No More Learning

He was too full of these thoughts to care for conversa- tion, even with his old tutor, and he pleaded fatigue and went to bed. He lay awake for the greater part of the night, thinking over his talk with Miss Pepperdine, and
felt one doubt of the splendour of his
accepted it as anything but his just due. His very certainty on these matters had, all unknown to himself,
career, never
to arrange his affairs so that he might make good his promise to her, and when he slept, his sleep was troubled by uneasy dreams. He woke rather late in the morning with a feeling of impending calamity hanging heavily upon him. As he dressed, Mr. Chilverstone came tapping at his door—something in the sound warned Lucian of bad news. He was not surprised when the vicar told him that Simpson Pepperdine had died during the night.
He walked over to the farm as soon as he had break- fasted, and remained there until noon. Coming back, he overtook the village postman, who informed him that the letters were three hours late that morning in conse- quence of the heavy fall of snow, which had choked up the roads between Simonstower and Oakborough.
* It'll be late afternoon afore I've finished my rounds,' he added, with a strong note of self-pity. ' If you're going up to the vicarage, sir, it 'ud save me a step if
endeavouring
2o8 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
you took the vicar's letters — and there's one, I believe,
for yourself. '
Lucian took the bundle of letters which the man held
out to him, and turned it over until he found his own.
He wondered why Haidee had written to him—she had
no great liking for correspondence, and he had not
to hear from her during his absence. He opened the letter in the vicar's study, without the least expectation of finding any particular news in it.
It was a very short letter, and, considering the char- acter of the intimation it was intended to make, the
expected
and outspoken. Lucian 's wife merely announced that his plans for the future were not agreeable to her, and that she was leaving home with the intention of joining Eustace Darlington in Paris. She further added that it was useless to keep she had already been un-
phrasing
was commendably plain
up pretences any longer;
faithful, and she would be glad if Lucian would arrange
to divorce her as quickly as possible, so that she and
Either as an afterthought, or out of sheer good will, she concluded with a lightly worded expression of friendship and of hope that Lucian
might have better luck next time.
It is more than probable that Haidee was never quite
so much her true self in her relation to Lucian as when writing this letter. It is permitted to every woman, whatever her mental and moral quality, to have her ten minutes of unreasoning romance at some period of her life, and Haidee had hers when she and Lucian fell in love with each other's beauty and ran away to hide themselves from the world while they played out their little comedy. It was natural that they should tire of each other within the usual time; but the man's sense of duty was developed in Lucian in a somewhat excep- tional way, and he was inclined to settle down to a Darby and Joan life. Haidee had little of that particular instinct. She was all for pleasure and the glory of this world, and there is small wonder that the prospect of
exile in a land for which she had no great liking should
Darlington might marry.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
209
have driven her to the salvation of her diamonds and herself by recourse to the man whom she ought to have married instead of Lucian. There was already a guilty bond between them; it seemed natural to Haidee to look to it as a means of drawing her away from the dangers which threatened her worldly comfort. It was equally natural to her to announce all these things to Lucian in pretty much the same terms that she would have em- ployed had she been declining an invitation to some social engagement.
Lucian read the letter three times. He gave no sign of whatever emotion it called up. All that he did was to announce in quiet, matter-of-fact tones that he must return to London that afternoon, and to beg the loan of the vicar's horse and trap as far as Wellsby station. After that he lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Chilverstone, and if they thought him unusually quiet, there was good reason for that in the fact that Simpson Pepperdine was lying dead in the old farmhouse behind the pine groves.
CHAPTER XXV
Haidee, waiting for Darlington in Paris, spent the time in a state of perfect peace, amused herself easily and
and at the same time kept clear of such of her acquaintance as she knew to be in the French capital at that moment. On the morrow Darlington would return, and after that everything would be simple. She had arranged it all in her own mind as she travelled from London, and she believed —having a confident and sanguine disposition—that the way in which the affair presented itself to her was the only way in which it could possibily present itself to any one. It had been a mis- take to marry Lucian. Well, it wasn't too late to rectify the mistake, and one was wise, of course, in rectifying it. If you find out that you are on the wrong road —why, what more politic and advisable than to take the shortest cut to the right one? She was sorry for Lucian, but the path which he was following just then was by no means to her own taste, and she must leave him to tread it alone. She was indeed sorry for him. He had been an ardent and a delightful lover—for a while—and it was a pity he was not a rich man. Perhaps they might be friends yet. She, at any rate, would bear no malice — why should she? She was fond enough of Lucian in one way, but she had no fondness for a quiet life in Florence or Pisa or anywhere else, and she had been brought up to believe that a woman must be good to the man who can best afford to be good to her, and she felt as near an approach to thankfulness as she had ever felt in her life when she remembered that Eustace Darlington still cherished a benevolent disposition towards her.
Darlington did not return to Paris until nearly noon of the following day. When he reached his hotel he was informed by his valet, whom he had left behind, that
Mrs. Damerel had arrived, and had asked for him. 2IO
successfully,
needed no definite answer.
in Haidee's hearing.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
211
Darlington felt no surprise on hearing this news; nothing more serious than a shopping expedition occurred to him. He sent his man to Haidee's rooms with a message, and after changing his clothes went to call upon her himself. His manner showed her that he neither suspected nor anticipated anything out of the common, but his first question paved the way for her explanation. It was a
question that might have been put had they met in New York or Calcutta or anywhere, a question that
Frills, or frocks, or some- thing equally feminine, I suppose? ' he said ' carelessly,
as he shook hands with her. ' Staying long?
The indifference of his tone sounded somewhat harshly
' What brings you here?
It was evident that he suspected nothing and had no idea of the real reason of her
She suddenly became aware that there might be difficulties in the path that had seemed so easy.
presence.
' Lucian here? ' asked Darlington, with equal careless-
ness.
' No,' she said.
Then, in a lower tone, she added,
* I have left Lucian. '
Darlington turned quickly from the window, whither
he had strolled after their greeting. He uttered a sharp,
half -suppressed exclamation.
' Left him? ' he said. ' You don't mean
His interrogative glance completed the sentence.
There was something in his eyes, something stern and businesslike, that made Haidee afraid. Her own eyes
turned elsewhere.
' Yes,' she said.
Dariington put his hands in his pockets and came and stood in front of her. He looked down at her as if she had been a child out of whom he wished to extract some information.
* Quarrelling, eh? ' he said.
' No, not quarrelling at all,' she answered.
* Then— what? '
' He has spent all the money,' she said, ' and lots
'
212 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
beside, and he is going to sell everything in the house in order to pay you, and then he wanted me to go and live cheaply—cheaply, you understand? —in Italy; and —and he said I must sell my diamonds. '
* Did he? ' said Darlington. ' And he is going to sell everything in order to pay me, is he? Well, that's honest; I didn't think he'd the pluck. He's evidently not quite such an utter fool as I've always thought him. Well? '
fident voice. — low, satirical,
Darlington laughed a cynical laughter
' And, of course, I left him. '
' That " of course " is good. Of course, being you, you did, " of course. " Yes, I understand that part, Haidee. But ' —he looked around him with an expres- sive glance at her surroundings, ' why—here? ' he inquired sharply.
' I came to you,' she said in a low and not too con-
that frightened her. She glanced at him timidly; she had never known him like that before.
' I see! ' he said. ' You thought that I should prove a refuge for the fugitive wife? But I'm afraid that I am not disposed to welcome refugees of any description — it isn't my metier, you know. '
Haidee looked at him in astonishment. Her caught and held his: he saw the growing terror in her face.
' But ' she said, and came to a stop. Then she repeated the word, still staring at him with questioning eyes. Darlington tore himself away with a snarl.
' Look here! ' he said, * I'm not a sentimental man. If I ever had a scrap of sentiment, you knocked it out of me four years ago. I was fond of you then. I'd have made you a kind husband, my girl, and you'd have got on, fool as you are by nature. But you threw me
over for that half-mad boy, and it killed all the soft things I had inside me. I knew I should have my revenge on both of you, and I've had it. He's ruined; he hasn't a penny piece that isn't due to me; and as for you—listen,
eyes
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
213
my girl, and I'll tell you some plain truths. You're a pretty animal, nice to play with for half an hour now and then, but you're no man's mate for life, unless the man's morally blind. I once heard a scientific chap say that the soul's got to grow in hiunan beings. Well, yours hasn't sprouted yet, Haidee. You're a fool, though you are a very lovely woman. I suppose — ' —he came closer to her, and looking down at her astonished face smiled more cynically than ever — ' I suppose you thought that I would run away with you and eventually marry you ? '
' I—yes—of course ! ' ahe whispered.
' Well,' he said, ' if I, too, had been a fool, I might have done that. But I am not a fool, my dear Haidee. Perhaps I'm hard, brutal, cynical—the world and its precious denizens have made me so. I'm not going to run away with the woman who ran away with another man on the very eve of her marriage to me; and as to marrying you, well—I'm plain spoken enough to tell you that I made up my mind years ago that whatever other silliness I might commit, I would never commit the crowning folly of marrying a woman who had been my mistress. '
Haidee caught her breath with a sharp exclamation. If she had possessed any spirit she would have risen to her feet, said things, done things : having none, like most of her sort, she suddenly buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
' I dare say it doesn't sound nice,' said Darlington, 'but Lord knows it's best to be plain spoken. Now,
my girl, listen to me. Go home and make the best of your bargain. I'll let Lucian Damerel off easily, though to tell you the truth I've always had cheerful notions of ruining him hopelessly. If he wants to live cheaply in Italy, go with him—you married him. You have your maid here? —tell her to pack up and be ready to leave by the night train. I dare say Damerel thinks you have only run over here to buy a new gown; he never need know anything to the contrary. '
214
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
* B-b-b-but I have t-t-told him ! ' she sobbed. ' He
knows ! '
' Damn you for a fool ! ' said Darlington, between his
teeth. He put his hands in his pockets again and began rattling the loose money there. For a moment he stood staring at Haidee, his face puckered into frowning lines. He came up to her. ' How did you tell him? ' he said.
' You didn't— write it? '
' Yes,' she answered. ' I did — I wrote him a letter. '
Darlington sighed.
' Oh, well ! ' he said, ' it doesn't matter, only he'll be
able to get heavy damages, and I wanted to clear him out. It's the fortune of war. Well, I'm going. Good-
day. '
He had walked across to the door and laid his hand
upon the latch ere Haidee comprehended the meaning of his words. Then she sprang up with a scream.
' And what of me? ' she cried. ' Am Ito be left here? '
' You brought yourself here,' he retorted, eyeing her evilly. ' I did not ask you to come. '
She stared at him open-mouthed as if he were some strange thing that had come into her line of vision for the first time. Her breath began to come and go in gasps. She was an elementary woman, but at this treat- ment from the man she had known as her lover a natural
indignation sprang up words.
in her and she began to find
' But this ! ' she said, with a nearer approach to honesty than she had ever known, ' this is—desertion ! '
' I am under no vow to you,' he said.
' You have implied it. I trusted you. '
' As Lucian trusted you,' he sneered.
She became speechless again. Something in her looks
brought Darlington back from the door to her side.
' Look here, Haidee,' he said, not unkindly, ' don't be a little fool. Go home quickly and settle things with
your husband. Tell him you wrote that letter in a fit of temper; tell him—oh, tell him any of the lies that women
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 215
invent so easily on these occasions! It's absolutely hopeless to look to me for protection, absolutely impos- sible for me to give it '
He stopped. She was staring at him in a strange way
the way in which a dumb animal might stare if the butcher who was about to kill it condescended to try to explain to it why it was necessary that he should
cut its throat. Darlington hummed and ha'd when he caught that look. He cast a furtive glance at the door and half turned away from Haidee.
presently
' Yes, quite impossible,' he repeated. ' The fact is
well, you may as well knew it now as hear it later on— I am going to be married. '
She nodded her head as if she quite understood his
and he, looking full at her again, noticed that she was trying to moisten her lips with the tip of her
and that her eyes were dilated to an imusual
' You can't say that I've treated you badly,' he said. ' After all, you had the first chance, and it wasn't my
meaning,
tongue, degree.
There, now, be sensible and go back to London and make it up with Damerel. You can easily get round him—he'll believe anything you tell
him. Say you were upset at the thought of going to Italy with him, and lost your head. Things will come all right if you only manage your cards properly. Well, I'm going —good-day. '
He turned slowly from her as if he were somewhat ashamed of his desertion. They had been standing by the side of a table, littered about on v/hich were several odds and ends picked up by Haidee on the previous day. Amongst them was an antique stiletto, sharp as a needle, which had taken her fancy at a shop in the Palais Royal. She had thought of using it as a hat-pin, and was charmed when the dealer suggested that it had
fault if you threw it away.
tasted the heart' s-blood of more than one victim. Its glitter caught her eye now, and she picked it up and struck furiously at Darlington's back.
probably
At that moment Lucian was being conducted to his
2i6 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
wife's room by a courteous manager. At the threshold they paused, brought to a simultaneous standstill by a wild scream. When they entered the room, Darlington lay crumpled up and dead in the centre of the floor, and
Haidee, gazing spellbound at him from the furthest corner, was laughing—a long, low ripple of laughter that seemed as if it would never cease. The stiletto, thrown at her feet, flashed back a ray of sunlight from the window.
CHAPTER XXVI
That afternoon Saxonstowe arrived in town from York- shire with a grim determination in his heart to have it out once and for all with Sprats. He had tried to do his duty as a country squire and to interest himself in country life and matters: he had hunted the fox and shot pheasants, sat on the bench at petty and at quarter sessions, condoled with farmers on poor prices and with old women on bad legs, and he was still unsatisfied and restless and conscious of wanting something. The folk round about him came to the conclusion that he was not as other young men of his rank and wealth —he seemed inclined to bookishness, he was a bit shy and a little bit stand-ofhsh in manner, and he did not appear to have much inclination for the society of neighbours in his own station of hfe. Before he succeeded to the title Saxon- stowe had not been much known in the neighbourhood. He had sometimes visited his predecessor as a schoolboy, but the probability of his becoming the next Lord Saxon- stowe was at that time small, and no one had taken much notice of Master Richard Feversham. When he came back to the place as lord and master, what reputation he had was of a sort that scarcely appealed to the country people. He had travelled in some fearsome countries where no other man had ever set foot, and he haid written a great book about his adventures, and must therefore be a clever young man.
But he was not a soldier, nor a sailor, and he did not particularly care for hunting or shooting, and was therefore somewhat of a hard nut to crack. The honest gentlemen who found fox-hunting the one thing worth living for could scarcely realise that even its undeniable excitements were somewhat tame to a man who had more than once taken part in a hunt in which he was the quarry, and they were disposed to 217
2i8 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
regard the new Viscount Saxonstowe as a bit of a prig, being unconscious that he was in reaUty a very simple-
minded, unaffected young man who was a httle bit embarrassed by his title and his wealth. As for their ladies, it was their decided opinion that a young peer of such ancient lineage and such great responsibilities should marry as soon as possible, and each beUeved that it was Lord Saxonstowe' s bounden duty to choose a wife from one of the old north-country famihes. In this Saxonstowe agreed with them. He desired a wife, and a wife from the north country, and he knew where to find her, and wanted her so much that it had long been evident to his sober judgment that, failing her, no other woman would ever call him husband. The more he was left alone, the more deeply he sank in the sea of love. And at last he felt that life was too short to be trifled with, and he went back to Sprats and asked her firmly
and insistently to marry him.
Sprats was neither hurt nor displeased nor surprised.
She listened silently to all he had to say, and she looked at him with her usual frankness when he had finished.
' I thought we were not to talk of these matters? ' she said. ' We were to be friends—was there not some sort
of compact? ' —
' If so, I have broken it,' he answered ' not
the
friendship —that, never! —but the compact. Besides, I don't remember anything about that. As to talking of this, well, I intend to go on asking you to marry me until you do. '
' You have not forgotten what I told you? ' she said, eyeing him with some curiosity.
* Not at all. I have thought a lot about it/ he
answered. ' I have not only thought,
but I have come
to a conclusion. ' '
' Yes? ' she said, still curious.
' That you are deceiving yourself,' he answered.
' You think you love Lucian Damerel. I do not doubt that you do, in a certain way, but not in the way in which I would wish you, for instance, to love me, and
What conclusion? '
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 219
in which I believe you could and would love me—if you
would let yourself. '
Sprats stared at him with growing curiosity and sur-
There was something masterful and lordly about his tone and speech that filled her heart with a great sense of contentment —it was the voice of the superior animal calling to the inferior, of the stronger to the weaker. And she was so strong that she had a great longing to be weak—always providing that something stronger than herself were shielding her weakness.
prise.
' Well? ' was all she could say. '
' You have always felt a sense of protection for him, continued Saxonstowe. ' It was in you from the first — you wanted something to take care of. But isn't there sometimes a feeling within you that you'd like to be taken care of yourself? '
' Who taught you all this? ' she asked, with puzzled
brows. ' You seem to have acquired some strange
knowledge of late. '
' I expect it's instinct, or nature, or something,' he
said. ' Anyhow, have I spoken the truth? '
' You don't expect me to confess the truth to you, do
you? ' she answered. ' You have not yet learned every- thing, I see. ' She paused and regarded him for some time in silence. ' I don't know why,' she said at last, ' but this seems as if it were the prelude to a fight. I feel as I used to feel when I fought with Lucian —there was always a lot of talk before the tearing and rending began. I feel talky now, and I also feel that I must fight you. To begin with, just remember that I am a woman and you're a man. I don't know anything about men—they're incomprehensible to me. To begin with, why do you wish to marry me? —you're the first man
who ever did. I want to know why—why—why? '
' Because you're the woman for me and I'm the man
for you,' he replied masterfully. ' You are my mate. ' ' How do you know ? '
• I feel it. '
' Then why don't I feel it? ' she asked quickly.
220 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
' Are you dead certain you don't? ' he said, smiling at her. ' I think, perhaps, that if you could just get deep down into yourself, you do. '
' But that doesn't explain why you want to marry me,' she said inconsequently. ' You tell me that what I have always felt for Lucian is not what I ought to feel for the man I love. Well, if I analyse what I feel for Lucian, perhaps it is what you say it is—a sense of protection, of wanting to help, and to shield; but then, you say that that is the sort of love you have for me. '
' Did I? ' he said, laughing quietly. * You forget that I have not yet told you what sort of love I have for you —we have not reached the love-making stage yet. '
Sprats felt femininity assert itself. She knew that she blushed, and she felt very hot and very uncomfortable, and she wished Saxonstowe would not smile. She was as much a girl and just as shy of a possible lover as in her tom-boy days, and there was something in Saxon- stowe 's presence which aroused new tides of feeling in her. He had become bold and masterful; it was as if she were being forced out of herself. And then he sud- denly did a thing which sent all the blood to her heart with a wild rush before it leapt back pulsing and throbbing through her body. Saxonstowe spoke her
name.
* Millicent ! ' he said, and laid his hand very gently on
hers. 'Millicent! '
She drew away from him quickly, but her eyes met
his with courage.
* My name ! ' she said. ' No one ever called me bymy
name before. I had half forgotten it. '
' Listen,' he said. ' I want you to think all this over,
like the woman you are. Don't waste your life on a dream or a delusion. Come to me and be my wife and friend so long as God lets us live. You are a true woman—a woman in a thousand. I would not ask you else. I will be a true man to you. And you and I together can do great things, for others. Think, and tell me your thoughts —afterwards. '
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
221
' Yes, afterwards/ she said. She wanted him to go, and he saw it and went, and Sprats sat down to think. But for the first time in her hfe she found it impossible to think clearly. She tried to marshal facts and to place them before her in due sequence and proper order, but she discovered that she was pretty much Uke all other women at these junctures and that a strange confusion had taken possession of her. For the moment there was too much of Saxonstowe in her mental atmosphere to enable her to think, and after some time she uttered an impatient exclamation and went off to attend to her duties. For the remainder of the afternoon she bustled about the house, and the nursing-staff wondered what it was that had given their Head such a fit of vigorous research into unexplored corners. It was not until even- ing that she allowed herself to be alone again, and by that time she was prepared to sit down and face the situa- tion. She went to her own room with a resolute deter- mination to think of everything calmly and coolly, and there she found evening newspapers lying on the table, and she picked one up mechanically and opened it with-
it, and ere she knew what was happening she had read of the tragedy in Paris. The news stamped itself upon her at first without causing her smart or pain, even as a clean shot passes through the flesh with little tearing of the fibres. She sat down and read all that the telegrams had to tell, and searched each of the newspapers until she was in possession of the latest
news.
She had gone into her room with the influence of
Saxonstowe's love-making still heavy upon her woman- hood; she left it an unsexed thing of action and forceful determination. In a few moments she had seen her senior nurse and had given her certain orders; in a few more she was in her outdoor cloak and bonnet and at the door, and a maid was whistling for a hansom for her. But just as she was running down the steps to enter it, another came came hurriedly into the square, and Saxon- stowe waved his hand to her. She paused and went
out the intention of reading
222
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
door; he jumped from his cab and joined her, and they went into the house together, and
into the room which she had just left.
' I was going to you,' she said, ' and yet I might have
known that you would come to me. '
' I came as soon as I knew,' he answered.
She looked at him narrowly : he was watching her with
back to the open
inquiring eyes.
' We must go there at once,' she said.
'
There is time
to catch the night train? '
' Yes,' he said, ' plenty of time. I have already made
some arrangements —I thought you would wish it. '
She nodded in answer to this, and began to take some things out of a desk. Saxonstowe noticed that her hand
was perfectly steady, though her face was very pale.
She turned presently from packing a small handbag and
came up to him.
' Listen,' she said; ' it is you and I who are going—
you understand? ' silence, and then He looked at her for a moment in
bowed his head. He had not understood, but he felt that she had come to some determination, and that that was no time to question her. In a few moments more they had left the house and set out on their journey to Paris.
CHAPTER XXVII
Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel are
blessed with many qualities which were not given to us who reside in these islands, and amongst them is one which most EngUshmen would not pay a penny for if it were on sale in market overt. This is the quality of sentiment a thing which we others strive to choke at its birth, and to which at any time we give but an outside corner of the hearth of life. It is a quality of which one may have too much, but in its place it is an excellent and a desirable quality, for it tends to the establishment of a fitting sense of proportion, and makes people polite and considerate at the right moment. Had the tragedy of Haidee and Darlington occurred in England, there would have been much vulgar curiosity manifested, for amongst us we often fail to gauge the niceties of a situa- tion. In Paris, sentiment fixed the affaire Darnerel at its right value in a few hours. It was a veritable tragedy —one to be spoken of with bated breath —one of those terrible dramas of real life which far transcend anything that can be placed upon the stage. The situations were
the figures of the chief actors of a veritable notability. The young husband, great as a poet and handsome as a Greek god; the young wife, beautiful and charming; the plutocrat lover, of whom death forbade to speak—they were all of a type to attract. Then the intense tragedy of the final situation ! Who could tell what had occurred between the lover and the wife in that last supreme scene, since he was dead and she bereft of reason? It had all the elements of greatness, and greatness demands respect. Therefore, instead of being
vulgarised, as it would have been in unsentimental England, the affaire Damerel was spoken of with a tender respect and with few words. It was an event too deplor- able to merit common discussion,
223
pathetic,
224
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
Lucian had swept through London to Paris intent on killing Darlington with his own hands. His mental balance had been destroyed, and he himself rendered
of hearing or seeing reason long before he reached the French capital. The courteous manager who replied to Lucian's calm inquiries for Mrs. Damerel did not realise that the composure of the distinguished- looking young gentleman was that of the cunning madman. Inside Lucian's breast nestled a revelver— his fingers were itching to get at it as he followed his guide up the stairs, for he had made up his mind to shoot his faithless wife and his treacherous enemy on sight.
The sight of Haidee, mopping and mowing in her corner, the sound of her awful laughter, brought Lucian back to sanity. Living and moving as if he were in some fearful dream, he gave orders and issued directions. The people of the hotel, half paralysed by the strangeness of the tragedy, wondered at his calmness; the police were astonished by the lucidity of the statement which he gave to them. His one great desire was to shield his wife's name. The fierce resentment which he had felt during his pursuit of her had completely disappeared in presence of the tragedy. Before the end of the afternoon some curious mental process in him had completely re- habilitated Haidee in his estimation : he believed her to have been deeply wronged, and declared with emphasis that she must have killed Darlington in a fit of despera- tion following upon some wickedness of his own. Her incriminating letter he swept aside contemptuously—it was a sure proof, he said, that the poor child's mind was already unhinged when it was written. He turned a blind eye to undoubted facts. Out of a prodigal imagination and an exuberant fancy he quickly built up a theory which presently assumed for him the colours of absolute truth. Haidee had been tempted in secret by this devil who had posed as friend; he had used his insidious arts to corrupt her, and the temptation had fallen upon her at the very moment when he, Lucian,
incapable
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 225
was worrying her with his projects of retrenchment. She had taken flight, the poor Haidee who had Uved in rose-leaf luxury all her days, and had fled from her exaggerated fears to the man she believed her friend and Lucian's. Then, when she had found out his true char- acter, she—in a moment of awful fear or fright, most probably—had killed him. That was the real story, the poor, helpless truth. He put it before Sprats and Saxonstowe with a childlike belief in its plausibility and veracity that made at least one of them like to weep— he had shown them the letter which Haidee had written to Lucian before leaving town, and they knew the real truth of the whole sorry business. It seemed best, after all, thought Sprats, and said so to Saxonstowe when she
chance, that Lucian should cherish a fiction rather than believe the real truth. And that he did believe his fiction was soon made evident.
got the
' It is all my fault—all ! ' he said to Sprats, with bitter
' I never took care of her as I should have done, as I had vowed to do. You were right. Sprats, in everything that you said to me. I wonder what it is that makes me so bhnd to things that other
self-reproach.
people see so clearly? I ought not to have let the poor child be exposed to the temptations of that arch-devil; but I trusted him implicitly. He always made the most sincere professions of his friendship for both of us. Then again, how is it, why is that people so constantly deceive me believe every man as expect every man to beHeve me. Do you think ever dreamt of all this, ever dreamt of what was in that scoundrel's mind? Yet
ought to have foreseen— ought to have been guided by you. all my fault, all my fault
was useless to argue with him or to condole with him. He had persuaded himself without an effort that such and such things were, and the only thing to be done with him was to acquiesce in his conclusions and help him as judiciously as possible. The two faithful friends who had hurried to his side remained with him until the troubled waters grew calm again. That was now
P
I It
It ?
is
I
!
'
I
I
it,
I
226 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
an affair of time. Haidee was certainly insane, and the physicians held out Uttle hope of her recovery. By their
advice she was removed to a private institution within easy distance of Paris, and Lucian announced his inten-
tion of settling down in the gay city in order to be near her. He talked of her now as if she had been a girl- bride, snatched away from him by ruthless fate, and it was plain to see that he had obliterated the angry thoughts that had filled him during his frenzy of resent- ment, and now cherished nothing but feelings of
chastened and tender regret. For
frailest of frail mortals, became apotheosised into some- thing very different. Lucian, who never did anything by halves and could not avoid extremes, exalted her into a sort of much-wronged saint; she became his dream, and nobody had the heart to wake him.
Sprats
for Haidee, the other of a large part of the business affairs brought into active operation by the recent tragedy. Saxonstowe, working untiringly
on his behalf, was soon able to place Lucian's affairs in order. Lucian gave him full power to act, and ere long had the satisfaction of knowing that the liability to Darlington and Darlington had been discharged, that Miss Pepperdine's mind had been set at rest as to the
necessary arrangements
honour, and that he owed money to no one. He would be able to surround the stricken Haidee with every comfort and luxury that one
in her condition could enjoy, and he himself need never feel a moment's anxiety. For the affaire Damerel had had its uses. Lucian came again in the market. Mr. Robertson began to sell the thin green-clad volumes more rapidly than ever before; even the portly epic moved,
and finally began racing its sister competitors for the favour of the fickle public. Mr. Harcourt, with a rare sense of fitness, revived Lucian's first play to crowded houses; an enterprising Frenchman went over to London and witnessed a performance, and within a few weeks
preservation of the family
Haidee, indeed,
and Saxonstowe worked hard for him at this time, one relieving him of much trouble in making the
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 227
presented a version of it at ons of the Parisian theatres. French translations of Lucian's works followed, and sold Hke hot cakes; the Italian translations received a fillip, and people in the United States became interested.
Nothing, said Mr.
from a trade point of view.
Robertson, could have been better,
Lucian accepted all this with indifference and equani- mity. All his thoughts were centred on the quiet house in the little village outside Paris, where Haidee laughed
at her own fingers or played with dolls. Every afternoon he left his appartement and travelled into the country to inquire after his wife's health. He always carried some little gift with him—flowers, fruit, a child's picture- book, a child's toy, and the nurse to whom these things were given used to weep over them, being young and sentimental, and very much in love with Lucian's face and hair, which was now turning a pretty and becoming grey at the temples. Sometimes he saw the doctor, who was sympathetic, and guarded in his answers, and some- times he walked in the garden with an old abbe who used to visit the place, and exchanged pious sentiments with him. But he never saw Haidee, for the doctors feared and thus his conception of her was not of the madwoman, but of the young beauty with whom he had made an impetuous runaway marriage. He used to walk about Paris in those days with eyes that wore
and the women would speak of his beauty with tears in their eyes and shake their heads over the sadness of his story, which was well known to everybody, and in pecuniary value was worth gold-
mine.
far-away expression,
a
a
it,
CHAPTER XXVIII
When they had done everything that could be done for him at that time, Sprats and Saxonstowe left Lucian in Paris and returned together to London. He appeared to have no particular desire that they should remam with him, nor any dread of being alone. Sprats had seen to the furnishing of his rooms and to the transportation of his most cherished books and pictures; he was left sur- rounded with comfort and luxury, and he assured his friends that he wanted for nothing. He intended to devote himself to intense study, and if he wanted a little society, well, he already had a considerable acquaintance amongst authors and artists in Paris, and could make use of it if need were. But he spoke of himself as of an anchorite; it was plain to see that he believed that the joie de vivre existed for him no longer. It was also plain that something in him wished to be clear of the old life and the old associations. He took an affectionate fare- well of Sprats and of Saxonstowe at the Gare du Nord, whither he accompanied them on their departure, but Sprats was keenly aware of the fact that there was that in him which was longing to see the last of them. They were links of a chain that bound him to a life with which he wished to have no further connection.