第104章

She had sent him away the first time, and he had gone without a murmur; only to come back loyal as ever, silent, watchful, sympathetic, his love for her deeper, stronger than before, and--as always timely--bringing to her a companionship at the moment of all others when she was most alone.

Now she had driven him from her again, and this time, she very well knew, it was to be forever.She had shut the door upon this great love.

Laura stirred abruptly in her place, adjusting her hair with nervous fingers.

And, last of all, it had been Jadwin, her husband.She rose and went to the window, and stood there a long moment, looking off into the night over the park.It was warm and very still.A few carriage lamps glimpsed among the trees like fireflies.Along the walks and upon the benches she could see the glow of white dresses and could catch the sound of laughter.Far off somewhere in the shrubbery, she thought she heard a band playing.To the northeast lay the lake, shimmering under the moon, dotted here and there with the coloured lights of steamers.

She turned back into the room.The great house was still.From all its suites of rooms, its corridors, galleries, and hallways there came no sound.There was no one upon the same floor as herself.She had read all her books.It was too late to go out--and there was no one to go with.To go to bed was ridiculous.

She was never more wakeful, never more alive, never more ready to be amused, diverted, entertained.

She thought of the organ, and descending to the art gallery, played Bach, Palestrina, and Stainer for an hour; then suddenly she started from the console, with a sharp, impatient movement of her head.

"Why do I play this stupid music?" she exclaimed.She called a servant and asked:

"Has Mr.Jadwin come in yet?"

"Mr.Gretry just this minute telephoned that Mr.Jadwin would not be home to-night."When the servant had gone out Laura, her lips compressed, flung up her head.Her hands shut to hard fists, her eye flashed.Rigid, erect in the middle of the floor, her arms folded, she uttered a smothered exclamation over and over again under her breath.

All at once anger mastered her--anger and a certain defiant recklessness, an abrupt spirit of revolt.She straightened herself suddenly, as one who takes a decision.Then, swiftly, she went out of the art gallery, and, crossing the hallway, entered the library and opened a great writing-desk that stood in a recess under a small stained window.

She pulled the sheets of note paper towards her and wrote a short letter, directing the envelope to Sheldon Corthell, The Fine Arts Building, Michigan Avenue.

"Call a messenger," she said to the servant who answered her ring, "and have him take--or send him in here when he comes."She rested the letter against the inkstand, and leaned back in her chair, looking at it, her fingers plucking swiftly at the lace of her dress.Her head was in a whirl.A confusion of thoughts, impulses, desires, half-formed resolves, half-named regrets, swarmed and spun about her.She felt as though she had all at once taken a leap--a leap which had landed her in a place whence she could see a new and terrible country, an unfamiliar place--terrible, yet beautiful--unexplored, and for that reason all the more inviting, a place of shadows.

Laura rose and paced the floor, her hands pressed together over her heart.She was excited, her cheeks flushed, a certain breathless exhilaration came and went within her breast, and in place of the intolerable ennui of the last days, there came over her a sudden, an almost wild animation, and from out her black eyes there shot a kind of furious gaiety.

But she was aroused by a step at the door.The messenger stood there, a figure ridiculously inadequate for the intensity of all that was involved in the issue of the hour--a weazened, stunted boy, in a uniform many sizes too large.

Laura, seated at her desk, held the note towards him resolutely.Now was no time to hesitate, to temporise.

If she did not hold to her resolve now, what was there to look forward to? Could one's life be emptier than hers--emptier, more intolerable, more humiliating?

"Take this note to that address," she said, putting the envelope and a coin in the boy's hand."Wait for an answer."The boy shut the letter in his book, which he thrust into his breast pocket, buttoning his coat over it.He nodded and turned away.

Still seated, Laura watched him moving towards the door.Well, it was over now.She had chosen.She had taken the leap.What new life was to begin for her to-morrow? What did it all mean? With an inconceivable rapidity her thoughts began racing through, her brain.

She did not move.Her hands, gripped tight together, rested upon the desk before her.Without turning her head, she watched the retreating messenger, from under her lashes.He passed out of the door, the curtain fell behind him.

And only then, when the irrevocableness of the step was all but an accomplished fact, came the reaction.

"Stop!" she cried, springing up."Stop! Come back here.Wait a moment."What had happened? She could neither understand nor explain.Somehow an instant of clear vision had come, and in that instant a power within her that was herself and not herself, and laid hold upon her will.No, no, she could not, she could not, after all.She took the note back.

"I have changed my mind," she said, abruptly."You may keep the money.There is no message to be sent."As soon as the boy had gone she opened the envelope and read what she had written.But now the words seemed the work of another mind than her own.They were unfamiliar; they were not the words of the Laura Jadwin she knew.Why was it that from the very first hours of her acquaintance with this man, and in every circumstance of their intimacy, she had always acted upon impulse? What was there in him that called into being all that was reckless in her?