The Way of the Spirit | Page 3

She knew the worst, and it was very bad.
"Do you mean to murder me?" she asked, in a hoarse voice, for the
deadly hate in the man's every word and movement suggested nothing
less to her mind.

"No," he answered; "only to divorce you. I mean to be rid of you--at
last. I mean to marry again. I wish to leave heirs behind me. Your
young friend shall not have my wealth and title if I can help it."
"Divorce me? You? /You?/"
"You can prove nothing against me, Clara, and I shall deny everything,
whereas I can prove all against you. This poor lad will have to marry
you. Really I am sorry for him, for what chance had he against you? I
do not like to see one of my name made ridiculous, and it will ruin
him."
"He shall not marry me," she answered fiercely. "I love him too well."
"You can settle that as you like between you. Go back to your reverend
parent's house if you choose, and take to religion. You will be an
ornament to any Deanery. Or if you do not choose--" and with a dim,
expressive gesture, he waved his hand towards the countless lights of
London that glimmered beneath them.
She thought a while, leaning on the back of a chair and breathing
heavily. Then that elementary courage of hers flared up, and she said:
"George, you want to be free from me. You noticed the beginning of
my folly and sent us abroad together; it was all another plot--I quite
understand. Now, life is uncertain, and you have made mine very
miserable. If anything should chance to happen to me--soon, would
there be any scandal? I ask it, not for my own sake, but for that of my
old father, and my sisters and their children."
"No," he replied slowly. "In that sad and improbable event there would
be no scandal. Only foolish birds foul their own nests unless they are
driven to it."
Again she was silent, then drew back from him and said:
"Thank you, I do not think there is anything to add. Go away, please."

"Clara," he answered, in his cold, deliberate voice, "you are worn
out--naturally. Well, you want sleep, it will be a good friend to you
to-night. But remember, that chloral you are so fond of is dangerous
stuff; take enough if you like, but not too much!"
"Yes," she replied heavily, "I know. I will take enough--but not too
much."
For a moment there was deep silence between them in that dark room.
Then suddenly the great moon appeared again above the clouds,
revealing their living faces to each other for the last time. That of the
woman was tragic and dreadful; already death seemed to stare from her
wide eyes, and that of the man somewhat frightened, yet remorseless.
He was not one of those who recoil from their Rubicon.
"Good-bye," he said quickly; "I am going down to Devene by the late
train, but I shall be back in town to-morrow morning--to see my
lawyer."
With a white and ghost-like arm she pointed first to the door, then
through the window-place upwards towards the ominous, brooding sky,
and spoke in a solemn whisper:
"George," she said, "you know that you are a hundred times worse than
I, and whatever I am, you have made me, who first forced me to marry
you because I was beautiful, and then when you wearied of me, treated
me as you have done for years. God judge between us, for I say that as
you have had no pity, so you shall find none. It is not I who speak to
you from the brink of my grave, but something within me."
* * *
It was morning, and Rupert Ullershaw stood at the door of the Portland
Place house, whither he had come to call upon Lady Devene, to whom
he brought a birthday gift which he had saved for months to buy. He
was a somewhat rugged-faced lad, with frank grey eyes; finely built
also, broad-shouldered, long-armed, athletic, though in movement slow
and deliberate. There was trouble in those eyes of his, who already had

found out thus early in his youth that though "bread of deceit is sweet
to a man, afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel." Also, he had
other anxieties who was the only son and hope of his widowed mother,
and of a father, Captain Ullershaw, Devene's relation, whose conduct
had broken her heart and beggared her of the great fortune for which
she had been married. Now Rupert, the son, had just passed out of
Woolwich, where, when his feet fell into this bitter snare, he had been
studying in the hope of making a career