CHAPTER XL

OPEN WAR

He glared at them for a moment before he fully took it in. The Seer,

thus suddenly surprised, loosed his hold on Linnet, and drew back

instinctively. But an awful feeling of doubt came over Linnet’s mind.

The position was most equivocal—nay, even compromising. Would Andreas

misunderstand what this man was doing with her—one hand held on her

wrist, and one clutching at her bosom?

But Andreas knew that simple loyal nature too well to doubt her

relations with anyone—except Will Deverill. As he stood there and

stared, he saw only that the American had been offering

violence—personal violence—to Linnet. His hot Tyrolese blood boiled at

once at that insult. He sprang forward and caught Joaquin Holmes by the

throat. “You scoundrel!” he cried through his clenched teeth; “what are

you doing to my wife? How dare you touch her like that? How dare you lay

your blackguard hands upon her?”

The Coloradan freed himself with a jerk, and shook off his assailant,

for he was a powerful man, too, though less sturdy than Andreas. He drew

back half-a-pace, and faced the infuriated husband. His hand wandered

half mechanically to the faithful six-shooter, which after all those

years in civilised England old habit still made him carry always in his

pocket. But he thought better of it after a moment—these Britishers

have such a nasty insular way of stringing one up for the merest

accident!—and answered instead, with an ugly smile, “It’s _her_ fault,

not mine. She snatched a letter away from me. It’s my own, and I want it

back. She won’t give it up to me.”

Andreas Hausberger had his faults; but he had too much sense of dignity

to bandy words with an intruder who had insulted his wife—above all, to

bandy them in his wife’s very presence. It mattered little to him just

then what that question about the letter might really import. He stepped

forward in his wrath once more, and caught the Seer by the shoulders.

“You cur!” he cried, pushing him before him. “How dare you answer me

like that?” And, with a sudden wrench, he flung the fellow against the

door, bruising and hurting him violently.

The Coloradan rushed back on him. There was a short, sharp scuffle. Then

Andreas, getting the better, opened the door with a dash, and dragged

his opponent after him. At the head of the stairs, he paused, and gave

him a sounding kick. The Coloradan writhed and squirmed, but, strong as

he was, he found himself no match for the gigantic Tyroler. Besides, he

was less used than his antagonist to these hand-to-hand struggles.

Andreas, for his part, was quite in his element. “A _Wirth_ who can’t

turn out a noisy or drunken guest, isn’t worth his salt,” he had said

one day to Florian long ago in the Zillerthal; he was well used, indeed,

of old to such impromptu encounters. The Seer on the contrary was more

accustomed to the bowie and the six-shooter than to wrestling and

scuffling. He yielded after a moment to Andreas’s heavy hand, only

stopping to shout back through the open drawing-room door, “Then you owe

me fifty pounds, Signora, for that letter!”

Andreas hauled him down the stairs, dragged him, half-resisting, through

the hall and vestibule, opened the front door with one free hand,

hastily, and kicked his man down the steps with a volley of angry oaths

in his native German. Then he slammed the door in the face of the

discomfited Seer (who had rushed back again to assault him), and went

upstairs once more, as outwardly cool as he could, but hot in the face

and hotter at heart, to Linnet.

Linnet was really grateful to him. The man had frightened her. For the

first time in her life, she admired her husband. The natural admiration

that all her sex feel for physical strength and prowess in men was

exceptionally marked in her, as in most other women of primitive

communities. “Thank you,” she said simply, as Andreas strolled in,

trying to look unconcerned, with his hands in his pockets, and

confronted her stonily. “The man hurt my wrist. If you hadn’t come in, I

don’t know what on earth he might ever have done to me.”

Andreas stared at her in silence with close-knit brows for

half-a-minute. Then he said in an insolent tone, “Now, tell me, what’s

all this fuss he was making about some letter?”

His question brought Linnet back to herself with a sudden revulsion of

feeling. In the tremulousness of those two scuffles, she had almost

forgotten for the moment all about the first cause of them. But now, she

looked her husband back straight in the face, and, without flinching or

hesitating, she answered him in a scarcely audible voice, “He brought me

the last letter you wrote to Philippina. The one making an appointment

at the usual place for three to-morrow. I don’t know how he got it, but

he wanted to sell it to me.”

Andreas never moved a muscle of that impassive face, but his colour came

and went, and his breath stopped short, as he stood still and stared at

her. “My last letter to Philippina!” he repeated, with a glow of shame.

“And that fellow dared to show it to you! I’d have choked him if I’d

known! The mean scoundrelly eavesdropper!”

Linnet folded her hands in front of her where she sat on her low chair.

Her air was resigned. She hardly seemed to notice him. “You needn’t be

afraid,” she said. “It’s no matter to me. I guessed all that long ago. I

didn’t want your letters, or hers either, to prove it to me. I told him

as much. To me, at least, it’s no matter.”

“And he offered to sell it you?” Andreas cried, growing in wrath. “He

tried to make money of it! What did he want you to buy it for?”

“He said I could get a divorce with it,” Linnet answered simply.

“A divorce!” Andreas shouted, losing control of himself for once. That

word went straight home to all the deepest chords in his sordid nature.

“He wanted to egg you on, then, to try and get a divorce from me! He

wanted to cheat me of all I’ve worked and toiled for!” He flung himself

into a chair, and clenched his fists, and ground his teeth. “The damned

rogue!” he cried once more. “When I get at him, oh, I’ll throttle him!”

He sat for a minute or two revolving many things angrily in his own

burning soul. He had not only Linnet to think of now, but Philippina,

too, and her husband. Heaven only knew what harm that man might do him

in revenge for his drubbing—what scandal he might raise, what devils he

might let loose upon him. If Linnet left him now, all the world would

say she was amply justified. And the English law would allow her a

divorce! No; not without cruelty! and he had never been cruel to her.

There was comfort in that: he consoled himself in part with it. He had

spoken harshly to her at times, perhaps, and taken care of her money for

her—women are so reckless that a man must needs look after them. But

cruel! oh no, no; she could never prove _that_ against him!

“Divorce!” he said slowly, knitting his brows, and leaning forward. “He

talked to you of divorce, Linnet! That’s all pure gammon. There’s no

divorce for a woman, by English law, without cruelty or desertion. I’ve

never been cruel to you, and I’m not likely to desert you. You can’t get

a divorce, I say. You can’t get a divorce! You surely didn’t promise him

fifty pounds for that letter!”

“No; I didn’t,” Linnet answered. “I told him I didn’t want it. Divorce

would be no use in the world to me. I’m a Catholic, as you know, and I

believe my religion.”

Andreas stared at her hard. He fingered his chin thoughtfully. She had

struck the right chord. How foolish of him in his haste not to have

thought of that by pure instinct! Divorce, indeed! Why, of course, the

Church wouldn’t hear of it. To think that a Tyrolese woman would accept

the verdict of a mere earthly court to dissolve a holy sacrament!

“You’re quite right,” he muttered slowly, nodding his head once or

twice; “divorce is pure sacrilege. There’s no such thing known in the

Catholic Church; there’s no such thing known in the Austrian Empire.”

He subsided for a moment. Then, all at once, with a bound, another

emotion got the better of him. He must go out without delay and inquire

how all this bother got abroad from Philippina. And yet—’twas hard to

know how he could govern himself aright. Not for worlds would he let

Will Deverill come to the house in his absence now, after all that had

happened. Linnet hadn’t seen him yet since her return from Italy. If he

came in, as things stood, and found her in her present mood, Andreas

felt he himself couldn’t answer for the consequences.

He paused, and reflected. For Philippina’s sake, for his own, nay, even

for Linnet’s, he knew he must go out without one minute’s delay, to

prevent further mischief with Theodore Livingstone. But still—it was

dangerous to go away from Linnet. Yet he must make up his mind one way

or the other; and he made it up quickly. “I’m going out,” he said in his

curt tone, turning sharply to his wife, without one word of apology or

explanation; “but before I go, I’ve a message to give the housemaid.”

“Go when you like,” Linnet answered coldly. Little as she cared for him

now, little as she ever cared for him, it hurt her feelings none the

less that he shouldn’t even try to explain or to excuse himself. His

very silence was insolent. She felt it keenly.

Andreas rang the bell, and then crossed his arms in a sullen fashion.

That attitude alone seemed to exasperate Linnet. The housemaid answered

the bell. He looked up at her with a scowl. “Ellen,” he said, in a very

slow and deliberate voice, “If Mr Will Deverill should call while I’m

out, will you tell him the Signora’s not at home to-day? She’s never at

home to him, you may say, except when I’m present.”

Linnet’s blood was boiling. These perpetual insults before her own

servants’ eyes were driving her fast into open rebellion. She answered

not a word, but rose with dignity, and went over like a queen to her

davenport in the corner. “Stop, Ellen,” she said calmly, restraining

herself with an effort. “I’ve a note I want you to post. Stand there,

and wait till I’ve written it.” She turned to her husband, whose hand

was on the door-handle. “Don’t go, Andreas,” she said in her most

authoritative voice. “I wish you to read it before I have it posted.”

She sat down and wrote hastily. Then she directed an envelope. She was

prepared for a scene; but if a scene arose, she was determined it should

be before a friendly witness Ellen stood by, demure, in her cap and

apron. Linnet spoke in English, that she might know what happened.

“I’ve written to Mr Deverill,” she said, as calmly as she could manage,

though her voice trembled somewhat. “We haven’t seen him yet since we

came back to London. And this is what I’ve said: I hope you’ll approve

of it:—

“‘MY DEAR MR DEVERILL,—It will give my husband and myself great

pleasure if you’ll lunch with us here at two next Thursday. We

want to talk over our Italian experiences.—

Yours sincerely,

LINNET HAUSBERGER.’”

Andreas darted at her, livid with rage and jealousy. “You shall not send

that note!” he exclaimed, in German. “I forbid him the house. He shall

not come near you.”

Linnet darted aside, for her part, and held the note out to Ellen. The

girl, terrified at such a scene, and at her master’s loud voice, drew

back, not daring to interpose or to take it. Linnet held it at

arm’s-length. Andreas seized her arm and wrenched it. “You shan’t send

it,” he cried once more, clutching her wrist with his hand till his

nails drew blood from it. He tried to seize the note again, but Linnet

was strong and resisted him. He flung her violently to the ground; but

still she held it out, crying, “Here, post it, Ellen!” Andreas was

beside himself now with rage and fury. He struck her several times; he

hit her wildly with his fist; he caught her by the hair and shook her

angrily like a bulldog. The marks of his hands showed red through her

thin dress upon her neck and shoulders. At last he seized the note, and

tore it into shreds, flung the tatters into her face, and struck her

again heavily. Linnet bent down and let him strike. Her blood was up

now. She was angry too. And she also had inherited the hot heart of the

Tyrol.

At last, Andreas’s passion cooled down of pure fatigue, and, with a

final oath or two, he turned on his heel and left her. As he quitted the

room, he stood for a second with his hand on the door, looking round at

the startled and horrified maid-servant. “Mind, Ellen,” he said,

huskily, “post no letters for your mistress this afternoon; and if the

man Deverill calls, she isn’t at home to him.”

But, as the front door closed with a snap behind him, it came back to

him all at once, that wise and prudent man, that he had played into her

rebellious hands all unawares; he had given her the one plea she still

needed for a divorce—the plea of cruelty.