CHAPTER XXVI.

NOT IN THE BARGAIN.

Nearly a month went by and the time was getting towards Christmas. The weather in London was bitterly cold. Fogs were frequent, and there was a good deal of sickness about.

Mrs. Pelham had left town and gone down to Pelham Towers to stay with the new owner and his wife. She was to spend Christmas with them. Tarbot had discovered what he considered a specific against influenza and was specially busy. His wife helped him. She had thrown herself into the full interest of his work, and was a valuable assistant. He found himself talking over his cases with her. She gave him many an important suggestion.

As a competent nurse and even as a friend he began to find her not disagreeable. Her hopes were high that she might yet win that shriveled and undeveloped part of him which he called his heart. As illness increased and the doctor’s time became more and more busy, Clara hoped against hope that his darling revenge was being put out of sight. With all her knowledge and all her cleverness, however, she little knew her man.

Towards the middle of December the influenza began to abate, and on a certain evening Tarbot came home early, entered his wife’s drawing-room, and, flinging himself into a chair, looked her full in the face.

“I have earned a holiday,” he said. “It will be possible for me to take it, and I mean to do so.”

“Indeed!” she replied.

“Yes, I am going into the country.”

“Where to?”

“To Devonshire.”

“To Devonshire,” repeated Clara, sitting upright.

“Yes, to Devonshire. Mrs. Pelham, I understand, is now staying at the Towers, and I want to see her.”

“What for, Luke?”

He was silent for a moment, staring full into her face.

“I wish to see Mrs. Pelham, Clara, for that purpose which I mean no longer to delay in putting into execution. I have discovered beyond doubt that poison was administered to Sir Piers Pelham. The poison, without question, caused the child’s death. This poison was given by Sir Richard Pelham, who is now the owner of the property and the reigning baronet. Mrs. Pelham must know this fact without delay.”

As he spoke Clara rose from her seat and began to pace up and down the room. She had the lithe, quick movements of the tigress. She was wearing a dress with a dash of yellow in it. The dress was made of velvet and clung to her figure, which was lissom and graceful. When her husband stopped speaking she paused in front of him, her thin hands clasped.

“Why do you talk folly?” she said. “Why do you disguise your intentions and talk to me as if I did not know?”

“Because I think it best,” he replied. “We never can tell when our words may fall on other ears. That old proverb about the little bird comes true now and again, Clara. Understand once for all, that in this matter I intend from first to last to treat Pelham as if I myself believed in his guilt.”

“You are intolerable,” she cried, turning away from him. “I cannot work with you on those terms. If you will be above board, at least with me, I can then make up my mind whether I go with you or not.”

“Make up your mind whether you go with me or not?” he repeated in astonishment. “Have you ever had any doubt?”

“Many times,” she answered.

He glanced at her, read something in her downcast face and his own turned pale. Then starting to his feet he approached her. In an instant both her hands were in his grasp.

“Did you mean what you said just now?”

She looked up at him. Stout as her courage was, something in his eyes made her heart quail.

“I didn’t mean it,” she answered.

He dropped her hands and gave a hoarse laugh.

“If you had really meant it I should have killed you,” he replied. “Did I marry you for you to fail me at the extreme moment? You know the price you pay for your present position.”

“Aye, Luke,” she replied, “I do know the price, and I’ll pay it gladly to the last drop of my heart’s blood if only you on your part will fulfil your side of the bargain.”

“What is that?”

“I want your love and you have never given it to me.”

“That was never in the bargain, Clara.”

“In words it never was, but oh, you must have guessed.”

She suddenly fell on her knees, her hands were clasped together, she looked up at him imploringly.

“Do you think I would do what I did—that I would make myself a by-word, a disgrace, one of the cruellest women in existence, if I had not hoped to win your love? Do you think I would do what I did simply for position, a fine house, money? You do not know me. Oh, Luke, Luke, give me what I crave for. Sometimes I think my heart will break. I would gladly do evil, commit crime for you, but not when you are cold, cold as ice to me.”

“Get up, Clara,” said Tarbot. “I cannot listen to your words of folly. As to my loving you, understand once for all that it is absolutely out of the question. I do what I do because—no, even to you I will not tell that part. I have my reasons.”

“I wish you would tell me. I would not betray you.”

“I never will tell you. Get up. Cease to talk this folly or I shall despise you and be even more cold to you than I have been of late.”

Clara rose slowly. Her mad passion was over. Her face was white as death. She coughed. Her cough was hoarse and hollow.

“You are not well,” said Tarbot. “You ought to do something for that cough.”

“It is of no consequence, don’t notice it.”

“Well, then, let us return to business. I married you because in no other way could I get what I wanted. If you fail me now you know the consequences.”

She did not reply, and he turned on his heel and walked away from her. When he came back again she had not stirred from her former position; her hands were still clasped tightly together, her head was bent.

“If you mean to defy me,” said Tarbot, “you had better know the truth. I can be terrible, cruel, dangerous to those who thwart me.”

“I won’t defy you,” she said then, making a sort of gasping sound as she spoke. She crouched away from him, and going up to the mantelpiece leant her elbow on it. Tarbot again paced up and down the room. After a time he came up to his wife and spoke in his usual tone.

“I go to Devonshire to-morrow. I shall remain there for a day or two.”

“And I?”

“You stay here.”

“Are you going to Pelham Towers?”

“No.”

“Where?”

“I shall put up at the inn at Great Pelham.”

“But the Pelhams will think it strange. They will probably invite you to stay with them.”

“They may invite, but I shall not accept.”

“What do you mean to do when you go to Devonshire?” said Clara.

“I don’t mind telling you. I shall see Mrs. Pelham and acquaint her with the discovery I have made with regard to the medicine which was last given to Piers. She must be the one to deal with the matter. She will deal with it because I shall force her to, but she must take the initiative. In all probability she will come back to London, she may even want to see you. When she comes you will know what to say to her, Clara. Remember, I trust you. I shall leave here by an early train in the morning. I am going out now to arrange with my _locum tenens_.”

“Who is he?”

“Dr. Dayrell. He will stay here, and will see my patients until I return.”

Tarbot left the room, and Clara found herself alone. She still stood near the fire. Something glittered in her eye. She raised a cobwebby lace handkerchief to wipe it away—it was a tear. Then she sank into the nearest chair.

“I have heard the truth at last,” she said to herself. “I shall never win his love. He has paid me what he considers a good price—he has made me his lawful wife. To the longest day he lives, unless I die first, I shall be his wife. He is rich and great, and I can share both his riches and his greatness, only I never married him for them. He will not believe me, but it is true. He thinks that for the sake of riches and greatness I shall be his tool and accomplice, but with all his cleverness he has not read my woman’s heart. If he loved me I would go with him wherever he chose to lead, but as he doesn’t love me, I am undecided—love like mine has been known to change to hate. If such a thing should happen, Luke Tarbot had better beware.”

She rose from her seat now in her agitation, and as she did so a pang sharp as a knife went through her chest. She paused as if she were stricken with death, and her breath came short and sharp. After a moment she went up to the glass and examined her face carefully.

“Thin, thin to emaciation,” she said to herself. “The bones protrude. Ah, how ugly I grow! No wonder he cannot love me. And this cough which I am always trying to suppress, and the burning thirst, and the fever at night, and the cold sweat—oh, great heaven! I know the truth, but I will have my fears confirmed, and now at this moment. I will be a coward no longer. My friend, Dr. Mary Murchison, will tell me the truth, and I would rather hear it from the lips of a woman than a man.”

Clara left the drawing-room, went to her bedroom, put on her bonnet and warm mantle, and went out. Walking quickly, she soon reached Dr. Mary Murchison’s house in Queen Anne Street. The lady doctor was at home, and when Clara was ushered into her consulting-room came at once to see her.

“Mrs. Tarbot,” she cried, shaking hands with her. “I am glad you have come, but what can I do for you?”

“I am here on a painful business,” said Clara. “I am, as you know, a doctor’s wife, but I would rather have the opinion of one who is not related to me. I have been unwell for some time.”

“You look very bad.”

“My lungs are, I know, affected. Will you tell me how seriously they are involved?”

Dr. Mary Murchison promised to comply. She brought her stethoscope, Clara bared her chest, and the doctor listened attentively. After a moment or two she put down the stethoscope and looked full at Dr. Tarbot’s wife.

“Well?” said Clara.

Still Dr. Murchison did not speak.

“The truth, please,” said Clara again.

“You are very ill, Mrs. Tarbot.”

“You mean that I am dying?”

“Well, yes, I do mean it. Both your lungs are affected, one extensively, but both are affected.”

“How long?” asked Clara.

“A few months, not longer.”

“There is no remedy?”

“None.”

“Thank you very much. I must return home now,” said Clara.

“But take care of yourself. You did wrong to come out in the night air. How mad Dr. Tarbot must be not to have discovered this long ago! He ought to have sent you to a warmer climate.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Clara. “I thank you for telling me the truth.”

She shook hands with Dr. Murchison and left the house. She had not been absent from her own house more than half an hour, and as she reentered the house Tarbot met her.

“You were out,” he said. “Where were you?”

“I went to see my friend, Dr. Mary Murchison.”

“What about?”

“I was asking her advice. I am not quite well, Luke.”

“I have noticed that,” he said slowly. He looked at her with his cruel eyes. It seemed to her then that they danced as if with malevolent satisfaction.

“I will speak to you presently about your health,” he said. “You may want a warmer climate. I have noticed that cough. Don’t go out again at night—it is unwise. I will have a talk with you when I return from Devonshire.”

He nodded to her.

She made no answer, but went up-stairs to the drawing-room and sat down in her chair once more by the fire. Once or twice she coughed feebly; the cough gave her acute pain, she put her hand to her thin chest; then, taking up a heavy Oriental shawl she wrapped it round her figure. As she was doing so, some one tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked up with a start. Little Mrs. Ives was standing before her.

“Aye, Clary, here I be,” said the little woman. “I know well you didn’t expect me, and that you didn’t wish me to come, but I’ve kept it to myself for over a month and I can’t abear it no longer. I told that fine servant of yours to let me up. I took him by surprise and ran past him up the stairs. You needn’t glare at me like that, Clary, for here I be and here I’ll stay till I know the whole truth. Aye, Clary, my girl, I has found out your secret, and I know the name of the child. He’s Sir Piers Pelham, the rightful owner of Pelham Towers. I don’t mean to keep that secret to myself any longer.”