"Do you think I should wish to?" asked Sir Adam, bitterly.
"No--of course not. But she may ask you who I was and when we met, and all about it. Try and keep her off the subject. We don"t want to tell lies, you know."
"I shall say that you were Lucy Waring. That"s true enough. You were christened Lucy Waring. She need never know what your last name was.
That isn"t a lie, is it?"
"Not exactly--under the circ.u.mstances."
"And your daughter knows nothing, of course? I want to know how we stand, you see."
"No--only that we have met before. I don"t know what she may suspect.
And your son?"
"Oh, I suppose he knows. Somebody must have told him."
"He doesn"t know who I am, though," said Mrs. Bowring, with conviction.
"He seems to be more like his mother than like you. He couldn"t conceal anything long."
"I wasn"t particularly good at that either, as it turned out," said Sir Adam, gravely.
"No, thank G.o.d!"
"Do you think it"s something to be thankful for? I don"t. Things might have gone better afterwards--"
"Afterwards!" The suffering of the woman"s life was in the tone and in her eyes.
"Yes, afterwards. I"m an old man, Lucy, and I"ve seen a great many things since you and I parted, and a great many people. I was bad enough, but I"ve seen worse men since, who have had another chance and have turned out well."
"Their wives did not love them. I am almost old, too. I loved you, Adam.
It was a bad hurt you gave me, and the wound never healed. I married--I had to marry. He was an honest gentleman. Then he was killed. That hurt too, for I was very fond of him--but it did not hurt as the other did.
Nothing could."
Her voice shook, and she turned away her face. At least, he should not see that her lip trembled.
"I didn"t think you cared," said Sir Adam, and his own voice was not very steady.
She turned upon him almost fiercely, and there was a blue light in her faded eyes.
"I! You thought I didn"t care? You"ve no right to say that--it"s wicked of you, and it"s cruel. Did you think I married you for your money, Adam? And if I had--should I have given it up to be divorced because you gave jewels to an actress? I loved you, and I wanted your love, or nothing. You couldn"t be faithful--commonly, decently faithful, for one year--and I got myself free from you, because I would not be your wife, nor eat your bread, nor touch your hand, if you couldn"t love me. Don"t say that you ever loved me, except my face. We hadn"t been divorced a year when you married again. Don"t say that you loved me! You loved your wife--your second wife--perhaps. I hope so. I hope you love her now--and I dare say you do, for she looks happy--but don"t say that you ever loved me--just long enough to marry me and betray me!"
"You"re hard, Lucy. You"re as hard as ever you were twenty years ago,"
said Adam Johnstone.
As he leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee, he pa.s.sed his brown hand across his eyes, and then stared vaguely at the white walls of the old hotel beyond the platform.
"But you know that I"m right," answered Mrs. Bowring. "Perhaps I"m hard, too. I"m sorry. You said that you had been mad, I remember--I don"t like to think of all you said, but you said that. And I remember thinking that I had been much more mad than you, to have married you, but that I should soon be really mad--raving mad--if I remained your wife. I couldn"t. I should have died. Afterwards I thought it would have been better if I had died then. But I lived through it. Then, after the death of my old aunt, I was alone. What was I to do? I was poor and lonely, and a divorced woman, though the right had been on my side.
Richard Bowring knew all about it, and I married him. I did not love you any more, then, but I told him the truth when I told him that I could never love any one again. He was satisfied--so we were married."
"I don"t blame you," said Sir Adam.
"Blame me! No--it would hardly be for you to blame me, if I could make anything of the shreds of my life which I had saved from yours. For that matter--you were free too. It was soon done, but why should I blame you for that? You were free--by the law--to go where you pleased, to love again, and to marry at once. You did. Oh no! I don"t blame you for that!"
Both were silent for some time. But Mrs. Bowring"s eyes still had an indignant light in them, and her fingers twitched nervously from time to time. Sir Adam stared stolidly at the white wall, without looking at his former wife.
"I"ve been talking about myself," she said at last. "I didn"t mean to, for I need no justification. When you said that you wanted to say something, I brought you here so that we could be alone. What was it? I should have let you speak first."
"It was this." He paused, as though choosing his words. "Well, I don"t know," he continued presently. "You"ve been saying a good many things about me that I would have said myself. I"ve not denied them, have I?
Well, it"s this. I wanted to see you for years, and now we"ve met. We may not meet again, Lucy, though I dare say we may live a long time. I wish we could, though. But of course you don"t care to see me. I was your husband once, and I behaved like a brute to you. You wouldn"t want me for a friend now that I am old."
He waited, but she said nothing.
"Of course you wouldn"t," he continued. "I shouldn"t, in your place. Oh, I know! If I were dying or starving, or very unhappy, you would be capable of doing anything for me, out of sheer goodness. You"re only just to people who aren"t suffering. You were always like that in the old days. It"s so much the worse for us. I have nothing about me to excite your pity. I"m strong, I"m well, I"m very rich, I"m relatively happy. I don"t know how much I cared for my wife when I married her, but she has been a good wife, and I"m very fond of her now, in my own way.
It wasn"t a good action, I admit, to marry her at all. She was the beauty of her year and the best match of the season, and I was just divorced, and every one"s hand was against me. I thought I would show them what I could do, winged as I was, and I got her. No; it wasn"t a thing to be proud of. But somehow we hit it off, and she stuck to me, and I grew fond of her because she did, and here we are as you see us, and Brook is a fine fellow, and likes me. I like him too. He"s honest and faithful, like his mother. There"s no justice and no logic in this world, Lucy. I was a good-for-nothing in the old days. Circ.u.mstances have made me decently good, and a pretty happy man besides, as men go. I couldn"t ask for any pity if I tried."
"No; you"re not to be pitied. I"m glad you"re happy. I don"t wish you any harm."
"You might, and I shouldn"t blame you. But all that isn"t what I wished to say. I"m getting old, and we may not meet any more after this. If you wish me to go away, I"ll go. We"ll leave the place tomorrow."
"No. Why should you? It"s a strange situation, as we were to-day at table. You with your wife beside, and your divorced wife opposite you, and only you and I knowing it. I suppose you think, somehow--I don"t know--that I might be jealous of your wife. But twenty-seven years make a difference, Adam. It"s half a lifetime. It"s so utterly past that I sha"n"t realise it. If you like to stay, then stay. No harm can come of it, and that was so very long ago. Is that what you want to say?"
"No." He hesitated. "I want you to say that you forgive me," he said, in a quick, hoa.r.s.e voice.
His keen dark eyes turned quickly to her face, and he saw how very pale she was, and how the shadows had deepened under her eyes, and her fingers twitched nervously as they clasped one another in her lap.
"I suppose you think I"m sentimental," he said, looking at her. "Perhaps I am; but it would mean a good deal to me if you would just say it."
There was something pathetic in the appeal, and something young too, in spite of his grey beard and furrowed face. Still Mrs. Bowring said nothing. It meant almost too much to her, even after twenty-seven years. This old man had taken her, an innocent young girl, had married her, had betrayed her while she dearly loved him, and had blasted her life at the beginning. Even now it was hard to forgive. The suffering was not old, and the sight of his face had touched the quick again.
Barely ten minutes had pa.s.sed since the pain had almost wrung the tears from her.
"You can"t," said the old man, suddenly. "I see it. It"s too much to ask, I suppose, and I"ve never done anything to deserve it."
The pale face grew paler, but the hands were still, and grasped each other, firm and cold. The lips moved, but no sound came. Then a moment, and they moved again.
"You"re mistaken, Adam. I do forgive you."
He caught the two hands in his, and his face shivered.
"G.o.d bless you, dear," he tried to say, and he kissed the hands twice.
When Mrs. Bowring looked up he was sitting beside her, just as before; but his face was terribly drawn, and strange, and a great tear had trickled down the furrowed brown cheek into the grey beard.
CHAPTER XI
Lady Johnstone was one of those perfectly frank and honest persons who take no trouble to conceal their anxieties. From the fact that when she had met him on the way up to the hotel Brook had been walking alone with Clare Bowring, she had at once argued that a considerable intimacy existed between the two. Her meeting with Clare"s mother, and her sudden fancy for the elder woman, had momentarily allayed her fears, but they revived when it became clear to her that Brook sought every possible opportunity of being alone with the young girl. She was an eminently practical woman, as has been said, which perhaps accounted for her having made a good husband out of such a man as Adam Johnstone had been in his youth. She had never seen Brook devote himself to a young girl before now. She saw that Clare was good to look at, and she promptly concluded that Brook must be in love. The conclusion was perfectly correct, and Lady Johnstone soon grew very nervous. Brook was too young to marry, and even if he had been old enough his mother thought that he might have made a better choice. At all events he should not entangle himself in an engagement with the girl; and she began systematically to interfere with his attempts to be alone with her. Brook was as frank as herself. He charged her with trying to keep him from Clare, and she did not deny that he was right. This led to a discussion on the third day after the Johnstones" arrival.