Chapter 24

"FOR THE SECOND TIME VANE HAD RISKED HIS LIFE FOR HER"

Lavinia stopped and turned, not completely round but half way. She was in a flutter, though outwardly calm. She made no attempt to recognise Vane, and indeed had Lancelot not announced himself, recognition would have been difficult, so greatly had he changed.

"You've forgotten me. You're right," he went on agitatedly. "I deserve to be forgotten, though if you knew of the dastardly plot to crush me I believe even _you_ would forgive me."

"Even _I_? Am I, then, so hard-hearted?"

"No, I don't believe you are, but everything looked so black against me I could scarce hope that you would listen to what I have to say. And there's so great a difference between our fortunes. Mine's blighted. Yours--I heard you sing to-night. 'Twas ravishing. You're destined to be famous. Mr. Gay confided to me his hopes about you. Did he say how good he was to visit me in Newgate--that hell upon earth?"

"Yes, Mr. Gay is the best man living. I owe everything to him."

"I know--I know. He went over your story. You're wonderful. But I always thought that, though I knew so little about you."

He paused. His glistening eyes scanned her face eagerly. He would have given worlds to know what was in her mind and heart. But she gave him no chance. She remained impassive.

"You've been very unfortunate, Mr. Vane. I'm truly sorry for you."

"That's something," said he gratefully. "It consoles me for what I've gone through. The lies told by Rofflash and Jarvis, who I thought was my friend, nearly sent me to Tyburn."

"And Mistress Salisbury?"

Lavinia's manner was as cold as ice. It was only by a great effort that she forced her lips to utter Sally's name. She knew it meant a deadly thrust for Vane, but a woman has no mercy where another woman is concerned.

Vane hung his head.

"I don't know what to think about her," said he huskily. "I can hardly believe she was in the conspiracy to consign me to the gallows."

"Why not? Is she in love with you?"

"How can I tell? I--I--well, I suppose I may say in justice to her that she did her best to nurse me through the fever that followed my wound."

"Then she does love you," cried Lavinia roused out of her coldness. "I can't imagine the creature doing a good action without a strong motive."

"I've heard say she's generous and is always ready to put her hand in her pocket to help anybody in distress."

"Very likely. It's easy to be generous with money that comes so lightly. Every guinea she spends is tainted," exclaimed Lavinia passionately. "And so you accepted her help?"

"Not in money. She found me grievously ill at Dr. Mountchance's on London Bridge. Mountchance is a quack and a charlatan, and she had me carried to her own lodgings else I must have died. I'd scarce recovered from my wound when I was arrested at Rofflash's instigation and thrown into Newgate."

"I suppose she did right and you, too, Mr. Vane," rejoined Lavinia with a toss of her head. "It is naught to do with me. Let us talk of other matters. Mr. Gay tells me your father's a clergyman."

"Yes. He would have had me be one too, but I hated everything to do with the Church. We parted in anger, and I went my own way. Ill luck followed me. I've made a mess of my life. Everything went wrong. I thought Fortune was coming my way when I met you, but she turned her back."

"That wasn't my fault, Mr. Vane."

"Great heaven, no! 'Twas entirely my own folly and accursed fate. I've no one to blame but myself. Wine was an easy way of drowning my troubles."

"You've no need to remind me of that, Mr. Vane," put in Lavinia hastily.

"I beg your pardon for going over my sins, but open confession's good for the soul, they say."

"I'd rather not hear about your sins, Mr. Vane. I don't want to listen when you talk like that. Tell me something of the other side."

"I doubt if there is another side," he rejoined in deep dejection. "I've had to come back to my father. He's vicar of a parish not far from here. You see my stay in Newgate and my trial ruined me. The publishers refused me employment and even my old companions turned their backs upon me."

"That was no loss."

"Perhaps not, but it convinced me I was done for in London."

"What do you intend to do, then?"

"I can't tell. Nothing, I suppose. I had my tragedy returned, and I've no heart to write another--except, maybe, my own, and that will have to be the task of somebody else."

"What do you mean? You're talking in riddles. How can anybody else write your tragedy?"

"Anybody who knew the facts could do it. You could. No one better. The end's the difficulty--for you, not for me. But sooner or later you'd hear what the end was."

Lavinia grasped his wrist tightly, and looking into his face, saw his lips twitching convulsively.

"I understand," she burst out, "you mean to take your own life. Oh...."

"A tragedy must have a tragic finish or it isn't a tragedy. What have I left but for the curtain to come down?"

"You're talking nonsense. Think of your father--your mother, if you have one."

"The best in the world, poor soul."

"Very well, that settles it. You're more fortunate than I am. My mother's about the worst."

"Anyhow, one must die sooner or later. I was within an ace of death two months ago. The gallows wouldn't have been worse than a Hampstead pond."

"You're more foolish than ever. I won't listen to you. Swear to be sensible and think no longer of the miserables. I don't believe you're much more than a year older than me. Life's all before you."

"Life? A very little bit of it, and what a life! Waiting for death. Shall I tell you what Dr. Mead, the great physician, told my father who asked him to see me? 'That young man hasn't long to live. I give him a year. Killed by the Newgate pestilence.' Now, what do you say, Miss Fenton?"

"Don't call me Miss Fenton," cried Lavinia, her voice quivering. "It makes us seem miles apart. You poor fellow! But doctors aren't always right."

"This one is. I feel it. But I don't care so long as you forgive me and make me believe I'm no longer a stranger. You do pardon me, don't you, Lavinia?"

"Oh, yes--yes--let us forget everything but our two selves," she cried impulsively. Her heart was overflowing with pity. She held out both her hands. He seized them and raised them to his lips.

"May I meet you to-morrow?" he whispered. "The only thing I would live for is the joy of seeing you, of hearing your voice. It will be but for a short time."

"Oh, you mustn't say that. You don't know," she cried tremulously.

A wistful smile stole over his wan face. Silently he held her hands for a few seconds, pressed them spasmodically and the next moment they were free. He had crept away.

A wave of emotion swept over Lavinia. Her temples throbbed. A lump rose in her throat. Her eyes were streaming. She was inexpressibly sad. Jealousy, resentment, every harsh feeling had disappeared. Though she had tried to combat Vane's dismal forebodings a conviction was gradually forcing itself upon her that he was right. He was a doomed man.

It was quite ten minutes before she was composed enough to enter the cottage. Betty and her mother were tiptoe with excitement. The old woman was too feeble to walk as far as the concert room, but her daughter had gone and listened outside, and as it was a hot night and the windows were open, she heard Lavinia's song perfectly.

"Mercy on me, child, why, an angel couldn't ha' sung more beautiful. La, if it only be like that in Heaven! I'd ha' given anything for mother to ha' been there. I see you come out with a gentleman, but I know manners better than to stare at others as is above me."

"That was Mr. Gay, the poet. It was he who took me to the Duchess of Queensberry. I told you how kind she was to me, didn't I?"

"Aye, so you did. Well, but sure how the folk did clap their hands and roar for you to sing again. They loved to hear you purely an' no wonder. I never heard anything like it. But bless me, Lavinia--beggin' your pardon, which I ought to say Miss Fenton--you don't seem overjoyed."

"The girl's a-tired out," put in the old lady. "I mind it was just the same with my poor mistress Molly. She sometimes couldn't move one foot in front o' t'other when she comed off the stage."

"That's true enough," said Lavinia wearily. "It's the excitement. I shall be myself again after a night's rest."

"Aye, to be sure. Some supper, as is all ready, and then to bed," cried Betty.

The prescription was good enough, but so far as the supper was concerned Lavinia could not, to use Betty's words, "make much of a fist of it." She was glad enough to escape the clack of tongues and the fire of questions and crawl to her room.

Slowly the hours crept by, and when the early summer dawn broke Lavinia was still awake watching the faint streaks of pale gold through the little latticed window.

The rest in bed had not brought repose. Her mind was troubled. Lancelot Vane's unexpected appearance and the story of his persecution strove for mastery with the recollection of her triumph at the concert and had overpowered it. All the old tenderness, the joy of being near him revived. It was useless to ask why, useless to call herself weak and silly to be drawn towards a man who had no force of character, whose prospects were remote, whose health was undermined. The impression she once had that he was faithless had not wholly disappeared, and she tried to banish it. Her imagination found for him all manner of excuses. Yet she could not decide that she wanted to see him again. One moment it seemed as though the blank which had come into her life since their rupture had been filled up now that he had come back, the next that it would have been better if he had not. She had gradually come to regard her profession and all it meant to her in the future as the only thing that mattered, and now in a flash at the sight of him all was uncertainty and distraction.

But for the second time Vane had risked his life for her! Mr. Gay said it was on her account that he had fought with Dorrimore, and Mr. Gay would not tell an untruth. After all, this was everything. How could she think otherwise than kindly of a man in spite of his faults, who was ever ready to champion her? And she dropped off to sleep no longer saying that she would not meet him.