the feeling of despair, of helplessness, of desolation, which overcame betty at that moment, remained with her as a poignant memory to the end of her life. she was lost, as hopelessly lost as if she had been in the midst of a solitary waste, though close at hand, perhaps only a few yards away, were her own father and brother, the latter no doubt desperately searching for her. dr trevor would make the best of his way home with cynthia, knowing his son to be as good a guide as himself. poor old miles! he would have a bad time of it when he arrived home alone;—yet he had not been to blame, for she herself had refused to take his arm before leaving the hall. “it looked so silly!” she had intended to take it the moment they were in the street, but even that one moment had been too long. as she heard the stranger’s voice she turned in a panic of fear, and tried to drag her hand from his arm, but he held her tightly, saying, with an odd mixture of weariness and impatience—
“don’t be foolish! you can do no good by running away. you can never find your friends again in this blackness. tell me where you want to go, and i’ll try to help you.”
betty trembled helplessly.
“but i must—i must try! it’s a long way off—across the park. father is here, and my brother, and some friends. i’ll go back to the hall—they may go there to look for me.”
“look round!” said the strange voice, and betty turned her head and stared in amazement, for the great building had vanished as completely as had miles himself, and nothing was to be seen but a wall of darkness. on every side she heard the movement of invisible forms, but their very unreality added to the sense of desolation which possessed her. it was terrible even to think of venturing alone through the ghost-like ranks.
instinctively she clung more closely to her companion’s arm, and, as if recognising her feelings, his voice took a gentler, more reassuring tone.
“don’t be afraid. i had a sister of my own once. you can trust me to see you safely home. i am afraid it is no earthly use trying to find your friends among all the thousands who are leaving the hall. better tell me where you live, so that we can get there as soon as the rest of your party, and save them needless alarm. across the park, you said? the gates will be closed, of course, and in any case that would be the last route to take. tell me your exact address.”
“brompton square—we turn off at stanhope terrace, just past the lancaster gate station. it is one of those squares lying between the park and edgware road.”
“i know, i know. its a long walk, but perhaps it will get lighter as we go on. these dense fogs are often very local. keep tight hold of my arm, please. if we are once separated, it might not be easy to meet again.”
“no, indeed! i could not have believed it was so easy to get lost. my brother was beside me one instant, the next—it was your coat-sleeve! i hope i did not shake it too violently! i was so nervous and frightened i did not think what i was doing.”
she laughed as she spoke, her youthful spirits beginning to assert themselves again, as her confidence was assured. the face of her companion was unknown, but the tone of that quite, “don’t be afraid, i had a sister of my own,” had put an end to her fears. here was an adventure indeed—a full-fledged adventure! in anticipation she felt the joys of relating her experiences to a breathless audience in the schoolroom, and thrilled with importance. the stranger did not echo her laugh, however, but merely murmured a few words of conventional disclaimer and relapsed into silence. betty could hear him sigh now and then as they made their way onward—slowly feeling the way from point to point through the eerie, all-enveloping gloom. sometimes a brief question to a link-boy would assure them that they were still on the right road; sometimes they wandered off the pavement and were suddenly aware of the champing of horses dangerously near at hand; sometimes for a minute or two they stood still, waiting to find a clue to their position; but through all the strange man preserved an unbroken silence, until betty’s nerve gave way again, and she cried in plaintive, child-like fashion—
“oh, please would you mind talking a little bit! i’m frightened. it’s like a dreadful nightmare, feeling one’s way through this darkness—and when you are so silent, i feel as if you were a ghost like all the rest, instead of a real live man.”
“i wish i were!” returned the stranger bitterly. then recovering himself with an effort, “i beg your pardon,” he said. “i am afraid i have been very remiss. to tell the truth, i was lost in my own thoughts when you came to me a few minutes ago, and i am afraid i had gone back to them, and forgotten that i had a companion!”
forgotten! forgotten her very existence! a young man rescues a beauteous maid—really and truly she had looked unusually well in all her smart christmas farings—from a position of deadly peril, and straightway forgets her very existence! this part of the story, at least, must be omitted from the home recital. betty pursed her lips in offended dignity, but in the end curiosity got the better of her annoyance, and she said tentatively—
“they must have been very nice thoughts!”
“nice!”
the foolish girl’s word was repeated in a tone of bitterest satire.
“interesting, then?”
“in so far as the last of anything is interesting, be the beginning what it may!”
“the last!” it was betty’s turn to play the part of echo, as she stared in amazement at the shadowy form by her side. “how could they be your last thoughts? you seem quite well and strong. it isn’t possible to go on living and not to think.”
“no, it is not, and therefore when thoughts become unbearable—”
he stopped short, and betty felt a thrill of foreboding. the strange silence, followed by the hopeless bitterness in the stranger’s voice, seemed to bespeak some trouble of overwhelming magnitude, and, viewed in that light, his last words admitted of only one conclusion. life had become unbearable, and therefore he had decided to end it. hitherto betty had carelessly classed all suicides as mad; but this man was not mad; he was, on the contrary, remarkably sane and quiet in manner! he was only so hopelessly, helplessly miserable that it did not seem possible to endure another day’s existence. betty thrilled with a strange new feeling of awe and responsibility. the hidden strength of her nature, which had come to her as the result of being brought up to womanhood in a household dedicated to god and his christ, broke through the veneer of youthful folly, and came triumphantly to the surface.
her nervous fear dropped from her like a mantle, and she was possessed by a burning longing to comfort and save. in the midst of the fog and darkness god had sent to her a great opportunity. she rose to it with a dignity which seemed to set the restless, self-centred betty of an hour ago years behind. her fingers tightened on the stranger’s arm; she spoke in firm, quiet tones.
“i can guess what you mean! forgive me for teasing you with my silly questions when you are in such trouble. do you think you could tell me what it is? it seems a strange thing to ask, but i am no real person to-night. i am just a shadow that has come out of the fog. i have not even a face or a name. you might speak to me as safely as to the air itself, and it might be a relief to put it into words. it is so sometimes when one is in trouble.”
there was a moment’s silence, then—
“thank you,” he said in a softened voice. “it’s kind of you to think of it. you might have condemned me at once, as not fit to speak to a girl like you. you are only a girl, aren’t you? your voice sounds very young.”
“yes, only eighteen—nearly eighteen. but my father is a doctor, so i am always being brought near to sad things, and sometimes i feel quite old. i think i could understand if you told me your trouble.”
“suppose it was not so much sorrow as sin? what then? what can you at eighteen—‘nearly eighteen’—know of that? you could not understand if i did speak.”
“oh yes, i could. i sin myself—often!” cried betty, with a swift remembrance of all those little things done or left undone which made the failure of her home life. “a girl living at home, with a father and a mother to look after her, has no temptation to any big thing, but it’s just as bad, if she is idle and selfish and ungrateful, and i am all three together many times over. i’d be too proud to say that to you if i saw your face and knew your name; but, as i said before, we are only shadows in a dream to-night. it doesn’t matter what we say. tell me your trouble, and let me try to understand. it isn’t because i am curious—it isn’t really! do you believe that?”
“yes,” he said instantly, “i do! poor child, you want to help; but i am past that. i have ruined my own life and the life of the man who has been my best friend. i have had my chance—a better chance than is given to most men—and i have made an utter failure of it. if i—went on, it would mean starting again from the very beginning, with the stigma of failure to hinder me at every turn—a hopeless fight.”
“but,”—betty’s voice faltered nervously—“isn’t it cowardly to run away just when the fight is hardest? a soldier would be called a traitor if he did that. and what would come afterwards? do you believe that you have a right to take your own life?”
“you mean from a religious point of view. i’m afraid that’s out of my line. i have lost what little faith i had in these last few years. you believe in it all, of course—it’s natural for a girl—but to me the idea of a personal god is as unreal as a fairy tale. it does not touch my position.”
“but just suppose for a moment that it were true. suppose he does exist, and has been longing to help you all this time—what then?” cried betty earnestly, and her companion gave a short, derisive laugh.
“it would have been easy enough for him to have prevented all this trouble! i can see no help in the story of the last few years. everything has gone against me. in the beginning i borrowed some money—of course, it’s a case of money—to help a friend who was in a tight fix. that was innocent enough. but when the time came round i could not repay the debt, and in my position it was fatally easy to help myself to what i needed. i called it just another loan. i was sure of repaying it before anything was discovered, but again it was impossible, for there were calls upon me which i had not expected. if i had been short in my accounts i should have lost my situation, and it was a handsome one for a man of my age. you won’t understand the details, but i began to speculate, to put off the evil hour, always hoping for a coup which would put everything right; but it never came. i was not helped, you see! things went from bad to worse, until i could go on no longer. then in despair i confessed the whole story to my friend—he is a near relation also, but that is by the way. he would not allow the family name to be disgraced; he paid up all that was due, and saved me the shame of prosecution, but even he could do no more. i am sent about my business—a felon in deed, though not in name. incidentally, too, he is ruined. he must give up his house, remove his children to cheap schools, live in poverty instead of ease. naturally enough he will have no more to do with me. there is not a soul on earth who would regret me if i passed out of being to-night.”
there was a long silence while the strangely-matched couple wended their way slowly along the bisecting roads which lead from kensington high street to bayswater road. the fog had slightly lessened by this time, but it was still too dense to show anything but a dim outline of passers-by, and the face of the stranger was but a blur against the darkness to betty’s searching eyes. her heart was beating rapidly; she was praying with a whole-hearted earnestness unknown to her usual morning and evening supplications—praying to be guided to say the right thing to save this man’s soul from despair. at last—
“you say you were not helped,” she began timidly; “but if your speculations had succeeded as you hoped, it might not have been really good for you. it would have been easier, of course, but if all had gone smoothly you might have been tempted to do the same thing another time. perhaps god knew that, and that there was no way of bringing you back to himself except through trouble.”
the stranger laughed again—his hard, mirthless little laugh.
“i am afraid i can hardly believe in that theory. i can see no reason for believing that my doings are the slightest interest to him, or that he cares in the least what becomes of me.”
“can’t you!” cried betty eagerly. “oh, i can! just think more carefully, and you will remember many, many things which you have not stopped to notice at the time. to-night, for instance! do you think it chance that i missed my brother, and came to you out of all the hundreds of people who were around? i don’t! i believe god sent me to you because you would not speak to anyone you knew; because you needed help so badly—and i need it, too—and we could help each other.”
the shadowy head bent nearer to hers, and the arm pressed against her hand.
“thank you,” said the voice in a softened key; “that is a kind thought! it is quite true that i could not have spoken as i have done under ordinary circumstances. when i met you i was going straight for the nearest water. there are many places where an accident might easily occur on a night like this. i do not wish to make any scandal, only to disappear.”
betty drew in her breath sharply. the sound of that one word “water” gave a definite touch to the situation, and thereby trebly increased its tragedy, but the gentleness of the voice gave her increased hope, and she cried eagerly—
“disappear, yes! i can understand it would be difficult to stay among the old surroundings, but why not disappear to come back another day, when you can redeem the past? suppose you went away to a strange place, and worked hard, oh, very hard, and denied yourself every possible thing, so as to save up money. suppose you succeeded—when people are terribly in earnest about a thing, they generally do succeed—and in some years’ time could pay off what you owe! that would be braver than killing yourself, wouldn’t it? that would be worth living for. or if it took too long to pay it back in your friend’s lifetime, he has children, and you could help them as their father has helped you. that would be paying back the debt in the way he would like best. think of it! they would imagine you dead, or perhaps worse than dead, but they wouldn’t be angry with you any more; people don’t go on being angry for years and years, especially if they are good and kind, as your friends must be. but some day it might happen that they were in trouble, or getting old and tired, and feeling it was hard to go on working, and a letter would come in— from you—and inside that letter there would be a cheque, and they would be so happy, and so thankful, and so helped! and they would send for you to come back, and the old trouble would be wiped away, and they would honour you for your brave fight. oh, you will—you will! you must do it! promise, promise that you will!”
her voice broke into a sob, and something like a faint echo of the sound came to her ears through the darkness. it seemed the most promising answer she could have had, in its contrast from the biting self-possession of a few minutes before. her heart beat high with hope.
“is there any place to which you could go? have you enough money left to take you there?” she questioned, as if the matter were already settled, and, consciously or unconsciously, the stranger replied in the same vein.
“i have an old friend in america; he would help me to a start. i have a good many possessions left; they would bring in enough to pay the passage if—”
“no, there is no ‘if’! don’t let yourself say it! sell the things to-morrow, and begin again in a new world, in a new way. believe that god does care, and that it is a chance that he has given you, and every night and every morning, oh, and so often through the day, i shall remember you, and pray that you may be helped! sometimes when you feel lonely you may be glad to know that one person in the old country knows all about you, and is waiting to see the reward of your work. you must let me know when the success comes. i shall always be waiting; and remember, this talk is going to do me good too! i have made troubles for myself because i did not know how well off i was, but now that i have come so close to the real thing i shall be ashamed to grizzle over trifles. it is settled, isn’t it? you are going on fighting?”
there was a long silence. she could feel rather than see the struggle in the man’s face, but the pressure tightened on her hand, foretelling that the decision would be what she wished.
“yes,” he said slowly at last. “i promise! an hour ago it seemed as if there was not a soul in the world who cared whether i lived or died, but as you say you came to me—in the darkness! you think you were sent. my old mother would have thought the same. i don’t know, i can’t tell, but it may be so, and that gives me courage to try again.”
he paused for a moment or two, then suddenly—
“what is your name?” he asked.
“betty!”
“betty!” his voice lingered over the pretty, girlish name. “thank you, betty!”
“and yours?”
“ralph.”
“thank you, ralph! you have given me something real to think of in life—something to look forward to.”
“ah!” he drew a long, stabbing breath. “but at the best it will be a long waiting. you will be far from eighteen—‘nearly eighteen’—before i can hope for success. the years will seem very long.”
“but they will pass!” cried betty. “i can wait!”
she was in a state of exaltation when no trial of patience seemed too great to face, and difficulties presented themselves only as glorious opportunities; but the man, who had experienced the heat and burden of the day, sighed, and was silent.
by this time they had made their way past the great houses standing back from the road, and were close on the lancaster gate station of the central london railway. a faint light streamed into the gloom from the glass fanlight, and for the first time betty began to feel that she trod on familiar ground.
“ah, here we are; if we go round this corner i shall be home in five minutes. perhaps we shall arrive before the others, after all. you have brought me so quickly that there is no time for them to have been anxious, unless miles went in alone.”
the stranger did not answer. they turned round the corner of stanhope terrace and walked along for twenty or thirty yards, then suddenly he stood still, and dropped her arm.
“i may never meet you again,” he said slowly; “in all probability we never shall meet, but before we part, let me see your face, betty!”
there was a sound of a match being struck against the side of a box, then a tiny flame flickered up in the darkness. betty gazed upwards into a face still young, but haggard and drawn with suffering, a long thin face with deep-set eyes and a well-cut chin.
“now, now, now,” she was saying breathlessly to herself. “i must notice! i must remember! i shall have to remember for so many years—”
the flame quivered and faded away.
“thank you,” said the stranger quietly. “i shall remember!” evidently his thoughts and hers had followed the same course.
they walked along slowly side by side, but no longer arm in arm, for that momentary exchange of glances had brought a touch of personal embarrassment into the situation which had been unfelt before. betty was anxiously pondering what to say in farewell, feeling at the same time that further words would be more likely to mar than to aid the impression already made, when suddenly a form loomed through the darkness, and a well-known “coo-ee” sounded in her ears.
“miles—oh, miles! i’m here! oh, miles, i am so glad! i was so frightened, but this gentleman has been so kind. he has brought me all the way home.”
miles grunted discourteously; he disapproved of stray acquaintances for his sister, and now that anxiety for her safety was assuaged, began to feel aggrieved at having been frightened for nothing.
“what on earth did you mean by rushing off by yourself? might have been lost all night. i’ve been hanging about for an age, not daring to go into the house and scare the mater. never go out with you again in a fog!”
betty laughed merrily.
“i can return that compliment. it seems to me that you ran away from me.” she turned to hold out her hand to the stranger. “now that my brother is here i need not trouble you any more. good-bye! thank you very much!”
“thank you!” he said earnestly. “good-bye until—a brighter day.”
“what does that bounder mean by talking of another day? cheek!” grunted miles, leading the way onward, but betty only pressed his arm and replied irrelevantly—
“don’t say anything about our having missed each other when we first go in, miles. i’ll tell mother quietly. i’d rather, if you don’t mind.”
miles did not mind a bit—in fact, he was thankful to be spared questioning and reproach, so he made his way upstairs to his room, while betty entered the study, where dr and mrs trevor were seated.
“here we are, safe and sound! it has been adventurous, but all’s well that ends well. have you been anxious, mother dear? i do hope not.”
she bent to kiss her mother with an unwonted tenderness, which brought a flush of pleasure into the thin cheek.
“how sweet that child looks to-night! did you notice?” she said to her husband when they were once more alone. “and she was so gentle and considerate. it’s such a pleasure to see her like that, for she is sometimes so difficult.”
dr trevor smiled.
“she is mellowing, dear, she is mellowing! i told you it would come. the child is turning into a woman—and a bonnie woman she will be too. dear little betty!”
and in the shelter of her attic bedroom the child woman was holding a lighted candle before the looking-glass, and staring half abashed into an oval face with dilated eyes, and dark hair twisted by the damp into a cloud of tiny ringlets.
“did he—did he think me—nice?” she was asking of herself.
