Part 31 (2/2)

He threw back his head with a sound of scorn.

”Mrs. Fairmile! You don't mean to tell me, Daphne, to my face, that you ever believed any of the lies--forgive the expression--that you, and your witnesses, and your lawyers told in the States--that you bribed those precious newspapers to tell?”

”Of course I believed it!” she said fiercely. ”And as for lies, it was you who began them.”

”You _believed_ that I had betrayed you with Chloe Fairmile?” He raised himself again, fixing his strange deep-set gaze upon her.

”I never said----”

”No! To that length you didn't quite go. I admit it. You were able to get your way without it.” He sank back in his chair again. ”No, my remark had nothing to do with Chloe. I have never set eyes on her since I left you at Heston. But--there was a girl, a shop-girl, a poor little thing, rather pretty. I came across her about six months ago--it doesn't matter how. She loves me, she was awfully good to me, a regular little brick. Some day I shall tell Herbert all about her--not yet--though, of course, he suspects. She'd serve your purpose, if you thought it worth while. But you won't----”

”You're--living with her--now?”

”No. I broke with her a fortnight ago, after I'd seen those doctors. She made me see them, poor little soul. Then I went to say good-bye to her, and she,” his voice shook a little, ”she took it hard. But it's all right. I'm not going to risk her life, or saddle her with a dying man.

She's with her sister. She'll get over it.”

He turned his head towards the window, his eyes pursued the white sails on the darkening blue outside.

”It's been a bad business, but it wasn't altogether my fault. I saved her from someone else, and she saved me, once or twice, from blowing my brains out.”

”What did the doctors say to you?” asked Daphne, brusquely, after a pause.

”They gave me about two years,” he said, indifferently, turning to knock off the end of his cigarette. ”That doesn't matter.” Then, as his eyes caught her face, a sudden animation sprang into his. He drew his chair nearer to her and threw away his cigarette. ”Look here, Daphne, don't let's waste time. We shall never see each other again, and there are a number of things I want to know. Tell me everything you can remember about Beatty that last six months--and about her illness, you understand--never mind repeating what you told Boyson, and he told me.

But there's lots more, there must be. Did she ever ask for me? Boyson said you couldn't remember. But you must remember!”

He came closer still, his threatening eyes upon her. And as he did so, the dark presence of ruin and death, of things d.a.m.ning and irrevocable, which had been hovering over their conversation, approached with him--flapped their sombre wings in Daphne's face. She trembled all over.

”Yes,” she said, faintly, ”she did ask for you.”

”Ah!” He gave a cry of delight. ”Tell me--tell me at once--everything--from the beginning!”

And held by his will, she told him everything--all the piteous story of the child's last days--sobbing herself; and for the first time making much of the little one's signs of remembering her father, instead of minimizing and ignoring them, as she had done in the talk with Boyson.

It was as though for the first time she were trying to stanch a wound instead of widening it.

He listened eagerly. The two heads--the father and mother--drew closer; one might have thought them lovers still, united by tender and sacred memories.

But at last Roger drew himself away. He rose to his feet.

”I'll forgive you much for that!” he said with a long breath. ”Will you write it for me some day--all you've told me?”

She made a sign of a.s.sent.

”Well, now, you mustn't stay here any longer. I suppose you've got a carriage? And we mustn't meet again. There's no object in it. But I'll remember that you came.”

She looked at him. In her nature the great deeps were breaking up. She saw him as she had seen him in her first youth. And, at last, what she had done was plain to her.

With a cry she threw herself on the floor beside him. She pressed his hand in hers.

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