Alan Walcott sat in his room, on the first floor of a house between the Strand and the River Thames, reading Lettice Campion's book. He had read it once, from beginning to end, and now he was turning back to the pa.s.sages which had moved him most deeply, anxious not to lose the light from a single facet of the gem that sparkled in his hands. It would have been a gem to Alan even if the world had not seen its beauty, and he was jealous of those who could lavish their praise on this woman whom he knew and worshipped, when his own hard fate compelled him to be silent.

How well he recognized her thoughts and moods in every page of the story! How familiar were many of the reflections, and even the very words which she employed! Here and there the dialogue recalled to his mind conversations which he had held with her in the happy days gone by.

In one case, at least, he found that she had adopted a view of his own which he had maintained in argument against her, and which at the time she had not been willing to accept. It rejoiced him to see the mark of his influence, however slight, upon one who had so deeply impressed her image on his mind.

The novel was a revelation to him in more ways than one. It was as if she had spoken to him, for himself alone, words of wisdom and comfort and encouragement. That, indeed, was precisely what she had done--consciously and of set purpose--though he did not know it. The plot went home to his heart. When the heroine spoke to the hero he seemed to catch the very tones of her voice, to see the lips in motion, and to read in her eyes the spirit and confirmation of the words. There was nothing in the incidents of "Laurels and Thorns" which resembled his own troubles or the relations which had existed between them--except the simple fact of the mutual intellectual and moral sympathy of the two central characters. The hero had won his crown of laurels and wore his crown of thorns; the heroine, who could not love him in his triumph, had loved him in his humiliation.

Both descended in the scale of material prosperity to rise in the scale of honor and mutual respect; the glory of life was extinguished, but it gave place to the glory of love. Alan read again and again the borrowed words with which Lettice's heroine concluded her written confession of love for the man whom she had once rejected, and who thought himself precluded by his disgrace from coming to her again.

"He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circ.u.mstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee, and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

"What though the earlier grooves That ran the laughing loves Around thy base no longer pause and press?

What though, about thy rim, Scull things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

"Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?"

These were words of comfort to Alan, if only he dare take them to himself, if he dare imagine that Lettice had had him in her mind as she wrote, and had sent him that message to restore his self-respect and save him from despair.

He sat for some time with the book before him, and then another thought came into his head. Why should he not write to her, just a few words to let her know that what she had written had gone home to his heart, and that amongst all her critics there was not one who understood her better than he? He was ent.i.tled to do this; it was almost due to himself to do it. He would take care not to make a fool of himself this time, as he had done in his first letter to her.

So he took a pen and wrote:

"I have read your book. You would not expect to find me amongst the critics: I only write to thank you for the pleasure and the courage it has given me. Some parts have fitted my case so exactly that I have applied them and made use of them, as any chance comer is permitted to do with any work of art.

"This is a great work you have produced, and I always knew that you would do great things. Count me not last of those who praise you, and who look to see your future triumphs. ALAN WALCOTT."

He put the letter in an envelope, sealed and addressed it. Then he leaned back in his chair, and began to muse again.

What a failure his life had been! He had told himself so a hundred times of late, but the truth of the verdict was more and more vivid every day.

Surely he had set out from the beginning with good intentions, with high motives, with an honorable ambition. No man ever had a more just father, a more devoted mother, a happier home, a more careful and conscientious training. He had never seen a flaw in either of his parents, and it had been his single purpose to imitate their devotion to duty, their piety, their gentle consideration for all with whom they had to deal. It had struck him sometimes as almost strange (he had suspected once that it was a trifle unpoetical) that he had rather sought out than shunned his humbler relatives in the little shop at Thorley, taking the utmost care that their feelings should never be hurt by his more refined education and tastes. Of these three friends of his youth who were dead he could honestly say (but he did not say all this), that he had been dutiful to them, and that he had not wilfully brought sorrow upon any one of them.

Where had he gone so far astray as to merit, or even to bring about, the anguish which had fallen upon him? True, he had given himself to pleasure for the few years which succeeded his father's death. He had traveled, he had enjoyed the society of men and women, he had lived an idle life--except inasmuch as he aspired to be a poet, and wrote two or three volumes which the world had accepted and thanked him for, but the standard of his boyhood had never been rejected--he had been considerate of the feelings of every man and woman (Lettice alone, perhaps, having the right to deny it), and had not permitted himself one pleasure, or action, or relaxation, which might give pain to another. That had been his rule of life. Was it not enough?

He had teased himself, as thoughtful men and women often have done, and more often will do, about the problem of human morals. It had not occurred to him that the morals which have no conscious basis are likely to be more sound and permanent than those which are consciously built up; and, as a matter of fact, his own were of that kind, though he had his rule and considered himself to be guided by it. "That which gives no pain to another, and does not deteriorate another, or oneself, or any sentient being, cannot be immoral, though circ.u.mstances may make it inexpedient." He had written that sentence in his diary before he was twenty, at an age when the expanding soul craves for talismans and golden maxims, and he had clung to it ever since. For what violation of the law did he suffer now?

This was not Lettice's way of looking at it. The hero of her story was an urn in the hands of a divine artist, and a sterner stress was necessary for the consummate work. But he, Alan, was no hero. Horace'

verse was nearer the mark with him.

Amphorae coepit Inst.i.tui; currente rota cur urceus exit?

As water to wine were all the uses of his life henceforth, compared with that which might have been.

But, sad as he was, if Lettice could have read within his heart she would have been satisfied with her work.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"AM I A MURDERER?"

Footsteps outside his door roused Alan from his train of thoughts. Only his landlady came along that pa.s.sage, for there were no lodgers on the same floor, nor on the one above it. A louder knock than Mrs. Gorman was wont to give made him start from his seat.

"Come in!" he cried; but before the words were spoken the door was thrown open and Cora made her appearance. Alan turned sick at heart, and stood leaning on the end of the mantelpiece, gazing at her without a word.

"Ah, my dear," she said, with a little laugh of amus.e.m.e.nt as she saw the disconcerted look on his face, "they have not deceived me! They did not offer to conduct me, but they said I should find you here--first floor front--and here you are! It is long since we met, is it not? You have sent huissiers, and gendarmes, and police to bring me your messages, as a king to his subject, or a judge to a criminal. You should have come yourself, my friend, for I have longed to see you. Are you not glad that we meet thus, alone, face to face, without fear of intrusion?"

She had shut the door behind her, and sat down in his easy chair by the table, inviting him with a gesture to take a seat by her side.

"Approach!" she said, in a soft but mocking voice. "Be amiable! Let us talk. I come for peace, not for war. Let us make terms with each other.

I am sick of this farce of hostility between husband and wife--let us arrange our little disagreements. Come!"

Her familiar tone was odious to him. The sudden perversion of his thoughts from Lettice to this creature, from his dream of purity and elevation to this degrading reality, filled him with disgust. Nay, something more than disgust entered his mind as he saw the smile on her besotted face. A demon of revenge seized upon him, and all but gained the mastery. For one instant he was perilously near to springing on her where she sat, and strangling the life out of her. All pa.s.sions and all possibilities are in the soul of every one of us, at every moment; only the motive power, the circ.u.mstance, the incitement, are needed to make us cross the boundary of restraint. If Alan was not a murderer, it was not because the thing was impossible to him, but because at the crisis of temptation his heart had been penetrated by the influence of the woman whom he revered, and filled with higher thoughts--even through the channel of humiliation and self-contempt.

He answered her calmly.

"There is no arranging what has happened between us two--nor do you wish it any more than I. Say what you want to say, and go."

"Good! I will say what I want to say--but I will not go. I mean to stay with my husband; it is my right. Till death do us part--are not those the pretty words of the farce we played together?"

"Who made it a farce--did I?"

"Listen, my friend. This is one thing I want to say. a.s.suredly it was you, and no other, who made our marriage a miserable failure. You took me from a life I loved, from friends who loved me, from a freedom which I valued, and you made no effort to study my tastes and accommodate yourself to my habits."

"G.o.d knows I made the effort. But what were those tastes and habits?

Think of them--think of them all! Could I have accommodated myself to all--even to those you concealed from me?"

"Bah! you should have known whom you had married. You were so blind and foolish, that I had a right to think you would never interfere with my liberty. I was the child of liberty--and liberty is a sacred possession, which it is an outrage to take away from any woman. You expected me to change, to become all at once another being, cold and impa.s.sive like yourself--while, as for you, you were to change in nothing! It was your duty to come to my level--at least to approach it. I would have met you halfway; we could have made our contract, and I would have kept my part of the bargain. You demanded too much, and that is why you lost everything. I condemn you--humanity condemns you. The ruin was your work!"

"There is something novel in the theory, but I don't think many people would accept it." He was prepared to talk seriously with her, if she wished it, but no man could be serious in view of such a preposterous claim. So he fell back upon the cold, ironical calmness which exasperated Cora far more than a storm of rage would have done. "At any rate," he said, "I did not deprive you of your liberty. You retained that!"

"I kept it for myself. You would have taken it away, and you hated me for keeping it. I keep it still. I have been free to go where I would, free to wander over this terrible and desolate city, free now to come back to you, and stay with you, until you swear to cease your persecutions, and swear to make a new compact on more equitable terms."

"It is impossible to make terms with you, for you do not observe them.

The law will bind you down more strictly. Meanwhile you cannot remain here, as you propose."

"Do you mean to throw me into the street?" she asked, pa.s.sionately.

"Alive or dead, I stay here until the compact is made."

"You need have no fear of me; I am not going to kill you."

"Fear! Of you! Do not flatter yourself, my friend!"

With an insulting laugh she plucked a thin stiletto from under her cloak, and brandished it before him. Alan recognized it as one which he had missed after her visit to Montagu Place.

"Look there! Would you like to feel if it is sharp, or will you take my word for it? We may want that before we part. I do not much care whether you use it or I; but I will not leave this room unless you concede all that I ask. Do not stand so far from me, coward. You smile, but you are afraid!"