"Iris," he said, "how long is this to continue?"
"This--what?"
"This life--this miserable solitude and silence."
"Till we die," she replied. "What else do you expect? You have sold our freedom, and we must pay the price."
"No; it shall end. I will end it. I can endure it no longer."
"You are still young. You will perhaps have forty years more to live--all like this--as dull and empty. It is the price we must pay."
"No," he repeated, "it shall end. I swear that I will go on like this no longer."
"You had better go to London and walk in Piccadilly to get a little society."
"What do you care what I do or where I go?"
"We will not reproach each other, Harry."
"Why--what else do you do all day long but reproach me with your gloomy looks and your silence?"
"Well--end it if you can. Find some change in the life."
"Be gracious for a little, and listen to my plan. I have made a plan.
Listen, Iris. I can no longer endure this life. It drives me mad."
"And me too. That is one reason why we should not desire to change it.
Mad people forget. They think they are somewhere else. For us to believe that we were somewhere else would be in itself happiness."
"I am resolved to change it--to change it, I say--at any risk. We will leave Louvain."
"We can, I dare say," Iris replied coldly, "find another town, French or Belgian, where we can get another cottage, behind high walls in a garden, and hide there."
"No. I will hide no longer. I am sick of hiding."
"Go on. What is your plan? Am I to pretend to be some one else"s widow?"
"We will go to America. There are heaps of places in the States where no English people ever go---neither tourists nor settlers--places where they have certainly never heard of us. We will find some quiet village, buy a small farm, and settle among the people. I know something about farming. We need not trouble to make the thing pay. And we will go back to mankind again. Perhaps, Iris--when we have gone back to the world--you will--" he hesitated--"you will be able to forgive me, and to regard me again with your old thoughts. It was done for your sake."
"It was not done for my sake. Do not repeat that falsehood. The old thoughts will never come back, Harry. They are dead and gone. I have ceased to respect you or myself. Love cannot survive the loss of self-respect. Who am I that I should give love to anybody? Who are you that you should expect love?"
"Will you go with me to America--love or no love? I cannot stay here--I will not stay here."
"I will go with you wherever you please. I should like not to run risks. There are still people whom it would pain to see Iris Henley tried and found guilty with two others on a charge of fraudulent conspiracy."
"I wouldn"t accustom myself, if I were you, Iris, to speak of things too plainly. Leave the thing to me and I will arrange it. See now, we will travel by a night train from Brussels to Calais. We will take the cross-country line from Amiens to Havre; there we will take boat for New York--no English people ever travel by the Havre line. Once in America we will push up country--to Kentucky or somewhere--and find that quiet country place: after that I ask no more. I will settle down for the rest of my life, and have no more adventures. Do you agree, Iris?"
"I will do anything that you wish," she replied coldly.
"Very well. Let us lose no time. I feel choked here. Will you go into Brussels and buy a Continental Bradshaw or a Baedeker, or something that will tell us the times of sailing, the cost of pa.s.sage, and all the rest of it? We will take with us money to start us with: you will have to write to your bankers. We can easily arrange to have the money sent to New York, and it can be invested there--except your own fortune--in my new name. We shall want no outfit for a fortnight at sea. I have arranged it all beautifully. Child, look like your old self." He took an unresisting hand. "I want to see you smile and look happy again."
"You never will."
"Yes--when we have got ourselves out of this d.a.m.nable, unwholesome way of life; when we are with our fellow-creatures again. You will forget this--this little business--which was, you know, after all, an unhappy necessity."
"Oh! how can I ever forget?"
"New interests will arise; new friendships will be formed--"
"Harry, it is myself that I cannot forgive. Teach me to forgive myself, and I will forget everything."
He pressed her no longer.
"Well, then," he said, "go to Brussels and get this information. If you will not try to conquer this absurd moral sensitiveness--which comes too late--you will at least enable me to place you in a healthier atmosphere."
"I will go at once," she said, "I will go by the next train."
"There is a train at a quarter to two. You can do all you have to do and catch the train at five. Iris"--the chance of a change made him impatient--"let us go to-morrow. Let us go by the night express. There will be English travellers, but they shall not recognise me. We shall be in Calais at one in the morning. We will go on by an early train before the English steamer comes in. Will you be ready?"
"Yes; there is nothing to delay me. I suppose we can leave the house by paying the rent? I will go and do what you want."
"Let us go this very night."
"If you please; I am always ready."
"No: there will be no time; it will look like running away. We will go to-morrow night. Besides, you would be too tired after going to Brussels and back. Iris, we are going to be happy again--I am sure we are." He, for one, looked as if there was nothing to prevent a return of happiness. He laughed and waved his hands. "A new sky---new scenes--new work--you will be happy again, Iris. You shall go, dear.
Get me the things I want."
She put on her thick veil and started on her short journey. The husband"s sudden return to his former good spirits gave her a gleam of hope. The change would be welcome indeed if it permitted him to go about among other men, and to her if it gave her occupation. As to forgetting--how could she forget the past, so long as they were reaping the fruit of their wickedness in the shape of solid dividends? She easily found what she wanted. The steamer of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique left Havre every eighth day. They would go by that line. The more she considered the plan the more it recommended itself.
They would at any rate go out of prison. There would be a change in their life. Miserable condition! To have no other choice of life but that of banishment and concealment: no other prospect than that of continual fraud renewed by every post that brought them money.
When she had got all the information that was wanted she had still an hour or two before her. She thought she would spend the time wandering about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful city--where all the people except the market-women are young--pleased her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and bought two or three books. She was beginning to think that she was tired and had better make her way back to the station, when suddenly she remembered the post-office and her instructions to f.a.n.n.y Mere.
"I wonder," she said, "if f.a.n.n.y has written to me."
She asked the way to the post-office. There was time if she walked quickly.
At the Poste Restante there was a letter for her--more than a letter, a parcel, apparently a book.
She received it and hurried back to the station.
In the train she amused herself with looking through the leaves of her new books. f.a.n.n.y Mere"s letter she would read after dinner.
At dinner they actually talked. Lord Harry was excited with the prospect of going back to the world. He had enjoyed his hermitage, he said, quite long enough. Give him the society of his fellow-creatures.
"Put me among cannibals," he said, "and I should make friends with them. But to live alone--it is the devil! To-morrow we begin our new flight."
After dinner he lit his cigar, and went on chattering about the future.
Iris remembered the packet she had got at the post-office, and opened it. It contained a small ma.n.u.script book filled with writing and a brief letter. She read the letter, laid it down, and opened the book.