Chapter XXV

Giles stepped outside, and turned indifferently to the left. A few paces down the street was a public-house, he turned into it, and calling for a glass of brandy drank it off at a gulp. As he was coming out a man touched him smartly on the shoulder from behind. He turned round, and saw Nielsen. He was panting slightly from emotion or haste, his eyes had a red and angry look, and he planted his square figure firmly on the pavement in front of Legard.

“Lōōk here, you know,” he said, “this will not do, this is not the thing, you know, Monsieur Legard”--the words tumbled over each other grotesquely in his anger: “_C’est une lâcheté vous savez, c’ que vous avez fait là._”

“What?” said Giles; he stood with clenched hands before the other, and his face was set and savage-looking.

“This, what you have done to Miss Ley, to that angel. What is it you have said to her to make her cry? _Pardieu! C’est un peu trop fort._”

Giles’s face quivered at the words, then was instantly hard again. He looked at the other, with his jaw thrust forward.

“What is it to you?” he said.

He felt grateful for the sensation of anger. By nature very gentle, at this moment he felt a savage enjoyment.

“You have hurt her, I will not have it; do you understand me, you--you?”

“Ah!” said Giles, and he looked very dangerous. Each man felt that all the old antagonism between them was being compressed into the few words they spoke.

Nielsen continued, tugging at his moustache, his face white with anger.

“What you have done you shall not again do; I will take care of it--I. You are not fit to speak to her, _vous êtes un lâche, vous avez tué votr’ femme_!” The last words seemed to explode in his mouth before they found vent--he had probably never intended to utter them.

Giles did not move, he only gritted his teeth together.

“Perhaps!” he said between them. At the word, so measured and so strange, Nielsen’s hands dropped inertly to his sides, his face expressed a sudden blank amazement, all his anger seemed to evaporate in surprise. A barrel organ was playing within a few feet of where they stood, the man, as he turned the dismal handle, grinned and kept holding a greasy hat towards them.

Giles, taking a step forward, spoke in a low voice--

“Look here, Mr. Nielsen,” he said, “I don’t take this sort of thing from you or any other man. Get out of my way, please, or by God, I’ll throw you.”

He stepped past Nielsen, who involuntarily moved to one side, and made no attempt to detain him. His face still expressed a blank astonishment, and he was endeavouring to fix his eyeglass into his eye as a short-sighted man does when he is puzzled. Giles strode along. The organ-grinder muttered: “_Buon giorno, Signore_,” thrusting his hat almost into his face, an intruding triviality which was quite acceptable to him.

He walked quickly eastwards. The incident with Nielsen had, for the moment, done him good; he thought grimly of the sudden change which had come over the Swede’s broad face. It served as a temporary distraction to his thoughts. But the next instant he was pursued again by a dull sense of utter unhappiness. Twice he actually turned round, and began to retrace his steps towards the Mansions, and each time his mind in the end was bent against it by the feeling, light and unsubstantial as a feather, that it would be ridiculous to go back now. He knew that it formed no part of the real balancing of his reasons, for or against, but there it was, a chance surface feeling just sufficient to turn the scale. He thought too of Nielsen, with a sensation of jealousy--which he knew all the time to be unreal. What was he doing there? What did his interference mean? He tried to bring the feeling to his own support, but it slipped away from him with the memory of the words Jocelyn had spoken. “I love you--I will be anything to you, _anything_ but that----”

He got back to his hotel at last, having formed and reformed resolutions a dozen times. He drank some more brandy. He felt so miserable that he thought he could understand the Canadian Indian, who will drink red ink because it gives him a feeling of warmth inside. A benevolent State passes a law against the sale of red ink. There was no law, however, to prevent _him_ from drinking brandy, except the invincible law of his own intelligence, which he preferred to stifle for the moment. In spite of the warmth of the weather he felt cold. He ordered more brandy and a fire in his bedroom; he went up, sat down before it, and shivered.

Jacopo, whose eyes glistened at the sight of the fire, came up to him with letters. He stared at them blankly, and left them unopened.

“Will the Signore dine?”

“No, Jacopo, I am too busy.”

He looked at his own empty, outstretched hands, and felt faintly amused. After the boy had gone he sat there a long time, staring stupidly into the fire. Then he drank some more brandy, which seemed to have no effect upon him, and began to stride up and down the room. He must write to her. His ideas were all blurred and misty in his head--he could not get them into focus. He sat down at the writing-table, and took up a pen. He wrote a few words, crossed them out, began again, tore the sheet, took another, and at the end of a quarter of an hour had written a whole sentence. Then suddenly he seemed to know what he wanted to say, and wrote steadily for a long time. This was what he said:--

“LANGHAM HOTEL,
_May 3_.

“MY BELOVED,--From my heart I thank you for the words you spoke to
me to-day. What they were to me I cannot tell you. You love me.
Whatever you choose, that is much--more than I deserve.

“Look, my darling. I can’t say what is in my heart, what I write
seems only words--words--words. I must trust to your sweet
tenderness to read into them what I feel. I want to think of _you_
first, but it’s so hard.

“If you will marry me, child, I will give my life, every beat of
it, every movement of my hands, every thought of my heart, to make
you happier, and to restore.

“I know what I am saying, and I _will_. You love me. Can’t you come
to me? Can’t you?

“If you _cannot_, I must not see you again. I know myself, and I
know you. I _cannot_ see you without having all of you, all to the
last breath of your being. I know that would be your destruction
and mine, it’s not natural, it would make you hate me at the last.
It can’t be, it mustn’t be. I could not go through again what I
went through this afternoon, without bringing that destruction upon
you and upon myself. There are limits--I know my own. If I once saw
you again I couldn’t stop myself. I should go with the tide and
carry you with me. It mustn’t be, I love you too much, but it is
hard. I daren’t stay within reach of you.

“If I do not have a word from you by 11 o’clock on Saturday
morning, I leave for Singapore by the P. and O. steamship
_Rangoon_. She touches at Malta, Brindisi, and Port Said. She will
be at the last place on the 17th. In the enclosed paper are
addresses which will find me. A word from you will bring me from
the end of the world.

“My darling, have pity on me. You are so young, and the world is
very big and beautiful, and time very merciful. Can’t you come to
me? If you love me, think of _yourself_, think of everything it
must mean to _you_.

“Send me a word of hope! Tell me to wait. I love you so. The world
is empty without you, the sun has no light, and there is no
air....”

The letter ended abruptly with those words. He made a fair copy of it, and read it through. While writing it he had had a certain feeling of satisfaction. He was at any rate doing something. But now, reading it, he thought “It is cold: It will never move her.”

He sealed and addressed it, and as he did so he felt a great disgust with it and with himself. He stood with one foot on the grate holding it in his hand. The dying fire glowed with a sombre redness. He dropped the letter suddenly on the table with a groan, bent his forehead against the mantelpiece, and stared into the grate. Let it go! He could do no more. He looked at his watch, it was already ten o’clock. He felt very cold. There was still some brandy left and he drank it. With sudden energy he undressed, and got into bed. He thought, “I’ll be done with it all; I’ll get away to the East, there’s always something going on there. Lots to see and do.” He had a momentary glow in his heart; then he thought: “Without her! O God! Without her! It’s all empty!” And he turned his face to the wall.

* * * * *

The next morning he sent Jacopo with his letter, telling him to give it into Miss Ley’s own hands, and knowing that he would be obeyed. The boy came back about noon.

“What did she say?” Giles asked.

“She thanked me, Signore.”

“She gave you no message? Did she read the letter?”

The boy shook his head mournfully. From constant living with his master in lonely places he had an intuitive knowledge of the workings of his mind, and his own impressionable nature was wont to adapt itself accordingly.

“How did she look?”

“Her eyes were big and dark, Signore.”

With that presentment of her he was obliged to be content. He sent Jacopo to take berths for Singapore, in the superstition, that if he prepared for the worst the best might come, the same feeling that makes a man take an umbrella out upon a fine day. No day that he had ever spent was quite as terrible as that day of waiting. He kept buying things for tropical use, telling himself that everything was settled, that she could not come, but he expected her all the time. The day dragged to its end.

She did not come.

On Saturday morning he drank brandy for breakfast--smoking was no use, but brandy was a good thing. The last year had been of use to him, he did not take trouble so resentfully. He was quiet under it, it seemed more a matter of course.

The brown was fading out of his face, he was hollow-eyed, and moved like a man recovering from an illness. He said to the hotel porter, a man who remembered him as a boy--

“If a lady calls for me or sends a message, a young lady with dark hair and eyes, _that_ is the name, but perhaps she won’t give a name,” and he handed him a piece of paper with Jocelyn’s name written on it--“Wire to me at Plymouth, Malta, Brindisi. I am going by the steamship _Rangoon_, there are written directions.” He gave the man a ten-pound note. “It’s important.”

The man’s countenance remained unmoved, but he was touched.

“I wish you luck, sir,” he said; “you’re not looking well, begging your pardon.”

“Oh, I’m all right, thanks,” said Giles with a smile.

A couple of hours later he went on board. That afternoon the _Rangoon_ rounded the Foreland.