A Duel

The vehicle drew rapidly level with the tree on which she rested. She decided that she might venture to peep again, and was just doing so when the horse shied so violently that the cart was almost overturned. Recovering itself, apparently getting the bit between its teeth, it bolted like a thing possessed, and vanished from her sight, though not before she had nearly convinced herself that the man with her husband-the one who was driving-was Dr. Twelves. She had only seen him from the back, and then had had but occasional glimpses through intervening trees for half-a-dozen seconds, but she was almost sure that it was he. There was, however, just a possibility that she was mistaken, and it was that possibility which worried her. She would have liked to have been certain, either one way or the other. Then, in the case of the worst, she might have been prepared.

For the juxtaposition could but mean trouble for her. She was too clear-sighted to delude herself with the notion that the doctor was anxious to be a friend of hers. He had, to outward seeming, accepted the situation; probably, in part, because, as she herself put it, she was no ordinary woman; and partly because, under the circumstances, considering the part which he himself had played, he did not see what else there was for him to do. Let him, however, learn how wholly baseless was her claim to occupy the place which she had arrogated to herself, and she did not for a moment doubt that he would use that knowledge to oust her from it in the shortest possible space of time.

The only two points on which she had her doubts were: Was it really the doctor who was driving Gregory Lamb? and, if so, had Gregory Lamb given him cause to even suspect the relation in which she stood to him? On a third point there was no doubt-the dogcart had been moving from, not towards the house, so that in any case the peril was not actually approaching her now.

Another thought suddenly occurred to her, one which set her heart beating faster than was altogether agreeable. The doctor and her husband might have been to the house already, in which case danger might be awaiting her return to what she had learned to call her home.

That was a question which might be quickly resolved-she would resolve it quickly. She started off homewards then and there, telling herself as she went that, whatever had happened, or might happen, they should only be rid of her on terms of her own.

It turned out that, so far, nothing had happened; to that extent, at least, her agitation had been uncalled for. No one had been near the house since she had left it; nothing had happened which was in any way out of the common. The relief she felt at learning even so much showed how real she had imagined the danger was. With some vague idea of subjecting him to cross-examination and learning if he had suspicions of her of any sort or kind, so soon as she had removed her hat she paid a visit to Cuthbert Grahame's room.

As usual, he lay immobile between the sheets, preserving that death-in-life rigidity which, it seemed, was to continue his condition to the end. The sight of him struck in her an unwonted note.

"Don't you get tired of lying there? – especially on a day like this, when the sun is shining and the breeze is stealing among the trees and flowers?"

She did not strike a responsive note in him. He was silent for some seconds, then he asked, in his strange, far-away voice, which was like a husky whisper-

"Aren't you well?"

"Oh yes, I'm well enough. I'm only wondering if you're not tired of being ill. It seems to me that you might as well be dead as keep on lying there with only your voice alive-and that's pretty nearly done for."

She had returned to her more familiar mood.

"Tired! – tired!" He repeated the word twice, then after an interval went on: "What's the use of being tired of what has to be? I'm tired of you, but it seems you have to be-so what's the use?"

"I don't see why you need be tired of me. I'm no more to you than a chair or table."

"You're my wife."

"Your wife! It's because I'm your wife that I'm likely to get tired instead of you. I'm not a helpless statue-I'm a woman; I don't want a dead log-I want a man."

"I was once a man."

"You a man!"

"Seems queer, doesn't it?"

"I don't believe it."

"Yet I was, physically, not a bad sample of a man. Now the Lord knows what I am! – a husk, I suppose. There's a man inside me somewhere still."

"You look as if there were, and you sound it."

She laughed, not pleasantly. It was one of her defects that her laughter seldom had a pleasant sound, as if it were only the spirit of malice which had power to move her to mirth.

"You've confessed why you married me. Do you know why I wanted to marry you, or any one? I'd have married your friend Nannie if she'd agreed, but she refused point-blank."

"Is that true?"

"Quite. It was only when she persisted in her refusal that the doctor thought of the woman he'd found in a ditch. Since anything in the shape of a woman would serve he hauled you up the stairs." She was still. She was standing in her favourite position by the open window, looking out at the woods on the slope of the hill. "Shall I tell you why, when already looking into hell-and I had a good look, I promise you! – I wanted to marry any one?"

"I know."

"Who told you?"

"Dr. Twelves."

"He seems to have imparted to you a good deal of useful information. What did he tell you?"

"That you'd made a will in some one's favour, which you wanted to break, and that was the easiest way to break it."

"Did he tell you who the some one was?"

"No."

"It was a woman. Do you hear-it was a woman!"

"I hear."

"A young woman-younger than you and prettier. Prettier? My God! You're not bad-looking in a way, but there's a streak of the vulgar in you now. No one could ever mistake you for a lady. You're one of the blowzy sort; you'll become impossible; hard-featured; flame-coloured cheeks; bold, staring eyes; huge, unwieldy, gross. She! – she's the most perfect woman God ever made, and she'll only improve as the years go by."

"I've met that kind of woman before."

"Not you. She's not to be found in the sort of society in which you've moved."

"She's to be found in the penny novelettes-never out of them. You and your perfect women! In spite of her perfection you don't seem to have found her all milk and honey, or you wouldn't have been so keen to break that will of yours."

"Do you know why I wanted to break it?"

"Some silly nonsense. Because she tried to scratch your eyes out, I daresay-serve you right if she did."

"Because she wouldn't marry me."

"Because-!" She stopped to burst into noisy, strident laughter. "She must have been a fool. I should have thought any one would have married you if you'd made it worth their while."

"I told you that she was not the kind of woman you have ever met; she's clean beyond your understanding. Put your hand underneath my pillow-gently. You'll find a case; take it out."

Isabel looked at him, hesitating, as if in doubt of his meaning, then she did as he had told her. He was propped up on a nicely graduated series of pillows. As she withdrew her hand, the case between her fingers, she dragged one of the pillows with it right from under the one on which his head reposed, so that, denuded of its support, his head fell back. In a second he began to choke before her eyes. His face grew bluer and bluer; the veins stood out through his skin; he fought for breath; his stertorous gasps shook him from head to foot. She raised his head to its normal position, returning the pillow to its place. As she watched him struggle back to what-to him-was life, she laughed.

"It wouldn't take long to make an end of you."

By degrees he regained the use of his attenuated voice.

"I do want careful handling-that's so. Still I wouldn't murder me if I were you-it would be murder. Murder has to be paid for in full. It would be hardly worth your while to be compelled to render full payment for such a remnant as I am. Have you got the case? Open it."

She held a square Russia leather case, in corn-flower blue. She looked for a spring or for something which would enable her to get at its interior, but found nothing.

"Does it open? I don't see how."

"It's a little idea of my own that spring. I didn't want any one to see what is inside but me. But it's so long since I've seen that I have grown hungry for a look, so you shall have one too. I think I should like you to have one. Hold the case between your finger and thumb, one of them exactly in the centre of each side, then press firmly."

Obeying him, immediately one of the sides flew open in the middle, revealing, framed in the other, the miniature of a young girl. Isabel was no artist; she was incapable of appreciating the artistic value of the portrait which confronted her. What struck her instantly was that it was surrounded by what looked like three rows of precious stones-pearls, sapphires, diamonds.

"Are they real?" she inquired.

"Do you mean the stones in the setting? They are. The pearls are there because she is the queen of pearls; the sapphires, because they are her favourite stones; the diamonds, because I chose to have them."

"They must be very valuable."

"They cost a lot of money, and they'd fetch a lot. That is the girl I wanted to marry me. What do you think of her?"

"She is pretty."

"Pretty! She's beautiful."

"She's too fair for me."

"That's because you're dark. I hate dark women-always have done. Hold the case open in front of me. Let me look at her."

She did as he asked. No change took place in his expression; none could take place. His voice remained the same; that also was incapable of modulation. Yet she knew that an alteration had taken place in him; that as he gazed the man of whom he had spoken, who was inside him somewhere, was stirred to his inmost depths.

"Not beautiful! She's the most beautiful creature in the world. She always has been; she always will be. God bless her! though He has been hard on me." Then, after a pause, "Take the case away and shut it, and put it back beneath my pillow-gently. That glimpse will last me a long time, thank you. Though I may never look at her again, her face will be with me always to the end. Before you close the case you might look at her again more carefully. Perhaps, after you have gazed at her attentively, understanding may come to you; you may begin to perceive the beauty which was hidden from you at the first."

She returned, the case still open in her hand, to the window in front of which she had been standing.

CHAPTER IX

THE SLIDING PANEL

The silence remained unbroken for some seconds. Then he asked-

"Well, what do you think of her now?"

"I think she's pretty, as I said. You may think her beautiful. I daresay plenty of men would; that sort of thing's a question of taste. I tell you what I do think beautiful-that's these diamonds. The sapphires and the pearls are all very well, but the diamonds are the stones for me."

"You would think that. You're the sort of woman who'd admire a gaudy frame, and have no eyes for the picture that was in it. If you like I'll tell you who she is and all about her. It may seem like sacrilege to talk of her to you, but I think I'll tell you all the same."

"Tell away. I suppose it's the old, old story: she met some one she fancied more than you. Men always do think that sort of thing is wonderful. But I don't mind listening."

"Yes, there was some one she liked better than me. That was the trouble."

"It generally is, while it lasts; then it turns out to be a blessing. But, of course, you've never had the chance."

"As you say, I've never had the chance. Her name-I won't tell you her name-though why shouldn't I? Her name is Margaret Wallace."

"Scotch, is she?"

"Her father was Scotch, her mother English. He was my dearest friend. When he died-"

"He left his only daughter, then a mere child, and that was all."

"That was all, and as you say she was a mere child. You seem to have had some experiences of your own."

"One or two. I'm more than seven."

"So I should imagine."

"You took her to your own home, found her in food and washing, and pocket-money now and then. As she grew older her wondrous beauty and her many virtues-especially the first lot-warmed your withered heart. When she attained to womanhood you breathed to her the secret of your passion, which she had spotted about eighteen years before; but as she didn't happen to be taking any, of course the band began to play. Isn't that the sort of story you were going to tell, only I daresay you wouldn't have told it in quite that way?"

"I certainly shouldn't have told it in quite that way."

"You had expended on her two hundred and forty-nine pounds nineteen and sixpence ha'penny, besides any amount of fuss, so her ingratitude stung you to the marrow. Still you might have borne with her; you might not even have altered the will which you had made in her favour, and which you kept shaking in her face; only when she took up with another chap she seemed to be coming it a bit too thick. You cried in your anger, 'I'll make you smart for this, my beauty!' So you started to make her smart; but it seems to me that you've done most of the smarting up to now. Was it her cruelty which made you the pretty sight you are?"

"Not altogether."

"Not altogether! You don't mean to say that when you wanted her to be your wife you were anything like what you are now? A nice kind of love yours must have been!"

"I appear to have acquired a really delightful wife."

"If you weren't a dead log it might be that you'd find out how true that was. Any man with a touch of spice in him would give the eyes out of his head for a wife like me, and there have been plenty who were ready to do it."

"As you yourself observed, these things are a question of taste. So you think she was justified in treating me as she did?"

"Justified for not wanting to marry a thing like you! You ought to have been drowned for hinting at it."

"I am myself beginning to think that your point of view may not be wholly incorrect, and that, therefore, it was fortunate that I did not die on the night we were married."

"I don't."

"You wouldn't-you have, of course, your own point of view. From mine it is fortunate that I have been spared to enable me to make another will."

"How are you going to make a will, when you can't move so much as a finger?"

"I can have one drawn up according to my instructions. You will find that I'm capable of signing it. Would you have any objection?"

"It would depend on what there was in it."

"I see. May I ask if you are under the impression that if I die without a will-even supposing our marriage is valid-"

"It's valid enough, don't you be afraid."

"I'm not afraid; you, I fancy, have the cause to fear. But I say, supposing our marriage is a marriage-as to which I say nothing either one way or the other-if I die intestate do you imagine that you will necessarily come into possession of all I have?"

"Have you any relatives?"

"Not one in the whole wide world."

"Then you bet I shall."

"You may bet you won't."

"Who's got more right to what you leave behind than your lawful wife?"

"It depends. Under no circumstances would you inherit more than half of my personal property, and a third of my real estate; the rest would go to the Crown."

"Half's something! Look here, Dr. Twelves told me that if I married you I should have twenty thousand pounds. Have you got as much?"

There was an interval before an answer came. Possibly the man in the bed was considering what answer he should make to such a very leading question.

"I cannot tell you exactly what I have got, but I may safely venture to assert this much: If all I possess-land, houses, shares and so on-were to be turned into cash to-morrow, I should find myself with at least two hundred thousand pounds."

"Two hundred thousand pounds! Go on!"

"This is a curious world, and Fortune is a curious jade; she bestows her gifts with feminine irresponsibility. She gives one health and strength and youth-and empty pockets-just when he could get enjoyment out of full ones. To another, crippled limbs, physical helplessness, premature old age-and pockets brimming over-just when money is of as little use to him as pictures to the blind. I have been denied most things except fortune. Sounds ironical, doesn't it? As with Midas, everything I have touched has turned to gold-in my case a thing wholly worthless. I never made a bad money speculation in my life. I doubt if I ever made an investment which did not pay me ten per cent. Some of my investments have paid me forty and fifty per cent, for years, and are worth ten times what I gave for them. I wasn't worth twenty thousand pounds when I began life; now, to adopt your phraseology, I'll bet I'm worth more than a quarter of a million."

"And yet you live in a place like this, without a horse in the stable, and the garden like a wilderness!"

"Why shouldn't I? Where would you have me live? In a castle? with an array of servants who would take my money and from whom I should have to hide. A well-bred servant wouldn't be able to endure the sight of such an object as I am. All I need is a bed to lie on, some one to put food between my lips, money to pay for it. Since here I have those things, here I have all I need. Besides, you should bear in mind that, as nothing is being spent, there will be all the more to leave behind."

She was silent; her face turned towards the open window, the miniature in its jewelled case still in her hand. His words had fired her imagination. A quarter of a million! – this man worth a quarter of a million! – and he supposed himself to be her husband! Not long ago she had told herself that a certain and clear five pounds a week earned by singing and dancing at the minor music halls would be her idea of fortune. She had married that deceitful humbug, Gregory Lamb, because she believed that he might possibly have as much as a thousand a year. What was a thousand a year compared to a quarter of a million! If he died without a will half of it would be hers, or was it a third? Why shouldn't she have more than that? If he had no relatives to make a fuss, why shouldn't she have it all?

Even as she asked herself the question an answer came to her dimly, yet with sufficient clearness to start her trembling. It was born of an idea which would have disposed most women to do more than tremble. Her breath came faster; her eyes brightened; something like a smile wrinkled her lips; the vista presented to her imagination, which would have appalled most persons, titillated her.

After a while she asked, without turning her head-

"If you were to make a will, what would you put in it?"

"I'll show you."

"When?"

"Now. There's a secret hiding-place in this room. If you tried do you think that you could find it?"

"I'd find it fast enough."

"Then find it."

"What sort of place is it?"

"That's asking for assistance. I'll give you this much. It's in the wall, concealed by a panel of wood. Now I've given you the scent, follow it to a finish-if you can."

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