Half a Hero Part 33

After a pause she made another attempt.

"Mr. Medland!"

"Yes?"

"You've been very good to me--yes, very good."

He turned to her with a gesture of disclaimer. She thought he was going to speak, but he did not.

"Whatever happens, I shall always remember that with--with deep grat.i.tude."

"What is going to happen?" he asked, with an uneasy smile.

"Oh, how can I?" she burst out. "How can I say it? How can I ask you?"

As she spoke she stopped, and he followed her example. They stood facing one another now, as he replied gravely,

"Whatever you ask--let it be what it will--I will answer, truthfully." A pause before the last word perhaps betrayed a momentary struggle.

"What right have I? Why should you?"

"The right my--my desire to have your regard gives you. How can I ask for that, unless I am ready to tell you all you can wish to know?"

"I have heard," she began falteringly, "I have been told by--by people who, I suppose, were right to tell me----"

In a moment he understood her. A slight twitch of his mouth betrayed his trouble, but he came to her rescue.

"I don't know how it reached you," he said. "Perhaps I think you might have been--you need not have known it. But there is only one thing you can have heard, that it would distress you to speak of."

She said nothing, but fixed her eyes on his.

"I am right?" he asked. "It is about--my wife?"

She bowed her head. He stood silent for a moment, and she cried,

"It was only gossip--a woman's gossip; I did wrong to listen to it."

"Gossip," he said, "is often true. This is true," and he set his lips.

The worst often finds or makes people calm. She had flushed at first, but the colour went again, and she said quietly,

"If you have time and don't mind, I should like to hear it all."

She had forgotten what this request must mean to him, or perhaps she thought the time for pretence had gone by. If so, he understood, for he answered,

"It's your right."

Her eyes sank to the ground, but she did not quarrel with his words. She stood motionless while he told his story. He spoke with wilful brevity and dryness.

"I was a young man when I met her. She was married, and I went to the house. Her husband----"

"Did he ill-treat her?"

"No. In his way, I suppose he was fond of her. But--she didn't like his way. She was very beautiful, and I fell in love with her, and she with me. And we ran away."

"Is--is that all? Is there no----?"

"No excuse? No, I suppose, none. And I lived with her till she died four years ago. And--Daisy is our daughter."

"And he--the husband?"

"He did not divorce her. I don't know why not, perhaps because she asked him to--anyhow he didn't. And he outlived her: so she died--as she had lived."

"And is he still alive?"

"No; he is dead now." He was about to go on, but checked himself. Why add that horror? How the man died was nothing between her and him.

"Have you no--nothing to say?" she burst out, almost angrily. "You just tell me that and stop!"

"What is there to say? I have told you all there is to tell. I loved her very much. I did what I could to make her happy, and I try to make up for it to Daisy. But there is nothing more to say."

She was angry that he would not defend himself. She was ready--ah, so ready!--to listen to his pleading. But he would not say a word for himself. Instead, he went on,

"She didn't want to come, but I made her. She repented, poor girl, all her life; she was never quite happy. It was all my doing. Still, I think she was happier with me, in spite of it."

A movement of impatience escaped from Alicia. Seeing it he added,

"I beg your pardon. I didn't want you to think hardly of her."

"I don't want to think of her at all. Was she--was she like Daisy?"

"Yes; but prettier."

"I don't know what you expect me to say," she exclaimed. "I know--I suppose some men don't think much of--of a thing like that. To me it is horrible. You simply followed your-- Ah, I can't speak of it!" and she seemed to put him from her with a gesture of disgust.

He walked beside her in silence, his face set in the bitter smile it always wore when fate dealt hardly with him.

"I think I'll go straight home," she said, stopping suddenly. "You can join the others."

"Yes, that will be best. I'm not due at the Council just yet."

"I suppose I ought to thank you for telling me the truth. I--" Her false composure suddenly gave way. With a sob she stretched out her hands towards him, crying, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" and before he could answer her she turned and walked swiftly away, leaving him standing still on the pathway.

She was hardly inside the gates of Government House when she saw Eleanor Scaife, who hurried to meet her.

"Only think, Alicia!" she cried. "d.i.c.k is on his way home, and with such good news. We've just had a cable from him."

"Coming back!"