“You knew that you might need it.”
He turned his back again and kicked the coals in the fire. “I was a fool,” he muttered. “Just sentimentality. That means nothing.”
“I thought it brave,” she said. “I admired you tremendously for that.”
Again Andrews coloured. “You are laughing at me,” he said. “You know that you despise me, that I’m a coward.” He laughed. “Why, I’ve betrayed you twice in Lewes, and I’m betraying you now if you only knew it. Don’t mock me by pretending admiration. You women are cunning. No one but a woman would think of that turn to the screw.” His voice broke. “You win. You see it’s successful.”
Elizabeth rose from the table and came and stood beside him at the fire. “How have you betrayed me?” she asked.
Andrews without looking up answered, “Once with a woman.”
There was a pause. Then Elizabeth said coldly. “I don’t understand how that’s a betrayal of me. Of yourself perhaps. What other betrayal?”
“It came out in Court that you sheltered me.”
“In court?” she asked. Her voice trembled for a reason which he could not understand. “Were you there?”
“I was in the witness box,” he said gloomily. “Don’t praise me. It was only partly you. And the other parts were drink and a harlot. What do you say to that?”
“Well done,” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “You go on too long. You are not as cunning as I thought you. I’m getting used to that mockery. You must change your tack.”
“That woman,” Elizabeth asked, “who was she? What was she like?”
“She was my equal.”
“I thought you said she was a harlot. Tell me—was she better looking than I?”
Andrews looked up in astonishment. Elizabeth was watching him with an anxious smile. “I’d never compare you,” he said. “You belong to different worlds.”
“Yet I should like to know.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I could only compare your bodies, and I can’t see yours for you.”
“I’m like other women surely?” she asked sadly.
“No,” he said, his voice soaring in sudden enthusiasm. “Like no other woman.”
“I see,” her voice was cold again. “Well, tell me more of your betrayals. Why am I betrayed because you loved this woman? You are the kind of man who does that frequently, I imagine.”
“Not love,” he said.
“Is there any difference? Men are very fond of splitting hairs.” She glanced as he had done at the kitchen table as though to her also it stood for a certain ever-present jealous spirit.
“Which did he feel?” she asked.
“Did he wish to hurt you or did he wish, even if unsuccessful, to do unselfishly?”
“Then his was both,” she said. “Tell me—you spoke of a third betrayal. What was that?”
The moment had come. “I came here to warn you, and I’ve been putting it off and putting it off.”
“To warn me?” Her chin went up in a kind of defiance. “I don’t understand.”
“Carlyon and the rest mean to punish you for sheltering me. They are coming here today or tomorrow.” He told her Cockney Harry’s message. “Apparently it was not a trap,” he added.
“But you thought it was,” she said curiously, “and yet you came?”
He interrupted her. “You must go now at once.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I hated the idea of your going,” he said simply, “and so I spoilt the only decent thing I’ve done.”
“And did you think I should really go?”
“You must,” he said, and then seeing her flash to meet the unwelcome word, he added quickly, “You must take what money you have and go anywhere—to London perhaps—until this blows over.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, “I don’t see the necessity.”
“Good God,” Andrews protested, “must I make you go?”
“Why should I run away? I have that,” and she pointed at the empty gun where it stood in its accustomed corner.
“It’s empty.”
“I have cartridges.”
“You don’t know how to use it. You told me so.”
“But you do,” she said.
Andrews stamped his foot furiously. “No,” he said, “no. I’ve run enough risks for you. You women are all the same, never satisfied.”
“You mean you won’t stay and help.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” he said. “I’m afraid of them. I’m more afraid of pain than of anything else in the world. I’m a coward. I’m not ashamed of it, I tell you.”
She smiled with a sad yet humorous twist to the mouth. “Forget that idea,” she said.
He stamped his foot again with childish petulance. “It’s not an idea. It’s a fact. I’ve warned you. Now I’m going.” He did not look at her, lest his resolution might waver, but walked like a drunken man with exaggerated straightness to the door.
“I stay,” he heard her say behind him. He swung round and said with desperation, “You can’t use the gun without me.”
“I had no need to use it on you,” she answered.
“Those men are different. They are not cowards.”
“They must be cowards,” she said with unanswerable logic, “if they intend to revenge themselves on me.”
Outside the sun allured him with pale gold. What woman dared to compete with the sun in beauty or yet in sense of peace? Its colour seemed to sleep along the ground and in its sleep to glow with an untranslatable and secret dream of an exalted place. Go, go, go, reason told him, and watching the dozing countryside even his heart felt the same urge. He appealed to that critic which had so often in the past tried in vain to drive him along a noble course, but the critic was silent, stood aside, seemed to say, “Here is your last and great decision. I will not influence you.” Before his eyes like a shoulder turned on him in disdain rose the down over which he had first come in blind terror a century ago. If only I could be blind with fear again, he thought, how happily could I fly from here. Even the girl behind him was silent now, leaving him, as all the world seemed to leave him, to make his own decision. And he was not
