Part 25 (1/2)

The girl took him up, hardly with an echo of his own resentment, rather with a sort of crushed directness, as one who acknowledged a bare fact, making no comment, merely admitting the obscure dreariness of things.

”Yes; he was a scoundrel. He was bad all along. I think he has no heart. And he has made me bad too. I was a good enough girl of old, before I knew him. Only something came over me to-night when I found _her_ there, with that big house and the servants, and all that luxury, and thought how he couldn't spare a few pounds to bring his own child up decent. Oh, I was vile to-night. I frightened her.

Perhaps it was best as it happened. It dazed her. She'll remember less. She'll only remember your part of it, sir.”

She glanced across at him with timid eyes, which asked him to be so good as to explain: all that had confused her so.

”I don't understand,” she murmured helplessly--”I don't understand.”

He ignored the interrogation in her eyes with a little gesture, half irritable and half entreating, which coerced her.

”How did you come there?” he asked. ”What was the good----”

His question languished suddenly, and he let both hands fall slowly upon his knees. In effect, the uselessness of all argument, the futility of any recrimination in the face of what had been accomplished, was suddenly borne in upon him with irresistible force: and his momentary irritation against the malice of circ.u.mstance, the baseness of the man, was swallowed up in a rising la.s.situde which simply gave up.

The girl continued after a while, in a low, rapid voice, her eyes fixed intently upon the opal in an antique ring which shone faintly upon one of Rainham's quiet hands, as though its steady radiance helped her speech:

”It was all an accident--an accident. I was sick and tired of waiting and writing, and getting never a word in reply. My health went too, last winter, and ever since I have been getting weaker and worse. I knew what that meant: my mother died of a decline--yes, she is dead, thank G.o.d! this ten years--and it was then, when I knew I wouldn't get any better, and there was the child to think of, that I wanted to see him once more. There was a gentleman, too, who came----”

She broke off for a moment, clasping her thin hands together, which trembled as though the memory of some past, fantastic terror had recurred.

”It doesn't matter,” she went on presently. ”He frightened me, that was all. He had such a stern, smooth-spoken way with him; and he seemed to know so much. He said that he had heard of me and my story, and would befriend me if I would tell him the name of the man who ruined me. Yes, he would befriend me, help me to lead a respectable life.”

Her sunken eyes flashed for a moment, and her lip was scornfully curled.

”G.o.d knows!” she cried, with a certain rude dignity, ”I was always an honest woman but for Cyril--d.i.c.k she called him.”

The intimate term, tossed so lightly from those lips, caused Rainham to quiver, as though she had rasped raw wounds. It was the concrete touch giving flesh and blood to his vision of her past. It made the girl's old relation with Eve's husband grow into a very present horror, startlingly real and distinct.

”Go on,” he said at last, wearily.

”Ah, I didn't tell him, sir,” she explained, misinterpreting his silence. ”I wouldn't have done that. He sore angered me, though he may have meant well. He was set on seeing the child then, but I wouldn't let him. It came over me after he was gone that that, maybe, was what he came for--the child. Someone might have put him on to take her from me--some society. Oh, I was at my wits' end, sir! for, you see, she is all I have--all--all! Then I made up my mind to go and see him. Bad as he is, he wouldn't have let them do it. Oh, I would have begged and prayed to him on my knees for that.”

She stopped for a moment, hectic and panting. She pressed both hands against her breast, as though she sought composure. Then she continued:

”It was all a mistake, you know, my being shown in there to-night! I would never have sought her out myself, being where she is. Oh, I have my pride! It was the servant's mistake: he took me for a fitter, no doubt, from one of the big dressmakers. Perhaps there was one expected, I don't know. But I didn't think of that when I came in and found her sitting there, so proud and soft. It all came over me--how badly he had used me, and little Meg there at home, and hard Death coming on me--and I told her. It seemed quite natural then, as though I had come for that, just for that and nothing else, though, Heaven knows, it was never in my mind before. I was sorry afterwards. Yes, before you came in with _him_ I was sorry. It wasn't as if I owed her any grudge. How could she have known? She is an innocent young thing, after all--younger than I ever was--for all her fine dresses and her grand ladyish way. It was like striking a bit of a child.... G.o.d forgive him,” she added half hysterically, ”if he uses her as bad as me!”

Rainham's hand stole to his side, and for a moment he averted his head. When he turned to her again she was uncertain whether it was more than a pang of sharp physical pain, such as she well knew herself, which had so suddenly blanched his lips.

”For pity's sake, girl,” he whispered, ”be silent.”

She considered him for a moment silently in the elusive light, that matched the mental twilight in which she viewed his mood. His expression puzzled, evaded her; and she could not have explained the pity which he aroused.

”I am sorry,” she broke out again, moved by an impulse which she did not comprehend. ”You did it for her.”

”Oh, for her! What does it matter since it is done? Say that it was an accident--a folly--that I am sorry too.”

”No,” said the girl softly; ”you are glad.”

He shrugged his shoulders with increasing weariness, an immense desire to have the subject ended and put away with forgotten things.