Captain Desmond, V.C.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LOSS OF ALL.
"The loss of all love has to give, Save pardon for love wronged." --O. MEREDITH.
"Here I am, Theo. Honor says you want to see me."
Evelyn Desmond closed the door behind her; and at sight of her husbandtransformed into his very self--freed at last from all disfigurements--sheran to him with outstretched arms.
"Theo, are you really all right again? I can hardly believe it."
But Desmond had no answer to give her. He simply squared his rightarm, warding off her hands.
Then she saw the hard lines of his mouth, the inexpressible pain inhis eyes; and, clutching at his rigid forearm, tried to force it down.She might as well have tried to shift a bar of iron.
"What's the matter with you now?" she asked, half petulant, halffearful. "Has anything else gone wrong? Haven't we had enough miseryand depression----?"
"There's no more call for acting, Evelyn," Desmond interposed with anominous quietness more disconcerting than anger--"Doesn't your ownconscience tell you what may have gone wrong?"
At that the colour left her face. "You mean--is it about--me?" sheasked with shaking lips.
"Yes. About you." Her pitiful aspect softened him; he took her arm andset her gently down upon a chair;--the selfsame chair that Paul hadoccupied half an hour ago. "Don't be frightened," he said gently; "Iwon't hurt you more than I must. Ever since we married I have done myutmost to help you, spare you, shield you; but now--we've got toarrive at a clear understanding, once for all. First I want you toanswer a question or two, straightly, without prevarication. You wentout early, it seems. Where?"
"To Mrs Riley's----"
"And after?"
"I met Mr Kresney--quite by chance. He wanted me to come in to tea. Hesaid Miss Kresney would soon be home--and I--I----"
"No need for polite fabrications;" he took her up quickly. "You wentin. Miss Kresney did _not_ come home. Is this the first time he hastrapped you with a convenient lie? Tell me that."
Words and tone roused her to a passing flash of retaliation.
"If you're going to get so angry, Theo, I won't tell you _any_thing,and I _won't_ be questioned like a creature in a witness-box! Someone's been saying horrid things of me. Major Wyndham, I suppose. Youwouldn't listen to any one else. It's very mean of him----"
Desmond took a hasty step forward. "How dare you speak so of thestraightest man living!" he cried with imperious heat. "You, who havetaken advantage of my blindness to deceive me deliberately a secondtime, on account of a cad who isn't fit to tie your shoe-strings. I'vebeen blind in more than one way lately. But that is over now. I am notlikely to repeat the mistake of trusting you implicitly--after this."
She cowered under the lash of his just wrath, hiding her face andcrying heart-broken tears--the bitterest she had yet shed. Insnatching at the shadow it seemed she had lost the substance pastrecall.
"Oh! You are cruel--horrible!" she wailed, with her disarming,pathetic air of a scolded child that made a rough word to her seemcowardly as a blow.
"No need to break your heart over it," he said more gently; "and asto cruelty, Evelyn, haven't you abused my faith in your loyalty anddragged my pride in the dust by letting your name be coupled with thatman's, though I told you plainly I had good reasons for distrustingand disliking him. I suppose he made a dead set at you while I wasaway--cowardly brute! But what hits me hardest of all is not yourindiscretion; it's your persistent crookedness that poisonseverything. It was the same over your bills last year--as I told youthen. It's the same now. It's a poor look-out if a man can't trust hisown wife; but I suppose you must have lied to me--and to Honor, adozen times this last week."
It had cost him an effort to speak so plainly and at such length; buthis wife's uneven breathing was the only answer he received.
He came closer and laid an arm round her shoulder.
"Evelyn--Ladybird--have you nothing to say to me?"
"N--no," she answered in a choked voice, without uncovering her face;"it wouldn't be any use."
"Why not? Am I so utterly devoid of understanding?"
"No--no. But you brave, strong sort of people can't ever know how hardlittle things are for--for people like me. It has been so--dulllately. You had--all those men, and--I was lonely. It was nice to havesome one--wanting me--some one not miles above my head. But I knew youwould be cross if I told you--and--and--" tears choked herutterance--"oh, it's no good talking. You'd never understand."
"I understand this much, my dear," he said. "You are done up with thestrain of nursing, and badly in need of a change. But we shall soonget away on leave now; and I will see to it that you shall never feeldull or out of it again. Only one thing I insist upon--your intimacywith--that man is at an end. No more riding with him; no more going tohis bungalow. From to-day you treat him and his sister as mereacquaintances."
She faced him now with terror-stricken eyes. For while he spoke, shehad perceived the full extent of her dilemma.
"But, Theo--there isn't any need for that," she urged, with a thrillof fear at her own boldness. "They would think it so odd. Whatexcuses could I possibly make?"
"That's your affair," Desmond answered unmoved. "You are a better handat it than I am. My only concern is that you shall put an end to thisequivocal state of things for good."
At that she hid her face again, with a sob of despair. "I can't doit--I _can't_. It's impossible!" she murmured vehemently more toherself than to him.
Her unexpected opposition fanned his smouldering wrath to a blaze. Hetook her by the shoulder--not roughly, but very decisively.
"_Impossible!_ What am I to understand by that?"
It was the first time he had touched her untenderly; and she quiveredin every nerve.
"I--I don't know. I can't explain. But--it's true."
For one instant he stood speechless;--then:
"Great Heavens, Evelyn!" he broke out, "don't you see that you areforcing upon me a suspicion that is an insult to us both?"
She looked up at him in blank bewilderment, then jerked herself freefrom his hand.
"I--I don't understand what you mean. But if you _will_ think horridthings of me you may. I can't explain and--I won't!"
"You--_won't_," Desmond repeated slowly, frozen incredulity in hiseyes; and she, fearing she had gone too far, caught at the hand shehad shaken off.
"Oh, Theo, what _does_ it matter after all?" she urged betweenirritation and despair, "when you know quite well it's you--that Ilove?"
The appeal was too ill-timed to be convincing; and Desmond's smile hada tinge of bitterness in it.
"You have an uncommonly original way of showing it," he said coldly;"and the statement doesn't square with your refusal to explainyourself. You have broken up the foundations of--things to-day,Evelyn! You have killed my trust in you altogether. You may remember,perhaps,--what that involves." And withdrawing his hand he turned andleft her.
But he had roused her at last by the infliction of a pain too intensefor tears. She sprang up, knocking over the chair that fell with athud on the carpet, and hurried after him, clinging to hisunresponsive arm.
"Theo, Theo, take care what you say! Do you mean--truthfully that youdon't--love me any more?"
"God knows," he answered wearily. "Let me alone now, for Heaven'ssake, till I can see things clearer. But I'll not alter my decisionabout Kresney, whatever your mysterious impossibilities may be."
Freeing himself gently but deliberately, he went over to the verandahdoor and stood there, erect, motionless, his back towards her, lookingout upon the featureless huts of the servants' quarters with eyes thatsaw nothing save a vision of his wife's face, as it had shone uponhim, more than two years ago, in the Garden of Tombs.
And it was shining upon him now--had he but guessed it,--not with thesimple tenderness of girlhood; but with the despairing half-worshippinglove of a woman.
When he heard the door close softly behind her, he came back int
o theroom, mechanically righted the chair, and sitting down upon it buriedhis face in his hands.