CHAPTER XIII.

MAN AND WIFE.

The hackney coach drew up at Lady Belrose's house in Hanover-square a couple of hours after it had left Kensington-square, and Lord Fordingbridge, descending from it, rang a loud peal upon the bell.

For some reason--the whereof was perhaps not known to him, or could not have been explained by even his peculiarly constituted mind--he had attired himself for the two interviews with great care. His black velvet suit, trimmed with silver lace--for he wore mourning for the late viscount--was of the richest; his thick hair was now confined beneath a handsome tye-wig, and his ruffles and breast lace were the finest in his possession. Yet he, knowing himself to be the unutterable scoundrel he was, could scarcely suppose that this sumptuousness of attire was likely to have much effect upon the woman who had deserted him for a cause which he had not the slightest difficulty in imagining. Perhaps, however, it was assumed for the benefit of the Duke of Newcastle, with whom he had had a satisfactory interview.

"Lady Fordingbridge is living here," he said quietly, but with a sternness he considered fitting to the occasion, to the grave elderly man who opened the door to him--a man whose appearance, Lady Belrose frequently observed, would have added respectability to the household of a bishop--"show me to her."

The footman looked inquiringly at him for a moment; he was not accustomed to such imperious orders from any of her ladyship's visitors, however handsome an appearance they might present. Then he said:

"Lady Belrose lives here. Lady Fordingbridge is her guest. And if you wish to see her, sir, I must know whose name to announce."

"I am her husband, Lord Fordingbridge. Be good enough to announce that, and at once."

The staid manservant gave him a swift glance--it was not to be doubted that many a gossip had been held below stairs as to the reason why Lady Fordingbridge had quitted and caused to be shut up her own house, only to come and dwell at his mistress's--then he invited his lordship to follow him into the morning room on the right of the door.

"I will tell her ladyship," he said, and so left him.

When he was alone, Lord Fordingbridge, after a hasty glance round the room, and a sneer at the portraits of a vast number of simpering young men which hung on the walls--her admirers, he considered, no doubt--took a seat upon the couch and pondered over the coming interview with his wife.

"It is time," he thought, "that things should draw to a conclusion. For," he said, as though addressing Kate herself, "I have had enough of you, my lady. You have long ceased to be a wife to me--never were one, indeed, but for a month, and then but a very indifferent spouse, a cold-hearted, cold-blooded jade; now it is time you should cease to be so much in even name. So, so. You shall be stripped of your borrowed plumage; we will see then how you like the position of affairs. I myself am heartily sick of them."

He had no premonition of what Kate might be about to say to him when she should enter the room in which he now sat; yet he had a very strong suspicion that her remarks would consist of accusations against him of having betrayed the Sholtos and Elphinston.

"Well, well," he said,-"let her accuse. I have the last card. It is a strong one. It should win the trick."

Yet at the same time, strong as any card might be which he held in his hand, he would have given a good deal to have known where at the present moment those three men might be harbouring whom he had endeavoured so strongly to give to the hangman's hands. And once, as a sudden thought came to his mind--a thought that almost made the perspiration burst out upon him--a thought that they might all be in this very house and appear suddenly to take vengeance on him for his treachery!--he nearly rose from his seat as though to fly while there was yet time. But, coward though he was, both physically and morally, he had strength to master his impulse, and, in spite of his fears that at any moment Elphinston, whom he had wronged the worst of all, might enter the room, to remain seated where he was.

Still his eyes sought ever the hands of the clock as moment after moment went by and his wife failed to come, until at last he was wrought to so high a pitch of nervousness that he started at any sound inside and outside of the house. A man bawling the news in the street or blowing the horn, which at that time the newsboys carried to proclaim their approach, set his nerves and fibres tingling; the laughter of some of the domestics in the kitchens below him had an equally jarring effect, and when aloud knock came at the street door he quivered as though the avenging Elphinston was indeed there. Then, at last, the door opened suddenly, and his wife stood before him.

He saw in one swift glance that she was very pale--she, whose complexion had once been as the rose-blush--and this he could understand. It was not strange she should be so. What he could not understand was the habit in which she appeared, the manner in which she was attired. Ever since she had become his wife he had caused her to be arrayed in the richest, most costly dresses he could afford; had desired, nay, had commanded, that in all outward things she should carry out the character of Lady Fordingbridge; that her gowns, her laces, her wigs, should all be suitable to his position.

Yet now she appeared shorn of all those adornments which his common, pitiful mind regarded as part and parcel of his dignity. The dress she wore was a simple black one, made of a material which the humblest lady in the land might have had on, without lace or trimmings or any adornment whatsoever. Also on her head there was no towering wig, nor powder, nor false curls; instead, her own sweet golden hair was neatly brushed back into a great knot behind. Nor on her hands, nor on her neck, was any jewellery, save only the one ring which, from the day he had put it on her finger, she had ever regarded as a badge of slavery.

"Madam," he said, rising and advancing towards her, while as he did so she retreated back towards the door, "Madam, I have come here to desire an explanation from you as to why I find you gone from my house and living under the shelter of another person's roof. And also, I have to ask," he continued, letting his eye fall upon the plainness of her attire, "why you present yourself before me in such a garb as you now wear? I must crave an immediate answer, madam."

"I am here to give it," she replied. "And since I do not doubt that it is the last time you and I will ever exchange words again in the world, that answer shall be full and complete. But, first, do you answer me this, Lord Fordingbridge. Was it by your craft that Mr. Elphinston and Douglas and Archibald Sholto were denounced?"

She spoke very calmly; in her voice there was no tremor; also he could see that her hands, in one of which she held a small packet, did not quiver.

"Madam," he replied, endeavouring to also assume a similar calmness, but not succeeding particularly well, while at the same time one of those strong waves of passion rose in his breast which he had hitherto always mastered when engaged in discussion with her, "madam, by what right do you ask me such a question as this? What does it concern you if I choose to denounce Jacobite plotters to the Government? Nothing! And again I ask why you have left my roof for that of the worldling with whom you have taken refuge, and why you appear before me in a garb more befitting a mercer's apprentice than my wife?"

"Your equivocation condemns you. Simeon Larpent, it was you who played the spy, you who were the denouncer of those three men. I knew that there could be no doubt on that score."

"And again I say, what if I did? What then? What does it concern you? What have you to do with it?"

"I have this to do," she replied; "but that which is to be done shall be done before witnesses," and stepping to the bell rope, she pulled it strongly, so that the peal rang through the house.

"Witnesses!" he exclaimed. "Witnesses! None are required. Yet, be careful; I warn you ere it is too late. If you summon witnesses to this interview, they may chance to hear that which, to prevent their hearing, you would rather have died. Be careful what you do, madam."

As he finished, the footman opened the door, and, without hesitating one moment, she said to the man:

"Ask the two gentlemen to step this way."

"Two gentlemen!" he repeated; "two gentlemen! So, this is a trap! Who are the two gentlemen, pray?" and as he spoke he drew his sword. "If, as I suspect, they are the two bullies--your lover, whom you meet at masquerades, whom you give assignations to, and his friend--they shall at least find that I can defend myself."

In truth, bold as he seemed, he was now in great fear. He expected nothing else but that, when the door again opened, Sholto and Elphinston would appear before him, and he began to quake and to think his last hour was come. His treachery was, he feared, soon to be repaid.

She made no answer to his vile taunt about her lover, nor did she take any heed of the drawn sword that shook in his hand; had she been a statue she could not have stood more still as she regarded him with contempt and scorn.

Then the door did open, and Sir Charles Ames and Douglas Sholto entered the room. The first he did not know; had, indeed, never seen him before; but at the sight of the other he grasped his weapon more firmly, expecting that ere another moment had passed the hands of the young Highlander would be at his throat, and that he would have to defend his life against him. To his intense surprise Sholto treated him with as much indifference as if he too had been a statue; after one glance--which, if disdain could have the power to slay, would have withered him as he stood--he took no further heed of him. As for Sir Charles Ames, he, observing the drawn weapon in the other's hand, smiled contemptuously, shrugged his shoulders, and then took his place behind Lady Fordingbridge and by the side of Douglas.

"Sir Charles and you, Douglas," she said, "forgive me for asking you to be present at this interview, yet I do so because I desire that in after days there shall be one or two men, at least, to testify to that which I now do." Then, turning towards her husband, who still stood where he had risen on her entrance, she said:

"Simeon Larpent, since first I met you--to my eternal unhappiness--your life has been one long lie, one base deceit. The first proposals ever made to me by you were degrading to an honest woman, were infamy to listen to. Next, you obtained me for your wife by more lies, by more duplicity, by more deceit. Also, from the time I have been your wife, you, yourself a follower of the unhappy house of Stuart by birth and bringing up, have endeavoured in every way to encompass the death of three followers of the same cause, because one of those men was to have been my husband had not you foully wronged him to me; because the other two were his and my friends."

She paused a moment as though to gather fresh energy for her denunciation of him; and he, craven as he was, stood there before her, white to the very lips, and with his eyes wandering from one to the other of the two listeners. Then she continued:

"For all this, Simeon Larpent, but especially for that which you have last done, for this your last piece of cruel, wicked treachery, for this your last bitter, tigerish endeavour to destroy three men who had otherwise been safe, I renounce and deny you for ever."

All started as she uttered these words, but without heeding them she continued:

"For ever. I disavow you, I forswear you as my husband. I have long ceased to be aught to you but a wife in name; henceforth I will not be so much as that. I have quitted your house. I quit now and part with for so long as I shall live your name, the share in the rank that you smirch and befoul. From to-day I will never willingly set eyes on you again, never speak one word to you, though you lay dying at my feet, never answer to the name of Fordingbridge. I return to what I was; I become once more Katherine Fane."

He, standing before her, moistened his lips as though about to speak, but again she went on, taking now from off her finger the one ring that alone she wore. Placing it on the table, she continued:

"Thus I discard you, thus I sever to all eternity the bond that binds me to you; a bond that no priest, no Church, shall ever persuade or force me into again recognising." And with these words she placed also on the table the package she had brought into the room with her.

"There," she said, "is every trinket you have given me, except the jewellery of your family, which you have possession of. At your own house is every dress and robe, every garment I own that has been bought with your money. So the severance is made. Again I say that I renounce you and deny you. From to-day, Lord Fordingbridge, your existence ceases for me."

It seemed that she had spoken her last word. With an inclination of her head towards those two witnesses whom she had summoned to hear her denunciation, she moved towards the door, while they, after casting one glance at him, the Denounced, standing there--Sir Charles Ames, conveying in his looks all the ineffable disdain which a polished gentleman of the world might be supposed to feel towards another who had fallen so low, and Douglas regarding him as a man regards some savage, ignoble beast--prepared to follow her.

Then, at last, he found his voice--a harsh and raucous one, as though emotion, or hate, or rage were stifling its natural tones--and exclaimed ere they could quit the room:

"Stay. The last word is not yet said. You, Katherine Fane, as you elect, wisely, to call yourself henceforth, and you, her witnesses, listen to what I have now to say. This parley, this conference, call it what you will, may justly be completed."

She paused and looked at him--disdainfully, and careless as to what he might have to say in this her final interview with him--and they, doing as she did, paused also.

Then he continued, still speaking hoarsely but clearly enough:

"You have said, madam, that you renounce and deny me for ever; that you are resolved never more to share my rank or title, nor again to bear my name. Are you so certain that 'tis yours to so refuse or so renounce at your good will and pleasure?"

"What, sir, do you mean by such questions?" asked Sir Charles Ames, speaking now for the first time. But Lord Fordingbridge, heeding him not, continued to address her, and now, as he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed his finger at her.

"You have been very scornful, very cold and disdainful since first we came together, madam, treating me ever to your most bitter dislike, while all the time every thought and idea of yours was given to another man--all the time, I say, while you continued to bear the title of the Viscountess Fordingbridge. Once more, I ask, are you so sure that this title was yours to fling away, the husband yours to renounce and deny in your own good pleasure?"

And his eyes glared at her now as he spoke, and she knew that the devil which dwelt in him had got possession.

"Be more explicit," she said, "or cease to speak at all. If I could think, if I could awake as from an evil dream and learn that I had never been your wife, never plighted troth with you, I would upon my knees thank God for such a mercy."

"Those thanks may be more due than you dream of. How if I were to tell you----?"

"What?" fell from the lips of all, while Douglas took a step nearer to him, and Sir Charles felt sure that in another moment they would be told of some earlier marriage. "What?"

For answer he went on, one finger raised and pointing at her as though to emphasize his remarks:

"You have taunted me often with the Jesuit education I received at St. Omer--at Lisbon. Well, it was true: such an education I did receive at both places. Only, madam--my Lady Fordingbridge!--Miss Fane!--have you never heard that one so educated may, at such places, receive other things? may become acolytes, priests? What if _I_ became such? what would you then be--a priest----?"

"It is a lie!" she exclaimed, "and you know it."

"Are you so sure? Can you prove--or, rather, _disprove_ it? Answer me that--answer, if you are sure that you share my name and rank--have power to renounce them."

As he finished, Douglas sprang at him and, in spite of his drawn sword, would have choked the life out of him on the spot had not Sir Charles interceded, while at the same moment Kitty's voice was heard bidding him desist.

"Even so," she said, "true or untrue, it is best. The infamy, if infamy there is, must be borne. At least, I am free. Free! Am justified after these hints!"

"Ay," Lord Fordingbridge said, "you may be free. To do what, however? To fling yourself into your lover's arms to-night--only, where will you find him? Newgate, the Tower, the New Gaol in Southwark are full of such as he; 'tis there, Mistress Fane, that doubtless you must seek him."

"And 'tis there," said Douglas Sholto, an inspiration occurring suddenly to his mind, "that you shall join him. The King has issued orders for every Jesuit priest to be arrested who shall be found, or denounced, in these dominions, and, Jacobite though I am, with my life at stake, I will drag you there with my own hands ere you shall be suffered to escape. You have proclaimed yourself, shown us the way; by your own lips shall you be judged."