The Crime and the Criminal Part 8

"I did not quarrel with her; she quarrelled with me."

"But it takes two to make a quarrel. Why did she quarrel with you?"

"I tell you, she had been drinking."

"But, even then, what did she say to you, or what did you say to her, which could have caused such a disturbance? Because, I can see, from your own statements, that both of you had lost your tempers."

I was silent. I knew not what to answer.

"I suppose that the woman was a stranger to you--that you had never seen her before?"

What could I say? I felt that if I did not tell the truth then it would come out afterwards. Better, while I was about it, make a clean breast of everything.

And yet I found it hard. Lucy's ideas are narrow. She has her own views of things, and strong views some of them are. She thinks, for instance, that there ought to be the same standard for a man as for a woman: the same moral standard--that a man ought to come to his wife with clean hands, in the same sense in which a woman ought to come with clean hands to her husband. I am afraid that I had been rather in the habit of finding favour in her eyes by endorsing her opinions. It seemed hard that the only real peccadillo of which I had been guilty should be cropping up against me after all this lapse of time. I had repented of it, and put it behind me, long ago; and yet here it was, as fresh and vigorous as ever, rising to confront me from its tomb.

Lucy seemed struck by my continued silence. She repeated her question in an altered form. "Had you seen her before?"

"Many years ago."

"Many years ago? You knew her, then?"

"I used to know her, to my sorrow, once upon a time, long before I knew you, my dear."

The final words were intended as a sort of propitiation--I saw that she was getting roused at last--but they failed in their effect. She stood straight up, facing me, her fists clenched at her sides.

"Who was she? What was her name?"

"Her name was Ellen Howth. I a.s.sure you, my dear, that there is no necessity for you to get warm. I have heard and seen nothing of her since I married you. Indeed, these many years I have thought she was dead."

"Why did you think she was dead? What did it matter to you if she was dead or alive? What did you know of her?"

"Really nothing, I am afraid, to her advantage."

"What do you mean? Tell me the truth, Tom, if you have never told me it before. What was she to you?"

"She was nothing to me. My dear, she was a person of indifferent character."

"Do you mean----" She paused. She came close to the bed. She leant over me. "Was she----"

I knew what she meant too well. My heart and my voice sank as I replied. I did not know how she would take it.

"I'm afraid that she was."

She stood straight up. She drew a long breath. She looked down at me.

When she spoke her voice trembled--half with pa.s.sion, half with scorn.

"I see! Now I understand your story very well, and just what happened in the train. And you are the man who has always held himself up to me as different to other men--as a model of what a man should be. And all the time you have had this story in your life; and how many more besides?"

"You are very hard on me, my dear. I a.s.sure you, this is the only one."

"So you tell me now. Not long ago you told me there was not one."

"I have always meant to tell you all about it."

"Indeed? Then how skilfully you have concealed your meaning! I suppose that, like other men, when you wearied of your light-o'-love you cast her from you. Years afterwards she meets you in the train. She takes advantage of the opportunity--probably the first opportunity which has offered--to tell you what she thinks of you. Your coward conscience plays you such tricks that you try to flee from her, even at the peril of your life. She will not let you off so easily, so you threw her from the train."

"I did not. I never laid a hand on her. So far as I was concerned, it was pure accident. I swear it."

"Whether that is true or not can only be known to your G.o.d, and you."

Lucy turned on her heels. Without another word she left the room.

CHAPTER VII.

A VISITOR.

These might be a silver lining to the cloud. If there was, I should have liked to have had a peep at it. Just then it would have done me good. I could not see much promise of happiness either in the near or in 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 it difficult to convince a judge and jury of my innocence. I might as well commit suicide as hang. I should be the victim of a judicial murder if they did hang me; but I did not see how my situation would be materially improved by that.

Such reflections did not tend to make me sleep. As a matter of fact, I never closed my eyes. The consequence was that, when the time came for me to rise and start for the City, I was ill--really ill. My head burned. It felt every moment as if it would burst. I could not see out of my eyes. The paroxysms of indigestion from which I suffered bent me double. 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 it could be otherwise, suffering as I was suffering then. If ever there was an object of pity, I felt that I was one. But there did not seem to be much pity either in her voice, words, or manner. I said nothing in reply 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 an authority on dipsomania."

"Lucy I don't talk to me like that!"

"Why not? I merely made a statement of fact. And, of course, you are suffering from the after effects of overindulgence."

That was a charming fas.h.i.+on in which to endeavour to smooth the pillow of an invalid. I changed the subject.

"How is Minna?"

Minna is my little girl--a little fair-haired darling she is. With all her father's tender-heartedness; more--with, I hope, some of that father'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 her myself or send nurse with her alone. Are you well enough to enter into a discussion?"