‘Yes, Wilfrid?’
‘I can trust you? You will not fail me?’
‘Not if I am living, Wilfrid.’
‘Oh, but I shall of course see you before Wednesday. Tomorrow is Sunday—’
He checked himself. Sunday was the day he always gave to Beatrice. But he durst not think of that now.
‘On Sunday there are so many people about,’ he continued. ‘Will you come here again on Monday afternoon?’
Emily promised to do so.
‘I will write to you tomorrow, and again a letter for Tuesday, giving you the last directions. But I may have to see you on Tuesday. May I call at your lodgings?’
‘If you need to. Surely you may? My—my husband?’
‘My wife!’
They walked to the hotel, and thence, when dusk was falling, started to drive homewards. They stopped at the end of Emily’s street, and Wilfrid walked with her to the door.
‘Till Monday afternoon,’ he said, grasping her hand as if he clung to it in fear.
Then he found another vehicle. It was dark when he reached home.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE UNEXPECTED
Late in the evening Wilfrid received a visit from his father. Mr. Athel had dined with his sister, and subsequently accompanied his nieces to a concert. Beatrice should have sung, but had broken her engagement on the plea of ill- health.
‘Been at home all the evening?’ Mr. Athel began by asking.
‘I got home late,’ Wilfrid answered, rising from his chair.
His father had something to say which cost him hesitation. He walked about with his hands between the tails of his coat.
‘Seen Beatrice lately?’ he inquired at length.
‘No; not since last Monday.’
‘I’m afraid she isn’t well. She didn’t sing to-night. Didn’t dine with us either.’
Wilfrid kept silence.
‘Something wrong?’ was his father’s next question.
‘Yes, there is.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Wilfrid went to the fireplace and leaned his arm upon the mantelpiece. As he did not seem disposed to speak, his father continued—
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘Yes; something serious.’
‘You don’t mean that? Anything you can talk about?’
‘I’m afraid not. I shall go and see Beatrice as usual tomorrow. I may be at liberty to tell you after that, though probably not for a few days.’
Mr. Athel looked annoyed.
‘I hope this is not of your doing,’ he said. ‘They tell me the girl is causing them a good deal of anxiety. For the last few days she has been sitting alone, scarcely touching food, and refusing to speak to anyone. If this goes on she will be ill.’
Wilfrid spoke hoarsely.
‘I can’t help it. I shall see her tomorrow.’
‘All right,’ observed his father, with the impatience which was his way of meeting disorders in this admirable universe. ‘Your aunt asked me to tell you this; of course I can do no more.’
Wilfrid made no reply, and Mr. Athel left him.
It was an hour of terrible suffering that Wilfrid lived through before he left the study and went to lay his head on the pillow. He had not thought very much of Beatrice hitherto; the passion which had spurred him blindly on made him forgetful of everything but the end his heart desired. Now that the end was within reach, he could consider what it was that he had done. He was acting like a very madman. He could not hope that any soul would regard his frenzy even with compassion; on all sides he would meet with the sternest condemnation. Who would recognise his wife? This step which he was taking meant rupture with all his relatives, perchance with all his friends; for it would be universally declared that he had been guilty of utter baseness. His career was ruined. It might happen that he would have to leave England with Emily, abandoning for her sake everything else that he prized.
How would Beatrice bear the revelation? Mere suspense had made her ill; such a blow as this might kill her. Never before had he been consciously guilty of an act of cruelty or of wrong to any the least valued of those with whom he had dealt; to realise what his treachery meant to Beatrice was so terrible that he dared not fix his thought upon it. Her love for him was intense beyond anything he had imagined in woman; Emily had never seemed to him
