CHAPTER XXXIV
WHICH SPEAKS ONLY OF FAREWELLS
The door had scarcely closed, and already she was near him.
"Luke," she whispered, and her voice was hoarse now and choked, "the police!"
"That's about it," he said. "I thought that they meant to let me get away."
"So father understood from Sir Thomas Ryder. What will you do, Luke?"
"I can't do anything, I am afraid. I wanted to get away——"
"And I have kept you—and now it is too late."
A very little while ago she had hated the idea of his going. Luke—a fugitive from justice—was a picture on which it was intolerable to look. But now the womanly instinct rose up in revolt, at the very thought that he should be arrested, tried, and condemned! What mattered if he were a fugitive, if he were ostracized and despised? what mattered anything so long as he lived and she could be near him? A very little while ago, she would have done anything to keep him from going; she almost longed for his arrest and the publicity of the trial. She was so sure that truth would surely come out, that his innocence would of necessity be proved.
But now, woman-like, she only longed for his safety, and forgetting all the tradition of her past life, all the old lessons of self-restraint, forgetting everything except his immediate danger, she clung to him with all the true passion in her, which she no longer tried to keep in check.
"No, Luke," she murmured in quick, jerky tones, "it is not too late—not at all too late. You stay in here quietly and I'll ask father to go and speak to them. He'll tell them that you haven't come home yet, and that he is waiting here for you himself. Father is well known; they won't suspect him of shielding you; and in the meanwhile you can slip out easily; we'll send your luggage on. You can write and let us know where you are—it is quite easy—and not too late——"
Whilst she spoke, she was gradually edging toward the door. Her voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper, for maddening terror almost deprived her of speech. With insistent strength she would not allow him to detain her, and he, whilst trying to hold her back, was afraid of hurting her. But at the last when she had almost reached the door, he contrived to forestall her, and before she could guess his purpose he had pressed a finger on the button of the electric bell.
She heard the distant tinkle of the bell, and this made her pause.
"What is it, Luke?" she asked. "Why did you ring?"
"For your father, dear," he replied simply.
"Then you will do what I want you to?" she rejoined eagerly, "you will go away?"
He gave no immediate answer, for already the maid's footstep was heard along the passage. The next moment she was knocking at the door. Luke went up to it, gently forcing Louisa back into the shadow behind him.
"Mary," he said, with his hand on the latch of the door, holding it slightly ajar, "just ask Colonel Harris to come here, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
The girl was heard turning away, and walking back briskly along the passage. Then Luke faced Louisa once again.
He went up to her and without a word took her in his arms. It was a supreme farewell and she knew it. She felt it in the quiver of agony which went right through him as he pressed her so close—so close that her breath nearly left her body and her heart seemed to stand still. She felt it in the sweet, sad pain of the burning kisses with which he covered her face, her eyes, her hair, her mouth. It was the final passionate embrace, the irrevocable linking of soul and heart and mind, the parting of earthly bodies, the union of immortal souls. It was the end of all things earthly, the beginning of things eternal.
She understood and her resistance vanished. All that had been dark to her became suddenly transfigured and illumined. With the merging of earthly passion into that Love which is God's breath, she—the pure and selfless woman, God's most perfect work on earth—became as God, and knew what was good and what had been evil.
Neither of them spoke; the word "farewell" was not uttered between them. His final kiss was upon her eyes, and she closed them after that, the better to imprint on her memory the vision of his face lit up with the divine fire of an unconquerable passion.
The entrance of Colonel Harris brought them both back to present reality. He, poor man, looked severely troubled, and distinctly older than he usually did.
"Did you want me, Luke?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied the latter, "the police are here, and I thought that perhaps you and Louisa would be so kind as to take Edie along with you. Jim is going to sleep in barracks to-night, and Edie ought not to stay here alone."
"Yes. We'll take Edie," said the colonel curtly, "she'll be all right with us. Are you ready, Lou?"
"Yes, dear," she replied.
And she passed out of the door without another word, or another look.
The supreme farewell had been spoken. Further words—even another kiss—would have almost desecrated its undying memory.
The two men remained alone, and Colonel Harris without any hesitation held out his hand to Luke de Mountford.
"The police are here, sir," said Luke, without taking the hand that was offered him.
"I know they are," muttered the other, "that's no reason why you should refuse an old friend's hand."
Then as Luke—hesitating no longer—placed his burning hand in that of his friend, Colonel Harris said quietly, almost entreatingly:
"It's only a temporary trouble, eh, my boy? You can easily refute this abominable charge, and prove your innocence?"
"I think not, sir," replied Luke. "I cannot refute the charge and my innocence will be difficult to prove."
"But you are mad, man!" retorted the older man hotly. "You are mad! and are breaking a woman's heart!"
"Heaven forgive me for that, sir. It is the greatest crime."
Colonel Harris smothered a powerful oath. Luke's attitude puzzled him more and more. And his loyalty had received such a succession of shocks to-day that it would have been small wonder if it had begun to totter at last.
He turned away without another word. But at the door he paused once more—in obvious hesitation.
"There's nothing else I can do for you?" he asked.
"Nothing, sir. Thank you."
"You—you were not thinking—of——"
"Of what, sir?" asked Luke.
Then as he saw the other man's eyes wandering to the drawer of the desk, he said simply:
"Of suicide, you mean, sir?"
Colonel Harris nodded.
"Oh, no," rejoined Luke. And he added after a slight pause: "Not at present."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I shouldn't exactly hang for the murder of the Clapham bricklayer. I shouldn't let it come to that. I am sorry I did not manage to get away to-night. I thought they meant to let me."
"I think they did mean to. Some blunder I suppose on the part of the subordinates."
"I suppose so."
"Well, Luke," said Colonel Harris with a deep sigh, "I have known you ever since you were a child, but, by G—d, man! I confess that I don't understand you."
"That's very kindly put, sir," rejoined Luke with the semblance of a smile. "You have every right to call me a confounded blackguard."
"I shall only do that after your trial, my boy," said the other. "When I have heard you confess with your own lips that you killed that d——d scoundrel in a moment of intense provocation."
"I had better not keep the police waiting any longer, sir, had I?"
"No! no! that's all right. I'll take my poor Lou away at once, and we'll see after Edie, and Jim—we'll look after them—and Frank, too, when he comes home."
"Thank you, sir."
"S'long my boy."
And Colonel Harris—puzzled, worried, and miserable—finally went out of the room. On the threshold he turned, moved by the simple and primitive instinct of wishing to take a last look at a friend.
He saw Luke standing there in the full light of the electric lamp, calm, quite serene, correct to the last in attitude and bearing. The face was just a mask—marble-like and impassive—jealously guarding the secrets of the soul within. Just a good-looking, well-bred young Englishman in fact, who looked in his elegant attire ready to start off for some social function.
Not a single trace either on his person or in his neat, orderly surroundings of the appalling tragedy which would have broken the spirit of any human creature, less well-schooled in self-restraint.
Convention was triumphant to the end.
The man of the world—the English gentleman, hypocritical or unemotional? which?—was here ready to face abject humiliation and hopeless disgrace as impassively as he would have received the welcome of an hostess at a dinner-party.