CHAPTER IX

The hansom drove swiftly along through the muddy streets. Victor sat silently by his companion. His nature was strung up to its fullest tension. First had come the exasperating blow--the discovery that his jealous surmise had been right--the wife he called wife because of those few words spoken in a registrar's office, alone, loved another man--perhaps was even secretly his. Then had come the surprise of Vera's beauty--grace--talent--and the conviction of her great passion for himself.

"I will secure her," he grimly told himself. "I must tell her--something! To know there is 'another woman' will make her irrevocably my own." It was thus he correctly or incorrectly judged womankind.

Vera leant back in the corner of the cab, and gazed--rapt, if anxious--at his dark, handsome profile, visible now and again in the moonlight which flashed white radiance upon the puddles and silvered the wet slates of the roofs. Did he love her? Could he care for her? She was ready to follow him like a little dog through the world--if necessary, through disgrace unto death. For, as her sex will do, while she had worshipped him as her hero, she had acknowledged that he could err. When he had been "wanted" by the police she knew that he was "in trouble," if through folly rather than ill-doing; and while he had left his broken-down mother without a hint as to his fate, owing her the money she had borrowed that he might not starve while in hiding, it was Vera who had kept a roof over her widowed step-mother's head--who had toiled and slaved for the lodgers all day, and danced and "walked on" at the theatre all night. Yes--unconsciously she avowed that her idol had feet of clay. But as she sat at his side, the blood raced madly through her veins--her heart beat so strongly against her chest that she could hardly breathe--she had to clench her hands so that they should not clasp his arm--bite her lips lest they should play her false in furtive kisses of the shoulder so tantalizingly near hers.

"I am a fool perhaps," she bitterly mused: "But--he is so splendid--so delightful!" She gave an involuntary sob--it was so terribly, cruelly convincing that her passion was unreciprocated, that while she was trembling and palpitating with emotion he should sit gloomily gazing out into the darkness with arms folded like Napoleon at St. Helena.

He heard it.

"You little darling, what is the matter?" he suddenly said--then his arms closed about her, she was clasped to his breast, her cold lips were warmed into life by a long, close kiss; and there she lay, in an earthly heaven, until they crossed a bridge over the Thames, now a fairy river like quivering, molten silver in the moonlight, flowing between mystic palaces whose windows glowed red in the shadowy facades, and the cab halted at the end of the street.

On his sudden and unexpected return, he had occupied the rooms vacated by a lodger called away to his mother's deathbed in Wales, in the house which was really Vera's, for she paid the rent, but which his mother literally lived by. All the rooms except a parlour and attic she let to students of the huge hospital in the neighbouring thoroughfare.

The windows of the little house all glittered white save one--that of the "front parlour."

"Mother is still up," said Vera disappointedly--to cool down and behave as a sister after that kiss was a terrible prospect! But let into the silent house by Victor's latch-key, they found the little parlour silent also, and empty, although one burner of the gasalier above the little dining table neatly laid for supper was alight.

On the table was a slip of paper: "Excuse me, I am so tired--Mother," was written on it.

Vera trembled a little. "Come, Victor, you must have some supper," she said coaxingly.

"Presently," he said, looking her over with a proprietary glance. "Take off that cloak! Wait, I will do it for you."

He went to her. As he unfastened the clasp of the old evening cloak she felt his touch upon her throat--it seemed to make her weak, almost faint. Then he flung it aside--it fell on the floor--and seating himself on the horsehair sofa he drew her down upon his knee.

"You are all mine! Do you understand?" he imperiously said; and his dark eyes had a sinister, commanding expression as they gazed into hers which frightened her a little, in spite of her unbounded faith and adoration. "All mine! I could take you--or leave you--as I please! You acknowledge it?"

She nodded. To know he cared enough to make love to her overcame any poor scraps of pride that fluttered idly in the wild gale of her passion for him.

"Yes," she murmured humbly.

"Kiss me, then--let me feel there is one woman in the world worth the taking!" he said, with scathing irony. At that moment he told himself scornfully that they might all be everlastingly banished to Sheol except this one, and he would not turn a hair. He could look coolly over the edge of space and watch their torments with less compunction than he had felt gazing at the disembowelled horses in a Spanish bull-fight.

She threw her arms about his neck, and gazed adoringly into his eyes, before she fell yieldingly into his embrace and allowed him to kiss her again and again.

"Oh, I love you, I love you!" she murmured in her ecstasy. Unlike poor Joan, she had no burdened conscience dragging her back from the reciprocation of her lover's passion.

"You do, do you?" he asked suddenly, with one of his swift changes of mood, loosing her, and rising to his feet, taking out his cigarette case. "Suppose I were to test you, eh? Frankly, I don't believe in one of your sex!" He gave a sneering laugh, as he struck a match, and, lighting a cigarette stuck it between his lips. "Little wonder, considering that the old gentleman below sent one of his hags to work my downfall! Surely you--a woman--guessed that a woman was at the bottom of all--my--trouble?"

During that silent drive in the cab he had resolved what complexion he would put upon "that wretched business," as he termed his defalcations and consequent flight: in other words, what lies he would tell this trusting, devoted girl.

"W--What?" she stammered--turning deadly white and gazing at him as if in those words she had heard her death-sentence.

"The old game! A woman pursuing a man," he said, with scornful irony. Why would these women be so terribly tragic? It spoilt sport so abominably! "Don't be jealous! I called her a hag--and she was one! I won't tell you who she was--it wouldn't be fair. But she made a dead set at me--and I kept her at bay until my good nature let me into one of those beastly traps good-natured fellows fall into. I backed a bill for a chum, and he played me false, and left me to pay up. I borrowed money from the business, and then the governor suddenly came down upon me for it. I had to take her money and her with it. Nothing would do but I must marry her! Well, I did, and before I had had time to replace the sum I had borrowed, the governor stole a march on me, and found it out! I begged her to settle matters, but she refused! So there was nothing to do but to bolt--and remain away--live with the old cat I would not! What is the matter? She is less than nothing to me--more, I hate, loathe, and despise her!"

She had sunk back with a groan and covered her face with her hands. He seated himself and drew her passionately to him.

"Come, come, there is no harm done! I mean to have you, d'ye hear? And soon! And as my wife! What else do you think? I heard to-night there is a man in the case. I mean to be free, with a capital to make merry on for the rest of our lives! I've only to play my cards properly, and you've only to keep _mum_. Can you, do you think? Can you keep everything I do and say to yourself, and help me a bit now and then? If you can, you'll be my wife! If you can't, you won't. That's flat."

"You know what I think of you!" she moaned, gazing piteously at him. "You know you are the whole world to me--that I would be tortured and killed rather than betray you!"

"What is there to groan about, then?" he cried impatiently, springing up. "Upon my word, you are enough to rile a man into chucking you, that you are!"

"What is there to groan about?" she repeated bitterly. "What a question to ask--when you tell me--you are married--when there is a woman alive who has the right to call--you--husband!"

"Not for long, make your mind easy about that!" he grimly remarked. He had made an unalterable resolve that in some way or another this girl should atone to him for Joan's shortcomings--yet should herself benefit to Joan's loss: and he set himself to such a lengthened course of cajolery and fascination of his admirer then and there, that the veils of night were shifting and lifting, furtive nightbirds crept from their lairs and fled along the streets as if scared by the dawn--and the light still glowed in that window of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street.