Whatsoever a Man Soweth

“I shall not misjudge you,” I assured her. “But at the present I am, as you say, entirely in the dark. What is it you want me to do?”

For a moment she was silent, apparently fearing to make the suggestion lest I should refuse. At last she looked straight into my face and said, —

“What I ask you to do is to make a great sacrifice in order to save me. I am in peril, Wilfrid, in a grave, terrible peril. The sword of fate hangs over me, and may fall at any instant. I must fly from here – I must fly to-night and hide – I – ”

She hesitated again. Her words were an admission of her guilt. She was a murderess. That unknown man that I had left lying cold and dead beneath the trees had fallen by her hand.

“Well?” I asked, rather coldly, I fear.

“I must hide. I must efface my identity, and for certain reasons – indeed to obtain greater security I must marry.”

“Marry!” I echoed. “Well, really, Sybil, I don’t understand you in the least. Why?”

“Because I can, I hope, save myself by marrying,” she went on quickly. “To-night I am going into hiding, and not a soul must know of my whereabouts. The place best of all in which to hide oneself is London, in one of the populous working districts. They would never search for me there. As the wife of an industrious working-man I should be safe. To go abroad would be useless.”

“But why should you leave so hurriedly?” I asked her.

“Ah! you will know in due course,” was her answer. “Ask me no questions now, only help me to escape.”

“How?”

“Listen, and I will tell you of the plans I have formed. To-night I have thought it all out, and have made resolve. The car is in the shed over against the kennels. I backed it in yesterday, therefore it will run down the hill along the avenue, and right out through the lodge gates without petrol and noiselessly. Once in the Chichester road, I can drive it away without awakening either the house or the Grants who keep the gate. You’ll come with me.”

“Where?”

“To London.”

“And what would people say when it was known that you and I left together in the middle of the night?”

“Oh! they’d only say it was one of Tibbie’s mad freaks. It is useful sometimes,” she added, “to have a reputation for eccentricity. It saves so many explanations.”

“Yes, that’s all very well, but it is not a judicious course in any way.”

Suddenly I recollected the woman Mason whom I saw at all costs must be got out of the way. As a servant she might get a view of the dead man out of curiosity and identify him as her mistress’s lover.

“No,” I added, after a moment’s reflection. “If you really want to escape to London go in exactly the opposite direction. Run across the New Forest to Bournemouth, for instance. Take Mason with you. Go to the Bath Hotel, and then slip away by train say up to Birmingham, and from there to London.”

“Yes, but I can’t take Mason. She must remain in ignorance. She knows far too much of my affairs already.”

“Well, I can’t go with you. It would be madness. And you cannot go alone.”

She was silent, her lips pressed together, her brows knit. Her countenance was hard and troubled, and there was a look of unmistakable terror in those wonderful eyes of hers.

“And if I act on your advice, Wilfrid, will you meet me in secret in London to-morrow or the next day?”

“Certainly. I will do all I can to help you – only accept my advice and take Mason with you. Mislead her, just as you are misleading everyone.”

“You will not think ill of me if I ask you something?” she said, seriously, looking very earnestly up into my face.

“Certainly not. You can be perfectly open and straightforward with me, surely.”

“Then I want you to do something – although I’m almost afraid to ask you.”

“And what’s that?”

“I have no one else I can trust, Wilfrid, as I trust you. You are a man of honour and I am an honest woman, even though my enemies have whispered their calumnies regarding me. You are my friend; if you were not I surely dare not ask you to help me in this,” and her voice faltered as she averted her gaze. “I want you – I want you to pretend that you are my husband.”

“Your husband,” I exclaimed, staring at her.

“Yes,” she cried quickly. “To place myself in a position of safety I must first live in a crowded part of London where I can efface my identity; and secondly, for appearances’ sake, as well as for another and much stronger motive, I must have a husband. Will you, Wilfrid, pretend to be mine?”

Her request utterly nonplussed me, and she noticed my hesitation.

“If you will only consent to go into hiding with me I can escape,” she urged, quickly. “You can easily contrive to live in Bolton Street and pose as my husband in another part of the world; while I – well, I simply disappear. There will be a loud hue and cry after me, of course, but when I’m not found, the mater and the others will simply put my disappearance down to my eccentricity. They will never connect us, for you will take good care to be seen in London leading your usual life, and indeed seriously troubled over my disappearance. They will never suspect.”

“But why must you appear to have a husband?” I asked, extremely puzzled.

“I have a reason – a strong one,” she answered, earnestly. “I have enemies, and my hand will be strengthened against them the instant they believe that I have married.”

“That may be so,” I said, dubiously. “But where do you suggest taking up your abode?”

“Camberwell would be a good quarter,” she responded. “There is a large working-class population there. We could take furnished apartments with some quiet landlady. You are a compositor on one of the morning newspapers, and are out at work all night. Sometimes, too, you have to work overtime – I think they call it – and then you are away the greater part of the day also. I don’t want you to tie yourself to me too much, you see,” she added, smiling. “We shall give out that we’ve been married a year, and by your being a compositor, your absence won’t be remarked. So you see you can live in Bolton Street just the same, and pay me a daily visit to Camberwell, just to cheer me up.”

“But surely you could never bear life in a back street, Tibbie,” I said, looking at her utterly bewildered at her suggestion. “You would have to wear print dresses, cook, and clean up your rooms.”

“And don’t you think I know how to do that?” she asked. “Just see whether I can’t act the working-man’s wife if you will only help to save me from – from the awful fate that threatens me. Say you will, Wilfrid,” she gasped, taking my hand again. “You will not desert me now, will you? Remember you are the only friend I dare go to in my present trouble. You will not refuse to be known in Camberwell as my husband – will you?”

I was silent. Was any living man ever placed in dilemma more difficult? What could I reply? That she was in real deep earnest I saw from her white, drawn countenance. The dark rings around her eyes told their own tale. She was desperate, and she declared that by acting as she suggested I could save her.

The dead, staring, clean-shaven countenance of that man in the wood arose before me, and I held my breath, my eyes fixed upon hers.

She saw that I hesitated to compromise her and implicate myself.

Then slowly she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, saying in a strange voice, so low that I hardly caught the words, —

“Wilfrid, I – I can tell you no more. My life is entirely in your hands. Save me, or – or I will kill myself. I dare not face the truth. Give me my life. Do whatever you will. Suspect me; hate me; spurn me as I deserve, but I crave mercy of you – I crave of you life – life!”

And releasing me she stood motionless, her hands clasped in supplication, her head bent, not daring to look me again in the face.

What could I think? What, reader, would you have thought? How would you have acted in such circumstances?

Chapter Seven.

In which I Play a Dangerous Game

Well – I agreed.

Yes – I agreed to pose as the hard-working compositor upon a daily newspaper and husband of the Honourable Sybil Burnet, the woman by whose hand the unknown man had fallen.