III
She knew that her moment had come; he knew too—she could tell that because all the way up the Haymarket he said nothing.
Piccadilly Circus was a screaming confusion. A music-hall invited you to come and hear "Harry and Clare, drawing-room entertainers." Lights—red and green and gold—flashed and advised drinks and hair-oil and tobacco. Ladies, highly coloured and a little dishevelled; stared haughtily but inquisitively about them, boys shouted newspapers and dived under horses and appeared, miraculously delivered from the wheels of omnibuses.
It was a rushing, whirling confusion and through it his arm led her, happier in his secure guard than in anything else under heaven.
Regent Street was quiet and softly coloured above the maelstrom into which it flowed. He suddenly began:
"I've got something I want to tell you—something I've wanted to tell you for a long time. You must have seen——"
Her voice coming to her as though it were a stranger's, said, "Yes." At the same time, looking about her, almost unconsciously, she registered her memory of the place and the hour—the shelving street, rising with its lamps reflected, before them, a bank of dark cloud that had suddenly appeared and hung, sinister against the night sky, behind the white houses, a slip of a silver moon surveying this same cloud with anxiety because it knew that soon its darkness would engulf it.
"I've wanted to tell you," he began again, "this long time. It's needed courage, and things during this last year have rather taken my courage away from me."
"You needn't be afraid," she said with a little laugh. "You ought to know by this time that you can tell me anything, Mr. Breton."
"Yes, I do know," he said earnestly. "Of course I know. What you've been to me all this last year—I simply can't think how I'd have kept up if it hadn't been for you."
"Oh, please," she said.
"No, but it's true. Even with you it's been a bit of a fight."
He paused. She saw that the black cloud had already swallowed up the moon and that a few raindrops were beginning to fall.
He went on: "You must have seen that all this time something's been helping me. I've never spoken to you, but you've known——"
The moment had come. Her heart had surely stopped its beat and she was glad, in her happiness, of the rain that was now falling more swiftly.
"I don't know—" he stammered a little. "It's so difficult. It's come to this, that I must speak to somebody and you're the only person, the only person. But even with one's best friends—one knows them so slightly—after all, perhaps, you'll think it very wrong——"
At that word it was as though a great hammer had, of a sudden, hit her heart and slain it. The street, shining with the rain, rose ever so little and bent towards her.
"Wrong?" she said, looking up at him.
"Yes. I don't know about your standards—you've been always so kind to me and put up with my faults and so I've been encouraged——"
Her relief should have awaked the gods of Olympus with its triumph.
"I've meant everything I've ever said——"
"Yes, I'm sure you have and that's why I think you'll understand. As I say, I've got to tell someone or I'll burst. It's just this—it's my cousin Rachel—Lady Seddon. Ever since we first met in your room she's been my whole world. Nothing else has mattered. It's she that's kept me all these months from going under. She's my life, my whole existence now and in the world to come, if there is one. Oh! Thank God!" he cried. "I've told someone at last. If you don't approve I can't help it. I know you'll keep my secret and, after all, it's nothing very terrible. I'm content to go on like this, just seeing her sometimes, writing to her sometimes. Now you know, Miss Rand, what's been my secret all this time. I've felt it's been between us and that's why I had to tell you. We'll be twice the friends that we were now that I've told you. And I must, I must have someone to talk to about her sometimes. It's been killing me, getting along without it."
Now that he had begun words poured from him. He did not know that it was raining; he saw only Rachel with her white face and dark hair.
Lizzie pulled her wrap about her; she was very cold and the rain was coming fast.
He was suddenly conscious of this.
"I say, what a brute I am! It's pouring!" He called a passing hansom and they climbed into it.
He was aware that she had said nothing.
"There!" he said, "you wish I hadn't told you. I know you do. You're shocked."
"No," she said, struggling to prevent her teeth from chattering.
He felt her shiver. "Why! you're shaking with cold! We oughtn't to have walked, but I did so want to speak to you about this. We must talk about it another time. But, I say, you aren't really horrified about it, are you?"
"No," she said again. "Another time though—There must be thunder. This storm makes my head ache."
She could say no more. The rest of the drive was in silence. In the hall she thanked him for her delightful evening.
She looked through the drawing-room door and wished her mother and sister good night, but did not stay to discuss incidents.
"Well," said Mrs. Rand, who had a fine list of questions ready about the play—"There's selfishness!"
Lizzie locked her door, undressed and lay down.
Like a sword jagging through and through her brain and piercing from there down to her heart stabbed the refrain:
"Oh! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!"
So, wide-eyed, she lay throughout the night.