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CHAPTER XXXI
Asking Forgiveness

"Outside!"

The word came from Violet Forster as if it were an echo. Turning, she made a wavering and, as it seemed, almost involuntary movement towards the door; then, as if suddenly remembering, shrank back and went all red. If there were any there who smiled, it was with sympathy; as if they saw how, even against her will, the girl's heart was being drawn towards the man who was on the other side of the door.

It was Major Reith who spoke, and it seemed with unnecessary sternness.

"Do you mean that Sydney Beaton is in the building? How do you know it?"

The reply was simple.

"He promised me that he would come."

"Promised you? When?"

"He came with me as far as the barracks. I'm afraid I'm not yet very good at getting about alone, but I shall be all right soon; he knew what I was coming for, and he promised me he would wait, and that, if he heard nothing, in about half an hour he would come in."

The girl asked an eager question.

"Was he in a taxicab? There was one waiting as I came in, by the pavement a little way down-I passed it. It was open; there was a man sitting inside whom I had the strangest feeling that I knew, although it was dark and I could not see; perhaps it was Sydney."

"I shouldn't wonder. He said he'd wait in the cab; but he ought to be here by now."

Facing round, Frank Clifford, as it were, addressed the meeting:

"Gentlemen, shall I go out and see if Sydney Beaton is still waiting in the cab?" There was an instant chorus of affirmatives. He turned to Violet. "Miss Forster, with your permission I will go and ask Mr. Beaton to do us the favour to come in here."

"I-I shall be very glad to see him."

"So shall we." He opened the door, but he was not yet through it when he broke into exclamations. "Why, Beaton, you're a sight worth seeing. I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you. We have only just heard from Draycott that you were outside; I'm acting as a deputation to ask you to come in. Gentlemen, Captain Beaton."

Sydney Beaton appeared in the doorway of the room from which, when he was last in it, he had been thrown out. There was a great difference between that man and this; so great that all those who were there, who had known the man that was so well, looked at him and wondered, and were ashamed. The few months which had elapsed since they had seen him last might have been years, so much was he changed; it needed the evidence of their own eyes to assure them that in so short a space of time a man could have so aged. The Sydney Beaton they had known was young, debonair, careless, incapable of looking seriously upon either life or death. This man was serious above and before all else; the burden of life weighed heavily on him; he was hollow-eyed; great lines seamed both his cheeks and forehead; his hair was grey; he had become an old man.

Their surprise at his appearance hushed them into silence. Beaton, as if not knowing what to make of their speechlessness, seemed disposed to draw back. But Draycott reassured him.

"It's all right, old man, I've told them; they know all about it; I think the sight of you has rather bowled them over."

Then they did speak, and the first was Jackie Tickell.

"Beaton, of course you can knock me down and jump on me if you like; I shan't say a word if you do, but it's an absolute fact that I never really doubted you; I knew you were a white man, although I did treat you like a pig. You know that pool-there was a pot of money in that pool-I haven't touched a farthing of it from that day to this, although there have been times when I've badly wanted it, but I knew all along that it was yours. I handed it over to the keeping of the mess-they'll tell you all about it; we've got it all right. And I say, you chaps, here's an idea. What do you say to giving Beaton a feed, a real tip-topper, and, at it, presenting him with the pool, as a-you know-not as a testimonial, but you know what I do mean?"

They laughed at Tickell as they crowded round Beaton. Major Reith spoke.

"Beaton, I have done you a serious injustice; how serious I did not realise until now-that I see you. I am more-more ashamed than I can tell you; to ask your pardon is to do nothing. Can you ever forgive me? I shall never be able to forgive myself; my punishment will be as great as yours."

Then Beaton spoke.

"Reith, I hope not; you don't know what my punishment has been."

"Looking at you, I can guess."

"I suppose you can; I believe it's printed pretty plain."

There came a chorus from the others-all asking for pardon.

"We didn't understand each other, that was what it was," said Beaton. "You never could have done what you did if we had. Yet I'm not sure that the lesson I've been taught wasn't worth learning even at the price I paid. I'm not the man you knew. I can see by the look that's on your faces that you've found that out for yourselves. I shall never be that man again; but don't take to yourselves any blame for that. I wouldn't, if I could."

"Will you also forgive me, Beaton? I admit that I, too, may have been mistaken."

This was Anthony Dodwell; there was something in the eyes which looked at him out of their hollow caverns which seemed to make him shrivel up.

"In your case it's not a question of forgiveness. You see, Dodwell, I know you. Since I was last in this room I've been in some strange company; I've met one or two men like you, and I haven't liked them. I know how you treated me; I saw how you treated Draycott that night at Avonham; you would treat me, and Draycott, exactly the same again tomorrow-if you had the chance. You can't like the man whom you know is that kind of person; you avoid him, if you can; you are on your guard against him, if you can't. If you are even superficially sorry for what you did to me you will take care that I never see or hear of you again. I am afraid that's as far as I'm prepared to go."

"And that's quite far enough. Now, Dodwell, you have our unanimous permission to do what you were so anxious to do at first-go."

Frank Clifford held the door wide open, with a significance it was impossible for the other to misunderstand. Anthony Dodwell showed how plainly he did understand by marching through it without a word.

Miss Forster had drawn back as Beaton entered the room, so that she had been behind him, where she had stayed. Now she came forward and touched him on the arm.

"Sydney!"

He was silent; he did not even pronounce her name; he took the hand which she offered, and bowed his head before her. Frank Clifford said:

"Miss Forster, I trust that I am neither presumptuous nor impertinent in suggesting that I think it possible that you are not over-anxious to stay with us much longer; if that is the case-I don't know how to put it, but-if you'd like to take Beaton with you, you can."

CHAPTER XXXII
In the Taxicab

They were alone together in the taxicab, the one which had been waiting. Draycott had been left behind. There had been a brief discussion as to the address to which the man was to be told to drive.

"Where are we going?" she had asked him.

"You are perfectly well aware," he had told her in the grave tones which had seemed to have become habitual, "that I'm not a fit person for you to consort with. Let us say to each other all that there is to be said here; it shouldn't take very long, there is so little to be said; then let us part company-for ever."

"That is your opinion, is it? It's very nice of you to express it. Where are you living?"

"In a road near Clapham Junction-Lavender Sweep; a name which suggests possibilities-which don't go any farther than the name. It's a street of little houses."

"What is your number?"

"A hundred and ninety-seven."

She spoke to the cabman.

"Drive us to 197 Lavender Sweep, Clapham Junction." Then to Beaton: "Will you open the door for me?"

She entered. He spoke to her still standing on the pavement.

"You know you ought not to go there; it's not the sort of place to which you're accustomed."

"Then the sooner I become accustomed the better. Will you please get in?"

He got in; the cab started; as it has been written, they were alone in the cab together. Their conversation, especially at the beginning, was of a distinctly singular sort; as a matter of fact, she was enjoying herself immensely. It was many a day since she had even supposed it possible that she could enjoy herself so much.

"You don't seem to be particularly glad to see me."

"What right have I to be glad?"

"That's it-what right have you? That's a particularly sensible inquiry, which makes it the more awkward-for me-that I should be rather glad to see you. I imagine that these things are an affair of temperament."

"You are laughing at me."

"I don't know what else to do, since you certainly aren't laughing at me. You might be an owl for gravity. You sit screwed up there in your corner as if you were afraid you might be infected with something if you came within a quarter of a mile of me."

"Put it the other way. I don't wish to carry infection to you."

"Don't you? How nice! What sort of infection do you think you'd carry? I'd like, if I did ask you to come nearer, to know the risk I'd run."

"You know the kind of creature I am."

"The ignorance is on your side; you don't know the kind of creature I am. Do you know this is the very first time you and I have been alone together in a taxicab?" He was silent. A sound came from her which might have been a laugh. "You're full of conversation."

"I am so oppressed by the hideous consciousness of being in a false position."

"Are you? We'll talk about all that kind of thing when we get to 197 Lavender Sweep."

"You don't know what kind of place it is I live in."

"I soon shall."

"What would your uncle say if he knew you were coming alone with me to my wretched rooms?"

"My uncle and I are two; he lives at Nuthurst, and I live in town. I also have what you call wretched rooms-of my own. I would have asked the man to drive us there, only I thought I would prefer to go to yours, and I should; and I'm going. Is anything very terrible about your wretched rooms?"

"A person of my sort ought to be glad to live anywhere; especially after some of the places in which I have resided."

"I know all about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I've been told; but would you mind leaving all that sort of thing until we get to your-wretched rooms? Let us, while we are in the cab, be frivolous; couldn't you be frivolous?"

"I've forgotten how to be."

"I believe you smiled."

"If I did it was the sort of smile with which you meet the dentist when he's going to play tricks with your teeth."

"It's some time since I was frivolous; it's rather hard that now, after all this time, I'm in a mood to frivol, you won't. Couldn't you try? For instance, you seem to have forgotten that I possess a name; couldn't you start by calling me Violet? I suppose it would be too much to expect you to get as far, at the start, as Vi?" There was silence. "Well, are you trying?"

"I'm trying not to."

"Thank you very much; does it require much effort?"

"All my strength."

"Have you got much?"

"Very little."

"Indeed? Then, if you're going to use it in that direction, I hope you've none at all. It's rather fine weather for the time of the year, isn't it? Is that the sort of remark you would like me to make? Will it need all your strength to enable you to answer that?"

"I wish you'd let me stop the cab and get out."

"I shall do nothing of the sort. How dare you suggest it? I suppose you think you're going to keep on behaving to me like this. My dear Sydney-you see, I call you by your Christian name, and it doesn't need much trying-my darling Sydney, my well-beloved Sydney-I'm going to be Mary Janeish-do you think I don't know what is going on inside you? You'd give-shall I say twopence? – to put out your hand and touch mine which is lying there upon the seat. You can see it, although you're not looking and you pretend you can't. Sydney, won't you touch it-just once?"

"I won't."

"Thank you; that is frank, and so sweet of you. You think you are as hard-oh, harder than that; and I believe that you have got much harder than you used to be, but when I've really made up my mind you shall, you'll melt and become-oh, yes, much softer than that. How far is Lavender Sweep? I don't seem to find it easy to get much out of you in this silly cab; perhaps I may have better fortune when we get to your wretched rooms. Is it much farther?"

"Let's say all that there is to be said now. I wanted to say it before we got into the cab; it will only make it worse for both of us if we wait till we get to my rooms. You shan't go there. I won't have you."

"Won't you? How are you going to stop me?"

"By giving myself up to the next policeman we meet, if there is no other way; he'd think himself in luck to get me."

"Sydney!"

"It's the truth, and you know it. What's the good of either of us pretending that you don't?"

"Will you please say nothing else until we reach your rooms? I won't, and I'd rather you didn't either. I'm going with you to your rooms, and nothing you can say or do will stop me. Now will you please be silent till we get to 97 Lavender Sweep? I think that, while we're in this cab, I prefer your silence to your conversation."

She had her way; not a word was spoken on either side until the cab drew up in front of one of a long terrace of houses.

CHAPTER XXXIII
"Vi!"

Miss Forster looked about the room into which he had ushered her, the first room on the right when you had come through the front door. It was the usual ground-floor front apartment of the £45 a year suburban "modern residence," a fair size, as a habitation for a "single gentleman," with a sufficiency of light, and air, and space.

"If this is one of your 'wretched rooms,' I don't think it's very wretched, don't you know; it compares not at all unfavourably with my best parlour."

Standing before the empty fireplace, he was observing her with singular intentness, brows knit, head bowed between his shoulders.

"You understand where the money to pay for this palatial apartment has come from; how it has been-earned? You saw me engaged in the practice of my profession that night at Avonham."

"Did I? Dear me! How terrible! Why should I mind?"

"You ought to mind; you do mind; at least it is certain that you would mind if you understood."

"It is because I do understand that I don't mind; unfortunately the understanding is all on one side; you do seem to be so slow in grasping the true inwardness of things. I want you to answer me one or two questions-will you?"

She had placed herself in an old arm-chair, and was looking up at him with the tip of a first finger touching either cheek. Her pallor had given way to a faint pink flush, which kept coming and going. Her whole face was lighted with laughter, as if challenging the persistent gravity which was on his.

"I will answer any questions you like to put, to the best of my ability."

"That's right, that's the proper tone in which to speak; as if you were faced by the rack and the thumb-screw, and similar pretty things. To begin with-I will make a statement; I was at Avonham that night."

"As if I didn't know it."

"I was wondering if you might have forgotten it." This was said with a little air of malice. "I saw poor Mr. Draycott lying on the floor, and I, as well as Major Reith, thought that he was dead. I've been asking myself how, during the very few minutes I was out of the room, you managed to take him away."

"You remember that I ran up against you in the hall?"

"Am I likely to forget? You did surprise me."

"And you surprised me; I hadn't a notion that you were in the house, or I shouldn't have been there."

"You might have stayed to say good-night, or ask me how I was; I had hurt my foot most frightfully. You didn't show the slightest sympathy."

"How was I to know?"

"That's just it. If you'd only said how-do-you-do, you'd have known. In your hurry you even left your bag behind you."

One could see the man wince; the woman's pause was perhaps to enable him to recover himself.

"Did you see what was in it?"

"The countess did-as probably Jane Simmons told you."

"That woman!"

"That woman! She came to see me the other day."

"What?"

"We had rather an interesting conversation. She's going to be married."

"Going to be married? To-"

He left the sentence unfinished, and the name unspoken; she smiled and nodded, as if she understood.

"I shouldn't be surprised; it's as likely to be him as anybody else. She's going to turn over a new leaf."

"Is she?"

"She's going to America with her husband."

"Are you sure of that?"

"I think she must have got married the very next day, and started the day after, because only the other morning a little box came through the post, postmarked Pittsburg, and in it was a piece of wedding cake, with a card on which was written, 'With the compliments of Julia Spurrier and her husband.'"

"Who was Julia Spurrier?"

"She was Jane Simmons; I dare say she had one or two other names besides, within your knowledge."

"She had. You understood what kind of person she was?"

"Perfectly; she made me understand."

"And I dare say she told you one or two things about me."

"She did-one or two; but we're coming to that presently. I want you first to explain to me how you got Mr. Draycott out of the house that night."

"I was rushing off to get something to wrap him in when I met you. I heard you and Reith go into that room, and I heard you both go out-I was outside the window. Directly you left it, I opened the window, picked up Draycott, carried him out, closed the window again-and it was done."

"I see-you call that done. But how did you manage to get him away from the neighbourhood of the house?"

"There was a motor-car a little way along the path, about as silent a one as there is made; I put him in that and off I went."

"Nothing could be simpler, could it? But why did you trouble to take him at all? What affair was he of yours? It wasn't as though he had treated you very nicely."

"Don't you see that it was the chance of my life?"

"The chance of your life? Good gracious! How?"

"That poker business-they said I cheated; it was a lie-an infernal lie."

"They've admitted it themselves to-night."

"They hadn't admitted it then, and I never thought I should have a chance of making them do it, until I saw that dear man Dodwell doing his best to murder Draycott as he lay there on the floor. Well, then, it was a wild-cat idea, but it was an idea. I thought that if I could get hold of Draycott, and he wasn't quite dead, and I could bring him back to life, he might feel some-some sort of gratitude. It was Draycott who supported Dodwell; I don't think they would ever have believed him if it hadn't been for Draycott. I fancy there wasn't a man in the regiment who hadn't a sort of feeling that Dodwell was a liar; it was Draycott's endorsement of his lie that did it."

She could see, when he paused, how the muscles of his face were working, and how his fingers twitched as he clenched and unclenched his hands.

"When I started to think afterwards, when hell was all about me, at first it was all a blur, I couldn't think how it could have happened-all of it; it was so-so impossible that they could have thought such a thing of me. Then, by degrees, I began to put trifles together, and to get some sort of a vague idea how-how it had all come about."

He pressed his hands to his temples; she fancied it must have become a trick with him; he had done it once or twice before, even when they were in the cab.

"I'd had a row with Dodwell about some money which he said I owed him; as you know, I owed pretty nearly everybody money, but I was quite sure I didn't owe him any. The way in which he made out that I did, did credit to something besides his financial genius. I had a suspicion that Draycott had had a row with him of the same kind. He had told me that he would be even with me for the position which I had taken up; and I began to see, afterwards, when I-I was looking for crusts in the gutter, that that lie he had told was his way of getting even, and I began to wonder if Draycott had backed it because Dodwell had got him under his thumb."

He gave a great sigh, which was the most eloquent thing he had done yet; there was something about the matter-of-fact way in which he did it which showed that, at any rate, that was an habitual trick of his. The abomination of desolation which, it suggested, was in his very soul, moved the girl with a sudden pain which seemed to go right through her.

"When, as I've said, I saw Dodwell hammering Draycott, the wild-cat idea came to me that, if I did Draycott a good turn, he might be disposed to do me another; Dodwell would have killed him if it hadn't been for me, so he did owe me something, if he was to owe me nothing more. If he would only own to me, between ourselves, that he hadn't seen me do what he said he had, that would be some satisfaction. I didn't like to feel that there was any possibility that he really believed that I was-that kind of thing; if he would admit to me, in private, that he had spoken in haste, that he might have been in error, I should have been a happier man. The reality surpassed all my expectations."

A wintry smile passed over his face; he stood up straighter; but he continued to speak in the halftones of the man from whose life all the salt has gone.

"Draycott turned out a perfect trump. We had a pretty tough time-the landlady here, who's a dear, good old soul, the doctor, and I between us-in pulling him through; Dodwell had used him cruelly, he will carry some of the scars with him to the grave-but it was a labour of love. I hadn't been so happy for I don't know how long; I had never thought I should be so happy again, as I was as I sat by Draycott's bedside, sometimes all night and sometimes all day, watching him, slowly, come back to life again. You see, it was the first thing I had done of which I hadn't cause to be ashamed for ever so long. Directly he was safe he told me the whole story, which I expect you heard to-night. He's behaved like a trump."

"I suppose it doesn't strike you that, in any degree, or in any sense, you've behaved like a trump?"

"I had a motive for what I did. Draycott's father is a big bug over in New South Wales. They've been telegraphing to each other, he and his father, spending no end of money on wires. It seems that the old man heard that he was missing and got flurried; but they've made that all right by telegram. Draycott's going back to his father; he is the only son, his father has big interests, and wants him, and he hasn't made a very good thing of soldiering; so Draycott's going back. And, what is much more-to me-I'm going with him."

"Sydney! Really?"

"Very really-thanks to Draycott. I couldn't stay in England-now; and I wouldn't. I've made such a mess of things that I shouldn't be able to breathe if I stayed. I want to put the old things behind me, and to get into a new world, and a new life."

There was silence; he seemed to be straining his eyes with the effort to see the new life for which he longed.

"And that means?"

"That means that the man you knew is dead."

"Is he? I wonder! Sydney?" He did not speak, but he looked at her. "Have you ever thought of me during all you've gone through?"

"Before I answer your question, as I will do presently, let me say what I've got to say. I'm a criminal."

The girl rose quickly from her seat.

"And let me tell you that I won't let you say it-I will not. You answer my question, and then we'll say something to each other. Answer me-did you ever think of me when, as you put it yourself, you were picking crusts out of the gutter?"

"It's not a fair question."

"Why?"

"Because you'll draw deductions from my answer which you must not draw."

"What is your answer? We'll talk about deductions afterwards. Answer me-did you ever think of me when you were picking crusts out of the gutter?"

The man closed his eyes and turned his face away. She pressed her question home.

"Answer me!"

"There was a time when I was so hungry, and so cold, and so deep down in hell, that I tried to stop thinking of you-and I couldn't."

"They stole the locket from you which I gave you."

"They did-the devils! Who told you?"

"You cut my picture out of one of the papers, and you made a case for it with a piece of silk with your own hands, and you carried it next your bosom."

"It's there now. Who told you all these things?"

"And if you go to New South Wales you'll take that picture with you?"

"I did mean to."

"And why shouldn't you take me with it? Oh, you needn't if you don't want; but unless you take a whole ship to yourself you can't prevent my travelling by the same boat, which I shall do, with or without your leave. You say you're going with Noel Draycott. I'll soon find out from Mr. Draycott the ship he's going by, if I can't get the information from you, and, as I don't suppose that my money will be refused by the people who own that ship, we'll make a party of three. Of course, you needn't speak to me while we're on the voyage, but I dare say Mr. Draycott will, when he's a moment to spare. And I hope so to find favour in Mr. Draycott's eyes that he will be able to persuade his father to invite me to pay him a little visit-so we'll all three of us be together there."

"You don't understand what it is you're proposing."

"Do credit me with some perception, please; I do understand, quite well. What you don't understand is that if you go to New South Wales, and leave me here, I shall die-yes, Sydney, I shall die."

"Violet!"

"That's the first time you've called me by my Christian name-you wretch! And now you haven't made it Vi. Hasn't a man any imagination? A girl can project herself into his mind, even when he's miles and miles away, and she doesn't even know where he is; is he absolutely incapable of projecting himself into hers? I know you've been thinking about me-thinking, thinking, thinking! And it's been bread and meat and life to me, and morning, noon, and night, all the long weary time, I've been thinking, thinking of you, and you pretend that you don't know it. You know it perfectly well! Don't you know it?"

She went and stood close up to him.

"What would all the world think of me if I took you at your word? What would you yourself think in the time to come?"

"Isn't every drop of blood in your body burning with the desire to take me in your arms?"

"If I did-afterwards-what then? When I had the consciousness that with my shame I had sullied you?"

"Can't you feel, as I stand here close to you, that I'm all on fire with the longing that you should kiss me as the man kisses the woman who loves him? Do that first-do it first, I tell you! Then, when you've kissed some of the craving out of me-if you only knew how I longed for you to kiss me, you wouldn't keep your lips from the refreshment for which, I believe, they're dying. Kiss me!"

The limit of his powers of resistance had been reached; he did what, from the first, with the whole force of his being, he had longed to do; he took her in his arms.

"Vi!"

"Vi! That's better; say it again, my dear-just like that; say it again, and again, and again! Now, wasn't that worth while?"

She drew herself a little away from him, so that, standing face to face, they held each other's hands.

"Wasn't that worth waiting for?" Her voice dropped to a whisper; she looked at him with eyes which seemed to make him tremble. "Are you going to New South Wales without me?"

The street door was heard to open; someone came along the passage.

"Is that someone coming to your room?"

"I think it's Draycott."

"Is it? That's all right. You needn't take your hands away. Sydney! of course he knows."

The door opened, to admit Noel Draycott. He paused when he saw them.

"I beg your pardon, I had no idea-"

"Oh, yes, you had, you had every idea; so you can come right straight in-because you understand. Mr. Draycott, I am coming with you to New South Wales."

"Are you? I'm delighted to hear it; I thought you would."

She turned to Beaton.

"There, Sydney, you see? He thought I would."