As he shook the crystals into an envelope and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, he told himself that revenge was at last to be his.

The G.o.ds were yielding him one of their most cherished attributes.

CHAPTER XIX

"The fact that the world contains an appreciable number of wretches who ought to be exterminated without mercy when an opportunity occurs, is not quite so generally understood as it ought to be, and many common ways of thinking and feeling virtually deny it."

Richard Maule turned the handle of his wife's bedroom door. A glance a.s.sured him that the beautiful room was empty. So far the G.o.ds whose sport he believed himself to be had been kind, for he had met no one during his slow, painful progress through the house, and Athena, as he knew well, would not be up for another hour.

Standing just within the door, he looked round the room with a terrible, almost a malignant, curiosity. The fire had evidently just been built up; it threw dancing shafts of light over the rose-red curtains of the low First Empire bed, at once vivifying and softening the brilliant colouring of the room.

Till to-night, the owner of Rede Place had never seen this oval bedchamber since it had been transformed nearly nine years before in view of the home-coming of his wife--the home-coming which had been delayed for two years after their marriage.

He had planned out with infinite care and lingering delight every detail of the decoration, taking as his model the bedchamber of the Empress Josephine at Malmaison. He and the expert who had helped him in his labour of love had journeyed out--even now he remembered the journey vividly--to the country house near Paris where Napoleon spent his happiest hours.

As for the room next door, the room which was to have been his, it had long ago been dismantled, and was now the sewing-room of his wife's maid.

Athena had arranged her life in a way that exactly suited her. She had lived on unruffled by the thunder-bolt, hurled unwittingly by herself, which had destroyed him. But a tree blasted by lightning outstands the most radiant of living blossoms....

He felt a wave of hatred heat his blood. Stepping slowly over the garlanded Aubusson carpet, he moved across the room till he stood by the side of the low, wide bed.

On a gilt-rimmed table was placed a crystal tray he well remembered, and on the tray were a decanter of water, a medicine gla.s.s, and a bottle of chloral. Above the wick of a spirit-lamp stood a tiny gold kettle filled with the chocolate which Mrs. Maule always heated and drank after she was in bed.

Her intimate ways of life were very present to her husband's memory. It was not likely that time had modified any habit governing Athena's appearance and general well-being.

He remembered the day they had first seen the gold kettle. It had been at a sale held in the house of one of those frail Parisian beauties who, following a fashion of the moment, had put up her goods to auction. The notion that his wife should possess anything that had once belonged to such a woman had offended Richard Maule's taste, and he had resisted longer than he generally did any wish of hers. But she had cajoled him, as she always in those days could cajole him into anything.

He put out his thin hand and noted with satisfaction that it was shaking less than usual. Slowly he lifted back the lid of the gold kettle.

Yes--there was the chocolate still warm, still in entire solution.

Straightening himself, Richard Maule stood for a moment listening....

Silence reigned within and without Rede Place. Steadying his right hand with his left, he shook the crystals of chloral he had brought with him into the dark liquid. Then he turned, and walked languidly towards the fire. The emotion caused by his short conversation with d.i.c.k Wantele had wearied him.

Suddenly there fell on his listening ears the sound of footsteps in the corridor. He knew them for those of his wife. But it was hate, not fear, that heralded Athena.

He turned round slowly, uncertain for a moment how to explain his presence there.

She swept in--G.o.d! how superb, how radiantly alive--and then gave a swift cry. "Richard! You have frightened me!" But she faced him proudly.

"I've come up to find something I wish to show General Lingard----"

She turned on the lights, and Richard Maule, looking at her fixedly, found his first quick impression modified. Her lovely face was thin and strained. There were shadows under her dark, violet eyes. But even so, how strong she was, how full of vibrating vitality! By her side Richard Maule felt that he must appear dead, or worse, ill to death.

Athena was dressed in the purple gown she had worn the night Lingard had first come to Rede Place. So had she looked when she had opened the door of the Greek Room and led in their--hers and Richard's--ill.u.s.trious guest.

There was something desperate, defiant in the look she now cast on him.

She was telling herself how awful it was to know that this wreck of a man standing before her could hold the whole of her future in his weak and yet tenacious grasp! How cruel that this--this cripple should possess the right to grant or to deny what had become the crowning wish of her heart!

Perhaps something of what was in her mind penetrated to Richard Maule's quick brain.

"The ailing and the infirm," he said, staring at her fixedly, "are treated by the kind folk about them like children. They are never left alone. I do not choose that our household should know that I desire to have a private interview with you, and so I thought the simplest thing would be to come here and wait for you----"

"What is it you wish to say to me?" Her voice shook with suspense. She clasped her hands together with an unconscious gesture of supplication.

"I have brought you--I have brought us all--the order of release."

A feeling of exultant joy--of relief which pierced so keenly that it was akin to pain, filled Athena Maule's soul. She had indeed been well inspired to tell Jane all that was in her heart--and Hew's. And here was Richard actually saying so! For, "You chose a most excellent Mercury,"

he observed dryly.

"You mean Jane Oglander?" her voice again shook a little. "She was not my messenger. She asked my permission to speak to you----"

"Yes, I mean Jane Oglander. She showed me where my duty lay. For a while I hesitated between two courses--for you know, Athena, there were two courses open to me."

She looked at him without speaking. How cruel, how--how unmanly, of Richard to say this! And how futile. There was only one moment when he could have divorced her. Providence had stood her friend by choosing just that moment to make him ill. Since then--she thought she had learnt enough English law to know that--he would be held to have condoned.

But her look made him feel ashamed. The javelin does not thus play with its victim.

"I beg your pardon," he muttered almost inaudibly.

"I know you have always hated me," she said pa.s.sionately.

"You have not known that always," he answered sombrely--and for a moment she hung her head.

"Perhaps now, Richard, we may be better friends."

She reminded herself that in old days--in the days when she had been his idol, his G.o.ddess--she had had a certain contemptuous fondness for her husband. She would be generous--now. Jane had taught her that it was good to be generous.

How true a friend had Jane Oglander been to her! Athena felt a rush of warm grat.i.tude to the woman who still--how strange, how absurd it seemed--was engaged to Lingard. Jane, like the angel she was, would help them--Athena and Hew Lingard--over what must be for some time to come very delicate ground. Their progress, albeit that of happy and, what was so satisfactory, of innocent lovers, would be hampered with small difficulties. How fortunate it was, how more than fortunate, that Lingard's engagement to Jane had not yet been publicly announced....

"Have you told d.i.c.k?" she asked nervously. Her husband--he was still her husband--had smiled strangely as only reply to her kindly words. "Was it about that you wished to see him to-night?"

"No, I have not yet told d.i.c.k of my decision."

"I suppose it can all be managed very quietly?" she said plaintively. "I hope I shan't have to go and appear before a judge--or shall I?"

Richard Maule looked at her thoughtfully. "That is a thing I cannot tell you," he said slowly. "Many would say to you most confidently--yes, that you will have to appear before the Judge."

"I thought there was a thing in England called taking evidence on commission. You yourself, Richard, could not possibly appear in person.

And then--I want to know, it is rather important that I should know"--her husband bent his head gravely--"if there will be any delay?"

"You mean any lapse of time before the decree can be obtained?"