Chapter XVIII: Lorimer's Plot 270 (5)

Dora was standing at the fireplace, with one foot on the fender. Sabaroff, with the telegram in his hand, gave her a look which seemed to say: "When I said _powerful_, you see I was right."

The servant brought the tea, which he placed on a table near Dora, and retired.

Dora poured out two cups.

"No milk, I think--a little rum and some lemon, _a la Russe_?"

"Thank you," said Sabaroff.

He cut himself a slice of lemon, helped himself to rum, and began to sip his tea.

There was an unbroken silence for a couple of minutes.

"You are not offended with me?" he resumed. "Ah, forgive me if I have called you by your beautiful first name, your sweet name of Dora, it is the only one I ever give you in my thoughts. Here is a pansy," he said, opening his pocket-book, "a flower that you dropped at Monte Carlo. There is no Mrs. Grantham for me; there is Dora, the name I cannot forget."

"This man really loved me, then," said Dora to herself, "and loves me still perhaps." The thought displeased her, but it was not insulting. She thought of the pansies which had come regularly, year after year, on the anniversary of her marriage. Then, if he loved her still, she had everything to fear in this solitary tete-a-tete. She resolved to be more than ever on her guard.

"But it is precisely my other name, General, that I would have you remember always," she said, with a calm smile.

"If I thought of that one, I should not be here now; I should never come to this house," said Sabaroff. "I should not be now preparing to sign this paper, which is to enrich still further the man to whom you gave yourself, the man who already possesses the only thing I ever really craved. Shall I sign? Why should I?" said he, drawing from his pocket an envelope containing a blank contract. "What will be my thanks? What is to be my reward?"

"Oh, General," said Dora, nervous but still smiling, "you are too good a patriot to need any incentive but the love of your country."

"No, Mrs. Grantham, that is not enough. I love my country, but I do not love your husband. For you alone I sign. To you I turn for my reward. Ah, let me hear from those lovely lips that you have only kind, pitying thoughts for the man who still worships you and loves you as you are worthy to be loved."

Sabaroff's eyes were lit with a strange fire, and threw burning glances upon Dora. She began to tremble. This man frightened her.

"Of course, General, I am grateful, I" ... She felt incapable of finishing the phrase. "Must I go through with this?" she thought. "Oh that I could get rid of this man!"

Sabaroff did not take his eyes off her face. He was striving to read her inmost thoughts.

"I have no resentment," she continued; "I have long ago forgotten what passed between us, and if you will do the same, here is my hand."

Sabaroff unfolded the paper which he had taken from the envelope, placed it on the table and signed it. Dora was still holding out her hand to him. Sabaroff seized it and drew her close to him.

"Dora," he exclaimed, "my Dora!"

"You forget, once more you forget," she said, freeing herself. "If my husband were here" ...

"If your husband were here!" cried Sabaroff, with a sneer. "Once for all, is it possible that you do not see the role that your husband is playing? Are you indeed so blind? Tell me, does a man encourage a former lover of his wife about his house constantly, a lover who was on the point of becoming her _fiance_, and who perhaps loves her still? Does he miss the train when he knows that his wife will be alone with that man for a whole evening? No, my dear Mrs. Grantham, a man misses everything you like to name, but he does not miss such a train as that. Ah, let us have no more of these pretences. You know perfectly well what he is, that husband of yours who missed his train. You know that you have no love left for him, that you only feel the most profound contempt for that man who, to put a fortune in his purse, does not hesitate to play the _mari complaisant_."

"No, it's impossible, it is not true," cried Dora, suffocating with indignation; "spare me your suppositions."

"You shall not make me believe that you do not despise him. I have watched you both carefully from the first day that I have visited your house. Do not deceive me, do not attempt to deceive yourself. You do not love your husband. I have seen how your noble heart has shrunk from contact with so sordid a nature, as his has proved to be in the past few months. He may have loved you once in his cool, jellyfish fashion; perhaps you have loved him yourself, but since his new craze for wealth has ousted you from his consideration, except when you are useful to him as a bait, you have hated him--ah, worse than that, you have despised him. You know that he is not worthy of you, who have the soul as well as the body of an angel. No, you are not blind; you are not a child, to sit down tamely under his treatment of you. Be a woman, take a woman's revenge. Only give me a tithe of the love he has held so lightly and I will be your slave, your adoring slave to my dying day. Dora, I love you," he cried as he advanced towards her.

"I can listen to no more of this. You have tried my patience too far already. I thank you, in my husband's name, General, for having signed this paper; but I don't feel well,--have pity on me. You have before you a woman full of gratitude for what you have done; it would not be generous to take advantage of it to press your company upon me in my present state. Leave me now, please."

"Leave you! leave you! Ah, ah! And this is my reward? Now that you have obtained all you want, you dismiss me. Dora, take care. You are too intelligent, too much of a woman, not to see that my love for you has come back to me redoubled, that it blinds me, makes me mad, and that your resistance only adds fuel to the fire."

"Go, I beseech you, at once," exclaimed Dora, now thoroughly alarmed; "go, I command you. Nothing will force me to listen to you any longer--I tell you I am suffering tortures; you say that you love me, then, spare me and go."

"So, then," said he reproachfully, "you let me see you, let me come here almost day after day until I cannot live away from you, and then, when you have done your despicable husband's work, you dismiss me with a _many thanks, good-bye_. No, Dora," he added, raising his voice, "I will not be dismissed so. Look at me well," he said, seizing her arm; "do I look like a man who can be so lightly played with?"

"Let me go; you hurt me," cried Dora, distracted with indignation; "how dare you treat me so?"

"How dare I?" said Sabaroff. "You wonder how I dare? Ah, wonder rather that I kept silent so long with your beautiful face before me, your voice and eyes bewitching me, your lips so near, all your loveliness making mad riot in my pulses! What do you think I am made of? Does one take a starving wretch to see a banquet spread, and, when he has just begun to eat, then cast him out, because he dares to say he is hungry still? Does one offer rich wine to a weary traveller, and, when he has taken but one sip from the cup, dash it from his lips and bid him begone? In your presence, Dora, I am craving for your love."

"Philip, where are you?" cried the poor woman wildly, and feeling more dead than alive.

She made towards the door, but Sabaroff intercepted her passage.

"Dora," said he, "why keep up this farce any longer? Be honest. Unmask yourself, for I am convinced you are wearing a mask. Why do you call your husband? You know that he is not here, and you must know only too well why he is not here. Your husband has kept away to-night, that you may be alone with me. You cannot but despise him, a creature who, when he had won it, knew not how to value the prize I crave in vain. And now that I have found you suffering tortures at his callousness, you will not let me tell you how I love you--passionately, madly! Ah, since it is he who throws you into my arms, come and make your home there; you shall never repent the step--I swear it!"

"Ah, enough, enough, spare me any more indignities," cried Dora, with head proudly uplifted. "General Sabaroff! leave, leave this house instantly."

So saying, she made a movement towards the bell.

"Dora!" cried Sabaroff, seizing her in his strong arms.

She struggled, and finished by freeing herself from his grasp.

"Go this moment, I tell you. You have treated me as you would not dare treat a servant-girl in a low lodging-house, you have treated me as if you took me for a Mimi Latouche--you are a coward!"

Dora was nearly at the end of her strength. She was wild, at bay, without power to cry for help. A coquette would have known how to defend herself. Knowing to what she exposes herself, the coquette always prepares a line of retreat before engaging in the battle; but a woman as pure as Dora is almost defenceless in the presence of a man who has burned his ships and who intends to stop at nothing: she has no weapons for such a contest. Dora was paralysed with fright and indignation. She made a last and supreme effort to reach the bell; but Sabaroff stopped her, and seizing her more firmly than he had done before, he cried--

"My reward! I claim my reward for so much patience!"

She was in his arms, panting, almost unconscious. He strained her to his heart, and kissed her passionately on the eyes, on the lips again and again. Exhausted by the struggle, Dora yet made a supreme effort, and succeeded in once more freeing herself from Sabaroff's hold; but he caught her by the arm, which he kissed devouringly. Dora sank fainting on the sofa.

At this moment the door opened, and Gabrielle, with agony depicted on her face, rushed into the room. She had come to fetch her sister, to take her to Eva's bedside, for the child had grown rapidly worse. Seeing Sabaroff on his knees gazing at Dora, she drew back, stifling a cry, and, wringing her hands in despair, she disappeared.

Sabaroff heard the cry, but did not move. After a moment, turning round and seeing no one, he rang the bell, hurriedly impressed a further kiss on the forehead of the unconscious woman, and left without waiting for the arrival of a servant.

When the servant entered, Dora had regained consciousness.

"Did you ring, ma'am?"

"No," she said; "what is it?"

She looked around her, passing her hand over her eyes and forehead. She realised that she was alone. Her eyes were haggard. She looked wild, half mad.

"Where is he?" she said; "gone?"

Then she fixed her eyes on the servant, who seemed to have a message to deliver.

"Well, what is it?" she repeated.

"Miss Gabrielle," replied the man, "told me to say that she had sent for the doctor, and that he is now with Miss Eva. Will you, please, go up at once, ma'am?"

Dora gazed fixedly at the man. She had not heard, or, rather, she had not taken in a single word of the servant's message. She signed to him to go, and he left.

Taking her head in both hands, she tried to remember what had been happening.

"My body burns," she murmured; "I feel as if I had been bitten by a reptile." Her eyes fell on her arm, where Sabaroff's kiss had left a mark that was still red. A cry of disgust and horror escaped her. She gazed again at her arm, leapt to her feet, and paced the room almost foaming with rage. To wipe out that mark was her one thought. With her handkerchief she rubbed the burning spot, and, with a movement of fury, sucked it and spat as if she had been sucking poison from the bite of a snake. She was unrecognisable, transformed into a tigress ready to spring upon any who might come near. Suddenly an idea lit up her face, as she passed the fireplace in her furious pacings. She seized the poker and thrust it in among the live coals.

"Yes, yes, I will, I'll do it," she muttered.

Suddenly she heard a cab stop outside, and the street door open and close noisily. Philip, for it was he, bounded upstairs and rushed into the drawing-room. It was half-past eleven.

Dora had the poker in her hand. She put it back into the fire.

"Ah, my dear Dora," said Philip, quite out of breath, "I can't tell you how sorry I am to have been delayed all these hours. I missed the nine o'clock train, as I explained in my wire; but I must tell you all about that by and by. It's a long story. I left Paris at noon, as you know, but the train broke down between Canterbury and Chatham, and got in three hours late. But for that, I should have been here at eight. The General is gone, of course?" he added.

Dora stood motionless, speechless. She merely nodded her head affirmatively.

"How shall I ever be able to excuse myself to him? I wish now that I had followed your suggestion and put off this dinner, so as not to run such a risk. When you travel, you start, but you don't know what may happen before you reach home again."

He caught sight of the paper, which Sabaroff had signed, lying on the table. He seized it eagerly and began to read.

"What is this?" he exclaimed, overcome with joy. "Why, it is the purchase of my shell by the Russian Government! The General ought to have stayed. You should have kept him ... I should have been so happy to thank him myself ... but, I understand; the proprieties, I suppose; he did not like to stay on during my absence.... Five hundred thousand roubles! here it is, all set down and signed.... Ah, my Dora, my darling!"

Dora did not move. She was pale as death. She looked at him with eyes that appeared to see nothing.

Philip made as if he would seize her in his arms. She recoiled affrighted.

"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!" she cried in a voice that gurgled.

"Dora, what has happened? Heavens, you frighten me. What is the matter? Why, you are trembling, you can scarcely stand. Speak, speak, what is it?"

"Where have you been and where have you come from?"

"But I have just told you what happened to me. I missed the nine o'clock train and there was an accident ... but what is the use of trying to explain anything to you in your present state? You evidently do not understand. I ask you again. What has been happening here to put you in such a state?"

"Ah, ah, he asks me what has happened!" she hissed, snatching the paper from Philip's hands. "This has happened. Your ambition is satisfied now. Here is the signature that gives you half a million of roubles, the gold for which you did not hesitate to make me submit to the society of a betrayer of women, a protector of Mimi Latouche, a man against whom my whole womanhood revolted. Stung by your heartless indifference to my pleadings, stung by your taunts that I no longer helped you, I have goaded myself to endure his presence constantly. And now, I think my task is ended; I have paid the price; so take the paper--it is yours. It is signed. The gold will be handed to you."

"Dora, for God's sake, tell me, what does it mean? You never spoke to me like this before," gasped Philip, in a voice choking with anger and excitement.

"Hush!" continued Dora, "your ambition is realised. Your fortune is more than doubled; but when you are counting it up, think of me, your wife, in the arms of that man, every fibre of my powerless body revolting at the kisses of his polluted lips. Yes, the lips of that libertine have soiled mine; on my face, on my arms, he pressed his burning kisses. Look, look at this arm. See for yourself the mark that will not go. I am stained, contaminated. Oh! am I mad? No, I have drunk the bitter draught, I have gone through the mire of degradation; and now, is the nightmare ended? Are you satisfied, or shall I call him back to offer him the rest?"

"I will kill him!" cried Philip.

"Ah, rather kill me; that would be more generous," exclaimed Dora. "Take your money, and now let me go--unless," she added, with a sneer, "you have some other War Minister that you wish to take your invention; think, I am here to pay the price they may exact for their approval."

"Dora, this is madness--you are out of your mind."

"I soon should be if I stayed here."

Dora broke off suddenly. The coming of the servant flashed across her mind. He had brought a message. What was it?

"Yes, yes, of course, I remember. Gabrielle sent for me a few moments ago--she had called the doctor to Eva--Eva! Ah, let me go to my child," she cried, waving Philip aside as he was going to speak again.

But before she reached the door, Gabrielle had opened it.

"Are you coming?" said the poor girl, with tears in her voice.

"Eva?"

"Yes, she is worse; it is diphtheria."

Dora realised now the full import of the former message. With one horror-struck look at the distressed white face before her, she rushed from the room uttering a broken cry--

"Eva!"

Gabrielle followed after her, and Philip was left crushed, stunned, incapable yet of understanding clearly the terrible scene which he had just witnessed, or the new terror with which he was brought face to face.

XIV

EVA

Philip dropped into an armchair. His forehead was bathed in perspiration. He was seized with a convulsive trembling, caused by the rage that he felt at not being able to avenge there and then the outrageous conduct of General Sabaroff towards his wife. If he had known at that moment where to find the Russian, he would have gone straightway and had it out with him. He went through a torment of impotent fury and disappointment at thinking that his arrival had been but a few moments too late.

"Fool that I was!" he cried, "what have I done? Then Dora thinks"--he dared not utter his thought--"and, if so, I am guilty in her mind of the vilest, the most despicable act that a man can commit--it is a frightful idea! And yet my indifference, my insistence that Dora should receive that man, when she implored me not to oblige her to submit to his company--Sabaroff loves her still then? Or does he, too, believe that he was encouraged by me? Oh, but the thought is horrible! The idea of it is maddening. Fool that I have been!"

For the first time he saw the enormity of his conduct. He called himself coward and criminal. In that dreadful hour he awoke from his dream and became himself again. The veil fell from his eyes, the transformation was complete. To do him justice there was no more inventor, no more blindly ambitious seeker after wealth, but the Philip of former days with no thought but for Dora. He would have given, that night, his last farthing for a smile from her!

Philip rose suddenly from his seat. He must take a resolution on the spot. He was face to face with a vital crisis on which all his future life depended. His first impulse was to go to Dora and throw himself at her feet to implore her pardon. "No," he said to himself, "as long as that contract exists, there is nothing to be done." He held it in his hands, that paper which had cost Dora so much. It burned to the touch. He looked at it twice, and he read it through. His mind was at once made up--tear up the thing, and fling it in the face of Sabaroff!

During this time there was much movement, much sound of coming and going on the staircase and in the hall. Suddenly Philip recognised the voice of Dr. Templeton saying, "It is the only way to save her, at least the only hope." Upon this a servant came rapidly downstairs, and Philip stopped him in the hall to ask--

"Where are you going?"

"To St. George's Hospital," was the reply.

"For Miss Eva? Is she worse?"

"Yes, sir; it appears that they are going to perform tracheotomy," said the man, who had heard the word and repeated it correctly.

Philip flew upstairs. When he reached the door of Eva's room, saw the child half choking and unconscious, and saw Dora kneeling by the bedside, he dared not enter, but stood in the doorway--heart-broken, pale, and immobile as death. That which crowned his misery and despair was the fact that Dora had not thought of sending down for him in such a moment as this. With difficulty he repressed the sob that rose from his heart. He realised then all the depth of the abyss that separated him now from his wife and child, an abyss of his own digging. No, he, adoring Eva as he did, dared not penetrate into the room where she lay.

Almost immediately a surgeon and two students arrived from the hospital. Philip let them pass, and then took up his post of observation again; but when he saw them open the case that contained the shining steel instruments and little sponges, the needles and all the apparatus for their operation; when he saw the surgeon sign to Dora to rise and, by a touch firm and gentle, direct her to leave the bedroom, Philip could bear up no longer, all his courage forsook him. He fled to the library, and there let his choking tears have way. Wretched and forsaken, he broke down utterly.

"O God!" he cried, "it is too much; I have not deserved such punishment."

Gabrielle was a great help to the doctors, and prompt and reliable in her movements--a nurse of the first order. She watched with a calm, clear vision the work of the bistoury on the little throat, and knew exactly when to hand the implements necessary, as the work proceeded, and earned the compliment of the surgeon thereupon; but it was not merely her nurse's intelligence that was at work, it was her love for the child she ached to save.

The preparation being completed, the surgeon with a hand at once deft and rapid, introduced the tube into the trachea. Eva opened her eyes almost immediately. A flush of living colour returned to her face, and she breathed freely again. The tube was then bandaged into place, and a long silk hankerchief tied firmly round the throat. Soon the child's face lost its aspect of deathly struggle, and put on a smiling look of profound relief and happy peace. Her countenance lit up with a seraphic light; it was as though the child's soul had just been wafted back to its dwelling-place from a visit to paradise.

When all was done, Dora was fetched and shown the success of the operation.

"Then she is saved!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting to heaven a glance of thanksgiving.

"Not yet," said the doctor; "there remains the morbid action to cure; but there is hope, every hope. Only you must watch the child with extreme attention; she must not be left for a moment. She must not be allowed to move for some time. If the tube got displaced, or if the heart, which is very feeble, should receive the least shock, everything would be over in a moment. But," added he, "I confide your child to this lady's care," indicating Gabrielle; "I have seldom met with a nurse so gifted. Rely in all security upon her; I have given her my instructions, and she knows to the full the importance of them."

The surgeon bowed to Dora, and departed.

Dora returned to the bedside on tiptoe, and, placing her finger on her lips, made signs to Eva that she was to keep perfectly quiet; then, throwing her a kiss and a smile of a guardian angel, she sat down beside the child. Her face betrayed no sign of weakness, expressed neither grief nor despair; it was scarcely sad. She had the look of a man who throws himself into the sea, to try and save some beloved friend in deadly peril of drowning.

Philip did not go to bed. He begged Gabrielle to come two or three times during the night to tell him how the child fared, and he remained in the library. Dora watched all night by Eva's bed. She was valiant, and inspired others with her own brave spirit. She had thrown aside the thought of all that had happened in the drawing-room a few hours before; far, indeed, from her thoughts was the man who had insulted her, and who no longer existed in her thoughts--the distracted mother had swamped the indignant woman. It was with death that she had to fight now, and she fought with a _sang-froid_ and a courage that were the astonishment and admiration of all who surrounded her.

The morning and the afternoon passed without new disquieting symptoms arising, and at night the doctor left his patient going on satisfactorily.

The following morning, about seven o'clock, Dora, worn out with excitement, had fallen into a dose.

Gabrielle went to tell Philip that Eva also was sleeping, and that such sleep was a very good sign. Their hopes rose considerably. Philip could not resist the longing he had to go and look upon his wife and child, both sleeping calmly at last, unconscious of pain and anxiety. He crept stealthily upstairs, opened very softly the door of the dear child's room, and with loving eyes looked towards the bed. Unhappily, Eva had just woke up. She saw in the doorway her father whom she loved, and had not seen for several days; she raised herself eagerly and tried to call, "Daddy." The little form fell back heavily upon the pillow.

When Gabrielle came into the room again, Dora was still sleeping. Eva slept too, but it was the sleep from which none waken.

XV

THE SEPARATION

When Dora awoke, Gabrielle was standing at the bedside, motionless, beautiful in her impassive grace, and looking like one of the angels that painters represent at the bedside of children whose souls they have come to bear to the abode of the seraphim.

Dora looked at Gabrielle, then at the child. With heartrending cry she threw herself on Eva's body. The struggle was over, and she had lost the battle. Her strength forsook her, all her being seemed to be crushed. She slipped inanimate on the floor. They bore her to her own room, where, for more than a week, she lay benumbed by her grief, unconscious of everything, hovering between life and death. None but Gabrielle and Hobbs were allowed access to her chamber. Philip was excluded by the doctor's command. In her delirium the name of her husband was often on her lips. "Philip," she would cry, "murderer! you have killed my child." He had been indeed her murderer! involuntarily it is true, but nevertheless he had killed her. If he had resisted his desire to look upon his child, she would probably have recovered, surrounded as she was by the most assiduous care. Her death had been accidental. In moving, and in trying to lift her poor little fragile body into a sitting posture, she had caused the derangement of the tube, and the heart had been suddenly stopped. Choking and syncope instantly did their dreadful work, and all was over.

Neither Dora nor Gabrielle ever knew, however, that Philip had been the involuntary cause of Eva's death. He himself never suspected the terrible truth.

"In spite of my injunctions," said the doctor, "the child has been allowed to move herself. She must have sat up in bed."

The last words that Eva had said to her mother came back constantly to Dora's memory. "How sad it is here! Oh, mama, how I wish we were in our other house; you know, the one where we lived when we were happy." Poor little darling! "When we were happy." A phrase like that in the mouth of a child of five, intended by nature for joy and brightness, had made Dora's heart bleed. The last words of the child were the irrevocable sentence of the father. Tears might have relieved Dora's desolate heart, and her faithful watchers hoped day by day for the crisis which never came. But she lay in numb paralysing grief, and never a tear fell. Her life was not in danger, but her reason was. The delirium continued day and night. Often she did not know her two devoted nurses, Gabrielle and Hobbs. Her utterances were mostly incoherent sentences in which three names occurred constantly--Philip, Eva, Sabaroff. "Is that man gone?" and she would seek upon her arm for traces of the loathed kisses he had placed there. "Where is Philip? Gone too, no doubt." Then she would resume: "Eva? Yes, I am alone, all alone; everybody is gone." The scene quite unnerved the two dear women who were enforced spectators of it. They would take her hands and kiss them--Gabrielle with affectionate warmth, and Hobbs with the most touching respect.

The days dragged on, but the doctor did not despair. Dora's constitution was so strong, her will so powerful, her courage so lofty always, that there might be a crisis at any moment, and a favourable change might well ensue. He counted upon help in the carrying out of anything he might plan for the patient's good. He was well aware of all that had been passing latterly in the house. He was the friend and confidant of both husband and wife. Nothing had been hidden from him, not even the scene between Sabaroff and Dora. He advised Philip to leave the house. "You must do it," said he; "only time can cure your wife. Have patience. Go away for a few days. She is dazed; an explanation would but irritate her more--she is not in a state to listen. I quite expect to see her recover her mental faculties as suddenly as she lost them. The strength of her character is prodigious, and that strength will probably show itself in some sudden decision. Do not cross her in anything," added he to Gabrielle, who had come to receive his directions. "Whatever decision she may take when the crisis is over, be very careful to fall in with it. I do not despair of anything, neither for her nor for you, my dear fellow," said he, shaking hands with Philip, in whose eyes tears were glistening.

Philip consented to obey. He left his house, went to Paris for two days, and on his return to London remained a week at the Alexandra Hotel, a few yards from his house, which he visited twice or thrice a day for news of Dora. We shall see later how he employed his time during these few days of banishment.

* * * * *

Eva had been dead ten days. One morning, when Dora awoke from an excellent night of ten hours' sleep, Gabrielle and Hobbs were astonished to see their patient calm, and not only in full possession of her faculties, but apparently strong and courageous. The evening before she had wept for the first time, but the crisis had ended there.

Dora asked for breakfast. When Gabrielle reminded her that she had some medicine to take first, Dora reiterated her demand in an imperative fashion. "I tell you I am hungry," said she, and she not only asked for her breakfast, but she chose her own food. Her orders were obeyed. She ate a small boiled sole, an egg, and two slices of toast, and drank a cup of tea. Gabrielle and Hobbs were fairly amazed. They looked at Dora, they looked at each other, they could not believe their eyes. It was a resurrection.

"I am going to get up," said Dora, when the tray had been removed.

"You cannot think of such a thing," said Gabrielle.

"I tell you, I am going to get up," repeated Dora; "I am better, much better."

Her eyes shot lightning glances. Her two nurses were dumfounded, and knew not what to do. The doctor had not yet arrived on his morning round.

"Do have patience, ma'am. Wait at least until the doctor comes," said Hobbs, thoroughly alarmed. And she insisted upon it that her mistress must not get up until Dr. Templeton came.

"I shall not wait for anything," said Dora. "I tell you that I am going to get up."

She left her bed, swayed for a moment on her feet; but presently, standing bravely up without support of any kind, she said, with a laugh--

"You see quite well that I am better. I am cured. I shall dress and go out."

"But you are crazy," said Gabrielle.

"You are joking, ma'am," added Hobbs.

It is true that the doctor had told them to do nothing which might cross her, but the two good women said to themselves: "Yet, if she wanted to throw herself out of the window, we should certainly not let her do it. And to go out in her present state is probably about as dangerous." They did not know what to do. The doctor did not come. Still less did they know what to think. Was Dora completely mad, or was this some marvellous and mysterious metamorphosis? No, she was not mad. Dora possessed something which has saved thousands of much-tried human beings from spiritual and moral shipwreck, and has reattached them to life again. She possessed that internal god whom the Greeks called _enthusiasm_, that divine transport which, lifting the soul above itself, excites to great resolutions and lofty actions.

Eva was no more. Philip was gone, and little she cared to know where. She was free, mistress of her actions. She had no longer husband or child. Well! there was still left to her a third motive for living, Art. The mother and the wife had ceased to exist, but the artist was still alive.

Gabrielle tried once more to dissuade Dora from going out, but without success; no argument could influence her. She consented, however, that Gabrielle should accompany her. She dressed herself without help. The mourning raiment which had been ordered she had not yet been able to have fitted, but she found in her wardrobe a black dress which served. A hat which Hobbs in a few minutes trimmed with crape completed her toilette. She did not appear to be in the least excited. She was calm, deliberate, sure of each of her words, sure of each of her movements. Gabrielle, who was under the influence of this powerful will, obeyed her sister's most trivial wishes, and appeared to be completely reassured about her. She begged her, however, for her own satisfaction, to let her feel her pulse and take her temperature. The pulse was normal, and the temperature did not indicate the least trace of fever. The case appeared to her to be a most exceptional one, almost phenomenal in fact, but she was reassured and much comforted. She no longer felt any anxiety, especially as the morning promised to be fine, and the open air could certainly do Dora nothing but good.

"Well! where are we going?" said Gabrielle, whose curiosity was keenly aroused.

"To St. John's Wood," replied Dora.

"To St. John's Wood?"

"Yes, I am going to take a studio there. I have something left to me still. I can paint, and paint I will!"

Gabrielle was amazed. She gazed with affectionate eyes at Dora, and kissed her. It was happiness to see her reviving interest in life.

"Send for a cab, darling," said Dora.

When the vehicle was at the door, Dora, with Gabrielle at her side, descended the steps with a firm foot, seated herself in the cab, and gave the driver an address in Finchley Road.

She was set down in front of the office of an estate agent, and told the driver to wait. There she was given several addresses of apartments to let. Two or three rooms, one of them large and possessing a good north light, was what she wanted.

After a round of inspection, she fixed her choice upon a set of rooms a few yards from Elm Avenue. The place suited her requirements in every respect, and the price was reasonable, thirty pounds a year.

She was not asked for references, for her name was well known in these regions. The people who let her the rooms thought that Philip had need of a studio there for some special work, and that his wife had been sent to choose a suitable one for him.

"When do you wish to take possession, madam?" asked the agent, who had accompanied her.

"At once," replied Dora, "that is, to-morrow or the next day."

And the whole matter was arranged then and there.

When Dora got into her cab again, she began to talk almost gaily. She looked happy once more. It was a glimpse of the old Dora that Gabrielle had known all her life, but missed for a while, and now rejoiced to see again.

At the end of a couple of hours they were at home again. Poor Hobbs had been a prey to terrible fears, all the while conjuring up in her mind visions of her beloved mistress being brought back on a litter in a dying condition. She had spent the time watching at the window in mortal anxiety.

Dora stepped briskly out of the cab, paid the driver, and threw her arms round the poor woman, who looked more dead than alive.

"Ah, at last," gasped Hobbs. "Oh, ma'am how could you! how could you!"

So saying, she burst into tears, and then began to smile again on seeing Dora standing so alert and on the point of making fun of her.

"But what do you mean, my dear Hobbs?" said Dora. "I feel quite recovered. The fresh air has done me a lot of good and has given me a ferocious appetite."

"Well, well! I declare!" exclaimed Hobbs, comforted a little by these words and the sight of her patient. But she went on wondering whether she was dreaming or whether Dora had gone clean mad.

"Hobbs," said Dora, "we must make haste about our preparations. We leave the house to-morrow, and, God be praised, never to return," she added.

"To-morrow, ma'am!" rejoined Hobbs, with a look that seemed to express the impossibility of further astonishment.

"Yes, to-morrow, we get to a new home and take leave of this one."

"She has already taken leave of something else," thought the distressed servant.

"We go to St. John's Wood! But why do you stare so, Hobbs? You are not going to remain here and let me go without you, surely?"

"How could I think of doing such a thing!" said poor Hobbs, really hurt by the suggestion.

And she fell to laughing and crying softly to herself without knowing why, thoroughly bewildered at the turn things had taken.

Dora passed the remainder of the day in choosing the things she intended to take away with her; first, the furniture of her own bedroom and that of Hobbs, then some studio belongings, the two easels, and her portrait which Philip had not finished, the old clock that stood in the hall, and a few other things that belonged to her personally; some table silver, and many an odd piece of furniture that had been dear to her in the old house, but which had been since relegated to the attics, as being not worthy to figure in the new one. The next day she bought a Japanese screen and a few things which, while costing little, would yet help her in the execution of the project which she had set her mind upon. These purchases made, there remained twenty pounds in her purse.

She summoned the servants to the dining-room and told them that their master would return home shortly and would pay their wages.

On the morning of the second day after her sudden decision, a van was brought to the door for her few effects, and at five o'clock she had turned her back upon the house that she had grown to loathe. Two days later she was thoroughly installed in her new one.

Here she had succeeded in fitting up a studio, which was an imitation, a cheap and pathetic reproduction, exact in almost every detail, of the one in which she had passed the happiest hours of her old life in Elm Avenue.

Each item of furniture occupied precisely the same spot as in the St. John's Wood studio, and the whole effect was tasteful, for the work had been a labour of love to Dora. The two easels were placed side by side in the centre of the room, and on Philip's stood the unfinished portrait. On one side of the door she had placed an old oak chest that she had picked up at a dealer's for a small sum, and which resembled closely one that Philip owned and prized; on the other side of the door stood the old clock, which she did not, however, set going. What did the time of day matter to her now? Clocks go too slowly when one is tired of life. Away in a corner she hung Philip's old working jacket, which she had come across in the depths of a chest in one of the attics. It would no longer be only in her dreams that she would see the St. John's Wood studio, for it had sprung into existence again under her hands; and in these surroundings she would be able to continue the life that had been interrupted by the events already chronicled. She was going to try to bring to life again one part of her past. She turned to work to help her to forget the other.

She had come here with new hope in her heart, to call her talent to her rescue, and to serve Art faithfully and ask of it her bread. At the least, she felt that here she could, when her time came, die without a malediction on her lips.

Dora gave orders to Hobbs to refuse her door generally. Lorimer and Dr. Templeton were the only exceptions. She laid the greatest stress on these directions, and Hobbs solemnly promised to obey to the letter.

Without delay she traced herself a programme which she resolved to follow out faithfully. She would work at her easel three hours every morning, would take outdoor exercise every afternoon to keep herself refreshed and strong, and the evenings should be devoted to reading and needlework.

She had brought with her several excellent photographs of Eva, and fully intended to make a portrait of the child whom death had robbed her of. Her brush would help her to see again that sweet flesh of her flesh. "But not yet, not just yet," she said.

As she had to earn a livelihood, and painting was to be her means of subsistence, she resolved to look about at once for a model. She chose a little Italian boy who played a concertina under her windows almost every day. The picturesque urchin was ready enough to pose for the _signora_, and beamed with delight at the shilling Dora put into his grubby little palm at the conclusion of each sitting.

Dora took her first walk in the neighbourhood, and Hobbs went with her. They set out without any destination in view, but had not been walking more than five minutes when they found themselves in Elm Avenue. No trace of any emotion crossed Dora's face, and, instead of turning back as Hobbs was for doing, Dora would insist on going as far as No. 50. The house was to let. No one had lived in it since Philip left. Dora drew up on the other side of the road in front of the house. Hobbs tried to draw her away, for she feared that the sight of her old home might be too painful for her mistress.

"No," said Dora, "I am going to show you how thoroughly cured and strong I am ... I am going in."

Hobbs remembered Dr. Templeton's injunctions never to cross her whims, and so did not persist further.

Dora rang the bell. A woman, evidently a caretaker, opened the door.

"Do you wish to see the house, ma'am?"

"Yes, if you please," replied Dora.

She was invited to "step in," and the woman prepared to show her over the premises.

"The studio is a very fine one, and communicates with the garden. Your husband is an artist, I suppose, ma'am?"

"Yes," said Dora.

"Then you would like to see the studio first, perhaps?"

As soon as they reached it, Dora asked the woman to leave her there alone a little while, under pretence that she had measurements to take and many details to think out.

For the first time since the sudden change had come over her, which had so astonished her sister, Dora was seized with a fit of sadness. Her lips trembled, her teeth chattered. Hobbs did not take her eyes off her mistress, but she did not venture to speak. Dora opened the door that led to the garden, and a sharp cry escaped her. A little girl of Eva's age was romping about on the lawn. She stood rooted to the ground, and a flood of tears gushed from her eyes.

"Let us go away," said Hobbs. "You ought never to have come in at all. You think yourself much stronger than you are."

"Yes, let us go," said Dora.

They straightway went home.

Dora remained pensive all the evening. She scarcely opened her lips again that day. The book she tried to read fell again and again from her hands. When she noticed Hobbs look at her, she said, "I tell you it is nothing. I was wrong to go into the house, and I shall not do it again. But how was I to know that, when I opened the garden door, I should see on the lawn" ...

She broke off, looked once more at Hobbs, and could no longer contain herself. Tears choked her respiration; she was stifling. Sobbing like a child, she hid her grief in the good woman's bosom.

"It shall never happen again, Hobbs; don't scold me, it is all over."

Next day she was calm again but weak; and Hobbs, without telling her, sent a telegram to Gabrielle to beg her to come to her dear mistress, that day if possible.

Gabrielle lost no time in responding to the call; but she could not discover in Dora any symptoms that were at all disquieting. Dora from that day avoided Elm Avenue in her walks.

She had set bravely to work at her painting; and as the weeks went on she seemed to pick up the dropped thread of life, and gradually to attach herself to it again. Her health did not suffer in the new existence, and her courage remained firm. At the end of a month she had done the picture of the little Italian boy, and sold it for twenty-five guineas.

"Look, Hobbs," she cried, on returning home; "look what I have earned--twenty-five guineas! Well-earned money that!"

And, in her delight, she kissed the bank notes. Then finding herself quite naturally on her favourite topic, she poured into the ears of the devoted Hobbs an eloquent harangue upon the wrong use of money and the demoralisation of the rich. The discourse was edifying, and duly impressed the only listener; but Philip, to whom it was really addressed, was far off, and did not get the benefit of it.

XVI

PHILIP RETURNS TO THE FOLD

The day after General Sabaroff had dined at Philip's house, he left London for Paris, and from that city he went to St. Petersburg. He made no further effort to see Dora. "Perhaps I have been deceiving myself after all," he said; "I shall forget her." The very evening of his arrival in Paris, he occupied a box at the Theatre des Varietes with Mimi Latouche.

Philip, when the doctor had advised him to leave home for a little while, started immediately for Paris. Next morning he presented himself at the Hotel Meurice, and sent up his card to Sabaroff, for he had learnt that the General was staying there. Philip was soon shown up to the first floor, where the Russian had a sumptuous suite of rooms, and was ushered into the salon. In a state of feverish agitation, easy to understand, he awaited the General.

He had but two or three minutes to wait.

"Sir," said Philip, as soon as the two men were face to face, "I reached home from Paris a few moments after the departure of your Excellency from my house. I will not take up much of your time now. I have only a few words to say. I am an Englishman, and in my country we do not fight duels with men who insult our wives; we set the law on them, or we give them a sound thrashing."

"Kindly explain yourself," said Sabaroff, in a tone at once mocking and arrogant, and glancing about for a means of defence.

"I will explain in two or three words," said Philip.

He drew out of his pocket the envelope which contained the torn-up contract that Sabaroff had signed in Dora's presence.

"Here is the paper you signed in my house," said he; "I return it." So saying, he flung the torn pieces of paper in the Russian's face, and the bits of paper fluttered in all directions.

"You will answer to me for this affront, sir," said Sabaroff.

"With the greatest pleasure," rejoined Philip. "I am not in England now; I am in France; and you know what I mean by that. I am at your service. Here is my address."

The same evening a duel with pistols was arranged by two of the General's aides-de-camp and two artist friends of Philip.

Sabaroff hated Philip, and he promised himself to be revenged for Dora's disdain.

"I will kill him," he said to himself.

The encounter took place next morning at eight o'clock in the Bois de Vincennes.

Philip lodged a ball in the right shoulder of his adversary. Sabaroff would have killed Philip with pleasure.

At eleven-fifty Philip took the train for London, and at half-past seven he was back in his rooms at the Alexandra Hotel. The duel had been kept secret; there was no mention of it in the newspapers.

A week after Philip's return to London, he was told of Dora's sudden recovery and flight to St. John's Wood. Dr. Templeton kept him informed of everything that was going on. It was arranged that Philip and Hobbs should meet once a day, and these daily consultations were held without the knowledge of Dora, until further orders.

Philip took Dr. Templeton's advice on every point.

He did not write to Dora. "No," he said to himself, "all the faults are on my side; and it is for me to repair them, not by speeches and promises but by deeds. I am not ready yet with a plan of action; but I shall find one soon, and I will clear myself in Dora's eyes. I have lost my child, but I will regain my wife. I will save her for her sake and my own. If I fail, life is no longer of any use to me. Art could never console me; Dora is more fortunate than I; she will find in painting a forgetfulness of the past. For me, I must win back Dora, or everything else is worthless, and I am done for. To work, then, cautiously! Everything will depend on the way in which I set about it."

He began reviewing his position. The state of his finances was satisfactory. He still had thirty-two thousand pounds, of which twenty-eight thousand were invested in first-class securities.