But now he was done for! True, he was to-day a widower, and was therefore in a position to marry the woman whom he loved with a passion which seemed only to grow stronger as the complications increased. But he would be obliged to lie to her daily, throughout his life: there would always be this pitiable barrier of deception between them. And, moreover, the tragedy of Dolly’s death so filled his mind that any advantage it might have to himself was hardly able to be realized. He was profoundly shocked at her pitiable end, and its consequences were enveloped in gloom.
Even though Mrs. Darling were to hold her tongue, the Eversfield estate would none the less be wholly lost to him now, nor would his son ever reign there as a Tundering-West; for were he to lay claim to the property, or reveal the fact that he, James Tundering-West, was alive, Monimé would think he had gone to England and had done Dolly to death so as to be free to marry again. How could she think otherwise?
And, again, though he were for the time being to escape from the arm of the law, he could only marry Monimé at the risk of dragging her into a possible scandal in the future.
He paced his bedroom in his despair, now cursing himself for his actions, now screwing up his eyes to shut out the pitiful picture of Dolly, now laughing aloud, like a madman, at the nightmare of his own position. One thing was certain: he must leave England this very morning and make his way back to Cyprus or Egypt, or somewhere. Already Mrs. Darling might have notified the police. Fortunately she did not know his address, nor had she ever heard the name “Easton,” but doubtless the ports would be watched, and were he to delay his departure he would be caught.
In sudden haste which bordered on frenzy he packed his portmanteau and rang for his bill; and soon he was driving to the station, a huddled figure with hat pulled down over his eyes. He was far too early for the train, and, during the long wait every pair of eyes which looked into his set his heart beating with apprehension.
He had always been an outlaw: he had never fully understood the basis of society, nor were the habits of the community altogether intelligible to him. He had gone his own ways, and had left organized humanity to go theirs. They had not molested one another. But now the State had a grievance against him, and soon it would be feeling out for him with its millions of antennæ, searching over hill and dale, city and field, with waving, creeping tentacles. He would have to duck and dodge continuously to avoid being caught, and always there would be in his heart the terror of that cruel, relentless mouth waiting to suck the life out of him.
His relief was intense when at the end of the day he found himself, still unmolested, in Paris. But he did not here stay his flight. All through the night he journeyed southwards, sitting with lolling head in the corner of a third-class compartment in a slow train—a mode of travelling which he had deemed the least conspicuous.
At length, upon the following evening, he reached Marseilles, where he put up at a small hotel at which he had stayed more than once under the name of Easton. He told the proprietor he had just come from Italy, a remark which led him to a frenzied erasing of labels from his baggage in his bedroom.
The next morning he made inquiries as to the steamers sailing east, and was relieved to find that a French liner was leaving for Alexandria in a few hours. He obtained a berth without difficulty and, after a period of horrible anxiety at the docks, found himself once more upon the high seas, the menace of the western world fading into the distance behind him, and the greater chances of the Orient ahead.