A Bachelor Husband Part 72

Marie went back to Miss Chester without answering.

"That poor child," the old lady said sadly. "What a trouble for her! Did you know the brother, Marie?"

"I saw him once. He was a nice boy," Marie said apathetically. She could remember Ronnie Webber well. He had had a snub, freckled nose and twinkly eyes.

It seemed impossible that he could be dead. She wished she could feel more sorry.

The evening seemed interminable.

"Sit down and read a book, child," Miss Chester said once. "Don't wander about the house like that! I know you must be upset, but it's no use taking trouble too much to heart."

Marie looked at her, hardly listening.

"I think I'll ring Mr. Dakers up," she said.

Miss Chester's eyes grew anxious.

"I should not, my dear," she said. "Chris told me that he was very busy packing. He is going away the day after to-morrow."

"I know; but I should like to see him before he goes."

She rang Feathers up, but he was out and not expected in till late.

Fate seemed against her at every turn.

"I must see him again; I must!" she told herself feverishly as she went to bed. She sat at the open window for a long time looking into the darkness. Another forty-eight hours and he would be miles away. She thought of all the pictures she had seen of Florence and Venice, and wondered what it would be like to visit them with the man one loved.

Chris had offered to take her there, but she did not want to go with Chris--he did not care for her! He had lied to her and deceived her. She lay awake for hours, staring through the open window at a single star that shone like a diamond in the dark sky.

Where was Chris now, and what was he doing! She tried to believe that she did not care; tried to keep her thoughts focussed on Feathers, but they strayed back again and again to her husband.

Little forgotten incidents of the past danced before her eyes torturingly--Chris in his first Eton suit; Chris when he was captain of the school eleven, swaggering about on the green; Chris coming home for Christmas, a little shy and superior; Chris bullying her, and teasing her, and finally buying his complete forgiveness by a kiss s.n.a.t.c.hed under the mistletoe. She had loved him so much--had always been so ready to forgive and forget. Tears lay on her cheeks because she knew she was no longer ready to do so; tears of self-pity--shed in mourning over the days that were gone. She was a child no longer; she was a grown woman looking back on her childhood.

It was getting light when she fell asleep, and it was late when the maid roused her.

"I came before, but you were sleeping so sweetly I did not like to wake you," she apologized. Marie got up and dressed with a curious feeling of finality. Everything was at an end now; she would bear no more.

In the middle of the morning a wire came from Chris to say he would be at home to dinner that evening.

Miss Chester was dining out, and Marie knew she would have to meet him alone, but she did not care. She welcomed anything that hurried the ending towards which she was drifting. Each moment seemed like the snapping of another link in the chain of her bondage.

Chris arrived earlier than he expected. It was only five o'clock when she heard his key in the door and his step in the hall.

She was in her room and heard him call to her, but she did not answer, and she heard him question the maid, before he came running up the stairs.

Her door was open and he saw her at once, standing by the window, but she did not look round, even when he shut the door and went over to her.

"Marie Celeste." There was an eager note in his voice, and he would have taken her in his arms, but she turned, holding him away.

"No--please, we don't want to pretend any more."

He fell back a step, the eagerness dying from his face.

"What do you mean? What has happened?"

"Nothing--except that I know--about you and Dorothy." She put her hands behind her, gripping the window sill to steady herself as she went on: "I'm not going to make a scene. I know how you hate them, and I don't blame you. I don't think either of us is to blame; but-- I've finished, and that's all ... If you won't go away from the house, I will, and I don't ever want to see you again."

She felt as if she were listening to the words of someone else-- listening with cool criticism, but she went on steadily:

"We've tried, as you wished, and it's failed. I can go away quietly, and n.o.body need know much about it."

She raised her eyes to his stunned face for the first time.

"It's no use arguing about it. My mind is made up. Oh, if only you would go away and leave me!"

For a moment there was profound silence, then Chris' tall figure swayed a little towards her, and he caught her arms in a grip that hurt.

"Who told you? And what do you know?" She hardly recognized his voice in its choked pa.s.sion. "It's d.a.m.ned lies, whatever it is! I swear to you if I never speak again ..."

She turned her face away with a little disdainful gesture.

"I don't want to hear--it's all so useless. I've said that I don't blame you--and I mean it. You're quite free to love whom you like."

He broke into rough laughter.

"Love! You're talking like a child! Who's been telling you such infernal lies? ... Was it Dorothy herself?" She did not answer, and he shook her in his rage and despair. She answered then, breathlessly:

"No."

"Who then?" He waited. "Mrs. Heriot?" he demanded.

She looked at him scornfully.

"Yes, if you must know."

He almost flung her from him.

"And you believe what that woman says! She's a liar, and always has been! She tried the same lowdown game on me--only yesterday. She told me that there was something between you and Dakers, and I threatened to wring her neck if she ever dared to repeat the lie again ..." Marie raised her head, and her cheeks were fiery red.

It gave her a fierce delight to feel that perhaps at last she had the power to hurt him.

"It isn't a lie!" she said, clearly. "I love him."

A cruel shaft of light fell through the window, on the deathly whiteness of Chris' face as he stood helplessly staring at his wife. Marie had never seen agony in a man's face before, but she saw it now, and she averted her eyes with a little s.h.i.+ver.

"It's better you should know the truth," she said at last in a whisper. "I wanted to tell you before, but I was afraid."

"And--Dakers?" She hardly recognized her husband's voice as he asked the hoa.r.s.e question, and it hurt her to hear that he no longer spoke of his friend by the well-known nickname.

She shook her head.