A Double Knot Part 72

"Pity? Pity for you! Why, are you not his wife?"

"Yes, yes, yes, but you cannot understand. I cannot explain. Help me to get away from here. I must go--to my friends."

"Go? To your friends?" said the woman, looking perplexed. "What, have you quarrelled already?"

"Oh, do not ask me--I cannot tell you," cried Gertrude piteously; "only help me to escape from here, and I will pray for you to my dying day."

"What good's that?" said the woman mockingly. "I'm so bad that no one could pray me good. I'm a curse and a misery, and everything that's bad. Pray, indeed! I've prayed hundreds of times that I might die, but it's no good."

"Have you no heart--no feeling?" cried Gertrude, going down upon her knees.

"Not a bit," said the woman bitterly. "They crushed one and hardened the other till it all died."

"Let me pa.s.s you then!" cried Gertrude angrily. "I will not stay."

"If I let you pa.s.s, you could not get away. The doors are locked below, and you could not find the keys. You don't want to go."

"What can I say--how am I to tell you that I would give the world to get away from here?" cried Gertrude. "Oh, for Heaven's sake save me before he comes again!"

"He will not come again. He is downstairs drunk. He is always either drunk or mad. And so you are the new Mrs John Huish?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Gertrude; and then wildly, "Tell me, it is not true?

You--you--cannot be his wife!"

"The parson said I was when we were married--Mrs Frank Riversley."

"Ah!" cried Gertrude joyously. "Sometimes," continued the woman, as if she enjoyed torturing her rival; "lately he has called himself John Huish--since he has neglected me so much to go to clubs and chambers."

"Oh!" sighed Gertrude.

"But I never complained."

"I cannot bear this," moaned Gertrude to herself; and then, fighting down the emotion, she crept upon her knees to the woman and clasped her hand.

"Let me go," she moaned. "Let me get away from here, and I will bless you. Ask anything of me you like, and it shall be yours, only get me away."

"You don't want to go," said the woman mockingly. "It's all a sham."

"How can I prove to you that I mean it?" cried Gertrude.

"I don't know; I only know that if I did he would kill me."

"Oh no, no; he dare not touch you. Come with me, then, and I'll see that you are not hurt."

"Are you in earnest? Better not. I ought to be in bed now--sick almost to death. Better stay," she said mockingly. "This may kill me. I hope it will, and then you can be happy--with him!"

"No! no! no!" cried Gertrude wildly. "Never again. I did not know. It is too dreadful! Woman, if you hope for mercy at the last, help me to get away before I see that man again."

"That man? that man?"

"No, no," cried Gertrude wildly. "I cannot explain. It is too dreadful! He is not my husband. He is like him, but he is not him. I don't know what I am saying. I cannot explain it. Only for G.o.d's sake get me away from here, or I shall go mad!"

The woman stood gazing at her piercingly as Gertrude cast herself at her feet.

"You do mean it, then?" she said at last.

"Mean it? Yes. I have been deceived--cheated. This man is--Oh! I don't know--I don't know," she cried wildly; "but pray help me, and let me go!"

The woman gazed down at her for a few moments longer, and then said huskily, "Come!"

Gertrude caught at the hand held forth to her, and suffered herself to be led out on to the landing, and then slowly down the dark stairs of the old City mansion in which they were, till they stood in the narrow hall, where, reaching up, the woman thrust her hand into a niche and drew out a key, and then set down and blew out the light.

Gertrude stood trembling, and she clung to the hand which touched her.

"Afraid of the dark?"

"No, no! But pray make haste; he may hear."

"No. He hears nothing after he has taken so much brandy. He was wild with the other lodgers for interfering; and when he is wild he drinks till he goes to sleep, and when he wakes--"

She did not finish her sentence, but led her companion to the door, unlocked it, and the next moment the cool dank air of the night was blowing upon Gertrude's cheek, as she dashed out into the narrow street, flying like some hunted beast, in the full belief that the steps she heard were those of the man who could not be the husband whom she loved.

Volume 3, Chapter VII.

BETWEEN SISTERS.

"I wished to do everything for the best, my child," said Lord Henry Moorpark. "I did not like the idea, but Elbraham pressed me to come, and for your sake, as Mrs Elbraham is your sister, I gave way. I wish you had spoken sooner. We have not dined with them since we have been married."

It was too late then, for they were in the carriage on the way to Palace Gardens. But the dinner-party was not to pa.s.s off without trouble, for after the ladies had left, and while Lord Henry was fighting hard with a bad cigar, sipping his coffee and listening to his brother-in-law's boastings about the way in which the money market was rigged, the butler entered softly, and whispered something to Lord Henry, who rose on the instant.

"Anything wrong, Moorpark?" said Elbraham, in his coa.r.s.e, rough way.

"Only a call for me," cried Lord Henry hastily. "Pray sit still, and do not let my absence interfere with your enjoyment."

"All right; come back as soon as you can," cried Elbraham; but by that time Lord Henry was in the hall, for the butler had whispered to him that her ladys.h.i.+p had been suddenly taken ill.

To Lord Henry's astonishment, he found Marie in the hall, hastily drawing a long scarf round her neck and over her head.

"Take me home," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, as he hurried to her side.

"My darling! are you ill?" he cried.

"Yes. Very ill, take me home."

"Had I not better send for medical help at once?"

"No, no. Home! home!" she whispered, as she clung to his arm.

"But the carriage, my darling? It will not be here till after ten."