"I"m busy. Send her away."
"I"ve got her card here, sir," said Mrs. Flint, dropping her voice.
"It"s a queer name, sir--somethin furrin--Madam somethin. She says it"s _most_ pertickler. I was to tell you she"d only got home to-day, from abroad."
A sudden noise inside. The door was opened.
"Where is she? Ask her to come in."
He himself retreated into the darkness of the studio, clinging, so the charwoman noticed, to the back of a chair, as though for support.
Wondering "what was up," she clattered back again down the long pa.s.sage which led from the sitting-room to the studio.
But Eugenie had heard the opening door and came to meet her.
"Is anything wrong?" she asked, anxiously. "Is Mr. Fenwick ill?"
"Well, you see, ma"am," said Mrs. Flint, cautiously--"it"s the Sheriff"s horficers--though they do it as kind as they can."
Eugenie looked bewildered.
"A hexecution, ma"am," whispered the woman as she led the way.
"Oh!" It was a cry of distress, checked by the sight of Fenwick, who stood in the door of his studio.
"I am sorry you were kept waiting," he said, hoa.r.s.ely.
She made some commonplace reply, and they shook hands. Mrs. Flint looked at them curiously, and withdrew again into the back premises.
Fenwick turned and walked in front of Eugenie towards the table from which he had risen. She looked at him in sudden horror--arrested--the words she had come to speak stifled on her lips. Then a quick impulse made her shut the door behind her. He turned again, bewildered, and raised his hand to his head.
"My G.o.d!" he said, in a low voice; "I oughtn"t to have let you come in here. Go away--please go away."
Then she saw him totter backward, raise an overcoat which hung across the back of a chair, and throw it over something lying on the table.
Terror possessed her; his aspect was so ghastly, his movements so strange. She flew to him, and took his hand in both hers.
"No, no--don"t send me away! My friend--my dear friend--listen to me.
You look so ill--you"ve been in trouble! If I"d only known!
But I"ve thought of you always--I"ve prayed for you. And listen--_listen_!--I"ve brought you good news."
She paused, still holding him. Her eyes were bright with tears, but her mouth smiled. He looked at her, trembling. Her pale charm, her pleading grace moved him unbearably; this beauty, this tenderness--the sudden apparition of them in this dark room--unmanned him altogether.
But she came nearer.
"We got home only this morning. It was a sudden wish of my father"s--he thought Italy wasn"t suiting him. We came straight from Rome. I wrote to you by this morning"s post. Then--this afternoon--after we"d settled my father--I drove to Lincoln"s Inn Fields. And I found them so excited--just sending off a messenger to you. A letter had arrived by the afternoon post, an hour after you left the office. I have it here--they trusted it to me. Oh, dear Mr.
Fenwick, listen to me! They are on the track--it"s a _real_ clue this time! Your wife has been in Canada--they know where she was three months ago--it"s only a question of time now. Oh! and they told me about the theatre--how _wonderful_! Oh! I believe they"re not far off--know it--I feel it!"
He had fallen on his chair; she stood beside him.
"And you"ve been ill," she said, sadly, "and in great distress, I"m afraid--about money, was it? Oh, if I"d only known! But you"ll let me make that right, won"t you?--you couldn"t refuse me that? And think!
you"ll have them again--your wife--your little girl."
She smiled at him, while the tears slipped down her cheeks. She cherished his cold hands, holding them close in her warm, soft palms.
He seemed to be trying to speak. Then suddenly he disengaged himself, rose feebly, went to the mantelpiece, lit another candle, and brought it, holding it towards something on a chair--beckoning to her. She went to him--perceived the unframed portrait--and cried out.
"Phoebe sent it me--just now," he said, almost in a whisper--"without a word--without a single word. It was left here by a boy--with no letter--no address. Wasn"t it cruel?--wasn"t it horribly cruel?"
She watched him in dismay.
"Are you sure there was nothing--no letter?"
He shook his head. She released herself, took up the picture, and examined it. Then she shook out the folds of the shawl, the fragments of the brown paper, and still found nothing. But as she took the candle and stooped with it to the floor, something white gleamed.
A neatly folded slip of paper had dropped among some torn letters beneath the table. She held it up to him with a cry of delight.
He made a movement, then fell back.
"Read it, please," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, refusing it. "There"s something wrong with my eyes."
And he held his hands pressed to them, while she--little reluctantly, wistfully--opened and read:
MY DEAR JOHN,--I have Phoebe safe. She can"t write. But she sends you this--as her sign. It"s been with her all through. She knows she"s been a sinful wife. But there, it"s no use writing. Besides, it makes me cry. But come!--come soon! Your child is an angel. You"ll forget and forgive when you see her.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Be my messenger_"]
I brought Phoebe here last week. Do you see the address?--it"s the old cottage! I took it with a friend--three years ago. It seemed the right place for your poor wife--till she could make up her mind how and when to let you know.
As to how _I_ came to know--we"ll tell you all that.
Carrie knows nothing yet. I keep thinking of the first look in her eyes! Come soon!
Ever your affectionate old friend,
ANNA MASON.
There was silence. Eugenie had read the letter in a soft voice that trembled. She looked up. Fenwick was staring straight before him, and she saw him shudder.
"I know it"s horrible," he said, in a low voice--"and cowardly--but I feel as if I couldn"t face it--I couldn"t bear it."
And he began feebly to pace to and fro, looking like an old, grey-haired man in the dim grotesqueness of the light. Eugenie understood. She felt, with mingled dread and pity, that she was in the presence of a weakness which represented far more than the immediate emotion; was the culmination, indeed, of a long, disintegrating process.
She hesitated--moved--wavered--then took courage again.
"Come and sit down," she said, gently.
And, going up to him, she took him by the arm and led him back to his chair.
He sank upon it, his eyes hanging on her. She stooped over him.