"Oh, I know it's late." Suddenly Mr. Dowson lost his head. "But I couldn't stop away. I--I've been here heaps of times--at night--generally I've stopped outside the gates, but once or twice I had to come in.... I--I couldn't stop away. It drove me mad to think of you here--and I had to come, just to be near you, if I couldn't see you--speak to you."

"But----" Toni began, but he cut her short.

"Oh, you can't understand, of course! You've never understood--you've never known how much I've loved you--oh, it's no use being angry! I know quite well I've no right to speak. You're married, a great lady now, by all I hear--but I love you--Toni--oh, my G.o.d, how I love you!" The sweat stood in great drops on his brow as he hurried on, a certain rough eloquence in his words. "After all, I'm a man, I've a right to love you--or any woman--and I've loved you now for years--it's not something new, just a pa.s.sing attraction--it's part of me, something in my very bones, as near me as breathing or sleeping or thinking--I'm simply eaten up with love for you, Toni. You're my life, my everything. I'd die for you, I'd go through fire end water for you, I'd do anything in the world, bad or good, dishonourable or splendid, if you'd be kind to me, smile on me, let me kiss your little feet...."

Toni, swept off her balance by his pa.s.sion, said nothing, but stood opposite to him, panting a little; and after a second he went on with his wild confession.

"Oh, I know I'm wrong, I know you're hating me, despising me for telling you all this, but it's too much for me. I can't bear it alone any longer. It's driving me mad, Toni, mad, do you hear? At night I dream of you--sometimes I dream that you've been kind to me, that I've kissed you--kissed your little mouth, held you in my arms ... and then I wake and know you're another man's wife, and it makes the blood rush to my head and I see red, Toni, red...."

Something in his excitement warned the girl that she must soothe him.

"Hush, Leonard." In that moment she reverted to the days of their early friendship. "Don't speak so wildly. You--you frighten me."

He pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, and when he spoke his voice was a shade quieter.

"I wouldn't frighten you for the world, Toni, you know that. I love you far too well ... oh, Toni, is it quite hopeless! Isn't there a glimmer of pity in your heart for me? Won't you ever give me a thought...."

"Leonard, how can I?" She spoke in a low voice, all Eva's horrid suggestions rushing over her in a flood. "I'm married; I can't ever be anything to you now."

"Oh, I know you're married." He caught his breath in a gasp. "But still--oh, Toni, you wouldn't come away with me, would you? I've got some money now. I'd be able to give you things, and I'd work for you till I died...."

At another moment Toni would have found occasion to wonder at his temerity in making the suggestion. She did not know how his imagination, fired by Eva's insinuations, played about the figure of Owen Rose's wife as the unloved victim of a man's callousness; and although she could see that Leonard Dowson was in deadly earnest, she had no conception of the sincerity of his belief that she had been wronged, trapped into marriage by a man who cared little for her, and neglected her openly.

Such was the manner in which the situation had been presented to Dowson by Eva Herrick; and in his genuine acceptance of her story lay Dowson's best excuse for his wild plan.

"I ... I couldn't come away with you, Leonard." In spite of her desire to set Owen free, Toni's whole soul revolted at the idea of such treachery. "I'm married, you know, and I couldn't leave my husband."

"Why not?" in his despair the young man pressed still nearer, and again Jock uttered a warning growl. "I know you are married, but still--you're not happy--your husband isn't, either, by what I hear. You'd be wronging n.o.body--you've no children to consider"--in some ways Mr. Dowson was as primitive as Toni--"if you had, it would be different, but you've only yourself to think about. This life doesn't suit you, Toni. It cramps you, worries you. Oh, I heard all about that Badminton Club affair, and everyone knows you don't hit it off with the bigwigs of the neighbourhood."

"Who told you that?" For a moment Dowson quailed before her tone; but he rallied bravely.

"Oh, what does it matter who told me? It's true, isn't it? Why, you look different, Toni. You're not the lively, jolly, animated girl you used to be--all smiles and jokes. Toni, you're paler, and thinner--you've grown quiet, almost sad. It's because you're not happy--and--and I'd die for your happiness any day."

His deadly earnestness could not fail to win response. Here at last was a pa.s.sion unveiled before Toni's wondering eyes; and all at once the thing which had seemed impossible came down to the level of the things which--sometimes--happen.

Here was a man who only asked to serve her; and if by accepting his service she could free her husband from the chain which bound him, all unwilling, to her, was it not the act of a coward to refuse?

It may be said, and with truth, that Toni's view of the matter was perverted, distorted beyond all bounds of reason and of common sense. To leave her husband, to whom in spite of all she clung with every fibre of her being, for another man for whom she had not even the smallest atom of affection, was surely the most insane, inexcusable action in the world; and would after all only result in a negligible good, since the insult paid, to the man she betrayed would quite outweigh any relief in the freedom thus obtained.

Then, too, she would be wronging Leonard Dowson; since to go away with him would lead him to suppose a degree of affection on Toni's part which was in reality non-existent; but Toni was not thinking of Dowson in this matter.

There is no woman so absolutely ruthless towards the ma.s.s of mankind as the woman who loves one man completely. In this affair Owen was the only man who counted in Toni's mind; and she thought of Leonard Dowson merely as a convenient tool with which to effect her husband's release from the position he apparently found unendurable. That the reckoning might come afterwards, when Leonard should see himself as Toni saw him, she did not pause to consider. Indeed, on this occasion her thoughts were so wild and chaotic that she could hardly be said to have considered the matter at all.

"Well, Toni?" Her long silence made him uneasy, and he paled, fearing he had angered her by his persistence.

"Well?" She gazed at him absently for a moment, then woke suddenly to life. "Leonard, are you seriously asking me to go away with you? You mean you would take me away, and let my husband divorce me--for you?"

"Yes, Toni." He spoke firmly; and, if for a moment all his lifelong visions of a respectable London practice, prosperity, the respect of those around him, seemed to rise up reproachfully before his eyes, he meant his words absolutely.

"Would you really do it? You must be very fond of me," said Toni simply; and the young man was emboldened to proceed.

"Of course I would do it, and of course I am fond of you." His voice shook a little. "Toni do you really mean that you will think about it--will give me the tiniest fraction of hope to keep me alive?"

"Yes. I will think about it." She spoke slowly. "But--I can't tell you--now. You must go away and let me think things out."

"Don't think too long," he besought her, fearing that prudence might come with reflection. "When will you tell me, Toni? To-morrow? Will you write to me? One word--yes--will do; and I'll make arrangements at once."

For a moment his earnestness startled her.

"You could do it--like that--at once? Leave your practice and everything else at a moment's notice?"

"I'd leave all I have in the world at a second's notice," said Mr.

Dowson resolutely; and Toni could not but believe in his sincerity.

"Very well." She felt tired suddenly. "I will write--to-morrow. But--but you won't be angry if it's _no_?" Toni added childishly.

"I'd never be angry--with you." The young man's commonplace features were irradiated by a great light, and for a moment one could forget his mean stature and ready-made clothing. "You will never understand--you couldn't--what you are to me; but before G.o.d," said Leonard Dowson solemnly, "I'd devote my life, my soul, all I have to your service, and never ask for thanks."

"Well, if you will go now, I will write to you," said Toni, rather wearily; and his pa.s.sion was checked by the fatigue in her voice.

"I'll go now--at once--and you--you will write, Toni? I'll count every moment till I get your letter."

"Yes, I will write," she reiterated dully, wishing he would go and leave her alone with her thoughts; and without another word he turned and vanished into the shadows.

When the sound of his footsteps had died away and all was silence, Toni shivered with a feeling of deadly chill.

Leonard Dowson's appearance, following so closely on Eva Herrick's suggestions, had given her a queer, eerie sensation of awe, as though some inexorable fate were pointing out to her a way of escape from the situation she was beginning to find intolerable. She never doubted the man's affection for her; and she fully believed that he would indeed die in her service. And the very touch of fanaticism in her love for Owen, which made her feel that it would be a small thing indeed to die for him if by dying she might give him happiness, helped her to realize the strength of the pallid, unromantic young dentist's devotion.

True, Toni was too innately sensible a person--perhaps it would be fairer to say her love of life and its "sweet things" was too strong--to allow her to contemplate death as a solution of the problem of her unsuccessful marriage.

She understood, too, with a queer flash of spiritual insight which was foreign to her usual simple vision, that her death would bring Owen only a great sorrow; and in her darkest moments she never dreamed of courting death.

A sudden bark from Jock made her start; and looking round she found Owen almost at her elbow. He had dismissed his taxi at the gate, and was walking briskly up the dark avenue, when Jock's vociferous welcome broke the night silence and brought him to a halt.

"Hallo, old boy, what are you doing here? That you, Andrews?"

Toni moved forward from the shadow, and beneath the dark cloak which had deceived him he caught the pale glimmer of her skirt.

"No, Owen. It is I, Toni."

"You? Why, what are you doing here? Oh, I see--you brought Jock for a run. Well, it's quite warm to-night--but the air has the feel of rain."

"Yes. I thought I felt a drop just now."

"Did you? Well, we'll get indoors. I'm sorry I am so late, dear, but there's been trouble at the office. Oh, nothing much, only Hart, our new sub-editor, had chosen to return an article we'd commissioned, because he said it was not up to our usual level."

"And wasn't it?" Toni's forlorn heart welcomed his friendly tone.