The Heart of a Woman Part 41

Could they prevent him from seeing ever present at his elbow the grim Angel of Remorse, holding in one hand the gla.s.s wherein relentlessly flowed the sands of time, and in the other, the invisible sword of a r.e.t.a.r.ded but none the less sure vengeance? Could they prevent his hearing the one word, Nemesis?

Luke--a fugitive from justice! Accused of a crime which he did not commit, self-convicted, almost self-accused, and fleeing from its consequences as he would from Remorse!

And people went to theatres, and laughed and cried. People ate and danced and sang. News vendors shrieked their wares, the latest sensational news; the gentleman criminal who had money and influence and with their help evaded the grip of justice.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A MAN MUST ACT AS HE THINKS BEST

Louisa knew the flat in Exhibition Road very well. She had helped Edie to furnish it, and to make it pretty and cosey, for Edie's pa.s.sion was for dogs and for golf; drawing-room chairs and saucepans were not much in her line. So Louisa had chosen practically everything--the piano, as well as the coal-scuttles, and every stick of furniture in Luke's room.

To-night she went up the well-known stairs very slowly: she ached so in every limb that she could scarcely walk. She seemed to have aged twenty years in two days.

Edie was sitting alone in the pretty drawing room buried in a capacious arm-chair, her hands folded before her. The room was in darkness save for the glow of the firelight. She jumped up when Colonel Harris and Louisa were announced and the neat servant in black dress and smart cap and ap.r.o.n switched on the electric light.

"Oh," said poor little Edie impetuously, "I am so thankful you've come!"

She ran up to Louisa and put her arms round her, kissing her.

"Do come and sit with me," she continued, loath to relinquish Colonel Harris's hand after she had shaken it, "I feel that in this solitude I shall go dotty."

Whilst she spoke, she detached with nervous, febrile movements Louisa's fur from round her neck, and dragged the older woman nearer to herself and to the fire. Then she threw herself down on the hearth rug, squatting there in front of the fire, with nervy fingers picking at the fringe of the rug. Her cheeks were red and blotchy with traces of recent tears, her hair, towzled and damp, clung to her moist temples. Suddenly she burst into a torrent of weeping.

"Oh, Lou! what does it all mean?" she exclaimed between heavy sobs.

"What does it all mean? They say Luke has murdered that odious Philip!

and I have been cooped up here for two days now, not daring to go out!

ashamed to face any one! and Luke--Luke--oh!"

The outburst was almost hysterical. The young girl was obviously fearfully overwrought, and had endured a severe nerve-strain by not having the means of giving vent to her feelings. Colonel Harris, with all an Englishman's horror of feminine scenes, was clearing his throat, looking supremely uncomfortable all the time.

"Sh!--sh!" admonished Louisa impatiently, "be quiet, Edie, you mustn't go on like that! Be quiet now!" she added more severely seeing that the girl made no effort to control herself. "What will your servants think?"

"Do you suppose," retorted Edie, "that I care what they think? They can't think more, can they? when they all talk of Luke as if he were a murderer."

"Do for G.o.d's sake be silent, Edie. This is too awful."

And Louisa, almost roughly, dragged herself away from the girl's hysterical embrace. She had tried so hard for two days and two nights to keep herself together, and her nerves in check. All day to-day had been one long continuous battle against the danger of "breaking down," that bugbear of the conventional woman of the world.

Now this danger, backed up by this poor child's grief, loomed greater than ever, now--now--that "breaking down" would become a positive sin, the most abject form of cowardice. But Edie's bewilderment, her loneliness, were intensely pathetic. Louisa had tried to be severe, and insisted on checking the access of hysteria, but her heart went out to the child, and to her puzzlement in face of this awful, un-understandable riddle.

"Look here, Edie," she said gently, putting her own kind arms round the quaking shoulders of the younger girl, "you are just going to show father and me how brave you can be. You are Luke's nearest and dearest one on earth; you must not add to his troubles by this exaggerated show of grief. We'll all have to be brave--all of us--but Luke will have to be the bravest of us all, and so we must all do our best to keep up our courage, and help his own."

She was not accustomed to making such long speeches, nor yet to preach and to admonish. Life, before now, had never placed her in the necessity of admonishing others: everybody round her--the people with whom she came in contact always behaved very much as they should--in the proper conventional worldly manner. People she had hitherto to do with, did not give way to hysterical tears, nor had they occasion to display fort.i.tude in the face of an overwhelming moral shock.

Therefore Louisa was not sure if her words would carry weight, or if they would produce the effect she desired. She gazed anxiously at Edie whilst she spoke, looking with hopeful yet fearful eyes in the poor girl's face, wondering if she had succeeded in calming the hysterical outburst.

Edie hung her head, wilfully veiling her eyes beneath the drooping lids. She twirled her gossamer handkerchief into a tight wet ball and toyed with it nervously.

"It's not much good," she said at last, in very low tones so that Louisa had some difficulty in hearing what she said, "my trying to be brave--when Luke is such a coward!"

"Be quiet, Edie," retorted Louisa, all her kindness and sympathy gone, and pushing the girl roughly away from her. "You have no right to talk like that."

"Well, Colonel Harris," rejoined Edie, turning to the man in her distress, "I ask you, if it isn't just cowardice to run away now, and leave me and Jim to face the whole thing alone?"

"To run away? What do you mean?" demanded Louisa, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder, forcing her to turn round and to face her.

"Who's running away?" queried Colonel Harris with a frown.

"Luke," said Edie hotly, "is running away. He came home just now, and calmly told me that he was going off abroad to-night, and since then he has been shut up in his room, packing his things. I have been all alone here all day. Jim won't be home till late to-night. Poor old Jim! what a fearful home-coming it will be for him."

But to this renewal of Edie's lamentations, Louisa had not listened, only to the words: "Luke said that he was going abroad to-night!"

Luke--fugitive from justice! The monstrous, unbelievable picture which she had tried to visualize just now had become a mirror reflecting awful, hideous reality.

"Where's Luke?" asked the colonel. "I'd better see him."

"No, father," interposed Louisa quickly. "I'd sooner speak to Luke.

Can I go to him, Edie?"

"Yes, I think so," replied the other. "I don't suppose that he has locked his door."

"Louisa," said her father gently, "I don't think you'll be doing any good, dear. A man must act as he thinks best."

"I'm not," she replied, "going to interfere with Luke's plans. I only want to speak to him. Don't bother, Edie. I know my way."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

IF YOU WOULD ONLY LET YOURSELF GO

Luke was sitting at a desk, writing, when Louisa entered his room.

Only one lamp shaded with yellow silk hung above the desk, throwing golden light on paper and blotting pad and on the hand which held the pen.

When Luke turned at the sound of the opening door his face remained in deep shadow. He could not of course see her distinctly, as her figure was silhouetted against the light in the pa.s.sage behind her; that was no doubt the reason why he did not rise to greet her when she entered, but remained seated at his desk.

"May I come in, Luke?" she asked.

"Certainly," he replied. "I was just writing to you."

"Then give me your unfinished letter, and tell me what else you were going to write."