Her look of horror and her tone of contempt stung Hindes more than a dozen lashes from her hand would have done.
‘Married!’ he exclaimed; ‘what has that to do with a man’s feelings? Am I blind, deaf, insensible, because I am married. And what about your fine scoundrel over there? You imagine he loves you. Yet, what is he? A married man, and worse than a married man, a thousand times over, for he has left a poor girl who is, to all intents and purposes, his wife, and a child who has the right to call him father, to break their hearts, and perhaps to starve down at Luton, whilst he is philandering after you. Ah! that has touched you, has it?’ he continued almost savagely, as he saw Jenny’s cheeks flush. ‘Well! it is the solemn truth, as I can prove to you. And she is not the only one either. Ask Philip Walcheren! You are one of many, Jenny, though you may wear the wedding-ring upon your finger.’
‘You lie!’ cried the girl vehemently; ‘I am sure you lie, and I will tell my husband every word you say, and he shall punish you for them. You want to frighten me, that is all—you are jealous of my great happiness. I have always suspected you were double-faced, and now I know it. And I hate you—I hate you. And I love my husband as much as I hate you, and nothing shall ever separate us, try as hard as you may. We will be together and together and together, until death.’
She turned, in all her beauty with a mocking smile upon her lovely face, towards him as she spoke, and stepped backwards towards the edge of the cliff. Henry Hindes’ first impulse was to catch her by the wrist to prevent her falling over. But she wrenched it from his grasp.
‘Don’t dare to touch me, you brute!’ she cried excitedly. ‘You want to push me over the cliff now, I suppose!’
God! why did she say the word? Why did she put the idea into his excited brain? It had never entered his head before. He had never thought of her but in kindness. For years past, he had secretly cherished her image, suffering himself to indulge in beatific day-dreams of what his life might have been had Jenny been destined to spend it by his side—had permitted himself to enjoy her presence, to bask in her beauty, to be miserable when the thought crossed his mind that some day he would be assuredly called upon to relinquish her to another man, but never had he done less than love her. But now, as he held her in his power, and she laughed derisively into his face, whilst those words, ‘I hate you,’ still rung on the air, something entered into Henry Hindes that had never been there before. A wild fury that she should spurn him, her friend of years, and love Frederick Walcheren—a mad despair that he would never possess her beauty, and that another had the legal right to gloat over it night and day for all time—whilst he stood apart, baffled and disappointed, and then a desperate resolve to save her from further contamination and himself from a life-longing, and the devil, which is in all of us, glared out of his eyes, as with a single effort, hardly calculating what the effects would be, acting more on the impulse of what he would do, than of what he was doing, he pushed the girl violently from him and sent her light body hurling over the stupendous abyss which separated them from the beach below.
It was done in a second, beyond power of recall. This moment Jenny was standing before him in her mocking loveliness—and the next there was only a void, and not even the impress of her footprints on the short herbage where she had stood.
Henry Hindes remained motionless for the space of half a minute, then sunk down into a sitting position, and trembled as if he were taken with an ague. He did not look over the cliff to see what had become of his victim. He knew but too well! He had glanced over it before he met her, and saw that it consisted of an unbroken line of chalk cliffs, leading precipitately to the shingly shore. He knew what he should see if he looked over, and he dared not look! He only sat there and shook like an aspen leaf. The clammy perspiration rose upon his face, and stood in great beads upon his brow, but he did not raise his hand to wipe it away. He only remained dumb and motionless and trembled. By-and-by some instinct warned him that he ought to move, to go back to the town, and that it would not do for him to be found sitting so close by. Upon this he tried to stand, but found he could not, so turned round and crawled away, for some distance, on his hands and knees. A fresh breeze had sprung up from the sea, and it revived him sufficiently to enable him to stand upon his feet, and to commence with a tottering step to find his way back again. As he did so, he hardly believed that what had happened was real. He must have drunk more than was good for him, he thought, and it was a bad dream that had overtaken him. But a backward glance made the horrid truth too plain. There was the barren cliff, deserted for the time being, whilst all the world of Dover was occupied on the beach, with bathing or flirting or play. There was the very spot where they had stood together on the close grass, besprinkled with pink thrift and stunted daisies—the same irregular edge where she had mocked him, whence he would have saved her if she had let him, but where—
‘I must pull myself together!’ thought Henry Hindes, with a violent shudder; ‘this is not the time or place for me to think about it! It was an awful accident, but nothing more—I would not have injured her for all the world, but it is an awkward time for it to have occurred, and in my presence, too—and I must take measures not to have my name implicated in the affair!’
He looked around with dimmed eyes as he argued with himself, but, far or near, he could perceive no one and no thing, except a few sheep grazing on the stunted herbage. Then he ventured near the cliff—not with his eyes towards that point where she had fallen, but turned the other way, and he saw it was quite deserted, the bathing population being at the further end of the town. Not a soul was on the beach, only a few boats were drawn up high and dry, whilst several more were dancing on the blue waters, laden with fishing nets or pleasure-seekers. The complete seclusion of the place imparted a temporary confidence to him.