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Her voice was very low. "Yes," she said in almost a whisper.
"You are engaged to another man," he said. "I don't know him, I have never seen him. I know he is a great swell and very important. A year ago, if anybody had told me that I was going to talk to a girl who was engaged to another man as I'm going to talk to you, I should probably have knocked him down. Shows one never knows, doesn't it, Marjorie?"
She began to breathe quickly. Her breast rose and fell, her agitation was very manifest. The tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. She hated herself for this visible emotion; she did her best to control it, but it was utterly impossible, and she knew that she was telling him even now what she knew also he most desired to hear.
He got up from his chair, big, forceful, manly and young, and was by her side in a moment.
"Marjorie," he said, "dear, sweet girl, I can't help telling you, however wrong it may be. I love you, I love you deeply and dearly. I am quite certain, I don't know how, but I'm certain, and nothing in the world could persuade me I wasn't, that I'm the man who was made for you, and that you're the girl who was made for me. I can't put it poetically, I don't know how to say it beautifully, as the Johnnies say it in the novels and on the stage, but, darling, I love you."
There was a catch and a break in his voice; a sob had come into it.
Then he went on. "Do you know, Marjorie, I can't help thinking somehow that you must have made a mistake – " He was kneeling now by the side of her chair. His arms stole round her, she made no motion to forbid it. It was a moment of absolute surrender, a surrender which she had no power to withstand.
And now he held her in his strong arms, his kisses fell upon her lips, her head was on his shoulder, she was sobbing quietly and happily. With no word of avowal spoken, she gave herself to him at that moment. He had felt, and his whole body was shaken with joy and triumph, that come what might, she was his in spirit if indeed she could never be his in any other way.
It was a great moment for those two young lives. Young man and maid, knowing themselves and each other for the first time. It wasn't romantic, exactly, there was nothing very striking about it, perhaps, but it was sweet – ah! unutterably sweet!
He was walking about the room.
"You must tell him," he said, "dearest. You'll have to go through so much more than I shall, and it cuts me to the heart to think of it. You'll have to face all the opposition of everybody, of your people, of society and the world generally. And I can't help; you'll have to go through this alone. It's a bitter thought that I can't help you. Dear, dare you fight through this for me? Are you strong enough? are you brave enough?"
She went up to him, and placed both her hands upon his shoulders, looking straight into his face.
"I have been wicked," she said, "I have been wrong. But perhaps there were excuses. Until one has felt love, real love, Guy, one doesn't realize its claims or the duties one owes it. I was ambitious. I liked William well enough. He interested me and stimulated me. I felt proud to think that I was to be the companion of a man who knew and had done so much. But now the mere thought of that companionship fills me with fear. Not fear of him, but fear of the treachery I should have done my nature and myself if I had married him. I don't know what will happen, but here and now, Guy, whatever may be the outcome, I tell you that I love you, and I swear to you, however wrong it may be, whatever violence I may be doing to my plighted troth, I tell you that, however great the unworthiness, I will be yours and yours alone. I know it's wrong, and yet, somehow, I feel it can't be wrong. I don't understand, but – but – " He took her in his arms once more and held her.
It was late, and he was going, and was bidding her farewell. He knelt before her and took her hand, bowing over it and kissing it.
"Good-night," he said, "my lady, my love, my bride! I am with you now, and shall be with you always in spirit until we are one – until the end of our lives. And whatever may be in store in the immediate future I shall be watching and waiting, I shall be guarding you and shielding you as well as I can, and if things come to the worst, I shall be ready, and we will count the world well lost, as other wise lovers have done, for the sacred cause and in the holy service of Love."
So he bowed over her slim white hand and kissed it, looking in his beauty and confidence and strength like any knight of old kneeling before the lady he was pledged to serve. And when he was gone, and she was alone in her room up-stairs, Marjorie was filled with a joy and exhilaration such as she had never known before. Yet there seemed hanging over the little rosy landscape, the brightly-lit landscape in which she moved, a dark and massive cloud.
She dreamt thus. She dreamt that this cloud grew blacker and blacker, and still more heavy, sinking lower and lower towards her. Then she saw her lover as a knight in armour cutting upwards with a gleaming sword until the cloud departed and rushed away, and all was once more bathed in sunlight. She knew the name of that sword. It was not Excalibur, it was Love.
CHAPTER V
A CONSPIRACY OF SCIENTISTS
Sir William Gouldesbrough had been up very late the night before. He came down from his room on a grey morning a fortnight after the day on which he had told Marjorie something of his hopes. It was nearly twelve o'clock. He had not retired to rest until four upon the same morning. And when he had at last left the great laboratories built out of the back of the house, he had stumbled up to his room, a man drunk with an almost incredible success – a success of detail so perfect and complete that his intelligence staggered before the supreme triumph of his hopes.
But the remaining portion of the night, or rather during the beginning of the chill wintry dawn, he had lain alone in his great Georgian bedroom, watching the grey light filtering into the room, flood by flood, until the dark became something more terrible, something filled with vast moving shadows, with monstrous creatures which lurked in the corners of the room, with strange half lights that went and came, and gave the wan mirrors of the wardrobe, of the mantel-shelf, a ghost-like life only to withdraw, and then once more increase it.
And as this great and famous man lay in this vast lonely room without power of sleep, two terrible emotions surged and throbbed within him, – two emotions in their intensity too great for one mind to hold.
One was the final and detailed triumph of all he held dear in the world of science and in the department of his life's work. The other was the imminent and coming ruin of his heart's hope, and the love which had come to him, and which had seemed the most wonderful thing that life could give.
Yes, there he lay, a king of intellect, a veritable prince of the powers of the air, and all his triumph was but as dust and ashes and bitterness, because he knew that he was losing a smaller principality perhaps, but one he held dearer than all his other possessions.
Emperor of the great grey continent of science, he must now resign his lordship of the little rosy principality of Love.
So, as he came down-stairs close upon mid-day of the winter's morning – a tall distinguished figure in the long camel's-hair dressing-gown, with its suggestion of a monk's robe – the butler who was crossing the hall at the time was startled by the fixed pallor of his face.
The man went up to him.
"Excuse me, Sir William," he said, "but you're working too hard. You're not well, sir. You mustn't overdo it. I have got you a sole and mushrooms for breakfast, sir, but I should not advise you to touch it, now I've seen you. If you'll allow me to offer my advice, I should suggest a bowl of soup."
"Thank you, Delaine," Sir William answered. "But I don't think I could even take anything at present. Will you send my letters into the study?"
"Yes, Sir William," the man replied, "and I shall make so bold as to bring you a bowl of soup in half-an-hour, as well."
Gouldesbrough crossed the great gloomy hall and entered the study.
A bright fire was glowing on the hearth, the place was all dusted, tidy and cheerful, even though the world outside was a blank wall of fog.
He stood up in the middle of the room. Tall, columnar, with a great dignity about him, had there been any one there to see. It was a dual dignity, the dignity of supreme success and the dignity of irremediable pain.
The butler came in with the letters upon a copper tray. There was a great pile of them, and as the man closed the door after he put the tray upon the writing-table, Sir William began to deal the letters like a pack of cards, throwing this and that one on the floor, with a shuffling movement of the wrist, and as he did so his eyes were horrid in their searching and their intensity. At last he came to the one he sought. A letter addressed to him in a bold but feminine handwriting. As his fingers touched it a loud sob burst out into the silence of the room. With shaking fingers he tore it open, standing among the litter of the unopened letters, and began to read.
He read the letter right through, then walked to the mantel-piece, leaning his right arm upon it as if for support. But the tension was now a little relaxed. He had come down to find the worst, to meet the inevitable. He had met it, and there was now neither premonition of the moment of realization nor the last and torturing flicker of despairing hope.
This was the letter. It began without preface or address —
"You must have known this was coming. Everything in your manner has shown me that you knew it was coming. And for that, unhappy as I am, I am glad. I have a terrible confession to make to you. But you who are so great, you who know the human mind from your great height, as a conquering general surveys a country from a mountain-top, you will understand. When you asked me to marry you and I said 'Yes,' I was pleased and flattered, and I had a tremendous admiration and respect for you and for all you have done. Then when we came to know each other, I began to see the human side of you, and I had, and if you will let me say so, still have, a real affection for you. And had it not been that something more powerful than affection has come into my life, I would have been a true and faithful wife and companion to you.
"But you have seen, and you must know, that things are changed. Are we not all subject to the laws of destiny, the laws of chance? Is it not true that none of us on our way through the world can say by whom or how we shall be caught up out of ourselves and changed into what we could not be before? Oh, you know it all. You of all men know it!
"I need not here speak in detailed words, because from things you have seen you know well enough what I am about to say, of whom I would speak if I could. But it is enough, William, to tell you what you already know. That I love some one else, and that if I am true to myself, which is after all the first duty of all of us, I could never marry you. I can never be to you what you wish or what I would like to be as your wife. I am stricken down with the knowledge of the pain all this will give you, though, thank God, it is not a pain for which you are unprepared. I dare not ask your forgiveness, I can say nothing to console you. I have acted wickedly and wrongly, but I cannot do anything else but what I am doing.
"Forgive, if you can. Think kindly, if you can, of Marjorie."
Now he knew. He folded the letter gently, kissed it – an odd action for a man so strong – and put it in the inside pocket of his coat, which pressed next his heart.
Then he rang the bell.
"Ask Mr. Guest to come," he said.
"Very well, Sir William," the butler answered, "but Mr. Charliewood has just arrived."
"Then ask him in," Gouldesbrough answered.
Charliewood came into the room.
"By Jove!" he said, "you look about as seedy as I've ever seen you look!"
Sir William went up to him and put his hand upon his shoulder.
"Look here," he said, "I've had a smack in the face this morning, Charliewood. You know what it is, I need not tell you. And look here, too, I'm going to ask you to help me as you've never helped me before. I'm afraid, old fellow, I've often been a nuisance to you, and often rather rubbed in the fact that you owe me money, and that you've had to do things for me. Forgive me now, if you will. I'm going to call upon you for active friendship."
"Oh," Charliewood answered, "we won't talk about friendship between you and me. I've done what I had to do and there's enough."
Sir William still held him by the shoulder. "You don't really feel that, Charliewood?" he said in a quiet voice, and as he did so the magnetism of his personality began to flow and flood upon the weaker man and influence him to kindliness.
"Well, well," he said, "what is it now? I suppose we've been running round a vicious circle and we've come to the last lap?"
"That's just about it," Sir William answered. "Just let me say that this is the last service I shall ever ask from you. I'll give you back all the I.O.U.'s and things, and I'll give you enough money to put yourself absolutely right with the world, then we'll say good-bye."
Charliewood started. "That's awfully good of you," he said. "I don't think that I want to say good-bye. But still, what is it?"
"Rathbone," Sir William answered, pronouncing the name with marked difficulty.
"It's all over then?" Charliewood answered.
"Yes."
"I thought it would be. I have told you all that has been going on, and I knew it would be."
"She's written to me this morning," Gouldesbrough said. "A kind letter, but a letter finishing it all."
Then the weaker, smaller man became, as so often happens in life, the tempter – the instrument which moves the lever of a man's career towards the dark sinister side of the dial.
Charliewood was touched and moved by the unexpected kindness in his patron's voice.
"Don't say it's finished," he said; "nothing is finished for a man like you, with a man like me to help him. Of course it's not finished. You have not always been all you might to me, William, but I'll help you now. I'll do anything you want me to do. Buck up, old boy! You will pass the post first by a couple of lengths yet."
"How?"
"Well, what were you going to ask me to do?"
They looked each other in the face with glowing eyes and pale countenances, while a horrible excitement shone out upon them both.
At that moment the door opened very quietly, and an extraordinary person came into the room.
He was a short, fat, youthful-looking man, with a large, pink, and quite hairless face. The face was extremely intelligent, noticeably so, but it was streaked and furrowed with dissipation. It told the story not of the man who enjoyed the sensuous things of life in company, and as part of a merry progress towards the grave, but it betrayed the secret sot, the cunning sensualist private and at home.
This man was Mr. Guest, Sir William's faithful assistant in science, a man who had no initiative power, who could rarely invent a project or discover a scientific fact, but a man who, when once he was put upon the lines he ought to go, could follow them as the most intelligent sleuth-hound in the scientific world.
Wilson Guest was perhaps the greatest living physicist in Europe. He was of inestimable value to his chief, and he was content to remain between the high red-brick walls of the old house in Regent's Park, provided with all he needed for his own amusements, and instigated to further triumphs under the ægis of his master.
"Well, what is it?" said this fat, youthful and rather horrible-looking person.
"We've come to grips of the great fact, Guest," Sir William answered, still with his hand upon Charliewood's shoulder.
The pink creature laughed a hollow and merciless laugh.
"I knew it would come to this," he said, "since you have added another interest to your scientific interests, Gouldesbrough. Why have you called me in to a consultation?"
Gouldesbrough's whole face changed; it became malignant, the face of a devil.
"I'm going to win," he said. "I've had a knock-down blow, but I'm going to get up and win still! Mr. Rathbone must disappear. That can be easily arranged with the resources at our command."
Guest gave a horrible chuckle.
"And when we've got him?" he said.
"He must disappear for always," Gouldesbrough answered.
"Quite easy," Guest replied. "Quite easy, William. But, not until we've done with him, shall he?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, isn't it the last condition of our experiments that we should have some one a slave, a dead man to the world, to use as we shall think fit? Here's your man. Do what you like to him afterwards. Let's make your rival a stepping-stone to your final success."
Then the three men looked at each other in fear.
Charliewood and Sir William Gouldesbrough were pale as linen, but the short, fat man was pink still, and laughed and chuckled nervously.
CHAPTER VI
"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR?"
Mr. Eustace Charliewood's chambers were in Jermyn Street. But few of his many friends had ever seen the interior of them. Such entertaining as the man about town did – and he was always one of those who were entertained, rather than one of those who offer hospitality – was done at his club.
The man who looked after the place and valeted his master was therefore the more surprised when Charliewood had called him up one morning after breakfast.
"Look here, William," Charliewood had said, "I've got a gentleman coming to dinner. We've some business to talk over, so I shan't dine him at the club. I suppose you can manage a little dinner here?"
"Certainly, sir, if necessary," the man answered. "Of course you're not in the habit of dining at home, and you've not got your own things. That is if you mean a proper little dinner, sir."
"I do, I do, William," his master answered hurriedly.
"But, there, that needn't matter," the man answered, "we can have everything in if you like, sir."
"That will be best," Charliewood answered. "I leave everything to you, William. Except," he added as an afterthought, "the menu. I want a small dinner, William, but quite good. Shall we say a little bisque for the soup? Then perhaps a small Normandy sole. Afterwards a chicken cooked en casserole. As an entrée some white truffles stewed in Sillery – you can get them in glass jars from Falkland & Masons – and then a morsel of Brie and some coffee. That will do, I think."
"And about the wine, sir?" said William, astonished at these unaccustomed preparations, and inwardly resolving that Mr. Eustace Charliewood had discovered a very brightly plumed pigeon to pluck.
"Oh, about the wine! Well, I think I'll see to that myself. I'll have it sent up from the club. You've an ice-pail for the champagne, haven't you, William?"
"Yes, sir, we certainly have that."
"Very good then. We'll say at eight then."
William bowed and withdrew.
All that day the various members of this or that fast and exclusive club round about St. James's Street, noticed that Eustace Charliewood was out of form. His conversation and his greetings were not so imperturbably cheerful and suave as usual. He took no interest in the absorbing question as to whether young Harry Rayke – the Earl of Spaydes' son – would after all propose to Lithia Varallette, the well-known musical comedy girl. The head waiter of the Baobab Club noticed Mr. Charliewood was off his food, and everybody with whom the man about town came in contact said that "Richard was by no means himself."
As the evening drew on, a dark, foggy evening, which promised as night came to be darker and foggier still, Charliewood's agitation increased, though just now there was no one to see it.
He walked down St. James's Street, past Marlborough House, and briskly promenaded the wide and splendid avenue which now exists in front of Buckingham Palace. The fog made him cough, the raw air was most unpleasant, and it was no hour for exercise. But, despite the cold and misery of it all, Charliewood continued his tramp backwards and forwards.
