"He said he would come to me next day, or Sunday at latest. And he didn't come on Sat.u.r.day--I stopped indoors all day, afraid to go out for fear of meeting you--and he didn't come till Sunday, after lunch."

"Ah! How long did he stay?"

"Till early this morning. Will, let me be--I'm done. You're throttling me."

"Go on. I'll 'aarve it all out of you. Begin at the beginning. It's Sunday afternoon we're talking of--ever since lunch time. There's a many hours to amuse yourselves."

"After dinner he made me dress up."

"What d'you mean?"

"He had brought things in his luggage--fancy dress."

"What dresses?"

"Oh, boy's things--things he'd bought in Turkey, on his travels. He made me act that I was his page--and bring the coffee, and sit cross-legged on the ground."

"Go on."

"No--what's the use?" She was crying now. "Oh, G.o.d have mercy, what's the use?"

"Go on."

"No. Kill me, if you want to, and be done with it. I don't care--I'm tired out. What I've gone through was worse than death. I'm not afraid of dying."

She would tell him no more; she defied him; and yet he did not kill her. She lay weeping, moaning, at intervals, repeating that desolate phrase, "What's the use? Oh, what's the use?"

Irremediable loss--it sounded in her voice, it crept coldly in his burning veins, it came spreading, flooding, filling the whole earth in the first faint glimmer of dawn. He sat on the edge of the bed, let his hands fall heavy and inert between his knees, and for a long time did not change his att.i.tude.

Just now, looking down at her, he had felt a sickness of loathing. He hated her for the musical note of her voice, the tragic eloquence of her eyes, and above all he hated her for her nakedness. The almost nude sprawling form seemed to symbolize the unspeakable shame of his s.e.x. This was the disgusting female, round and smooth, white and weak, with tumbling hair and lying lips, the lewd parasite that can drag the n.o.ble male down into h.e.l.l-fire. Now he looked at her with comparative indifference, and felt even pity for the broken and soiled thing that he had believed to be clean and sound.

The fusion of his thoughts was over. One thought had split away from all the rest, and every moment was becoming more definite, more logical, more full of excruciating pain. He thought now only of his enemy, of the human fiend who had destroyed Mavis and himself.

At least she had been innocent once. She was clean and good--really and truly the candid child that she had never ceased to seem to be--when that sliming, crawling reptile first got his coils about her.

As he thought of the maddening reality, his imagination made pictures that printed themselves, deep and indelible, on the soft recording surfaces of his brain. Henceforth, so long as blood pumped, nerves worked, and cells and fibers held to their shape, he would see these pictures--must see them each time that chance stirred his memory of the facts for which they stood as emblems.

And with his rage against the man came more and more detestation of the crime itself. At the very beginning it had no possible excuse in honest love. There was nothing belonging to it of nature's grand instinct. It had not the inexorable brutality of primitive pa.s.sion.

Here was an old, or an elderly man, not driven by the force of normal, full-blooded desire, but craftily plotting, treacherously abusing his power, because he was rotten with impure whims--befouling youth and innocence just to obtain a few faint voluptuous thrills.

Then the brain-pictures flashed out with torturing clearness, and Dale saw the criminal renewing the outrage after long years. He was quite old, shaky, infirm, and yet strong enough to consummate the final act of his infinite wickedness. And Dale saw those yellow-white hands, with their nauseating blotches, their glistening blue k.n.o.bs, and their jeweled rings, as they took possession again of the victim to whom they had once given freedom.

Daylight was coming fast; the flame of the candles had turned so pale that one could scarcely see it. Dale got off the bed heavily and clumsily, blew out one of the candles and carried the other to the fireplace. There he lighted the corners of the three bank-notes and watched them burning in the empty grate till nothing was left of them but black and gray powder. Then he put on his hat and moved to the door.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

Blindly raging, he pa.s.sed through the silent, deserted streets, and presently blundered into Regent's Park. It was all exquisitely pretty in the pure morning light, with dew-wet gra.s.s, feathery branches of trees, and the water of a river or lake flashing and sparkling; and as he stared stupidly about him, he thought for a moment that he was experiencing an illusion of the senses. Or was he a boy again safe in his forest? This sort of thing belonged to the happy past, and could have no proper place in the abominable present.

He crossed a low rail, walked on a little way toward the water, and then threw himself face downward on the gra.s.s. He knew where he was now--in the present time, in a public pleasure-ground. London stretched about the park, and beyond that there was the vast round globe; beyond that again there was the universe; and it seemed to him that, big as it all was, it was not big enough to hold one other man and himself.

When, four or five hours later, he came back to the lodging-house he found his wife dressed and sitting by the bedroom table. She had contrived to wash away nearly all the marks of violence: one noticed only the swollen aspect of the whole face, an inflamed eyebrow, and a cut lip. She looked up meekly and fondly as a thrashed dog.

"Will, have you decided what you will do?"

"No."

Then, while getting together his things and beginning to pack, he told her that he would take his fortnight's leave, as arranged, and carefully consider matters. "And then, at the end of the fortnight, if I'm above ground by that time, I'll let you know what I've decided."

But, on hearing this, she flopped from the chair to her knees, and clung round him just as she had clung when he was first questioning her.

"Will, don't be mad and wicked, and go and take your life."

"Why not? D'you think there's vaarlue in it to me now?"

He spoke quite quietly, but he looked gray, haggard, terrible, his clothes all stained and dirty from his open-air bed.

"Will, for mercy's sake--"

He shook her off, and began to count his money.

"I must keep this," he said. "I'll pay it back later to the right quarter--along with the equivalent of what I burnt."

When he had finished packing he told her that he would settle with the lodging-house keeper, and he gave her a few shillings.

"That's enough to get you home with."

Then he picked up his bag and went out.

VIII

Mavis had bought a cheap blue veil to protect her face, and being, moreover, fortunate enough to find an empty compartment in the through coach to Rodchurch Road, she did not suffer during the journey from too curious observation of strangers. She was going home, exactly as if nothing had happened. Her husband had said that she was to go, and what else could she do but obey him?

When the station omnibus pulled up outside the post office, Mr.

Ridgett caught sight of her, and gallantly came to a.s.sist her in alighting. Evidently he noticed nothing strange about her appearance.

She at once announced the good news that Dale had not only been reinstated, but given a couple of weeks' holiday; and Ridgett, genuinely delighted, squeezed both her hands.

"That's something like. Here, let me carry this upstairs for you."

"No, thank you, please don't trouble. I can manage."

Mr. Allen, the saddler, had come across from his shop, and she told him the good news too. Mr. Allen hurried down the street to tell others. Soon the whole village knew that Mr. Dale had triumphed, and that the Postmaster-General was granting him leave of absence as a special mark of favor.

Mary clapped her hands on hearing the good news, and was rapturously pleased at seeing her mistress home again; but she immediately required explanations.