he was—as I see now? Did he not say as much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make me understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash the women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity? Would I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was done, I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was to be. It was the true end to his vileness. Ah!”
She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went on: “I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share of knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I—oh, if I were a man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest women!”
He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.
She misunderstood his silence. “You had the courage, the impulse to—to do it,” she said keenly; “you have not the courage to justify it. I will not have it so.
“I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I will—”
She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. “But I see,” she added. “To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what he did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak unless—unless you are ready also.”
There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted at his silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless remorse or sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end?
“There is only one course to pursue,” he rejoined quietly, “and that is the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor your courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could, or I should, take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave you. I could not turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain so. Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again. I am—”
“I know who you are,” she broke in. “I know what your religion is; that fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you.”
“I am of no family or place in England,” he went on calmly. “I come of yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank. Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As to what happened—that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind. I know that I should do the same, yes, even a hundred times. I did according to my nature. Thee must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do. Silence is the only way of safety or of justice. We must not speak of this again. We must each go our own way.”
Her eyes were moist. She reached out a hand to him timidly. “Oh, forgive me,” she added brokenly, “I am so vain, so selfish, and that makes one blind to the truth. It is all clearer now. You have shown me that I was right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for myself. I shall pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the end.”
She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go. Presently she spoke again: “I shall always want to know about you—what is happening to you. How could it be otherwise?”
She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing which vitally, fatally concerns both or either. It is a power at once malevolent and beautiful. A secret like that of David and Hylda will do in a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest. In neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and yet they had gone deeper in each other’s lives than any one either had known in a lifetime. They had struck a deeper note than love or friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for ever after. Each understood this in a different way.
Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in her mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety. He saw the glance, and said: “I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me. She was my mother’s sister though she is almost as young as I. Her name is Faith. There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though it would make no difference if she knew.” Suddenly a thought seemed to strike him. “The secret is of thee and me. There is safety. If it became another’s, there might be peril. The thing shall be between us only, for ever?”
“Do you think that I—”
“My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an unmerciful honesty, tell her husband—”
“I am not married-”
“But one day—”
She interrupted him. “Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me,” she added, “tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was set. What is it?”
“I remain here,” he answered quietly. “I remain in the service of Prince Kaid.”
“It is a dreadful government, an awful service—”
“That is why I stay.”
“You are going to try and change things here—you alone?”
“I hope not alone, in time.”
“You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your place—in Hamley, was it not? My aunt has read of you—my cousin—” she paused.
“I had no place in Hamley. Here is my place. Distance has little to do with understanding or affection. I had an uncle here in the East for twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world. Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy. My uncle talked to me over seas and lands. I felt him, heard him speak.”
“You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the distance—real and definite things?”
“If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him or her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying thought.”
She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed. “Oh, if that were possible!” she said. “If only one could send a thought like that!” Then with an impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a hand. “If ever in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you try to make me understand, as your uncle did with you?”
“I cannot tell,” he answered. “That which is deepest within us obeys only the laws of its need. By instinct it turns to where help lies, as a wild deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the watercourse.”
She got to her feet again. “I want to pay my debt,” she said solemnly. “It is a debt that one day must be paid—so awful—so awful!” A swift change passed over her. She shuddered, and grew white. “I said brave words just now,” she added in a hoarse whisper, “but now I see him lying there cold and still, and you stooping over him. I see you touch his breast, his pulse. I see you close his eyes. One instant full of the pulse of life, the next struck out into infinite space. Oh, I shall never—how can I ever-forget!” She turned her head away from him, then composed herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: “Why was nothing said or done? Perhaps they are only waiting. Perhaps they know. Why was it announced that he died in his bed at home?”
“I cannot tell. When a man in high places dies in Egypt, it may be one death or another. No one inquires too closely. He died in Kaid Pasha’s Palace, where other men have died, and none has inquired too