Chapter 22

"Did Robert send you?" she asked, when she was alone with Jane.

"Yes."

"It's no good. I can't do what he wants."

"What are you going to do, dear?"

"I don't know. I don't care. The terrible thing is that I've had to hurt him. I must go away somewhere."

"I'll come with you and see you through."

Kitty shook her head.

"Don't think about it now," said Jane.

"No; I can't think. I'm too tired, and my head's hot. But if I go away you'll understand why I did it?"

"Kitty"--Jane whispered it--"you won't go back?"

"No. I won't go back. You won't have to think that of me."

She had not looked at Jane as they talked. Now she turned to her with eyes of anguish and appeal.

"Janey--think. I've been wicked for years and years. I've only been good for one moment. One moment--when I gave Robert up. Do you think it'll count?"

"I think that, in the sight of God, such moments last forever."

"And that's what you'll think of me by?"

She lifted up her face, haggard and white, flame-spotted where her tears had scorched it. Jane kissed it.

"Do you mind kissing me?"

"My dear, my dear," said Jane, and she drew her closer.

There was a sound of footsteps in the passage. Kitty drew back and listened.

"Where's Robert?"

"Upstairs with the children."

"They'll be asleep by this time, won't they?"

"Fast asleep."

The footsteps came again, approaching the door. They paused outside it a moment and turned back.

"Do you hear that?" said Kitty. "It's Wilfrid Marston walking up and down. He wants to get hold of me. I think he's mad about me. He asked me to marry him just now, and I wouldn't. He thinks I didn't mean it, and he's coming back for his answer. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I shall go out quietly by the window and slip away, and he won't find me. I want you to be here when he comes, and tell him that he can't see me. Would you mind doing that?"

"No."

"You'll stay here all the time, and you won't let him go out and look for me?"

"Yes."

Kitty listened again for the footsteps.

"He's still there," she whispered.

"And you'll go to bed, Kitty?"

"Yes; of course I will."

She went out through the window on to the veranda, and so on into the garden.

It was cool out there and unutterably peaceful, with a tender, lucid twilight on the bare grass of the lawn; on the sea beyond it, and on the white gravel path by the low wall between. She saw it, the world that had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days' splendour of their passion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, intolerably near.

Indoors Jane waited. It was not yet the half-hour. She waited till the clock struck and Marston came for his answer.

He looked round the room, and his face, under its deference, betrayed his sharp annoyance at finding himself alone with Miss Lucy.

"Pardon me," he said, "I thought that Mrs. Tailleur was here."

"Mrs. Tailleur asked me to tell you that she cannot see you. She has gone to her room."

"To her room?"

He stared at her, and his face loosened in a sudden incredulity and dismay.

"Did she tell you she was going there?"

"Yes. She was very tired."

"But--she was here not half an hour ago. She couldn't have gone without my seeing her."

"She went out," said Jane faintly, "by the window."

"She couldn't get to her room without going through the hall. I've been there all the time on the seat by the stairs."

They looked at each other. The seat by the stairs commanded all ways in and out, the entrance of the passage, and the door of the sitting-room, and the portière of the lounge.

"What do you think?" he said.

"I think that she has not gone far. But if she goes, it is you who will have driven her away."

"Forgive me if I remind you that it is not I who have given her up."

"It was you," said Jane quietly, "who helped to ruin her."

His raised eyebrows expressed an urbane surprise at the curious frankness of her charge. And with a delicate gesture of his hand he repudiated it and waved it away.

"My dear lady, you are alarmed and you are angry, consequently you are unjust. Whatever poor Kitty may have done I am not responsible."

"You are responsible. It's you, and men like you, who have dragged her down. You took advantage of her weakness, of her very helplessness. You've made her so that she can't believe in a man's goodness and trust herself to it."

He smiled, still with that untroubled urbanity, on the small flaming thing as she arraigned him.

"And you consider me responsible for that?" he said.

Their eyes met. "My brother is here," said she. "Would you like to see him?"

"It might be as well, perhaps. If you can find him."

She left him, and he waited five minutes, ten minutes, twenty.

She returned alone. All her defiance had gone from her, and the face that she turned to him was white with fear.

"She is not here," she said. "She went out--by that window--and she has not come in. We've searched the hotel, and we can't find her."

"And you have _not_ found your brother?"

"He has gone out to look for her."

She sat down by the table, turning her face away and screening it from him with her hand.

Marston gave one look at her. He stepped out, and crossed the lawn to the bottom of the garden. The gate at the end of the path there swung open violently, and he found himself face to face with Robert Lucy. "What have you done with Mrs. Tailleur?" he said.

Lucy's head was sunk upon his breast. He did not look at him nor answer. The two men walked back in silence up the lawn.

"You don't know where she is?" said Marston presently.

"No. I thought I did. But--she is not there."

He paused, steadying his voice to speak again.

"If I don't find her, I shall go up to town by the midnight train. Can you give me her address there?"

"You think she has gone up to town?" Marston spoke calmly. He was appeased by Lucy's agitation and his manifest ignorance as to Kitty's movements.

"There's nothing else she could do. I've got to find her. Will you be good enough to give me her address?"

"My dear Mr. Lucy, there's really no reason why I should. If Mrs. Tailleur has not gone up to town, her address won't help you. If she has gone, your discreetest course by far, if I may say so----"

"Is what?" said Lucy sternly.

"Why, my dear fellow, of course--to let her go."

Lucy raised his head. "I do not intend," he said, "to let her go."

"Nor I," said Marston.

"Then we've neither of us any time to lose. I won't answer for what she may do, in the state she's in."

Marston swung slightly round, so that he faced Lucy with his imperturbable stare.

"If you'd known Mrs. Tailleur as long as I have you'd have no sort of doubt as to what she'll do."

Lucy did not appear to have heard him, so sunk was he in his own thoughts.

"What was that?" said Marston suddenly.

They listened. The gate of the Cliff path creaked on its hinges and fell back with a sharp click of the latch. Lucy turned and saw a small woman's figure entering the garden from the Cliff. He strode on toward the house, unwilling to be observed and overtaken by any guests of the hotel.

Marston followed him slowly, pondering at each step of the way.

He heard footsteps, quick stumbling footsteps, and a sound like a hoarse, half-suffocating breath behind him. Then a woman's voice, that sank, stumbling, like the footsteps, as it spoke.

"Mr. Lucy," it said, "is it you?"

Marston went on.

Lucy was in the room with his sister. He was sitting with his back to the open window as Marston came in by it.

The voice outside was nearer; it whispered, "Where is Mr. Lucy?"

"Somebody's looking for you, Lucy," said Marston.

And the three turned round.

Mrs. Hankin stood in the window, holding on to the frame of it and trembling. Her face, her perfect face, was gray, like the face of an old woman. It was drawn and disfigured with some terrible emotion.

Lucy went to her. She clung to his arm, and held him on the threshold.

"Mrs. Tailleur," she said, "Mrs. Tailleur. We found her--down there. She's killed. She--she fell from the Cliff."

The three stood still as she spoke to them.

Then Jane rushed forward to her brother with a cry, and Mrs. Hankin stretched out her arms and barred the way.

There were small spots of blood on her hands and on her dress where she had knelt.

"Go back, child," she said. "They're carrying her in."