Chapter XV: Sullivan Wooster, Gentleman

'Feel where my life broke off from thine
How fresh the splinters keep, and fine,
Only a touch and we combine.'

Dot felt the emptiness of her arms. Then she remembered the bitterness and horror of her humiliation.

To nearly all human beings there come during the course of life some moments of complete madness and irresponsibility--Dot's came upon her now.

She was on her knees by the window; sometimes she beat her head against the wood-work--wild tears were coursing down her cheeks, sobs of impotent anger choked her.

Wooster came up the staircase alone, the little mother had sent him to say good-bye, and to tell Dot she could not leave the sick woman for an hour. The sitting room door was open.

'Great heavens!' he said, and sprang to her side in alarm, 'you are ill--God!--what is the matter with you?'

Her sobs ceased, she turned her head and regarded him strangely, her eyes wet and brilliant seemed to pierce him. Then she laughed the most terrible little laugh in the world. 'Why, you do love me after all!' she said.

He fell back against the wall, utterly undone, his eyes seemed the only living part of him.

'I didn't believe him,' she continued in the same tone.

'Who?' his lips said, after a long pause.

'Larrie.'

'My God!' he cried.

He could hardly breathe, the figure kneeling by the window was only a confused blur to him.

The choking sobs began again.

He walked up and down, wildly.

'Where is your child?' he said, stopping at the end of the room.

She sobbed, and laughed and choked.

'He took it, he has taken everything, and isn't it queer, I don't care in the very least?'

He stayed at the end of the room, the table and several chairs between them.

'He thinks I love you?' he said.

'Oh yes.'

She began to beat her head again.

'Stop--how can you--for God's sake, stop!' he was at her side, trying to draw her from the cruel wood.

'I believe you love me as much as he did at first,' she said--he was offering her a handkerchief for the little bleeding wound on her head, and had to look at her--'Don't you?'

'My God, _no_,' he burst out, 'what are you dreaming of?'

'Oh, but you do,' she cried, and laughed again.

He had moved her from the wall and she could not beat her head. She got up from her knees, and went nearer to him.

'I wish you would take me away,' she said.

'Remember you have a husband,' he answered, very coldly.

There was a scarlet colour on her cheeks, a very fire in her eyes.

'No, I have not, he has cast me off, I have no one, no one, oh, you _might_ take me away,' her voice broke into a cry.

'Where?' he said, and trembled violently.

'Anywhere, _anywhere_, just so I can never, never see him again as long as I live.'

He moved towards her, all his strength had gone, he was shaking like a leaf. A minute ago he had been one of the best men on God's earth. Now, the suddenness and awfulness of the temptation swept everything away for the time but overmastering love for this woman. He put out his hand.

'Come,' he whispered.

Two minutes later they were fleeing together down the long Red Road that Larrie was coming up.

They passed him half way, he was carrying his hat, and going straight forward, not looking to right or left.

The meeting only added fuel to Dot's fire.

'Hurry,' she cried, pressing on breathlessly, 'hurry.'

When they neared the cottage she was limping wretchedly. He stopped suddenly and looked down at her little house shoes.

'The heel has come off,' she said dismayedly.

It was really a catastrophe, for they were to have gone two miles further, and then tried to get a conveyance of some sort.

'Perhaps I could walk without them,' she said, and slipped one off, 'Oh, do come on.'

There was a light burning in the dining-room window of the cottage.

'Couldn't you go in and get a pair?' he asked, but she shuddered and shook her head.

'I am afraid,' she said--'of Peggie.'

'Sit down here then,' he said, and found her a seat on some piled wood by the roadside. 'I will try to take the other heel off.'

Dot smothered an exclamation.

Peggie herself was leaning over the little side gate fifty yards away, and the figure of the district butcher was discernible on the footpath.

'You could go in yourself,' he whispered, 'and get wraps as well.'

'I am afraid,' she said again, and looked at the lamplight with strange eyes. 'There's a pair in the hall stand box.'

He opened the gate very quietly and went over the grass; she saw him push open the half closed front door, and go into the hall.

Peggie's voice came over the garden beds.

'Get out with you,' she was saying to her lover. Dot watched her with frightened eyes, for no quick shadow fell on the lighted patch near the door.

How long he was! Perhaps he could not find the shoes, perhaps Larrie had flung them out. It might be he was looking for another wrap for her.

'Ga'rn,' said Peggie, 'I'm goin' in.'

But Dot trembled needlessly, she did not move. The frilled curtain blew through the drawing-room window in its old accustomed way; the broken wistaria lattice swayed and creaked as it had done for months. Something rose in Dot's throat, the wildness died out of her eyes.

Then the long shadow fell on the lighted patch, and he came across the grass again, straight over the mignonette bed and Larrie's primroses.

She shivered violently, a sick feeling of fear came over her. He was speaking to her, bending down to her, she could not see his face in the darkness, but she knew he was holding something in his arms. He put it gently down on her knees. How warm it was, how soft, how very small! Such a little pitiful cry of broken sleep it gave!

'Oh, God bless you!' she said, 'God bless you!' There came a rush of warm, relieving, grateful tears.

'Oh, God bless you!' she said again. But he had gone.

THE END

Transcriber's notes:

Inconsistent hyphenation (indiarubber/india-rubber, roseleaf/rose-leaf, tiptoe/tip-toe, weatherboard/weather-board, workbasket/work-basket) retained.

Inconsistent spelling of Laurence/Lawrence has been retained.