Idols

CHAPTER VII

“H E saved Gerard’s life? What nonsense! If he had, I should have heard about it.”

Irene spoke warmly. The person she addressed was Harroway, an elderly solicitor, an intimate friend of Hugh and the Merriams. His wife Selina, who had brought him to pay an afternoon call on Irene, watched with amused serenity the discomfiture on his broad and benevolent face.

“It isn’t nonsense,” he protested. “I’m not in the habit of talking nonsense, I assure you. Am I, Selina?”

“A wife’s testimony isn’t evidence,” replied Mrs. Harroway.

“But what do you mean?” asked Irene, growing serious.

“Literally what I said. Have you never heard?”

“No.”

“It was in Switzerland, years ago. Chevasse, who was on the trip with them, told me. The two were roped together, suddenly fell and dangled over a precipice, Colman lowest. The guide on top couldn’t hold them up. The rope was slipping. So Colman whipped out his knife and cut himself off.”

“And then?”

“Oh, then the guide hauled Gerard up safe and sound.”

“But Hugh?”

“When they looked over to identify the spot where his pulp was lying, they saw him half way down, miraculously caught on a jag of rock. You might try the game twenty million times without it succeeding. I’ve had the place pointed out to me. And there he remained some hours clinging on between heaven and earth.”

Irene closed her eyes with a shiver.

“Don’t,” she said. “You make me sick.”

“Funny that Gerard never told you of it, for a clearer case of saving life at the obvious sacrifice of one’s own, I have never heard of.”

Irene’s hand trembled a little as she poured out the tea. Mrs. Harroway, unobserved, shook her head reproachfully at her husband, who, interpreting her action rightly, plunged into irrelevant observations. But at that moment Gerard entered the room. Irene turned to him at once impulsively.

“Oh, Gerard, Mr. Harroway has been telling me a horrible story of Hugh saving your life in Switzerland. Is it true?”

A shade of annoyance passed over his face.

“Yes,” he replied. “I remember his doing something of the kind.”

“Oh, do let us talk of something cheerful,” said Mrs. Harroway; and she led the conversation to ordinary topics until the end of the visit.

When the Harroways had gone, Irene sat on the arm of Gerard’s chair.

“Why did you never tell me?”

He grew red, fidgeted awhile with his hands. At last, looking up, and seeing her luminous eyes fixed upon him, he said, gravely:

“There are certain things that a man keeps in his own heart.”

The solemnity of the saying somewhat awed her. “And Hugh never spoke either.”

“Of course not,” said Gerard.

“What an unpayable debt we owe him.”

“We’ll pay it all right when the time comes.”

“What little things women are when compared with men,” said Irene. “We could never have kept a fact like that locked up in our souls.”

Gerard accepted the tribute with his usual reserve. As his wife knew, he was not a man to waste words over sentiment. She uttered what she felt were his thoughts.

“I didn’t understand your not telling me. But now I do. Those things, when unspoken of, knit two men more firmly together.”

She was silent for a moment; then changing her tone and grasping Gerard’s arm:

“We won’t speak of it again, either,” she said. “It is horrible to think of. And what should I have done without you?”

The servant entering to remove the tea things was a signal for Irene to dress for dinner. She left the room, and then Gerard rose, and, walking to the window, took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

The result of her knowledge of this fact in the lives of Hugh and Gerard was an added tenderness of gratitude in her feelings towards the former. During the past few months he had been slipping somewhat apart from her. He had lost his old buoyancy of manner, and it was easy for her feminine intuition to perceive that the change had some radical cause. Now she blamed herself for not having taken the initiative, and offered him more openly the aid of her friendship. The chance of doing so occurred on the following Sunday, when, in response to an urgent little note, Hugh came to lunch. Gerard was absent. Business had summoned him to Edinburgh, where he was likely to remain some time. The two sat down to table alone together, and, while the servant was in the room, talked of divers matters: the waif who had been admitted into St. Katherine’s school, the Institution which was flourishing, and extending its sphere of benevolence. At last she touched upon literary matters.

“When are we to see a new volume?”

He lifted his shoulders slightly, and fingered the stem of his old German wine glass.

“When I have regained my lost youth,” he said, ironically. “One must have enthusiasm even for that kind of rubbish. Don’t look so concerned,” he added, with a laugh; “I’m not hypochondriac yet. My view of life is only growing a little more materialistic, that is all. I share Peter Bell’s conception of the primrose.”

He quoted the lines jestingly, and, the meal being over, drew out his cigarette case and began to smoke.

“You are talking for the sake of talking,” said Irene. “I wish you wouldn’t. Hugh,” she continued, with a certain shy softness that had its charm, “don’t be vexed with me. Tell me what is changing you. You know that I owe to you the existence of all that is dearest to me in the world, and I long so to pay you back a little in the help that friendship can give.”

“You can’t do it now, Renie,” he said, abruptly. “Afterwards you may. That is, if you and Gerard don’t think me a pitiful scamp. You won’t have long to wait.”

The sudden realisation that this was perhaps the last of the brotherly meals he should have with her, dismayed him. In a few days he would be either the acknowledged betrothed or the acknowledged husband of another woman—her bitterest enemy. The old dear order had changed. Hitherto he had held a unique and delicate position in her thoughts, that of the loyal friend and honourable lover. Henceforward he would be another woman’s husband, which would make an immeasurable difference. He looked round the familiar walls of the cosy dining-room, and then with unconscious wistfulness upon her face in profile. To him there was none more beautiful in all the world. The broad forehead; the delicate, sensitive nose; the strong, pointed chin; the mobile, faintly coloured lips; the eyes capable of great passion, yet showing habitually a grave and luminous kindness; the noble up sweep of her hair from the temple contours, giving an impression of queenliness; the soft, fair gold of her hair itself, crowning her head too lightly to be a crown and too individually to be a halo; the head poised with tender dignity upon a broad, full throat—all the conflicting features combined harmoniously together to form in a lover’s eyes a face telling of a great and tender womanhood. And the picture of that other rose before him, beautiful, too, in its sensuous duskiness, yet stamped forever with his own condemnation of commonness. His glance grew troubled as it met Irene’s.

“There is nothing in the wide world that we would not do for you, Hugh,” she said.

“Doing is one thing,” he replied. “Letting things go on is another, I’m afraid you’ll come to look upon me as a blackguard, and that must make some difference.”

“Nothing will make any difference in our love for you. So long as Gerard and I sit opposite here, there will be your place always between us. Besides, the idea of your being a blackguard is simply silly!”

He laughed in spite of his depression. Her tone was emphatic.

“I believe you’d champion me through a grand jury list of iniquities. I wish you could have split yourself into two in the years past, Renie. You would have kept me out of mischief.”

It was Irene’s turn to look troubled.

“Do you know, Hugh,” she said in a low voice, “that lately I have feared I may have spoiled your life.”

“Ah, my dear child,” he cried, regaining in a flash all his old vehemence, “it is not the missing of the angel’s touch that spoils a man’s life. He is singularly fortunate to come within the beat of her wings.”

“Thank you,” she said, blushing very prettily. “That is like your old, extravagant self.”

For a long time afterwards the colour remained in her face. Thousands of women have been called angels, and have thought little of it. But not one has felt otherwise than tremulously abashed when the similitude has come from a man’s worshipping sincerity.

But that was the end of the conversation. Irene had said her say, and no more was to be gained by dwelling on the topic.

When he had gone, she settled down to her correspondence. But for a long while she sat biting the end of her quill pen.

“I wonder who she can be,” she said, musingly. Of course it was a woman. She passed in review all their common acquaintance; then shook her head with a smile. This disturbing element in Hugh’s life lay outside the circle. The image of Minna Hart never presented itself before her thoughts. For Irene had large ideas, and pictured the woman as one of commanding intelligence and brilliant personality. How else to account for the folly of so vigorous a manhood as Hugh’s? A noble man, a noble choice. Foolish—but sublimely so. She knew little of the ways of men, judged them according to her own ideals. For her life had been spent singularly apart from men. Her mother, a delicate woman, unable to bear the Indian climate, had brought her up in quiet seclusion. She had been a choice spirit, a weaver of dreams, one whose presence is felt like the moonlight through Gothic tracery, a writer of flower-like fairy tales for children, an ethereal being whom it was Irene’s impassioned mission to shelter from the rough winds. Her father, once a soldier with a V. C. in the Mutiny, afterwards a commissioner of a great Indian province, had appeared to her in brief spells of leave, invested with a halo of glory. On her mother’s death, she had gone out heartbroken to join him, but only to learn, on arrival at Bombay, that she was fatherless. And then, for the first time, men, Gerard and Hugh, had come into her life—and she saw them as gods walking. The years had mellowed into a strong, homogeneous character her inherited qualities—the mother’s delicate womanliness, the father’s daring and power of leadership—and busy contact with the world had developed the acuteness of her judgment; but the ideals of the girl survived, unprofaned by vulgar touch. The two men to whom she had given her love and friendship still remained as gods, above the baser passions and meaner follies of mankind.

Suddenly a face flashed before her, as that, possibly, of the mysterious woman who was involved in Hugh’s life. She had never seen it in the flesh; only a photograph of it some years ago, in Hugh’s rooms, when she was lunching there with Gerard. She had taken a book from the shelves and the portrait had fallen out. It represented a woman, tall, resplendent, haughty, cruelly beautiful. The eyes, even in the photograph, glittered coldly and dangerously. Irene had uttered a little cry of surprise and admiration. Hugh had taken it from her hands.

“A great beauty,” she had remarked.

“Yes. La Belle Dame sans merci.”

“Her eyes are cruel.”

“They are ophidian. I don’t like you to look at them,” he had replied, throwing the photograph into a drawer. And then he had said, with a smile: “They belong to ‘old unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago.’”

Did they? That was the question she now put to herself, and vainly tried to answer. It is permitted even to the most confiding of women to entertain occasional doubts as to the ingenuousness of bachelor friends.

At last she drew a sheet of note-paper from the stationery case in front of her and inscribed the date. But she paused, and gazed absently at the wall, her mind full of Hugh’s dilemma. She felt an unaccountable dislike for the woman with the ophidian eyes. Presently she broke into a little laugh.

“I do believe I am jealous! I must tell Gerard.”

CHAPTER VIII

An anxious face met Hugh as he was shown into the drawing-room. Minna had grown into a woman since her illness, and had hardened considerably during the process. Instead of the lazy uplifting of silky lashes, veiling swimming eyes, with which she had been wont to greet him, she met him with a glance as keen as his own. The racial spirit of bargain revealed itself in her expression. Once more he was struck by the latent power of strength and hardness. She wore a dark red dinner dress and heavy gold bracelets, and a diamond star shone in the dark clusters of her hair.

“I am glad you have come early,” she said, receiving his kiss mechanically. “I wanted to have a word with you before papa comes down.”

They walked slowly to the fireplace and stood turned towards each other, leaning against the mantelpiece.

“Well?” he said.

“When are you going to tell papa?”

“After dinner—‘over the walnuts and the wine.’”

“Don’t. Wait until you have said good-bye to me.”

“How shall I let you know the result? You will be anxious.”

“Do you mind coming to me afterwards—the old way?”

“Not at all. But I shall have to wait outside until the house is quiet.”

“There will be a nice fire upstairs to warm you.”

“And my wife’s heart?”

“That depends,” she replied, with a curious smile. “Shall you be perishing for it?”

“We must try to win back to each other again, Minna,” he said, stretching out his hand so as to touch lightly her cheek. “It will not be hard, for circumstances will be more favourable than they have been. I am afraid I haven’t played a very noble part, my dear—and when a man is conscious of that, he vents his spleen upon others. That’s not very noble either, but it’s miserable human nature. Do you understand?”

“I am glad you see that you have treated me badly,” she said. “At any rate it’s a hopeful beginning.”

The thought of her failure to grasp his meaning was dancing irritatingly in his mind as he stepped forward to greet Israel Hart, who at that moment entered the room.

“Very pleased to see you, Mr. Colman. Sorry I’m late. Kept in the city. Cold, isn’t it?”

He rubbed his soft palms together and held them out to the blaze of the fire.

“How’s business? Been letting loose lots of lucky gaol-birds lately?”

“Oh, we always believe firmly in our clients’ innocence,” retorted Hugh with a laugh.

“That’s more than I do in mine,” said the moneylender.

The young man returned a light answer, but curled his moustache, and drew himself up with unconscious haughtiness. The touch of vulgarity jarred upon him. When one has to humble one’s pride before a man, one is apt to become supersensitive of such things. Unfortunately for Hugh, Israel evinced a more genial and familiar mood than usual, and, during the elaborate meal that followed, allowed himself privileges of allusion that a finer taste would have restrained. Aware of the senselessness of feeling chafed at what, on other occasions, he would have let pass almost unnoticed, Hugh conversed with a great outward show of good-humour. But once or twice he caught Minna’s eyes fixed on him in a malicious smile, which irritated him still further. The courses seemed infinite. His host referred to each, now praising the merits of his cook, now estimating its money value. As he grew more genial, the more did he throw off the cloak of breeding that at times he well assumed, and display the inevitable, impregnating colour of his mind. To the man of artistic temperament money had no intrinsic value. It merely represented power over the beauty and charm of life. To the Jew financier, the making of it was an absorbing pursuit. Its possession was an end in itself. He had his being in an atmosphere of money; could scarcely conceive different environment—just as the average gamekeeper cannot realise a life in which rabbits and partridges play no part. As the bookmaker talks inevitable turf, so Israel talked inevitable money.

“Has my daughter ever shown you those bracelets, Mr. Colman? They’re almost historical. Been in a great nobleman’s family for centuries. Take one off and show it to Mr. Colman. The present countess came to grief horse-racing—applied to me for money. Those were part of the security. The same lady tried to do me with some paste diamonds, but I was down too sharp. Solid things, aren’t they?”

“I come in for a lot of the plunder, don’t I, papa?” said Minna, gaily.

Hugh winced. Hitherto she had always expressed the profoundest distaste for her father’s profession. Was this speech genuine, was it pure malice, or was its intention that of keeping a stern parent in good-humour? To save the situation he handed it back to Minna with a little courtly bow.

“It has never adorned a fairer arm,” he said.

Minna’s quicker ear caught an ironical note, and she bit her lip. But Israel was delighted.

“I like to hear a young man pay a pretty compliment,” he said, rolling back in his chair. “The art is dying out.”

When Minna rose, Hugh held the door open for her. On passing him she whispered:

“You are making a wonderful impression; keep it up.”

He bowed, closed the door upon her and came round to the fire, hating the part so bluntly defined by his wife. To have to cajole this somewhat vulgar old Jew of shady profession, his actual father-in-law! It was trailing his pride in the mud. But he had been doing so ever since the disastrous day of his marriage. A little extra soiling, he reflected cynically, would make but faintly appreciable difference.

The grave butler entered with coffee and cigars. Hugh declined the latter.

“Better have one,” said Israel, carefully selecting. “Don’t get this sort of thing every day. I give seven pound ten a hundred for them.”

“I am a cigarette smoker,” said Hugh, “but still——”

He accepted a cigar courteously. For he knew that a man is apt to be ruffled when you refuse an eighteen-penny havana, and he had good reasons for not wishing to ruffle his host. Presently they went upstairs. Minna moved to the piano. Usually she played with taste and correctness. To-night she strummed abominably.

“We are not quite in the mood for Chopin,” said Hugh, who was turning over her leaves. She stopped dead.

“No. This is more suitable to one’s irritation,” and she plunged into Stephen Heller’s Tarantella. The old man, dozing in his chair, did not notice the change.

“Don’t give it away at once,” she said in a low voice, as she played. “Begin with a formal demand in marriage and see how he takes it.”

“I shall do whatever seems to me judicious,” he answered, curtly.

“Remember I am an interested party,” she retorted. “There is such a thing as money to be considered, however much you may despise it.”

“You may trust to my not forgetting,” he replied.

The evening was over at last. He bade Minna good-bye.

“I should like to say a few words to you, Mr. Hart, before I go,” he remarked on his way downstairs. His host, cordiality itself, showed him into his study, poked the fire and lighted a cigar.

“Business?”

“Yes.”

“About the loan. I was wanting to discuss it. Best now, when we’re comfortable. Wait a moment—allow me. What is the chance of your being left a small legacy?”

“None whatever, I fear,” replied Hugh.

“It is devilish hard lines on me, Colman, you know. When I advanced you that money, I thought your inheritance was as safe as a mortgage. You are aware it is not my usual way of doing business. This is not an actual reversion; it’s only a convenient term. But I liked you, and somehow it’s pleasant now and then to do a friend a good turn.”

“I am deeply aware of all that,” said Hugh.

“And, as I mentioned, I considered the security safe.”

“So did I. You can scarcely blame me.”

“I believe you,” said the old man, cordially. “You meant to play square, I know. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you? But, all the same, if your uncle were to die to-morrow, I should be done out of £5,000. I don’t pretend to say that £5,000 would break me. Thank God I can run to six figures with something bigger than a ‘1’ in front any day, when all is called in. But money is money. Now, as a gentleman, would you feel morally justified in abiding by your legal rights?”

“No,” said Hugh, “I wouldn’t. But circumstances——”

“I know,” interrupted the money-lender, with upraised hand. “They aren’t quite yet what they ought to be. But you are going to be a successful man. They will alter. Now I have a friendly proposal to make to you.”

“And I am coming with one to you, Mr. Hart,” said Hugh, with a smile. “And I think you had better hear mine first. You consider me an honest man?”

“I do.”

“And you don’t disapprove of me personally?”

“On the contrary, I’m very pleased and proud to call you a friend of mine. You wouldn’t have had my money otherwise.”

“Then, Mr. Hart, you make easier what I have to say. It concerns your daughter, Miss Hart.”

“What? Minna—my daughter?” said the old man, with a sharp change of tone.

“I have the honour to ask you for her hand in marriage.”

“You!”

An indescribable change came over the old man’s face. Instantly it lost the sleek and coarse materialism of the money-getter, the half-sensual content of the easy-going man who has well dined, the patronising geniality of the prosperous host. A fire glowed in his eyes. His Jewish features seemed to grow more prominent. The grey beard framed a strange, patriarchal dignity. The Jew, proud and unconquered through centuries of oppression, overwhelming all other accidents of life in the eternal arrogance of race, was regarding, with angry and incredulous scorn, the Gentile, the hybrid child of yesterday.

“You!” he repeated, almost insultingly.

The young man’s quick blood flamed in his cheeks. He started to his feet.

“Yes, I. Why shouldn’t I?” he cried in a loud voice.

At that moment the door opened, and the butler entered, bearing a tray with spirit-case and glasses. Hugh turned quickly, and bent towards the fire with a spill, to light a cigarette. The butler set his trayload on the great library table, secured the windows of the room and drew the curtains, which had remained looped back.

“You need not sit up, Samuels,” said Israel. “I will let Mr. Colman out and lock up.”

With discreet thanks the butler withdrew. Hugh threw his cigarette into the grate, put his hands into his pockets and faced his host once more.

“I consider my proposal is quite justifiable, Mr. Hart.”

“Are you aware what you are asking?”

“Yes. I am a poor man. She is rich. I owe you money. But still——”

“Money? What has money to do with it?” interrupted the Jew, grandly. “If you had the rent-roll of the Grosvenors it would make no difference.”

“If it’s a question of religion—I always thought your views were latitudinarian.”

“I suppose Minna knows of this?” said Israel, apparently disregarding the remark.

“Certainly.”

“Mr. Colman, I have no wish to wound your feelings. But I would sooner have my daughter dead at my feet than see her married to a Christian.”

“Then it is useless to ask for your consent?”

“Quite useless.”

“In that case I fear we shall have to do without it. I am exceedingly sorry to cause you pain—but the marriage will take place.”

Israel rose from his chair and poured some whiskey into the glasses, and made a courteous motion with his hand towards the siphon of soda-water.

“We stand on opposite sides of a great gulf. I am a Jew. You are a Gentile. We need not discuss the question. I can’t restrain my daughter from carrying out her wishes. But I can solemnly curse her after the manner of my people, and cut her adrift from me for ever. I shall warn her. The wrath of the Almighty will be on her head. She will also be disinherited.”

“That will ease my mind of a great burden,” said Hugh.

“To show you that it is no animosity towards you personally that influences me,” continued Israel, with great dignity, inconceivable of the man of an hour before, “I will let you see a copy of my will made some time ago when the thought of you as a suitor never crossed my mind.”

He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the great safe. From a locked compartment he drew forth a document, and, folding it so that only the particular paragraph should be visible, he showed it to Hugh. Nothing could be more explicit. In the event of Minna marrying a Gentile all the estate would pass from her and be devoted to specified Jewish charities.

“I hope Minna will be able to persuade you to a more favourable view of the case,” said Hugh.

“My daughter can do many things, but not that. She despises her people, I know. But she shall marry among them or be cut off from our congregation for ever.”

“There seems nothing more to be said, Mr. Hart,” said Hugh.

“You quite realise that when my daughter leaves this house, the clothes that cover her will be her sole possession?”

“I have told you—I am immensely relieved. As to our business relations——”

“They can be discussed on a future occasion.”

Proud as he was of his birth and breeding, Hugh could not but be abashed before this pride of race that transformed the vulgar usurer into a gentleman of fine feeling. Israel’s words and attitude had not conveyed the slightest reproach on the score of fortune-hunting. He had cast neither his poverty nor his debt in his teeth. A great feeling of respect for the old man rose in his heart.

“Believe me,” he said after a turn across the room; “if fate would allow it, I would give up the idea for your sake.”

“We all make our destiny,” replied the old man, bitterly. “I have made mine.”

A few moments later Hugh took his leave. Israel accompanied him to the front door, shook hands with him, and, turning out the light in the hall, went back to his study. Then he remembered that he had forgotten to secure the door.

“I will do it afterwards,” he said to himself.

He picked up the will, glanced through it and replaced it in the safe. For half an hour he sat in deep thought; then rose, went upstairs and returned, bringing with him a small padlocked ledger. He sat down in his writing-chair by the table, but remained in deep thought, tapping the unopened book with his fingers.

“My own daughter—Sara’s child—married, to a Christian.”

Long he sat in an awful loneliness, his eyes dull and weary, looking at the spectres of the past. At length he took from a drawer at his side a double sheet of blue foolscap, and dipped a pen very slowly in the ink.

“I, Israel Hart, will and bequeath——”

“No,” he said. “Not now—I must think it out again. Ask God for guidance.”

He rose, put the paper in the fire, and sank into the great armchair close by. And there he sat, thinking, thinking. At last his eyelids closed and he slept.

Hugh went out into a night of utter blackness and icy sleet. Great splashes of half-melted snow fell against his face and oozed down in liquid. He made his way along the drive and out of the front gate. Dimly through the darkness the sound reached him of the Sunnington clock striking the half hour. Halfpast eleven. He would wait till twelve before keeping his appointment with Minna. A mile up the Heath Road and a mile back would fill up the time. He walked on through the darkness, splashing through the mud and drawing his head down into the collar of his ulster so as to keep the frozen rain from his neck. Not a soul was visible. On his return he saw a bull’s-eye lantern flash within the grounds of a house. It was a policeman examining the fastenings. Hugh hurried on, turned down the lane that led from the Heath Road to the wood and waste lands behind The Lindens. At last he came to the brick wall enclosing the property. A key in his possession opened a small side door leading into a garden which Minna’s caprice had made so exclusively her own, that entrance to it was not practicable from any portion of the grounds. On the right were green-houses, closing off egress from the back-while, following the line of the side of the house, a thick box hedge ran to meet the front wall, and thus separated the little pleasance from the front lawn, through which curved the carriage drive.

The house was in total darkness, scarcely discernible against the pitch-black sky. Hugh crossed the turf, walking warily so as to avoid the shrubs with which it was thickly planted, ever and anon thrusting his hand through the icy, dripping foliage.

“Thank Heaven this is the last time,” he muttered to himself.

He came to the house, to whose walls stretched the carpet of turf. A low verandah, reached by a flight of steps, and communicating with the interior by means of French windows, now closely barred, extended not quite the breadth of the building. Masking its end rose a tall clipped yew. Behind this he crept, and a low window, whose sash he lifted, thanks to Minna’s previous unbarring, admitted him into the house. It was a tiny chamber, used by Minna as a dark-room during an intermittent photographic fever.

Outside this was a heavily carpeted staircase, up which Hugh stole noiselessly.

The handle turned smoothly beneath his grasp, and he found himself at last in his wife’s presence. The large room was lit only by the leaping flames of the fire, that threw quick flashes on the richly curtained bed and the luxurious appointments of a wealthy woman’s bedchamber. In a long chair before the fire, the tips of fur-lined slippers thrust on bare feet, resting on the fender, lay Minna. She wore a rich dressing-gown, with lace at throat and wrists. Her dark hair clustered about her shoulders. A delicate odour of toilette-washes and powder hung on the warmth of the room. Hugh stopped for a moment on the threshold, with a little catch at his breath. The subtle charm of the woman’s shrine stole gratefully over him. After all, it was sweet to have the right of such intimacy. He took off his dripping ulster and laid it aside before coming forward. Then he stooped and kissed her.

“Oh! how wet you are!” she cried, with a little grimace, rubbing her cheek with her handkerchief. “Do come and dry yourself. You will find your slippers in the secret drawer, as usual.”

She handed him a key which she took from her dressing-gown pocket, and while he was changing his wet boots:

“Well?” she said. “What news?”

“Bad. Your father will not consent, because I am a Christian. We shall have to elope.”

“Then you haven’t told him all?”

“No. I thought it wiser. There seemed no necessity. It will be better for us to get married again—publicly.”

He drew up an armchair by her side, close to the fire, and, leaning forward, warmed himself appreciatively.

“It’s an infernal night. You don’t know how sweet and cosy it is here.”

“It was kind of you to come,” she said, with cold politeness.

Her tone chilled the reviving glow of his imagination, which already was beginning to picture gentle possibilities of their married life. He remained silent for some time. When he spoke again, it was in less genial accents.

“I am afraid, Minna, that in marrying me you have unwittingly made a tremendous sacrifice.”

“Not more than most women, I suppose.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

With much tact and delicacy he put her in possession of all the details of his recent interview. She said not a word until he had finished, but clenched her fingers on the arms of her chair and looked rigidly into the fire.

“I had an awful horror of this,” she said, in a toneless voice.

“It will make an enormous difference to you. God knows I realise it. But, after all, we shall not starve.”

She darted a quick, sidelong glance at him, then, with a shudder, put her hands before her face.

“I knew it would be woe and misery,” she said, “whilst we were walking away from that horrible registrar’s office. Oh, God! I wish it had never been!”

“It need not be misery. It shan’t be misery, if I can help it.”

“You? You have robbed me of my birthright!”

“Perhaps your taunt is just, Minna,” he replied, a scornful generosity forgetting that with her had lain considerable initiative in the matter of the marriage.

“But it scarcely can mend our happiness.”

“Happiness!” she echoed, contemptuously. “A poky little house, and rechauffés dinners, and a cheap gown once a year. The gingerbread would have been pretty enough ten months ago. Now the gilt is off.”

With great patience, knowing that on him, the man, the stronger, the more rational, the less in love of the two, rested the responsibility of the disaster, he strove to reassure her, to paint their coming life together in the most cheerful colours. Grand style of living he could not offer her. But comfort, a certain social position, clever and bright society—all that was within his reach. He had done her a wrong in marrying her, would repair it by devoting the rest of his life to her happiness. He pleaded to a hardened heart. She either listened stonily or broke into petulant recriminations. The talk grew spasmodic, interrupted by long gaps of silence. Imperceptibly the night wore on. Once he noticed that she had fallen info a weary doze. He watched for a long time her face, lit up by the flickering flames. How hard and common and sullen it had grown! He read in it the history of the last few months—of her previous life—of her soul. A revulsion of feeling turned his heart against her and against himself. The man with ambitions and wide interests in the world of action revolted against the slavery to such a woman.

There was little use in staying longer. He rose to go. His movement startled her, and she opened her eyes.

“Don’t go yet. I am not asleep. I have been thinking.”

He sat down again, watched her as she looked into the fire with eyes that in the fantastic light seemed haggard, and waited for her to speak.

“I cannot forfeit my money,” she said. “It would kill me. Even if I loved you I couldn’t do it. And you have made me hate you. Our living together as you propose would be a ghastly mockery. I could not share the same room with you any more,” she continued, hurriedly, “not for millions!”

“I should not desire it,” he replied, coldly.

“Then why should we not keep our secret—as we have kept it—and part now, for ever and ever?”

She turned eager, imploring eyes upon him, yet hard as agates.

“I don’t quite understand,” he said.

“It is not difficult. You have told no one of our marriage?”

“Not a soul.”

“Is it likely that it will ever be made public from the registrar’s office?”

“Practically impossible.”

“Don’t you see, then? the only interested witness, is as faithful as a dog—the other witness and the registrar have forgotten our existence—don’t you see that for all practical purposes the fact of our marriage lies buried in a book in Brighton that no one will ever look at? that, if we give ourselves out as unmarried to the end of our lives no one will be a bit the wiser? We will never see each other again, except accidentally in the streets. We will wipe each other clean out of our lives and start afresh. Isn’t that possible?”

“Yes,” he replied, “it is perfectly feasible.”

“I shall keep my money—spend it as I like—go where I like. You shall be free to do whatever you want—marry, if you choose—why shouldn’t you?”

“It happens to be a felony,” said Hugh.

“That would be your own look out. I should never take any steps to prosecute, you may be quite sure. Will you give me the same freedom?”

“You must let me think before I answer,” he said.

“Take your time,” she replied, and lay back again in her chair, covering her eyes with her hands. For the second time Hugh replenished the fire. From outside came still the confused soughing of the wind, and strange creakings filled the sleeping house. The wing that Minna occupied was far apart from the other bedrooms. Only Anna, who was sleeping close by in Minna’s dressing-room, was within earshot. At any time they could talk in moderate tones and be secure from discovery; on this blustering night scarcely any caution was necessary. Absorbed in this final settlement of their lives, neither of them noted the passing of the hours. After a long interval of deep consideration, Hugh agreed to the main of her proposal, and there followed a full and anxious debate upon points of detail.

“What do you propose do to—to get through your life?” he asked at length.

“I shall go abroad—to gay places. I shall procure a companion to suit me—money can do most things. I may first go with Anna to Smyrna and hunt up my mother’s people. They may prove interesting. I can’t live on any longer here.”

“I thought not. It was to escape this that you were willing to live with me, had your father consented.”

“Exactly.”

Another long pause. Hugh viewed the new position in all its aspects. Humanly speaking, the secret of their marriage was exclusively their own. Anything like a reconciliation was out of the question. If he had spoiled her life by marrying her, he could make reparation by this irregular divorce. Yet he felt bound to give her old love one more chance.

“Are you certain, Minna, that you care for me no longer—in no way?”

“Oh, don’t re-open that,” she said. “All that was killed for ever—at Brighton—in December. And even if it wasn’t, do you think I could willingly give up two hundred thousand pounds for you?” She laughed scornfully. “You indeed set a high value upon yourself. Do you know,” she added with a sudden firmness, to which the deep tones of her voice gave a savage intensity, “I would commit any crime rather than give up that money? All such talk is useless. Let me have your final answer and be done with it.”

“Very well,” he replied, decisively. “I will grant you your absolute freedom on one condition: that this compact between us is irrevocable.”

“It shall be. Will you swear to it, on your side—a solemn, binding oath?”

“I give you my word of honour.”

“I don’t much believe in a man’s honour,” she said, contemptuously. “An oath is different.”

“I will do as you like,” he replied.

She rose, vanished for a moment among the shadows of the room, and returned with an Old Testament.

“I swear on this, by the God of my fathers, that in no circumstances whatever will I reveal the fact of my marriage with you. I renounce you for ever as my husband. I renounce all claims upon your support, sympathy, and consideration. I swear never to interfere in any shape or form with your actions, leaving you free to marry again without any previous notification to me. So help me God.”

She stood deadly pale, her teeth chattering, worn out by the stiffness and exhaustion of her long vigil, and handed him the book that she held in shaking fingers.

“Since you desire a formal oath,” he said, “I will take it in the form you have prescribed.”

And there he renounced her eternally as she had just before renounced him.

He looked at his watch. To his utter astonishment it was past six o’clock. With an exclamation of dismay, he set about preparing for departure.

How the night had passed so quickly he could not tell. “There is no need for you to keep these any longer,” he said, holding up the slippers. She herself had worked them for him in a fit of adoring industry.

“No. Nor the other things.”

She took a small bundle neatly wrapped up in brown paper and handed it to him. He thrust it beneath his arm.

“Good-bye, Minna,” he said, holding out his hand. “We did not swear to be enemies. May your new life be happier than the old.”

“It could not well be more miserable,” she answered. But she gave him her hand, cold and nerveless. “Poor child,” he said, “God help you.”

He turned, left the room, and then the house by the way by which he had entered. A fine snow was falling through the not yet lifting darkness. He hurried homewards blindly, thinking of nothing but the strange chapter of the night, his heart relieved already of enormous burdens, but his temples throbbing with the strain of casting them off.

He met not a soul until he had passed the Merriams’ house. Then, as he neared the town, dark, straggling figures of workmen passed him, trudging on sleepily through the snow and darkness.

The hall porter was just opening the great outer door of the mansion when he arrived. “Cold morning, sir,” said the porter. “Bitter,” he replied, mechanically, and he sprang up the stone stairs.