Part 9

She gave him a quick, questioning glance, then: "I saw you in the Abbey," she said in a constrained, hesitating voice; "why did you not come up and speak to us? Mr. Hinton was on his way to some office, and I brought the children back alone."

"If I had known that was going to be the case," said Dering frankly, "I should have joined you, but I had just been spending an hour with Wingfield, and--well, I didn't feel in the mood to make small talk for Hinton!"

He waited a moment, but she made no comment.

Louise had always been a silent, listening woman, and this had made her seem, to eager, ardent Philip, a singularly restful companion.

He went on, happily at first, rather nervously towards the close of his sentence, "Well, everything is settled--even to my will. But I found Wingfield had to know--I mean about our old arrangement."

"Then you told him? I do not think you should have done that." Louise spoke very slowly, and in a low voice. "I asked you if I might do so before telling Gerda Hinton."

Dering looked at her deprecatingly. He felt both surprised and sorry. It was almost the first time in their joint lives that she had uttered to him anything savouring of a rebuke.

"Please forgive my having told Wingfield without first consulting you," he said at once; "but you see the absurd, the abominable state of the English law is such that in case of my sudden death you would have no right to any of this money. Besides, apart from that fact, if I trusted to my own small legal knowledge and made a will in which you were mentioned, you would probably have trouble with those odious relations of mine. So I simply had to tell him."

Dering saw that the discussion was beginning to be very painful and disagreeable; he felt a pang of impatient regret that he had spoken to his wife now, instead of waiting until she had had a thorough change and holiday.

Louise was still standing opposite to him, looking straight before her and avoiding his anxious glances. Suddenly he became aware that her lip was trembling, and that her eyes were full of tears; quickly he walked round to where she was standing, and put his hand on her shoulder.

"I am sorry, very sorry, that I had to tell Wingfield," he said; "but, darling, why should you mind so much? He was quite sympathetic; he thoroughly understood; I think I might even say that he thoroughly agrees with our point of view; but I fancy he felt rather hurt about it, and I couldn't help wishing that we had told him at the time."

Dering's hand travelled from his wife's shoulder to her waist, and he held her to him, unresisting but strangely passive, as he added:

"You can guess, my dearest, what Wingfield, in his character of solicitor, advises us to do? Of course, in a sense it will be a fall from grace,--but, after all, we shan't love one another the less because we have been to a registry office, or spent a quarter of an hour in a church! I do think that we should follow his advice. He will let me know to-morrow what formalities have to be fulfilled to carry the thing through, and then, dear heart, we will go off for a second honeymoon. Sometimes I wonder if you realise what this money means to us both--I mean in the way of freedom and of added joy."

But Louise still turned from him, and, as she disengaged herself from the strong encircling arm, he could see the slow, reluctant tears rolling down her cheek.

Dering felt keenly distressed. The long strain, the gallantly endured poverty, the constant anxiety, had evidently told on his wife more than he had known.

"Don't let's talk about it any more!" he exclaimed. "There's no hurry about it now, after all."

"I would rather talk about it now, Philip. I don't--I don't at all understand what you mean. It is surely too late for us now to talk of marriage. The time remaining to us is too short to make it worth while."

Dering looked at her bewildered. Well as she spoke the language, she had remained very ignorant of England and of English law.

"I will try and explain to you," he said gently, "why Wingfield has made it quite clear to me that we shall have to go through some kind of a legal ceremony----"

"But there are so few months," she repeated, and he felt her trembling; "it is not as if you were likely to die before September; besides, if you were to do so, I should not care about the money."

For the first time a glimmer of what she meant, of what she was thinking, came into Dering's mind. He felt strongly moved and deeply touched. This, then, was why she had seemed so preoccupied, so unlike herself, of late.

"My darling, surely you do not imagine--that I am thinking ... of leaving you?"

"No," and for the first time Louise, as she uttered the word, looked up straight into Dering's face. "No, it was not of you that I was thinking--but of myself...."

* * * * *

"Let us sit down." Dering's voice was so changed, so uneager, so cold, that Louise, for the first time during their long partnership, felt as if she was with a stranger. "I want to thoroughly understand your point of view. Do you mean to say that when we first arranged matters you intended our--our marriage to be, in any case, only a temporary union?"

He waited for an answer, looking at her with a still grimness, an unfamiliar antagonism, that raised in her a feeling of resentment, and renewed her courage. "Please tell me," he said again, "I think you owe me the truth, and I really wish to know."

Then she spoke. And though her hands still trembled, her voice was quite steady.

"Yes, Philip, I will tell you the truth, though I fear you will not like to hear it. When I first accepted the proposal you made to me, I felt convinced that, as regarded myself, the feeling which brought us together would be eternal, but I as fully believed that with you that same feeling would be only temporary. I was ready to remain with you as long as you would have me do so; but I felt sure that you would grow tired of me some day, and I told myself--secretly, of course, for I could not have insulted you or myself by saying such a thing to you then--I told myself, I say, that when that day came, the day of your weariness of me, I would go away, and make no further demand upon you."

"You really believed that I should grow tired of you,--that I should wish to leave you?"

Dering looked at her as a man might look at a stranger who has suddenly revealed some sinister and grotesque peculiarity of appearance or manner.

"Certainly I did so. How could I divine that you alone would be different from all the men of whom I had ever heard? Still, I loved you so well--ah, Philip, I did love you so--that I would have come to you on any terms, as indeed I did come on terms very injurious to myself. But what matters now what I then thought? I see that I was wrong--you have been faithful to me in word, thought, and deed----"

"Yes," said Dering fiercely, "by God, that is so! Go on!"

"I also have been faithful to you----" she hesitated. "Yes, I think I may truly say it, in thought, word, and deed,----"

Dering drew a long breath, and she went slowly on: "But I have realised, and that for some time past, that the day would come when I should no longer wish to be so--when I should wish to be free. I have gradually regained possession of myself, and, though I know I must fulfil all my obligations to you for the time I promised, I long for the moment of release, for the moment when I shall at last have the right to forget, as much as such things can ever be forgotten, these ten years of my life."

As she spoke, pronouncing each word clearly in the foreign fashion, her voice gained a certain sombre confidence, and a flood of awful, hopeless bitterness filled the heart of the man sitting opposite to her.

"And have you thought," he asked in a constrained voice, "what you are going to do? I know you have sometimes regretted your work; do you intend--or perhaps you have already applied to Mr. Farningham?"

"No," she answered, and, unobserved by him, for he was staring down at the tablecloth with unseeing eyes, a deep pink flush made her look suddenly girlish, "that will not be necessary. I have, as you know, regretted my work, and of late I have sometimes thought that, things being as they were, you acted with cruel thoughtlessness in compelling me to give it all up. But in my new life there will be much for me to do."

"I do not ask you," he said, suddenly, hoarsely; "I could not insult you by asking...."

"I do not think," she spoke slowly, answering the look, the intonation, rather than the words, "that I am going to do anything unworthy."

But Dering, with sharp suspicion, suddenly became aware that she had changed colour, and that from pale she had become red. His mind glanced quickly over their comparatively small circle of friends and acquaintances--first one, then another familiar figure rose, hideously vivid, before him. He felt helpless, bewildered, fettered.

"Do you contemplate leaving me for another man?" he asked quietly.

Again Louise hesitated for a moment.

"Yes," she said at length, "that is what I am going to do. I did not mean to tell you now--though I admit that later, before the end, you would have had a right to know. The man to whom I am going, and who is not only willing, but anxious, to make me his wife, I mean his legal wife,"--she gave Dering a quick, strange look--"has great need of me, far more so than you ever had. My feeling for him is not in any way akin to what was once my feeling for you; that does not come twice, at any rate to such a woman as I feel myself to be; but my affection, my--my regard, will be, in this case, I believe, more enduring; and, as you know, I dearly love his children, and promised their mother to take care of them."

While she spoke, Dering, looking fixedly at her, seemed to see a shadowy group of shabby forlorn human beings form itself and take up its stand by her side--Jack Hinton, with his weak, handsome face, and shifty, pleading eyes; his two plain, neglected-looking girls; and then, cradled as he had so often seen it in Louise's arms, the ugly and to him repulsive-looking baby.

What chance had he, what memories had their common barren past, to fight this intangible appealing vision?

He raised his hand and held it for a moment over his eyes, in a vain attempt to shut out both that which he had evoked, and the sight of the woman whose repudiation of himself only seemed to make more plainly visible the bonds which linked them the one to the other. Then he turned away, with a certain deliberation, and, having closed the door, walked quickly through the little hall, flinging himself bare-headed into the open air.

* * * * *

For the second time that day Philip Dering felt an urgent need of solitude in which to hold communion with himself. And yet, when striding along the dimly-lighted, solitary thoroughfares, the stillness about him seemed oppressive, and the knowledge that he was encompassed by commonplace, contented folk intolerable.

And so, scarcely knowing where his feet were leading him, he made his way at last into the broad, brilliantly lighted High Road, now full of glare, of sound, and of movement, for throngs of workers, passing to and fro, were seeking the amusement and excitement of the street after their long, dull day.

Very soon Dering's brain became abnormally active; his busy thoughts took the shape of completed half-uttered sentences, and he argued with himself, not so loudly that those about him could hear, but still with moving lips, as to the outcome of what Louise had told him that evening.

He was annoyed to find that his thoughts refused to marshal themselves in due sequence. Thus, when trying to concentrate his mind on the question of the immediate future, memories of Gerda Hinton, of the dead woman with whom he had never felt in sympathy, perhaps because Louise had been so fond of her, persistently intervened, and refused to be thrust away. His own present intolerable anguish made him, against his will, retrospectively understand Gerda's long-drawn-out agony. He remembered, with new sharp-edged concern and pity, her quiet endurance of those times of ignoble poverty brought about by Hinton's fits of idleness; he realised for the first time what must have meant, in anguish of body and mind, the woman's perpetual child bearing, and the deaths of two of her children, followed by her own within a fortnight of her last baby's birth.

Then, with sudden irritation, he asked himself why he, Philip Dering, should waste his short time for thought in sorrowing over this poor dead woman? And, in swift answer, there came to him the knowledge why this sad drab ghost had thus thrust herself upon him to-night--

A feeling of furious anger, of revolt against the very existence of Jack Hinton, swept over him. So base, so treacherous, so selfish a creature fulfilled no useful purpose in the universe. Men hung murderers; and was Hinton, who had done his wife to death with refinement of cruelty, to go free--free to murder, in the same slow way, another woman, and one who actually belonged to Dering's own self?

He now recognised, with bewilderment, that had Louise become his legal wife ten years ago, the thought of what she proposed to do would never have even crossed her mind.

The conviction that Hinton was not fit to live soon formed itself into a stable background to all Dering's subsequent thoughts, to his short hesitations, and to his final determination.

After a while he looked at his watch, and found, with some surprise, that he had been walking up and down for over an hour; he also became aware, for the first time, that his bare, hatless head provoked now and again good-natured comment from those among whom he was walking.

He turned into a side-street, and taking from his pocket a small notebook, wrote the few lines which later played an important part in determining, to the satisfaction of his friends, the fact that he was, when writing them, most probably of unsound mind.

What Dering wrote down in his pocket-book ran as follows:

1. I buy a hat at Dunn's, if Dunn be still open (which is probable).

2. I call on the doctor who was so kind to the Hintons last year and settle his account. It is doubtful if Hinton ever paid him--in fact, there can be no doubt that Hinton did _not_ pay him. I there make my will and inform the doctor that he will certainly be wanted shortly at Number 8, Lady Rich Road.

3. I buy that revolver (if guaranteed in perfect working order) which I have so frequently noticed in the pawnbroker's window, and I give him five shillings for showing me how to manage it. Mem. Remember to make him load it, so that there may be no mistake.

4. I wire to Wingfield. This is important. It may save Louise a shock.

5. I go to Hinton's place, and if the children are already in bed I lock the door, and quietly kill him and then kill myself. If the children are still up, I must, of course, wait a while. In any case the business will be well over before the doctor can arrive.

Dering shut the notebook with a sigh of relief. The way now seemed clear before him, for he had put down exactly what he meant to do, and in case of doubt or forgetfulness he need only glance at his notes to be set again in the right way.

He spent a few moments considering whether it was his duty to write a letter to his employer. Finally he decided that there was no need to do so. They knew of his legacy; they were aware that he was leaving them; and everything, even now, was in perfect order for his successor.

As he walked slowly along the unlovely narrow streets which run parallel to the High Road, his emotional memory brought his wife vividly before him. He began wondering painfully if she would ever understand, if she would realise, from what he had saved her by that which he was about to do. His knowledge of her character made him feel sure--and there was infinite comfort in the thought--that she would remain silent, that she would never yield to any foolish impulse to tell Wingfield the truth. It was good to feel so sure that his old friend would never know of his failure, of his great and desolate humiliation.

* * * * *

Dering spent the next hour exactly as he had planned; in fact, at no point of the programme did his good fortune desert him. Thus, even the doctor, a man called Johnstone, who might so easily have been out, was at home; and, though actually giving a little stag party, he good-naturedly consented to leave his guests for a few moments, in spite of the fact that the stranger waiting in the surgery had refused to state his business.

"My name is Dering. I think you must have often met my wife when you were attending the late Mrs. Hinton. In fact I've come to-night to settle the Hintons' account. I fancy it is still owing?"

Dering spoke with abrupt energy, looking straight, and almost with a frown, as he spoke, into the other's kindly florid face. It seemed strange, at that moment intolerably hard, that this man, who looked so much less alive, so much less intellectually keen than himself, should be destined to find him within a few hours lying dead, obliterated into nothingness.

"Oh, yes, the account is still owing," Dr. Johnstone spoke with a certain eagerness. "Then do I understand that you are acting for Mr. Hinton in the matter? The amount is exactly ten pounds----"

He paused awkwardly, and not till the two bank-notes were actually lying on his surgery table before him did he believe in his good fortune. The Hintons' account had long since passed into that class of doctor's bills which is only kept on the books with a view to the ultimate sale of the practice, and this last quarter the young man had not even troubled to send it in again.

Johnstone remembered poor Mrs. Hinton's friend very well; Mrs. Dering had been splendid, perfectly splendid, as nurse and comforter to the distracted household. And then such a pretty woman, too, the very type--quiet, sensible, self-contained, and yet feminine--whom Dr. Johnstone admired; he was always pleased when he met her walking about the neighbourhood.

This, then, was her husband? The doctor stared across at Dering with some curiosity. Well, he also, though, of course, in quite another way, was uncommon and attractive-looking. What was it he had heard about these people quite lately, in fact, that very day? Why, of course. One of his old lady patients in Bedford Park had told him that her opposite neighbours, this Mr. and Mrs. Dering, had come into a large fortune--something like fifty thousand pounds!

Dr. Johnstone looked at his visitor with a sudden accession of respect. If he could have foreseen this interview, he might have made his account with Mr. Hinton bear rather more relation to the actual number of visits he had been compelled to pay to that unfortunate household. Still, he reminded himself that even ten pounds were very welcome just now, and his heart warmed to Mr. Hinton's generous friend.

Suddenly Dering began speaking: "I forget if I told you that I am starting this very night for a long journey, and before doing so I want to ask you to do me a favour----"

His host became all pleased attention.

"Would you kindly witness my will? I have just come into a sum of money, and--and, though my will is actually being drawn up by a friend, who is also a lawyer, I have felt uneasy----"

"I quite understand. You have thought it wise to make a provisional will? Well, that's a very sensible thing to do! We medical men see much trouble caused by foolish postponement of such matters. Some men seem to think that making a will is tantamount to signing their own death-warrant!"

But no answering smile brightened Dering's fiercely set face; he did not seem to have heard what the doctor had said. "If I might ask you for a sheet of notepaper. I see a pen and blotting-pad over there----"

A sudden, instinctive misgiving crossed the other's mind.

"This is rather informal, isn't it? Of course, I have no call to interfere, Mr. Dering; but if a large sum is involved might it not be better to wait?"

Dering looked up. For the first time he smiled.

"I don't wish to make any mystery about it, Dr. Johnstone. I am leaving everything to my wife, and after her to sundry young people in whom we are both interested. If I die intestate, I understand that distant relatives of my own--people whom I don't like, and who have never done anything for me--are bound to benefit."

Even as he spoke he was busy writing the words, "To Louise Larsen (commonly known as Mrs. Philip Dering), of 9, Lady Rich Road, Bedford Park, and after her death to be divided equally between the children of my esteemed friend, James Wingfield, solicitor, of 24, Abingdon Street, Westminster, and the children of the late Mrs. John Hinton, of 8, Lady Rich Road, Bedford Park."

Short as was Dering's will, the last portion of it was written on the inner sheet of the piece of note paper bearing the doctor's address, and the two witnesses, Johnstone himself, and a friend whom he fetched out of his smoking-room for the purpose, could not help seeing what generous provision the testator had made for the younger generation.

As the doctor opened the front door for his, as he hoped, new friend, Dering suddenly pulled a notebook out of his breast pocket.

"I have forgotten a most important thing----" there was real dismay in his fresh, still youthful voice--"and that is to ask you kindly to look round at No. 8, Lady Rich Road, after your friends have left you to-night. I should think about twelve o'clock would do very well. In fact, Hinton won't be ready for you before. And, Dr. Johnstone--in view of the trouble to which you may be put----" Dering thrust another bank-note into the other man's hand. "I know you ought to have charged a lot more than that ten pounds----" and then, before words of thanks could be uttered, he had turned and gone down the steps, along the little path, through the iron gate which swung under the red lamp, into the darkness beyond.

* * * * *

Down the broad and now solitary High Road, filled with the strange brooding stillness of a spring dawn, clattered discordantly a hansom cab. There was promise of a bright warm day, such a day as yesterday had been, but Wingfield, leaning forward, unconsciously willing the horse to go faster, felt very cold.

At last, not for the first time during this interminable journey, he took from his breast pocket the unsigned telegram which was the cause of his being here, driving, oh! how slowly, along this fantastically empty thoroughfare, through the chill morning air, instead of lying sound asleep by Kate's side in his comfortable bed at home.

"_Philip Dering is dead please come at once at once at once to eight Lady Rich Road._"

Wingfield, steadying the slip of paper as it fluttered in his hand, looked down with frowning puzzled eyes at the pencilled words.

The message had been set off just before midnight, and had reached his house, he supposed, an hour and a half later, for the persistent knocking at his front door had gone on for some time before he or his wife realised that the loud hammering sound concerned themselves. Even then it had been Kate who had at last roused herself and gone downstairs; Kate who had rushed up breathless, whispering as she thrust the orange envelope into his hand:--"Oh, James, what can it be? Thank God, all the children are safe at home!"