The Phantom Rickshaw | Page 5

sentiment than mine. Whether
she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly
plain to both of us.
Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective
ways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my
leave and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season
together; and there my fire of straw burned itself out to a pitiful end
with the closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs.
Wessington had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give
up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learned that I was sick
of her presence, tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her
voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have wearied of me
as I wearied of them; seventy-five of that number would have promptly
avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with other men.
Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth. On her neither my openly
expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I garnished
our interviews had the least effect.
"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo cry: "I'm sure it's all a
mistake--a hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day.
Please forgive me, Jack, dear."
I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity
into passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate--the same
instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the
spider he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the
season of 1882 came to an end.
Next year we met again at Simla--she with her monotonous face and
timid attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every
fibre of my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone;
and on each occasion her words were identically the same. Still the

unreasoning wail that it was all a "mistake"; and still the hope of
eventually "making friends." I might have seen had I cared to look, that
that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin
month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that such conduct
would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish;
unwomanly. I maintain that she was much to blame. And again,
sometimes, in the black, fever-stricken night-watches, I have begun to
think that I might have been a little kinder to her. But that really is a
"delusion." I could not have continued pretending to love her when I
didn't; could I? It would have been unfair to us both.
Last year we met again--on the same terms as before. The same weary
appeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make
her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming
the old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart--that is to say,
she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing
interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the
season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade
were fantastically intermingled--my courtship of little Kitty Mannering;
my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling
avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white
face flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once
watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand;
and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome
monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily
loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In
August Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed
"magpie" jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some
passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything.
She knew it already.
"So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear." Then, without a moment's pause:
"I'm sure it's all a mistake--a hideous mistake. We shall be as good
friends some day, Jack, as we ever were."
My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying
woman before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I
didn't mean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!"
And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left
her to finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two,

that I had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that
she had turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me.
The scene and its surroundings