Winding Paths Part 73

"Almost at once, I think, but it probably will not last more than two or three days."

When Hal said good-night to him, she remarked shyly:

"I heard from Ethel last night. She loves the Austrian Tyrol. She said she hoped you were better for your trip to Norway."

His forehead contracted a little, and he did not look up from the book he had just opened.

"Is she better herself? Is she any happier?"

Hal looked thoughtfully into the fire.

"I think she is very lonely. I don't think she will be much happier until... until... there is some one to take Basil's place."

"No one can do that." He spoke a little shortly. "Basil was a hero.

I do not know how she is ever to love a lesser man."

"If she loved a man, she would easily see heroic qualities in him. She could not love a man who was without them; but that does not mean he need actually be a hero by any means."

She longed to say more, but was diffident of doing greater harm than good. At last she ventured:

"I have sometimes thought she has a warm corner in her heart for you, Dudley."

"For me! ... " He gave a low, harsh laugh for very misery. "No; she despises me. She has done for some time. I'm sorry. I'd change it if I could, but it's too late now."

Hal moved towards the door.

"It is rather a slur on Ethel to suggest that she could possibly despise Basil's best friend. Don't let an idea like that take root, Dudley. 'Lookers on see most of the game," you know, and what I have seen has suggested quite differently. Good-night."

"Good-night. Try to sleep. I'll take you to Charing Cross myself."

The next morning Hal started off alone, to find her way to Lorraine's hiding-place, and give her what comfort of friends.h.i.+p she could.

And all the time she asked herself with harried thoughts, "Who has brought this trouble into Lorraine's life?"

And at the back of her mind was the dread premonition "Was it indeed Alymer Hermon?"

CHAPTER XLII

When Hal first saw her old friend she was almost too shocked for words at the swift change in her. Lorraine tried hard to smile cheerfully, but she could not hide any longer from herself how seriously ill she had grown, and she felt it useless to try and hide it from Hal.

Jean had not told her of the letter, and she knew nothing of Hal's coming until she was actually in the house. When she saw her, she could have cried for gladness.

"How good of you, Hal... how good of you!" she breathed, and Hal, on her knees by the couch, in an unsteady voice replied:

"Oh, why didn't you send for me sooner? Why didn't you let me come here instead of going to Norway?"

An hour later she went out to the little post office, and wired to London to know if she might remain away for a week.

It was evident Lorraine was very ill indeed and needing the utmost care.

During the day she seemed to grow steadily worse, and she could not bear Hal out of her sight.

"I don't know whether you are shocked or not," she said to her once, "but if everything goed all right I shall not regret what I have done for one moment. I wanted something more real for the rest of my life than I have had in its beginning." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I wanted his child to live for."

With a caressing hand on the sick woman's, Hal asked in a low voice:

"Why isn't he here taking care of you now? Where is you child's father?"

A swift surprise pa.s.sed through Lorraine's eyes, as if it had not occured to her Hal would not know the truth. Then she said, very softly, "Alymer."

"Ah!"

The exclamation seemed wrung from Hal unconsciously, and after it her lips grew strangely rigid.

"Hal," Lorraine said weakly, "I've loved Alymer almost ever since I first saw him. I swore I would not harm his career, and I have not. I will not in future. But the child is his, and I thank G.o.d for it. I do not believe an illegitimate child with a devoted mother is any worse off than the legitimate child with a selfish, unloving one. That there is love enough matters the most. What can any child have better than a life's devotion?"

Later on she said:

"This is his great week, Hal. In his last letter he tells me his big chance has come at last through Sir Philip Hall. We always hoped it would. It is the big libel case, and if Sir Philip chooses he can let him take a very prominent part. He will, I am sure of it. He is very interested in him, and he has given him this chance on purpose. Flip thinks it will lead to a great deal; and of course if so it is splendid for him."

Hal said very little. She was overcome at the revelation Lorraine had made, and seemed quite unable to grasp it.

Meanwhile she waited fearfully for the crisis the doctor had told her was impending. She was expecting him to call again, and was relieved when at last he arrived bringing a pleasant-faced French nurse with him.

She relinquished her post then, and waited for him anxiously downstairs. When he came he told her he must have another opinion at once, and Hal knew that something serious was wrong, and that he feared the worst.

The next morning, when she saw Lorraine again, she understood that they had saved her life, but probably only for a few days at the most.

Lorraine was almost too weak to speak, but she looked into Hal's eyes, and in her own there was a dumb imploring. Hal leant down and murmured:

"What is it, Lorry?... Do you want Alymer?"

"Yes," was the faint whisper. "I feel it is the end. I want so much to see him once more."

"I will go to London myself, and fetch him," Hal said, and a look of rest crept into the dying woman's eyes.

So it happened that the day before the great libel case Hal stood in Hermon's chambers, and delivered her message.

It was a tense moment - a moment of warring instincts, warring inclinations, conflicting fates. It was surely the very irony of ironies, that within sight of his goal, with all this woman had manoeuvred to give him almost in his hands, she should be the one to step suddenly between him and the realisation of everything his life had striven for.

To fail Sir Philip Hall at the eleventh hour, under such circ.u.mstance, could only mean an irreparable disaster. He would lose, as far as his profession was concerned, in every single way. It would strike a blow at his progress, from which it might never wholly recover.

No wonder, confronted with the sudden demand life had flung at him, he stood stock still, with rigid face, almost overcome by the swift sword-thrust of fate, and made no reply.