The Bond of Black Part 35

For me the face of the world had changed in those moments. A new and brighter life had come to me.

"Yes," she answered in a low tone, which showed plainly how affected she was. And raising her full, ready lips to mine, she kissed me pa.s.sionately, adding: "You are generous, indeed, Clifton. I feared and dreaded always that you had cast me aside as fickle and unworthy a thought."

"No, no!" I said, my arm around her protectingly. "Think no more of that. Don't let us remember the past, dearest, but look to a brighter future--a future when you will always be with me, my companion, my helpmate, my wife!"

There were tears in her dark eyes, tears of boundless joy and abundant happiness. She had come there half expecting a rebuff, yet had found me ready and eager to forgive; therefore, in a few moments her emotion overcame her, and she hid her tear-stained face in her hands.

The prophecy of the Woman of Evil had been fulfilled. Yet at what cost had I gained this felicity? At the cost of a guilty silence--a silence that s.h.i.+elded her from the exposure of some mysterious, unknown guilt.

Such thoughts I endeavoured to cast from me in the dreamy happiness of those felicitous moments. Yet as I held Muriel in my arms and kissed her pale, tear-stained cheeks, I could not help reflecting upon the veil of mystery which surrounded the woman whose inexplicable influence had caused my love to return to me. In my sudden happiness there still remained the dregs of bitterness--the strange death of the man who had been my most intimate friend, and the demoniacal power possessed by the woman to whom I had unconditionally bound myself in return for Muriel's love.

The words I uttered caused her to hesitate, to hold her breath, and look up at me with those dark, brilliant eyes which had so long ago held me beneath their spell. Again her hand trembled, again tears rose in her eyes, but at last, when I had repeated my sentence, she faltered a response.

It was but a single word, but it caused my heart to bound for joy, and in an instant raised me to the seventh heaven of delight. Her response from that moment bound us in closer relations.h.i.+p than before.

She had given me her promise to become my wife.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

ONE MAN'S HAND.

In the hour that followed many were our mutual declarations, many were the kisses I imprinted upon those lips, with their true Cupid's bow, without which no woman's beauty is entirely perfect.

From her conversation I gathered that the a.s.sistants at the great shop in the Holloway Road were treated, as they often are, as mere machines, the employers having no more regard for their health or mental recreation than for the cash b.a.l.l.s which roll along the inclined planes to the cash-desk. Life within that great series of shops was mere drudgery and slavery, the galling bonds of which only those who have had experience of it can fully appreciate.

"From the time we open till closing time we haven't a single moment's rest," she said, in reply to my question, "and with nearly eighty fines for breaking various rules, and a staff of tyrannical shop-walkers who are always either fining us or abusing us before the customers, things are utterly unbearable."

"Yes," I said, indignantly, "the tyrannies of shop life ought to be exposed."

"Indeed they ought," she agreed. "One of our rules fines us a s.h.i.+lling if after serving a customer we don't introduce at least two articles to her."

"People don't like things they don't want pushed under their noses," I said. "It always annoys me."

"Of course they don't," she agreed. "Again, if we're late, only five minutes, in the morning when we go in to dust, we're fined sixpence; if one of the shop-walkers owes any girl a grudge he will fine her a s.h.i.+lling for talking during business, and if she allows a customer to go out without buying anything and without calling his attention to it, she has to pay half-a-crown. People don't think when they enter a shop and are met by a suave man in frock-coat who hands them a chair and calls an a.s.sistant, that this very man is watching whether the unfortunate counter-slave will break any of the code of rules, so that the instant the customer has gone she may be fined, with an added warning that if a similar thing again occurs she will be dismissed."

"In no other trade would men and women conform to such rules," I exclaimed, for she had often told me of these things before. "Who takes the fines?"

"The firm, of course," she answered. "They're supposed to go towards the library; but the latter consists of only about fifty worn-out, tattered books which haven't been added to for the past three years."

"I don't wonder that such an existence should crush all life from you.

It's enough to render any one old before their time, slaving away in that place from morning till night, without even sufficient time for your meals. But why are you a favourite?" I asked.

She looked at me for an instant, then dropped her eyes and remained silent.

"I scarcely know," she faltered at last, and I scented in her indecision an element of mystery.

"But you must be aware of the reason that you are not treated quite as harshly as the others."

"Well," she laughed, a slight flush mounting to her cheek, "it may be because of my friendliness towards the shop-walker."

"The shop-walker!" I exclaimed in surprise, not without some jealous resentment rising within me. "Why are you friendly towards him?"

"Because it is judicious not to offend him," she said. "One girl did, and within a week she was discharged."

"But such truckling to a greasy, oily-mouthed tailor's dummy is simply nauseating," I cried fiercely. "Do you mean to say that you actually have to smile and be amiable to this man--perhaps even to flirt with him--in order to save yourself from being driven to death?"

"Certainly!" she answered, quite frankly.

"And who is this man?" I inquired, perhaps a trifle harshly.

"The man with whom you saw me on that night when you followed me from Aldersgate Street," she responded.

"That tall, thin man!" I cried, amazed. "The man who was your lover!"

She nodded, and her eyes were again downcast.

I sat staring at her in amazement. I had never thought of that.

"What's his name?" I asked quickly.

"Henry Hibbert."

"And he is shop-walker at your place?"

"Certainly."

"Why didn't you tell me this before, when I asked you?" I inquired.

"Because I had no desire that you should sneer at me for walking out with a man of that kind," she responded. "But now that it is all past, I can fearlessly tell you the truth."

"But what made you take up with him?" I asked, eager now to at least penetrate some portion of the mystery, for I recollected that night in the Park, when I had overheard this man Hibbert's strange conversation with Aline.

"I really don't know what caused me to entertain any regard for him,"

she answered.

"How did it come about?"

"We were introduced one night in the Monico. I somehow thought him pleasant and well-mannered, and, I don't know how it was, but I found myself thinking always of him. We met several times, but then I did not know what he was. I had no idea that he was a shop-walker. It was because of my foolish infatuation, I suppose, that I cast aside your love. But from that moment my regret increased, until I could bear the separation no longer, and I came to-night to seek your forgiveness."

"But what knowledge of this man had you before that night in the cafe?"

I inquired. "Who introduced you?"

"A girl friend. I knew nothing of him before, and have since come to the conclusion that she knew him but slightly."

"Then was he, at this time, engaged in the shop in the Holloway Road?"

I asked, feeling that this fact should be at once cleared up.

"I think so."