IT was within a few minutes of one o’clock when Helen reached Brompton Square. Of the maid who opened the door she inquired eagerly for Mr. Endor.
The fever of her mind was such that it felt a keen relief from the mere fact of John being in his room at work. She flew to him. But the feeling of joy left her the moment she entered the room. He was pacing heavily up and down in a way that brought to her mind a wild animal in a cage. His hands were clenched behind him, and his eyes, rather weird in their intensity, lent a look of strangeness to a haggard face.
So strong was the thrall upon him that even Helen’s sudden appearance in the room did not cause him to throw it off. She could hardly bear to see his face. It was that of a man whose nerves had been deranged by the sight of a ghost. Indeed, when he stopped at last and turned towards Helen, there was something in that face which seemed to drive the blood from her heart.
“Darling!” she gasped as her hands clasped his coat, “tell me—tell me what is the matter? Why do you look like that? What awful thing has happened?”
He did not answer. She repeated the question with a tenser anxiety. “What is the matter? Do tell me!”
It was impossible for him to do so. In the urgency of the moment he did what he could to keep back the truth. But at the best, it was a lame, clumsy, half-hearted effort.
“You think you may have caught a slight chill motoring into the country yesterday?” An explanation so feeble could but add fuel to Helen’s incredulity. Something far beyond that poor excuse was called for by those wild eyes and ashen cheeks.
“Not that I’m really ill,” he managed to say. But the voice was not his. Hollow, spectral, thin, it might have been a ghost’s.
She knew that he was ill indeed. Eyes of despair, now palpably shrinking from contact with hers, told her too clearly that he was suffering from a grave malady. Moreover she knew he was trying his utmost to conceal the fact from her.
Suddenly her eye lit on a sheet of foolscap lying on the carpet. In the agitation of the moment it had drifted, no doubt, from his writing table. It was covered with recent writing which had been left to dry.
As Helen picked up this document, she glanced at it, almost without a thought of what she did. A swift intuition told her that this was no ordinary paper.
“Why not?” He tried for a light and whimsical inflection, with which to turn aside that startled accusation. The failure to achieve it was complete. In fact, it was so complete that in the ear of Helen it sounded rather ghastly.
“Something awful has happened,” she said. “I feel sure of it.”
The alarm in her eyes, her note of fierce conviction, was becoming too much for him. Even if he owed it to her to carry the thing off bravely, in a fashion that would spare her infinite pain, he soon began to realize that in his present shattered state such a task was beyond him.
For the time being, she was stronger than he. Face to face with death he had made up his mind to accept it with stoicism, but the importunity of the woman he adored overcame him now. At first, he had been fully determined to tell her nothing. The concealed rock which had shattered a fine career should remain undisclosed. But he saw that it would be inhuman to meet death in silence and in secrecy, even had such a course been feasible.
How much should he tell? That was his problem. She was his wife, and had a right to know all. He had made, it was true, certain solemn vows. But these, as he now saw, had been entered upon in an evil hour. Therefore, he must break these vows and pay for the privilege with his life. But the question remained, how much would it be expedient to tell her?
One fact he did not doubt. Enemies, terrible and implacable, would be ranged against him. And if they should once suspect that their secrets had been divulged to Helen, her life, too, would not be worth a moment’s purchase.
In spite of that, however, embarked on his strange story, he found it beyond his power to withhold any material detail. It became a sheer impossibility to choose or select. All had to be known, once the die was cast. Listening in grief and horror to a narrative of events which began with John’s rooted conviction that the world was now at grips with a terrible evil, Helen was yet able in some measure to impose her will upon the man she loved. A deep instinct told her that the only hope of saving his life lay with her; and if so frail a chance was to be fruitful, she must acquaint herself with all the strands of the coil in which he was involved.