The Magician Part 23

'If you only knew,' she said.

There was something so extraordinary in her tone that he gave her a quick glance of surprise. He saw that her cheeks were flaming. Her bosom was panting as though she were again on the point of breaking into a pa.s.sion of tears.

'For G.o.d's sake, don't look at me!' she cried.

She turned away and hid her face. The words she uttered were in a shamed, unnatural voice.

'If you'd been at Monte Carlo, you'd have heard them say, G.o.d knows how they knew it, that it was only through me he had his luck at the tables.

He's contented himself with filling my soul with vice. I have no purity in me. I'm sullied through and through. He has made me into a sink of iniquity, and I loathe myself. I cannot look at myself without a shudder of disgust.'

A cold sweat came over Arthur, and he grew more pale than ever. He realized now he was in the presence of a mystery that he could not unravel. She went on feverishly.

'The other night, at supper, I told a story, and I saw you wince with shame. It wasn't I that told it. The impulse came from him, and I knew it was vile, and yet I told it with gusto. I enjoyed the telling of it; I enjoyed the pain I gave you, and the dismay of those women. There seem to be two persons in me, and my real self, the old one that you knew and loved, is growing weaker day by day, and soon she will be dead entirely.

And there will remain only the wanton soul in the virgin body.'

Arthur tried to gather his wits together. He felt it an occasion on which it was essential to hold on to the normal view of things.

'But for G.o.d's sake leave him. What you've told me gives you every ground for divorce. It's all monstrous. The man must be so mad that he ought to be put in a lunatic asylum.'

'You can do nothing for me,' she said.

'But if he doesn't love you, what does he want you for?'

'I don't know, but I'm beginning to suspect.'

She looked at Arthur steadily. She was now quite calm.

'I think he wishes to use me for a magical operation. I don't know if he's mad or not. But I think he means to try some horrible experiment, and I am needful for its success. That is my safeguard.'

'Your safeguard?'

'He won't kill me because he needs me for that. Perhaps in the process I shall regain my freedom.'

Arthur was shocked at the callousness with which she spoke. He went up to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

'Look here, you must pull yourself together, Margaret. This isn't sane.

If you don't take care, your mind will give way altogether. You must come with me now. When you're out of his hands, you'll soon regain your calmness of mind. You need never see him again. If you're afraid, you shall be hidden from him, and lawyers shall arrange everything between you.'

'I daren't.'

'But I promise you that you can come to no harm. Be reasonable. We're in London now, surrounded by people on every side. How do you think he can touch you while we drive through the crowded streets? I'll take you straight to Susie. In a week you'll laugh at the idle fears you had.'

'How do you know that he is not in the room at this moment, listening to all you say?'

The question was so sudden, so unexpected, that Arthur was startled. He looked round quickly.

'You must be mad. You see that the room is empty.'

'I tell you that you don't know what powers he has. Have you ever heard those old legends with which nurses used to frighten our childhood, of men who could turn themselves into wolves, and who scoured the country at night?' She looked at him with staring eyes. 'Sometimes, when he's come in at Skene in the morning, with bloodshot eyes, exhausted with fatigue and strangely discomposed, I've imagined that he too ...' She stopped and threw back her head. 'You're right, Arthur, I think I shall go mad.'

He watched her helplessly. He did not know what to do. Margaret went on, her voice quivering with anguish.

'When we were married, I reminded him that he'd promised to take me to his mother. He would never speak of her, but I felt I must see her.

And one day, suddenly, he told me to get ready for a journey, and we went a long way, to a place I did not know, and we drove into the country. We seemed to go miles and miles, and we reached at last a large house, surrounded by a high wall, and the windows were heavily barred. We were shown into a great empty room. It was dismal and cold like the waiting-room at a station. A man came in to us, a tall man, in a frock-coat and gold spectacles. He was introduced to me as Dr Taylor, and then, suddenly, I understood.'

Margaret spoke in hurried gasps, and her eyes were staring wide, as though she saw still the scene which at the time had seemed the crowning horror of her experience.

'I knew it was an asylum, and Oliver hadn't told me a word. He took us up a broad flight of stairs, through a large dormitory--oh, if you only knew what I saw there! I was so horribly frightened, I'd never been in such a place before--to a cell. And the walls and the floor were padded.'

Margaret pa.s.sed her hand across her forehead to chase away the recollection of that awful sight.

'Oh, I see it still. I can never get it out of my mind.'

She remembered with a morbid vividness the vast misshapen ma.s.s which she had seen heaped strangely in one corner. There was a slight movement in it as they entered, and she perceived that it was a human being. It was a woman, dressed in shapeless brown flannel; a woman of great stature and of a revolting, excessive corpulence. She turned upon them a huge, impa.s.sive face; and its unwrinkled smoothness gave it an appearance of aborted childishness. The hair was dishevelled, grey, and scanty. But what most terrified Margaret was that she saw in this creature an appalling likeness to Oliver.

'He told me it was his mother, and she'd been there for five-and-twenty years.'

Arthur could hardly bear the terror that was in Margaret's eyes. He did not know what to say to her. In a little while she began to speak again, in a low voice and rapidly, as though to herself, and she wrung her hands.

'Oh, you don't know what I've endured! He used to spend long periods away from me, and I remained alone at Skene from morning till night, alone with my abject fear. Sometimes, it seemed that he was seized with a devouring l.u.s.t for the gutter, and he would go to Liverpool or Manchester and throw himself among the very dregs of the people. He used to pa.s.s long days, drinking in filthy pot-houses. While the bout lasted, nothing was too depraved for him. He loved the company of all that was criminal and low. He used to smoke opium in foetid dens--oh, you have no conception of his pa.s.sion to degrade himself--and at last he would come back, dirty, with torn clothes, begrimed, sodden still with his long debauch; and his mouth was hot with the kisses of the vile women of the docks. Oh, he's so cruel when the fit takes him that I think he has a fiendish pleasure in the sight of suffering!'

It was more than Arthur could stand. His mind was made up to try a bold course. He saw on the table a whisky bottle and gla.s.ses. He poured some neat spirit into a tumbler and gave it to Margaret.

'Drink this,' he said.

'What is it?'

'Never mind! Drink it at once.'

Obediently she put it to her lips. He stood over her as she emptied the gla.s.s. A sudden glow filled her.

'Now come with me.'

He took her arm and led her down the stairs. He pa.s.sed through the hall quickly. There was a cab just drawn up at the door, and he told her to get in. One or two persons stared at seeing a woman come out of that hotel in a teagown and without a hat. He directed the driver to the house in which Susie lived and looked round at Margaret. She had fainted immediately she got into the cab.

When they arrived, he carried Margaret upstairs and laid her on a sofa.

He told Susie what had happened and what he wanted of her. The dear woman forgot everything except that Margaret was very ill, and promised willingly to do all he wished.

For a week Margaret could not be moved. Arthur hired a little cottage in Hamps.h.i.+re, opposite the Isle of Wight, hoping that amid the most charming, restful scenery in England she would quickly regain her strength; and as soon as it was possible Susie took her down. But she was much altered. Her gaiety had disappeared and with it her determination.

Although her illness had been neither long nor serious, she seemed as exhausted, physically and mentally, as if she had been for months at the point of death. She took no interest in her surroundings, and was indifferent to the shady lanes through which they drove and to the gracious trees and the meadows. Her old pa.s.sion for beauty was gone, and she cared neither for the flowers which filled their little garden nor for the birds that sang continually. But at last it seemed necessary to discuss the future. Margaret acquiesced in all that was suggested to her, and agreed willingly that the needful steps should be taken to procure her release from Oliver Haddo. He made apparently no effort to trace her, and nothing had been heard of him. He did not know where Margaret was, but he might have guessed that Arthur was responsible for her flight, and Arthur was easily to be found. It made Susie vaguely uneasy that there was no sign of his existence. She wished that Arthur were not kept by his work in London.

At last a suit for divorce was inst.i.tuted.

Two days after this, when Arthur was in his consultingroom, Haddo's card was brought to him. Arthur's jaw set more firmly.

'Show the gentleman in,' he ordered.