It was not recently painted, I was quite sure of that, and yet it certainly did show her as I had known her during these last few weeks, before death printed that terrible change on her face,—and not as she was in London. But that must be my imagination; the artist had caught her expression at a moment when she was grave and sad; no, not exactly sad, for the lips and eyes were smiling,—a faint, wistful, inscrutable smile like the smile of the Sphinx, as it gazes across the desert—across the world, into space, and eternity.
As I gazed on the brave sweet face, the sordid misery that had enveloped my soul ever since that awful moment when I saw her dead body borne past, in the square, was lifted; and I knew that the last poignant agony was the end of a long path of thorns that she had trodden unflinchingly, with royal courage and endurance for weary months and years; that she was at peace, purified by her love, by her suffering, from all taint of earth.
“Dumb lies the world; the wild-yelling world with all its madness is behind thee!”
I started for England next evening, and travelled right through. I sent one wire to Jim from Berlin and another from Flushing,—where I found a reply from him waiting me. “All well, meeting you.”
That “all well” reassured me, for now that I had leisure to think, my conscience told me how badly I’d treated him and Mary. It’s true that before I started from London with Mishka I wrote saying that I was off on secret service and they must not expect to hear from me for a time, but I should be all right. That was to smooth Mary down, for I knew what she was,—dear little soul,—and I didn’t want her to be fretting about me. If she once got any notion of my real destination, she’d have fretted herself into a fever. But if she hadn’t guessed at the truth, I might be able to evade telling her anything at all; perhaps I might pitch a yarn about having been to Tibet, or Korea, for she would certainly want to know something of the reason for my changed appearance. I scarcely recognized myself when I looked at my reflection in the bedroom mirror at Berlin. A haggard, unkempt ruffian, gray-haired, and with hollow eyes staring out of a white face, disfigured by a half-healed cut across the forehead. I certainly was a miserable looking object, even when I’d had my hair cut and my beard shaved, since I no longer needed it as a disguise. Mary had always disliked that beard, but I doubted if she’d know me, even without it.
I landed at Queensboro’ on a typical English November afternoon; raw and dark, with a drizzle falling that threatened every moment to thicken into a regular fog. There were very few passengers, and I thought at first I was going to have the compartment to myself; but, at the last moment, a man got in whom I recognized at once as Lord Southbourne. I hadn’t seen him on the boat; doubtless he’d secured a private stateroom. He just glanced at me casually,—I had my fur cap well pulled down,—settled himself in his corner, and started reading a London paper,—one of his own among them. He’d brought a sheaf of them in with him; though I’d contented myself with The Courier. It was pleasant to see the familiar rag once more. I hadn’t set eyes on a copy since I left England.
I didn’t speak to Southbourne, though; I don’t quite know why, except that I felt like a kind of Rip van Winkle, though I’d only been away a little more than a couple of months. And somehow I dreaded that lazy but penetrating stare of his, and the questions he would certainly fire off at me. So I lay low and said nothing; keeping the paper well before my face, till we stopped at Herne Hill for tickets to be taken. As the train started again, he threw down his paper, and moved opposite me, and held out his hand.
“Hello, Wynn!” he drawled. “Is it you or your ghost? Didn’t you know me? Or do you mean to cut me? Why, man alive, what’s wrong?” he added, with a quick change of tone. I’d only heard him speak like that once before,—in the magistrate’s room at the police court, after the murder charge was dismissed.
“Nothing; except that we’ve had a beastly crossing,” I answered, with a poor attempt at jauntiness.