The God in the Car: A Novel

"You don't really like Mrs. Cormack, do you?" she asked. "She hates me, you know."

"Oh, if I have to choose between you – " said Tom, and stopped.

"You stop at the critical moment."

"Well, Mrs. Cormack isn't here," said Tom.

"So I shall do to pass the time?"

"Yes," he laughed; and then they both laughed.

But suddenly Adela's laugh ceased, and she jumped up.

"There's Marjory Valentine!" she exclaimed.

"What! Where?" asked Tom, rising.

"No, stay where you are, I want to speak to her. I'll come back," and, leaving Tom, she sped after Marjory, calling her name.

Marjory looked round and hastened to meet her. She was pale and her eyes heavy for trouble and want of sleep.

"Oh, Adela, I'm so glad to find you! I was going to look for you at the hotel. I must talk to you."

"You shall," said Adela, taking her arm and smiling again.

She did not notice Marjory's looks; she was full of her own tidings.

"I want to ask you whether you think Lady Semingham – " began Marjory, growing red, and in great embarrassment.

"Oh, but hear my news first," cried Adela; "Marjory, he's gone!"

"Who?"

"Why, that man Mr. Ruston."

"Gone?" echoed Marjory in amazement.

To her it seemed incredible that he should be gone – strange perhaps to Adela, but to her incredible.

"Yes, this morning. He got a letter – something about his Company – and he was off on the spot. And Tom – Mr. Loring (he's come, you know), thinks – that that really was his reason, you know."

Marjory listened with wide-open eyes.

"Oh, Adela!" she said at last with a sort of shudder.

She could have believed it of no other man; she could hardly believe it of one who now seemed to her hardly a man.

"Isn't it splendid? And he went off without seeing – without going up to the cliff at all. I never was so delighted in my life."

Marjory was silent. No delight showed on her face; the time for that was gone. She did not understand, and she was thinking of the night's experience and wondering if Maggie Dennison had known that he was going. No, she could not have known.

"But what did you want with me, or with Bessie?" asked Adela.

Marjory hesitated. The departure of Willie Ruston made a difference. She prayed that it meant an utter difference. There was a chance; and while there was a chance her place was in the villa on the cliff. His going rekindled the spark of hope that almost had died in the last terrible night.

"I think," she said slowly, "that I'll go straight back."

"And tell Maggie?" asked Adela with excited eyes.

"If she doesn't know."

Adela said nothing; the subject was too perilous. She even regretted having said so much; but she pressed her friend's arm approvingly.

"It doesn't matter about Lady Semingham just now," said Marjory in an absent sort of tone. "It will do later."

"You're not looking well," remarked Adela, who had at last looked at her.

"I had a bad night."

"And how's Maggie?"

The girl paused a moment.

"I haven't seen her this morning. She sent word that she would breakfast in bed. I'll just run up now, Adela."

She walked off rapidly. Adela watched her, feeling uneasy about her. There was a strange constraint about her manner – a hint of something suppressed – and it was easy to see that she was nervous and unhappy. But Adela, making lighter of her old fears in her new-won comfort, saw only in Marjory a grief that is very sad to bear, a sorrow that comes where love – or what is nearly love – meets with indifference.

"She's still thinking about that creature!" said Adela to herself in scorn and in pity. She had quite made up her mind about Willie Ruston now. "I'm awfully sorry for her." Adela, in fact, felt very sympathetic. For the same thing might well happen with love that rested on a worthier object than "that creature, Willie Ruston!"

Meanwhile the creature – could he himself at the moment have quarrelled with the word? – was carried over the waves, till the cliff and the house on it dipped and died away. The excitement of the message and the start was over; the duty that had been strong enough to take him away could not yet be done. A space lay bare – exposed to the thoughts that fastened on it. Who could have escaped their assault? Not even Willie Ruston was proof; and his fellow-voyagers wondered at the man with the frowning brows and fretful restless eyes. It had not been easy to do, or pleasant to see done, this last sacrifice to the god of his life. Yet it had been done, with hardly a hesitation. He paced the deck, saying to himself, "She'll understand." Would any woman? If any, then, without doubt, she was the woman. "Oh, she'll understand," he muttered petulantly, angry with himself because he would not be convinced. Once, in despair, he tried to tell himself that this end to it was what people would call ordered for the best – that it was an escape for him – still more for her. But his strong, self-penetrating sense pushed the plea aside – in him it was hypocrisy, the merest conventionality. He had not even the half-stifled thanksgiving for respite from a doom still longed for, which had struggled for utterance in Maggie's sobs. Yet he had something that might pass for it – a feeling that made even him start in the knowledge of its degradation. By fate, or accident, or mischance – call it what he might – there was nothing irrevocable yet. He could draw back still. Not thanksgiving for sin averted, but a shamefaced sense of an enforced safety made its way into his mind – till it was thrust aside by anger at the check that had baffled him, and by the longing that was still upon him.

Well, anyhow – for good or evil – willing or unwilling – he was away. And she was alone in the little house on the cliff. His face softened; he ceased to think of himself for a moment; he thought of her, as she would look when he did not come – when he was false to a tryst never made in words, but surely the strongest that had ever bound a man. He clenched his fists as he stood looking from the stern of the boat, muttering again his old plea, "She'll understand!"

Was there not the railway?

CHAPTER XIX

PAST PRAYING FOR

Mrs. Dennison needed not Marjory to tell her. She had received Willie Ruston's note just as she was about to leave her bedroom. It was scribbled in pencil on half a sheet of notepaper.

"Am called back to England – something wrong about our railway. Very sorry I can't come and say good-bye. I shall run back if I can, but I'm afraid I may be kept in England. Will you write?

    "W. R. R."

She read it, and stood as if changed to stone. "Something wrong about our railway!" Surely an all-sufficient reason; the writer had no doubt of that. He might be kept in England; that meant he would be, and the writer seemed to see nothing strange in the fact that he could be. She did not doubt the truth of what the note said. A man lying would have piled Pelion on Ossa, reason on reason, excuse on excuse, protestation on protestation. Besides Willie Ruston did not lie. It was just the truth, the all-sufficient truth. There was something wrong with the railway, so he left her. He would lose a day if he missed the boat, so he left her without a word of farewell. The railway must not suffer for his taking holiday; her suffering was all his holiday should make.

Slowly she tore the note into the smallest of fragments, and the fragments fell at her feet. And his passionate words were still in her ears, his kisses still burnt on her cheek. This was the man whom to sway had been her darling ambition, whom to love was her great sin, whom to know, as in this moment she seemed to know him, her bitter punishment. In her heart she cried to heaven, "Enough, enough!"