think it'll be better if we don't discuss this matter any further. We may possibly forget. Anyhow, it's no time for childish games. I'd already written, as you suggest to the newspapers. We won't speak of this at all in front of Lily."

It was clearly a message learnt by heart, and with its last word the door shut. He had never let go the handle.

Helena stood gazing after him with a face no less set than his own.

CHAPTER XXIII

SECRET NUMBER TWO

Three days pa.s.sed, seeming like a year, and everything was just the same. Each felt in the wrong, each had a grievance; and that is fatal for a settlement.

Helena, rebuffed, was quite determined to make no more appeals: and he was silent, that mockery of talk in front of Lily over, except that now and then he would throw out questions--with the hard air of counsel cross-examining--questions that showed upon what string his mind was harping, questions to do always with the hated book. These she answered patiently, as one who knows she has deserved her punishment.

What she had not deserved, what she would not endure, Helena decided, was his whole treatment of her. Each afternoon he had an agent, publisher, friend, somebody that took him into London; each night he had some work to do--and this although he told her brutally that she had fatally wrecked his new novel. It was a fresh routine.

Helena found herself sentenced--apparently for life--to solitary confinement in a new-art cottage. Callers arrived, suspicious in their frequency, but she said, "Not At Home" to all, caring but little to feed their taste for a t.i.t-bit of scandal. Letters came too from dear friends who congratulated her ... but these she tore up, unanswered.

Others came from Mr. Blatchley--unctuous, consoling, full of the glad news that sales were leaping up as a result, and sending a big cheque as a polite advance. Helena loathed herself for not destroying this as well; but she had sold her happiness, so why not take the price?

Besides, if Hubert's new book had really had to be abandoned,----!

"I hope to get some reviewing work," he said at the end of the fourth ghastly lunch. "That will be something. I am off to town about it but shall be back to dinner."

She forced herself to speak in the same level tones that he adopted.

"Doesn't it occur to you," she asked, "that it's not very pleasant for me, just now, to be always left alone? I can't go out like that, with everybody saying that we've quarrelled."

"Are you blaming me, now?" he asked in icy surprise.