your permission, Mr. Cossey, I will order the dogcart as I pass your rooms.”
“Certainly,” said Edward, and in another moment the lawyer was gone.
Mrs. Quest watched the door close and then sat down in a low armchair, and resting her head upon the back, looked up with a steady, enquiring gaze, full into Edward Cossey’s face.
And he too looked at her and thought what a beautiful woman she was, in her own way. She was very small, rounded in her figure almost to stoutness, and possessed the tiniest and most beautiful hands and feet. But her greatest charm lay in the face, which was almost infantile in its shape, and delicate as a moss rose. She was exquisitely fair in colouring—indeed, the darkest things about her were her violet eyes, which in some lights looked almost black by contrast with her white forehead and waving auburn hair.
Presently she spoke.
“Has my husband gone?” she said.
“I suppose so. Why do you ask?”
“Because from what I know of his habits I should think it very likely that he is listening behind the door,” and she laughed faintly.
“You seem to have a good opinion of him.”
“I have exactly the opinion of him which he deserves,” she said bitterly; “and my opinion of him is that he is one of the wickedest men in England.”
“If he is behind the door he will enjoy that,” said Edward Cossey. “Well, if he is all this, why did you marry him?”
“Why did I marry him?” she answered with passion, “because I was forced into it, bullied into it, starved into it. What would you do if you were a defenceless, motherless girl of eighteen, with a drunken father who beat you—yes, beat you with a stick—apologised in the most gentlemanlike way next morning and then went and got drunk again? And what would you do if that father were in the hands of a man like my husband, body and soul in his hands, and if between them pressure was brought to bear, and brought to bear, until at last—there, what is the good of going on it with—you can guess the rest.”
“Well, and what did he marry you for—your pretty face?”
“I don’t know; he said so; it may have had something to do with it. I think it was my ten thousand pounds, for once I had a whole ten thousand pounds of my own, my poor mother left it me, and it was tied up so that my father could not touch it. Well, of course, when I married, my husband would not have any settlements, and so he took it, every farthing.”
“And what did he do with it?”
“Spent it upon some other woman in London—most of it. I found him out; he gave her thousands of pounds at once.”
“Well, I should not have thought that he was so generous,” he said with a laugh.
She paused a moment and covered her face with her hand, and then went on: “If you only knew, Edward, if you had the faintest idea what my life was till a year and a half ago, when I first saw you, you would pity me and understand why I am bad, and passionate, and jealous, and everything that I ought not to be. I never had any happiness as a girl—how could I in such a home as ours?—and then almost before I was a woman I was handed over to that man. Oh, how I hated him, and what I endured!”
“Yes, it can’t have been very pleasant.”
“Pleasant—but there, we have done with each other now—we don’t even speak much except in public, that’s my price for holding my tongue about the lady in London and one or two other little things—so what is the use of talking of it? It was a horrible nightmare, but it has gone. And then,” she went on, fixing her beautiful eyes upon his face, “then I saw you, Edward, and for the first time in my life I learnt what love was, and I think that no woman ever loved like that before. Other women have had something to care for in their lives, I never had anything till I saw you. It may be wicked, but it’s true.”
He turned slightly away and said nothing.
“And yet, dear,” she went on in a low voice, “I think it has been one of the hardest things of all—my love for you. For, Edward,” and she rose and took his hand and looked into his face with her soft full eyes full of tears, “I should have liked to be a blessing to you, and not a curse, and—and—a cause of sin. Oh, Edward, I should have made you such a good wife, no man could have had a better, and I would have helped you too, for I am not such a fool as I seem, and now I shall do nothing but bring trouble upon you; I know I shall. And it was my fault too, at least most of it; don’t ever think that I deceive myself, for I don’t; I led you on, I know I did, I meant to—there! Think me as shameless as you like, I meant to from the first. And no good can come of it, I know that, although I would not have it undone. No good can ever come of what is wrong. I may be very wicked, but I know that——” and she began to cry outright.
This was too much for Edward Cossey, who, as any man must, had been much touched by this unexpected outburst. “Look here, Belle,” he blurted out on the impulse of the moment, “I am sick and tired of all this sort of thing. For more than a year my life has been nothing but a living lie, and I can’t stand it, and that’s a fact. I tell you what it is: I think we had better just take the train to Paris and go off at once, or else give it all up. It is impossible to go on living in this atmosphere of continual falsehood.”
She stopped crying. “Do you really care for me enough for that, Edward?” she said.
“Yes, yes,” he said, somewhat impatiently, “you can see I do or I should not make the offer. Say the word and I’ll do it.”
She thought for a moment, and then looked up again. “No,” she said, “no, Edward.”
“Why?” he asked. “Are you afraid?”
“Afraid!” she answered with a gesture of contempt, “what have I to be afraid of? Do you suppose such women as I am have any care for consequences? We have got beyond that—that is, for ourselves. But we can still feel a little for others. It would ruin you to do such a thing, socially and in every other way. You know you have often said that your father would cut you out of his will if you compromised yourself and him like that.”
“Oh, yes, he would. I am sure of it. He would never forgive the scandal; he has a hatred of that sort of thing. But I could get a few thousands ready money, and we could change our names and go off to a colony or something.”
“It is very good of you to say so,” she said humbly. “I don’t deserve it, and I will not take advantage of you. You will be sorry that you made the offer by to-morrow. Ah, yes, I know it is only because I cried. No, we must go on as we are until the end comes, and then you can discard me; for all the blame will follow me, and I shall deserve it, too. I am older than you, you know, and a woman; and my husband will make some money out of you, and then it will all be forgotten, and I shall have had my day and go my own way to oblivion, like thousands of other unfortunate women before me, and it will be all the same a hundred years hence, don’t you see? But, Edward, remember one thing. Don’t play me any tricks, for I am not of the sort to bear it. Have patience and wait for the end; these things cannot last very long, and I shall never be a burden on you. Don’t desert me or make me jealous, for I cannot bear it, I cannot, indeed, and I do not know what I might do—make a scandal or kill myself or you, I’m sure I can’t say what. You nearly sent me wild the other day when you were carrying on with Miss de la Molle—ah, yes, I saw it all—I have suspected you for a long time,
