“It is too horrible,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “My dear, dear son, for God’s sake don’t underrate the horror of it all because of your love for this poor girl. You cannot marry a girl whose brother is an unconvicted murderer.”
How she harped upon the word murder! Vansittart ground his nails into the palms of his clasped hands, as he stood up, frowning darkly, in an agony of indignant feeling. His mother to be so womanish, so illogical, so foolish in her exaggeration of evil.
“I say again, the man who struck that unlucky blow was no murderer. The word is a lying word applied to him,” he protested. “The story you have told me—the crime you try to fix upon Harold Marchant—can make no shadow of difference in my love for Harold Marchant’s sister. Had she ten brothers, and every one of the ten were a felon, I would marry her. It is she whom I love, mother—not her surroundings. And as for your modern fad of heredity, I believe in it no more than I do in table-turning. God made my Eve—as pure, and single, and primitive a being as that other Eve in His Garden of Eden; and over the morning of her fair life no act of her kindred can cast a shadow.”
There was a silence. Sefton had risen when Vansittart rose. He took up his hat, and came through the flickering lights and shadows towards Mrs. Vansittart, who sat with drooping head and clasped hands, betwixt sorrow and anger—sorrow for her son’s suffering, anger at his obstinate adherence to the girl he loved. She gave Sefton her hand mechanically, without looking up.
“Good night, Vansittart,” said Sefton, as he moved towards the door. “I can only admire your loyalty to Miss Marchant, though I may question your wisdom. She is a very charming person, I grant you; but, after all”—with a little laugh—“she is not the only woman in the world.”
“She is the only woman in my world.”
“Really?”
The intonation of this one word, the slight shrug of the shoulders, were full of meaning. Vansittart perceived the covert sneer in that parting speech, and saw in it an allusion to that lovely foreigner whom Sefton had seen hanging affectionately upon his arm a few days ago on the Chelsea Embankment.
“One word, Mr. Sefton,” said Vansittart, in a peremptory tone. “I take it that your employment of detectives and couriers—that all you have done in this business—has been done out of regard for a college chum, who was once your friend, and from a kindly desire to relieve Miss Marchant’s anxiety about a brother whom—whom she appears to have dearly loved. I think, under these circumstances, I need not suggest the wisdom of keeping this unhappy business to yourself—so far as she is concerned.”
“You are right. I shall say nothing to Miss Marchant.”
“Remember that, clever as your courier may be, he is not infallible. The case is only a case of suspicion. The Smith, of Venice, may be anybody. One missing link in your amateur detective’s chain of evidence, and the whole fabrication would drop to pieces. Don’t let Miss Marchant be tortured needlessly. Promise me that you will never tell her this story.”
“On my honour, I will not.”
“I thank you for that promise, and I beg you to forgive any undue vehemence upon my part just now.”
“There is nothing to forgive—I can sympathize with your feelings. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Vansittart dined in Bruton Street, as he had promised, sat by his betrothed, and listened to her happy talk of the things they had seen and the people they had met, sat behind her chair all through Boïto’s opera, unhearing, unseeing, his mind forever and forever travelling over the same ground, acting over and over again the same scene—the row at Florian’s, the scuffle, the fall—his own fall—the knife; and then that fatal fall of his adversary, that one gasping, surprised cry of the unarmed man, slain unawares.
Her brother! His victim, and her brother. The nearest, dearest kin of this girl on whose milk-white shoulder his breath came and went, as he sat with bent head in the shadow of the velvet curtain, and heard the strange harmonies of Pandemonium, almost as if voices and orchestra had been interpreting his own dark thoughts.
Charmed as she was with the music, Eve Marchant was far too sensitive to be unconscious of her lover’s altered spirits. Once during the applause that followed that lovely duet at the beginning of the last act, and while Lady Hartley’s attention was fixed upon the stage, Eve’s hand crept stealthily into the hand of her lover, while she whispered, “What has happened, Jack? I know there is something wrong. Why won’t you trust me?”
Trust her? Trust her with a secret that must part them forever—let her suffer the agony of knowing that this strong right hand which her slim fingers were caressing had stabbed her brother to the heart?
“There can be nothing wrong, dearest, while I have you,” he answered, grasping her hand as if he would never let it go.
“But outside me, you have been worried about something. You have quite changed from your gay spirits at Hurlingham.”
“My love, I exhausted myself at Hurlingham. You and I were laughing like children. That can’t last. But for me there is no outside world. Be sure of that. My world begins and ends where you are.”
“My own dear love,” she whispered softly.
And so hand in hand they listened to the last act, while Lady Hartley amused herself now with the stage, and now with the audience, and left these plighted lovers alone in their fool’s paradise.
Sunday was given up to church and church parade, looking at people and gowns and bonnets in
