The Devil's Garden Part 13

"Will!" She had once more scrambled to her knees. "I've loved you faithfully. I've never loved any one but you."

He did not hit her. Grasping the arm that she was stretching toward him, he dragged her upward, seized her round the body, and carried her to the bed.

"Now we'll go to work, you and I." He had thrown her down on her back, and he held her with both his hands about her throat. "Now"--and the sudden pressure of his hands made her gasp and cough--"we'll begin at the beginning."

"Do you mean to murder me?"

"Prob'ly. But not till I've 'ad the truth--and I'll 'aarve it to the last word, if I tear it out o' yer boosum."

"You'll kill me if I tell you."

"See that winder! That's yer road--head first--if you try to lie to me."

Then she told him the whole sickening story of her relations with Mr.

Barradine. He had debauched her innocence when she was quite a young girl; she had continued to be one of his many mistresses for several years; then he grew tired of her, and, his attentions gradually ceasing, he had left her quite free to do what she pleased. She had never liked him, had always feared him. The long intermittent thraldom to his power had been an abomination to her, and it was martyrdom to return to him.

"Only to save you, Will. And he wouldn't help unless I done it. It was as much a sacrifice for you as if I'd been hung, drawn, and quartered for your sake."

"And why did you sacrifice yourself in the beginning, before ever you'd seen my face?"

"Auntie made me. It was Auntie's fault, not mine. I told her I was afraid of him."

"Your aunt had been that gait with him herself, in her time?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Yes, I twigged that--and then the mealy-mouthed, filthy hag came over me. I on'y guessed, but _you_ knew. Answer me;" and his grip tightened on her throat, and he shook her. "Answer."

"Oh, I suppose so."

"And that cousin--the one he paid for in foreign parts?"

"I suppose so."

"Those rooms at the Cottage. They were furnished and set out for you and him to take your pleasure."

"He used them for other women--once or twice."

"What other women?"

"Girls from London."

As he questioned her and listened to her answers his pa.s.sion took a rhythm, upward and downward, from blind wrath to black sorrow; and it seemed that the points reached by the rising curves were becoming less high, while the descending curves went lower and lower, through sorrow into shame, and still down, to fathomless depths of despair. He had heard all that it was necessary to hear. His life that he had thought marvelous and splendid was ridiculous and pitiful; what he had fancied to be success was failure; all that he had been proud of as being gained by his own merit had been brought to him by his wife's disgrace. What more could he learn?

Yet he went on questioning her.

She swore that she had loved him, that she had quite done with the other when she married him, had been true to him in thought and deed ever since their marriage. But she had been tempted two or three times, through her aunt. Mr. Barradine had desired that she should understand with what affection he always regarded her, and he invited her to meet him; and it was the knowledge that he had come to covet her again that made her sure she could get him to do anything for her.

At the same time the knowledge terrified her; and when Dale's trouble began, and things with him seemed to be going from bad to worse, she felt as if a sort of waking nightmare was drawing nearer and nearer.

She wrote to Mr. Barradine, simply asking him to exert this influence on behalf of her husband; and the reply--the letter that she tore up--was in these words: "I will do what I can; but why don't you come and ask me yourself?" Of course she knew what that meant.

It was at the railway station, when bidding Dale good-by, that she made up her mind to save him at all costs. When he refused to act on Ridgett's advice, when he showed himself so firm, so unyielding, she knew that he was a man going to his doom, unless she could avert the doom.

"And, Will--believe it or not--no woman ever loved a husband truer than I loved you at that moment. To see you there so brave and strong and good--and yet certain sure to ruin yourself! Well, I couldn't bear it. And if it was to do again, I'd do it."

Slowly he withdrew his hands from her throat, and clasped them together with all his strength. Turning for a moment, he glanced at the open window. The s.p.a.ce seemed to have contracted and darkened, so that it looked black and small as a square grave cut out for a child.

But if not by the window, what other end to it all would he find? He could not go on like this--with a to-morrow and a day after, and weeks and months to follow.

He turned, and in speaking to her, unconsciously used her name.

"Could you think, Mavis, I cared for my job better'n my honor?"

"I thought you'd never know. And I loved you, Will--only you--no one else."

He scarcely seemed to listen to the answer. He turned from her again; and went on talking, as if to himself or the far-off stars, or the invisible powers that mold men's destinies.

"'Aardn't I my fingers and brains--to work for you? Would I care--so's you could be what I thought you were--whether I broke my back or burst my heart in working for you? Besides, t'wouldn't 'a' bin that. What was it but the loss of the office--a step back that I'd soon 'a'

recovered."

He groaned; then suddenly he unclasped his hands and brandished them.

The rhythmic beat of his rage came strong and high, and with savage energy he seized her again.

"It's half lies still. The money? How does that match? He gave it to you. Deny it if you dare."

"Yes, I tried not to take it. He forced it on me."

"Lies! It was the bit for yourself when you drove your bargain--nothing to do with me--you--you. The price of your two or three nights of love."

"No, I swear. He forced the money as a present. The price he paid was his help to you. As G.o.d hears me, that's the truth."

Then, answering more and more questions, she resumed her story.

After Dale's departure she went over to North Ride, thinking that Mr.

Barradine was at the Abbey, and that he would come to her at the Cottage. She sent a letter inviting him to do so. There was no answer for four days. Then Mr. Barradine wrote to her from London; and she went up on Friday afternoon, and saw him at Grosvenor Place. "He said he'd engaged rooms for me at an hotel, and I was to go there; and I went there."

"What hotel?"

"The Sunderland Hotel--Alderney Street."

"Go on."

"I waited in the rooms."

"Rooms! You mean one room, you s.l.u.t!"

"No, there were four rooms--a grand suite."

"Go on."