A Bachelor Husband

  THERE was a moment's silence, then Feathers went forward. Theriotous blood in his veins had quieted and he felt a little coldand breathless.

  "Hullo!" he said.

  Chris looked up.

  "Hullo! I thought I'd wait till you came in as they said you'd onlyjust gone out."

  "Yes . . . yes . . . I went down to the end of the road, that'sall."

  He poured out two whiskies with a hand that shook badly, and pushedone across to Chris.

  "Have a drink?"

  Chris tasted it and made a wry face.

  "Lord! That's a strong dose," he said. He added more soda to it,but Feathers drained his at a gulp.

  "Well, how goes it?" he asked. He sat down on the other side of thetable, so that his face was out of the light. The room to himseemed filled with Marie's presence. It was so real that hewondered Chris did not guess she had been here.

  Chris stood up, his shoulders against the mantelshelf.

  His handsome eyes met his friend's with haggard pain.

  "I've got something to tell you," he said. "I'm telling you becauseyou've always been--been my best friend."

  There was a little silence, then:

  "Yes," said Feathers hoarsely. Chris told his story abruptly.

  "Mrs. Heriot went to our place two days ago. You know Miss Webberand I were golfing with them the day before."

  "Yes."

  Chris flushed and his eyes wavered.

  "A damnable incident happened when we were down there--Miss Webber. . ." He could not go on.

  Feathers nodded.

  "I know. Don't trouble to explain. I could see it in Scotland. Shethinks she is in love with you--is that it? and told you so? Mrs.Heriot overheard, or saw, and told . . . your wife . . . Go on."

  Chris looked relieved.

  "That's it, more or less. I swear to you that there was nothing init on my side at all! I've never given the girl a thought, beyondto play golf with her; you know that!"

  "Yes, go on!" There was a long silence.

  "Marie won't believe me---" Chris said then brokenly. "She won'teven let me explain. Miss Webber's brother died unexpectedly, and Itook her back home. I only went because Marie and Aunt Madge bothseemed to think I ought to. I never spoke a dozen words to thewretched girl the whole way; I didn't want to go with her. I stayedat an inn in Chester that night--her home is in Chester--and cameback as soon as I could the next morning, and this is what I got! . . ." He dropped back into his chair despairingly. "She's donewith me," he said hoarsely.

  Feathers stared at his friend with strained eyes, and after amoment Chris started up once more.

  "I'll kill that Heriot woman if I ever see her again," he broke outpassionately. "I loathe women! They're cruel devils to each other!Why did she want to go and hurt Marie Celeste like that? We weregetting on better together--things would have been all right, andthen that hell-cat must needs come in and ruin everything . . ."His voice was choked and broken.

  "She said she hated me--Marie said so," he stumbled on. "She lookedas if she meant it, too . . . My God, you don't know what it waslike, to have to stand there and listen! I think I went mad--Iknow I hurt her, but I didn't know what I was doing . . . I'd givemy soul to undo the past three months and start again. It's allbeen my fault!" He brought his clenched fist down on the table witha crash. "Blind, insensate fool that I am! I never knew that shewas more to me than anything on earth . . ."

  Feathers closed his eyes, and for a moment there was absolutesilence. He had never heard Chris speak with such passionatedespair before; had not believed him to be capable of so muchfeeling, and it drove home to him with brutal force the terribletragedy upon the brink of which they now stood.

  It was not merely his own happiness, or Marie's that was involved,but that of his friend as well, for Feathers knew with unerringinstinct that Chris had only spoken the simple truth when he saidthat he loved his wife. He had been slow to realize it perhaps, butnow it had come Feathers knew him sufficiently well to know that itwould be deep and lasting.

  He braced himself for the thing which he knew was yet to come, anda terrible feeling of enmity rose in his heart against this friendof his, who had never discovered that he loved Marie until the factthat he stood in great danger of losing her, had been driven hometo him.

  Half an hour ago Feathers had told himself that he must give herup, but now he had forgotten that, and all his love and strengthrose in defense of her. She was his--he would hold her against allthe world.

  Chris was pacing the room agitatedly, and after a moment he brokeout again:

  "That isn't all--it isn't the worst--" he swung round looking atFeathers with haggard eyes. "How would you feel," he demandedhoarsely, "if your own wife told you that she cared for anotherman?"

  There was a poignant silence, and as their eyes held one another,the realization came home to Feathers with overwhelming shock, thatin spite of everything he had heard, in spite of what Marie herselfhad told him, Chris still trusted him and believed in him. He triedto find his voice, but it seemed to have deserted him, and as hecast desperately about for words, Chris turned away and flunghimself down into a chair, his face buried in his hands.

  There was a long silence, then he said in a dreary, muffled voice:

  "It's only what I deserve, I know--but . . ." He could not go on.He was up again, pacing the room in a frenzy of impotence.

  Feathers watched him for a moment with beaten eyes, then he saidjerkily:

  "You didn't--didn't care for her when you were married, Chris? Ithought--wasn't it--just to get the money?"

  Chris turned his haggard face.

  "To get what money?" he asked vaguely.

  Feathers tried to explain.

  "I was told--I understood--that the money was left to your wife--toyour wife alone I mean, unless she consented to marry you, and thatthen . . . then you divided it."

  Chris laughed mirthlessly.

  "Good lord, it was the other way about," he said in a hard voice."Her father was always a crank, and he never forgave her for notbeing a boy--that was why he adopted me. He left every farthing tome--and I knew how proud she was--knew she'd never take a shillingif she was told the truth about the will, so . . . so I married herto settle it! It seemed the best way out at the time," he addedhopelessly. "I thought I was being rather clever . . . I know nowwhat a damned fool I was."

  Feathers got up slowly and, walking across to Chris, put his handsheavily on his shoulders, looking at him with desperate eyes.

  "Is that the truth?" he asked hoarsely. "Will you swear that it'sthe truth?"

  Chris stared at him in blank amazement.

  "What on earth do you mean? Of course it's the truth. Ask MissChester if you don't believe me--she's known about it all along. Itwas she who first suggested keeping it from Marie . . . Here, Isay, what's the matter?"

  "Nothing . . . I wish I'd known before, that's all." He laughedgrimly. "Aston Knight told me a very different yarn," he broke outwith violence after a moment. "He said that the money had been leftto your wife, which was why you had married her--and I believedhim! My God, what a fool!"

  Chris was watching him with angry mystification.

  "I don't know what you're driving at," he said shortly. "But I'mmuch obliged to you for the compliment, I'm sure. Marie hadn't afarthing when I married her--but I settled half of everything onher on our wedding day."

  Feathers turned his white face.

  "Why didn't you tell her the truth?" he asked with difficulty. "Nogood ever comes of lying and subterfuge and deceit . . ." Helaughed grimly at his own words! He was a fine one to get up in thepulpit and preach when in another twenty-four hours he would havebroken every code of honor and friendship.

  It was trembling on his lips to tell Chris the whole truth, to keepback nothing from that first moment in the hotel lounge, when histoo-ready tongue had started all the mischief.

  But for him and his blundering, Chris and his wife would have beenhappy enough now. He seemed to see it all
as plainly as if it werea picture unraveled before his eyes.

  Marie had turned against Chris from the moment when she hadoverheard what he had said to Atkins. All her pride had been up inarms and had gone on increasing from that day until to-night, whenin her desperation and unhappiness she had come to him.

  "I don't know that it matters about not telling her," Chris saidwretchedly. "She told me afterwards that she had known all thetime, though God alone knows who told her."

  There was a little silence; then:

  "I did," said Feathers quietly.

  "You!" The blood rushed to Chris' face. He swung round and staredat his friend with hot eyes.

  "You!" he said again.

  "Yes; I was talking to Atkins in the lounge the first night youwere married. I repeated to him what Aston Knight had told me--thatyou had married your wife for her money . . . and she overheard."

  He looked at Chris' incredulous face.

  "It's the truth," he said. "I never knew until weeks afterwardsthat she had overheard, until she told me herself, and even then Ibelieved that I had only repeated what was true."

  He smiled painfully. "Go on, curse me to all eternity; I deserveit; I've been at the bottom of all the mischief."

  There was a terrible silence. Chris understood well enough nowwithout further explanations, and for a moment he saw the worldred. He broke out savagely:

  "Then it's you I've got to thank! You, with your damned humbuggingpretense of friendship trying to steal my wife---"

  He raised his fist in blind passion, and Feathers broke out in anagony:

  "Chris! for God's sake . . ."

  There was something so tragic in his ugly face, that Chris' handfell limply, and he turned away, leaning his arms on themantelshelf and hiding his face.

  "It's absurd to say I'm sorry," Feathers said after a moment dully."One can't find adequate words for--for a thing like this . . .There's only one reparation I can make, Chris . . . to tell--yourwife."

  Chris did not answer, and he went on. "I should like to feel thatyou still trust me sufficiently to--to allow me to tell her."

  Chris flung up his head.

  "Nothing will do any good. She hates the sight of me--and I don'twonder--if that is what she thought." There was something like asob in his voice, and Feathers winced.

  The delirium of that hour with Marie seemed like a dream. Whatmadness had possessed him? Her love had been given to Chris and noone else. It was only in her unhappiness that she had turned tohim, as a sick child will often turn to a stranger away from theone it really loves best in all the world.

  The thought hurt unbearably, but he knew it was the truth--knewthat his only reparation was to give her back to Chris.

  Chris turned suddenly, his young face aged by pain and despair.

  "She told me that she hated me." he said again. It seemed as if thefact was engraved on his heart and mind, to the exclusion ofeverything else. He broke off, breathing hard, as if he werechoking. "She told me that she loved you--you who ruined myhappiness and set her against me . . . Curse you, I say! Curse youto all eternity . . ."

  "Chris, for God's sake!"

  Chris turned away. He was shaking with passion, and for a long timeneither of them spoke.

  Then Feathers got up from the table and laid a hand on his friend'sshoulder.

  "Marie has never loved anyone but you," he said slowly. "She's beendesperately unhappy, and when--when a woman is unhappy, she turnsto the first friend who will listen to her! . . . Your wife turnedto me . . . If I had been any other man, she would have done justthe same. Will you believe me when I tell you that I know thingsare going to be all right? . . . Chris, for God's sake, believeme."

  Chris shook his hand off impatiently.

  "But when? How? You can't take away hatred with words." he said."And she meant what she said . . . She's never looked at me likethat in her life before . . ."

  Feathers walked over to the window and looked out into thedarkness. The stars seemed to be watching him with sympatheticeyes--the stars that were as far removed from him as was the womanhe loved.

  Chris spoke again presently:

  "I'll get off. If I talk till Doomsday nothing can be done." Heturned to the door. "Good-night." he said gruffly.

  Feathers held out his hand, but Chris would not see it, and he wentout, shutting the door hard behind him.

  Feathers stood at the window and listened to his steps dying awaydown the street. It was the end of their friendship, he knew, andthe knowledge cut him to the heart.

  He sat up all night, trying to make some sort of order out of histangled thoughts. He would never see Marie again! He would write toher and explain.

  But he knew she would be unconvinced by a letter, and, after all,what could he say that he would give her back her lost happiness,poor child!

  He waited till ten o'clock the following morning and rang Chris onthe 'phone.

  The servant who answered it said that Mr. Lawless had gone out."And--Mrs. Lawless?" Feathers asked.

  "She has gone out, too--for the day," she said.

  "With--with her husband?"

  "Oh, no, sir!"

  The surprise in the girl's voice was like a knife in his heart. Sothe servants knew how seldom Chris and his wife went abouttogether; and it was all his doing!

  Marie had gone out for the day! He knew only too well what thatmeant--that she had already left home forever, to join her lifewith his.

  It was impossible to stop her now. He would have to go and meether, as they had arranged last night.

  He had told her to meet him at a little inn on the Oxford road. Hehad arranged to drive the car down in the evening and take heraway!

  Last night it had sounded like sense! But this morning . . .

  Madness!--utter madness!

  Twice during the morning he rang Chris again, but each time he wasstill out, and finally Feathers wrote to him.

  He sent the note by a boy who lived in the house, and went round tothe garage to fetch his car.

  If Marie had gone to the inn earlier than he had told her, therewas still time to tell her the truth and take her back home.

  It was afternoon then; an unusually hot day for September, with acuriously humid feeling in the air.

  Feathers drove like a man in a dream. Everything seemed so unrealand impossible. He wondered what the end of it all would be.

  It was only four o'clock when he reached the inn, but Marie was notthere. He supposed he could hardly have expected her to be, seeingthat he had not told her to meet him until eight that evening.

  He remembered how he had calculated that it would be dark and thatthey could make their escape under cover of the friendly night. Hiswhole soul writhed now as he thought of it. The shame of what hehad done overwhelmed him.

  He never knew how he got through the long hours. He could not keepstill for a moment. In and out he wandered, looking up and down thelong road by which she must come.

  It seemed to get dark early. The river flowed close to the inn, anda curious gray mist rose from the fields and the water till almosta fog lay over the countryside.

  Feathers suffered the tortures of the damned. His heart was sickwith mingled dread and longing. One moment he was praying that shewould not come, that at the last moment she would change her mindand not dare to face it, and the next his soul was in agony lest heshould never see her again. A thousand times he went into the quietlittle inn parlor and looked at the clock. It was five minutes toeight, and he had told Chris to be there at half-past seven! It hadseemed the only way! If Chris came, between them they could tellher the whole story, but the clock struck the hour and there was nosign of Chris, no sign of Marie.

  Feathers went to the door again. He was shaking as if with ague andhis lips were like ice.

  Had anything happened to her? He thought he should go mad withdread. He paced back into the inn again. Perhaps the clock waswrong--perhaps . . .

  "Mr. Dakers," said a timid voice, and he turned slowly to findMarie
beside him.

  CHAPTER XXII

  "I am old and very tired, though to strangers I am young; Life was just a sporting gamble, but for me the game is done; It was worth it, and I'm scoffing now the reckoning has come; That's the worst of too much loving-- Hurts like Hades when it's done."