The Witness for the Defense by A. E. W. Mason (best mystery novels of all time TXT) 📖

much. It's quite true that I sacrificed everything for success. I don't deny that it is well worth having. But Jane Repton said something to me in Bombay so true—you can get whatever you want if you want it enough, but you cannot control the price you will have to pay. I know, my dear, that I paid too big a price. I trampled down something better worth having."

Stella rose suddenly to her feet.

"Oh, if I had known that on the night in Chitipur! What a difference it would have made!" She turned swiftly to him. "Couldn't you have told me?"

"I hadn't a chance. I hadn't five minutes with you alone. And you wouldn't have believed me if I had had the chance. I left my pipe behind me in order to come back and tell you. I had only the time then to tell you that I would write."

"Yes, yes," she answered, and again the cry burst from her: "What a difference it would have made! Merely to have known that you really wanted me!"

She would never have taken that rifle from the corner and searched for the cartridges, that she might kill herself! Whether she had consented or not to go away and ruin Thresk's future she would have had a little faith wherewith to go on and face the world. If she had only known! But up on the top of Bignor Hill a blow had been struck under which her faith had reeled and it had never had a chance of recovery. She laughed harshly. The heart of her tragedy was now revealed to her. She saw herself the sport of gods who sat about like cruel louts torturing a helpless animal and laughing stupidly at its sufferings. She turned again to Thresk and held out her hand.

"Thank you. You would have ruined yourself for me."

"Ruin's a large word," he answered, and still holding her hand he drew her down again. She yielded reluctantly. She might misread his character, but when the feelings and emotions were aroused she had the unerring insight of her sex. She was warned by it now. She looked at Thresk with startled eyes.

"Why have you told me all this?" she asked in suspense, ready for flight.

"I want to prepare you. There's a way out of the trouble—the honest way for both of us: to make a clean breast of it together and together take what follows."

She was on her feet and away from him in a second.

"No, no," she cried in alarm, and Thresk mistook the cause of the alarm.

"You can't be tried again, Stella. That's over. You have been acquitted."

She temporised.

"But you?"

"I?" and he shrugged his shoulders. "I take the consequences. I doubt if they would be so very heavy. There would be some sympathy. And afterwards—it would be as though you had slipped down from Chitipur to Bombay and joined me as I had planned. We can make the best of our lives together."

There was so much sincerity in his manner, so much simplicity she could not doubt him; and the immensity of the sacrifice he was prepared to make overwhelmed her. It was not merely scandal and the Divorce Court which he was ready to brave now. He had gone beyond the plan contemplated at Bombay. He was willing to go hand in hand with her into the outer darkness, laying down all that he had laboured for unsparingly.

"You would do that for me?" she said. "Oh, you put me to shame!" and she covered her face with her hands.

"You give up your struggle for a footing in the world—that's what you want, isn't it?" He pleaded, and she drew her hands away from her face. He believed that? He imagined that she was fighting just for a name, a position in the world? She stared at him in amazement, and forced herself to understand. Since he himself had cared for her enough to remain unmarried, since the knowledge of the mistake which he had made had grown more bitter with each year, he had fallen easily into that other error that she had never ceased to care too.

"We'll make something of our lives, never fear," he was saying. "But to marry this man for his position, and he not knowing—oh, my dear, I know how you are driven—but it won't do! It won't do!"

She stood in silence for a little while. One by one he had torn her defences down. She could hardly bear the gentleness upon his face and she turned away from him and sat down upon a chair a little way off.

"Stand there, Henry," she said. A strange composure had succeeded her agitation. "I must tell you something more which I had meant to hide from you—the last thing which I have kept back. It will hurt you, I am afraid."

There came a change upon Thresk's face. He was steeling himself to meet a blow.

"Go on."

"It isn't because of his position that I cling to Dick. I want him to keep that—yes—for his sake. I don't want him to lose more by marrying me than he needs must"; and comprehension burst upon Henry Thresk.

"You care for him then! You really care for him?"

"So much," she answered, "that if I lost him now I should lose all the world. You and I can't go back to where we stood nine years ago. You had your chance then, Henry, if you had wished to take it. But you didn't wish it, and that sort of chance doesn't often come again. Others like it—yes. But not quite the same one. I am sorry. But you must believe me. If I lost Dick I should lose all the world."

So far she had spoken very deliberately, but now her voice faltered.

"That is my one poor excuse."

The unexpected word roused Thresk to inquiry.

"Excuse?" he asked, and with her eyes fixed in fear upon him she continued:

"Yes. I meant Dick to marry me publicly. But I saw that his father shrank from the marriage. I grew afraid. I told Dick of my fears. He banished them. I let him banish them."

"What do you mean?" Thresk asked.

"We were married privately in London five days ago."

Thresk uttered a low cry and in a moment Stella was at his side, all her composure gone.

"Oh, I know that it was wrong. But I was being hunted. They were all like a pack of wolves after me. Mr. Hazlewood had joined them. I was driven into a corner. I loved Dick. They meant to tear him from me without any pity. I clung. Yes, I clung."

But Thresk thrust her aside.

"You tricked him," he cried.

"I didn't dare to tell him," Stella pleaded, wringing her hands. "I didn't dare to lose him."

"You tricked him," Thresk repeated; and at the note of anger in his voice
Stella found herself again.

"You accuse and condemn me?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. A thousand times, yes," he exclaimed hotly, and she answered with another question winged on a note of irony:

"Because I tricked him? Or because I—married him?"

Thresk was silenced. He recognised the truth implied in the distinction, he turned to her with a smile.

"Yes," he answered. "You are right, Stella. It's because you married him."

He stood for a moment in thought. Then with a gesture of helplessness he picked up her cloak. She watched his action and as he came towards her she cried:

"But I'll tell him now, Henry." In a way she owed it to this man who cared for her so much, who was so prepared for sacrifice, if sacrifice could help. That morning on the downs was swept from her memory now. "Yes, I'll tell him now," she said eagerly. Since Henry Thresk set such store upon that confession, why so very likely would Dick, her husband, too.

But Thresk shook his head.

"What's the use now? You give him no chance. You can't set him free"; and Stella was as one turned to stone. All argument seemed sooner or later to turn to that one dread alternative which had already twice that night forced itself on her acceptance.

"Yes, I can, Henry, and I will, I promise you, if he wishes to be free. I can do it quite easily, quite naturally. Any woman could. So many of us take things to make us sleep."

There was no boastfulness in her voice or manner, but rather a despairing recognition of facts.

"Good God, you mustn't think of it!" said Thresk eagerly. "That's too big a price to pay."

Stella shook her head wistfully.

"You hear it said, Henry," she answered with an indescribable wistfulness, "that women will do anything to keep the men they love. They'll do a great deal—I am an example—but not always everything. Sometimes love runs just a little stronger. And then it craves that the loved one shall get all he wants to have. If Dick wants his freedom I too, then, shall want him to have it."

And while Thresk stood with no words to answer her there came a knocking upon the door. It was gentle, almost furtive, but it startled them both like a clap of thunder. For a moment they stood rigid. Then Thresk silently handed Stella her cloak and pointed towards the window. He began to speak aloud. A word or two revealed his plan to Stella Ballantyne. He was rehearsing a speech which he was to make in the Courts before a jury. But the handle of the door rattled and now old Mr. Hazlewood's voice was heard.

"Thresk! Are you there?"

Once more Thresk pointed to the window. But Stella did not move.

"Let him in," she said quietly, and with a glance at her he unlocked the door.

Mr. Hazlewood stood outside. He had not gone to bed that night. He had taken off his coat and now wore a smoking-jacket.

"I knew that I should not sleep to-night, so I sat up," he began, "and I thought that I heard voices here."

Over Thresk's shoulder he saw Stella Ballantyne standing erect in the middle of the room, her shining gown the one bright patch of colour. "You here?" he cried to her, and Thresk made way for him to enter. He advanced to her with a look of triumph in his eyes.

"You here—at this house—with Thresk? You were persuading him to continue to hold his tongue."

Stella met his gaze steadily.

"No," she replied. "He was persuading me to the truth, and he has succeeded."

Mr. Hazlewood smiled and nodded. There was no magnanimity in his triumph.
A schoolboy would have shown more chivalry to the opponent who was down.

"You confess then? Good! Richard must be told."

"Yes," answered Stella. "I claim the right to tell him."

But Mr. Hazlewood scoffed at the proposal.

"Oh dear no!" he cried. "I refuse the claim. I shall go straight to
Richard now."

He had actually taken a couple of steps towards the door before Stella's voice rang out suddenly loud and imperative.

"Take care, Mr. Hazlewood. After you have told him he will come to me.
Take care!"

Hazlewood stopped. Certainly that was true.

"I'll tell Dick to-morrow, here, in your presence," she said. "And if he wishes it I'll set him free and never trouble either of you again."

Hazlewood looked at Thresk and was persuaded to consent. Reflection showed him that it was the better plan. He himself would be present when Stella spoke. He would see that the truth was told without embroidery.

"Very well, to-morrow," he said.

Stella flung the cloak over her shoulders and went up to the window.
Thresk opened it for her.

"I'll see you to your door," he said.

The moon had risen now. It hung low with the branches of a tree like a lattice across its face; and on the garden and the meadow lay that unearthly light which falls when a moonlit night begins to drown in the onrush of the dawn.

"No," she said. "I would rather go alone. But do something for me, will you? Stay to-morrow. Be here when I tell him." She choked down a sob. "Oh, I shall want a friend and you are so kind."

"So kind!" he repeated with a note of bitterness. Could there be praise from a woman's lips more deadly? You are kind; you are put in your place in the ruck of men; you are extinguished.

"Oh