Chapter XVIII

To Laline's great relief, no one spoke to her or interferred with her in any way on her return; and she was able to retire with her ecstatic thoughts to her own room.

To say that she had never been so happy in her life would be to understate the case. Until this day she had not known what happiness was. Sleep was out of the question for a long time; Laline was too happy to sleep. She laid her flushed cheek upon her pillow, and proceeded slowly and lingeringly to recall every word, every look, and every caress she had received from Wallace Armstrong.

Her vivid imagination being excited to its utmost, she thrilled again at her lover's touch, saw again the love-light in his eyes, turned her face to meet his kisses, and murmured into her pillow answering vows of unalterable love.

No scruples restrained her from giving herself up heart and soul to thoughts of him. He was her husband, and she had a right to love him, to glow with delight at the memory of his caresses, and to long ardently for the moment when she should see him again. In a very few days she would be doubly married to him--for Laline was resolved that the blessing of the Church should cement that hurried and unimpressive civil ceremony at Boulogne.

It occurred to her more than once that Wallace, in his impatience to claim her as his wife, might wish, when once he learned her identity, to dispense with the delay of a second wedding; and for this reason alone she debated whether it might not be better to defer telling him the truth until after the ceremony had been performed.

Yet again she told herself that before the altar she must speak the truth. Laline Armstrong and not Lina Grahame was her name, and as Laline Armstrong she must be married--Laline Armstrong, neither spinster, widow, nor wife. The definitions confused her, and she laughed aloud in the dark from sheer light-heartedness to think that a man should be unknowingly wooing and wedding his own wife.

She would never feel that she was really his wife until they had been married in a church. So utterly different was the man she now knew and loved from the reckless, defiant, capriciously kind Wallace Armstrong of the old Boulogne days, that it seemed as though another soul had entered into the man, and that another ceremony was necessary to make him truly her husband.

The marked dislike, amounting almost to abhorrence, with which he alluded to his past experiences was characteristic of his complete reformation; but it was just this quality which made Laline dread breaking the truth to him. At least for a few days she decided that she must still be Lina Grahame. Their relations were so perfect that the introduction of any new element might mar their complete harmony; and having once arrived at this determination, Laline let her brain slip back again to the congenial employment of living again through every incident of her second courtship until at length her waking dreams of passionate delight were merged in sleep.

At this precise moment all happiness fled. No sooner was she asleep than terrible dreams afflicted her soul--dreams in which she was always endeavouring to reach her lover until some terrible catastrophe occurred to prevent their union, and she was hurled away into space with the sound of a man's mocking laughter in her ears.

Sometimes she thought she was wandering in a flower-bedecked meadow under a cloudless sky while numberless birds sang sweetly overhead. At a little distance she perceived Wallace approaching her, with gladness in his eyes and arms outstretched to embrace her. Through all her joy at sight of him a sense of foreboding hung over her which was too soon justified; for as, advancing rapidly to her side, he had almost seized her hands in his, the solid earth cleft open beneath their feet and they were irrevocably parted.

"You are mine--mine!" another voice seemed to mutter in her ear. Invisible hands imprisoned her, holding her back whenever she strove through the long hours of hideous dreaming to reach her lover; and, when at length the morning dawned and she awoke, it was with a terrible sense of impending trouble weighing upon her mind.

Just such a night of horrors had she experienced on a previous occasion not many days before. The night preceding Wallace Armstrong's appearance at Mrs. Vandeleur's house had been marked by exactly similar dreams; and Laline, as she dressed and contemplated her pale face and startled eyes in the looking-glass, tried to reassure herself by recalling that no untoward event had followed her dreams on the former occasion.

"They say dreams are always fulfilled in just the reverse way," she told herself. "Meeting my husband again was the happiest thing that ever happened to me; so why should not last night's horrible fancies, which were exactly similar in character, portend some unexpected blessing? Oh, I am growing too sillily superstitious! Wallace is quite right; this house isn't good for me. But I shall leave it soon; and this month my husband's home will be mine. Nothing can part us now--nothing!"

In spite of her assumed brave front, Laline could not get rid of the unpleasant impression produced by her night fancies; and when she joined Clare Cavan at the breakfast-table, that young lady commented at once upon her altered appearance.

"My dearest Lina, you look so pale and so upset! What is it? Did you overtire yourself yesterday? You were out with some friends from your old school, were you not?"

Looking up suddenly, Laline perceived the lurking malice in the speaker's eyes and boldly took up the challenge Clare had thrown down.

"I was with Mr. Armstrong," she answered, in clear, firm tones, "skating in the grounds of his uncle's house at Hampstead."

"With Mr. Wallace Armstrong?" Clare inquired, in tones of assumed surprise and anxiety.

"Yes. I thought I saw you at the window watching us drive up to the house," Laline observed, calmly.

"Well, I certainly thought it was you and he," the ingenuous Clare returned, "but in the dark I couldn't be sure. I am so sorry!"

"Why should you be sorry?"

"Well, I hardly like to tell you; and yet perhaps I ought to. Of course you know that Mr. Armstrong admired me very much and paid me a great deal of attention? Well, I liked him too, as you know; but certain facts about him came into my possession yesterday which made me resolve to ask Aunt Cecilia to drop him for the future."

"What are those facts?"

"It's a most shocking affair, dear, and I am afraid will distress you. I was dreadfully grieved about it; for you know I thought Mr. Armstrong so nice at first. It appears that old Mr. Farquharson the clerk was right, and that, though Mr. Armstrong appears so pleasant and well-bred and charming, he indulges periodically in fits of heavy drinking, during which he is really like a wild beast and not responsible for his actions."

"Who told you all this?"

"Mrs. Fitzroy Cleaver was talking about it yesterday. She had to forbid him her house because he got frightfully tipsy and tried to make love to the servants. That happened last year; but he is never to be trusted, she declared, and may break out at any moment."

"I simply don't believe it!"

"Will you believe your eyes?" asked Clare, lowering her white lids to hide the triumph in her gaze. "Read this; it is from the _Daily Leader_ of last June."

As she spoke, she took from her purse and laid in front of Laline's plate a cutting from a newspaper, headed--"Disgraceful Conduct of a Gentleman."

Laline's heart beat with a sickening apprehension. Not wishing Clare to see her emotion, she rose from the table and took the cutting to the window, where, with checks crimson with mortification, she read that Wallace Armstrong, "stated to be nephew to the well-known banker Alexander Wallace," had been brought before the magistrate on a charge of drunkenness and brutal assault on the police. The accused, it was stated, made no answer to the charge; and, it being proved that on three previous occasions fines had been inflicted for similar offences and instantly paid, the magistrate decided to mark his sense of the man's disgraceful conduct by sending him to prison with hard labour for six months.

"Of course they got him off again," Clare volunteered, as Laline returned the paper to her without speaking, "and it was kept out of most of the papers. I am so dreadfully sorry for that poor dear old Mr. Wallace! That sort of drunkenness is nothing else but insanity; and I suppose one ought to be sorry for Mr. Armstrong as well. As soon as I heard the dreadful story it explained so many things I couldn't understand during our visit the other day. That person shut up near the studio, for instance, was no doubt Mr. Armstrong's keeper, close at hand to look after him in case he should have one of his attacks."

"You pretended that it was a woman who sprang out upon you."

"Did I say so? Of course in the dark I couldn't see. In any case, I am very, very sorry for the whole business; and I do hope, dear Lina, that you won't take it too much to heart. Remember, Mr. Armstrong is only a very slight and recent acquaintance; it isn't as if he were an old friend. Don't worry yourself about him, dear."

"I don't want your sympathy and I don't want your advice; I don't believe in either of them!" flamed out poor Laline. "I believe that these are all lies and that Mr. Armstrong will be easily able to disprove them. And as to being a mere acquaintance--I love him, and I am going to marry him!"

With that, Laline swept from the room, desperately unhappy, but determined in spite of all appearances to be loyal to the man she loved.

She tried not to think about him in church, tried to appear at luncheon as though nothing had ruffled her usual serenity. But Clare's exaggerated consideration and obvious sympathy were well-nigh intolerable. Laline could neither eat nor talk, and could hardly keep back from her eyes tears of shame and vexation at the turn things had taken since the morning.

Wallace, her chivalrous, tender, manly lover, a drunkard and an insensate brute! The thought seemed sacrilege. And yet Laline remembered she had somewhere heard that dipsomaniacs were often, but for that one hideous vice, among the most refined and sweet-natured of men. Of one thing she was the more resolved every hour--she would see her husband at once, tax him with what she had learned, and if possible elicit from him the entire truth. If only her influence might avail to wean him from this degrading vice she would not for one moment hesitate, but would dedicate her life to the task of reclaiming him.

With these conflicting reflections agitating her mind, she could hardly pretend to pay any attention to Clare's easy and incessant flow of chatter during the course of the meal any more than she could attune her mind to Mrs. Vandeleur's fantastic talk in her study in the afternoon. The little lady shook her head sadly as she looked at her secretary.

"Already spoiled! Already spoiled!" she murmured. "Lina, have you nothing to say to me?"

"I shall have ever so much that I want to say to you by this time to-morrow!" Laline cried, springing from her chair and beginning to move restlessly about the room. "But you must let me see Mr. Armstrong once more first, dear Mrs. Vandeleur. After that, I promise I will tell you the entire truth."

The little sibyl looked at her long and intently through her jewelled eye-glasses.

"You are very much in love," she observed, in her light silvery voice, and forthwith sighed. "It is a great pity, when we were getting on so well together," she added, regretfully. "I wish," said Laline, wistfully, "that you could tell me whether it will all turn out happily. What does it mean, Mrs. Vandeleur, when one dares not look ahead, when one watches the hands of the clock in dread of what the next hour will bring forth? And all for no reason or for insufficient reason. It is true that to-day I have heard something that troubles me greatly. But I was not wholly unprepared to face it, and this dreadful foreboding seems to presage something even worse, some terrible misfortune for which I am wholly unprepared."

She stood before Mrs. Vandeleur in her trailing white draperies, with scarcely more colour in her face than in her gown. Even her lips were pale, as, with low trembling accents, she gave voice to her fears.

"I have told you that love would bring trouble into your life," said Mrs. Vandeleur, "but of course I did not expect you to pay any attention to my words. To a limited extent, you have yourself the gift of second sight. I am going out now to pay a long-promised call on Lady Wray. While I am away take this crystal; concentrate your gaze immovably upon it, and let your heart guide your thoughts. It is possible that you may be able to learn as much about your future as I can tell you."

With that, she gently pushed Laline into a seat, and, placing in her hand the crystal ball, passed her fingers lightly and rapidly over the girl's brow, softly murmuring some undistinguishable words the while.

A feeling of drowsiness crept over Laline. Her eyelids closed, and for a few seconds she was lost to her surroundings. When she again opened her eyes she was alone, sitting by the fire, the light from which danced on the gleaming tiles and tall brass "dogs" within the fender. The afternoon was one of black frost and gray fog, and although it was not yet four o'clock the dull, red sun gave but little illumination. St. Mary's Crescent was intensely quiet, but the boards and panelling of Mrs. Vandeleur's study emitted fitful creakings in the highest degree calculated to startle a nervous person.

Laline, as a rule, did not like to be alone there in the twilight, but this afternoon she was so much absorbed in her thoughts that she was almost indifferent to outer influences. She was intensely anxious to see Wallace and deeply regretted her own parting mandate to the effect that he must defer his visit until the following day. It was terrible to live in suspense, dreading and doubting lest he should not be able to clear himself from the abominable charges made against him. And yet, in the face of that newspaper cutting, what could he say? Already the ecstastic happiness which had filled her heart on the preceding evening had been dispelled; in spite of everything, she persisted in loving Wallace as dearly as ever, but her tranquil joy in loving him was a thing of the past.

As she leaned over the fire, lost in thought and rendered dreamier than was her wont by Mrs. Vandeleur's parting touches, Laline had entirely forgotten the crystal which the latter had placed in her hand, and it was only the sparkle of the glass as it caught the firelight which attracted her attention to it again. She held it from her and gazed into its glistening depths; the dancing flames, the ruddy logs, the cloudy night sky flecked with stars painted on the ceiling, the dark oak panelling of the walls, and the faded tints and gruesome figures in the "Dance of Death" tapestry which ran as a frieze round the room, were all mirrored there in miniature, seen imperfectly by the aid of her near-sighted vision. Gradually, as she bent nearer, fascinated by the prettiness of the reflections, her own face came within focus, unusually intent and pale, with eyes fixed and distended. Once before, on the afternoon of Wallace's first visit, she had held the crystal in her hands, and on that occasion, as she recalled now, she had seemed to see imaged the figure of her husband.

Would the same thing happen now? she wondered, as, with straining eyes, she stared into the crystal.

Presently the glass became clouded, the various objects about the room were no longer there, and in their stead Laline caught a gleam of green shutters, opened to flood with sunshine a small uncarpeted room on the floor of which a bright-haired girl was playing with a kitten. Laline held her breath. She knew before it happened that the door would open and a red-faced man with a heavy white moustache would enter, bringing another man after him.

"A gentleman to see us, Laline!"

She could almost hear the words, but, as the door opened and the girl sprang to her feet to greet the visitor, the figures in the crystal began to fade, and of the tall massive form following close on that of Captain Garth Laline caught barely more than a glimpse.

Only a glimpse, yet it drove the blood from her cheeks and lips and made her catch her breath as one half suffocated. With all the will-power she possessed she strove to gaze again into the past. At first her efforts were in vain, but after a few seconds of quivering apprehension the crystal depths became cleared again. She could see waves rippling in the sunlight and up the shiny green supports of a pier, upon which two figures were seated side by side--a man and a girl.

Every detail was correct. Laline remembered the pink cotton frock, made with her own fingers, and the black lace hat and Suède gloves, Wallace's gifts, which she had worn so proudly. The man's head was lowered over the girl, whose left hand he held in his. But although Laline could not see his face she experienced a thrill of repulsion and terror at sight of his figure and thick curly black hair which showed under his straw hat.

Once again her memory brought back words from the past to complete the picture, and a man's voice, at sound of which her heart stood still with fear, slowly and impressively pronounced these words--

"This man will love you, and you will not be able to escape from him. His line of fate and yours run side by side and nothing but death can separate them!"

On the words the glass became clouded, the figures grew fainter and fainter until they vanished altogether, and Laline sat, trembling in every limb, with a new dread in her soul.

"It is the future and not the past which I must see," she told herself. "If I could only get sight of something to guide me!"

From the depths of the crystal the face of a man seemed to resolve itself, and brilliant bluish-gray eyes under heavy black eyebrows to fix themselves upon her. A faint cry rose to Laline's lips. She did not wish to see what the glass held; she would not believe her eyes. Every moment the face became clearer while her sentiment of loathing and detestation increased in proportion.

Moved out of herself by overmastering excitement, she would have flung the crystal from her; but at that exact moment the silence in the room was suddenly broken by the opening of the door and Susan's voice announcing--

"Mr. Wallace Armstrong!"