Part 18 (1/2)

”Jinny!” he gasped--”Jinny!”

Mrs. Grey stopped dead in her advance, and stared at him with a face from which every expression had been struck out, save one of astonishment and horror. Then with a sharp intaking of the breath she reeled, and would have fallen had the Professor not thrown his long, nervous arm round her.

”Try this sofa,” said he.

She sank back among the cus.h.i.+ons with the same white, cold, dead look upon her face. The Professor stood with his back to the empty fireplace and glanced from the one to the other.

”So, O'Brien,” he said at last, ”you have already made the acquaintance of my wife!”

”Your wife,” cried his friend hoa.r.s.ely. ”She is no wife of yours. G.o.d help me, she is _my_ wife.”

The Professor stood rigidly upon the hearth-rug. His long, thin fingers were intertwined, and his head had sunk a little forward. His two companions had eyes only for each other.

”Jinny!” said he.

”James!”

”How could you leave me so, Jinny? How could you have the heart to do it? I thought you were dead. I mourned for your death--ay, and you have made me mourn for you living. You have withered my life.”

She made no answer, but lay back among the cus.h.i.+ons with her eyes still fixed upon him.

”Why do you not speak?”

”Because you are right, James. I have treated you cruelly--shamefully.

But it is not as bad as you think.”

”You fled with De Horta.”

”No, I did not. At the last moment my better nature prevailed. He went alone. But I was ashamed to come back after what I had written to you. I could not face you. I took pa.s.sage alone to England under a new name, and here I have lived ever since. It seemed to me that I was beginning life again. I knew that you thought I was drowned. Who could have dreamed that Fate would throw us together again! When the Professor asked me----”

She stopped and gave a gasp for breath.

”You are faint,” said the Professor--”keep the head low; it aids the cerebral circulation.” He flattened down the cus.h.i.+on. ”I am sorry to leave you, O'Brien; but I have my cla.s.s duties to look to. Possibly I may find you here when I return.”

With a grim and rigid face he strode out of the room. Not one of the three hundred students who listened to his lecture saw any change in his manner and appearance, or could have guessed that the austere gentleman in front of them had found out at last how hard it is to rise above one's humanity. The lecture over, he performed his routine duties in the laboratory, and then drove back to his own house. He did not enter by the front door, but pa.s.sed through the garden to the folding gla.s.s cas.e.m.e.nt which led out of the morning-room. As he approached he heard his wife's voice and O'Brien's in loud and animated talk. He paused among the rose-bushes, uncertain whether to interrupt them or no.

Nothing was further from his nature than to play the eavesdropper; but as he stood, still hesitating, words fell upon his ear which struck him rigid and motionless.

”You are still my wife, Jinny,” said O'Brien; ”I forgive you from the bottom of my heart. I love you, and I have never ceased to love you, though you had forgotten me.”

”No, James, my heart was always in Melbourne. I have always been yours.

I thought that it was better for you that I should seem to be dead.”

”You must choose between us now, Jinny. If you determine to remain here, I shall not open my lips. There shall be no scandal. If, on the other hand, you come with me, it's little I care about the world's opinion.

Perhaps I am as much to blame as you are. I thought too much of my work and too little of my wife.”

The Professor heard the cooing, caressing laugh which he knew so well.

”I shall go with you, James,” she said.