“Suppose it was not so much sorrow as sin? What then? What can you at eighteen—‘nearly eighteen’—know of that? You could not understand if I did speak.”
“Oh yes, I could. I sin myself—often!” cried Betty, with a swift remembrance of all those little things done or left undone which made the failure of her home life. “A girl living at home, with a father and a mother to look after her, has no temptation to any big thing, but it’s just as bad, if she is idle and selfish and ungrateful, and I am all three together many times over. I’d be too proud to say that to you if I saw your face and knew your name; but, as I said before, we are only shadows in a dream to-night. It doesn’t matter what we say. Tell me your trouble, and let me try to understand. It isn’t because I am curious—it isn’t really! Do you believe that?”
“Yes,” he said instantly, “I do! Poor child, you want to help; but I am past that. I have ruined my own life and the life of the man who has been my best friend. I have had my chance—a better chance than is given to most men—and I have made an utter failure of it. If I—went on, it would mean starting again from the very beginning, with the stigma of failure to hinder me at every turn—a hopeless fight.”
“But,”—Betty’s voice faltered nervously—“isn’t it cowardly to run away just when the fight is hardest? A soldier would be called a traitor if he did that. And what would come afterwards? Do you believe that you have a right to take your own life?”
“You mean from a religious point of view. I’m afraid that’s out of my line. I have lost what little faith I had in these last few years. You believe in it all, of course—it’s natural for a girl—but to me the idea of a personal God is as unreal as a fairy tale. It does not touch my position.”
“But just suppose for a moment that it were true. Suppose He does exist, and has been longing to help you all this time—what then?” cried Betty earnestly, and her companion gave a short, derisive laugh.
“It would have been easy enough for Him to have prevented all this trouble! I can see no help in the story of the last few years. Everything has gone against me. In the beginning I borrowed some money—of course, it’s a case of money—to help a friend who was in a tight fix. That was innocent enough. But when the time came round I could not repay the debt, and in my position it was fatally easy to help myself to what I needed. I called it just another loan. I was sure of repaying it before anything was discovered, but again it was impossible, for there were calls upon me which I had not expected. If I had been short in my accounts I should have lost my situation, and it was a handsome one for a man of my age. You won’t understand the details, but I began to speculate, to put off the evil hour, always hoping for a coup which would put everything right; but it never came. I was not helped, you see! Things went from bad to worse, until I could go on no longer. Then in despair I confessed the whole story to my friend—he is a near relation also, but that is by the way. He would not allow the family name to be disgraced; he paid up all that was due, and saved me the shame of prosecution, but even he could do no more. I am sent about my business—a felon in deed, though not in name. Incidentally, too, he is ruined. He must give up his house, remove his children to cheap schools, live in poverty instead of ease. Naturally enough he will have no more to do with me. There is not a soul on earth who would regret me if I passed out of being to-night.”
There was a long silence while the strangely-matched couple wended their way slowly along the bisecting roads which lead from Kensington High Street to Bayswater Road. The fog had slightly lessened by this time, but it was still too dense to show anything but a dim outline of passers-by, and the face of the stranger was but a blur against the darkness to Betty’s searching eyes. Her heart was beating rapidly; she was praying with a whole-hearted earnestness unknown to her usual morning and evening supplications—praying to be guided to say the right thing to save this man’s soul from despair. At last—
“You say you were not helped,” she began timidly; “but if your speculations had succeeded as you hoped, it might not have been really good for you. It would have been easier, of course, but if all had gone smoothly you might have been tempted to do the same thing another time. Perhaps God knew that, and that there was no way of bringing you back to Himself except through trouble.”
The stranger laughed again—his hard, mirthless little laugh.