Harry Pallant was never more desperately in love with his wife Louie than on the night of that delightful dance at the Vernon Ogilvies'. She wore her pale blue satin, with the low bodice, and her pretty necklet of rough amber in natural lumps, which her husband had given her for a birthday present just three days earlier. Harry wasn't rich, and he wasn't able to do everything that he could have wished for Louie--a young barrister, with no briefs to speak of, even if he ekes out his petty professional income with literary work, can't afford to spend very much in the way of personal adornment upon the ladies of his family--but he loved his pretty little wife dearly, and nothing pleased him better than to see Louie admired as she ought to be by other people. And that evening, to be sure, she was looking her very sweetest and prettiest.

Flushed a little with unwonted excitement, in the glow of an innocent girlish flirtation, as she stood there talking to Hugh Ogilvie in the dim recess by the door of the conservatory, Harry, watching her un.o.bserved from a nook of the refreshment-room, thought he had never in his life seen her look more beautiful or more becomingly animated.

Animation suited Louie Pallant, and Hugh Ogilvie thought so too, as he half whispered his meaningless compliments in her dainty little ear, and noted the blush that rose quickly to her soft cheek, and the sudden droop of her long eyelashes above her great open hazel-grey eyes.

"Hugh's saying something pretty to Louie, I'm sure," Harry thought to himself with a smile of pleasure, as he looked across at the sweet little graceful girlish figure. "I can see it at once in her face, and in her hands, playing so nervously with the edge of her fan. Dear child, how she lets one read in her eyes and cheeks her every tiny pa.s.sing feeling! Her pretty wee mouth is like an open book! Hugh's telling her confidentially now that she's the belle of the evening. And so she is; there's not a doubt about it. Not a girl in the place fit to hold a candle to my Louie; especially when she blushes--she's sweet when she blushes. Now she's colouring up again. By Jove, yes, he must be positively making love to her. There's nothing I enjoy so much as seeing Louie enjoying herself, and being made much of. Too many girls, bright young girls, when they marry early, as Louie has done, settle down at once into household drudges, and never seem to get any happiness worth mentioning out of their lives in any way. I won't let it be so with Louie. Dear little soul, she shall flit about as much as she likes, and enjoy herself as the fancy seizes her, like a little b.u.t.terfly, just like a b.u.t.terfly. I love to see it!" And he hugged one clasped hand upon the other silently.

Whence the astute reader will readily infer that Harry Pallant was still more or less in love with his wife Louie, although they had been married for five years and upwards.

Presently Louie and Hugh went back into the ballroom, and for the first time Harry noticed that the music had struck up some minutes since for the next waltz, for which he was engaged to Hugh's sister, Mrs. Wetherby Ferrand. He started hastily at the accusing sound, for in watching his wife he had forgotten his partner. Returning at once in search of Mrs.

Ferrand, he found her sitting disconsolate in a corner waiting for him, and looking (as was natural) not altogether pleased at his ungallant treatment.

"So you've come at last, Harry!" Mrs. Ferrand said, with evident pique.

They had been friends from childhood, and knew one another well enough to use both their Christian names and the critical freedom of old intimacy.

"Yes, Dora, I've come at last," Harry answered, with an apologetic bow, as he offered her his arm, "and I'm so sorry I've kept you waiting; but the fact is I was watching Louie. She's been dancing with Hugh, and she looks perfectly charming, I think, this evening."

Mrs. Ferrand bit her lip. "She does," she answered coldly, with half a pout. "And you were so busy watching her, it seems, you forgot all about _me_, Harry."

Harry laughed. "It was pardonable under the circ.u.mstances, you know, Dora," he said lightly. "If it had been the other way, now, Louie might have had some excuse for being jealous."

"Who said I was jealous?" Mrs. Ferrand cried, colouring up. "Jealous of you, indeed! What right have I got to be jealous of you, Harry? She may dance with Hugh all night long, for all I care for it. She's danced with him now three times already, and I dare say she'll dance with him as often again. You men are too conceited. You always think every woman on earth is just madly in love with you."

"My dear child," Harry answered, with a faint curl of his lip, "you quite misunderstand me. Heaven knows I at least am not conceited. What on earth have I got to be conceited of? I never thought any woman was in love with me in all my life except Louie; and what in the name of goodness even she can find to fall in love with in me--a fellow like me--positively pa.s.ses my humble comprehension."

"She's going to dance the next waltz but one with Hugh, he tells me,"

Mrs. Ferrand replied drily, as if changing the conversation.

"Is she? Hugh's an excellent fellow," Harry answered carelessly, resting for a moment a little aside from the throng, and singling out Louie at once with his eye among the whirling dancers. "Ah, there she is, over yonder. Do you see?--there, with that Captain Vandeleur. How sweetly she dances, Dora! And how splendidly she carries herself! I declare, she's the very gracefullest girl in all the room here."

Mrs. Ferrand dropped half a mock curtsey. "A polite partner would have said 'bar one,' Harry," she murmured petulantly. "How awfully in love with her you are, my dear boy. It must be nice to have a man so perfectly devoted to one.... And I don't believe either she half appreciates you. Some women would give their very eyes, do you know, to be as much loved by any man as she's loved by you, Harry." And she looked at him significantly.

"Well, but Ferrand----"

"Ah, poor Wetherby! Yes, yes; of course, of course, I quite agree with you. You're always right, Harry. Poor Wetherby is the worthiest of men, and in his own way does his very best, no doubt, to make me happy. But there is devotion and devotion, Harry. _Il y a f.a.gots et f.a.gots._ Poor dear Wetherby is no more capable----"

"Dora, Dora, for Heaven's sake, I beg of you, no confidences. As a legal man, I must deprecate all confidences, otherwise than strictly in the way of business. What got us first into this absurd groove, I wonder? Oh yes, I remember--Louie's dancing. Shall we go on again? You must have got your breath by this time. Why, what's the matter, Dora? You look quite pale and flurried."

"Nothing, Harry. Nothing--nothing, I a.s.sure you. Not quite so tight, please; go quietly--I'm rather tired.... Yes, that'll do, thank you.

The room's so very hot and close this evening. I can hardly breathe, I feel so stifled. Tight-lacing, I suppose poor dear Wetherby would say. I declare, Louie isn't dancing any longer. How very odd! She's gone back again now to sit by Hugh there. What on earth can be the reason, I wonder!"

"Captain Vandeleur's such an awfully bad waltzer, you know," Harry answered unconcernedly. "I dare say she was glad enough to make some excuse or other to get away from him. The room's so very hot and stifling."

"Oh, you think so," and Dora Ferrand gave a quiet little smile, as one who sees clearly below the surface. "I dare say. And she's not sorry either to find some good reason for another ten minutes' chat with Hugh, I fancy."

But Harry, in his innocence, never noticed her plain insinuation. "He's as blind as a bat," Dora Ferrand thought to herself, half contemptuously. "Just like poor dear Wetherby! Poor dear Wetherby never suspects anything! And that girl Louie doesn't half appreciate Harry either. Just like me, I suppose, with that poor dear stupid old stockbroker. Stockbroker, indeed! What in the name of all that's sensible could ever have induced me to go and marry a blind old stick of a wealthy stockbroker? If Harry and I had only our lives to live again--but there, what's the use of bothering one's head about it? We've only got one life apiece, and that we generally begin by making a mull of."

II.

Three days later Harry Pallant went down as usual to his rooms in the Temple, and set to work upon his daily labour. The first envelope he opened of the batch upon his table was from the editor of the _Young People's Monitor_. It contained the week's correspondence. Harry Pallant glanced over the contents hastily, and singled out a few enclosures from the big budget with languid curiosity.

Of course everybody knows the _Young People's Monitor_. It is one of the most successful among the penny weeklies, and in addition to its sensational stories and moral essays, it gives advice gratis to all and sundry in its correspondence columns upon every conceivable subject that our common peccant or ignorant humanity can possibly inquire about. Now, Harry Pallant happened to be the particular person employed by the editor of this omniscient journal to supply the answers to the weekly shoals of anxious interrogators _de omni scibili_. His legal learning came in handy for the purpose, and being a practised London journalist as well, his knowledge of life stood him in good stead at this strange piece of literary craftsmanship. But the whole affair was "in strict confidence," as the _Monitor_ announced. It was a point of honour between himself and the editor that the secret of the correspondence column should be jealously guarded from all and several; so Harry Pallant, accustomed, lawyer-like, to keeping secrets, had never mentioned his connection with the _Monitor_ in this matter even to Louie. It came as part of his week's work at his chambers in the Temple, and it was duly finished and sent off to press, without note or comment, on the same day, in true business-like barrister fashion.

The first letter that Harry opened and listlessly glanced through with his experienced eye was one of the staple _Monitor_ kind--Stella or Euphemia had quarrelled, in a moment of pique, with her lover, and was now dying of anxiety to regain his affections. Harry scribbled a few words of kindly chaff and sound advice in reply upon a blank sheet of virgin foolscap, and tossed the torn fragments of letter number one into the capacious mouth of his waste-paper basket.

The second letter requested the editor's candid opinion upon a short set of amateur verses therewith enclosed. Harry's candid opinion, muttered to himself beneath his moustache, was too unparliamentary for insertion in full; but he toned its verbal expression down a little in his written copy, and pa.s.sed on hastily to the others in order.

"Camilla" would like to know, in strict confidence (thrice underlined), what is the editor's opinion of her style of handwriting. "A Draper's a.s.sistant" is desirous to learn how the words "heterogeneous" and "Beethoven" are usually p.r.o.nounced in the best society. "Senex," having had a slight difference as to the b.u.t.tered toast with his present landlady (in whose house he has lodged for forty years), would be glad of any advice as to how, at his age, he is to do without her. "H. J. K."

has just read with much surprise a worthless pamphlet, proving that the inhabitants of the northern divisions of Staffordshire and Warwickshire are the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, and cannot imagine how this reckless a.s.sertion can be scripturally reconciled with the plain statements of the prophet Habakkuk, which show that the descendants of Mana.s.seh are really to be looked for in the county of Sligo. And so forth, though every variety of male feebleness and feminine futility, in answer to all which Harry turned off his hasty rejoinder with the dexterous ease acquired of long practice and familiar experience.

At last he came in due course to a small white envelope, of better paper and style than the others, marked "17" in red pencil on the back in the formal hand of the systematic editor. He turned it over with mechanical carelessness. To his immense amus.e.m.e.nt and no little surprise, he saw at once, by the writing of the address, that the note came from his own Louie!

What could Louie have to ask of advice or information from the anonymous editor of the _Young People's Monitor_?

He stood for a moment, with a quiet smile playing about his lips, thinking to himself that he had often wondered whether he should ever get a letter thus incognito from any person among his private acquaintances. And now he had got one from Louie herself. How very funny! How truly ridiculous! And how odd too that she shouldn't even have told him beforehand she was going to write for counsel or a.s.sistance to the _Young People's Monitor_!

And then a strange doubt flashed idly for a moment across his mind--a doubt that he felt immediately ashamed of. What possible subject could there be on which Louie could want advice and aid from an editor, a stranger, an unknown and anonymous impersonal ent.i.ty, rather than from him, Harry, her own husband, her natural guide, a.s.sistant, and counsellor? It was odd, very odd--nay, even disquieting. Harry hardly knew what to make of the unexpected episode.

But next moment he had dismissed his doubts, though he stood still toying with the unopened envelope. He was half afraid to look inside it.

Louie had only written, he felt sure, about some feminine trifle or other, some foolish point of petty etiquette--how to fold napkins mitre-fashion, or whether "P.P.O." cards should be turned down at the upper right or the lower left-hand corner--some absurd detail about which she would have laughed outright at his personal opinion, but would defer at once to the dignity of print, and the expressed verdict of the _Young People's Monitor_. So great is the power of printer's ink, that if you say a thing face to face, your own wife even will take no notice of it; but if you set it up in type anonymously, she, and the world at large to boot, will treat it like an inspired oracle in stone fallen down direct from the seventh heaven.

And yet somehow Harry Pallant couldn't make up his mind at once to break open the tiny envelope of that mysterious, incomprehensible letter.

At last he broke it, and read it hurriedly. As he did so a terrible, ominous pang came across his heart, and the writing, familiar as it was, swam illegibly in dancing lines before his strained and aching vision.

"Dear Mr. Editor," the letter began, somewhat shakily, "you give your advice and a.s.sistance to many people. Will you give it to me?

Will you help me? Will you save me?

"This is my position. I was married young to a man I did not love, but liked and respected. I thought love would come afterwards. It never came. On the contrary, the longer I have lived with him the less I care for him. Not that he is unkind to me--he is good enough and generous enough in all conscience; but he inspires me with no affection and no enthusiasm. Till lately this was all I felt. I did not love him, but I jogged along comfortably somehow.

"Now, however, I find to my dismay that I am in love--not with him, but with another man a hundred times more congenial to my tastes and feelings in every way. I have done no wrong, but I think of him and live in him all my time. I cannot for a moment dismiss him from my thoughts. Oh, what am I to do? Tell me, help me!

"I can never love my husband--of that I am certain. I can never leave off loving the other--of that I am still more confident. Can you advise me? Can you relieve me? This torture is too terrible. It is killing me--killing me.

"Yours ever, in strict confidence, "EGERIA."

Harry Pallant gazed at that awful accusing letter in blank horror and speechless bewilderment. He could not even cry or groan. He could not utter a word or shed a tear. The shock was so sudden, so crushing, so unexpected, so irretrievable!

He had never till that moment in the faintest degree doubted that Louie loved him as he loved her--devotedly, distractedly.

Why, that very morning, before he came away on his journey to the Temple, Louie had kissed him so tenderly and affectionately, and called him "darling," and wished he hadn't always to go to that horrid City.

How the memory stung him!

Yes; that was the hardest thought of all. If Louie wrote it, Louie was a hypocrite. Not only did she not now love him--not only had she never loved him, but, lowest depth of misery and shame, she had pretended to love him when in her heart of hearts she hated and despised him. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. In her own words, it was too terrible!

If Louie wrote it? He turned the letter over once more. Ah, yes, there was no denying it. It was Louie's handwriting--Louie's, Louie's. His brain reeled, but he could not doubt it or palter over it for a moment.

Not even disguised--her very own handwriting. It was the seal of doom for him, yet he could not even pretend to disbelieve it.

He sat there long, incapable of realizing the full horror of that crushing, destroying, annihilating disclosure. It was useless trying to realize it--thank G.o.d for that! It so dazed and stunned and staggered and bewildered him that he fell for a time into a sort of hopeless lethargy, and felt and saw and thought of nothing.