Part 93 (1/2)

”Yes!” he muttered, in an exquisite rush of happiness. After all, it was not with Charlie, nor even with Janet, that she was most intimate; it was with himself!

”George's father was put in prison for bigamy. George is illegitimate.”

She spoke with her characteristic extreme clearness of enunciation, in a voice that showed no emotion.

”You don't mean it!” He gasped foolishly.

She nodded. ”I'm not a married woman. I once thought I was, but I wasn't. That's all.”

”But--”

”But what?”

”You--you said six or seven years, didn't you? Surely they don't give that long for bigamy?”

”Oh!” she replied mildly. ”That was for something else. When he came out of prison the first time they arrested him again instantly--so I was told. It was in Scotland.”

”I see.”

There was a rattle as of hailstones on the window. They both started.

”That must be Charlie!” she exclaimed, suddenly loosing her excitement under this pretext. ”He doesn't want to ring and wake the house.”

Edwin ran out of the room, sliding and slipping down the deserted stairs that waited patiently through the night for human feet.

”Forgot to take a key,” said Charlie, appearing, breathless, just as the door opened. ”I meant to take the big key, and then I forgot.” He had a little round box in his hand. He mounted the stairs two and three at a time.

Edwin slowly closed the door. He could not bring himself to follow Charlie and, after a moment's vacillation, he went back into the breakfast-room.

FOUR.

Amazing, incalculable woman, wrapped within fold after fold of mystery!

He understood better now, but even now there were things that he did not understand; and the greatest enigma of all remained unsolved, the original enigma of her treachery to himself... And she had chosen just that moment, just that crisis, to reveal to him that sinister secret which by some unguessed means she had been able to hide from her acquaintance. Naturally, if she wished to succeed with a boarding-house in Brighton she would be compelled to conceal somehow the fact that she was the victim of a bigamist and her child without a lawful name! The merest prudence would urge her to concealment so long as concealment was possible; yes, even from Janet! Her other friends deemed her a widow; Janet thought her the wife of a convict; he alone knew that she was neither wife nor widow. Through what scathing experience she must have pa.s.sed! An unfamiliar and disconcerting mood gradually took complete possession of him. At first he did not correctly a.n.a.lyse it. It was sheer, exuberant, instinctive, unreasoning, careless joy.

Then, after a long period of beatific solitude in the breakfast-room, he heard stealthy noises in the hall, and his fancy jumped to the idea of burglary. Excited, unreflecting, he hurried into the hall. Johnnie Orgreave, who had let himself in with a latchkey, was shutting and bolting the front door. Johnnie's surprise was the greater. He started violently on seeing Edwin, and then at once a.s.sumed the sang-froid of a hero of romance. When Edwin informed him that Hilda had come, and Charlie with her, and that those two were watching by the boy, the rest of the household being in bed, Johnnie permitted himself a few verbal symptoms of astonishment.

”How is Georgie?” he asked with an effort, as if ashamed.

”He isn't much better,” said Edwin evasively.

Johnnie made a deprecatory sound with his tongue against his lips, and frowned, determined to take his proper share in the general anxiety.

With careful, dignified movements, he removed his silk hat and his heavy ulster, revealing evening-dress, and a coloured scarf that overhung a crumpled s.h.i.+rt-front.

”Where've you been?” Edwin asked.

”Tennis dance. Didn't you know?”