CHAPTER XLI

GOD’S LAW—OR MAN’S?

Linnet took less than one minute to make up her mind. Not twice in his

life should Andreas treat her so before her own servants. She was too

proud to cry; but as soon as her husband had left the room she picked

herself up from the floor where he had brutally flung her, wiped the

blood from her arm, smoothed her hair with her hand, and motioned

silently to Ellen to follow her into her bedroom. She motioned to her,

because she couldn’t trust herself to speak without crying, and never

now should she allow that hateful man to wring a single tear from her.

In those few brief moments, she had decided once for all what she meant

to do. After all that had passed just now, she must leave him instantly.

The crisis had come; Andreas Hausberger should suffer for it.

Hastily, with Ellen’s aid, she packed a few things into her little

portmanteau. She put in just what she would most need for some evenings’

stay; she put in also her diamonds and the rest of her jewellery, not

omitting the coral necklet Will Deverill gave her long ago in the Tyrol.

Luckily, she had in her desk the week’s money for the housekeeping. She

took it out—it was her own—and turned more calmly to Ellen. “My

child,” she said, laying two sovereigns in her hand, “will you come with

me where I go? Remember, Mr Hausberger says you’re _his_ servant.”

And the girl, looking up at her with a burst of compassion and

enthusiastic affection, made answer at once: “I’d go with you, Signora,

if they was to cut off my head for it. How dare he ever treat you

so—such a man as him—and you a lady anyone ’ud love to die for!”

“Thank you, dear,” Linnet said, much touched; for to her, even her

servants were perfectly human. “Then run up and put your things on as

fast as you can, and ask Maria to call a hansom.”

When it came to the door, she stepped in, and Ellen after her. “Where

shall I drive, Mum?” the cabman asked. And Linnet, through the flap,

made answer boldly, “To Duke Street, St James’s.”

“That’s where Mr Deverill lives, ma’am, isn’t it?” Ellen interposed,

somewhat tremulously.

“Yes, child,” Linnet answered, with a choking voice, but very firmly

still, for she had quite made her mind up. “Mr Deverill lives there—and

I’m going to Mr Deverill’s. I’ve no right to go—but I’m going, all the

same. If you’d rather not come, you can leave me at the door. You know

what it means. Perhaps it would be better.”

The girl glanced back at her, all flushed. “I don’t care a pin whether

it’s right or whether it’s wrong,” she answered warmly. “I’ll go with

you to the world’s end. I’ll go with you anywhere. I’d go with you if

you was going to the worst house in London.”

Linnet answered nothing. She was red with shame—the very words appalled

her—but she meant to go through with it. Too long had she trampled her

own heart under foot; now her heart would have its way, and she meant to

allow it. Her fiery Southern blood had got the better of her. She would

fly from the man who had married her only for what he could make of her,

to the man she had always truly loved—the man who had always truly

loved her.

“Is Mr Deverill in?” she asked with a beating heart of the servant at

the lodgings. And when the man answered, “Yes, ma’am,” in an unconcerned

tone, her heart rose like a lump in her throat within her.

But she kept her exterior coolness. “Bring in the portmanteau, Ellen,”

she said, with a quiet air of command; and the girl obeyed her. “Now,

sit there in the hall till I come down again and call you.”

She trod the stairs like a queen. Will Deverill was seated at his desk

at work, when the servant flung open the door with a flourish, and

announced, in his most grandiose tone, “Signora Casalmonte!”

Will looked up in surprise, and saw Linnet before him.

Her face, which had been flushed five minutes earlier, was now pale and

bloodless with intense excitement. Marks of fingers stood out on her

neck and wrists; a slight bruise scarred the surface of her smooth left

temple. But she was beautiful still, in spite of all such

accidents—very beautiful and winning. She stood a second and gazed at

him. At sight of her one true love, her bosom rose and fell; that

strange wave of delight she had felt at Innsbruck, and again at the

Harmony, thrilled once more through and through her. Of a sudden, as she

paused, her face flushed rosy red again, her eyes grew bright, her full

throat heaved and panted. She spread out her arms towards him with a

hasty little quiver. “O Will, Will, Will,” she cried, in a voice of

complete and intense self-surrender; “at last—I have come to you!”

Will rose in surprise and moved across to her, trembling. He seized her

two hands in his and gazed at her longingly. “Linnet, dear Linnet,” he

cried, drawing a very deep breath; “what has brought you here to-day?

What on earth do you mean by it?”

But Linnet had flung away all artificial restraints and conventions now.

She abandoned herself to her love with the perfect abandonment of a pure

and good woman, when once she has made up her mind to repress nature no

longer. With a wild impulse of delight, she flung herself bodily into

her lover’s arms. She flung herself into Will’s arms, and buried her

head confidingly on his tender shoulder. Then she broke into a storm of

deep-drawn sobs. “It means,” she cried, between little bursts, “I’ve

left him for ever. That man I never loved, I’ve left him for ever. And

I’ve come home at last where I ought to have come to nestle long ago.

Will, Will, dear Will—will you take me? May I stop with you?”

In a transport of joy, Will clasped her to his bosom. Not to have done

so, indeed, would have been more—or less—than human. No man can even

pretend to be otherwise than overjoyed when the woman he loves flings

herself into his arms for the first time in a fierce access of passion.

He clasped her long and hard, breast pressed against heaving breast, and

lips meeting lips in a sharp shower of kisses. For some minutes they

neither knew, nor felt, nor remembered, nor thought of anything else on

earth save their present intoxication. But surely those minutes were in

themselves worth living for! What mattered so many years of cruel and

unnatural repression beside that one fierce draught at the hot wine of

passion?

After a while, however, Will woke up to a true sense of the situation.

Man though he was, and therefore aggressive, it was his duty first of

all to think of protecting Linnet. He must protect her, if need were,

even against her own impulses. He must learn what she meant, and what

could have led her so suddenly to this strange decision—so unlike

herself, so untrue, as it seemed, to her whole past history.

He unwound his arms gently, and placed the poor sobbing, throbbing girl,

half-unresisted, in an arm-chair by the fireplace. Then he drew up a

seat for himself very close by her side, took her hand in his, and

soothed it gently with his other one. “He’s been cruel to you, Linnet, I

can see,” he murmured softly at her ear. “Now, what has led you to this?

Tell me all he has done to you.”

Thereat, Linnet, holding his hand hard, and looking deep into his eyes,

yet crimson for very shame, began in her own tongue the story of their

interview. She hid nothing from Will, and extenuated nothing. She told

him in full how Joaquin Holmes had brought her Andreas’s letter to

Philippina and offered it for sale; how she had refused to buy it, or

have anything to do with it; how he had dropped it by accident and she

had picked it up before him, intending to restore it to its rightful

owner; how a scuffle had ensued, in the midst of which Andreas had

unexpectedly entered; how in his wrath at being discovered, he had

fairly lost his temper, and provoked her for once to an act of

rebellion; and how in his rage at her note he had turned upon her

bodily, and inflicted the marks Will could see so plainly now upon her

person. Only the question of divorce she never touched on; a certain

feminine delicacy made her shrink from alluding to it. Will listened to

every word with profound attention, letting her tell her own tale her

own way, unquestioned, but stroking her hand from time to time very

gently with his own, or smoothing her fiery cheeks with the tips of his

fingers in silent sympathy.

At last she ceased, and looked hard at Will, inquiringly.

“So I’ve come to you, Will,” she said, in her simple way, with childlike

confidence; “and, now I’ve come, may I stop with you always? May I never

go away again?”

Will’s heart beat high. Her loving trust, her perfect self-surrender,

could not fail to touch him. Yet he gazed at her ruefully. “My darling,”

he said with a burst, belying his words as he spoke by laying her soft

head once more in the hollow of his shoulder; “you shouldn’t have come

to me. You’ve done very very wrong—very foolishly I mean. I’m the exact

last person on earth you should have come to.”

Linnet nestled to him close. “But I _love_ you,” she cried, pleadingly.

“You’re the only living soul I’d have cared to come to.”

“Yes, yes; I know,” Will answered hastily. “I didn’t mean that, of

course. You’re mine, mine, mine! Sooner or later, now, you must

certainly come to me. But for the present, darling, I mean, it’s so

unwise, so foolish. It’ll prejudice your case, if it ever comes to be

heard of. We must take you somewhere else—somewhere free from all

blame, don’t you see—for the immediate future.”

“Prejudice my case!” Linnet exclaimed, looking up at him in amazement,

and growing more shamefaced still with awe at her own boldness. “You

must take me somewhere else! Ah, Will, I don’t understand you. No, no; I

must stop here—I must stop here with you for ever. I’ve broken away

from him now; I’ve broken away from everything. I can never, never go

back. I’m yours, and yours only.”

“No; you can never go back, Linnet,” Will answered decisively. “You’re

mine, darling, mine, mine, mine only”; and he kissed her again

fervently. “But we must be prudent, of course, if we’re to make this

thing straight before the eyes of the world; and for _your_ sake,

dearest, you must see yourself how absolutely necessary it is that we

should make it so.”

Linnet gazed at him once more in childlike astonishment. She failed

utterly to comprehend him. “What do you mean, Will?” she faltered out.

“You don’t mean to say I’m not to stop with you?”

Her eyes filled fast with tears, and her face looked up at his, full of

wistful pleading. She clung to him so tight, in her love and her terror,

that Will bent over her yet again and covered her with kisses. “Yes,

darling; you’re to stop with me,” he cried; “to stop with me all your

life—but not just at present. We must make this thing straight in the

regular way first. Meanwhile, you must stay with some friend—some lady

whose name is above suspicion. All must be carefully arranged. Even to

have come here to-night may be positively fatal. We must play our cards

cautiously. You’ve kept the letter?”

Linnet drew it, much crumpled, from the folds of her bosom, and handed

it to him at once, without a moment’s hesitation. What he meant, she

couldn’t imagine. Will ran his eye over it hastily. Then he glanced at

the deep red marks on her neck, and her half-bared arm—for she had

rolled back her sleeve like a child to show him. “This is conclusive,”

he said slowly. “Prudent man as he is, he has cut his own throat. And

you had a witness, too—a friendly witness; that’s lucky. We must take

you to a doctor, and let him see you to-night, as soon as ever we’ve

arranged where you can sleep this evening. The evidence of cruelty—and

of the other thing—is more than sufficient. No court in England would

refuse you a divorce upon such conduct.”

Linnet started at the word. “Divorce!” she cried, growing redder and

still redder with shame. “Oh, Will, not that, not that! You don’t

understand me. Divorce would be no use in the world to _me_. I’m a

Catholic, you must remember, and I could never, never _marry_ you. If I

did, it would only be a mockery and a snare. It would be worse than sin;

it would be open rebellion. I want no divorce; I want only to be allowed

to stop here with you for ever.”

She laid her hand on his arm, as if to draw him to herself in some

natural symbolism. Her face was flushed with her womanly modesty. She

hid it once more like a shy child on his shoulder. Will looked at her,

sore puzzled. How strange that this pure and passionate nature should

see things in a light that to him was so unfamiliar! But he remembered

what she had said to him in Philippina’s trouble, and began to

understand now in what manner she regarded it.

“Well, but, Linnet,” he cried eagerly lifting her head from where she

put it, and laying her cheek against his own, “you must see for yourself

how much better it would be, if only from the mere worldly point of

view, to arrange this matter as the world would arrange it. Granting

even that a marriage after an English divorce would mean to you, from

the strictly religious standpoint, simply nothing—why, surely, even

then, it must be no small matter to set oneself right with the world, to

be received and acknowledged as an honest woman, and my wife, in

ordinary English society. If we get a divorce, we can do all that; and

to get a divorce, we must act now circumspectly. But if we don’t get

one, and if you try to stop here with me without it—remember, dear, the

penalty; you lose position at once, and become for society an utter

outcast.”

Linnet flung herself upon him once more in a perfect fervour of

abandonment. Her love and her shame were fighting hard within her. Her

passionate Southern nature overcame her entirely. “Will, Will, dear

Will,” she cried, hiding her face from him yet again, “you don’t

understand; you can’t fathom the depth of the sacrifice I would make for

you. I come to you to-day bringing my life in my hand—my eternal life,

my soul, my future; I offer you all I have, all I am, all I will be. For

you I give up my good name, my faith, my hopes of salvation. For you I

will endure the worst tortures of purgatory. I’ve tried to keep

away—I’ve tried hard to keep away—Our Dear Lady knows how hard—all

these months, all these years—but I can keep away no longer. Two great

powers seemed to pull different ways within me. My Church said to me

plainly, ‘You must never think of him; you must stop with Andreas.’ My

heart said to me no less plainly, but a thousand times more

persuasively, ‘You must fly from that man’s side; you must go to Will

Deverill.’ I knew, if I followed my heart, the fires of hell would rise

up and take hold of me. I haven’t minded for that; I’ve dared the fires

of hell; the two have fought it out—the Church and my heart—and, my

heart has conquered.”

She paused, and drew a great sigh. “Dear Will,” she went on softly,

burying her head yet deeper in that tender bosom, “if I got a divorce,

the divorce would be nothing to me—a mere waste paper. What people

think of me matters little, very little in my mind, compared to what God

and my Church will say of me. If I stop with you here, I shall be living

in open sin; but I shall be living with the man my heart loves best; I

shall have at least my own heart’s unmixed approval. While I lived with

Andreas, the Church and God approved; but my own heart told me, every

night of my life, I was living in sin, unspeakable sin against human

nature and my own body. Oh, Will, I don’t know why, but it somehow seems

as if God and our hearts were at open war; you must live by one or you

must live by the other. If I stop with you, I’m living by my own heart’s

law; I will take the sin upon me; I will pay the penalty. If God

punishes me for it at last—well, I will take my punishment and bear it

bravely; I won’t flinch from pain; I won’t shrink from the fires of hell

or purgatory. But, at least, I do it all with my eyes wide open. I know

I’m disobeying God’s law for the law of my own heart. I won’t profane

God’s holy sacrament of marriage by asking a heretical and un-Catholic

Church to bless a union which is all my own—my own heart’s making, not

God’s ordinance, God’s sacrament. I love you so well, darling, I can

never leave you. Let me stop with you, Will; let me stop with you! Let

me live with you; let me die with you; let me burn in hell-fire for

you!”

A man is a man. And the man within Will Deverill drove him on

irresistibly. He clasped her hard once more to his straining bosom. “As

you wish,” he said, quivering. “Your will is law, Linnet.”

“No, no,” she cried, nestling against him, with a satisfied sigh of

delight. “My law is Will.” And she looked up and smiled at her own

little conceit. “You shall do as you wish with me.”