Chapter XVI

Almost immediately a second cab appeared, and, finding it at her disposal, Clodagh hailed it eagerly and gave the address of the flat.

As the horse sped away in the direction of her home, she sat almost motionless, her only gesture being to lift her hands to her eyes from time to time, as if to shut out some near and unpleasant vision. Life in its crudest, its most repulsive aspect stared at her out of the darkness. She sat crushed by the disillusionment of the last hour.

And a new furtiveness--born of the new realisation--assailed her when at last she stepped from the cab at her own door. With an instinctive lessening of her natural fearlessness, she hurried through the vestibule and passed straight to the lift. Gaining her own door, she let herself in by her latch-key, and then paused, looking fearfully and eagerly about, in expectation of some unwished-for sound. But everything in the flat was still; and crossing the hall, she entered her own room. The electric light had been switched on and the place set in order, and Simonetta sat at the dressing-table, mending a piece of lace.

"No one has come back?" Clodagh asked.

"No one, signora." Simonetta arose and turned to her mistress.

Seeing the expression on her face, Clodagh nervously anticipated her words.

"My head still aches," she said. "I think you may go. I should like to be alone."

From previous knowledge of her moods, the woman made no protestations, but folded up her work and went quietly towards the door.

As she gained it, Clodagh turned.

"Simonetta!"

"Yes, signora?"

"Tell the servants they are to say nothing to any one of my having gone out to-night. You understand."

"I understand, signora."

"That is all--good-night!"

"Good-night, signora!"

It would be futile to relate the thoughts that passed through Clodagh's mind in the hour that followed Simonetta's departure; but when, at half-past eleven, Nance returned from the theatre, and, hurrying to the bedroom, opened the door swiftly and anxiously, she was standing by one of the open windows, her hat and veil still on, her gaze fixed resolutely on the shadowy trees of the park.

Crossing the threshold softly, Nance tip-toed into the room.

"Clo," she whispered, "'how are you? Better?" Then she paused in pleased surprise.

"What? You've been out? Then you _are_ better. How glad Walter will be! He insisted on coming back to know how you were."

At Gore's name, Clodagh started and looked round.

"Walter here?" she said.

"Yes; but, Clo! what's the matter? You've been crying."

Clodagh stepped to her side and laid her hand imperatively on her arm.

"Hush!" she whispered. "Go back at once and tell Walter that I'm--that I'm asleep. Tell him that Simonetta said I was better and fell asleep. Tell him anything you can think of that will make him happy and get him away. He must be got away. I can't see him. Do you understand, Nance? He must be got away."

For one surprised moment Nance looked at her sister; then conquering her curiosity, she turned quietly and moved to the door.

"All right, darling!" she said reassuringly; "I'll send him away happy."

Clodagh put her hand across her eyes.

"Thank God!" she said. "If you had asked me one more question I couldn't have borne it. Send him away, and then come back."

In silence Nance left the room. Five minutes passed--ten minutes; then Clodagh's straining ears caught the closing of the outer door, and her hand dropped to her side in a gesture of excessive relief.

"Thank God!" she said again.

When Nance re-entered, she was still standing in the middle of the room, her face white and tear-stained, her figure braced.

"Nance," she said, almost before the door had closed upon her sister, "I am going to tell you things I have never told you before. I feel I shall go mad to-night, if I don't tell some one. Don't ask me any questions. Just listen and--if you can--love me!"

Nance paused just inside the door. Her own face looked pale above the shimmering blue and silver of her evening dress; her dark blue eyes were full of a peculiarly tender light.

"I don't love you, Clo," she said below her breath. "I adore you. Tell me whatever you like."

Clodagh threw out her hands despairingly.

"I'm not worth love like that," she cried. "You'll know it when I've finished. Do you remember long ago, Nance, when James and I went to Venice? Do you remember my letters from Venice?"

Nance showed no surprise at the sudden irrelevant questions.

"All of them," she answered--"I have them all."

"Then you remember how I met Frances Hope and Val Serracauld--and Lord Deerehurst?"

"I remember."

"I was very much alone at that time, Nance. James was only a shadow in my life; and they--they seemed like sunshine, and I wanted the sunshine. I have always been like a child, turning to bright tawdry things."

"Clo! you're upset to-night!--you're ill!"

"No, I'm not. I've been seeing myself and seeing my life to-night. I liked these people--I liked these men who talked to me and flattered me, and ignored the fact that I had a husband--I liked them and encouraged them. And one night, on the balcony of the Palazza Ugochini----" She stopped, then made a sudden gesture, as if to sweep unnecessary things aside. "But I won't talk of that!" she cried. "It is the later time I want to come to--the time after James's death, when I met Frances Hope again." She paused to regain her breath; but the look of determination did not leave her face. Her dark eyes seemed; almost to challenge Nance's. "When I went to Monte Carlo with Frances," she went on, "I did not go to forget poor James's death, as you believed; I went to forget something else that had made me much more unhappy; and the way I set about forgetting was to gamble. Yes, I know what you feel!--I know what you think! But it cannot alter anything. I gambled. I lost large sums of money that Frances advanced me. I _had_ to borrow, because there were formalities to be gone through about James's will, before I could draw my income. Then I came back to London; I met Val Serracauld and Lord Deerehurst again; I took an expensive flat; I lived like people six times as well off as myself; I gambled again----"

"Clodagh!"

Clodagh put up her hand.

"Wait! It's all leading up to something. I was utterly foolish, utterly mad. I borrowed again to pay my debts at bridge. Then one day Frances asked me for her money. It seemed like the end of the world; but it was a debt of honour--it couldn't be shirked. I wrote her out a cheque that left me beggared of the half-year's income I had been counting on to put me straight."

"Oh, Clo, Clo! Why wasn't I here?"

"Yes, why wasn't somebody here? But the worst is to come. I did not know where to look, I did not know where to turn, when suddenly--quite suddenly--I thought of your thousand pounds----"

Nance gave a little gasp.

"I remembered that. And, Nance--Nance, can you guess what happened?"

Nance did not attempt to answer.

"I took that thousand pounds. I stole it. Don't say anything! Don't try to excuse me! I want to face things. I told myself I would write and tell you; then I told myself I would say it when you came back. But when you did come"--she halted for a second--"when you did come, Nance, you loved me, you admired me, you _respected_ me, and--and I couldn't. When you asked me for the money that night at Tuffnell, I knew I would have to find it and pay it back without making any confession to you."

A sound that was almost a moan escaped Nance's lips.

"Yes!" Clodagh cried--"yes! I know exactly how great a fool I was. But what is done is done. The day you drove to Wynchley with Lady Diana and Walter, I stayed behind to write to Mr. Barnard and ask him to advance me the money. But somehow I couldn't do that, either; and then--hate me, Nance! hate me, if you like!--Lord Deerehurst came to me when I was most disheartened, most depressed, and offered to lend me the money."

"And you took it?" Nance said almost quietly.

"I took it--yes, I took it. I have always been like that--always--always; grasping at the easy things, letting the hard ones slip by. And now!--now!"

"Now?"

"Nance, listen!" She took a swift step forward. "It was because of that loan that I couldn't slight him since we came back to town. You were right--you were quite right in all you advised; but I couldn't do it. He had lent me the money. He had seemed my best friend. I felt I couldn't do it--until yesterday.

"But yesterday, when he left, and Walter spoke of him, I knew there was no choice. It was my own happiness or his friendship. And I--I decided for my own happiness."

She stopped, and drew a quick, deep breath.

Nance clasped her hands, fearfully conscious that more was still to come.

"When I have a difficult thing to do," Clodagh went on, "I must do it quickly. I can't wait, I can't prepare and plan, I can't brood over things. After Walter left yesterday I decided that what must be done must be done at once. I made up my mind that I would see Lord Deerehurst to-night; that I would be quite candid with him, explain my position--and appeal to his generosity to let our friendship end."

"Then to-night----?"

"To-night was all a deception. I had no headache--I wasn't ill. I shammed it all, that I might be alone."

"And while we were at the theatre you sent for him----?"

"No! I went to Carlton House Terrace to see him."

"Went to see him! Clo!"

"I said you could hate me! Do hate me! Despise me! Think anything you like! I went to see him; I went to his house--at night, alone--thinking, believing---- Oh!" She made a gesture of acute self-disgust. "Nance, need I say it all? Need I?--need I? Can't you understand without my saying? All that I had imagined about his friendship was untrue. Such people don't understand friendship. All along he had been waiting, quietly and silently, like one of those horrible hawks we used to watch at Orristown--waiting to swoop down when the right moment came." With an almost hysterical gesture she put her hand to her throat.

Nance's face had become very white; but in the intensity of her pity and love, she did not dare to approach her sister.

"Clo," she whispered, "you must tell Walter."

Clodagh's face suddenly flamed.

"Tell Walter! Tell Walter that I owe Deerehurst a thousand pounds--that I lied to him and to you all to-night, that I might go alone to Deerehurst's house! You don't know Walter! There is only one thing in the world that I can do--that I must do, and that is to go to Ireland and arrange about raising money on my share of Orristown. It can be done somehow. Father did it. I shall not eat or sleep or think until that thousand pounds is paid."

Prompted by a swift and eager impulse, Nance's face flushed, and she ran forward. Then almost as she reached her sister's side, her expression changed. She suddenly curbed her impetuosity.

"Perhaps it _would_ be a good idea," she said slowly. "When would you like to go?"

"To-night if I could! I feel--oh, I feel----!" Clodagh put her hands over her face.

Nance stood watching her for a moment longer. Then she slipped softly to her side, and put one arm about her neck.

"Don't be sad, darling," she murmured--"don't be sad! You shall go to Ireland to-morrow, if you like; and all the planning--all the explaining to Walter and to everybody--will be done by me."

And so it came to pass, in the extraordinary way with which events sometimes precipitate themselves, that at four o'clock on the following afternoon Clodagh was borne swiftly out of Paddington Station on the first stage of her journey to Ireland.

The chain of incidents that had been forged by Nance to make this departure feasible, as well as possible, had been too minute and complex to make any impression upon Clodagh's mind. Her confession the night before had been more a confession to herself than a conscious unburdening of her soul to other ears; and having made it, she was satisfied to resign herself into any hands that were willing and capable of guiding her actions.

The first incident of the morning had been a visit from Gore. But it had been Nance who had interviewed him first; and a quarter of an hour later, when Clodagh had come into the drawing-room, nervous and guilty, she had found him full of sympathy and solicitude for what he believed to be her sudden recall to Ireland. Then had come the Estcoits; and with their advent, more solicitude and more sympathy. Lunch time had crept upon them almost unawares; and--again on Nance's initiative--the whole party had adjourned to the Hyde Park Hotel, and had partaken of a meal in company.

More than once during the crowded hours of the morning, Clodagh had striven to draw her sister aside; but Nance, animated by an unusual excitement, had evaded every possibility of a _tete-a-tete_.

It was only at the door of the railway carriage, when Gore and Estcoit were superintending the labelling of her luggage, and Mrs. Estcoit and Daisy were buying books and papers for her amusement, that at last they had a word in private. Clodagh was standing in the open doorway of the carriage, and Nance was on the step, when quite suddenly the latter put up her hand and pressed a letter between her sister's fingers.

"My proper good-bye is in this letter, darling," she said. "I couldn't say it before everybody. Kiss me, will you?"

Impulsively Clodagh bent forward, and the sisters exchanged a long kiss.

"You have been an angel, Nance! I will thank you when--when----"

"No!--no! There can never be thanks between you and me. We are one. Remember that always! Always, Clo--always!"

She drew back quickly, as the rest of the party came hurrying to the carriage.

And so the good-byes had all been said, and the train had steamed out of the station; she had watched the platform melt into obscurity, and then had dropped into her seat with that sense of quiet--of flatness--that follows the moments of parting.

The long railway journey and the night crossing to Ireland still lay between her and action. She looked impatiently at her travelling companions, an uninteresting brother and sister who had already buried themselves behind newspapers in their respective corners of the carriage, and almost angrily she turned to the heap of magazines lying beside her; but as she did so, her glance brightened. Nance's letter was still to be read!

In the midst of her perplexities, a tender thought flashed over her mind as she opened the envelope, and her face softened instinctively as she began to read. But gradually, as her glance passed from one line to another, her expression changed, she sat upright in her seat, her bearing altered in a sudden, inexplicable manner.

"DARLING, DARLING CLO!" the letter began,

"I must have seemed a wretch last night and to-day! I mean I must
have seemed very strange, showing hardly any surprise or sympathy
at anything you told me, and taking your going to Ireland as though
it were a thing that happened every day. But, Clo, it wasn't
because I didn't love and worship you, and feel for you in every
tiny thing, but because I was afraid you would guess what was
really in my mind--what I was plotting and planning all the time.

"Clo, I wanted you to go to Ireland because--oh, do forgive me for
even writing it!--I wanted to get you away.

"Dearest, you are to do no more silly things. At the risk of
hurting you, I am saying this. You used to say long ago that I saw
more than you, because I looked on instead of doing things myself.
Clo, you are _not_ to raise money on Orristown, because you have no
need to do it. Lord Deerehurst has been paid his thousand pounds
and you are free--quite free.

"My little sister, imagine that my arms are round your neck so
tight that you can't be vexed! When you told me last night that my
thousand pounds really belonged to him, my first thought was to
say--'Well, let's give him back as much of it as we have left!' But
I stopped in time. You were not in the mood last night to take the
most loving favour in the world. You wanted to sacrifice yourself;
so instead of saying what was in my heart, I locked it up closely
and thought about it all night; and before you were awake this
morning, I sent for Pierce and asked him to lend me three hundred
pounds--the three hundred we had spent out of the thousand.

"Don't say anything, darling! Don't be angry! Don't even think!
Pierce was perfectly sweet; he never asked one question, and at
three o'clock to-day, just after we came back from lunch, I sent
the thousand pounds in notes to Carlton House Terrace, with a card
of yours enclosed.

"Darling, _don't_ be vexed! Don't question it! It is right, I know.
It was a debt of honour, in the fullest sense.

"And now, Clo, it's all finished, all done with, all passed, and
you can repay me the money slowly in years and years. Be happy! Oh,
darling, be happy! Go back to Orristown, as I would have you to go
back, with your heart full of all the great, good, true love that
Walter and I have for you.

"Ride and walk and swim, and be without one care; and in a week or
two, when the hateful thought of last night has been swept away by
the splendid strong sea winds, come back to us, a newer, wiser,
happier Clodagh.

"Darling, I am, now and always,

"Your true sister,

"NANCE."

Clodagh closed the letter; then suddenly she rose from her seat and stepped from the carriage into the narrow corridor.

The engine was swinging forward at great speed; the train itself was swaying to the swift motion; outside, the pleasant English country seemed to fly past the long line of windows. For a second, she stood by the carriage door; then she stepped forward to the open window and, leaning out, let the strong current of air play upon her face, blowing back the hair from her temples.

How good God was! How good the world was! The great machinery of the train--the great wheels of life--ground out the same sudden song. She was free! By the unlimited power of love, she had been made free!