A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 21

"That's a lie! I don't defend myself--but don't you dare to say a word against her. We were great friends. I loved her, and thought she loved me. But she doesn't; she loves you."

"Pretty love!" the big man said. "I have finished with it and with her."

Again there came a wild cry from the trembling woman. "George, for G.o.d's sake!"

Now for the first time a look of fear came into Collingwood's eyes. "You mean to cast her off?" he said--"to break her spirit? No--no--you dare not do it. You don't know what you are saying--you have no right...."

"That's for the court to decide," Admaston answered.

Peggy tried to step up to him, but he motioned her not to advance further.

"Court!" she wailed. "No, George, not that! I have done nothing, George, to forfeit your love!"

"Stop! You don't realise how much I know. I saw a letter at the house yesterday before four o'clock. It told me everything you intended to do--everything you have done. That letter brought me over after you. I sent a detective to Boulogne to meet you."

Peggy shook with fear. "That man?" she whispered to herself, with a light of horror in her eyes.

"Yes," Admaston said. "I sent him. He followed you to this hotel. He was here last night. He is in the hotel now. He has given me this report, and it leaves no doubt as to your guilt."

"My guilt! It is not true, George--I swear to you it is not true. I don't care what you have done, or what letters or reports you have received. I am your wife. I didn't love you at first--you knew that--I was honest, I told you all--but now...."

"You blind fool!" Collingwood snarled out in a fury of indignation, "don't you see what you are doing? You are playing my game, not your own. I have tried to win, I have treated her pretty badly, but I don't want to win her now. Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings you'll only drive her to me?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings, you'll only drive her to me!"]

"Yes," Admaston answered with a bitter sneer, "I see--and you don't seem very anxious to go through with it."

Collingwood looked at him for a moment, trembling with the desire to fly at his throat. He restrained himself, however, with a tremendous effort, and with an inarticulate growl of rage turned and left the room.

Peggy came timidly towards her husband. "George, you are not going to send me away?" she said.

Admaston covered his face with his hands. "My G.o.d! Peggy, you lied to me," he said in a broken voice. "A lie--a lie on your lips! Oh, Peggy, Peggy, what have I done to you?"

"George, I did lie," she wailed--"yes, I did; but only that, only that!

I am your wife! Believe me! believe me!"

"My wife! No--no! How am I to believe you? How am I to tell whether that's a lie or not?"

"It's the truth!" she reiterated, her voice shrill with pain. "I swear it! I am as much your wife as I was the day you married me."

Unable to stand longer, she sank down upon the sofa, sobbing terribly.

"You have broken me," the man said--"crushed me. Oh! I was mad to let you do it! I was a fool to leave you alone! But I trusted you. I laughed at the gossip. The ridicule only made my trust in you the greater. I wors.h.i.+pped you, adored you! My whole life was a prayer to you, my ambition to make you proud of me. My whole aim in life was to win you, by doing big things--for you. And now it is all turned to desecration--to be the mock of the crowd!"

"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me! I'll come to you. I am humble, not you. I am struck down, crushed. But I'll be your slave. I am still your wife. I am still----"

He gazed at her searchingly. "You love Collingwood," he said in a hollow, empty voice.

"No, no! There was a time when I thought I did."

"You thought you did! When did you think it? Last night?"

"No, George, no! I love you! I knew that last night, if I never knew it before. I love you, George!"

"I don't believe you," he answered coldly. "You and he were together alone when I telephoned."

He spoke very deliberately now. "Was he," he asked--"was he with you when I telephoned at one o'clock?"

"Yes," Peggy answered, knowing well what the admission must convey.

"Yes--but...."

"Alone together from ten o'clock?..."

"Yes," she said, still more faintly; "but...."

"Alone together from the time I telephoned?"

"No, no, George!--not after that; I swear it!"

"I know far too much to believe a word you say," he replied, and there was a note of absolute finality in his voice.

She saw that he had made up his mind--that she was doomed.

"I know too much to believe a word you say," he repeated. "You were alone with him. My G.o.d! Alone with him!"

In a moment or two Peggy looked up through a mist of tears. The room was empty.

Peggy was left alone.

CHAPTER VI

One morning upon a dull day in the late summer of the same year in which Mrs. Admaston had stayed at the Hotel des Tuileries in Paris, Colonel Adams came down to breakfast at the Cocoa Tree Club. He ordered his grilled kidneys in the quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned dining-room, with its rare sporting prints and air of sober comfort, and took up his morning paper.

His eyes fell upon the cause list of the Royal Courts of Justice, and he sighed.

A few minutes afterwards Henry Pa.s.she, whose leave from India had been extended for reasons of health, and who was also a member of the famous club in St. James's Street, entered and sat down by his friend.

"Well," he said, "do you still hold to your resolution, Adams?"

The colonel sighed, and put down his knife and fork. "I don't know, old chap," he said doubtfully. "It's different for you. You see, you don't know Mrs. Admaston. I know her quite well, and I really doubt whether it is the chivalrous thing to do, to go and stare at her, as if she was a sort of show. She'll be undergoing tortures all day, poor little thing!"

"Just as you like," Pa.s.she answered. "I confess to great curiosity myself, and of course everyone who can possibly get in will be going, whether they are friends of Mrs. Admaston or of her husband. It's great good luck, my getting two seats like this; but don't come unless you like. I can easily find someone else who will be only too glad to drop in for an hour or two. That's all I want to do--just to see what's going on. You see it is the case of the century almost. I am not up in the statistics of this sort of thing, but I doubt if a Cabinet Minister, who is also one of the wealthiest men in England, has ever brought an action for divorce against his wife, who is not only as rich as he in her own right, but also is co-partner in one of the biggest financial houses in Europe. That's the way I look at it."

"Well, I'll come," the colonel said suddenly. "It can't do any harm, after all; and I am sure all my sympathies are with Mrs. Admaston, though of course...."

Pa.s.she nodded. "But there is absolutely no doubt about it," he said, "of course. But naturally, old chap, the fact of our both being in the hotel in Paris at the very time it all happened gives the thing a special interest for us. When I go back to India everybody will be wanting to know all about it; and as I have got a chance to be present at part of the trial, I really can't forego it."