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Alec Feilding walked home. He was worth thirty-five thousand pounds – fourteen hundred pounds a year. When one comes to think of it, though we call ourselves such a very wealthy country, there are comparatively few, indeed, among us who can boast that they enjoy an income of fourteen hundred pounds a year, with no duties, responsibilities, or cares about their income – and with nothing to do for it. Fourteen hundred pounds a year is not great wealth; but it will enable a man to keep up a very respectable style of living: many people in society have got to live on a great deal less. He and his wife were going to live on nothing a year, except what they could get by their wits. Fourteen hundred a year! They could still exercise their wits: that is to say, he should expect his wife, now the thinking partner, to exercise her wits with zeal. But what a happiness for a man to feel that he does not live by his wits alone! Alas! It is a joy that is given to few indeed of us.

As for his late literary and artistic successes, how poor and paltry did they appear to this man, who had no touch of the artist nature, beside this solid lump of money, worth all the artistic or poetic fame that ever was achieved!

He went home dancing. He was at peace with all mankind. He found it in his heart to forgive everybody: Roland Lee, who had so basely deserted him: Effie, that snake in the grass: Lady Frances, the most treacherous of women: Armorel herself – Oh! Heavens! what could not be forgiven to the girl who had made him such a gift? Even the revolt against his authority: even the broken panel, the shattered lock, and the earthquake.

In this mood he arrived home. His wife, the thinking partner, was hard at work in the interests of the new firm. In her hand was a manuscript volume of verse: on the table beside her lay an open portfolio of sketches and drawings.

'You see, Alec,' she looked up, smiling. 'Already the ghosts have begun to appear at my call. If you ask me where I found them, I reply, as before, that when one travels about with a country company one has opportunities. All kinds of queer people may be heard of. Your ghosts, in future, my dear boy, must be of the tribe which has broken down and given in, not of those who are still young and hopeful. I have found a man who can draw – here is a portfolio full of his things: in black and white: they can be reproduced by some photographic process: he is in an advanced stage of misery, and will never know or ask what becomes of his things. He ought to have made his fortune long ago. He hasn't, because he is always drunk and disreputable. It will do you good to illustrate the paper with your own drawings. There's a painter I have heard of. He drinks every afternoon and all the evening at a certain place, where you must go and find him. He has long since been turned out of every civilised kind of society, and you can get his pictures for anything you like; he can't draw much, I believe, but his colouring is wonderful. There is an elderly lady, too, of whom I have heard. She can draw, too, and she's got no friends, and can be got cheap. And this book is full of the verses of a poor wretch who was once a rising literary man, and now carries a banner at Drury-Lane Theatre whenever they want a super. As for your stories, I have got a broken-down actor – he writes better than he can act – to write stories of the boards. They will appear anonymously, and if people attribute them to you he will not be able to complain. Oh, I know what I am about, Alec! Your paper shall double its circulation in a month, and shall multiply its circulation by ten in six months, and without the least fear of such complications as have happened lately. They must lie avoided for the future – proposals as well as earthquakes – my dear Alec.'

Alec sat down on the table and laughed carelessly. 'Zoe,' he said, 'you are the cleverest woman in the world. It was a lucky day for us both when you came here. I made a big mistake for three years. Now I've got some news for you – good news – '

'That can only mean – money.'

'It does mean – money, as you say. Money, my dear. Money that makes the mare to go.'

'How much, Alec?'

'More than your four thousand. Twenty times as much as that little balance in your book.'

'Oh, Alec! is it possible? Twenty times as much? Eighty thousand pounds?'

'About that sum,' he replied, exaggerating with the instincts of the City, inherited, no doubt, from Robert Fletcher. 'Perhaps quite that sum if I manage certain sales cleverly.'

'Is it a legacy? – or an inheritance? – how did you get it?'

'It is not exactly a legacy: it is a kind of restoration to an unknown person: a gift not made to me personally, but to me unknown.'

'You talk to me in riddles, Alec.'

'I would talk in blank verse if I could. It is, indeed, literally true. I have received an – estate – in portable property worth nearly forty thousand pounds.'

'Oh! Then we shall be really rich, and not have to pretend quite so much? A little pretence, Alec, I like. It makes me feel like returning to society: too much pretence reminds one of the policeman.'

'Don't you want to know how I have come into this money?'

'I am not curious, Alec. I like everything to be done for me. When I was a girl there were carriages and horses and everything that I wanted – all ready – all done for me, you know. Then I was stripped of all. I had nothing to do or to say in the matter. It was done for me. Now, you tell me you have got eighty thousand pounds. Oh! Heavens! It is done for me. The ways of fate are so wonderful. Things are given and things are taken away. Why should I inquire how things come? Perhaps this will be taken away in its turn.'

'Not quite, Zoe. I have got my hand over it. You can trust your husband, I think, to keep what he has got.' Indeed, he looked at this moment cunning enough to be trusted with keeping the National Debt itself.

'Eighty thousand pounds!' she said. 'Let me write it down. Eighty thousand pounds! Eight and one, two, three, four oughts.' She wrote them down, and clasped her hands, saying, 'Oh! the beauty – the incomparable beauty – of the last ought!'

'Perhaps not quite so much,' said her husband, thinking that the exaggeration was a little too much.

'Don't take off one of my oughts – not my fourth: not my Napoleon of oughts!'

'No – no. Keep your four oughts. Well, my dear, if it is only sixty thousand or so, there is two thousand a year for us. Two thousand a year!'

'Don't, Alec; don't! Not all at once. Break it gently.'

'We will carry on the paper; and perhaps do something or other – carefully, you know – in Art. There is no need to knock things off. And if you can make the paper succeed, as you think, there will be so much the more. Well, we can use it all. For my part, Zoe, my dear, I don't care how big the income is. I am equal to ten thousand.'

'Of course, and you will still pronounce judgments and be a leader. Now let us talk of what we will do – where we will live – and all. Two thousand is pretty big to begin with, after three years' tight fit; but the paper will bring in another two thousand easily. I've been looking through the accounts – bills and returns – and I am sure it has been villanously managed. We will run it up: we will have ten thousand a year to spend. A vast deal may be done with ten thousand a year: we will have a big weekly dinner as well as an At Home. We will draw all the best people in London to the house: we will – '

She enlarged with great freedom on what could be done with this income: she displayed all the powers of a rich imagination: not even the milkmaid of the fable more largely anticipated the joys of the future.

'And, oh! Alec,' she cried. 'To be rich again! rich only to the limited extent of ten thousand a year, is too great happiness. When my father was ruined, I thought the world was ended. Well, it was ended for me, because you made me leave it and disappear. The last four years I should like to be clean forgotten and driven out of my mind – horrid years of failing and enduring and waiting! And now we are rich again! Oh! we are rich again! It is too much happiness!'

The tears rose to her eyes; her soft and murmuring voice broke.

'My poor Zoe,' her husband laid his hand on hers, 'I am rejoiced,' he said, 'as much for your sake as for my own.'

'How did you get this wonderful fortune, Alec?'

'Through Mr. Jagenal, the lawyer. It's a long story. A great-grandfather of mine was wrecked, and lost his property. That was eighty years ago. Now, his property was found. Who do you think found it? Armorel Rosevean. And she has restored it – to me.'

'What?' She sprang to her feet, her face suddenly turning white. 'What? Armorel?'

'Yes, certainly. Curious coincidence, isn't it? The very girl who has done me so much mischief. The man was wrecked on the island where her people lived.'

'Yes – yes – yes. The property – what was it? What was it? Quick!'

'It was a leather case filled with rubies – rubies worth at least thirty-five thousand pounds – What's the matter?'

'Rubies! Her rubies! Oh! Armorel's rubies! No – no – no – not that! Anything – anything but that! Armorel's rubies – Armorel's rubies!'

'What is the matter, Zoe? What is it?'

She gasped. Her eyes were wild: her cheek was white. She was like one who is seized with some sudden horrible and unintelligible pain. Or she was like one who has suddenly heard the most dreadful and most terrible news possible.

'What is it, Zoe?' her husband asked again.

'You? Oh! you have brought me this news – you! I thought, perhaps, someone – Armorel – or some other might find me out. But you! – you!'

'Again, Zoe' – he tried to be calm, but a dreadful doubt seized him – 'what does this mean?'

'I remember,' she laughed wildly, 'what I said when I gave you the bank-book. If you found me out, I said, we should be both on the same level. You would be able to hold out your arms, I said, and to cry, "You have come down to my level. Come to my heart, sister in wickedness." That is what I said. Oh! I little thought – it was a prophecy – my words have come true.'

She caught her head with her hand – it is a stagey gesture: she had learned it on the stage: yet at this moment of trouble it was simple and natural.

'What the Devil do you mean?' he cried with exasperation.

'They were your rubies all the time, and I did not know. Your rubies! If I had only known! Oh! what have I done? What have I done?

'Tell me quick, what you have done.' He caught her by the arm roughly. He actually shook her. His own face now was almost as white as hers. 'Quick – tell me – tell me – tell me!'

'You wanted money badly,' she gasped. Her words came with difficulty. 'You told me so every time I saw you. It was to get money that I went to live with Armorel. I could not get it in that way. But I found another way. She told me about the rubies. I knew where they were kept. In the bank. In a sealed packet. I had seen an inventory of the things in the bank. Armorel told me the story of the rubies, and I never believed it – I never thought that there would be any search for the man's heirs. I never thought the story was true. She told me, besides, all about her other things – her miniatures and snuff-boxes, and watches and rings. She showed me all her beautiful lace, worth thousands. And as for the gold things and the jewels, they were all in the bank, in separate sealed parcels, numbered. She showed me the bank receipts. Opposite each number was written the contents of each, and opposite Number Three was written "The case containing the rubies."'

'Well? Well?'

'Hush! What did I do? Let me think. I am going mad, I believe. It was for your sake – all for your sake, Alec! All for your sake that I have ruined you!'

'Ruined me? Quick! What have you done?'

'It was for your sake, Alec – all for your sake! Oh, for your own sake I have lost and ruined you!'

'You will drive me mad, I think!' he gasped.

'I wrote a letter, one day, to the manager of the bank. I wrote it in imitation of Armorel's hand. I signed her name at the end so that no one could have told it was a forgery. My letter told him to give the sealed packet numbered three to the bearer who was waiting. I sent the letter by a commissionaire. He returned bringing the packet with him.'

'And then?'

'Oh! Then – then – Alec, you will kill me – you will surely kill me when you know! You care for nothing in the world but for money – and I – I have stolen away your money! It is gone – it is gone!'

'You stole those rubies? But I have seen them. They are in Jagenal's safe. What do you mean?' he cried hoarsely.

'I have sold them. I stole them, and I sold them all – they were worth – how much did you say? Fifty – sixty – eighty thousand pounds? I sold them all, Alec, for four thousand two hundred and twenty-five pounds! I sold them to a Dutchman in Hatton Garden.'

'You are raving mad! You dream! I have seen them. I have handled them.'

'What you have seen were the worthless imitation jewels that I substituted. I found out where to get sham rubies made of paste, or something – some cut and some uncut. I bought them, and I substituted them in the case. Then I returned the packet to the bank. I had the packet in my possession no more than one morning. The man who bought the stones swore they were worth no more. He said he should lose money by them: he was going away to America immediately, and wanted to settle at once, otherwise he would not give so much. That is what I have done, Alec.'

'Oh!' he stood over her, his eyes glaring; he roared like a wild beast; he raised his hand as if to slay her with a single blow. But he could find no words. His hand remained raised – he was speechless – he was motionless – he was helpless with blind rage and madness.

His wife looked up, and waited. Now that she had told her tale she was calm.

'If you are going to kill me,' she said, 'you had better do it at once. I think I do not care about living any longer. Kill me, if you like.'

He dropped his arm: he straightened himself, and stood upright.

'You are a Thief!' he said hoarsely. 'You are a wretched, miserable Thief!'

She pointed to the picture on the easel.

'And you – my husband?'

He threw himself into a chair. Then he got up and paced the room: he beat the air with his hands: his face was distorted: his eyes were wild: he abandoned himself to one of those magnificent rages of which we read in History. William the Conqueror – King Richard – King John – many mediæval kings used to fall into these rages. They are less common of late. But then such provocation as this is rare in any age.

When, at last, speech came to him, it was at first stuttering and broken: speech of the elementary kind: speech of primitive man in a rage: speech ejaculatory: speech interjectional: speech of railing and cursing. He walked – or, rather, tramped – about the room: he stamped with his foot: he banged the table with his fist: he roared: he threatened: he cleared the dictionary of its words of scorn, contempt, and loathing: he hurled all these words at his wife. As a tigress bereft of her young, so is such a man bereft of his money.

His wife, meantime, sat watching, silent. She waited for the storm to pass. As for what he said, it was no more than the rolling of thunder. She made no answer to his reproaches; but for her white face you would have thought she neither heard nor felt nor cared.

Outside the discreet man-servant heard every word. Once, when his master threatened violence, he thought it might be his duty to interfere. As the storm continued, he began to feel that this was no place for a man-servant who respected himself. He remembered the earthquake. He had then been called upon to remove from its hinges a door fractured in a row. That was a blow. He was now compelled to listen while a master, unworthy of such a servant, brutally swore at his wife. He perceived that his personal character and his dignity no longer allowed him to remain with such a person. He resigned, therefore, that very day.

When the bereaved sufferer could say no more – for there comes a time when even to shriek fails to bring relief – he threw himself into a chair and began to cry. Yes: he cried like a child: he wept and sobbed and lamented. The tears ran down his cheeks: his voice was choked with sobs. The discreet man-servant outside blushed with shame that such a thing should happen under his roof. The wife looked on without a sign or a word. We break down and cry when we have lost the thing which most we love – it may be a wife; it may be a child: in the case of this young man the thing which most he loved and desired was money. It had been granted to him – in large and generous measure. And, lo! it was torn from his hands before his fingers had even closed around it. Oh! the pity – the pity of it!

This fit, too, passed away.

Half an hour later, when he was quite quiet, exhausted with his rage, his wife laid her hand upon his shoulder.

'Alec,' she said, 'I have always longed for one thing most of all. It was the only thing, I once thought, that made it worth the trouble to live. An hour ago it seemed that the thing had been granted to me. And I was happy even with this guilt upon my soul. I know you for what you are. Yet I desired your love. Henceforth, this dreadful thing stands between us. You can no longer love me – that is certain, because I have ruined you – any more than I can hold you in respect. Yet we will continue to walk together – hand in hand – I will work and you shall enjoy. If we do not love each other, we can continue in partnership, and show to the world faces full of affection. At least you cannot reproach me. I am a thief, it is true – most true! And you – Alec! you – oh! my husband! – what are you?'

CHAPTER XXV
TO FORGET IT ALL

When Philippa read the announcement in the Times, she held her breath for a space. It was at breakfast. Her father was reading the news; she was looking through that column which interests us all more than any other. Her eye fell upon her cousin's name. She read, she changed colour, she read again. Her self-control returned. She laid down the paper. 'Here,' she said, 'is a very astonishing announcement!' A very astonishing announcement indeed!

An hour later she called upon Armorel at her rooms.

'You are left quite alone in consequence of this – this amazing revelation?'

'Quite. Not that I mind being alone. And Effie Wilmot is coming.'

'Nothing in the world,' said Philippa, 'could have astonished me more. It is not so much the fact of the marriage – indeed, my cousin's name was mentioned at one time a good deal in connection with hers – but the dreadful duplicity. He sent her to you – she came to us – as a widow. And for three years they have been married! Is it possible?'

'Indeed,' said Armorel, 'I know nothing. She left me without a cause, and now I hear of her marriage. That is all.'

'My dear, the thing reflects upon us. It is my cousin who has brought this trouble upon you.'

'Oh! no, Philippa! As if you could be held responsible for his actions! And, indeed, you must not speak of trouble. I have had none. My companion was never my friend in any sense: we had nothing in common: we must have parted company very soon: she irritated me in many ways, especially in her blind praise of the man who now turns out to be her husband. I really feel much happier now that she has gone.'

'But you have no companion – no chaperon.'

'I don't want any chaperon, I assure you.'

'But you cannot go into society alone.'

'I never do go into society. You know that nobody ever called upon Mrs. Elstree – or Mrs. Feilding, as we must now call her. There are only two houses in the whole of this great London into which I have found an entrance – yours and Mr. Jagenal's.'

'Yes; I know now. And most disgraceful it is that you should have been so sacrificed. That also is my cousin's doing. He represented his wife – it seems difficult to believe that he has got a wife – as a person belonging to a wide and very desirable circle of friends. Not a soul called upon her! The world cannot continue to know a woman who has disappeared bodily for three long years, during which she was reported to have been seen on the stage of a country theatre. What has she been doing? Why has she been in hiding? It was culpable negligence in Mr. Jagenal not to make inquiries. What it must be called in my cousin others may determine. As for you, Armorel, you have been most disgracefully and shamefully treated.'

'I suppose I ought to have had a companion who was recognised by society. But it seems to matter very little. I have made one or two new friends, and I have found an old friend.'

'It is not too late, of course, even for this season. Now, my dear Armorel, I am charged with a mission. It is to bring you back with me – to get you to stay with us for the season and, at least, until the summer holidays. That is, if you would be satisfied with our friends.'

'Thank you, Philippa, a thousand times. I do not think I can accept your kindness, however, because I feel as if I must go away somewhere. I have had a great deal of anxiety and worry. It has been wretched to feel – as I have been made to feel – that I was in the midst of intrigues and designs, the nature of which I hardly understood. I must go away out of the atmosphere. I will return to London when I have forgotten this time. I cannot tell you all that has been going on, except that I have discovered one deception after another – '

'She is an abominable woman,' said Philippa.

'On the island of Samson, at least, there will be no wives who call themselves widows, and no men who call themselves' – painters and poets, she was going to say, but she checked herself – 'call themselves,' she substituted, 'single men, when they are already married.'

'But, surely you will not go away now – just at the very beginning of the season?'

'The season is nothing at all to me.'

'Oh! But, Armorel – think. You ought to belong to society. You are wealthy: you are a most beautiful girl: you are quite young: and you have so many gifts and accomplishments. My dear cousin, you might do so well, so very well. There is no position to which you could not aspire.'

Armorel laughed. 'Not in that way,' she said. 'I have already told you, dear Philippa, that I am not able to think of things in that way.'

'Always that dream of girlhood, dear? Well, then, come and show yourself, if only to make the men go mad with love and the women with envy. Stay with us. Or, if you prefer it, I will find you a companion who really does belong to the world.'

'No, no; for the present I have had enough of companions. I want nothing more than to go home and rest. I feel just a little battered. My first experience of London has not been, you see, quite what I expected. Let me go away, and come back when I feel more charitable towards my fellow-creatures.'

'You have had a most horrid experience,' said Philippa. 'I trembled for you when I learned who your companion was. I was at school with her, and – well, I do not love her. But what could I do? Mr. Jagenal said she had been most strongly recommended – I could not interfere: it was too late: and besides, after what had happened, years before, it would have looked vindictive. And then she has been rich and is now poor, and perhaps, I thought, she wanted money: and when one has quarrelled it is best to say nothing against your enemy. Besides, I knew nothing definite against her. She said she was a widow – my cousin Alec said that he had been an old friend of her husband: he spoke of having helped him. Oh! he made up quite a long and touching story about his dead friend. So, you see, I refrained, and if I could say nothing good, I would say nothing bad.'

'I am sure that no one can possibly blame you in the matter, Philippa.'

'Yet I blame myself. For if I had caused a few questions to be asked at first, all the lies about the widowhood might have been avoided.'

'Others would have been invented.'

'Perhaps. Well – she is married, and I don't suppose her stay here will have done you any real harm. As for her, to go masquerading as a widow and to tell a thousand lies daily can hardly do any woman much good. Have you made up your mind how you will treat her if you should meet?'

'She has settled that question. She wrote me a letter saying that she has behaved so badly that she wishes never to see me again. And if we should meet she begs that it will be as perfect strangers.'

'Really – after all that has been done – that is the very least – '

'So we are to meet as strangers. I suppose that will be best. It would be impossible to ask for explanations. Poor Zoe! One does not know all her history. She told me once that she had been very unhappy. I have heard her crying in her room at night. Perhaps, she is to be more pitied than blamed. It is her husband whom I find it difficult to forgive and to forget. He is like a nightmare: he cannot be put so easily out of my mind.'

'Unfortunately, no. I, who have thought of him all my life, must continue to think of him.'

'You will forgive him, Philippa. You must. Besides, you have less to forgive. He has never offered his hand and heart to you.'

Philippa blushed a rosy red, and confusion gathered to her eyes, because there had, in fact, been many occasions when things were said which – Armorel was sorry that she had said this.

'You mean, Armorel, that he actually – did this – to you?'

'Yes. It was only the other day – the morning after we read the play. He came to the National Gallery, where I often go in the morning, and, in one of the rooms, he told me how much he loved me – words, however, go for nothing in such things – and kindly said that marriage with me would complete his happiness.'

'Oh! He is a villain – a villain indeed!' Her voice rose and her cheeks flushed. 'Forgive him, Armorel? Never!'

'Considering that it was only a day or two before he was going to announce in the paper the fact that he had been married for three years, it does seem pretty bad, doesn't it?'

'And you, Armorel?'

'Fortunately, I was able to dismiss him unmistakably.'

'Oh!' Philippa cried in exasperation. 'My cousin has been guilty of many treacherous and base actions; but this is quite the worst thing that I have heard of him – worse even than sending you his own wife, under a false name and disguised with a lying story on her lips. No, Armorel; I will never forgive him. Never!' Her eyes gleamed and her lips trembled. She meant what she said. 'Never! It is the worst, the most wicked thing he has ever done – because he might have succeeded.'

'I suppose he meant to get something by the pretence.'

'He wanted, I suppose, to have it reported that he was going to marry a rich girl. I had heard that he was continually seen with you. And I had also heard that he had confessed to an engagement which was not to be announced. My father has found out that his affairs are in great confusion.'

'But what good would an engagement of twenty-four hours do for him?'

'Indeed, I do not understand. Perhaps, after all, he had allowed himself to fall in love – but I do not know. Men sometimes seem to behave like mad creatures, with no reason or rule of self-control – as if there was no such thing as consequence and no such thing as the morrow. I do not understand anything about him. Why are his affairs in confusion? He had, to begin with, a fortune of more than twelve thousand pounds from his mother; his pictures latterly commanded a good price. And his paper is supposed to be doing well. To be sure he keeps horses and goes a great deal into society. And, perhaps, his wife has been a source of expense to him. But it is no use trying to explain or to find out things. Meantime, to you, his conduct has been simply outrageous. A man who sends his own wife as companion to a girl, and then makes love to her, is – my dear, there is no other word – he is a Wretch. I will never forgive him.' Armorel felt that she would keep her word. This pale, calm, self-contained Philippa could be moved to anger. And again she heard her companion's soft voice murmuring, 'My dear, the woman shows that she loves him still.'

'Fortunately for me,' said Armorel, 'my heart has remained untouched. I was never attracted by him; and latterly, when I had learned certain things, it became impossible for me to regard him with common kindliness. And, besides, his pretence and affectation of love were too transparent to deceive anybody. He was like the worst actor you ever saw on any stage – wooden, unreal – incapable of impressing anyone with the idea that he meant what he said.'

'I wonder how far Zoe – his wife – knew of this?'

'I would rather not consider the question, Philippa. But, indeed, one cannot help, just at first, thinking about it, and I am compelled to believe that she was his servant and his agent throughout. I believe she was instigated to get money from me if she could, and I believe she knew his intentions as regards me, and that she consented. She must have known, and she must have consented.'

'She would excuse herself on the ground of being his wife. For their husbands some women will do anything. Perhaps she worships him. His genius, very likely, overshadows and awes her.' Armorel smiled, but made no objection to this conjecture. 'Some women worship the genius in a man as if it was the man himself. Some women worship the man quite apart from his genius. I used to worship Alec long before he was discovered to be a genius at all. When I was a school-girl, Alec was my knight – my Galahad – purest-hearted and bravest of all the knights. There was no one in the world – no living man, and very few dead men – Bayard, Sidney, Charles the First, and two or three more only – who could stand beside him. He was so handsome, so brave, so great, and so good, that other men seemed small beside him. Well, my hero passed through Cambridge without the least distinction: I thought it was because he was too proud to show other men how easily he could beat them. Then he was called to the Bar, but he did not immediately show his eloquence and his abilities: that was because he wanted an opportunity. And then I went out into the world, and made the discovery that my hero was in reality quite an ordinary young man – rather big and good-looking, perhaps – with, as we all thought then, no very great abilities. And he certainly was always – and he is still – heavy in conversation. But he was still my cousin, though he ceased to be my hero. He was more than a cousin – he was almost my brother; and brothers, as you do not know, perhaps, Armorel, sometimes do things which require vast quantities of patience and forgiveness. I am sure no girl's brother ever wanted forgiveness more than my cousin Alec.'