Dr Porhoet got up and walked across the room.

'If a woman had done me such an injury that I wanted to take some horrible vengeance, I think I could devise nothing more subtly cruel than to let her be married to Oliver Haddo.'

'Ah, poor thing, poor thing!' said Arthur. 'If I could only suppose she would be happy! The future terrifies me.'

'I wonder if she knew that Haddo had sent that telegram,' said Susie.

'What can it matter?'

She turned to Arthur gravely.

'Do you remember that day, in this studio, when he kicked Margaret's dog, and you thrashed him? Well, afterwards, when he thought no one saw him, I happened to catch sight of his face. I never saw in my life such malignant hatred. It was the face of a fiend of wickedness. And when he tried to excuse himself, there was a cruel gleam in his eyes which terrified me. I warned you; I told you that he had made up his mind to revenge himself, but you laughed at me. And then he seemed to go out of our lives and I thought no more about it. I wonder why he sent Dr Porhoet here today. He must have known that the doctor would hear of his humiliation, and he may have wished that he should be present at his triumph. I think that very moment he made up his mind to be even with you, and he devised this odious scheme.'

'How could he know that it was possible to carry out such a horrible thing?' said Arthur.

'I wonder if Miss Boyd is right,' murmured the doctor. 'After all, if you come to think of it, he must have thought that he couldn't hurt you more. The whole thing is fiendish. He took away from you all your happiness. He must have known that you wanted nothing in the world more than to make Margaret your wife, and he has not only prevented that, but he has married her himself. And he can only have done it by poisoning her mind, by warping her very character. Her soul must be horribly besmirched; he must have entirely changed her personality.'

'Ah, I feel that,' cried Arthur. 'If Margaret has broken her word to me, if she's gone to him so callously, it's because it's not the Margaret I know. Some devil must have taken possession of her body.'

'You use a figure of speech. I wonder if it can possibly be a reality.'

Arthur and Dr Porhoet looked at Susie with astonishment.

'I can't believe that Margaret could have done such a thing,' she went on. 'The more I think of it, the more incredible it seems. I've known Margaret for years, and she was incapable of deceit. She was very kind-hearted. She was honest and truthful. In the first moment of horror, I was only indignant, but I don't want to think too badly of her. There is only one way to excuse her, and that is by supposing she acted under some strange compulsion.'

Arthur clenched his hands.

'I'm not sure if that doesn't make it more awful than before. If he's married her, not because he cares, but in order to hurt me, what life will she lead with him? We know how heartless he is, how vindictive, how horribly cruel.'

'Dr Porhoet knows more about these things than we do,' said Susie. 'Is it possible that Haddo can have cast some spell upon her that would make her unable to resist his will? Is it possible that he can have got such an influence over her that her whole character was changed?'

'How can I tell?' cried the doctor helplessly. 'I have heard that such things may happen. I have read of them, but I have no proof. In these matters all is obscurity. The adepts in magic make strange claims. Arthur is a man of science, and he knows what the limits of hypnotism are.'

'We know that Haddo had powers that other men have not,' answered Susie.

'Perhaps there was enough truth in his extravagant pretensions to enable him to do something that we can hardly imagine.'

Arthur pa.s.sed his hands wearily over his face.

'I'm so broken, so confused, that I cannot think sanely. At this moment everything seems possible. My faith in all the truths that have supported me is tottering.'

For a while they remained silent. Arthur's eyes rested on the chair in which Margaret had so often sat. An unfinished canvas still stood upon the easel. It was Dr Porhoet who spoke at last.

'But even if there were some truth in Miss Boyd's suppositions, I don't see how it can help you. You cannot do anything. You have no remedy, legal or otherwise. Margaret is apparently a free agent, and she has married this man. It is plain that many people will think she has done much better in marrying a country gentleman than in marrying a young surgeon. Her letter is perfectly lucid. There is no trace of compulsion.

To all intents and purposes she has married him of her own free-will, and there is nothing to show that she desires to be released from him or from the pa.s.sion which we may suppose enslaves her.'

What he said was obviously true, and no reply was possible.

'The only thing is to grin and bear it,' said Arthur, rising.

'Where are you going?' said Susie.

'I think I want to get away from Paris. Here everything will remind me of what I have lost. I must get back to my work.'

He had regained command over himself, and except for the hopeless woe of his face, which he could not prevent from being visible, he was as calm as ever. He held out his hand to Susie.

'I can only hope that you'll forget,' she said.

'I don't wish to forget,' he answered, shaking his head. 'It's possible that you will hear from Margaret. She'll want the things that she has left here, and I daresay will write to you. I should like you to tell her that I bear her no ill-will for anything she has done, and I will never venture to reproach her. I don't know if I shall be able to do anything for her, but I wish her to know that in any case and always I will do everything that she wants.'

'If she writes to me, I will see that she is told,' answered Susie gravely.

'And now goodbye.'

'You can't go to London till tomorrow. Shan't I see you in the morning?'

'I think if you don't mind, I won't come here again. The sight of all this rather disturbs me.'

Again a contraction of pain pa.s.sed across his eyes, and Susie saw that he was using a superhuman effort to preserve the appearance of composure.

She hesitated a moment.

'Shall I never see you again?' she said. 'I should be sorry to lose sight of you entirely.'

'I should be sorry, too,' he answered. 'I have learned how good and kind you are, and I shall never forget that you are Margaret's friend. When you come to London, I hope that you will let me know.'

He went out. Dr Porhoet, his hands behind his back, began to walk up and down the room. At last he turned to Susie.

'There is one thing that puzzles me,' he said. 'Why did he marry her?'

'You heard what Arthur said,' answered Susie bitterly. 'Whatever happened, he would have taken her back. The other man knew that he could only bind her to him securely by going through the ceremonies of marriage.'

Dr Porhoet shrugged his shoulders, and presently he left her. When Susie was alone she began to weep broken-heartedly, not for herself, but because Arthur suffered an agony that was hardly endurable.

11

Arthur went back to London next day.

Susie felt it impossible any longer to stay in the deserted studio, and accepted a friend's invitation to spend the winter in Italy. The good Dr Porhoet remained in Paris with his books and his occult studies.

Susie travelled slowly through Tuscany and Umbria. Margaret had not written to her, and Susie, on leaving Paris, had sent her friend's belongings to an address from which she knew they would eventually be forwarded. She could not bring herself to write. In answer to a note announcing her change of plans, Arthur wrote briefly that he had much work to do and was delivering a new course of lectures at St. Luke's; he had lately been appointed visiting surgeon to another hospital, and his private practice was increasing. He did not mention Margaret. His letter was abrupt, formal, and constrained. Susie, reading it for the tenth time, could make little of it. She saw that he wrote only from civility, without interest; and there was nothing to indicate his state of mind.

Susie and her companion had made up their minds to pa.s.s some weeks in Rome; and here, to her astonishment, Susie had news of Haddo and his wife. It appeared that they had spent some time there, and the little English circle was talking still of their eccentricities. They travelled in some state, with a courier and a suite of servants; they had taken a carriage and were in the habit of driving every afternoon on the Pincio.

Haddo had excited attention by the extravagance of his costume, and Margaret by her beauty; she was to be seen in her box at the opera every night, and her diamonds were the envy of all beholders. Though people had laughed a good deal at Haddo's pretentiousness, and been exasperated by his arrogance, they could not fail to be impressed by his obvious wealth.

But finally the pair had disappeared suddenly without saying a word to anybody. A good many bills remained unpaid, but these, Susie learnt, had been settled later. It was reported that they were now in Monte Carlo.

'Did they seem happy?' Susie asked the gossiping friend who gave her this scanty information.