Part 63

"All the truth?" he demanded--"all? Ah! be just. Tell her it was not all my fault. Tell her all the truth."

"What would you have me tell her? That I played Potiphar's wife to your Joseph?"

"Ah, no! The truth--only the truth. That you and I were a pair of idle fools with the devil dancing round us. That we played a fool's game, and that it is over."

"Is it over? Dick, is it over?" She flung her arms towards him; but he threw her from him almost brutally. "The man is dead, I tell you. His folly and his sin lie dead with him. I have nothing to do with you, nor you with me."

"Dick!" she whispered. "Dick, cannot you understand? I must speak with you alone."

But they did not understand, neither the man nor the child.

"Dick, are you really dead?" she cried. "Have you no pity for me? Do you think that I have followed you here to grovel at your feet for mere whim? Am I acting like a woman sane and sound? Don't you see that I am mad, and why I am mad? Must I tell you before her? Dick--" She staggered towards him, and the fine cloak slipped from her shoulders; and then it was that Tommy changed from a child into a woman, and raised the other woman from the ground with crooning words of encouragement such as mothers use, and led her to the inner room. "Do not go," she said, turning to Dick; "I shall be back in a few minutes."

He crossed to one of the windows against which beat the City's roar, and it seemed to him as the throb of passing footsteps beating down through the darkness to where he lay in his grave.

She re-entered, closing the door softly behind her. "It is true?" she asked.

"It can be. I had not thought of it."

They spoke in low, matter-of-fact tones, as people do who have grown weary of their own emotions.

"When did he go away--her husband?"

"About--it is February now, is it not? About eighteen months ago."

"And died just eight months ago. Rather conveniently, poor fellow."

"Yes, I'm glad he is dead--poor Lawrence."

"What is the shortest time in which a marriage can be arranged?"

"I do not know," he answered listlessly. "I do not intend to marry her."

"You would leave her to bear it alone?"

"It is not as if she were a poor woman. You can do anything with money."

"It will not mend reputation. Her position in society is everything to that class of woman."

"My marrying her now," he pointed out, "would not save her."

"Practically speaking it would," the girl pleaded. "The world does not go out of its way to find out things it does not want to know. Marry her as quietly as possible and travel for a year or two."

"Why should I? Ah! it is easy enough to call a man a coward for defending himself against a woman. What is he to do when he is fighting for his life? Men do not sin with good women."

"There is the child to be considered," she urged--"your child. You see, dear, we all do wrong sometimes. We must not let others suffer for our fault more--more than we can help."

He turned to her for the first time. "And you?"

"I? Oh, I shall cry for a little while, but later on I shall laugh, as often. Life is not all love. I have my work."

He knew her well by this time. And also it came to him that it would be a finer thing to be worthy of her than even to possess her.

So he did her bidding and went out with the other woman. Tommy was glad it was press-night. She would not be able to think for hours to come, and then, perhaps, she would be feeling too tired. Work can be very kind.