I could not give her up. She needed me. I tried not to think of Cynthia.
I took her hand.
"Audrey," I said, "I came here to say good-bye. I can"t. I want you. Nothing matters except you. I won"t give you up."
"It"s too late," she said, with a little catch in her voice. "You are engaged to Mrs Ford."
"I am engaged, but not to Mrs Ford. I am engaged to someone you have never met--Cynthia Dra.s.silis."
She pulled her hand away quickly, wide-eyed, and for some moments was silent.
"Do you love her?" she asked at last.
"No."
"Does she love you?"
Cynthia"s letter rose before my eyes, that letter that could have had no meaning, but one.
"I am afraid she does," I said.
She looked at me steadily. Her face was very pale.
"You must marry her, Peter."
I shook my head.
"You must. She believes in you."
"I can"t. I want you. And you need me. Can you deny that you need me?"
"No."
She said it quite simply, without emotion. I moved towards her, thrilling, but she stepped back.
"She needs you too," she said.
A dull despair was creeping over me. I was weighed down by a premonition of failure. I had fought my conscience, my sense of duty and honour, and crushed them. She was raising them up against me once more. My self-control broke down.
"Audrey," I cried, "for G.o.d"s sake can"t you see what you"re doing? We have been given a second chance. Our happiness is in your hands again, and you are throwing it away. Why should we make ourselves wretched for the whole of our lives? What does anything else matter except that we love each other? Why should we let anything stand in our way? I won"t give you up."
She did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Hope began to revive in me, telling me that I had persuaded her. But when she looked up it was with the same steady gaze, and my heart sank again.
"Peter," she said, "I want to tell you something. It will make you understand, I think. I haven"t been honest, Peter. I have not fought fairly. All these weeks, ever since we met, I have been trying to steal you. It"s the only word. I have tried every little miserable trick I could think of to steal you from the girl you had promised to marry. And she wasn"t here to fight for herself. I didn"t think of her. I was wrapped up in my own selfishness. And then, after that night, when you had gone away, I thought it all out. I had a sort of awakening. I saw the part I had been playing.
Even then I tried to persuade myself that I had done something rather fine. I thought, you see, at that time that you were infatuated with Mrs Ford--and I know Mrs Ford. If she is capable of loving any man, she loves Mr Ford, though they are divorced. I knew she would only make you unhappy. I told myself I was saving you. Then you told me it was not Mrs Ford, but this girl. That altered everything. Don"t you see that I can"t let you give her up now? You would despise me. I shouldn"t feel clean. I should feel as if I had stabbed her in the back."
I forced a laugh. It rang hollow against the barrier that separated us. In my heart I knew that this barrier was not to be laughed away.
"Can"t you see, Peter? You must see."
"I certainly don"t. I think you"re overstrained, and that you have let your imagination run away with you. I--"
She interrupted me.
"Do you remember that evening in the study?" she asked abruptly.
"We had been talking. I had been telling you how I had lived during those five years."
"I remember."
"Every word I spoke was spoken with an object--calculated.... Yes, even the pauses. I tried to make _them_ tell, too. I knew you, you see, Peter. I knew you through and through, because I loved you, and I knew the effect those tales would have on you.
Oh, they were all true. I was honest as far as that goes. But they had the mean motive at the back of them. I was playing on your feelings. I knew how kind you were, how you would pity me. I set myself to create an image which would stay in your mind and kill the memory of the other girl; the image of a poor, ill-treated little creature who should work through to your heart by way of your compa.s.sion. I knew you, Peter, I knew you. And then I did a meaner thing still. I pretended to stumble in the dark. I meant you to catch me and hold me, and you did. And ..."
Her voice broke off.
"I"m glad I have told you," she said. "It makes it a little better. You understand now how I feel, don"t you?"
She held out her hand.
"Good-bye."
"I am not going to give you up," I said doggedly.
"Good-bye," she said again. Her voice was a whisper.
I took her hand and began to draw her towards me.
"It is not good-bye. There is no one else in the world but you, and I am not going to give you up."
"Peter!" she struggled feebly. "Oh, let me go."
I drew her nearer.
"I won"t let you go," I said.
But, as I spoke, there came the sound of automobile wheels on the gravel. A large red car was coming up the drive. I dropped Audrey"s hand, and she stepped back and was lost in the shrubbery.
The car slowed down and stopped beside me. There were two women in the tonneau. One, who was dark and handsome, I did not know. The other was Mrs Dra.s.silis.
Chapter 17
I was given no leisure for wondering how Cynthia"s mother came to be in the grounds of Sanstead House, for her companion, almost before the car had stopped, jumped out and clutched me by the arm, at the same time uttering this cryptic speech: "Whatever he offers I"ll double!"
She fixed me, as she spoke, with a commanding eye. She was a woman, I gathered in that instant, born to command. There seemed, at any rate, no doubt in her mind that she could command me. If I had been a black beetle she could not have looked at me with a more scornful superiority. Her eyes were very large and of a rich, fiery brown colour, and it was these that gave me my first suspicion of her ident.i.ty. As to the meaning of her words, however, I had no clue.
"Bear that in mind," she went on. "I"ll double it if it"s a million dollars."