The Dweller on the Threshold Part 36

And almost involuntarily Malling found himself echoing:

"Yes, now it will all be different."

He had seen, he had heard, enough to make his report to the professor, and he resolved to go. He held out his hand.

"Oh, but," said Chichester, pressing one hand to his forehead, "I'm so selfish, so forgetful in my great grief! Surely you said you had come on some matter of importance."

"It will wait," said Malling. "Another day. Go and rest now. You need rest. Any one can see that."

"Thank you, thank you," said Chichester, with quivering lips. "You are very thoughtful, very good."

Malling took his hand in farewell. As he did so there was a sharp knock at the front door. Chichester started violently.

"Oh, I do hope it is no one for me!" he cried out. "I cannot--"

He opened the door of the sitting-room a little way and listened. Voices were audible below, Ellen's voice and another woman's.

"You, ma'am! Oh, of course he will see you!"

"Of course."

"I didn't know who it was, ma'am."

"Is it this way?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll show you. We do feel it, ma'am. The poor gentleman used to come here so often of nights."

"Did he? I didn't know that."

Malling recognized the second voice as Lady Sophia's. A moment, and she was ushered into the room. She was dressed in black, but not in widow's weeds, and wore a veil which she pushed hastily up as she came in almost with a rush. When she saw Malling, for a moment she looked disconcerted.

"Oh, I thought--" she began. She stood still. Chichester said nothing, and did not move. Malling went toward her.

"I was very much grieved," he said, "at the news I heard to-day."

She gave him her hand. He knew his words were conventional. How could they be anything else? But Lady Sophia's manner in giving him her hand was not conventional. She stretched it out without even looking at him.

She said nothing. Her eyes were fixed upon Chichester, who stood on the other side of the little room in a rigid att.i.tude, with his eyes cast down, as if he could not bear to see the woman who had just entered.

"I offer you my sympathy," Malling added.

"Sympathy!" said Lady Sophia, with a sharp note in her voice suggestive of intense, almost febrile excitement. "Then didn't you know?"

She stared at him, turning her head swiftly.

"Know?"

"That I had left him? Yes, I left him, and now he is dead. Do you expect me to be sorry? Well, I am not sorry. Ah, I see you don't understand!"

She made a movement toward Chichester. It was obvious that she was so intensely excited that she had lost the power of self-control.

"n.o.body understands me but you!" she cried out to Chichester. "You knew what he was, you knew what I endured, you know what I must feel now. Oh, it's no use pretending. I'm sick of pretence. You have taught me to care for absolute truth and only that. My relations, my friends--ah!

to-day I have been almost suffocated with hypocrisy! And now, when I come here--" she flung out her hand toward Mailing--"to get away from it all--'grieved,' 'my sympathy!' I can't bear any more of that. Tell him!

You tell him! You're so strong, so terribly sincere! One can rest upon your strength when all else fails one!"

She tottered. For an instant it seemed to Malling that she was going to fall against Chichester's shoulder; but she caught at a chair, and saved herself.

"Mr. Chichester!" she said, "tell him! Tell him for me!"

"I have nothing to tell him," said Chichester, with a sort of mild, almost weak coldness, and wearily.

"Nothing!" She went nearer to him. "But--you don't welcome me!"

Chichester looked up, but immediately cast down his eyes again.

"I cannot," he said. "At this moment I simply cannot."

An expression of terrified surprise transformed Lady Sophia's face. She went close up to Chichester, staring at him.

"Why not?" she asked.

"You must know that."

She stood still, always staring at him, as if searching for something which she did not find.

"Why not?" she repeated.

"You left--him when he needed you most. You left him to die alone."

Lady Sophia suddenly turned round to Malling and scrutinized his face, as if demanding from him sympathy in her horrified amazement. He regarded her calmly, and she turned again to the curate.

"What do you mean?" she said, and her voice had changed.

"That his friends can never be yours", said Chichester, as if making a great effort, driven to it by some intense feeling.

"You call yourself his friend!" said Lady Sophia. Her voice vibrated with scorn.

"At any rate, he was mine, my best friend. And now he has gone forever!"

Lady Sophia drew in her breath.

"You hypocrite!" she said. "You hypocrite!"

She spoke like one under the influence of an emotion so intense that it could not be gainsaid.

"To pretend you admired him, loved him--_you_!"

"I did admire and love him."