Presently Dick raised the face of Cain when he told the Lord that his punishment was greater than he could bear. Tears leaped to Austin's eyes, but he turned his head away lest Dick should see them. He would have given years of his life to spare Dick--everything he had in the world--save his deep convictions of right and wrong. He was responsible for Viviette. That risk of horror he could not let her run. He had hoped, with a great agony of hope, that Dick would have seen it for himself. To formulate it had been torture. But he could not weaken. The barrier between Dick and Viviette was not of his making. It was composed of the grim psychological laws that govern the abnormal. To have disregarded it would have been a crime from which his soul shrank. All the despair in Dick's face, though it wrung his heart, could not move him. It was terrible to be chosen in this way to be the arbiter of Destiny. But there was the decree, written in letters of blood and flame. And Dick had bowed to it.
"What's to become of her?" he groaned.
"This will be her home, as it always has been," said Austin.
"I don't mean that--but between us we shall break her heart. She has given it to me just in time for me to do it. My luck!"
Austin tried to comfort him. A girl's heart was not easily broken. Her pride would suffer most. Pain was inevitable. But Time healed many wounds. In this uncertain world nothing was ever so good as we hoped, and nothing ever so bad as we feared. Dick paid little heed to the platitudes.
"She must be told!"
"Not what happened this afternoon," cried Austin quickly. "That we bury forever from all human knowledge."
"Yes," said Dick, staring in front of him and speaking in a dull, even voice. "We must hide that. It's not a pretty thing to spread before a girl's eyes. It will be always before my own--until I die. But she must be told that I can't marry her. I can't ride away and leave her in doubt and wonder forever and ever."
"Let us face this horrible night as best we can," said Austin. "Avoid seeing her alone. You'll be with mother or packing most of the evening. Slip away to Witherby an hour or so before your time. When you're gone I'll arrange matters. Leave it to me."
He made one of his old, self-confident gestures. But now Dick felt no resentment. His spirit in its deep abasement saw in Austin the better, wiser, stronger man.
At a quarter-past eight they went slowly downstairs to what promised to be a nightmare kind of meal. There would be four persons, Viviette, Katherine, and themselves, in a state of suppressed eruption, and two, Mrs. Ware and the unspeakable Banstead, complacently unaware of volcanic forces around them, who might by any chance word bring about disaster. There was danger, too--and the greatest--from Viviette, ignorant of Destiny. Austin dreaded the ordeal; but despair and remorse had benumbed Dick's faculties; he had passed the stage at which men fear. With his hand on the knob of the drawing-room door Austin paused and looked at him.
"Pull yourself together, man. Play your part. For God's sake, try to look cheerful."
Dick tried. Austin shivered.
"For God's sake, don't," he said.
They entered the drawing-room, expecting to find the three ladies, and possibly Lord Banstead, assembled for dinner. To Austin's discomfiture, Viviette was alone in the room. She rose, made a step or two to meet them, then stopped.
"What a pair of faces! One would think it were the eve of Dick's execution, and you were the hangman measuring him for the noose."
"Dick," said Austin, "is leaving us to-night--possibly for many years."
"I don't see that he is so very greatly to be pitied," said Viviette, trying in vain to meet Dick's eyes. She drew him a pace or two aside.
"Did you read my note--or did you tear it up like the other one?"
"I read it," he said, looking askance at the floor.
"Then why are you so woe-begone?"
He replied in a helpless way that he was not woe-begone. Viviette was puzzled, hurt, somewhat humiliated. She had made woman's great surrender which is usually followed by a flourish of trumpets very gratifying to hear. In fact, to most women the surrender is worth the flourish. But the recognition of this surrender appeared to find its celebration in a funeral march with muffled drums. A condemned man being fitted for the noose, as she had suggested, a mute conscientiously mourning at his own funeral, a man who had lost a stately demesne in Paradise and had been ironically compensated by the gift of a bit of foreshore of the Styx could not have worn a less joyous expression than he on whom she had conferred the boon of his heart's desire.
"You're not only woe-begone," she said, with spirit, "but you're utterly miserable. I think I have a right to know the reason. Tell me, what is it?"
She tapped a small, impatient foot.
"We haven't told my mother yet," Austin explained, "and Dick is rather nervous as to the way in which she will take the news."
"Yes," said Dick, with lame huskiness. "It's on mother's account."
Viviette laughed somewhat scornfully.
"I am not a child, my dear Austin. No man wears a face like that on account of his mother--least of all when he meets the woman who has promised to be his wife."
She flashed a challenging glance at Austin, but not a muscle of his grey face responded. Her natural expectations were baffled. There was no start of amazement, no fierce movement of anger, no indignant look of reproach. She was thrown back on herself. She said:
"I don't think you quite understand. Dick had two aims in life--one to obtain a colonial appointment, the other--so he led me to suppose--to marry me. He has the appointment, and I have promised to marry him."
"I know," said Austin, "but you must make allowances."
"If that's all you can say on behalf of your client," retorted Viviette, "I rather wonder at your success as a barrister."
"Don't you think, my dear," said Austin gently, "that we are treading on delicate ground?"
"Delicate ground!" she scoffed. "We seem to have been treading on a volcano all the afternoon. I'm tired of it." She faced the two men with uplifted head. "I want an explanation."
"Of what?" Austin asked.
"Of Dick's attitude. What has he got to be miserable about? Tell me."
"But I'm not miserable, my dear Viviette," said poor Dick, vainly forcing a smile. "I'm really quite happy."
Her woman's intuition rejected the protest with contumely. All the afternoon he had been mad with jealousy of Austin. An hour ago he had whirled her out of her senses in savage passion. But a few minutes before she had given him all a woman has to give. Now he met her with hang-dog visage, apologies from Austin, and milk-and-water asseveration of a lover's rapture. The most closely-folded rosebud miss of Early Victorian times could not have faced the situation without showing something of the Eve that lurked in the heart of the petals. So much the less could Viviette, child of a freer, franker day, hide her just indignation under the rose-leaves of maidenly modesty.
"Happy!" she echoed. "I've known you since I was a child of three. I know the meaning of every light and every shadow that passes over your face--except this shadow now. What does it mean?"
She asked the question imperiously, no longer the elfin changeling, the fairy of bewildering moods of Austin's imagination, no longer the laughing coquette of Katherine's less picturesque fancy, but a modern young woman of character, considerably angered and very much in earnest. Austin bit his lip in perplexity. Dick looked around like a hunted animal seeking a bolting-hole.
"Dick is anxious," said Austin, at length, seeing that some explanation must be given, "that there should be no engagement between you before he goes out to Vancouver."
"Indeed?" said Viviette. "May I ask why? As this concerns Dick and myself, perhaps you will leave us alone for a moment so that Dick may tell me."
"No, no," Dick muttered hurriedly. "Don't leave us, Austin. We can't talk of such a thing now."
Again she tapped her foot impatiently.
"Yes, now. I'm going to hear the reason now, whatever it is."
The brothers exchanged glances. Dick turned to the window, and stared at the mellow evening sky.
Austin again was spokesman.
"Dick finds he has made a terrible and cruel mistake. One that concerns you intimately."
"Whatever Dick may have done with regard to me," replied Viviette, "I forgave him for it beforehand. When once I give a thing I don't take it back. I have given him my love and my promise."
"My dear," said Austin, gravely and kindly. "Here are two men who have loved you all your life. Don't think hardly of us. You must be brave and bear a great shock. Dick can't marry you."
She looked at him incredulously.
"Can't marry me? Why not?"
"It would be better not to ask."
She moved swiftly to Dick, and with her light touch swung him round to face the room.
"I don't understand. Is it because you're going out into the wilds? That doesn't matter. I told you I would go to Vancouver with you. I want to go. My happiness is with you."
Dick groaned. "Don't make it harder for me."
"What are you keeping from me?" she asked. "Is it anything you don't think fit for my ears? If so, speak. I'm no longer a child. Is there another woman in the case?"
She met Austin's eyes full. He said: "No, thank God! Nothing of that sort." And as her eyes did not waver, he made the bold stroke. "He finds that he doesn't love you as much as he thought. There's the whole tragedy in a few words."
She reeled back as if struck. "Dick doesn't love me?" Then the announcement seemed so grotesque in its improbability that she began to laugh, a trifle hysterically.
"Is this true?"
"It's quite true," said poor Dick.
"You see, my dear," said Austin, "what it costs him--what it costs us both--to tell you this."
"But I don't understand. I don't understand!" she cried, with sudden piteousness. "What did you mean, then--a little while ago--in the armoury?"
Austin, who did not see the allusion, had to allow Dick to speak for himself.
"I was drunk," said Dick desperately. "I've been drinking heavily of late--and not accountable for my actions. I oughtn't to have done what I did."
"And so, you see," continued Austin, with some eagerness, "when he became confronted with the great change in his life--Vancouver--he looked at things soberly. He found that his feelings towards you were not of the order that would warrant his making you his wife."
Before Viviette could reply the door opened, and Mrs. Ware and Katherine entered the room. Mrs. Ware, ignorant of tension, went smilingly to Austin, and, drawing down his shapely head with both hands, kissed him.
"My dear, dear boy, I'm so glad, so truly glad. Katherine has just told me."
"Told you what, mother?" asked Viviette quickly, with a new sharpness in her voice.
Mrs. Ware turned a beaming face. "Can't you guess, darling? Oh, Austin, there's no living woman whom I would sooner call my daughter. You've made me so happy."
The facile tears came, and she sat down and dried them on her little wisp of handkerchief.
"I thought it for the best to tell your mother, Austin," said Katherine, somewhat apologetically. "We were speaking of you--and--I couldn't keep it back."
Viviette, white-lipped and dazed, looked at Austin, Katherine, and Dick in turns. She said, in the high-pitched voice, to Austin:
"Have you asked Katherine to marry you?"
"Yes," he replied, not quite so confidently, and avoiding her glance--"and she has done me the honour of accepting me."
Katherine held out a conciliatory hand to Viviette. "Won't you congratulate me, dear?"
"And Austin, too," said Mrs. Ware.
But Viviette lost control of herself. "I'll congratulate nobody," she cried shrilly. She burned with a sense of intolerable outrage. Only a few hours before she had been befooled into believing herself to be the mistress of the destinies of two men. Both had offered her their love. Both had kissed her. The memory lashed her into fury. Now one of them avowed that she had been merely the object of a drunken passion, and the other came before her as the affianced husband of the woman who called herself her dearest friend.
Katherine, in deep distress, laid her hand on the girl's arm. "Why not, dear? I thought that you and Dick--in fact--I understood--"
Viviette freed herself from Katherine's touch.
"Oh, no, you didn't. You didn't understand anything. You didn't try to. You are all lying. The three of you. You have all lied, and lied, and lied to me. I tell you to your faces you have lied to me." She swung passionately to each in turn. "'Austin can never be anything to me but a friend'--how often have you said that to me? Ah--Saint Nitouche! And you"--to Austin--"How dared you insult me this morning? And you--how have you dared to insult me all the time? You've lied--the whole lot of you--and I hate you all!"
Mrs. Ware had risen, scared and trembling.
"What does the girl mean? I've never heard such unladylike words in a drawing-room in my life."
Dick blundered in: "It's all my fault, mother--"
"I've not the slightest doubt of that," returned the old lady with asperity. "But what Austin and Katherine have to do with it I can't imagine."
The servant opened the door.
"Lord Banstead."
He entered a cold, strange silence. Everyone had forgotten him. He must have attributed the ungenial atmosphere to his own lateness--it was half-past eight--for he made penitent apology to Mrs. Ware. Austin greeted him coldly. Dick nodded absently from the other side of the room. Viviette, with a sweeping glance of defiance at the assembled family, held herself very erect, and with hard eyes and quivering lips came straight to the young fellow.
"Lord Banstead," she said. "You have asked me four times to marry you. Did you mean it, or were you lying, too?"
Banstead's pallid cheeks flushed. He was overcome with confusion.
"Of course I mean it--meant to ask you again to-day--ask you now."
"Then I will marry you."
Dick strode forward, and, catching her by the wrist, swung her away from Banstead, his face aflame with sudden passion.
"No, by God, you shan't!"
Banstead retreated a few paces, scared out of his life. Mrs. Ware sought Austin's protecting arm.
"What does all this mean? I don't understand it."
Austin led her to the door. "I'll see nothing unpleasant happens, dear. You had better go and tell them to keep back dinner yet a few minutes."
His voice and authority soothed her, and she left the room, casting a terrified glance at Dick, standing threateningly over Lord Banstead, who had muttered something about Viviette being free to do as she liked.
"She can do what she likes, but, by God! she shan't marry you."
"I'm of age," declared Viviette fiercely. "I marry whom I choose."
"Of course she can," said Banstead. "Are you taking leave of your senses?"
"How dare you ask a pure girl to marry you?" cried Dick furiously. "You, who have come straight here from--"
Banstead found some spirit. "Shut up, Ware," he interrupted. "Play the game. You've no right to say that."
"I have the right," cried Dick.
"Hush!" said Austin, interposing.
"There's no need to prolong this painful discussion. To-morrow--as Viviette's guardian--"
"To-morrow?" Dick shouted. "Where shall I be to-morrow? Away from here--unable to defend her--unable to say a word."
"If you said a thousand words," said Viviette, "they wouldn't make an atom of difference. Lord Banstead has asked me to marry him. I have accepted him openly. What dare you say to it?"
"Yes," said Banstead. "She has made no bones about it. I've asked her five times. Now she accepts me. What have you to say to it?"
"I say she shan't marry you," said Dick, glaring at the other.
"Steady, steady, Dick," said Austin warningly. But Dick shook his warning angrily aside, and Austin saw that, once again that day, Dick was desperate.
"Not while I live shall she marry you. Don't I know your infernal beastly life?"
"Now, look here," said Banstead, at bay. "What the deuce have you got to do with my affairs?"
"Everything. Do you think she loves you, cares for you, honours you, respects you?"
Viviette faced him with blazing eyes.
"I do," she said defiantly.
"It's a lie," cried Dick. "It's you that are lying now. Heaven and earth! I've suffered enough to-day--I thought I had been through hell--but it's nothing to this. She loves me--do you hear me?--me--me--me--and I can't marry her--and I don't care a damn who knows the reason."
"Stop, man," said Austin.
"Let me be. She shall know the truth. Everyone shall know the truth. At any rate, it will save her from this."
"I will do it quietly, later, Dick."
"Let me be, I tell you," said Dick, with great, clumsy, passionate gesture. "Let's have no more lies." He turned to Viviette. "You wrote me a letter. You said you loved me--would marry me--come out to Vancouver--the words made me drunk with happiness--at first. You saw me. I refused your love and your offer. I said I didn't love you. I lied. I said I couldn't marry you. It was the truth. I can't. I can't. But love you! Oh, my God! My God! There were flames of hell in my heart--but couldn't you see the love shining through?"
"Don't, Dick, don't," cried Katherine.
"I will," he exclaimed wildly. "I'll tell her why I can't marry any woman. I tried to murder Austin this afternoon!"
Katherine closed her eyes. She had guessed it. But Viviette, with parted lips and white cheeks, groped her way backwards to a chair, without shifting her terror-stricken gaze from Dick; and sitting, she gripped the arms of the chair.
There was a moment of tense silence. Banstead at last relieved his feelings with a gasping, "Well, I'm damned!"
Dick continued:
"It was jealousy--mad jealousy--this afternoon--in the armoury--the mock duel--one of the pistols was loaded. I loaded it--first, in order to kill him out of hand--then I thought of the duel--he would have his chance--either he would kill me or I would kill him. Mine happened to be loaded. It missed fire. It was only the infinite mercy of God that I didn't kill him. He found it out. He has forgiven me. He's worth fifty millions of me. But my hands are red with his blood, and I can't touch your pure garments. They would stain them red--and I should see red again before my eyes some day. A man like me is not fit to marry any woman. A murderer is beyond the pale. So I said I didn't love her to save her from the knowledge of this horror. And now I'm going to the other side of the world to work out my salvation--but she shall know that a man loves her with all his soul, and would go through any torment and renunciation for her sake--and, knowing that, she can't go and throw herself away on a man unworthy of her. After what I've told you, will you marry this man?"
Still looking at him, motionless, she whispered, "No."
"I say!" exclaimed Banstead. "I think--"
Austin checked further speech. Dick looked haggardly round the room.
"There. Now you all know. I'm not fit to be under the same roof with you. Good-bye."
He slouched in his heavy way to the door, but Viviette sprang from her chair and planted herself in his path.
"No. You shan't go. Do you think I have nothing to say?"
"Say what you like," said Dick sadly. "Nothing is too black for me. Curse me, if you will."
She laughed, and shook her head. "Do you think a woman curses the man who would commit murder for the love of her?" she cried, with a strange exultation in her voice. "If I loved you before--don't you think I love you now a million times more?"
Dick fell back, thrilled with amazement.
"You love me still?" he gasped. "You don't shrink--"
"Excuse me," interrupted Banstead, crossing the room. "Does this mean that you chuck me, Miss Hastings?"
"You must release me from my promise, Lord Banstead," she said gently. "I scarcely knew what I was doing. I'm very sorry. I've not behaved well to you."
"You've treated me damned badly," said Banstead, turning on his heel. "Good-bye, everybody."
Austin, moved by compunction, tried to conciliate the angry youth, but he refused comfort. He had been made a fool of, and would stand that from nobody. He would not stay for dinner, and would not put his foot inside the house again.
"At any rate," said Austin, bidding him good-bye, "I can rely on you not to breathe a word to anyone of what you've heard this evening?"
Banstead fingered his underfed moustache.
"I may be pretty rotten, but I'm not that kind of cad," said he. And he went, not without a certain dignity.
Dick took Viviette's hand and kissed it tenderly.
"God bless you, dear. I'll remember what you've said all my life. I can go away almost happy."
"You can go away quite happy, if you like," said Viviette. "Take me with you."
"To Vancouver?"
Austin joined them. "It is impossible, dear," said he.
"I go with him to Vancouver," she said.
Dick wrung his hands. "But I daren't marry you, Viviette, I daren't, I daren't."
"Don't you see that it's impossible, Viviette?" said Austin.
"Why?"
"I've explained it to Dick. He has hinted it to you. You're scarcely old enough to understand, my dear. It is the risk you run."
"Such men as I can't marry," said Dick loyally. "You don't understand. Austin is right. The risk is too great."
She laughed in superb contempt.
"The risk? Do you think I'm such a fool as not to understand? Do you think, after what I've said, that I'm a child? Risk? What is life or love worth without risk? When a woman loves a fierce man she takes the risk of his fierceness. It's her joy. I'll take the risk, and it will be a bond between us."
Austin implored her to listen to reason. She swept his arguments aside.
"God forbid. I'll listen to love," she cried. "And if ever a man wanted love, it's Dick. Reason! Come, Dick, let us leave this god and goddess of reason alone. I've got something to say which only you can hear."
She dragged him in a bewildered state of mind to the door, which she held open. She was absolute mistress of the situation. She motioned to Dick to precede her, and he obeyed, like a man in a dream. On the threshold she paused, and flashed defiance at Austin, who appeared to her splendid scorn but a small, narrow-natured man.
"You can say and think what you like, you two. You are civilised people--and I suppose you love in a civilised way according to reason. I'm a primitive woman, and Dick's a primitive man--and, thank God! we understand each other, and love each other as primitive people do."
She slammed the door, and in another moment was caught in Dick's great arms.
"What do you want to say that only I can hear?" he asked after a while.
"This," she said. "I want you to love me strongly and fiercely for ever and ever--and I'll be a great wife to you--and, if I fail--if I am ever wanton, as I have been to-day--for I have been wanton--and all that has happened has been my fault--if ever I play fast and loose with your love again--I want you to kill me. Promise!"
would have touched a prize rose bloom."Thank God, you're still a child, dear," he said.
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