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THE LAST SCENE OF THE PLAY

 

 

 

I.

 

 

            THE village stood half-way up the slope. Behind it rose the mountains. Round it stretched the brown earth almost destitute of trees, of greenness of any sort, but covered by even rows of little dark stumps, that were not more than a foot high. They looked like little old men, cross and wrinkled. It was difficult to believe that they had ever borne anything good to see or to use. Yet a few months later they would have sent forth long green twigs covered with leaves and heavy with fruit.

            In front of the village the slopes, crossed and re-crossed by low grey walls dividing off the vineyards, stretched downwards to the white carriage road, to the railway line, to the blue waters of Lake Leman. Over the lake, and over most things, the sun was shining. It touched the misty clefts in the mountains till each one became a heavenly mystery behind which lay an enchanted land. The Dent du Midi was covered with snow, but the wide streaks on it proved that the sun’s power was returning. The mountains that from a distance seemed to form a locked gate to the Rhone valley, and the mountains of Savoy, gathered high and close along the southern side of the lake, were still white above the line of frequented pathway. But lower down the snow had melted as though the shivering slopes had warmed and comforted themselves against the homes of men. The sun was hot enough for June, but in the shade of cold air and biting wind betrayed their March parentage. Yet there were signs that spring was already on its way. The few trees huddled round the village, as though they feared the wastes beyond, were budding. In the markets at Lausanne and Vevey the seed-sellers drove a brisk trade. The little heaps of manure put ready in the vineyards showed that it was nearly time to look after the stumps that as yet were all that represented the coming vintage.

            The village consisted of two or three clusters of houses, none too grand for the thrifty or working-class. A few were picturesque, but the majority were ugly, white-washed, and poor-looking. Here and there the ugliness was relieved by a carved wooden balcony or an outside staircase, from which hung bunches of yellow corn or pots of greenery fastened up by strings; but the Swiss villager is not overburdened with a sense of beauty, nor given to spending much of his time on the decoration of his home.

            Standing a little apart from the houses, like a reverend elder, was an old church with a square tower and faded clock. At the end of the one dead-alive street stood the pump and the inevitable washing-troughs, round with the gossips gathered to idle, and the housewives to wash their clothes. A few cobble-stoned narrow ways, with old high houses warning off the sunshine, wound out of the street or from round odd corners. That was all, save a couple of dreary cafés, and a letter-box, the latter let into a blank wall on which were pasted one or two official notices of the Commune, and a placard concerning an Easter concert at Vevey. Few enough were the signs of life, except by the pump, and at stated hours that necessitated going to and fro to transact the trivial business of the day. The children going and coming from school, the cows being taken in and out of the sheds at milking time, the gathering of letters from the letter-box, the dragging of a load of wood that had come from some mysterious place far out of sight, where trees were plentiful enough to be cut down and sent to villages beyond; a scantly straggling group going towards the cafés after the dinner hour, to which the whole place held itself sacred: these were the chief signs of animation, and for months the only ones. Here and there, outside the village, was to be seen a stray house, surrounded by a patch of almost uncultivated garden, weather-beaten and deserted, its shutters closed like the lids of tired eyes. It was as if, in the drowsy noon or the still cold night, first one dwelling and then another had wandered away from the village, and stayed to dream. When the spring came they would all awake, would rouse themselves, and make ready for the summer. But as yet there was only the sunshine, just a hint that Heaven was not forgetful; that the world would soon be beautiful once more, and its people must awake to behold it.

            Far up behind the village, at the edge of the fir-trees that clothed the topmost part of the mountain, stood  a long low building; its whiteness could be seen  for miles away. Close beside it was a ruined wooden châlet with piles of grey stones near it. Yet, though hands had surely placed the stones in heaps quite lately, there was not a sign of life anywhere about; nothing but the firs above, and the slope beneath with the village half-way down towards the lake. Midway between the firs and the village stood the highest inhabited house in the immediate vicinity—one of these houses that seemed to have strayed from its fellows and stood conspicuously apart. It was only one story high, with a window at the back looking up at the firs and the ruined châlet and shed, and a door and several windows on the other side looking down towards the village and the lake. Before the upper windows stretched a wooden balcony, and from it hung great bunches of maize corn. Round the house was a patch of garden-ground that had lately been dug over, and here and there displayed a few homely vegetables doing fairly well in the keen March wind. The door was shut, the windows closed, the green shutters fastened inside so that no gust disturbed them; there was no smoke from the chimney; the house seemed simply a part of the landscape and the stillness.

            But above the stillness was broken. In the ruined châlet there was a sound of some one moving cautiously. Between the wide chinks a man’s eyes looked out as far as they could see, again and again down at the slope, at the lonely house, and anxiously towards the village. At last, seemingly satisfied that no one was watching him, he came from his shelter, and, keeping close to the low grey wall, began  to descend. He almost bent double while he advanced as if to avoid being seen; he hurried, and yet took each step with care, casting a glance about him every moment. He drew near the house with a sigh of relief, keeping in a line with it as soon as its height formed a screen between him and the village. He stole to the front door with noiseless steps, and, lifting the latch, entered. There was a dim passage, bare and white-washed, flagged with rough grey stones. At the farther end was a wooden staircase; he looked towards it and listened. To his left there was suddenly the sound of a wheezing cough: he heard it with an air of relief. He turned and examined the fastenings of the street door;  they consisted of a lock and bolt; he drew the bolt, and turning the key in the lock, took it out; then opening a door on the left entered a dirty comfortless kitchen. At a glance he saw that the windows were fastened inside the closed shutters. An old woman rose as if from sheep. He gave her the key of the door.

            “Some visitors might come for us,” he said. “Do not let them in, we have letters to write and wish to be quiet; and if anyone comes to see you there is no need to say that we are here. I have locked the door and taken out the key, so that people may think the house is empty. Let them knock.” She looked at him suspiciously. “It is only for to-day,” he added. “To-morrow it will be different.”

            “I will not say that monsieur the painter is gone,” she answered, “nor let in anyone if I can help it.”

            He nodded, and left her looking at the key. The English were strange people, she thought, it was no use suspecting them, for there was no knowing what even the best of them would do; and she sat down to consider. The painter who had stayed in her house since January painting the snow-covered mountains had been gone a fortnight. The day before he went he had talked with a stranger who had looked over his canvas while he sat painting near Vevey. He had always loved to talk, had the painter. A foolish waste of time, for work and talk were never trusty partners; if one was good for aught the other went for little. But the painter had told the stranger how he had lived for two months in her house, pointing it out on the slope, and that the next day he was going to Italy. He went, and that same night the strangers came. They told her not to say that the painter had gone and they had come, for they wanted to be alone and quiet. The lady was ill and suffering. The old woman was to forget if she could that she had changed her tenant. They asked the painter’s name, then said theirs was the same, and they expected no letters, no friends; they wanted to be alone and quiet. Well, the English were curious people, always liking to keep to themselves. These were easy to do for quiet enough, staying up in their rooms almost in silence. She would have forgotten that they were there, but for the serving of meals. She doubted if anyone knew that they were there, for the painter had walked away in the early morning with all he possessed on his back, and the same evening these two had walked in with all they possessed in their hands, and neither had passed through the village. It was just as well; Louis Strubb would not come asking for his money. The painter was known to be poor, for how could a man who sat all day before an easel be rich? But this Englishman who was able to travel with his wife might well be supposed to pay more, and Louis Strubb was not one to wait patiently if he could help it. She had noticed that each time the Englishman went out he avoided the village; it was ell. To-morrow at the market, if anyone had seen him, there might be questions asked, and Louis Strubb made wiser. But that was in the future. To-day there was nothing to disturb her, nothing to trouble about till it was time to prepare the strangers’ supper at seven. No need either to think of that yet, nor to burn the wood in waste. For a while she could rest, forgetting that she was cold. Ah, that was comfortable, a chair and a high stool on which to put her legs; she was tired and nearly sleeping. And why not sleep? Good dreams might come of youth—a foolish time when one loitered and laughed over much, yet pleasant to dream of when one’s limbs ached and there was little to do but rest. Her head fell on her chest, her withered eyes closed, the wrinkles in her face smoothed away, and all things were forgotten for a little space as she sat and dozed beside the cold black stove.

 

 

II.

 

            THE man went slowly up the creaking stairs, which turned abruptly towards the front of the house, and faced a door at the top. Between the door and the last stair there was a landing which went along the width of the house, and on to it opened all the rooms of the top story. He opened the door facing the stairs, and entered a bar, silent room, which the old woman beneath call the salon. There was a second door leading to an inner room; he went towards it and listened, then opened it gently and looked in. The inner room was furnished as a bedroom, dim, from the closed shutters, and chilly, for the sunshine, passing over the house, had left it in the shade. On one of the two low beds a woman was lying. She was dressed, her head was pillowed high, and her arms thrown back beneath it raised it still higher. She was young, but worn and haggard-looking. She was beautiful, or would have been so but for a look of anguish that seemed to have become a settled expression on her face. She started as the man entered.

            “Is it  all safe?” she asked. He nodded. With a sigh of relief she sank back.

            “It is very cold,” he said; “you had better lie still—do you hear?” for she had collapsed in some strange way, and turned her eyes from him. “I will call you presently; I want to be alone a little while.” There was a certain power in his voice that seemed to render the woman helpless. She made a sign of assent, then looked up, and having answered simply, “Yes,” turned her face away till it was almost hidden in the pillow. He went back to the salon and closed the bedroom door behind him. For a moment he looked out, through the green bars of the closed shutters, at the village below, at the lake with the sunshine sparkling on it, at the Savoy mountains, with the little towns and villages set low down along the shore. If he were only across that bit of blue water, scrambling up the snow-covered heights or speeding along in the train towards Bellegarde, he might yet escape unnoticed. He turned away and looked round the comfortless room. It was bare, and, like the rest of the house inside and out, whitewashed. There was a round table, a gaunt sofa, two or three chairs; a wide, open fireplace, with a few logs piled up ready for lighting on its stone cheeks. That was all, save that between the windows stood a high, well-made escritoire. It had a flap that let down in front to form a desk; beneath the flap were three drawers, and behind it several smaller ones. He let down the flap ready to write, then opened a drawer and took out an old photograph, faded and yellow. It had the indescribable look of a portrait of some one who was dead. That old woman with the long thin face and prim cap could not be living. He looked at it tenderly, put it on the mantelshelf, then going back to the escritoire, sat down to write. It was a little difficult to see; there was almost a recess between the windows, and the shadow kept off the light. A single moment would have sufficed to open the shutters and make the whole room lovely with the sunshine without, and with the landscape looking in, but he did not  dare to risk it. He put a sheet of paper before him, and glanced uneasily about before beginning. It was a sort of relief to see his mother’s portrait on the shelf. Something undefined seemed to be standing by him, to be watching him, to fill the whole room with a strange presence. The woman on the low bed in the inner room felt it too, and quailed before it with agonized shrinking; but the man defied it. In every atom of the air there was a suggestion of consciousness. It gave the one a vague knowledge of what was coming; it sent a sick dread into the heart of the other to share its bitter anguish.

            The man began his letter desperately, feeling that he was writing it against time, and in the teeth of many things. The light changed and fell upon his face. It was thin and weary, but it had none of the sadness or the fear of the woman’s. He was singularly handsome, tall, and well-made; perhaps he should be described as dark. There was something in his eyes difficult to fathom—a light, a spark almost, an expression that made the whole face a puzzle. It gave him at times an uncanny, a shifty, at others, a kindly, humorous look. There was something about the face that seemed to make the whole man an uncertainty to everyone in everything, a man who, for some reason almost beyond his control, could not be counted on in any way. He somehow conveyed the impression that he was capable of doing great deeds and generous ones if they were suggested to him, and came easy, without in the least seeing their greatness or generosity; or committing almost any crime, any meanness, if they too came in his way or were convenient, never realizing or caring about the enormity or the meanness. Good and evil had been settled and defined by others, but he was not able to distinguish accurately between them, or to care which was which. In a certain sense he was moral-blind, as some are colour-blind. He did that which came in his way, which seemed easiest; the goodness or the badness did not concern him. People might applaud one deed, and be shocked at another. To him in a way they were the same. He was glad if people liked what he did; if they did not, he shrugged his shoulders; he could not help it. The one real guide he acknowledged was his own feeling, the general convenience of himself, and, occasionally, of some one immediately about him. Of very strong feeling he was almost destitute, of a queer analytical one he was constantly possessed. Perhaps it was this that put the uncanny look into his eyes. They were the eyes of some other person looking on at himself, now and then of a mocking friend who was his master. He was distinctly a man who attracted women. It was impossible to help thinking that many had probably loved him. But men were more cautious. In all his life but one man had been his true and fast friend, but it was three years since he had dared to see him. He was writing to him now:—

 

 

“DEAR JACK,

            “To-day I got a paper at Vevey, and see they have tracked us to Lausanne. They will probably not be long in scenting the rest of the trail. To-night we, or I, at any rate, make an effort to get elsewhere. Meanwhile do not be nervous. I shall not be taken alive. After all, Death is but a scene-shifter, but I prefer giving him the signal myself to leaving it to others. I hope that meddling fool, her brother, will be content when he finds that I have escaped him, as I shall do anyway, dead or alive, and that he will not give you any trouble. But I know nothing of legal matters, and, as you see, mean to keep clear of them.

                                                                                  “Yours, old fellow,

                                                                                                          “H. W.”

 

 

            He went to the window again and carefully scrutinized the landscape, then to the back of the house, and looked up at the ruined  châlet, the dark firs, the upper paths that led to higher villages out of sight. He shook his head and returned to the salon. “I suppose it is always so; every place seems safe till one gets to it, and then every other seems safer. I must try Charlotte soon.” He went to the escritoire and opened the deepest drawer inside the flap. He drew out a small pair of Derringers. They were loaded. With grim satisfaction he examined and replaced them. For a moment he stood uncertain, as if he were trying to understand some hidden thing, to force his perception into the future. Then, as if he recognized the folly of inactivity, he went forward quickly.

            “Charlotte!” and he opened the door of the inner room. She started to her feet.

            “Yes—is it anything?”

            “Well—no,” he answered in a leisurely voice, in which there was no alarm, though a suggestion of doubtfulness. “But I think it would be as well to have a talk. “But I think it would be as well to have a talk. We are pretty silent as a rule.” She came slowly into the salon, a tall, slight woman with a pale face, and eyes that were full of fear and sorrow. Her mouth was curved and beautifully formed, her hair was dark, and gathered back into a knot behind. She looked like a loving, tender woman, yet there was an air of strength and determination about her, that made her seem reserved and cold. She had probably been counted both in the days of her happiness and beauty. She hesitated at the doorway, the grey light, her pale face, and plain black dress made her look taller than she actually was. She swayed to and fro for an instant, almost as if she were tottering. She went to the window and looked out, but the brightness blinded her; with a shudder she turned away and stood leaning against the escritoire, waiting for her husband to speak. He scanned her face in an odd, reflective manner.

            “It is strange that you should feel it so much more than I,” he said.

            “Do you not feel it?” she asked, clasping her hands. She had a deep, sweet voice; to which it was impossible to help listening, one realized so keenly the living woman behind it.

            “I suppose I do as much as anyone can; but men take things calmly. Besides, when a deed is done, no amount of feeling will undo it.”

            “Harford,” she cried, yet she spoke in so low a tone that the keenest ears beyond the room could not have caught a sound, “is it true? That is what I am always asking myself—is it a dream, or madness, or truth? It has come on me so suddenly I cannot take it in. I feel as if you cannot have lived these two years since we were married, these three since she died,—you could not have lived so calmly through them if it were true.” He looked at her, the strange expression was in his eyes, he seemed to be watching the effect of every word he said.

            “It is true,” he answered doggedly, “as true as it is that you stand there. I gave her enough poison to kill half-a-dozen women. If any doctor but Jack had been called in, there would have been but one thing for him to do—” She writhed in agony at every word he said, shrinking involuntarily farther away from him. He saw it plainly enough, but it produced no visible effect upon him, except that the odd, interested look on his face grew more intense, as though he were making an experiment and keenly watching its effect. She raised her head for a moment, he saw that her lops were white, he looked gravely into her eyes.

            “How could you live?” she cried. “The shame, the horror, the remorse, why did they not kill you? They are killing me now. In every sound there is a taunt, a threat, a reproach, and everything I see a dead woman’s face—the face of the woman you killed—I can see her even at this moment as plainly as though she were between us—her closed eyes, and still lips, and folded hands. O God, Harford—” but her words had no effect on him.

            “It is very odd,” he repeated, “but it seems as if it had cost you these last few days since you knew, as much as it has cost me all these years since it was done.” She did not answer, she felt bitterly that it was true. The crime had been his; the agony and remorse, the horror and the dread were hers, she had borne them all in the little time since she had known.

            “Has it cost you nothing?”

            “I think it has,” he said, “it has not left me many minutes’ peace since it was done. But men don’t take their pain in the concentrated manner of women.”

            There was a ring of truthfulness in his voice that was some sort of relief to her. She felt as if she could bear anything better than the terrible callousness that added a sting, if a sting were possible, to the knowledge that had come upon her.

            “Why had it been so suddenly discovered now, and why—why did you do it?” she asked, speaking of the thing directly for the first time.

            “I bore it as long as I could, but she made life such that it came to be impossible for us both to live in the same world. It was after I heard that you had come back, and gradually I got possession of the idea that she or I must die. She fell ill, and the devil suggested how it could be managed. I got Jack to come and see her. He being a doctor I thought it would make things right, and that he would never suspect me. But he did. He discovered it the moment he saw her, but she was then past saving. He would have had me hanged if I had not prevailed on him to hold his tongue. “They’ll make him pay for that now, I fear,” he added uneasily. “He agreed to be silent for the sake of byegones and for my mother’s sake” (and he looked towards the faded photograph); “it was when she was failing, and he knew that betraying me would be killing her too.” He was silent a moment as if he expected her to speak, but she did not make a sign. “He made me promise not to see you again,” he went on, “but it was not in human nature to keep that promise. I had married the other woman only in a fit of jealousy, it was not possible to miss the chance when it came, and I found you cared for me still.” But the last words only made her draw back a little farther form him.

            “Did she love you?”

            He went silent for a moment; he seemed to call up some past scene in his mind before he answered:

            “Well, yes,” he said slowly, “she did. I wish she hadn’t. It was long enough before I could get rid of the memory of her eyes following me round and round that room, and looking up gratefully when I gave her the dose that killed her.”

            She locked her teeth to keep her lips still. She could see it all as clearly as if the woman lay dying once more before him. She wrenched her thoughts from the dead woman to the living man.

            “Why did no one suspect before?”

            “It was no one’s business to do so. There was a chattering servant ready to say what she only half thought, but when no fuss was made, and the doctor asked no questions, she forgot it. I gave her ten pounds when she went away, and perhaps she understood she was to hold her tongue. It would never have come out if Tom Carr had not come back; he always hated me, and he was always suspicious. He went poking about and got hold of a chemist’s assistant and of Jack, though Jack said nothing; but that only made matters worse. Then it occurred to the meddling fool to get an order to have the body exhumed. He managed it somehow; I heard it from Jack. He had not spoken to me since the hour we parted by her coffin. But he gave me the hint and we fled. It was lucky we had arranged to go to Italy that very day. No one suspected it was flight, and we got a start.”

            “And if they find you?” she whispered.

            “If they take me, the rest will be easy—for them.”

            “Are you certain they can prove it?”

            He smiled grimly.

            “I was a novice in the art, and merely put the proof into a cupboard till it should occur to some one to look for it. It has been looked for and found; it is virtually proved against me as clearly as if I had given her the dose in public. One would have thought the grave was a good hiding place, but it has been a bad one.”

            She hardly heard the last words. The crime and his calm relation of it were so awful, and, besides, there was the dread of what might overtake him.

            “If they should find you?” she whispered again.

            “If they took me there would be—the hangman’s rope,” he said quietly.

            She raised her hand quickly to her lips to stop a cry that rose to them. Even then he watched her cruelly.

            “It would not hurt much, it would soon be over. There may be something to come.” He said the last words as if he were doubtful, yet politely curious concerning eternity.

            She remembered an account of an execution she had once read. Something had forced her to read it, and for days afterwards it had haunted her. The prisoner was taken from his cell—she dimly saw the ghastly procession that was formed; the death-tolling; the parson in his surplice reading the Burial Service over the living man; into a stone-yard it went, and the hangman was there—he stood beside the man—O God, had she been there? Was it coming true! true of Harford!

            “Would there be no escape?” she asked in an agonized voice. “Surely it would be better to die first—anything rather than that.”

            He was silent for a moment. A gleam of triumph came into his eyes.

            “Yes,” he said, almost with a smile, and pointed to the open drawer. She turned slowly and looked in, then raised her eyes inquiringly to his. In some strange way he seemed to know how it would all be. He took up one of the Derringers and put it to his head, “It will be time enough when they are three steps from the door,” he said.

            A little sense of relief went through her. For one short moment her eyes reflected the triumph of his.

            “One is enough to kill?” she asked.

            “One is enough.”

            “The other will do for me?”

            He looked at her silently; he knew well enough that she meant it.

            “For you?”

            “Yes, for me.”

            “I don’t think you would take like easily without me.”

            Her lips gave out but one word, “No.”

            He considered for a moment.

            “I don’t see why we should not go on together if we are forced to use them. I believe,” and there was an odd sound in his voice, “every atom of me would know it if your lips ever touched another man’s, though I were dust being swept before a March wind like that that howled round us last night.”

            She did not answer, the words seemed so out of place, so foreign to all things possible; they fell almost unnoticed on the space about them. For a minute there was silence. The cold inside the room had become intense; the emptiness exaggerated, the strange atmosphere that had hung over it, had somehow vanished, had gone seeking, perhaps, the fate that was nearing the two who stood together. Outside the sun was still shining, the lake sparkling, the little villages across it stood out distinctly in the clear afternoon light. He saw them through the bars of the shutters, and she, following the direction of his eyes, understood his thoughts. The room was like a prison, yet it felt insecure, as though already it were known and watched. Her teeth chattered with cold, her limbs trembled, her icy hands went for a moment round her throat seeking the little warmth gathered at the back beneath the coil of hair resting low in the nape of her neck. Suddenly she looked up at the man beside her, at his tall figure, at his handsomeness, at his strange, uncertain eyes. She had been very happy with him, and very proud of him. There had been phases during their married life when he had been cold and strange, but never a time, never since she had first known him, when she had not loved him, when he had not seemed like no other man on earth. It was all over. For ever and for ever finished. There was nothing in the living world that could adjust things, no chances, no possibilities that could set them right; nothing that could bring to life a dead woman—a woman whose white face and closed eyes were always before her as though in some dim shadow. They waited, she did not dare to think for what. He, watching her, understood something of what was in her heart. He felt that she had been looking back into the memories of years, that in a measure she had softened towards him. He knew perfectly all that he had been to her. He put out his hand to touch hers. She drew back, but more gently than before.

            “Won’t you kiss me?” he said. “It will probably be all over soon. Charlotte, my wife, won’t you kiss me once more?”

            His words were almost passionate, but his voice was only curious, his eyes were uncertain, he was still in a measure experimenting upon her. He had loved her in the past, and he remembered it; but it was doubtful if he actually loved her much now. She heard his words, but did not move till he repeated them. Then she dragged herself a step towards him, and with an effort put up her face. The touch of his went through her. With a shudder she put the knowledge of all things from her. Her whole heart filled with tenderness—miserable aching tenderness. Weary and desperate she felt as if for a single moment she must feel herself clasped to him once more, it might be for the last time on earth.

            “God help me, Charlotte,” he said. “Let me be what I may, I have loved you with all my heart.” The shifty look had gone from his eyes, his voice was natural. It was as if his life, touching hers, was for a moment purified in it; as if the evil that had possessed him stood a little way off, waiting till she had drawn apart from him. “But you shudder when you come near me now, you are afraid—”

            “No, no,” she said, “not of you; but it seems sometimes as if a mocking fiend possessed you. It is not you of whom I am afraid, but of that—and of what you did.”

            “Have you any love for me still?” She did not answer for a moment. He looked down at her face and mentally traced out the lines that misery had drawn on it. “I can feel that it is all gone,” he said cynically, watching her closely, “you only loved the good in me, and there was never much of that. You loved me while it was easy and convenient. Now you are merely doing your duty, and trying to bear with me. Women are much alike.” He seemed to be comparing her to some one unseen. She looked at him almost in wonder; she raised herself from his arms and spoke in a low voice that seemed to come from the depths of her soul.

            “There has never been a time when I have not loved you,” she said, “not since the day we met first when I was a little girl still. It has grown with me and strengthened with me; it is my life, a thing I cannot shake off. Even though it shrinks from you or makes no sign, it is there—but this,” she said, clasping her hands, “kills me. It is worse than death. I know I dread your touch and shiver at your voice, at your step, and yet I love you. O God! if I could for ever and ever be burnt for you, so that you might be without that crime upon you, it would be sweeter than heaven far.” For a moment she stopped. He did not speak. He looked on as a spectator at that which was written in her eyes, almost afraid of it, though fear of anything else in the world he had none. It was beyond his ken, beyond his grasp, a strange odd thing of which he had been well enough aware before, yet had never wholly realized. He stood waiting for her to speak again, in doubt, almost in awe, like one who has strayed into a church and stands before the altar of a religion at which he had sometimes scoffed but suddenly feels to be true. “It is my life to love you,” she went on, “do not doubt me or think that I shall fail you because I cannot kiss you or let your arms go round me now. There is something that clings to you, though I stand here, and that cannot swerve from you.”

            “Not though you know me for a coward and a murderer?”

            The bitter tears fell down her face, the cold unconscious tears of woe, too great to find other expression.

            “No,” she said slowly, “not even though I know you are a murd—” but her lips refused to say the word. “Oh, that I could have been both for you,” she cried, bowing her head, “could have done the crime and borne the load, and you never knowing.” She put her face down in her hands and rested them in the escritoire. But still he stood silent, almost ashamed, seeing all things clearly as though a door had opened, gazing in wonder at the woman who was his wife.

            “I cannot tell,” he said at last, “what put it into your head to care for me. I have never been fit for you one single moment in my whole life.”

            “Oh yes, yes, you have been, but for this terrible crime.”

            “No. I was never worth your loving,” he said in a low voice, “and yet though I have been not only what you know now, but everything else on earth that was bad, I have loved you.”

            As if her measure were not quite full, some fiend put a sudden though into her heart. She raised her head and looked at him eagerly.

            “Harford,” she said, in a voice that had changed altogether. “You have loved me—well and truly? Tell me that, let me know that, though I do know it, but let me hear you say it.” There was no doubt of this in her heart, it was but to hear him say it, to have his own testimony to his own truth of which she was certain. But he turned his eyes from hers; he could not meet them, and was silent. A new terror possessed her, a strange numbness stole over her. “I do not mean that time before, but since we were married, dear,” she said entreatingly, and a world of tenderness came into her voice. “Since I have been your wife you have loved me truly and been faithful?”

            But still he did not move. There was a long moment’s silence before he spoke.

            “There shall be no lie between us now, Charlotte,” he turned to look at her, but could not meet her eyes. “I have not even been faithful to you. Yet I have loved you, do not doubt that. You have  been the one woman in the world to me.”

            “And yet not faithful even to her?” she said, looking up with eyes that wondered what demon it was had put her heart beneath his feet. She could not say another word, her life seemed to wane, her heart almost to lose its sense of suffering, her senses to stupefy. The whole world had betrayed her, a great avalanche had overwhelmed her. She looked at the sofa, and with her eyes measured the distance between it and the escritoire; with uncertain steps she reached it and hid her face on the hard square pillow. There are limits even to human capacity to feel pain. She sat still and almost senseless, yet understanding plainly all that had overtaken her; as though unable to bear the load longer, she had put it down before her to contemplate.

            The man looked at her wonderingly, doubtful what to do, cursing the folly that had made him betray himself. He had had other things to say when he called her from the inner room.  There was a matter of life and death to arrange, and arrange quickly, and as yet he had not even entered upon it. For a few moments he stood considering, then, kneeling by the sofa, he leant over her.

            “Charlotte,” he said tenderly, “look up. You were always the bravest woman on earth. You are not going to break down now?”

            “No, you need not fear that.”

            “You women do not understand men, the power that mere flesh and blood has over them, and yet the little difference it makes to their best feelings. I have never swerved from you in my heart, even when I have been falsest to you. I have loved no other woman on earth, could have endured life with no other, have trusted thoroughly no other human being. Men and women are different; a man can separate life, feeling one thing for one woman and one thing for another, yet truly love just one. A woman puts all she has on one man, and would think anything short of that treason. I have been a base wretch, a scoundrel, everything that is bad, but you have been the one woman of my life; any good that was in me, any strength, has been spent in loving you, only the badness and weakness have gone elsewhere.” She raised her head. Her face was proud and white. She looked like a statue come to life to know life’s keenest misery.

            “I only saw the good, I did not think the other existed. It seems as if there had been two men, one the man I knew, the other some fiend that mocked and tempted him.”

            “That is so, Charlotte,” he answered simply. She lifted her eyes to his face—the dear face she had loved so well. Good or bad, he was everything to her even now—just her own life, and her heart clung to him as the shipwrecked soul clings with despairing hands to the battered, broken thing that was once a ship with a freight of happy life; clings desperately, knowing that when it is gone there will be only the black water and the everlasting silence.

            “If we could get away into some other world together,” she began with lips that quivered.

            “We will, we must,” he said bitterly.

            “Leaving behind all that has brought us this woe and misery, and begin some new life together—if we could die out of this one we have known, and begin all things afresh,” she went on with a voice full of infinite longing for all that she knew and felt was for ever at an end.

            “My dear,” he said gently, “we must. In one form or other we must die, either by those,” and he made a sign towards the drawer, “or living we must vanish and leave no track behind.”

            “Why?” She put aside the pain that was eating into her heart, to gather strength to face what was coming. “Why?” she repeated, for he hesitated, as if he were loth to break in upon her momentary calmness, her ghost of a dream of a future.

            “I think we are getting towards the end, that this is somehow,” and he looked round the cold bare room, “the last scene of the play.”

            “What do you mean?” She put her hands on his shoulders and forgot everything but his danger.

            “I called you just now to break it to you—”

            “Have they traced us?”

            “Pretty nearly,” and the old calm manner came back as he found himself on the ordinary lines of practical life again. “This morning I bought a paper at Vevey. They have traced us to Lausanne, they will not be long doing the rest. I came back by the upper paths again and looked round the fir-wood above, there is no practicable escape in that direction. But we must get from here at once—as soon as it is dark to-night.”

            “Why not now?”

            “We may be watched, we should certainly be seen. I have thought it out. They may be a little time getting the clue to us; they may not know in the village that the artist has gone and we are here, no one saw us come or has seen us since. To-night, when the old woman is asleep, I will make a new start.”

            “You?” He felt that the tug had come. He knew she would help him, but whether she would trust him too he was curious to find out; for he did not know himself what the result of his going would be, even though he escape safely. How much he still cared for her, and how necessary he would find her he wanted to prove. He had not been able to help wondering how it would feel to be cut adrift, absolutely adrift, from all his present ties and surroundings. The sensations of beginning life again a free man, he felt, would be so exciting. The thought of them made him eager. He was always anxious to see the next moment, to know what might be its secret. He had this feeling, and this only, regarding even death. In death there would be certain escape from the present, and possibly life—life of a sort beyond human experience. He was in no hurry, he was will to go on here if it could be managed. After all, this world might contain many surprises yet; but if it refused him liberty, or threatened still worse, there was the Derringer. In a moment he could give it the slip, and perhaps from across the strange boundary look back, unseen and triumphant, at the things that had perplexed him, the things that in the end he had baffled. Meanwhile he looked at the woman before him, weighing the probabilities that suggested themselves.

            “You?” she repeated.

            “I think it would be better for me to go alone, if you have nerve to stay. I can disguise myself a little and get over the hills behind to the Rhone valley. Perhaps I could cross the lake unnoticed by one of the morning steamers, from a station further on towards Chillon—this end may be watched—and over to Savoy, and there trust to chance; or I may push along the valley, and by some lonely pass into Italy.

            “And I?”

            “And you must stay, and pretend that I am ill to the woman below. She need not enter the bedroom, and will I am here. I must devise some means of letting you know where I am. I will think it over before I start. There will be money at Vevey. You must manage to get it, and, when it is safe, to come to me. I cannot live long without you, but they know we are together, and are less likely to trace us if I start alone. Besides, you could not walk and bear the fatigue that I can. You see I have thought it out. Can you do it?”

            “Yes, I can do it,” she answered, gently. “You know that. You had better go as soon as it is dark. You will get farther on by the morning, and you may even get an early train unsuspected.” She had seen it all in her mind. “It must be getting late, the sun has been behind the house this long time. You must have food. At seven the woman will bring our supper; she had better see you—” She stopped, for he was not listening to her words, but to something farther off—to something outside.

            “I thought I heard a footstep go round the house,” he said. They stood up in breathless silence, for a moment she felt paralyzed. He opened the door, and looked down the stairs, all was dusky and silent. The woman beneath was still sleeping beside the empty stove. He went along the landing to the window at the back of the house, and peered out. He came back quickly, his face pale and determined. He hurried towards the closed shutters, and looked through the bars. Then he turned quietly round.

            “It is too late,” he said, “we are surrounded back and front. They are at the door.”

            For a moment she stood helplessly looking at him, then the dazed feeling seemed to pass from her.

            “What must we do?” she asked, in the voice of a woman awaking.

            “There is only one thing—there is no other chance left.” His anxiety to see how she would act now that the crisis had come seemed to be his strongest feeling.

            “Is there no escape?”

            “None. We will be absolutely certain first; but half-a-dozen men can hardly be round the house for any other purpose.” They stood by the open door of the salon, he with his arm just touching her waist, yet drawing back a little, she leaning forward, her face ashy white, her eyes flashing with a strange fire.

            There was a loud knock at the barred front door, with a wild throb her heart echoed it. They could almost hear the old woman start from her sleep. She pushed back the stool on which her legs had rested, it made a loud grating noise on the stone floor. The knocking was repeated. The two listening above drew closer together. The man cast a hurried glance at the escritoire behind, calculating in his mind the number of seconds it would take to reach it. They heard the old woman go slowly towards the door. The man looked at his wife. The moment had come. With a cry, she threw her arms round him, kissing him as if she would draw her whole soul into her heart.

            “I will not live one hour without you, my love, my own. Oh, if I could but give you my life, my soul, and take yours into mine.”

            “You forgive me?” he said, smoothing back her hair, and looking at her face as he held it between his two hands. The strange light was in his eyes: he could not give himself up wholly to a last farewell. He was alive to the finger-tips with the whole situation, wondering what the next thing would be, in this world or the other. Her agony was odd to him even then, but a great tenderness came into his heart, a great gratitude to this pure woman who had loved him. For the first time he shuddered, though only for a moment, at his own past. He kissed her, and in that last kiss there swept over him the sudden knowledge that here they parted, that in any life to come they would be together no more. Already space seemed to be wrenching them apart, and clearly before his eyes he saw the loneliness of eternity. His heart grew cold, but he made no sign. “You forgive, my darling, I know that,” he said with a long sigh; and then his composure and coolness came back to serve him to the end.

            “Forgive you? don’t ask me that. You know. You are my life, my heaven, my eternity; there is none other for me, and I will have none other. Do life and heaven ask forgiveness?”

            The door opened below, as in a dream they heard their own names uttered. Voices and steps were coming along the passage, were already at the foot of the stairs. There was not a moment left: he looked at her, she understood. Her head had been on his breast, she lifted it; her hands let go—and they had parted. He took the pistols from the drawer, he hid one under the hard cushion of the sofa, looking at her meaningly, with the gleam of triumph in his eyes. The footsteps came round the bend in the creaking stairs. She nodded to him with a scared look on her face, but he was satisfied. He knew she would not fail. The men coming up were in sight of the doorway. In a second she was outside it, holding the door-handle behind in her hands. Tall and erect she stood, without a sign of fear, and faced them.

            “What do you want?” she asked. For a moment they hesitated, as if uncertain what to do. Her hands trembled, otherwise she did not stir, but like a flash it went through her that she was holding the door to while her husband died.

            “Mrs. Hartford Wilson?” one of the strange men said in English.

            “Yes, Mrs. Hartford Wilson,” she answered defiantly. Her heart throbbed. What did the strange silence behind mean? Had he faltered? Was he to be taken after all—taken and hanged as a felon? She could see the executioner beside him. Could he have found some strange means of escape? She had left him with the pistol in his hand. She remembered the second one ready beneath the sofa-cushion.

            “Madame,” said an old man with a silver-headed stick (he was the representative of the police from the village), “you must stand aside, we have to arrest your husband.” They advanced a step—they were four stairs from the top, within two yards of her. She grasped the handle more tightly, almost supporting herself by it; but her calmness staggered the men before her. She looked scornfully at the old man who had spoken.

            “We have a warrant for his apprehension on the charge of murder,” the Englishman said in the business voice of an officer of the law. “You must stand aside,” and he advanced, “or we shall be obliged to use force, and”—there was a sharp report, the sound of a heavy fall. The men started back in dismay. The woman’s hands fell from the handle, and with a click the door opened for an inch or two. A shock convulsed her, yet for a second there was a smile of triumph on her lips, the gleam that had been in Hartford’s eyes seemed to pass through hers, then a cry burst from her.

            “You can enter—there is only a dead man there,” she said, and fell senseless across the doorway.

 

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