“A human voice again? I know,” said she, speaking more hurriedly than ever to hide the breaks that would come in her clear tones. “Only don’t trouble, don’t worry yourself. Clarence Massey—bless him!—has been crawling on the ground for me to walk upon him ever since he found I—I—I was coming to—to see you. His grandfather is just dead, and he has come into £4,000 a year, and he wants to bribe all the prison officials with annuities to let you escape. We caught the barrister outside when he left you, and when he said they could not bring it in—the worst——” here her voice gave way, “there was not evidence enough, we could both have kissed him, George; I’m sure we could.”
She had talked herself out of breath, and was obliged to stop, panting and agitated through all her hectic liveliness. George himself was speechless and could do nothing but wring her hands, so she went on again after a moment’s pause.
“You mustn’t expect to get off altogether, I’m afraid. I dare not speak about this much, because it is so dreadful to us all—everybody. But you must keep a good heart, for you have friends as deep as the sea and as firm as the rocks, George; and as for your little wife, why she shall live among us like a qu—queen in exile until her lord comes back again to make her ha—happy.”
The warder had been clicking the keys outside for some minutes; he now gently opened the door and gave a respectful cough. George seized the girl’s hands and pressed upon them kisses that left red marks on the pale flesh before he could let her go.
“God bless you, Ella,” he whispered hoarsely, “you have saved my heart from breaking.”
The next moment the door shut upon her, but the radiance shed upon the bare walls by the pure sweet woman illumined them still.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A night, and a day, and a night, and a day, and again a night passed during which time George heard nothing more of his ministering angel or her promised comfort. Then on the second day his door opened, and a lady to see him was announced. The few instants which elapsed before she appeared were more intensely exciting to him than the pause before the judge pronounces sentence is to the prisoner. It was not Ella; she would have been in like a sparrow before the announcement was well out of the warder’s mouth. His suspense did not last a half-minute. With slow and hesitating steps a woman entered, oddly dressed in garments that were obviously never intended to be worn together; a shabby old grey flannel dressing-gown with scraps of torn lace trailing along the floor behind her, an opera-cloak of light brown satin embroidered in gold thread bordered with sable-tails and fastened by a brooch of sapphires, a battered black bonnet and a lace veil as thick as a mask, formed a costume so grotesque that at the first moment George failed to recognise in the odd figure the luxurious and once daintily dressed Chloris White. The change in her, when she took off her veil as the warder retreated, was even more striking: it appalled George, who had not had enough experience of women of her class and their dismal vagaries to understand this ghastly but common metamorphosis of the beauty of one day to the hag of the next. He had thought in the glare of the sunlight, that afternoon when he had carried her off to the boat, that the liberal daubing of pink and white and black made her beautiful face hideous; now, as she sat, heedless of her appearance, in the full light of the little barred window, her face as innocent of paint as his own, though not so clean, looked, in its withered yellowness, with its sunken eyes and vicious furrows, so inexpressibly uncanny and revolting, that he was forced to acknowledge the wisdom of a practice which disguised in some measure the ugly traces of base thoughts and foul deeds. He had seen her first in all the pride of her vogue, of her success in the career she had chosen; now he saw her in the alternate mood of a degradation, a self-abandonment, a wretchedness, which mocked the possessor of treasures which would have made an art-museum rich, and of jewels and furs which now only served, the former to enhance the weird hideousness of her sallow skin, the latter to emphasise the slovenliness of her attire.
She seemed ill at ease and frightened: the daughter of an English gentleman and an Indian princess, her wayward course of life had reduced her native grace and dignity to mere accidents of mood, and a check or a disappointment made her destitute of either. George was horror-struck, and could not speak, but stood waiting for her to explain the object of her visit. From the moment of her entrance, he had forgotten her connection with Nouna; he was brought back to startled recollection by her first words, which were spoken in a querulous, tearful voice.
“Well, you have sent to ask me where is your wife. It is I who come to ask where is my child?”