CHAPTER VII
At the moment when I showed myself in the doorway, Rachel rose from thepiano.
I closed the door behind me. We confronted each other in silence, withthe full length of the room between us. The movement she had made inrising appeared to be the one exertion of which she was capable. Alluse of every other faculty, bodily or mental, seemed to be merged in themere act of looking at me.
A fear crossed my mind that I had shown myself too suddenly. I advanceda few steps towards her. I said gently, "Rachel!"
The sound of my voice brought the life back to her limbs, and the colourto her face. She advanced, on her side, still without speaking. Slowly,as if acting under some influence independent of her own will, she camenearer and nearer to me; the warm dusky colour flushing her cheeks, thelight of reviving intelligence brightening every instant in her eyes.I forgot the object that had brought me into her presence; I forgotthe vile suspicion that rested on my good name; I forgot everyconsideration, past, present, and future, which I was bound to remember.I saw nothing but the woman I loved coming nearer and nearer to me. Shetrembled; she stood irresolute. I could resist it no longer--I caughther in my arms, and covered her face with kisses.
There was a moment when I thought the kisses were returned; a momentwhen it seemed as if she, too might have forgotten. Almost before theidea could shape itself in my mind, her first voluntary action mademe feel that she remembered. With a cry which was like a cry ofhorror--with a strength which I doubt if I could have resisted if I hadtried--she thrust me back from her. I saw merciless anger in her eyes;I saw merciless contempt on her lips. She looked me over, from head tofoot, as she might have looked at a stranger who had insulted her.
"You coward!" she said. "You mean, miserable, heartless coward!"
Those were her first words! The most unendurable reproach that a womancan address to a man, was the reproach that she picked out to address toMe.
"I remember the time, Rachel," I said, "when you could have told me thatI had offended you, in a worthier way than that. I beg your pardon."
Something of the bitterness that I felt may have communicated itselfto my voice. At the first words of my reply, her eyes, which had beenturned away the moment before, looked back at me unwillingly. Sheanswered in a low tone, with a sullen submission of manner which wasquite new in my experience of her.
"Perhaps there is some excuse for me," she said. "After what you havedone, is it a manly action, on your part, to find your way to me asyou have found it to-day? It seems a cowardly experiment, to try anexperiment on my weakness for you. It seems a cowardly surprise, tosurprise me into letting you kiss me. But that is only a woman's view. Iought to have known it couldn't be your view. I should have done betterif I had controlled myself, and said nothing."
The apology was more unendurable than the insult. The most degraded manliving would have felt humiliated by it.
"If my honour was not in your hands," I said, "I would leave you thisinstant, and never see you again. You have spoken of what I have done.What have I done?"
"What have you done! YOU ask that question of ME?"
"I ask it."
"I have kept your infamy a secret," she answered. "And I have sufferedthe consequences of concealing it. Have I no claim to be spared theinsult of your asking me what you have done? Is ALL sense of gratitudedead in you? You were once a gentleman. You were once dear to my mother,and dearer still to me----"
Her voice failed her. She dropped into a chair, and turned her back onme, and covered her face with her hands.
I waited a little before I trusted myself to say any more. In thatmoment of silence, I hardly know which I felt most keenly--the stingwhich her contempt had planted in me, or the proud resolution which shutme out from all community with her distress.
"If you will not speak first," I said, "I must. I have come here withsomething serious to say to you. Will you do me the common justice oflistening while I say it?"
She neither moved, nor answered. I made no second appeal to her; Inever advanced an inch nearer to her chair. With a pride which was asobstinate as her pride, I told her of my discovery at the ShiveringSand, and of all that had led to it. The narrative, of necessity,occupied some little time. From beginning to end, she never looked roundat me, and she never uttered a word.
I kept my temper. My whole future depended, in all probability, on mynot losing possession of myself at that moment. The time had come toput Mr. Bruff's theory to the test. In the breathless interest of tryingthat experiment, I moved round so as to place myself in front of her.
"I have a question to ask you," I said. "It obliges me to refer again toa painful subject. Did Rosanna Spearman show you the nightgown. Yes, orNo?"
She started to her feet; and walked close up to me of her own accord.Her eyes looked me searchingly in the face, as if to read somethingthere which they had never read yet.
"Are you mad?" she asked.
I still restrained myself. I said quietly, "Rachel, will you answer myquestion?"
She went on, without heeding me.
"Have you some object to gain which I don't understand? Some mean fearabout the future, in which I am concerned? They say your father's deathhas made you a rich man. Have you come here to compensate me for theloss of my Diamond? And have you heart enough left to feel ashamed ofyour errand? Is THAT the secret of your pretence of innocence, and yourstory about Rosanna Spearman? Is there a motive of shame at the bottomof all the falsehood, this time?"
I stopped her there. I could control myself no longer.
"You have done me an infamous wrong!" I broke out hotly. "You suspect meof stealing your Diamond. I have a right to know, and I WILL know, thereason why!"
"Suspect you!" she exclaimed, her anger rising with mine. "YOU VILLAIN,I SAW YOU TAKE THE DIAMOND WITH MY OWN EYES!"
The revelation which burst upon me in those words, the overthrow whichthey instantly accomplished of the whole view of the case on which Mr.Bruff had relied, struck me helpless. Innocent as I was, I stood beforeher in silence. To her eyes, to any eyes, I must have looked like a manoverwhelmed by the discovery of his own guilt.
She drew back from the spectacle of my humiliation and of her triumph.The sudden silence that had fallen upon me seemed to frighten her. "Ispared you, at the time," she said. "I would have spared you now, if youhad not forced me to speak." She moved away as if to leave the room--andhesitated before she got to the door. "Why did you come here tohumiliate yourself?" she asked. "Why did you come here to humiliateme?" She went on a few steps, and paused once more. "For God's sake, saysomething!" she exclaimed, passionately. "If you have any mercy left,don't let me degrade myself in this way! Say something--and drive me outof the room!"
I advanced towards her, hardly conscious of what I was doing. I hadpossibly some confused idea of detaining her until she had told me more.From the moment when I knew that the evidence on which I stood condemnedin Rachel's mind, was the evidence of her own eyes, nothing--not even myconviction of my own innocence--was clear to my mind. I took her by thehand; I tried to speak firmly and to the purpose. All I could say was,"Rachel, you once loved me."
She shuddered, and looked away from me. Her hand lay powerless andtrembling in mine. "Let go of it," she said faintly.
My touch seemed to have the same effect on her which the sound of myvoice had produced when I first entered the room. After she had saidthe word which called me a coward, after she had made the avowal whichbranded me as a thief--while her hand lay in mine I was her masterstill!
I drew her gently back into the middle of the room. I seated her by theside of me. "Rachel," I said, "I can't explain the contradiction in whatI am going to tell you. I can only speak the truth as you have spokenit. You saw me--with your own eyes, you saw me take the Diamond. BeforeGod who hears us, I declare that I now know I took it for the firsttime! Do you doubt me still?"
She had neither heeded nor heard me. "Let go of my hand," she repeatedfaintly. That was her only answer. Her h
ead sank on my shoulder; and herhand unconsciously closed on mine, at the moment when she asked me torelease it.
I refrained from pressing the question. But there my forbearancestopped. My chance of ever holding up my head again among honest mendepended on my chance of inducing her to make her disclosure complete.The one hope left for me was the hope that she might have overlookedsomething in the chain of evidence--some mere trifle, perhaps, whichmight nevertheless, under careful investigation, be made the means ofvindicating my innocence in the end. I own I kept possession of herhand. I own I spoke to her with all that I could summon back of thesympathy and confidence of the bygone time.
"I want to ask you something," I said. "I want you to tell me everythingthat happened, from the time when we wished each other good night, tothe time when you saw me take the Diamond."
She lifted her head from my shoulder, and made an effort to release herhand. "Oh, why go back to it!" she said. "Why go back to it!"
"I will tell you why, Rachel. You are the victim, and I am the victim,of some monstrous delusion which has worn the mask of truth. If we lookat what happened on the night of your birthday together, we may end inunderstanding each other yet."
Her head dropped back on my shoulder. The tears gathered in her eyes,and fell slowly over her cheeks. "Oh!" she said, "have I never had thathope? Have I not tried to see it, as you are trying now?"
"You have tried by yourself," I answered. "You have not tried with me tohelp you."
Those words seemed to awaken in her something of the hope which I feltmyself when I uttered them. She replied to my questions with more thandocility--she exerted her intelligence; she willingly opened her wholemind to me.
"Let us begin," I said, "with what happened after we had wished eachother good night. Did you go to bed? or did you sit up?"
"I went to bed."
"Did you notice the time? Was it late?"
"Not very. About twelve o'clock, I think."
"Did you fall asleep?"
"No. I couldn't sleep that night."
"You were restless?"
"I was thinking of you."
The answer almost unmanned me. Something in the tone, even more than inthe words, went straight to my heart. It was only after pausing a littlefirst that I was able to go on.
"Had you any light in your room?" I asked.
"None--until I got up again, and lit my candle."
"How long was that, after you had gone to bed?"
"About an hour after, I think. About one o'clock."
"Did you leave your bedroom?"
"I was going to leave it. I had put on my dressing-gown; and I was goinginto my sitting-room to get a book----"
"Had you opened your bedroom door?"
"I had just opened it."
"But you had not gone into the sitting-room?"
"No--I was stopped from going into it."
"What stopped you?
"I saw a light, under the door; and I heard footsteps approaching it."
"Were you frightened?"
"Not then. I knew my poor mother was a bad sleeper; and I rememberedthat she had tried hard, that evening, to persuade me to let her takecharge of my Diamond. She was unreasonably anxious about it, as Ithought; and I fancied she was coming to me to see if I was in bed, andto speak to me about the Diamond again, if she found that I was up."
"What did you do?"
"I blew out my candle, so that she might think I was in bed. I wasunreasonable, on my side--I was determined to keep my Diamond in theplace of my own choosing."
"After blowing out the candle, did you go back to bed?"
"I had no time to go back. At the moment when I blew the candle out, thesitting-room door opened, and I saw----"
"You saw?"
"You."
"Dressed as usual?"
"No."
"In my nightgown?"
"In your nightgown--with your bedroom candle in your hand."
"Alone?"
"Alone."
"Could you see my face?"
"Yes."
"Plainly?"
"Quite plainly. The candle in your hand showed it to me."
"Were my eyes open?"
"Yes."
"Did you notice anything strange in them? Anything like a fixed, vacantexpression?"
"Nothing of the sort. Your eyes were bright--brighter than usual. Youlooked about in the room, as if you knew you were where you ought not tobe, and as if you were afraid of being found out."
"Did you observe one thing when I came into the room--did you observehow I walked?"
"You walked as you always do. You came in as far as the middle of theroom--and then you stopped and looked about you."
"What did you do, on first seeing me?"
"I could do nothing. I was petrified. I couldn't speak, I couldn't callout, I couldn't even move to shut my door."
"Could I see you, where you stood?"
"You might certainly have seen me. But you never looked towards me. It'suseless to ask the question. I am sure you never saw me."
"How are you sure?"
"Would you have taken the Diamond? would you have acted as you didafterwards? would you be here now--if you had seen that I was awake andlooking at you? Don't make me talk of that part of it! I want to answeryou quietly. Help me to keep as calm as I can. Go on to something else."
She was right--in every way, right. I went on to other things.
"What did I do, after I had got to the middle of the room, and hadstopped there?"
"You turned away, and went straight to the corner near the window--wheremy Indian cabinet stands."
"When I was at the cabinet, my back must have been turned towards you.How did you see what I was doing?"
"When you moved, I moved."
"So as to see what I was about with my hands?"
"There are three glasses in my sitting-room. As you stood there, I sawall that you did, reflected in one of them."
"What did you see?"
"You put your candle on the top of the cabinet. You opened, and shut,one drawer after another, until you came to the drawer in which I hadput my Diamond. You looked at the open drawer for a moment. And then youput your hand in, and took the Diamond out."
"How do you know I took the Diamond out?"
"I saw your hand go into the drawer. And I saw the gleam of the stonebetween your finger and thumb, when you took your hand out."
"Did my hand approach the drawer again--to close it, for instance?"
"No. You had the Diamond in your right hand; and you took the candlefrom the top of the cabinet with your left hand."
"Did I look about me again, after that?"
"No."
"Did I leave the room immediately?"
"No. You stood quite still, for what seemed a long time. I saw your facesideways in the glass. You looked like a man thinking, and dissatisfiedwith his own thoughts."
"What happened next?"
"You roused yourself on a sudden, and you went straight out of theroom."
"Did I close the door after me?"
"No. You passed out quickly into the passage, and left the door open."
"And then?"
"Then, your light disappeared, and the sound of your steps died away,and I was left alone in the dark."
"Did nothing happen--from that time, to the time when the whole houseknew that the Diamond was lost?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure of that? Might you not have been asleep a part of thetime?"
"I never slept. I never went back to my bed. Nothing happened untilPenelope came in, at the usual time in the morning."
I dropped her hand, and rose, and took a turn in the room. Everyquestion that I could put had been answered. Every detail that I coulddesire to know had been placed before me. I had even reverted to theidea of sleep-walking, and the idea of intoxication; and, again, theworthlessness of the one theory and the other had been proved--on theauthority, this time, of the witness who had seen me. What was to
besaid next? what was to be done next? There rose the horrible fact of theTheft--the one visible, tangible object that confronted me, in the midstof the impenetrable darkness which enveloped all besides! Not a glimpseof light to guide me, when I had possessed myself of Rosanna Spearman'ssecret at the Shivering Sand. And not a glimpse of light now, when I hadappealed to Rachel herself, and had heard the hateful story of the nightfrom her own lips.
She was the first, this time, to break the silence.
"Well?" she said, "you have asked, and I have answered. You have made mehope something from all this, because you hoped something from it. Whathave you to say now?"
The tone in which she spoke warned me that my influence over her was alost influence once more.
"We were to look at what happened on my birthday night, together," shewent on; "and we were then to understand each other. Have we done that?"
She waited pitilessly for my reply. In answering her I committed afatal error--I let the exasperating helplessness of my situation get thebetter of my self-control. Rashly and uselessly, I reproached her forthe silence which had kept me until that moment in ignorance of thetruth.
"If you had spoken when you ought to have spoken," I began; "if you haddone me the common justice to explain yourself----"
She broke in on me with a cry of fury. The few words I had said seemedto have lashed her on the instant into a frenzy of rage.
"Explain myself!" she repeated. "Oh! is there another man like this inthe world? I spare him, when my heart is breaking; I screen him when myown character is at stake; and HE--of all human beings, HE--turns on menow, and tells me that I ought to have explained myself! After believingin him as I did, after loving him as I did, after thinking of him byday, and dreaming of him by night--he wonders I didn't charge him withhis disgrace the first time we met: 'My heart's darling, you are aThief! My hero whom I love and honour, you have crept into my room undercover of the night, and stolen my Diamond!' That is what I ought to havesaid. You villain, you mean, mean, mean villain, I would have lost fiftydiamonds, rather than see your face lying to me, as I see it lying now!"
I took up my hat. In mercy to HER--yes! I can honestly say it--in mercyto HER, I turned away without a word, and opened the door by which I hadentered the room.
She followed, and snatched the door out of my hand; she closed it, andpointed back to the place that I had left.
"No!" she said. "Not yet! It seems that I owe a justification of myconduct to you. You shall stay and hear it. Or you shall stoop to thelowest infamy of all, and force your way out."
It wrung my heart to see her; it wrung my heart to hear her. I answeredby a sign--it was all I could do--that I submitted myself to her will.
The crimson flush of anger began to fade out of her face, as I wentback, and took my chair in silence. She waited a little, and steadiedherself. When she went on, but one sign of feeling was discernible inher. She spoke without looking at me. Her hands were fast clasped in herlap, and her eyes were fixed on the ground.
"I ought to have done you the common justice to explain myself," shesaid, repeating my own words. "You shall see whether I did try to doyou justice, or not. I told you just now that I never slept, and neverreturned to my bed, after you had left my sitting-room. It's useless totrouble you by dwelling on what I thought--you would not understand mythoughts--I will only tell you what I did, when time enough had passedto help me to recover myself. I refrained from alarming the house, andtelling everybody what had happened--as I ought to have done. In spiteof what I had seen, I was fond enough of you to believe--no matterwhat!--any impossibility, rather than admit it to my own mind that youwere deliberately a thief. I thought and thought--and I ended in writingto you."
"I never received the letter."
"I know you never received it. Wait a little, and you shall hear why. Myletter would have told you nothing openly. It would not have ruined youfor life, if it had fallen into some other person's hands. It wouldonly have said--in a manner which you yourself could not possibly havemistaken--that I had reason to know you were in debt, and that it wasin my experience and in my mother's experience of you, that you werenot very discreet, or very scrupulous about how you got money when youwanted it. You would have remembered the visit of the French lawyer, andyou would have known what I referred to. If you had read on with someinterest after that, you would have come to an offer I had to make toyou--the offer, privately (not a word, mind, to be said openly aboutit between us!), of the loan of as large a sum of money as I couldget.--And I would have got it!" she exclaimed, her colour beginningto rise again, and her eyes looking up at me once more. "I would havepledged the Diamond myself, if I could have got the money in no otherway! In those words I wrote to you. Wait! I did more than that. Iarranged with Penelope to give you the letter when nobody was near. Iplanned to shut myself into my bedroom, and to have the sitting-roomleft open and empty all the morning. And I hoped--with all my heart andsoul I hoped!--that you would take the opportunity, and put the Diamondback secretly in the drawer."
I attempted to speak. She lifted her hand impatiently, and stopped me.In the rapid alternations of her temper, her anger was beginning to riseagain. She got up from her chair, and approached me.
"I know what you are going to say," she went on. "You are going toremind me again that you never received my letter. I can tell you why. Itore it up.
"For what reason?" I asked.
"For the best of reasons. I preferred tearing it up to throwing it awayupon such a man as you! What was the first news that reached me in themorning? Just as my little plan was complete, what did I hear? I heardthat you--you!!!--were the foremost person in the house in fetching thepolice. You were the active man; you were the leader; you were workingharder than any of them to recover the jewel! You even carried youraudacity far enough to ask to speak to ME about the loss of theDiamond--the Diamond which you yourself had stolen; the Diamond whichwas all the time in your own hands! After that proof of your horriblefalseness and cunning, I tore up my letter. But even then--even when Iwas maddened by the searching and questioning of the policeman, whomyou had sent in--even then, there was some infatuation in my mind whichwouldn't let me give you up. I said to myself, 'He has played his vilefarce before everybody else in the house. Let me try if he can play itbefore me.' Somebody told me you were on the terrace. I went down tothe terrace. I forced myself to look at you; I forced myself to speak toyou. Have you forgotten what I said?"
I might have answered that I remembered every word of it. But whatpurpose, at that moment, would the answer have served?
How could I tell her that what she had said had astonished me, haddistressed me, had suggested to me that she was in a state of dangerousnervous excitement, had even roused a moment's doubt in my mind whetherthe loss of the jewel was as much a mystery to her as to the rest ofus--but had never once given me so much as a glimpse at the truth?Without the shadow of a proof to produce in vindication of my innocence,how could I persuade her that I knew no more than the veriest strangercould have known of what was really in her thoughts when she spoke to meon the terrace?
"It may suit your convenience to forget; it suits my convenience toremember," she went on. "I know what I said--for I considered it withmyself, before I said it. I gave you one opportunity after anotherof owning the truth. I left nothing unsaid that I COULD say--short ofactually telling you that I knew you had committed the theft. Andall the return you made, was to look at me with your vile pretence ofastonishment, and your false face of innocence--just as you have lookedat me to-day; just as you are looking at me now! I left you, thatmorning, knowing you at last for what you were--for what you are--asbase a wretch as ever walked the earth!"
"If you had spoken out at the time, you might have left me, Rachel,knowing that you had cruelly wronged an innocent man."
"If I had spoken out before other people," she retorted, with anotherburst of indignation, "you would have been disgraced for life! If I hadspoken out to no ears but yours, you would have de
nied it, as you aredenying it now! Do you think I should have believed you? Would a manhesitate at a lie, who had done what I saw YOU do--who had behaved aboutit afterwards, as I saw YOU behave? I tell you again, I shrank from thehorror of hearing you lie, after the horror of seeing you thieve. Youtalk as if this was a misunderstanding which a few words might have setright! Well! the misunderstanding is at an end. Is the thing set right?No! the thing is just where it was. I don't believe you NOW! I don'tbelieve you found the nightgown, I don't believe in Rosanna Spearman'sletter, I don't believe a word you have said. You stole it--I saw you!You affected to help the police--I saw you! You pledged the Diamond tothe money-lender in London--I am sure of it! You cast the suspicion ofyour disgrace (thanks to my base silence!) on an innocent man! You fledto the Continent with your plunder the next morning! After all thatvileness, there was but one thing more you COULD do. You could come herewith a last falsehood on your lips--you could come here, and tell methat I have wronged you!"
If I had stayed a moment more, I know not what words might have escapedme which I should have remembered with vain repentance and regret. Ipassed by her, and opened the door for the second time. For the secondtime--with the frantic perversity of a roused woman--she caught me bythe arm, and barred my way out.
"Let me go, Rachel" I said. "It will be better for both of us. Let mego."
The hysterical passion swelled in her bosom--her quickened convulsivebreathing almost beat on my face, as she held me back at the door.
"Why did you come here?" she persisted, desperately. "I ask youagain--why did you come here? Are you afraid I shall expose you? Now youare a rich man, now you have got a place in the world, now you may marrythe best lady in the land--are you afraid I shall say the words which Ihave never said yet to anybody but you? I can't say the words! I can'texpose you! I am worse, if worse can be, than you are yourself." Sobsand tears burst from her. She struggled with them fiercely; she heldme more and more firmly. "I can't tear you out of my heart," she said,"even now! You may trust in the shameful, shameful weakness which canonly struggle against you in this way!" She suddenly let go of me--shethrew up her hands, and wrung them frantically in the air. "Any otherwoman living would shrink from the disgrace of touching him!" sheexclaimed. "Oh, God! I despise myself even more heartily than I despiseHIM!"
The tears were forcing their way into my eyes in spite of me--the horrorof it was to be endured no longer.
"You shall know that you have wronged me, yet," I said. "Or you shallnever see me again!"
With those words, I left her. She started up from the chair on which shehad dropped the moment before: she started up--the noble creature!--andfollowed me across the outer room, with a last merciful word at parting.
"Franklin!" she said, "I forgive you! Oh, Franklin, Franklin! we shallnever meet again. Say you forgive ME!"
I turned, so as to let my face show her that I was past speaking--Iturned, and waved my hand, and saw her dimly, as in a vision, throughthe tears that had conquered me at last.
The next moment, the worst bitterness of it was over. I was out in thegarden again. I saw her, and heard her, no more.