CHAPTER XI.
“WHAT’S IN A NAME?”
Colonel Dacre dropped Mrs. O’Hara’s hand as if it had stung him, and darted forward mechanically, as if to catch up to the train; but his companion’s frightened exclamation restored him to himself.
“For mercy’s sake be careful!” she called out, grasping his arm. “If you have left anything in the train you can telegraph.”
He stared at her blankly, and answered in a confused sort of way:
“I am afraid it is no use telegraphing, for I have no idea where to find her.”
“Where to find whom?”
“Lady Gwendolyn St. Maur.”
“She wasn’t in our train, surely?”
“I didn’t know she was, certainly; but I caught a glimpse of her face as it moved off.”
“But wasn’t it odd she did not speak to you, Lawrence? I fancied you were near neighbors at Borton, and very intimate.”
“Exactly,” he replied, in a vague way. “I saw Lady Gwendolyn this morning; but she did not tell me she was leaving Turoy.”
“Perhaps it was a sudden caprice,” replied Mrs. O’Hara carelessly. “But do you intend to stay in Preston to-night, Lawrence?”
“No; I am going on, I think; but, really, I have decided nothing yet. I had better see about your cab, had I not? You are going to a hotel, I presume?”
“Yes; to the ‘George.’ I shall see you a week hence in town, shall I not?”
“If I am alive,” he answered emphatically. “I am quite as anxious as you are to solve this terrible mystery.”
They had reached the end of the platform, and were quite alone for the minute. Mrs. O’Hara turned and faced him.
“Will you answer me one question, Lawrence?” she said.
“I don’t know,” he replied, flushing slightly.
“Are you in love with Lady Gwendolyn St. Maur? You know you may trust me, for I am one of those people who seem very frank, and yet never let out a secret. As I am not supposed to have any I am never even questioned, so that I am really as safe a confidante as it is possible for any one to have.”
“But I don’t need a confidante, Norah.”
“Nonsense,” she said decidedly. “There’s no comfort like talking over one’s troubles to a friend. I declare, when I got into the train this evening, I felt as if my heart were breaking, and now everything seems more bearable. I must tell you that I had a hint a little while ago that you were fond of Lady Gwendolyn, and what I have seen to-night confirms it, so you may as well tell me the truth.”
“Well,” he said, at last, diffidently but proudly, “I do love Gwendolyn St. Maur with all my heart.”
“Then I hope you may win her, if she is worthy of you,” said Mrs. O’Hara, with a cordial smile. “I know she does not like me, and thinks me a very dangerous woman; but then I am the bête noir of all Lady Maur’s friends.”
“Then do try and be more prudent for the future, Norah. You know people always argue that there is no smoke without fire.”
“People aren’t always to be trusted, Colonel Dacre,” she said, with affected formality. “One has heard of reports that were entirely false.”
“In that case, you almost invariably find that it had its origin in some imprudence.”
“Oh!” she answered loftily, “you may put me down for hundreds of those. I never could, would, or should be prudent; it is not in my nature.”
“Then can’t you change your nature, Norah?”
“No; I hate being perfect, and I can’t bear being bored; and if you lecture me any more, Lawrence, I’ll say something spiteful about Lady Gwendolyn: that she paints her cheeks—you know she has a lovely bloom—or dyes her hair—nobody believes in hair nowadays—or anything disagreeable I can think of at the moment; for I want comforting, not scolding, to-night—I do, indeed; and what is the use of a friend if he fails you in your need?”
“My dear Norah, I can assure you I meant to be sympathetic.”
“You ought to be,” she answered, with a dry sob. “I should feel for you if you had lost the only person in the world who really cared for you.”
“You are not quite so unfortunate as that, Norah. You know I have a sincere affection for you, for poor Jack’s sake, and your own as well. The best proof of that is my candor; for if I did not look upon you as a friend, I should not dare to give you good advice.”
“Never mind,” she said, holding out to him the hand with which she had just dashed away her tears. “I couldn’t be angry with you, if I would, for the sake of old times. I hope you will be happy, Lawrence, with all my heart, though your marriage with Lady Gwendolyn will rob me of a friend.”
She stepped into the cab, and, as he waved a last greeting, he little thought how and when they should meet again.
The next six days were passed he hardly knew how. He wandered from station to station on the Great Northern line trying to obtain some trace of Lady Gwendolyn; but without the least success. On the whole, he might as well have looked for a needle in a haystack; but the constant movement did him good, and kept him from absolute despair.
It seemed to him that the very force of his longing must bring them together at last. And so, perhaps, it did; but not as he had pictured and hoped.
It was the seventh day after his parting from Lady Gwendolyn, and, mindful of his appointment with Mrs. O’Hara, Colonel Dacre slept in town overnight, and proceeded to the “Langham” at eleven o’clock the next morning. After making due inquiries, he found that the widow was not there, neither had the manager any letter from her.
As that was the case, he left the hotel, saying he would call again later; and in the evening he presented himself again. This time he obtained more satisfaction. A young lady had just arrived, who had given this name, one of the waiters told him, and had a sitting-room and bedroom adjoining, on the first floor, Nos. 5 and 6.
With the aid of an obliging and comely chambermaid, Colonel Dacre found himself at No. 5 presently, and tapping lightly with his knuckles on the door, received a soft summons to enter. It was nearly dusk now, and he could not see very plainly, still it struck him that the outline of Mrs. O’Hara’s figure had grown very slender in the past week to anything he could remember it these last ten years. Nevertheless, he said, with assurance:
“I was quite afraid I should miss you, after all, Norah. This is the second time I have been to the ‘Langham’ to-day.”
“I am sorry you should be disappointed a second time also,” answered a voice as cold as ice.
“Mrs. O’Hara?” said Colonel Dacre, half inquiringly, half apologetically. “I am afraid I must have made some mistake.”
And he peered forward to obtain a glimpse of the face that was purposely concealed from him. At this moment a hand touched his shoulder from behind.
“Here I am, Lawrence. Have you been waiting long?”
“But surely there must be some mistake. They told me this was the room Mrs. O’Hara had ordered.”
She turned to the waiter, who had followed her and was about to light the gas.
“Didn’t you tell me this was the sitting-room Mrs. O’Hara had ordered?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But it is already occupied.”
He stared stupidly at the shrinking figure near the fireplace, and then a bright idea seemed to strike him.
“Perhaps there’s two Mrs. O’Hara’s, ma’am.”
“I never thought of that; but it isn’t a common name,” replied the widow, with suppressed impatience. “Go and inquire about it, will you?”
“Shall I light the gas first, ma’am?”
“Certainly,” interposed Colonel Dacre, for, although he had not recognized the voice, it had left a strange feeling of expectancy behind, and he longed to see the face to which it belonged. Mrs. O’Hara was simply curious, while her namesake, seeing, no doubt, that escape was impossible, faced her tormentors boldly, like a hunted animal brought to bay.
Somehow, Colonel Dacre was not nearly so surprised as might have been expected, when the sudden light displayed the stately head and beautiful features of Lady Gwendolyn St. Maur. But he was surprised when Mrs. O’Hara, waiting for the door to close upon the waiter, advanced to the table, and said, in a tone of passionate repulsion:
“So it is you, my lady? I wonder you care to be here, although I do not wonder at your sheltering yourself behind an honest name. You have said many spiteful things of me in my time; but it has never been possible to say of me, with truth, that I destroyed a poor soul who loved me only too well.”
“I don’t understand you,” returned Lady Gwendolyn, with all the hauteur of her race.
“No? Then I will endeavor to make myself intelligible. I have just returned from Turoy.”
Lady Gwendolyn was all attention, but not by a movement of the eyelids even did she show interest or apprehension.
“I went there in the company of my solicitor and of a clever detective, whom he always employs when he has any difficult business on hand. The result was to leave us without the least moral doubt that my unfortunate brother came to his death through you.”
A sudden flash brightened Lady Gwendolyn’s eyes, but she answered quietly:
“Pray go on. I suppose you are prepared to prove what you have just stated?”
“Not yet,” Mrs. O’Hara admitted; “but we are fast collecting evidence.”
“Isn’t it a pity to warn me?” inquired Lady Gwendolyn, with quiet scorn. “By the time you have collected your evidence I may have made my escape, you know, since ‘forewarned is forearmed.’”
Mrs. O’Hara looked startled. She had never thought of that. Lady Gwendolyn smiled to herself as she walked up to the mantelpiece and rang the bell.
The waiter came hurrying back, and began, directly he entered the room:
“There are two Mrs. O’Hara’s, ma’am. I thought there must be. The other lady’s rooms are twenty-seven and twenty-eight.”
“Then pray show her there,” interrupted Lady Gwendolyn, turning her back coolly upon the above-mentioned lady.
As to Colonel Dacre, she had never once vouchsafed him so much as a glance. It was sufficient for her that he had come to the “Langham” to meet Mrs. O’Hara, and sanctioned the other’s accusations by his silence. When the room was, as she believed, clear, she flung herself into the nearest chair, with the passionate, indignant air of a woman who feels that she has been insulted as well as injured.
She had no idea Colonel Dacre had remained in the room until he touched her arm, half-deprecatingly, and said:
“Gwendolyn, I want to speak to you.”
She turned upon him almost fiercely then.
“You can have nothing to say that I should care to listen to, Colonel Dacre. You came here to meet Mrs. O’Hara, and therefore I should be extremely sorry to keep you from her.”
“As you know, Mrs. O’Hara and myself are old friends,” he answered quietly. “And when she asked me to meet her here upon business, I had no excuse for declining, especially as I was much interested in Mr. Belmont’s fate on her account. All this past week I have been searching for you most anxiously, and have had no satisfaction excepting a passing glimpse of your face at Preston station.”
“When you were escorting Mrs. O’Hara somewhere, and flirting with her publicly,” put in Lady Gwendolyn.
“I was simply bidding her good-by when you saw me, and that is a ceremony which may very well take place in public.”
“Under ordinary circumstances.”
“The circumstances were by no means extraordinary in our case, Gwendolyn. I met her by chance; we traveled together for a couple of hours; what more natural and commonplace? I have known Mrs. O’Hara for the last ten years, her husband was the best friend I ever had in the world. Would you have had me treat her like a stranger?”
“I have no right to dictate to you,” she answered coldly.
“Indeed, you have every right, Gwendolyn, since I have asked you to be my wife.”
“You forget that I declined the honor.”
“I did not understand you so. You coquetted with my impatience as women are fond of doing, and finally left me in suspense; but you never absolutely refused me.”
“Then I will repair my omission. I beg to thank you for the honor you have done me in asking me to be your wife,” she said, with great formality; “but I have no wish to marry, and have not the confidence in or affection for you that would induce me to change my resolution.”
Although there was a certain insolence in her manner most men would have resented bitterly under the circumstances, he felt too sorry for her, and for himself, to resent what she said. She was casting away not only her happiness, but her safety, and he knew why. In his heart he felt sure that Lady Gwendolyn would have accepted him but for his unfortunate rendezvous with Mrs. O’Hara. He forgot that “trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ”; and she had seen him at Preston station making, as would seem, a very public display of his regard for the handsome widow.
And Lady Gwendolyn was one of those women who would forgive a blow better than she would forgive the least shadow of unfaithfulness. It was useless to make excuses, Colonel Dacre knew, for she would believe her own eyes better than his words; but he could not help saying, deprecatingly:
“I have done nothing to forfeit your confidence, Lady Gwendolyn; but if you do not like me, you are right to deny me. I had hoped different, for—for”—his voice breaking—“I have loved you very dearly. How much, you may, perhaps, know one of these days. I seem to have nothing to hope for in the world now, and yet I do not wish to leave it; because, dreary as my life must needs be, it may still be brightened over in a way by a glimpse of your face.”
“I should be sorry to think you would have no brightness beyond that,” she answered coldly. “But I am sure Mrs. O’Hara will take good care of you in every way.”
“Has it not occurred to you that Mrs. O’Hara and myself may never meet again after to-day?”
“Of course it has not,” she said. “There is nothing to prevent your spending the rest of your lives together.”
“Pardon me, there is one insurmountable impediment.”
She turned and looked at him with a sort of suppressed eagerness in her eyes; but she was too proud to question him outright. However, he saw that she wished him to tell her, and went on:
“The thing that stands in the way of such a consummation, and makes it impossible, is the disinclination on each side. Norah O’Hara, as I told you once before, could never be anything to me but my friend’s widow, and I could never be anything to her but her husband’s friend. I would go a long way to serve her, for the sake of old times; but as to marrying her——However, I ought not to speak in this way,” he added quickly. “Assuredly Mrs. O’Hara would not marry me if I wished it ever so much.”
“How do you know that?”
In spite of the confidence with which he had spoken this question staggered him. It had never occurred to him as possible that Mrs. O’Hara could care for him otherwise than he had said, and yet the suggestion made him uneasy. No man was ever less of a coxcomb, but he was not a fool, either, and this hint had opened his eyes. He began to recall things Mrs. O’Hara had said and done, her evident animus against Lady Gwendolyn, and a sudden, painful instinct of the truth began to dawn upon him.
A scarlet flush mounted to his brows, and he lowered his head under Lady Gwendolyn’s searching glance. He was so chivalrous naturally that it pained him to think Mrs. O’Hara had betrayed her secret, since this must needs be such a deep humiliation to a proud spirit like hers.
Finding he did not answer, Lady Gwendolyn repeated: “How do you know that?” as if she were determined to have an answer.
“One can’t always give a reason for the faith that is in one,” he returned evasively. “Anyhow, supposing what you say were true, I could not help Mrs. O’Hara’s feelings.”
“Unless you had encouraged them.”
“I have never considered it possible for any encouragement of this sort to come from a man. It is your privilege solely, and it would be horribly conceited of us to usurp it.”
“I do not see why a man should not be allowed to show that he appreciates the favor shown him if he really does so.”
“That is a different thing to giving encouragement, as you call it. I like Mrs. O’Hara for old association’s sake; we have always been upon very cordial terms since her marriage to my friend; but as to anything else, I declare on my honor it has never so much as entered my head.”
“If it had, it is no affair of mine, Colonel Dacre,” she answered frigidly. “Mrs. O’Hara is lucky in having a friend, for she certainly needs somebody to give her good advice. It is not either usual or safe to make accusations you cannot prove. If she does me the honor of being jealous of me, and wishes to drive me out of England, she has gone the wrong way to work, for I mean to take a house in London, and live as much en evidence as possible. If Mrs. O’Hara or any one else can prove that I ever spoke to Mr. Belmont in my life, let them do so; but I think they must commence by this. One does not become terribly in love, frightfully jealous, and murderously angry with a perfect stranger, you know.”
“If Mrs. O’Hara finds that you and her brother were perfect strangers, she will withdraw her accusation, of course. And, meanwhile, being false, it need not trouble you.”
“It does not trouble me in the least,” she answered defiantly. “Only give your friend Mrs. O’Hara this word of warning from me: every scandalous word I can trace to her I will make her prove, or she shall take the consequences.”
“I shall not probably see her again, Gwendolyn. From the moment she is your enemy she has ceased to be my friend.”
A rosy flash, such as you see in the clouds at sunset, passed over the girl’s beautiful face. She half extended her hand, then drew it back, saying, with forced composure:
“I have no right to separate you two. Indeed, it would be cruel if I did, since you and I can never be anything more to each other than we are now.”
“Gwendolyn, you will drive me mad! I follow you about like a dog, and get nothing but harsh usage in return. Can’t you teach yourself to be merciful?”
“I must try first to be just.”
“A fig for justice! Who cares to even hear the name?” he cried vehemently. “A woman is never just unless she is supremely indifferent to the person she has to judge, and anything is better than that. I want you for myself, child, don’t you hear?”
He drew closer, and would have taken her hand; but remembering how foolishly weak she had been at their last interview, she took refuge on the other side of the table before she would even parley with him. Then she spoke out loudly and clearly:
“I don’t wish to appear harsh, Colonel Dacre. I have a certain duty to perform, and I stand so entirely alone nowadays that I am obliged to take a very independent tone; but I would not give you unnecessary pain for the world. Indeed, I am very grateful to you for believing in me a little; but you know I have another reason, besides the one I gave just now, for refusing to be your wife. If you could explain satisfactorily about the lady I saw at Borton, and this cruel slander had been silenced, then——”
“Finish your sentence, Gwendolyn.”
“Then I might, perhaps, marry you; but you see, at present, it is out of the question.”
“That I deny. I see no just cause or impediment why we should not be married to-morrow, supposing both of us were willing.”
“But as we are not both of us willing, there is no use in discussing the question any longer. I am so tired. It seems to me I would give everything I am likely to possess in this world for a few hours of oblivion and rest.”
And her face looked strangely haggard and troubled in the strong, white light of the chandelier.
“Only that you are such a will-o’-the-wisp,” he said complainingly. “If I let you go now, I shall never see you again.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said, with a faint smile. “I begin to have a feeling as if I could not escape you if I would.”
“Then why try?” he asked softly.
“Because I can’t help myself,” she answered, with a blush; and then she added desperately: “You must leave me now; I cannot stand any more—indeed I cannot.”
“Will you promise to see me to-morrow, Gwendolyn?”
“I cannot promise anything, for I am too broken down to realize the sense of what I am saying. I will see you if I can, although these interviews only harass us both, and do us no good. Still, since you wish it, I will try to satisfy you, although I feel to-night as if I must be going to have a serious illness.”
Her glittering eyes, white cheeks, and feverish lips showed that there really was something wrong with her; and Colonel Dacre looked at her anxiously.
“You have done too much,” he said. “If I leave you, will you promise to go straight to bed?”
“Yes, that I will, thankfully. Good night.”
The table was not between them now, somehow, and, before she had time to resist, he caught her in his arms, and kissed her lips and eyes in a mad passion of love. Then, without waiting for her reproaches, he hurried from the room.
That night he stayed at the “Langham,” unknown to either Lady Gwendolyn or Mrs. O’Hara. His mind disturbed by the events of the day, he found it impossible to sleep, and yet he knew he should be useless all day unless he could get some rest for his aching brain. Finally it occurred to him that his traveling-flask was full of fine old cognac, and that, as physical exhaustion, as well as mental worry, had something to do with his wakefulness, some stimulant might help him through.
He therefore mixed himself a pretty strong dose—about twice the quantity he would have taken ordinarily—and then lay down again, his nerves wonderfully soothed, and a pleasant languor stilling the riot of his irritable pulse.
His last conscious act was to glance at the clock, and say to himself:
“I must not sleep for more than three hours, at the longest.”
And he fancied—but that must have been the beginning of a grotesque dream—that the clock winked at him, as much as to express, derisively: “We shall see.”