The friends walked away in silence along the dim-lighted street, between monotonous rows of high sombre houses, each with its pillared portico which looked like the entrance to a tomb. Glancing about him with a sense of depression, Harvey wondered that any mortal could fix his pride on the fact of residence in such a hard, cold, ugly wilderness.

'Has she altered much since you first knew her?' he asked at length.

'A good deal,' answered the other. 'Yes, a good deal. She used to laugh sometimes; now she never does. She was always quiet--always looked at things seriously--but it was different. You think her gloomy?'

'No, no; not gloomy. It's all natural enough. Her life wants a little sunlight, that's all.'

For the rest, he could speak with sincere admiration, and Cecil heard him delightedly.

The choice of a dwelling was a most difficult matter. As it must be quite a small house, the remoter suburbs could alone supply what was wanted; Morphew spent every Sat.u.r.day and Sunday in wearisome exploration. Mrs. Winter, though in theory she accepted the necessity of cheapness, shrank from every practical suggestion declaring it impossible to live in such places as Cecil requested her to look at. She had an ideal of the 'nice little house,' and was as likely to discover it in London's suburbs as to become possessed once more of the considerable fortune which she and her husband had squandered in mean extravagance. Morphew had already come to the conclusion, and Henrietta agreed with him, that their future home must be chosen without regard to Mrs. Winter's impracticable ideas. And the sooner the better, in her own interests; for it was plain that so long as she continued in the old house she would thoughtlessly waste her means. The end of the twelvemonth, at latest, must see them all in their new home.

But meanwhile fate was preparing a new trial for Henrietta's much-disciplined conscience.

On a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when the crisis of Alma's illness was over, Harvey received a telegram summoning him to Westminster Bridge Road.

"Come if you possibly can. Or I must come to you." Only yesterday he had been with Morphew for a couple of hours, and all seemed well; Cecil thought he had found the house that would suit him; he was in jubilant spirits, laughing, singing, more boylike than ever. Suspecting new obstructiveness on the part of Mrs. Winter, Harvey went to town in an impatient mood. He found the shop closed, as usual at this hour on Sat.u.r.day, and rang the house-door bell. Morphew himself replied, with a countenance which made known forthwith that something extraordinary had happened; eyes red and swollen, cheeks puffy, colourless, smeared.

"Well?"

Cecil clutched at his hand, and drew him in. They went upstairs to the office, where all was quiet.

"Rolfe, if I hadn't had you to send for, I should have been dead by now.

There's poison enough in this place. It has tempted me fearfully."

"What, is it?" asked the other, in a not very sympathetic voice. His own troubles of the past month made mere love-miseries seem artificial.

"I shall have to tell you what I wanted to tell you long ago. If I had, most likely this would never have happened.--It's all over with me, Rolfe. I wish to G.o.d you had let me die in that hotel at Brussels.--She has been told something about me, and there's an end of everything. She sent for me this morning. I never thought she could be so pitiless.--The kind of thing that a man thinks nothing of. And herself the cause of it, if only I had dared to tell her so!"

'The old story, I suppose,' said Harvey. 'Some other woman?'

'I was very near telling you, that day you came to my beastly garret in Chelsea; do you remember? It was the worst time with me then--except when you found me in Brussels. I'd been gambling again; you knew that.

I wanted money for something I felt ashamed to speak of.--You know the awful misery I used to suffer about Henrietta. I was often enough nearly mad with--what is one to call it? Why isn't there a decent name for the agony men go through at that age? I simply couldn't live alone any longer--I couldn't; and only a fool and a hypocrite would pretend to blame me. A man, that is; women seem to be made different.--Oh, there's nothing to tell. The same thing happens a hundred times every day in London. A girl wandering about in the Park--quarrel at home--all the rest of it. A good many lies on her side; a good deal of selfishness on mine. I happened to have money just then. And just when I had _no_ money--about the time you met me--a child was born. She said it was mine; anyway, I had to be responsible. Of course I had long ago repented of behaving so badly to Henrietta. But no woman can understand, and it's impossible to explain to them. You're a beast and a villain, and there's an end of it.'

'And how has this become known to Miss Winter?' Harvey inquired, seeing that Morphew lost himself in gloom.

'You might almost guess it; these things always happen in the same way.

You've heard me speak of a fellow called Driffel--no? I thought I might have mentioned him. He got to know the girl. He and I were at a music-hall one night, and she met us; and I heard, soon after, that she was living with him. It didn't last long. She got ill, and wrote to me from Westminster Hospital; and I was foolish enough to give her money again, off and on, up to only a few months ago. She talked about living a respectable life, and so on, and I couldn't refuse to help her. But I found out it was all humbug, and of course I stopped. Then she began to hunt me, Out of spite. And she heard from someone--Driffel, as likely as not--all about Henrietta; and yesterday Henrietta had a letter from her. This morning I was sent for, to explain myself.'

'At one time, then, you had lost sight of her altogether?'

'She has always had money from me, more or less regularly, except at the time that Driffel kept her. But there has been nothing else between us, since that first year. I kept up payments on account of the child, and she was cheating me in that too. Of course she put out the baby to nurse, and I understood it lived on; but the truth was it died after a month or two--starved to death, no doubt. I only learnt that, by taking a good deal of trouble, when she was with Driffel.'

'Starved to death at a month or two old,' murmured Rolfe. 'The best thing for it, no doubt.'

'It's worse than anything I have done,' said Morphew, miserably. 'I think more of it now than I did at the time. A cruel, vile thing!'

'And you told Miss Winter everything?'

'Everything that can be spoken about. The plain truth of the story. The letter was a lie from beginning to end, of course. It made me out a heartless scoundrel. I had been the ruin of the girl--a helpless innocent; and now, after all these years, wanted to cut her adrift, not caring what became of her. My defence seemed to Henrietta no defence at all. The fact that there had been such an episode in my life was quite sufficient. Everything must be at an end between us, at once and for ever. She _could_ not live with me, knowing this. No one should learn the cause; not even her mother; but I must never see her again. And so I came away, meaning to end my life. It wasn't cowardice that prevented me; only the thought that _she_ would be mixed up in it, and suffer more than I had made her already.'

Voice and look constrained Harvey to believe this. He spoke more sympathetically.

'It's better that it happened before than after.'

'I've tried to think that, but I can't. Afterwards, I could have made her believe me and forgive me.'

'That seems to me more than doubtful.'

'But why should it have happened at all?' cried Cecil, in the tone of despairing bitterness. 'Did I deserve it? Haven't I behaved better, more kindly, than most men would have done? Isn't it just because I was too good-natured that this has come on me?'

'I myself readily take that view,' answered Rolfe. 'But I can perfectly understand why Miss Winter doesn't.'

'So can I--so can I,' groaned Cecil. 'It's in her nature. And do you suppose I haven't cursed myself for deceiving her? The thought has made me miserable, often enough. I never dreamt she would get to know of it; but it weighed upon me all the same. Yet who was the cause of it, really and truly? I'm glad I could keep myself from saying all I thought. She wouldn't have understood; I should only have looked more brutal in her eyes. But if she had married me when she might have done!

_There_ was the wrong that led to everything else.'

Harvey nodded and muttered.

'At one and twenty she might have taken her own way. I wasn't a penniless adventurer. My name is as good as hers. We could have lived well enough on my income, until I found a way of increasing it, as I should have done. Girls don't know what they are doing when they make men wait year after year. No one can tell them. But I begged--I prayed to her--I said all I dared. It was her cursed father and mother! If I had had three thousand, instead of three hundred, a year, they would have rushed her into marriage. No! we must have a big house, like their own, and a troop of thieving servants, or we were eternally disgraced.

_How_ I got the money didn't matter, so long as I got it. And she hadn't courage--she thought it wrong to defy them. As if the wrong wasn't in giving way to such a base superst.i.tion! I believe she has seen that since her father's death. And now----'

He broke down, shaking and choking in an agony of sobs. Harvey could only lay a kind hand upon him; there was no verbal comfort to offer.

Presently Cecil talked on again, and so they sat together as twilight pa.s.sed into darkness. Rolfe would gladly have taken the poor fellow home with him, out of solitude with its miseries and dangers, but Cecil refused. Eventually they walked westward for a few miles; then Morphew, with a promise to see his friend next day, turned back into the crowd.

CHAPTER 8

Alma was walking on the sea-road at Penzance, glad to be quite alone, yet at a loss how to spend the time. Rolfe had sailed for Scilly, and would be absent for two or three days; Mrs. Frothingham, with Hughie for companion, was driving to Marazion. Why--Alma asked herself--had she wished to be left alone this morning? Some thought had glimmered vaguely in her restless mind; she could not recover it.

The little shop window, set out with objects carved in serpentine, held her for a moment; but remembering how often she had paused here lately, she felt ashamed, and walked on. Presently there moved towards her a lady in a Bath-chair; a lady who had once been beautiful, but now, though scarcely middle-aged, looked gaunt and haggard from some long illness. The invalid held open a newspaper, and Alma, in pa.s.sing, saw that it was _The World_. At once her step quickened, for she had remembered the desire which touched her an hour ago.

She walked to the railway station, surveyed the papers on the bookstall, and bought three--papers which would tell her what was going on in society. With these in hand she found a quiet spot, sheltered from the August sun, where she could sit and read. She read eagerly, enviously. And before long her eye fell upon a paragraph in which was a name she knew. Lady Isobel Barker, in her lovely retreat at Bos...o...b.., was entertaining a large house-party; in the list appeared--Mrs. Hugh Carnaby. Unmistakable: Mrs. Hugh Carnaby. Who Lady Isobel might be, Alma had no idea; nor were any of the other guests known to her, but the names of all seemed to roll upon the tongue of the announcing footman. She had a vision of Sibyl in that august company; Sibyl, coldly beautiful, admirably sage, with--perhaps--ever so little of the air of a martyr, to heighten her impressiveness.

When she could command herself, she glanced hurriedly through column after column of all the papers, seeking for that name again. In one, an ill.u.s.trated publication, she came upon a couple of small portraits, side by side. Surely she recognised that face--the bold, coa.r.s.e-featured man, with his pretentious smile? But the girl, no; a young and very pretty girl, smirking a little, with feathery hair which faded off into an aureole. The text was illuminating.

'I am able to announce,' wrote Ego, 'and I think I shall be one of the first to do so, that the brilliant composer, Mr. Felix Dymes, will shortly vanish from the gay (if naughty) world of bachelorhood. I learn on excellent authority that Mr. Dymes has quite recently become engaged to Miss Lettice Almond, a very charming young lady, whose many gifts (especially musical) have as yet been known only to a comparatively small circle, and for the delightful reason that she is still only eighteen. Miss Almond is the daughter of Mr. Haliburton Almond, senior partner in the old and well-known firm of Almond Brothers, the manufacturers of fireworks. She is an only daughter, and, though she has two brothers, I may add (I trust without indiscretion) that the t.i.tle of heiress may be fittingly applied to her. The marriage may take place in November, and will doubtless be a brilliant as well as a most interesting affair. By-the-bye, Mr. Dymes's new opera is not likely to be ready till next year, but some who have been privileged to hear the parts already composed declare that it will surpa.s.s even "Blue Roses"

in the charm of sweet yet vivacious melody.'

When she had read and mused for more than an hour, Alma tore out the two pa.s.sages that had a personal interest for her, and put them in her purse. The papers she left lying for anyone who chose to pick them up.

A fortnight later she was back at Gunnersbury; where, indeed, she would have been content to stay all through the summer, had not Harvey and the doctor insisted on her leaving home. All sorts of holidays had been proposed, but nothing of the kind attracted her. She declared that she was quite well, and that she preferred home to anywhere else; she had got used to it, and did not wish to be unsettled. Six weeks at Penzance simply wearied her; she brightened wonderfully on the day of return.

Harvey, always anxious, tried to believe that the great sorrow through which she had pa.s.sed was effecting only a natural change, subduing her troublesome mutability of temper, and leading her to find solace in domestic quietude.

On the third day after her return, she had lunched alone, and was sitting in the library. Her dress, more elaborate than usual, and the frequent glances which she cast at the clock, denoted expectation of some arrival. Hearing a knock at the front door, she rose and waited nervously.

'Mr. Dymes is in the drawing-room, mum.'

She joined him. Dymes, with wonted frankness, not to say impudence, inspected her from head to foot, and did not try to conceal surprise.