They knew that the burden of their terrible secret was beginning to press and enclose them with its awful weight. Each had imagined the other free from his own terror, that terror that lifts up its head in times of night and silence, the dread Incubus that murders sleep.
The two men went out of the club together without speaking. Their hearts were beating like drums within them; it was the beginning of the agony.
Llwellyn, his coat exchanged for a smoking jacket, lay back in a leather chair in his library. Since his return from Palestine he had transferred most of his belongings to a small flat in New Bond Street. He hardly ever visited his wife now. The flat in Bloomsbury Court Mansions had been given up when Gertrude Hunt had gone.
In New Bond Street Sir Robert lived alone. A housekeeper in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the buildings looked after his rooms and his valet slept above.
The new _pied a terre_ was furnished with great luxury. It was not the garish luxury and vulgar splendour of Bloomsbury Court--that had been the dancer"s taste. Here Llwellyn had gathered round him all that could make life pleasant, and his own taste had seen to everything.
As he sat alone, slightly recovered from the nervous shock of the dinner, but in an utter depression of spirits, his thoughts once more went back to his lost mistress.
It was in times like these that he needed her most. She would distract him, amuse him, where a less vulgar, more intellectual woman would have increased his boredom.
He sighed heavily, pitying himself, utterly unconscious of his degradation. The books upon the shelves, learned and weighty monographs in all languages, his own brilliant contributions to historical science among them, had no power to help him. He sighed for his rowdy Circe.
The electric bell of the flat rang sharply outside in the pa.s.sage. His man was out, and he rose to answer it himself.
A friend probably had looked him up for a drink and smoke. He was glad; he wanted companionship, easy, genial companionship, not that pale devil Schuabe, with his dreary talk and everlasting reminder.
He went out into the pa.s.sage and opened the front door. A woman stood there.
She moved, and the light from the hall shone on her face.
The eyes were brilliant, the lips were half parted.
It was Gertrude Hunt.
They were sitting on each side of the fire.
Gertrude was pale, but her dark beauty blazed at him.
She was smoking a cigarette, just as in the old time.
A little table with a caraffe of brandy and bottles of seltzer in a silver stand stood between them.
Llwellyn"s face was one large circle of pleasure and content. His eyes gleamed with an evil triumph as he looked at the girl.
"Good Heavens!" he cried, "why, Gertie, it"s almost worth while losing you to have you back again like this. It"s just exactly as it used to be, only better; yes, better! So you got tired of it all, and you"ve come back. What a little fool you were ever to go away, dear!"
"Yes, I got tired of it," she repeated, but in a curiously strained voice.
He was too exhilarated to notice the strange manner of her reply.
"Well, I"ve got any amount of ready cash now," he said joyously. "You can have anything you like now that you"ve given up the confounded parsons and become sensible again."
She seemed to make an effort to throw off something that oppressed her.
"Now, Bob," she said, "don"t talk about it. I"ve been a little fool, but that"s over. What a lot you"ve got to tell me! What did you do all the time you were away? Where did you raise the "oof from? Tell me _everything_. Let"s be as we were before. No more secrets!"
He seemed to hesitate for a moment.
She saw that, and stood up. "Come and kiss me, Bob," she said. He went to her with unsteady footsteps, as if he were intoxicated by the fury of his pa.s.sion.
"Tell me everything, Bob," she whispered into his ear.
The man surrendered himself to her, utterly, absolutely.
"Gertie," he said, "I"ll tell you the queerest story you ever heard."
He laughed wildly.
"I"ve tricked the whole world by Jove! cleared fifty thousand pounds, and made fools of the whole world."
She laughed, a shrill, high treble.
"Dear old Bob," she cried; "clever old Bob, you"re the best of them all!
What have you done this time? Tell me all about it."
"By G.o.d, I will," he cried. "I"ll tell you the whole story, little girl." His voice was utterly changed.
"Yes, everything!" she repeated fiercely.
Her body shook violently as she spoke.
The man thought it was in response to his caresses.
And the face which looked out over the man"s shoulder, and had lately been as the face of Delilah, was become as the face of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.
"No more secrets, Bob?"
"No more secrets, Gertie; but how pale you look! Take some brandy, little girl. Now, I"m going to make you laugh! Listen!"
CHAPTER XI
PROGRESS
Sir Michael Manichoe, Father Ripon, and Harold Spence were sitting in Sir Michael"s own study in his London house in Berkeley Square. A small circular table with the remains of a simple meal showed that they had dined there, without formality, more of necessity than pleasure.