“And do you think you are to silence the world in this way?” said Saumarez. “Myself, or Rogers perhaps, and your husband if he is such a fool—but——”
“Good-bye,” she said once more.
“Evelyn!” he cried.
“Good-bye.” Mrs. Rowland went out of the house like an arrow from a bow, drawing the door behind her, with a sound that rang through the sleepy street. She came so quickly that she almost discovered a watcher on the other side, intent upon all her movements; that is, she gave him the shock of a possible discovery: for, as for Evelyn, she saw nothing. Her eyes were dim and misty with the heat of indignation that seemed to rise up from her flushed cheeks and panting breath to blind her. She walked away with the impulse of that wrath, at a pace that would have been impossible under other circumstances, walking far and fast, incapable of thinking even where it was that she wanted to go.
The pure air, however, and the rapid movement, soon brought Mrs. Rowland to herself, and she turned back upon her rapid course so suddenly that again—But she did not observe any one, or anything in the road, which, even in this dead season, was sufficiently full to confuse an unaccustomed visitor. She went at once to the telegraph office and sent off the message, as a matter of precaution, sending it to Rosmore, and in duplicate to the house of Sir John Marchbanks, where it was possible Rowland might still be. She added a word of explanation to the message dictated by Eddy. “Don’t be surprised to hear from me, from London,” she wrote, without any recollection of the concise style necessary to a telegram, “all explanations when we meet, and I know you will approve.” When she had sent this off, Evelyn was solaced and more or less restored to herself. She walked back more calmly to the hotel, beginning to feel a little the effect of the morning’s exertions and excitement. But when she reached the shelter of her room, and felt herself alone, and under no restraint from other people’s looks, she was incapable of keeping up any longer. A long fit of crying gave vent to the pent up trouble in her breast. She bent down her head upon her hands and wept like a child, helplessly. When one has been outraged, insulted, hurt in every fibre, and with no power to vindicate or avenge, which are momentary modes of relief—the mingled pain and shame and rage, quite justifiable, yet making up a passion which hurts almost as much as the cause which produced it, lay all one’s defences low. Men even are wrought to tears by such means, how much more a woman, to whom that expression of suffering is always so painfully and inconveniently near.
When Evelyn had overcome this weakness and recovered her confusion, I cannot assert that her mind was easy or her thoughts comfortable. Was she so sure that her husband would approve? Had she not been imprudent and unguarded in what she had done? The thought had not entered her mind before, but the light of a vile suggestion is one that makes the whitest innocence pause and shudder. Could any one else for a moment think——. She said to herself, No, no! with a high head and expanded nostril. But it made her unhappy in spite of herself. It was as if something filthy and festering had been thrown into her mind. She could not forget it, could not throw it forth again, felt its unutterable foulness like a burn or a wound. Rogers, perhaps the servants, might have thought—for servants have dreadful ways of thinking, dreadful back-stair ways, the ideas of minds which peep and watch, and hope to detect. He might have thought—and in that mysterious way in which such whispers fly, it might be communicated to some other privileged attendant, and so go forth upon the air, an evil breath. Was it possible! was it possible! Evelyn seemed to feel already the confusion, the bewilderment, the restless horror of a whispered scandal, an accusation that never could be met, because never openly made, one of those vile breathings which go through society. It is so strange to think that one may one’s self be subject to such an insinuated wrong. Herself! the last person, the most unlikely, the most impossible! It was already a wrong to her that the vile idea should be put within the furthest range of things thought of. And thus Mrs. Rowland spent a very restless and miserable afternoon. She could neither eat nor rest. She put up her “things,” the few necessaries she had brought with her, to be ready for the night train, and tried to still herself, to keep quiet, to read, but without effect. There is nothing so difficult to get through as a day spent in waiting, and it was scarcely past twelve o’clock, when, after all she had gone through, she returned to the solitary empty hotel room, with its big stone balustrade against the window, and the crowd sweeping along below. She went out upon the balcony and watched for the coming of the telegraph boy with an answer to her message. There were dozens of telegraph boys coming and going, and at intervals she could see one below, mounting the very steps of the hotel. But hour after hour passed, and nothing came for her. On two or three occasions she ran to the door of her room, as if that could quicken the steps of the tardy messenger; but among the many people who passed up and down the stairs and looked at her curiously, there was no one bringing the reply upon which all the success of this painful mission hung.
And then it was five o’clock: but not soon, not till months of weary waiting seemed to have passed; and then ensued, to Evelyn perhaps the worst of all, a half-hour of excitement and expectation almost beyond bearing. Would Eddy come? Would he stand by his bargain, though she was not able to do so with hers. It was nothing that he did not appear at the hour. He had never been punctual. He was one of those who do not know the value of time, nor what it is to others to keep to an hour. Nothing would ever convince Eddy that the rest of the world were not as easy in respect to time, as little bound by occupation as himself. He had no understanding of those who do a certain thing at a certain time every day of their lives. The waiter appeared bringing lights, uncalled for, for Evelyn, sitting in the partial dark, looking out upon the lamps outside, felt her heart beating too quick and fast to give her leisure to think of what was required or the hour demanded. He brought lights, he brought tea; he made an attempt, which she prevented to draw the curtains, and shut out the gleaming world outside, the lights and sounds which still seemed to link her with the distance, and made it possible that some intelligence might still come, some answer to her prayer. And then suddenly, all at once, in the hush after the waiter had gone from the room, Eddy opened the door. Mrs. Rowland sprang from her seat as if she had not expected him at all, and his coming was the greatest surprise in the world.
“Eddy! you!”
“Did you not expect me?” he said, astonished.
She drew a chair near her, and made him sit down. “I feel as if I had brought you here on false pretences. I have got no answer to the telegram.”