We smoked together for half an hour, then parted, for he was compelled to go down to the House, as a dutiful legislator should.
A week passed yet I saw not Aline, nor had any word from her. From day to day I existed in all anxiety to once again look upon that face so angelic in its beauty and so pure in expression. Indeed, more than once I felt inclined to break the promise I had made her and call at Ellerdale Road, but I refrained, fearing lest such a course might annoy her.
One evening, a fortnight after she had visited me, I was walking along the Bayswater Road towards Oxford Street, skirting the railings of Hyde Park, when suddenly I noticed before me two figures, a man and a woman. They were walking slowly, deep in conversation.
In an instant I recognised the slim, perfect figure in the black jacket and black hat as that of Aline, and drew back to escape observation.
Her companion was tall, thin, and rather ill-dressed. As they passed beneath a street-lamp I discerned that he was about forty, with lank black hair, a long black moustache, and a sallow, bony face – a countenance the reverse of prepossessing. His silk hat had seen better days, his frock-coat was tightly buttoned for warmth, as he had no overcoat, and his boots were sadly run down at heel. As this seedy individual walked beside her she was speaking rapidly, while he, bonding to her, was listening intently.
The meeting was such an unexpected one that at first I was at a loss what to do. Next moment, however, with the fire of jealousy aroused within me, I resolved to follow them and watch. They strolled slowly along until they came to Victoria Gate, and then turned into the Park, at that hour dark and deserted. I noticed that as they entered she took his arm, and it appeared as if they were going in the direction of Grosvenor Gate, which leads out into Park Lane; for they crossed the Ring, and continued straight ahead along the tree-lined avenue. But few lights were there, so following at a respectable distance, I managed to keep them in sight.
Soon, however, they rested upon a seat at foot of a great old beech, and continued their conversation. I had, of course, a keen desire to learn the nature of this exchange of confidences, but the problem was how to approach sufficiently near and yet escape observation. At first I was inclined to relinquish my endeavours, but suddenly it occurred to me that I might get over the railing on to the grass, and in the darkness approach noiselessly behind the tree where they were seated.
Therefore, turning back some distance to a bend in the path, where they could not detect me, I sprang over the iron fencing, and treading softly, cautiously made my way up behind them, until I actually stood behind the tree within three yards of them, but with the railing between us.
Then, scarce daring to breathe, I waited to catch their words. Of this shabby-genteel fellow, evidently her lover, I was madly jealous; but my anger was instantly changed to surprise when I heard the nature of their conversation.
“But you must!” he was saying earnestly.
“I tell you, I won’t!” she answered decisively. “The risk is too great – far too great.”
“But as I’ve already told you, it’s absolutely imperative.”
He spoke roughly, but with a refinement which showed him to be educated. He bore outward evidence of having come down in the world.
“I wouldn’t act like that if I were offered a thousand pounds,” she declared.
“But it must be done,” he urged.
“Not by me.”
“Do you intend to back out, then?” he inquired roughly.
“I merely tell you plainly that you and your ruffianly associates have gone quite far enough. That’s all,” she answered calmly. Her words were not those which a woman usually uses towards her lover.
He gave vent to a short, brutal laugh, as if enjoying her indignation.
“It’s all very well to talk like this, Aline,” he said; “but you know quite well that argument is useless. You must do it.”
“I will not, I tell you!” she cried fiercely.
“Well, we shall see,” he answered. “Recollect that you are one of us, and as such, to break away is impossible.”
“I know that, only too well,” she answered bitterly. “But it is terrible – horrible! As each day passes I am more and more convinced that the truth must soon be discovered.”
“And if it is?”
“I will never live to bear the exposure,” she said, in the hoarse, low voice of one desperate.
“My dear girl,” he exclaimed, “you who have beauty and a plausible tongue have the world before you; yet you always refuse to seize your opportunity. You who possess the power of the King of Evil, whose touch is deadly and whose caress is venomous, could rule an empire if you wished; yet you are inert, lethargic, and refuse to assist us, even in this.”
“I will not sin deeper than I have already sinned,” she answered. “I will have no hand in it.”
“Why not?”
“It is horrible!” she protested. “And I tell you, once and for all, that I will have nothing to do with the affair.”
“You’re a fool!” he cried roughly.
“True! I am, or I would never have fallen thus into the trap you and your friends baited so cunningly.”
“You are beautiful!” he answered, with a harsh laugh. “A beautiful woman is always a safe trap for fools.”
“If men admire me I cannot help it; if they love me then it is against my wish, for since that day long ago, when the Spirit of Evil entered into me, love has known no place in my heart.”
“Well spoken!” he exclaimed. “If you have no love for him the rest is quite easy.”
“Though all love within me is dead, I yet have a woman’s heart, and womanly feeling,” she said. “I know that my beauty is only a curse; I am well aware that men who have admired me have been drawn irresistibly to their doom. Ah!” and she shuddered in shame, “it is terrible – terrible!”
“Yet why should you regret?” he queried. “You are not of their world; you have nothing in common with them. You have been given beauty, the most marvellous, perhaps, in all the world; diabolic beauty, which causes you to be remarked wherever you go; which has caused the downfall of the upright, and has wrecked the lives of those who trust in the guardian Spirit of Good.”
“Yes, I know,” she answered quickly. “Yet I am tired of it all. I am aware that my power for the working of evil among my fellow-creatures is greater than that of any other person of flesh and blood; that at my touch objects held sacred are defiled and consumed, that sight of my face may cause a veritable saint to turn from his asceticism and become an evil-doer. All this I know, alas! All this is due to the influence of evil, which once I might have striven against, had I wished.”
“You possess the beauté du Diable,” he said. “Are you not the daughter of Satan?”
“If I am I decline to commit any further crime at your bidding,” she answered, with indignation. “You have held me enthralled until now, but I tell you that you have strained the bond until it will ere long break. Then I shall be free.”
“I’m pleased that you have such pleasant anticipations,” he replied. “A woman who once gives herself over to the Evil One can never regain her freedom.”
“But she can refuse to increase the enormity of her sin by committing crime at the bidding of the man who holds her beneath his thrall,” she answered.
“You know what such refusal means?” he said in a threatening tone.
“Yes – death. Well, I do not fear it. Within me a new love has been awakened. I now love for the first time in all my life.”
“Yet you have already said that in your heart love knows no place.”
“I tell you I love him!”