The Weavers Part 55

As they drove away, the d.u.c.h.ess turned to him abruptly. "What did you mean by your look when you said you had seen Eglington drive away from the House?"

"Well, my dear Betty, she--the fly-away--drives him home now. It has come to that."

"To her house--Windlehurst, oh, Windlehurst!"

She sank back in the cushions, and gave what was as near a sob as she had given in many a day. Windlehurst took her hand. "No, not so bad as that yet. She drove him to his club. Don't fret, my dear Betty."

Home! Hylda watched the shops, the houses, the squares, as she pa.s.sed westward, her mind dwelling almost happily on the new determination to which she had come. It was not love that was moving her, not love for him, but a deeper thing. He had brutally killed love--the full life of it--those months ago; but there was a deep thing working in her which was as near n.o.bility as the human mind can feel. Not in a long time had she neared her home with such expectation and longing. Often on the doorstep she had shut her eyes to the light and warmth and elegance of it, because of that which she did not see. Now, with a thrill of pleasure, she saw its doors open. It was possible Eglington might have come home already. Lord Windlehurst had said that he had left the House.

She did not ask if he was in--it had not been her custom for a long time--and servants were curious people; but she looked at the hall-table. Yes, there was a hat which had evidently just been placed there, and gloves, and a stick. He was at home, then.

She hurried to her room, dropped her opera-cloak on a chair, looked at herself in the gla.s.s, a little fluttered and critical, and then crossed the hallway to Eglington's bedroom. She listened for a moment. There was no sound. She turned the handle of the door softly, and opened it. A light was burning low, but the room was empty. It was as she thought, he was in his study, where he spent hours sometimes after he came home, reading official papers. She went up the stairs, at first swiftly, then more slowly, then with almost lagging feet. Why did she hesitate? Why should a woman falter in going to her husband--to her own one man of all the world? Was it not, should it not be, ever the open door between them? Confidence--confidence--could she not have it, could she not get it now at last? She had paused; but now she moved on with quicker step, purpose in her face, her eyes softly lighted.

Suddenly she saw on the floor an opened letter. She picked it up, and, as she did so, involuntarily observed the writing. Almost mechanically she glanced at the contents. Her heart stood still. The first words scorched her eyes.

"Eglington--Harry, dearest," it said, "you shall not go to sleep to-night without a word from me. This will make you think of me when...."

Frozen, struck as by a mortal blow, Hylda looked at the signature.

She knew it--the cleverest, the most beautiful adventuress which the aristocracy and society had produced. She trembled from head to foot, and for a moment it seemed that she must fall. But she steadied herself and walked firmly to Eglington's door. Turning the handle softly, she stepped inside.

He did not hear her. He was leaning over a box of papers, and they rustled loudly under his hand. He was humming to himself that song she heard an hour ago in Il Trovatore, that song of pa.s.sion and love and tragedy. It sent a wave of fresh feeling over her. She could not go on--could not face him, and say what she must say. She turned and pa.s.sed swiftly from the room, leaving the door open, and hurried down the staircase. Eglington heard now, and wheeled round. He saw the open door, listened to the rustle of her skirts, knew that she had been there. He smiled, and said to himself:

"She came to me, as I said she would. I shall master her--the full surrender, and then--life will be easy then."

Hylda hurried down the staircase to her room, saw Kate Heaver waiting, beckoned to her, caught up her opera-cloak, and together they pa.s.sed down the staircase to the front door. Heaver rang a bell, a footman appeared, and, at a word, called a cab. A minute later they were ready:

"Snowdon House," Hylda said; and they pa.s.sed into the night.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI. "IS IT ALWAYS SO--IN LIFE?"

The d.u.c.h.ess and her brother, an ex-diplomatist, now deaf and patiently amiable and garrulous, had met on the doorstep of Snowdon House, and together they insisted on Lord Windlehurst coming in for a talk. The two men had not met for a long time, and the retired official had been one of Lord Windlehurst's own best appointments in other days. The d.u.c.h.ess had the carriage wait in consequence.

The ex-official could hear little, but he had cultivated the habit of talking constantly and well. There were some voices, however, which he could hear more distinctly than others, and Lord Windlehurst's was one of them--clear, well-modulated, and penetrating. Sipping brandy and water, Lord Windlehurst gave his latest quip. They were all laughing heartily, when the butler entered the room and said, "Lady Eglington is here, and wishes to see your Grace."

As the butler left the room, the d.u.c.h.ess turned despairingly to Windlehurst, who had risen, and was paler than the d.u.c.h.ess. "It has come," she said, "oh, it has come! I can't face it."

"But it doesn't matter about you facing it," Lord Windlehurst rejoined.

"Go to her and help her, Betty. You know what to do--the one thing." He took her hand and pressed it.

She dashed the tears from her eyes and drew herself together, while her brother watched her benevolently.

He had not heard what was said. Betty had always been impulsive, he thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble--they all came to her, and kept her poor.

"Go to bed, d.i.c.k," the d.u.c.h.ess said to him, and hurried from the room.

She did not hesitate now. Windlehurst had put the matter in the right way. Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda--!

She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.

Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.

Before the d.u.c.h.ess could reach her, she said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper: "I have left him--I have left him. I have come to you."

With a cry of pity the d.u.c.h.ess would have taken the stricken girl in her arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which had brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst.

"There--there it is. He goes from me to her--to that!" She thrust the letter into the d.u.c.h.ess's fingers. "You knew--you knew! I saw the look that pa.s.sed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all now. He left the House of Commons with her--and you knew, oh, you knew!

All the world knows--every one knew but me." She threw up her hands.

"But I've left him--I've left him, for ever."

Now the d.u.c.h.ess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a sofa. "Darling, my darling," she said, "you must not give way. It is not so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand."

Hylda laughed hysterically. "Not so bad as I think! Read--read it," she said, taking the letter from the d.u.c.h.ess's fingers and holding it before her face. "I found it on the staircase. I could not help but read it."

She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. "Oh, the shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good wife to him?

Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, and I wanted to be good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try once more--I felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort for his sake.

It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him only hard and selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, I thought--"

She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into s.p.a.ce, the ghost of the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.

The d.u.c.h.ess caught the cold hands. "Yes, yes, darling, I know. I understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know there isn't much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would get more than anybody else."

Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the d.u.c.h.ess with an infinite pathos. "Oh, is it always so--in life? Is no one true? Is every one betrayed sometime? I would die--yes, a thousand times yes, I would rather die than bear this. What do I care for life--it has cheated me!

I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in word and deed even when I suffered most, even when--"

The d.u.c.h.ess laid a cheek against the burning head. "I understand, my own dear. I understand--altogether."

"But you cannot know," the broken girl replied; "but through everything I was true; and I have been tempted too when my heart was aching so, when the days were so empty, the nights so long, and my heart hurt--hurt me. But now, it is over, everything is done. You will keep me here--ah, say you will keep me here till everything can be settled, and I can go away--far away--far--!"

She stopped with a gasping cry, and her eyes suddenly strained into the distance, as though a vision of some mysterious thing hung before her.

The d.u.c.h.ess realised that that temptation, which has come to so many disillusioned mortals, to end it all, to find quiet somehow, somewhere out in the dark, was upon her. She became resourceful and persuasively commanding.

"But no, my darling," she said, "you are going nowhere. Here in London is your place now. And you must not stay here in my house. You must go back to your home. Your place is there. For the present, at any rate, there must be no scandal. Suspicion is nothing, talk is nothing, and the world forgets--"

"Oh, I do not care for the world or its forgetting!" the wounded girl replied. "What is the world to me! I wanted my own world, the world of my four walls, quiet and happy, and free from scandal and shame. I wanted love and peace there, and now...!"

"You must be guided by those who love you. You are too young to decide what is best for yourself. You must let Windlehurst and me think for you; and, oh, my darling, you cannot know how much I care for your best good!"

"I cannot, will not, bear the humiliation and the shame. This letter here--you see!"

"It is the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in London. She is preternaturally clever, my dear--Windlehurst would tell you so. The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad, have a great advantage in this world. Eglington was curious, that is all. It is in the breed of the Eglingtons to go exploring, to experiment."

Hylda started. Words from the letter Sybil Lady Eglington had left behind her rushed into her mind: "Experiment, subterfuge, secrecy.

'Reaping where you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.' Always experiment, experiment, experiment!"

"I have only been married three years," she moaned. "Yes, yes, my darling; but much may happen after three days of married life, and love may come after twenty years. The human heart is a strange thing."

"I was patient--I gave him every chance. He has been false and shameless. I will not go on."

The d.u.c.h.ess pressed both hands hard, and made a last effort, looking into the deep troubled eyes with her own grown almost beautiful with feeling--the faded world-worn eyes.

"You will go back to-night-at once," she said firmly. "To-morrow you will stay in bed till noon-at any rate, till I come. I promise you that you shall not be treated with further indignity. Your friends will stand by you, the world will be with you, if you do nothing rash, nothing that forces it to babble and scold. But you must play its game, my dearest.