Audrey Craven Part 22

He took her by the wrists and drew her gently to him. As he touched her he saw her face whiten and her eyes dilate.

"Do you remember last year when you said you loved me?--when you promised to be my wife? Do you remember how you said good-bye to me then? Now you won't speak to me. What have you been doing to make you hate me? Or what stupid idea have you got into your head about me?"

"Nothing--nothing. Only--I want you to understand that what you said just now is out of the question. It can't be."

"Why not? You promised; so it could be once, why not now?"

"Because--because--I never really promised, you know."

"You never promised! You little liar! You may want to break your promise, but you can hardly say you didn't make it."

"I never made it--not of my own free will. You took advantage of me; you forced me into it. You teased me till I said I cared for you, and--I didn't."

"So, then, you told me a lie? You wrote lie after lie to me in your letters for a year?"

She writhed away from him, but he still held her by the wrists, face to face with him, the length of their arms apart.

"Let me go, Vincent! You've no right to hold me in this way. You're hurting my arm!"

Unconsciously his grasp had tightened till the diamond mounted on one of her thread-like bracelets was pressed into her flesh and made it bleed.

"See there!"

He let her go. She sat down and put her pocket-handkerchief to her wrist.

"If you tell lies, Audrey, what am I to believe? What you said then, or what you say now?"

"I'm telling the truth now, because I don't want this wretched misunderstanding to go any further."

"Can't you speak plainly? Do you mean this, that you don't love me?"

"Yes. It's true. I don't love you; I can't--at least, not like that."

"I can't believe it! It's impossible! As long as I can remember, whatever you said or did, you made me think you loved me. You said last year you'd be my wife; but that's nothing. Long before that, you let me live on the hope of it, year after year. It's inconceivable that you could have done these things if you didn't care for me. Even you couldn't be such an unfeeling little fiend."

"No, no; you worked on my feelings. You wouldn't let me have any will of my own. And now you want me to marry you whether I like it or not.

Whatever happens, I can't do that, Vincent."

"Why not?"

"Must I tell you?"

"Isn't that the very least you can do?"

"Well--you know, Vincent, you've been very wild; you've told me so yourself a thousand times."

"Is it that? You knew that long ago."

"I never realised it till now. Now I know that I can only really love some one strong and good, whose goodness would help me and make me good too."

Audrey's infantile irony made Hardy laugh. That laugh frightened her.

"Do you think I don't know that?" he said. "What do you suppose I went out of England for? It wasn't to shoot, or to farm either. It was to get away out of the reach of temptation, to live in a pure air, and make myself pure for your sake. Do you know, Audrey, I was out there, without a soul to speak to, a year, one horrible long year, fighting the devil, waiting till I could come back and tell you that I was fit to love you.

G.o.d knows I'm not all I ought to be,--who is? At least, I'm not ashamed now to ask you to be my wife. Will you never forget the past?"

She had hesitated before, but now Hardy's humility put her in the position of the superior, and his piteous confession gave her the words she wanted.

"No. It's no use. Once for all, I do not love you; and if I did, I could not marry any man who had led the life you have."

"Very well. Remember, Audrey, if I wasn't good enough for you, I was good enough as men go. Now, I'll go to the devil, and give my whole mind to it. But I've a great deal to say to you before I go. You object to my life. Good or bad, it's your own work. It's women like you who make men like me. You knew my weakness, and played on it. You could have helped me, if you'd only given me up honestly at first, as another woman would have done; but you didn't want to do that. I'd have left England long before, if you'd let me go: you knew it, and you kept me here, though you saw me going to the bad. Oh, you were an artist in your own line!

You knew the effect of every word, every touch, every movement of yours, and you went out of your way to--to make goodness impossible for me. G.o.d knows why, but you liked--you _liked_ to see me longing for what you never meant to give me. And because I didn't come out of that ordeal quite clean, you talk to me about my life, and tell me you are too good and pure to marry me. Are you really so very much better than I am, after all?"

She sat still at first, with her eyes half closed, afraid to look up, afraid to move or speak, waiting for something to happen, for some one to come and stop Vincent. But the scourging voice went on with a relentless brutality, laying bare the secret places of her soul, its unconscious hypocrisy, its vanity, its latent capacity for evil. She answered the closing question with an inarticulate sound like a sob. It might have softened him, if he had not been deaf to everything but his own pa.s.sion.

"Don't suppose I flatter myself I'm the only victim. How about that young fool Ted Haviland?"

She sprang to her feet. Fear, that had made her lie to Ted, made her tell the truth to Hardy. That fear was deep-rooted; it dated from the days when they were children and Vincent had the mastery in all their play.

"Oh, Vincent, promise me, promise me, you won't do anything to Ted! It's all true about our engagement, but it was more my fault than his."

"I can't believe that, Audrey. I'm very far from blaming him. I've no doubt you treated him as you did me."

He sat down exhausted. Audrey, seeing the change of position, not the sudden collapse that prompted it, was in despair.

"Won't you leave me alone now, Vincent? Haven't you said enough?"

"Not yet. Let me think a bit."

He leaned back and closed his eyes. He had so much to say, and now he had no words to say it with.

Audrey looked at the clock; it was half-past four. Would he begin again?

She almost wished he would; it would be better than this silence--better than that frowning forehead, with the terrible accusing thoughts behind it. Would no one come? Would he never go?

Hardy had found words and was beginning to rouse himself, when in answer to her prayer the door was thrown open. Her deliverance had come in the shape of Langley Wyndham.

Hardy's eyes followed her. A moment before she had sat white and trembling, shrunk up into herself before the storm of his accusation; now, for that instant, her face became beautiful as he had never seen it before. There was something dramatic in her movement as she rose and went forward to meet Wyndham. There was no mistaking her manner and the tremor of her voice as she spoke to him. Hardy knew his rival before he saw him.

"My cousin Mr. Hardy; Mr. Langley Wyndham."

The men looked at each other and bowed stiffly. Wyndham wondered. The scene they had just gone through had left its mark on Hardy's face and Audrey's. The student of human nature congratulated himself on the inspiration which had prompted him to call at this crisis. The cousin suggested interesting complications in his heroine's life: judging by the set of his lower jaw, she must have had a bad quarter of an hour with him. He would have to reconstruct that drama from the fragments preserved.

When Wyndham sat down, Hardy sat down too. He suspected Audrey of having invited this man in order to get rid of himself. She wanted him to go. A savage jealousy made him determined to stay and spoil her pleasure. But Audrey, with Wyndham beside her, had recovered her presence of mind.

Unable to endure the situation longer, she was about to risk a bold stroke, by which she would at once revenge herself on Vincent, escape from the torture of his society, and a.s.sure herself of Wyndham's friends.h.i.+p.

After the preliminary commonplaces, she watched her opportunity till she could arrest Wyndham's eyes with hers, throwing into their expression all that she knew of pathos and appeal. Then she rose and held out her hand to Hardy, saying with distinct deliberation--

"I'm afraid you must excuse me now, Vincent; I have to take Mr. Wyndham to call on my uncle Dean Craven."

The look that she turned on Wyndham said plainly, "You see I'm desperate. If you haven't enough chivalry to back that up, I'm done for."