"Who am I?"

The acutest physical suffering could not have been worse than that torture of the over-taxed brain, that feeling that if he did not clutch at _himself_ he would become nothing.

He ran for a few yards--then it pa.s.sed and he found himself beneath a lamp-post recovering and muttering his own name rapidly to himself like a charm to exorcise evil.

"Jones--Jones--Jones."

He looked around.

There were not many people to be seen, but a man and woman a few yards away were standing and looking at him. They had evidently stopped and turned to see what he was about and they went on when they saw him observing them.

They must have thought him mad.

The hot shame of the idea was a better stimulant than brandy. He walked on. He was no longer thinking of the woman he had just left. He was thinking of himself.

He had been false to himself.

The greatest possession any man can have in the world is himself. Some men let that priceless property depreciate, some improve it, it is given to few men to tamper with it after the fashion of Jones.

He saw this now, and just as though a pit had opened before him he drew back. He must stop this double life at once and become his own self in reality; failing to do that he would meet madness. He recognised this.

No man's brain could stand what he had been going through for long; had he been left to himself he might have adapted his mind gradually to the perpetual shifting from Jones to Rochester and vice versa. The woman had brought things to a crisis. The horror that had now suddenly fallen on him, the horror of the return of that awful feeling of negation, the horror of losing himself, cast all other considerations from his mind.

He must stop this business at once.

He would go away, return straight to America.

That was easy to be done--but would that save him? Would that free him from this horrible clinging personality that he had so lightly cast around himself?

Nothing is stranger than mind. From the depth of his mind came the whisper, "No." Intuition told him that were he to go to Timbuctoo, Rochester would cling to him, that he would wake up from sleep fancying himself Rochester and then that feeling would return. What he required was the recognition by other people that he was himself, Jones, that the whole of this business was a deception, a stage play in real life. Their abuse, their threats would not matter. Their blows would be welcome, so he thought. Anything that would hit him back firmly into his real position in the scheme of things and save him from the dread of some day losing himself.

After a while the exercise and night air calmed his mind. He had come to the great decision. A decision immutable now, since it had to do with the very core of his being. He would tell her everything. To-morrow morning he would confess all. Her fascination upon him had loosened its hold, the terror had done that. He no longer loved her. Had he ever loved her? That was an open question, or in other words, a question no man could answer. He only knew now that he did not crave for her regard, only for her recognition of himself as Jones.

She was the door out of the mental trap into which his mind had blundered.

These considerations had carried him far into a region of mean streets and suburban houses. It was long after twelve o'clock and he fell to thinking what he should do with himself for the rest of the night. It was impossible to walk about till morning and he determined to return to Carlton House Terrace, let himself in with his latch key and slip upstairs to his room. If by any chance she had not retired for the night and he chanced to meet her on the stairs or in the hall then the confession must be made forthwith.

It was after two o'clock when he reached the house. He opened the door with his key and closing it softly, crossed the hall and went up the stairs. One of the hall lamps had been left burning, evidently for him: a lamp was burning also, in the corridor. He switched on the electric light in his room and closed the door.

Then he heaved a sigh of relief, undressed and got into bed.

All across the hall, up the stairs, and along the corridor he had been followed by the dread of meeting her and having to enter on that terrible explanation right away.

The craving to tell her all had been supplanted for the moment by the dread of the act.

In the morning it would be different. He would be rested and have more command over himself, so he fancied.

CHAPTER XIX

ESCAPE CLOSED

He was awakened by Mr. Church--one has always to give him the prefix--pulling up the blinds. His first thought was of the task before him.

The mind does a lot of quiet business of its own when the blinds are down and the body is asleep, and during the night, his mind, working in darkness, had cleared up matters, countered and cut off all sorts of fears and objections and drawn up a definite plan.

He would tell her everything that morning. If she would not take his word for the facts, then he would have a meeting of the whole family. He felt absolutely certain that explaining things bit by bit and detail by detail he could convince them of the death of Rochester and his own existence as Jones; absolutely certain that they would not push matters to the point of publicity. He held a trump card in the property he had recovered from Mulhausen, were he to be exposed publicly as an impostor, all about the Plinlimon letters, Voles and Mulhausen would come out.

Mulhausen, that very astute pract.i.tioner, would not be long in declaring that he had been forced to return the t.i.tle deeds to protect his daughter's name. Voles would swear anything, and their case would stand good on the proved fact that he, Jones, was a swindler. No, a.s.suredly the family would not press the matter to publicity.

Having drunk his tea, he arose, bathed, and dressed with a calm mind.

Then he came down stairs.

She was not in the breakfast-room, where only one place was laid, and, concluding that she was breakfasting in her own room, he sat down to table.

After the meal, and with another sheaf of the infernal early post letters in his hand, he crossed to the smoking-room, where he closed the door, put the letters on the table and lit a cigar. Then, having smoked for a few minutes and collected his thoughts, he rang the bell and sent for Mr. Church.

"Church," said he when that functionary arrived, "will you tell--my wife I want to see her?"

"Her ladyship left last night, your Lordship, she left at ten o'clock, or a little after."

"Left! where did she go to?"

"She went to the South Kensington Hotel, your Lordship."

"Good heavens! what made her--why did she go--ah, was it because I did not come back?"

"I think it was, your Lordship."

Mr. Church spoke gravely and the least bit stiffly. It could easily be seen that as an old servant and faithful retainer he was on the woman's side in the business.

"I had to go out," said the other. "I will explain it to her when I see her--It was on a matter of importance--Thanks, that will do, Church."

Alone again he finished his cigar.

The awful fear of the night before, the fear of negation and the loss of himself had vanished with a brain refreshed by sleep and before this fact.

What a brute he had been! She had come back forgiving him for who knows what, she had taken his part against his traducers, kissed him. She had fancied that all was right and that happiness had returned--and he had coldly discarded her.

It would have been less cruel to have beaten her. She was a good sweet woman. He knew that fact, now, both instinctively and by knowledge. He had not known it fully till this minute.

Would it, after all, have been better to have deceived her and to have played the part of Rochester? That question occurred to him for a moment to be at once flung away. It was not so much personal antagonism to such a course nor the dread of madness owing to his double life that cast it out so violently, but the recognition of the goodness and lovableness of the woman. Leaving everything else aside to carry on such a deception with her, even to think of it, was impossible.

More than ever was he determined to clear this thing up and tell her all, and, to his honour be it said, his main motive now was to do his best by her.

He finished his cigar, and then going into the hall obtained his hat and left the house.