To-morrow? Part 18

The ma.n.u.script! I felt inclined to shout to him. The ma.n.u.script! Give that back to me and then come and talk about forgiveness. Had the act and the motive been as loathsome, but the injury, the actual injury, the positive loss to me been less, I could have forgiven; but the blow was so sharp, the damage so irremediable, I could not. Even at his words I seemed to see staring me in the face the months of toil awaiting me before I could rebuild--if I could ever--the fabric he had destroyed in half-an-hour.

And crowding upon this came the thought of what he had robbed me of, the name, the freedom, the power that those vanished paper pages had been pregnant with for me. He was leaving Paris, he said; and so might I have been leaving free and successful, leaving to return to Lucia, but for him.

And now I was to remain--remain here, a prisoner, to work on another twelve weary months at that most nauseating of tasks, repairing undone work. To recommence, to take up the old burden, to start it all over again, now when I had just made myself free! To be shackled again with the weight of uncertainty and expectancy for another year, through him, and by G.o.d he talked of forgiveness!--to me!--now!

It was too soon. Later--later, perhaps, when I was calmer, when some of the injury had been repaired, when a spark of hope had been rekindled; then, if he asked, but now--The days before me stretched such a bitter, hopeless blank! And how did I know that his act could ever be nullified! It might so turn out that now I never should accomplish my end.

My health had worn thin and my brain was tired out. Either might give way, and then--a life blasted through him! Brute and devil! that was what he had wished, and was perhaps wis.h.i.+ng still, even now, when he professed to be so anxious for forgiveness. I glanced towards his face opposite me, but it was too dark to see its expression. A slight, steady drizzle fell between us; I only saw his slight figure before me in the uncertain light, and again something urged me.

Take your revenge now while you can get it. This man may have spoiled all your life, but when you realise it, then he may be away and out of your power. Thrash him! Half kill him now while you have the chance!

But I did not stir. Vengeance has always seemed to me a poor thing.

Supposing... After? ... If I satiated my rage then, what after. I should have two things to regret instead of one. No. Let him go with his vile act upon his head.

But forgive? I could not. He had taken the inside, the best of my life, and I hated, purely hated him. I turned a step aside, his mere outline before my eyes sent the hate running hotly through me.

"I can't," I muttered; "no, I can't."

Howard sprang forward and put his hand on my arm, and at the touch I seemed to abhor him more.

"Victor, I wish I could say how I regret it. I wish I could express myself, but I can't. If you knew--I would cut off my right hand now to undo it! I would indeed!"

"Who wants you right hand" I said, savagely, stopping and turning on him as I shook off his detestable touch. "Fool! You can talk now!

Replace a single chapter of that book I slaved at--that would be more to the purpose!"

Howard's face grew paler. I saw that, even in the darkness.

"It is not open to me, Victor, now," he said; "but it is still open to you to forgive."

His voice had a grave significance in it. No words that he could have chosen would have been better. The short, quiet sentence was like a sword to divide my hatred, and penetrate to the better part of man. The truth, the unerring force, the reflections of this life's chances and decrees in those words went home. It was not open to him now to repair; later, it might not be open to me to forgive. And later, when all these present vivid feelings were swept away in the past, should I not wish I had forgiven.

I stood silent, and the query went through me--What is forgiveness? Is it to feel again as we have felt before the injury? This is impossible.

Do what I would that affection I had had for him could never re-awaken.

It was stamped out, obliterated, as a flower is ground into the dust beneath one's heel.

Still the loathing and the hatred I had for him now would pa.s.s. Years would cancel it all, and bring with them mere indifference towards him, the thought of him and of his act. To say the words now, and let the time to come slowly fill them with truth, was better, surely, than to reiterate my hatred of him--hatred which years hence would seem almost foolish to me myself.

"I can't think that my forgiveness can be of very serious import to you," I said quietly. "However, it is yours."

"You will shake hands with me, then, won't you?" and he held out his hand.

With an effort I stretched out mine and took his, and held it for a second as in old times.

"Good-bye, Victor," he said, in rather a strained voice, "I shall never cease to regret what I have done."

He hesitated, as if wondering if I should speak. I did not, and he turned and went down the alley, and the darkness closed up after him. I leant silent against the wall, hating myself for forgiving him and letting him go, and yet knowing I would do the same again.

"One must forgive, one must forgive; otherwise one is no better than brute," I thought mechanically. "Later I shall be glad,"--and similar phrases by which Principle excuses itself to furious, disappointed Nature.

After a time I grew calmer, and I went back to the hotel and up to my room. It seemed emptier, blanker still, now that even the dead body of the dog had gone. In the grate, and scattered over the carpet, remained still remnants of black tinder. I felt suddenly tired, worn out. I flung myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed, and lay there in a sort of stupor. And the slow, dark hours of that terrible night of depression tramped over me with leaden footsteps.

CHAPTER V.

The next morning, just as I had dropped into an uneasy doze, there came a knocking and a hammering, and a muttering outside my door.

"M'sieur! M'sieur!" Tap-tap-tap. "Que diable donc! Qu'il dort! M'sieur!

Profondement! Est ce qu'il est mort? Ah! c'est une bete Anglaise!"

Tap-tap-tap.

All this came through the wall in a hazy sort of confusion, mingling with my sleep, before it roused me to go and open the door. Finally, however, I stumbled off the bed and unlocked the door, and threw it open.

"What now" I thought. "Have I broken any more of your confounded Gallic regulations."

It was not a Commissary of Police this time, but a uniformed commissionaire, with a note in his hand. Possibly serenely unconscious that I had heard his polite remarks outside, he bowed urbanely.

"Bonjour, M'sieur! A thousand apologies for disturbing M'sieur! But Madame said I was to deliver this note personally."

I looked at him with elevated eyebrows. I knew no Madame in Paris.

"I think there is some mistake," I said.

"But why? Monsieur Eeltone? Numero quinze, is it not?"

"Hilton. Yes, that is my name."

He gave me a triumphant glance, and handed me the note with a flourish.

The envelope was that of the Grand Hotel; but the writing on it was Lucia's writing. Lucia here in Paris! Close to me! How? Why? The blood poured over my face. With a sense of delight I tore the envelope open:--

"I am at the above hotel. I shall remain at home all to-day in the hope that you may be able to come and see me." "LUCIA."

I looked up the man in the doorway bowed with a deprecating air.

"Madame said I was to wait for an answer."

He had a subdued smile upon his face, which seemed to say--"We know all about these little notes! We are accustomed to them here in Paris!"

I told him to enter, and he followed me into the room and took an interested glance round. Probably, to his view, my pallid face and blood-shot eyes, my last night's clothes, my boots on my feet, and the bed unslept-in, conveyed the idea of a drunken fit only just over in time to make room for the morning's intrigue. A young, beautiful English madame--for the t.i.tle Miss is barely recognised, never understood in Paris--staying at the hotel and sending notes to a young English M'sieur in another. Yes, this was plainly an intrigue of the genuine order, and the mari would doubtless arrive from England later.

All was plain, and he stood with a patronising smile by the table, while I scribbled a note to Lucia.

"My Dearest Life,--I am rus.h.i.+ng, flying to you now. I will be with you as soon as fiacre can bring me." "VICTOR."

I closed it, and made him wait while I sealed it, lest he should interfere with it. Then I handed it to him with a two-franc piece, and with bon jours and remerciments and grins he withdrew.

I dressed hurriedly and yet carefully, and shaved with a dangerously trembling hand. The first fiacre that was pa.s.sing as I left the hotel I took, and was driven, through the bright suns.h.i.+ne that filled the Paris boulevards, to the Grand. I sat back in it, with my arms folded, feeling my heart like a stone within me. Lucia's coming, that, thirty-six hours back, would have infused the extreme of delight through me, was now useless, worthless.

I could do nothing, say nothing. I was a prisoner again, fettered, bound, as if I had an iron collar on my neck, and manacles on my wrists. I looked through the s.h.i.+ning, quivering sunlight that fell on every side with blank, unseeing eyes, and the bitterest curses against Howard rose to my lips, checked only by the knowledge that I had forgiven him.