'Basil looks very ill, doesn't he? His wife came to see me this morning. I dare say you remember that he was married about a year ago.'
Mrs Murray coloured, and stared at Frank with cold suspicion. She tightened her lips, wondering what he had in mind.
'I went down to see her,' she answered frigidly. 'She seemed to me vulgar and pretentious. I'm afraid I can take no great interest in her.'
'She loves Basil with all her heart, and she's desperately unhappy.' He looked steadily at Mrs Murray, and dropped his voice, so that it seemed no sound issued from his mouth; but Hilda heard every word so emphatically that it struck her heart as though with a hammer. 'She asked me to give you a message. She knows that Basil – loves you, and she begs you to have mercy on her.'
For a moment Hilda could not reply.
'Don't you think it's rather impertinent of you to say such things to me?' she returned, uttering the words disjointedly, as though she forced them out one by one.
'Excessively,' he answered. 'And I wouldn't have ventured only she told me her love was like music in her heart, and something prevented it from ever coming out. It seemed to me that for a rather stupid, narrow, common woman to have got hold of a thought like that she must have gone through a perfect hell of suffering. And I was sorry.'
'And d'you think I've not suffered?'
Hilda could not preserve that mask of cold decorum. The question thrilled from her, and she had no power to leave it unasked.
'Are you very fond of him?'
'No, I'm not fond of him. I worship the very ground he treads on.'
Frank held out his hand to say good-bye.
'Then you must do as you think fit. You're playing the most dangerous game in the world; you're playing with human hearts Forgive me for what I've said.'
'I'm very glad – for now I know better what to do. I'd forgotten his wife.'
Frank went away, and presently Mr Farley, despairing to stay the others out, rose also. Shaking hands with Hilda, he asked when he might come again. In the agitation of her talk with Frank she had completely forgotten his proposal; but now, with a sudden passion for self-sacrifice, it seemed neither grotesque nor impossible. Indeed, if she accepted, it would solve many difficulties, and she determined not to put aside the offer, as at first she intended, but to think it over. At least, she must do nothing rashly.
'I will write to you tomorrow,' she answered gravely.
He smiled and pressed her hand affectionately, already with somewhat the fervour of an accepted lover. Mrs Murray was left alone with Basil. He turned over the pages of a book, and the trivial action, indicating to her excited temper a callousness which was not his, filled her with anger, so that for an instant, on account of all the pain he caused her, she hated him furiously.
'Is that a very interesting work?' she asked coldly.
He flung it aside with impatience.
'I thought that man was never going. It makes me angry each time I see him here. Are you very much attached to him?'
'What an extraordinary question!' she answered coolly. 'I wonder why on earth you ask it?'
'Because I love you,' he burst out impulsively, 'and I hate anyone else to be with you.'
She stared at him with the utmost calm, and some icy power seized her, so that she felt absolutely no emotion.
'It may interest you to know that Mr Farley has asked me to marry him.'
'And what are you going to say?'
His face had suddenly fallen ashen grey, and his voice was hoarse.
'I don't know – perhaps yes.'
'I thought you loved me, Hilda.'
'It's because I love you that I shall marry Mr Farley.'
He sprang forward passionately and seized her hands.
'Oh, but you can't, Hilda. It's absurd. You don't know what you're doing. Oh, don't do that, for God's sake! You'll make both of us utterly miserable. Hilda, I love you; I can't live without you. You don't know how unhappy I've been. For months I've dreaded going home. When I saw my house as I walked along, I almost turned sick. You don't know how fervently I wished that I'd got killed in the war. I can't go on.'
'But you must,' she said; 'it's your duty.'
'Oh, I think I've had enough of duty and honour. I've used up all my principles in the last year. I know I brought the whole thing on myself. I was weak and stupid, and I must take the consequences. But I haven't the strength; I don't love – my wife.'
'Then, don't let her ever find it out. Be kind to her, and gentle, and forbearing.'
'I can't be kind and gentle and forbearing day after day for weeks and months and years. And the worst of it is there's no hope for me. I've tried honestly to make the best of things, but it's no good. We're too different, and it's impossible that we should continue to live together. Everything she says, everything she does, jars upon me so frightfully. A man, when he marries a woman like that, thinks he's going to lift her up to his own station. The fool! It's she who drags him down to hers.'
She walked from end to end of the room distracted, and mingled feelings tore her breast. She knew how overwhelming was her own love, and knew that his was no less; she could not bear to think that he was unhappy. She stopped, and looked at him with tear-filled eyes.
'If it weren't for you I couldn't have lived,' he was saying, and his voice played upon her heart-strings as though they were some strange living instrument. 'It was only by seeing you that I gathered courage to go on with it. And each time I came here I loved you more passionately.'
'Why did you come?' she whispered.
'I couldn't help it. I knew it was poison, but I loved the poison. I would give my whole soul for one look of your eyes.'
It was the first time he had said such things to her, and they were very, very sweet; but she tried to be strong.
'If you care for me at all, do your duty like a brave man, and let me respect you. You're only making our friendship impossible. Don't you see that you're preventing me from ever having you here again?'
'I can't help it. Even if I see you never again, I must tell you now that I love you. For months it's been burning my tongue, and I've scarcely known sometimes how to prevent myself. I made you suffer, I was blind; but I love you with all my heart, Hilda. I can't live without you.'
He stepped forward, but quickly, with a cry of anguish, she sprang back.
'For God's sake, don't say such things! I can't bear them. Don't you see how weak I am? Have mercy on me.'
'You don't love me.'
'You know I love you,' she cried vehemently, angrily; 'but because of my great love I beseech you to do your duty.'
'My duty is to be happy. Let us go where we can love one another – away from England, to some place where love isn't sinful and ugly.'
'Oh, Basil,' she cried earnestly, stronger now because she had thrown herself on his charity; 'oh, Basil, let us try to walk straight. Think of your wife, who loves you also – as much as I do. You're all in the world to her; you can't treat her so shamefully.'
She sank in a chair and dried her eyes. Her agony had calmed the man's ardent passion, and it wrung his heart that she should weep.
'Don't cry, Hilda; I can't bear it.'
He was standing over her, and very gently she took his hand.
'Don't you understand that we could never respect ourselves again if we did that poor creature such a fearful wrong? She would always be between us with her tears and her sorrows. I tell you I couldn't bear it. Have mercy on me – if you love me at all.'
He did not answer, and very brokenly she went on.
'I know it's better to do our duty. For my sake, dearest, go back to your wife, and don't let her ever know that you love me. It's because we're stronger than she that we must sacrifice ourselves.'
A profound discouragement seized him, and silence fell upon them both. At last he released her hand.
'I don't know any longer what's right and what's wrong. It all seems confused. It's very hard.'
'It's just as hard f
or me, Basil.'
'Good-bye, then,' he said broken-heartedly. 'I dare say you're right, and perhaps I should only make you very unhappy.'
'Good-bye, my dearest.'
She got up and gave him both her hands, and he bent down and kissed them. She could hardly stand the pain, and when he turned away and walked towards the door all resolution left her. She could not bear him to go – at all event, not thus coldly, not yet. She thought that perhaps this was the last time she would ever see him, and her passion, so long restrained, rose up and overpowered her, and it seemed that nothing mattered but love.
'Don't go, Basil,' she cried. 'Don't go!'
With a cry of joy he turned, and she found herself in his arms; he kissed her violently, he kissed her mouth and her eyes and her hair; and she wept with the extremity of her desire. She cared now for nothing. All might go, and the very heavens fall; nothing in the world signified but this divine madness.
'Oh, I can't bear it,' she moaned. 'I won't lose you. Basil, say you love me.'
'Yes, yes: I love you with all my heart and soul.'
He sought her lips again, and she nearly fainted with the rapture; she yielded herself to his strong, encircling arms, and felt that there she could happily die.
'Oh, Basil, I want your love – I want your love so badly.'
'Now nothing can separate us. You belong to me for ever.'
He passed his hands over her face, and his eyes were flaming. She exulted in his ardent passion, proud that a man on her account should be thus frenzied.
'Say again that you love me,' she whispered.
'Oh, Hilda, Hilda, at last! We'll go to a land where the whole earth speaks only of love, and where only love and youth and beauty matter.'
'Let's go where we can be together always. We have so short a time; let's snatch all the happiness we can.'
He kissed her again, and in her ecstasy she burst into tears. They talked madly of their love and past anguish, making venturesome plans for the future, forgetting all but the passion that devoured them. At that moment only the present existed, and they wondered how it had been possible to live so long apart. She pressed his hands joyfully when he said that nothing now could separate them, for they belonged to one another for ever and always; and it signified not if they lost their souls, for they gained the whole world. But suddenly Hilda sprang up.
'Take care! There's somebody coming.'
And the words were scarcely out of her mouth when the butler came in, followed immediately by Jenny. Basil gave a cry of surprise. The servant closed the door, and for one moment, embarrassed, Hilda did not know what to say. Basil recovered himself first.
'I think you know my wife, Mrs Murray.'
'Oh yes, I know her; you needn't introduce me,' Jenny burst out with a loud and angry voice. She went up quickly to Hilda. 'I've come for my husband.'
'Jenny, what are you saying?' cried Basil, foreseeing a hideous scene. He turned to Hilda. 'Would you mind leaving us alone?'
'No, I want to speak to you,' interrupted Jenny. 'I don't want any of your society shams. I've come here to speak out. I've caught you at last. You're trying to get my husband from me.'
'Be quiet, Jenny. Are you mad? For God's sake, leave us, Mrs Murray; she'll insult you.'
'You think of her – you don't think of me. You don't care how much I suffer.'
Basil took his wife's arm, trying to get her away, but vehemently she shook him off. And Hilda stood before her pale and conscience-stricken; that sudden irruption showed her the sordid ugliness of what she had meant to do, and she was horrified. She motioned to Basil that he was to allow his wife to say what she would.
'You're stealing my husband from me!' exclaimed Jenny threateningly. 'Oh, you ...' She was at a loss for words violent enough, and she trembled with impotent rage. 'You wicked woman!'
Hilda forced herself to speak.
'I don't want to make you unhappy, Mrs Kent. If you like, I'll promise never to see your husband again.'
'Much good your promises will do me. I wouldn't believe a word you said. I know what society ladies are. We know all about them in the City.'
Basil stepped forward, and again begged Hilda to leave them. He opened the door, and his glance was so appealing that she could not stay; but though keeping her eyes averted, she felt that his besought her not to be angry for the hateful, odious scene to which she had been exposed.
'She's frightened of me,' Jenny hissed savagely. 'She daren't stand up to me.'
He closed the door, and then turned to his wife. He was pale with rage, but she heeded not.
'What d'you mean by coming here and behaving like this?' he said violently. 'You had no right to come at all. What d'you want?'
'I want you. D'you think I didn't guess what was going on? I've been waiting here for hours. I saw people come in, and I saw them go out, and at last I knew you were alone with her.'
'How did you know?'
'I gave the butler a sovereign, and he told me.'
An icy shiver of disgust passed through Basil, and she laughed bitterly when she saw his profound scorn. Then she caught sight of a photograph of Basil which stood on a table near the window, and before he could prevent her, seized it and flung it on the floor, and viciously dug her heel into it.
'She's got no right to have your photo here. Oh, I hate her, I hate her!'
'You drive me perfectly mad. For God's sake go.'
'I shan't go till you come with me.'
He watched her for a moment, trying to command the hatred, the passionate vindictive hatred, which now welled up uncontrollably within him. He strode up to her and seized her arm.
'Look here, until today I swear to you before God that I've never done anything or said anything that you couldn't have known. I've tried to do my duty, and I've done my best to make you happy. I've struggled with all my might to love you. And now I don't wish to deceive you. It's best that you should know exactly what has happened. This afternoon I told Hilda that I loved her.... And she loves me, too.'
Jenny gave a cry of rage, and impulsively with her umbrella gave him a swinging blow on the face. He snatched it from her, and in blind anger broke it across his knee and threw it aside.
'You've brought it on yourself,' he said. 'You made me too unhappy.'
He looked at Jenny as he might at some strange woman whom he saw for the first time. She stood before him, panting and bewildered, trying to control herself.
'And now it's the end,' he went on coldly. 'The life we led was impossible. I tried to do something that was beyond my power. I'm going away. I can't and I won't live with you any longer.'
'Basil, you don't mean that,' she cried, feeling suddenly that he spoke in deadly earnest. Before she had fancied that he threatened only what he did not mean to perform. 'You've got me to count with. I won't let you go.'
'What more d'you want?' he asked bitterly. 'Isn't it enough that you've ruined my whole life?'
'You don't love me?'
'I never loved you.'
'Why did you marry me?'
'Because you made me.'
'You never loved me?' she repeated, entirely crushed now, trembling and faint with fear. 'Even at the beginning?'
'Never. It's too late now to keep it in. I must tell you and have done with it. You've been having it out for months – now it's my turn.'
'But I love you, Basil,' she cried passionately, going to him to put her arms round his neck. 'I'll make you love me.'
But he shrank away.
'For God's sake, don't touch me! ... Oh, Jenny, let us finish with it. I'm very sorry. I don't wish to be unkind to you, but you must have seen that – that I didn't care for you. What's the good of going on humbugging and pretending and making ourselves utterly miserable?'
She faced him, humbled, shaken with sobs which she would not allow to come, and stared at Basil with eyes preternaturally large.
'Yes, I've seen it,' she cried hoarsely. 'But I wouldn't believe it. When I've put my hand on you
r shoulder I've seen that you could hardly help shuddering; and sometimes when I've kissed you I've seen you put out all your strength to prevent yourself from pushing me away.'
After all, he was tender-hearted, and now that his first anger was gone could not help being touched by the dreadful anguish of her tone.
'Jenny, I can't help it if I don't love you. I can't help it if I – if I love someone else.'
'What are you going to do?' she asked, dazed and cowed.
'I'm going away.'
'Where?'
'God knows!'
They stood for a while in silence, while Jenny sought to collect and order her thoughts, which throbbed horribly in her brain, like raving maniacs dancing some tumultuous, distracted measure. The butler came in softly and handed a note to Basil, saying that Mrs Murray had ordered him to bring it. Basil did not open this till the servant was gone, and then, having read, gave it without a word to Jenny.
You may tell your wife that I've made up my mind to marry Mr Farley. I will never see you again. – H.M.
'What does it mean?' asked Jenny.
'Isn't it clear? Someone has asked her to marry him, and she means to accept.'
'But you said she loved you.'
He shrugged his shoulders and did not answer. Then a ray of hope shot through Jenny's heart, and with outstretched hands, tenderly, anxiously, she went to him.
'Oh, Basil, if it's true, give me another chance. She doesn't love you as I love you. I've been selfish and quarrelsome and exacting, but I've always loved you. Oh, don't leave me, Basil. Let me try once more if I can't make you care for me.'
'I'm very sorry,' he returned, looking down. 'It's too late.'
'Oh God! what shall I do?' she cried. 'And even though she's going to marry somebody else, you care for her better than anyone else in the world?'
He nodded.
'And even if she does marry that other man, she'll love you still. There's no room for me between you, and I can go away like a discharged servant. Oh God, oh God! what have I done to deserve it?'