CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ON THE THRESHOLD.
It was plain that Mrs. Carruth was impatient. Nor was the thing madeless evident by her attempts to conceal it from herself. She lounged ona couch. A pile of books and magazines was at her side. She pretendedto read--or, rather, it would be more correct to write that she triednot to pretend to read. But it would not do. It was nothing butpretence. And she knew that it was nothing but pretence. She took up abook. She turned a page or two. She put it down again. She exchanged itfor a magazine--a magazine with pictures. She tried to look at thepictures. The pictures palled. She essayed a magazine without pictures.
That was as great a failure as the other. In her present mood theministrations of print and pictures alike were ineffectual.
No wonder she had become impatient. She had been on tenterhooks allday--waiting! waiting! All the morning she had expected to receive somesort of communication--some acknowledgment of the expressive line ortwo which she had sent. But when lunch came, and there still wasnothing, she was quite sure that, during the afternoon the gentlemanwould come himself.
She was ready for him by two. She did not think it likely that he wouldcome quite so early. Still, it would be well that she should not betaken unawares. So she made herself even unwontedly charming. She puton a brand-new dress, which suited her to perfection. It really didmake her look uncommonly nice! It fitted her so well that it displayedher long, lithe, and yet by no means unbecomingly bony figure, to thebest advantage. She took astonishing pains with her hair. She even wentin for unusual splendour in the way of shoes and stockings. And theeffect produced by the few touches which she bestowed upon hercountenance was wonderful.
In spite of all she was ready by two. And still--he cometh not, shesaid. The silvery chimes of the exquisite little clock which stood onthe top of the overmantel announced that it was three-quarters afterthree. She looked at her own watch to see if it really was so late. Thething was true enough. Her watch was in complete agreement with theclock--it was a quarter to four.
She put down the last of the magazines with, in her manner, anappearance of finality. She rose from the couch. She went to thewindow. She stood there with her fingertips drumming idly andnoiselessly against the pane. The only creature in sight was a milkman,who, by way of killing two birds with one stone, was serving a customeracross the road, and flirting with the maid. Mrs. Carruth watched theflirtation proceed to its conclusion, and, when the milkman, springinginto his cart, had disappeared with the inevitable clatter, Mrs.Carruth, turning away from the window, came back into the room.
She stood at a little centre table. She laughed to herself.
"If, after all, he shouldn't come--what fun it would be!"
She was very far from being an ill-looking woman, as she stood there,with smiles puckering her lips and peeping from her eyes.
"If he should suppose that I am not in earnest! His experience mayteach him that many women never are in earnest. If he should imaginethat I am one of the many!"
Raising her right hand, she began daintily pinching her lower lipbetween her finger and her thumb.
"It would be a pity for both of us." She made a little impatientmovement with her head. "And yet, I can't believe that a man with hisexperience could suppose that I am one of the many. If he did, it wouldbe his fault--not mine."
The little clock struck four.
"An hour more, my friend--an hour more. And then--well, I do hopeyou'll come before the hour's out, for your sake, as well as mine. Iwonder if, in this little matter, I've been counting my chickens beforethey're hatched. I, of all women, should have known better. And, withsuch a hand faced on the board, one might be excused for supposing thatit would take the pool. A straight flush cannot be beaten."
She laughed again, this time not quite so lightly.
"It reminds me of some of the games which I have seen played. You can'tshow a hand to beat a straight, but you can fight to save the pool. Iwonder if he means fighting. If he does, it'll be against all the odds.He has neither gun nor bow. When I start shooting, he's bound to drop.Sure."
The merriment passed from her face, the laughter from her eyes--anexpression of anxiety came into them instead; a look which suggestedhunger, a something which made her, all at once, seem actually old.
"Perhaps he takes it that a victory, on these lines, may mean morethan a defeat. And he counts on that. It would, too. It would meanfarewell--a long farewell, an actual farewell--to another of my dreams.And the brightest of them all. But I don't care. It would mean death tohim. Death! And such a death! And, after all, it would only mean astumble to me. From the practice I have had, I have become so used tostumbles that surely one other wouldn't count."
She began moving about the room restlessly, touching here a table,there a chair, to the window, and back again, as if a spirit possessedher which made her not know what it was she wanted to be at. Sheapproached a corner of the room, as if she were about to take refuge init, like some naughty child. As she went, clenching her fists, as ifshe were pressing her finger-nails into her palms, she gave a littlecry.
"Oh, I'd give--I'd give, what wouldn't I give?--if he'd come into theroom, now--without keeping me waiting any longer, now!--and speak to meas I would have him speak! Why doesn't he come? He has everything togain, he has nothing to lose!"
She swept right round, with a swish of her skirts, in a sort of frenzy,echoing her own question as she swung out her arms in front of her.
"Why doesn't he come?"
Even as the words were on her lips, at the hall door there came aknocking. She went red and white, despite the aids of beauty! Shecaught at a chair, as if desirous of having something to lean against.
"Thank God!"
Then, as if conscious of the incongruity of such words upon her lips,she put her hands up to her face.
"Oh, I'm so glad he's come!"
Some one outside had hold of the handle of the door. She uncovered herface. She touched her hair. She touched the bosom of her dress. Shedropped into the chair by which she was standing. In an instant she wasthe picture of composure.
The door opened to admit Mr. Haines.
His appearance was a shock to Mrs. Carruth. She looked negligentlyround, as if indifferent who the new-comer might be, and then--shestared.
"You!"
There was something in the lady's intonation which was very far frombeing complimentary. She stood up, quivering with disappointment andwith rage.
"I thought I gave instructions that this afternoon I was not at home tovisitors."
Mr. Haines did not seem to be at all nonplussed.
"That's what the young lady who opened the door told me. I said I wouldwait until you were. I will."
Mr. Haines sat down--with every appearance of having come to stay. Mrs.Carruth looked at the clock, then at her watch, then at the gentlemanupon the chair. The gentleman in question, with his head thrown back,was staring at the ceiling, as if quite unconscious of herneighbourhood. It seemed to be as much as the lady could do to retainher self-control.
"I am sure, Mr. Haines, that you cannot wish to be rude. I have anappointment this afternoon which I regret will prevent my having thepleasure of receiving you."
"I'm going to have my say. I'll say it afterwards, or I'll say it now.It's all the same to me."
"What do you mean by you're going to have your say?"
"If you're ready, I'll let it out. But don't mind me. Don't let mespoil your appointment. Keep anything you've got to keep."
Mrs. Carruth seemed to be at a loss to know what to do. Her looks wereeloquent witnesses as to what she would have done if she could. But,apparently, she did not see her way to do it. She temporised.
"If there is anything of importance, Mr. Haines, which you wished tosay to me, perhaps you will be so good as to say it as briefly as youcan, now. Possibly it will not detain you, at the utmost, more than aquarter of an hour."
"Possibly it will not.
I rather reckon you'll have a word to say inthat. It won't all be for me." Mr. Haines brought his eyes down tothe level of the lady's face. He spread out his hands upon his knees.He looked at her very straight. "What I have to say may be said inabout two words. It's just this--I've found my girl."
Mrs. Carruth did not display any great amount of interest, but she didseem to be surprised.
"Indeed! I am glad to hear it. I hope that she is well."
"She is well. She's better than many of us ever will be. She's atrest."
"At rest? How?"
"As it was told to me. She is dead."
"Dead! Mr. Haines?"
"Yes, murdered. As I saw it in the vision, so it is."
Mrs. Carruth looked at Mr. Haines as if she felt that he had a somewhatsingular method of imparting information--especially of such a peculiarkind.
"If what you say is correct, you have such a queer way of puttingthings. I never can quite make you out. I need not tell you how sorry Iam."
"You have cause for sorrow. The grief is about half yours."
"Half mine? What do you mean?"
"I have loved you, true and faithful, since the first time I set eyeson you. Before ever Daniel did."
The sudden change of subject seemed, not unnaturally, to take the ladyaback.
"What nonsense are you talking? What did you mean by saying the grief'shalf mine?"
"I'm coming to it, in time. I want to put to you this question. Willyou have me, now, just as I am?"
"I will not; neither now or ever. How many more times am I to tell youthat? Jack Haines, I do believe you're more than half insane."
"I may be. So'll you be before I'm through." Raising the big forefingerof his right hand, he wagged it at her solemnly. "There's some one comebetween us. Yes. That aristocrat."
"Aristocrat? What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Yes. The blood-stained Townsend. I knew he wasstained with blood when first I saw him inside this room. But I did notknow with whose blood he was stained, or I would have called him to hisaccount right there and then. I did not know he was stained with theblood of my girl."
"Jack!"
The name came from her with an unconscious recurrence to the days whichwere gone.
"Yes. This is the man who has stolen what ought by rights to have beenmine--the slayer of my girl."
"It's not true! You coward! You know you lie!"
"I do not lie."
"You do lie! What proof have you?"
"Enough and to spare--for him, for me, and for you."
"Out with it, then. Let's hear what some of it's like."
Mrs. Carruth was standing by the little centre table. Rising from hischair, Mr. Haines went and stood at the other side of it. Resting hishands on the edges, he leaned over it towards her.
"Have you heard of the Three Bridges tragedy?"
She looked at him just once. In that one look she saw something, on hisface or in his eyes, which, to use an expressive idiom, seemed to takethe stiffening all out of her. She dropped into a chair as if he hadknocked her into it. She caught at the arms. Her complexion assumed acurious tinge of yellow. There was a moment's pause. Then, from betweenher rigid lips, there came one word.
"Yes."
"The woman who was killed was Loo--my Loo."
She shuddered, as if attacked by sudden ague.
"It's a lie!"
"It's not a lie. It's gospel truth. And Townsend killed her."
Her rejoinder, under ordinary circumstances, might have struck him asan odd one.
"You can't prove it."
"I can prove it. And the police can prove it, too."
Half rising from her chair, she turned to him, every muscle in her bodyseemed to be quivering with excitement.
"The police? Do they know it?"
"They do. To-morrow the whole world will know it. They've laid hold ofthe wrong man. They've found it out just before it's a bit too late.They hope to have hold of your friend Townsend soon. They're hopingwrong. His first reckoning will be with me. When that is through,neither he nor I will care who has what's left. Since I have loved you,true and faithful, all these years, I calculated I would come and askyou if, when all is done, you'd give me my reward. We might make ahappy ending of it, you and me together, over on the other side.But if you won't, you won't. So I'm through. I've only one wordleft--good-bye."
He held out his hand to her. So far as she was concerned, it wentunheeded. Indeed, it would seem, from the eager question which sheasked, that most of what he had been saying had gone unheeded too.
"Are you sure the police are after him? Are you sure?"
He looked at her from under the shadow of his bushy, overhangingeyebrows, in silence, for a moment. Then he said, more in sorrow thanin anger--
"So your last thought is of him? Well, I'm sorry!"
Without anymore elaborate leave-taking than was comprised in these fewwords. Mr. Haines went from the room and from the house.
Mrs. Carruth seemed scarcely conscious of the fact of his departure.All her faculties and all her thoughts seemed far away. Indeed, it wasonly after a lapse of some seconds that, looking about her, with astart, she appeared to recognise that she was alone. Getting up, shebegan to pace feverishly about the room, as if only rapid movementcould enable her to control the fires which were mounting in her blood.
"I wonder if it's true! I wonder if it is! Perhaps that explains why itis he hasn't come. I may have been misjudging him. Perhaps he can'tcome. Suppose he is arrested. Perhaps he doesn't know what it is thepolice have discovered. He's nearly certain not to know. Who's to tellhim? I will go and tell him! This instant! Now! I will warn him againstthe police and against Jack Haines. I will save him yet, yet. He shallowe it all to me."
With her hands she brushed her hair from her brow--the hair which shehad so carefully arranged.
"After all I have longed for, after all I have lived through, I dobelieve that for him I should esteem the world well lost."
She ran upstairs--literally ran. She put on a coat and hat in a spaceof time which, for shortness, considering that a pretty woman wasconcerned, was simply marvellous. And having put them on, she ran downthe stairs. She hurried through the hall. She opened the hall door.
And as she did so something or some one bounded up the steps--ratherthan mounted them in an ordinary fashion. There was a flash ofsomething in the air. Mrs. Carruth was borne backwards.
A second afterwards she was lying half on her face, with the lifebloodstreaming from her on to the floor.