Wog pulled herself together. She had lost her darling, brilliant, flashing Rita. _That was that!_ She must reconstruct her life and press forward without regrets. Life had opened out for her, after all.

But now, at this immediate moment, there was a necessity for calling all her forces together.

She did not know, she had refused to know, how Rita had dealt with Mr.

Lothian during the past three weeks. The poet had not written for a fortnight; that she believed she knew, and she had hoped it meant that his pa.s.sion for her friend was over. Rita, in her new-found love, her _legitimate_ love, had never mentioned the poet to Wog. Ethel knew nothing of love, as far as it could have affected her. Yet the girl had discerned--or thought she had--an almost frightened relinquishment and regret on the part of Rita. Rita had expanded with joyous maiden surrender to the advances and love-making of d.i.c.kson Ingworth. That was her youth, her body. But there had been moments of revolt, moments when the "wizards peeped and muttered," when the intellect of the girl seemed held and captured, as the man who wooed her, and was this day her husband, had never captured it--perhaps never would or could.

Rita Wallace had once said to Gilbert Lothian that she and Ethel did not take a daily paper because of the expense.

Neither of these girls, therefore, was in the habit of glancing down the births, marriages and deaths column. Mr. and Mrs. Toftrees had run over to Nice for a month, Ingworth was far too anxious and busy with his appeal to Rita--none of the people chiefly concerned had read that the Hon. Mary Lothian, third daughter of the Viscount Boultone and wife of Gilbert Lothian, Esquire, of the Old House, Mortland Royal, was dead.

For a fortnight--this was all Ethel Harrison knew--Rita had received no communication from the Poet.

Ethel imagined that Rita had finally sent him about his business, had told him of her quick engagement and imminent marriage. She knew that something had happened with Mr. Podley--nearly three weeks ago. Details she had none.

Yet, on the mantel-shelf, was a letter in Rita"s handwriting. It was addressed to Gilbert Lothian. Wog was to forward this to him.

The letter was unnerving. It was a letter of farewell, of course, but Ethel did not like to handle any message from her dear young bride to a man who was of the past and ought never, _never_! to have been in it.

And there was more than this.

When Ethel had returned from Charing Cross Station, after the early wedding in St. Martin"s Church and the departure of the happy couple for Mentone, she had found a telegram pushed through the letter-box of the flat, addressed "Miss Wallace."

She had opened it and read these words:

"_Arriving to you at 7:30 to-night, carissima, to explain all my recent silence if you do not know already. We are coming into our own._

GILBERT."

Wog didn"t know what this might mean. She regarded it as one more attempt, on the part of the married man who ought never to have had any connection with Rita. She realised that Lothian must be absolutely ignorant of Rita"s marriage. And, knowing nothing of Mary Lothian"s death, she regarded the telegram with disgust and fear.

"How dreadful," she thought, in her virgin mind, untroubled always by the l.u.s.ts of the flesh and the desire of the eyes, "that this great man should run after Cupid. He"s got his own wife. How angry Father would be if he knew. And yet, Mr. Lothian couldn"t help loving Cupid, I suppose. Every one loves her."

"I must be as kind as I can to him when he comes," she said to herself.

"He ought to be here almost at once. Of course, Cupid knows nothing about the telegram saying that he"s coming. I can give her letter into his own hands."

... The bell whirred--ring, ring, ring--was there not something exultant in the shrill purring of the bell?

Wog looked round the littered room, saw the letter on the mantel, the spread telegram upon the table, breathed heavily and went out into the little hall-pa.s.sage of the flat.

"Click," and she opened the door.

Standing there, wearing a fur coat and a felt hat, was some one she had never met, but whom she knew in an instant.

It was Gilbert Lothian. Yet it was not the Gilbert Lothian she had imagined from his photograph. Still less the poet of Rita"s confidences and the verses of "Surgit Amari."

He looked like a well-dressed doll, just come there, like a quite _convenable_ but rather unreal figure from Madame Tussaud"s!

He looked at her for a quick moment and then held out his hand.

"I know," he said; "you"re Wog! I"ve heard such a lot about you.

Where"s Rita? May I come in?--she got my wire?"

... He was in the little hall before she had time to answer him.

Mechanically she led the way into the sitting-room.

In the full electric light she saw him clearly for the first time.

Ethel Harrison shuddered.

She saw a large, white face, with pinkish blotches on it here and there--more particularly at the corners of the mouth and about the nostrils. The face had an impression of immense _power_--of _concentration_. Beneath the wavy hair and the straight eyebrows, the eyes gleamed and shot out fire--shifting this way and that.

With an extraordinary quickness and comprehension these eyes glanced round the flat and took in its disorder.

... "She got my wire?" the man said--finding the spread-out pink paper upon the table in an instant.

"No, Mr. Lothian," Ethel Harrison said gravely. "Rita never got your wire. It came too late."

The glaring light faded out of the man"s eyes. His voice, which had been suave and oily, changed utterly. Ethel had wondered at his voice immediately she heard it. It was like that of some shopman selling silks--a fat voice. It had been difficult for her to believe that _this_ was Gilbert Lothian. Rita"s great friend, the famous man, her father"s favourite modern poet.

But she heard a _voice_ now, a real, vibrant voice.

"Too late?" he questioned. "Too late for _what_?"

Ethel nodded sadly. "I see, Mr. Lothian," she said, "that you are already beginning to understand that you have to hear things that will distress you."

Lothian bowed. As he did so, _something_ flashed out upon the great bloated mask his face had become. It was for a second only, but it was sweet and chivalrous.

"And will you tell me then, Miss Harrison?" he said in a voice that was beginning to tremble violently. His whole body was beginning to shake, she saw.

With one hand he was opening the b.u.t.ton of his fur coat. He looked up at her with a perfectly white, perfectly composed, but dreadfully questioning face.

Certainly his body _was_ shaking all over--it was as though little ripples were running up and down the flesh of it--but his face was a white mask of attention.

"Oh, Mr. Lothian!" the girl cried, "I am so sorry. I am so very sorry for you. You couldn"t help loving her perhaps, I am only a girl, I don"t pretend to know. But you must be brave. Rita is married!"

Puffed and crinkled lids fell over the staring eyes for a moment--as if automatic pressure had suddenly pushed them down.

"_Married?_ Rita?"

"Oh, she ought to have told you! It was cruel of her! She ought to have told you. But you have not written to her for two or three weeks--as far as I know... ."

"_Married?_ Rita?"

"Yes, this morning, and Mr. Podley gave her away. But I have a letter for you, Mr. Lothian. Rita asked me to post it. She gave it me in bed this morning, before I dressed her for her marriage. Of course she didn"t know that you were going to be in town. I will give it to you now."

She gave him the letter.

His hands took it with a mechanical gesture, though he made a little bow of thanks.