Whatsoever a Man Soweth Part 34

"Because in Glasgow I was recognised by one of my enemies," she said.

"Ah! you don't know what a narrow escape I had. He traced me--and came from London to hunt me down and denounce me. Yet I managed to meet him with such careless ease that he was disarmed, and hesitated. And while he hesitated I escaped. He is still following me. He may be here, in Newcastle, for all I know. It we meet again, Wilfrid," she added in a hoa.r.s.e, determined voice, "if we meet again it will all be hopeless. My doom will be sealed. I shall kill myself."

"No, no," I urged. "Come, don't contemplate such a step as that!"

"I fear to face him. I can never face him."

"You mean John Parham."

"Who told you?" she started quickly. "How did you know his name?"

"I guessed it. They told me at the hotel that you had had a visitor, and that you had soon afterwards escaped to the north."

"Do you actually know Parham?"

"I met him once," was my reply, but I did not mention the fellow's connection with the house with the fatal stairs.

"Does he know that we are friends?"

"How can I tell? But why do you fear him?"

"Ah, it is a long story. I dare not face that man, Wilfrid. Surely that is sufficient."

"No. It is not sufficient," I replied. "You managed to escape and get up to Fort William."

"Ah! The man at the hotel told you so, I suppose," she said. "Yes, I did escape, and narrowly. I was betrayed."

"By whom?"

"Unwittingly betrayed by a friend, I think," she replied, as we walked on together towards the lake. On a winter's morning there are few people in Leazes Park, therefore we had the place to ourselves, save for the keeper strolling idly some distance away.

"Sybil," I exclaimed presently, halting again, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, "why are you not straightforward and outspoken with me?"

I recollected the postscript of the dead man's letter which I had secured in Manchester--the allegation that she was playing me false.

Her eyes were cast down in confusion at my plain question, yet the next instant she a.s.sumed a boldness that was truly surprising.

"I don't understand you," she declared with a light nervous little laugh.

"Then I suppose I must speak more plainly," I said. "It is a pity, Sybil, that you did not tell me the truth from your own lips."

She went pale as her eyes met mine in quick anxiety.

"The truth--about what?"

"About your love for Arthur Rumbold," I said very gravely, my gaze still fixed steadily upon hers.

In an instant her gloved hands clenched themselves, her lips twitched nervously, and she placed her hand upon her heart as though to stop its wild beating.

"My love?" she gasped blankly--"my love for Arthur Rumbold?"

"Yes, your love for him."

"Ah! Surely you are cruel, Wilfrid, to speak of him--after--after all that has lately happened," she burst forth in a choking voice. "You cannot know the true facts--you cannot dream the truth, or that man's name would never pa.s.s your lips."

"No," I said gravely. "I do not know the truth. I am in utter ignorance. I only know that you met Mrs Rumbold at Fort William and travelled back with her to Dumfries."

"That is quite true," she answered. "I have no wish to conceal it."

"But your love for her son--you have concealed that!"

"A woman who loves truly does not always proclaim it to the world," was the reply.

"Then if you love him why are you in hiding? Why are you masquerading as my wife?" I demanded seriously. I was, I admit, piqued by her att.i.tude, which I perhaps misjudged as defiant.

She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but met my gaze unflinchingly.

"You promised me your a.s.sistance," she sighed. "If you now regret your promise I willingly release you from it."

"I have no wish to be released," I answered. "I only desire to know the truth. By a fortunate circ.u.mstance, Sybil, I have discovered your secret love for Arthur Rumbold--and yet at Ryhall you said you had decided to marry Ellice Winsloe."

"A woman does not always marry the man she really loves," she argued.

"It is a regrettable fact, but horribly true."

"Then you love this man, Arthur Rumbold? Come, do not tell me an untruth. We are old enough friends to be frank with each other."

"Yes, we are. I am frank with you, and tell you that you have blamed yourself for a.s.sisting me, now that you have discovered my folly."

"Folly of what?"

"Of my love. Is it not folly to love a man whom one can never marry?"

"Then he is already married, perhaps?"

She was silent, and glancing at her I saw that tears stood in her magnificent eyes. She was thinking of him, without a doubt.

I recollected those words penned by the dead man; that allegation that she was fooling me. Yes. What he said was correct. The scales had now fallen from my eyes. I read the truth in her white countenance, that face so very beautiful, but, alas! so false.

Who was Nello, the man with whom she corresponded by means of that cipher--the man she trusted so implicitly? Was he identical with Arthur Rumbold? Had she killed the writer of that extraordinary letter because he knew the truth--because she was in terror of exposure and ruin?

My knowledge of Rumbold had entirely upset all her calculations. In those moments of her hesitancy and confusion she became a changed woman.

Her admission had been accompanied by a firm defiance that utterly astounded me.

I noticed how agitated she had become. Her small hands were trembling; and she was now white to the lips. Yet she was still determined not to reveal her secret.

"Ah! you can never know, Wilfrid, what I have suffered--what I am suffering now," she said in a deep intense voice, as we stood there together in the gardens. "You have thought me gay and careless, and you've often told me that I was like a b.u.t.terfly. Yes, I admit it--I admit all my defects. When I was old enough to leave the schoolroom, society attracted me. I saw Cynthia, the centre of a smart set, courted, flattered, and admired, and like every other girl, I was envious. I vied with her successes, until I, too, became popular. And yet what did popularity and smartness mean? Ah! I can only think of the past with disgust." Then, with a sigh, she added, "You, of course, cannot believe it, Wilfrid, but I am now a changed woman."

"I do believe you, Tibbie," was my blank reply, for want of something else to say.

"Yes," she went on, "I see the folly of it all now, the emptiness, the soul-killing wear and tear, the disgraceful shams and mean subterfuges.