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Updated: May 15, 2025
Matravers stood on the doorstep with his watch in his hand. It was half-past three. There was just time to catch the four-thirty from Waterloo! For a moment the little street faded away from before his eyes! He saw himself at his journey's end! Berenice was there to meet him!
Yet the man who waved his hand from the box-seat of the phaeton with a courtesy seemingly real, but, under the circumstances, brutally ironical, was Thorndyke, and the woman who sat by his side was Berenice! The carriage passed on down the broad drive, and Matravers stood looking after it.
She stopped when she saw the two men, and held out her hand to Ellison, who immediately introduced Matravers. Again Ellison fancied that in her greeting of him there were some traces of a former knowledge. But nothing in her words or in his alluded to it. "I am very much honoured," Matravers said simply. "I am a rare attendant at the theatre, and your performance gave me great pleasure."
"Madam!" her maid interposed. "Home, please," Berenice said calmly. "Good-by, Mr. Matravers." "Good night." The carriage rolled away. At the corner of the street Berenice pulled the check-string. "The Milan Restaurant," she told the man briefly. Matravers and Ellison lit their cigarettes and strolled away on foot. At the corner of the street Ellison had an inspiration.
Fergusson looked blank. "But, my dear girl," he protested, "how on earth " "Don't be foolish, Reggie," she said calmly. "It is perfectly natural for me to go! I have been your principal actress for several seasons. I suppose if there is a second woman's part in the piece, it will be mine, if I choose to take it. You must write and ask Matravers for permission to bring me.
Yet the woman, whose appearance had caused a certain thrill to quiver through the house, and whose coming had certainly been an event to Matravers, did absolutely nothing for the remainder of that dreary first act to redeem the forlorn play, or to justify her own peculiar reputation. She acted languidly, her enunciation was imperfect, her gestures were forced and inapt.
She was talking eagerly to Fergusson, whose dark, handsome head was very close to hers, and in whose eyes was already evident his growing admiration. Matravers was suddenly conscious of an odd sense of disturbance. He was grateful to Adelaide Robinson for her intervention. She had risen to her feet, and glanced downwards at the little brougham drawn up below.
And this man was her husband! "Daddy," the boy cried, dropping Matravers' hand and running over to the couch, "I've been run over by a hansom cab, and I'm all buggy, but I ain't hurt, and this gentleman brought me home. Daddy can't get up, you know," Freddy explained; "his legs is bad." "Run over, eh!" exclaimed the man on the couch. "It's like that girl's damned carelessness."
"There is no fear of anything of that sort," he said calmly. "I do not pretend to be a magician or a diviner, yet I think I know you for what you are, and it is sufficient. Some day " He broke off in the middle of a sentence. The door had opened. A man stood upon the threshold. The servant announced him Mr. Thorndyke. Matravers rose at once to his feet.
I am schooling myself to meet a new Berenice my friend! And I have something still more to say to you! The week that followed the sending of his letter was, to Matravers, with his love for equable times and emotions, like a week in hell! He had set himself a task not easy even to an ordinary man of business, but to him trebly difficult and harassing.
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