The Man who Paid

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 305, 16 March 1928, Page 5

The Man who Paid

By

Author of '• A Smner in Israel,'* " Tainted Lives,” ** The Money Master,” Etc., Etc

Pierre Costello

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTERS I. to 111. —On a stormy February evening-, amid the Black Mountains of Wales, a man, drenched to the skin, after more than two hours of steady climbing, finds hospitality in a cottage where an old man lives, with his daughter John Venetian is a venerable, whitebearded old man, imbued with communistic and humanitarian ideas. These he has consistently taught to his daughter. Grace, the heroine. The stranger is Norman Rivett, the hero, who has travelled in Africa, and has not been in England for nine years. Norman Rivett makes a quick wooing, and the couple are married exactly a week after her father's death. Settling her father’s affairs, and being busy with her own nuptials, Grace has at last some breathing time when husband and wife reach Weaveham. Rivett engages a suite in the hotel. A few days after, in the evening, Grace dresses for dinner and goes to the reading room. Coming out she encounters a dark-haired man who speaks to her, giving his name as Paid Dacre. After some preliminary remarks this man informs her that her husband murdered his first wife ten years ago. CHAPTER IV.—Continued “You mean that it makes a difference to you,” Rivett said harshly. “A difference! Oh, how can you speak like that? Have you no feelings at all?” “My wife was a bad woman. He spoke without any feeling in his voice. “I would not tell you her story. You would not understand it. She was my age— n ot so young that one could plead ignorance on her behalf. We were both 29 years old. Besides, she was not ignorant. I was acquitted because of provocation that no man could be expected to endure. Did Dacre tell you that?” “Yes,” she said. “I went away at once. I never intended to come back. It was a sudden resolve; now I understand it. It was quite inexplicable at the time. I came back to meet you.” She shuddered at the ardent flame that leaped into his eyes. “I cannot bear it,” she said again. To her he seemed a monster. Her whole upbringing rose in revolt against his selfishness, his self-suffi-ciency, his claim to live his life, regardless of the rights of others. He seemed to ignore that brutally ended woman’s life that lay between them. ••Do you mean by that that your feelings have changed toward me?” he asked. She struggled for self-control. “Yes,” she said at last. “You shrink front > me?” “I cannot help it.” “It’s your weird upbringing, your father's idealism —all that beautiful

but quite unpractical nonsense about the brotherhood of man.” “I don’t think it’s only that.” “Of course, it’s a shock, too! Perhaps I ought to have told you. Would you have married me?” “No,” she cried in horror. “No—no! Have you no feelings at all? Did you not —did you not love her?” “I don’t know,” he answered, with brutal frankness. “I thought I did, otherwise I would not have troubled about her. But now I know I never loved her. I love you, Grace- You are tho only woman in the world. You are the woman made and destined for me, as I am the man made and destined for you. Don’t you know that?” His voice, with the throbbing passion in its low notes, was too much for her. She buried her face in her hands again. “And you believed this at once!” he went on, and his voice grew cold. “I did not believe it!” She uncovered her face and flashed a look of proud misery at him. “I was sure the man lied. But I must believe it now. What else can I do? To you it seems to mean nothing—that you have taken a human life. You did not even tell me. You left me to find it out like this.” “And it has changed everything?” “Yes—everything.” In her agitation she could no longer keep still. She walked over to a table in a corner of the room and stood absently fingering the roses in a bowl, scattering the petals over the floor. Rivett’s eyes were fixed on her with a great hunger in them. Her shoulders drooped. So did her head. She looked so young, passing through this tempest, with no one to help her. There was something pitiful in her helplessness, something heartbreaking in her pride. But gradually his eyes hardened and his face set again into lines of arrogant grimness. Pie looked obstinate, as if nothing could move him from some hidden resolve. “Grace,” he said, “do you mean that we are to be strangers to each other —because of this?” “I can’t help it,” she murmured, without turning round. “You are afraid I should contaminate you?” “Oh, don’t’ I can’t bear it!” “You need not fear. I bow to your decision. I shall try and win you in my own way. When you wish things to be different you will tell me soUntil then I shall not interfere with your life in any way. You will tell me to-morrow what you wish our immediate plans to be. And about this dinner at the Gardentrees? We shall be a little late. I see that you are | dressed, but perhaps you would rather not go. Shall I telephone an excuse?” She looked at him with fear-filled eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, nervously, j "Perhaps we had better go. I—there is nothing to do. And I—l can’t think. I mustn’t think.” "We will go, then,” he answered, and he was his usual courteous and thoughtful self.' "If you will give me ten minutes, I shall be ready.” At the door of his dressing-room he paused and looked across at her. "Believe me, Grace,” he said. “I shall make it as easy as I can for you.” He shut the door and left her there, standing desolate, her dream of happiness shattered to bits, the world rocking about herBetween them there would for ever be a great gulf, symbolised for her in i his quiet words spoken across the width of the room.

CHAPTER V.—STRANGERS AGAIN Grace remembered nothing about the dinner at the Gardentrees but the liostesess’s parting words. There were a great many people there, and it was like a dream through which her husband’s name was constantly recurring. Everybody seemed to be speaking of him. She gathered in a confused way that they all admired him immensely. When they were leaving, Airs. Gardentree took her to her room to put her cloak on.

“You must have had a. dull evening, Mrs. Rivett,” the large, kindhearted lady said. “You must really take up bridge. You’ll love it. And yet I don’t know that it wouldn’t spoil you to do the things other people do. You’re just delightful as you are. Do you know, you’re like somebody out of a book? A beautiful girl who doesn't dance and doesn’t play bridge, and doesn’t smoke and drink cocktails—why, it makes one rub one’s eyes, my dear!” Grace flushed a little, although she knew the words were meant in all kindness. “My father and I lived all alone in the hills, Mrs. Gardentree,” she said. "He was a great invalid for several years.” “My dear, stay as you are,” retorted the older woman in a burst of enthusiasm. “And what a fortui ate person you are to have a husband like Mr. Rivett, who adores you! Your’e a perfect pair. As to him—he's positively thrilling. He makes one think of an iceberg with a volcano Inside it. You don’t mind my saying it. do you? I'm just crazy about him.” And Mrs. Gardentree smiled and nodded her elaborately-dressed dark-red head, and the diamonds that she was covered with glittered like streams of fire. Grace felt numbed as she took her seat beside Rivett in the car. She could not take it all in. She only knew that, instead of a heart, there was a stone in her breast. Mrs. Garden tree’s words rang in her ears in bitter mockery—“A. husband like Mr. Rivett. who adores you.” A man who had shed blood! Perhaps Mrs. Gardentree knew it. No doubt most of the people at dinner had known it! It was evidently no secret. What was the world made of? Her outraged and tortured spirit cried out bitterly for her father, for the old days of quiet peace, of beautiful thoughts, of noble visions of a world wherein all men should dwell in harmony* and love. She felt unutterably lonely. There was no one near -her who understood. There was no one who could understand. no one in this world, only that most most beloved one who had passed on to a place where perhaps beautiful dreams come true. Beside her was the grim and arrogant presence that drew her irresistibly, and repelled her even as it drew. They drove in complete silence. Arrived at the hotel, they went upstairs. 7n the sitting-room Rivett said good - tight. His smile, very thoughtful and kind, put an even greater distance between them than her knowledge of what he had done. She went to her luxurious room, feeling all at sea, and

more lonely than ever. In some way he put her in the wrong. And yet his was the guilt, the unforgivable sin. She was broken. Her pride would not come to her aid- She felt like a child undergoing punishment, as she stood in front of her dressing-table, her trembling fingers unbuttoning her simple frock. It was monstrously unfair. and yet she could not fight against it. Her big brown-grey eyes gazed helplessly out of her troubled face. She met them in the glass with a feeling of impotent anger. This man had sinned grievously; he had cheated her; he had won her love by a lie. He had ruined her life. He had made her the slave of an ugly farce. And yet he still held her. She could not help herself. Though she shrank in horror from his blood-stained hands, yet his strength had caught her and made her his. Shudderingiy she tried to beat back the knowledge, but it was no good. When he shut the door of his dressing-room with that coldly courteous good-night, he had shut her out of paradise. Burning with shame and calling on the wisdom and love her dead father had taught her, she flung herself on the bed. In the morning, after a heavy and unrefreshing she woke with the dazed feeling that something was

wrong. The empty room brought real- j isation. She rose, chilled and full of ] an unbearable discomfort- It was raining, and the city was wrapped in j darkness. The moistened smoke of its : perpetual pall gave off sulphurous fumes. It was a day of indescribable j woe. While she dressed, she hardened her | heart. She had mind and principle j to guide her. Long training had made ■ them stronger than her emotions. All joy in life was over for her, but she must make some kind of an existence out of the broken pieces of her love and faith. She had married this man. There was no gainsaying the fact that her whole womanhood had burst into blossom at his call. This was indescribable shame; but it was the truth. She had not guessed that he was a pariah among men. Now that she knew, she must suffer. It was no good bewailing this horror That filled her at the very thought of him. Somehow or other they must go on living, both he and she, with the blood of an innocent woman between them Rivett had excused himself by affirming that she was not innocent, but no moral obliquy could justify the shedding of blood- That was Grace’s code, stark, and unaiter- ! able, learned once and, for all at her I father’s knee.

Breakfast was laid in the sittingroom, but Rivett was not there. SI •. rang the bell, and ate and drank m*-< r - anically. The waiter came and clea I away. She had nothing to do. She stood and stared out of the window at Tv pitiless curtain of falling rain. To her tormented mind the city in its shroud of sulphurous darkness looked 1k • the city of Sodom, and was equally deserving of destruction because of her husband’s sin. She turned with a start as Rivett came in. “It is a dreadful morning, Grace. ’ he said. There were red patches on his cheek bones, as if he had been engaged on some violent tasks. "I have been enjoying myself.” he adder. ; “Enjoying yourself!” she echoed, i failing to grasp what joy there could be left in life to him any more t an ! to her. j “Thrashing that swine, Paul Dace, j within an inch of his life.” “Why?” she asked, apprehensive’-, shrinking again from violence. “1 t»«* | say that what he told me is true. ’ i “Ho should have left it to me to ! tell.” ; ‘You did not tell me ” ! “I will tell you now.” CTo be Continued^