"Hullo! I thought I"d wait till you came in as they said you"d only just gone out."
"Yes ... yes ... I went down to the end of the road, that"s all."
He poured out two whiskies with a hand that shook badly, and pushed one across to Chris.
"Have a drink?"
Chris tasted it and made a wry face.
"Lord! That"s a strong dose," he said. He added more soda to it, but Feathers drained his at a gulp.
"Well, how goes it?" he asked. He sat down on the other side of the table, so that his face was out of the light. The room to him seemed filled with Marie"s presence. It was so real that he wondered Chris did not guess she had been here.
Chris stood up, his shoulders against the mantelshelf.
His handsome eyes met his friend"s with haggard pain.
"I"ve got something to tell you," he said. "I"m telling you because you"ve always been--been my best friend."
There was a little silence, then:
"Yes," said Feathers hoa.r.s.ely. Chris told his story abruptly.
"Mrs. Heriot went to our place two days ago. You know Miss Webber and I were golfing with them the day before."
"Yes."
Chris flushed and his eyes wavered.
"A d.a.m.nable incident happened when we were down there--Miss Webber ..." He could not go on.
Feathers nodded.
"I know. Don"t trouble to explain. I could see it in Scotland. She thinks she is in love with you--is that it? and told you so? Mrs.
Heriot overheard, or saw, and told ... your wife ... Go on."
Chris looked relieved.
"That"s it, more or less. I swear to you that there was nothing in it on my side at all! I"ve never given the girl a thought, beyond to play golf with her; you know that!"
"Yes, go on!" There was a long silence.
"Marie won"t believe me---" Chris said then brokenly. "She won"t even let me explain. Miss Webber"s brother died unexpectedly, and I took her back home. I only went because Marie and Aunt Madge both seemed to think I ought to. I never spoke a dozen words to the wretched girl the whole way; I didn"t want to go with her. I stayed at an inn in Chester that night--her home is in Chester--and came back as soon as I could the next morning, and this is what I got!
..." He dropped back into his chair despairingly. "She"s done with me," he said hoa.r.s.ely.
Feathers stared at his friend with strained eyes, and after a moment Chris started up once more.
"I"ll kill that Heriot woman if I ever see her again," he broke out pa.s.sionately. "I loathe women! They"re cruel devils to each other!
Why did she want to go and hurt Marie Celeste like that? We were getting on better together--things would have been all right, and then that h.e.l.l-cat must needs come in and ruin everything ..."
His voice was choked and broken.
"She said she hated me--Marie said so," he stumbled on. "She looked as if she meant it, too ... My G.o.d, you don"t know what it was like, to have to stand there and listen! I think I went mad--I know I hurt her, but I didn"t know what I was doing ... I"d give my soul to undo the past three months and start again. It"s all been my fault!" He brought his clenched fist down on the table with a crash. "Blind, insensate fool that I am! I never knew that she was more to me than anything on earth ..."
Feathers closed his eyes, and for a moment there was absolute silence. He had never heard Chris speak with such pa.s.sionate despair before; had not believed him to be capable of so much feeling, and it drove home to him with brutal force the terrible tragedy upon the brink of which they now stood.
It was not merely his own happiness, or Marie"s that was involved, but that of his friend as well, for Feathers knew with unerring instinct that Chris had only spoken the simple truth when he said that he loved his wife. He had been slow to realize it perhaps, but now it had come Feathers knew him sufficiently well to know that it would be deep and lasting.
He braced himself for the thing which he knew was yet to come, and a terrible feeling of enmity rose in his heart against this friend of his, who had never discovered that he loved Marie until the fact that he stood in great danger of losing her, had been driven home to him.
Half an hour ago Feathers had told himself that he must give her up, but now he had forgotten that, and all his love and strength rose in defense of her. She was his--he would hold her against all the world.
Chris was pacing the room agitatedly, and after a moment he broke out again:
"That isn"t all--it isn"t the worst--" he swung round looking at Feathers with haggard eyes. "How would you feel," he demanded hoa.r.s.ely, "if your own wife told you that she cared for another man?"
There was a poignant silence, and as their eyes held one another, the realization came home to Feathers with overwhelming shock, that in spite of everything he had heard, in spite of what Marie herself had told him, Chris still trusted him and believed in him. He tried to find his voice, but it seemed to have deserted him, and as he cast desperately about for words, Chris turned away and flung himself down into a chair, his face buried in his hands.
There was a long silence, then he said in a dreary, m.u.f.fled voice:
"It"s only what I deserve, I know--but ..." He could not go on.
He was up again, pacing the room in a frenzy of impotence.
Feathers watched him for a moment with beaten eyes, then he said jerkily:
"You didn"t--didn"t care for her when you were married, Chris? I thought--wasn"t it--just to get the money?"
Chris turned his haggard face.
"To get what money?" he asked vaguely.
Feathers tried to explain.
"I was told--I understood--that the money was left to your wife--to your wife alone I mean, unless she consented to marry you, and that then ... then you divided it."
Chris laughed mirthlessly.
"Good lord, it was the other way about," he said in a hard voice.
"Her father was always a crank, and he never forgave her for not being a boy--that was why he adopted me. He left every farthing to me--and I knew how proud she was--knew she"d never take a shilling if she was told the truth about the will, so ... so I married her to settle it! It seemed the best way out at the time," he added hopelessly. "I thought I was being rather clever ... I know now what a d.a.m.ned fool I was."
Feathers got up slowly and, walking across to Chris, put his hands heavily on his shoulders, looking at him with desperate eyes.
"Is that the truth?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "Will you swear that it"s the truth?"
Chris stared at him in blank amazement.
"What on earth do you mean? Of course it"s the truth. Ask Miss Chester if you don"t believe me--she"s known about it all along. It was she who first suggested keeping it from Marie ... Here, I say, what"s the matter?"
"Nothing ... I wish I"d known before, that"s all." He laughed grimly. "Aston Knight told me a very different yarn," he broke out with violence after a moment. "He said that the money had been left to your wife, which was why you had married her--and I believed him! My G.o.d, what a fool!"