Part 4

She leaned forward eagerly. The cloud of weariness had passed from her face. Her white, bejeweled fingers touched his coat sleeve.

"My friend," she said, "you are making a rare but a fatal mistake. You undervalue yourself. Do not shake your head, for I know what I am talking about. Lord Sydenham has spoken to me; there have been others, too. There are many people who are watching you. You must not disappoint them."

He gazed into her intent face and sighed.

"Sometimes," he said, in a low tone, "I think that it is my fate to disappoint myself and all other people. Lady Malingcourt, can you tell me why it is that now when many of the things I have dreamed of are becoming realities, my desire for them seems sometimes honeycombed with weakness? Often lately I have wished myself back at my cottage; I have closed my eyes, and the old days of poverty, of freedom, have seemed wonderfully sweet. It is weakness," he went on, a sudden hoarse passion in his voice, "cursed weakness. I will stamp it down. I shall outgrow it. But it's there, and it's a live thing."

Afterward he liked to think of her as she had seemed that night. The weariness, the flippancy of her outlook upon life seemed for the moment to have fallen away like a mask. The woman shone out--flamed in her eyes, was manifest in her softened tone.

"It is the toll we all have to pay," she said. "We expect too much of life. The things which look so beautiful to us when we are hammering at the gates crumble into dust when we have passed through into their midst, and seek to grasp them."

"Is there nothing in life," he said, "which is real--which remains?"

She did not answer him, her silence was surely purposeful. She sat with half-closed eyes, as though listening to the music of the breeze-shaken limes, and Strone felt his heart beating madly. The significance of his question and her silence were suddenly revealed to him. A mad desire possessed him to seize her hands, to force her to look at him. Instinct told him that the moment was propitious, that the great gulf between them was bridged over by a sudden emotional crisis, which might never occur again.

She raised her eyes to his, and he was amazed at their wonderful depth and color. The change came home to him, and his own pulses beat fiercely.

"Let us talk about Bangdon," she said. "Do you remember the first time I saw you? John brought you into dinner."

"If I had known," he remarked, smiling, "that there was a woman there, I should have run for my life."

"Yet I do not think that you were shy. What a surprise you were to me. You wore the clothes of a mechanic, and you talked--as even John could never have talked. Do you know, I think that you are a very wonderful person. It is so short a time ago."

He turned toward her, and his face was suddenly haggard.

"It is a lifetime--a chaos of months and years. Let us talk of something else."

"No! Why?"

"Don't you understand?" he asked fiercely.

There was a short, tense silence. The diamond star upon her bosom rose and fell. Lady Malingcourt did not recognize herself in the least. Only she knew that he at any rate had been swift to recognize the wonderful transfiguring change which that moment of self-revelation had wrought in her life. But for that she knew that his self-control would not have precipitated the crisis. A sort of glad recklessness possessed her. At least, she had found, if only for a moment, something which filled to the brim the great empty cup of life.

"You are so enigmatic," she murmured.

"You had better not tempt me to be otherwise," he answered.

The delight of it carried her away. Their eyes met, and the memory of that moment went with him through life--to be cherished jealously, even when death came.

"Why not?"

"Because I love you. Because you know it! You have filled my life. You have made everything else of no account. I love you!"

He had found her the victim of a mood, marvelously plastic, marvelously alluring. He drew nearer to her. Then from the street below came an interruption. A furiously driven hansom was pulled up, a man sprang out, glanced upward, and waved his hand. A curse trembled upon Strone's lips. Lady Malingcourt sat up and returned his greeting.

"So like Sydenham," she murmured. "However he may have loitered on the way, he always arrives in a desperate hurry."

Strone and Lord Sydenham came face to face in the hall--the latter recognized him with amazement.

"Was it you whom I saw with my cousin?" he asked.

"Yes," Strone answered. "I was just leaving. Good night."

"Wait a moment," Lord Sydenham exclaimed. "I wanted to see you particularly. Come upstairs again."

"All right at the House?" Strone asked.

Lord Sydenham laughed curiously.

"That depends on how you look at it," he answered. "The division came off, after all."

"I was paired," Strone said quickly.

"I know! But your men went solid with the opposition."

Strone stood still in blank amazement. It had come, then--already. Lord Sydenham watched him and was satisfied. He led the way into the drawing-room. Strone followed like a man in a dream. He heard a greeting pass between the two. Their first few sentences were unintelligible to him.

It had come and sooner than Strone had expected. His men went with the opposition as a result of their bickerings and mistrust. Lord Sydenham contentedly lit a cigarette. Strone stood with clinched hands, his head thrown back, his eyes ablaze with anger. He had been deceived and tricked, and by the very men whose cause in his hands was becoming a religion. It was ignoble. The man and woman watched him curiously.

"My opportunity is gone," Strone said at last. "They have thrown me over."

"It is a proof," Lord Sydenham answered, "of their colossal folly. As for you, Strone, it will be the making of your political career. Come, we are perhaps keeping Lady Malingcourt up. I will walk a little way with you and explain what I mean."

They passed out into the cool night. Lord Sydenham removed his hat and walked for some distance, carrying it in his hand. Suddenly he turned to his companion.

"Strone," he said, "you must join us."

Strone laughed--enigmatically.

"I am handicapped," he remarked, "with principles. Besides, imagine the horror with which your old-fashioned Conservatives would regard my social schemes. It is impossible."

"I hope to convince you," Lord Sydenham said earnestly, "that it is nothing of the sort. In the first place, I want you to remember that during the last ten years a marvelous change has transformed the relative positions of the two great political parties. The advent of the Liberal Unionists into our ranks was the consummation of what was fast becoming inevitable. To-day it is the Conservative party who are the party of progress. It is the party to which you must naturally belong."

"In the event of your refusal, let me ask you seriously whether you realize what you are doing. You have rare gifts--you have all the qualities of the successful politician. I offer you a firm footing upon the ladder--your ascent is a certainty. I will not appeal to your personal ambition. I appeal to your religion."

Strone looked up with a queer smile.

"My religion?"

"Yes! I use the word in the broadest sense. Consciously or unconsciously, you have proclaimed it in your conversation--the House--the reviews. If you are not one of those who love their fellow-men, you, at least, have a pity for them so profound that it has become the _motif_ of your life. It is a great cause, yours, Strone. You have made it your own. None but you can do it justice. Think of the submerged millions who have been waiting many years for a prophet to call them up from the depths. You have put on the mantle. Dare you cast it away?"

"Never in your life," he said, "will there come to you such an opportunity as this. I offer you a place in the party which will be in the majority next session--the lawmakers. I offer you also my own personal support of the Labor measures we have discussed. It must be yes or no by to-morrow."

When Strone let himself into his house a few moments later the room on the ground floor was almost in total darkness.

"Milly!"

No answer. Yet she was in the room, for he could hear her heavy breathing and trace the dim outline of her form upon the sofa. An ugly suspicion seized him. He turned up the gas and groaned.

An empty tumbler lay on the ground beside her. Strone bent over her. This was the woman to whom he was chained for all his days, whom he had pledged himself to love and cherish, the woman who bore his name, and who must rise with him to whatever heights his ambition and genius might command. There was no escape--there never could be any escape. He walked restlessly up and down the room. The woman slept on.

Presently he saw that she had been writing--a proceeding so unusual that he came to a standstill before the table. An envelope and a letter lay open there; the first words of the latter, easily legible in Milly's round characters, startled him. He glanced at the address. It was to Mr. Richard Mason, Fairbanks, Gascester. Without any further hesitation, he took the letter into his hand and read it.

"Dear Dick: The last time I saw you I turned you out of this house because you asked me something as you didn't ought. I am writing these few lines to know if you are still in the same mind. I don't want you to make a mistake. I don't care one brass button for you--never shall. But things have turned out so that I ain't happy here. I never ought to have married Enoch, that's sure. He ain't the same class as you and me. He don't care for me, and he never will. That's why I reckon I'm going to leave him. Now if you want me to go to Ireland with you next journey, say so, and I'll go. If I try to live here any longer, I shall go mad. You ain't to think that it's because I like you better than him, because I don't, and no born woman in her right sense would. What I'm looking at is, that if I go away with you, he'll be free. That's all. There's no other way that I can think of, except for me to do away with myself and that I dursn't do. So if you say come, I shall be ready. Yours, Milly."

The sheet of paper fluttered from his fingers. He turned to find her sitting up--watching him.

"You've been reading my letter," she cried, with a little gasp.

"Yes," he answered. "I have read it."

She stared at him, heavy-eyed, still dull of apprehension. There was a short silence. She struggled into a sitting posture; by degrees her memory and consciousness returned.

"I don't care if you have," she declared. "Put it in the envelope and post it. It would have been on the way now if Mary hadn't brought in the whisky. It's what you want, ain't it? You'll be quit of me then, and you can go to her."

He tore the letter across and flung it into the fire. She watched it burn idly.

"I don't know why you've done that," she said wearily. "You know you want to be free. I don't know as I blame you. I saw you with her to-night."

"What do you mean?" he asked quickly.

"Just that. I took Mary to the St. James', and coming back we stopped to watch the people driving by. She's very beautiful, Enoch, and she's your sort. I ain't."

There was a silence. Their eyes met, and the hopeless misery in her face went to his heart like a knife. In that moment he realized how only salvation could come to her. He saw her suddenly with a great pity and beyond her all the great underneath millions he wanted to help. The moment was like a flash of light. He crossed the room and sat down by her side.

"Milly," he said gently, "let us try and talk like sensible people. I am afraid I haven't been a very good husband to you, and this sort of thing"--he touched the decanter--"has got to be stopped. Now tell me how we are to turn over a new leaf. What would you like to do?"

She drew a little breath which became a sob.

"It's me," she exclaimed passionately. "I'm a beast. I ain't fit to be your wife, Enoch. Let me go my way. I'll never interfere with you. You've been too good to me already. You can't care for me! Why should you?"

He took her hand in his.

"Milly," he said, "we are husband and wife, and we've got to make the best of it. Now I want you to promise to give up that stuff, and, in return, I will do anything you ask."

"Then care for me a little," she cried; "or if you can't, pretend to. If you'd only kiss me now and then without me asking, act as though I were flesh and blood--treat me as a woman instead of a ghost--I'd be easily satisfied! Can't you pretend just a little, Enoch? Maybe you won't mean it a bit--I don't care. I'd close my eyes and think it was all real."

Her voice broke down, her eyes were wet and shining with tears. He kissed her on the lips.

"I will do more than pretend, Milly," he said.

She came close to him--almost shyly. A look of ineffable content shone in her face.

* * * * *

Ever the same deep stillness, a sort of brooding calm as though the land slept, the faint rustling of a west wind, the slighter murmuring of insects. And, save for these things, silence. Strone stood on the threshold of the empty cottage, which as yet he had not unlocked, looking down upon the familiar patchwork of fields and woods, looking away, indeed, through the blue filmy light with unseeing eyes, for a whole flood of old memories were tugging at his heartstrings. A curious sense of detachment from himself and his surroundings possessed him. Milly, his house at Gascester, his shattered political career, were like dreams, something chimerical, burdens which had fallen away. A rare sense of freedom was upon him. He took long breaths of the clear, bracing air. The place had its old delight for him. He threw himself upon the turf, and closed his eyes. Here at last was peace.

Then the old madness again, burning in his brain, hot in his blood, driving him across the hills, stirring up again the old recklessness, the old wild delight. She was going to marry Lord Sydenham. She was passing forever out of his reach, and once she had been very near. His heart shook with passionate recollections. With every step he took, his fierce unrest became a more ungovernable thing. What a farce it all was--his stern attempt at self-control, his life shut off now from everything worth having, a commonplace, dronelike existence. After all, what folly! The cup of life had been offered to him, his lips had touched the brim. Was it poison, after all, which he had seen among the dregs? Yet what poison could be worse than this?

Past the Devenhills' house, whence the music of her voice beat the air around him, filled his ears with longing, brought almost the tears to his eyes. Had he lived, indeed, through such delights as these mocking memories would have him believe, when he had watched the roses fluttering through the darkness, elf flowers, yet warm and fragrant enough when he had snatched them from the dusty road, and crept away with them into the shadows! Oh, what manner of man had he become to be the slave of such memories? He was ashamed, yet drunk with the madness of it.

Nowhere in this strange country of flowers and sweet odors, of singing birds and delicate breezes, could he hope to escape from the old thrall. The dreary machinery of life seemed no longer possible to him. Milly and her unconquerable vulgarity, his narrowing career, even his work, mocked him with their emptiness. He turned backward, but he did not go home.

Twilight came on and the gray stillness slept softly on hill and valley. Night crept apace and brought no abatement in the struggle of the man. Again and again with cameo distinctness he saw Lord Sydenham's face with its queer incredulous smile when Strone told him of his decision to leave London, and he heard again as though they were there spoken the older man's reply uttered with a note of anger in his thin well-modulated voice.

"The thing is absurd," he had declared.

"Your refusal I must accept if you insist. I should do so with less regret, perhaps, because sooner or later you must come to us. The step may seem a bold one to you to-day. In a year or so it will become inevitable. I might be content to wait, although you will be wasting some of the best years of your life. But when you tell me that you are giving up your career--leaving Parliament--going back to your manufacturing--oh, rubbish! I haven't the patience to argue with you."

Strone's face was haggard and his lips were dry as he walked on. There was a subtle witchery in the night that closed in on him overpoweringly. Memories crowded with startling vividness--parties of bejeweled and bedecked women--the soft hum of laughter and pleasant voices mingled with the music of the violins. The air seemed suddenly heavy with the odor of flowers and cigarettes and many strange perfumes, and through it all came a frail exquisite face and voice that said:

"My friend, it is you yourself who are responsible for our unlived lives. You hold the gates open before you--you----"

He started back and closed his eyes. The past had him in its grip....

Nowhere in this strange country of flowers and sweet odors, of singing birds and delicate breezes, could he hope to escape from the old thrall. The dreary machinery of life seemed no longer possible to him. Milly and her unconquerable vulgarity, his narrowing career, even his work, mocked him with their emptiness. He caught the evening express with a moment to spare, flung himself, breathless, among the cushions of an empty carriage just as the train glided from the station. Without any clear purpose in his mind, he obeyed an impulse which seemed irresistible. He must go to her.

At St. Pancras he remembered for a moment that he was wearing his ordinary homespun clothes, disordered, too, with his long walk and race for the train. Nevertheless, he did not hesitate. He called for a hansom, and drove to her house. The servant who admitted him looked him over with surprise, but believed that Lady Malingcourt was within. She was even then dressing for the opera. Strone was shown into her study--and waited.

It was nearly half an hour before she came to him, and whatever feelings his sudden arrival had excited she had had time to conceal them. She came to him buttoning her gloves, and followed by her maid carrying her opera cloak. The latter withdrew discreetly. Strone rose up--a strange figure enough, with his wind-tossed hair and burning eyes.

"You?" she exclaimed, with raised eyebrows. "How wonderful!"

The sight of her, the sound of her voice, were fuel to his smoldering passion. His heart was hot with the love of her.

"Is it true?" he asked fiercely. "I have seen your brother. He says that you are going to marry Lord Sydenham."

She looked at him in faint surprise.

"And why on earth should I not marry Lord Sydenham?" she asked.

It was like a sudden chill. She was angry, then, or she did not care. Yet there had been times when she had looked at him indifferently. He made an effort at repression.

"There is no reason why you should not," he admitted. "There is no reason why you should not tell me--if it be true. For God's sake, tell me!"

"It is perfectly true," she answered.

"Lord Sydenham is nothing to you," he cried.

"Well, he soon will be--my husband."

"You do not care for him."

"An excellent reason to marry him, then. I shall have no disenchantment to fear."

"Oh, this is mockery!" he cried. "You can juggle with words, I know. I am no match for you at that. Don't!"

"Don't what?"

"Marry Lord Sydenham."

She nodded her head thoughtfully.

"On certain conditions," she answered, "I will not."

"What are they?" he asked hoarsely.

"You accept the place in the government which was offered to you and reënter political life."

"Well?"

"You never ask more of my friendship than I am willing to give."

"Well?"

"You leave your wife altogether."

He started and shook his head slowly.

"You don't understand. Milly has--a weakness. Even now I have to be always watching."

"I know more of your wife than you think," she answered. "I know the circumstances of your marriage, and something of her life since. My condition must stand."

"Do you know," he said, "that it would mean ruin to her--body and soul?"

"She is not fit to be your wife," Lady Malingcourt said coldly. "You can never make her fit. I think that you would be justified in ignoring her claim upon you. There are limits to one's responsibility."

"These," he said, "are your conditions?"

"Yes."

He drew near to her. The struggle of the last few months seemed lined into his face.

"Listen," he said. "I want to be honest--to you. I can't see it any way but this. There's the woman and all the great underneath millions I wanted to help on one side--and on the other--you."

"No," she interrupted. "Your life's work was never meant to be in Gascester. It is your domestic duty, or what you imagine to be your domestic duty, against your duty to your fellow-creatures. You can leave me out. Be a man. Free yourself--make use of your powers. The world is a great place for such as you. Strike off your shackles."

"There will be no more--Lord Sydenhams?" he asked breathlessly.

She smiled upon him--a transforming, transfiguring smile. It was the woman who looked out upon him from those soft, clear eyes.

"I am not anxious," she said, "to be married at all. Only, one must do something. And lately London has been very dull. Is that you, Sydenham? I am quite ready. I am afraid that you must be tired of waiting."

Lord Sydenham had entered almost noiselessly. He looked from one to the other doubtfully.

"I am not interrupting anything in the nature of a conspiracy, I trust?" he inquired, with a faint note of sarcasm.

Lady Malingcourt smiled.

"I am endeavoring to make Mr. Strone repent of his hasty decision," she said. "I believe that I have succeeded."

The next morning Strone walked in his grounds before breakfast, his hands behind his back, his face anxious with thought. He had all the sensations of an executioner. Milly had to be faced--his decision made known to her. All through the night this thing had been before him, had hung around his pillow like an ugly nightmare. Now, in the clear morning sunlight, the brutality of it seemed to be staring him in the face. She was settling down so eagerly into this new life, so proud of her home and belongings, so timidly anxious to avoid any of those small lapses which kindled Strone's irritability.

Of course she could continue exactly as she was. There would be no difficulty about her income--she could go on her way making friends, become even a power in the small social world whose recognition had given her such unqualified delight. But Strone was not a man to deceive himself, and he knew very well that under the good-natured, vulgar exterior there remained the woman, passionate, jealous, hypersensitive. He remembered that last night in Marlow Crescent. He had saved her then, only to fling her back into the abyss! He tried hard to reason with himself. There was a world open to him of which she could not possibly become a denizen. Her presence by his side would hamper his career--would place him continually in a false position, would be a serious drawback to him in the great struggle on behalf of those suffering millions into which he was longing to throw himself. For Strone, at least, was honest in this. His personal ambition was a small thing. He was an enthusiast in a great and unselfish cause. The favor of Lord Sydenham, the social recognition which Lady Malingcourt was able to secure for him, he welcomed only as important means toward his great end. He was shrewd enough to see their importance, but for society as a thing by itself he had no predilection whatever.

"Enoch!"