Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ A feeling of furious anger, of revolt against the very existence of Jack Hinton, swept over him. So base, so treacherous, so selfish a creature fulfilled no useful purpose in the universe. Men hung murderers; and was Hinton, who had done his wife to death with refinement of cruelty, to go free—free to murder, in the same slow way, another woman, and one who actually belonged to Dering's own self?
He now recognised, with bewilderment, that had Louise become his legal wife ten years ago, the thought of what she proposed to do would never have even crossed her mind. ”

“ Germaine felt rather sorry that Henry Buck would certainly be there to-day. Considering how very little he did for them—no, that was a beastly thing to say, even to oneself!—but considering how very unornamental and uninteresting poor old Rabbit was, it was really very nice of Bella to be so kind to him. She never seemed to mind his being there, and she had even managed to force his company on certain people whose one object in life was to avoid a bore, and who didn't care a button whether a man was a pauper or a millionaire. ”

“ People do forgive each other—sometimes. I don't ask you to be as kind to me as you were before; only to let me come home and see after the children!"
But Mr. Tapster shook his head. The children! Always the children! He noticed, even now, that she didn't say a word of wanting to come back to him; and yet he had been such a kind, nay, if Maud were to be believed, such a foolishly indulgent, husband.
And then Flossy looked so different. Mr. Tapster felt as if a stranger were standing there before him. Her appearance of poverty shocked him. ”

“ A stalwart policeman—in fact, his friend the officer who was always at point duty some yards from his house—now stood at the gate of the Enclosure, forbidding any further passing through.
Mr. Tapster tried in vain to see what was going on inside the railings, but everything beyond the brightly-lighted road was wrapped in grey darkness. Someone suddenly held up high a flaming torch, and the watcher at the window saw that the shadowy crowd which had managed to force its way into the Park hung together, like bees swarming, on the further lawn through which flowed the ornamental water. ”

“ Had Banfield been a stronger man he would have left London. But that, or so he told himself, there was no need to do; and as the hours dragged on, bringing him closer to the moment which must see his return to Market Dalling—to Matilda Wellow—the fact that he and Rosaleen were in a material sense so near to one another began to affect his imagination in strangest and most poignant fashion.
Walking aimlessly along the hot airless streets of London in July, he found himself ever furtively seeking her.... Such chance meetings are not impossible; they happen every day. ”

“ And yet, while admitting to herself the man's folly, Althea had a curious liking for Egeria's husband. There was, in fact, more between them than their common interest in the other couple; for he, like Althea, provided what old-fashioned people used to call the wherewithal; he, like Althea, had been married because of the gifts he had brought in his hands, the gifts not only of that material comfort which counts for so much nowadays, but those which, to Scrope's Egeria, counted far more than luxury, that is, beauty of surroundings and refinement of living. ”

“ But he looked cool, collected, stern,—and anger again surged up in Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never—never forgive him his vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone so straight—never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all the admiration lavished on her?
There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before, when she had often rehearsed this scene, when she had been so haunted by the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare. ”

“ Kate Rigby loved her half-brother, David Banfield, as only a childless woman can love the creature to whom she has stood for long years in the place of mother. David was twelve years younger than herself, and, with one exception, he had never caused her a moment's real unhappiness or unease. The exception, however, had been paramount, for with him had been connected Mrs. Rigby's only taste of sharp pain and sorrow, and, worse still, to such a woman as herself, of disgrace.
The young man's marriage to an Irish singer, which had taken place without his sister's knowledge, had proved disastrous. ”

“ And so in the summer twilight, not once but many times, some woman's form—slender, graceful, light-footed as was Rosaleen's—would create for a moment the illusion that she was there, close to him, would bring the wild hope that in a moment his hungry heart would be satisfied, his conscience cheated. And then the woman in whom he had seen for a moment his poor lost love, would turn her head—and Banfield, cast down but undismayed, would again pursue his eager, aimless search. ”

“ It was during that fortnight that for the first time her girlish complacency had forsaken her, and she had been made to understand how inadequate her husband found her to the position she was now called upon to fill. It was then that there had first come to her the humiliating suspicion that her bridegroom could not forgive her his own sale of himself. Scrope and Joan Panfillen were subtle people, living in a world of subtleties, yet in this subtle, unspoken matter of Scrope's self-contempt concerning his marriage, the simple Althea's knowledge far preceded theirs. ”

“ To the right of the couch a large Japanese screen had been so placed as to hide some object spread out on the floor. To the left, watching every movement of the still, recumbent figure, stood a powerful-looking woman in nursing dress. Wingfield's gaze, after wandering round the large, bare room, returned and again clung to the sinister immobile form which he longed to be told was that of Hinton, and as he gazed he forced himself to feel a fierce gladness and relief in the knowledge that Dering was dead,—that in his pocket lay the telegram which proved it. ”

“ She had told the truth,—and Oliver had brushed the truth aside, so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else.
Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer—perhaps Oliver would feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not find a better use for his money than in making her happy. ”

“ With bent head and eyes fixed on the white road, David Banfield insensibly slackened his steps while his mind concerned itself with the five years he and Rosaleen had spent together at Market Dalling. They had been years of secret drama, on his part of almost wordless struggle for some kind of response to the passion which her mysterious aloofness—to so many men the greater part of a woman's attraction—evoked and kept alive in him. ”

“ Theodore Carden would not possess such a husband as Thomas Carden had been to his wife.
And yet, in his heart, Theodore was well aware that the gentle girl he loved would probably be a happier woman than his own mother had been, for he, unlike his father, in his dealings with the other sex could call up at will that facile and yet rather rare gift of tenderness which women, so life had taught him, value far more than the deeper, inarticulate love.... ”

“ Of course, everyone at Market Dalling thought Rosaleen a bad woman. For the matter of that, none of them had ever thought well of her, not even his own people, not even his sister and her husband had made any attempt to understand her.
Rosaleen's imprudent question made yet another matter, one which Banfield had succeeded for a few moments in completely forgetting, become once more very present to him. With a feeling of terrible self-reproach there rose before him the helpless figure of Matilda Wellow.
"It's not only you," he said slowly, "but I myself who need to make a fresh start. ”

“ The fact that Bustard was an old schoolfellow of Scrope's had been his introduction to Althea in the early days when she had been conscientiously anxious to associate herself with her husband's interests past and present. But of the innumerable people with whom Scrope had brought her into temporary contact, Mr. Bustard—she always called him Mr. Bustard, as did most other people—was the one human being who, being the fittest as regarded herself, survived.
And yet never had there been a man less suited to play the part of hero, or even of consoler. ”

“ As if in answer to a signal, the little iron gate below swung widely open: "Bolt has gone to get a cab," she said, without turning round; "we thought that it would be simplest. The old cabman knows us all—it will be quicker." She spoke breathlessly, but there was a tone of decision in her voice, a gentle restrained tone, but one which Althea knew well to spell finality. ”

“ Althea had a curious shrinking from the Panfillens' charming house. It was there, within a very few weeks of her father's death, that she had first met Perceval Scrope—and there that he had conducted his careless wooing. It was in Mrs. Panfillen's boudoir, an octagon-shaped room on the park side of the house, that he had actually made his proposal, and that Althea, believing herself to be "in love," and uplifted by the solemn and yet joyful thought of how happy such a marriage—her marriage to a member of the first Fair Food Cabinet—would have made her father, had accepted him. ”

“ They were typical Londoners, of the kind to be seen on the route of every Royal procession, and standing among the crowd outside the church door at every fashionable marriage—women who, if they had lived in the London of the Georges, would have walked a good many miles to see a fellow-creature swing. But to Oliver Germaine they were simply a couple of unattractive-looking women, one of whom he thought he had seen before, and whose proximity was faintly disagreeable. ”

“ A kindness? What kindness could she, Althea Scrope, do Joan Panfillen? The fear of the other woman, the hidden distrust with which she regarded her, gathered sudden force. Not lately, but in the early days of Scrope's marriage, Mrs. Panfillen had more than once tried to use her friend's wife, believing—strange that she should have made such a mistake—that Althea might succeed where she herself had failed in persuading Scrope for his own good. Althea now told herself that no doubt Joan wished to see her on some matter connected with Perceval's coming speech. ”

“ But during the long, difficult minutes that followed, it was Joan Panfillen, not Althea Scrope, who shrank and blenched. It was Althea who put out her young strength to help to lift the dead man, and, under cover of the sheltering mist, to make the leaden feet retrace their steps down the iron stairway, and along the narrow path they had so often leapt up and along with eager haste. ”

“ Panfillen—to give Egeria and her husband their proper names—lived quite close to Althea and Perceval Scrope, for they dwelt in Old Queen Street, within little more than a stone's throw of Delahay Street.
Joan Panfillen, unlike Althea Scrope, was exquisitely suited to her curious, old-world dwelling. She had about her small, graceful person, her picturesque and dateless dress, even in her low melodious voice, that harmony which is, to the man capable of appreciating it, the most desirable and perhaps the rarest of feminine attributes. ”