As she sat there Eva had a sudden vivid sense of the contrast between her own spoilt life and that of the girl whose pitiful cry still rang in her consciousness and would not be silenced.

Her own life was ruined, she told herself bitterly. But in that illuminating moment Eva saw the truth for the first time. She herself was to blame for the ruin. She had brought all the shame, all the disgrace upon herself, and the bitter experience of her prison life had been only the reaping of the harvest which she, by her own act, had sown.

But Toni's happiness had been broken and spoilt by other means. It was her very love for her husband which had made her so fatally ready to believe that only by leaving him could she give him the freedom which he was supposed--by his wife--to desire. And Eva knew quite well that without her connivance and encouragement Leonard Dowson would never have dared to utter his proposal to the young wife of Owen Rose.

Yet if she gave in now and begged Toni to return, a.s.suring her, as she knew she might safely do, of her husband's ready forgiveness, would not the spectacle of Toni's ensuing happiness bring all the more cruelly home to her the wretchedness which must be her own portion from henceforth?

Although Jim Herrick treated her with unvarying kindness and consideration, Eva had always the miserable conviction that his love for her was dead; and although she never showed any feeling in their daily intercourse, even her bitter and reckless heart was sometimes sore within her.

Long she sat, wondering how best to treat this unexpected appeal from a far country; and only when the trim maid who had replaced the more haphazard Mrs. Swastika entered with the lighted lamp did Eva rouse herself from her reverie.

Then, however, she got pen and paper and sat down at the table to frame some sort of reply. It was not an easy task. With Toni's letter lying before her, she found it strangely difficult to begin; and was still sitting staring at the blank sheet of paper when a sudden deep bark from Olga, who was lying, as usual, nose on paws, in the tiny hall, made her start to her feet.

"Who's there, I wonder? Olga sounds excited."

She went to the door and opened it, and at the same moment the front door was flung widely open and a man stepped into the hall, to be greeted instantly by a torrent of wild barking from the now delighted Borzoi.

"Steady, old girl! I say, Olga, don't take me for a wolf and tear me to pieces!" He laughingly pushed the great dog down and hastened towards his wife.

"Hallo, Eva! Have I startled you? I'm sorry."

"I didn't know who it was." She stared at him with dilated eyes. "I was sitting in there, and Olga barked so loudly that I thought----"

"Thought I was a burglar!" He kissed her very kindly. "Well, I'm not.

But I've come back for a bit ... yes, put them down there, will you?"

He turned to the door, his arm through his wife's, and paid the cabman, who had placed his portmanteaux in the hall. Then, when the man, declining a drink, had gone, Herrick drew his wife back into the little sitting-room.

"But--I don't understand. Is the portrait off? Aren't you going to paint the children?"

"Yes, of course I am, but not for a bit. Fact is, the poor kiddies have started in measles, pretty badly, too, I'm told, so as it was impossible to get on with the picture just yet I thought I'd better come home and let their parents send for me when the children are out of quarantine."

"I see." Eva was half pleased, half annoyed by his return. "You want something to eat, I expect. Shall I go and hurry up dinner?"

"I wish you would, dear." He threw aside his coat as he spoke. "I had some lunch on the train, but you know what railway lunches are. I came down from Waterloo with Rose. Jove, Eva, that fellow looks a wreck."

"Does he?" Suddenly she remembered that Toni's letter was lying open on the table. "I--I suppose he will get over--it--in time."

"I don't think he will. Of course he must really have been devoted to her--to his wife--all the time, without knowing it. And I don't wonder.

She was one of the best, pluckiest, straightest girls I ever met. I don't believe she could have done a dishonourable action to save her life."

He had spoken quite without any ulterior meaning, carried away by his memory of Toni as he had known and admired her; but his words sounded to Eva like a direct and deadly insult; and her Irish blood flamed instantly into revolt.

"Toni straight!" All softer feelings were forgotten now; again she was the unhappy woman at war with all the world, but especially with her own s.e.x. "Very straight of her to elope with another man, wasn't it? And as for pluck, why, she couldn't even stick to him when she'd done it."

"Hush, Eva!" Herrick's brow wore the frown she hated, and, secretly, feared. "You were never fair to that unhappy girl; and both you and I know very well that had you acted differently half this misery would have been spared."

"I was unfair to her?" Eva's voice was choked with rage.

"Yes." He spoke deliberately, rather sadly. "From the first you treated Toni Rose, unfairly. You knew she was very young, and not very wise in the ways of the world, and whereas you were an older woman--very little older in actual years, I grant you----"

"I suppose you mean older in wickedness." She spoke between her teeth.

"I mean you were old enough to have helped the child instead of encouraging her in her foolishness," he said steadily. "But you did not.

You preferred to inflame her mind by exaggerating her woes, making her feel herself misunderstood, unloved, unwanted ... oh, I don't know what you said, what pa.s.sed between you, but this I do know. You saw that child shivering on the brink, as it were, of a dreadful precipice, and not only did you refrain from pulling her back from the edge, but I'm horribly afraid that yours was the hand which sought to push her over."

"You dare to say this to me?" Her voice was like steel, and there was a dangerous glint in the Irish eyes which had once been so sweet and gay.

"Yes. Oh, I don't want to be hard on you, to bring it all up again." He spoke wearily. "I suppose it was the sight of that poor fellow Rose that made me speak like that just now. But you know, you have known all along, that I hold you largely responsible for the whole affair, and if any harm has come to that poor misguided girl, I'm afraid your conscience can never be wholly clear."

"Stop!" With flashing eyes and a stormy flush on her cheeks his wife faced him; and even Herrick recoiled a step, aghast at the picture of evil, revengeful triumph she presented in that moment. "You are blaming me for that affair, are you? Doubtless you and the bereft husband joined upon your journey down in calling me all the pretty names which seem to fit me--evil genius, bad angel, and all the rest. Well, it may surprise you to learn that it is to me that the 'poor misguided child' turns even now when she wants news of her loving husband. Oh, you may stare, but I know more than all of you. I know just where the misguided Toni is at this moment, and what she is doing into the bargain."

She had surprised him indeed. He sprang forward and seized her arm.

"You know that? Then why in G.o.d's name haven't you said so before?"

"Because I've only just got to know," she answered defiantly, "and because although I _do_ know, I'm not going to hand on my knowledge--now."

"What do you mean?" Her vindictive tone made his blood run cold.

"I had meant, when her letter came to-night, to show it to you, to let you tell Mr. Rose. Wasn't I a fool?" She laughed scornfully. "Why on earth should I give away the precious information? You don't suppose I care whether Toni ever sees her husband again? I hope she doesn't, in fact. Other women are unhappy--they suffer--let her suffer, too, let her know what it is to live in h.e.l.l, to wish herself dead so that she may at least forget her misery."

"Eva!" His voice rang through the room. "You are going too far. Tell me this moment--where is Mrs. Rose?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" While she mocked him she was endeavouring to edge past him to reach the table on which Toni's letter still lay.

Unconsciously he frustrated her, blocking the way in an attempt to force her to speak plainly.

"I intend to know." His voice was as cold as ice. "Come, Eva, if pity for the girl doesn't move you, think of the man. Why condemn him to this mental torture, when a word from you can set him free?"

Suddenly she paused before him; and to his dying day he would never forget the hatred in her eyes.

"Did you think of that, when a word from you would have set me free? Did you utter the word which would have condemned you to prison but would have let me go back to the world of sunshine and freedom? Did any of the men who sent me to that h.e.l.l think of my torture, my agony? Why should I think of anyone else now? What does it matter to me if Owen Rose and his wife die broken-hearted? Do you think I'd raise a finger to help them to find one another? No. No, I tell you, a hundred, thousand times--_no_."

Suddenly the man who listened was filled with a great and marvellous compa.s.sion. Even now, it seemed, his wife could not see the justice of her fate; but somehow her childish comparison of her own position with that of Owen and Toni Rose seemed pitiful, tragic, rather than evil.

"See here, dear." He spoke very gently. "You are overwrought. You don't know what you are saying. I'm sure in your heart you only want to act kindly, n.o.bly, by those two unfortunate people. Tell me, where is Mrs.

Rose, and when--and how--has she communicated with you?"

"She wrote to me--I got her letter to-night." There was a note of triumph in her voice which made him uneasy. "And do you know what I'm going to do with it? I'm going to burn it--now--before your eyes."

During her speech she had been edging nearer and nearer the table; and as she spoke the last words she made a frantic dart at the letter and envelope which had lain there through all the conversation. Quick as she was, however, she was almost too late.

Suddenly awake to her meaning, Herrick had swung round in time to see her seize the letter; and in an instant his hand was on her wrist.

"Eva! What are you going to do?"

"This." With a wild gesture she tore her hand from his; but again he was too quick for her.