Grit Lawless Part 19

"How can I be mistaken, Zoe, when I had it from his own lips? He would never forgive me for telling you... And, indeed, I ought to have held my peace. He could tell you so much more convincingly himself. I'm a fool to have spoken... It's the wrong time to speak of such things.

But my mind's so full of him, poor boy!"

Mrs Lawless got up, and stooping over her chair kissed her affectionately.

"Don't worry. You have done no harm," she said. "If anyone could plead for him it would be you, you kind, dear soul. You make me feel--" She hesitated, and straightening herself stood slowly upright, looking gravely into the lifted face,--"mean," she added, after a pause.

She clasped her hands behind her, and turning her back to the puzzled, questioning, tear-swollen eyes that stared up at her in helpless wonderment, gazed out upon the view. Through a break in the trees the great square rock that is Table Mountain showed in the clear atmosphere so surprisingly near that it seemed as though it formed a boundary to the garden. The sunlight lay warmly on its rugged prominences leaving the clefts and crannies in its grey sides cold and dark and secretive, the lurking-places of mystery and shadows, hiding ever from the light like the evil thoughts of a man's mind. Zoe Lawless gazed at the mountain, looking blue in the brilliant sunshine, and her eyes were clouded as the dark clefts in its sides. She was ashamed of the part she had deliberately played, ashamed above all of having deceived this woman who was her friend.

"I'm wondering what you are thinking of me," she said quickly. "And it hurts. I care... so much. You tempt me to tell you things--things that I keep double-locked in my heart--in order to justify myself."

She turned round suddenly, frowning, and tapped her foot impatiently on the stone floor of the stoep.

"Merely to justify myself!" she repeated... "Was ever a more paltry reason given than that? Shall I tell you, Kate? ... Shall I show you the wound in my breast... the ugly, raw, unhealing wound that I am for ever tearing open with my own hand? I would tell you what I would not tell another human being sooner than you should think ill of me."

"If that is your only reason for giving me your confidence, there is no need," the other answered. "It's just because I think so highly of you, Zoe, that I feel the disappointment so keenly. But perhaps it's as well that you don't care, because... in the event of..."

Here she broke down completely, her thoughts so charged with gruesome possibilities that Mrs Lawless' efforts at rea.s.surance were futile. It was impossible, she declared, to accept comfort with the idea of the hangman's rope ever present in her mind.

"I'm waiting for Theo to come up from town," she said tearfully. "He's gone to interview lawyers and barristers, and anyone who is likely to be able to help. Thank Heaven the a.s.sizes are on this month! I don't know how I should bear a longer suspense."

Mr Smythe reached home as Mrs Lawless was driving away. She stopped the car when she saw him, and he got out of the taxi he had driven up from town in and went to speak to her.

"You've been with Kate," he said. "I'm glad of that. She's horribly cut up, poor girl! It's a bad business... very. Looks black for Karl."

"You think,"--Mrs Lawless shivered involuntarily--"that he won't be able to clear himself?"

At sight of the shiver and her white face he remembered her friendly relations with Van Bleit, and hesitated to give free expression to his thoughts.

"Oh! I don't know," he said... "You see, we know so little. The only thing that is positive is that he killed the man... He admits it. But men have done that before, you know, and haven't swung for it. We won't look on the worst side until we've got to."

She realised that his desire was to spare her feelings, and a soft blush mantled her cheeks at the knowledge of what he was thinking.

"I'm not Kate," she said quietly. "I wish you wouldn't hold out hopes you don't in the least entertain. You are afraid the case will go against him... Why don't you say so frankly?"

"Because," he answered jerkily, "I've got no grounds for supposing anything of the sort. But I've been interviewing men this morning whose business it is to see the more serious side, and it doesn't tend to rea.s.sure one. Don't let that worry you, though, Mrs Lawless; we are going to do the best we can for him."

Again the swift rush of embarra.s.sed colour warmed her face. The tell-tale crimson strengthened his misapprehension. He fell to wondering what women saw in Van Bleit that won their liking. His wife's partiality for her cousin was the greatest unsolved puzzle of his life.

"We'll do our best," he repeated, wishful to allay her anxiety. "If it wasn't for Grey... It'll be rather like two dogs worrying over a bone.

It will be interesting to see who wins. The odds are against us... But we'll do our best."

That phrase rang in Zoe Lawless' ears like a refrain as she drove on...

"We'll do our best." ... So Theodore Smythe, as well as his wife, imagined that Karl Van Bleit's danger mattered to her. He had sought to hearten her with encouraging words; the very pressure of his hand when he bade her good-bye had conveyed a silent kindly sympathy, and his smile was meant to be rea.s.suring. Apart from the shock the news had occasioned her, Van Bleit's danger concerned her no more than the danger of the man in the street. Yet she by her actions had led these people to the inference they had drawn.

She frowned as the car spun along the dusty road, under the huge straggling trees that lined it on either side, and waved their long gaunt arms musically in the wind. It troubled her to remember now, in face of all that had happened, that she had stooped to such deception, even though her motive had not been entirely unworthy. She had taken advantage of Van Bleit's att.i.tude towards herself, had sought deliberately--as some women seek from motives of vanity--to attain an influence over him, and she had succeeded so far beyond her expectation.

Her object had been to get possession of the letters that men were risking and sacrificing their lives to obtain. She had meant to destroy the letters had they come into her possession, and so put it out of the power of any man to turn them to his own use. In the accomplishment of this her one hope had been to save from danger the man who had so recklessly, for a sordid compensation, undertaken their recovery. Van Bleit's feelings, as also to what extent she would have to lower her pride in the pursuance of her project, had scarcely been taken into consideration. All that had seemed up to now beside the main issue.

But now things had undergone a change, and the man for whose sake she had been willing to sacrifice her own prejudices, had gone out of her life, slaying by his own act all possible hope of intercourse between them in the future...

She leant back in her seat, and closed her eyes to the sunshine, the garish, laughing, intrusive sunshine that seemed to mock her pain. She was mourning for him, setting up a headstone to him in her memory; for he was as dead to her as though Van Bleit's bullet after effecting its deed of violence had sped through the darkness and spent itself in his heart. And upon the headstone she inscribed the one word "Waste."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Mrs Lawless was like a sick woman whose illness increased as the day advanced. She had recognised the finality of things on the night when Lawless walked out of her presence--out of her house, to return to the woman with whose lot he had thrown in his own. It was another of the mad, reckless acts that had governed his undisciplined nature. But to-day, with her mind disturbed with thoughts of death and deeds of violence, the memory of how she had let him go without exerting every effort to persuade him to reconsider his decision troubled her greatly.

Why had she not humbled her pride and pleaded with him? ... Why had she let the thought that it would be derogatory to her dignity deter her from freely avowing her love for him? ... Might not the strength of her love have stood between him and this evil? ... She felt as though hers had been the hand to thrust him forth into the darkness for the second time. Once before, in the years that were gone, she had thrust him forth; and in the empty years that had succeeded she had learnt bitterly to regret the hard unforgivingness of that act. Her one cry then had been: "I didn't understand... Oh! if only I could have the chance again." The opportunity had been given her, and she had failed to recognise it. "He was so cold," she excused herself. "I was afraid of him." And then: "I could not have prevented him from doing what he had made up his mind to do... My power over him is dead..."

In that knowledge lay the bitterness of the sting...

In the afternoon, according to her promise, Julie Weeber arrived. She was somewhat diffident of intruding, uncertain how Mrs Lawless felt the news of Van Bleit's arrest. Julie shared the popular belief that it would be a grievous shock to the woman whose name had been bandied about in connection with his for months. To make sure, she inquired of the native who opened the door to her whether Mrs Lawless were receiving.

"I would come another day, if it were more convenient," she said.

"Missis is expecting you," he answered, and showed her into the drawing-room.

Zoe Lawless was seated in a low chair near one of the windows, with her hands lying idly in her lap. She was very pale. Julie decided that she looked ill, and imagined that she understood the reason of her pallor.

"I came," she explained, "because I said I would. But if you'd rather have me some other day, I'll go away again."

"I'd rather that you stayed," Mrs Lawless answered, rising and shaking hands. "You see, I'm lonely. Why should you condemn me to my own society to-day?"

"I thought perhaps--"

Julie stammered and came upon an awkward pause, whereupon Mrs Lawless went quickly to her a.s.sistance.

"I know," she said. "This shocking news is all so fresh. But, obviously, I cannot a.s.sist my friends by becoming a recluse, can I? We won't speak of the subject, if you don't mind. It is sufficiently painful to make the discussion of it depressing. My sympathy with Mrs Smythe is great. She is very fond of her cousin, and feels this deeply.

And I am very fond of her... Sit here--will you?--with your back to the light. It's more restful."

Julie sat down wondering. She was beginning to reconstruct her ideas.

There was nothing in Mrs Lawless' manner to bear out the supposition that she was in love with Van Bleit. She did not suspect that Mrs Lawless was intentionally correcting her error, nor did she guess how her a.s.sumption of the truth of the common report embarra.s.sed her hostess. This ugly misapprehension had struck at her on three separate occasions that day. It was strange that she had not realised before the construction that might be put on her friendship with Van Bleit. She wondered whether Lawless had shared the same belief. And then she remembered how in her first interview with him he had warned her against the man. Why, if he was so entirely indifferent, need he have concerned himself about her acquaintance?

She looked up suddenly and surprised Julie's inquisitive eyes studying her intently. The girl smiled.

"It's awfully sweet of you to have asked me to come and see you," she said. "I've wanted to know you--oh! for ever so long."

"Why?"

"I don't know--unless it is because you are so beautiful. Women do admire other women whatever's said to the contrary. I've watched you motoring past our house... I saw you pa.s.s this morning."

She did not add that she had thought how sad she looked.

"Yes," Mrs Lawless answered. "I went to see Mrs Smythe. If my thoughts had not been so occupied with other matters I would have stopped and driven you out with me then. It's rather selfish to let you cycle out here when I have a car."

"Oh no!" Julie contradicted eagerly. "I make nothing of this journey."

"Nevertheless, I shall drive you next time. I want you to come out often. You play tennis, of course? There is a beautiful lawn there-- wasting... n.o.body plays on it."

She pointed through the window to a stretch of green sward which the Hottentot gardener kept surrept.i.tiously watered during the dry season, so that whatever else suffered from the long droughts the gra.s.s was always green.

"I should like that," Julie said. "Do you play?"