The Shadow of the East Part 24

"You don't deserve her, and she hates the things you do," came the quick retort, and the man who had been speaking laughed.

"But not me," he answered promptly, "and the things I do keep a roof over our heads," he added grimly. "But, see, I will try again--does that satisfy Madame?"

Craven moved forward as he heard her eager a.s.sent and her injunction to "hold that for a few minutes," and in the silence that ensued he reached the door. For a moment his entrance pa.s.sed un.o.bserved.

The stark bareness of the room was revealed to him in a single comprehensive glance and the chill of it sent a sudden feeling of anger surging through him. His face was drawn and his eyes almost menacing with pain as they rested on the slight figure bending forward in unconscious absorption over the easel propped in the middle of the rugless floor. Then his gaze travelled slowly beyond her to the model who stood on the little dais, and he understood in a flash the reason of the old concierge's vigilance as he saw the manner of man she was painting. The slender darkly clad youth with head thrust forward and sunk deep on his shoulders, with close fitting peaked cap pulled low over his eyes shading his pale sinister face was a typical representative of the cla.s.s of criminal who had come to be known in Paris as _les apaches_; no artist's model masquerading as one of the dreaded a.s.sa.s.sins, but the genuine article. Of that Craven was convinced. The risk she had taken, the quick resentment he felt at the thought of such a presence near her forced from him an exclamation.

Artist and model turned simultaneously. There was a moment of tense silence as husband and wife stared into each other's eyes. Then the palette and brushes she was holding dropped with a little chatter to the floor.

"Barry," she whispered fearfully, "Barry--"

Both men sprang forward, but it was Craven who caught her as she fell.

She lay like a featherweight in his strong clasp, and as he gazed at the delicate face crushed against his breast a deadly fear was knocking at his heart that he had come too late. Convulsively his arms tightened round the pitifully light little body and he spoke abruptly to the man who was scowling beside him. "A doctor--as quick as you can--and tell the concierge to come up." Anxiety roughened his voice and he turned away without waiting to see his orders carried out. For a second the apache glowered at him under narrowing lids, his sullen face working strangely, then he jerked the black cap further over his eyes and slipped away with noiseless tread.

With a broken whisper Craven caught his frail burden closer, as though seeking by the strength and warmth of his own body to animate the fragile limbs lying so cold and lifeless in his arms, and he bent low over the pallid lips he craved and yet did not dare to kiss. They were not for him to take, he reflected bitterly, and in her unconsciousness they were sacred.

His eyes were dark with misery as he raised his head and looked about quickly for some couch on which to lay her. But the bare studio was devoid of any such luxury, and with his face set rigidly he carried her across the room and pushed open a door leading to an inner sleeping apartment. Barer it was and colder even than the studio, and its bleak poverty formed a horrible contrast to the big white bedroom at Craven Towers. He laid her on the narrow comfortless bed with a smothered groan that seemed to tear his heart to pieces. And as he knelt beside her chafing her icy hands in helpless agony there burst in on him a tempestuous fury who raved and stormed and called on heaven to witness the iniquity of men. "_Bete! animal!_" she raged, "what have you done to her--you and that rat-faced devil!" and she thrust her bulky figure between him and the bed. Then with a sudden change of manner, her voice grown soft and caressing, she bent over the fainting girl and slipped a plump arm under her, crooning, over her and endeavouring to restore her to consciousness. She snapped an enquiry at Craven and he explained as best he could, and his explanation brought down on him a wealth of biting sarcasm. The husband of _cet ange la_! In the name of heaven! was there no limit to the blundering stupidity of men--had he no more sense than to present himself with such unexpectedness, after so long an absence? Small wonder _la pauvre pet.i.te_ had fainted. What folly! And las.h.i.+ng him with her tongue she renewed her fruitless efforts. But Craven scarcely heeded her. His eyes were fixed on the little white face on the pillow, and he was praying desperately that she might be spared to him, that his punishment might not take so terrible a form. For the change in her appalled him. Slight and delicate always, she was now a mere shadow of what she had been. If she died!--he clenched his teeth to keep silent--must he be twice a murderer? O Hara San's blood was on his hands, would hers also--

He turned quickly as a tall, loosely made man swung into the room. The new-comer shot a swift glance at him and moved past to the bedside, addressing the concierge in fluent French that was marked by a p.r.o.nounced American accent. He cut short her eager communication as he bent over the bed and made a rapid examination.

"Light a fire in the stove, bring all the blankets you can find, and make some strong coffee. I have been waiting for this, the marvel is it hasn't happened before," he said brusquely. And as the woman hurried away with surprising meekness to do his bidding he turned again to Craven. "Friend of Mrs. Craven's?" he asked with blunt directness. "Pity her friends haven't looked her up sooner. Guess you can wait in the other room until I'm through here--that is if you are sufficiently interested. It will probably be a long job and the fewer people she sees about her when she comes to, the better."

The blood flamed into Craven's face and an angry protest rose to his lips, but his better judgment checked it. It was not the time for explanations or to press the claim he had to remain in the room. And had he a claim at all, he wondered with a dull feeling of pain. "I'll wait,"

he said quietly, fighting an intolerable jealousy as he watched the doctor's skilful hands busy about her. Strangers might tend her, but the husband she had evidently never spoken of, was banished to an outer room to wait "if sufficiently interested." He winced and pa.s.sed slowly into the studio. And yet he had brought it on himself. She could have had little wish to mention him situated as she was, the bare garret he was pacing monotonously was evidence in itself that she had determined to cut adrift from everything that was connected with the life and the man she had obviously loathed. His surroundings left no doubt on that score.

She had plainly preferred to struggle independently for existence rather than be beholden to him who was her natural protector. He recalled with an aching heart the swift look of fear that had leapt into her eyes during that long moment before she had lost consciousness, and the memory of it went with him, searing cruelly, as he tramped up and down in restless anxiety that would not allow him to keep still. To see that look in her eyes again would be more than he could endure.

From time to time the concierge pa.s.sed through the room bearing the various necessaries the doctor had demanded, but her mouth was grimly shut and he did not ask for information that she did not seem inclined to vouchsafe. She did unbend so far at last as to light a fire in the stove, but she let it be clearly understood that it was not for his benefit. "It will help to warm the other room, and it has been empty long enough," she said, with a glance and a shrug that were full of meaning. But as she saw the misery of his face her manner softened and she spoke confidently of the skill of the American doctor, who from motives of pure philanthropy had practised for some years in a quarter that offered much experience but little pecuniary profit.

Then she left him to wait again alone.

He could not bring himself to look at the canvases propped against the bare walls, they were witnesses of her toil, witnesses perhaps of a failure that hurt him even more than it must have hurt her. And to him who knew the spirit-crus.h.i.+ng efforts of the unknown artist to win recognition, her failure was both natural and intelligible. He guessed at a pride that scorning patronage had not sought a.s.sistance but had striven to succeed by merit alone, only to learn the bitter lesson that falls to the lot of those who fight against established convention. She had pitted her strength against a system and the system had broken her.

Her studies might be--they were--marked with genius, but genius without advertis.e.m.e.nt had gone unrecognised and unrewarded.

But before the portrait of the strange model he had found with her he paused for a long time. Still unfinished it was brilliantly clever. The lower part of the face had evidently not satisfied her, for it was wiped out, but the upper part was completed, and Craven looked at the deep-set eyes of the apache staring back at him with almost the fire of life--melancholy sinister eyes that haunted--and wondered again what circ.u.mstance had brought such a man across her path. He remembered the fragmentary conversation he had heard, remembered too that mention had been made of the man who was even now with her in the adjoining room, and he sighed as he realised how utterly ignorant he was of the life she had led during his absence.

Had she meditated a complete severance from him, formed ties that would bind her irrevocably to the life she had chosen? He turned from the picture wearily. It was all a tangle. He could only wait, and waiting, suffer.

He went to the window and leant his arms unseeingly on the high narrow sill that looked out over the neighbouring housetops, straining to hear the faintest sound from the inner room. It seemed to him that he must have waited hours when at last the door opened and shut quietly and the American came leisurely toward him. He faced him with swift unspoken inquiry. The doctor nodded, moving toward the stove. "She's all right now," he said dryly, "but I don't mind telling you she gave me the fright of my life. I have been wondering when this was going to happen, I've seen it coming for a long time." He paused, and looked at Craven frowningly while he warmed his hands.

"May I ask if you are an intimate friend of Mrs. Craven's--if you know her people? Can you put me in communication with them? She is not in a fit state to be alone. She should have somebody with her--somebody belonging to her, I mean. I gather there is a husband somewhere abroad--though frankly I have always doubted his existence--but that is no good. I want somebody here, on the spot, now. Mrs. Craven doesn't see the necessity. I do. I'm not trying to shunt responsibility. I've shouldered a good deal in my time and I'm not s.h.i.+rking now--but this is a case that calls for more than a doctor. I should appreciate any a.s.sistance you could give me."

The fear he had felt when he held her in his arms was clutching anew at Craven and his face grew grey under the deep tan. "What is the matter with her?" Something in his voice made the doctor look at him more closely.

"That, my dear sir," he parried, "is rather a leading question."

"I have a right to know," interrupted Craven quickly.

"You will pardon me if I ask--what right?" was the equally quick rejoinder.

The blood surged back hotly into Craven's face.

"The right of the man whose existence you very justly doubted," he said heavily. The doctor straightened himself with a jerk. "You are Mrs.

Craven's husband! Then you will forgive me if I say that you have not come back any too soon. I am glad for your wife's sake that the myth is a reality," he said gravely. Craven stood rigidly still, and it seemed to him that his heart stopped beating. "I know my wife is delicate, that her lungs are not strong, but what is the cause of this sudden--collapse?" he said slowly, his voice shaking painfully. For a moment the other hesitated and shrugged in evident embarra.s.sment.

"There are a variety of causes--I find it somewhat difficult to say--you couldn't know, of course--"

Craven cut him short. "You needn't spare my feelings," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"For G.o.d's sake speak plainly.

"In a word then--though I hate to have to say it--starvation." The keen eyes fixed on him softened into sudden compa.s.sion but Craven did not see them. He saw nothing, for the room was spinning madly round him and he staggered back against the window catching at the woodwork behind him.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he whispered, and wiped the blinding moisture from his eyes. If it had been possible for her gentle nature to contemplate revenge she could have planned no more terrible one than this. But in his heart he knew that it was not revenge. For a moment he could not speak, then with an effort he mastered himself. He could give no explanation to this stranger, that lay between him and her alone.

"There was no need," he said at last dully, forcing the words with difficulty; "she misunderstood--I can't explain. Only tell me what I can do--anything that will cure her. There isn't any permanent injury, is there--I haven't really come too late?" he gasped, with an agony of appeal in his voice. The American shook his head. "You ran it very fine," he said, with a quick smile, "but I guess you've come in time, right enough. There isn't anything here that money can't cure. Her lungs are not over strong, her heart is temporarily strained, and her nerves are in tatters. But if you can take her to the south--or better still, Egypt--?" he hesitated with a look of enquiry, and as Craven nodded, continued with more a.s.surance, "Good! then there's no reason why she shouldn't be a well woman in time. She's const.i.tutionally delicate but there's nothing organically wrong. Take her away as soon as possible, feed her up--and keep her happy. That's all she wants. I'll look in again this evening." And with another rea.s.suring smile and a firm handclasp he was gone.

As his footsteps died away Craven turned slowly toward the adjoining room with strangely contending emotions. "... keep her happy." The bitter irony of the words bit into him as he crossed to the door and, tapping softly, went in.

She was waiting for him, lying high on the pillows that were no whiter than her face, toying nervously with the curling ends of the thick plait of soft brown hair that reached almost to her waist. Her eyes were fixed on him appealingly, and as he came toward her her face quivered suddenly and again he saw the look of fear that had tortured him before. "Oh, Barry," she moaned, "don't be angry with me."

It was all that he could do to keep his hungry arms from closing round her, to keep back the pa.s.sionate torrent of love that rushed to his lips. But he dared not give way to the weakness that was tempting him.

Controlling himself with an effort of will he sat down on the edge of the bed and covered her twitching fingers with his lean muscular hands.

"I'm not angry, dear. G.o.d knows I've no right to be," he said gently. "I just don't understand. I never dreamt of anything like this. Can't you tell me--explain--help me to understand?"

She dragged her hands from his, and covering her face gave way to bitter weeping. Her tears crucified him and his heart was breaking as he looked at her. "Gillian, have a little pity on me," he pleaded. "Do you think I'm a stone that I can bear to see you cry?"

"What can I say?" she whispered sobbingly. "You wouldn't understand. You have never understood. How should you? You were too generous. You gave me your name, your wealth, you sacrificed your freedom to save me from a knowledge of the callousness and cruelty of the world. You saw further than I did. You knew that I would fail--as I have failed. And because of that you married me in pity. Did you think I would never guess? I didn't at first. I was a stupid ignorant child, I didn't realise what a marriage like ours would mean. But when I did--oh, so soon--and when I knew that I could never repay you--I think I nearly died with shame.

When I asked you to let me come to Paris it was not to lead the life you purposed for me but because my burden of debt had grown intolerable.

I thought that if I worked here, paid my own way, got back my lost self-respect, that it would be easier to bear. When you took the flat I tried to make you understand but you wouldn't listen and I couldn't trouble you when you were going away. And then later when they told me at the convent what you had done, when I learned how much greater was my debt than I had ever dreamt, and when I heard of the money you gave them--the money you still give them every year--the money they call the Gillian Craven Fund--"

"They had no right, I made it a stipulation--"

"They didn't realise, they thought because we were married that I must surely know. I couldn't go on living in the flat, taking the allowance you heaped on me. All you gave,--all you did--your generosity--I couldn't bear it! Oh, can't you see--your money _choked_ me!" she wailed, with a paroxysm of tears that frightened him. He caught her hands again, holding them firmly. "Your money as much as mine, Gillian.

I have always tried to make you realise it. What is mine is yours.

You're my wife--"

"I'm not, I'm not," she sobbed wildly. "I'm only a burden thrust on you."

A cry burst from his lips. "A burden, my G.o.d, a burden!" he groaned. And suddenly he reached the end of his endurance. With the agony of death in his eyes he swept her into his arms, holding her to him with pa.s.sionate strength, his lips buried in the fragrance of her hair. "Oh, my dear, my dear," he murmured brokenly, "I'm not fit to touch you, but I've loved you always, wors.h.i.+pped you, longed for you until the longing grew too great to bear, and I left you because I knew that if I stayed I should not have the strength to leave you free. I married you because I loved you, because even this d.a.m.nable mockery of a marriage was better than losing you out of my life--I was cur enough to keep you when I knew I might not take you. And I've wanted you, G.o.d knows how I've wanted you, all these ghastly years. I want you now, I'd give my hope of heaven to have your love, to hold you in my arms as my wife, to be a husband to you not only in name--but I'm not fit. You don't know what I've done--what I've been. I had no right to marry you, to stain your purity with my sin, to link you with one who is fouled as I am. If you knew you'd never look at me again." With a terrible sob he laid her back on the pillows and dropped on his knees beside her. Into her tear-wet eyes there came suddenly a light that was almost divine, her quivering face became glorious in its pitiful love. Trembling, she leant towards him, and her slender hands went out in swift compa.s.sion, drawing the bowed shamed head close to her tender breast.

"Tell me," she whispered. And with her soft arms round him he told her, waiting in despair for the moment when she would shrink from him, repel him with the horror and disgust he dreaded. But she lay quite still until he finished, though once or twice she shuddered and he felt the quickened beating of her heart. And for long after his m.u.f.fled voice had died away she remained silent. Then her thin hand crept quiveringly up to his hair, touching it shyly, and two great tears rolled down her face. "Barry, I've been so lonely"--it was the cry of a frightened desolate child--"if you have no pity on yourself, will you have no pity on me?"

"Gillian!" he raised his head sharply, staring at her with desperate unbelieving eyes, "You care?"

"Care?" she gave a tremulous little sobbing laugh. "How could I help but care! I've loved you since the day you came to me in the convent parlour. You're all I have, and if you leave me now"--she clung to him suddenly--"Barry, Barry, I can't bear any more. I haven't any strength or courage left. I'm afraid! I can't face the world alone--it's cruel--pitiless. I love you, I want you, I can't live without you," and with a piteous sob she strained him to her, hiding her face against his breast, beseeching and distraught. His lips were trembling as he gathered the shuddering little body closely in his arms, but still he hesitated.

"Think, dear, think," he muttered hoa.r.s.ely, "I'm not fit to stay with you. I've done that which is unforgivable."

"I'm your wife, I've the right to share your burden," she cried pa.s.sionately. "You didn't know, you couldn't know when you did that dreadful thing. And if G.o.d punishes you let Him punish me too. But G.o.d is love, He knows how you have suffered, and for those who repent His punishment is forgiveness."