Part 71 (2/2)
”Now,” continued Selwyn, ”for certain rules of conduct to govern you during the remainder of your wife's lifetime... . And your wife is ill, Mr. Ruthven--sick of a sickness which may last for a great many years, or may be terminated in as many days. Did you know it?”
Ruthven snarled.
”Yes, of course you knew it, or you suspected it. Your wife is in a sanitarium, as you have discovered. She is mentally ill--rational at times--violent at moments, and for long periods quite docile, gentle, harmless--content to be talked to, read to, advised, persuaded. But during the last week a change of a certain nature has occurred which--which, I am told by competent physicians, not only renders her case beyond all hope of ultimate recovery, but threatens an earlier termination than was at first looked for. It is this: your wife has become like a child again--occupied contentedly and quite happily with childish things. She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone. How much she does remember it is impossible to say.”
His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at his feet. After a while he looked up.
”It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven--she is so young--with all her physical charm and attraction quite unimpaired. But the mind is gone--quite gone, sir. Some sudden strain--and the tension has been great for years--some abrupt overdraft upon her mental resource, perhaps; G.o.d knows how it came--from sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured--”
Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, Ruthven lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then moistened his dry lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a glance at the locked door.
”I understand,” said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, ”that you are contemplating proceedings against your wife. Are you?”
Ruthven made no reply.
”_Are_ you?” repeated Selwyn. His face had altered; a dim glimmer played in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at dusk.
”Yes, I am,” said Ruthven.
”On the grounds of her mental incapacity?”
”Yes.”
”Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break every law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to abandon. Is that it?”
Ruthven made no reply.
”You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by beginning proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your wife's infirmity by divorcing her.”
”Sane or insane,” burst out Ruthven, ”she was riding for a fall--and she's going to get it! What the devil are you talking about? I'm not accountable to you. I'll do what I please; I'll manage my own affairs--”
”No,” said Selwyn, ”I'll manage this particular affair. And now I'll tell you how I'm going to do it. I have in my lodgings--or rather in the small hall bedroom which I now occupy--an army service revolver, in fairly good condition. The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when I looked at it, but I've oiled it with No. 27--an excellent rust solvent and lubricant, Mr. Ruthven--and now the cylinder spins around in a manner perfectly trustworthy. So, as I was saying, I have this very excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the pleasure of using it on you if you ever commence any such action for divorce or separation against your wife. This is final.”
Ruthven stared at him as though hypnotised.
”Don't mistake me,” added Selwyn, a trifle wearily. ”I am not compelling you to decency for the purpose of punis.h.i.+ng _you_; men never trouble themselves to punish vermin--they simply exterminate them, or they retreat and avoid them. I merely mean that you shall never again bring publicity and shame upon your wife--even though now, mercifully enough, she has not the faintest idea that you are what a complacent law calls her husband.”
A slow blaze lighted up his eyes, and he got up from his chair.
”You decadent little beast!” he said slowly, ”do you suppose that the dirty accident of your intrusion into an honest man's life could dissolve the divine compact of wedlock? Soil it--yes; besmirch it, render it superficially unclean, unfit, nauseous--yes. But neither you nor your vile code nor the imbecile law you invoked to legalise the situation really ever deprived me of my irrevocable status and responsibility... . I--even I--was once--for a while--persuaded that it did; that the laws of the land could do this--could free me from a faithless wife, and regularise her position in your household. The laws of the land say so, and I--I said so at last--persuaded because I desired to be persuaded... . It was a lie. My wife, shamed or unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife.
And it is a higher law that corroborates me--higher than you can understand--a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely dependent for its existence intact. But”--with a contemptuous shrug--”you won't understand; all you can understand is the gratification of your senses and the fear of something interfering with that gratification--like death, for instance. Therefore I am satisfied that you understand enough of what I said to discontinue any legal proceedings which would tend to discredit, expose, or cast odium on a young wife very sorely stricken--very, very ill--whom G.o.d, in his mercy, has blinded to the infamy where you have dragged her--under the law of the land.”
He turned on his heel, paced the little room once or twice, then swung round again:
”Keep your filthy money--wrung from women and boys over card-tables.
Even if some blind, wormlike process of instinct stirred the shame in you, and you ventured to offer belated aid to the woman who bears your name, I forbid it--I do not permit you the privilege. Except that she retains your name--and the moment you attempt to rob her of that I shall destroy you!--except for that, you have no further relations with her--nothing to do or undo; no voice as to the disposal of what remains of her; no power, no will, no influence in her fate. _I_ supplant you; I take my own again; I rea.s.sume a responsibility temporarily taken from me. And _now_, I think, you understand!”
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