CHAPTER XVIII
CONSCIENCE TROUBLES
LENISE ELROY sat in her bedroom long after Fletcher Denyer left the house. She dismissed her maid before undressing, who, accustomed to her mistress's moods, thought nothing of it.
"I hate being alone," she said to herself, "and yet it is only then I can throw off the mask. I am a wicked woman; at least I have been told so, long ago. Perhaps I am, or was at that time. I wonder if Hector Woodridge is dead, or if he escaped? It is hardly likely he got away. I could wish he had, if he were out of the country and I were safe. It was not my fault altogether; he has suffered, so have I, and suffer still. I loved him in those days, whatever he may have thought to the contrary, but I don't think he loved me. Had Raoul been a man it would never have happened, but he was a weak, feeble-minded mortal and bored me intensely. I ought not to have married him; it was folly—money is not everything. I could have been a happy woman with such a man as Hector. How he must have suffered! But so have I. There is such a thing as conscience; I discovered it long ago, and it has tormented me, made my life at times a hell. I have tried to stifle it and cannot. Ever since that night at Torquay I have been haunted by a horrible dread that he got away on his brother's yacht, the Sea-mew. Captain Bruce is devoted to them, he would do anything to help them. Perhaps it was part of the plan that the Sea-mew should lie in Torbay waiting for his escape. Money will do a great deal, and bribery may have been at work. It seems hardly possible, but there is no telling. The boatman said he was dead, Hackler said the same; they may be wrong—who knows—and at this moment he may be free and plotting against me. I can expect no mercy from him; I have wronged him too deeply; it is not in human nature to forgive what I have done."
She shuddered, her face was drawn and haggard, she looked ten years older than she did an hour ago.
"Do I regret what happened?" she asked herself. She could not honestly say she did; given the same situation over again she felt everything would happen as it did then. It was a blunder, a crime, and the consequences were terrible, but it freed her, she was left to live her life as she wished, and it was an intense relief to be rid of Raoul. She knew it was callous, wicked, to think like this, but she could not help it. She had not been a bad woman since her husband's death, not as bad women go. She had had one or two love affairs, but she had been circumspect, there was no more scandal, and she did no harm. She prided herself on this, as she thought of the opportunities and temptations that were thrown in her way and had been resisted.
"I'm not naturally a bad woman," she reasoned. "I do not lure men to destruction, fleece them of their money, then cast them aside. I have been merciful to young fellows who have become infatuated with me, chilled their ardor, made them cool toward me, saved them from themselves." She recalled two or three instances where she had done this and it gave her satisfaction.
Her conscience, however, troubled her, and never more than to-night. She could not account for it. Why on this particular night should she be so vilely tormented? It was no use going to bed; she could not sleep; at least not without a drug, and she had taken too many of late. Sleep under such circumstances failed to soothe her; she awoke with a heavy head and tired eyes, her body hardly rested.
She got up and walked to and fro in the room. She was debating what to do, how to act. Never since her love affair with Hector Woodridge had she met a man who appealed to her as William Rolfe did. The moment she was introduced to him at the races she knew he was bound to influence her life for good, or evil. She recognized the strong man in him, the man who could bend her to his will; she knew in his hands she would be as weak as the weakest of her sex, that she would yield to him. More, she wished him to dominate her, to place herself in his power, to say to him, "I am yours; do what you will with me." All this swept over her as she looked into his eyes and caught, she fancied, an answering response. She had felt much of this with Hector Woodridge, but not all; William Rolfe had a surer hold of her, if he wished to exercise his power, she knew it.