Athena looked at the man standing before her in a very singular manner.

Her voice was charged with significance.

He met her challenging look quite coolly. "Yes, I do wish it to come right," he said, "because I believe that it would be for Jane's ultimate happiness. Come, Athena, make an effort!"

He spoke good-humouredly, as a grown-up person speaks to a spoilt child, and a cruel little devil entered into Mrs. Maule's mind.

"Isn't it funny," she said lightly, "how Jane the Good, and I, Athena the Bad, always attract the same man? They don't always like us at the same time, but----"

She stopped speaking, for d.i.c.k Wantele had turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind him, a thing he very seldom did.

CHAPTER XVII

"Nous devrions baiser les pantoufles de certaines femmes du cote ou les pantoufles touchent a la terre, car en dedans ce serait tout au plus digne des anges."

The long day came to an end at last. Jane felt a sense of almost physical relief in the knowledge that to-morrow night she would no longer be there, and yet she had not spoken of her decision to the others.

For Athena Maule the day was not yet over. She waited till the house was sunk into darkness and stillness, and then, dismissing her maid, she put on a dressing-gown and went downstairs to the library.

The book she had mentally marked down that morning was found by her in a moment; but instead of looking at it there she took it to her boudoir.

It was possible that Wantele--Wantele who had been so rude and unkind to her this afternoon--might, like herself, feel wakeful, and come down to the library.

With the heavy old law book in her arms, she made her way through the now dark corridor which ran the whole length of Rede Place till she reached her own sitting-room, and there, before turning up the light, she locked the door.

Then she sat down, and drawing forward a little table she spread the book out open before her.

The dying wood fire suddenly burst into flame; Athena looked round her.

She wondered if she would ever have so pretty a room again.

There was no hurry; she knew all that it was really necessary for her to know, thanks to Maud Stanwood's idle words.

Maud Stanwood? What would Maud Stanwood say of her when she heard what Mrs. Maule was about to do? So wondering, Athena suddenly made up her mind that there would be no necessity for her to go on knowing that lady. A woman who talked as Maud Stanwood talked would be no friend for General Lingard's wife!

The important thing--the one thing she must find out, and that this book would doubtless tell her--was how long a period must elapse after the dissolution of her marriage to Richard Maule before any second marriage contracted by her would be legal. She was aware that after a divorce a full six months must elapse between the Nisi and the Absolute; also that it was actually left to the good feeling of the offended party--that was very unfair--as to whether the decree should be made absolute at all.

Athena felt a tremor of fear. It would indeed be an awful thing if she put it into Richard's power to leave her in the disagreeable, the ridiculous, position of being neither married nor single.

But thanks to the excellent index of this useful work on the marriage laws of England, it only took Mrs. Maule a very few moments to discover that in this important matter her fear was quite groundless. Once judgment was given--once, that is, a marriage was dissolved--there was no impediment to an immediate remarriage on the part of the injured party.

She looked up and gave a long, unconscious sigh of relief. There had been a secret, unacknowledged terror in her heart, that she might find, now at the last moment, some hidden snag.

Sitting back in her straight, carved Italian chair, she began to make a mental list of her large circle of acquaintances. Which of them would give her shelter during the weeks, nay the months, that must perhaps elapse before she would be free?

Mrs. Maule had but one intimate friend--that friend was Jane Oglander.

She had little doubt that as soon as the painful business of the engagement was over, she and Jane would return to their old terms of unquestioning affection.

What a pity it was that Hew Lingard's rather absurd conscience and his--well, his sense of delicacy, would make any arrangement with Jane impossible! However, she knew several good-natured women who might help her through such a pa.s.s--especially if she could venture to whisper the truth as to what the future held for her....

But there were certain other facts it would be well for her to know before taking so important a step as that of consulting a lawyer. Athena Maule did not believe in trusting people too much.

Bending once more over the table, she set herself seriously to study the sense of the dry and yet very clearly expressed chapter containing the information she sought.

And then, as she read on, slowly mastering the legal phraseology, conning over the cases quoted in support of each a.s.sertion, it gradually became horribly, piteously plain to her that if her husband cared to defend the suit, she had but a very poor chance of obtaining what this work so rightly styled "relief."

The knowledge brought with it a terrible feeling of revolt and of despair to Athena Maule.

She pushed the book away, then got up and stared into a small Venetian looking-gla.s.s. She was frightened by what she saw there; the shock of her discovery had drained all the colour from her face, and, for the moment, destroyed her youth.

She turned away from the mirror with a feeling of sick disgust. Her face, as reflected there, actually reminded her of Richard's face. It was absurd, disquieting, that such a notion should ever come into her mind, and it showed the state in which her nerves must be.

She looked round her fearfully. The room on which she had wasted a regretful thought had become an airless cage in which she would have to spend all that remained to her of young life and of the wonderful beauty which had, so she now told herself bitterly, brought her so little happiness.

She had actually believed--how Richard would grin if he knew it!--that if she only could make up her mind to a certain amount of "scandal" and "publicity," she could free herself of him. How could she have supposed that the law--a law framed and devised by men--would put such a power in a woman's hand?...

And yet--and yet it was still true that nothing but Richard's will stood between herself and complete, honourable freedom--between her and the man who had in his gift everything that she longed for and believed herself specially fitted by nature to possess.

So much, and surely it was a great deal, the book which was still lying open on the little table made quite clear. If only Richard Maule could be brought to that state of mind in which he would consent to be merciful and leave his wife's suit undefended, all would yet go well.

Athena sat down again and began to concentrate her mind intensely.

How could she bend, coerce Richard to her will?--that was the formidable problem which was now presented to her, and she set herself to consider it from every point of view.

Mrs. Maule was afraid of her husband--it was an instinctive, involuntary fear; her whole being shrank from him with a dreadful aversion. When he had been hale and strong, adoring her with the rather absurd ardour of adoration a middle-aged man so often lavishes on a young wife, she had despised him. Now that he was stricken, old, and feeble, he inspired her with terror.

It had amused her to deceive him when he had been the doting, lover-like husband, in days which seemed to belong to another life; but now, when his sunken eyes gleamed as they always gleamed when staring into hers, seeming full of a cruel knowledge of the pardonable weaknesses into which her heart betrayed her, then her body as well as her spirit quailed.

Suddenly a great light came into the dark chamber of her mind. Athena Maule saw in a moment a way in which the problem might be solved. How amazing that she had not thought of it yesterday--even this morning!

Jane Oglander should be her advocate with Richard. Richard would do for Jane what he would do for no one else. That had been proved many times.

To take a recent instance--how harshly he had always resisted his wife's wish to ask people to Rede Place! But when General Lingard had come into the neighbourhood, it was Richard who had suggested that Jane Oglander's lover should be bidden to stay, and to stay a long time.

Athena's face became flushed, fired with hope, with energy. She had been foolish to be so frightened. How fortunate it was that Jane had spoken to her--had told her of her intention to break the foolish engagement with Lingard! It made everything quite easy.

She shut the book--the sinister old book which had given her so awful a shock.

Why not go up and see Jane now--at once? It was still early, not much after midnight. Athena glanced at the tiny clock which had played its little part just before Jane's arrival at Rede Place in provoking Hew Lingard's avowal of--of weakness. Yes, it was only ten minutes past twelve. Jane was probably wide awake still.

Athena went to the library and carefully put back the volume in its place among the other legal books which had belonged to Wantele's father. Then she made her way, in the deep, still darkness, to the door of Jane Oglander's room. Knocking lightly, and without waiting for an answer, she walked in.

In old days this room had been known as "the White Room," now it went by the name of "Miss Oglander's Room." Only Jane Oglander ever occupied it.

Jane was asleep--sleeping more soundly than she had done for many days, but as the door of her room opened she woke, and sitting up turned on, with an instinctive gesture, the electric light which swung over her bed.

Athena came quickly across the room. She was wearing a rather bright blue silk wrapper, and her graceful form made a patch of brilliant colour against the varying whitenesses of the walls, of the curtains, and of the rugs which covered the floor.

"I couldn't get to sleep," Athena's voice shook with excitement and emotion, for she was going to take a great risk--to stake her whole future life on one throw. "Somehow I guessed you were awake, like me."