But the best laid schemes of Yvonnes and men often come to nothing. While she was devising, on her drive along the coast, a plan for spending a quiet dangerless evening at the hotel, Mrs. Winstanley was sitting in solitary dignity at the concert, nursing her wrath over Professor Drummond’s “Natural Law in the Spiritual world,” a book which she often perused when she wished to accentuate the rigorous attitude of her mind.

Yvonne had reckoned without Mrs. Winstanley. Otherwise she would have offered her a seat in the carriage. As it was, Mrs. Winstanley felt more resentful than ever. Under the impression that the Canon was to accompany her to the Kursaal, she had graciously dispensed with the escort of the Wilmingtons, who had gone off to see bicycle races at the VÉlodrome. She was left in the lurch.

To dislike this is human. To wrap oneself up in one’s sore dignity is more human still, and there was much humanity that lurked, unsuspected by herself, in Mrs. Winstanley’s bosom. It asserted itself, further, in certain curiosities. She had seen that morning what had escaped the Canon’s notice—the stranger’s grasp on Yvonne’s arm and the insolent admiration on his face. This fact, coupled with Yvonne’s agitation, had put her upon the track of scandal. The result was, that at the concert she made interesting discoveries, and, piecing things together in her mind afterwards, bided her time to make use of them.

It would be for the Canon’s sake, naturally. A woman of Mrs. Winstanley’s stamp is always the most disinterested of God’s creatures. She never performed an action of which her conscience did not approve. But she was such a superior woman that her conscience trembled a little before her, like most of the other friends whom she patronised. She did not have to wait long. The Canon called upon her soon after his return to invite herself and the Wilmingtons to dinner. It was his last evening at Ostend, and Yvonne was not feeling well enough to spend it, as usual, at the Kursaal.

“Yvonne is still poorly, Everard?” she asked, with her air of confidential responsibility.

“A little. She has been gadding about somewhat too much lately, and it has knocked her up.”

“Has it not occurred to you that her encounter this morning may have had something to do with it?”

“Of course not,” replied the Canon, sharply. “It would be ridiculous.”

“I have reasons for not thinking so, Everard. The man was singing at the Kursaal this afternoon. Here is his name on the programme.” She handed him the slip of paper. He read the name among the artistes. “M. Bazouge.” He returned it to her.

“Well?”

“Does it not seem odd to you?”

“Not at all. A relation of her first husband’s, I suppose. In fact Yvonne said as much.”

“I could not help being struck by the name, Everard. It is so peculiar. I remembered it from the publication of the banns.”

“I compliment you on your memory, Emmeline,” said the Canon.

Mrs. Winstanley drew herself up, offended.

She walked from the window where they were standing to a table, and fetched from it a newspaper.

“Do you remember the Christian name of Yvonne’s first husband?”

The Canon drew himself up too, and frowned.

“What is the meaning of all this, Emmeline? What are you trying to insinuate?”

“If I thought you were going to adopt this tone, Everard, I should have kept my suspicions to myself.”

“I certainly wish that you had,” said he, growing angry. “It is an insult to Yvonne which I cannot permit. My wife is above suspicion.”

“Like Caesar’s,” said the lady with a curl of the lip. “Do you know that we are beginning to quarrel, Everard? It is slightly vulgar. I am your oldest friend, remember, and I am trying to acquit myself of a painful duty to you.”

“Duty is one of the chief instruments of the devil, if you will excuse my saying so,” replied the Canon.

“Oh, very well then, Everard,” she said hotly. “You can go on being a fool as long as you like. I saw your wife struggling in this man’s embrace, more or less, this morning. Two or three strange coincidences have been forced upon my notice. For your sake I have been excessively anxious. My conscience tells me I ought to take you into my confidence, and I can do no more. You can see the Christian name of this Bazouge in the Visitors’ List, and adopt what course of action you think fit. I wash my hands of the whole matter. And I must say that from the very beginning, two years ago, you have treated me all through with the greatest want of consideration.”

The Canon did not heed the peroration. He stood with the flimsy sheet clenched in his hand and regarded her sternly. She shrank a little, for her soul seemed to be naked.

“You have tried to ferret this out through spite against Yvonne. Whether the horrible thing you imply is true or not, I shall find it hard to forgive you.”

Mrs. Winstanley shrugged her shoulders. “In either case, you will come to your senses, I hope. Meanwhile, considering the present relations, it might be pleasanter not to meet at dinner to-night.”

“I am sorry to have to agree with you, Emmeline,” said the Canon.

She made him a formal bow and was leaving the room; but his voice stopped her.

“Your anxiety cannot be very great, or you would wait to learn whether your suspicions are baseless or not.”

She paused, in a dignified attitude, with her hand on the back of a chair, while he adjusted his gold pince-nez and ran through the list.

“You are right so far,” he said coldly. “The names are identical.”

They parted at the door. The Canon walked back to his hotel with anger in his heart. In spite of cumulative evidence, the theory that his cousin had insinuated was prima facie preposterous. It was important enough, however, to need some investigation. But the feeling uppermost in his mind was indignation with Mrs. Winstanley. He was too shrewd a man not to have perceived long ago her jealousy of Yvonne; but beyond keeping a watchful eye lest his wife should receive hurt, he had not condescended to take it into serious consideration. Now, beneath her impressive manner he clearly divined the desire to inflict on Yvonne a deadly injury. To have leaped at such a conclusion, to have sought subsequent proof from the Visitors’ List, argued malicious design. He could never forgive her.

Still the matter had to be cleared up at once. On his arrival at the OcÉan, he went forthwith to Yvonne’s room, and entered on receiving an acknowledgment of his knock. She was standing in the light of the window by the toilet table, doing her hair. The rest of the room was in the shadow of the gathering evening.

“Well,” she said, without turning, “are they coming?”

The grace of her attitude, the intimacy of the scene, the pleasantness of her greeting, made his task hateful.

“No,” he said, with an asperity directed towards the disinvited guest. “We shall dine alone to-night.”

But his tone made Yvonne’s heart give a great throb, and she turned to him quickly.

“Has anything happened?”

“A great deal,” said the Canon.

Where he stood in the dusk of the doorway, the shadow accentuated the stern lines of his face and deepened the sombreness of his glance. His brows were bent in perplexities of repugnance. It was horrible to demand of her such explanations. To Yvonne’s scared fancy, his brows seemed bent in accusation. That was the pity of it. For a few seconds they looked at one another, the Canon severely, Yvonne in throbbing suspense.

“What?” she asked at length.

He paused for a moment, then threw his hat and the crumpled Visitors’ List on to the table and plunged into the heart of things—but not before Yvonne had glanced at the paper with a sudden pang of intuition.

“Emmeline has discovered, Yvonne, that the man—”

He got no further. Yvonne rushed to him with a cry of pain, clung to his arm, broke into wild words.

“Don’t say any more—don’t—don’t. Spare me—for pity’s sake. I did not want you to know. I tried to keep it from you, Everard! Don’t look at me like that?”

Her voice ended in a note of fright. For the Canon’s face had grown ashen and wore an expression of incredulous horror. He shook her from him.

“Do you mean that this is true? That you met your first husband this morning?”

“Yes,” said she, with quivering lips. Question and answer were too categorical for misunderstanding. For a moment he struggled against the overwhelming.

“Are you in your right senses, Yvonne? Do you understand what I asked you? Your first husband is still alive and you saw him to-day?”

“Yes,” said Yvonne again. “Didn’t you know when you came in?”

“I did n’t know,” he repeated almost mechanically.

The blow crushed him for a while. He stood quite rigid, drawing quick breaths, with his eyes fixed upon her. And she remained still, half-sitting on the edge of the bed, numb with a vague prescience of catastrophe, and a dim, uncomprehended intuition of the earthquake and wreck in the man’s soul. The silence grew appalling. She broke it with a faltering whisper.

“Will you forgive me?”

The poor little commonplace fell in the midst of devastating emotions—pathetically incongruous.

“Did you know that this man was alive when you married me?” he asked in a hard voice.

“No,” cried Yvonne. “How could I have married you? I thought he had been dead nearly three years.”

“What proofs did you have of his death?”

“A friend sent me a number of the Figaro, with the announcement.”

“Was that all?”

“Yes,” said Yvonne.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he insisted, “that you married a second time, having no further proofs of your first husband’s death than a mere newspaper report?”

“It never occurred to me to doubt it,” she replied, opening piteous, innocent eyes.

The childlike irresponsibility was above his comprehension. Her apparent insensibility to the most vital concerns of life was another shock to him. It seemed criminal.

“God forgive you,” he said, “for the wrong you have done me.”

“But I did it unknowingly, Everard,” cried poor Yvonne. “If one has to get greater proofs, why did you not ask for them, yourself?”

The Canon turned away and paced the room slowly, without replying. At last he stood still before her.

“Among ordinary honourable people one takes such things for granted,” he said.

“Forgive me,” she said again, humbly.

But he could find no pity for her in his heart. She had wronged him past redemption.

“How much truth was there in the newspaper story?” he asked coldly.

She told him rapidly what AmÉdÉe Bazouge had said concerning his attack in the hospital and his subsequent stroke.

“So the man is wilfully killing himself with absinthe?” he said.

“It appears so,” replied Yvonne with a shudder.

“Could you tell me what passed between you otherwise—in general terms?” he asked, after a short silence. “You explained your position? Or did you leave him in ignorance, as you were going to leave me?”

“I told him—of course. It was necessary. And he laughed—I thought to spare you, Everard.”

“Spare me, Yvonne?”

“Yes,” she said, simply, “I could have borne all the pain and fright of it alone—why should I have made you unhappy? And he said he would never interfere with me, and I can trust his word. Why should I have told you, Everard?”

“Do you actually ask me such a question, honestly?”

“God knows I do,” she replied pitifully.

“And you would have gone on living with me—I not being your husband?”

“But you are my husband,” cried Yvonne, “nothing could ever alter that.”

“But good God! it does alter it,” cried the Canon in a voice of anguish, breaking the iron bonds he had placed on his passion. “Neither in the eyes of God nor of man are you my wife. You have no right to bear my name. After this hour I have no right to enter this room. Every caress I gave you would be sin. Don’t you understand it, child? Don’t you understand that this has brought ruin into our lives, the horror of loneliness and separation?”

“Separation?” said Yvonne.

She rose slowly from her seat on the bed and stared at him aghast.

The twilight in the room deepened; the shadow of a wall opposite the window fell darker. Their faces and Yvonne’s bare neck and arms gleamed white in the gloom. They had spoken with many silences; for how long neither knew.

“Yes,” replied the Canon in his harder tones, recovering himself “It means all that.”

“I am to go—not to live with you any more?”

“Could you imagine our past relations could continue?”

“I don’t understand,” she began feebly. And then the darkness fell upon her, and her limbs relaxed. She swayed sideways and would have fallen, but he caught her in his arms and laid her on the couch.

“Thank you,” she murmured faintly.

She hid her face in her hands and remained, crouched up, quite still, in a stupor of misery. The Canon stood over her helplessly, unable to find a word of comfort.

The sight of her prostration did not move him. He had been wounded to the very depths of his being. His pride, his honour, his dignity were lacerated in their vitals. He burned with the sense of unpardonable wrong.

“It is self-evident,” he said at last, “that we must part. Our remaining together would be a sin against God and an outrage upon Society.”

She rased herself wearily, with one hand on the couch, and shook her head slowly.

“Such things are beyond me. No one will ever know.”

“There is One who will always know, Yvonne.”

She pondered over the saying, as far as her tired, bewildered brain allowed. It conveyed very little meaning to her. Theology had not altered her child-like conception of the benevolence of the Creator. After a long time she was able to disentangle an idea from the confusion.

“If it is a sin—don’t you love me enough to sin a little for my sake?”

“Not that sin,” he said.

Yvonne lifted her shoulders helplessly.

“I would commit any sin for your sake,” she said. “It would seem so easy.”

Curiously assorted as they were, a poetic idealism on the one side and grateful veneration on the other had hitherto bound them together. Now they were sundered leagues apart; mutual understanding was hopeless. Each was bewildered by the other’s moral attitude.

The logical consequences of the discovery, that appeared so luridly devious to the Canon’s intellect, failed entirely to appeal to Yvonne. She referred them entirely to his personal inclinations. On the other hand, the Canon had a false insight into her soul that was a chilling disillusion.

The beauty of her exquisite purity and innocence had always captivated in him the finer man. It was a mirage. It was gone. Emptiness remained. She was simply a graceful, non-moral being—a spiritual anomaly.

Yvonne shivered, and rising, walked unsteadily to the wardrobe, whence she took a dressing-jacket. Putting it on, she returned to the couch. It was almost dark. The Canon watched her dim, slight figure as it passed him, with a strange feeling of remoteness. A hundred trivial instances of her want of moral sense crowded into his mind to support his view—her inability to see the wrong-doing of Stephen, her indefinite notions in religious matters, her mental attitude toward the girl that had gone astray, of whom she had been talking only the night before, her expressed intention of hiding this terrible discovery from him. He had been duped, not by her, but by his own romantic folly.

Yet what would his life be without her—or rather without his illusion? An icy hand gripped his heart. He turned to the glimmering window and stared at the blank wall.

Presently a moan struck upon his ear. He wheeled round sharply, and distinguished her lying with helpless outspread arms on the couch. Mere humanity brought him to her side.

“I am so tired,” she moaned.

“You must go to bed,” he replied in a gentler voice than hitherto. “We had better part now. To-morrow, if you are well enough to travel, we will leave for England.”

“Let me go alone,” she murmured, “and you go on to Switzerland. Why should your holiday be spoiled?”

“It is my life that is spoiled,” he said ungenerously. “The holiday matters very little. It is best to return to England as soon as possible. Between now and to-morrow morning I shall have time to reflect upon the situation.”

He struck a match and lit the candles and drew down the blind. The light revealed her to him so wan and exhausted that he was moved with compunction.

“Don’t think me hard, my child,” he said, bending over her. “It is the bitterest day of our lives. We must pray to God for strength to bear it. I shall leave you now. I shall see that you have all you want. Try to sleep. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” she said miserably.

And so, without touch of hand, they parted.

The hours of the evening wore on, and night came. At last she cried herself to sleep. It had been a day of tears.

They left Ostend quietly the following morning by the Dover boat. During the whole journey the Canon treated Yvonne with the deferential courtesy he could always assume to women, seeing to her comforts, anticipating her wants, even exchanging now and then casual remarks on passing objects of interest. But of the subject next his heart he said not a word. The crossing was smooth. The sea air revived Yvonne’s strength.

His silence half comforted, half frightened her. Had he relented? She glanced often at his impassive face, in cruel anxiety to pierce to the thoughts that lay behind. Yet a little hope came to her; for fear of losing it she dared not speak. To her simple mind it seemed impossible that merely conscientious scruples could make him cast her off. If he loved her, his love would triumph. If he persisted in his resolve, he cared for her no longer. In this case her future was very simple. She would go back to London and sing.

She seemed to have cried her feeling away during the night—such as he had left unbruised and untorn. For the quivering flesh is only sensitive up to a certain point of maceration. He had trodden upon her pitilessly; but she felt no resentment. In fact, she would have been quite happy if he had put his arms round her and said, “Let us forget, Yvonne.” By the end of the journey she had cajoled herself into the idea that he would do so.

A suite of rooms received them in the quiet West End hotel where the Canon always stayed. They dined alone, the discreet butler waiting on them, for the Canon was an honoured guest. When the cloth was removed, the Canon said in his even voice:—

“Are you sufficiently recovered, Yvonne, to discuss this painful subject?”

“I am quite ready, Everard.”

“We will make it as short as possible. What I said last night must remain, whatever be the suffering. I have loved you deeply—like a young man—in a way perhaps ill befitting my years. The memories, for they are innocent, will always be there, Yvonne. If I did not seek strength from Elsewhere, it might wreck my life to part from you.”

Her hope was dashed to the ground. She interrupted him with one more appeal. “Why need we part, Everard?” she said, in a low voice. “I mean, why cannot we live in the same house—before the world—?”

“It is impossible,” he replied. “You don’t know what you are asking.”

His voice grew husky. He paused a few seconds, then, recovering himself continued in the same hard tones:—

“As we must live apart, it is my duty to make provision for you. I shall alter my will, securing to you what would have come to you as my wife. During my lifetime I shall make you an allowance in fair proportion to my means. And it will be, of course, unconditional.”

Then, for the first time, her gentle nature rose up in revolt against him.

“I could not accept it, Everard,” she cried with kindling cheeks. “If I have no right to bear your name I have no right to your support. Don’t ask me to take it, for I can’t.”

“Yvonne, listen to me—”

“No,” she went on passionately, “I am speaking as a woman now; the time has come, and you were right in your prophecy—I would sooner die than live away from you and be supported by you. You don’t understand—it is as if I had done something shameful and you were putting me away from you. Oh, don’t speak of it,—don’t speak of it. If I am not your wife before God, I have no claims on you.”

“To hear you speak like that pains me intensely,” he said. “Do you think I have lost all regard for you?”

“If you loved me, you would not wish to part from me,” said Yvonne with her terrible logic.

They were on different planes of thought and feeling. The Canon argued, insisted, but to no purpose. Yvonne was inconvincible.

The talk continued, drifted away for a time to arrangements for the immediate future. A reply telegram came from Geraldine Vicary, to the effect that she would be with Yvonne in the morning. It was settled that Yvonne should stay with her provisionally, and that she, in order to avoid painful meetings and communications, should be Yvonne’s agent in the necessary settlement of affairs. Finally, the Canon returned to the subject of the allowance. He would settle a certain sum upon her, whether she would accept it or not. Yvonne flashed again into rebellion. The idea was hateful to her. He had no right to make her lose her self-respect.

“But it is my solemn duty that I must perform. Will nothing I can say ever make you understand?” he exclaimed at last, in exasperation.

Yvonne rose and came to where he sat, and laid her hand upon his shoulder with an action full of tenderness, and looked down upon him with her wistful dark eyes, all the more wistful for the rings beneath them.

“Don’t be angry with me—over last evening. It is good and generous of you to wish to make provision for me. But I shall be much happier to feel myself no burden upon you. And it will be so easy for me to earn my living again. I shall be much happier, really.”

The little word, with which she so often confirmed her statements, the familiar touch of her hand, the sense of her delicate, fragile figure so near him caused a spasm of pain to pass through his heart; disillusion had not touched his common, human want of her. He bowed his head in his hands.

“Some day, Yvonne, it may be possible for me to ask you—to come back. If I give in to your wishes now, will you give in to mine then?”

The emotion in his voice was too strong to escape her. It stirred all the yielding sweetness and tender pity of Yvonne. She forgot the reproaches, the pitilessness, the religious scruples comprehended only as unloving. His broad shoulders shook beneath her touch.

“I will come whenever you want me,” she said.

“If I have been ungenerous in word or thought to you, Yvonne, forgive me.”

Her hand strayed shyly to a lock of grizzling hair above his temples and smoothed it back gently.

He raised his head, and looked at her for a second or two with an expression of anguish.

Then he sprang to his feet, and before Yvonne, shrinking back, could realise his intention, his arms were about her in a tight clasp, and his kiss was on her face. “God help us. God help us both, my child.” He released her and went hurriedly from the room.

And so they parted.