The Tidal Wave and Other Stories Part 53

He would get over it, of course; men always did. She had known men by the score who played the same merry game, men who broke hearts for sport and went their careless ways, unheeding, uncomprehending. It was the way of the world, this world of countless tragedies. She had learned, in her piteous cynicism, to look for nothing else. Faithfulness had become to her a myth. Surely all men loved--they called it love--and rode away.

No, she did not flatter herself that she had hurt him very seriously.

She had dealt his pride a blow, that was all.

She reached Bombay, and secured her berth. The steamer was to sail at noon. There were not a great many pa.s.sengers, and she managed to engage a cabin to herself. But she could not even attempt to rest in that turmoil of noise and excitement. She went ash.o.r.e again, and repaired to a hotel for a meal. She took a private room, and lay down; but sleep would not come to her, and presently, urged by that gnawing restlessness, she was pacing up and down, up and down, like a wild creature newly caged.

Sometimes she paused at the window to stare down into the busy thoroughfare below, but she never paused for long. The fever that consumed her gave her no rest, and again she was pacing to and fro, to and fro, eternally, counting the leaden minutes that crept by so slowly.

At last, when flesh and blood could endure no longer, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her hat and veil, and prepared to go on board. Standing before a mirror, she began to adjust these with trembling fingers, but suddenly stopped dead, gazing speechlessly before her. For her own eyes had inadvertently met the eyes of the haggard woman in the gla.s.s, and dumbly, with a new horror clutching at her heart, she stared into their wild depths and read as in a book the tale of torture that they held.

When she turned away at length, she was shivering from head to foot as though she had seen a spectre; and so in truth she had. For those eyes had told her what she had not otherwise begun to realise.

That which she had believed dead for so long had been, only dormant, and had sprung to sudden, burning life. The weapon with which she had thought to pierce her enemy had turned in her grasp and pierced her also, pierced her with an agony unspeakable--ay, pierced her to the heart.

X

As one in a dream she stood on deck and watched India slipping below the horizon. Her restlessness was subsiding at last. She was conscious of an intense weariness, greater than any she had ever known. As soon as that distant line of land had disappeared she told herself that she would go and rest. Her fellow pa.s.sengers had for the most part settled down. They sat about in groups under the awning. A few, like herself, stood at the rail and gazed astern, but there was no one very near her. She felt as if she stood utterly alone in all the world.

Slowly at last she turned away. Slowly she crossed the deck and began to descend the companion. A knot of people stood talking at the foot. They made way for her to pa.s.s. She went through them without a glance. She scarcely even saw them.

She went to her cabin and lay down, but she knew at once that sleep would not come to her. Her eyes burned as though weighted with many scalding tears, but she could not weep. She could only lie staring vaguely before her, and dumbly endure that suffering which she had vainly fancied could never again be her portion. She could only strive--and strive in vain--to shut out the vision of the man she loved standing alone at the altar waiting for the woman who had played him false.

The dinner hour approached. Mechanically she rose and dressed. She did not shrink from meeting the eyes of strangers. They simply did not exist for her. She took her place in the great dining saloon, looking neither to right nor left. The buzz of conversation all around her pa.s.sed her by. She might have been sitting in utter solitude. And all the while the misery gnawed ever deeper into her heart.

She rose at last, before the meal was ended, and went up to the great empty deck. She felt as if she would stifle below. But, up above, the wash of the sea and the immensity of the night soothed her somewhat. She found a secluded corner, and leaned upon the rail, gazing out over the black waste of water.

What was he doing, she wondered. How was he spending this second night of misery? Had he begun to console himself already? She tried to think so, but failed--failed utterly.

Irresistibly the memory of the man swept over her, his gentleness, his chivalry, his unfailing kindness. She was beginning to see the whole bitter tragedy by the light of her repentance. He had loved her, surely he had loved her in those old days when she had tricked him in sheer, childish gaiety of soul. And, for her sake, that her suffering might be the briefer, he had masked his love. She had never thought so before, but she saw it clearly now.

It had all been a miserable misunderstanding from beginning to end, but she was sure, now, that he had loved her faithfully for all those years.

And if it were against all reason to think so, if all her experience told her that men were not moulded thus, had not his chosen friend declared him to be one in ten thousand, and did not her quivering woman's heart know him to be such? Ah, what had she done? What had she done?

"Oh, Pat!" she sobbed. "Pat! Pat! Pat!"

The great idol of her pride had fallen at last, and she wept her heart out up there in the darkness, till physical exhaustion finally overcame her, and she could weep no more.

XI

"Won't you sit down?" a quiet voice said.

She started out of what was almost a stupor of grief, to find a man's figure standing close to her. Her eyes were all blinded by weeping, and she could see him but vaguely in the dimness. She had not heard him approach. He seemed to appear from nowhere. Or had he, perchance, been near her all the time?

Instinctively she drew a little away from him, though in that moment of utter desolation even the sympathy of a stranger sent a faint warmth of comfort to her heart.

"There is a chair here," the quiet voice went on, and as she turned vaguely, almost as though feeling her way, a steady hand closed upon her elbow and guided her.

Perhaps it was the touch that, like the shock of an electric current, sent the blood suddenly tingling through her veins, or it may have been some influence more subtle. She was yielding half-mechanically when suddenly, piercing her through and through, there came to her such a flash of revelation as almost deprived her for the moment of her senses.

She stood stock still and faced him.

"Oh, who is it?" she cried piteously. "Who is it?"

The hand that held her tightened ever so slightly. He did not instantly reply, but when he did, it was on a note of grimness that she had never heard from him before.

"It is I--Pat," he told her. "Have you any objection?"

She gazed at him speechlessly as one in a dream. He had followed her, then; he had followed her! But wherefore?

She began to tremble in the grip of sudden, overmastering fear. This was the last thing she had antic.i.p.ated. What could it mean? Had she driven him demented? Had he pursued her to wreak his vengeance upon her, perhaps to kill her?

Compelled by the pressure of his hand, she moved to the dark seat he had indicated, and sank down.

He stood beside her, looming large in the gloom. A terrible silence fell between them. Worn out by sleeplessness and bitter weeping, she cowered before him dumbly. She had no pride left, no weapon of any sort wherewith to resist him. She longed, yet dreaded unspeakably, to hear his voice. He was watching her, she knew, though she did not dare to raise her head.

He spoke at last, quietly, without emotion, yet with that in his deliberate utterance that made her shrink and quiver in every nerve.

"Faith," he said, "it's been an amusing game entirely, but you haven't beaten me yet. I must trouble you to take up your cards again and play to a finish before we decide who scoops the pool."

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

He did not answer her, and she thought there was something contemptuous in his silence.

She waited a little, summoning her strength, then, rising, with a desperate courage she faced him.

"I don't understand you. Tell me what you mean!"

He made a curious gesture as if he would push her from him.

"I am not good at explaining myself," he said. "But you will understand me better presently."

And again inexplicably she shrank. There was that about him which terrified her more than any uttered menace.

"What are you going to do?" she said nervously. "Why--why have you followed me?"

He answered her in a tone which she deemed scoffing. It was too dark for her to see his face.

"You can hardly expect me to show my hand at this stage," he said. "You never showed me yours."

It was true, and she found no word to say against it. But none the less, she was horribly afraid. She felt herself to be utterly at his mercy, and was instinctively aware that he was in no mood to spare her.

"I can't go on playing, Pat," she said, after a moment, her voice very low. "I have no cards left to play."

"In that case you are beaten," he said, with that doggedness which she was beginning to know as a part of his fighting equipment. "Do you own it?"

She hesitated.