Man and Wife

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"What's wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head; and pointed through the dining-room door to the
brandy-bottle on the table.

"I'm as sober as you are, you fool!" he said. "Whatever else it is, it's
not that."

Hester looked at him again. He was right. However unsteady his gait
might be, his speech was not the speech, his eyes were not the eyes, of
a drunken man.

"Is she in her room for the night?"

Hester made the affirmative sign.

Geoffrey ascended the st airs, swaying from side to side. He stopped at
the top, and beckoned to Hester to join him. He went on into his room;
and, signing to her to follow him, closed the door.

He looked at the partition wall--without approaching it. Hester waited,
behind him.

"Is she asleep?" he asked.

Hester went to the wall; listened at it; and made the affirmative reply.

He sat down. "My head's queer," he said. "Give me a drink of water."
He drank part of the water, and poured the rest over his head. Hester
turned toward the door to leave him. He instantly stopped her. "_I_
can't unwind the strings. _I_ can't lift up the paper. Do it."

She sternly made the sign of refusal: she resolutely opened the door to
leave him. "Do you want your Confession back?" he asked. She closed the
door, stolidly submissive in an instant; and crossed to the partition
wall.

She lifted the loose strips of paper on either side of the wall--pointed
through the hollowed place--and drew back again to the other end of the
room.

He rose and walked unsteadily from the chair to the foot of his bed.
Holding by the wood-work of the bed; he waited a little. While he
waited, he became conscious of a change in the strange sensations that
possessed him. A feeling as of a breath of cold air passed over the
right side of his head. He became steady again: he could calculate his
distances: he could put his hands through the hollowed place, and draw
aside the light curtains, hanging from the hook in the ceiling over the
head of her bed. He could look at his sleeping wife.

She was dimly visible, by the light of the candle placed at the other
end of her room. The worn and weary look had disappeared from her face.
All that had been purest and sweetest in it, in the by-gone time, seemed
to be renewed by the deep sleep that held her gently. She was young
again in the dim light: she was beautiful in her calm repose. Her head
lay back on the pillow. Her upturned face was in a position which
placed her completely at the mercy of the man under whose eyes she was
sleeping--the man who was looking at her, with the merciless resolution
in him to take her life.

After waiting a while, he drew back. "She's more like a child than a
woman to-night," he muttered to himself under his breath. He glanced
across the room at Hester Dethridge. The lighted candle which she had
brought up stairs with her was burning near the place where she stood.
"Blow it out," he whispered. She never moved. He repeated the direction.
There she stood, deaf to him.

What was she doing? She was looking fixedly into one of the corners of
the room.

He turned his head again toward the hollowed place in the wall. He
looked at the peaceful face on the pillow once more. He deliberately
revived his own vindictive sense of the debt that he owed her. "But for
you," he whispered to himself, "I should have won the race: but for you,
I should have been friends with my father: but for you, I might marry
Mrs. Glenarm." He turned back again into the room while the sense of it
was at its fiercest in him. He looked round and round him. He took up a
towel; considered for a moment; and threw it down again.

A new idea struck him. In two steps he was at the side of his bed. He
seized on one of the pillows, and looked suddenly at Hester. "It's not a
drunken brute, this time," he said to her. "It's a woman who will fight
for her life. The pillow's the safest of the two." She never answered
him, and never looked toward him. He made once more for the place in
the wall; and stopped midway between it and his bed--stopped, and cast a
backward glance over his shoulder.

Hester Dethridge was stirring at last.

With no third person in the room, she was looking, and moving,
nevertheless, as if she was following a third person along the wall,
from the corner. Her lips were parted in horror; her eyes, opening wider
and wider, stared rigid and glittering at the empty wall. Step by step
she stole nearer and nearer to Geoffrey, still following some visionary
Thing, which was stealing nearer and nearer, too. He asked himself what
it meant. Was the terror of the deed that he was about to do more than
the woman's brain could bear? Would she burst out screaming, and wake
his wife?

He hurried to the place in the wall--to seize the chance, while the
chance was his.

He steadied his strong hold on the pillow.

He stooped to pass it through the opening.

He poised it over Anne's sleeping face.

At the same moment he felt Hester Dethridge's hand laid on him from
behind. The touch ran through him, from head to foot, like a touch of
ice. He drew back with a start, and faced her. Her eyes were staring
straight over his shoulder at something behind him--looking as they had
looked in the garden at Windygates.

Before he could speak he felt the flash of her eyes in _his_ eyes. For
the third time, she had seen the Apparition behind him. The homicidal
frenzy possessed her. She flew at his throat like a wild beast. The
feeble old woman attacked the athlete!

He dropped the pillow, and lifted his terrible right arm to brush her
from him, as he might have brushed an insect from him.

Even as he raised the arm a frightful distortion seized on his face. As
if with an invisible hand, it dragged down the brow and the eyelid on
the right; it dragged down the mouth on the same side. His arm fell
helpless; his whole body, on the side under the arm, gave way. He
dropped on the floor, like a man shot dead.

Hester Dethridge pounced on his prostrate body--knelt on his broad
breast--and fastened her ten fingers on his throat.

* * * * *

The shock of the fall woke Anne on the instant. She started up--looked
round--and saw a gap in the wall at the head of her bed, and the
candle-light glimmering in the next room. Panic-stricken; doubting,
for the moment, if she were in her right mind, she drew back,
waiting--listening--looking. She saw nothing but the glimmering light
in the room; she heard nothing but a hoarse gasping, as of some person
laboring for breath. The sound ceased. There was an interval of silence.
Then the head of Hester Dethridge rose slowly into sight through the gap
in the wall--rose with the glittering light of madness in the eyes, and
looked at her.

She flew to the open window, and screamed for help.

Sir Patrick's voice answered her, from the road in front of the cottage.

"Wait for me, for God's sake!" she cried.

She fled from the room, and rushed down the stairs. In another moment,
she had opened the door, and was out in the front garden.

As she ran to the gate, she heard the voice of a strange man on the
other side of it. Sir Patrick called to her encouragingly. "The police
man is with us," he said. "He patrols the garden at night--he has a
key." As he spoke the gate was opened from the outside. She saw Sir
Patrick, Arnold, and the policeman. She staggered toward them as they
came in--she was just able to say, "Up stairs!" before her senses failed
her. Sir Patrick saved her from falling. He placed her on the bench in
the garden, and waited by her, while Arnold and the policeman hurried
into the cottage.

"Where first?" asked Arnold.

"The room the lady called from," said the policeman

They mounted the stairs, and entered Anne's room. The gap in the wall
was instantly observed by both of them. They looked through it.

Geoffrey Delamayn's dead body lay on the floor. Hester Dethridge was
kneeling at his head, praying.


EPILOGUE.


A MORNING CALL.

I.

THE newspapers have announced the return of Lord and Lady Holchester
to their residence in London, after an absence on the continent of more
than six months.

It is the height of the season. All day long, within the canonical
hours, the door of Holchester House is perpetually opening to receive
visitors. The vast majority leave their cards, and go away again.
Certain privileged individuals only, get out of their carriages, and
enter the house.

Among these last, arriving at an earlier hour than is customary, is a
person of distinction who is positively bent on seeing either the master
or the mistress of the house, and who will take no denial. While this
person is parleying with the chief of the servants, Lord Holchester,
passing from one room to another, happens to cross the inner end of
the hall. The person instantly darts at him with a cry of "Dear Lord
Holchester!" Julius turns, and sees--Lady Lundie!

He is fairly caught, and he gives way with his best grace. As he opens
the door of the nearest room for her ladyship, he furtively consults his
watch, and says in his inmost soul, "How am I to get rid of her before
the others come?"

Lady Lundie settles down on a sofa in a whirlwind of silk and lace, and
becomes, in her own majestic way, "perfectly charming." She makes the
most affectionate inquiries about Lady Holchester, about the Dowager
Lady Holchester, about Julius himself. Where have they been? what have
they seen? have time and change helped them to recover the shock of that
dreadful event, to which Lady Lundie dare not more particularly allude?
Julius answers resignedly, and a little absently. He makes polite
inquiries, on his side, as to her ladyship's plans and proceedings--with
a mind uneasily conscious of the inexorable lapse of time, and of
certain probabilities which that lapse may bring with it. Lady Lundie
has very little to say about herself. She is only in town for a few
weeks. Her life is a life of retirement. "My modest round of duties
at Windygates, Lord Holchester; occasionally relieved, when my mind
is overworked, by the society of a few earnest friends whose views
harmonize with my own--my existence passes (not quite uselessly, I hope)
in that way. I have no news; I see nothing--except, indeed, yesterday, a
sight of the saddest kind." She pauses there. Julius observes that he is
expected to make inquiries, and makes them accordingly.

Lady Lundie hesitates; announces that her news refers to that painful
past event which she has already touched on; acknowledges that she could
not find herself in London without feeling an act of duty involved in
making inquiries at the asylum in which Hester Dethridge is confined for
life; announces that she has not only made the inquiries, but has seen
the unhappy woman herself; has spoken to her, has found her unconscious
of her dreadful position, incapable of the smallest exertion of memory,
resigned to the existence that she leads, and likely (in the opinion
of the medical superintendent) to live for some years to come. Having
stated these facts, her ladyship is about to make a few of those
"remarks appropriate to the occasion," in which she excels, when the
door opens; and Lady Holchester, in search of her missing husband,
enters the room.

II.

There is a new outburst of affectionate interest on Lady Lundie's
part--met civilly, but not cordially, by Lady Holchester. Julius's wife
seems, like Julius, to be uneasily conscious of the lapse of time. Like
Julius again, she privately wonders how long Lady Lundie is going to
stay.

Lady Lundie shows no signs of leaving the sofa. She has evidently come
to Holchester House to say something--and she has not said it yet. Is
she going to say it? Yes. She is going to get, by a roundabout way, to
the object in view. She has another inquiry of the affectionate sort
to make. May she be permitted to resume the subject of Lord and Lady
Holchester's travels? They have been at Rome. Can they confirm the
shocking intelligence which has reached her of the "apostasy" of Mrs.
Glenarm?

Lady Holchester can confirm it, by personal experience. Mrs. Glenarm
has renounced the world, and has taken refuge in the bosom of the Holy
Catholic Church. Lady Holchester has seen her in a convent at Rome. She
is passing through the period of her probation; and she is resolved to
take the veil. Lady Lundie, as a good Protestant, lifts her hands in
horror--declares the topic to be too painful to dwell on--and, by way of
varying it, goes straight to the point at last. Has Lady I Holchester,
in the course of her continental experience, happened to meet with, or
to hear of--Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth?

"I have ceased, as you know, to hold any communication with my
relatives," Lady Lundie explains. "The course they took at the time of
our family trial--the sympathy they felt with a Person whom I can not
even now trust myself to name more particularly--alienated us from each
other. I may be grieved, dear Lady Holchester; but I bear no malice. And
I shall always feel a motherly interest in hearing of Blanche's welfare.
I have been told that she and her husband were traveling, at the time
when you and Lord Holchester were traveling. Did you meet with them?"

Julius and his wife looked at each other. Lord Holchester is dumb. Lady
Holchester replies:

"We saw Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth at Florence, and afterward
at Naples, Lady Lundie. They returned to England a week since, in
anticipation of a certain happy event, which will possibly increase the
members of your family circle. They are now in London. Indeed, I may
tell you that we expect them here to lunch to-day."

Having made this plain statement, Lady Holchester looks at Lady Lundie.
(If _that_ doesn't hasten her departure, nothing will!)

Quite useless! Lady Lundie holds her ground. Having heard absolutely
nothing of her relatives for the last six months, she is burning with
curiosity to hear more. There is a name she has not mentioned yet. She
places a certain constraint upon herself, and mentions it now.

"And Sir Patrick?" says her ladyship, subsiding into a gentle
melancholy, suggestive of past injuries condoned by Christian
forgiveness. "I only know what report tells me. Did you meet with Sir
Patrick at Florence and Naples, also?"

Julius and his wife look at each other again. The clock in the hall
strikes. Julius shudders. Lady Holchester's patience begins to give way.
There is an awkward pause. Somebody must say something. As before, Lady
Holchester replies "Sir Patrick went abroad, Lady Lundie, with his niece
and her husband; and Sir Patrick has come back with them."

"In good health?" her ladyship inquires.

"Younger than ever," Lady Holchester rejoins.

Lady Lundie smiles satirically. Lady Holchester notices the smile;
decides that mercy shown to _this_ woman is mercy misplaced; and
announces (to her husband's horror) that she has news to tell of Sir
Patrick, which will probably take his sister-in-law by surprise.

Lady Lundie waits eagerly to hear what the news is.

"It is no secret," Lady Holchester proceeds--"though it is only known,
as yet to a few intimate friends. Sir Patrick has made an important
change in his life."

Lady Lundie's charming smile suddenly dies out.

"Sir Patrick is not only a very clever and a very agreeable man," Lady
Holchester resumes a little maliciously; "he is also, in all his habits
and ways (as you well know), a man younger than his years--who still
possesses many of the qualities which seldom fail to attract women."

Lady Lundie starts to her feet.

"You don't mean to tell me, Lady Holchester, that Sir Patrick is
married?"

"I do."

Her ladyship drops back on the sofa; helpless really and truly helpless,
under the double blow that has fallen on her. She is not only struck out
of her place as the chief woman of the family, but (still on the right
side of forty) she is socially superannuated, as The Dowager Lady
Lundie, for the rest of her life!

"At his age!" she exclaims, as soon as she can speak.

"Pardon me for reminding you," Lady Holchester answers, "that plenty of
men marry at Sir Patrick's age. In his case, it is only due to him to
say that his motive raises him beyond the reach of ridicule or reproach.
His marriage is a good action, in the highest sense of the word. It does
honor to _him,_ as well as to the lady who shares his position and his
name."

"A young girl, of course!" is Lady Lundie's next remark.

"No. A woman who has been tried by no common suffering, and who has
borne her hard lot nobly. A woman who deserves the calmer and the
happier life on which she is entering now."

"May I ask who she is?"

Before the question can be answered, a knock at the house door announces
the arrival of visitors. For the third time, Julius and his wife look at
each other. On this occasion, Julius interferes.

"My wife has already told you, Lady Lundie, that we expect Mr. and Mrs.
Brinkworth to lunch. Sir Patrick, and the new Lady Lundie, accompany
them. If I am mistaken in supposing that it might not be quite agreeable
to you to meet them, I can only ask your pardon. If I am right, I will
leave Lady Holchester to receive our friends, and will do myself the
honor of taking you into another room."

He advances to the door of an inner room. He offers his arm to Lady
Lundie. Her ladyship stands immovable; determined to see the woman who
has supplanted her. In a moment more, the door of entrance from the hall
is thrown open; and the servant announces, "Sir Patrick and Lady Lundie.
Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth."

Lady Lundie looks at the woman who has taken her place at the head of
the family; and sees--ANNE SILVESTER!