An Eye for an Eye

He stretched himself in the armchair, placed his glass at his elbow, and began to blow a suffocating cloud from his most cherished brier.

“I wish you’d spend sixpence on a new pipe,” I said, coughing.

“This one cost fourpence halfpenny in Fleet Street nearly two years ago,” he answered, without removing it from his lips. “Don’t you like it?”

“My dear fellow, it’s awful.”

“Ah! So they said at the office the other day. Don’t notice it myself.”

“But others do. I’ll make you a present of a new one to-morrow.”

“Don’t want it, old chap. Have a drink yourself with the money. This one’s quite good enough for me. Besides, it’ll keep the moths out of our drawing-room furniture,” and he gazed around the shabby apartment, where, from the leather-covered chairs, the mysterious stuffing was in many places peeping forth upon the world.

We smoked on. Although I had been considerably annoyed by what he had told me regarding Lily, his imperturbable good humour caused me to laugh outright, whereat he observed —

“You’re really a very funny beggar, Frank. I like you exceedingly, except when you try and dwell upon themes you don’t understand. Those who do that are apt to wallow out of their depth. You don’t know my reasons for throwing Lil over; therefore it’s impossible for you to regale me with any good advice. You understand?”

“But what are your reasons?” I inquired.

“You shall know them before long,” he assured me. “At present I don’t intend to say anything.”

“This is the first time, Dick, we’ve had secrets from each other,” I observed gravely.

“No,” he answered. “You love the mysterious Eva, and have never told me so. That’s a secret, isn’t it?”

I was surprised that he had detected my love for her, and rather alarmed, because if he had noticed it others had doubtless remarked it also. Therefore I questioned him, but he only laughed, saying —

“Why, anybody who saw you together down at Riverdene couldn’t fail to guess the truth. People have sharp eyes, you know.”

I was silent. If this were actually true, then I feared that I had made a hopeless fool of myself, besides wrecking any chance of eliciting those facts which I had set my mind upon revealing at any hazard.

Presently he rose, crossing to his writing-table to scribble a letter, while I, lighting a cigarette, sat silent, still thinking seriously upon the words he had just uttered.

Through the veil of tobacco smoke I seemed to see that fair, smiling face gazing at me, ever the same open countenance, the same clear eyes of childlike blue, the same half-parted mouth that I had first seen on that fatal night in Phillimore Place. In my dream I thought that she beckoned me to her, that she invited me to speak with her, and saw in her eyes a calm, sweet expression – the expression of true womanly love. It was but the chimera of an instant, a vision produced by my wildly-disordered brain, yet so vivid it seemed that when it faded I glanced across to my companion’s bent figure, half fearing that he, too, had witnessed it.

There are times when our imagination plays us such tricks – times when the constant concentration of the mind reaches its climax and is reflected down the aimless vista of our vision, causing us to see the person upon whom our thoughts are centred. Such a moment was this. It aroused within me an instant and intense longing to walk again at her side, to speak to her, to hear her sweet, well-modulated voice – nay, to tell her the deepest secret of my heart.

Thus it was that without invitation, or without previous introduction to Lady Glaslyn, I called at the Hollies on the following afternoon. A neat maid showed me into a cosy, rather small sitting-room, and for a few moments I remained there in expectancy. Although the house was not a large one it bore no stamp of the nouveau riche. It was exceedingly well-furnished, and surrounded by spacious grounds, wherein were a number of old yews and beeches. Old-fashioned, queer in its bygone taste, it had stood there on the broad highway from historic Hampton to London for probably a century and a half, being built in the days when the villadom of Fulwell had not yet arisen, and Twickenham was still a quiet village with its historic ferry, and where the stage-coaches changed horses at that low-built old hostelry, the King’s Head. The place stood back from the dusty-high road, half-hidden from the curious gaze, yet, surrounded as it now was by smaller houses, some of them mere cottages, while a few cheap shops had also sprung up in the vicinity, the place was not really a desirable place of abode. The district had apparently sadly degenerated, like all places in the immediate vicinity of the Metropolis.

Before long the door opened, and Eva, looking cool and sweet in a washing dress of white drill, and wearing a straw hat with black band, entered and greeted me cordially.

“Mother is out,” she said. “I’m so awfully sorry, as I wanted to introduce you. She’s gone over to Riverdene, and I, too, was just about to follow her. If you’d been five minutes later I should have left.”

“I’m lucky then to have just caught you,” I remarked. “But if you’re going to Riverdene, may I not accompany you?”

“Most certainly,” she answered. “Of course I shall be delighted,” and the light in her clear blue eyes told me that she was not averse to my company. She ordered a glass of port for me, and then said, “It’s a whole week since you’ve been down there. Mary has several times mentioned you, and wondered whether you’d grown sick of boating.”

“I’ve been rather busy,” I said apologetically.

“Busy with murders and all sorts of horribles, I suppose,” she observed with a smile.

“Yes,” I answered, regarding her closely. “Of late there have been one or two sensational mysteries brought to light!”

“Mysteries!” she exclaimed, starting slightly. “Oh, do tell me about them. I’m always interested in mysteries.”

“The facts are in the papers,” I answered, disinclined to repeat stories which had already grown stale. “The mysteries to which I referred were very ordinary ones, containing no features of particular interest.”

“I’m always interested in those kind of things,” she said. “You may think me awfully foolish, but I always read them. Mother grows so annoyed.”

“It’s only natural!” I answered. “We who are engaged on newspapers, however, soon cease to be interested in the facts we print, but of course, if they didn’t interest the public our papers wouldn’t have any circulation.”

She glanced at me, and a vague thought possessed me, for the look in her eyes was one of suspicion.

When she had drawn on her gloves we together went forth through the garden and down to the road. Suddenly it occurred to me that we might go by train to Shepperton, and thence take a boat and row up to Riverdene. This I suggested, and she gladly welcomed the proposal, declaring that it would be much more pleasant than driving along the dusty, shadowless road from Shepperton to Laleham.

Half an hour later we were afloat at Shepperton, and although the afternoon sun was blazing hot, it was nevertheless delightful on the water. With her lilac sunshade open she lolled lazily in the stern, laughing and chatting as I pulled regularly against the stream. Her conversation was always charming, and her countenance, I thought, fresher and more beautiful at that hour than I had ever before seen. About her manner was an air of irresponsibility, and when she laughed it was so gay a laugh that one would not dream that she had a single care in all the world. She was dainty from the crown of her hat to the tip of her white suède shoe, and as I sat in the boat before her, I felt constrained to take her in my arms and imprint a fervent kiss of love upon those sweet lips, arched and well-formed as a child’s.

My position, however, was, to say the least, an exceedingly strange one. I was actually loving a woman whom I suspected to be guilty of some unknown but dastardly crime. Dozens of times had I tried to impress upon myself the utter folly of it, but my mind refused to be convinced or set at rest. I loved her; that was sufficient. Nothing against her had been proved, and until that had been done, ought not I, in human justice, to consider her innocent?

Indeed, it was impossible to believe that this bright-eyed, pure-faced girl before me, light-hearted, and graceful in every movement, had actually secretly visited that dark little den in the Walworth Road and purchased a drug for the purpose of taking the life of one of her fellow-creatures. Yet she wore at her throat the small enamelled brooch with its five of diamonds, the ornament described by old Lowry, the ornament which she had told me she had purchased as a souvenir at one of the fashionable jewellers in the Montagne de la Cour in Brussels.

We had passed both locks, and were heading up to Laleham, when we suddenly glided into the cool shade of some willows, the boughs of which overhung the stream. The shadow was welcome after the sun glare, and resting upon the oars I removed my hat.

“Yes,” she said, noticing my actions, “we’ve come up unusually quick. Let’s stay here a little time, it is so pleasant. The breeze seems quite cool.”

Let it be punt, canoe or skiff, what more delightful than to moor oneself snugly in the leafy shade, and with a pleasant companion “laze” away the hours until the time comes to take up the sculls and gently pull against the placid stream. Everything was so peaceful, so quiet, the ripple of the sculls alone breaking the stillness. Yet, after all, what a change has come over the river in recent years! Good “pitches” for anglers and quiet nooks for the lazy were, ten years ago, to be discovered in every reach. Now they must be diligently sought for, and when found a note must be made of them. Warning boards notifying that landing or mooring alongside is prohibited were almost unknown, now they greet one in every direction. It is a pity; nevertheless there are still many real joys in river life.

So we remained there beneath the willows, where the water was white with lilies and the bank with its brambles was covered with wild flowers, and as I “lazed” I looked into those clear blue eyes wherein my gaze became lost, for she held me in fascination. I loved her with all my soul.

Chapter Fourteen

This Hapless World

How it came about I can really scarcely tell. I remember uttering mere commonplaces, stammering at first as the bashful schoolboy stammers, then growing more bold, until at length I threw all ceremony and reserve to the winds, and grasping her tiny hand raised it to my lips.

“No,” she said, somewhat coldly, drawing it away with more force than I should have suspected. “This is extremely foolish, Mr Urwin. It is, of course, my fault. I’ve been wrong in acting as I have done.”

“How?” I inquired, her harsh, cruel words instantly bringing me to my senses.

“You have flirted with me on several occasions, and perhaps I have even foolishly encouraged you. If I have done so, then I am alone to blame. Every woman is flattered by attention,” she answered, gazing straight into my eyes, and sighing slightly.

“But I love you!” I cried. “You surely must have seen, Eva, that from the first day we were introduced I have been irrevocably yours. I have not, I assure you, uttered these words without weighty consideration, nor without calmly putting the question to myself. Can you give me absolutely no hope?”

She shook her head. There was a sorrowful expression upon her face, as though she pitied me.

“None,” she answered, and her great blue eyes were downcast.

“Ah, no!” I cried in quick protest. “Don’t say that. I love you with a fierce, ardent affection such as few men have within their hearts. If you will but reciprocate that love, then I swear that the remainder of my life shall be devoted to you.”

“It is impossible,” she responded in a harsh, despairing voice, quite unlike her usual self. Her head was bowed, as though she dare not again look into my face.

Once more I caught her hand, holding it within my grasp. It seemed to have grown cold, and in an instant its touch brought back to me the recollection of that fatal night in Kensington. Would that I might lay bare all that I knew, and ask her for an explanation. But to do so would be to show that I doubted her; therefore I was compelled to remain silent.

“Why impossible?” I inquired persuasively. “The many times we have met since our first introduction have only served to increase my love for you. Surely you will not withhold from me every hope?”

“Alas!” she faltered, with a downward sweep of her lashes, her hand trembling in mine, “I am compelled.”

“Compelled?” I echoed. “I don’t understand. You are not engaged to Langdale?”

“No.”

“Then why are you forced to give me this negative answer?” I asked in deep earnestness, for until then I had not known the true strength of my love for her.

The seriousness of her beautiful countenance relaxed slightly, still her breast slowly heaved and fell, plainly showing the agitation within her.

“Because it is absolutely imperative that I should do so,” she replied.

Suddenly a thought flashed through my mind.

“Perhaps,” I said, “perhaps I’ve been too precipitate. If so – if I have spoken too plainly and frankly – forgive me, Eva. It is only because I can no longer repress the great love I bear you. I think of you always – always. My every thought is of you; my every hope is of happiness at your side; my very life depends upon your favour and your love.”

“No, no!” she cried, with a quick movement of her hand as if to stay my words. “Don’t say that. You may remain my friend if you like – but you may never be my lover – never!”

“Never your lover!” I gasped, starting back as though she had dealt me a blow. I felt at that moment as though all I appreciated in life was slipping from me. I had staked all, everything, and lost. “Ah, do not give me this hasty answer,” I urged. “I have been too eager; I am a fool. Yet I love you with a stronger, fiercer passion than any man can ever love you with, Eva. You are my very life,” and notwithstanding her effort to snatch her hand away, I again raised it reverently to my lips.

“No, no. This is a mere summer dream, Mr Urwin,” she said, with a cool firmness well assumed, although she avoided my gaze. “I have flirted with you, it is true, and we have spent many pleasant hours together, but I have never taken you seriously. You were always so merry and careless, you know.”

“You did not believe, then, that I really loved you?” I observed, divining her thoughts.

“Exactly,” she answered, still very grave. “If I had thought so, I should never have allowed our acquaintance to ripen as it has done.”

“Are you annoyed that I should have declared only what is but the absolute truth?” I asked.

“Not at all,” she responded quickly, with something of her old self in her low, sweet voice. “How can I be annoyed?”

“And you will forgive my hasty declaration?” I urged.

“There is nothing to forgive,” she replied, smiling. “I only regret that you have misconstrued my friendship into love.”

I was silent. These last words of hers crushed all hope from my soul. She sat with her hand trailing listlessly in the water, apparently intent upon the long rushes waving in the green depths below.

“Then,” I said in a disappointed voice, half-choked with emotion, “then you cannot love me, Eva, after all?”

“I did not say so,” she answered slowly, almost mechanically.

“What?” I cried joyously, again bending forward towards her. “Will you then try and love me – will you defer your answer until we know one another better? Say that you will.”

Again she shook her head with sorrowful air. She looked at me with a kind of mingled grief and joy, bliss embittered by despair.

“Why should I deceive you?” she asked. “Why, indeed, should you deceive yourself?”

“I do not deceive myself,” I protested, “I only know that I adore you; that you are the sole light of my life, and that I love you devotedly.”

“Ah! And in a month, perhaps, you will tell a similar story to some other woman,” she observed doubtingly. “Men are too often fickle.”

“I swear that I’ll never do that,” I declared. “My affairs of the heart have been few.”

“But Mary?” she suggested, and I knew from her tone that she had been thinking deeply of her.

“Ours was a mere boy and girl liking,” I hastened to assure her. “Ask her, and she will tell you the same. We never really loved.”

She smiled, rather dubiously I thought.

“But surely you are aware that she loves you even now,” Eva answered.

“Loves me!” I echoed in surprise. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. Since we parted not a single word of affection has ever been uttered between us.”

“And you actually do not love her?” she asked in deep earnestness, looking straight into my eyes. “Are you really certain?”

“I do not,” I answered. “I swear I don’t.”

The boat was drifting, and with a swift stroke of the oars I ran her bows into the bank. Overhead the larks were singing their joyous songs and the hot air seemed to throb with the humming of a myriad insects. The afternoon was gloriously sunny, and away in the meadow on the opposite bank a picnic party were busy preparing their tea amid peals of feminine laughter.

“Well,” she sighed, “I can only regret that you have spoken as you have to-day. I regret it the more because I esteem your friendship highly, Mr Urwin. We might have been friends – but lovers we may never be?”

“Why never?” I inquired, acutely disappointed.

“There are circumstances which entirely prevent such a course,” she answered. “Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to be more explicit.”

“So you are prevented by some utterly inexplicable circumstances from loving me?” I observed, greatly puzzled.

“Yes,” she responded, toying with the tassel of her sunshade.

“But tell me, Eva,” I asked hoarsely, again grasping her chilly, nervous hand, “can you never love me? Are you actually convinced that in your own heart you have no spark of affection for me?”

She paused, then glanced at me. I fancied I saw in her blue eyes the light of unshed tears.

“Your question is a rather difficult one,” she faltered. “Even if I reciprocated your love our positions would not be altered. We should still be alienated as we now are.”

“Why?”

“Because – because we may not love each other,” she answered, in a low, strained voice – the voice of a woman terribly agitated. “Let us part to-day and never again meet. It will be best for both of us – far the best.”

“No,” I cried, intensely in earnest. “I cannot leave you, Eva, because I love you far too dearly. If you cannot love me now, then bear with me a little, and you will later learn to love me.”

“In one year, nay, in ten, my answer must, of necessity, be the same as it is to-day,” she responded. “A negative one.”

“As vague as it is cruel,” I observed.

“Its vagueness is imperative,” she said. “You are loved by another, and I have therefore no right to a place in your heart.”

“You are cruel, Eva!” I cried reproachfully. “My love for Mary Blain has been dead these three years. By mutual consent we gave each other freedom, and since that hour all has been over between us.”

“But what if Mary still loves you?” she suggested. “You were once her affianced husband.”

“True,” I said. “But even if she again loves me she has no further claim whatever upon me, for we mutually agreed to separate and have both long been free.”

“And if she thought that I loved you?” Eva asked.

In an instant I guessed the reason of her disinclination to listen to my avowal. She feared the jealousy of her friend!

“She would only congratulate us.” I answered. “Surely you have no cause for uneasiness in that direction?”

“Cause for uneasiness!” she repeated, starting, while at that same instant the colour died from her sweet face. Next second, however, she recovered herself, and with a forced smile said, “Of course I have no cause. Other circumstances, however, prevent us being more than friends.”

“And may I not be made aware of them?” I inquired in vague wonder.

“No,” she said quickly. “Not now. It is quite impossible.”

“But all my future depends upon your decision,” I urged. “Do not answer lightly, Eva. You must surely have seen that I love you?”

“Yes,” she answered, sighing. “I confess to having seen it. Every woman knows instinctively when she is loved and when despised. The knowledge has caused me deep, poignant regret.”

“Why?”

“Because,” and she hesitated. “Because I have dreaded this day. I feared to tell you the truth.”

“You haven’t told me the truth,” I said, looking her straight in the face.

“I have,” she protested.

“The truth is, then, that you would love me, only you dare not,” I said clearly. “Is that so?”

She nodded, her eyes again downcast, and I saw that hot tears were in them – tears she was unable longer to repress.

When the heart is fullest of love, and the mouth purest with truth, there seems a cruel destiny in things which often renders our words worst chosen and surest to defeat the ends they seek.

“Then whom do you fear?” I asked, after a pause.

She shook her head. Only a low sob escaped her.

“May we not love in secret,” I suggested, “if it is really impossible to love openly?”

“No, no!” she said, lifting her white hand in protest. “We must not love. I tell you that it is all a dream impossible of realisation. To-day we must part. Leave me, and we will both forget this meeting.”

“But surely you will not deliberately wreck both our lives, Eva?” I cried, dismayed. “Your very words have betrayed that you really entertain some affection for me, although you deny it for reasons that are inexplicable. Why not be quite plain and straightforward, as I am?”

“I have been quite clear,” she answered. “I tell you that we can never love one another.”

“Why?”

“For a reason which some day ere long will be made plain to you,” she answered in a low voice, her pure countenance at that moment drawn and ashen pale. “In that day you will hate my very name, and yet will think kindly of my memory, because I have to-day refused to listen to you and have given you your freedom.”

“And yet you actually love me!” I exclaimed, bewildered at this strange allegation. “It is most extraordinary.”

“It may seem extraordinary,” she said in a voice that appeared to sound soft and afar, “but the truth is oft-times strange, especially when one is draining the cup of life to its very dregs.”

“And may I not know this secret of yours, Eva?” I asked sympathetically, for I saw by her manner how she was suffering a torture of the soul.

“My secret!” she cried, glaring at me suddenly as one brought to bay, a strange, hunted look in those clear blue eyes. “My secret! Why” – and she laughed a hollow, artificial laugh, as one hysterical – “why, how absurd you are, Mr Urwin! Whatever made you suspect me of having secrets?”

Chapter Fifteen

The Near Beyond

The remainder of our pull to Riverdene was accomplished in comparative silence. Crushed, hopeless and despairing, I bent to the oars mechanically, with the feeling that in all else my interest was dead, save in the woman I so dearly loved, who, lounging back among her cushions, sighed now and then, her face very grave and agitated.

I spoke at last, urging her to reconsider her decision, but she only responded with a single word, a word which destroyed all my fondest hopes —

“Impossible.”

In that bright hour when the broad bosom of the Thames sent back the reflection of the summer sun, when the sky was clear as that in Italy, when all the world seemed rejoicing, and the gay laughter wafted over the water from the launches, boats and punts gliding past us, we alone had heavy hearts. Overwhelmed by this bitter disappointment and sorrow, the laughter jarred upon my ears. I tried to shut it out, and with my teeth set rowed with all my might against the stream until, skirting the shady wood, we rounded the bend of the stream and suddenly drew up at the landing-steps of Riverdene.

“Why, here’s Eva!” cried Mary, running down to the water’s edge, her tennis-racquet in her hand. “And Frank, too!” Then, turning to Eva as we stood together on the lawn a moment later, she asked, “Where’s your mother? We’ve expected her all the afternoon.”