‘Audrey,’ I said–I had never found myself able to ask the question before–‘was–was–he–was Sheridan kind to you?’
She did not speak for a moment, and I thought she was resenting the question.
‘No!’ she said abruptly.
She shot out the monosyllable with a force that startled and silenced me. There was a whole history of unhappiness in the word.
‘No,’ she said again, after a pause, more gently this time. I understood. She was speaking of a dead man.
‘I can’t talk about him,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘I expect most of it was my fault. I was unhappy because he was not you, and he saw that I was unhappy and hated me for it. We had nothing in common. It was just a piece of sheer madness, our marriage. He swept me off my feet. I never had a great deal of sense, and I lost it all then. I was far happier when he had left me.’
‘Left you?’
‘He deserted me almost directly we reached America.’ She laughed. ‘I told you I had grown to understand the realities. I began then.’
I was horrified. For the first time I realized vividly all that she had gone through. When she had spoken to me before of her struggles that evening over the study fire, I had supposed that they had begun only after her husband’s death, and that her life with him had in some measure trained her for the fight. That she should have been pitched into the arena, a mere child, with no experience of life, appalled me. And, as she spoke, there came to me the knowledge that now I could never do what I had come to do. I could not give her up. She needed me. I tried not to think of Cynthia.
I took her hand.
‘Audrey,’ I said, ‘I came here to say good-bye. I can’t. I want you. Nothing matters except you. I won’t give you up.’
‘It’s too late,’ she said, with a little catch in her voice. ‘You are engaged to Mrs Ford.’
‘I am engaged, but not to Mrs Ford. I am engaged to someone you have never met–Cynthia Drassilis.’
She pulled her hand away quickly, wide-eyed, and for some moments was silent.
‘Do you love her?’ she asked at last.
‘No.’
‘Does she love you?’
Cynthia’s letter rose before my eyes, that letter that could have had no meaning, but one.
‘I am afraid she does,’ I said.
She looked at me steadily. Her face was very pale.
‘You must marry her, Peter.’
I shook my head.
‘You must. She believes in you.’
‘I can’t. I want you. And you need me. Can you deny that you need me?’
‘No.’
She said it quite simply, without emotion. I moved towards her, thrilling, but she stepped back.
‘She needs you too,’ she said.
A dull despair was creeping over me. I was weighed down by a premonition of failure. I had fought my conscience, my sense of duty and honour, and crushed them. She was raising them up against me once more. My self-control broke down.
‘Audrey,’ I cried, ‘for God’s sake can’t you see what you’re doing? We have been given a second chance. Our happiness is in your hands again, and you are throwing it away. Why should we make ourselves wretched for the whole of our lives? What does anything else matter except that we love each other? Why should we let anything stand in our way? I won’t give you up.’
She did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Hope began to revive in me, telling me that I had persuaded her. But when she looked up it was with the same steady gaze, and my heart sank again.
‘Peter,’ she said, ‘I want to tell you something. It will make you understand, I think. I haven’t been honest, Peter. I have not fought fairly. All these weeks, ever since we met, I have been trying to steal you. It’s the only word. I have tried every little miserable trick I could think of to steal you from the girl you had promised to marry. And she wasn’t here to fight for herself. I didn’t think of her. I was wrapped up in my own selfishness. And then, after that night, when you had gone away, I thought it all out. I had a sort of awakening. I saw the part I had been playing. Even then I tried to persuade myself that I had done something rather fine. I thought, you see, at that time that you were infatuated with Mrs Ford–and I know Mrs Ford. If she is capable of loving any man, she loves Mr Ford, though they are divorced. I knew she would only make you unhappy. I told myself I was saving you. Then you told me it was not Mrs Ford, but this girl. That altered everything. Don’t you see that I can’t let you give her up now? You would despise me. I shouldn’t feel clean. I should feel as if I had stabbed her in the back.’