CHAPTER VII.
A VISITOR.
These might be a silver lining to the cloud. If there was, I shouldhave liked to have had a peep at it. Just then it would have done megood. I could not see much promise of happiness either in the near orin the distant future. I had been reading a good deal lately about the"ethics of suicide." If my wife believed me guilty, I should find itdifficult to convince a judge and jury of my innocence. I might as wellcommit suicide as hang. I should be the victim of a judicial murder ifthey did hang me; but I did not see how my situation would bematerially improved by that.
Such reflections did not tend to make me sleep. As a matter of fact, Inever closed my eyes. The consequence was that, when the time came forme to rise and start for the City, I was ill--really ill. My headburned. It felt every moment as if it would burst. I could not see outof my eyes. The paroxysms of indigestion from which I suffered bent medouble. My wife came and found me in this condition.
"You are not looking well," she said.
I was aware of that without her telling me. I could not see how itcould be otherwise, suffering as I was suffering then. If ever therewas an object of pity, I felt that I was one. But there did not seem tobe much pity either in her voice, words, or manner. I said nothing inreply to her remark. I only groaned.
"Will you have your breakfast in bed?"
"I don't want any breakfast, thank you."
"Shall I send for Dr. Ferguson? Though I don't know if he is anauthority on dipsomania."
"Lucy! don't talk to me like that!"
"Why not? I merely made a statement of fact. And, of course, you aresuffering from the after effects of overindulgence."
That was a charming fashion in which to endeavour to smooth the pillowof an invalid. I changed the subject.
"How is Minna?"
Minna is my little girl--a little fair-haired darling she is. With allher father's tender-heartedness; more--with, I hope, some of thatfather's power of forgiving injuries.
"I am going to send her away to-day."
"Send her away?"
"Certainly. I have not yet made up my mind whether I shall go with hermyself or send nurse with her alone. Are you well enough to enter intoa discussion?"
"No," I said; "I'm not."
Nor was I. At that moment I was neither mentally nor physically herequal. Since, at any time, Lucy has about nine-parts of speech to myone, I had no intention of measuring myself against her,conversationally and argumentatively, when I had none.
I was ill four days. So ill that I could not leave my bed. At least, Iwas clear upon that point, if no one else was. I am almost inclined tosuspect that Lucy had her doubts; or she pretended to have them. I amdisposed to believe that she would not have allowed me to have stayedin bed at all if she had had her way. She threw out hints about thenecessity of attending to matters in the City; though I explained toher, as clearly as my illness would permit me, that in the City thingswere absolutely stagnant. Then she dropped hints upon more delicatesubjects still; but to these I resolutely turned a deaf ear. I vowedthat I was too ill to listen.
However, on the afternoon of the fourth day things reached a climax.Facts became too strong for me. I had to listen. Lucy came into theroom with an envelope in her hand.
"There is some one who wishes to see you."
I supposed it was Parker, my senior clerk. He had been backwards andforwards bothering me two or three times a day.
"Is it Parker?"
"No. It is a stranger to me. I believe you will find his name in thatenvelope. He would not give it me."
I opened the envelope which she handed to me. It contained half a sheetof paper, on which was written, "The gentleman who travelled in thenext compartment to yours." At sight of those words I sat up inbed--rather hurriedly, I fancy.
"Good gracious!" I exclaimed; "where is he? I hope you haven't let himin."
"Jane let him in. At present he is in the drawing-room waiting to seeyou."
"It's that blackmailing ruffian."
I gave her the sheet of paper.
"I guessed he was something of the kind. So this is the man who holdsyou in the hollow of his hand? I see."
She might see, but I didn't. There was about her vision a clearness andcoolness which made me shudder. It was dreadful to hear her talk inthat cold-blooded way about anybody "holding me in the hollow of hishand." She continued to regard me in a manner which I had noticed abouther once or twice of late, and which, although I said nothing about it,I resented.
"Perhaps now I may be allowed to talk to you as if you were areasonable man. During the last few days I have hardly known whetheryou wished me to regard you as a child."
"My dear!"
"You have been lying there, pretending to be ill, doing nothing, andworse than nothing, while your fate and my fate has been hanging by ahair. I had not thought that my husband could be so contemptible athing."
"Really, Lucy, I wish you wouldn't speak to me like that."
"Possibly. I have discovered, too late, how you dislike to hearunpleasant things."
"I don't know that I am peculiar in that respect."
"I don't doubt that there are other backboneless creatures in existencebesides yourself--unfortunately for their children and their wives."
"Lucy, I won't have you talk to me like that--I won't."
"Then get up and play the man! Do you know that the hue and cry is outall over England for you?"
"For me?"
"For the man who threw the woman from the train. 'The Three BridgesTragedy,' they've christened it. The papers are full of it; it is thetopic of the day. They have found the carriage from which she wasthrown. It seems that it was all in disorder and stained with blood,and that the window was broken. You said nothing about that to me. Theyhave found the porter who saw her into your carriage. Who was it sawyou off from Brighton?"
"Jack and George. Why do you ask?"
"Because the porter who admitted her to your carriage declares that youwere talking to two gentleman. They are looking for them now."
"Surely they will never make Jack and George give evidence against me."
"You may be sure they will. A porter has come forward who says he sawyou in the carriage at Victoria. He has given a description of you,which is sufficiently like you to show that he will probably recogniseyou if he sees you again. It seems that the only thing they are in wantof is your name."
I sank back in bed, appalled. The prospect, in my weak state, was tooterrible for contemplation. It seemed incredible that a wholly innocentman could, by any possibility, be placed in such a situation.
My wife went on, her voice seeming to ring in my ears almost as if ithad been a knell of doom--
"Play the man! I have been playing the part for you up to now. Now playit yourself. I need not tell you what it has meant to me to learn thatmy husband has been, as it were, a living lie. You know how I havebelieved in you, and what you have been to me because I believed inyou. To have the object of one's faith collapse, like an air-prickedbladder, into nothingness, and worse than nothingness, is calculated togive one something of a shock. But I realise that this is not a momentfor reproaches--that it is a time for deeds, not words. I realise, too,that I still owe my duty to you, as your wife, although, as my husband,you have failed in that which you owe to me. If you will take myadvice, you will get up, and you will go at once to a first-ratelawyer; you will tell him the truth--the whole truth, mind--and youwill place yourself entirely in his hands, even if he counsels you tosurrender yourself to the police. I should do so without a moment'shesitation."
"It's all very well to talk about surrendering to the police. It's easyenough in theory. It's I who shall hang, not you."
"Tom, don't deprive me of all my faith in you; leave me somethingof my belief; try to be a little of a man. Don't add blunder toblunder--blunders which are worse than crimes--simply because you havenot courage enough to be frank. As for the man
who is waiting to seeyou in the drawing-room downstairs----"
She was interrupted by a voice speaking from behind.
"As for that man, is it not Paul Pry who says in the play, 'I hope Idon't intrude?'"
The speaker was my friend, the blackmailer. He had forced himself intomy bedroom unannounced.