In White Raiment

“Then why have you compelled me to meet you again?” she demanded fiercely, in a tone which showed her abhorrence of him. “The last time we met you told me that you were going abroad. Why haven’t you gone?”

“I’ve been and come back again.”

“Where?”

“That’s my business,” he answered very calmly. “Your welcome home is not a very warm one, to say the least.”

“I have no welcome for my enemies.”

“Oh! I’m an enemy – eh? Well,” he added, “I have always considered myself your friend.”

“Friend!” she echoed. “You show your friendliness in a rather curious manner. You conceive these dastardly plots, and then compel me to do your bidding – to act as your decoy!”

“Come, come,” he laughed, his temper quite unruffled by her accusation, “you know that in all my actions I am guided by your interests as well as my own.”

“I was certainly not aware of it,” she responded. “It cannot be to my interest that you compel me to meet you here like this, at the risk of discovery. Would it not have been better if our meeting had taken place in London, as before?”

“Necessity has driven me to make this appointment,” he responded. “To write to you is dangerous, and I wanted to give you warning so that you can place yourself in a position of security.”

“A warning! – of what?” she asked breathlessly.

“La Gioia is here.”

“La Gioia!” she gasped. “Here? Impossible!” La Gioia! It was the name I had found written upon the piece of paper beneath her pillow.

“Unfortunately, it is the truth,” he responded in an earnest voice. “The contretemps is serious.”

“Serious!” she cried in alarm. “Yes, it is serious; and through you I am thus placed in peril!”

“How do you intend to act?”

“I have no idea,” she responded, in a hoarse tone. “I am tired of it all, and driven to despair – I am sick to death of this eternal scheming, this perpetual fear lest the terrible truth should become known. God knows how I have suffered during this past year. Ah, how a woman can suffer and still live! I tell you,” she cried, with sudden desperation, “this dread that haunts me continually will drive me to take my life!”

“Rubbish!” he laughed. “Keep up your pluck. With a little ingenuity a woman can deceive the very devil himself.”

“I tell you,” she said. “I am tired of life – of you – of everything. I have nothing to live for – nothing to gain by living!”

Her voice was the voice of a woman driven to desperation by the fear that her secret should become known.

“Well,” he laughed brutally, “you’ve certainly nothing to gain by dying, my dear.”

“You taunt me!” she cried in anger. “You who hold me irrevocably in this bond of guilt – you who compel me to act as your accomplice in these vile schemes! I hate you!”

“Without a doubt,” he responded, with a short laugh. “And yet I have done nothing to arouse this feeling of antagonism.”

“Nothing! Do you then think so lightly of all the past?”

“My dear girl,” he said, “one should never think of what has gone by. It’s a bad habit. Look to your own safety, and to the future.”

“La Gioia is here!” she repeated in a low voice, as though unable to fully realise all that the terrible announcement meant. “Well, how do you intend to act?”

“My actions will be guided by circumstances,” he replied. “And you?”

She was silent. The stillness of the night was broken only by the dismal cry of a night-bird down near the lake.

“I think it is best that I should die and end it all,” she replied, in a hard, strained voice.

“Don’t talk such nonsense!” he said impatiently. “You are young, graceful, smart, with one of the prettiest faces in London. And you would commit suicide. The thing is utterly absurd!”

“What have I to gain by living?” she inquired again, that question being apparently uppermost in her mind.

“You love young Chetwode. You may yet marry him.”

“No,” she answered with a sigh; “I fear that can never be. Happiness can never be mine – never.”

“Does he love you?” inquired the Major, with a note of sympathy in his voice.

“Love me? Why, of course he does.”

“You have never doubted him?”

“Never.”

“And he has asked you to marry him?”

“Yes, a dozen times.”

“When was the last occasion?”

“To-night – an hour ago.”

“And you, of course, refused?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because of the barrier which prevents my marriage with him.”

“And you will allow that to stand in the way of your safety?”

“My safety!” she echoed. “I don’t understand.”

“Cannot you see that if you married Cyril Chetwode at once, La Gioia would be powerless?”

“Ah!” she exclaimed suddenly, impressed by the suggestion. “I had never thought of that?”

“Well,” he went on, “if you take my advice, you’ll lose no time in becoming Chetwode’s wife. Then you can defy your enemies, and snap your fingers at La Gioia.”