This threat, uttered not for the first time, made Herrick set his lips firmly, and for once his wife regretted her taunt.

"Oh, I'm not going to do it," she said with a laugh. "Good-bye, Toni, if you must go. I'll come and look you up in a day or two."

When Toni and Herrick were alone, walking along the towing-path in the darkness, Herrick turned to Toni with a sigh.

"Mrs. Rose, I can't tell you how sorry I am--nor how grateful I am both to you and Mr. Rose for your kindness to my poor little wife."

"Oh, don't say that," begged Toni, her warm heart filled with pity for him. "I like your wife immensely--we are friends, you know, and you must not forget she has suffered terribly."

"Yes, I suppose she has. And yet"--he spoke vehemently--"has she suffered so much as I have done--as I shall go on doing as long as we both live? Oh, I've no right to say it--I ought to be man enough to suffer in silence--but it's hard to bear her constant allusions to her prison life--her taunts--wouldn't you think she would be glad to forget all that, to put it behind her? Yet every day she talks of it. She never allows me to forget for one instant that she has been in h.e.l.l--and every word she utters is an indictment of me, a reproach for the cowardice which let her go to prison."

"Oh, Mr. Herrick--I'm so sorry...."

The stammered words brought a smile to Herrick's face.

"Poor child! I ought not to blame her--rather to pity her.... I _do_ pity her with all my heart. But she won't let me sympathize with her.

One word and she flies at me. She is unhappy here, yet she will make no plans for going abroad. She talks as though I kept her here, when G.o.d knows I would go to the ends of the earth if she wished it."

"Yes, I know, but I think if you go on being patient with her," hazarded Toni, "she will come to her better self again. Don't you agree with me?"

"I don't know." His tone was rather despairing. "Sometimes I fear both our lives are ruined. It's wonderful what an effect a wife has on her husband's life--and _vice versa_, of course. Some people seem to think that a man and woman can 'live their own lives' quite apart from each other if they like. But they can't. When they are husband and wife they are bound to exercise an enormous influence on each other's life; and when two people are thoroughly out of sympathy with each other, life, for both of them, is bound to be a failure."

"You think so?" Toni's mind had flown to her own unhappiness, but for once Herrick did not read what was in her thoughts.

"Yes. Don't you? Now, looking at it dispa.s.sionately, how do you expect Eva and me ever to re-discover the happiness we have so effectually lost? Remember, Eva is convinced that all her sufferings are directly due to me. She persists in thinking that if I had chosen I could either have prevented her case ever going to court, or could have taken the blame myself and gone to prison in her stead. The consequence is, she hates me, resents my presence near her, and will bear me an undying grudge all the days of her life."

"But you couldn't have taken the blame."

"Of course not, but women are often illogical, and Eva certainly is. No, the fact remains that I represent, to Eva, the coward who condemned her to a severe and mortifying punishment; and she won't forgive me."

"But in time----"

"Sometimes I am inclined to think it's a hopeless experiment--our life together." Herrick spoke sombrely. "I have been wondering seriously of late whether it would not be better to make over all my property to my wife and rid her of my presence, I believe she would be happier by herself."

"You mean--get a divorce?" faltered Toni.

"A divorce?" In spite of himself Herrick laughed. "Oh dear no. I don't think I need take quite such drastic measures as that. What I thought was to set Eva up somewhere, in some new place, where she could start afresh, and then take myself off quietly--to California, or New Zealand, or somewhere of the sort, where an able-bodied fellow like me can be sure of picking up a living."

"But would Eva let you go?"

"Ah, there's the rub!" He spoke in a lighter tone. "When it came to the point she might think that even an unsatisfactory husband was better than none. But, speaking seriously, I believe two people so incompatible as we two are better apart."

"Do you?" In the dark Toni's eyes were frightened. "Don't you think, then, that one ought to stand by one's own actions? I mean if a husband, say, honestly thought it would be better for his wife to be free from him, would you advise him to go and leave her? Or the other way about.

Should the wife go, if she was sure that by staying she did the man harm?"

Herrick was tired, disheartened by the frequent scenes with his wife, depressed by the grim autumn night; therefore for once his sympathies wore dormant and his intuition slept.

He had no idea that Toni was speaking personally, that she was calling on him to help her to make the most important decision of her life; and he was, moreover, in a mood which found the idea of self-sacrifice, of renunciation of one's own happiness strangely attractive.

"If he--or she--were practically convinced that departure would be the best way out--for both--why then I should say by all means go." In the darkness he did not see Toni's sudden deathly pallor. "Of course it would always be rather hard to be quite sure on that point; but in a case where one could be more or less certain--well, perhaps I'm wrong, but I should say the step would be thoroughly justifiable."

For a perceptibly long moment Toni did not speak. Then she changed the subject abruptly by asking her companion the time; and after striking one or two matches he was able to a.s.sure her that it was just six.

"Oh, then Owen will be back." She hastened her steps as she spoke, and there was little more conversation between them as they hurried along.

At the gate he bade her farewell, refusing an invitation to enter; and Toni went through the garden into the house, there to be met by a telegram from Owen announcing that he had been delayed in town and would not be home in time for dinner.

Toni was oddly relieved by this fact. She had an important matter to think out; and for once Owen's absence was welcome.

She dined alone, a rather forlorn little figure in the big dining-room; and after her hurried meal she went into the drawing-room and stood looking out over the lawn with unseeing eyes.

The night had turned warm, unseasonably so for November, and Toni suddenly felt a great desire to be out in the air among the trees and shrubs, which were faintly perceptible in the light of a thin and waning moon.

Kate, surprised by an imperative summons, brought a wrap as directed; and calling Jock to accompany her, Toni stepped out of the long window on to the gravel outside.

For a moment Kate stood watching her young mistress, struck by something a little desolate in her appearance; but when Toni had moved slowly away down the path, Jock gambolling beside her, Kate withdrew from the window and returned to her interrupted supper.

Toni paced slowly up and down for some minutes, while the night air played over her bared head. It was less oppressively warm out here than in the house, and into Toni's nature-loving heart there stole a sudden sense of comfort; as though all the living things around her were whispering vague words of love and cheer to her forlorn spirit.

However miserable she might be, Toni was never quite so wretched out of doors. It was as though some vital part of her responded to the call of her great mother, the earth; as though in her veins ran some fluid akin to the sap which coursed through the branches of the trees. Indoors, between four walls, she might feel grief as a crushing burden; but once outside, with only the vast sky above her head, her sorrow invariably lightened; and to-night was no exception.

At the end of half an hour's quiet pacing up and down the gravel walk Toni felt herself calmed and strengthened. She told herself there was no need at present to dwell further on the matter which filled her thoughts. She would banish it from her mind for the time being; and with this wise resolution, she turned to retrace her steps up the avenue towards the house.

Suddenly Jock barked loudly, following the bark with a low growl; and Toni's heart gave a great jump.

She had strolled almost to the big iron gates leading to the road; and she wondered for a moment whether a tramp had found his way into the grounds on some nefarious errand. She stood still, thinking as she did so that she heard a rustle in a bush close at hand, and then Jock growled again, a fierce, low rumbling in his throat, which frightened Toni almost out of her wits.

With a voice which would shake, she called out to the dog; and then there was a sudden silence which was almost more sinister. She had laid her hand on the Airedale's collar at the sound of his first bark; but feeling really nervous now, she was just about to let him go when there was a half-apologetic cough from the bushes behind her, and a voice she knew said, rather timidly:

"Mrs. Rose! Please don't be alarmed--it's only me--Leonard Dowson."

CHAPTER XXIV

Toni was so surprised by the discovery of the unknown marauder's ident.i.ty that she involuntarily released her hold on the dog's collar; but Jock's sudden dart across the path, and his snarl of anger as he confronted the person whom in his doggy heart he took for an enemy, awoke Toni to a sense of the position.

"Jock! Come here! _Jock_, do you hear me?" Her tone showed Jock that, much as appearances were against the intruder, his canine instinct had been at fault; and he returned, unwillingly, to his mistress, wearing the slightly sulky look which an intelligent dog wears when he has made an unavoidable mistake.

"Mrs. Rose, I a.s.sure you I did not mean to frighten you." Mr. Dowson emerged rather hastily from the shadow of the bushes, and advanced, hat in hand. "I--I am really most awfully sorry if I have startled you.

I ... I would have called out sooner, but I trusted you would not perceive me."

"Mr. Dowson!" Toni's voice was frankly dismayed. "What are you doing here? Were you coming to see me?"

"I--I really don't know." Mr. Dowson moved a step forward and then gave an involuntary jump as Jock growled mildly, under his breath as it were.

"But--be quiet, Jock--it's so late--and----"