Part 2

“‘Oh! my very dear girl,’ he was whispering—and she was on her knees beside the bed. And I blundered my way downstairs, cursing myself for a sentimental fool. There’s whisky on the table, you fellows. Help yourselves.”

But no one moved, and the Actor lit another cigarette.

“I saw her occasionally during the next two or three months,” he continued, “though I never went to their rooms again. They had moved—I knew that—because I used to post the cheque every week. But the few times I did see her, I gathered that her husband was not getting any better. And one day I insisted on Lawrence, the specialist, going to see him. I couldn’t have one of my company being worried, I told her, over things of that sort. I can see her face now as I said ‘one of my company.’ I don’t know what Lawrence said to her, but he rang me up at the theatre that night, and he did not mince his words to me.

“‘I give him a month,’ he said. ‘It’s galloping consumption.’

“It was just about a month later that the thing happened which I had been dreading. Molly went down with ’flu. Her understudy—the real one—was Violet Dorman, who was unknown then. And, of course it was her chance.”

“One moment,” interrupted the Barrister. “Did anyone at the theatre know about this girl?”

“Good God! no,” cried the Actor. “Not a soul. In this censorious world actions such as mine in that case are apt to be misconstrued, which alone was sufficient to make me keep it dark. No one knew.

“The first night—all was well. Molly went down in the afternoon, and it didn’t come out in any of the evening papers. Violet acted magnificently. She wasn’t Molly, of course—she isn’t now. But it was her chance, and she took it—and took it well. Next morning the papers, naturally, had it in. ‘Temporary indisposition of Miss Molly Travers. Part filled at a moment’s notice with great credit by Miss Violet Dorman.’ She had a press agent and he boomed her for all he was worth. And I read the papers and cursed. Not that I grudged her her success in the slightest, but I was thinking of the afternoon. It was matinée day and the girl must read it in the papers.

“There was only one thing for it—to go round and see her. Whatever happened I had to prevent her coming to the theatre. How I was going to do it without giving the show away I hadn’t an idea, but somehow or other it had got to be done. My blundering foolishness—even though it had been for the best—had caused the trouble; it was up to me to try and right it. So I went round and found her with a doctor in the sitting-room. He was just going as I came in, and his face was grave.

“‘Harry’s dying,’ she said to me quite simply, and I glanced at the doctor, who nodded.

“Poor child! I crossed over to her side, and though it seems an awful thing to say, my only feeling was one of relief. After what Lawrence had said I knew it was hopeless, and since the poor devil had to go he couldn’t have chosen a more opportune moment from my point of view. It solved the difficulty. If he was dying she couldn’t come to the theatre, and by the time the funeral was over Molly would be back. I didn’t realise that one doesn’t get out of things quite as easily as that.

“‘I’ve only just realised how bad he was,’ she went on in a flat, dead voice.

“‘Does he know?’ I asked.

“‘No. He thinks he’s going to get better. Why didn’t you send for me last night, Mr. Trayne?’

“It was so unexpected, that I hesitated and stammered.

“‘I couldn’t get at you in time,’ I said finally. ‘Miss Travers only became ill late in the afternoon.’

“With a strange look on her face she opened a paper—some cursed rag I hadn’t seen.

“‘It says here,’ she went on slowly, ‘that she was confined to her bed all yesterday. Oh! it doesn’t matter much, does it?’ She put the paper down wearily, and gave the most heartrending little sobbing laugh I’ve ever heard.

“‘What do you mean?’ I stammered out.

“‘I suppose you did it for the best, Mr. Trayne. I suppose I ought to be grateful. But you lied that night—didn’t you?’

“I was fingering a book on the table and for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘He doesn’t know,’ she went on. ‘He still thinks I’m a God-sent genius. And he mustn’t know.’

“‘Why should he?’ I said. And then I put my hand on her arm. ‘Tell me, how did you find out?’

“‘You admit it then?’

“‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘I admit that I lied. I was so desperately sorry for you.’

“‘I mentioned it to someone—a man who knew the stage—about a week ago. He looked at me in blank amazement, and then he laughed. I suppose he couldn’t help it: it was so ridiculous. I was furious—furious. But afterwards I began to think, and I asked other people one or two questions—and then that came,’ she pointed to the paper, ‘and I knew. And now—oh! thank God—he’s dying. He mustn’t know, Mr. Trayne, he mustn’t.’

“And at that moment he came into the room—tottered in is a better word.

“‘Boy,’ she cried in an agony, ‘what are you doing?’

“‘I thought I heard Mr. Trayne’s voice,’ he whispered, collapsing in the chair. ‘I’m much better to-day, much. Bit weak still——’

“And then he saw the paper, and he leant forward eagerly.

“‘Ill,’ he cried. ‘Molly Travers ill. Why, my dear—but it’s your chance.’ He read on a bit, and she looked at me desperately. ‘But why weren’t you there last night? Who is this woman, Violet Dorman?’

“‘You see, Tracy,’ I said, picking up the paper and putting it out of his reach, ‘it was so sudden, Miss Travers’ illness, that I couldn’t get at your wife in time.’

“‘Quite,’ he whispered. ‘Of course. But there’s a matinée this afternoon, isn’t there? Oh! I wonder if I’m well enough to go. I’m so much better to-day.’ And then he looked at his wife. ‘My dear! my dear—at last!’

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such pathetic pride and love shining in a man’s face before or since.

“‘I’m afraid you won’t be quite well enough to go,’ I muttered.

“‘Perhaps it would be wiser not to,’ he whispered. ‘But to think I shall miss her first appearance. Have you come to fetch her now, Mr. Trayne?’

“‘Yes, darling,’ the girl replied, and her voice sounded as steady as a rock. ‘Mr. Trayne has come to fetch me. But it’s early yet and I want you to go back to bed now. . . .’

“Without a glance at me she helped him from the room and left me standing there. I heard their voices—hers clear and strong, his barely audible. And not for the first time in my life I marvelled at the wonder of a woman who loves. I was to marvel more in a moment or two.

“She came back and shut the door. Then she stood facing me.

“‘There’s only one way, Mr. Trayne, though I think it’s going to break my heart. I must go to the theatre.’

“‘But—your husband . . .’ I stammered.

“‘Oh! I’m not really going. I shall be here—at hand—the whole time. Because if the end did come—why then—I _must_ be with him. But he’s got to think I’ve gone; I’ve got to hide from him until after the matinée is over. And then I must tell him’—she faltered a little—‘of my success. I’ll keep the papers from him—if it’s necessary. . . .’ She turned away and I heard her falter: ‘Three hours away from him—when he’s dying. Oh, my God!’”

The Actor paused, and the Soldier stirred restlessly in his chair. “I left shortly after,” he went on at length, “I saw she wanted me to.

“All through the play that afternoon it haunted me—the pathos of it—aye, the horror of it. I pictured that girl hiding somewhere, while in the room above the sands were running out. Longing with all the power of her being to go to him—to snatch every fleeting minute with him—and yet condemned by my stupidity to forfeit her right. And then at last the show was over, and I went to her room again.

“She was by his side, kneeling on the floor, as I came in. As he saw me he struggled up on his elbow, and one could see it was the end.

“‘Dear fellow,’ I said, ‘she was wonderful—just wonderful!’

“And the girl looked up at me through her blinding tears.

“‘Just wonderful,’ I said again. Five minutes later he died. . . .”

The Actor fell silent.

“Did you ever see her again?” asked the Soldier thoughtfully.

“Never: she disappeared. Just a patch on the quilt as I said. But there was one thread missing. Three years later I received a registered envelope. There was no letter inside, no word of any sort. Just these.” He fumbled in his pocket. “There are twenty of them.”

He held out his hand, and the Soldier leaning forward saw that it contained a little bundle of five-pound notes.

_II_ _The Barrister’s Story, being The Decision of Sir Edward Shoreham_

“THIS morning,” he began, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs, “I mislaid my cigarette-case. I knew it was somewhere in the study, but find it I could not. Finally, having searched all over my writing table, I rang the bell, and somewhat irritably demanded its immediate production. The butler stepped forward and lifted it up from the centre of the blotting pad, where it had been the whole time, literally under my nose. What peculiar temporary kink in the brain had prevented my noticing the very thing I was looking for, when it was lying in the most conspicuous place in which it could possibly have been, I don’t know. I leave that to the Doctor. But the point of my parable is this—it decided in my mind the story with which I should bore you fellows to-night.”

He paused to light a cigar, then he glanced round at the faces of the other five.

“And if, as I get on with it, you think you recognise the real characters under the fictional names I shall give them, I can’t prevent you. But don’t ask me to confirm your thoughts.”

“Exactly,” murmured the Actor. “Fire ahead.”

“It was about four years before the war,” commenced the Barrister, “that I was stopping for a few nights at a certain house in Park Lane. It was in the middle of the season—June, to be accurate—and I was waiting to get in here. My wife was in the country, and, as I was more or less at a loose end, I accepted the offer of staying at this house. My hostess—shall we call her Granger, Ruth Granger—had been an old school pal of my wife’s; in later years she had become a real, intimate friend of us both.

“At the time of which I speak she was a lovely girl of twenty-six, with the suffering of six years of hell in her eyes. At the age of twenty she had married Sir Henry Granger, and that fatal mistake had been the cause of the hell. Henry Granger was one of the most loathsome brutes it has ever been my misfortune to run across. He had not one single instinct of a gentleman in him, though he did happen to be the tenth baronet. How her parents had ever allowed the marriage beat me completely. Perhaps it was money, for Granger was rich; but whatever it was she married him, and her hell began.

“Granger was simply an animal, a coarse and vicious animal. He drank heavily without getting drunk, which is always a dangerous sign, and he possessed the morals—or did not possess the morals, whichever you prefer—of a monkey. He was unfaithful to her on their honeymoon—my wife told me that; and from then on he made not the slightest attempt to conceal his mode of life.”

The Barrister carefully removed the ash from his cigar. “I won’t labour the point,” he went on with a faint smile. “We have all of us met the type, but I’d like to emphasise the fact that I, at any rate, have never met any member of that type who came within a mile of him. Most of ’em have some semblance of decency about ’em—make some attempt to conceal their affairs. Granger didn’t; he seemed to prefer that they should be known. Sometimes since then I have wondered whether he was actuated by a sort of blind rage—by a mad desire to pierce through the calm, icy contempt of his wife; to make her writhe and suffer, because he realised she was so immeasurably his superior.” He paused thoughtfully. “He made her suffer right enough.”

“Did she never try for a divorce?” asked the Soldier.

“No, never. We discussed it once—she, and my wife and I; and I had to explain to her our peculiar laws on the subject. His adultery by itself was, of course, not sufficient, and for some reason she flatly refused to consider a mere separation. She wouldn’t face the scandal and publicity for only that. I said to her then: ‘Why not apply for a restitution of conjugal rights. Get your husband to leave the house, and if he doesn’t return in fourteen days——’

“She stopped me with a bitter laugh.

“‘It seems rather fatuous,’ she said slowly, ‘getting a lawyer to ask my husband to do what he is only too ready to do—return to me.’

“‘But surely,’ I began, not quite taking her meaning.

“‘You see, Bill,’ she answered in a flat, dead voice, ‘my husband is very fond of me—as a stopgap. After most of his episodes he honours me with his attentions for two or three days.’

“That was the devil of it—he didn’t intend to let her divorce him. She formed an excellent hostess for his house, and for the rest there were always _les autres_. And he wanted her, too, because he couldn’t get her, and that made him mad.”

The Barrister leant forward, and the firelight flickered on his thin, ascetic face.

“Such was the state of affairs when I went to stay. The particular lady at the time who was being honoured by Henry Granger was a shining light in musical comedy—Nelly Jones, shall we call her? It is very far from her real name. If possible, he had been more open over this affair than usual; everyone who knew the Grangers in London knew about it—_everyone_. He had twice dined with her at the same restaurant at which his wife was entertaining, once deliberately selecting the next table.”

“What an unmitigated swine!” cried the Ordinary Man.

“He was,” agreed the Barrister briefly. “But even that was not sufficient to satisfy the gentleman. He proceeded to do a thing which put him for ever outside the pale. He brought this girl to a reception of his wife’s at his own house.

“It was the night that I arrived. She had fixed up one of those ghastly entertainments which are now, thank Heaven, practically extinct. Somebody sings and nobody listens, and you meet everybody you particularly want to avoid. Mercifully I ran into an old pal, also of your calling, Actor-man—Violet Seymour. No reason why I should disguise her name at any rate. She was not acting at the moment, and we sat in a sort of alcove-place at the top of the stairs, on the same landing as the reception-room.

“‘There’s going to be a break here soon, Bill,’ she said to me after a while. ‘Ruth is going to snap.’

“‘Poor girl!’ I answered. ‘But what the devil can one do, Violet?’

“‘Nothing,’ she said fiercely, ‘except alter your abominably unjust laws. Why can’t she get a divorce, Bill? It’s vile—utterly vile.’

“And then—well, let’s call him Sir Edward Shoreham, joined us. He was on the Bench—a judge, which makes the disguise of a false name pretty thin, especially in view of what is to come. I remember he had recently taken a murder case—one that had aroused a good deal of popular attention—and the prisoner had been found guilty. We were talking about it at the time Sir Edward arrived, with Violet, as usual, tilting lances against every form of authority.

“I can see her now as she turned to Sir Edward with a sort of dreadful fascination on her face.

“‘And so you sentenced him to death?’

“He nodded gravely. ‘Certainly,’ he answered. ‘He was guilty.’

“And then she turned half-away, speaking almost under her breath.

“‘And doesn’t it ever appall you? Make you wake in the middle of the night, with your mouth dry and your throat parched. All this—life, love—and in a cell, a man waiting—a man you’ve sent there. Ticking off the days on his nerveless fingers—staring out at the sun. My God! it would drive me mad.’

“Ned Shoreham smiled a little grimly.

“‘You seem to forget one unimportant factor,’ he answered; ‘the wretched woman that man killed.’

“‘No, I don’t,’ she cried. ‘But the punishment is so immeasurably worse than the crime. I don’t think death would matter if it came suddenly; but to sit waiting with a sort of sickening helplessness——’

“It was then Ruth Granger joined us. Some woman was singing in the reception-room and, for the moment, she was free from her duties as hostess.

“‘You seem very serious,’ she said with her grave, sweet smile, holding out her hand to Sir Edward.

“‘Miss Seymour is a revolutionary,’ he answered lightly, and I happened at that moment to glance at Ruth. And for the moment she had let the mask slip as she looked at Ned Shoreham’s face. Then it was replaced, but their secret was out, as far as I was concerned, though on matters of affection I am the least observant of mortals. If they weren’t in love with one another, they were as near to it as made no odds. And it gave me a bit of a shock.

“Shoreham was young—young, at any rate, for the Bench—and he was unmarried. And somehow I couldn’t fit Shoreham into the situation of loving another man’s wife. There had never been a breath of scandal that I had heard; if there had been, it would have finished him for good. A judge must be like Cæsar’s wife. And Shoreham, even then, had established a reputation for the most scrupulous observance of the law. His enemies called him cruel and harsh; those who knew him better realised that his apparent harshness was merely a cloak he had wrapped tightly round himself as a guard against a naturally tender heart. I don’t know any man that I can think of who had such an undeviating idea of duty as Shoreham, and without being in the least a prig, such an exalted idea of the responsibilities of his position. And to realise suddenly that he was in love with Ruth Granger, as I say, came as a shock.

“‘What was the argument about?’ she said, sitting down beside me.

“‘Morality _versus_ the Law,’ chipped in Violet.

“‘The individual _versus_ the community,’ amended Sir Edward. ‘Justice—real justice—against sickly sentimentality, with all due deference to you, Miss Seymour. There are hard cases, one knows, but hard cases make bad laws. There’s been far too much lately of men taking matters into their own hands—this so-called Unwritten Law. And it has got to stop.’

“‘You would never admit the justification,’ said Ruth slowly.

“‘Never—in any circumstances,’ he answered. ‘You have the law—then appeal to the law. Otherwise there occurs chaos.’

“‘And what of the cases where the law gives no redress?’ demanded Violet, and even as she spoke Granger came up the stairs with this girl on his arm.

“Ruth Granger rose, deathly white, and gazed speechlessly at her husband’s coarse, sneering face. I don’t think for a moment she fully grasped the immensity of the insult; she was stunned. The footmen were staring open-mouthed; guests passing into the supper-room stopped and smirked. And then it was over; the tension snapped.

“‘Have you had any supper, Sir Edward?’ said Ruth calmly, and with her hand on his arm she swept past her husband, completely ignoring both him and the girl, who flushed angrily.

“‘I suppose,’ said Violet Seymour to me, as Granger and the girl went into the reception-room, ‘that had Ruth shot that filthy blackguard dead on the stairs, Sir Edward would have piously folded his hands and, in due course, sentenced her to death.’

“And at the moment I certainly sympathised with her point of view.”

The Barrister got up and splashed some soda-water into a glass. Then he continued:

“I won’t weary you with an account of the rest of the reception. You can imagine for yourselves the covert sneers and whisperings. I want to go on two or three hours to the time when the guests had gone, and a white-faced, tight-lipped woman was staring at the dying embers of a fire in her sitting-room, while I stood by the mantelpiece wondering what the devil to do to help. Granger was in his study, where he had retired on the departure of Miss Jones, and I, personally, had seen two bottles of champagne taken to him there by one of the footmen.

“‘It’s the end, Bill,’ she said, looking at me suddenly, ‘absolutely the end. I can’t go on—not after to-night. How dared he bring that woman here? How dared he?’

“Violet had been right—the break had come. Ruth Granger was desperate, and there was an expression on her face that it wasn’t good to see. It put the wind up me all right.

“‘Go to bed, Ruth,’ I said quietly. ‘There’s no good having a row with Granger to-night; you can say what you want to say to-morrow.’

“And at that moment the door opened and her husband came in. As I said, he was a man who never got drunk, but that night he was unsteady on his legs. He stood by the door, swaying a little and staring at her with a sneer on his face. He was a swine sober; in drink he was—well, words fail. But, by God! you fellows, she got through him and into him until I thought he was going to strike her. I believe that was what she was playing for at the time, because I was there as a witness. But he didn’t, and when she finished flaying him he merely laughed in her face.

“‘And what about your own damned lover, my virtuous darling?’ he sneered. ‘What about the upright judge whom you adore—dear, kind Edward Shoreham?’

“It was unexpected; she didn’t know he had guessed—and her face gave her away for a moment. Then she straightened up proudly.

“‘Sir Edward Shoreham and I are on terms which an animal of your gross mind couldn’t possibly understand,’ she answered coldly, and he laughed. ‘If you insinuate that he is my lover in the accepted sense of the word, you lie and you know it.’

“Without another word she walked contemptuously by him, and the door closed behind her. And after a moment or two I followed her, leaving him staring moodily at the empty grate. I couldn’t have spoken to him without being rude and, after all, I was under his roof.”

The Barrister leant back in his chair and crossed his legs.

“Now that was the situation,” he continued, “when I went to bed. My room was almost opposite Lady Granger’s, and at the end of the passage, which was a cul-de-sac, was the door leading into Granger’s study. I hadn’t started to undress when I heard him come past my room and go along the passage to his study. And I was still thinking over the situation about ten minutes later when Lady Granger’s door opened. I knew it was hers because I heard her speak to her maid, telling her to go to bed. The girl said ‘Good night,’ and something—I don’t quite know what—made me look through the keyhole of my door. I was feeling uneasy and alarmed; I suppose the scene downstairs had unsettled me. And sure enough, as soon as the maid’s footsteps had died away, I saw through my spy-hole Ruth Granger go down the passage towards her husband’s study. For a moment I hesitated; an outsider’s position is always awkward between husband and wife. But one thing was very certain, those two were in no condition to have another—and this time a private—interview. I opened my door noiselessly and peered out. It struck me that if I heard things getting too heated I should have to intervene. She was just opening the door of his study as I looked along the passage, and then in a flash the whole thing seemed to happen. The door shut behind her; there was a pause of one—perhaps two seconds—and a revolver shot rang out, followed by the sound of a heavy fall. For a moment I was stunned; then I raced along the passage as hard as I could, and flung open the door of the study.

“On the floor lay Henry Granger, doubled up and sprawling, while in the middle of the room stood his wife staring at him speechlessly. At her feet on the carpet was a revolver, an automatic Colt. I stood there by the door staring foolishly, and after a while she spoke.

“‘There’s been an accident,’ she whispered. ‘Is he dead?’