XXI

With a sudden cry of fear Ivy Lexton sat up in the Jacobean four-post bed, where she had spent a broken night.

She was still plunged in sleep, but anyone standing, say, by the large half-moon window of the delightful old-world country bedroom would have thought her awake, for her violet-blue eyes were wide open and dilated, as if with terror.

How lovely she looked; how childlike was the pure, delicate contour of her face, and the droop of her little red mouth. Her dimpled shoulders rose from what she called a “nightie” of flesh-coloured crêpe de Chine. The sleeveless bodice was edged with a deep band of real lace, and, to the eyes of the old-fashioned maid who waited on her in this, her friend’s, Lady Flora Desmond’s, country cottage, it looked more like a ball-dress than a nightgown.

There were tens of thousands of human beings who, had they been privileged to see Ivy as she was now, this morning, would have felt their hearts contract with intense pity for the woman they regarded as having been the innocent victim of an extraordinary set of ironic circumstances. There were also tens of thousands of other human beings who, though they had had strong doubts as to the part she had played in the singular story, would have told themselves that their suspicions had been cruelly unjust, could they have looked into that flower-like face, and heard the words now escaping from her half-opened mouth.

Those words were uttered in an appealing, broken tone, “Don’t hurt him! Please don’t hurt him!” And then: “Oh, Roger, I am so sorry for you!”

Ivy’s soul was not here in this delightful country bedroom. It had travelled a long long way, to a prison situated on the outskirts of London.

She seemed to be gazing through the door of a small, bare room, which she knew to be now occupied by one on whom judgment of death was to be executed that morning.

There stood by the pallet bed the tall, sinewy figure of a man who had loved her with a passionate and absorbing love, and whom she, in her own fashion, had also loved. By his wish, at his trial, not a word concerning what she had called their “friendship,” had been uttered in extenuation of anything he, Roger Gretorex, had done, or left undone.

There he stood, the man whose arms had so often cradled her, on whom she had made the limitless demands that a woman only makes on the man she loves. Never once, in great or in little things, had he failed her.

This morning he looked strange indeed, for though dressed, he was collarless, and clad in an old tweed suit⁠—a suit which Ivy remembered well, and which she had once told him caressingly she liked to see him wear.

He held himself upright, with his head thrown back in what had been a characteristic attitude.

In Ivy’s vision two men were pinioning Roger’s arms, and it was to them that, living through this terrible nightmare, she had just addressed her piteous plea. And then with slow steps the chaplain, together with the governor of the prison, walked in.⁠ ⁠…

It was all happening exactly as Ivy had once seen something happen, in what had then appeared to her just a thrilling scene in a play, in London about a year ago.

And now Roger left the cell and began walking, with steady steps, his head still thrown back, down a narrow way.⁠ ⁠…

And then the woman in the bed gave a stifled shriek, for suddenly she saw the gallows through an open door at the end of the passage.

She covered her face with her hands, yet something seemed to force her to peep through her fingers and⁠—for a fleeting moment⁠—Roger Gretorex turned and looked at her.⁠ ⁠…

So had the condemned man turned and looked at the woman in the play.

But Roger’s face was so charged with mute, terrible reproach that, with an anguished cry of protest, Ivy awoke⁠—awoke to the blessed reality that she was sixty miles from the place where that awful drama was to be enacted this morning.

Her shaking hand felt for her diamond-circled watch on the Chippendale table standing by her bed. Having found it, she held it up close before her eyes.

It was only eight o’clock. She sighed heavily, for that meant that there was another hour of misery and suspense to be lived through. Nay, maybe even as much as an hour and a half⁠—for the morbid-minded woman pal of hers who intended to stand near the prison gate till the death notice was put up, and had promised faithfully to telephone to her from a house near by, had thought it unlikely she could get a trunk call through before half-past nine.

The tears began rolling down Ivy Lexton’s cheeks; yet it was not for Roger Gretorex, and his awful fate, that she was weeping. It was for pity of herself, for all she had gone through, and for what remained for her to go through, till she knew for certain that Roger Gretorex had died, as he had lived, silent.

She was well aware, deep down in her heart, that not only his counsel, Sir Joseph Molloy, who believed him innocent, but also that Roger’s mother, would hope up to the last moment of his sentient life that he would clear himself by shifting the burden of guilt on the one who was guilty.

Ivy had written the condemned man a letter three days ago, and she had made so many rough copies of that short letter that she knew it, now, by heart.

She repeated that touching letter over to herself, rocking her slight body this way and that in the large bed.

Sunday night.

Dear Roger,

I am ill, so I cannot come to you. Otherwise I would do so. You know that I believe you innocent, and I want now to tell you how grateful I am for all your kindness to me, and for the love, however wrong it may have been, that you lavished on me.

She hoped that letter had given poor Roger pleasure and, above all, that he had read between the lines and seen how really, truly sorry she was⁠—how dreadfully grieved that everything had fallen out as it had fallen out. Indeed, she had twice underlined the word “grateful.”

And then she suddenly felt that she could not go on remembering any more. It was too horrible⁠—too horrible! So she took a bottle off the little table, where her watch was lying, and measured out a small dose into a medicine glass. Lady Flora would wake her, she knew, when that secretly longed-for message came through.

Soon she was once more plunged into uneasy slumber. But alas! again there came that hideous, hideous nightmare.

Once more she seemed transported to the condemned cell. But this time, in addition to the warders, the governor of the prison, and the chaplain, there was the horrid, cruel, fat-faced man, Sir Joseph Molloy, who had cross-examined her. True, he had dealt with her gently, kindly, but only because he had been adjured to do so, and, as well she remembered, with now and again a tigerish glare in his blue Irish eyes.

She listened with a feeling of indignation and pitiful dread to his voice uttering the words: “I adjure you, Gretorex, to tell the truth, now, for the sake of your poor mother who has always believed you innocent!”

There was a pause. Ivy clasped her hands together in supplication. But the collarless prisoner had turned his sunken eyes away from her pleading face. Was he going to obey Sir Joseph Molloy? Yes! For she heard Roger’s deep voice answer: “It is as you have always thought it was, Sir Joseph. I die innocent. Ivy Lexton poisoned her husband.”

Outside that quiet bedroom Lady Flora, already on her way down to breakfast, heard a fearful cry⁠—“No! No! No!⁠—that isn’t true!”

She opened the bedroom door and saw that Ivy was asleep. “Poor child,” she murmured. “No wonder she talks in her sleep. Thank God! that unhappy man is to be hanged this morning.”

And, being the manner of woman she was, she offered up a silent prayer for the murderer, that he might make his peace with God.

There came a sharp knock on the bedroom door, and Ivy woke with a stifled cry. She jumped straight out of bed and stood, her hands clasped together, waiting.

There came another knock, and then, “Come in!” she cried shrilly, and Lady Flora’s old parlourmaid entered the room.

Ivy had never liked the woman, and the woman had never liked her. She did not understand, and she never quite knew how to treat, those of her own sex whom she regarded as inferior to herself; yet some of the kindest letters written to her in the last few weeks had been from domestic servants, warmly sympathising with the heroine of their favourite Sunday paper.

“Mrs. Doghill is on the telephone, ma’am. Her ladyship is holding the line till you come.”

Ivy snatched up her periwinkle-blue satin dressing-gown and wrapped it about her. Then she thrust her little white feet into slippers that matched the dressing-gown, and ran downstairs, telling herself, not for the first time, how stupid it was to have the telephone in so public a place as the hall.

Lady Flora was standing, the telephone receiver to her ear. But when she saw Ivy she silently handed her the receiver and, turning into the dining-room, shut the door.

“Is that you, Millicent? Yes⁠—yes! I can hear quite well⁠—”

She waited in an agony of mingled hope and fear till, with startling distinctness, came the measured words that were being uttered sixty miles away.

“There’s been a reprieve. The story goes that important new evidence was laid before the Home Secretary yesterday.”

Ivy remained silent. She felt stunned. New evidence?

At last she managed to get out, in a low, strangled voice, “I⁠—I don’t quite understand.”

But instantly she heard a cross voice interject, “You’ve had six minutes⁠—can’t allow you to have any more now.”

“Indeed I haven’t! I’ve only just come to the telephone,” she said pleadingly.

“I can’t help that. The call was put through six minutes ago⁠—” And ruthlessly she was cut off.

Ivy turned towards the room where she knew her hostess was waiting, full of sympathy. She opened the door, and then she cried, “He’s been⁠—he’s been⁠—” and before she could say the word “reprieved” she had fallen fainting at the other woman’s feet.

Lady Flora would not have believed an angel, had an angel come and told her, that her dear little friend Ivy Lexton had fainted, not from relief, but from sheer, agonising fear.

Ivy spent the rest of the morning in bed, a prey to frightful anxiety and terror.

New evidence? What could that mean? Had Roger really failed her at last?

At twelve o’clock the parlourmaid came in with a telegram.

Hope to be with you tomorrow evening.

The telegram had been sent from Paris the day before, and delayed in transmission.

“There is no answer,” said Mrs. Lexton in her soft voice. And then she lay back, feeling much less unhappy.

Whatever the mysterious reprieve might portend, Rushworth would very soon, in fact tomorrow, be here to help and to protect her.

As she read the telegram over for the third time, Ivy told herself how noble, how generous, how devoted the sender had proved himself. Also, what a wonderful life lay before her as his cherished, sheltered wife! Rushworth was all-powerful. New evidence? There could be no “new evidence” for the simple reason that nothing, nothing, nothing had ever happened⁠—that could possibly be found out.