As Wrayford entered he noticed that a strange oily odor overpowered the usual scent of dry pine-wood; and at the next step his foot struck an object that rolled noisily across the boards. He lighted another match, and found he had overturned a can of grease which the boatman had no doubt been using to oil the runners of the sliding floor.
Wrayford felt his way down the length of the boathouse, and softly opening the balcony door looked out on the lake. A few yards away, he saw the launch lying at anchor in the veiled moonlight; and just below him, on the black water, was the dim outline of the skiff which the boatman kept to paddle out to her. The silence was so intense that Wrayford fancied he heard a faint rustling in the shrubbery on the high bank behind the boathouse, and the crackle of gravel on the path descending to it.
He closed the door again and turned back into the darkness; and as he did so the other door, on the land-side, swung inward, and he saw a figure in the dim opening. Just enough light entered through the round holes above the respective doors to reveal Mrs. Stilling’s cloaked outline, and to guide her to him as he advanced. But before they met she stumbled and gave a little cry.
“What is it?” he exclaimed.
“My foot caught; the floor seemed to give way under me. Ah, of course—” she bent down in the darkness—“I saw the men oiling it this morning.”
Wrayford caught her by the arm. “Do take care! It might be dangerous if it slid too easily. The water’s deep under here.”
“Yes; the water’s very deep. I sometimes wish—” She leaned against him without finishing her sentence, and he put both arms about her.
“Hush!” he said, his lips on hers.
Suddenly she threw her head back and seemed to listen.
“What’s the matter? What do you hear?”
“I don’t know.” He felt her trembling. “I’m not sure this place is as safe as it used to be—”
Wrayford held her to him reassuringly. “But the boatman sleeps down at the village; and who else should come here at this hour?”
“Cobham might. He thinks of nothing but the launch.’”
“He won’t tonight. I told him I’d seen the skipper put her shipshape, and that satisfied him.”
“Ah—he did think of coming, then?”
“Only for a minute, when the sky looked so black half an hour ago, and he was afraid of a squall. It’s clearing now, and there’s no danger.”
He drew her down on the bench, and they sat a moment or two in silence, her hands in his. Then she said: “You’d better tell me.”
Wrayford gave a faint laugh. “Yes, I suppose I had. In fact, he asked me to.”
“He asked you to?”
“Yes.”
She uttered an exclamation of contempt. “He’s afraid!”
Wrayford made no reply, and she went on: “I’m not. Tell me everything, please.”
“Well, he’s chucked away a pretty big sum again—”
“How?”
“He says he doesn’t know. He’s been speculating, I suppose. The madness of making him your trustee!”
She drew her hands away. “You know why I did it. When we married I didn’t want to put him in the false position of the man who contributes nothing and accepts everything; I wanted people to think the money was partly his.”
“I don’t know what you’ve made people think; but you’ve been eminently successful in one respect. He thinks it’s all his—and he loses it as if it were.”
“There are worse things. What was it that he wished you to tell me?”
“That you’ve got to sign another promissory note—for fifty thousand this time.”
“Is that all?”
Wrayford hesitated; then he said: “Yes—for the present.”
She sat motionless, her head bent, her hand resting passively in his.
He leaned nearer. “What did you’ mean just now, by worse things?”
She hesitated. “Haven’t you noticed that he’s been drinking a great deal lately?”
“Yes; I’ve noticed.”
They were both silent; then Wrayford broke out, with sudden vehemence: “And yet you won’t—”
“Won’t?”
“Put an end to it. Good God! Save what’s left of your life.”
She made no answer, and in the stillness the throb of the water underneath them sounded like the beat of a tormented heart.
“Isabel—” Wrayford murmured. He bent over to kiss her. “Isabel! I can’t stand it! listen—”
“No; no. I’ve thought of everything. There’s the boy—the boy’s fond of him. He’s not a bad father.”
“Except in the trifling matter of ruining his son.”
“And there’s his poor old mother. He’s a good son, at any rate; he’d never hurt her. And I know her. If I left him, she’d never take a penny of my money. What she has of her own is not enough to live on; and how could he provide for her? If I put him out of doors, I should be putting his mother out too.”
“You could arrange that—there are always ways.”
“Not for her! She’s proud. And then she believes in him. Lots of people believe in him, you know. It would kill her if she ever found out.”
Wrayford made an impatient movement. “It will kill you if you stay with him to prevent her finding out.”
She laid her other hand on his. “Not while I have you.”
“Have me? In this way?”
“In any way.”
“My poor girl—poor child!”
“Unless you grow tired—unless your patience gives out.”
He was silent, and she went on insistently: “Don’t you suppose I’ve thought of that too—foreseen it?”
“Well—and then?” he exclaimed.
“I’ve accepted that too.”
He dropped her hands with a despairing gesture. “Then, indeed, I waste my breath!”
She made no answer, and for a time they sat silent again, a little between them. At length he asked: “You’re not crying?”
“No.”
“I can’t see your face, it’s grown so dark.”
“Yes. The storm must be coming.” She made a motion as if to rise.
He drew close and put his arm about her. “Don’t leave me yet. You know I must go to-morrow.” He broke off with a laugh. “I’m to break the news to you to-morrow morning, by the way; I’m to take you out in the motorlaunch and break it to you.” He dropped her hands and stood up. “Good God! How can I go and leave you here with him?”
“You’ve done it often.”
“Yes; but each time it’s more damnable. And then I’ve always had a hope—”
She rose also. “Give it up! Give it up!”
“You’ve none, then, yourself?”
She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her.
“None—none?” he insisted.
He had to bend his head to hear her answer. “Only one!”
“What, my dearest? What?”
“Don’t touch me! That he may die!”
They drew apart again, hearing each other’s quick breathing through the darkness.
“You wish that too?” he said.
“I wish it always—every day, every hour, every moment!” She paused, and then let the words break from her. “You’d better know it; you’d better know the worst of me. I’m not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes back I say to myself: ‘Are you here again?’ When I hear of people being killed in accidents, I think: ‘Why wasn’t he there?’ When I read the death-notices in the paper I say: ‘So-and-so was just his age.’ When I see him taking such care of his health and his diet—as he does, you know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much—when I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn’t gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: ‘What can kill a man who thinks only of himself?’ And night after night I keep myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he’s dead. When I dream that, and wake and find him there it’s worse than ever—”