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Ebook has 1403 lines and 54977 words, and 29 pages

THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

MRS. HUNGERFORD'S NOVELS

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

MRS. HUNGERFORD

IN THREE VOLUMES

THE

PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

'Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger or to find matter of glorious trial.'

The girl seems powerfully affected by the determination she has come to, so much so as to be almost on the point of fainting. Wyndham, catching her by the arm, presses her back into the garden-chair.

'Not a word,' says he. 'Why should you tell me?'

'I must, I will!' She sits up, and with marvellous strength of will recovers herself. 'There is very little to tell,' says she faintly. 'I have lived all my life in one house. As a little child I came to it. Before that I remember nothing. If'--she looks at him--'I tell you names and places, you will keep them sacred? You will not betray me?' Her glance is now at once wistful and frightened.

'I shall certainly not do that,' says he gravely. 'But why speak if you need not?'

'I don't know.' She pauses, clasping her hands tightly together, and then at last, 'I want to tell you.'

'Well, tell me,' says Wyndham gently.

'The name of the people I lived with was Moore,' says she, speaking at once and rapidly, as if eager to get rid of what she has volunteered to tell. 'They called me Moore, too--Ella Moore--though I know, I am sure, I did not belong to them.'

'Ella?'

'Yes, Ella; I think'--hesitatingly--'that is my real Christian name, because far, far back someone'--pressing her hand to her head, as though trying to remember--'used to call me Elly, someone who was not Mrs. Moore. It was not her voice. And Moore--that is not my name, I know.' Her tone has grown quite firm. 'Mrs. Moore always called herself my aunt; but I don't think she was anything to me. She was kind sometimes, however, and I was sorry when she died. She had a husband, and I lived with them ever since I can remember anything.'

'Perhaps you were Mr. Moore's niece.'

'Oh, not that!' She grows very pale, and makes a quick gesture of repulsion with her hands. 'Not that. No, thank God!' She pauses, and he can see that she has begun to tremble as if at some dreadful thought. 'She, Mrs. Moore, died two months ago, and after that he--she was hardly in her grave--and he--Oh, it is horrible!'--burying her face in her hands. 'But he--he told me he wanted to marry me.' She struggles with herself for a moment, and then bursts into wild tears. One can see that the tears are composed of past cruel memories, of outraged pride as well as grief.

'Oh, monstrous!' says Wyndham hurriedly. He begins to pace rapidly up and down the walk, coming back to her when he finds her more composed.

'It is true, though,' cries she miserably. 'Oh, how I hate to think of it!'--emphatically. 'When I said no, that I'd rather die than marry him--and I would--he was furious. A fortnight afterwards he spoke to me again, saying he had ordered the banns to be called; and when I again said I would never consent, he locked me in a room, and said he would starve me to death unless I gave in. I'--clenching her small white teeth--'told him I would gladly starve in preference to that. And for three nights and two days I did starve. He brought me nothing; but I did not see him, and that kept me alive. On the third day he came again, and again I defied him, and then--then--' She cowers away from Wyndham, and the hot flush of shame dyes her cheek. 'Then--he beat me.'

'The -- scoundrel!' says Wyndham between his teeth.

'He beat me,' says the girl, dry sobs breaking from her lips, 'until my back and arms were blue and swollen; and then he asked me again if I would give in and marry him, and I--'

Here she pauses, and stands back as if confronting someone. She is looking past Wyndham and far into space. It is plain that that past horrible, degrading scene has come back to her afresh. The gross indignity, the abominable affront, is again a present thing. Again the blows rain upon her slender arms and shoulders; again the brute is demanding her submission; and again, in spite of hunger, and pain, and fear, she is defying him. Her head is well upheld, her hands clenched, her large eyes ablaze. It is thus she must have looked as she defied the cowardly scoundrel, and the effect is magnificent.

'I said "No" again.' The fire born of that last conflict dies away, and she falls back weakly into the seat behind her. 'That night I ran away. I suppose in his rage he forgot to lock the door after him, and so I found the matter easy. It was a wet night and very cold. I was tired, half dead with hunger and with bitter pain. That was the night--'

She comes to a dead stop here, and turns her face away from him. A shame keener than any she has known before, even in this recital made to him, is filling her now. But still she determines to go on.

'That was the night your servant found me!'

'Poor child!' says Wyndham. His sympathy--so unexpected--coming on her terrible agitation, breaks her down. She bursts into a storm of sobs.

'I would to God,' says she, 'that I had died before he found me! Yes--yes, I would, though I know it was His will, and His alone, that kept me alive, half dead from cold and hunger as I was. I can't bear to think of that night, and what you must have thought of me! It was dreadful--dreadful! You shrank from me because I courted death so openly. Yes--yes, you did'--combating a gesture on his part--'but you did not know how near I was to it at that moment. I was famished, bruised, homeless--I was almost senseless. I knew only that I could not return to that man's house, and that there was no other house to go to. That was all I knew, through the unconsciousness that was fast overtaking me. To die seemed the best thing--and to die in that warm room. I was frozen. Oh, blame me, despise me, if you like, but anyone would have been glad to die, if they felt as homeless and as starving as I did that night!'

'Who is blaming you?' says Wyndham roughly. 'Good heavens! is there a man on earth who could blame you, after hearing so sad a story? Because you have met one brute in your life, must you consider all other men brutes?'

His manner is so vehement that Ella, thinking he is annoyed with her, shrinks from him.

'Don't be angry with me,' says she imploringly.

'Angry with you!' says he impatiently. 'There is only one to be angry with, and that is that devil. Where does he live?'

She gives him the road, and the number of the house where she had lived with the Moores--a road of small houses, chiefly occupied by artisans and clerks; a road not very far from the Zoological Gardens.

'But what are you going to do?' asks she nervously. 'You will not tell him I am here?'

'Of course not. But it is quite necessary that a fellow like that should feel there is a law in the land.'

'But if you say anything about me,' says she in a tone now thoroughly frightened, 'he will search me out, no matter in what corner of the earth I may be.'

'I don't think so, once I have spoken to him,' says the barrister grimly.

'You mean'--she looks at him timidly--'you think that if--' She breaks off again. 'He told me that his wife, who he said was my aunt, had made him guardian over me, and that he would be my master for ever.'

'Even supposing all that were true, and Mrs. Moore were your aunt--which I doubt--and had left her husband guardian over you, still, there are limits to the powers of guardians.'

'Then if you see him, you think'--with trembling anxiety--'you can tell him that he has no hold over me?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'And I shall be free?'

'Quite free.'

Ella leans forward. Her hands are upon her knees and are tightly clenched. She is thinking. Suddenly a soft glow overspreads her face. She lifts her eyes to his, and he can see that a wonderful brilliance--the light of hope--has come into them.

'It is too good to be true,' says she slowly.

'Oh no, I hope not. But I wish I had a few more particulars, Miss Moore. I am afraid'--seeing a shade upon her face--'I shall be obliged to call you that until I have discovered your real name. And to do that you must help me. Have you no memory that goes farther back than the Moores? You spoke of someone who used to call you Elly--'

'It was a woman,' says she quickly. 'Often--often in my dreams I see her again. She used to kiss me--I remember that.'

It is such a sad little saying--once, long ago, so long ago that she can scarcely remember it, some woman used to kiss her! But, evidently, since that tender kisses had not fallen to the poor child's lot.

'But she died. I saw her lying dead. I thought she was asleep. She was very beautiful--I remember that, too. I don't want to see anyone dead again. Death,' says she with a shudder, 'is horrible!'

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