“I went,” came the rigidly controlled retort, “simply to test an inconceivable story.”
“And returned?”
“Convinced, Arthur, of its inconceivability. But if you would kindly inform me what precise formula you followed at Widderstone last night, I would tell you why I think the explanation, or rather your first account of the matter, is not an explanation of the facts.”
Lawford shot a rather doglike glance over his toast. “Danton?” he said.
“Candidly, Arthur, Mr. Danton doubts the whole story. Your very conduct—well, it would serve no useful purpose to go into that. Candidly, on the other hand, Mr. Danton did make some extremely helpful suggestions—basing them, of course, on the truth of your account. He has seen a good deal of life; and certainly very mysterious things do occur to quite innocent and well-meaning people without the faintest shadow of warning, and as Mr. Bethany himself said, evil birds do come home to roost, and often out of a clear sky, as it were. But there, every fresh solution that occurs to me only makes the thing more preposterous, more, I was going to say, disreputable—I mean, of course, to the outside world. And we have our duties to perform to them too, I suppose. Why, what can we say? What plausible account of ourselves have we? We shall never be able to look anybody in the face again. I can only—I am compelled to believe that God has been pleased to make this precise visitation upon us—an eye for an eye, I suppose, somewhere. And to that conviction I shall hold until actual circumstances convince me that it’s false. What, however, and this is all that I have to say now, what I cannot understand are your amazing indiscretions.”
“Do you understand your own, Sheila?”
“My indiscretions, Arthur?”
“Well,” said Lawford, “wasn’t it indiscreet, don’t you think, to risk divine retribution by marrying me? Shouldn’t you have inquired? Wasn’t it indiscreet to allow me to remain here in—in my ‘visitation?’ Wasn’t it indiscreet to risk the moral stigma this unhappy face of mine must cast on its surroundings? I am not sure whether such a change as this constitutes cruelty. … Oh, what is the use of fretting and babbling on like this?”
“Am I to understand, then, that you refuse positively to discuss this horrible business any more? You are doing your best to drive me away, Arthur; you must see that. Will you be very disappointed if I refuse to go?”
Lawford rose from the bed. “Listen just this once,” he said, seating himself on the corner of the dressing-table. “Imagine all this—whatever you like to call it—obliterated. Take this,” he nodded towards the glass, “entirely for itself, on its own merits, as it were. Let the dead past bury its dead. Which, now, precisely, really do you prefer—him,” he jerked his head in the direction of the dispassionate youthful picture on the wall, “him or me?”
He was so close to her now that he could see the faintest tremor on the face that had suddenly become grey and still in the thin clear sunshine.
“I own it, I own it,” he went on, slowly; “the change is more than skin-deep now. One can’t go through what I have gone through these last few terrifying days, Sheila, unchanged. They have played the devil with my body; now begins the tampering with my mind. Not even Danton knows how it will end. But shall I tell you why you won’t, why you can’t answer me that one question—him or me? Shall I tell you?”
Sheila slowly raised her eyes.
“It is because, my dear, you don’t care the ghost of a straw for either. That one—he was worn out long ago, and we never knew it. I know it now. Time and the sheer going-on of day by day, without either of us guessing at it, wore that down till it had no more meaning for you or me than any other faded remembrance in this interminable footling with truth that we call life. And this one—the whole abject meaning of it lies simply in the fact that it has pierced down and shown us up. I had no courage. I couldn’t see how feeble a hold I had on life—just one’s friends’ opinions. It was all at second hand. What I want to know now is—leave me out; don’t think, or care, or regard my living-on one shadow of an iota—all I ask is, What am I to do for you?” He turned away and stood staring down at the cinders in the fireless grate.
“I answer that mad wicked outburst with one plain question,” said a low, trembling voice; “did you or did you not go to Widderstone yesterday?”
“I did go.”
“You sat there, just as you said you sat before; and with all your heart and soul strove to regain—yourself?”
Lawford lifted a still, colourless face into the sunlight. “No,” he said; “I spent the evening at the house of a friend.”
“Then I say it is infamous. You cast all this on me. You have brought me into contempt and poisoned Alice’s whole life. You dream and idle on just as you used to do, without the least care or thought or consideration for others; and go out in this condition—go out absolutely unashamed—to spend the evening at a friend’s. Peculiar friends they must be. Why, really, Arthur, you must be mad!”
Lawford paused. Like a flock of sheep streaming helter-skelter before the onset of a wolf were the thoughts that a moment before had seemed so orderly and sober.
“Not mad—possessed,” he said softly.
“And I add this,” cried Sheila, as it were out of a tragic mask, “somewhere in the past, whether of your own life, or of the lives of those who brought you into the world—the world which you pretend so conveniently to despise—somewhere is hidden some miserable secret. God visits all sins. On you has fallen at last
