Part 71 (1/2)

The friends walked away in silence along the dim-lighted street, between monotonous rows of high sombre houses, each with its pillared portico which looked like the entrance to a tomb. Glancing about him with a sense of depression, Harvey wondered that any mortal could fix his pride on the fact of residence in such a hard, cold, ugly wilderness.

'Has she altered much since you first knew her?' he asked at length.

'A good deal,' answered the other. 'Yes, a good deal. She used to laugh sometimes; now she never does. She was always quiet--always looked at things seriously--but it was different. You think her gloomy?'

'No, no; not gloomy. It's all natural enough. Her life wants a little sunlight, that's all.'

For the rest, he could speak with sincere admiration, and Cecil heard him delightedly.

The choice of a dwelling was a most difficult matter. As it must be quite a small house, the remoter suburbs could alone supply what was wanted; Morphew spent every Sat.u.r.day and Sunday in wearisome exploration. Mrs. Winter, though in theory she accepted the necessity of cheapness, shrank from every practical suggestion declaring it impossible to live in such places as Cecil requested her to look at. She had an ideal of the 'nice little house,' and was as likely to discover it in London's suburbs as to become possessed once more of the considerable fortune which she and her husband had squandered in mean extravagance. Morphew had already come to the conclusion, and Henrietta agreed with him, that their future home must be chosen without regard to Mrs. Winter's impracticable ideas. And the sooner the better, in her own interests; for it was plain that so long as she continued in the old house she would thoughtlessly waste her means. The end of the twelvemonth, at latest, must see them all in their new home.

But meanwhile fate was preparing a new trial for Henrietta's much-disciplined conscience.

On a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when the crisis of Alma's illness was over, Harvey received a telegram summoning him to Westminster Bridge Road.

”Come if you possibly can. Or I must come to you.” Only yesterday he had been with Morphew for a couple of hours, and all seemed well; Cecil thought he had found the house that would suit him; he was in jubilant spirits, laughing, singing, more boylike than ever. Suspecting new obstructiveness on the part of Mrs. Winter, Harvey went to town in an impatient mood. He found the shop closed, as usual at this hour on Sat.u.r.day, and rang the house-door bell. Morphew himself replied, with a countenance which made known forthwith that something extraordinary had happened; eyes red and swollen, cheeks puffy, colourless, smeared.

”Well?”

Cecil clutched at his hand, and drew him in. They went upstairs to the office, where all was quiet.

”Rolfe, if I hadn't had you to send for, I should have been dead by now.

There's poison enough in this place. It has tempted me fearfully.”

”What, is it?” asked the other, in a not very sympathetic voice. His own troubles of the past month made mere love-miseries seem artificial.

”I shall have to tell you what I wanted to tell you long ago. If I had, most likely this would never have happened.--It's all over with me, Rolfe. I wish to G.o.d you had let me die in that hotel at Brussels.--She has been told something about me, and there's an end of everything. She sent for me this morning. I never thought she could be so pitiless.--The kind of thing that a man thinks nothing of. And herself the cause of it, if only I had dared to tell her so!”

'The old story, I suppose,' said Harvey. 'Some other woman?'

'I was very near telling you, that day you came to my beastly garret in Chelsea; do you remember? It was the worst time with me then--except when you found me in Brussels. I'd been gambling again; you knew that.

I wanted money for something I felt ashamed to speak of.--You know the awful misery I used to suffer about Henrietta. I was often enough nearly mad with--what is one to call it? Why isn't there a decent name for the agony men go through at that age? I simply couldn't live alone any longer--I couldn't; and only a fool and a hypocrite would pretend to blame me. A man, that is; women seem to be made different.--Oh, there's nothing to tell. The same thing happens a hundred times every day in London. A girl wandering about in the Park--quarrel at home--all the rest of it. A good many lies on her side; a good deal of selfishness on mine. I happened to have money just then. And just when I had _no_ money--about the time you met me--a child was born. She said it was mine; anyway, I had to be responsible. Of course I had long ago repented of behaving so badly to Henrietta. But no woman can understand, and it's impossible to explain to them. You're a beast and a villain, and there's an end of it.'

'And how has this become known to Miss Winter?' Harvey inquired, seeing that Morphew lost himself in gloom.

'You might almost guess it; these things always happen in the same way.

You've heard me speak of a fellow called Driffel--no? I thought I might have mentioned him. He got to know the girl. He and I were at a music-hall one night, and she met us; and I heard, soon after, that she was living with him. It didn't last long. She got ill, and wrote to me from Westminster Hospital; and I was foolish enough to give her money again, off and on, up to only a few months ago. She talked about living a respectable life, and so on, and I couldn't refuse to help her. But I found out it was all humbug, and of course I stopped. Then she began to hunt me, Out of spite. And she heard from someone--Driffel, as likely as not--all about Henrietta; and yesterday Henrietta had a letter from her. This morning I was sent for, to explain myself.'

'At one time, then, you had lost sight of her altogether?'

'She has always had money from me, more or less regularly, except at the time that Driffel kept her. But there has been nothing else between us, since that first year. I kept up payments on account of the child, and she was cheating me in that too. Of course she put out the baby to nurse, and I understood it lived on; but the truth was it died after a month or two--starved to death, no doubt. I only learnt that, by taking a good deal of trouble, when she was with Driffel.'

'Starved to death at a month or two old,' murmured Rolfe. 'The best thing for it, no doubt.'

'It's worse than anything I have done,' said Morphew, miserably. 'I think more of it now than I did at the time. A cruel, vile thing!'

'And you told Miss Winter everything?'

'Everything that can be spoken about. The plain truth of the story. The letter was a lie from beginning to end, of course. It made me out a heartless scoundrel. I had been the ruin of the girl--a helpless innocent; and now, after all these years, wanted to cut her adrift, not caring what became of her. My defence seemed to Henrietta no defence at all. The fact that there had been such an episode in my life was quite sufficient. Everything must be at an end between us, at once and for ever. She _could_ not live with me, knowing this. No one should learn the cause; not even her mother; but I must never see her again. And so I came away, meaning to end my life. It wasn't cowardice that prevented me; only the thought that _she_ would be mixed up in it, and suffer more than I had made her already.'