The Emancipated

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"Go back to your house, and wait there," he added gravely, but
without harshness. "For some reason best known to yourself, you kept
your wife waiting for nearly two days, in expectation of your
coming. I hope it was reluctance to face her. You can only go and
wait. If I hear any news of her, you shall at once receive it. And
if she comes, I desire to know of it as soon as possible."

Elgar could say nothing more. He would have liked to ask several
questions, but pride forbade him. Turning in silence he went from
the studio, and slowly descended the stairs Mallard heard him pause
near the foot, then go forth.

Reuben had no choice but to obey the artist's directions. He walked
a long way, the exercise helping him to combat his complicated
wretchedness, but at length he felt weary and threw himself into a
cab.

The servant who opened the door to him said that Mrs. Elgar had been
in for a few minutes, about an hour ago; she would be back again by
lunch-time.

CHAPTER XV

PEACE IN SHOW AND PEACE IN TRUTH

At first so much relieved that he was able to sit down and quietly
review his thoughts, Elgar could not long preserve this frame of
mind; in half an hour he began to suffer from impatience, and when
the time of Cecily's return approached, he was in a state of
intolerable agitation. Mallard's severity lost its force now that it
was only remembered. He accused himself of having been, as always,
weakly sensitive to the moment's impression. The fact remained that
Cecily had spent a long time alone with Mallard, had made him the
confidant of her troubles; it credible in human nature--the past
borne in mind--that Mallard had never exceeded a passionless
sympathy? Did not Miriam say distinctly that suspicion had been
excited in her by the behaviour of the two when they were in Rome?
Why had he not stayed to question his sister on that point? As
always, he had lost his head, missed the essential, obeyed impulses
instead of proceeding on a rational plan.

He worked himself into a sense of being grossly injured. The shame
he had suffered in this morning's interviews was now a
mortification. What had _he_ to do with vulgar rules and vulgar
judgments? By what right did these people pose as his superiors and
look contemptuous rebuke? His anger concentrated itself on Cecily;
the violence of jealousy and the brute instinct of male prerogative
plied his brain to frenzy as the minutes dragged on. Where had she
passed the night? How durst she absent herself from home, and keep
him in these tortures of expectation?

At a few minutes past one she came. The library door was ajar, and
he heard her admit herself with a latch-key; she would see his hat
and gloves in the hall. But instead of coming to the library she
went straight upstairs; it was Cecily, for he knew her step. Almost
immediately he followed. She did not stop at the drawing-room; he
followed, and came up with her at the bedroom door. Still she paid
no attention, but went in and took off her hat.

"Where have you been since yesterday afternoon?" he asked, when he
had slammed the door.

Cecily looked at him with offended surprise--almost as she might
have regarded an insolent servant.

"What right have you to question me in such a tone?"

"Never mind my tone, but answer me."

"What right have you to question me at all?"

"Every right, so long as you choose to remain in my house."

"You oblige me to remind you that the house is at least as much mine
as yours. For what am I beholden to you? If it comes to the bare
question of rights between us, I must meet you with arguments as
coarse as your own. Do you suppose I can pretend, now, to
acknowledge any authority in you? I am just as free as you are, and
I owe you no account of myself."

Physical exhaustion had made her incapable of self-control. She had
anticipated anything but such an address as this with which Elgar
presented himself. The insult was too shameless; it rendered
impossible the cold dignity she had purposed.

"What do you mean by 'free'?" he asked, less violently.

"Everything that you yourself understand by it. I am accountable to
no one but myself. If I have allowed you to think that I held the
old belief of a woman's subjection to her husband, you must learn
that that is at an end. I owe no more obedience to you than you do
to me."

"I ask no obedience. All I want to know is, whether it is possible
for us to live under the same roof or not."

Cecily made no reply. Her anger had involved her in an
inconsistency, yet she was not so far at the mercy of blind impulses
as to right herself by taking the very course she had recognized as
impossible.

"That entirely depends," added Elgar, "on whether you choose to
explain your absence last night."

"In other words," said Cecily, "it can be of no significance to me
where you go or what you do, but if you have a doubt about any of my
movements, it at once raises the question whether you can continue
to live with me or not I refuse to admit anything of the kind. I
have chosen, as you put it, to remain in your house, and in doing so
I know what I accept. By what right do you demand more of me than I
of you?"

"You know that you are talking absurdly. You know as well as I do
the difference."

"Whatever laws I recognize, they are in myself only. As regards your
claims upon me, what I have said is the simple truth. I owe you no
account. If you are not content with this, you must form whatever
suppositions you will, and act as you think fit."

"That is as much as telling me that our married life is at an end. I
suppose you meant that when you kindly reminded me that it was your
money I have been living on. Very well. Let it be as you wish."

Cecily regarded him with resentful wonder.

"Do you dare to speak as if it were I who had brought this about?"

Reuben was not the man to act emotion and contrive scenes. Whenever
it might have seemed that he did so, he was, in truth, yielding to
the sudden revulsions which were characteristic of his passionate
nature. In him, harshness and unreason inevitably led to a reaction
in which all the softer of his qualities rose predominant. So it was
now. Those last words of his were not consciously meant to give him
an opportunity of changing his standpoint. Inconstant, incapable of
self-direction, at the mercy of the moment's will, he could foresee
himself just as little as another could foresee him. His impetuous
being prompted him to utter sincerely what a man of adroit
insincerity would have spoken with calculation.

"Yes," he exclaimed. "it _is_ you who have done most towards it!"

"By what act? what word?" she asked, in astonishment.

"By all your acts and words for the year past, and longer. You had
practically abandoned me long before you went abroad. When you
discovered that I was not everything you imagined, when you found
faults and weaknesses in me, you began to draw away, to be cold and
indifferent, to lose all interest in whatever I did or wished to do.
When I was working, you showed plainly that you had no faith in my
powers; it soon cost you an effort even to listen to me when I
talked on the subject. I looked to you for help, and I found none.
Could I say anything? The help had to come spontaneously, or it was
no use. Then you gave yourself up entirely to the child; you were
glad of that excuse for keeping out of my way. If I was away from
home for a day or two, you didn't even care to ask what I had been
doing; that was what proved to me how completely indifferent you had
become. And when you went abroad, what a pretence it was to ask me
to come with you! I knew quite well that you had much rather be
without me. And how did you suppose I should live during your
absence? You never thought about it, never cared to think. Don't
imagine I am blaming you. Everything was at an end between us, and
which of us could help it? But it is as well to show you that I am
not the cause of all that has happened. You have no justification
whatever for this tone of offence. It is foolish, childish, unworthy
of a woman who claims to think for herself."

Cecily listened with strange sensations. She knew that all this had
nothing to do with the immediate point at issue, and that it only
emphasized the want of nobility in Reuben's character, but, as he
proceeded, there was so much truth in what he attributed to her
that, in spite of everything, she could not resist a feeling of
culpability. However little it really signified to her husband, it
was undoubtedly true that she had made no effort with herself when
she became conscious of indifference towards him. To preserve love
was not in her power, but was he not right in saying that she might
have done more, as a wife, to supply his defects? Knowing him weak,
should she not have made it a duty to help him against himself? Had
she not, as he said, virtually "abandoned" him?

Elgar observed her, and recognized the effect of his words.

"Of course," he pursued, "if you have made up your mind to be
released, I have neither the power nor the will to keep you. But you
must deal plainly with me. You can't both live here and have ties
elsewhere. I should have thought you would have been the first to
recognize that."

"Of what ties do you speak?"

"I don't know that you have any; but you say you hold yourself free
to form them."

"If I had done so, I should not be here."

"Then what objection can you have to telling me where you have
been?"

How idle it was, to posture and use grandiose words! Why did she
shrink from the complete submission that her presence here implied?
No amount of self-assertion would do away with the natural law of
which he had contemptuously reminded her, the law which
distinguishes man and woman, and denies to one what is permitted to
the other.

"I passed the night by a sick-bed," she replied, letting her voice
drop into weariness--"Madeline Denyer's."

"Did you go there directly on leaving home?"

"No."

"Will you tell me where else you went?"

"I went first of all to see Mr. Mallard. I talked with him for a
long time, and he gave me some tea. Then he came part of the way
back with me. Shall I try and remember the exact spot where he got
out of the cab?"

"What had you. to do with Mallard, Cecily?"

"I had to tell him that my life was a failure, and to thank him for
having wished to save me from this fate."

Her answers were given in a dull monotone; she seemed to be heedless
of the impression they made.

"You said that to Mallard?"

"Yes. It can be nothing to me what you think of it. I had waited
here till I could bear loneliness no longer; I knew I had one true
friend, and I went to him."

"You behaved as no self-respecting woman could!" Elgar exclaimed
passionately.

"If so," she answered, meeting his look, "the shame falls only on
myself."

"That is not true! You yourself seem to be unconscious of the shame;
to me it is horrible suffering. I thought you incapable of anything
of the kind. I looked up to you as a high-minded woman, and I loved
you for your superiority to myself."

"You loved me?" she asked, with a bitter smile.

"Yes; believe it or not, as you like. Because I was maddened by
sensual passion for a creature whom I never one moment respected,
how did that lessen my love for you? You complain that I kept away
from you; I did so because I was still racked by that vile torment,
and shrank in reverence from approaching you. You might have known
me well enough to understand this. Have I not told you a thousand
times that in me soul and body have lived separate lives? Even when
I seemed sunk in the lowest depths, I still loved you purely and
truly; I loved you all the more because I was conscious of my brutal
faults. Now you have destroyed my ideal; you have degraded yourself
in my esteem. It is nothing to me now, do what you may! I can never
forgive you. By doing yourself wrong, you have wronged me beyond all
words!"

Cecily could not take her eyes from him. She marvelled at such
emotion in him. But the only way in which it affected her own
feeling was to make her question herself anxiously as to whether she
had really fallen below her self-respect. Had she led Mallard to
think of her with like disapproval?

Life is so simple to people of the old civilization. The rules are
laid down so broadly and plainly, and the con. science they have
created answers so readily when appealed to. But for these poor
instructed persons, what a complex affair has morality become! Hard
enough for men, but for women desperate indeed. Each must be her own
casuist, and without any criterion save what she can establish by
her own experience. The growth of Cecily's mind had removed her
further and further from simplicity of thought; this was in part the
cause of that perpetual sense of weariness to which she awoke day
after day. Communion with such a man as Elgar strengthened the
natural tendency, until there was scarcely a motive left to which
she could yield without discussing it in herself, consciously or
unconsciously. Her safeguard was an innate nobleness of spirit. But
it is not to every woman of brains that this is granted.

"What I did," she said at length slowly, "was done, no doubt, in a
moment of weakness; I gave way to the need of sympathy. Had my
friend been a man of less worth, he might have misunderstood me, and
then I might indeed have been shamed. But I knew him and trusted
him."

"Which means, that you were false to me in a way I never was to you.
It is you who have broken the vow we made to be faithful to each
other."

"I cannot read in your heart. If you still love me, it is a pity; I
can give you no love in return."

He drew nearer, and looked at her despairingly.

"Cecily! when I came last night, I had a longing to throw myself at
your feet, and tell you all my misery--everything, and find
strength again with your help. I never feared _this_. You, who are
all love and womanliness, you cannot have put me utterly from your
heart!"

"I am your wife still; but I ask nothing of you, and you must not
seek for more than I can give."

"Well, I too ask for nothing, But I will prove--"

She checked him.

"Don't forget your philosophy. We both of us know that it is idle to
make promises of that kind."

"You will leave London with me?"

"I shall go wherever you wish."

"Then we will make our home again in Paris. The sooner the better. A
few days, and we will get rid of everything except what we wish to
take with us. I don't care if I never see London again."

In the evening, Cecily was again at the Denyers' house. Madeline lay
without power of speech, and seemed gradually sinking into
unconsciousness. Mrs. Denyer had been telegraphed for; a reply had
come, saying that she would be home very soon, but already a much
longer time. than was necessary had passed, and she did not arrive.
Zillah sat by the bed weeping, or knelt in prayer.

"If your mother does not come," Cecily said to her, "I will stay all
night. It's impossible for you to be left alone."

"She must surely come; and Barbara too. How can they delay so long?"

Madeline's eyes were open, but she gave no sign of recognition. The
look upon her face was one of suffering, there was no telling
whether of body or mind. Hitherto it had changed a little when
Zillah spoke to her, but at length not even this sign was to be
elicited. Cecily could not take her gaze from the blank visage; she
thought unceasingly of the bright, confident girl she had known
years ago, and the sunny shore of Naples.

The doctor looked in at nine o'clock. He stayed only a few minutes.

At half-past ten there came a loud knocking at the house-door, and
the servant admitted Mrs. Denyer, who was alone. In the little room
above, the two watchers were weeping over the dead girl.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TWO FACES

Mallard, when he had taken leave of Cecily by Regent's Park, set out
to walk homewards. He was heavy-hearted, and occasionally a fit of
savage feeling against Elgar took hold of him, but his mood remained
that of one who watches life's drama from a point of vantage.
Sitting close by Cecily's side, he had been made only more conscious
of their real remoteness from each other--of his inability to give
her any kind of help. He wished she had not come to him, for he saw
she had hoped to meet with warmer sympathy, and perhaps she was now
more than ever oppressed with the sense of abandonment. And yet such
a result might have its good; it might teach her that she must look
for support to no one but herself. Useless to lament the necessity;
fate had brought her to the hardest pass that woman can suffer, and
she must make of her life what she could. It was not the kind of
distress that a friend can remedy; though she perished, he could do
nothing but stand by and sorrow.

Coming to his own neighbourhood, he did not go straight to the
studio, but turned aside to the Spences' house. He had no intention
of letting his friends know of Cecily's visit, but he wished to ask
whether they had any news of Elgar. No one was at home, however.

The next morning, when surprised by the appearance of Elgar himself,
he was on the point of again going to the Spences'. The interview
over, he met forth, and found Eleanor alone. She had just learnt
from Miriam what news Reuben had brought, and on Mallard's entrance
she at once repeated this to him.

"I knew it," replied the artist. "The fellow has been with me."

"He ventured to come? Before or after his coming here?"

"After. I think," he added carelessly, "that Mrs. Baske suggested it
to him."

"Possibly. I know nothing of what passed between them."

"Do you think Mrs. Baske has any idea on the subject?" Mallard
inquired, again without special insistence.

"She spoke rather mysteriously," Eleanor replied. "When I said that
Mrs. Lessingham probably could explain it, she said she thought not,
but gave no reasons."

"Why should she be mysterious?"

"That is more than I can tell you. Mystery rather lies in her
character, I fancy."

"Would you mind telling me whether she is in the habit of going out
alone?"

Eleanor hesitated a little, surprised by the question.

"Yes, she is. She often takes a walk alone in the afternoon."

"Thank you. Never mind why I wished to know. It throws no light on
Cecily's disappearance."

They talked of it for some time, and were still so engaged when
Spence came in. In him the intelligence excited no particular
anxiety; Cecily had gone to her aunt, that was all. What else was to
be expected when she found an empty house?

"But," remarked Eleanor, "the question remains whether or not she
has heard of this scandal."

Mallard could have solved their doubts on this point, but to do so
involved an explanation of how he came possessed of the knowledge;
he held his peace.

It was doubtful whether Elgar would keep his promise and communicate
any news he might have. Mallard worked through the day, as usual,
but with an uneasy mind. In the morning he walked over once more to
the Spences', and learnt that anxieties were at an end; Mrs. Baske
had received a letter from her brother, in which Cecily's absence
was explained. Elgar wrote that he was making preparations for
departure; in a few days they hoped to be in Paris, where henceforth
they purposed living.

He went away without seeing Miriam, and there passed more than a
fortnight before he again paid her a visit. In the meantime he had
seen Spence, who reported an interview between Eleanor and Mrs.
Lessingham; nothing of moment, but illustrating the idiosyncrasies
of Cecily's relative. When at length, one sunny afternoon, Mallard
turned his steps towards the familiar house, it was his chance to
encounter Eleanor and her husband just hastening to catch a train;
they told him hurriedly that Miriam had heard from Paris.

"Go and ask her to tell you about it," said Eleanor. "She is not
going out."

Mallard asked nothing better. He walked on with a curious smile, was
admitted, and waited a minute or two in the drawing-room. Miriam
entered, and shook hands with him, coldly courteous, distantly
dignified.

"I am sorry Mrs. Spence is not at home."

"I came to see you, Mrs. Baske. I have just met them, and heard that
you have news from Paris."

"Only a note, sending a temporary address."

He observed her as she spoke, and let silence follow. "You would
like to know it--the address?" she added, meeting his look with a
rather defiant steadiness.

"No, thank you. It will be enough if I know where they finally
settle. You saw Mrs. Elgar before she left?"

"No."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Miriam's face was clouded. She sat very stiffly, and averted her
eyes as if to ignore his remark. Mallard, who had been holding his
hat and stick in conventional manner, threw them both aside, and
leaned his elbow on the back of the settee.

"I should like," he said deliberately, "to ask you a question which
sounds impertinent, but which I think you will understand is not
really so. Will you tell me how you regard Mrs. Elgar? I mean, is it
your wish to be still as friendly with her as you once were? Or do
you, for whatever reason, hold aloof from her?"

"Will you explain to me, Mr. Mallard, why you think yourself
justified in asking such a question?"

In both of them there were signs of nervous discomposure. Miriam
flushed a little; the artist moved from one attitude to another, and
began to play destructively with a tassel.

"Yes," he answered. "I have a deep interest in Mrs. Elgar's
welfare--_that_ needs no explaining--and I have reason to fear that
something in which I was recently concerned may have made you less
disposed to think of her as I wish you to. Is it so or not?"

Her answer was uttered with difficulty.

"What can it matter howl think of her?"

"That is the point. To my mind it matters a great deal. For
instance, it seems to me a deplorable thing that you, her sister in
more senses than one, should have kept apart from her when she so
much needed a woman's sympathy. Of course, if you had no true
sympathy to give her, there's an end of it. But it seems to me
strange that it should be so. Will you put aside conventionality,
and tell me if you have any definite reason for acting as if you and
she were strangers?"

Miriam was mute. Her questioner waited, observing her. At length she
spoke with painful impulsiveness.

"I can't talk with you on this subject."

"I am very sorry to distress you," Mallard continued, his voice
growing almost harsh in its determination, "but talk of it we must,
once for all. Your brother came to my studio one morning, and
demanded an explanation of something about his wife which he had
heard from you. He didn't _say_ that it came from you, but I have
the conviction that it did. Please to tell me if I am wrong."

She kept an obstinate silence, sitting motionless, her hands tightly
clasped together on her lap.

"If you don't contradict me, I must conclude that I am right. To
speak plainly, it had come to his knowledge that Mrs. Elgar--no; I
will call her Cecily, as I used to do when she was a child--that
Cecily had visited my studio the evening before. You told him of
that. How did you know of it, Mrs. Baske?"

Miriam answered in a hard, forced voice.

"I happened to be passing when she drove up in a cab."

"I understand. But you also told him how long she remained, and that
when she left I accompanied her. How could you be aware of those
things?"

She seemed about to answer, but her voice failed. She stood up, and
began to move away. Instantly Mallard was at her side.

"You must answer me," he said, his voice shaking. "If I detain you
by force, you must answer me."

Miriam turned to face him. She stood splendidly at bay, her eyes
gleaming, her cheeks bloodless, her lithe body in an attitude finer
than she knew. They looked into each other's pupils, long,
intensely, as if reading the heart there. Miriam's eyes were the
first to fall.

"I waited till she came out again."

"You waited all that time? In the road?"

"Yes."

"And when you heard that Cecily had Dot returned home that night,
you believed that she had left her husband for ever?

"Yes."

Mallard drew hack a little, and his voice softened.

"Forgive me for losing sight of civility. Knowing this, it was
perhaps natural that you should inform your brother of it. You took
it for granted that Cecily--however unwise it was of her--had
come to tell me of her resolve to leave home, and that I, as her old
friend, had seen her safely to the place where she had taken
refuge?"

He uttered this with a peculiar emphasis, gazing steadily into her
face. Miriam dropped her eyes, and made no reply.

"You represented it to your brother in this light?" he continued, in
the same tone.

She forced herself to look at him; there was awed wonder on her
face.

"There is no need to answer in words. I see that I have understood
you. But of course you soon learnt that you had been in part
mistaken. Cecily had no intention of leaving her husband, from the
first."

Miriam breathed with difficulty. He motioned to her to sit down, but
she gave no heed.

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