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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/6265.txt b/6265.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36be22d --- /dev/null +++ b/6265.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1778 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Weavers, by Gilbert Parker, v5 +#92 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Weavers, Volume 5. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6265] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 14, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, BY PARKER, V5 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE WEAVERS + +By Gilbert Parker + + +BOOK V. + + +XXXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED +XXXVI. "IS IT ALWAYS SO-IN LIFE?" +XXXVII. THE FLYING SHUTTLE +XXXVIII. JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS +XXXIX. FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED + + "And Mario can soothe with a tenor note + The souls in purgatory." + +"Non ti scordar di mi!" The voice rang out with passionate stealthy +sweetness, finding its way into far recesses of human feeling. Women of +perfect poise and with the confident look of luxury and social fame +dropped their eyes abstractedly on the opera-glasses lying in their laps, +or the programmes they mechanically fingered, and recalled, they knew not +why--for what had it to do with this musical narration of a tragic +Italian tale!--the days when, in the first flush of their wedded life, +they had set a seal of devotion and loyalty and love upon their arms, +which, long ago, had gone to the limbo of lost jewels, with the chaste, +fresh desires of worshipping hearts. Young egotists, supremely happy and +defiant in the pride of the fact that they loved each other, and that it +mattered little what the rest of the world enjoyed, suffered, and +endured--these were suddenly arrested in their buoyant and solitary +flight, and stirred restlessly in their seats. Old men whose days of +work were over; who no longer marshalled their legions, or moved at a nod +great ships upon the waters in masterful manoeuvres; whose voices were +heard no more in chambers of legislation, lashing partisan feeling to a +height of cruelty or lulling a storm among rebellious followers; whose +intellects no longer devised vast schemes of finance, or applied secrets +of science to transform industry--these heard the enthralling cry of a +soul with the darkness of eternal loss gathering upon it, and drew back +within themselves; for they too had cried like this one time or another +in their lives. Stricken, they had cried out, and ambition had fled +away, leaving behind only the habit of living, and of work and duty. + +As Hylda, in the Duchess of Snowdon's box, listened with a face which +showed nothing of what she felt, and looking straight at the stage before +her, the words of a poem she had learned but yesterday came to her mind, +and wove themselves into the music thrilling from the voice in the stage +prison: + + "And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence + For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonised? + Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue + thence? + Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?" + +"And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence? Was it then so? +The long weeks which had passed since that night at Hamley, when she had +told Eglington the truth about so many things, had brought no peace, +no understanding, no good news from anywhere. The morning after she +had spoken with heart laid bare. Eglington had essayed to have a +reconciliation; but he had come as the martyr, as one injured. His +egotism at such a time, joined to his attempt to make light of things, +of treating what had happened as a mere "moment of exasperation," as "one +of those episodes inseparable from the lives of the high-spirited," only +made her heart sink and grow cold, almost as insensible as the flesh +under a spray of ether. He had been neither wise nor patient. She had +not slept after that bitter, terrible scene, and the morning had found +her like one battered by winter seas, every nerve desperately alert to +pain, yet tears swimming at her heart and ready to spring to her eyes at +a touch of the real thing, the true note--and she knew so well what the +true thing was! Their great moment had passed, had left her withdrawn +into herself, firmly, yet without heart, performing the daily duties of +life, gay before the world, the delightful hostess, the necessary and +graceful figure at so many functions. + +Even as Soolsby had done, who went no further than to tell Eglington his +dark tale, and told no one else, withholding it from "Our Man"; as Sybil +Lady Eglington had shrunk when she had been faced by her obvious duty, so +Hylda hesitated, but from better reason than either. To do right in the +matter was to strike her husband--it must be a blow now, since her voice +had failed. To do right was to put in the ancient home and house of +Eglington one whom he--with anger and without any apparent desire to have +her altogether for himself, all the riches of her life and love--had +dared to say commanded her sympathy and interest, not because he was a +man dispossessed of his rights, but because he was a man possessed of +that to which he had no right. The insult had stung her, had driven her +back into a reserve, out of which she seemed unable to emerge. How could +she compel Eglington to do right in this thing--do right by his own +father's son? + +Meanwhile, that father's son was once more imperilling his life, once +more putting England's prestige in the balance in the Soudan, from which +he had already been delivered twice as though by miracles. Since he had +gone, months before, there had been little news; but there had been much +public anxiety; and she knew only too well that there had been +'pourparlers' with foreign ministers, from which no action came safe- +guarding David. + +Many a human being has realised the apathy, the partial paralysis of the +will, succeeding a great struggle, which has exhausted the vital forces. +Many a general who has fought a desperate and victorious fight after a +long campaign, and amid all the anxieties and miseries of war, has failed +to follow up his advantage, from a sudden lesion of the power for action +in him. He has stepped from the iron routine of daily effort into a +sudden freedom, and his faculties have failed him, the iron of his will +has vanished. So it was with Hylda. She waited for she knew not what. +Was it some dim hope that Eglington might see the right as she saw it? +That he might realise how unreal was this life they were living, +outwardly peaceful and understanding, deluding the world, but inwardly a +place of tears. How she dreaded the night and its recurrent tears, and +the hours when she could not sleep, and waited for the joyless morning, +as one lost on the moor, blanched with cold, waits for the sun-rise! +Night after night at a certain hour--the hour when she went to bed at +last after that poignant revelation to Eglington--she wept, as she had +wept then, heart-broken tears of disappointment, disillusion, loneliness; +tears for the bitter pity of it all; for the wasting and wasted +opportunities; for the common aim never understood or planned together; +for the precious hours lived in an air of artificial happiness and social +excitement; for a perfect understanding missed; for the touch which no +longer thrilled. + +But the end of it all must come. She was looking frail and delicate, and +her beauty, newly refined, and with a fresh charm, as of mystery or pain, +was touched by feverishness. An old impatience once hers was vanished, +and Kate Heaver would have given a month's wages for one of those flashes +of petulance of other days ever followed by a smile. Now the smile was +all too often there, the patient smile which comes to those who have +suffered. Hardness she felt at times, where Eglington was concerned, +for he seemed to need her now not at all, to be self-contained, self- +dependent--almost arrogantly so; but she did not show it, and she was +outwardly patient. + +In his heart of hearts Eglington believed that she loved him, that her +interest in David was only part of her idealistic temperament--the +admiration of a woman for a man of altruistic aims; but his hatred of +David, of what David was, and of his irrefutable claims, reacted on her. +Perverseness and his unhealthy belief that he would master her in the +end, that she would one day break down and come to him, willing to take +his view in all things, and to be his slave--all this drove him farther +and farther on a fatal, ever-broadening path. + +Success had spoiled him. He applied his gifts in politics, daringly +unscrupulous, superficially persuasive, intellectually insinuating, to +his wife; and she, who had been captured once by all these things, was +not to be captured again. She knew what alone could capture her; and, +as she sat and watched the singers on the stage now, the divine notes of +that searching melody still lingering in her heart, there came a sudden +wonder whether Eglington's heart could not be wakened. She knew that it +never had been, that he had never known love, the transfiguring and +reclaiming passion. No, no, surely it could not be too late--her +marriage with him had only come too soon! He had ridden over her without +mercy; he had robbed her of her rightful share of the beautiful and the +good; he had never loved her; but if love came to him, if he could but +once realise how much there was of what he had missed! If he did not +save himself--and her--what would be the end? She felt the cords drawing +her elsewhere; the lure of a voice she had heard in an Egyptian garden +was in her ears. One night at Hamley, in an abandonment of grief-life +hurt her so--she had remembered the prophecy she had once made that she +would speak to David, and that he would hear; and she had risen from her +seat, impelled by a strange new feeling, and had cried: "Speak! speak to +me!" As plainly as she had ever heard anything in her life, she had +heard his voice speak to her a message that sank into the innermost +recesses of her being, and she had been more patient afterwards. She had +no doubt whatever; she had spoken to him, and he had answered; but the +answer was one which all the world might have heard. + +Down deep in her nature was an inalienable loyalty, was a simple, +old-fashioned feeling that "they two," she and Eglington, should cleave +unto each other till death should part. He had done much to shatter +that feeling; but now, as she listened to Mario's voice, centuries of +predisposition worked in her, and a great pity awoke in her heart. Could +she not save him, win him, wake him, cure him of the disease of Self? + +The thought brought a light to her eyes which had not been there for many +a day. Out of the deeps of her soul this mist of a pure selflessness +rose, the spirit of that idealism which was the real chord of sympathy +between her and Egypt. + +Yes, she would, this once again, try to win the heart of this man; and so +reach what was deeper than heart, and so also give him that without which +his life must be a failure in the end, as Sybil Eglington had said. How +often had those bitter anguished words of his mother rung in her ears-- +"So brilliant and unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of +winning a great place in the world . . . so calculating and determined +and ambitious !" They came to her now, flashed between the eager +solicitous eyes of her mind and the scene of a perfect and everlasting +reconciliation which it conjured up--flashed and were gone; for her will +rose up and blurred them into mist; and other words of that true +palimpsest of Sybil Eglington's broken life came instead: "And though he +loves me little, as he loves you little too, yet he is my son, and for +what he is we are both responsible one way or another." As the mother, +so the wife. She said to herself now in sad paraphrase, "And though he +loves me little, yet he is my husband, and for what he is it may be that +I am in some sense responsible." Yet he is my husband! All that it was +came to her; the closed door, the drawn blinds; the intimacy which shut +them away from all the world; the things said which can only be said +without desecration between two honest souls who love each other; and +that sweet isolation which makes marriage a separate world, with its own +sacred revelation. This she had known; this had been; and though the +image of the sacred thing had been defaced, yet the shrine was not +destroyed. + +For she believed that each had kept the letter of the law; that, whatever +his faults, he had turned his face to no other woman. If she had not +made his heart captive and drawn him by an ever-shortening cord of +attraction, yet she was sure that none other had any influence over him, +that, as he had looked at her in those short-lived days of his first +devotion, he looked at no other. The way was clear yet. There was +nothing irretrievable, nothing irrevocable, which would for ever stain +the memory and tarnish the gold of life when the perfect love should be +minted. Whatever faults of mind or disposition or character were his-- +or hers--there were no sins against the pledges they had made, nor the +bond into which they had entered. Life would need no sponge. Memory +might still live on without a wound or a cowl of shame. + +It was all part of the music to which she listened, and she was almost +oblivious of the brilliant throng, the crowded boxes, or of the Duchess +of Snowdon sitting near her strangely still, now and again scanning the +beautiful face beside her with a reflective look. The Duchess loved the +girl--she was but a girl, after all--as she had never loved any of her +sex; it had come to be the last real interest of her life. To her eyes, +dimmed with much seeing, blurred by a garish kaleidoscope of fashionable +life, there had come a look which was like the ghost of a look she had, +how many decades ago. + +Presently, as she saw Hylda's eyes withdraw from the stage, and look at +her with a strange, soft moisture and a new light in them, she laid her +fan confidently on her friend's knee, and said in her abrupt whimsical +voice: "You like it, my darling; your eyes are as big as saucers. You +look as if you'd been seeing things, not things on that silly stage, but +what Verdi felt when he wrote the piece, or something of more account +than that." + +"Yes, I've been seeing things," Hylda answered with a smile which came +from a new-born purpose, the dream of an idealist. "I've been seeing +things that Verdi did not see, and of more account, too. . . . +Do you suppose the House is up yet?" + +A strange look flashed into the Duchess's eyes, which had been watching +her with as much pity as interest. Hylda had not been near the House of +Commons this session, though she had read the reports with her usual +care. She had shunned the place. + +"Why, did you expect Eglington?" the Duchess asked idly, yet she was +watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps +of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she +would not allow herself to look. She knew that Hylda did not expect +Eglington, for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last +moment. + +"Of course not--he doesn't know we are here. But if it wasn't too late, +I thought I'd go down and drive him home." + +The Duchess veiled her look. Here was some new development in the +history which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and +Lord Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a day, +and had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited for the +critical hour when they should be needed. + +"We'll go at once if you like," she replied. "The opera will be over +soon. We sent word to Windlehurst to join us, you remember, but he won't +come now; it's too late. So, we'll go, if you like." + +She half rose, but the door of the box opened, and Lord Windlehurst +looked in quizzically. There was a smile on his face. + +"I'm late, I know; but you'll forgive me--you'll forgive me, dear lady," +he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a +smashing speech for a bad cause." + +Hylda smiled. "Then I must go and congratulate him," she answered, and +withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it +longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way. + +"I'm afraid the House is up," he rejoined, as Hylda turned for her opera- +cloak; "and I saw Eglington leave Palace Yard as I came away." He gave a +swift, ominous glance towards the Duchess, which Hylda caught, and she +looked at each keenly. + +"It's seldom I sit in the Peers' Gallery," continued Windlehurst; +"I don't like going back to the old place much. It seems empty and +hollow. But I wouldn't have missed Eglington's fighting speech for a +good deal." + +"What was it about?" asked Hylda as they left the box. She had a sudden +throb of the heart. Was it the one great question, that which had been +like a gulf of fire between them? + +"Oh, Turkey--the unpardonable Turk," answered Windlehurst. "As good a +defence of a bad case as I ever heard." + +"Yes, Eglington would do that well," said the Duchess enigmatically, +drawing her cloak around her and adjusting her hair. Hylda looked at her +sharply, and Lord Windlehurst slyly, but the Duchess seemed oblivious of +having said anything out of the way, and added: "It's a gift seeing all +that can be said for a bad cause, and saying it, and so making the other +side make their case so strong that the verdict has to be just." + +"Dear Duchess, it doesn't always work out that way," rejoined Windlehurst +with a dry laugh. "Sometimes the devil's advocate wins." + +"You are not very complimentary to my husband," retorted Hylda, looking +him in the eyes, for she was not always sure when he was trying to baffle +her. + +"I'm not so sure of that. He hasn't won his case yet. He has only +staved off the great attack. It's coming--soon." + +"What is the great attack? What has the Government, or the Foreign +Office, done or left undone?" "Well, my dear--" Suddenly Lord +Windlehurst remembered himself, stopped, put up his eyeglass, and with +great interest seemed to watch a gay group of people opposite; for the +subject of attack was Egypt and the Government's conduct in not helping +David, in view not alone of his present danger, but of the position of +England in the country, on which depended the security of her highway to +the East. Windlehurst was a good actor, and he had broken off his words +as though the group he was now watching had suddenly claimed his +attention. "Well, well, Duchess," he said reflectively, "I see a new +nine days' wonder yonder." Then, in response to a reminder from Hylda, +he continued: "Ah, yes, the attack! Oh, Persia--Persia, and our feeble +diplomacy, my dear lady, though you mustn't take that as my opinion, +opponent as I am. That's the charge, Persia--and her cats." + +The Duchess breathed a sigh of relief; for she knew what Windlehurst had +been going to say, and she shrank from seeing what she felt she would +see, if Egypt and Claridge Pasha's name were mentioned. That night at +Harnley had burnt a thought into her mind which she did not like. Not +that she had any pity for Eglington; her thought was all for this girl +she loved. No happiness lay in the land of Egypt for her, whatever her +unhappiness here; and she knew that Hylda must be more unhappy still +before she was ever happy again, if that might be. There was that +concerning Eglington which Hylda did not know, yet which she must know +one day--and then! But why were Hylda's eyes so much brighter and softer +and deeper to-night? There was something expectant, hopeful, brooding in +them. They belonged not to the life moving round her, but were shining +in a land of their own, a land of promise. By an instinct in each of +them they stood listening for a moment to the last strains of the opera. +The light leaped higher in Hylda's eyes. + +"Beautiful--oh, so beautiful!" she said, her hand touching the Duchess's +arm. + +The Duchess gave the slim warm fingers a spasmodic little squeeze. "Yes, +darling, beautiful," she rejoined; and then the crowd began to pour out +behind them. + +Their carriages were at the door. Lord Windlehurst put Hylda in. "The +House is up," he said. "You are going on somewhere?" + +"No--home," she said, and smiled into his old, kind, questioning eyes. +"Home!" + +"Home!" he murmured significantly as he turned towards the Duchess and +her carriage. "Home!" he repeated, and shook his head sadly. + +"Shall I drive you to your house?" the Duchess asked. + +"No, I'll go with you to your door, and walk back to my cell. Home!" he +growled to the footman, with a sardonic note in the voice. + +As they drove away, the Duchess turned to him abruptly. "What did you +mean by your look when you said you had seen Eglington drive away from +the House?" + +"Well, my dear Betty, she--the fly-away--drives him home now. It has +come to that." + +"To her house--Windlehurst, oh, Windlehurst!" + +She sank back in the cushions, and gave what was as near a sob as she had +given in many a day. Windlehurst took her hand. "No, not so bad as that +yet. She drove him to his club. Don't fret, my dear Betty." + +Home! Hylda watched the shops, the houses, the squares, as she passed +westward, her mind dwelling almost happily on the new determination to +which she had come. It was not love that was moving her, not love for +him, but a deeper thing. He had brutally killed love--the full life of +it--those months ago; but there was a deep thing working in her which was +as near nobility as the human mind can feel. Not in a long time had she +neared her home with such expectation and longing. Often on the doorstep +she had shut her eyes to the light and warmth and elegance of it, because +of that which she did not see. Now, with a thrill of pleasure, she saw +its doors open. It was possible Eglington might have come home already. +Lord Windlehurst had said that he had left the House. She did not ask if +he was in--it had not been her custom for a long time--and servants were +curious people; but she looked at the hall-table. Yes, there was a hat +which had evidently just been placed there, and gloves, and a stick. He +was at home, then. + +She hurried to her room, dropped her opera-cloak on a chair, looked at +herself in the glass, a little fluttered and critical, and then crossed +the hallway to Eglington's bedroom. She listened for a moment. There +was no sound. She turned the handle of the door softly, and opened it. +A light was burning low, but the room was empty. It was as she thought, +he was in his study, where he spent hours sometimes after he came home, +reading official papers. She went up the stairs, at first swiftly, then +more slowly, then with almost lagging feet. Why did she hesitate? Why +should a woman falter in going to her husband--to her own one man of all +the world? Was it not, should it not be, ever the open door between +them? Confidence--confidence--could she not have it, could she not get +it now at last? She had paused; but now she moved on with quicker step, +purpose in her face, her eyes softly lighted. + +Suddenly she saw on the floor an opened letter. She picked it up, and, +as she did so, involuntarily observed the writing. Almost mechanically +she glanced at the contents. Her heart stood still. The first words +scorched her eyes. + + "Eglington--Harry, dearest," it said, "you shall not go to sleep + to-night without a word from me. This will make you think of me + when . . . " + +Frozen, struck as by a mortal blow, Hylda looked at the signature. She +knew it--the cleverest, the most beautiful adventuress which the +aristocracy and society had produced. She trembled from head to foot, +and for a moment it seemed that she must fall. But she steadied herself +and walked firmly to Eglington's door. Turning the handle softly, she +stepped inside. + +He did not hear her. He was leaning over a box of papers, and they +rustled loudly under his hand. He was humming to himself that song she +heard an hour ago in Il Trovatore, that song of passion and love and +tragedy. It sent a wave of fresh feeling over her. She could not go +on--could not face him, and say what she must say. She turned and passed +swiftly from the room, leaving the door open, and hurried down the +staircase. Eglington heard now, and wheeled round. He saw the open +door, listened to the rustle of her skirts, knew that she had been there. +He smiled, and said to himself: + +"She came to me, as I said she would. I shall master her--the full +surrender, and then--life will be easy then." + +Hylda hurried down the staircase to her room, saw Kate Heaver waiting, +beckoned to her, caught up her opera-cloak, and together they passed down +the staircase to the front door. Heaver rang a bell, a footman appeared, +and, at a word, called a cab. A minute later they were ready: + +"Snowdon House," Hylda said; and they passed into the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +"IS IT ALWAYS SO--IN LIFE?" + +The Duchess and her brother, an ex-diplomatist, now deaf and patiently +amiable and garrulous, had met on the doorstep of Snowdon House, and +together they insisted on Lord Windlehurst coming in for a talk. The two +men had not met for a long time, and the retired official had been one of +Lord Windlehurst's own best appointments in other days. The Duchess had +the carriage wait in consequence. + +The ex-official could hear little, but he had cultivated the habit of +talking constantly and well. There were some voices, however, which he +could hear more distinctly than others, and Lord Windlehurst's was one of +them--clear, well-modulated, and penetrating. Sipping brandy and water, +Lord Windlehurst gave his latest quip. They were all laughing heartily, +when the butler entered the room and said, "Lady Eglington is here, and +wishes to see your Grace." + +As the butler left the room, the Duchess turned despairingly to +Windlehurst, who had risen, and was paler than the Duchess. "It has +come," she said, "oh, it has come! I can't face it." + +"But it doesn't matter about you facing it," Lord Windlehurst rejoined. +"Go to her and help her, Betty. You know what to do--the one thing." +He took her hand and pressed it. + +She dashed the tears from her eyes and drew herself together, while her +brother watched her benevolently. + +He had not heard what was said. Betty had always been impulsive, he +thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble--they all came to +her, and kept her poor. + +"Go to bed, Dick," the Duchess said to him, and hurried from the room. +She did not hesitate now. Windlehurst had put the matter in the right +way. Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda--! + +She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit. +Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed +by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing. + +Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: "I have +left him--I have left him. I have come to you." + +With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her +arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which had +brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst. +"There--there it is. He goes from me to her--to that!" She thrust the +letter into the Duchess's fingers. "You knew--you knew! I saw the look +that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all +now. He left the House of Commons with her--and you knew, oh, you knew! +All the world knows--every one knew but me." She threw up her hands. +"But I've left him--I've left him, for ever." + +Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a +sofa. "Darling, my darling," she said, "you must not give way. It is +not so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand." + +Hylda laughed hysterically. "Not so bad as I think! Read--read it," +she said, taking the letter from the Duchess's fingers and holding it +before her face. "I found it on the staircase. I could not help but +read it." She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. +"Oh, the shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good +wife to him? Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, +and I wanted to be good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try +once more--I felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort +for his sake. It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him +only hard and selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, +I thought--" + +She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of +the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes. + +The Duchess caught the cold hands. "Yes, yes, darling, I know. I +understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know +there isn't much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would get +more than anybody else." + +Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an +infinite pathos. "Oh, is it always so--in life? Is no one true? Is +every one betrayed sometime? I would die--yes, a thousand times yes, I +would rather die than bear this. What do I care for life--it has cheated +me! I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in word +and deed even when I suffered most, even when--" + +The Duchess laid a cheek against the burning head. "I understand, my own +dear. I understand--altogether." + +"But you cannot know," the broken girl replied; "but through everything I +was true; and I have been tempted too when my heart was aching so, when +the days were so empty, the nights so long, and my heart hurt--hurt me. +But now, it is over, everything is done. You will keep me here--ah, say +you will keep me here till everything can be settled, and I can go away +--far away--far--!" + +She stopped with a gasping cry, and her eyes suddenly strained into the +distance, as though a vision of some mysterious thing hung before her. +The Duchess realised that that temptation, which has come to so many +disillusioned mortals, to end it all, to find quiet somehow, somewhere +out in the dark, was upon her. She became resourceful and persuasively +commanding. + +"But no, my darling," she said, "you are going nowhere. Here in London +is your place now. And you must not stay here in my house. You must go +back to your home. Your place is there. For the present, at any rate, +there must be no scandal. Suspicion is nothing, talk is nothing, and the +world forgets--" + +"Oh, I do not care for the world or its forgetting!" the wounded girl +replied. "What is the world to me! I wanted my own world, the world of +my four walls, quiet and happy, and free from scandal and shame. I +wanted love and peace there, and now . . . !" + +"You must be guided by those who love you. You are too young to decide +what is best for yourself. You must let Windlehurst and me think for +you; and, oh, my darling, you cannot know how much I care for your best +good!" + +"I cannot, will not, bear the humiliation and the shame. This letter +here--you see!" + +"It is the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in +London. She is preternaturally clever, my dear--Windlehurst would tell +you so. The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad, have +a great advantage in this world. Eglington was curious, that is all. +It is in the breed of the Eglingtons to go exploring, to experiment." + +Hylda started. Words from the letter Sybil Lady Eglington had left +behind her rushed into her mind: "Experiment, subterfuge, secrecy. +'Reaping where you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not +strawed.' Always experiment, experiment, experiment!" + +"I have only been married three years," she moaned. "Yes, yes, my +darling; but much may happen after three days of married life, and love +may come after twenty years. The human heart is a strange thing." + +"I was patient--I gave him every chance. He has been false and +shameless. I will not go on." + +The Duchess pressed both hands hard, and made a last effort, looking into +the deep troubled eyes with her own grown almost beautiful with feeling +--the faded world-worn eyes. + +"You will go back to-night-at once," she said firmly. "To-morrow you +will stay in bed till noon-at any rate, till I come. I promise you that +you shall not be treated with further indignity. Your friends will stand +by you, the world will be with you, if you do nothing rash, nothing that +forces it to babble and scold. But you must play its game, my dearest. +I'll swear that the worst has not happened. She drove him to his club, +and, after a man has had a triumph, a woman will not drive him to his +club if--my darling, you must trust me! If there must be the great +smash, let it be done in a way that will prevent you being smashed also +in the world's eyes. You can live, and you will live. Is there nothing +for you to do? Is there no one for whom you would do something, who +would be heart-broken if you--if you went mad now?" + +Suddenly a great change passed over Hylda. "Is there no one for whom you +would do something?" Just as in the desert a question like this had +lifted a man out of a terrible and destroying apathy, so this searching +appeal roused in Hylda a memory and a pledge. "Is there no one for whom +you would do something?" Was life, then, all over? Was her own great +grief all? Was her bitter shame the end? + +She got to her feet tremblingly. "I will go back," she said slowly and +softly. + +"Windlehurst will take you home," the Duchess rejoined eagerly. "My +carriage is at the door." + +A moment afterwards Lord Windlehurst took Hylda's hands in his and held +them long. His old, querulous eyes were like lamps of safety; his smile +had now none of that cynicism with which he had aroused and chastened the +world. The pitiful understanding of life was there and a consummate +gentleness. He gave her his arm, and they stepped out into the moonlit +night. "So peaceful, so bright!" he said, looking round. + +"I will come at noon to-morrow," called the Duchess from the doorway. + +A light was still shining in Eglington's study when the carriage drove +up. With a latch-key Hylda admitted herself and her maid. + +The storm had broken, the flood had come. The storm was over, but the +flood swept far and wide. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +THE FLYING SHUTTLE + +Hour after hour of sleeplessness. The silver-tongued clock remorselessly +tinkled the quarters, and Hylda lay and waited for them with a hopeless +strained attention. In vain she tried devices to produce that monotony +of thought which sometimes brings sleep. Again and again, as she felt +that sleep was coming at last, the thought of the letter she had found +flashed through her mind with words of fire, and it seemed as if there +had been poured through every vein a subtle irritant. Just such a +surging, thrilling flood she had felt in the surgeon's chair when she was +a girl and an anesthetic had been given. But this wave of sensation led +to no oblivion, no last soothing intoxication. Its current beat against +her heart until she could have cried out from the mere physical pain, the +clamping grip of her trouble. She withered and grew cold under the +torture of it all--the ruthless spoliation of everything which made life +worth while or the past endurable. + +About an hour after she had gone to bed she heard Eglington's step. It +paused at her door. She trembled with apprehension lest he should enter. +It was many a day since he had done so, but also she had not heard his +step pause at her door for many a day. She could not bear to face it all +now; she must have time to think, to plan her course--the last course of +all. For she knew that the next step must be the last step in her old +life, and towards a new life, whatever that might be. A great sigh of +relief broke from her as she heard his door open and shut, and silence +fell on everything, that palpable silence which seems to press upon the +night-watcher with merciless, smothering weight. + +How terribly active her brain was! Pictures--it was all vivid pictures, +that awful visualisation of sorrow which, if it continues, breaks the +heart or wrests the mind from its sanity. If only she did not see! But +she did see Eglington and the Woman together, saw him look into her eyes, +take her hands, put his arm round her, draw her face to his! Her heart +seemed as if it must burst, her lips cried out. With a great effort of +the will she tried to hide from these agonies of the imagination, and +again she would approach those happy confines of sleep, which are the +only refuge to the lacerated heart; and then the weapon of time on the +mantelpiece would clash on the shield of the past, and she was wide awake +again. At last, in desperation, she got out of bed, hurried to the +fireplace, caught the little sharp-tongued recorder in a nervous grasp, +and stopped it. + +As she was about to get into bed again, she saw a pile of letters lying +on the table near her pillow. In her agitation she had not noticed them, +and the devoted Heaver had not drawn her attention to them. Now, +however, with a strange premonition, she quickly glanced at the +envelopes. The last one of all was less aristocratic-looking than the +others; the paper of the envelope was of the poorest, and it had a +foreign look. She caught it up with an exclamation. The handwriting was +that of her cousin Lacey. + +She got into bed with a mind suddenly swept into a new atmosphere, and +opened the flimsy cover. Shutting her eyes, she lay still for a moment +--still and vague; she was only conscious of one thing, that a curtain +had dropped on the terrible pictures she had seen, and that her mind was +in a comforting quiet. Presently she roused herself, and turned the +letter over in her hand. It was not long--was that because its news was +bad news? The first chronicles of disaster were usually brief! She +smoothed the paper out-it had been crumpled and was a little soiled-and +read it swiftly. It ran: + + DEAR LADY COUSIN--As the poet says, "Man is born to trouble as the + sparks fly upward," and in Egypt the sparks set the stacks on fire + oftener than anywhere else, I guess. She outclasses Mexico as a + "precious example" in this respect. You needn't go looking for + trouble in Mexico; it's waiting for you kindly. If it doesn't find + you to-day, well, manana. But here it comes running like a native + to his cooking-pot at sunset in Ramadan. Well, there have been + "hard trials" for the Saadat. His cotton-mills were set on fire- + can't you guess who did it? And now, down in Cairo, Nahoum runs + Egypt; for a messenger that got through the tribes worrying us tells + us that Kaid is sick, and Nahoum the Armenian says, you shall, and + you shan't, now. Which is another way of saying, that between us + and the front door of our happy homes there are rattlesnakes that + can sting--Nahoum's arm is long, and his traitors are crawling under + the canvas of our tents! + + I'm not complaining for myself. I asked for what I've got, and, + dear Lady Cousin, I put up some cash for it, too, as a man should. + No, I don't mind for myself, fond as I am of loafing, sort of + pottering round where the streets are in the hands of a pure police; + for I've seen more, done more, thought more, up here, than in all my + life before; and I've felt a country heaving under the touch of one + of God's men--it gives you minutes that lift you out of the dust and + away from the crawlers. And I'd do it all over a thousand times for + him, and for what I've got out of it. I've lived. But, to speak + right out plain, I don't know how long this machine will run. + There's been a plant of the worst kind. Tribes we left friendly + under a year ago are out against us; cities that were faithful have + gone under to rebels. Nahoum has sowed the land with the tale that + the Saadat means to abolish slavery, to take away the powers of the + great sheikhs, and to hand the country over to the Turk. Ebn Ezra + Bey has proofs of the whole thing, and now at last the Saadat knows + too late that his work has been spoiled by the only man who could + spoil it. The Saadat knows it, but does he rave and tear his hair? + He says nothing. He stands up like a rock before the riot of + treachery and bad luck and all the terrible burden he has to carry + here. If he wasn't a Quaker I'd say he had the pride of an + archangel. You can bend him, but you can't break him; and it takes + a lot to bend him. Men desert, but he says others will come to take + their place. And so they do. It's wonderful, in spite of the holy + war that's being preached, and all the lies about him sprinkled over + this part of Africa, how they all fear him, and find it hard to be + out on the war-path against him. We should be gorging the vultures + if he wasn't the wonder he is. We need boats. Does he sit down and + wring his hands? No, he organises, and builds them--out of scraps. + Hasn't he enough food for a long siege? He goes himself to the + tribes that have stored food in their cities, and haven't yet + declared against him, and he puts a hand on their hard hearts, and + takes the sulkiness out of their eyes, and a fleet of ghiassas comes + down to us loaded with dourha. The defences of this place are + nothing. Does he fold his hands like a man of peace that he is, + and say, 'Thy will be done'? Not the Saadat. He gets two soldier- + engineers, one an Italian who murdered his wife in Italy twenty + years ago, and one a British officer that cheated at cards and had + to go, and we've got defences that'll take some negotiating. That's + the kind of man he is; smiling to cheer others when their hearts are + in their boots, stern like a commander-in-chief when he's got to + punish, and then he does it like steel; but I've seen him afterwards + in his tent with a face that looks sixty, and he's got to travel a + while yet before he's forty. None of us dares be as afraid as we + could be, because a look at him would make us so ashamed we'd have + to commit suicide. He hopes when no one else would ever hope. The + other day I went to his tent to wait for him, and I saw his Bible + open on the table. A passage was marked. It was this: + + "Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, even the + dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: "But + I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have + said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid + thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over. + + I'd like to see Nahoum with that cup of trembling in his hand, and + I've got an idea, too, that it will be there yet. I don't know how + it is, but I never can believe the worst will happen to the Saadat. + Reading those verses put hope into me. That's why I'm writing to + you, on the chance of this getting through by a native who is + stealing down the river with a letter from the Saadat to Nahoum, and + one to Kaid, and one to the Foreign Minister in London, and one to + your husband. If they reach the hands they're meant for, it may be + we shall pan out here yet. But there must be display of power; an + army must be sent, without delay, to show the traitors that the game + is up. Five thousand men from Cairo under a good general would do + it. Will Nahoum send them? Does Kaid, the sick man, know? I'm not + banking on Kaid. I think he's on his last legs. Unless pressure is + put on him, unless some one takes him by the throat and says: If you + don't relieve Claridge Pasha and the people with him, you will go to + the crocodiles, Nahoum won't stir. So, I am writing to you. + England can do it. The lord, your husband, can do it. England will + have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without + a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her + prestige. She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's + fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this + thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it. It + doesn't matter about me. I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no + use--or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one + would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was + read out--well, yes, there's one, cute as she can be, but she's lost + two husbands already, and you can't be hurt so bad twice in the same + place. But the Saadat, back him, Hylda--I'll call you that at this + distance. Make Nahoum move. Send four or five thousand men before + the day comes when famine does its work and they draw the bowstring + tight. + + Salaam and salaam, and the post is going out, and there's nothing in + the morning paper; and, as Aunt Melissa used to say: "Well, so much + for so much!" One thing I forgot. I'm lucky to be writing to you + at all. If the Saadat was an old-fashioned overlord, I shouldn't be + here. I got into a bad corner three days ago with a dozen Arabs-- + I'd been doing a little work with a friendly tribe all on my own, + and I almost got caught by this loose lot of fanatics. I shot + three, and galloped for it. I knew the way through the mines + outside, and just escaped by the skin of my teeth. Did the Saadat, + as a matter of discipline, have me shot for cowardice? Cousin + Hylda, my heart was in my mouth as I heard them yelling behind me-- + and I never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life. Would the Saadat + have run from them? Say, he'd have stayed and saved his life too. + Well, give my love to the girls! + + Your affectionate cousin, + + Tom LACEY. + + P.S.-There's no use writing to me. The letter service is bad. Send + a few thousand men by military parcel-post, prepaid, with some red + seals--majors and colonels from Aldershot will do. They'll give the + step to the Gyppies. T. + + +Hylda closed her eyes. A fever had passed from her veins. Here lay her +duty before her--the redemption of the pledge she had made. Whatever her +own sorrow, there was work before her; a supreme effort must be made for +another. Even now it might be too late. She must have strength for what +she meant to do. She put the room in darkness, and resolutely banished +thought from her mind. + +The sun had been up for hours before she waked. Eglington had gone to +the Foreign Office. The morning papers were full of sensational reports +concerning Claridge Pasha and the Soudan. A Times leader sternly +admonished the Government. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS + +That day the adjournment of the House of Commons was moved "To call +attention to an urgent matter of public importance"--the position of +Claridge Pasha in the Soudan. Flushed with the success of last night's +performance, stung by the attacks of the Opposition morning papers, +confident in the big majority behind, which had cheered him a few hours +before, viciously resenting the letter he had received from David that +morning, Eglington returned such replies to the questions put to him that +a fire of angry mutterings came from the forces against him. He might +have softened the growing resentment by a change of manner, but his +intellectual arrogance had control of him for the moment; and he said to +himself that he had mastered the House before, and he would do so now. +Apart from his deadly antipathy to his half-brother, and the gain to +himself--to his credit, the latter weighed with him not so much, so set +was he on a stubborn course--if David disappeared for ever, there was at +bottom a spirit of anti-expansion, of reaction against England's world- +wide responsibilities. He had no largeness of heart or view concerning +humanity. He had no inherent greatness, no breadth of policy. With +less responsibility taken, there would be less trouble, national and +international--that was his point of view; that had been his view long +ago at the meeting at Heddington; and his weak chief had taken it, +knowing nothing of the personal elements behind. + +The disconcerting factor in the present bitter questioning in the House +was, that it originated on his own side. It was Jasper Kimber who had +launched the questions, who moved the motion for adjournment. Jasper had +had a letter from Kate Heaver that morning early, which sent him to her, +and he had gone to the House to do what he thought to be his duty. He +did it boldly, to the joy of the Opposition, and with a somewhat sullen +support from many on his own side. Now appeared Jasper's own inner +disdain of the man who had turned his coat for office. It gave a lead to +a latent feeling among members of the ministerial party, of distrust, and +of suspicion that they were the dupes of a mind of abnormal cleverness +which, at bottom, despised them. + +With flashing eyes and set lips, vigilant and resourceful, Eglington +listened to Jasper Kimber's opening remarks. + +By unremitting industry Jasper had made a place for himself in the House. +The humour and vitality of his speeches, and his convincing advocacy of +the cause of the "factory folk," had gained him a hearing. Thickset, +under middle size, with an arm like a giant and a throat like a bull, +he had strong common sense, and he gave the impression that he would wear +his heart out for a good friend or a great cause, but that if he chose to +be an enemy he would be narrow, unrelenting, and persistent. For some +time the House had been aware that he had more than a gift for criticism +of the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. + +His speech began almost stumblingly, his h's ran loose, and his grammar +became involved, but it was seen that he meant business, that he had that +to say which would give anxiety to the Government, that he had a case +wherein were the elements of popular interest and appeal, and that he was +thinking and speaking as thousands outside the House would think and +speak. + +He had waited for this hour. Indirectly he owed to Claridge Pasha all +that he had become. The day in which David knocked him down saw the +depths of his degradation reached, and, when he got up, it was to start +on a new life uncertainly, vaguely at first, but a new life for all that. +He knew, from a true source, of Eglington's personal hatred of Claridge +Pasha, though he did not guess their relationship; and all his interest +was enlisted for the man who had, as he knew, urged Kate Heaver to marry +himself--and Kate was his great ambition now. Above and beyond these +personal considerations was a real sense of England's duty to the man who +was weaving the destiny of a new land. + +"It isn't England's business?" he retorted, in answer to an interjection +from a faithful soul behind the ministerial Front Bench. "Well, it +wasn't the business of the Good Samaritan to help the man that had been +robbed and left for dead by the wayside; but he did it. As to David +Claridge's work, some have said that--I've no doubt it's been said in the +Cabinet, and it is the thing the Under-Secretary would say as naturally +as he would flick a fly from his boots--that it's a generation too soon. +Who knows that? I suppose there was those that thought John the Baptist +was baptising too soon, that Luther preached too soon, and Savonarola was +in too great a hurry, all because he met his death and his enemies +triumphed--and Galileo and Hampden and Cromwell and John Howard were all +too soon. Who's to be judge of that? God Almighty puts it into some +men's minds to work for a thing that's a great, and maybe an impossible, +thing, so far as the success of the moment is concerned. Well, for a +thing that has got to be done some time, the seed has to be sown, and +it's always sown by men like Claridge Pasha, who has shown millions of +people--barbarians and half-civilised alike--what a true lover of the +world can do. God knows, I think he might have stayed and found a cause +in England, but he elected to go to the ravaging Soudan, and he is +England there, the best of it. And I know Claridge Pasha--from his youth +up I have seen him, and I stand here to bear witness of what the working +men of England will say to-morrow. Right well the noble lord yonder +knows that what I say is true. He has known it for years. Claridge +Pasha would never have been in his present position, if the noble lord +had not listened to the enemies of Claridge Pasha and of this country, in +preference to those who know and hold the truth as I tell it here to-day. +I don't know whether the noble lord has repented or not; but I do say +that his Government will rue it, if his answer is not the one word +'Intervention!' Mistaken, rash or not, dreamer if you like, Claridge +Pasha should be relieved now, and his policy discussed afterwards. I +don't envy the man who holds a contrary opinion; he'll be ashamed of it +some day. But"--he pointed towards Eglington--"but there sits the +minister in whose hands his fate has been. Let us hope that this speech +of mine needn't have been made, and that I've done injustice to his +patriotism and to the policy he will announce." + +"A set-back, a sharp set-back," said Lord Windlehurst, in the Peers' +Gallery, as the cheers of the Opposition and of a good number of +ministerialists sounded through the Chamber. There were those on the +Treasury Bench who saw danger ahead. There was an attempt at a +conference, but Kimber's seconder only said a half-dozen words, and sat +down, and Eglington had to rise before any definite confidences could be +exchanged. One word only he heard behind him as he got up. It was the +word, "Temporise," and it came from the Prime Minister. + +Eglington was in no mood for temporising. Attack only nerved him. He +was a good and ruthless fighter; and last night's intoxication of success +was still in his brain. He did not temporise. He did not leave a way of +retreat open for the Prime Minister, who would probably wind up the +debate. He fought with skill, but he fought without gloves, and the +House needed gentle handling. He had the gift of effective speech to a +rare degree, and when he liked he could be insinuating and witty, but he +had not genuine humour or good feeling, and the House knew it. In debate +he was biting, resourceful, and unscrupulous. He made the fatal mistake +of thinking that intellect and gifts of fence, followed by a brilliant +peroration, in which he treated the commonplaces of experienced minds as +though they were new discoveries and he was their Columbus, could +accomplish anything. He had never had a political crisis, but one had +come now. + +In his reply he first resorted to arguments of high politics, historical, +informative, and, in a sense, commanding; indeed, the House became +restless under what seemed a piece of intellectual dragooning. Signs of +impatience appeared on his own side, and, when he ventured on a solemn +warning about hampering ministers who alone knew the difficulties of +diplomacy and the danger of wounding the susceptibilities of foreign +and friendly countries, the silence was broken by a voice that said +sneeringly, "The kid-glove Government!" + +Then he began to lose place with the Chamber. He was conscious of it, +and shifted his ground, pointing out the dangers of doing what the other +nations interested in Egypt were not prepared to do. + +"Have you asked them? Have you pressed them?" was shouted across +the House. Eglington ignored the interjections. "Answer! Answer!" +was called out angrily, but he shrugged a shoulder and continued his +argument. If a man insisted on using a flying-machine before the +principle was fully mastered and applied--if it could be mastered and +applied--it must not be surprising if he was killed. Amateurs sometimes +took preposterous risks without the advice of the experts. If Claridge +Pasha had asked the advice of the English Government, or of any of the +Chancellories of Europe, as to his incursions into the Soudan and his +premature attempts at reform, he would have received expert advice that +civilisation had not advanced to that stage in this portion of the world +which would warrant his experiments. It was all very well for one man to +run vast risks and attempt quixotic enterprises, but neither he nor his +countrymen had any right to expect Europe to embroil itself on his +particular account. + +At this point he was met by angry cries of dissent, which did not come +from the Opposition alone. His lips set, he would not yield. The +Government could not hold itself responsible for Claridge Pasha's relief, +nor in any sense for his present position. However, from motives of +humanity, it would make representations in the hope that the Egyptian +Government would act; but it was not improbable, in view of past +experiences of Claridge Pasha, that he would extricate himself from his +present position, perhaps had done so already. Sympathy and sentiment +were natural and proper manifestations of human society, but governments +were, of necessity, ruled by sterner considerations. The House must +realise that the Government could not act as though it were wholly a free +agent, or as if its every move would not be matched by another move on +the part of another Power or Powers. + +Then followed a brilliant and effective appeal to his own party to +trust the Government, to credit it with feeling and with a due regard +for English prestige and the honour brought to it by Claridge Pasha's +personal qualities, whatever might be thought of his crusading +enterprises. The party must not fall into the trap of playing the game +of the Opposition. Then, with some supercilious praise of the "worthy +sentiments" of Jasper Kimber's speech and a curt depreciation of its +reasoning, he declared that: "No Government can be ruled by clamour. The +path to be trodden by this Government will be lighted by principles of +progress and civilisation, humanity and peace, the urbane power of +reason, and the persuasive influence of just consideration for the rights +of others, rather than the thunder and the threat of the cannon and the +sword!" + +He sat down amid the cheers of a large portion of his party, for the end +of his speech had been full of effective if meretricious appeal. But the +debate that followed showed that the speech had been a failure. He had +not uttered one warm or human word concerning Claridge Pasha, and it was +felt and said, that no pledge had been given to insure the relief of the +man who had caught the imagination of England. + +The debate was fierce and prolonged. Eglington would not agree to any +modification of his speech, to any temporising. Arrogant and insistent, +he had his way, and, on a division, the Government was saved by a mere +handful of votes--votes to save the party, not to indorse Eglington's +speech or policy. + +Exasperated and with jaw set, but with a defiant smile, Eglington drove +straight home after the House rose. He found Hylda in the library with +an evening paper in her hands. She had read and reread his speech, and +had steeled herself for "the inevitable hour," to this talk which would +decide for ever their fate and future. + +Eglington entered the room smiling. He remembered the incident of the +night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated. +He had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way +home; but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to +have his own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could +not err, and he wanted sympathy. Almost any one could have given it to +him, and he had a temptation to seek that society which was his the +evening before; but he remembered that she was occupied where he could +not reach her, and here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged, +but who must surely have seen by now that at Hamley she had been +unreasonable, and that she must trust his judgment. So absorbed was he +with self and the failure of his speech, that, for a moment, he forgot +the subject of it, and what that subject meant to them both. + +"What do you think of my speech, Hylda?" he asked, as he threw himself +into a chair. "I see you have been reading it. Is it a full report?" + +She handed the paper over. "Quite full," she answered evenly. + +He glanced down the columns. "Sentimentalists!" he said as his eye +caught an interjection. "Cant!" he added. Then he looked at Hylda, and +remembered once again on whom and what his speech had been made. He saw +that her face was very pale. + +"What do you think of my speech?" he repeated stubbornly. + +"If you think an answer necessary, I regard it as wicked and +unpatriotic," she answered firmly. + +"Yes, I suppose you would," he rejoined bitingly. She got to her feet +slowly, a flush passing over her face. "If you think I would, did you +not think that a great many other people would think so too, and for the +same reason?" she asked, still evenly, but very slowly. "Not for the +same reason," he rejoined in a low, savage voice. + +"You do not treat me well," she said, with a voice that betrayed no hurt, +no indignation. It seemed to state a fact deliberately; that was all. + +"No, please," she added quickly, as she saw him rise to his feet with +anger trembling at his lips. "Do not say what is on your tongue to say. +Let us speak quietly to-night. It is better; and I am tired of strife, +spoken and unspoken. I have got beyond that. But I want to speak of +what you did to-day in Parliament." + +"Well, you have said it was wicked and unpatriotic," he rejoined, sitting +down again and lighting a cigar, in an attempt to be composed. + +"What you said was that; but I am concerned with what you did. Did your +speech mean that you would not press the Egyptian Government to relieve +Claridge Pasha at once?" + +"Is that the conclusion you draw from my words?" he asked. + +"Yes; but I wish to know beyond doubt if that is what you mean the +country to believe?" + +"It is what I mean you to believe, my dear." + +She shrank from the last two words, but still went on quietly, though her +eyes burned and she shivered. "If you mean that you will do nothing, it +will ruin you and your Government," she answered. "Kimber was right, +and--" + +"Kimber was inspired from here," he interjected sharply. + +She put her hand upon herself. "Do you think I would intrigue against +you? Do you think I would stoop to intrigue?" she asked, a hand +clasping and unclasping a bracelet on her wrist, her eyes averted, for +very shame that he should think the thought he had uttered. + +"It came from this house--the influence," he rejoined. + +"I cannot say. It is possible," she answered; "but you cannot think that +I connive with my maid against you. I think Kimber has reasons of his +own for acting as he did to-day. He speaks for many besides himself; and +he spoke patriotically this afternoon. He did his duty." + +"And I did not? Do you think I act alone?" + +"You did not do your duty, and I think that you are not alone +responsible. That is why I hope the Government will be influenced by +public feeling." She came a step nearer to him. "I ask you to relieve +Claridge Pasha at any cost. He is your father's son. If you do not, +when all the truth is known, you will find no shelter from the storm +that will break over you." + +"You will tell--the truth?" + +"I do not know yet what I shall do," she answered. "It will depend on +you; but it is your duty to tell the truth, not mine. That does not +concern me; but to save Claridge Pasha does concern me." + +"So I have known." + +Her heart panted for a moment with a wild indignation; but she quieted +herself, and answered almost calmly: "If you refuse to do that which is +honourable--and human, then I shall try to do it for you while yet I bear +your name. If you will not care for your family honour, then I shall try +to do so. If you will not do your duty, then I will try to do it for +you." She looked him determinedly in the eyes. "Through you I have lost +nearly all I cared to keep in the world. I should like to feel that in +this one thing you acted honourably." + +He sprang to his feet, bursting with anger, in spite of the inward +admonition that much that he prized was in danger, that any breach with +Hylda would be disastrous. But self-will and his native arrogance +overruled the monitor within, and he said: "Don't preach to me, don't +play the martyr. You will do this and you will do that! You will save +my honour and the family name! You will relieve Claridge Pasha, you will +do what Governments choose not to do; you will do what your husband +chooses not to do--Well, I say that you will do what your husband +chooses to do, or take the consequences." + +"I think I will take the consequences," she answered. "I will save +Claridge Pasha, if it is possible. It is no boast. I will do it, if it +can be done at all, if it is God's will that it should be done; and in +doing it I shall be conscious that you and I will do nothing together +again--never! But that will not stop me; it will make me do it, the last +right thing, before the end." + +She was so quiet, so curiously quiet. Her words had a strange solemnity, +a tragic apathy. What did it mean? He had gone too far, as he had done +before. He had blundered viciously, as he had blundered before. + +She spoke again before he could collect his thoughts and make reply. + +"I did not ask for too much, I think, and I could have forgiven and +forgotten all the hurts you have given me, if it were not for one thing. +You have been unjust, hard, selfish, and suspicious. Suspicious--of me! +No one else in all the world ever thought of me what you have thought. +I have done all I could. I have honourably kept the faith. But you have +spoiled it all. I have no memory that I care to keep. It is stained. +My eyes can never bear to look upon the past again, the past with you-- +never." + +She turned to leave the room. He caught her arm. "You will wait till +you hear what I have to say," he cried in anger. Her last words had +stung him so, her manner was so pitilessly scornful. It was as though +she looked down on him from a height. His old arrogance fought for +mastery over his apprehension. What did she know? What did she mean? +In any case he must face it out, be strong--and merciful and affectionate +afterwards. + +"Wait, Hylda," he said. "We must talk this out." + +She freed her arm. "There is nothing to talk out," she answered. +"So far as our relations are concerned, all reason for talk is gone." +She drew the fatal letter from the sash at her waist. "You will think so +too when you read this letter again." She laid it on the table beside +him, and, as he opened and glanced at it, she left the room. + +He stood with the letter in his hand, dumfounded. "Good God!" he said, +and sank into a chair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON + +Faith withdrew her eyes from Hylda's face, and they wandered helplessly +over the room. They saw, yet did not see; and even in her trouble there +was some subconscious sense softly commenting on the exquisite refinement +and gentle beauty which seemed to fill the room; but the only definite +objects which the eyes registered at the moment were the flowers filling +every corner. Hylda had been lightly adjusting a clump of roses when she +entered; and she had vaguely noticed how pale was the face that bent over +the flowers, how pale and yet how composed--as she had seen a Quaker +face, after some sorrow had passed over it, and left it like a quiet +sea in the sun, when wreck and ruin were done. It was only a swift +impression, for she could think of but one thing, David and his safety. +She had come to Hylda, she said, because of Lord Eglington's position, +and she could not believe that the Government would see David's work +undone and David killed by the slave-dealers of Africa. + +Hylda's reply had given her no hope that Eglington would keep the promise +he had made that evening long ago when her father had come upon them by +the old mill, and because of which promise she had forgiven Eglington so +much that was hard to forgive. Hylda had spoken with sorrowful decision, +and then this pause had come, in which Faith tried to gain composure and +strength. There was something strangely still in the two women. From +the far past, through Quaker ancestors, there had come to Hylda now this +grey mist of endurance and self-control and austere reserve. Yet behind +it all, beneath it all, a wild heart was beating. + +Presently, as they looked into each other's eyes, and Faith dimly +apprehended something of Hylda's distress and its cause, Hylda leaned +over and spasmodically pressed her hand. + +"It is so, Faith," she said. "They will do nothing. International +influences are too strong." She paused. "The Under-Secretary for +Foreign Affairs will do nothing; but yet we must hope. Claridge Pasha +has saved himself in the past; and he may do so now, even though +it is all ten times worse. Then, there is another way. Nahoum Pasha can +save him, if he can be saved. And I am going to Egypt--to Nahoum." + +Faith's face blanched. Something of the stark truth swept into her +brain. She herself had suffered--her own life had been maimed, it had +had its secret bitterness. Her love for her sister's son was that of a +mother, sister, friend combined, and he was all she had in life. That he +lived, that she might cherish the thought of him living, was the one +thing she had; and David must be saved, if that might be; but this girl +--was she not a girl, ten years younger than herself?--to go to Egypt +to do--what? She herself lived out of the world, but she knew the world! +To go to Egypt, and--"Thee will not go to Egypt. What can thee do?" she +pleaded, something very like a sob in her voice. "Thee is but a woman, +and David would not be saved at such a price, and I would not have him +saved so. Thee will not go. Say thee will not. He is all God has left +to me in life; but thee to go--ah, no! It is a bitter world--and what +could thee do?" + +Hylda looked at her reflectively. Should she tell Faith all, and take +her to Egypt? No, she could not take her without telling her all, and +that was impossible now. There might come a time when this wise and +tender soul might be taken into the innermost chambers, when all the +truth might be known; but the secret of David's parentage was Eglington's +concern most of all, and she would not speak now; and what was between +Nahoum and David was David's concern; and she had kept his secret all +these years. No, Faith might not know now, and might not come with her. +On this mission she must go alone. + +Hylda rose to her feet, still keeping hold of Faith's hand. "Go back to +Hamley and wait there," she said, in a colourless voice. "You can do +nothing; it may be I can do much. Whatever can be done I can do, since +England will not act. Pray for his safety. It is all you can do. It is +given to some to work, to others to pray. I must work now." + +She led Faith towards the door; she could not endure more; she must hold +herself firm for the journey and the struggle before her. If she broke +down now she could not go forward; and Faith's presence roused in her an +emotion almost beyond control. + +At the door she took both of Faith's hands in hers, and kissed her cheek. +"It is your place to stay; you will see that it is best. Good-bye," she +added hurriedly, and her eyes were so blurred that she could scarcely see +the graceful, demure figure pass into the sunlit street. + +That afternoon Lord Windlehurst entered the Duchess of Snowdon's presence +hurried and excited. She started on seeing his face. + +"What has happened?" she asked breathlessly. "She is gone," he +answered. "Our girl has gone to Egypt." + +The Duchess almost staggered to her feet. "Windlehurst--gone!" she +gasped. + +"I called to see her. Her ladyship had gone into the country, the +footman said. I saw the butler, a faithful soul, who would die--or clean +the area steps--for her. He was discreet; but he knew what you and I are +to her. It was he got the tickets--for Marseilles and Egypt." + +The Duchess began to cry silently. Big tears ran down a face from which +the glow of feeling had long fled, but her eyes were sad enough. + +"Gone--gone! It is the end!" was all she could say. Lord Windlehurst +frowned, though his eyes were moist. "We must act at once. You must go +to Egypt, Betty. You must catch her at Marseilles. Her boat does not +sail for three days. She thought it went sooner, as it was advertised to +do. It is delayed--I've found that out. You can start to-night, and-- +and save the situation. You will do it, Betty?" + +"I will do anything you say, as I have always done." She dried her eyes. + +"She is a good girl. We must do all we can. I'll arrange everything for +you myself. I've written this paragraph to go into the papers to-morrow +morning: 'The Duchess of Snowdon, accompanied by Lady Eglington, left +London last night for the Mediterranean via Calais, to be gone for two +months or more.' That is simple and natural. I'll see Eglington. He +must make no fuss. He thinks she has gone to Hamley, so the butler says. +There, it's all clear. Your work is cut out, Betty, and I know you will +do it as no one else can." + +"Oh, Windlehurst," she answered, with a hand clutching at his arm, "if we +fail, it will kill me." + +"If she fails, it will kill her," he answered, "and she is very young. +What is in her mind, who can tell? But she thinks she can help Claridge +somehow. We must save her, Betty." + +"I used to think you had no real feeling, Windlehurst. You didn't show +it," she said in a low voice. "Ah, that was because you had too much," +he answered. "I had to wait till you had less." He took out his watch. + + + + +GLOSSARY + +Aiwa----Yes. +Allah hu Achbar----God is most Great. +Al'mah----Female professional singers, signifying "a learned female." +Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels. + +Backsheesh----Tip, douceur. +Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water. +Bdsha----Pasha. +Bersim----Clover. +Bismillah----In the name of God. +Bowdb----A doorkeeper. + +Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails. +Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel. +Dourha----Maize. + +Effendina----Most noble. +El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo. + +Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre. +Fellah----The Egyptian peasant. + +Ghiassa----Small boat. + +Hakim----Doctor. +Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp. + +Inshallah----God willing. + +Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer. +Kavass----An orderly. +Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle. +Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan. + +Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide. + +La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but God. + +Malaish----No matter. +Malboos----Demented. +Mastaba----A bench. +Medjidie----A Turkish Order. +Mooshrabieh----Lattice window. +Moufettish----High Steward. +Mudir----The Governor of a +Mudirieh, or province. +Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer. + +Narghileh----A Persian pipe. +Nebool----A quarter-staff. + +Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting. + +Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha. +Sdis----Groom. +Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel. +Salaam----Eastern salutation. +Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village. + +Tarboosh----A Turkish turban. + +Ulema----Learned men. + +Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc. +Welee----A holy man or saint. + +Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face. +Yelek----A long vest or smock. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS BY PARKER, V5 *** + +******* This file should be named 6265.txt or 6265.zip ******* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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