The time hung heavy on her hands. She could do nothing, read nothing, think of nothing--except of the unhappy man within those walls, who had been brought to death"s door, and who must have known a living death for the past six months. To her, merely looking at the walls and thinking of their victim, every minute seemed an hour, and every hour a day of blank despair. What must the minutes and hours have seemed to him, buried alive in that hideous pile of bricks, and in the yet more hideous pile of false accusations and unmerited disgrace?
She had found out the date of the trial, and procured the papers in which it was reported. The whole wretched story was before her now. She saw how the web had been weaved round him; she understood the pains which had been taken to keep her own name from being mentioned, and she noted with burning indignation the persistency with which Sydney had labored, apparently, to secure a conviction.
She was on the point of seeking out Mr. Larmer, in order to learn from him the a.s.surance of innocence which Alan must have given to his solicitor; but she refrained. It would look as though she wanted evidence of what she believed so absolutely without any evidence; and besides, was it not one of the pleasures which she had promised herself, to hear from Alan"s own lips all that he cared for her to hear?
She stood by her window in the evening, and saw the lights spring up one by one about the frowning gates of the prison. She was quite alone, Milly having gone out with her baby to buy her some clothes. Lettice was miserable and depressed, in spite of her good intentions; and as she stood, half leaning against the shutter in unconscious weariness of body, yet intent with all her mind upon the one subject that engrossed her, she heard the distant stroke of a tolling bell.
Dong!--dong!--dong! it sounded, with long intervals between the notes.
Straight across the vacant ground, from the shrouded walls of Alan"s dungeon, and into the contracting fibres of her own tortured heart; it smote with sudden terror, turning her blood to ice and her cheeks to livid whiteness.
Great heaven, it was a death-knell. Could it be Alan who was dead!
For a moment she felt as if she must needs rush into the street and break open those prison gates, must ascertain at once that Alan was still alive. She went out into the hall and stood for a moment hesitating. Should she go? and would they tell her at the gates if Alan was alive or dead?
The landlady heard her moving, and came out of a little apartment at the back of the house, to see what was going on.
"Were you going out, ma"am?" she asked, curiously.
"I? no; at least," said Lettice, with somewhat difficult utterance, "I was only wondering what that bell was, and----"
"Oh, that"s a bell from the church close by. Sounds exactly like a pa.s.sing-bell, don"t it, ma"am? And appropriate too. For my son, who is one of the warders, as I think I"ve mentioned to you, was here this afternoon, and tells me that one of the prisoners is dead. A gentleman, too: the one that there was so much talk about a little while ago."
Lettice leaned against the pa.s.sage wall, glad that in the gathering darkness her face could not be seen.
"Was his name--Walcott?" she asked.
"Yes, that was it. At least I think so. I know it was Wal--something. He was in for a.s.sault, I believe, and a nicer, quieter-spoken gentleman, my son says he never saw. But he died this afternoon, I understand, between five and six o"clock--just as his time was nearly out, too, poor man."
Lettice made no answer. She stole back into her sitting-room and shut the door.
So this was the end. The prisoner was released, indeed; but no mortal voice had told him he was free, no earthly friend had met him at the door.
She fell on her knees, and prayed that the soul which had been persecuted might have rest. Then, when the last stroke of the bell had died away, she sat down in mute despair, and felt that she had lost the best thing life had to give her.
Outside upon the pavement men and women were pa.s.sing to and fro. There was no forecourt to the house; pa.s.sers-by walked close to the windows; they could look in if they tried. Lettice had not lighted a candle, and had not drawn her blinds, but a gas-lamp standing just in front threw a feeble glimmer into the room, which fell upon her where she sat. As the shadows deepened the light grew stronger, and falling direct upon her eyes, roused her at last from the lethargy into which she had sunk.
She got up and walked to the window, intending to close the shutters.
Listlessly for a moment she looked out into the street, where the gas-light flickered upon the meeting streams of humanity--old folk and young, busy and idle, hopeful and despairing, all bent on their own designs, heedless like herself of the jostling world around them.
She had the shutter in her hand, and was turning it upon its hinges, when a face in the crowd suddenly arrested her. She had seen it once, that ghastly painted face, and it had haunted her in her dreams for weeks and months afterwards. It had tyrannized over her in her sickness, and only left her in peace when she began to recover her strength under the bright Italian skies. And now she saw her again, the wife who had wrecked her husband"s happiness, for whom he had lingered in a cruel prison, who flaunted herself in the streets whilst Alan"s brave and generous heart was stilled for ever.
Cora turned her face as she pa.s.sed the window, and looked in. She might not in that uncertain light have recognized the woman whose form stood out from the darkness behind her, but an impulse moved Lettice which she could not resist. At the moment when the other turned her head she beckoned to her with her hand, and quickly threw up the sash of the window.
"Mon Dieu!" said Cora, coming up close to her, "is it really you? What do you want with me?"
"Come in! I must speak to you."
"I love you not, Lettice Campion, and you love not me. What would you?"
"I have a message for you--come inside."
"A message! Sapristi! Then I must know it. Open your door."
Lettice closed the window and the shutters, and brought her visitor inside.
The woman of the study and the woman of the pavement looked at each other, standing face to face for some minutes without speaking a word.
They were a contrast of civilization, whom nature had not intended to contrast, and it would have been difficult to find a stronger antagonism between two women who under identical training and circ.u.mstances might have been expected to develop similar tastes, and character, and bearing. Both had strong and well-turned figures, above the middle height, erect and striking, both had n.o.ble features, natural grace and vivacity, const.i.tutions which fitted them for keen enjoyment and zest in life. But from their infancy onward they had been subjected to influences as different as it is possible to imagine. To one duty had been the ideal and the guide of existence; the other had been taught to aim at pleasure as the supreme good. One had ripened into a self-sacrificing woman, to whom a spontaneous feeling of duty was more imperative than the rules and laws in which she had been trained; the other had degenerated into a wretched slave of her instincts, for whom the pursuit of pleasure had become a hateful yet inevitable servitude.
Perhaps, as they stood side by side, the immeasurable distance which divided them mind from mind and body from body was apparent to both.
Perhaps each thought at that moment of the man whose life they had so deeply affected--perhaps each realized what Alan Walcott must have thought and felt about the other.
"Why have you brought me here?" said Cora at last in a defiant voice.
"It was a sudden thought. I saw you, and I wanted to speak to you."
"Then you have no message as you pretended? You are very polite, mademoiselle. You are pleased to amuse yourself at my expense?"
"No, I am not amusing myself," said Lettice. There was a ring of sadness in her tones, which did not escape Cora"s attention. She argued weakness from it, and grew more bold.
"Are you not afraid?" she said, menacingly. "Do you not think that I have the power to hurt--as I have hurt you before--the power, and, still more, the will?"
"I am not afraid."
"Not afraid! You are hatefully quiet and impa.s.sive, just like--ah, like all your race! Are you always so cold and still? Have you no blood in your veins?"
"If you will sit down," said Lettice steadily, "I will tell you something that you ought to know. It is useless trying to frighten me with your threats. Sit down and rest if you will; I will get you food or coffee, if you care for either. But there is something that I want to say."
Cora stared at her scornfully. "Food! Coffee! Do you think I am starving?" she asked, with a savage little laugh. "I have as much money as I want--more than you are ever likely to have, mademoiselle. You are very naive, mon enfant. You invite me into your room--Lettice Campion invites Cora Walcott into her room!--where n.o.body knows us, n.o.body could trace us--and you quietly ask me to eat and drink! Eat and drink in this house? It is so likely! How am I to tell, for example, if your coffee is not poisoned? You would not be very sorry if I were to die! Parbleu, if you want to poison me, you should tempt me with brandy or champagne.
Have you neither of those to offer me?"
Lettice had drawn back at the first hint of this insinuation, with a look of irrepressible disgust. She answered coldly, "I have neither brandy nor champagne to give you."
"Allons, donc! Why do I stay here then?" said Cora jumping up from the chair where she had seated herself. "This is very wearisome. Your idea was not very clever, Mademoiselle Lettice; you should lay your plans better if you want to trick a woman like me."
"Why should I wish to trick you?" said Lettice, with grave, quiet scorn.
"What object could I have in killing you?"
"Ma foi, what object should you not have? Revenge, of course. Have I not injured you? have I not taken away your good name already? All who know you have heard my story, and many who do not know you; and nearly every one of them believes it to be true. You robbed me of my husband, mademoiselle, you know it; and you have but too good reason to wish me dead, in order that you may take a wife"s place at the convict"s side."
"You are mad. Listen to me----"
"I will listen to nothing. I will speak now. I will give you a last warning. Do you know what this is?"
She took a bottle from her pocket, a bottle of fluted, dark-colored gla.s.s, and held it in her hand.
"Look! This is vitriol, the friend of the injured and the defenceless. I have carried it with me ever since I followed my husband to your house at Brook Green, and saw you making signals to him at midnight. I came once after that, and knocked at your door, intending then to avenge my wrongs; but you had gone away, and I was brutally treated by your police. But if I could not punish you I could punish _him_, for he belonged to me and not to you, and I had a right to make him suffer. I have made him suffer a little, it seems to me. Wait--I have more to say.
Shall I make him suffer more? I have punished you through him; shall I punish him through you? For he would not like you to be maimed and disfigured through life: his sensitive soul would writhe, would it not?
to know that you were suffering pain. Do you know what this magic water is? It stings and bites and eats away the flesh--it will blind you so that you can never see him again; and it will mar your white face so that he will never want to look at you. This is what I carry about for you."
Lettice watched the hand that held the bottle; but in truth she thought very little of the threat. Death had done for her already what this woman was talking about. Alan was past the love or vengeance of either of them, and all her pleasure in life was gone for ever.