1 Dazed, hopeless, almost beaten, Aliette passed out of the offices of Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright.
The sun had already set. The Embankment showed steel-gray and violet; fantastic under a fantastic sky. Trams clanged by her. Taxis. Cars. She did not see them. She did not see London. She saw the country, the country under a March sunset. It seemed to her that she was riding; riding alone; riding for defeat in a desperate race.
Automatically her feet turned away from the sunset--eastward from Norfolk Street toward the Temple. Above her, the sky darkled. Lamps gleamed along the Embankment. But no lamp of hope gleamed in her mind. There was no way out of the cage. The book could be altered, the will destroyed. Hector, blackmailed, might bring his action. What did that matter? Freedom, even won, must come too late. Ronnie's child, the child soon to stir in her womb, would be a bastard. A bastard!
She must go to Ronnie. She must tell him the truth. The awful truth.
And suddenly, her brain clearing a little, she knew that she was standing at the gates of the Temple. Ronnie was in there--in there--barely a hundred yards away--behind those railings--across that misty lawn--among the lights and the pinnacles. Ronnie would help her. The law would help. Surely, surely man's law was not so cruel to man's women?
The gate of the Temple stood open. Slowly, she went toward the gate. Behind her she heard the vague ripple of the river, of London's river. The river called to her. "Come to me," rippled London's river, "I am the way out--the one way out of the cage."
Swiftly she passed through the gate. Swiftly, a blind thing seeking its mate, she passed up the lane. Figures hurried by her. She did not see them. She saw Ronnie--Ronnie in wig-and-gown; Ronnie pleading her cause before the law.
Swiftly she passed under the archway. Swiftly, unconscious of one hurrying behind her, she made the tiled passage which leads to Pump Court. Ronnie--Ronnie would not plead for her. Ronnie, knowing the truth, would know her for what she was. For a woman who had belonged to two men. On such, man's law had no mercy. She could go no further--no further. Better the river! Better the river than man's law!
Slowly, she turned away--away from the vision of Ronnie. It was all dark--dark. Darkness and the sound of feet. "Clop," went the feet, "clop clop, clop clop." The feet stopped; and a voice--a known voice--hailed her out of the darkness.
"Alie!" hailed the voice. "Alie! Is that you?"
Still dazed, she could not answer. The voice, close this time, hailed her again. "Alie! Is that you, Alie?"
"Yes. Who is it?"
"Your father-in-law."
The feet clopped again; and now--her mind all confusion--she recognized, within a yard of her, the trim, old-fashioned figure, the vast beard of Rear-Admiral Billy.
"Good God!" panted the admiral. "Good God--I've never run so fast in me life." And, without another word, he gripped her by the arm, steering her rapidly through the dark passage into Pump Court, out of Pump Court, past the Temple itself, and across King's Bench Walk.
"Billy!" she managed to gasp. "Billy, where are you taking me?"
"To my damn fool of a son."
She tried to free herself, but the grasp on her elbow tightened. For Rear-Admiral Billy, rushing hot-foot out of Sir Peter's offices and--directed by the commissionaire--down the Embankment in pursuit of his son's wife, had determined to take no more advice from lawyers.
"My damn fool of a son's been asking to see you for days," he panted. "Sir Peter--silly old codger--said it was not advisable."
It flashed through Aliette's distraught mind that she must be having a nightmare. A nightmare! Billy's beard meshed his words. Billy would go on walking, walking and talking and gripping her by the arm until she woke up. But it couldn't be a nightmare. Billy was real--real. Billy was dragging her away from Ronnie, dragging her back to Hector. They were within ten yards of Hector's chambers. She recognized the stone stairs, the lamp.
Stubbornly, then, she dug her heels into the gravel. Stubbornly--one thought only in her mind--she faced her panting captor.
"Billy, I'm not going in there."
"Why on earth not? Hector won't eat you."
"Ronnie wouldn't like it."
"Can't help that. Hector's game to divorce you. That's enough for you."
"It isn't." Other thoughts, terrible thoughts, harried her. "It isn't. Billy, you've just come from Sir Peter's. Did he tell you anything--anything about the codicil--anything about me?"
And Rear-Admiral Billy, for the good of his soul, committed the double perjury: "The only thing I know, me dear, is that my damn fool of a son made up his mind to divorce you nearly a fortnight ago, and that I've been trying to get Sir Peter to let the pair of you meet ever since. Come on, now, don't be obstinate."
Almost forced up the stone stairs by the renewed grip on her arm, Aliette was aware, dimly, of David Patterson's astonished countenance, of the admiral swinging past David Patterson, of a chair against which she leaned, of an opening door and a quick inaudible colloquy. Then the admiral came back and said to her: "In we go."
Automatically in she went.
Hector stood, motionless, behind his littered desk. She saw him through a glass, a glass of silence, not as the man she had feared and hated, but as a stranger whose eyes were gentle, whose shoulders were bowed, a complete stranger who proffered no hand. The glass of silence slid away; and the stranger spoke to her.
"Won't you sit down?"
Exhausted, she obeyed. The stranger turned to Hector's father, and said, pleadingly: "You'll leave us alone for five minutes, won't you, sir?"
The admiral went out without a word.
"I wanted to see you." The stranger, still on his feet, laughed--a pitiful little laugh, high in the throat. And suddenly she knew him for her legal owner.
"Why did you want to see me?" Could this be the man who had tortured her so long; this broken, stammering creature whose eyes seemed afraid to look into her eyes?
"I don't quite know. Shall we say that I just--just wanted to see you? You mustn't stay more than five minutes, you know. It might--it might invalidate the proceedings--the divorce proceedings. They're rather technical. You see, dear,"--the word came clumsily from between the thin lips--"as things have turned out, I'm afraid--I'm afraid that I shall have to divorce you. I've been trying to arrange things the other way. But it can't be done. Too many people know. There's the king's proctor, you see. But that wasn't why I wanted to talk to you."
Dumbly, realizing a little of the pain behind those gray unshifting pupils, ............