diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17952-8.txt | 11761 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17952-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 230364 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17952-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 241474 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17952-h/17952-h.htm | 11726 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17952.txt | 11761 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17952.zip | bin | 0 -> 230279 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 35264 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17952-8.txt b/17952-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..335e97d --- /dev/null +++ b/17952-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11761 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Great Possessions, by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Great Possessions + + +Author: Mrs. Wilfrid Ward + + + +Release Date: March 8, 2006 [eBook #17952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS*** + + +E-text prepared by Joseph R. Hauser, Martin Pettit, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +GREAT POSSESSIONS + +by + +MRS. WILFRID WARD + +Author of +"One Poor Scruple," "Out of Due Time," etc. + + + + + + + +G. P. Putnam's Sons +New York and London +The Knickerbocker Press +1909 +Copyright, 1909 +by +G. P. Putnam's Sons +The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. THE AMAZING WILL 1 + +II. IN THE EVENING 13 + +III. "AS YOU HOPE TO BE FORGIVEN" 21 + +IV. THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE 32 + +V. "YOUR MOTHER'S DAUGHTER" 42 + +VI. MOLLY COMES OF AGE 55 + +VII. EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO INTERFERE 68 + +VIII. AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE 78 + +IX. A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND 91 + +X. THE PET VICE 98 + +XI. THE THIN END OF A CLUE 109 + +XII. MOLLY'S NIGHT-WATCH 120 + +XIII. SIR DAVID'S MEMORY 126 + + +BOOK II + +XIV. MOLLY IN THE SEASON 136 + +XV. A POOR MAN'S DEATH 151 + +XVI. MOLLY'S LETTER TO HER MOTHER 165 + +XVII. THE BLIND CANON 173 + +XVIII. MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER 180 + +XIX. LADY ROSE'S SCRUPLE 187 + +XX. THE HEIRESS OF MADAME DANTERRE 194 + + +BOOK III + +XXI. AN INTERLUDE OF HAPPINESS 213 + +XXII. SOMETHING LIKE EVIDENCE 220 + +XXIII. THE USES OF DELIRIUM 231 + +XXIV. MRS. DELAPORT GREEN IN THE ASCENDANT 238 + +XXV. MOLLY AT COURT 243 + +XXVI. EDMUND IS NO LONGER BORED 249 + +XXVII. MOLLY'S APPEAL 256 + +XXVIII. DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS 266 + +XXIX. THE RELIEF OF SPEECH 272 + +XXX. THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER 280 + +XXXI. THE NURSING OF A SLANDER 285 + + +BOOK IV + +XXXII. ROSE SUMMONED TO LONDON 294 + +XXXIII. BROWN HOLLAND COVERS 304 + +XXXIV. THE WRATH OF A FRIEND 312 + +XXXV. THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK 322 + +XXXVI. MENE THEKEL PHARES 330 + +XXXVII. MARK ENTERS INTO TEMPTATION 339 + +XXXVIII. NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD 350 + +XXXIX. "WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE" 357 + + + + +GREAT POSSESSIONS + + + + +BOOK I + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE AMAZING WILL + + +The memorial service for Sir David Bright was largely attended. Perhaps +he was fortunate in the moment of his death, for other men, whose +military reputations had been as high as his, were to go on with the +struggle while the world wondered at their blunders. It was only the +second of those memorial services for prominent men which were to become +so terribly usual as the winter wore on. Great was the sympathy felt for +the young widow at the loss of one so brave, so kindly, so popular among +all classes. + +Lady Rose Bright was quite young and very fair. She did not put on a +widow's distinctive garments because Sir David had told her that he +hated weeds. But she wore a plain, heavy cloak, and a long veil fell +into the folds made by her skirts. The raiment of a gothic angel, an +angel like those in the portico at Rheims, has these same straight, +stern lines. "Black is sometimes as suggestive of white," was the +reflection of one member of the congregation, "as white may be +suggestive of mourning." Sir Edmund Grosse, who had known Rose from her +childhood, felt some new revelation in her movements; there was a fuller +development of womanhood in her walk, and there was a reserve, too, as +of one consecrated and set apart. He heaved a deep sigh as she passed +near him going down the church, and their eyes met. She had no shrinking +in her bearing; her reserves were too deep for her to avoid an open +meeting with other human eyes. She looked at Sir Edmund for a moment as +if giving, rather than demanding, sympathy; and indeed, there was more +trouble in his eyes than in hers. + +The service had gone perilously near to Roman practices. It was among +the first of those uncontrollable instinctive expressions of faith in +prayer for the departed which were a marked note of English feeling +during the Boer war. Questions as to their legality were asked in +Parliament, but little heeded, for the heart of the nation, "for her +children mourning," sought comfort in the prayers used by the rest of +the Christian world. + +Rose's mother went home with her and they talked, very simply and in +sympathy, of the tributes to the soldier's memory. Then, when luncheon +came and the servants were present, they spoke quietly of the work to be +done for soldiers' wives and of a meeting the mother was to attend that +afternoon. Lady Charlton was the mother one would expect Rose to +have--indeed, such complete grace of courtliness and kindness points to +an education. Afterwards, while they were alone, Lady Charlton, in +broken sentences, sketched the future. She supposed Rose would stay on +although the house was too big. Much good might be done in it. There +could be no doubt as to how money must be spent this winter; and there +were the services they both loved in the Church of the Fathers of St. +Paul near at hand. Lady Charlton saw life in pictures and so did Rose. +Neither of them broke through any reserve; neither of them was curious. +It did not occur to Rose to wonder how her mother had lived and felt in +her first days as a widow. Lady Charlton did not wonder how Rose felt +now. Rose, she thought, was wonderful; life was full of mercies; there +was so much to be thankful for; and could not those who had suffered be +of great consolation to others in sorrow? + +They arranged to meet at Evensong in St. Paul's Chapel, and then Lady +Charlton would come back and stay the night. On the next day she was due +at the house of her youngest married daughter. + +Rose was presently left alone, and she cried quite simply. For a moment +she thought of Edmund Grosse and the sadness in his eyes. Why had he not +volunteered for the war? What a contrast! + +A large photograph of Sir David in his general's uniform stood on the +writing-table in the study downstairs. There were also a picture and a +miniature in the drawing-room, but Rose thought she would like to look +at the photograph again. It was the last that had been taken. Then too +she would look over some of his things. She wanted little presents for +his special friends; nothing for its own value, but because the hero had +used them. And she would like to bring the big photograph upstairs. + +The study, usually cold and deserted since the master had gone away, +was bright with a large fire. Rose did not know that it was an +expression of sympathy from the under-housemaid, whose lover was at the +war. But when she stood opposite the big photograph of the fine manly +face and figure, and the large open eyes looked so straight into hers, +she shrank a little. Something in the room made her shrink into herself. +Her eyes rested on the Victoria Cross in the photograph, on the medals +that had covered his breast. "I shall have them all," she said, and then +she faltered a little. She had faltered in that room before now; she had +often shrunk into herself when the intensely courteous voice had asked +her as she came into his study what she wanted. She blamed herself +gently now, and for two opposite reasons: she blamed herself because she +had wanted what she had not got, and she blamed herself because she had +not done more to get it. "He was always so gentle, so courteous. I ought +to have been quite, quite happy. And why didn't I break through our +reserve, and then we might----" Dimly she felt, but she did not want to +own it to herself, that she had married him as a hero-worshipper. She +had reverenced him more than she loved him. "I ought not to have done +it," she thought, "but I meant what was right, and I could have loved +him---- Oh, I did love him afterwards--only I never could tell him, +and----" Further thoughts led the way to irreverence, even to something +worse. They were wrong thoughts, thoughts against faith and truth and +right; there was no place for such thoughts in Rose's heart. She moved +now, and opened drawers and dusted and put together a few +things--paper-knives, match-boxes, a writing-case, a silver sealing-wax +holder, and so on; the occupation interested and soothed her. She had +the born mystic's love of little kind actions, little presents, things +treasured as symbols of the union of spirits, all the more because of +their slight material value. Then, too, the child element, which is in +every good woman, gave a zest to the occupation and made it restful. + +Lady Rose had put several small relics in a row on the edge of the lower +part of the big mahogany bookcase, and was counting on her fingers the +names of the friends for whom they were intended. Her grief was +sufficiently real to make her, perhaps, overestimate the number of those +to whom such relics would be precious. A tender smile was on her lips at +the recollection of an old soldier servant of Sir David's who had been +with him in Egypt. She hesitated a moment between two objects--one, a +good silver-mounted leather purse, and the other an inkstand of brass +and marble. These two things were the recipients of her unjust aversion +for long after that moment. + +Simmonds, the butler, opened the door, quite certain that the visitor he +announced must be admitted, and conscious of the fitness of the big +study for his reception. It was Sir David's solicitor. But the butler +was disappointed at the manner of his entrance. He did not analyse the +disappointment. He was half conscious of the fact that the _rôle_ of the +family lawyer on the occasion was so simple and easy. He would himself +have assumed a degree of pomp, of sympathy, of respect, carrying a +subdued implication that he brought solid consolation in his very +presence. Simmonds grieved truly for Sir David, but he felt, too, the +blank caused by the absence of all funeral arrangements in a death at +the war. He had been butler in more than one house of mourning before, +and he knew all his duties in that capacity. After this he would know +how to be butler in the event of death in battle. But now, when the +memorial service had taken, in a poor sort of way, the place of the +funeral, of course the solicitor ought to come, and past deficiencies +could be overlooked. Why, then, should the man prove totally unequal to +his task? Mr. Murray, Junior, had usually a much better manner than +to-day. Perhaps he was startled at being shown at once into the widow's +presence. Probably he might have expected to wait a few moments in the +big study, while Simmonds went to seek his mistress. + +But there was Lady Rose turning round from the bookcase as they came in. +Mr. Murray stooped to-day, and his large head was bent downwards, making +it the more evident that the drops of perspiration stood out upon his +brow. He cast a look almost of fear at the fair face with its gentle, +benignant expression. He had seen Rose once or twice before, and he knew +the old-fashioned type of great lady when he met it. Was it of Rose's +gentle, subtle dignity that he was afraid? + +Rose drew up a chair on one side of the big square writing-table, and +signed to him to take the leather arm-chair where he had last seen Sir +David Bright seated. Mr. Murray plunged into his subject with an +abruptness proportioned to the immense time he had taken during the +morning in preparing a diplomatic opening. + +"May I ask, first of all," he said, "whether you have found any will, or +any document looking like a will, besides the one I have with me?" + +"No," said Lady Rose in surprise, "there are no papers of any +importance here, I believe; there is nothing in the house under lock and +key. Sir David gave me a few rings and studs to put away, but he never +cared for jewellery, and there is nothing of value." + +"And do you think he can have executed any other will or written a +letter that might be of use to us now?" + +Rose looked still more surprised. Mr. Murray held some papers in his +hand that shook as if the wintry wind outside were trying to blow them +away. Rose tried not to watch them, and it teased her that she could not +help doing so. The hand that held them was not visible above the table. +Mr. Murray struggled to keep to the most absolutely business-like and +unemotional side of his professional manner, but his obviously extreme +discomfort was infectious, and Rose's calm of manner was already +disturbed. + +"I cannot but think, Lady Rose, that some papers may be forwarded to you +through the War Office." He hesitated. "You had no marriage +settlements?" he then asked abruptly. + +"No, there were no settlements," said Rose. She spoke quickly and +nervously. "We did not think them necessary. Sir David offered to make +them, but just then he was ordered abroad and there was very little +time, and my mother and I did not think it of enough importance to make +us delay the wedding. It was shortly after my father's death." She +paused a moment, and then went on, as if speech were a relief. + +"You know that, when we married, Sir David had no reason to expect that +he would ever be a rich man. We hardly knew the Steele cousins, and only +had a vague idea that Mr. John Steele had been making money on the +Stock Exchange. When he left his fortune to Sir David, who was his first +cousin, and, in fact, his nearest relation, my mother did ask me if my +husband intended to make his will. More than once after that she tried +to persuade me to speak to him about it, but I disliked the subject too +much." + +Mr. Murray looked as if he wished that Lady Rose would go on talking; he +seemed to expect more from her, but, as nothing more came, he made a +great effort and plunged into the subject. + +"The will I have here"--he held up the papers as he spoke--"was, in +fact, made a few months after Sir David inherited Mr. John Steele's +large fortune, and there was no subsequent alteration to it, but this +time last year we were directed to make a codicil to this will, and I +was away at the time. My brother, who is my senior partner, ventured to +urge Sir David to make a new will altogether, but he declined." + +There was silence in the room for some moments. Mr. Murray leant over +the writing-table now, and both hands were occupied in smoothing out the +papers before him. + +"It is the worst will I have ever come across," he said quite suddenly, +the professional manner gone and the vehemence of a strong mind in +distress breaking through all conventionality. Rose drew herself up and +looked at him coldly. In that moment she completely regained her +self-possession. + +"It is absolutely inexplicable," he went on, with a great effort at +self-control. "Sir David Bright leaves this house and £800 a year to +you, Lady Rose, for your lifetime, and a few gifts to friends and small +legacies to old servants." He paused. Rose, with slightly heightened +colour, spoke very quietly. + +"Then the fortune was much smaller than was supposed?" + +"It was larger, far larger than any one knew; but it is all left away." + +Rose was disturbed and frankly sorry, but not by any means miserable. +She knew life, and did not dislike wealth, and had had dreams of much +good that might be done with it. + +"To whom is it left?" she asked. + +"After the small legacies I mentioned are paid off, the bulk of the +fortune goes"--the lawyer's voice became more and more business-like in +tone--"to Madame Danterre, a lady living in Florence." + +"And unless anything is sent to me from South Africa, this will is law?" + +"Yes." + +Rose covered her face with her hands; she did not move for several +moments. It would not have surprised Mr. Murray to know that she was +praying. Presently she raised her face and looked at him with troubled +eyes, but absolute dignity of bearing. + +"And the codicil?" + +"The codicil directs that if you continue to live in this house----" + +Rose made a little sound of surprised protest. + +"----the ground rent, all rates, and all taxes are to be paid. A sum +much larger than can be required is left for this purpose, and it can +also be spent on decorating or furnishing, or in any way be used for the +house and garden. It is an elaborate affair, going into every detail." + +"Should I be able to let the house?" + +"For a period of four months, not longer. But should you refuse to live +in this house, this sum will go with the bulk of the fortune. We had +immediate application on behalf of Madame Danterre from a lawyer in +Florence as soon as the news of the death reached us. It seems that she +has a copy of the will." + +"Has she"--Rose hesitated, and then repeated, "Has Madame Danterre any +children?" + +"I do not know," said Mr. Murray. "Beyond paying considerable sums to +this lawyer from time to time for her benefit, we have known nothing +about her. There has been also a large annual allowance since the year +when Sir David came into his cousin's fortune." There was another +silence, and then Mr. Murray spoke in a more natural way, though it was +impossible to conceal all the sympathy that was filling his heart with +an almost murderous wrath. + +"After all, the General had plenty of time before starting for the war +to arrange his affairs; he was not a man who would neglect business. I +came here with a faint hope--or I tried to think it was a hope--that you +might have another will in the house. I'm afraid this--document +represents Sir David Bright's last wishes." There was a ring of +indignant scorn in his voice. + +Rose looked through the window on to the thin black London turf outside, +and her eyes were blank from the intensity of concentration. She had no +thought for the lawyer; if he had been sympathetic even to impertinence +she would not have noticed it. + +She was questioning her own instincts, her perceptions. No, it was +almost more as if she were emptying her mind of any conscious action +that her whole power of instinctive perception might have play. When +the blow had fallen, her only surprise had been to find that she was not +surprised, not astonished. It seemed as if she had known this all the +time, for the thing had been alongside of her for years, she had lived +too close to it for any surprise when it raised its head and found a +name. Her reasoning powers indeed asked with astonishment why she was +not surprised. She could not explain, the symptoms of the thing that had +haunted her had been too subtle, too elusive, too minute to be brought +forward now as witnesses. But while the lawyer looked at the open face +and the large eyes, and the frank bearing of the figure in the +photograph, and felt that outer man to have been the disguise of a +villain, Rose, the victim, knew better. It was a supreme proof of the +clear vision of her soul that she was not surprised, and that, even +while she seemed to be flayed morally and exposed to things evil and of +shame, she did not judge with blind indignation. He had not been wholly +bad, he had not been callous in his cruelty; what he had been there +would be time to understand--time for the delicacies, almost for the +luxuries of forgiveness. What she was feeling after now was a point of +view above passion and pain from which to judge this final opinion of +the lawyer's, from which to know whether Sir David had left another +will. + +"There has been another will," she said very gently, "but, of course, it +is more than likely that it will never be found. I am convinced"--she +looked at the black and green turf all the time, and obviously spoke to +herself, not to Mr. Murray--"that he did not intend to leave me to open +shame"--the words were gently but very distinctly pronounced--"or to +leave a scandal round his own memory. Perhaps he carried another will +about with him, and if so it may be sent to me. Somehow I don't think +this will happen. I think the will you have in your hand is the only one +I shall ever see, but I do not therefore judge him of having faced death +with the intention of spoiling my life. I shall live in this house and I +shall honour his memory; he died for his country, and I am his widow." + +That was all she could say on the subject then, and she could only just +ask Mr. Murray if he could see her again any time the next morning. +After answering that question the lawyer went silently away. + +Rose stood by the table where he had sat a moment before, looking long +and steadfastly at the photograph. She looked at the open face, she +looked at the military bearing, she looked at the Victoria Cross,--it +had been the amazing courage shown in that story that had really won +her,--she looked, too, at the many medals. She had been with him once in +a moment of peril in a fire and had seen the unconscious pride with +which he always answered to the call of danger. She had, too, seen him +bear acute pain as if that had been his talent, the thing he knew how to +do. + +"Ah, poor David!" she said softly. "What did she do to frighten you? +Poor, poor David, you were always a coward!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN THE EVENING + + +But this was a trial to search out every part of Rose's nature. She had +too much faith for sickness, death, or even terrible physical pain, to +be to her in any sense a poisoned wound. There are women like Rose whose +inner life can only be in peril from the pain and shame of the sin of +others. To them it is an intolerable agony to be troubled in their faith +in man. + +Lady Charlton, swept out of the calm belonging to years of gentle +actions and ideal thoughts into a storm of indignation and horror, might +have lost all dignity and discretion if she had not been checked by +reverence for the dumb anguish and misery of her favourite daughter. She +had some notion of the thoughts that must pass in Rose's mind, now dull +and heavy, now alert and inflicting sudden deep incisions into the +quivering soul. Marriage had been to them both very sacred. They hated, +beyond most good women, anything that seemed to materialise or lower the +ideal. If there can be imagined a scale of standards for the relations +of men and women, of which Zola had not touched the extremity at one +end, the first place at the other extremity might be assigned to such +Englishwomen as Rose and her mother. The most subtle and amazingly high +motives had been assigned to Lord Charlton's most ordinary actions, and +happily he had been so ordinary a person that no impossible shock had +been given to the ideal built up about him. And it had not been +difficult or insincere to carry on something of the same illusion with +regard to the man who had won the Victoria Cross and had been very +popular with Tommy Atkins. David Bright's very reserves, the closed +doors in his domestic life, did not prevent, and indeed in some ways +helped, the process. The mother had known in the depth of her heart that +Rose was lonely, but then she was childless. Rose had never, even in +moments when the nameless mystery that was in her home oppressed her +most in its dull, voiceless way, tried to tell her mother what she did +not herself understand. Sir David had been courteous, gentle, attentive, +but never happy. Rose knew now that he had always been guiltily afraid. + +Lady Charlton had had a few moments' warning of disaster, for she was +horrified at the change in Rose's face when she met her at the door of +the church after Evensong. She herself had been utterly soothed and +rested by the beauty of the service. There was so much that fitted in +with all her ideals in mourning the great soldier. Little phrases about +him and about Rose flitted through her mind. Widows were widows indeed +to Lady Charlton. Rose would live now chiefly for Heaven and to soothe +the sorrows of earth. She did not say to herself that Rose would not be +broken-hearted and crushed, nor did she take long views. If years hence +Rose were to marry again her mother could make another picture in which +Sir David would recede into the background. Now he was her hero whom +Rose mourned, and whose loss had consecrated her more entirely to +Heaven; then he would unconsciously become in her mother's eyes a much +older man whom Rose had married almost as a child. There would be +nothing necessarily to mar the new picture if all else were fitting. + +But the peace of gentle sorrow had left Rose's face, and it wore a look +her mother had never seen on it before. The breath of evil was close +upon her; it had penetrated very near, so near that she seemed evil to +herself as it embraced her. She was too dazed, too confused to remember +that Divine purity had been enclosed in that embrace. What terrified her +most was the thought that had suddenly come that possibly the unknown +woman in Florence had been the real lawful wife, and that her own +marriage had been a sin, a vile pretence and horror. For the first time +in her life the grandest words of confidence that have expressed and +interpreted the clinging faith of humanity seemed an unreality. Rose had +never known the faintest temptation to doubt Providence before this +miserable evening. She resented with her whole being the idea that +possibly she had been the cause of the grossest wrong to an injured +wife. And there was ground in reason for such a fear, for it seemed +difficult to believe that any claim short of that of a wife could have +frightened Sir David into such a course. The other and more common view, +that it was because he had loved his mistress throughout, did not appeal +to her. Vice had for her few recognisable features; she had no map for +the country of passion, no precedents to refer to. It seemed to Rose +most probable that Sir David had believed his first wife to be dead +when he married her; that, on finding he was mistaken, his courage had +failed, and that he had carried on a gigantic scheme of bribery to +prevent her coming forward. This view was in one sense a degree less +painful, as it would make him innocent of the first great deception, the +huge lie of making love to her as if he were a free man. The depths and +extent of her misery could be measured by the strange sense of a bitter +gladness invading the very recesses of her maternal instinct, and +replacing what had been the heartfelt sorrow of six years. "It is a +mercy I have no child!" she cried, and the cry seemed to herself almost +blasphemous. + +When she came out of the church it was raining, and the wind blowing. It +was only a short walk to her own house, and she and her mother had made +a rule not to take out servants and the carriage for their devotions. +She would have walked on in total silence, but her mother could not bear +the suspense. + +"Rose, what is it?" she cried, in a tone of authority and intense +anxiety. After all it might be easier to answer now as they battled with +the rain. + +"I don't know how to tell you, mother. Mr. Murray has been with me and +shown me the will. There was some one all the time who had some claim on +him. She may have been his real wife--I know nothing except that since +we have had John Steele's fortune David has always paid her an income +and now has left her a very great deal and me very little. That would +not matter--God knows it is not the poverty that hurts--but the thing +itself, the horror, the shame, the publicity. I mind it all, everything, +more than I ought. I----" She stopped, not a word more would come. + +Lady Charlton could only make broken sounds of incredulous horror. When +they crossed the brilliantly lighted hall the mother suddenly seemed +much older, and Rose, for the first time, bore all the traces of a +great, an overpowering sorrow. + +"It wasn't natural to be so calm," thought the maid, who had been with +her since her girlhood, as she helped her to take off her cloak. "She +didn't understand at first. It's coming over her now, poor dear, and +indeed he was a real gentleman, and such a husband! Never a harsh +word--not one--that I ever heard, at least." + +It was some time before Lady Charlton could be brought to believe it +all, and then at first she was overwhelmed with self-blame. Her mind +fastened chiefly on the fact that she had allowed the marriage without +settlements. Then the next thought was the horror of the publicity, the +way in which this dreadful woman must be heard of and talked about. Lady +Charlton's broken sentences had almost the feebleness of extreme old age +that cannot accept as true what it cannot understand. "It seems +impossible, quite impossible," she said. She was very tired, and Rose +wished it had been practicable to keep this knowledge from her till +later. She knew that her mother was one of those highly-strung women +whose nerve power is at its best quite late at night. As it was, Lady +Charlton had to dress for dinner and sit as upright as usual through the +meal, and to talk a little before the servants. Rose appeared the more +dazed of the two then, though her mind had been quite clear before. +There was nothing said as soon as they were alone, but, as if with one +accord, both glanced at each of the many letters brought by the last +post, and, if it were one of condolence, laid it aside unread. The +butler had placed on a small table two evening papers, which had notices +of the memorial service for Sir David Bright, and one had some lines "In +Memoriam" from a poet of considerable repute. Rose, finding the papers +at her elbow, got up and changed her chair. It was not till they had +gone up to their rooms and parted that Lady Charlton felt speech to be +possible. She wrapped her purple dressing-gown round her and went into +Rose's room. She found her sitting in a low chair by the fire leaning +forward, her elbows pressed on her knees, her face buried in her hands. +Then, very quietly and impersonally, they discussed the situation. With +a rare self-command the mother never used one expression of reprobation; +if she had done so, Rose could not have spoken again. It seemed more and +more, as they spoke in the two gentle voices, so much alike in tone and +accent, in a half pathetic, half musical intonation; it seemed as they +sat so quietly without tears, almost without gestures, as if they +discussed the story of another woman and another man. There were some +differences in their views, and the mother's was ever the hardest on the +dead man. For instance, Rose believed through all that another will +existed, although she was convinced that she should never see it. Her +mother's judgment coincided with the lawyer's; the soldier would have +made the change, if it were made at all, before starting for the war. +No, the whole thing had been too recently gone into; it was so short a +time since the codicil had been added. Of that codicil, too, Lady +Charlton's view was quite clear. She thought the object of adding it had +been to save appearances. "As long as you live in this house, furnished +as well as possible, people will forget the wording of the will, or they +will think that money was given to you in his lifetime to escape the +death duties." + +Like many idealists and even mystics, both mother and daughter took +sensible views on money matters. They did not undervalue the fortune +that had gone; they were both honestly sorry it had gone, and would have +taken any reasonable means to get it back again. Only Rose allowed that +possibly there might have been some claim in justice on the woman's +part; she could not frame her lips to use the words again. Without +"legal wife" or any such terms passing between them, they were really +arguing the point. Lady Charlton had not the faintest shadow of a doubt +"the woman was a wicked woman, and the wicked woman, as wicked women do, +had entrapped a" (the adjective was conspicuous by its absence) "a man." +Such a woman was to be forgiven, even--a bitter sigh could not be +suppressed--to be prayed for; but it was not necessary to try to take a +falsely charitable view of her, or invent unlikely circumstances in her +defence. It was a relief to the darkest of all dark thoughts in Rose's +mind, the doubt of the validity of her own marriage, to hear her mother +settling this question as she had settled so many questions years ago, +by the weight of personal authority. + +At last the clock on the stairs below told them that it was two in the +morning, and Lady Charlton had to leave London by an early train. She +was torn between the claim of her youngest married daughter, who was +laid up in a lonely country house in Scotland, and that of Rose in this +new and miserable trouble. + +"I could telegraph to Bertha that I can't come," she said suddenly. +"But I am afraid she would miss me." + +"No, no," murmured Rose firmly, "Bertha needs you most now; you must +go," and then, fearing her mother might think she did not want her +quite, quite enough, "I shall look forward to your coming back soon, +very soon." + +"Could you--could you come and sleep in my room, Rose?" They were +standing up by the fireplace now. + +"If you like mother, only it will be worse for me to-morrow night." They +both looked away from the fire round the room--the room that had been +hers since the first days after the honeymoon. + +Then at the same moment Lady Charlton opened her arms and Rose drew +within them, and leant her fair head on her mother's shoulder. So they +stood for a few moments in absolute stillness. + +"God bless you, my child," and Rose was left, as she wished, alone. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"AS YOU HOPE TO BE FORGIVEN" + + +Two months passed, and at last the War Office received a parcel for Lady +Rose Bright. It had been sent to headquarters by the next officer in +command under Sir David, who had met his own fate a few weeks later. +Rose received the parcel at tea-time, brought to her by a mounted +messenger from the War Office. + +A great calm had settled in Rose's soul during these weeks. She had met +her trouble alone and standing. At first, all had been utter darkness +and bitter questioning. Then the questioning had ceased. Even the wish +to have things clear to her mind and to know why she should have this +particular trial was silenced, and in the completeness of submission she +had come back to life and to peace. Nothing was solved, nothing made +clear, but she was again in the daylight. But when she received the +little parcel in its thick envelope she trembled excessively. It was +addressed in a handwriting she had never seen before. She could not for +some moments force herself to open it. When she did she drew out a faded +photograph, a diamond ring, and a sheet of paper with writing in ink. +The photograph was of Sir David as quite a young man--she had never seen +it before; the ring had one very fine diamond, and that she had never +seen before. On the paper was written in his own hand.-- + +"This will be brought to you if I die in battle. Forgive me, as you too +hope to be forgiven. Justice had to be done. I have tried to make it as +little painful as I could." + +That was all. There was nothing else in the envelope. She took up the +photograph, she took up the ring, and examined them in turn. It was so +strange, this very remarkable diamond, which she had never seen before, +sent to her as if it were a matter of course. He had never worn much +jewellery, and he had left in her care the few seals and rings he +possessed. Then the photograph of her husband as a young man, so much +younger than when she had known him. Why send it to her now? What had +she to do with this remote past? But the paper was the most astonishing +of all. She had been standing when she undid the things; she left the +ring and the photograph on the table, and she sank into a chair near the +fire holding the bit of paper. The tone of it astonished and confused +her. It was more the stern moralist asking to be forgiven for doing +right than the guilty husband asking for mercy in her thoughts of him. + +"Yes," thought Rose at length, "that is because she was his wife, and +when he came to face death it was the great wrong of infidelity to her +that haunted him. I must have seemed almost a partner in the wrong." + +Again the confused sense of guilt seized her, the horrible possibility +of having been a wife only in name. She did not weigh the matter calmly +enough to feel quite as distinctly as she ought to have done that she +could not be touched or denied in the faintest degree by a sin that was +not her sin. Still she raised her head as she could not have done some +weeks before; for the most acute phase of her trial had been faced and +had been passed. Now in her moments of most bitter pain in the very +depths of her soul was peace. As she became calmer she tried again to +connect together those three parts of the message from the battle-field, +the ring, the photograph, and the letter; but she could not do so. At +last she put them away in the drawer of her bureau, and then wrote to +tell her mother and the lawyer that Sir David had sent her a photograph, +a ring, and a few private lines--that was all. There was no will. + +Still everything had not been brought back. There had been portmanteaux +sent down to Capetown, and there might yet be discovered a small +despatch box, or a writing case, something or other that might hold a +will. But the limit of time was reached at last; the portmanteaux and a +despatch box were recovered, but they held no will. + +The solicitor delayed to the last possible moment, and then the will was +proved. It was published in the papers at a moment when a lull in the +war gave leisure for private gossip, and the gossip accordingly raged +hotly. All the sweetness, gentleness, and kindness that made Rose +deservedly popular did not prevent there being two currents of opinion. +There are wits so active that they cannot share the views of all +right-minded people. While the majority sympathised deeply with Rose, +there were a few who insinuated that she must be to some degree to blame +for what had happened. + +"Well, don't you know, I never could understand why she married a man so +much older than herself. Of course she had not a penny and he was +awfully rich, and people don't look too close into a man's character in +such cases. It is rather convenient for some women to be very innocent." + +Sir Edmund Grosse, to whom the remark was addressed at a small country +house party, turned his back for a moment on the speaker in order to +pick up a paper, and then said in a low, indifferent voice: "David +Bright came into his cousin's fortune unexpectedly a year after he +married Lady Rose." + +The subject was dropped that time, but he met it again in somewhat the +same terms in London. There seemed a sort of vague impression that Lady +Rose had married for the sake of the wealth she had lost. Also at his +club there was talk he did not like, not against Rose indeed, but +dwelling on the other side of the story, and he hated to hear Rose's +name connected with it. People forgot his relationship, and after all he +was only a second cousin. + +Edmund Grosse was at this time just over forty. He was a tall, loosely +built man, with rather a colourless face, with an expression negative in +repose, and faintly humorous when speaking. He was rich and supposed to +be lazy; he knew his world and had lived it in and for it +systematically. Some one had said that he took all the frivolous things +of life seriously and all the serious things frivolously. He could +advise on the choice of a hotel or a motor-car with intense earnestness, +and he had healed more than one matrimonial breach that threatened to +become tragic by appealing to the sense of humour in both parties. He +never took for granted that anybody was very good or very bad. The best +women possible liked him, and looked sorry and incredulous when they +were informed by his enemies that he had no morals. He had never told +any one that he was sad and bored. Nor had he ever thought it worth +while to mention that he had indifferent health and knew what it was to +suffer pain. If such personal points were ever approached by his friends +they found that he did not dwell upon them. He had the air of not being +much interested in himself. + +For a long time he had felt no acute sensations of any kind; he had +believed them to belong to youth and that was past. But that matter of +David Bright's will had stirred him to the very depths. He spent +solitary hours in cursing the departed hero, and people found him +tiresome and taciturn in company. + +At last he determined to meddle in Rose's concerns, and he went to see +Mr. Murray, Junior, at his office. There ensued some pretty plain +speaking as to the late hero between the two men. Edmund Grosse half +drawled out far the worst comments of the two; he liked the lawyer and +let himself speak freely. And although the visit was apparently wholly +unproductive of other results, it was a decided relief to his feelings. +Then he heard that Rose had come back to London, and he went to see her. +It was about nine months since she had become a widow. She was alone in +the big beautifully furnished drawing-room, which was just as of old. +Except that a neat maid had opened the door, instead of a butler, he saw +no change. + +Rose looked a little nervous for a moment, and then frankly pleased to +see him. Edmund always had a talent for seeming to be as natural in any +house as if he were the husband or the brother or part of the furniture. +Somehow, as Rose gave him tea and they settled into a chat, she felt as +if he had been there very often lately, whereas in fact she had not seen +him since David died, except at the memorial service. He began to tell +her what visits he had paid, whom he had seen, the little gossip he +expressed so well in his gentle, sleepy voice; and then he drew her on +as to her own interests, her charities, her work for the soldiers' +wives. He said nothing more that day, but he dropped in again soon, and +then again. + +At last one evening he observed quite quietly, in a pause in their talk: +"So you live here on £800 a year?" + +Rose did not feel annoyed, though she did not know why she was not +angry. + +"Yes, I can manage," she said simply. + +"You can't tell yet; it's too soon." He got up out of his low chair near +the fireplace, now filled with plants, and stood with his back against +the chimney. "You know it's absurd," he said. Rose moved uneasily and +was silent. + +"It's absurd," he repeated, "there's another will somewhere. David would +never have done that." He struck that note at the start, and cursed +David all the deeper in the depths of his diplomatic soul. Rose looked +at him gratefully, kindly. + +"I think there is another will somewhere," she said, "but I am sure it +will never be found. It's no use to think or talk of it, Edmund." + +He fidgeted for a moment with the china on the chimney-piece. + +"For 'auld lang syne,' Rose," he said in a very low voice, "and because +you might possibly, just possibly, have made something of me if you had +chosen, let me know a little more about it. I want to see what was in +his last letter." + +Rose flushed deeply. It was difficult to say why she yielded except that +most people did yield to Grosse if he got them alone. She drew off the +third finger of her left hand a very remarkable diamond ring and gave it +to him. Then she took out of a drawer a faded photograph of a young, +commonplace, open-faced officer, now framed in an exquisite stamped +leather case, and handed that to him also. He saw that she hesitated. + +"May I have the rest," he said very gently. Even her mother had never +seen the piece of paper. No, she could not show that. Edmund did not +insist further, and a moment later he seemed to have forgotten that she +had not given him what he asked for. + +"Did he often wear this ring?" + +"Never. I never saw it till now, and I had never seen the photograph." + +"It was taken in India," he commented, "and the ring has a date twenty +years ago." + +"I never noticed that," said Rose. She was feeling half consciously +soothed and relieved as a child might feel comforted who had found a +companion in a room that was haunted. + +"Things from such a remote past," he murmured abstractedly. "Did he +explain in writing why he sent those things?" + +"No, he said nothing about them, he only----" she paused. Edmund did not +move, and in a few moments she gave him the paper. He ground his teeth +as he read it, he grew white about the lips, but he said nothing. He was +horribly disappointed--the scoundrel asked for forgiveness. Then he had +not made another will. Edmund did not look round at Rose, but she was +acutely present to his consciousness--the woman's beauty, the child's +innocence, the suffering and the strength in her face. "As you would be +forgiven!" That was a further insult, it seemed to him. To talk of Rose +wanting forgiveness. Then a strange kind of sarcasm took hold of him. So +it was; she had not been able to believe in himself; he, Edmund, had not +been ideal in any sense. Therefore she had passed him by, and then a +hero had come whom she had worshipped, and this was the end of it. Every +word in the paper burnt into him. "Justice"--how dared he? "Made it as +little painful as he could"--it was insufferable, and the coward was +beyond reach, had taken refuge whither human vengeance could not follow +him. + +He succeeded in leaving Rose's house without betraying his feelings, but +he felt that no good had come of this attempt, so far at any rate. That +night he slept badly, which he did pretty often, but he experienced an +unusual sensation on waking. He felt as if he had been working hard and +in vain all night at a problem, and he suddenly said to himself, "The +ring, the photograph, and the paper were of course meant for the other +woman, and she has got whatever was meant for Rose. Now if the thing +that was meant for Rose was the will, Madame Danterre has got it now +unless she has had the nerve to destroy it." He felt as if he had been +an ass till this moment. Then he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, who +listened with profound attention until he had finished what he had to +tell him. + +"Lady Rose has allowed you to see the paper, then?" he said at last. +"She has not even shown it to Lady Charlton. He asked her pardon," he +mused, half to himself, "and said justice must be done. I am afraid, Sir +Edmund, that that points in the same direction as our worst fears--that +Madame Danterre was his wife." + +"But he would not have written such a letter as that to Rose; it is +impossible. 'Forgive as you too hope to be forgiven.' That sentence in +connection with Lady Rose is positively grotesque, whereas it would be +most fitting when addressed elsewhere." + +Mr. Murray could not see the case in the same light as Edmund. He +allowed the possibility of the scrap of paper and the ring having been +sent to Rose by mistake, but he was not inclined to indulge in what +seemed to him to be guesswork as to what conceivably had been intended +to be sent to her in place of them. + +"There is, too," he argued, "a quite possible interpretation of the +words of that scrap of paper. It is possible that he was full of remorse +for his treatment of Madame Danterre. Sometimes a man is haunted by +wrong-doing in the past until it prevents his understanding the point of +view of anybody but the victim of the old haunting sin. Remorse is very +exclusive, Sir Edmund. In such a state of mind he would hardly think of +Lady Rose enough to realise the bearing of his words. 'Forgive as you +too hope to be forgiven' would be an appeal wrung out from him by sheer +suffering. It is a possible cry from any human being to another. Then as +to the ring and the photograph, we have no proof that he put them in the +envelope. They may have been found on him and put into the envelope by +the same hand that addressed it. I quite grant you that those few words +are extraordinary, but they can be explained. But even if it were +obvious that they were intended for somebody else, you cannot deduce +from that, that another letter, intended for Lady Rose and containing a +will, was sent elsewhere." + +But Sir Edmund was obstinate. The piece of paper had been intended for +Madame Danterre, together with the ring and the photograph--things +belonging to Sir David's early life, to the days when he most probably +loved this other woman; he even went so far as to maintain that the lady +in Florence had given Sir David the ring. + +"After all," said Mr. Murray, "what can you do? You could only raise +hopes that won't be fulfilled." + +"I think myself that my explanation would calm my cousin's mind; the +possibility that she was not Sir David's wife is, I am convinced, the +most painful part of the trial to her. I shall write it to her, but I +shall also tell her that there is no hope whatever of proving what I +believe to be the truth." + +"None at all; do impress that upon her, Sir Edmund. We have nothing to +begin upon. The officer who sent the paper to headquarters is dead; Sir +David's own servant is dead; Sir David's will in favour of Madame +Danterre has been published without even a protest." + +"Lady Rose will not be inclined to raise the question." + +"No, I believe that is true," said the lawyer; "Lady Rose Bright is a +wise woman." + +But Mr. Murray was annoyed to find that Edmund Grosse was far less wise, +and that whatever he might promise to say to Rose he would not really be +content to leave things alone. He intended to go to Florence and to get +into touch with Madame Danterre. Such interference could do no good, and +it might do harm. + +"I won't alarm her," said Edmund, "believe me, she will have no reason +to suppose that I am in Florence on her account. I am, in any case, +going to the Italian lakes this autumn, and I have often been offered +the loan of a flat overlooking the Arno. If the offer is still open I +shall accept it. I have long wished to know that fascinating town a +little better." + +When Rose received the letter from Edmund it had the effect he had +expected. It was simply calming, not exciting. Rose was even more +anxious than the lawyer that nothing should be attempted in order to +follow up her cousin's suggestion. But she could now let her imagination +be comforted by Edmund's solution of the mystery, and let her fancy rest +in the thought of a very different letter intended for herself. The +words on that scrap of paper no longer burnt with such agony into her +soul, and she no longer felt it a dreadful duty to wear the ring with +its glorious stone so full of light, an object that was to her intensely +repugnant. She would put it away, and with it all dark and morbid +thoughts. She had a life to lead, thoughts to think, actions to do, and +all that was in her own control must escape from the shadow of the past +into a working daylight. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE + + +Edmund Grosse's friend was delighted to put the flat in the Palazzo at +his disposal. The weather was unusually warm for the autumn when Edmund +arrived in Florence. He was glad to get there, and glad to get away from +the gay group he had left in a beautiful villa on Lake Como; and +probably they were glad to see him go. + +Edmund had indeed only stayed with them long enough to leave a very +marked impression of low spirits and irritation. "What's come to +Grosse?" was asked by more than one guest of the hostess. + +"I don't know, but he really is impossible. It's partly because of +Billy--but I won't condescend to explain that Billy proposed himself and +I could not well refuse." + +Billy is the only one of this gay, quarrelsome little group that need be +named here. It was really partly on his account that Edmund so quickly +left them to their gossip alternating with happy phrases of joy in the +beauty of mountains and lakes, and to their quarrels alternating with +moments of love-making, so avowedly brief that only an artist could +believe in its exquisite enjoyment. Neither Edmund nor Billy were +really _habitués_ of this Bohemian circle. They both belonged to a more +conventional social atmosphere; they were at once above and below the +rest of the party. The cause of antipathy to Billy on Sir Edmund's part +was a certain likeness in their lives--contrasting with a most marked +dissimilarity of character. + +Sir Edmund could not say that Billy was a fool or a snob, because Billy +did nothing but lead a perfectly useless life as expensively as +possible; and he did the same himself. He could not even say that Billy +lived among fools and snobs, because many of Billy's friends were his +own friends too. He could not say that Billy had been a coward because +he had not volunteered to fight in the Boer war, because Sir Edmund had +not volunteered himself. He could not say that Billy employed the wrong +tailor; it would show only gross ignorance or temper to say so. But just +the things in which he felt himself superior, utterly different in fact +from Billy, were the stupid, priggish things that no one boasts of. He +read a good deal; he thought a good deal; he knew he might have had a +future, and the bitterness of his heart lay in the fact that at fifteen +years later in life than Billy he was still so completely a slave to all +that Billy loved. Every detail of their lives seemed to add to the +irritation. It was only the day he left London that he had discovered +that Billy's new motor was from the same maker as his own; in fact, +except in colour, the motors were twins. This was the latest, and not +even the least, cause of annoyance. For it betrayed what he was always +trying to conceal from himself, that there appeared to be an actual +rivalry between him and Billy, a petty, social, silly rivalry. Billy, of +simpler make, a fresher, younger, more contented animal, thought little +of all this, and was irritated by Sir Edmund's assumption of +superiority. + +But he had never found Grosse so bearish and difficult before this visit +to Como. As a rule Edmund was suavity itself, but this time even his +gift of gently, almost imperceptibly, making every woman feel him to be +her admirer was failing. How often he had been the life of any party in +any class of society, and that not by starting amusements, not by any +power of initiation, but by a gift for making others feel pleased, first +with themselves, and consequently with life. He could bring the gift to +good use on a royal yacht, at a Bohemian supper party, at a schoolroom +tea, or at a parish mothers' meeting. But now--and he owned that his +liver was out of order--he was suffering from a general disgust with +things. When still a young man in the Foreign Office he had succeeded to +a large fortune, and it had seemed then thoroughly worth while to employ +it for social ends and social joys. Long ago he had attained those ends, +and long ago he had become bored with those joys; and yet he could not +shake himself free from any of the habits of body or mind he had got +into during those years. He could not be indifferent to any shades of +failure or success. He watched the temperature of his popularity as +acutely as many men watch their bodily symptoms. Even during those days +at Como, though despising his company, he knew that he felt a distinct +irritation in a preference for Billy on the part of a lady whom he had +at one time honoured with his notice. In arriving where he was in the +English social world, he had increased, not only the need for luxury of +body, but the sensitiveness and acuteness of certain perceptions as to +his fellow creatures, and these perceptions were not likely to slumber +again. + +Edmund was oppressed by several unpleasant thoughts as well as by the +heat of the night on which he arrived in Florence. He decided to sleep +out in the wide brick _loggia_ of the flat, which was nearly at the top +of the great building. There was nothing to distract his gloomy thoughts +from himself, not even a defect in the dinner or in the broad couch of a +bed from which he could look up between the brick pillars of the +_loggia_ at the naked stars. If he had been younger he would, in his +sleepless hours, have owned to himself that he was suffering from "what +men call love," but he could not believe easily that Edmund Grosse at +forty was as silly as any boy of twenty. He pished and pshawed at the +absurdity. He could not accept anything so simple and goody as his own +story. That ever since Rose married he had put her out of his thought +from very love and reverence for her seemed an absurd thing to say of a +man of his record. Yet it was true; and all the more in consequence did +the thought of Rose as a free woman derange his whole inner life now, +while the thought of Rose insulted by the dead hand of the man she had +married was gall and wormwood. What must Rose think of men? She had been +so anxious to find a great and good man; and she had found David Bright, +whose mistress was now enjoying his great wealth somewhere below in the +old Tuscan capital. And how could Edmund venture to be the next man +offered to her?--Edmund who had done nothing all these years, who had +sunk with the opportunity of wealth; whose talents had been lost or +misused. He seemed to see Rose kneeling at her prayers--the golden head +bowed, the girlish figure bent. He could think of nothing in himself to +distract her back to earth, poor beautiful child! Yet he had not nursed +or petted or even welcomed the old passion of his boyhood. He wanted to +be without it and its discomforting reproaches. It was too late to +change anything or anybody. At forty how could he have a career, and +what good would come of it? Yet his love for Rose was insistent on the +necessity of making Rose's lover into a different man from the present +Edmund Grosse. It was absurd and medieval to suppose that if he did some +great or even moderately great work he could win her by doing it. It +might be absurd, yet contrariwise he felt convinced that she would never +take him as he was now. + +So he wearied as he turned on the couch that became less and less +comfortable, till he rose and, with a rug thrown over him, leant on the +brick balustrade of the _loggia_. He stood looking at the stars in the +dimness, not wholly unlike the figure of some old Roman noble in his +toga, nor perhaps wholly unlike the figure of the unconverted Augustine, +weary of himself and of all things. + +But this remark only shows how the stars and the deep blue openings into +the heavens, and the manifold suggestions of the towers of Dante's city, +and the neighbourhood of Savonarola's cell, affect the imagination and +call up comparisons by far too mighty. Edmund Grosse's weariness of evil +is nothing but a sickly shadow of the weariness of the great imprisoned +soul to whom an angel cried to take up and read aright the book of life. +Grosse is in fact only a middle-aged man in pajamas with a travelling +rug about his shoulders, with a sallow face, a sickly body, and a rather +shallow soul. He will not go quite straight even in his love quest, and +he cannot bring himself to believe how strongly that love has hold of +him. He is cynical about the best part of himself and to-night only +wishes that it would trouble him less. + +"Damn it," he muttered at last, "I wish I had slept indoors--I am bored +to death by those stars!" + +Next day Grosse set about the work for which he had come to Florence. He +called on two men whom he knew slightly, and found them at home, but +neither of them had ever heard of Madame Danterre. Dawkins, his +much-travelled servant, of course, was more successful, and by the +evening was able to take Edmund in a carriage to see some fine old iron +gates, and to drive round some enormous brick walls--enormous in height +and in thickness. + +The Villa was in a magnificent position, and the gardens, Dawkins told +his master, were said to be beautiful. Madame Danterre had only just +moved into it from a much smaller house in the same quarter. + +Edmund next drove to the nearest chemist, and there found out that Dr. +Larrone was the name of Madame Danterre's medical man. He already knew +the name of her lawyer from Mr. Murray, who had been in perfunctory +communication with him during the years in which Sir David had paid a +large allowance to Madame Danterre. But he knew that any direct attempt +to see these men would probably be worse than useless. What he wished to +do was to come across Madame Danterre socially, and with all the +appearance of an accidental meeting. His two friends in Florence did +their best for him, but they were before long driven to recommend +Pietrino, a well-known detective, as the only person who could find out +for Grosse in what houses it might be possible to meet Madame Danterre. + +Grosse soon recognised the remarkable gifts of the Italian detective, +and confided to him the whole case in all its apparent hopelessness. +There was, indeed, a touch of kindred feeling between them, for both men +had a certain pleasure in dealing with human beings--humanity was the +material they loved to work upon. The detective was too wise to let his +zeal for the wealthy Englishman outrun discretion. He did very little in +the case, and brought back a distinct opinion that Grosse could, at +present, do nothing but mischief by interference. Madame Danterre had +always lived a very retired life, and was either a real invalid or a +valetudinarian. Her great, her enormous accession of wealth had only +been used apparently in the sacred cause of bodily health. She saw at +most six people, including two doctors and her lawyer; and on rare +occasions, some elderly man visiting Florence--a Frenchman maybe, or an +Englishman--would seek her out. She never paid any visits, although she +kept a splendid stable and took long drives almost daily. The detective +was depressed, for he had really been fired by Grosse's view as to the +will, and he had come to so favourable an opinion of Grosse's ability +that he had wished greatly for an interview between the latter and +Madame Danterre to come off. + +Edmund was loth to leave Florence until one evening when he despaired, +for the first time, of doing any good. It was the evening on which he +succeeded in seeing Madame Danterre without the knowledge of that lady. +The garden of the villa into which he so much wished to penetrate was +walled about with those amazing masses of brickwork which point to a +date when labour was cheap indeed. Edmund had more than once dawdled +under the deep shadow of these shapeless masses of wall at the hour of +the general siesta. + +He felt more alert while most of the world was asleep, and he could +study the defences of Madame Danterre undisturbed. A lost joy of boyhood +was in his heart when he discovered a corner where the brickwork was +partly crumbled away, and partly, evidently, broken by use. It looked as +if a tiny loophole in the wall some fifteen feet from the ground had +been used as an entrance to the forbidden garden by some small human +body. That evening, an hour before sunset, he came back and looked +longingly at the wall. The narrow road was as empty as it had been +earlier in the day. Twice he tried in vain to climb as far as the +loophole, but the third time, with trousers ruined and one hand +bleeding, he succeeded in crawling on to the ledge below the opening so +that he could look inside. He almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of +his own pleasure in doing so. Some rich, heavy scent met him as he +looked down, but, fresh from the gardens of Como, this garden looked to +him both heavy and desolate--heavy in its great hedges broken by +statuary in alcoves cut in the green, and desolate in its burnt turf and +its trailing rose trees loaded with dead roses. His first glance had +been downwards, then his look went further afield, and he knew why +Madame Danterre had chosen the villa, for the view of Florence was +superb. He had not enjoyed it for half a moment when he heard a slight +noise in the garden. Yes, down the alley opposite to him there were +approaching a lady and two men servants. He held his breath with +surprise. Was this Madame Danterre? the rival of Rose, the real love of +David Bright? What he saw was an incredibly wizened old woman who yet +held herself with considerable grace and walked with quick, long steps +on the burnt grass a little ahead of the attendants, one of whom carried +a deck chair, while the other was laden with cushions and books. It was +evident to the onlooker at the installation of Madame Danterre in the +shady, open space where three alleys met, that everything to do with her +person was carried out with the care and reverence befitting a religious +ceremony; and there was almost a ludicrous degree of pride in her +bearing and gestures. Edmund felt how amazingly some women have the +power of making others accept them as a higher product of creation, +until their most minute bodily wants seem to themselves and those about +them to have a sacred importance. At last, when chair and mat and +cushions and books had been carefully adjusted after much consideration, +she was left alone. + +For a few moments she read a paper-covered volume, and Edmund determined +to creep away at once, when she suddenly got up and began walking again +with long, quick steps, her train sweeping the grass as she came towards +the great wall; and he drew back a little, although it was almost +impossible that she should see him. Her gown, of a dark dove colour, +floated softly; it had much lace about the throat on which shone a +string of enormous pearls; and she wore long, grey gloves. Edmund, who +was an authority on the subject, thought her exquisitely dressed, as a +woman who feels herself of great importance will dress even when there +is no one to see her. In the midst of the extraordinarily wizened face +were great dark eyes full of expression, with a fierce brightness in +them. It was as if an internal fire were burning up the dried and +wizened features, and could only find an outlet through the eyes. +Rapidly she had passed up and down, and sometimes as she came nearer the +wall Edmund saw her flash angry glances, and sometimes sarcastic +glances, while her lips moved rapidly, and her very small gloved hand +clenched and unclenched. + +At last a noise in the deserted road behind him, the growing rumbling of +a cart, made him think it safer to move, even at the risk of a little +sound in doing so. He reached the ground safely before he could be seen, +and proceeded to brush the brick-dust off the torn knees of his grey +trousers. + +He walked down the hill into the town with an air of finality, for he +had determined to go back to England. He could not have analysed his +impressions; he could not have accounted for his sense of impotence and +defeat, but so it was. He had come across the personality of Madame +Danterre, and he thereupon left her in possession of the field. But at +the same time, before leaving Florence, he gave largely of the sinews of +war to that able spy, the Italian detective, Pietrino. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"YOUR MOTHER'S DAUGHTER" + + +The surprising disposal of Sir David Bright's fortune was to have very +important consequences in a quiet household among the Malcot hills, of +the existence of which Sir Edmund Grosse and Lady Rose Bright were +entirely unaware. + +In a small wind-swept wood that appeared to be seeking shelter in the +hollow under the great massive curve of a green hill, there stood one of +those English country houses that must have been planned, built, and +finished with the sole object of obtaining coolness and shade. The +principal living rooms looked north, and the staircase and a minute +study were the only spots that ever received any direct rays of the sun. +All the rooms except this favoured little study had windows opening to +the ground, and immediately outside grew the rich mossy turf that +indicates a clay soil. The mistress of the house was not easily daunted +by her surroundings, and she had impressed her cheerful, comfortable, +and fairly cultured mind on all the rooms. Mrs. Carteret was the widow +of a Colonel Carteret, who had retired from the army to farm his own +acres, and take his place in local politics. It is needless to say that, +while the politics had gained from the help of an upright and +chivalrous, if narrow, mind, the acres had profited little from his +attentions. When he died he left all he possessed absolutely to his +widow, who was not prepared to find how very little that all had become. +Mrs. Carteret took up the burden of the acres, dairy, gardens, and +stable, with a sense of sanctified duty none the less heroic in +sensation because she was doing all these things for her own profit. Her +neighbours held her in proportionate respect; and, as she had a fine +person, pleasant manners, and good connections, she kept, without the +aid of wealth, a comfortable corner in the society of the county. + +It was not long after Colonel Carteret's death, and some thirteen years +before the death of Sir David Bright, that the immediate neighbourhood +became gradually conscious of the fact that Mrs. Carteret had adopted a +little niece, the child of a soldier brother who had died in India. This +child, from the first, made as little effect on her surroundings as it +was possible for a child to do. Molly Dexter was small, thin, and +sallow; her dark hair did not curl; and her grey eyes had a curious look +that is not common, yet not very rare, in childhood. It is the look of +one who waits for other circumstances and other people than those now +present. I know nothing so discouraging in a child friend--or rather in +a child acquaintance, for friendship is warned off by such eyes--as this +particular look. Mrs. Carteret took her niece cheerfully in hand, +commended the quiet of her ways, and gave credit to herself and open +windows for a perceptible increase in the covering of flesh on the +little bones, and a certain promise of firmness in the calves of the +small legs. As to the rest: "Of course it was difficult at first," she +said, "but now Molly is perfectly at home with me. Nurses never do +understand children, and Mary used to excite her until she had fits of +passion. But that is all past. She is quite a healthy and normal child +now." + +Molly was growing healthy, but whether she was normal or not is another +point. It does not tend to make a child normal to change everything in +life at the age of seven. Not one person, hardly one thing was the same +to Molly since her father's death. The language of her _ayah_ had until +then been more familiar to her than any other language. The ayah's +thoughts had been her thoughts. The East had had in charge the first +years of Molly's dawning intelligence, and there seemed impressed, even +on her tiny figure, something that told of patience, scorn, and reserve. +And yet Mrs. Carteret was quite satisfied. + +Once, indeed, the widow was puzzled. Molly had strayed away by herself, +and could not be found for nearly two hours. Provided with two figs and +several bits of biscuit, a half-crown and a shilling, she had started to +walk through the deep, heavy lanes between the great hills, with the +firm intention of taking ship to France. Mrs. Carteret treated the +escapade kindly and firmly; not making too much of it, but giving such +sufficient punishment as to prevent anything so silly happening again. +But she had no suspicion of what really had happened. Molly had, in +fact, started with the intention of finding her mother. It was two years +since she had come to live with Mrs. Carteret, and, if the child had +spoken her secret thought, she would have told you that throughout those +two years she had been meaning to run away and find her mother. In that +she would have fallen into an exaggeration not uncommon with some +grown-up people. It had been only at moments far apart, or occasionally +for quite a succession of nights in bed, that she had spent a brief +space before falling asleep in dreaming of going to seek her mother. But +whole months had passed without any such thought; and during these long +interludes the healthy country scenes about her, and the common causes +for smiles and tears in a child's life, filled her consciousness. Still, +the undercurrent of the deeper life was there, and very small incidents +were strong enough to bring it to the surface. Molly had short daily +lessons from the clergyman's daughter, a young lady who also took a +cheerful, airy view of the child, and said she would grow out of her +little faults in time. In one of these lessons Molly learnt with +surprising eagerness how to find France for herself on the map. That +France was much nearer to England than to India, and how it was usual to +cross the Channel were facts easily acquired. Molly was amazingly +backward in her lessons, or she must have learnt these things before. +When lessons were over and she went out into the garden, instead of +running as usual she walked so slowly that Mrs. Carteret, while talking +to the gardener, actually wondered what was in that child's mind. Molly +was living through again the parting with the ayah. She could feel the +intensely familiar touch of the soft, dark hand; she could see the +adoring love of the dark eyes with their passionate anger at the +separation. The woman had to be revenged on her enemies who were tearing +the child from her. "They deceive you," she said. "The beautiful mother +is not dead; she lives in France, not England; they will try to keep you +from her, but the faithful child will find a way." + +Molly unconsciously in her own mind had already begun to put these +words into English, whereas a year before she would have kept to the +ayah's own language. But in either language those words came to her as +the last message from that other life of warmth and love and colour in +which she had once been a queen. Indeed, every English child brought +home from India is a sovereign dethroned. And the repetition of the +ayah's last words gave utterance to a sense of wrong that Molly +nourished against her present rulers and against the world in which she +was not understood. + +That same day Mrs. Carteret spoke sharply and with indignation because +Molly had trodden purely by accident on the pug; and her aunt said that +the one thing with which she had no patience was cruelty to +animals--whereas the child was passionately fond of animals. Again, on +that same day, Molly fell into a very particularly dirty little pond +near the cowshed at the farm. Mary, the nurse, no doubt was the +sufferer, and she said that she did not suppose that black nurses minded +being covered with muck--how should they?--and she supposed she must be +treated as if she were a negro herself, but time would show whether she +were a black slave or an Englishwoman with a house of her own which she +could have now if she liked for the asking. While Mary spoke she pushed +and pulled, and, in general treated Molly's small person as something +unpleasant, and to be kept at a distance. Once clean and dressed again, +Molly sat down quite quietly to consider the ways and means of getting +to France, with the result already told. + +Several years passed after that, in which Mrs. Carteret did by Molly, as +by every one else, all the duties that were quite obviously evident to +her, and did not go about seeking for any fanciful ones. And Molly grew +up, sometimes happy, and sometimes not, saying sometimes the things she +really meant when she was in a temper, and acquiescing in Mrs. +Carteret's explanation that she had not meant them when she had regained +her self-control. + +Until Molly was between fifteen and sixteen, Mrs. Carteret was able to +keep to her optimism as to their mutual relations. + +"The child is, of course, very backward. I tried to think it was want of +education, but I've come to see it's of no use to expect to make Molly +an interesting or agreeable woman; and very plain, of course, she must +be. But, you know, plenty of plain, uninteresting women have very fairly +happy lives, and under the circumstances"--but there Mrs. Carteret +stopped, and her guest, the wife of the vicar, knew no more of the +circumstances than did the world at large. + +But when Molly was about the age of fifteen she began to display more +troublesome qualities, and a certain faculty for doing quite the wrong +thing under a perverse appearance of attempting good works. There is +nothing annoys a woman of Mrs. Carteret's stamp so much as good done in +the wrong way. She had known for so many years exactly how to do good to +the labourer, his family, and his widow, or to the vagrant passing by. +It was really very tiresome to find that Molly, while walking in one of +the lanes, had slipped off a new flannel petticoat in order to wrap up a +gypsy's baby. And it might be allowed to be trying that when believing +an old man of rather doubtful antecedents to be dying from exhaustion, +Molly had herself sought whisky from the nearest inn. She had bought a +whole bottle of whisky, though indeed, being seized with qualms, she had +poured half the contents of the bottle into a ditch before going back to +the cottage. And it was undoubtedly Mrs. Carteret's duty to protest when +she found that Molly had held a baby with diphtheria folded closely in +her arms while the mother fetched the doctor. + +Can any one blame Mrs. Carteret for finding these doings a little +trying? And it showed how freakish and contradictory Molly was in all +her ways that she would never join nicely in school feasts, or harvest +homes, or anything pleasant or cheerful. Nor did she make friends even +with those she had worried over in times of sickness. She would risk +some serious infection, or meddle, with her odd notions, day after day +in a cottage; and then she would hardly nod to the convalescent boy or +girl when she met them again in the lanes. + +There was no one to tell her aunt what new, strange instincts and +aspirations were struggling to the light in Molly. A passionate pity for +pain would seize on her and hold her in a grip until she had done some +definite act to relieve it. But pity was either not akin to love in +Molly, or her affections had been too starved to take root after the +immediate impulse of mercy was passed. The girl was not popular in the +village, although, unlike Mrs. Carteret, her poorer neighbours had a +great idea of Molly's cleverness. Needless to say that when, after some +unmeasured effort at relieving suffering, Molly would come home with a +sense of joy she rarely knew after any other act, it hurt her to the +quick and roused her deepest anger to find herself treated like a +naughty, inconsiderate child. The storms between Mrs. Carteret and +Molly were increasing in number and intensity, with outspoken wrath on +one side, and a white heat of dumb, indignant resistance on the other. +Then, happily, there came a change. Molly's education had been of the +very slightest until she was nearly sixteen, when Mrs. Carteret told her +to expect the arrival of a finishing governess. She also announced that +a music master from the cathedral town would, in future, come over twice +a week to give her lessons. + +"It's not my doing," said Mrs. Carteret,--and meaning only to be candid +she sounded very ungracious; and although she did not pay for these +things, it was due to her urgent representations of their need that they +had been provided. Molly supposed that all such financial arrangements +were made for her by her father's lawyer, of whom she had heard Mrs. +Carteret speak. + +Throughout these years it had never occurred to Mrs. Carteret to doubt +that Molly believed her mother to be dead, and she never for a moment +supposed the child's silence on the subject to be ominous. Such silence +did not show any special power of reserve; many children brought up like +Molly will carefully conceal knowledge which they believe that those in +authority over them suppose them not to possess. Perhaps in Molly's case +there was an instinctive shrinking from exposing an ideal to scorn. +Perhaps there was a wholly unconscious want of faith in the ideal +itself, an ideal which had been built up upon one phrase. Yet the notion +of the beautiful, exiled mother, so cruelly concealed from her child, +was very precious, however insecurely founded. It must be concealed from +other eyes by mists of incense, and honoured in the silence of the +sanctuary. + +The new governess, Miss Carew, was a very fair teacher, and she soon +recognised the quality of her pupil's mind. Mrs. Carteret was possibly a +little disappointed on finding that Miss Carew considered Molly to be +very clever, as well as very ignorant. The widow was herself accustomed +to feel superior to her own circle in literary attainments,--a sensation +which she justified by an occasional reading of French memoirs and by +always getting through at least two articles in each _Nineteenth +Century_. It was a detail that she had never cared for poetry; Sir James +Stephen, she knew, had also never cared to have ideas expressed in +verse. But she felt a little dull when Miss Carew and Molly discussed +Browning and Tennyson and De Musset. Miss Carew fired Molly with new +thoughts and new ambitions in matters intellectual, but also in more +mundane affairs. If it is possible to be in the world and not of it we +have all of us also known people who are of the world though not in it; +and Miss Carew was undoubtedly one of the latter. Her tongue babbled of +beauties and courts, of manners, of wealth, and of chiffons, with the +free idealism of an amateur, and this without intending to do more than +enliven the dull daily walks through Malcot lanes. + +Two years of this companionship rapidly developed Molly. She did not now +merely condemn her aunt and her friends from pure ignorant dislike; she +knew from other testimony that they were rather stupid, ignorant, +badly-dressed, and provincial. But the chief change in her state of mind +lay in her hopes for her own future. Miss Carew had pointed out that, if +such a very large salary could be given for the governess, there must +surely be plenty of money for Molly's disposal later on. Why should not +Molly have a splendid and delightful life before her? And then poor +Miss Carew would suppress a sigh at her own prospects in which the pupil +never showed the least interest. It was before Miss Carew's second year +of teaching had come to an end, and while Molly was rapidly enlarging +her mental horizon, that the girl came to a very serious crisis in her +life. + +Occupied with her first joy in knowledge, and with dreams of future +delights in the great world, she had not broken out into any very +freakish act of benevolence for a long time. One night, when Mrs. +Carteret and Miss Carew met at dinner time, they continued to wait in +vain for Molly. The servants hunted for her, Mrs. Carteret called up the +front stairs, and Miss Carew went as far as the little carpenter's shop +opening from the greenhouse to find her. It was a dark night, and there +was nothing that could have taken her out of doors, but that she was out +could not be doubted. The gardener and coachman were sent for, and +before ten o'clock the policeman in the village joined in the search, +and yet nothing was heard of Molly. Mrs. Carteret became really +frightened, and Miss Carew was surprised to see her betray so much +feeling as almost to lose her self-control. She kept walking up and +down, while odd spasmodic little sentences escaped from her every few +minutes. + +"How could I answer for it to John if his girl came to any harm?" she +repeated several times. + +She kept moving from room to room with a really scared expression. Once +the governess overheard her exclaim with an intensely bitter accent, +"Even her wretched mother would have taken more care of her!" + +At that moment the door opened; Molly came quietly in, looking at them +both with bright, defiant eyes. From her hat to the edge of her skirt +she appeared to be one mass of light, brown mud; her right cheek was +bleeding from a scratch, and the sleeve of her coat was torn open. + +"Where have you been to?" demanded Mrs. Carteret, in a voice that +trembled from the reaction of fear to anger. + +"I went for a walk, and I found a man lying half in the water in +Brown-rushes pond; he had evidently fallen in drunk. I got him out after +nearly falling in myself, and then I had to get some one to look after +him. They took him in at Brown-rushes farm, and I found out who he was +and went to tell his wife, who is ill, that he was quite safe. I stayed +a little while with her, and then I came home. I have walked about +twenty miles, and, as you can see, I have had several tumbles, and I am +very tired." + +Molly's voice had been very quiet, but very distinct, and her look and +bearing were full of an unspoken defiance. + +"And you never thought whether I should be frightened meanwhile?" said +Mrs. Carteret. + +"Frightened about me?" said Molly in astonishment. + +"You had no thought for _my_ anxiety--the strain on _my_ nerves," her +aunt went on. + +"I thought you might be angry, but I never for a moment thought you +would be frightened." + +Miss Carew looked from one to the other in alarm and perplexity. She +felt for them both, for the woman who had been startled by the extent of +her fears, and was the more angry in consequence, and for Molly, who +betrayed her utter want of belief in any kind of feeling on Mrs. +Carteret's part. + +"If you do not care for my feelings, or, indeed, believe in them, I wish +you would have some care for your own good name." A moment's pause +followed these words, and then in a low voice, but quite distinct, came +the conclusion, "You must remember that your mother's daughter must be +more careful than other girls." + +Molly's cheeks, just now bright from the battle with the autumn wind, +became as white as marble. There was no concealment possible; both women +saw that the child realised the full import of the words, and that she +knew they could read what was written on her face. There could be no +possibility of keeping up appearances after such a moment. But Miss +Carew moved forward, and flung her arms round Molly with a gesture of +simple but complete womanliness. "You must have a hot bath at once," she +cried, "or you will catch your death of cold." + +"Perhaps it would be better if I did," cried Molly in a voice fearful to +her hearers in its stony hardness and hopelessness. "What does it +matter?" + +Miss Carew would have been less unhappy if the child had burst into any +reproaches, however angry or unseemly; she wanted to hear her say that +something was a lie, that some one was a liar, but what was so awful to +the ordinary little woman was to realise that Molly believed what had +been said, or rather the awful implication of what had been said. The +real horror was that Molly should come to such knowledge in such a way. + +The girl made no effort to shake her off, and not the least response to +her caress. With perfect dignity she went quietly up-stairs. With +perfect dignity she let the governess and the housemaid do to her +whatever they liked. They bathed Molly, rubbed her with lotions, +poulticed her with mustard, gave her a hot drink, and all the time Miss +Carew's heart ached at the impossibility of helping her in the very +least. + +"Can I leave the door open between our rooms, in case you want anything +in the night?" she faltered. + +"Oh, yes; certainly." + +"May I kiss you?" + +"Yes, of course." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MOLLY COMES OF AGE + + +For some time after that terrible night Molly never spoke to Mrs. +Carteret unless it were absolutely necessary. It may be difficult to +believe that no explanation was sought or given and after a time things +seemed to be much as before. The silence of a brooding nature is a +terrible thing; and it is more common in narrow, dull lives than in any +other. Uneducated men and women in villages, or servants cramped +together in one house, I have known to brood over some injury in an +awful silence for twenty or thirty years. If Molly's future life had +been in Mrs. Carteret's hands, the sense of wrong would have burrowed +deeper and been even better hidden, but Molly, aided by Miss Carew, had +convinced herself that liberty would come, without any fight for it, at +twenty-one; so her view of the present was that it was a tiresome but +inevitable waiting for real life. + +Miss Carew, watching her anxiously, could never find out what she had +thought since the night of the alarm; and if she had seen into her mind +at any one moment alone, she would have been misled. For Molly's +imagination flew from one extreme to another. At first, indeed, that +sentence, "Your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than other +girls," had seemed simply a revelation of evil of which she could not +doubt the truth. She saw in a flash why her mother had gone out of her +life although still living. The whole possibility of shame and horror +appeared to fit in with the facts of her secluded life with Mrs. +Carteret. A morbid fear as to her own birth seized on the poor child's +mind, and might have destroyed the healthier aspect of life for her +entirely; but happily Mrs. Carteret and the governess did think of this +danger, and showed some skill in laying the phantom. Some photographs of +John Dexter as a young man were brought out and shown to the governess +in Molly's presence, and her comments on the likeness to Molly were true +and sounded spontaneous. Relieved of this horror the girl's mind reacted +to the hope that Mrs. Carteret had only spoken in temper and spite, +grossly exaggerating some grievance against Molly's mother. Then was the +ideal restored to its pedestal, and expiatory offerings of sentiment of +the most elaborate kind hung round the image of the ill-used and +misunderstood, the beautiful, unattainable mother. If Miss Carew had +seen into the reveries of her pupil at such a moment, she would hardly +have believed how they alternated with the coldest fits of doubt and +scepticism. Molly was dealing with a self-made ideal that she needed to +satisfy the hunger of her nature for love and worship. But it had no +foundations, no support, and it was apt to vanish with a terrible +completeness. Then she would feel quite alone and horribly ashamed; she +would at moments think of herself as something degraded and to be +shunned. Some natures would have simply sunk into a nervous state of +depression, but Molly had great vitality and natural ambition. In her +ideal moments she thought of devoting her life to her mother; and the +ayah's words were still a text, "The faithful child will find a way." +But in darker hours she defied the world that was against her. + +Molly, having decided to make no effort at any change in her life until +the emancipating age of twenty-one, determined to prepare herself as +fully as possible for the future. Mrs. Carteret was quite willing to +keep Miss Carew until her niece was nearly twenty, and by that time the +girl had read a surprising amount, while her mind was not to be +despised. She had also "come out" as far as a very sleepy neighbourhood +made it possible for her to see any society. She had been to three +balls, and a good many garden parties. No one found her very attractive +in her manners, though her appearance had in it now something that +arrested attention. She took her position in the small Carteret circle +in virtue of a certain energy and force of will. Molly danced, and +played tennis, and rode as well as any girl in those parts, but she did +not hide a silent and, at present, rather childish scorn which was in +her nature. Miss Carew left her with regret and with more affection than +Molly gave her back, for the governess was proud of her, and felt in +watching her the pleasures of professional success. Perhaps she put down +too much of this success to her own skill, but it was true that, without +Miss Carew, Molly would have been a very undeveloped young person. There +was still one year after this parting before Molly would be free, and it +seemed longer and slower as each day passed. One interest helped to make +it endurable. A trained hospital nurse had been provided for the +village, and Molly spent a great deal of time learning her craft. The +nursing instinct was exceedingly strong and not easily put down, and, +if Molly _must_ interfere with sick people, it was as well, in Mrs. +Carteret's opinion, that she should learn how to do it properly. + +But the slow months rolled by at length, and the last year of bondage +was finished. + +The sun did its best to congratulate Molly on her twenty-first birthday. +It shone in full glory on the great, green hills, and the blue shadows +in the hollows were transparent with reflected gold. The sunlight +trembled in the bare branches of the beeches and turned their grey +trunks to silver. + +Standing in the little study, Molly's whole figure seemed to expand in +the sunshine. Her eyes sparkled, her lips parted, and she at once drank +in and gave forth her delight. + +Some people might still agree with Mrs. Carteret that Molly was not +beautiful. Still, it was an appearance that would always provoke +discussion. Molly could not be overlooked, and when her mind and +feelings were excited, then she gave a strange impression of intense +vitality--not the pleasant overflow of animal spirits, but a suppressed, +yet untamed, vitality of a more mental, more dangerous kind. Her +movements were usually sudden, swift, and abrupt, yet there was in them +all a singular amount of expression, and, if Molly's keen grey eyes and +sensitive mouth did not convey the impression of a simple, or even of a +kindly nature, they gave suggestions of light and longing, hunger and +resolution. + +To-day, the twenty-first birthday, was to be the first day of freedom, +the last of shackles and dulness and commonplace. It was to be a day of +speech and a day of revenge. + +Molly was waiting now for Mrs. Carteret to come in and stand before her +and hear all she meant to say about the long, unholy deception that had +been put upon her. She was going to say good-bye now and be free. +Molly's money would now be her own, she could take it away and share it +with the deserted, misjudged mother. Nothing in all this was +melodramatic; it would have been but natural if the facts had been as +she supposed, only Molly made the little mistake of treating as facts +her carefully built-up fancies, her long, childish story of her own +life. + +She was so absorbed that she hardly saw Mrs. Carteret come in and sit +down in her square, substantial way in a large arm-chair. Molly, +standing by the window knocking the tassel of the blind to and fro, was +breathing quickly. The older woman looked through some papers in her +hand, put some notes of orders for groceries on a table by her side, and +flattened out a long letter on foreign paper on her knee. She looked at +Molly a little nervously, with cold blue eyes over gold-rimmed +spectacles reposing on her well-shaped nose, and began: + +"Now that you are of age I must----" + +But Molly interrupted her. In a very low voice, speaking quickly with +little gasps of impatience at any hesitation in her own utterance,-- + +"Before you talk to me about the arrangements, I want to tell you that I +have made up my mind to leave here at once. I know it will be a relief +to you as well as to me. Any promise you made to my father is satisfied +now, and you cannot wish to keep me here. You have always been ashamed +of me, you have always disliked me, and you have always deceived me. I +knew all this time that my mother was alive, and you never spoke of her +except once and then it was to insult me as deeply as a girl can be +insulted. If what you said were true--and I don't believe it"--her voice +shook as she spoke--"there would be all the more reason why I should go +to my poor mother. I want you to know, therefore, that with whatever +money comes to me from my father, I shall go to my mother and try to +make amends to her." + +Mrs. Carteret stared over her spectacles at Molly in absolute amazement. +After fourteen years of very kind treatment, which had involved a great +deal of trouble, this uninteresting, silent niece had revealed herself +at last! Fourteen years devoted to the idealisation of the mother who +had deserted her, and to positive hatred of the relation who had +mothered her! Tears rose in the hard, blue eyes. Subtleties of feeling +Anne Carteret did not know, but some affection for those who are near in +blood and who live under the same roof had been a matter of course to +her, and Molly had hurt her to the quick. However, it was natural that +common-sense and justice should quickly assert themselves to show this +idiotic girl the criminal absurdity of what she said. Mrs. Carteret was +unconsciously hitting back as hard as she could as she answered in a +tone of cheerful common-sense: + +"As a matter of fact, the money you will receive will not be your own, +but an allowance from your mother--a large allowance given on the +condition that you do not live with her. Happily, it is so large that +there will not be any necessity for you to live here." + +Mrs. Carteret held up the letter of thin foreign paper in a trembling +hand, but she spoke in a perfectly calm voice: + +"I was myself always against this mystery as to your mother, but I felt +obliged to act by her wish in the matter. She insists that she still +wishes it to be thought by the world at large that she is dead, but she +agrees at last that you should know something about her. I told her that +I could not allow you to come of age here and have a great deal of money +at your disposal without your knowing that from your father you have +only been left a fortune of two thousand pounds----" + +Mrs. Carteret paused, and then, with a little snort, added, half to +herself: + +"The rest was all squandered away, and certainly not by his own doing." + +Then she resumed her business tone: + +"More than this, I obtained from your mother leave to tell you that this +very large allowance comes out of a fortune left to her quite recently +by Sir David Bright. I have acted by the wishes of both your parents as +far as I possibly could. As to my disliking you or being ashamed of you, +such notions could only come out of a morbid imagination. In spite of +your feelings towards me, I still wish to be your friend. I want your +father's daughter to stand well with the world. So that I am left to +live here in peace undisturbed, I shall be glad to help you at any +time." + +Mrs. Carteret's feelings were concentrated on Molly's conduct towards +herself, but Molly's consciousness was filled with the greatness of the +blow that had just fallen. It seemed to her that she had only now for +the first time lost her mother--her only ideal, the object of all her +better thoughts. That her enemy was justified was, indeed, just then of +little importance. She turned a dazed face towards her aunt: + +"I ought to beg your pardon: I am sorry." + +"Oh, pray don't take the trouble." + +Mrs. Carteret got out of the chair with emphatic dignity, and held out +some papers. + +"You had better read these. I will speak to you about them afterwards." + +She left the room absolutely satisfied with her own conduct. But, coming +to a pause in the drawing-room, she remembered that she had made one +mistake. + +"How stupid of me to have left Jane Dawning's letter among those +papers." + +But she did not go back to fetch the letter from her cousin Lady +Dawning; and she did not own to herself that that apparent negligence +was her real revenge. Yet from that moment her feelings of +self-satisfaction were uncomfortably disturbed. + +Meanwhile, Molly was kneeling by the window in the study in floods of +tears. Everything in her mind had lost its balance; and baffled, +disheartened, and ashamed, she wept tears that brought no softness. She +did not know it, but while to herself it seemed as if she were absorbed +in weeping over her disillusionment, she was in fact deciding that, as +her ideal had failed her, she would in future live only for herself, and +get everything out of life that she could for her own satisfaction. + +No one in the world cared for her, but she would not be defeated or +crushed or forlorn. With an effort she sprang to her feet with one agile +movement, and pushed her heavy hair back from her forehead with her +long, thin fingers. + +The colour had gone from her clear, dark skin for the moment, and her +breathing was fast and uneven, but her face still showed her to be very +young and very healthy. How differently the troubles of the mind are +written in our faces when age has undermined the foundations and all +momentary failure is a presage of a sure defeat. Molly showed her +determination to be brave and calm by immediately setting herself to +read the papers left for her by Mrs. Carteret. + +One was in French, a long letter from a lawyer in Florence communicating +Madame Danterre's wishes to Mrs. Carteret. It stated that, owing to the +painful circumstances of the case, his client chose to remain under her +maiden name, and to reside in Florence. Mrs. Carteret was at liberty to +inform Miss Dexter of this, but she did not wish it known to anybody +else. Madame Danterre further asked Mrs. Carteret to make such +arrangements as she thought fit for her daughter to see something of the +world, either in London or by travelling, but she did not wish her to +come to Florence. Otherwise the world was before her, and £3000 a year +was at her disposal. Molly could hardly, it was implied, ask for more +from a mother from whom she had been torn unjustly when she was an +infant. The rest of the letter was entirely about business, giving all +details as to how the quarterly allowance would be paid. In conclusion +was an enigmatic sentence to the effect that, by a tardy act of +repentance, Sir David Bright had left Madame Danterre his fortune, and +she wished her daughter to know that the large allowance she was able to +make her was in consequence of this act of justice. Molly would have had +no inkling of the meaning of this sentence if Mrs. Carteret had come +back to claim the letter from Lady Dawning which she had unintentionally +left among the lawyer's papers. But this last, a closely-written large +sheet of note-paper, lay between the letter from the lawyer in Florence, +and other papers from the family lawyer in London, anent the will of +the late Colonel Dexter and its taking effect on his daughter's coming +of age. + +Molly turned carelessly from the question of £2000 and its interest at +three and a half per cent. to the letter surmounted by a black initial +and a coronet. + + "My DEAR ANNE,-- + + "I am not coming to stay in your neighbourhood as I had hoped. I + should have been very glad to have had a talk with you about Molly, + if it had been possible, for her dear father's sake. Indeed, I + think you are far from exaggerating the difficulties of the case. + You are very reluctant to take a house in London, and you say that + if you did take one and gave up all your home duties you would not + now have a circle of friends there who could be of any use to a + girl of her age. I feel that very likely you would be glad if my + daughter would undertake her, and you are quite right in thinking + that she would like a girl to take into the world. But I must be + frank with you, as I want to save you from pitfalls which I may be + more able to foresee than you can in your secluded home. My dear, I + know that dear old John died without a penny: why if he had had any + fortune as a young man--but, alas! he had none--is it possible + that, in a soldier's life, with, for a few years, a madly + extravagant wife to help him, he could conceivably have saved a + capital that can produce £3000 a year! + + "No, my dear Anne, the money is from her mother, and I must tell + you that I've often wondered if that estimable lady is really dead + at all. Then, you know, that I always kept up with John, and that I + knew something about Sir David Bright. To conclude, Rose Bright is + my cousin by marriage, and we are all dumbfounded at finding that + she has been left £800 a year instead of twice as many thousands, + and that the fortune has gone to a lady named Madame Danterre. It + is so old a story that I don't think any one has read the + conclusion aright except myself, and _parole d'honneur_, no one + shall if I can help it. I am too fond of poor John's memory to want + to hurt his child, only for the child's own sake I would not advise + you to bring her up to London. I should keep her quietly with you, + and trust to a man appearing on the scene--it's a thing you _can_ + trust to, where there is £3000 a year. I daresay I could send some + one your way quite quietly. But don't bring John's girl to London, + at any rate, just yet. + + "I hope we may come within reach of you in the autumn. I should + love to have a quiet day with you and to see Molly. + + "Ever yours affectionately, + + "JANE DAWNING." + + "P.S.--By the way, is the £3000 sure to go on? If it is not, might + it not be as well to put a good bit of it away?" + +Thus in one short hour, Molly had been told that her mother was living +but did not want her child; that the ideal of motherly love had in her +own case been a complete fiction; that the mother of her imagination had +never existed, and, immediately afterwards, she had been given a glimpse +of the world's view of her own position as a young person best +concealed, or, at least, not brought too much forward. + +Lastly, with the news of the money that at least meant freedom, she had +gained, by a rapid intuition, a faint but unmistakable sense of +discomfort as to the money itself. + +It was not any scrupulous fear that it could be her duty to inquire +whether Sir David Bright ought to have left his fortune to his widow! +Probably Lady Rose had quite as much as many dowagers have to live on. +But she had been forced to know that other people disapproved of Sir +David's will. It was not a fortune entered into with head erect and eyes +proudly facing a friendly world. Still, Molly was not daunted: the +combat with life was harder and quite different from what she had +foreseen, but she had always looked on her future as a fight. + +Presently she let the "letter from Jane" fall close to the chair in +which her aunt had been sitting, and moved the chair till the paper was +half hidden by the chintz frill of the cover. She meant Mrs. Carteret to +think that she had not read it. + +She then went out for a long walk and met her aunt at luncheon with a +quietly respectful manner, a little more respectful than it had ever +been before. + +Later in the day Molly wrote to the family lawyer, and consulted him as +to how to find a suitable lady with whom to stay in London. Mrs. +Carteret read and passed the letter. Seeing that Molly was determined to +go to London, she was anxious to help her as much as possible, without +calling down upon herself such letters of advice as the one from Lady +Dawning. It proved as difficult to find just the right thing in +chaperones as it is usually difficult to find exactly the right thing in +any form of humanity, and December and January passed in the search. But +in the end all that was to be wished for seemed to be secured in the +person of Mrs. Delaport Green, who was known to a former pupil of Miss +Carew's, and at length Molly went out of the rooms with the northern +aspect, and drove through the wood that sheltered under the shoulder of +the great green hill, with nothing about her to recall the child who had +come in there for the first time fourteen years ago, except that she +still had the look of one who waits for other circumstances and other +people. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO INTERFERE + + +Mr. Murray had had no belief in Sir Edmund Grosse's doings, and he +indulged in the provoking air of "I told you so," when the latter, who +had not been in London for several months, appeared at the office, and +owned to the futility of his visit to Florence. Meanwhile, Mr. Murray +had also carried on a fruitless enquiry in a different direction. + +"The General's two most intimate friends were killed about two months +after his death, and his servant died in the same action--probably +before Sir David himself. I have tried to find out if he had any talk on +his own affairs with friends on board ship going out, but it seems not. +I can show you the list of those who went out with him." + +Sir Edmund knew something of most people and after studying the list he +went to look up an old soldier friend at the Army and Navy Club. Indeed, +for some weeks he was often to be seen there, and he was as attentive to +Generals as an anxious parent seeking advancement in the Army for an +only son. He soon became discouraged as to obtaining any information +regarding David's later years, but some gossip on his younger days he +did glean. Nothing could have been better than David's record; he +seemed to have been a paragon of virtue. + +"That's what made it all the more strange that he should have fallen +into the hands of Mrs. Johnny Dexter," mused an old Colonel as he puffed +at one of Grosse's most admirable cigars. "Poor old David; he was wax in +her hands for a few weeks, then he got fever and recovered from her and +from it at the same time--he went home soon after. He'd have done +anything for her at one moment." + +This Colonel might well have been flattered by Edmund's attentions; but +he gave little in return for them except what he said that day. + +"Mrs. Johnny Dexter! Why, I'm sure I have known Dexters," thought +Edmund, as he strolled down Pall Mall after this conversation. He +stopped to think, regardless of public observation. "Why, of course, +that old bore Lady Dawning was a Miss Dexter. I'll go and see her this +very day." + +Lady Dawning was gratified at Sir Edmund's visit, and was nearly as much +surprised at seeing him as he was at finding himself in the handsome, +heavily-furnished room in Princes Gate. Stout, over fifty, and clumsily +wigged, it rarely enough happened to Lady Dawning to find not only a +sympathetic listener but an eager inquirer into those romantic days when +love's young dream for her cousin Johnny Dexter was stifled by parental +authority: "And it all ended in my becoming Lady Dawning." A sigh of +satisfaction concluded the episode of romance, and led the way back to +the present day. + +When Lady Dawning had advised Mrs. Carteret to keep poor dear Johnny's +girl quietly in the country, she had by no means intended to let any of +her friends know anything about Molly. She had looked important and +mysterious when people spoke of Sir David Bright's amazing will, but she +made a real sacrifice to Johnny's memory by not divulging her knowledge +of facts or her own conclusions from those facts. But the enjoyment of +talking of her own romantic youth to Edmund had had a softening effect. + +Sir Edmund appeared to be so very wise and safe. + +"Of course, it is only to you," came first; and then, "It would be a +relief to me to get the opinion of a man of the world; poor dear Anne +Carteret consults me, and I really don't know what to advise. Fancy! +that woman allows the girl £3000 a year, and Anne Carteret would +probably have acted on my advice and kept her quiet so that no one need +know anything of the wretched story, but the girl won't be quiet, and +will come up to London, and it seems so unsafe, don't you know? They are +looking for a chaperone, as nothing will make Anne come herself. And if +it all comes out it will be so unpleasant for poor dear Rose Bright to +meet this girl all dressed up with her money; don't you think so?" + +Lady Dawning was now quite screaming with excitement, and very red in +nose and chin. It would be a long time before she could be quite dull +again. But Edmund was far too deeply interested to notice details. + +They parted very cordially, and Lady Dawning promised to let him know if +she heard from Anne Carteret, and, if possible, to pass on the name of +the chaperone woman who was to take Molly into society. + + +"And so your _protégée_ is to arrive to-night?" said Edmund Grosse. + +"Yes, and I _am_ so frightened;" and with a little laugh appreciative of +herself in general, Mrs. Delaport Green held up a cup of China tea in a +pretty little white hand belonging to an arm that curved and thickened +from the wrist to the elbow in perfect lines. + +Sir Edmund gave the arm the faintest glance of appreciation before it +retreated into lace frills within its brown sleeve. Those lace frills +were the only apparent extravagance in the simple frock in question, and +simplicity was the chief note in this lady's charming appearance. + +"I don't believe you are frightened, but probably she is frightened +enough." + +"I know nothing whatever about her," sighed the little woman, "and we +are only doing it because we are so dreadfully hard up; my maid says +that I shall soon not have a stitch to my back, and that would be so +fearfully improper. At least"--she hesitated--"I am doing it because +times are bad. Tim really knows nothing about it; I mean that he does +not know that Miss Dexter is a 'paying guest', and it does sound +horribly lower middle-class, doesn't it? But I'm so afraid Tim won't be +able to go to Homburg this year, and he is eating and drinking so much +already, and it's only the beginning of April. What will happen if he +can't drink water and take exercise all this summer?" + +"But I suppose you know her name?" + +"I believe it is Molly Dexter. And do you think I should say 'Molly' at +once--to-night, I mean?" + +Sir Edmund did not answer this question. + +"I used to know some Dexters years ago." + +"Yes, it is quite a good name, and Molly is of good family: she is a +cousin of Lady Dawning, but she is an orphan. I think I must call her +Molly at once," and the little round eyes looked wistful and kindly. + +Sir Edmund was able from this to conclude rightly that Mrs. Delaport +Green was not aware of the existence of Madame Danterre, and would have +no suspicions as to the sources of the fortune that supplied Molly's +large allowance. It had, in fact, been thought wiser not to offer +explanations which had not been called for. + +"It will be very tiresome for you," said Grosse. "You will have to amuse +her, you know, and is she worth while?" + +"Quite; she will pay--let me see--she will pay for the new motor, and +she will go to my dressmaker and keep her in a good temper. But, of +course, I shall have to make sacrifices and find her partners. I must +try and not let my poor people miss me. They would miss me dreadfully, +though I know you don't think so." + +"And you don't even know what she is like?" + +"Oh, yes, I do; I have seen her once, and she is oh! so interesting: +olive skin, black, or almost black, hair, almond-shaped grey eyes--no, I +don't mean almond-shaped, but really very curiously-shaped eyes, full +of--let me see if I can tell you what they are full of--something that, +in fact, makes you shiver and feel quite excited. But, do you know, she +hardly speaks, and then in such a low voice. I'll tell you now, I'll +tell you exactly what she reminds me of: do you know a picture in a very +big gallery in Florence of a woman who committed some crime? It's by one +of the pupils of one of the great masters; just try and think if you +don't know what I mean. Oh, must you go? But won't you come again, and +see how we get on, and how I bear up?" + +When Molly did arrive, her dainty little hostess petted and patted her +and called her "Molly" because she "could not help it." + +"Oh, we will do the most delightful things, now that you have come; we +must, of course, do balls and plays, and then we will have quite a quiet +day in the country in the new motor, and we will take some very nice men +with us. And then you won't mind sometimes coming to see people who are +ill or poor or old?" + +The little voice rose higher and higher in a sort of wail. + +"It does cheer them up so to look in and out with a few flowers, and it +need not take long." + +"I don't mind people when they are really ill," said Molly, in her low +voice, "but I like them best unconscious." + +Mrs. Delaport Green stared for a moment; then she jumped up and ran +forward with extended hands to greet a lady in a plain coat and skirt +and an uncompromising hat. + +"Oh, how kind of you to come, and how are you getting on? Molly dear, +this is the lady who lives in horrid Hoxton taking care of my poor +people I told you about. Do tell her what you really mean about liking +people best when they are unconscious, and you will both forgive me if I +write one tiny little note meanwhile?" + +Molly gave some tea to the newcomer as if she had lived in the house for +years, and drew her into a talk which soon allayed her rising fears as +to whether her own time would have to be devoted to horrid Hoxton. By +calm and tranquil questions she elicited the fact that Mrs. Delaport +Green had visited the settlement once during the winter. + +"She comes as a sunbeam," said the resident with obviously genuine +admiration, "and, of course, with all the claims on her time, and her +anxiety as to her husband's health, we don't wish her to come often. She +is just the inspiration we want." + +The hostess having meanwhile asked four people to dinner, came rustling +back, and, sitting on a low stool opposite the lady of the settlement, +held one of her visitor's large hands in both her own and patted it and +asked questions about a number of poor people by name, and made love to +her in many ways, until the latter, cheered and refreshed by the +sunbeam, went out to seek the first of a series of 'busses between +Chelsea and Hoxton. + +Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little sigh. + +"I must order the motor. The dear thing needn't have come your very +first night, need she? It makes me miserable to leave you, but I was +engaged to this dinner before I knew that you existed even! Isn't it odd +to think of that?" Her voice was full of feeling. + +"And you must be longing to go to your room. You won't have to dine with +Tim, because he is dining at his club. Promise me that you won't let Tim +bore you: he likes horrid fat people, so I don't think he will; and are +you sure you have got everything you want?" + +Molly's impressions of her new surroundings were written a few weeks +later in a letter to Miss Carew. + + "MY DEAR CAREY,-- + + "I have been here for three weeks, but I doubt if I shall stay + three months. + + "I am living with a very clever woman, and I am learning life + fairly quickly and getting to know a number of people. But I am + not sure if either of us thinks our bargain quite worth while, + though we are too wise to decide in a hurry. There are great + attractions: the house, the clothes, the food, the servants, are + absolutely perfect; the only thing not quite up to the mark in + taste is the husband. But she sees him very little, and I hardly + exchange two words with him in the day, and his attitude towards us + is that of a busy father towards his nursery. But I rather suspect + that he gets his own way when he chooses. The servants work hard, + and, I believe, honestly like her. The clergyman of the parish, a + really striking person, is enthusiastic; so is her husband's + doctor, so are one religious duchess and two mundane countesses. I + believe that it is impossible to enumerate the number and variety + of the men who like her. There are just one or two people who pose + her, and Sir Edmund Grosse is one. He snubs her, and so she makes + up to him hard. I must tell you that I have got quite intimate with + Sir Edmund. He is of a different school from most of the men I have + seen. He pays absurd compliments very naturally and cleverly, + rather my idea of a Frenchman, but he is much more candid all the + time. I shock people here if I simply say I don't like any one. If + you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by + saying--'Of course, he means awfully well,' and after that you may + imply that he is the greatest scoundrel unhung. Sir Edmund is not + at all ill-natured, and he can discuss people quite simply--not as + if he wished to defend his own reputation for charity all the time. + He won't allow that Adela Delaport Green is a humbug: he says she + is simply a happy combination of extraordinary cleverness and + stupidity, of simplicity and art. 'I believe she hardly ever has a + consciously disingenuous moment,' he said to me last night. 'She + likes clergymen and she likes great ladies, and she likes to make + people like her. Of course, she is always designing; but she never + stops to think, so that she doesn't know she is designing. She is + an amazing mimic. Something in this room to-night made me think of + Dorset House directly I came in, and I remembered that, of course, + she was at the party there last night. She must have put the sofa + and the palms in the middle of the room to-day. At dinner to-night + she suddenly told me that she wished she had been born a Roman + Catholic, and I could not think why until I remembered that a + Princess had just become a Papist. She could never have liked the + Inquisition, but she thought the Pope had such a dear, kind face. + Now she will probably tremble on the verge of Rome until several + Anglican bishops have asked their influential lady friends to keep + her out of danger.' + + "'And you don't call her a humbug?' + + "'No; she is a child of nature, indulging her instincts without + reflection. And please mark one thing, young lady; her models are + all good women--very good women--and that's not a point to be + overlooked.' + + "I told him--I could not help it--how funny she had been yesterday, + talking of going to early church. 'I do love the little birds quite + early,' she said, 'and one can see the changes of the season even + in London, going every day, you know, and one feels so full of hope + walking in the early morning fasting, and hope is next to charity, + isn't it?--though, of course, not so great.' + + "And she has been out in the shut motor exactly once in the early + morning since I came up, and she knew that I knew it. + + "However, Sir Edmund maintained that, at the moment, Adela quite + believed she went out early every day, and I am not sure he is not + right. But then, you see, Carey, that with her power of believing + what she likes, and of intriguing without knowing it, I am not + quite sure that she will last very well. She might get tired of + me--quite believe I had done something which I had not done at all! + And then the innocent little intrigues might become less amusing to + me than to other people. However, I believe I am useful for the + present, and the life here suits me on the whole. But I will report + again soon if the symptoms become more unfavourable, and ask your + opinion as to my plans for the season if the Delaport Green + alliance breaks down before then. + + "Yours affectionately, + + "MOLLY DEXTER." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE + + +Mrs. Delaport Green counted it as a large asset in Molly's favour that +Sir Edmund Grosse was so attentive. Adela did not seriously mind Sir +Edmund's indifference to herself if he were only a constant visitor at +her house, but she was far from understanding the motives that drew him +there to see Molly. In fact, having decided, on the basis of his own +theory of the conduct of Madame Danterre, that Molly had no right to any +of the luxuries she enjoyed, he had been prepared to think of her as an +unscrupulous and designing young woman. Somehow, from the moment he +first saw her he felt all his prejudices to be confirmed. There was +something in Molly which appeared to him to be a guilty consciousness +that the wealth she enjoyed was ill-gotten. Miss Dexter, he thought, had +by no means the bearing of a fresh ingenuous child who was innocently +benefiting by the wickedness of another. The poor girl was, in fact, +constantly wondering whether the people she met were hot partisans of +Lady Rose Bright, or whether they knew of Madame Danterre's existence, +and if so, whether they had the further knowledge that Miss Molly Dexter +was that lady's daughter. They might, for either of these reasons, have +some secret objection to herself. But she was skilful enough to hide +the symptoms of these fears and suspicions from the men and women she +usually came across in society, who only thought her reserve pride, and +her occasional hesitations a little mysterious. From Sir Edmund she +concealed less because she liked him much more, and he kindly +interpreted her feelings of anxiety and discomfort to be those of guilt +in a girl too young to be happy in criminal deceit. With his experience +of life, and with his usually just perceptions, he ought to have known +better; but there is some quality in a few men or women, intangible and +yet unmistakable, which makes us instinctively suspect present, or +foretell future, moral evil; and poor Molly was one of these. What it +was, on the other hand, which made her trust Sir Edmund and drew her to +him, it would need a subtle analysis of natural affinities to decide. No +doubt it was greatly because he sought her that Molly liked him, but it +was not only on that account. Nor was this only because Edmund was +worldly wise, successful, and very gentle. There was a quality in the +attraction that drew Molly to Edmund that cannot be put into words. It +is the quality without which there has never been real tragedy in the +relations of a woman to a man. In the first weeks in London this +attraction hardly reached beyond the merest liking, and was a pleasant, +sunny thing of innocent appearance. + +Mrs. Delaport Green was, for a short time, of opinion that the problem +of whether to prolong Molly's visit or not would be settled for her by a +quite new development. Then she doubted, and watched, and was puzzled. + +Why, she thought, should such a great person as Sir Edmund Grosse, who +was certainly in no need of fortune-hunting, be so attentive to Molly +if he did not really like her? At times she had a notion that he did not +like her at all, but at other times surely he liked her more than he +knew himself. He said that she was graceful, clever, and interesting; +and the acute little onlooker had not the shadow of a doubt that he held +these opinions, but why did she at moments think that he disliked Molly? +Certainly the dislike, if dislike it were, did not prevent him from very +constantly seeking her society. It was the only intimacy that Molly had +formed since she had come up to London. + +As Lent was drawing to a close, Mrs. Delaport Green became much occupied +at the thought of how many services she wished to attend. "One does so +wish one could be in several churches at once," she murmured to a devout +lady at an evening party. But, finding one of these churches to be +excessively crowded on Palm Sunday, she had gone for a turn in the +country in her motor with a friend, "as, after all, green fields, and a +few early primroses make one realise, more than anything else in the +world, the things one wishes one could think about quietly at such +seasons." + +For Easter there were the happiest prospects, as she and Molly had been +invited to stay at a delightful house "far from the madding +crowd"--Groombridge Castle--with a group of dear friends. + +Molly, knowing that "dear friends" with her hostess meant new and most +desirable acquaintances, bought hats adorned with spring flowers and +garments appropriate to the season with great satisfaction. + +Their luggage, their bags, and their maid looked perfect on the day of +departure, and Tim had gone off to Brighton in an excellent temper. Mrs. +Delaport Green trod on air in pretty buckled shoes, and patted the toy +terrier under her arm and felt as if all the society papers on the +bookstall knew that they would soon have to tell whither she was going. + +"I saw Sir Edmund Grosse's servant just now," she said to Molly with +great satisfaction. "Very likely Sir Edmund is coming to Groombridge. +Why does one always think that everybody going by the same train is +coming with one? Did you tell him where we were going?" + +"No, I don't think so; I have hardly seen him for a week, and I thought +he was going abroad for Easter." + +When the three hours' journey was ended and the friends emerged on the +platform, they were both glad to see Sir Edmund's servant again and the +luggage with his master's name. There was a crowd of Easter holiday +visitors, and Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly were some moments in making +their way out of the station. When they were seated in the carriage that +was to take them to the Castle, Mrs. Delaport Green turned expectantly +to the footman. + +"Are we to wait for any one else?" + +"No, ma'am; Lady Rose Bright and the two gentlemen have started in the +other carriage." + +They drove off. + +"I am so glad it is Lady Rose Bright." Molly hardly heard the words. + +"I have so wished to know her," Adela went on joyfully, "and she has had +such an interesting story and so extraordinary." + +"Can I get away--can I go back?" thought Molly, and she leant forward +and drew off her cloak as if she felt suffocated. "To meet her is just +the one thing I can't do. Oh, it is hard, it is horrible!" + +"You see," Adela continued, "she married Sir David Bright, who was three +times her age, because he was very rich, and also, of course, because +she loved him for having won the Victoria Cross, and then he died, and +they found he had left all the money to some one he had liked better all +the time. So there is a horrid woman with forty thousand a-year +somewhere or other, and Rose Bright is almost starving and can't afford +to buy decent boots, and every one is devoted to her. I am rather +surprised that she should come to Groombridge for a party, she has shut +herself up so much; but it must be a year and a half at least since that +wicked old General was killed, and he certainly didn't deserve much +mourning at _her_ hands." + +As Adela's little staccato voice went on, Molly stiffened and +straightened and starched herself morally, not unaided by this facile +description of the story in which she was so much involved. She would +fight it out here and now; nothing should make her flinch; she would +come up to time as calm and cool as if she were quite happy. And, after +all, Sir Edmund Grosse would be there to help her. + +It was not until the first of the two heavy handsome old-fashioned +carriages, drawn by fine, sleek horses, was beginning to crawl up a very +steep hill that its occupants began to take an interest in those who +were following. + +"Who is in the carriage behind us?" asked Sir Edmund of the young man +usually called Billy, who was sitting opposite him, and whom he was +never glad to meet. + +"Mrs. Delaport Green and a girl I don't know--very dark and thin." + +Edmund growled and fidgeted. + +"Horrid vulgar little woman," he muttered between his teeth, "pushes +herself in everywhere, and I suppose she has got the heiress with her." + +"Don't be so cross, Edmund," said Lady Rose. "Who is the heiress?" + +"Oh! a Miss Dickson--not Dickson--what is it? The money was all made in +beer"--which was really quite a futile little lie. "But that isn't the +name: the name is Dexter. The girl is handsome and untruthful and +clever; let her alone." + +Rose perceived that he was seriously annoyed, and waited with a little +curiosity to see the ladies in question. + +As the two carriages crawled slowly up the zigzag road, climbing the +long and steep hill, the occupants of both gazed at the towers of the +Castle whenever they came in sight at a turn of the road, or at an +opening in the mighty horse-chestnuts and beeches, but they spoke little +about them. Those in the first carriage were too familiar with +Groombridge and its history and the others were too ignorant of both to +have much to say. Edmund Grosse gave expression to Rose's thought at the +sight of the familiar towers when he said: + +"Poor old Groombridge! it is hard not to have a son or even a nephew to +leave it all to." + +"He likes the cousin very much," said Rose. + +"But isn't Mark Molyneux going to be a priest?" said the young man, +Billy, to Lady Rose. "I heard the other day that he is in one of the +Roman seminaries--went there soon after he left Oxford." + +Edmund answered him. + +"Groombridge told me he thought he would give that up. He said he +believed it was a fancy that would not last." + +"He did very well at Oxford," said Rose, "and the Groombridges are +devoted to him. It is so good of them with all their old-world notions +not to mind more his being a Roman Catholic." + +The talk was interrupted by the two men getting out to ease the horses +on a steep part of the drive. + +Rose's own point of view that a young and earnest priest, even although, +unfortunately, not an Anglican, might do much good in such a position as +that of the master of Groombridge Castle, would certainly not have been +understood by her two companions. + +Meanwhile, in the second carriage, Molly was becoming more and more +distracted from painful thoughts by the glory of the summer's evening, +and the historic interest of the Castle. She felt at first disinclined +to disturb the unusual silence of the lady beside her. Certainly the +principal tower of the Castle, in its dark red stone, looked uncommonly +fine and commanding, and about it flew the martlets that "most breed and +haunt" where the air is delicate. + +The horse-chestnut leaves were breaking through their silver sheaths in +points of delicate green, and daffodils and wild violets were thick in +grass and ground ivy, while rabbits started away from within a few feet +of the road. + +But, although reluctant to break the silence, at last interest in the +scene made Molly ask: + +"Do you know the date?" + +"Oh, Norman undoubtedly," said Mrs. Delaport Green; "the round towers, +you know. Round towers go back to almost any date." + +Molly was dissatisfied. "You don't know what reign it was built in?" + +"Some time soon after the Conqueror; I think Tim did tell me all about +it. He looked it up in some book last night." + +As a matter of fact, the present Castle had been built under George +III., and the towers would have betrayed the fact to more educated +observers; while even Molly could see when they came close to the great +mass of building that the windows and, indeed, all the decoration was of +an inferior type of revived Gothic. But, however an architect might +shake his head at Groombridge, it was really a striking building, +massive and very well disposed, and in an astonishingly fine position, +commanding an immense view of a great plain on nearly three sides, while +to the east was stretched the rest of the range of splendidly-wooded +hills on the westerly point of which it was situated. In the sweet, soft +air many delicate trees and shrubs were developed as well as if they had +been in quite a sheltered place. + +Lady Groombridge was giving tea to the first arrivals when Mrs. Delaport +Green and Molly were shown into the big hall of the Castle. + +"Let us come for a walk; we can slip out through this window," murmured +Sir Edmund, as he took her empty tea-cup from his cousin. + +Rose began to move, but Lady Groombridge claimed her attention before +she could escape. + +"Do you know Mrs. Delaport Green and Miss Dexter?" + +Rose, as she heard Molly's name, found herself looking quite directly +into very unexpected and very remarkable grey eyes with dark lashes. Her +gentle but reserved greeting would have been particularly negative +after Edmund's warning as to both ladies, but she did not quite control +a look of surprise and interest. There was a great light in Molly's face +as she saw the young and beautiful woman whom she had dreaded intensely +to meet. + +Rose was evidently unconscious of a certain gentle pride of bearing, but +was fully conscious of a wish to be kindly and loving. In neither of +these aspects--and they were revealed in a glance to Molly--did Rose +attract her. But Molly's look, which puzzled Rose, was as a flame of +feeling, burning visibly through the features of the dark, healthy face, +and finding its full expression in the eyes. The glory of the landscape +she had just passed through, and the excitement of finding herself in +such a building, added fuel to Molly's feelings, and seemed to give a +historic background to her meeting with her enemy. Some subtle and +curious sympathy lit Rose's face for a moment, and then she shrank a +little as if she recoiled from a slight shock, and turning with a smile +to Sir Edmund Grosse, she followed him down the great hall and out into +a passage beyond. He had given Molly an intimate but rather careless nod +before he turned away. + +Edmund was quite silent as he walked out on the terrace, and seemed as +absorbed as Rose in the view that lay below them. But it was with the +scene he had just witnessed inside the Castle that his mind was filled. +There had been something curiously dramatic in the meeting which he +would have done a great deal to prevent. But, annoyed as he was, he +could not help dwelling for a moment on the picture of the two with a +certain artistic satisfaction. Rose, in her plain, almost poor, +clinging black clothes was, as always, amazingly graceful; he felt, not +for the first time, as if her every movement were music. + +"But that girl is handsome. How she looked into Rose's face, the amazing +little devil!--she is plucky." + +Then he caught himself up abruptly; it was no use to talk nonsense to +himself. The point was how to keep these two apart and how short Mrs. +Delaport Green's visit might be made. + +"Unluckily Monday is a Bank holiday, but they shall not be asked to stay +one hour after the 10.30 train on Tuesday if I have to take them away +myself," he murmured. Meanwhile, it was a beautiful evening; there was a +wonderful view, and Rose was here, and, for the moment, alone with him. +She ran her fingers into the fair hair that was falling over her +forehead, and pushed it back and her hat with it, so that the fresh +spring air "may get right into my brain," she said, "and turn out London +blacks." + +"The blacks don't penetrate in your case," said Edmund. + +"I'm afraid they do," she murmured, "but now I won't think of them. +Easter Eve and this place are enough to banish worries." + +"Our hostess contrives to have some worries here." + +"Ah! dear Mary, I know; she can't help it; she has always been so very +prosperous." + +"Oh, it's prosperity, is it?" asked Edmund. He had turned from the view +to look more directly at Rose. + +"Yes, I know it does not have that effect on you, because you have a +happier temperament." + +"But am I so very prosperous?" The tone was sad and slightly sarcastic. + + +"It is quite glorious: one seems to breathe in everything, don't you +know, and the smell of primroses; and it is so sweet to think that it is +Easter Eve." + +Mrs. Delaport Green was coming forth on the terrace, preceded by these +words in her clear staccato voice. + +"Do you think," said Rose very gently to Edmund, "that we might go down +into the wood?" + +Presently Molly fell behind Lady Groombridge and Mrs. Delaport Green as +they walked along the terrace, and leant on the wall and looked at the +view by herself. + +The Castle stood on the last spur of a range of hills, and there was an +abrupt descent between it and the next rounded hill-top. Covered with +trees, the sharp little valley was full of shadow and mystery; and then +beyond the great billowy tree-tops rose and fell for miles, until the +brilliant early green of the larches and the dark hues of the many +leafless branches, already ruddy with buds, became blue and at length +purple in the distance. + +This joy and glory of her mother earth nobody could grudge Molly, +surely? But the very beauty of it all made her more weak; and tears rose +in her eyes as she looked at the healing green. + +"I am tired," she thought; "and, after all, what harm can it do me to +meet Lady Rose Bright? And if Sir Edmund Grosse was annoyed to see me +here, what does it matter?" + +Presently Lady Groombridge and her admiring guest came back to where +Molly was standing. In the excitement of arrival and of meeting Lady +Rose, and the little shock of Sir Edmund's greeting, Molly had hardly +taken stock of the mistress of the Castle. Lady Groombridge was verging +on old age, but ruddy and vigorous. She wore short skirts and thick +boots, and tapped the gravel noisily with her stick. She had almost +forgotten that she had ever been young and a beauty, and her +conversation was usually in the tone of a harassed housekeeper, only +that the range of subjects that worried her extended beyond servants and +linen and jam into politics and the Church and the souls of men within a +certain number of miles of Groombridge Castle. + +She stood talking between Molly and Mrs. Delaport Green in a voice of +some impatience as she scanned the landscape in search of Rose. + +"Dear me, where has Rose gone to? and she knew how much I wanted to have +a talk with her before dinner. And I wanted to tell her not to let our +clergyman speak about incense and candles. He was more tiresome than +usual after Rose was here last time." + +Mrs. Delaport Green tried to interject some civil remarks, but Lady +Groombridge paid not the slightest attention. The only visitors who +interested her in the least were Rose and Edmund Grosse. She could +hardly remember why she had invited Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly when +she met them in London, and Billy was always Lord Groombridge's guest. + +"Well, if Rose won't come out of the wood, I suppose we may as well come +in, and perhaps you would like to see your room;" and, with an air of +resignation, she led the way. + +She stood in the middle of a gorgeously-upholstered room of the date of +George IV., and looked fretfully round. + +"Of course it is hideous, but I think if you have a good thing even of +the worst date it is best to leave it alone;" and then, with a gleam of +humour in her eye, she turned to Molly, "and whenever you feel your +taste vitiated (or whatever they call it nowadays) in your room next +door, you can always look out of the window, you know." And then, +speaking to Mrs. Delaport Green: + +"We have no light of any sort or kind, and no bathrooms, but there are +plenty of candles, and I can't see why, with large hip baths and plenty +of water, people can't keep clean. Yes, dinner is at 8.15 sharp; I hope +you have everything you want; there is no bell into your maid's room, +but the housemaid can always fetch your maid." + +Then she ushered Molly into the next room and, after briefly pointing +out its principal defects, she left her to rest her body and tire her +mind on a hard but gorgeously-upholstered couch until it should be time +to dress for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND + + +Edmund Grosse felt more tolerant of Billy at Groombridge Castle than +elsewhere. At Groombridge he was looked upon as a kindly weakness of +Lord Groombridge's, who consulted him about the stables and enjoyed his +jokes. This position certainly made him more attractive to Edmund, but +he was not sorry that Billy, who seldom troubled a church, went there on +Easter Sunday morning and left him in undisturbed possession of the +terrace. + +The sun was just strong enough to be delightful, and, with an +interesting book and an admirable cigar, it ought to have been a goodly +hour for Grosse. But the fact was that he had wished to walk to church +with Rose, and he had quite hoped that if it were only for his soul's +sake she would betray some wish for him to come. But if she didn't, he +wouldn't. He knew quite well that she would be pleased if he went, but +if she were so silly and self-conscious as to be afraid of appearing to +want his company--well and good; she should do without it. + +He had been disappointed and annoyed with Rose during their walk on the +evening before. The simple, matter-of-fact way in which they had been +jogging along in London was changed. At first, indeed, she had been +natural enough, but then she had become silent for some moments, and +afterwards had veered away from personal topics with a tiresome +persistency. He half suspected the truth, that this was due to a +careless word of his own which had betrayed how suddenly he had given up +his intention to spend Easter on the Riviera. If she had jumped to the +conclusion that this change was because Edmund had learnt at the +eleventh hour that Rose would be at Groombridge, she had no right to be +so quick-sighted. It was almost "Missish" of Rose, he told himself, to +be so ready to think his heart in danger, and to be so unnecessarily +tender of his feelings. She might wait for him to begin the attack +before she began to build up fortifications. + +He was at the height of his irritation against Rose, when the three +other ladies came out on the terrace. Lady Groombridge instantly told +Mrs. Delaport Green that she knew she wished to visit the dairy, and +hustled her off through the garden. Edmund rose and smiled, with his +peculiar, paternal admiration, at Molly, whose dark looks were at their +very best set in the complete whiteness of her hat and dress. Then he +glanced after the figures that were disappearing among the rose-bushes. + +"The party is not in the least what your chaperone expected; indeed, we +can hardly be dignified by the name of a party at all, but you see how +happy she is. She even enjoyed dear old Groombridge's prosing last +night, and she has been very happy in church, and now she is going to +see the dairy. The only thing that troubles her is that Lady Groombridge +has not allowed her to change her gown, and a well-regulated mind cannot +enjoy her prayers and a visit to cows in the same gown. Now suppose," +he looked at Molly with a lazy, friendly smile, "you put on a short +skirt and come for a walk." + +A little later they were walking through the woods on the hills beyond +the Castle. Perhaps he intended that Rose, who had stayed to speak to +the vicar, should find that he had not been waiting about for her +return. + +"I would give a good deal to possess the cheerful philosophy of Mrs. +Delaport Green," he said, as, looking down through an opening in the +trees, they could see that little woman with her skirts gracefully held +up standing by while Lady Groombridge discoursed to the keeper of cows, +who looked sleek and prosperous and a little sulky the while. + +"You would be wise to learn some of it from her," Edmund went on. "Isn't +this nice? Let us sit upon the ground, as it is dry, and feel how good +everything is. You like this sort of thing, don't you?" + +Molly murmured "Yes," and sat down on a mossy bank and looked up into +the glorious blue sky and then at a tuft of large, pale primroses in the +midst of dark ground ivy, then far down to the fields where a group of +brown cows, rich in colour, stood lazily content by a blue stream that +sparkled in the sunlight. Edmund was not hard-hearted, and Molly looked +very young, and a pathetic trouble underlay the sense of pleasure in her +face. There was no peace in Molly's eyes, only the quick alternations of +acute enjoyment and the revolt against pain and a child's resentment at +supposed blame. + +Pleasure was uppermost at this moment, for so many slight, easy, human +pleasures were new to her. She sat curved on the ground, with the ease +and suppleness of a greyhound ready to spring, whereas Sir Edmund was +forty and a little more stiff than his age warranted. + +"But when you do enjoy yourself I imagine it's worth a good many hours +of our friend's sunny existence. Oh, dear, dear!" For at that moment the +dairy was a scene of some confusion; two enormous dogs from the Castle +had bounded up to Lady Groombridge, barking outrageously, and one of +them had covered her companion with mud. + +"She is saying that it does not matter in the least, and that the gown +is an old rag, but I'm sure it's new on to-day, and it's impossible to +say how much has not been paid for it." + +Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she +could hear every word the little woman was saying. + +"Well, _that_ you will allow is humbug!" + +"Yes, I think I will this time, and I believe, too, that the philosophy +has collapsed. I'm sure she's a mass of ruffled feathers, and her mind +is full of things that she will hurl at the devoted head of her maid +when she gets in. You can only really wound that type of woman to the +quick by touching her clothes. There now, is that severe enough?" + +"Why do we always talk of Mrs. Delaport Green?" asked Molly. + +"Because she is on trial in your mind and you are not quite sure whether +she suits." + +"I might go further and fare worse," said Molly. + +"Is there no one you would naturally go to?" asked Edmund. + +"There is the aunt who brought me up, Mrs. Carteret, and I'd rather--" +She paused. "There is nothing in this world I would not rather do than +go back to her." + +Molly's face was completely overcast; it was threatening and angry. + +"Poor child!" said Edmund gently. + +"I wonder," said Molly, "if anybody used to say 'poor child' when I was +small. There must have been some one who pitied an orphan, even in the +cheerful, open-air system of Aunt Anne's house, where no one ever +thought of feelings, or fancies, or frights at night, or loneliness." + +Edmund looked at her with a sympathy that tried to conceal his +curiosity. + +"Was it possible," he wondered, "that she really thought she was an +orphan?" + +"It's dreadful to think of a very lonely child," he said. + +"But some people have to be lonely all their lives," said Molly. + +Sir Edmund was touched. She had raised her head and looked at him with a +pleading confidence. Then, with one swift movement, she was suddenly +kneeling and tearing to pieces two or three primroses in succession. + +"Some people have to say things that can never be really said, or else +keep everything shut up." + +"Don't you think they may make a mistake, and that the things can be +said--" He hesitated; he did not want to press her unfairly into +confidence; "to the right person?" he concluded rather lamely. + +"Who is to find the right person?" said Molly bitterly; "the right +person is easy to find for people who have just ordinary cares and +difficulties, but the people who are in real difficulties don't easily +find the right person. I doubt if he or she exists myself!" + +She turned to find Edmund Grosse looking at her with far too much +meaning in his face; there was a degree and intensity of interest in his +look that might be read in more than one way. + +Molly blushed with the simplicity suited to seventeen rather than to +twenty-one. She was very near to the first outpouring in her life, the +torrent of her pent-up thoughts and feelings was pressing against the +flood-gates. It seemed to her that she had never known true and real +sympathy before she felt that look. She held out her hands towards him +with a little unconscious gesture of appeal. + +"I have had a strange life," she said; "I am in very strange +circumstances now." + +But Edmund suddenly got up, and before she could speak again a slight +sound on the path showed her that some one was coming. + +Rose, finding every one dispersed, had taken a walk by herself in the +wood. She was glad to be alone; she felt the presence of God in the +woods as very near and intimate. Her mind had one of those moments of +complete rest and feeding on beautiful things which come to those who +have known great mental suffering in their lives, and to whom the world +is not giving its gaudy preoccupations. So, walking amidst the glory of +spring lit by a spiritual sunshine, Rose came round a little stunted +yew-tree to find Molly kneeling on the ground ivy, and Edmund standing +by her. Molly rose in one movement to her full height, as if her legs +possessed no jointed impediments, and a fiercely negative expression +filled the grey eyes. Rose's kind hand had unwittingly slammed the +flood-gates in the moment they had opened; and Edmund, seeing that +look, and feeling the air electric, suddenly reverted to a belief in +Molly's sense of guilt towards Rose. + +For the fraction of a second Rose looked helplessly at Edmund, and then +held out a little bunch of violets to Molly. + +"Won't you have these? There; they suit so well with your gown." + +With a quick and very gentle touch she put the violets into Molly's +belt, and smiled at her with the sunshine that was all about them. + +Molly looked a little dazed, and the "Thank you" of her clear low voice +was mechanical. + +"I was just coming for a few minutes' walk in the wood." + +Rose's voice was very rich in inflection, and now it sounded like a +caress. + +"But I wonder if it is late? I think I have forgotten the time, it is +all so beautiful." + +She laid her hand for a moment on Molly's arm. + +"It is very late," said Edmund with decision, but without consulting his +watch on the point. + +They all moved quickly, and while making their way back to the Castle +Rose and Edmund talked of Lord and Lady Groombridge, and Molly walked +silently beside them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE PET VICE + + +"May I come in?" + +At the same moment the door was half opened, and Lady Groombridge, in a +heavy, dark-coloured gown, made her way in, with the swish of a long, +silk train. She half opened the door with an air of mystery, and she +closed it softly while she held her flat silver candlestick in her hand +as if she wished she could conceal it, yet the oil lamps were still +burning in the gallery behind her. The appearance of the wish for +concealment was merely the unconscious expression of her mental +condition at the moment. + +Two women looked up in surprise as she made this unconsciously dramatic +entrance into her guest's bedroom. Lady Rose was sitting in front of the +uncurtained window in a loose, white dressing-gown, lifting a mass of +her golden hair with her hair brush. She had been talking eagerly, but +vaguely, before her hostess came in, in order to conceal the fact that +she wished intensely to be allowed to go to bed. + +Lady Rose made many such minor sacrifices on the altar of charity, and +she was sorry for the tall, thin, mysterious girl who, at first almost +impossibly stiff and cold, had volunteered a visit to her room to-night. +It was only a very few who were ever asked to come into Rose's room, +and she had hastily covered the miniature of her dead husband in his +uniform with her small fan before she admitted Molly. + +By some strange impulse, Molly had attached herself to Rose during the +rest of that Easter Sunday. Curiosity, admiration, or jealousy might +have accounted for Molly's doing this. To herself it seemed merely part +of her determination to face the position without fear or fancies. If +Lady Rose found out later with whom she had spent those hours, at least +she should not think that Molly had been embarrassed. Perhaps, too, Sir +Edmund's efforts to keep them apart made her more anxious to be with +her. + +Having been kindly welcomed to Rose's room, Molly found herself slightly +embarrassed; they seemed to have used up all common topics during the +day, and Molly was certainly not prepared to be confidential. + +The entrance of the hostess came as a relief. That lady, without +glancing at Rose or Molly as she came into the middle of the room, +banged the candlestick down on a small table, and then threw herself +into an arm-chair, which gave a creak of sympathy in response to her +loud sigh. + +"It is perfectly disgraceful!" she said, "and now I don't really know +what has happened. On Easter Sunday night, too!" + +Molly had been standing by the window, looking out on the moonlit park. +She now leaned further across the wide window-seat, so that her slight, +sea-green silk-clad figure might not be obtrusive, and the dark keen +face was turned away for the same purpose. + +"That woman has actually," Lady Groombridge went on, "been playing cards +in the smoking-room on Easter Sunday night with Billy and those two +boys. What Groombridge will say, I can't conceive; it is perfectly +disgraceful!" + +"Have they been playing for much?" + +"Oh, for anything, I suppose; and Edmund Grosse says that the boy from +the Parsonage has lost any amount to Billy. They have fleeced him in the +most disgraceful way." + +There was a long silence. Rose looked utterly distressed. + +"If he had only refused to play," she said at last, as if she wished to +return in imagination to a happier state of things. + +"It's no use saying that now," said Lady Groombridge, with an air of +ineffable wisdom. + +Molly Dexter bit her tiny evening handkerchief, and her grey eyes +laughed at the moonlight. + +"Well, Rose, I can't say you are much comfort to me," the hostess went +on presently, with a dawn of humour on her countenance as she crossed +one leg over the other. + +"But, my dear, what can I say?" + +The tall, white figure, brush in hand, rose and stood over the elderly +woman in the chair. Rose had had the healthy development of a girlhood +in the country, but her regular features were more deeply marked now and +there were dark lines under her clear, blue eyes. + +"Do you think," said the hostess in a brooding way, "that Mrs. +What's-her-name Green would tell you how much he lost, Rose, if you went +to her room? Of course, I can't possibly ask her." + +"Oh no; she thinks me a goody-goody old frump." + +At the same moment another brush at the splendid hair betrayed a +half-consciousness of the grace of her own movements. + +"She wouldn't say a word to me--she is much more likely to tell one of +the men. Perhaps she will tell Edmund Grosse to-morrow; he is so easy to +talk to." + +"But that's no use for to-night, and Groombridge will be simply furious +if I ask him to interfere without telling him how much it comes to. +Billy won't say a word." + +"I think," said Rose very slowly, "that if we all go to bed now, we +shall have some bright idea in the morning." + +Before this master-stroke of suggestion had reached Lady Groombridge's +brain, a very low voice came from the window. + +"Would you like me to go and ask her?" + +The hostess started; she had forgotten Miss Molly Dexter. A little dull +blush rose to her forehead. + +"Oh dear, I had forgotten you were there; but, after all, she is no +relation of yours, and it isn't your fault, you know. Could you--would +you really not mind asking her?" + +"I don't mind at all. Might I take your candle?" + +"Of course," said Lady Groombridge, "you won't, don't you know----" + +"Say that you sent me?" The low, detached voice betrayed no sarcasm. She +knew perfectly well that Lady Groombridge disliked being beholden to her +at that moment. It was rather amusing to make her so. + +For fifteen minutes after that the travelling clock by Lady Rose's bed +ticked loudly, and drowned the faint murmur of her prayers while she +knelt at the _prie-dieu_. + +Lady Groombridge knew Rose too well to be surprised. But she did not, +like the young widow, pass the time in prayer; she was worried--even +deeply so. She was of an anxious temperament, and she was really shocked +at what had happened. + +Molly did not come back with any air of mystery, but with a curiously +negative look. + +"Thirty-five pounds," she said very quietly. + +Lady Groombridge sat up, very wide awake. + +"More than half his allowance for a whole year," she said with +conviction. + +"Oh dear, dear," said Lady Rose, rising as gracefully as a guardian +angel from her _prie-dieu_. + +Molly made no comment, although in her heart she was very angry with +Mrs. Delaport Green. Her quick "Good-night" was very cordially returned +by the other two. + +"Now tell me something more about Miss Molly Dexter," said Rose, sinking +on to a tiny footstool at Lady Groombridge's feet as soon as they were +alone. + +"I am ashamed to say that I know very little about her; I am simply +furious with myself for having asked them at all. I don't often yield to +kind-hearted impulses, and I'm sure I'm punished enough this time." + +Lady Groombridge gave a snort. + +"But who is she? Is she one of the Malcot Dexters?" + +"Yes; I can tell you that much. She is the daughter of a John Dexter I +used to know a little. He died many years ago, not very long after +divorcing his wife, and this poor girl was brought up by an aunt, and +Sir Edmund says she had a bad time of it. Then she made one of those odd +arrangements people make nowadays, to be taken about by this Mrs. +Delaport Green, and I met them at Aunt Emily's, and, of course, I +thought they were all right and asked them to come here. After that I +heard a little more about the girl from some one in London; I can't +remember who it was now." + +"Poor thing," said Rose; "she looks as if she had had a sad childhood. +But what curious eyes; I find her looking through and through me." + +"Yes; you have evidently got a marked attraction for her." + +"Repulsion, I should have called it," said Rose, with her gentle laugh. + +Lady Groombridge laughed too, and got up to go to bed. + +"And what became of the mother?" + +"She is living--" said the other; then she caught her sleeve in the +table very clumsily, and was a moment or two disengaging the lace. "She +is living," she then said rather slowly, "in Paris, I think it is, but +this girl has never seen her." + +"How dreadful!" + +"Yes. Good-night, Rose; do get to bed quickly,--a wise remark when it is +I who have been keeping you up!" + +Lady Groombridge, when she got to her own room, murmured to herself: + +"I only stopped just in time. I nearly said Florence, and that is where +the other wicked woman lives. It's odd they should both live in +Florence. But--how absurd, I'm half asleep--it would be much odder if +there were not two wicked women in Florence." + + +Sir Edmund was aware as soon as he took his seat by Molly at the +breakfast-table that she knew why Lady Groombridge was pouring out tea +with a dark countenance. He put a plate of omelette in his own place, +and then asked if Molly needed anything. As she answered in the negative +he murmured as he sat down: + +"Mrs. Delaport Green is not down?" + +"She has a furious toothache." + +Molly's look answered his. + +"I suppose there is no such thing as a dentist left in London on Easter +Monday?" + +No more was safe just then; but by common consent they moved out on to +the terrace as soon as they had finished breakfast. + +"It is too tiresome, too silly, too wrong," said Molly. + +"Yes; the pet vice should be left at home," said Edmund. "Many of them +do it because it's fashionable, but this one must have it in the blood. +I saw her begin to play, and she was a different creature when she +touched the cards. What sort of repentence is there?" + +"I found her crying last night like a child, but this morning I see she +is going to brazen it out. But she wants to quarrel with me at once, so +I don't get much confidence." + +"But you don't mind that?" + +"Not in the least, only--" Molly sighed, but intimate as their tone was, +she did not now feel any inclination to reveal her greater troubles. + +"I don't want to end up badly with my first venture, and I have nowhere +else to go. For to-day I think she will talk of going to see the dentist +until she finds out how she is treated here." + +"Oh! that will be all right for to-day," said Edmund. "There are no +possible trains on Bank holiday, and no motor. Let her get off early +to-morrow." + +Molly had evidently sought his opinion as decisive, and she turned as if +to go and repeat it to Mrs. Delaport Green. + +"But what will you do yourself?" he asked very gently. + +"I shall go away with her, and then--I wonder--" She hesitated, and +looked full into his face. "Would you be shocked if I took a flat by +myself? I don't want to hunt for another Mrs. Delaport Green just now." + +Sir Edmund paused. It struck him for a moment as very tiresome that he +should be falling into the position of counsellor and guide to this +girl, while he had anything but her prosperity at heart. He looked at +her, and there was in her attitude a pathetic confidence in his +judgment. + +"I don't want," she went on, holding her head very straight and looking +away to the wooded hills, "I don't want to do anything unconventional." + +A deep blush overspread the dark face--a blush of shame and hesitation, +for the words, "your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than +other girls," so often in poor Molly's mind, were repeated there now. + +"If there were an old governess, or some one of that sort," suggested +Sir Edmund, with hesitation. + +"Oh yes, yes!" cried Molly eagerly; "there is one, if I could only get +her. Oh, thank you, yes! I wonder I did not think of that before." And +she gave a happy, youthful laugh at this solution. + +"Is it some one you really care for?" asked Edmund, with growing +interest. + +"I don't know about really caring"--Molly looked puzzled--"but she would +do. There is one thing more I wanted to ask you. About the silly boy +last night: whom does he owe the money to? I know nothing about +bridge." + +"He owes it to Billy." + +Molly looked sorry. + +"I thought, if it were to Mrs. Delaport Green----" + +"You might have paid the money?" Edmund smiled kindly at her. "No, no, +Miss Dexter, that will be all right." + +She turned from him, laughing, and went indoors to Mrs. Delaport Green's +room. + +She found that lady writing letters, and the floor was scattered with +them, six deep round the table. She put her hand to her face as Molly +came in. + +"There are no possible trains," said Molly, "so I'm afraid you must bear +it. Sir Edmund advises us to go by an early train to-morrow: he thinks +to-day you would be better here, as there won't be a dentist left in +London." + +"I am very brave at bearing pain, fortunately," was the answer, "and I +am trying, even now, to get on with my letters. I think I shall go to +Eastbourne to-morrow; there are always good dentists in those places. I +love the churches there, and the air will brace my nerves. I might have +gone to Brighton only Tim is there. Will you"--she paused a +moment--"will you come to Eastbourne too?" + +Mrs. Delaport Green was not disposed to have Molly with her. She was +exceedingly annoyed at the _débâcle_ of her visit to Groombridge--a +visit which she was describing in glowing terms in her letters to all +her particular friends. It would be unpleasant to have Molly's critical +eyes upon her; she liked, and was accustomed to, people with a very +different expression. + +Molly, however, ignoring very patent hints with great calmness and +firmness, told her that she intended to stay with her for just as long +as it was necessary before finding some one to live with in a little +flat in London. She felt the possibility, at first, of Mrs. Delaport +Green's becoming insolent, but she was presently convinced that she had +mastered the situation. They agreed to go to Eastbourne together next +day, and then to look for a flat for Molly in London. The suggestion +that Mrs. Delaport Green might help Molly to choose the furniture proved +very soothing indeed. + +Molly went down-stairs again to let Sir Edmund know they were not going +to leave till next morning, and to find out if he had succeeded in +speaking to Lady Groombridge. + +As she passed through the hall, she saw that he was sitting with Lady +Rose by a window opening on to the terrace. She was passing on, being +anxious not to interrupt them, but Rose held out her hand. + +"I've hardly seen you this morning. Do come and sit with us." And then, +as Molly rather shyly sat down by her side on a low sofa, Lady Rose went +on: + +"I was just telling Sir Edmund a very beautiful thing that has happened, +only it is very sad for dear Lord Groombridge and for her. They have +only had the news this morning, but it is not a secret, and it is very +wonderful. You know that this place was to go to a cousin, quite a young +man, and they liked him very much. They did mind his being a Roman +Catholic, but they were very good about it, and now he has written that +he has actually been ordained a priest, and that he will not have the +property or the Castle as he is going to be just an ordinary parish +priest working amongst the poor. It is wonderful, isn't it? They say the +next brother is a very ordinary young man--not like this wonderful +one--and so they are very much upset to-day, poor dears. They knew he +was studying for the priesthood, but they did not realise that the time +for his Ordination had really come." + +Molly murmured shyly something that sounded sympathetic, and then, +looking at Sir Edmund, ventured to say: + +"Mrs. Delaport Green would like to stay till the early train to-morrow. +But have you seen Lady Groombridge?" + +"Yes; it's all right--or rather, it's all wrong--but she won't tell +Groombridge to-day, and she will be quite fairly civil, I think." + +"And this news," said Rose gently, "will make them both think less of +that unfortunate affair last night." + +Molly rose and moved off with an unusually genial smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE THIN END OF A CLUE + + +Edmund Grosse later on in the morning strolled down to the stables. He +had been there the day before, but he had still something to say to the +stud-groom, an old friend of his, who had the highest respect for the +baronet's judgment. + +Edmund loved a really well-kept stable, where hardly a straw escapes +beyond the plaited edges, where the paint is renewed and washed to the +highest possible pitch of cleanliness, and where a perpetual whish of +water and clanking of pails testify to a constant cleaning of +cobblestone yard and flagged pavement. + +In the middle of Groombridge Castle stable-yard there was an oval of +perfect turf, and that was surrounded by soft, red gravel; then came +alternate squares of pavement and cobble-stones, on to which opened the +wide doors of coach-houses and stables and harness-rooms, and the back +gate of the stud-groom's house. + +An old, white-haired, ruddy-faced man standing on the red gravel smiled +heartily when Sir Edmund appeared. The man was in plain clothes, with a +very upright collar and a pearl horseshoe-pin in his tie; his figure was +well-built, but showed unmistakably that his knees had been fixed in +their present shape by constant riding. + +He touched his hat. + +"How's the mare to-day, Akers?" asked Sir Edmund. + +"Nicely, nicely; it's a splendid mash that, Sir Edmund. Old Hartley gave +me the recipe for that. He was stud-groom here longer than I have been, +in the old lord's day. He had hoped to have had his son to follow him, +but the lad got wild, and it couldn't be." + +The old man sighed, and changed the conversation. "Will you come round +again, sir?" + +"Yes," said Edmund; "I don't mind if I do. But you've got a son of your +own about the stable, haven't you?" he asked, as they turned towards the +other side of the yard. + +"I had two, Sir Edmund," was the brief and melancholy answer. "Jimmy's +here, but the lad I thought most on, he went and enlisted in the war, +and he couldn't settle down again after that. Jimmy, he'll never rise to +my place--it would not be fair, and I wouldn't let his lordship give it +a thought--but the other one might have done it." + +Sir Edmund felt some sympathy for the stay-at-home, whom he knew. "He +seems a cheerful, steady fellow." + +"He's steady enough, and he's cheerful enough," said his father, in a +tone of great contempt; "but the other lad had talent--he had talent." + +Both men had paused in the interest of their talk. + +"My eldest son, Thomas, of whom I'm speaking, went to the war in the +same ship as General Sir David Bright, and there's a thing I'd like to +tell you about that, Sir Edmund. It never came into my head how curious +a thing it was till yesterday--last night, I may say. Lady Rose +Bright's lady's-maid come in with Lady Groombridge's lady's-maid to see +my wife, and you'll excuse me if I do repeat some woman's gossip when +you see why I do it. Well, the long and short of it was that it seems +Lady Rose Bright has been left rather close as to fortune for a lady in +her position, and the money's all gone off elsewhere. Then the maid +said, Sir Edmund--whether truly or not I don't know, naturally--that +there had been hopes that another will might be sent home from South +Africa, but that nothing came of it. I felt, so to speak, puzzled while +I was listening, and afterwards my wife says to me while we were alone, +she says, 'Wasn't it our Thomas when he was on board ship wrote that he +had put his name to a paper for Sir David Bright?'--witnessing, you'll +understand she meant by that, sir--'and what's become of that paper I +should like to know,' says she. So she up and went to her room and took +out all Thomas's letters, and sure enough it was true." + +Akers paused, and then very slowly extracted a fat pocket-book from his +tight-fitting coat, and pulled out a letter beautifully written on thin +paper. He held it with evident respect, and then, after a preparatory +cough, he began to read: + +"'I was sent for to-day, and taken up with another of our regiment to +the state cabins by Sir David Bright's servant, and asked to put my name +to a paper as witness to Sir David Bright's signature, and so I did.'" + +Akers stopped, and looked across his glasses at Sir Edmund. + +"I don't know if you will remember Sir David's servant, Sir Edmund; he +was killed in the same battle as Sir David was, poor fellow. A big man +with red hair--a Scotchman--you'd have known that as soon as he opened +his mouth. He'd have chosen my boy from having known him here, in all +probability." + +"Yes, yes," said Grosse impatiently; "but how do you know that what he +witnessed was a will?" + +"Well, of course, I don't know, Sir Edmund, and of course the boy didn't +know what was in the paper he witnessed; but the missus will have it +that that paper was a will, and there'll be no getting it out of her +head that the right will has been lost. I was wondering about it when I +see you come into the yard, and I thought I'd just let you see the lad's +letter. It could do no harm, and it might do good." + +Edmund had been absolutely silent during this narrative, with his eyes +fixed on the stud-groom's face. + +"And where is Thomas now?" he asked, in a low voice. + +"He's in North India somewhere, Sir Edmund, but that is his poor +mother's trouble; we've not had a line from him these three months." + +"Oh, I'll find him for you," said Edmund, and he was just going to ask +what regiment Thomas was in when they were disturbed by the appearance +of Billy emerging from the hunters' stable, and Edmund Grosse felt an +unwarrantable contempt for a young man who dawdles away half the morning +in the stable. + +"Should I find you at six o'clock this evening?" he asked, in a low +voice, of the stud-groom; and having been satisfied on that point, he +strolled off and left Billy to talk of the horses. + +Edmund Grosse felt for the moment as if the missing will were in his +grasp, and he was quite sure now that he had never doubted its +existence. What he had just heard was the very first thing approaching +to evidence in favour of his own theory, which he had hitherto built up +entirely on guess-work. Of course, the paper might have been some +ordinary deed, some bit of business the General had forgotten to +transact before starting. But, if so, he felt sure that it must have +been business unknown to the brothers Murray, as they had discussed with +Grosse every detail of Sir Edmund's affairs. One thing was certain: it +would be quite as difficult after this to drive out of Edmund Grosse's +head the belief that this paper was a will as it would be to drive it +out of the head of Mrs. Akers. + +Edmund was in excellent spirits at luncheon. In the afternoon he drove +with Lady Groombridge and Rose and Molly to see a famous garden some +eight miles off, the owners of which were away in the South. The +original house to which the gardens belonged had been replaced by a +modern one in Italian style at the beginning of the nineteenth century. +It was not interesting, and Lady Groombridge gave a sniff of contempt as +she turned her back on it and her attention, and that of her friends, to +the far more striking green walls beyond the wide terraced walk on the +south side of the building. + +In the midst of ordinary English country scenery, these gardens had been +set by a great Frenchman who had caught the strange secret of the +romance of utterly formal hedges. He could make of them a fitting +framework for the glories of a court, or for sylvan life in Merrie +England. There were miles of hedges; not yew, hornbeam had been chosen +for this green, tranquil country. At one spot many avenues of hedges met +together as if by accident, or by some rhythmic movement; it was a +minuet of Nature's dancing, grown into formal lines but not +petrified--every detail, in fact, alive with green leaves. If you stood +in the midst of this meeting of the ways, the country round outside, +seen in vistas between the hedges, was curiously glorified, more +especially on one side where the avenues were shortened. There one saw +larger glimpses of fields and woods and bits of common-land that seemed +wonderfully eloquent of freedom and simplicity, nature and husbandry. +But if you had not seen those glimpses through the lines of strange, +stately, regal dignity--the lines of those mighty hedges--you would not +have been so startled by their charm. That was the triumph of the genius +of Lenôtre: he had seen that, framed in the sternest symbols of rule and +order, one could get the freshest joy in the pictures of Nature's +untouched handiwork. On the west side the avenues of hedges disappeared +into distant vistas of wood, one only ending in a piece of most formal +ornamental water. I don't know how it was, but it was difficult not to +be infected by a curious sense of orgy, of human beings up to their +tricks--love tricks, drinking and eating--perhaps murdering tricks--all +done in some impish fantastic way, between those long hedges or behind +them. If there were not something going on down one avenue you looked +into, it was happening in another. + +Somewhat of all this Edmund said to Molly as they strolled between the +hedges which reached far above his head, but she felt that he was +absent-minded while he did so. He had planned for himself a walk and a +talk with Rose, but he had reckoned without his hostess, who had shown +so unmistakably that she intended him to amuse Molly that it would have +been discourteous to have done anything else. He had felt rather cross +as he saw Lady Groombridge and Rose turn down one of the longest walks, +one that seemed indeed to have no ending at all, with an air of +finality, as if their _tête-à-tête_ were to be as long as the path +before them, and as secret as the hedges could keep it. He would never +have come out driving with three women if he had not hoped to get a talk +alone with Rose. He told himself that Rose's avoidance of him was +becoming quite an affectation, and after all, he asked himself, what had +he done to be treated like this? + +"Why, if I were trying to make love to her she could not be more absurd! +The only time after our first walk here that we have been alone she made +Miss Dexter join us, and as the girl would not stay Rose found she must +write letters." + +As soon as he had made up his mind that he would show Rose what nonsense +it all was, he could and did--not without the zest of pique--turn his +attention to Molly. + +"Lady Groombridge doesn't frame well here, does she?" he said, smiling. +"Rather a shock at that date--the tweed skirt and the nailed boots and +the felt hat." + +"Yes; but Lady Rose floats down between the hedges as if she had a long +train, only she hasn't," laughed Molly. "The hem of her garment never +touches the earth, as a matter of fact. I wonder how it is done." + +"You are right," said Edmund; "and, do you know another thing about +Rose?--whatever she wears she seems to be in white." + +"I know," answered Molly. "I see what you mean." + +"It may be," said Edmund, "because she always wore white as a young +girl. I remember the day when David Bright first saw her she was in +white." Edmund had for a moment forgotten entirely why he should not +have mentioned David Bright. If Molly could have read his mind at the +next moment she would have seen that he was expressing a most fervent +wish that he had never met her. How little he had gained, or was likely +to gain, from her, and how stupid and tiresome, if not worse, was this +appearance of friendship. He felt this much more strongly on account of +the morning's discovery, and he was determined to keep on neutral +ground. + +"Have you ever seen Versailles?" he asked. + +"No; I have seen absolutely nothing out of England except India, when I +was a small child." + +There it was again! He could not let her give him any confidences about +India or anything else. + +"Well, the hedges at Versailles don't impress me half as much as these +do, and yet these are not half so well known. There's more of nature +here, and they are not so self-contained. At Versailles the Court and +its gardens were the world, and nature a tapestry hanging out for a +horizon; here it is amazing how the frame leads one's eyes to the great, +beautiful world outside. I never saw meadows and woods look fairer than +from here." + +They were silent; and in the silence Grosse heard shouting and then saw +a huge dog dragging a chain, rushing along the avenue towards them, +while louder shouts came from the opposite direction. + +"We must run," he said very quietly, "there's something wrong with it;" +and two men, still calling and waving their arms, appeared at the end +nearest the house. Edmund took Molly by the arm, and they ran to meet +the men. + +"Get the lady over the kitchen-garden wall!" shouted one who held a gun, +and as they came to the end of the hedge on their left they saw a wall +at right angles to it about five feet high. Molly looked for any sort of +footing in the bricks for one second, and then she felt Grosse lift her +in his arms, and deposit her on the top of the wall. She rolled over on +the other side into a strawberry bed in blossom. She heard a gun fired +as she jumped to her feet, and a second shot followed. + +"He's dead, sir," she heard a voice say. "I'll open the gate for the +lady." + +And then a garden gate a few yards off was opened inward, and Molly +walked to meet the man whom she supposed to be a head gardener. She +thanked him and went through the gate, to find Edmund, with a very white +face, leaning back on a stone bench built into the wall. + +"The gentleman strained himself a bit," said the gardener, in a tone of +apology to Molly. "I can't think how he come to break his chain"--he +meant the dog this time. "I've said he ought to be shot long ago; now +they'll believe me. Why, he bit off the porter's ear at the station when +he first come, and he was half mad with rage to-day." + +"I'm all right," said Edmund, with a kindly smile to the horribly +distressed Molly. She went up to him with a gentle, tender anxiety on +her face that betrayed a too strong feeling, only he was just faint +enough not to notice it. + +"It's nothing, child," he said in the fatherly tone that to Molly meant +so far too much. "The merest rick. I forgot, in the hurry, to think how +high I was lifting you, and I also forgot that there might be cucumber +frames on the other side!" + +"I wouldn't have said 'over the garden wall,' sir, if there had been," +said the gardener with a smile, as he offered a glass of water that had +been fetched by the other man, whose coat and gaiters proclaimed him +unmistakably a keeper. + +"A fine dog, poor fellow," said Edmund to the latter. + +The keeper shook his head. "I don't deny it, sir, but there are fine +lions and fine bears, too, sir, that are kept locked up in the +Zoölogical Gardens." Evidently the gardener and the keeper were of one +opinion in this matter. + +Presently Sir Edmund was so clearly all right that the men, after being +tipped and having all their further offers of help refused, went away. + +Edmund and Molly were left alone. + +"How well you run!" he said, smiling. + +"Yes; even without a ferocious dog behind me I can run fairly well," she +said. "But I wish you had let me get over that wall alone. And I wish +they could have spared that splendid animal." + +"After all, he would have been shot whether we had been there or not," +said Edmund. "My only bad moment was listening for the crash of broken +glass and thinking that you were cut to pieces." + +"You are sure that you have not hurt yourself?" Her grey eyes were large +with anxiety. + +Edmund, laughing, held up his hand, which was bleeding. + +"I see I have sustained a serious injury of which I was not aware in the +excitement of the crisis." + +Molly examined his hand with a professional air. Edmund let her wash it +with her handkerchief dipped in the glass of water, and bind it with his +own. Her touch was light and skilful, and it would have been absurd to +refuse to let her do it. But, as holding his wrist she raised it a +little higher to turn her bandage under it, her small, lithe, thin hand +was close to his face, and he gave it the slightest kiss. + +Any girl who had been abroad would have taken it as little more than the +merest politeness, but to Molly it came as a surprise. A glow of quick, +deep joy rose within her; her cheeks did not blush, for this was a +feeling too peaceful, too restful for blushes or any sort of discomfort. + +"This young lady can run like a deerhound," said Edmund, "and bandage +like a surgeon." + +"But that's about all she can do," laughed Molly. "Ah! there"--she could +not quite hide the regret in her voice--"there are Lady Groombridge and +Lady Rose." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MOLLY'S NIGHT WATCH + + +That night Molly could write it on the tablets of her mind that she had +passed a nearly perfect day. The evening had not promised to be as happy +as the rest, but it had held a happy hour. Mrs. Delaport Green had made +a masterly descent just in time for dinner. Molly smiled at the thought +when alone in her room. A beautiful tea-gown had expressed the invalid, +and was most becoming. + +"Every one has been so kind, dear Lady Groombridge; really, it is a +temptation to be ill in this house--everything so perfectly done." + +Lady Groombridge most distinctly grunted. + +"Why is toothache so peculiarly hard to bear?" She turned to Edmund +Grosse. + +"It wants a good deal of philosophy certainly, especially when one's +face swells; but yours, fortunately, has not lost its usual outline." +And he gave her a complimentary little bow. + +"Oh! there you are wrong," cried the sufferer. "My face is very much +swollen on one side." + +But she did not mention on which side the disfigurement was to be seen, +and she ate an excellent dinner and talked very brightly to her host, +who could not think why his wife had taken an evident dislike to the +little woman. Edmund teased her several times, and would not let her +settle down into her usual state of self-content, but after dinner she +wisely took refuge with the merciful Rose. + +Lady Groombridge meanwhile gave Molly a dose of good advice, kindly, if +a little roughly, administered. + +"I was pretty and an orphan myself, and it is not very easy work; then +you have money, which makes it both better and worse. Be with wise +people as much as you can; if they are a little dull it is worth while. +If you take up with any bright, amusing woman you meet, you will find +yourself more worried in the long run;" and she glanced significantly at +Mrs. Delaport Green. + +The obvious nature of the advice, of which this remark is a sample, did +not spoil it. Sometimes it is a comfort to have the thing said to us +that we quite see for ourselves. In to-day's unwonted mood Molly was +ready to receive very ordinary wisdom as golden. + +And then Lady Groombridge discovered that Molly was musical, and the +older woman loved music, finding in it some of the romance which was +shut out by her own limitations and by a life of over great bustle and +worry. + +So Molly found in her music expression for her joy in the spring, and +her wistful, undefined sense of hope in life. + +Lady Groombridge, sitting near her, listened almost hungrily, and asked +for more. She was utterly sad to-night with the "might have been" of a +childless woman. The news of the final sacrifice on the part of the heir +to Groombridge, of all that meant so much to herself and her husband, +had made so keen to her the sense of emptiness in their old age. And the +music soothed her into a deeper feeling of submission that in reality +underlay the outward unrest and discontent of to-day. Submission was, at +one time, the most marked virtue of every class in our country, and it +may be found sometimes in those who, having lost all other conscious +religion, will still say, "He knows best," revealing thereby the +bed-rock of faith as the foundation of their lives. Lady Groombridge had +not lost her religious beliefs, but she was more dutiful than devout, +and did not herself often reflect on what strength duty depended. + +And Molly, who knew nothing of submission, yet ministered to the older +woman's peace by her music. When the men came out, Lord Groombridge took +a chair close to his wife's as if to share in her pleasure, and Edmund +moved out of Molly's sight. She sometimes heard the voice of Rose or of +Billy or of Mrs. Delaport Green, but not Sir Edmund's, and she naturally +thought he was listening, whereas part of the time he was reading a +review. But as the ladies were going up to bed, he said, looking into +the large, grey eyes: + +"Who said she could do nothing but run like a deerhound and bandage like +a surgeon? And now I find she can play like an artist. What next?" + +And Molly, standing in her room, said to herself that it had been the +happiest day of her life. + +But a moment later the maid came in, and while helping to take off her +dinner dress, told her mistress that the kitchenmaid in a room near hers +was groaning horribly. It seemed that Lady Groombridge had given out +some medicine, and Lady Rose had sent up her hot-water bottle and her +spirit-lamp, and had advised that the bottle be constantly refilled +during the night. + +"But I'm sure, miss, she shouldn't take that medicine. I took on myself +to tell her not to till I'd spoken to you, and I'm sure I don't know who +is going to sit up filling bottles to-night. Lady Groombridge's +maid"--in a tone of deep respect--"isn't one to be disturbed, and the +scullerymaid won't get to bed till one in the morning: this girl being +ill it gives her double work." + +Molly instantly rose to the situation. She knew of better appliances +than the softest hot-water bottles, and soon after her noiseless +entrance into the housemaid's attic the pain had been relieved. But, +being a little afraid that the girl was threatened with appendicitis, +she knew that if that were the case the relief from the application she +had used was only temporary. However, the patient rested longer than she +expected. Molly sat by the open window, while behind her on the two +narrow beds lay the sick girl and the now loudly-snoring scullerymaid, +who had come up a little before twelve o'clock. + +"Not quite six hours' sleep that girl will get to-night," mused Molly, +"and then downstairs again and two hours' work before the cook comes +down to scold her. What a life!" + +But, after all, Molly had noticed the blush with which the girl had put +a few violets in a little pot on the chimney-piece. Was it quite sure +that Miss Dexter's life would be happier than that of the snorer on the +bed, who smiled once or twice in her noisy sleep? + +"There is happiness in this world after all," mused Molly, soothed by +thoughts of the past day, by the stillness on the face of the earth, and +by a certain rest that came to her with all acts of kindness--a certain +lull to those activities of mind and instinct that constantly led her +out of the paths of peace. + +This was a sacred time of the night to Molly. It was associated in her +mind with the best hours she had ever lived, hours of sick nursing and +devotion, hours of real use and help. For months now she had been living +entirely for herself, to fight her own battle and make her own way in a +hostile world. She had had much excitement and even real pleasure. Her +imagination had taken fire with the notion that she must assert herself +or be crushed in the race of life. Heavy ordinary people would find it +hard to understand Molly's strange idealisation of the glories of the +kingdom of this world which she meant to conquer. And if she were +frustrated in her passion for worldly success, there were capacities in +her which she as yet hardly suspected, but she did feel at times the +stirrings of evil things, cruelty, revenge, and she hardly knew what +else. How could people understand her? She shrank from understanding +herself. + +But to-night she knew the inspiration of another ideal; she recognised +the possibility of aims in which self hardly counts. There had been +indeed a stir in the minds of all at Groombridge when they knew of the +final step taken by the heir. Molly, looking up at the great castle, on +her homeward drive, with its massive towers and its most commanding +position, had felt more and more impressed by an action on so big a +scale. It was impossible to be at Groombridge and not to feel the great +and noble opportunities its possession must give any remarkable man; and +the man who could give up such opportunities must be a very remarkable +man indeed. In Molly's self-engrossed life it had something of the same +effect as a great thunderstorm among mountains would have had in the +physical order. + +And to-night it came over her again, and she seemed to be listening to +the echoes of a far vibrating sound. And might there not be happiness +for Mark Molyneux? Might it not be happiness for herself to give up the +wretched, uncomfortable fight that life so often seemed to be, and to +let loose the Molly who could toil and go sleepless and be happy, if she +could achieve any diminution of bodily pain in man or woman, child or +beast? + +The dawn lightened; one or two rabbits stirred in the bracken in the +near park--this was peace. Then Molly smiled tenderly at the dawn. There +might come another solution in which life would be unselfish without +such acute sacrifice, and in which evil possibilities would be starved +for lack of temptation. And all that was good would grow in the +sunshine. + +And the sleeping scullerymaid smiled also. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SIR DAVID'S MEMORY + + +Lady Rose Bright was faintly disturbed on Tuesday morning, and came into +Lady Groombridge's sitting-room after Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly had +left the castle too preoccupied to notice the tall figure of Grosse in a +far window. + +This room had happily escaped all Georgian gorgeousness of decoration, +and the backs of the books, a fine eighteenth-century collection, stood +flush to the walls. The long room was all white except for the books, +the flowered chintz covers, some fine bronze statuettes, and a few bowls +of roses. + +Lady Rose moved mechanically towards the empty fire-place. + +It was one thing to try not to dislike Miss Dexter, and to see her in a +haze of Christian love; it was another to realise that, while she +herself had slept most comfortably, Molly had not been to bed at all +because the little kitchenmaid was in pain. Humility and appreciation +were rising in Rose's mind, as half absently she gently raised a vase +from the chimney-piece, and, turning to the light to examine its mark, +saw Sir Edmund looking at her from his distant window. + +A little, quite a little, flush came into her cheeks; not much deeper +than the soft, healthy colour usual to them. She examined the china with +more attention. + +The tall figure moved slowly, lazily, down the room towards her, holding +the _Times_ in one hand. + +"It's not Oriental," he said, "it's Lowestoft." + +"Ah!" said Rose absently. She felt the eyes whose sadness had been +apparent even to Mrs. Delaport Green looking her over with a quick +scrutiny. + +"Why, in your general scheme of benevolence, have you not thought it +fit, during the last few days, to give me the chance of talking to you +alone?" The tone was full of exasperation, but ironical too, as if he +were faintly amused at himself for being exasperated. + +"I don't know. Have I avoided being alone with you?" Rose had turned to +the chimney-piece. + +Edmund Grosse sank into a low chair, crossed his legs, and looked up at +her defiantly, but with keen observation. + +"It has been too absurd," he said, "you have hardly spoken to me, and +you know, of course, that I came here to see you. I meant to go to the +Riviera until I heard that you were coming here." + +"But you have been quite happy, quite amused. There seemed no reason why +I should interrupt. And you know, Edmund, they said that you came here +every year." + +"Well, I didn't come only to see you," he said, "as you like it better +that way. And now, it is about Miss Molly Dexter I want to speak to +you." + +This time Rose gave a little ghost of a sigh, and looked at him with +unutterable kindness. She was feeling that, after all, she had come +second in his consciousness--after Miss Dexter, whom she could not +like, but who had sat up all night with the kitchenmaid. + +"Why about Miss Dexter? what can I have to do with her?" The tone was +almost contemptuous--not quite, Rose was too kind. + +"Do you remember that I went to Florence?" + +"Yes; I did not want you to go." There was at once a distinct note of +distress in her voice. It was horribly painful to her to have to think +of the things she tried so hard to bury away. + +"No, but I went," he said very gently; "and it was useless, as I knew it +would be. But I want to tell you one thing which I have learnt, and +which I think you ought to know, as it may be inconvenient if you do +not. It is that Miss Dexter----" Rose interrupted him quickly. + +"Is the daughter of the lady in Florence?" She gave a little hysterical +laugh. He looked at her in astonishment. + +"And that is why she dislikes me so much. Do you know, Edmund, I had a +feeling from the moment I first saw her that there was something wrong +between us. It gave me a horrible feeling, and then I asked Mary +Groombridge about her, and she told me the poor girl's story; only she +said the mother lived in Paris. Of course Mary does not know, or she +would never have asked us here together. But that is how I knew what you +were going to say; and yet I had no notion of it till a moment ago, when +it came to me in a flash. Only I wish I had known sooner!" + +It was not common with Rose to say so much at a time, and there had been +slight breaks and gaps in her voice, pathetic sounds to the listener. +She seemed a little--just a little--out of breath with past sorrow and +present pain. Edmund thought he would never come to know all the +inflections in that voice. + +"I wish I had known sooner. I am afraid I have not been kind to her." + +"And if you had known you would have cast your pearls at her feet," he +said, in tender anger. "Don't make the mistake of being too kind to her, +Rose. I want you to keep her at a distance. There is something all the +more dangerous about her because she is distinctly attractive. She has +primitive passions, and yet she is not melodramatic; it's a dangerous +species." + +It was amazing how easy it was to take a severe view of poor Molly after +she had gone away, and how he believed what he said. + +"She has never seen her mother?" asked Rose gently. + +"No, but I am sure she knows about her mother," the slowness in his +voice was vindictive; "and that her mother knows what we don't know +about the will." + +"Edmund dear," said Rose very earnestly, "do please leave that point +alone; no good can come of it. I do assure you that no good, only harm, +will come of it. It's bad and unwholesome for us all--mother and you and +me--to dwell on it. I do really wish you would leave it alone." + +Edmund frowned, though he liked that expression, "mother and you and +me." + +"You needn't think about it unless you wish to," he answered. + +"But I wish you wouldn't!" + +"If I had banished it from my thoughts up till now, I could not leave it +alone now, for I have a clue." + +"Oh, don't, Edmund." + +"Well, it may come to nothing; only I'm glad that it makes one thing +still more clear to me though it may go no further." + +He told her then of what the stud-groom had said, and ended by showing +her the letter. Rose read it in silence, and then, still standing with +her face turned away, she said in a very low voice: + +"It is a comfort as far as it goes. But I knew it was so; he never meant +things to be as they are--poor David! Edmund, it is of no use to think +of it. Even if the paper then witnessed were the will, it is lost now +and will never be found. I would rather--I would _really_ rather not +think too much about it." + +"No, no," he answered soothingly, "don't dear, don't dwell on it." + +"I like," she answered, "to dwell on the thought that David did think of +me lovingly, and did not mean to leave me to any shame. I am sure he +never meant to leave me poor, and to let me suffer all the publicity +about that poor woman. I am sure he always meant to change the will in +time, but, you see, all that mischief is done and can't be undone. I +mean the humiliation and the idea that she was in Florence all the time +during our married life, and all the talk, and my having to meet this +unfortunate girl who has his money. All of them think he was unfaithful +to me, and nothing can put that right. Nothing--I mean nothing of this +world--can put any of that right. And I can't bear the idea of a quarrel +and going to law with these people for money; it may be pride, but I +simply can't bear it." + +"But, don't you see," said Edmund, "that if we could prove there was +another will, that would clear David's reputation." + +"It won't prevent people knowing that there was the first will and all +about the poor woman in Florence." + +"No; but it will make people feel that he behaved properly in the end. +It will alter their bad opinion of him." + +"But it will also make them go on thinking and talking of the scandal, +and if it is left alone they will forget. People forget so soon, because +there is always something new to talk about. He will just take his place +among the heroes who died for their country, and the rest will be +forgotten." + +Edmund looked at her quickly, as if taking stock of the delicate nature +of the complex womanly materials he had to deal with, but her face was +still averted. + +"I think it's hard on David." He spoke as if yielding to her wish. "I do +think it is hard. If he did make this will, and it is lost through +chance or fraud, I think it is very hard that his last wishes should be +disregarded, and his memory should suffer in all right-minded people's +opinions. Of course, it is for you to decide, but I own I should +otherwise feel it wrong to leave a stone unturned if anything could be +done to restore his good name." + +He felt that Rose was terribly troubled, but he could not quite realise +what it was to her to disturb her hardly-won peace of mind and calm of +conscience. + +"If it were not for the money!" she faltered. "I shall get to long for +that money; so many people become horrid when they have a lawsuit about +a fortune. It has always seemed to me that if the money is only for +one's self one might leave it alone, and then, after all, if we went to +law and failed, things would be much worse than they were before." + +"Well," said Edmund, slightly exasperated but controlling himself. "I +don't mean to do anything definite yet, but we ought to find out if we +can make a case of it. We can always stop in time if we can't get what +we want, but it's worth while to try. It is not merely the money--the +less you dwell on that the better. Seriously, I think it would be very +wrong that, through any fastidiousness of yours, David's memory should +not be cleared if it is possible to clear it." + +The last shot had this time reached the mark. After a few minutes' +silence Rose said in a very low voice: + +"But then, what can I do about it?" He felt that she was hurt, but he +knew he had gained his point. + +"I don't think you can do anything at this moment but allow me a free +hand; I could not do what is necessary without your permission and your +trust--and, presently, let me compare notes with you freely. I know what +your judgment is worth when you can get rid of those scruples." + +"Very well." + +But still she did not turn round. Indeed, the wounds in her mind were +too deep and too fresh to make the subject give her anything but +quivering pain. It was impossible that Edmund should suspect half of +what she felt. He naturally concluded that much of her present suffering +showed how unconquerably Rose's love for Sir David had outlived the +strain put on it. To Rose it would have been much simpler if it had been +so. But in fact part of the trial to Rose was the doubt of her own past +love, and of her own present loyalty. Had she ever truly loved David +while he was still her hero "_sans peur et sans reproche_," could that +love have been killed at all? So much anxiety to be sure of having +forgiven, so much self-reproach for the failure of her marriage, such an +acute, overwhelming sense of shame, and such shrinking from all that was +ugly and low, were intermixed and confused in poor Rose's mind that it +was no wonder even Edmund, with all his tact and his tenderness, +blundered at times. + +They were quite silent for some moments. Edmund wanted to see her face +but he could not. Presently she looked into the glass over the +chimney-piece, and in the glass he saw with remorse a little tear about +to fall. + +"I think I've caught cold," she murmured to herself. Producing a tiny +handkerchief she seemed to apply it to her nose, and so caught that one +little tear. Her movements were wonderfully graceful, but the man +looking at her did not think of that. What he thought was:--How exactly +she was herself and no one else. How could she have that child's +simplicity of hers, and her amazing power of seeing through a stone +wall? How could she be a saint and have all a woman's faults? How could +she live half in another world and yet with all her absurd unworldliness +be so eminently a woman of this one? She was twenty-six, but she knew +what many women of fifty never learn; she was twenty-six, yet she was +more innocent than many a child of thirteen. What a contrast to Molly's +crude ignorance and hankering after success! + +All the time he looked at her in silence and she did not seem to realise +it. She put her handkerchief into her belt and took it out again; she +touched her hair, seeing in the glass that it was untidy. Then she sat +down on a low stool, and her soft, fluffy black draperies fell round +her. She pressed her elbows on her knees, and sank her face in her +hands. She might have been alone; he was not quite sure she was not +praying. There were some moments of silence. At last she moved, raised +her head, and looked him gently full in the face. + +"And you--you never talk about yourself," she said, with a thrill in her +voice that he had known so long. "I always talk so much of myself when I +am alone with you." + +"No," he said, with a touch of lazy anger, "I'm not worth talking about, +not worth thinking of, and you know it!" + +For a moment she flushed. + +"You always have abused yourself." + +"Because I know what's in your thoughts, and when I am with you I can't +help expressing them--there!" he concluded defiantly, and crossed and +uncrossed his legs again. + +"Edmund, that isn't one bit, one little bit true. But I do wish you were +happier." + +"Yes, of course," he went on sardonically, "you know that too. You know +that I loathe and detest life--that I hate the morning because it begins +a new day. Oh, I am bored to extinction, you know all that, you most +exasperating woman. I hate"--he suddenly seemed to see that he was +giving her pain, and the next words were muttered to himself--"no, I +love the pity in your eyes." + +The graceful figure sitting there trembled a little, and the white hands +covered the eyes again. + +"But," he went on quickly in a louder voice, "the pity's no good. You +might as well expect me to command an army to-morrow, or become an +efficient Prime Minister, or an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Roman +Catholic Cardinal, or anything else that is impossible, as become the +sort of man you would like me to be. You know so perfectly well," he +laughed, "how rotten I am; you are astonished if you find me do any sort +of good--you can't help it, how can you, when it's just and true? Do you +know I sometimes have had absurd dreams of what I might have been if you +had not been so terribly clear-sighted. You stood in your white frock +under the old mulberry tree--your first long skirt--and you saw that I +was no good, and you were perfectly right, but, after all, what is your +life to be now?" + +Rose got up from the stool and rested one hand on the marble +mantelpiece. She needed some help, some physical support. + +"Edmund," she said, "I don't think I dwell much on the future; I leave +all in God's hands. I have been through a good deal now, you must not +expect too much of me." She paused. "But what you have said to me about +yourself is nonsense; I wish you would not talk like that. You are only +forty. You are very clever, very rich, you have the right sort of +ambition although you won't say so, and you are, oh! so kind. Couldn't +you do something, have some real interest?" He growled inarticulately. +"Is it of no use to ask you just to think it over?" + +"None whatever," he said firmly and cheerfully. + +The gong sounded in the hall for luncheon. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MOLLY IN THE SEASON + + +"Still together?" + +"Yes; and it has not turned out so badly as might be expected." + +"I thought you were to have had a flat with a dear old governess?" + +"I could not get Miss Carew, the governess in question, and Adela +Delaport Green pressed me to stay with her for the season." + +"It does credit to the amiability of both," said Edmund. + +"I don't know about that," answered Molly, "we both knew what we wanted, +and that we could not easily get it unless we combined, and so we +combined." + +"But was it quite easy to get over the slight friction at Groombridge?" + +"Oh, yes; directly we got away Adela was all right. She felt stifled by +the atmosphere, and she recovered as soon as she got home." + +Edmund would have been less surprised at the tone of this last remark if +he had seen Lady Groombridge's exceedingly offhand way of greeting Molly +this same evening. That great lady, having expected to find that Molly +had, acting on her advice, abandoned Mrs. Delaport Green, was quite +disappointed in the girl when she met them still together in London, and +so she extended her frigidity to both of them. + +"And you are enjoying yourself?" Edmund went on. "Come, let us sit +behind those palms. You look as if things were going smoothly." + +"It is delightful." + +Molly cast her grey eyes over the moving groups that were strolling +about the ballroom, and over the lights and flowers and the band +preparing to begin again, and then looked up into Edmund's face. It was +a slow, luxurious movement, fitted to the rather unusually developed +face and expression. Most debutantes are crude in their enjoyment, but +Molly was beginning London at twenty-one, not at eighteen, and +circumstances made her more mature than her actual experience of society +warranted. Yet it seemed to Edmund that the untamed element in her was +the more striking from the contrast. Molly accepted social delights and +social conventions as a young and gentle tigress might enjoy the soft +turf of an English lawn. + +The defiance in her tone when she alluded to Groombridge faded now. + +"I have six balls in the next four nights, and one opera, and we are +going to Ascot, then back to London, then to Cowes, and, after that, I +am going to the Italian Lakes and to Switzerland, and wherever I like." + +"Is Mrs. Delaport Green so very unselfish?" + +"Oh, no; I am only going to stay with Adela till the end of the season, +and then I am going abroad with two girls who are quite delightful, and +in October the flat and the governess are to come into existence." + +"Yes; everything--everything perfect," murmured Grosse, looking at her +with an expression that included her own appearance in the "everything +perfect." Then, dropping his restless eyeglass, he went on. + +"And you are never bored?" + +"Never for one single moment." + +"Amazing! and what is more amazing is that possibly you never will be +bored." + +"Am I to die young then?" asked Molly. + +"Not necessarily, but I believe you will enjoy too keenly, and probably +suffer too keenly to be bored." + +"Did you ever enjoy very keenly?" asked Molly, with timid interest. + +"Didn't I!" cried Grosse, with unusual animation; "until the last seven +or eight years I enjoyed myself hugely, but----" + +"Why did it stop?" asked Molly, her large eyes straining with eagerness. + +"You look like a child who must know the end of the story at once. Do +you always get so eager when you are told a story? Mine is dreadfully +dull. While I had plenty of work to do, and something to look forward +to, I was amused, but then----" + +"Then what?" + +"Well, then I became rich, and I've been dawdling about ever since. At +first I enjoyed it, but now I'm bored to extinction." + +"I can understand," said Molly, "when anything becomes quite easy it +doesn't seem worth while to do it. But isn't there anything difficult +you want to do?" + +"Yes," said Edmund, "there are two things; one is plainly impossible, +and the other is not hopeful, and neither of them prevents my feeling +bored, for unfortunately neither of them gives me enough to do." + +"Couldn't you work more at them?" asked Molly, with much sympathy. + +"No," he said, as if talking to himself, "no one has the power to make a +woman change her nature, and the other matter needs an expert. Good +Heavens!" he stopped short, in astonishment at himself. + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked Molly, while a deep flush of colour rose +in her dark cheeks. + +"You must be a witch," he said lightly; "you make me say things I don't +in the least mean to say, and that I have never said to anyone else. And +here is a distracted partner, Edgar Tonmore, coming to reproach you." + +"Our dance is nearly over, Miss Dexter," said a young, fresh voice, and +a most pleasing specimen of well-built and well-trained manhood stood +before them. "I have been looking for you everywhere." + +Molly and Edmund rose. + +He stood where they left him watching her whirl +past. It was as he had suspected; she had the gift of perfect movement. + +And Molly, as she danced past, glanced towards the tall, loose figure, +dignified with all its carelessness and with some curious trick of +distinction and indifference in its bearing, and twice she caught tired +eyes looking very earnestly at her. + +"Good Heavens! I was talking of Rose to that girl, and of my efforts to +get at her mother's money, and I never speak of either to mortal man. +What made me do it?" + +Slowly he turned away and left the ballroom and the house, declining +with a wave of the hand various appeals to stay, and found himself in +the street. + +"Sympathies and affinities be hanged!" He said it aloud. "She isn't even +really beautiful, and I'll be hanged, too, if I'll talk to her any +more." + +But, alack for Molly, he did talk to her on almost every occasion on +which they met. It was from no conscious lack of royalty to Rose; it was +largely because he was so full of her and her affairs that he would in +an assembly of indifferent people drift towards one who was in any way +connected with those affairs. Then one word or two, the merest "how d'ye +do?" seemed to develop instantly into talk, and shortly the talk turned +to intimate things. And for him Molly was always at her best. Many +people did not like her, yet admired her, and admitted her into their +houses half unwillingly. Her speech was not often kindly, and there was +an element of defiance even in her quietness, for her unmistakable +social ease was distinctly negative. Molly was rich and dressed well, +and Mrs. Delaport Green was a very clever woman, whose blunders were +rare and whose pet vice was not unfashionable. There was nothing in this +life to soften and ripen the best side of Molly. But Edmund drew out +whatever she had in her that was gentle and kindly. + +It does not need the experience of many London seasons in order to +realise that it is a condition of things in which many of the faculties +of our nature are suspended. It is not as a Puritan moralist might put +it, that the atmosphere of a whirlpool of carnal vice chokes higher +things, for the amusements may be perfectly innocent. Only for a time +the people who are engaged in them don't happen to think, or to pity, or +to pray, or to condemn, or often, I believe, to love, though it may +seem absurd to say so. It may, therefore, be called a rest cure for +aspirations and higher ambitions and anxieties and all the nobler +discontents. To Molly it was youth and fun and brightness and +forgetfulness. There was no leisure to be morbid, no occasion to be +bitter or combative. The game of life was too bright and smooth, above +all too incessant not to suffice. + +Mrs. Delaport Green might be outside the circle in which Lady +Groombridge disported herself with more dignity than gaiety, but she had +the _entrée_ to some houses almost as good, if not as exclusive, and she +had also a large number of acquaintances who entertained systematically +and extravagantly. That the Delaport Greens were very rich, or lived as +if they were very rich, had from the first surprised the "paying guest." +Lately it had become evident to her that if Adela had not been addicted +to cards, Molly would never have been established in her house. She had +found out by now that Mr. Delaport Green was a man of very good repute +in the financial world as being distinctly successful on the Stock +Exchange. He struck Molly as a sturdy type of Englishman, rather +determined on complete independence, and liking to pay his way in a +large free fashion. She rather wondered at his having consented to the +plan of the "paying guest," but he seemed quite genial when he came +across her and inquired with sympathy after her amusements, and +evidently wished that she should enjoy herself. + +Many girls whose position was undoubtedly secure, whom no one disliked +and everybody was willing to amuse, had a much less amusing summer than +Molly. And Edmund Grosse, most unconsciously to himself, was a leading +figure in the warm dream of delight in which Molly lived from the +middle of May till the end of June. They did not meet often at dances, +but at stiffer functions, at the Opera, and also twice in the +country--once on the river on a Sunday afternoon, and once for a whole +week-end party, which last days deserve to be treated in more detail. + + +The group who met under the deep shade of some historic cedars, on a hot +Saturday afternoon, to spend together a Saturday to Monday with a +notably pleasant host and hostess, had carried with them the electric +atmosphere of the season that so fascinated Molly's inexperience, to +perfume it further with the June roses and light it with the romance of +summer moonlight. Of the party were Molly and her chaperone and Sir +Edmund Grosse. + +By this time Mrs. Delaport Green had made up her mind that Molly had +decidedly better become Lady Grosse, and she felt that it would be a +pleasing and honourable conclusion to the season if the engagement were +announced before she and Molly parted. She had fleeced Molly very +considerably, but she wanted her to have her money's worth, and go away +content. + +It would take long to carry conviction as to the actual good and the +possibility of further good there was in Mrs. Delaport Green. Out of +reach of certain temptations she might have been quoted as a positive +model of goodness and unselfish brightness. If her imitative gift had +found only the highest models, she might have been a happy nun, or a +quiet, stay-at-home wife and mother. But she was tossed into a social +whirlpool where her instincts and her ambitions and her perceptions were +all confused, and out of the depths of her little spoiled soul, had +crawled a vice--probably hereditary--which might otherwise have slept. +It was fast becoming known that Molly's chaperone was a thorough +gambler. + +Sir Edmund Grosse was not unwilling to dawdle under the shade of an old +wall with Mrs. Delaport Green that Saturday evening in the country. + +"I feel terribly responsible," she said, in her thin eager little voice; +"I am sure that boy is going to propose to my protégé!" + +"What boy?" asked Edmund, in a tone of indifference. + +"Edgar Tonmore." + +"Is Edgar here, then?" + +"Oh, no; it won't be at once. He has gone to Scotland, but he will be +back before we leave London." + +"Really he is an excellent fellow. I don't see why you should be +anxious." + +"But Molly is an orphan," she said plaintively, eyeing him quickly as +she spoke. + +"Even so, orphans marry and live happily ever after." + +"But I'm not sure she will live happily." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't think she cares for him." + +"Then I suppose she will refuse." + +"But people so often make mistakes. I don't think dear Molly knows her +own mind, and it is so natural that she should not confide in me as I am +in her mother's place." + +"Leave things alone. Edgar will find out if she likes him or not." + +"Will he? oh well, it's a comfort that you take that view." And she +then changed the topic, being of opinion that nothing more could be done +with it. But no doubt the effect produced in Edmund was an increase of +interest in Molly's affairs. It would be exceedingly tiresome if she +should marry this attractive but penniless boy, as he knew him to be, +under the impression that she possessed enough money for them both. + +Edmund had only that morning received certain intelligence of the +whereabouts of young Akers, the son of the old stud-groom. + +From Florence had come the information that Madame Danterre was supposed +to be in failing health, and that she had been seldom seen to drive out +of her secluded grounds this summer, whereas last year she used to go +long distances in her old-fashioned English carriage in the evenings. +Thus it became a matter of thrilling interest whether the great fortune +would pass to Molly before any evidence could be produced of the +existence of the last will in which he so firmly believed. + +"I believe the old sinner knows all about it, even if she hasn't got +it," Grosse murmured to himself. + +Finally he concluded that it would be better if Molly married money and +not poverty, and did not smile on the penniless Edgar Tonmore. +Therefore, finding himself alone with her during church time next +morning, he thought no harm of trying to put a little spoke in the wheel +to prevent that affair going too easily. But first he asked her why she +did not go to church. + +"I might say, why don't you go yourself?" said Molly, "but I don't mind +telling you that I hardly ever do go." + +"Why not?" + +"Why not?" Molly was leaning back in a low chair under the shadow of the +cedars, as still as if she would never move again, as still as the +greyhound that was lying by her. "I hate going to church. None of it +seems beautiful to me as it does to Adela. My aunt used to say that we +were not fortunate in our clergyman, but personally I don't like any +clergymen. I am anti-clerical like a Frenchwoman." + +"Have you any French blood?" + +"Yes; my mother was French." + +"But you do good works; I remember how you nursed the kitchenmaid at +Groombridge." + +"I like to stop pain, but not because it is a good work. I can't stand +all the fuss about good works and committees, and nonsense about loving +the poor. It's a way rich people have to make themselves feel +comfortable. Don't you think so?" + +"No, I don't. I know people who make themselves exceedingly +uncomfortable because they give away half what they possess." + +"Really," said Molly, a little contemptuously. She knew that he was +thinking of Rose Bright. "My opinion is that doing good works means to +bustle about trying to get as much of other people's money to give away +as you can, without giving any yourself." + +Edmund did not like to suggest that this opinion might be the result of +special experiences gained while living in the house of Mrs. Delaport +Green. + +"If," Molly went on, evidently glad to relieve her mind on the subject, +"you got the money to pay your unfortunate dressmaker, there would be +some justice in that. But," she suddenly sat up and her eyes shot fire +at Edmund, "to fuss at a bazaar to show your kindness of heart while you +know you are not going to pay the woman who made the very gown you have +on, is perfectly sickening." + +"It is atrocious," said Grosse, who wanted to change the subject. But +this was effected by the most unexpected apparition of Mr. Delaport +Green, whom they had both supposed to be refreshing himself by the sea +at Brighton. + +Mr. Delaport Green was dressed in very light grey, with a white +waistcoat. His figure was curious, as it extended in parts so far in +front of the rest that it gave the impression that you must pass your +eyes over a great deal of substance in the foreground before you could +see the face. Then again, the nose was so predominant that it checked +any attempt to realise the eyes and forehead, while the cheeks were +baggy and the skin unwholesome. + +Edmund Grosse had only seen him on two occasions when he dined at his +house, and he had liked him at once. There was something markedly +masculine about him; he knew life, and had made up his mind as to his +own part in it without delusions and without whining. He would have +preferred to have been slim and handsome, and to have known the ways of +the social world from his youth, but there were plenty of other things +to be interested in, and he was not averse to the power which follows on +wealth. He was a self-made Englishman, with nothing of the Jew about +him, either for good or evil. But no apparition could have been more +surprising to the two as he came slowly over the grass to meet them. +Molly saw at once that Adela's husband was exceedingly annoyed, probably +exceedingly angry, and although she had always felt his capacity for +being very angry, she had never seen him in that condition before. + +"I came down in the motor to get a short talk on business with Miss +Dexter," he explained, "but I am sorry to disturb a more amusing +conversation." + +Edmund, of course, after that left them alone, and walked off by +himself. + +Molly looked all her astonishment at Adela's "Tim." + +"Miss Dexter," he said very slowly, "I was given to understand when you +came to us in the winter that you were a young lady wanting a home and +some amusement in London. I thought it kindly in my wife to wish to have +you with her, and, as she is young and a good deal alone" (Molly looked +the other way at this assertion), "I thought it would be for the +advantage of both. But I had no notion that there was any question of +payment in the case, and I must now ask you to tell me exactly what you +have paid to Mrs. Delaport Green since first you made her acquaintance." + +Molly was not entirely astonished at discovering that Adela's husband +had known nothing whatever of Adela's financial arrangements with +herself. But she was so angry at this proof of what she had up to now +only faintly suspected, that it was not very difficult to make her tell +all that she knew of her share in Adela's expenses, only that knowledge +proved to be of a very vague kind. Molly had kept no accounts, and had +the vaguest notion of what her bills included. One thing she intended to +conceal (but Mr. Delaport Green managed to make her confide even that) +was the fact that she had given £100 to his wife's dressmaker. He made +no comment of any sort, only firmly and quietly insisted on Molly +giving him all the items she could. Then he got up and said-- + +"Good-bye for the present; I want to get back in time for lunch." + +And he walked away, making one or two notes in a little book he held in +his hand as to the cheque that Molly should find waiting for her next +day. + +Molly, left alone on the bench, did not at the first moment dwell on the +thought of how far this talk with her host would affect her own plans. +She could only think of the man himself. She had been for many weeks in +his house, and had never done more than "exchange the weather" with him, +or occasionally suffer gladly the little jokes and puns to which he was +addicted. She had written to Miss Carew that his attitude towards Adela +and herself was that of a busy man towards his nursery. Since that how +little she had thought about him! And now she felt the strength in him, +not weakened, but lit up with a kind of pathos. He might have been a +true friend to any man or woman. He was really fond of Adela Delaport +Green, and that position in itself was tragic enough. It was plain to +Molly, although nothing had been breathed on the subject that morning, +that Tim would not find it hard to forgive his Adela. Adela would pass +almost scot-free from well-merited punishment; and yet her husband was +strong enough to have punished effectively where he deemed it necessary. +Molly was puzzled because she was without a clue to the mystery. The +fact was that Tim had no wish to punish effectively. As long as Adela +passed untouched by one sin, as long as he felt sure of one great virtue +in her life, all such details as much gambling, much selfishness, absurd +extravagance, could be easily forgiven. Molly herself would be fairly +dealt with and set aside; the "paying guest" was an indignity that he +would soon forget. He would have been entirely indifferent to the +impression of regretful interest that he had made upon her. + +That night Edmund Grosse was Molly's confidant as to the second, and +evidently final, rupture between herself and Mrs. Delaport Green that +had taken place in the afternoon. He could not but be kind and +sympathetic as to her difficulties. It was, no doubt, very blind of him +not to see that she was too quickly convinced of the wisdom of his +advice, far too anxious to act as seemed well in his opinion. It never +dawned on his imagination for a moment that the most serious part of the +loss of the end of the season to Molly was the loss of his society +during that time. + +They strolled in the moonlight between the cedars and under the great +wall with its alternate "ebon and ivory" of darkest evergreen growths +and masses of white climbing roses, Molly's white gown rustling a little +in the stillness. And Molly discovered with joy that he was trying to +set her mind against marriage with Edgar Tonmore. If he only knew how +little danger there was of that! And under Edmund's influence she +decided to offer herself for a visit of two or three weeks to Mrs. +Carteret, in the old and much disliked home of her childhood. It would +look right; it would give a certain dignity to her position after the +breakdown of the Delaport Green alliance, and it was always a great +mistake to break with natural connections. So far Edmund Grosse; and in +Molly's mind it ran something like this: "He wants me to stand well with +the world, and I will do this, intolerable as it is, to please him. He +likes to think that I have some nice relations, and so I must try to be +friendly with Aunt Anne Carteret, though that is the hardest part. And +he wants me to get away from Edgar Tonmore, and I would go away from so +many more people if he wished it." + +The evening passed into night, and Edmund was walking alone under the +wall, dreaming of Rose. + +All this foolish gambling, quarrelsome, small world of men and women +made such a foil to her image. Molly and her mother, the Delaport +Greens, and many others were grouped in his mind as he purled the smoke +disdainfully from his cigar. Something in Molly's walk by his side just +now had made him see again the old woman with her quick, alert movements +in the garden at Florence; after all they were cut from the same piece, +the old wicked woman and the slight, dark girl with the curious eyes. +Molly must not be trusted; she must be suspected all the more because of +her attractions in the moments of dangerous gentleness. And with a +certain simplicity Edmund looked again at the moon above him, all the +more glorious because secret and dark things were moving stealthily +under the trees in the lower world. + +And Molly was kneeling on her low window-seat, looking out at the same +moon in a mood of joy that was transmuted half consciously into prayer +by the alchemy of pure love. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A POOR MAN'S DEATH + + +Early in October, Molly and Miss Carew took up their abode in a flat +with quite large rooms and a pleasing view of Hyde Park. + +August and September had been two of the healthiest and most normal +months that Molly had ever spent or was likely ever to spend again. The +weeks between the rupture with the Delaport Greens and the journey to +Switzerland had been trying, although it was undoubtedly much pleasanter +to be Mrs. Carteret's guest than it had ever been to be a permanent +inmate of her house. + +Molly--thought Mrs. Carteret--was restless, not inclined to morbid +thoughts, and more gentle than of yore, but more nervous and fanciful. + +It was not until after a fortnight abroad, after the revelation of +mountains realised for the first time, that Molly had the courage to say +to herself that she had been a fool during the visit to Aunt Anne. Was +it in the least likely that a man of Edmund Grosse's kind would act +romantically or hastily? Of course not. She had been as foolish as Mrs. +Browning's little Effie in dreaming that a lover might come riding over +the Malcot hills on a July evening. + +The girls with whom Molly had travelled were of a healthy, intellectual +type, and Molly, under their influence, had grown to feel the worth of +the higher side of Nature's gifts. And so, vigorous in mind and body, +she had come to London in October, so she said, to study music. + +Miss Carew was a little disappointed when Molly expressed lofty +indifference as to who had yet come to London. But that indifference did +not last long when her friends of the season began to find her out. Then +Miss Carew surprised Molly by her excessive nervousness and shyness of +new acquaintances. "Carey" had always professed to love society, and had +always been very carefully dressed in the fashion of the moment. But, as +a civilian may idealise warfare and be well read in tactics, and yet be +unequal to the emergency when war actually raises its grisly head, so it +was with poor Miss Carew. She simply collapsed when Molly's worldly +friends, as she called them with envious admiration, swept into the +room, garnished with wonderful hats and fashionable furs. She had none +of a Frenchwoman's gift for ignoring social differences, and she had the +uneasy pride that is rare in a Celt, although she had all a Celt's taste +for refinement and show and glitter. Miss Carew sat more and more +stiffly at the tea-table, until she confided frankly to Molly-- + +"My dear, I am too old, and I am simply in the way. It is just too late +in my life, you see, after all the years of governess work. Of course, +if my beloved father had lived, I should never have been a governess. +But as it is, I think I need not appear when you have visitors, except +now and then." + +Molly acquiesced after enough protest, chiefly because she had begun to +wonder if it would be quite easy to have an occasional _tête-à-tête_ +with men friends without having to suggest to Miss Carew to retire +gracefully. She had that morning heard that Sir Edmund Grosse was in +London, but she had no reason, she told herself, to suppose that he knew +where she was. + +Meanwhile, she was exceedingly angry at finding that Adela Delaport +Green was giving her version of her relations with Molly in the season +to all her particular friends. Molly could not find out details, but she +more than suspected that the fact of her being Madame Danterre's +daughter made up part of Adela's story, although she could not imagine +how she came to know who her mother was. + +Molly would probably have brooded to a morbid degree over these angry +suspicions, but that another side of life was soon pressed upon her, a +new source of human interest, in the dying husband of a charwoman. + +This woman, Mrs. Moloney, had cleaned out the flat before Molly and Miss +Carew took possession. + + +High up in a small room in a block of workmen's buildings in West +Kensington, Pat Moloney lay dying. He and his wife had been thriftless +and uncertain, they drifted into marriage, drifted in and out of work, +and, having watched their children grow up with some affection and a +good deal of neglect, had now seen them drift away, some back to the old +country, and some to the Colonies. + +Mrs. Moloney counted on her fingers to remember their number and their +ages, and spoke with almost more realisation of the personalities of +three little beings that had died in infancy than of the living men and +women and their children. + +Moloney was far too ill by the time Molly Dexter came to see him to +speak of anything distinctly. Three years ago he had fallen from a +ladder and had refused to go into the hospital, in which decision he had +been supported by his wife, who "didn't hold" with those institutions. A +kindly, rough, clever young doctor had since treated him for growing +pain and discomfort, and had prophesied evil from the first. Pat kept +about and, when genuinely too ill for regular work, took odd jobs and +drifted more and more into public houses. He had never been a thorough +drunkard, and had been free from other vices, though lazy and +self-indulgent. But pain and leisure led more and more to the stimulants +that were poison in his condition. At last a chill mercifully hastened +matters, and Pat, suffering less than he had for some months past, was +nearing his end in semi-consciousness. Molly Dexter then descended on +the Moloneys in one of her almost irresistible cravings to relieve +suffering. + +Ordinary human nature when not in pain was often too repugnant to Molly +for her to be able to do good works in company with other people. She +was, as she had told Edmund Grosse, a born anti-clerical, and she +scorned philanthropists; so her best moods had to work themselves out +alone and without direction. Nor was she likely to spoil the recipients +of her attentions, partly from the strength of her character, partly +because the poor know instinctively whether they are merely the objects +on which to vent a restless longing to relieve pain, or whether they are +loved for themselves. + +Molly, in the village at home, had always made the expression of +gratitude impossible, but she constantly added ingratitude as a large +item in the account she kept running, in her darker hours, against the +human race. + +Late on a wet and windy October evening she went to undertake the +nursing of Pat Moloney for the first part of the night. She had been +visiting him constantly for several weeks, and actually nursing him for +three days. + +"Has the doctor been?" + +"Yes, miss" (in a very loud whisper); "he says Pat is awful bad; he left +a paper for you." + +Molly Dexter walked across the small, bare room and took a paper of +directions from the chimney-piece, and then stood looking at the old +man's heavy figure on the bed. He was lying on his side, his face turned +to the wall. + +"You had better rest in the back room while I am here," she said. + +"I couldn't, indeed I couldn't, miss, him being like that; you mustn't +ask me to. Besides, I've been round and asked the priest to come, and so +I couldn't take my things off. I'll just have some tea and a drop of +whisky in it, and I can keep going all the night, it's more than likely +he'll die at the dawn." + +Molly eyed the woman with supreme contempt. + +"It isn't at all certain that he's going to die, he'll make a good fight +yet if you will give him a chance." + +Mrs. Moloney looked deeply offended. It had been all very well to be +guided by a lady at the beginning of the illness, but now it was very +different. She felt half consciously that science had done its worst, +and bigger questions than temperatures and drugs were at issue. + +"A priest now," said Molly, in a whisper of intense scorn, "would kill +him at once." + +Mrs. Moloney did not condescend to reply. She had propped a poor little +crucifix, a black cross, with a chipped white figure on it, against a +jam pot on a shelf under the window, and she had borrowed two +candlesticks with coloured candles from a labourer's wife on the floor +beneath. The window had been shut, so that the wind should not blow down +these objects. + +Molly looked at the man on the bed and sniffed. + +"He must have air--" the whisper was a snort. + +At that moment there was a knock on the outer door. On the iron outer +stairs was standing the priest. + +"It's just the curate," said Mrs. Moloney, looking out of the window; +and then she disappeared into the tiny passage. + +Molly stood defiantly, her figure drawn to its full height. She felt +that she knew exactly the kind of Irish curate who was coming in to +disturb, and probably kill, the unhappy man on the bed. Well, she should +make a fight for this poor, crushed life; she would stand between the +horrible tyranny and superstition that lit those pink candles, and that +would rouse a man to make his poor wretched conscience unhappy and +frighten him to death. "If there is a hell," she muttered, "it must be +ready to punish such brutality as that." + +Mrs. Moloney opened the door as wide as possible, and the priest came +in. Miss Dexter looked at him in amazement; how, and where had she seen +him before? + +He went straight to the bed and looked at the man in silence, while +Molly looked at him. He was about middle height, with very dark hair and +eyes, a small, well-formed head, and a very good forehead. It was not +until he turned to Mrs. Moloney that Molly understood why she had +fancied that she had seen him before. She was sure now that she had +seen his photograph, but, although she was certain of having seen it, +she could not remember when or where she had done so. + +"Can't you open the window, Mrs. Moloney?" + +"It's the only place to make into an altar, father?" + +"Oh, never mind that yet; I will manage." + +Molly stepped forward; whatever he was going to do, it should not be +done without a protest. + +"The doctor's orders are that he is not to be disturbed." + +The priest did not seem aware of the exceedingly unpleasant expression +on Molly's countenance. + +"It would be a great mistake to wake him, of course," he said; and then, +"Do you suppose he will sleep for long?" + +"I haven't the faintest notion"; the uttermost degree of scorn was +conveyed in those few words. + +Mrs. Moloney suppressed a sob. + +"He's not been to the Sacraments for three years," she murmured. + +The priest leant over the bed and looked intently at the dying man. + +Mrs. Moloney opened the window and put the crucifix and candlesticks in +a corner on the dirty floor. + +"It might kill him to wake him now," murmured Molly. + +"Yes, that is just the difficulty." The young man was speaking more to +himself than to her. + +"Difficulty!" thought Molly with scorn. "Fiddlesticks!" + +The silence was unbroken for some moments. The fresh autumn air blew +into the room. A sandy coloured cat came from under the bed, looked at +them, and then rubbed her arched back against the unsteady leg of the +only table, which was laden with bottles and basins, finally retired +into a further corner, and upset and broke one of the pink candles that +belonged to the neighbour. + +But Mrs. Moloney never took her eyes off the priest's pale face. + +"I'll wait until he wakes," he said to her, "but is there anywhere else +I could go? It's not good to crowd up this room." + +"That's intended to remove me," thought Molly, "but it won't succeed." + +Mrs. Moloney moved into the little back room, and pulled forward a +chair. When the priest was seated she shut the door behind her and +whispered to him-- + +"Father, you'll not let his soul slip through your fingers, will you, +father dear? Just because of the poor lady who knows no better!" + +"Who is she? She is not like the district visitors I've seen about in +the parish." + +"No, indeed; she is a lady, and I've done some work for her, and she +would not be satisfied when she heard Moloney was ill but she must come +herself, and yesterday, not to grudge her her due, father, the doctor +said if he pulled through that I owed her his life. Well, that's proved +a mistake, anyhow, but she's after spoiling his last chance, and he's +not been the good man he was once, father." + +"Yes, Mrs. Moloney, you must watch him carefully, and here I am if there +is any change. I'm sure that lady is an excellent nurse, and we mustn't +let any chance slip of keeping him alive, must we?" + +She shook her head; this was only an English curate, still he must be +obeyed. + +Molly was profoundly irritated by Mrs. Moloney's proceeding to make a +cup of tea for the priest, but he was grateful for it, as he had been +out at tea-time, and had come to the Moloneys' instead of eating his +dinner. He opened the window of the tiny room as far as it would go, and +read his Office by the light of the tallow candle. That finished, he sat +still and began to wonder about the lady with the olive complexion and +the strange, grey eyes. + +"I felt as if I should frizzle up in the fire of her wrath," he thought +with a smile. + +He took his rosary and was half through it when the door opened and +Molly came in. She shut it noiselessly, and then spoke in her usual +unmoved, impersonal voice. + +"The new medicine is not having any effect; the temperature has gone up; +the doctor said if it did so now it was a hopeless case. I must rouse +him in an hour to give him another dose and take the temperature again. +After that, if it is as high as I expect it to be, you can do anything +you like to him." + +As she said the last words, she went back into the other room. + +The hour passed slowly, and she came again and let the priest know in +almost the same words that he was free to act as he pleased. Then she +added abruptly-- + +"Do you mind telling me your name?" + +"My name? Molyneux." + +"Then are you any relation of Lord Groombridge?" + +"I am his cousin." + +"I have been at Groombridge." But the priest felt that the tone was not +in the least more friendly. + +"Moloney won't suffer now," she went on, turning towards the door, "and +I think he will be conscious for a time." + +Molly was giving up her self-imposed charge; she wanted to be off. With +the need for help no longer an attraction, Moloney had almost ceased to +interest her; he would remain only as part of the darker background of +her mind, as a dim figure among many in the dim coloured atmosphere of +revolt and bitterness in which her thoughts on human life would move +when she had no labour for her hands. He was another of those who +suffered so uselessly, a mere half animal who had to do the rough work +of the world, and then was dropped into the great charnel house of +unmeaning death. As soon as the man began to show signs, faint signs of +perception, she left the priest by his bedside and went back into the +inner room to put on the cloak she had left there. And then she +hesitated. + +What would go on in the next room? She was anxious now to know more +about it, because she had caught so strange a look on Father Molyneux's +face. If he had only known this man before she could have understood it. +But how could there be this passion of affection, this intensity of +feeling, for a total stranger, a rough brutal-looking fellow who was no +longer in pain, who would probably die easily enough, and probably be no +great loss to those he left? She had seen a strange intensity of +reverence in the way the young man had touched the wreck upon the bed. +She had known thrills of curious joy herself when relieving physical +agony; was it something like that which filled the whole personality and +bearing of the priest? + +She began to feel that she could not go away; she wanted to see this +thing out. It was something entirely new to her. + +Low voices murmured in the next room; she hesitated now to pass through, +she might be intruding at too sacred a moment. She believed that the +priest was hearing the dying man's confession. She had a half +contemptuous dislike of this feeling of mystery and privacy. She felt +she had been foolish not to go away at once. But she did not move for +nearly half an hour, and then the door opened, and the man's wife came +in and started back. + +"I'm sure I thought you had gone, miss." Her manner was much more +cordial than it had been before. She was tearful and excited. "I want to +raise him a bit higher, and there's a cloak here. He is going off fast +now, but he was quite himself when I left him with the father to make +his confession; he looked his old self and the good man he was for many +a year--and God Almighty knows he has suffered enough these last years +to change him, poor soul." + +Molly went back with her to the sick bed and helped her to raise the +dying man. The dawn came in feebly now, and made the guttering candle +dimmer. Death was all that was written on the grey face, and the body +laboured for breath. The flicker of light in the mind, that had been +roused, perhaps, by those rites which had passed in her absence, had +faded; there was not the faintest sign of intelligence in the eyes now; +the hands were cold and would never be warm again. The sandy cat had +crept away into the other room; and outside the great town was alive +again, the vast crowds were astir, each of whom was just one day nearer +to death. There was nothing but horror, stale, common horror, in it all +for Molly. But, kneeling as upright as a marble figure, and his whole +face full of a joy that seemed quite human, quite natural, Father +Molyneux was reading prayers, and there was a curious note of triumph in +the clear tones. At first she did not heed the words; then they thrust +themselves upon her, and her eyes fastened on the dying, meaningless +face, the very prey of death, in a kind of stupefaction at the words +spoken to him. + +"I commend thee to Almighty God, dearest brother, and commend thee to +Him whose creature thou art; that, when thou shalt have paid the debt of +humanity by death, thou mayest return to the Maker, Who formed thee of +the dust of the earth. As thy soul goeth forth from the body, may the +bright company of angels meet thee; may the judicial senate of Apostles +greet thee; may the triumphant army of white-robed Martyrs come out to +welcome thee; may the band of glowing Confessors, crowned with lilies, +encircle thee; may the choir of Virgins, singing jubilees, receive thee; +and the embrace of a blessed repose fold thee in the bosom of the +Patriarchs; mild and festive may the aspect of Jesus Christ appear to +thee, and may He award thee a place among them that stand before Him for +ever." + +And so it went on; some of it appealing to her more, some less; some +passages almost repulsive. But her imagination had caught on to the vast +outlines of the prayer--the enormous nature of the claims made on behalf +of the dying labourer. + +Was it Pat Moloney who was to pass out of this darkness to "gaze with +blessed eyes on the vision of Truth"? What a tremendous assertion made +with such intensity of confidence! What a curious pageantry, too, so +magnificent in its simplicity, was ordered, almost in tones of command, +by the Church Militant for the reception of the charge she was giving +up. The triumphant army of Martyrs was to come out to meet him; the +Confessors were to "encircle him"; Michael was "to receive him as Prince +of the armies of Heaven." Peter, Paul, John were to be in attendance. +Nor in the rich strain was there any false ring of praise, or any +attempt to veil the weakness of humanity. "Rejoice his soul, O Lord, +with Thy Presence, and remember not the iniquities and excesses which, +through the violence of anger or the heat of evil passion, he hath at +any time committed. For, although he hath sinned, he hath not denied the +Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, but hath believed and hath had a +zeal for God, and hath faithfully adored the Creator of all things." + +Was it an immense, an appalling impertinence--this great drama? Was it a +mere mockery of the impotence and darkness of man's life? Would the +priest say all this at the death-bed of the drunken beggar, of the +voluptuous tyrant, of the woman who had been too hard or too weak in the +bonds of the flesh? Was it a last great delusion, a last panacea given +by the Church to those who had consented to bandage their eyes and crook +their knees in childish obedience? Vaguely in her mind there flitted +half phrases of the humanitarian, the materialist, the agnostic. It +seemed as if their views of the wreck on the bed pressed upon all her +consciousness. But, just as they had never succeeded in silencing the +voice of that great drama of faith and prayer through the ages, so she +could not dull to her own consciousness the strange, spiritual vitality +that poured out in this triumphant call to the powers on high to come +forth in all their glory to receive the inestimable treasure of the +redeemed soul of Pat Moloney. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MOLLY'S LETTER TO HER MOTHER + + +There followed after that night a quite new experience for Molly. It was +the upheaval of an utterly uncultivated side of her nature. She was +astonished to find that she had religious instincts, and that, instead +of feeling that these instincts were foolish and irrational--a lower +part of her nature,--they now seemed quite curiously rational and +established in possession of her faculties. Her mind seemed more +satisfied than it had ever been before. She did not know in what she +believed, but she felt a different view of life in which men seemed less +utterly mean, and women less of hypocrites. Externally it worked +something in this way. + +The day on which Pat Moloney died at dawn she could not rest so much as +she intended, to make up for the short night. She wrote one or two brief +notes begging to be let off engagements, and told the servants to say +she was not at home. She could not keep quite still, and she did not +want to go out. Gradually, as the day wore on, she worked herself into +more and more excitement. Her imagination pictured what might be the +outcome of such a view of life and death as seemed to have taken hold of +her. In her usual moods she would have thought with sarcasm that such +were the symptoms of "conversion" in a revivalist. But now there was no +critical faculty awake for cynicism; the critical faculty was full of a +solemn kind of joy. Next there came, after some hours of a sort of +surprise at this sudden and vehement sense of uplifting, the wish for +action and for sacrifice. Her mind returned to the concrete, and the +circumstances of her life. And then there came a most unwelcome thought. +If Molly wanted to sacrifice herself indeed, and wished to do some real +good about which there could be no self-delusion, was there not one duty +quite obviously in her path, her duty as a child? Had she ever made any +attempt to help the forlorn woman in Florence? Perhaps Madame Danterre's +assertion, when Molly came of age, that she did not want to see Molly, +was only an attempt to find out whether Molly really wished to come to +her mother. From the day on which her ideal of her mother had been +completely shattered Molly had shrunk from even thinking of her. She now +shivered with repugnance, but she was almost glad to feel how repugnant +this duty might be, much as a medieval penitent might have rejoiced in +his own repugnance to the leprous wounds he was resolved to dress as an +expiation for sin. It did not strike her, as it never struck the noble +penitents in the Middle Ages, that it might be very trying to the object +of these expiatory actions. She felt at the moment that it must be a +comfort to her mother to receive all the love and devotion that she +would offer her. And there was real heroism in the letter that Molly +proceeded to write to Madame Danterre. For she knew that if her offer +were accepted she risked the loss of all that at present made life very +dear, both in what she already enjoyed, and in the hope that was hidden +in her heart. + +Molly had pride enough to shrink utterly from the connection with her +mother, and her girl's innocence shrank, too, with quick sensitiveness +from what might be before her. How strange now appeared the dreams of +her childhood, the idealisation of the young and beautiful mother! + +The letter was short, but very earnest, and had all the ring of truth in +it. She could not but think that any mother would respond to it, and, +for herself, after sending it there could be no looking back. Once the +letter was posted to the lawyer to be forwarded to Madame Danterre, a +huge weight seemed to be lifted from Molly's mind. That night she met +Edmund Grosse at dinner. He had never seen her so bright and +good-looking, and he found he had many questions to ask as to the summer +abroad. + + +For several weeks Molly received no answer from Florence, but during +that time she did not repent her hasty action. And during those weeks +her interest in religion grew stronger. Just as she had been unable to +work with philanthropists, she was ready now to take her religion alone. +She felt kinder to the world at large, but she did not at first feel any +need of human help or human company. She went sometimes to a service at +Westminster Abbey, sometimes to St. Paul's, sometimes to the Oratory, +and two or three times to the church in West Kensington in which Father +Molyneux was assistant parish priest. On the whole she liked this last +much the best. Indeed, she was so much attracted by his sermons that she +went to call upon him late one afternoon. + +The visitor was shown into a rather bare parlour, and Father Molyneux +soon came in. He was a good deal interested in seeing her there. He had +never been more snubbed in his life than by this lady on their first +meeting, and he had been much surprised at seeing her in the church soon +afterwards. She was plainly dressed, though at an expense he would never +have imagined to be possible, and she appeared a little softer than when +he had seen her last. She looked at him rather hard, not with the look +that puzzled Rose Bright; it was a look of sympathy and of inquiry. + +"I have had curious experiences since we met," she said, "and I want to +understand them better. Have you--has anybody been praying for me?" + +"I have said Mass for you twice since poor Moloney died," he said. + +"I thought there was some sort of influence," she murmured. "That night +I was tired and excited and worried, and foolishly prejudiced. Somehow +the prayers you read for Pat Moloney, the whole attitude of your Church +in those prayers, caught my breath. I imagine it was something like the +effect of a revivalist preacher on a Welsh miner." She paused. Father +Molyneux was full of interest, and did not conceal it. + +"I can't tell," he said. "Of course, it may have been----" + +"Nerves," interrupted Molly so decidedly that he laughed; it was not in +the least what he had meant to say. + +"But," she went on, with an air of impartial diagnosis, "it has lasted. +I have been very happy. I understand now what is meant by religion. I +understand what you felt about that man's soul. I understand, when you +are preaching, that intense sense of worth-whileness. I understand the +religious sense, the religious attitude. It makes everything worth +while because of love. It does not explain all the puzzles. It does not +answer questions, it swallows them up alive. It makes everything so big, +and at the same time so small, because there are infinite things too. +Then it insists on reality; I see now it must insist on dogma for fear +of unreality. Renan was quite wrong in that great sentence of his: 'Il +ne faut rien dire de limitée en face de l'infini.' The infinite is a fog +to us if there are no outlines in our conception of it. Don't you think +so?" + +There was a light in her face no one had ever seen there before. + +"And the only outlines that can satisfy us are the outlines of a +Personality. As a rule I have always disliked individuals. I know you +are surprised. Of course, you are just the other way; you have a touch +of genius, a gift for being conscious of personalities, of being +attracted to them. Now I have never liked people; in fact, I've hated +most of them. But since this religious experience I have known"--her +voice dropped; it had been a little loud--"I have known that I want a +friend, and can have one." + +The priest was astonished by Molly. He had never met any one like her +before. Her self-confidence was curious, and her eloquence was so sudden +and abounding that his own words seemed to leave him. She was in a +moment as silent as she had been talkative, her eyes cast down on the +floor. Then she looked at him with an almost imperious questioning in +her eyes. + +"You have said so much that I expected to say myself," he said, with a +faint sense of humour, "and you have not asked me a single question." + +Molly laughed "Tell me," she said, "I am right; it is all true? I _do_ +understand religious experience, the religious sense at last, don't I?" + +"Shall I tell you what I miss in it?" he said, suppressing any further +comment on her amazing assertion. "I mean in all you have said. And, +oddly enough, the Welsh miner would have had it. I mean that, seeing Our +Lord as the One Friend of your life, you should also see that you have +resisted and betrayed and offended Him during that life which He gave +you." + +"No: I have not thought much about that side of things" said Molly "I +have been too happy." + +"You would be far happier if you did." + +"But what have I done?" said Molly, almost in a tone of injured +respectability. + +"Well, you have hated people--or, at least" (in a tone of apology), "you +said so just now." + +"Oh! yes; it's quite true. I am a great hater and an uncertain one. I +never know who it is going to be, or when it will come." + +"But you know you have been commanded to love them." + +"Yes; but only as much as I love myself, and I quite particularly +dislike myself." + +"You've no right to--none whatever." + +"And why not?" + +"Because God made you in His own image and likeness. You can't get out +of it. But, you know, I don't believe one word you say. I met you +showing love to the poor." + +"No, indeed," said Molly indignantly, "I did not love Pat Moloney. I +wish you would believe what I say. I hate my mother; I hate the aunt who +brought me up; I hate crowds of people. I don't hate one man because I +want him to fall in love with me, but if he doesn't do that soon, I +shall hate him too. I feel friendly towards you now, but I don't know +how soon I may hate you. At least," she paused, and a gentle look came +into her face, "I had all these hatreds up to a few weeks ago; now they +are comparatively dormant." + +Again the flood of her words seemed to check him, but he tried: + +"I believe it then; I will take all you say as true. I think you are +fairly convincing. Well, then, how do you suppose you can be united to +Infinite Love, Infinite Mercy, Infinite Purity? God is not merely good, +He is Goodness. Until you feel that His Presence would burn and destroy +and annihilate your unworthiness, you have no sense of the joys of His +Friendship. You stand now looking up to Him and choosing Him as your +Friend, whereas you must lie prostrate in the dust and wait to be +chosen. When you have done that He will raise you, and the Heavens will +ring with the joy of the great spirits who never fell, and who are +almost envious of the sinner doing Penance." + +Molly bent her head low. "I see," she murmured, "mine have been merely +the guesses of an amateur; it is useless--I don't understand." + +"It isn't, indeed it isn't," he said quietly. "It is the introduction. +The King is sending His heralds. Some are drawn to Him by the sense of +their own sinfulness, others, as you are, by a glimpse of His beauty." + +Molly was not angry, only disappointed. The very habit of a life of +reserve must have brought some sense of disappointment in the result. +She did not mind being told that she must lie in the dust; the +abnegation was not abhorrent; she knew that love in itself sometimes +demanded humiliation. But she felt sad and discouraged. She had seemed +to have conquered a kingdom. Without exactly being proud of them, she +had felt her religious experiences to be very remarkable, and now she +saw that they only pointed to a very long road, hard to walk on. She got +up quickly and was near the door before he was. + +"Will you come and see me?" she said, and she gave him her card. "If you +can, send me a postcard beforehand that I may not miss you. Good-bye." + +He opened the front door for her and her carriage was waiting. + + +"The third time you have been late for dinner this week," observed the +Father Rector. "Have some mutton?" + +"Thanks," said the young man; "I wish I could learn the gentle art of +sending people away without offending them." + +"They didn't include that in the curriculum at Oxford?" The tone was not +quite kind; neither was the snort with which the remark was concluded. +It was no sauce to the lumpy, greasy mutton that Mark was struggling to +eat. Suddenly he caught the eye of the second curate, Father Marny, who +had conceived a great affection for him, and he smiled merrily with a +school-boy's sense of mischief. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE BLIND CANON + + +In a small room in a small house in a small street in Chelsea, Father +Molyneux was sitting with a friend. There were a few beautiful things in +the room, and a few well-bound books; but they had a dusty, uncared for +look about them. It teased the young priest to see a medicine bottle and +a half-washed medicine glass standing on a bracket with an exquisite +statuette of the Madonna. The present occupier of these lodgings had had +very true artistic perceptions before he had become blind. + +Mark Molyneux had just been reading to him for an hour, and he now put +down the book. The old man smacked his lips with enjoyment. The author +was new to him, but he had won his admiration at the first reading. + +"What people call his paradoxes," he said, "is his almost despairing +attempt at making people pay attention; he has to shout to men who are +too hurried to stop. The danger is that, as time goes on, he will only +be able to think in contrasts and to pursue contradictions." + +The speaker paused, and then, his white fingers groped a little as if he +were feeling after something. His voice was rich and low. Then he kept +still, and waited with a curious look of acquired patience. At last, +the younger man began. + +"I want to ask your advice, or rather, I want to tell you something I +have decided on." + +"And you only want me to agree," laughed Canon Nicholls, and the blind +face seemed full of perception. + +"Well, I think you will." The boyish voice was bright and keen. "I've +come to tell you that I want to be a monk." + +"Tut, tut," said Canon Nicholls, and then they both laughed together. +"Since when?" he asked a moment later. + +"It has been coming by degrees," said Mark, in a low voice. "I want to +be altogether for God." + +"And why can't you be that now?" + +"It's too confusing," he said; "half the day I am amused or worried or +tired. I've got next to no spiritual life." + +Canon Nicholls did not help him to say more. + +"I can't be regular in anything, and now there's the preaching." + +"What's the matter with that?" + +"Who was it who said that a popular preacher could not save his soul? +Father Rector says that it's very bad for me that I crowd up the church. +He is evidently anxious about me." + +"How kind!" + +"Then, since I've been preaching, such odd people come to see me." + +"I know," said the Canon, "there's a fringe of the semi-insane round all +churches; they used to lie in wait for me once." + +"Then I simply love society. I've been to hear such interesting people +talk at several houses lately. I go a good deal to Miss Dexter." + +"Miss Molly Dexter." + +"Yes." + +"I wouldn't do that; she's a minx. She is the girl who stayed with that +kind little woman, Mrs. Delaport Green, who sometimes comes to see me." + +"You see," Mark went on eagerly, "I'm doing no good like this. So I have +made up my mind to try and be a Carthusian." + +His face lit up now with the same intense delight. "It's such a splendid +life! Fancy! No more humbug, and flattery, and insincerity. 'Vous ne +jouerez plus la comédie,' an old monk said to me. Wouldn't it be +splendid? Think of the stillness, and then the singing of the Office +while the world is asleep, like the little birds at dawn. It would be +simply and entirely to live for God!" + +"I do believe in a personal devil," muttered Canon Nicholls to himself, +and Mark stared at him. "Now listen," he said. "There is a young man who +has a vocation to the priesthood, and he comes under obedience to work +in London. That is, to live in the thick of sin, of suffering, of folly +and madness. If it were acknowledged that the place was full of cholera +or smallpox it would be simple enough. But the place is thick with +disguises. The worst cases don't seem in the least ill; the stench of +the plague is a sweet smell, and the confusion is thicker because there +are angels and demons in the same clothes, living in the same houses, +doing the same actions, saying almost the same things. In every Babylon +there have been these things, but this is about the biggest. And the +most harmless of the sounds, the hum of daily work, is loud and +continuous enough to dull and wear the senses. So confused and perplexed +is the young man that he doesn't know when he has done good or done +harm; being young, compliments appeal to him very seriously; being +young, he takes too many people's opinions; and, being young, he +generalises and if, for instance, I tell him not to go often to the +house of a capricious woman of uncertain temper, he probably resolves at +once never to lunch in an agreeable house again. Meanwhile, above this +muddle, this tragicomedy, he sees the distant hills glowing with light; +so, without waiting for orders, he leaves the people crying to him for +help and turns tail and runs away! And what only the skill of a personal +devil could achieve, he thinks in his heart that he is choosing a harder +fight, a more self-denying life." + +"But I could help those people more by my prayers." + +"Granted, if it were God's will that you should lead the life of +contemplation, but I don't believe it is. I don't see what right you've +got to believe it is. As to not living altogether for God here, that's +His affair. Mind you, I don't undervalue the difficulties, and it's +uncommon hard to human nature. Don't think too much of other people's +opinions; I know you feel a bit out of it with the priests about you. +They are rough to young men like you--it's jealousy, if they only knew +it. Jealousy is the fault of the best men, because they never suspect +themselves of it. If they saw it, they would fight it. Face facts. You +have some gifts; you will be much humbler if you thank God for them +instead of trying to think you haven't got them. And be quite +particularly nice to the growler sort of priest; he's had a hard time +and, lived a hard life; much harder than the life of a monk. Mind you +respect his scars." + +He talked on, partly to give Mark time; he saw he had given him a shock. + +"Mind," he said, "there is sometimes an acute personal temptation, but +you've not got that now. You've got a sort of perception of what it +might be. It won't be unbearable." He crossed his legs and put the long, +white fingers into each other. "But I'm old now, and it's my experience +that the mischief for all priests is to let society be their fun. It +ought to be a duty, and a very tiresome duty too. Take your amusements +in any other way, and go out to lunch in the same state of mind as you +visit a hospital. Do you think the best women, whether Protestant or +Catholic, think society their fun? They may like it or not, but it is a +serious duty to them." + +Mark sprang up suddenly. "I can't stand this!" he said. "You go on +talking, and I want to be a Carthusian, and I will be one." He laughed; +his voice was troubled and the clear joy of his face was clouded. + +Canon Nicholls felt in his pocket for a snuff-box, and brought it out. +"Go along, if you can't stand it. And don't come back till you've seen +through the devil's trick. I don't mind what I bet that you won't run +away." + +Left alone, Canon Nicholls covered his blind eyes with his hands and +heaved a deep sigh. + +The man who had just left him was the object of his keenest affection, +the apple of those blind eyes that craved to look upon his face. But his +love was not blind, and he felt the danger there lay in the seeming +perfectness of the young man. Mark's nature was gloriously sweet and +abounding in the higher gifts; his love of God had the awe of a little +child, and his love of men had the tenderness of a shepherd towards his +lost sheep. Mark had loved life and learning, had revelled in Oxford, +and would, in one sense, be an undergraduate all his days. He had known +dreams of ambition, and visions of success in working for his country. +Then gently--not with any shock--had come the vocation to the +priesthood, and so tenderly had the tendrils that attached him to a +man's life in the world been loosened, that the process hardly seemed to +have hurt any of the sensitive sympathies and interests he had always +enjoyed. Even in the matter of giving up great possessions, all had come +so gradually as to seem most natural and least strained. + +Long before the Groombridges could be brought to believe that the +brilliant and favourite young cousin had rejected all that they could +leave him, it had become a matter of course to the rest of the family +and their friends that Mark Molyneux would be a priest, and give up the +property to the younger brother. + +When the outer world took up the matter, Father Molyneux always made +people feel as if allusions to his renunciation of Groombridge were +simply quite out of taste, and nothing out of taste seemed in keeping +with anything connected with him. It was all so simple to Mark, and so +perfect to Canon Nicholls, that the latter almost dreaded this very +perfection as unlikely, and unbefitting the "second-rate" planet in +which it was his lot to live. And to confirm this almost superstitious +feeling of a man who had lived to know where the jolts and jars of life +cause the acutest suffering to the idealist, had come this fresh +aspiration of Mark's after a life more completely perfect in itself. +Strong instincts were entirely in accord with the older man's sober +judgment of the situation. And yet he wished it could be otherwise. He +had no opinion of the world that Mark wanted to give up. He would most +willingly have shut any cloister door between that world and his +cherished son in the spirit. It was with no light heart that he wanted +him to face all the roughness of human goodness, all the blinding +confusion of its infirmities, all the cruelty of its vices. The old +man's own service in his last years was but to stand and wait, but, even +so, he was too often oppressed by the small things that fill up empty +hours, small uncharitablenesses, small vanities, small irritations. Was +it not a comfort at such moments to believe that in another world we +should know human nature in others and in ourselves without any cause +for repugnance and without any ground for fear? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER + + +At last there came a letter to Molly from her mother. + + "CARISSIMA,-- + + "I thank you for your most kind intentions. I too have at times + thought of seeing you. But I am now far too ill, and I have no + attention to spare from my unceasing efforts to keep well. I can + assure you that two doctors and two nurses spend their time and + skill on the struggle. I may, they tell me, live many years yet if + I am not troubled and disturbed. I had, by nature, strong maternal + instincts; it was your father's knowledge of that side of my + character which made his conduct in taking you from me almost + criminal in its cruelty. You must have had a most tiresome + childhood with his sister, and probably you gave her a great deal + of trouble. Your letter affected me with several moments of + suffocation, and the doctors and nurses are of opinion that I must + not risk any more maternal emotions. My poor wants are now very + expensive. I am obliged to have everything that is out of season, + and one _chef_ for my vegetables alone. Have you ever turned your + attention to vegetable diet? Doctor Larrone, whom I thoroughly + confide in, sees no reason why life should not be indefinitely + prolonged if the right--absolutely the right--food is always given. + I am sending you a little brochure he has written on the subject. + + "I hope that your allowance is sufficient for your comfort. I + should like you to have asparagus at every meal, and I trust, my + dear child, that you will never become a _dévote_. It is an + extraordinary waste of the tissues. + + "As we are not likely to correspond again, I should like you to + know that I have made a will bequeathing to you the fortune which + was left me, as an act of reparation, by Sir David Bright. + + "I wonder why an Englishman, Sir Edmund Grosse, has made so many + attempts at seeing me? Do you know anything of him? I risk much in + the effort to write this letter to assure you of my love. + + "YOUR DEVOTED MOTHER. + + "P.S.--There is no need to answer the question as to Sir Edmund + Grosse." + +Molly was so intensely disgusted with the miserable old woman's letter +that her first inclination was to burn it at once. She was kneeling +before the fire with that intention when Sir Edmund Grosse was +announced. She thrust the paper into her pocket, and realised in a flash +how astonishing it was that Sir Edmund should have tried to see Madame +Danterre. The only explanation that occurred to her at the moment was +that he had tried to see her mother because of his interest in herself. +She did not know that he had not been in Florence since he had known +her. But what could have started him in the notion that Miss Dexter was +Madame Danterre's child? And did he know it for certain now? That was +what she would like to find out. + +Molly had on a pale green tea-gown, which fell into a succession of +almost classic folds with each rapid characteristic movement. The charm +of her face was enormously increased by its greater softness of +expression. Although she could not help wishing to please him, even in a +moment full of other emotion, she did not know how much there was to +make her successful to-day. She did not realise her own physical and +moral development during the past months. + +Edmund's manner was unconsciously caressing. He had come, he told +himself--and it was the third time he had called at the flat,--simply +because he wanted to keep in touch, to get any information he could. And +he had heard rumours from Florence that Madame Danterre was becoming +steadily weaker and more unable to make any effort. + +"A man told me the other day that this was the best-furnished flat in +London, and, by Jove! I rather think he was right." + +"I never believe in the man who told you things, he is far too apposite; +I think his name is Harris." + +Edmund smiled at the fire. + +"Who was the attractive little priest I met here the other day?" he +asked. + +"Little! He is as tall as you are." + +"Still, one thinks of him as _un bon petit prêtre_, doesn't one? But who +is he?" + +"Father Molyneux." + +"Not Groombridge's cousin?" + +"Yes, the same." + +"I wonder if he repents of his folly now? I didn't think he looked +particularly cheerful!" + +"Didn't you?" said Molly. "Well, I think he is the happiest person I +know! But we never do agree about people, do we?" + +"About a few we do, but it's much more amusing to talk about ourselves, +isn't it?" + +"Much more. What do you want me to tell you about myself this time?" + +Edmund looked at her with sleepy eyes and perceived that something had +changed. "I should like to know what you think about me?" he said +gently. + +"No, you wouldn't," said Molly, and she gave a tiny sigh. "No, for some +reason or other you want to know something which I have settled to tell +you." + +Her manner alarmed and excited him. As a matter of honourable dealing he +felt that he ought to give her pause. "Are you sure you are wise?" he +said. + +"I'm not sure, but that's my own affair, and it will be a relief. I +would rather you knew what you want to know, though why you want to +know"--her eyes were searching him--"I can't tell." + +Sir Edmund Grosse almost told her that he did not want to know. + +"You want to know for certain that my mother is living in Florence under +the name of Madame Danterre--the Madame Danterre you have tried to see +there. And further, you want to know how much I have ever seen of her." + +"Oh, please!" cried Edmund, "I don't indeed wish you to tell me all +this." + +"You do, and so I shall answer the questions. I have never seen her in +my life. But these last few weeks I have thought I ought to try, so I +wrote and offered to go to her, and I have this evening had the first +letter she has ever written to me. In this letter"--she drew it half out +of her pocket--"she declines to see me, and she exhorts me to a +vegetable diet." + +There was a moment in which her face looked the embodiment of sarcasm, +then something gentler came athwart it. He had never come so near to +liking her before. He could no longer think of her as all the more +dangerous on account of her attractions; she was a suffering, +cruelly-treated woman. It is dangerous to see too much of one's enemies: +Edmund was growing much softer. + +"But why," she went on with quiet dignity, "did you try so hard to break +through her seclusion?" + +It was a dreadful question--a question impossible to answer. He was +silent; then he said-- + +"Dear lady, I told you I did not want you to satisfy what you supposed +to be my wish for knowledge, and I am very sorry that now, at least, I +cannot tell you why I wished to see Madame Danterre." + +Naturally, it never struck him for a moment that Molly might think it +was for her sake that he had tried to see her mother, as he had not +known of her existence when he was in Florence. But his reticence made +her incline much more to that idea. She almost blushed in the firelight. +Edmund was feeling baffled and sorry. If there were another will--and he +still maintained that there was another--certainly Miss Dexter knew +nothing about it. He had wronged her; and after all what reasonable +grounds had there been for his suspicions as to her guilt? + +"I suppose," he thought, "Rose is right, and will-hunting is +demoralising, or 'not healthy,' as she calls it." + +But he had been too long silent. + +"It is very hard on you to get such a letter," he said, with a ring of +true sympathy in his voice and more expression than usual in his face. +"I wish I had not come in and disturbed you; I wish you had a woman +friend here instead." + +"I don't," said Molly quickly. "Don't go yet. I can say as little as I +like with you, and then I'm going to church to hear the _bon petit +prêtre_ preach." + +"He will lure you to Rome." + +"Perhaps." + +"Well, I think there's a good deal to be said for Rome." + +"Don't you mind people joining it?" she asked, a little eagerly. + +"No, I like it better than Ritualism." + +"But Lady Rose is a Ritualist." + +"I believe you will find angels few and far between in any religion." + +"It must be nice to be an angel," mused Molly. + +He had risen to go; he thought he might still find Rose at home and he +wanted to speak to her, yet he was in no hurry to be gone. + +"Don't give me an excuse for compliments; I warn you, you will repent it +if you do," he said warmly; and then, after a little hesitation which +might well have been mistaken for an effort at self-command in a moment +of emotion, he added in a low voice-- + +"May I come and see you again very soon?" + +As Molly gave him her hand he looked at her with wistful apology for +having wronged her in his thoughts, for having intruded into her +secrets. There was more pity in his eyes than he knew at the moment. He +bent his head after that, and with the foreign fashion he sometimes fell +into, and which Molly had known before, gently kissed her hand. The +quick kindly action was the expression of his wish to make amends. + +Molly stood quite still after he had gone away, as motionless as a +living figure could stand, her grey eyes dilated and full of light. +Would he could have seen her! But if he had, would he have understood +what love meant in a heart that had never before been opened by any +great human affection? No love of father, mother, sister, or brother had +ever laid a claim on Molly. The whole kingdom of her affections had been +standing empty and ready, and now the hour of fulfilment was near. + +"He will come again very soon," she whispered to herself. And then she +put her hand to her lips and kissed it where it had been kissed a moment +before, but with a devotion and reverence and gentleness that made the +last kiss a tragic contrast. + +Presently, happier than she had ever been in her life before, Molly went +out to hear Mark Molyneux preach on sanctifying our common actions. + +"No position is so hard" he said in his peroration, "no circumstances +are so difficult, no duties so conflicting, no temptations so mighty, as +not to be the means to lead us to God if we seek to do His will." + +But the words seemed in no way appropriate to Molly's mind, which was +wholly occupied in a wordless song of thanksgiving. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LADY ROSE'S SCRUPLE + + +As Edmund Grosse was shown up-stairs to Lady Rose Bright, he passed a +young clergyman coming down. He found Rose standing with a worried look +in the middle of the room. + +"Edmund! how nice," she said gently. + +"What has that fellow been worrying you about?" + +"It isn't his fault, poor man," said Rose, "only it's so sad. He has had +at last to close his little orphanage. You see, we used to give him £100 +a year, and after David died I had to write and tell him that I couldn't +go on, and it has been a hard struggle for him since that. I don't think +he meant it, but when he came and saw this house"--she waved her hands +round the very striking furniture of the room--"I think he wondered, or +perhaps it was my fancy. You see, Edmund, I don't know how it is, but +I've overdrawn again. What do you think it can be? The housekeeping +comes to so little; I have only four servants, and----" + +She paused, and there were tears in her eyes. She was wondering where +the orphans would go to. It was not like Rose to give way like this and +to have out her troubles at once. The fact was that she was finding how +much harder it is to help in good works without money than with. If she +had started without money it would have been different, but to try to +work with people who used to find her large subscriptions a very great +help and now had to do without them, was depressing. She had to make +constant efforts to believe that they were all just the same to her as +they had been in the past. + +"How much did you give that youth instead of the £100?" + +"Only ten, Edmund." There was a note of pleading in her voice. + +"And you will have dinner up here on a tray as there is no fire in the +dining-room?" + +"Well, what does it matter?" + +"And how much will there be to eat on the tray?" + +"Oh! much more than I can possibly eat." + +"Because it will be some nasty warmed-up stuff washed down by tea. It's +of no use trying to deceive me: I've heard that the cook is seventeen, +and an orphan herself." + +"But what will those other orphans have for dinner?" + +"Now, Rose, will you listen to common sense. How many orphans has that +sandy-faced cleric on his hands?" + +"There were only four left." + +"Then I'll get those four disposed of somehow, if you will do something +I want you to do." + +"What is it? But, Edmund, you know you have done too much for my poor +works already; I can't let you." + +"Never mind, if you will do what I want." + +"What is it?" + +"Come right away in the yacht, you and your mother, and we'll go +wherever you like." + +Joy sprang into her face, but then he saw doubt, and he knew with a deep +pang what the doubt meant. He wished to move, oh! so carefully now, or +he would lose all the ground he had lately gained. + +"What scruples have you now?" he asked laughing. "What a genius you have +for them! Look here, Rose, it's common sense; you want a change, you can +let the house up to Easter. Besides, you know what it would do for your +mother; see what she thinks." + +"It's all so quick," gasped Rose, laughing. + +"Well, then, don't settle at once if you like; but not one penny for +those poor dear little orphans if you don't come. And now, I want to say +something else quick, because the tray with the chops and the cheese and +the tea will all be getting greasy if I don't get out of the way. Do you +know I think I was very hard on that Miss Dexter. I remember I solemnly +warned you not to have to do with her. You were quite right: it is not +healthy to think so much of that will; it poisons the mind. I am quite +sure that poor thing is not to blame." + +His tone was curiously eager, it seemed to Rose; and then he began +discussing Miss Dexter, and said he thought that at moments she was +beautiful. Presently he remembered the tray that was coming, and saw +that the hour was half-past seven, and hurried away. She fancied that +she missed in his "Good-night" the sort of gentle affectionateness he +had shown her so freely of late. + +She went up to her room to prepare for the meal he had disparaged so +much, looking tired. She smiled rather sadly when she had to own to +herself that the tray of supper was almost exactly what Edmund had +foretold. She dismissed it as soon as she could, and then drew a chair +up to the fire and took up a book. But it soon dropped on to her knee. +She had been trying not to give way to depression all that day. But it +was very difficult. There seemed to be so little object in life. She +felt as if everything had got into a fog; there was no one at home to +whom her going and coming mattered any more than the meals mattered. +And, meanwhile, she was being sucked into a world of committees and +sub-committees. She had thought that, as she could no longer give money, +she would give her time and her work; so, when asked, she had joined +many things just because she was asked, and she was a little hazy as to +the objects of some of them. Having been afraid that she would not have +enough to do, she found now that she had already more than she could +manage. And everything seemed so difficult. During the past week she had +twice taken the wrong bus, and come home very wet and tired. Another day +she had taken the wrong train when coming back from South London, and +had found herself at Baker Street instead of Sloane Square. These things +tried her beyond reason with the sense of loneliness, of incapacity, of +uncertainty. Then she had thought that, with very quiet black clothes, +she could go anywhere, but her mother had discovered that she sometimes +came back from the Girls' Club in Bermondsey as late as ten o'clock at +night, and there had been a fuss. Rose had forgotten the fact that she +was very fair and very good to look at; she found, half-consciously, +that her beauty had its drawbacks. There did not seem to be any reason +why she should spare her strength in any way. So, a little wan and +tremulous, she appeared at the early morning service, and then, after +walking back in any weather, there was a dull little breakfast, and soon +after that she got to work. Every post brought begging letters in +crowds, and these hurt her dreadfully. It was her wish to live for God +and the poor, and every day she had to write: "Lady Rose Bright much +regrets that she is quite unable," etc., etc. Then, after those, she +would begin another trial--begging letters to her rich friends to help +her poor ones, or letters trying to get interest and influence. The +difficulties and the confusion of life in the modern Babylon weighed on +Rose in something of the same way that they tried Mark Molyneux. It +seemed to her that it must be safe and right to be doing so many +disagreeable things and to be very tired, too tired to enjoy pleasures +when they came her way. Constantly, one person was trying to throw +pleasures in her way; one person reminded old friends that Rose was in +town; one person suggested that Rose Bright, although she did not go to +parties, might come in to hear some great musician at a friend's house; +one person wanted to know her opinion on the last book; one person tried +to find out when he could take her anywhere in his motor. And this very +morning Rose had asked herself if this one friend ought to be allowed to +do all these things? Was she sure that she was quite fair to Edmund +Grosse? + +It had been a day of fears and scruples. She had been unnerved when the +clergyman had called just to let her realise that the withdrawal of her +subscription had, in the end, meant the collapse of his little +orphanage; and when she was breaking down under this, Edmund had come +in, and how soothed and comforted she had felt by his presence! And +then the joy of his proposal as to the yacht! Her pulses beat with +delight; she felt a positive hunger for blue skies, blue water, blue +shores; a longing to get away from cares and muddles and badly-done jobs +and being misunderstood. Was it not horribly selfish, horribly cowardly? +Was it not the longing to stifle the sounds of pain, to shut her eyes to +the gloom of the misery about her, to shut her mind to the effort to +understand what was of practical good, and what was merely quack in the +remedies offered? Still, she realised to-night that she must get some +sort of rest; that part of all this gloom was physical. She would +understand and feel things more rightly if she went away for a bit. + +But could she, ought she, to go away on Edmund's yacht? + +Could Rose honestly feel quite sure that all his kindness meant nothing +more? She had never since she was eighteen, and wearing her first long +skirt, heard from him any word that need mean more than cousinly +affection. He had contrived after that Easter visit to Groombridge to +make her feel that she had been foolish and self-conscious in trying not +to be alone with him. For many months now she had felt absolutely at her +ease in his company. It seemed to be only to-day that this thought had +come back to trouble her. She did not want to be disturbed with such +notions; they would spoil their friendship. And he could not be feeling +like that; he was always so cool, so untroubled. Why to-night, just as +he was waiting to know if she would come on the yacht or not, he had +talked much more warmly of Miss Dexter than seemed quite natural! +Faintly she felt that it might be good for him if they went on the +yacht, she and her mother. They would be better for Edmund than some of +the people he might otherwise ask; he was not always wise as to his lady +friends. And it would be so good for Lady Charlton, and so good, too, +for those four orphans. And where should they go? It did not matter much +where they went if they only gained light and colour and rest. The +artist was strong in Rose at that moment. She looked at one or two old +guide-books till it was bed-time. Then, the last thing at night, a +strange gust of thought came upon her just after her prayers. + +Could she, would she, ever marry again? She knelt on at the _priedieu_ +with her fair head bowed, and then there came over her a strong sense of +the impossibility of it. The shock she had had was too great, too +lasting in its effects. She did not know it was that, she did not tell +herself that once humiliated, once misled, she could not trust again. +She did not say that the past married life which she had made so full of +duty, so full of reverence as almost to deceive herself while she lived +it, had been desecrated, polluted and had made her shrink unutterably +from another married life. + +A young widow, sometimes, when drawing near to a second marriage, +suddenly realises it to be impossible because the past asserts its +tyrannous claim upon her heart. What had appeared to be a dead past is +found to be both alive and powerful. But with Rose it was not simply her +heart; it was her nature as a woman that refused. That nature had been +hurt to the very quick, humbled and brought low once. Surely it was +enough! + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE HEIRESS OF MADAME DANTERRE + + +For about a week after the evening on which she had received her +mother's letter and Edmund Grosse had been to see her, Molly Dexter +stayed at home from four o'clock till seven o'clock and wore beautiful +tea-gowns. She had a very small list of people to whom she was always at +home written on a slate, but one by one they had been reduced in number. +Now there were five--Father Molyneux, who never came except by +appointment; Sir Edmund Grosse; and three ladies who happened to be +abroad for the winter. + +The week was from a Friday to a Thursday, and on the Thursday several +things happened to Molly. It was a brilliant day, and although those +evenings from four till seven when nobody came were sorely trying, she +was in very good spirits. A friend coming out of church the day before +had told her that she had met Sir Edmund Grosse at a country house. + +"He said such pretty things about you," purred the speaker, a nice newly +"come out" girl who admired Molly very much. + +But the main point to Molly had been the fact that Edmund had been away +from London. Surely he would come directly now! She seemed to hear, +constantly ringing in her ears, the voice in which he had asked if he +might "come again very soon." + +Thursday had been a good day altogether, for Molly had skated at +Prince's and come home with a beautiful complexion to be "At Home" to +the privileged from four till seven. She got out of her motor, and was +walking to the lift when it came whizzing down from above, and the +little friend who had said the nice things yesterday stepped out of it, +looking very bright. + +"Oh, Miss Dexter," she said, "may I come up again and tell you my good +news?" Molly took her kindly by the arm and drew her into the lift +again, and they went up. But she hoped the girl would not stay. She +wanted to be quite alone, so that if anybody came who mattered very much +they would not be disturbed. + +"Well, what's the good news?" + +Molly looked brilliant as she stood smiling in the middle of the room. + +"Well, it isn't a bit settled yet, but I met Sir Edmund Grosse at +luncheon, and he asked me if mother would let me go on his yacht to +Cairo. Lady Rose Bright is going and Lady Charlton, and he said they all +wanted something very young indeed to go with them, so they thought I'd +better come, and his nephew Jimmy, too. Wasn't it _awfully_ kind of +him?" + +Molly turned and poked the fire. + +"When do they go?" she asked. + +"Sir Edmund starts to-morrow, but Lady Rose and Lady Charlton will +follow in about ten days. They will join the yacht at Marseilles, and I +should go with them. Do you think mother will let me go, Miss Dexter?" + +Miss Dexter looked down. + +"Why should your mother object?" she said. + +"But it's so sudden." + +"Yes, it's very sudden," said Molly, in a low voice. + +"I can hardly keep quiet; I don't know how to get through the time till +six o'clock, and mother can't be at home till then." + +Molly turned back into the room; her face was very white. There were +white dents in her nostrils, and there was a bitter smile on her lips. +Whatever she might have said was stopped in the utterance. The +parlourmaid had come into the room, and now, coming up to Molly, said in +a low voice: + +"There is a gentleman asking if Miss Dexter will see him on important +business; he says he is a doctor, and that he has come from Italy." + +Molly frowned. + +"What is his name?" + +"It sounded like Laccaroni, ma'am." + +"Show him up." + +"Well, I'm off," said the young visitor, and, still entirely absorbed in +her own affairs, she took Molly's limp hand and left the room. + +A spare man with a pale face and rather good eyes was announced as "Dr. +Laccaroni." "Larrone," he corrected gently. He carried a small old tin +despatch box, and looked extremely dusty. + +"I am the bearer of sad tidings," he said in English, with a fair +accent, in a dry staccato voice. "It was better not to telegraph, as I +was to come at once." + +"You attended my mother?" + +"Yes, until two nights ago. That was the end." + +"Did she suffer?" + +"For a few hours, yes; and there was also some brain +excitement--delirium. In an interval that appeared to be lucid (but I +was not quite sure) she told me to come to you, mademoiselle, quite as +soon as she was dead, and she gave me money and this little box to bring +to you. She said more than once, 'It shall be her own affair.' The key +is in this sealed envelope. Afterwards twice she spoke to me: 'Don't +forget,' and then the rest was raving. But the last two hours were +peace." + +"And where is my mother to be buried?" + +"Madame will be cremated, and her ashes placed in an urn in the garden, +mademoiselle, in a fine mausoleum, with just her name, 'Justine,' and +the dates--no more. Madame told me that these were her wishes." + +"Do you know what is in this box?" + +"Not at all, and I incline to think there may be nothing: the mind was +quite confused. And yet I could only calm her by promising to come at +once, and so I came, and if mademoiselle will permit I should like to +retire to my hotel." + +"Can I be of any use to you?" + +"Not at all: the money for the journey was more than enough." + +Molly was left alone, and she gave orders that no one, without +exception, was to be admitted. Then she walked up and down the room in a +condition of semi-conscious pain. + +At first it seemed as if Dr. Larrone's intelligence had not reached her +brain at all. The only clear thing in her mind at that moment was the +thought that Edmund was going away at once with Lady Rose Bright. The +disappointment was in proportion to the wild hopes of the last week, +only Molly had not quite owned to herself how intensely she had looked +forward to his next coming. It was true he might still come and see her +before he started, but if he came it could not be what she had meant it +to be. If he had meant what Molly dreamed of, could he have gone off +suddenly on this yachting expedition? She knew the yachting was not +thought of when she had seen him, for he told her then that he meant to +stay in London for some weeks. But as her thoughts grew clearer, what +was most horrible to Molly was a gradual dawning of common daylight into +the romance she had been living in for months. For, looking back now, +she could not feel sure that any of her views of Edmund's feelings +towards herself had been true. It was a tearing at her heart's most +precious feelings to be forced to common sense, to see the past in the +matter-of-fact way in which it might appear to other people. And yet, +Adela Delaport Green had expected him to propose even in the season, but +then, what might not the Adela Delaport Greens of life suspect and +expect without the slightest foundation? Could Molly herself say firmly +and without delusion that Edmund had treated her badly? How she wished +she could! She would rather think that he had been charmed away by +hostile influence, or even that he had deliberately played with her than +feel it all to have been her own vain fancy! It was agony to her to feel +that she had without any excuse, set up an idol in her sacred places, +and woven about him all the dreams and loves of her youth. It must be +remembered not only that it was the first time that Molly had loved in +the ordinary sense of the word, but it was absolutely the first time +that she had ever felt any deep affection for any human being whatever. +And now a great sense of abandonment was on her; the old feeling of +isolation, of being cast out, that she had had all her life, was +frightfully strong. Edmund had left her; he had deceived her, played +with her, she told herself, deluded her; and now her mother's death +brought home all the horror, the disgrace, which that mother's life had +been for Molly. An outcast whom no one cared for, no one loved, no one +wanted. The new gentleness of the past weeks, the new softness, all the +high and sacred thoughts that had seemed to have taken possession of her +inner life, were gone at this moment. Her feeling now was that, if she +were made to suffer, she could at least make others suffer too. + +She had thrown off her furs in walking up and down, and they had fallen +on to the box which Dr. Larrone had brought. Presently they slipped to +the floor, and showed the small, black tin despatch box. + +Molly broke the seal of the envelope, took out the key, and opened the +box, half mechanically and half as seeking a distraction. + +Inside she found two or three packets of old yellow letters, a few faded +photographs, and a tiny gold watch and chain; and underneath these +things a large registered envelope addressed to Madame Danterre. + +Molly was not acutely excited about this box. She knew that her mother's +will would be at the lawyer's. She had no anxiety on this point, but +there is always a strange thrill in touching such things as the dead +have kept secret. Even if they have bid us do it, it seems too bold. + +Molly shrank from what that box might contain, what history of the past +it might have to tell, but she did not think it would touch her own +life. Therefore, thinking more of her own sorrow than anything else, +Molly drew two papers out of the registered envelope, and then shrank +back helplessly in her chair. She had just seen that the larger of the +two enclosures was a long letter beginning: "Dearest Rose." She +hesitated, but only for a moment, and then went on reading. + +"I trust and hope that if I die in to-morrow's battle this will reach +you safely. I have really no fear whatever of the battle, and after it +is over I shall have a good opportunity of putting this paper into a +lawyer's hands at Capetown." + +Then she hastily dropped the letter and took up a small paper that had +been in the same envelope. A glance at this showed that it was the "last +will and testament of Sir David Bright." + +It was evidently not drawn up by a lawyer, but it seemed complete and +had the two signatures of witnesses; Lord Groombridge and Sir Edmund +Grosse were named as executors. It was dated on board ship only a few +weeks before Sir David Bright died. + +At first Molly was simply bewildered. She read, as if stupefied, the +perfectly simple language in which Sir David had bequeathed all and +everything he possessed to his wife, Lady Rose Bright, subject to an +annual allowance of £1000 to Madame Danterre during her life-time. It +was so brief and simple that, if Molly had not known how simple a will +could be, she might have half doubted its legality. As it was she was +not aware of the special facilities in the matter of will-making that +are allowed to soldiers and sailors when on active service. The +absolutely amazing thing was that the paper should have been in Madame +Danterre's possession. + +Molly turned to the letter, and read it with absorbed attention. + +The General wrote on the eve of the battle, without the least anxiety as +to the next day. But he already surmised the vast proportions that the +war might assume, and he intended to send the enclosed will with this +letter to the care of a lawyer in Capetown for fear of eventualities. +Then, next day, as Molly knew, he had been killed. + +But Molly did not know that to the brother officer who had been with him +in his last moments Sir David had confided two plain envelopes, and had +told him to send the first--a blue one--to his wife, and the second--a +white one--to Madame Danterre, faintly murmuring the names and addresses +in his dying voice. The same officer was himself killed a week later. If +he had lived and had learned the disposal of Sir David's fortune, it +might possibly have occurred to him that he had put the addresses on the +wrong letters. But he was sure at the time that Sir David's last words +had been: "Remember, the white one for my wife." And perhaps he was +right, for it is not uncommon for a man even in the full possession of +all his faculties (which Sir David was not) to make a mistake just +because of his intense anxiety to avoid making it. As it was, knowing +nothing whatever of the circumstances, the will and the letter seemed to +Molly to come out of a mysterious void. + +To any one with an unbiassed mind who was able to study it as a human +document, the letter would have been pathetic enough. It was the +revelation, the outpouring of what a man had suffered in silence for +many long years. It seemed at moments hardly rational. The sort of +unreasonable nervous terror in it was extraordinary. Molly read most of +the real story in the letter, but not quite all. There had been a +terrible sense of a spoilt life and of a horrible weakness always coming +between him and happiness. The shadow of Madame Danterre had darkened +his youth; a time of folly--and so little pleasure in that folly, he +moaned--had been succeeded by an actual tyranny. The claim that she was +his wife had begun early after her divorce from Mr. Dexter, and it +seemed extraordinary that he had not denied it at once. David Bright had +been taken ill with acute fever in Mrs. Dexter's house almost +immediately after that event. Mrs. Dexter declared that he had gone +through the form of marriage with her before witnesses, and she declared +also that she had in her possession the certificate of marriage. The +date she gave for the marriage was during the days when he had been down +with the fever, and he never could remember what had happened. + +"God knows," he wrote, "how I searched my memory hour by hour, day by +day, but the blank was absolute. I don't to this hour know what passed +during those days." + +While still feeble from illness he had given her all the money he could +spare, and for years the blackmail had continued. Then, at last, after +he had been a year in England, the worm had turned. + +"I dared her to do her worst. I declared, what I am absolutely convinced +to have been the case, that the marriage certificate she had shown me +was a forgery, and I concluded that if she proved the marriage by +forgery and perjury, I should institute proceedings for divorce on the +grounds of her subsequent life. I got no answer, and for three years +there was total silence. Then came a letter from a friend saying that +Madame Danterre, who had taken her maiden name, was dying and wished me +to know that she forgave me." With this note had been sent to him a +diamond ring he had given her in the first days of her influence over +him. He sent it back, but months later he got it again, returned by the +Post Office authorities, as no one of the name he had written to could +be found. + +Then came a solemn declaration that he had never doubted of Madame +Danterre's death. + +"I thought that to have spoilt my youth was enough; but she was yet to +destroy my best years. Ah! Rose," he wrote, "if I had loved you less it +would have been more bearable. I met you; I worshipped you; won you. +Then, after a brief dream of joy, the cloud came down, and my evil +genius was upon me. I don't think you were in love with me, my beloved, +but it would have come even after you had found out what a commonplace +fellow it was whom you thought a hero; it would have come. You must have +loved me out of the full flow of your own nature if I had not been +driven to cowardice and deception." + +Evidently Madame Danterre had had a kind of almost uncanny power of +terrifying the soldier. He had been a good man when she first met him, +and he had been a good man after that short time of mad infatuation. He +was by nature and training almost passionately respectable; he was at +length happily married; but this horror of an evil incident in the past +had got such a hold on his nerves that when he met Madame Danterre (whom +he had believed to be dead) coming out of a theatre in London, the hero +of the Victoria Cross, of three other campaigns, perhaps the bravest +man in England, fainted when he saw her. Without doubt it was the +publication of Mr. John Steele's will leaving his enormous fortune to +Sir David Bright that had resuscitated Madame Danterre. + +From the moment of that shock David Bright had probably never been +entirely sane on the subject. The resurrection of Madame Danterre had +seemed to him preternatural and fateful. The woman had become to him +something more or something less than human, something impervious to +attack that could not be dealt with in any ordinary way. + +From that time there had grown up an invisible barrier between him and +his wife. He found himself making silly excuses for being out at quite +natural times. He found himself getting afraid of her, and building up +defences, growing reserved and absurdly dignified, trying to cling to +the pedestal of the elderly soldier as he could not be a companion. + +Madame Danterre had gone back to Florence, fat with blackmail, and then +had begun a steady course of persecution. + +Step by step he had sunk lower down, knowing that he was weakening his +own case most miserably if it should ever become public. Nothing +satisfied her, although she received two thousand a year regularly, +until the will was drawn up, which left everything to her except an +allowance of £800 a year to Rose. + +Once a year for three years Madame Danterre had visited London, and had +generally contrived that Sir David should be conscious of the look in +her astonishing eyes, which Sir Edmund had likened to extinct volcanoes, +at some theatre, or in the park, once at least every season. Evidently +that look had never failed. It touched the exposed nerve in his +mind--exposed ever since the time of illness and strain when he was +young and helpless in India. It was evident that he had felt that any +agony was bearable to shield Rose from the suffering of a public +scandal. If he could only have brought himself to consult one of the +Murrays something might have been done. As it was, he had recourse to +subterfuge. He assured Madame Danterre annually, in answer to her +insisting on the point, that no other will had ever been signed by him, +but he always carried a will with him ready to be signed. There was much +of self-pity perhaps in the letter, there was the plaint of a wrecked +life, but there was still more of real delicate feeling for Rose, of +intense anxiety to shield her, of poignant regret for "what might have +been" in their home life. The man had been of a wholesome nature; his +great physical courage was part of a good fellow's construction. But he +had been taught to worship a good name, an unsullied reputation, and to +love things of good repute too much, perhaps, for the sake of their +repute, as he could not venture to risk the shadow for the reality. The +effect of reading Sir David's last letter to Rose on an unbiassed reader +of a humane turn of mind would have been an intensity of pity, and a +sigh at the sadness of life on this planet. + +Molly was passionately biassed, and as much of Sir David's story as +reached her through the letter was to her simply a sickening revelation +from a cowardly traitor of his own treason through life, and even up to +the hour of death. Her mother had been basely deceived; for his sake she +had been divorced, and he had denied the marriage that followed. Of +course, it was a marriage, or he would never have been so frightened. +Then her mother, thus deserted, young and weak, had gone astray, and he +had defended himself by threatening divorce if she proclaimed herself +his wife. Every word of the history was interpreted on the same lines. +And then, last of all, this will was sent to her mother. Was it a tardy +repentance? Had he, perhaps when too weak for more, asked some one to +send it to Madame Danterre that she might destroy it? If so, why had she +not destroyed it? Why, if it might honourably have been destroyed, send +to Molly now a will that, if proved, would make her an absolute pauper? +In plain figures Molly's fortune could not be less than £20,000 a year +if that paper did not exist, and would be under £80 a year if it were +valid. + +Molly next seized on one of the old packets of letters in trembling hope +of some further light being thrown on the situation, but in them was +evidence impossible to deny that her mother had invented the whole story +of the marriage. Why Madame Danterre had not destroyed these letters was +a further mystery, except that, time after time, it has been proved that +people have carefully preserved evidence of their own crimes. Fighting +against it, almost crying out in agonised protest, Molly was forced to +realise the slow persevering cunning and unflinching cruelty with which +her mother had pursued her victim. It was an ugly story for any girl to +read if the woman had had no connection with her. It seemed to cut away +from Molly all shreds of self-respect as she read it. She felt that the +daughter of such a woman must have a heritage of evil in her nature. + +The packet of old letters finished, there was yet something more to +find. Next came a packet of prescriptions and some receipts from shops. +Under these were the faded photographs of several men and women of whom +she knew nothing. Lastly, there was half a letter written to Molly dated +in August and left unfinished and without a signature: + + "CARISSIMA: + + "I am far from well, but I believe Dr. Larrone has found out the + cause and will soon put things right again. If you ever hear + anything about me from Dr. Larrone you can put entire confidence in + him. I have found out now why Sir Edmund Grosse has tried to see + me. He is possessed with the absurd idea that I have no right to + Sir David Bright's fortune, although he does not venture to call in + question the validity of the will which left that fortune to me. + Dr. Larrone has certain proof that Grosse employs a detective here + to watch this house. I have also heard that he is in love with poor + David's widow, and hence I suppose this _trop de zèle_ on her + behalf. As he cannot get at me he is likely to try to become + intimate with you, so I warn you to avoid him now and in future." + +That was all. + +Molly sat staring vacantly in front of her, almost unconscious of her +surroundings from the intensity of pain. Each item in the horror of the +situation told on her separately, but in no sequence--with no coherence. +Shame, "hopes early blighted, love scorned," kindness proved treason, +the prospect of complete and dishonourable poverty, a poverty which +would enrich her foes. And all this was mixed in her mind with the +dreadful words from the old letters that seemed to be shouted at her. + +Miss Carew, coming in at dinner-time, was horror-struck by what she saw. +Molly was sitting on the floor surrounded by letters and papers, moaning +and biting her hand. The gong sounded, the parlourmaid announced dinner, +and Molly gathered up her papers, locked them in the box, fastened the +key on to her chain--all in complete silence--and got up from the floor. +She then walked straight into the dining-room in her large hat and +outdoor clothes without speaking. + +And without a word the terrified Miss Carew went with her, and tried to +eat her dinner. + +Molly ate a very little of each thing that was offered to her, taking a +few mouthfuls voraciously, and then quite suddenly, as she was offered a +dish of forced asparagus, she went into peal after peal of ringing, +resounding laughter. "I should like you to have asparagus at every +meal," she said, and then again came peal after peal--each a quite +distinct sound. It was dreadful to hear, and Miss Carew and the servant +were terrified. It was the laughter, not of a maniac, not of pure +unreasoning hysteria, not quite of a lost soul. It suggested these +elements, perhaps, but it was chiefly a nervous convulsion at an +overpowering perception of the irony in the heart of things. + +The hysterical fit lasted long enough for Miss Carew to insist on a +doctor, and Molly did not resist. When he came she implored him to give +her a strong sleeping-draught. She kept Miss Carew and the maid fussing +about her, in a terror of being alone, until the draught was at last +sent in by a dilatory chemist. She then hurried them away, drank the +medicine, and set herself to go to sleep. The draught acted soon, as +Miss Carew learnt by listening at the door and hearing the deep, regular +breathing. But the effects passed off, and Molly sat up absolutely +awake at one o'clock in the morning. She lay down again and tried to +force herself to sleep by sheer will power, but she soon realised the +awful impotence of desire in forcing sleep. + +At last, horror of her own intensely alert faculties, blinded by +darkness, made her turn up the light. Instantly the sight of the +familiar room seemed unbearable, and she turned it down again. But again +the darkness was quite intolerable, and seemed to have a hideous life of +its own which held in it presences of evil. At one moment she breathed +in the air of the winter's night, shivering with cold; at the next she +was stifled for want of breath. So the light by the bed was turned on +again, and to get a little further from it Molly got up and slowly and +carefully put on her stockings and fur slippers, then opened a cupboard +and took out a magnificent fur cloak and wrapped herself in it. Then +suddenly one aspect of the position became concrete to her imagination. +She knew that the cloak was bought with ill-gotten money. Her enormous +allowance after she came of age, even the expenses of her +education--Miss Carew's salary among other things--had been won by +fraud. And now, oh! why, why had not her miserable mother spoken the +truth when she got the will, or why had she not destroyed it? Why had +she left it to Molly to put right all this long, long imposture, and to +reveal to the world the story of her mother's crime? It seemed to Molly +as if she were looking on at some other girl's life, and as if she were +considering it from an external point of view. The sleeping-draught had, +no doubt, excited still further the terrible agitation of her nerves, +and ideas came to her as if they had no connection with her own +personality. + +Wicked old woman, dying in Florence! How cruel those words were: "Let it +be her own affair"! Her last act to send those papers to the poor girl +she had deserted as a baby, and refused even to see as a woman. "Let it +be her own affair." Her own affair to choose actual poverty and a +terrible publicity as to the past instead of a great fortune and silence +as to her mother's guilt. "Let it be her own affair" to enrich her +enemies, to give a fortune to the woman who would scorn her! Would the +man who had pretended to be her friend, and who had been pursuing her +mother with detectives all the time, would he some day talk pityingly of +her with his wife, and say she "had really behaved very well, poor +thing"? + +Suddenly Molly stopped, full of horror at a new thought. Oh! she must +make things safe and sure, or--good God!--what might not her mother's +daughter be tempted to do? A deep blush spread over her face and neck. +She moved hastily to the door, and in a moment she was in Miss Carew's +room. + +"I want to speak to you; I want to tell you something," said Molly, +turning up the electric light as she spoke. + +Miss Carew was startled out of a sweet sleep, and her first thought was +the one which haunted her whenever she was awakened at an untimely hour. +Her carefully-curled fringe was lying in the dressing-table drawer, and +Molly had never seen her without it! + +"Yes, yes; in one moment," she answered fussily. "I will come to your +room in one minute." + +Molly felt checked, and there had been something strange and unfamiliar +in Miss Carew's face. Suddenly she felt what it would be to tell Miss +Carew the truth--Miss Carew, who was now her dependent, receiving from +her £100 a year, would be shocked and startled out of her senses, and +might not take these horrible revelations at all kindly. It would, +anyhow, be such a reversal of their mutual positions as Molly could not +face. And by the time the chestnut hair tinged with grey had been pinned +a little crooked on Miss Carew's head, and she had knocked timidly at +Molly's door, she was startled and offended by the impatient, +overbearing tone of the voice that asked her to "go back to bed and not +to bother; it was nothing that mattered." + +The night had got on further than Molly knew by that time, and she was +relieved to hear it strike four o'clock. She was astonished at noticing +that, while she had been walking up and down, up and down her room, she +had never heard the clock strike two or three. The fact of having spoken +to Miss Carew had brought her for the moment out of the inferno of the +last few hours, and the time from four o'clock to six was less utterly +miserable because worse had gone before it. + +At six she called the housemaid, and kept her fussing about the room, +lighting the fire, and getting tea, so as not to be alone again. At +eight o'clock she sent for coffee and eggs, and the coffee had to be +made twice before she was satisfied with it. Then she suddenly said she +felt much better, and, having dressed much more quickly than usual, she +went out. + +Molly had determined to confide the position to Father Molyneux. When +she got to the church in Kensington it was only to find that Father +Molyneux had gone away for some days. + +That evening the doctor was again summoned, and told Miss Carew that he +had now no doubt that Miss Dexter was suffering from influenza, with +acute cerebral excitement, and the case was decidedly anxious. + +"He might have found out that it was influenza last night," said Miss +Carew indignantly, "and I even told him the housemaid had just had +influenza! Molly simply caught it from her, as I always thought she +would." + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AN INTERLUDE OF HAPPINESS + + +An interlude of happiness, six weeks of almost uninterrupted enjoyment, +followed for Rose after she went on board Sir Edmund's yacht. + +Edmund Grosse had most distinctly made up his mind that during those +weeks he would not betray any ulterior motive whatever. They were all to +be amused and to be happy. There is no knowing when an interlude of +happiness will come in life; it is not enough to make out perfect plans, +the best fail us. But sometimes, quite unforeseen, when all the weather +signs are contrary, there come intervals of sunshine in our hearts, in +spite of any circumstances and the most uninteresting surroundings. +Harmony is proclaimed for a little while, and we wonder why things were +black before, and have to remember that they will be black again. But +when such a truce to pain falls in the happiest setting, and the most +glorious scenery, then rejoice and be glad, it is a real truce of God. +So did Rose night by night rejoice without trembling. It wanted much +skill on Edmund's part to ward off any scruples, any moments of +consciousness. He showed great self-command, surprising self-discipline +in carrying out his tactics. There were moments when their talk had +slid into great intimacy, when they were close together in heart and in +mind, and he slipped back into the commonplace only just in time. There +were moments, especially on the return journey, when he could hardly +hide his sense of how gracious and delicious was her presence, how acute +her instincts, how quaintly and attractively simple her mind, how big +her spiritual outlook. But before she could have more than a suspicion +of his thoughts Edmund would make any consciousness seem absurd by a +comment on the doings of the very young people on board. + +"The child does look happy," he said in his laziest voice one evening +when he knew his look had been bent for a rashly long moment on Rose. +"Happy and pretty," he murmured to himself, and he watched his youngest +guest with earnestness. Then he sat down near Rose on a low deck-chair, +and put away the glasses he held in his pocket. "I'm not sure I don't +get as much pleasure out of the hazy world I see about me as you +long-sighted people do; the colours are marvellous." Rose looked at him +in surprise. + +"But Edmund, don't you see more than haze?" + +"Oh, yes, I can see a foreground, and then the rest melts away. I don't +know what is meant by a middle distance--that's why I can't shoot." + +Rose sat up with an eager look on her face. "I never knew that; I only +thought you did not care for shooting." + +There was a silence of several minutes, and neither looked at the other. +At last Edmund rose and went to the side of the boat and looked over at +the water, and then, turning half-way towards her, said: "Why does it +startle you so much?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"But you do know perfectly well." + +"Indeed, Edmund." Her face was flushed and her voice a little tremulous. + +"You shall tell me." He spoke more imperiously than he knew. + +"I can't, indeed I can't." + +"No," he said; "it would be a difficult thing to say, I admit." + +"Couldn't we read something?" said Rose. + +"No, no use at all. I am going to tell you why you are so glad I am +short-sighted." + +"But I am not glad." + +"I repeat that you are, and this is the reason why." + +"You shall not say it," said Rose, now more and more distressed and +embarrassed. + +"It's because you never knew before why I did not volunteer for the war, +that is why you are so glad." "Yes," he thought in anger, "she has had +this thing against me all the time; it is one of the defences she has +set up." But he was hurt all the same--hurt and angry; he wanted to +punish her. "So all the time you have thought this of me?" + +"No, indeed, indeed, Edmund, it wasn't that. I never meant that; I knew +you were never that, do believe me." + +"Well, if I do believe you so far, what did you think?" + +Rose let her book lie on her knee and leant over it with her hands +clasped. "I thought that perhaps," she faltered, "you had been too long +in the habit of doing nothing much, and that you had grown a little +lazy--at least, I didn't really think so, but that idea has struck me." + +She came and stood by him. "Oh, Edmund, why do you make me say things +when I don't want to, when I hate saying them, when they are not really +true at all." She was deeply moved, and he felt that in one sense she +was in his power. He gave a bitter sigh. + +"Can I make you say whatever I like?" Her face flushed and a different +look, one of fear he thought, came into her troubled eyes. "Then say +after me, 'I am very sorry I did not understand by intuition that you +were too blind to shoot the Boers, and that I was so silly as to think +for a moment that you had ever wasted your time or been the least little +bit lazy.'" + +"No, I won't say anything at all"--she held out both hands to +him--"except what the children say, 'let us just go on with the game and +pretend that that part never happened.'" + +And though Rose was still embarrassed, still inclined to fear she had +hurt him, what might have been a little cloud was pierced by sunshine. +"How ridiculously glad she is that I'm not a coward!" He, too, in spite +of annoyance, felt more hopeful than he had been for a long time. + +At Genoa they got long delayed letters and papers. In one of these a +short paragraph announced the death of Madame Danterre. "It is +believed," were the concluding words, "that she has left her large +fortune to her daughter, Miss Mary Dexter." That was the first reminder +to Rose that the interlude of mere enjoyment was almost over. She was +not going to repine; it had been very good. Coming on board after +reading this with a quiet patient look, a look habitual to her during +the last two years, but which had faded under the sunshine of happy +days, Rose saw Edmund Grosse standing alone in the stern of the boat +with a number of letters in his left hand pressed against his leg, +looking fixedly at the water. The yacht was already standing out to sea, +but Edmund had not glanced a farewell at beautiful and yet prosperous +Genoa, a city that no modern materialism can degrade. Like a young bride +of the sea, she is decked by things old and things new, and her marble +palaces do not appear to be insulted by the jostling of modern commerce. +All things are kept fresh and pure on that wonderful coast. Something +had happened, of that Rose was sure; but what? + +Edmund did not look puzzled; he was deciding no knotty question at this +moment. Nor did he look simply unhappy: she knew his expression when in +sorrow and when in physical pain or mere disgust. He looked intensely +preoccupied and very firm. Perhaps, she fancied, he too had a deep sense +of that passing of life, of something akin in the swift movement of the +water passing the yacht and the swift movement of life passing by the +individual man. Was he, perhaps, feeling how life was going for him and +for Rose, and by the simple fact of its passing on while they were +standing passive their lives would be fixed apart?--passing, apart from +what might have been of joy, of peace, of company along the road? There +are moments when, even without the stimulus of passion, human beings +have a sort of guess at the possibilities of helping one another, of +giving strength, and gaining sweetness, that are slipping by. There are +many degrees of regret, between that of ships that pass in the night, +and that of those who have voyaged long together. There are passages of +pleasure sympathy, and passages of sympathy in fight, and passages of +mutual succour, and passages of intercourse when incapacity to help has +in itself revealed the intensity of good-will in the watcher. But +whenever the heart has been fuller than its words, and the will has been +deeper than its actions, there is this beauty of regret. There has been +a wealth of love greater than could be given or received--not the love +of passion, but the love of the little children of the human race for +one another. This regret is too grave to belong to comedy, and too happy +to belong to tragedy. Rose's heart was full with this sorrow, if it be a +real sorrow. These are the sorrows of hearts that are too great for the +occasions of life, whereas the pain is far more common of the hearts +that are not big enough for what life gives them of opportunity. + +Rose was oppressed by feelings she could not analyse, a sense of +possibilities of what might have been after these perfect weeks +together. But her feelings were dreamy; she had no sense of concrete +alternative; she did not now--he had been too skilful--expect Edmund to +ask her, nor did she wish him to ask her, to draw quite close to him. +She only felt at the end of this interlude they had spent together a +suspicion of the infinite reach of the soul, and the soul not rebelling +against its bonds, but conscious of them while awaiting freedom. + + "Only I discern infinite passion and the pain + Of finite hearts that yearn." + +Such were the moments when a man might be pardoned if he called Rose's +beauty angelic--angelic of the type of Perugino's pictured angels, a +figure just treading on the earth enough to keep up appearances, but +whose very skirts float buoyantly in the fresh atmosphere of eternity. +They stood a few paces apart, Rose with her look bent vaguely towards +the shore, Edmund, still reading his letters, apparently unaware of her +presence. He was thus able to take a long exposure sun-picture of the +white figure on a sensitive memory that would prove but too retentive of +the impression. + +But he had to speak at last. "Is it you?" + +Edmund thought he spoke as usual, but there was a depth of pain and of +tenderness revealed in the face that usually betrayed so little. He held +out his hand unconsciously and then drew it back half closed, and looked +again at the flowing water. It was a moment of temptation, when love was +fighting against itself. Then, with the same half movement of the hand +towards her: + +"I have had a bolt from the blue, Rose. That man, Hewitt, whom I trusted +as I would myself, has absconded. It is thought he has been playing +wildly with my money, and that this crisis in South America has been the +last blow. I shan't know yet if I am ruined completely or not." + +"Oh, Edmund, how dreadful!" + +"Don't pity me, dear, it's not worth while. It only means that one of +the unemployed will get to work at last. That is, if he can find a job. +But I must hurry home at once and leave you to follow. If I put back +into Genoa now I can leave by the night express. And you and your mother +had better go on to Marseilles in the yacht after you have dropped me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SOMETHING LIKE EVIDENCE + + +Mr. Murray Junior's step sounded heavy, and his head was a little more +bent than usual, as he passed down the passage into his sanctum. The +snow, turning to rain and then reasserting itself and insisting that it +would be snow, was dreary enough already when the fog set in firmly and +without compromise. There was a good fire in the sanctum; the electric +light was on, and the clean sheet of blotting-paper, fresh every +morning, lay on the table. + +But Mr. Murray, Junior, was struggling for a few moments to realize +where he was, for his mind was in such different surroundings. In his +thoughts it was June--not June sweltering in London, but June gone mad +with roses in a tiny Surrey garden; and with true realism his memory +chose just one rose-tree out of them all, which best implied the glory +of the others. And one branch of this tree was bent down by a girl's +hand; her arm, from which a cotton sleeve had fallen back, was +wonderfully white, and the roses wonderfully red. + +And the office boy, slowly pulling off one damp, well-made boot and then +the other over the gouty toes, was the only person who noticed that "the +governor" was awfully down in the mouth. + +But no one knew that in Mr. Murray Junior's pocket was a letter from a +great specialist, who had seen Mr. Murray Junior's wife the day +before,--and what that letter said has nothing to do with this story. + +Sir Edmund called about mid-day, and noticed nothing unusual in the +heavy face; only it struck him that Murray was looking old, and he +wondered on which side of seventy the lawyer might be. + +Grosse's visit was the first real distraction the older man had that +day. It was impossible for the solicitor not to be interested in the +probability that Edmund Grosse had lost a great fortune. The affair +teemed with professional interest, and then he liked the man himself. He +had a taste for the type, for the man who knows how to cut a figure in +the great world without being vulgar or ostentatious. He liked Edmund's +manner, his tact, his gift for putting people at their ease. Rumour said +that the baronet had shown pluck since the news had come, and had +behaved handsomely to underlings. Most men become agitated, irritable, +and even cruel when driven into such a position. + +It never entered into Murray's imagination to appear to know that Edmund +had any cause for care: he was not his solicitor, and he knew that his +visitor had not come about his own affairs. But he could not conceal an +added degree of respect, and liking even, under the impenetrable manner +which hid his own aching sense of close personal suffering. Grosse +answered the firm hand-grip with a kindly smile. + +"I only heard of Madame Danterre's death when I got to Genoa on our +return journey." + +"And she died just before you left London," said Murray. + +"Yes; I must have overlooked the paper in which it was announced, +although I thought I read up all arrears of news whenever we went into +port. I wonder no one mentioned it in Cairo; there were several people +there who seemed posted up in Lady Rose's affairs. What do you know +about Madame Danterre's will?" + +"Very little but rumour; nothing is published. Miss Dexter was too ill +to attend to business until about two weeks ago; she only saw her lawyer +at the end of January. Anyhow, Madame Danterre having died abroad makes +delays in this sort of business. But I have been wanting to see you," he +said. + +Something in his manner made Grosse ask him if he had news. + +"Nothing very definite, but things are moving in your direction; and +something small, but solid, is the fact that old Akers's son, and the +other private, Stock, who witnessed some deed or other for Sir David, +are coming home. The regiment is on its way back in the _Jumna_." + +Edmund, watching the strong, heavy face, could see that this interested +him less than something else as yet unexpressed. + +Murray leant back in the round office chair, and crossed his legs in the +well of the massive table before him. Edmund bent forward, his face +sunburnt and healthy after the weeks on the yacht, but the eyes seemed +tired. + +"I don't know that it comes to much," Murray went on slowly, "but three +days after Madame Danterre's death a foreigner asked to see me who +refused to give his name to my clerk. I had him shown in, and thought +him a superior man--not, perhaps, a gentleman, but a man with brains. +He asked in rather queer English whether I would object to giving him +all the information I could, without betraying confidence, as to Sir +David Bright and his wife. I thought for a moment that he was your +Florentine detective, but then I reflected that the detective would have +no object in disguising himself from me as he knew that you trusted me +entirely. I told my visitor that he might ask me any questions he liked, +and I can assure you he placed his shots with great skill. He wanted +first to know if there had been any scandal connected with their married +life, in order, of course, to find out why Sir David had not left his +money to Lady Rose; and whether no one had been disposed to dispute the +will. I let him see that the affair had been a nine days' wonder here, +and I gave him some notion of my own opinion of Madame Danterre. He did +not give himself away, and I thought he had some honest reason for +anxiety in the matter. Well! he left without letting me know his name or +address, but there is no doubt that he is Dr. Larrone. I wrote at once +to your detective, Pietrino, in Florence, and a letter from him crossed +mine saying that Dr. Larrone had left Florence within a few hours of +Madame Danterre's death, and that, by her desire, he had taken a small +box to Miss Dexter. There was evidently a certain sense of mystery and +excitement among the nurses and servants as to the box and the sudden +journey. It seems that Madame Larrone was angry at his taking this +sudden journey, and said to a friend that she only 'hoped he wouldn't +get his fingers burnt by meddling in other people's affairs.' + +"Then Pietrino, in answering my letter, said that my description was +certainly the description of Larrone. He says the doctor is exceedingly +upright and sensitive as to his professional honour, and has been known +to refuse a legacy from a patient because he thought it ought not to +have been left out of the family. Since that, Pietrino has written that +Larrone is taking a long holiday, and that people are wondering if he +will have any scruples as to the large legacy that is said to have been +left to him by Madame Danterre. So it is pretty clear who my reticent +visitor was. Now, I don't know that we gain much from that so far, but I +think it may mean that Larrone could, if he would, tell some interesting +details. I will give you all Pietrino's letters, but I should just like +to run on with my own impressions from them first. It seems that, since +Madame Danterre's death, there has been a good deal of wild talk against +her in Florence, which was kept down by self-interest as long as she was +living and an excellent paying-machine. You will see, when you read the +gossip, that very little is to the point. But, on the other hand, +Pietrino has valuable information from one of the nurses. She is a young +woman who is disappointed, as she has had no legacy; evidently Madame +Danterre intended to add her name in the last codicil, but somehow +failed to do so. This woman is sure that Madame Danterre had an evil +conscience as to her wealth. She also said that she was always morbidly +anxious as to a small box. Once, when the nurse had reassured her by +showing her the box, which was kept in a little bureau by the bed, she +said, with an odd smile: 'If I believed in the devil I should be very +glad that I can pay him back all he lent me when I don't want it any +more.' At another time she asked for the box and took out some papers, +and told the nurse to light a candle close to her as she was going to +burn some old letters. Then she began to read a long, long letter, and +as she read, she became more and more angry until she had a sudden +attack of the heart. The nurse swept the papers into the box and locked +it up, knowing that she could do nothing to soothe the patient while +they were lying about. That night the doctors thought Madame Danterre +would die, but she rallied. She did not speak of the papers again until +some days later. The nurse described how, one evening, when she thought +her sleeping, she was surprised to find her great eyes fixed on the +candle in a sconce near the bed. 'The candle was burnt half way down, +but the paper was not burnt at all,' the nurse heard her whisper; 'I +shall not do it now. I cannot be expected to settle such questions while +I am ill. After all, I have always given her a full share; she can +destroy it herself if she likes, or she can give it all up to that +woman--it shall be her own affair.' + +"She did not seem to know that she had been speaking aloud, and she +muttered a little more to herself and then slept. + +"The nurse heard no further allusion to the box for weeks. She said the +old woman was using all her fine vitality and her iron will in fighting +death. Then came the last change, and her torpid calm turned into +violent excitement. While she thought herself alone with Dr. Larrone she +implored him to take the box to England the moment she died, and put it +into her daughter's hands. 'No one knows it matters,' she said more than +once. But when she found that he did not wish to go, and said it was +impossible for him to go at once, her entreaties were terrible. 'She had +always had her own way, and she had it to the end,' was the nurse's +comment. + +"Dr Larrone, coming out of the room, realised that the nurse must have +known what passed, and told her he was glad she was there. He put a box +on a table with a little bang of impatience. + +"'It's delirium, delusion, madness!' he said, 'but I've given my word. I +never hated a job more; she wouldn't have the morphia till I had taken +my oath I would go as soon as she was dead.'" + +Grosse was absorbed by the pictures feebly conveyed through the nurse's +words, through the detective's letters, through the English lawyer's +translation and summary. He could supply what was missing. He had seen +Madame Danterre. He could so well imagine the frightful force of the +woman, a tyrant to the very last moment. He could guess, too, at the +reaction of those about her when once she was dead, and they were quite +out of her reach. There is always a reaction when feebler personalities +have to fill the space left by a tyrant. He could realise the buzz of +gossip, and the sense of courage with which servants and tradesmen would +make wild, impossible stories of her wicked life. He came back from +these thoughts with a certain shock when he found Murray saying: + +"I can't say there is anything approaching to proof. But supposing, just +for the sake of supposing, that you were right in your wild guess as to +the will, then we should next go on to suppose that the real will was in +the box conveyed by Dr. Larrone to Miss Dexter." + +Edmund's face was very dark, but he did not speak for some moments. + +"No," he said, "she is incapable of such a crime. She would have given +it up at once." + +"At once?" Murray said. "Miss Dexter was too ill to do anything at once. +She was down with influenza, of which she very nearly died, but she +pulled through, and then went away for a month. She only got back to +London two weeks ago. Her affairs are in the hands of a very respectable +firm. We know them, and they began this business with her a very short +time before she came up. Now Sir Edmund, think it well over. You may be +right in your opinion of this young lady, but just fancy the position. +There is a fortune of at least £20,000 a year on the one hand, and on +the other, absolute poverty. For do you suppose that, if it were in the +last will which Akers and Stock witnessed on board ship, and there were +any provision in it for Madame Danterre, Sir David Bright would have +left capital absolutely in her possession? No: the probability is--I am, +of course, always supposing your original notion to be true--that the +girl has this choice of immense wealth practically unquestioned by the +world which has settled down to the fact that Sir David left his money +to Madame Danterre; or, on the other hand, extreme poverty (she +inherited some £2,000 from her father) and public disgrace. Mind you, +she would have to announce that her mother was a criminal, and she +would, in this just and high-minded world of ours, pass under a cloud +herself. A few, only a very few, would in the least appreciate her +conduct." + +Sir Edmund was miserably uncomfortable, intensely averse to the results +of what he had done. In drawing his mesh of righteous intrigue round the +mother he had never realised this situation. For the moment he wished +himself well out of it all. + +"There is one other point," he said. "Are we quite sure that Dr. Larrone +did not know what was in the box? Is it not just possible that something +was taken out of it before it was given to Miss Dexter? He must have +known there was a large legacy to himself; it was against his interests +that Madame Danterre's will should be set aside. Also, it would not be a +very comfortable situation for him if it turned out that he had been the +intimate friend and highly-paid physician of a criminal." + +"That last motive fits the character of the man, according to Pietrino, +better than the first," said Mr. Murray. "Well, we must see; we must +wait and see whether he accepts his legacy. But before that must come +the publication of Madame Danterre's will." + +Edmund drove back from the city absorbed in the thought of Molly, in +comparing his different impressions of her at different stages of their +acquaintance. He had spoken so firmly and undoubtingly to Murray. His +first thought had been one of simple indignation, and yet--But no! he +remembered her simplicity in speaking of her mother's letter; he could +see her now with the gentle, pathetic look on her face as she told him +of her offering to go out to the wicked old woman, and how her poor +little advance had been rejected. + +Edmund had thought it one of the advantages of the expedition on the +yacht that it would make it impossible for many weeks to call again at +Molly's flat. He had often before felt uncomfortable and annoyed with +himself when he had been too friendly with Molly. Not that he felt her +attraction to be a temptation to disloyalty to Rose. He knew he was +incurable in his devotion to his love. But he did feel it mean to enjoy +this pleasant, philosopher-and-guide attitude, towards the daughter of +Madame Danterre. That Molly could hold any delusion about his feelings +had never dawned on his imagination as a possibility until the night +when she confided in him her forlorn attempt at doing a daughter's duty. +He had never liked her so well; never so entirely dissociated her from +her mother, and from all possibilities of evil. + +And now the situation was changed; now there was this hazy mass of +suspicion revealed in Florence, and this most detestable story of +Larrone and the box. + +How differently things looked when it was a question of suspecting of a +crime the woman he had seen in the Florentine garden, and of that same +suspicion regarding poor little graceful, original, Molly Dexter! + +Within two or three days Edmund became still more immersed in business. +He began to realise his own ignorance as to his own affairs, and he went +through the slow torture of understanding how blindly he had left +everything in his solicitor's hands. He was beginning to face actual +poverty as inevitable, when he heard from Mr. Murray that Madame +Danterre's will was proved in London, and that her daughter was her sole +heir. + +"The income cannot be less than £20,000 a year, and the whole fortune is +entirely at Miss Dexter's disposal," wrote Mr. Murray without any +comment whatever. + +Edmund was not sorry that Rose and her mother were staying on in Paris. +They would escape the first outburst of gossip as to the further +history of Sir David Bright's fortune. Nor was he sorry that they should +also miss the growing rumours as to the disappearance of the fortune of +Sir Edmund Grosse. Of Rose herself he dared not let himself think; but +every evil conclusion which he had to face as to his own future, every +undoubted loss that was discovered in the inquiry which was being +carried on, seemed as a heavy door shut between him and the hopes of +those last days on the yacht. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE USES OF DELIRIUM + + +"Don't you think I might get up and sit by the window and look at the +sea, Carey?" + +Miss Carew hesitated, and then summoned the nurse. + +"Miss Dexter was to have one whole day in bed after the journey." + +The nurse, looking into Molly's eager eyes, compromised for one half +hour, in which Miss Dexter might lie on the sofa in a fur cloak. + +It was a big sofa befitting the largest bedroom in the hotel, and Molly +lay back on its cushions with the peculiar physical satisfaction of +weakness, resting after very slight efforts. Yesterday she had been too +exhausted for enjoyment, but this afternoon her sensations were +delightful. + +The short afternoon light was ruddy on the glorious brown sails of the +fishing-boats, and drew out all their magnificent contrast to the blue +water. But the sun still sparkled garishly on the crest of the waves, +and the milder glow of the sunset had not begun. + +Weakness was sheltered and at rest within, while without was the immense +movement of wind and water, and the passing smile of the sun on the +great, unshackled forces of winter. Molly's rest was like a child's +security in the arms of a kindly giant. Her mind had been absorbed by +illness--an illness that had had her completely in grip, the first +serious illness she had ever known. There had been a struggle in the +depths of her life's forces such as she had never imagined; but now life +had conquered, and she was at rest. In that time there had been awful +delirium: horrible things, guilty and hideous, had clung about her, all +round her. One wicked presence especially had taken a strange form, a +face without a body, and yet it had hands--it must have had hands +because the horror of it was that it constantly opened the doors of the +different cupboards, but most often the door of the big wardrobe, and +looked out, and that although Molly had had the wardrobe locked and the +key put under her pillow. And this face was very like Molly's, and the +question she had to settle was whether this face was her mother's or her +own. At times she reasoned--and the logical process was so deadly +tiring--that it must be her mother, for she could not be Molly herself +being so unkind to herself; whereas, if the face had had any pity for +her it might have been herself looking at herself. But was that not +nonsense? There was surely a touch of hysteria in that. Did the face +really come out of her own brain? And if so, from what part of her +brain? She felt sure there was a sort of empty attic, a large one, in +the top part of her right brain, it felt hollow, quite terribly hollow. +Probably the face came out of that. But then, how did it get inside the +wardrobe? and once inside the wardrobe, how did it get out again when +Molly really had the key? + +She longed to speak to Miss Carew about this, but Miss Carew never +could follow a chain of reasoning. The nurse was more sensible, but she +thought that reasoning was too tiring for Molly--so silly! If only she +could be allowed to explain it all quietly and reasonably! And oh! why +did they leave her alone? She hated to be left alone, and she was sure +she told them so; and yet they went away. And then she began to work her +brain again as soon as the was alone, and she would be happy for a few +minutes with a new plan for shutting the face into the large empty attic +in her right brain and locking the door, when quite suddenly the face +opened the door of the wardrobe with its loose hands and looked out +again and jeered at her. + +Even now, lying resting, and looking at the sun, Molly was glad that +there was no hanging wardrobe in the room; only one full of shelves. She +would certainly not use the same room when she went back to London. She +would only be in that flat for a short time, as she must now take a big +house. + +As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the +joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house. It +should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else's +house; it should be Molly's own special triumph. It must have the +glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past. It +should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and +old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy. + +"And"--she smiled to herself--"as long as it is a house in the air it +shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset." The fancy that +had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was +victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now. + +Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her +consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took +possession. They took turns to make themselves gradually, very +gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her. The first was founded on +the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, +and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as +to her mother's papers. She had been delirious that evening, and, what +was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she +had seen and read of the contents of that box. + +"I can't remember if that's true," she could honestly say to herself +when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention. +Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to +forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness. For +instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened +on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her. But how +did Molly know that? And suddenly she said to herself that she could not +remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too. + +At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the +black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? +Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; +sometimes it was a little tiny cash box. + +Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was +getting a firm footing. It was simply that the fact of the will being +sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David's having repented of +having made it. If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had? It was +absurd and romantic to suppose that her mother had carried on an +intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will. That +might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in +delirium, but it was not possible in real life. The only puzzle was--and +the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case--why had he +not destroyed the will himself? The probability was that he had not been +able to do so at the last moment. When dying he must have repented of +the last will just too late to destroy it. She could quite imagine his +asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the +papers. It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy +them. And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course +not reading them. And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another +fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the +hand that had written its contents. Finally, all that the theory did for +the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things +evidently stood or fell together. So the theories grew and prospered +without interfering with each other as Molly's health and strength +returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other +theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be "Even +supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still +evident that----" + +Molly's recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which +the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell. She +seemed hardly able to understand business. She was ready to leave all +responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he +hardly liked to see her quite so passive. + +After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill. + +"He must think me a fool," she said, in a weak voice. "I have left +everything on his shoulders, poor man. I'm afraid if he is asked about +me, as he's a Scotchman he will say I am 'just an innocent'! I really +ought not to have seen him to-day." + +But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite +business-like. The said house agent had come down with one secret object +in his heart. It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too +well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market. It +had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had +hardly had a bite for it. Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the +fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the +bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness +of the first floor. Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though +artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm. + +After mentioning several uninteresting mansions, the agent observed +that, of course, there was Westmoreland House still going, and Molly's +eyes flashed. She had been at the great sale at Westmoreland House; she +had been absolutely fascinated by the great well staircase and by the +music-room, by the square reception-rooms, and above all by the gallery +with its perfection of light moulding, a room of glass and gold, but so +spiritualised, so subdued and reticent and dignified, that ghosts might +live there undisturbed. + +Molly trembled with eagerness as she asked the vital questions of cost, +of repairs, of rates and taxes. Yes, it was possible--undoubtedly +possible. There was a very large sum of money in a bank in Florence +which possibly Madame Danterre had accumulated there with a view to a +sudden emergency. Molly's lawyer had not been certain of the amount, but +he had mentioned a sum larger than the price of Westmoreland House. + +By the time Molly was fit to go back to London, and while the theories +just described were still in possession of her mind, Westmoreland House +was bought. Molly said it was a great relief to get it settled. + +"One feels more settled altogether," she said to Miss Carew, "when a big +question like that is done with." + +She strolled with Miss Carew on the smooth sand by the water's edge on +the last evening before leaving, and looked up at the white cliffs +growing bright in the light of the sunset. + +"It has been very restful," she said. "I am almost sorry to go." + +"Then why not stay a little longer, my dear?" + +"Oh, no, Carey! it would soon become quite intolerable; it isn't real +life, only a pause; and now, Carey, I am going to live!" + +The sun presently set lower and more grey than they had expected; the +wind felt sharper, and Molly shivered. Nature was unbearable without its +gilding. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MRS. DELAPORT GREEN IN THE ASCENDANT + + +Mrs. Delaport Green had been to Egypt for the winter, and came back, +refreshed as a giant, for life in London. She was really glad to see +Tim, who was unfeignedly pleased to see her, and they spent quite an +hour in the pleasantest chat. Of course he had not much news to give of +his wife's acquaintances as he did not live among them, but one item of +information interested her extremely. + +"Miss Dexter has bought Westmoreland House in Park Lane!" + +Mrs. Delaport Green's eyes sparkled with excitement and the green light +of envy, and she determined to call on Molly at once. Happily there had +been no open quarrel, which only showed how wise it was to forget +injuries, for certainly the girl had been most disgracefully rude. + +Molly's new abode stood back from the street, and had usually an +immensely dignified air of quiet, but there was a good deal of noise and +bustle going on when Adela reached the door. Several large pieces of +furniture, a picture, and a heavy clock, might have been obstacles +enough to keep out most visitors, but Adela persevered, and the dusty +and worried porter said that Molly was at home before he had a moment +for reflection. + +Adela advanced with outstretched hands to greet her "dear friend" as she +was shown into a large drawing-room on the first floor. + +Molly was standing in the middle of the room with an immense hat on, and +a long cloak that woke instant enthusiasm in the soul of her visitor. +There was perhaps, even to Adela something too emphatic, too striking, +too splendid altogether in the total effect of the tall, slim figure. +She had never thought that Molly would turn out half so handsome, but +she saw now that she had only needed a little making-up. While thinking +these things she was chattering eagerly. + +"How are you? I was so sorry to hear you had been ill, but now you look +simply splendid! I have had a wonderful winter. I feel as if I had laid +in quite a stock of calm and rest from the desert, as if no little thing +could worry me after my long draught--of the desert, you know! Well! one +must get into harness again." She gave a little sigh. "But to think of +your having Westmoreland House! How everybody wondered last season what +was to become of it! and what furniture, oh! what an exquisite cabinet! +You certainly have wonderful taste." Molly did not interrupt her visitor +to explain that the said cabinet had belonged to Madame Danterre. "I +adore that style; I do so wish Tim would give me a cabinet like that for +my birthday. I really think he might." + +She was so accustomed to Molly's silences that it was some time before +she realised that this one was ominous. She might have seen that that +young lady was looking over her head, or out of the window, or anywhere +but at her. Suddenly it struck her that not a sound interrupted her own +voice, and she began to perceive the absurd airs that Molly was giving +herself. Prompted by the devil she, therefore, instantly proceeded to +say: + +"When we were at Cairo Sir Edmund Grosse came for a few days with Lady +Rose Bright." + +"From the yacht?" said Molly, speaking for the first time. + +"Yes; they said in Cairo that the engagement would be announced as soon +as they got back to England. And really my dear, everyone agreed that +without grudging you her money, one can't help being glad that that dear +woman should be rich again!" + +It was about as sharp a two-edged thrust as could have been delivered, +and Molly's _distrait_ air and undue magnificence melted under it. + +"No one could be more glad than I am," she said, with a quiet reserve of +manner; and after that she was quite friendly, and took Adela all over +the house, and pressed her to stay to tea, and that little lady felt +instinctively that Molly was afraid of her, and smacked her rosy lips +with the foretaste of the amusements she intended to enjoy in this +magnificent house. + +While they were having tea, Molly, leaning back, said quietly: + +"I see from what you said before we went over the house that you have +not heard that Sir Edmund Grosse is ruined?" + +Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little shriek of excitement. + +"He trusted all his affairs to a scoundrel, and this is the result." +Molly's tone was still negative. + +"Well, that does seem a shame!" + +"I don't know; if a man will neglect his affairs he must take the +consequence." + +"Oh! but I do think it is hard; he used his money so well." + +"Did he?" Molly raised her eyebrows. + +"Well, he was a perfect host, and was so awfully good-natured, don't you +know?" + +In the real interest in the news, Adela had, for the moment, forgotten +that Molly might be especially interested in anything concerning Edmund +Grosse. She was reminded by the low, thundery voice in which Molly began +to speak quite suddenly, as if her patience had been tried too far. + +"You are just like all the others! It's enough to make one a radical to +listen to it. After all, what good has Sir Edmund Grosse done with his +money? He gave dinners that ruined people's livers--I suppose that was +good for the doctors! He gave diamonds to actresses, and I suppose that +was for the good of art. He has never done a stroke of work; he has +wallowed in luxury, and now his friends almost cry out against +Providence because he will have to earn his bread. Probably several +hundreds a year will be left, and many men would be thankful for that. +Then other people say it is such a pity that now he cannot marry Lady +Rose Bright. They have the effrontery to say that to me, as if £800 a +year were not enough for them to marry on if they cared for each other!" + +All this tirade seemed to Adela the very natural outpouring of jealousy, +and, as she fully intended to be an intimate friend of Molly's she +sympathised and agreed, and agreed and sympathised till she fairly, +roused Molly's sense of the ludicrous. + +"I don't mean," Molly said, half angry and half amused, "that I shall +spend my money so very much better;--I quite mean to have my fling. Only +I do so hate all this cant." + +At last Adela departed, crying out that she had promised to be in Hoxton +an hour ago, and Molly was left alone. It was too late to go to the +shops, she reflected, and she sank back into a deep chair with a frown +on her white forehead. + +What did it matter to her if they were engaged or not? It made no sort +of difference. She was not going to allow her peace of mind to be upset +on their account; she had done with that sentimental nonsense long ago. +Her illness had made a great space between her present self and the +Molly who had been so foolishly upset by the discovery of Edmund +Grosse's treachery. Curiously enough Molly had never doubted of that +treachery, although it was one of the horrors that had come out of the +doubtful, and probably mythical, tin box. + +By the way, there was a little pile of tin boxes in a small unfurnished +room upstairs, next to Molly's bedroom, of which she kept the key. She +had had no time to look at them yet. Some of them came from Florence, +and two or three from her own flat. They were of all shapes and sizes, +and piled one on another. But from the moment when Molly turned that +very ordinary key in the lock of the unfurnished dressing-room she never +let her thoughts dwell for long on the possible delusions of delirium. +Her mind had entered into another phase in which it was of supreme +importance to think only of the details of each day as they came before +her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MOLLY AT COURT + + +If any of us, going to dress quietly in an ordinary bedroom, were told: +"It is the last time you will have just that amount of comfort, that +degree of luxury, to which you have been accustomed; it is the last time +you will have your evening clothes put out for you; the last time your +things will be brushed; the last time hot water will be brought to your +room; the last time that your dressing-gown will have come out of the +cupboard without your taking it out"--we might have an odd mixture of +sensations. We might be very sad--ridiculously sad--and yet have a sense +of being braced, a whiff of open air in the mental atmosphere. + +Edmund Grosse did not expect in future to draw his own hot water, or put +out his own dressing-gown, but he did know that he had come to the last +night of having a valet of his own, the last night in which the perfect +Dawkins, who had been with him ten years, would do him perfect bodily +service. Everything to-night was done in the most punctilious manner, +and it seemed appropriate that this last night should be a full-dress +affair. + +Sir Edmund was going to Court (the first Court held in May), and his +deputy lieutenant's uniform was laid on the bed. Edmund might not have +taken the trouble to go, but a kindly message from a very high place as +to his troubles had made him feel it a more gracious response to do so. +The valet was a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been +detected in his deferential attitude towards his master. Dawkins was not +pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been +based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man. +Happily he had been careful. He had not trusted blindly to Providence, +and, with a rich result from enormous wages and perquisites, and an +excellent character, he could face the world with his head high, whereas +Sir Edmund--well, Sir Edmund's position was very different. Sir Edmund +had let himself be deceived outrageously, and what was the result? + +Edmund was as particular as usual about every detail of his appearance. +It would have been an education to a young valet to have seen the ruined +man dressed that evening. + +Next day Dawkins was to leave, and the day after that the flat was to be +the scene of a small sale. The chief valuables, a few good pictures, and +some very rare china, had already gone to Christie's. The delicate +_pâte_ of his beloved vases had seemed to respond to the lingering +farewell touch of the connoisseur's fingers. Edmund was trying to secure +for some of them homes where he might sometimes visit them, and one or +two of his lady friends were persuading their husbands that these things +ought to be bought for love of poor Edmund Grosse. Edmund was quite +ready to press a little on friendship of this sort, being fully +conscious of its quality and its duration. For the next few weeks he +would be welcomed with enthusiasm--and next year? + +But all the same there was that subconscious sense of bracing +air--something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station +on a very hot day. We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or +Edinburgh, but it is not the climate of Surrey. + +Edmund mounted the stairs at Buckingham Palace with a certain +unconscious dignity which melted into genial amusement at the sight of a +pretty woman near him evidently whispering advice to a fair _débutante_. +The girl was not eighteen, and her whole figure expressed acute +discomfort. + +"Keep your veil out of the way," her mother warned her. + +"I've had two dreadful pulls already; I'm sure my feathers are quite +crooked. Oh! mother, there's Sir Edmund Grosse; he will tell me whether +they are crooked. You never know." + +"I could see if you would let me get in front of you," murmured her +mother. + +"But you can't possibly in this crowd. Oh! how d'ye do, Sir Edmund; have +I kept my veil straight?" + +"Charming," said Edmund, with a low bow. The child really looked very +pretty, though rather like a little dairymaid dressed up for fun, and +her long gloves slipped far enough from the shoulders to show some +splendidly red arms. + +"Charming," he said again in a half-teasing voice. "Only I don't approve +of such late hours for children." + +It amused him that this was one of the presentations that would be most +noted in the papers, and this funny, jolly little girl would probably +gain a good deal of knowledge and lose a great deal more of charm in +the next three months. + +Walking by the mother and daughter, he had come close to the open doors +of a long gallery, and stood for a moment to take in the picture. It was +not new to him, but perhaps he felt inclined to the attitude of an +onlooker to-night, and there was something in this attitude slightly +aloof and independent. Brilliant was the one word for the scene; a +little hard, perhaps, in colouring, and the women in their plumes and +veils were too uniform to be artistic. There was too much gold, too much +red silk, too many women in the long rows waiting with more or less +impatience or nervousness to get through with it. The scene had an +almost crude simplicity of insistence on fine feathers and gilding the +obvious pride of life. Yet he saw the little fair country girl near him +look awe-struck, and he understood it. For a fresh imagination, or for +one that has, for some reason, a fresh sensitiveness of perception, the +great gallery, the wealth of fair women, the scattered men in uniform, +the solemn waiting for entrance into the royal presence, were enough. +And there really is a certain force in the too gaudy setting. It blares +like a trumpet. It crushes the quiet and the repose of life. It shines +in the eye defiantly and suddenly, and at last it captures the mind and +makes the breath come quickly, for, like no other and more perfect +setting to life, it makes us think of death. It is too bald an assertion +of the world and all its works and all its pomps, not to challenge a +rebuke from the grisly tyrant. + +Edmund had not analysed these impressions, but he was still under their +power when he turned to let others pass, for the crowd was thickening. +And as he did so, a little space was opened by three or four ladies +turning round to secure places for some friends on the long seats +against the walls. + +Across this space he saw a woman, whom, for a moment only, he did not +recognise. It was a tall figure in white satin with a train of cloth of +silver thrown over her arm. There was nothing of the nervous _débutante_ +in the attitude, nor was there the half-truculent self-assertion of the +modern girl. When people talked afterwards of her gown and her jewels, +Edmund only remembered the splendour of her pearls, and when he +mentioned them, a woman added that the train had been lined with lace of +untold value. What he felt at the time was the enormous triumph of the +eyes. Grey eyes, full of light, full of pride. He did not ask himself +what was the excuse for this "haughty bearing," and the old phrase, +which has now sunk from court manners into penny novelettes, was the +only phrase that seemed quite a true one. + +Why did she stand so completely alone? It made no difference to this +sense of loneliness that she received warm greetings in the crowd, or +that Lady Dawning was fidgeting and maternal. Evidently (and he was +amused at the combination) she was going to present her cousin, John +Dexter's daughter. Did she remember now how she had advised Mrs. +Carteret to hide Molly from the public eye? + +But Molly's figure was always to remain in his mind thus triumphant +without absurdity, and thus alone in a crowd. The blackness of her hair +had a strange force from the white transparent veil flowing over it, and +a flush of deep colour was in the dark skin. Edmund had several moments +in which to look at her and to realise that Molly was walking in a dream +of greatness. The little country girl he had seen just now had been +brought up to hear kindly jokes about Courts and their ways; not so +Molly. To her it was all intensely serious and intensely exciting. Could +he have known the chief cause of the intense emotion that filled Molly's +slight figure with a feverish vitality would he have believed that she +was happy? And yet she was, for no pirate king running his brig under +the very nose of a man-of-war ever had more of the quintessence of the +sense of adventure than Molly had, as Lady Dawning led her, the heiress +of the year, into the long gallery. + +For one moment she saw Edmund Grosse, and she looked him full in the +face very gravely. She did not pretend not to know him; she let him see +the entirely genuine contempt she felt for him, and she meant him to +understand that she would never know him again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +EDMUND IS NO LONGER BORED + + +As the season went on Edmund Grosse did not understand himself. +Everything had gone against him, his fortune had melted, his easy-going +luxurious life was at an end. He had no delusions; he knew perfectly +well the value of money in his world. His position in that world was +gone in fact, if not quite in seeming. The sort of conversation that +went on about him in his own circles had the sympathy, but would soon +have also the finality, of a funeral oration. There would soon be a tone +of reminiscence in those who spoke of him. It would be as if they said +gently: "Oh, yes! dear old Grosse, we knew him well at one time, don't +you know; it's a sad story." He could have told you not only the words, +but even the inflection of the voices of his friends in discussing his +affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among +them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster +of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It +would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite +kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism +must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the +law of its being rejects a poor man. + +And yet the idea that poor Grosse must be half crushed, horribly cut up +and done for, was not in the least true. This was what he did not +understand himself. It is well known that some people bear great trials +almost lightly who take small ones very heavily. Grosse certainly rose +to the occasion. But that a great trial had aroused great courage was +not the whole explanation by any means. Curiously enough ill-fortune +with drastic severity had done for him what he had impotently wished to +do for himself. It had made impossible the life which, in his heart, he +had despised; it absolutely forced him to use powers of which he was +perfectly conscious, and which had been rusting simply for want of +employment. It is doubtful whether he could have roused himself for any +other motive whatever. Certainly love of Rose had been unable to do it. +The will might seem to will what he wished to do, but the effort to will +strongly enough was absent. Now all the soft, padded things between him +and the depths of life had been struck away at one rude blow; he _must_ +swim or sink. And so he began to swim, and the exercise restored his +circulation and braced his whole being. + +It was not, perhaps, heroic exertion that he was roused into making. But +it wanted courage in a man of Edmund's age to begin to work for six +hours or more a day at journalism. He also produced two articles on +foreign politics for the reviews, which made a considerable impression. +It was important now that Edmund had read and watched, and, even more +important, listened very attentively to what busier men than himself had +to say during twenty years of life spent in the world. Years afterwards, +when Grosse had in the second half of his life done as much work as +many men would think a good record for their whole lives, people were +surprised to read his age in the obituary notices. They had rightly +dated the beginning of his career from his first appearance as an +authority on foreign politics, but they had not realised that Grosse had +begun to work only in the midstream of life. Many brilliant springs are +delusive in their promise, but rarely is there such achievement after an +unprofitable youth. + +Love is not the whole life of a man, but, in spite of new activities, in +spite of a renewed sense of self-respect, Edmund had time and space +enough for much pain in his heart. + +Rose was still in Paris taking care of her mother, who was very unwell. +Edmund had hinted at the possibility of going over to see them at +Easter, but the suggestion had met with no encouragement. He had felt +rebuffed, and was in no mood to be smoothed or melted by Rose's written +sympathy. He was, no doubt, harder as well as stronger than before his +financial troubles. He let Rose see that he could stand on his feet, and +was not disposed to whine. Meanwhile Molly had provoked him to single +combat. The decided cut she gave him at the Court was not to be +permitted; he was too old a hand to allow anything so crude. He meant to +be at her parties; he meant to keep in touch; indeed he meant to see +this thing out. + + +"Sir Edmund, will you take Miss Dexter in to dinner?" + +Edmund looked fairly surprised and very respectful as Mrs. Delaport +Green spoke to him. Molly's bearing was, he could see, defiant, but she +was clearly quite conscious of having to submit and anxious to do +nothing absurd. + +They ate their soup in silence, for Molly's other neighbour had shown an +unflattering eagerness to be absorbed by the lady he had taken down. +Edmund turned to her with exactly his old shade of manner, very +paternal, intimate and gentle. + +"And you are not bored yet?" + +Molly could have sworn deep and long had it been possible. + +"No; why should I be?" + +She stared at him for a moment indifferently, as at a stranger, but he +could see the nervous movement of her fingers as she crumbed her bread. + +"It is more likely," he answered, "that I should remember what I allude +to than that you should. We once had a talk about being bored. I said I +had never been bored while I was poor. Now I am poor again, so I +naturally remember, and, as you are trying the experience of being very +rich, I should really like to know if you are bored yet." + +Molly might have kept silent, but she did not want Adela, who was +certainly watching them, to think her embarrassed. + +"I suppose every one has moments of being bored." + +Edmund leant back and turned round so as to allow of his looking fully +at her. He muttered to himself: "Young, beautiful, wealthy beyond the +dreams of avarice--and bored! What flattering unction that is to the +soul of a ruined man." + +In spite of her anger, her indignation, her hurt pride, Molly was +softened. She writhed under the caress of his voice; it had power +still. + +"Are you not bored any more?" She spoke unwillingly. + +"No," he said, "suffering does not bore; discomfort does not bore; +knowledge of your fellow-creatures does not bore. But, of course, I am +tasting the pleasures of novelty. And I have not disappeared yet. I +think a boarding-house in Bloomsbury may prove boring. How prettily our +hostess will pity me, then. But I don't think I shall meet you here at +dinner, and have the comfort of seeing for myself that you, too, are +bored." + +Molly felt that he was putting her hopelessly in the wrong. She was the +one bitterly aggrieved and deeply injured. But he made her feel as if +coldness on her part would be just the conduct of any rich heartless +woman to a ruined man. + +"I calculate," he said, "on about fifty more good dinners which I shall +not pay for, and then, of course, I shall think myself well fed at my +own expense in an Italian café somewhere. I think Italian, don't you? +Dinner at two shillings! There is an air of _spagghetti_ and onions that +conceals the nature or age of the meat; and the coffee is amazingly +good. One might be able to find one with a clean cloth." + +Most of these remarks were made almost to himself. + +"You know it isn't true," Molly said angrily; "you know you will get a +good post. Men like you are always given things." + +Edmund helped himself very carefully to exactly the right amount of +melted butter. "Don't you eat asparagus?" he interjected, and, without +waiting for an answer, went on: + +"I thought so too, but I can't hear of a job. There are too many of the +unemployed just now. However, no doubt, as you say, I shall soon be +made absolute ruler of some province twice the size of England." + +He laughed and smoothed his moustache with one hand. + +"Down with dull care, Miss Dexter; let us make a pact never to be +bored--in Bloomsbury, or West Africa, or Park Lane. I suppose you found +a great deal to do to that dear old house?" + +After that their other neighbours claimed them both; but during dessert +Molly, against her will, lost hold of the talk on her right, and had to +listen to Edmund again. + +"I hear that you have got the old Florentine looking-glasses from my +sale." + +"I don't think they were from your sale," said Molly hastily. + +"Well, Perks told me so." + +"Perks never told me," muttered Molly. + +"I should think they must suit the house to perfection. Where have you +put them?" + +"In the small dining-room." + +"Yes; they must do admirably there. I should like to see them again." He +looked at her with a faintly sarcastic smile. She knew what he intended +her to say, and, against her will, she said hastily: + +"Won't you come and see them?" + +"With great pleasure." + +Molly saw that Adela had risen, and sprang up and turned away in one +sudden movement. She was very angry with him for forcing her to say +that, and she could not conceive what had made her yield. + +"'The teeth that bite; the claws that scratch,'" he thought to himself, +"but safely chained up--and the movements are beautiful." He stood +looking after her. + +"I did as you told me," said the hostess, pausing for a moment as she +followed her guests to the door. "If Molly blames me, shall I say that +you asked to take her in?" + +"Say just what you like; I trust you entirely." He did not attempt to +speak to Molly after dinner, or when they met again at a ball that same +night. All her burning wish to snub him could not be gratified. He +seemed not to know shat she was still in the room. But she knew +instinctively that he watched her, and she was not sorry he should see +her in the crowd, and be witness, however unwillingly, to her position +in the world he knew so well. It added to the sense of intoxication that +often possessed her now. "Be drunken," says Baudelaire, "be drunken with +wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you will, only be drunken." +And that Molly could be drunken with flattery, with luxury, with +movement, with music, with a sense of danger that gave a strong and +subtle flavour to her pleasures, was the explanation (and the only one) +of how she bore the hours of reaction, of the nausea experienced by that +spiritual nature of hers which she had been so surprised to discover. It +was not the half-shrinking, half-defiant Molly Edmund had talked to in +the woods of Groombridge, whom he watched now. That Molly was gone, and +he regretted her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +MOLLY'S APPEAL + + +Edmund, it seemed, was in no hurry to see his Florentine looking-glasses +again. Ten days passed before he called on Molly, and on the eleventh +day Mr. Murray, Junior, wrote to say that he had some fresh and +important intelligence to give him, and asked if Sir Edmund would call, +not at his office, but at his own house. + +Edmund flung the letter down impatiently. The situation was really a +very trying one. He did not believe--he could not and would not +believe--that Molly was carrying on a gigantic fraud. Murray was a +lawyer, and did not know Miss Dexter; his suspicions were inhuman and +absurd. From the day on which she had spoken to him about her mother's +reply to her offer to go to Florence, Edmund had in his masculine way +ranged her once for all among good and nice women. He had felt touched +and guilty at a suspicion that he had been to blame in playing his +paternal _rôle_ too zealously. Until then he had at times had hard +thoughts of her; after that time he was a little ashamed of himself, and +he believed in her simplicity and goodness. He was sorry and +disappointed now that she was making quite so much effect in this London +world. There was something disquieting in Molly's success, and he could +appraise better than any one what a remarkable success it was. But he +felt that she was going the pace, and he would not have liked his +daughter to go the pace, unmarried and at twenty-two. She needed +friendship and advice. But the pinch came from the fact that the wealth +he could have advised her to use wisely ought to be Rose's, and that he +was resolved, in the depths of his soul, to regain that wealth for his +cousin--for that "_belle dame sans merci_" who wrote him such pretty +letters about his troubles. + +Edmund put Murray's letter in his pocket, and immediately went out. He +was living in a small, but clean, lodging in Fulham, kept by a former +housemaid and a former footman of his own, now Mr. and Mrs. Tart, kindly +souls who were proud to receive him. He gave no trouble, and the +preparation of his coffee and boiled egg was all the cooking he had done +for him. Mrs. Tart would have felt strangely upset had she known that +the said coffee and egg were, on some days, his only food till tea-time; +she was under the impression that he lunched at his club when not +engaged to friends. Both she and Mr. Tart took immense pains with his +clothes, and he would rather have been well valeted than eat luxurious +luncheons every day. + +He went out at once after getting Murray's letter, because he wanted to +call on Molly before he heard any more of the important intelligence. + +Molly was alone when he was announced. She had told the butler she was +"not at home," but somehow the man decided to show Sir Edmund up because +he saw that he wished to be shown up. Edmund had always had an odd +influence below stairs, partly because he never forgot a servant's +face. + +Molly coloured deeply when she saw her visitor. She was annoyed to think +that he would make her talk against her will--and they would not be +interrupted. She could have used strong language to the butler, but she +did not dare tell him that she would now see visitors. It would look to +Edmund as if she were afraid of a _tête-à-tête_. + +Almost as soon as he was in the room she had an impression that he was +quite at home, curiously at his ease. + +"I am glad the house is so little changed. I came to my first dance +here. You have done wonderfully well, and all on the old lines. A friend +told me it was the hugest success." + +A remembrance of past jokes as to Edmund's second-hand compliments and +his friend "Mr. Harris" came into Molly's mind, but she only felt angry +at the remembrance. + +He talked on about the pictures and the furniture until she became more +natural. It was impossible not to be interested in her work, and the +decoration and furnishing of the whole house was her own doing, not that +of any hireling adviser. Then, too, he knew its history, and she became +keenly interested. She had at times a strong feeling of the past life +still in possession of the house, into which her own strangely fated +life had intruded. She wanted, half-consciously, to know if her guilty +secret was a desecration or only a continuance of something that had +gone before. + +Suddenly she leant forward with the crude simplicity he was glad to see +again. + +"Have there been any wicked people here?" Her voice was low and young. + +"'All houses in which men have lived and died are haunted houses,'" he +quoted. "It's not very cynical to suppose that there has been sin and +sorrow here before now." + +"I think," said Molly quickly, "there was a wicked woman who used the +little dining-room; perhaps she was only a guest. I don't think she went +upstairs often." + +"Perhaps she came in with my looking-glasses," suggested Edmund. "I have +often wished I could see what they have seen." + +Molly was now quite off her guard. + +Edmund rose and examined some china on a table near him. + +"Why are you so displeased with me?" he said, without any change of +voice. + +Molly sprang to her feet, careless whether her unguarded vehemence might +betray her to his observation. + +"I shall not answer that question," she said; but he knew that she would +answer it. + +"You cut me at the Court; you were displeased at having to sit by me at +dinner; you have pretended not to see me at least four times since then, +and your butler showed me up by mistake." + +Molly had moved away from him to the window. She knew she must speak or +her conduct would look too like wounded love--a thing quite unbearable. +She knew, too, that his influence would make her speak, and, besides +that, something in her cried for the relief of speech. She needed a +fight although she did not know it; an open fight with an enemy she +could see would distract her from the incessant fight with an enemy she +did not see. + +"You are a strange man!" she cried, holding the curtain behind her +lightly as she turned towards him. "You could make friends with me so +that all the world might see you, and meanwhile, at the very same time, +you were paying a low Italian scoundrel to produce lies against my sick +and lonely mother! You could watch me and get out of me all you wanted +to know because I was ignorant of the world. You could use the horrible +influence you had gained over me by your experience of many women, to +manage me as you liked. You told me not to marry Edgar Tonmore for some +reason of your own; you told me to go and stay with my aunt; you came to +see me one night in London, and wormed out of me my relations with my +unfortunate mother. With all your knowledge of the world, with all your +experience, did you never think I might come to find you out?" + +Molly paused for a moment. She held herself erect, her white gown +crushed against the rich, dark curtain, her great eyes searching the +trees in the park below as if she sought there for the soul of her +enemy. She did not know that she pulled hard at the curtain behind her +with both hands; it could not have held out much longer, strong though +it was. + +"No; you knew life too well not to know that you might be found out, but +the truth was that you did not care. It was so little a thing to you +that, when you saw that I knew the truth, you could go on just the same, +quite unabashed. You could force yourself on me by playing on your +poverty; you, who had tried to ruin my mother! Well, she is out of your +reach, and perhaps you have shifted your foul suspicions on to me. +Perhaps it is from me you hope to get the fortune that you mean to +share. You drive me mad! I say things I don't want to say; you force me +to lower myself, but----" She turned now and faced Edmund, who watched +her, himself absolutely motionless. "Now that you have forced yourself +on me again you shall answer me. Do you believe that I, Molly Dexter, +have concealed or abetted in concealing or destroying any will in favour +of Lady Rose Bright?" + +There is a moment when passion is astonishingly inventive. Molly had had +no intention of saying anything of the kind, but the heat of passion had +produced a stroke of policy that no colder moment could have produced. +She was suddenly dumb with astonishment at her own words, and she dimly +recognised that this represented a distinct crisis in her own mind. +Passion and excitement had dissipated the last mists of self-deception. + +Edmund waited till there could be no faint suspicion of his trying to +interrupt her, and then said from his heart, in a voice she had never +heard from him before: + +"No, I swear to you I don't." + +Molly had been deeply flushed. At these words she turned very white, and +her hands let go the curtains. She put them out before her and seemed to +grope her way to a stiff, high-backed chair near to her. She sat down in +it and clasped her hands to her forehead. + +"Now you must hear me," said Edmund. "I don't say I am blameless: in +part of this I have done wrong, but not as wrong as you think. I must +tell you my story; although perhaps it may seem blacker as I tell it, +even to myself." + +He sat down and bent forward a little. + +"When I was young I fell in love with my cousin. She has been and always +will be the one woman in the world to me. She did not, does not, never +will, return my feelings. She married, and before very long I was +convinced she was not happy, although she only half realised it herself. +She is capable of stifling her powers of perception. Then David Bright +died and left her in poverty. His will was a scandal, and the horror did +not only smirch his good name, it reached to hers. I can't and won't try +to tell you what I suffered, or how I determined to fight this hideous +wrong. I went to Florence; I tried to see Madame Danterre; I engaged the +detective--all before I knew of your existence. I came back to London +and discovered that your father, John Dexter, had divorced his wife on +account of David Bright. Still I did not know anything of you. Then, +through Lady Dawning I found you out, and I made friends with Mrs. +Delaport Green in order to see more of you. Was there anything wrong in +that? You did not know your mother; you did not, presumably, care very +deeply about her. It was doubtful if you knew of her existence. Soon the +detective in Florence faded in my mind; he discovered nothing, but I +retained him in case of any change. Was I obliged, because I liked you, +to give up the cause? I never found out, I never tried to find out from +you anything that bore on the case. You must remember that I stopped you +once in the wood at Groombridge when you wanted to tell me more about +yourself, and that I again warned you when you wished to tell me about +your mother's letter to you. As to Edgar Tonmore, I knew that he was +penniless, and I thought it quite possible that you might, in the end, +be penniless too. It was for your own sake I wished you to make a richer +marriage. For I believed--I still believe--that David Bright made a last +will when going out to Africa; I believed, and still believe, that by an +accident that will was not sent to Lady Rose. I thought then that your +mother had, in some way, become possessed of the will, and I thought it +more than likely that, when dying, she would make reparation by leaving +the money where it ought to be. I meant--may I say so?--to prove myself +your friend, then, if you should allow it. I know I kept in touch with +you partly from curiosity as well as from natural attraction. But, if I +acted for the sake of another, I acted for you also. Would it have been +better or worse for you to have been friends with us if my suspicions of +your mother's conduct had proved true? But believe me, Miss Dexter, I +never for one moment could have thought of you with any taint of +suspicion. It is horrible to me to have it suggested." + +He rose as he finished speaking, and came nearer to her. + +"That you, with your youth and your innocence and your candour!--child, +the very idea is impossible. I have known men and women too well to fall +into such an absurdity. Send me away, if you like; I won't intrude my +friendship upon you, but look up now and let me see that you do not +think this gross thing of me." + +Molly raised a white face and looked into his--looked into eyes that had +not at all times and in all places been sincere, but were sincere now. A +great rush of warm feeling came over her; a great sore seemed healed, +and then she looked at him with hungry entreaty, as if a soul, shorn of +all beauty, hungry, ragged, filthy, were asking help from another. But +the moment of danger, the moment of salvation passed away. + +We confess our sins to God because He knows them already, and we ask for +forgiveness where we know we shall be forgiven. + +Indeed, Molly knew almost at once that she had gained another motive for +silence. She could not risk the loss of Edmund's good thought of her; +she cared for him too much--he had defended himself too well. + +Edmund saw that she could not speak. He left her, let himself out of the +house, and, forgetful of the fact that he could not possibly afford a +hansom, jumped into one and drove to Mr. Murray's house. + +He had recovered his usual calmness by the time he had to speak. + +"I have your note," he said, "and I came in consequence." + +"Yes," said the lawyer; "I wanted to tell you----" + +"Wait a moment. Do you think you need tell me? You see, my share in the +thing really came to an end when I could not finance it. I have several +reasons now why I should like to let it alone." + +Murray was astonished. It was Sir Edmund who had started the whole +thing, whose wild guess at the outset was becoming more and more likely +to be proved true. It was he who had spent a quantity of money over the +investigation for years past. The man of business knew how to provoke +speech by silence, and so he remained silent. + +"Does further action depend in any way on me?" asked Edmund at last, +without, however, offering the explanation the other wanted. + +"No," said Murray quite civilly, but his manner was dry. "I don't see +that it does. I think we can get on for the present." + +As he spoke the door opened, and the parlourmaid showed in a tall, +handsome woman in a nurse's dress. + +Murray looked from her to Sir Edmund. + +"I had wanted you to hear what Nurse Edith had to tell us, but after +what you have said----" + +"Yes," said Edmund; "I will leave you and I will write to you +to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS + + +Edmund Grosse was in great moral and great physical discomfort that +evening. He dined, actually for the first time, in just such an Italian +café as he had described to Molly. After climbing up a very narrow, +dirty staircase, the hot air heavy with smells, he had emerged into a +small back and front room holding some half-dozen tables, at each of +which four people could be seated. Through the open windows the noises +of the street below came into collision with the clatter of plates and +knives and forks. The heat was intense, the cloths were not clean, +neither were the hands of the two waiters who rushed about with a +certain litheness and facility of motion unlike any Englishman. + +Edmund sat down wearily at a table as near the window as possible, and +at which several people had been dining, perhaps well, but certainly not +tidily. + +"Hunger alone," he thought, "could make this possible," when, looking +up, he caught the face of a young man at a further table, full of +enjoyment, ordering "spargetty" and half a bottle of "grayves," with a +cockney twang, and an unutterable air of latter-day culture. + +"Mutton chops, cheese, and ale fed your forefathers," reflected Grosse. + +"What will you have, sir?" in a foreign accent. + +"Oh! anything; just what comes for the two shilling dinner--no, not +_hors d'oeuvres_; yes, soup." + +Edmund had turned with ill-restrained disgust from the sardines, +tomatoes, and other oily horrors. But there was no denying the qualities +of the soup: the most experienced and cultivated palate and stomach must +be soothed by it, and in a moment of greater cheerfulness Edmund turned +his attention to three young men close to him who were talking French. +Their hands were clean and their collars, but poverty was writ large on +their spare faces and well-brushed clothes. One was olive-complexioned, +one quite fair, but with olive tints in the shadows round the eyes, and +the third grey, old, and purple-cheeked from shaving. They ate little, +but they talked much. The talked of literature and art with fierce +dogmatism, and they seemed frequently on the verge of a quarrel, but the +storm each time sank quite suddenly without the least consciousness of +the danger passed. They looked at the food as critics, and acknowledged +it to be eatable, with the faint air of an exile's sadness. + +Edmund wished to think that he was amused by their talk, but the +distraction did not last. His thoughts would have their way, and he was +soon trying to defend his defence of himself to Molly. All he said had +seemed so obviously true as the words poured out, but there had been +fatal reservations. He had spoken as if all suspicions, all proceedings +as to discovering the will were past. He had felt he had no right to +give away secrets that were not his own. But had he not produced a false +impression? What would Molly have thought of him as he passionately +rejected the notion of suspecting her if she had seen the letter from +Murray in his pocket? It was true that he no longer financed any of the +proceedings against her, but they had all been set on foot by him. He +was in the plot that was thickening, and he had won the confidence of +the victim! He had no doubt that Molly was innocent, and he was ashamed +of the pitiful confidence he had read in her eyes when he left her. But +he still believed that her mother had been guilty, and that Molly's +wealth was the result of that guilt. It was true that he wanted to be +her friend, but it was also true that he would rejoice if Rose came into +her own and the gross injustice were righted. But, after all, what +absolute evidence had they got, as yet, as to the contents of this last +will, or what proof even of its existence? He felt almost glad for the +fraction of a moment that Molly might remain the gorgeous mistress of +the old house in Park Lane uninjured by anything he had done against +her. "How absurd," he thought, "how drivelling! The fact is that girl +impressed me enough to-day, to make me see myself from her point of +view, or what would be her point of view if she knew all!" + +He refused coffee--the cab fare had prevented that. He quite emptied his +pocket, gave the waiter sixpence, and, rising, strolled across the floor +of the small room exactly the same man to the outward eye he had been +for years past. But before he reached the door he caught the glance of a +little, round, elderly woman at a table close to him, and he stopped. +She had a faded, showy bonnet, and she carried her worn clothes with an +air. He recognised the companion and friend of a famous prima donna +whom he had not seen for years. + +"You've forgotten me, but I've not forgotten you." + +It was a cherry, Irish voice. + +"I get coffee and a roll, and you have the _diner à prix fixe_. And you +have given me a champagne supper in your day! Well! and how are you?" + +"Nicely, thank you, Miss O'Meara; you see I have not forgotten!" Then in +a lower voice, "But I thought the Signora left you money?" + +"She did, bless her; but it was here one day and gone the next! +Good-night, and good luck to you," she laughed. + +The little duenna of a dead genius evidently did not want him to stay, +and he felt his way down the pitch dark stairs, and emerged on the +street. A very small, brown hand was held out for a penny, and for the +first time in his life he refused a street beggar with real regret. + +"'Here one moment, and gone the next,'" he muttered, looking down the +brilliantly lighted street to where the motors, carriages, and cabs +crowded round the doors of a great theatre. "It's the history of the +whole show in a nutshell." + + +If Sir Edmund was troubled at the thought that Molly believed in him, +Molly was infinitely more troubled at his belief in her. + +After he left her she went to her room. She had to dine out and she must +get some rest first. As in most of the late eighteenth century houses in +London, the bedrooms had been sacrificed to the rooms below. But Molly +had the one very large room that looked over the park. She threw +herself down on a wide sofa close to the silk-curtained bed. The sun +glinted still on the silver backs of the brushes and teased her eyes, +and she got up and drew down the blinds. The dressing-table was large +and its glass top was covered with a great weight of old gilt bottles +and boxes. + +Miss Carew had once been amused by the comment of a young manicurist +who, after expressing enthusiastic admiration of the table, had +concluded with the words: + +"But what I often say to myself is that it's only so much more to leave +in the end." + +But Molly had not laughed when the words were repeated; they gave +expression to a feeling with which she sometimes looked at many things +besides her dressing-table--they might all prove only so much more to +leave in the end! + +She sank exhausted again onto the sofa. Why had he come? Why could he +not leave her alone? Did she want his friendship, his pity, his +confidence? Why look at her so kindly when he must know how he hurt her? +She had felt such joy when she saw that he believed in her. The idea +that she was still innocent and unblemished in his eyes was just for the +moment an unutterable relief. An unutterable relief, too, it had felt at +the moment, to be able to accept his defence of himself. That he was +still lovable, and that he had no dark thoughts of her, had been such +joy, but only a passing joy. Had he not told her in horribly plain +speech that he loved Lady Rose, and would love her to the end? All this, +which was so vital to Molly, was but an episode in a friendship that was +a detail in his life! + +But now, alone, trying to see clearly through the confusion, how +unbearable it had been to hear him say, "That you with your youth and +your innocence and your candour...." He had thought it too horrible to +suspect her, and by that confidence he made her load of guilt almost +unendurable. + +She could not go on like this, could not live like this. The silence was +far more unbearable now that a human voice had broken into it, a voice +she loved repudiating with indignant scorn the possibility of suspecting +her! She must go somewhere, she must speak to some one. But at this +moment it was also evident that she must dress for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE RELIEF OF SPEECH + + +There is quite commonly a peculiar glow of sunshine just before a storm, +a brightness so obviously unreliable that we are torn between enjoyment +and anxiety. I have known no greater revelation of Nature's glories, +even in a sunset hour, than in one of these moments of glow before the +darkness of storm. And in a man's life there is sometimes an episode so +bright, so full of promise, that we feel its perfection to be the +measure of its instability. + +Such a moment had come to Mark Molyneux. The time of depression and +trial, the time when a vague sense of danger and a vague sense of +aspiration had made him turn his eyes towards the cloister, had ended in +his taking his work more and more earnestly and becoming surprisingly +successful in his dealings with both rich and poor. + +It seemed during the past winter that Mark would carry all before him; +he had come into close contact with the poor, and in the circle in which +his personal influence could be felt there was a real movement of +religious earnestness and moral reform. There was a noticeable glow of +zeal in the other curates and in the parish workers, who, with one or +two exceptions, were enthusiastic in their devotion to him personally +and to his notions of work. Even after Easter several of the +recently-cured drunkards were persevering, and other notoriously bad +characters seemed determined to show that the first shoots of their +awakened moral life were not merely what gardeners call "flowering +shoots," but steady growths giving promise of sound wood. + +Mark's sermons were becoming more and more the rage, and people were +heard to say that he was the only Catholic preacher in London, excepting +perhaps one or two Jesuit Fathers; while he had also the tribute of +attention from the press, which he particularly disliked. + +Meanwhile, the old rector was still gruff and still proffered snubs +which were gratefully received, for Mark was genuinely anxious not to be +misled by the atmosphere of praise and affection in which he was living. + +Nothing warned him of impending danger (to use a phrase of old-fashioned +romance) when he was told that Miss Dexter was asking to see him. He had +not seen her for a long time, and was quite glad that she should come. + +He looked young, eager, and happy as he came quickly into the parlour, +but after a few minutes the simple warmth of his manner changed into a +more negative politeness. There was something so gorgeous in Molly's +appearance, and so very strange in her face, that even a man who had +seen less of the world than is obtained in a year on the mission in +London, could not fail to be somewhat puzzled. + +Molly hardly spoke for some moments, and silence was apparently +inevitable. Then she burst out, without preparation, in a wild, +incoherent way, with her whole life's story. The story of a child +deserted by her mother, neglected by her father, taken from the ayah who +was the only person who had ever loved her, and sent like a parcel to +the care of a hard and selfish aunt who was ashamed of her. It might +have been horribly pathetic only that it was impossible that so much +egotism and bitterness should not choke the sympathy of the listener. +But as the story came to Molly's twenty-first year, the strange, bitter +self-defence (she had not yet explained why she should defend herself at +all to Father Molyneux), all the unpleasing moral side of the story +became merged in the sense of its dramatic qualities. + +Molly had never told it to anyone before now, and, indeed, she had not +realised several features of the case until quite lately. She told well +the disillusion as to her mother, her own single-handed fight with life, +the double sense of shame as to her mother's past, and her own ambiguous +position. She told him how she felt at first meeting Rose Bright, of her +own sense of sailing under false colours, and she actually explained, in +her strange pleading for a favourable judgment, how everything that +happened had naturally hardened her heart and made her feel as if she +had been born an outcast. Lastly, she told how Sir Edmund Grosse had +pursued her mother with detectives, and, as she had for a time believed, +had pursued herself with the hypocritical appearance of friendship. She +had been wrong, it seemed now, in judging him so harshly, but it had +hurt terribly at the time. + +Through all this Mark was struggling against the repulsion that +threatened to drown the sympathy he wanted to give her. But he had, +naturally, not the faintest suspicion as to what was coming or that +Molly was confiding in him a story of her own wrong-doing. He was +absolutely confounded when she went on, still in the tone of passionate +self-defence, to tell how she had found the will leaving the whole of +Sir David's fortune to Lady Rose. He simply stared at Molly when she +said: + +"Who could suppose for a single moment that I should be obliged, on +account of a scrap of paper which was evidently sent to my mother for +her to dispose of as she liked, to become a pauper and to give a fortune +to Lady Rose Bright?" + +But although he was too astounded for speech, and his face showed +strange, stern lines, it was now that there awoke in his heart the +passionate longing to help her; he saw now her whole story in the most +pathetic light, from the little child deserted by her mother, to the +woman scorned and suffering, left by the same mother in such a gruesome +temptation. The greatness of the sin provoked the passionate longing to +save her. The man who had given up Groombridge Castle and all it +entailed had not one harsh thought for the woman who had fallen into +crime to avoid the poverty he had chosen for his own portion. + +"It's a hard, hard case," he murmured, to Molly's surprise. + +She had been so occupied in her own outpouring that she had hardly +thought of him at first, except as a human outlet for her story made +safe by the fact that he was a priest. But when he had betrayed his +silent but most eloquent amazement, she had suddenly realised what the +effect of her confidences might be on such a man, and half expected +anathemas to thunder over her head. + +Then he tried to find out whether there was any kind of hope that the +will had, in fact, been sent to her mother to be at her disposal. But +suddenly Molly, who had herself suggested this idea, rent it to pieces +and brought out the whole case against her mother (and, consequently, +against herself) with a fierce logic of attack. + +This was more like the Molly whom he had known before, and Mark felt the +atmosphere a little clearer. Having left not the faintest shadow of a +defence for her own action, she suddenly became silent. After some +moments she leant forward. + +"Do you know," she said, in a tone so low that he only just caught the +words, "I see now what must have happened. It is strange that I never +thought of it before. I see it now quite clearly. Of course the will and +the letter were wrongly addressed, and probably some letter to my mother +was sent to Lady Rose." + +"That does not follow," said Father Molyneux. + +"But it's not unlikely," argued Molly. "It is more probable that the two +letters should be put into the wrong envelopes than that one should be +addressed to the wrong person. It's a mistake that is made every day, +only the results are usually of less consequence. It must have been +curious reading for my mother--that letter about herself to Lady Rose +Bright." + +"It is so difficult," said Mark, feeling his way cautiously, "to be sure +of not acting on fancied facts when there are so few to go upon. Do you +suppose that the detective in Florence had any definite plan of action +given to him by his employer? For just supposing that your guess is +right, they may have got some clue to what happened in the letter that +was sent by mistake to Lady Rose. Have you no notion at all whether +they may not now have got some evidence to prove that there was another +will?" + +Molly shook her head. + +"Do you think," she said, "they would have been quiet all this time if +there had been any real evidence at all? It is three years since Sir +David died, and six months since my mother died." + +She did not notice how Mark started at this information. Had Miss +Dexter, then, been in possession of this letter to Lady Rose and the +last will for six months? + +"You were not sent these papers at once?" he ventured to ask. + +"Yes; Dr. Larrone, who attended my mother, brought them to me. He left +Florence two hours after she died." + +Another silence followed. + +"It seems to me that a great deal might be done by a private +arrangement. Probably their case is not strong enough, or likely to be +strong enough, for them to push it through. It should be arranged that +you should receive the £1000 a year that Sir David intended to give your +mother." + +Molly laughed scornfully. + +"I'd rather beg my bread than be their pensioner. No, no; you entirely +mistake the situation. I shall have no dealings with them at all--no +nonsense about arbitration or private arrangements. I won't give them +any opportunity of feeling generous. It must"--she spoke very slowly and +looked at him fiercely--"with me it must be all or nothing, and"--she +got up suddenly and began smoothing her gloves over her wrists--"and as +I don't choose to starve it must be all. But if I can't go through with +it (which is quite possible) I shall throw up the sponge and get out of +this world as quickly as possible." + +"If you have made up your mind," said Mark sternly, "to defy God, in +Whom I know that you believe, to defy the laws of man, whose punishment +_may_ come, whereas His punishment must come, why have you told me all +this?" + +"I had to tell some one; I was suffocating. You don't know"--she stood +looking out of the window a strange expression of hunger and loneliness +succeeding the fierceness of a few moments before--"you don't know what +it is to have in your own mind a long, long story about yourself that +has never been told. To have been lonely and hardly treated and deceived +and spurned, and never to have put your own case to any one human being! +To have cried from childhood till twenty-two, knowing that nobody really +cared! There comes a time when you would rather say the worst of +yourself than keep silence. To accuse yourself is the natural thing; +silence is the unnatural thing." + +"Good God!" said Mark, rising, "don't stop there. If you must accuse +yourself, pass judgment also. Class yourself where you have chosen with +your eyes open to stand. Would you allow any amount of provocation and +unhappiness to excuse a systematic fraud? Do you think that the thief +brought up to sin has less or more excuse than you have? Are you the +only person who has known a lonely childhood? Can you tell me here in +this room that God never showed you what love really is? He has never +left you alone, and you wish in vain now that He would leave you alone. +For your present life is so unbearable that you feel that you may +choose death rather than go on with it." + +"I shall pay heavily for the relief of speech if I am to have a sermon +preached all to myself," said Molly insolently. "I was speaking of the +need of human love; I was speaking of all I had suffered, and it is easy +for you to retort upon me that I might have had Divine Love only that I +chose to reject it. Tell me, were you brought up without a mother's +love?" + +"No; I had--I have a mother who loves me almost too much." + +"Have you known real loneliness?" + +"I believe every man and woman has known that the soul is alone." + +Molly shook her head. + +"That is a mood; mine was a permanent state. Have you ever known what it +is to see God's will on one side, and all possibilities of human +happiness, glory, success, and pleasure, opposed to it?" + +The young man blushed deeply. + +"Yes, I have." + +Molly was checked. + +"I forgot," she answered; "but still you don't understand. You were an +intimate friend of God when He asked you for the sacrifice, whereas I--I +had only an inkling, a suspicion of that Love. Besides, you were not +asked to give all your possessions to your enemies! No; too much has +been asked of me." + +"Can too much be asked where all has been given?" asked Father Molyneux. + +"That is an old point for a sermon," said Molly wearily. "You don't +understand; you are of no use to me. Good-bye! I don't think I shall +come again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER + + +After that visit to Father Molyneux the devil seems to have entered into +Molly. It was a devil of fear and, consequently, of cruelty. What she +did to harm him was at first unpremeditated, and it must be allowed that +she had not at the moment the means of knowing how fearful a harm such +words as hers could do. She said them too when terror had driven her to +any distraction, and when wine had further excited her imagination. +Still it would not be surprising to find that many who might have +forgiven her for a long, protracted fraud, would blot her out of their +own private book of life for the mean cruelty of one sentence. + +Not many hours had passed after the visit before Molly was furious with +herself for her consummate folly in giving herself away to the young +priest, who might even think it a duty to reveal what she said. + +She had once told Mark that she might soon come to hate him, as hatred +came most easily to her. There was now quite cause enough for this +hatred to come into being. Molly had two chief reasons for it. First, +she was in his power to a dangerous extent and he might ruin her if he +chose; secondly, she was afraid of his influence--chiefly of the +influence of his prayers--and she dreaded still more that he should +persuade her to ruin herself. + +One evening Molly had been with Mrs. Delaport Green and two young men to +a play. It was a play that represented a kind of female "Raffles"--a +thief in the highest ranks of society, and the lady Raffles had black +hair. The lady stole diamonds, and fascinated detectives, and even +beguiled the ruffianly burglar who had wanted the diamonds for himself. +It was a far-fetched comparison indeed, but it worried and excited Molly +to the last degree. They went back to supper at Miss Dexter's house, and +there one more lady and another man joined them. They sat at a gorgeous +little supper at a round table in the small dining-room, Mrs. Delaport +Green opposite Molly, and Lady Sophia Snaggs, a spirited, cheery +Irishwoman, separated from the hostess by Billy, with whom the latter +had always, in the past weeks, been ready to discuss the poverty and the +failings of Sir Edmund Grosse. Of the other two men, one was elderly, +bald, greedy, fat and witty, and the other was a soldier, spare, red and +rather silent but extremely popular for some happy combination of +qualities and excellent manners. It would seem hardly worth while to say +even this little about them, only that it proved of some importance that +the few people who heard Molly's words that night, and certainly +repeated them afterwards, had unfortunately rather different and rather +wide opportunities of making them known. + +The Florentine looking-glasses that once belonged to Sir Edmund Grosse, +with their wondrous wreaths of painted flowers, looked down from three +sides of the room and reflected the pretty women and their gowns, the +old silver, the rare glass, and the flowers. They were probably +refreshed by the exquisite taste of the little banquet that might recall +the first reflection of their youth. Morally there was a rift within the +lute among the guests, for Molly betrayed that Adela had got on her +nerves. Lady Sophia Snaggs poured easy conversation on the troubled +waters, but at last the catastrophe could not be averted. + +At a moment when the others were silent Adela was talking. + +"Yes; I went to hear him preach, and it is so beautiful, you know. +Crowds; the church was packed, and many people cried. You _should_ go. +And then one feels how real it is for him to preach against the world, +because he gave up so much." + +Molly drained her glass of champagne and leant across. + +"Whom are you talking about?" + +"Father Molyneux." + +"I thought so." + +"Have you heard him preach?" asked Lady Sophy. + +"I used to, but I never go now." She again leant forward and spoke this +time with unconcealed irritation. "Adela, I don't go now because I know +too much about him." + +There was immediate sensation. + +Molly slowly lit a cigarette. Even then she did not know what she was +going to say, but she had determined on the spur of the moment, and +chiefly from sheer terror, to put Mark out of court if she possibly +could. + +"He is a humbug," she proclaimed in her low, incisive tone. + +"Oh! come now," said Billy. "A man who gave up +Groombridge--extraordinary silly thing to do, but he is not a humbug!" + +Molly turned on him. + +"Yes, he is. He knows he made a great mistake and he would undo it if he +could." + +"Molly, it can't be true!" cried Adela almost tearfully. "If you had +only heard him preach last Sunday you couldn't say such hasty, unkind, +horrid things!" + +"It is true," said Molly. + +"Our hostess is pleased to be mysterious," said the fat man, and "you +know," turning to Mrs. Delaport Green, "it's very likely that he is +sorry he made such a sacrifice, but I don't think that prevents its +having been a noble action at the time." + +"Or makes him a humbug now," said the soldier. "I believe he is an +uncommonly nice fellow." + +"Oh! she means something else," said Lady Sophia, looking at Molly with +curiosity. "What is it you have against him?" + +Molly felt the table to be against her, and it added to her nervous +irritability. She was not in any sense drunk, and the drugs she took +were in safe doses at present; yet she was to a certain degree +influenced both by the champagne she had just taken, and the injection +she had given herself when she came in from the theatre. + +"You will none of you repeat what I am going to say?" + +"I probably shall," said the big guest, "unless it is excessively +interesting; otherwise I never remember what is a secret and what +isn't." + +But Molly did not heed him. + +"Well," she said, "it is a fact that Father Molyneux would give up the +Roman Church to-morrow if a very intimate friend of mine, who could +give him as much wealth as he has lost, would agree to marry him after +he ceased to be a priest!" + +"Oh! how dreadfully disappointing!" cried Adela. + +"Why shouldn't he?" said Billy. + +"It seems a come-down," said the fat man; and the soldier said nothing. + +"Stuff and nonsense," said Lady Sophia firmly. "Somebody has been +humbugging you, Molly." + +But being a lady who liked peace better than warfare, she now went on to +say that she had had no notion how late it was until this moment, and +that she really must be off. Her farewell was quite friendly, but +Molly's was cold. + +The departure of Lady Sophia made a welcome break, and, in spite of the +hostess being silent and out of temper, the men managed to divert the +conversation into less serious topics. But they were not likely to +forget what Molly had impressed upon their minds by the strange +vehemence with which she had emphasised her accusations. + +"She meant herself, I suppose?" asked Billy, when leaving the house with +his stout fellow guest. "Do you believe it?" + +"It was very curious, very curious indeed. Do you know I rather doubt if +she wholly and entirely believed it herself." + +Billy was puzzled for a moment, thinking that some difficult mental +problem had been offered for his digestion. + +"Oh, I see," he said, as he opened his own door with his latch-key. "He +only meant that she was telling a lie; I suspect he is right too." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE NURSING OF A SLANDER + + +Meanwhile, in shadowy corners of Westmoreland House, Miss Carew lived a +monotonous but anxious life. For days together she hardly saw Molly, and +then perhaps she would be called into the big bed-room for a long talk, +or rather, to listen to a long monologue in which Molly gave vent to +views and feelings on men and things. + +Molly's cynicism was increasing constantly, and she now hardly ever +allowed that anybody did anything for a good motive. She had moods in +which she poured scandal into Miss Carew's half excited and curious +mind, piling on her account of the wickedness and the baseness of the +people she knew intimately, of the sharks who pursued her money, and, +most of all, she showered her scorn on the men who wanted to marry her. + +Listening to her Miss Carew almost believed that all the men Molly met +were _divorcés_, or notoriously lived bad lives, and hardly veiled their +intention to continue to do the same after obtaining her hand and her +money. + +Molly would lie on a sofa, in a gorgeous kind of _déshabille_ which cost +almost as much as Miss Carew spent on her clothes in the whole year, and +apparently take delight in scaring her by these hideous revelations. +She was so strange in her wild kind of eloquence, and it was so +impossible to believe all she said, that the doubt more than once +occurred to Miss Carew whether it might be a case of the use of drugs. +The extraordinary personal indulgence of luxury was unlike anything the +older woman had ever come across. Then there was no system, nothing +business-like about Molly as there often is in women of the modern +world. Miss Carew dimly suspected that any society of human beings +expects some self-discipline, and some sacrifice to ordinary rules. As +it was she wondered how long Molly's neglect of small duties and her +frequent insolence would be condoned. + +All this, which had been coming on gradually, was positively nauseous to +the middle-aged Englishwoman whose nerves were suffering from the +strain, and she came to feel that it would be impossible to endure it +much longer. It would be easier to drudge and trudge with girls in the +schoolroom for a smaller salary than to endure life with Molly if she +were to develop further this kind of temper. + +For months now Miss Carew had lived under a great strain. From the +evening when she had found Molly sitting on the floor with the tin box +open before her, and old, yellow letters lying on the ground about it, +she had been almost constantly uneasy. She could not forget the sight of +Molly crouching like a tramp in the midst of the warm, comfortable room, +biting her right hand in a horrible physical convulsion. It was of no +use to try to think that Molly's condition that night was entirely the +result of illness, or that the loss of her unknown mother had upset her +to that degree or at all in that way. The character of Molly's mental +state was quite, quite different from the qualities that come of grief +or sickness. Then had followed the very anxious nursing, during which +all other thoughts had been swallowed up in immediate anxiety and +responsibility. + +During Molly's convalescence, in the quiet days by the sea-side, Miss +Carew began to reflect on a kind of coherent unity in the delirious talk +she had listened to during the worst days of the illness. And she also +noticed that Molly, by furtive little jokes and sudden, irrelevant +questions, was trying to find out what Miss Carew had heard her say. +Then it became evident that Molly attributed all the excitement of that +night to her subsequent illness--only once, and that very calmly, +alluding to the fact of her mother's death. + +Miss Carew had no wish to penetrate the mystery of the black box and the +faded letters. She had a sort of instinctive horror of the subject, but +she could not but watch the fate of the box when they came back to the +flat. Molly paid no attention to it whatever, and said in a natural +tone: + +"I shall send my father's dispatch box and sword-case and my own +dispatch boxes in a cab. Would you mind taking them and having them put +in the little room next to my bed-room?" + +But in the end Molly had taken them herself, as she thought Miss Carew +had a slight cold. Miss Carew always had a certain dislike to the door +of the little room next to Molly's, which had evidently been once used +for a powder closet. She did not even know if the door were locked or +not, and she never touched the handle. She had an uncanny horror of +passing the door, at least so she said afterwards; probably in +retrospect she came to exaggerate her feelings as to these things. + +She was puzzled and confused: her health was not good, and her faculties +were dimmed. It was probably the strain of living with Molly whom she +could no longer control or guide, and who was so evidently in dire need +of some one to do both. She felt dreadfully burdened with +responsibility, both as to the things she did understand and the things +she did not understand. What she could not understand was a sense of +moral darkness, like a great, looming grey cloud, sometimes simply dark +and heavy, and at other times a cloud electric with coming danger. She +felt as if burdened with a secret which she longed to impart, only that +she did not know what it was. At times it was as if she carried some +monstrous thing on her back, whilst she could only see its dark, +shapeless shadow. Her self-confidence was going, and her culture was so +useless. What good was it to her now to know really well the writings of +Burke, or Macaulay--nay, of Racine and Pascal? She had never been +religious since her childhood, but in these long, solitary days in the +great house that grew more and more gloomy as she passed about it when +Molly was out, she began to feel new needs and to seek for old helps. + +Molly was sometimes struck by the change in her companion. Miss Carew +seemed to have grown so futile, so incoherent and funny, unlike the Miss +Carew who had been her finishing governess not many years ago. + +The sight of Carey's troubled, mottled face began to irritate Molly to +an unbearable degree. + +"Why not have a treatment for eczema and have done with it? You used to +have quite a clear skin," she cried, in brutal irritation one morning. + +"Oh! it's nerves--merely nerves," said poor Miss Carew apologetically. + +"Then have a treatment for nerves," cried Molly furiously. "It is too +ridiculous to have blotches on your face because I have a bad temper!" + +It was the night after the little supper party at which the slander was +born that Molly said this rude thing, and then abruptly left the +drawing-room to join a hairdresser who was waiting upstairs. Almost +immediately afterwards Adela Delaport Green was standing over the stiff +chair on which Miss Carew was sitting, very limp in figure, and holding +a damp handkerchief to her face. + +"How d'ye do? They told me Molly was here," she said in a disappointed +voice, and her eyes ranged round the room with the alertness of a +sportswoman. + +Adela had come with a purpose; she had come there to right the wrong and +to force Molly to tell the truth. + +"She was here a moment ago. She has just gone up to the hairdresser," +said Miss Carew as she got up, quickly restoring the damp handkerchief +to her pocket and composing her countenance, not without a certain +dignity. She liked Adela, who was always friendly and civil whenever +they met. + +That little lady threw herself pettishly into a deep chair. + +"So tiresome when I haven't a minute to spare, and I suppose he will +keep her nearly an hour?" + +"Can I take a message?" + +"Oh! no, thanks, dear Miss Carew, don't go up all those horrid steep +steps. Do rest and entertain me a little. I am sure you feel these hot +days terribly." + +"I find it very cool and quiet here," said Miss Carew, a little sadly. + +"I'm afraid it's lonely," cried Adela. + +"Well! I oughtn't to grumble about that." + +"No, you never do grumble, I know; but I feel sometimes that you must be +tired and anxious, placed, as you are, as the only thing instead of a +mother to poor, dear Molly!" + +The fierce, quick envy betrayed in that "poor, dear Molly" did not reach +Miss Carew's brain, and a little sympathy was very soothing. + +"Now, could any fortune stand this sort of thing?" asked Adela. + +The companion shook her head sadly, but would not speak. + +"You know that she has bought Sir Edmund Grosse's old yacht? And that +she is taking one of the best deer forests in the Highlands? And is it +true that she is thinking of buying Portlands?" + +"Oh, yes!" sighed Miss Carew. "There is some new scheme every day." + +"She has everything the world can give," said Adela sharply. "But, you +know," she went on, "people won't go on standing her manners as they do +now, even if she can pay her amazing way! Do you know that her cousin, +Lady Dawning, declares she won't have anything more to do with her? Not +that that matters very much; old Lady Dawning hardly counts, now that +Molly has really great people as her friends, only little leaks let in +the water by degrees." + +A pause, and then suddenly: + +"Do you know Father Molyneux?" + +"Yes," said Miss Carew, who was glad to change the subject. "He is very +charming." + +"I didn't know he was a friend of Molly's." + +"Oh! didn't you? She took a great fancy to him last autumn; he used to +come to luncheon." + +"Did he come often?" + +"Oh! I think so, but I don't remember exactly." + +"And has he been coming here lately?" + +"I really don't know. I have my meals by myself now; the hours were so +irregular, and I am too old and dull for Molly's friends. I know she +went to see him a few days ago, and she came back looking agitated. I +was rather glad--I thought it would be good for her, but I fear it was +not. She has been more excited, I think, these two or three days. Her +nerves are really quite overwrought; she allows herself no quiet. Yes; +she was very much excited after seeing Father Molyneux." + +Miss Carew was talking more to herself than to Adela. + +"I thought perhaps he had pressed her to become a Roman Catholic; +certainly he upset her in some way." + +Adela's small eyes were like sharp points as she looked at the older +woman. + +Then was it really true? Oh! no; surely not. But then, what else could +he have said to upset Molly? + +At that moment Molly's maid came into the room. + +"Miss Dexter has only just heard that you were here, madam. She is very +sorry you have been waiting. She wished me to say that she is obliged to +go immediately to a sale at Christie's, and would you be able to go with +her?" + +Adela declined, perceiving that Molly was in no mind for a private talk, +and having parted affectionately from Miss Carew, went her way to have +a chat with Lady Dawning. + +In the afternoon she met several of her Roman Catholic acquaintances at +a charity performance in a well-known garden, and she pumped all those +she could decoy in turn into a _tête-à-tête_ as to Father Molyneux. She +was in reality devoured with the wish to know the truth. She had her own +thin but genuine share of ideality, and she had been more impressed by +Mark's renouncement of Groombridge Castle than by anything she had met +with before. + +But gradually, as she hunted the story, she gave him up, not because of +any evidence of any kind, but because she did not find him regarded as +anything very wonderful. She had need of the enthusiasms of others to +make an atmosphere for her own ideals, and almost by chance she had not +met anyone much interested in the young preacher. Then she had dim +backwaters of anti-Popery in her mind, and they helped the reaction. She +had come out, lance in rest, to defend the victim of calumny; in a very +few days she had thrown him over, and was explaining pathetically to +anybody who would listen that she had had a shock to her faith in +humanity. And the story, starting by describing her own state of mind +and being almost entirely subjective, ended in bringing home to her +listeners with peculiar force the objective facts as asserted by Molly. +Catholics, she found, when she came to this advanced state of +propagation, were aghast at her story. They did not believe it, but they +were excessively annoyed, and were, for the most part, inclined to think +that Mark could not have been entirely prudent. But non-Catholics were, +naturally, more credulous. + +A calumny is a quick and gross feeder. It has a thousand different ways +of assimilating things "light as air," or things dull from the ennui +which produced them, or things prickly with envy, or slushy, green +things born of unconscious jealousy, or unpleasant things born of false +pieties, or hard views born of tired experience, or worldly products of +incredulity, or directly evil suggestions, or the repulsions of satiated +sensuality, or the bitter fruits of melancholia, or the foreshadowings +of insanity, or the mere dislike of the lower moralities for the higher, +or the uneasiness felt by the ordinary in the presence of the rare, or +the revolt felt by the conventional against holier bonds, or the prattle +of curiosity, or the roughness of mere vitality, or the fusion of minds +at a low level. + +This particular calumny was well watered and manured with all these +by-products of human life, and it grew to full size and height with a +rapidity that could not have been attained under less favourable +conditions. + + + + +BOOK IV + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +ROSE SUMMONED TO LONDON + + +Rose was back in London the second week in July, summoned back rather +imperiously by Mr. Murray, Junior. The house had been shut up since the +departure of her tenants at Whitsuntide, and she had hoped not to reopen +it until the autumn. She had intended to go directly to her mother's +home in the country as soon as they could leave Paris. It was becoming a +question whether it would be a greater risk for Lady Charlton to endure +the heat in Paris or the fatigues of the long journey. Mr. Murray's +letter decided them to move. Rose must go, and her mother would not stay +behind alone. Lady Charlton decided to pay a month's visit to her +youngest daughter in Scotland, as Rose might be kept in London. + +It was a disappointment. The house in London would be nearly as stuffy +as Paris. Rose disliked the season and was in no mood for the stale +echoes of its dying excitements. She would not tell her friends that she +was back; she would keep as quiet as she had been in Paris. + +The first morning, after early service and breakfast, she went to the +library to wait for the lawyer's visit. It was the only room in which +to receive him; the dining-room, and drawing-room, and the little +boudoir upstairs, were not opened. Rose was inclined to leave them as +they were, with the furniture in brown wrappers, for the present; but +she would rather have seen Mr. Murray in any room but the library. + +The morning sun was full on the windows that opened to the rather dreary +garden at the back. She wondered why Mr. Murray had written so urgently, +and why Edmund Grosse had not written for several weeks. Up to now they +had done all this horrid business between them, and she had only had +occasional reports from her cousin. Now she must face the subject with +the lawyer himself. She was puzzled to account for the change in the +situation. + +At the exact moment he had mentioned, Mr. Murray's tall person with its +heavy, bent head appeared in the library. As they greeted they were both +conscious that it was in this same room, seated at the wide +writing-table still in the same place, and still bearing the large +photograph of Sir David Bright, where he had first told her of the +strange dispositions of her husband's will. He remembered vividly her +look then--undaunted and confident--as she had gently but firmly +asserted that there must be another will. But had she not also said it +would never be found? + +But the present occupied the lawyer much more than the past. He was +eager and a little triumphant in his story of the progress of the case, +and did not notice that the sweet face opposite to him became more and +more white as he went on. He told her all he had told Sir Edmund when he +first got back from the yacht; he told of the mysterious visit he had +received from Dr. Larrone, and how he could prove from the letters of +the Florentine detective that Madame Danterre had sent the doctor to +England to take a certain small, black box to Miss Dexter. + +Then he paused. + +"I told Sir Edmund how our Florentine detective, Pietrino, had made +friends with one of the nurses, and that she described Madame Danterre +ordering the box to be opened and having a seizure--a heart +attack--while the letters were spread out on her bed. Nurse Edith said +then that she had put them back in a hurry and locked the box, and that +it had not been reopened by Madame Danterre. Some weeks later when she +was near her end, Madame Danterre had a scene with Dr. Larrone which +ended in his consenting to take the box to London as soon as she was +dead, but the nurse was sure that the doctor was told nothing as to the +contents of the box. That was as much as we knew up to Easter, and while +waiting for the arrival of Akers, and Stock, the other private who had +witnessed the signature. They got here in Easter week, and I saw them +with Sir Edmund, and we both cross-questioned them closely. Akers's +evidence is beyond suspicion, and is perfectly supported by that of +Stock. He described all that happened at the witnessing of the General's +signature most circumstantially, but, of course, he knew nothing of the +contents of the paper. But now I have more important evidence than any +we have had so far, and the extraordinary thing is that Sir Edmund does +not wish to hear it. I cannot understand why!" + +Rose remained silent. She was looking fixedly at a paper-knife which she +held in her hand. + +It suddenly struck the lawyer as a flash of most embarrassing light +that possibly there was some complication of a dangerous and tender kind +between Sir Edmund and his cousin. He could not dwell on such a notion +now--it might be absolute nonsense, but it made him go on hastily: + +"I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she +knows much more than she would allow to him. I think she was waiting to +see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would +not fall into the risk of buying evidence. He waited; she was watched +until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours +before she came to me. She declares now that, as she was gathering up +the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been +reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one +called Rose. She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief. +She slipped it into her pocket when she put the rest away. I believe it +was naughty curiosity, but she wishes us to think that she knew the +whole scandal about the General's will, and did what she did from a +sense of justice. When off duty she took the paper to her room, and when +she opened it she found the will inside it. In her excitement she called +the housemaid, an Englishwoman with whom she had made friends, and she +copied the will while they were together, and the names of Akers and +Stock--of whom she could not possibly have heard--are in her copy. I +have seen that copy, Lady Rose, and----" He paused and glanced at her +for a moment, and then his eyes sought the trees in the garden even as +they had done when he had made that other and awful announcement on the +day of the memorial service to Sir David. Rose flushed a little, and +her breathing came quickly, but she made no sign of impatience. + +"Sir David left the whole of his fortune to you subject to an annual +payment of a thousand a-year to Madame Danterre during her lifetime." + +Complete silence followed. Lady Rose either could not or would not +speak. Out of the pale, distinguished slightly worn face the eyes looked +at Mr. Murray with no surprise. Had she not always said that she did not +believe the iniquitous will Mr. Murray had brought her to be the true +one, but had she not also maintained that the true will would never be +found? She did not say so to Mr. Murray, but in fact she shrank from +making too sure of Nurse Edith's evidence. She had so long forbidden +herself to believe in the return of worldly fortune or to wish for it. + +Mr. Murray coughed. No words of congratulation seemed available. At last +he went on: + +"Nurse Edith says she did not read the letter which was with the will. +Directly she went on duty in the morning, and while Madame Danterre was +asleep she put the papers back in the black box and the key of the box +in its usual place in a little bag on a table standing close by the head +of the bed. It was, as I have said, this same box which was put into Dr. +Larrone's care before he started on his mysterious journey to see Miss +Dexter. Now our position is very strong. We have evidence of the +witnessing of a paper by two men. We have the copy of the will made by +the nurse and witnessed by the housemaid, and it bears the signatures of +those two men. Then you must remember that, in a case of this kind, the +court is much more likely to set aside a will leaving property away from +the family than if the will in dispute had been an ordinary one in +favour of his relations." + +"Oh! it is horrible--too horrible!" cried Rose. "There must be some +mistake. That young girl I met at Groombridge! Even if the poor mother +were really wicked, that girl cannot have carried it on!" + +Rose had leant her elbows on the table, and clasped her white hands +tightly and then covered her face with them for a moment. + +"I can't believe it. I feel there is some terrible mistake, and we might +ruin this girl's life. It would be ill-gotten, unblest wealth." + +The lawyer noted with surprise that these two--Sir Edmund and Lady +Rose--were not more anxious for wealth, rather less so, since both had +known comparative poverty. + +"I don't believe anyone is the better for living on fraud, Lady Rose, +and I don't believe you have any right to drop the case. You have to +think of Sir David's good name and of his wishes. The will you are +suffering from was a portentous wrong." + +Rose trembled. Had she not felt it the most awful, the most portentous +wrong? Had it not burnt deep miserable wounds in her soul? The whole +horror of the desecration of her married life had been revealed to her +in this room by this man. Did she need that he should tell her what that +misery had been? The words he had used then were as well known to her as +the words he had used to-day. + +Rose said after a longer pause, and with slight hesitation: + +"And Sir Edmund does not know what Nurse Edith told you? He has not seen +the copy of the will?" + +"No; I wanted him to, but he refused to hear any more on the subject. I +cannot understand it at all." He spoke with considerable irritation, his +big forehead contracted with a deep frown. "Sir Edmund, after making the +guess on which the whole thing has turned, after discovering Akers and +Stock, after spending large sums in the necessary work----" + +"Has he spent much money?" Rose flushed deeply. + +But Mr. Murray, who usually had more tact, was now too full of his +grievance to pause. + +"He spent money as long as he could, and now takes no more interest in +the matter on the ground that he can no longer be of any use. Why, it +was his judgment we wanted, his perceptions; no one could be of more use +than Sir Edmund!" + +"And who is paying the expenses now?" + +"Ah! that is the reason why I wished to see you as soon as possible. I +felt that I could not, without your approval, continue as we are now. +The last cheque from Sir Edmund covered all expenses to the end of the +year. I have advanced what has been necessary since then, and if you +really wish the thing dropped, that is entirely my own affair. But I do +most earnestly hope that you will not do anything so wrong. I feel very +strongly my responsibility towards Sir David's memory in this matter." + +"I feel," said Rose, but her manner was irresolute, "that the scandal +has been forgotten by now; things come and go so fast. He will be +remembered only as a great soldier who died for his country." + +"It may be forgotten," said Mr. Murray in a stern voice she had never +heard before. "It may be forgotten in a society which is always needing +some new sensation and is always well supplied. But there is a less +fluctuating public opinion. We men of business keep a clearer view of +character, and we know better how through all classes there is a verdict +passed on men that does not pass away in a season. Do you think, madam, +that when men treasure a good name it is the gossip of a London season +they regard? No; it is the thoughts of other good men in which they wish +to live. It is the sympathy of the good that a good man has a right to. +I believe in a future life, but I don't imagine I know whether in +another world they rejoice or suffer pain by anything that affects their +good name here. But I do know, Lady Rose, that deep in our nature is the +sense of duty to their memory, and I cannot believe that such an +instinct is without meaning or without some actual bearing on departed +souls. I don't expect Sir David to visit me in dreams, but I do expect +to feel a deep and reasonable self-reproach if I do not try to clear his +name." + +The heavy features of the solicitor had worked with a good deal of +emotion. The thought, the words "departed souls," were no mere words to +him in these summer days while Mrs. Murray, Junior, was supposed to be +doing well after an operation in a nursing home, and the doctors were +inclined to speak of next month's progress and on that of the month +after that, and to be silent as to any dates far ahead. In his +professional hours he did not dwell on these things, but it was the +actual spiritual conditions of the life he and his wife were leading +that gave a strange force to his words. + +"She never loved him," thought Mr. Murray as he looked out of the +window. He was on the same side of the writing-table that he had been on +when he had first told her of the deep insult offered to her by Sir +David. He did not realise now the intensity of the contempt he had felt +then for the departed General as he looked at his photograph. It was +intolerable, he had thought then, that a man should have those large, +full eyes, that straight, manly look and bearing, who had gone to his +grave having deliberately planned that his dead hand should so deeply +wound a defenceless woman, and that woman his sweet, young wife. +Murray's mind was so full now of relief at the idea that Sir David had +done his best at the last, that in his relief he almost forgot that, in +a woman's mind the main fact might still be that there had been a Madame +Danterre in the case! + +But Rose now, as when he had first told her of Madame Danterre's +existence, was seeking with a single eye to find the truth. It had +seemed to her then a moral impossibility to believe that her husband had +meant to leave this horrible insult to their married life. David had +been incapable of anything so monstrous; he had not in his character +even the courage of such a crime. + +But now the key to the situation, according to Mr. Murray, was Molly; +and Rose again brought to bear all that she had of perception, of +experience, of instinct, to see her way clearly. She was silent; then at +last she looked up. + +"Mr. Murray, Miss Dexter could not commit such a crime. Why, I know her; +I spent some days in a country house with her. I know her quite well, +and I don't like her very much, but she really can't have done anything +of the kind, and therefore, the case won't be proved. I am sure it +won't. And if it fails only harm will be done to David's memory, not +good." + +"That is what Sir Edmund said, but believe me, Lady Rose, you have +neither of you anything to go upon. You think it impossible, but you +don't either of you see the immense force of the temptation. Some crimes +may need a villainous nature. This, if you could see it truly, only +needs one that is human under temptation, ignorant of danger, and +ambitious." + +"But then, was that why Edmund would have nothing more to do with the +case?" thought Rose. + +The look of clear, earnest, searching in Rose's eyes was clouded by a +frown. + +The clock struck twelve. Mr. Murray rose. + +"I am half an hour late for an appointment. Lady Rose, forgive me; I am +an old man, and maybe I take a harsh view of what passes before me. But +there is nothing, let me tell you, that alarms me more in the present +day than the way in which men and women lose their sense of duty in +their sense of sentimental sympathy." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +BROWN HOLLAND COVERS + + +That afternoon Rose was standing by the window in the drawing-room when +she became conscious that her gown was quite hot in the burning sun, +and, undoubtedly, its soft, grey tone would fade. She drew back and +pulled down the blinds. + +It was not the first time she had put off her black, for, in the Paris +heat, it had become intolerable, and she had certainly enjoyed her visit +to an inexpensive but excellent dressmaker, who had produced this grey +gown with all its determined simplicity. + +Rose looked round at the drawing-room now. The furniture in holland +covers was stacked in the middle of the room; the pictures were wrapped +in brown paper with large and rather unnecessary white labels printed +with "Glass" in red letters. The fire-irons were dressed in something +that looked like Jaeger and the tassels of the blinds hung in yellow +cambric bags. Rose smiled a little as she recalled how strange and +strong an impression a room in such a state had made on her in her +childhood. The drawing-room in her London home had seemed incomparably +more attractive then than at any other time. Lady Charlton had once +brought Rose up to see a dentist on a bright, autumn day. She had not +been much hurt, but it was a great comfort when the visit was over. She +and her mother had dinner on two large mutton chops, and some apricot +tartlets from a pastry-cook, things ordered by Lady Charlton with a view +to giving as little trouble as possible to two able-bodied women who +were living on board wages, and both of whom were, in private life, +excellent cooks. Lady Charlton was anxious, too, not to give trouble by +sending messages, having quite forgotten that there was also a boy who +lived in the house. So, after lunch, she had gone out to find a cab for +herself, and had left Rose to rest with a book on the big morocco sofa +in the dining-room. + +Rose had found her way to the drawing-room, and she could see now the +half-open shutter and the rich light of the autumn sun turning all the +dust of the air to gold in one big shaft of light. The child had never +seen the house when the family was away before, and with awestruck, +mysterious joy, she had lifted corners of covers and peered under chairs +and recognised legs of tables and footstools. Then she had stood up and +taken a comprehensive view of the whole of this world of mountains and +valleys, precipices and familiar little home corners, all covered in +brown holland, like sand instead of grass, all golden lights and soft +shadows. + +What had there been so very exciting in it--an excitement she could +still recall as keenly now? Was it the greatness of the revolution, or +surprise at the new order of things? It was such a startling +interruption of all the usual relations between the furniture of the +house and its human beings. A great London house wrapped up in the old +way spoke more of the old order its influence, its importance, than did +the house when inhabited, and out of its curl papers. Nothing could +speak more of law and order and care, and the "proper" condition of +things, and the self-respect of housemaids, the passing effectiveness of +sweeps, and the unobtrusive attentiveness of carpenters! But to the +child there had been a glorious sense of loneliness and licence as she +danced up and down the broad vacant spaces and jumped over the rolls of +Turkey carpets. + +Rose envied that child now, with an envy that she hoped was not bitter. +It is not because we knew no sorrows in our childhood that we would fain +recall it. It is because we now so seldom know one whole hour of its +licensed freedom, its absolute liberty in spite of bonds. + +A loud door-bell, as it seemed to Rose, sounded through the house as she +closed the shutter she had opened when she came in. She knew whose ring +it must be, and came quietly downstairs with a little frown. + +Edmund Grosse had been shown into the library. The room looked east, and +was now deliciously cool after the street. The dark blinds were half-way +down, and a little pretence at a breeze was coming in over the burnt +turf of the back garden. + +Edmund's manner as he met her was as usual, but tinged perhaps with a +little irony--very little, but just a flavour of it mingled with the +immense friendliness and the wish to serve and help her. + +Rose was, to his surprise, almost shy as she came into the room, but in +another moment she was herself. + +"Mamma has borne the journey splendidly. I've had an excellent account +in a long telegram this morning." + +But while she told him of their journey and of their life in Paris, a +rather piteous look came into the blue eyes. Was she not to hear any of +Edmund's own news? Was she not to be allowed to show any sympathy? She +might not say how she had been thinking of him, dreaming of how nobly he +had met his troubles, praying for him in Notre Dame des Victories. She +saw at once that she must not; there was something changed. It was too +odd, but she was afraid of him. She shook herself and determined not to +be silly. She would venture to say what she wished. + +"Are things----" she began, but her voice trembled a little as, raising +her head, she saw that he was watching her. "Are things as bad as you +feared?" + +He at once looked out of the window. + +"Quite as bad as possible. I am just holding out till I can get some +work. Long ago, soon after I left the Foreign Office, I was asked to do +some informal work in Egypt; they wanted a semi-official go-between for +a time. I wish I had not refused then; I have been an ass throughout. If +I had even done occasional jobs they would have had some excuses for +putting me in somewhere now on the ground of my having had experience. I +have just written two articles on an Indian question, for I know that +part of the world as well as anybody over here, and they may lead to +something. Meanwhile, I am very well, so don't waste sympathy on me, I +am lodging with the Tarts, where everything is in apple-pie order." + +"Oh, I am glad you are with those nice Tarts!" cried Rose, with genuine +womanly relief, that in another class of life would have found form and +expression in some such remark as that she knew Mary Tart would keep +things clean and comfortable, and would do the airing thoroughly. + +Edmund's voice alone had made sympathy impossible, but he was a little +annoyed at the cheerful tone of Rose's words about the Tarts. It was +unlikely that she could have satisfied him in any way by speech or by +silence as to his own affairs. But why was she so very well dressed? He +had got so accustomed to her in soft, shabby black that he was not sure +if he liked this Paris frock; the simplicity of it was too clever. + +There was silence, and Rose rearranged a bowl of roses her sister had +sent her from the country. She chose out a copper-coloured bud and held +it towards him, and a certain pleading would creep into her manner as +she did so. + +Edmund smiled. She was really always the same quite hopeless mixture of +soft and hard elements. + +"Have you seen Mr. Murray, Junior?" he asked. + +"Yes; he came this morning, and I can't conceive what to do. At last I +got so dazed with thinking that this afternoon I have tried to forget +all about it." + +"That will hardly get things settled," said Edmund, rather drily. + +Tears came into her eyes, and were forced back by an effort of will. +Then she told him quite quietly of Nurse Edith's evidence. + +"You mean," he explained, "that there is a copy of the real will leaving +everything to you. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I find it harder to +believe than when I first guessed at the truth. I suppose it is an +effect on the nerves, but now that we are actually proved right I am +simply bewildered. It seems almost too good to be true." + +Rose was also, it seemed, more dazed than triumphant. He felt it very +strange that she had not told him the great news as soon as he came +into the room. + +"What made you say that you could not conceive what to do? There can be +no doubt now." He spoke quickly and incisively. + +"I cannot see," she said at last, "what is right. Mr. Murray is very +positive, and absolutely insists that it is my duty to allow the thing +to go on." + +"Of course," Edmund interjected. + +"But then, if he is mistaken! He really believes that Miss Dexter +received the will from Dr. Larrone and has suppressed it." + +Edmund got up suddenly, and looked down on her with what she felt to be +a stern attention. + +"And that," she concluded, looking bravely into the grave eyes bent on +her, "I absolutely decline to believe!" + +"Of course," said Grosse abruptly, "it's out of the question. It's just +like a solicitor--fits his puzzle neatly together and is quite satisfied +without seeing the gross absurdity of supposing that such a girl could +carry on a huge fraud. A perfectly innocent, fresh, candid girl, brought +up in a respectable English country house--the thing is ridiculous!" + +He spoke with great feeling; he was more moved than she had seen him for +a long time past, perhaps that was why she felt her own enthusiasm for +Molly's innocence just a little damped. He sat down again as abruptly as +he had risen. + +"But it would be madness to drop the whole affair. This evidence of +Nurse Edith's is really conclusive; and the only thing I can see to be +said on the other side would be that David might have sent the will to +Madame Danterre to give her the option of destroying it. But there is +just another possibility, which Murray won't even consider, that Larrone +destroyed the will on the journey." + +"Do you know," said Rose, with a smile, "I believe it's conceivable that +it is in the box, but that she has never opened the box at all! I +believe a girl might shrink so much from reading that woman's papers +that she might not even open the box." + +"No one but a woman would have thought of such a possibility, but I +daresay you are right." + +He looked at her more gently, with more pleasure, and she instantly felt +brighter. + +"Then don't you think it would be possible to get at some plan, some +arrangement with her? It seems to me," she went on earnestly, "that we +ought to try to do it privately. Perhaps we might offer her the +allowance that would have been made to her mother. If she could be +convinced herself that the fortune is not really hers she might give it +up without all the horrid shame and publicity of a trial." + +"Yes, but the scandal was public, and you have to think of David's good +name." + +"Yes; but then you see, Edmund, the true will would be proved publicly, +and the explanation of the delay would be that it had not been found +before." + +"She would have to expose her wretched mother." + +"Not more than the trial would expose her; whether we won the case or +lost it, Madame Danterre must be exposed. But if I am right how could it +be done?" + +"I think I had better do it myself," said Edmund. "I could see Miss +Dexter. I really think I could do it, feeling my way, of course." + +Rose did not answer. She locked her fingers tightly together as +something inarticulate and shapeless struggled in her mind and in her +heart. She had no right, no claim, she thought earnestly, trying to keep +calm and at peace in her innermost soul. But she did not then or +afterwards allow to herself what she meant by "right" or by "claim." + +She looked up a moment later with a bright smile. + +"Yes," she said, "you would be the best--far the best. Miss Dexter would +feel more at her ease with you than with me or anyone I can think of." + +"Of course, I must consult Murray first," said Edmund, absorbed in the +thought of the proposed interview. "I ought to go now; I have an +appointment at the Foreign Office--probably as futile as any of my +efforts hitherto when looking for work." + +He spoke the last words rather to himself than to his cousin, and then +left her alone. He did not question as he walked through the streets +across the park whether he had been as full of sympathy to Rose as he +had ever been; he was far too much accustomed to his own constancy to +question it now. But somehow his consciousness of Rose's presence had +not been as apparent as usual. No half ironic, half tender comments on +her attitude at this crisis had escaped him. He had been more +business-like than usual, and, man-like, he did not know it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE WRATH OF A FRIEND + + +Canon Nicholls had had a hard fight with a naturally hot temper, and his +servant would have given him a very fair character on that point if he +had been applied to. But there came a stifling July morning when nothing +could please him. He had been out to dinner the night before, and it was +the man's opinion that he had "eaten something too good for him." He had +been to church early, and had come back without the light in his face he +usually brought with him, as if the radiance from the sanctuary lamp +loved to linger on the blind face. He was difficult all the rest of the +morning, and the kind, patient woman who read aloud to him and wrote his +letters became nervous and diffident, thinking it was her own fault. + +In the afternoon he usually took a stroll with his servant for guide, +and then had a doze, after which he went to Benediction at a +neighbouring convent. But to-day he settled into his arm-chair, and said +he meant to stay there, and that he wanted nothing, and (with more +emphasis) nobody. + +He was, in truth, greatly disturbed in his mind. He had heard things he +did not like to hear of Mark Molyneux. He had been quite prepared for +some jealousy and some criticism of the young man he loved. Nobody +charms everybody, and if anybody charms many bodies, then the rest of +the bodies, who are not charmed, become surprised and critical, if not +hostile. It is so among all sets of human beings: the Canon was no acrid +critic of religious persons, only he had always found them to be quite +human. + +The immediate cause of the acute trouble the Canon was going through +to-day had been a visit of the day before from Mrs. Delaport Green. +Adela, who, as he had once told Mark, sometimes looked in for a few +minutes, was under the impression that she very often called on the old +blind priest, and often mentioned her little attempts to cheer him up +with great complacence, especially to her Roman Catholic friends, as if +she were a constant ray of light in his darkness. She had not seen him +since her return from Cairo, but her first words were: + +"I was so sorry not to be able to come last week," spoken with the air +of a weekly visitor. + +But the Canon thought it so kind of her to come at all that he was no +critic of details in her regard. + +She had cantered with a light hand over all sorts of +subjects,--Westminster Cathedral, the reunion of Churches, her own +Catholic tendencies, her charities, the newest play (which she described +well), and her anxiety because her husband ate too much. Then, at last, +she lighted on Mark's sermons. + +Canon Nicholls spoke with reserve of Mark; he was shy of betraying his +own affection for him. + +"Yes; it is young eloquence, fresh and quite genuine," he said in +response to Adela's enthusiasm. + +"It sounds so very real," said Adela, with a sigh. "One couldn't +imagine, you know, that he could have any doubts, or that he could be +sorry, or disappointed, or anything of that sort--and yet----" + +"And yet, what?" asked the Canon. + +"And yet--well, I know I am foolish, and I do idealise people and make +up heroes--I know I do! It is such a pleasure to admire people, isn't +it? And after he gave up being heir to Groombridge Castle! I was staying +there when poor, dear Lord Groombridge got the news of his ordination, +and it was all so sad and so beautiful, and now I can't bear to think +that Father Molyneux is sorry already that he gave it all up." + +"Sorry that he gave it up--!" + +Adela gave a little jump in her chair. It made her so nervous to see a +blind man excited. But curiosity was strong within her. + +"I am afraid it is quite true; a friend of mine who knows him quite +well, told me." + +"Told you _what_?" + +"That he was unhappy, and has doubts or troubles of some kind. I didn't +understand what exactly, but she knows that he will give it all up--the +vows and all that, I mean--if----" + +"If what?" + +Adela was not really wanting in courage. + +"If a certain very rich woman would marry him. It seems such a +come-down, so very dull and dreadful, doesn't it?" + +"You know all that's a lie!" + +"Well, it was all told to me." + +"But you knew there was not a word of truth in it, only you wanted to +see how I would take it. And I thought you were a kind-hearted woman! +How blind I am!" + +Adela was galled to the quick. A quarrel, a scolding, would have been +tolerable, and perhaps exciting, but this naïve disappointment in +herself, this judgment from the man to whom she had been so good, was +too much! + +"I thought it was much more kind to let you know what everybody is +saying, that you might help him. I am very sorry I have made a mistake, +and that I must be going now. It is much later than I thought." + +"Must you?" There was the faintest sarcasm in the very polite tone of +the Canon's voice. + +Nor had this conversation been all; for out at dinner that night the +Canon had been worried with much the same story from a totally different +quarter. It was after the ladies had left the dining-room, and the +gossip had been rougher. + +He gave all his thoughts to brooding over the matter next day. Mark +could not have managed well--must have done or said something stupid, +and made enemies, he reflected gloomily. + +Canon Nicholls had been young once, and almost as popular a preacher as +Mark, and he did not underrate the difficulties. But it was his firm +persuasion that, with tact and common-sense they were by no means +insurmountable. What really distressed the old man was that perhaps Mark +had been right in thinking that he personally could not surmount them. +And it was Canon Nicholls's doing that he was not by this time a novice +in a Carthusian Monastery! Therefore the Canon's soul was heavy with +anxiety as to whether he had made a great mistake. + +"He must be a fool, or else it's just possible that he has got an +uncommonly clever enemy." The last thought revived the old man a +little, and he received his tea without any of the demonstrations of +disgust he had shown on drinking his coffee at breakfast. + +Presently the subject of his thoughts came upon the scene, and the +visitor saw at once that his old friend was unlike himself. The Canon +was exceedingly alert from the moment Mark came into the room, trying to +catch up the faintest indication, in his voice or movements, as to +whether he were in good or low spirits; he almost thought he heard a +quick sigh as Mark sat down. He could not see that Mark was undeniably +thinner and paler than he had been only a few weeks ago, and that his +eyes looked even more bright and keen in consequence. + +"Take some tea," said the Canon; and then, when he had given him time to +drink his tea, he turned on him abruptly. + +"I've heard some lies about you, and I'm going to tell you what they +are." + +"Perhaps it's better to be ignorant." + +"No, it's not, now why did you incite young men to Socialism in South +London?" + +"Good heavens!" said Mark. "Well, you shall catch it for that. I will +read you every word of that paper; not a line of anything else shall you +hear till you've been obliged to give your 'nihil obstat' to 'True and +False Socialism,' by your humble servant." + +"But that's not the worst that's said of you." + +"Oh, no! I know that." + +Perhaps if Canon Nicholls could have seen the strained look on the young +face he could have understood. As it was, he believed him to be taking +the matter too lightly. + +"When I was young," he said, "I thought it my own fault if I made +enemies, and you know where there is a great deal of smoke there has +generally been some fire." + +"Then you mean to say," answered Mark, in a voice that was hard from the +effort at self-control, "that you think it is my fault that lies are +told against me, although you _do_ call them lies?" + +"Frankly, I think you must have been careless," said the old man, +leaning forward and grasping the arm of his chair. "I think you must +have had too much disregard for appearances." + +He paused, and there was a silence of several moments, while the ticking +of the clock was quite loud in the little room. + +"Unless this is the doing of an enemy," said Canon Nicholls. + +"I do not know that it is an enemy," said Mark, "but I know there is +some one who is excessively angry and excessively afraid because I know +a secret of great importance." + +"And that person is a woman, I suppose?" + +"I cannot answer that," said Mark. He was standing now with one elbow on +the end of the chimney-piece, and his head resting on his right hand, +looking down at the worn rug at his feet. + +"Will you tell me exactly what it is they do say?" said Mark, still +speaking with an effort at cheerfulness that aggravated the nervous +state of Canon Nicholls. + +And there followed another silence, during which Father Molyneux +realised to himself with fear and almost horror that he was nearly +having a quarrel with the friend he loved so much, and on whose kindness +he had always counted, and whose wisdom had so often been his guide. He +was suffering already almost more than he owned to himself, and he had +come into the room of the holy, blind old man as to a place of refuge. +It gave him a sick feeling of misery and helplessness that there seemed +in the midst of his other troubles the possibility of a quarrel with +Canon Nicholls. This at least he must prevent; and so, leaning forward, +he said very gently: + +"Do tell me a little bit more of what you mean? I know you are speaking +as my friend, and, believe me, I am not ungrateful. I am sure there is a +definite story against me. I wish you would call a spade a spade quite +openly." + +"They have got hold of a story that you are tired of poverty and the +priesthood, and so on, and that you will give it all up if you can +persuade a certain very rich woman to marry you." + +"That is definite enough." Mark was struggling to speak without +bitterness. "And, for a moment, you thought----?" he could not finish +the sentence. + +"Good God! not for a fraction of a second. How can you?" + +"Oh! forgive me, forgive me; I didn't mean it." + +Mark knelt down by the chair, tears were flowing from the blind eyes. +Canon Nicholls belonged to a generation whose emotions were kept under +stern control; the tears would have come more naturally from Mark. There +was a strange contrast between the academic figure of the old man in its +reserved and negative bearing, seriously annoyed with himself for +betraying the suffering he was enduring, and yet unable to check the +flow of tears, and the eager, unreserved, sympathetic attitude of the +younger man. After a few moments of silence Mark rose and began to +speak in low, quick accents---- + +"It is a secret which is doing infinite harm to a soul made for good +things, and yet it is a secret which I can tell no one, not even you--at +least, so I am convinced. But it is a secret by which people are +suffering. The result is that I cannot deal with this calumny as I +should deal with it if I were free; and I believe that I have not got to +the worst of it yet. I see what it must lead to." + +He looked down wistfully for a moment, and then went on: + +"Last year I had a dream that was full of joy and peace, and that seemed +to me God's Will; but, through you, I came to see that I must give it +up, and I threw myself into the life here with all my heart. And now, +just when I had begun to feel that I was really doing a little good, now +that I have got friends among the poor whom I love to see and help, I +shall be sent away more or less under a cloud. I shall lose friends whom +I love, and whom it had seemed to me that I was called to help even at +the risk of my own soul. However, there it is. If I am not to be a +Carthusian, if I am not to work for sinners in London, I suppose some +other sphere of action will be found for me. I must leave it to Him Who +knows best." + +Canon Nicholls bent forward, and held out his long, white hands with an +eager gesture, as though he were wrestling with his infirmity in his +great longing to gain an outlook which would enable him to read a little +further into the souls of men. + +"I cannot explain more definitely. It is a case of fighting for a soul, +or rather fighting with a soul against the devil in a terrible crisis. +I don't know what to compare it to. Perhaps it is like performing a +surgical operation while the patient is scratching your eyes out. If I +can leave my own point of view out of sight for the present I can be of +use, but I must let the scratching out of my eyes go on." + +Mark went to the church early that evening, as it was his turn to be in +the confessional. One or two people came to confession, and then the +church seemed to be empty. He knelt down to his prayers and soon became +absorbed. To-night he was oppressed in a new way by the sins, the +temptations, and the unutterable weakness of man; his failures; his +uselessness. Nothing else in Art had ever impressed him so much as the +figure of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. That beautiful +figure, with all the freshness of its primal grace, stretching out its +arms from a new-born world towards the infinite Creator, had expressed, +with extraordinary pathos, the weakness, the failure, almost the +non-existence of what is finite. "I Am Who Am" thundered Almighty Power, +and how little, how helpless, was man! + +And then, as Mark, weary with the misery of human life, almost repined +at the littleness of it all, he felt rebuked. Could anything be little +that was so loved of God? If the primal truth, if Purity Itself and Love +Itself could make so amazing a courtship of the human soul, how dared +anyone despise what was so honoured of the King? No, under all the +self-seeking, the impure motives, the horrid cruelties of life, he must +never lose sight of the delicate loveliness, the pathetic aspiration, +the exquisite powers of love that are never completely extinguished. He +must see with God's eyes, if he were to do God's work. And in the +thought that it was, after all, God's work and not his own, Mark found +comfort. He had come into the church feeling the burden on his shoulders +very hard to bear, and now he made the discovery that it was not he who +was carrying it at all; he only appeared to have it laid upon him while +Another bore it for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK + + +Two excellent and cheerful old persons were engaged in conversation on +the subject of Father Molyneux. The Vicar-General of the diocese, a +Monsignor of the higher, or pontifical rank, had called to see the +Rector of Mark's church, and had already rapidly discussed other matters +of varying importance when he said, leaning back in an old and faded +leather chair: + +"What's all this about young Molyneux?" + +Both men were fairly advanced in years and old for their age, for they +had both worked hard and constantly for many years on the mission. They +had to be up early and to bed late, with the short night frequently +interrupted by sick calls, and on a Sunday morning they had always +fasted till one o'clock, and usually preached two or even three times on +the same day. They had never known for very many years what it was to be +without serious anxiety on the matter of finance. Their lives had been +models of amazing regularity and self-control. Their recreations +consisted chiefly in dining with each other at mid-day on Mondays, and +spending the afternoon with whist and music. Probably, too, they had +dined with a leading parishioner once or twice in the week. + +In politics they were mildly Liberal, more warmly Home Rulers, but they +put above all the interests of the Church. They were, too, fierce +partisans on the controversies about Church music, and had a zeal for +the beauty and order of their respective churches that was admirable in +its minuteness and its perseverance. They both had a large circle of +friends with whom they rejoiced at annual festivities at their Colleges, +and with whom they habitually and freely censured their immediate +authorities. Those who were warmest in their devotion to the Vatican +were often the most inclined to make a scapegoat of a mere bishop. But +now one of these two old friends had been made Vicar-General of the +diocese, and it was likely that the Rector would speak to him with less +than his usual freedom. Lastly, both men had that air of complete +knowledge of life which comes with the habits of a circle of people who +know each other intimately. And neither of them realised in the least +that the minds of the educated laity were a shut book to them. + +"Well," said the Rector, and after puffing at his pipe he went on, "we +can hardly get into the church for the crowd, and I am going to put up a +notice to ask ladies to wear small hats--toques; isn't that what they +call them?" + +"I heard him once," said the Vicar-General, "and, to tell the truth, it +didn't seem up to much." + +"Words," said the Rector; "it's Oxford all over. There must be a new +word for everything. Why, he preached on Our Lady the other day, and I +declare I don't think there were three sentences I'd ever heard before! +And on Our Lady, too! A man must be gone on novelty who wants to find +anything new to say about Our Lady." + +"It doesn't warm me up a bit, that sort of thing," said the +Vicar-General. "I like to hear the things I've heard all my life." + +"Of course," responded the other, "but you won't get that from our +popular preachers, I can tell you," and he laughed with some sarcasm. + +"Is he making converts?" + +"Too many, far too many; that's just what I complain of. We shall have a +nice name for relapses here if it goes on like this." + +Both men paused. + +"You've nothing more to complain of?" asked the Monsignor. + +"No--no--" The second "no" was drawn out to its full length. "Of course, +he's unpunctual, and he's often late for dinner. I don't know where he +gets his dinner at all sometimes. And there are always ladies coming to +see him. If there are two in the parlour and another in the dining-room, +and a young man on the stairs, it's for ever Father Molyneux they are +asking for. And, of course, he has too much money given him for the +poor, and we have double the beggars we had last year." + +"But," said the other, "you know there's more being said than all that. +There's an unpleasant story, and it's about that I want to ask you. +Well--the same sort of thing as poor Nobbs; you'll remember Nobbs?" + +"Remember Nobbs! Why, I was curate with him when I first left the +seminary. Now, there was a preacher, if you like! But it turned his head +completely. Poor, wretched Nobbs! It's a dangerous thing to preach too +well, I'm certain of that." + +"Well, it's a danger you and I have been spared," said the Monsignor, +and they both laughed heartily. + +Then they got back to the point. + +"Well," said the Rector, "there's a lady comes here sometimes who spoke +to me about this the other day. It seems she went to see John Nicholls, +and the poor old blind fellow bit her head off, but she thought she +ought to tell somebody who might put a stop to the talk, and so she came +to me. There's some woman, a very rich Protestant, who gives out openly +that she is waiting till Molyneux announces that he doesn't believe in +the Church, and then they will marry and go to America. Then, another +day Jim Dixon came along, and a friend of his had heard the tale from +some Army man at his Club. It's exactly the way things went on about +Nobbs, you know, beginning with talk like that. Really, if it wasn't for +having seen Nobbs go down hill I shouldn't think anything of it. Young +Molyneux is all straight so far, but so was Nobbs straight at first." + +"A priest shouldn't be talked about," said the Monsignor. + +"Of course not," said the Rector. + +"He has started too young," the Monsignor went on, not unkindly; "it's +all come on in such a hurry; he ought to have had a country mission +first. But my predecessor thought he'd be so safe with you." + +"But how can I help it?" asked the other hotly; "I'm sure I've done my +best! You can ask him if I haven't warned him from his very first sermon +that he'd be a popular preacher. I've even tried to teach him to preach. +I've lent him Challoner, and Hay, and Wiseman, and tried to get him out +of his Oxford notions, but he's no sooner in the pulpit than he's off at +a hard gallop--three hundred words to a minute, and such +words!--'vitality,' 'personality,' 'development,' 'recrudescence,' +'mentality'--the Lord knows what! And there they sit and gaze at him +with their mouths open drinking it in as if they'd been starved! No, no; +it won't be my fault if he turns out another Nobbs--poor, miserable old +Nobbs! Now his really were sermons!" + +"Well," said the other, in a business-like tone, "I am inclined to think +it would be best for him to take a country mission for a few years. I've +no doubt he is on the square now, and that will give him time to quiet +down a bit. He'll be an older and a wiser man after that, and he could +do some sound, theological reading. Lord Lofton has been asking for a +chaplain, and we must send him a gentleman. I could tell him that +Molyneux had been a little overworked in London, and if he goes down to +the Towers at the end of July, no one will suppose he is leaving for +good, eh?" + +"Very well," answered the Rector; "I don't want anything said against +him, you know. I've had many a curate not half as ready to work as this +man." + +"No, no; I quite understand. Well, I'll write to him in the course of +the week. And now about this point of plain chant?" And both men forgot +the existence of Mark as they waxed hot on melodious questions. + + +I can't believe that Jonathan loved David more than the second curate +had come to love Mark Molyneux in their work together. It is good to +bear the yoke in youth, and it is very good to have a hero worship for +your yoke fellow. Father Jack Marny was a young Kelt, blue-eyed, +straight-limbed, fair-haired, and very fair of soul. He would have told +any sympathetic listener that he owed everything to Mark--zeal for +souls, habits of self-denial, a new view of life, even enjoyment of +pictures and of Browning, as well as interest in social science. All +this was gross exaggeration, but in him it was quite truthful, for he +really thought so. He had the run of Mark's room, and they took turns to +smoke in each other's bedrooms, so as to take turns in bearing the +rector's observations on the smell of smoke on the upstairs landing. +Father Marny had a subscription at Mudie's--his only extravagance--and +he always ordered the books he thought Mark wished for, and Mark always +ordered from the London library the books he thought would most interest +Jack. Father Marny revelled in secret in the thought of all that might +have belonged to Mark, and he possessed, of course most carefully +concealed, a wonderful old print he had picked up on a counter, of +Groombridge Castle, exalting the round towers to a preposterous height, +while in the foreground strolled ladies in vast hoops, and some animals +intended apparently for either cows or sheep according to the fancy of +the purchaser. + +But what each of the curates loved best was the goodness he discerned in +the other, and the more intimate they became the more goodness they +discerned. The very genuinely good see good, and provoke good by seeing +it, and reflect it back again, as two looking-glasses opposite to each +other repeat each other's light _ad infinitum_. + +It was a Monday, and the rector had gone out to dinner, and the two +young men were smoking in the general sitting-room. Father Marny was +looking over the accounts of a boot club, and objurating the handwriting +of the lady who kept them. Mark was in the absolutely passive state to +which some hard-working people can reduce themselves; he had hardly the +energy to smoke. A loud knock produced no effect upon him. + +"Lazy brute!" murmured Father Marny, in his affectionate, clear voice, +"can't even fetch the letters." And a moment later he went for them +himself, and having flung a dozen letters over his companion's shoulder, +went back to the accounts. + +Ten minutes later he looked up, and gave a little start. He was quick to +see any change in Mark, and he did not like his attitude. He did not +know till that moment how anxious he had been as to the possibility of +some change. He moved quickly forward and stood in front of the deep +chair in which Mark was sitting, leaning forward with his eyes fixed on +the carpet. + +"Bad news?" he asked abruptly. + +"Bad enough," said Mark, and, very slowly raising his head, he gave a +smile that was the worst part of all the look on his face. Jack Marny +put one hand on his shoulder, and a woman's touch could not have been +lighter. + +"It's not----?" he said, and then stopped. + +"Yes, it is," Mark answered. "I am to be a domestic chaplain to that +pious old ass, Lord Lofton. It seems I need quiet for study--quiet to +rot in! My God! is that how I am to work for souls?" + +It was, perhaps, better for Mark that Jack Marny broke down completely +at the news, for, by the time he had been forced into telling his friend +that it was preposterous to suppose that any man was necessary for God's +work, and that if they had faith at all they must believe that God +allowed this to happen, light began to dawn in his own mind. But he was +almost frightened at the passionate resentment of the Kelt; he saw there +was serious danger of some outbreak on his part against the authorities. + +"They won't catch me staying here after you are gone!" + +"Much good that would do me," said Mark. "I should get all the blame." + +"They must learn that we are not slaves!" thundered the curate, his fair +face absolutely black with wrath. + +"We are God's slaves," said Mark, in a low voice, and then there was +silence between them for the space of half an hour. + +The door opened and a shrill voice cried out, "There's Tom Turner at the +door asking for Father Mark," and the door was banged to again. + +Tom Turner was the very flower of Mark's converts to a good life. + +Father Marny groaned at the name. + +"Let me see him," he said. "Go out and get a walk." + +"I'd rather see him; I don't know how much oftener----" + +The sentence was not finished. He had left the room in two strides. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +MENE THEKEL PHARES + + +The more Edmund reflected on the matter the more difficult he found it +to decide what steps to take in order to approach Molly. In the first +impulse he had thought only that here was the chance of serving her, of +proving her friend in difficulty, which he had particularly wished for. +It would make reparation for the past--a past he keenly defended in his +own mind as he had defended it to Molly herself, but yet a past that he +would wish to make fully satisfactory by reparation for what he would +not confess to have been blameworthy. But when he tried to realise +exactly what he should have to tell Molly it seemed impossible. For how +could he meet her questions; her indignant protests? She would become +more and more indignant at the plot that had been carried on against +her, a plot which Edmund had started and had carried on until quite +lately, and which had also until quite lately been entirely financed by +him. Even if he baffled her questions, his consciousness of the facts +would make it too desperately difficult a task for him to assume the +_rôle_ of Molly's disinterested friend now, although in truth he felt as +such, and would have done and suffered much to help her. + +Edmund had by nature a considerable sympathy with success, with pluck, +with men or women who did things well. There are so many bunglers in +life, so few efficient characters, and he felt Molly to be entirely +efficient. Even the over-emphasis of wealth in the setting of her life +had been effective; it fitted too well into what the modern world wanted +to be out of proportion. A thing that succeeded so very well could +hardly be bad form. Hesitation, weakness, would have made it vulgar; +hesitation and weakness in past days had often made vulgar emphasis on +rank and power, but in the hands of the strong such emphasis had always +been effective and fitting. There was a kind of artistic regret in +Edmund's mind at the thought that this excellent comedy of life as +played by Molly should be destroyed. And he had come to think it +certainly would be destroyed. + +One last piece of evidence had convinced him more than any other. + +Nurse Edith had a taste for the dramatic, and enjoyed gradual +developments. Therefore she had kept back as a _bonne bouche_, to be +served up as an apparent after-thought, a certain half sheet of paper +which she had preserved carefully in her pocket-book since the night on +which she had made the copy of Sir David Bright's will. It was the +actual postscript to Sir David's long letter to Rose; the long letter +Nurse Edith had put back in the box and which had remained there +untouched until Molly had taken it out. The postscript would not be +missed, and might be useful. It was only a few lines to this effect: + +"P.S.--I think it better that you should know that I am sending a few +words to Madame Danterre to tell her briefly that justice must be done. +Also, in case anyone, in spite of my precautions to conceal it, is +aware that I possessed the very remarkable diamond ring I mention in +this letter, and asks you about it, I wish you to know that I am sending +it direct to Madam Danterre in my letter to her. May God forgive me, +and, by His Grace, may you do likewise." + +The sight of David's handwriting, the astonishing verification of his +own first surmise, the vivid memory of Rose unwillingly showing him the +letter and the ring and the photograph she supposed to have been +intended for herself, had a very powerful effect on Edmund Grosse. The +whole story was so clear, so well connected, it seemed impossible to +doubt it. Yet he believed in Molly's innocence without an effort. What +was there to prove that Madame Danterre had not destroyed the will after +Nurse Edith copied it? She had the key and the box within reach, and the +dying, again and again, have shown incalculable strength--far greater +than was needed in order to get at the will and burn it while a nurse +was absent or asleep. + +Again, it was to Larrone's interest to destroy that will. They had only +Pietrino's persuasion of Larrone's integrity to set against the +possibility of his having opened the box on his long journey to England, +against the possibility of his having read the will, and destroyed it, +before he gave the box to Molly. He would have seen at once not only +that his own legacy would be lost, but, what might have more influence +with him, he must have seen what a doubtful position he must hold in +public opinion if this came to light. He had been the chief friend and +adviser of Madame Danterre, who had paid him lavishly for his medical +services from her first coming to Florence, and who had made no secret +of the legacy he was to receive at her death. He had been with her at +the last, and was now actually carrying on her gigantic fraud by taking +the box to her daughter. Would it not have been a great temptation to +him to destroy the will while he had no fear of discovery rather than +put the matter in Molly's hands? Lastly came Rose's subtle feminine +suggestion that the will might be in the box but that Molly had never +opened it. Some instinct, some secret fear of painful revelations, might +easily have made her shrink from any disclosures as to her mother's +past. Rose was so often right, and the obvious suggestion, that such a +shrinking from knowledge would have been natural to Rose and unnatural +to Molly, did not occur to the male mind, always inclined to think of +women as mostly alike. + +At the same time he was really unwilling to relinquish the _rôle_ of +intermediary. His thoughts had hardly left the subject since the hour of +his talk with Rose, and it was especially absorbing on the day on which +Molly was to give a party, to which he was invited--and invited to meet +royalty. He decided that he must that evening ask his hostess to give +him an appointment for a private talk. + +Edmund arrived late at Westmoreland House when the party was in full +swing. He paused a moment on the wide marble steps of the well staircase +as he saw a familiar face coming across the hall. It was the English +Ambassador in Madrid, just arrived home on leave, as Edmund knew. He was +a handsome grey-haired man of thin, nervous figure, and he sprang +lightly to meet his old friend and put his hand on his arm. + +"Grosse!" he cried, "well met." And then, in low, quick tones he added: +"What am I going to see at the top of this ascent? This amazing young +woman! What does it mean, eh? I knew the wicked old mother. Tell me, was +she really married to David Bright all the time? Was it Enoch Arden the +other way up? But we must go on," for other late arrivals were joining +them. When they reached the landing the two men stood aside for a +moment, for they saw that it was too late for them to be announced. +Royalty was going in to supper. + +A line of couples was crossing the nearest room, from one within. The +great square drawing-room was lit entirely by candles in the sconces +that were part of the permanent decoration. But the many lights hardly +penetrated into the great depths of the pictures let into the walls. +These big, dark canvases by some forgotten Italian of the school of +Veronese, gave the room something of the rich gloom of a Venetian +palace. Beyond a few stacks of lilies in the corners, Molly had done +nothing to relieve its solemn dignity. As she came across it from the +opposite corner, the depths of the old pictures were the background to +her white figure. + +She was bending her head towards the Prince who was taking her down--a +tall, fair man with blue eyes and a heavy jaw. Then as she came near the +doorway she raised her head and saw Edmund. There was a strange, soft +light in her eyes as she looked at him. It was the touch of soul needed +to give completeness to her magnificence as a human being. The white +girlish figure in that room fitted the past as well as the present. The +great women of the past had been splendidly young too, whereas we keep +our girls as children, comparatively speaking. + +Molly had that combination of youth and experience which gives a +special character to beauty. There was no detailed love of fashion in +her gorgeous simplicity of attire; there was rather something subtly in +keeping with the house itself. + +The Prince turned to speak to the Ambassador, and the little procession +stopped. + +Edmund was more artistic in taste than in temperament, and he was not +imaginative. But he could not enjoy the full satisfaction of his +fastidious tastes to-night, nor had he his usual facility for speech. He +could not bring himself to utter one word to Molly. They stood for that +moment close together, looking at each other in a silence that was +electric. No wonder that Molly thought his incapacity to speak a +wonderful thing; others, too, noticed it. + +"What a bearing that girl has! What movement!" cried the Ambassador, as, +after greeting the first few couples who passed him, he drew Grosse to a +corner and looked at him curiously. But Edmund seemed moonstruck. Then, +in a perfunctory voice, he said slowly. + +"What is the writing in that picture?" + +"Mene Thekel Phares," said his friend. "My dear Grosse! surely you know +a picture of the 'Fall of Babylon' when you see it? Now let us go where +we shall not be interrupted. Tell me all about this girl with the +amazing bearing and big eyes, whom princes delight to honour, and +Duchesses to dine with! How did she get dear Rose Bright's money?" + +Edmund had never disliked a question more. + +"I'll tell you all I know," he said unblushingly, "but not to-night, old +fellow. It would take too long." + +And to his joy a countess and a beauty seized upon the terribly curious +diplomatist and made him take her down to supper. And they agreed while +they supped exquisitely that the real job dear old Grosse ought to be +given was that of husband to their hostess. + +"But then there is poor Rose Bright." + +"Lady Rose Bright would not have him when he was rich," he objected. +"No; this will do very nicely. If I am not mistaken (and I'm pretty well +read in human eyes), the lady is willing." + +After supper there was dancing. Edmund did not dance. He stood in a +corner, his tall form a little bent, merely watching, and presently he +turned away. He had made up his mind. He would not try to speak to Molly +to-night, and he would not ask her for a talk. + +She was dancing as he left the room, and he turned half mechanically to +watch her. It was always an exquisite pleasure to see her dance. He left +her with a curious sense of farewell in his mind. Fate was coming fast, +he knew; he could not doubt that for a moment. He was not the man to +avert it. No one could avert it. It was part of the tragedy that, pity +her as he might, he could not really wish to avert it. He would give no +warning. Some other hand must write "Mene Thekel Phares" on the wall of +her palace of pleasure and success. + +Edmund Grosse declined the task. + + +Molly danced on in the long gallery between its walls of mirrors and +their infinite repetitions of twinkling candles and dancing figures +pleasantly confused to the eye by the delicate wreaths of gold foliage +that divided their panes. In the immeasurable depths of those +reflections the nearest objects melted by endless repetition into dim +distances, and the present dancing figures might seem to melt into a far +past where men and women were dancing also. + +Gallery within gallery in that mirrored world, with very little effort +of imagination, might become peopled by different generations. As the +figures receded in space so they receded in time. Groups of human +beings, with all the subtle ease of a decadent civilisation, ceded their +place to groups of men and women who moved with more slowness and +dignity in the middle distance of those endless reflections. And looking +down those avenues of gilded foliage into that fancied past, the old cry +might well rise to the lips: "What shadows we are, and what shadows we +pursue!" + +But, whether in the foreground of to-day, or in the secrets that the +mirrors held of a century before, or in the indistinguishable mist of +their greatest depths, wherever the imagination roamed, it found in +every group of human beings a woman who was young and beautiful, and yet +it could come back to the dancing figure of Molly without any shock of +disappointment or disdain. + + +"But it is daylight!" cried two young men who paused breathless with +their partners by the high narrow windows, at the end of the gallery, +and they threw back the shutters. The growing dawn mingled with the +lights of the decreasing candles, with the infinite repetitions of the +mirror, with the soft music of the last valse. + +And Molly bore the light perfectly, as the chorus of praise and thanks +and "good-nights" of the late stayers echoed round her. + +"Not 'good-night' but 'good-bye,'" said a very young girl, looking up at +Molly with facile tears rising in her blue eyes. "We go away to-morrow, +and this perfect night is the last!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +MARK ENTERS INTO TEMPTATION + + +The more he realised Molly's danger, the more he believed in her +innocence--the more anxious Edmund became to find a suitable envoy to +approach her from the enemy's side, and one who, if possible, would +understand his position. + +Like most men who have a repugnance to clerical influence he had a great +idea of its power, and a perfect readiness to make use of it. He was +delighted when he remembered having met Mark Molyneux at Molly's house. +The meeting had not been quite a success, but this he did not remember. +Edmund's half-sleepy easy manner had been more cordial, but not quite so +good as usual. He was just too conscious of the strangeness of the fact +that Edmund Grosse should be talking with a "bon petit curé." He knew +Father Molyneux to be Groombridge's cousin, and to have been considered +a man of unusual promise at Oxford, but, all the same, whatever he had +been, he was a priest now, and Grosse had never quite made up his mind +as to his own manner to a priest. He was so practised in dealing with +other people, but not with ecclesiastics. He did not in the least +realise that the slight condescension and uncertainty in his manner, +with all his effort at cordiality, was the outcome of a rather +deeply-seated antagonism to the claims he conceived all priests to make, +in their hearts, on the souls of men. I have known a man, not altogether +unlike Edmund Grosse, to cross the street in London rather than pass a +priest on the same pavement. Grosse would not have been so foolish as +that, but still, it was not surprising that the two men did not get on +particularly well. All that Edmund now remembered of this chance meeting +was Molly's evidently deep interest in the young priest, and he recalled +her saying at the time when she had been much moved by her mother's +cruel letter, that she was going to hear Father Molyneux preach that +evening. From the avowedly anti-clerical Molly, that meant much. + +Edmund knew nothing of the recent talk about Mark, although Mrs. +Delaport Green had tried to sigh out some insinuations on the subject in +talking to him. Perhaps he was a less receptive listener than of yore, +when he had more empty spaces in his mind than he had this year. He +received, indeed, a faint impression that Mrs. Delaport Green was +sentimentalising over some disappointment she was suffering under +acutely with regard to the popular preacher, and had felt her motive to +be curiosity to gain information from himself on some point of which he +knew nothing. But if he had been more attentive he might have gained +enough information to make him hesitate to involve poor Mark in Molly's +affairs. + +Almost as soon as he had thought of consulting Mark, he proposed the +notion to Rose, who was enthusiastic in its support. + +It is not necessary to give his letter to Father Molyneux, which had to +be long and careful, and was written after consultation with Mr. +Murray. + +Mr. Murray was quite in favour of an informal interview, and disposed to +agree in the choice of Father Molyneux as ambassador. "I am not afraid +of your letting Miss Dexter know the strength of our case," he said. +"Father Molyneux must judge for himself how far it is wise to frighten +Miss Dexter for her own sake. He is, as I understand, to try to persuade +her to produce the will, and I suppose he will assume that she does not +know of its existence among her mother's papers. This would save her +pride, and you might come to terms if she would produce it. If you fail, +the next course would be for me to insist on an interview, and to carry +things with a high hand. I should say, in effect: 'We are aware that Sir +David Bright made a will on his way to Africa, and we can prove that it +was sent by mistake to your mother, because we have a witness who saw it +in her box. It was in her box when it was handed to Dr. Larrone, and it +has been traced, therefore, into your hands. We have a copy of it which +we can produce if you have destroyed the original, and, if you have not +done so, we can get an order of the court compelling you to produce it. +You cannot deny the fact that the will was sent to Madame Danterre by +mistake, for you have the letter which accompanied it, and we have the +postscript to the letter taken from the box by a witness whom we are +prepared to call. Will you produce the box in which, no doubt, the will +has escaped your notice, or shall we get the order of the court? The +will has, as I have said, been traced into your hands.' I doubt if any +woman (at all events one such as you describe Miss Dexter) would resist, +and no solicitor whom she consulted, and to whom she told the truth, +would advise her to do so--no respectable solicitor, that is to say, +and no prudent one." + +When Edmund showed Rose his letter to Father Mark she had only one +criticism to make. She felt that Edmund took too easily for granted that +the priest would be ready to put his finger into so very hot a pie. +Father Mark must be appealed to more earnestly to come to the rescue, +and less as if it were quite obvious that he would be ready to do so as +part of his natural business in life. Edmund agreed to add some +sentences at her suggestion. + +It is important to realise Mark's state of mind, at the time when this +strong, additional trial was to come upon him. + +With the full approval of his friend, Canon Nicholls, Mark decided not +to take the decree of banishment from London without remonstrance. He +was not astonished at the result of the talk against him. That his one +great enemy should have poisoned the wells so easily was not very +surprising. He could not help knowing that the very keenness and ardour +of his friends had produced prejudice against him. There was, among the +religious circles in London, a perhaps healthy suspicion of hero worship +for popular preachers, and of any indiscreet zeal. The great Religious +Orders knew how to deal with life, and it was safer to have an +enthusiasm for an Order than for an individual. Seculars were the right +people for daily routine and work among the poor, but for a young +secular priest to become a bright, particular star was unusual and +alarming. + +Jealousy is the fault of the best men because it eludes their most +vigilant examinations, and, while their energy is taken up with visible +enemies, it dresses itself in a complete and dignified disguise and +comes out either as discretion or zeal or a love of humility. + +Mark saw all this less clearly than did the blind Canon, but he realised +it enough not to be surprised at the quick growth of the seed Molly had +sown in well-prepared ground. + +But the blow he did not expect came from his own rector. He went to him, +thinking he would back him up in his efforts to get an explanation of +this sudden order, and he was told, between pinches of snuff, that he +had much better do as he was bid without making a fuss, and that he was +being sent to an excellent berth, which was exactly what he needed. The +rector was sorry to lose him certainly, but he thought it was the best +possible arrangement for himself. There was something of grunts and +sniffs between the short phrases that did not soften them. Mark became +speechless with hurt feeling. + +It became clearly evident to Canon Nicholls that the rector and one or +two of the older priests who had wind of the matter could not see why +there should be any fuss about it. Young Molyneux was under no cloud; +why should he behave as if it were a disgrace to be chaplain to poor old +Lord Lofton? Was he crying out because London would be in such a bad way +without him? What the Canon could not get them to see was the effect on +public opinion. To send Mark away now was to advertise backbiting until +it might become a real scandal. They could not see beyond their own +immediate circle; if all the priests knew he was really a good fellow +they thought that quite enough. They had a horror of a man making +himself talked of outside, but they had no notion of giving him the +chance to right himself with the outside world. It was much better that +he should go away and be forgotten. + +Canon Nicholls had always been of opinion that the secular clergy in +England were more hardly treated than the regulars. They were expected +to have the absolute detachment of monks, without the support that a +Religious Order gives to its subjects. They were given the standards of +the cloister in the seminary, and then tumbled out into life in the +world. No one in authority seemed anxious not to discourage a young +secular priest. To be regular and punctual, to avoid rows, and to keep +out of debt were the virtues that naturally appealed to the approval of +a harassed bishop. But a zeal that put a man forward and brought him +into public notice was likely to be troublesome, and such men were +seldom very good at accounts. The type of young man which Mark +resembled, according to the priests who discussed the question, was not +a popular one among them. As a type it had not been found to wash well. + +Canon Nicholls was not popular among them for other reasons, but chiefly +because of a biting tongue. He would let his talk flow without tact or +diplomacy on these questions, and often did far more harm than good, in +consequence. He fairly stormed to one or two of his visitors at the +absurdity of hiding a man away because of unjust slander. It was the +very moment in which he ought to be brought forward and supported in +every way. The fact was that the man was to be sacrificed to the +supposed good of the Church, only no one would say so candidly. Whereas, +in reality, by justice to the man the Church would be saved from a +scandal! + +Mark was outwardly very calm, but he was changed. His friends said that +his vitality and earnestness were bound to suffer in the struggle for +self-repression. His sermons were becoming mechanical tasks and the +confessional a weariness. He made his protest, as Canon Nicholls wished, +but after the talk with his rector he knew it was useless. He wrapped +himself in silence, even with Father Jack Marny. He began, half +consciously, to be more self-indulgent in details and the only subject +on which he ever showed animation was a projected holiday in +Switzerland. He once alluded to the possibility of going to Groombridge +for the shooting. + +At first he had not allowed Father Marny to take any of his now painful +work among the people he was so soon to leave, but, after a week or two, +he acquiesced. What was the use when he was to leave them for good and +all? It were better they should learn at once to get on without him. +Father Marny, in passionate sympathy, was ready to work himself to death +and acknowledge no fatigue. It was easy to conceal fatigue or anything +else from Mark in his preoccupied state of mind. He showed no interest +when Lord Lofton wrote him a most warmly and tactfully expressed letter +of welcome, in which he told the coming chaplain that he must not +suppose there was not work in plenty to be done for souls in the +country. + +"Humbugging old men and women who want pensions and soup and blankets!" +Mark said with unusual irritation, as he flung the letter to his friend. + +But to the curate Mark was as much above criticism as a martyr at the +foot of the gallows. + +Strangely enough, the first break into this moral fog that was settling +down in his spiritual world was, of all unlikely things, the letter from +Edmund Grosse. + +When he got Edmund's letter Mark was sulking--there is no other word for +it--over his answer to Lord Lofton, which ought to have gone several +days ago. Of course he was bound by his mission oath to go where he was +placed, but the authorities might at least have waited to hear from him +before handing him over as if he were a parcel or a Jesuit. He read +Edmund's cramped writing with a little difficulty, and then threw the +three sheets it covered on to the table with a bang, and jumped up. + +"Dash it!" he cried, "this is rather too much." + +He did not stop to think that Edmund could not have been so idiotic as +to write that letter if he had known of the state of the case between +him and Miss Dexter. It only seemed at the moment that it was another +instance of cruelty and utter unfairness, part of the same treatment he +was receiving, which expected a man to be a plaster saint with no +thought for himself, no natural feelings, no sense of his own +reputation! First of all he was to be buried, torn from his friends, +from his work for souls, from the joy of the Good Shepherd seeking the +lost sheep. He was to lose all he loved and for which he had given up +his life, his career, his position, and, for the first time, he +enumerated among his sacrifices the possession of Groombridge. Then he +blushed for shame--also for the first time. How little _that_ had been, +compared to what he had to do now! What had he to do now? And here the +Little Master made his great mistake. He came out of the fog and shadow, +he came into the light because he thought it was safe now. + +What had Mark to do that was so much harder? To submit to authority and +forgive its blunders. He hesitated for a moment; he almost thought it +was that. Then came the light, and he saw the real crux. What he had to +do was to forgive Molly Dexter. He was startled by the revelation, as +men are startled who have been in love without knowing it. He had been +nursing hatred and revenge without knowing it, for, until he had become +bitter at the treatment of the authorities, he had felt no anger against +Molly. She had simply been the patient who would scratch out the eyes of +the surgeon. He was surprised into a quiet analysis of the discovery, +and then his thoughts stood quite still. It was only necessary for a +noble soul to _see_ such a temptation for him to _fight_ it. But he +passed back from that to the whole of the wrath and hurt feeling that he +recognised too. He was angry with those in authority who expected him to +behave like a saint; he had been angry vaguely with Sir Edmund Grosse, +but more with circumstances that also demanded of him that he should +behave like a saint and do the very worst thing for himself and confirm +the calumny against him by acting as Molly's confidential friend! But he +could not be equally angry at the same time with Miss Dexter, with his +own authorities, with Edmund Grosse, and with circumstances. One injury +alone might have been different, but taken together they suggested a +plot and intention. Whose plot? Whose intention? + +And the answer was thundered and yet whispered through his +consciousness. Is was God's plot, God's Will, God's demand, that he +should do the impossible and behave like a saint! + +Mark had said easily enough in the first noble instinct of bearing his +blow well: "We are God's slaves." But that first light had gradually +been obscured. He had not felt then that the impossible was demanded of +him. He had come to feel it, and to feel it without remembering that +man's helplessness was God's opportunity. Had he forgotten, erased from +the tablets of his mind and heart, all he had loved and trusted most? +Now all was terribly clear. Augustine, in a decadent, delicate age, had +not minced matters, and had insisted that all hope must be placed in Him +Who would not spare the scourge. "Oftentimes," he had cried, "does our +Tamer bring forth His scourge too." Mark took down the old, worn book. + +"In Him let us place our hope, and until we are tamed and tamed +thoroughly--that is, are perfected--let us bear our Tamer.... Whereas, +when thou art tamed, God reserveth for thee an inheritance which is God +Himself.... For God will then be _all in all_; neither will there be any +unhappiness to exercise us, but happiness alone to feed us.... What +multiplicity of things soever thou seekest here, He alone will be +Himself all these things to thee. + +"Unto this hope is man tamed, and shall his Tamer then be deemed +intolerable? Unto this hope is man tamed, and shall he murmur against +his beneficient Tamer, if He chance to use the scourge?... + +"Whether, therefore, Thou dealest softly with us that we be not wearied +in the way, or chastisest us that we wander not from the way, _Thou art +become our refuge, O Lord_." + +As Mark read, the pain of too great light was softened to him. What had +been hard, white light, glowed more rosy until it flushed his horizon +with full glory. + +It wanted a small space in time, but a mighty change in the spirit, +before Mark read Edmund's letter with a keen wish to enter into its full +meaning, and judge it wisely. Having come to himself, he was, as ever, +ready to give that self away. He was full of a strange energy; he smiled +to feel that the strokes of the lash were unfelt, while consciousness +was lost in love. This was God's anæsthetic. But it thrilled the soul +with vitality, and in no sense but the absence of pain did it suspend +the faculties. He had no doubt, no hesitation, as to what he must do. He +would go to Molly, he must see her at once, but not a word should pass +his lips of what Edmund wanted him to say. Not a moment must be lost. +Who might not betray her danger and destroy her opportunity? Molly must +be brought to do this thing of herself without any admixture of fear, +without any aim or object but to sacrifice all for what was right. He +yearned with utter simplicity that this might be her way out. Let her do +it for herself. Let her do it of herself, thought Mark--not because she +is afraid, not because her vast possessions appear the least insecure. +And the action would be far more noble just because, at the moment of +renunciation, the world would, for the first time, suspect her guilt. To +Mark it seemed now the crowning touch of mercy that the criminal should +be allowed to drink deep of the chalice. "Her own affair"--that was what +the dying mother had said of the unfortunate child to whom she offered +so gross a temptation. + +And in the depths of his mind there was the conviction that it was a +particular truth as to this individual soul, that not only would the +heroic be the only antagonist to the base, but that some such moral +revolution alone could be the beginning of cleansing of what had become +foul, and the driving out of the noxious and the vile. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD + + +It was in the evening, and Edmund was waiting in Rose's drawing-room +until she should come back from a meeting of one of her charitable +committees. + +He was walking up and down the room with a face at once very grave and +very alert. Even his carriage during the last few weeks had seemed to +Rose to have gained in firmness and dignity, and perhaps she was right. +Nor had she failed to notice that one or two small, straight pieces of +grey hair could now be seen near the temples. He looked a little older, +a little more brisk, a little more firm, and distinctly more cheerful +since his reverses. It is no paradox to speak of cheerfulness in sorrow, +or to say that the whole nature may be happier in grief than in the days +of apparent pleasure. It is not only in those who have acquired deep +religious peace that this may be true, for even in gaining energy and a +balance in natural action, there may be happiness amidst pain. + +Rose came in without seeing that anyone was in the room, and gave a +start when she saw the tall figure by the window. The evening light +showed him a little grey, a little worn in appearance, a little more +openly kindly in the dark eyes. Something that she had fancied dim and +clouded lately--only once or twice, not always--now shone in his face +with its full brightness. + +"Has anything happened, Edmund? Have you come to tell me anything?" + +He came across the room to her and took her hand in silence, and then +said: + +"You look tired. Have you had tea?" + +"Oh, never mind tea," she answered. "Do tell me! Seriously, something +has happened?" + +"It is nothing of any consequence--nothing that need disturb you in the +least. It is only about my own stupid affairs, and, on the whole, it is +very good news. I have just come from the Foreign Office, and they have +told me there that I am to have that job in India, and that the sooner I +am ready to start the better." + +As he spoke he turned from her with a sudden, quick hurt in his heart. +It was, after all, only of great importance to himself. He knew she +would be kindly glad that he had got the post he wanted. Had she not +always urged him to some real work? Had she not pressed him again and +again during the last four years, consciously and unconsciously, to +bring out all his talents and to do a man's work in a man's way? So she +would be simply glad, and she would wave him "God speed," and would, no +doubt, pray for him at those innumerable services she attended, and +write to him long, gentle, feminine letters full of details about all +sorts of matters, good or indifferent, and she would ask about his +health and press him to take care of himself and tell him of any word +that was spoken kindly of him here in England. And she would somehow +manage to know, or think she knew, that he was doing great things in the +East. And so, no doubt, in the two years in which he was away there +would be no apparent break in this very dear intimacy. But what, in +reality, would he know of her inmost feelings, of her loneliness, of her +sufferings, of any repentance that might come to her, any softening +towards himself? He seemed to see all of the two years that were to come +in a flash as he stood silent on one side of the neglected tea-table, +and Rose stood silent, turning away from him on the other. + +When he raised his eyes, he almost felt a surprise that the figure, a +little turned away from him, was not dressed in a plain, white frock, +and that the shadows and the flickering sunlight making its way through +the mulberry leaves were not still upon her; for that was how, through +life and in eternity, Rose would be present in the mind of her lover. + +Time had gone; it seemed now as nothing. Whatever changes had come +between, he felt as if he saw in the averted face that same expression +of sorrowful denial and gentle resistance that had baffled him now for +over twelve years. It was still that his soul asked something of this +other purer, gentler, more unworldly, more loving soul, which she, with +all her beneficence would not give him. He did no think of the +impracticability of any question of marriage; he did not think in any +definite sense of their relations as man and woman. At other times he +had known so frequently just the overpowering wish for the possession of +the woman he loved best, but now she stood to him as the history of his +moral existence here below, and he felt as if, in missing her, he should +miss the object and crown of his life. + +At last silence became intolerable. He moved as though he wanted to +speak and could not, and then he said huskily, almost gruffly: + +"It is not 'good-bye' to-day, of course," and then he laughed at the +feebleness of his own words. + +Rose turned to him at that, and he was not really surprised to see that +the tears were flowing rapidly over her cheeks--tears so large that they +splashed like big raindrops on the white hands which were clasped as +they hung before her. But that made it no easier. He thought very little +of those tears; he felt even a little bitter at their apparent +bitterness. He hardened at the sight of those tears; they made him feel +that he could leave her with more dignity, more firmness in his own +mind, than he had ever thought would be possible. + +"Vous pleurez et vous êtes roi?" He hardly knew that he had muttered the +words as he so often muttered a quotation to himself. But Rose did not +hear them. She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts and feelings to +notice him closely. Ah! if she had but known before what it would be to +lose him! She was horrified as she felt her self-control failing her, +and an enormous agony entering into possession of all her faculties. She +was so startled, so amazed at this revelation of herself. If she had +felt less, she would have thought more for him. She did not think for a +moment what that silent standing by her side meant for him. She knew at +last the selfishness of passion. She wanted him as she had never wanted +anyone or anything before. She could only think of the craving of her +own heart, the extraordinary trouble that possessed it. Those who have +had a passing acquaintance with love, those who have sown brief passages +of love thoughts over their early youth, can form no notion of what +that first surrender meant to Rose. "Too late!" cried the tyrant love, +the only tyrant that can carry conviction by its mere fiat to the +innermost recesses of a nature. "Too late!--it might have been, but not +now; it is all your own doing; you made him suffer once; you are the +only one to suffer now. You are crying now the easy tears of a child, +but there are years and years before you when the tears will not come, +call for them as you may; they cannot go on coming from a broken heart. +They flow away out of the fissures, and then the dryness and barrenness +of daily misery will not let them come again." + +"He never cared as I do," thought Rose; "he does not know what it is!" + +She called her persecutor "it"; she shrank from its name even now with +an unutterable embarrassment. When she did turn to Edmund it was more as +if to confide to him what she was suffering from someone else; it was so +habitual to her to turn to him. What was the use? what was the use? How +could she use him against himself? No, no; she must, she must control +herself. She must not tell him; she must let him go quite quietly now; +she must make no appeal to the past; he was too generous--she did not +want his generosity. She put her hands to her forehead and pushed the +hair backwards. + +"I'm not well, I think," she said; "the room at the meeting was stuffy. +I--I didn't quite understand what you said--I'm glad." + +She sank on to a chair, and then got up again. + +"I'm glad you've got what you wanted, but I'm startled--no, I mean I'm +not quite well. I don't think I can talk to-day--I don't +understand--I----" + +She stood almost with her back to him then. + +He was so amazed at her words that he could not speak at all. This was +not sweetness, kindness, pity; this was something else, something +different; it was almost a shock! + +"I am so silly," she said, with a most absurd attempt at a natural +voice, "I think I must----" Her figure swayed a little. + +Edmund watched her with utter amazement. All his knowledge of women was +at fault, and that child in the white frock--where was she? Where was +that sense of his soul's history and its failure, its mystic tragedy, +just now? Gone, quite gone, for he knew now that that long tragedy was +ended. But Rose did not know it. + +He moved, half consciously, a few feet towards the door. + +"Rose," he said, in a very low voice, "if it has come at last, don't +deny it! I have waited patiently, God knows! but I don't want it now +unless it is true. For Heaven's sake do nothing in mere pity!" + +"But it has come, Edmund; it has come!" she interrupted him, so quickly +that he had barely time to reach her before she came to him. + +And yet it had been many years in coming--so many years that he could +hardly believe it now; could hardly believe that the white hands he had +watched so often trembled with delight as they caressed him; could +hardly believe that the fair face was radiant with joy when he, Edmund, +ventured to kiss her; could hardly believe that it was of her own wish +and will that she leant against him now! + +"I ought not to have said it was the stuffy room, ought I?" + +It was the sweetest, youngest laugh she had ever given. Then she looked +up at the ceiling where the sun flickered a little. + +"Edmund, it is better than if I had known under the mulberry tree. Tell +me you forgive me all I have done wrong. I could not," she gasped a +little, "have loved you then as I do now, because I had known no sorrow +then." + +And Edmund told her that she was forgiven. But one sin she confessed +gave him, I fear, unmixed delight; she was so dreadfully afraid that she +had lately been a little jealous! + +Strange--very strange and unfathomable--is the heart of man. It did not +even occur to him as the wildest scruple to be at all afraid that he had +been lately a little, ever so little, less occupied with the thought of +her. No shadow of a cloud rested on the great output of a strong man's +deep affection. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +"WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE" + + +It was on the same evening that Mark succeeded in seeing Molly. He had +failed the day before, but at the second attempt he succeeded. + +It was the first time he had entered Westmoreland House, and he had +never, even in the autumn weeks when Miss Dexter had been most cordial +to him, tried to see her except by her own invitation. Altogether the +position now was as embarrassing as it is possible to conceive. He had +been her confidant as to a crime for which the law sees no kind of +palliative, no possible grounds for mercy. As he greeted her it wanted +little imaginative power to feel the dramatic elements in the picture. +Molly was standing in the middle of the great drawing-room dressed in +something very white and very beautiful. At any other moment he must +have been impressed by the subdued splendour of the room, and the grace +and youth of the dominating figure in the midst. Mark was too absorbed +to-day in the spiritual drama which he must now force to its conclusion +to realise that he had also come to threaten the destruction of Molly's +material world and all the glory thereof. He had, too, so far forgotten +himself, that the mischief Molly had wrought against him had faded into +the background of his consciousness. His absorbing anxiety lay in the +extreme difficulty of his task. It would need an angel from Heaven, +gifted too with great knowledge of human nature, to accomplish what he +meant to attempt. First he would throw everything into the desperate +endeavour to make her give up the will simply and entirely from the +highest motives. But what possibility was there of success? Why should +he hope that, just because he called and asked her for it, she would +give up all that for which she had sold her soul? He could not feel that +he was a prophet sent by God from whose lips would fall such inspired +words that the iron frost would thaw and the great depths of her nature +be broken up. In fact, he felt singularly uninspired, and very much +embarrassed. And when he had tried the impossible (he said to himself), +and had given her the last chance of going back on this ugly fraud from +nobler motives than that of fear, and had failed--he must then enter on +the next stage and must merge the priest's office in that of the +ambassador. He must bring home to her that what she clung to was already +lost, and that nothing but shame and disgrace lay before her. He had the +case, as presented by Sir Edmund's letter in all its convicting +simplicity, clearly in his mind--quite as clearly as the facts of +Molly's own confession to himself. It would not be difficult to crush +the criminal, to make her see the hopeless horror of the trial that must +follow unless she consented to a compromise. But it was the completeness +of her defeat that he dreaded the most; it was for that last stage of +his plan that he was gathering unconsciously all his nerve-power +together. He seemed to hear with ominous distinctness her words at their +last meeting: "If I can't go through with it (which is quite possible) +I shall throw up the sponge and get out of this world as soon as I can." +That had been spoken without any sort of fear of detection, without the +least suspicion that she would have no choice in the matter of giving up +her ill-gotten wealth. What he dreaded unutterably was the despair that +must overpower her as he developed the long chain of evidence against +her. As he came into her presence, overwhelmed with these thoughts, he +was also anxiously recalling two mental notes. He must make her clearly +understand that he had not betrayed her by one word or hint to Sir +Edmund Grosse or any living human being; and secondly, he thought it +very important to impress upon her that Sir Edmund and Lady Rose were of +opinion that Larrone had suppressed the will or that Molly had never +opened the box which contained it--were, in fact, of any or every +opinion except that Molly was guilty of crime. For the rest he could, at +this eleventh hour, hardly see anything clearly, and as he shook hands +with Miss Dexter an unutterable longing to escape came over him. Molly's +greeting was haughty--almost rude--but that seemed to him natural and +inevitable. He made some comment on a political event which she did not +pretend to answer, and then as if speech were almost impossible, he +actually murmured that the weather was very hot. + +Then he became silent and remained so. For quite a minute neither spoke. + +Molly was not naturally silent, naturally restrained. She moved uneasily +about the room; she lit a cigarette, and threw it away again. At last +she stood in front of him. + +"What made you come to-day?" she asked. + +Her large restless eyes looked full of anger as she spoke. + +"I came to-day partly because I am going away very soon, so I thought +that it might be----" He hesitated. + +"But where are you going?" Molly asked abruptly. + +"I am to take a chaplaincy at Lord Lofton's." + +"And your preaching?" cried Molly in astonishment. + +"Is not wanted," said Mark. + +"And your poor?" + +"Can get on without me." + +"You are to be buried in the country?" she cried in indignation; "you +are to leave all the people you are helping? But what a horrible shame! +What,"--she suddenly turned away as a thought struck her--"what can be +the reason?" + +"It seems," he said very quietly, "that I have been foolish; people are +talking, things are said against me, and things should not be said +against a priest. But I did not come here to talk about myself. I came +here----" He paused. + +Molly sat down close to the empty fireplace, and was bending over it, +her very thin figure curiously twisted, and one foot twitching +nervously. + +"You are going away," she said suddenly, "and it is my doing. I did not +know I was doing that; it felt as if hitting at you were the only way to +defend myself. Good God! I shall have a lot to answer for!" + +She did not turn round; she crouched lower on the low chair and +shuddered. + +"And you," she went on in a low voice, "you want to save my soul! I have +always been afraid you would get the best of it, and now I have +destroyed your life's work. Did you know it was I who was talking +against you?" + +"I did." + +"And that I have said everything I dared to say against you ever since I +told you my secret?" + +"Yes; more or less I knew." + +"Why didn't you tell your authorities the truth long ago?" + +"How could I?" + +Molly made no answer. She got up in silence and took a key from her +pocket and moved toward a small bureau between the windows. She unlocked +the lower drawer and took out a packet of papers, and in the middle of +this packet was an envelope in which lay the key of the room upstairs. +Her movements were slow but unhesitating, and when she left the room +Mark had not the slightest idea of what she would do. If he had seen her +face as she slowly mounted the great well staircase he might have +understood. + +How simple it all was. She reached the top of the many steps with little +loss of breath; she turned to the right into the dark passage that led +to her own room, passed her own door, and put the key in the lock of the +one next to it. She knew so exactly which box she sought, though she had +never seen it since the day when Dr. Larrone brought it to her. Although +she had actually come in the cab that brought the small boxes from the +flat, she had succeeded in not recognising that one among the number +heaped up together. She knew exactly where it stood now, and how many +things had been piled above the boxes from the flat with seeming +carelessness, but by her orders. + +The shutters were closed, but she could have found that box in inky +darkness, and now a ray from between the chinks fell upon it. She did +not think now of how often she had told herself that she did not know +what the box was like. Now it seemed to have been the only box she had +ever known in her life. The cases on the top of it were heavy, and Molly +had to strain herself to move them, but she was very strong, and every +reserve of muscular power was called out unconsciously to meet her need. +She did not know that her hands were covered with dust, and that blood +was breaking through a scratch over the right thumb made by a jagged +nail. + +When she came back into the drawing-room, Father Molyneux was sitting +with his back towards her, looking with unseeing eyes into the trees of +the park. She moved towards him and held out a long envelope. + +"Take it away," she said, "If I have ruined your life, you have ruined +mine." + +She moved with uncertain steps to the chimney-piece, leant upon it, and, +turning round, looked wildly at the envelope in his hands. + +"Why didn't you come for it before?" she asked him. + +Mark could not answer. He was absolutely astonished at what had +happened. He could hardly believe that he held in his hand a thing of +such momentous importance. He had nerved himself for a great fight, but +he had not known what he should say, how he should act, and +then--amazing fact--a few minutes after he came into the room, and +without his having even asked for it, the will was put into his hands! +Nothing had been said of conditions or compromise; she only asked the +amazing question why he had not come for it _before_! + +"You were right," she mused, "right to leave me alone. I wonder, do you +remember the words that have haunted me this summer?--Browning's words +about the guilty man in the duel: + + 'Let him live his life out, + Life will try his nerves.' + +It has tried my nerves unbearably; I could not go on, I have not the +strength. I might have had a glorious time if I had been a little +stronger. As it is, it's not worth while." + +It is impossible to convey the heavy dreariness of outlook conveyed by +her voice and manner. There seemed no higher moral quality in it all. + +"Half a dozen times I have nearly sent for you. But"--she did not +shudder now, or make the restless movements he had noticed when he first +came in: Molly had regained the stillness which follows after +storms--"as soon as you are gone I shall be longing to have it back +again. Men have done worse things than I have for thirty thousand a +year! It won't be easy to be a pauper; I think it would be easier to +kill myself." + +She was silent again, and Mark could not find one word that he was not +afraid to say--one word that might not quench the smoking flax. + +"I had to give it to you without waiting to talk of the future, or I +might not have given it at all. But I should be glad if the case could +be so arranged that my mother's name and my own should not be dragged in +the mud. It is only an appeal for mercy--nothing else." Her voice +trembled almost into silence. + +"I think that is all safe," said Mark. "I think if you will leave it all +in my hands I can get better conditions for you than you suppose now. +They will be only too glad." + +"But I gave it to you without conditions." Her manner for the moment was +that of a child seeking reassurance. + +"Thank God! you did," he cried, with an irrepressible burst of sympathy. + +"It's not much for a thief to have done, is it? But now I should like to +do it all properly. Tell me; ought I to come away from here to-day, and +give everything I have here to Lady Rose? If I ought, I will!" + +"No, certainly not," said Mark. "I have been asked to offer you liberal +conditions if you would agree to a compromise. I said they had come to +quite the wrong person. No, no, don't think I told them. They have fresh +evidence that there was a will, and they believe they know that +important papers were brought to you by Dr. Larrone when your mother +died." + +"And you came to frighten me with this?" There was a touch of reproach +in her tone. + +"No, I came, hoping you would give me the paper, as you have done, +without knowing this." + +Evidently this news impressed Molly deeply, but she did not want to +discuss it. Presently she said: + +"I am glad you came in time before I was frightened. How you have wanted +to make me save my soul! You have helped me very much, but I cannot save +my soul." + +"But God can," said Mark. + +"You see," she went on, "I never know what I am going to do--going to +be--next. Imagine my being a thief! It seems now almost incredible. And +I don't know what may come next." + +For a second she looked at him with wild terror in her eyes. + +"Think how many years I have before me. How can I hope that I----?" + +"You will do great, great good," said Mark, with emotion. + +She shook her head. + +"David committed a worse sin than yours." + +Molly smiled, a little, incredulous, grey smile, for a moment. + +"I may be good to-day. I may be full of peace and joy even to-night--but +to-morrow? You told me once that I should only know true joy if I had +been humbled in the dust. I am low enough now, but the comfort has not +come yet, and, even if God comforts me, it won't last. I shall still be +I, and life is so long." + +"You must trust Him--you must indeed. He will find a solution. You are +exhausted now with the victory you have gained. Rest now, and then do +the good things you have done before. Trust in the higher side of your +character; God gave it to you. Believe me, He has called you to great +things." + +As he spoke she covered her face with her hands, and a deep blush of +shame rose from her neck to her forehead, visible through the thin, +white fingers. + +"I suppose He will find a way out. As I can't understand how you have +cared so much to save my soul, I suppose I can understand His love still +less. Must you go? You will pray for me, I know." + +She held out her hand with a look of generous appeal to his forgiveness. + +"God bless you!" he said, with complete sympathy, and then he went away +to seek an interview with Sir Edmund Grosse. + +Molly sank down on a low seat by the window. Then she went slowly +upstairs, dragging her feet a little from fatigue, and took out of the +tin box the packet of very old letters. She burned them one by one, with +a match for each, kneeling in front of the empty fireplace in her +bed-room. They told the story of her mother's attempt to persuade Sir +David of their marriage during his illness in India. It was not a pretty +story--one of deceit and intrigue. It should disappear now. + +Then she sat down in a deep chair in the window. She stayed very still, +curled up against the cushion behind her, her eyes fixed on the ground. +She was hardly conscious of thought; she was trying to recall things +Mark had said, murmuring them over to herself. She was trying not to +sink into the depths of humiliation and despair. It was a blind clinging +to a vague hope for better things, with a certain torpor of all her +faculties. + +Then gradually things in the vague gloom became definite to her. "No," +she said to them with entreaty, "not to-night. My life is only just +dead. I am tired by the shock--it was so sudden--only let me rest till +morning, and in the morning I will try to face it." + +She had, it seemed, quite settled this point; the present and the future +were to be left; a pause was absolutely necessary. Then followed quickly +the sharp pang of a fresh thought. It was not in her power to make +things pause. She could not make a truce by calling it a truce. If she +did not realise things now and act now herself, others would come upon +the scene. Even to-night Sir Edmund Grosse might know. She shivered. +Perhaps he was being told now. It would be insufferable to endure his +kindness prompted by Rose's generous forgiveness. But ought she to find +anything unbearable? Was she going to revolt at the very outset? She was +not trained in spiritual matters, but it seemed to her that any revolt +would betray a want of reality in her reparation, and in this great +change of feeling she wanted above all things to be real. She tried to +face what must come next. How could she hand over Westmoreland House? It +could not be done as quietly as she had handed that letter to Father +Mark. The house had been bought with the great lump sum Madame Danterre +had accumulated in Florence--much of that money had been put in the bank +before Sir David died. Perhaps if they were ready to come to terms, as +Father Mark had said, an arrangement would be suggested in which Molly +would not be expected to refund what she had spent, and would have the +possession of Westmoreland House and its contents. The sale would +realise enough to save her from actual want, and yet she would not be +receiving a pension from Lady Rose. Her mind got out of gear and flashed +through these thoughts until, unable to check it in any way, she burst +into tears. She felt the self-deception of such plans with physical +pain. What was that money in the bank at Florence but blackmail gathered +in during Sir David's life? "Why cannot I be straight even now?" she +whispered. She was still sitting on the couch with one leg drawn up +under her, gazing intently at the ground. No, the only money she +possessed was £2000 invested at 3½ per cent. "£70 a year--that is +less than I have given Carey, or the cook, or the butler." + +The fact was that while her heart and soul had gone forward in dumb pain +in utter darkness with the single aim of undoing the sin done, the mind +still lagged and reasoned. This is a peculiar agony, and Molly had to +drink of that agony. + +Gradually and mercilessly her reason told her that an arrangement with +Lady Rose, the appearance of having the right of possession in +Westmoreland House, the readiness of all concerned to bury the story, +and the possession of a fair income, would make it possible to live in +her own class quietly but, if tactfully, with a good repute. Then the +thought of any kind of compromise became intolerable to her, and she +realised that it was a fancy picture, not a real temptation. + +To pretend that Westmoreland House was her own she could not do, but +what was the alternative? Dragging poverty and shame, and with no +opportunity for hiding what had passed, for living it down. Even if she +did the impossible to her pride and consented to receive a good +allowance from Lady Rose, it would not be at all the same in the world's +view as the dignified income that could be raised from Westmoreland +House, and from her mother's jewels and furniture. Her fingers +unconsciously touched the pearls round her neck. Surely she need not +speculate as to how her mother obtained the magnificent jewels which she +had worn up to the end? Then more light came--hard and cold, but clear. +If Molly had been innocent these things might have been so, but Molly +had committed a fraud on a great scale. It would be by the mercy of the +injured that she would be spared the rigours of the law. It was by the +supreme mercy of God that she had had the chance of making the sacrifice +before it was forced from her. And could she shrink from mere ordinary +poverty, from a life such as the vast majority of men and women are +living on this earth? She did not really shrink in her will. It was only +a mechanical movement of thought from one point to another. Was it much +punishment for what she had done to be very poor? Would it not be better +to be unclassed--to live among people who help each other much because +they have little to give? Would it not be the way to do what Father Mark +had said she should try to do--those good things she had done before? +She could nurse, she could watch, she was able to do with little sleep. +She would be very humble with the sick and suffering now. And it would +not surely be wrong to go and find such a life far away from where she +had sinned? She began to wonder if she need stay and live through all +the complications of the coming days. Must it be the right thing to stay +because it was the most unbearable? She thought not. There are times +when recklessness is the only safety. If she did not burn her ships now +she could not tell what temptations might come. But she would not let it +be among her motives that thus she would thereby escape unbearable pity +from Lady Rose and the far sterner magnanimity of Edmund Grosse. She +would act simply; she would ask Rose a favour; she would ask her to +provide for Miss Carew. + +Half consciously again her hands went to her throat. She unclasped the +pearl necklace that Edmund had seen on Madame Danterre's withered neck +in the garden at Florence. She slipped off four large rings, and then +gathered up a few jewels that lay about. "One ought not to leave +valuables about," she thought, and she did not know that she added +"after a death." + +If Miss Carew had been in the room she would probably not have +understood that anything special was going on. Molly moved quietly +about, collecting together on a little table by the cupboard, rings, +brooches, buckles, watches--anything of much value. She sought and found +the key of the little safe in the wardrobe and put away these objects +with the large jewel cases already inside it. She also put with them her +cheque book and her banker's book. A very small cheque book on a +different bank where the interest of the £2000 had not been drawn on for +six months, she put down on her writing table. Then she looked round the +room. Was there nothing there really her own, and that she cared to keep +either for its own sake or because it had belonged to someone she had +loved? An awful sense of loneliness swept over her as she looked round +and could think of nothing. Each beautiful thing on walls or tables that +she looked at seemed repulsive in its turn, for it had either belonged +to Madame Danterre or been bought with her money. There was not so much +as a letter which she cared ever to see again. She had burnt Edmund's +few notes when she first came to Westmoreland House. + +She had once met a woman who had lost everything in a fire. "I have +everything new," she wailed, "nothing that I ever had before--not a +photograph, not a prayer-book, nor an old letter. I don't feel that I am +the same person." The words came back now. "Not the same person," and +suddenly a sense of relief began to dawn upon her. + + "Alone to land upon that shore + With not one thing that we have known before." + +Oh, the immensity of such a mercy! That hymn had made her shiver as a +child; how different it seemed now! Molly knelt down by the couch, and +her shoulders trembled as a tempest of feeling came over her. Criminals +hardened by long lives of fraud have been known to be happier after +being found out--simply because the strain was over. They had destroyed +their moral sense. Molly's conscience was alive, though torn, bleeding, +and debased. She could not be happy as they were, but yet there was the +lifting of the weight as of a great mountain rolled away. She was afraid +of the immense sense of relief that now seemed coming upon her. Could +she really become free of the horrible Molly of the last months--this +noxious, vile, lying, thieving woman? What an awful strain that woman +had lived in! She had told Mark that what frightened her was the thought +that she would still be herself. She longed now to cut away everything +that had belonged to her. Might she not by God's grace, in poverty and +hard work, with everything around her quite different from the past, +might she not quite do to death the Molly who had lived in Westmoreland +House? The cry was more passionate than spiritual perhaps, but the +longing had its power to help. She rose and again moved quietly about +the room of the dead, bad woman, which must be left in order for the new +owners. She put some things together--what was necessary for a night or +two--and felt almost glad that she had a comb and brush she had not yet +used. There was a bag with cheap fittings Mrs. Carteret had given her as +a girl, which would hold all she needed. And then she remembered that +she had something she would like to take away; it was a nurse's apron, +and in its pocket a nurse's case of small instruments. They were what +she used when nursing with the district nurse in the village at home. +Then she sat down and wrote a cheque and a note, and proceeded to take +them downstairs. The cheque was for £30 out of the little Dexter cheque +book, and the note was an abrupt little line to tell a friend that she +could not dine out that night. She "did not feel up to it" was the only +excuse given, and a furious hostess declared that Miss Dexter had become +perfectly insufferable. She seemed to think that she could do exactly as +she chose because she was absurdly rich. + +The butler was able to give Molly £30 in notes and cash, and it was his +opinion that she wanted the money for playing cards that night. Molly +crept upstairs again with a foreign Bradshaw in her hand. She looked out +the train for the night boat to Dieppe. It left Charing Cross at 9.45. +She had chosen Dieppe for the first stage of her journey--of which she +knew not the further direction--for two reasons. The first was because +she knew that she ought to stay within reach if it were necessary for +her to do business with her own or Lady Rose's solicitors. She was +determined not to give any trouble she could avoid giving, in the +business of handing over that which had never belonged to her. At this +time of year the journey to Dieppe would be no difficulty, and she +wanted to go there rather than to Boulogne or any other French port, +because she had the address of a very cheap and clean _pension_ in which +Miss Carew had passed some weeks before coming to live with Molly in +London. From that _pension_ Molly could write the letters she felt +physically incapable of writing to-night. The only note she determined +to write at once was to Carey, asking her to remain at Westmoreland +House and to tell the servants that Miss Dexter had gone abroad. She +told her that she had gone to the _pension_ at Dieppe, but earnestly +insisted that she should not follow her. She begged her to do nothing +before getting a letter that she would write to her at once on arriving +at Dieppe. She also asked her to keep the key of the safe which she +enclosed in her letter. Molly sealed the letter, and then felt some +hesitation as to when and how to give it to Miss Carew. She finally +decided to send it by a messenger boy from the station when it would be +too late for Miss Carew to follow her, and when it would still be in +time to prevent any astonishment at her not returning home that night. + + +Miss Carew, thinking that Molly had gone out to dinner, came into her +bed-room to look for a book. The night was hot and oppressive, but no +one had raised the blinds since the sun had set, and the room was so +dark that she did not at once see Molly. She started nervously, half +expecting one of Molly's impatient and rude exclamations on being +disturbed, and, with an apology, was going away when Molly said gently: + +"Stay a minute, Carey; I'm not going to dine out to-night." + +"But there is no dinner ordered, and I have just had supper. I am going +out this evening to see a friend." + +"Never mind," Molly interrupted, "I can't eat anything. I am going out +for a drive in a hansom in the cool. Would you mind saying that I shall +not want the motor?" + +"My dear! are you not well?" + +"Not very." And suddenly Miss Carew began to read the great change in +her face. "It has none of it been very good for me, Carey; you have been +quite right. This house and all was a mistake. You have never said it, +but I have seen it in your eyes. And it has not even been in quite good +taste for me to make such a splash--you thought that too. I'm going to +stop it all now, dear, and probably the house will be sold; it's been an +unblest sort of thing." + +Miss Carew stared. The tone was so different from any she had ever heard +in Molly's voice; it was very gentle, but exhausted, as if she had been +through an acute crisis in an illness. + +"Carey dear, you have always been so kind to me, and I have been very +unkind to you. You will have to know things that will make you hate and +despise me to-morrow. But would you mind giving me one kiss to-night?" + +Miss Carew was very nervous at this request, but happily all the best +side of her was roused by something in Molly that, in spite of a vast +difference, recalled the Molly of seven years ago when she had first +seen her. It was a real kiss--a kind of pact between them. + +"I wonder if she will ever wish to do the same again!" thought Molly. + +Then Miss Carew left her and she called the maid, who brought at her +bidding a long black cloak and a small black toque--insignificant +compared to anything else of Molly's. + +The mistress of Westmoreland House drove away in a hansom, with a bag in +her hand, at twenty minutes past seven. + +There is a small house with a little chapel attached to it in a road in +Chelsea where some Frenchwomen, who were exiled from their own country, +have come to dwell. It is built on Sir Thomas More's garden, and it +possesses within its boundaries the mulberry tree under which the +chancellor was sitting when they came to fetch him to the Tower. It is a +poor little house with very poor inmates, and a poor little chapel. But +in that chapel night and day, without a moment's break, are to be found +two figures (when there are not more) dressed in plain brown habits and +black veils. And on the altar there is always a crowd of lighted +candles, in spite of the poverty of the chapel. It is a very small +chapel and oddly shaped. The length of the little building is from north +to south, and the altar is to the east. There are but few benches, but +they run the full length of the building. Strange things are known by +these women, who never go farther than the small garden at the back, of +the life of the town about them. Some men and more women get accustomed +to coming daily into the chapel with its unceasing exposition, and to +love its silence and its atmosphere of rest and peace. Some never make +themselves known; others sometimes ask to see a nun, and thus gradually +these recluses come to know memorable secrets in human lives. + +Molly had often been there in the weeks which she had afterwards called +"my short fit of religious emotion." She chose to go there to-night, to +spend there her last hour in London. + +The little chapel was fairly cool, and through a door very near the +altar, open to the garden, came the scent of mignonette on the air. +Besides the motionless figures at the altar-rail there was no one else +in the chapel. + +At eight o'clock two small brown figures came in and knelt bowed down in +the middle of the sanctuary. The two who had finished their watch rose +and knelt by the side of those who relieved guard. Then the four rose +together, and the two newcomers took up their station, and the others +left them. And the incessant oblation of those lives went on. What a +vast moral space lay between their lives and Molly's! What a contrast! + +Molly had had no home, but they had given up their homes for this. Molly +had pined in vain for human love; they had turned away from it. Molly +had rebelled against all restraints; they had chosen these bonds. Molly +had sinned, against even the world's code, for love of the world; and +they had rejected even the best the world could give. + +Was it unjust, unfair that the boon they asked for in return was given +to them? + +If, on the one hand, Molly had inherited evil tendencies and had fallen +on evil circumstances, does it seem strange that she could share in good +as well as in evil? + +It is easy to take scandal at Molly's inherited legacy of evil +tendencies. It is easy to take scandal at the facility of her +forgiveness. The two stumbling-blocks are in reality the two aspects of +one truth, that no human being stands alone and that each gains or +suffers with or by his fellows. + +The sinless women pleaded for sinners in a glorious human imitation of +the Divine pleading. And the exuberant vitality poured by the Conqueror +of death into the human race, flowing strongly through that tiny chapel, +had carried the little, thin, stagnant stream of Molly's soul into the +great flood of grace that purifies by sorrow and by love. + +Molly knelt in one of the back benches with her eyes fixed on the +monstrance, in a very agony of sorrow and self-abasement. I would not if +I could analyse that penitence. Happily as life goes on we shrink more, +not less, from raising even the most reverent gaze on the secret places +of the soul. We do not know in what form, if in any form at all, and not +rather, in a light without words, the Divine Peace reached her. Was it, +"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?" Or was it perhaps, "This day +shalt thou be with Me in Paradise?" We cannot tell. Only the lay-sister +who saw Molly go out with the little black bag in her hand said +afterwards that the lady had seemed happy. + + +THE END. + + + + +_A Selection from the Catalogue of_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +Complete Catalogues sent on application + +"_A work of absorbing interest_" + +THE SOCIALIST + +BY GUY THORNE + +Author of + +"WHEN IT WAS DARK," "A LOST CAUSE," ETC. + + +"A story that leads one on by its boldness, its vigours, its interesting +realism of both ducal splendour and evil squalor, and by the individual +interests it attaches to social phases and problems. _The Socialist_ +contains plenty of dramatic description and intensely studied character +to remind one of _When it Was Dark_ and other well staged and +effectively managed story-dramas from the same busy and clever +pen."--_The Dundee Advertiser_. + +"A work of absorbing interest dealing with one of the burning questions +of the day in a manner alike entertaining and instructive. Mr. Thorne +has taken considerable pains to explain the real meaning of Socialism as +understood and taught by leaders of what may be styled the higher Social +movement. We congratulate the author on having produced a first-class +novel full of feeling and character, and with an eminently useful +mission."--_The Irish Independent_. + +_Crown 8vo. Fixed price, $1.35 net_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + +"_A story that warms every reader's heart and makes him regret that he +has reached the end._" + +Old Rose and Silver + +By MYRTLE REED + +Author of "A Spinner in the Sun," "The Master's Violin," etc. + +NOT a "problem," "detective," or a "character study" story. It does not +contain a morbid line. Just a charming, pure, altogether wholesome love +story, full of delicate touches of fancy and humor. A book that leaves a +pleasant taste in the memory, and one that people will find most +appropriate as a dainty gift. + +With Frontispiece in Color by + +WALTER BIGGS + +_Crown 8vo, beautifully printed and bound. Cloth, $1.50 net. Full red +leather, $2.00 net. Antique Calf, $2.50 net. Lavender Silk, $3.50 net._ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + +"_Bound to be one of the most popular novels of the year_" + +THE WIVING OF LANCE CLEAVERAGE + +BY ALICE MACGOWAN + +Author of "JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS," "RETURN," "LAST WORD," ETC. + +By its stirring dramatic appeal, its varied interest, its skilful +artistry, Miss MacGowan's new Tennessee mountain story marks a long step +in advance of her earlier novels. It is an interesting company that is +brought together in this book--notably the proud high-spirited mountain +beauty who is the heroine, and the bold and fiery young hero, who will +surely stand high in the good graces of readers of the tale--and a +company of distinct types drawn with a graphic and spirited hand, a +company moved by strong passions--love, and hate too, green jealousy and +black revenge. + +With Illustrations in Color by ROBERT EDWARDS + +_Fixed price, $1.35 net_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + +_By the author of "The Country House"_ + +FRATERNITY + +BY JOHN GALSWORTHY + +Author of "THE MAN OF PROPERTY," "VILLA RUBEIN," ETC. + +"The foundation of Mr. Galsworthy's talent, it seems to me, lies in a +remarkable power of ironic insight combined with an extremely keen and +faithful eye for all the phenomena, on the surface of the life he +observes. These are the purveyors of his imagination, whose servant is a +style clear, direct, sane, illumined by a perfectly unaffected +sincerity. It is the style of a man whose sympathy with mankind is too +genuine to allow him the smallest gratification of his vanity at the +cost of his fellow creatures, ... sufficiently pointed to carry deep his +remorseless irony, and grave enough to be the dignified vehicle of his +profound compassion. Its sustained harmony is never interrupted by those +bursts of cymbals and fifes which some deaf people acclaim for +brilliance. Mr. Galsworthy will never be found futile by anyone and +never uninteresting by the most exacting." + +MR. JOSEPH CONRAD in _The Outlook_. + +_Crown 8vo. Fixed price, $1.35 net. (By mail $1.50)_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS*** + + +******* This file should be named 17952-8.txt or 17952-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/5/17952 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/17952-8.zip b/17952-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8afc885 --- /dev/null +++ b/17952-8.zip diff --git a/17952-h.zip b/17952-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f34b982 --- /dev/null +++ b/17952-h.zip diff --git a/17952-h/17952-h.htm b/17952-h/17952-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2700230 --- /dev/null +++ b/17952-h/17952-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11726 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Great Possessions, by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .tbrk { margin-top: 2.75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem div {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem div.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + + + + /* index*/ + + div.index ul { list-style: none; } + div.index ul li span.mono {font-family: monospace;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Great Possessions, by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Great Possessions</p> +<p>Author: Mrs. Wilfrid Ward</p> +<p>Release Date: March 8, 2006 [eBook #17952]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Joseph R. Hauser, Martin Pettit,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> + +<h1>Great Possessions</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>Mrs. Wilfrid Ward</h2> + +<h3>Author of<br />"One Poor Scruple," "Out of Due Time," etc.</h3> + +<h3>G.P. Putnam's Sons<br /> +New York and London<br /> +The Knickerbocker Press<br /> +1909</h3> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1909<br />BY<br /> +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />The Knickerbocker Press, New York</h3> + + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> +<p class='center'><a href="#BOOK_I">BOOK_I</a></p> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li>CHAPTER</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Amazing Will</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></span> <span class="smcap">In the Evening</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></span> "<span class="smcap">As You Hope to be Forgiven</span>"</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Wicked Woman in Florence</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></span> "<span class="smcap">Your Mother's Daughter</span>"</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Molly Comes of Age</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Edmund Grosse Continues to Interfere</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">At Groombridge Castle</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></span> <span class="smcap">A Little More than Kind</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Pet Vice</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Thin End of a Clue</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Molly's Night-Watch</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Sir David's Memory</span></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<p class='center'><a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK_II</a></p> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Molly in the Season</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">A Poor Man's Death</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Molly's Letter to her Mother</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Blind Canon</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Madame Danterre's Answer</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Lady Rose's Scruple</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Heiress of Madame Danterre</span></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> +<p class='center'><a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK_III</a></p> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">An Interlude of Happiness</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Something like Evidence</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Uses of Delirium</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Delaport Green in the Ascendant</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Molly at Court</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Edmund is no longer Bored</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Molly's Appeal</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Dinner at Two Shillings</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Relief of Speech</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Birth of a Slander</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Nursing of a Slander</span></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<p class='center'><a href="#BOOK_IV">BOOK_IV</a></p> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Rose Summoned to London</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Brown Holland Covers</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Wrath of a Friend</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Condemnation of Mark</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Mene Thekel Phares</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Mark Enters into Temptation</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">No Shadow of a Cloud</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></span> "<span class="smcap">Without Condition Or Compromise</span>"</li> +</ul> +</div> + +<p class='center'><a href="#A_Selection_from_the_Catalogue_of">A Selection from the Catalogue of G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS</a></p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h1>GREAT POSSESSIONS</h1> + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_I" id="BOOK_I"></a>BOOK I</h2> + +<hr /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h3>THE AMAZING WILL</h3> + +<p>The memorial service for Sir David Bright was largely attended. Perhaps +he was fortunate in the moment of his death, for other men, whose +military reputations had been as high as his, were to go on with the +struggle while the world wondered at their blunders. It was only the +second of those memorial services for prominent men which were to become +so terribly usual as the winter wore on. Great was the sympathy felt for +the young widow at the loss of one so brave, so kindly, so popular among +all classes.</p> + +<p>Lady Rose Bright was quite young and very fair. She did not put on a +widow's distinctive garments because Sir David had told her that he +hated weeds. But she wore a plain, heavy cloak, and a long veil fell +into the folds made by her skirts. The raiment of a gothic angel, an +angel like those in the portico at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> Rheims, has these same straight, +stern lines. "Black is sometimes as suggestive of white," was the +reflection of one member of the congregation, "as white may be +suggestive of mourning." Sir Edmund Grosse, who had known Rose from her +childhood, felt some new revelation in her movements; there was a fuller +development of womanhood in her walk, and there was a reserve, too, as +of one consecrated and set apart. He heaved a deep sigh as she passed +near him going down the church, and their eyes met. She had no shrinking +in her bearing; her reserves were too deep for her to avoid an open +meeting with other human eyes. She looked at Sir Edmund for a moment as +if giving, rather than demanding, sympathy; and indeed, there was more +trouble in his eyes than in hers.</p> + +<p>The service had gone perilously near to Roman practices. It was among +the first of those uncontrollable instinctive expressions of faith in +prayer for the departed which were a marked note of English feeling +during the Boer war. Questions as to their legality were asked in +Parliament, but little heeded, for the heart of the nation, "for her +children mourning," sought comfort in the prayers used by the rest of +the Christian world.</p> + +<p>Rose's mother went home with her and they talked, very simply and in +sympathy, of the tributes to the soldier's memory. Then, when luncheon +came and the servants were present, they spoke quietly of the work to be +done for soldiers' wives and of a meeting the mother was to attend that +afternoon. Lady Charlton was the mother one would expect Rose to +have—indeed, such complete grace of courtliness and kindness points to +an education. Afterwards, while they were alone, Lady Charlton, in +broken sentences,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> sketched the future. She supposed Rose would stay on +although the house was too big. Much good might be done in it. There +could be no doubt as to how money must be spent this winter; and there +were the services they both loved in the Church of the Fathers of St. +Paul near at hand. Lady Charlton saw life in pictures and so did Rose. +Neither of them broke through any reserve; neither of them was curious. +It did not occur to Rose to wonder how her mother had lived and felt in +her first days as a widow. Lady Charlton did not wonder how Rose felt +now. Rose, she thought, was wonderful; life was full of mercies; there +was so much to be thankful for; and could not those who had suffered be +of great consolation to others in sorrow?</p> + +<p>They arranged to meet at Evensong in St. Paul's Chapel, and then Lady +Charlton would come back and stay the night. On the next day she was due +at the house of her youngest married daughter.</p> + +<p>Rose was presently left alone, and she cried quite simply. For a moment +she thought of Edmund Grosse and the sadness in his eyes. Why had he not +volunteered for the war? What a contrast!</p> + +<p>A large photograph of Sir David in his general's uniform stood on the +writing-table in the study downstairs. There were also a picture and a +miniature in the drawing-room, but Rose thought she would like to look +at the photograph again. It was the last that had been taken. Then too +she would look over some of his things. She wanted little presents for +his special friends; nothing for its own value, but because the hero had +used them. And she would like to bring the big photograph upstairs.</p> + +<p>The study, usually cold and deserted since the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> master had gone away, +was bright with a large fire. Rose did not know that it was an +expression of sympathy from the under-housemaid, whose lover was at the +war. But when she stood opposite the big photograph of the fine manly +face and figure, and the large open eyes looked so straight into hers, +she shrank a little. Something in the room made her shrink into herself. +Her eyes rested on the Victoria Cross in the photograph, on the medals +that had covered his breast. "I shall have them all," she said, and then +she faltered a little. She had faltered in that room before now; she had +often shrunk into herself when the intensely courteous voice had asked +her as she came into his study what she wanted. She blamed herself +gently now, and for two opposite reasons: she blamed herself because she +had wanted what she had not got, and she blamed herself because she had +not done more to get it. "He was always so gentle, so courteous. I ought +to have been quite, quite happy. And why didn't I break through our +reserve, and then we might——" Dimly she felt, but she did not want to +own it to herself, that she had married him as a hero-worshipper. She +had reverenced him more than she loved him. "I ought not to have done +it," she thought, "but I meant what was right, and I could have loved +him—— Oh, I did love him afterwards—only I never could tell him, +and——" Further thoughts led the way to irreverence, even to something +worse. They were wrong thoughts, thoughts against faith and truth and +right; there was no place for such thoughts in Rose's heart. She moved +now, and opened drawers and dusted and put together a few +things—paper-knives, match-boxes, a writing-case, a silver sealing-wax +holder, and so on; the occupation interested and soothed her. She had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +the born mystic's love of little kind actions, little presents, things +treasured as symbols of the union of spirits, all the more because of +their slight material value. Then, too, the child element, which is in +every good woman, gave a zest to the occupation and made it restful.</p> + +<p>Lady Rose had put several small relics in a row on the edge of the lower +part of the big mahogany bookcase, and was counting on her fingers the +names of the friends for whom they were intended. Her grief was +sufficiently real to make her, perhaps, overestimate the number of those +to whom such relics would be precious. A tender smile was on her lips at +the recollection of an old soldier servant of Sir David's who had been +with him in Egypt. She hesitated a moment between two objects—one, a +good silver-mounted leather purse, and the other an inkstand of brass +and marble. These two things were the recipients of her unjust aversion +for long after that moment.</p> + +<p>Simmonds, the butler, opened the door, quite certain that the visitor he +announced must be admitted, and conscious of the fitness of the big +study for his reception. It was Sir David's solicitor. But the butler +was disappointed at the manner of his entrance. He did not analyse the +disappointment. He was half conscious of the fact that the <i>rôle</i> of the +family lawyer on the occasion was so simple and easy. He would himself +have assumed a degree of pomp, of sympathy, of respect, carrying a +subdued implication that he brought solid consolation in his very +presence. Simmonds grieved truly for Sir David, but he felt, too, the +blank caused by the absence of all funeral arrangements in a death at +the war. He had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> butler in more than one house of mourning before, +and he knew all his duties in that capacity. After this he would know +how to be butler in the event of death in battle. But now, when the +memorial service had taken, in a poor sort of way, the place of the +funeral, of course the solicitor ought to come, and past deficiencies +could be overlooked. Why, then, should the man prove totally unequal to +his task? Mr. Murray, Junior, had usually a much better manner than +to-day. Perhaps he was startled at being shown at once into the widow's +presence. Probably he might have expected to wait a few moments in the +big study, while Simmonds went to seek his mistress.</p> + +<p>But there was Lady Rose turning round from the bookcase as they came in. +Mr. Murray stooped to-day, and his large head was bent downwards, making +it the more evident that the drops of perspiration stood out upon his +brow. He cast a look almost of fear at the fair face with its gentle, +benignant expression. He had seen Rose once or twice before, and he knew +the old-fashioned type of great lady when he met it. Was it of Rose's +gentle, subtle dignity that he was afraid?</p> + +<p>Rose drew up a chair on one side of the big square writing-table, and +signed to him to take the leather arm-chair where he had last seen Sir +David Bright seated. Mr. Murray plunged into his subject with an +abruptness proportioned to the immense time he had taken during the +morning in preparing a diplomatic opening.</p> + +<p>"May I ask, first of all," he said, "whether you have found any will, or +any document looking like a will, besides the one I have with me?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Lady Rose in surprise, "there are no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> papers of any +importance here, I believe; there is nothing in the house under lock and +key. Sir David gave me a few rings and studs to put away, but he never +cared for jewellery, and there is nothing of value."</p> + +<p>"And do you think he can have executed any other will or written a +letter that might be of use to us now?"</p> + +<p>Rose looked still more surprised. Mr. Murray held some papers in his +hand that shook as if the wintry wind outside were trying to blow them +away. Rose tried not to watch them, and it teased her that she could not +help doing so. The hand that held them was not visible above the table. +Mr. Murray struggled to keep to the most absolutely business-like and +unemotional side of his professional manner, but his obviously extreme +discomfort was infectious, and Rose's calm of manner was already +disturbed.</p> + +<p>"I cannot but think, Lady Rose, that some papers may be forwarded to you +through the War Office." He hesitated. "You had no marriage +settlements?" he then asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"No, there were no settlements," said Rose. She spoke quickly and +nervously. "We did not think them necessary. Sir David offered to make +them, but just then he was ordered abroad and there was very little +time, and my mother and I did not think it of enough importance to make +us delay the wedding. It was shortly after my father's death." She +paused a moment, and then went on, as if speech were a relief.</p> + +<p>"You know that, when we married, Sir David had no reason to expect that +he would ever be a rich man. We hardly knew the Steele cousins, and only +had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> a vague idea that Mr. John Steele had been making money on the +Stock Exchange. When he left his fortune to Sir David, who was his first +cousin, and, in fact, his nearest relation, my mother did ask me if my +husband intended to make his will. More than once after that she tried +to persuade me to speak to him about it, but I disliked the subject too +much."</p> + +<p>Mr. Murray looked as if he wished that Lady Rose would go on talking; he +seemed to expect more from her, but, as nothing more came, he made a +great effort and plunged into the subject.</p> + +<p>"The will I have here"—he held up the papers as he spoke—"was, in +fact, made a few months after Sir David inherited Mr. John Steele's +large fortune, and there was no subsequent alteration to it, but this +time last year we were directed to make a codicil to this will, and I +was away at the time. My brother, who is my senior partner, ventured to +urge Sir David to make a new will altogether, but he declined."</p> + +<p>There was silence in the room for some moments. Mr. Murray leant over +the writing-table now, and both hands were occupied in smoothing out the +papers before him.</p> + +<p>"It is the worst will I have ever come across," he said quite suddenly, +the professional manner gone and the vehemence of a strong mind in +distress breaking through all conventionality. Rose drew herself up and +looked at him coldly. In that moment she completely regained her +self-possession.</p> + +<p>"It is absolutely inexplicable," he went on, with a great effort at +self-control. "Sir David Bright leaves this house and £800 a year to +you, Lady Rose, for your lifetime, and a few gifts to friends and small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +legacies to old servants." He paused. Rose, with slightly heightened +colour, spoke very quietly.</p> + +<p>"Then the fortune was much smaller than was supposed?"</p> + +<p>"It was larger, far larger than any one knew; but it is all left away."</p> + +<p>Rose was disturbed and frankly sorry, but not by any means miserable. +She knew life, and did not dislike wealth, and had had dreams of much +good that might be done with it.</p> + +<p>"To whom is it left?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"After the small legacies I mentioned are paid off, the bulk of the +fortune goes"—the lawyer's voice became more and more business-like in +tone—"to Madame Danterre, a lady living in Florence."</p> + +<p>"And unless anything is sent to me from South Africa, this will is law?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Rose covered her face with her hands; she did not move for several +moments. It would not have surprised Mr. Murray to know that she was +praying. Presently she raised her face and looked at him with troubled +eyes, but absolute dignity of bearing.</p> + +<p>"And the codicil?"</p> + +<p>"The codicil directs that if you continue to live in this house——"</p> + +<p>Rose made a little sound of surprised protest.</p> + +<p>"——the ground rent, all rates, and all taxes are to be paid. A sum +much larger than can be required is left for this purpose, and it can +also be spent on decorating or furnishing, or in any way be used for the +house and garden. It is an elaborate affair, going into every detail."</p> + +<p>"Should I be able to let the house?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For a period of four months, not longer. But should you refuse to live +in this house, this sum will go with the bulk of the fortune. We had +immediate application on behalf of Madame Danterre from a lawyer in +Florence as soon as the news of the death reached us. It seems that she +has a copy of the will."</p> + +<p>"Has she"—Rose hesitated, and then repeated, "Has Madame Danterre any +children?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," said Mr. Murray. "Beyond paying considerable sums to +this lawyer from time to time for her benefit, we have known nothing +about her. There has been also a large annual allowance since the year +when Sir David came into his cousin's fortune." There was another +silence, and then Mr. Murray spoke in a more natural way, though it was +impossible to conceal all the sympathy that was filling his heart with +an almost murderous wrath.</p> + +<p>"After all, the General had plenty of time before starting for the war +to arrange his affairs; he was not a man who would neglect business. I +came here with a faint hope—or I tried to think it was a hope—that you +might have another will in the house. I'm afraid this—document +represents Sir David Bright's last wishes." There was a ring of +indignant scorn in his voice.</p> + +<p>Rose looked through the window on to the thin black London turf outside, +and her eyes were blank from the intensity of concentration. She had no +thought for the lawyer; if he had been sympathetic even to impertinence +she would not have noticed it.</p> + +<p>She was questioning her own instincts, her perceptions. No, it was +almost more as if she were emptying her mind of any conscious action +that her whole power of instinctive perception might have play.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> When +the blow had fallen, her only surprise had been to find that she was not +surprised, not astonished. It seemed as if she had known this all the +time, for the thing had been alongside of her for years, she had lived +too close to it for any surprise when it raised its head and found a +name. Her reasoning powers indeed asked with astonishment why she was +not surprised. She could not explain, the symptoms of the thing that had +haunted her had been too subtle, too elusive, too minute to be brought +forward now as witnesses. But while the lawyer looked at the open face +and the large eyes, and the frank bearing of the figure in the +photograph, and felt that outer man to have been the disguise of a +villain, Rose, the victim, knew better. It was a supreme proof of the +clear vision of her soul that she was not surprised, and that, even +while she seemed to be flayed morally and exposed to things evil and of +shame, she did not judge with blind indignation. He had not been wholly +bad, he had not been callous in his cruelty; what he had been there +would be time to understand—time for the delicacies, almost for the +luxuries of forgiveness. What she was feeling after now was a point of +view above passion and pain from which to judge this final opinion of +the lawyer's, from which to know whether Sir David had left another +will.</p> + +<p>"There has been another will," she said very gently, "but, of course, it +is more than likely that it will never be found. I am convinced"—she +looked at the black and green turf all the time, and obviously spoke to +herself, not to Mr. Murray—"that he did not intend to leave me to open +shame"—the words were gently but very distinctly pronounced—"or to +leave a scandal round his own memory. Perhaps he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> carried another will +about with him, and if so it may be sent to me. Somehow I don't think +this will happen. I think the will you have in your hand is the only one +I shall ever see, but I do not therefore judge him of having faced death +with the intention of spoiling my life. I shall live in this house and I +shall honour his memory; he died for his country, and I am his widow."</p> + +<p>That was all she could say on the subject then, and she could only just +ask Mr. Murray if he could see her again any time the next morning. +After answering that question the lawyer went silently away.</p> + +<p>Rose stood by the table where he had sat a moment before, looking long +and steadfastly at the photograph. She looked at the open face, she +looked at the military bearing, she looked at the Victoria Cross,—it +had been the amazing courage shown in that story that had really won +her,—she looked, too, at the many medals. She had been with him once in +a moment of peril in a fire and had seen the unconscious pride with +which he always answered to the call of danger. She had, too, seen him +bear acute pain as if that had been his talent, the thing he knew how to +do.</p> + +<p>"Ah, poor David!" she said softly. "What did she do to frighten you? +Poor, poor David, you were always a coward!"</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h3>IN THE EVENING</h3> + +<p>But this was a trial to search out every part of Rose's nature. She had +too much faith for sickness, death, or even terrible physical pain, to +be to her in any sense a poisoned wound. There are women like Rose whose +inner life can only be in peril from the pain and shame of the sin of +others. To them it is an intolerable agony to be troubled in their faith +in man.</p> + +<p>Lady Charlton, swept out of the calm belonging to years of gentle +actions and ideal thoughts into a storm of indignation and horror, might +have lost all dignity and discretion if she had not been checked by +reverence for the dumb anguish and misery of her favourite daughter. She +had some notion of the thoughts that must pass in Rose's mind, now dull +and heavy, now alert and inflicting sudden deep incisions into the +quivering soul. Marriage had been to them both very sacred. They hated, +beyond most good women, anything that seemed to materialise or lower the +ideal. If there can be imagined a scale of standards for the relations +of men and women, of which Zola had not touched the extremity at one +end, the first place at the other extremity might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> assigned to such +Englishwomen as Rose and her mother. The most subtle and amazingly high +motives had been assigned to Lord Charlton's most ordinary actions, and +happily he had been so ordinary a person that no impossible shock had +been given to the ideal built up about him. And it had not been +difficult or insincere to carry on something of the same illusion with +regard to the man who had won the Victoria Cross and had been very +popular with Tommy Atkins. David Bright's very reserves, the closed +doors in his domestic life, did not prevent, and indeed in some ways +helped, the process. The mother had known in the depth of her heart that +Rose was lonely, but then she was childless. Rose had never, even in +moments when the nameless mystery that was in her home oppressed her +most in its dull, voiceless way, tried to tell her mother what she did +not herself understand. Sir David had been courteous, gentle, attentive, +but never happy. Rose knew now that he had always been guiltily afraid.</p> + +<p>Lady Charlton had had a few moments' warning of disaster, for she was +horrified at the change in Rose's face when she met her at the door of +the church after Evensong. She herself had been utterly soothed and +rested by the beauty of the service. There was so much that fitted in +with all her ideals in mourning the great soldier. Little phrases about +him and about Rose flitted through her mind. Widows were widows indeed +to Lady Charlton. Rose would live now chiefly for Heaven and to soothe +the sorrows of earth. She did not say to herself that Rose would not be +broken-hearted and crushed, nor did she take long views. If years hence +Rose were to marry again her mother could make another picture in which +Sir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> David would recede into the background. Now he was her hero whom +Rose mourned, and whose loss had consecrated her more entirely to +Heaven; then he would unconsciously become in her mother's eyes a much +older man whom Rose had married almost as a child. There would be +nothing necessarily to mar the new picture if all else were fitting.</p> + +<p>But the peace of gentle sorrow had left Rose's face, and it wore a look +her mother had never seen on it before. The breath of evil was close +upon her; it had penetrated very near, so near that she seemed evil to +herself as it embraced her. She was too dazed, too confused to remember +that Divine purity had been enclosed in that embrace. What terrified her +most was the thought that had suddenly come that possibly the unknown +woman in Florence had been the real lawful wife, and that her own +marriage had been a sin, a vile pretence and horror. For the first time +in her life the grandest words of confidence that have expressed and +interpreted the clinging faith of humanity seemed an unreality. Rose had +never known the faintest temptation to doubt Providence before this +miserable evening. She resented with her whole being the idea that +possibly she had been the cause of the grossest wrong to an injured +wife. And there was ground in reason for such a fear, for it seemed +difficult to believe that any claim short of that of a wife could have +frightened Sir David into such a course. The other and more common view, +that it was because he had loved his mistress throughout, did not appeal +to her. Vice had for her few recognisable features; she had no map for +the country of passion, no precedents to refer to. It seemed to Rose +most probable that Sir David had believed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> his first wife to be dead +when he married her; that, on finding he was mistaken, his courage had +failed, and that he had carried on a gigantic scheme of bribery to +prevent her coming forward. This view was in one sense a degree less +painful, as it would make him innocent of the first great deception, the +huge lie of making love to her as if he were a free man. The depths and +extent of her misery could be measured by the strange sense of a bitter +gladness invading the very recesses of her maternal instinct, and +replacing what had been the heartfelt sorrow of six years. "It is a +mercy I have no child!" she cried, and the cry seemed to herself almost +blasphemous.</p> + +<p>When she came out of the church it was raining, and the wind blowing. It +was only a short walk to her own house, and she and her mother had made +a rule not to take out servants and the carriage for their devotions. +She would have walked on in total silence, but her mother could not bear +the suspense.</p> + +<p>"Rose, what is it?" she cried, in a tone of authority and intense +anxiety. After all it might be easier to answer now as they battled with +the rain.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to tell you, mother. Mr. Murray has been with me and +shown me the will. There was some one all the time who had some claim on +him. She may have been his real wife—I know nothing except that since +we have had John Steele's fortune David has always paid her an income +and now has left her a very great deal and me very little. That would +not matter—God knows it is not the poverty that hurts—but the thing +itself, the horror, the shame, the publicity. I mind it all, everything, +more than I ought. I——" She stopped, not a word more would come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lady Charlton could only make broken sounds of incredulous horror. When +they crossed the brilliantly lighted hall the mother suddenly seemed +much older, and Rose, for the first time, bore all the traces of a +great, an overpowering sorrow.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't natural to be so calm," thought the maid, who had been with +her since her girlhood, as she helped her to take off her cloak. "She +didn't understand at first. It's coming over her now, poor dear, and +indeed he was a real gentleman, and such a husband! Never a harsh +word—not one—that I ever heard, at least."</p> + +<p>It was some time before Lady Charlton could be brought to believe it +all, and then at first she was overwhelmed with self-blame. Her mind +fastened chiefly on the fact that she had allowed the marriage without +settlements. Then the next thought was the horror of the publicity, the +way in which this dreadful woman must be heard of and talked about. Lady +Charlton's broken sentences had almost the feebleness of extreme old age +that cannot accept as true what it cannot understand. "It seems +impossible, quite impossible," she said. She was very tired, and Rose +wished it had been practicable to keep this knowledge from her till +later. She knew that her mother was one of those highly-strung women +whose nerve power is at its best quite late at night. As it was, Lady +Charlton had to dress for dinner and sit as upright as usual through the +meal, and to talk a little before the servants. Rose appeared the more +dazed of the two then, though her mind had been quite clear before. +There was nothing said as soon as they were alone, but, as if with one +accord, both glanced at each of the many letters brought by the last +post,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> and, if it were one of condolence, laid it aside unread. The +butler had placed on a small table two evening papers, which had notices +of the memorial service for Sir David Bright, and one had some lines "In +Memoriam" from a poet of considerable repute. Rose, finding the papers +at her elbow, got up and changed her chair. It was not till they had +gone up to their rooms and parted that Lady Charlton felt speech to be +possible. She wrapped her purple dressing-gown round her and went into +Rose's room. She found her sitting in a low chair by the fire leaning +forward, her elbows pressed on her knees, her face buried in her hands. +Then, very quietly and impersonally, they discussed the situation. With +a rare self-command the mother never used one expression of reprobation; +if she had done so, Rose could not have spoken again. It seemed more and +more, as they spoke in the two gentle voices, so much alike in tone and +accent, in a half pathetic, half musical intonation; it seemed as they +sat so quietly without tears, almost without gestures, as if they +discussed the story of another woman and another man. There were some +differences in their views, and the mother's was ever the hardest on the +dead man. For instance, Rose believed through all that another will +existed, although she was convinced that she should never see it. Her +mother's judgment coincided with the lawyer's; the soldier would have +made the change, if it were made at all, before starting for the war. +No, the whole thing had been too recently gone into; it was so short a +time since the codicil had been added. Of that codicil, too, Lady +Charlton's view was quite clear. She thought the object of adding it had +been to save appearances. "As long as you live in this house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> furnished +as well as possible, people will forget the wording of the will, or they +will think that money was given to you in his lifetime to escape the +death duties."</p> + +<p>Like many idealists and even mystics, both mother and daughter took +sensible views on money matters. They did not undervalue the fortune +that had gone; they were both honestly sorry it had gone, and would have +taken any reasonable means to get it back again. Only Rose allowed that +possibly there might have been some claim in justice on the woman's +part; she could not frame her lips to use the words again. Without +"legal wife" or any such terms passing between them, they were really +arguing the point. Lady Charlton had not the faintest shadow of a doubt +"the woman was a wicked woman, and the wicked woman, as wicked women do, +had entrapped a" (the adjective was conspicuous by its absence) "a man." +Such a woman was to be forgiven, even—a bitter sigh could not be +suppressed—to be prayed for; but it was not necessary to try to take a +falsely charitable view of her, or invent unlikely circumstances in her +defence. It was a relief to the darkest of all dark thoughts in Rose's +mind, the doubt of the validity of her own marriage, to hear her mother +settling this question as she had settled so many questions years ago, +by the weight of personal authority.</p> + +<p>At last the clock on the stairs below told them that it was two in the +morning, and Lady Charlton had to leave London by an early train. She +was torn between the claim of her youngest married daughter, who was +laid up in a lonely country house in Scotland, and that of Rose in this +new and miserable trouble.</p> + +<p>"I could telegraph to Bertha that I can't come,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> she said suddenly. +"But I am afraid she would miss me."</p> + +<p>"No, no," murmured Rose firmly, "Bertha needs you most now; you must +go," and then, fearing her mother might think she did not want her +quite, quite enough, "I shall look forward to your coming back soon, +very soon."</p> + +<p>"Could you—could you come and sleep in my room, Rose?" They were +standing up by the fireplace now.</p> + +<p>"If you like mother, only it will be worse for me to-morrow night." They +both looked away from the fire round the room—the room that had been +hers since the first days after the honeymoon.</p> + +<p>Then at the same moment Lady Charlton opened her arms and Rose drew +within them, and leant her fair head on her mother's shoulder. So they +stood for a few moments in absolute stillness.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, my child," and Rose was left, as she wished, alone.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h3>"AS YOU HOPE TO BE FORGIVEN"</h3> + +<p>Two months passed, and at last the War Office received a parcel for Lady +Rose Bright. It had been sent to headquarters by the next officer in +command under Sir David, who had met his own fate a few weeks later. +Rose received the parcel at tea-time, brought to her by a mounted +messenger from the War Office.</p> + +<p>A great calm had settled in Rose's soul during these weeks. She had met +her trouble alone and standing. At first, all had been utter darkness +and bitter questioning. Then the questioning had ceased. Even the wish +to have things clear to her mind and to know why she should have this +particular trial was silenced, and in the completeness of submission she +had come back to life and to peace. Nothing was solved, nothing made +clear, but she was again in the daylight. But when she received the +little parcel in its thick envelope she trembled excessively. It was +addressed in a handwriting she had never seen before. She could not for +some moments force herself to open it. When she did she drew out a faded +photograph, a diamond ring, and a sheet of paper with writing in ink. +The photograph was of Sir David as quite a young man—she had never seen +it before; the ring had one very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> fine diamond, and that she had never +seen before. On the paper was written in his own hand.—</p> + +<p>"This will be brought to you if I die in battle. Forgive me, as you too +hope to be forgiven. Justice had to be done. I have tried to make it as +little painful as I could."</p> + +<p>That was all. There was nothing else in the envelope. She took up the +photograph, she took up the ring, and examined them in turn. It was so +strange, this very remarkable diamond, which she had never seen before, +sent to her as if it were a matter of course. He had never worn much +jewellery, and he had left in her care the few seals and rings he +possessed. Then the photograph of her husband as a young man, so much +younger than when she had known him. Why send it to her now? What had +she to do with this remote past? But the paper was the most astonishing +of all. She had been standing when she undid the things; she left the +ring and the photograph on the table, and she sank into a chair near the +fire holding the bit of paper. The tone of it astonished and confused +her. It was more the stern moralist asking to be forgiven for doing +right than the guilty husband asking for mercy in her thoughts of him.</p> + +<p>"Yes," thought Rose at length, "that is because she was his wife, and +when he came to face death it was the great wrong of infidelity to her +that haunted him. I must have seemed almost a partner in the wrong."</p> + +<p>Again the confused sense of guilt seized her, the horrible possibility +of having been a wife only in name. She did not weigh the matter calmly +enough to feel quite as distinctly as she ought to have done that she +could not be touched or denied in the faintest degree by a sin that was +not her sin. Still she raised her head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> as she could not have done some +weeks before; for the most acute phase of her trial had been faced and +had been passed. Now in her moments of most bitter pain in the very +depths of her soul was peace. As she became calmer she tried again to +connect together those three parts of the message from the battle-field, +the ring, the photograph, and the letter; but she could not do so. At +last she put them away in the drawer of her bureau, and then wrote to +tell her mother and the lawyer that Sir David had sent her a photograph, +a ring, and a few private lines—that was all. There was no will.</p> + +<p>Still everything had not been brought back. There had been portmanteaux +sent down to Capetown, and there might yet be discovered a small +despatch box, or a writing case, something or other that might hold a +will. But the limit of time was reached at last; the portmanteaux and a +despatch box were recovered, but they held no will.</p> + +<p>The solicitor delayed to the last possible moment, and then the will was +proved. It was published in the papers at a moment when a lull in the +war gave leisure for private gossip, and the gossip accordingly raged +hotly. All the sweetness, gentleness, and kindness that made Rose +deservedly popular did not prevent there being two currents of opinion. +There are wits so active that they cannot share the views of all +right-minded people. While the majority sympathised deeply with Rose, +there were a few who insinuated that she must be to some degree to blame +for what had happened.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you know, I never could understand why she married a man so +much older than herself. Of course she had not a penny and he was +awfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> rich, and people don't look too close into a man's character in +such cases. It is rather convenient for some women to be very innocent."</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund Grosse, to whom the remark was addressed at a small country +house party, turned his back for a moment on the speaker in order to +pick up a paper, and then said in a low, indifferent voice: "David +Bright came into his cousin's fortune unexpectedly a year after he +married Lady Rose."</p> + +<p>The subject was dropped that time, but he met it again in somewhat the +same terms in London. There seemed a sort of vague impression that Lady +Rose had married for the sake of the wealth she had lost. Also at his +club there was talk he did not like, not against Rose indeed, but +dwelling on the other side of the story, and he hated to hear Rose's +name connected with it. People forgot his relationship, and after all he +was only a second cousin.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse was at this time just over forty. He was a tall, loosely +built man, with rather a colourless face, with an expression negative in +repose, and faintly humorous when speaking. He was rich and supposed to +be lazy; he knew his world and had lived it in and for it +systematically. Some one had said that he took all the frivolous things +of life seriously and all the serious things frivolously. He could +advise on the choice of a hotel or a motor-car with intense earnestness, +and he had healed more than one matrimonial breach that threatened to +become tragic by appealing to the sense of humour in both parties. He +never took for granted that anybody was very good or very bad. The best +women possible liked him, and looked sorry and incredulous when they +were informed by his enemies that he had no morals. He had never told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +any one that he was sad and bored. Nor had he ever thought it worth +while to mention that he had indifferent health and knew what it was to +suffer pain. If such personal points were ever approached by his friends +they found that he did not dwell upon them. He had the air of not being +much interested in himself.</p> + +<p>For a long time he had felt no acute sensations of any kind; he had +believed them to belong to youth and that was past. But that matter of +David Bright's will had stirred him to the very depths. He spent +solitary hours in cursing the departed hero, and people found him +tiresome and taciturn in company.</p> + +<p>At last he determined to meddle in Rose's concerns, and he went to see +Mr. Murray, Junior, at his office. There ensued some pretty plain +speaking as to the late hero between the two men. Edmund Grosse half +drawled out far the worst comments of the two; he liked the lawyer and +let himself speak freely. And although the visit was apparently wholly +unproductive of other results, it was a decided relief to his feelings. +Then he heard that Rose had come back to London, and he went to see her. +It was about nine months since she had become a widow. She was alone in +the big beautifully furnished drawing-room, which was just as of old. +Except that a neat maid had opened the door, instead of a butler, he saw +no change.</p> + +<p>Rose looked a little nervous for a moment, and then frankly pleased to +see him. Edmund always had a talent for seeming to be as natural in any +house as if he were the husband or the brother or part of the furniture. +Somehow, as Rose gave him tea and they settled into a chat, she felt as +if he had been there very often lately, whereas in fact she had not seen +him since David died, except at the memorial service. He began<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> to tell +her what visits he had paid, whom he had seen, the little gossip he +expressed so well in his gentle, sleepy voice; and then he drew her on +as to her own interests, her charities, her work for the soldiers' +wives. He said nothing more that day, but he dropped in again soon, and +then again.</p> + +<p>At last one evening he observed quite quietly, in a pause in their talk: +"So you live here on £800 a year?"</p> + +<p>Rose did not feel annoyed, though she did not know why she was not +angry.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can manage," she said simply.</p> + +<p>"You can't tell yet; it's too soon." He got up out of his low chair near +the fireplace, now filled with plants, and stood with his back against +the chimney. "You know it's absurd," he said. Rose moved uneasily and +was silent.</p> + +<p>"It's absurd," he repeated, "there's another will somewhere. David would +never have done that." He struck that note at the start, and cursed +David all the deeper in the depths of his diplomatic soul. Rose looked +at him gratefully, kindly.</p> + +<p>"I think there is another will somewhere," she said, "but I am sure it +will never be found. It's no use to think or talk of it, Edmund."</p> + +<p>He fidgeted for a moment with the china on the chimney-piece.</p> + +<p>"For 'auld lang syne,' Rose," he said in a very low voice, "and because +you might possibly, just possibly, have made something of me if you had +chosen, let me know a little more about it. I want to see what was in +his last letter."</p> + +<p>Rose flushed deeply. It was difficult to say why she yielded except that +most people did yield to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> Grosse if he got them alone. She drew off the +third finger of her left hand a very remarkable diamond ring and gave it +to him. Then she took out of a drawer a faded photograph of a young, +commonplace, open-faced officer, now framed in an exquisite stamped +leather case, and handed that to him also. He saw that she hesitated.</p> + +<p>"May I have the rest," he said very gently. Even her mother had never +seen the piece of paper. No, she could not show that. Edmund did not +insist further, and a moment later he seemed to have forgotten that she +had not given him what he asked for.</p> + +<p>"Did he often wear this ring?"</p> + +<p>"Never. I never saw it till now, and I had never seen the photograph."</p> + +<p>"It was taken in India," he commented, "and the ring has a date twenty +years ago."</p> + +<p>"I never noticed that," said Rose. She was feeling half consciously +soothed and relieved as a child might feel comforted who had found a +companion in a room that was haunted.</p> + +<p>"Things from such a remote past," he murmured abstractedly. "Did he +explain in writing why he sent those things?"</p> + +<p>"No, he said nothing about them, he only——" she paused. Edmund did not +move, and in a few moments she gave him the paper. He ground his teeth +as he read it, he grew white about the lips, but he said nothing. He was +horribly disappointed—the scoundrel asked for forgiveness. Then he had +not made another will. Edmund did not look round at Rose, but she was +acutely present to his consciousness—the woman's beauty, the child's +innocence, the suffering and the strength in her face. "As you would be +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>given!" That was a further insult, it seemed to him. To talk of Rose +wanting forgiveness. Then a strange kind of sarcasm took hold of him. So +it was; she had not been able to believe in himself; he, Edmund, had not +been ideal in any sense. Therefore she had passed him by, and then a +hero had come whom she had worshipped, and this was the end of it. Every +word in the paper burnt into him. "Justice"—how dared he? "Made it as +little painful as he could"—it was insufferable, and the coward was +beyond reach, had taken refuge whither human vengeance could not follow +him.</p> + +<p>He succeeded in leaving Rose's house without betraying his feelings, but +he felt that no good had come of this attempt, so far at any rate. That +night he slept badly, which he did pretty often, but he experienced an +unusual sensation on waking. He felt as if he had been working hard and +in vain all night at a problem, and he suddenly said to himself, "The +ring, the photograph, and the paper were of course meant for the other +woman, and she has got whatever was meant for Rose. Now if the thing +that was meant for Rose was the will, Madame Danterre has got it now +unless she has had the nerve to destroy it." He felt as if he had been +an ass till this moment. Then he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, who +listened with profound attention until he had finished what he had to +tell him.</p> + +<p>"Lady Rose has allowed you to see the paper, then?" he said at last. +"She has not even shown it to Lady Charlton. He asked her pardon," he +mused, half to himself, "and said justice must be done. I am afraid, Sir +Edmund, that that points in the same direction as our worst fears—that +Madame Danterre was his wife."</p> + +<p>"But he would not have written such a letter as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> that to Rose; it is +impossible. 'Forgive as you too hope to be forgiven.' That sentence in +connection with Lady Rose is positively grotesque, whereas it would be +most fitting when addressed elsewhere."</p> + +<p>Mr. Murray could not see the case in the same light as Edmund. He +allowed the possibility of the scrap of paper and the ring having been +sent to Rose by mistake, but he was not inclined to indulge in what +seemed to him to be guesswork as to what conceivably had been intended +to be sent to her in place of them.</p> + +<p>"There is, too," he argued, "a quite possible interpretation of the +words of that scrap of paper. It is possible that he was full of remorse +for his treatment of Madame Danterre. Sometimes a man is haunted by +wrong-doing in the past until it prevents his understanding the point of +view of anybody but the victim of the old haunting sin. Remorse is very +exclusive, Sir Edmund. In such a state of mind he would hardly think of +Lady Rose enough to realise the bearing of his words. 'Forgive as you +too hope to be forgiven' would be an appeal wrung out from him by sheer +suffering. It is a possible cry from any human being to another. Then as +to the ring and the photograph, we have no proof that he put them in the +envelope. They may have been found on him and put into the envelope by +the same hand that addressed it. I quite grant you that those few words +are extraordinary, but they can be explained. But even if it were +obvious that they were intended for somebody else, you cannot deduce +from that, that another letter, intended for Lady Rose and containing a +will, was sent elsewhere."</p> + +<p>But Sir Edmund was obstinate. The piece of paper had been intended for +Madame Danterre, together with the ring and the photograph—things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +belonging to Sir David's early life, to the days when he most probably +loved this other woman; he even went so far as to maintain that the lady +in Florence had given Sir David the ring.</p> + +<p>"After all," said Mr. Murray, "what can you do? You could only raise +hopes that won't be fulfilled."</p> + +<p>"I think myself that my explanation would calm my cousin's mind; the +possibility that she was not Sir David's wife is, I am convinced, the +most painful part of the trial to her. I shall write it to her, but I +shall also tell her that there is no hope whatever of proving what I +believe to be the truth."</p> + +<p>"None at all; do impress that upon her, Sir Edmund. We have nothing to +begin upon. The officer who sent the paper to headquarters is dead; Sir +David's own servant is dead; Sir David's will in favour of Madame +Danterre has been published without even a protest."</p> + +<p>"Lady Rose will not be inclined to raise the question."</p> + +<p>"No, I believe that is true," said the lawyer; "Lady Rose Bright is a +wise woman."</p> + +<p>But Mr. Murray was annoyed to find that Edmund Grosse was far less wise, +and that whatever he might promise to say to Rose he would not really be +content to leave things alone. He intended to go to Florence and to get +into touch with Madame Danterre. Such interference could do no good, and +it might do harm.</p> + +<p>"I won't alarm her," said Edmund, "believe me, she will have no reason +to suppose that I am in Florence on her account. I am, in any case, +going to the Italian lakes this autumn, and I have often been offered +the loan of a flat overlooking the Arno. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> the offer is still open I +shall accept it. I have long wished to know that fascinating town a +little better."</p> + +<p>When Rose received the letter from Edmund it had the effect he had +expected. It was simply calming, not exciting. Rose was even more +anxious than the lawyer that nothing should be attempted in order to +follow up her cousin's suggestion. But she could now let her imagination +be comforted by Edmund's solution of the mystery, and let her fancy rest +in the thought of a very different letter intended for herself. The +words on that scrap of paper no longer burnt with such agony into her +soul, and she no longer felt it a dreadful duty to wear the ring with +its glorious stone so full of light, an object that was to her intensely +repugnant. She would put it away, and with it all dark and morbid +thoughts. She had a life to lead, thoughts to think, actions to do, and +all that was in her own control must escape from the shadow of the past +into a working daylight.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h3>THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE</h3> + +<p>Edmund Grosse's friend was delighted to put the flat in the Palazzo at +his disposal. The weather was unusually warm for the autumn when Edmund +arrived in Florence. He was glad to get there, and glad to get away from +the gay group he had left in a beautiful villa on Lake Como; and +probably they were glad to see him go.</p> + +<p>Edmund had indeed only stayed with them long enough to leave a very +marked impression of low spirits and irritation. "What's come to +Grosse?" was asked by more than one guest of the hostess.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but he really is impossible. It's partly because of +Billy—but I won't condescend to explain that Billy proposed himself and +I could not well refuse."</p> + +<p>Billy is the only one of this gay, quarrelsome little group that need be +named here. It was really partly on his account that Edmund so quickly +left them to their gossip alternating with happy phrases of joy in the +beauty of mountains and lakes, and to their quarrels alternating with +moments of love-making, so avowedly brief that only an artist could +believe in its exquisite enjoyment. Neither Edmund nor Billy were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +really <i>habitués</i> of this Bohemian circle. They both belonged to a more +conventional social atmosphere; they were at once above and below the +rest of the party. The cause of antipathy to Billy on Sir Edmund's part +was a certain likeness in their lives—contrasting with a most marked +dissimilarity of character.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund could not say that Billy was a fool or a snob, because Billy +did nothing but lead a perfectly useless life as expensively as +possible; and he did the same himself. He could not even say that Billy +lived among fools and snobs, because many of Billy's friends were his +own friends too. He could not say that Billy had been a coward because +he had not volunteered to fight in the Boer war, because Sir Edmund had +not volunteered himself. He could not say that Billy employed the wrong +tailor; it would show only gross ignorance or temper to say so. But just +the things in which he felt himself superior, utterly different in fact +from Billy, were the stupid, priggish things that no one boasts of. He +read a good deal; he thought a good deal; he knew he might have had a +future, and the bitterness of his heart lay in the fact that at fifteen +years later in life than Billy he was still so completely a slave to all +that Billy loved. Every detail of their lives seemed to add to the +irritation. It was only the day he left London that he had discovered +that Billy's new motor was from the same maker as his own; in fact, +except in colour, the motors were twins. This was the latest, and not +even the least, cause of annoyance. For it betrayed what he was always +trying to conceal from himself, that there appeared to be an actual +rivalry between him and Billy, a petty, social, silly rivalry. Billy, of +simpler make, a fresher, younger, more contented animal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> thought little +of all this, and was irritated by Sir Edmund's assumption of +superiority.</p> + +<p>But he had never found Grosse so bearish and difficult before this visit +to Como. As a rule Edmund was suavity itself, but this time even his +gift of gently, almost imperceptibly, making every woman feel him to be +her admirer was failing. How often he had been the life of any party in +any class of society, and that not by starting amusements, not by any +power of initiation, but by a gift for making others feel pleased, first +with themselves, and consequently with life. He could bring the gift to +good use on a royal yacht, at a Bohemian supper party, at a schoolroom +tea, or at a parish mothers' meeting. But now—and he owned that his +liver was out of order—he was suffering from a general disgust with +things. When still a young man in the Foreign Office he had succeeded to +a large fortune, and it had seemed then thoroughly worth while to employ +it for social ends and social joys. Long ago he had attained those ends, +and long ago he had become bored with those joys; and yet he could not +shake himself free from any of the habits of body or mind he had got +into during those years. He could not be indifferent to any shades of +failure or success. He watched the temperature of his popularity as +acutely as many men watch their bodily symptoms. Even during those days +at Como, though despising his company, he knew that he felt a distinct +irritation in a preference for Billy on the part of a lady whom he had +at one time honoured with his notice. In arriving where he was in the +English social world, he had increased, not only the need for luxury of +body, but the sensitiveness and acuteness of certain perceptions as to +his fellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> creatures, and these perceptions were not likely to slumber +again.</p> + +<p>Edmund was oppressed by several unpleasant thoughts as well as by the +heat of the night on which he arrived in Florence. He decided to sleep +out in the wide brick <i>loggia</i> of the flat, which was nearly at the top +of the great building. There was nothing to distract his gloomy thoughts +from himself, not even a defect in the dinner or in the broad couch of a +bed from which he could look up between the brick pillars of the +<i>loggia</i> at the naked stars. If he had been younger he would, in his +sleepless hours, have owned to himself that he was suffering from "what +men call love," but he could not believe easily that Edmund Grosse at +forty was as silly as any boy of twenty. He pished and pshawed at the +absurdity. He could not accept anything so simple and goody as his own +story. That ever since Rose married he had put her out of his thought +from very love and reverence for her seemed an absurd thing to say of a +man of his record. Yet it was true; and all the more in consequence did +the thought of Rose as a free woman derange his whole inner life now, +while the thought of Rose insulted by the dead hand of the man she had +married was gall and wormwood. What must Rose think of men? She had been +so anxious to find a great and good man; and she had found David Bright, +whose mistress was now enjoying his great wealth somewhere below in the +old Tuscan capital. And how could Edmund venture to be the next man +offered to her?—Edmund who had done nothing all these years, who had +sunk with the opportunity of wealth; whose talents had been lost or +misused. He seemed to see Rose kneeling at her prayers—the golden head +bowed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the girlish figure bent. He could think of nothing in himself to +distract her back to earth, poor beautiful child! Yet he had not nursed +or petted or even welcomed the old passion of his boyhood. He wanted to +be without it and its discomforting reproaches. It was too late to +change anything or anybody. At forty how could he have a career, and +what good would come of it? Yet his love for Rose was insistent on the +necessity of making Rose's lover into a different man from the present +Edmund Grosse. It was absurd and medieval to suppose that if he did some +great or even moderately great work he could win her by doing it. It +might be absurd, yet contrariwise he felt convinced that she would never +take him as he was now.</p> + +<p>So he wearied as he turned on the couch that became less and less +comfortable, till he rose and, with a rug thrown over him, leant on the +brick balustrade of the <i>loggia</i>. He stood looking at the stars in the +dimness, not wholly unlike the figure of some old Roman noble in his +toga, nor perhaps wholly unlike the figure of the unconverted Augustine, +weary of himself and of all things.</p> + +<p>But this remark only shows how the stars and the deep blue openings into +the heavens, and the manifold suggestions of the towers of Dante's city, +and the neighbourhood of Savonarola's cell, affect the imagination and +call up comparisons by far too mighty. Edmund Grosse's weariness of evil +is nothing but a sickly shadow of the weariness of the great imprisoned +soul to whom an angel cried to take up and read aright the book of life. +Grosse is in fact only a middle-aged man in pajamas with a travelling +rug about his shoulders, with a sallow face, a sickly body, and a rather +shallow soul. He will not go quite straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> even in his love quest, and +he cannot bring himself to believe how strongly that love has hold of +him. He is cynical about the best part of himself and to-night only +wishes that it would trouble him less.</p> + +<p>"Damn it," he muttered at last, "I wish I had slept indoors—I am bored +to death by those stars!"</p> + +<p>Next day Grosse set about the work for which he had come to Florence. He +called on two men whom he knew slightly, and found them at home, but +neither of them had ever heard of Madame Danterre. Dawkins, his +much-travelled servant, of course, was more successful, and by the +evening was able to take Edmund in a carriage to see some fine old iron +gates, and to drive round some enormous brick walls—enormous in height +and in thickness.</p> + +<p>The Villa was in a magnificent position, and the gardens, Dawkins told +his master, were said to be beautiful. Madame Danterre had only just +moved into it from a much smaller house in the same quarter.</p> + +<p>Edmund next drove to the nearest chemist, and there found out that Dr. +Larrone was the name of Madame Danterre's medical man. He already knew +the name of her lawyer from Mr. Murray, who had been in perfunctory +communication with him during the years in which Sir David had paid a +large allowance to Madame Danterre. But he knew that any direct attempt +to see these men would probably be worse than useless. What he wished to +do was to come across Madame Danterre socially, and with all the +appearance of an accidental meeting. His two friends in Florence did +their best for him, but they were before long driven to recommend +Pietrino, a well-known detective, as the only person who could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> find out +for Grosse in what houses it might be possible to meet Madame Danterre.</p> + +<p>Grosse soon recognised the remarkable gifts of the Italian detective, +and confided to him the whole case in all its apparent hopelessness. +There was, indeed, a touch of kindred feeling between them, for both men +had a certain pleasure in dealing with human beings—humanity was the +material they loved to work upon. The detective was too wise to let his +zeal for the wealthy Englishman outrun discretion. He did very little in +the case, and brought back a distinct opinion that Grosse could, at +present, do nothing but mischief by interference. Madame Danterre had +always lived a very retired life, and was either a real invalid or a +valetudinarian. Her great, her enormous accession of wealth had only +been used apparently in the sacred cause of bodily health. She saw at +most six people, including two doctors and her lawyer; and on rare +occasions, some elderly man visiting Florence—a Frenchman maybe, or an +Englishman—would seek her out. She never paid any visits, although she +kept a splendid stable and took long drives almost daily. The detective +was depressed, for he had really been fired by Grosse's view as to the +will, and he had come to so favourable an opinion of Grosse's ability +that he had wished greatly for an interview between the latter and +Madame Danterre to come off.</p> + +<p>Edmund was loth to leave Florence until one evening when he despaired, +for the first time, of doing any good. It was the evening on which he +succeeded in seeing Madame Danterre without the knowledge of that lady. +The garden of the villa into which he so much wished to penetrate was +walled about with those amazing masses of brickwork which point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> to a +date when labour was cheap indeed. Edmund had more than once dawdled +under the deep shadow of these shapeless masses of wall at the hour of +the general siesta.</p> + +<p>He felt more alert while most of the world was asleep, and he could +study the defences of Madame Danterre undisturbed. A lost joy of boyhood +was in his heart when he discovered a corner where the brickwork was +partly crumbled away, and partly, evidently, broken by use. It looked as +if a tiny loophole in the wall some fifteen feet from the ground had +been used as an entrance to the forbidden garden by some small human +body. That evening, an hour before sunset, he came back and looked +longingly at the wall. The narrow road was as empty as it had been +earlier in the day. Twice he tried in vain to climb as far as the +loophole, but the third time, with trousers ruined and one hand +bleeding, he succeeded in crawling on to the ledge below the opening so +that he could look inside. He almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of +his own pleasure in doing so. Some rich, heavy scent met him as he +looked down, but, fresh from the gardens of Como, this garden looked to +him both heavy and desolate—heavy in its great hedges broken by +statuary in alcoves cut in the green, and desolate in its burnt turf and +its trailing rose trees loaded with dead roses. His first glance had +been downwards, then his look went further afield, and he knew why +Madame Danterre had chosen the villa, for the view of Florence was +superb. He had not enjoyed it for half a moment when he heard a slight +noise in the garden. Yes, down the alley opposite to him there were +approaching a lady and two men servants. He held his breath with +surprise. Was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> this Madame Danterre? the rival of Rose, the real love of +David Bright? What he saw was an incredibly wizened old woman who yet +held herself with considerable grace and walked with quick, long steps +on the burnt grass a little ahead of the attendants, one of whom carried +a deck chair, while the other was laden with cushions and books. It was +evident to the onlooker at the installation of Madame Danterre in the +shady, open space where three alleys met, that everything to do with her +person was carried out with the care and reverence befitting a religious +ceremony; and there was almost a ludicrous degree of pride in her +bearing and gestures. Edmund felt how amazingly some women have the +power of making others accept them as a higher product of creation, +until their most minute bodily wants seem to themselves and those about +them to have a sacred importance. At last, when chair and mat and +cushions and books had been carefully adjusted after much consideration, +she was left alone.</p> + +<p>For a few moments she read a paper-covered volume, and Edmund determined +to creep away at once, when she suddenly got up and began walking again +with long, quick steps, her train sweeping the grass as she came towards +the great wall; and he drew back a little, although it was almost +impossible that she should see him. Her gown, of a dark dove colour, +floated softly; it had much lace about the throat on which shone a +string of enormous pearls; and she wore long, grey gloves. Edmund, who +was an authority on the subject, thought her exquisitely dressed, as a +woman who feels herself of great importance will dress even when there +is no one to see her. In the midst of the extraordinarily wizened face +were great dark eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> full of expression, with a fierce brightness in +them. It was as if an internal fire were burning up the dried and +wizened features, and could only find an outlet through the eyes. +Rapidly she had passed up and down, and sometimes as she came nearer the +wall Edmund saw her flash angry glances, and sometimes sarcastic +glances, while her lips moved rapidly, and her very small gloved hand +clenched and unclenched.</p> + +<p>At last a noise in the deserted road behind him, the growing rumbling of +a cart, made him think it safer to move, even at the risk of a little +sound in doing so. He reached the ground safely before he could be seen, +and proceeded to brush the brick-dust off the torn knees of his grey +trousers.</p> + +<p>He walked down the hill into the town with an air of finality, for he +had determined to go back to England. He could not have analysed his +impressions; he could not have accounted for his sense of impotence and +defeat, but so it was. He had come across the personality of Madame +Danterre, and he thereupon left her in possession of the field. But at +the same time, before leaving Florence, he gave largely of the sinews of +war to that able spy, the Italian detective, Pietrino.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h3>"YOUR MOTHER'S DAUGHTER"</h3> + +<p>The surprising disposal of Sir David Bright's fortune was to have very +important consequences in a quiet household among the Malcot hills, of +the existence of which Sir Edmund Grosse and Lady Rose Bright were +entirely unaware.</p> + +<p>In a small wind-swept wood that appeared to be seeking shelter in the +hollow under the great massive curve of a green hill, there stood one of +those English country houses that must have been planned, built, and +finished with the sole object of obtaining coolness and shade. The +principal living rooms looked north, and the staircase and a minute +study were the only spots that ever received any direct rays of the sun. +All the rooms except this favoured little study had windows opening to +the ground, and immediately outside grew the rich mossy turf that +indicates a clay soil. The mistress of the house was not easily daunted +by her surroundings, and she had impressed her cheerful, comfortable, +and fairly cultured mind on all the rooms. Mrs. Carteret was the widow +of a Colonel Carteret, who had retired from the army to farm his own +acres, and take his place in local politics. It is needless to say that, +while the politics had gained from the help of an upright and +chivalrous, if narrow, mind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> the acres had profited little from his +attentions. When he died he left all he possessed absolutely to his +widow, who was not prepared to find how very little that all had become. +Mrs. Carteret took up the burden of the acres, dairy, gardens, and +stable, with a sense of sanctified duty none the less heroic in +sensation because she was doing all these things for her own profit. Her +neighbours held her in proportionate respect; and, as she had a fine +person, pleasant manners, and good connections, she kept, without the +aid of wealth, a comfortable corner in the society of the county.</p> + +<p>It was not long after Colonel Carteret's death, and some thirteen years +before the death of Sir David Bright, that the immediate neighbourhood +became gradually conscious of the fact that Mrs. Carteret had adopted a +little niece, the child of a soldier brother who had died in India. This +child, from the first, made as little effect on her surroundings as it +was possible for a child to do. Molly Dexter was small, thin, and +sallow; her dark hair did not curl; and her grey eyes had a curious look +that is not common, yet not very rare, in childhood. It is the look of +one who waits for other circumstances and other people than those now +present. I know nothing so discouraging in a child friend—or rather in +a child acquaintance, for friendship is warned off by such eyes—as this +particular look. Mrs. Carteret took her niece cheerfully in hand, +commended the quiet of her ways, and gave credit to herself and open +windows for a perceptible increase in the covering of flesh on the +little bones, and a certain promise of firmness in the calves of the +small legs. As to the rest: "Of course it was difficult at first," she +said, "but now Molly is perfectly at home with me. Nurses never do +understand chil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>dren, and Mary used to excite her until she had fits of +passion. But that is all past. She is quite a healthy and normal child +now."</p> + +<p>Molly was growing healthy, but whether she was normal or not is another +point. It does not tend to make a child normal to change everything in +life at the age of seven. Not one person, hardly one thing was the same +to Molly since her father's death. The language of her <i>ayah</i> had until +then been more familiar to her than any other language. The ayah's +thoughts had been her thoughts. The East had had in charge the first +years of Molly's dawning intelligence, and there seemed impressed, even +on her tiny figure, something that told of patience, scorn, and reserve. +And yet Mrs. Carteret was quite satisfied.</p> + +<p>Once, indeed, the widow was puzzled. Molly had strayed away by herself, +and could not be found for nearly two hours. Provided with two figs and +several bits of biscuit, a half-crown and a shilling, she had started to +walk through the deep, heavy lanes between the great hills, with the +firm intention of taking ship to France. Mrs. Carteret treated the +escapade kindly and firmly; not making too much of it, but giving such +sufficient punishment as to prevent anything so silly happening again. +But she had no suspicion of what really had happened. Molly had, in +fact, started with the intention of finding her mother. It was two years +since she had come to live with Mrs. Carteret, and, if the child had +spoken her secret thought, she would have told you that throughout those +two years she had been meaning to run away and find her mother. In that +she would have fallen into an exaggeration not uncommon with some +grown-up people. It had been only at moments far apart, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> occasionally +for quite a succession of nights in bed, that she had spent a brief +space before falling asleep in dreaming of going to seek her mother. But +whole months had passed without any such thought; and during these long +interludes the healthy country scenes about her, and the common causes +for smiles and tears in a child's life, filled her consciousness. Still, +the undercurrent of the deeper life was there, and very small incidents +were strong enough to bring it to the surface. Molly had short daily +lessons from the clergyman's daughter, a young lady who also took a +cheerful, airy view of the child, and said she would grow out of her +little faults in time. In one of these lessons Molly learnt with +surprising eagerness how to find France for herself on the map. That +France was much nearer to England than to India, and how it was usual to +cross the Channel were facts easily acquired. Molly was amazingly +backward in her lessons, or she must have learnt these things before. +When lessons were over and she went out into the garden, instead of +running as usual she walked so slowly that Mrs. Carteret, while talking +to the gardener, actually wondered what was in that child's mind. Molly +was living through again the parting with the ayah. She could feel the +intensely familiar touch of the soft, dark hand; she could see the +adoring love of the dark eyes with their passionate anger at the +separation. The woman had to be revenged on her enemies who were tearing +the child from her. "They deceive you," she said. "The beautiful mother +is not dead; she lives in France, not England; they will try to keep you +from her, but the faithful child will find a way."</p> + +<p>Molly unconsciously in her own mind had already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> begun to put these +words into English, whereas a year before she would have kept to the +ayah's own language. But in either language those words came to her as +the last message from that other life of warmth and love and colour in +which she had once been a queen. Indeed, every English child brought +home from India is a sovereign dethroned. And the repetition of the +ayah's last words gave utterance to a sense of wrong that Molly +nourished against her present rulers and against the world in which she +was not understood.</p> + +<p>That same day Mrs. Carteret spoke sharply and with indignation because +Molly had trodden purely by accident on the pug; and her aunt said that +the one thing with which she had no patience was cruelty to +animals—whereas the child was passionately fond of animals. Again, on +that same day, Molly fell into a very particularly dirty little pond +near the cowshed at the farm. Mary, the nurse, no doubt was the +sufferer, and she said that she did not suppose that black nurses minded +being covered with muck—how should they?—and she supposed she must be +treated as if she were a negro herself, but time would show whether she +were a black slave or an Englishwoman with a house of her own which she +could have now if she liked for the asking. While Mary spoke she pushed +and pulled, and, in general treated Molly's small person as something +unpleasant, and to be kept at a distance. Once clean and dressed again, +Molly sat down quite quietly to consider the ways and means of getting +to France, with the result already told.</p> + +<p>Several years passed after that, in which Mrs. Carteret did by Molly, as +by every one else, all the duties that were quite obviously evident to +her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> and did not go about seeking for any fanciful ones. And Molly grew +up, sometimes happy, and sometimes not, saying sometimes the things she +really meant when she was in a temper, and acquiescing in Mrs. +Carteret's explanation that she had not meant them when she had regained +her self-control.</p> + +<p>Until Molly was between fifteen and sixteen, Mrs. Carteret was able to +keep to her optimism as to their mutual relations.</p> + +<p>"The child is, of course, very backward. I tried to think it was want of +education, but I've come to see it's of no use to expect to make Molly +an interesting or agreeable woman; and very plain, of course, she must +be. But, you know, plenty of plain, uninteresting women have very fairly +happy lives, and under the circumstances"—but there Mrs. Carteret +stopped, and her guest, the wife of the vicar, knew no more of the +circumstances than did the world at large.</p> + +<p>But when Molly was about the age of fifteen she began to display more +troublesome qualities, and a certain faculty for doing quite the wrong +thing under a perverse appearance of attempting good works. There is +nothing annoys a woman of Mrs. Carteret's stamp so much as good done in +the wrong way. She had known for so many years exactly how to do good to +the labourer, his family, and his widow, or to the vagrant passing by. +It was really very tiresome to find that Molly, while walking in one of +the lanes, had slipped off a new flannel petticoat in order to wrap up a +gypsy's baby. And it might be allowed to be trying that when believing +an old man of rather doubtful antecedents to be dying from exhaustion, +Molly had herself sought whisky from the nearest inn. She had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> bought a +whole bottle of whisky, though indeed, being seized with qualms, she had +poured half the contents of the bottle into a ditch before going back to +the cottage. And it was undoubtedly Mrs. Carteret's duty to protest when +she found that Molly had held a baby with diphtheria folded closely in +her arms while the mother fetched the doctor.</p> + +<p>Can any one blame Mrs. Carteret for finding these doings a little +trying? And it showed how freakish and contradictory Molly was in all +her ways that she would never join nicely in school feasts, or harvest +homes, or anything pleasant or cheerful. Nor did she make friends even +with those she had worried over in times of sickness. She would risk +some serious infection, or meddle, with her odd notions, day after day +in a cottage; and then she would hardly nod to the convalescent boy or +girl when she met them again in the lanes.</p> + +<p>There was no one to tell her aunt what new, strange instincts and +aspirations were struggling to the light in Molly. A passionate pity for +pain would seize on her and hold her in a grip until she had done some +definite act to relieve it. But pity was either not akin to love in +Molly, or her affections had been too starved to take root after the +immediate impulse of mercy was passed. The girl was not popular in the +village, although, unlike Mrs. Carteret, her poorer neighbours had a +great idea of Molly's cleverness. Needless to say that when, after some +unmeasured effort at relieving suffering, Molly would come home with a +sense of joy she rarely knew after any other act, it hurt her to the +quick and roused her deepest anger to find herself treated like a +naughty, inconsiderate child. The storms between Mrs. Carteret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> and +Molly were increasing in number and intensity, with outspoken wrath on +one side, and a white heat of dumb, indignant resistance on the other. +Then, happily, there came a change. Molly's education had been of the +very slightest until she was nearly sixteen, when Mrs. Carteret told her +to expect the arrival of a finishing governess. She also announced that +a music master from the cathedral town would, in future, come over twice +a week to give her lessons.</p> + +<p>"It's not my doing," said Mrs. Carteret,—and meaning only to be candid +she sounded very ungracious; and although she did not pay for these +things, it was due to her urgent representations of their need that they +had been provided. Molly supposed that all such financial arrangements +were made for her by her father's lawyer, of whom she had heard Mrs. +Carteret speak.</p> + +<p>Throughout these years it had never occurred to Mrs. Carteret to doubt +that Molly believed her mother to be dead, and she never for a moment +supposed the child's silence on the subject to be ominous. Such silence +did not show any special power of reserve; many children brought up like +Molly will carefully conceal knowledge which they believe that those in +authority over them suppose them not to possess. Perhaps in Molly's case +there was an instinctive shrinking from exposing an ideal to scorn. +Perhaps there was a wholly unconscious want of faith in the ideal +itself, an ideal which had been built up upon one phrase. Yet the notion +of the beautiful, exiled mother, so cruelly concealed from her child, +was very precious, however insecurely founded. It must be concealed from +other eyes by mists of incense, and honoured in the silence of the +sanctuary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>The new governess, Miss Carew, was a very fair teacher, and she soon +recognised the quality of her pupil's mind. Mrs. Carteret was possibly a +little disappointed on finding that Miss Carew considered Molly to be +very clever, as well as very ignorant. The widow was herself accustomed +to feel superior to her own circle in literary attainments,—a sensation +which she justified by an occasional reading of French memoirs and by +always getting through at least two articles in each <i>Nineteenth +Century</i>. It was a detail that she had never cared for poetry; Sir James +Stephen, she knew, had also never cared to have ideas expressed in +verse. But she felt a little dull when Miss Carew and Molly discussed +Browning and Tennyson and De Musset. Miss Carew fired Molly with new +thoughts and new ambitions in matters intellectual, but also in more +mundane affairs. If it is possible to be in the world and not of it we +have all of us also known people who are of the world though not in it; +and Miss Carew was undoubtedly one of the latter. Her tongue babbled of +beauties and courts, of manners, of wealth, and of chiffons, with the +free idealism of an amateur, and this without intending to do more than +enliven the dull daily walks through Malcot lanes.</p> + +<p>Two years of this companionship rapidly developed Molly. She did not now +merely condemn her aunt and her friends from pure ignorant dislike; she +knew from other testimony that they were rather stupid, ignorant, +badly-dressed, and provincial. But the chief change in her state of mind +lay in her hopes for her own future. Miss Carew had pointed out that, if +such a very large salary could be given for the governess, there must +surely be plenty of money for Molly's disposal later on. Why should not +Molly have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> a splendid and delightful life before her? And then poor +Miss Carew would suppress a sigh at her own prospects in which the pupil +never showed the least interest. It was before Miss Carew's second year +of teaching had come to an end, and while Molly was rapidly enlarging +her mental horizon, that the girl came to a very serious crisis in her +life.</p> + +<p>Occupied with her first joy in knowledge, and with dreams of future +delights in the great world, she had not broken out into any very +freakish act of benevolence for a long time. One night, when Mrs. +Carteret and Miss Carew met at dinner time, they continued to wait in +vain for Molly. The servants hunted for her, Mrs. Carteret called up the +front stairs, and Miss Carew went as far as the little carpenter's shop +opening from the greenhouse to find her. It was a dark night, and there +was nothing that could have taken her out of doors, but that she was out +could not be doubted. The gardener and coachman were sent for, and +before ten o'clock the policeman in the village joined in the search, +and yet nothing was heard of Molly. Mrs. Carteret became really +frightened, and Miss Carew was surprised to see her betray so much +feeling as almost to lose her self-control. She kept walking up and +down, while odd spasmodic little sentences escaped from her every few +minutes.</p> + +<p>"How could I answer for it to John if his girl came to any harm?" she +repeated several times.</p> + +<p>She kept moving from room to room with a really scared expression. Once +the governess overheard her exclaim with an intensely bitter accent, +"Even her wretched mother would have taken more care of her!"</p> + +<p>At that moment the door opened; Molly came quietly in, looking at them +both with bright, defiant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> eyes. From her hat to the edge of her skirt +she appeared to be one mass of light, brown mud; her right cheek was +bleeding from a scratch, and the sleeve of her coat was torn open.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been to?" demanded Mrs. Carteret, in a voice that +trembled from the reaction of fear to anger.</p> + +<p>"I went for a walk, and I found a man lying half in the water in +Brown-rushes pond; he had evidently fallen in drunk. I got him out after +nearly falling in myself, and then I had to get some one to look after +him. They took him in at Brown-rushes farm, and I found out who he was +and went to tell his wife, who is ill, that he was quite safe. I stayed +a little while with her, and then I came home. I have walked about +twenty miles, and, as you can see, I have had several tumbles, and I am +very tired."</p> + +<p>Molly's voice had been very quiet, but very distinct, and her look and +bearing were full of an unspoken defiance.</p> + +<p>"And you never thought whether I should be frightened meanwhile?" said +Mrs. Carteret.</p> + +<p>"Frightened about me?" said Molly in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"You had no thought for <i>my</i> anxiety—the strain on <i>my</i> nerves," her +aunt went on.</p> + +<p>"I thought you might be angry, but I never for a moment thought you +would be frightened."</p> + +<p>Miss Carew looked from one to the other in alarm and perplexity. She +felt for them both, for the woman who had been startled by the extent of +her fears, and was the more angry in consequence, and for Molly, who +betrayed her utter want of belief in any kind of feeling on Mrs. +Carteret's part.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If you do not care for my feelings, or, indeed, believe in them, I wish +you would have some care for your own good name." A moment's pause +followed these words, and then in a low voice, but quite distinct, came +the conclusion, "You must remember that your mother's daughter must be +more careful than other girls."</p> + +<p>Molly's cheeks, just now bright from the battle with the autumn wind, +became as white as marble. There was no concealment possible; both women +saw that the child realised the full import of the words, and that she +knew they could read what was written on her face. There could be no +possibility of keeping up appearances after such a moment. But Miss +Carew moved forward, and flung her arms round Molly with a gesture of +simple but complete womanliness. "You must have a hot bath at once," she +cried, "or you will catch your death of cold."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it would be better if I did," cried Molly in a voice fearful to +her hearers in its stony hardness and hopelessness. "What does it +matter?"</p> + +<p>Miss Carew would have been less unhappy if the child had burst into any +reproaches, however angry or unseemly; she wanted to hear her say that +something was a lie, that some one was a liar, but what was so awful to +the ordinary little woman was to realise that Molly believed what had +been said, or rather the awful implication of what had been said. The +real horror was that Molly should come to such knowledge in such a way.</p> + +<p>The girl made no effort to shake her off, and not the least response to +her caress. With perfect dignity she went quietly up-stairs. With +perfect dignity she let the governess and the housemaid do to her +what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>ever they liked. They bathed Molly, rubbed her with lotions, +poulticed her with mustard, gave her a hot drink, and all the time Miss +Carew's heart ached at the impossibility of helping her in the very +least.</p> + +<p>"Can I leave the door open between our rooms, in case you want anything +in the night?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; certainly."</p> + +<p>"May I kiss you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h3>MOLLY COMES OF AGE</h3> + +<p>For some time after that terrible night Molly never spoke to Mrs. +Carteret unless it were absolutely necessary. It may be difficult to +believe that no explanation was sought or given and after a time things +seemed to be much as before. The silence of a brooding nature is a +terrible thing; and it is more common in narrow, dull lives than in any +other. Uneducated men and women in villages, or servants cramped +together in one house, I have known to brood over some injury in an +awful silence for twenty or thirty years. If Molly's future life had +been in Mrs. Carteret's hands, the sense of wrong would have burrowed +deeper and been even better hidden, but Molly, aided by Miss Carew, had +convinced herself that liberty would come, without any fight for it, at +twenty-one; so her view of the present was that it was a tiresome but +inevitable waiting for real life.</p> + +<p>Miss Carew, watching her anxiously, could never find out what she had +thought since the night of the alarm; and if she had seen into her mind +at any one moment alone, she would have been misled. For Molly's +imagination flew from one extreme to another. At first, indeed, that +sentence, "Your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than other +girls,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> had seemed simply a revelation of evil of which she could not +doubt the truth. She saw in a flash why her mother had gone out of her +life although still living. The whole possibility of shame and horror +appeared to fit in with the facts of her secluded life with Mrs. +Carteret. A morbid fear as to her own birth seized on the poor child's +mind, and might have destroyed the healthier aspect of life for her +entirely; but happily Mrs. Carteret and the governess did think of this +danger, and showed some skill in laying the phantom. Some photographs of +John Dexter as a young man were brought out and shown to the governess +in Molly's presence, and her comments on the likeness to Molly were true +and sounded spontaneous. Relieved of this horror the girl's mind reacted +to the hope that Mrs. Carteret had only spoken in temper and spite, +grossly exaggerating some grievance against Molly's mother. Then was the +ideal restored to its pedestal, and expiatory offerings of sentiment of +the most elaborate kind hung round the image of the ill-used and +misunderstood, the beautiful, unattainable mother. If Miss Carew had +seen into the reveries of her pupil at such a moment, she would hardly +have believed how they alternated with the coldest fits of doubt and +scepticism. Molly was dealing with a self-made ideal that she needed to +satisfy the hunger of her nature for love and worship. But it had no +foundations, no support, and it was apt to vanish with a terrible +completeness. Then she would feel quite alone and horribly ashamed; she +would at moments think of herself as something degraded and to be +shunned. Some natures would have simply sunk into a nervous state of +depression, but Molly had great vitality and natural ambition. In her +ideal moments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> she thought of devoting her life to her mother; and the +ayah's words were still a text, "The faithful child will find a way." +But in darker hours she defied the world that was against her.</p> + +<p>Molly, having decided to make no effort at any change in her life until +the emancipating age of twenty-one, determined to prepare herself as +fully as possible for the future. Mrs. Carteret was quite willing to +keep Miss Carew until her niece was nearly twenty, and by that time the +girl had read a surprising amount, while her mind was not to be +despised. She had also "come out" as far as a very sleepy neighbourhood +made it possible for her to see any society. She had been to three +balls, and a good many garden parties. No one found her very attractive +in her manners, though her appearance had in it now something that +arrested attention. She took her position in the small Carteret circle +in virtue of a certain energy and force of will. Molly danced, and +played tennis, and rode as well as any girl in those parts, but she did +not hide a silent and, at present, rather childish scorn which was in +her nature. Miss Carew left her with regret and with more affection than +Molly gave her back, for the governess was proud of her, and felt in +watching her the pleasures of professional success. Perhaps she put down +too much of this success to her own skill, but it was true that, without +Miss Carew, Molly would have been a very undeveloped young person. There +was still one year after this parting before Molly would be free, and it +seemed longer and slower as each day passed. One interest helped to make +it endurable. A trained hospital nurse had been provided for the +village, and Molly spent a great deal of time learning her craft. The +nursing instinct was exceedingly strong and not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> easily put down, and, +if Molly <i>must</i> interfere with sick people, it was as well, in Mrs. +Carteret's opinion, that she should learn how to do it properly.</p> + +<p>But the slow months rolled by at length, and the last year of bondage +was finished.</p> + +<p>The sun did its best to congratulate Molly on her twenty-first birthday. +It shone in full glory on the great, green hills, and the blue shadows +in the hollows were transparent with reflected gold. The sunlight +trembled in the bare branches of the beeches and turned their grey +trunks to silver.</p> + +<p>Standing in the little study, Molly's whole figure seemed to expand in +the sunshine. Her eyes sparkled, her lips parted, and she at once drank +in and gave forth her delight.</p> + +<p>Some people might still agree with Mrs. Carteret that Molly was not +beautiful. Still, it was an appearance that would always provoke +discussion. Molly could not be overlooked, and when her mind and +feelings were excited, then she gave a strange impression of intense +vitality—not the pleasant overflow of animal spirits, but a suppressed, +yet untamed, vitality of a more mental, more dangerous kind. Her +movements were usually sudden, swift, and abrupt, yet there was in them +all a singular amount of expression, and, if Molly's keen grey eyes and +sensitive mouth did not convey the impression of a simple, or even of a +kindly nature, they gave suggestions of light and longing, hunger and +resolution.</p> + +<p>To-day, the twenty-first birthday, was to be the first day of freedom, +the last of shackles and dulness and commonplace. It was to be a day of +speech and a day of revenge.</p> + +<p>Molly was waiting now for Mrs. Carteret to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> in and stand before her +and hear all she meant to say about the long, unholy deception that had +been put upon her. She was going to say good-bye now and be free. +Molly's money would now be her own, she could take it away and share it +with the deserted, misjudged mother. Nothing in all this was +melodramatic; it would have been but natural if the facts had been as +she supposed, only Molly made the little mistake of treating as facts +her carefully built-up fancies, her long, childish story of her own +life.</p> + +<p>She was so absorbed that she hardly saw Mrs. Carteret come in and sit +down in her square, substantial way in a large arm-chair. Molly, +standing by the window knocking the tassel of the blind to and fro, was +breathing quickly. The older woman looked through some papers in her +hand, put some notes of orders for groceries on a table by her side, and +flattened out a long letter on foreign paper on her knee. She looked at +Molly a little nervously, with cold blue eyes over gold-rimmed +spectacles reposing on her well-shaped nose, and began:</p> + +<p>"Now that you are of age I must——"</p> + +<p>But Molly interrupted her. In a very low voice, speaking quickly with +little gasps of impatience at any hesitation in her own utterance,—</p> + +<p>"Before you talk to me about the arrangements, I want to tell you that I +have made up my mind to leave here at once. I know it will be a relief +to you as well as to me. Any promise you made to my father is satisfied +now, and you cannot wish to keep me here. You have always been ashamed +of me, you have always disliked me, and you have always deceived me. I +knew all this time that my mother was alive, and you never spoke of her +except once and then it was to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> insult me as deeply as a girl can be +insulted. If what you said were true—and I don't believe it"—her voice +shook as she spoke—"there would be all the more reason why I should go +to my poor mother. I want you to know, therefore, that with whatever +money comes to me from my father, I shall go to my mother and try to +make amends to her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carteret stared over her spectacles at Molly in absolute amazement. +After fourteen years of very kind treatment, which had involved a great +deal of trouble, this uninteresting, silent niece had revealed herself +at last! Fourteen years devoted to the idealisation of the mother who +had deserted her, and to positive hatred of the relation who had +mothered her! Tears rose in the hard, blue eyes. Subtleties of feeling +Anne Carteret did not know, but some affection for those who are near in +blood and who live under the same roof had been a matter of course to +her, and Molly had hurt her to the quick. However, it was natural that +common-sense and justice should quickly assert themselves to show this +idiotic girl the criminal absurdity of what she said. Mrs. Carteret was +unconsciously hitting back as hard as she could as she answered in a +tone of cheerful common-sense:</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, the money you will receive will not be your own, +but an allowance from your mother—a large allowance given on the +condition that you do not live with her. Happily, it is so large that +there will not be any necessity for you to live here."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carteret held up the letter of thin foreign paper in a trembling +hand, but she spoke in a perfectly calm voice:</p> + +<p>"I was myself always against this mystery as to your mother, but I felt +obliged to act by her wish in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> the matter. She insists that she still +wishes it to be thought by the world at large that she is dead, but she +agrees at last that you should know something about her. I told her that +I could not allow you to come of age here and have a great deal of money +at your disposal without your knowing that from your father you have +only been left a fortune of two thousand pounds——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carteret paused, and then, with a little snort, added, half to +herself:</p> + +<p>"The rest was all squandered away, and certainly not by his own doing."</p> + +<p>Then she resumed her business tone:</p> + +<p>"More than this, I obtained from your mother leave to tell you that this +very large allowance comes out of a fortune left to her quite recently +by Sir David Bright. I have acted by the wishes of both your parents as +far as I possibly could. As to my disliking you or being ashamed of you, +such notions could only come out of a morbid imagination. In spite of +your feelings towards me, I still wish to be your friend. I want your +father's daughter to stand well with the world. So that I am left to +live here in peace undisturbed, I shall be glad to help you at any +time."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carteret's feelings were concentrated on Molly's conduct towards +herself, but Molly's consciousness was filled with the greatness of the +blow that had just fallen. It seemed to her that she had only now for +the first time lost her mother—her only ideal, the object of all her +better thoughts. That her enemy was justified was, indeed, just then of +little importance. She turned a dazed face towards her aunt:</p> + +<p>"I ought to beg your pardon: I am sorry."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, pray don't take the trouble."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carteret got out of the chair with emphatic dignity, and held out +some papers.</p> + +<p>"You had better read these. I will speak to you about them afterwards."</p> + +<p>She left the room absolutely satisfied with her own conduct. But, coming +to a pause in the drawing-room, she remembered that she had made one +mistake.</p> + +<p>"How stupid of me to have left Jane Dawning's letter among those +papers."</p> + +<p>But she did not go back to fetch the letter from her cousin Lady +Dawning; and she did not own to herself that that apparent negligence +was her real revenge. Yet from that moment her feelings of +self-satisfaction were uncomfortably disturbed.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Molly was kneeling by the window in the study in floods of +tears. Everything in her mind had lost its balance; and baffled, +disheartened, and ashamed, she wept tears that brought no softness. She +did not know it, but while to herself it seemed as if she were absorbed +in weeping over her disillusionment, she was in fact deciding that, as +her ideal had failed her, she would in future live only for herself, and +get everything out of life that she could for her own satisfaction.</p> + +<p>No one in the world cared for her, but she would not be defeated or +crushed or forlorn. With an effort she sprang to her feet with one agile +movement, and pushed her heavy hair back from her forehead with her +long, thin fingers.</p> + +<p>The colour had gone from her clear, dark skin for the moment, and her +breathing was fast and uneven, but her face still showed her to be very +young and very healthy. How differently the troubles of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> mind are +written in our faces when age has undermined the foundations and all +momentary failure is a presage of a sure defeat. Molly showed her +determination to be brave and calm by immediately setting herself to +read the papers left for her by Mrs. Carteret.</p> + +<p>One was in French, a long letter from a lawyer in Florence communicating +Madame Danterre's wishes to Mrs. Carteret. It stated that, owing to the +painful circumstances of the case, his client chose to remain under her +maiden name, and to reside in Florence. Mrs. Carteret was at liberty to +inform Miss Dexter of this, but she did not wish it known to anybody +else. Madame Danterre further asked Mrs. Carteret to make such +arrangements as she thought fit for her daughter to see something of the +world, either in London or by travelling, but she did not wish her to +come to Florence. Otherwise the world was before her, and £3000 a year +was at her disposal. Molly could hardly, it was implied, ask for more +from a mother from whom she had been torn unjustly when she was an +infant. The rest of the letter was entirely about business, giving all +details as to how the quarterly allowance would be paid. In conclusion +was an enigmatic sentence to the effect that, by a tardy act of +repentance, Sir David Bright had left Madame Danterre his fortune, and +she wished her daughter to know that the large allowance she was able to +make her was in consequence of this act of justice. Molly would have had +no inkling of the meaning of this sentence if Mrs. Carteret had come +back to claim the letter from Lady Dawning which she had unintentionally +left among the lawyer's papers. But this last, a closely-written large +sheet of note-paper, lay between the letter from the lawyer in Florence, +and other papers from the family lawyer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> in London, anent the will of +the late Colonel Dexter and its taking effect on his daughter's coming +of age.</p> + +<p>Molly turned carelessly from the question of £2000 and its interest at +three and a half per cent. to the letter surmounted by a black initial +and a coronet.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"My <span class="smcap">Dear Anne</span>,—</p> + +<p>"I am not coming to stay in your neighbourhood as I had hoped. I +should have been very glad to have had a talk with you about Molly, +if it had been possible, for her dear father's sake. Indeed, I +think you are far from exaggerating the difficulties of the case. +You are very reluctant to take a house in London, and you say that +if you did take one and gave up all your home duties you would not +now have a circle of friends there who could be of any use to a +girl of her age. I feel that very likely you would be glad if my +daughter would undertake her, and you are quite right in thinking +that she would like a girl to take into the world. But I must be +frank with you, as I want to save you from pitfalls which I may be +more able to foresee than you can in your secluded home. My dear, I +know that dear old John died without a penny: why if he had had any +fortune as a young man—but, alas! he had none—is it possible +that, in a soldier's life, with, for a few years, a madly +extravagant wife to help him, he could conceivably have saved a +capital that can produce £3000 a year!</p> + +<p>"No, my dear Anne, the money is from her mother, and I must tell +you that I've often wondered if that estimable lady is really dead +at all. Then, you know, that I always kept up with John, and that I +knew something about Sir David Bright. To conclude, Rose Bright is +my cousin by marriage, and we are all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> dumbfounded at finding that +she has been left £800 a year instead of twice as many thousands, +and that the fortune has gone to a lady named Madame Danterre. It +is so old a story that I don't think any one has read the +conclusion aright except myself, and <i>parole d'honneur</i>, no one +shall if I can help it. I am too fond of poor John's memory to want +to hurt his child, only for the child's own sake I would not advise +you to bring her up to London. I should keep her quietly with you, +and trust to a man appearing on the scene—it's a thing you <i>can</i> +trust to, where there is £3000 a year. I daresay I could send some +one your way quite quietly. But don't bring John's girl to London, +at any rate, just yet.</p> + +<p>"I hope we may come within reach of you in the autumn. I should +love to have a quiet day with you and to see Molly.</p> + +<p class='center'>"Ever yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class='right'>"<span class="smcap">Jane Dawning.</span>"</p> + +<p>"P.S.—By the way, is the £3000 sure to go on? If it is not, might +it not be as well to put a good bit of it away?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus in one short hour, Molly had been told that her mother was living +but did not want her child; that the ideal of motherly love had in her +own case been a complete fiction; that the mother of her imagination had +never existed, and, immediately afterwards, she had been given a glimpse +of the world's view of her own position as a young person best +concealed, or, at least, not brought too much forward.</p> + +<p>Lastly, with the news of the money that at least meant freedom, she had +gained, by a rapid intuition,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> a faint but unmistakable sense of +discomfort as to the money itself.</p> + +<p>It was not any scrupulous fear that it could be her duty to inquire +whether Sir David Bright ought to have left his fortune to his widow! +Probably Lady Rose had quite as much as many dowagers have to live on. +But she had been forced to know that other people disapproved of Sir +David's will. It was not a fortune entered into with head erect and eyes +proudly facing a friendly world. Still, Molly was not daunted: the +combat with life was harder and quite different from what she had +foreseen, but she had always looked on her future as a fight.</p> + +<p>Presently she let the "letter from Jane" fall close to the chair in +which her aunt had been sitting, and moved the chair till the paper was +half hidden by the chintz frill of the cover. She meant Mrs. Carteret to +think that she had not read it.</p> + +<p>She then went out for a long walk and met her aunt at luncheon with a +quietly respectful manner, a little more respectful than it had ever +been before.</p> + +<p>Later in the day Molly wrote to the family lawyer, and consulted him as +to how to find a suitable lady with whom to stay in London. Mrs. +Carteret read and passed the letter. Seeing that Molly was determined to +go to London, she was anxious to help her as much as possible, without +calling down upon herself such letters of advice as the one from Lady +Dawning. It proved as difficult to find just the right thing in +chaperones as it is usually difficult to find exactly the right thing in +any form of humanity, and December and January passed in the search. But +in the end all that was to be wished for seemed to be secured in the +person of Mrs. Delaport Green, who was known to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> a former pupil of Miss +Carew's, and at length Molly went out of the rooms with the northern +aspect, and drove through the wood that sheltered under the shoulder of +the great green hill, with nothing about her to recall the child who had +come in there for the first time fourteen years ago, except that she +still had the look of one who waits for other circumstances and other +people.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h3>EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO INTERFERE</h3> + +<p>Mr. Murray had had no belief in Sir Edmund Grosse's doings, and he +indulged in the provoking air of "I told you so," when the latter, who +had not been in London for several months, appeared at the office, and +owned to the futility of his visit to Florence. Meanwhile, Mr. Murray +had also carried on a fruitless enquiry in a different direction.</p> + +<p>"The General's two most intimate friends were killed about two months +after his death, and his servant died in the same action—probably +before Sir David himself. I have tried to find out if he had any talk on +his own affairs with friends on board ship going out, but it seems not. +I can show you the list of those who went out with him."</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund knew something of most people and after studying the list he +went to look up an old soldier friend at the Army and Navy Club. Indeed, +for some weeks he was often to be seen there, and he was as attentive to +Generals as an anxious parent seeking advancement in the Army for an +only son. He soon became discouraged as to obtaining any information +regarding David's later years, but some gossip on his younger days he +did glean. Nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> could have been better than David's record; he +seemed to have been a paragon of virtue.</p> + +<p>"That's what made it all the more strange that he should have fallen +into the hands of Mrs. Johnny Dexter," mused an old Colonel as he puffed +at one of Grosse's most admirable cigars. "Poor old David; he was wax in +her hands for a few weeks, then he got fever and recovered from her and +from it at the same time—he went home soon after. He'd have done +anything for her at one moment."</p> + +<p>This Colonel might well have been flattered by Edmund's attentions; but +he gave little in return for them except what he said that day.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Johnny Dexter! Why, I'm sure I have known Dexters," thought +Edmund, as he strolled down Pall Mall after this conversation. He +stopped to think, regardless of public observation. "Why, of course, +that old bore Lady Dawning was a Miss Dexter. I'll go and see her this +very day."</p> + +<p>Lady Dawning was gratified at Sir Edmund's visit, and was nearly as much +surprised at seeing him as he was at finding himself in the handsome, +heavily-furnished room in Princes Gate. Stout, over fifty, and clumsily +wigged, it rarely enough happened to Lady Dawning to find not only a +sympathetic listener but an eager inquirer into those romantic days when +love's young dream for her cousin Johnny Dexter was stifled by parental +authority: "And it all ended in my becoming Lady Dawning." A sigh of +satisfaction concluded the episode of romance, and led the way back to +the present day.</p> + +<p>When Lady Dawning had advised Mrs. Carteret to keep poor dear Johnny's +girl quietly in the country, she had by no means intended to let any of +her friends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> know anything about Molly. She had looked important and +mysterious when people spoke of Sir David Bright's amazing will, but she +made a real sacrifice to Johnny's memory by not divulging her knowledge +of facts or her own conclusions from those facts. But the enjoyment of +talking of her own romantic youth to Edmund had had a softening effect.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund appeared to be so very wise and safe.</p> + +<p>"Of course, it is only to you," came first; and then, "It would be a +relief to me to get the opinion of a man of the world; poor dear Anne +Carteret consults me, and I really don't know what to advise. Fancy! +that woman allows the girl £3000 a year, and Anne Carteret would +probably have acted on my advice and kept her quiet so that no one need +know anything of the wretched story, but the girl won't be quiet, and +will come up to London, and it seems so unsafe, don't you know? They are +looking for a chaperone, as nothing will make Anne come herself. And if +it all comes out it will be so unpleasant for poor dear Rose Bright to +meet this girl all dressed up with her money; don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>Lady Dawning was now quite screaming with excitement, and very red in +nose and chin. It would be a long time before she could be quite dull +again. But Edmund was far too deeply interested to notice details.</p> + +<p>They parted very cordially, and Lady Dawning promised to let him know if +she heard from Anne Carteret, and, if possible, to pass on the name of +the chaperone woman who was to take Molly into society.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>"And so your <i>protégée</i> is to arrive to-night?" said Edmund Grosse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, and I <i>am</i> so frightened;" and with a little laugh appreciative of +herself in general, Mrs. Delaport Green held up a cup of China tea in a +pretty little white hand belonging to an arm that curved and thickened +from the wrist to the elbow in perfect lines.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund gave the arm the faintest glance of appreciation before it +retreated into lace frills within its brown sleeve. Those lace frills +were the only apparent extravagance in the simple frock in question, and +simplicity was the chief note in this lady's charming appearance.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you are frightened, but probably she is frightened +enough."</p> + +<p>"I know nothing whatever about her," sighed the little woman, "and we +are only doing it because we are so dreadfully hard up; my maid says +that I shall soon not have a stitch to my back, and that would be so +fearfully improper. At least"—she hesitated—"I am doing it because +times are bad. Tim really knows nothing about it; I mean that he does +not know that Miss Dexter is a 'paying guest', and it does sound +horribly lower middle-class, doesn't it? But I'm so afraid Tim won't be +able to go to Homburg this year, and he is eating and drinking so much +already, and it's only the beginning of April. What will happen if he +can't drink water and take exercise all this summer?"</p> + +<p>"But I suppose you know her name?"</p> + +<p>"I believe it is Molly Dexter. And do you think I should say 'Molly' at +once—to-night, I mean?"</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund did not answer this question.</p> + +<p>"I used to know some Dexters years ago."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is quite a good name, and Molly is of good family: she is a +cousin of Lady Dawning, but she is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> an orphan. I think I must call her +Molly at once," and the little round eyes looked wistful and kindly.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund was able from this to conclude rightly that Mrs. Delaport +Green was not aware of the existence of Madame Danterre, and would have +no suspicions as to the sources of the fortune that supplied Molly's +large allowance. It had, in fact, been thought wiser not to offer +explanations which had not been called for.</p> + +<p>"It will be very tiresome for you," said Grosse. "You will have to amuse +her, you know, and is she worth while?"</p> + +<p>"Quite; she will pay—let me see—she will pay for the new motor, and +she will go to my dressmaker and keep her in a good temper. But, of +course, I shall have to make sacrifices and find her partners. I must +try and not let my poor people miss me. They would miss me dreadfully, +though I know you don't think so."</p> + +<p>"And you don't even know what she is like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I do; I have seen her once, and she is oh! so interesting: +olive skin, black, or almost black, hair, almond-shaped grey eyes—no, I +don't mean almond-shaped, but really very curiously-shaped eyes, full +of—let me see if I can tell you what they are full of—something that, +in fact, makes you shiver and feel quite excited. But, do you know, she +hardly speaks, and then in such a low voice. I'll tell you now, I'll +tell you exactly what she reminds me of: do you know a picture in a very +big gallery in Florence of a woman who committed some crime? It's by one +of the pupils of one of the great masters; just try and think if you +don't know what I mean. Oh, must you go? But won't you come again, and +see how we get on, and how I bear up?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Molly did arrive, her dainty little hostess petted and patted her +and called her "Molly" because she "could not help it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we will do the most delightful things, now that you have come; we +must, of course, do balls and plays, and then we will have quite a quiet +day in the country in the new motor, and we will take some very nice men +with us. And then you won't mind sometimes coming to see people who are +ill or poor or old?"</p> + +<p>The little voice rose higher and higher in a sort of wail.</p> + +<p>"It does cheer them up so to look in and out with a few flowers, and it +need not take long."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind people when they are really ill," said Molly, in her low +voice, "but I like them best unconscious."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green stared for a moment; then she jumped up and ran +forward with extended hands to greet a lady in a plain coat and skirt +and an uncompromising hat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how kind of you to come, and how are you getting on? Molly dear, +this is the lady who lives in horrid Hoxton taking care of my poor +people I told you about. Do tell her what you really mean about liking +people best when they are unconscious, and you will both forgive me if I +write one tiny little note meanwhile?"</p> + +<p>Molly gave some tea to the newcomer as if she had lived in the house for +years, and drew her into a talk which soon allayed her rising fears as +to whether her own time would have to be devoted to horrid Hoxton. By +calm and tranquil questions she elicited the fact that Mrs. Delaport +Green had visited the settlement once during the winter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She comes as a sunbeam," said the resident with obviously genuine +admiration, "and, of course, with all the claims on her time, and her +anxiety as to her husband's health, we don't wish her to come often. She +is just the inspiration we want."</p> + +<p>The hostess having meanwhile asked four people to dinner, came rustling +back, and, sitting on a low stool opposite the lady of the settlement, +held one of her visitor's large hands in both her own and patted it and +asked questions about a number of poor people by name, and made love to +her in many ways, until the latter, cheered and refreshed by the +sunbeam, went out to seek the first of a series of 'busses between +Chelsea and Hoxton.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"I must order the motor. The dear thing needn't have come your very +first night, need she? It makes me miserable to leave you, but I was +engaged to this dinner before I knew that you existed even! Isn't it odd +to think of that?" Her voice was full of feeling.</p> + +<p>"And you must be longing to go to your room. You won't have to dine with +Tim, because he is dining at his club. Promise me that you won't let Tim +bore you: he likes horrid fat people, so I don't think he will; and are +you sure you have got everything you want?"</p> + +<p>Molly's impressions of her new surroundings were written a few weeks +later in a letter to Miss Carew.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Carey</span>,—</p> + +<p>"I have been here for three weeks, but I doubt if I shall stay +three months.</p> + +<p>"I am living with a very clever woman, and I am learning life +fairly quickly and getting to know a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> number of people. But I am +not sure if either of us thinks our bargain quite worth while, +though we are too wise to decide in a hurry. There are great +attractions: the house, the clothes, the food, the servants, are +absolutely perfect; the only thing not quite up to the mark in +taste is the husband. But she sees him very little, and I hardly +exchange two words with him in the day, and his attitude towards us +is that of a busy father towards his nursery. But I rather suspect +that he gets his own way when he chooses. The servants work hard, +and, I believe, honestly like her. The clergyman of the parish, a +really striking person, is enthusiastic; so is her husband's +doctor, so are one religious duchess and two mundane countesses. I +believe that it is impossible to enumerate the number and variety +of the men who like her. There are just one or two people who pose +her, and Sir Edmund Grosse is one. He snubs her, and so she makes +up to him hard. I must tell you that I have got quite intimate with +Sir Edmund. He is of a different school from most of the men I have +seen. He pays absurd compliments very naturally and cleverly, +rather my idea of a Frenchman, but he is much more candid all the +time. I shock people here if I simply say I don't like any one. If +you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by +saying—'Of course, he means awfully well,' and after that you may +imply that he is the greatest scoundrel unhung. Sir Edmund is not +at all ill-natured, and he can discuss people quite simply—not as +if he wished to defend his own reputation for charity all the time. +He won't allow that Adela Delaport Green is a humbug: he says she +is simply a happy combination of extraordinary cleverness and +stupidity, of simplicity and art. 'I believe she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> hardly ever has a +consciously disingenuous moment,' he said to me last night. 'She +likes clergymen and she likes great ladies, and she likes to make +people like her. Of course, she is always designing; but she never +stops to think, so that she doesn't know she is designing. She is +an amazing mimic. Something in this room to-night made me think of +Dorset House directly I came in, and I remembered that, of course, +she was at the party there last night. She must have put the sofa +and the palms in the middle of the room to-day. At dinner to-night +she suddenly told me that she wished she had been born a Roman +Catholic, and I could not think why until I remembered that a +Princess had just become a Papist. She could never have liked the +Inquisition, but she thought the Pope had such a dear, kind face. +Now she will probably tremble on the verge of Rome until several +Anglican bishops have asked their influential lady friends to keep +her out of danger.'</p> + +<p>"'And you don't call her a humbug?'</p> + +<p>"'No; she is a child of nature, indulging her instincts without +reflection. And please mark one thing, young lady; her models are +all good women—very good women—and that's not a point to be +overlooked.'</p> + +<p>"I told him—I could not help it—how funny she had been yesterday, +talking of going to early church. 'I do love the little birds quite +early,' she said, 'and one can see the changes of the season even +in London, going every day, you know, and one feels so full of hope +walking in the early morning fasting, and hope is next to charity, +isn't it?—though, of course, not so great.'</p> + +<p>"And she has been out in the shut motor exactly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> once in the early +morning since I came up, and she knew that I knew it.</p> + +<p>"However, Sir Edmund maintained that, at the moment, Adela quite +believed she went out early every day, and I am not sure he is not +right. But then, you see, Carey, that with her power of believing +what she likes, and of intriguing without knowing it, I am not +quite sure that she will last very well. She might get tired of +me—quite believe I had done something which I had not done at all! +And then the innocent little intrigues might become less amusing to +me than to other people. However, I believe I am useful for the +present, and the life here suits me on the whole. But I will report +again soon if the symptoms become more unfavourable, and ask your +opinion as to my plans for the season if the Delaport Green +alliance breaks down before then.</p> + +<p class='center'>"Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class='right'>"<span class="smcap">Molly Dexter</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h3>AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green counted it as a large asset in Molly's favour that +Sir Edmund Grosse was so attentive. Adela did not seriously mind Sir +Edmund's indifference to herself if he were only a constant visitor at +her house, but she was far from understanding the motives that drew him +there to see Molly. In fact, having decided, on the basis of his own +theory of the conduct of Madame Danterre, that Molly had no right to any +of the luxuries she enjoyed, he had been prepared to think of her as an +unscrupulous and designing young woman. Somehow, from the moment he +first saw her he felt all his prejudices to be confirmed. There was +something in Molly which appeared to him to be a guilty consciousness +that the wealth she enjoyed was ill-gotten. Miss Dexter, he thought, had +by no means the bearing of a fresh ingenuous child who was innocently +benefiting by the wickedness of another. The poor girl was, in fact, +constantly wondering whether the people she met were hot partisans of +Lady Rose Bright, or whether they knew of Madame Danterre's existence, +and if so, whether they had the further knowledge that Miss Molly Dexter +was that lady's daughter. They might, for either of these reasons, have +some secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> objection to herself. But she was skilful enough to hide +the symptoms of these fears and suspicions from the men and women she +usually came across in society, who only thought her reserve pride, and +her occasional hesitations a little mysterious. From Sir Edmund she +concealed less because she liked him much more, and he kindly +interpreted her feelings of anxiety and discomfort to be those of guilt +in a girl too young to be happy in criminal deceit. With his experience +of life, and with his usually just perceptions, he ought to have known +better; but there is some quality in a few men or women, intangible and +yet unmistakable, which makes us instinctively suspect present, or +foretell future, moral evil; and poor Molly was one of these. What it +was, on the other hand, which made her trust Sir Edmund and drew her to +him, it would need a subtle analysis of natural affinities to decide. No +doubt it was greatly because he sought her that Molly liked him, but it +was not only on that account. Nor was this only because Edmund was +worldly wise, successful, and very gentle. There was a quality in the +attraction that drew Molly to Edmund that cannot be put into words. It +is the quality without which there has never been real tragedy in the +relations of a woman to a man. In the first weeks in London this +attraction hardly reached beyond the merest liking, and was a pleasant, +sunny thing of innocent appearance.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green was, for a short time, of opinion that the problem +of whether to prolong Molly's visit or not would be settled for her by a +quite new development. Then she doubted, and watched, and was puzzled.</p> + +<p>Why, she thought, should such a great person as Sir Edmund Grosse, who +was certainly in no need of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> fortune-hunting, be so attentive to Molly +if he did not really like her? At times she had a notion that he did not +like her at all, but at other times surely he liked her more than he +knew himself. He said that she was graceful, clever, and interesting; +and the acute little onlooker had not the shadow of a doubt that he held +these opinions, but why did she at moments think that he disliked Molly? +Certainly the dislike, if dislike it were, did not prevent him from very +constantly seeking her society. It was the only intimacy that Molly had +formed since she had come up to London.</p> + +<p>As Lent was drawing to a close, Mrs. Delaport Green became much occupied +at the thought of how many services she wished to attend. "One does so +wish one could be in several churches at once," she murmured to a devout +lady at an evening party. But, finding one of these churches to be +excessively crowded on Palm Sunday, she had gone for a turn in the +country in her motor with a friend, "as, after all, green fields, and a +few early primroses make one realise, more than anything else in the +world, the things one wishes one could think about quietly at such +seasons."</p> + +<p>For Easter there were the happiest prospects, as she and Molly had been +invited to stay at a delightful house "far from the madding +crowd"—Groombridge Castle—with a group of dear friends.</p> + +<p>Molly, knowing that "dear friends" with her hostess meant new and most +desirable acquaintances, bought hats adorned with spring flowers and +garments appropriate to the season with great satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Their luggage, their bags, and their maid looked perfect on the day of +departure, and Tim had gone off to Brighton in an excellent temper. Mrs. +Delaport<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Green trod on air in pretty buckled shoes, and patted the toy +terrier under her arm and felt as if all the society papers on the +bookstall knew that they would soon have to tell whither she was going.</p> + +<p>"I saw Sir Edmund Grosse's servant just now," she said to Molly with +great satisfaction. "Very likely Sir Edmund is coming to Groombridge. +Why does one always think that everybody going by the same train is +coming with one? Did you tell him where we were going?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think so; I have hardly seen him for a week, and I thought +he was going abroad for Easter."</p> + +<p>When the three hours' journey was ended and the friends emerged on the +platform, they were both glad to see Sir Edmund's servant again and the +luggage with his master's name. There was a crowd of Easter holiday +visitors, and Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly were some moments in making +their way out of the station. When they were seated in the carriage that +was to take them to the Castle, Mrs. Delaport Green turned expectantly +to the footman.</p> + +<p>"Are we to wait for any one else?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am; Lady Rose Bright and the two gentlemen have started in the +other carriage."</p> + +<p>They drove off.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad it is Lady Rose Bright." Molly hardly heard the words.</p> + +<p>"I have so wished to know her," Adela went on joyfully, "and she has had +such an interesting story and so extraordinary."</p> + +<p>"Can I get away—can I go back?" thought Molly, and she leant forward +and drew off her cloak as if she felt suffocated. "To meet her is just +the one thing I can't do. Oh, it is hard, it is horrible!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You see," Adela continued, "she married Sir David Bright, who was three +times her age, because he was very rich, and also, of course, because +she loved him for having won the Victoria Cross, and then he died, and +they found he had left all the money to some one he had liked better all +the time. So there is a horrid woman with forty thousand a-year +somewhere or other, and Rose Bright is almost starving and can't afford +to buy decent boots, and every one is devoted to her. I am rather +surprised that she should come to Groombridge for a party, she has shut +herself up so much; but it must be a year and a half at least since that +wicked old General was killed, and he certainly didn't deserve much +mourning at <i>her</i> hands."</p> + +<p>As Adela's little staccato voice went on, Molly stiffened and +straightened and starched herself morally, not unaided by this facile +description of the story in which she was so much involved. She would +fight it out here and now; nothing should make her flinch; she would +come up to time as calm and cool as if she were quite happy. And, after +all, Sir Edmund Grosse would be there to help her.</p> + +<p>It was not until the first of the two heavy handsome old-fashioned +carriages, drawn by fine, sleek horses, was beginning to crawl up a very +steep hill that its occupants began to take an interest in those who +were following.</p> + +<p>"Who is in the carriage behind us?" asked Sir Edmund of the young man +usually called Billy, who was sitting opposite him, and whom he was +never glad to meet.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Delaport Green and a girl I don't know—very dark and thin."</p> + +<p>Edmund growled and fidgeted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Horrid vulgar little woman," he muttered between his teeth, "pushes +herself in everywhere, and I suppose she has got the heiress with her."</p> + +<p>"Don't be so cross, Edmund," said Lady Rose. "Who is the heiress?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! a Miss Dickson—not Dickson—what is it? The money was all made in +beer"—which was really quite a futile little lie. "But that isn't the +name: the name is Dexter. The girl is handsome and untruthful and +clever; let her alone."</p> + +<p>Rose perceived that he was seriously annoyed, and waited with a little +curiosity to see the ladies in question.</p> + +<p>As the two carriages crawled slowly up the zigzag road, climbing the +long and steep hill, the occupants of both gazed at the towers of the +Castle whenever they came in sight at a turn of the road, or at an +opening in the mighty horse-chestnuts and beeches, but they spoke little +about them. Those in the first carriage were too familiar with +Groombridge and its history and the others were too ignorant of both to +have much to say. Edmund Grosse gave expression to Rose's thought at the +sight of the familiar towers when he said:</p> + +<p>"Poor old Groombridge! it is hard not to have a son or even a nephew to +leave it all to."</p> + +<p>"He likes the cousin very much," said Rose.</p> + +<p>"But isn't Mark Molyneux going to be a priest?" said the young man, +Billy, to Lady Rose. "I heard the other day that he is in one of the +Roman seminaries—went there soon after he left Oxford."</p> + +<p>Edmund answered him.</p> + +<p>"Groombridge told me he thought he would give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> that up. He said he +believed it was a fancy that would not last."</p> + +<p>"He did very well at Oxford," said Rose, "and the Groombridges are +devoted to him. It is so good of them with all their old-world notions +not to mind more his being a Roman Catholic."</p> + +<p>The talk was interrupted by the two men getting out to ease the horses +on a steep part of the drive.</p> + +<p>Rose's own point of view that a young and earnest priest, even although, +unfortunately, not an Anglican, might do much good in such a position as +that of the master of Groombridge Castle, would certainly not have been +understood by her two companions.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in the second carriage, Molly was becoming more and more +distracted from painful thoughts by the glory of the summer's evening, +and the historic interest of the Castle. She felt at first disinclined +to disturb the unusual silence of the lady beside her. Certainly the +principal tower of the Castle, in its dark red stone, looked uncommonly +fine and commanding, and about it flew the martlets that "most breed and +haunt" where the air is delicate.</p> + +<p>The horse-chestnut leaves were breaking through their silver sheaths in +points of delicate green, and daffodils and wild violets were thick in +grass and ground ivy, while rabbits started away from within a few feet +of the road.</p> + +<p>But, although reluctant to break the silence, at last interest in the +scene made Molly ask:</p> + +<p>"Do you know the date?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Norman undoubtedly," said Mrs. Delaport Green; "the round towers, +you know. Round towers go back to almost any date."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly was dissatisfied. "You don't know what reign it was built in?"</p> + +<p>"Some time soon after the Conqueror; I think Tim did tell me all about +it. He looked it up in some book last night."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the present Castle had been built under George +III., and the towers would have betrayed the fact to more educated +observers; while even Molly could see when they came close to the great +mass of building that the windows and, indeed, all the decoration was of +an inferior type of revived Gothic. But, however an architect might +shake his head at Groombridge, it was really a striking building, +massive and very well disposed, and in an astonishingly fine position, +commanding an immense view of a great plain on nearly three sides, while +to the east was stretched the rest of the range of splendidly-wooded +hills on the westerly point of which it was situated. In the sweet, soft +air many delicate trees and shrubs were developed as well as if they had +been in quite a sheltered place.</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge was giving tea to the first arrivals when Mrs. Delaport +Green and Molly were shown into the big hall of the Castle.</p> + +<p>"Let us come for a walk; we can slip out through this window," murmured +Sir Edmund, as he took her empty tea-cup from his cousin.</p> + +<p>Rose began to move, but Lady Groombridge claimed her attention before +she could escape.</p> + +<p>"Do you know Mrs. Delaport Green and Miss Dexter?"</p> + +<p>Rose, as she heard Molly's name, found herself looking quite directly +into very unexpected and very remarkable grey eyes with dark lashes. Her +gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> but reserved greeting would have been particularly negative +after Edmund's warning as to both ladies, but she did not quite control +a look of surprise and interest. There was a great light in Molly's face +as she saw the young and beautiful woman whom she had dreaded intensely +to meet.</p> + +<p>Rose was evidently unconscious of a certain gentle pride of bearing, but +was fully conscious of a wish to be kindly and loving. In neither of +these aspects—and they were revealed in a glance to Molly—did Rose +attract her. But Molly's look, which puzzled Rose, was as a flame of +feeling, burning visibly through the features of the dark, healthy face, +and finding its full expression in the eyes. The glory of the landscape +she had just passed through, and the excitement of finding herself in +such a building, added fuel to Molly's feelings, and seemed to give a +historic background to her meeting with her enemy. Some subtle and +curious sympathy lit Rose's face for a moment, and then she shrank a +little as if she recoiled from a slight shock, and turning with a smile +to Sir Edmund Grosse, she followed him down the great hall and out into +a passage beyond. He had given Molly an intimate but rather careless nod +before he turned away.</p> + +<p>Edmund was quite silent as he walked out on the terrace, and seemed as +absorbed as Rose in the view that lay below them. But it was with the +scene he had just witnessed inside the Castle that his mind was filled. +There had been something curiously dramatic in the meeting which he +would have done a great deal to prevent. But, annoyed as he was, he +could not help dwelling for a moment on the picture of the two with a +certain artistic satisfaction. Rose, in her plain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> almost poor, +clinging black clothes was, as always, amazingly graceful; he felt, not +for the first time, as if her every movement were music.</p> + +<p>"But that girl is handsome. How she looked into Rose's face, the amazing +little devil!—she is plucky."</p> + +<p>Then he caught himself up abruptly; it was no use to talk nonsense to +himself. The point was how to keep these two apart and how short Mrs. +Delaport Green's visit might be made.</p> + +<p>"Unluckily Monday is a Bank holiday, but they shall not be asked to stay +one hour after the 10.30 train on Tuesday if I have to take them away +myself," he murmured. Meanwhile, it was a beautiful evening; there was a +wonderful view, and Rose was here, and, for the moment, alone with him. +She ran her fingers into the fair hair that was falling over her +forehead, and pushed it back and her hat with it, so that the fresh +spring air "may get right into my brain," she said, "and turn out London +blacks."</p> + +<p>"The blacks don't penetrate in your case," said Edmund.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid they do," she murmured, "but now I won't think of them. +Easter Eve and this place are enough to banish worries."</p> + +<p>"Our hostess contrives to have some worries here."</p> + +<p>"Ah! dear Mary, I know; she can't help it; she has always been so very +prosperous."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's prosperity, is it?" asked Edmund. He had turned from the view +to look more directly at Rose.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know it does not have that effect on you, because you have a +happier temperament."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But am I so very prosperous?" The tone was sad and slightly sarcastic.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>"It is quite glorious: one seems to breathe in everything, don't you +know, and the smell of primroses; and it is so sweet to think that it is +Easter Eve."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green was coming forth on the terrace, preceded by these +words in her clear staccato voice.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said Rose very gently to Edmund, "that we might go down +into the wood?"</p> + +<p>Presently Molly fell behind Lady Groombridge and Mrs. Delaport Green as +they walked along the terrace, and leant on the wall and looked at the +view by herself.</p> + +<p>The Castle stood on the last spur of a range of hills, and there was an +abrupt descent between it and the next rounded hill-top. Covered with +trees, the sharp little valley was full of shadow and mystery; and then +beyond the great billowy tree-tops rose and fell for miles, until the +brilliant early green of the larches and the dark hues of the many +leafless branches, already ruddy with buds, became blue and at length +purple in the distance.</p> + +<p>This joy and glory of her mother earth nobody could grudge Molly, +surely? But the very beauty of it all made her more weak; and tears rose +in her eyes as she looked at the healing green.</p> + +<p>"I am tired," she thought; "and, after all, what harm can it do me to +meet Lady Rose Bright? And if Sir Edmund Grosse was annoyed to see me +here, what does it matter?"</p> + +<p>Presently Lady Groombridge and her admiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> guest came back to where +Molly was standing. In the excitement of arrival and of meeting Lady +Rose, and the little shock of Sir Edmund's greeting, Molly had hardly +taken stock of the mistress of the Castle. Lady Groombridge was verging +on old age, but ruddy and vigorous. She wore short skirts and thick +boots, and tapped the gravel noisily with her stick. She had almost +forgotten that she had ever been young and a beauty, and her +conversation was usually in the tone of a harassed housekeeper, only +that the range of subjects that worried her extended beyond servants and +linen and jam into politics and the Church and the souls of men within a +certain number of miles of Groombridge Castle.</p> + +<p>She stood talking between Molly and Mrs. Delaport Green in a voice of +some impatience as she scanned the landscape in search of Rose.</p> + +<p>"Dear me, where has Rose gone to? and she knew how much I wanted to have +a talk with her before dinner. And I wanted to tell her not to let our +clergyman speak about incense and candles. He was more tiresome than +usual after Rose was here last time."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green tried to interject some civil remarks, but Lady +Groombridge paid not the slightest attention. The only visitors who +interested her in the least were Rose and Edmund Grosse. She could +hardly remember why she had invited Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly when +she met them in London, and Billy was always Lord Groombridge's guest.</p> + +<p>"Well, if Rose won't come out of the wood, I suppose we may as well come +in, and perhaps you would like to see your room;" and, with an air of +resignation, she led the way.</p> + +<p>She stood in the middle of a gorgeously-upholstered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> room of the date of +George IV., and looked fretfully round.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is hideous, but I think if you have a good thing even of +the worst date it is best to leave it alone;" and then, with a gleam of +humour in her eye, she turned to Molly, "and whenever you feel your +taste vitiated (or whatever they call it nowadays) in your room next +door, you can always look out of the window, you know." And then, +speaking to Mrs. Delaport Green:</p> + +<p>"We have no light of any sort or kind, and no bathrooms, but there are +plenty of candles, and I can't see why, with large hip baths and plenty +of water, people can't keep clean. Yes, dinner is at 8.15 sharp; I hope +you have everything you want; there is no bell into your maid's room, +but the housemaid can always fetch your maid."</p> + +<p>Then she ushered Molly into the next room and, after briefly pointing +out its principal defects, she left her to rest her body and tire her +mind on a hard but gorgeously-upholstered couch until it should be time +to dress for dinner.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h3>A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND</h3> + +<p>Edmund Grosse felt more tolerant of Billy at Groombridge Castle than +elsewhere. At Groombridge he was looked upon as a kindly weakness of +Lord Groombridge's, who consulted him about the stables and enjoyed his +jokes. This position certainly made him more attractive to Edmund, but +he was not sorry that Billy, who seldom troubled a church, went there on +Easter Sunday morning and left him in undisturbed possession of the +terrace.</p> + +<p>The sun was just strong enough to be delightful, and, with an +interesting book and an admirable cigar, it ought to have been a goodly +hour for Grosse. But the fact was that he had wished to walk to church +with Rose, and he had quite hoped that if it were only for his soul's +sake she would betray some wish for him to come. But if she didn't, he +wouldn't. He knew quite well that she would be pleased if he went, but +if she were so silly and self-conscious as to be afraid of appearing to +want his company—well and good; she should do without it.</p> + +<p>He had been disappointed and annoyed with Rose during their walk on the +evening before. The simple, matter-of-fact way in which they had been +jogging along in London was changed. At first, indeed, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> had been +natural enough, but then she had become silent for some moments, and +afterwards had veered away from personal topics with a tiresome +persistency. He half suspected the truth, that this was due to a +careless word of his own which had betrayed how suddenly he had given up +his intention to spend Easter on the Riviera. If she had jumped to the +conclusion that this change was because Edmund had learnt at the +eleventh hour that Rose would be at Groombridge, she had no right to be +so quick-sighted. It was almost "Missish" of Rose, he told himself, to +be so ready to think his heart in danger, and to be so unnecessarily +tender of his feelings. She might wait for him to begin the attack +before she began to build up fortifications.</p> + +<p>He was at the height of his irritation against Rose, when the three +other ladies came out on the terrace. Lady Groombridge instantly told +Mrs. Delaport Green that she knew she wished to visit the dairy, and +hustled her off through the garden. Edmund rose and smiled, with his +peculiar, paternal admiration, at Molly, whose dark looks were at their +very best set in the complete whiteness of her hat and dress. Then he +glanced after the figures that were disappearing among the rose-bushes.</p> + +<p>"The party is not in the least what your chaperone expected; indeed, we +can hardly be dignified by the name of a party at all, but you see how +happy she is. She even enjoyed dear old Groombridge's prosing last +night, and she has been very happy in church, and now she is going to +see the dairy. The only thing that troubles her is that Lady Groombridge +has not allowed her to change her gown, and a well-regulated mind cannot +enjoy her prayers and a visit to cows in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> the same gown. Now suppose," +he looked at Molly with a lazy, friendly smile, "you put on a short +skirt and come for a walk."</p> + +<p>A little later they were walking through the woods on the hills beyond +the Castle. Perhaps he intended that Rose, who had stayed to speak to +the vicar, should find that he had not been waiting about for her +return.</p> + +<p>"I would give a good deal to possess the cheerful philosophy of Mrs. +Delaport Green," he said, as, looking down through an opening in the +trees, they could see that little woman with her skirts gracefully held +up standing by while Lady Groombridge discoursed to the keeper of cows, +who looked sleek and prosperous and a little sulky the while.</p> + +<p>"You would be wise to learn some of it from her," Edmund went on. "Isn't +this nice? Let us sit upon the ground, as it is dry, and feel how good +everything is. You like this sort of thing, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Molly murmured "Yes," and sat down on a mossy bank and looked up into +the glorious blue sky and then at a tuft of large, pale primroses in the +midst of dark ground ivy, then far down to the fields where a group of +brown cows, rich in colour, stood lazily content by a blue stream that +sparkled in the sunlight. Edmund was not hard-hearted, and Molly looked +very young, and a pathetic trouble underlay the sense of pleasure in her +face. There was no peace in Molly's eyes, only the quick alternations of +acute enjoyment and the revolt against pain and a child's resentment at +supposed blame.</p> + +<p>Pleasure was uppermost at this moment, for so many slight, easy, human +pleasures were new to her. She sat curved on the ground, with the ease +and supple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>ness of a greyhound ready to spring, whereas Sir Edmund was +forty and a little more stiff than his age warranted.</p> + +<p>"But when you do enjoy yourself I imagine it's worth a good many hours +of our friend's sunny existence. Oh, dear, dear!" For at that moment the +dairy was a scene of some confusion; two enormous dogs from the Castle +had bounded up to Lady Groombridge, barking outrageously, and one of +them had covered her companion with mud.</p> + +<p>"She is saying that it does not matter in the least, and that the gown +is an old rag, but I'm sure it's new on to-day, and it's impossible to +say how much has not been paid for it."</p> + +<p>Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she +could hear every word the little woman was saying.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>that</i> you will allow is humbug!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think I will this time, and I believe, too, that the philosophy +has collapsed. I'm sure she's a mass of ruffled feathers, and her mind +is full of things that she will hurl at the devoted head of her maid +when she gets in. You can only really wound that type of woman to the +quick by touching her clothes. There now, is that severe enough?"</p> + +<p>"Why do we always talk of Mrs. Delaport Green?" asked Molly.</p> + +<p>"Because she is on trial in your mind and you are not quite sure whether +she suits."</p> + +<p>"I might go further and fare worse," said Molly.</p> + +<p>"Is there no one you would naturally go to?" asked Edmund.</p> + +<p>"There is the aunt who brought me up, Mrs. Carteret, and I'd rather—" +She paused. "There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> is nothing in this world I would not rather do than +go back to her."</p> + +<p>Molly's face was completely overcast; it was threatening and angry.</p> + +<p>"Poor child!" said Edmund gently.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Molly, "if anybody used to say 'poor child' when I was +small. There must have been some one who pitied an orphan, even in the +cheerful, open-air system of Aunt Anne's house, where no one ever +thought of feelings, or fancies, or frights at night, or loneliness."</p> + +<p>Edmund looked at her with a sympathy that tried to conceal his +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Was it possible," he wondered, "that she really thought she was an +orphan?"</p> + +<p>"It's dreadful to think of a very lonely child," he said.</p> + +<p>"But some people have to be lonely all their lives," said Molly.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund was touched. She had raised her head and looked at him with a +pleading confidence. Then, with one swift movement, she was suddenly +kneeling and tearing to pieces two or three primroses in succession.</p> + +<p>"Some people have to say things that can never be really said, or else +keep everything shut up."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think they may make a mistake, and that the things can be +said—" He hesitated; he did not want to press her unfairly into +confidence; "to the right person?" he concluded rather lamely.</p> + +<p>"Who is to find the right person?" said Molly bitterly; "the right +person is easy to find for people who have just ordinary cares and +difficulties, but the people who are in real difficulties don't easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +find the right person. I doubt if he or she exists myself!"</p> + +<p>She turned to find Edmund Grosse looking at her with far too much +meaning in his face; there was a degree and intensity of interest in his +look that might be read in more than one way.</p> + +<p>Molly blushed with the simplicity suited to seventeen rather than to +twenty-one. She was very near to the first outpouring in her life, the +torrent of her pent-up thoughts and feelings was pressing against the +flood-gates. It seemed to her that she had never known true and real +sympathy before she felt that look. She held out her hands towards him +with a little unconscious gesture of appeal.</p> + +<p>"I have had a strange life," she said; "I am in very strange +circumstances now."</p> + +<p>But Edmund suddenly got up, and before she could speak again a slight +sound on the path showed her that some one was coming.</p> + +<p>Rose, finding every one dispersed, had taken a walk by herself in the +wood. She was glad to be alone; she felt the presence of God in the +woods as very near and intimate. Her mind had one of those moments of +complete rest and feeding on beautiful things which come to those who +have known great mental suffering in their lives, and to whom the world +is not giving its gaudy preoccupations. So, walking amidst the glory of +spring lit by a spiritual sunshine, Rose came round a little stunted +yew-tree to find Molly kneeling on the ground ivy, and Edmund standing +by her. Molly rose in one movement to her full height, as if her legs +possessed no jointed impediments, and a fiercely negative expression +filled the grey eyes. Rose's kind hand had unwittingly slammed the +flood-gates in the mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>ment they had opened; and Edmund, seeing that +look, and feeling the air electric, suddenly reverted to a belief in +Molly's sense of guilt towards Rose.</p> + +<p>For the fraction of a second Rose looked helplessly at Edmund, and then +held out a little bunch of violets to Molly.</p> + +<p>"Won't you have these? There; they suit so well with your gown."</p> + +<p>With a quick and very gentle touch she put the violets into Molly's +belt, and smiled at her with the sunshine that was all about them.</p> + +<p>Molly looked a little dazed, and the "Thank you" of her clear low voice +was mechanical.</p> + +<p>"I was just coming for a few minutes' walk in the wood."</p> + +<p>Rose's voice was very rich in inflection, and now it sounded like a +caress.</p> + +<p>"But I wonder if it is late? I think I have forgotten the time, it is +all so beautiful."</p> + +<p>She laid her hand for a moment on Molly's arm.</p> + +<p>"It is very late," said Edmund with decision, but without consulting his +watch on the point.</p> + +<p>They all moved quickly, and while making their way back to the Castle +Rose and Edmund talked of Lord and Lady Groombridge, and Molly walked +silently beside them.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h3>THE PET VICE</h3> + +<p>"May I come in?"</p> + +<p>At the same moment the door was half opened, and Lady Groombridge, in a +heavy, dark-coloured gown, made her way in, with the swish of a long, +silk train. She half opened the door with an air of mystery, and she +closed it softly while she held her flat silver candlestick in her hand +as if she wished she could conceal it, yet the oil lamps were still +burning in the gallery behind her. The appearance of the wish for +concealment was merely the unconscious expression of her mental +condition at the moment.</p> + +<p>Two women looked up in surprise as she made this unconsciously dramatic +entrance into her guest's bedroom. Lady Rose was sitting in front of the +uncurtained window in a loose, white dressing-gown, lifting a mass of +her golden hair with her hair brush. She had been talking eagerly, but +vaguely, before her hostess came in, in order to conceal the fact that +she wished intensely to be allowed to go to bed.</p> + +<p>Lady Rose made many such minor sacrifices on the altar of charity, and +she was sorry for the tall, thin, mysterious girl who, at first almost +impossibly stiff and cold, had volunteered a visit to her room to-night. +It was only a very few who were ever asked to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> into Rose's room, +and she had hastily covered the miniature of her dead husband in his +uniform with her small fan before she admitted Molly.</p> + +<p>By some strange impulse, Molly had attached herself to Rose during the +rest of that Easter Sunday. Curiosity, admiration, or jealousy might +have accounted for Molly's doing this. To herself it seemed merely part +of her determination to face the position without fear or fancies. If +Lady Rose found out later with whom she had spent those hours, at least +she should not think that Molly had been embarrassed. Perhaps, too, Sir +Edmund's efforts to keep them apart made her more anxious to be with +her.</p> + +<p>Having been kindly welcomed to Rose's room, Molly found herself slightly +embarrassed; they seemed to have used up all common topics during the +day, and Molly was certainly not prepared to be confidential.</p> + +<p>The entrance of the hostess came as a relief. That lady, without +glancing at Rose or Molly as she came into the middle of the room, +banged the candlestick down on a small table, and then threw herself +into an arm-chair, which gave a creak of sympathy in response to her +loud sigh.</p> + +<p>"It is perfectly disgraceful!" she said, "and now I don't really know +what has happened. On Easter Sunday night, too!"</p> + +<p>Molly had been standing by the window, looking out on the moonlit park. +She now leaned further across the wide window-seat, so that her slight, +sea-green silk-clad figure might not be obtrusive, and the dark keen +face was turned away for the same purpose.</p> + +<p>"That woman has actually," Lady Groombridge went on, "been playing cards +in the smoking-room on Easter Sunday night with Billy and those two +boys.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> What Groombridge will say, I can't conceive; it is perfectly +disgraceful!"</p> + +<p>"Have they been playing for much?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, for anything, I suppose; and Edmund Grosse says that the boy from +the Parsonage has lost any amount to Billy. They have fleeced him in the +most disgraceful way."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence. Rose looked utterly distressed.</p> + +<p>"If he had only refused to play," she said at last, as if she wished to +return in imagination to a happier state of things.</p> + +<p>"It's no use saying that now," said Lady Groombridge, with an air of +ineffable wisdom.</p> + +<p>Molly Dexter bit her tiny evening handkerchief, and her grey eyes +laughed at the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Well, Rose, I can't say you are much comfort to me," the hostess went +on presently, with a dawn of humour on her countenance as she crossed +one leg over the other.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, what can I say?"</p> + +<p>The tall, white figure, brush in hand, rose and stood over the elderly +woman in the chair. Rose had had the healthy development of a girlhood +in the country, but her regular features were more deeply marked now and +there were dark lines under her clear, blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said the hostess in a brooding way, "that Mrs. +What's-her-name Green would tell you how much he lost, Rose, if you went +to her room? Of course, I can't possibly ask her."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; she thinks me a goody-goody old frump."</p> + +<p>At the same moment another brush at the splendid hair betrayed a +half-consciousness of the grace of her own movements.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She wouldn't say a word to me—she is much more likely to tell one of +the men. Perhaps she will tell Edmund Grosse to-morrow; he is so easy to +talk to."</p> + +<p>"But that's no use for to-night, and Groombridge will be simply furious +if I ask him to interfere without telling him how much it comes to. +Billy won't say a word."</p> + +<p>"I think," said Rose very slowly, "that if we all go to bed now, we +shall have some bright idea in the morning."</p> + +<p>Before this master-stroke of suggestion had reached Lady Groombridge's +brain, a very low voice came from the window.</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to go and ask her?"</p> + +<p>The hostess started; she had forgotten Miss Molly Dexter. A little dull +blush rose to her forehead.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, I had forgotten you were there; but, after all, she is no +relation of yours, and it isn't your fault, you know. Could you—would +you really not mind asking her?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mind at all. Might I take your candle?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Lady Groombridge, "you won't, don't you know——"</p> + +<p>"Say that you sent me?" The low, detached voice betrayed no sarcasm. She +knew perfectly well that Lady Groombridge disliked being beholden to her +at that moment. It was rather amusing to make her so.</p> + +<p>For fifteen minutes after that the travelling clock by Lady Rose's bed +ticked loudly, and drowned the faint murmur of her prayers while she +knelt at the <i>prie-dieu</i>.</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge knew Rose too well to be surprised. But she did not, +like the young widow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> pass the time in prayer; she was worried—even +deeply so. She was of an anxious temperament, and she was really shocked +at what had happened.</p> + +<p>Molly did not come back with any air of mystery, but with a curiously +negative look.</p> + +<p>"Thirty-five pounds," she said very quietly.</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge sat up, very wide awake.</p> + +<p>"More than half his allowance for a whole year," she said with +conviction.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, dear," said Lady Rose, rising as gracefully as a guardian +angel from her <i>prie-dieu</i>.</p> + +<p>Molly made no comment, although in her heart she was very angry with +Mrs. Delaport Green. Her quick "Good-night" was very cordially returned +by the other two.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me something more about Miss Molly Dexter," said Rose, sinking +on to a tiny footstool at Lady Groombridge's feet as soon as they were +alone.</p> + +<p>"I am ashamed to say that I know very little about her; I am simply +furious with myself for having asked them at all. I don't often yield to +kind-hearted impulses, and I'm sure I'm punished enough this time."</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge gave a snort.</p> + +<p>"But who is she? Is she one of the Malcot Dexters?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I can tell you that much. She is the daughter of a John Dexter I +used to know a little. He died many years ago, not very long after +divorcing his wife, and this poor girl was brought up by an aunt, and +Sir Edmund says she had a bad time of it. Then she made one of those odd +arrangements people make nowadays, to be taken about by this Mrs. +Delaport Green, and I met them at Aunt Emily's, and, of course, I +thought they were all right and asked them to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> here. After that I +heard a little more about the girl from some one in London; I can't +remember who it was now."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing," said Rose; "she looks as if she had had a sad childhood. +But what curious eyes; I find her looking through and through me."</p> + +<p>"Yes; you have evidently got a marked attraction for her."</p> + +<p>"Repulsion, I should have called it," said Rose, with her gentle laugh.</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge laughed too, and got up to go to bed.</p> + +<p>"And what became of the mother?"</p> + +<p>"She is living—" said the other; then she caught her sleeve in the +table very clumsily, and was a moment or two disengaging the lace. "She +is living," she then said rather slowly, "in Paris, I think it is, but +this girl has never seen her."</p> + +<p>"How dreadful!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Good-night, Rose; do get to bed quickly,—a wise remark when it is +I who have been keeping you up!"</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge, when she got to her own room, murmured to herself:</p> + +<p>"I only stopped just in time. I nearly said Florence, and that is where +the other wicked woman lives. It's odd they should both live in +Florence. But—how absurd, I'm half asleep—it would be much odder if +there were not two wicked women in Florence."</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>Sir Edmund was aware as soon as he took his seat by Molly at the +breakfast-table that she knew why Lady Groombridge was pouring out tea +with a dark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> countenance. He put a plate of omelette in his own place, +and then asked if Molly needed anything. As she answered in the negative +he murmured as he sat down:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Delaport Green is not down?"</p> + +<p>"She has a furious toothache."</p> + +<p>Molly's look answered his.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there is no such thing as a dentist left in London on Easter +Monday?"</p> + +<p>No more was safe just then; but by common consent they moved out on to +the terrace as soon as they had finished breakfast.</p> + +<p>"It is too tiresome, too silly, too wrong," said Molly.</p> + +<p>"Yes; the pet vice should be left at home," said Edmund. "Many of them +do it because it's fashionable, but this one must have it in the blood. +I saw her begin to play, and she was a different creature when she +touched the cards. What sort of repentence is there?"</p> + +<p>"I found her crying last night like a child, but this morning I see she +is going to brazen it out. But she wants to quarrel with me at once, so +I don't get much confidence."</p> + +<p>"But you don't mind that?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, only—" Molly sighed, but intimate as their tone was, +she did not now feel any inclination to reveal her greater troubles.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to end up badly with my first venture, and I have nowhere +else to go. For to-day I think she will talk of going to see the dentist +until she finds out how she is treated here."</p> + +<p>"Oh! that will be all right for to-day," said Edmund. "There are no +possible trains on Bank holiday, and no motor. Let her get off early +to-morrow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly had evidently sought his opinion as decisive, and she turned as if +to go and repeat it to Mrs. Delaport Green.</p> + +<p>"But what will you do yourself?" he asked very gently.</p> + +<p>"I shall go away with her, and then—I wonder—" She hesitated, and +looked full into his face. "Would you be shocked if I took a flat by +myself? I don't want to hunt for another Mrs. Delaport Green just now."</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund paused. It struck him for a moment as very tiresome that he +should be falling into the position of counsellor and guide to this +girl, while he had anything but her prosperity at heart. He looked at +her, and there was in her attitude a pathetic confidence in his +judgment.</p> + +<p>"I don't want," she went on, holding her head very straight and looking +away to the wooded hills, "I don't want to do anything unconventional."</p> + +<p>A deep blush overspread the dark face—a blush of shame and hesitation, +for the words, "your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than +other girls," so often in poor Molly's mind, were repeated there now.</p> + +<p>"If there were an old governess, or some one of that sort," suggested +Sir Edmund, with hesitation.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, yes!" cried Molly eagerly; "there is one, if I could only get +her. Oh, thank you, yes! I wonder I did not think of that before." And +she gave a happy, youthful laugh at this solution.</p> + +<p>"Is it some one you really care for?" asked Edmund, with growing +interest.</p> + +<p>"I don't know about really caring"—Molly looked puzzled—"but she would +do. There is one thing more I wanted to ask you. About the silly boy +last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> night: whom does he owe the money to? I know nothing about +bridge."</p> + +<p>"He owes it to Billy."</p> + +<p>Molly looked sorry.</p> + +<p>"I thought, if it were to Mrs. Delaport Green——"</p> + +<p>"You might have paid the money?" Edmund smiled kindly at her. "No, no, +Miss Dexter, that will be all right."</p> + +<p>She turned from him, laughing, and went indoors to Mrs. Delaport Green's +room.</p> + +<p>She found that lady writing letters, and the floor was scattered with +them, six deep round the table. She put her hand to her face as Molly +came in.</p> + +<p>"There are no possible trains," said Molly, "so I'm afraid you must bear +it. Sir Edmund advises us to go by an early train to-morrow: he thinks +to-day you would be better here, as there won't be a dentist left in +London."</p> + +<p>"I am very brave at bearing pain, fortunately," was the answer, "and I +am trying, even now, to get on with my letters. I think I shall go to +Eastbourne to-morrow; there are always good dentists in those places. I +love the churches there, and the air will brace my nerves. I might have +gone to Brighton only Tim is there. Will you"—she paused a +moment—"will you come to Eastbourne too?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green was not disposed to have Molly with her. She was +exceedingly annoyed at the <i>débâcle</i> of her visit to Groombridge—a +visit which she was describing in glowing terms in her letters to all +her particular friends. It would be unpleasant to have Molly's critical +eyes upon her; she liked, and was accustomed to, people with a very +different expression.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly, however, ignoring very patent hints with great calmness and +firmness, told her that she intended to stay with her for just as long +as it was necessary before finding some one to live with in a little +flat in London. She felt the possibility, at first, of Mrs. Delaport +Green's becoming insolent, but she was presently convinced that she had +mastered the situation. They agreed to go to Eastbourne together next +day, and then to look for a flat for Molly in London. The suggestion +that Mrs. Delaport Green might help Molly to choose the furniture proved +very soothing indeed.</p> + +<p>Molly went down-stairs again to let Sir Edmund know they were not going +to leave till next morning, and to find out if he had succeeded in +speaking to Lady Groombridge.</p> + +<p>As she passed through the hall, she saw that he was sitting with Lady +Rose by a window opening on to the terrace. She was passing on, being +anxious not to interrupt them, but Rose held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"I've hardly seen you this morning. Do come and sit with us." And then, +as Molly rather shyly sat down by her side on a low sofa, Lady Rose went +on:</p> + +<p>"I was just telling Sir Edmund a very beautiful thing that has happened, +only it is very sad for dear Lord Groombridge and for her. They have +only had the news this morning, but it is not a secret, and it is very +wonderful. You know that this place was to go to a cousin, quite a young +man, and they liked him very much. They did mind his being a Roman +Catholic, but they were very good about it, and now he has written that +he has actually been ordained a priest, and that he will not have the +property or the Castle as he is going to be just an ordinary parish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +priest working amongst the poor. It is wonderful, isn't it? They say the +next brother is a very ordinary young man—not like this wonderful +one—and so they are very much upset to-day, poor dears. They knew he +was studying for the priesthood, but they did not realise that the time +for his Ordination had really come."</p> + +<p>Molly murmured shyly something that sounded sympathetic, and then, +looking at Sir Edmund, ventured to say:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Delaport Green would like to stay till the early train to-morrow. +But have you seen Lady Groombridge?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's all right—or rather, it's all wrong—but she won't tell +Groombridge to-day, and she will be quite fairly civil, I think."</p> + +<p>"And this news," said Rose gently, "will make them both think less of +that unfortunate affair last night."</p> + +<p>Molly rose and moved off with an unusually genial smile.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h3>THE THIN END OF A CLUE</h3> + +<p>Edmund Grosse later on in the morning strolled down to the stables. He +had been there the day before, but he had still something to say to the +stud-groom, an old friend of his, who had the highest respect for the +baronet's judgment.</p> + +<p>Edmund loved a really well-kept stable, where hardly a straw escapes +beyond the plaited edges, where the paint is renewed and washed to the +highest possible pitch of cleanliness, and where a perpetual whish of +water and clanking of pails testify to a constant cleaning of +cobblestone yard and flagged pavement.</p> + +<p>In the middle of Groombridge Castle stable-yard there was an oval of +perfect turf, and that was surrounded by soft, red gravel; then came +alternate squares of pavement and cobble-stones, on to which opened the +wide doors of coach-houses and stables and harness-rooms, and the back +gate of the stud-groom's house.</p> + +<p>An old, white-haired, ruddy-faced man standing on the red gravel smiled +heartily when Sir Edmund appeared. The man was in plain clothes, with a +very upright collar and a pearl horseshoe-pin in his tie; his figure was +well-built, but showed unmistakably that his knees had been fixed in +their present shape by constant riding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>He touched his hat.</p> + +<p>"How's the mare to-day, Akers?" asked Sir Edmund.</p> + +<p>"Nicely, nicely; it's a splendid mash that, Sir Edmund. Old Hartley gave +me the recipe for that. He was stud-groom here longer than I have been, +in the old lord's day. He had hoped to have had his son to follow him, +but the lad got wild, and it couldn't be."</p> + +<p>The old man sighed, and changed the conversation. "Will you come round +again, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Edmund; "I don't mind if I do. But you've got a son of your +own about the stable, haven't you?" he asked, as they turned towards the +other side of the yard.</p> + +<p>"I had two, Sir Edmund," was the brief and melancholy answer. "Jimmy's +here, but the lad I thought most on, he went and enlisted in the war, +and he couldn't settle down again after that. Jimmy, he'll never rise to +my place—it would not be fair, and I wouldn't let his lordship give it +a thought—but the other one might have done it."</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund felt some sympathy for the stay-at-home, whom he knew. "He +seems a cheerful, steady fellow."</p> + +<p>"He's steady enough, and he's cheerful enough," said his father, in a +tone of great contempt; "but the other lad had talent—he had talent."</p> + +<p>Both men had paused in the interest of their talk.</p> + +<p>"My eldest son, Thomas, of whom I'm speaking, went to the war in the +same ship as General Sir David Bright, and there's a thing I'd like to +tell you about that, Sir Edmund. It never came into my head how curious +a thing it was till yesterday—last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> night, I may say. Lady Rose +Bright's lady's-maid come in with Lady Groombridge's lady's-maid to see +my wife, and you'll excuse me if I do repeat some woman's gossip when +you see why I do it. Well, the long and short of it was that it seems +Lady Rose Bright has been left rather close as to fortune for a lady in +her position, and the money's all gone off elsewhere. Then the maid +said, Sir Edmund—whether truly or not I don't know, naturally—that +there had been hopes that another will might be sent home from South +Africa, but that nothing came of it. I felt, so to speak, puzzled while +I was listening, and afterwards my wife says to me while we were alone, +she says, 'Wasn't it our Thomas when he was on board ship wrote that he +had put his name to a paper for Sir David Bright?'—witnessing, you'll +understand she meant by that, sir—'and what's become of that paper I +should like to know,' says she. So she up and went to her room and took +out all Thomas's letters, and sure enough it was true."</p> + +<p>Akers paused, and then very slowly extracted a fat pocket-book from his +tight-fitting coat, and pulled out a letter beautifully written on thin +paper. He held it with evident respect, and then, after a preparatory +cough, he began to read:</p> + +<p>"'I was sent for to-day, and taken up with another of our regiment to +the state cabins by Sir David Bright's servant, and asked to put my name +to a paper as witness to Sir David Bright's signature, and so I did.'"</p> + +<p>Akers stopped, and looked across his glasses at Sir Edmund.</p> + +<p>"I don't know if you will remember Sir David's servant, Sir Edmund; he +was killed in the same battle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> as Sir David was, poor fellow. A big man +with red hair—a Scotchman—you'd have known that as soon as he opened +his mouth. He'd have chosen my boy from having known him here, in all +probability."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said Grosse impatiently; "but how do you know that what he +witnessed was a will?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, I don't know, Sir Edmund, and of course the boy didn't +know what was in the paper he witnessed; but the missus will have it +that that paper was a will, and there'll be no getting it out of her +head that the right will has been lost. I was wondering about it when I +see you come into the yard, and I thought I'd just let you see the lad's +letter. It could do no harm, and it might do good."</p> + +<p>Edmund had been absolutely silent during this narrative, with his eyes +fixed on the stud-groom's face.</p> + +<p>"And where is Thomas now?" he asked, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"He's in North India somewhere, Sir Edmund, but that is his poor +mother's trouble; we've not had a line from him these three months."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll find him for you," said Edmund, and he was just going to ask +what regiment Thomas was in when they were disturbed by the appearance +of Billy emerging from the hunters' stable, and Edmund Grosse felt an +unwarrantable contempt for a young man who dawdles away half the morning +in the stable.</p> + +<p>"Should I find you at six o'clock this evening?" he asked, in a low +voice, of the stud-groom; and having been satisfied on that point, he +strolled off and left Billy to talk of the horses.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse felt for the moment as if the missing will were in his +grasp, and he was quite sure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> now that he had never doubted its +existence. What he had just heard was the very first thing approaching +to evidence in favour of his own theory, which he had hitherto built up +entirely on guess-work. Of course, the paper might have been some +ordinary deed, some bit of business the General had forgotten to +transact before starting. But, if so, he felt sure that it must have +been business unknown to the brothers Murray, as they had discussed with +Grosse every detail of Sir Edmund's affairs. One thing was certain: it +would be quite as difficult after this to drive out of Edmund Grosse's +head the belief that this paper was a will as it would be to drive it +out of the head of Mrs. Akers.</p> + +<p>Edmund was in excellent spirits at luncheon. In the afternoon he drove +with Lady Groombridge and Rose and Molly to see a famous garden some +eight miles off, the owners of which were away in the South. The +original house to which the gardens belonged had been replaced by a +modern one in Italian style at the beginning of the nineteenth century. +It was not interesting, and Lady Groombridge gave a sniff of contempt as +she turned her back on it and her attention, and that of her friends, to +the far more striking green walls beyond the wide terraced walk on the +south side of the building.</p> + +<p>In the midst of ordinary English country scenery, these gardens had been +set by a great Frenchman who had caught the strange secret of the +romance of utterly formal hedges. He could make of them a fitting +framework for the glories of a court, or for sylvan life in Merrie +England. There were miles of hedges; not yew, hornbeam had been chosen +for this green, tranquil country. At one spot many avenues of hedges met +together as if by accident, or by some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> rhythmic movement; it was a +minuet of Nature's dancing, grown into formal lines but not +petrified—every detail, in fact, alive with green leaves. If you stood +in the midst of this meeting of the ways, the country round outside, +seen in vistas between the hedges, was curiously glorified, more +especially on one side where the avenues were shortened. There one saw +larger glimpses of fields and woods and bits of common-land that seemed +wonderfully eloquent of freedom and simplicity, nature and husbandry. +But if you had not seen those glimpses through the lines of strange, +stately, regal dignity—the lines of those mighty hedges—you would not +have been so startled by their charm. That was the triumph of the genius +of Lenôtre: he had seen that, framed in the sternest symbols of rule and +order, one could get the freshest joy in the pictures of Nature's +untouched handiwork. On the west side the avenues of hedges disappeared +into distant vistas of wood, one only ending in a piece of most formal +ornamental water. I don't know how it was, but it was difficult not to +be infected by a curious sense of orgy, of human beings up to their +tricks—love tricks, drinking and eating—perhaps murdering tricks—all +done in some impish fantastic way, between those long hedges or behind +them. If there were not something going on down one avenue you looked +into, it was happening in another.</p> + +<p>Somewhat of all this Edmund said to Molly as they strolled between the +hedges which reached far above his head, but she felt that he was +absent-minded while he did so. He had planned for himself a walk and a +talk with Rose, but he had reckoned without his hostess, who had shown +so unmistakably that she intended him to amuse Molly that it would have +been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> discourteous to have done anything else. He had felt rather cross +as he saw Lady Groombridge and Rose turn down one of the longest walks, +one that seemed indeed to have no ending at all, with an air of +finality, as if their <i>tête-à-tête</i> were to be as long as the path +before them, and as secret as the hedges could keep it. He would never +have come out driving with three women if he had not hoped to get a talk +alone with Rose. He told himself that Rose's avoidance of him was +becoming quite an affectation, and after all, he asked himself, what had +he done to be treated like this?</p> + +<p>"Why, if I were trying to make love to her she could not be more absurd! +The only time after our first walk here that we have been alone she made +Miss Dexter join us, and as the girl would not stay Rose found she must +write letters."</p> + +<p>As soon as he had made up his mind that he would show Rose what nonsense +it all was, he could and did—not without the zest of pique—turn his +attention to Molly.</p> + +<p>"Lady Groombridge doesn't frame well here, does she?" he said, smiling. +"Rather a shock at that date—the tweed skirt and the nailed boots and +the felt hat."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but Lady Rose floats down between the hedges as if she had a long +train, only she hasn't," laughed Molly. "The hem of her garment never +touches the earth, as a matter of fact. I wonder how it is done."</p> + +<p>"You are right," said Edmund; "and, do you know another thing about +Rose?—whatever she wears she seems to be in white."</p> + +<p>"I know," answered Molly. "I see what you mean."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It may be," said Edmund, "because she always wore white as a young +girl. I remember the day when David Bright first saw her she was in +white." Edmund had for a moment forgotten entirely why he should not +have mentioned David Bright. If Molly could have read his mind at the +next moment she would have seen that he was expressing a most fervent +wish that he had never met her. How little he had gained, or was likely +to gain, from her, and how stupid and tiresome, if not worse, was this +appearance of friendship. He felt this much more strongly on account of +the morning's discovery, and he was determined to keep on neutral +ground.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever seen Versailles?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No; I have seen absolutely nothing out of England except India, when I +was a small child."</p> + +<p>There it was again! He could not let her give him any confidences about +India or anything else.</p> + +<p>"Well, the hedges at Versailles don't impress me half as much as these +do, and yet these are not half so well known. There's more of nature +here, and they are not so self-contained. At Versailles the Court and +its gardens were the world, and nature a tapestry hanging out for a +horizon; here it is amazing how the frame leads one's eyes to the great, +beautiful world outside. I never saw meadows and woods look fairer than +from here."</p> + +<p>They were silent; and in the silence Grosse heard shouting and then saw +a huge dog dragging a chain, rushing along the avenue towards them, +while louder shouts came from the opposite direction.</p> + +<p>"We must run," he said very quietly, "there's something wrong with it;" +and two men, still calling and waving their arms, appeared at the end +nearest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> the house. Edmund took Molly by the arm, and they ran to meet +the men.</p> + +<p>"Get the lady over the kitchen-garden wall!" shouted one who held a gun, +and as they came to the end of the hedge on their left they saw a wall +at right angles to it about five feet high. Molly looked for any sort of +footing in the bricks for one second, and then she felt Grosse lift her +in his arms, and deposit her on the top of the wall. She rolled over on +the other side into a strawberry bed in blossom. She heard a gun fired +as she jumped to her feet, and a second shot followed.</p> + +<p>"He's dead, sir," she heard a voice say. "I'll open the gate for the +lady."</p> + +<p>And then a garden gate a few yards off was opened inward, and Molly +walked to meet the man whom she supposed to be a head gardener. She +thanked him and went through the gate, to find Edmund, with a very white +face, leaning back on a stone bench built into the wall.</p> + +<p>"The gentleman strained himself a bit," said the gardener, in a tone of +apology to Molly. "I can't think how he come to break his chain"—he +meant the dog this time. "I've said he ought to be shot long ago; now +they'll believe me. Why, he bit off the porter's ear at the station when +he first come, and he was half mad with rage to-day."</p> + +<p>"I'm all right," said Edmund, with a kindly smile to the horribly +distressed Molly. She went up to him with a gentle, tender anxiety on +her face that betrayed a too strong feeling, only he was just faint +enough not to notice it.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing, child," he said in the fatherly tone that to Molly meant +so far too much. "The merest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> rick. I forgot, in the hurry, to think how +high I was lifting you, and I also forgot that there might be cucumber +frames on the other side!"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have said 'over the garden wall,' sir, if there had been," +said the gardener with a smile, as he offered a glass of water that had +been fetched by the other man, whose coat and gaiters proclaimed him +unmistakably a keeper.</p> + +<p>"A fine dog, poor fellow," said Edmund to the latter.</p> + +<p>The keeper shook his head. "I don't deny it, sir, but there are fine +lions and fine bears, too, sir, that are kept locked up in the +Zoölogical Gardens." Evidently the gardener and the keeper were of one +opinion in this matter.</p> + +<p>Presently Sir Edmund was so clearly all right that the men, after being +tipped and having all their further offers of help refused, went away.</p> + +<p>Edmund and Molly were left alone.</p> + +<p>"How well you run!" he said, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Yes; even without a ferocious dog behind me I can run fairly well," she +said. "But I wish you had let me get over that wall alone. And I wish +they could have spared that splendid animal."</p> + +<p>"After all, he would have been shot whether we had been there or not," +said Edmund. "My only bad moment was listening for the crash of broken +glass and thinking that you were cut to pieces."</p> + +<p>"You are sure that you have not hurt yourself?" Her grey eyes were large +with anxiety.</p> + +<p>Edmund, laughing, held up his hand, which was bleeding.</p> + +<p>"I see I have sustained a serious injury of which I was not aware in the +excitement of the crisis."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly examined his hand with a professional air. Edmund let her wash it +with her handkerchief dipped in the glass of water, and bind it with his +own. Her touch was light and skilful, and it would have been absurd to +refuse to let her do it. But, as holding his wrist she raised it a +little higher to turn her bandage under it, her small, lithe, thin hand +was close to his face, and he gave it the slightest kiss.</p> + +<p>Any girl who had been abroad would have taken it as little more than the +merest politeness, but to Molly it came as a surprise. A glow of quick, +deep joy rose within her; her cheeks did not blush, for this was a +feeling too peaceful, too restful for blushes or any sort of discomfort.</p> + +<p>"This young lady can run like a deerhound," said Edmund, "and bandage +like a surgeon."</p> + +<p>"But that's about all she can do," laughed Molly. "Ah! there"—she could +not quite hide the regret in her voice—"there are Lady Groombridge and +Lady Rose."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + +<h3>MOLLY'S NIGHT WATCH</h3> + +<p>That night Molly could write it on the tablets of her mind that she had +passed a nearly perfect day. The evening had not promised to be as happy +as the rest, but it had held a happy hour. Mrs. Delaport Green had made +a masterly descent just in time for dinner. Molly smiled at the thought +when alone in her room. A beautiful tea-gown had expressed the invalid, +and was most becoming.</p> + +<p>"Every one has been so kind, dear Lady Groombridge; really, it is a +temptation to be ill in this house—everything so perfectly done."</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge most distinctly grunted.</p> + +<p>"Why is toothache so peculiarly hard to bear?" She turned to Edmund +Grosse.</p> + +<p>"It wants a good deal of philosophy certainly, especially when one's +face swells; but yours, fortunately, has not lost its usual outline." +And he gave her a complimentary little bow.</p> + +<p>"Oh! there you are wrong," cried the sufferer. "My face is very much +swollen on one side."</p> + +<p>But she did not mention on which side the disfigurement was to be seen, +and she ate an excellent dinner and talked very brightly to her host, +who could not think why his wife had taken an evident dislike to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> the +little woman. Edmund teased her several times, and would not let her +settle down into her usual state of self-content, but after dinner she +wisely took refuge with the merciful Rose.</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge meanwhile gave Molly a dose of good advice, kindly, if +a little roughly, administered.</p> + +<p>"I was pretty and an orphan myself, and it is not very easy work; then +you have money, which makes it both better and worse. Be with wise +people as much as you can; if they are a little dull it is worth while. +If you take up with any bright, amusing woman you meet, you will find +yourself more worried in the long run;" and she glanced significantly at +Mrs. Delaport Green.</p> + +<p>The obvious nature of the advice, of which this remark is a sample, did +not spoil it. Sometimes it is a comfort to have the thing said to us +that we quite see for ourselves. In to-day's unwonted mood Molly was +ready to receive very ordinary wisdom as golden.</p> + +<p>And then Lady Groombridge discovered that Molly was musical, and the +older woman loved music, finding in it some of the romance which was +shut out by her own limitations and by a life of over great bustle and +worry.</p> + +<p>So Molly found in her music expression for her joy in the spring, and +her wistful, undefined sense of hope in life.</p> + +<p>Lady Groombridge, sitting near her, listened almost hungrily, and asked +for more. She was utterly sad to-night with the "might have been" of a +childless woman. The news of the final sacrifice on the part of the heir +to Groombridge, of all that meant so much to herself and her husband, +had made so keen to her the sense of emptiness in their old age. And the +music<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> soothed her into a deeper feeling of submission that in reality +underlay the outward unrest and discontent of to-day. Submission was, at +one time, the most marked virtue of every class in our country, and it +may be found sometimes in those who, having lost all other conscious +religion, will still say, "He knows best," revealing thereby the +bed-rock of faith as the foundation of their lives. Lady Groombridge had +not lost her religious beliefs, but she was more dutiful than devout, +and did not herself often reflect on what strength duty depended.</p> + +<p>And Molly, who knew nothing of submission, yet ministered to the older +woman's peace by her music. When the men came out, Lord Groombridge took +a chair close to his wife's as if to share in her pleasure, and Edmund +moved out of Molly's sight. She sometimes heard the voice of Rose or of +Billy or of Mrs. Delaport Green, but not Sir Edmund's, and she naturally +thought he was listening, whereas part of the time he was reading a +review. But as the ladies were going up to bed, he said, looking into +the large, grey eyes:</p> + +<p>"Who said she could do nothing but run like a deerhound and bandage like +a surgeon? And now I find she can play like an artist. What next?"</p> + +<p>And Molly, standing in her room, said to herself that it had been the +happiest day of her life.</p> + +<p>But a moment later the maid came in, and while helping to take off her +dinner dress, told her mistress that the kitchenmaid in a room near hers +was groaning horribly. It seemed that Lady Groombridge had given out +some medicine, and Lady Rose had sent up her hot-water bottle and her +spirit-lamp, and had advised that the bottle be constantly refilled +during the night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But I'm sure, miss, she shouldn't take that medicine. I took on myself +to tell her not to till I'd spoken to you, and I'm sure I don't know who +is going to sit up filling bottles to-night. Lady Groombridge's +maid"—in a tone of deep respect—"isn't one to be disturbed, and the +scullerymaid won't get to bed till one in the morning: this girl being +ill it gives her double work."</p> + +<p>Molly instantly rose to the situation. She knew of better appliances +than the softest hot-water bottles, and soon after her noiseless +entrance into the housemaid's attic the pain had been relieved. But, +being a little afraid that the girl was threatened with appendicitis, +she knew that if that were the case the relief from the application she +had used was only temporary. However, the patient rested longer than she +expected. Molly sat by the open window, while behind her on the two +narrow beds lay the sick girl and the now loudly-snoring scullerymaid, +who had come up a little before twelve o'clock.</p> + +<p>"Not quite six hours' sleep that girl will get to-night," mused Molly, +"and then downstairs again and two hours' work before the cook comes +down to scold her. What a life!"</p> + +<p>But, after all, Molly had noticed the blush with which the girl had put +a few violets in a little pot on the chimney-piece. Was it quite sure +that Miss Dexter's life would be happier than that of the snorer on the +bed, who smiled once or twice in her noisy sleep?</p> + +<p>"There is happiness in this world after all," mused Molly, soothed by +thoughts of the past day, by the stillness on the face of the earth, and +by a certain rest that came to her with all acts of kindness—a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +lull to those activities of mind and instinct that constantly led her +out of the paths of peace.</p> + +<p>This was a sacred time of the night to Molly. It was associated in her +mind with the best hours she had ever lived, hours of sick nursing and +devotion, hours of real use and help. For months now she had been living +entirely for herself, to fight her own battle and make her own way in a +hostile world. She had had much excitement and even real pleasure. Her +imagination had taken fire with the notion that she must assert herself +or be crushed in the race of life. Heavy ordinary people would find it +hard to understand Molly's strange idealisation of the glories of the +kingdom of this world which she meant to conquer. And if she were +frustrated in her passion for worldly success, there were capacities in +her which she as yet hardly suspected, but she did feel at times the +stirrings of evil things, cruelty, revenge, and she hardly knew what +else. How could people understand her? She shrank from understanding +herself.</p> + +<p>But to-night she knew the inspiration of another ideal; she recognised +the possibility of aims in which self hardly counts. There had been +indeed a stir in the minds of all at Groombridge when they knew of the +final step taken by the heir. Molly, looking up at the great castle, on +her homeward drive, with its massive towers and its most commanding +position, had felt more and more impressed by an action on so big a +scale. It was impossible to be at Groombridge and not to feel the great +and noble opportunities its possession must give any remarkable man; and +the man who could give up such opportunities must be a very remarkable +man indeed. In Molly's self-engrossed life it had something of the same +effect as a great thunder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>storm among mountains would have had in the +physical order.</p> + +<p>And to-night it came over her again, and she seemed to be listening to +the echoes of a far vibrating sound. And might there not be happiness +for Mark Molyneux? Might it not be happiness for herself to give up the +wretched, uncomfortable fight that life so often seemed to be, and to +let loose the Molly who could toil and go sleepless and be happy, if she +could achieve any diminution of bodily pain in man or woman, child or +beast?</p> + +<p>The dawn lightened; one or two rabbits stirred in the bracken in the +near park—this was peace. Then Molly smiled tenderly at the dawn. There +might come another solution in which life would be unselfish without +such acute sacrifice, and in which evil possibilities would be starved +for lack of temptation. And all that was good would grow in the +sunshine.</p> + +<p>And the sleeping scullerymaid smiled also.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + +<h3>SIR DAVID'S MEMORY</h3> + +<p>Lady Rose Bright was faintly disturbed on Tuesday morning, and came into +Lady Groombridge's sitting-room after Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly had +left the castle too preoccupied to notice the tall figure of Grosse in a +far window.</p> + +<p>This room had happily escaped all Georgian gorgeousness of decoration, +and the backs of the books, a fine eighteenth-century collection, stood +flush to the walls. The long room was all white except for the books, +the flowered chintz covers, some fine bronze statuettes, and a few bowls +of roses.</p> + +<p>Lady Rose moved mechanically towards the empty fire-place.</p> + +<p>It was one thing to try not to dislike Miss Dexter, and to see her in a +haze of Christian love; it was another to realise that, while she +herself had slept most comfortably, Molly had not been to bed at all +because the little kitchenmaid was in pain. Humility and appreciation +were rising in Rose's mind, as half absently she gently raised a vase +from the chimney-piece, and, turning to the light to examine its mark, +saw Sir Edmund looking at her from his distant window.</p> + +<p>A little, quite a little, flush came into her cheeks;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> not much deeper +than the soft, healthy colour usual to them. She examined the china with +more attention.</p> + +<p>The tall figure moved slowly, lazily, down the room towards her, holding +the <i>Times</i> in one hand.</p> + +<p>"It's not Oriental," he said, "it's Lowestoft."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Rose absently. She felt the eyes whose sadness had been +apparent even to Mrs. Delaport Green looking her over with a quick +scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"Why, in your general scheme of benevolence, have you not thought it +fit, during the last few days, to give me the chance of talking to you +alone?" The tone was full of exasperation, but ironical too, as if he +were faintly amused at himself for being exasperated.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Have I avoided being alone with you?" Rose had turned to +the chimney-piece.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse sank into a low chair, crossed his legs, and looked up at +her defiantly, but with keen observation.</p> + +<p>"It has been too absurd," he said, "you have hardly spoken to me, and +you know, of course, that I came here to see you. I meant to go to the +Riviera until I heard that you were coming here."</p> + +<p>"But you have been quite happy, quite amused. There seemed no reason why +I should interrupt. And you know, Edmund, they said that you came here +every year."</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't come only to see you," he said, "as you like it better +that way. And now, it is about Miss Molly Dexter I want to speak to +you."</p> + +<p>This time Rose gave a little ghost of a sigh, and looked at him with +unutterable kindness. She was feeling that, after all, she had come +second in his consciousness—after Miss Dexter, whom she could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +like, but who had sat up all night with the kitchenmaid.</p> + +<p>"Why about Miss Dexter? what can I have to do with her?" The tone was +almost contemptuous—not quite, Rose was too kind.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that I went to Florence?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I did not want you to go." There was at once a distinct note of +distress in her voice. It was horribly painful to her to have to think +of the things she tried so hard to bury away.</p> + +<p>"No, but I went," he said very gently; "and it was useless, as I knew it +would be. But I want to tell you one thing which I have learnt, and +which I think you ought to know, as it may be inconvenient if you do +not. It is that Miss Dexter——" Rose interrupted him quickly.</p> + +<p>"Is the daughter of the lady in Florence?" She gave a little hysterical +laugh. He looked at her in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"And that is why she dislikes me so much. Do you know, Edmund, I had a +feeling from the moment I first saw her that there was something wrong +between us. It gave me a horrible feeling, and then I asked Mary +Groombridge about her, and she told me the poor girl's story; only she +said the mother lived in Paris. Of course Mary does not know, or she +would never have asked us here together. But that is how I knew what you +were going to say; and yet I had no notion of it till a moment ago, when +it came to me in a flash. Only I wish I had known sooner!"</p> + +<p>It was not common with Rose to say so much at a time, and there had been +slight breaks and gaps in her voice, pathetic sounds to the listener. +She seemed a little—just a little—out of breath with past sorrow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +present pain. Edmund thought he would never come to know all the +inflections in that voice.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had known sooner. I am afraid I have not been kind to her."</p> + +<p>"And if you had known you would have cast your pearls at her feet," he +said, in tender anger. "Don't make the mistake of being too kind to her, +Rose. I want you to keep her at a distance. There is something all the +more dangerous about her because she is distinctly attractive. She has +primitive passions, and yet she is not melodramatic; it's a dangerous +species."</p> + +<p>It was amazing how easy it was to take a severe view of poor Molly after +she had gone away, and how he believed what he said.</p> + +<p>"She has never seen her mother?" asked Rose gently.</p> + +<p>"No, but I am sure she knows about her mother," the slowness in his +voice was vindictive; "and that her mother knows what we don't know +about the will."</p> + +<p>"Edmund dear," said Rose very earnestly, "do please leave that point +alone; no good can come of it. I do assure you that no good, only harm, +will come of it. It's bad and unwholesome for us all—mother and you and +me—to dwell on it. I do really wish you would leave it alone."</p> + +<p>Edmund frowned, though he liked that expression, "mother and you and +me."</p> + +<p>"You needn't think about it unless you wish to," he answered.</p> + +<p>"But I wish you wouldn't!"</p> + +<p>"If I had banished it from my thoughts up till now, I could not leave it +alone now, for I have a clue."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, Edmund."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, it may come to nothing; only I'm glad that it makes one thing +still more clear to me though it may go no further."</p> + +<p>He told her then of what the stud-groom had said, and ended by showing +her the letter. Rose read it in silence, and then, still standing with +her face turned away, she said in a very low voice:</p> + +<p>"It is a comfort as far as it goes. But I knew it was so; he never meant +things to be as they are—poor David! Edmund, it is of no use to think +of it. Even if the paper then witnessed were the will, it is lost now +and will never be found. I would rather—I would <i>really</i> rather not +think too much about it."</p> + +<p>"No, no," he answered soothingly, "don't dear, don't dwell on it."</p> + +<p>"I like," she answered, "to dwell on the thought that David did think of +me lovingly, and did not mean to leave me to any shame. I am sure he +never meant to leave me poor, and to let me suffer all the publicity +about that poor woman. I am sure he always meant to change the will in +time, but, you see, all that mischief is done and can't be undone. I +mean the humiliation and the idea that she was in Florence all the time +during our married life, and all the talk, and my having to meet this +unfortunate girl who has his money. All of them think he was unfaithful +to me, and nothing can put that right. Nothing—I mean nothing of this +world—can put any of that right. And I can't bear the idea of a quarrel +and going to law with these people for money; it may be pride, but I +simply can't bear it."</p> + +<p>"But, don't you see," said Edmund, "that if we could prove there was +another will, that would clear David's reputation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It won't prevent people knowing that there was the first will and all +about the poor woman in Florence."</p> + +<p>"No; but it will make people feel that he behaved properly in the end. +It will alter their bad opinion of him."</p> + +<p>"But it will also make them go on thinking and talking of the scandal, +and if it is left alone they will forget. People forget so soon, because +there is always something new to talk about. He will just take his place +among the heroes who died for their country, and the rest will be +forgotten."</p> + +<p>Edmund looked at her quickly, as if taking stock of the delicate nature +of the complex womanly materials he had to deal with, but her face was +still averted.</p> + +<p>"I think it's hard on David." He spoke as if yielding to her wish. "I do +think it is hard. If he did make this will, and it is lost through +chance or fraud, I think it is very hard that his last wishes should be +disregarded, and his memory should suffer in all right-minded people's +opinions. Of course, it is for you to decide, but I own I should +otherwise feel it wrong to leave a stone unturned if anything could be +done to restore his good name."</p> + +<p>He felt that Rose was terribly troubled, but he could not quite realise +what it was to her to disturb her hardly-won peace of mind and calm of +conscience.</p> + +<p>"If it were not for the money!" she faltered. "I shall get to long for +that money; so many people become horrid when they have a lawsuit about +a fortune. It has always seemed to me that if the money is only for +one's self one might leave it alone, and then, after all, if we went to +law and failed, things would be much worse than they were before."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Edmund, slightly exasperated but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> controlling himself. "I +don't mean to do anything definite yet, but we ought to find out if we +can make a case of it. We can always stop in time if we can't get what +we want, but it's worth while to try. It is not merely the money—the +less you dwell on that the better. Seriously, I think it would be very +wrong that, through any fastidiousness of yours, David's memory should +not be cleared if it is possible to clear it."</p> + +<p>The last shot had this time reached the mark. After a few minutes' +silence Rose said in a very low voice:</p> + +<p>"But then, what can I do about it?" He felt that she was hurt, but he +knew he had gained his point.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you can do anything at this moment but allow me a free +hand; I could not do what is necessary without your permission and your +trust—and, presently, let me compare notes with you freely. I know what +your judgment is worth when you can get rid of those scruples."</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>But still she did not turn round. Indeed, the wounds in her mind were +too deep and too fresh to make the subject give her anything but +quivering pain. It was impossible that Edmund should suspect half of +what she felt. He naturally concluded that much of her present suffering +showed how unconquerably Rose's love for Sir David had outlived the +strain put on it. To Rose it would have been much simpler if it had been +so. But in fact part of the trial to Rose was the doubt of her own past +love, and of her own present loyalty. Had she ever truly loved David +while he was still her hero "<i>sans peur et sans reproche</i>," could that +love have been killed at all? So much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> anxiety to be sure of having +forgiven, so much self-reproach for the failure of her marriage, such an +acute, overwhelming sense of shame, and such shrinking from all that was +ugly and low, were intermixed and confused in poor Rose's mind that it +was no wonder even Edmund, with all his tact and his tenderness, +blundered at times.</p> + +<p>They were quite silent for some moments. Edmund wanted to see her face +but he could not. Presently she looked into the glass over the +chimney-piece, and in the glass he saw with remorse a little tear about +to fall.</p> + +<p>"I think I've caught cold," she murmured to herself. Producing a tiny +handkerchief she seemed to apply it to her nose, and so caught that one +little tear. Her movements were wonderfully graceful, but the man +looking at her did not think of that. What he thought was:—How exactly +she was herself and no one else. How could she have that child's +simplicity of hers, and her amazing power of seeing through a stone +wall? How could she be a saint and have all a woman's faults? How could +she live half in another world and yet with all her absurd unworldliness +be so eminently a woman of this one? She was twenty-six, but she knew +what many women of fifty never learn; she was twenty-six, yet she was +more innocent than many a child of thirteen. What a contrast to Molly's +crude ignorance and hankering after success!</p> + +<p>All the time he looked at her in silence and she did not seem to realise +it. She put her handkerchief into her belt and took it out again; she +touched her hair, seeing in the glass that it was untidy. Then she sat +down on a low stool, and her soft, fluffy black draperies fell round +her. She pressed her elbows on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> knees, and sank her face in her +hands. She might have been alone; he was not quite sure she was not +praying. There were some moments of silence. At last she moved, raised +her head, and looked him gently full in the face.</p> + +<p>"And you—you never talk about yourself," she said, with a thrill in her +voice that he had known so long. "I always talk so much of myself when I +am alone with you."</p> + +<p>"No," he said, with a touch of lazy anger, "I'm not worth talking about, +not worth thinking of, and you know it!"</p> + +<p>For a moment she flushed.</p> + +<p>"You always have abused yourself."</p> + +<p>"Because I know what's in your thoughts, and when I am with you I can't +help expressing them—there!" he concluded defiantly, and crossed and +uncrossed his legs again.</p> + +<p>"Edmund, that isn't one bit, one little bit true. But I do wish you were +happier."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course," he went on sardonically, "you know that too. You know +that I loathe and detest life—that I hate the morning because it begins +a new day. Oh, I am bored to extinction, you know all that, you most +exasperating woman. I hate"—he suddenly seemed to see that he was +giving her pain, and the next words were muttered to himself—"no, I +love the pity in your eyes."</p> + +<p>The graceful figure sitting there trembled a little, and the white hands +covered the eyes again.</p> + +<p>"But," he went on quickly in a louder voice, "the pity's no good. You +might as well expect me to command an army to-morrow, or become an +efficient Prime Minister, or an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> Roman +Catholic Cardinal, or anything else that is impossible, as become the +sort of man you would like me to be. You know so perfectly well," he +laughed, "how rotten I am; you are astonished if you find me do any sort +of good—you can't help it, how can you, when it's just and true? Do you +know I sometimes have had absurd dreams of what I might have been if you +had not been so terribly clear-sighted. You stood in your white frock +under the old mulberry tree—your first long skirt—and you saw that I +was no good, and you were perfectly right, but, after all, what is your +life to be now?"</p> + +<p>Rose got up from the stool and rested one hand on the marble +mantelpiece. She needed some help, some physical support.</p> + +<p>"Edmund," she said, "I don't think I dwell much on the future; I leave +all in God's hands. I have been through a good deal now, you must not +expect too much of me." She paused. "But what you have said to me about +yourself is nonsense; I wish you would not talk like that. You are only +forty. You are very clever, very rich, you have the right sort of +ambition although you won't say so, and you are, oh! so kind. Couldn't +you do something, have some real interest?" He growled inarticulately. +"Is it of no use to ask you just to think it over?"</p> + +<p>"None whatever," he said firmly and cheerfully.</p> + +<p>The gong sounded in the hall for luncheon.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II"></a>BOOK II</h2> + +<hr /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3> + +<h3>MOLLY IN THE SEASON</h3> + +<p>"Still together?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and it has not turned out so badly as might be expected."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were to have had a flat with a dear old governess?"</p> + +<p>"I could not get Miss Carew, the governess in question, and Adela +Delaport Green pressed me to stay with her for the season."</p> + +<p>"It does credit to the amiability of both," said Edmund.</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," answered Molly, "we both knew what we wanted, +and that we could not easily get it unless we combined, and so we +combined."</p> + +<p>"But was it quite easy to get over the slight friction at Groombridge?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; directly we got away Adela was all right. She felt stifled by +the atmosphere, and she recovered as soon as she got home."</p> + +<p>Edmund would have been less surprised at the tone of this last remark if +he had seen Lady Groombridge's exceedingly offhand way of greeting Molly +this same evening. That great lady, having expected to find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> that Molly +had, acting on her advice, abandoned Mrs. Delaport Green, was quite +disappointed in the girl when she met them still together in London, and +so she extended her frigidity to both of them.</p> + +<p>"And you are enjoying yourself?" Edmund went on. "Come, let us sit +behind those palms. You look as if things were going smoothly."</p> + +<p>"It is delightful."</p> + +<p>Molly cast her grey eyes over the moving groups that were strolling +about the ballroom, and over the lights and flowers and the band +preparing to begin again, and then looked up into Edmund's face. It was +a slow, luxurious movement, fitted to the rather unusually developed +face and expression. Most debutantes are crude in their enjoyment, but +Molly was beginning London at twenty-one, not at eighteen, and +circumstances made her more mature than her actual experience of society +warranted. Yet it seemed to Edmund that the untamed element in her was +the more striking from the contrast. Molly accepted social delights and +social conventions as a young and gentle tigress might enjoy the soft +turf of an English lawn.</p> + +<p>The defiance in her tone when she alluded to Groombridge faded now.</p> + +<p>"I have six balls in the next four nights, and one opera, and we are +going to Ascot, then back to London, then to Cowes, and, after that, I +am going to the Italian Lakes and to Switzerland, and wherever I like."</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Delaport Green so very unselfish?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; I am only going to stay with Adela till the end of the season, +and then I am going abroad with two girls who are quite delightful, and +in October the flat and the governess are to come into existence."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes; everything—everything perfect," murmured Grosse, looking at her +with an expression that included her own appearance in the "everything +perfect." Then, dropping his restless eyeglass, he went on.</p> + +<p>"And you are never bored?"</p> + +<p>"Never for one single moment."</p> + +<p>"Amazing! and what is more amazing is that possibly you never will be +bored."</p> + +<p>"Am I to die young then?" asked Molly.</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily, but I believe you will enjoy too keenly, and probably +suffer too keenly to be bored."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever enjoy very keenly?" asked Molly, with timid interest.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I!" cried Grosse, with unusual animation; "until the last seven +or eight years I enjoyed myself hugely, but——"</p> + +<p>"Why did it stop?" asked Molly, her large eyes straining with eagerness.</p> + +<p>"You look like a child who must know the end of the story at once. Do +you always get so eager when you are told a story? Mine is dreadfully +dull. While I had plenty of work to do, and something to look forward +to, I was amused, but then——"</p> + +<p>"Then what?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then I became rich, and I've been dawdling about ever since. At +first I enjoyed it, but now I'm bored to extinction."</p> + +<p>"I can understand," said Molly, "when anything becomes quite easy it +doesn't seem worth while to do it. But isn't there anything difficult +you want to do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Edmund, "there are two things; one is plainly impossible, +and the other is not hopeful, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> neither of them prevents my feeling +bored, for unfortunately neither of them gives me enough to do."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you work more at them?" asked Molly, with much sympathy.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, as if talking to himself, "no one has the power to make a +woman change her nature, and the other matter needs an expert. Good +Heavens!" he stopped short, in astonishment at himself.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter?" asked Molly, while a deep flush of colour rose +in her dark cheeks.</p> + +<p>"You must be a witch," he said lightly; "you make me say things I don't +in the least mean to say, and that I have never said to anyone else. And +here is a distracted partner, Edgar Tonmore, coming to reproach you."</p> + +<p>"Our dance is nearly over, Miss Dexter," said a young, fresh voice, and +a most pleasing specimen of well-built and well-trained manhood stood +before them. "I have been looking for you everywhere."</p> + +<p>Molly and Edmund rose.</p> + +<p>He stood where they left him watching her whirl +past. It was as he had suspected; she had the gift of perfect movement.</p> + +<p>And Molly, as she danced past, glanced towards the tall, loose figure, +dignified with all its carelessness and with some curious trick of +distinction and indifference in its bearing, and twice she caught tired +eyes looking very earnestly at her.</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens! I was talking of Rose to that girl, and of my efforts to +get at her mother's money, and I never speak of either to mortal man. +What made me do it?"</p> + +<p>Slowly he turned away and left the ballroom and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> the house, declining +with a wave of the hand various appeals to stay, and found himself in +the street.</p> + +<p>"Sympathies and affinities be hanged!" He said it aloud. "She isn't even +really beautiful, and I'll be hanged, too, if I'll talk to her any +more."</p> + +<p>But, alack for Molly, he did talk to her on almost every occasion on +which they met. It was from no conscious lack of royalty to Rose; it was +largely because he was so full of her and her affairs that he would in +an assembly of indifferent people drift towards one who was in any way +connected with those affairs. Then one word or two, the merest "how d'ye +do?" seemed to develop instantly into talk, and shortly the talk turned +to intimate things. And for him Molly was always at her best. Many +people did not like her, yet admired her, and admitted her into their +houses half unwillingly. Her speech was not often kindly, and there was +an element of defiance even in her quietness, for her unmistakable +social ease was distinctly negative. Molly was rich and dressed well, +and Mrs. Delaport Green was a very clever woman, whose blunders were +rare and whose pet vice was not unfashionable. There was nothing in this +life to soften and ripen the best side of Molly. But Edmund drew out +whatever she had in her that was gentle and kindly.</p> + +<p>It does not need the experience of many London seasons in order to +realise that it is a condition of things in which many of the faculties +of our nature are suspended. It is not as a Puritan moralist might put +it, that the atmosphere of a whirlpool of carnal vice chokes higher +things, for the amusements may be perfectly innocent. Only for a time +the people who are engaged in them don't happen to think, or to pity, or +to pray, or to condemn, or often, I believe, to love,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> though it may +seem absurd to say so. It may, therefore, be called a rest cure for +aspirations and higher ambitions and anxieties and all the nobler +discontents. To Molly it was youth and fun and brightness and +forgetfulness. There was no leisure to be morbid, no occasion to be +bitter or combative. The game of life was too bright and smooth, above +all too incessant not to suffice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green might be outside the circle in which Lady +Groombridge disported herself with more dignity than gaiety, but she had +the <i>entrée</i> to some houses almost as good, if not as exclusive, and she +had also a large number of acquaintances who entertained systematically +and extravagantly. That the Delaport Greens were very rich, or lived as +if they were very rich, had from the first surprised the "paying guest." +Lately it had become evident to her that if Adela had not been addicted +to cards, Molly would never have been established in her house. She had +found out by now that Mr. Delaport Green was a man of very good repute +in the financial world as being distinctly successful on the Stock +Exchange. He struck Molly as a sturdy type of Englishman, rather +determined on complete independence, and liking to pay his way in a +large free fashion. She rather wondered at his having consented to the +plan of the "paying guest," but he seemed quite genial when he came +across her and inquired with sympathy after her amusements, and +evidently wished that she should enjoy herself.</p> + +<p>Many girls whose position was undoubtedly secure, whom no one disliked +and everybody was willing to amuse, had a much less amusing summer than +Molly. And Edmund Grosse, most unconsciously to himself, was a leading +figure in the warm dream of delight in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> which Molly lived from the +middle of May till the end of June. They did not meet often at dances, +but at stiffer functions, at the Opera, and also twice in the +country—once on the river on a Sunday afternoon, and once for a whole +week-end party, which last days deserve to be treated in more detail.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>The group who met under the deep shade of some historic cedars, on a hot +Saturday afternoon, to spend together a Saturday to Monday with a +notably pleasant host and hostess, had carried with them the electric +atmosphere of the season that so fascinated Molly's inexperience, to +perfume it further with the June roses and light it with the romance of +summer moonlight. Of the party were Molly and her chaperone and Sir +Edmund Grosse.</p> + +<p>By this time Mrs. Delaport Green had made up her mind that Molly had +decidedly better become Lady Grosse, and she felt that it would be a +pleasing and honourable conclusion to the season if the engagement were +announced before she and Molly parted. She had fleeced Molly very +considerably, but she wanted her to have her money's worth, and go away +content.</p> + +<p>It would take long to carry conviction as to the actual good and the +possibility of further good there was in Mrs. Delaport Green. Out of +reach of certain temptations she might have been quoted as a positive +model of goodness and unselfish brightness. If her imitative gift had +found only the highest models, she might have been a happy nun, or a +quiet, stay-at-home wife and mother. But she was tossed into a social +whirlpool where her instincts and her ambitions and her perceptions were +all confused, and out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> depths of her little spoiled soul, had +crawled a vice—probably hereditary—which might otherwise have slept. +It was fast becoming known that Molly's chaperone was a thorough +gambler.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund Grosse was not unwilling to dawdle under the shade of an old +wall with Mrs. Delaport Green that Saturday evening in the country.</p> + +<p>"I feel terribly responsible," she said, in her thin eager little voice; +"I am sure that boy is going to propose to my protégé!"</p> + +<p>"What boy?" asked Edmund, in a tone of indifference.</p> + +<p>"Edgar Tonmore."</p> + +<p>"Is Edgar here, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; it won't be at once. He has gone to Scotland, but he will be +back before we leave London."</p> + +<p>"Really he is an excellent fellow. I don't see why you should be +anxious."</p> + +<p>"But Molly is an orphan," she said plaintively, eyeing him quickly as +she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Even so, orphans marry and live happily ever after."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not sure she will live happily."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think she cares for him."</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose she will refuse."</p> + +<p>"But people so often make mistakes. I don't think dear Molly knows her +own mind, and it is so natural that she should not confide in me as I am +in her mother's place."</p> + +<p>"Leave things alone. Edgar will find out if she likes him or not."</p> + +<p>"Will he? oh well, it's a comfort that you take that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> view." And she +then changed the topic, being of opinion that nothing more could be done +with it. But no doubt the effect produced in Edmund was an increase of +interest in Molly's affairs. It would be exceedingly tiresome if she +should marry this attractive but penniless boy, as he knew him to be, +under the impression that she possessed enough money for them both.</p> + +<p>Edmund had only that morning received certain intelligence of the +whereabouts of young Akers, the son of the old stud-groom.</p> + +<p>From Florence had come the information that Madame Danterre was supposed +to be in failing health, and that she had been seldom seen to drive out +of her secluded grounds this summer, whereas last year she used to go +long distances in her old-fashioned English carriage in the evenings. +Thus it became a matter of thrilling interest whether the great fortune +would pass to Molly before any evidence could be produced of the +existence of the last will in which he so firmly believed.</p> + +<p>"I believe the old sinner knows all about it, even if she hasn't got +it," Grosse murmured to himself.</p> + +<p>Finally he concluded that it would be better if Molly married money and +not poverty, and did not smile on the penniless Edgar Tonmore. +Therefore, finding himself alone with her during church time next +morning, he thought no harm of trying to put a little spoke in the wheel +to prevent that affair going too easily. But first he asked her why she +did not go to church.</p> + +<p>"I might say, why don't you go yourself?" said Molly, "but I don't mind +telling you that I hardly ever do go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Molly was leaning back in a low chair under the shadow of the +cedars, as still as if she would never move again, as still as the +greyhound that was lying by her. "I hate going to church. None of it +seems beautiful to me as it does to Adela. My aunt used to say that we +were not fortunate in our clergyman, but personally I don't like any +clergymen. I am anti-clerical like a Frenchwoman."</p> + +<p>"Have you any French blood?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; my mother was French."</p> + +<p>"But you do good works; I remember how you nursed the kitchenmaid at +Groombridge."</p> + +<p>"I like to stop pain, but not because it is a good work. I can't stand +all the fuss about good works and committees, and nonsense about loving +the poor. It's a way rich people have to make themselves feel +comfortable. Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't. I know people who make themselves exceedingly +uncomfortable because they give away half what they possess."</p> + +<p>"Really," said Molly, a little contemptuously. She knew that he was +thinking of Rose Bright. "My opinion is that doing good works means to +bustle about trying to get as much of other people's money to give away +as you can, without giving any yourself."</p> + +<p>Edmund did not like to suggest that this opinion might be the result of +special experiences gained while living in the house of Mrs. Delaport +Green.</p> + +<p>"If," Molly went on, evidently glad to relieve her mind on the subject, +"you got the money to pay your unfortunate dressmaker, there would be +some justice in that. But," she suddenly sat up and her eyes shot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> fire +at Edmund, "to fuss at a bazaar to show your kindness of heart while you +know you are not going to pay the woman who made the very gown you have +on, is perfectly sickening."</p> + +<p>"It is atrocious," said Grosse, who wanted to change the subject. But +this was effected by the most unexpected apparition of Mr. Delaport +Green, whom they had both supposed to be refreshing himself by the sea +at Brighton.</p> + +<p>Mr. Delaport Green was dressed in very light grey, with a white +waistcoat. His figure was curious, as it extended in parts so far in +front of the rest that it gave the impression that you must pass your +eyes over a great deal of substance in the foreground before you could +see the face. Then again, the nose was so predominant that it checked +any attempt to realise the eyes and forehead, while the cheeks were +baggy and the skin unwholesome.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse had only seen him on two occasions when he dined at his +house, and he had liked him at once. There was something markedly +masculine about him; he knew life, and had made up his mind as to his +own part in it without delusions and without whining. He would have +preferred to have been slim and handsome, and to have known the ways of +the social world from his youth, but there were plenty of other things +to be interested in, and he was not averse to the power which follows on +wealth. He was a self-made Englishman, with nothing of the Jew about +him, either for good or evil. But no apparition could have been more +surprising to the two as he came slowly over the grass to meet them. +Molly saw at once that Adela's husband was exceedingly annoyed, probably +exceedingly angry, and although she had always felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> his capacity for +being very angry, she had never seen him in that condition before.</p> + +<p>"I came down in the motor to get a short talk on business with Miss +Dexter," he explained, "but I am sorry to disturb a more amusing +conversation."</p> + +<p>Edmund, of course, after that left them alone, and walked off by +himself.</p> + +<p>Molly looked all her astonishment at Adela's "Tim."</p> + +<p>"Miss Dexter," he said very slowly, "I was given to understand when you +came to us in the winter that you were a young lady wanting a home and +some amusement in London. I thought it kindly in my wife to wish to have +you with her, and, as she is young and a good deal alone" (Molly looked +the other way at this assertion), "I thought it would be for the +advantage of both. But I had no notion that there was any question of +payment in the case, and I must now ask you to tell me exactly what you +have paid to Mrs. Delaport Green since first you made her acquaintance."</p> + +<p>Molly was not entirely astonished at discovering that Adela's husband +had known nothing whatever of Adela's financial arrangements with +herself. But she was so angry at this proof of what she had up to now +only faintly suspected, that it was not very difficult to make her tell +all that she knew of her share in Adela's expenses, only that knowledge +proved to be of a very vague kind. Molly had kept no accounts, and had +the vaguest notion of what her bills included. One thing she intended to +conceal (but Mr. Delaport Green managed to make her confide even that) +was the fact that she had given £100 to his wife's dressmaker. He made +no comment of any sort, only firmly and quietly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> insisted on Molly +giving him all the items she could. Then he got up and said—</p> + +<p>"Good-bye for the present; I want to get back in time for lunch."</p> + +<p>And he walked away, making one or two notes in a little book he held in +his hand as to the cheque that Molly should find waiting for her next +day.</p> + +<p>Molly, left alone on the bench, did not at the first moment dwell on the +thought of how far this talk with her host would affect her own plans. +She could only think of the man himself. She had been for many weeks in +his house, and had never done more than "exchange the weather" with him, +or occasionally suffer gladly the little jokes and puns to which he was +addicted. She had written to Miss Carew that his attitude towards Adela +and herself was that of a busy man towards his nursery. Since that how +little she had thought about him! And now she felt the strength in him, +not weakened, but lit up with a kind of pathos. He might have been a +true friend to any man or woman. He was really fond of Adela Delaport +Green, and that position in itself was tragic enough. It was plain to +Molly, although nothing had been breathed on the subject that morning, +that Tim would not find it hard to forgive his Adela. Adela would pass +almost scot-free from well-merited punishment; and yet her husband was +strong enough to have punished effectively where he deemed it necessary. +Molly was puzzled because she was without a clue to the mystery. The +fact was that Tim had no wish to punish effectively. As long as Adela +passed untouched by one sin, as long as he felt sure of one great virtue +in her life, all such details as much gambling, much selfishness, absurd +extravagance, could be easily forgiven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Molly herself would be fairly +dealt with and set aside; the "paying guest" was an indignity that he +would soon forget. He would have been entirely indifferent to the +impression of regretful interest that he had made upon her.</p> + +<p>That night Edmund Grosse was Molly's confidant as to the second, and +evidently final, rupture between herself and Mrs. Delaport Green that +had taken place in the afternoon. He could not but be kind and +sympathetic as to her difficulties. It was, no doubt, very blind of him +not to see that she was too quickly convinced of the wisdom of his +advice, far too anxious to act as seemed well in his opinion. It never +dawned on his imagination for a moment that the most serious part of the +loss of the end of the season to Molly was the loss of his society +during that time.</p> + +<p>They strolled in the moonlight between the cedars and under the great +wall with its alternate "ebon and ivory" of darkest evergreen growths +and masses of white climbing roses, Molly's white gown rustling a little +in the stillness. And Molly discovered with joy that he was trying to +set her mind against marriage with Edgar Tonmore. If he only knew how +little danger there was of that! And under Edmund's influence she +decided to offer herself for a visit of two or three weeks to Mrs. +Carteret, in the old and much disliked home of her childhood. It would +look right; it would give a certain dignity to her position after the +breakdown of the Delaport Green alliance, and it was always a great +mistake to break with natural connections. So far Edmund Grosse; and in +Molly's mind it ran something like this: "He wants me to stand well with +the world, and I will do this, intolerable as it is, to please him. He +likes to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> think that I have some nice relations, and so I must try to be +friendly with Aunt Anne Carteret, though that is the hardest part. And +he wants me to get away from Edgar Tonmore, and I would go away from so +many more people if he wished it."</p> + +<p>The evening passed into night, and Edmund was walking alone under the +wall, dreaming of Rose.</p> + +<p>All this foolish gambling, quarrelsome, small world of men and women +made such a foil to her image. Molly and her mother, the Delaport +Greens, and many others were grouped in his mind as he purled the smoke +disdainfully from his cigar. Something in Molly's walk by his side just +now had made him see again the old woman with her quick, alert movements +in the garden at Florence; after all they were cut from the same piece, +the old wicked woman and the slight, dark girl with the curious eyes. +Molly must not be trusted; she must be suspected all the more because of +her attractions in the moments of dangerous gentleness. And with a +certain simplicity Edmund looked again at the moon above him, all the +more glorious because secret and dark things were moving stealthily +under the trees in the lower world.</p> + +<p>And Molly was kneeling on her low window-seat, looking out at the same +moon in a mood of joy that was transmuted half consciously into prayer +by the alchemy of pure love.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + +<h3>A POOR MAN'S DEATH</h3> + +<p>Early in October, Molly and Miss Carew took up their abode in a flat +with quite large rooms and a pleasing view of Hyde Park.</p> + +<p>August and September had been two of the healthiest and most normal +months that Molly had ever spent or was likely ever to spend again. The +weeks between the rupture with the Delaport Greens and the journey to +Switzerland had been trying, although it was undoubtedly much pleasanter +to be Mrs. Carteret's guest than it had ever been to be a permanent +inmate of her house.</p> + +<p>Molly—thought Mrs. Carteret—was restless, not inclined to morbid +thoughts, and more gentle than of yore, but more nervous and fanciful.</p> + +<p>It was not until after a fortnight abroad, after the revelation of +mountains realised for the first time, that Molly had the courage to say +to herself that she had been a fool during the visit to Aunt Anne. Was +it in the least likely that a man of Edmund Grosse's kind would act +romantically or hastily? Of course not. She had been as foolish as Mrs. +Browning's little Effie in dreaming that a lover might come riding over +the Malcot hills on a July evening.</p> + +<p>The girls with whom Molly had travelled were of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> healthy, intellectual +type, and Molly, under their influence, had grown to feel the worth of +the higher side of Nature's gifts. And so, vigorous in mind and body, +she had come to London in October, so she said, to study music.</p> + +<p>Miss Carew was a little disappointed when Molly expressed lofty +indifference as to who had yet come to London. But that indifference did +not last long when her friends of the season began to find her out. Then +Miss Carew surprised Molly by her excessive nervousness and shyness of +new acquaintances. "Carey" had always professed to love society, and had +always been very carefully dressed in the fashion of the moment. But, as +a civilian may idealise warfare and be well read in tactics, and yet be +unequal to the emergency when war actually raises its grisly head, so it +was with poor Miss Carew. She simply collapsed when Molly's worldly +friends, as she called them with envious admiration, swept into the +room, garnished with wonderful hats and fashionable furs. She had none +of a Frenchwoman's gift for ignoring social differences, and she had the +uneasy pride that is rare in a Celt, although she had all a Celt's taste +for refinement and show and glitter. Miss Carew sat more and more +stiffly at the tea-table, until she confided frankly to Molly—</p> + +<p>"My dear, I am too old, and I am simply in the way. It is just too late +in my life, you see, after all the years of governess work. Of course, +if my beloved father had lived, I should never have been a governess. +But as it is, I think I need not appear when you have visitors, except +now and then."</p> + +<p>Molly acquiesced after enough protest, chiefly because she had begun to +wonder if it would be quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> easy to have an occasional <i>tête-à-tête</i> +with men friends without having to suggest to Miss Carew to retire +gracefully. She had that morning heard that Sir Edmund Grosse was in +London, but she had no reason, she told herself, to suppose that he knew +where she was.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, she was exceedingly angry at finding that Adela Delaport +Green was giving her version of her relations with Molly in the season +to all her particular friends. Molly could not find out details, but she +more than suspected that the fact of her being Madame Danterre's +daughter made up part of Adela's story, although she could not imagine +how she came to know who her mother was.</p> + +<p>Molly would probably have brooded to a morbid degree over these angry +suspicions, but that another side of life was soon pressed upon her, a +new source of human interest, in the dying husband of a charwoman.</p> + +<p>This woman, Mrs. Moloney, had cleaned out the flat before Molly and Miss +Carew took possession.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>High up in a small room in a block of workmen's buildings in West +Kensington, Pat Moloney lay dying. He and his wife had been thriftless +and uncertain, they drifted into marriage, drifted in and out of work, +and, having watched their children grow up with some affection and a +good deal of neglect, had now seen them drift away, some back to the old +country, and some to the Colonies.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney counted on her fingers to remember their number and their +ages, and spoke with almost more realisation of the personalities of +three little beings that had died in infancy than of the living men and +women and their children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>Moloney was far too ill by the time Molly Dexter came to see him to +speak of anything distinctly. Three years ago he had fallen from a +ladder and had refused to go into the hospital, in which decision he had +been supported by his wife, who "didn't hold" with those institutions. A +kindly, rough, clever young doctor had since treated him for growing +pain and discomfort, and had prophesied evil from the first. Pat kept +about and, when genuinely too ill for regular work, took odd jobs and +drifted more and more into public houses. He had never been a thorough +drunkard, and had been free from other vices, though lazy and +self-indulgent. But pain and leisure led more and more to the stimulants +that were poison in his condition. At last a chill mercifully hastened +matters, and Pat, suffering less than he had for some months past, was +nearing his end in semi-consciousness. Molly Dexter then descended on +the Moloneys in one of her almost irresistible cravings to relieve +suffering.</p> + +<p>Ordinary human nature when not in pain was often too repugnant to Molly +for her to be able to do good works in company with other people. She +was, as she had told Edmund Grosse, a born anti-clerical, and she +scorned philanthropists; so her best moods had to work themselves out +alone and without direction. Nor was she likely to spoil the recipients +of her attentions, partly from the strength of her character, partly +because the poor know instinctively whether they are merely the objects +on which to vent a restless longing to relieve pain, or whether they are +loved for themselves.</p> + +<p>Molly, in the village at home, had always made the expression of +gratitude impossible, but she constantly added ingratitude as a large +item in the ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>count she kept running, in her darker hours, against the +human race.</p> + +<p>Late on a wet and windy October evening she went to undertake the +nursing of Pat Moloney for the first part of the night. She had been +visiting him constantly for several weeks, and actually nursing him for +three days.</p> + +<p>"Has the doctor been?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss" (in a very loud whisper); "he says Pat is awful bad; he left +a paper for you."</p> + +<p>Molly Dexter walked across the small, bare room and took a paper of +directions from the chimney-piece, and then stood looking at the old +man's heavy figure on the bed. He was lying on his side, his face turned +to the wall.</p> + +<p>"You had better rest in the back room while I am here," she said.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, indeed I couldn't, miss, him being like that; you mustn't +ask me to. Besides, I've been round and asked the priest to come, and so +I couldn't take my things off. I'll just have some tea and a drop of +whisky in it, and I can keep going all the night, it's more than likely +he'll die at the dawn."</p> + +<p>Molly eyed the woman with supreme contempt.</p> + +<p>"It isn't at all certain that he's going to die, he'll make a good fight +yet if you will give him a chance."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney looked deeply offended. It had been all very well to be +guided by a lady at the beginning of the illness, but now it was very +different. She felt half consciously that science had done its worst, +and bigger questions than temperatures and drugs were at issue.</p> + +<p>"A priest now," said Molly, in a whisper of intense scorn, "would kill +him at once."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney did not condescend to reply. She had propped a poor little +crucifix, a black cross, with a chipped white figure on it, against a +jam pot on a shelf under the window, and she had borrowed two +candlesticks with coloured candles from a labourer's wife on the floor +beneath. The window had been shut, so that the wind should not blow down +these objects.</p> + +<p>Molly looked at the man on the bed and sniffed.</p> + +<p>"He must have air—" the whisper was a snort.</p> + +<p>At that moment there was a knock on the outer door. On the iron outer +stairs was standing the priest.</p> + +<p>"It's just the curate," said Mrs. Moloney, looking out of the window; +and then she disappeared into the tiny passage.</p> + +<p>Molly stood defiantly, her figure drawn to its full height. She felt +that she knew exactly the kind of Irish curate who was coming in to +disturb, and probably kill, the unhappy man on the bed. Well, she should +make a fight for this poor, crushed life; she would stand between the +horrible tyranny and superstition that lit those pink candles, and that +would rouse a man to make his poor wretched conscience unhappy and +frighten him to death. "If there is a hell," she muttered, "it must be +ready to punish such brutality as that."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney opened the door as wide as possible, and the priest came +in. Miss Dexter looked at him in amazement; how, and where had she seen +him before?</p> + +<p>He went straight to the bed and looked at the man in silence, while +Molly looked at him. He was about middle height, with very dark hair and +eyes, a small, well-formed head, and a very good forehead. It was not +until he turned to Mrs. Moloney that Molly understood why she had +fancied that she had seen him be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>fore. She was sure now that she had +seen his photograph, but, although she was certain of having seen it, +she could not remember when or where she had done so.</p> + +<p>"Can't you open the window, Mrs. Moloney?"</p> + +<p>"It's the only place to make into an altar, father?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind that yet; I will manage."</p> + +<p>Molly stepped forward; whatever he was going to do, it should not be +done without a protest.</p> + +<p>"The doctor's orders are that he is not to be disturbed."</p> + +<p>The priest did not seem aware of the exceedingly unpleasant expression +on Molly's countenance.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great mistake to wake him, of course," he said; and then, +"Do you suppose he will sleep for long?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't the faintest notion"; the uttermost degree of scorn was +conveyed in those few words.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney suppressed a sob.</p> + +<p>"He's not been to the Sacraments for three years," she murmured.</p> + +<p>The priest leant over the bed and looked intently at the dying man.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney opened the window and put the crucifix and candlesticks in +a corner on the dirty floor.</p> + +<p>"It might kill him to wake him now," murmured Molly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is just the difficulty." The young man was speaking more to +himself than to her.</p> + +<p>"Difficulty!" thought Molly with scorn. "Fiddlesticks!"</p> + +<p>The silence was unbroken for some moments. The fresh autumn air blew +into the room. A sandy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> coloured cat came from under the bed, looked at +them, and then rubbed her arched back against the unsteady leg of the +only table, which was laden with bottles and basins, finally retired +into a further corner, and upset and broke one of the pink candles that +belonged to the neighbour.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Moloney never took her eyes off the priest's pale face.</p> + +<p>"I'll wait until he wakes," he said to her, "but is there anywhere else +I could go? It's not good to crowd up this room."</p> + +<p>"That's intended to remove me," thought Molly, "but it won't succeed."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Moloney moved into the little back room, and pulled forward a +chair. When the priest was seated she shut the door behind her and +whispered to him—</p> + +<p>"Father, you'll not let his soul slip through your fingers, will you, +father dear? Just because of the poor lady who knows no better!"</p> + +<p>"Who is she? She is not like the district visitors I've seen about in +the parish."</p> + +<p>"No, indeed; she is a lady, and I've done some work for her, and she +would not be satisfied when she heard Moloney was ill but she must come +herself, and yesterday, not to grudge her her due, father, the doctor +said if he pulled through that I owed her his life. Well, that's proved +a mistake, anyhow, but she's after spoiling his last chance, and he's +not been the good man he was once, father."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Moloney, you must watch him carefully, and here I am if there +is any change. I'm sure that lady is an excellent nurse, and we mustn't +let any chance slip of keeping him alive, must we?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>She shook her head; this was only an English curate, still he must be +obeyed.</p> + +<p>Molly was profoundly irritated by Mrs. Moloney's proceeding to make a +cup of tea for the priest, but he was grateful for it, as he had been +out at tea-time, and had come to the Moloneys' instead of eating his +dinner. He opened the window of the tiny room as far as it would go, and +read his Office by the light of the tallow candle. That finished, he sat +still and began to wonder about the lady with the olive complexion and +the strange, grey eyes.</p> + +<p>"I felt as if I should frizzle up in the fire of her wrath," he thought +with a smile.</p> + +<p>He took his rosary and was half through it when the door opened and +Molly came in. She shut it noiselessly, and then spoke in her usual +unmoved, impersonal voice.</p> + +<p>"The new medicine is not having any effect; the temperature has gone up; +the doctor said if it did so now it was a hopeless case. I must rouse +him in an hour to give him another dose and take the temperature again. +After that, if it is as high as I expect it to be, you can do anything +you like to him."</p> + +<p>As she said the last words, she went back into the other room.</p> + +<p>The hour passed slowly, and she came again and let the priest know in +almost the same words that he was free to act as he pleased. Then she +added abruptly—</p> + +<p>"Do you mind telling me your name?"</p> + +<p>"My name? Molyneux."</p> + +<p>"Then are you any relation of Lord Groombridge?"</p> + +<p>"I am his cousin."</p> + +<p>"I have been at Groombridge." But the priest felt that the tone was not +in the least more friendly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Moloney won't suffer now," she went on, turning towards the door, "and +I think he will be conscious for a time."</p> + +<p>Molly was giving up her self-imposed charge; she wanted to be off. With +the need for help no longer an attraction, Moloney had almost ceased to +interest her; he would remain only as part of the darker background of +her mind, as a dim figure among many in the dim coloured atmosphere of +revolt and bitterness in which her thoughts on human life would move +when she had no labour for her hands. He was another of those who +suffered so uselessly, a mere half animal who had to do the rough work +of the world, and then was dropped into the great charnel house of +unmeaning death. As soon as the man began to show signs, faint signs of +perception, she left the priest by his bedside and went back into the +inner room to put on the cloak she had left there. And then she +hesitated.</p> + +<p>What would go on in the next room? She was anxious now to know more +about it, because she had caught so strange a look on Father Molyneux's +face. If he had only known this man before she could have understood it. +But how could there be this passion of affection, this intensity of +feeling, for a total stranger, a rough brutal-looking fellow who was no +longer in pain, who would probably die easily enough, and probably be no +great loss to those he left? She had seen a strange intensity of +reverence in the way the young man had touched the wreck upon the bed. +She had known thrills of curious joy herself when relieving physical +agony; was it something like that which filled the whole personality and +bearing of the priest?</p> + +<p>She began to feel that she could not go away; she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> wanted to see this +thing out. It was something entirely new to her.</p> + +<p>Low voices murmured in the next room; she hesitated now to pass through, +she might be intruding at too sacred a moment. She believed that the +priest was hearing the dying man's confession. She had a half +contemptuous dislike of this feeling of mystery and privacy. She felt +she had been foolish not to go away at once. But she did not move for +nearly half an hour, and then the door opened, and the man's wife came +in and started back.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I thought you had gone, miss." Her manner was much more +cordial than it had been before. She was tearful and excited. "I want to +raise him a bit higher, and there's a cloak here. He is going off fast +now, but he was quite himself when I left him with the father to make +his confession; he looked his old self and the good man he was for many +a year—and God Almighty knows he has suffered enough these last years +to change him, poor soul."</p> + +<p>Molly went back with her to the sick bed and helped her to raise the +dying man. The dawn came in feebly now, and made the guttering candle +dimmer. Death was all that was written on the grey face, and the body +laboured for breath. The flicker of light in the mind, that had been +roused, perhaps, by those rites which had passed in her absence, had +faded; there was not the faintest sign of intelligence in the eyes now; +the hands were cold and would never be warm again. The sandy cat had +crept away into the other room; and outside the great town was alive +again, the vast crowds were astir, each of whom was just one day nearer +to death. There was nothing but horror, stale, common horror,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> in it all +for Molly. But, kneeling as upright as a marble figure, and his whole +face full of a joy that seemed quite human, quite natural, Father +Molyneux was reading prayers, and there was a curious note of triumph in +the clear tones. At first she did not heed the words; then they thrust +themselves upon her, and her eyes fastened on the dying, meaningless +face, the very prey of death, in a kind of stupefaction at the words +spoken to him.</p> + +<p>"I commend thee to Almighty God, dearest brother, and commend thee to +Him whose creature thou art; that, when thou shalt have paid the debt of +humanity by death, thou mayest return to the Maker, Who formed thee of +the dust of the earth. As thy soul goeth forth from the body, may the +bright company of angels meet thee; may the judicial senate of Apostles +greet thee; may the triumphant army of white-robed Martyrs come out to +welcome thee; may the band of glowing Confessors, crowned with lilies, +encircle thee; may the choir of Virgins, singing jubilees, receive thee; +and the embrace of a blessed repose fold thee in the bosom of the +Patriarchs; mild and festive may the aspect of Jesus Christ appear to +thee, and may He award thee a place among them that stand before Him for +ever."</p> + +<p>And so it went on; some of it appealing to her more, some less; some +passages almost repulsive. But her imagination had caught on to the vast +outlines of the prayer—the enormous nature of the claims made on behalf +of the dying labourer.</p> + +<p>Was it Pat Moloney who was to pass out of this darkness to "gaze with +blessed eyes on the vision of Truth"? What a tremendous assertion made +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> such intensity of confidence! What a curious pageantry, too, so +magnificent in its simplicity, was ordered, almost in tones of command, +by the Church Militant for the reception of the charge she was giving +up. The triumphant army of Martyrs was to come out to meet him; the +Confessors were to "encircle him"; Michael was "to receive him as Prince +of the armies of Heaven." Peter, Paul, John were to be in attendance. +Nor in the rich strain was there any false ring of praise, or any +attempt to veil the weakness of humanity. "Rejoice his soul, O Lord, +with Thy Presence, and remember not the iniquities and excesses which, +through the violence of anger or the heat of evil passion, he hath at +any time committed. For, although he hath sinned, he hath not denied the +Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, but hath believed and hath had a +zeal for God, and hath faithfully adored the Creator of all things."</p> + +<p>Was it an immense, an appalling impertinence—this great drama? Was it a +mere mockery of the impotence and darkness of man's life? Would the +priest say all this at the death-bed of the drunken beggar, of the +voluptuous tyrant, of the woman who had been too hard or too weak in the +bonds of the flesh? Was it a last great delusion, a last panacea given +by the Church to those who had consented to bandage their eyes and crook +their knees in childish obedience? Vaguely in her mind there flitted +half phrases of the humanitarian, the materialist, the agnostic. It +seemed as if their views of the wreck on the bed pressed upon all her +consciousness. But, just as they had never succeeded in silencing the +voice of that great drama of faith and prayer through the ages, so she +could not dull to her own consciousness the strange,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> spiritual vitality +that poured out in this triumphant call to the powers on high to come +forth in all their glory to receive the inestimable treasure of the +redeemed soul of Pat Moloney.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3> + +<h3>MOLLY'S LETTER TO HER MOTHER</h3> + +<p>There followed after that night a quite new experience for Molly. It was +the upheaval of an utterly uncultivated side of her nature. She was +astonished to find that she had religious instincts, and that, instead +of feeling that these instincts were foolish and irrational—a lower +part of her nature,—they now seemed quite curiously rational and +established in possession of her faculties. Her mind seemed more +satisfied than it had ever been before. She did not know in what she +believed, but she felt a different view of life in which men seemed less +utterly mean, and women less of hypocrites. Externally it worked +something in this way.</p> + +<p>The day on which Pat Moloney died at dawn she could not rest so much as +she intended, to make up for the short night. She wrote one or two brief +notes begging to be let off engagements, and told the servants to say +she was not at home. She could not keep quite still, and she did not +want to go out. Gradually, as the day wore on, she worked herself into +more and more excitement. Her imagination pictured what might be the +outcome of such a view of life and death as seemed to have taken hold of +her. In her usual moods she would have thought with sarcasm that such +were the symptoms of "conversion" in a re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>vivalist. But now there was no +critical faculty awake for cynicism; the critical faculty was full of a +solemn kind of joy. Next there came, after some hours of a sort of +surprise at this sudden and vehement sense of uplifting, the wish for +action and for sacrifice. Her mind returned to the concrete, and the +circumstances of her life. And then there came a most unwelcome thought. +If Molly wanted to sacrifice herself indeed, and wished to do some real +good about which there could be no self-delusion, was there not one duty +quite obviously in her path, her duty as a child? Had she ever made any +attempt to help the forlorn woman in Florence? Perhaps Madame Danterre's +assertion, when Molly came of age, that she did not want to see Molly, +was only an attempt to find out whether Molly really wished to come to +her mother. From the day on which her ideal of her mother had been +completely shattered Molly had shrunk from even thinking of her. She now +shivered with repugnance, but she was almost glad to feel how repugnant +this duty might be, much as a medieval penitent might have rejoiced in +his own repugnance to the leprous wounds he was resolved to dress as an +expiation for sin. It did not strike her, as it never struck the noble +penitents in the Middle Ages, that it might be very trying to the object +of these expiatory actions. She felt at the moment that it must be a +comfort to her mother to receive all the love and devotion that she +would offer her. And there was real heroism in the letter that Molly +proceeded to write to Madame Danterre. For she knew that if her offer +were accepted she risked the loss of all that at present made life very +dear, both in what she already enjoyed, and in the hope that was hidden +in her heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly had pride enough to shrink utterly from the connection with her +mother, and her girl's innocence shrank, too, with quick sensitiveness +from what might be before her. How strange now appeared the dreams of +her childhood, the idealisation of the young and beautiful mother!</p> + +<p>The letter was short, but very earnest, and had all the ring of truth in +it. She could not but think that any mother would respond to it, and, +for herself, after sending it there could be no looking back. Once the +letter was posted to the lawyer to be forwarded to Madame Danterre, a +huge weight seemed to be lifted from Molly's mind. That night she met +Edmund Grosse at dinner. He had never seen her so bright and +good-looking, and he found he had many questions to ask as to the summer +abroad.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>For several weeks Molly received no answer from Florence, but during +that time she did not repent her hasty action. And during those weeks +her interest in religion grew stronger. Just as she had been unable to +work with philanthropists, she was ready now to take her religion alone. +She felt kinder to the world at large, but she did not at first feel any +need of human help or human company. She went sometimes to a service at +Westminster Abbey, sometimes to St. Paul's, sometimes to the Oratory, +and two or three times to the church in West Kensington in which Father +Molyneux was assistant parish priest. On the whole she liked this last +much the best. Indeed, she was so much attracted by his sermons that she +went to call upon him late one afternoon.</p> + +<p>The visitor was shown into a rather bare parlour, and Father Molyneux +soon came in. He was a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> deal interested in seeing her there. He had +never been more snubbed in his life than by this lady on their first +meeting, and he had been much surprised at seeing her in the church soon +afterwards. She was plainly dressed, though at an expense he would never +have imagined to be possible, and she appeared a little softer than when +he had seen her last. She looked at him rather hard, not with the look +that puzzled Rose Bright; it was a look of sympathy and of inquiry.</p> + +<p>"I have had curious experiences since we met," she said, "and I want to +understand them better. Have you—has anybody been praying for me?"</p> + +<p>"I have said Mass for you twice since poor Moloney died," he said.</p> + +<p>"I thought there was some sort of influence," she murmured. "That night +I was tired and excited and worried, and foolishly prejudiced. Somehow +the prayers you read for Pat Moloney, the whole attitude of your Church +in those prayers, caught my breath. I imagine it was something like the +effect of a revivalist preacher on a Welsh miner." She paused. Father +Molyneux was full of interest, and did not conceal it.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell," he said. "Of course, it may have been——"</p> + +<p>"Nerves," interrupted Molly so decidedly that he laughed; it was not in +the least what he had meant to say.</p> + +<p>"But," she went on, with an air of impartial diagnosis, "it has lasted. +I have been very happy. I understand now what is meant by religion. I +understand what you felt about that man's soul. I understand, when you +are preaching, that intense sense of worth-whileness. I understand the +religious sense, the religious attitude. It makes everything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> worth +while because of love. It does not explain all the puzzles. It does not +answer questions, it swallows them up alive. It makes everything so big, +and at the same time so small, because there are infinite things too. +Then it insists on reality; I see now it must insist on dogma for fear +of unreality. Renan was quite wrong in that great sentence of his: 'Il +ne faut rien dire de limitée en face de l'infini.' The infinite is a fog +to us if there are no outlines in our conception of it. Don't you think +so?"</p> + +<p>There was a light in her face no one had ever seen there before.</p> + +<p>"And the only outlines that can satisfy us are the outlines of a +Personality. As a rule I have always disliked individuals. I know you +are surprised. Of course, you are just the other way; you have a touch +of genius, a gift for being conscious of personalities, of being +attracted to them. Now I have never liked people; in fact, I've hated +most of them. But since this religious experience I have known"—her +voice dropped; it had been a little loud—"I have known that I want a +friend, and can have one."</p> + +<p>The priest was astonished by Molly. He had never met any one like her +before. Her self-confidence was curious, and her eloquence was so sudden +and abounding that his own words seemed to leave him. She was in a +moment as silent as she had been talkative, her eyes cast down on the +floor. Then she looked at him with an almost imperious questioning in +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"You have said so much that I expected to say myself," he said, with a +faint sense of humour, "and you have not asked me a single question."</p> + +<p>Molly laughed "Tell me," she said, "I am right;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> it is all true? I <i>do</i> +understand religious experience, the religious sense at last, don't I?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you what I miss in it?" he said, suppressing any further +comment on her amazing assertion. "I mean in all you have said. And, +oddly enough, the Welsh miner would have had it. I mean that, seeing Our +Lord as the One Friend of your life, you should also see that you have +resisted and betrayed and offended Him during that life which He gave +you."</p> + +<p>"No: I have not thought much about that side of things" said Molly "I +have been too happy."</p> + +<p>"You would be far happier if you did."</p> + +<p>"But what have I done?" said Molly, almost in a tone of injured +respectability.</p> + +<p>"Well, you have hated people—or, at least" (in a tone of apology), "you +said so just now."</p> + +<p>"Oh! yes; it's quite true. I am a great hater and an uncertain one. I +never know who it is going to be, or when it will come."</p> + +<p>"But you know you have been commanded to love them."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but only as much as I love myself, and I quite particularly +dislike myself."</p> + +<p>"You've no right to—none whatever."</p> + +<p>"And why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because God made you in His own image and likeness. You can't get out +of it. But, you know, I don't believe one word you say. I met you +showing love to the poor."</p> + +<p>"No, indeed," said Molly indignantly, "I did not love Pat Moloney. I +wish you would believe what I say. I hate my mother; I hate the aunt who +brought me up; I hate crowds of people. I don't hate one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> man because I +want him to fall in love with me, but if he doesn't do that soon, I +shall hate him too. I feel friendly towards you now, but I don't know +how soon I may hate you. At least," she paused, and a gentle look came +into her face, "I had all these hatreds up to a few weeks ago; now they +are comparatively dormant."</p> + +<p>Again the flood of her words seemed to check him, but he tried:</p> + +<p>"I believe it then; I will take all you say as true. I think you are +fairly convincing. Well, then, how do you suppose you can be united to +Infinite Love, Infinite Mercy, Infinite Purity? God is not merely good, +He is Goodness. Until you feel that His Presence would burn and destroy +and annihilate your unworthiness, you have no sense of the joys of His +Friendship. You stand now looking up to Him and choosing Him as your +Friend, whereas you must lie prostrate in the dust and wait to be +chosen. When you have done that He will raise you, and the Heavens will +ring with the joy of the great spirits who never fell, and who are +almost envious of the sinner doing Penance."</p> + +<p>Molly bent her head low. "I see," she murmured, "mine have been merely +the guesses of an amateur; it is useless—I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"It isn't, indeed it isn't," he said quietly. "It is the introduction. +The King is sending His heralds. Some are drawn to Him by the sense of +their own sinfulness, others, as you are, by a glimpse of His beauty."</p> + +<p>Molly was not angry, only disappointed. The very habit of a life of +reserve must have brought some sense of disappointment in the result. +She did not mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> being told that she must lie in the dust; the +abnegation was not abhorrent; she knew that love in itself sometimes +demanded humiliation. But she felt sad and discouraged. She had seemed +to have conquered a kingdom. Without exactly being proud of them, she +had felt her religious experiences to be very remarkable, and now she +saw that they only pointed to a very long road, hard to walk on. She got +up quickly and was near the door before he was.</p> + +<p>"Will you come and see me?" she said, and she gave him her card. "If you +can, send me a postcard beforehand that I may not miss you. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>He opened the front door for her and her carriage was waiting.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>"The third time you have been late for dinner this week," observed the +Father Rector. "Have some mutton?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks," said the young man; "I wish I could learn the gentle art of +sending people away without offending them."</p> + +<p>"They didn't include that in the curriculum at Oxford?" The tone was not +quite kind; neither was the snort with which the remark was concluded. +It was no sauce to the lumpy, greasy mutton that Mark was struggling to +eat. Suddenly he caught the eye of the second curate, Father Marny, who +had conceived a great affection for him, and he smiled merrily with a +school-boy's sense of mischief.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h3> + +<h3>THE BLIND CANON</h3> + +<p>In a small room in a small house in a small street in Chelsea, Father +Molyneux was sitting with a friend. There were a few beautiful things in +the room, and a few well-bound books; but they had a dusty, uncared for +look about them. It teased the young priest to see a medicine bottle and +a half-washed medicine glass standing on a bracket with an exquisite +statuette of the Madonna. The present occupier of these lodgings had had +very true artistic perceptions before he had become blind.</p> + +<p>Mark Molyneux had just been reading to him for an hour, and he now put +down the book. The old man smacked his lips with enjoyment. The author +was new to him, but he had won his admiration at the first reading.</p> + +<p>"What people call his paradoxes," he said, "is his almost despairing +attempt at making people pay attention; he has to shout to men who are +too hurried to stop. The danger is that, as time goes on, he will only +be able to think in contrasts and to pursue contradictions."</p> + +<p>The speaker paused, and then, his white fingers groped a little as if he +were feeling after something. His voice was rich and low. Then he kept +still, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> waited with a curious look of acquired patience. At last, +the younger man began.</p> + +<p>"I want to ask your advice, or rather, I want to tell you something I +have decided on."</p> + +<p>"And you only want me to agree," laughed Canon Nicholls, and the blind +face seemed full of perception.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think you will." The boyish voice was bright and keen. "I've +come to tell you that I want to be a monk."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut," said Canon Nicholls, and then they both laughed together. +"Since when?" he asked a moment later.</p> + +<p>"It has been coming by degrees," said Mark, in a low voice. "I want to +be altogether for God."</p> + +<p>"And why can't you be that now?"</p> + +<p>"It's too confusing," he said; "half the day I am amused or worried or +tired. I've got next to no spiritual life."</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls did not help him to say more.</p> + +<p>"I can't be regular in anything, and now there's the preaching."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with that?"</p> + +<p>"Who was it who said that a popular preacher could not save his soul? +Father Rector says that it's very bad for me that I crowd up the church. +He is evidently anxious about me."</p> + +<p>"How kind!"</p> + +<p>"Then, since I've been preaching, such odd people come to see me."</p> + +<p>"I know," said the Canon, "there's a fringe of the semi-insane round all +churches; they used to lie in wait for me once."</p> + +<p>"Then I simply love society. I've been to hear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> such interesting people +talk at several houses lately. I go a good deal to Miss Dexter."</p> + +<p>"Miss Molly Dexter."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't do that; she's a minx. She is the girl who stayed with that +kind little woman, Mrs. Delaport Green, who sometimes comes to see me."</p> + +<p>"You see," Mark went on eagerly, "I'm doing no good like this. So I have +made up my mind to try and be a Carthusian."</p> + +<p>His face lit up now with the same intense delight. "It's such a splendid +life! Fancy! No more humbug, and flattery, and insincerity. 'Vous ne +jouerez plus la comédie,' an old monk said to me. Wouldn't it be +splendid? Think of the stillness, and then the singing of the Office +while the world is asleep, like the little birds at dawn. It would be +simply and entirely to live for God!"</p> + +<p>"I do believe in a personal devil," muttered Canon Nicholls to himself, +and Mark stared at him. "Now listen," he said. "There is a young man who +has a vocation to the priesthood, and he comes under obedience to work +in London. That is, to live in the thick of sin, of suffering, of folly +and madness. If it were acknowledged that the place was full of cholera +or smallpox it would be simple enough. But the place is thick with +disguises. The worst cases don't seem in the least ill; the stench of +the plague is a sweet smell, and the confusion is thicker because there +are angels and demons in the same clothes, living in the same houses, +doing the same actions, saying almost the same things. In every Babylon +there have been these things, but this is about the biggest. And the +most harmless of the sounds, the hum of daily work,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> is loud and +continuous enough to dull and wear the senses. So confused and perplexed +is the young man that he doesn't know when he has done good or done +harm; being young, compliments appeal to him very seriously; being +young, he takes too many people's opinions; and, being young, he +generalises and if, for instance, I tell him not to go often to the +house of a capricious woman of uncertain temper, he probably resolves at +once never to lunch in an agreeable house again. Meanwhile, above this +muddle, this tragicomedy, he sees the distant hills glowing with light; +so, without waiting for orders, he leaves the people crying to him for +help and turns tail and runs away! And what only the skill of a personal +devil could achieve, he thinks in his heart that he is choosing a harder +fight, a more self-denying life."</p> + +<p>"But I could help those people more by my prayers."</p> + +<p>"Granted, if it were God's will that you should lead the life of +contemplation, but I don't believe it is. I don't see what right you've +got to believe it is. As to not living altogether for God here, that's +His affair. Mind you, I don't undervalue the difficulties, and it's +uncommon hard to human nature. Don't think too much of other people's +opinions; I know you feel a bit out of it with the priests about you. +They are rough to young men like you—it's jealousy, if they only knew +it. Jealousy is the fault of the best men, because they never suspect +themselves of it. If they saw it, they would fight it. Face facts. You +have some gifts; you will be much humbler if you thank God for them +instead of trying to think you haven't got them. And be quite +particularly nice to the growler sort of priest; he's had a hard time +and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> lived a hard life; much harder than the life of a monk. Mind you +respect his scars."</p> + +<p>He talked on, partly to give Mark time; he saw he had given him a shock.</p> + +<p>"Mind," he said, "there is sometimes an acute personal temptation, but +you've not got that now. You've got a sort of perception of what it +might be. It won't be unbearable." He crossed his legs and put the long, +white fingers into each other. "But I'm old now, and it's my experience +that the mischief for all priests is to let society be their fun. It +ought to be a duty, and a very tiresome duty too. Take your amusements +in any other way, and go out to lunch in the same state of mind as you +visit a hospital. Do you think the best women, whether Protestant or +Catholic, think society their fun? They may like it or not, but it is a +serious duty to them."</p> + +<p>Mark sprang up suddenly. "I can't stand this!" he said. "You go on +talking, and I want to be a Carthusian, and I will be one." He laughed; +his voice was troubled and the clear joy of his face was clouded.</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls felt in his pocket for a snuff-box, and brought it out. +"Go along, if you can't stand it. And don't come back till you've seen +through the devil's trick. I don't mind what I bet that you won't run +away."</p> + +<p>Left alone, Canon Nicholls covered his blind eyes with his hands and +heaved a deep sigh.</p> + +<p>The man who had just left him was the object of his keenest affection, +the apple of those blind eyes that craved to look upon his face. But his +love was not blind, and he felt the danger there lay in the seeming +perfectness of the young man. Mark's nature was gloriously sweet and +abounding in the higher gifts; his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> love of God had the awe of a little +child, and his love of men had the tenderness of a shepherd towards his +lost sheep. Mark had loved life and learning, had revelled in Oxford, +and would, in one sense, be an undergraduate all his days. He had known +dreams of ambition, and visions of success in working for his country. +Then gently—not with any shock—had come the vocation to the +priesthood, and so tenderly had the tendrils that attached him to a +man's life in the world been loosened, that the process hardly seemed to +have hurt any of the sensitive sympathies and interests he had always +enjoyed. Even in the matter of giving up great possessions, all had come +so gradually as to seem most natural and least strained.</p> + +<p>Long before the Groombridges could be brought to believe that the +brilliant and favourite young cousin had rejected all that they could +leave him, it had become a matter of course to the rest of the family +and their friends that Mark Molyneux would be a priest, and give up the +property to the younger brother.</p> + +<p>When the outer world took up the matter, Father Molyneux always made +people feel as if allusions to his renunciation of Groombridge were +simply quite out of taste, and nothing out of taste seemed in keeping +with anything connected with him. It was all so simple to Mark, and so +perfect to Canon Nicholls, that the latter almost dreaded this very +perfection as unlikely, and unbefitting the "second-rate" planet in +which it was his lot to live. And to confirm this almost superstitious +feeling of a man who had lived to know where the jolts and jars of life +cause the acutest suffering to the idealist, had come this fresh +aspiration of Mark's after a life more completely perfect in itself. +Strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> instincts were entirely in accord with the older man's sober +judgment of the situation. And yet he wished it could be otherwise. He +had no opinion of the world that Mark wanted to give up. He would most +willingly have shut any cloister door between that world and his +cherished son in the spirit. It was with no light heart that he wanted +him to face all the roughness of human goodness, all the blinding +confusion of its infirmities, all the cruelty of its vices. The old +man's own service in his last years was but to stand and wait, but, even +so, he was too often oppressed by the small things that fill up empty +hours, small uncharitablenesses, small vanities, small irritations. Was +it not a comfort at such moments to believe that in another world we +should know human nature in others and in ourselves without any cause +for repugnance and without any ground for fear?</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h3> + +<h3>MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER</h3> + +<p>At last there came a letter to Molly from her mother.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Carissima</span>,—</p> + +<p>"I thank you for your most kind intentions. I too have at times +thought of seeing you. But I am now far too ill, and I have no +attention to spare from my unceasing efforts to keep well. I can +assure you that two doctors and two nurses spend their time and +skill on the struggle. I may, they tell me, live many years yet if +I am not troubled and disturbed. I had, by nature, strong maternal +instincts; it was your father's knowledge of that side of my +character which made his conduct in taking you from me almost +criminal in its cruelty. You must have had a most tiresome +childhood with his sister, and probably you gave her a great deal +of trouble. Your letter affected me with several moments of +suffocation, and the doctors and nurses are of opinion that I must +not risk any more maternal emotions. My poor wants are now very +expensive. I am obliged to have everything that is out of season, +and one <i>chef</i> for my vegetables alone. Have you ever turned your +attention to vegetable diet? Doctor Larrone, whom I thoroughly +confide in, sees no reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> why life should not be indefinitely +prolonged if the right—absolutely the right—food is always given. +I am sending you a little brochure he has written on the subject.</p> + +<p>"I hope that your allowance is sufficient for your comfort. I +should like you to have asparagus at every meal, and I trust, my +dear child, that you will never become a <i>dévote</i>. It is an +extraordinary waste of the tissues.</p> + +<p>"As we are not likely to correspond again, I should like you to +know that I have made a will bequeathing to you the fortune which +was left me, as an act of reparation, by Sir David Bright.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why an Englishman, Sir Edmund Grosse, has made so many +attempts at seeing me? Do you know anything of him? I risk much in +the effort to write this letter to assure you of my love.</p> + +<p class='right'>"<span class="smcap">Your Devoted Mother.</span></p> + +<p>"P.S.—There is no need to answer the question as to Sir Edmund +Grosse."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Molly was so intensely disgusted with the miserable old woman's letter +that her first inclination was to burn it at once. She was kneeling +before the fire with that intention when Sir Edmund Grosse was +announced. She thrust the paper into her pocket, and realised in a flash +how astonishing it was that Sir Edmund should have tried to see Madame +Danterre. The only explanation that occurred to her at the moment was +that he had tried to see her mother because of his interest in herself. +She did not know that he had not been in Florence since he had known +her. But what could have started him in the notion that Miss Dexter was +Madame Danterre's child? And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> did he know it for certain now? That was +what she would like to find out.</p> + +<p>Molly had on a pale green tea-gown, which fell into a succession of +almost classic folds with each rapid characteristic movement. The charm +of her face was enormously increased by its greater softness of +expression. Although she could not help wishing to please him, even in a +moment full of other emotion, she did not know how much there was to +make her successful to-day. She did not realise her own physical and +moral development during the past months.</p> + +<p>Edmund's manner was unconsciously caressing. He had come, he told +himself—and it was the third time he had called at the flat,—simply +because he wanted to keep in touch, to get any information he could. And +he had heard rumours from Florence that Madame Danterre was becoming +steadily weaker and more unable to make any effort.</p> + +<p>"A man told me the other day that this was the best-furnished flat in +London, and, by Jove! I rather think he was right."</p> + +<p>"I never believe in the man who told you things, he is far too apposite; +I think his name is Harris."</p> + +<p>Edmund smiled at the fire.</p> + +<p>"Who was the attractive little priest I met here the other day?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Little! He is as tall as you are."</p> + +<p>"Still, one thinks of him as <i>un bon petit prêtre</i>, doesn't one? But who +is he?"</p> + +<p>"Father Molyneux."</p> + +<p>"Not Groombridge's cousin?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the same."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wonder if he repents of his folly now? I didn't think he looked +particularly cheerful!"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you?" said Molly. "Well, I think he is the happiest person I +know! But we never do agree about people, do we?"</p> + +<p>"About a few we do, but it's much more amusing to talk about ourselves, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Much more. What do you want me to tell you about myself this time?"</p> + +<p>Edmund looked at her with sleepy eyes and perceived that something had +changed. "I should like to know what you think about me?" he said +gently.</p> + +<p>"No, you wouldn't," said Molly, and she gave a tiny sigh. "No, for some +reason or other you want to know something which I have settled to tell +you."</p> + +<p>Her manner alarmed and excited him. As a matter of honourable dealing he +felt that he ought to give her pause. "Are you sure you are wise?" he +said.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure, but that's my own affair, and it will be a relief. I +would rather you knew what you want to know, though why you want to +know"—her eyes were searching him—"I can't tell."</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund Grosse almost told her that he did not want to know.</p> + +<p>"You want to know for certain that my mother is living in Florence under +the name of Madame Danterre—the Madame Danterre you have tried to see +there. And further, you want to know how much I have ever seen of her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, please!" cried Edmund, "I don't indeed wish you to tell me all +this."</p> + +<p>"You do, and so I shall answer the questions. I have never seen her in +my life. But these last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> few weeks I have thought I ought to try, so I +wrote and offered to go to her, and I have this evening had the first +letter she has ever written to me. In this letter"—she drew it half out +of her pocket—"she declines to see me, and she exhorts me to a +vegetable diet."</p> + +<p>There was a moment in which her face looked the embodiment of sarcasm, +then something gentler came athwart it. He had never come so near to +liking her before. He could no longer think of her as all the more +dangerous on account of her attractions; she was a suffering, +cruelly-treated woman. It is dangerous to see too much of one's enemies: +Edmund was growing much softer.</p> + +<p>"But why," she went on with quiet dignity, "did you try so hard to break +through her seclusion?"</p> + +<p>It was a dreadful question—a question impossible to answer. He was +silent; then he said—</p> + +<p>"Dear lady, I told you I did not want you to satisfy what you supposed +to be my wish for knowledge, and I am very sorry that now, at least, I +cannot tell you why I wished to see Madame Danterre."</p> + +<p>Naturally, it never struck him for a moment that Molly might think it +was for her sake that he had tried to see her mother, as he had not +known of her existence when he was in Florence. But his reticence made +her incline much more to that idea. She almost blushed in the firelight. +Edmund was feeling baffled and sorry. If there were another will—and he +still maintained that there was another—certainly Miss Dexter knew +nothing about it. He had wronged her; and after all what reasonable +grounds had there been for his suspicions as to her guilt?</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he thought, "Rose is right, and will-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>hunting is +demoralising, or 'not healthy,' as she calls it."</p> + +<p>But he had been too long silent.</p> + +<p>"It is very hard on you to get such a letter," he said, with a ring of +true sympathy in his voice and more expression than usual in his face. +"I wish I had not come in and disturbed you; I wish you had a woman +friend here instead."</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Molly quickly. "Don't go yet. I can say as little as I +like with you, and then I'm going to church to hear the <i>bon petit +prêtre</i> preach."</p> + +<p>"He will lure you to Rome."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Well, I think there's a good deal to be said for Rome."</p> + +<p>"Don't you mind people joining it?" she asked, a little eagerly.</p> + +<p>"No, I like it better than Ritualism."</p> + +<p>"But Lady Rose is a Ritualist."</p> + +<p>"I believe you will find angels few and far between in any religion."</p> + +<p>"It must be nice to be an angel," mused Molly.</p> + +<p>He had risen to go; he thought he might still find Rose at home and he +wanted to speak to her, yet he was in no hurry to be gone.</p> + +<p>"Don't give me an excuse for compliments; I warn you, you will repent it +if you do," he said warmly; and then, after a little hesitation which +might well have been mistaken for an effort at self-command in a moment +of emotion, he added in a low voice—</p> + +<p>"May I come and see you again very soon?"</p> + +<p>As Molly gave him her hand he looked at her with wistful apology for +having wronged her in his thoughts, for having intruded into her +secrets. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> was more pity in his eyes than he knew at the moment. He +bent his head after that, and with the foreign fashion he sometimes fell +into, and which Molly had known before, gently kissed her hand. The +quick kindly action was the expression of his wish to make amends.</p> + +<p>Molly stood quite still after he had gone away, as motionless as a +living figure could stand, her grey eyes dilated and full of light. +Would he could have seen her! But if he had, would he have understood +what love meant in a heart that had never before been opened by any +great human affection? No love of father, mother, sister, or brother had +ever laid a claim on Molly. The whole kingdom of her affections had been +standing empty and ready, and now the hour of fulfilment was near.</p> + +<p>"He will come again very soon," she whispered to herself. And then she +put her hand to her lips and kissed it where it had been kissed a moment +before, but with a devotion and reverence and gentleness that made the +last kiss a tragic contrast.</p> + +<p>Presently, happier than she had ever been in her life before, Molly went +out to hear Mark Molyneux preach on sanctifying our common actions.</p> + +<p>"No position is so hard" he said in his peroration, "no circumstances +are so difficult, no duties so conflicting, no temptations so mighty, as +not to be the means to lead us to God if we seek to do His will."</p> + +<p>But the words seemed in no way appropriate to Molly's mind, which was +wholly occupied in a wordless song of thanksgiving.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h3> + +<h3>LADY ROSE'S SCRUPLE</h3> + +<p>As Edmund Grosse was shown up-stairs to Lady Rose Bright, he passed a +young clergyman coming down. He found Rose standing with a worried look +in the middle of the room.</p> + +<p>"Edmund! how nice," she said gently.</p> + +<p>"What has that fellow been worrying you about?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't his fault, poor man," said Rose, "only it's so sad. He has had +at last to close his little orphanage. You see, we used to give him £100 +a year, and after David died I had to write and tell him that I couldn't +go on, and it has been a hard struggle for him since that. I don't think +he meant it, but when he came and saw this house"—she waved her hands +round the very striking furniture of the room—"I think he wondered, or +perhaps it was my fancy. You see, Edmund, I don't know how it is, but +I've overdrawn again. What do you think it can be? The housekeeping +comes to so little; I have only four servants, and——"</p> + +<p>She paused, and there were tears in her eyes. She was wondering where +the orphans would go to. It was not like Rose to give way like this and +to have out her troubles at once. The fact was that she was finding how +much harder it is to help in good works<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> without money than with. If she +had started without money it would have been different, but to try to +work with people who used to find her large subscriptions a very great +help and now had to do without them, was depressing. She had to make +constant efforts to believe that they were all just the same to her as +they had been in the past.</p> + +<p>"How much did you give that youth instead of the £100?"</p> + +<p>"Only ten, Edmund." There was a note of pleading in her voice.</p> + +<p>"And you will have dinner up here on a tray as there is no fire in the +dining-room?"</p> + +<p>"Well, what does it matter?"</p> + +<p>"And how much will there be to eat on the tray?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! much more than I can possibly eat."</p> + +<p>"Because it will be some nasty warmed-up stuff washed down by tea. It's +of no use trying to deceive me: I've heard that the cook is seventeen, +and an orphan herself."</p> + +<p>"But what will those other orphans have for dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Now, Rose, will you listen to common sense. How many orphans has that +sandy-faced cleric on his hands?"</p> + +<p>"There were only four left."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll get those four disposed of somehow, if you will do something +I want you to do."</p> + +<p>"What is it? But, Edmund, you know you have done too much for my poor +works already; I can't let you."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, if you will do what I want."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Come right away in the yacht, you and your mother, and we'll go +wherever you like."</p> + +<p>Joy sprang into her face, but then he saw doubt, and he knew with a deep +pang what the doubt meant. He wished to move, oh! so carefully now, or +he would lose all the ground he had lately gained.</p> + +<p>"What scruples have you now?" he asked laughing. "What a genius you have +for them! Look here, Rose, it's common sense; you want a change, you can +let the house up to Easter. Besides, you know what it would do for your +mother; see what she thinks."</p> + +<p>"It's all so quick," gasped Rose, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, don't settle at once if you like; but not one penny for +those poor dear little orphans if you don't come. And now, I want to say +something else quick, because the tray with the chops and the cheese and +the tea will all be getting greasy if I don't get out of the way. Do you +know I think I was very hard on that Miss Dexter. I remember I solemnly +warned you not to have to do with her. You were quite right: it is not +healthy to think so much of that will; it poisons the mind. I am quite +sure that poor thing is not to blame."</p> + +<p>His tone was curiously eager, it seemed to Rose; and then he began +discussing Miss Dexter, and said he thought that at moments she was +beautiful. Presently he remembered the tray that was coming, and saw +that the hour was half-past seven, and hurried away. She fancied that +she missed in his "Good-night" the sort of gentle affectionateness he +had shown her so freely of late.</p> + +<p>She went up to her room to prepare for the meal he had disparaged so +much, looking tired. She smiled rather sadly when she had to own to +herself that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> tray of supper was almost exactly what Edmund had +foretold. She dismissed it as soon as she could, and then drew a chair +up to the fire and took up a book. But it soon dropped on to her knee. +She had been trying not to give way to depression all that day. But it +was very difficult. There seemed to be so little object in life. She +felt as if everything had got into a fog; there was no one at home to +whom her going and coming mattered any more than the meals mattered. +And, meanwhile, she was being sucked into a world of committees and +sub-committees. She had thought that, as she could no longer give money, +she would give her time and her work; so, when asked, she had joined +many things just because she was asked, and she was a little hazy as to +the objects of some of them. Having been afraid that she would not have +enough to do, she found now that she had already more than she could +manage. And everything seemed so difficult. During the past week she had +twice taken the wrong bus, and come home very wet and tired. Another day +she had taken the wrong train when coming back from South London, and +had found herself at Baker Street instead of Sloane Square. These things +tried her beyond reason with the sense of loneliness, of incapacity, of +uncertainty. Then she had thought that, with very quiet black clothes, +she could go anywhere, but her mother had discovered that she sometimes +came back from the Girls' Club in Bermondsey as late as ten o'clock at +night, and there had been a fuss. Rose had forgotten the fact that she +was very fair and very good to look at; she found, half-consciously, +that her beauty had its drawbacks. There did not seem to be any reason +why she should spare her strength in any way. So, a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> wan and +tremulous, she appeared at the early morning service, and then, after +walking back in any weather, there was a dull little breakfast, and soon +after that she got to work. Every post brought begging letters in +crowds, and these hurt her dreadfully. It was her wish to live for God +and the poor, and every day she had to write: "Lady Rose Bright much +regrets that she is quite unable," etc., etc. Then, after those, she +would begin another trial—begging letters to her rich friends to help +her poor ones, or letters trying to get interest and influence. The +difficulties and the confusion of life in the modern Babylon weighed on +Rose in something of the same way that they tried Mark Molyneux. It +seemed to her that it must be safe and right to be doing so many +disagreeable things and to be very tired, too tired to enjoy pleasures +when they came her way. Constantly, one person was trying to throw +pleasures in her way; one person reminded old friends that Rose was in +town; one person suggested that Rose Bright, although she did not go to +parties, might come in to hear some great musician at a friend's house; +one person wanted to know her opinion on the last book; one person tried +to find out when he could take her anywhere in his motor. And this very +morning Rose had asked herself if this one friend ought to be allowed to +do all these things? Was she sure that she was quite fair to Edmund +Grosse?</p> + +<p>It had been a day of fears and scruples. She had been unnerved when the +clergyman had called just to let her realise that the withdrawal of her +subscription had, in the end, meant the collapse of his little +orphanage; and when she was breaking down under this, Edmund had come +in, and how soothed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> comforted she had felt by his presence! And +then the joy of his proposal as to the yacht! Her pulses beat with +delight; she felt a positive hunger for blue skies, blue water, blue +shores; a longing to get away from cares and muddles and badly-done jobs +and being misunderstood. Was it not horribly selfish, horribly cowardly? +Was it not the longing to stifle the sounds of pain, to shut her eyes to +the gloom of the misery about her, to shut her mind to the effort to +understand what was of practical good, and what was merely quack in the +remedies offered? Still, she realised to-night that she must get some +sort of rest; that part of all this gloom was physical. She would +understand and feel things more rightly if she went away for a bit.</p> + +<p>But could she, ought she, to go away on Edmund's yacht?</p> + +<p>Could Rose honestly feel quite sure that all his kindness meant nothing +more? She had never since she was eighteen, and wearing her first long +skirt, heard from him any word that need mean more than cousinly +affection. He had contrived after that Easter visit to Groombridge to +make her feel that she had been foolish and self-conscious in trying not +to be alone with him. For many months now she had felt absolutely at her +ease in his company. It seemed to be only to-day that this thought had +come back to trouble her. She did not want to be disturbed with such +notions; they would spoil their friendship. And he could not be feeling +like that; he was always so cool, so untroubled. Why to-night, just as +he was waiting to know if she would come on the yacht or not, he had +talked much more warmly of Miss Dexter than seemed quite natural! +Faintly she felt that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> might be good for him if they went on the +yacht, she and her mother. They would be better for Edmund than some of +the people he might otherwise ask; he was not always wise as to his lady +friends. And it would be so good for Lady Charlton, and so good, too, +for those four orphans. And where should they go? It did not matter much +where they went if they only gained light and colour and rest. The +artist was strong in Rose at that moment. She looked at one or two old +guide-books till it was bed-time. Then, the last thing at night, a +strange gust of thought came upon her just after her prayers.</p> + +<p>Could she, would she, ever marry again? She knelt on at the <i>priedieu</i> +with her fair head bowed, and then there came over her a strong sense of +the impossibility of it. The shock she had had was too great, too +lasting in its effects. She did not know it was that, she did not tell +herself that once humiliated, once misled, she could not trust again. +She did not say that the past married life which she had made so full of +duty, so full of reverence as almost to deceive herself while she lived +it, had been desecrated, polluted and had made her shrink unutterably +from another married life.</p> + +<p>A young widow, sometimes, when drawing near to a second marriage, +suddenly realises it to be impossible because the past asserts its +tyrannous claim upon her heart. What had appeared to be a dead past is +found to be both alive and powerful. But with Rose it was not simply her +heart; it was her nature as a woman that refused. That nature had been +hurt to the very quick, humbled and brought low once. Surely it was +enough!</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h3> + +<h3>THE HEIRESS OF MADAME DANTERRE</h3> + +<p>For about a week after the evening on which she had received her +mother's letter and Edmund Grosse had been to see her, Molly Dexter +stayed at home from four o'clock till seven o'clock and wore beautiful +tea-gowns. She had a very small list of people to whom she was always at +home written on a slate, but one by one they had been reduced in number. +Now there were five—Father Molyneux, who never came except by +appointment; Sir Edmund Grosse; and three ladies who happened to be +abroad for the winter.</p> + +<p>The week was from a Friday to a Thursday, and on the Thursday several +things happened to Molly. It was a brilliant day, and although those +evenings from four till seven when nobody came were sorely trying, she +was in very good spirits. A friend coming out of church the day before +had told her that she had met Sir Edmund Grosse at a country house.</p> + +<p>"He said such pretty things about you," purred the speaker, a nice newly +"come out" girl who admired Molly very much.</p> + +<p>But the main point to Molly had been the fact that Edmund had been away +from London. Surely he would come directly now! She seemed to hear,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +constantly ringing in her ears, the voice in which he had asked if he +might "come again very soon."</p> + +<p>Thursday had been a good day altogether, for Molly had skated at +Prince's and come home with a beautiful complexion to be "At Home" to +the privileged from four till seven. She got out of her motor, and was +walking to the lift when it came whizzing down from above, and the +little friend who had said the nice things yesterday stepped out of it, +looking very bright.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Dexter," she said, "may I come up again and tell you my good +news?" Molly took her kindly by the arm and drew her into the lift +again, and they went up. But she hoped the girl would not stay. She +wanted to be quite alone, so that if anybody came who mattered very much +they would not be disturbed.</p> + +<p>"Well, what's the good news?"</p> + +<p>Molly looked brilliant as she stood smiling in the middle of the room.</p> + +<p>"Well, it isn't a bit settled yet, but I met Sir Edmund Grosse at +luncheon, and he asked me if mother would let me go on his yacht to +Cairo. Lady Rose Bright is going and Lady Charlton, and he said they all +wanted something very young indeed to go with them, so they thought I'd +better come, and his nephew Jimmy, too. Wasn't it <i>awfully</i> kind of +him?"</p> + +<p>Molly turned and poked the fire.</p> + +<p>"When do they go?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Sir Edmund starts to-morrow, but Lady Rose and Lady Charlton will +follow in about ten days. They will join the yacht at Marseilles, and I +should go with them. Do you think mother will let me go, Miss Dexter?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Dexter looked down.</p> + +<p>"Why should your mother object?" she said.</p> + +<p>"But it's so sudden."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's very sudden," said Molly, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"I can hardly keep quiet; I don't know how to get through the time till +six o'clock, and mother can't be at home till then."</p> + +<p>Molly turned back into the room; her face was very white. There were +white dents in her nostrils, and there was a bitter smile on her lips. +Whatever she might have said was stopped in the utterance. The +parlourmaid had come into the room, and now, coming up to Molly, said in +a low voice:</p> + +<p>"There is a gentleman asking if Miss Dexter will see him on important +business; he says he is a doctor, and that he has come from Italy."</p> + +<p>Molly frowned.</p> + +<p>"What is his name?"</p> + +<p>"It sounded like Laccaroni, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Show him up."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm off," said the young visitor, and, still entirely absorbed in +her own affairs, she took Molly's limp hand and left the room.</p> + +<p>A spare man with a pale face and rather good eyes was announced as "Dr. +Laccaroni." "Larrone," he corrected gently. He carried a small old tin +despatch box, and looked extremely dusty.</p> + +<p>"I am the bearer of sad tidings," he said in English, with a fair +accent, in a dry staccato voice. "It was better not to telegraph, as I +was to come at once."</p> + +<p>"You attended my mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, until two nights ago. That was the end."</p> + +<p>"Did she suffer?"</p> + +<p>"For a few hours, yes; and there was also some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> brain +excitement—delirium. In an interval that appeared to be lucid (but I +was not quite sure) she told me to come to you, mademoiselle, quite as +soon as she was dead, and she gave me money and this little box to bring +to you. She said more than once, 'It shall be her own affair.' The key +is in this sealed envelope. Afterwards twice she spoke to me: 'Don't +forget,' and then the rest was raving. But the last two hours were +peace."</p> + +<p>"And where is my mother to be buried?"</p> + +<p>"Madame will be cremated, and her ashes placed in an urn in the garden, +mademoiselle, in a fine mausoleum, with just her name, 'Justine,' and +the dates—no more. Madame told me that these were her wishes."</p> + +<p>"Do you know what is in this box?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all, and I incline to think there may be nothing: the mind was +quite confused. And yet I could only calm her by promising to come at +once, and so I came, and if mademoiselle will permit I should like to +retire to my hotel."</p> + +<p>"Can I be of any use to you?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all: the money for the journey was more than enough."</p> + +<p>Molly was left alone, and she gave orders that no one, without +exception, was to be admitted. Then she walked up and down the room in a +condition of semi-conscious pain.</p> + +<p>At first it seemed as if Dr. Larrone's intelligence had not reached her +brain at all. The only clear thing in her mind at that moment was the +thought that Edmund was going away at once with Lady Rose Bright. The +disappointment was in proportion to the wild hopes of the last week, +only Molly had not quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> owned to herself how intensely she had looked +forward to his next coming. It was true he might still come and see her +before he started, but if he came it could not be what she had meant it +to be. If he had meant what Molly dreamed of, could he have gone off +suddenly on this yachting expedition? She knew the yachting was not +thought of when she had seen him, for he told her then that he meant to +stay in London for some weeks. But as her thoughts grew clearer, what +was most horrible to Molly was a gradual dawning of common daylight into +the romance she had been living in for months. For, looking back now, +she could not feel sure that any of her views of Edmund's feelings +towards herself had been true. It was a tearing at her heart's most +precious feelings to be forced to common sense, to see the past in the +matter-of-fact way in which it might appear to other people. And yet, +Adela Delaport Green had expected him to propose even in the season, but +then, what might not the Adela Delaport Greens of life suspect and +expect without the slightest foundation? Could Molly herself say firmly +and without delusion that Edmund had treated her badly? How she wished +she could! She would rather think that he had been charmed away by +hostile influence, or even that he had deliberately played with her than +feel it all to have been her own vain fancy! It was agony to her to feel +that she had without any excuse, set up an idol in her sacred places, +and woven about him all the dreams and loves of her youth. It must be +remembered not only that it was the first time that Molly had loved in +the ordinary sense of the word, but it was absolutely the first time +that she had ever felt any deep affection for any human being whatever. +And now a great sense of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> abandonment was on her; the old feeling of +isolation, of being cast out, that she had had all her life, was +frightfully strong. Edmund had left her; he had deceived her, played +with her, she told herself, deluded her; and now her mother's death +brought home all the horror, the disgrace, which that mother's life had +been for Molly. An outcast whom no one cared for, no one loved, no one +wanted. The new gentleness of the past weeks, the new softness, all the +high and sacred thoughts that had seemed to have taken possession of her +inner life, were gone at this moment. Her feeling now was that, if she +were made to suffer, she could at least make others suffer too.</p> + +<p>She had thrown off her furs in walking up and down, and they had fallen +on to the box which Dr. Larrone had brought. Presently they slipped to +the floor, and showed the small, black tin despatch box.</p> + +<p>Molly broke the seal of the envelope, took out the key, and opened the +box, half mechanically and half as seeking a distraction.</p> + +<p>Inside she found two or three packets of old yellow letters, a few faded +photographs, and a tiny gold watch and chain; and underneath these +things a large registered envelope addressed to Madame Danterre.</p> + +<p>Molly was not acutely excited about this box. She knew that her mother's +will would be at the lawyer's. She had no anxiety on this point, but +there is always a strange thrill in touching such things as the dead +have kept secret. Even if they have bid us do it, it seems too bold.</p> + +<p>Molly shrank from what that box might contain, what history of the past +it might have to tell, but she did not think it would touch her own +life. Therefore, thinking more of her own sorrow than anything else,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +Molly drew two papers out of the registered envelope, and then shrank +back helplessly in her chair. She had just seen that the larger of the +two enclosures was a long letter beginning: "Dearest Rose." She +hesitated, but only for a moment, and then went on reading.</p> + +<p>"I trust and hope that if I die in to-morrow's battle this will reach +you safely. I have really no fear whatever of the battle, and after it +is over I shall have a good opportunity of putting this paper into a +lawyer's hands at Capetown."</p> + +<p>Then she hastily dropped the letter and took up a small paper that had +been in the same envelope. A glance at this showed that it was the "last +will and testament of Sir David Bright."</p> + +<p>It was evidently not drawn up by a lawyer, but it seemed complete and +had the two signatures of witnesses; Lord Groombridge and Sir Edmund +Grosse were named as executors. It was dated on board ship only a few +weeks before Sir David Bright died.</p> + +<p>At first Molly was simply bewildered. She read, as if stupefied, the +perfectly simple language in which Sir David had bequeathed all and +everything he possessed to his wife, Lady Rose Bright, subject to an +annual allowance of £1000 to Madame Danterre during her life-time. It +was so brief and simple that, if Molly had not known how simple a will +could be, she might have half doubted its legality. As it was she was +not aware of the special facilities in the matter of will-making that +are allowed to soldiers and sailors when on active service. The +absolutely amazing thing was that the paper should have been in Madame +Danterre's possession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly turned to the letter, and read it with absorbed attention.</p> + +<p>The General wrote on the eve of the battle, without the least anxiety as +to the next day. But he already surmised the vast proportions that the +war might assume, and he intended to send the enclosed will with this +letter to the care of a lawyer in Capetown for fear of eventualities. +Then, next day, as Molly knew, he had been killed.</p> + +<p>But Molly did not know that to the brother officer who had been with him +in his last moments Sir David had confided two plain envelopes, and had +told him to send the first—a blue one—to his wife, and the second—a +white one—to Madame Danterre, faintly murmuring the names and addresses +in his dying voice. The same officer was himself killed a week later. If +he had lived and had learned the disposal of Sir David's fortune, it +might possibly have occurred to him that he had put the addresses on the +wrong letters. But he was sure at the time that Sir David's last words +had been: "Remember, the white one for my wife." And perhaps he was +right, for it is not uncommon for a man even in the full possession of +all his faculties (which Sir David was not) to make a mistake just +because of his intense anxiety to avoid making it. As it was, knowing +nothing whatever of the circumstances, the will and the letter seemed to +Molly to come out of a mysterious void.</p> + +<p>To any one with an unbiassed mind who was able to study it as a human +document, the letter would have been pathetic enough. It was the +revelation, the outpouring of what a man had suffered in silence for +many long years. It seemed at moments hardly rational. The sort of +unreasonable nervous terror in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> it was extraordinary. Molly read most of +the real story in the letter, but not quite all. There had been a +terrible sense of a spoilt life and of a horrible weakness always coming +between him and happiness. The shadow of Madame Danterre had darkened +his youth; a time of folly—and so little pleasure in that folly, he +moaned—had been succeeded by an actual tyranny. The claim that she was +his wife had begun early after her divorce from Mr. Dexter, and it +seemed extraordinary that he had not denied it at once. David Bright had +been taken ill with acute fever in Mrs. Dexter's house almost +immediately after that event. Mrs. Dexter declared that he had gone +through the form of marriage with her before witnesses, and she declared +also that she had in her possession the certificate of marriage. The +date she gave for the marriage was during the days when he had been down +with the fever, and he never could remember what had happened.</p> + +<p>"God knows," he wrote, "how I searched my memory hour by hour, day by +day, but the blank was absolute. I don't to this hour know what passed +during those days."</p> + +<p>While still feeble from illness he had given her all the money he could +spare, and for years the blackmail had continued. Then, at last, after +he had been a year in England, the worm had turned.</p> + +<p>"I dared her to do her worst. I declared, what I am absolutely convinced +to have been the case, that the marriage certificate she had shown me +was a forgery, and I concluded that if she proved the marriage by +forgery and perjury, I should institute proceedings for divorce on the +grounds of her subsequent life. I got no answer, and for three years +there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> was total silence. Then came a letter from a friend saying that +Madame Danterre, who had taken her maiden name, was dying and wished me +to know that she forgave me." With this note had been sent to him a +diamond ring he had given her in the first days of her influence over +him. He sent it back, but months later he got it again, returned by the +Post Office authorities, as no one of the name he had written to could +be found.</p> + +<p>Then came a solemn declaration that he had never doubted of Madame +Danterre's death.</p> + +<p>"I thought that to have spoilt my youth was enough; but she was yet to +destroy my best years. Ah! Rose," he wrote, "if I had loved you less it +would have been more bearable. I met you; I worshipped you; won you. +Then, after a brief dream of joy, the cloud came down, and my evil +genius was upon me. I don't think you were in love with me, my beloved, +but it would have come even after you had found out what a commonplace +fellow it was whom you thought a hero; it would have come. You must have +loved me out of the full flow of your own nature if I had not been +driven to cowardice and deception."</p> + +<p>Evidently Madame Danterre had had a kind of almost uncanny power of +terrifying the soldier. He had been a good man when she first met him, +and he had been a good man after that short time of mad infatuation. He +was by nature and training almost passionately respectable; he was at +length happily married; but this horror of an evil incident in the past +had got such a hold on his nerves that when he met Madame Danterre (whom +he had believed to be dead) coming out of a theatre in London, the hero +of the Victoria Cross, of three other campaigns, perhaps the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> bravest +man in England, fainted when he saw her. Without doubt it was the +publication of Mr. John Steele's will leaving his enormous fortune to +Sir David Bright that had resuscitated Madame Danterre.</p> + +<p>From the moment of that shock David Bright had probably never been +entirely sane on the subject. The resurrection of Madame Danterre had +seemed to him preternatural and fateful. The woman had become to him +something more or something less than human, something impervious to +attack that could not be dealt with in any ordinary way.</p> + +<p>From that time there had grown up an invisible barrier between him and +his wife. He found himself making silly excuses for being out at quite +natural times. He found himself getting afraid of her, and building up +defences, growing reserved and absurdly dignified, trying to cling to +the pedestal of the elderly soldier as he could not be a companion.</p> + +<p>Madame Danterre had gone back to Florence, fat with blackmail, and then +had begun a steady course of persecution.</p> + +<p>Step by step he had sunk lower down, knowing that he was weakening his +own case most miserably if it should ever become public. Nothing +satisfied her, although she received two thousand a year regularly, +until the will was drawn up, which left everything to her except an +allowance of £800 a year to Rose.</p> + +<p>Once a year for three years Madame Danterre had visited London, and had +generally contrived that Sir David should be conscious of the look in +her astonishing eyes, which Sir Edmund had likened to extinct volcanoes, +at some theatre, or in the park, once at least every season. Evidently +that look had never failed. It touched the exposed nerve in his +mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>—exposed ever since the time of illness and strain when he was +young and helpless in India. It was evident that he had felt that any +agony was bearable to shield Rose from the suffering of a public +scandal. If he could only have brought himself to consult one of the +Murrays something might have been done. As it was, he had recourse to +subterfuge. He assured Madame Danterre annually, in answer to her +insisting on the point, that no other will had ever been signed by him, +but he always carried a will with him ready to be signed. There was much +of self-pity perhaps in the letter, there was the plaint of a wrecked +life, but there was still more of real delicate feeling for Rose, of +intense anxiety to shield her, of poignant regret for "what might have +been" in their home life. The man had been of a wholesome nature; his +great physical courage was part of a good fellow's construction. But he +had been taught to worship a good name, an unsullied reputation, and to +love things of good repute too much, perhaps, for the sake of their +repute, as he could not venture to risk the shadow for the reality. The +effect of reading Sir David's last letter to Rose on an unbiassed reader +of a humane turn of mind would have been an intensity of pity, and a +sigh at the sadness of life on this planet.</p> + +<p>Molly was passionately biassed, and as much of Sir David's story as +reached her through the letter was to her simply a sickening revelation +from a cowardly traitor of his own treason through life, and even up to +the hour of death. Her mother had been basely deceived; for his sake she +had been divorced, and he had denied the marriage that followed. Of +course, it was a marriage, or he would never have been so frightened. +Then her mother, thus deserted, young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> and weak, had gone astray, and he +had defended himself by threatening divorce if she proclaimed herself +his wife. Every word of the history was interpreted on the same lines. +And then, last of all, this will was sent to her mother. Was it a tardy +repentance? Had he, perhaps when too weak for more, asked some one to +send it to Madame Danterre that she might destroy it? If so, why had she +not destroyed it? Why, if it might honourably have been destroyed, send +to Molly now a will that, if proved, would make her an absolute pauper? +In plain figures Molly's fortune could not be less than £20,000 a year +if that paper did not exist, and would be under £80 a year if it were +valid.</p> + +<p>Molly next seized on one of the old packets of letters in trembling hope +of some further light being thrown on the situation, but in them was +evidence impossible to deny that her mother had invented the whole story +of the marriage. Why Madame Danterre had not destroyed these letters was +a further mystery, except that, time after time, it has been proved that +people have carefully preserved evidence of their own crimes. Fighting +against it, almost crying out in agonised protest, Molly was forced to +realise the slow persevering cunning and unflinching cruelty with which +her mother had pursued her victim. It was an ugly story for any girl to +read if the woman had had no connection with her. It seemed to cut away +from Molly all shreds of self-respect as she read it. She felt that the +daughter of such a woman must have a heritage of evil in her nature.</p> + +<p>The packet of old letters finished, there was yet something more to +find. Next came a packet of prescriptions and some receipts from shops. +Under these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> were the faded photographs of several men and women of whom +she knew nothing. Lastly, there was half a letter written to Molly dated +in August and left unfinished and without a signature:</p> + + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Carissima</span>:</p> + +<p>"I am far from well, but I believe Dr. Larrone has found out the +cause and will soon put things right again. If you ever hear +anything about me from Dr. Larrone you can put entire confidence in +him. I have found out now why Sir Edmund Grosse has tried to see +me. He is possessed with the absurd idea that I have no right to +Sir David Bright's fortune, although he does not venture to call in +question the validity of the will which left that fortune to me. +Dr. Larrone has certain proof that Grosse employs a detective here +to watch this house. I have also heard that he is in love with poor +David's widow, and hence I suppose this <i>trop de zèle</i> on her +behalf. As he cannot get at me he is likely to try to become +intimate with you, so I warn you to avoid him now and in future."</p></blockquote> + + +<p>That was all.</p> + +<p>Molly sat staring vacantly in front of her, almost unconscious of her +surroundings from the intensity of pain. Each item in the horror of the +situation told on her separately, but in no sequence—with no coherence. +Shame, "hopes early blighted, love scorned," kindness proved treason, +the prospect of complete and dishonourable poverty, a poverty which +would enrich her foes. And all this was mixed in her mind with the +dreadful words from the old letters that seemed to be shouted at her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Carew, coming in at dinner-time, was horror-struck by what she saw. +Molly was sitting on the floor surrounded by letters and papers, moaning +and biting her hand. The gong sounded, the parlourmaid announced dinner, +and Molly gathered up her papers, locked them in the box, fastened the +key on to her chain—all in complete silence—and got up from the floor. +She then walked straight into the dining-room in her large hat and +outdoor clothes without speaking.</p> + +<p>And without a word the terrified Miss Carew went with her, and tried to +eat her dinner.</p> + +<p>Molly ate a very little of each thing that was offered to her, taking a +few mouthfuls voraciously, and then quite suddenly, as she was offered a +dish of forced asparagus, she went into peal after peal of ringing, +resounding laughter. "I should like you to have asparagus at every +meal," she said, and then again came peal after peal—each a quite +distinct sound. It was dreadful to hear, and Miss Carew and the servant +were terrified. It was the laughter, not of a maniac, not of pure +unreasoning hysteria, not quite of a lost soul. It suggested these +elements, perhaps, but it was chiefly a nervous convulsion at an +overpowering perception of the irony in the heart of things.</p> + +<p>The hysterical fit lasted long enough for Miss Carew to insist on a +doctor, and Molly did not resist. When he came she implored him to give +her a strong sleeping-draught. She kept Miss Carew and the maid fussing +about her, in a terror of being alone, until the draught was at last +sent in by a dilatory chemist. She then hurried them away, drank the +medicine, and set herself to go to sleep. The draught acted soon, as +Miss Carew learnt by listening at the door and hearing the deep, regular +breathing. But the effects passed off,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> and Molly sat up absolutely +awake at one o'clock in the morning. She lay down again and tried to +force herself to sleep by sheer will power, but she soon realised the +awful impotence of desire in forcing sleep.</p> + +<p>At last, horror of her own intensely alert faculties, blinded by +darkness, made her turn up the light. Instantly the sight of the +familiar room seemed unbearable, and she turned it down again. But again +the darkness was quite intolerable, and seemed to have a hideous life of +its own which held in it presences of evil. At one moment she breathed +in the air of the winter's night, shivering with cold; at the next she +was stifled for want of breath. So the light by the bed was turned on +again, and to get a little further from it Molly got up and slowly and +carefully put on her stockings and fur slippers, then opened a cupboard +and took out a magnificent fur cloak and wrapped herself in it. Then +suddenly one aspect of the position became concrete to her imagination. +She knew that the cloak was bought with ill-gotten money. Her enormous +allowance after she came of age, even the expenses of her +education—Miss Carew's salary among other things—had been won by +fraud. And now, oh! why, why had not her miserable mother spoken the +truth when she got the will, or why had she not destroyed it? Why had +she left it to Molly to put right all this long, long imposture, and to +reveal to the world the story of her mother's crime? It seemed to Molly +as if she were looking on at some other girl's life, and as if she were +considering it from an external point of view. The sleeping-draught had, +no doubt, excited still further the terrible agitation of her nerves, +and ideas came to her as if they had no connection with her own +personality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wicked old woman, dying in Florence! How cruel those words were: "Let it +be her own affair"! Her last act to send those papers to the poor girl +she had deserted as a baby, and refused even to see as a woman. "Let it +be her own affair." Her own affair to choose actual poverty and a +terrible publicity as to the past instead of a great fortune and silence +as to her mother's guilt. "Let it be her own affair" to enrich her +enemies, to give a fortune to the woman who would scorn her! Would the +man who had pretended to be her friend, and who had been pursuing her +mother with detectives all the time, would he some day talk pityingly of +her with his wife, and say she "had really behaved very well, poor +thing"?</p> + +<p>Suddenly Molly stopped, full of horror at a new thought. Oh! she must +make things safe and sure, or—good God!—what might not her mother's +daughter be tempted to do? A deep blush spread over her face and neck. +She moved hastily to the door, and in a moment she was in Miss Carew's +room.</p> + +<p>"I want to speak to you; I want to tell you something," said Molly, +turning up the electric light as she spoke.</p> + +<p>Miss Carew was startled out of a sweet sleep, and her first thought was +the one which haunted her whenever she was awakened at an untimely hour. +Her carefully-curled fringe was lying in the dressing-table drawer, and +Molly had never seen her without it!</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; in one moment," she answered fussily. "I will come to your +room in one minute."</p> + +<p>Molly felt checked, and there had been something strange and unfamiliar +in Miss Carew's face. Suddenly she felt what it would be to tell Miss +Carew the truth—Miss Carew, who was now her dependent, re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>ceiving from +her £100 a year, would be shocked and startled out of her senses, and +might not take these horrible revelations at all kindly. It would, +anyhow, be such a reversal of their mutual positions as Molly could not +face. And by the time the chestnut hair tinged with grey had been pinned +a little crooked on Miss Carew's head, and she had knocked timidly at +Molly's door, she was startled and offended by the impatient, +overbearing tone of the voice that asked her to "go back to bed and not +to bother; it was nothing that mattered."</p> + +<p>The night had got on further than Molly knew by that time, and she was +relieved to hear it strike four o'clock. She was astonished at noticing +that, while she had been walking up and down, up and down her room, she +had never heard the clock strike two or three. The fact of having spoken +to Miss Carew had brought her for the moment out of the inferno of the +last few hours, and the time from four o'clock to six was less utterly +miserable because worse had gone before it.</p> + +<p>At six she called the housemaid, and kept her fussing about the room, +lighting the fire, and getting tea, so as not to be alone again. At +eight o'clock she sent for coffee and eggs, and the coffee had to be +made twice before she was satisfied with it. Then she suddenly said she +felt much better, and, having dressed much more quickly than usual, she +went out.</p> + +<p>Molly had determined to confide the position to Father Molyneux. When +she got to the church in Kensington it was only to find that Father +Molyneux had gone away for some days.</p> + +<p>That evening the doctor was again summoned, and told Miss Carew that he +had now no doubt that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> Miss Dexter was suffering from influenza, with +acute cerebral excitement, and the case was decidedly anxious.</p> + +<p>"He might have found out that it was influenza last night," said Miss +Carew indignantly, "and I even told him the housemaid had just had +influenza! Molly simply caught it from her, as I always thought she +would."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III"></a>BOOK III</h2> + +<hr /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h3> + +<h3>AN INTERLUDE OF HAPPINESS</h3> + +<p>An interlude of happiness, six weeks of almost uninterrupted enjoyment, +followed for Rose after she went on board Sir Edmund's yacht.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse had most distinctly made up his mind that during those +weeks he would not betray any ulterior motive whatever. They were all to +be amused and to be happy. There is no knowing when an interlude of +happiness will come in life; it is not enough to make out perfect plans, +the best fail us. But sometimes, quite unforeseen, when all the weather +signs are contrary, there come intervals of sunshine in our hearts, in +spite of any circumstances and the most uninteresting surroundings. +Harmony is proclaimed for a little while, and we wonder why things were +black before, and have to remember that they will be black again. But +when such a truce to pain falls in the happiest setting, and the most +glorious scenery, then rejoice and be glad, it is a real truce of God. +So did Rose night by night rejoice without trembling. It wanted much +skill on Edmund's part to ward off any scruples, any moments of +consciousness. He showed great self-command, surprising self-discipline +in carry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>ing out his tactics. There were moments when their talk had +slid into great intimacy, when they were close together in heart and in +mind, and he slipped back into the commonplace only just in time. There +were moments, especially on the return journey, when he could hardly +hide his sense of how gracious and delicious was her presence, how acute +her instincts, how quaintly and attractively simple her mind, how big +her spiritual outlook. But before she could have more than a suspicion +of his thoughts Edmund would make any consciousness seem absurd by a +comment on the doings of the very young people on board.</p> + +<p>"The child does look happy," he said in his laziest voice one evening +when he knew his look had been bent for a rashly long moment on Rose. +"Happy and pretty," he murmured to himself, and he watched his youngest +guest with earnestness. Then he sat down near Rose on a low deck-chair, +and put away the glasses he held in his pocket. "I'm not sure I don't +get as much pleasure out of the hazy world I see about me as you +long-sighted people do; the colours are marvellous." Rose looked at him +in surprise.</p> + +<p>"But Edmund, don't you see more than haze?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I can see a foreground, and then the rest melts away. I don't +know what is meant by a middle distance—that's why I can't shoot."</p> + +<p>Rose sat up with an eager look on her face. "I never knew that; I only +thought you did not care for shooting."</p> + +<p>There was a silence of several minutes, and neither looked at the other. +At last Edmund rose and went to the side of the boat and looked over at +the water, and then, turning half-way towards her, said: "Why does it +startle you so much?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"But you do know perfectly well."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Edmund." Her face was flushed and her voice a little tremulous.</p> + +<p>"You shall tell me." He spoke more imperiously than he knew.</p> + +<p>"I can't, indeed I can't."</p> + +<p>"No," he said; "it would be a difficult thing to say, I admit."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we read something?" said Rose.</p> + +<p>"No, no use at all. I am going to tell you why you are so glad I am +short-sighted."</p> + +<p>"But I am not glad."</p> + +<p>"I repeat that you are, and this is the reason why."</p> + +<p>"You shall not say it," said Rose, now more and more distressed and +embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"It's because you never knew before why I did not volunteer for the war, +that is why you are so glad." "Yes," he thought in anger, "she has had +this thing against me all the time; it is one of the defences she has +set up." But he was hurt all the same—hurt and angry; he wanted to +punish her. "So all the time you have thought this of me?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, indeed, Edmund, it wasn't that. I never meant that; I knew +you were never that, do believe me."</p> + +<p>"Well, if I do believe you so far, what did you think?"</p> + +<p>Rose let her book lie on her knee and leant over it with her hands +clasped. "I thought that perhaps," she faltered, "you had been too long +in the habit of doing nothing much, and that you had grown a little +lazy—at least, I didn't really think so, but that idea has struck me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>She came and stood by him. "Oh, Edmund, why do you make me say things +when I don't want to, when I hate saying them, when they are not really +true at all." She was deeply moved, and he felt that in one sense she +was in his power. He gave a bitter sigh.</p> + +<p>"Can I make you say whatever I like?" Her face flushed and a different +look, one of fear he thought, came into her troubled eyes. "Then say +after me, 'I am very sorry I did not understand by intuition that you +were too blind to shoot the Boers, and that I was so silly as to think +for a moment that you had ever wasted your time or been the least little +bit lazy.'"</p> + +<p>"No, I won't say anything at all"—she held out both hands to +him—"except what the children say, 'let us just go on with the game and +pretend that that part never happened.'"</p> + +<p>And though Rose was still embarrassed, still inclined to fear she had +hurt him, what might have been a little cloud was pierced by sunshine. +"How ridiculously glad she is that I'm not a coward!" He, too, in spite +of annoyance, felt more hopeful than he had been for a long time.</p> + +<p>At Genoa they got long delayed letters and papers. In one of these a +short paragraph announced the death of Madame Danterre. "It is +believed," were the concluding words, "that she has left her large +fortune to her daughter, Miss Mary Dexter." That was the first reminder +to Rose that the interlude of mere enjoyment was almost over. She was +not going to repine; it had been very good. Coming on board after +reading this with a quiet patient look, a look habitual to her during +the last two years, but which had faded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> under the sunshine of happy +days, Rose saw Edmund Grosse standing alone in the stern of the boat +with a number of letters in his left hand pressed against his leg, +looking fixedly at the water. The yacht was already standing out to sea, +but Edmund had not glanced a farewell at beautiful and yet prosperous +Genoa, a city that no modern materialism can degrade. Like a young bride +of the sea, she is decked by things old and things new, and her marble +palaces do not appear to be insulted by the jostling of modern commerce. +All things are kept fresh and pure on that wonderful coast. Something +had happened, of that Rose was sure; but what?</p> + +<p>Edmund did not look puzzled; he was deciding no knotty question at this +moment. Nor did he look simply unhappy: she knew his expression when in +sorrow and when in physical pain or mere disgust. He looked intensely +preoccupied and very firm. Perhaps, she fancied, he too had a deep sense +of that passing of life, of something akin in the swift movement of the +water passing the yacht and the swift movement of life passing by the +individual man. Was he, perhaps, feeling how life was going for him and +for Rose, and by the simple fact of its passing on while they were +standing passive their lives would be fixed apart?—passing, apart from +what might have been of joy, of peace, of company along the road? There +are moments when, even without the stimulus of passion, human beings +have a sort of guess at the possibilities of helping one another, of +giving strength, and gaining sweetness, that are slipping by. There are +many degrees of regret, between that of ships that pass in the night, +and that of those who have voyaged long together. There are passages of +pleasure sym<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>pathy, and passages of sympathy in fight, and passages of +mutual succour, and passages of intercourse when incapacity to help has +in itself revealed the intensity of good-will in the watcher. But +whenever the heart has been fuller than its words, and the will has been +deeper than its actions, there is this beauty of regret. There has been +a wealth of love greater than could be given or received—not the love +of passion, but the love of the little children of the human race for +one another. This regret is too grave to belong to comedy, and too happy +to belong to tragedy. Rose's heart was full with this sorrow, if it be a +real sorrow. These are the sorrows of hearts that are too great for the +occasions of life, whereas the pain is far more common of the hearts +that are not big enough for what life gives them of opportunity.</p> + +<p>Rose was oppressed by feelings she could not analyse, a sense of +possibilities of what might have been after these perfect weeks +together. But her feelings were dreamy; she had no sense of concrete +alternative; she did not now—he had been too skilful—expect Edmund to +ask her, nor did she wish him to ask her, to draw quite close to him. +She only felt at the end of this interlude they had spent together a +suspicion of the infinite reach of the soul, and the soul not rebelling +against its bonds, but conscious of them while awaiting freedom.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"Only I discern infinite passion and the pain</div> +<div>Of finite hearts that yearn."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Such were the moments when a man might be pardoned if he called Rose's +beauty angelic—angelic of the type of Perugino's pictured angels, a +figure just treading on the earth enough to keep up appearances,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> but +whose very skirts float buoyantly in the fresh atmosphere of eternity. +They stood a few paces apart, Rose with her look bent vaguely towards +the shore, Edmund, still reading his letters, apparently unaware of her +presence. He was thus able to take a long exposure sun-picture of the +white figure on a sensitive memory that would prove but too retentive of +the impression.</p> + +<p>But he had to speak at last. "Is it you?"</p> + +<p>Edmund thought he spoke as usual, but there was a depth of pain and of +tenderness revealed in the face that usually betrayed so little. He held +out his hand unconsciously and then drew it back half closed, and looked +again at the flowing water. It was a moment of temptation, when love was +fighting against itself. Then, with the same half movement of the hand +towards her:</p> + +<p>"I have had a bolt from the blue, Rose. That man, Hewitt, whom I trusted +as I would myself, has absconded. It is thought he has been playing +wildly with my money, and that this crisis in South America has been the +last blow. I shan't know yet if I am ruined completely or not."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Edmund, how dreadful!"</p> + +<p>"Don't pity me, dear, it's not worth while. It only means that one of +the unemployed will get to work at last. That is, if he can find a job. +But I must hurry home at once and leave you to follow. If I put back +into Genoa now I can leave by the night express. And you and your mother +had better go on to Marseilles in the yacht after you have dropped me."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h3> + +<h3>SOMETHING LIKE EVIDENCE</h3> + +<p>Mr. Murray Junior's step sounded heavy, and his head was a little more +bent than usual, as he passed down the passage into his sanctum. The +snow, turning to rain and then reasserting itself and insisting that it +would be snow, was dreary enough already when the fog set in firmly and +without compromise. There was a good fire in the sanctum; the electric +light was on, and the clean sheet of blotting-paper, fresh every +morning, lay on the table.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Murray, Junior, was struggling for a few moments to realize +where he was, for his mind was in such different surroundings. In his +thoughts it was June—not June sweltering in London, but June gone mad +with roses in a tiny Surrey garden; and with true realism his memory +chose just one rose-tree out of them all, which best implied the glory +of the others. And one branch of this tree was bent down by a girl's +hand; her arm, from which a cotton sleeve had fallen back, was +wonderfully white, and the roses wonderfully red.</p> + +<p>And the office boy, slowly pulling off one damp, well-made boot and then +the other over the gouty toes, was the only person who noticed that "the +governor" was awfully down in the mouth.</p> + +<p>But no one knew that in Mr. Murray Junior's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> pocket was a letter from a +great specialist, who had seen Mr. Murray Junior's wife the day +before,—and what that letter said has nothing to do with this story.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund called about mid-day, and noticed nothing unusual in the +heavy face; only it struck him that Murray was looking old, and he +wondered on which side of seventy the lawyer might be.</p> + +<p>Grosse's visit was the first real distraction the older man had that +day. It was impossible for the solicitor not to be interested in the +probability that Edmund Grosse had lost a great fortune. The affair +teemed with professional interest, and then he liked the man himself. He +had a taste for the type, for the man who knows how to cut a figure in +the great world without being vulgar or ostentatious. He liked Edmund's +manner, his tact, his gift for putting people at their ease. Rumour said +that the baronet had shown pluck since the news had come, and had +behaved handsomely to underlings. Most men become agitated, irritable, +and even cruel when driven into such a position.</p> + +<p>It never entered into Murray's imagination to appear to know that Edmund +had any cause for care: he was not his solicitor, and he knew that his +visitor had not come about his own affairs. But he could not conceal an +added degree of respect, and liking even, under the impenetrable manner +which hid his own aching sense of close personal suffering. Grosse +answered the firm hand-grip with a kindly smile.</p> + +<p>"I only heard of Madame Danterre's death when I got to Genoa on our +return journey."</p> + +<p>"And she died just before you left London," said Murray.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes; I must have overlooked the paper in which it was announced, +although I thought I read up all arrears of news whenever we went into +port. I wonder no one mentioned it in Cairo; there were several people +there who seemed posted up in Lady Rose's affairs. What do you know +about Madame Danterre's will?"</p> + +<p>"Very little but rumour; nothing is published. Miss Dexter was too ill +to attend to business until about two weeks ago; she only saw her lawyer +at the end of January. Anyhow, Madame Danterre having died abroad makes +delays in this sort of business. But I have been wanting to see you," he +said.</p> + +<p>Something in his manner made Grosse ask him if he had news.</p> + +<p>"Nothing very definite, but things are moving in your direction; and +something small, but solid, is the fact that old Akers's son, and the +other private, Stock, who witnessed some deed or other for Sir David, +are coming home. The regiment is on its way back in the <i>Jumna</i>."</p> + +<p>Edmund, watching the strong, heavy face, could see that this interested +him less than something else as yet unexpressed.</p> + +<p>Murray leant back in the round office chair, and crossed his legs in the +well of the massive table before him. Edmund bent forward, his face +sunburnt and healthy after the weeks on the yacht, but the eyes seemed +tired.</p> + +<p>"I don't know that it comes to much," Murray went on slowly, "but three +days after Madame Danterre's death a foreigner asked to see me who +refused to give his name to my clerk. I had him shown in, and thought +him a superior man—not, perhaps, a gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>man, but a man with brains. +He asked in rather queer English whether I would object to giving him +all the information I could, without betraying confidence, as to Sir +David Bright and his wife. I thought for a moment that he was your +Florentine detective, but then I reflected that the detective would have +no object in disguising himself from me as he knew that you trusted me +entirely. I told my visitor that he might ask me any questions he liked, +and I can assure you he placed his shots with great skill. He wanted +first to know if there had been any scandal connected with their married +life, in order, of course, to find out why Sir David had not left his +money to Lady Rose; and whether no one had been disposed to dispute the +will. I let him see that the affair had been a nine days' wonder here, +and I gave him some notion of my own opinion of Madame Danterre. He did +not give himself away, and I thought he had some honest reason for +anxiety in the matter. Well! he left without letting me know his name or +address, but there is no doubt that he is Dr. Larrone. I wrote at once +to your detective, Pietrino, in Florence, and a letter from him crossed +mine saying that Dr. Larrone had left Florence within a few hours of +Madame Danterre's death, and that, by her desire, he had taken a small +box to Miss Dexter. There was evidently a certain sense of mystery and +excitement among the nurses and servants as to the box and the sudden +journey. It seems that Madame Larrone was angry at his taking this +sudden journey, and said to a friend that she only 'hoped he wouldn't +get his fingers burnt by meddling in other people's affairs.'</p> + +<p>"Then Pietrino, in answering my letter, said that my description was +certainly the description of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> Larrone. He says the doctor is exceedingly +upright and sensitive as to his professional honour, and has been known +to refuse a legacy from a patient because he thought it ought not to +have been left out of the family. Since that, Pietrino has written that +Larrone is taking a long holiday, and that people are wondering if he +will have any scruples as to the large legacy that is said to have been +left to him by Madame Danterre. So it is pretty clear who my reticent +visitor was. Now, I don't know that we gain much from that so far, but I +think it may mean that Larrone could, if he would, tell some interesting +details. I will give you all Pietrino's letters, but I should just like +to run on with my own impressions from them first. It seems that, since +Madame Danterre's death, there has been a good deal of wild talk against +her in Florence, which was kept down by self-interest as long as she was +living and an excellent paying-machine. You will see, when you read the +gossip, that very little is to the point. But, on the other hand, +Pietrino has valuable information from one of the nurses. She is a young +woman who is disappointed, as she has had no legacy; evidently Madame +Danterre intended to add her name in the last codicil, but somehow +failed to do so. This woman is sure that Madame Danterre had an evil +conscience as to her wealth. She also said that she was always morbidly +anxious as to a small box. Once, when the nurse had reassured her by +showing her the box, which was kept in a little bureau by the bed, she +said, with an odd smile: 'If I believed in the devil I should be very +glad that I can pay him back all he lent me when I don't want it any +more.' At another time she asked for the box and took out some papers, +and told the nurse to light a candle close to her as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> was going to +burn some old letters. Then she began to read a long, long letter, and +as she read, she became more and more angry until she had a sudden +attack of the heart. The nurse swept the papers into the box and locked +it up, knowing that she could do nothing to soothe the patient while +they were lying about. That night the doctors thought Madame Danterre +would die, but she rallied. She did not speak of the papers again until +some days later. The nurse described how, one evening, when she thought +her sleeping, she was surprised to find her great eyes fixed on the +candle in a sconce near the bed. 'The candle was burnt half way down, +but the paper was not burnt at all,' the nurse heard her whisper; 'I +shall not do it now. I cannot be expected to settle such questions while +I am ill. After all, I have always given her a full share; she can +destroy it herself if she likes, or she can give it all up to that +woman—it shall be her own affair.'</p> + +<p>"She did not seem to know that she had been speaking aloud, and she +muttered a little more to herself and then slept.</p> + +<p>"The nurse heard no further allusion to the box for weeks. She said the +old woman was using all her fine vitality and her iron will in fighting +death. Then came the last change, and her torpid calm turned into +violent excitement. While she thought herself alone with Dr. Larrone she +implored him to take the box to England the moment she died, and put it +into her daughter's hands. 'No one knows it matters,' she said more than +once. But when she found that he did not wish to go, and said it was +impossible for him to go at once, her entreaties were terrible. 'She had +always had her own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> way, and she had it to the end,' was the nurse's +comment.</p> + +<p>"Dr Larrone, coming out of the room, realised that the nurse must have +known what passed, and told her he was glad she was there. He put a box +on a table with a little bang of impatience.</p> + +<p>"'It's delirium, delusion, madness!' he said, 'but I've given my word. I +never hated a job more; she wouldn't have the morphia till I had taken +my oath I would go as soon as she was dead.'"</p> + +<p>Grosse was absorbed by the pictures feebly conveyed through the nurse's +words, through the detective's letters, through the English lawyer's +translation and summary. He could supply what was missing. He had seen +Madame Danterre. He could so well imagine the frightful force of the +woman, a tyrant to the very last moment. He could guess, too, at the +reaction of those about her when once she was dead, and they were quite +out of her reach. There is always a reaction when feebler personalities +have to fill the space left by a tyrant. He could realise the buzz of +gossip, and the sense of courage with which servants and tradesmen would +make wild, impossible stories of her wicked life. He came back from +these thoughts with a certain shock when he found Murray saying:</p> + +<p>"I can't say there is anything approaching to proof. But supposing, just +for the sake of supposing, that you were right in your wild guess as to +the will, then we should next go on to suppose that the real will was in +the box conveyed by Dr. Larrone to Miss Dexter."</p> + +<p>Edmund's face was very dark, but he did not speak for some moments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," he said, "she is incapable of such a crime. She would have given +it up at once."</p> + +<p>"At once?" Murray said. "Miss Dexter was too ill to do anything at once. +She was down with influenza, of which she very nearly died, but she +pulled through, and then went away for a month. She only got back to +London two weeks ago. Her affairs are in the hands of a very respectable +firm. We know them, and they began this business with her a very short +time before she came up. Now Sir Edmund, think it well over. You may be +right in your opinion of this young lady, but just fancy the position. +There is a fortune of at least £20,000 a year on the one hand, and on +the other, absolute poverty. For do you suppose that, if it were in the +last will which Akers and Stock witnessed on board ship, and there were +any provision in it for Madame Danterre, Sir David Bright would have +left capital absolutely in her possession? No: the probability is—I am, +of course, always supposing your original notion to be true—that the +girl has this choice of immense wealth practically unquestioned by the +world which has settled down to the fact that Sir David left his money +to Madame Danterre; or, on the other hand, extreme poverty (she +inherited some £2,000 from her father) and public disgrace. Mind you, +she would have to announce that her mother was a criminal, and she +would, in this just and high-minded world of ours, pass under a cloud +herself. A few, only a very few, would in the least appreciate her +conduct."</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund was miserably uncomfortable, intensely averse to the results +of what he had done. In drawing his mesh of righteous intrigue round the +mother he had never realised this situation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> For the moment he wished +himself well out of it all.</p> + +<p>"There is one other point," he said. "Are we quite sure that Dr. Larrone +did not know what was in the box? Is it not just possible that something +was taken out of it before it was given to Miss Dexter? He must have +known there was a large legacy to himself; it was against his interests +that Madame Danterre's will should be set aside. Also, it would not be a +very comfortable situation for him if it turned out that he had been the +intimate friend and highly-paid physician of a criminal."</p> + +<p>"That last motive fits the character of the man, according to Pietrino, +better than the first," said Mr. Murray. "Well, we must see; we must +wait and see whether he accepts his legacy. But before that must come +the publication of Madame Danterre's will."</p> + +<p>Edmund drove back from the city absorbed in the thought of Molly, in +comparing his different impressions of her at different stages of their +acquaintance. He had spoken so firmly and undoubtingly to Murray. His +first thought had been one of simple indignation, and yet—But no! he +remembered her simplicity in speaking of her mother's letter; he could +see her now with the gentle, pathetic look on her face as she told him +of her offering to go out to the wicked old woman, and how her poor +little advance had been rejected.</p> + +<p>Edmund had thought it one of the advantages of the expedition on the +yacht that it would make it impossible for many weeks to call again at +Molly's flat. He had often before felt uncomfortable and annoyed with +himself when he had been too friendly with Molly. Not that he felt her +attraction to be a tempta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>tion to disloyalty to Rose. He knew he was +incurable in his devotion to his love. But he did feel it mean to enjoy +this pleasant, philosopher-and-guide attitude, towards the daughter of +Madame Danterre. That Molly could hold any delusion about his feelings +had never dawned on his imagination as a possibility until the night +when she confided in him her forlorn attempt at doing a daughter's duty. +He had never liked her so well; never so entirely dissociated her from +her mother, and from all possibilities of evil.</p> + +<p>And now the situation was changed; now there was this hazy mass of +suspicion revealed in Florence, and this most detestable story of +Larrone and the box.</p> + +<p>How differently things looked when it was a question of suspecting of a +crime the woman he had seen in the Florentine garden, and of that same +suspicion regarding poor little graceful, original, Molly Dexter!</p> + +<p>Within two or three days Edmund became still more immersed in business. +He began to realise his own ignorance as to his own affairs, and he went +through the slow torture of understanding how blindly he had left +everything in his solicitor's hands. He was beginning to face actual +poverty as inevitable, when he heard from Mr. Murray that Madame +Danterre's will was proved in London, and that her daughter was her sole +heir.</p> + +<p>"The income cannot be less than £20,000 a year, and the whole fortune is +entirely at Miss Dexter's disposal," wrote Mr. Murray without any +comment whatever.</p> + +<p>Edmund was not sorry that Rose and her mother were staying on in Paris. +They would escape the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> first outburst of gossip as to the further +history of Sir David Bright's fortune. Nor was he sorry that they should +also miss the growing rumours as to the disappearance of the fortune of +Sir Edmund Grosse. Of Rose herself he dared not let himself think; but +every evil conclusion which he had to face as to his own future, every +undoubted loss that was discovered in the inquiry which was being +carried on, seemed as a heavy door shut between him and the hopes of +those last days on the yacht.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h3> + +<h3>THE USES OF DELIRIUM</h3> + +<p>"Don't you think I might get up and sit by the window and look at the +sea, Carey?"</p> + +<p>Miss Carew hesitated, and then summoned the nurse.</p> + +<p>"Miss Dexter was to have one whole day in bed after the journey."</p> + +<p>The nurse, looking into Molly's eager eyes, compromised for one half +hour, in which Miss Dexter might lie on the sofa in a fur cloak.</p> + +<p>It was a big sofa befitting the largest bedroom in the hotel, and Molly +lay back on its cushions with the peculiar physical satisfaction of +weakness, resting after very slight efforts. Yesterday she had been too +exhausted for enjoyment, but this afternoon her sensations were +delightful.</p> + +<p>The short afternoon light was ruddy on the glorious brown sails of the +fishing-boats, and drew out all their magnificent contrast to the blue +water. But the sun still sparkled garishly on the crest of the waves, +and the milder glow of the sunset had not begun.</p> + +<p>Weakness was sheltered and at rest within, while without was the immense +movement of wind and water, and the passing smile of the sun on the +great,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> unshackled forces of winter. Molly's rest was like a child's +security in the arms of a kindly giant. Her mind had been absorbed by +illness—an illness that had had her completely in grip, the first +serious illness she had ever known. There had been a struggle in the +depths of her life's forces such as she had never imagined; but now life +had conquered, and she was at rest. In that time there had been awful +delirium: horrible things, guilty and hideous, had clung about her, all +round her. One wicked presence especially had taken a strange form, a +face without a body, and yet it had hands—it must have had hands +because the horror of it was that it constantly opened the doors of the +different cupboards, but most often the door of the big wardrobe, and +looked out, and that although Molly had had the wardrobe locked and the +key put under her pillow. And this face was very like Molly's, and the +question she had to settle was whether this face was her mother's or her +own. At times she reasoned—and the logical process was so deadly +tiring—that it must be her mother, for she could not be Molly herself +being so unkind to herself; whereas, if the face had had any pity for +her it might have been herself looking at herself. But was that not +nonsense? There was surely a touch of hysteria in that. Did the face +really come out of her own brain? And if so, from what part of her +brain? She felt sure there was a sort of empty attic, a large one, in +the top part of her right brain, it felt hollow, quite terribly hollow. +Probably the face came out of that. But then, how did it get inside the +wardrobe? and once inside the wardrobe, how did it get out again when +Molly really had the key?</p> + +<p>She longed to speak to Miss Carew about this, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> Miss Carew never +could follow a chain of reasoning. The nurse was more sensible, but she +thought that reasoning was too tiring for Molly—so silly! If only she +could be allowed to explain it all quietly and reasonably! And oh! why +did they leave her alone? She hated to be left alone, and she was sure +she told them so; and yet they went away. And then she began to work her +brain again as soon as the was alone, and she would be happy for a few +minutes with a new plan for shutting the face into the large empty attic +in her right brain and locking the door, when quite suddenly the face +opened the door of the wardrobe with its loose hands and looked out +again and jeered at her.</p> + +<p>Even now, lying resting, and looking at the sun, Molly was glad that +there was no hanging wardrobe in the room; only one full of shelves. She +would certainly not use the same room when she went back to London. She +would only be in that flat for a short time, as she must now take a big +house.</p> + +<p>As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the +joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house. It +should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else's +house; it should be Molly's own special triumph. It must have the +glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past. It +should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and +old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy.</p> + +<p>"And"—she smiled to herself—"as long as it is a house in the air it +shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset." The fancy that +had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was +victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her +consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took +possession. They took turns to make themselves gradually, very +gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her. The first was founded on +the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, +and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as +to her mother's papers. She had been delirious that evening, and, what +was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she +had seen and read of the contents of that box.</p> + +<p>"I can't remember if that's true," she could honestly say to herself +when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention. +Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to +forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness. For +instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened +on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her. But how +did Molly know that? And suddenly she said to herself that she could not +remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too.</p> + +<p>At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the +black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? +Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; +sometimes it was a little tiny cash box.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was +getting a firm footing. It was simply that the fact of the will being +sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David's having repented of +having made it. If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had? It was +absurd and romantic to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> suppose that her mother had carried on an +intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will. That +might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in +delirium, but it was not possible in real life. The only puzzle was—and +the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case—why had he +not destroyed the will himself? The probability was that he had not been +able to do so at the last moment. When dying he must have repented of +the last will just too late to destroy it. She could quite imagine his +asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the +papers. It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy +them. And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course +not reading them. And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another +fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the +hand that had written its contents. Finally, all that the theory did for +the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things +evidently stood or fell together. So the theories grew and prospered +without interfering with each other as Molly's health and strength +returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other +theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be "Even +supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still +evident that——"</p> + +<p>Molly's recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which +the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell. She +seemed hardly able to understand business. She was ready to leave all +responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he +hardly liked to see her quite so passive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill.</p> + +<p>"He must think me a fool," she said, in a weak voice. "I have left +everything on his shoulders, poor man. I'm afraid if he is asked about +me, as he's a Scotchman he will say I am 'just an innocent'! I really +ought not to have seen him to-day."</p> + +<p>But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite +business-like. The said house agent had come down with one secret object +in his heart. It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too +well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market. It +had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had +hardly had a bite for it. Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the +fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the +bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness +of the first floor. Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though +artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm.</p> + +<p>After mentioning several uninteresting mansions, the agent observed +that, of course, there was Westmoreland House still going, and Molly's +eyes flashed. She had been at the great sale at Westmoreland House; she +had been absolutely fascinated by the great well staircase and by the +music-room, by the square reception-rooms, and above all by the gallery +with its perfection of light moulding, a room of glass and gold, but so +spiritualised, so subdued and reticent and dignified, that ghosts might +live there undisturbed.</p> + +<p>Molly trembled with eagerness as she asked the vital questions of cost, +of repairs, of rates and taxes. Yes, it was possible—undoubtedly +possible. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> was a very large sum of money in a bank in Florence +which possibly Madame Danterre had accumulated there with a view to a +sudden emergency. Molly's lawyer had not been certain of the amount, but +he had mentioned a sum larger than the price of Westmoreland House.</p> + +<p>By the time Molly was fit to go back to London, and while the theories +just described were still in possession of her mind, Westmoreland House +was bought. Molly said it was a great relief to get it settled.</p> + +<p>"One feels more settled altogether," she said to Miss Carew, "when a big +question like that is done with."</p> + +<p>She strolled with Miss Carew on the smooth sand by the water's edge on +the last evening before leaving, and looked up at the white cliffs +growing bright in the light of the sunset.</p> + +<p>"It has been very restful," she said. "I am almost sorry to go."</p> + +<p>"Then why not stay a little longer, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Carey! it would soon become quite intolerable; it isn't real +life, only a pause; and now, Carey, I am going to live!"</p> + +<p>The sun presently set lower and more grey than they had expected; the +wind felt sharper, and Molly shivered. Nature was unbearable without its +gilding.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h3> + +<h3>MRS. DELAPORT GREEN IN THE ASCENDANT</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green had been to Egypt for the winter, and came back, +refreshed as a giant, for life in London. She was really glad to see +Tim, who was unfeignedly pleased to see her, and they spent quite an +hour in the pleasantest chat. Of course he had not much news to give of +his wife's acquaintances as he did not live among them, but one item of +information interested her extremely.</p> + +<p>"Miss Dexter has bought Westmoreland House in Park Lane!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green's eyes sparkled with excitement and the green light +of envy, and she determined to call on Molly at once. Happily there had +been no open quarrel, which only showed how wise it was to forget +injuries, for certainly the girl had been most disgracefully rude.</p> + +<p>Molly's new abode stood back from the street, and had usually an +immensely dignified air of quiet, but there was a good deal of noise and +bustle going on when Adela reached the door. Several large pieces of +furniture, a picture, and a heavy clock, might have been obstacles +enough to keep out most visitors, but Adela persevered, and the dusty +and worried porter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> said that Molly was at home before he had a moment +for reflection.</p> + +<p>Adela advanced with outstretched hands to greet her "dear friend" as she +was shown into a large drawing-room on the first floor.</p> + +<p>Molly was standing in the middle of the room with an immense hat on, and +a long cloak that woke instant enthusiasm in the soul of her visitor. +There was perhaps, even to Adela something too emphatic, too striking, +too splendid altogether in the total effect of the tall, slim figure. +She had never thought that Molly would turn out half so handsome, but +she saw now that she had only needed a little making-up. While thinking +these things she was chattering eagerly.</p> + +<p>"How are you? I was so sorry to hear you had been ill, but now you look +simply splendid! I have had a wonderful winter. I feel as if I had laid +in quite a stock of calm and rest from the desert, as if no little thing +could worry me after my long draught—of the desert, you know! Well! one +must get into harness again." She gave a little sigh. "But to think of +your having Westmoreland House! How everybody wondered last season what +was to become of it! and what furniture, oh! what an exquisite cabinet! +You certainly have wonderful taste." Molly did not interrupt her visitor +to explain that the said cabinet had belonged to Madame Danterre. "I +adore that style; I do so wish Tim would give me a cabinet like that for +my birthday. I really think he might."</p> + +<p>She was so accustomed to Molly's silences that it was some time before +she realised that this one was ominous. She might have seen that that +young lady was looking over her head, or out of the window,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> or anywhere +but at her. Suddenly it struck her that not a sound interrupted her own +voice, and she began to perceive the absurd airs that Molly was giving +herself. Prompted by the devil she, therefore, instantly proceeded to +say:</p> + +<p>"When we were at Cairo Sir Edmund Grosse came for a few days with Lady +Rose Bright."</p> + +<p>"From the yacht?" said Molly, speaking for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Yes; they said in Cairo that the engagement would be announced as soon +as they got back to England. And really my dear, everyone agreed that +without grudging you her money, one can't help being glad that that dear +woman should be rich again!"</p> + +<p>It was about as sharp a two-edged thrust as could have been delivered, +and Molly's <i>distrait</i> air and undue magnificence melted under it.</p> + +<p>"No one could be more glad than I am," she said, with a quiet reserve of +manner; and after that she was quite friendly, and took Adela all over +the house, and pressed her to stay to tea, and that little lady felt +instinctively that Molly was afraid of her, and smacked her rosy lips +with the foretaste of the amusements she intended to enjoy in this +magnificent house.</p> + +<p>While they were having tea, Molly, leaning back, said quietly:</p> + +<p>"I see from what you said before we went over the house that you have +not heard that Sir Edmund Grosse is ruined?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little shriek of excitement.</p> + +<p>"He trusted all his affairs to a scoundrel, and this is the result." +Molly's tone was still negative.</p> + +<p>"Well, that does seem a shame!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know; if a man will neglect his affairs he must take the +consequence."</p> + +<p>"Oh! but I do think it is hard; he used his money so well."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" Molly raised her eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Well, he was a perfect host, and was so awfully good-natured, don't you +know?"</p> + +<p>In the real interest in the news, Adela had, for the moment, forgotten +that Molly might be especially interested in anything concerning Edmund +Grosse. She was reminded by the low, thundery voice in which Molly began +to speak quite suddenly, as if her patience had been tried too far.</p> + +<p>"You are just like all the others! It's enough to make one a radical to +listen to it. After all, what good has Sir Edmund Grosse done with his +money? He gave dinners that ruined people's livers—I suppose that was +good for the doctors! He gave diamonds to actresses, and I suppose that +was for the good of art. He has never done a stroke of work; he has +wallowed in luxury, and now his friends almost cry out against +Providence because he will have to earn his bread. Probably several +hundreds a year will be left, and many men would be thankful for that. +Then other people say it is such a pity that now he cannot marry Lady +Rose Bright. They have the effrontery to say that to me, as if £800 a +year were not enough for them to marry on if they cared for each other!"</p> + +<p>All this tirade seemed to Adela the very natural outpouring of jealousy, +and, as she fully intended to be an intimate friend of Molly's she +sympathised and agreed, and agreed and sympathised till she fairly, +roused Molly's sense of the ludicrous.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean," Molly said, half angry and half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> amused, "that I shall +spend my money so very much better;—I quite mean to have my fling. Only +I do so hate all this cant."</p> + +<p>At last Adela departed, crying out that she had promised to be in Hoxton +an hour ago, and Molly was left alone. It was too late to go to the +shops, she reflected, and she sank back into a deep chair with a frown +on her white forehead.</p> + +<p>What did it matter to her if they were engaged or not? It made no sort +of difference. She was not going to allow her peace of mind to be upset +on their account; she had done with that sentimental nonsense long ago. +Her illness had made a great space between her present self and the +Molly who had been so foolishly upset by the discovery of Edmund +Grosse's treachery. Curiously enough Molly had never doubted of that +treachery, although it was one of the horrors that had come out of the +doubtful, and probably mythical, tin box.</p> + +<p>By the way, there was a little pile of tin boxes in a small unfurnished +room upstairs, next to Molly's bedroom, of which she kept the key. She +had had no time to look at them yet. Some of them came from Florence, +and two or three from her own flat. They were of all shapes and sizes, +and piled one on another. But from the moment when Molly turned that +very ordinary key in the lock of the unfurnished dressing-room she never +let her thoughts dwell for long on the possible delusions of delirium. +Her mind had entered into another phase in which it was of supreme +importance to think only of the details of each day as they came before +her.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h3> + +<h3>MOLLY AT COURT</h3> + +<p>If any of us, going to dress quietly in an ordinary bedroom, were told: +"It is the last time you will have just that amount of comfort, that +degree of luxury, to which you have been accustomed; it is the last time +you will have your evening clothes put out for you; the last time your +things will be brushed; the last time hot water will be brought to your +room; the last time that your dressing-gown will have come out of the +cupboard without your taking it out"—we might have an odd mixture of +sensations. We might be very sad—ridiculously sad—and yet have a sense +of being braced, a whiff of open air in the mental atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse did not expect in future to draw his own hot water, or put +out his own dressing-gown, but he did know that he had come to the last +night of having a valet of his own, the last night in which the perfect +Dawkins, who had been with him ten years, would do him perfect bodily +service. Everything to-night was done in the most punctilious manner, +and it seemed appropriate that this last night should be a full-dress +affair.</p> + +<p>Sir Edmund was going to Court (the first Court held in May), and his +deputy lieutenant's uniform was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> laid on the bed. Edmund might not have +taken the trouble to go, but a kindly message from a very high place as +to his troubles had made him feel it a more gracious response to do so. +The valet was a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been +detected in his deferential attitude towards his master. Dawkins was not +pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been +based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man. +Happily he had been careful. He had not trusted blindly to Providence, +and, with a rich result from enormous wages and perquisites, and an +excellent character, he could face the world with his head high, whereas +Sir Edmund—well, Sir Edmund's position was very different. Sir Edmund +had let himself be deceived outrageously, and what was the result?</p> + +<p>Edmund was as particular as usual about every detail of his appearance. +It would have been an education to a young valet to have seen the ruined +man dressed that evening.</p> + +<p>Next day Dawkins was to leave, and the day after that the flat was to be +the scene of a small sale. The chief valuables, a few good pictures, and +some very rare china, had already gone to Christie's. The delicate +<i>pâte</i> of his beloved vases had seemed to respond to the lingering +farewell touch of the connoisseur's fingers. Edmund was trying to secure +for some of them homes where he might sometimes visit them, and one or +two of his lady friends were persuading their husbands that these things +ought to be bought for love of poor Edmund Grosse. Edmund was quite +ready to press a little on friendship of this sort, being fully +conscious of its quality and its duration. For the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> next few weeks he +would be welcomed with enthusiasm—and next year?</p> + +<p>But all the same there was that subconscious sense of bracing +air—something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station +on a very hot day. We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or +Edinburgh, but it is not the climate of Surrey.</p> + +<p>Edmund mounted the stairs at Buckingham Palace with a certain +unconscious dignity which melted into genial amusement at the sight of a +pretty woman near him evidently whispering advice to a fair <i>débutante</i>. +The girl was not eighteen, and her whole figure expressed acute +discomfort.</p> + +<p>"Keep your veil out of the way," her mother warned her.</p> + +<p>"I've had two dreadful pulls already; I'm sure my feathers are quite +crooked. Oh! mother, there's Sir Edmund Grosse; he will tell me whether +they are crooked. You never know."</p> + +<p>"I could see if you would let me get in front of you," murmured her +mother.</p> + +<p>"But you can't possibly in this crowd. Oh! how d'ye do, Sir Edmund; have +I kept my veil straight?"</p> + +<p>"Charming," said Edmund, with a low bow. The child really looked very +pretty, though rather like a little dairymaid dressed up for fun, and +her long gloves slipped far enough from the shoulders to show some +splendidly red arms.</p> + +<p>"Charming," he said again in a half-teasing voice. "Only I don't approve +of such late hours for children."</p> + +<p>It amused him that this was one of the presentations that would be most +noted in the papers, and this funny, jolly little girl would probably +gain a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> deal of knowledge and lose a great deal more of charm in +the next three months.</p> + +<p>Walking by the mother and daughter, he had come close to the open doors +of a long gallery, and stood for a moment to take in the picture. It was +not new to him, but perhaps he felt inclined to the attitude of an +onlooker to-night, and there was something in this attitude slightly +aloof and independent. Brilliant was the one word for the scene; a +little hard, perhaps, in colouring, and the women in their plumes and +veils were too uniform to be artistic. There was too much gold, too much +red silk, too many women in the long rows waiting with more or less +impatience or nervousness to get through with it. The scene had an +almost crude simplicity of insistence on fine feathers and gilding the +obvious pride of life. Yet he saw the little fair country girl near him +look awe-struck, and he understood it. For a fresh imagination, or for +one that has, for some reason, a fresh sensitiveness of perception, the +great gallery, the wealth of fair women, the scattered men in uniform, +the solemn waiting for entrance into the royal presence, were enough. +And there really is a certain force in the too gaudy setting. It blares +like a trumpet. It crushes the quiet and the repose of life. It shines +in the eye defiantly and suddenly, and at last it captures the mind and +makes the breath come quickly, for, like no other and more perfect +setting to life, it makes us think of death. It is too bald an assertion +of the world and all its works and all its pomps, not to challenge a +rebuke from the grisly tyrant.</p> + +<p>Edmund had not analysed these impressions, but he was still under their +power when he turned to let others pass, for the crowd was thickening. +And as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> did so, a little space was opened by three or four ladies +turning round to secure places for some friends on the long seats +against the walls.</p> + +<p>Across this space he saw a woman, whom, for a moment only, he did not +recognise. It was a tall figure in white satin with a train of cloth of +silver thrown over her arm. There was nothing of the nervous <i>débutante</i> +in the attitude, nor was there the half-truculent self-assertion of the +modern girl. When people talked afterwards of her gown and her jewels, +Edmund only remembered the splendour of her pearls, and when he +mentioned them, a woman added that the train had been lined with lace of +untold value. What he felt at the time was the enormous triumph of the +eyes. Grey eyes, full of light, full of pride. He did not ask himself +what was the excuse for this "haughty bearing," and the old phrase, +which has now sunk from court manners into penny novelettes, was the +only phrase that seemed quite a true one.</p> + +<p>Why did she stand so completely alone? It made no difference to this +sense of loneliness that she received warm greetings in the crowd, or +that Lady Dawning was fidgeting and maternal. Evidently (and he was +amused at the combination) she was going to present her cousin, John +Dexter's daughter. Did she remember now how she had advised Mrs. +Carteret to hide Molly from the public eye?</p> + +<p>But Molly's figure was always to remain in his mind thus triumphant +without absurdity, and thus alone in a crowd. The blackness of her hair +had a strange force from the white transparent veil flowing over it, and +a flush of deep colour was in the dark skin. Edmund had several moments +in which to look at her and to realise that Molly was walking in a dream +of great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>ness. The little country girl he had seen just now had been +brought up to hear kindly jokes about Courts and their ways; not so +Molly. To her it was all intensely serious and intensely exciting. Could +he have known the chief cause of the intense emotion that filled Molly's +slight figure with a feverish vitality would he have believed that she +was happy? And yet she was, for no pirate king running his brig under +the very nose of a man-of-war ever had more of the quintessence of the +sense of adventure than Molly had, as Lady Dawning led her, the heiress +of the year, into the long gallery.</p> + +<p>For one moment she saw Edmund Grosse, and she looked him full in the +face very gravely. She did not pretend not to know him; she let him see +the entirely genuine contempt she felt for him, and she meant him to +understand that she would never know him again.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h3> + +<h3>EDMUND IS NO LONGER BORED</h3> + +<p>As the season went on Edmund Grosse did not understand himself. +Everything had gone against him, his fortune had melted, his easy-going +luxurious life was at an end. He had no delusions; he knew perfectly +well the value of money in his world. His position in that world was +gone in fact, if not quite in seeming. The sort of conversation that +went on about him in his own circles had the sympathy, but would soon +have also the finality, of a funeral oration. There would soon be a tone +of reminiscence in those who spoke of him. It would be as if they said +gently: "Oh, yes! dear old Grosse, we knew him well at one time, don't +you know; it's a sad story." He could have told you not only the words, +but even the inflection of the voices of his friends in discussing his +affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among +them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster +of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It +would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite +kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism +must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the +law of its being rejects a poor man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>And yet the idea that poor Grosse must be half crushed, horribly cut up +and done for, was not in the least true. This was what he did not +understand himself. It is well known that some people bear great trials +almost lightly who take small ones very heavily. Grosse certainly rose +to the occasion. But that a great trial had aroused great courage was +not the whole explanation by any means. Curiously enough ill-fortune +with drastic severity had done for him what he had impotently wished to +do for himself. It had made impossible the life which, in his heart, he +had despised; it absolutely forced him to use powers of which he was +perfectly conscious, and which had been rusting simply for want of +employment. It is doubtful whether he could have roused himself for any +other motive whatever. Certainly love of Rose had been unable to do it. +The will might seem to will what he wished to do, but the effort to will +strongly enough was absent. Now all the soft, padded things between him +and the depths of life had been struck away at one rude blow; he <i>must</i> +swim or sink. And so he began to swim, and the exercise restored his +circulation and braced his whole being.</p> + +<p>It was not, perhaps, heroic exertion that he was roused into making. But +it wanted courage in a man of Edmund's age to begin to work for six +hours or more a day at journalism. He also produced two articles on +foreign politics for the reviews, which made a considerable impression. +It was important now that Edmund had read and watched, and, even more +important, listened very attentively to what busier men than himself had +to say during twenty years of life spent in the world. Years afterwards, +when Grosse had in the second half of his life done as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> work as +many men would think a good record for their whole lives, people were +surprised to read his age in the obituary notices. They had rightly +dated the beginning of his career from his first appearance as an +authority on foreign politics, but they had not realised that Grosse had +begun to work only in the midstream of life. Many brilliant springs are +delusive in their promise, but rarely is there such achievement after an +unprofitable youth.</p> + +<p>Love is not the whole life of a man, but, in spite of new activities, in +spite of a renewed sense of self-respect, Edmund had time and space +enough for much pain in his heart.</p> + +<p>Rose was still in Paris taking care of her mother, who was very unwell. +Edmund had hinted at the possibility of going over to see them at +Easter, but the suggestion had met with no encouragement. He had felt +rebuffed, and was in no mood to be smoothed or melted by Rose's written +sympathy. He was, no doubt, harder as well as stronger than before his +financial troubles. He let Rose see that he could stand on his feet, and +was not disposed to whine. Meanwhile Molly had provoked him to single +combat. The decided cut she gave him at the Court was not to be +permitted; he was too old a hand to allow anything so crude. He meant to +be at her parties; he meant to keep in touch; indeed he meant to see +this thing out.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>"Sir Edmund, will you take Miss Dexter in to dinner?"</p> + +<p>Edmund looked fairly surprised and very respectful as Mrs. Delaport +Green spoke to him. Molly's bearing was, he could see, defiant, but she +was clearly quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> conscious of having to submit and anxious to do +nothing absurd.</p> + +<p>They ate their soup in silence, for Molly's other neighbour had shown an +unflattering eagerness to be absorbed by the lady he had taken down. +Edmund turned to her with exactly his old shade of manner, very +paternal, intimate and gentle.</p> + +<p>"And you are not bored yet?"</p> + +<p>Molly could have sworn deep and long had it been possible.</p> + +<p>"No; why should I be?"</p> + +<p>She stared at him for a moment indifferently, as at a stranger, but he +could see the nervous movement of her fingers as she crumbed her bread.</p> + +<p>"It is more likely," he answered, "that I should remember what I allude +to than that you should. We once had a talk about being bored. I said I +had never been bored while I was poor. Now I am poor again, so I +naturally remember, and, as you are trying the experience of being very +rich, I should really like to know if you are bored yet."</p> + +<p>Molly might have kept silent, but she did not want Adela, who was +certainly watching them, to think her embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"I suppose every one has moments of being bored."</p> + +<p>Edmund leant back and turned round so as to allow of his looking fully +at her. He muttered to himself: "Young, beautiful, wealthy beyond the +dreams of avarice—and bored! What flattering unction that is to the +soul of a ruined man."</p> + +<p>In spite of her anger, her indignation, her hurt pride, Molly was +softened. She writhed under the caress of his voice; it had power +still.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you not bored any more?" She spoke unwillingly.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "suffering does not bore; discomfort does not bore; +knowledge of your fellow-creatures does not bore. But, of course, I am +tasting the pleasures of novelty. And I have not disappeared yet. I +think a boarding-house in Bloomsbury may prove boring. How prettily our +hostess will pity me, then. But I don't think I shall meet you here at +dinner, and have the comfort of seeing for myself that you, too, are +bored."</p> + +<p>Molly felt that he was putting her hopelessly in the wrong. She was the +one bitterly aggrieved and deeply injured. But he made her feel as if +coldness on her part would be just the conduct of any rich heartless +woman to a ruined man.</p> + +<p>"I calculate," he said, "on about fifty more good dinners which I shall +not pay for, and then, of course, I shall think myself well fed at my +own expense in an Italian café somewhere. I think Italian, don't you? +Dinner at two shillings! There is an air of <i>spagghetti</i> and onions that +conceals the nature or age of the meat; and the coffee is amazingly +good. One might be able to find one with a clean cloth."</p> + +<p>Most of these remarks were made almost to himself.</p> + +<p>"You know it isn't true," Molly said angrily; "you know you will get a +good post. Men like you are always given things."</p> + +<p>Edmund helped himself very carefully to exactly the right amount of +melted butter. "Don't you eat asparagus?" he interjected, and, without +waiting for an answer, went on:</p> + +<p>"I thought so too, but I can't hear of a job. There are too many of the +unemployed just now. However,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> no doubt, as you say, I shall soon be +made absolute ruler of some province twice the size of England."</p> + +<p>He laughed and smoothed his moustache with one hand.</p> + +<p>"Down with dull care, Miss Dexter; let us make a pact never to be +bored—in Bloomsbury, or West Africa, or Park Lane. I suppose you found +a great deal to do to that dear old house?"</p> + +<p>After that their other neighbours claimed them both; but during dessert +Molly, against her will, lost hold of the talk on her right, and had to +listen to Edmund again.</p> + +<p>"I hear that you have got the old Florentine looking-glasses from my +sale."</p> + +<p>"I don't think they were from your sale," said Molly hastily.</p> + +<p>"Well, Perks told me so."</p> + +<p>"Perks never told me," muttered Molly.</p> + +<p>"I should think they must suit the house to perfection. Where have you +put them?"</p> + +<p>"In the small dining-room."</p> + +<p>"Yes; they must do admirably there. I should like to see them again." He +looked at her with a faintly sarcastic smile. She knew what he intended +her to say, and, against her will, she said hastily:</p> + +<p>"Won't you come and see them?"</p> + +<p>"With great pleasure."</p> + +<p>Molly saw that Adela had risen, and sprang up and turned away in one +sudden movement. She was very angry with him for forcing her to say +that, and she could not conceive what had made her yield.</p> + +<p>"'The teeth that bite; the claws that scratch,'" he thought to himself, +"but safely chained up—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> the movements are beautiful." He stood +looking after her.</p> + +<p>"I did as you told me," said the hostess, pausing for a moment as she +followed her guests to the door. "If Molly blames me, shall I say that +you asked to take her in?"</p> + +<p>"Say just what you like; I trust you entirely." He did not attempt to +speak to Molly after dinner, or when they met again at a ball that same +night. All her burning wish to snub him could not be gratified. He +seemed not to know shat she was still in the room. But she knew +instinctively that he watched her, and she was not sorry he should see +her in the crowd, and be witness, however unwillingly, to her position +in the world he knew so well. It added to the sense of intoxication that +often possessed her now. "Be drunken," says Baudelaire, "be drunken with +wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you will, only be drunken." +And that Molly could be drunken with flattery, with luxury, with +movement, with music, with a sense of danger that gave a strong and +subtle flavour to her pleasures, was the explanation (and the only one) +of how she bore the hours of reaction, of the nausea experienced by that +spiritual nature of hers which she had been so surprised to discover. It +was not the half-shrinking, half-defiant Molly Edmund had talked to in +the woods of Groombridge, whom he watched now. That Molly was gone, and +he regretted her.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h3> + +<h3>MOLLY'S APPEAL</h3> + +<p>Edmund, it seemed, was in no hurry to see his Florentine looking-glasses +again. Ten days passed before he called on Molly, and on the eleventh +day Mr. Murray, Junior, wrote to say that he had some fresh and +important intelligence to give him, and asked if Sir Edmund would call, +not at his office, but at his own house.</p> + +<p>Edmund flung the letter down impatiently. The situation was really a +very trying one. He did not believe—he could not and would not +believe—that Molly was carrying on a gigantic fraud. Murray was a +lawyer, and did not know Miss Dexter; his suspicions were inhuman and +absurd. From the day on which she had spoken to him about her mother's +reply to her offer to go to Florence, Edmund had in his masculine way +ranged her once for all among good and nice women. He had felt touched +and guilty at a suspicion that he had been to blame in playing his +paternal <i>rôle</i> too zealously. Until then he had at times had hard +thoughts of her; after that time he was a little ashamed of himself, and +he believed in her simplicity and goodness. He was sorry and +disappointed now that she was making quite so much effect in this London +world. There was something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> disquieting in Molly's success, and he could +appraise better than any one what a remarkable success it was. But he +felt that she was going the pace, and he would not have liked his +daughter to go the pace, unmarried and at twenty-two. She needed +friendship and advice. But the pinch came from the fact that the wealth +he could have advised her to use wisely ought to be Rose's, and that he +was resolved, in the depths of his soul, to regain that wealth for his +cousin—for that "<i>belle dame sans merci</i>" who wrote him such pretty +letters about his troubles.</p> + +<p>Edmund put Murray's letter in his pocket, and immediately went out. He +was living in a small, but clean, lodging in Fulham, kept by a former +housemaid and a former footman of his own, now Mr. and Mrs. Tart, kindly +souls who were proud to receive him. He gave no trouble, and the +preparation of his coffee and boiled egg was all the cooking he had done +for him. Mrs. Tart would have felt strangely upset had she known that +the said coffee and egg were, on some days, his only food till tea-time; +she was under the impression that he lunched at his club when not +engaged to friends. Both she and Mr. Tart took immense pains with his +clothes, and he would rather have been well valeted than eat luxurious +luncheons every day.</p> + +<p>He went out at once after getting Murray's letter, because he wanted to +call on Molly before he heard any more of the important intelligence.</p> + +<p>Molly was alone when he was announced. She had told the butler she was +"not at home," but somehow the man decided to show Sir Edmund up because +he saw that he wished to be shown up. Edmund had always had an odd +influence below<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> stairs, partly because he never forgot a servant's +face.</p> + +<p>Molly coloured deeply when she saw her visitor. She was annoyed to think +that he would make her talk against her will—and they would not be +interrupted. She could have used strong language to the butler, but she +did not dare tell him that she would now see visitors. It would look to +Edmund as if she were afraid of a <i>tête-à-tête</i>.</p> + +<p>Almost as soon as he was in the room she had an impression that he was +quite at home, curiously at his ease.</p> + +<p>"I am glad the house is so little changed. I came to my first dance +here. You have done wonderfully well, and all on the old lines. A friend +told me it was the hugest success."</p> + +<p>A remembrance of past jokes as to Edmund's second-hand compliments and +his friend "Mr. Harris" came into Molly's mind, but she only felt angry +at the remembrance.</p> + +<p>He talked on about the pictures and the furniture until she became more +natural. It was impossible not to be interested in her work, and the +decoration and furnishing of the whole house was her own doing, not that +of any hireling adviser. Then, too, he knew its history, and she became +keenly interested. She had at times a strong feeling of the past life +still in possession of the house, into which her own strangely fated +life had intruded. She wanted, half-consciously, to know if her guilty +secret was a desecration or only a continuance of something that had +gone before.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she leant forward with the crude simplicity he was glad to see +again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Have there been any wicked people here?" Her voice was low and young.</p> + +<p>"'All houses in which men have lived and died are haunted houses,'" he +quoted. "It's not very cynical to suppose that there has been sin and +sorrow here before now."</p> + +<p>"I think," said Molly quickly, "there was a wicked woman who used the +little dining-room; perhaps she was only a guest. I don't think she went +upstairs often."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she came in with my looking-glasses," suggested Edmund. "I have +often wished I could see what they have seen."</p> + +<p>Molly was now quite off her guard.</p> + +<p>Edmund rose and examined some china on a table near him.</p> + +<p>"Why are you so displeased with me?" he said, without any change of +voice.</p> + +<p>Molly sprang to her feet, careless whether her unguarded vehemence might +betray her to his observation.</p> + +<p>"I shall not answer that question," she said; but he knew that she would +answer it.</p> + +<p>"You cut me at the Court; you were displeased at having to sit by me at +dinner; you have pretended not to see me at least four times since then, +and your butler showed me up by mistake."</p> + +<p>Molly had moved away from him to the window. She knew she must speak or +her conduct would look too like wounded love—a thing quite unbearable. +She knew, too, that his influence would make her speak, and, besides +that, something in her cried for the relief of speech. She needed a +fight although she did not know it; an open fight with an enemy she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +could see would distract her from the incessant fight with an enemy she +did not see.</p> + +<p>"You are a strange man!" she cried, holding the curtain behind her +lightly as she turned towards him. "You could make friends with me so +that all the world might see you, and meanwhile, at the very same time, +you were paying a low Italian scoundrel to produce lies against my sick +and lonely mother! You could watch me and get out of me all you wanted +to know because I was ignorant of the world. You could use the horrible +influence you had gained over me by your experience of many women, to +manage me as you liked. You told me not to marry Edgar Tonmore for some +reason of your own; you told me to go and stay with my aunt; you came to +see me one night in London, and wormed out of me my relations with my +unfortunate mother. With all your knowledge of the world, with all your +experience, did you never think I might come to find you out?"</p> + +<p>Molly paused for a moment. She held herself erect, her white gown +crushed against the rich, dark curtain, her great eyes searching the +trees in the park below as if she sought there for the soul of her +enemy. She did not know that she pulled hard at the curtain behind her +with both hands; it could not have held out much longer, strong though +it was.</p> + +<p>"No; you knew life too well not to know that you might be found out, but +the truth was that you did not care. It was so little a thing to you +that, when you saw that I knew the truth, you could go on just the same, +quite unabashed. You could force yourself on me by playing on your +poverty; you, who had tried to ruin my mother! Well, she is out of your +reach, and perhaps you have shifted your foul suspicions on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> to me. +Perhaps it is from me you hope to get the fortune that you mean to +share. You drive me mad! I say things I don't want to say; you force me +to lower myself, but——" She turned now and faced Edmund, who watched +her, himself absolutely motionless. "Now that you have forced yourself +on me again you shall answer me. Do you believe that I, Molly Dexter, +have concealed or abetted in concealing or destroying any will in favour +of Lady Rose Bright?"</p> + +<p>There is a moment when passion is astonishingly inventive. Molly had had +no intention of saying anything of the kind, but the heat of passion had +produced a stroke of policy that no colder moment could have produced. +She was suddenly dumb with astonishment at her own words, and she dimly +recognised that this represented a distinct crisis in her own mind. +Passion and excitement had dissipated the last mists of self-deception.</p> + +<p>Edmund waited till there could be no faint suspicion of his trying to +interrupt her, and then said from his heart, in a voice she had never +heard from him before:</p> + +<p>"No, I swear to you I don't."</p> + +<p>Molly had been deeply flushed. At these words she turned very white, and +her hands let go the curtains. She put them out before her and seemed to +grope her way to a stiff, high-backed chair near to her. She sat down in +it and clasped her hands to her forehead.</p> + +<p>"Now you must hear me," said Edmund. "I don't say I am blameless: in +part of this I have done wrong, but not as wrong as you think. I must +tell you my story; although perhaps it may seem blacker as I tell it, +even to myself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>He sat down and bent forward a little.</p> + +<p>"When I was young I fell in love with my cousin. She has been and always +will be the one woman in the world to me. She did not, does not, never +will, return my feelings. She married, and before very long I was +convinced she was not happy, although she only half realised it herself. +She is capable of stifling her powers of perception. Then David Bright +died and left her in poverty. His will was a scandal, and the horror did +not only smirch his good name, it reached to hers. I can't and won't try +to tell you what I suffered, or how I determined to fight this hideous +wrong. I went to Florence; I tried to see Madame Danterre; I engaged the +detective—all before I knew of your existence. I came back to London +and discovered that your father, John Dexter, had divorced his wife on +account of David Bright. Still I did not know anything of you. Then, +through Lady Dawning I found you out, and I made friends with Mrs. +Delaport Green in order to see more of you. Was there anything wrong in +that? You did not know your mother; you did not, presumably, care very +deeply about her. It was doubtful if you knew of her existence. Soon the +detective in Florence faded in my mind; he discovered nothing, but I +retained him in case of any change. Was I obliged, because I liked you, +to give up the cause? I never found out, I never tried to find out from +you anything that bore on the case. You must remember that I stopped you +once in the wood at Groombridge when you wanted to tell me more about +yourself, and that I again warned you when you wished to tell me about +your mother's letter to you. As to Edgar Tonmore, I knew that he was +penniless, and I thought it quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> possible that you might, in the end, +be penniless too. It was for your own sake I wished you to make a richer +marriage. For I believed—I still believe—that David Bright made a last +will when going out to Africa; I believed, and still believe, that by an +accident that will was not sent to Lady Rose. I thought then that your +mother had, in some way, become possessed of the will, and I thought it +more than likely that, when dying, she would make reparation by leaving +the money where it ought to be. I meant—may I say so?—to prove myself +your friend, then, if you should allow it. I know I kept in touch with +you partly from curiosity as well as from natural attraction. But, if I +acted for the sake of another, I acted for you also. Would it have been +better or worse for you to have been friends with us if my suspicions of +your mother's conduct had proved true? But believe me, Miss Dexter, I +never for one moment could have thought of you with any taint of +suspicion. It is horrible to me to have it suggested."</p> + +<p>He rose as he finished speaking, and came nearer to her.</p> + +<p>"That you, with your youth and your innocence and your candour!—child, +the very idea is impossible. I have known men and women too well to fall +into such an absurdity. Send me away, if you like; I won't intrude my +friendship upon you, but look up now and let me see that you do not +think this gross thing of me."</p> + +<p>Molly raised a white face and looked into his—looked into eyes that had +not at all times and in all places been sincere, but were sincere now. A +great rush of warm feeling came over her; a great sore seemed healed, +and then she looked at him with hungry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> entreaty, as if a soul, shorn of +all beauty, hungry, ragged, filthy, were asking help from another. But +the moment of danger, the moment of salvation passed away.</p> + +<p>We confess our sins to God because He knows them already, and we ask for +forgiveness where we know we shall be forgiven.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Molly knew almost at once that she had gained another motive for +silence. She could not risk the loss of Edmund's good thought of her; +she cared for him too much—he had defended himself too well.</p> + +<p>Edmund saw that she could not speak. He left her, let himself out of the +house, and, forgetful of the fact that he could not possibly afford a +hansom, jumped into one and drove to Mr. Murray's house.</p> + +<p>He had recovered his usual calmness by the time he had to speak.</p> + +<p>"I have your note," he said, "and I came in consequence."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the lawyer; "I wanted to tell you——"</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment. Do you think you need tell me? You see, my share in the +thing really came to an end when I could not finance it. I have several +reasons now why I should like to let it alone."</p> + +<p>Murray was astonished. It was Sir Edmund who had started the whole +thing, whose wild guess at the outset was becoming more and more likely +to be proved true. It was he who had spent a quantity of money over the +investigation for years past. The man of business knew how to provoke +speech by silence, and so he remained silent.</p> + +<p>"Does further action depend in any way on me?" asked Edmund at last, +without, however, offering the explanation the other wanted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," said Murray quite civilly, but his manner was dry. "I don't see +that it does. I think we can get on for the present."</p> + +<p>As he spoke the door opened, and the parlourmaid showed in a tall, +handsome woman in a nurse's dress.</p> + +<p>Murray looked from her to Sir Edmund.</p> + +<p>"I had wanted you to hear what Nurse Edith had to tell us, but after +what you have said——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Edmund; "I will leave you and I will write to you +to-night."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h3> + +<h3>DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS</h3> + +<p>Edmund Grosse was in great moral and great physical discomfort that +evening. He dined, actually for the first time, in just such an Italian +café as he had described to Molly. After climbing up a very narrow, +dirty staircase, the hot air heavy with smells, he had emerged into a +small back and front room holding some half-dozen tables, at each of +which four people could be seated. Through the open windows the noises +of the street below came into collision with the clatter of plates and +knives and forks. The heat was intense, the cloths were not clean, +neither were the hands of the two waiters who rushed about with a +certain litheness and facility of motion unlike any Englishman.</p> + +<p>Edmund sat down wearily at a table as near the window as possible, and +at which several people had been dining, perhaps well, but certainly not +tidily.</p> + +<p>"Hunger alone," he thought, "could make this possible," when, looking +up, he caught the face of a young man at a further table, full of +enjoyment, ordering "spargetty" and half a bottle of "grayves," with a +cockney twang, and an unutterable air of latter-day culture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mutton chops, cheese, and ale fed your forefathers," reflected Grosse.</p> + +<p>"What will you have, sir?" in a foreign accent.</p> + +<p>"Oh! anything; just what comes for the two shilling dinner—no, not +<i>hors d'œuvres</i>; yes, soup."</p> + +<p>Edmund had turned with ill-restrained disgust from the sardines, +tomatoes, and other oily horrors. But there was no denying the qualities +of the soup: the most experienced and cultivated palate and stomach must +be soothed by it, and in a moment of greater cheerfulness Edmund turned +his attention to three young men close to him who were talking French. +Their hands were clean and their collars, but poverty was writ large on +their spare faces and well-brushed clothes. One was olive-complexioned, +one quite fair, but with olive tints in the shadows round the eyes, and +the third grey, old, and purple-cheeked from shaving. They ate little, +but they talked much. The talked of literature and art with fierce +dogmatism, and they seemed frequently on the verge of a quarrel, but the +storm each time sank quite suddenly without the least consciousness of +the danger passed. They looked at the food as critics, and acknowledged +it to be eatable, with the faint air of an exile's sadness.</p> + +<p>Edmund wished to think that he was amused by their talk, but the +distraction did not last. His thoughts would have their way, and he was +soon trying to defend his defence of himself to Molly. All he said had +seemed so obviously true as the words poured out, but there had been +fatal reservations. He had spoken as if all suspicions, all proceedings +as to discovering the will were past. He had felt he had no right to +give away secrets that were not his own. But had he not produced a false +impression? What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> would Molly have thought of him as he passionately +rejected the notion of suspecting her if she had seen the letter from +Murray in his pocket? It was true that he no longer financed any of the +proceedings against her, but they had all been set on foot by him. He +was in the plot that was thickening, and he had won the confidence of +the victim! He had no doubt that Molly was innocent, and he was ashamed +of the pitiful confidence he had read in her eyes when he left her. But +he still believed that her mother had been guilty, and that Molly's +wealth was the result of that guilt. It was true that he wanted to be +her friend, but it was also true that he would rejoice if Rose came into +her own and the gross injustice were righted. But, after all, what +absolute evidence had they got, as yet, as to the contents of this last +will, or what proof even of its existence? He felt almost glad for the +fraction of a moment that Molly might remain the gorgeous mistress of +the old house in Park Lane uninjured by anything he had done against +her. "How absurd," he thought, "how drivelling! The fact is that girl +impressed me enough to-day, to make me see myself from her point of +view, or what would be her point of view if she knew all!"</p> + +<p>He refused coffee—the cab fare had prevented that. He quite emptied his +pocket, gave the waiter sixpence, and, rising, strolled across the floor +of the small room exactly the same man to the outward eye he had been +for years past. But before he reached the door he caught the glance of a +little, round, elderly woman at a table close to him, and he stopped. +She had a faded, showy bonnet, and she carried her worn clothes with an +air. He recognised the companion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> and friend of a famous prima donna +whom he had not seen for years.</p> + +<p>"You've forgotten me, but I've not forgotten you."</p> + +<p>It was a cherry, Irish voice.</p> + +<p>"I get coffee and a roll, and you have the <i>diner à prix fixe</i>. And you +have given me a champagne supper in your day! Well! and how are you?"</p> + +<p>"Nicely, thank you, Miss O'Meara; you see I have not forgotten!" Then in +a lower voice, "But I thought the Signora left you money?"</p> + +<p>"She did, bless her; but it was here one day and gone the next! +Good-night, and good luck to you," she laughed.</p> + +<p>The little duenna of a dead genius evidently did not want him to stay, +and he felt his way down the pitch dark stairs, and emerged on the +street. A very small, brown hand was held out for a penny, and for the +first time in his life he refused a street beggar with real regret.</p> + +<p>"'Here one moment, and gone the next,'" he muttered, looking down the +brilliantly lighted street to where the motors, carriages, and cabs +crowded round the doors of a great theatre. "It's the history of the +whole show in a nutshell."</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>If Sir Edmund was troubled at the thought that Molly believed in him, +Molly was infinitely more troubled at his belief in her.</p> + +<p>After he left her she went to her room. She had to dine out and she must +get some rest first. As in most of the late eighteenth century houses in +London, the bedrooms had been sacrificed to the rooms below. But Molly +had the one very large room that looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> over the park. She threw +herself down on a wide sofa close to the silk-curtained bed. The sun +glinted still on the silver backs of the brushes and teased her eyes, +and she got up and drew down the blinds. The dressing-table was large +and its glass top was covered with a great weight of old gilt bottles +and boxes.</p> + +<p>Miss Carew had once been amused by the comment of a young manicurist +who, after expressing enthusiastic admiration of the table, had +concluded with the words:</p> + +<p>"But what I often say to myself is that it's only so much more to leave +in the end."</p> + +<p>But Molly had not laughed when the words were repeated; they gave +expression to a feeling with which she sometimes looked at many things +besides her dressing-table—they might all prove only so much more to +leave in the end!</p> + +<p>She sank exhausted again onto the sofa. Why had he come? Why could he +not leave her alone? Did she want his friendship, his pity, his +confidence? Why look at her so kindly when he must know how he hurt her? +She had felt such joy when she saw that he believed in her. The idea +that she was still innocent and unblemished in his eyes was just for the +moment an unutterable relief. An unutterable relief, too, it had felt at +the moment, to be able to accept his defence of himself. That he was +still lovable, and that he had no dark thoughts of her, had been such +joy, but only a passing joy. Had he not told her in horribly plain +speech that he loved Lady Rose, and would love her to the end? All this, +which was so vital to Molly, was but an episode in a friendship that was +a detail in his life!</p> + +<p>But now, alone, trying to see clearly through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> confusion, how +unbearable it had been to hear him say, "That you with your youth and +your innocence and your candour...." He had thought it too horrible to +suspect her, and by that confidence he made her load of guilt almost +unendurable.</p> + +<p>She could not go on like this, could not live like this. The silence was +far more unbearable now that a human voice had broken into it, a voice +she loved repudiating with indignant scorn the possibility of suspecting +her! She must go somewhere, she must speak to some one. But at this +moment it was also evident that she must dress for dinner.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h3> + +<h3>THE RELIEF OF SPEECH</h3> + +<p>There is quite commonly a peculiar glow of sunshine just before a storm, +a brightness so obviously unreliable that we are torn between enjoyment +and anxiety. I have known no greater revelation of Nature's glories, +even in a sunset hour, than in one of these moments of glow before the +darkness of storm. And in a man's life there is sometimes an episode so +bright, so full of promise, that we feel its perfection to be the +measure of its instability.</p> + +<p>Such a moment had come to Mark Molyneux. The time of depression and +trial, the time when a vague sense of danger and a vague sense of +aspiration had made him turn his eyes towards the cloister, had ended in +his taking his work more and more earnestly and becoming surprisingly +successful in his dealings with both rich and poor.</p> + +<p>It seemed during the past winter that Mark would carry all before him; +he had come into close contact with the poor, and in the circle in which +his personal influence could be felt there was a real movement of +religious earnestness and moral reform. There was a noticeable glow of +zeal in the other curates and in the parish workers, who, with one or +two exceptions, were enthusiastic in their devotion to him personally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +and to his notions of work. Even after Easter several of the +recently-cured drunkards were persevering, and other notoriously bad +characters seemed determined to show that the first shoots of their +awakened moral life were not merely what gardeners call "flowering +shoots," but steady growths giving promise of sound wood.</p> + +<p>Mark's sermons were becoming more and more the rage, and people were +heard to say that he was the only Catholic preacher in London, excepting +perhaps one or two Jesuit Fathers; while he had also the tribute of +attention from the press, which he particularly disliked.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the old rector was still gruff and still proffered snubs +which were gratefully received, for Mark was genuinely anxious not to be +misled by the atmosphere of praise and affection in which he was living.</p> + +<p>Nothing warned him of impending danger (to use a phrase of old-fashioned +romance) when he was told that Miss Dexter was asking to see him. He had +not seen her for a long time, and was quite glad that she should come.</p> + +<p>He looked young, eager, and happy as he came quickly into the parlour, +but after a few minutes the simple warmth of his manner changed into a +more negative politeness. There was something so gorgeous in Molly's +appearance, and so very strange in her face, that even a man who had +seen less of the world than is obtained in a year on the mission in +London, could not fail to be somewhat puzzled.</p> + +<p>Molly hardly spoke for some moments, and silence was apparently +inevitable. Then she burst out, without preparation, in a wild, +incoherent way, with her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> whole life's story. The story of a child +deserted by her mother, neglected by her father, taken from the ayah who +was the only person who had ever loved her, and sent like a parcel to +the care of a hard and selfish aunt who was ashamed of her. It might +have been horribly pathetic only that it was impossible that so much +egotism and bitterness should not choke the sympathy of the listener. +But as the story came to Molly's twenty-first year, the strange, bitter +self-defence (she had not yet explained why she should defend herself at +all to Father Molyneux), all the unpleasing moral side of the story +became merged in the sense of its dramatic qualities.</p> + +<p>Molly had never told it to anyone before now, and, indeed, she had not +realised several features of the case until quite lately. She told well +the disillusion as to her mother, her own single-handed fight with life, +the double sense of shame as to her mother's past, and her own ambiguous +position. She told him how she felt at first meeting Rose Bright, of her +own sense of sailing under false colours, and she actually explained, in +her strange pleading for a favourable judgment, how everything that +happened had naturally hardened her heart and made her feel as if she +had been born an outcast. Lastly, she told how Sir Edmund Grosse had +pursued her mother with detectives, and, as she had for a time believed, +had pursued herself with the hypocritical appearance of friendship. She +had been wrong, it seemed now, in judging him so harshly, but it had +hurt terribly at the time.</p> + +<p>Through all this Mark was struggling against the repulsion that +threatened to drown the sympathy he wanted to give her. But he had, +naturally, not the faintest suspicion as to what was coming or that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +Molly was confiding in him a story of her own wrong-doing. He was +absolutely confounded when she went on, still in the tone of passionate +self-defence, to tell how she had found the will leaving the whole of +Sir David's fortune to Lady Rose. He simply stared at Molly when she +said:</p> + +<p>"Who could suppose for a single moment that I should be obliged, on +account of a scrap of paper which was evidently sent to my mother for +her to dispose of as she liked, to become a pauper and to give a fortune +to Lady Rose Bright?"</p> + +<p>But although he was too astounded for speech, and his face showed +strange, stern lines, it was now that there awoke in his heart the +passionate longing to help her; he saw now her whole story in the most +pathetic light, from the little child deserted by her mother, to the +woman scorned and suffering, left by the same mother in such a gruesome +temptation. The greatness of the sin provoked the passionate longing to +save her. The man who had given up Groombridge Castle and all it +entailed had not one harsh thought for the woman who had fallen into +crime to avoid the poverty he had chosen for his own portion.</p> + +<p>"It's a hard, hard case," he murmured, to Molly's surprise.</p> + +<p>She had been so occupied in her own outpouring that she had hardly +thought of him at first, except as a human outlet for her story made +safe by the fact that he was a priest. But when he had betrayed his +silent but most eloquent amazement, she had suddenly realised what the +effect of her confidences might be on such a man, and half expected +anathemas to thunder over her head.</p> + +<p>Then he tried to find out whether there was any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> kind of hope that the +will had, in fact, been sent to her mother to be at her disposal. But +suddenly Molly, who had herself suggested this idea, rent it to pieces +and brought out the whole case against her mother (and, consequently, +against herself) with a fierce logic of attack.</p> + +<p>This was more like the Molly whom he had known before, and Mark felt the +atmosphere a little clearer. Having left not the faintest shadow of a +defence for her own action, she suddenly became silent. After some +moments she leant forward.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she said, in a tone so low that he only just caught the +words, "I see now what must have happened. It is strange that I never +thought of it before. I see it now quite clearly. Of course the will and +the letter were wrongly addressed, and probably some letter to my mother +was sent to Lady Rose."</p> + +<p>"That does not follow," said Father Molyneux.</p> + +<p>"But it's not unlikely," argued Molly. "It is more probable that the two +letters should be put into the wrong envelopes than that one should be +addressed to the wrong person. It's a mistake that is made every day, +only the results are usually of less consequence. It must have been +curious reading for my mother—that letter about herself to Lady Rose +Bright."</p> + +<p>"It is so difficult," said Mark, feeling his way cautiously, "to be sure +of not acting on fancied facts when there are so few to go upon. Do you +suppose that the detective in Florence had any definite plan of action +given to him by his employer? For just supposing that your guess is +right, they may have got some clue to what happened in the letter that +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> sent by mistake to Lady Rose. Have you no notion at all whether +they may not now have got some evidence to prove that there was another +will?"</p> + +<p>Molly shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," she said, "they would have been quiet all this time if +there had been any real evidence at all? It is three years since Sir +David died, and six months since my mother died."</p> + +<p>She did not notice how Mark started at this information. Had Miss +Dexter, then, been in possession of this letter to Lady Rose and the +last will for six months?</p> + +<p>"You were not sent these papers at once?" he ventured to ask.</p> + +<p>"Yes; Dr. Larrone, who attended my mother, brought them to me. He left +Florence two hours after she died."</p> + +<p>Another silence followed.</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that a great deal might be done by a private +arrangement. Probably their case is not strong enough, or likely to be +strong enough, for them to push it through. It should be arranged that +you should receive the £1000 a year that Sir David intended to give your +mother."</p> + +<p>Molly laughed scornfully.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather beg my bread than be their pensioner. No, no; you entirely +mistake the situation. I shall have no dealings with them at all—no +nonsense about arbitration or private arrangements. I won't give them +any opportunity of feeling generous. It must"—she spoke very slowly and +looked at him fiercely—"with me it must be all or nothing, and"—she +got up suddenly and began smoothing her gloves over her wrists—"and as +I don't choose to starve it must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> all. But if I can't go through with +it (which is quite possible) I shall throw up the sponge and get out of +this world as quickly as possible."</p> + +<p>"If you have made up your mind," said Mark sternly, "to defy God, in +Whom I know that you believe, to defy the laws of man, whose punishment +<i>may</i> come, whereas His punishment must come, why have you told me all +this?"</p> + +<p>"I had to tell some one; I was suffocating. You don't know"—she stood +looking out of the window a strange expression of hunger and loneliness +succeeding the fierceness of a few moments before—"you don't know what +it is to have in your own mind a long, long story about yourself that +has never been told. To have been lonely and hardly treated and deceived +and spurned, and never to have put your own case to any one human being! +To have cried from childhood till twenty-two, knowing that nobody really +cared! There comes a time when you would rather say the worst of +yourself than keep silence. To accuse yourself is the natural thing; +silence is the unnatural thing."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" said Mark, rising, "don't stop there. If you must accuse +yourself, pass judgment also. Class yourself where you have chosen with +your eyes open to stand. Would you allow any amount of provocation and +unhappiness to excuse a systematic fraud? Do you think that the thief +brought up to sin has less or more excuse than you have? Are you the +only person who has known a lonely childhood? Can you tell me here in +this room that God never showed you what love really is? He has never +left you alone, and you wish in vain now that He would leave you alone. +For your present life is so un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>bearable that you feel that you may +choose death rather than go on with it."</p> + +<p>"I shall pay heavily for the relief of speech if I am to have a sermon +preached all to myself," said Molly insolently. "I was speaking of the +need of human love; I was speaking of all I had suffered, and it is easy +for you to retort upon me that I might have had Divine Love only that I +chose to reject it. Tell me, were you brought up without a mother's +love?"</p> + +<p>"No; I had—I have a mother who loves me almost too much."</p> + +<p>"Have you known real loneliness?"</p> + +<p>"I believe every man and woman has known that the soul is alone."</p> + +<p>Molly shook her head.</p> + +<p>"That is a mood; mine was a permanent state. Have you ever known what it +is to see God's will on one side, and all possibilities of human +happiness, glory, success, and pleasure, opposed to it?"</p> + +<p>The young man blushed deeply.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have."</p> + +<p>Molly was checked.</p> + +<p>"I forgot," she answered; "but still you don't understand. You were an +intimate friend of God when He asked you for the sacrifice, whereas I—I +had only an inkling, a suspicion of that Love. Besides, you were not +asked to give all your possessions to your enemies! No; too much has +been asked of me."</p> + +<p>"Can too much be asked where all has been given?" asked Father Molyneux.</p> + +<p>"That is an old point for a sermon," said Molly wearily. "You don't +understand; you are of no use to me. Good-bye! I don't think I shall +come again."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h3> + +<h3>THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER</h3> + +<p>After that visit to Father Molyneux the devil seems to have entered into +Molly. It was a devil of fear and, consequently, of cruelty. What she +did to harm him was at first unpremeditated, and it must be allowed that +she had not at the moment the means of knowing how fearful a harm such +words as hers could do. She said them too when terror had driven her to +any distraction, and when wine had further excited her imagination. +Still it would not be surprising to find that many who might have +forgiven her for a long, protracted fraud, would blot her out of their +own private book of life for the mean cruelty of one sentence.</p> + +<p>Not many hours had passed after the visit before Molly was furious with +herself for her consummate folly in giving herself away to the young +priest, who might even think it a duty to reveal what she said.</p> + +<p>She had once told Mark that she might soon come to hate him, as hatred +came most easily to her. There was now quite cause enough for this +hatred to come into being. Molly had two chief reasons for it. First, +she was in his power to a dangerous extent and he might ruin her if he +chose; secondly, she was afraid of his influence—chiefly of the +influence of his prayers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>—and she dreaded still more that he should +persuade her to ruin herself.</p> + +<p>One evening Molly had been with Mrs. Delaport Green and two young men to +a play. It was a play that represented a kind of female "Raffles"—a +thief in the highest ranks of society, and the lady Raffles had black +hair. The lady stole diamonds, and fascinated detectives, and even +beguiled the ruffianly burglar who had wanted the diamonds for himself. +It was a far-fetched comparison indeed, but it worried and excited Molly +to the last degree. They went back to supper at Miss Dexter's house, and +there one more lady and another man joined them. They sat at a gorgeous +little supper at a round table in the small dining-room, Mrs. Delaport +Green opposite Molly, and Lady Sophia Snaggs, a spirited, cheery +Irishwoman, separated from the hostess by Billy, with whom the latter +had always, in the past weeks, been ready to discuss the poverty and the +failings of Sir Edmund Grosse. Of the other two men, one was elderly, +bald, greedy, fat and witty, and the other was a soldier, spare, red and +rather silent but extremely popular for some happy combination of +qualities and excellent manners. It would seem hardly worth while to say +even this little about them, only that it proved of some importance that +the few people who heard Molly's words that night, and certainly +repeated them afterwards, had unfortunately rather different and rather +wide opportunities of making them known.</p> + +<p>The Florentine looking-glasses that once belonged to Sir Edmund Grosse, +with their wondrous wreaths of painted flowers, looked down from three +sides of the room and reflected the pretty women and their gowns, the +old silver, the rare glass, and the flowers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> They were probably +refreshed by the exquisite taste of the little banquet that might recall +the first reflection of their youth. Morally there was a rift within the +lute among the guests, for Molly betrayed that Adela had got on her +nerves. Lady Sophia Snaggs poured easy conversation on the troubled +waters, but at last the catastrophe could not be averted.</p> + +<p>At a moment when the others were silent Adela was talking.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I went to hear him preach, and it is so beautiful, you know. +Crowds; the church was packed, and many people cried. You <i>should</i> go. +And then one feels how real it is for him to preach against the world, +because he gave up so much."</p> + +<p>Molly drained her glass of champagne and leant across.</p> + +<p>"Whom are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Father Molyneux."</p> + +<p>"I thought so."</p> + +<p>"Have you heard him preach?" asked Lady Sophy.</p> + +<p>"I used to, but I never go now." She again leant forward and spoke this +time with unconcealed irritation. "Adela, I don't go now because I know +too much about him."</p> + +<p>There was immediate sensation.</p> + +<p>Molly slowly lit a cigarette. Even then she did not know what she was +going to say, but she had determined on the spur of the moment, and +chiefly from sheer terror, to put Mark out of court if she possibly +could.</p> + +<p>"He is a humbug," she proclaimed in her low, incisive tone.</p> + +<p>"Oh! come now," said Billy. "A man who gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> up +Groombridge—extraordinary silly thing to do, but he is not a humbug!"</p> + +<p>Molly turned on him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is. He knows he made a great mistake and he would undo it if he +could."</p> + +<p>"Molly, it can't be true!" cried Adela almost tearfully. "If you had +only heard him preach last Sunday you couldn't say such hasty, unkind, +horrid things!"</p> + +<p>"It is true," said Molly.</p> + +<p>"Our hostess is pleased to be mysterious," said the fat man, and "you +know," turning to Mrs. Delaport Green, "it's very likely that he is +sorry he made such a sacrifice, but I don't think that prevents its +having been a noble action at the time."</p> + +<p>"Or makes him a humbug now," said the soldier. "I believe he is an +uncommonly nice fellow."</p> + +<p>"Oh! she means something else," said Lady Sophia, looking at Molly with +curiosity. "What is it you have against him?"</p> + +<p>Molly felt the table to be against her, and it added to her nervous +irritability. She was not in any sense drunk, and the drugs she took +were in safe doses at present; yet she was to a certain degree +influenced both by the champagne she had just taken, and the injection +she had given herself when she came in from the theatre.</p> + +<p>"You will none of you repeat what I am going to say?"</p> + +<p>"I probably shall," said the big guest, "unless it is excessively +interesting; otherwise I never remember what is a secret and what +isn't."</p> + +<p>But Molly did not heed him.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "it is a fact that Father Molyneux would give up the +Roman Church to-morrow if a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> intimate friend of mine, who could +give him as much wealth as he has lost, would agree to marry him after +he ceased to be a priest!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! how dreadfully disappointing!" cried Adela.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't he?" said Billy.</p> + +<p>"It seems a come-down," said the fat man; and the soldier said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense," said Lady Sophia firmly. "Somebody has been +humbugging you, Molly."</p> + +<p>But being a lady who liked peace better than warfare, she now went on to +say that she had had no notion how late it was until this moment, and +that she really must be off. Her farewell was quite friendly, but +Molly's was cold.</p> + +<p>The departure of Lady Sophia made a welcome break, and, in spite of the +hostess being silent and out of temper, the men managed to divert the +conversation into less serious topics. But they were not likely to +forget what Molly had impressed upon their minds by the strange +vehemence with which she had emphasised her accusations.</p> + +<p>"She meant herself, I suppose?" asked Billy, when leaving the house with +his stout fellow guest. "Do you believe it?"</p> + +<p>"It was very curious, very curious indeed. Do you know I rather doubt if +she wholly and entirely believed it herself."</p> + +<p>Billy was puzzled for a moment, thinking that some difficult mental +problem had been offered for his digestion.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," he said, as he opened his own door with his latch-key. "He +only meant that she was telling a lie; I suspect he is right too."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h3> + +<h3>THE NURSING OF A SLANDER</h3> + +<p>Meanwhile, in shadowy corners of Westmoreland House, Miss Carew lived a +monotonous but anxious life. For days together she hardly saw Molly, and +then perhaps she would be called into the big bed-room for a long talk, +or rather, to listen to a long monologue in which Molly gave vent to +views and feelings on men and things.</p> + +<p>Molly's cynicism was increasing constantly, and she now hardly ever +allowed that anybody did anything for a good motive. She had moods in +which she poured scandal into Miss Carew's half excited and curious +mind, piling on her account of the wickedness and the baseness of the +people she knew intimately, of the sharks who pursued her money, and, +most of all, she showered her scorn on the men who wanted to marry her.</p> + +<p>Listening to her Miss Carew almost believed that all the men Molly met +were <i>divorcés</i>, or notoriously lived bad lives, and hardly veiled their +intention to continue to do the same after obtaining her hand and her +money.</p> + +<p>Molly would lie on a sofa, in a gorgeous kind of <i>déshabille</i> which cost +almost as much as Miss Carew spent on her clothes in the whole year, and +apparently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> take delight in scaring her by these hideous revelations. +She was so strange in her wild kind of eloquence, and it was so +impossible to believe all she said, that the doubt more than once +occurred to Miss Carew whether it might be a case of the use of drugs. +The extraordinary personal indulgence of luxury was unlike anything the +older woman had ever come across. Then there was no system, nothing +business-like about Molly as there often is in women of the modern +world. Miss Carew dimly suspected that any society of human beings +expects some self-discipline, and some sacrifice to ordinary rules. As +it was she wondered how long Molly's neglect of small duties and her +frequent insolence would be condoned.</p> + +<p>All this, which had been coming on gradually, was positively nauseous to +the middle-aged Englishwoman whose nerves were suffering from the +strain, and she came to feel that it would be impossible to endure it +much longer. It would be easier to drudge and trudge with girls in the +schoolroom for a smaller salary than to endure life with Molly if she +were to develop further this kind of temper.</p> + +<p>For months now Miss Carew had lived under a great strain. From the +evening when she had found Molly sitting on the floor with the tin box +open before her, and old, yellow letters lying on the ground about it, +she had been almost constantly uneasy. She could not forget the sight of +Molly crouching like a tramp in the midst of the warm, comfortable room, +biting her right hand in a horrible physical convulsion. It was of no +use to try to think that Molly's condition that night was entirely the +result of illness, or that the loss of her unknown mother had upset her +to that degree or at all in that way. The character of Molly's mental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +state was quite, quite different from the qualities that come of grief +or sickness. Then had followed the very anxious nursing, during which +all other thoughts had been swallowed up in immediate anxiety and +responsibility.</p> + +<p>During Molly's convalescence, in the quiet days by the sea-side, Miss +Carew began to reflect on a kind of coherent unity in the delirious talk +she had listened to during the worst days of the illness. And she also +noticed that Molly, by furtive little jokes and sudden, irrelevant +questions, was trying to find out what Miss Carew had heard her say. +Then it became evident that Molly attributed all the excitement of that +night to her subsequent illness—only once, and that very calmly, +alluding to the fact of her mother's death.</p> + +<p>Miss Carew had no wish to penetrate the mystery of the black box and the +faded letters. She had a sort of instinctive horror of the subject, but +she could not but watch the fate of the box when they came back to the +flat. Molly paid no attention to it whatever, and said in a natural +tone:</p> + +<p>"I shall send my father's dispatch box and sword-case and my own +dispatch boxes in a cab. Would you mind taking them and having them put +in the little room next to my bed-room?"</p> + +<p>But in the end Molly had taken them herself, as she thought Miss Carew +had a slight cold. Miss Carew always had a certain dislike to the door +of the little room next to Molly's, which had evidently been once used +for a powder closet. She did not even know if the door were locked or +not, and she never touched the handle. She had an uncanny horror of +passing the door, at least so she said afterwards; probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> in +retrospect she came to exaggerate her feelings as to these things.</p> + +<p>She was puzzled and confused: her health was not good, and her faculties +were dimmed. It was probably the strain of living with Molly whom she +could no longer control or guide, and who was so evidently in dire need +of some one to do both. She felt dreadfully burdened with +responsibility, both as to the things she did understand and the things +she did not understand. What she could not understand was a sense of +moral darkness, like a great, looming grey cloud, sometimes simply dark +and heavy, and at other times a cloud electric with coming danger. She +felt as if burdened with a secret which she longed to impart, only that +she did not know what it was. At times it was as if she carried some +monstrous thing on her back, whilst she could only see its dark, +shapeless shadow. Her self-confidence was going, and her culture was so +useless. What good was it to her now to know really well the writings of +Burke, or Macaulay—nay, of Racine and Pascal? She had never been +religious since her childhood, but in these long, solitary days in the +great house that grew more and more gloomy as she passed about it when +Molly was out, she began to feel new needs and to seek for old helps.</p> + +<p>Molly was sometimes struck by the change in her companion. Miss Carew +seemed to have grown so futile, so incoherent and funny, unlike the Miss +Carew who had been her finishing governess not many years ago.</p> + +<p>The sight of Carey's troubled, mottled face began to irritate Molly to +an unbearable degree.</p> + +<p>"Why not have a treatment for eczema and have done with it? You used to +have quite a clear skin," she cried, in brutal irritation one morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh! it's nerves—merely nerves," said poor Miss Carew apologetically.</p> + +<p>"Then have a treatment for nerves," cried Molly furiously. "It is too +ridiculous to have blotches on your face because I have a bad temper!"</p> + +<p>It was the night after the little supper party at which the slander was +born that Molly said this rude thing, and then abruptly left the +drawing-room to join a hairdresser who was waiting upstairs. Almost +immediately afterwards Adela Delaport Green was standing over the stiff +chair on which Miss Carew was sitting, very limp in figure, and holding +a damp handkerchief to her face.</p> + +<p>"How d'ye do? They told me Molly was here," she said in a disappointed +voice, and her eyes ranged round the room with the alertness of a +sportswoman.</p> + +<p>Adela had come with a purpose; she had come there to right the wrong and +to force Molly to tell the truth.</p> + +<p>"She was here a moment ago. She has just gone up to the hairdresser," +said Miss Carew as she got up, quickly restoring the damp handkerchief +to her pocket and composing her countenance, not without a certain +dignity. She liked Adela, who was always friendly and civil whenever +they met.</p> + +<p>That little lady threw herself pettishly into a deep chair.</p> + +<p>"So tiresome when I haven't a minute to spare, and I suppose he will +keep her nearly an hour?"</p> + +<p>"Can I take a message?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! no, thanks, dear Miss Carew, don't go up all those horrid steep +steps. Do rest and entertain me a little. I am sure you feel these hot +days terribly."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I find it very cool and quiet here," said Miss Carew, a little sadly.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it's lonely," cried Adela.</p> + +<p>"Well! I oughtn't to grumble about that."</p> + +<p>"No, you never do grumble, I know; but I feel sometimes that you must be +tired and anxious, placed, as you are, as the only thing instead of a +mother to poor, dear Molly!"</p> + +<p>The fierce, quick envy betrayed in that "poor, dear Molly" did not reach +Miss Carew's brain, and a little sympathy was very soothing.</p> + +<p>"Now, could any fortune stand this sort of thing?" asked Adela.</p> + +<p>The companion shook her head sadly, but would not speak.</p> + +<p>"You know that she has bought Sir Edmund Grosse's old yacht? And that +she is taking one of the best deer forests in the Highlands? And is it +true that she is thinking of buying Portlands?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" sighed Miss Carew. "There is some new scheme every day."</p> + +<p>"She has everything the world can give," said Adela sharply. "But, you +know," she went on, "people won't go on standing her manners as they do +now, even if she can pay her amazing way! Do you know that her cousin, +Lady Dawning, declares she won't have anything more to do with her? Not +that that matters very much; old Lady Dawning hardly counts, now that +Molly has really great people as her friends, only little leaks let in +the water by degrees."</p> + +<p>A pause, and then suddenly:</p> + +<p>"Do you know Father Molyneux?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Carew, who was glad to change the subject. "He is very +charming."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't know he was a friend of Molly's."</p> + +<p>"Oh! didn't you? She took a great fancy to him last autumn; he used to +come to luncheon."</p> + +<p>"Did he come often?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I think so, but I don't remember exactly."</p> + +<p>"And has he been coming here lately?"</p> + +<p>"I really don't know. I have my meals by myself now; the hours were so +irregular, and I am too old and dull for Molly's friends. I know she +went to see him a few days ago, and she came back looking agitated. I +was rather glad—I thought it would be good for her, but I fear it was +not. She has been more excited, I think, these two or three days. Her +nerves are really quite overwrought; she allows herself no quiet. Yes; +she was very much excited after seeing Father Molyneux."</p> + +<p>Miss Carew was talking more to herself than to Adela.</p> + +<p>"I thought perhaps he had pressed her to become a Roman Catholic; +certainly he upset her in some way."</p> + +<p>Adela's small eyes were like sharp points as she looked at the older +woman.</p> + +<p>Then was it really true? Oh! no; surely not. But then, what else could +he have said to upset Molly?</p> + +<p>At that moment Molly's maid came into the room.</p> + +<p>"Miss Dexter has only just heard that you were here, madam. She is very +sorry you have been waiting. She wished me to say that she is obliged to +go immediately to a sale at Christie's, and would you be able to go with +her?"</p> + +<p>Adela declined, perceiving that Molly was in no mind for a private talk, +and having parted affection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>ately from Miss Carew, went her way to have +a chat with Lady Dawning.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon she met several of her Roman Catholic acquaintances at +a charity performance in a well-known garden, and she pumped all those +she could decoy in turn into a <i>tête-à-tête</i> as to Father Molyneux. She +was in reality devoured with the wish to know the truth. She had her own +thin but genuine share of ideality, and she had been more impressed by +Mark's renouncement of Groombridge Castle than by anything she had met +with before.</p> + +<p>But gradually, as she hunted the story, she gave him up, not because of +any evidence of any kind, but because she did not find him regarded as +anything very wonderful. She had need of the enthusiasms of others to +make an atmosphere for her own ideals, and almost by chance she had not +met anyone much interested in the young preacher. Then she had dim +backwaters of anti-Popery in her mind, and they helped the reaction. She +had come out, lance in rest, to defend the victim of calumny; in a very +few days she had thrown him over, and was explaining pathetically to +anybody who would listen that she had had a shock to her faith in +humanity. And the story, starting by describing her own state of mind +and being almost entirely subjective, ended in bringing home to her +listeners with peculiar force the objective facts as asserted by Molly. +Catholics, she found, when she came to this advanced state of +propagation, were aghast at her story. They did not believe it, but they +were excessively annoyed, and were, for the most part, inclined to think +that Mark could not have been entirely prudent. But non-Catholics were, +naturally, more credulous.</p> + +<p>A calumny is a quick and gross feeder. It has a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> thousand different ways +of assimilating things "light as air," or things dull from the ennui +which produced them, or things prickly with envy, or slushy, green +things born of unconscious jealousy, or unpleasant things born of false +pieties, or hard views born of tired experience, or worldly products of +incredulity, or directly evil suggestions, or the repulsions of satiated +sensuality, or the bitter fruits of melancholia, or the foreshadowings +of insanity, or the mere dislike of the lower moralities for the higher, +or the uneasiness felt by the ordinary in the presence of the rare, or +the revolt felt by the conventional against holier bonds, or the prattle +of curiosity, or the roughness of mere vitality, or the fusion of minds +at a low level.</p> + +<p>This particular calumny was well watered and manured with all these +by-products of human life, and it grew to full size and height with a +rapidity that could not have been attained under less favourable +conditions.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_IV" id="BOOK_IV"></a>BOOK IV</h2> + +<hr /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h3> + +<h3>ROSE SUMMONED TO LONDON</h3> + +<p>Rose was back in London the second week in July, summoned back rather +imperiously by Mr. Murray, Junior. The house had been shut up since the +departure of her tenants at Whitsuntide, and she had hoped not to reopen +it until the autumn. She had intended to go directly to her mother's +home in the country as soon as they could leave Paris. It was becoming a +question whether it would be a greater risk for Lady Charlton to endure +the heat in Paris or the fatigues of the long journey. Mr. Murray's +letter decided them to move. Rose must go, and her mother would not stay +behind alone. Lady Charlton decided to pay a month's visit to her +youngest daughter in Scotland, as Rose might be kept in London.</p> + +<p>It was a disappointment. The house in London would be nearly as stuffy +as Paris. Rose disliked the season and was in no mood for the stale +echoes of its dying excitements. She would not tell her friends that she +was back; she would keep as quiet as she had been in Paris.</p> + +<p>The first morning, after early service and breakfast, she went to the +library to wait for the lawyer's visit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> It was the only room in which +to receive him; the dining-room, and drawing-room, and the little +boudoir upstairs, were not opened. Rose was inclined to leave them as +they were, with the furniture in brown wrappers, for the present; but +she would rather have seen Mr. Murray in any room but the library.</p> + +<p>The morning sun was full on the windows that opened to the rather dreary +garden at the back. She wondered why Mr. Murray had written so urgently, +and why Edmund Grosse had not written for several weeks. Up to now they +had done all this horrid business between them, and she had only had +occasional reports from her cousin. Now she must face the subject with +the lawyer himself. She was puzzled to account for the change in the +situation.</p> + +<p>At the exact moment he had mentioned, Mr. Murray's tall person with its +heavy, bent head appeared in the library. As they greeted they were both +conscious that it was in this same room, seated at the wide +writing-table still in the same place, and still bearing the large +photograph of Sir David Bright, where he had first told her of the +strange dispositions of her husband's will. He remembered vividly her +look then—undaunted and confident—as she had gently but firmly +asserted that there must be another will. But had she not also said it +would never be found?</p> + +<p>But the present occupied the lawyer much more than the past. He was +eager and a little triumphant in his story of the progress of the case, +and did not notice that the sweet face opposite to him became more and +more white as he went on. He told her all he had told Sir Edmund when he +first got back from the yacht; he told of the mysterious visit he had +re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>ceived from Dr. Larrone, and how he could prove from the letters of +the Florentine detective that Madame Danterre had sent the doctor to +England to take a certain small, black box to Miss Dexter.</p> + +<p>Then he paused.</p> + +<p>"I told Sir Edmund how our Florentine detective, Pietrino, had made +friends with one of the nurses, and that she described Madame Danterre +ordering the box to be opened and having a seizure—a heart +attack—while the letters were spread out on her bed. Nurse Edith said +then that she had put them back in a hurry and locked the box, and that +it had not been reopened by Madame Danterre. Some weeks later when she +was near her end, Madame Danterre had a scene with Dr. Larrone which +ended in his consenting to take the box to London as soon as she was +dead, but the nurse was sure that the doctor was told nothing as to the +contents of the box. That was as much as we knew up to Easter, and while +waiting for the arrival of Akers, and Stock, the other private who had +witnessed the signature. They got here in Easter week, and I saw them +with Sir Edmund, and we both cross-questioned them closely. Akers's +evidence is beyond suspicion, and is perfectly supported by that of +Stock. He described all that happened at the witnessing of the General's +signature most circumstantially, but, of course, he knew nothing of the +contents of the paper. But now I have more important evidence than any +we have had so far, and the extraordinary thing is that Sir Edmund does +not wish to hear it. I cannot understand why!"</p> + +<p>Rose remained silent. She was looking fixedly at a paper-knife which she +held in her hand.</p> + +<p>It suddenly struck the lawyer as a flash of most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> embarrassing light +that possibly there was some complication of a dangerous and tender kind +between Sir Edmund and his cousin. He could not dwell on such a notion +now—it might be absolute nonsense, but it made him go on hastily:</p> + +<p>"I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she +knows much more than she would allow to him. I think she was waiting to +see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would +not fall into the risk of buying evidence. He waited; she was watched +until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours +before she came to me. She declares now that, as she was gathering up +the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been +reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one +called Rose. She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief. +She slipped it into her pocket when she put the rest away. I believe it +was naughty curiosity, but she wishes us to think that she knew the +whole scandal about the General's will, and did what she did from a +sense of justice. When off duty she took the paper to her room, and when +she opened it she found the will inside it. In her excitement she called +the housemaid, an Englishwoman with whom she had made friends, and she +copied the will while they were together, and the names of Akers and +Stock—of whom she could not possibly have heard—are in her copy. I +have seen that copy, Lady Rose, and——" He paused and glanced at her +for a moment, and then his eyes sought the trees in the garden even as +they had done when he had made that other and awful announcement on the +day of the memorial service to Sir David. Rose flushed a little, and +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> breathing came quickly, but she made no sign of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Sir David left the whole of his fortune to you subject to an annual +payment of a thousand a-year to Madame Danterre during her lifetime."</p> + +<p>Complete silence followed. Lady Rose either could not or would not +speak. Out of the pale, distinguished slightly worn face the eyes looked +at Mr. Murray with no surprise. Had she not always said that she did not +believe the iniquitous will Mr. Murray had brought her to be the true +one, but had she not also maintained that the true will would never be +found? She did not say so to Mr. Murray, but in fact she shrank from +making too sure of Nurse Edith's evidence. She had so long forbidden +herself to believe in the return of worldly fortune or to wish for it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Murray coughed. No words of congratulation seemed available. At last +he went on:</p> + +<p>"Nurse Edith says she did not read the letter which was with the will. +Directly she went on duty in the morning, and while Madame Danterre was +asleep she put the papers back in the black box and the key of the box +in its usual place in a little bag on a table standing close by the head +of the bed. It was, as I have said, this same box which was put into Dr. +Larrone's care before he started on his mysterious journey to see Miss +Dexter. Now our position is very strong. We have evidence of the +witnessing of a paper by two men. We have the copy of the will made by +the nurse and witnessed by the housemaid, and it bears the signatures of +those two men. Then you must remember that, in a case of this kind, the +court is much more likely to set aside a will leaving property away from +the family than if the will in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> dispute had been an ordinary one in +favour of his relations."</p> + +<p>"Oh! it is horrible—too horrible!" cried Rose. "There must be some +mistake. That young girl I met at Groombridge! Even if the poor mother +were really wicked, that girl cannot have carried it on!"</p> + +<p>Rose had leant her elbows on the table, and clasped her white hands +tightly and then covered her face with them for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I can't believe it. I feel there is some terrible mistake, and we might +ruin this girl's life. It would be ill-gotten, unblest wealth."</p> + +<p>The lawyer noted with surprise that these two—Sir Edmund and Lady +Rose—were not more anxious for wealth, rather less so, since both had +known comparative poverty.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe anyone is the better for living on fraud, Lady Rose, +and I don't believe you have any right to drop the case. You have to +think of Sir David's good name and of his wishes. The will you are +suffering from was a portentous wrong."</p> + +<p>Rose trembled. Had she not felt it the most awful, the most portentous +wrong? Had it not burnt deep miserable wounds in her soul? The whole +horror of the desecration of her married life had been revealed to her +in this room by this man. Did she need that he should tell her what that +misery had been? The words he had used then were as well known to her as +the words he had used to-day.</p> + +<p>Rose said after a longer pause, and with slight hesitation:</p> + +<p>"And Sir Edmund does not know what Nurse Edith told you? He has not seen +the copy of the will?"</p> + +<p>"No; I wanted him to, but he refused to hear any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> more on the subject. I +cannot understand it at all." He spoke with considerable irritation, his +big forehead contracted with a deep frown. "Sir Edmund, after making the +guess on which the whole thing has turned, after discovering Akers and +Stock, after spending large sums in the necessary work——"</p> + +<p>"Has he spent much money?" Rose flushed deeply.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Murray, who usually had more tact, was now too full of his +grievance to pause.</p> + +<p>"He spent money as long as he could, and now takes no more interest in +the matter on the ground that he can no longer be of any use. Why, it +was his judgment we wanted, his perceptions; no one could be of more use +than Sir Edmund!"</p> + +<p>"And who is paying the expenses now?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! that is the reason why I wished to see you as soon as possible. I +felt that I could not, without your approval, continue as we are now. +The last cheque from Sir Edmund covered all expenses to the end of the +year. I have advanced what has been necessary since then, and if you +really wish the thing dropped, that is entirely my own affair. But I do +most earnestly hope that you will not do anything so wrong. I feel very +strongly my responsibility towards Sir David's memory in this matter."</p> + +<p>"I feel," said Rose, but her manner was irresolute, "that the scandal +has been forgotten by now; things come and go so fast. He will be +remembered only as a great soldier who died for his country."</p> + +<p>"It may be forgotten," said Mr. Murray in a stern voice she had never +heard before. "It may be forgotten in a society which is always needing +some new sensation and is always well supplied. But there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> a less +fluctuating public opinion. We men of business keep a clearer view of +character, and we know better how through all classes there is a verdict +passed on men that does not pass away in a season. Do you think, madam, +that when men treasure a good name it is the gossip of a London season +they regard? No; it is the thoughts of other good men in which they wish +to live. It is the sympathy of the good that a good man has a right to. +I believe in a future life, but I don't imagine I know whether in +another world they rejoice or suffer pain by anything that affects their +good name here. But I do know, Lady Rose, that deep in our nature is the +sense of duty to their memory, and I cannot believe that such an +instinct is without meaning or without some actual bearing on departed +souls. I don't expect Sir David to visit me in dreams, but I do expect +to feel a deep and reasonable self-reproach if I do not try to clear his +name."</p> + +<p>The heavy features of the solicitor had worked with a good deal of +emotion. The thought, the words "departed souls," were no mere words to +him in these summer days while Mrs. Murray, Junior, was supposed to be +doing well after an operation in a nursing home, and the doctors were +inclined to speak of next month's progress and on that of the month +after that, and to be silent as to any dates far ahead. In his +professional hours he did not dwell on these things, but it was the +actual spiritual conditions of the life he and his wife were leading +that gave a strange force to his words.</p> + +<p>"She never loved him," thought Mr. Murray as he looked out of the +window. He was on the same side of the writing-table that he had been on +when he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> first told her of the deep insult offered to her by Sir +David. He did not realise now the intensity of the contempt he had felt +then for the departed General as he looked at his photograph. It was +intolerable, he had thought then, that a man should have those large, +full eyes, that straight, manly look and bearing, who had gone to his +grave having deliberately planned that his dead hand should so deeply +wound a defenceless woman, and that woman his sweet, young wife. +Murray's mind was so full now of relief at the idea that Sir David had +done his best at the last, that in his relief he almost forgot that, in +a woman's mind the main fact might still be that there had been a Madame +Danterre in the case!</p> + +<p>But Rose now, as when he had first told her of Madame Danterre's +existence, was seeking with a single eye to find the truth. It had +seemed to her then a moral impossibility to believe that her husband had +meant to leave this horrible insult to their married life. David had +been incapable of anything so monstrous; he had not in his character +even the courage of such a crime.</p> + +<p>But now the key to the situation, according to Mr. Murray, was Molly; +and Rose again brought to bear all that she had of perception, of +experience, of instinct, to see her way clearly. She was silent; then at +last she looked up.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Murray, Miss Dexter could not commit such a crime. Why, I know her; +I spent some days in a country house with her. I know her quite well, +and I don't like her very much, but she really can't have done anything +of the kind, and therefore, the case won't be proved. I am sure it +won't. And if it fails only harm will be done to David's memory, not +good."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That is what Sir Edmund said, but believe me, Lady Rose, you have +neither of you anything to go upon. You think it impossible, but you +don't either of you see the immense force of the temptation. Some crimes +may need a villainous nature. This, if you could see it truly, only +needs one that is human under temptation, ignorant of danger, and +ambitious."</p> + +<p>"But then, was that why Edmund would have nothing more to do with the +case?" thought Rose.</p> + +<p>The look of clear, earnest, searching in Rose's eyes was clouded by a +frown.</p> + +<p>The clock struck twelve. Mr. Murray rose.</p> + +<p>"I am half an hour late for an appointment. Lady Rose, forgive me; I am +an old man, and maybe I take a harsh view of what passes before me. But +there is nothing, let me tell you, that alarms me more in the present +day than the way in which men and women lose their sense of duty in +their sense of sentimental sympathy."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h3> + +<h3>BROWN HOLLAND COVERS</h3> + +<p>That afternoon Rose was standing by the window in the drawing-room when +she became conscious that her gown was quite hot in the burning sun, +and, undoubtedly, its soft, grey tone would fade. She drew back and +pulled down the blinds.</p> + +<p>It was not the first time she had put off her black, for, in the Paris +heat, it had become intolerable, and she had certainly enjoyed her visit +to an inexpensive but excellent dressmaker, who had produced this grey +gown with all its determined simplicity.</p> + +<p>Rose looked round at the drawing-room now. The furniture in holland +covers was stacked in the middle of the room; the pictures were wrapped +in brown paper with large and rather unnecessary white labels printed +with "Glass" in red letters. The fire-irons were dressed in something +that looked like Jaeger and the tassels of the blinds hung in yellow +cambric bags. Rose smiled a little as she recalled how strange and +strong an impression a room in such a state had made on her in her +childhood. The drawing-room in her London home had seemed incomparably +more attractive then than at any other time. Lady Charlton had once +brought Rose up to see a dentist on a bright, autumn day. She had not +been much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> hurt, but it was a great comfort when the visit was over. She +and her mother had dinner on two large mutton chops, and some apricot +tartlets from a pastry-cook, things ordered by Lady Charlton with a view +to giving as little trouble as possible to two able-bodied women who +were living on board wages, and both of whom were, in private life, +excellent cooks. Lady Charlton was anxious, too, not to give trouble by +sending messages, having quite forgotten that there was also a boy who +lived in the house. So, after lunch, she had gone out to find a cab for +herself, and had left Rose to rest with a book on the big morocco sofa +in the dining-room.</p> + +<p>Rose had found her way to the drawing-room, and she could see now the +half-open shutter and the rich light of the autumn sun turning all the +dust of the air to gold in one big shaft of light. The child had never +seen the house when the family was away before, and with awestruck, +mysterious joy, she had lifted corners of covers and peered under chairs +and recognised legs of tables and footstools. Then she had stood up and +taken a comprehensive view of the whole of this world of mountains and +valleys, precipices and familiar little home corners, all covered in +brown holland, like sand instead of grass, all golden lights and soft +shadows.</p> + +<p>What had there been so very exciting in it—an excitement she could +still recall as keenly now? Was it the greatness of the revolution, or +surprise at the new order of things? It was such a startling +interruption of all the usual relations between the furniture of the +house and its human beings. A great London house wrapped up in the old +way spoke more of the old order its influence, its importance, than did +the house when inhabited, and out of its curl papers. Nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> could +speak more of law and order and care, and the "proper" condition of +things, and the self-respect of housemaids, the passing effectiveness of +sweeps, and the unobtrusive attentiveness of carpenters! But to the +child there had been a glorious sense of loneliness and licence as she +danced up and down the broad vacant spaces and jumped over the rolls of +Turkey carpets.</p> + +<p>Rose envied that child now, with an envy that she hoped was not bitter. +It is not because we knew no sorrows in our childhood that we would fain +recall it. It is because we now so seldom know one whole hour of its +licensed freedom, its absolute liberty in spite of bonds.</p> + +<p>A loud door-bell, as it seemed to Rose, sounded through the house as she +closed the shutter she had opened when she came in. She knew whose ring +it must be, and came quietly downstairs with a little frown.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse had been shown into the library. The room looked east, and +was now deliciously cool after the street. The dark blinds were half-way +down, and a little pretence at a breeze was coming in over the burnt +turf of the back garden.</p> + +<p>Edmund's manner as he met her was as usual, but tinged perhaps with a +little irony—very little, but just a flavour of it mingled with the +immense friendliness and the wish to serve and help her.</p> + +<p>Rose was, to his surprise, almost shy as she came into the room, but in +another moment she was herself.</p> + +<p>"Mamma has borne the journey splendidly. I've had an excellent account +in a long telegram this morning."</p> + +<p>But while she told him of their journey and of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> life in Paris, a +rather piteous look came into the blue eyes. Was she not to hear any of +Edmund's own news? Was she not to be allowed to show any sympathy? She +might not say how she had been thinking of him, dreaming of how nobly he +had met his troubles, praying for him in Notre Dame des Victories. She +saw at once that she must not; there was something changed. It was too +odd, but she was afraid of him. She shook herself and determined not to +be silly. She would venture to say what she wished.</p> + +<p>"Are things——" she began, but her voice trembled a little as, raising +her head, she saw that he was watching her. "Are things as bad as you +feared?"</p> + +<p>He at once looked out of the window.</p> + +<p>"Quite as bad as possible. I am just holding out till I can get some +work. Long ago, soon after I left the Foreign Office, I was asked to do +some informal work in Egypt; they wanted a semi-official go-between for +a time. I wish I had not refused then; I have been an ass throughout. If +I had even done occasional jobs they would have had some excuses for +putting me in somewhere now on the ground of my having had experience. I +have just written two articles on an Indian question, for I know that +part of the world as well as anybody over here, and they may lead to +something. Meanwhile, I am very well, so don't waste sympathy on me, I +am lodging with the Tarts, where everything is in apple-pie order."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am glad you are with those nice Tarts!" cried Rose, with genuine +womanly relief, that in another class of life would have found form and +expression in some such remark as that she knew Mary Tart would keep +things clean and comfortable, and would do the airing thoroughly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>Edmund's voice alone had made sympathy impossible, but he was a little +annoyed at the cheerful tone of Rose's words about the Tarts. It was +unlikely that she could have satisfied him in any way by speech or by +silence as to his own affairs. But why was she so very well dressed? He +had got so accustomed to her in soft, shabby black that he was not sure +if he liked this Paris frock; the simplicity of it was too clever.</p> + +<p>There was silence, and Rose rearranged a bowl of roses her sister had +sent her from the country. She chose out a copper-coloured bud and held +it towards him, and a certain pleading would creep into her manner as +she did so.</p> + +<p>Edmund smiled. She was really always the same quite hopeless mixture of +soft and hard elements.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Mr. Murray, Junior?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; he came this morning, and I can't conceive what to do. At last I +got so dazed with thinking that this afternoon I have tried to forget +all about it."</p> + +<p>"That will hardly get things settled," said Edmund, rather drily.</p> + +<p>Tears came into her eyes, and were forced back by an effort of will. +Then she told him quite quietly of Nurse Edith's evidence.</p> + +<p>"You mean," he explained, "that there is a copy of the real will leaving +everything to you. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I find it harder to +believe than when I first guessed at the truth. I suppose it is an +effect on the nerves, but now that we are actually proved right I am +simply bewildered. It seems almost too good to be true."</p> + +<p>Rose was also, it seemed, more dazed than triumphant. He felt it very +strange that she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> not told him the great news as soon as he came +into the room.</p> + +<p>"What made you say that you could not conceive what to do? There can be +no doubt now." He spoke quickly and incisively.</p> + +<p>"I cannot see," she said at last, "what is right. Mr. Murray is very +positive, and absolutely insists that it is my duty to allow the thing +to go on."</p> + +<p>"Of course," Edmund interjected.</p> + +<p>"But then, if he is mistaken! He really believes that Miss Dexter +received the will from Dr. Larrone and has suppressed it."</p> + +<p>Edmund got up suddenly, and looked down on her with what she felt to be +a stern attention.</p> + +<p>"And that," she concluded, looking bravely into the grave eyes bent on +her, "I absolutely decline to believe!"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Grosse abruptly, "it's out of the question. It's just +like a solicitor—fits his puzzle neatly together and is quite satisfied +without seeing the gross absurdity of supposing that such a girl could +carry on a huge fraud. A perfectly innocent, fresh, candid girl, brought +up in a respectable English country house—the thing is ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>He spoke with great feeling; he was more moved than she had seen him for +a long time past, perhaps that was why she felt her own enthusiasm for +Molly's innocence just a little damped. He sat down again as abruptly as +he had risen.</p> + +<p>"But it would be madness to drop the whole affair. This evidence of +Nurse Edith's is really conclusive; and the only thing I can see to be +said on the other side would be that David might have sent the will to +Madame Danterre to give her the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> option of destroying it. But there is +just another possibility, which Murray won't even consider, that Larrone +destroyed the will on the journey."</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said Rose, with a smile, "I believe it's conceivable that +it is in the box, but that she has never opened the box at all! I +believe a girl might shrink so much from reading that woman's papers +that she might not even open the box."</p> + +<p>"No one but a woman would have thought of such a possibility, but I +daresay you are right."</p> + +<p>He looked at her more gently, with more pleasure, and she instantly felt +brighter.</p> + +<p>"Then don't you think it would be possible to get at some plan, some +arrangement with her? It seems to me," she went on earnestly, "that we +ought to try to do it privately. Perhaps we might offer her the +allowance that would have been made to her mother. If she could be +convinced herself that the fortune is not really hers she might give it +up without all the horrid shame and publicity of a trial."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the scandal was public, and you have to think of David's good +name."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but then you see, Edmund, the true will would be proved publicly, +and the explanation of the delay would be that it had not been found +before."</p> + +<p>"She would have to expose her wretched mother."</p> + +<p>"Not more than the trial would expose her; whether we won the case or +lost it, Madame Danterre must be exposed. But if I am right how could it +be done?"</p> + +<p>"I think I had better do it myself," said Edmund. "I could see Miss +Dexter. I really think I could do it, feeling my way, of course."</p> + +<p>Rose did not answer. She locked her fingers tightly together as +something inarticulate and shape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>less struggled in her mind and in her +heart. She had no right, no claim, she thought earnestly, trying to keep +calm and at peace in her innermost soul. But she did not then or +afterwards allow to herself what she meant by "right" or by "claim."</p> + +<p>She looked up a moment later with a bright smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "you would be the best—far the best. Miss Dexter would +feel more at her ease with you than with me or anyone I can think of."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I must consult Murray first," said Edmund, absorbed in the +thought of the proposed interview. "I ought to go now; I have an +appointment at the Foreign Office—probably as futile as any of my +efforts hitherto when looking for work."</p> + +<p>He spoke the last words rather to himself than to his cousin, and then +left her alone. He did not question as he walked through the streets +across the park whether he had been as full of sympathy to Rose as he +had ever been; he was far too much accustomed to his own constancy to +question it now. But somehow his consciousness of Rose's presence had +not been as apparent as usual. No half ironic, half tender comments on +her attitude at this crisis had escaped him. He had been more +business-like than usual, and, man-like, he did not know it.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h3> + +<h3>THE WRATH OF A FRIEND</h3> + +<p>Canon Nicholls had had a hard fight with a naturally hot temper, and his +servant would have given him a very fair character on that point if he +had been applied to. But there came a stifling July morning when nothing +could please him. He had been out to dinner the night before, and it was +the man's opinion that he had "eaten something too good for him." He had +been to church early, and had come back without the light in his face he +usually brought with him, as if the radiance from the sanctuary lamp +loved to linger on the blind face. He was difficult all the rest of the +morning, and the kind, patient woman who read aloud to him and wrote his +letters became nervous and diffident, thinking it was her own fault.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon he usually took a stroll with his servant for guide, +and then had a doze, after which he went to Benediction at a +neighbouring convent. But to-day he settled into his arm-chair, and said +he meant to stay there, and that he wanted nothing, and (with more +emphasis) nobody.</p> + +<p>He was, in truth, greatly disturbed in his mind. He had heard things he +did not like to hear of Mark Molyneux. He had been quite prepared for +some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> jealousy and some criticism of the young man he loved. Nobody +charms everybody, and if anybody charms many bodies, then the rest of +the bodies, who are not charmed, become surprised and critical, if not +hostile. It is so among all sets of human beings: the Canon was no acrid +critic of religious persons, only he had always found them to be quite +human.</p> + +<p>The immediate cause of the acute trouble the Canon was going through +to-day had been a visit of the day before from Mrs. Delaport Green. +Adela, who, as he had once told Mark, sometimes looked in for a few +minutes, was under the impression that she very often called on the old +blind priest, and often mentioned her little attempts to cheer him up +with great complacence, especially to her Roman Catholic friends, as if +she were a constant ray of light in his darkness. She had not seen him +since her return from Cairo, but her first words were:</p> + +<p>"I was so sorry not to be able to come last week," spoken with the air +of a weekly visitor.</p> + +<p>But the Canon thought it so kind of her to come at all that he was no +critic of details in her regard.</p> + +<p>She had cantered with a light hand over all sorts of +subjects,—Westminster Cathedral, the reunion of Churches, her own +Catholic tendencies, her charities, the newest play (which she described +well), and her anxiety because her husband ate too much. Then, at last, +she lighted on Mark's sermons.</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls spoke with reserve of Mark; he was shy of betraying his +own affection for him.</p> + +<p>"Yes; it is young eloquence, fresh and quite genuine," he said in +response to Adela's enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"It sounds so very real," said Adela, with a sigh. "One couldn't +imagine, you know, that he could have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> any doubts, or that he could be +sorry, or disappointed, or anything of that sort—and yet——"</p> + +<p>"And yet, what?" asked the Canon.</p> + +<p>"And yet—well, I know I am foolish, and I do idealise people and make +up heroes—I know I do! It is such a pleasure to admire people, isn't +it? And after he gave up being heir to Groombridge Castle! I was staying +there when poor, dear Lord Groombridge got the news of his ordination, +and it was all so sad and so beautiful, and now I can't bear to think +that Father Molyneux is sorry already that he gave it all up."</p> + +<p>"Sorry that he gave it up—!"</p> + +<p>Adela gave a little jump in her chair. It made her so nervous to see a +blind man excited. But curiosity was strong within her.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it is quite true; a friend of mine who knows him quite +well, told me."</p> + +<p>"Told you <i>what</i>?"</p> + +<p>"That he was unhappy, and has doubts or troubles of some kind. I didn't +understand what exactly, but she knows that he will give it all up—the +vows and all that, I mean—if——"</p> + +<p>"If what?"</p> + +<p>Adela was not really wanting in courage.</p> + +<p>"If a certain very rich woman would marry him. It seems such a +come-down, so very dull and dreadful, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"You know all that's a lie!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it was all told to me."</p> + +<p>"But you knew there was not a word of truth in it, only you wanted to +see how I would take it. And I thought you were a kind-hearted woman! +How blind I am!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p> + +<p>Adela was galled to the quick. A quarrel, a scolding, would have been +tolerable, and perhaps exciting, but this naïve disappointment in +herself, this judgment from the man to whom she had been so good, was +too much!</p> + +<p>"I thought it was much more kind to let you know what everybody is +saying, that you might help him. I am very sorry I have made a mistake, +and that I must be going now. It is much later than I thought."</p> + +<p>"Must you?" There was the faintest sarcasm in the very polite tone of +the Canon's voice.</p> + +<p>Nor had this conversation been all; for out at dinner that night the +Canon had been worried with much the same story from a totally different +quarter. It was after the ladies had left the dining-room, and the +gossip had been rougher.</p> + +<p>He gave all his thoughts to brooding over the matter next day. Mark +could not have managed well—must have done or said something stupid, +and made enemies, he reflected gloomily.</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls had been young once, and almost as popular a preacher as +Mark, and he did not underrate the difficulties. But it was his firm +persuasion that, with tact and common-sense they were by no means +insurmountable. What really distressed the old man was that perhaps Mark +had been right in thinking that he personally could not surmount them. +And it was Canon Nicholls's doing that he was not by this time a novice +in a Carthusian Monastery! Therefore the Canon's soul was heavy with +anxiety as to whether he had made a great mistake.</p> + +<p>"He must be a fool, or else it's just possible that he has got an +uncommonly clever enemy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> The last thought revived the old man a +little, and he received his tea without any of the demonstrations of +disgust he had shown on drinking his coffee at breakfast.</p> + +<p>Presently the subject of his thoughts came upon the scene, and the +visitor saw at once that his old friend was unlike himself. The Canon +was exceedingly alert from the moment Mark came into the room, trying to +catch up the faintest indication, in his voice or movements, as to +whether he were in good or low spirits; he almost thought he heard a +quick sigh as Mark sat down. He could not see that Mark was undeniably +thinner and paler than he had been only a few weeks ago, and that his +eyes looked even more bright and keen in consequence.</p> + +<p>"Take some tea," said the Canon; and then, when he had given him time to +drink his tea, he turned on him abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I've heard some lies about you, and I'm going to tell you what they +are."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it's better to be ignorant."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not, now why did you incite young men to Socialism in South +London?"</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" said Mark. "Well, you shall catch it for that. I will +read you every word of that paper; not a line of anything else shall you +hear till you've been obliged to give your 'nihil obstat' to 'True and +False Socialism,' by your humble servant."</p> + +<p>"But that's not the worst that's said of you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! I know that."</p> + +<p>Perhaps if Canon Nicholls could have seen the strained look on the young +face he could have understood. As it was, he believed him to be taking +the matter too lightly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + +<p>"When I was young," he said, "I thought it my own fault if I made +enemies, and you know where there is a great deal of smoke there has +generally been some fire."</p> + +<p>"Then you mean to say," answered Mark, in a voice that was hard from the +effort at self-control, "that you think it is my fault that lies are +told against me, although you <i>do</i> call them lies?"</p> + +<p>"Frankly, I think you must have been careless," said the old man, +leaning forward and grasping the arm of his chair. "I think you must +have had too much disregard for appearances."</p> + +<p>He paused, and there was a silence of several moments, while the ticking +of the clock was quite loud in the little room.</p> + +<p>"Unless this is the doing of an enemy," said Canon Nicholls.</p> + +<p>"I do not know that it is an enemy," said Mark, "but I know there is +some one who is excessively angry and excessively afraid because I know +a secret of great importance."</p> + +<p>"And that person is a woman, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot answer that," said Mark. He was standing now with one elbow on +the end of the chimney-piece, and his head resting on his right hand, +looking down at the worn rug at his feet.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me exactly what it is they do say?" said Mark, still +speaking with an effort at cheerfulness that aggravated the nervous +state of Canon Nicholls.</p> + +<p>And there followed another silence, during which Father Molyneux +realised to himself with fear and almost horror that he was nearly +having a quarrel with the friend he loved so much, and on whose kindness +he had always counted, and whose wisdom had so often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> been his guide. He +was suffering already almost more than he owned to himself, and he had +come into the room of the holy, blind old man as to a place of refuge. +It gave him a sick feeling of misery and helplessness that there seemed +in the midst of his other troubles the possibility of a quarrel with +Canon Nicholls. This at least he must prevent; and so, leaning forward, +he said very gently:</p> + +<p>"Do tell me a little bit more of what you mean? I know you are speaking +as my friend, and, believe me, I am not ungrateful. I am sure there is a +definite story against me. I wish you would call a spade a spade quite +openly."</p> + +<p>"They have got hold of a story that you are tired of poverty and the +priesthood, and so on, and that you will give it all up if you can +persuade a certain very rich woman to marry you."</p> + +<p>"That is definite enough." Mark was struggling to speak without +bitterness. "And, for a moment, you thought——?" he could not finish +the sentence.</p> + +<p>"Good God! not for a fraction of a second. How can you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! forgive me, forgive me; I didn't mean it."</p> + +<p>Mark knelt down by the chair, tears were flowing from the blind eyes. +Canon Nicholls belonged to a generation whose emotions were kept under +stern control; the tears would have come more naturally from Mark. There +was a strange contrast between the academic figure of the old man in its +reserved and negative bearing, seriously annoyed with himself for +betraying the suffering he was enduring, and yet unable to check the +flow of tears, and the eager, unreserved, sympathetic attitude of the +younger man. After a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> few moments of silence Mark rose and began to +speak in low, quick accents——</p> + +<p>"It is a secret which is doing infinite harm to a soul made for good +things, and yet it is a secret which I can tell no one, not even you—at +least, so I am convinced. But it is a secret by which people are +suffering. The result is that I cannot deal with this calumny as I +should deal with it if I were free; and I believe that I have not got to +the worst of it yet. I see what it must lead to."</p> + +<p>He looked down wistfully for a moment, and then went on:</p> + +<p>"Last year I had a dream that was full of joy and peace, and that seemed +to me God's Will; but, through you, I came to see that I must give it +up, and I threw myself into the life here with all my heart. And now, +just when I had begun to feel that I was really doing a little good, now +that I have got friends among the poor whom I love to see and help, I +shall be sent away more or less under a cloud. I shall lose friends whom +I love, and whom it had seemed to me that I was called to help even at +the risk of my own soul. However, there it is. If I am not to be a +Carthusian, if I am not to work for sinners in London, I suppose some +other sphere of action will be found for me. I must leave it to Him Who +knows best."</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls bent forward, and held out his long, white hands with an +eager gesture, as though he were wrestling with his infirmity in his +great longing to gain an outlook which would enable him to read a little +further into the souls of men.</p> + +<p>"I cannot explain more definitely. It is a case of fighting for a soul, +or rather fighting with a soul against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> the devil in a terrible crisis. +I don't know what to compare it to. Perhaps it is like performing a +surgical operation while the patient is scratching your eyes out. If I +can leave my own point of view out of sight for the present I can be of +use, but I must let the scratching out of my eyes go on."</p> + +<p>Mark went to the church early that evening, as it was his turn to be in +the confessional. One or two people came to confession, and then the +church seemed to be empty. He knelt down to his prayers and soon became +absorbed. To-night he was oppressed in a new way by the sins, the +temptations, and the unutterable weakness of man; his failures; his +uselessness. Nothing else in Art had ever impressed him so much as the +figure of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. That beautiful +figure, with all the freshness of its primal grace, stretching out its +arms from a new-born world towards the infinite Creator, had expressed, +with extraordinary pathos, the weakness, the failure, almost the +non-existence of what is finite. "I Am Who Am" thundered Almighty Power, +and how little, how helpless, was man!</p> + +<p>And then, as Mark, weary with the misery of human life, almost repined +at the littleness of it all, he felt rebuked. Could anything be little +that was so loved of God? If the primal truth, if Purity Itself and Love +Itself could make so amazing a courtship of the human soul, how dared +anyone despise what was so honoured of the King? No, under all the +self-seeking, the impure motives, the horrid cruelties of life, he must +never lose sight of the delicate loveliness, the pathetic aspiration, +the exquisite powers of love that are never completely extinguished. He +must see with God's eyes, if he were to do God's work. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> in the +thought that it was, after all, God's work and not his own, Mark found +comfort. He had come into the church feeling the burden on his shoulders +very hard to bear, and now he made the discovery that it was not he who +was carrying it at all; he only appeared to have it laid upon him while +Another bore it for him.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h3> + +<h3>THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK</h3> + +<p>Two excellent and cheerful old persons were engaged in conversation on +the subject of Father Molyneux. The Vicar-General of the diocese, a +Monsignor of the higher, or pontifical rank, had called to see the +Rector of Mark's church, and had already rapidly discussed other matters +of varying importance when he said, leaning back in an old and faded +leather chair:</p> + +<p>"What's all this about young Molyneux?"</p> + +<p>Both men were fairly advanced in years and old for their age, for they +had both worked hard and constantly for many years on the mission. They +had to be up early and to bed late, with the short night frequently +interrupted by sick calls, and on a Sunday morning they had always +fasted till one o'clock, and usually preached two or even three times on +the same day. They had never known for very many years what it was to be +without serious anxiety on the matter of finance. Their lives had been +models of amazing regularity and self-control. Their recreations +consisted chiefly in dining with each other at mid-day on Mondays, and +spending the afternoon with whist and music. Probably, too, they had +dined with a leading parishioner once or twice in the week.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>In politics they were mildly Liberal, more warmly Home Rulers, but they +put above all the interests of the Church. They were, too, fierce +partisans on the controversies about Church music, and had a zeal for +the beauty and order of their respective churches that was admirable in +its minuteness and its perseverance. They both had a large circle of +friends with whom they rejoiced at annual festivities at their Colleges, +and with whom they habitually and freely censured their immediate +authorities. Those who were warmest in their devotion to the Vatican +were often the most inclined to make a scapegoat of a mere bishop. But +now one of these two old friends had been made Vicar-General of the +diocese, and it was likely that the Rector would speak to him with less +than his usual freedom. Lastly, both men had that air of complete +knowledge of life which comes with the habits of a circle of people who +know each other intimately. And neither of them realised in the least +that the minds of the educated laity were a shut book to them.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Rector, and after puffing at his pipe he went on, "we +can hardly get into the church for the crowd, and I am going to put up a +notice to ask ladies to wear small hats—toques; isn't that what they +call them?"</p> + +<p>"I heard him once," said the Vicar-General, "and, to tell the truth, it +didn't seem up to much."</p> + +<p>"Words," said the Rector; "it's Oxford all over. There must be a new +word for everything. Why, he preached on Our Lady the other day, and I +declare I don't think there were three sentences I'd ever heard before! +And on Our Lady, too! A man must be gone on novelty who wants to find +anything new to say about Our Lady."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It doesn't warm me up a bit, that sort of thing," said the +Vicar-General. "I like to hear the things I've heard all my life."</p> + +<p>"Of course," responded the other, "but you won't get that from our +popular preachers, I can tell you," and he laughed with some sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"Is he making converts?"</p> + +<p>"Too many, far too many; that's just what I complain of. We shall have a +nice name for relapses here if it goes on like this."</p> + +<p>Both men paused.</p> + +<p>"You've nothing more to complain of?" asked the Monsignor.</p> + +<p>"No—no—" The second "no" was drawn out to its full length. "Of course, +he's unpunctual, and he's often late for dinner. I don't know where he +gets his dinner at all sometimes. And there are always ladies coming to +see him. If there are two in the parlour and another in the dining-room, +and a young man on the stairs, it's for ever Father Molyneux they are +asking for. And, of course, he has too much money given him for the +poor, and we have double the beggars we had last year."</p> + +<p>"But," said the other, "you know there's more being said than all that. +There's an unpleasant story, and it's about that I want to ask you. +Well—the same sort of thing as poor Nobbs; you'll remember Nobbs?"</p> + +<p>"Remember Nobbs! Why, I was curate with him when I first left the +seminary. Now, there was a preacher, if you like! But it turned his head +completely. Poor, wretched Nobbs! It's a dangerous thing to preach too +well, I'm certain of that."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a danger you and I have been spared," said the Monsignor, +and they both laughed heartily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then they got back to the point.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Rector, "there's a lady comes here sometimes who spoke +to me about this the other day. It seems she went to see John Nicholls, +and the poor old blind fellow bit her head off, but she thought she +ought to tell somebody who might put a stop to the talk, and so she came +to me. There's some woman, a very rich Protestant, who gives out openly +that she is waiting till Molyneux announces that he doesn't believe in +the Church, and then they will marry and go to America. Then, another +day Jim Dixon came along, and a friend of his had heard the tale from +some Army man at his Club. It's exactly the way things went on about +Nobbs, you know, beginning with talk like that. Really, if it wasn't for +having seen Nobbs go down hill I shouldn't think anything of it. Young +Molyneux is all straight so far, but so was Nobbs straight at first."</p> + +<p>"A priest shouldn't be talked about," said the Monsignor.</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said the Rector.</p> + +<p>"He has started too young," the Monsignor went on, not unkindly; "it's +all come on in such a hurry; he ought to have had a country mission +first. But my predecessor thought he'd be so safe with you."</p> + +<p>"But how can I help it?" asked the other hotly; "I'm sure I've done my +best! You can ask him if I haven't warned him from his very first sermon +that he'd be a popular preacher. I've even tried to teach him to preach. +I've lent him Challoner, and Hay, and Wiseman, and tried to get him out +of his Oxford notions, but he's no sooner in the pulpit than he's off at +a hard gallop—three hundred words to a minute, and such +words!—'vitality,' 'personality,' 'develop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>ment,' 'recrudescence,' +'mentality'—the Lord knows what! And there they sit and gaze at him +with their mouths open drinking it in as if they'd been starved! No, no; +it won't be my fault if he turns out another Nobbs—poor, miserable old +Nobbs! Now his really were sermons!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said the other, in a business-like tone, "I am inclined to think +it would be best for him to take a country mission for a few years. I've +no doubt he is on the square now, and that will give him time to quiet +down a bit. He'll be an older and a wiser man after that, and he could +do some sound, theological reading. Lord Lofton has been asking for a +chaplain, and we must send him a gentleman. I could tell him that +Molyneux had been a little overworked in London, and if he goes down to +the Towers at the end of July, no one will suppose he is leaving for +good, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Very well," answered the Rector; "I don't want anything said against +him, you know. I've had many a curate not half as ready to work as this +man."</p> + +<p>"No, no; I quite understand. Well, I'll write to him in the course of +the week. And now about this point of plain chant?" And both men forgot +the existence of Mark as they waxed hot on melodious questions.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>I can't believe that Jonathan loved David more than the second curate +had come to love Mark Molyneux in their work together. It is good to +bear the yoke in youth, and it is very good to have a hero worship for +your yoke fellow. Father Jack Marny was a young Kelt, blue-eyed, +straight-limbed, fair-haired, and very fair of soul. He would have told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> +any sympathetic listener that he owed everything to Mark—zeal for +souls, habits of self-denial, a new view of life, even enjoyment of +pictures and of Browning, as well as interest in social science. All +this was gross exaggeration, but in him it was quite truthful, for he +really thought so. He had the run of Mark's room, and they took turns to +smoke in each other's bedrooms, so as to take turns in bearing the +rector's observations on the smell of smoke on the upstairs landing. +Father Marny had a subscription at Mudie's—his only extravagance—and +he always ordered the books he thought Mark wished for, and Mark always +ordered from the London library the books he thought would most interest +Jack. Father Marny revelled in secret in the thought of all that might +have belonged to Mark, and he possessed, of course most carefully +concealed, a wonderful old print he had picked up on a counter, of +Groombridge Castle, exalting the round towers to a preposterous height, +while in the foreground strolled ladies in vast hoops, and some animals +intended apparently for either cows or sheep according to the fancy of +the purchaser.</p> + +<p>But what each of the curates loved best was the goodness he discerned in +the other, and the more intimate they became the more goodness they +discerned. The very genuinely good see good, and provoke good by seeing +it, and reflect it back again, as two looking-glasses opposite to each +other repeat each other's light <i>ad infinitum</i>.</p> + +<p>It was a Monday, and the rector had gone out to dinner, and the two +young men were smoking in the general sitting-room. Father Marny was +looking over the accounts of a boot club, and objurating the handwriting +of the lady who kept them. Mark was in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> absolutely passive state to +which some hard-working people can reduce themselves; he had hardly the +energy to smoke. A loud knock produced no effect upon him.</p> + +<p>"Lazy brute!" murmured Father Marny, in his affectionate, clear voice, +"can't even fetch the letters." And a moment later he went for them +himself, and having flung a dozen letters over his companion's shoulder, +went back to the accounts.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later he looked up, and gave a little start. He was quick to +see any change in Mark, and he did not like his attitude. He did not +know till that moment how anxious he had been as to the possibility of +some change. He moved quickly forward and stood in front of the deep +chair in which Mark was sitting, leaning forward with his eyes fixed on +the carpet.</p> + +<p>"Bad news?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Bad enough," said Mark, and, very slowly raising his head, he gave a +smile that was the worst part of all the look on his face. Jack Marny +put one hand on his shoulder, and a woman's touch could not have been +lighter.</p> + +<p>"It's not——?" he said, and then stopped.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," Mark answered. "I am to be a domestic chaplain to that +pious old ass, Lord Lofton. It seems I need quiet for study—quiet to +rot in! My God! is that how I am to work for souls?"</p> + +<p>It was, perhaps, better for Mark that Jack Marny broke down completely +at the news, for, by the time he had been forced into telling his friend +that it was preposterous to suppose that any man was necessary for God's +work, and that if they had faith at all they must believe that God +allowed this to happen, light<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> began to dawn in his own mind. But he was +almost frightened at the passionate resentment of the Kelt; he saw there +was serious danger of some outbreak on his part against the authorities.</p> + +<p>"They won't catch me staying here after you are gone!"</p> + +<p>"Much good that would do me," said Mark. "I should get all the blame."</p> + +<p>"They must learn that we are not slaves!" thundered the curate, his fair +face absolutely black with wrath.</p> + +<p>"We are God's slaves," said Mark, in a low voice, and then there was +silence between them for the space of half an hour.</p> + +<p>The door opened and a shrill voice cried out, "There's Tom Turner at the +door asking for Father Mark," and the door was banged to again.</p> + +<p>Tom Turner was the very flower of Mark's converts to a good life.</p> + +<p>Father Marny groaned at the name.</p> + +<p>"Let me see him," he said. "Go out and get a walk."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather see him; I don't know how much oftener——"</p> + +<p>The sentence was not finished. He had left the room in two strides.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h3> + +<h3>MENE THEKEL PHARES</h3> + +<p>The more Edmund reflected on the matter the more difficult he found it +to decide what steps to take in order to approach Molly. In the first +impulse he had thought only that here was the chance of serving her, of +proving her friend in difficulty, which he had particularly wished for. +It would make reparation for the past—a past he keenly defended in his +own mind as he had defended it to Molly herself, but yet a past that he +would wish to make fully satisfactory by reparation for what he would +not confess to have been blameworthy. But when he tried to realise +exactly what he should have to tell Molly it seemed impossible. For how +could he meet her questions; her indignant protests? She would become +more and more indignant at the plot that had been carried on against +her, a plot which Edmund had started and had carried on until quite +lately, and which had also until quite lately been entirely financed by +him. Even if he baffled her questions, his consciousness of the facts +would make it too desperately difficult a task for him to assume the +<i>rôle</i> of Molly's disinterested friend now, although in truth he felt as +such, and would have done and suffered much to help her.</p> + +<p>Edmund had by nature a considerable sympathy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> with success, with pluck, +with men or women who did things well. There are so many bunglers in +life, so few efficient characters, and he felt Molly to be entirely +efficient. Even the over-emphasis of wealth in the setting of her life +had been effective; it fitted too well into what the modern world wanted +to be out of proportion. A thing that succeeded so very well could +hardly be bad form. Hesitation, weakness, would have made it vulgar; +hesitation and weakness in past days had often made vulgar emphasis on +rank and power, but in the hands of the strong such emphasis had always +been effective and fitting. There was a kind of artistic regret in +Edmund's mind at the thought that this excellent comedy of life as +played by Molly should be destroyed. And he had come to think it +certainly would be destroyed.</p> + +<p>One last piece of evidence had convinced him more than any other.</p> + +<p>Nurse Edith had a taste for the dramatic, and enjoyed gradual +developments. Therefore she had kept back as a <i>bonne bouche</i>, to be +served up as an apparent after-thought, a certain half sheet of paper +which she had preserved carefully in her pocket-book since the night on +which she had made the copy of Sir David Bright's will. It was the +actual postscript to Sir David's long letter to Rose; the long letter +Nurse Edith had put back in the box and which had remained there +untouched until Molly had taken it out. The postscript would not be +missed, and might be useful. It was only a few lines to this effect:</p> + +<p>"P.S.—I think it better that you should know that I am sending a few +words to Madame Danterre to tell her briefly that justice must be done. +Also, in case anyone, in spite of my precautions to conceal it, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> +aware that I possessed the very remarkable diamond ring I mention in +this letter, and asks you about it, I wish you to know that I am sending +it direct to Madam Danterre in my letter to her. May God forgive me, +and, by His Grace, may you do likewise."</p> + +<p>The sight of David's handwriting, the astonishing verification of his +own first surmise, the vivid memory of Rose unwillingly showing him the +letter and the ring and the photograph she supposed to have been +intended for herself, had a very powerful effect on Edmund Grosse. The +whole story was so clear, so well connected, it seemed impossible to +doubt it. Yet he believed in Molly's innocence without an effort. What +was there to prove that Madame Danterre had not destroyed the will after +Nurse Edith copied it? She had the key and the box within reach, and the +dying, again and again, have shown incalculable strength—far greater +than was needed in order to get at the will and burn it while a nurse +was absent or asleep.</p> + +<p>Again, it was to Larrone's interest to destroy that will. They had only +Pietrino's persuasion of Larrone's integrity to set against the +possibility of his having opened the box on his long journey to England, +against the possibility of his having read the will, and destroyed it, +before he gave the box to Molly. He would have seen at once not only +that his own legacy would be lost, but, what might have more influence +with him, he must have seen what a doubtful position he must hold in +public opinion if this came to light. He had been the chief friend and +adviser of Madame Danterre, who had paid him lavishly for his medical +services from her first coming to Florence, and who had made no secret +of the legacy he was to receive at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> her death. He had been with her at +the last, and was now actually carrying on her gigantic fraud by taking +the box to her daughter. Would it not have been a great temptation to +him to destroy the will while he had no fear of discovery rather than +put the matter in Molly's hands? Lastly came Rose's subtle feminine +suggestion that the will might be in the box but that Molly had never +opened it. Some instinct, some secret fear of painful revelations, might +easily have made her shrink from any disclosures as to her mother's +past. Rose was so often right, and the obvious suggestion, that such a +shrinking from knowledge would have been natural to Rose and unnatural +to Molly, did not occur to the male mind, always inclined to think of +women as mostly alike.</p> + +<p>At the same time he was really unwilling to relinquish the <i>rôle</i> of +intermediary. His thoughts had hardly left the subject since the hour of +his talk with Rose, and it was especially absorbing on the day on which +Molly was to give a party, to which he was invited—and invited to meet +royalty. He decided that he must that evening ask his hostess to give +him an appointment for a private talk.</p> + +<p>Edmund arrived late at Westmoreland House when the party was in full +swing. He paused a moment on the wide marble steps of the well staircase +as he saw a familiar face coming across the hall. It was the English +Ambassador in Madrid, just arrived home on leave, as Edmund knew. He was +a handsome grey-haired man of thin, nervous figure, and he sprang +lightly to meet his old friend and put his hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Grosse!" he cried, "well met." And then, in low, quick tones he added: +"What am I going to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> at the top of this ascent? This amazing young +woman! What does it mean, eh? I knew the wicked old mother. Tell me, was +she really married to David Bright all the time? Was it Enoch Arden the +other way up? But we must go on," for other late arrivals were joining +them. When they reached the landing the two men stood aside for a +moment, for they saw that it was too late for them to be announced. +Royalty was going in to supper.</p> + +<p>A line of couples was crossing the nearest room, from one within. The +great square drawing-room was lit entirely by candles in the sconces +that were part of the permanent decoration. But the many lights hardly +penetrated into the great depths of the pictures let into the walls. +These big, dark canvases by some forgotten Italian of the school of +Veronese, gave the room something of the rich gloom of a Venetian +palace. Beyond a few stacks of lilies in the corners, Molly had done +nothing to relieve its solemn dignity. As she came across it from the +opposite corner, the depths of the old pictures were the background to +her white figure.</p> + +<p>She was bending her head towards the Prince who was taking her down—a +tall, fair man with blue eyes and a heavy jaw. Then as she came near the +doorway she raised her head and saw Edmund. There was a strange, soft +light in her eyes as she looked at him. It was the touch of soul needed +to give completeness to her magnificence as a human being. The white +girlish figure in that room fitted the past as well as the present. The +great women of the past had been splendidly young too, whereas we keep +our girls as children, comparatively speaking.</p> + +<p>Molly had that combination of youth and experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> which gives a +special character to beauty. There was no detailed love of fashion in +her gorgeous simplicity of attire; there was rather something subtly in +keeping with the house itself.</p> + +<p>The Prince turned to speak to the Ambassador, and the little procession +stopped.</p> + +<p>Edmund was more artistic in taste than in temperament, and he was not +imaginative. But he could not enjoy the full satisfaction of his +fastidious tastes to-night, nor had he his usual facility for speech. He +could not bring himself to utter one word to Molly. They stood for that +moment close together, looking at each other in a silence that was +electric. No wonder that Molly thought his incapacity to speak a +wonderful thing; others, too, noticed it.</p> + +<p>"What a bearing that girl has! What movement!" cried the Ambassador, as, +after greeting the first few couples who passed him, he drew Grosse to a +corner and looked at him curiously. But Edmund seemed moonstruck. Then, +in a perfunctory voice, he said slowly.</p> + +<p>"What is the writing in that picture?"</p> + +<p>"Mene Thekel Phares," said his friend. "My dear Grosse! surely you know +a picture of the 'Fall of Babylon' when you see it? Now let us go where +we shall not be interrupted. Tell me all about this girl with the +amazing bearing and big eyes, whom princes delight to honour, and +Duchesses to dine with! How did she get dear Rose Bright's money?"</p> + +<p>Edmund had never disliked a question more.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you all I know," he said unblushingly, "but not to-night, old +fellow. It would take too long."</p> + +<p>And to his joy a countess and a beauty seized upon the terribly curious +diplomatist and made him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> take her down to supper. And they agreed while +they supped exquisitely that the real job dear old Grosse ought to be +given was that of husband to their hostess.</p> + +<p>"But then there is poor Rose Bright."</p> + +<p>"Lady Rose Bright would not have him when he was rich," he objected. +"No; this will do very nicely. If I am not mistaken (and I'm pretty well +read in human eyes), the lady is willing."</p> + +<p>After supper there was dancing. Edmund did not dance. He stood in a +corner, his tall form a little bent, merely watching, and presently he +turned away. He had made up his mind. He would not try to speak to Molly +to-night, and he would not ask her for a talk.</p> + +<p>She was dancing as he left the room, and he turned half mechanically to +watch her. It was always an exquisite pleasure to see her dance. He left +her with a curious sense of farewell in his mind. Fate was coming fast, +he knew; he could not doubt that for a moment. He was not the man to +avert it. No one could avert it. It was part of the tragedy that, pity +her as he might, he could not really wish to avert it. He would give no +warning. Some other hand must write "Mene Thekel Phares" on the wall of +her palace of pleasure and success.</p> + +<p>Edmund Grosse declined the task.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>Molly danced on in the long gallery between its walls of mirrors and +their infinite repetitions of twinkling candles and dancing figures +pleasantly confused to the eye by the delicate wreaths of gold foliage +that divided their panes. In the immeasurable depths of those +reflections the nearest objects melted by endless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> repetition into dim +distances, and the present dancing figures might seem to melt into a far +past where men and women were dancing also.</p> + +<p>Gallery within gallery in that mirrored world, with very little effort +of imagination, might become peopled by different generations. As the +figures receded in space so they receded in time. Groups of human +beings, with all the subtle ease of a decadent civilisation, ceded their +place to groups of men and women who moved with more slowness and +dignity in the middle distance of those endless reflections. And looking +down those avenues of gilded foliage into that fancied past, the old cry +might well rise to the lips: "What shadows we are, and what shadows we +pursue!"</p> + +<p>But, whether in the foreground of to-day, or in the secrets that the +mirrors held of a century before, or in the indistinguishable mist of +their greatest depths, wherever the imagination roamed, it found in +every group of human beings a woman who was young and beautiful, and yet +it could come back to the dancing figure of Molly without any shock of +disappointment or disdain.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>"But it is daylight!" cried two young men who paused breathless with +their partners by the high narrow windows, at the end of the gallery, +and they threw back the shutters. The growing dawn mingled with the +lights of the decreasing candles, with the infinite repetitions of the +mirror, with the soft music of the last valse.</p> + +<p>And Molly bore the light perfectly, as the chorus of praise and thanks +and "good-nights" of the late stayers echoed round her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not 'good-night' but 'good-bye,'" said a very young girl, looking up at +Molly with facile tears rising in her blue eyes. "We go away to-morrow, +and this perfect night is the last!"</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h3> + +<h3>MARK ENTERS INTO TEMPTATION</h3> + +<p>The more he realised Molly's danger, the more he believed in her +innocence—the more anxious Edmund became to find a suitable envoy to +approach her from the enemy's side, and one who, if possible, would +understand his position.</p> + +<p>Like most men who have a repugnance to clerical influence he had a great +idea of its power, and a perfect readiness to make use of it. He was +delighted when he remembered having met Mark Molyneux at Molly's house. +The meeting had not been quite a success, but this he did not remember. +Edmund's half-sleepy easy manner had been more cordial, but not quite so +good as usual. He was just too conscious of the strangeness of the fact +that Edmund Grosse should be talking with a "bon petit curé." He knew +Father Molyneux to be Groombridge's cousin, and to have been considered +a man of unusual promise at Oxford, but, all the same, whatever he had +been, he was a priest now, and Grosse had never quite made up his mind +as to his own manner to a priest. He was so practised in dealing with +other people, but not with ecclesiastics. He did not in the least +realise that the slight condescension and uncertainty in his manner, +with all his effort at cordiality, was the outcome of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> rather +deeply-seated antagonism to the claims he conceived all priests to make, +in their hearts, on the souls of men. I have known a man, not altogether +unlike Edmund Grosse, to cross the street in London rather than pass a +priest on the same pavement. Grosse would not have been so foolish as +that, but still, it was not surprising that the two men did not get on +particularly well. All that Edmund now remembered of this chance meeting +was Molly's evidently deep interest in the young priest, and he recalled +her saying at the time when she had been much moved by her mother's +cruel letter, that she was going to hear Father Molyneux preach that +evening. From the avowedly anti-clerical Molly, that meant much.</p> + +<p>Edmund knew nothing of the recent talk about Mark, although Mrs. +Delaport Green had tried to sigh out some insinuations on the subject in +talking to him. Perhaps he was a less receptive listener than of yore, +when he had more empty spaces in his mind than he had this year. He +received, indeed, a faint impression that Mrs. Delaport Green was +sentimentalising over some disappointment she was suffering under +acutely with regard to the popular preacher, and had felt her motive to +be curiosity to gain information from himself on some point of which he +knew nothing. But if he had been more attentive he might have gained +enough information to make him hesitate to involve poor Mark in Molly's +affairs.</p> + +<p>Almost as soon as he had thought of consulting Mark, he proposed the +notion to Rose, who was enthusiastic in its support.</p> + +<p>It is not necessary to give his letter to Father Molyneux, which had to +be long and careful, and was written after consultation with Mr. +Murray.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Murray was quite in favour of an informal interview, and disposed to +agree in the choice of Father Molyneux as ambassador. "I am not afraid +of your letting Miss Dexter know the strength of our case," he said. +"Father Molyneux must judge for himself how far it is wise to frighten +Miss Dexter for her own sake. He is, as I understand, to try to persuade +her to produce the will, and I suppose he will assume that she does not +know of its existence among her mother's papers. This would save her +pride, and you might come to terms if she would produce it. If you fail, +the next course would be for me to insist on an interview, and to carry +things with a high hand. I should say, in effect: 'We are aware that Sir +David Bright made a will on his way to Africa, and we can prove that it +was sent by mistake to your mother, because we have a witness who saw it +in her box. It was in her box when it was handed to Dr. Larrone, and it +has been traced, therefore, into your hands. We have a copy of it which +we can produce if you have destroyed the original, and, if you have not +done so, we can get an order of the court compelling you to produce it. +You cannot deny the fact that the will was sent to Madame Danterre by +mistake, for you have the letter which accompanied it, and we have the +postscript to the letter taken from the box by a witness whom we are +prepared to call. Will you produce the box in which, no doubt, the will +has escaped your notice, or shall we get the order of the court? The +will has, as I have said, been traced into your hands.' I doubt if any +woman (at all events one such as you describe Miss Dexter) would resist, +and no solicitor whom she consulted, and to whom she told the truth, +would advise her to do so—no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> respectable solicitor, that is to say, +and no prudent one."</p> + +<p>When Edmund showed Rose his letter to Father Mark she had only one +criticism to make. She felt that Edmund took too easily for granted that +the priest would be ready to put his finger into so very hot a pie. +Father Mark must be appealed to more earnestly to come to the rescue, +and less as if it were quite obvious that he would be ready to do so as +part of his natural business in life. Edmund agreed to add some +sentences at her suggestion.</p> + +<p>It is important to realise Mark's state of mind, at the time when this +strong, additional trial was to come upon him.</p> + +<p>With the full approval of his friend, Canon Nicholls, Mark decided not +to take the decree of banishment from London without remonstrance. He +was not astonished at the result of the talk against him. That his one +great enemy should have poisoned the wells so easily was not very +surprising. He could not help knowing that the very keenness and ardour +of his friends had produced prejudice against him. There was, among the +religious circles in London, a perhaps healthy suspicion of hero worship +for popular preachers, and of any indiscreet zeal. The great Religious +Orders knew how to deal with life, and it was safer to have an +enthusiasm for an Order than for an individual. Seculars were the right +people for daily routine and work among the poor, but for a young +secular priest to become a bright, particular star was unusual and +alarming.</p> + +<p>Jealousy is the fault of the best men because it eludes their most +vigilant examinations, and, while their energy is taken up with visible +enemies, it dresses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> itself in a complete and dignified disguise and +comes out either as discretion or zeal or a love of humility.</p> + +<p>Mark saw all this less clearly than did the blind Canon, but he realised +it enough not to be surprised at the quick growth of the seed Molly had +sown in well-prepared ground.</p> + +<p>But the blow he did not expect came from his own rector. He went to him, +thinking he would back him up in his efforts to get an explanation of +this sudden order, and he was told, between pinches of snuff, that he +had much better do as he was bid without making a fuss, and that he was +being sent to an excellent berth, which was exactly what he needed. The +rector was sorry to lose him certainly, but he thought it was the best +possible arrangement for himself. There was something of grunts and +sniffs between the short phrases that did not soften them. Mark became +speechless with hurt feeling.</p> + +<p>It became clearly evident to Canon Nicholls that the rector and one or +two of the older priests who had wind of the matter could not see why +there should be any fuss about it. Young Molyneux was under no cloud; +why should he behave as if it were a disgrace to be chaplain to poor old +Lord Lofton? Was he crying out because London would be in such a bad way +without him? What the Canon could not get them to see was the effect on +public opinion. To send Mark away now was to advertise backbiting until +it might become a real scandal. They could not see beyond their own +immediate circle; if all the priests knew he was really a good fellow +they thought that quite enough. They had a horror of a man making +himself talked of outside, but they had no notion of giving him the +chance to right himself with the out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>side world. It was much better that +he should go away and be forgotten.</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls had always been of opinion that the secular clergy in +England were more hardly treated than the regulars. They were expected +to have the absolute detachment of monks, without the support that a +Religious Order gives to its subjects. They were given the standards of +the cloister in the seminary, and then tumbled out into life in the +world. No one in authority seemed anxious not to discourage a young +secular priest. To be regular and punctual, to avoid rows, and to keep +out of debt were the virtues that naturally appealed to the approval of +a harassed bishop. But a zeal that put a man forward and brought him +into public notice was likely to be troublesome, and such men were +seldom very good at accounts. The type of young man which Mark +resembled, according to the priests who discussed the question, was not +a popular one among them. As a type it had not been found to wash well.</p> + +<p>Canon Nicholls was not popular among them for other reasons, but chiefly +because of a biting tongue. He would let his talk flow without tact or +diplomacy on these questions, and often did far more harm than good, in +consequence. He fairly stormed to one or two of his visitors at the +absurdity of hiding a man away because of unjust slander. It was the +very moment in which he ought to be brought forward and supported in +every way. The fact was that the man was to be sacrificed to the +supposed good of the Church, only no one would say so candidly. Whereas, +in reality, by justice to the man the Church would be saved from a +scandal!</p> + +<p>Mark was outwardly very calm, but he was changed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> His friends said that +his vitality and earnestness were bound to suffer in the struggle for +self-repression. His sermons were becoming mechanical tasks and the +confessional a weariness. He made his protest, as Canon Nicholls wished, +but after the talk with his rector he knew it was useless. He wrapped +himself in silence, even with Father Jack Marny. He began, half +consciously, to be more self-indulgent in details and the only subject +on which he ever showed animation was a projected holiday in +Switzerland. He once alluded to the possibility of going to Groombridge +for the shooting.</p> + +<p>At first he had not allowed Father Marny to take any of his now painful +work among the people he was so soon to leave, but, after a week or two, +he acquiesced. What was the use when he was to leave them for good and +all? It were better they should learn at once to get on without him. +Father Marny, in passionate sympathy, was ready to work himself to death +and acknowledge no fatigue. It was easy to conceal fatigue or anything +else from Mark in his preoccupied state of mind. He showed no interest +when Lord Lofton wrote him a most warmly and tactfully expressed letter +of welcome, in which he told the coming chaplain that he must not +suppose there was not work in plenty to be done for souls in the +country.</p> + +<p>"Humbugging old men and women who want pensions and soup and blankets!" +Mark said with unusual irritation, as he flung the letter to his friend.</p> + +<p>But to the curate Mark was as much above criticism as a martyr at the +foot of the gallows.</p> + +<p>Strangely enough, the first break into this moral fog that was settling +down in his spiritual world was, of all unlikely things, the letter from +Edmund Grosse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>When he got Edmund's letter Mark was sulking—there is no other word for +it—over his answer to Lord Lofton, which ought to have gone several +days ago. Of course he was bound by his mission oath to go where he was +placed, but the authorities might at least have waited to hear from him +before handing him over as if he were a parcel or a Jesuit. He read +Edmund's cramped writing with a little difficulty, and then threw the +three sheets it covered on to the table with a bang, and jumped up.</p> + +<p>"Dash it!" he cried, "this is rather too much."</p> + +<p>He did not stop to think that Edmund could not have been so idiotic as +to write that letter if he had known of the state of the case between +him and Miss Dexter. It only seemed at the moment that it was another +instance of cruelty and utter unfairness, part of the same treatment he +was receiving, which expected a man to be a plaster saint with no +thought for himself, no natural feelings, no sense of his own +reputation! First of all he was to be buried, torn from his friends, +from his work for souls, from the joy of the Good Shepherd seeking the +lost sheep. He was to lose all he loved and for which he had given up +his life, his career, his position, and, for the first time, he +enumerated among his sacrifices the possession of Groombridge. Then he +blushed for shame—also for the first time. How little <i>that</i> had been, +compared to what he had to do now! What had he to do now? And here the +Little Master made his great mistake. He came out of the fog and shadow, +he came into the light because he thought it was safe now.</p> + +<p>What had Mark to do that was so much harder? To submit to authority and +forgive its blunders. He hesitated for a moment; he almost thought it +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> that. Then came the light, and he saw the real crux. What he had to +do was to forgive Molly Dexter. He was startled by the revelation, as +men are startled who have been in love without knowing it. He had been +nursing hatred and revenge without knowing it, for, until he had become +bitter at the treatment of the authorities, he had felt no anger against +Molly. She had simply been the patient who would scratch out the eyes of +the surgeon. He was surprised into a quiet analysis of the discovery, +and then his thoughts stood quite still. It was only necessary for a +noble soul to <i>see</i> such a temptation for him to <i>fight</i> it. But he +passed back from that to the whole of the wrath and hurt feeling that he +recognised too. He was angry with those in authority who expected him to +behave like a saint; he had been angry vaguely with Sir Edmund Grosse, +but more with circumstances that also demanded of him that he should +behave like a saint and do the very worst thing for himself and confirm +the calumny against him by acting as Molly's confidential friend! But he +could not be equally angry at the same time with Miss Dexter, with his +own authorities, with Edmund Grosse, and with circumstances. One injury +alone might have been different, but taken together they suggested a +plot and intention. Whose plot? Whose intention?</p> + +<p>And the answer was thundered and yet whispered through his +consciousness. Is was God's plot, God's Will, God's demand, that he +should do the impossible and behave like a saint!</p> + +<p>Mark had said easily enough in the first noble instinct of bearing his +blow well: "We are God's slaves." But that first light had gradually +been obscured. He had not felt then that the impossible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> was demanded of +him. He had come to feel it, and to feel it without remembering that +man's helplessness was God's opportunity. Had he forgotten, erased from +the tablets of his mind and heart, all he had loved and trusted most? +Now all was terribly clear. Augustine, in a decadent, delicate age, had +not minced matters, and had insisted that all hope must be placed in Him +Who would not spare the scourge. "Oftentimes," he had cried, "does our +Tamer bring forth His scourge too." Mark took down the old, worn book.</p> + +<p>"In Him let us place our hope, and until we are tamed and tamed +thoroughly—that is, are perfected—let us bear our Tamer.... Whereas, +when thou art tamed, God reserveth for thee an inheritance which is God +Himself.... For God will then be <i>all in all</i>; neither will there be any +unhappiness to exercise us, but happiness alone to feed us.... What +multiplicity of things soever thou seekest here, He alone will be +Himself all these things to thee.</p> + +<p>"Unto this hope is man tamed, and shall his Tamer then be deemed +intolerable? Unto this hope is man tamed, and shall he murmur against +his beneficient Tamer, if He chance to use the scourge?...</p> + +<p>"Whether, therefore, Thou dealest softly with us that we be not wearied +in the way, or chastisest us that we wander not from the way, <i>Thou art +become our refuge, O Lord</i>."</p> + +<p>As Mark read, the pain of too great light was softened to him. What had +been hard, white light, glowed more rosy until it flushed his horizon +with full glory.</p> + +<p>It wanted a small space in time, but a mighty change in the spirit, +before Mark read Edmund's letter with a keen wish to enter into its full +meaning, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> judge it wisely. Having come to himself, he was, as ever, +ready to give that self away. He was full of a strange energy; he smiled +to feel that the strokes of the lash were unfelt, while consciousness +was lost in love. This was God's anæsthetic. But it thrilled the soul +with vitality, and in no sense but the absence of pain did it suspend +the faculties. He had no doubt, no hesitation, as to what he must do. He +would go to Molly, he must see her at once, but not a word should pass +his lips of what Edmund wanted him to say. Not a moment must be lost. +Who might not betray her danger and destroy her opportunity? Molly must +be brought to do this thing of herself without any admixture of fear, +without any aim or object but to sacrifice all for what was right. He +yearned with utter simplicity that this might be her way out. Let her do +it for herself. Let her do it of herself, thought Mark—not because she +is afraid, not because her vast possessions appear the least insecure. +And the action would be far more noble just because, at the moment of +renunciation, the world would, for the first time, suspect her guilt. To +Mark it seemed now the crowning touch of mercy that the criminal should +be allowed to drink deep of the chalice. "Her own affair"—that was what +the dying mother had said of the unfortunate child to whom she offered +so gross a temptation.</p> + +<p>And in the depths of his mind there was the conviction that it was a +particular truth as to this individual soul, that not only would the +heroic be the only antagonist to the base, but that some such moral +revolution alone could be the beginning of cleansing of what had become +foul, and the driving out of the noxious and the vile.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h3> + +<h3>NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD</h3> + +<p>It was in the evening, and Edmund was waiting in Rose's drawing-room +until she should come back from a meeting of one of her charitable +committees.</p> + +<p>He was walking up and down the room with a face at once very grave and +very alert. Even his carriage during the last few weeks had seemed to +Rose to have gained in firmness and dignity, and perhaps she was right. +Nor had she failed to notice that one or two small, straight pieces of +grey hair could now be seen near the temples. He looked a little older, +a little more brisk, a little more firm, and distinctly more cheerful +since his reverses. It is no paradox to speak of cheerfulness in sorrow, +or to say that the whole nature may be happier in grief than in the days +of apparent pleasure. It is not only in those who have acquired deep +religious peace that this may be true, for even in gaining energy and a +balance in natural action, there may be happiness amidst pain.</p> + +<p>Rose came in without seeing that anyone was in the room, and gave a +start when she saw the tall figure by the window. The evening light +showed him a little grey, a little worn in appearance, a little more +openly kindly in the dark eyes. Something that she had fancied dim and +clouded lately—only once or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> twice, not always—now shone in his face +with its full brightness.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened, Edmund? Have you come to tell me anything?"</p> + +<p>He came across the room to her and took her hand in silence, and then +said:</p> + +<p>"You look tired. Have you had tea?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind tea," she answered. "Do tell me! Seriously, something +has happened?"</p> + +<p>"It is nothing of any consequence—nothing that need disturb you in the +least. It is only about my own stupid affairs, and, on the whole, it is +very good news. I have just come from the Foreign Office, and they have +told me there that I am to have that job in India, and that the sooner I +am ready to start the better."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he turned from her with a sudden, quick hurt in his heart. +It was, after all, only of great importance to himself. He knew she +would be kindly glad that he had got the post he wanted. Had she not +always urged him to some real work? Had she not pressed him again and +again during the last four years, consciously and unconsciously, to +bring out all his talents and to do a man's work in a man's way? So she +would be simply glad, and she would wave him "God speed," and would, no +doubt, pray for him at those innumerable services she attended, and +write to him long, gentle, feminine letters full of details about all +sorts of matters, good or indifferent, and she would ask about his +health and press him to take care of himself and tell him of any word +that was spoken kindly of him here in England. And she would somehow +manage to know, or think she knew, that he was doing great things in the +East. And so,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> no doubt, in the two years in which he was away there +would be no apparent break in this very dear intimacy. But what, in +reality, would he know of her inmost feelings, of her loneliness, of her +sufferings, of any repentance that might come to her, any softening +towards himself? He seemed to see all of the two years that were to come +in a flash as he stood silent on one side of the neglected tea-table, +and Rose stood silent, turning away from him on the other.</p> + +<p>When he raised his eyes, he almost felt a surprise that the figure, a +little turned away from him, was not dressed in a plain, white frock, +and that the shadows and the flickering sunlight making its way through +the mulberry leaves were not still upon her; for that was how, through +life and in eternity, Rose would be present in the mind of her lover.</p> + +<p>Time had gone; it seemed now as nothing. Whatever changes had come +between, he felt as if he saw in the averted face that same expression +of sorrowful denial and gentle resistance that had baffled him now for +over twelve years. It was still that his soul asked something of this +other purer, gentler, more unworldly, more loving soul, which she, with +all her beneficence would not give him. He did no think of the +impracticability of any question of marriage; he did not think in any +definite sense of their relations as man and woman. At other times he +had known so frequently just the overpowering wish for the possession of +the woman he loved best, but now she stood to him as the history of his +moral existence here below, and he felt as if, in missing her, he should +miss the object and crown of his life.</p> + +<p>At last silence became intolerable. He moved as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> though he wanted to +speak and could not, and then he said huskily, almost gruffly:</p> + +<p>"It is not 'good-bye' to-day, of course," and then he laughed at the +feebleness of his own words.</p> + +<p>Rose turned to him at that, and he was not really surprised to see that +the tears were flowing rapidly over her cheeks—tears so large that they +splashed like big raindrops on the white hands which were clasped as +they hung before her. But that made it no easier. He thought very little +of those tears; he felt even a little bitter at their apparent +bitterness. He hardened at the sight of those tears; they made him feel +that he could leave her with more dignity, more firmness in his own +mind, than he had ever thought would be possible.</p> + +<p>"Vous pleurez et vous êtes roi?" He hardly knew that he had muttered the +words as he so often muttered a quotation to himself. But Rose did not +hear them. She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts and feelings to +notice him closely. Ah! if she had but known before what it would be to +lose him! She was horrified as she felt her self-control failing her, +and an enormous agony entering into possession of all her faculties. She +was so startled, so amazed at this revelation of herself. If she had +felt less, she would have thought more for him. She did not think for a +moment what that silent standing by her side meant for him. She knew at +last the selfishness of passion. She wanted him as she had never wanted +anyone or anything before. She could only think of the craving of her +own heart, the extraordinary trouble that possessed it. Those who have +had a passing acquaintance with love, those who have sown brief passages +of love thoughts over their early youth, can form no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> notion of what +that first surrender meant to Rose. "Too late!" cried the tyrant love, +the only tyrant that can carry conviction by its mere fiat to the +innermost recesses of a nature. "Too late!—it might have been, but not +now; it is all your own doing; you made him suffer once; you are the +only one to suffer now. You are crying now the easy tears of a child, +but there are years and years before you when the tears will not come, +call for them as you may; they cannot go on coming from a broken heart. +They flow away out of the fissures, and then the dryness and barrenness +of daily misery will not let them come again."</p> + +<p>"He never cared as I do," thought Rose; "he does not know what it is!"</p> + +<p>She called her persecutor "it"; she shrank from its name even now with +an unutterable embarrassment. When she did turn to Edmund it was more as +if to confide to him what she was suffering from someone else; it was so +habitual to her to turn to him. What was the use? what was the use? How +could she use him against himself? No, no; she must, she must control +herself. She must not tell him; she must let him go quite quietly now; +she must make no appeal to the past; he was too generous—she did not +want his generosity. She put her hands to her forehead and pushed the +hair backwards.</p> + +<p>"I'm not well, I think," she said; "the room at the meeting was stuffy. +I—I didn't quite understand what you said—I'm glad."</p> + +<p>She sank on to a chair, and then got up again.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you've got what you wanted, but I'm startled—no, I mean I'm +not quite well. I don't think I can talk to-day—I don't +understand—I——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> + +<p>She stood almost with her back to him then.</p> + +<p>He was so amazed at her words that he could not speak at all. This was +not sweetness, kindness, pity; this was something else, something +different; it was almost a shock!</p> + +<p>"I am so silly," she said, with a most absurd attempt at a natural +voice, "I think I must——" Her figure swayed a little.</p> + +<p>Edmund watched her with utter amazement. All his knowledge of women was +at fault, and that child in the white frock—where was she? Where was +that sense of his soul's history and its failure, its mystic tragedy, +just now? Gone, quite gone, for he knew now that that long tragedy was +ended. But Rose did not know it.</p> + +<p>He moved, half consciously, a few feet towards the door.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said, in a very low voice, "if it has come at last, don't +deny it! I have waited patiently, God knows! but I don't want it now +unless it is true. For Heaven's sake do nothing in mere pity!"</p> + +<p>"But it has come, Edmund; it has come!" she interrupted him, so quickly +that he had barely time to reach her before she came to him.</p> + +<p>And yet it had been many years in coming—so many years that he could +hardly believe it now; could hardly believe that the white hands he had +watched so often trembled with delight as they caressed him; could +hardly believe that the fair face was radiant with joy when he, Edmund, +ventured to kiss her; could hardly believe that it was of her own wish +and will that she leant against him now!</p> + +<p>"I ought not to have said it was the stuffy room, ought I?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the sweetest, youngest laugh she had ever given. Then she looked +up at the ceiling where the sun flickered a little.</p> + +<p>"Edmund, it is better than if I had known under the mulberry tree. Tell +me you forgive me all I have done wrong. I could not," she gasped a +little, "have loved you then as I do now, because I had known no sorrow +then."</p> + +<p>And Edmund told her that she was forgiven. But one sin she confessed +gave him, I fear, unmixed delight; she was so dreadfully afraid that she +had lately been a little jealous!</p> + +<p>Strange—very strange and unfathomable—is the heart of man. It did not +even occur to him as the wildest scruple to be at all afraid that he had +been lately a little, ever so little, less occupied with the thought of +her. No shadow of a cloud rested on the great output of a strong man's +deep affection.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h3> + +<h3>"WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE"</h3> + +<p>It was on the same evening that Mark succeeded in seeing Molly. He had +failed the day before, but at the second attempt he succeeded.</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had entered Westmoreland House, and he had +never, even in the autumn weeks when Miss Dexter had been most cordial +to him, tried to see her except by her own invitation. Altogether the +position now was as embarrassing as it is possible to conceive. He had +been her confidant as to a crime for which the law sees no kind of +palliative, no possible grounds for mercy. As he greeted her it wanted +little imaginative power to feel the dramatic elements in the picture. +Molly was standing in the middle of the great drawing-room dressed in +something very white and very beautiful. At any other moment he must +have been impressed by the subdued splendour of the room, and the grace +and youth of the dominating figure in the midst. Mark was too absorbed +to-day in the spiritual drama which he must now force to its conclusion +to realise that he had also come to threaten the destruction of Molly's +material world and all the glory thereof. He had, too, so far forgotten +himself, that the mischief Molly had wrought against him had faded into +the background<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> of his consciousness. His absorbing anxiety lay in the +extreme difficulty of his task. It would need an angel from Heaven, +gifted too with great knowledge of human nature, to accomplish what he +meant to attempt. First he would throw everything into the desperate +endeavour to make her give up the will simply and entirely from the +highest motives. But what possibility was there of success? Why should +he hope that, just because he called and asked her for it, she would +give up all that for which she had sold her soul? He could not feel that +he was a prophet sent by God from whose lips would fall such inspired +words that the iron frost would thaw and the great depths of her nature +be broken up. In fact, he felt singularly uninspired, and very much +embarrassed. And when he had tried the impossible (he said to himself), +and had given her the last chance of going back on this ugly fraud from +nobler motives than that of fear, and had failed—he must then enter on +the next stage and must merge the priest's office in that of the +ambassador. He must bring home to her that what she clung to was already +lost, and that nothing but shame and disgrace lay before her. He had the +case, as presented by Sir Edmund's letter in all its convicting +simplicity, clearly in his mind—quite as clearly as the facts of +Molly's own confession to himself. It would not be difficult to crush +the criminal, to make her see the hopeless horror of the trial that must +follow unless she consented to a compromise. But it was the completeness +of her defeat that he dreaded the most; it was for that last stage of +his plan that he was gathering unconsciously all his nerve-power +together. He seemed to hear with ominous distinctness her words at their +last meeting: "If I can't go through with it (which is quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> possible) +I shall throw up the sponge and get out of this world as soon as I can." +That had been spoken without any sort of fear of detection, without the +least suspicion that she would have no choice in the matter of giving up +her ill-gotten wealth. What he dreaded unutterably was the despair that +must overpower her as he developed the long chain of evidence against +her. As he came into her presence, overwhelmed with these thoughts, he +was also anxiously recalling two mental notes. He must make her clearly +understand that he had not betrayed her by one word or hint to Sir +Edmund Grosse or any living human being; and secondly, he thought it +very important to impress upon her that Sir Edmund and Lady Rose were of +opinion that Larrone had suppressed the will or that Molly had never +opened the box which contained it—were, in fact, of any or every +opinion except that Molly was guilty of crime. For the rest he could, at +this eleventh hour, hardly see anything clearly, and as he shook hands +with Miss Dexter an unutterable longing to escape came over him. Molly's +greeting was haughty—almost rude—but that seemed to him natural and +inevitable. He made some comment on a political event which she did not +pretend to answer, and then as if speech were almost impossible, he +actually murmured that the weather was very hot.</p> + +<p>Then he became silent and remained so. For quite a minute neither spoke.</p> + +<p>Molly was not naturally silent, naturally restrained. She moved uneasily +about the room; she lit a cigarette, and threw it away again. At last +she stood in front of him.</p> + +<p>"What made you come to-day?" she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her large restless eyes looked full of anger as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"I came to-day partly because I am going away very soon, so I thought +that it might be——" He hesitated.</p> + +<p>"But where are you going?" Molly asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I am to take a chaplaincy at Lord Lofton's."</p> + +<p>"And your preaching?" cried Molly in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Is not wanted," said Mark.</p> + +<p>"And your poor?"</p> + +<p>"Can get on without me."</p> + +<p>"You are to be buried in the country?" she cried in indignation; "you +are to leave all the people you are helping? But what a horrible shame! +What,"—she suddenly turned away as a thought struck her—"what can be +the reason?"</p> + +<p>"It seems," he said very quietly, "that I have been foolish; people are +talking, things are said against me, and things should not be said +against a priest. But I did not come here to talk about myself. I came +here——" He paused.</p> + +<p>Molly sat down close to the empty fireplace, and was bending over it, +her very thin figure curiously twisted, and one foot twitching +nervously.</p> + +<p>"You are going away," she said suddenly, "and it is my doing. I did not +know I was doing that; it felt as if hitting at you were the only way to +defend myself. Good God! I shall have a lot to answer for!"</p> + +<p>She did not turn round; she crouched lower on the low chair and +shuddered.</p> + +<p>"And you," she went on in a low voice, "you want to save my soul! I have +always been afraid you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> would get the best of it, and now I have +destroyed your life's work. Did you know it was I who was talking +against you?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"And that I have said everything I dared to say against you ever since I +told you my secret?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; more or less I knew."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell your authorities the truth long ago?"</p> + +<p>"How could I?"</p> + +<p>Molly made no answer. She got up in silence and took a key from her +pocket and moved toward a small bureau between the windows. She unlocked +the lower drawer and took out a packet of papers, and in the middle of +this packet was an envelope in which lay the key of the room upstairs. +Her movements were slow but unhesitating, and when she left the room +Mark had not the slightest idea of what she would do. If he had seen her +face as she slowly mounted the great well staircase he might have +understood.</p> + +<p>How simple it all was. She reached the top of the many steps with little +loss of breath; she turned to the right into the dark passage that led +to her own room, passed her own door, and put the key in the lock of the +one next to it. She knew so exactly which box she sought, though she had +never seen it since the day when Dr. Larrone brought it to her. Although +she had actually come in the cab that brought the small boxes from the +flat, she had succeeded in not recognising that one among the number +heaped up together. She knew exactly where it stood now, and how many +things had been piled above the boxes from the flat with seeming +carelessness, but by her orders.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p> + +<p>The shutters were closed, but she could have found that box in inky +darkness, and now a ray from between the chinks fell upon it. She did +not think now of how often she had told herself that she did not know +what the box was like. Now it seemed to have been the only box she had +ever known in her life. The cases on the top of it were heavy, and Molly +had to strain herself to move them, but she was very strong, and every +reserve of muscular power was called out unconsciously to meet her need. +She did not know that her hands were covered with dust, and that blood +was breaking through a scratch over the right thumb made by a jagged +nail.</p> + +<p>When she came back into the drawing-room, Father Molyneux was sitting +with his back towards her, looking with unseeing eyes into the trees of +the park. She moved towards him and held out a long envelope.</p> + +<p>"Take it away," she said, "If I have ruined your life, you have ruined +mine."</p> + +<p>She moved with uncertain steps to the chimney-piece, leant upon it, and, +turning round, looked wildly at the envelope in his hands.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you come for it before?" she asked him.</p> + +<p>Mark could not answer. He was absolutely astonished at what had +happened. He could hardly believe that he held in his hand a thing of +such momentous importance. He had nerved himself for a great fight, but +he had not known what he should say, how he should act, and +then—amazing fact—a few minutes after he came into the room, and +without his having even asked for it, the will was put into his hands! +Nothing had been said of conditions or com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>promise; she only asked the +amazing question why he had not come for it <i>before</i>!</p> + +<p>"You were right," she mused, "right to leave me alone. I wonder, do you +remember the words that have haunted me this summer?—Browning's words +about the guilty man in the duel:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>'Let him live his life out,</div> +<div>Life will try his nerves.'</div></div> +</div> + +<p>It has tried my nerves unbearably; I could not go on, I have not the +strength. I might have had a glorious time if I had been a little +stronger. As it is, it's not worth while."</p> + +<p>It is impossible to convey the heavy dreariness of outlook conveyed by +her voice and manner. There seemed no higher moral quality in it all.</p> + +<p>"Half a dozen times I have nearly sent for you. But"—she did not +shudder now, or make the restless movements he had noticed when he first +came in: Molly had regained the stillness which follows after +storms—"as soon as you are gone I shall be longing to have it back +again. Men have done worse things than I have for thirty thousand a +year! It won't be easy to be a pauper; I think it would be easier to +kill myself."</p> + +<p>She was silent again, and Mark could not find one word that he was not +afraid to say—one word that might not quench the smoking flax.</p> + +<p>"I had to give it to you without waiting to talk of the future, or I +might not have given it at all. But I should be glad if the case could +be so arranged that my mother's name and my own should not be dragged in +the mud. It is only an appeal for mercy—nothing else." Her voice +trembled almost into silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think that is all safe," said Mark. "I think if you will leave it all +in my hands I can get better conditions for you than you suppose now. +They will be only too glad."</p> + +<p>"But I gave it to you without conditions." Her manner for the moment was +that of a child seeking reassurance.</p> + +<p>"Thank God! you did," he cried, with an irrepressible burst of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"It's not much for a thief to have done, is it? But now I should like to +do it all properly. Tell me; ought I to come away from here to-day, and +give everything I have here to Lady Rose? If I ought, I will!"</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not," said Mark. "I have been asked to offer you liberal +conditions if you would agree to a compromise. I said they had come to +quite the wrong person. No, no, don't think I told them. They have fresh +evidence that there was a will, and they believe they know that +important papers were brought to you by Dr. Larrone when your mother +died."</p> + +<p>"And you came to frighten me with this?" There was a touch of reproach +in her tone.</p> + +<p>"No, I came, hoping you would give me the paper, as you have done, +without knowing this."</p> + +<p>Evidently this news impressed Molly deeply, but she did not want to +discuss it. Presently she said:</p> + +<p>"I am glad you came in time before I was frightened. How you have wanted +to make me save my soul! You have helped me very much, but I cannot save +my soul."</p> + +<p>"But God can," said Mark.</p> + +<p>"You see," she went on, "I never know what I am going to do—going to +be—next. Imagine my being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> a thief! It seems now almost incredible. And +I don't know what may come next."</p> + +<p>For a second she looked at him with wild terror in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Think how many years I have before me. How can I hope that I——?"</p> + +<p>"You will do great, great good," said Mark, with emotion.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"David committed a worse sin than yours."</p> + +<p>Molly smiled, a little, incredulous, grey smile, for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I may be good to-day. I may be full of peace and joy even to-night—but +to-morrow? You told me once that I should only know true joy if I had +been humbled in the dust. I am low enough now, but the comfort has not +come yet, and, even if God comforts me, it won't last. I shall still be +I, and life is so long."</p> + +<p>"You must trust Him—you must indeed. He will find a solution. You are +exhausted now with the victory you have gained. Rest now, and then do +the good things you have done before. Trust in the higher side of your +character; God gave it to you. Believe me, He has called you to great +things."</p> + +<p>As he spoke she covered her face with her hands, and a deep blush of +shame rose from her neck to her forehead, visible through the thin, +white fingers.</p> + +<p>"I suppose He will find a way out. As I can't understand how you have +cared so much to save my soul, I suppose I can understand His love still +less. Must you go? You will pray for me, I know."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand with a look of generous appeal to his forgiveness.</p> + +<p>"God bless you!" he said, with complete sympathy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> and then he went away +to seek an interview with Sir Edmund Grosse.</p> + +<p>Molly sank down on a low seat by the window. Then she went slowly +upstairs, dragging her feet a little from fatigue, and took out of the +tin box the packet of very old letters. She burned them one by one, with +a match for each, kneeling in front of the empty fireplace in her +bed-room. They told the story of her mother's attempt to persuade Sir +David of their marriage during his illness in India. It was not a pretty +story—one of deceit and intrigue. It should disappear now.</p> + +<p>Then she sat down in a deep chair in the window. She stayed very still, +curled up against the cushion behind her, her eyes fixed on the ground. +She was hardly conscious of thought; she was trying to recall things +Mark had said, murmuring them over to herself. She was trying not to +sink into the depths of humiliation and despair. It was a blind clinging +to a vague hope for better things, with a certain torpor of all her +faculties.</p> + +<p>Then gradually things in the vague gloom became definite to her. "No," +she said to them with entreaty, "not to-night. My life is only just +dead. I am tired by the shock—it was so sudden—only let me rest till +morning, and in the morning I will try to face it."</p> + +<p>She had, it seemed, quite settled this point; the present and the future +were to be left; a pause was absolutely necessary. Then followed quickly +the sharp pang of a fresh thought. It was not in her power to make +things pause. She could not make a truce by calling it a truce. If she +did not realise things now and act now herself, others would come upon +the scene. Even to-night Sir Edmund Grosse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> might know. She shivered. +Perhaps he was being told now. It would be insufferable to endure his +kindness prompted by Rose's generous forgiveness. But ought she to find +anything unbearable? Was she going to revolt at the very outset? She was +not trained in spiritual matters, but it seemed to her that any revolt +would betray a want of reality in her reparation, and in this great +change of feeling she wanted above all things to be real. She tried to +face what must come next. How could she hand over Westmoreland House? It +could not be done as quietly as she had handed that letter to Father +Mark. The house had been bought with the great lump sum Madame Danterre +had accumulated in Florence—much of that money had been put in the bank +before Sir David died. Perhaps if they were ready to come to terms, as +Father Mark had said, an arrangement would be suggested in which Molly +would not be expected to refund what she had spent, and would have the +possession of Westmoreland House and its contents. The sale would +realise enough to save her from actual want, and yet she would not be +receiving a pension from Lady Rose. Her mind got out of gear and flashed +through these thoughts until, unable to check it in any way, she burst +into tears. She felt the self-deception of such plans with physical +pain. What was that money in the bank at Florence but blackmail gathered +in during Sir David's life? "Why cannot I be straight even now?" she +whispered. She was still sitting on the couch with one leg drawn up +under her, gazing intently at the ground. No, the only money she +possessed was £2000 invested at 3½ per cent. "£70 a year—that is +less than I have given Carey, or the cook, or the butler."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<p>The fact was that while her heart and soul had gone forward in dumb pain +in utter darkness with the single aim of undoing the sin done, the mind +still lagged and reasoned. This is a peculiar agony, and Molly had to +drink of that agony.</p> + +<p>Gradually and mercilessly her reason told her that an arrangement with +Lady Rose, the appearance of having the right of possession in +Westmoreland House, the readiness of all concerned to bury the story, +and the possession of a fair income, would make it possible to live in +her own class quietly but, if tactfully, with a good repute. Then the +thought of any kind of compromise became intolerable to her, and she +realised that it was a fancy picture, not a real temptation.</p> + +<p>To pretend that Westmoreland House was her own she could not do, but +what was the alternative? Dragging poverty and shame, and with no +opportunity for hiding what had passed, for living it down. Even if she +did the impossible to her pride and consented to receive a good +allowance from Lady Rose, it would not be at all the same in the world's +view as the dignified income that could be raised from Westmoreland +House, and from her mother's jewels and furniture. Her fingers +unconsciously touched the pearls round her neck. Surely she need not +speculate as to how her mother obtained the magnificent jewels which she +had worn up to the end? Then more light came—hard and cold, but clear. +If Molly had been innocent these things might have been so, but Molly +had committed a fraud on a great scale. It would be by the mercy of the +injured that she would be spared the rigours of the law. It was by the +supreme mercy of God that she had had the chance of making the sacrifice +before it was forced from her. And could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> she shrink from mere ordinary +poverty, from a life such as the vast majority of men and women are +living on this earth? She did not really shrink in her will. It was only +a mechanical movement of thought from one point to another. Was it much +punishment for what she had done to be very poor? Would it not be better +to be unclassed—to live among people who help each other much because +they have little to give? Would it not be the way to do what Father Mark +had said she should try to do—those good things she had done before? +She could nurse, she could watch, she was able to do with little sleep. +She would be very humble with the sick and suffering now. And it would +not surely be wrong to go and find such a life far away from where she +had sinned? She began to wonder if she need stay and live through all +the complications of the coming days. Must it be the right thing to stay +because it was the most unbearable? She thought not. There are times +when recklessness is the only safety. If she did not burn her ships now +she could not tell what temptations might come. But she would not let it +be among her motives that thus she would thereby escape unbearable pity +from Lady Rose and the far sterner magnanimity of Edmund Grosse. She +would act simply; she would ask Rose a favour; she would ask her to +provide for Miss Carew.</p> + +<p>Half consciously again her hands went to her throat. She unclasped the +pearl necklace that Edmund had seen on Madame Danterre's withered neck +in the garden at Florence. She slipped off four large rings, and then +gathered up a few jewels that lay about. "One ought not to leave +valuables about,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> she thought, and she did not know that she added +"after a death."</p> + +<p>If Miss Carew had been in the room she would probably not have +understood that anything special was going on. Molly moved quietly +about, collecting together on a little table by the cupboard, rings, +brooches, buckles, watches—anything of much value. She sought and found +the key of the little safe in the wardrobe and put away these objects +with the large jewel cases already inside it. She also put with them her +cheque book and her banker's book. A very small cheque book on a +different bank where the interest of the £2000 had not been drawn on for +six months, she put down on her writing table. Then she looked round the +room. Was there nothing there really her own, and that she cared to keep +either for its own sake or because it had belonged to someone she had +loved? An awful sense of loneliness swept over her as she looked round +and could think of nothing. Each beautiful thing on walls or tables that +she looked at seemed repulsive in its turn, for it had either belonged +to Madame Danterre or been bought with her money. There was not so much +as a letter which she cared ever to see again. She had burnt Edmund's +few notes when she first came to Westmoreland House.</p> + +<p>She had once met a woman who had lost everything in a fire. "I have +everything new," she wailed, "nothing that I ever had before—not a +photograph, not a prayer-book, nor an old letter. I don't feel that I am +the same person." The words came back now. "Not the same person," and +suddenly a sense of relief began to dawn upon her.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"Alone to land upon that shore</div> +<div>With not one thing that we have known before."</div></div> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>Oh, the immensity of such a mercy! That hymn had made her shiver as a +child; how different it seemed now! Molly knelt down by the couch, and +her shoulders trembled as a tempest of feeling came over her. Criminals +hardened by long lives of fraud have been known to be happier after +being found out—simply because the strain was over. They had destroyed +their moral sense. Molly's conscience was alive, though torn, bleeding, +and debased. She could not be happy as they were, but yet there was the +lifting of the weight as of a great mountain rolled away. She was afraid +of the immense sense of relief that now seemed coming upon her. Could +she really become free of the horrible Molly of the last months—this +noxious, vile, lying, thieving woman? What an awful strain that woman +had lived in! She had told Mark that what frightened her was the thought +that she would still be herself. She longed now to cut away everything +that had belonged to her. Might she not by God's grace, in poverty and +hard work, with everything around her quite different from the past, +might she not quite do to death the Molly who had lived in Westmoreland +House? The cry was more passionate than spiritual perhaps, but the +longing had its power to help. She rose and again moved quietly about +the room of the dead, bad woman, which must be left in order for the new +owners. She put some things together—what was necessary for a night or +two—and felt almost glad that she had a comb and brush she had not yet +used. There was a bag with cheap fittings Mrs. Carteret had given her as +a girl, which would hold all she needed. And then she remembered that +she had something she would like to take away; it was a nurse's apron, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> in its pocket a nurse's case of small instruments. They were what +she used when nursing with the district nurse in the village at home. +Then she sat down and wrote a cheque and a note, and proceeded to take +them downstairs. The cheque was for £30 out of the little Dexter cheque +book, and the note was an abrupt little line to tell a friend that she +could not dine out that night. She "did not feel up to it" was the only +excuse given, and a furious hostess declared that Miss Dexter had become +perfectly insufferable. She seemed to think that she could do exactly as +she chose because she was absurdly rich.</p> + +<p>The butler was able to give Molly £30 in notes and cash, and it was his +opinion that she wanted the money for playing cards that night. Molly +crept upstairs again with a foreign Bradshaw in her hand. She looked out +the train for the night boat to Dieppe. It left Charing Cross at 9.45. +She had chosen Dieppe for the first stage of her journey—of which she +knew not the further direction—for two reasons. The first was because +she knew that she ought to stay within reach if it were necessary for +her to do business with her own or Lady Rose's solicitors. She was +determined not to give any trouble she could avoid giving, in the +business of handing over that which had never belonged to her. At this +time of year the journey to Dieppe would be no difficulty, and she +wanted to go there rather than to Boulogne or any other French port, +because she had the address of a very cheap and clean <i>pension</i> in which +Miss Carew had passed some weeks before coming to live with Molly in +London. From that <i>pension</i> Molly could write the letters she felt +physically incapable of writing to-night. The only note she determined +to write at once was to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> Carey, asking her to remain at Westmoreland +House and to tell the servants that Miss Dexter had gone abroad. She +told her that she had gone to the <i>pension</i> at Dieppe, but earnestly +insisted that she should not follow her. She begged her to do nothing +before getting a letter that she would write to her at once on arriving +at Dieppe. She also asked her to keep the key of the safe which she +enclosed in her letter. Molly sealed the letter, and then felt some +hesitation as to when and how to give it to Miss Carew. She finally +decided to send it by a messenger boy from the station when it would be +too late for Miss Carew to follow her, and when it would still be in +time to prevent any astonishment at her not returning home that night.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'>Miss Carew, thinking that Molly had gone out to dinner, came into her +bed-room to look for a book. The night was hot and oppressive, but no +one had raised the blinds since the sun had set, and the room was so +dark that she did not at once see Molly. She started nervously, half +expecting one of Molly's impatient and rude exclamations on being +disturbed, and, with an apology, was going away when Molly said gently:</p> + +<p>"Stay a minute, Carey; I'm not going to dine out to-night."</p> + +<p>"But there is no dinner ordered, and I have just had supper. I am going +out this evening to see a friend."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," Molly interrupted, "I can't eat anything. I am going out +for a drive in a hansom in the cool. Would you mind saying that I shall +not want the motor?"</p> + +<p>"My dear! are you not well?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not very." And suddenly Miss Carew began to read the great change in +her face. "It has none of it been very good for me, Carey; you have been +quite right. This house and all was a mistake. You have never said it, +but I have seen it in your eyes. And it has not even been in quite good +taste for me to make such a splash—you thought that too. I'm going to +stop it all now, dear, and probably the house will be sold; it's been an +unblest sort of thing."</p> + +<p>Miss Carew stared. The tone was so different from any she had ever heard +in Molly's voice; it was very gentle, but exhausted, as if she had been +through an acute crisis in an illness.</p> + +<p>"Carey dear, you have always been so kind to me, and I have been very +unkind to you. You will have to know things that will make you hate and +despise me to-morrow. But would you mind giving me one kiss to-night?"</p> + +<p>Miss Carew was very nervous at this request, but happily all the best +side of her was roused by something in Molly that, in spite of a vast +difference, recalled the Molly of seven years ago when she had first +seen her. It was a real kiss—a kind of pact between them.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if she will ever wish to do the same again!" thought Molly.</p> + +<p>Then Miss Carew left her and she called the maid, who brought at her +bidding a long black cloak and a small black toque—insignificant +compared to anything else of Molly's.</p> + +<p>The mistress of Westmoreland House drove away in a hansom, with a bag in +her hand, at twenty minutes past seven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is a small house with a little chapel attached to it in a road in +Chelsea where some Frenchwomen, who were exiled from their own country, +have come to dwell. It is built on Sir Thomas More's garden, and it +possesses within its boundaries the mulberry tree under which the +chancellor was sitting when they came to fetch him to the Tower. It is a +poor little house with very poor inmates, and a poor little chapel. But +in that chapel night and day, without a moment's break, are to be found +two figures (when there are not more) dressed in plain brown habits and +black veils. And on the altar there is always a crowd of lighted +candles, in spite of the poverty of the chapel. It is a very small +chapel and oddly shaped. The length of the little building is from north +to south, and the altar is to the east. There are but few benches, but +they run the full length of the building. Strange things are known by +these women, who never go farther than the small garden at the back, of +the life of the town about them. Some men and more women get accustomed +to coming daily into the chapel with its unceasing exposition, and to +love its silence and its atmosphere of rest and peace. Some never make +themselves known; others sometimes ask to see a nun, and thus gradually +these recluses come to know memorable secrets in human lives.</p> + +<p>Molly had often been there in the weeks which she had afterwards called +"my short fit of religious emotion." She chose to go there to-night, to +spend there her last hour in London.</p> + +<p>The little chapel was fairly cool, and through a door very near the +altar, open to the garden, came the scent of mignonette on the air. +Besides the motionless figures at the altar-rail there was no one else +in the chapel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<p>At eight o'clock two small brown figures came in and knelt bowed down in +the middle of the sanctuary. The two who had finished their watch rose +and knelt by the side of those who relieved guard. Then the four rose +together, and the two newcomers took up their station, and the others +left them. And the incessant oblation of those lives went on. What a +vast moral space lay between their lives and Molly's! What a contrast!</p> + +<p>Molly had had no home, but they had given up their homes for this. Molly +had pined in vain for human love; they had turned away from it. Molly +had rebelled against all restraints; they had chosen these bonds. Molly +had sinned, against even the world's code, for love of the world; and +they had rejected even the best the world could give.</p> + +<p>Was it unjust, unfair that the boon they asked for in return was given +to them?</p> + +<p>If, on the one hand, Molly had inherited evil tendencies and had fallen +on evil circumstances, does it seem strange that she could share in good +as well as in evil?</p> + +<p>It is easy to take scandal at Molly's inherited legacy of evil +tendencies. It is easy to take scandal at the facility of her +forgiveness. The two stumbling-blocks are in reality the two aspects of +one truth, that no human being stands alone and that each gains or +suffers with or by his fellows.</p> + +<p>The sinless women pleaded for sinners in a glorious human imitation of +the Divine pleading. And the exuberant vitality poured by the Conqueror +of death into the human race, flowing strongly through that tiny chapel, +had carried the little, thin, stagnant stream of Molly's soul into the +great flood of grace that purifies by sorrow and by love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly knelt in one of the back benches with her eyes fixed on the +monstrance, in a very agony of sorrow and self-abasement. I would not if +I could analyse that penitence. Happily as life goes on we shrink more, +not less, from raising even the most reverent gaze on the secret places +of the soul. We do not know in what form, if in any form at all, and not +rather, in a light without words, the Divine Peace reached her. Was it, +"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?" Or was it perhaps, "This day +shalt thou be with Me in Paradise?" We cannot tell. Only the lay-sister +who saw Molly go out with the little black bag in her hand said +afterwards that the lady had seemed happy.</p> + +<h3>THE END.</h3> + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="A_Selection_from_the_Catalogue_of" id="A_Selection_from_the_Catalogue_of"></a><i>A Selection from the Catalogue of</i></h2> + +<h2>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS</h2> + +<p class='center'>Complete Catalogues sent on application</p> + +<hr /> +<p class='center'>"<i>A work of absorbing interest</i>"</p> + +<h2>THE SOCIALIST</h2> + +<h3>BY GUY THORNE</h3> + +<h4>Author of</h4> + +<h4>"WHEN IT WAS DARK," "A LOST CAUSE," ETC.</h4> + +<p>"A story that leads one on by its boldness, its vigours, its interesting +realism of both ducal splendour and evil squalor, and by the individual +interests it attaches to social phases and problems. <i>The Socialist</i> +contains plenty of dramatic description and intensely studied character +to remind one of <i>When it Was Dark</i> and other well staged and +effectively managed story-dramas from the same busy and clever +pen."—<i>The Dundee Advertiser</i>.</p> + +<p>"A work of absorbing interest dealing with one of the burning questions +of the day in a manner alike entertaining and instructive. Mr. Thorne +has taken considerable pains to explain the real meaning of Socialism as +understood and taught by leaders of what may be styled the higher Social +movement. We congratulate the author on having produced a first-class +novel full of feeling and character, and with an eminently useful +mission."—<i>The Irish Independent</i>.</p> + +<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Fixed price, $1.35 net</i></p> + +<h3>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br /> +NEW YORK LONDON</h3> + +<hr /> +<p class='center'>"<i>A story that warms every reader's heart and makes him regret that he +has reached the end</i>."</p> + +<h2>Old Rose and Silver</h2> + +<h3>By MYRTLE REED</h3> + +<h4>Author of "A Spinner in the Sun," "The Master's Violin," etc.</h4> + +<p>NOT a "problem," "detective," or a "character study" story. It does not +contain a morbid line. Just a charming, pure, altogether wholesome love +story, full of delicate touches of fancy and humor. A book that leaves a +pleasant taste in the memory, and one that people will find most +appropriate as a dainty gift.</p> + +<p class='center'>With Frontispiece in Color by</p> + +<h3>WALTER BIGGS</h3> + +<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo, beautifully printed and bound. Cloth, $1.50 net. Full red +leather, $2.00 net. Antique Calf, $2.50 net. Lavender Silk, $3.50 net.</i></p> + +<h3>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br /> +NEW YORK LONDON</h3> + +<hr /> +<p class='center'>"<i>Bound to be one of the most popular novels of the year</i>"</p> + +<h2>THE WIVING OF LANCE CLEAVERAGE</h2> + +<h3>BY ALICE <span class="smcap">MacGOWAN</span></h3> + +<h4>Author of "JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS," "RETURN," "LAST WORD," ETC.</h4> + +<p>By its stirring dramatic appeal, its varied interest, its skilful +artistry, Miss MacGowan's new Tennessee mountain story marks a long step +in advance of her earlier novels. It is an interesting company that is +brought together in this book—notably the proud high-spirited mountain +beauty who is the heroine, and the bold and fiery young hero, who will +surely stand high in the good graces of readers of the tale—and a +company of distinct types drawn with a graphic and spirited hand, a +company moved by strong passions—love, and hate too, green jealousy and +black revenge.</p> + +<h4>With Illustrations in Color by <span class="smcap">Robert Edwards</span></h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Fixed price, $1.35 net</i></p> + +<h3>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br /> +NEW YORK LONDON</h3> + +<hr /> +<p class='center'><i>By the author of "The Country House</i>"</p> + +<h2>FRATERNITY</h2> + +<h3>BY JOHN GALSWORTHY</h3> + +<h4>Author of "THE MAN OF PROPERTY," "VILLA RUBEIN," ETC.</h4> + +<p>"The foundation of Mr. Galsworthy's talent, it seems to me, lies in a +remarkable power of ironic insight combined with an extremely keen and +faithful eye for all the phenomena, on the surface of the life he +observes. These are the purveyors of his imagination, whose servant is a +style clear, direct, sane, illumined by a perfectly unaffected +sincerity. It is the style of a man whose sympathy with mankind is too +genuine to allow him the smallest gratification of his vanity at the +cost of his fellow creatures, ... sufficiently pointed to carry deep his +remorseless irony, and grave enough to be the dignified vehicle of his +profound compassion. Its sustained harmony is never interrupted by those +bursts of cymbals and fifes which some deaf people acclaim for +brilliance. Mr. Galsworthy will never be found futile by anyone and +never uninteresting by the most exacting."</p> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">Mr. Joseph Conrad</span> in <i>The Outlook</i>.</p> + +<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Fixed price, $1.35 net. (By mail $1.50)</i></p> + +<h3>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br /> +NEW YORK LONDON</h3> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17952-h.txt or 17952-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/5/17952">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/9/5/17952</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/17952.txt b/17952.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6ea422 --- /dev/null +++ b/17952.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11761 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Great Possessions, by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Great Possessions + + +Author: Mrs. Wilfrid Ward + + + +Release Date: March 8, 2006 [eBook #17952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS*** + + +E-text prepared by Joseph R. Hauser, Martin Pettit, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +GREAT POSSESSIONS + +by + +MRS. WILFRID WARD + +Author of +"One Poor Scruple," "Out of Due Time," etc. + + + + + + + +G. P. Putnam's Sons +New York and London +The Knickerbocker Press +1909 +Copyright, 1909 +by +G. P. Putnam's Sons +The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. THE AMAZING WILL 1 + +II. IN THE EVENING 13 + +III. "AS YOU HOPE TO BE FORGIVEN" 21 + +IV. THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE 32 + +V. "YOUR MOTHER'S DAUGHTER" 42 + +VI. MOLLY COMES OF AGE 55 + +VII. EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO INTERFERE 68 + +VIII. AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE 78 + +IX. A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND 91 + +X. THE PET VICE 98 + +XI. THE THIN END OF A CLUE 109 + +XII. MOLLY'S NIGHT-WATCH 120 + +XIII. SIR DAVID'S MEMORY 126 + + +BOOK II + +XIV. MOLLY IN THE SEASON 136 + +XV. A POOR MAN'S DEATH 151 + +XVI. MOLLY'S LETTER TO HER MOTHER 165 + +XVII. THE BLIND CANON 173 + +XVIII. MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER 180 + +XIX. LADY ROSE'S SCRUPLE 187 + +XX. THE HEIRESS OF MADAME DANTERRE 194 + + +BOOK III + +XXI. AN INTERLUDE OF HAPPINESS 213 + +XXII. SOMETHING LIKE EVIDENCE 220 + +XXIII. THE USES OF DELIRIUM 231 + +XXIV. MRS. DELAPORT GREEN IN THE ASCENDANT 238 + +XXV. MOLLY AT COURT 243 + +XXVI. EDMUND IS NO LONGER BORED 249 + +XXVII. MOLLY'S APPEAL 256 + +XXVIII. DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS 266 + +XXIX. THE RELIEF OF SPEECH 272 + +XXX. THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER 280 + +XXXI. THE NURSING OF A SLANDER 285 + + +BOOK IV + +XXXII. ROSE SUMMONED TO LONDON 294 + +XXXIII. BROWN HOLLAND COVERS 304 + +XXXIV. THE WRATH OF A FRIEND 312 + +XXXV. THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK 322 + +XXXVI. MENE THEKEL PHARES 330 + +XXXVII. MARK ENTERS INTO TEMPTATION 339 + +XXXVIII. NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD 350 + +XXXIX. "WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE" 357 + + + + +GREAT POSSESSIONS + + + + +BOOK I + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE AMAZING WILL + + +The memorial service for Sir David Bright was largely attended. Perhaps +he was fortunate in the moment of his death, for other men, whose +military reputations had been as high as his, were to go on with the +struggle while the world wondered at their blunders. It was only the +second of those memorial services for prominent men which were to become +so terribly usual as the winter wore on. Great was the sympathy felt for +the young widow at the loss of one so brave, so kindly, so popular among +all classes. + +Lady Rose Bright was quite young and very fair. She did not put on a +widow's distinctive garments because Sir David had told her that he +hated weeds. But she wore a plain, heavy cloak, and a long veil fell +into the folds made by her skirts. The raiment of a gothic angel, an +angel like those in the portico at Rheims, has these same straight, +stern lines. "Black is sometimes as suggestive of white," was the +reflection of one member of the congregation, "as white may be +suggestive of mourning." Sir Edmund Grosse, who had known Rose from her +childhood, felt some new revelation in her movements; there was a fuller +development of womanhood in her walk, and there was a reserve, too, as +of one consecrated and set apart. He heaved a deep sigh as she passed +near him going down the church, and their eyes met. She had no shrinking +in her bearing; her reserves were too deep for her to avoid an open +meeting with other human eyes. She looked at Sir Edmund for a moment as +if giving, rather than demanding, sympathy; and indeed, there was more +trouble in his eyes than in hers. + +The service had gone perilously near to Roman practices. It was among +the first of those uncontrollable instinctive expressions of faith in +prayer for the departed which were a marked note of English feeling +during the Boer war. Questions as to their legality were asked in +Parliament, but little heeded, for the heart of the nation, "for her +children mourning," sought comfort in the prayers used by the rest of +the Christian world. + +Rose's mother went home with her and they talked, very simply and in +sympathy, of the tributes to the soldier's memory. Then, when luncheon +came and the servants were present, they spoke quietly of the work to be +done for soldiers' wives and of a meeting the mother was to attend that +afternoon. Lady Charlton was the mother one would expect Rose to +have--indeed, such complete grace of courtliness and kindness points to +an education. Afterwards, while they were alone, Lady Charlton, in +broken sentences, sketched the future. She supposed Rose would stay on +although the house was too big. Much good might be done in it. There +could be no doubt as to how money must be spent this winter; and there +were the services they both loved in the Church of the Fathers of St. +Paul near at hand. Lady Charlton saw life in pictures and so did Rose. +Neither of them broke through any reserve; neither of them was curious. +It did not occur to Rose to wonder how her mother had lived and felt in +her first days as a widow. Lady Charlton did not wonder how Rose felt +now. Rose, she thought, was wonderful; life was full of mercies; there +was so much to be thankful for; and could not those who had suffered be +of great consolation to others in sorrow? + +They arranged to meet at Evensong in St. Paul's Chapel, and then Lady +Charlton would come back and stay the night. On the next day she was due +at the house of her youngest married daughter. + +Rose was presently left alone, and she cried quite simply. For a moment +she thought of Edmund Grosse and the sadness in his eyes. Why had he not +volunteered for the war? What a contrast! + +A large photograph of Sir David in his general's uniform stood on the +writing-table in the study downstairs. There were also a picture and a +miniature in the drawing-room, but Rose thought she would like to look +at the photograph again. It was the last that had been taken. Then too +she would look over some of his things. She wanted little presents for +his special friends; nothing for its own value, but because the hero had +used them. And she would like to bring the big photograph upstairs. + +The study, usually cold and deserted since the master had gone away, +was bright with a large fire. Rose did not know that it was an +expression of sympathy from the under-housemaid, whose lover was at the +war. But when she stood opposite the big photograph of the fine manly +face and figure, and the large open eyes looked so straight into hers, +she shrank a little. Something in the room made her shrink into herself. +Her eyes rested on the Victoria Cross in the photograph, on the medals +that had covered his breast. "I shall have them all," she said, and then +she faltered a little. She had faltered in that room before now; she had +often shrunk into herself when the intensely courteous voice had asked +her as she came into his study what she wanted. She blamed herself +gently now, and for two opposite reasons: she blamed herself because she +had wanted what she had not got, and she blamed herself because she had +not done more to get it. "He was always so gentle, so courteous. I ought +to have been quite, quite happy. And why didn't I break through our +reserve, and then we might----" Dimly she felt, but she did not want to +own it to herself, that she had married him as a hero-worshipper. She +had reverenced him more than she loved him. "I ought not to have done +it," she thought, "but I meant what was right, and I could have loved +him---- Oh, I did love him afterwards--only I never could tell him, +and----" Further thoughts led the way to irreverence, even to something +worse. They were wrong thoughts, thoughts against faith and truth and +right; there was no place for such thoughts in Rose's heart. She moved +now, and opened drawers and dusted and put together a few +things--paper-knives, match-boxes, a writing-case, a silver sealing-wax +holder, and so on; the occupation interested and soothed her. She had +the born mystic's love of little kind actions, little presents, things +treasured as symbols of the union of spirits, all the more because of +their slight material value. Then, too, the child element, which is in +every good woman, gave a zest to the occupation and made it restful. + +Lady Rose had put several small relics in a row on the edge of the lower +part of the big mahogany bookcase, and was counting on her fingers the +names of the friends for whom they were intended. Her grief was +sufficiently real to make her, perhaps, overestimate the number of those +to whom such relics would be precious. A tender smile was on her lips at +the recollection of an old soldier servant of Sir David's who had been +with him in Egypt. She hesitated a moment between two objects--one, a +good silver-mounted leather purse, and the other an inkstand of brass +and marble. These two things were the recipients of her unjust aversion +for long after that moment. + +Simmonds, the butler, opened the door, quite certain that the visitor he +announced must be admitted, and conscious of the fitness of the big +study for his reception. It was Sir David's solicitor. But the butler +was disappointed at the manner of his entrance. He did not analyse the +disappointment. He was half conscious of the fact that the _role_ of the +family lawyer on the occasion was so simple and easy. He would himself +have assumed a degree of pomp, of sympathy, of respect, carrying a +subdued implication that he brought solid consolation in his very +presence. Simmonds grieved truly for Sir David, but he felt, too, the +blank caused by the absence of all funeral arrangements in a death at +the war. He had been butler in more than one house of mourning before, +and he knew all his duties in that capacity. After this he would know +how to be butler in the event of death in battle. But now, when the +memorial service had taken, in a poor sort of way, the place of the +funeral, of course the solicitor ought to come, and past deficiencies +could be overlooked. Why, then, should the man prove totally unequal to +his task? Mr. Murray, Junior, had usually a much better manner than +to-day. Perhaps he was startled at being shown at once into the widow's +presence. Probably he might have expected to wait a few moments in the +big study, while Simmonds went to seek his mistress. + +But there was Lady Rose turning round from the bookcase as they came in. +Mr. Murray stooped to-day, and his large head was bent downwards, making +it the more evident that the drops of perspiration stood out upon his +brow. He cast a look almost of fear at the fair face with its gentle, +benignant expression. He had seen Rose once or twice before, and he knew +the old-fashioned type of great lady when he met it. Was it of Rose's +gentle, subtle dignity that he was afraid? + +Rose drew up a chair on one side of the big square writing-table, and +signed to him to take the leather arm-chair where he had last seen Sir +David Bright seated. Mr. Murray plunged into his subject with an +abruptness proportioned to the immense time he had taken during the +morning in preparing a diplomatic opening. + +"May I ask, first of all," he said, "whether you have found any will, or +any document looking like a will, besides the one I have with me?" + +"No," said Lady Rose in surprise, "there are no papers of any +importance here, I believe; there is nothing in the house under lock and +key. Sir David gave me a few rings and studs to put away, but he never +cared for jewellery, and there is nothing of value." + +"And do you think he can have executed any other will or written a +letter that might be of use to us now?" + +Rose looked still more surprised. Mr. Murray held some papers in his +hand that shook as if the wintry wind outside were trying to blow them +away. Rose tried not to watch them, and it teased her that she could not +help doing so. The hand that held them was not visible above the table. +Mr. Murray struggled to keep to the most absolutely business-like and +unemotional side of his professional manner, but his obviously extreme +discomfort was infectious, and Rose's calm of manner was already +disturbed. + +"I cannot but think, Lady Rose, that some papers may be forwarded to you +through the War Office." He hesitated. "You had no marriage +settlements?" he then asked abruptly. + +"No, there were no settlements," said Rose. She spoke quickly and +nervously. "We did not think them necessary. Sir David offered to make +them, but just then he was ordered abroad and there was very little +time, and my mother and I did not think it of enough importance to make +us delay the wedding. It was shortly after my father's death." She +paused a moment, and then went on, as if speech were a relief. + +"You know that, when we married, Sir David had no reason to expect that +he would ever be a rich man. We hardly knew the Steele cousins, and only +had a vague idea that Mr. John Steele had been making money on the +Stock Exchange. When he left his fortune to Sir David, who was his first +cousin, and, in fact, his nearest relation, my mother did ask me if my +husband intended to make his will. More than once after that she tried +to persuade me to speak to him about it, but I disliked the subject too +much." + +Mr. Murray looked as if he wished that Lady Rose would go on talking; he +seemed to expect more from her, but, as nothing more came, he made a +great effort and plunged into the subject. + +"The will I have here"--he held up the papers as he spoke--"was, in +fact, made a few months after Sir David inherited Mr. John Steele's +large fortune, and there was no subsequent alteration to it, but this +time last year we were directed to make a codicil to this will, and I +was away at the time. My brother, who is my senior partner, ventured to +urge Sir David to make a new will altogether, but he declined." + +There was silence in the room for some moments. Mr. Murray leant over +the writing-table now, and both hands were occupied in smoothing out the +papers before him. + +"It is the worst will I have ever come across," he said quite suddenly, +the professional manner gone and the vehemence of a strong mind in +distress breaking through all conventionality. Rose drew herself up and +looked at him coldly. In that moment she completely regained her +self-possession. + +"It is absolutely inexplicable," he went on, with a great effort at +self-control. "Sir David Bright leaves this house and L800 a year to +you, Lady Rose, for your lifetime, and a few gifts to friends and small +legacies to old servants." He paused. Rose, with slightly heightened +colour, spoke very quietly. + +"Then the fortune was much smaller than was supposed?" + +"It was larger, far larger than any one knew; but it is all left away." + +Rose was disturbed and frankly sorry, but not by any means miserable. +She knew life, and did not dislike wealth, and had had dreams of much +good that might be done with it. + +"To whom is it left?" she asked. + +"After the small legacies I mentioned are paid off, the bulk of the +fortune goes"--the lawyer's voice became more and more business-like in +tone--"to Madame Danterre, a lady living in Florence." + +"And unless anything is sent to me from South Africa, this will is law?" + +"Yes." + +Rose covered her face with her hands; she did not move for several +moments. It would not have surprised Mr. Murray to know that she was +praying. Presently she raised her face and looked at him with troubled +eyes, but absolute dignity of bearing. + +"And the codicil?" + +"The codicil directs that if you continue to live in this house----" + +Rose made a little sound of surprised protest. + +"----the ground rent, all rates, and all taxes are to be paid. A sum +much larger than can be required is left for this purpose, and it can +also be spent on decorating or furnishing, or in any way be used for the +house and garden. It is an elaborate affair, going into every detail." + +"Should I be able to let the house?" + +"For a period of four months, not longer. But should you refuse to live +in this house, this sum will go with the bulk of the fortune. We had +immediate application on behalf of Madame Danterre from a lawyer in +Florence as soon as the news of the death reached us. It seems that she +has a copy of the will." + +"Has she"--Rose hesitated, and then repeated, "Has Madame Danterre any +children?" + +"I do not know," said Mr. Murray. "Beyond paying considerable sums to +this lawyer from time to time for her benefit, we have known nothing +about her. There has been also a large annual allowance since the year +when Sir David came into his cousin's fortune." There was another +silence, and then Mr. Murray spoke in a more natural way, though it was +impossible to conceal all the sympathy that was filling his heart with +an almost murderous wrath. + +"After all, the General had plenty of time before starting for the war +to arrange his affairs; he was not a man who would neglect business. I +came here with a faint hope--or I tried to think it was a hope--that you +might have another will in the house. I'm afraid this--document +represents Sir David Bright's last wishes." There was a ring of +indignant scorn in his voice. + +Rose looked through the window on to the thin black London turf outside, +and her eyes were blank from the intensity of concentration. She had no +thought for the lawyer; if he had been sympathetic even to impertinence +she would not have noticed it. + +She was questioning her own instincts, her perceptions. No, it was +almost more as if she were emptying her mind of any conscious action +that her whole power of instinctive perception might have play. When +the blow had fallen, her only surprise had been to find that she was not +surprised, not astonished. It seemed as if she had known this all the +time, for the thing had been alongside of her for years, she had lived +too close to it for any surprise when it raised its head and found a +name. Her reasoning powers indeed asked with astonishment why she was +not surprised. She could not explain, the symptoms of the thing that had +haunted her had been too subtle, too elusive, too minute to be brought +forward now as witnesses. But while the lawyer looked at the open face +and the large eyes, and the frank bearing of the figure in the +photograph, and felt that outer man to have been the disguise of a +villain, Rose, the victim, knew better. It was a supreme proof of the +clear vision of her soul that she was not surprised, and that, even +while she seemed to be flayed morally and exposed to things evil and of +shame, she did not judge with blind indignation. He had not been wholly +bad, he had not been callous in his cruelty; what he had been there +would be time to understand--time for the delicacies, almost for the +luxuries of forgiveness. What she was feeling after now was a point of +view above passion and pain from which to judge this final opinion of +the lawyer's, from which to know whether Sir David had left another +will. + +"There has been another will," she said very gently, "but, of course, it +is more than likely that it will never be found. I am convinced"--she +looked at the black and green turf all the time, and obviously spoke to +herself, not to Mr. Murray--"that he did not intend to leave me to open +shame"--the words were gently but very distinctly pronounced--"or to +leave a scandal round his own memory. Perhaps he carried another will +about with him, and if so it may be sent to me. Somehow I don't think +this will happen. I think the will you have in your hand is the only one +I shall ever see, but I do not therefore judge him of having faced death +with the intention of spoiling my life. I shall live in this house and I +shall honour his memory; he died for his country, and I am his widow." + +That was all she could say on the subject then, and she could only just +ask Mr. Murray if he could see her again any time the next morning. +After answering that question the lawyer went silently away. + +Rose stood by the table where he had sat a moment before, looking long +and steadfastly at the photograph. She looked at the open face, she +looked at the military bearing, she looked at the Victoria Cross,--it +had been the amazing courage shown in that story that had really won +her,--she looked, too, at the many medals. She had been with him once in +a moment of peril in a fire and had seen the unconscious pride with +which he always answered to the call of danger. She had, too, seen him +bear acute pain as if that had been his talent, the thing he knew how to +do. + +"Ah, poor David!" she said softly. "What did she do to frighten you? +Poor, poor David, you were always a coward!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN THE EVENING + + +But this was a trial to search out every part of Rose's nature. She had +too much faith for sickness, death, or even terrible physical pain, to +be to her in any sense a poisoned wound. There are women like Rose whose +inner life can only be in peril from the pain and shame of the sin of +others. To them it is an intolerable agony to be troubled in their faith +in man. + +Lady Charlton, swept out of the calm belonging to years of gentle +actions and ideal thoughts into a storm of indignation and horror, might +have lost all dignity and discretion if she had not been checked by +reverence for the dumb anguish and misery of her favourite daughter. She +had some notion of the thoughts that must pass in Rose's mind, now dull +and heavy, now alert and inflicting sudden deep incisions into the +quivering soul. Marriage had been to them both very sacred. They hated, +beyond most good women, anything that seemed to materialise or lower the +ideal. If there can be imagined a scale of standards for the relations +of men and women, of which Zola had not touched the extremity at one +end, the first place at the other extremity might be assigned to such +Englishwomen as Rose and her mother. The most subtle and amazingly high +motives had been assigned to Lord Charlton's most ordinary actions, and +happily he had been so ordinary a person that no impossible shock had +been given to the ideal built up about him. And it had not been +difficult or insincere to carry on something of the same illusion with +regard to the man who had won the Victoria Cross and had been very +popular with Tommy Atkins. David Bright's very reserves, the closed +doors in his domestic life, did not prevent, and indeed in some ways +helped, the process. The mother had known in the depth of her heart that +Rose was lonely, but then she was childless. Rose had never, even in +moments when the nameless mystery that was in her home oppressed her +most in its dull, voiceless way, tried to tell her mother what she did +not herself understand. Sir David had been courteous, gentle, attentive, +but never happy. Rose knew now that he had always been guiltily afraid. + +Lady Charlton had had a few moments' warning of disaster, for she was +horrified at the change in Rose's face when she met her at the door of +the church after Evensong. She herself had been utterly soothed and +rested by the beauty of the service. There was so much that fitted in +with all her ideals in mourning the great soldier. Little phrases about +him and about Rose flitted through her mind. Widows were widows indeed +to Lady Charlton. Rose would live now chiefly for Heaven and to soothe +the sorrows of earth. She did not say to herself that Rose would not be +broken-hearted and crushed, nor did she take long views. If years hence +Rose were to marry again her mother could make another picture in which +Sir David would recede into the background. Now he was her hero whom +Rose mourned, and whose loss had consecrated her more entirely to +Heaven; then he would unconsciously become in her mother's eyes a much +older man whom Rose had married almost as a child. There would be +nothing necessarily to mar the new picture if all else were fitting. + +But the peace of gentle sorrow had left Rose's face, and it wore a look +her mother had never seen on it before. The breath of evil was close +upon her; it had penetrated very near, so near that she seemed evil to +herself as it embraced her. She was too dazed, too confused to remember +that Divine purity had been enclosed in that embrace. What terrified her +most was the thought that had suddenly come that possibly the unknown +woman in Florence had been the real lawful wife, and that her own +marriage had been a sin, a vile pretence and horror. For the first time +in her life the grandest words of confidence that have expressed and +interpreted the clinging faith of humanity seemed an unreality. Rose had +never known the faintest temptation to doubt Providence before this +miserable evening. She resented with her whole being the idea that +possibly she had been the cause of the grossest wrong to an injured +wife. And there was ground in reason for such a fear, for it seemed +difficult to believe that any claim short of that of a wife could have +frightened Sir David into such a course. The other and more common view, +that it was because he had loved his mistress throughout, did not appeal +to her. Vice had for her few recognisable features; she had no map for +the country of passion, no precedents to refer to. It seemed to Rose +most probable that Sir David had believed his first wife to be dead +when he married her; that, on finding he was mistaken, his courage had +failed, and that he had carried on a gigantic scheme of bribery to +prevent her coming forward. This view was in one sense a degree less +painful, as it would make him innocent of the first great deception, the +huge lie of making love to her as if he were a free man. The depths and +extent of her misery could be measured by the strange sense of a bitter +gladness invading the very recesses of her maternal instinct, and +replacing what had been the heartfelt sorrow of six years. "It is a +mercy I have no child!" she cried, and the cry seemed to herself almost +blasphemous. + +When she came out of the church it was raining, and the wind blowing. It +was only a short walk to her own house, and she and her mother had made +a rule not to take out servants and the carriage for their devotions. +She would have walked on in total silence, but her mother could not bear +the suspense. + +"Rose, what is it?" she cried, in a tone of authority and intense +anxiety. After all it might be easier to answer now as they battled with +the rain. + +"I don't know how to tell you, mother. Mr. Murray has been with me and +shown me the will. There was some one all the time who had some claim on +him. She may have been his real wife--I know nothing except that since +we have had John Steele's fortune David has always paid her an income +and now has left her a very great deal and me very little. That would +not matter--God knows it is not the poverty that hurts--but the thing +itself, the horror, the shame, the publicity. I mind it all, everything, +more than I ought. I----" She stopped, not a word more would come. + +Lady Charlton could only make broken sounds of incredulous horror. When +they crossed the brilliantly lighted hall the mother suddenly seemed +much older, and Rose, for the first time, bore all the traces of a +great, an overpowering sorrow. + +"It wasn't natural to be so calm," thought the maid, who had been with +her since her girlhood, as she helped her to take off her cloak. "She +didn't understand at first. It's coming over her now, poor dear, and +indeed he was a real gentleman, and such a husband! Never a harsh +word--not one--that I ever heard, at least." + +It was some time before Lady Charlton could be brought to believe it +all, and then at first she was overwhelmed with self-blame. Her mind +fastened chiefly on the fact that she had allowed the marriage without +settlements. Then the next thought was the horror of the publicity, the +way in which this dreadful woman must be heard of and talked about. Lady +Charlton's broken sentences had almost the feebleness of extreme old age +that cannot accept as true what it cannot understand. "It seems +impossible, quite impossible," she said. She was very tired, and Rose +wished it had been practicable to keep this knowledge from her till +later. She knew that her mother was one of those highly-strung women +whose nerve power is at its best quite late at night. As it was, Lady +Charlton had to dress for dinner and sit as upright as usual through the +meal, and to talk a little before the servants. Rose appeared the more +dazed of the two then, though her mind had been quite clear before. +There was nothing said as soon as they were alone, but, as if with one +accord, both glanced at each of the many letters brought by the last +post, and, if it were one of condolence, laid it aside unread. The +butler had placed on a small table two evening papers, which had notices +of the memorial service for Sir David Bright, and one had some lines "In +Memoriam" from a poet of considerable repute. Rose, finding the papers +at her elbow, got up and changed her chair. It was not till they had +gone up to their rooms and parted that Lady Charlton felt speech to be +possible. She wrapped her purple dressing-gown round her and went into +Rose's room. She found her sitting in a low chair by the fire leaning +forward, her elbows pressed on her knees, her face buried in her hands. +Then, very quietly and impersonally, they discussed the situation. With +a rare self-command the mother never used one expression of reprobation; +if she had done so, Rose could not have spoken again. It seemed more and +more, as they spoke in the two gentle voices, so much alike in tone and +accent, in a half pathetic, half musical intonation; it seemed as they +sat so quietly without tears, almost without gestures, as if they +discussed the story of another woman and another man. There were some +differences in their views, and the mother's was ever the hardest on the +dead man. For instance, Rose believed through all that another will +existed, although she was convinced that she should never see it. Her +mother's judgment coincided with the lawyer's; the soldier would have +made the change, if it were made at all, before starting for the war. +No, the whole thing had been too recently gone into; it was so short a +time since the codicil had been added. Of that codicil, too, Lady +Charlton's view was quite clear. She thought the object of adding it had +been to save appearances. "As long as you live in this house, furnished +as well as possible, people will forget the wording of the will, or they +will think that money was given to you in his lifetime to escape the +death duties." + +Like many idealists and even mystics, both mother and daughter took +sensible views on money matters. They did not undervalue the fortune +that had gone; they were both honestly sorry it had gone, and would have +taken any reasonable means to get it back again. Only Rose allowed that +possibly there might have been some claim in justice on the woman's +part; she could not frame her lips to use the words again. Without +"legal wife" or any such terms passing between them, they were really +arguing the point. Lady Charlton had not the faintest shadow of a doubt +"the woman was a wicked woman, and the wicked woman, as wicked women do, +had entrapped a" (the adjective was conspicuous by its absence) "a man." +Such a woman was to be forgiven, even--a bitter sigh could not be +suppressed--to be prayed for; but it was not necessary to try to take a +falsely charitable view of her, or invent unlikely circumstances in her +defence. It was a relief to the darkest of all dark thoughts in Rose's +mind, the doubt of the validity of her own marriage, to hear her mother +settling this question as she had settled so many questions years ago, +by the weight of personal authority. + +At last the clock on the stairs below told them that it was two in the +morning, and Lady Charlton had to leave London by an early train. She +was torn between the claim of her youngest married daughter, who was +laid up in a lonely country house in Scotland, and that of Rose in this +new and miserable trouble. + +"I could telegraph to Bertha that I can't come," she said suddenly. +"But I am afraid she would miss me." + +"No, no," murmured Rose firmly, "Bertha needs you most now; you must +go," and then, fearing her mother might think she did not want her +quite, quite enough, "I shall look forward to your coming back soon, +very soon." + +"Could you--could you come and sleep in my room, Rose?" They were +standing up by the fireplace now. + +"If you like mother, only it will be worse for me to-morrow night." They +both looked away from the fire round the room--the room that had been +hers since the first days after the honeymoon. + +Then at the same moment Lady Charlton opened her arms and Rose drew +within them, and leant her fair head on her mother's shoulder. So they +stood for a few moments in absolute stillness. + +"God bless you, my child," and Rose was left, as she wished, alone. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"AS YOU HOPE TO BE FORGIVEN" + + +Two months passed, and at last the War Office received a parcel for Lady +Rose Bright. It had been sent to headquarters by the next officer in +command under Sir David, who had met his own fate a few weeks later. +Rose received the parcel at tea-time, brought to her by a mounted +messenger from the War Office. + +A great calm had settled in Rose's soul during these weeks. She had met +her trouble alone and standing. At first, all had been utter darkness +and bitter questioning. Then the questioning had ceased. Even the wish +to have things clear to her mind and to know why she should have this +particular trial was silenced, and in the completeness of submission she +had come back to life and to peace. Nothing was solved, nothing made +clear, but she was again in the daylight. But when she received the +little parcel in its thick envelope she trembled excessively. It was +addressed in a handwriting she had never seen before. She could not for +some moments force herself to open it. When she did she drew out a faded +photograph, a diamond ring, and a sheet of paper with writing in ink. +The photograph was of Sir David as quite a young man--she had never seen +it before; the ring had one very fine diamond, and that she had never +seen before. On the paper was written in his own hand.-- + +"This will be brought to you if I die in battle. Forgive me, as you too +hope to be forgiven. Justice had to be done. I have tried to make it as +little painful as I could." + +That was all. There was nothing else in the envelope. She took up the +photograph, she took up the ring, and examined them in turn. It was so +strange, this very remarkable diamond, which she had never seen before, +sent to her as if it were a matter of course. He had never worn much +jewellery, and he had left in her care the few seals and rings he +possessed. Then the photograph of her husband as a young man, so much +younger than when she had known him. Why send it to her now? What had +she to do with this remote past? But the paper was the most astonishing +of all. She had been standing when she undid the things; she left the +ring and the photograph on the table, and she sank into a chair near the +fire holding the bit of paper. The tone of it astonished and confused +her. It was more the stern moralist asking to be forgiven for doing +right than the guilty husband asking for mercy in her thoughts of him. + +"Yes," thought Rose at length, "that is because she was his wife, and +when he came to face death it was the great wrong of infidelity to her +that haunted him. I must have seemed almost a partner in the wrong." + +Again the confused sense of guilt seized her, the horrible possibility +of having been a wife only in name. She did not weigh the matter calmly +enough to feel quite as distinctly as she ought to have done that she +could not be touched or denied in the faintest degree by a sin that was +not her sin. Still she raised her head as she could not have done some +weeks before; for the most acute phase of her trial had been faced and +had been passed. Now in her moments of most bitter pain in the very +depths of her soul was peace. As she became calmer she tried again to +connect together those three parts of the message from the battle-field, +the ring, the photograph, and the letter; but she could not do so. At +last she put them away in the drawer of her bureau, and then wrote to +tell her mother and the lawyer that Sir David had sent her a photograph, +a ring, and a few private lines--that was all. There was no will. + +Still everything had not been brought back. There had been portmanteaux +sent down to Capetown, and there might yet be discovered a small +despatch box, or a writing case, something or other that might hold a +will. But the limit of time was reached at last; the portmanteaux and a +despatch box were recovered, but they held no will. + +The solicitor delayed to the last possible moment, and then the will was +proved. It was published in the papers at a moment when a lull in the +war gave leisure for private gossip, and the gossip accordingly raged +hotly. All the sweetness, gentleness, and kindness that made Rose +deservedly popular did not prevent there being two currents of opinion. +There are wits so active that they cannot share the views of all +right-minded people. While the majority sympathised deeply with Rose, +there were a few who insinuated that she must be to some degree to blame +for what had happened. + +"Well, don't you know, I never could understand why she married a man so +much older than herself. Of course she had not a penny and he was +awfully rich, and people don't look too close into a man's character in +such cases. It is rather convenient for some women to be very innocent." + +Sir Edmund Grosse, to whom the remark was addressed at a small country +house party, turned his back for a moment on the speaker in order to +pick up a paper, and then said in a low, indifferent voice: "David +Bright came into his cousin's fortune unexpectedly a year after he +married Lady Rose." + +The subject was dropped that time, but he met it again in somewhat the +same terms in London. There seemed a sort of vague impression that Lady +Rose had married for the sake of the wealth she had lost. Also at his +club there was talk he did not like, not against Rose indeed, but +dwelling on the other side of the story, and he hated to hear Rose's +name connected with it. People forgot his relationship, and after all he +was only a second cousin. + +Edmund Grosse was at this time just over forty. He was a tall, loosely +built man, with rather a colourless face, with an expression negative in +repose, and faintly humorous when speaking. He was rich and supposed to +be lazy; he knew his world and had lived it in and for it +systematically. Some one had said that he took all the frivolous things +of life seriously and all the serious things frivolously. He could +advise on the choice of a hotel or a motor-car with intense earnestness, +and he had healed more than one matrimonial breach that threatened to +become tragic by appealing to the sense of humour in both parties. He +never took for granted that anybody was very good or very bad. The best +women possible liked him, and looked sorry and incredulous when they +were informed by his enemies that he had no morals. He had never told +any one that he was sad and bored. Nor had he ever thought it worth +while to mention that he had indifferent health and knew what it was to +suffer pain. If such personal points were ever approached by his friends +they found that he did not dwell upon them. He had the air of not being +much interested in himself. + +For a long time he had felt no acute sensations of any kind; he had +believed them to belong to youth and that was past. But that matter of +David Bright's will had stirred him to the very depths. He spent +solitary hours in cursing the departed hero, and people found him +tiresome and taciturn in company. + +At last he determined to meddle in Rose's concerns, and he went to see +Mr. Murray, Junior, at his office. There ensued some pretty plain +speaking as to the late hero between the two men. Edmund Grosse half +drawled out far the worst comments of the two; he liked the lawyer and +let himself speak freely. And although the visit was apparently wholly +unproductive of other results, it was a decided relief to his feelings. +Then he heard that Rose had come back to London, and he went to see her. +It was about nine months since she had become a widow. She was alone in +the big beautifully furnished drawing-room, which was just as of old. +Except that a neat maid had opened the door, instead of a butler, he saw +no change. + +Rose looked a little nervous for a moment, and then frankly pleased to +see him. Edmund always had a talent for seeming to be as natural in any +house as if he were the husband or the brother or part of the furniture. +Somehow, as Rose gave him tea and they settled into a chat, she felt as +if he had been there very often lately, whereas in fact she had not seen +him since David died, except at the memorial service. He began to tell +her what visits he had paid, whom he had seen, the little gossip he +expressed so well in his gentle, sleepy voice; and then he drew her on +as to her own interests, her charities, her work for the soldiers' +wives. He said nothing more that day, but he dropped in again soon, and +then again. + +At last one evening he observed quite quietly, in a pause in their talk: +"So you live here on L800 a year?" + +Rose did not feel annoyed, though she did not know why she was not +angry. + +"Yes, I can manage," she said simply. + +"You can't tell yet; it's too soon." He got up out of his low chair near +the fireplace, now filled with plants, and stood with his back against +the chimney. "You know it's absurd," he said. Rose moved uneasily and +was silent. + +"It's absurd," he repeated, "there's another will somewhere. David would +never have done that." He struck that note at the start, and cursed +David all the deeper in the depths of his diplomatic soul. Rose looked +at him gratefully, kindly. + +"I think there is another will somewhere," she said, "but I am sure it +will never be found. It's no use to think or talk of it, Edmund." + +He fidgeted for a moment with the china on the chimney-piece. + +"For 'auld lang syne,' Rose," he said in a very low voice, "and because +you might possibly, just possibly, have made something of me if you had +chosen, let me know a little more about it. I want to see what was in +his last letter." + +Rose flushed deeply. It was difficult to say why she yielded except that +most people did yield to Grosse if he got them alone. She drew off the +third finger of her left hand a very remarkable diamond ring and gave it +to him. Then she took out of a drawer a faded photograph of a young, +commonplace, open-faced officer, now framed in an exquisite stamped +leather case, and handed that to him also. He saw that she hesitated. + +"May I have the rest," he said very gently. Even her mother had never +seen the piece of paper. No, she could not show that. Edmund did not +insist further, and a moment later he seemed to have forgotten that she +had not given him what he asked for. + +"Did he often wear this ring?" + +"Never. I never saw it till now, and I had never seen the photograph." + +"It was taken in India," he commented, "and the ring has a date twenty +years ago." + +"I never noticed that," said Rose. She was feeling half consciously +soothed and relieved as a child might feel comforted who had found a +companion in a room that was haunted. + +"Things from such a remote past," he murmured abstractedly. "Did he +explain in writing why he sent those things?" + +"No, he said nothing about them, he only----" she paused. Edmund did not +move, and in a few moments she gave him the paper. He ground his teeth +as he read it, he grew white about the lips, but he said nothing. He was +horribly disappointed--the scoundrel asked for forgiveness. Then he had +not made another will. Edmund did not look round at Rose, but she was +acutely present to his consciousness--the woman's beauty, the child's +innocence, the suffering and the strength in her face. "As you would be +forgiven!" That was a further insult, it seemed to him. To talk of Rose +wanting forgiveness. Then a strange kind of sarcasm took hold of him. So +it was; she had not been able to believe in himself; he, Edmund, had not +been ideal in any sense. Therefore she had passed him by, and then a +hero had come whom she had worshipped, and this was the end of it. Every +word in the paper burnt into him. "Justice"--how dared he? "Made it as +little painful as he could"--it was insufferable, and the coward was +beyond reach, had taken refuge whither human vengeance could not follow +him. + +He succeeded in leaving Rose's house without betraying his feelings, but +he felt that no good had come of this attempt, so far at any rate. That +night he slept badly, which he did pretty often, but he experienced an +unusual sensation on waking. He felt as if he had been working hard and +in vain all night at a problem, and he suddenly said to himself, "The +ring, the photograph, and the paper were of course meant for the other +woman, and she has got whatever was meant for Rose. Now if the thing +that was meant for Rose was the will, Madame Danterre has got it now +unless she has had the nerve to destroy it." He felt as if he had been +an ass till this moment. Then he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, who +listened with profound attention until he had finished what he had to +tell him. + +"Lady Rose has allowed you to see the paper, then?" he said at last. +"She has not even shown it to Lady Charlton. He asked her pardon," he +mused, half to himself, "and said justice must be done. I am afraid, Sir +Edmund, that that points in the same direction as our worst fears--that +Madame Danterre was his wife." + +"But he would not have written such a letter as that to Rose; it is +impossible. 'Forgive as you too hope to be forgiven.' That sentence in +connection with Lady Rose is positively grotesque, whereas it would be +most fitting when addressed elsewhere." + +Mr. Murray could not see the case in the same light as Edmund. He +allowed the possibility of the scrap of paper and the ring having been +sent to Rose by mistake, but he was not inclined to indulge in what +seemed to him to be guesswork as to what conceivably had been intended +to be sent to her in place of them. + +"There is, too," he argued, "a quite possible interpretation of the +words of that scrap of paper. It is possible that he was full of remorse +for his treatment of Madame Danterre. Sometimes a man is haunted by +wrong-doing in the past until it prevents his understanding the point of +view of anybody but the victim of the old haunting sin. Remorse is very +exclusive, Sir Edmund. In such a state of mind he would hardly think of +Lady Rose enough to realise the bearing of his words. 'Forgive as you +too hope to be forgiven' would be an appeal wrung out from him by sheer +suffering. It is a possible cry from any human being to another. Then as +to the ring and the photograph, we have no proof that he put them in the +envelope. They may have been found on him and put into the envelope by +the same hand that addressed it. I quite grant you that those few words +are extraordinary, but they can be explained. But even if it were +obvious that they were intended for somebody else, you cannot deduce +from that, that another letter, intended for Lady Rose and containing a +will, was sent elsewhere." + +But Sir Edmund was obstinate. The piece of paper had been intended for +Madame Danterre, together with the ring and the photograph--things +belonging to Sir David's early life, to the days when he most probably +loved this other woman; he even went so far as to maintain that the lady +in Florence had given Sir David the ring. + +"After all," said Mr. Murray, "what can you do? You could only raise +hopes that won't be fulfilled." + +"I think myself that my explanation would calm my cousin's mind; the +possibility that she was not Sir David's wife is, I am convinced, the +most painful part of the trial to her. I shall write it to her, but I +shall also tell her that there is no hope whatever of proving what I +believe to be the truth." + +"None at all; do impress that upon her, Sir Edmund. We have nothing to +begin upon. The officer who sent the paper to headquarters is dead; Sir +David's own servant is dead; Sir David's will in favour of Madame +Danterre has been published without even a protest." + +"Lady Rose will not be inclined to raise the question." + +"No, I believe that is true," said the lawyer; "Lady Rose Bright is a +wise woman." + +But Mr. Murray was annoyed to find that Edmund Grosse was far less wise, +and that whatever he might promise to say to Rose he would not really be +content to leave things alone. He intended to go to Florence and to get +into touch with Madame Danterre. Such interference could do no good, and +it might do harm. + +"I won't alarm her," said Edmund, "believe me, she will have no reason +to suppose that I am in Florence on her account. I am, in any case, +going to the Italian lakes this autumn, and I have often been offered +the loan of a flat overlooking the Arno. If the offer is still open I +shall accept it. I have long wished to know that fascinating town a +little better." + +When Rose received the letter from Edmund it had the effect he had +expected. It was simply calming, not exciting. Rose was even more +anxious than the lawyer that nothing should be attempted in order to +follow up her cousin's suggestion. But she could now let her imagination +be comforted by Edmund's solution of the mystery, and let her fancy rest +in the thought of a very different letter intended for herself. The +words on that scrap of paper no longer burnt with such agony into her +soul, and she no longer felt it a dreadful duty to wear the ring with +its glorious stone so full of light, an object that was to her intensely +repugnant. She would put it away, and with it all dark and morbid +thoughts. She had a life to lead, thoughts to think, actions to do, and +all that was in her own control must escape from the shadow of the past +into a working daylight. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE + + +Edmund Grosse's friend was delighted to put the flat in the Palazzo at +his disposal. The weather was unusually warm for the autumn when Edmund +arrived in Florence. He was glad to get there, and glad to get away from +the gay group he had left in a beautiful villa on Lake Como; and +probably they were glad to see him go. + +Edmund had indeed only stayed with them long enough to leave a very +marked impression of low spirits and irritation. "What's come to +Grosse?" was asked by more than one guest of the hostess. + +"I don't know, but he really is impossible. It's partly because of +Billy--but I won't condescend to explain that Billy proposed himself and +I could not well refuse." + +Billy is the only one of this gay, quarrelsome little group that need be +named here. It was really partly on his account that Edmund so quickly +left them to their gossip alternating with happy phrases of joy in the +beauty of mountains and lakes, and to their quarrels alternating with +moments of love-making, so avowedly brief that only an artist could +believe in its exquisite enjoyment. Neither Edmund nor Billy were +really _habitues_ of this Bohemian circle. They both belonged to a more +conventional social atmosphere; they were at once above and below the +rest of the party. The cause of antipathy to Billy on Sir Edmund's part +was a certain likeness in their lives--contrasting with a most marked +dissimilarity of character. + +Sir Edmund could not say that Billy was a fool or a snob, because Billy +did nothing but lead a perfectly useless life as expensively as +possible; and he did the same himself. He could not even say that Billy +lived among fools and snobs, because many of Billy's friends were his +own friends too. He could not say that Billy had been a coward because +he had not volunteered to fight in the Boer war, because Sir Edmund had +not volunteered himself. He could not say that Billy employed the wrong +tailor; it would show only gross ignorance or temper to say so. But just +the things in which he felt himself superior, utterly different in fact +from Billy, were the stupid, priggish things that no one boasts of. He +read a good deal; he thought a good deal; he knew he might have had a +future, and the bitterness of his heart lay in the fact that at fifteen +years later in life than Billy he was still so completely a slave to all +that Billy loved. Every detail of their lives seemed to add to the +irritation. It was only the day he left London that he had discovered +that Billy's new motor was from the same maker as his own; in fact, +except in colour, the motors were twins. This was the latest, and not +even the least, cause of annoyance. For it betrayed what he was always +trying to conceal from himself, that there appeared to be an actual +rivalry between him and Billy, a petty, social, silly rivalry. Billy, of +simpler make, a fresher, younger, more contented animal, thought little +of all this, and was irritated by Sir Edmund's assumption of +superiority. + +But he had never found Grosse so bearish and difficult before this visit +to Como. As a rule Edmund was suavity itself, but this time even his +gift of gently, almost imperceptibly, making every woman feel him to be +her admirer was failing. How often he had been the life of any party in +any class of society, and that not by starting amusements, not by any +power of initiation, but by a gift for making others feel pleased, first +with themselves, and consequently with life. He could bring the gift to +good use on a royal yacht, at a Bohemian supper party, at a schoolroom +tea, or at a parish mothers' meeting. But now--and he owned that his +liver was out of order--he was suffering from a general disgust with +things. When still a young man in the Foreign Office he had succeeded to +a large fortune, and it had seemed then thoroughly worth while to employ +it for social ends and social joys. Long ago he had attained those ends, +and long ago he had become bored with those joys; and yet he could not +shake himself free from any of the habits of body or mind he had got +into during those years. He could not be indifferent to any shades of +failure or success. He watched the temperature of his popularity as +acutely as many men watch their bodily symptoms. Even during those days +at Como, though despising his company, he knew that he felt a distinct +irritation in a preference for Billy on the part of a lady whom he had +at one time honoured with his notice. In arriving where he was in the +English social world, he had increased, not only the need for luxury of +body, but the sensitiveness and acuteness of certain perceptions as to +his fellow creatures, and these perceptions were not likely to slumber +again. + +Edmund was oppressed by several unpleasant thoughts as well as by the +heat of the night on which he arrived in Florence. He decided to sleep +out in the wide brick _loggia_ of the flat, which was nearly at the top +of the great building. There was nothing to distract his gloomy thoughts +from himself, not even a defect in the dinner or in the broad couch of a +bed from which he could look up between the brick pillars of the +_loggia_ at the naked stars. If he had been younger he would, in his +sleepless hours, have owned to himself that he was suffering from "what +men call love," but he could not believe easily that Edmund Grosse at +forty was as silly as any boy of twenty. He pished and pshawed at the +absurdity. He could not accept anything so simple and goody as his own +story. That ever since Rose married he had put her out of his thought +from very love and reverence for her seemed an absurd thing to say of a +man of his record. Yet it was true; and all the more in consequence did +the thought of Rose as a free woman derange his whole inner life now, +while the thought of Rose insulted by the dead hand of the man she had +married was gall and wormwood. What must Rose think of men? She had been +so anxious to find a great and good man; and she had found David Bright, +whose mistress was now enjoying his great wealth somewhere below in the +old Tuscan capital. And how could Edmund venture to be the next man +offered to her?--Edmund who had done nothing all these years, who had +sunk with the opportunity of wealth; whose talents had been lost or +misused. He seemed to see Rose kneeling at her prayers--the golden head +bowed, the girlish figure bent. He could think of nothing in himself to +distract her back to earth, poor beautiful child! Yet he had not nursed +or petted or even welcomed the old passion of his boyhood. He wanted to +be without it and its discomforting reproaches. It was too late to +change anything or anybody. At forty how could he have a career, and +what good would come of it? Yet his love for Rose was insistent on the +necessity of making Rose's lover into a different man from the present +Edmund Grosse. It was absurd and medieval to suppose that if he did some +great or even moderately great work he could win her by doing it. It +might be absurd, yet contrariwise he felt convinced that she would never +take him as he was now. + +So he wearied as he turned on the couch that became less and less +comfortable, till he rose and, with a rug thrown over him, leant on the +brick balustrade of the _loggia_. He stood looking at the stars in the +dimness, not wholly unlike the figure of some old Roman noble in his +toga, nor perhaps wholly unlike the figure of the unconverted Augustine, +weary of himself and of all things. + +But this remark only shows how the stars and the deep blue openings into +the heavens, and the manifold suggestions of the towers of Dante's city, +and the neighbourhood of Savonarola's cell, affect the imagination and +call up comparisons by far too mighty. Edmund Grosse's weariness of evil +is nothing but a sickly shadow of the weariness of the great imprisoned +soul to whom an angel cried to take up and read aright the book of life. +Grosse is in fact only a middle-aged man in pajamas with a travelling +rug about his shoulders, with a sallow face, a sickly body, and a rather +shallow soul. He will not go quite straight even in his love quest, and +he cannot bring himself to believe how strongly that love has hold of +him. He is cynical about the best part of himself and to-night only +wishes that it would trouble him less. + +"Damn it," he muttered at last, "I wish I had slept indoors--I am bored +to death by those stars!" + +Next day Grosse set about the work for which he had come to Florence. He +called on two men whom he knew slightly, and found them at home, but +neither of them had ever heard of Madame Danterre. Dawkins, his +much-travelled servant, of course, was more successful, and by the +evening was able to take Edmund in a carriage to see some fine old iron +gates, and to drive round some enormous brick walls--enormous in height +and in thickness. + +The Villa was in a magnificent position, and the gardens, Dawkins told +his master, were said to be beautiful. Madame Danterre had only just +moved into it from a much smaller house in the same quarter. + +Edmund next drove to the nearest chemist, and there found out that Dr. +Larrone was the name of Madame Danterre's medical man. He already knew +the name of her lawyer from Mr. Murray, who had been in perfunctory +communication with him during the years in which Sir David had paid a +large allowance to Madame Danterre. But he knew that any direct attempt +to see these men would probably be worse than useless. What he wished to +do was to come across Madame Danterre socially, and with all the +appearance of an accidental meeting. His two friends in Florence did +their best for him, but they were before long driven to recommend +Pietrino, a well-known detective, as the only person who could find out +for Grosse in what houses it might be possible to meet Madame Danterre. + +Grosse soon recognised the remarkable gifts of the Italian detective, +and confided to him the whole case in all its apparent hopelessness. +There was, indeed, a touch of kindred feeling between them, for both men +had a certain pleasure in dealing with human beings--humanity was the +material they loved to work upon. The detective was too wise to let his +zeal for the wealthy Englishman outrun discretion. He did very little in +the case, and brought back a distinct opinion that Grosse could, at +present, do nothing but mischief by interference. Madame Danterre had +always lived a very retired life, and was either a real invalid or a +valetudinarian. Her great, her enormous accession of wealth had only +been used apparently in the sacred cause of bodily health. She saw at +most six people, including two doctors and her lawyer; and on rare +occasions, some elderly man visiting Florence--a Frenchman maybe, or an +Englishman--would seek her out. She never paid any visits, although she +kept a splendid stable and took long drives almost daily. The detective +was depressed, for he had really been fired by Grosse's view as to the +will, and he had come to so favourable an opinion of Grosse's ability +that he had wished greatly for an interview between the latter and +Madame Danterre to come off. + +Edmund was loth to leave Florence until one evening when he despaired, +for the first time, of doing any good. It was the evening on which he +succeeded in seeing Madame Danterre without the knowledge of that lady. +The garden of the villa into which he so much wished to penetrate was +walled about with those amazing masses of brickwork which point to a +date when labour was cheap indeed. Edmund had more than once dawdled +under the deep shadow of these shapeless masses of wall at the hour of +the general siesta. + +He felt more alert while most of the world was asleep, and he could +study the defences of Madame Danterre undisturbed. A lost joy of boyhood +was in his heart when he discovered a corner where the brickwork was +partly crumbled away, and partly, evidently, broken by use. It looked as +if a tiny loophole in the wall some fifteen feet from the ground had +been used as an entrance to the forbidden garden by some small human +body. That evening, an hour before sunset, he came back and looked +longingly at the wall. The narrow road was as empty as it had been +earlier in the day. Twice he tried in vain to climb as far as the +loophole, but the third time, with trousers ruined and one hand +bleeding, he succeeded in crawling on to the ledge below the opening so +that he could look inside. He almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of +his own pleasure in doing so. Some rich, heavy scent met him as he +looked down, but, fresh from the gardens of Como, this garden looked to +him both heavy and desolate--heavy in its great hedges broken by +statuary in alcoves cut in the green, and desolate in its burnt turf and +its trailing rose trees loaded with dead roses. His first glance had +been downwards, then his look went further afield, and he knew why +Madame Danterre had chosen the villa, for the view of Florence was +superb. He had not enjoyed it for half a moment when he heard a slight +noise in the garden. Yes, down the alley opposite to him there were +approaching a lady and two men servants. He held his breath with +surprise. Was this Madame Danterre? the rival of Rose, the real love of +David Bright? What he saw was an incredibly wizened old woman who yet +held herself with considerable grace and walked with quick, long steps +on the burnt grass a little ahead of the attendants, one of whom carried +a deck chair, while the other was laden with cushions and books. It was +evident to the onlooker at the installation of Madame Danterre in the +shady, open space where three alleys met, that everything to do with her +person was carried out with the care and reverence befitting a religious +ceremony; and there was almost a ludicrous degree of pride in her +bearing and gestures. Edmund felt how amazingly some women have the +power of making others accept them as a higher product of creation, +until their most minute bodily wants seem to themselves and those about +them to have a sacred importance. At last, when chair and mat and +cushions and books had been carefully adjusted after much consideration, +she was left alone. + +For a few moments she read a paper-covered volume, and Edmund determined +to creep away at once, when she suddenly got up and began walking again +with long, quick steps, her train sweeping the grass as she came towards +the great wall; and he drew back a little, although it was almost +impossible that she should see him. Her gown, of a dark dove colour, +floated softly; it had much lace about the throat on which shone a +string of enormous pearls; and she wore long, grey gloves. Edmund, who +was an authority on the subject, thought her exquisitely dressed, as a +woman who feels herself of great importance will dress even when there +is no one to see her. In the midst of the extraordinarily wizened face +were great dark eyes full of expression, with a fierce brightness in +them. It was as if an internal fire were burning up the dried and +wizened features, and could only find an outlet through the eyes. +Rapidly she had passed up and down, and sometimes as she came nearer the +wall Edmund saw her flash angry glances, and sometimes sarcastic +glances, while her lips moved rapidly, and her very small gloved hand +clenched and unclenched. + +At last a noise in the deserted road behind him, the growing rumbling of +a cart, made him think it safer to move, even at the risk of a little +sound in doing so. He reached the ground safely before he could be seen, +and proceeded to brush the brick-dust off the torn knees of his grey +trousers. + +He walked down the hill into the town with an air of finality, for he +had determined to go back to England. He could not have analysed his +impressions; he could not have accounted for his sense of impotence and +defeat, but so it was. He had come across the personality of Madame +Danterre, and he thereupon left her in possession of the field. But at +the same time, before leaving Florence, he gave largely of the sinews of +war to that able spy, the Italian detective, Pietrino. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"YOUR MOTHER'S DAUGHTER" + + +The surprising disposal of Sir David Bright's fortune was to have very +important consequences in a quiet household among the Malcot hills, of +the existence of which Sir Edmund Grosse and Lady Rose Bright were +entirely unaware. + +In a small wind-swept wood that appeared to be seeking shelter in the +hollow under the great massive curve of a green hill, there stood one of +those English country houses that must have been planned, built, and +finished with the sole object of obtaining coolness and shade. The +principal living rooms looked north, and the staircase and a minute +study were the only spots that ever received any direct rays of the sun. +All the rooms except this favoured little study had windows opening to +the ground, and immediately outside grew the rich mossy turf that +indicates a clay soil. The mistress of the house was not easily daunted +by her surroundings, and she had impressed her cheerful, comfortable, +and fairly cultured mind on all the rooms. Mrs. Carteret was the widow +of a Colonel Carteret, who had retired from the army to farm his own +acres, and take his place in local politics. It is needless to say that, +while the politics had gained from the help of an upright and +chivalrous, if narrow, mind, the acres had profited little from his +attentions. When he died he left all he possessed absolutely to his +widow, who was not prepared to find how very little that all had become. +Mrs. Carteret took up the burden of the acres, dairy, gardens, and +stable, with a sense of sanctified duty none the less heroic in +sensation because she was doing all these things for her own profit. Her +neighbours held her in proportionate respect; and, as she had a fine +person, pleasant manners, and good connections, she kept, without the +aid of wealth, a comfortable corner in the society of the county. + +It was not long after Colonel Carteret's death, and some thirteen years +before the death of Sir David Bright, that the immediate neighbourhood +became gradually conscious of the fact that Mrs. Carteret had adopted a +little niece, the child of a soldier brother who had died in India. This +child, from the first, made as little effect on her surroundings as it +was possible for a child to do. Molly Dexter was small, thin, and +sallow; her dark hair did not curl; and her grey eyes had a curious look +that is not common, yet not very rare, in childhood. It is the look of +one who waits for other circumstances and other people than those now +present. I know nothing so discouraging in a child friend--or rather in +a child acquaintance, for friendship is warned off by such eyes--as this +particular look. Mrs. Carteret took her niece cheerfully in hand, +commended the quiet of her ways, and gave credit to herself and open +windows for a perceptible increase in the covering of flesh on the +little bones, and a certain promise of firmness in the calves of the +small legs. As to the rest: "Of course it was difficult at first," she +said, "but now Molly is perfectly at home with me. Nurses never do +understand children, and Mary used to excite her until she had fits of +passion. But that is all past. She is quite a healthy and normal child +now." + +Molly was growing healthy, but whether she was normal or not is another +point. It does not tend to make a child normal to change everything in +life at the age of seven. Not one person, hardly one thing was the same +to Molly since her father's death. The language of her _ayah_ had until +then been more familiar to her than any other language. The ayah's +thoughts had been her thoughts. The East had had in charge the first +years of Molly's dawning intelligence, and there seemed impressed, even +on her tiny figure, something that told of patience, scorn, and reserve. +And yet Mrs. Carteret was quite satisfied. + +Once, indeed, the widow was puzzled. Molly had strayed away by herself, +and could not be found for nearly two hours. Provided with two figs and +several bits of biscuit, a half-crown and a shilling, she had started to +walk through the deep, heavy lanes between the great hills, with the +firm intention of taking ship to France. Mrs. Carteret treated the +escapade kindly and firmly; not making too much of it, but giving such +sufficient punishment as to prevent anything so silly happening again. +But she had no suspicion of what really had happened. Molly had, in +fact, started with the intention of finding her mother. It was two years +since she had come to live with Mrs. Carteret, and, if the child had +spoken her secret thought, she would have told you that throughout those +two years she had been meaning to run away and find her mother. In that +she would have fallen into an exaggeration not uncommon with some +grown-up people. It had been only at moments far apart, or occasionally +for quite a succession of nights in bed, that she had spent a brief +space before falling asleep in dreaming of going to seek her mother. But +whole months had passed without any such thought; and during these long +interludes the healthy country scenes about her, and the common causes +for smiles and tears in a child's life, filled her consciousness. Still, +the undercurrent of the deeper life was there, and very small incidents +were strong enough to bring it to the surface. Molly had short daily +lessons from the clergyman's daughter, a young lady who also took a +cheerful, airy view of the child, and said she would grow out of her +little faults in time. In one of these lessons Molly learnt with +surprising eagerness how to find France for herself on the map. That +France was much nearer to England than to India, and how it was usual to +cross the Channel were facts easily acquired. Molly was amazingly +backward in her lessons, or she must have learnt these things before. +When lessons were over and she went out into the garden, instead of +running as usual she walked so slowly that Mrs. Carteret, while talking +to the gardener, actually wondered what was in that child's mind. Molly +was living through again the parting with the ayah. She could feel the +intensely familiar touch of the soft, dark hand; she could see the +adoring love of the dark eyes with their passionate anger at the +separation. The woman had to be revenged on her enemies who were tearing +the child from her. "They deceive you," she said. "The beautiful mother +is not dead; she lives in France, not England; they will try to keep you +from her, but the faithful child will find a way." + +Molly unconsciously in her own mind had already begun to put these +words into English, whereas a year before she would have kept to the +ayah's own language. But in either language those words came to her as +the last message from that other life of warmth and love and colour in +which she had once been a queen. Indeed, every English child brought +home from India is a sovereign dethroned. And the repetition of the +ayah's last words gave utterance to a sense of wrong that Molly +nourished against her present rulers and against the world in which she +was not understood. + +That same day Mrs. Carteret spoke sharply and with indignation because +Molly had trodden purely by accident on the pug; and her aunt said that +the one thing with which she had no patience was cruelty to +animals--whereas the child was passionately fond of animals. Again, on +that same day, Molly fell into a very particularly dirty little pond +near the cowshed at the farm. Mary, the nurse, no doubt was the +sufferer, and she said that she did not suppose that black nurses minded +being covered with muck--how should they?--and she supposed she must be +treated as if she were a negro herself, but time would show whether she +were a black slave or an Englishwoman with a house of her own which she +could have now if she liked for the asking. While Mary spoke she pushed +and pulled, and, in general treated Molly's small person as something +unpleasant, and to be kept at a distance. Once clean and dressed again, +Molly sat down quite quietly to consider the ways and means of getting +to France, with the result already told. + +Several years passed after that, in which Mrs. Carteret did by Molly, as +by every one else, all the duties that were quite obviously evident to +her, and did not go about seeking for any fanciful ones. And Molly grew +up, sometimes happy, and sometimes not, saying sometimes the things she +really meant when she was in a temper, and acquiescing in Mrs. +Carteret's explanation that she had not meant them when she had regained +her self-control. + +Until Molly was between fifteen and sixteen, Mrs. Carteret was able to +keep to her optimism as to their mutual relations. + +"The child is, of course, very backward. I tried to think it was want of +education, but I've come to see it's of no use to expect to make Molly +an interesting or agreeable woman; and very plain, of course, she must +be. But, you know, plenty of plain, uninteresting women have very fairly +happy lives, and under the circumstances"--but there Mrs. Carteret +stopped, and her guest, the wife of the vicar, knew no more of the +circumstances than did the world at large. + +But when Molly was about the age of fifteen she began to display more +troublesome qualities, and a certain faculty for doing quite the wrong +thing under a perverse appearance of attempting good works. There is +nothing annoys a woman of Mrs. Carteret's stamp so much as good done in +the wrong way. She had known for so many years exactly how to do good to +the labourer, his family, and his widow, or to the vagrant passing by. +It was really very tiresome to find that Molly, while walking in one of +the lanes, had slipped off a new flannel petticoat in order to wrap up a +gypsy's baby. And it might be allowed to be trying that when believing +an old man of rather doubtful antecedents to be dying from exhaustion, +Molly had herself sought whisky from the nearest inn. She had bought a +whole bottle of whisky, though indeed, being seized with qualms, she had +poured half the contents of the bottle into a ditch before going back to +the cottage. And it was undoubtedly Mrs. Carteret's duty to protest when +she found that Molly had held a baby with diphtheria folded closely in +her arms while the mother fetched the doctor. + +Can any one blame Mrs. Carteret for finding these doings a little +trying? And it showed how freakish and contradictory Molly was in all +her ways that she would never join nicely in school feasts, or harvest +homes, or anything pleasant or cheerful. Nor did she make friends even +with those she had worried over in times of sickness. She would risk +some serious infection, or meddle, with her odd notions, day after day +in a cottage; and then she would hardly nod to the convalescent boy or +girl when she met them again in the lanes. + +There was no one to tell her aunt what new, strange instincts and +aspirations were struggling to the light in Molly. A passionate pity for +pain would seize on her and hold her in a grip until she had done some +definite act to relieve it. But pity was either not akin to love in +Molly, or her affections had been too starved to take root after the +immediate impulse of mercy was passed. The girl was not popular in the +village, although, unlike Mrs. Carteret, her poorer neighbours had a +great idea of Molly's cleverness. Needless to say that when, after some +unmeasured effort at relieving suffering, Molly would come home with a +sense of joy she rarely knew after any other act, it hurt her to the +quick and roused her deepest anger to find herself treated like a +naughty, inconsiderate child. The storms between Mrs. Carteret and +Molly were increasing in number and intensity, with outspoken wrath on +one side, and a white heat of dumb, indignant resistance on the other. +Then, happily, there came a change. Molly's education had been of the +very slightest until she was nearly sixteen, when Mrs. Carteret told her +to expect the arrival of a finishing governess. She also announced that +a music master from the cathedral town would, in future, come over twice +a week to give her lessons. + +"It's not my doing," said Mrs. Carteret,--and meaning only to be candid +she sounded very ungracious; and although she did not pay for these +things, it was due to her urgent representations of their need that they +had been provided. Molly supposed that all such financial arrangements +were made for her by her father's lawyer, of whom she had heard Mrs. +Carteret speak. + +Throughout these years it had never occurred to Mrs. Carteret to doubt +that Molly believed her mother to be dead, and she never for a moment +supposed the child's silence on the subject to be ominous. Such silence +did not show any special power of reserve; many children brought up like +Molly will carefully conceal knowledge which they believe that those in +authority over them suppose them not to possess. Perhaps in Molly's case +there was an instinctive shrinking from exposing an ideal to scorn. +Perhaps there was a wholly unconscious want of faith in the ideal +itself, an ideal which had been built up upon one phrase. Yet the notion +of the beautiful, exiled mother, so cruelly concealed from her child, +was very precious, however insecurely founded. It must be concealed from +other eyes by mists of incense, and honoured in the silence of the +sanctuary. + +The new governess, Miss Carew, was a very fair teacher, and she soon +recognised the quality of her pupil's mind. Mrs. Carteret was possibly a +little disappointed on finding that Miss Carew considered Molly to be +very clever, as well as very ignorant. The widow was herself accustomed +to feel superior to her own circle in literary attainments,--a sensation +which she justified by an occasional reading of French memoirs and by +always getting through at least two articles in each _Nineteenth +Century_. It was a detail that she had never cared for poetry; Sir James +Stephen, she knew, had also never cared to have ideas expressed in +verse. But she felt a little dull when Miss Carew and Molly discussed +Browning and Tennyson and De Musset. Miss Carew fired Molly with new +thoughts and new ambitions in matters intellectual, but also in more +mundane affairs. If it is possible to be in the world and not of it we +have all of us also known people who are of the world though not in it; +and Miss Carew was undoubtedly one of the latter. Her tongue babbled of +beauties and courts, of manners, of wealth, and of chiffons, with the +free idealism of an amateur, and this without intending to do more than +enliven the dull daily walks through Malcot lanes. + +Two years of this companionship rapidly developed Molly. She did not now +merely condemn her aunt and her friends from pure ignorant dislike; she +knew from other testimony that they were rather stupid, ignorant, +badly-dressed, and provincial. But the chief change in her state of mind +lay in her hopes for her own future. Miss Carew had pointed out that, if +such a very large salary could be given for the governess, there must +surely be plenty of money for Molly's disposal later on. Why should not +Molly have a splendid and delightful life before her? And then poor +Miss Carew would suppress a sigh at her own prospects in which the pupil +never showed the least interest. It was before Miss Carew's second year +of teaching had come to an end, and while Molly was rapidly enlarging +her mental horizon, that the girl came to a very serious crisis in her +life. + +Occupied with her first joy in knowledge, and with dreams of future +delights in the great world, she had not broken out into any very +freakish act of benevolence for a long time. One night, when Mrs. +Carteret and Miss Carew met at dinner time, they continued to wait in +vain for Molly. The servants hunted for her, Mrs. Carteret called up the +front stairs, and Miss Carew went as far as the little carpenter's shop +opening from the greenhouse to find her. It was a dark night, and there +was nothing that could have taken her out of doors, but that she was out +could not be doubted. The gardener and coachman were sent for, and +before ten o'clock the policeman in the village joined in the search, +and yet nothing was heard of Molly. Mrs. Carteret became really +frightened, and Miss Carew was surprised to see her betray so much +feeling as almost to lose her self-control. She kept walking up and +down, while odd spasmodic little sentences escaped from her every few +minutes. + +"How could I answer for it to John if his girl came to any harm?" she +repeated several times. + +She kept moving from room to room with a really scared expression. Once +the governess overheard her exclaim with an intensely bitter accent, +"Even her wretched mother would have taken more care of her!" + +At that moment the door opened; Molly came quietly in, looking at them +both with bright, defiant eyes. From her hat to the edge of her skirt +she appeared to be one mass of light, brown mud; her right cheek was +bleeding from a scratch, and the sleeve of her coat was torn open. + +"Where have you been to?" demanded Mrs. Carteret, in a voice that +trembled from the reaction of fear to anger. + +"I went for a walk, and I found a man lying half in the water in +Brown-rushes pond; he had evidently fallen in drunk. I got him out after +nearly falling in myself, and then I had to get some one to look after +him. They took him in at Brown-rushes farm, and I found out who he was +and went to tell his wife, who is ill, that he was quite safe. I stayed +a little while with her, and then I came home. I have walked about +twenty miles, and, as you can see, I have had several tumbles, and I am +very tired." + +Molly's voice had been very quiet, but very distinct, and her look and +bearing were full of an unspoken defiance. + +"And you never thought whether I should be frightened meanwhile?" said +Mrs. Carteret. + +"Frightened about me?" said Molly in astonishment. + +"You had no thought for _my_ anxiety--the strain on _my_ nerves," her +aunt went on. + +"I thought you might be angry, but I never for a moment thought you +would be frightened." + +Miss Carew looked from one to the other in alarm and perplexity. She +felt for them both, for the woman who had been startled by the extent of +her fears, and was the more angry in consequence, and for Molly, who +betrayed her utter want of belief in any kind of feeling on Mrs. +Carteret's part. + +"If you do not care for my feelings, or, indeed, believe in them, I wish +you would have some care for your own good name." A moment's pause +followed these words, and then in a low voice, but quite distinct, came +the conclusion, "You must remember that your mother's daughter must be +more careful than other girls." + +Molly's cheeks, just now bright from the battle with the autumn wind, +became as white as marble. There was no concealment possible; both women +saw that the child realised the full import of the words, and that she +knew they could read what was written on her face. There could be no +possibility of keeping up appearances after such a moment. But Miss +Carew moved forward, and flung her arms round Molly with a gesture of +simple but complete womanliness. "You must have a hot bath at once," she +cried, "or you will catch your death of cold." + +"Perhaps it would be better if I did," cried Molly in a voice fearful to +her hearers in its stony hardness and hopelessness. "What does it +matter?" + +Miss Carew would have been less unhappy if the child had burst into any +reproaches, however angry or unseemly; she wanted to hear her say that +something was a lie, that some one was a liar, but what was so awful to +the ordinary little woman was to realise that Molly believed what had +been said, or rather the awful implication of what had been said. The +real horror was that Molly should come to such knowledge in such a way. + +The girl made no effort to shake her off, and not the least response to +her caress. With perfect dignity she went quietly up-stairs. With +perfect dignity she let the governess and the housemaid do to her +whatever they liked. They bathed Molly, rubbed her with lotions, +poulticed her with mustard, gave her a hot drink, and all the time Miss +Carew's heart ached at the impossibility of helping her in the very +least. + +"Can I leave the door open between our rooms, in case you want anything +in the night?" she faltered. + +"Oh, yes; certainly." + +"May I kiss you?" + +"Yes, of course." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MOLLY COMES OF AGE + + +For some time after that terrible night Molly never spoke to Mrs. +Carteret unless it were absolutely necessary. It may be difficult to +believe that no explanation was sought or given and after a time things +seemed to be much as before. The silence of a brooding nature is a +terrible thing; and it is more common in narrow, dull lives than in any +other. Uneducated men and women in villages, or servants cramped +together in one house, I have known to brood over some injury in an +awful silence for twenty or thirty years. If Molly's future life had +been in Mrs. Carteret's hands, the sense of wrong would have burrowed +deeper and been even better hidden, but Molly, aided by Miss Carew, had +convinced herself that liberty would come, without any fight for it, at +twenty-one; so her view of the present was that it was a tiresome but +inevitable waiting for real life. + +Miss Carew, watching her anxiously, could never find out what she had +thought since the night of the alarm; and if she had seen into her mind +at any one moment alone, she would have been misled. For Molly's +imagination flew from one extreme to another. At first, indeed, that +sentence, "Your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than other +girls," had seemed simply a revelation of evil of which she could not +doubt the truth. She saw in a flash why her mother had gone out of her +life although still living. The whole possibility of shame and horror +appeared to fit in with the facts of her secluded life with Mrs. +Carteret. A morbid fear as to her own birth seized on the poor child's +mind, and might have destroyed the healthier aspect of life for her +entirely; but happily Mrs. Carteret and the governess did think of this +danger, and showed some skill in laying the phantom. Some photographs of +John Dexter as a young man were brought out and shown to the governess +in Molly's presence, and her comments on the likeness to Molly were true +and sounded spontaneous. Relieved of this horror the girl's mind reacted +to the hope that Mrs. Carteret had only spoken in temper and spite, +grossly exaggerating some grievance against Molly's mother. Then was the +ideal restored to its pedestal, and expiatory offerings of sentiment of +the most elaborate kind hung round the image of the ill-used and +misunderstood, the beautiful, unattainable mother. If Miss Carew had +seen into the reveries of her pupil at such a moment, she would hardly +have believed how they alternated with the coldest fits of doubt and +scepticism. Molly was dealing with a self-made ideal that she needed to +satisfy the hunger of her nature for love and worship. But it had no +foundations, no support, and it was apt to vanish with a terrible +completeness. Then she would feel quite alone and horribly ashamed; she +would at moments think of herself as something degraded and to be +shunned. Some natures would have simply sunk into a nervous state of +depression, but Molly had great vitality and natural ambition. In her +ideal moments she thought of devoting her life to her mother; and the +ayah's words were still a text, "The faithful child will find a way." +But in darker hours she defied the world that was against her. + +Molly, having decided to make no effort at any change in her life until +the emancipating age of twenty-one, determined to prepare herself as +fully as possible for the future. Mrs. Carteret was quite willing to +keep Miss Carew until her niece was nearly twenty, and by that time the +girl had read a surprising amount, while her mind was not to be +despised. She had also "come out" as far as a very sleepy neighbourhood +made it possible for her to see any society. She had been to three +balls, and a good many garden parties. No one found her very attractive +in her manners, though her appearance had in it now something that +arrested attention. She took her position in the small Carteret circle +in virtue of a certain energy and force of will. Molly danced, and +played tennis, and rode as well as any girl in those parts, but she did +not hide a silent and, at present, rather childish scorn which was in +her nature. Miss Carew left her with regret and with more affection than +Molly gave her back, for the governess was proud of her, and felt in +watching her the pleasures of professional success. Perhaps she put down +too much of this success to her own skill, but it was true that, without +Miss Carew, Molly would have been a very undeveloped young person. There +was still one year after this parting before Molly would be free, and it +seemed longer and slower as each day passed. One interest helped to make +it endurable. A trained hospital nurse had been provided for the +village, and Molly spent a great deal of time learning her craft. The +nursing instinct was exceedingly strong and not easily put down, and, +if Molly _must_ interfere with sick people, it was as well, in Mrs. +Carteret's opinion, that she should learn how to do it properly. + +But the slow months rolled by at length, and the last year of bondage +was finished. + +The sun did its best to congratulate Molly on her twenty-first birthday. +It shone in full glory on the great, green hills, and the blue shadows +in the hollows were transparent with reflected gold. The sunlight +trembled in the bare branches of the beeches and turned their grey +trunks to silver. + +Standing in the little study, Molly's whole figure seemed to expand in +the sunshine. Her eyes sparkled, her lips parted, and she at once drank +in and gave forth her delight. + +Some people might still agree with Mrs. Carteret that Molly was not +beautiful. Still, it was an appearance that would always provoke +discussion. Molly could not be overlooked, and when her mind and +feelings were excited, then she gave a strange impression of intense +vitality--not the pleasant overflow of animal spirits, but a suppressed, +yet untamed, vitality of a more mental, more dangerous kind. Her +movements were usually sudden, swift, and abrupt, yet there was in them +all a singular amount of expression, and, if Molly's keen grey eyes and +sensitive mouth did not convey the impression of a simple, or even of a +kindly nature, they gave suggestions of light and longing, hunger and +resolution. + +To-day, the twenty-first birthday, was to be the first day of freedom, +the last of shackles and dulness and commonplace. It was to be a day of +speech and a day of revenge. + +Molly was waiting now for Mrs. Carteret to come in and stand before her +and hear all she meant to say about the long, unholy deception that had +been put upon her. She was going to say good-bye now and be free. +Molly's money would now be her own, she could take it away and share it +with the deserted, misjudged mother. Nothing in all this was +melodramatic; it would have been but natural if the facts had been as +she supposed, only Molly made the little mistake of treating as facts +her carefully built-up fancies, her long, childish story of her own +life. + +She was so absorbed that she hardly saw Mrs. Carteret come in and sit +down in her square, substantial way in a large arm-chair. Molly, +standing by the window knocking the tassel of the blind to and fro, was +breathing quickly. The older woman looked through some papers in her +hand, put some notes of orders for groceries on a table by her side, and +flattened out a long letter on foreign paper on her knee. She looked at +Molly a little nervously, with cold blue eyes over gold-rimmed +spectacles reposing on her well-shaped nose, and began: + +"Now that you are of age I must----" + +But Molly interrupted her. In a very low voice, speaking quickly with +little gasps of impatience at any hesitation in her own utterance,-- + +"Before you talk to me about the arrangements, I want to tell you that I +have made up my mind to leave here at once. I know it will be a relief +to you as well as to me. Any promise you made to my father is satisfied +now, and you cannot wish to keep me here. You have always been ashamed +of me, you have always disliked me, and you have always deceived me. I +knew all this time that my mother was alive, and you never spoke of her +except once and then it was to insult me as deeply as a girl can be +insulted. If what you said were true--and I don't believe it"--her voice +shook as she spoke--"there would be all the more reason why I should go +to my poor mother. I want you to know, therefore, that with whatever +money comes to me from my father, I shall go to my mother and try to +make amends to her." + +Mrs. Carteret stared over her spectacles at Molly in absolute amazement. +After fourteen years of very kind treatment, which had involved a great +deal of trouble, this uninteresting, silent niece had revealed herself +at last! Fourteen years devoted to the idealisation of the mother who +had deserted her, and to positive hatred of the relation who had +mothered her! Tears rose in the hard, blue eyes. Subtleties of feeling +Anne Carteret did not know, but some affection for those who are near in +blood and who live under the same roof had been a matter of course to +her, and Molly had hurt her to the quick. However, it was natural that +common-sense and justice should quickly assert themselves to show this +idiotic girl the criminal absurdity of what she said. Mrs. Carteret was +unconsciously hitting back as hard as she could as she answered in a +tone of cheerful common-sense: + +"As a matter of fact, the money you will receive will not be your own, +but an allowance from your mother--a large allowance given on the +condition that you do not live with her. Happily, it is so large that +there will not be any necessity for you to live here." + +Mrs. Carteret held up the letter of thin foreign paper in a trembling +hand, but she spoke in a perfectly calm voice: + +"I was myself always against this mystery as to your mother, but I felt +obliged to act by her wish in the matter. She insists that she still +wishes it to be thought by the world at large that she is dead, but she +agrees at last that you should know something about her. I told her that +I could not allow you to come of age here and have a great deal of money +at your disposal without your knowing that from your father you have +only been left a fortune of two thousand pounds----" + +Mrs. Carteret paused, and then, with a little snort, added, half to +herself: + +"The rest was all squandered away, and certainly not by his own doing." + +Then she resumed her business tone: + +"More than this, I obtained from your mother leave to tell you that this +very large allowance comes out of a fortune left to her quite recently +by Sir David Bright. I have acted by the wishes of both your parents as +far as I possibly could. As to my disliking you or being ashamed of you, +such notions could only come out of a morbid imagination. In spite of +your feelings towards me, I still wish to be your friend. I want your +father's daughter to stand well with the world. So that I am left to +live here in peace undisturbed, I shall be glad to help you at any +time." + +Mrs. Carteret's feelings were concentrated on Molly's conduct towards +herself, but Molly's consciousness was filled with the greatness of the +blow that had just fallen. It seemed to her that she had only now for +the first time lost her mother--her only ideal, the object of all her +better thoughts. That her enemy was justified was, indeed, just then of +little importance. She turned a dazed face towards her aunt: + +"I ought to beg your pardon: I am sorry." + +"Oh, pray don't take the trouble." + +Mrs. Carteret got out of the chair with emphatic dignity, and held out +some papers. + +"You had better read these. I will speak to you about them afterwards." + +She left the room absolutely satisfied with her own conduct. But, coming +to a pause in the drawing-room, she remembered that she had made one +mistake. + +"How stupid of me to have left Jane Dawning's letter among those +papers." + +But she did not go back to fetch the letter from her cousin Lady +Dawning; and she did not own to herself that that apparent negligence +was her real revenge. Yet from that moment her feelings of +self-satisfaction were uncomfortably disturbed. + +Meanwhile, Molly was kneeling by the window in the study in floods of +tears. Everything in her mind had lost its balance; and baffled, +disheartened, and ashamed, she wept tears that brought no softness. She +did not know it, but while to herself it seemed as if she were absorbed +in weeping over her disillusionment, she was in fact deciding that, as +her ideal had failed her, she would in future live only for herself, and +get everything out of life that she could for her own satisfaction. + +No one in the world cared for her, but she would not be defeated or +crushed or forlorn. With an effort she sprang to her feet with one agile +movement, and pushed her heavy hair back from her forehead with her +long, thin fingers. + +The colour had gone from her clear, dark skin for the moment, and her +breathing was fast and uneven, but her face still showed her to be very +young and very healthy. How differently the troubles of the mind are +written in our faces when age has undermined the foundations and all +momentary failure is a presage of a sure defeat. Molly showed her +determination to be brave and calm by immediately setting herself to +read the papers left for her by Mrs. Carteret. + +One was in French, a long letter from a lawyer in Florence communicating +Madame Danterre's wishes to Mrs. Carteret. It stated that, owing to the +painful circumstances of the case, his client chose to remain under her +maiden name, and to reside in Florence. Mrs. Carteret was at liberty to +inform Miss Dexter of this, but she did not wish it known to anybody +else. Madame Danterre further asked Mrs. Carteret to make such +arrangements as she thought fit for her daughter to see something of the +world, either in London or by travelling, but she did not wish her to +come to Florence. Otherwise the world was before her, and L3000 a year +was at her disposal. Molly could hardly, it was implied, ask for more +from a mother from whom she had been torn unjustly when she was an +infant. The rest of the letter was entirely about business, giving all +details as to how the quarterly allowance would be paid. In conclusion +was an enigmatic sentence to the effect that, by a tardy act of +repentance, Sir David Bright had left Madame Danterre his fortune, and +she wished her daughter to know that the large allowance she was able to +make her was in consequence of this act of justice. Molly would have had +no inkling of the meaning of this sentence if Mrs. Carteret had come +back to claim the letter from Lady Dawning which she had unintentionally +left among the lawyer's papers. But this last, a closely-written large +sheet of note-paper, lay between the letter from the lawyer in Florence, +and other papers from the family lawyer in London, anent the will of +the late Colonel Dexter and its taking effect on his daughter's coming +of age. + +Molly turned carelessly from the question of L2000 and its interest at +three and a half per cent. to the letter surmounted by a black initial +and a coronet. + + "My DEAR ANNE,-- + + "I am not coming to stay in your neighbourhood as I had hoped. I + should have been very glad to have had a talk with you about Molly, + if it had been possible, for her dear father's sake. Indeed, I + think you are far from exaggerating the difficulties of the case. + You are very reluctant to take a house in London, and you say that + if you did take one and gave up all your home duties you would not + now have a circle of friends there who could be of any use to a + girl of her age. I feel that very likely you would be glad if my + daughter would undertake her, and you are quite right in thinking + that she would like a girl to take into the world. But I must be + frank with you, as I want to save you from pitfalls which I may be + more able to foresee than you can in your secluded home. My dear, I + know that dear old John died without a penny: why if he had had any + fortune as a young man--but, alas! he had none--is it possible + that, in a soldier's life, with, for a few years, a madly + extravagant wife to help him, he could conceivably have saved a + capital that can produce L3000 a year! + + "No, my dear Anne, the money is from her mother, and I must tell + you that I've often wondered if that estimable lady is really dead + at all. Then, you know, that I always kept up with John, and that I + knew something about Sir David Bright. To conclude, Rose Bright is + my cousin by marriage, and we are all dumbfounded at finding that + she has been left L800 a year instead of twice as many thousands, + and that the fortune has gone to a lady named Madame Danterre. It + is so old a story that I don't think any one has read the + conclusion aright except myself, and _parole d'honneur_, no one + shall if I can help it. I am too fond of poor John's memory to want + to hurt his child, only for the child's own sake I would not advise + you to bring her up to London. I should keep her quietly with you, + and trust to a man appearing on the scene--it's a thing you _can_ + trust to, where there is L3000 a year. I daresay I could send some + one your way quite quietly. But don't bring John's girl to London, + at any rate, just yet. + + "I hope we may come within reach of you in the autumn. I should + love to have a quiet day with you and to see Molly. + + "Ever yours affectionately, + + "JANE DAWNING." + + "P.S.--By the way, is the L3000 sure to go on? If it is not, might + it not be as well to put a good bit of it away?" + +Thus in one short hour, Molly had been told that her mother was living +but did not want her child; that the ideal of motherly love had in her +own case been a complete fiction; that the mother of her imagination had +never existed, and, immediately afterwards, she had been given a glimpse +of the world's view of her own position as a young person best +concealed, or, at least, not brought too much forward. + +Lastly, with the news of the money that at least meant freedom, she had +gained, by a rapid intuition, a faint but unmistakable sense of +discomfort as to the money itself. + +It was not any scrupulous fear that it could be her duty to inquire +whether Sir David Bright ought to have left his fortune to his widow! +Probably Lady Rose had quite as much as many dowagers have to live on. +But she had been forced to know that other people disapproved of Sir +David's will. It was not a fortune entered into with head erect and eyes +proudly facing a friendly world. Still, Molly was not daunted: the +combat with life was harder and quite different from what she had +foreseen, but she had always looked on her future as a fight. + +Presently she let the "letter from Jane" fall close to the chair in +which her aunt had been sitting, and moved the chair till the paper was +half hidden by the chintz frill of the cover. She meant Mrs. Carteret to +think that she had not read it. + +She then went out for a long walk and met her aunt at luncheon with a +quietly respectful manner, a little more respectful than it had ever +been before. + +Later in the day Molly wrote to the family lawyer, and consulted him as +to how to find a suitable lady with whom to stay in London. Mrs. +Carteret read and passed the letter. Seeing that Molly was determined to +go to London, she was anxious to help her as much as possible, without +calling down upon herself such letters of advice as the one from Lady +Dawning. It proved as difficult to find just the right thing in +chaperones as it is usually difficult to find exactly the right thing in +any form of humanity, and December and January passed in the search. But +in the end all that was to be wished for seemed to be secured in the +person of Mrs. Delaport Green, who was known to a former pupil of Miss +Carew's, and at length Molly went out of the rooms with the northern +aspect, and drove through the wood that sheltered under the shoulder of +the great green hill, with nothing about her to recall the child who had +come in there for the first time fourteen years ago, except that she +still had the look of one who waits for other circumstances and other +people. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO INTERFERE + + +Mr. Murray had had no belief in Sir Edmund Grosse's doings, and he +indulged in the provoking air of "I told you so," when the latter, who +had not been in London for several months, appeared at the office, and +owned to the futility of his visit to Florence. Meanwhile, Mr. Murray +had also carried on a fruitless enquiry in a different direction. + +"The General's two most intimate friends were killed about two months +after his death, and his servant died in the same action--probably +before Sir David himself. I have tried to find out if he had any talk on +his own affairs with friends on board ship going out, but it seems not. +I can show you the list of those who went out with him." + +Sir Edmund knew something of most people and after studying the list he +went to look up an old soldier friend at the Army and Navy Club. Indeed, +for some weeks he was often to be seen there, and he was as attentive to +Generals as an anxious parent seeking advancement in the Army for an +only son. He soon became discouraged as to obtaining any information +regarding David's later years, but some gossip on his younger days he +did glean. Nothing could have been better than David's record; he +seemed to have been a paragon of virtue. + +"That's what made it all the more strange that he should have fallen +into the hands of Mrs. Johnny Dexter," mused an old Colonel as he puffed +at one of Grosse's most admirable cigars. "Poor old David; he was wax in +her hands for a few weeks, then he got fever and recovered from her and +from it at the same time--he went home soon after. He'd have done +anything for her at one moment." + +This Colonel might well have been flattered by Edmund's attentions; but +he gave little in return for them except what he said that day. + +"Mrs. Johnny Dexter! Why, I'm sure I have known Dexters," thought +Edmund, as he strolled down Pall Mall after this conversation. He +stopped to think, regardless of public observation. "Why, of course, +that old bore Lady Dawning was a Miss Dexter. I'll go and see her this +very day." + +Lady Dawning was gratified at Sir Edmund's visit, and was nearly as much +surprised at seeing him as he was at finding himself in the handsome, +heavily-furnished room in Princes Gate. Stout, over fifty, and clumsily +wigged, it rarely enough happened to Lady Dawning to find not only a +sympathetic listener but an eager inquirer into those romantic days when +love's young dream for her cousin Johnny Dexter was stifled by parental +authority: "And it all ended in my becoming Lady Dawning." A sigh of +satisfaction concluded the episode of romance, and led the way back to +the present day. + +When Lady Dawning had advised Mrs. Carteret to keep poor dear Johnny's +girl quietly in the country, she had by no means intended to let any of +her friends know anything about Molly. She had looked important and +mysterious when people spoke of Sir David Bright's amazing will, but she +made a real sacrifice to Johnny's memory by not divulging her knowledge +of facts or her own conclusions from those facts. But the enjoyment of +talking of her own romantic youth to Edmund had had a softening effect. + +Sir Edmund appeared to be so very wise and safe. + +"Of course, it is only to you," came first; and then, "It would be a +relief to me to get the opinion of a man of the world; poor dear Anne +Carteret consults me, and I really don't know what to advise. Fancy! +that woman allows the girl L3000 a year, and Anne Carteret would +probably have acted on my advice and kept her quiet so that no one need +know anything of the wretched story, but the girl won't be quiet, and +will come up to London, and it seems so unsafe, don't you know? They are +looking for a chaperone, as nothing will make Anne come herself. And if +it all comes out it will be so unpleasant for poor dear Rose Bright to +meet this girl all dressed up with her money; don't you think so?" + +Lady Dawning was now quite screaming with excitement, and very red in +nose and chin. It would be a long time before she could be quite dull +again. But Edmund was far too deeply interested to notice details. + +They parted very cordially, and Lady Dawning promised to let him know if +she heard from Anne Carteret, and, if possible, to pass on the name of +the chaperone woman who was to take Molly into society. + + +"And so your _protegee_ is to arrive to-night?" said Edmund Grosse. + +"Yes, and I _am_ so frightened;" and with a little laugh appreciative of +herself in general, Mrs. Delaport Green held up a cup of China tea in a +pretty little white hand belonging to an arm that curved and thickened +from the wrist to the elbow in perfect lines. + +Sir Edmund gave the arm the faintest glance of appreciation before it +retreated into lace frills within its brown sleeve. Those lace frills +were the only apparent extravagance in the simple frock in question, and +simplicity was the chief note in this lady's charming appearance. + +"I don't believe you are frightened, but probably she is frightened +enough." + +"I know nothing whatever about her," sighed the little woman, "and we +are only doing it because we are so dreadfully hard up; my maid says +that I shall soon not have a stitch to my back, and that would be so +fearfully improper. At least"--she hesitated--"I am doing it because +times are bad. Tim really knows nothing about it; I mean that he does +not know that Miss Dexter is a 'paying guest', and it does sound +horribly lower middle-class, doesn't it? But I'm so afraid Tim won't be +able to go to Homburg this year, and he is eating and drinking so much +already, and it's only the beginning of April. What will happen if he +can't drink water and take exercise all this summer?" + +"But I suppose you know her name?" + +"I believe it is Molly Dexter. And do you think I should say 'Molly' at +once--to-night, I mean?" + +Sir Edmund did not answer this question. + +"I used to know some Dexters years ago." + +"Yes, it is quite a good name, and Molly is of good family: she is a +cousin of Lady Dawning, but she is an orphan. I think I must call her +Molly at once," and the little round eyes looked wistful and kindly. + +Sir Edmund was able from this to conclude rightly that Mrs. Delaport +Green was not aware of the existence of Madame Danterre, and would have +no suspicions as to the sources of the fortune that supplied Molly's +large allowance. It had, in fact, been thought wiser not to offer +explanations which had not been called for. + +"It will be very tiresome for you," said Grosse. "You will have to amuse +her, you know, and is she worth while?" + +"Quite; she will pay--let me see--she will pay for the new motor, and +she will go to my dressmaker and keep her in a good temper. But, of +course, I shall have to make sacrifices and find her partners. I must +try and not let my poor people miss me. They would miss me dreadfully, +though I know you don't think so." + +"And you don't even know what she is like?" + +"Oh, yes, I do; I have seen her once, and she is oh! so interesting: +olive skin, black, or almost black, hair, almond-shaped grey eyes--no, I +don't mean almond-shaped, but really very curiously-shaped eyes, full +of--let me see if I can tell you what they are full of--something that, +in fact, makes you shiver and feel quite excited. But, do you know, she +hardly speaks, and then in such a low voice. I'll tell you now, I'll +tell you exactly what she reminds me of: do you know a picture in a very +big gallery in Florence of a woman who committed some crime? It's by one +of the pupils of one of the great masters; just try and think if you +don't know what I mean. Oh, must you go? But won't you come again, and +see how we get on, and how I bear up?" + +When Molly did arrive, her dainty little hostess petted and patted her +and called her "Molly" because she "could not help it." + +"Oh, we will do the most delightful things, now that you have come; we +must, of course, do balls and plays, and then we will have quite a quiet +day in the country in the new motor, and we will take some very nice men +with us. And then you won't mind sometimes coming to see people who are +ill or poor or old?" + +The little voice rose higher and higher in a sort of wail. + +"It does cheer them up so to look in and out with a few flowers, and it +need not take long." + +"I don't mind people when they are really ill," said Molly, in her low +voice, "but I like them best unconscious." + +Mrs. Delaport Green stared for a moment; then she jumped up and ran +forward with extended hands to greet a lady in a plain coat and skirt +and an uncompromising hat. + +"Oh, how kind of you to come, and how are you getting on? Molly dear, +this is the lady who lives in horrid Hoxton taking care of my poor +people I told you about. Do tell her what you really mean about liking +people best when they are unconscious, and you will both forgive me if I +write one tiny little note meanwhile?" + +Molly gave some tea to the newcomer as if she had lived in the house for +years, and drew her into a talk which soon allayed her rising fears as +to whether her own time would have to be devoted to horrid Hoxton. By +calm and tranquil questions she elicited the fact that Mrs. Delaport +Green had visited the settlement once during the winter. + +"She comes as a sunbeam," said the resident with obviously genuine +admiration, "and, of course, with all the claims on her time, and her +anxiety as to her husband's health, we don't wish her to come often. She +is just the inspiration we want." + +The hostess having meanwhile asked four people to dinner, came rustling +back, and, sitting on a low stool opposite the lady of the settlement, +held one of her visitor's large hands in both her own and patted it and +asked questions about a number of poor people by name, and made love to +her in many ways, until the latter, cheered and refreshed by the +sunbeam, went out to seek the first of a series of 'busses between +Chelsea and Hoxton. + +Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little sigh. + +"I must order the motor. The dear thing needn't have come your very +first night, need she? It makes me miserable to leave you, but I was +engaged to this dinner before I knew that you existed even! Isn't it odd +to think of that?" Her voice was full of feeling. + +"And you must be longing to go to your room. You won't have to dine with +Tim, because he is dining at his club. Promise me that you won't let Tim +bore you: he likes horrid fat people, so I don't think he will; and are +you sure you have got everything you want?" + +Molly's impressions of her new surroundings were written a few weeks +later in a letter to Miss Carew. + + "MY DEAR CAREY,-- + + "I have been here for three weeks, but I doubt if I shall stay + three months. + + "I am living with a very clever woman, and I am learning life + fairly quickly and getting to know a number of people. But I am + not sure if either of us thinks our bargain quite worth while, + though we are too wise to decide in a hurry. There are great + attractions: the house, the clothes, the food, the servants, are + absolutely perfect; the only thing not quite up to the mark in + taste is the husband. But she sees him very little, and I hardly + exchange two words with him in the day, and his attitude towards us + is that of a busy father towards his nursery. But I rather suspect + that he gets his own way when he chooses. The servants work hard, + and, I believe, honestly like her. The clergyman of the parish, a + really striking person, is enthusiastic; so is her husband's + doctor, so are one religious duchess and two mundane countesses. I + believe that it is impossible to enumerate the number and variety + of the men who like her. There are just one or two people who pose + her, and Sir Edmund Grosse is one. He snubs her, and so she makes + up to him hard. I must tell you that I have got quite intimate with + Sir Edmund. He is of a different school from most of the men I have + seen. He pays absurd compliments very naturally and cleverly, + rather my idea of a Frenchman, but he is much more candid all the + time. I shock people here if I simply say I don't like any one. If + you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by + saying--'Of course, he means awfully well,' and after that you may + imply that he is the greatest scoundrel unhung. Sir Edmund is not + at all ill-natured, and he can discuss people quite simply--not as + if he wished to defend his own reputation for charity all the time. + He won't allow that Adela Delaport Green is a humbug: he says she + is simply a happy combination of extraordinary cleverness and + stupidity, of simplicity and art. 'I believe she hardly ever has a + consciously disingenuous moment,' he said to me last night. 'She + likes clergymen and she likes great ladies, and she likes to make + people like her. Of course, she is always designing; but she never + stops to think, so that she doesn't know she is designing. She is + an amazing mimic. Something in this room to-night made me think of + Dorset House directly I came in, and I remembered that, of course, + she was at the party there last night. She must have put the sofa + and the palms in the middle of the room to-day. At dinner to-night + she suddenly told me that she wished she had been born a Roman + Catholic, and I could not think why until I remembered that a + Princess had just become a Papist. She could never have liked the + Inquisition, but she thought the Pope had such a dear, kind face. + Now she will probably tremble on the verge of Rome until several + Anglican bishops have asked their influential lady friends to keep + her out of danger.' + + "'And you don't call her a humbug?' + + "'No; she is a child of nature, indulging her instincts without + reflection. And please mark one thing, young lady; her models are + all good women--very good women--and that's not a point to be + overlooked.' + + "I told him--I could not help it--how funny she had been yesterday, + talking of going to early church. 'I do love the little birds quite + early,' she said, 'and one can see the changes of the season even + in London, going every day, you know, and one feels so full of hope + walking in the early morning fasting, and hope is next to charity, + isn't it?--though, of course, not so great.' + + "And she has been out in the shut motor exactly once in the early + morning since I came up, and she knew that I knew it. + + "However, Sir Edmund maintained that, at the moment, Adela quite + believed she went out early every day, and I am not sure he is not + right. But then, you see, Carey, that with her power of believing + what she likes, and of intriguing without knowing it, I am not + quite sure that she will last very well. She might get tired of + me--quite believe I had done something which I had not done at all! + And then the innocent little intrigues might become less amusing to + me than to other people. However, I believe I am useful for the + present, and the life here suits me on the whole. But I will report + again soon if the symptoms become more unfavourable, and ask your + opinion as to my plans for the season if the Delaport Green + alliance breaks down before then. + + "Yours affectionately, + + "MOLLY DEXTER." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE + + +Mrs. Delaport Green counted it as a large asset in Molly's favour that +Sir Edmund Grosse was so attentive. Adela did not seriously mind Sir +Edmund's indifference to herself if he were only a constant visitor at +her house, but she was far from understanding the motives that drew him +there to see Molly. In fact, having decided, on the basis of his own +theory of the conduct of Madame Danterre, that Molly had no right to any +of the luxuries she enjoyed, he had been prepared to think of her as an +unscrupulous and designing young woman. Somehow, from the moment he +first saw her he felt all his prejudices to be confirmed. There was +something in Molly which appeared to him to be a guilty consciousness +that the wealth she enjoyed was ill-gotten. Miss Dexter, he thought, had +by no means the bearing of a fresh ingenuous child who was innocently +benefiting by the wickedness of another. The poor girl was, in fact, +constantly wondering whether the people she met were hot partisans of +Lady Rose Bright, or whether they knew of Madame Danterre's existence, +and if so, whether they had the further knowledge that Miss Molly Dexter +was that lady's daughter. They might, for either of these reasons, have +some secret objection to herself. But she was skilful enough to hide +the symptoms of these fears and suspicions from the men and women she +usually came across in society, who only thought her reserve pride, and +her occasional hesitations a little mysterious. From Sir Edmund she +concealed less because she liked him much more, and he kindly +interpreted her feelings of anxiety and discomfort to be those of guilt +in a girl too young to be happy in criminal deceit. With his experience +of life, and with his usually just perceptions, he ought to have known +better; but there is some quality in a few men or women, intangible and +yet unmistakable, which makes us instinctively suspect present, or +foretell future, moral evil; and poor Molly was one of these. What it +was, on the other hand, which made her trust Sir Edmund and drew her to +him, it would need a subtle analysis of natural affinities to decide. No +doubt it was greatly because he sought her that Molly liked him, but it +was not only on that account. Nor was this only because Edmund was +worldly wise, successful, and very gentle. There was a quality in the +attraction that drew Molly to Edmund that cannot be put into words. It +is the quality without which there has never been real tragedy in the +relations of a woman to a man. In the first weeks in London this +attraction hardly reached beyond the merest liking, and was a pleasant, +sunny thing of innocent appearance. + +Mrs. Delaport Green was, for a short time, of opinion that the problem +of whether to prolong Molly's visit or not would be settled for her by a +quite new development. Then she doubted, and watched, and was puzzled. + +Why, she thought, should such a great person as Sir Edmund Grosse, who +was certainly in no need of fortune-hunting, be so attentive to Molly +if he did not really like her? At times she had a notion that he did not +like her at all, but at other times surely he liked her more than he +knew himself. He said that she was graceful, clever, and interesting; +and the acute little onlooker had not the shadow of a doubt that he held +these opinions, but why did she at moments think that he disliked Molly? +Certainly the dislike, if dislike it were, did not prevent him from very +constantly seeking her society. It was the only intimacy that Molly had +formed since she had come up to London. + +As Lent was drawing to a close, Mrs. Delaport Green became much occupied +at the thought of how many services she wished to attend. "One does so +wish one could be in several churches at once," she murmured to a devout +lady at an evening party. But, finding one of these churches to be +excessively crowded on Palm Sunday, she had gone for a turn in the +country in her motor with a friend, "as, after all, green fields, and a +few early primroses make one realise, more than anything else in the +world, the things one wishes one could think about quietly at such +seasons." + +For Easter there were the happiest prospects, as she and Molly had been +invited to stay at a delightful house "far from the madding +crowd"--Groombridge Castle--with a group of dear friends. + +Molly, knowing that "dear friends" with her hostess meant new and most +desirable acquaintances, bought hats adorned with spring flowers and +garments appropriate to the season with great satisfaction. + +Their luggage, their bags, and their maid looked perfect on the day of +departure, and Tim had gone off to Brighton in an excellent temper. Mrs. +Delaport Green trod on air in pretty buckled shoes, and patted the toy +terrier under her arm and felt as if all the society papers on the +bookstall knew that they would soon have to tell whither she was going. + +"I saw Sir Edmund Grosse's servant just now," she said to Molly with +great satisfaction. "Very likely Sir Edmund is coming to Groombridge. +Why does one always think that everybody going by the same train is +coming with one? Did you tell him where we were going?" + +"No, I don't think so; I have hardly seen him for a week, and I thought +he was going abroad for Easter." + +When the three hours' journey was ended and the friends emerged on the +platform, they were both glad to see Sir Edmund's servant again and the +luggage with his master's name. There was a crowd of Easter holiday +visitors, and Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly were some moments in making +their way out of the station. When they were seated in the carriage that +was to take them to the Castle, Mrs. Delaport Green turned expectantly +to the footman. + +"Are we to wait for any one else?" + +"No, ma'am; Lady Rose Bright and the two gentlemen have started in the +other carriage." + +They drove off. + +"I am so glad it is Lady Rose Bright." Molly hardly heard the words. + +"I have so wished to know her," Adela went on joyfully, "and she has had +such an interesting story and so extraordinary." + +"Can I get away--can I go back?" thought Molly, and she leant forward +and drew off her cloak as if she felt suffocated. "To meet her is just +the one thing I can't do. Oh, it is hard, it is horrible!" + +"You see," Adela continued, "she married Sir David Bright, who was three +times her age, because he was very rich, and also, of course, because +she loved him for having won the Victoria Cross, and then he died, and +they found he had left all the money to some one he had liked better all +the time. So there is a horrid woman with forty thousand a-year +somewhere or other, and Rose Bright is almost starving and can't afford +to buy decent boots, and every one is devoted to her. I am rather +surprised that she should come to Groombridge for a party, she has shut +herself up so much; but it must be a year and a half at least since that +wicked old General was killed, and he certainly didn't deserve much +mourning at _her_ hands." + +As Adela's little staccato voice went on, Molly stiffened and +straightened and starched herself morally, not unaided by this facile +description of the story in which she was so much involved. She would +fight it out here and now; nothing should make her flinch; she would +come up to time as calm and cool as if she were quite happy. And, after +all, Sir Edmund Grosse would be there to help her. + +It was not until the first of the two heavy handsome old-fashioned +carriages, drawn by fine, sleek horses, was beginning to crawl up a very +steep hill that its occupants began to take an interest in those who +were following. + +"Who is in the carriage behind us?" asked Sir Edmund of the young man +usually called Billy, who was sitting opposite him, and whom he was +never glad to meet. + +"Mrs. Delaport Green and a girl I don't know--very dark and thin." + +Edmund growled and fidgeted. + +"Horrid vulgar little woman," he muttered between his teeth, "pushes +herself in everywhere, and I suppose she has got the heiress with her." + +"Don't be so cross, Edmund," said Lady Rose. "Who is the heiress?" + +"Oh! a Miss Dickson--not Dickson--what is it? The money was all made in +beer"--which was really quite a futile little lie. "But that isn't the +name: the name is Dexter. The girl is handsome and untruthful and +clever; let her alone." + +Rose perceived that he was seriously annoyed, and waited with a little +curiosity to see the ladies in question. + +As the two carriages crawled slowly up the zigzag road, climbing the +long and steep hill, the occupants of both gazed at the towers of the +Castle whenever they came in sight at a turn of the road, or at an +opening in the mighty horse-chestnuts and beeches, but they spoke little +about them. Those in the first carriage were too familiar with +Groombridge and its history and the others were too ignorant of both to +have much to say. Edmund Grosse gave expression to Rose's thought at the +sight of the familiar towers when he said: + +"Poor old Groombridge! it is hard not to have a son or even a nephew to +leave it all to." + +"He likes the cousin very much," said Rose. + +"But isn't Mark Molyneux going to be a priest?" said the young man, +Billy, to Lady Rose. "I heard the other day that he is in one of the +Roman seminaries--went there soon after he left Oxford." + +Edmund answered him. + +"Groombridge told me he thought he would give that up. He said he +believed it was a fancy that would not last." + +"He did very well at Oxford," said Rose, "and the Groombridges are +devoted to him. It is so good of them with all their old-world notions +not to mind more his being a Roman Catholic." + +The talk was interrupted by the two men getting out to ease the horses +on a steep part of the drive. + +Rose's own point of view that a young and earnest priest, even although, +unfortunately, not an Anglican, might do much good in such a position as +that of the master of Groombridge Castle, would certainly not have been +understood by her two companions. + +Meanwhile, in the second carriage, Molly was becoming more and more +distracted from painful thoughts by the glory of the summer's evening, +and the historic interest of the Castle. She felt at first disinclined +to disturb the unusual silence of the lady beside her. Certainly the +principal tower of the Castle, in its dark red stone, looked uncommonly +fine and commanding, and about it flew the martlets that "most breed and +haunt" where the air is delicate. + +The horse-chestnut leaves were breaking through their silver sheaths in +points of delicate green, and daffodils and wild violets were thick in +grass and ground ivy, while rabbits started away from within a few feet +of the road. + +But, although reluctant to break the silence, at last interest in the +scene made Molly ask: + +"Do you know the date?" + +"Oh, Norman undoubtedly," said Mrs. Delaport Green; "the round towers, +you know. Round towers go back to almost any date." + +Molly was dissatisfied. "You don't know what reign it was built in?" + +"Some time soon after the Conqueror; I think Tim did tell me all about +it. He looked it up in some book last night." + +As a matter of fact, the present Castle had been built under George +III., and the towers would have betrayed the fact to more educated +observers; while even Molly could see when they came close to the great +mass of building that the windows and, indeed, all the decoration was of +an inferior type of revived Gothic. But, however an architect might +shake his head at Groombridge, it was really a striking building, +massive and very well disposed, and in an astonishingly fine position, +commanding an immense view of a great plain on nearly three sides, while +to the east was stretched the rest of the range of splendidly-wooded +hills on the westerly point of which it was situated. In the sweet, soft +air many delicate trees and shrubs were developed as well as if they had +been in quite a sheltered place. + +Lady Groombridge was giving tea to the first arrivals when Mrs. Delaport +Green and Molly were shown into the big hall of the Castle. + +"Let us come for a walk; we can slip out through this window," murmured +Sir Edmund, as he took her empty tea-cup from his cousin. + +Rose began to move, but Lady Groombridge claimed her attention before +she could escape. + +"Do you know Mrs. Delaport Green and Miss Dexter?" + +Rose, as she heard Molly's name, found herself looking quite directly +into very unexpected and very remarkable grey eyes with dark lashes. Her +gentle but reserved greeting would have been particularly negative +after Edmund's warning as to both ladies, but she did not quite control +a look of surprise and interest. There was a great light in Molly's face +as she saw the young and beautiful woman whom she had dreaded intensely +to meet. + +Rose was evidently unconscious of a certain gentle pride of bearing, but +was fully conscious of a wish to be kindly and loving. In neither of +these aspects--and they were revealed in a glance to Molly--did Rose +attract her. But Molly's look, which puzzled Rose, was as a flame of +feeling, burning visibly through the features of the dark, healthy face, +and finding its full expression in the eyes. The glory of the landscape +she had just passed through, and the excitement of finding herself in +such a building, added fuel to Molly's feelings, and seemed to give a +historic background to her meeting with her enemy. Some subtle and +curious sympathy lit Rose's face for a moment, and then she shrank a +little as if she recoiled from a slight shock, and turning with a smile +to Sir Edmund Grosse, she followed him down the great hall and out into +a passage beyond. He had given Molly an intimate but rather careless nod +before he turned away. + +Edmund was quite silent as he walked out on the terrace, and seemed as +absorbed as Rose in the view that lay below them. But it was with the +scene he had just witnessed inside the Castle that his mind was filled. +There had been something curiously dramatic in the meeting which he +would have done a great deal to prevent. But, annoyed as he was, he +could not help dwelling for a moment on the picture of the two with a +certain artistic satisfaction. Rose, in her plain, almost poor, +clinging black clothes was, as always, amazingly graceful; he felt, not +for the first time, as if her every movement were music. + +"But that girl is handsome. How she looked into Rose's face, the amazing +little devil!--she is plucky." + +Then he caught himself up abruptly; it was no use to talk nonsense to +himself. The point was how to keep these two apart and how short Mrs. +Delaport Green's visit might be made. + +"Unluckily Monday is a Bank holiday, but they shall not be asked to stay +one hour after the 10.30 train on Tuesday if I have to take them away +myself," he murmured. Meanwhile, it was a beautiful evening; there was a +wonderful view, and Rose was here, and, for the moment, alone with him. +She ran her fingers into the fair hair that was falling over her +forehead, and pushed it back and her hat with it, so that the fresh +spring air "may get right into my brain," she said, "and turn out London +blacks." + +"The blacks don't penetrate in your case," said Edmund. + +"I'm afraid they do," she murmured, "but now I won't think of them. +Easter Eve and this place are enough to banish worries." + +"Our hostess contrives to have some worries here." + +"Ah! dear Mary, I know; she can't help it; she has always been so very +prosperous." + +"Oh, it's prosperity, is it?" asked Edmund. He had turned from the view +to look more directly at Rose. + +"Yes, I know it does not have that effect on you, because you have a +happier temperament." + +"But am I so very prosperous?" The tone was sad and slightly sarcastic. + + +"It is quite glorious: one seems to breathe in everything, don't you +know, and the smell of primroses; and it is so sweet to think that it is +Easter Eve." + +Mrs. Delaport Green was coming forth on the terrace, preceded by these +words in her clear staccato voice. + +"Do you think," said Rose very gently to Edmund, "that we might go down +into the wood?" + +Presently Molly fell behind Lady Groombridge and Mrs. Delaport Green as +they walked along the terrace, and leant on the wall and looked at the +view by herself. + +The Castle stood on the last spur of a range of hills, and there was an +abrupt descent between it and the next rounded hill-top. Covered with +trees, the sharp little valley was full of shadow and mystery; and then +beyond the great billowy tree-tops rose and fell for miles, until the +brilliant early green of the larches and the dark hues of the many +leafless branches, already ruddy with buds, became blue and at length +purple in the distance. + +This joy and glory of her mother earth nobody could grudge Molly, +surely? But the very beauty of it all made her more weak; and tears rose +in her eyes as she looked at the healing green. + +"I am tired," she thought; "and, after all, what harm can it do me to +meet Lady Rose Bright? And if Sir Edmund Grosse was annoyed to see me +here, what does it matter?" + +Presently Lady Groombridge and her admiring guest came back to where +Molly was standing. In the excitement of arrival and of meeting Lady +Rose, and the little shock of Sir Edmund's greeting, Molly had hardly +taken stock of the mistress of the Castle. Lady Groombridge was verging +on old age, but ruddy and vigorous. She wore short skirts and thick +boots, and tapped the gravel noisily with her stick. She had almost +forgotten that she had ever been young and a beauty, and her +conversation was usually in the tone of a harassed housekeeper, only +that the range of subjects that worried her extended beyond servants and +linen and jam into politics and the Church and the souls of men within a +certain number of miles of Groombridge Castle. + +She stood talking between Molly and Mrs. Delaport Green in a voice of +some impatience as she scanned the landscape in search of Rose. + +"Dear me, where has Rose gone to? and she knew how much I wanted to have +a talk with her before dinner. And I wanted to tell her not to let our +clergyman speak about incense and candles. He was more tiresome than +usual after Rose was here last time." + +Mrs. Delaport Green tried to interject some civil remarks, but Lady +Groombridge paid not the slightest attention. The only visitors who +interested her in the least were Rose and Edmund Grosse. She could +hardly remember why she had invited Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly when +she met them in London, and Billy was always Lord Groombridge's guest. + +"Well, if Rose won't come out of the wood, I suppose we may as well come +in, and perhaps you would like to see your room;" and, with an air of +resignation, she led the way. + +She stood in the middle of a gorgeously-upholstered room of the date of +George IV., and looked fretfully round. + +"Of course it is hideous, but I think if you have a good thing even of +the worst date it is best to leave it alone;" and then, with a gleam of +humour in her eye, she turned to Molly, "and whenever you feel your +taste vitiated (or whatever they call it nowadays) in your room next +door, you can always look out of the window, you know." And then, +speaking to Mrs. Delaport Green: + +"We have no light of any sort or kind, and no bathrooms, but there are +plenty of candles, and I can't see why, with large hip baths and plenty +of water, people can't keep clean. Yes, dinner is at 8.15 sharp; I hope +you have everything you want; there is no bell into your maid's room, +but the housemaid can always fetch your maid." + +Then she ushered Molly into the next room and, after briefly pointing +out its principal defects, she left her to rest her body and tire her +mind on a hard but gorgeously-upholstered couch until it should be time +to dress for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND + + +Edmund Grosse felt more tolerant of Billy at Groombridge Castle than +elsewhere. At Groombridge he was looked upon as a kindly weakness of +Lord Groombridge's, who consulted him about the stables and enjoyed his +jokes. This position certainly made him more attractive to Edmund, but +he was not sorry that Billy, who seldom troubled a church, went there on +Easter Sunday morning and left him in undisturbed possession of the +terrace. + +The sun was just strong enough to be delightful, and, with an +interesting book and an admirable cigar, it ought to have been a goodly +hour for Grosse. But the fact was that he had wished to walk to church +with Rose, and he had quite hoped that if it were only for his soul's +sake she would betray some wish for him to come. But if she didn't, he +wouldn't. He knew quite well that she would be pleased if he went, but +if she were so silly and self-conscious as to be afraid of appearing to +want his company--well and good; she should do without it. + +He had been disappointed and annoyed with Rose during their walk on the +evening before. The simple, matter-of-fact way in which they had been +jogging along in London was changed. At first, indeed, she had been +natural enough, but then she had become silent for some moments, and +afterwards had veered away from personal topics with a tiresome +persistency. He half suspected the truth, that this was due to a +careless word of his own which had betrayed how suddenly he had given up +his intention to spend Easter on the Riviera. If she had jumped to the +conclusion that this change was because Edmund had learnt at the +eleventh hour that Rose would be at Groombridge, she had no right to be +so quick-sighted. It was almost "Missish" of Rose, he told himself, to +be so ready to think his heart in danger, and to be so unnecessarily +tender of his feelings. She might wait for him to begin the attack +before she began to build up fortifications. + +He was at the height of his irritation against Rose, when the three +other ladies came out on the terrace. Lady Groombridge instantly told +Mrs. Delaport Green that she knew she wished to visit the dairy, and +hustled her off through the garden. Edmund rose and smiled, with his +peculiar, paternal admiration, at Molly, whose dark looks were at their +very best set in the complete whiteness of her hat and dress. Then he +glanced after the figures that were disappearing among the rose-bushes. + +"The party is not in the least what your chaperone expected; indeed, we +can hardly be dignified by the name of a party at all, but you see how +happy she is. She even enjoyed dear old Groombridge's prosing last +night, and she has been very happy in church, and now she is going to +see the dairy. The only thing that troubles her is that Lady Groombridge +has not allowed her to change her gown, and a well-regulated mind cannot +enjoy her prayers and a visit to cows in the same gown. Now suppose," +he looked at Molly with a lazy, friendly smile, "you put on a short +skirt and come for a walk." + +A little later they were walking through the woods on the hills beyond +the Castle. Perhaps he intended that Rose, who had stayed to speak to +the vicar, should find that he had not been waiting about for her +return. + +"I would give a good deal to possess the cheerful philosophy of Mrs. +Delaport Green," he said, as, looking down through an opening in the +trees, they could see that little woman with her skirts gracefully held +up standing by while Lady Groombridge discoursed to the keeper of cows, +who looked sleek and prosperous and a little sulky the while. + +"You would be wise to learn some of it from her," Edmund went on. "Isn't +this nice? Let us sit upon the ground, as it is dry, and feel how good +everything is. You like this sort of thing, don't you?" + +Molly murmured "Yes," and sat down on a mossy bank and looked up into +the glorious blue sky and then at a tuft of large, pale primroses in the +midst of dark ground ivy, then far down to the fields where a group of +brown cows, rich in colour, stood lazily content by a blue stream that +sparkled in the sunlight. Edmund was not hard-hearted, and Molly looked +very young, and a pathetic trouble underlay the sense of pleasure in her +face. There was no peace in Molly's eyes, only the quick alternations of +acute enjoyment and the revolt against pain and a child's resentment at +supposed blame. + +Pleasure was uppermost at this moment, for so many slight, easy, human +pleasures were new to her. She sat curved on the ground, with the ease +and suppleness of a greyhound ready to spring, whereas Sir Edmund was +forty and a little more stiff than his age warranted. + +"But when you do enjoy yourself I imagine it's worth a good many hours +of our friend's sunny existence. Oh, dear, dear!" For at that moment the +dairy was a scene of some confusion; two enormous dogs from the Castle +had bounded up to Lady Groombridge, barking outrageously, and one of +them had covered her companion with mud. + +"She is saying that it does not matter in the least, and that the gown +is an old rag, but I'm sure it's new on to-day, and it's impossible to +say how much has not been paid for it." + +Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she +could hear every word the little woman was saying. + +"Well, _that_ you will allow is humbug!" + +"Yes, I think I will this time, and I believe, too, that the philosophy +has collapsed. I'm sure she's a mass of ruffled feathers, and her mind +is full of things that she will hurl at the devoted head of her maid +when she gets in. You can only really wound that type of woman to the +quick by touching her clothes. There now, is that severe enough?" + +"Why do we always talk of Mrs. Delaport Green?" asked Molly. + +"Because she is on trial in your mind and you are not quite sure whether +she suits." + +"I might go further and fare worse," said Molly. + +"Is there no one you would naturally go to?" asked Edmund. + +"There is the aunt who brought me up, Mrs. Carteret, and I'd rather--" +She paused. "There is nothing in this world I would not rather do than +go back to her." + +Molly's face was completely overcast; it was threatening and angry. + +"Poor child!" said Edmund gently. + +"I wonder," said Molly, "if anybody used to say 'poor child' when I was +small. There must have been some one who pitied an orphan, even in the +cheerful, open-air system of Aunt Anne's house, where no one ever +thought of feelings, or fancies, or frights at night, or loneliness." + +Edmund looked at her with a sympathy that tried to conceal his +curiosity. + +"Was it possible," he wondered, "that she really thought she was an +orphan?" + +"It's dreadful to think of a very lonely child," he said. + +"But some people have to be lonely all their lives," said Molly. + +Sir Edmund was touched. She had raised her head and looked at him with a +pleading confidence. Then, with one swift movement, she was suddenly +kneeling and tearing to pieces two or three primroses in succession. + +"Some people have to say things that can never be really said, or else +keep everything shut up." + +"Don't you think they may make a mistake, and that the things can be +said--" He hesitated; he did not want to press her unfairly into +confidence; "to the right person?" he concluded rather lamely. + +"Who is to find the right person?" said Molly bitterly; "the right +person is easy to find for people who have just ordinary cares and +difficulties, but the people who are in real difficulties don't easily +find the right person. I doubt if he or she exists myself!" + +She turned to find Edmund Grosse looking at her with far too much +meaning in his face; there was a degree and intensity of interest in his +look that might be read in more than one way. + +Molly blushed with the simplicity suited to seventeen rather than to +twenty-one. She was very near to the first outpouring in her life, the +torrent of her pent-up thoughts and feelings was pressing against the +flood-gates. It seemed to her that she had never known true and real +sympathy before she felt that look. She held out her hands towards him +with a little unconscious gesture of appeal. + +"I have had a strange life," she said; "I am in very strange +circumstances now." + +But Edmund suddenly got up, and before she could speak again a slight +sound on the path showed her that some one was coming. + +Rose, finding every one dispersed, had taken a walk by herself in the +wood. She was glad to be alone; she felt the presence of God in the +woods as very near and intimate. Her mind had one of those moments of +complete rest and feeding on beautiful things which come to those who +have known great mental suffering in their lives, and to whom the world +is not giving its gaudy preoccupations. So, walking amidst the glory of +spring lit by a spiritual sunshine, Rose came round a little stunted +yew-tree to find Molly kneeling on the ground ivy, and Edmund standing +by her. Molly rose in one movement to her full height, as if her legs +possessed no jointed impediments, and a fiercely negative expression +filled the grey eyes. Rose's kind hand had unwittingly slammed the +flood-gates in the moment they had opened; and Edmund, seeing that +look, and feeling the air electric, suddenly reverted to a belief in +Molly's sense of guilt towards Rose. + +For the fraction of a second Rose looked helplessly at Edmund, and then +held out a little bunch of violets to Molly. + +"Won't you have these? There; they suit so well with your gown." + +With a quick and very gentle touch she put the violets into Molly's +belt, and smiled at her with the sunshine that was all about them. + +Molly looked a little dazed, and the "Thank you" of her clear low voice +was mechanical. + +"I was just coming for a few minutes' walk in the wood." + +Rose's voice was very rich in inflection, and now it sounded like a +caress. + +"But I wonder if it is late? I think I have forgotten the time, it is +all so beautiful." + +She laid her hand for a moment on Molly's arm. + +"It is very late," said Edmund with decision, but without consulting his +watch on the point. + +They all moved quickly, and while making their way back to the Castle +Rose and Edmund talked of Lord and Lady Groombridge, and Molly walked +silently beside them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE PET VICE + + +"May I come in?" + +At the same moment the door was half opened, and Lady Groombridge, in a +heavy, dark-coloured gown, made her way in, with the swish of a long, +silk train. She half opened the door with an air of mystery, and she +closed it softly while she held her flat silver candlestick in her hand +as if she wished she could conceal it, yet the oil lamps were still +burning in the gallery behind her. The appearance of the wish for +concealment was merely the unconscious expression of her mental +condition at the moment. + +Two women looked up in surprise as she made this unconsciously dramatic +entrance into her guest's bedroom. Lady Rose was sitting in front of the +uncurtained window in a loose, white dressing-gown, lifting a mass of +her golden hair with her hair brush. She had been talking eagerly, but +vaguely, before her hostess came in, in order to conceal the fact that +she wished intensely to be allowed to go to bed. + +Lady Rose made many such minor sacrifices on the altar of charity, and +she was sorry for the tall, thin, mysterious girl who, at first almost +impossibly stiff and cold, had volunteered a visit to her room to-night. +It was only a very few who were ever asked to come into Rose's room, +and she had hastily covered the miniature of her dead husband in his +uniform with her small fan before she admitted Molly. + +By some strange impulse, Molly had attached herself to Rose during the +rest of that Easter Sunday. Curiosity, admiration, or jealousy might +have accounted for Molly's doing this. To herself it seemed merely part +of her determination to face the position without fear or fancies. If +Lady Rose found out later with whom she had spent those hours, at least +she should not think that Molly had been embarrassed. Perhaps, too, Sir +Edmund's efforts to keep them apart made her more anxious to be with +her. + +Having been kindly welcomed to Rose's room, Molly found herself slightly +embarrassed; they seemed to have used up all common topics during the +day, and Molly was certainly not prepared to be confidential. + +The entrance of the hostess came as a relief. That lady, without +glancing at Rose or Molly as she came into the middle of the room, +banged the candlestick down on a small table, and then threw herself +into an arm-chair, which gave a creak of sympathy in response to her +loud sigh. + +"It is perfectly disgraceful!" she said, "and now I don't really know +what has happened. On Easter Sunday night, too!" + +Molly had been standing by the window, looking out on the moonlit park. +She now leaned further across the wide window-seat, so that her slight, +sea-green silk-clad figure might not be obtrusive, and the dark keen +face was turned away for the same purpose. + +"That woman has actually," Lady Groombridge went on, "been playing cards +in the smoking-room on Easter Sunday night with Billy and those two +boys. What Groombridge will say, I can't conceive; it is perfectly +disgraceful!" + +"Have they been playing for much?" + +"Oh, for anything, I suppose; and Edmund Grosse says that the boy from +the Parsonage has lost any amount to Billy. They have fleeced him in the +most disgraceful way." + +There was a long silence. Rose looked utterly distressed. + +"If he had only refused to play," she said at last, as if she wished to +return in imagination to a happier state of things. + +"It's no use saying that now," said Lady Groombridge, with an air of +ineffable wisdom. + +Molly Dexter bit her tiny evening handkerchief, and her grey eyes +laughed at the moonlight. + +"Well, Rose, I can't say you are much comfort to me," the hostess went +on presently, with a dawn of humour on her countenance as she crossed +one leg over the other. + +"But, my dear, what can I say?" + +The tall, white figure, brush in hand, rose and stood over the elderly +woman in the chair. Rose had had the healthy development of a girlhood +in the country, but her regular features were more deeply marked now and +there were dark lines under her clear, blue eyes. + +"Do you think," said the hostess in a brooding way, "that Mrs. +What's-her-name Green would tell you how much he lost, Rose, if you went +to her room? Of course, I can't possibly ask her." + +"Oh no; she thinks me a goody-goody old frump." + +At the same moment another brush at the splendid hair betrayed a +half-consciousness of the grace of her own movements. + +"She wouldn't say a word to me--she is much more likely to tell one of +the men. Perhaps she will tell Edmund Grosse to-morrow; he is so easy to +talk to." + +"But that's no use for to-night, and Groombridge will be simply furious +if I ask him to interfere without telling him how much it comes to. +Billy won't say a word." + +"I think," said Rose very slowly, "that if we all go to bed now, we +shall have some bright idea in the morning." + +Before this master-stroke of suggestion had reached Lady Groombridge's +brain, a very low voice came from the window. + +"Would you like me to go and ask her?" + +The hostess started; she had forgotten Miss Molly Dexter. A little dull +blush rose to her forehead. + +"Oh dear, I had forgotten you were there; but, after all, she is no +relation of yours, and it isn't your fault, you know. Could you--would +you really not mind asking her?" + +"I don't mind at all. Might I take your candle?" + +"Of course," said Lady Groombridge, "you won't, don't you know----" + +"Say that you sent me?" The low, detached voice betrayed no sarcasm. She +knew perfectly well that Lady Groombridge disliked being beholden to her +at that moment. It was rather amusing to make her so. + +For fifteen minutes after that the travelling clock by Lady Rose's bed +ticked loudly, and drowned the faint murmur of her prayers while she +knelt at the _prie-dieu_. + +Lady Groombridge knew Rose too well to be surprised. But she did not, +like the young widow, pass the time in prayer; she was worried--even +deeply so. She was of an anxious temperament, and she was really shocked +at what had happened. + +Molly did not come back with any air of mystery, but with a curiously +negative look. + +"Thirty-five pounds," she said very quietly. + +Lady Groombridge sat up, very wide awake. + +"More than half his allowance for a whole year," she said with +conviction. + +"Oh dear, dear," said Lady Rose, rising as gracefully as a guardian +angel from her _prie-dieu_. + +Molly made no comment, although in her heart she was very angry with +Mrs. Delaport Green. Her quick "Good-night" was very cordially returned +by the other two. + +"Now tell me something more about Miss Molly Dexter," said Rose, sinking +on to a tiny footstool at Lady Groombridge's feet as soon as they were +alone. + +"I am ashamed to say that I know very little about her; I am simply +furious with myself for having asked them at all. I don't often yield to +kind-hearted impulses, and I'm sure I'm punished enough this time." + +Lady Groombridge gave a snort. + +"But who is she? Is she one of the Malcot Dexters?" + +"Yes; I can tell you that much. She is the daughter of a John Dexter I +used to know a little. He died many years ago, not very long after +divorcing his wife, and this poor girl was brought up by an aunt, and +Sir Edmund says she had a bad time of it. Then she made one of those odd +arrangements people make nowadays, to be taken about by this Mrs. +Delaport Green, and I met them at Aunt Emily's, and, of course, I +thought they were all right and asked them to come here. After that I +heard a little more about the girl from some one in London; I can't +remember who it was now." + +"Poor thing," said Rose; "she looks as if she had had a sad childhood. +But what curious eyes; I find her looking through and through me." + +"Yes; you have evidently got a marked attraction for her." + +"Repulsion, I should have called it," said Rose, with her gentle laugh. + +Lady Groombridge laughed too, and got up to go to bed. + +"And what became of the mother?" + +"She is living--" said the other; then she caught her sleeve in the +table very clumsily, and was a moment or two disengaging the lace. "She +is living," she then said rather slowly, "in Paris, I think it is, but +this girl has never seen her." + +"How dreadful!" + +"Yes. Good-night, Rose; do get to bed quickly,--a wise remark when it is +I who have been keeping you up!" + +Lady Groombridge, when she got to her own room, murmured to herself: + +"I only stopped just in time. I nearly said Florence, and that is where +the other wicked woman lives. It's odd they should both live in +Florence. But--how absurd, I'm half asleep--it would be much odder if +there were not two wicked women in Florence." + + +Sir Edmund was aware as soon as he took his seat by Molly at the +breakfast-table that she knew why Lady Groombridge was pouring out tea +with a dark countenance. He put a plate of omelette in his own place, +and then asked if Molly needed anything. As she answered in the negative +he murmured as he sat down: + +"Mrs. Delaport Green is not down?" + +"She has a furious toothache." + +Molly's look answered his. + +"I suppose there is no such thing as a dentist left in London on Easter +Monday?" + +No more was safe just then; but by common consent they moved out on to +the terrace as soon as they had finished breakfast. + +"It is too tiresome, too silly, too wrong," said Molly. + +"Yes; the pet vice should be left at home," said Edmund. "Many of them +do it because it's fashionable, but this one must have it in the blood. +I saw her begin to play, and she was a different creature when she +touched the cards. What sort of repentence is there?" + +"I found her crying last night like a child, but this morning I see she +is going to brazen it out. But she wants to quarrel with me at once, so +I don't get much confidence." + +"But you don't mind that?" + +"Not in the least, only--" Molly sighed, but intimate as their tone was, +she did not now feel any inclination to reveal her greater troubles. + +"I don't want to end up badly with my first venture, and I have nowhere +else to go. For to-day I think she will talk of going to see the dentist +until she finds out how she is treated here." + +"Oh! that will be all right for to-day," said Edmund. "There are no +possible trains on Bank holiday, and no motor. Let her get off early +to-morrow." + +Molly had evidently sought his opinion as decisive, and she turned as if +to go and repeat it to Mrs. Delaport Green. + +"But what will you do yourself?" he asked very gently. + +"I shall go away with her, and then--I wonder--" She hesitated, and +looked full into his face. "Would you be shocked if I took a flat by +myself? I don't want to hunt for another Mrs. Delaport Green just now." + +Sir Edmund paused. It struck him for a moment as very tiresome that he +should be falling into the position of counsellor and guide to this +girl, while he had anything but her prosperity at heart. He looked at +her, and there was in her attitude a pathetic confidence in his +judgment. + +"I don't want," she went on, holding her head very straight and looking +away to the wooded hills, "I don't want to do anything unconventional." + +A deep blush overspread the dark face--a blush of shame and hesitation, +for the words, "your mother's daughter ought to be more careful than +other girls," so often in poor Molly's mind, were repeated there now. + +"If there were an old governess, or some one of that sort," suggested +Sir Edmund, with hesitation. + +"Oh yes, yes!" cried Molly eagerly; "there is one, if I could only get +her. Oh, thank you, yes! I wonder I did not think of that before." And +she gave a happy, youthful laugh at this solution. + +"Is it some one you really care for?" asked Edmund, with growing +interest. + +"I don't know about really caring"--Molly looked puzzled--"but she would +do. There is one thing more I wanted to ask you. About the silly boy +last night: whom does he owe the money to? I know nothing about +bridge." + +"He owes it to Billy." + +Molly looked sorry. + +"I thought, if it were to Mrs. Delaport Green----" + +"You might have paid the money?" Edmund smiled kindly at her. "No, no, +Miss Dexter, that will be all right." + +She turned from him, laughing, and went indoors to Mrs. Delaport Green's +room. + +She found that lady writing letters, and the floor was scattered with +them, six deep round the table. She put her hand to her face as Molly +came in. + +"There are no possible trains," said Molly, "so I'm afraid you must bear +it. Sir Edmund advises us to go by an early train to-morrow: he thinks +to-day you would be better here, as there won't be a dentist left in +London." + +"I am very brave at bearing pain, fortunately," was the answer, "and I +am trying, even now, to get on with my letters. I think I shall go to +Eastbourne to-morrow; there are always good dentists in those places. I +love the churches there, and the air will brace my nerves. I might have +gone to Brighton only Tim is there. Will you"--she paused a +moment--"will you come to Eastbourne too?" + +Mrs. Delaport Green was not disposed to have Molly with her. She was +exceedingly annoyed at the _debacle_ of her visit to Groombridge--a +visit which she was describing in glowing terms in her letters to all +her particular friends. It would be unpleasant to have Molly's critical +eyes upon her; she liked, and was accustomed to, people with a very +different expression. + +Molly, however, ignoring very patent hints with great calmness and +firmness, told her that she intended to stay with her for just as long +as it was necessary before finding some one to live with in a little +flat in London. She felt the possibility, at first, of Mrs. Delaport +Green's becoming insolent, but she was presently convinced that she had +mastered the situation. They agreed to go to Eastbourne together next +day, and then to look for a flat for Molly in London. The suggestion +that Mrs. Delaport Green might help Molly to choose the furniture proved +very soothing indeed. + +Molly went down-stairs again to let Sir Edmund know they were not going +to leave till next morning, and to find out if he had succeeded in +speaking to Lady Groombridge. + +As she passed through the hall, she saw that he was sitting with Lady +Rose by a window opening on to the terrace. She was passing on, being +anxious not to interrupt them, but Rose held out her hand. + +"I've hardly seen you this morning. Do come and sit with us." And then, +as Molly rather shyly sat down by her side on a low sofa, Lady Rose went +on: + +"I was just telling Sir Edmund a very beautiful thing that has happened, +only it is very sad for dear Lord Groombridge and for her. They have +only had the news this morning, but it is not a secret, and it is very +wonderful. You know that this place was to go to a cousin, quite a young +man, and they liked him very much. They did mind his being a Roman +Catholic, but they were very good about it, and now he has written that +he has actually been ordained a priest, and that he will not have the +property or the Castle as he is going to be just an ordinary parish +priest working amongst the poor. It is wonderful, isn't it? They say the +next brother is a very ordinary young man--not like this wonderful +one--and so they are very much upset to-day, poor dears. They knew he +was studying for the priesthood, but they did not realise that the time +for his Ordination had really come." + +Molly murmured shyly something that sounded sympathetic, and then, +looking at Sir Edmund, ventured to say: + +"Mrs. Delaport Green would like to stay till the early train to-morrow. +But have you seen Lady Groombridge?" + +"Yes; it's all right--or rather, it's all wrong--but she won't tell +Groombridge to-day, and she will be quite fairly civil, I think." + +"And this news," said Rose gently, "will make them both think less of +that unfortunate affair last night." + +Molly rose and moved off with an unusually genial smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE THIN END OF A CLUE + + +Edmund Grosse later on in the morning strolled down to the stables. He +had been there the day before, but he had still something to say to the +stud-groom, an old friend of his, who had the highest respect for the +baronet's judgment. + +Edmund loved a really well-kept stable, where hardly a straw escapes +beyond the plaited edges, where the paint is renewed and washed to the +highest possible pitch of cleanliness, and where a perpetual whish of +water and clanking of pails testify to a constant cleaning of +cobblestone yard and flagged pavement. + +In the middle of Groombridge Castle stable-yard there was an oval of +perfect turf, and that was surrounded by soft, red gravel; then came +alternate squares of pavement and cobble-stones, on to which opened the +wide doors of coach-houses and stables and harness-rooms, and the back +gate of the stud-groom's house. + +An old, white-haired, ruddy-faced man standing on the red gravel smiled +heartily when Sir Edmund appeared. The man was in plain clothes, with a +very upright collar and a pearl horseshoe-pin in his tie; his figure was +well-built, but showed unmistakably that his knees had been fixed in +their present shape by constant riding. + +He touched his hat. + +"How's the mare to-day, Akers?" asked Sir Edmund. + +"Nicely, nicely; it's a splendid mash that, Sir Edmund. Old Hartley gave +me the recipe for that. He was stud-groom here longer than I have been, +in the old lord's day. He had hoped to have had his son to follow him, +but the lad got wild, and it couldn't be." + +The old man sighed, and changed the conversation. "Will you come round +again, sir?" + +"Yes," said Edmund; "I don't mind if I do. But you've got a son of your +own about the stable, haven't you?" he asked, as they turned towards the +other side of the yard. + +"I had two, Sir Edmund," was the brief and melancholy answer. "Jimmy's +here, but the lad I thought most on, he went and enlisted in the war, +and he couldn't settle down again after that. Jimmy, he'll never rise to +my place--it would not be fair, and I wouldn't let his lordship give it +a thought--but the other one might have done it." + +Sir Edmund felt some sympathy for the stay-at-home, whom he knew. "He +seems a cheerful, steady fellow." + +"He's steady enough, and he's cheerful enough," said his father, in a +tone of great contempt; "but the other lad had talent--he had talent." + +Both men had paused in the interest of their talk. + +"My eldest son, Thomas, of whom I'm speaking, went to the war in the +same ship as General Sir David Bright, and there's a thing I'd like to +tell you about that, Sir Edmund. It never came into my head how curious +a thing it was till yesterday--last night, I may say. Lady Rose +Bright's lady's-maid come in with Lady Groombridge's lady's-maid to see +my wife, and you'll excuse me if I do repeat some woman's gossip when +you see why I do it. Well, the long and short of it was that it seems +Lady Rose Bright has been left rather close as to fortune for a lady in +her position, and the money's all gone off elsewhere. Then the maid +said, Sir Edmund--whether truly or not I don't know, naturally--that +there had been hopes that another will might be sent home from South +Africa, but that nothing came of it. I felt, so to speak, puzzled while +I was listening, and afterwards my wife says to me while we were alone, +she says, 'Wasn't it our Thomas when he was on board ship wrote that he +had put his name to a paper for Sir David Bright?'--witnessing, you'll +understand she meant by that, sir--'and what's become of that paper I +should like to know,' says she. So she up and went to her room and took +out all Thomas's letters, and sure enough it was true." + +Akers paused, and then very slowly extracted a fat pocket-book from his +tight-fitting coat, and pulled out a letter beautifully written on thin +paper. He held it with evident respect, and then, after a preparatory +cough, he began to read: + +"'I was sent for to-day, and taken up with another of our regiment to +the state cabins by Sir David Bright's servant, and asked to put my name +to a paper as witness to Sir David Bright's signature, and so I did.'" + +Akers stopped, and looked across his glasses at Sir Edmund. + +"I don't know if you will remember Sir David's servant, Sir Edmund; he +was killed in the same battle as Sir David was, poor fellow. A big man +with red hair--a Scotchman--you'd have known that as soon as he opened +his mouth. He'd have chosen my boy from having known him here, in all +probability." + +"Yes, yes," said Grosse impatiently; "but how do you know that what he +witnessed was a will?" + +"Well, of course, I don't know, Sir Edmund, and of course the boy didn't +know what was in the paper he witnessed; but the missus will have it +that that paper was a will, and there'll be no getting it out of her +head that the right will has been lost. I was wondering about it when I +see you come into the yard, and I thought I'd just let you see the lad's +letter. It could do no harm, and it might do good." + +Edmund had been absolutely silent during this narrative, with his eyes +fixed on the stud-groom's face. + +"And where is Thomas now?" he asked, in a low voice. + +"He's in North India somewhere, Sir Edmund, but that is his poor +mother's trouble; we've not had a line from him these three months." + +"Oh, I'll find him for you," said Edmund, and he was just going to ask +what regiment Thomas was in when they were disturbed by the appearance +of Billy emerging from the hunters' stable, and Edmund Grosse felt an +unwarrantable contempt for a young man who dawdles away half the morning +in the stable. + +"Should I find you at six o'clock this evening?" he asked, in a low +voice, of the stud-groom; and having been satisfied on that point, he +strolled off and left Billy to talk of the horses. + +Edmund Grosse felt for the moment as if the missing will were in his +grasp, and he was quite sure now that he had never doubted its +existence. What he had just heard was the very first thing approaching +to evidence in favour of his own theory, which he had hitherto built up +entirely on guess-work. Of course, the paper might have been some +ordinary deed, some bit of business the General had forgotten to +transact before starting. But, if so, he felt sure that it must have +been business unknown to the brothers Murray, as they had discussed with +Grosse every detail of Sir Edmund's affairs. One thing was certain: it +would be quite as difficult after this to drive out of Edmund Grosse's +head the belief that this paper was a will as it would be to drive it +out of the head of Mrs. Akers. + +Edmund was in excellent spirits at luncheon. In the afternoon he drove +with Lady Groombridge and Rose and Molly to see a famous garden some +eight miles off, the owners of which were away in the South. The +original house to which the gardens belonged had been replaced by a +modern one in Italian style at the beginning of the nineteenth century. +It was not interesting, and Lady Groombridge gave a sniff of contempt as +she turned her back on it and her attention, and that of her friends, to +the far more striking green walls beyond the wide terraced walk on the +south side of the building. + +In the midst of ordinary English country scenery, these gardens had been +set by a great Frenchman who had caught the strange secret of the +romance of utterly formal hedges. He could make of them a fitting +framework for the glories of a court, or for sylvan life in Merrie +England. There were miles of hedges; not yew, hornbeam had been chosen +for this green, tranquil country. At one spot many avenues of hedges met +together as if by accident, or by some rhythmic movement; it was a +minuet of Nature's dancing, grown into formal lines but not +petrified--every detail, in fact, alive with green leaves. If you stood +in the midst of this meeting of the ways, the country round outside, +seen in vistas between the hedges, was curiously glorified, more +especially on one side where the avenues were shortened. There one saw +larger glimpses of fields and woods and bits of common-land that seemed +wonderfully eloquent of freedom and simplicity, nature and husbandry. +But if you had not seen those glimpses through the lines of strange, +stately, regal dignity--the lines of those mighty hedges--you would not +have been so startled by their charm. That was the triumph of the genius +of Lenotre: he had seen that, framed in the sternest symbols of rule and +order, one could get the freshest joy in the pictures of Nature's +untouched handiwork. On the west side the avenues of hedges disappeared +into distant vistas of wood, one only ending in a piece of most formal +ornamental water. I don't know how it was, but it was difficult not to +be infected by a curious sense of orgy, of human beings up to their +tricks--love tricks, drinking and eating--perhaps murdering tricks--all +done in some impish fantastic way, between those long hedges or behind +them. If there were not something going on down one avenue you looked +into, it was happening in another. + +Somewhat of all this Edmund said to Molly as they strolled between the +hedges which reached far above his head, but she felt that he was +absent-minded while he did so. He had planned for himself a walk and a +talk with Rose, but he had reckoned without his hostess, who had shown +so unmistakably that she intended him to amuse Molly that it would have +been discourteous to have done anything else. He had felt rather cross +as he saw Lady Groombridge and Rose turn down one of the longest walks, +one that seemed indeed to have no ending at all, with an air of +finality, as if their _tete-a-tete_ were to be as long as the path +before them, and as secret as the hedges could keep it. He would never +have come out driving with three women if he had not hoped to get a talk +alone with Rose. He told himself that Rose's avoidance of him was +becoming quite an affectation, and after all, he asked himself, what had +he done to be treated like this? + +"Why, if I were trying to make love to her she could not be more absurd! +The only time after our first walk here that we have been alone she made +Miss Dexter join us, and as the girl would not stay Rose found she must +write letters." + +As soon as he had made up his mind that he would show Rose what nonsense +it all was, he could and did--not without the zest of pique--turn his +attention to Molly. + +"Lady Groombridge doesn't frame well here, does she?" he said, smiling. +"Rather a shock at that date--the tweed skirt and the nailed boots and +the felt hat." + +"Yes; but Lady Rose floats down between the hedges as if she had a long +train, only she hasn't," laughed Molly. "The hem of her garment never +touches the earth, as a matter of fact. I wonder how it is done." + +"You are right," said Edmund; "and, do you know another thing about +Rose?--whatever she wears she seems to be in white." + +"I know," answered Molly. "I see what you mean." + +"It may be," said Edmund, "because she always wore white as a young +girl. I remember the day when David Bright first saw her she was in +white." Edmund had for a moment forgotten entirely why he should not +have mentioned David Bright. If Molly could have read his mind at the +next moment she would have seen that he was expressing a most fervent +wish that he had never met her. How little he had gained, or was likely +to gain, from her, and how stupid and tiresome, if not worse, was this +appearance of friendship. He felt this much more strongly on account of +the morning's discovery, and he was determined to keep on neutral +ground. + +"Have you ever seen Versailles?" he asked. + +"No; I have seen absolutely nothing out of England except India, when I +was a small child." + +There it was again! He could not let her give him any confidences about +India or anything else. + +"Well, the hedges at Versailles don't impress me half as much as these +do, and yet these are not half so well known. There's more of nature +here, and they are not so self-contained. At Versailles the Court and +its gardens were the world, and nature a tapestry hanging out for a +horizon; here it is amazing how the frame leads one's eyes to the great, +beautiful world outside. I never saw meadows and woods look fairer than +from here." + +They were silent; and in the silence Grosse heard shouting and then saw +a huge dog dragging a chain, rushing along the avenue towards them, +while louder shouts came from the opposite direction. + +"We must run," he said very quietly, "there's something wrong with it;" +and two men, still calling and waving their arms, appeared at the end +nearest the house. Edmund took Molly by the arm, and they ran to meet +the men. + +"Get the lady over the kitchen-garden wall!" shouted one who held a gun, +and as they came to the end of the hedge on their left they saw a wall +at right angles to it about five feet high. Molly looked for any sort of +footing in the bricks for one second, and then she felt Grosse lift her +in his arms, and deposit her on the top of the wall. She rolled over on +the other side into a strawberry bed in blossom. She heard a gun fired +as she jumped to her feet, and a second shot followed. + +"He's dead, sir," she heard a voice say. "I'll open the gate for the +lady." + +And then a garden gate a few yards off was opened inward, and Molly +walked to meet the man whom she supposed to be a head gardener. She +thanked him and went through the gate, to find Edmund, with a very white +face, leaning back on a stone bench built into the wall. + +"The gentleman strained himself a bit," said the gardener, in a tone of +apology to Molly. "I can't think how he come to break his chain"--he +meant the dog this time. "I've said he ought to be shot long ago; now +they'll believe me. Why, he bit off the porter's ear at the station when +he first come, and he was half mad with rage to-day." + +"I'm all right," said Edmund, with a kindly smile to the horribly +distressed Molly. She went up to him with a gentle, tender anxiety on +her face that betrayed a too strong feeling, only he was just faint +enough not to notice it. + +"It's nothing, child," he said in the fatherly tone that to Molly meant +so far too much. "The merest rick. I forgot, in the hurry, to think how +high I was lifting you, and I also forgot that there might be cucumber +frames on the other side!" + +"I wouldn't have said 'over the garden wall,' sir, if there had been," +said the gardener with a smile, as he offered a glass of water that had +been fetched by the other man, whose coat and gaiters proclaimed him +unmistakably a keeper. + +"A fine dog, poor fellow," said Edmund to the latter. + +The keeper shook his head. "I don't deny it, sir, but there are fine +lions and fine bears, too, sir, that are kept locked up in the +Zooelogical Gardens." Evidently the gardener and the keeper were of one +opinion in this matter. + +Presently Sir Edmund was so clearly all right that the men, after being +tipped and having all their further offers of help refused, went away. + +Edmund and Molly were left alone. + +"How well you run!" he said, smiling. + +"Yes; even without a ferocious dog behind me I can run fairly well," she +said. "But I wish you had let me get over that wall alone. And I wish +they could have spared that splendid animal." + +"After all, he would have been shot whether we had been there or not," +said Edmund. "My only bad moment was listening for the crash of broken +glass and thinking that you were cut to pieces." + +"You are sure that you have not hurt yourself?" Her grey eyes were large +with anxiety. + +Edmund, laughing, held up his hand, which was bleeding. + +"I see I have sustained a serious injury of which I was not aware in the +excitement of the crisis." + +Molly examined his hand with a professional air. Edmund let her wash it +with her handkerchief dipped in the glass of water, and bind it with his +own. Her touch was light and skilful, and it would have been absurd to +refuse to let her do it. But, as holding his wrist she raised it a +little higher to turn her bandage under it, her small, lithe, thin hand +was close to his face, and he gave it the slightest kiss. + +Any girl who had been abroad would have taken it as little more than the +merest politeness, but to Molly it came as a surprise. A glow of quick, +deep joy rose within her; her cheeks did not blush, for this was a +feeling too peaceful, too restful for blushes or any sort of discomfort. + +"This young lady can run like a deerhound," said Edmund, "and bandage +like a surgeon." + +"But that's about all she can do," laughed Molly. "Ah! there"--she could +not quite hide the regret in her voice--"there are Lady Groombridge and +Lady Rose." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MOLLY'S NIGHT WATCH + + +That night Molly could write it on the tablets of her mind that she had +passed a nearly perfect day. The evening had not promised to be as happy +as the rest, but it had held a happy hour. Mrs. Delaport Green had made +a masterly descent just in time for dinner. Molly smiled at the thought +when alone in her room. A beautiful tea-gown had expressed the invalid, +and was most becoming. + +"Every one has been so kind, dear Lady Groombridge; really, it is a +temptation to be ill in this house--everything so perfectly done." + +Lady Groombridge most distinctly grunted. + +"Why is toothache so peculiarly hard to bear?" She turned to Edmund +Grosse. + +"It wants a good deal of philosophy certainly, especially when one's +face swells; but yours, fortunately, has not lost its usual outline." +And he gave her a complimentary little bow. + +"Oh! there you are wrong," cried the sufferer. "My face is very much +swollen on one side." + +But she did not mention on which side the disfigurement was to be seen, +and she ate an excellent dinner and talked very brightly to her host, +who could not think why his wife had taken an evident dislike to the +little woman. Edmund teased her several times, and would not let her +settle down into her usual state of self-content, but after dinner she +wisely took refuge with the merciful Rose. + +Lady Groombridge meanwhile gave Molly a dose of good advice, kindly, if +a little roughly, administered. + +"I was pretty and an orphan myself, and it is not very easy work; then +you have money, which makes it both better and worse. Be with wise +people as much as you can; if they are a little dull it is worth while. +If you take up with any bright, amusing woman you meet, you will find +yourself more worried in the long run;" and she glanced significantly at +Mrs. Delaport Green. + +The obvious nature of the advice, of which this remark is a sample, did +not spoil it. Sometimes it is a comfort to have the thing said to us +that we quite see for ourselves. In to-day's unwonted mood Molly was +ready to receive very ordinary wisdom as golden. + +And then Lady Groombridge discovered that Molly was musical, and the +older woman loved music, finding in it some of the romance which was +shut out by her own limitations and by a life of over great bustle and +worry. + +So Molly found in her music expression for her joy in the spring, and +her wistful, undefined sense of hope in life. + +Lady Groombridge, sitting near her, listened almost hungrily, and asked +for more. She was utterly sad to-night with the "might have been" of a +childless woman. The news of the final sacrifice on the part of the heir +to Groombridge, of all that meant so much to herself and her husband, +had made so keen to her the sense of emptiness in their old age. And the +music soothed her into a deeper feeling of submission that in reality +underlay the outward unrest and discontent of to-day. Submission was, at +one time, the most marked virtue of every class in our country, and it +may be found sometimes in those who, having lost all other conscious +religion, will still say, "He knows best," revealing thereby the +bed-rock of faith as the foundation of their lives. Lady Groombridge had +not lost her religious beliefs, but she was more dutiful than devout, +and did not herself often reflect on what strength duty depended. + +And Molly, who knew nothing of submission, yet ministered to the older +woman's peace by her music. When the men came out, Lord Groombridge took +a chair close to his wife's as if to share in her pleasure, and Edmund +moved out of Molly's sight. She sometimes heard the voice of Rose or of +Billy or of Mrs. Delaport Green, but not Sir Edmund's, and she naturally +thought he was listening, whereas part of the time he was reading a +review. But as the ladies were going up to bed, he said, looking into +the large, grey eyes: + +"Who said she could do nothing but run like a deerhound and bandage like +a surgeon? And now I find she can play like an artist. What next?" + +And Molly, standing in her room, said to herself that it had been the +happiest day of her life. + +But a moment later the maid came in, and while helping to take off her +dinner dress, told her mistress that the kitchenmaid in a room near hers +was groaning horribly. It seemed that Lady Groombridge had given out +some medicine, and Lady Rose had sent up her hot-water bottle and her +spirit-lamp, and had advised that the bottle be constantly refilled +during the night. + +"But I'm sure, miss, she shouldn't take that medicine. I took on myself +to tell her not to till I'd spoken to you, and I'm sure I don't know who +is going to sit up filling bottles to-night. Lady Groombridge's +maid"--in a tone of deep respect--"isn't one to be disturbed, and the +scullerymaid won't get to bed till one in the morning: this girl being +ill it gives her double work." + +Molly instantly rose to the situation. She knew of better appliances +than the softest hot-water bottles, and soon after her noiseless +entrance into the housemaid's attic the pain had been relieved. But, +being a little afraid that the girl was threatened with appendicitis, +she knew that if that were the case the relief from the application she +had used was only temporary. However, the patient rested longer than she +expected. Molly sat by the open window, while behind her on the two +narrow beds lay the sick girl and the now loudly-snoring scullerymaid, +who had come up a little before twelve o'clock. + +"Not quite six hours' sleep that girl will get to-night," mused Molly, +"and then downstairs again and two hours' work before the cook comes +down to scold her. What a life!" + +But, after all, Molly had noticed the blush with which the girl had put +a few violets in a little pot on the chimney-piece. Was it quite sure +that Miss Dexter's life would be happier than that of the snorer on the +bed, who smiled once or twice in her noisy sleep? + +"There is happiness in this world after all," mused Molly, soothed by +thoughts of the past day, by the stillness on the face of the earth, and +by a certain rest that came to her with all acts of kindness--a certain +lull to those activities of mind and instinct that constantly led her +out of the paths of peace. + +This was a sacred time of the night to Molly. It was associated in her +mind with the best hours she had ever lived, hours of sick nursing and +devotion, hours of real use and help. For months now she had been living +entirely for herself, to fight her own battle and make her own way in a +hostile world. She had had much excitement and even real pleasure. Her +imagination had taken fire with the notion that she must assert herself +or be crushed in the race of life. Heavy ordinary people would find it +hard to understand Molly's strange idealisation of the glories of the +kingdom of this world which she meant to conquer. And if she were +frustrated in her passion for worldly success, there were capacities in +her which she as yet hardly suspected, but she did feel at times the +stirrings of evil things, cruelty, revenge, and she hardly knew what +else. How could people understand her? She shrank from understanding +herself. + +But to-night she knew the inspiration of another ideal; she recognised +the possibility of aims in which self hardly counts. There had been +indeed a stir in the minds of all at Groombridge when they knew of the +final step taken by the heir. Molly, looking up at the great castle, on +her homeward drive, with its massive towers and its most commanding +position, had felt more and more impressed by an action on so big a +scale. It was impossible to be at Groombridge and not to feel the great +and noble opportunities its possession must give any remarkable man; and +the man who could give up such opportunities must be a very remarkable +man indeed. In Molly's self-engrossed life it had something of the same +effect as a great thunderstorm among mountains would have had in the +physical order. + +And to-night it came over her again, and she seemed to be listening to +the echoes of a far vibrating sound. And might there not be happiness +for Mark Molyneux? Might it not be happiness for herself to give up the +wretched, uncomfortable fight that life so often seemed to be, and to +let loose the Molly who could toil and go sleepless and be happy, if she +could achieve any diminution of bodily pain in man or woman, child or +beast? + +The dawn lightened; one or two rabbits stirred in the bracken in the +near park--this was peace. Then Molly smiled tenderly at the dawn. There +might come another solution in which life would be unselfish without +such acute sacrifice, and in which evil possibilities would be starved +for lack of temptation. And all that was good would grow in the +sunshine. + +And the sleeping scullerymaid smiled also. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SIR DAVID'S MEMORY + + +Lady Rose Bright was faintly disturbed on Tuesday morning, and came into +Lady Groombridge's sitting-room after Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly had +left the castle too preoccupied to notice the tall figure of Grosse in a +far window. + +This room had happily escaped all Georgian gorgeousness of decoration, +and the backs of the books, a fine eighteenth-century collection, stood +flush to the walls. The long room was all white except for the books, +the flowered chintz covers, some fine bronze statuettes, and a few bowls +of roses. + +Lady Rose moved mechanically towards the empty fire-place. + +It was one thing to try not to dislike Miss Dexter, and to see her in a +haze of Christian love; it was another to realise that, while she +herself had slept most comfortably, Molly had not been to bed at all +because the little kitchenmaid was in pain. Humility and appreciation +were rising in Rose's mind, as half absently she gently raised a vase +from the chimney-piece, and, turning to the light to examine its mark, +saw Sir Edmund looking at her from his distant window. + +A little, quite a little, flush came into her cheeks; not much deeper +than the soft, healthy colour usual to them. She examined the china with +more attention. + +The tall figure moved slowly, lazily, down the room towards her, holding +the _Times_ in one hand. + +"It's not Oriental," he said, "it's Lowestoft." + +"Ah!" said Rose absently. She felt the eyes whose sadness had been +apparent even to Mrs. Delaport Green looking her over with a quick +scrutiny. + +"Why, in your general scheme of benevolence, have you not thought it +fit, during the last few days, to give me the chance of talking to you +alone?" The tone was full of exasperation, but ironical too, as if he +were faintly amused at himself for being exasperated. + +"I don't know. Have I avoided being alone with you?" Rose had turned to +the chimney-piece. + +Edmund Grosse sank into a low chair, crossed his legs, and looked up at +her defiantly, but with keen observation. + +"It has been too absurd," he said, "you have hardly spoken to me, and +you know, of course, that I came here to see you. I meant to go to the +Riviera until I heard that you were coming here." + +"But you have been quite happy, quite amused. There seemed no reason why +I should interrupt. And you know, Edmund, they said that you came here +every year." + +"Well, I didn't come only to see you," he said, "as you like it better +that way. And now, it is about Miss Molly Dexter I want to speak to +you." + +This time Rose gave a little ghost of a sigh, and looked at him with +unutterable kindness. She was feeling that, after all, she had come +second in his consciousness--after Miss Dexter, whom she could not +like, but who had sat up all night with the kitchenmaid. + +"Why about Miss Dexter? what can I have to do with her?" The tone was +almost contemptuous--not quite, Rose was too kind. + +"Do you remember that I went to Florence?" + +"Yes; I did not want you to go." There was at once a distinct note of +distress in her voice. It was horribly painful to her to have to think +of the things she tried so hard to bury away. + +"No, but I went," he said very gently; "and it was useless, as I knew it +would be. But I want to tell you one thing which I have learnt, and +which I think you ought to know, as it may be inconvenient if you do +not. It is that Miss Dexter----" Rose interrupted him quickly. + +"Is the daughter of the lady in Florence?" She gave a little hysterical +laugh. He looked at her in astonishment. + +"And that is why she dislikes me so much. Do you know, Edmund, I had a +feeling from the moment I first saw her that there was something wrong +between us. It gave me a horrible feeling, and then I asked Mary +Groombridge about her, and she told me the poor girl's story; only she +said the mother lived in Paris. Of course Mary does not know, or she +would never have asked us here together. But that is how I knew what you +were going to say; and yet I had no notion of it till a moment ago, when +it came to me in a flash. Only I wish I had known sooner!" + +It was not common with Rose to say so much at a time, and there had been +slight breaks and gaps in her voice, pathetic sounds to the listener. +She seemed a little--just a little--out of breath with past sorrow and +present pain. Edmund thought he would never come to know all the +inflections in that voice. + +"I wish I had known sooner. I am afraid I have not been kind to her." + +"And if you had known you would have cast your pearls at her feet," he +said, in tender anger. "Don't make the mistake of being too kind to her, +Rose. I want you to keep her at a distance. There is something all the +more dangerous about her because she is distinctly attractive. She has +primitive passions, and yet she is not melodramatic; it's a dangerous +species." + +It was amazing how easy it was to take a severe view of poor Molly after +she had gone away, and how he believed what he said. + +"She has never seen her mother?" asked Rose gently. + +"No, but I am sure she knows about her mother," the slowness in his +voice was vindictive; "and that her mother knows what we don't know +about the will." + +"Edmund dear," said Rose very earnestly, "do please leave that point +alone; no good can come of it. I do assure you that no good, only harm, +will come of it. It's bad and unwholesome for us all--mother and you and +me--to dwell on it. I do really wish you would leave it alone." + +Edmund frowned, though he liked that expression, "mother and you and +me." + +"You needn't think about it unless you wish to," he answered. + +"But I wish you wouldn't!" + +"If I had banished it from my thoughts up till now, I could not leave it +alone now, for I have a clue." + +"Oh, don't, Edmund." + +"Well, it may come to nothing; only I'm glad that it makes one thing +still more clear to me though it may go no further." + +He told her then of what the stud-groom had said, and ended by showing +her the letter. Rose read it in silence, and then, still standing with +her face turned away, she said in a very low voice: + +"It is a comfort as far as it goes. But I knew it was so; he never meant +things to be as they are--poor David! Edmund, it is of no use to think +of it. Even if the paper then witnessed were the will, it is lost now +and will never be found. I would rather--I would _really_ rather not +think too much about it." + +"No, no," he answered soothingly, "don't dear, don't dwell on it." + +"I like," she answered, "to dwell on the thought that David did think of +me lovingly, and did not mean to leave me to any shame. I am sure he +never meant to leave me poor, and to let me suffer all the publicity +about that poor woman. I am sure he always meant to change the will in +time, but, you see, all that mischief is done and can't be undone. I +mean the humiliation and the idea that she was in Florence all the time +during our married life, and all the talk, and my having to meet this +unfortunate girl who has his money. All of them think he was unfaithful +to me, and nothing can put that right. Nothing--I mean nothing of this +world--can put any of that right. And I can't bear the idea of a quarrel +and going to law with these people for money; it may be pride, but I +simply can't bear it." + +"But, don't you see," said Edmund, "that if we could prove there was +another will, that would clear David's reputation." + +"It won't prevent people knowing that there was the first will and all +about the poor woman in Florence." + +"No; but it will make people feel that he behaved properly in the end. +It will alter their bad opinion of him." + +"But it will also make them go on thinking and talking of the scandal, +and if it is left alone they will forget. People forget so soon, because +there is always something new to talk about. He will just take his place +among the heroes who died for their country, and the rest will be +forgotten." + +Edmund looked at her quickly, as if taking stock of the delicate nature +of the complex womanly materials he had to deal with, but her face was +still averted. + +"I think it's hard on David." He spoke as if yielding to her wish. "I do +think it is hard. If he did make this will, and it is lost through +chance or fraud, I think it is very hard that his last wishes should be +disregarded, and his memory should suffer in all right-minded people's +opinions. Of course, it is for you to decide, but I own I should +otherwise feel it wrong to leave a stone unturned if anything could be +done to restore his good name." + +He felt that Rose was terribly troubled, but he could not quite realise +what it was to her to disturb her hardly-won peace of mind and calm of +conscience. + +"If it were not for the money!" she faltered. "I shall get to long for +that money; so many people become horrid when they have a lawsuit about +a fortune. It has always seemed to me that if the money is only for +one's self one might leave it alone, and then, after all, if we went to +law and failed, things would be much worse than they were before." + +"Well," said Edmund, slightly exasperated but controlling himself. "I +don't mean to do anything definite yet, but we ought to find out if we +can make a case of it. We can always stop in time if we can't get what +we want, but it's worth while to try. It is not merely the money--the +less you dwell on that the better. Seriously, I think it would be very +wrong that, through any fastidiousness of yours, David's memory should +not be cleared if it is possible to clear it." + +The last shot had this time reached the mark. After a few minutes' +silence Rose said in a very low voice: + +"But then, what can I do about it?" He felt that she was hurt, but he +knew he had gained his point. + +"I don't think you can do anything at this moment but allow me a free +hand; I could not do what is necessary without your permission and your +trust--and, presently, let me compare notes with you freely. I know what +your judgment is worth when you can get rid of those scruples." + +"Very well." + +But still she did not turn round. Indeed, the wounds in her mind were +too deep and too fresh to make the subject give her anything but +quivering pain. It was impossible that Edmund should suspect half of +what she felt. He naturally concluded that much of her present suffering +showed how unconquerably Rose's love for Sir David had outlived the +strain put on it. To Rose it would have been much simpler if it had been +so. But in fact part of the trial to Rose was the doubt of her own past +love, and of her own present loyalty. Had she ever truly loved David +while he was still her hero "_sans peur et sans reproche_," could that +love have been killed at all? So much anxiety to be sure of having +forgiven, so much self-reproach for the failure of her marriage, such an +acute, overwhelming sense of shame, and such shrinking from all that was +ugly and low, were intermixed and confused in poor Rose's mind that it +was no wonder even Edmund, with all his tact and his tenderness, +blundered at times. + +They were quite silent for some moments. Edmund wanted to see her face +but he could not. Presently she looked into the glass over the +chimney-piece, and in the glass he saw with remorse a little tear about +to fall. + +"I think I've caught cold," she murmured to herself. Producing a tiny +handkerchief she seemed to apply it to her nose, and so caught that one +little tear. Her movements were wonderfully graceful, but the man +looking at her did not think of that. What he thought was:--How exactly +she was herself and no one else. How could she have that child's +simplicity of hers, and her amazing power of seeing through a stone +wall? How could she be a saint and have all a woman's faults? How could +she live half in another world and yet with all her absurd unworldliness +be so eminently a woman of this one? She was twenty-six, but she knew +what many women of fifty never learn; she was twenty-six, yet she was +more innocent than many a child of thirteen. What a contrast to Molly's +crude ignorance and hankering after success! + +All the time he looked at her in silence and she did not seem to realise +it. She put her handkerchief into her belt and took it out again; she +touched her hair, seeing in the glass that it was untidy. Then she sat +down on a low stool, and her soft, fluffy black draperies fell round +her. She pressed her elbows on her knees, and sank her face in her +hands. She might have been alone; he was not quite sure she was not +praying. There were some moments of silence. At last she moved, raised +her head, and looked him gently full in the face. + +"And you--you never talk about yourself," she said, with a thrill in her +voice that he had known so long. "I always talk so much of myself when I +am alone with you." + +"No," he said, with a touch of lazy anger, "I'm not worth talking about, +not worth thinking of, and you know it!" + +For a moment she flushed. + +"You always have abused yourself." + +"Because I know what's in your thoughts, and when I am with you I can't +help expressing them--there!" he concluded defiantly, and crossed and +uncrossed his legs again. + +"Edmund, that isn't one bit, one little bit true. But I do wish you were +happier." + +"Yes, of course," he went on sardonically, "you know that too. You know +that I loathe and detest life--that I hate the morning because it begins +a new day. Oh, I am bored to extinction, you know all that, you most +exasperating woman. I hate"--he suddenly seemed to see that he was +giving her pain, and the next words were muttered to himself--"no, I +love the pity in your eyes." + +The graceful figure sitting there trembled a little, and the white hands +covered the eyes again. + +"But," he went on quickly in a louder voice, "the pity's no good. You +might as well expect me to command an army to-morrow, or become an +efficient Prime Minister, or an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Roman +Catholic Cardinal, or anything else that is impossible, as become the +sort of man you would like me to be. You know so perfectly well," he +laughed, "how rotten I am; you are astonished if you find me do any sort +of good--you can't help it, how can you, when it's just and true? Do you +know I sometimes have had absurd dreams of what I might have been if you +had not been so terribly clear-sighted. You stood in your white frock +under the old mulberry tree--your first long skirt--and you saw that I +was no good, and you were perfectly right, but, after all, what is your +life to be now?" + +Rose got up from the stool and rested one hand on the marble +mantelpiece. She needed some help, some physical support. + +"Edmund," she said, "I don't think I dwell much on the future; I leave +all in God's hands. I have been through a good deal now, you must not +expect too much of me." She paused. "But what you have said to me about +yourself is nonsense; I wish you would not talk like that. You are only +forty. You are very clever, very rich, you have the right sort of +ambition although you won't say so, and you are, oh! so kind. Couldn't +you do something, have some real interest?" He growled inarticulately. +"Is it of no use to ask you just to think it over?" + +"None whatever," he said firmly and cheerfully. + +The gong sounded in the hall for luncheon. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MOLLY IN THE SEASON + + +"Still together?" + +"Yes; and it has not turned out so badly as might be expected." + +"I thought you were to have had a flat with a dear old governess?" + +"I could not get Miss Carew, the governess in question, and Adela +Delaport Green pressed me to stay with her for the season." + +"It does credit to the amiability of both," said Edmund. + +"I don't know about that," answered Molly, "we both knew what we wanted, +and that we could not easily get it unless we combined, and so we +combined." + +"But was it quite easy to get over the slight friction at Groombridge?" + +"Oh, yes; directly we got away Adela was all right. She felt stifled by +the atmosphere, and she recovered as soon as she got home." + +Edmund would have been less surprised at the tone of this last remark if +he had seen Lady Groombridge's exceedingly offhand way of greeting Molly +this same evening. That great lady, having expected to find that Molly +had, acting on her advice, abandoned Mrs. Delaport Green, was quite +disappointed in the girl when she met them still together in London, and +so she extended her frigidity to both of them. + +"And you are enjoying yourself?" Edmund went on. "Come, let us sit +behind those palms. You look as if things were going smoothly." + +"It is delightful." + +Molly cast her grey eyes over the moving groups that were strolling +about the ballroom, and over the lights and flowers and the band +preparing to begin again, and then looked up into Edmund's face. It was +a slow, luxurious movement, fitted to the rather unusually developed +face and expression. Most debutantes are crude in their enjoyment, but +Molly was beginning London at twenty-one, not at eighteen, and +circumstances made her more mature than her actual experience of society +warranted. Yet it seemed to Edmund that the untamed element in her was +the more striking from the contrast. Molly accepted social delights and +social conventions as a young and gentle tigress might enjoy the soft +turf of an English lawn. + +The defiance in her tone when she alluded to Groombridge faded now. + +"I have six balls in the next four nights, and one opera, and we are +going to Ascot, then back to London, then to Cowes, and, after that, I +am going to the Italian Lakes and to Switzerland, and wherever I like." + +"Is Mrs. Delaport Green so very unselfish?" + +"Oh, no; I am only going to stay with Adela till the end of the season, +and then I am going abroad with two girls who are quite delightful, and +in October the flat and the governess are to come into existence." + +"Yes; everything--everything perfect," murmured Grosse, looking at her +with an expression that included her own appearance in the "everything +perfect." Then, dropping his restless eyeglass, he went on. + +"And you are never bored?" + +"Never for one single moment." + +"Amazing! and what is more amazing is that possibly you never will be +bored." + +"Am I to die young then?" asked Molly. + +"Not necessarily, but I believe you will enjoy too keenly, and probably +suffer too keenly to be bored." + +"Did you ever enjoy very keenly?" asked Molly, with timid interest. + +"Didn't I!" cried Grosse, with unusual animation; "until the last seven +or eight years I enjoyed myself hugely, but----" + +"Why did it stop?" asked Molly, her large eyes straining with eagerness. + +"You look like a child who must know the end of the story at once. Do +you always get so eager when you are told a story? Mine is dreadfully +dull. While I had plenty of work to do, and something to look forward +to, I was amused, but then----" + +"Then what?" + +"Well, then I became rich, and I've been dawdling about ever since. At +first I enjoyed it, but now I'm bored to extinction." + +"I can understand," said Molly, "when anything becomes quite easy it +doesn't seem worth while to do it. But isn't there anything difficult +you want to do?" + +"Yes," said Edmund, "there are two things; one is plainly impossible, +and the other is not hopeful, and neither of them prevents my feeling +bored, for unfortunately neither of them gives me enough to do." + +"Couldn't you work more at them?" asked Molly, with much sympathy. + +"No," he said, as if talking to himself, "no one has the power to make a +woman change her nature, and the other matter needs an expert. Good +Heavens!" he stopped short, in astonishment at himself. + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked Molly, while a deep flush of colour rose +in her dark cheeks. + +"You must be a witch," he said lightly; "you make me say things I don't +in the least mean to say, and that I have never said to anyone else. And +here is a distracted partner, Edgar Tonmore, coming to reproach you." + +"Our dance is nearly over, Miss Dexter," said a young, fresh voice, and +a most pleasing specimen of well-built and well-trained manhood stood +before them. "I have been looking for you everywhere." + +Molly and Edmund rose. + +He stood where they left him watching her whirl +past. It was as he had suspected; she had the gift of perfect movement. + +And Molly, as she danced past, glanced towards the tall, loose figure, +dignified with all its carelessness and with some curious trick of +distinction and indifference in its bearing, and twice she caught tired +eyes looking very earnestly at her. + +"Good Heavens! I was talking of Rose to that girl, and of my efforts to +get at her mother's money, and I never speak of either to mortal man. +What made me do it?" + +Slowly he turned away and left the ballroom and the house, declining +with a wave of the hand various appeals to stay, and found himself in +the street. + +"Sympathies and affinities be hanged!" He said it aloud. "She isn't even +really beautiful, and I'll be hanged, too, if I'll talk to her any +more." + +But, alack for Molly, he did talk to her on almost every occasion on +which they met. It was from no conscious lack of royalty to Rose; it was +largely because he was so full of her and her affairs that he would in +an assembly of indifferent people drift towards one who was in any way +connected with those affairs. Then one word or two, the merest "how d'ye +do?" seemed to develop instantly into talk, and shortly the talk turned +to intimate things. And for him Molly was always at her best. Many +people did not like her, yet admired her, and admitted her into their +houses half unwillingly. Her speech was not often kindly, and there was +an element of defiance even in her quietness, for her unmistakable +social ease was distinctly negative. Molly was rich and dressed well, +and Mrs. Delaport Green was a very clever woman, whose blunders were +rare and whose pet vice was not unfashionable. There was nothing in this +life to soften and ripen the best side of Molly. But Edmund drew out +whatever she had in her that was gentle and kindly. + +It does not need the experience of many London seasons in order to +realise that it is a condition of things in which many of the faculties +of our nature are suspended. It is not as a Puritan moralist might put +it, that the atmosphere of a whirlpool of carnal vice chokes higher +things, for the amusements may be perfectly innocent. Only for a time +the people who are engaged in them don't happen to think, or to pity, or +to pray, or to condemn, or often, I believe, to love, though it may +seem absurd to say so. It may, therefore, be called a rest cure for +aspirations and higher ambitions and anxieties and all the nobler +discontents. To Molly it was youth and fun and brightness and +forgetfulness. There was no leisure to be morbid, no occasion to be +bitter or combative. The game of life was too bright and smooth, above +all too incessant not to suffice. + +Mrs. Delaport Green might be outside the circle in which Lady +Groombridge disported herself with more dignity than gaiety, but she had +the _entree_ to some houses almost as good, if not as exclusive, and she +had also a large number of acquaintances who entertained systematically +and extravagantly. That the Delaport Greens were very rich, or lived as +if they were very rich, had from the first surprised the "paying guest." +Lately it had become evident to her that if Adela had not been addicted +to cards, Molly would never have been established in her house. She had +found out by now that Mr. Delaport Green was a man of very good repute +in the financial world as being distinctly successful on the Stock +Exchange. He struck Molly as a sturdy type of Englishman, rather +determined on complete independence, and liking to pay his way in a +large free fashion. She rather wondered at his having consented to the +plan of the "paying guest," but he seemed quite genial when he came +across her and inquired with sympathy after her amusements, and +evidently wished that she should enjoy herself. + +Many girls whose position was undoubtedly secure, whom no one disliked +and everybody was willing to amuse, had a much less amusing summer than +Molly. And Edmund Grosse, most unconsciously to himself, was a leading +figure in the warm dream of delight in which Molly lived from the +middle of May till the end of June. They did not meet often at dances, +but at stiffer functions, at the Opera, and also twice in the +country--once on the river on a Sunday afternoon, and once for a whole +week-end party, which last days deserve to be treated in more detail. + + +The group who met under the deep shade of some historic cedars, on a hot +Saturday afternoon, to spend together a Saturday to Monday with a +notably pleasant host and hostess, had carried with them the electric +atmosphere of the season that so fascinated Molly's inexperience, to +perfume it further with the June roses and light it with the romance of +summer moonlight. Of the party were Molly and her chaperone and Sir +Edmund Grosse. + +By this time Mrs. Delaport Green had made up her mind that Molly had +decidedly better become Lady Grosse, and she felt that it would be a +pleasing and honourable conclusion to the season if the engagement were +announced before she and Molly parted. She had fleeced Molly very +considerably, but she wanted her to have her money's worth, and go away +content. + +It would take long to carry conviction as to the actual good and the +possibility of further good there was in Mrs. Delaport Green. Out of +reach of certain temptations she might have been quoted as a positive +model of goodness and unselfish brightness. If her imitative gift had +found only the highest models, she might have been a happy nun, or a +quiet, stay-at-home wife and mother. But she was tossed into a social +whirlpool where her instincts and her ambitions and her perceptions were +all confused, and out of the depths of her little spoiled soul, had +crawled a vice--probably hereditary--which might otherwise have slept. +It was fast becoming known that Molly's chaperone was a thorough +gambler. + +Sir Edmund Grosse was not unwilling to dawdle under the shade of an old +wall with Mrs. Delaport Green that Saturday evening in the country. + +"I feel terribly responsible," she said, in her thin eager little voice; +"I am sure that boy is going to propose to my protege!" + +"What boy?" asked Edmund, in a tone of indifference. + +"Edgar Tonmore." + +"Is Edgar here, then?" + +"Oh, no; it won't be at once. He has gone to Scotland, but he will be +back before we leave London." + +"Really he is an excellent fellow. I don't see why you should be +anxious." + +"But Molly is an orphan," she said plaintively, eyeing him quickly as +she spoke. + +"Even so, orphans marry and live happily ever after." + +"But I'm not sure she will live happily." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't think she cares for him." + +"Then I suppose she will refuse." + +"But people so often make mistakes. I don't think dear Molly knows her +own mind, and it is so natural that she should not confide in me as I am +in her mother's place." + +"Leave things alone. Edgar will find out if she likes him or not." + +"Will he? oh well, it's a comfort that you take that view." And she +then changed the topic, being of opinion that nothing more could be done +with it. But no doubt the effect produced in Edmund was an increase of +interest in Molly's affairs. It would be exceedingly tiresome if she +should marry this attractive but penniless boy, as he knew him to be, +under the impression that she possessed enough money for them both. + +Edmund had only that morning received certain intelligence of the +whereabouts of young Akers, the son of the old stud-groom. + +From Florence had come the information that Madame Danterre was supposed +to be in failing health, and that she had been seldom seen to drive out +of her secluded grounds this summer, whereas last year she used to go +long distances in her old-fashioned English carriage in the evenings. +Thus it became a matter of thrilling interest whether the great fortune +would pass to Molly before any evidence could be produced of the +existence of the last will in which he so firmly believed. + +"I believe the old sinner knows all about it, even if she hasn't got +it," Grosse murmured to himself. + +Finally he concluded that it would be better if Molly married money and +not poverty, and did not smile on the penniless Edgar Tonmore. +Therefore, finding himself alone with her during church time next +morning, he thought no harm of trying to put a little spoke in the wheel +to prevent that affair going too easily. But first he asked her why she +did not go to church. + +"I might say, why don't you go yourself?" said Molly, "but I don't mind +telling you that I hardly ever do go." + +"Why not?" + +"Why not?" Molly was leaning back in a low chair under the shadow of the +cedars, as still as if she would never move again, as still as the +greyhound that was lying by her. "I hate going to church. None of it +seems beautiful to me as it does to Adela. My aunt used to say that we +were not fortunate in our clergyman, but personally I don't like any +clergymen. I am anti-clerical like a Frenchwoman." + +"Have you any French blood?" + +"Yes; my mother was French." + +"But you do good works; I remember how you nursed the kitchenmaid at +Groombridge." + +"I like to stop pain, but not because it is a good work. I can't stand +all the fuss about good works and committees, and nonsense about loving +the poor. It's a way rich people have to make themselves feel +comfortable. Don't you think so?" + +"No, I don't. I know people who make themselves exceedingly +uncomfortable because they give away half what they possess." + +"Really," said Molly, a little contemptuously. She knew that he was +thinking of Rose Bright. "My opinion is that doing good works means to +bustle about trying to get as much of other people's money to give away +as you can, without giving any yourself." + +Edmund did not like to suggest that this opinion might be the result of +special experiences gained while living in the house of Mrs. Delaport +Green. + +"If," Molly went on, evidently glad to relieve her mind on the subject, +"you got the money to pay your unfortunate dressmaker, there would be +some justice in that. But," she suddenly sat up and her eyes shot fire +at Edmund, "to fuss at a bazaar to show your kindness of heart while you +know you are not going to pay the woman who made the very gown you have +on, is perfectly sickening." + +"It is atrocious," said Grosse, who wanted to change the subject. But +this was effected by the most unexpected apparition of Mr. Delaport +Green, whom they had both supposed to be refreshing himself by the sea +at Brighton. + +Mr. Delaport Green was dressed in very light grey, with a white +waistcoat. His figure was curious, as it extended in parts so far in +front of the rest that it gave the impression that you must pass your +eyes over a great deal of substance in the foreground before you could +see the face. Then again, the nose was so predominant that it checked +any attempt to realise the eyes and forehead, while the cheeks were +baggy and the skin unwholesome. + +Edmund Grosse had only seen him on two occasions when he dined at his +house, and he had liked him at once. There was something markedly +masculine about him; he knew life, and had made up his mind as to his +own part in it without delusions and without whining. He would have +preferred to have been slim and handsome, and to have known the ways of +the social world from his youth, but there were plenty of other things +to be interested in, and he was not averse to the power which follows on +wealth. He was a self-made Englishman, with nothing of the Jew about +him, either for good or evil. But no apparition could have been more +surprising to the two as he came slowly over the grass to meet them. +Molly saw at once that Adela's husband was exceedingly annoyed, probably +exceedingly angry, and although she had always felt his capacity for +being very angry, she had never seen him in that condition before. + +"I came down in the motor to get a short talk on business with Miss +Dexter," he explained, "but I am sorry to disturb a more amusing +conversation." + +Edmund, of course, after that left them alone, and walked off by +himself. + +Molly looked all her astonishment at Adela's "Tim." + +"Miss Dexter," he said very slowly, "I was given to understand when you +came to us in the winter that you were a young lady wanting a home and +some amusement in London. I thought it kindly in my wife to wish to have +you with her, and, as she is young and a good deal alone" (Molly looked +the other way at this assertion), "I thought it would be for the +advantage of both. But I had no notion that there was any question of +payment in the case, and I must now ask you to tell me exactly what you +have paid to Mrs. Delaport Green since first you made her acquaintance." + +Molly was not entirely astonished at discovering that Adela's husband +had known nothing whatever of Adela's financial arrangements with +herself. But she was so angry at this proof of what she had up to now +only faintly suspected, that it was not very difficult to make her tell +all that she knew of her share in Adela's expenses, only that knowledge +proved to be of a very vague kind. Molly had kept no accounts, and had +the vaguest notion of what her bills included. One thing she intended to +conceal (but Mr. Delaport Green managed to make her confide even that) +was the fact that she had given L100 to his wife's dressmaker. He made +no comment of any sort, only firmly and quietly insisted on Molly +giving him all the items she could. Then he got up and said-- + +"Good-bye for the present; I want to get back in time for lunch." + +And he walked away, making one or two notes in a little book he held in +his hand as to the cheque that Molly should find waiting for her next +day. + +Molly, left alone on the bench, did not at the first moment dwell on the +thought of how far this talk with her host would affect her own plans. +She could only think of the man himself. She had been for many weeks in +his house, and had never done more than "exchange the weather" with him, +or occasionally suffer gladly the little jokes and puns to which he was +addicted. She had written to Miss Carew that his attitude towards Adela +and herself was that of a busy man towards his nursery. Since that how +little she had thought about him! And now she felt the strength in him, +not weakened, but lit up with a kind of pathos. He might have been a +true friend to any man or woman. He was really fond of Adela Delaport +Green, and that position in itself was tragic enough. It was plain to +Molly, although nothing had been breathed on the subject that morning, +that Tim would not find it hard to forgive his Adela. Adela would pass +almost scot-free from well-merited punishment; and yet her husband was +strong enough to have punished effectively where he deemed it necessary. +Molly was puzzled because she was without a clue to the mystery. The +fact was that Tim had no wish to punish effectively. As long as Adela +passed untouched by one sin, as long as he felt sure of one great virtue +in her life, all such details as much gambling, much selfishness, absurd +extravagance, could be easily forgiven. Molly herself would be fairly +dealt with and set aside; the "paying guest" was an indignity that he +would soon forget. He would have been entirely indifferent to the +impression of regretful interest that he had made upon her. + +That night Edmund Grosse was Molly's confidant as to the second, and +evidently final, rupture between herself and Mrs. Delaport Green that +had taken place in the afternoon. He could not but be kind and +sympathetic as to her difficulties. It was, no doubt, very blind of him +not to see that she was too quickly convinced of the wisdom of his +advice, far too anxious to act as seemed well in his opinion. It never +dawned on his imagination for a moment that the most serious part of the +loss of the end of the season to Molly was the loss of his society +during that time. + +They strolled in the moonlight between the cedars and under the great +wall with its alternate "ebon and ivory" of darkest evergreen growths +and masses of white climbing roses, Molly's white gown rustling a little +in the stillness. And Molly discovered with joy that he was trying to +set her mind against marriage with Edgar Tonmore. If he only knew how +little danger there was of that! And under Edmund's influence she +decided to offer herself for a visit of two or three weeks to Mrs. +Carteret, in the old and much disliked home of her childhood. It would +look right; it would give a certain dignity to her position after the +breakdown of the Delaport Green alliance, and it was always a great +mistake to break with natural connections. So far Edmund Grosse; and in +Molly's mind it ran something like this: "He wants me to stand well with +the world, and I will do this, intolerable as it is, to please him. He +likes to think that I have some nice relations, and so I must try to be +friendly with Aunt Anne Carteret, though that is the hardest part. And +he wants me to get away from Edgar Tonmore, and I would go away from so +many more people if he wished it." + +The evening passed into night, and Edmund was walking alone under the +wall, dreaming of Rose. + +All this foolish gambling, quarrelsome, small world of men and women +made such a foil to her image. Molly and her mother, the Delaport +Greens, and many others were grouped in his mind as he purled the smoke +disdainfully from his cigar. Something in Molly's walk by his side just +now had made him see again the old woman with her quick, alert movements +in the garden at Florence; after all they were cut from the same piece, +the old wicked woman and the slight, dark girl with the curious eyes. +Molly must not be trusted; she must be suspected all the more because of +her attractions in the moments of dangerous gentleness. And with a +certain simplicity Edmund looked again at the moon above him, all the +more glorious because secret and dark things were moving stealthily +under the trees in the lower world. + +And Molly was kneeling on her low window-seat, looking out at the same +moon in a mood of joy that was transmuted half consciously into prayer +by the alchemy of pure love. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A POOR MAN'S DEATH + + +Early in October, Molly and Miss Carew took up their abode in a flat +with quite large rooms and a pleasing view of Hyde Park. + +August and September had been two of the healthiest and most normal +months that Molly had ever spent or was likely ever to spend again. The +weeks between the rupture with the Delaport Greens and the journey to +Switzerland had been trying, although it was undoubtedly much pleasanter +to be Mrs. Carteret's guest than it had ever been to be a permanent +inmate of her house. + +Molly--thought Mrs. Carteret--was restless, not inclined to morbid +thoughts, and more gentle than of yore, but more nervous and fanciful. + +It was not until after a fortnight abroad, after the revelation of +mountains realised for the first time, that Molly had the courage to say +to herself that she had been a fool during the visit to Aunt Anne. Was +it in the least likely that a man of Edmund Grosse's kind would act +romantically or hastily? Of course not. She had been as foolish as Mrs. +Browning's little Effie in dreaming that a lover might come riding over +the Malcot hills on a July evening. + +The girls with whom Molly had travelled were of a healthy, intellectual +type, and Molly, under their influence, had grown to feel the worth of +the higher side of Nature's gifts. And so, vigorous in mind and body, +she had come to London in October, so she said, to study music. + +Miss Carew was a little disappointed when Molly expressed lofty +indifference as to who had yet come to London. But that indifference did +not last long when her friends of the season began to find her out. Then +Miss Carew surprised Molly by her excessive nervousness and shyness of +new acquaintances. "Carey" had always professed to love society, and had +always been very carefully dressed in the fashion of the moment. But, as +a civilian may idealise warfare and be well read in tactics, and yet be +unequal to the emergency when war actually raises its grisly head, so it +was with poor Miss Carew. She simply collapsed when Molly's worldly +friends, as she called them with envious admiration, swept into the +room, garnished with wonderful hats and fashionable furs. She had none +of a Frenchwoman's gift for ignoring social differences, and she had the +uneasy pride that is rare in a Celt, although she had all a Celt's taste +for refinement and show and glitter. Miss Carew sat more and more +stiffly at the tea-table, until she confided frankly to Molly-- + +"My dear, I am too old, and I am simply in the way. It is just too late +in my life, you see, after all the years of governess work. Of course, +if my beloved father had lived, I should never have been a governess. +But as it is, I think I need not appear when you have visitors, except +now and then." + +Molly acquiesced after enough protest, chiefly because she had begun to +wonder if it would be quite easy to have an occasional _tete-a-tete_ +with men friends without having to suggest to Miss Carew to retire +gracefully. She had that morning heard that Sir Edmund Grosse was in +London, but she had no reason, she told herself, to suppose that he knew +where she was. + +Meanwhile, she was exceedingly angry at finding that Adela Delaport +Green was giving her version of her relations with Molly in the season +to all her particular friends. Molly could not find out details, but she +more than suspected that the fact of her being Madame Danterre's +daughter made up part of Adela's story, although she could not imagine +how she came to know who her mother was. + +Molly would probably have brooded to a morbid degree over these angry +suspicions, but that another side of life was soon pressed upon her, a +new source of human interest, in the dying husband of a charwoman. + +This woman, Mrs. Moloney, had cleaned out the flat before Molly and Miss +Carew took possession. + + +High up in a small room in a block of workmen's buildings in West +Kensington, Pat Moloney lay dying. He and his wife had been thriftless +and uncertain, they drifted into marriage, drifted in and out of work, +and, having watched their children grow up with some affection and a +good deal of neglect, had now seen them drift away, some back to the old +country, and some to the Colonies. + +Mrs. Moloney counted on her fingers to remember their number and their +ages, and spoke with almost more realisation of the personalities of +three little beings that had died in infancy than of the living men and +women and their children. + +Moloney was far too ill by the time Molly Dexter came to see him to +speak of anything distinctly. Three years ago he had fallen from a +ladder and had refused to go into the hospital, in which decision he had +been supported by his wife, who "didn't hold" with those institutions. A +kindly, rough, clever young doctor had since treated him for growing +pain and discomfort, and had prophesied evil from the first. Pat kept +about and, when genuinely too ill for regular work, took odd jobs and +drifted more and more into public houses. He had never been a thorough +drunkard, and had been free from other vices, though lazy and +self-indulgent. But pain and leisure led more and more to the stimulants +that were poison in his condition. At last a chill mercifully hastened +matters, and Pat, suffering less than he had for some months past, was +nearing his end in semi-consciousness. Molly Dexter then descended on +the Moloneys in one of her almost irresistible cravings to relieve +suffering. + +Ordinary human nature when not in pain was often too repugnant to Molly +for her to be able to do good works in company with other people. She +was, as she had told Edmund Grosse, a born anti-clerical, and she +scorned philanthropists; so her best moods had to work themselves out +alone and without direction. Nor was she likely to spoil the recipients +of her attentions, partly from the strength of her character, partly +because the poor know instinctively whether they are merely the objects +on which to vent a restless longing to relieve pain, or whether they are +loved for themselves. + +Molly, in the village at home, had always made the expression of +gratitude impossible, but she constantly added ingratitude as a large +item in the account she kept running, in her darker hours, against the +human race. + +Late on a wet and windy October evening she went to undertake the +nursing of Pat Moloney for the first part of the night. She had been +visiting him constantly for several weeks, and actually nursing him for +three days. + +"Has the doctor been?" + +"Yes, miss" (in a very loud whisper); "he says Pat is awful bad; he left +a paper for you." + +Molly Dexter walked across the small, bare room and took a paper of +directions from the chimney-piece, and then stood looking at the old +man's heavy figure on the bed. He was lying on his side, his face turned +to the wall. + +"You had better rest in the back room while I am here," she said. + +"I couldn't, indeed I couldn't, miss, him being like that; you mustn't +ask me to. Besides, I've been round and asked the priest to come, and so +I couldn't take my things off. I'll just have some tea and a drop of +whisky in it, and I can keep going all the night, it's more than likely +he'll die at the dawn." + +Molly eyed the woman with supreme contempt. + +"It isn't at all certain that he's going to die, he'll make a good fight +yet if you will give him a chance." + +Mrs. Moloney looked deeply offended. It had been all very well to be +guided by a lady at the beginning of the illness, but now it was very +different. She felt half consciously that science had done its worst, +and bigger questions than temperatures and drugs were at issue. + +"A priest now," said Molly, in a whisper of intense scorn, "would kill +him at once." + +Mrs. Moloney did not condescend to reply. She had propped a poor little +crucifix, a black cross, with a chipped white figure on it, against a +jam pot on a shelf under the window, and she had borrowed two +candlesticks with coloured candles from a labourer's wife on the floor +beneath. The window had been shut, so that the wind should not blow down +these objects. + +Molly looked at the man on the bed and sniffed. + +"He must have air--" the whisper was a snort. + +At that moment there was a knock on the outer door. On the iron outer +stairs was standing the priest. + +"It's just the curate," said Mrs. Moloney, looking out of the window; +and then she disappeared into the tiny passage. + +Molly stood defiantly, her figure drawn to its full height. She felt +that she knew exactly the kind of Irish curate who was coming in to +disturb, and probably kill, the unhappy man on the bed. Well, she should +make a fight for this poor, crushed life; she would stand between the +horrible tyranny and superstition that lit those pink candles, and that +would rouse a man to make his poor wretched conscience unhappy and +frighten him to death. "If there is a hell," she muttered, "it must be +ready to punish such brutality as that." + +Mrs. Moloney opened the door as wide as possible, and the priest came +in. Miss Dexter looked at him in amazement; how, and where had she seen +him before? + +He went straight to the bed and looked at the man in silence, while +Molly looked at him. He was about middle height, with very dark hair and +eyes, a small, well-formed head, and a very good forehead. It was not +until he turned to Mrs. Moloney that Molly understood why she had +fancied that she had seen him before. She was sure now that she had +seen his photograph, but, although she was certain of having seen it, +she could not remember when or where she had done so. + +"Can't you open the window, Mrs. Moloney?" + +"It's the only place to make into an altar, father?" + +"Oh, never mind that yet; I will manage." + +Molly stepped forward; whatever he was going to do, it should not be +done without a protest. + +"The doctor's orders are that he is not to be disturbed." + +The priest did not seem aware of the exceedingly unpleasant expression +on Molly's countenance. + +"It would be a great mistake to wake him, of course," he said; and then, +"Do you suppose he will sleep for long?" + +"I haven't the faintest notion"; the uttermost degree of scorn was +conveyed in those few words. + +Mrs. Moloney suppressed a sob. + +"He's not been to the Sacraments for three years," she murmured. + +The priest leant over the bed and looked intently at the dying man. + +Mrs. Moloney opened the window and put the crucifix and candlesticks in +a corner on the dirty floor. + +"It might kill him to wake him now," murmured Molly. + +"Yes, that is just the difficulty." The young man was speaking more to +himself than to her. + +"Difficulty!" thought Molly with scorn. "Fiddlesticks!" + +The silence was unbroken for some moments. The fresh autumn air blew +into the room. A sandy coloured cat came from under the bed, looked at +them, and then rubbed her arched back against the unsteady leg of the +only table, which was laden with bottles and basins, finally retired +into a further corner, and upset and broke one of the pink candles that +belonged to the neighbour. + +But Mrs. Moloney never took her eyes off the priest's pale face. + +"I'll wait until he wakes," he said to her, "but is there anywhere else +I could go? It's not good to crowd up this room." + +"That's intended to remove me," thought Molly, "but it won't succeed." + +Mrs. Moloney moved into the little back room, and pulled forward a +chair. When the priest was seated she shut the door behind her and +whispered to him-- + +"Father, you'll not let his soul slip through your fingers, will you, +father dear? Just because of the poor lady who knows no better!" + +"Who is she? She is not like the district visitors I've seen about in +the parish." + +"No, indeed; she is a lady, and I've done some work for her, and she +would not be satisfied when she heard Moloney was ill but she must come +herself, and yesterday, not to grudge her her due, father, the doctor +said if he pulled through that I owed her his life. Well, that's proved +a mistake, anyhow, but she's after spoiling his last chance, and he's +not been the good man he was once, father." + +"Yes, Mrs. Moloney, you must watch him carefully, and here I am if there +is any change. I'm sure that lady is an excellent nurse, and we mustn't +let any chance slip of keeping him alive, must we?" + +She shook her head; this was only an English curate, still he must be +obeyed. + +Molly was profoundly irritated by Mrs. Moloney's proceeding to make a +cup of tea for the priest, but he was grateful for it, as he had been +out at tea-time, and had come to the Moloneys' instead of eating his +dinner. He opened the window of the tiny room as far as it would go, and +read his Office by the light of the tallow candle. That finished, he sat +still and began to wonder about the lady with the olive complexion and +the strange, grey eyes. + +"I felt as if I should frizzle up in the fire of her wrath," he thought +with a smile. + +He took his rosary and was half through it when the door opened and +Molly came in. She shut it noiselessly, and then spoke in her usual +unmoved, impersonal voice. + +"The new medicine is not having any effect; the temperature has gone up; +the doctor said if it did so now it was a hopeless case. I must rouse +him in an hour to give him another dose and take the temperature again. +After that, if it is as high as I expect it to be, you can do anything +you like to him." + +As she said the last words, she went back into the other room. + +The hour passed slowly, and she came again and let the priest know in +almost the same words that he was free to act as he pleased. Then she +added abruptly-- + +"Do you mind telling me your name?" + +"My name? Molyneux." + +"Then are you any relation of Lord Groombridge?" + +"I am his cousin." + +"I have been at Groombridge." But the priest felt that the tone was not +in the least more friendly. + +"Moloney won't suffer now," she went on, turning towards the door, "and +I think he will be conscious for a time." + +Molly was giving up her self-imposed charge; she wanted to be off. With +the need for help no longer an attraction, Moloney had almost ceased to +interest her; he would remain only as part of the darker background of +her mind, as a dim figure among many in the dim coloured atmosphere of +revolt and bitterness in which her thoughts on human life would move +when she had no labour for her hands. He was another of those who +suffered so uselessly, a mere half animal who had to do the rough work +of the world, and then was dropped into the great charnel house of +unmeaning death. As soon as the man began to show signs, faint signs of +perception, she left the priest by his bedside and went back into the +inner room to put on the cloak she had left there. And then she +hesitated. + +What would go on in the next room? She was anxious now to know more +about it, because she had caught so strange a look on Father Molyneux's +face. If he had only known this man before she could have understood it. +But how could there be this passion of affection, this intensity of +feeling, for a total stranger, a rough brutal-looking fellow who was no +longer in pain, who would probably die easily enough, and probably be no +great loss to those he left? She had seen a strange intensity of +reverence in the way the young man had touched the wreck upon the bed. +She had known thrills of curious joy herself when relieving physical +agony; was it something like that which filled the whole personality and +bearing of the priest? + +She began to feel that she could not go away; she wanted to see this +thing out. It was something entirely new to her. + +Low voices murmured in the next room; she hesitated now to pass through, +she might be intruding at too sacred a moment. She believed that the +priest was hearing the dying man's confession. She had a half +contemptuous dislike of this feeling of mystery and privacy. She felt +she had been foolish not to go away at once. But she did not move for +nearly half an hour, and then the door opened, and the man's wife came +in and started back. + +"I'm sure I thought you had gone, miss." Her manner was much more +cordial than it had been before. She was tearful and excited. "I want to +raise him a bit higher, and there's a cloak here. He is going off fast +now, but he was quite himself when I left him with the father to make +his confession; he looked his old self and the good man he was for many +a year--and God Almighty knows he has suffered enough these last years +to change him, poor soul." + +Molly went back with her to the sick bed and helped her to raise the +dying man. The dawn came in feebly now, and made the guttering candle +dimmer. Death was all that was written on the grey face, and the body +laboured for breath. The flicker of light in the mind, that had been +roused, perhaps, by those rites which had passed in her absence, had +faded; there was not the faintest sign of intelligence in the eyes now; +the hands were cold and would never be warm again. The sandy cat had +crept away into the other room; and outside the great town was alive +again, the vast crowds were astir, each of whom was just one day nearer +to death. There was nothing but horror, stale, common horror, in it all +for Molly. But, kneeling as upright as a marble figure, and his whole +face full of a joy that seemed quite human, quite natural, Father +Molyneux was reading prayers, and there was a curious note of triumph in +the clear tones. At first she did not heed the words; then they thrust +themselves upon her, and her eyes fastened on the dying, meaningless +face, the very prey of death, in a kind of stupefaction at the words +spoken to him. + +"I commend thee to Almighty God, dearest brother, and commend thee to +Him whose creature thou art; that, when thou shalt have paid the debt of +humanity by death, thou mayest return to the Maker, Who formed thee of +the dust of the earth. As thy soul goeth forth from the body, may the +bright company of angels meet thee; may the judicial senate of Apostles +greet thee; may the triumphant army of white-robed Martyrs come out to +welcome thee; may the band of glowing Confessors, crowned with lilies, +encircle thee; may the choir of Virgins, singing jubilees, receive thee; +and the embrace of a blessed repose fold thee in the bosom of the +Patriarchs; mild and festive may the aspect of Jesus Christ appear to +thee, and may He award thee a place among them that stand before Him for +ever." + +And so it went on; some of it appealing to her more, some less; some +passages almost repulsive. But her imagination had caught on to the vast +outlines of the prayer--the enormous nature of the claims made on behalf +of the dying labourer. + +Was it Pat Moloney who was to pass out of this darkness to "gaze with +blessed eyes on the vision of Truth"? What a tremendous assertion made +with such intensity of confidence! What a curious pageantry, too, so +magnificent in its simplicity, was ordered, almost in tones of command, +by the Church Militant for the reception of the charge she was giving +up. The triumphant army of Martyrs was to come out to meet him; the +Confessors were to "encircle him"; Michael was "to receive him as Prince +of the armies of Heaven." Peter, Paul, John were to be in attendance. +Nor in the rich strain was there any false ring of praise, or any +attempt to veil the weakness of humanity. "Rejoice his soul, O Lord, +with Thy Presence, and remember not the iniquities and excesses which, +through the violence of anger or the heat of evil passion, he hath at +any time committed. For, although he hath sinned, he hath not denied the +Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, but hath believed and hath had a +zeal for God, and hath faithfully adored the Creator of all things." + +Was it an immense, an appalling impertinence--this great drama? Was it a +mere mockery of the impotence and darkness of man's life? Would the +priest say all this at the death-bed of the drunken beggar, of the +voluptuous tyrant, of the woman who had been too hard or too weak in the +bonds of the flesh? Was it a last great delusion, a last panacea given +by the Church to those who had consented to bandage their eyes and crook +their knees in childish obedience? Vaguely in her mind there flitted +half phrases of the humanitarian, the materialist, the agnostic. It +seemed as if their views of the wreck on the bed pressed upon all her +consciousness. But, just as they had never succeeded in silencing the +voice of that great drama of faith and prayer through the ages, so she +could not dull to her own consciousness the strange, spiritual vitality +that poured out in this triumphant call to the powers on high to come +forth in all their glory to receive the inestimable treasure of the +redeemed soul of Pat Moloney. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MOLLY'S LETTER TO HER MOTHER + + +There followed after that night a quite new experience for Molly. It was +the upheaval of an utterly uncultivated side of her nature. She was +astonished to find that she had religious instincts, and that, instead +of feeling that these instincts were foolish and irrational--a lower +part of her nature,--they now seemed quite curiously rational and +established in possession of her faculties. Her mind seemed more +satisfied than it had ever been before. She did not know in what she +believed, but she felt a different view of life in which men seemed less +utterly mean, and women less of hypocrites. Externally it worked +something in this way. + +The day on which Pat Moloney died at dawn she could not rest so much as +she intended, to make up for the short night. She wrote one or two brief +notes begging to be let off engagements, and told the servants to say +she was not at home. She could not keep quite still, and she did not +want to go out. Gradually, as the day wore on, she worked herself into +more and more excitement. Her imagination pictured what might be the +outcome of such a view of life and death as seemed to have taken hold of +her. In her usual moods she would have thought with sarcasm that such +were the symptoms of "conversion" in a revivalist. But now there was no +critical faculty awake for cynicism; the critical faculty was full of a +solemn kind of joy. Next there came, after some hours of a sort of +surprise at this sudden and vehement sense of uplifting, the wish for +action and for sacrifice. Her mind returned to the concrete, and the +circumstances of her life. And then there came a most unwelcome thought. +If Molly wanted to sacrifice herself indeed, and wished to do some real +good about which there could be no self-delusion, was there not one duty +quite obviously in her path, her duty as a child? Had she ever made any +attempt to help the forlorn woman in Florence? Perhaps Madame Danterre's +assertion, when Molly came of age, that she did not want to see Molly, +was only an attempt to find out whether Molly really wished to come to +her mother. From the day on which her ideal of her mother had been +completely shattered Molly had shrunk from even thinking of her. She now +shivered with repugnance, but she was almost glad to feel how repugnant +this duty might be, much as a medieval penitent might have rejoiced in +his own repugnance to the leprous wounds he was resolved to dress as an +expiation for sin. It did not strike her, as it never struck the noble +penitents in the Middle Ages, that it might be very trying to the object +of these expiatory actions. She felt at the moment that it must be a +comfort to her mother to receive all the love and devotion that she +would offer her. And there was real heroism in the letter that Molly +proceeded to write to Madame Danterre. For she knew that if her offer +were accepted she risked the loss of all that at present made life very +dear, both in what she already enjoyed, and in the hope that was hidden +in her heart. + +Molly had pride enough to shrink utterly from the connection with her +mother, and her girl's innocence shrank, too, with quick sensitiveness +from what might be before her. How strange now appeared the dreams of +her childhood, the idealisation of the young and beautiful mother! + +The letter was short, but very earnest, and had all the ring of truth in +it. She could not but think that any mother would respond to it, and, +for herself, after sending it there could be no looking back. Once the +letter was posted to the lawyer to be forwarded to Madame Danterre, a +huge weight seemed to be lifted from Molly's mind. That night she met +Edmund Grosse at dinner. He had never seen her so bright and +good-looking, and he found he had many questions to ask as to the summer +abroad. + + +For several weeks Molly received no answer from Florence, but during +that time she did not repent her hasty action. And during those weeks +her interest in religion grew stronger. Just as she had been unable to +work with philanthropists, she was ready now to take her religion alone. +She felt kinder to the world at large, but she did not at first feel any +need of human help or human company. She went sometimes to a service at +Westminster Abbey, sometimes to St. Paul's, sometimes to the Oratory, +and two or three times to the church in West Kensington in which Father +Molyneux was assistant parish priest. On the whole she liked this last +much the best. Indeed, she was so much attracted by his sermons that she +went to call upon him late one afternoon. + +The visitor was shown into a rather bare parlour, and Father Molyneux +soon came in. He was a good deal interested in seeing her there. He had +never been more snubbed in his life than by this lady on their first +meeting, and he had been much surprised at seeing her in the church soon +afterwards. She was plainly dressed, though at an expense he would never +have imagined to be possible, and she appeared a little softer than when +he had seen her last. She looked at him rather hard, not with the look +that puzzled Rose Bright; it was a look of sympathy and of inquiry. + +"I have had curious experiences since we met," she said, "and I want to +understand them better. Have you--has anybody been praying for me?" + +"I have said Mass for you twice since poor Moloney died," he said. + +"I thought there was some sort of influence," she murmured. "That night +I was tired and excited and worried, and foolishly prejudiced. Somehow +the prayers you read for Pat Moloney, the whole attitude of your Church +in those prayers, caught my breath. I imagine it was something like the +effect of a revivalist preacher on a Welsh miner." She paused. Father +Molyneux was full of interest, and did not conceal it. + +"I can't tell," he said. "Of course, it may have been----" + +"Nerves," interrupted Molly so decidedly that he laughed; it was not in +the least what he had meant to say. + +"But," she went on, with an air of impartial diagnosis, "it has lasted. +I have been very happy. I understand now what is meant by religion. I +understand what you felt about that man's soul. I understand, when you +are preaching, that intense sense of worth-whileness. I understand the +religious sense, the religious attitude. It makes everything worth +while because of love. It does not explain all the puzzles. It does not +answer questions, it swallows them up alive. It makes everything so big, +and at the same time so small, because there are infinite things too. +Then it insists on reality; I see now it must insist on dogma for fear +of unreality. Renan was quite wrong in that great sentence of his: 'Il +ne faut rien dire de limitee en face de l'infini.' The infinite is a fog +to us if there are no outlines in our conception of it. Don't you think +so?" + +There was a light in her face no one had ever seen there before. + +"And the only outlines that can satisfy us are the outlines of a +Personality. As a rule I have always disliked individuals. I know you +are surprised. Of course, you are just the other way; you have a touch +of genius, a gift for being conscious of personalities, of being +attracted to them. Now I have never liked people; in fact, I've hated +most of them. But since this religious experience I have known"--her +voice dropped; it had been a little loud--"I have known that I want a +friend, and can have one." + +The priest was astonished by Molly. He had never met any one like her +before. Her self-confidence was curious, and her eloquence was so sudden +and abounding that his own words seemed to leave him. She was in a +moment as silent as she had been talkative, her eyes cast down on the +floor. Then she looked at him with an almost imperious questioning in +her eyes. + +"You have said so much that I expected to say myself," he said, with a +faint sense of humour, "and you have not asked me a single question." + +Molly laughed "Tell me," she said, "I am right; it is all true? I _do_ +understand religious experience, the religious sense at last, don't I?" + +"Shall I tell you what I miss in it?" he said, suppressing any further +comment on her amazing assertion. "I mean in all you have said. And, +oddly enough, the Welsh miner would have had it. I mean that, seeing Our +Lord as the One Friend of your life, you should also see that you have +resisted and betrayed and offended Him during that life which He gave +you." + +"No: I have not thought much about that side of things" said Molly "I +have been too happy." + +"You would be far happier if you did." + +"But what have I done?" said Molly, almost in a tone of injured +respectability. + +"Well, you have hated people--or, at least" (in a tone of apology), "you +said so just now." + +"Oh! yes; it's quite true. I am a great hater and an uncertain one. I +never know who it is going to be, or when it will come." + +"But you know you have been commanded to love them." + +"Yes; but only as much as I love myself, and I quite particularly +dislike myself." + +"You've no right to--none whatever." + +"And why not?" + +"Because God made you in His own image and likeness. You can't get out +of it. But, you know, I don't believe one word you say. I met you +showing love to the poor." + +"No, indeed," said Molly indignantly, "I did not love Pat Moloney. I +wish you would believe what I say. I hate my mother; I hate the aunt who +brought me up; I hate crowds of people. I don't hate one man because I +want him to fall in love with me, but if he doesn't do that soon, I +shall hate him too. I feel friendly towards you now, but I don't know +how soon I may hate you. At least," she paused, and a gentle look came +into her face, "I had all these hatreds up to a few weeks ago; now they +are comparatively dormant." + +Again the flood of her words seemed to check him, but he tried: + +"I believe it then; I will take all you say as true. I think you are +fairly convincing. Well, then, how do you suppose you can be united to +Infinite Love, Infinite Mercy, Infinite Purity? God is not merely good, +He is Goodness. Until you feel that His Presence would burn and destroy +and annihilate your unworthiness, you have no sense of the joys of His +Friendship. You stand now looking up to Him and choosing Him as your +Friend, whereas you must lie prostrate in the dust and wait to be +chosen. When you have done that He will raise you, and the Heavens will +ring with the joy of the great spirits who never fell, and who are +almost envious of the sinner doing Penance." + +Molly bent her head low. "I see," she murmured, "mine have been merely +the guesses of an amateur; it is useless--I don't understand." + +"It isn't, indeed it isn't," he said quietly. "It is the introduction. +The King is sending His heralds. Some are drawn to Him by the sense of +their own sinfulness, others, as you are, by a glimpse of His beauty." + +Molly was not angry, only disappointed. The very habit of a life of +reserve must have brought some sense of disappointment in the result. +She did not mind being told that she must lie in the dust; the +abnegation was not abhorrent; she knew that love in itself sometimes +demanded humiliation. But she felt sad and discouraged. She had seemed +to have conquered a kingdom. Without exactly being proud of them, she +had felt her religious experiences to be very remarkable, and now she +saw that they only pointed to a very long road, hard to walk on. She got +up quickly and was near the door before he was. + +"Will you come and see me?" she said, and she gave him her card. "If you +can, send me a postcard beforehand that I may not miss you. Good-bye." + +He opened the front door for her and her carriage was waiting. + + +"The third time you have been late for dinner this week," observed the +Father Rector. "Have some mutton?" + +"Thanks," said the young man; "I wish I could learn the gentle art of +sending people away without offending them." + +"They didn't include that in the curriculum at Oxford?" The tone was not +quite kind; neither was the snort with which the remark was concluded. +It was no sauce to the lumpy, greasy mutton that Mark was struggling to +eat. Suddenly he caught the eye of the second curate, Father Marny, who +had conceived a great affection for him, and he smiled merrily with a +school-boy's sense of mischief. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE BLIND CANON + + +In a small room in a small house in a small street in Chelsea, Father +Molyneux was sitting with a friend. There were a few beautiful things in +the room, and a few well-bound books; but they had a dusty, uncared for +look about them. It teased the young priest to see a medicine bottle and +a half-washed medicine glass standing on a bracket with an exquisite +statuette of the Madonna. The present occupier of these lodgings had had +very true artistic perceptions before he had become blind. + +Mark Molyneux had just been reading to him for an hour, and he now put +down the book. The old man smacked his lips with enjoyment. The author +was new to him, but he had won his admiration at the first reading. + +"What people call his paradoxes," he said, "is his almost despairing +attempt at making people pay attention; he has to shout to men who are +too hurried to stop. The danger is that, as time goes on, he will only +be able to think in contrasts and to pursue contradictions." + +The speaker paused, and then, his white fingers groped a little as if he +were feeling after something. His voice was rich and low. Then he kept +still, and waited with a curious look of acquired patience. At last, +the younger man began. + +"I want to ask your advice, or rather, I want to tell you something I +have decided on." + +"And you only want me to agree," laughed Canon Nicholls, and the blind +face seemed full of perception. + +"Well, I think you will." The boyish voice was bright and keen. "I've +come to tell you that I want to be a monk." + +"Tut, tut," said Canon Nicholls, and then they both laughed together. +"Since when?" he asked a moment later. + +"It has been coming by degrees," said Mark, in a low voice. "I want to +be altogether for God." + +"And why can't you be that now?" + +"It's too confusing," he said; "half the day I am amused or worried or +tired. I've got next to no spiritual life." + +Canon Nicholls did not help him to say more. + +"I can't be regular in anything, and now there's the preaching." + +"What's the matter with that?" + +"Who was it who said that a popular preacher could not save his soul? +Father Rector says that it's very bad for me that I crowd up the church. +He is evidently anxious about me." + +"How kind!" + +"Then, since I've been preaching, such odd people come to see me." + +"I know," said the Canon, "there's a fringe of the semi-insane round all +churches; they used to lie in wait for me once." + +"Then I simply love society. I've been to hear such interesting people +talk at several houses lately. I go a good deal to Miss Dexter." + +"Miss Molly Dexter." + +"Yes." + +"I wouldn't do that; she's a minx. She is the girl who stayed with that +kind little woman, Mrs. Delaport Green, who sometimes comes to see me." + +"You see," Mark went on eagerly, "I'm doing no good like this. So I have +made up my mind to try and be a Carthusian." + +His face lit up now with the same intense delight. "It's such a splendid +life! Fancy! No more humbug, and flattery, and insincerity. 'Vous ne +jouerez plus la comedie,' an old monk said to me. Wouldn't it be +splendid? Think of the stillness, and then the singing of the Office +while the world is asleep, like the little birds at dawn. It would be +simply and entirely to live for God!" + +"I do believe in a personal devil," muttered Canon Nicholls to himself, +and Mark stared at him. "Now listen," he said. "There is a young man who +has a vocation to the priesthood, and he comes under obedience to work +in London. That is, to live in the thick of sin, of suffering, of folly +and madness. If it were acknowledged that the place was full of cholera +or smallpox it would be simple enough. But the place is thick with +disguises. The worst cases don't seem in the least ill; the stench of +the plague is a sweet smell, and the confusion is thicker because there +are angels and demons in the same clothes, living in the same houses, +doing the same actions, saying almost the same things. In every Babylon +there have been these things, but this is about the biggest. And the +most harmless of the sounds, the hum of daily work, is loud and +continuous enough to dull and wear the senses. So confused and perplexed +is the young man that he doesn't know when he has done good or done +harm; being young, compliments appeal to him very seriously; being +young, he takes too many people's opinions; and, being young, he +generalises and if, for instance, I tell him not to go often to the +house of a capricious woman of uncertain temper, he probably resolves at +once never to lunch in an agreeable house again. Meanwhile, above this +muddle, this tragicomedy, he sees the distant hills glowing with light; +so, without waiting for orders, he leaves the people crying to him for +help and turns tail and runs away! And what only the skill of a personal +devil could achieve, he thinks in his heart that he is choosing a harder +fight, a more self-denying life." + +"But I could help those people more by my prayers." + +"Granted, if it were God's will that you should lead the life of +contemplation, but I don't believe it is. I don't see what right you've +got to believe it is. As to not living altogether for God here, that's +His affair. Mind you, I don't undervalue the difficulties, and it's +uncommon hard to human nature. Don't think too much of other people's +opinions; I know you feel a bit out of it with the priests about you. +They are rough to young men like you--it's jealousy, if they only knew +it. Jealousy is the fault of the best men, because they never suspect +themselves of it. If they saw it, they would fight it. Face facts. You +have some gifts; you will be much humbler if you thank God for them +instead of trying to think you haven't got them. And be quite +particularly nice to the growler sort of priest; he's had a hard time +and, lived a hard life; much harder than the life of a monk. Mind you +respect his scars." + +He talked on, partly to give Mark time; he saw he had given him a shock. + +"Mind," he said, "there is sometimes an acute personal temptation, but +you've not got that now. You've got a sort of perception of what it +might be. It won't be unbearable." He crossed his legs and put the long, +white fingers into each other. "But I'm old now, and it's my experience +that the mischief for all priests is to let society be their fun. It +ought to be a duty, and a very tiresome duty too. Take your amusements +in any other way, and go out to lunch in the same state of mind as you +visit a hospital. Do you think the best women, whether Protestant or +Catholic, think society their fun? They may like it or not, but it is a +serious duty to them." + +Mark sprang up suddenly. "I can't stand this!" he said. "You go on +talking, and I want to be a Carthusian, and I will be one." He laughed; +his voice was troubled and the clear joy of his face was clouded. + +Canon Nicholls felt in his pocket for a snuff-box, and brought it out. +"Go along, if you can't stand it. And don't come back till you've seen +through the devil's trick. I don't mind what I bet that you won't run +away." + +Left alone, Canon Nicholls covered his blind eyes with his hands and +heaved a deep sigh. + +The man who had just left him was the object of his keenest affection, +the apple of those blind eyes that craved to look upon his face. But his +love was not blind, and he felt the danger there lay in the seeming +perfectness of the young man. Mark's nature was gloriously sweet and +abounding in the higher gifts; his love of God had the awe of a little +child, and his love of men had the tenderness of a shepherd towards his +lost sheep. Mark had loved life and learning, had revelled in Oxford, +and would, in one sense, be an undergraduate all his days. He had known +dreams of ambition, and visions of success in working for his country. +Then gently--not with any shock--had come the vocation to the +priesthood, and so tenderly had the tendrils that attached him to a +man's life in the world been loosened, that the process hardly seemed to +have hurt any of the sensitive sympathies and interests he had always +enjoyed. Even in the matter of giving up great possessions, all had come +so gradually as to seem most natural and least strained. + +Long before the Groombridges could be brought to believe that the +brilliant and favourite young cousin had rejected all that they could +leave him, it had become a matter of course to the rest of the family +and their friends that Mark Molyneux would be a priest, and give up the +property to the younger brother. + +When the outer world took up the matter, Father Molyneux always made +people feel as if allusions to his renunciation of Groombridge were +simply quite out of taste, and nothing out of taste seemed in keeping +with anything connected with him. It was all so simple to Mark, and so +perfect to Canon Nicholls, that the latter almost dreaded this very +perfection as unlikely, and unbefitting the "second-rate" planet in +which it was his lot to live. And to confirm this almost superstitious +feeling of a man who had lived to know where the jolts and jars of life +cause the acutest suffering to the idealist, had come this fresh +aspiration of Mark's after a life more completely perfect in itself. +Strong instincts were entirely in accord with the older man's sober +judgment of the situation. And yet he wished it could be otherwise. He +had no opinion of the world that Mark wanted to give up. He would most +willingly have shut any cloister door between that world and his +cherished son in the spirit. It was with no light heart that he wanted +him to face all the roughness of human goodness, all the blinding +confusion of its infirmities, all the cruelty of its vices. The old +man's own service in his last years was but to stand and wait, but, even +so, he was too often oppressed by the small things that fill up empty +hours, small uncharitablenesses, small vanities, small irritations. Was +it not a comfort at such moments to believe that in another world we +should know human nature in others and in ourselves without any cause +for repugnance and without any ground for fear? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER + + +At last there came a letter to Molly from her mother. + + "CARISSIMA,-- + + "I thank you for your most kind intentions. I too have at times + thought of seeing you. But I am now far too ill, and I have no + attention to spare from my unceasing efforts to keep well. I can + assure you that two doctors and two nurses spend their time and + skill on the struggle. I may, they tell me, live many years yet if + I am not troubled and disturbed. I had, by nature, strong maternal + instincts; it was your father's knowledge of that side of my + character which made his conduct in taking you from me almost + criminal in its cruelty. You must have had a most tiresome + childhood with his sister, and probably you gave her a great deal + of trouble. Your letter affected me with several moments of + suffocation, and the doctors and nurses are of opinion that I must + not risk any more maternal emotions. My poor wants are now very + expensive. I am obliged to have everything that is out of season, + and one _chef_ for my vegetables alone. Have you ever turned your + attention to vegetable diet? Doctor Larrone, whom I thoroughly + confide in, sees no reason why life should not be indefinitely + prolonged if the right--absolutely the right--food is always given. + I am sending you a little brochure he has written on the subject. + + "I hope that your allowance is sufficient for your comfort. I + should like you to have asparagus at every meal, and I trust, my + dear child, that you will never become a _devote_. It is an + extraordinary waste of the tissues. + + "As we are not likely to correspond again, I should like you to + know that I have made a will bequeathing to you the fortune which + was left me, as an act of reparation, by Sir David Bright. + + "I wonder why an Englishman, Sir Edmund Grosse, has made so many + attempts at seeing me? Do you know anything of him? I risk much in + the effort to write this letter to assure you of my love. + + "YOUR DEVOTED MOTHER. + + "P.S.--There is no need to answer the question as to Sir Edmund + Grosse." + +Molly was so intensely disgusted with the miserable old woman's letter +that her first inclination was to burn it at once. She was kneeling +before the fire with that intention when Sir Edmund Grosse was +announced. She thrust the paper into her pocket, and realised in a flash +how astonishing it was that Sir Edmund should have tried to see Madame +Danterre. The only explanation that occurred to her at the moment was +that he had tried to see her mother because of his interest in herself. +She did not know that he had not been in Florence since he had known +her. But what could have started him in the notion that Miss Dexter was +Madame Danterre's child? And did he know it for certain now? That was +what she would like to find out. + +Molly had on a pale green tea-gown, which fell into a succession of +almost classic folds with each rapid characteristic movement. The charm +of her face was enormously increased by its greater softness of +expression. Although she could not help wishing to please him, even in a +moment full of other emotion, she did not know how much there was to +make her successful to-day. She did not realise her own physical and +moral development during the past months. + +Edmund's manner was unconsciously caressing. He had come, he told +himself--and it was the third time he had called at the flat,--simply +because he wanted to keep in touch, to get any information he could. And +he had heard rumours from Florence that Madame Danterre was becoming +steadily weaker and more unable to make any effort. + +"A man told me the other day that this was the best-furnished flat in +London, and, by Jove! I rather think he was right." + +"I never believe in the man who told you things, he is far too apposite; +I think his name is Harris." + +Edmund smiled at the fire. + +"Who was the attractive little priest I met here the other day?" he +asked. + +"Little! He is as tall as you are." + +"Still, one thinks of him as _un bon petit pretre_, doesn't one? But who +is he?" + +"Father Molyneux." + +"Not Groombridge's cousin?" + +"Yes, the same." + +"I wonder if he repents of his folly now? I didn't think he looked +particularly cheerful!" + +"Didn't you?" said Molly. "Well, I think he is the happiest person I +know! But we never do agree about people, do we?" + +"About a few we do, but it's much more amusing to talk about ourselves, +isn't it?" + +"Much more. What do you want me to tell you about myself this time?" + +Edmund looked at her with sleepy eyes and perceived that something had +changed. "I should like to know what you think about me?" he said +gently. + +"No, you wouldn't," said Molly, and she gave a tiny sigh. "No, for some +reason or other you want to know something which I have settled to tell +you." + +Her manner alarmed and excited him. As a matter of honourable dealing he +felt that he ought to give her pause. "Are you sure you are wise?" he +said. + +"I'm not sure, but that's my own affair, and it will be a relief. I +would rather you knew what you want to know, though why you want to +know"--her eyes were searching him--"I can't tell." + +Sir Edmund Grosse almost told her that he did not want to know. + +"You want to know for certain that my mother is living in Florence under +the name of Madame Danterre--the Madame Danterre you have tried to see +there. And further, you want to know how much I have ever seen of her." + +"Oh, please!" cried Edmund, "I don't indeed wish you to tell me all +this." + +"You do, and so I shall answer the questions. I have never seen her in +my life. But these last few weeks I have thought I ought to try, so I +wrote and offered to go to her, and I have this evening had the first +letter she has ever written to me. In this letter"--she drew it half out +of her pocket--"she declines to see me, and she exhorts me to a +vegetable diet." + +There was a moment in which her face looked the embodiment of sarcasm, +then something gentler came athwart it. He had never come so near to +liking her before. He could no longer think of her as all the more +dangerous on account of her attractions; she was a suffering, +cruelly-treated woman. It is dangerous to see too much of one's enemies: +Edmund was growing much softer. + +"But why," she went on with quiet dignity, "did you try so hard to break +through her seclusion?" + +It was a dreadful question--a question impossible to answer. He was +silent; then he said-- + +"Dear lady, I told you I did not want you to satisfy what you supposed +to be my wish for knowledge, and I am very sorry that now, at least, I +cannot tell you why I wished to see Madame Danterre." + +Naturally, it never struck him for a moment that Molly might think it +was for her sake that he had tried to see her mother, as he had not +known of her existence when he was in Florence. But his reticence made +her incline much more to that idea. She almost blushed in the firelight. +Edmund was feeling baffled and sorry. If there were another will--and he +still maintained that there was another--certainly Miss Dexter knew +nothing about it. He had wronged her; and after all what reasonable +grounds had there been for his suspicions as to her guilt? + +"I suppose," he thought, "Rose is right, and will-hunting is +demoralising, or 'not healthy,' as she calls it." + +But he had been too long silent. + +"It is very hard on you to get such a letter," he said, with a ring of +true sympathy in his voice and more expression than usual in his face. +"I wish I had not come in and disturbed you; I wish you had a woman +friend here instead." + +"I don't," said Molly quickly. "Don't go yet. I can say as little as I +like with you, and then I'm going to church to hear the _bon petit +pretre_ preach." + +"He will lure you to Rome." + +"Perhaps." + +"Well, I think there's a good deal to be said for Rome." + +"Don't you mind people joining it?" she asked, a little eagerly. + +"No, I like it better than Ritualism." + +"But Lady Rose is a Ritualist." + +"I believe you will find angels few and far between in any religion." + +"It must be nice to be an angel," mused Molly. + +He had risen to go; he thought he might still find Rose at home and he +wanted to speak to her, yet he was in no hurry to be gone. + +"Don't give me an excuse for compliments; I warn you, you will repent it +if you do," he said warmly; and then, after a little hesitation which +might well have been mistaken for an effort at self-command in a moment +of emotion, he added in a low voice-- + +"May I come and see you again very soon?" + +As Molly gave him her hand he looked at her with wistful apology for +having wronged her in his thoughts, for having intruded into her +secrets. There was more pity in his eyes than he knew at the moment. He +bent his head after that, and with the foreign fashion he sometimes fell +into, and which Molly had known before, gently kissed her hand. The +quick kindly action was the expression of his wish to make amends. + +Molly stood quite still after he had gone away, as motionless as a +living figure could stand, her grey eyes dilated and full of light. +Would he could have seen her! But if he had, would he have understood +what love meant in a heart that had never before been opened by any +great human affection? No love of father, mother, sister, or brother had +ever laid a claim on Molly. The whole kingdom of her affections had been +standing empty and ready, and now the hour of fulfilment was near. + +"He will come again very soon," she whispered to herself. And then she +put her hand to her lips and kissed it where it had been kissed a moment +before, but with a devotion and reverence and gentleness that made the +last kiss a tragic contrast. + +Presently, happier than she had ever been in her life before, Molly went +out to hear Mark Molyneux preach on sanctifying our common actions. + +"No position is so hard" he said in his peroration, "no circumstances +are so difficult, no duties so conflicting, no temptations so mighty, as +not to be the means to lead us to God if we seek to do His will." + +But the words seemed in no way appropriate to Molly's mind, which was +wholly occupied in a wordless song of thanksgiving. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LADY ROSE'S SCRUPLE + + +As Edmund Grosse was shown up-stairs to Lady Rose Bright, he passed a +young clergyman coming down. He found Rose standing with a worried look +in the middle of the room. + +"Edmund! how nice," she said gently. + +"What has that fellow been worrying you about?" + +"It isn't his fault, poor man," said Rose, "only it's so sad. He has had +at last to close his little orphanage. You see, we used to give him L100 +a year, and after David died I had to write and tell him that I couldn't +go on, and it has been a hard struggle for him since that. I don't think +he meant it, but when he came and saw this house"--she waved her hands +round the very striking furniture of the room--"I think he wondered, or +perhaps it was my fancy. You see, Edmund, I don't know how it is, but +I've overdrawn again. What do you think it can be? The housekeeping +comes to so little; I have only four servants, and----" + +She paused, and there were tears in her eyes. She was wondering where +the orphans would go to. It was not like Rose to give way like this and +to have out her troubles at once. The fact was that she was finding how +much harder it is to help in good works without money than with. If she +had started without money it would have been different, but to try to +work with people who used to find her large subscriptions a very great +help and now had to do without them, was depressing. She had to make +constant efforts to believe that they were all just the same to her as +they had been in the past. + +"How much did you give that youth instead of the L100?" + +"Only ten, Edmund." There was a note of pleading in her voice. + +"And you will have dinner up here on a tray as there is no fire in the +dining-room?" + +"Well, what does it matter?" + +"And how much will there be to eat on the tray?" + +"Oh! much more than I can possibly eat." + +"Because it will be some nasty warmed-up stuff washed down by tea. It's +of no use trying to deceive me: I've heard that the cook is seventeen, +and an orphan herself." + +"But what will those other orphans have for dinner?" + +"Now, Rose, will you listen to common sense. How many orphans has that +sandy-faced cleric on his hands?" + +"There were only four left." + +"Then I'll get those four disposed of somehow, if you will do something +I want you to do." + +"What is it? But, Edmund, you know you have done too much for my poor +works already; I can't let you." + +"Never mind, if you will do what I want." + +"What is it?" + +"Come right away in the yacht, you and your mother, and we'll go +wherever you like." + +Joy sprang into her face, but then he saw doubt, and he knew with a deep +pang what the doubt meant. He wished to move, oh! so carefully now, or +he would lose all the ground he had lately gained. + +"What scruples have you now?" he asked laughing. "What a genius you have +for them! Look here, Rose, it's common sense; you want a change, you can +let the house up to Easter. Besides, you know what it would do for your +mother; see what she thinks." + +"It's all so quick," gasped Rose, laughing. + +"Well, then, don't settle at once if you like; but not one penny for +those poor dear little orphans if you don't come. And now, I want to say +something else quick, because the tray with the chops and the cheese and +the tea will all be getting greasy if I don't get out of the way. Do you +know I think I was very hard on that Miss Dexter. I remember I solemnly +warned you not to have to do with her. You were quite right: it is not +healthy to think so much of that will; it poisons the mind. I am quite +sure that poor thing is not to blame." + +His tone was curiously eager, it seemed to Rose; and then he began +discussing Miss Dexter, and said he thought that at moments she was +beautiful. Presently he remembered the tray that was coming, and saw +that the hour was half-past seven, and hurried away. She fancied that +she missed in his "Good-night" the sort of gentle affectionateness he +had shown her so freely of late. + +She went up to her room to prepare for the meal he had disparaged so +much, looking tired. She smiled rather sadly when she had to own to +herself that the tray of supper was almost exactly what Edmund had +foretold. She dismissed it as soon as she could, and then drew a chair +up to the fire and took up a book. But it soon dropped on to her knee. +She had been trying not to give way to depression all that day. But it +was very difficult. There seemed to be so little object in life. She +felt as if everything had got into a fog; there was no one at home to +whom her going and coming mattered any more than the meals mattered. +And, meanwhile, she was being sucked into a world of committees and +sub-committees. She had thought that, as she could no longer give money, +she would give her time and her work; so, when asked, she had joined +many things just because she was asked, and she was a little hazy as to +the objects of some of them. Having been afraid that she would not have +enough to do, she found now that she had already more than she could +manage. And everything seemed so difficult. During the past week she had +twice taken the wrong bus, and come home very wet and tired. Another day +she had taken the wrong train when coming back from South London, and +had found herself at Baker Street instead of Sloane Square. These things +tried her beyond reason with the sense of loneliness, of incapacity, of +uncertainty. Then she had thought that, with very quiet black clothes, +she could go anywhere, but her mother had discovered that she sometimes +came back from the Girls' Club in Bermondsey as late as ten o'clock at +night, and there had been a fuss. Rose had forgotten the fact that she +was very fair and very good to look at; she found, half-consciously, +that her beauty had its drawbacks. There did not seem to be any reason +why she should spare her strength in any way. So, a little wan and +tremulous, she appeared at the early morning service, and then, after +walking back in any weather, there was a dull little breakfast, and soon +after that she got to work. Every post brought begging letters in +crowds, and these hurt her dreadfully. It was her wish to live for God +and the poor, and every day she had to write: "Lady Rose Bright much +regrets that she is quite unable," etc., etc. Then, after those, she +would begin another trial--begging letters to her rich friends to help +her poor ones, or letters trying to get interest and influence. The +difficulties and the confusion of life in the modern Babylon weighed on +Rose in something of the same way that they tried Mark Molyneux. It +seemed to her that it must be safe and right to be doing so many +disagreeable things and to be very tired, too tired to enjoy pleasures +when they came her way. Constantly, one person was trying to throw +pleasures in her way; one person reminded old friends that Rose was in +town; one person suggested that Rose Bright, although she did not go to +parties, might come in to hear some great musician at a friend's house; +one person wanted to know her opinion on the last book; one person tried +to find out when he could take her anywhere in his motor. And this very +morning Rose had asked herself if this one friend ought to be allowed to +do all these things? Was she sure that she was quite fair to Edmund +Grosse? + +It had been a day of fears and scruples. She had been unnerved when the +clergyman had called just to let her realise that the withdrawal of her +subscription had, in the end, meant the collapse of his little +orphanage; and when she was breaking down under this, Edmund had come +in, and how soothed and comforted she had felt by his presence! And +then the joy of his proposal as to the yacht! Her pulses beat with +delight; she felt a positive hunger for blue skies, blue water, blue +shores; a longing to get away from cares and muddles and badly-done jobs +and being misunderstood. Was it not horribly selfish, horribly cowardly? +Was it not the longing to stifle the sounds of pain, to shut her eyes to +the gloom of the misery about her, to shut her mind to the effort to +understand what was of practical good, and what was merely quack in the +remedies offered? Still, she realised to-night that she must get some +sort of rest; that part of all this gloom was physical. She would +understand and feel things more rightly if she went away for a bit. + +But could she, ought she, to go away on Edmund's yacht? + +Could Rose honestly feel quite sure that all his kindness meant nothing +more? She had never since she was eighteen, and wearing her first long +skirt, heard from him any word that need mean more than cousinly +affection. He had contrived after that Easter visit to Groombridge to +make her feel that she had been foolish and self-conscious in trying not +to be alone with him. For many months now she had felt absolutely at her +ease in his company. It seemed to be only to-day that this thought had +come back to trouble her. She did not want to be disturbed with such +notions; they would spoil their friendship. And he could not be feeling +like that; he was always so cool, so untroubled. Why to-night, just as +he was waiting to know if she would come on the yacht or not, he had +talked much more warmly of Miss Dexter than seemed quite natural! +Faintly she felt that it might be good for him if they went on the +yacht, she and her mother. They would be better for Edmund than some of +the people he might otherwise ask; he was not always wise as to his lady +friends. And it would be so good for Lady Charlton, and so good, too, +for those four orphans. And where should they go? It did not matter much +where they went if they only gained light and colour and rest. The +artist was strong in Rose at that moment. She looked at one or two old +guide-books till it was bed-time. Then, the last thing at night, a +strange gust of thought came upon her just after her prayers. + +Could she, would she, ever marry again? She knelt on at the _priedieu_ +with her fair head bowed, and then there came over her a strong sense of +the impossibility of it. The shock she had had was too great, too +lasting in its effects. She did not know it was that, she did not tell +herself that once humiliated, once misled, she could not trust again. +She did not say that the past married life which she had made so full of +duty, so full of reverence as almost to deceive herself while she lived +it, had been desecrated, polluted and had made her shrink unutterably +from another married life. + +A young widow, sometimes, when drawing near to a second marriage, +suddenly realises it to be impossible because the past asserts its +tyrannous claim upon her heart. What had appeared to be a dead past is +found to be both alive and powerful. But with Rose it was not simply her +heart; it was her nature as a woman that refused. That nature had been +hurt to the very quick, humbled and brought low once. Surely it was +enough! + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE HEIRESS OF MADAME DANTERRE + + +For about a week after the evening on which she had received her +mother's letter and Edmund Grosse had been to see her, Molly Dexter +stayed at home from four o'clock till seven o'clock and wore beautiful +tea-gowns. She had a very small list of people to whom she was always at +home written on a slate, but one by one they had been reduced in number. +Now there were five--Father Molyneux, who never came except by +appointment; Sir Edmund Grosse; and three ladies who happened to be +abroad for the winter. + +The week was from a Friday to a Thursday, and on the Thursday several +things happened to Molly. It was a brilliant day, and although those +evenings from four till seven when nobody came were sorely trying, she +was in very good spirits. A friend coming out of church the day before +had told her that she had met Sir Edmund Grosse at a country house. + +"He said such pretty things about you," purred the speaker, a nice newly +"come out" girl who admired Molly very much. + +But the main point to Molly had been the fact that Edmund had been away +from London. Surely he would come directly now! She seemed to hear, +constantly ringing in her ears, the voice in which he had asked if he +might "come again very soon." + +Thursday had been a good day altogether, for Molly had skated at +Prince's and come home with a beautiful complexion to be "At Home" to +the privileged from four till seven. She got out of her motor, and was +walking to the lift when it came whizzing down from above, and the +little friend who had said the nice things yesterday stepped out of it, +looking very bright. + +"Oh, Miss Dexter," she said, "may I come up again and tell you my good +news?" Molly took her kindly by the arm and drew her into the lift +again, and they went up. But she hoped the girl would not stay. She +wanted to be quite alone, so that if anybody came who mattered very much +they would not be disturbed. + +"Well, what's the good news?" + +Molly looked brilliant as she stood smiling in the middle of the room. + +"Well, it isn't a bit settled yet, but I met Sir Edmund Grosse at +luncheon, and he asked me if mother would let me go on his yacht to +Cairo. Lady Rose Bright is going and Lady Charlton, and he said they all +wanted something very young indeed to go with them, so they thought I'd +better come, and his nephew Jimmy, too. Wasn't it _awfully_ kind of +him?" + +Molly turned and poked the fire. + +"When do they go?" she asked. + +"Sir Edmund starts to-morrow, but Lady Rose and Lady Charlton will +follow in about ten days. They will join the yacht at Marseilles, and I +should go with them. Do you think mother will let me go, Miss Dexter?" + +Miss Dexter looked down. + +"Why should your mother object?" she said. + +"But it's so sudden." + +"Yes, it's very sudden," said Molly, in a low voice. + +"I can hardly keep quiet; I don't know how to get through the time till +six o'clock, and mother can't be at home till then." + +Molly turned back into the room; her face was very white. There were +white dents in her nostrils, and there was a bitter smile on her lips. +Whatever she might have said was stopped in the utterance. The +parlourmaid had come into the room, and now, coming up to Molly, said in +a low voice: + +"There is a gentleman asking if Miss Dexter will see him on important +business; he says he is a doctor, and that he has come from Italy." + +Molly frowned. + +"What is his name?" + +"It sounded like Laccaroni, ma'am." + +"Show him up." + +"Well, I'm off," said the young visitor, and, still entirely absorbed in +her own affairs, she took Molly's limp hand and left the room. + +A spare man with a pale face and rather good eyes was announced as "Dr. +Laccaroni." "Larrone," he corrected gently. He carried a small old tin +despatch box, and looked extremely dusty. + +"I am the bearer of sad tidings," he said in English, with a fair +accent, in a dry staccato voice. "It was better not to telegraph, as I +was to come at once." + +"You attended my mother?" + +"Yes, until two nights ago. That was the end." + +"Did she suffer?" + +"For a few hours, yes; and there was also some brain +excitement--delirium. In an interval that appeared to be lucid (but I +was not quite sure) she told me to come to you, mademoiselle, quite as +soon as she was dead, and she gave me money and this little box to bring +to you. She said more than once, 'It shall be her own affair.' The key +is in this sealed envelope. Afterwards twice she spoke to me: 'Don't +forget,' and then the rest was raving. But the last two hours were +peace." + +"And where is my mother to be buried?" + +"Madame will be cremated, and her ashes placed in an urn in the garden, +mademoiselle, in a fine mausoleum, with just her name, 'Justine,' and +the dates--no more. Madame told me that these were her wishes." + +"Do you know what is in this box?" + +"Not at all, and I incline to think there may be nothing: the mind was +quite confused. And yet I could only calm her by promising to come at +once, and so I came, and if mademoiselle will permit I should like to +retire to my hotel." + +"Can I be of any use to you?" + +"Not at all: the money for the journey was more than enough." + +Molly was left alone, and she gave orders that no one, without +exception, was to be admitted. Then she walked up and down the room in a +condition of semi-conscious pain. + +At first it seemed as if Dr. Larrone's intelligence had not reached her +brain at all. The only clear thing in her mind at that moment was the +thought that Edmund was going away at once with Lady Rose Bright. The +disappointment was in proportion to the wild hopes of the last week, +only Molly had not quite owned to herself how intensely she had looked +forward to his next coming. It was true he might still come and see her +before he started, but if he came it could not be what she had meant it +to be. If he had meant what Molly dreamed of, could he have gone off +suddenly on this yachting expedition? She knew the yachting was not +thought of when she had seen him, for he told her then that he meant to +stay in London for some weeks. But as her thoughts grew clearer, what +was most horrible to Molly was a gradual dawning of common daylight into +the romance she had been living in for months. For, looking back now, +she could not feel sure that any of her views of Edmund's feelings +towards herself had been true. It was a tearing at her heart's most +precious feelings to be forced to common sense, to see the past in the +matter-of-fact way in which it might appear to other people. And yet, +Adela Delaport Green had expected him to propose even in the season, but +then, what might not the Adela Delaport Greens of life suspect and +expect without the slightest foundation? Could Molly herself say firmly +and without delusion that Edmund had treated her badly? How she wished +she could! She would rather think that he had been charmed away by +hostile influence, or even that he had deliberately played with her than +feel it all to have been her own vain fancy! It was agony to her to feel +that she had without any excuse, set up an idol in her sacred places, +and woven about him all the dreams and loves of her youth. It must be +remembered not only that it was the first time that Molly had loved in +the ordinary sense of the word, but it was absolutely the first time +that she had ever felt any deep affection for any human being whatever. +And now a great sense of abandonment was on her; the old feeling of +isolation, of being cast out, that she had had all her life, was +frightfully strong. Edmund had left her; he had deceived her, played +with her, she told herself, deluded her; and now her mother's death +brought home all the horror, the disgrace, which that mother's life had +been for Molly. An outcast whom no one cared for, no one loved, no one +wanted. The new gentleness of the past weeks, the new softness, all the +high and sacred thoughts that had seemed to have taken possession of her +inner life, were gone at this moment. Her feeling now was that, if she +were made to suffer, she could at least make others suffer too. + +She had thrown off her furs in walking up and down, and they had fallen +on to the box which Dr. Larrone had brought. Presently they slipped to +the floor, and showed the small, black tin despatch box. + +Molly broke the seal of the envelope, took out the key, and opened the +box, half mechanically and half as seeking a distraction. + +Inside she found two or three packets of old yellow letters, a few faded +photographs, and a tiny gold watch and chain; and underneath these +things a large registered envelope addressed to Madame Danterre. + +Molly was not acutely excited about this box. She knew that her mother's +will would be at the lawyer's. She had no anxiety on this point, but +there is always a strange thrill in touching such things as the dead +have kept secret. Even if they have bid us do it, it seems too bold. + +Molly shrank from what that box might contain, what history of the past +it might have to tell, but she did not think it would touch her own +life. Therefore, thinking more of her own sorrow than anything else, +Molly drew two papers out of the registered envelope, and then shrank +back helplessly in her chair. She had just seen that the larger of the +two enclosures was a long letter beginning: "Dearest Rose." She +hesitated, but only for a moment, and then went on reading. + +"I trust and hope that if I die in to-morrow's battle this will reach +you safely. I have really no fear whatever of the battle, and after it +is over I shall have a good opportunity of putting this paper into a +lawyer's hands at Capetown." + +Then she hastily dropped the letter and took up a small paper that had +been in the same envelope. A glance at this showed that it was the "last +will and testament of Sir David Bright." + +It was evidently not drawn up by a lawyer, but it seemed complete and +had the two signatures of witnesses; Lord Groombridge and Sir Edmund +Grosse were named as executors. It was dated on board ship only a few +weeks before Sir David Bright died. + +At first Molly was simply bewildered. She read, as if stupefied, the +perfectly simple language in which Sir David had bequeathed all and +everything he possessed to his wife, Lady Rose Bright, subject to an +annual allowance of L1000 to Madame Danterre during her life-time. It +was so brief and simple that, if Molly had not known how simple a will +could be, she might have half doubted its legality. As it was she was +not aware of the special facilities in the matter of will-making that +are allowed to soldiers and sailors when on active service. The +absolutely amazing thing was that the paper should have been in Madame +Danterre's possession. + +Molly turned to the letter, and read it with absorbed attention. + +The General wrote on the eve of the battle, without the least anxiety as +to the next day. But he already surmised the vast proportions that the +war might assume, and he intended to send the enclosed will with this +letter to the care of a lawyer in Capetown for fear of eventualities. +Then, next day, as Molly knew, he had been killed. + +But Molly did not know that to the brother officer who had been with him +in his last moments Sir David had confided two plain envelopes, and had +told him to send the first--a blue one--to his wife, and the second--a +white one--to Madame Danterre, faintly murmuring the names and addresses +in his dying voice. The same officer was himself killed a week later. If +he had lived and had learned the disposal of Sir David's fortune, it +might possibly have occurred to him that he had put the addresses on the +wrong letters. But he was sure at the time that Sir David's last words +had been: "Remember, the white one for my wife." And perhaps he was +right, for it is not uncommon for a man even in the full possession of +all his faculties (which Sir David was not) to make a mistake just +because of his intense anxiety to avoid making it. As it was, knowing +nothing whatever of the circumstances, the will and the letter seemed to +Molly to come out of a mysterious void. + +To any one with an unbiassed mind who was able to study it as a human +document, the letter would have been pathetic enough. It was the +revelation, the outpouring of what a man had suffered in silence for +many long years. It seemed at moments hardly rational. The sort of +unreasonable nervous terror in it was extraordinary. Molly read most of +the real story in the letter, but not quite all. There had been a +terrible sense of a spoilt life and of a horrible weakness always coming +between him and happiness. The shadow of Madame Danterre had darkened +his youth; a time of folly--and so little pleasure in that folly, he +moaned--had been succeeded by an actual tyranny. The claim that she was +his wife had begun early after her divorce from Mr. Dexter, and it +seemed extraordinary that he had not denied it at once. David Bright had +been taken ill with acute fever in Mrs. Dexter's house almost +immediately after that event. Mrs. Dexter declared that he had gone +through the form of marriage with her before witnesses, and she declared +also that she had in her possession the certificate of marriage. The +date she gave for the marriage was during the days when he had been down +with the fever, and he never could remember what had happened. + +"God knows," he wrote, "how I searched my memory hour by hour, day by +day, but the blank was absolute. I don't to this hour know what passed +during those days." + +While still feeble from illness he had given her all the money he could +spare, and for years the blackmail had continued. Then, at last, after +he had been a year in England, the worm had turned. + +"I dared her to do her worst. I declared, what I am absolutely convinced +to have been the case, that the marriage certificate she had shown me +was a forgery, and I concluded that if she proved the marriage by +forgery and perjury, I should institute proceedings for divorce on the +grounds of her subsequent life. I got no answer, and for three years +there was total silence. Then came a letter from a friend saying that +Madame Danterre, who had taken her maiden name, was dying and wished me +to know that she forgave me." With this note had been sent to him a +diamond ring he had given her in the first days of her influence over +him. He sent it back, but months later he got it again, returned by the +Post Office authorities, as no one of the name he had written to could +be found. + +Then came a solemn declaration that he had never doubted of Madame +Danterre's death. + +"I thought that to have spoilt my youth was enough; but she was yet to +destroy my best years. Ah! Rose," he wrote, "if I had loved you less it +would have been more bearable. I met you; I worshipped you; won you. +Then, after a brief dream of joy, the cloud came down, and my evil +genius was upon me. I don't think you were in love with me, my beloved, +but it would have come even after you had found out what a commonplace +fellow it was whom you thought a hero; it would have come. You must have +loved me out of the full flow of your own nature if I had not been +driven to cowardice and deception." + +Evidently Madame Danterre had had a kind of almost uncanny power of +terrifying the soldier. He had been a good man when she first met him, +and he had been a good man after that short time of mad infatuation. He +was by nature and training almost passionately respectable; he was at +length happily married; but this horror of an evil incident in the past +had got such a hold on his nerves that when he met Madame Danterre (whom +he had believed to be dead) coming out of a theatre in London, the hero +of the Victoria Cross, of three other campaigns, perhaps the bravest +man in England, fainted when he saw her. Without doubt it was the +publication of Mr. John Steele's will leaving his enormous fortune to +Sir David Bright that had resuscitated Madame Danterre. + +From the moment of that shock David Bright had probably never been +entirely sane on the subject. The resurrection of Madame Danterre had +seemed to him preternatural and fateful. The woman had become to him +something more or something less than human, something impervious to +attack that could not be dealt with in any ordinary way. + +From that time there had grown up an invisible barrier between him and +his wife. He found himself making silly excuses for being out at quite +natural times. He found himself getting afraid of her, and building up +defences, growing reserved and absurdly dignified, trying to cling to +the pedestal of the elderly soldier as he could not be a companion. + +Madame Danterre had gone back to Florence, fat with blackmail, and then +had begun a steady course of persecution. + +Step by step he had sunk lower down, knowing that he was weakening his +own case most miserably if it should ever become public. Nothing +satisfied her, although she received two thousand a year regularly, +until the will was drawn up, which left everything to her except an +allowance of L800 a year to Rose. + +Once a year for three years Madame Danterre had visited London, and had +generally contrived that Sir David should be conscious of the look in +her astonishing eyes, which Sir Edmund had likened to extinct volcanoes, +at some theatre, or in the park, once at least every season. Evidently +that look had never failed. It touched the exposed nerve in his +mind--exposed ever since the time of illness and strain when he was +young and helpless in India. It was evident that he had felt that any +agony was bearable to shield Rose from the suffering of a public +scandal. If he could only have brought himself to consult one of the +Murrays something might have been done. As it was, he had recourse to +subterfuge. He assured Madame Danterre annually, in answer to her +insisting on the point, that no other will had ever been signed by him, +but he always carried a will with him ready to be signed. There was much +of self-pity perhaps in the letter, there was the plaint of a wrecked +life, but there was still more of real delicate feeling for Rose, of +intense anxiety to shield her, of poignant regret for "what might have +been" in their home life. The man had been of a wholesome nature; his +great physical courage was part of a good fellow's construction. But he +had been taught to worship a good name, an unsullied reputation, and to +love things of good repute too much, perhaps, for the sake of their +repute, as he could not venture to risk the shadow for the reality. The +effect of reading Sir David's last letter to Rose on an unbiassed reader +of a humane turn of mind would have been an intensity of pity, and a +sigh at the sadness of life on this planet. + +Molly was passionately biassed, and as much of Sir David's story as +reached her through the letter was to her simply a sickening revelation +from a cowardly traitor of his own treason through life, and even up to +the hour of death. Her mother had been basely deceived; for his sake she +had been divorced, and he had denied the marriage that followed. Of +course, it was a marriage, or he would never have been so frightened. +Then her mother, thus deserted, young and weak, had gone astray, and he +had defended himself by threatening divorce if she proclaimed herself +his wife. Every word of the history was interpreted on the same lines. +And then, last of all, this will was sent to her mother. Was it a tardy +repentance? Had he, perhaps when too weak for more, asked some one to +send it to Madame Danterre that she might destroy it? If so, why had she +not destroyed it? Why, if it might honourably have been destroyed, send +to Molly now a will that, if proved, would make her an absolute pauper? +In plain figures Molly's fortune could not be less than L20,000 a year +if that paper did not exist, and would be under L80 a year if it were +valid. + +Molly next seized on one of the old packets of letters in trembling hope +of some further light being thrown on the situation, but in them was +evidence impossible to deny that her mother had invented the whole story +of the marriage. Why Madame Danterre had not destroyed these letters was +a further mystery, except that, time after time, it has been proved that +people have carefully preserved evidence of their own crimes. Fighting +against it, almost crying out in agonised protest, Molly was forced to +realise the slow persevering cunning and unflinching cruelty with which +her mother had pursued her victim. It was an ugly story for any girl to +read if the woman had had no connection with her. It seemed to cut away +from Molly all shreds of self-respect as she read it. She felt that the +daughter of such a woman must have a heritage of evil in her nature. + +The packet of old letters finished, there was yet something more to +find. Next came a packet of prescriptions and some receipts from shops. +Under these were the faded photographs of several men and women of whom +she knew nothing. Lastly, there was half a letter written to Molly dated +in August and left unfinished and without a signature: + + "CARISSIMA: + + "I am far from well, but I believe Dr. Larrone has found out the + cause and will soon put things right again. If you ever hear + anything about me from Dr. Larrone you can put entire confidence in + him. I have found out now why Sir Edmund Grosse has tried to see + me. He is possessed with the absurd idea that I have no right to + Sir David Bright's fortune, although he does not venture to call in + question the validity of the will which left that fortune to me. + Dr. Larrone has certain proof that Grosse employs a detective here + to watch this house. I have also heard that he is in love with poor + David's widow, and hence I suppose this _trop de zele_ on her + behalf. As he cannot get at me he is likely to try to become + intimate with you, so I warn you to avoid him now and in future." + +That was all. + +Molly sat staring vacantly in front of her, almost unconscious of her +surroundings from the intensity of pain. Each item in the horror of the +situation told on her separately, but in no sequence--with no coherence. +Shame, "hopes early blighted, love scorned," kindness proved treason, +the prospect of complete and dishonourable poverty, a poverty which +would enrich her foes. And all this was mixed in her mind with the +dreadful words from the old letters that seemed to be shouted at her. + +Miss Carew, coming in at dinner-time, was horror-struck by what she saw. +Molly was sitting on the floor surrounded by letters and papers, moaning +and biting her hand. The gong sounded, the parlourmaid announced dinner, +and Molly gathered up her papers, locked them in the box, fastened the +key on to her chain--all in complete silence--and got up from the floor. +She then walked straight into the dining-room in her large hat and +outdoor clothes without speaking. + +And without a word the terrified Miss Carew went with her, and tried to +eat her dinner. + +Molly ate a very little of each thing that was offered to her, taking a +few mouthfuls voraciously, and then quite suddenly, as she was offered a +dish of forced asparagus, she went into peal after peal of ringing, +resounding laughter. "I should like you to have asparagus at every +meal," she said, and then again came peal after peal--each a quite +distinct sound. It was dreadful to hear, and Miss Carew and the servant +were terrified. It was the laughter, not of a maniac, not of pure +unreasoning hysteria, not quite of a lost soul. It suggested these +elements, perhaps, but it was chiefly a nervous convulsion at an +overpowering perception of the irony in the heart of things. + +The hysterical fit lasted long enough for Miss Carew to insist on a +doctor, and Molly did not resist. When he came she implored him to give +her a strong sleeping-draught. She kept Miss Carew and the maid fussing +about her, in a terror of being alone, until the draught was at last +sent in by a dilatory chemist. She then hurried them away, drank the +medicine, and set herself to go to sleep. The draught acted soon, as +Miss Carew learnt by listening at the door and hearing the deep, regular +breathing. But the effects passed off, and Molly sat up absolutely +awake at one o'clock in the morning. She lay down again and tried to +force herself to sleep by sheer will power, but she soon realised the +awful impotence of desire in forcing sleep. + +At last, horror of her own intensely alert faculties, blinded by +darkness, made her turn up the light. Instantly the sight of the +familiar room seemed unbearable, and she turned it down again. But again +the darkness was quite intolerable, and seemed to have a hideous life of +its own which held in it presences of evil. At one moment she breathed +in the air of the winter's night, shivering with cold; at the next she +was stifled for want of breath. So the light by the bed was turned on +again, and to get a little further from it Molly got up and slowly and +carefully put on her stockings and fur slippers, then opened a cupboard +and took out a magnificent fur cloak and wrapped herself in it. Then +suddenly one aspect of the position became concrete to her imagination. +She knew that the cloak was bought with ill-gotten money. Her enormous +allowance after she came of age, even the expenses of her +education--Miss Carew's salary among other things--had been won by +fraud. And now, oh! why, why had not her miserable mother spoken the +truth when she got the will, or why had she not destroyed it? Why had +she left it to Molly to put right all this long, long imposture, and to +reveal to the world the story of her mother's crime? It seemed to Molly +as if she were looking on at some other girl's life, and as if she were +considering it from an external point of view. The sleeping-draught had, +no doubt, excited still further the terrible agitation of her nerves, +and ideas came to her as if they had no connection with her own +personality. + +Wicked old woman, dying in Florence! How cruel those words were: "Let it +be her own affair"! Her last act to send those papers to the poor girl +she had deserted as a baby, and refused even to see as a woman. "Let it +be her own affair." Her own affair to choose actual poverty and a +terrible publicity as to the past instead of a great fortune and silence +as to her mother's guilt. "Let it be her own affair" to enrich her +enemies, to give a fortune to the woman who would scorn her! Would the +man who had pretended to be her friend, and who had been pursuing her +mother with detectives all the time, would he some day talk pityingly of +her with his wife, and say she "had really behaved very well, poor +thing"? + +Suddenly Molly stopped, full of horror at a new thought. Oh! she must +make things safe and sure, or--good God!--what might not her mother's +daughter be tempted to do? A deep blush spread over her face and neck. +She moved hastily to the door, and in a moment she was in Miss Carew's +room. + +"I want to speak to you; I want to tell you something," said Molly, +turning up the electric light as she spoke. + +Miss Carew was startled out of a sweet sleep, and her first thought was +the one which haunted her whenever she was awakened at an untimely hour. +Her carefully-curled fringe was lying in the dressing-table drawer, and +Molly had never seen her without it! + +"Yes, yes; in one moment," she answered fussily. "I will come to your +room in one minute." + +Molly felt checked, and there had been something strange and unfamiliar +in Miss Carew's face. Suddenly she felt what it would be to tell Miss +Carew the truth--Miss Carew, who was now her dependent, receiving from +her L100 a year, would be shocked and startled out of her senses, and +might not take these horrible revelations at all kindly. It would, +anyhow, be such a reversal of their mutual positions as Molly could not +face. And by the time the chestnut hair tinged with grey had been pinned +a little crooked on Miss Carew's head, and she had knocked timidly at +Molly's door, she was startled and offended by the impatient, +overbearing tone of the voice that asked her to "go back to bed and not +to bother; it was nothing that mattered." + +The night had got on further than Molly knew by that time, and she was +relieved to hear it strike four o'clock. She was astonished at noticing +that, while she had been walking up and down, up and down her room, she +had never heard the clock strike two or three. The fact of having spoken +to Miss Carew had brought her for the moment out of the inferno of the +last few hours, and the time from four o'clock to six was less utterly +miserable because worse had gone before it. + +At six she called the housemaid, and kept her fussing about the room, +lighting the fire, and getting tea, so as not to be alone again. At +eight o'clock she sent for coffee and eggs, and the coffee had to be +made twice before she was satisfied with it. Then she suddenly said she +felt much better, and, having dressed much more quickly than usual, she +went out. + +Molly had determined to confide the position to Father Molyneux. When +she got to the church in Kensington it was only to find that Father +Molyneux had gone away for some days. + +That evening the doctor was again summoned, and told Miss Carew that he +had now no doubt that Miss Dexter was suffering from influenza, with +acute cerebral excitement, and the case was decidedly anxious. + +"He might have found out that it was influenza last night," said Miss +Carew indignantly, "and I even told him the housemaid had just had +influenza! Molly simply caught it from her, as I always thought she +would." + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AN INTERLUDE OF HAPPINESS + + +An interlude of happiness, six weeks of almost uninterrupted enjoyment, +followed for Rose after she went on board Sir Edmund's yacht. + +Edmund Grosse had most distinctly made up his mind that during those +weeks he would not betray any ulterior motive whatever. They were all to +be amused and to be happy. There is no knowing when an interlude of +happiness will come in life; it is not enough to make out perfect plans, +the best fail us. But sometimes, quite unforeseen, when all the weather +signs are contrary, there come intervals of sunshine in our hearts, in +spite of any circumstances and the most uninteresting surroundings. +Harmony is proclaimed for a little while, and we wonder why things were +black before, and have to remember that they will be black again. But +when such a truce to pain falls in the happiest setting, and the most +glorious scenery, then rejoice and be glad, it is a real truce of God. +So did Rose night by night rejoice without trembling. It wanted much +skill on Edmund's part to ward off any scruples, any moments of +consciousness. He showed great self-command, surprising self-discipline +in carrying out his tactics. There were moments when their talk had +slid into great intimacy, when they were close together in heart and in +mind, and he slipped back into the commonplace only just in time. There +were moments, especially on the return journey, when he could hardly +hide his sense of how gracious and delicious was her presence, how acute +her instincts, how quaintly and attractively simple her mind, how big +her spiritual outlook. But before she could have more than a suspicion +of his thoughts Edmund would make any consciousness seem absurd by a +comment on the doings of the very young people on board. + +"The child does look happy," he said in his laziest voice one evening +when he knew his look had been bent for a rashly long moment on Rose. +"Happy and pretty," he murmured to himself, and he watched his youngest +guest with earnestness. Then he sat down near Rose on a low deck-chair, +and put away the glasses he held in his pocket. "I'm not sure I don't +get as much pleasure out of the hazy world I see about me as you +long-sighted people do; the colours are marvellous." Rose looked at him +in surprise. + +"But Edmund, don't you see more than haze?" + +"Oh, yes, I can see a foreground, and then the rest melts away. I don't +know what is meant by a middle distance--that's why I can't shoot." + +Rose sat up with an eager look on her face. "I never knew that; I only +thought you did not care for shooting." + +There was a silence of several minutes, and neither looked at the other. +At last Edmund rose and went to the side of the boat and looked over at +the water, and then, turning half-way towards her, said: "Why does it +startle you so much?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"But you do know perfectly well." + +"Indeed, Edmund." Her face was flushed and her voice a little tremulous. + +"You shall tell me." He spoke more imperiously than he knew. + +"I can't, indeed I can't." + +"No," he said; "it would be a difficult thing to say, I admit." + +"Couldn't we read something?" said Rose. + +"No, no use at all. I am going to tell you why you are so glad I am +short-sighted." + +"But I am not glad." + +"I repeat that you are, and this is the reason why." + +"You shall not say it," said Rose, now more and more distressed and +embarrassed. + +"It's because you never knew before why I did not volunteer for the war, +that is why you are so glad." "Yes," he thought in anger, "she has had +this thing against me all the time; it is one of the defences she has +set up." But he was hurt all the same--hurt and angry; he wanted to +punish her. "So all the time you have thought this of me?" + +"No, indeed, indeed, Edmund, it wasn't that. I never meant that; I knew +you were never that, do believe me." + +"Well, if I do believe you so far, what did you think?" + +Rose let her book lie on her knee and leant over it with her hands +clasped. "I thought that perhaps," she faltered, "you had been too long +in the habit of doing nothing much, and that you had grown a little +lazy--at least, I didn't really think so, but that idea has struck me." + +She came and stood by him. "Oh, Edmund, why do you make me say things +when I don't want to, when I hate saying them, when they are not really +true at all." She was deeply moved, and he felt that in one sense she +was in his power. He gave a bitter sigh. + +"Can I make you say whatever I like?" Her face flushed and a different +look, one of fear he thought, came into her troubled eyes. "Then say +after me, 'I am very sorry I did not understand by intuition that you +were too blind to shoot the Boers, and that I was so silly as to think +for a moment that you had ever wasted your time or been the least little +bit lazy.'" + +"No, I won't say anything at all"--she held out both hands to +him--"except what the children say, 'let us just go on with the game and +pretend that that part never happened.'" + +And though Rose was still embarrassed, still inclined to fear she had +hurt him, what might have been a little cloud was pierced by sunshine. +"How ridiculously glad she is that I'm not a coward!" He, too, in spite +of annoyance, felt more hopeful than he had been for a long time. + +At Genoa they got long delayed letters and papers. In one of these a +short paragraph announced the death of Madame Danterre. "It is +believed," were the concluding words, "that she has left her large +fortune to her daughter, Miss Mary Dexter." That was the first reminder +to Rose that the interlude of mere enjoyment was almost over. She was +not going to repine; it had been very good. Coming on board after +reading this with a quiet patient look, a look habitual to her during +the last two years, but which had faded under the sunshine of happy +days, Rose saw Edmund Grosse standing alone in the stern of the boat +with a number of letters in his left hand pressed against his leg, +looking fixedly at the water. The yacht was already standing out to sea, +but Edmund had not glanced a farewell at beautiful and yet prosperous +Genoa, a city that no modern materialism can degrade. Like a young bride +of the sea, she is decked by things old and things new, and her marble +palaces do not appear to be insulted by the jostling of modern commerce. +All things are kept fresh and pure on that wonderful coast. Something +had happened, of that Rose was sure; but what? + +Edmund did not look puzzled; he was deciding no knotty question at this +moment. Nor did he look simply unhappy: she knew his expression when in +sorrow and when in physical pain or mere disgust. He looked intensely +preoccupied and very firm. Perhaps, she fancied, he too had a deep sense +of that passing of life, of something akin in the swift movement of the +water passing the yacht and the swift movement of life passing by the +individual man. Was he, perhaps, feeling how life was going for him and +for Rose, and by the simple fact of its passing on while they were +standing passive their lives would be fixed apart?--passing, apart from +what might have been of joy, of peace, of company along the road? There +are moments when, even without the stimulus of passion, human beings +have a sort of guess at the possibilities of helping one another, of +giving strength, and gaining sweetness, that are slipping by. There are +many degrees of regret, between that of ships that pass in the night, +and that of those who have voyaged long together. There are passages of +pleasure sympathy, and passages of sympathy in fight, and passages of +mutual succour, and passages of intercourse when incapacity to help has +in itself revealed the intensity of good-will in the watcher. But +whenever the heart has been fuller than its words, and the will has been +deeper than its actions, there is this beauty of regret. There has been +a wealth of love greater than could be given or received--not the love +of passion, but the love of the little children of the human race for +one another. This regret is too grave to belong to comedy, and too happy +to belong to tragedy. Rose's heart was full with this sorrow, if it be a +real sorrow. These are the sorrows of hearts that are too great for the +occasions of life, whereas the pain is far more common of the hearts +that are not big enough for what life gives them of opportunity. + +Rose was oppressed by feelings she could not analyse, a sense of +possibilities of what might have been after these perfect weeks +together. But her feelings were dreamy; she had no sense of concrete +alternative; she did not now--he had been too skilful--expect Edmund to +ask her, nor did she wish him to ask her, to draw quite close to him. +She only felt at the end of this interlude they had spent together a +suspicion of the infinite reach of the soul, and the soul not rebelling +against its bonds, but conscious of them while awaiting freedom. + + "Only I discern infinite passion and the pain + Of finite hearts that yearn." + +Such were the moments when a man might be pardoned if he called Rose's +beauty angelic--angelic of the type of Perugino's pictured angels, a +figure just treading on the earth enough to keep up appearances, but +whose very skirts float buoyantly in the fresh atmosphere of eternity. +They stood a few paces apart, Rose with her look bent vaguely towards +the shore, Edmund, still reading his letters, apparently unaware of her +presence. He was thus able to take a long exposure sun-picture of the +white figure on a sensitive memory that would prove but too retentive of +the impression. + +But he had to speak at last. "Is it you?" + +Edmund thought he spoke as usual, but there was a depth of pain and of +tenderness revealed in the face that usually betrayed so little. He held +out his hand unconsciously and then drew it back half closed, and looked +again at the flowing water. It was a moment of temptation, when love was +fighting against itself. Then, with the same half movement of the hand +towards her: + +"I have had a bolt from the blue, Rose. That man, Hewitt, whom I trusted +as I would myself, has absconded. It is thought he has been playing +wildly with my money, and that this crisis in South America has been the +last blow. I shan't know yet if I am ruined completely or not." + +"Oh, Edmund, how dreadful!" + +"Don't pity me, dear, it's not worth while. It only means that one of +the unemployed will get to work at last. That is, if he can find a job. +But I must hurry home at once and leave you to follow. If I put back +into Genoa now I can leave by the night express. And you and your mother +had better go on to Marseilles in the yacht after you have dropped me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SOMETHING LIKE EVIDENCE + + +Mr. Murray Junior's step sounded heavy, and his head was a little more +bent than usual, as he passed down the passage into his sanctum. The +snow, turning to rain and then reasserting itself and insisting that it +would be snow, was dreary enough already when the fog set in firmly and +without compromise. There was a good fire in the sanctum; the electric +light was on, and the clean sheet of blotting-paper, fresh every +morning, lay on the table. + +But Mr. Murray, Junior, was struggling for a few moments to realize +where he was, for his mind was in such different surroundings. In his +thoughts it was June--not June sweltering in London, but June gone mad +with roses in a tiny Surrey garden; and with true realism his memory +chose just one rose-tree out of them all, which best implied the glory +of the others. And one branch of this tree was bent down by a girl's +hand; her arm, from which a cotton sleeve had fallen back, was +wonderfully white, and the roses wonderfully red. + +And the office boy, slowly pulling off one damp, well-made boot and then +the other over the gouty toes, was the only person who noticed that "the +governor" was awfully down in the mouth. + +But no one knew that in Mr. Murray Junior's pocket was a letter from a +great specialist, who had seen Mr. Murray Junior's wife the day +before,--and what that letter said has nothing to do with this story. + +Sir Edmund called about mid-day, and noticed nothing unusual in the +heavy face; only it struck him that Murray was looking old, and he +wondered on which side of seventy the lawyer might be. + +Grosse's visit was the first real distraction the older man had that +day. It was impossible for the solicitor not to be interested in the +probability that Edmund Grosse had lost a great fortune. The affair +teemed with professional interest, and then he liked the man himself. He +had a taste for the type, for the man who knows how to cut a figure in +the great world without being vulgar or ostentatious. He liked Edmund's +manner, his tact, his gift for putting people at their ease. Rumour said +that the baronet had shown pluck since the news had come, and had +behaved handsomely to underlings. Most men become agitated, irritable, +and even cruel when driven into such a position. + +It never entered into Murray's imagination to appear to know that Edmund +had any cause for care: he was not his solicitor, and he knew that his +visitor had not come about his own affairs. But he could not conceal an +added degree of respect, and liking even, under the impenetrable manner +which hid his own aching sense of close personal suffering. Grosse +answered the firm hand-grip with a kindly smile. + +"I only heard of Madame Danterre's death when I got to Genoa on our +return journey." + +"And she died just before you left London," said Murray. + +"Yes; I must have overlooked the paper in which it was announced, +although I thought I read up all arrears of news whenever we went into +port. I wonder no one mentioned it in Cairo; there were several people +there who seemed posted up in Lady Rose's affairs. What do you know +about Madame Danterre's will?" + +"Very little but rumour; nothing is published. Miss Dexter was too ill +to attend to business until about two weeks ago; she only saw her lawyer +at the end of January. Anyhow, Madame Danterre having died abroad makes +delays in this sort of business. But I have been wanting to see you," he +said. + +Something in his manner made Grosse ask him if he had news. + +"Nothing very definite, but things are moving in your direction; and +something small, but solid, is the fact that old Akers's son, and the +other private, Stock, who witnessed some deed or other for Sir David, +are coming home. The regiment is on its way back in the _Jumna_." + +Edmund, watching the strong, heavy face, could see that this interested +him less than something else as yet unexpressed. + +Murray leant back in the round office chair, and crossed his legs in the +well of the massive table before him. Edmund bent forward, his face +sunburnt and healthy after the weeks on the yacht, but the eyes seemed +tired. + +"I don't know that it comes to much," Murray went on slowly, "but three +days after Madame Danterre's death a foreigner asked to see me who +refused to give his name to my clerk. I had him shown in, and thought +him a superior man--not, perhaps, a gentleman, but a man with brains. +He asked in rather queer English whether I would object to giving him +all the information I could, without betraying confidence, as to Sir +David Bright and his wife. I thought for a moment that he was your +Florentine detective, but then I reflected that the detective would have +no object in disguising himself from me as he knew that you trusted me +entirely. I told my visitor that he might ask me any questions he liked, +and I can assure you he placed his shots with great skill. He wanted +first to know if there had been any scandal connected with their married +life, in order, of course, to find out why Sir David had not left his +money to Lady Rose; and whether no one had been disposed to dispute the +will. I let him see that the affair had been a nine days' wonder here, +and I gave him some notion of my own opinion of Madame Danterre. He did +not give himself away, and I thought he had some honest reason for +anxiety in the matter. Well! he left without letting me know his name or +address, but there is no doubt that he is Dr. Larrone. I wrote at once +to your detective, Pietrino, in Florence, and a letter from him crossed +mine saying that Dr. Larrone had left Florence within a few hours of +Madame Danterre's death, and that, by her desire, he had taken a small +box to Miss Dexter. There was evidently a certain sense of mystery and +excitement among the nurses and servants as to the box and the sudden +journey. It seems that Madame Larrone was angry at his taking this +sudden journey, and said to a friend that she only 'hoped he wouldn't +get his fingers burnt by meddling in other people's affairs.' + +"Then Pietrino, in answering my letter, said that my description was +certainly the description of Larrone. He says the doctor is exceedingly +upright and sensitive as to his professional honour, and has been known +to refuse a legacy from a patient because he thought it ought not to +have been left out of the family. Since that, Pietrino has written that +Larrone is taking a long holiday, and that people are wondering if he +will have any scruples as to the large legacy that is said to have been +left to him by Madame Danterre. So it is pretty clear who my reticent +visitor was. Now, I don't know that we gain much from that so far, but I +think it may mean that Larrone could, if he would, tell some interesting +details. I will give you all Pietrino's letters, but I should just like +to run on with my own impressions from them first. It seems that, since +Madame Danterre's death, there has been a good deal of wild talk against +her in Florence, which was kept down by self-interest as long as she was +living and an excellent paying-machine. You will see, when you read the +gossip, that very little is to the point. But, on the other hand, +Pietrino has valuable information from one of the nurses. She is a young +woman who is disappointed, as she has had no legacy; evidently Madame +Danterre intended to add her name in the last codicil, but somehow +failed to do so. This woman is sure that Madame Danterre had an evil +conscience as to her wealth. She also said that she was always morbidly +anxious as to a small box. Once, when the nurse had reassured her by +showing her the box, which was kept in a little bureau by the bed, she +said, with an odd smile: 'If I believed in the devil I should be very +glad that I can pay him back all he lent me when I don't want it any +more.' At another time she asked for the box and took out some papers, +and told the nurse to light a candle close to her as she was going to +burn some old letters. Then she began to read a long, long letter, and +as she read, she became more and more angry until she had a sudden +attack of the heart. The nurse swept the papers into the box and locked +it up, knowing that she could do nothing to soothe the patient while +they were lying about. That night the doctors thought Madame Danterre +would die, but she rallied. She did not speak of the papers again until +some days later. The nurse described how, one evening, when she thought +her sleeping, she was surprised to find her great eyes fixed on the +candle in a sconce near the bed. 'The candle was burnt half way down, +but the paper was not burnt at all,' the nurse heard her whisper; 'I +shall not do it now. I cannot be expected to settle such questions while +I am ill. After all, I have always given her a full share; she can +destroy it herself if she likes, or she can give it all up to that +woman--it shall be her own affair.' + +"She did not seem to know that she had been speaking aloud, and she +muttered a little more to herself and then slept. + +"The nurse heard no further allusion to the box for weeks. She said the +old woman was using all her fine vitality and her iron will in fighting +death. Then came the last change, and her torpid calm turned into +violent excitement. While she thought herself alone with Dr. Larrone she +implored him to take the box to England the moment she died, and put it +into her daughter's hands. 'No one knows it matters,' she said more than +once. But when she found that he did not wish to go, and said it was +impossible for him to go at once, her entreaties were terrible. 'She had +always had her own way, and she had it to the end,' was the nurse's +comment. + +"Dr Larrone, coming out of the room, realised that the nurse must have +known what passed, and told her he was glad she was there. He put a box +on a table with a little bang of impatience. + +"'It's delirium, delusion, madness!' he said, 'but I've given my word. I +never hated a job more; she wouldn't have the morphia till I had taken +my oath I would go as soon as she was dead.'" + +Grosse was absorbed by the pictures feebly conveyed through the nurse's +words, through the detective's letters, through the English lawyer's +translation and summary. He could supply what was missing. He had seen +Madame Danterre. He could so well imagine the frightful force of the +woman, a tyrant to the very last moment. He could guess, too, at the +reaction of those about her when once she was dead, and they were quite +out of her reach. There is always a reaction when feebler personalities +have to fill the space left by a tyrant. He could realise the buzz of +gossip, and the sense of courage with which servants and tradesmen would +make wild, impossible stories of her wicked life. He came back from +these thoughts with a certain shock when he found Murray saying: + +"I can't say there is anything approaching to proof. But supposing, just +for the sake of supposing, that you were right in your wild guess as to +the will, then we should next go on to suppose that the real will was in +the box conveyed by Dr. Larrone to Miss Dexter." + +Edmund's face was very dark, but he did not speak for some moments. + +"No," he said, "she is incapable of such a crime. She would have given +it up at once." + +"At once?" Murray said. "Miss Dexter was too ill to do anything at once. +She was down with influenza, of which she very nearly died, but she +pulled through, and then went away for a month. She only got back to +London two weeks ago. Her affairs are in the hands of a very respectable +firm. We know them, and they began this business with her a very short +time before she came up. Now Sir Edmund, think it well over. You may be +right in your opinion of this young lady, but just fancy the position. +There is a fortune of at least L20,000 a year on the one hand, and on +the other, absolute poverty. For do you suppose that, if it were in the +last will which Akers and Stock witnessed on board ship, and there were +any provision in it for Madame Danterre, Sir David Bright would have +left capital absolutely in her possession? No: the probability is--I am, +of course, always supposing your original notion to be true--that the +girl has this choice of immense wealth practically unquestioned by the +world which has settled down to the fact that Sir David left his money +to Madame Danterre; or, on the other hand, extreme poverty (she +inherited some L2,000 from her father) and public disgrace. Mind you, +she would have to announce that her mother was a criminal, and she +would, in this just and high-minded world of ours, pass under a cloud +herself. A few, only a very few, would in the least appreciate her +conduct." + +Sir Edmund was miserably uncomfortable, intensely averse to the results +of what he had done. In drawing his mesh of righteous intrigue round the +mother he had never realised this situation. For the moment he wished +himself well out of it all. + +"There is one other point," he said. "Are we quite sure that Dr. Larrone +did not know what was in the box? Is it not just possible that something +was taken out of it before it was given to Miss Dexter? He must have +known there was a large legacy to himself; it was against his interests +that Madame Danterre's will should be set aside. Also, it would not be a +very comfortable situation for him if it turned out that he had been the +intimate friend and highly-paid physician of a criminal." + +"That last motive fits the character of the man, according to Pietrino, +better than the first," said Mr. Murray. "Well, we must see; we must +wait and see whether he accepts his legacy. But before that must come +the publication of Madame Danterre's will." + +Edmund drove back from the city absorbed in the thought of Molly, in +comparing his different impressions of her at different stages of their +acquaintance. He had spoken so firmly and undoubtingly to Murray. His +first thought had been one of simple indignation, and yet--But no! he +remembered her simplicity in speaking of her mother's letter; he could +see her now with the gentle, pathetic look on her face as she told him +of her offering to go out to the wicked old woman, and how her poor +little advance had been rejected. + +Edmund had thought it one of the advantages of the expedition on the +yacht that it would make it impossible for many weeks to call again at +Molly's flat. He had often before felt uncomfortable and annoyed with +himself when he had been too friendly with Molly. Not that he felt her +attraction to be a temptation to disloyalty to Rose. He knew he was +incurable in his devotion to his love. But he did feel it mean to enjoy +this pleasant, philosopher-and-guide attitude, towards the daughter of +Madame Danterre. That Molly could hold any delusion about his feelings +had never dawned on his imagination as a possibility until the night +when she confided in him her forlorn attempt at doing a daughter's duty. +He had never liked her so well; never so entirely dissociated her from +her mother, and from all possibilities of evil. + +And now the situation was changed; now there was this hazy mass of +suspicion revealed in Florence, and this most detestable story of +Larrone and the box. + +How differently things looked when it was a question of suspecting of a +crime the woman he had seen in the Florentine garden, and of that same +suspicion regarding poor little graceful, original, Molly Dexter! + +Within two or three days Edmund became still more immersed in business. +He began to realise his own ignorance as to his own affairs, and he went +through the slow torture of understanding how blindly he had left +everything in his solicitor's hands. He was beginning to face actual +poverty as inevitable, when he heard from Mr. Murray that Madame +Danterre's will was proved in London, and that her daughter was her sole +heir. + +"The income cannot be less than L20,000 a year, and the whole fortune is +entirely at Miss Dexter's disposal," wrote Mr. Murray without any +comment whatever. + +Edmund was not sorry that Rose and her mother were staying on in Paris. +They would escape the first outburst of gossip as to the further +history of Sir David Bright's fortune. Nor was he sorry that they should +also miss the growing rumours as to the disappearance of the fortune of +Sir Edmund Grosse. Of Rose herself he dared not let himself think; but +every evil conclusion which he had to face as to his own future, every +undoubted loss that was discovered in the inquiry which was being +carried on, seemed as a heavy door shut between him and the hopes of +those last days on the yacht. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE USES OF DELIRIUM + + +"Don't you think I might get up and sit by the window and look at the +sea, Carey?" + +Miss Carew hesitated, and then summoned the nurse. + +"Miss Dexter was to have one whole day in bed after the journey." + +The nurse, looking into Molly's eager eyes, compromised for one half +hour, in which Miss Dexter might lie on the sofa in a fur cloak. + +It was a big sofa befitting the largest bedroom in the hotel, and Molly +lay back on its cushions with the peculiar physical satisfaction of +weakness, resting after very slight efforts. Yesterday she had been too +exhausted for enjoyment, but this afternoon her sensations were +delightful. + +The short afternoon light was ruddy on the glorious brown sails of the +fishing-boats, and drew out all their magnificent contrast to the blue +water. But the sun still sparkled garishly on the crest of the waves, +and the milder glow of the sunset had not begun. + +Weakness was sheltered and at rest within, while without was the immense +movement of wind and water, and the passing smile of the sun on the +great, unshackled forces of winter. Molly's rest was like a child's +security in the arms of a kindly giant. Her mind had been absorbed by +illness--an illness that had had her completely in grip, the first +serious illness she had ever known. There had been a struggle in the +depths of her life's forces such as she had never imagined; but now life +had conquered, and she was at rest. In that time there had been awful +delirium: horrible things, guilty and hideous, had clung about her, all +round her. One wicked presence especially had taken a strange form, a +face without a body, and yet it had hands--it must have had hands +because the horror of it was that it constantly opened the doors of the +different cupboards, but most often the door of the big wardrobe, and +looked out, and that although Molly had had the wardrobe locked and the +key put under her pillow. And this face was very like Molly's, and the +question she had to settle was whether this face was her mother's or her +own. At times she reasoned--and the logical process was so deadly +tiring--that it must be her mother, for she could not be Molly herself +being so unkind to herself; whereas, if the face had had any pity for +her it might have been herself looking at herself. But was that not +nonsense? There was surely a touch of hysteria in that. Did the face +really come out of her own brain? And if so, from what part of her +brain? She felt sure there was a sort of empty attic, a large one, in +the top part of her right brain, it felt hollow, quite terribly hollow. +Probably the face came out of that. But then, how did it get inside the +wardrobe? and once inside the wardrobe, how did it get out again when +Molly really had the key? + +She longed to speak to Miss Carew about this, but Miss Carew never +could follow a chain of reasoning. The nurse was more sensible, but she +thought that reasoning was too tiring for Molly--so silly! If only she +could be allowed to explain it all quietly and reasonably! And oh! why +did they leave her alone? She hated to be left alone, and she was sure +she told them so; and yet they went away. And then she began to work her +brain again as soon as the was alone, and she would be happy for a few +minutes with a new plan for shutting the face into the large empty attic +in her right brain and locking the door, when quite suddenly the face +opened the door of the wardrobe with its loose hands and looked out +again and jeered at her. + +Even now, lying resting, and looking at the sun, Molly was glad that +there was no hanging wardrobe in the room; only one full of shelves. She +would certainly not use the same room when she went back to London. She +would only be in that flat for a short time, as she must now take a big +house. + +As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the +joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house. It +should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else's +house; it should be Molly's own special triumph. It must have the +glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past. It +should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and +old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy. + +"And"--she smiled to herself--"as long as it is a house in the air it +shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset." The fancy that +had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was +victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now. + +Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her +consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took +possession. They took turns to make themselves gradually, very +gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her. The first was founded on +the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, +and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as +to her mother's papers. She had been delirious that evening, and, what +was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she +had seen and read of the contents of that box. + +"I can't remember if that's true," she could honestly say to herself +when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention. +Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to +forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness. For +instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened +on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her. But how +did Molly know that? And suddenly she said to herself that she could not +remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too. + +At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the +black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? +Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; +sometimes it was a little tiny cash box. + +Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was +getting a firm footing. It was simply that the fact of the will being +sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David's having repented of +having made it. If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had? It was +absurd and romantic to suppose that her mother had carried on an +intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will. That +might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in +delirium, but it was not possible in real life. The only puzzle was--and +the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case--why had he +not destroyed the will himself? The probability was that he had not been +able to do so at the last moment. When dying he must have repented of +the last will just too late to destroy it. She could quite imagine his +asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the +papers. It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy +them. And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course +not reading them. And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another +fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the +hand that had written its contents. Finally, all that the theory did for +the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things +evidently stood or fell together. So the theories grew and prospered +without interfering with each other as Molly's health and strength +returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other +theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be "Even +supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still +evident that----" + +Molly's recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which +the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell. She +seemed hardly able to understand business. She was ready to leave all +responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he +hardly liked to see her quite so passive. + +After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill. + +"He must think me a fool," she said, in a weak voice. "I have left +everything on his shoulders, poor man. I'm afraid if he is asked about +me, as he's a Scotchman he will say I am 'just an innocent'! I really +ought not to have seen him to-day." + +But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite +business-like. The said house agent had come down with one secret object +in his heart. It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too +well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market. It +had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had +hardly had a bite for it. Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the +fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the +bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness +of the first floor. Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though +artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm. + +After mentioning several uninteresting mansions, the agent observed +that, of course, there was Westmoreland House still going, and Molly's +eyes flashed. She had been at the great sale at Westmoreland House; she +had been absolutely fascinated by the great well staircase and by the +music-room, by the square reception-rooms, and above all by the gallery +with its perfection of light moulding, a room of glass and gold, but so +spiritualised, so subdued and reticent and dignified, that ghosts might +live there undisturbed. + +Molly trembled with eagerness as she asked the vital questions of cost, +of repairs, of rates and taxes. Yes, it was possible--undoubtedly +possible. There was a very large sum of money in a bank in Florence +which possibly Madame Danterre had accumulated there with a view to a +sudden emergency. Molly's lawyer had not been certain of the amount, but +he had mentioned a sum larger than the price of Westmoreland House. + +By the time Molly was fit to go back to London, and while the theories +just described were still in possession of her mind, Westmoreland House +was bought. Molly said it was a great relief to get it settled. + +"One feels more settled altogether," she said to Miss Carew, "when a big +question like that is done with." + +She strolled with Miss Carew on the smooth sand by the water's edge on +the last evening before leaving, and looked up at the white cliffs +growing bright in the light of the sunset. + +"It has been very restful," she said. "I am almost sorry to go." + +"Then why not stay a little longer, my dear?" + +"Oh, no, Carey! it would soon become quite intolerable; it isn't real +life, only a pause; and now, Carey, I am going to live!" + +The sun presently set lower and more grey than they had expected; the +wind felt sharper, and Molly shivered. Nature was unbearable without its +gilding. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MRS. DELAPORT GREEN IN THE ASCENDANT + + +Mrs. Delaport Green had been to Egypt for the winter, and came back, +refreshed as a giant, for life in London. She was really glad to see +Tim, who was unfeignedly pleased to see her, and they spent quite an +hour in the pleasantest chat. Of course he had not much news to give of +his wife's acquaintances as he did not live among them, but one item of +information interested her extremely. + +"Miss Dexter has bought Westmoreland House in Park Lane!" + +Mrs. Delaport Green's eyes sparkled with excitement and the green light +of envy, and she determined to call on Molly at once. Happily there had +been no open quarrel, which only showed how wise it was to forget +injuries, for certainly the girl had been most disgracefully rude. + +Molly's new abode stood back from the street, and had usually an +immensely dignified air of quiet, but there was a good deal of noise and +bustle going on when Adela reached the door. Several large pieces of +furniture, a picture, and a heavy clock, might have been obstacles +enough to keep out most visitors, but Adela persevered, and the dusty +and worried porter said that Molly was at home before he had a moment +for reflection. + +Adela advanced with outstretched hands to greet her "dear friend" as she +was shown into a large drawing-room on the first floor. + +Molly was standing in the middle of the room with an immense hat on, and +a long cloak that woke instant enthusiasm in the soul of her visitor. +There was perhaps, even to Adela something too emphatic, too striking, +too splendid altogether in the total effect of the tall, slim figure. +She had never thought that Molly would turn out half so handsome, but +she saw now that she had only needed a little making-up. While thinking +these things she was chattering eagerly. + +"How are you? I was so sorry to hear you had been ill, but now you look +simply splendid! I have had a wonderful winter. I feel as if I had laid +in quite a stock of calm and rest from the desert, as if no little thing +could worry me after my long draught--of the desert, you know! Well! one +must get into harness again." She gave a little sigh. "But to think of +your having Westmoreland House! How everybody wondered last season what +was to become of it! and what furniture, oh! what an exquisite cabinet! +You certainly have wonderful taste." Molly did not interrupt her visitor +to explain that the said cabinet had belonged to Madame Danterre. "I +adore that style; I do so wish Tim would give me a cabinet like that for +my birthday. I really think he might." + +She was so accustomed to Molly's silences that it was some time before +she realised that this one was ominous. She might have seen that that +young lady was looking over her head, or out of the window, or anywhere +but at her. Suddenly it struck her that not a sound interrupted her own +voice, and she began to perceive the absurd airs that Molly was giving +herself. Prompted by the devil she, therefore, instantly proceeded to +say: + +"When we were at Cairo Sir Edmund Grosse came for a few days with Lady +Rose Bright." + +"From the yacht?" said Molly, speaking for the first time. + +"Yes; they said in Cairo that the engagement would be announced as soon +as they got back to England. And really my dear, everyone agreed that +without grudging you her money, one can't help being glad that that dear +woman should be rich again!" + +It was about as sharp a two-edged thrust as could have been delivered, +and Molly's _distrait_ air and undue magnificence melted under it. + +"No one could be more glad than I am," she said, with a quiet reserve of +manner; and after that she was quite friendly, and took Adela all over +the house, and pressed her to stay to tea, and that little lady felt +instinctively that Molly was afraid of her, and smacked her rosy lips +with the foretaste of the amusements she intended to enjoy in this +magnificent house. + +While they were having tea, Molly, leaning back, said quietly: + +"I see from what you said before we went over the house that you have +not heard that Sir Edmund Grosse is ruined?" + +Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little shriek of excitement. + +"He trusted all his affairs to a scoundrel, and this is the result." +Molly's tone was still negative. + +"Well, that does seem a shame!" + +"I don't know; if a man will neglect his affairs he must take the +consequence." + +"Oh! but I do think it is hard; he used his money so well." + +"Did he?" Molly raised her eyebrows. + +"Well, he was a perfect host, and was so awfully good-natured, don't you +know?" + +In the real interest in the news, Adela had, for the moment, forgotten +that Molly might be especially interested in anything concerning Edmund +Grosse. She was reminded by the low, thundery voice in which Molly began +to speak quite suddenly, as if her patience had been tried too far. + +"You are just like all the others! It's enough to make one a radical to +listen to it. After all, what good has Sir Edmund Grosse done with his +money? He gave dinners that ruined people's livers--I suppose that was +good for the doctors! He gave diamonds to actresses, and I suppose that +was for the good of art. He has never done a stroke of work; he has +wallowed in luxury, and now his friends almost cry out against +Providence because he will have to earn his bread. Probably several +hundreds a year will be left, and many men would be thankful for that. +Then other people say it is such a pity that now he cannot marry Lady +Rose Bright. They have the effrontery to say that to me, as if L800 a +year were not enough for them to marry on if they cared for each other!" + +All this tirade seemed to Adela the very natural outpouring of jealousy, +and, as she fully intended to be an intimate friend of Molly's she +sympathised and agreed, and agreed and sympathised till she fairly, +roused Molly's sense of the ludicrous. + +"I don't mean," Molly said, half angry and half amused, "that I shall +spend my money so very much better;--I quite mean to have my fling. Only +I do so hate all this cant." + +At last Adela departed, crying out that she had promised to be in Hoxton +an hour ago, and Molly was left alone. It was too late to go to the +shops, she reflected, and she sank back into a deep chair with a frown +on her white forehead. + +What did it matter to her if they were engaged or not? It made no sort +of difference. She was not going to allow her peace of mind to be upset +on their account; she had done with that sentimental nonsense long ago. +Her illness had made a great space between her present self and the +Molly who had been so foolishly upset by the discovery of Edmund +Grosse's treachery. Curiously enough Molly had never doubted of that +treachery, although it was one of the horrors that had come out of the +doubtful, and probably mythical, tin box. + +By the way, there was a little pile of tin boxes in a small unfurnished +room upstairs, next to Molly's bedroom, of which she kept the key. She +had had no time to look at them yet. Some of them came from Florence, +and two or three from her own flat. They were of all shapes and sizes, +and piled one on another. But from the moment when Molly turned that +very ordinary key in the lock of the unfurnished dressing-room she never +let her thoughts dwell for long on the possible delusions of delirium. +Her mind had entered into another phase in which it was of supreme +importance to think only of the details of each day as they came before +her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MOLLY AT COURT + + +If any of us, going to dress quietly in an ordinary bedroom, were told: +"It is the last time you will have just that amount of comfort, that +degree of luxury, to which you have been accustomed; it is the last time +you will have your evening clothes put out for you; the last time your +things will be brushed; the last time hot water will be brought to your +room; the last time that your dressing-gown will have come out of the +cupboard without your taking it out"--we might have an odd mixture of +sensations. We might be very sad--ridiculously sad--and yet have a sense +of being braced, a whiff of open air in the mental atmosphere. + +Edmund Grosse did not expect in future to draw his own hot water, or put +out his own dressing-gown, but he did know that he had come to the last +night of having a valet of his own, the last night in which the perfect +Dawkins, who had been with him ten years, would do him perfect bodily +service. Everything to-night was done in the most punctilious manner, +and it seemed appropriate that this last night should be a full-dress +affair. + +Sir Edmund was going to Court (the first Court held in May), and his +deputy lieutenant's uniform was laid on the bed. Edmund might not have +taken the trouble to go, but a kindly message from a very high place as +to his troubles had made him feel it a more gracious response to do so. +The valet was a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been +detected in his deferential attitude towards his master. Dawkins was not +pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been +based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man. +Happily he had been careful. He had not trusted blindly to Providence, +and, with a rich result from enormous wages and perquisites, and an +excellent character, he could face the world with his head high, whereas +Sir Edmund--well, Sir Edmund's position was very different. Sir Edmund +had let himself be deceived outrageously, and what was the result? + +Edmund was as particular as usual about every detail of his appearance. +It would have been an education to a young valet to have seen the ruined +man dressed that evening. + +Next day Dawkins was to leave, and the day after that the flat was to be +the scene of a small sale. The chief valuables, a few good pictures, and +some very rare china, had already gone to Christie's. The delicate +_pate_ of his beloved vases had seemed to respond to the lingering +farewell touch of the connoisseur's fingers. Edmund was trying to secure +for some of them homes where he might sometimes visit them, and one or +two of his lady friends were persuading their husbands that these things +ought to be bought for love of poor Edmund Grosse. Edmund was quite +ready to press a little on friendship of this sort, being fully +conscious of its quality and its duration. For the next few weeks he +would be welcomed with enthusiasm--and next year? + +But all the same there was that subconscious sense of bracing +air--something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station +on a very hot day. We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or +Edinburgh, but it is not the climate of Surrey. + +Edmund mounted the stairs at Buckingham Palace with a certain +unconscious dignity which melted into genial amusement at the sight of a +pretty woman near him evidently whispering advice to a fair _debutante_. +The girl was not eighteen, and her whole figure expressed acute +discomfort. + +"Keep your veil out of the way," her mother warned her. + +"I've had two dreadful pulls already; I'm sure my feathers are quite +crooked. Oh! mother, there's Sir Edmund Grosse; he will tell me whether +they are crooked. You never know." + +"I could see if you would let me get in front of you," murmured her +mother. + +"But you can't possibly in this crowd. Oh! how d'ye do, Sir Edmund; have +I kept my veil straight?" + +"Charming," said Edmund, with a low bow. The child really looked very +pretty, though rather like a little dairymaid dressed up for fun, and +her long gloves slipped far enough from the shoulders to show some +splendidly red arms. + +"Charming," he said again in a half-teasing voice. "Only I don't approve +of such late hours for children." + +It amused him that this was one of the presentations that would be most +noted in the papers, and this funny, jolly little girl would probably +gain a good deal of knowledge and lose a great deal more of charm in +the next three months. + +Walking by the mother and daughter, he had come close to the open doors +of a long gallery, and stood for a moment to take in the picture. It was +not new to him, but perhaps he felt inclined to the attitude of an +onlooker to-night, and there was something in this attitude slightly +aloof and independent. Brilliant was the one word for the scene; a +little hard, perhaps, in colouring, and the women in their plumes and +veils were too uniform to be artistic. There was too much gold, too much +red silk, too many women in the long rows waiting with more or less +impatience or nervousness to get through with it. The scene had an +almost crude simplicity of insistence on fine feathers and gilding the +obvious pride of life. Yet he saw the little fair country girl near him +look awe-struck, and he understood it. For a fresh imagination, or for +one that has, for some reason, a fresh sensitiveness of perception, the +great gallery, the wealth of fair women, the scattered men in uniform, +the solemn waiting for entrance into the royal presence, were enough. +And there really is a certain force in the too gaudy setting. It blares +like a trumpet. It crushes the quiet and the repose of life. It shines +in the eye defiantly and suddenly, and at last it captures the mind and +makes the breath come quickly, for, like no other and more perfect +setting to life, it makes us think of death. It is too bald an assertion +of the world and all its works and all its pomps, not to challenge a +rebuke from the grisly tyrant. + +Edmund had not analysed these impressions, but he was still under their +power when he turned to let others pass, for the crowd was thickening. +And as he did so, a little space was opened by three or four ladies +turning round to secure places for some friends on the long seats +against the walls. + +Across this space he saw a woman, whom, for a moment only, he did not +recognise. It was a tall figure in white satin with a train of cloth of +silver thrown over her arm. There was nothing of the nervous _debutante_ +in the attitude, nor was there the half-truculent self-assertion of the +modern girl. When people talked afterwards of her gown and her jewels, +Edmund only remembered the splendour of her pearls, and when he +mentioned them, a woman added that the train had been lined with lace of +untold value. What he felt at the time was the enormous triumph of the +eyes. Grey eyes, full of light, full of pride. He did not ask himself +what was the excuse for this "haughty bearing," and the old phrase, +which has now sunk from court manners into penny novelettes, was the +only phrase that seemed quite a true one. + +Why did she stand so completely alone? It made no difference to this +sense of loneliness that she received warm greetings in the crowd, or +that Lady Dawning was fidgeting and maternal. Evidently (and he was +amused at the combination) she was going to present her cousin, John +Dexter's daughter. Did she remember now how she had advised Mrs. +Carteret to hide Molly from the public eye? + +But Molly's figure was always to remain in his mind thus triumphant +without absurdity, and thus alone in a crowd. The blackness of her hair +had a strange force from the white transparent veil flowing over it, and +a flush of deep colour was in the dark skin. Edmund had several moments +in which to look at her and to realise that Molly was walking in a dream +of greatness. The little country girl he had seen just now had been +brought up to hear kindly jokes about Courts and their ways; not so +Molly. To her it was all intensely serious and intensely exciting. Could +he have known the chief cause of the intense emotion that filled Molly's +slight figure with a feverish vitality would he have believed that she +was happy? And yet she was, for no pirate king running his brig under +the very nose of a man-of-war ever had more of the quintessence of the +sense of adventure than Molly had, as Lady Dawning led her, the heiress +of the year, into the long gallery. + +For one moment she saw Edmund Grosse, and she looked him full in the +face very gravely. She did not pretend not to know him; she let him see +the entirely genuine contempt she felt for him, and she meant him to +understand that she would never know him again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +EDMUND IS NO LONGER BORED + + +As the season went on Edmund Grosse did not understand himself. +Everything had gone against him, his fortune had melted, his easy-going +luxurious life was at an end. He had no delusions; he knew perfectly +well the value of money in his world. His position in that world was +gone in fact, if not quite in seeming. The sort of conversation that +went on about him in his own circles had the sympathy, but would soon +have also the finality, of a funeral oration. There would soon be a tone +of reminiscence in those who spoke of him. It would be as if they said +gently: "Oh, yes! dear old Grosse, we knew him well at one time, don't +you know; it's a sad story." He could have told you not only the words, +but even the inflection of the voices of his friends in discussing his +affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among +them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster +of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It +would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite +kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism +must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the +law of its being rejects a poor man. + +And yet the idea that poor Grosse must be half crushed, horribly cut up +and done for, was not in the least true. This was what he did not +understand himself. It is well known that some people bear great trials +almost lightly who take small ones very heavily. Grosse certainly rose +to the occasion. But that a great trial had aroused great courage was +not the whole explanation by any means. Curiously enough ill-fortune +with drastic severity had done for him what he had impotently wished to +do for himself. It had made impossible the life which, in his heart, he +had despised; it absolutely forced him to use powers of which he was +perfectly conscious, and which had been rusting simply for want of +employment. It is doubtful whether he could have roused himself for any +other motive whatever. Certainly love of Rose had been unable to do it. +The will might seem to will what he wished to do, but the effort to will +strongly enough was absent. Now all the soft, padded things between him +and the depths of life had been struck away at one rude blow; he _must_ +swim or sink. And so he began to swim, and the exercise restored his +circulation and braced his whole being. + +It was not, perhaps, heroic exertion that he was roused into making. But +it wanted courage in a man of Edmund's age to begin to work for six +hours or more a day at journalism. He also produced two articles on +foreign politics for the reviews, which made a considerable impression. +It was important now that Edmund had read and watched, and, even more +important, listened very attentively to what busier men than himself had +to say during twenty years of life spent in the world. Years afterwards, +when Grosse had in the second half of his life done as much work as +many men would think a good record for their whole lives, people were +surprised to read his age in the obituary notices. They had rightly +dated the beginning of his career from his first appearance as an +authority on foreign politics, but they had not realised that Grosse had +begun to work only in the midstream of life. Many brilliant springs are +delusive in their promise, but rarely is there such achievement after an +unprofitable youth. + +Love is not the whole life of a man, but, in spite of new activities, in +spite of a renewed sense of self-respect, Edmund had time and space +enough for much pain in his heart. + +Rose was still in Paris taking care of her mother, who was very unwell. +Edmund had hinted at the possibility of going over to see them at +Easter, but the suggestion had met with no encouragement. He had felt +rebuffed, and was in no mood to be smoothed or melted by Rose's written +sympathy. He was, no doubt, harder as well as stronger than before his +financial troubles. He let Rose see that he could stand on his feet, and +was not disposed to whine. Meanwhile Molly had provoked him to single +combat. The decided cut she gave him at the Court was not to be +permitted; he was too old a hand to allow anything so crude. He meant to +be at her parties; he meant to keep in touch; indeed he meant to see +this thing out. + + +"Sir Edmund, will you take Miss Dexter in to dinner?" + +Edmund looked fairly surprised and very respectful as Mrs. Delaport +Green spoke to him. Molly's bearing was, he could see, defiant, but she +was clearly quite conscious of having to submit and anxious to do +nothing absurd. + +They ate their soup in silence, for Molly's other neighbour had shown an +unflattering eagerness to be absorbed by the lady he had taken down. +Edmund turned to her with exactly his old shade of manner, very +paternal, intimate and gentle. + +"And you are not bored yet?" + +Molly could have sworn deep and long had it been possible. + +"No; why should I be?" + +She stared at him for a moment indifferently, as at a stranger, but he +could see the nervous movement of her fingers as she crumbed her bread. + +"It is more likely," he answered, "that I should remember what I allude +to than that you should. We once had a talk about being bored. I said I +had never been bored while I was poor. Now I am poor again, so I +naturally remember, and, as you are trying the experience of being very +rich, I should really like to know if you are bored yet." + +Molly might have kept silent, but she did not want Adela, who was +certainly watching them, to think her embarrassed. + +"I suppose every one has moments of being bored." + +Edmund leant back and turned round so as to allow of his looking fully +at her. He muttered to himself: "Young, beautiful, wealthy beyond the +dreams of avarice--and bored! What flattering unction that is to the +soul of a ruined man." + +In spite of her anger, her indignation, her hurt pride, Molly was +softened. She writhed under the caress of his voice; it had power +still. + +"Are you not bored any more?" She spoke unwillingly. + +"No," he said, "suffering does not bore; discomfort does not bore; +knowledge of your fellow-creatures does not bore. But, of course, I am +tasting the pleasures of novelty. And I have not disappeared yet. I +think a boarding-house in Bloomsbury may prove boring. How prettily our +hostess will pity me, then. But I don't think I shall meet you here at +dinner, and have the comfort of seeing for myself that you, too, are +bored." + +Molly felt that he was putting her hopelessly in the wrong. She was the +one bitterly aggrieved and deeply injured. But he made her feel as if +coldness on her part would be just the conduct of any rich heartless +woman to a ruined man. + +"I calculate," he said, "on about fifty more good dinners which I shall +not pay for, and then, of course, I shall think myself well fed at my +own expense in an Italian cafe somewhere. I think Italian, don't you? +Dinner at two shillings! There is an air of _spagghetti_ and onions that +conceals the nature or age of the meat; and the coffee is amazingly +good. One might be able to find one with a clean cloth." + +Most of these remarks were made almost to himself. + +"You know it isn't true," Molly said angrily; "you know you will get a +good post. Men like you are always given things." + +Edmund helped himself very carefully to exactly the right amount of +melted butter. "Don't you eat asparagus?" he interjected, and, without +waiting for an answer, went on: + +"I thought so too, but I can't hear of a job. There are too many of the +unemployed just now. However, no doubt, as you say, I shall soon be +made absolute ruler of some province twice the size of England." + +He laughed and smoothed his moustache with one hand. + +"Down with dull care, Miss Dexter; let us make a pact never to be +bored--in Bloomsbury, or West Africa, or Park Lane. I suppose you found +a great deal to do to that dear old house?" + +After that their other neighbours claimed them both; but during dessert +Molly, against her will, lost hold of the talk on her right, and had to +listen to Edmund again. + +"I hear that you have got the old Florentine looking-glasses from my +sale." + +"I don't think they were from your sale," said Molly hastily. + +"Well, Perks told me so." + +"Perks never told me," muttered Molly. + +"I should think they must suit the house to perfection. Where have you +put them?" + +"In the small dining-room." + +"Yes; they must do admirably there. I should like to see them again." He +looked at her with a faintly sarcastic smile. She knew what he intended +her to say, and, against her will, she said hastily: + +"Won't you come and see them?" + +"With great pleasure." + +Molly saw that Adela had risen, and sprang up and turned away in one +sudden movement. She was very angry with him for forcing her to say +that, and she could not conceive what had made her yield. + +"'The teeth that bite; the claws that scratch,'" he thought to himself, +"but safely chained up--and the movements are beautiful." He stood +looking after her. + +"I did as you told me," said the hostess, pausing for a moment as she +followed her guests to the door. "If Molly blames me, shall I say that +you asked to take her in?" + +"Say just what you like; I trust you entirely." He did not attempt to +speak to Molly after dinner, or when they met again at a ball that same +night. All her burning wish to snub him could not be gratified. He +seemed not to know shat she was still in the room. But she knew +instinctively that he watched her, and she was not sorry he should see +her in the crowd, and be witness, however unwillingly, to her position +in the world he knew so well. It added to the sense of intoxication that +often possessed her now. "Be drunken," says Baudelaire, "be drunken with +wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you will, only be drunken." +And that Molly could be drunken with flattery, with luxury, with +movement, with music, with a sense of danger that gave a strong and +subtle flavour to her pleasures, was the explanation (and the only one) +of how she bore the hours of reaction, of the nausea experienced by that +spiritual nature of hers which she had been so surprised to discover. It +was not the half-shrinking, half-defiant Molly Edmund had talked to in +the woods of Groombridge, whom he watched now. That Molly was gone, and +he regretted her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +MOLLY'S APPEAL + + +Edmund, it seemed, was in no hurry to see his Florentine looking-glasses +again. Ten days passed before he called on Molly, and on the eleventh +day Mr. Murray, Junior, wrote to say that he had some fresh and +important intelligence to give him, and asked if Sir Edmund would call, +not at his office, but at his own house. + +Edmund flung the letter down impatiently. The situation was really a +very trying one. He did not believe--he could not and would not +believe--that Molly was carrying on a gigantic fraud. Murray was a +lawyer, and did not know Miss Dexter; his suspicions were inhuman and +absurd. From the day on which she had spoken to him about her mother's +reply to her offer to go to Florence, Edmund had in his masculine way +ranged her once for all among good and nice women. He had felt touched +and guilty at a suspicion that he had been to blame in playing his +paternal _role_ too zealously. Until then he had at times had hard +thoughts of her; after that time he was a little ashamed of himself, and +he believed in her simplicity and goodness. He was sorry and +disappointed now that she was making quite so much effect in this London +world. There was something disquieting in Molly's success, and he could +appraise better than any one what a remarkable success it was. But he +felt that she was going the pace, and he would not have liked his +daughter to go the pace, unmarried and at twenty-two. She needed +friendship and advice. But the pinch came from the fact that the wealth +he could have advised her to use wisely ought to be Rose's, and that he +was resolved, in the depths of his soul, to regain that wealth for his +cousin--for that "_belle dame sans merci_" who wrote him such pretty +letters about his troubles. + +Edmund put Murray's letter in his pocket, and immediately went out. He +was living in a small, but clean, lodging in Fulham, kept by a former +housemaid and a former footman of his own, now Mr. and Mrs. Tart, kindly +souls who were proud to receive him. He gave no trouble, and the +preparation of his coffee and boiled egg was all the cooking he had done +for him. Mrs. Tart would have felt strangely upset had she known that +the said coffee and egg were, on some days, his only food till tea-time; +she was under the impression that he lunched at his club when not +engaged to friends. Both she and Mr. Tart took immense pains with his +clothes, and he would rather have been well valeted than eat luxurious +luncheons every day. + +He went out at once after getting Murray's letter, because he wanted to +call on Molly before he heard any more of the important intelligence. + +Molly was alone when he was announced. She had told the butler she was +"not at home," but somehow the man decided to show Sir Edmund up because +he saw that he wished to be shown up. Edmund had always had an odd +influence below stairs, partly because he never forgot a servant's +face. + +Molly coloured deeply when she saw her visitor. She was annoyed to think +that he would make her talk against her will--and they would not be +interrupted. She could have used strong language to the butler, but she +did not dare tell him that she would now see visitors. It would look to +Edmund as if she were afraid of a _tete-a-tete_. + +Almost as soon as he was in the room she had an impression that he was +quite at home, curiously at his ease. + +"I am glad the house is so little changed. I came to my first dance +here. You have done wonderfully well, and all on the old lines. A friend +told me it was the hugest success." + +A remembrance of past jokes as to Edmund's second-hand compliments and +his friend "Mr. Harris" came into Molly's mind, but she only felt angry +at the remembrance. + +He talked on about the pictures and the furniture until she became more +natural. It was impossible not to be interested in her work, and the +decoration and furnishing of the whole house was her own doing, not that +of any hireling adviser. Then, too, he knew its history, and she became +keenly interested. She had at times a strong feeling of the past life +still in possession of the house, into which her own strangely fated +life had intruded. She wanted, half-consciously, to know if her guilty +secret was a desecration or only a continuance of something that had +gone before. + +Suddenly she leant forward with the crude simplicity he was glad to see +again. + +"Have there been any wicked people here?" Her voice was low and young. + +"'All houses in which men have lived and died are haunted houses,'" he +quoted. "It's not very cynical to suppose that there has been sin and +sorrow here before now." + +"I think," said Molly quickly, "there was a wicked woman who used the +little dining-room; perhaps she was only a guest. I don't think she went +upstairs often." + +"Perhaps she came in with my looking-glasses," suggested Edmund. "I have +often wished I could see what they have seen." + +Molly was now quite off her guard. + +Edmund rose and examined some china on a table near him. + +"Why are you so displeased with me?" he said, without any change of +voice. + +Molly sprang to her feet, careless whether her unguarded vehemence might +betray her to his observation. + +"I shall not answer that question," she said; but he knew that she would +answer it. + +"You cut me at the Court; you were displeased at having to sit by me at +dinner; you have pretended not to see me at least four times since then, +and your butler showed me up by mistake." + +Molly had moved away from him to the window. She knew she must speak or +her conduct would look too like wounded love--a thing quite unbearable. +She knew, too, that his influence would make her speak, and, besides +that, something in her cried for the relief of speech. She needed a +fight although she did not know it; an open fight with an enemy she +could see would distract her from the incessant fight with an enemy she +did not see. + +"You are a strange man!" she cried, holding the curtain behind her +lightly as she turned towards him. "You could make friends with me so +that all the world might see you, and meanwhile, at the very same time, +you were paying a low Italian scoundrel to produce lies against my sick +and lonely mother! You could watch me and get out of me all you wanted +to know because I was ignorant of the world. You could use the horrible +influence you had gained over me by your experience of many women, to +manage me as you liked. You told me not to marry Edgar Tonmore for some +reason of your own; you told me to go and stay with my aunt; you came to +see me one night in London, and wormed out of me my relations with my +unfortunate mother. With all your knowledge of the world, with all your +experience, did you never think I might come to find you out?" + +Molly paused for a moment. She held herself erect, her white gown +crushed against the rich, dark curtain, her great eyes searching the +trees in the park below as if she sought there for the soul of her +enemy. She did not know that she pulled hard at the curtain behind her +with both hands; it could not have held out much longer, strong though +it was. + +"No; you knew life too well not to know that you might be found out, but +the truth was that you did not care. It was so little a thing to you +that, when you saw that I knew the truth, you could go on just the same, +quite unabashed. You could force yourself on me by playing on your +poverty; you, who had tried to ruin my mother! Well, she is out of your +reach, and perhaps you have shifted your foul suspicions on to me. +Perhaps it is from me you hope to get the fortune that you mean to +share. You drive me mad! I say things I don't want to say; you force me +to lower myself, but----" She turned now and faced Edmund, who watched +her, himself absolutely motionless. "Now that you have forced yourself +on me again you shall answer me. Do you believe that I, Molly Dexter, +have concealed or abetted in concealing or destroying any will in favour +of Lady Rose Bright?" + +There is a moment when passion is astonishingly inventive. Molly had had +no intention of saying anything of the kind, but the heat of passion had +produced a stroke of policy that no colder moment could have produced. +She was suddenly dumb with astonishment at her own words, and she dimly +recognised that this represented a distinct crisis in her own mind. +Passion and excitement had dissipated the last mists of self-deception. + +Edmund waited till there could be no faint suspicion of his trying to +interrupt her, and then said from his heart, in a voice she had never +heard from him before: + +"No, I swear to you I don't." + +Molly had been deeply flushed. At these words she turned very white, and +her hands let go the curtains. She put them out before her and seemed to +grope her way to a stiff, high-backed chair near to her. She sat down in +it and clasped her hands to her forehead. + +"Now you must hear me," said Edmund. "I don't say I am blameless: in +part of this I have done wrong, but not as wrong as you think. I must +tell you my story; although perhaps it may seem blacker as I tell it, +even to myself." + +He sat down and bent forward a little. + +"When I was young I fell in love with my cousin. She has been and always +will be the one woman in the world to me. She did not, does not, never +will, return my feelings. She married, and before very long I was +convinced she was not happy, although she only half realised it herself. +She is capable of stifling her powers of perception. Then David Bright +died and left her in poverty. His will was a scandal, and the horror did +not only smirch his good name, it reached to hers. I can't and won't try +to tell you what I suffered, or how I determined to fight this hideous +wrong. I went to Florence; I tried to see Madame Danterre; I engaged the +detective--all before I knew of your existence. I came back to London +and discovered that your father, John Dexter, had divorced his wife on +account of David Bright. Still I did not know anything of you. Then, +through Lady Dawning I found you out, and I made friends with Mrs. +Delaport Green in order to see more of you. Was there anything wrong in +that? You did not know your mother; you did not, presumably, care very +deeply about her. It was doubtful if you knew of her existence. Soon the +detective in Florence faded in my mind; he discovered nothing, but I +retained him in case of any change. Was I obliged, because I liked you, +to give up the cause? I never found out, I never tried to find out from +you anything that bore on the case. You must remember that I stopped you +once in the wood at Groombridge when you wanted to tell me more about +yourself, and that I again warned you when you wished to tell me about +your mother's letter to you. As to Edgar Tonmore, I knew that he was +penniless, and I thought it quite possible that you might, in the end, +be penniless too. It was for your own sake I wished you to make a richer +marriage. For I believed--I still believe--that David Bright made a last +will when going out to Africa; I believed, and still believe, that by an +accident that will was not sent to Lady Rose. I thought then that your +mother had, in some way, become possessed of the will, and I thought it +more than likely that, when dying, she would make reparation by leaving +the money where it ought to be. I meant--may I say so?--to prove myself +your friend, then, if you should allow it. I know I kept in touch with +you partly from curiosity as well as from natural attraction. But, if I +acted for the sake of another, I acted for you also. Would it have been +better or worse for you to have been friends with us if my suspicions of +your mother's conduct had proved true? But believe me, Miss Dexter, I +never for one moment could have thought of you with any taint of +suspicion. It is horrible to me to have it suggested." + +He rose as he finished speaking, and came nearer to her. + +"That you, with your youth and your innocence and your candour!--child, +the very idea is impossible. I have known men and women too well to fall +into such an absurdity. Send me away, if you like; I won't intrude my +friendship upon you, but look up now and let me see that you do not +think this gross thing of me." + +Molly raised a white face and looked into his--looked into eyes that had +not at all times and in all places been sincere, but were sincere now. A +great rush of warm feeling came over her; a great sore seemed healed, +and then she looked at him with hungry entreaty, as if a soul, shorn of +all beauty, hungry, ragged, filthy, were asking help from another. But +the moment of danger, the moment of salvation passed away. + +We confess our sins to God because He knows them already, and we ask for +forgiveness where we know we shall be forgiven. + +Indeed, Molly knew almost at once that she had gained another motive for +silence. She could not risk the loss of Edmund's good thought of her; +she cared for him too much--he had defended himself too well. + +Edmund saw that she could not speak. He left her, let himself out of the +house, and, forgetful of the fact that he could not possibly afford a +hansom, jumped into one and drove to Mr. Murray's house. + +He had recovered his usual calmness by the time he had to speak. + +"I have your note," he said, "and I came in consequence." + +"Yes," said the lawyer; "I wanted to tell you----" + +"Wait a moment. Do you think you need tell me? You see, my share in the +thing really came to an end when I could not finance it. I have several +reasons now why I should like to let it alone." + +Murray was astonished. It was Sir Edmund who had started the whole +thing, whose wild guess at the outset was becoming more and more likely +to be proved true. It was he who had spent a quantity of money over the +investigation for years past. The man of business knew how to provoke +speech by silence, and so he remained silent. + +"Does further action depend in any way on me?" asked Edmund at last, +without, however, offering the explanation the other wanted. + +"No," said Murray quite civilly, but his manner was dry. "I don't see +that it does. I think we can get on for the present." + +As he spoke the door opened, and the parlourmaid showed in a tall, +handsome woman in a nurse's dress. + +Murray looked from her to Sir Edmund. + +"I had wanted you to hear what Nurse Edith had to tell us, but after +what you have said----" + +"Yes," said Edmund; "I will leave you and I will write to you +to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS + + +Edmund Grosse was in great moral and great physical discomfort that +evening. He dined, actually for the first time, in just such an Italian +cafe as he had described to Molly. After climbing up a very narrow, +dirty staircase, the hot air heavy with smells, he had emerged into a +small back and front room holding some half-dozen tables, at each of +which four people could be seated. Through the open windows the noises +of the street below came into collision with the clatter of plates and +knives and forks. The heat was intense, the cloths were not clean, +neither were the hands of the two waiters who rushed about with a +certain litheness and facility of motion unlike any Englishman. + +Edmund sat down wearily at a table as near the window as possible, and +at which several people had been dining, perhaps well, but certainly not +tidily. + +"Hunger alone," he thought, "could make this possible," when, looking +up, he caught the face of a young man at a further table, full of +enjoyment, ordering "spargetty" and half a bottle of "grayves," with a +cockney twang, and an unutterable air of latter-day culture. + +"Mutton chops, cheese, and ale fed your forefathers," reflected Grosse. + +"What will you have, sir?" in a foreign accent. + +"Oh! anything; just what comes for the two shilling dinner--no, not +_hors d'oeuvres_; yes, soup." + +Edmund had turned with ill-restrained disgust from the sardines, +tomatoes, and other oily horrors. But there was no denying the qualities +of the soup: the most experienced and cultivated palate and stomach must +be soothed by it, and in a moment of greater cheerfulness Edmund turned +his attention to three young men close to him who were talking French. +Their hands were clean and their collars, but poverty was writ large on +their spare faces and well-brushed clothes. One was olive-complexioned, +one quite fair, but with olive tints in the shadows round the eyes, and +the third grey, old, and purple-cheeked from shaving. They ate little, +but they talked much. The talked of literature and art with fierce +dogmatism, and they seemed frequently on the verge of a quarrel, but the +storm each time sank quite suddenly without the least consciousness of +the danger passed. They looked at the food as critics, and acknowledged +it to be eatable, with the faint air of an exile's sadness. + +Edmund wished to think that he was amused by their talk, but the +distraction did not last. His thoughts would have their way, and he was +soon trying to defend his defence of himself to Molly. All he said had +seemed so obviously true as the words poured out, but there had been +fatal reservations. He had spoken as if all suspicions, all proceedings +as to discovering the will were past. He had felt he had no right to +give away secrets that were not his own. But had he not produced a false +impression? What would Molly have thought of him as he passionately +rejected the notion of suspecting her if she had seen the letter from +Murray in his pocket? It was true that he no longer financed any of the +proceedings against her, but they had all been set on foot by him. He +was in the plot that was thickening, and he had won the confidence of +the victim! He had no doubt that Molly was innocent, and he was ashamed +of the pitiful confidence he had read in her eyes when he left her. But +he still believed that her mother had been guilty, and that Molly's +wealth was the result of that guilt. It was true that he wanted to be +her friend, but it was also true that he would rejoice if Rose came into +her own and the gross injustice were righted. But, after all, what +absolute evidence had they got, as yet, as to the contents of this last +will, or what proof even of its existence? He felt almost glad for the +fraction of a moment that Molly might remain the gorgeous mistress of +the old house in Park Lane uninjured by anything he had done against +her. "How absurd," he thought, "how drivelling! The fact is that girl +impressed me enough to-day, to make me see myself from her point of +view, or what would be her point of view if she knew all!" + +He refused coffee--the cab fare had prevented that. He quite emptied his +pocket, gave the waiter sixpence, and, rising, strolled across the floor +of the small room exactly the same man to the outward eye he had been +for years past. But before he reached the door he caught the glance of a +little, round, elderly woman at a table close to him, and he stopped. +She had a faded, showy bonnet, and she carried her worn clothes with an +air. He recognised the companion and friend of a famous prima donna +whom he had not seen for years. + +"You've forgotten me, but I've not forgotten you." + +It was a cherry, Irish voice. + +"I get coffee and a roll, and you have the _diner a prix fixe_. And you +have given me a champagne supper in your day! Well! and how are you?" + +"Nicely, thank you, Miss O'Meara; you see I have not forgotten!" Then in +a lower voice, "But I thought the Signora left you money?" + +"She did, bless her; but it was here one day and gone the next! +Good-night, and good luck to you," she laughed. + +The little duenna of a dead genius evidently did not want him to stay, +and he felt his way down the pitch dark stairs, and emerged on the +street. A very small, brown hand was held out for a penny, and for the +first time in his life he refused a street beggar with real regret. + +"'Here one moment, and gone the next,'" he muttered, looking down the +brilliantly lighted street to where the motors, carriages, and cabs +crowded round the doors of a great theatre. "It's the history of the +whole show in a nutshell." + + +If Sir Edmund was troubled at the thought that Molly believed in him, +Molly was infinitely more troubled at his belief in her. + +After he left her she went to her room. She had to dine out and she must +get some rest first. As in most of the late eighteenth century houses in +London, the bedrooms had been sacrificed to the rooms below. But Molly +had the one very large room that looked over the park. She threw +herself down on a wide sofa close to the silk-curtained bed. The sun +glinted still on the silver backs of the brushes and teased her eyes, +and she got up and drew down the blinds. The dressing-table was large +and its glass top was covered with a great weight of old gilt bottles +and boxes. + +Miss Carew had once been amused by the comment of a young manicurist +who, after expressing enthusiastic admiration of the table, had +concluded with the words: + +"But what I often say to myself is that it's only so much more to leave +in the end." + +But Molly had not laughed when the words were repeated; they gave +expression to a feeling with which she sometimes looked at many things +besides her dressing-table--they might all prove only so much more to +leave in the end! + +She sank exhausted again onto the sofa. Why had he come? Why could he +not leave her alone? Did she want his friendship, his pity, his +confidence? Why look at her so kindly when he must know how he hurt her? +She had felt such joy when she saw that he believed in her. The idea +that she was still innocent and unblemished in his eyes was just for the +moment an unutterable relief. An unutterable relief, too, it had felt at +the moment, to be able to accept his defence of himself. That he was +still lovable, and that he had no dark thoughts of her, had been such +joy, but only a passing joy. Had he not told her in horribly plain +speech that he loved Lady Rose, and would love her to the end? All this, +which was so vital to Molly, was but an episode in a friendship that was +a detail in his life! + +But now, alone, trying to see clearly through the confusion, how +unbearable it had been to hear him say, "That you with your youth and +your innocence and your candour...." He had thought it too horrible to +suspect her, and by that confidence he made her load of guilt almost +unendurable. + +She could not go on like this, could not live like this. The silence was +far more unbearable now that a human voice had broken into it, a voice +she loved repudiating with indignant scorn the possibility of suspecting +her! She must go somewhere, she must speak to some one. But at this +moment it was also evident that she must dress for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE RELIEF OF SPEECH + + +There is quite commonly a peculiar glow of sunshine just before a storm, +a brightness so obviously unreliable that we are torn between enjoyment +and anxiety. I have known no greater revelation of Nature's glories, +even in a sunset hour, than in one of these moments of glow before the +darkness of storm. And in a man's life there is sometimes an episode so +bright, so full of promise, that we feel its perfection to be the +measure of its instability. + +Such a moment had come to Mark Molyneux. The time of depression and +trial, the time when a vague sense of danger and a vague sense of +aspiration had made him turn his eyes towards the cloister, had ended in +his taking his work more and more earnestly and becoming surprisingly +successful in his dealings with both rich and poor. + +It seemed during the past winter that Mark would carry all before him; +he had come into close contact with the poor, and in the circle in which +his personal influence could be felt there was a real movement of +religious earnestness and moral reform. There was a noticeable glow of +zeal in the other curates and in the parish workers, who, with one or +two exceptions, were enthusiastic in their devotion to him personally +and to his notions of work. Even after Easter several of the +recently-cured drunkards were persevering, and other notoriously bad +characters seemed determined to show that the first shoots of their +awakened moral life were not merely what gardeners call "flowering +shoots," but steady growths giving promise of sound wood. + +Mark's sermons were becoming more and more the rage, and people were +heard to say that he was the only Catholic preacher in London, excepting +perhaps one or two Jesuit Fathers; while he had also the tribute of +attention from the press, which he particularly disliked. + +Meanwhile, the old rector was still gruff and still proffered snubs +which were gratefully received, for Mark was genuinely anxious not to be +misled by the atmosphere of praise and affection in which he was living. + +Nothing warned him of impending danger (to use a phrase of old-fashioned +romance) when he was told that Miss Dexter was asking to see him. He had +not seen her for a long time, and was quite glad that she should come. + +He looked young, eager, and happy as he came quickly into the parlour, +but after a few minutes the simple warmth of his manner changed into a +more negative politeness. There was something so gorgeous in Molly's +appearance, and so very strange in her face, that even a man who had +seen less of the world than is obtained in a year on the mission in +London, could not fail to be somewhat puzzled. + +Molly hardly spoke for some moments, and silence was apparently +inevitable. Then she burst out, without preparation, in a wild, +incoherent way, with her whole life's story. The story of a child +deserted by her mother, neglected by her father, taken from the ayah who +was the only person who had ever loved her, and sent like a parcel to +the care of a hard and selfish aunt who was ashamed of her. It might +have been horribly pathetic only that it was impossible that so much +egotism and bitterness should not choke the sympathy of the listener. +But as the story came to Molly's twenty-first year, the strange, bitter +self-defence (she had not yet explained why she should defend herself at +all to Father Molyneux), all the unpleasing moral side of the story +became merged in the sense of its dramatic qualities. + +Molly had never told it to anyone before now, and, indeed, she had not +realised several features of the case until quite lately. She told well +the disillusion as to her mother, her own single-handed fight with life, +the double sense of shame as to her mother's past, and her own ambiguous +position. She told him how she felt at first meeting Rose Bright, of her +own sense of sailing under false colours, and she actually explained, in +her strange pleading for a favourable judgment, how everything that +happened had naturally hardened her heart and made her feel as if she +had been born an outcast. Lastly, she told how Sir Edmund Grosse had +pursued her mother with detectives, and, as she had for a time believed, +had pursued herself with the hypocritical appearance of friendship. She +had been wrong, it seemed now, in judging him so harshly, but it had +hurt terribly at the time. + +Through all this Mark was struggling against the repulsion that +threatened to drown the sympathy he wanted to give her. But he had, +naturally, not the faintest suspicion as to what was coming or that +Molly was confiding in him a story of her own wrong-doing. He was +absolutely confounded when she went on, still in the tone of passionate +self-defence, to tell how she had found the will leaving the whole of +Sir David's fortune to Lady Rose. He simply stared at Molly when she +said: + +"Who could suppose for a single moment that I should be obliged, on +account of a scrap of paper which was evidently sent to my mother for +her to dispose of as she liked, to become a pauper and to give a fortune +to Lady Rose Bright?" + +But although he was too astounded for speech, and his face showed +strange, stern lines, it was now that there awoke in his heart the +passionate longing to help her; he saw now her whole story in the most +pathetic light, from the little child deserted by her mother, to the +woman scorned and suffering, left by the same mother in such a gruesome +temptation. The greatness of the sin provoked the passionate longing to +save her. The man who had given up Groombridge Castle and all it +entailed had not one harsh thought for the woman who had fallen into +crime to avoid the poverty he had chosen for his own portion. + +"It's a hard, hard case," he murmured, to Molly's surprise. + +She had been so occupied in her own outpouring that she had hardly +thought of him at first, except as a human outlet for her story made +safe by the fact that he was a priest. But when he had betrayed his +silent but most eloquent amazement, she had suddenly realised what the +effect of her confidences might be on such a man, and half expected +anathemas to thunder over her head. + +Then he tried to find out whether there was any kind of hope that the +will had, in fact, been sent to her mother to be at her disposal. But +suddenly Molly, who had herself suggested this idea, rent it to pieces +and brought out the whole case against her mother (and, consequently, +against herself) with a fierce logic of attack. + +This was more like the Molly whom he had known before, and Mark felt the +atmosphere a little clearer. Having left not the faintest shadow of a +defence for her own action, she suddenly became silent. After some +moments she leant forward. + +"Do you know," she said, in a tone so low that he only just caught the +words, "I see now what must have happened. It is strange that I never +thought of it before. I see it now quite clearly. Of course the will and +the letter were wrongly addressed, and probably some letter to my mother +was sent to Lady Rose." + +"That does not follow," said Father Molyneux. + +"But it's not unlikely," argued Molly. "It is more probable that the two +letters should be put into the wrong envelopes than that one should be +addressed to the wrong person. It's a mistake that is made every day, +only the results are usually of less consequence. It must have been +curious reading for my mother--that letter about herself to Lady Rose +Bright." + +"It is so difficult," said Mark, feeling his way cautiously, "to be sure +of not acting on fancied facts when there are so few to go upon. Do you +suppose that the detective in Florence had any definite plan of action +given to him by his employer? For just supposing that your guess is +right, they may have got some clue to what happened in the letter that +was sent by mistake to Lady Rose. Have you no notion at all whether +they may not now have got some evidence to prove that there was another +will?" + +Molly shook her head. + +"Do you think," she said, "they would have been quiet all this time if +there had been any real evidence at all? It is three years since Sir +David died, and six months since my mother died." + +She did not notice how Mark started at this information. Had Miss +Dexter, then, been in possession of this letter to Lady Rose and the +last will for six months? + +"You were not sent these papers at once?" he ventured to ask. + +"Yes; Dr. Larrone, who attended my mother, brought them to me. He left +Florence two hours after she died." + +Another silence followed. + +"It seems to me that a great deal might be done by a private +arrangement. Probably their case is not strong enough, or likely to be +strong enough, for them to push it through. It should be arranged that +you should receive the L1000 a year that Sir David intended to give your +mother." + +Molly laughed scornfully. + +"I'd rather beg my bread than be their pensioner. No, no; you entirely +mistake the situation. I shall have no dealings with them at all--no +nonsense about arbitration or private arrangements. I won't give them +any opportunity of feeling generous. It must"--she spoke very slowly and +looked at him fiercely--"with me it must be all or nothing, and"--she +got up suddenly and began smoothing her gloves over her wrists--"and as +I don't choose to starve it must be all. But if I can't go through with +it (which is quite possible) I shall throw up the sponge and get out of +this world as quickly as possible." + +"If you have made up your mind," said Mark sternly, "to defy God, in +Whom I know that you believe, to defy the laws of man, whose punishment +_may_ come, whereas His punishment must come, why have you told me all +this?" + +"I had to tell some one; I was suffocating. You don't know"--she stood +looking out of the window a strange expression of hunger and loneliness +succeeding the fierceness of a few moments before--"you don't know what +it is to have in your own mind a long, long story about yourself that +has never been told. To have been lonely and hardly treated and deceived +and spurned, and never to have put your own case to any one human being! +To have cried from childhood till twenty-two, knowing that nobody really +cared! There comes a time when you would rather say the worst of +yourself than keep silence. To accuse yourself is the natural thing; +silence is the unnatural thing." + +"Good God!" said Mark, rising, "don't stop there. If you must accuse +yourself, pass judgment also. Class yourself where you have chosen with +your eyes open to stand. Would you allow any amount of provocation and +unhappiness to excuse a systematic fraud? Do you think that the thief +brought up to sin has less or more excuse than you have? Are you the +only person who has known a lonely childhood? Can you tell me here in +this room that God never showed you what love really is? He has never +left you alone, and you wish in vain now that He would leave you alone. +For your present life is so unbearable that you feel that you may +choose death rather than go on with it." + +"I shall pay heavily for the relief of speech if I am to have a sermon +preached all to myself," said Molly insolently. "I was speaking of the +need of human love; I was speaking of all I had suffered, and it is easy +for you to retort upon me that I might have had Divine Love only that I +chose to reject it. Tell me, were you brought up without a mother's +love?" + +"No; I had--I have a mother who loves me almost too much." + +"Have you known real loneliness?" + +"I believe every man and woman has known that the soul is alone." + +Molly shook her head. + +"That is a mood; mine was a permanent state. Have you ever known what it +is to see God's will on one side, and all possibilities of human +happiness, glory, success, and pleasure, opposed to it?" + +The young man blushed deeply. + +"Yes, I have." + +Molly was checked. + +"I forgot," she answered; "but still you don't understand. You were an +intimate friend of God when He asked you for the sacrifice, whereas I--I +had only an inkling, a suspicion of that Love. Besides, you were not +asked to give all your possessions to your enemies! No; too much has +been asked of me." + +"Can too much be asked where all has been given?" asked Father Molyneux. + +"That is an old point for a sermon," said Molly wearily. "You don't +understand; you are of no use to me. Good-bye! I don't think I shall +come again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER + + +After that visit to Father Molyneux the devil seems to have entered into +Molly. It was a devil of fear and, consequently, of cruelty. What she +did to harm him was at first unpremeditated, and it must be allowed that +she had not at the moment the means of knowing how fearful a harm such +words as hers could do. She said them too when terror had driven her to +any distraction, and when wine had further excited her imagination. +Still it would not be surprising to find that many who might have +forgiven her for a long, protracted fraud, would blot her out of their +own private book of life for the mean cruelty of one sentence. + +Not many hours had passed after the visit before Molly was furious with +herself for her consummate folly in giving herself away to the young +priest, who might even think it a duty to reveal what she said. + +She had once told Mark that she might soon come to hate him, as hatred +came most easily to her. There was now quite cause enough for this +hatred to come into being. Molly had two chief reasons for it. First, +she was in his power to a dangerous extent and he might ruin her if he +chose; secondly, she was afraid of his influence--chiefly of the +influence of his prayers--and she dreaded still more that he should +persuade her to ruin herself. + +One evening Molly had been with Mrs. Delaport Green and two young men to +a play. It was a play that represented a kind of female "Raffles"--a +thief in the highest ranks of society, and the lady Raffles had black +hair. The lady stole diamonds, and fascinated detectives, and even +beguiled the ruffianly burglar who had wanted the diamonds for himself. +It was a far-fetched comparison indeed, but it worried and excited Molly +to the last degree. They went back to supper at Miss Dexter's house, and +there one more lady and another man joined them. They sat at a gorgeous +little supper at a round table in the small dining-room, Mrs. Delaport +Green opposite Molly, and Lady Sophia Snaggs, a spirited, cheery +Irishwoman, separated from the hostess by Billy, with whom the latter +had always, in the past weeks, been ready to discuss the poverty and the +failings of Sir Edmund Grosse. Of the other two men, one was elderly, +bald, greedy, fat and witty, and the other was a soldier, spare, red and +rather silent but extremely popular for some happy combination of +qualities and excellent manners. It would seem hardly worth while to say +even this little about them, only that it proved of some importance that +the few people who heard Molly's words that night, and certainly +repeated them afterwards, had unfortunately rather different and rather +wide opportunities of making them known. + +The Florentine looking-glasses that once belonged to Sir Edmund Grosse, +with their wondrous wreaths of painted flowers, looked down from three +sides of the room and reflected the pretty women and their gowns, the +old silver, the rare glass, and the flowers. They were probably +refreshed by the exquisite taste of the little banquet that might recall +the first reflection of their youth. Morally there was a rift within the +lute among the guests, for Molly betrayed that Adela had got on her +nerves. Lady Sophia Snaggs poured easy conversation on the troubled +waters, but at last the catastrophe could not be averted. + +At a moment when the others were silent Adela was talking. + +"Yes; I went to hear him preach, and it is so beautiful, you know. +Crowds; the church was packed, and many people cried. You _should_ go. +And then one feels how real it is for him to preach against the world, +because he gave up so much." + +Molly drained her glass of champagne and leant across. + +"Whom are you talking about?" + +"Father Molyneux." + +"I thought so." + +"Have you heard him preach?" asked Lady Sophy. + +"I used to, but I never go now." She again leant forward and spoke this +time with unconcealed irritation. "Adela, I don't go now because I know +too much about him." + +There was immediate sensation. + +Molly slowly lit a cigarette. Even then she did not know what she was +going to say, but she had determined on the spur of the moment, and +chiefly from sheer terror, to put Mark out of court if she possibly +could. + +"He is a humbug," she proclaimed in her low, incisive tone. + +"Oh! come now," said Billy. "A man who gave up +Groombridge--extraordinary silly thing to do, but he is not a humbug!" + +Molly turned on him. + +"Yes, he is. He knows he made a great mistake and he would undo it if he +could." + +"Molly, it can't be true!" cried Adela almost tearfully. "If you had +only heard him preach last Sunday you couldn't say such hasty, unkind, +horrid things!" + +"It is true," said Molly. + +"Our hostess is pleased to be mysterious," said the fat man, and "you +know," turning to Mrs. Delaport Green, "it's very likely that he is +sorry he made such a sacrifice, but I don't think that prevents its +having been a noble action at the time." + +"Or makes him a humbug now," said the soldier. "I believe he is an +uncommonly nice fellow." + +"Oh! she means something else," said Lady Sophia, looking at Molly with +curiosity. "What is it you have against him?" + +Molly felt the table to be against her, and it added to her nervous +irritability. She was not in any sense drunk, and the drugs she took +were in safe doses at present; yet she was to a certain degree +influenced both by the champagne she had just taken, and the injection +she had given herself when she came in from the theatre. + +"You will none of you repeat what I am going to say?" + +"I probably shall," said the big guest, "unless it is excessively +interesting; otherwise I never remember what is a secret and what +isn't." + +But Molly did not heed him. + +"Well," she said, "it is a fact that Father Molyneux would give up the +Roman Church to-morrow if a very intimate friend of mine, who could +give him as much wealth as he has lost, would agree to marry him after +he ceased to be a priest!" + +"Oh! how dreadfully disappointing!" cried Adela. + +"Why shouldn't he?" said Billy. + +"It seems a come-down," said the fat man; and the soldier said nothing. + +"Stuff and nonsense," said Lady Sophia firmly. "Somebody has been +humbugging you, Molly." + +But being a lady who liked peace better than warfare, she now went on to +say that she had had no notion how late it was until this moment, and +that she really must be off. Her farewell was quite friendly, but +Molly's was cold. + +The departure of Lady Sophia made a welcome break, and, in spite of the +hostess being silent and out of temper, the men managed to divert the +conversation into less serious topics. But they were not likely to +forget what Molly had impressed upon their minds by the strange +vehemence with which she had emphasised her accusations. + +"She meant herself, I suppose?" asked Billy, when leaving the house with +his stout fellow guest. "Do you believe it?" + +"It was very curious, very curious indeed. Do you know I rather doubt if +she wholly and entirely believed it herself." + +Billy was puzzled for a moment, thinking that some difficult mental +problem had been offered for his digestion. + +"Oh, I see," he said, as he opened his own door with his latch-key. "He +only meant that she was telling a lie; I suspect he is right too." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE NURSING OF A SLANDER + + +Meanwhile, in shadowy corners of Westmoreland House, Miss Carew lived a +monotonous but anxious life. For days together she hardly saw Molly, and +then perhaps she would be called into the big bed-room for a long talk, +or rather, to listen to a long monologue in which Molly gave vent to +views and feelings on men and things. + +Molly's cynicism was increasing constantly, and she now hardly ever +allowed that anybody did anything for a good motive. She had moods in +which she poured scandal into Miss Carew's half excited and curious +mind, piling on her account of the wickedness and the baseness of the +people she knew intimately, of the sharks who pursued her money, and, +most of all, she showered her scorn on the men who wanted to marry her. + +Listening to her Miss Carew almost believed that all the men Molly met +were _divorces_, or notoriously lived bad lives, and hardly veiled their +intention to continue to do the same after obtaining her hand and her +money. + +Molly would lie on a sofa, in a gorgeous kind of _deshabille_ which cost +almost as much as Miss Carew spent on her clothes in the whole year, and +apparently take delight in scaring her by these hideous revelations. +She was so strange in her wild kind of eloquence, and it was so +impossible to believe all she said, that the doubt more than once +occurred to Miss Carew whether it might be a case of the use of drugs. +The extraordinary personal indulgence of luxury was unlike anything the +older woman had ever come across. Then there was no system, nothing +business-like about Molly as there often is in women of the modern +world. Miss Carew dimly suspected that any society of human beings +expects some self-discipline, and some sacrifice to ordinary rules. As +it was she wondered how long Molly's neglect of small duties and her +frequent insolence would be condoned. + +All this, which had been coming on gradually, was positively nauseous to +the middle-aged Englishwoman whose nerves were suffering from the +strain, and she came to feel that it would be impossible to endure it +much longer. It would be easier to drudge and trudge with girls in the +schoolroom for a smaller salary than to endure life with Molly if she +were to develop further this kind of temper. + +For months now Miss Carew had lived under a great strain. From the +evening when she had found Molly sitting on the floor with the tin box +open before her, and old, yellow letters lying on the ground about it, +she had been almost constantly uneasy. She could not forget the sight of +Molly crouching like a tramp in the midst of the warm, comfortable room, +biting her right hand in a horrible physical convulsion. It was of no +use to try to think that Molly's condition that night was entirely the +result of illness, or that the loss of her unknown mother had upset her +to that degree or at all in that way. The character of Molly's mental +state was quite, quite different from the qualities that come of grief +or sickness. Then had followed the very anxious nursing, during which +all other thoughts had been swallowed up in immediate anxiety and +responsibility. + +During Molly's convalescence, in the quiet days by the sea-side, Miss +Carew began to reflect on a kind of coherent unity in the delirious talk +she had listened to during the worst days of the illness. And she also +noticed that Molly, by furtive little jokes and sudden, irrelevant +questions, was trying to find out what Miss Carew had heard her say. +Then it became evident that Molly attributed all the excitement of that +night to her subsequent illness--only once, and that very calmly, +alluding to the fact of her mother's death. + +Miss Carew had no wish to penetrate the mystery of the black box and the +faded letters. She had a sort of instinctive horror of the subject, but +she could not but watch the fate of the box when they came back to the +flat. Molly paid no attention to it whatever, and said in a natural +tone: + +"I shall send my father's dispatch box and sword-case and my own +dispatch boxes in a cab. Would you mind taking them and having them put +in the little room next to my bed-room?" + +But in the end Molly had taken them herself, as she thought Miss Carew +had a slight cold. Miss Carew always had a certain dislike to the door +of the little room next to Molly's, which had evidently been once used +for a powder closet. She did not even know if the door were locked or +not, and she never touched the handle. She had an uncanny horror of +passing the door, at least so she said afterwards; probably in +retrospect she came to exaggerate her feelings as to these things. + +She was puzzled and confused: her health was not good, and her faculties +were dimmed. It was probably the strain of living with Molly whom she +could no longer control or guide, and who was so evidently in dire need +of some one to do both. She felt dreadfully burdened with +responsibility, both as to the things she did understand and the things +she did not understand. What she could not understand was a sense of +moral darkness, like a great, looming grey cloud, sometimes simply dark +and heavy, and at other times a cloud electric with coming danger. She +felt as if burdened with a secret which she longed to impart, only that +she did not know what it was. At times it was as if she carried some +monstrous thing on her back, whilst she could only see its dark, +shapeless shadow. Her self-confidence was going, and her culture was so +useless. What good was it to her now to know really well the writings of +Burke, or Macaulay--nay, of Racine and Pascal? She had never been +religious since her childhood, but in these long, solitary days in the +great house that grew more and more gloomy as she passed about it when +Molly was out, she began to feel new needs and to seek for old helps. + +Molly was sometimes struck by the change in her companion. Miss Carew +seemed to have grown so futile, so incoherent and funny, unlike the Miss +Carew who had been her finishing governess not many years ago. + +The sight of Carey's troubled, mottled face began to irritate Molly to +an unbearable degree. + +"Why not have a treatment for eczema and have done with it? You used to +have quite a clear skin," she cried, in brutal irritation one morning. + +"Oh! it's nerves--merely nerves," said poor Miss Carew apologetically. + +"Then have a treatment for nerves," cried Molly furiously. "It is too +ridiculous to have blotches on your face because I have a bad temper!" + +It was the night after the little supper party at which the slander was +born that Molly said this rude thing, and then abruptly left the +drawing-room to join a hairdresser who was waiting upstairs. Almost +immediately afterwards Adela Delaport Green was standing over the stiff +chair on which Miss Carew was sitting, very limp in figure, and holding +a damp handkerchief to her face. + +"How d'ye do? They told me Molly was here," she said in a disappointed +voice, and her eyes ranged round the room with the alertness of a +sportswoman. + +Adela had come with a purpose; she had come there to right the wrong and +to force Molly to tell the truth. + +"She was here a moment ago. She has just gone up to the hairdresser," +said Miss Carew as she got up, quickly restoring the damp handkerchief +to her pocket and composing her countenance, not without a certain +dignity. She liked Adela, who was always friendly and civil whenever +they met. + +That little lady threw herself pettishly into a deep chair. + +"So tiresome when I haven't a minute to spare, and I suppose he will +keep her nearly an hour?" + +"Can I take a message?" + +"Oh! no, thanks, dear Miss Carew, don't go up all those horrid steep +steps. Do rest and entertain me a little. I am sure you feel these hot +days terribly." + +"I find it very cool and quiet here," said Miss Carew, a little sadly. + +"I'm afraid it's lonely," cried Adela. + +"Well! I oughtn't to grumble about that." + +"No, you never do grumble, I know; but I feel sometimes that you must be +tired and anxious, placed, as you are, as the only thing instead of a +mother to poor, dear Molly!" + +The fierce, quick envy betrayed in that "poor, dear Molly" did not reach +Miss Carew's brain, and a little sympathy was very soothing. + +"Now, could any fortune stand this sort of thing?" asked Adela. + +The companion shook her head sadly, but would not speak. + +"You know that she has bought Sir Edmund Grosse's old yacht? And that +she is taking one of the best deer forests in the Highlands? And is it +true that she is thinking of buying Portlands?" + +"Oh, yes!" sighed Miss Carew. "There is some new scheme every day." + +"She has everything the world can give," said Adela sharply. "But, you +know," she went on, "people won't go on standing her manners as they do +now, even if she can pay her amazing way! Do you know that her cousin, +Lady Dawning, declares she won't have anything more to do with her? Not +that that matters very much; old Lady Dawning hardly counts, now that +Molly has really great people as her friends, only little leaks let in +the water by degrees." + +A pause, and then suddenly: + +"Do you know Father Molyneux?" + +"Yes," said Miss Carew, who was glad to change the subject. "He is very +charming." + +"I didn't know he was a friend of Molly's." + +"Oh! didn't you? She took a great fancy to him last autumn; he used to +come to luncheon." + +"Did he come often?" + +"Oh! I think so, but I don't remember exactly." + +"And has he been coming here lately?" + +"I really don't know. I have my meals by myself now; the hours were so +irregular, and I am too old and dull for Molly's friends. I know she +went to see him a few days ago, and she came back looking agitated. I +was rather glad--I thought it would be good for her, but I fear it was +not. She has been more excited, I think, these two or three days. Her +nerves are really quite overwrought; she allows herself no quiet. Yes; +she was very much excited after seeing Father Molyneux." + +Miss Carew was talking more to herself than to Adela. + +"I thought perhaps he had pressed her to become a Roman Catholic; +certainly he upset her in some way." + +Adela's small eyes were like sharp points as she looked at the older +woman. + +Then was it really true? Oh! no; surely not. But then, what else could +he have said to upset Molly? + +At that moment Molly's maid came into the room. + +"Miss Dexter has only just heard that you were here, madam. She is very +sorry you have been waiting. She wished me to say that she is obliged to +go immediately to a sale at Christie's, and would you be able to go with +her?" + +Adela declined, perceiving that Molly was in no mind for a private talk, +and having parted affectionately from Miss Carew, went her way to have +a chat with Lady Dawning. + +In the afternoon she met several of her Roman Catholic acquaintances at +a charity performance in a well-known garden, and she pumped all those +she could decoy in turn into a _tete-a-tete_ as to Father Molyneux. She +was in reality devoured with the wish to know the truth. She had her own +thin but genuine share of ideality, and she had been more impressed by +Mark's renouncement of Groombridge Castle than by anything she had met +with before. + +But gradually, as she hunted the story, she gave him up, not because of +any evidence of any kind, but because she did not find him regarded as +anything very wonderful. She had need of the enthusiasms of others to +make an atmosphere for her own ideals, and almost by chance she had not +met anyone much interested in the young preacher. Then she had dim +backwaters of anti-Popery in her mind, and they helped the reaction. She +had come out, lance in rest, to defend the victim of calumny; in a very +few days she had thrown him over, and was explaining pathetically to +anybody who would listen that she had had a shock to her faith in +humanity. And the story, starting by describing her own state of mind +and being almost entirely subjective, ended in bringing home to her +listeners with peculiar force the objective facts as asserted by Molly. +Catholics, she found, when she came to this advanced state of +propagation, were aghast at her story. They did not believe it, but they +were excessively annoyed, and were, for the most part, inclined to think +that Mark could not have been entirely prudent. But non-Catholics were, +naturally, more credulous. + +A calumny is a quick and gross feeder. It has a thousand different ways +of assimilating things "light as air," or things dull from the ennui +which produced them, or things prickly with envy, or slushy, green +things born of unconscious jealousy, or unpleasant things born of false +pieties, or hard views born of tired experience, or worldly products of +incredulity, or directly evil suggestions, or the repulsions of satiated +sensuality, or the bitter fruits of melancholia, or the foreshadowings +of insanity, or the mere dislike of the lower moralities for the higher, +or the uneasiness felt by the ordinary in the presence of the rare, or +the revolt felt by the conventional against holier bonds, or the prattle +of curiosity, or the roughness of mere vitality, or the fusion of minds +at a low level. + +This particular calumny was well watered and manured with all these +by-products of human life, and it grew to full size and height with a +rapidity that could not have been attained under less favourable +conditions. + + + + +BOOK IV + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +ROSE SUMMONED TO LONDON + + +Rose was back in London the second week in July, summoned back rather +imperiously by Mr. Murray, Junior. The house had been shut up since the +departure of her tenants at Whitsuntide, and she had hoped not to reopen +it until the autumn. She had intended to go directly to her mother's +home in the country as soon as they could leave Paris. It was becoming a +question whether it would be a greater risk for Lady Charlton to endure +the heat in Paris or the fatigues of the long journey. Mr. Murray's +letter decided them to move. Rose must go, and her mother would not stay +behind alone. Lady Charlton decided to pay a month's visit to her +youngest daughter in Scotland, as Rose might be kept in London. + +It was a disappointment. The house in London would be nearly as stuffy +as Paris. Rose disliked the season and was in no mood for the stale +echoes of its dying excitements. She would not tell her friends that she +was back; she would keep as quiet as she had been in Paris. + +The first morning, after early service and breakfast, she went to the +library to wait for the lawyer's visit. It was the only room in which +to receive him; the dining-room, and drawing-room, and the little +boudoir upstairs, were not opened. Rose was inclined to leave them as +they were, with the furniture in brown wrappers, for the present; but +she would rather have seen Mr. Murray in any room but the library. + +The morning sun was full on the windows that opened to the rather dreary +garden at the back. She wondered why Mr. Murray had written so urgently, +and why Edmund Grosse had not written for several weeks. Up to now they +had done all this horrid business between them, and she had only had +occasional reports from her cousin. Now she must face the subject with +the lawyer himself. She was puzzled to account for the change in the +situation. + +At the exact moment he had mentioned, Mr. Murray's tall person with its +heavy, bent head appeared in the library. As they greeted they were both +conscious that it was in this same room, seated at the wide +writing-table still in the same place, and still bearing the large +photograph of Sir David Bright, where he had first told her of the +strange dispositions of her husband's will. He remembered vividly her +look then--undaunted and confident--as she had gently but firmly +asserted that there must be another will. But had she not also said it +would never be found? + +But the present occupied the lawyer much more than the past. He was +eager and a little triumphant in his story of the progress of the case, +and did not notice that the sweet face opposite to him became more and +more white as he went on. He told her all he had told Sir Edmund when he +first got back from the yacht; he told of the mysterious visit he had +received from Dr. Larrone, and how he could prove from the letters of +the Florentine detective that Madame Danterre had sent the doctor to +England to take a certain small, black box to Miss Dexter. + +Then he paused. + +"I told Sir Edmund how our Florentine detective, Pietrino, had made +friends with one of the nurses, and that she described Madame Danterre +ordering the box to be opened and having a seizure--a heart +attack--while the letters were spread out on her bed. Nurse Edith said +then that she had put them back in a hurry and locked the box, and that +it had not been reopened by Madame Danterre. Some weeks later when she +was near her end, Madame Danterre had a scene with Dr. Larrone which +ended in his consenting to take the box to London as soon as she was +dead, but the nurse was sure that the doctor was told nothing as to the +contents of the box. That was as much as we knew up to Easter, and while +waiting for the arrival of Akers, and Stock, the other private who had +witnessed the signature. They got here in Easter week, and I saw them +with Sir Edmund, and we both cross-questioned them closely. Akers's +evidence is beyond suspicion, and is perfectly supported by that of +Stock. He described all that happened at the witnessing of the General's +signature most circumstantially, but, of course, he knew nothing of the +contents of the paper. But now I have more important evidence than any +we have had so far, and the extraordinary thing is that Sir Edmund does +not wish to hear it. I cannot understand why!" + +Rose remained silent. She was looking fixedly at a paper-knife which she +held in her hand. + +It suddenly struck the lawyer as a flash of most embarrassing light +that possibly there was some complication of a dangerous and tender kind +between Sir Edmund and his cousin. He could not dwell on such a notion +now--it might be absolute nonsense, but it made him go on hastily: + +"I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she +knows much more than she would allow to him. I think she was waiting to +see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would +not fall into the risk of buying evidence. He waited; she was watched +until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours +before she came to me. She declares now that, as she was gathering up +the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been +reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one +called Rose. She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief. +She slipped it into her pocket when she put the rest away. I believe it +was naughty curiosity, but she wishes us to think that she knew the +whole scandal about the General's will, and did what she did from a +sense of justice. When off duty she took the paper to her room, and when +she opened it she found the will inside it. In her excitement she called +the housemaid, an Englishwoman with whom she had made friends, and she +copied the will while they were together, and the names of Akers and +Stock--of whom she could not possibly have heard--are in her copy. I +have seen that copy, Lady Rose, and----" He paused and glanced at her +for a moment, and then his eyes sought the trees in the garden even as +they had done when he had made that other and awful announcement on the +day of the memorial service to Sir David. Rose flushed a little, and +her breathing came quickly, but she made no sign of impatience. + +"Sir David left the whole of his fortune to you subject to an annual +payment of a thousand a-year to Madame Danterre during her lifetime." + +Complete silence followed. Lady Rose either could not or would not +speak. Out of the pale, distinguished slightly worn face the eyes looked +at Mr. Murray with no surprise. Had she not always said that she did not +believe the iniquitous will Mr. Murray had brought her to be the true +one, but had she not also maintained that the true will would never be +found? She did not say so to Mr. Murray, but in fact she shrank from +making too sure of Nurse Edith's evidence. She had so long forbidden +herself to believe in the return of worldly fortune or to wish for it. + +Mr. Murray coughed. No words of congratulation seemed available. At last +he went on: + +"Nurse Edith says she did not read the letter which was with the will. +Directly she went on duty in the morning, and while Madame Danterre was +asleep she put the papers back in the black box and the key of the box +in its usual place in a little bag on a table standing close by the head +of the bed. It was, as I have said, this same box which was put into Dr. +Larrone's care before he started on his mysterious journey to see Miss +Dexter. Now our position is very strong. We have evidence of the +witnessing of a paper by two men. We have the copy of the will made by +the nurse and witnessed by the housemaid, and it bears the signatures of +those two men. Then you must remember that, in a case of this kind, the +court is much more likely to set aside a will leaving property away from +the family than if the will in dispute had been an ordinary one in +favour of his relations." + +"Oh! it is horrible--too horrible!" cried Rose. "There must be some +mistake. That young girl I met at Groombridge! Even if the poor mother +were really wicked, that girl cannot have carried it on!" + +Rose had leant her elbows on the table, and clasped her white hands +tightly and then covered her face with them for a moment. + +"I can't believe it. I feel there is some terrible mistake, and we might +ruin this girl's life. It would be ill-gotten, unblest wealth." + +The lawyer noted with surprise that these two--Sir Edmund and Lady +Rose--were not more anxious for wealth, rather less so, since both had +known comparative poverty. + +"I don't believe anyone is the better for living on fraud, Lady Rose, +and I don't believe you have any right to drop the case. You have to +think of Sir David's good name and of his wishes. The will you are +suffering from was a portentous wrong." + +Rose trembled. Had she not felt it the most awful, the most portentous +wrong? Had it not burnt deep miserable wounds in her soul? The whole +horror of the desecration of her married life had been revealed to her +in this room by this man. Did she need that he should tell her what that +misery had been? The words he had used then were as well known to her as +the words he had used to-day. + +Rose said after a longer pause, and with slight hesitation: + +"And Sir Edmund does not know what Nurse Edith told you? He has not seen +the copy of the will?" + +"No; I wanted him to, but he refused to hear any more on the subject. I +cannot understand it at all." He spoke with considerable irritation, his +big forehead contracted with a deep frown. "Sir Edmund, after making the +guess on which the whole thing has turned, after discovering Akers and +Stock, after spending large sums in the necessary work----" + +"Has he spent much money?" Rose flushed deeply. + +But Mr. Murray, who usually had more tact, was now too full of his +grievance to pause. + +"He spent money as long as he could, and now takes no more interest in +the matter on the ground that he can no longer be of any use. Why, it +was his judgment we wanted, his perceptions; no one could be of more use +than Sir Edmund!" + +"And who is paying the expenses now?" + +"Ah! that is the reason why I wished to see you as soon as possible. I +felt that I could not, without your approval, continue as we are now. +The last cheque from Sir Edmund covered all expenses to the end of the +year. I have advanced what has been necessary since then, and if you +really wish the thing dropped, that is entirely my own affair. But I do +most earnestly hope that you will not do anything so wrong. I feel very +strongly my responsibility towards Sir David's memory in this matter." + +"I feel," said Rose, but her manner was irresolute, "that the scandal +has been forgotten by now; things come and go so fast. He will be +remembered only as a great soldier who died for his country." + +"It may be forgotten," said Mr. Murray in a stern voice she had never +heard before. "It may be forgotten in a society which is always needing +some new sensation and is always well supplied. But there is a less +fluctuating public opinion. We men of business keep a clearer view of +character, and we know better how through all classes there is a verdict +passed on men that does not pass away in a season. Do you think, madam, +that when men treasure a good name it is the gossip of a London season +they regard? No; it is the thoughts of other good men in which they wish +to live. It is the sympathy of the good that a good man has a right to. +I believe in a future life, but I don't imagine I know whether in +another world they rejoice or suffer pain by anything that affects their +good name here. But I do know, Lady Rose, that deep in our nature is the +sense of duty to their memory, and I cannot believe that such an +instinct is without meaning or without some actual bearing on departed +souls. I don't expect Sir David to visit me in dreams, but I do expect +to feel a deep and reasonable self-reproach if I do not try to clear his +name." + +The heavy features of the solicitor had worked with a good deal of +emotion. The thought, the words "departed souls," were no mere words to +him in these summer days while Mrs. Murray, Junior, was supposed to be +doing well after an operation in a nursing home, and the doctors were +inclined to speak of next month's progress and on that of the month +after that, and to be silent as to any dates far ahead. In his +professional hours he did not dwell on these things, but it was the +actual spiritual conditions of the life he and his wife were leading +that gave a strange force to his words. + +"She never loved him," thought Mr. Murray as he looked out of the +window. He was on the same side of the writing-table that he had been on +when he had first told her of the deep insult offered to her by Sir +David. He did not realise now the intensity of the contempt he had felt +then for the departed General as he looked at his photograph. It was +intolerable, he had thought then, that a man should have those large, +full eyes, that straight, manly look and bearing, who had gone to his +grave having deliberately planned that his dead hand should so deeply +wound a defenceless woman, and that woman his sweet, young wife. +Murray's mind was so full now of relief at the idea that Sir David had +done his best at the last, that in his relief he almost forgot that, in +a woman's mind the main fact might still be that there had been a Madame +Danterre in the case! + +But Rose now, as when he had first told her of Madame Danterre's +existence, was seeking with a single eye to find the truth. It had +seemed to her then a moral impossibility to believe that her husband had +meant to leave this horrible insult to their married life. David had +been incapable of anything so monstrous; he had not in his character +even the courage of such a crime. + +But now the key to the situation, according to Mr. Murray, was Molly; +and Rose again brought to bear all that she had of perception, of +experience, of instinct, to see her way clearly. She was silent; then at +last she looked up. + +"Mr. Murray, Miss Dexter could not commit such a crime. Why, I know her; +I spent some days in a country house with her. I know her quite well, +and I don't like her very much, but she really can't have done anything +of the kind, and therefore, the case won't be proved. I am sure it +won't. And if it fails only harm will be done to David's memory, not +good." + +"That is what Sir Edmund said, but believe me, Lady Rose, you have +neither of you anything to go upon. You think it impossible, but you +don't either of you see the immense force of the temptation. Some crimes +may need a villainous nature. This, if you could see it truly, only +needs one that is human under temptation, ignorant of danger, and +ambitious." + +"But then, was that why Edmund would have nothing more to do with the +case?" thought Rose. + +The look of clear, earnest, searching in Rose's eyes was clouded by a +frown. + +The clock struck twelve. Mr. Murray rose. + +"I am half an hour late for an appointment. Lady Rose, forgive me; I am +an old man, and maybe I take a harsh view of what passes before me. But +there is nothing, let me tell you, that alarms me more in the present +day than the way in which men and women lose their sense of duty in +their sense of sentimental sympathy." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +BROWN HOLLAND COVERS + + +That afternoon Rose was standing by the window in the drawing-room when +she became conscious that her gown was quite hot in the burning sun, +and, undoubtedly, its soft, grey tone would fade. She drew back and +pulled down the blinds. + +It was not the first time she had put off her black, for, in the Paris +heat, it had become intolerable, and she had certainly enjoyed her visit +to an inexpensive but excellent dressmaker, who had produced this grey +gown with all its determined simplicity. + +Rose looked round at the drawing-room now. The furniture in holland +covers was stacked in the middle of the room; the pictures were wrapped +in brown paper with large and rather unnecessary white labels printed +with "Glass" in red letters. The fire-irons were dressed in something +that looked like Jaeger and the tassels of the blinds hung in yellow +cambric bags. Rose smiled a little as she recalled how strange and +strong an impression a room in such a state had made on her in her +childhood. The drawing-room in her London home had seemed incomparably +more attractive then than at any other time. Lady Charlton had once +brought Rose up to see a dentist on a bright, autumn day. She had not +been much hurt, but it was a great comfort when the visit was over. She +and her mother had dinner on two large mutton chops, and some apricot +tartlets from a pastry-cook, things ordered by Lady Charlton with a view +to giving as little trouble as possible to two able-bodied women who +were living on board wages, and both of whom were, in private life, +excellent cooks. Lady Charlton was anxious, too, not to give trouble by +sending messages, having quite forgotten that there was also a boy who +lived in the house. So, after lunch, she had gone out to find a cab for +herself, and had left Rose to rest with a book on the big morocco sofa +in the dining-room. + +Rose had found her way to the drawing-room, and she could see now the +half-open shutter and the rich light of the autumn sun turning all the +dust of the air to gold in one big shaft of light. The child had never +seen the house when the family was away before, and with awestruck, +mysterious joy, she had lifted corners of covers and peered under chairs +and recognised legs of tables and footstools. Then she had stood up and +taken a comprehensive view of the whole of this world of mountains and +valleys, precipices and familiar little home corners, all covered in +brown holland, like sand instead of grass, all golden lights and soft +shadows. + +What had there been so very exciting in it--an excitement she could +still recall as keenly now? Was it the greatness of the revolution, or +surprise at the new order of things? It was such a startling +interruption of all the usual relations between the furniture of the +house and its human beings. A great London house wrapped up in the old +way spoke more of the old order its influence, its importance, than did +the house when inhabited, and out of its curl papers. Nothing could +speak more of law and order and care, and the "proper" condition of +things, and the self-respect of housemaids, the passing effectiveness of +sweeps, and the unobtrusive attentiveness of carpenters! But to the +child there had been a glorious sense of loneliness and licence as she +danced up and down the broad vacant spaces and jumped over the rolls of +Turkey carpets. + +Rose envied that child now, with an envy that she hoped was not bitter. +It is not because we knew no sorrows in our childhood that we would fain +recall it. It is because we now so seldom know one whole hour of its +licensed freedom, its absolute liberty in spite of bonds. + +A loud door-bell, as it seemed to Rose, sounded through the house as she +closed the shutter she had opened when she came in. She knew whose ring +it must be, and came quietly downstairs with a little frown. + +Edmund Grosse had been shown into the library. The room looked east, and +was now deliciously cool after the street. The dark blinds were half-way +down, and a little pretence at a breeze was coming in over the burnt +turf of the back garden. + +Edmund's manner as he met her was as usual, but tinged perhaps with a +little irony--very little, but just a flavour of it mingled with the +immense friendliness and the wish to serve and help her. + +Rose was, to his surprise, almost shy as she came into the room, but in +another moment she was herself. + +"Mamma has borne the journey splendidly. I've had an excellent account +in a long telegram this morning." + +But while she told him of their journey and of their life in Paris, a +rather piteous look came into the blue eyes. Was she not to hear any of +Edmund's own news? Was she not to be allowed to show any sympathy? She +might not say how she had been thinking of him, dreaming of how nobly he +had met his troubles, praying for him in Notre Dame des Victories. She +saw at once that she must not; there was something changed. It was too +odd, but she was afraid of him. She shook herself and determined not to +be silly. She would venture to say what she wished. + +"Are things----" she began, but her voice trembled a little as, raising +her head, she saw that he was watching her. "Are things as bad as you +feared?" + +He at once looked out of the window. + +"Quite as bad as possible. I am just holding out till I can get some +work. Long ago, soon after I left the Foreign Office, I was asked to do +some informal work in Egypt; they wanted a semi-official go-between for +a time. I wish I had not refused then; I have been an ass throughout. If +I had even done occasional jobs they would have had some excuses for +putting me in somewhere now on the ground of my having had experience. I +have just written two articles on an Indian question, for I know that +part of the world as well as anybody over here, and they may lead to +something. Meanwhile, I am very well, so don't waste sympathy on me, I +am lodging with the Tarts, where everything is in apple-pie order." + +"Oh, I am glad you are with those nice Tarts!" cried Rose, with genuine +womanly relief, that in another class of life would have found form and +expression in some such remark as that she knew Mary Tart would keep +things clean and comfortable, and would do the airing thoroughly. + +Edmund's voice alone had made sympathy impossible, but he was a little +annoyed at the cheerful tone of Rose's words about the Tarts. It was +unlikely that she could have satisfied him in any way by speech or by +silence as to his own affairs. But why was she so very well dressed? He +had got so accustomed to her in soft, shabby black that he was not sure +if he liked this Paris frock; the simplicity of it was too clever. + +There was silence, and Rose rearranged a bowl of roses her sister had +sent her from the country. She chose out a copper-coloured bud and held +it towards him, and a certain pleading would creep into her manner as +she did so. + +Edmund smiled. She was really always the same quite hopeless mixture of +soft and hard elements. + +"Have you seen Mr. Murray, Junior?" he asked. + +"Yes; he came this morning, and I can't conceive what to do. At last I +got so dazed with thinking that this afternoon I have tried to forget +all about it." + +"That will hardly get things settled," said Edmund, rather drily. + +Tears came into her eyes, and were forced back by an effort of will. +Then she told him quite quietly of Nurse Edith's evidence. + +"You mean," he explained, "that there is a copy of the real will leaving +everything to you. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I find it harder to +believe than when I first guessed at the truth. I suppose it is an +effect on the nerves, but now that we are actually proved right I am +simply bewildered. It seems almost too good to be true." + +Rose was also, it seemed, more dazed than triumphant. He felt it very +strange that she had not told him the great news as soon as he came +into the room. + +"What made you say that you could not conceive what to do? There can be +no doubt now." He spoke quickly and incisively. + +"I cannot see," she said at last, "what is right. Mr. Murray is very +positive, and absolutely insists that it is my duty to allow the thing +to go on." + +"Of course," Edmund interjected. + +"But then, if he is mistaken! He really believes that Miss Dexter +received the will from Dr. Larrone and has suppressed it." + +Edmund got up suddenly, and looked down on her with what she felt to be +a stern attention. + +"And that," she concluded, looking bravely into the grave eyes bent on +her, "I absolutely decline to believe!" + +"Of course," said Grosse abruptly, "it's out of the question. It's just +like a solicitor--fits his puzzle neatly together and is quite satisfied +without seeing the gross absurdity of supposing that such a girl could +carry on a huge fraud. A perfectly innocent, fresh, candid girl, brought +up in a respectable English country house--the thing is ridiculous!" + +He spoke with great feeling; he was more moved than she had seen him for +a long time past, perhaps that was why she felt her own enthusiasm for +Molly's innocence just a little damped. He sat down again as abruptly as +he had risen. + +"But it would be madness to drop the whole affair. This evidence of +Nurse Edith's is really conclusive; and the only thing I can see to be +said on the other side would be that David might have sent the will to +Madame Danterre to give her the option of destroying it. But there is +just another possibility, which Murray won't even consider, that Larrone +destroyed the will on the journey." + +"Do you know," said Rose, with a smile, "I believe it's conceivable that +it is in the box, but that she has never opened the box at all! I +believe a girl might shrink so much from reading that woman's papers +that she might not even open the box." + +"No one but a woman would have thought of such a possibility, but I +daresay you are right." + +He looked at her more gently, with more pleasure, and she instantly felt +brighter. + +"Then don't you think it would be possible to get at some plan, some +arrangement with her? It seems to me," she went on earnestly, "that we +ought to try to do it privately. Perhaps we might offer her the +allowance that would have been made to her mother. If she could be +convinced herself that the fortune is not really hers she might give it +up without all the horrid shame and publicity of a trial." + +"Yes, but the scandal was public, and you have to think of David's good +name." + +"Yes; but then you see, Edmund, the true will would be proved publicly, +and the explanation of the delay would be that it had not been found +before." + +"She would have to expose her wretched mother." + +"Not more than the trial would expose her; whether we won the case or +lost it, Madame Danterre must be exposed. But if I am right how could it +be done?" + +"I think I had better do it myself," said Edmund. "I could see Miss +Dexter. I really think I could do it, feeling my way, of course." + +Rose did not answer. She locked her fingers tightly together as +something inarticulate and shapeless struggled in her mind and in her +heart. She had no right, no claim, she thought earnestly, trying to keep +calm and at peace in her innermost soul. But she did not then or +afterwards allow to herself what she meant by "right" or by "claim." + +She looked up a moment later with a bright smile. + +"Yes," she said, "you would be the best--far the best. Miss Dexter would +feel more at her ease with you than with me or anyone I can think of." + +"Of course, I must consult Murray first," said Edmund, absorbed in the +thought of the proposed interview. "I ought to go now; I have an +appointment at the Foreign Office--probably as futile as any of my +efforts hitherto when looking for work." + +He spoke the last words rather to himself than to his cousin, and then +left her alone. He did not question as he walked through the streets +across the park whether he had been as full of sympathy to Rose as he +had ever been; he was far too much accustomed to his own constancy to +question it now. But somehow his consciousness of Rose's presence had +not been as apparent as usual. No half ironic, half tender comments on +her attitude at this crisis had escaped him. He had been more +business-like than usual, and, man-like, he did not know it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE WRATH OF A FRIEND + + +Canon Nicholls had had a hard fight with a naturally hot temper, and his +servant would have given him a very fair character on that point if he +had been applied to. But there came a stifling July morning when nothing +could please him. He had been out to dinner the night before, and it was +the man's opinion that he had "eaten something too good for him." He had +been to church early, and had come back without the light in his face he +usually brought with him, as if the radiance from the sanctuary lamp +loved to linger on the blind face. He was difficult all the rest of the +morning, and the kind, patient woman who read aloud to him and wrote his +letters became nervous and diffident, thinking it was her own fault. + +In the afternoon he usually took a stroll with his servant for guide, +and then had a doze, after which he went to Benediction at a +neighbouring convent. But to-day he settled into his arm-chair, and said +he meant to stay there, and that he wanted nothing, and (with more +emphasis) nobody. + +He was, in truth, greatly disturbed in his mind. He had heard things he +did not like to hear of Mark Molyneux. He had been quite prepared for +some jealousy and some criticism of the young man he loved. Nobody +charms everybody, and if anybody charms many bodies, then the rest of +the bodies, who are not charmed, become surprised and critical, if not +hostile. It is so among all sets of human beings: the Canon was no acrid +critic of religious persons, only he had always found them to be quite +human. + +The immediate cause of the acute trouble the Canon was going through +to-day had been a visit of the day before from Mrs. Delaport Green. +Adela, who, as he had once told Mark, sometimes looked in for a few +minutes, was under the impression that she very often called on the old +blind priest, and often mentioned her little attempts to cheer him up +with great complacence, especially to her Roman Catholic friends, as if +she were a constant ray of light in his darkness. She had not seen him +since her return from Cairo, but her first words were: + +"I was so sorry not to be able to come last week," spoken with the air +of a weekly visitor. + +But the Canon thought it so kind of her to come at all that he was no +critic of details in her regard. + +She had cantered with a light hand over all sorts of +subjects,--Westminster Cathedral, the reunion of Churches, her own +Catholic tendencies, her charities, the newest play (which she described +well), and her anxiety because her husband ate too much. Then, at last, +she lighted on Mark's sermons. + +Canon Nicholls spoke with reserve of Mark; he was shy of betraying his +own affection for him. + +"Yes; it is young eloquence, fresh and quite genuine," he said in +response to Adela's enthusiasm. + +"It sounds so very real," said Adela, with a sigh. "One couldn't +imagine, you know, that he could have any doubts, or that he could be +sorry, or disappointed, or anything of that sort--and yet----" + +"And yet, what?" asked the Canon. + +"And yet--well, I know I am foolish, and I do idealise people and make +up heroes--I know I do! It is such a pleasure to admire people, isn't +it? And after he gave up being heir to Groombridge Castle! I was staying +there when poor, dear Lord Groombridge got the news of his ordination, +and it was all so sad and so beautiful, and now I can't bear to think +that Father Molyneux is sorry already that he gave it all up." + +"Sorry that he gave it up--!" + +Adela gave a little jump in her chair. It made her so nervous to see a +blind man excited. But curiosity was strong within her. + +"I am afraid it is quite true; a friend of mine who knows him quite +well, told me." + +"Told you _what_?" + +"That he was unhappy, and has doubts or troubles of some kind. I didn't +understand what exactly, but she knows that he will give it all up--the +vows and all that, I mean--if----" + +"If what?" + +Adela was not really wanting in courage. + +"If a certain very rich woman would marry him. It seems such a +come-down, so very dull and dreadful, doesn't it?" + +"You know all that's a lie!" + +"Well, it was all told to me." + +"But you knew there was not a word of truth in it, only you wanted to +see how I would take it. And I thought you were a kind-hearted woman! +How blind I am!" + +Adela was galled to the quick. A quarrel, a scolding, would have been +tolerable, and perhaps exciting, but this naive disappointment in +herself, this judgment from the man to whom she had been so good, was +too much! + +"I thought it was much more kind to let you know what everybody is +saying, that you might help him. I am very sorry I have made a mistake, +and that I must be going now. It is much later than I thought." + +"Must you?" There was the faintest sarcasm in the very polite tone of +the Canon's voice. + +Nor had this conversation been all; for out at dinner that night the +Canon had been worried with much the same story from a totally different +quarter. It was after the ladies had left the dining-room, and the +gossip had been rougher. + +He gave all his thoughts to brooding over the matter next day. Mark +could not have managed well--must have done or said something stupid, +and made enemies, he reflected gloomily. + +Canon Nicholls had been young once, and almost as popular a preacher as +Mark, and he did not underrate the difficulties. But it was his firm +persuasion that, with tact and common-sense they were by no means +insurmountable. What really distressed the old man was that perhaps Mark +had been right in thinking that he personally could not surmount them. +And it was Canon Nicholls's doing that he was not by this time a novice +in a Carthusian Monastery! Therefore the Canon's soul was heavy with +anxiety as to whether he had made a great mistake. + +"He must be a fool, or else it's just possible that he has got an +uncommonly clever enemy." The last thought revived the old man a +little, and he received his tea without any of the demonstrations of +disgust he had shown on drinking his coffee at breakfast. + +Presently the subject of his thoughts came upon the scene, and the +visitor saw at once that his old friend was unlike himself. The Canon +was exceedingly alert from the moment Mark came into the room, trying to +catch up the faintest indication, in his voice or movements, as to +whether he were in good or low spirits; he almost thought he heard a +quick sigh as Mark sat down. He could not see that Mark was undeniably +thinner and paler than he had been only a few weeks ago, and that his +eyes looked even more bright and keen in consequence. + +"Take some tea," said the Canon; and then, when he had given him time to +drink his tea, he turned on him abruptly. + +"I've heard some lies about you, and I'm going to tell you what they +are." + +"Perhaps it's better to be ignorant." + +"No, it's not, now why did you incite young men to Socialism in South +London?" + +"Good heavens!" said Mark. "Well, you shall catch it for that. I will +read you every word of that paper; not a line of anything else shall you +hear till you've been obliged to give your 'nihil obstat' to 'True and +False Socialism,' by your humble servant." + +"But that's not the worst that's said of you." + +"Oh, no! I know that." + +Perhaps if Canon Nicholls could have seen the strained look on the young +face he could have understood. As it was, he believed him to be taking +the matter too lightly. + +"When I was young," he said, "I thought it my own fault if I made +enemies, and you know where there is a great deal of smoke there has +generally been some fire." + +"Then you mean to say," answered Mark, in a voice that was hard from the +effort at self-control, "that you think it is my fault that lies are +told against me, although you _do_ call them lies?" + +"Frankly, I think you must have been careless," said the old man, +leaning forward and grasping the arm of his chair. "I think you must +have had too much disregard for appearances." + +He paused, and there was a silence of several moments, while the ticking +of the clock was quite loud in the little room. + +"Unless this is the doing of an enemy," said Canon Nicholls. + +"I do not know that it is an enemy," said Mark, "but I know there is +some one who is excessively angry and excessively afraid because I know +a secret of great importance." + +"And that person is a woman, I suppose?" + +"I cannot answer that," said Mark. He was standing now with one elbow on +the end of the chimney-piece, and his head resting on his right hand, +looking down at the worn rug at his feet. + +"Will you tell me exactly what it is they do say?" said Mark, still +speaking with an effort at cheerfulness that aggravated the nervous +state of Canon Nicholls. + +And there followed another silence, during which Father Molyneux +realised to himself with fear and almost horror that he was nearly +having a quarrel with the friend he loved so much, and on whose kindness +he had always counted, and whose wisdom had so often been his guide. He +was suffering already almost more than he owned to himself, and he had +come into the room of the holy, blind old man as to a place of refuge. +It gave him a sick feeling of misery and helplessness that there seemed +in the midst of his other troubles the possibility of a quarrel with +Canon Nicholls. This at least he must prevent; and so, leaning forward, +he said very gently: + +"Do tell me a little bit more of what you mean? I know you are speaking +as my friend, and, believe me, I am not ungrateful. I am sure there is a +definite story against me. I wish you would call a spade a spade quite +openly." + +"They have got hold of a story that you are tired of poverty and the +priesthood, and so on, and that you will give it all up if you can +persuade a certain very rich woman to marry you." + +"That is definite enough." Mark was struggling to speak without +bitterness. "And, for a moment, you thought----?" he could not finish +the sentence. + +"Good God! not for a fraction of a second. How can you?" + +"Oh! forgive me, forgive me; I didn't mean it." + +Mark knelt down by the chair, tears were flowing from the blind eyes. +Canon Nicholls belonged to a generation whose emotions were kept under +stern control; the tears would have come more naturally from Mark. There +was a strange contrast between the academic figure of the old man in its +reserved and negative bearing, seriously annoyed with himself for +betraying the suffering he was enduring, and yet unable to check the +flow of tears, and the eager, unreserved, sympathetic attitude of the +younger man. After a few moments of silence Mark rose and began to +speak in low, quick accents---- + +"It is a secret which is doing infinite harm to a soul made for good +things, and yet it is a secret which I can tell no one, not even you--at +least, so I am convinced. But it is a secret by which people are +suffering. The result is that I cannot deal with this calumny as I +should deal with it if I were free; and I believe that I have not got to +the worst of it yet. I see what it must lead to." + +He looked down wistfully for a moment, and then went on: + +"Last year I had a dream that was full of joy and peace, and that seemed +to me God's Will; but, through you, I came to see that I must give it +up, and I threw myself into the life here with all my heart. And now, +just when I had begun to feel that I was really doing a little good, now +that I have got friends among the poor whom I love to see and help, I +shall be sent away more or less under a cloud. I shall lose friends whom +I love, and whom it had seemed to me that I was called to help even at +the risk of my own soul. However, there it is. If I am not to be a +Carthusian, if I am not to work for sinners in London, I suppose some +other sphere of action will be found for me. I must leave it to Him Who +knows best." + +Canon Nicholls bent forward, and held out his long, white hands with an +eager gesture, as though he were wrestling with his infirmity in his +great longing to gain an outlook which would enable him to read a little +further into the souls of men. + +"I cannot explain more definitely. It is a case of fighting for a soul, +or rather fighting with a soul against the devil in a terrible crisis. +I don't know what to compare it to. Perhaps it is like performing a +surgical operation while the patient is scratching your eyes out. If I +can leave my own point of view out of sight for the present I can be of +use, but I must let the scratching out of my eyes go on." + +Mark went to the church early that evening, as it was his turn to be in +the confessional. One or two people came to confession, and then the +church seemed to be empty. He knelt down to his prayers and soon became +absorbed. To-night he was oppressed in a new way by the sins, the +temptations, and the unutterable weakness of man; his failures; his +uselessness. Nothing else in Art had ever impressed him so much as the +figure of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. That beautiful +figure, with all the freshness of its primal grace, stretching out its +arms from a new-born world towards the infinite Creator, had expressed, +with extraordinary pathos, the weakness, the failure, almost the +non-existence of what is finite. "I Am Who Am" thundered Almighty Power, +and how little, how helpless, was man! + +And then, as Mark, weary with the misery of human life, almost repined +at the littleness of it all, he felt rebuked. Could anything be little +that was so loved of God? If the primal truth, if Purity Itself and Love +Itself could make so amazing a courtship of the human soul, how dared +anyone despise what was so honoured of the King? No, under all the +self-seeking, the impure motives, the horrid cruelties of life, he must +never lose sight of the delicate loveliness, the pathetic aspiration, +the exquisite powers of love that are never completely extinguished. He +must see with God's eyes, if he were to do God's work. And in the +thought that it was, after all, God's work and not his own, Mark found +comfort. He had come into the church feeling the burden on his shoulders +very hard to bear, and now he made the discovery that it was not he who +was carrying it at all; he only appeared to have it laid upon him while +Another bore it for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK + + +Two excellent and cheerful old persons were engaged in conversation on +the subject of Father Molyneux. The Vicar-General of the diocese, a +Monsignor of the higher, or pontifical rank, had called to see the +Rector of Mark's church, and had already rapidly discussed other matters +of varying importance when he said, leaning back in an old and faded +leather chair: + +"What's all this about young Molyneux?" + +Both men were fairly advanced in years and old for their age, for they +had both worked hard and constantly for many years on the mission. They +had to be up early and to bed late, with the short night frequently +interrupted by sick calls, and on a Sunday morning they had always +fasted till one o'clock, and usually preached two or even three times on +the same day. They had never known for very many years what it was to be +without serious anxiety on the matter of finance. Their lives had been +models of amazing regularity and self-control. Their recreations +consisted chiefly in dining with each other at mid-day on Mondays, and +spending the afternoon with whist and music. Probably, too, they had +dined with a leading parishioner once or twice in the week. + +In politics they were mildly Liberal, more warmly Home Rulers, but they +put above all the interests of the Church. They were, too, fierce +partisans on the controversies about Church music, and had a zeal for +the beauty and order of their respective churches that was admirable in +its minuteness and its perseverance. They both had a large circle of +friends with whom they rejoiced at annual festivities at their Colleges, +and with whom they habitually and freely censured their immediate +authorities. Those who were warmest in their devotion to the Vatican +were often the most inclined to make a scapegoat of a mere bishop. But +now one of these two old friends had been made Vicar-General of the +diocese, and it was likely that the Rector would speak to him with less +than his usual freedom. Lastly, both men had that air of complete +knowledge of life which comes with the habits of a circle of people who +know each other intimately. And neither of them realised in the least +that the minds of the educated laity were a shut book to them. + +"Well," said the Rector, and after puffing at his pipe he went on, "we +can hardly get into the church for the crowd, and I am going to put up a +notice to ask ladies to wear small hats--toques; isn't that what they +call them?" + +"I heard him once," said the Vicar-General, "and, to tell the truth, it +didn't seem up to much." + +"Words," said the Rector; "it's Oxford all over. There must be a new +word for everything. Why, he preached on Our Lady the other day, and I +declare I don't think there were three sentences I'd ever heard before! +And on Our Lady, too! A man must be gone on novelty who wants to find +anything new to say about Our Lady." + +"It doesn't warm me up a bit, that sort of thing," said the +Vicar-General. "I like to hear the things I've heard all my life." + +"Of course," responded the other, "but you won't get that from our +popular preachers, I can tell you," and he laughed with some sarcasm. + +"Is he making converts?" + +"Too many, far too many; that's just what I complain of. We shall have a +nice name for relapses here if it goes on like this." + +Both men paused. + +"You've nothing more to complain of?" asked the Monsignor. + +"No--no--" The second "no" was drawn out to its full length. "Of course, +he's unpunctual, and he's often late for dinner. I don't know where he +gets his dinner at all sometimes. And there are always ladies coming to +see him. If there are two in the parlour and another in the dining-room, +and a young man on the stairs, it's for ever Father Molyneux they are +asking for. And, of course, he has too much money given him for the +poor, and we have double the beggars we had last year." + +"But," said the other, "you know there's more being said than all that. +There's an unpleasant story, and it's about that I want to ask you. +Well--the same sort of thing as poor Nobbs; you'll remember Nobbs?" + +"Remember Nobbs! Why, I was curate with him when I first left the +seminary. Now, there was a preacher, if you like! But it turned his head +completely. Poor, wretched Nobbs! It's a dangerous thing to preach too +well, I'm certain of that." + +"Well, it's a danger you and I have been spared," said the Monsignor, +and they both laughed heartily. + +Then they got back to the point. + +"Well," said the Rector, "there's a lady comes here sometimes who spoke +to me about this the other day. It seems she went to see John Nicholls, +and the poor old blind fellow bit her head off, but she thought she +ought to tell somebody who might put a stop to the talk, and so she came +to me. There's some woman, a very rich Protestant, who gives out openly +that she is waiting till Molyneux announces that he doesn't believe in +the Church, and then they will marry and go to America. Then, another +day Jim Dixon came along, and a friend of his had heard the tale from +some Army man at his Club. It's exactly the way things went on about +Nobbs, you know, beginning with talk like that. Really, if it wasn't for +having seen Nobbs go down hill I shouldn't think anything of it. Young +Molyneux is all straight so far, but so was Nobbs straight at first." + +"A priest shouldn't be talked about," said the Monsignor. + +"Of course not," said the Rector. + +"He has started too young," the Monsignor went on, not unkindly; "it's +all come on in such a hurry; he ought to have had a country mission +first. But my predecessor thought he'd be so safe with you." + +"But how can I help it?" asked the other hotly; "I'm sure I've done my +best! You can ask him if I haven't warned him from his very first sermon +that he'd be a popular preacher. I've even tried to teach him to preach. +I've lent him Challoner, and Hay, and Wiseman, and tried to get him out +of his Oxford notions, but he's no sooner in the pulpit than he's off at +a hard gallop--three hundred words to a minute, and such +words!--'vitality,' 'personality,' 'development,' 'recrudescence,' +'mentality'--the Lord knows what! And there they sit and gaze at him +with their mouths open drinking it in as if they'd been starved! No, no; +it won't be my fault if he turns out another Nobbs--poor, miserable old +Nobbs! Now his really were sermons!" + +"Well," said the other, in a business-like tone, "I am inclined to think +it would be best for him to take a country mission for a few years. I've +no doubt he is on the square now, and that will give him time to quiet +down a bit. He'll be an older and a wiser man after that, and he could +do some sound, theological reading. Lord Lofton has been asking for a +chaplain, and we must send him a gentleman. I could tell him that +Molyneux had been a little overworked in London, and if he goes down to +the Towers at the end of July, no one will suppose he is leaving for +good, eh?" + +"Very well," answered the Rector; "I don't want anything said against +him, you know. I've had many a curate not half as ready to work as this +man." + +"No, no; I quite understand. Well, I'll write to him in the course of +the week. And now about this point of plain chant?" And both men forgot +the existence of Mark as they waxed hot on melodious questions. + + +I can't believe that Jonathan loved David more than the second curate +had come to love Mark Molyneux in their work together. It is good to +bear the yoke in youth, and it is very good to have a hero worship for +your yoke fellow. Father Jack Marny was a young Kelt, blue-eyed, +straight-limbed, fair-haired, and very fair of soul. He would have told +any sympathetic listener that he owed everything to Mark--zeal for +souls, habits of self-denial, a new view of life, even enjoyment of +pictures and of Browning, as well as interest in social science. All +this was gross exaggeration, but in him it was quite truthful, for he +really thought so. He had the run of Mark's room, and they took turns to +smoke in each other's bedrooms, so as to take turns in bearing the +rector's observations on the smell of smoke on the upstairs landing. +Father Marny had a subscription at Mudie's--his only extravagance--and +he always ordered the books he thought Mark wished for, and Mark always +ordered from the London library the books he thought would most interest +Jack. Father Marny revelled in secret in the thought of all that might +have belonged to Mark, and he possessed, of course most carefully +concealed, a wonderful old print he had picked up on a counter, of +Groombridge Castle, exalting the round towers to a preposterous height, +while in the foreground strolled ladies in vast hoops, and some animals +intended apparently for either cows or sheep according to the fancy of +the purchaser. + +But what each of the curates loved best was the goodness he discerned in +the other, and the more intimate they became the more goodness they +discerned. The very genuinely good see good, and provoke good by seeing +it, and reflect it back again, as two looking-glasses opposite to each +other repeat each other's light _ad infinitum_. + +It was a Monday, and the rector had gone out to dinner, and the two +young men were smoking in the general sitting-room. Father Marny was +looking over the accounts of a boot club, and objurating the handwriting +of the lady who kept them. Mark was in the absolutely passive state to +which some hard-working people can reduce themselves; he had hardly the +energy to smoke. A loud knock produced no effect upon him. + +"Lazy brute!" murmured Father Marny, in his affectionate, clear voice, +"can't even fetch the letters." And a moment later he went for them +himself, and having flung a dozen letters over his companion's shoulder, +went back to the accounts. + +Ten minutes later he looked up, and gave a little start. He was quick to +see any change in Mark, and he did not like his attitude. He did not +know till that moment how anxious he had been as to the possibility of +some change. He moved quickly forward and stood in front of the deep +chair in which Mark was sitting, leaning forward with his eyes fixed on +the carpet. + +"Bad news?" he asked abruptly. + +"Bad enough," said Mark, and, very slowly raising his head, he gave a +smile that was the worst part of all the look on his face. Jack Marny +put one hand on his shoulder, and a woman's touch could not have been +lighter. + +"It's not----?" he said, and then stopped. + +"Yes, it is," Mark answered. "I am to be a domestic chaplain to that +pious old ass, Lord Lofton. It seems I need quiet for study--quiet to +rot in! My God! is that how I am to work for souls?" + +It was, perhaps, better for Mark that Jack Marny broke down completely +at the news, for, by the time he had been forced into telling his friend +that it was preposterous to suppose that any man was necessary for God's +work, and that if they had faith at all they must believe that God +allowed this to happen, light began to dawn in his own mind. But he was +almost frightened at the passionate resentment of the Kelt; he saw there +was serious danger of some outbreak on his part against the authorities. + +"They won't catch me staying here after you are gone!" + +"Much good that would do me," said Mark. "I should get all the blame." + +"They must learn that we are not slaves!" thundered the curate, his fair +face absolutely black with wrath. + +"We are God's slaves," said Mark, in a low voice, and then there was +silence between them for the space of half an hour. + +The door opened and a shrill voice cried out, "There's Tom Turner at the +door asking for Father Mark," and the door was banged to again. + +Tom Turner was the very flower of Mark's converts to a good life. + +Father Marny groaned at the name. + +"Let me see him," he said. "Go out and get a walk." + +"I'd rather see him; I don't know how much oftener----" + +The sentence was not finished. He had left the room in two strides. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +MENE THEKEL PHARES + + +The more Edmund reflected on the matter the more difficult he found it +to decide what steps to take in order to approach Molly. In the first +impulse he had thought only that here was the chance of serving her, of +proving her friend in difficulty, which he had particularly wished for. +It would make reparation for the past--a past he keenly defended in his +own mind as he had defended it to Molly herself, but yet a past that he +would wish to make fully satisfactory by reparation for what he would +not confess to have been blameworthy. But when he tried to realise +exactly what he should have to tell Molly it seemed impossible. For how +could he meet her questions; her indignant protests? She would become +more and more indignant at the plot that had been carried on against +her, a plot which Edmund had started and had carried on until quite +lately, and which had also until quite lately been entirely financed by +him. Even if he baffled her questions, his consciousness of the facts +would make it too desperately difficult a task for him to assume the +_role_ of Molly's disinterested friend now, although in truth he felt as +such, and would have done and suffered much to help her. + +Edmund had by nature a considerable sympathy with success, with pluck, +with men or women who did things well. There are so many bunglers in +life, so few efficient characters, and he felt Molly to be entirely +efficient. Even the over-emphasis of wealth in the setting of her life +had been effective; it fitted too well into what the modern world wanted +to be out of proportion. A thing that succeeded so very well could +hardly be bad form. Hesitation, weakness, would have made it vulgar; +hesitation and weakness in past days had often made vulgar emphasis on +rank and power, but in the hands of the strong such emphasis had always +been effective and fitting. There was a kind of artistic regret in +Edmund's mind at the thought that this excellent comedy of life as +played by Molly should be destroyed. And he had come to think it +certainly would be destroyed. + +One last piece of evidence had convinced him more than any other. + +Nurse Edith had a taste for the dramatic, and enjoyed gradual +developments. Therefore she had kept back as a _bonne bouche_, to be +served up as an apparent after-thought, a certain half sheet of paper +which she had preserved carefully in her pocket-book since the night on +which she had made the copy of Sir David Bright's will. It was the +actual postscript to Sir David's long letter to Rose; the long letter +Nurse Edith had put back in the box and which had remained there +untouched until Molly had taken it out. The postscript would not be +missed, and might be useful. It was only a few lines to this effect: + +"P.S.--I think it better that you should know that I am sending a few +words to Madame Danterre to tell her briefly that justice must be done. +Also, in case anyone, in spite of my precautions to conceal it, is +aware that I possessed the very remarkable diamond ring I mention in +this letter, and asks you about it, I wish you to know that I am sending +it direct to Madam Danterre in my letter to her. May God forgive me, +and, by His Grace, may you do likewise." + +The sight of David's handwriting, the astonishing verification of his +own first surmise, the vivid memory of Rose unwillingly showing him the +letter and the ring and the photograph she supposed to have been +intended for herself, had a very powerful effect on Edmund Grosse. The +whole story was so clear, so well connected, it seemed impossible to +doubt it. Yet he believed in Molly's innocence without an effort. What +was there to prove that Madame Danterre had not destroyed the will after +Nurse Edith copied it? She had the key and the box within reach, and the +dying, again and again, have shown incalculable strength--far greater +than was needed in order to get at the will and burn it while a nurse +was absent or asleep. + +Again, it was to Larrone's interest to destroy that will. They had only +Pietrino's persuasion of Larrone's integrity to set against the +possibility of his having opened the box on his long journey to England, +against the possibility of his having read the will, and destroyed it, +before he gave the box to Molly. He would have seen at once not only +that his own legacy would be lost, but, what might have more influence +with him, he must have seen what a doubtful position he must hold in +public opinion if this came to light. He had been the chief friend and +adviser of Madame Danterre, who had paid him lavishly for his medical +services from her first coming to Florence, and who had made no secret +of the legacy he was to receive at her death. He had been with her at +the last, and was now actually carrying on her gigantic fraud by taking +the box to her daughter. Would it not have been a great temptation to +him to destroy the will while he had no fear of discovery rather than +put the matter in Molly's hands? Lastly came Rose's subtle feminine +suggestion that the will might be in the box but that Molly had never +opened it. Some instinct, some secret fear of painful revelations, might +easily have made her shrink from any disclosures as to her mother's +past. Rose was so often right, and the obvious suggestion, that such a +shrinking from knowledge would have been natural to Rose and unnatural +to Molly, did not occur to the male mind, always inclined to think of +women as mostly alike. + +At the same time he was really unwilling to relinquish the _role_ of +intermediary. His thoughts had hardly left the subject since the hour of +his talk with Rose, and it was especially absorbing on the day on which +Molly was to give a party, to which he was invited--and invited to meet +royalty. He decided that he must that evening ask his hostess to give +him an appointment for a private talk. + +Edmund arrived late at Westmoreland House when the party was in full +swing. He paused a moment on the wide marble steps of the well staircase +as he saw a familiar face coming across the hall. It was the English +Ambassador in Madrid, just arrived home on leave, as Edmund knew. He was +a handsome grey-haired man of thin, nervous figure, and he sprang +lightly to meet his old friend and put his hand on his arm. + +"Grosse!" he cried, "well met." And then, in low, quick tones he added: +"What am I going to see at the top of this ascent? This amazing young +woman! What does it mean, eh? I knew the wicked old mother. Tell me, was +she really married to David Bright all the time? Was it Enoch Arden the +other way up? But we must go on," for other late arrivals were joining +them. When they reached the landing the two men stood aside for a +moment, for they saw that it was too late for them to be announced. +Royalty was going in to supper. + +A line of couples was crossing the nearest room, from one within. The +great square drawing-room was lit entirely by candles in the sconces +that were part of the permanent decoration. But the many lights hardly +penetrated into the great depths of the pictures let into the walls. +These big, dark canvases by some forgotten Italian of the school of +Veronese, gave the room something of the rich gloom of a Venetian +palace. Beyond a few stacks of lilies in the corners, Molly had done +nothing to relieve its solemn dignity. As she came across it from the +opposite corner, the depths of the old pictures were the background to +her white figure. + +She was bending her head towards the Prince who was taking her down--a +tall, fair man with blue eyes and a heavy jaw. Then as she came near the +doorway she raised her head and saw Edmund. There was a strange, soft +light in her eyes as she looked at him. It was the touch of soul needed +to give completeness to her magnificence as a human being. The white +girlish figure in that room fitted the past as well as the present. The +great women of the past had been splendidly young too, whereas we keep +our girls as children, comparatively speaking. + +Molly had that combination of youth and experience which gives a +special character to beauty. There was no detailed love of fashion in +her gorgeous simplicity of attire; there was rather something subtly in +keeping with the house itself. + +The Prince turned to speak to the Ambassador, and the little procession +stopped. + +Edmund was more artistic in taste than in temperament, and he was not +imaginative. But he could not enjoy the full satisfaction of his +fastidious tastes to-night, nor had he his usual facility for speech. He +could not bring himself to utter one word to Molly. They stood for that +moment close together, looking at each other in a silence that was +electric. No wonder that Molly thought his incapacity to speak a +wonderful thing; others, too, noticed it. + +"What a bearing that girl has! What movement!" cried the Ambassador, as, +after greeting the first few couples who passed him, he drew Grosse to a +corner and looked at him curiously. But Edmund seemed moonstruck. Then, +in a perfunctory voice, he said slowly. + +"What is the writing in that picture?" + +"Mene Thekel Phares," said his friend. "My dear Grosse! surely you know +a picture of the 'Fall of Babylon' when you see it? Now let us go where +we shall not be interrupted. Tell me all about this girl with the +amazing bearing and big eyes, whom princes delight to honour, and +Duchesses to dine with! How did she get dear Rose Bright's money?" + +Edmund had never disliked a question more. + +"I'll tell you all I know," he said unblushingly, "but not to-night, old +fellow. It would take too long." + +And to his joy a countess and a beauty seized upon the terribly curious +diplomatist and made him take her down to supper. And they agreed while +they supped exquisitely that the real job dear old Grosse ought to be +given was that of husband to their hostess. + +"But then there is poor Rose Bright." + +"Lady Rose Bright would not have him when he was rich," he objected. +"No; this will do very nicely. If I am not mistaken (and I'm pretty well +read in human eyes), the lady is willing." + +After supper there was dancing. Edmund did not dance. He stood in a +corner, his tall form a little bent, merely watching, and presently he +turned away. He had made up his mind. He would not try to speak to Molly +to-night, and he would not ask her for a talk. + +She was dancing as he left the room, and he turned half mechanically to +watch her. It was always an exquisite pleasure to see her dance. He left +her with a curious sense of farewell in his mind. Fate was coming fast, +he knew; he could not doubt that for a moment. He was not the man to +avert it. No one could avert it. It was part of the tragedy that, pity +her as he might, he could not really wish to avert it. He would give no +warning. Some other hand must write "Mene Thekel Phares" on the wall of +her palace of pleasure and success. + +Edmund Grosse declined the task. + + +Molly danced on in the long gallery between its walls of mirrors and +their infinite repetitions of twinkling candles and dancing figures +pleasantly confused to the eye by the delicate wreaths of gold foliage +that divided their panes. In the immeasurable depths of those +reflections the nearest objects melted by endless repetition into dim +distances, and the present dancing figures might seem to melt into a far +past where men and women were dancing also. + +Gallery within gallery in that mirrored world, with very little effort +of imagination, might become peopled by different generations. As the +figures receded in space so they receded in time. Groups of human +beings, with all the subtle ease of a decadent civilisation, ceded their +place to groups of men and women who moved with more slowness and +dignity in the middle distance of those endless reflections. And looking +down those avenues of gilded foliage into that fancied past, the old cry +might well rise to the lips: "What shadows we are, and what shadows we +pursue!" + +But, whether in the foreground of to-day, or in the secrets that the +mirrors held of a century before, or in the indistinguishable mist of +their greatest depths, wherever the imagination roamed, it found in +every group of human beings a woman who was young and beautiful, and yet +it could come back to the dancing figure of Molly without any shock of +disappointment or disdain. + + +"But it is daylight!" cried two young men who paused breathless with +their partners by the high narrow windows, at the end of the gallery, +and they threw back the shutters. The growing dawn mingled with the +lights of the decreasing candles, with the infinite repetitions of the +mirror, with the soft music of the last valse. + +And Molly bore the light perfectly, as the chorus of praise and thanks +and "good-nights" of the late stayers echoed round her. + +"Not 'good-night' but 'good-bye,'" said a very young girl, looking up at +Molly with facile tears rising in her blue eyes. "We go away to-morrow, +and this perfect night is the last!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +MARK ENTERS INTO TEMPTATION + + +The more he realised Molly's danger, the more he believed in her +innocence--the more anxious Edmund became to find a suitable envoy to +approach her from the enemy's side, and one who, if possible, would +understand his position. + +Like most men who have a repugnance to clerical influence he had a great +idea of its power, and a perfect readiness to make use of it. He was +delighted when he remembered having met Mark Molyneux at Molly's house. +The meeting had not been quite a success, but this he did not remember. +Edmund's half-sleepy easy manner had been more cordial, but not quite so +good as usual. He was just too conscious of the strangeness of the fact +that Edmund Grosse should be talking with a "bon petit cure." He knew +Father Molyneux to be Groombridge's cousin, and to have been considered +a man of unusual promise at Oxford, but, all the same, whatever he had +been, he was a priest now, and Grosse had never quite made up his mind +as to his own manner to a priest. He was so practised in dealing with +other people, but not with ecclesiastics. He did not in the least +realise that the slight condescension and uncertainty in his manner, +with all his effort at cordiality, was the outcome of a rather +deeply-seated antagonism to the claims he conceived all priests to make, +in their hearts, on the souls of men. I have known a man, not altogether +unlike Edmund Grosse, to cross the street in London rather than pass a +priest on the same pavement. Grosse would not have been so foolish as +that, but still, it was not surprising that the two men did not get on +particularly well. All that Edmund now remembered of this chance meeting +was Molly's evidently deep interest in the young priest, and he recalled +her saying at the time when she had been much moved by her mother's +cruel letter, that she was going to hear Father Molyneux preach that +evening. From the avowedly anti-clerical Molly, that meant much. + +Edmund knew nothing of the recent talk about Mark, although Mrs. +Delaport Green had tried to sigh out some insinuations on the subject in +talking to him. Perhaps he was a less receptive listener than of yore, +when he had more empty spaces in his mind than he had this year. He +received, indeed, a faint impression that Mrs. Delaport Green was +sentimentalising over some disappointment she was suffering under +acutely with regard to the popular preacher, and had felt her motive to +be curiosity to gain information from himself on some point of which he +knew nothing. But if he had been more attentive he might have gained +enough information to make him hesitate to involve poor Mark in Molly's +affairs. + +Almost as soon as he had thought of consulting Mark, he proposed the +notion to Rose, who was enthusiastic in its support. + +It is not necessary to give his letter to Father Molyneux, which had to +be long and careful, and was written after consultation with Mr. +Murray. + +Mr. Murray was quite in favour of an informal interview, and disposed to +agree in the choice of Father Molyneux as ambassador. "I am not afraid +of your letting Miss Dexter know the strength of our case," he said. +"Father Molyneux must judge for himself how far it is wise to frighten +Miss Dexter for her own sake. He is, as I understand, to try to persuade +her to produce the will, and I suppose he will assume that she does not +know of its existence among her mother's papers. This would save her +pride, and you might come to terms if she would produce it. If you fail, +the next course would be for me to insist on an interview, and to carry +things with a high hand. I should say, in effect: 'We are aware that Sir +David Bright made a will on his way to Africa, and we can prove that it +was sent by mistake to your mother, because we have a witness who saw it +in her box. It was in her box when it was handed to Dr. Larrone, and it +has been traced, therefore, into your hands. We have a copy of it which +we can produce if you have destroyed the original, and, if you have not +done so, we can get an order of the court compelling you to produce it. +You cannot deny the fact that the will was sent to Madame Danterre by +mistake, for you have the letter which accompanied it, and we have the +postscript to the letter taken from the box by a witness whom we are +prepared to call. Will you produce the box in which, no doubt, the will +has escaped your notice, or shall we get the order of the court? The +will has, as I have said, been traced into your hands.' I doubt if any +woman (at all events one such as you describe Miss Dexter) would resist, +and no solicitor whom she consulted, and to whom she told the truth, +would advise her to do so--no respectable solicitor, that is to say, +and no prudent one." + +When Edmund showed Rose his letter to Father Mark she had only one +criticism to make. She felt that Edmund took too easily for granted that +the priest would be ready to put his finger into so very hot a pie. +Father Mark must be appealed to more earnestly to come to the rescue, +and less as if it were quite obvious that he would be ready to do so as +part of his natural business in life. Edmund agreed to add some +sentences at her suggestion. + +It is important to realise Mark's state of mind, at the time when this +strong, additional trial was to come upon him. + +With the full approval of his friend, Canon Nicholls, Mark decided not +to take the decree of banishment from London without remonstrance. He +was not astonished at the result of the talk against him. That his one +great enemy should have poisoned the wells so easily was not very +surprising. He could not help knowing that the very keenness and ardour +of his friends had produced prejudice against him. There was, among the +religious circles in London, a perhaps healthy suspicion of hero worship +for popular preachers, and of any indiscreet zeal. The great Religious +Orders knew how to deal with life, and it was safer to have an +enthusiasm for an Order than for an individual. Seculars were the right +people for daily routine and work among the poor, but for a young +secular priest to become a bright, particular star was unusual and +alarming. + +Jealousy is the fault of the best men because it eludes their most +vigilant examinations, and, while their energy is taken up with visible +enemies, it dresses itself in a complete and dignified disguise and +comes out either as discretion or zeal or a love of humility. + +Mark saw all this less clearly than did the blind Canon, but he realised +it enough not to be surprised at the quick growth of the seed Molly had +sown in well-prepared ground. + +But the blow he did not expect came from his own rector. He went to him, +thinking he would back him up in his efforts to get an explanation of +this sudden order, and he was told, between pinches of snuff, that he +had much better do as he was bid without making a fuss, and that he was +being sent to an excellent berth, which was exactly what he needed. The +rector was sorry to lose him certainly, but he thought it was the best +possible arrangement for himself. There was something of grunts and +sniffs between the short phrases that did not soften them. Mark became +speechless with hurt feeling. + +It became clearly evident to Canon Nicholls that the rector and one or +two of the older priests who had wind of the matter could not see why +there should be any fuss about it. Young Molyneux was under no cloud; +why should he behave as if it were a disgrace to be chaplain to poor old +Lord Lofton? Was he crying out because London would be in such a bad way +without him? What the Canon could not get them to see was the effect on +public opinion. To send Mark away now was to advertise backbiting until +it might become a real scandal. They could not see beyond their own +immediate circle; if all the priests knew he was really a good fellow +they thought that quite enough. They had a horror of a man making +himself talked of outside, but they had no notion of giving him the +chance to right himself with the outside world. It was much better that +he should go away and be forgotten. + +Canon Nicholls had always been of opinion that the secular clergy in +England were more hardly treated than the regulars. They were expected +to have the absolute detachment of monks, without the support that a +Religious Order gives to its subjects. They were given the standards of +the cloister in the seminary, and then tumbled out into life in the +world. No one in authority seemed anxious not to discourage a young +secular priest. To be regular and punctual, to avoid rows, and to keep +out of debt were the virtues that naturally appealed to the approval of +a harassed bishop. But a zeal that put a man forward and brought him +into public notice was likely to be troublesome, and such men were +seldom very good at accounts. The type of young man which Mark +resembled, according to the priests who discussed the question, was not +a popular one among them. As a type it had not been found to wash well. + +Canon Nicholls was not popular among them for other reasons, but chiefly +because of a biting tongue. He would let his talk flow without tact or +diplomacy on these questions, and often did far more harm than good, in +consequence. He fairly stormed to one or two of his visitors at the +absurdity of hiding a man away because of unjust slander. It was the +very moment in which he ought to be brought forward and supported in +every way. The fact was that the man was to be sacrificed to the +supposed good of the Church, only no one would say so candidly. Whereas, +in reality, by justice to the man the Church would be saved from a +scandal! + +Mark was outwardly very calm, but he was changed. His friends said that +his vitality and earnestness were bound to suffer in the struggle for +self-repression. His sermons were becoming mechanical tasks and the +confessional a weariness. He made his protest, as Canon Nicholls wished, +but after the talk with his rector he knew it was useless. He wrapped +himself in silence, even with Father Jack Marny. He began, half +consciously, to be more self-indulgent in details and the only subject +on which he ever showed animation was a projected holiday in +Switzerland. He once alluded to the possibility of going to Groombridge +for the shooting. + +At first he had not allowed Father Marny to take any of his now painful +work among the people he was so soon to leave, but, after a week or two, +he acquiesced. What was the use when he was to leave them for good and +all? It were better they should learn at once to get on without him. +Father Marny, in passionate sympathy, was ready to work himself to death +and acknowledge no fatigue. It was easy to conceal fatigue or anything +else from Mark in his preoccupied state of mind. He showed no interest +when Lord Lofton wrote him a most warmly and tactfully expressed letter +of welcome, in which he told the coming chaplain that he must not +suppose there was not work in plenty to be done for souls in the +country. + +"Humbugging old men and women who want pensions and soup and blankets!" +Mark said with unusual irritation, as he flung the letter to his friend. + +But to the curate Mark was as much above criticism as a martyr at the +foot of the gallows. + +Strangely enough, the first break into this moral fog that was settling +down in his spiritual world was, of all unlikely things, the letter from +Edmund Grosse. + +When he got Edmund's letter Mark was sulking--there is no other word for +it--over his answer to Lord Lofton, which ought to have gone several +days ago. Of course he was bound by his mission oath to go where he was +placed, but the authorities might at least have waited to hear from him +before handing him over as if he were a parcel or a Jesuit. He read +Edmund's cramped writing with a little difficulty, and then threw the +three sheets it covered on to the table with a bang, and jumped up. + +"Dash it!" he cried, "this is rather too much." + +He did not stop to think that Edmund could not have been so idiotic as +to write that letter if he had known of the state of the case between +him and Miss Dexter. It only seemed at the moment that it was another +instance of cruelty and utter unfairness, part of the same treatment he +was receiving, which expected a man to be a plaster saint with no +thought for himself, no natural feelings, no sense of his own +reputation! First of all he was to be buried, torn from his friends, +from his work for souls, from the joy of the Good Shepherd seeking the +lost sheep. He was to lose all he loved and for which he had given up +his life, his career, his position, and, for the first time, he +enumerated among his sacrifices the possession of Groombridge. Then he +blushed for shame--also for the first time. How little _that_ had been, +compared to what he had to do now! What had he to do now? And here the +Little Master made his great mistake. He came out of the fog and shadow, +he came into the light because he thought it was safe now. + +What had Mark to do that was so much harder? To submit to authority and +forgive its blunders. He hesitated for a moment; he almost thought it +was that. Then came the light, and he saw the real crux. What he had to +do was to forgive Molly Dexter. He was startled by the revelation, as +men are startled who have been in love without knowing it. He had been +nursing hatred and revenge without knowing it, for, until he had become +bitter at the treatment of the authorities, he had felt no anger against +Molly. She had simply been the patient who would scratch out the eyes of +the surgeon. He was surprised into a quiet analysis of the discovery, +and then his thoughts stood quite still. It was only necessary for a +noble soul to _see_ such a temptation for him to _fight_ it. But he +passed back from that to the whole of the wrath and hurt feeling that he +recognised too. He was angry with those in authority who expected him to +behave like a saint; he had been angry vaguely with Sir Edmund Grosse, +but more with circumstances that also demanded of him that he should +behave like a saint and do the very worst thing for himself and confirm +the calumny against him by acting as Molly's confidential friend! But he +could not be equally angry at the same time with Miss Dexter, with his +own authorities, with Edmund Grosse, and with circumstances. One injury +alone might have been different, but taken together they suggested a +plot and intention. Whose plot? Whose intention? + +And the answer was thundered and yet whispered through his +consciousness. Is was God's plot, God's Will, God's demand, that he +should do the impossible and behave like a saint! + +Mark had said easily enough in the first noble instinct of bearing his +blow well: "We are God's slaves." But that first light had gradually +been obscured. He had not felt then that the impossible was demanded of +him. He had come to feel it, and to feel it without remembering that +man's helplessness was God's opportunity. Had he forgotten, erased from +the tablets of his mind and heart, all he had loved and trusted most? +Now all was terribly clear. Augustine, in a decadent, delicate age, had +not minced matters, and had insisted that all hope must be placed in Him +Who would not spare the scourge. "Oftentimes," he had cried, "does our +Tamer bring forth His scourge too." Mark took down the old, worn book. + +"In Him let us place our hope, and until we are tamed and tamed +thoroughly--that is, are perfected--let us bear our Tamer.... Whereas, +when thou art tamed, God reserveth for thee an inheritance which is God +Himself.... For God will then be _all in all_; neither will there be any +unhappiness to exercise us, but happiness alone to feed us.... What +multiplicity of things soever thou seekest here, He alone will be +Himself all these things to thee. + +"Unto this hope is man tamed, and shall his Tamer then be deemed +intolerable? Unto this hope is man tamed, and shall he murmur against +his beneficient Tamer, if He chance to use the scourge?... + +"Whether, therefore, Thou dealest softly with us that we be not wearied +in the way, or chastisest us that we wander not from the way, _Thou art +become our refuge, O Lord_." + +As Mark read, the pain of too great light was softened to him. What had +been hard, white light, glowed more rosy until it flushed his horizon +with full glory. + +It wanted a small space in time, but a mighty change in the spirit, +before Mark read Edmund's letter with a keen wish to enter into its full +meaning, and judge it wisely. Having come to himself, he was, as ever, +ready to give that self away. He was full of a strange energy; he smiled +to feel that the strokes of the lash were unfelt, while consciousness +was lost in love. This was God's anaesthetic. But it thrilled the soul +with vitality, and in no sense but the absence of pain did it suspend +the faculties. He had no doubt, no hesitation, as to what he must do. He +would go to Molly, he must see her at once, but not a word should pass +his lips of what Edmund wanted him to say. Not a moment must be lost. +Who might not betray her danger and destroy her opportunity? Molly must +be brought to do this thing of herself without any admixture of fear, +without any aim or object but to sacrifice all for what was right. He +yearned with utter simplicity that this might be her way out. Let her do +it for herself. Let her do it of herself, thought Mark--not because she +is afraid, not because her vast possessions appear the least insecure. +And the action would be far more noble just because, at the moment of +renunciation, the world would, for the first time, suspect her guilt. To +Mark it seemed now the crowning touch of mercy that the criminal should +be allowed to drink deep of the chalice. "Her own affair"--that was what +the dying mother had said of the unfortunate child to whom she offered +so gross a temptation. + +And in the depths of his mind there was the conviction that it was a +particular truth as to this individual soul, that not only would the +heroic be the only antagonist to the base, but that some such moral +revolution alone could be the beginning of cleansing of what had become +foul, and the driving out of the noxious and the vile. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD + + +It was in the evening, and Edmund was waiting in Rose's drawing-room +until she should come back from a meeting of one of her charitable +committees. + +He was walking up and down the room with a face at once very grave and +very alert. Even his carriage during the last few weeks had seemed to +Rose to have gained in firmness and dignity, and perhaps she was right. +Nor had she failed to notice that one or two small, straight pieces of +grey hair could now be seen near the temples. He looked a little older, +a little more brisk, a little more firm, and distinctly more cheerful +since his reverses. It is no paradox to speak of cheerfulness in sorrow, +or to say that the whole nature may be happier in grief than in the days +of apparent pleasure. It is not only in those who have acquired deep +religious peace that this may be true, for even in gaining energy and a +balance in natural action, there may be happiness amidst pain. + +Rose came in without seeing that anyone was in the room, and gave a +start when she saw the tall figure by the window. The evening light +showed him a little grey, a little worn in appearance, a little more +openly kindly in the dark eyes. Something that she had fancied dim and +clouded lately--only once or twice, not always--now shone in his face +with its full brightness. + +"Has anything happened, Edmund? Have you come to tell me anything?" + +He came across the room to her and took her hand in silence, and then +said: + +"You look tired. Have you had tea?" + +"Oh, never mind tea," she answered. "Do tell me! Seriously, something +has happened?" + +"It is nothing of any consequence--nothing that need disturb you in the +least. It is only about my own stupid affairs, and, on the whole, it is +very good news. I have just come from the Foreign Office, and they have +told me there that I am to have that job in India, and that the sooner I +am ready to start the better." + +As he spoke he turned from her with a sudden, quick hurt in his heart. +It was, after all, only of great importance to himself. He knew she +would be kindly glad that he had got the post he wanted. Had she not +always urged him to some real work? Had she not pressed him again and +again during the last four years, consciously and unconsciously, to +bring out all his talents and to do a man's work in a man's way? So she +would be simply glad, and she would wave him "God speed," and would, no +doubt, pray for him at those innumerable services she attended, and +write to him long, gentle, feminine letters full of details about all +sorts of matters, good or indifferent, and she would ask about his +health and press him to take care of himself and tell him of any word +that was spoken kindly of him here in England. And she would somehow +manage to know, or think she knew, that he was doing great things in the +East. And so, no doubt, in the two years in which he was away there +would be no apparent break in this very dear intimacy. But what, in +reality, would he know of her inmost feelings, of her loneliness, of her +sufferings, of any repentance that might come to her, any softening +towards himself? He seemed to see all of the two years that were to come +in a flash as he stood silent on one side of the neglected tea-table, +and Rose stood silent, turning away from him on the other. + +When he raised his eyes, he almost felt a surprise that the figure, a +little turned away from him, was not dressed in a plain, white frock, +and that the shadows and the flickering sunlight making its way through +the mulberry leaves were not still upon her; for that was how, through +life and in eternity, Rose would be present in the mind of her lover. + +Time had gone; it seemed now as nothing. Whatever changes had come +between, he felt as if he saw in the averted face that same expression +of sorrowful denial and gentle resistance that had baffled him now for +over twelve years. It was still that his soul asked something of this +other purer, gentler, more unworldly, more loving soul, which she, with +all her beneficence would not give him. He did no think of the +impracticability of any question of marriage; he did not think in any +definite sense of their relations as man and woman. At other times he +had known so frequently just the overpowering wish for the possession of +the woman he loved best, but now she stood to him as the history of his +moral existence here below, and he felt as if, in missing her, he should +miss the object and crown of his life. + +At last silence became intolerable. He moved as though he wanted to +speak and could not, and then he said huskily, almost gruffly: + +"It is not 'good-bye' to-day, of course," and then he laughed at the +feebleness of his own words. + +Rose turned to him at that, and he was not really surprised to see that +the tears were flowing rapidly over her cheeks--tears so large that they +splashed like big raindrops on the white hands which were clasped as +they hung before her. But that made it no easier. He thought very little +of those tears; he felt even a little bitter at their apparent +bitterness. He hardened at the sight of those tears; they made him feel +that he could leave her with more dignity, more firmness in his own +mind, than he had ever thought would be possible. + +"Vous pleurez et vous etes roi?" He hardly knew that he had muttered the +words as he so often muttered a quotation to himself. But Rose did not +hear them. She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts and feelings to +notice him closely. Ah! if she had but known before what it would be to +lose him! She was horrified as she felt her self-control failing her, +and an enormous agony entering into possession of all her faculties. She +was so startled, so amazed at this revelation of herself. If she had +felt less, she would have thought more for him. She did not think for a +moment what that silent standing by her side meant for him. She knew at +last the selfishness of passion. She wanted him as she had never wanted +anyone or anything before. She could only think of the craving of her +own heart, the extraordinary trouble that possessed it. Those who have +had a passing acquaintance with love, those who have sown brief passages +of love thoughts over their early youth, can form no notion of what +that first surrender meant to Rose. "Too late!" cried the tyrant love, +the only tyrant that can carry conviction by its mere fiat to the +innermost recesses of a nature. "Too late!--it might have been, but not +now; it is all your own doing; you made him suffer once; you are the +only one to suffer now. You are crying now the easy tears of a child, +but there are years and years before you when the tears will not come, +call for them as you may; they cannot go on coming from a broken heart. +They flow away out of the fissures, and then the dryness and barrenness +of daily misery will not let them come again." + +"He never cared as I do," thought Rose; "he does not know what it is!" + +She called her persecutor "it"; she shrank from its name even now with +an unutterable embarrassment. When she did turn to Edmund it was more as +if to confide to him what she was suffering from someone else; it was so +habitual to her to turn to him. What was the use? what was the use? How +could she use him against himself? No, no; she must, she must control +herself. She must not tell him; she must let him go quite quietly now; +she must make no appeal to the past; he was too generous--she did not +want his generosity. She put her hands to her forehead and pushed the +hair backwards. + +"I'm not well, I think," she said; "the room at the meeting was stuffy. +I--I didn't quite understand what you said--I'm glad." + +She sank on to a chair, and then got up again. + +"I'm glad you've got what you wanted, but I'm startled--no, I mean I'm +not quite well. I don't think I can talk to-day--I don't +understand--I----" + +She stood almost with her back to him then. + +He was so amazed at her words that he could not speak at all. This was +not sweetness, kindness, pity; this was something else, something +different; it was almost a shock! + +"I am so silly," she said, with a most absurd attempt at a natural +voice, "I think I must----" Her figure swayed a little. + +Edmund watched her with utter amazement. All his knowledge of women was +at fault, and that child in the white frock--where was she? Where was +that sense of his soul's history and its failure, its mystic tragedy, +just now? Gone, quite gone, for he knew now that that long tragedy was +ended. But Rose did not know it. + +He moved, half consciously, a few feet towards the door. + +"Rose," he said, in a very low voice, "if it has come at last, don't +deny it! I have waited patiently, God knows! but I don't want it now +unless it is true. For Heaven's sake do nothing in mere pity!" + +"But it has come, Edmund; it has come!" she interrupted him, so quickly +that he had barely time to reach her before she came to him. + +And yet it had been many years in coming--so many years that he could +hardly believe it now; could hardly believe that the white hands he had +watched so often trembled with delight as they caressed him; could +hardly believe that the fair face was radiant with joy when he, Edmund, +ventured to kiss her; could hardly believe that it was of her own wish +and will that she leant against him now! + +"I ought not to have said it was the stuffy room, ought I?" + +It was the sweetest, youngest laugh she had ever given. Then she looked +up at the ceiling where the sun flickered a little. + +"Edmund, it is better than if I had known under the mulberry tree. Tell +me you forgive me all I have done wrong. I could not," she gasped a +little, "have loved you then as I do now, because I had known no sorrow +then." + +And Edmund told her that she was forgiven. But one sin she confessed +gave him, I fear, unmixed delight; she was so dreadfully afraid that she +had lately been a little jealous! + +Strange--very strange and unfathomable--is the heart of man. It did not +even occur to him as the wildest scruple to be at all afraid that he had +been lately a little, ever so little, less occupied with the thought of +her. No shadow of a cloud rested on the great output of a strong man's +deep affection. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +"WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE" + + +It was on the same evening that Mark succeeded in seeing Molly. He had +failed the day before, but at the second attempt he succeeded. + +It was the first time he had entered Westmoreland House, and he had +never, even in the autumn weeks when Miss Dexter had been most cordial +to him, tried to see her except by her own invitation. Altogether the +position now was as embarrassing as it is possible to conceive. He had +been her confidant as to a crime for which the law sees no kind of +palliative, no possible grounds for mercy. As he greeted her it wanted +little imaginative power to feel the dramatic elements in the picture. +Molly was standing in the middle of the great drawing-room dressed in +something very white and very beautiful. At any other moment he must +have been impressed by the subdued splendour of the room, and the grace +and youth of the dominating figure in the midst. Mark was too absorbed +to-day in the spiritual drama which he must now force to its conclusion +to realise that he had also come to threaten the destruction of Molly's +material world and all the glory thereof. He had, too, so far forgotten +himself, that the mischief Molly had wrought against him had faded into +the background of his consciousness. His absorbing anxiety lay in the +extreme difficulty of his task. It would need an angel from Heaven, +gifted too with great knowledge of human nature, to accomplish what he +meant to attempt. First he would throw everything into the desperate +endeavour to make her give up the will simply and entirely from the +highest motives. But what possibility was there of success? Why should +he hope that, just because he called and asked her for it, she would +give up all that for which she had sold her soul? He could not feel that +he was a prophet sent by God from whose lips would fall such inspired +words that the iron frost would thaw and the great depths of her nature +be broken up. In fact, he felt singularly uninspired, and very much +embarrassed. And when he had tried the impossible (he said to himself), +and had given her the last chance of going back on this ugly fraud from +nobler motives than that of fear, and had failed--he must then enter on +the next stage and must merge the priest's office in that of the +ambassador. He must bring home to her that what she clung to was already +lost, and that nothing but shame and disgrace lay before her. He had the +case, as presented by Sir Edmund's letter in all its convicting +simplicity, clearly in his mind--quite as clearly as the facts of +Molly's own confession to himself. It would not be difficult to crush +the criminal, to make her see the hopeless horror of the trial that must +follow unless she consented to a compromise. But it was the completeness +of her defeat that he dreaded the most; it was for that last stage of +his plan that he was gathering unconsciously all his nerve-power +together. He seemed to hear with ominous distinctness her words at their +last meeting: "If I can't go through with it (which is quite possible) +I shall throw up the sponge and get out of this world as soon as I can." +That had been spoken without any sort of fear of detection, without the +least suspicion that she would have no choice in the matter of giving up +her ill-gotten wealth. What he dreaded unutterably was the despair that +must overpower her as he developed the long chain of evidence against +her. As he came into her presence, overwhelmed with these thoughts, he +was also anxiously recalling two mental notes. He must make her clearly +understand that he had not betrayed her by one word or hint to Sir +Edmund Grosse or any living human being; and secondly, he thought it +very important to impress upon her that Sir Edmund and Lady Rose were of +opinion that Larrone had suppressed the will or that Molly had never +opened the box which contained it--were, in fact, of any or every +opinion except that Molly was guilty of crime. For the rest he could, at +this eleventh hour, hardly see anything clearly, and as he shook hands +with Miss Dexter an unutterable longing to escape came over him. Molly's +greeting was haughty--almost rude--but that seemed to him natural and +inevitable. He made some comment on a political event which she did not +pretend to answer, and then as if speech were almost impossible, he +actually murmured that the weather was very hot. + +Then he became silent and remained so. For quite a minute neither spoke. + +Molly was not naturally silent, naturally restrained. She moved uneasily +about the room; she lit a cigarette, and threw it away again. At last +she stood in front of him. + +"What made you come to-day?" she asked. + +Her large restless eyes looked full of anger as she spoke. + +"I came to-day partly because I am going away very soon, so I thought +that it might be----" He hesitated. + +"But where are you going?" Molly asked abruptly. + +"I am to take a chaplaincy at Lord Lofton's." + +"And your preaching?" cried Molly in astonishment. + +"Is not wanted," said Mark. + +"And your poor?" + +"Can get on without me." + +"You are to be buried in the country?" she cried in indignation; "you +are to leave all the people you are helping? But what a horrible shame! +What,"--she suddenly turned away as a thought struck her--"what can be +the reason?" + +"It seems," he said very quietly, "that I have been foolish; people are +talking, things are said against me, and things should not be said +against a priest. But I did not come here to talk about myself. I came +here----" He paused. + +Molly sat down close to the empty fireplace, and was bending over it, +her very thin figure curiously twisted, and one foot twitching +nervously. + +"You are going away," she said suddenly, "and it is my doing. I did not +know I was doing that; it felt as if hitting at you were the only way to +defend myself. Good God! I shall have a lot to answer for!" + +She did not turn round; she crouched lower on the low chair and +shuddered. + +"And you," she went on in a low voice, "you want to save my soul! I have +always been afraid you would get the best of it, and now I have +destroyed your life's work. Did you know it was I who was talking +against you?" + +"I did." + +"And that I have said everything I dared to say against you ever since I +told you my secret?" + +"Yes; more or less I knew." + +"Why didn't you tell your authorities the truth long ago?" + +"How could I?" + +Molly made no answer. She got up in silence and took a key from her +pocket and moved toward a small bureau between the windows. She unlocked +the lower drawer and took out a packet of papers, and in the middle of +this packet was an envelope in which lay the key of the room upstairs. +Her movements were slow but unhesitating, and when she left the room +Mark had not the slightest idea of what she would do. If he had seen her +face as she slowly mounted the great well staircase he might have +understood. + +How simple it all was. She reached the top of the many steps with little +loss of breath; she turned to the right into the dark passage that led +to her own room, passed her own door, and put the key in the lock of the +one next to it. She knew so exactly which box she sought, though she had +never seen it since the day when Dr. Larrone brought it to her. Although +she had actually come in the cab that brought the small boxes from the +flat, she had succeeded in not recognising that one among the number +heaped up together. She knew exactly where it stood now, and how many +things had been piled above the boxes from the flat with seeming +carelessness, but by her orders. + +The shutters were closed, but she could have found that box in inky +darkness, and now a ray from between the chinks fell upon it. She did +not think now of how often she had told herself that she did not know +what the box was like. Now it seemed to have been the only box she had +ever known in her life. The cases on the top of it were heavy, and Molly +had to strain herself to move them, but she was very strong, and every +reserve of muscular power was called out unconsciously to meet her need. +She did not know that her hands were covered with dust, and that blood +was breaking through a scratch over the right thumb made by a jagged +nail. + +When she came back into the drawing-room, Father Molyneux was sitting +with his back towards her, looking with unseeing eyes into the trees of +the park. She moved towards him and held out a long envelope. + +"Take it away," she said, "If I have ruined your life, you have ruined +mine." + +She moved with uncertain steps to the chimney-piece, leant upon it, and, +turning round, looked wildly at the envelope in his hands. + +"Why didn't you come for it before?" she asked him. + +Mark could not answer. He was absolutely astonished at what had +happened. He could hardly believe that he held in his hand a thing of +such momentous importance. He had nerved himself for a great fight, but +he had not known what he should say, how he should act, and +then--amazing fact--a few minutes after he came into the room, and +without his having even asked for it, the will was put into his hands! +Nothing had been said of conditions or compromise; she only asked the +amazing question why he had not come for it _before_! + +"You were right," she mused, "right to leave me alone. I wonder, do you +remember the words that have haunted me this summer?--Browning's words +about the guilty man in the duel: + + 'Let him live his life out, + Life will try his nerves.' + +It has tried my nerves unbearably; I could not go on, I have not the +strength. I might have had a glorious time if I had been a little +stronger. As it is, it's not worth while." + +It is impossible to convey the heavy dreariness of outlook conveyed by +her voice and manner. There seemed no higher moral quality in it all. + +"Half a dozen times I have nearly sent for you. But"--she did not +shudder now, or make the restless movements he had noticed when he first +came in: Molly had regained the stillness which follows after +storms--"as soon as you are gone I shall be longing to have it back +again. Men have done worse things than I have for thirty thousand a +year! It won't be easy to be a pauper; I think it would be easier to +kill myself." + +She was silent again, and Mark could not find one word that he was not +afraid to say--one word that might not quench the smoking flax. + +"I had to give it to you without waiting to talk of the future, or I +might not have given it at all. But I should be glad if the case could +be so arranged that my mother's name and my own should not be dragged in +the mud. It is only an appeal for mercy--nothing else." Her voice +trembled almost into silence. + +"I think that is all safe," said Mark. "I think if you will leave it all +in my hands I can get better conditions for you than you suppose now. +They will be only too glad." + +"But I gave it to you without conditions." Her manner for the moment was +that of a child seeking reassurance. + +"Thank God! you did," he cried, with an irrepressible burst of sympathy. + +"It's not much for a thief to have done, is it? But now I should like to +do it all properly. Tell me; ought I to come away from here to-day, and +give everything I have here to Lady Rose? If I ought, I will!" + +"No, certainly not," said Mark. "I have been asked to offer you liberal +conditions if you would agree to a compromise. I said they had come to +quite the wrong person. No, no, don't think I told them. They have fresh +evidence that there was a will, and they believe they know that +important papers were brought to you by Dr. Larrone when your mother +died." + +"And you came to frighten me with this?" There was a touch of reproach +in her tone. + +"No, I came, hoping you would give me the paper, as you have done, +without knowing this." + +Evidently this news impressed Molly deeply, but she did not want to +discuss it. Presently she said: + +"I am glad you came in time before I was frightened. How you have wanted +to make me save my soul! You have helped me very much, but I cannot save +my soul." + +"But God can," said Mark. + +"You see," she went on, "I never know what I am going to do--going to +be--next. Imagine my being a thief! It seems now almost incredible. And +I don't know what may come next." + +For a second she looked at him with wild terror in her eyes. + +"Think how many years I have before me. How can I hope that I----?" + +"You will do great, great good," said Mark, with emotion. + +She shook her head. + +"David committed a worse sin than yours." + +Molly smiled, a little, incredulous, grey smile, for a moment. + +"I may be good to-day. I may be full of peace and joy even to-night--but +to-morrow? You told me once that I should only know true joy if I had +been humbled in the dust. I am low enough now, but the comfort has not +come yet, and, even if God comforts me, it won't last. I shall still be +I, and life is so long." + +"You must trust Him--you must indeed. He will find a solution. You are +exhausted now with the victory you have gained. Rest now, and then do +the good things you have done before. Trust in the higher side of your +character; God gave it to you. Believe me, He has called you to great +things." + +As he spoke she covered her face with her hands, and a deep blush of +shame rose from her neck to her forehead, visible through the thin, +white fingers. + +"I suppose He will find a way out. As I can't understand how you have +cared so much to save my soul, I suppose I can understand His love still +less. Must you go? You will pray for me, I know." + +She held out her hand with a look of generous appeal to his forgiveness. + +"God bless you!" he said, with complete sympathy, and then he went away +to seek an interview with Sir Edmund Grosse. + +Molly sank down on a low seat by the window. Then she went slowly +upstairs, dragging her feet a little from fatigue, and took out of the +tin box the packet of very old letters. She burned them one by one, with +a match for each, kneeling in front of the empty fireplace in her +bed-room. They told the story of her mother's attempt to persuade Sir +David of their marriage during his illness in India. It was not a pretty +story--one of deceit and intrigue. It should disappear now. + +Then she sat down in a deep chair in the window. She stayed very still, +curled up against the cushion behind her, her eyes fixed on the ground. +She was hardly conscious of thought; she was trying to recall things +Mark had said, murmuring them over to herself. She was trying not to +sink into the depths of humiliation and despair. It was a blind clinging +to a vague hope for better things, with a certain torpor of all her +faculties. + +Then gradually things in the vague gloom became definite to her. "No," +she said to them with entreaty, "not to-night. My life is only just +dead. I am tired by the shock--it was so sudden--only let me rest till +morning, and in the morning I will try to face it." + +She had, it seemed, quite settled this point; the present and the future +were to be left; a pause was absolutely necessary. Then followed quickly +the sharp pang of a fresh thought. It was not in her power to make +things pause. She could not make a truce by calling it a truce. If she +did not realise things now and act now herself, others would come upon +the scene. Even to-night Sir Edmund Grosse might know. She shivered. +Perhaps he was being told now. It would be insufferable to endure his +kindness prompted by Rose's generous forgiveness. But ought she to find +anything unbearable? Was she going to revolt at the very outset? She was +not trained in spiritual matters, but it seemed to her that any revolt +would betray a want of reality in her reparation, and in this great +change of feeling she wanted above all things to be real. She tried to +face what must come next. How could she hand over Westmoreland House? It +could not be done as quietly as she had handed that letter to Father +Mark. The house had been bought with the great lump sum Madame Danterre +had accumulated in Florence--much of that money had been put in the bank +before Sir David died. Perhaps if they were ready to come to terms, as +Father Mark had said, an arrangement would be suggested in which Molly +would not be expected to refund what she had spent, and would have the +possession of Westmoreland House and its contents. The sale would +realise enough to save her from actual want, and yet she would not be +receiving a pension from Lady Rose. Her mind got out of gear and flashed +through these thoughts until, unable to check it in any way, she burst +into tears. She felt the self-deception of such plans with physical +pain. What was that money in the bank at Florence but blackmail gathered +in during Sir David's life? "Why cannot I be straight even now?" she +whispered. She was still sitting on the couch with one leg drawn up +under her, gazing intently at the ground. No, the only money she +possessed was L2000 invested at 31/2 per cent. "L70 a year--that is +less than I have given Carey, or the cook, or the butler." + +The fact was that while her heart and soul had gone forward in dumb pain +in utter darkness with the single aim of undoing the sin done, the mind +still lagged and reasoned. This is a peculiar agony, and Molly had to +drink of that agony. + +Gradually and mercilessly her reason told her that an arrangement with +Lady Rose, the appearance of having the right of possession in +Westmoreland House, the readiness of all concerned to bury the story, +and the possession of a fair income, would make it possible to live in +her own class quietly but, if tactfully, with a good repute. Then the +thought of any kind of compromise became intolerable to her, and she +realised that it was a fancy picture, not a real temptation. + +To pretend that Westmoreland House was her own she could not do, but +what was the alternative? Dragging poverty and shame, and with no +opportunity for hiding what had passed, for living it down. Even if she +did the impossible to her pride and consented to receive a good +allowance from Lady Rose, it would not be at all the same in the world's +view as the dignified income that could be raised from Westmoreland +House, and from her mother's jewels and furniture. Her fingers +unconsciously touched the pearls round her neck. Surely she need not +speculate as to how her mother obtained the magnificent jewels which she +had worn up to the end? Then more light came--hard and cold, but clear. +If Molly had been innocent these things might have been so, but Molly +had committed a fraud on a great scale. It would be by the mercy of the +injured that she would be spared the rigours of the law. It was by the +supreme mercy of God that she had had the chance of making the sacrifice +before it was forced from her. And could she shrink from mere ordinary +poverty, from a life such as the vast majority of men and women are +living on this earth? She did not really shrink in her will. It was only +a mechanical movement of thought from one point to another. Was it much +punishment for what she had done to be very poor? Would it not be better +to be unclassed--to live among people who help each other much because +they have little to give? Would it not be the way to do what Father Mark +had said she should try to do--those good things she had done before? +She could nurse, she could watch, she was able to do with little sleep. +She would be very humble with the sick and suffering now. And it would +not surely be wrong to go and find such a life far away from where she +had sinned? She began to wonder if she need stay and live through all +the complications of the coming days. Must it be the right thing to stay +because it was the most unbearable? She thought not. There are times +when recklessness is the only safety. If she did not burn her ships now +she could not tell what temptations might come. But she would not let it +be among her motives that thus she would thereby escape unbearable pity +from Lady Rose and the far sterner magnanimity of Edmund Grosse. She +would act simply; she would ask Rose a favour; she would ask her to +provide for Miss Carew. + +Half consciously again her hands went to her throat. She unclasped the +pearl necklace that Edmund had seen on Madame Danterre's withered neck +in the garden at Florence. She slipped off four large rings, and then +gathered up a few jewels that lay about. "One ought not to leave +valuables about," she thought, and she did not know that she added +"after a death." + +If Miss Carew had been in the room she would probably not have +understood that anything special was going on. Molly moved quietly +about, collecting together on a little table by the cupboard, rings, +brooches, buckles, watches--anything of much value. She sought and found +the key of the little safe in the wardrobe and put away these objects +with the large jewel cases already inside it. She also put with them her +cheque book and her banker's book. A very small cheque book on a +different bank where the interest of the L2000 had not been drawn on for +six months, she put down on her writing table. Then she looked round the +room. Was there nothing there really her own, and that she cared to keep +either for its own sake or because it had belonged to someone she had +loved? An awful sense of loneliness swept over her as she looked round +and could think of nothing. Each beautiful thing on walls or tables that +she looked at seemed repulsive in its turn, for it had either belonged +to Madame Danterre or been bought with her money. There was not so much +as a letter which she cared ever to see again. She had burnt Edmund's +few notes when she first came to Westmoreland House. + +She had once met a woman who had lost everything in a fire. "I have +everything new," she wailed, "nothing that I ever had before--not a +photograph, not a prayer-book, nor an old letter. I don't feel that I am +the same person." The words came back now. "Not the same person," and +suddenly a sense of relief began to dawn upon her. + + "Alone to land upon that shore + With not one thing that we have known before." + +Oh, the immensity of such a mercy! That hymn had made her shiver as a +child; how different it seemed now! Molly knelt down by the couch, and +her shoulders trembled as a tempest of feeling came over her. Criminals +hardened by long lives of fraud have been known to be happier after +being found out--simply because the strain was over. They had destroyed +their moral sense. Molly's conscience was alive, though torn, bleeding, +and debased. She could not be happy as they were, but yet there was the +lifting of the weight as of a great mountain rolled away. She was afraid +of the immense sense of relief that now seemed coming upon her. Could +she really become free of the horrible Molly of the last months--this +noxious, vile, lying, thieving woman? What an awful strain that woman +had lived in! She had told Mark that what frightened her was the thought +that she would still be herself. She longed now to cut away everything +that had belonged to her. Might she not by God's grace, in poverty and +hard work, with everything around her quite different from the past, +might she not quite do to death the Molly who had lived in Westmoreland +House? The cry was more passionate than spiritual perhaps, but the +longing had its power to help. She rose and again moved quietly about +the room of the dead, bad woman, which must be left in order for the new +owners. She put some things together--what was necessary for a night or +two--and felt almost glad that she had a comb and brush she had not yet +used. There was a bag with cheap fittings Mrs. Carteret had given her as +a girl, which would hold all she needed. And then she remembered that +she had something she would like to take away; it was a nurse's apron, +and in its pocket a nurse's case of small instruments. They were what +she used when nursing with the district nurse in the village at home. +Then she sat down and wrote a cheque and a note, and proceeded to take +them downstairs. The cheque was for L30 out of the little Dexter cheque +book, and the note was an abrupt little line to tell a friend that she +could not dine out that night. She "did not feel up to it" was the only +excuse given, and a furious hostess declared that Miss Dexter had become +perfectly insufferable. She seemed to think that she could do exactly as +she chose because she was absurdly rich. + +The butler was able to give Molly L30 in notes and cash, and it was his +opinion that she wanted the money for playing cards that night. Molly +crept upstairs again with a foreign Bradshaw in her hand. She looked out +the train for the night boat to Dieppe. It left Charing Cross at 9.45. +She had chosen Dieppe for the first stage of her journey--of which she +knew not the further direction--for two reasons. The first was because +she knew that she ought to stay within reach if it were necessary for +her to do business with her own or Lady Rose's solicitors. She was +determined not to give any trouble she could avoid giving, in the +business of handing over that which had never belonged to her. At this +time of year the journey to Dieppe would be no difficulty, and she +wanted to go there rather than to Boulogne or any other French port, +because she had the address of a very cheap and clean _pension_ in which +Miss Carew had passed some weeks before coming to live with Molly in +London. From that _pension_ Molly could write the letters she felt +physically incapable of writing to-night. The only note she determined +to write at once was to Carey, asking her to remain at Westmoreland +House and to tell the servants that Miss Dexter had gone abroad. She +told her that she had gone to the _pension_ at Dieppe, but earnestly +insisted that she should not follow her. She begged her to do nothing +before getting a letter that she would write to her at once on arriving +at Dieppe. She also asked her to keep the key of the safe which she +enclosed in her letter. Molly sealed the letter, and then felt some +hesitation as to when and how to give it to Miss Carew. She finally +decided to send it by a messenger boy from the station when it would be +too late for Miss Carew to follow her, and when it would still be in +time to prevent any astonishment at her not returning home that night. + + +Miss Carew, thinking that Molly had gone out to dinner, came into her +bed-room to look for a book. The night was hot and oppressive, but no +one had raised the blinds since the sun had set, and the room was so +dark that she did not at once see Molly. She started nervously, half +expecting one of Molly's impatient and rude exclamations on being +disturbed, and, with an apology, was going away when Molly said gently: + +"Stay a minute, Carey; I'm not going to dine out to-night." + +"But there is no dinner ordered, and I have just had supper. I am going +out this evening to see a friend." + +"Never mind," Molly interrupted, "I can't eat anything. I am going out +for a drive in a hansom in the cool. Would you mind saying that I shall +not want the motor?" + +"My dear! are you not well?" + +"Not very." And suddenly Miss Carew began to read the great change in +her face. "It has none of it been very good for me, Carey; you have been +quite right. This house and all was a mistake. You have never said it, +but I have seen it in your eyes. And it has not even been in quite good +taste for me to make such a splash--you thought that too. I'm going to +stop it all now, dear, and probably the house will be sold; it's been an +unblest sort of thing." + +Miss Carew stared. The tone was so different from any she had ever heard +in Molly's voice; it was very gentle, but exhausted, as if she had been +through an acute crisis in an illness. + +"Carey dear, you have always been so kind to me, and I have been very +unkind to you. You will have to know things that will make you hate and +despise me to-morrow. But would you mind giving me one kiss to-night?" + +Miss Carew was very nervous at this request, but happily all the best +side of her was roused by something in Molly that, in spite of a vast +difference, recalled the Molly of seven years ago when she had first +seen her. It was a real kiss--a kind of pact between them. + +"I wonder if she will ever wish to do the same again!" thought Molly. + +Then Miss Carew left her and she called the maid, who brought at her +bidding a long black cloak and a small black toque--insignificant +compared to anything else of Molly's. + +The mistress of Westmoreland House drove away in a hansom, with a bag in +her hand, at twenty minutes past seven. + +There is a small house with a little chapel attached to it in a road in +Chelsea where some Frenchwomen, who were exiled from their own country, +have come to dwell. It is built on Sir Thomas More's garden, and it +possesses within its boundaries the mulberry tree under which the +chancellor was sitting when they came to fetch him to the Tower. It is a +poor little house with very poor inmates, and a poor little chapel. But +in that chapel night and day, without a moment's break, are to be found +two figures (when there are not more) dressed in plain brown habits and +black veils. And on the altar there is always a crowd of lighted +candles, in spite of the poverty of the chapel. It is a very small +chapel and oddly shaped. The length of the little building is from north +to south, and the altar is to the east. There are but few benches, but +they run the full length of the building. Strange things are known by +these women, who never go farther than the small garden at the back, of +the life of the town about them. Some men and more women get accustomed +to coming daily into the chapel with its unceasing exposition, and to +love its silence and its atmosphere of rest and peace. Some never make +themselves known; others sometimes ask to see a nun, and thus gradually +these recluses come to know memorable secrets in human lives. + +Molly had often been there in the weeks which she had afterwards called +"my short fit of religious emotion." She chose to go there to-night, to +spend there her last hour in London. + +The little chapel was fairly cool, and through a door very near the +altar, open to the garden, came the scent of mignonette on the air. +Besides the motionless figures at the altar-rail there was no one else +in the chapel. + +At eight o'clock two small brown figures came in and knelt bowed down in +the middle of the sanctuary. The two who had finished their watch rose +and knelt by the side of those who relieved guard. Then the four rose +together, and the two newcomers took up their station, and the others +left them. And the incessant oblation of those lives went on. What a +vast moral space lay between their lives and Molly's! What a contrast! + +Molly had had no home, but they had given up their homes for this. Molly +had pined in vain for human love; they had turned away from it. Molly +had rebelled against all restraints; they had chosen these bonds. Molly +had sinned, against even the world's code, for love of the world; and +they had rejected even the best the world could give. + +Was it unjust, unfair that the boon they asked for in return was given +to them? + +If, on the one hand, Molly had inherited evil tendencies and had fallen +on evil circumstances, does it seem strange that she could share in good +as well as in evil? + +It is easy to take scandal at Molly's inherited legacy of evil +tendencies. It is easy to take scandal at the facility of her +forgiveness. The two stumbling-blocks are in reality the two aspects of +one truth, that no human being stands alone and that each gains or +suffers with or by his fellows. + +The sinless women pleaded for sinners in a glorious human imitation of +the Divine pleading. And the exuberant vitality poured by the Conqueror +of death into the human race, flowing strongly through that tiny chapel, +had carried the little, thin, stagnant stream of Molly's soul into the +great flood of grace that purifies by sorrow and by love. + +Molly knelt in one of the back benches with her eyes fixed on the +monstrance, in a very agony of sorrow and self-abasement. I would not if +I could analyse that penitence. Happily as life goes on we shrink more, +not less, from raising even the most reverent gaze on the secret places +of the soul. We do not know in what form, if in any form at all, and not +rather, in a light without words, the Divine Peace reached her. Was it, +"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?" Or was it perhaps, "This day +shalt thou be with Me in Paradise?" We cannot tell. Only the lay-sister +who saw Molly go out with the little black bag in her hand said +afterwards that the lady had seemed happy. + + +THE END. + + + + +_A Selection from the Catalogue of_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +Complete Catalogues sent on application + +"_A work of absorbing interest_" + +THE SOCIALIST + +BY GUY THORNE + +Author of + +"WHEN IT WAS DARK," "A LOST CAUSE," ETC. + + +"A story that leads one on by its boldness, its vigours, its interesting +realism of both ducal splendour and evil squalor, and by the individual +interests it attaches to social phases and problems. _The Socialist_ +contains plenty of dramatic description and intensely studied character +to remind one of _When it Was Dark_ and other well staged and +effectively managed story-dramas from the same busy and clever +pen."--_The Dundee Advertiser_. + +"A work of absorbing interest dealing with one of the burning questions +of the day in a manner alike entertaining and instructive. Mr. Thorne +has taken considerable pains to explain the real meaning of Socialism as +understood and taught by leaders of what may be styled the higher Social +movement. We congratulate the author on having produced a first-class +novel full of feeling and character, and with an eminently useful +mission."--_The Irish Independent_. + +_Crown 8vo. Fixed price, $1.35 net_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + +"_A story that warms every reader's heart and makes him regret that he +has reached the end._" + +Old Rose and Silver + +By MYRTLE REED + +Author of "A Spinner in the Sun," "The Master's Violin," etc. + +NOT a "problem," "detective," or a "character study" story. It does not +contain a morbid line. Just a charming, pure, altogether wholesome love +story, full of delicate touches of fancy and humor. A book that leaves a +pleasant taste in the memory, and one that people will find most +appropriate as a dainty gift. + +With Frontispiece in Color by + +WALTER BIGGS + +_Crown 8vo, beautifully printed and bound. Cloth, $1.50 net. Full red +leather, $2.00 net. Antique Calf, $2.50 net. Lavender Silk, $3.50 net._ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + +"_Bound to be one of the most popular novels of the year_" + +THE WIVING OF LANCE CLEAVERAGE + +BY ALICE MACGOWAN + +Author of "JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS," "RETURN," "LAST WORD," ETC. + +By its stirring dramatic appeal, its varied interest, its skilful +artistry, Miss MacGowan's new Tennessee mountain story marks a long step +in advance of her earlier novels. It is an interesting company that is +brought together in this book--notably the proud high-spirited mountain +beauty who is the heroine, and the bold and fiery young hero, who will +surely stand high in the good graces of readers of the tale--and a +company of distinct types drawn with a graphic and spirited hand, a +company moved by strong passions--love, and hate too, green jealousy and +black revenge. + +With Illustrations in Color by ROBERT EDWARDS + +_Fixed price, $1.35 net_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + +_By the author of "The Country House"_ + +FRATERNITY + +BY JOHN GALSWORTHY + +Author of "THE MAN OF PROPERTY," "VILLA RUBEIN," ETC. + +"The foundation of Mr. Galsworthy's talent, it seems to me, lies in a +remarkable power of ironic insight combined with an extremely keen and +faithful eye for all the phenomena, on the surface of the life he +observes. These are the purveyors of his imagination, whose servant is a +style clear, direct, sane, illumined by a perfectly unaffected +sincerity. It is the style of a man whose sympathy with mankind is too +genuine to allow him the smallest gratification of his vanity at the +cost of his fellow creatures, ... sufficiently pointed to carry deep his +remorseless irony, and grave enough to be the dignified vehicle of his +profound compassion. Its sustained harmony is never interrupted by those +bursts of cymbals and fifes which some deaf people acclaim for +brilliance. Mr. Galsworthy will never be found futile by anyone and +never uninteresting by the most exacting." + +MR. JOSEPH CONRAD in _The Outlook_. + +_Crown 8vo. Fixed price, $1.35 net. (By mail $1.50)_ + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +NEW YORK LONDON + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS*** + + +******* This file should be named 17952.txt or 17952.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/5/17952 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/17952.zip b/17952.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9e5f10 --- /dev/null +++ b/17952.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64ac862 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #17952 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17952) |