Only they happened not to regard it as the truth. Vane throughout had contrived cleverly to them I was the manager, the sole person responsible. My wearily spoken explanations were to them incomprehensible lies. The quarter of an hour might have been worse for me had I been sufficiently alive to understand or care what they were saying. A dull, listless apathy had come over me. I felt the scene only stupid, ridiculous, tiresome. There was some talk of giving me "a damned good hiding." I doubt whether I should have known till the next morning whether the suggestion had been carried out or not. I gathered that the true history of the play, the reason for the sudden alterations, had been known to them all along. They appeared to have reserved their virtuous indignation till this evening. As explanation of my apparent sleepiness, somebody, whether in kindness to me or not I cannot say, suggested I was drunk. Fortunately, it carried conviction. No further trains left the town that night; I was allowed to depart. A deputation promised to be round at my lodgings early in the morning.
Our leading lady had left the theatre immediately on the fall of the curtain; it was not necessary for her to wait, her husband acting as her business man. On reaching my rooms, I found her sitting by the fire. It reminded me that our agent in advance having fallen ill, her husband had, at her suggestion, been appointed in his place, and had left us on the Wednesday to make the necessary preparations in the next town on our list. I thought that perhaps she had come round for her money, and the idea amused me.
"Well?" she said, with her one smile. I had been doing my best for some months to regard it as soul-consuming, but without any real success.
"Well," I answered. It bored me, her being there. I wanted to be alone.
"You don't seem overjoyed to see me. What's the matter with you?
What's happened?"
I laughed. "Vane's bolted and taken the week's money with him."
"The beast!" she said. "I knew he was that sort. What ever made you take up with him? Will it make much difference to you?"
"It makes a difference all round," I replied. "There's no money to pay any of you. There's nothing to pay your fares back to London."
She had risen. "Here, let me understand this," she said. "Are you the rich mug Vane's been representing you to be, or only his accomplice?"
"The mug and the accomplice both," I answered, "without the rich.
It's his tour. He put my name to it because he didn't want his own to appear--for family reasons. It's his play; he stole it--"
She interrupted me with a whistle. "I thought it looked a bit fishy, all those alterations. But such funny things do happen in this profession! Stole it, did he?"
"The whole thing in manuscript. I put my name to it for the same reason--he didn't want his own to appear."
She dropped into her chair and laughed--a good-tempered laugh, loud and long. "Well, I'm damned!" she said. "The first man who has ever taken me in. I should never have signed if I had thought it was his show. I could see the sort he was with half an eye." She jumped up from the chair. "Here, let me get out of this," she said. "I just looked in to know what time to-morrow; I'd forgotten. You needn't say I came."
Her hand upon the door, laughter seized her again, so that for support she had to lean against the wall.
"Do you know why I really did come?" she said. "You'll guess when you come to think it over, so I may as well tell you. It's a bit of a joke. I came to say 'yes' to what you asked me last night. Have you forgotten?"
I stared at her. Last night! It seemed a long while ago--so very unimportant what I might have said.
She laughed again. "So help me! if you haven't. Well, you asked me to run away with you--that's all, to let our two souls unite. Damned lucky I took a day to think it over! Good-night."
"Good-night," I answered, without moving. I was gripping a chair to prevent myself from rushing at her, pushing her out of the room, and locking the door. I wanted to be alone.
I heard her turn the handle. "Got a pound or two to carry you over?"
It was a woman's voice.
I put my hand into my pocket. "One pound seventeen," I answered, counting it. "It will pay my fare to London--or buy me a dinner and a second-hand revolver. I haven't quite decided yet."
"Oh, you get back and pull yourself together," she said. "You're only a kid. Good-night."
I put a few things into a small bag and walked thirty miles that night into Belfast. Arrived in London, I took a lodging in Deptford, where I was least likely to come in contact with any face I had ever seen before. I maintained myself by giving singing lessons at sixpence the half-hour, evening lessons in French and German (the Lord forgive me!) to ambitious shop-boys at eighteen pence a week, ****** up tradesmen's books. A few articles of jewellery I had retained enabled me to tide over bad periods. For some four months I existed there, never going outside the neighbourhood. Occasionally, wandering listlessly about the streets, some object, some vista, would strike me by reason of its familiarity. Then I would turn and hasten back into my grave of dim, weltering streets.
Of thoughts, emotions, during these dead days I was unconscious.
Somewhere in my brain they may have been stirring, contending; but myself I lived as in a long, dull dream. I ate, and drank, and woke, and slept, and walked and walked, and lounged by corners; staring by the hour together, seeing nothing.
It has suprised me since to find the scenes I must then have witnessed photographed so clearly on my mind. Tragedies, dramas, farces, played before me in that teeming underworld--the scenes present themselves to me distinct, complete; yet I have no recollection of ever having seen them.