Whatsoever a Man Soweth

Her eyes were cast down in confusion at my plain question, yet the next instant she assumed a boldness that was truly surprising.

“I don’t understand you,” she declared with a light nervous little laugh.

“Then I suppose I must speak more plainly,” I said. “It is a pity, Sybil, that you did not tell me the truth from your own lips.”

She went pale as her eyes met mine in quick anxiety.

“The truth – about what?”

“About your love for Arthur Rumbold,” I said very gravely, my gaze still fixed steadily upon hers.

In an instant her gloved hands clenched themselves, her lips twitched nervously, and she placed her hand upon her heart as though to stop its wild beating.

“My love?” she gasped blankly – “my love for Arthur Rumbold?”

“Yes, your love for him.”

“Ah! Surely you are cruel, Wilfrid, to speak of him – after – after all that has lately happened,” she burst forth in a choking voice. “You cannot know the true facts – you cannot dream the truth, or that man’s name would never pass your lips.”

“No,” I said gravely. “I do not know the truth. I am in utter ignorance. I only know that you met Mrs Rumbold at Fort William and travelled back with her to Dumfries.”

“That is quite true,” she answered. “I have no wish to conceal it.”

“But your love for her son – you have concealed that!”

“A woman who loves truly does not always proclaim it to the world,” was the reply.

“Then if you love him why are you in hiding? Why are you masquerading as my wife?” I demanded seriously. I was, I admit, piqued by her attitude, which I perhaps misjudged as defiant.

She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but met my gaze unflinchingly.

“You promised me your assistance,” she sighed. “If you now regret your promise I willingly release you from it.”

“I have no wish to be released,” I answered. “I only desire to know the truth. By a fortunate circumstance, Sybil, I have discovered your secret love for Arthur Rumbold – and yet at Ryhall you said you had decided to marry Ellice Winsloe.”

“A woman does not always marry the man she really loves,” she argued. “It is a regrettable fact, but horribly true.”

“Then you love this man, Arthur Rumbold? Come, do not tell me an untruth. We are old enough friends to be frank with each other.”

“Yes, we are. I am frank with you, and tell you that you have blamed yourself for assisting me, now that you have discovered my folly.”

“Folly of what?”

“Of my love. Is it not folly to love a man whom one can never marry?”

“Then he is already married, perhaps?”

She was silent, and glancing at her I saw that tears stood in her magnificent eyes. She was thinking of him, without a doubt.

I recollected those words penned by the dead man; that allegation that she was fooling me. Yes. What he said was correct. The scales had now fallen from my eyes. I read the truth in her white countenance, that face so very beautiful, but, alas! so false.

Who was Nello, the man with whom she corresponded by means of that cipher – the man she trusted so implicitly? Was he identical with Arthur Rumbold? Had she killed the writer of that extraordinary letter because he knew the truth – because she was in terror of exposure and ruin?

My knowledge of Rumbold had entirely upset all her calculations. In those moments of her hesitancy and confusion she became a changed woman. Her admission had been accompanied by a firm defiance that utterly astounded me.

I noticed how agitated she had become. Her small hands were trembling; and she was now white to the lips. Yet she was still determined not to reveal her secret.

“Ah! you can never know, Wilfrid, what I have suffered – what I am suffering now,” she said in a deep intense voice, as we stood there together in the gardens. “You have thought me gay and careless, and you’ve often told me that I was like a butterfly. Yes, I admit it – I admit all my defects. When I was old enough to leave the schoolroom, society attracted me. I saw Cynthia, the centre of a smart set, courted, flattered, and admired, and like every other girl, I was envious. I vied with her successes, until I, too, became popular. And yet what did popularity and smartness mean? Ah! I can only think of the past with disgust.” Then, with a sigh, she added, “You, of course, cannot believe it, Wilfrid, but I am now a changed woman.”

“I do believe you, Tibbie,” was my blank reply, for want of something else to say.

“Yes,” she went on, “I see the folly of it all now, the emptiness, the soul-killing wear and tear, the disgraceful shams and mean subterfuges. The woman who has success in our set stands alone, friendless, with a dozen others constantly trying to hurl her from her pedestal, and ever ready with bitter tongues to propagate grave insinuations and scandal. It is woman to woman; and the feuds are always deadly. I’m tired of it all, and have left it, I hope, for ever.”

“Then it was some adventure in that gay circle, I take it, that is responsible for your present position?” I said slowly.

“Ah!” she sighed in a low, hoarse voice, “I – I never dreamed of the pitfalls set for me, and in my inexperience believed in the honesty of everyone. But surely I was not alone! Beneath a dress shirt beats the heart of many a blackguard, and in our London drawing-rooms are to be found persons whose careers, if exposed, would startle the world. There are men with world-famous names who ought to be in the criminal dock, but whose very social position is their safeguard; and women with titles who pose as charity patrons, but are mere adventuresses. Our little world, Wilfrid, is, indeed, a strange one, a circle of class and criminality utterly inconceivable by the public who only know of us through the newspapers. I had success because, I suppose, of what people are pleased to call my good looks, but – but, alas! I fell a victim – I fell into a trap ingeniously set for me, and when I struggled to set myself free I only fell deeper and deeper into the blackguardly intrigue. You see me now!” she cried after a brief pause, “a desperate woman who cares nought for life, only for her good name. I live to defend that before the world, for my poor mother’s sake. Daily I am goaded on to kill myself and end it all. I should have done so had not Providence sent you to me, Wilfrid, to aid and counsel me. Yet the blow has again fallen, and I now see no way to vindicate myself. The net has closed around me – and – and – I must die!”

And she burst into a sudden torrent of tears.

Were they tears of remorse, or of heart-broken bitterness?

“There is no other way!” she added in a faint, desperate voice, her trembling hand closing upon my wrist. “You must leave me to myself. Go back to London and remain silent. And when they discover me dead you will still remain in ignorance – but sometimes you will think of me – think of me, Wilfrid,” she sobbed, “as an unhappy woman who has fallen among unscrupulous enemies.”

“But this is madness!” I cried. “You surely will not admit yourself vanquished now?”

“No, not madness, only foresight. You, too, are in deadly peril, and must leave me. With me, hope is now dead – there is only the grave.”

She spoke those last words so calmly and determinedly that I was thoroughly alarmed. I refused to leave her. The fact that Parham had discovered her showed that all hope of escape was now cut off. This she admitted to me. Standing before me, her countenance white and haggard, I saw how terribly desperate she was. Her chin then sank upon her breast and she sobbed bitterly.

I placed my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, full of sympathy.

“The story of your unhappiness, Tibbie, is the story of your love. Is it not?” I asked, slowly.

Her chest rose and fell slowly as she raised her tearful eyes to mine, and in reply, said in a low, faltering voice, —

“Listen, and I will tell you. Before I die it is only right that you should know the truth – you who are my only friend.”

And she burst again into a flood of tears, stirred by the painful remembrance of the past.

I stood there holding her for the first time in my arms. And she buried her face upon my shoulder, trembling and sobbing as our two hearts beat in unison.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Makes Plain a Woman’s Fear

“Tell me,” I said at last, full of sympathy for her in her dire unhappiness, “tell me, Tibbie, about this man Rumbold.”

For some moments she was silent. Her pale lips trembled.