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diff --git a/75411-h/75411-h.htm b/75411-h/75411-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f539c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/75411-h/75411-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7602 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Fatal Three Vol. II | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } + +.tdl {text-align: left; padding-left: 1em; line-height: 1.5em;} +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-left: 1em;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #A9A9A9; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.fs70 {font-size: 70%} +.fs80 {font-size: 80%} +.fs90 {font-size: 90%} +.fs150 {font-size: 150%} + +.no-indent {text-indent: 0em;} +.bold {font-weight: bold;} +.wsp {word-spacing: 0.3em;} + +h2 {font-size: 130%; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; word-spacing: .3em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75411 ***</div> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover"> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>THE FATAL THREE</h1> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent bold fs150 wsp">A Novel</p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp fs90">BY THE AUTHOR OF</p> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp">“LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “VIXEN,”<br> +“ISHMAEL,” “MOHAWKS,”<br> +<span class="fs70">ETC.</span></p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp">IN THREE VOLUMES<br> + +<span class="fs80">VOL. II.</span></p> + +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp"><span class="fs80">LONDON</span><br> +SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.<br> +<span class="fs70">STATIONERS’ HALL COURT</span></p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp fs70">[<em>All rights reserved</em>] +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent fs70"> +LONDON:<br> +ROBSON AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_II">CONTENTS OF VOL. II.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 10%"> +<img src="images/decoration.jpg" alt="Decoration"> +</div> + +<p class="center no-indent bold">Book the Second.</p> +<br> +<p class="center no-indent">LACHESIS; OR THE METER OF DESTINY.</p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdr fs70">CHAP.</td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr fs70">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">I.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Wife and no Wife</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">II.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Sins of the Fathers</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">III.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Verdict of her Church</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">IV.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">No Light</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">V.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Future might Be Darker</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VI.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Higher Views</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VII.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Time has Come</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VIII.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Not Proven</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">IX.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Looking Back</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent fs90">BOOK THE SECOND.</p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<p class="center no-indent">LACHESIS; OR THE METER OF DESTINY.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br> +<span class="fs70">A WIFE AND NO WIFE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Mr. Castellani’s</span> existence was one of those social +problems about which the idle world loves to speculate. +There are a good many people in London to +whom the idea of a fourth dimension is not half so +interesting as the notion of a man who lives by his +wits, and yet contrives to get himself dressed by a +good tailor, and to obtain a footing in some of the +best houses at the smart end of the town. This +problem César Castellani had offered to the polite +world of London for the last three seasons.</p> + +<p>Who is Mr. Castellani? was a question still asked +by a good many people who invited the gentleman +to their houses, and made much of him. He had +not forced his way into society; nobody had the +right to describe him as a pushing person. He had +slipped so insidiously into his place in the social<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +orbit that people had not yet left off wondering how +he came there, or who had been his sponsors. This +kind of speculation always stimulates the invention +of the clever people; and these affected to know a +good deal more about Mr. Castellani than he knew +about himself.</p> + +<p>“He came with magnificent credentials, and an +account was opened for him at Coutts’s before he +arrived,” said Magnus Dudley, the society poet, +flinging back his long hair with a lazy movement of +the large languid head. “Of course, you know that +he is a natural son of Cavour’s?”</p> + +<p>“Indeed! No, I never heard <em>that</em>. He is not +like Cavour.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not, but he is the image of his +mother—one of the handsomest women in Italy—a +Duchess, and daughter of a Roman Prince, who could +trace his descent in an unbroken line from Germanicus. +Castellani has the blood of Caligula in his +veins.”</p> + +<p>“He looks like it; but I have heard on pretty +good authority that he is the son of a Milanese +music-master.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<p>“There are people who will tell you his father +wheeled a barrow and sold penny ices in Whitechapel,” +retorted Magnus. “People will say anything.”</p> + +<p>Thus and in much otherwise did society speculate; +and in the meantime Mr. Castellani’s circle +was always widening. His book had been just audacious +enough and just clever enough to hit the +gold in the literary target. <em>Nepenthe</em> had been one +of the successes of the season before last: and Mr. +Castellani was henceforth to be known as the author +of <em>Nepenthe</em>. He had touched upon many things +below the stars, and some things beyond them. He +had written of other worlds with the confidence of a +man who had been there. He had written of women +with the air of a Café de Paris Solomon; and he had +written of men as if he had never met one.</p> + +<p>A man who could write a successful book, and +could sing and play divinely, was a person to be cultivated +in feminine society. Very few men cared to +be intimate with Mr. Castellani, but among women +his influence was indisputable. He treated them +with a courtly deference which charmed them, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +he made them his slaves. No Oriental despot ever +ruled more completely than César Castellani did in +half-a-dozen of those drawing-rooms which give the +tone to scores of other drawing rooms between Mayfair +and Earl’s Court. He contrived to be in request +from the dawn to the close of the London season. He +had made a favour of going to Riverdale; and now, +although it suited his purpose to be there, he made +a favour of staying.</p> + +<p>“If it were not for the delight of being here, I +should be in one of the remotest valleys in the Tyrol,” +he told Mrs. Hillersdon. “I have never stayed in +England so long after the end of the season. A wild +longing to break loose from the bonds of Philistinism +generally seizes me at this time of the year. I want +to go away, and away, and ever away from my fellow-men. +I should like to go and live in a tomb, like +the girl in Ouida’s <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">In Maremma</i>. My thirst for +solitude is a disease.”</p> + +<p>This from a man who spent the greater part of +his existence dawdling in drawing-rooms and boudoirs +sounded paradoxical; but paradoxes are accepted +graciously from a man who has written the book of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +the season. Louise Hillersdon treated Castellani +like a favourite son. At his bidding she brought out +the old guitar which had slumbered in its case for +nearly a decade, and sang the old Spanish songs, +and struck the strings with the old dashing sweep +of a delicate hand, and graceful curve of a rounded +arm.</p> + +<p>“When you sing I could believe you as young as +Helen when Paris stole her,” said Castellani, lolling +along the sofa beside the low chair in which she was +sitting; “I cease to envy the men who knew you +when you were a girl.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Castellani, I feel old enough to be +your grandmother; unless you are really the person +I sometimes take you for—”</p> + +<p>“Who may that be?”</p> + +<p>“The Wandering Jew.”</p> + +<p>“No matter what my creed or where I have wandered, +since I am so happy as to find a haven here. +Granted that I can remember Nero’s beautiful Empress, +and Faustina, and all that procession of fair +women who illumine the Dark Ages—and Mary of +Scotland, and Emma Hamilton, blonde and brunette,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +pathetic and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">espiègle</i>, every type, and every variety. +It is enough for me to find perfection here.”</p> + +<p>“If you only knew how sick I am of that kind of +nonsense!” said Mrs. Hillersdon, smiling at him, +half in amusement, half in scorn.</p> + +<p>“O, I know that you have drunk the wine of +men’s worship to satiety! Yet if you and I had +lived upon the same plane, I would have taught you +that among a hundred adorers one could love you +better than all the rest. But it is too late. Our +souls may meet and touch perhaps thousands of years +hence in a new incarnation.”</p> + +<p>“Do you talk this kind of nonsense to Mrs. +Greswold or her niece?”</p> + +<p>“No; with them I am all dulness and propriety. +Neither lady is <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">simpatica</i>. Miss Ransome is a frank, +good-natured girl—much too frank—with all the +faults of her species. I find the genus girl universally +detestable.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Ransome has about fifteen hundred a year. +I suppose you know that?”</p> + +<p>“Has she really? If ever I marry I hope to do +better than that,” answered César with easy insolence.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> +“She would be a very nice match for a +country parson; that Mr. Rollinson, for instance, +who is getting up the concert.”</p> + +<p>“Then Miss Ransome is not your attraction at +Enderby? It is Mrs. Greswold who draws you.”</p> + +<p>“Why should I be drawn?” he asked, with his +languid air. “I go there in sheer idleness. They +like me to make music for them; they fool me and +praise me; and it is pleasant to be fooled by two +pretty women.”</p> + +<p>“Does Mrs. Greswold take any part in the fooling? +She looks like marble.”</p> + +<p>“There is fire under that marble. Mrs. Greswold +is romantically in love with her husband: but +that is a complaint which is not incurable.”</p> + +<p>“He is not an agreeable man,” said Louise, +remembering how long George Greswold and his +wife had kept aloof from her. “And he does not +look a happy man.”</p> + +<p>“He is not happy.”</p> + +<p>“You know something about him—more than we +all know?” asked Louise, with keen curiosity.</p> + +<p>“Not much. I met him at Nice before he came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +into his property. He was not a very fortunate person +at that time, and he doesn’t care to be reminded +of it now.”</p> + +<p>“Was he out-at-elbows, or in debt?”</p> + +<p>“Neither. His troubles did not take that form. +But I am not a gossip. Let the past be past, as +Gœthe says. We can’t change it, and it is charity +to forget it. If we are not sure about what we touch +and hear and see—or fancy we hear and touch and +see—in the present, how much less can we be sure +of any reality or external existence in the past! It +is all done away with—vanished. How can we know +that it ever was? A grave here and there is the only +witness; and even the grave and the name on the +headstone may be only a projection of our own consciousness. +We are such stuff as dreams are made +of.”</p> + +<p>“That is a politely circuitous manner of refusing +to tell me anything about Mr. Greswold when his +name was Ransome. No matter. I shall find other +people who know the scandal, I have no doubt. +Your prevarication assures me that there was a +scandal.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> + +<p>This was on the eve of the concert at Enderby, +at about the same hour when George Greswold +showed Mildred his first wife’s portrait. Castellani +and his hostess were alone together in the lady’s +morning-room, while Hillersdon and his other +guests were in the billiard-room on the opposite side +of a broad corridor. Mrs. Hillersdon had a way of +turning over her visitors to her husband when they +bored her. Gusts of loud talk and louder laughter +came across the corridor now and again as they +played pool. There were times when Louise was too +tired of life to endure the burden of commonplace +society. She liked to dream over a novel. She +liked to talk with a clever young man like Castellani. +His flatteries amused her, and brought back a faint +flavour of youth and a dim remembrance of the day +when all men praised her, when she had known herself +without a rival. Now other women were beautiful, +and she was only a tradition. She had toiled +hard to live down her past, to make the world forget +that she had ever been Louise Lorraine: yet there +were moments in which she felt angry to find that +old personality of hers so utterly forgotten, when she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +was tempted to cry out, “What rubbish you talk +about your Mrs. Egremont, your Mrs. Linley Varden, +your professional beauties and fine lady actresses. +Have you never heard of <span class="allsmcap">ME</span>—Louise Lorraine?”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The drawing-rooms at Enderby Manor had +been so transformed under Mr. Castellani’s superintendence, +and with the help of his own dexterous +hands, that there was a unanimous expression of +surprise from the county families as they entered that +region of subdued light and æsthetic draperies between +three and half-past three o’clock on the afternoon +of the concert.</p> + +<p>The Broadwood grand stood on a platform in +front of a large bay-window, draped as no other hand +could drape a piano, with embroidered Persian curtains +and many-hued Algerian stuffs, striped with +gold; and against the sweeping folds of drapery rose +a group of tall golden lilies out of a shallow yellow +vase. A cluster of gloxinias were massed near the +end of the piano, and a few of the most artistic chairs +in the house were placed about for the performers. +The platform, instead of being as other platforms, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +a straight line across one side of the room, was +placed diagonally, so as to present the picturesque +effect of an angle in the background, an angle lighted +with clusters of wax-candles, against a forest of +palms.</p> + +<p>All the windows had been darkened save those in +the further drawing-room, which opened into the +garden, and even these were shaded by Spanish +hoods, letting in coolness and the scent of flowers, +with but little daylight. Thus the only bright light +was on the platform.</p> + +<p>The auditorium was arranged with a certain artistic +carelessness: the chairs in curved lines to accommodate +the diagonal line of the platform; and this +fact, in conjunction with the prettiness of the stage, +put every one in good temper before the concert +began.</p> + +<p>The concert was as other concerts: clever amateur +singing, excellent amateur playing, fine voices cultivated +to a certain point, and stopping just short of +perfect training.</p> + +<p>César Castellani’s three little songs—words by +Heine—music, Schubert and Jensen—were the hit of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +the afternoon. There were few eyes that were unclouded +by tears, even among those listeners to whom +the words were in an unknown language. The pathos +was in the voice of the singer.</p> + +<p>The duet was performed with <em>aplomb</em>, and elicited +an encore, on which Pamela and Castellani sang the +old-fashioned “Flow on, thou shining river,” which +pleased elderly people, moving them like a reminiscence +of long-vanished youth.</p> + +<p>Pamela’s heart beat furiously as she heard the +applause, and she curtsied herself off the platform in +a whirl of delight. She felt that it was in her to be +a great public singer—a second Patti—if—if she +could be taught and trained by Castellani. Her head +was full of vague ideas—a life devoted to music—three +years’ hard study in Italy—a <em>début</em> at La Scala—a +world-wide renown achieved in a single night. She +even wondered how to Italianise her name. Ransomini? +No, that would hardly do. Pamelani—Pameletta? +What awkward names they were—christian +and surname both!</p> + +<p>And then, crimsoning at the mere thought, she +saw in large letters, “<span class="smcap">Madame Castellani</span>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p> + +<p>How much easier to make a great name in the +operatic world with a husband to fight one’s battles +and get the better of managers!</p> + +<p>“With an income of one’s own it ought to be +easy to make one’s way,” thought Pamela, as she +stood behind the long table in the dining-room, dispensing +tea and coffee, with the assistance of maids +and footmen.</p> + +<p>Her head was so full of these bewildering visions +that she was a little less on the alert than she ought +to have been for shillings and half-crowns, whereby +a few elderly ladies got their tea and coffee for nothing, +not being asked for payment, and preferring +to consider the entertainment gratis.</p> + +<p>Mildred’s part of the concert was performed to +perfection—not a false note in an accompaniment, or +a fault in the <em>tempo</em>. Lady Millborough, a very +exacting personage, declared she had never been so +well supported in her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cheval de bataille</i>, the finale to +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Cenerentola</i>. But many among the audience remarked +that they had never seen Mrs. Greswold look +so ill; and both Rollinson and Castellani were seriously +concerned about her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> + +<p>“You are as white as marble,” said the Italian. +“I know you are suffering.”</p> + +<p>“I assure you it is nothing. I have not been +feeling very well lately, and I had a sleepless night. +There is nothing that need give any one the slightest +concern. You may be sure I shall not break +down. I am very much interested in the painted +window,” she added, with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>“It is not that I fear,” said Castellani, in a lower +voice. “It is of you and your suffering I am +thinking.”</p> + +<p>George Greswold did not appear at the concert: +he was engaged elsewhere.</p> + +<p>“I cannot think how Uncle George allowed +himself to have an appointment at Salisbury this +afternoon,” said Pamela. “I know he doats on +music.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he doesn’t doat upon it quite so well +as to like to see his house turned topsy-turvy,” said +Lady Millborough, who would have allowed every +philanthropic scheme in the country to collapse for +want of cash rather than suffer her drawing-room to +be pulled about by amateur scene-shifters.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Hillersdon and her party occupied a prominent +position near the platform; but that lady was +too clever to make herself conspicuous. She talked +to the people who were disposed to friendliness—their +numbers had increased with the advancing years—and +she placidly ignored those who still held themselves +aloof from “that horrid woman.” Nor did +she in any way appropriate Castellani as her special +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</i> when the people round her were praising him. +She took everything that happened with the repose +which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere, and may +often be found among women whom the Vere de +Veres despise.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>All was over: the last of the carriages had rolled +away. Castellani had been carried off in Mrs. Hillersdon’s +barouche, no one inviting him to stay at +the Manor House. Rollinson lingered to repeat his +effusive thanks for Mrs. Greswold’s help.</p> + +<p>“It has been a glorious success,” he exclaimed; +“glorious! Who would have thought there was so +much amateur talent available within thirty miles? +And Castellani was a grand acquisition. We shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +clear at least seventy pounds for the window. I don’t +know how I can ever thank you enough for giving +us the use of your lovely rooms, Mrs. Greswold, and +for letting us pull them about as we liked.”</p> + +<p>“That did not matter—much,” Mildred said +faintly, as she stood by the drawing-room door in the +evening light, the curate lingering to reiterate the +assurance of his gratitude. “Everything can be +arranged again—easily.”</p> + +<p>She was thinking, with a dull aching at her heart, +that to her the pulling about and disarrangement of +those familiar rooms hardly mattered at all. They +were her rooms no longer. Enderby was never more +to be her home. It had been her happy home for +thirteen gracious years—years clouded with but one +natural sorrow, in the loss of her beloved father. +And now that father’s ghost rose up before her, and +said, “The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon +the children, and because of my sin you must go forth +from your happy home and forsake the husband of +your heart.”</p> + +<p>She gave the curate an icy hand, and turned from +him without another word.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></p> + +<p>“Poor soul, she is dead-beat!” thought Rollinson, +as he trudged home to his lodgings over a joiner and +builder’s shop: airy and comfortable rooms enough, +but odorous of sawdust, and a little too near the +noises of the workshop.</p> + +<p>He could but think it odd that he had not been +asked to dine at the Manor, as he would have been +in the ordinary course of events. He had told the +builder’s wife that he should most likely dine out, +whereupon that friendly soul had answered, “Why, +of course they’ll ask you, Mr. Rollinson. You know +they’re always glad to see you.”</p> + +<p>And now he had to return to solitude and a fresh-killed +chop.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was seven o’clock, and George Greswold had +not yet come home from Salisbury. Very few words +had passed between him and his wife since she fell +fainting at his feet last night. He had summoned +her maid, and between them they had brought her +back to consciousness, and half carried her to her +room. She would give no explanation of her fainting-fit +when the maid had left the room, and she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +was lying on her bed, white and calm, with her +husband sitting by her side. She told him that +she was tired, and that a sudden giddiness had +come upon her. That was all he could get from +her.</p> + +<p>“If you will ask me no questions, and leave me +quite alone, I will try to sleep, so that I may be fit +for my work in the concert to-morrow,” she pleaded. +“I would not disappoint them for worlds.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you need be over-anxious about +them,” said her husband bitterly. “There is more +at stake than a painted window: there is your peace +and mine. Answer me only one question,” he said, +with intensity of purpose: “had your fainting-fit +anything to do with the portrait of my first wife?”</p> + +<p>“I will tell you everything—after the concert to-morrow,” +she answered; “for God’s sake leave me +to myself till then.”</p> + +<p>“Let it be as you will,” he answered, rising suddenly, +wounded by her reticence.</p> + +<p>He left the room without another word. She +sprang up from her bed directly he was gone, ran to +the door and locked it, and then flung herself on her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +knees upon the prie-dieu chair at the foot of a large +ivory crucifix which hung in a deep recess beside the +old-fashioned fireplace.</p> + +<p>Here she knelt, in tears and prayer, deep into +the night. Then for an hour or more she walked up +and down the room, absorbed in thought, by the dim +light of the night-lamp.</p> + +<p>When the morning light came she went to a +bookcase in a little closet of a room opening out of +the spacious old bedroom—a case containing only +devotional books, and of these she took out volume +after volume—Taylor’s <cite>Rule of Conscience</cite>, Hooker’s +<cite>Religious Polity</cite>, Butler, Paley—one after another, +turning over the leaves, looking through the indexes—searching +for something which she seemed unable +to find anywhere.</p> + +<p>“What need have I to see what others have +thought?” she said to herself at last, after repeated +failure; “Clement Cancellor knows the right. I could +have no better guide than his opinion, and he has +spoken. What other law do I need? His law is the +law of God.”</p> + +<p>Not once did her eyes close in sleep all through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +that night, or in the morning hours before breakfast. +She made an excuse for breakfasting in her +dressing-room, a large, airy apartment, half boudoir. +She was told that Mr. Greswold had gone out early +to see some horses at Salisbury, and would not be +back till dinner-time. He was to be met at the station +at half-past seven.</p> + +<p>She had her morning to herself. Pamela was +rehearsing her part in the duet, and in “Flow on, +thou shining river,” which was to be sung in the +event of an encore. That occupation, and the +arrangement of her toilet, occupied the young lady +till luncheon—allowing for half-hourly rushes about +the lawn and shrubberies with Box, whose health +required activity, and whose social instincts yearned +for companionship.</p> + +<p>“He can’t get on with only Kassandra; she hasn’t +intellect enough for him,” said Pamela.</p> + +<p>It was only ten minutes before the arrival of the +performers that Mrs. Greswold went down-stairs, pale +as ashes, but ready for the ordeal. She had put on +a white gown with a little scarlet ribbon about it, lest +black should make her pallor too conspicuous.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> + +<p>And now it was seven o’clock, and she was alone. +The curate had been right in pronouncing her dead-beat; +but she had some work before her yet. She +had been writing letters in the morning. Two of +these she now placed on the mantelpiece in her bedroom: +one addressed to her husband, the other to +Pamela.</p> + +<p>She had a bag packed—not one of those formidable +dressing-bags which weigh fifteen to twenty +pounds—but a light Russia-leather bag, just large +enough to contain the essentials of the toilet. She +put on a neat little black bonnet and a travelling-cloak, +and took her bag and umbrella, and went +down to the hall. She had given orders that the +carriage should call for her before going to the station, +and she was at the door ready to step into it +when it came round.</p> + +<p>She told the groom that she was to be put down +at Ivy Cottage, and was driven off unseen by the +household, who were all indulging in a prolonged +tea-drinking after the excitement of the concert.</p> + +<p>Ivy Cottage was within five minutes’ walk of +Romsey Station: a little red cottage, newly built,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +with three or four ivy plants languishing upon a +slack-baked brick wall, and just enough garden for +the proverbial cat to disport himself in at his ease—the +swinging of cats being no longer a popular +English sport. There was nothing strange in Mrs. +Greswold alighting at Ivy Cottage—unless it were +the hour of her visit—for the small brick box was +occupied by two maiden ladies of small means: one +a confirmed invalid; the other her patient nurse; +whom the lady of Enderby Manor often visited, and +in whom she was known to be warmly interested.</p> + +<p>The coachman concluded that his mistress was +going to spend a quarter of an hour with the two +old ladies, while he went on and waited for his +master at the station, and that he was to call for +her on his return. He did not even ask for her +orders upon this point, taking them for granted.</p> + +<p>He was ten minutes too soon at the station, as +every well-conducted coachman ought to be.</p> + +<p>“I’m to call for my mistress, sir,” he said, as +Mr. Greswold stepped into the brougham.</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“At Ivy Cottage, sir: Miss Fisher’s.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + +<p>“Very good.”</p> + +<p>The brougham pulled up at Ivy Cottage; and +the groom got down and knocked a resounding peal +upon the Queen Anne knocker, it being hardly possible +nowadays to find a knocker that is not after +the style of Queen Anne, or a newly-built twenty-five +pound a year cottage in any part of rural England +that does not offer a faint reminiscence of +Bedford Park.</p> + +<p>The groom made his inquiry of the startled little +maid-of-all-work, fourteen years old last birthday, +and already aspiring to better herself as a vegetable-maid +in a nobleman’s family.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold had not been at Ivy Cottage that +evening.</p> + +<p>George Greswold was out of the brougham by +this time, hearing the girl’s answer.</p> + +<p>“Stop where you are,” he said to the coachman, +and ran back to the station, an evil augury in his +mind.</p> + +<p>He went to the up-platform, the platform at +which he had alighted ten minutes before.</p> + +<p>“Did you see Mrs. Greswold here just now?” he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +asked the station-master, with as natural an air as +he could command.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. She got into the up-train, sir; the +train by which you came. She came out of the +waiting-room, sir, the minute after you left the platform. +You must just have missed her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have just missed her.”</p> + +<p>He walked up and down the length of the platform +two or three times in the thickening dusk. +Yes, he had missed her. She had left him. Such +a departure could mean only severance—some deep +wound—which it might take long to heal. It +would all come right by and by. There could be +no such thing as parting between man and wife +who loved each other as they loved—who were +incapable of falsehood or wrong.</p> + +<p>What was this jealous fancy that had taken +possession of her? This unappeasable jealousy of +the dead past—a passion so strong that it had +prompted her to rush away from him in this clandestine +fashion, to torture him by all the evidences +of an inconsolable grief. His heart was sick to +death as he went back to the carriage, helpless to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +do anything except go to his deserted home, and see +what explanation awaited him there.</p> + +<p>It was half-past eight when the carriage drove +up to the Manor House. Pamela ran out into the +hall to receive him.</p> + +<p>“How late you are, uncle!” she cried, “and I +can’t find aunt. Everything is at sixes and sevens. +The concert was a stupendous success—and—only +think!—<em>I</em> was encored.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, dear!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my duet with him: and then we sang the +other. They would have liked a third, only we pretended +not to understand. It would have made all +the others so fearfully savage if we had taken it.”</p> + +<p>This speech was not a model of lucidity, but it +might have been much clearer and yet unintelligible +to George Greswold.</p> + +<p>“Do you mind dining alone to-night, my dear +Pamela?” he said, trying to speak cheerily. “Your +aunt is out—and I—I have some letters to write—and +I lunched heavily at Salisbury.”</p> + +<p>His heavy luncheon had consisted of a biscuit +and a glass of beer at the station. His important<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +business had been a long ramble on Salisbury Plain, +alone with his troubled thoughts.</p> + +<p>“Did your mistress leave any message for me?” +he asked the butler.</p> + +<p>“No, sir. Nobody saw my mistress go out. +When Louisa went up to dress her for dinner she +was gone, sir—but Louisa said there was a letter +for you on the bedroom mantelpiece. Shall I send +for it, sir?”</p> + +<p>“No, no—I will go myself. Serve dinner at +once. Miss Ransome will dine alone.”</p> + +<p>George Greswold went to the bedroom—that fine +old room, the real Queen Anne room, with thick +walls and deep-set windows, and old window-seats, +and capacious recesses on each side of the high oak +chimneypiece, and richly-moulded wainscot, and +massive panelled doors, a sober eighteenth-century +atmosphere in which it is a privilege to exist—a +spacious old room, with old Dutch furniture, of the +pre-Chippendale era, and early English china, Worcester +simulating Oriental, Chelsea striving after +Dresden: a glorious old room, solemn and mysterious +as a church in the dim light of a pair of wax-candles<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +which Louisa the maid had lighted on the +mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>There, between the candles, appeared two letters: +“George Greswold, Esq.,” “Miss Ransome.”</p> + +<p>The husband’s letter was a thick one, and the +style of the penmanship showed how the pen had +hurried along, driven by the electric forces of +excitement and despair:</p> +<br> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">My Beloved</span>,—You asked me last night if the +photograph which you showed me had anything to +do with my fainting-fit. It had everything to do +with it. That photograph is a portrait of my unhappy +sister, my cruelly-used, unacknowledged +sister; and I, who have been your wife fourteen +years, know now that our marriage was against the +law of God and man—that I have never been legally +your wife—that our union from the first has been +an unholy union, and for that unlawful marriage the +hand of God has been laid upon us—heavily—heavily—in +chastisement, and the darling of our +hearts has been taken from us.</p> + +<p>“‘Whom He loveth He chasteneth.’ He has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +chastened us, George—perhaps to draw us nearer +to Him. We were too happy, it may be, in this +temporal life—too much absorbed by our own +happiness, living in a charmed circle of love and +gladness, till that awful chastisement came.</p> + +<p>“There is but one course possible to me, my +dear and honoured husband, and that course lies +in life-long separation. I am running away from +my dear home like a criminal, because I am not +strong enough to stand face to face with you and tell +you what must be. We must do our best to live +out our lives asunder, George; we must never meet +again as wedded lovers, such as we have been for +fourteen years. God knows, my affection for you +has grown and strengthened with every year of +union, and yet it seems to me on looking back that +my heart went out to you in all the fulness of an +infinite love when first we stood, hand clasped in +hand, beside the river. If you are angry with me, +George—if you harden your heart against me because +I do that which I know to be my duty, at least +believe that I never loved you better than in this +bitter hour of parting. I spent last night in prayer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +and thought. If there were any way of escape—any +possibility of living my own old happy life with +a clear conscience—I think God would have shown it +to me in answer to my prayers; but there was no +ray of light, no gleam of hope. Conscience answers +sternly and plainly. By the law of God I have never +been your wife, and His law commands me to +break an unhallowed tie, although my heart may +break with it.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember your argument with Mr. +Cancellor? I never saw you so vehement in any +such dispute, and you took the side which I can +but think the side of the Evil One. That conversation +now seems to me like a strange foreshadowing +of sorrow—a lesson meant for my guidance. Little +did I then think that this question could ever have +any bearing on my own life; but I recall every +word now, and I remember how earnestly my old +master spoke—how ruthlessly he maintained the +right. Can I doubt his wisdom, from whose lips +I first learnt the Christian law, and in whom I first +saw the true Christian life?</p> + +<p>“I have written to Pamela, begging her to stay<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +with you, to take my place in the household, and to +be to you as an adopted daughter. May God be +merciful to us both in this heavy trial, George! Be +sure He will deal with us mercifully if we do our +duty according to the light that is given to us.</p> + +<p>“I shall stay to-night in Queen Anne’s Gate +with Mrs. Tomkison. Please send Louisa to me +to-morrow with luggage for a considerable absence +from home. She will know what to bring. You +can tell her that I am going abroad for my health. +My intention is to go to some small watering-place +in Germany, where I can vegetate, away from all +beaten tracks, and from the people who know us. +You may rely upon me to bear my own burden, and +to seek sympathy and consolation from no earthly +comforter.</p> + +<p>“Do not follow me, George—should your heart +urge you to do so. Respect my solemn resolution, +the result of many prayers.—Your ever loving</p> + +<p class="right"> +“<span class="smcap" style="padding-right: 1em">Mildred.”</span><br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br> +<span class="fs70">THE SINS OF THE FATHERS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">George Greswold</span> read his wife’s letter a second +time with increasing perplexity and trouble of mind. +Her sister! What could this mean? She had +never told him of the existence of a sister. She had +been described by her father, by every one, as an only +child. She had inherited the whole of her father’s +fortune.</p> + +<p>“Her cruelly-used, unacknowledged sister.”</p> + +<p>Those words indicated a social mystery, and as +he read and re-read those opening lines of his wife’s +letter he remembered her reticence about that girl-companion +from whom she had been parted so early. +He remembered her blushing embarrassment when +he questioned her about the girl she called Fay.</p> + +<p>The girl had been sent to a finishing-school at +Brussels, and Mildred had seen her no more.</p> + +<p>His first wife had finished her education at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +Brussels. She had talked to him often of the fashionable +boarding-school in the quaint old street near +the Cathedral; and the slights she had endured +there from other girls because of her isolation. +There was no stint in the expense of her education. +She had as many masters as she cared to have. She +was as well dressed as the richest of her companions. +But she was nobody, and belonged to nobody, could +give no account of herself that would satisfy those +merciless inquisitors.</p> + +<p>His wife, Vivien Faux, the young English lady +whom he had met at Florence. She was travelling +in the care of an English artist and his wife, who +spent their lives on the Continent. She submitted to +no authority, had ample means, and was thoroughly +independent. She did not get on very well with +either the artist or his wife. She had a knack of +saying disagreeable things, and a tongue of exceeding +bitterness. A difficult subject the painter called +her, and imparted to his particular friends in confidence +that his wife and Miss Faux were always +quarrelling. Vivien Faux, that was the name borne +by the girl whom he met nineteen years ago at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +an evening-party in Florence; that was the name +of the girl he had married, after briefest acquaintance, +knowing no more about her than that she had a +fortune of thirty thousand pounds when she came of +age, and that the trustee and custodian of that fortune +was a lawyer in Lincoln’s Inn, who affected no +authority over her, and put no difficulties in the way +of her marrying.</p> + +<p>He remembered now when he first saw Mildred +Fausset something in her fresh young beauty, some +indefinable peculiarity of expression or contour, had +evolved the image of his dead wife, that image which +never recurred to him without keenest pain. He +remembered how strange that vague, indescribable +resemblance had seemed to him, and how he had +asked himself if it had any real existence, or were +only the outcome of his own troubled mind, reverting +involuntarily to an agonising memory.</p> + +<p>“Her face may come back to me in the faces of +other women, as it comes back to me in my miserable +dreams,” he told himself.</p> + +<p>But as the years went by he became convinced that +the likeness was not imaginary. There were points<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +of resemblance—the delicate tracing of the eyebrows, +the form of the brow, the way the hair grew above +the temples, were curiously alike. He came to accept +the likeness as one of those chance resemblances +which are common enough in life. It suggested to +him nothing more than that.</p> + +<p>He went to the library with the letter still in his +hand. His lamp was ready lighted, and, the September +evening being chilly, there was a wood fire +on the low hearth, which gave an air of cheerfulness +to the sombre room.</p> + +<p>He rang and told the footman to send Mrs. Bell +to him.</p> + +<p>Bell appeared, erect and severe of aspect as she +had been four-and-twenty years before; neatly dressed +in black silk, with braided gray hair, and a white +lace cap.</p> + +<p>“Sit down, Mrs. Bell, I have a good many questions +to ask you,” said Greswold, motioning her to +a chair on the further side of his desk.</p> + +<p>He was sitting with his eyes fixed, looking at the +spot where Mildred had fallen senseless at his feet. +He sat for some moments in a reverie, and then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +turned suddenly, unlocked his desk, and took out +the photograph which he had shown Mildred last +night.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever see that face before, Bell?” he +asked, handing her the open case.</p> + +<p>“Good gracious, sir, yes, indeed, I should think +I did! but Miss Fay was younger than that when +she came to Parchment Street.”</p> + +<p>“Did you see much of her in Parchment +Street?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, a good deal, and at The Hook, too; a +good deal more than I wanted to. <em>I</em> didn’t hold +with her being brought into our house, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think it was fair to my mistress.”</p> + +<p>“But how was it unfair?”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, <em>I</em> don’t wish to say anything against +the dead, and Mr. Fausset was a liberal master to +me, and I make no doubt that he died a penitent +man. He was a regular church-goer, and an upright +man in all his ways while <em>I</em> lived with him; +but right is right; and <em>I</em> shall always maintain that +it was a cruel thing to a young wife like Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +Fausset, who doted on the ground he walked upon, +to bring his natural daughter into the house.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Bell, do you know that this is a serious +accusation you are bringing against a dead man?” +said George Greswold solemnly. “Now, what +grounds have you for saying that this girl”—with +his hand upon the photograph—“was Mr. Fausset’s +daughter?”</p> + +<p>“What grounds, sir? <em>I</em> don’t want any grounds. +I’m not a lawyer to put things in that way; but I +know what I know. First and foremost, she was the +image of him; and next, why did he bring her home +and want her to be made one of the family, and +treated as a sister by Miss Mildred?”</p> + +<p>“She may have been the daughter of a +friend.”</p> + +<p>“People don’t do that kind of thing—don’t run +the risk of making a wife miserable to oblige a friend,” +retorted Bell scornfully. “Besides, I say again, if +she wasn’t his own flesh and blood, why was she so +like him?”</p> + +<p>“She may have been the daughter of a near relation.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p> + +<p>“He had but one near relation in the world: his +only sister, a young lady who was so difficult to +please that she refused no end of good offers, and of +such a pious turn that she has devoted her life to +doing good for the last five-and-twenty years, to my +certain knowledge. I hope, sir, you would not +insinuate that <em>she</em> had a natural daughter?”</p> + +<p>“She may have made a secret marriage, perhaps, +known only to her brother.”</p> + +<p>“She couldn’t have done any such thing without +my knowledge, sir. She was a girl at school at the +time of Miss Fay’s birth. Don’t mix Miss Fausset +up in it, pray, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Was it you only who suspected Mr. Fausset to +be Miss Fay’s father?”</p> + +<p>“Only me, sir? Why, it was everybody: and, +what was worst of all, my poor mistress knew it, +and fretted over it to her dying day.”</p> + +<p>“But you never heard Mr. Fausset acknowledge +the parentage?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir, not to me; but I have no doubt he +acknowledged it to his poor dear lady. He was an +affectionate husband, and he must have been very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +much wrapped up in that girl, or he wouldn’t have +made his wife unhappy about her.”</p> + +<p>With but the slightest encouragement from Mr. +Greswold, Bell expatiated on the subject of Fay’s +residence in the two houses, and the misery she had +wrought there. She unconsciously exaggerated the +general conviction about the master’s relationship +to his <em>protégée</em>, nor did she hint that it was she who +first mooted the notion in the Parchment Street +household. She left George Greswold with the +belief that this relationship had been known for a +fact to a great many people—that the tie between +protector and protected was an open secret.</p> + +<p>She dwelt much upon the child Mildred’s love for +the elder girl, which she seemed to think in itself an +evidence of their sisterhood. She gave a graphic +account of Mildred’s illness, and described how Fay +had watched beside her bed night after night.</p> + +<p>“I saw her sitting there in her nightgown many +a time when I went in the middle of the night to +see if Mildred was asleep. I never liked Miss Fay, +but justice is justice, and I must say, looking back +upon all things,” said Mrs. Bell, with a virtuous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +air, “that there was no deception about her love for +Miss Mildred. I may have thought it put on then; +but looking back upon it now, I know that it was real.”</p> + +<p>“I can quite understand that my wife must have +been very fond of such a companion—sister or no +sister—but she was so young that no doubt she soon +forgot her friend. Memory is not tenacious at seven +years old,” said Greswold, with an air of quiet +thoughtfulness, cutting the leaves of a new book +which had lain on his desk, the paper-knife marking +the page where he had thrown it down yesterday +afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Indeed, she didn’t forget, sir. You must not +judge Miss Mildred by other girls of seven. She +was—she was like Miss Lola, sir”—Bell’s elderly +voice faltered here. “She was all love and thoughtfulness. +She doted on Miss Fay, and I never saw +such grief as she felt when she came back from the +sea-side and found her gone. It was done for the +best, and it was the only thing my mistress could do +with any regard for her own self-respect; but even I +felt very sorry Miss Fay had been sent away, when I +saw what a blow it was to Miss Mildred. She didn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +get over it for years; and though she was a good +and dutiful daughter, I know that she and her mother +had words about Miss Fay more than once.”</p> + +<p>“She was very fond of her, was she?” murmured +George Greswold, in an absent way, steadily cutting +the leaves of his book. “Very fond of her. And +you have no doubt in your own mind, Mrs. Bell, that +the two were sisters?”</p> + +<p>“Not the least doubt, sir. I never had,” answered +Bell resolutely.</p> + +<p>She waited for him to speak again, but he sat +silent, cutting his way slowly through the big volume, +without making one jagged edge, so steady was the +movement of the hand that grasped the paper-knife. +His eyes were bent upon the book; his face was in +shadow.</p> + +<p>“Is that all, sir?” Bell asked at last, when she +had grown tired of his silence.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mrs. Bell, that will do. Good-night.”</p> + +<p>When the door closed upon her, he flung the +book away from him, sprang to his feet, and began +to pace the room, up and down its length of forty +feet, from hearth to door.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<p>“Sisters!—and so fond of each other!” he muttered. +“My God, this is fatality! In this, as in the death +of my child, I am helpless. The wanton neglect of +my servants cost me the idol of my heart. It was +not my fault—not mine—but I lost her. And now +I am again the victim of fatality—blind, impotent—groping +in the dark web—caught in the inexorable +net.”</p> + +<p>He went back to his desk, and re-read Mildred’s +letter in the light of the lamp.</p> + +<p>“She leaves me because our marriage is unholy +in her eyes,” he said to himself. “What will she +think when she knows all—as she must know, I +suppose, sooner or later? Sooner or later all things +are known, says one of the wise ones of the earth. +Sooner or later! She is on the track now. Sooner +or later she must know—everything.”</p> + +<p>He flung himself into a low chair in front of the +hearth, and sat with his elbows on his knees staring +at the fire.</p> + +<p>“If it were that question of legality only,” he +said to himself, “if it were a question of Church, +law, bigotry, prejudice, I should not fear the issue.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +My love for her, and hers for me, ought to be +stronger than any such prejudice. It would need +but the first sharp pain of severance to bring +her back to me, my fond and faithful wife, willing +to submit her judgment to mine, willing to +believe, as I believe, that such marriages are just +and holy, such bonds pure and true, all over the +world, even though one country may allow and +another disallow, one colony tie the knot and another +loosen it. If it were <em>that</em> alone which parts us, I +should not fear. But it is the past, the spectral past, +which rises up to thrust us asunder. Her sister! +And they loved each other as David and Jonathan +loved, with the love whose inheritance is a life-long +regret.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br> +<span class="fs70">THE VERDICT OF HER CHURCH.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">It</span> was nearly eleven o’clock when Mrs. Greswold +arrived at Waterloo. There had been half-an-hour’s +delay at Bishopstoke, where she changed trains, +and the journey had seemed interminable to the +over-strained brain of that solitary traveller. Never +before had she so journeyed, never during the +fourteen years of her married life had she sat +behind an engine that was carrying her away from +her husband. No words could speak that agony of +severance, or express the gloom of the future—stretching +before her in one dead-level of desolation—which +was to be spent away from him.</p> + +<p>“If I were a Roman Catholic I would go into a +convent to-morrow; I would lock myself for ever +from the outer world,” she thought, feeling that +the world could be nothing to her without her +husband.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p> + +<p>And then she began to ponder seriously upon +those sisterhoods in which the Anglican Church is +now almost as rich as the Roman. She thought of +those women with whom she had been occasionally +brought in contact, whom she had been able to help +sometimes with her purse and with her sympathy, +and she knew that when the hour came for her to +renounce the world there would be many homes +open to receive her, many a good work worthy of +her labour.</p> + +<p>“I am not like those good women,” she thought; +“the prospect seems to me so dreary. I have loved +the world too well. I love it still, even after all +that I have lost.”</p> + +<p>She had telegraphed to her friend Mrs. +Tomkison, and that lady was at the terminus, with +her neat little brougham, and with an enthusiastic +welcome.</p> + +<p>“It is so sweet of you to come to me!” she +exclaimed; “but I hope it is not any worrying +business that has brought you up to town so +suddenly—papers to sign, or anything of that +kind.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Tomkison was literary and æsthetic, and +had the vaguest notions upon all business details. +She was an ardent champion of woman’s rights, +sent Mr. Tomkison off to the City every morning to +earn money for her milliners, decorators, fads, and +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégés</i> of every kind, and reminded him every +evening of his intellectual inferiority. She had +an idea that women of property were inevitably +plundered by their husbands, and that it was one +of the conditions of their existence to be wheedled +into signing away their fortunes for the benefit of +spendthrift partners, she herself being in the impregnable +position of never having brought her +husband a sixpence.</p> + +<p>“No, it is hardly a business matter, Cecilia. I +am only in town <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en passant</i>. I am going to my +aunt at Brighton to-morrow. I knew you would +give me a night’s shelter; and it is much nicer to be +with you than to go to an hotel.”</p> + +<p>The fact was, that of two evils Mildred had chosen +the lesser. She had shrunk from the idea of meeting +her lively friend, and being subjected to the +ordeal of that lady’s curiosity; but it had seemed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +still more terrible to her to enter a strange hotel at +night, and alone. She who had never travelled +alone, who had been so closely guarded by a +husband’s thoughtful love, felt herself helpless as a +child in that beginning of widowhood.</p> + +<p>“I should have thought it simply detestable of +you if you had gone to an hotel,” protested Cecilia, +who affected strong language. “We can have a +delicious hour of confidential talk. I sent Adam to +bed before I came out. He is an excellent devoted +creature—has just made what <em>he</em> calls a pot of +money on Mexican Street Railways; but he is a +dreadful bore when one wants to be alone with one’s +dearest friend. I have ordered a cosy little supper—a +few natives, only just in, a brace of grouse, and +a bottle of the only champagne which smart people +will hear of nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“I am so sorry you troubled about supper,” +said Mildred, not at all curious about the latest +fashion in champagne. “I could not take anything, +unless it were a cup of tea.”</p> + +<p>“But you must have dined early, or hurriedly, at +any rate. I hate that kind of dinner—everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +huddled over—and the carriage announced before +the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pièce de résistance</i>. And so you’re going to +your aunt. Is she ill? Has she sent for you at a +moment’s notice? You will come into all her +money, no doubt; and I am told she is immensely +rich.”</p> + +<p>“I have never thought about her money.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose not, you lucky creature. It will be +sending coals to Newcastle in your case. Your +father left you so rich. I am told Miss Fausset +gives no end of money to her church people. She +has put in two painted windows at St. Edmund’s: +a magnificent rose window over the porch, and a +window in the south transept by Burne Jones—a +delicious design—St. Cecilia sitting at an organ, +with a cloud of cherubs. By the bye, talking of St. +Cecilia, how did you like my friend Castellani? He +wrote me a dear little note of gratitude for my +introduction, so I am sure you were very good +to him.”</p> + +<p>“I could not dishonour any introduction of +yours; besides, Mr. Castellani’s grandfather and my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +father had been friends. That was a link. He was +very obliging in helping us with an amateur concert.”</p> + +<p>“How do you like him? But here we are at +home. You shall tell me more while we are at +supper.”</p> + +<p>Mildred had to sit down to the oysters and +grouse, whether she would or not. The dining-room +was charming in the day-time, with its view +of the Park. At night it might have been a room +excavated from Vesuvian lava, so strictly classic +were its terra-cotta draperies, its butter-boat lamps, +and curule chairs.</p> + +<p>“How sad to see you unable to eat anything!” +protested Mrs. Tomkison, snapping up the natives +with gusto; for it may be observed that the people +who wait up for travellers, or for friends coming +home from the play, are always hungrier than those +who so return. “You shall have your tea directly.”</p> + +<p>Mildred had eaten nothing since her apology for +a breakfast. She was faint with fasting, but had no +appetite, and the odour of grouse, fried bread-crumbs, +and gravy sickened her. She withdrew to a chair +by the fire, and had a dainty little tea-table placed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +at her side, while Mrs. Tomkison demolished one of +the birds, talking all the time.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he a gifted creature?” she asked, helping +herself to the second half of the bird.</p> + +<p>Mildred almost thought she was speaking of +the grouse.</p> + +<p>“I mean Castellani,” said Cecilia, in answer to +her interrogative look. “Isn’t he a heap of talent? +You heard him play, of course, and you heard his +divine voice? When I think of his genius for music, +and remember that he wrote <em>that</em> book, I am actually +wonderstruck.”</p> + +<p>“The book is clever, no doubt,” answered Mildred +thoughtfully, “almost too clever to be quite sincere. +And as for genius—well, I suppose his musical +talent does almost reach genius; and yet what more +can one say of Mozart, Beethoven, or Chopin? I +think genius is too large a word for any one less +than they.”</p> + +<p>“But I say he is a genius,” cried Mrs. Tomkison, +elated by grouse and dry sherry (the champagne +had been put aside when Mildred refused it). “Does +he not carry one out of oneself by his playing? Does<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +not his singing open the floodgates of our hard, +battered old hearts? No one ever interested me so +much.”</p> + +<p>“Have you known him long?”</p> + +<p>“For the last three seasons. He is with me three +or four times a week when he is in town. He is +like a son of the house.”</p> + +<p>“And does Mr. Tomkison like him?”</p> + +<p>“O, you know Adam,” said Cecilia, with an expressive +shrug. “You know Adam’s way. <em>He</em> +doesn’t mind. ‘You always must have somebody +hanging about you,’ he said, ‘so you may as well +have that French fool as any one else.’ Adam calls +all foreigners Frenchmen, if they are not obtrusively +German. Castellani has been devoted to me; and +I daresay I may have got myself talked about on +his account,” pursued Cecilia, with the pious resignation +of a blameless matron of five-and-forty, who +rather likes to be suspected of an intrigue; “but I +can’t help <em>that</em>. He is one of the few young men +I have ever met who understands me. And then +we are such near neighbours, and it is easy for him +to run in at any hour. ‘You ought to give him a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +latchkey,’ says Adam; ‘it would save the servants a +lot of trouble.’”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I remember; he lives in Queen Anne’s +Mansions,” Mildred answered listlessly.</p> + +<p>“He has a suite of rooms near the top, looking +over half London, and exquisitely furnished. He +gives afternoon tea to a few chosen friends who +don’t mind the lift; and we have had a Materialisation +in his rooms, but it wasn’t a particularly good +one,” added Mrs. Tomkison, as if she were talking +of something to eat.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The maid Louisa arrived at Queen Anne’s Gate +a little before luncheon on the following day. She +brought a considerable portion of Mrs. Greswold’s +belongings in two large basket-trunks, a portmanteau, +and a dressing-bag. These were at once sent +on to Victoria in the cab that had brought the young +person and the luggage from Waterloo, while the +young person herself was accommodated with dinner, +table-beer, and gossip in the housekeeper’s room. +She also brought a letter for her mistress, a letter +written by George Greswold late on the night before.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p> + +<p>Mildred could hardly tear open the envelope for +the trembling of her hands. How would he write +to her? Would he plead against her decision? +would he try to make her waver? Would he set love +against law, in such irresistible words as love alone +can use? She knew her own weakness and his +strength, and she opened his letter full of fear for +her own resolution: but there was no passionate +pleading.</p> + +<p>The letter was measured almost to coldness:</p> +<br> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“I need not say that your departure, together +with your explanation of that departure, has come +upon me as a crushing blow. Your reasons in your +own mind are doubtless unanswerable. I cannot +even endeavour to gainsay them. I could only seem +to you as a special pleader, making the worse appear +the better reason, for my own selfish ends. You +know my opinion upon this hard-fought question of +marriage with a deceased wife’s sister; and you +know how widely it differs from Mr. Cancellor’s +view and yours—which, to my mind, is the view of +the bigot, and not the Christian. There is no word<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +in Christ’s teaching to forbid such marriages. Your +friend and master, Clement Cancellor, is of the school +which sets the law-making of a mediæval Church above +the wisdom of Christ. Am I to lose my wife because +Mr. Cancellor is a better Christian than his Master?</p> + +<p>“But granted that you are fixed in this way of +thinking, that you deem it your duty to break your +husband’s heart, and make his home desolate, rather +than tolerate the idea of union with one who was +once married to your half-sister, let me ask you at +least to consider whether you have sufficient ground +for believing that my first wife was verily your father’s +daughter. In the first place, your only evidence of +the identity between my wife and the girl you call +Fay consists of a photograph which bears a striking +likeness to the girl you knew, a likeness which I am +bound to say Bell saw as instantly as you yourself had +seen it. Remember, that the strongest resemblances +have been found between those who were of no kin +to each other; and that more than one judicial +murder has been committed on the strength of +just such a likeness.</p> + +<p>“The main point at issue, however, is not so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +much the question of identity as the question whether +the girl Fay was actually your father’s daughter; and +from my interrogation of Bell, it appears to me that +the evidence against your father in this matter is +one of impressions only, and, even as circumstantial +evidence, too feeble to establish any case against +the accused. Is it impossible for a man to be +interested in an orphan girl, and to be anxious to +establish her in his own home, as a companion for +his only child, unless that so-called orphan were his +own daughter, the offspring of a hidden intrigue? +There may be stronger evidence as to Fay’s parentage +than the suspicions of servants or your mother’s +jealousy; but as yet I have arrived at none. You +possibly may know much more than Bell knows, +more than your letter implies. If it is not so, if +you are acting on casual suspicions only, I can but +say that you are prompt to strike a man whose heart +has been sorely tried of late, and who had a special +claim upon your tenderness by reason of that recent +loss.</p> + +<p>“I can write no more, Mildred. My heart is +too heavy for many words. I do not reproach you.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +I only ask you to consider what you are doing +before you make our parting irrevocable. You have +entreated me not to follow you, and I will obey you, +so far as to give you time for reflection before I +force myself upon your presence; but I must see +you before you leave England. I ask no answer to +this letter until we meet.—Your unhappy husband</p> + +<p class="right"> +“<span class="smcap" style="padding-right: 1em">George Greswold.”</span><br> +</p> +</div> +<br> + +<p>The letter chilled her by its calm logic—its +absence of passion. There seemed very little of the +lover left in a husband who could so write. His +contempt for a law which to her was sacred shocked +her almost as if it had been an open declaration of +infidelity. His sneer at Clement Cancellor wounded +her to the quick.</p> + +<p>She answered her husband’s letter immediately:</p> +<br> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Alas! my beloved,” she wrote, “my reason for +believing Fay to have been my sister is unanswerable. +My mother on her death-bed told me of the +relationship; told me the sad secret with bitter +tears. Her knowledge of that story had cast a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +shadow on the latter years of her married life. I +had seen her unhappy, without knowing the cause. +On her death-bed she confided in me. I was almost +a woman then, and old enough to understand what +she told me. Women are so jealous where they +love, George. I suffered many a sharp pang after +my discovery of your previous marriage; jealous of +that unknown rival who had gone before me, little +dreaming that fatal marriage was to cancel my own.</p> + +<p>“My mother’s evidence is indisputable. She +must have known. As I grew older I saw +that there was that in my father’s manner when +Fay was mentioned which indicated some painful +secret. The time came when I was careful to avoid +the slightest allusion to my lost sister; but in my +own mind and in my own heart I cherished her +image as the image of a sister.</p> + +<p>“I am grieved that you should despise Mr. Cancellor +and his opinions. My religious education was +derived entirely from him. My father and mother +were both careless, though neither was unbelieving. +He taught me to care for spiritual things. He +taught me to look to a better life than the best we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +can lead here; and in this dark hour I thank and +bless him for having so taught me. What should +I be now, adrift on a sea of trouble, without the +compass of faith? I will steer by that, George, +even though it carry me away from him I shall +always devotedly love.—Ever, in severance as in +union, your own</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap" style="padding-right: 1em">Mildred.”</span><br> +</p> +</div> +<br> + +<p>She had written to Mr. Cancellor early that +morning, asking him to call upon her before three +o’clock. He was announced a few minutes after she +finished her letter, and she went to the drawing-room +to receive him.</p> + +<p>His rusty black coat and slouched hat, crumpled +carelessly in his ungloved hand, looked curiously out +of harmony with Mrs. Tomkison’s drawing-room, +which was the passion of her life, the shrine to which +she carried gold and frankincense and myrrh, +in the shape of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rose du Barri</i> and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bleue du Roi</i> +Sèvres, veritable old Sherraton tables and chairs, and +commodes and cabinets from the boudoir of Marie +Antoinette, a lady who must assuredly have sat at +more tables and written at more escritoires than any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +other woman in the world. Give her Majesty only +five minutes for every table and ten for every <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonheur +du jour</i> attributed to her possession, and her married +life must have been a good deal longer than the +span which she was granted of joy and grief between +the passing of the ring and the fall of the +axe.</p> + +<p>Unsightly as that dark figure showed amidst the +delicate tertiaries of Lyons brocade and the bright +colouring of satin-wood tables and Sèvres porcelain, +Mr. Cancellor was perfectly at his ease in Mrs. Tomkison’s +drawing-room. He wasted very few of his +hours in such rooms, albeit there were many such +in which his presence was courted; but seldom as +he appeared amidst such surroundings he was never +disconcerted by them. He was not easily impressed +by externals. The filth and squalor of a London +slum troubled him no more than the artistic intricacies +of a West End drawing-room, in which the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">culte</i> +of beauty left him no room to put down his hat. +It was humanity for which he cared—persons, not +things. His soul went straight to the souls he was +anxious to save. He was narrow, perhaps; but in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +that narrowness there was a concentrative power +that could work wonders.</p> + +<p>One glance at Mildred’s face showed him that +she was distressed, and that her trouble was no small +thing. He held her hand in his long lean fingers, +and looked at her earnestly as he said:</p> + +<p>“You have something to tell me—some sorrow?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered, “an incurable sorrow.”</p> + +<p>She burst into tears, the first she had shed since +she left her home, and sobbed passionately for some +moments, leaning against the Trianon spinet, raining +her tears upon the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vernis Martin</i> in a way that +would have made Mrs. Tomkison’s blood run cold.</p> + +<p>“How weak I am!” she said impatiently, as she +dried her eyes and choked back her sobs. “I thought +I was accustomed to my sorrow by this time. God +knows it is no new thing! It seems a century old +already.”</p> + +<p>“Sit down, and tell me all about it,” said +Clement Cancellor quietly, drawing forward a chair +for her, and then seating himself by her side. “I +cannot help you till you have told me all your trouble;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +and you know I shall help you if I can. I can sympathise +with you, in any case.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am sure of that,” she answered sadly; +and then, falteringly but clearly, she told him the +whole story, from its beginning in the days of her +childhood till the end yesterday. She held back +nothing, she spared no one. Freely, as to her father +confessor, she told all. “I have left him for ever,” +she concluded. “Have I done right?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you have done right. Anything less +than that would have been less than right. If you +are sure of your facts as to the relationship—if Mr. +Greswold’s first wife was your father’s daughter—there +was no other course open to you. There was +no alternative.”</p> + +<p>“And my marriage is invalid in law?” questioned +Mildred.</p> + +<p>“I do not think so. Law does not always mean +justice. If this young lady was your father’s natural +daughter she had no status in the eye of the law. +She was not your sister—she belonged to no one, +in the eye of the law. She had no right to bear +your father’s name. So, if you accept the civil law<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> +for your guide, you may still be George Greswold’s +wife—you may ignore the tie between you and his +first wife. Legally it has no existence.”</p> + +<p>Mildred crimsoned, and then grew deadly pale. +In the eye of the law her marriage was valid. She +was not a dishonoured woman—a wife and no wife. +She might still stand by her husband’s side—go +down to the grave as his companion and sweetheart. +They who so short a time ago were wedded lovers +might be lovers again, all clouds dispersed, the +sunshine of domestic peace upon their pathway—if +she were content to be guided by the law.</p> + +<p>“Should you think me justified if I were to +accept my legal position, and shut my eyes to all the +rest?” she asked, knowing but too well what the +answer would be.</p> + +<p>“Should <em>I</em> so think! O Mildred, do you know +me so little that you need ask such a question? +When have I ever taken the law for my guide? +Have I not defied that law when it stood between +me and my faith? Am I not ready to defy it again +were the choice between conscience and law forced +upon me? To my mind your half-sister’s position<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +makes not one jot of difference. She was not the +less your sister because of her parent’s sin, and your +marriage with the man who was her husband is not +the less an incestuous marriage.”</p> + +<p>The word struck Mildred like a whip—stung the +wounded heart like the sharp cut of a lash.</p> + +<p>“Not one word more,” she cried, holding up her +hands as if to ward off a blow. “If my union with +my—very dear—husband was a sinful union, I was +an unconscious sinner. The bond is broken for ever. +I shall sin no more.”</p> + +<p>Her tears came again; but this time they +gathered slowly on the heavy lids, and rolled slowly +down the pale cheeks, while she sat with her eyes +fixed, looking straight before her, in dumb despair.</p> + +<p>“Be sure all will be well with you if you cleave +to the right,” said the priest, with grave tenderness, +feeling for her as acutely as an ascetic can feel for +the grief that springs from earthly passions and +temporal loves, sympathising as a mother sympathises +with a child that sobs over a broken toy. The +toy is a futile thing, but to the child priceless.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do with your life?” he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +asked gently, after a long pause, in which he had +given her time to recover her self-possession.</p> + +<p>“I hardly know. I shall go to the Tyrol next +month, I think, and choose some out-of-the-way +nook, where I can live quietly; and then for the +winter I may go to Italy or the south of France. A +year hence perhaps I may enter a sisterhood; but I +do not want to take such a step hurriedly.”</p> + +<p>“No, not hurriedly,” said Mr. Cancellor, his +face lighting up suddenly as that pale, thin, irregular-featured +face could lighten with the divine radiance +from within; “not hurriedly, not too soon; +but I feel assured that it would be a good thing for +you to do—the sovereign cure for a broken life. +You think now that happiness would be impossible +for you, anywhere, anyhow. Believe me, my dear +Mildred, you would find it in doing good to others. +A vulgar remedy, an old woman’s recipe, perhaps, +but infallible. A life lived for the good of others is +always a happy life. You know the glory of the sky +at sunset—there is nothing like it, no such splendour, +no such beauty—and yet it is only a reflected +light. So it is with the human heart, Mildred.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> +The sun of individual love has sunk below life’s +horizon, but the reflected glory of the Christian’s +love for sinners brightens that horizon with a far +lovelier light.”</p> + +<p>“If I could feel like you; if I were as unselfish +as you—” faltered Mildred.</p> + +<p>“You have seen Louise Hillersdon—a frivolous, +pleasure-loving woman, you think, perhaps; one +who was once an abject sinner, whom you are +tempted to despise. I have seen that woman kneeling +by the bed of death; I have seen her ministering +with unflinching courage to the sufferers from +the most loathsome diseases humanity knows; and +I firmly believe that those hours of unselfish love +have been the brightest spots in her chequered life. +Believe me, Mildred, self-sacrifice is the shortest +road to happiness. No, I would not urge you to +make your election hurriedly. Give yourself leisure +for thought and prayer, and then, if you decide on +devoting your life to good works, command my help, +my counsel—all that is mine to give.”</p> + +<p>“I know, I know that I have a sure friend in +you, and that under heaven I have no better friend,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> +she answered quietly, glancing at the clock as she +spoke. “I am going to Brighton this afternoon, to +spend a few days with my aunt, and to—tell her +what has happened. She must know all about Fay. +If there is any room for doubt she will tell me. My +last hope is there.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br> +<span class="fs70">NO LIGHT.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Miss Fausset</span>—Gertrude Fausset—occupied a large +house in Lewes Crescent—with windows commanding +all that there is of bold coast-line and open sea +within sight of Brighton. Her windows looked +eastward, and her large substantial mansion turned +its back upon all the frivolities of the popular watering-place—upon +its Cockney visitors of summer and +its November smartness, its aquarium and theatre, +its London stars and Pavilion concerts, its carriages +and horsemen—few of whom ever went so far east +as Lewes Crescent; its brazen bands and brazen +faces—upon everything except its church bells, +which were borne up to Miss Fausset’s windows by +every west wind, and which sounded with but little +intermission from no less than three tabernacles +within half a mile of the crescent.</p> + +<p>Happily Miss Fausset loved the sound of church<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +bells, loved all things connected with her own particular +church with the ardour which a woman who +has few ties of kindred or friendship can afford to +give to clerical matters. Nothing except serious +indisposition would have prevented her attending +matins at St. Edmund’s, the picturesque and semi-fashionable +Gothic temple in a narrow side street +within ten minutes’ walk of her house; nor was she +often absent from afternoon prayers, which were read +daily at five o’clock to a small and select congregation. +The somewhat stately figure of the elderly +spinster was familiar to most of the worshippers at +St. Edmund’s. All old Brightonians knew the history +of that tall, slim maiden lady, richly clad after +a style of her own, which succeeded in reconciling +Puritanism with the fashion of the day; very dignified +in her carriage and manners, with a touch of +hauteur, as of a miserable sinner who knew that she +belonged to the salt of the earth. Brightonians +knew that she was Miss Fausset, sole survivor of the +great house of Fausset & Company, silk merchants +and manufacturers, St. Paul’s Churchyard and +Lyons; that she had inherited a handsome fortune<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +from her father before she was twenty, that she had +refused a good many advantageous offers, had ranked +as a beauty, and had been much admired in her +time, that she had occupied the house in Lewes +Crescent for more than a quarter of a century, and +that she had taken a prominent part in philanthropic +associations and clerical matters during the greater +number of those years. No charity bazaar was considered +in the way of success until Miss Fausset +had promised to hold a stall; no new light in the +ecclesiastical firmament of Brighton ranked as +a veritable star until Miss Fausset had taken notice +of him. She received everybody connected with +Church and charitable matters. Afternoon tea in +her drawing-room was a social distinction, and +strangers were taken to her as to a Royal personage. +Her occasional dinners—very rare, and never large—were +talked of as perfection in the way of dining.</p> + +<p>“It is easy for her to do things well,” sighed an +overweighted matron, “with her means, and no +family. She must be inordinately rich.”</p> + +<p>“Did she come into a very large fortune at her +father’s death?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p> + +<p>“O, I believe old Fausset was almost a millionaire, +and he had only a son and a daughter. But it +is not so much the amount she inherited as the +amount she must have saved. Think how she must +have nursed her income, with her quiet way of +living! Only four indoor servants and a coachman; +no garden, and one fat brougham horse. She must +be rolling in money.”</p> + +<p>“She gives away a great deal.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing compared with what other people +spend. Money goes a long way in charity. Ten +pounds makes a good show on a subscription list; +but what is it in a butcher’s book? I daresay my +three boys have spent as much at Oxford in the last +six years as Miss Fausset has given in charity within +the same time; and <em>we</em> are poor people.”</p> + +<p>It pleased Miss Fausset to live quietly, and to +spend very little money upon splendours of any +kind. There was distinction enough for her in the +intellectual ascendency she had acquired among +those church-going Brightonians who thought exactly +as she thought. Her spacious, well-appointed house; +her experienced servants—cook, housemaid, lady’s-maid,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +and butler; her neat little brougham and +perfect brougham horse realised all her desires in +the way of luxury. Her own diet was of an almost +ascetic simplicity, and her servants were on boardwages; +but she gave her visitors the best that the +season or the fashion could suggest to an experienced +cook. Even her afternoon tea was considered superior +to everybody else’s tea, and her table was provided +with daintier cakes and biscuits than were to be seen +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Her house had been decorated and furnished +under her own direction, and was marked in all +particulars by that grain of Puritanism which was +noticeable in the lady’s attire. The carpets and +curtains in the two drawing-rooms were silver-gray; +the furniture was French, and belonged to +the period of the Directory, when the graceful lightness +of the Louis Seize style was merging into +the classicism of the Empire. In Miss Fausset’s +drawing-room there were none of those charming +futilities which cumber the tables of more frivolous +women. Here Mr. Cancellor would have found +room, and to spare, for his hat—room for a committee<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> +meeting, or a mission service, indeed—on +that ample expanse of silvery velvet pile, a small +arabesque pattern in different shades of gray.</p> + +<p>The grand piano was the principal feature of the +larger room, but it was not draped or disguised, +sophisticated by flower-vases, or made glorious with +plush, after the manner of fashionable pianos. It +stood forth—a concert grand, in unsophisticated +bulk of richly carved rosewood, a Broadwood piano, +and nothing more. The inner room was lined with +bookshelves, and had the air of a room that was +meant for usefulness rather than hospitality. A +large, old-fashioned rosewood secrétaire, of the +Directory period, occupied the space at the side of +the wide single window, which commanded a view of +dead walls covered with Virginia creeper, and in the +distance a glimpse of the crocketed spire of St. +Edmund’s, a reproduction in little of one of the +turrets of the Sainte Chapelle.</p> + +<p>Two-thirds of the volumes in those tall bookcases +were of a theological character; the remaining third +consisted of those standard works which everybody<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +likes to possess, but which only the superior few +care to read.</p> + +<p>Mildred had telegraphed in the morning to +announce her visit, and she found her aunt’s confidential +man-servant, a German Swiss, and her aunt’s +neat little brougham waiting for her at the station. +Miss Fausset herself was in the inner drawing-room +ready to receive her.</p> + +<p>There was something in the chastened colouring +and perfect order of that house in Lewes Crescent +which always chilled Mildred upon entering it after +a long interval. It was more than three years since +she had visited her aunt, and this afternoon in the +fading light the silver-gray drawing-rooms looked +colder and emptier than usual.</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset rose to welcome her niece, and +imprinted a stately kiss on each cheek.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mildred, you have given me a very +agreeable surprise,” she said; “but I hope it is no +family trouble that has brought you to me—so +suddenly.”</p> + +<p>She looked at her niece searchingly with her +cold gray eyes. She was a handsome woman still,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +at fifty-seven years of age. Her features were faultless, +and the oval of her face was nearly as perfect as +it had been at seven-and-twenty. Her abundant hair +was silvery gray, and worn <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la</i> Marie Antoinette, a +style which lent dignity to her appearance. Her +dinner-gown of dark gray silk fitted her tall, upright +figure to perfection, and her one ornament, an +antique diamond cross, half hidden by the folds of +her lace fichu, was worthy of the rich Miss Fausset.</p> + +<p>“Yes, aunt, it is trouble that has brought me +to you—very bitter trouble; but it is just possible +that you can help me to conquer it. I have come +to you for help, if you can give it.”</p> + +<p>“My dear child, you must know I would do +anything in my power—” Miss Fausset began, with +gentle deliberation.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, I know,” Mildred answered, almost +impatiently. “I know that you will be sorry for +me, but you may not be able to do anything. It is +a forlorn hope. In such a strait as mine one +catches at any hope.”</p> + +<p>Her aunt’s measured accents jarred upon her +overstrung nerves. Her grief raged within her like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +a fever, and the grave placidity of the elder woman +tortured her. There seemed no capacity for sympathy +in this stately spinster who stood and scanned +her with coldly inquisitive eyes.</p> + +<p>“Can we be quite alone for a little while, aunt? +Are you sure of no one interrupting us while I am +telling you my troubles?”</p> + +<p>“I will give an order. It is only half-past six, +and we do not dine till eight. There is no reason +we should be disturbed. Come and sit over here, +Mildred, on this sofa. Your maid can take your +hat and jacket to your room.”</p> + +<p>Stray garments lying about in those orderly +drawing-rooms would have been agony to Miss +Fausset. She rang the bell, and told the servant to +send Mrs. Greswold’s maid, and to take particular +care that no visitor was admitted.</p> + +<p>“I can see nobody this evening,” she said. “If +any one calls you will say I have my niece with me, +and cannot be disturbed.”</p> + +<p>Franz, the Swiss butler, bowed with an air of +understanding the finest shades of feeling in that +honoured mistress. He brought out a tea-table,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> +and placed it conveniently near the sofa on which +Mildred was sitting, and he placed upon it the neatest +of salvers, with tiny silver teapot and Worcester +cup and saucer, and bread and butter such as Titania +herself might have eaten with an “apricock” or a +bunch of dewberries. Then he discreetly retired, +and sent Louisa, who smelt of tea and toast already, +though she could not have been more than ten +minutes in the great stony basement, which would +have accommodated a company of infantry just as +easily as the spinster’s small establishment.</p> + +<p>Louisa took the jacket and hat and her mistress’s +keys, and withdrew to finish her tea and to discuss +the motive and meaning of this extraordinary +journey from Enderby to Brighton. The gossips +over the housekeeper’s tea-table inclined to the idea +that Mrs. Greswold had found a letter—a compromising +letter—addressed to her husband by some +lady with whom he had been carrying on an intrigue, +in all probability Mrs. Hillersdon of Riverdale.</p> + +<p>“We all know who <em>she</em> was before Mr. Hillersdon +married her,” said Louisa; “and don’t tell me +that a woman who has behaved liked that while she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +was young would ever be really prudent. Mrs. +Hillersdon must be fifty if she’s a day; but she is a +handsome woman still, and who knows?—she may +have been an old flame of my master’s.”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” sighed Franz assentingly. “It’s +generally an old flame that does the mischief. <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Wir +sind armer Thieren.</i>”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“And now, my dear, tell me what has gone +wrong with you,” said Miss Fausset, seating herself +on the capacious sofa—low, broad, luxurious, one of +Crunden’s masterpieces—beside her niece.</p> + +<p>The rooms were growing shadowy. A small fire +burned in the bright steel grate, and made the one +cheerful spot in the room, touching the rich bindings +of the books with gleams of light.</p> + +<p>“O, it is a long story, aunt! I must begin at +the beginning. I have a question to ask you, and +your answer means life or death to me.”</p> + +<p>“A question—to—ask—me?”</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset uttered the words slowly, spacing +them out, one by one, in her clear, calm voice—the +voice that had spoken at committee meetings, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> +had laid down the law in matters charitable and +ecclesiastical many times in that good town of +Brighton.</p> + +<p>“I must go back to my childhood, aunt, in the +first place,” began Mildred, in her low, earnest voice, +her hands clasped, her eyes fixed upon her aunt’s +coldly correct profile, between her and the light +of the fire, the wide window behind her, with the +day gradually darkening after the autumnal sunset. +The three eastward-looking windows in the large +room beyond had a ghostly look, with their long +guipure curtains closely drawn against the dying +light.</p> + +<p>“I must go back to the time when I was seven +years old, and my dear father,” falteringly, and with +tears in her voice, “brought home his adopted +daughter, Fay—Fay Fausset, he called her. She +was fourteen and I was only seven, but I was very +fond of her all the same. We took to each other +from the beginning. When we left London and +went to The Hook, Fay went with us. I was ill +there, and she helped to nurse me. She was very +good to me—kinder than I can say, and I loved her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> +as if she had been my sister. But when I got well +she was sent away—sent to a finishing-school at +Brussels, and I never saw her again. She had only +lived with us one short summer. Yet it seemed as +if she and I had been together all my life. I missed +her sorely. I missed her for years afterwards.”</p> + +<p>“My tender-hearted Mildred!” said Miss Fausset +gently. “It was like you to give your love to a +stranger, and to be so faithful to her memory!”</p> + +<p>“O, but she was not a stranger! she was something +nearer and dearer. I could hardly have been +so fond of her if there had not been some link +between us.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense, Mildred! A warm-hearted child +will take to any one near her own age who is kind +to her. Why should this girl have been anything +more than an orphan, whom your father adopted out +of the generosity of his heart?”</p> + +<p>“O, she was something more! There was a +mystery. Did you ever see her, aunt? I don’t +remember your coming to Parchment Street or to +The Hook while she was with us.”</p> + +<p>“No. I was away from England part of that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +year. I spent the autumn at Baden with my friends +the Templemores.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, then you knew nothing of the trouble +Fay made in our home—most innocently? It is +such a sad story, aunt. I can hardly bear to touch +upon it, even to you, for it cast a shadow upon my +father’s character. You know how I loved and honoured +him, and how it must pain me to say one +word that reflects upon him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know you loved him. You could not +love him too well, Mildred. He was a good man—a +large-hearted, large-minded man.”</p> + +<p>“And yet that one act of his, bringing poor Fay +into his home, brought unhappiness upon us all. +My mother seemed set against her from the very +first; and on her death-bed she told me that Fay +was my father’s daughter. She gave me no proof—she +told me nothing beyond that one cruel fact. +Fay was the offspring of hidden sin. She told me +this, and told me to remember it all my life. Do +you think, aunt, she was justified in this accusation +against my father?”</p> + +<p>“How can I tell, Mildred?” Miss Fausset answered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +coldly. “My brother may have had secrets +from me.”</p> + +<p>“But did you never hear anything—any hint of +this mystery? Did you never know anything about +your brother’s life in the years before his marriage +which would serve as a clue? He could hardly have +cared for any one—been associated with any one—and +you not hear something—”</p> + +<p>“If you mean did I ever hear that my brother +had a mistress, I can answer no,” replied Miss +Fausset, in a very unsympathetic voice. “But men +do not usually allow such things to be known to +their sisters, especially to a younger sister, as I was +by a good many years. He may have been—like +other men. Few of them seem free from the stain +of sin. But however that may have been, I know +nothing about the matter.”</p> + +<p>“And you do not know the secret of Fay’s +parentage—you, my father’s only sister—his only +surviving relation. Can you help me to find any +one who knew more about his youth—any confidential +friend—any one who can tell me whether that +girl was really my sister?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p> + +<p>“No, Mildred. I have no knowledge of your +father’s friends. They are all dead and gone, perhaps. +But what can it matter to you who this girl +was? She is dead. Let the secret of her existence +die with her. It is wisest, most charitable to do so.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, you know she is dead!” cried Mildred +quickly. “Where and when did she die? How did +you hear of her?”</p> + +<p>“From your father. She died abroad. I do +not remember the year.”</p> + +<p>“Was it before my marriage?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I believe so.”</p> + +<p>“Long before?”</p> + +<p>“Two or three years, perhaps. I cannot tell +you anything precisely. The matter was of no +moment to me.”</p> + +<p>“O aunt, it is life and death to <em>me</em>. She was +my husband’s first wife. She and I—daughters of +one father—as I, alas! can but believe we were—married +the same man.”</p> + +<p>“I never heard your husband was a widower.”</p> + +<p>“No, nor did I know it until a few weeks ago;” +and then, as clearly as her distress of mind would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> +allow, Mildred told how the discovery had been +made.</p> + +<p>“The evidence of a photograph—which may be +a good or a bad likeness—is a small thing to go +upon, Mildred,” said her aunt. “I think you have +been very foolish to make up your mind upon such +evidence.”</p> + +<p>“O, but there are other facts—coincidences! +And nothing would make me doubt the identity of +the original of that photograph with Fay Fausset. +I recognised it at the first glance; and Bell, who +saw it afterwards, knew the face immediately. There +could be no error in that. The only question is +about her parentage. I thought, if there were room +for doubt in the face of my mother’s death-bed statement, +you could help me. But it is all over. You +were my last hope,” said Mildred despairingly.</p> + +<p>She let her face sink forward upon her clasped +hands. Only in this moment did she know how she +had clung to the hope that her aunt would be able +to assure her she was mistaken in her theory of +Fay’s parentage.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mildred,” began Miss Fausset, after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +a pause, “the words you have just used—‘death-bed +statement’—seem to mean something very solemn, +indisputable, irrevocable; but I must beg you to +remember that your poor mother was a very weak +woman and a very exacting wife. She was offended +with my brother for his adoption of an orphan girl. +I have heard her hold forth about her wrongs many +a time, vaguely, not daring to accuse him before +me; but still I could understand the drift of her +thoughts. She may have nursed these vague suspicions +of hers until they seemed to her like positive +facts; and on her death-bed, her brain enfeebled by +illness, she may have made direct assertions upon +no other ground than those long-cherished suspicions +and the silent jealousies of years. I do not +think, Mildred, you ought to take any decisive step +upon the evidence of your mother’s jealousy.”</p> + +<p>“My mother spoke with conviction. She must +have known something—she must have had some +proof. But even if it were possible she could have +spoken so positively without any other ground than +jealous feeling, there are other facts that cry aloud +to me, evidences to which I dare not shut my eyes.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +Fay must have belonged to some one, aunt,” pursued +Mildred, with growing earnestness, clasping her +hands upon Miss Fausset’s arm as they sat side by +side in the gathering darkness. “There must have +been some reason—and a strong one—for her presence +in our house. My father was not a man to +act upon caprice. I never remember any foolish or +frivolous act of his in all the years of my girlhood. +He was a man of thought and purpose; he did +nothing without a motive. He would not have +charged himself with the care of that poor girl unless +he had considered it his duty to protect her.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps not.”</p> + +<p>“I am sure not. Then comes the question, +who was she if she was not my father’s daughter? +He had no near relations, he had no bosom friend +that I ever heard of—no friend so dear that he would +deem it his duty to adopt that friend’s orphan child. +There is no other clue to the mystery that I can +imagine. Can you, aunt, suggest any other solution?”</p> + +<p>“No, Mildred, I cannot.”</p> + +<p>“If there were no other evidence within my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> +knowledge, my father’s manner alone would have +given me a clue to his secret. He so studiously +evaded my inquiries about Fay—there was such a +settled melancholy in his manner when he spoke of +her.”</p> + +<p>“Poor John! he had a heart of gold, Mildred. +There never was a truer man than your father. Be +sure of that, come what may.”</p> + +<p>“I have never doubted that.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause of some minutes after this. +The two women sat in silence looking at the fire, +which had burned red and hollow since Franz had +last attended to it. Mildred sat with her head leaning +against her aunt’s shoulder, her hand clasping +her aunt’s hand. Miss Fausset sat erect as a dart, +looking steadily at the fire, her lips compressed and +resolute, the image of unfaltering purpose.</p> + +<p>“And now, Mildred,” she began at last, in those +measured accents which Mildred remembered in her +childhood as an association of awe, “take an old +woman’s advice, and profit by an old woman’s experience +of life if you can. Put this suspicion of yours +on one side—forget it as if it had never been, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +go back to your good and faithful husband. This +suspicion of yours is but a suspicion at most, founded +on the jealous fancy of one of the most fanciful +women I ever knew. Why should George Greswold’s +life be made desolate because your mother was a +bundle of nerves? Forget all you have ever thought +about that orphan girl, and go back to your duty as +a wife.”</p> + +<p>Mildred started away from her aunt, and left the +sofa as if she had suddenly discovered herself in +contact with the Evil One.</p> + +<p>“Aunt, you astound, you horrify me!” she exclaimed. +“Can <em>you</em> be so false to the conduct and +principles of your whole life—can <em>you</em> put duty to a +husband before duty to God? Have I not sworn to +honour Him with all my heart, with all my strength; +and am I to yield to the weak counsel of my heart, +which would put my love of the creature above my +honour of the Creator? Would you counsel me to +persist in an unholy union—you whose life has been +given up to the service of God—you who have put +His service far above all earthly affections; you who +have shown yourself so strong: can you counsel me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> +to be so weak: and to let my love—my fond true love +for my dear one—conquer my knowledge of the +right? Who knows if my darling’s death may not +have been God’s judgment upon iniquity—God’s +judgment—”</p> + +<p>She had burst into sudden tears at the mention +of her husband’s name, with all that tenderness his +image evolved; but at that word judgment she +stopped abruptly with a half-hysterical cry, as a +vision of the past flashed into her mind.</p> + +<p>She remembered the afternoon of the return to +Enderby, and how her husband had knelt by his +daughter’s grave, believing himself alone, and how +there had come up from that prostrate figure a bitter +cry:</p> + +<p>“Judgment! judgment!”</p> + +<p>Did he know? Was that the remorseful ejaculation +of one who knew himself a deliberate sinner?</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset endured this storm of reproof without +a word. She never altered her attitude, or +wavered in her quiet contemplation of the fading +fire. She waited while Mildred paced up and down +the room in a tempest of passionate feeling, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +then she said, even more quietly than she had spoken +before,</p> + +<p>“My dear Mildred, I have given you my advice, +conscientiously. If you refuse to be guided by the +wisdom of one who is your senior by a quarter of a +century, the consequences of your obstinacy must be +upon your own head. I only know that if <em>I</em> had as +good a man as George Greswold for my husband”—with +a little catch in her voice that sounded almost +like a sob—“it would take a great deal more than a +suspicion to part me from him. And now, Mildred, +if you mean to dress for dinner, it is time you went +to your room.”</p> + +<p>In any other house, and with any other hostess, +Mildred would have asked to be excused from sitting +down to a formal dinner, and to spend the rest of +the evening in her own room; but she knew her +aunt’s dislike of any domestic irregularity, so she +went away meekly, and put on the black lace gown +which Louisa had laid out for her, and returned to +the drawing-room at five minutes before eight.</p> + +<p>She had been absent half an hour, but it seemed +to her as if Miss Fausset had not stirred since she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +left her. The lamps were lighted, the fire had been +made up, and the silver-gray brocade curtains were +drawn; but the mistress of the house was sitting in +exactly the same attitude on the sofa near the fire, +erect, motionless, with her thoughtful gaze fixed +upon the burning coals in the bright steel grate.</p> + +<p>Aunt and niece dined <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>, ministered to +by the experienced Franz, who was thorough master +of his calling. All the details of that quiet dinner +were of an elegant simplicity, but everything was +perfect after its fashion, from the soup to the dessert, +from the Irish damask to the old English silver—everything +such as befitted the station of a lady who +was often spoken of as the rich Miss Fausset.</p> + +<p>The evening passed in mournful quiet. Mildred +played two of Mozart’s sonatas at her aunt’s request—sonatas +which she had played in her girlhood +before the advent of her first and only lover, the +lover who was now left widowed and desolate in that +time which should have been the golden afternoon +of life. As her fingers played those familiar movements, +her mind was at Enderby with the husband +she had deserted. How was he bearing his solitude?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +Would he shut his heart against her in +anger, teach himself to live without her? She +pictured him in his accustomed corner of the drawing-room, +with his lamp-lit table, and pile of books +and papers, and Pamela seated on the other side of +the room, and the dogs lying on the hearth, and the +room all aglow with flowers in the subdued light of +the shaded lamps; so different from these colourless +rooms of Miss Fausset’s, with their look as of +vaulted halls, in which voices echo with hollow +reverberations amidst empty space.</p> + +<p>And then she thought of her own desolate life, +and wondered what it was to be. She felt as if she +had no strength of mind to chalk out a path for +herself—to create for herself a mission. That +sublime idea of living for others, of a life devoted to +finding the lost ones of Israel—or nursing the sick—or +teaching children the way of righteousness—left +her cold. Her thoughts dwelt persistently upon +her own loves, her own losses, her own ideal of +happiness.</p> + +<p>“I am of the earth earthy,” she thought +despairingly, as her fingers lingered over a slow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> +movement. “If I were like Clement Cancellor, +my own individual sorrow would seem as nothing +compared with that vast sum of human suffering +which he is always trying to lessen.”</p> + +<p>“May I ask what your plans are for the future, +Mildred?” said Miss Fausset, laying aside a memoir +of Bishop Selwyn, which she had been reading while +her niece played. “I need hardly tell you that I +shall be pleased to have you here as long as you +care to stay; but I should like to know your scheme +of life—in the event of your persistence in a separation +from your husband.”</p> + +<p>“I have made no definite plan, aunt; I shall +spend the autumn in some quiet watering-place in +Germany, and perhaps go to Italy for the winter.”</p> + +<p>“Why to Italy?”</p> + +<p>“It is the dream of my life to see that country, +and my husband always refused to take me there.”</p> + +<p>“For some good reason, no doubt.”</p> + +<p>“I believe he had a dread of fever. I know of +no other reason.”</p> + +<p>“You are prompt to take advantage of your +independence.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p> + +<p>“Indeed, aunt, I have no idea of that kind. +God help me! my independence is a sorry privilege. +But if any country could help me to forget my +sorrows, that country would be Italy.”</p> + +<p>“And after the winter? Do you mean to live +abroad altogether?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what I may do. I have thoughts +of entering a sisterhood by and by.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you must follow your own course, +Mildred. I can say no more than I have said +already. If you make up your mind to renounce +the world there are sisterhoods all over England, +and there is plenty of good work to be done. +Perhaps after all it is the best life, and that those +are happiest who shut their minds against earthly +affections.”</p> + +<p>“As you have done, aunt,” said Mildred, with +respect. “I know how full of good works your life +has been.”</p> + +<p>“I have tried to do my duty according to my +lights,” answered the spinster gravely.</p> + +<p>The next day was cold and stormy, autumn with +a foretaste of winter. Mildred went to the morning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +service with her aunt, in the bright new Gothic +church which Miss Fausset’s liberality had helped +to create: a picturesque temple with clustered +columns and richly floriated capitals, diapered roof, +and encaustic pavement, and over all things the +glow of many-coloured lights from painted windows. +Miss Fausset spent the morning in visiting among +the poor. She had a large district out in the +London Road, in a part of Brighton of which +the fashionable Brightonian hardly knoweth the +existence.</p> + +<p>Mildred sat in the back drawing-room all the +morning, pretending to read. She took volume +after volume out of the bookcase, turned over the +leaves, or sat staring at a page for a quarter of an +hour at a time, in hopeless vacuity of mind. She +had brooded upon her trouble until her brain +seemed benumbed, and nothing was left of that +sharp sorrow but a dull aching pain.</p> + +<p>After luncheon she went out for a solitary walk +on the cliff-road that leads eastward. It was a +relief to find herself alone upon that barren down, +with the great stormy sea in front of her, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +busy world left behind. She walked all the way to +Rottingdean, rejoicing in her solitude, dreading the +return to the stately silver-gray drawing-room and +her aunt’s society. Looking down at the village +nestling in the hollow of the hills, it seemed to her +that she might hide her sorrows almost as well in +that quiet nook as in the remotest valley in Europe; +and it seemed to her also that this place of all +others was best fitted for the establishment of any +charitable foundation in a small way—for a home for +the aged poor, for instance, or for orphan children. +Her own fortune would amply suffice for any such +modest foundation. The means were at her +disposal. Only the will was wanting.</p> + +<p>It was growing dusk when she went back to +Lewes Crescent, so she went straight to her room +and dressed for dinner before going to the drawing-room. +The wind, with its odour of the sea, had +refreshed her. She felt less depressed, better able +to face a life-long sorrow, than before she went out, +but physically she was exhausted by the six-mile +walk, and she looked pale as ashes in her black +gown, with its evening bodice, showing the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> +alabaster throat and a large black enamel locket +set with a monogram in diamonds—L. G., Laura +Greswold.</p> + +<p>She entered the inner room. Her aunt was not +there, and there was only one large reading-lamp +burning on a table near the fire. The front +drawing-room was in shadow. She went towards +the piano, intending to play to herself in the +twilight, but as she moved slowly in the direction +of the instrument a strong hand played the closing +bars of a fugue by Sebastian Bach, a chain of solemn +chords that faded slowly into silence.</p> + +<p>The hands that played those chords were the +hands of a master. It was hardly a surprise to +Mildred when a tall figure rose from the piano, and +César Castellani stood before her in the dim light.</p> + +<p>His hat and gloves were upon the piano, as if +he had just entered the room.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mrs. Greswold, how delightful to +find you here! I came to make a late call upon +your aunt—she is always indulgent to my Bohemian +indifference to etiquette—and had not the least idea +that I should see you.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span></p> + +<p>“I did not know that you and my aunt were +friends.”</p> + +<p>“No?” interrogatively. “That is very odd, for +we are quite old friends. Miss Fausset was all +goodness to me when I was an idle undergraduate.”</p> + +<p>“Yet when you came to Enderby you brought +an introduction from Mrs. Tomkison. Surely my +aunt would have been a better person—”</p> + +<p>“No doubt; but it is just like me to take the first +sponsor who came to hand. When I am in London +I half live at Mrs. Tomkison’s, and I had heard her +rave about you until I became feverishly anxious to +make your acquaintance. I ought perhaps to have +referred to Miss Fausset for my credentials—but I +am <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">volage</i> by nature: and then I knew Mrs. +Tomkison would exaggerate my virtues and ignore +my errors.”</p> + +<p>Mildred went back to the inner room, and +seated herself by the reading-lamp. Castellani +followed her, and placed himself on the other side +of the small octagon table, leaving only a narrow +space between them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> + +<p>“How pale you are!” he said, with a look of +concern. “I hope you are not ill?”</p> + +<p>“No, I am only tired after a long walk.”</p> + +<p>“I had no idea you had left Enderby.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p>“You said nothing of your intention of leaving +the neighbourhood the day before yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“There was no occasion to talk of my plans,” +Mildred answered coldly. “We were all too +anxious about the concert to think of any other +matter.”</p> + +<p>“Did you leave soon after the concert?”</p> + +<p>“The same evening. I did not know you were +leaving Riverdale.”</p> + +<p>“O, I only stayed for the concert. I had +protracted my visit unconscionably, but Mrs. Hillersdon +was good enough not to seem tired of me. +I am in nobody’s way, and I contrived to please her +with my music. Did you not find her delightfully +artistic?”</p> + +<p>“I thought her manners charming; and she +seems fond of music, if that is what you mean by +being artistic.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> + +<p>“O, I mean worlds more than that. Mrs. +Hillersdon is artistic to her fingers’ ends. In +everything she does one feels the artist. Her dress, +her air, her way of ordering a dinner or arranging a +room—her feeling for literature—she seldom reads—her +feeling for form and colour—she cannot draw +a line—her personality is the very essence of +modern art. She is as a woman what Ruskin is as +a man. Is Miss Ransome with you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I have left her to keep house for me.”</p> + +<p>It seemed a futile thing to make believe that +all was well at Enderby, to ward off explanations, +when before long the world must know that George +Greswold and his wife were parted for ever. Some +reason would have to be given. That thirst for +information about the inner life of one’s neighbours +which is the ruling passion of this waning century +must be slaked somehow. It was partly on this +account, perhaps, that Mildred fancied it would be a +good thing for her to enter a Sisterhood. The +curious could be satisfied then. It would be said +that Mrs. Greswold had given up the world.</p> + +<p>“She is a very sweet girl,” said Castellani<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> +thoughtfully; “pretty too, a delicious complexion, +hair that suggests Sabrina after a visit from the +hairdresser, a delightful figure, and very nice manners—but +she leaves me as cold as ice. Why is it +that only a few women in the world have magnetic +power? They are so few, and their influence is so +stupendous. Think of the multitude of women of +all nations, colours, and languages that go to make +up one Cleopatra or one Mary Stuart.”</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset came into the room while he was +talking, and was surprised at seeing him in such +earnest conversation with her niece.</p> + +<p>“One would suppose you had known each other +for years,” she said, as she shook hands with Castellani, +looking from one to the other.</p> + +<p>“And so we have,” he answered gaily. “In +some lives weeks mean years. I sometimes catch +myself wondering what the world was like before I +knew Mrs. Greswold.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you known her—without +rodomontade?”</p> + +<p>“For about a month, aunt,” replied Mildred. +“I have been asking Mr. Castellani why he came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +to me with an introduction from my friend Mrs. +Tomkison, when it would have been more natural +to present himself as a friend of yours.”</p> + +<p>“O, he has always a motive for what he does,” +Miss Fausset said coldly. “You will stay to dinner, +of course?” she added to Castellani.</p> + +<p>“I am free for this evening, and I should like +to stay, if you can forgive my morning coat.”</p> + +<p>“I am used to irregularities from you. Give +Mrs. Greswold your arm.”</p> + +<p>Franz was at the door, announcing the evening +meal, and presently Mildred found herself seated at +the small round table in the sombre spacious dining-room—a +room with a bayed front, commanding an +illimitable extent of sea—with César Castellani sitting +opposite her. The meal was livelier than the +dinner of last night. Castellani appeared unconscious +that Mildred was out of spirits. He was full of life +and gaiety, and had an air of happiness which was +almost contagious. His conversation was purely +intellectual, ranging through the world of mind +and of fancy, scarcely touching things earthly and +human; and thus he struck no jarring chord in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> +Mildred’s weary heart. So far as she could be distracted +from the ever-present thought of loss and +sorrow, his conversation served to distract her.</p> + +<p>He went up to the drawing-room with the two +ladies, and at Miss Fausset’s request sat down to +the piano. The larger room was still in shadow, +the smaller bright with fire and lamplight.</p> + +<p>He played as only the gifted few can play—played +as one in whom music is a sixth sense, but to-night +his music was new to Mildred. He played none of +those classic numbers which had been familiar to +her ever since she had known what music meant. +His muse to-night was full of airy caprices, quips +and cranks and wreathed smiles. It was operatic +music, of the stage stagey; a music which seemed on +a level with Watteau or Tissot in the sister art—gay +to audacity, and sentimental to affectation. It was +charming music all the same—charged with melody, +gracious, complacent, uncertain, like an April day.</p> + +<p>Whatever it was, every movement was familiar to +Gertrude Fausset. She sat with her long ivory +knitting-needles at rest on her lap—sat in a dreamy +attitude, gazing at the fire and listening intently.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +Some melodies seemed to touch her almost to tears. +The love of music ran in the Fausset family, and +it was no surprise to Mildred to see her aunt so +absorbed. What had an elderly spinster to live for +if it were not philanthropy and art? And for the +plastic arts—for pictures and porcelain, statuary or +high-art furniture—Miss Fausset cared not a jot, as +those barren drawing-rooms, with their empty walls +and pallid colour, bore witness. Music she loved +with unaffected devotion, and it was in nowise +strange to find her the friend and patroness of César +Castellani, opposite as were the opinions of the man +who wrote <em>Nepenthe</em> and the woman who had helped +to found the church of St. Edmund the Confessor.</p> + +<p>“Play the duet at the end of the second act,” +she said, when he paused after a brilliant six-eight +movement which suggested a joyous chorus.</p> + +<p>He played a cantabile accompaniment, like the +flow of summer seas, and then a plaintive melody +for two voices—following, answering, echoing each +other with tearful emphasis—a broken phrase here +and there, as if the singer were choked by a despairing +sob.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p> + +<p>“What is the name of the opera, aunt?” asked +Mildred; “I never heard any of that music before.”</p> + +<p>“He has been playing selections from different +operas. That last melody is a duet in an opera called +<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">La Donna del Pittore</i>.”</p> + +<p>“By what composer? It sounded like Flotow.”</p> + +<p>“It is not Flotow’s. That opera was written by +Mr. Castellani’s father.”</p> + +<p>“I remember he told me his father had written +operas. It is a pity his music was never known in +England.”</p> + +<p>“You had better say it was a pity his music +was never fashionable in Paris. Had it been recognised +there, English connoisseurs would have speedily +discovered its merits. We are not a musical nation, +Mildred. We find new planets, but we never discover +new musicians. We took up Weber only to neglect +him and break his heart. We had not taste enough +to understand Mendelssohn’s <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Melusine</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Castellani’s operas were popular in Italy, +were they not?”</p> + +<p>“For a time, yes; but the Italians are as capricious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +as we are dull. César tells me that his father’s +operas have not held the stage.”</p> + +<p>“Were they fashionable in your time, aunt, when +you were studying music at Milan?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, they were often performed at that time. +I used to hear them occasionally.”</p> + +<p>“And you like them now. They are associated +with your girlhood. I can understand that they +must have a peculiar charm for you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, they are full of old memories.”</p> + +<p>“Do you never play or sing yourself, aunt?”</p> + +<p>“I play a little sometimes, when I am quite +alone.”</p> + +<p>“But never to give pleasure to other people? +That seems unkind. I remember how proud my +father was of your musical talent; but you would +never let us hear you either at The Hook or in +Parchment Street.”</p> + +<p>“I have never cared to play or sing before an +audience—since I was a girl. You need not wonder +at me, Mildred. Different people have different +ways of thinking. My pleasure in music of late +years has been the pleasure of a listener. Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> +Castellani is good enough to gratify me sometimes, +as he has done to-night, when he has nothing better +to do.”</p> + +<p>“Do not say that,” exclaimed Castellani, coming +into the glow of the hearth, and seating himself +beside Miss Fausset’s armchair. “What can I +have better to do than to commune with a sympathetic +mind like yours—in the language of the +dead? It is almost as if my father’s vanished voice +were speaking to you,” he said, in caressing tones, +bending down to kiss the thin pale hand which lay +idle on the arm of the chair.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br> +<span class="fs70">THE FUTURE MIGHT BE DARKER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">George Greswold</span> was not the kind of man to sit +down in idle submission to Fate under a great wrong +or under a great loss. A feeling of blank despair +had come upon him after his interview with Mrs. +Bell, in the solitude of those deserted rooms where +every object spoke to him of his wife’s absence—where +the influence of her mind and fancy was a part +of the very atmosphere: so much so that in spite +of her farewell letter in his breast-pocket he started +every now and then from his reverie, fancying he +heard her footstep in the corridor, or her voice in an +adjoining room.</p> + +<p>His conversation with Bell had brought him +little comfort, but it had not convinced him of the +evil in which his wife so firmly believed. There +was little doubt in his mind that the woman he had +married eighteen years ago was identical with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +Mildred’s young companion and John Fausset’s +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i>. But whether that mysterious <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i> had +been John Fausset’s daughter was a question open to +doubt. The suspicions of a jealous wife, the opinions +of the servants’ hall, were no conclusive proof.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the weight of evidence leaned +to that one solution of the mystery in Mr. Fausset’s +conduct. That a man should charge himself with +the care of a child of whose parentage and belongings +he could give no satisfactory account—about +whom, indeed, he seemed to have given no account +at all—was a strange thing. Stranger still was his +conduct in bringing that child into his own family, +to the hazard of his domestic peace. Stranger even yet +that he should have gone down to the grave without +giving his daughter any explanation of his conduct +from first to last—that he should have left the story +of his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i> as dark at the end as it had been at +the beginning.</p> + +<p>Painfully conjuring back to life the phantom +forms of a miserable past, George Greswold recalled +the few facts which he had ever known of his first +wife’s history. She was an orphan, without relations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +or friends. At eighteen years of age she had been +transferred from a finishing-school at Brussels to the +care of an English artist and his wife, called +Mortimer—middle-aged people, the husband with +a small talent, the wife with a small income, both of +which went further in Brussels than they would +have gone in England. They had an apartment +on one of the new boulevards at Brussels and a +summer retreat in the Ardennes. When the artist +and his wife travelled, Vivien went with them, and +it was on one of these occasions that George Greswold +met her at Florence. Mr. Mortimer had let +his apartment at Brussels for the winter, and had +established himself in the Italian city, where he +worked assiduously at a classic style of art which +nobody ever seemed to buy, though a good many +people pretended to admire.</p> + +<p>Vivien Faux. It sounded like a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nom de fantasie</i>. +She told him that she was nobody, and that she +belonged to nobody. She had no home, no +people, no surroundings, no history, no associations. +She had been educated at an expensive school, +and her clothes had been made at a fashionable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +dressmaker’s in the Rue Montagne de la Cour. +Everything that a schoolgirl’s fancy could desire had +been provided for her.</p> + +<p>“So far as such things go, I was as well off as the +most fortunate of my companions,” she told him; +“but I was a friendless waif all the same, and my +schoolfellows despised me. I drank the cup of +scorn to the dregs.”</p> + +<p>Seeing how painful this idea of her isolation was +to her, George Greswold had been careful to avoid +all questioning that might gall the open wound. In +truth he had no keen curiosity about her past existence. +He had taken her for what she was—interesting, +clever, and in great need of a disinterested protector. +It was enough for him to know that she had +been educated as a lady, and that her character was +spotless. His marriage had been one of those +unions which are of all unions the most fatal—a +marriage for pity. A marriage for money, for self-interest, +ambition, or family pride may result happily. +In a union of mutual interests there is at least +a sense of equality, and love may grow with time and +custom; but in a marriage for pity the chain galls on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> +both sides, the wife oppressed by a sense of obligation, +the husband burdened with a weight of duty.</p> + +<p>Of his wife’s resources, all George Greswold knew +was that she had a life interest in thirty thousand +pounds invested in Consols. The dividends were +sent her half-yearly by a firm of solicitors, Messrs. +Pergament & Pergament, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. +She had received a letter from the firm a week before +her last birthday, which was her twenty-first, informing +her of her life interest in this sum, over +which she would have no disposing power, nor the +power to anticipate any portion of the interest. The +half-yearly dividends, she was informed, would in +future be sent directly to her at any address she +might appoint.</p> + +<p>In acknowledging this communication she begged +to be informed from whom she had inherited this +money, or whether it was the gift of a living benefactor, +and whether the benefactor was a relative. +The reply from Messrs. Pergament & Pergament +was cold and formal. They regretted their inability +to give her any information as to the source +of her income. They were pledged to absolute<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +silence upon this point. In any other matter they +would be happy to be of service to her.</p> + +<p>George Greswold had married without a settlement. +The then state of the law, and the conditions +of his wife’s income, made her independent of any +husband whatever. He could not forestall or rob +her of an income of which the capital was in the +custody of other people, and over which she had no +disposing power. He was a poor man himself at the +time, living upon an allowance made him by his +mother, eked out by the labour of his pen as a political +and philosophical writer; but he had the +expectation of the Enderby estate, an expectation +which was all but certainty. One fact alone was +known to him of his wife’s surroundings which +might help him to discover her history, and that +was the name of the firm in Lincoln’s Inn, Messrs. +Pergament & Pergament, and to them he made up +his mind to apply without loss of time.</p> + +<p>He went to London on the day after Mildred’s +journey to Brighton, taking Pamela and her dog +with him to an hotel near Hanover Square where +he had occasionally stayed. Pamela had been much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +disturbed by Mildred’s letter, and was full of wonderment, +but very submissive, and ready to do anything +she was told.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to be inquisitive or troublesome, +uncle,” she said, as they sat opposite each other in +the train, “but I am sure there is something wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Pamela, there is something wrong; but it +is something which will come right again in good +time, I hope. All we can do is to be patient.”</p> + +<p>His look of quiet pain, and the haggard lines +which told of sleepless nights and brooding thoughts, +touched Pamela’s tender heart; but she was wise +enough to know that a sorrow big enough to part +husband and wife is not a sorrow to be intruded +upon by an outsider.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greswold drove with his niece to the hotel, +established her there with her maid and her terrier +in a private sitting-room, and then started for Lincoln’s +Inn Fields in a hansom.</p> + +<p>Messrs. Pergament’s office had a solid and old-established +air, as of an office that had only to do with +wealth and respectability. The clerks in the outer +room seemed to have grown old on the premises.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> + +<p>“I should like to see the senior member of the +firm, if he is at liberty,” said Mr. Greswold.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Champion Pergament is at Wiesbaden. +He is a very old gentleman, and seldom comes to +the office.”</p> + +<p>“The next partner, then—”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Danvers Pergament is at his place in +Yorkshire. If you would like to see his son, Mr. +Danvers jun.—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, he will do if there is no one else.”</p> + +<p>“There is Mr. Maltby. The firm is now Pergament, +Pergament, & Maltby.”</p> + +<p>“Let me see Mr. Danvers Pergament, if you +please. I don’t want to talk to a new man.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Maltby was articled to us seventeen years +ago, sir, and has been in the firm ever since, but I +believe Mr. Pergament is disengaged. Shall I take +him your name?”</p> + +<p>George Greswold sent in his card. His name +would be known to some members of the firm, no +doubt—possibly not to others. His married life had +been brief.</p> + +<p>He was received in a handsome office by a baldheaded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +gentleman of about five-and-forty, who smiled +upon him blandly from a background of oak wainscot +and crimson cloth window-curtains, like an old-fashioned +portrait.</p> + +<p>“Pray be seated, Mr. Greswold,” he said, with +the visitor’s card in his hand, and looking from the +card to the visitor.</p> + +<p>“Does my name tell you anything about me, +Mr. Pergament?” asked Greswold gravely.</p> + +<p>“George Ransome Greswold,” read the lawyer +slowly; “the name of Greswold is unfamiliar to me.”</p> + +<p>“But not that of Ransome. Sixteen years ago +my name was George Ransome. I assumed the +name of Greswold on my mother’s death.”</p> + +<p>The solicitor looked at him with renewed attention, +as if there were something to startle his professional +equanimity in the former name.</p> + +<p>“You remember the name of Ransome?” said +Greswold interrogatively.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it recalls certain events. Very sad circumstances +connected with a lady who was our +client. You would not wish me to go over that +ground, I am sure, Mr. Greswold?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p> + +<p>“No, there is no occasion to do that. I hope +you believe that I was blameless—or as free from +blame as any man can be in his domestic conduct—in +the matter to which you have alluded?”</p> + +<p>“I have no reason to suppose otherwise. I have +never been on the scene of the event. I knew nothing +of it until nearly a year after it happened, and +then my sources of information were of the slenderest, +and my knowledge of painful details never went +beyond this office. Pray be assured that I do not +wish to say one word that can pain you; I would only +ask you to consider me as a totally uninformed person. +I have no charge to make—upon anybody’s account. +I have no questions to ask. The past is forgotten, +so far as I and my firm are concerned.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Pergament, for me the past is still living, +and it is exercising a baneful influence over my +present existence. It may blight the rest of my life. +You, perhaps, may help to extricate me from a labyrinth +of perplexity. I want to know who my first +wife was. What was the real name of the young +lady who called herself Vivien Faux, and whom I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +married under that name before the British Consul +at Florence? Who were her parents?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that you cannot, or that you will +not?”</p> + +<p>“I mean both. I do not know that unfortunate +lady’s parentage. I have no positive knowledge on +the subject, though I may have my own theory. I +know that certain persons were interested in the +young lady’s welfare, and that certain funds were +placed in our charge for her maintenance. After her +death, the capital for which we had been trustees +reverted to those persons. <em>That</em> is the sum-total of +the lady’s history so far as it is known to us.”</p> + +<p>“Will you tell me the name of the person who +gave my wife her income, who placed her at the +school at Brussels, by whose instructions she was +transferred to the care of Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer? +I want to know that man’s name, for that man must +have been her father.”</p> + +<p>“When my father and I undertook that business +for my client, we pledged ourselves to absolute +secrecy. The facts of the case are not known even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +to the other members of the firm. The person in +question was our client, and the secret was lodged +with us. There is not a priest of the Church of +Rome who holds the secrets of the confessional more +sacred than we hold that secret.”</p> + +<p>“Even if by keeping it you blight and ruin an +innocent man’s life?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot imagine any such consequence of our +silence.”</p> + +<p>“You cannot? No! Fact is stranger than any +man’s imagination. Do you happen to know the +name of my second wife?”</p> + +<p>“I did not even know that you had married +again. You were known to our firm as Mr. Ransome. +We lost sight of you when you changed your +name to Greswold.”</p> + +<p>“I have been married—happily married—for +fourteen years; and the name of my wife was +Fausset, Mildred Fausset, daughter of John Fausset, +your client.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Pergament had taken up a penknife in a +casual manner, and was trifling with a well-kept +thumb-nail, a fine specimen of the filbert tribe, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +his eyelids lowered in an imperturbable thoughtfulness, +as of a man who was rock. But, cool as he +was, George Greswold noticed that at the name of +Fausset the penknife gave a little jerk, and the outskirts +of the filbert were in momentary danger. +Mr. Pergament was too wary to look up, however. +He sat placid, attentive, with flabby eyelids lowered +over washed-out gray eyes. Mr. Pergament at five-and-forty +was still in the chrysalis or money-making +stage, and worked hard nearly all the year round. +His father, at sixty-seven, was on the Yorkshire +moors, pretending to shoot grouse, and just beginning +to enjoy the butterfly career of a man who had +made enough to live upon.</p> + +<p>“Vivien Faux. Does not that sound to your ear +like an assumed name, Mr. Pergament?” pursued +Greswold. “Faux: the first three letters are the +same as in Fausset.”</p> + +<p>And then George Greswold told the solicitor how +his second wife had recognised his first wife’s +photograph, as the likeness of a girl whom she +believed to have been her half-sister, and how this +act threatened to divide husband and wife for ever.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> + +<p>“Surely Mrs. Greswold cannot be one of those +bigoted persons who pin their faith upon a prohibition +of the Canon Law as if it were the teaching of +Christ—a prohibition which the Roman Church was +always ready to cancel in favour of its elect?” said +the lawyer.</p> + +<p>“Unhappily my wife was taught in a very rigid +school. She would perish rather than violate a +principle.”</p> + +<p>“But if your first wife were John Fausset’s +natural daughter—what then? The law does not +recognise such affinities.”</p> + +<p>“No, but the Church does. The Roman Church +could create a prohibitive affinity in the case of a +cast-off mistress; and it is the privilege of our +Anglican theology in its highest development to +adopt the most recondite theories of Rome. For +God’s sake be plain with me, Mr. Pergament! Was +the girl who called herself Vivien Faux, John +Fausset’s daughter, or was she not?”</p> + +<p>“I regret that I cannot answer your question. +My promise to my client was of the nature of an +oath. I cannot violate that promise upon any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +consideration whatever. I must ask you, Mr. Greswold, +as a gentleman, not to urge the matter any +farther.”</p> + +<p>“I submit,” said Greswold hopelessly. “If it +is a point of honour with you, I can say no more.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Pergament accompanied him to the threshold +of the outer office, and the elderly clerk ushered him +to the wide old landing-place beyond. The lawyer +had been courteous, but not cordial. There was a +shade of distrustfulness in his manner, and he had +pretended to no sympathy with Mr. Greswold in his +difficulties; but George Greswold felt that among +those who knew the history of his former marriage +there was not much likelihood of friendly feeling +towards him. To them he was a man outside the +pale.</p> + +<p>He left the office sick at heart. This had been +his only means of coming at the knowledge of his +first wife’s parentage, and this means had failed him +utterly. The surprise indicated by that slight movement +of the lawyer’s hand at the first mention of +John Fausset’s name went far to convince him that +Mildred’s conviction was based on truth. Yet if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> +John Fausset were Mr. Pergament’s client, it was +very odd that Mr. Pergament should be ignorant of +the circumstances of Mildred’s marriage, and the +name and surroundings of her husband. Odd assuredly, +but not impossible. On reflection, it seemed +by no means unnatural that Mr. Fausset should +confide his secret to a stranger, and establish a trust +with a stranger, rather than admit his family lawyer +to his confidence. This provision for an illegitimate +daughter would be an isolated transaction in his life. +He would select a firm of approved respectability, +who were unconcerned in his family affairs, with +whom there was no possibility of his wife or daughter +being brought into contact.</p> + +<p>George Greswold drove from Lincoln’s Inn to +Queen Anne’s Gate, where he spent ten minutes +with Mrs. Tomkison, and learned all that lady could +tell him about his wife’s movements: how she had +had a long interview with Mr. Cancellor before she +started for Brighton, and how she was looking very +ill and very unhappy. Provided with this small +stock of information, he went back to the hotel and +dined <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> with Pamela, who had the good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> +sense not to talk to him, and who devoted all her +attentions to the scion of Brockenhurst Joe.</p> + +<p>When the waiters had left the room for good, +and uncle and niece were alone over their coffee, +Greswold became more communicative.</p> + +<p>“Pamela, you are a good, warm-hearted girl, +and I believe you would go some way to serve me,” +he said quietly, as he sat looking at Box, who had +folded his delicately-pencilled legs in a graceful attitude +upon the fender, and was amiably blinking at +the fire.</p> + +<p>“My dear uncle, I would cut off my head for +you—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t quite want that; but I want your loyal +and loving help in this saddest period of my life—yes, +the saddest; sadder even than the sorrow of +last year; and yet I thought there could be no +greater grief than that.”</p> + +<p>“Poor Uncle George!” sighed Pamela, bending +over the table to take his hand, and clasping it +affectionately; “command me in anything. You +know how fond I have always been of you—almost +fonder than of my poor father. Perhaps,” she added<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> +gravely, “it is because I always respected you more +than I did him.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot confide in you wholly, Pamela—not +yet; but I may tell you this much. Something +has happened to part my wife and me—perhaps +for life. It is her wish, not mine, that we should +live the rest of our lives apart. There has been +no wrong-doing on either side, mark you. There +is no blame; there has been no angry feeling; +there is no falling off in love. We are both the +victims of an intolerable fatality. I would willingly +struggle against my doom—defy Fate; but my wife +has another way of thinking. She deems it her +duty to make her own life desolate and to condemn +me to a life-long widowhood.”</p> + +<p>“Poor Uncle George!”</p> + +<p>“She is now at Brighton with her aunt, Miss +Fausset. I am going there to-morrow morning to +see her, if she will let me—perhaps for the last time. +I want to take you with me; and if Mildred carries +out her intention of spending the winter abroad, +I want you to go with her. I want you to wind +yourself into her confidence and into her heart, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +cheer and comfort her, and to shield her from the +malice of the world. Her position will be at best +a painful one—a wife and no wife—separated from +her husband for a reason which she will hardly care +to tell the world, perhaps will hardly confide to +her dearest friend.”</p> + +<p>“I will do anything you wish, uncle—go anywhere, +to the end of the world. You know how +fond I am of Aunt Mildred. I’m afraid I like her +better than I do my sister, who is so wrapped up in +that absurd baby that she is sometimes unendurable. +But it seems so awfully strange that you and +aunt should be parted,” continued Pamela, with +a puzzled brow. “I can’t make it out one little +bit. I—I don’t want to ask questions, Uncle +George—at least only just one question: has all +this mysterious trouble anything to do with Mr. +Castellani?”</p> + +<p>She turned crimson as she pronounced the +name, but Greswold was too absorbed to notice her +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“With Castellani? No. How should it concern +him?” he exclaimed; and then, remembering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> +the beginning of evil, he added, “Mr. Castellani +has nothing to do with our difficulty in a direct +manner; but indirectly his presence at Enderby +began the mischief.”</p> + +<p>“O, uncle, you were not jealous of him, +surely?”</p> + +<p>“Jealous of him? I jealous of Castellani or +any man living? You must know very little of +my wife or of me, Pamela, when you can ask +such a question.”</p> + +<p>“No, no; of course not. It was absurd of me +to suggest such a thing, when I know how my aunt +adores you,” Pamela said hastily.</p> + +<p>In spite of this disavowal, she lay awake +half through the night, tormenting herself with +all manner of speculations and wild imaginings +as to the cause of the separation between George +Greswold and his wife and Castellani’s connection +with that catastrophe.</p> + +<p>She went to Brighton with her uncle next day, +Box and the maid accompanying them in a second-class +compartment. They put up at an hotel +upon the East Cliff, which was more domestic and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +exclusive than the caravansaries towards the setting +sun, and conveniently near Lewes Crescent.</p> + +<p>“Shall I go with you at once, uncle?” asked +Pamela, as Greswold was leaving the house. “I +hope Miss Fausset is not a stern old thing, who will +freeze me with a single look.”</p> + +<p>“She is not so bad as that, but I will break the +ice for you. I am going to see my wife alone +before I take you to Lewes Crescent. You can go +on the Madeira Walk with Peterson, and give Box +an airing.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>George Greswold found his wife sitting alone +near the open piano at which Castellani had made +such exquisite music the night before. She had +been playing a little, trying to find comfort in that +grand music of Beethoven, which was to her as the +prophecies of Isaiah, or the loftiest passages in the +Apocalypse—seeking comfort and hope, but finding +none. And now she was gazing sadly at the waste +of waters, and thinking that her own future life +resembled that barren sea—a wide and sunless +waste, with neither haven nor ship in sight.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> + +<p>At the sound of her husband’s footsteps entering +unannounced at the further door she started up, +with her heart beating vehemently, speechless and +trembling. She felt as if they were meeting after +years of absence—felt as if she must fling herself +upon his breast and claim him as her own again, +confessing herself too earthly a creature to live +without that sweet human love.</p> + +<p>She had to steel herself by the thought of +obedience to a higher law than that of human +passion. She stood before him deathly pale, but +firm as a rock.</p> + +<p>He came close up to her, laid his hand upon her +shoulder, and looked her in the face, earnestly, +solemnly even.</p> + +<p>“Mildred, is it irrevocable? Can you sacrifice +me for a scruple?”</p> + +<p>“It is more than a scruple: it is the certainty +that there is but one right course, and that I must +hold by it to the end.”</p> + +<p>“That certainty does not come out of your own +heart or your own mind. It is Cancellor who has +made this law for you—Cancellor, a fanatic, who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +knows nothing of domestic love—Cancellor, a man +without a wife and without a home. Is he to judge +between you and me? Is he, who knows nothing +of the sacredness of wedded ties, to be allowed to +break them, only because he wears a cassock and +has an eloquent tongue?”</p> + +<p>“It was he who taught me my duty when I was +a child. I accept his teaching now as implicitly as +I accepted it then.”</p> + +<p>“And you do not mind breaking my heart: +that does not hurt you,” said Greswold.</p> + +<p>His face was pallid as hers, and his lips +trembled, half in anger, half in scorn.</p> + +<p>“O, George, you know my own heart is breaking. +There can be no greater pain possible to humanity +than I have suffered since I left you.”</p> + +<p>“And you will inflict this agony, and bear this +agony? You will break two hearts because of an +anomaly in the marriage law—a rag of Rome—a +source of profit to Pope and priest—a prohibition +made to be annulled—a trap to fill the coffers of the +Church! Do you know how foolish a law it is, +child, for which you show this blind reverence?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> +Do you know that it is only a bigoted minority +among the nations that still abides by it? Do you +know that in that great new world across the seas a +woman may be a wife in one colony, and not a wife +in another—honourable here, despised there? It is +all too foolish. What is it to either of us if my first +wife was your half-sister—a fact which neither of us +can prove or disprove?”</p> + +<p>“God help me! it is proved only too clearly to +me. We bear the mark of our birthright in our +faces. You must have seen that, George, long +before I saw Fay’s portrait in your hands. Are we +not alike?”</p> + +<p>“Not with the likeness of sisters. There is a +look which might be a family likeness—a look which +puzzled me like the faint memory of a dream when +first I knew you. It was long before I discovered +what the likeness was, and where it lay. At most +it was but a line here and there. The arch of the +brow, the form of the eyelid, an expression about the +mouth when you smile. Such accidental resemblances +are common enough. She was as much +like César Castellani as she is like you. I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +seen a look in his face that curiously recalls an expression +of hers.”</p> + +<p>“George, if I were not convinced, do you think +I would grieve you, and sacrifice all I have of earthly +happiness? I cannot reason upon this question. +My conscience has answered it for me.”</p> + +<p>“So be it. Let conscience be your guide, and +not love. I have done.”</p> + +<p>He took both her hands in his, and held them +long, looking in her face as he went on with what +he had to say to her, gravely, without anger, but +with a touch of coldness that placed her very far +away from him, and marked the beginning of a life-long +strangeness.</p> + +<p>“It is settled, then,” he said; “we part for +ever; but we are not going to air our story in the +law-courts, or fill latest editions of evening papers +with the details of our misery. We don’t want the +law to annul our marriage upon the ground of a +forbidden affinity, and to cast a slur upon our child +in her grave.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, no!”</p> + +<p>“Then, though we are to spend our lives apart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> +henceforward, in the eyes of the world you will still +be my wife; and I would not have the lady who +was once my wife placed in a false position. You +cannot wander about the Continent alone, Mildred—you +are too young and too attractive to travel without +companionship. I have brought Pamela to be +your companion. The presence of my niece at your +side will tell the world that you have done no wrong +to me or my name. It may be fairly supposed that +we part from some incompatibility of temper. You +need give no explanations; and you may be assured +I shall answer no questions.”</p> + +<p>“You are very good,” she faltered. “I shall be +glad to have your niece with me, only I am afraid +the life will be a dreary one for her.”</p> + +<p>“She does not think that. She is much attached +to you. She is a frank warm-hearted girl, with +some common sense under a surface of frivolity. +She is at my hotel near at hand. If you think your +aunt will give her hospitality, she can come to you +at once, and you and she can discuss all your plans +together. If there is anything in the way of business +or money matters that I can arrange for you—”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span></p> + +<p>“No, there is nothing,” she said in a low voice; +and then, suddenly, she knelt at his feet, and clasped +his hand, and cried over it.</p> + +<p>“George, tell me that you forgive me, before we +part for ever,” she pleaded; “pity me, dear; pity +and pardon!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I forgive you,” he said, gently raising her +in his arms, and leading her to the sofa. “Yes, +child, I pity you. It is not your fault that we are +miserable. It may be better that we should part +thus. The future might be still darker for us if we +did not so part. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>He bent over her as she sat in a drooping +attitude, with her forehead leaning against the end +of the sofa, her hand and arm hanging lax and +motionless at her side. He laid his hand upon +her head as if in blessing, and then left her without +another word.</p> + +<p>“The future might be still darker if we did +not part.” She repeated the sentence slowly, pondering +it as if it had been an enigma.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Miss Fausset expressed herself pleased to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +receive Miss Ransome as long as it might suit +Mildred’s convenience to stay in Lewes Crescent.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Greswold has acted like a gentleman,” +she said, after Mildred had explained that it was +her husband’s wish his niece should accompany her +abroad. “He is altogether superior to the common +run of men. This young lady belongs to the +Anglican Church, I conclude?”</p> + +<p>“Decidedly.”</p> + +<p>“Then she cannot fail to appreciate the services +at St. Edmund’s,” said Miss Fausset; and thereupon +gave orders that the second-best spare room +should be made ready for Miss Ransome.</p> + +<p>Pamela arrived before afternoon tea, bringing +Box, who was immediately relegated to the care of +the maids in the basement, and the information +that her uncle had gone back to Romsey <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">viâ</i> Portsmouth, +and was likely to arrive at Enderby some +time before midnight. Pamela was somewhat embarrassed +for the first quarter of an hour, and +was evidently afraid of Miss Fausset; but with +her usual adaptability she was soon at home in +that chilly and colourless drawing-room. She was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +even reconciled to the banishment of Box, feeling +that it was a privilege to have him anywhere in +that orderly mansion, and intending to get him +clandestinely introduced into her bedroom when the +household retired for the night.</p> + +<p>She pictured him as pining with grief in his +exile, and it would have disillusioned her could +she have seen him basking in the glow of the fire +in the housekeeper’s room, snapping up pieces of +muffin thrown him by Franz, and beaming with +intelligence upon the company.</p> + +<p>A larger tea-table than usual had been set out +in the inner drawing-room, with two teapots, and a +tempting array of dainty biscuits and tea-cakes, +such as the idle mind loveth. It was Miss +Fausset’s afternoon for receiving her friends, and +from four o’clock upwards carriages were heard to +draw up below, and loquacious matrons with silent +daughters dribbled into the room and talked afternoon +tea-talk, chiefly matters connected with the +church of St. Edmund’s and the various charities +and institutions associated with that edifice.</p> + +<p>It seemed very slow, dull talk to the ears of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> +Pamela, who had been vitiated by sporting society, +in which afternoon tea generally smelt of cartridges +or pigskin, and where conversation was sometimes +enlivened by the handing round of a new gun, or a +patent rat-trap, for general inspection. She tried +to make talk with one of the youngest ladies present, +by asking her if she was fond of tennis: but she felt +herself snubbed when the damsel told her she had +one of the worst districts in Brighton, and no time +for amusements of any kind.</p> + +<p>Everybody had taken tea, and it was nearly six +o’clock when the feminine assembly became suddenly +fluttered and alert at the announcement of +two gentlemen of clerical aspect: one tall, bulky, +shabby, and clumsy-looking, with a large pallid +face, heavy features, heavier brows; the other small +and dapper, dressed to perfection in a strictly clerical +fashion, with fair complexion and neat auburn +beard. The first was Mr. Maltravers, Vicar of +St. Edmund’s; the second was his curate, the +Honourable and Reverend Percival Cromer, fourth +son of Lord Lowestoft. It was considered a grand +thing for St. Edmund’s that it had a man of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +acknowledged power and eloquence for its vicar, and +a peer’s son for its curate.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cromer was at once absorbed by a voluble +matron who, with her three daughters, had lingered +in the hope of his dropping in after vespers; but +he contrived somehow to release himself from the +sirens, and to draw Miss Ransome into the conversation. +Miss Fausset in the meantime made +the Vicar known to Mildred.</p> + +<p>“You have often heard me speak of my niece,” +she said, when the introduction had been made.</p> + +<p>Mildred was sitting apart from the rest, in the +bay-window of the inner room. She had withdrawn +herself there on pretence of wanting light for her +needlework, the same group of azaleas she had been +working upon at Enderby, but really in order to be +alone with her troubled thoughts; and now Miss +Fausset approached her with the tall, ponderous +figure of the priest, in his long threadbare coat.</p> + +<p>She looked up, and found him scrutinising her +intently under his heavy brows. It was a clever +face that so looked at her, but it did not engage +her sympathy, or convince her of the owner’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> +goodness, as Clement Cancellor’s face had always +done.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have heard you speak of Mrs. Greswold, +your only near relative, I think,” he said, addressing +Miss Fausset, but never taking his eyes off +Mildred.</p> + +<p>He dropped into a chair near Mildred, and Miss +Fausset went back to her duty at the tea-table, and +to join in the conversation started by Mr. Cromer, +which had more animation than any previous talk +that afternoon.</p> + +<p>“You find your aunt looking well, I hope, Mrs. +Greswold?” began the Vicar, not very brilliantly, +but what his speech wanted in meaning was made +up by the earnestness of his dark gray eyes, under +beetling brows, which seemed to penetrate Mildred’s +inmost thoughts.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she looks—as she has always done since +I can remember—like a person superior to all mortal +feebleness.”</p> + +<p>“She is superior to all other women I have +ever met, a woman of truly remarkable power and +steadfastness; but with natures like hers the sword<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +is sometimes stronger than the scabbard. That +slender, upright form has an appearance of physical +delicacy, as well as natural refinement. Your aunt’s +mind is a tower of strength, Mrs. Greswold. She +has been my strong rock from the beginning of my +ministry here; but I tremble for the hour when her +health may break down under the task-work she +exacts from herself.”</p> + +<p>“I know that she has a district, but I do not +know the details of her work,” said Mildred. “Is +it very hard?”</p> + +<p>“It is very hard, and very continuous. She +labours unremittingly among the poor, and she does +a great deal of work of a wider and more comprehensive +kind. She is deaf to no appeal to her +charity. The most distant claims receive her +thoughtful attention, even where she does not feel +it within the boundary-line of her duty to give +substantial aid. She writes more letters than +many a private secretary; and, O Mrs. Greswold—to +you as very near and dear to her—I may say +what I would say to no other creature living. It +has been my blessed office to be brought face to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +face with her in the sacrament of confession. I +have seen the veil lifted from that white and spotless +soul; spotless, yes, in a world of sinners! I +know what a woman your aunt is.”</p> + +<p>His low searching tones fell distinctly upon +Mildred’s ear, yet hardly rose above a whisper. +The babble, lay and clerical, went on in the other +drawing-room, and these two were as much alone +in the shadow of the window-curtains and the gray +light of the fading day as if they had been priest +and penitent in a confessional.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br> +<span class="fs70">HIGHER VIEWS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">After</span> that interview with her husband, which in +her own mind meant finality, Mildred Greswold’s +strength succumbed suddenly, and for more than a +week she remained in a state of health for which +Miss Fausset’s doctor could find no name more +specific than low fever. She was not very feverish, +he told her aunt. The pulse was rapid and intermittent, +but the temperature was not much above +the normal limit. She was very weak and low, and +she wanted care. He had evidently not quite made +up his mind whether she wanted rousing or letting +alone—whether he would recommend her to spend +the winter at Chamounix and do a little mountaineering, +or to vegetate at Nice or Algiers. “We +must watch her,” he said gravely. “She must not +be allowed to go into a decline.”</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset looked alarmed at this, but her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> +doctor, an acquaintance of fifteen years, assured her +that there was no cause for alarm; there was only +need of care and watchfulness.</p> + +<p>“Her mother died at six-and-thirty,” said Miss +Fausset—“faded away gradually, without any ostensible +disease. My brother did everything that care +and forethought could do, but he could not save her.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Greswold must not be allowed to fade +away,” replied the doctor, with an air of being infallible.</p> + +<p>Directly she was well enough to go down to the +drawing-room again, Mildred began to talk of starting +for Switzerland or Germany. She had inflicted +herself and her surroundings upon Lewes +Crescent too long already, she told her aunt; and +although Miss Fausset expressed herself delighted +to have her niece, and reconciled even to Pamela’s +frivolity and the existence of Box in the lower +regions, Mildred felt somehow that her presence +interfered with the even tenor of life in that orderly +mansion. The only person who made light of Miss +Fausset’s idiosyncrasies, came to the house at all +hours, stayed as late as he chose, disturbed the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +symmetry of the bookshelves, left Miss Fausset’s +cherished books lying about on chairs and sofas, +and acted in all things after his own fancy, was +César Castellani. His manner towards Miss Fausset +was unalterably deferential; he never wavered in +his respect for her as a superior being; he was full +of subtle flatteries and delicate attentions; yet in +somewise his ways were the ways of a spoiled child, +sure of indulgence and favour. He never stayed in +the house, but had his room at an hotel on the +cliff, and came to Lewes Crescent whenever fancy +prompted, for two or three days at a stretch, then +went back to London, and was seen no more for a +week or so.</p> + +<p>Mildred found that Pamela and Mr. Castellani +had seen a great deal of each other during her +illness. They had sung and played together, they +had walked on the cliff—in sight of the drawing-room +windows the whole time, Pamela explained, +and with Miss Fausset’s severe eye upon them. +They had devoted themselves together to the education +of Box, who had learnt at least three new tricks +under their joint instruction, and who, possibly from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +over-pressure, had acquired a habit of trying to bite +Mr. Castellani whenever he had an opportunity.</p> + +<p>“It is because he is such a horribly unmusical +dog,” explained Pamela. “He managed to creep up +to the drawing-room the other day when Miss Fausset +was at church, and Mr. Castellani came in and began +to play, and that dreadful Box planted himself near +the piano and howled piteously till I carried him +out.”</p> + +<p>“My dearest Pamela, I don’t think Box’s opinion +of Mr. Castellani or his music matters much,” +said Mildred, with gentle gravity, as she lay on the +sofa in the back drawing-room, with Pamela’s hand +clasped in hers; “but it matters a great deal what +you think of him, and I fear you are beginning to +think too much about him.”</p> + +<p>“Why should I not think of him, aunt, if I +like—and he likes? I am my own mistress; there +are few girls so independent of all ties; for really +nobody cares a straw for me except you and Uncle +George. Rosalind is wrapped up in her baby, and +Henry is devoted to pigeons, guns, and fishing-tackle. +Do you think it can matter to them whom I marry?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> +Why should I be sordid, and say to myself, ‘I have +fifteen hundred a year, and I mustn’t marry a man +with less than three thousand’? Why should I not +marry genius if I like—genius even without a +penny?”</p> + +<p>“If you could meet with genius, Pamela.”</p> + +<p>“You think that Mr. Castellani is not a genius?”</p> + +<p>“I think not. He is too versatile and too +showy. All his gifts are on the surface. Genius +is single-minded, aiming at one great thing. Genius +is like still water and runs deep. I admit that +Mr. Castellani is highly gifted as a musician of the +lighter sort; not a man who will leave music behind +him to live for ever. I admit that he has written a +strangely attractive book. But I should be sorry to +call him a genius. I should be very sorry to see +you throw yourself away, as I believe you would if +you were to marry him.”</p> + +<p>“That is what a girl’s friends always say to her,” +exclaimed Pamela. “To marry the man one loves is +to throw oneself away.” And then blushing furiously, +she added, “Pray don’t suppose that I am in love +with Mr. Castellani. There has never been one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> +word of love between us—except in the clouds, by +way of philosophical discussion. But, as a fatherless +and motherless girl of advanced opinions, I claim +the right to marry genius, if I choose.”</p> + +<p>“My dear girl, I cannot dispute your independence; +but I think the sooner we leave this +house the better. The first thing is to make up our +minds where we are to go.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care a bit, aunt; only you must not +leave Brighton till you are much stronger. You +will want at least three weeks before you will be able +to stand the fatigue of travelling,” said Pamela, +surveying the invalid with a critical air.</p> + +<p>“We can travel by easy stages. I am not +afraid of fatigue. Where shall we go, Pamela—Schwalbach, +Wiesbaden, Vevay, Montreux?”</p> + +<p>“O, not Schwalbach, aunt. They took me there +for iron five years ago, when I had outgrown my +strength. Switzerland is always lovely, of course; +but I went there with Rosalind after her baby was +born, and endured the dreariest six weeks of my +existence. Brighton is absolutely delicious at this +time of the year. It would be absurd to rush away<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +from the place just when people are beginning to +come here.”</p> + +<p>Mildred saw that the case was hopeless, and she +began to think seriously about her responsibilities +in this matter: a frank impetuous girl, her husband’s +niece, eager to cast in her lot with a man who was +obviously an adventurer, living sumptuously with +hardly any obvious means, and who might be a +scoundrel. She remembered her impression of the +face in the church, the Judas face, as she had called it +in her own mind: a foolish impression, perhaps, and +it might be baseless; yet such first impressions are +sometimes warnings not to be lightly set at naught. +As yet nothing had come of that warning: no act of +Castellani’s had shown him a villain; but his advent +had begun the misery of her life. Had she never seen +him she never might have known this great sorrow. +His presence was a constant source of irritation, +tempting her to questioning that might lead to +further misery. Fay’s image had been constantly +in her mind of late. She had brooded over that +wedded life of which she knew nothing—over that +early death which for her was shrouded in mystery.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span></p> + +<p>“And he could tell me so much, perhaps,” she +said to herself one evening, sitting by the fire in the +inner room, while Castellani played in the distance +yonder between the tall windows that let in the +gray eastern light.</p> + +<p>“Her death was infinitely sad.”</p> + +<p>Those were the words which he had spoken of +George Greswold’s first wife: of Fay, her Fay, the +one warm love of her childish years, the love that +had stayed with her so long after its object had +vanished from her life. That there was something +underlying those words, some secret which might +add a new bitterness to her sorrow, was the doubt +that tortured Mildred as she sat and brooded by the +fire, while those lovely strains of Mendelssohn’s +“I waited for the Lord” rose in slow solemnity from +the distant piano, breathing sounds of peacefulness +where there was no peace.</p> + +<p>Mr. Castellani had behaved admirably since her +convalescence. He had asked no questions about +her husband, had taken her presence and Pamela’s +for granted, never hinting a curiosity about this +sudden change of quarters. Mildred thought that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +her aunt had told him something about her separation +from her husband. It was hardly possible that +she could have withheld all information, seeing the +familiar terms upon which those two were; and it +might be, therefore, that his discretion was the +result of knowledge. He had nothing to learn, and +could easily seem incurious.</p> + +<p>Mildred now discovered that one source of Castellani’s +influence with her aunt was the work he +had done for the choir of St. Edmund’s. It was to +his exertions that the choral services owed their +excellence. The Vicar loved music only as a child +or a savage loves it, without knowledge or capacity; +and it was Castellani who chose the voices for the +choir, and helped to train the singers. It was Castellani +who assisted the organist in the selection of +recondite music, which gave an air of originality to +the services at St. Edmund’s, and brought the odour +of mediævalism and the fumes of incense into the +Gothic chancel. Castellani’s knowledge of music, +ancient and modern, was of the widest. It was his +musical erudition which gave variety to his improvisations. +He could delight an admiring circle with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> +meandering reminiscences of Lully, Corelli, Dussek, +Spohr, Clementi, Cherubini, and Hummel, in which +only the modulations were his own.</p> + +<p>In this interval of convalescence Mrs. Greswold’s +life fell into a mechanical monotony which suited her +as well as any other kind of life would have done. +For the greater part of the day she sat in the low +armchair by the fire, a table with books at her side, +and her work-basket at her feet. Those who cared +to observe her saw that she neither worked nor +read. She took up a volume now and again, opened +it, looked at a page with dreamy eyes for a little +while, and then laid it aside. She took up the +frame with the azaleas, worked half-a-dozen stitches, +and put the frame down again. Her days were +given to long and melancholy reveries. She lived +over her married life, with all its happiness, with its +one great pain. She contemplated her husband’s +character—such a perfect character it had always +seemed to her; and yet his one weak act, his one +suppression of truth, had wrought misery for them +both. And then with ever-recurring persistency she +thought of Fay, and Fay’s unexplained fate.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p> + +<p>“I know him so well, his wife of fourteen years,” +she said to herself. “Can I doubt for an instant +that he did his duty to her; that he was loyal and +kind; that whatever sadness there was in her fate +it could have been brought about by no act of his?”</p> + +<p>Pamela behaved admirably all this time. She +respected Mildred’s silence, and was not overpoweringly +gay. She would sit at her aunt’s feet working, +wrapped in her own thoughts, or poring over a well-thumbed +Shelley, which seemed to her to express all +her emotions for her without any trouble on her part. +She found her feelings about César Castellani made +to measure, as it were, in those mystic pages, and +wondered that she and Shelley could be so exactly +alike.</p> + +<p>When Mildred was well enough to go out of +doors Miss Fausset suggested a morning with her +poor.</p> + +<p>“It will brace your nerves,” she said, “and help +you to make up your mind. If you have really a +vocation for the higher life, the life of self-abnegation +and wide usefulness, the sooner you enter upon +it the better. Mind, I say <em>if</em>. You know I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> +given you my advice conscientiously as a Christian +woman, and my advice is that you go back to your +husband, and forget everything but your duty to +him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, aunt, I know; but you and I think differently +upon that point.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” with an impatient sigh. “You +are obstinate enough there: you have made up your +mind so far. You had better make it up a little +further. At present you are halting between two +opinions.”</p> + +<p>Mildred obeyed with meekness and indifference. +She was not interested in Miss Fausset’s district; +she had given no thought yet to the merits of life in +a Christian community, among a handful of pious +women working diligently for the suffering masses. +Her only thought had been of that which she had +lost, not of what she might gain.</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset came in from the morning service +at half-past eight, breakfasted sparingly, and at nine +the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ne plus ultra</i> brougham, the perfection of severity +in coach-building, was at the door, and the perfect +brown horse was champing his bit and rattling his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +brazen headgear in over-fed impatience to be off. It +seemed to be the one aim of this powerful creature’s +life to run away with Miss Fausset’s brougham, but +up to this point his driver had circumvented him. +He made very light of the distance between the +aristocratic East Cliff and the shabbiest outlying +district of Brighton, at the fag end of the London +Road, and here Mildred saw her aunt in active work +as a ministering angel to the sick and the wretched.</p> + +<p>It was only the old, old story of human misery +which she saw repeated under various forms; the +old, old evidence of the unequal lots that fall from +the urn of Fate—Margaret in her sky-blue boudoir, +Peggy staggering under her basket of roses—for +some only the flowers, for others only the thorns. +She saw that changeless background of sordid +poverty which makes every other sorrow harder to +bear; and she told herself that the troubles of the +poor were heavier than the troubles of the rich. +Upon her life sorrow had come, like a thunderbolt +out of a summer sky; but sorrow was the warp and +woof of these lives; joy or good luck of any kind +would have been the thunderclap.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span></p> + +<p>She saw that her aunt knew how to deal with +these people, and that underneath Miss Fausset’s +hardness there was a great power of sympathy. +Her presence seemed everywhere welcome; and +people talked freely to her, unbosoming themselves +of every trouble, confident in her power to understand.</p> + +<p>“Me and my poor husband calls your aunt our +father confessor, ma’am,” said a consumptive tailor’s +wife to Mildred. “We’re never afraid to tell her +anything—even if it seems foolish like—and she +always gives us rare good advice—don’t she, Joe?”</p> + +<p>The invalid nodded approvingly over his basin of +beef-tea, Miss Fausset’s beef-tea, which was as comforting +as strong wine.</p> + +<p>In one of the houses they found an Anglican +Sister, an elderly woman, in a black hood, to whom +Miss Fausset introduced her niece. There was an +old man dying by inches in the next room; and the +Sister had been sitting up with him all night, and +was now going home to the performance of other +duties. Mildred talked with her for some time +about her life, and heard a great many details of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +that existence which seemed to her still so far off, +almost impossible, like a cold pale life beyond the +grave. How different from that warm domestic life +at Enderby! amidst fairest surroundings, in those +fine old rooms, where every detail bore the impress +of one’s own fancy, one’s own pursuits: a selfish life, +perhaps, albeit tempered with beneficence to one’s +immediate surroundings; selfish inasmuch as it was +happy and luxurious, while true unselfishness must +needs surrender everything, must refuse to wear +purple and fine linen and to fare sumptuously, so +long as Lazarus lies at the gate shivering and +hungry.</p> + +<p>Her aunt almost echoed her thoughts presently +when she spoke of her goodness to the poor.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, Mildred, I do some little good,” she +said, almost impatiently; “but not enough—not +nearly enough. It is only women like that Sister +who do enough. What the rich give must count for +very little in the eyes of the Great Auditor. But I +do my best to make up for a wasted girlhood. I +was as foolish and as frivolous as your young friend +Pamela once.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> + +<p>“That reminds me, aunt, I want so much to +talk to you about Pamela.”</p> + +<p>“What of her?”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid that she admires Mr. Castellani.”</p> + +<p>“Why should she not admire him?”</p> + +<p>“But I suspect she is in danger of falling in +love with him.”</p> + +<p>“Let her fall in love with him—let her marry +him—let her be happy with him if she can.”</p> + +<p>There was a recklessness in this counsel which +shocked Mildred, coming from such a person as Miss +Fausset.</p> + +<p>“My dear aunt, it is a very serious matter. +George gave Pamela to me for my companion. I +feel myself responsible for her happiness.”</p> + +<p>“Then don’t interfere with her happiness. Let +her marry the man she loves.”</p> + +<p>“With all my heart, if he were a good man, and +if her uncle had no objection. But I know so little +about Mr. Castellani and his surroundings.”</p> + +<p>“He has no surroundings—his mother and +father are dead. He has no near relatives.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span></p> + +<p>“And his character, aunt; his conduct? What +do you know of those?”</p> + +<p>“Only so much as you can see that I know of +them. He comes to my house, and makes himself +agreeable to me and my friends. He has given +valuable help in the formation and management of +the choir. If I am interested in a concert for a +charity he sings for me, and works for me like a +slave. All his talents are at my service always. +I suppose I like him as well as I should like a +favourite nephew, if I had nephews from whom to +choose a favourite. Of his character—outside my +house—I know nothing. I do not believe he has a +wife hidden away anywhere; and if Pamela marries +him, she can make her intention public in good time +to prevent any fiasco of that kind.”</p> + +<p>“You speak very scornfully, aunt, as if you had +a poor opinion of Mr. Castellani.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I have a poor opinion of mankind in +general, Mildred. Your father was a good man, and +your husband is another. We ought to think ourselves +lucky to have known two such men in our +lives. As to César Castellani, I tell you again I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> +know no more of him than you—or very little more—though +I have known him so much longer.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you known him?”</p> + +<p>“About fifteen years.”</p> + +<p>“And how was he introduced to you?”</p> + +<p>“O, he introduced himself, on the strength of +the old connection between the Faussets and the +Felixes. It was just before he went to the University. +He was very handsome, very elegant, and +very much in advance of his years in manners and +accomplishments. He amused and interested me, +and I allowed him to come to my house as often as +he liked.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know anything about his means?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing definite. He came into a small fortune +upon his mother’s death, and ran through it. He +has earned money by literary work, but I cannot tell +you to what extent. If Miss Ransome marry him, +I think she may as well make up her mind to keep +him. He belongs to the butterfly species.”</p> + +<p>“That is rather a humiliating prospect for a +wife—rather like buying a husband.”</p> + +<p>“That is a point for Miss Ransome to consider.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> +I don’t think she is the kind of girl to care much +what her whim costs her.”</p> + +<p>The brown horse, panting for more work, drew +up in front of Miss Fausset’s house at this juncture, +fidgeted impatiently while the two ladies alighted, +and then tore round to his mews.</p> + +<p>“You’ve had a handful with him to-day, I guess, +mate,” said a humble hanger-on, as Miss Fausset’s +coachman stretched his aching arms. “He’s a fine +’oss, but I’d rather you drove ’im than me.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what he is,” replied the coachman: +“he’s too good for his work. That’s his complaint. +Dodging in and out of narrer streets, and makin’ +mornin’ calls upon work’ouse paupers, don’t suit +<em>him</em>.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The time had come when Mildred had to make +up her mind where she would go, and having all the +world to choose from, and just the same hopeless +feeling that Eve may have had on leaving Eden, the +choice was a matter of no small difficulty. She +sat with a Continental “Bradshaw” in her hand, +turning the leaves and looking at the maps, irresolute<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> +and miserable. Pamela, who might have +decided for her, clearly hankered after no paradise +but Brighton. Her idea of Eden was a house in +which Castellani was a frequent visitor.</p> + +<p>It was too late for most of the summer places, +too early for Algiers or the Riviera. Pamela would +not hear of the Rhine or any German watering-place. +Montreux might do, perhaps, or the Engadine; +but Pamela hated Switzerland.</p> + +<p>“Would it not do to spend the winter in Bath?” +she said. “There is very nice society in Bath, I +am told.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Pamela, I want to get away from +society if I can; and I want to be very far from +Enderby.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. It was thoughtless of me to suggest +a society place. Bath, too, within a stone’s throw. +Dearest aunt, I will offer no more suggestions. I +will go anywhere you like.”</p> + +<p>“Then let us decide at once. We will go to +Pallanza, on Lago Maggiore. I have heard that it +is a lovely spot, and later we can go on to Milan or +Florence.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> + +<p>“To Italy! That is like the fulfilment of a +dream,” said Pamela with a sigh, feeling that Italy +without César Castellani would be like a playhouse +when the curtain has gone down and all the lights +are out.</p> + +<p>She was resigned, however, and not without hope. +Castellani might propose before they left Brighton, +when he found that parting was inevitable. He had +said some very tender things, but of that vaguely +tender strain which leaves a man uncommitted. His +words had been full of poetry, but they might have +applied to some absent mistress, or to love in the +abstract. Pamela felt that she had no ground for +exultation.</p> + +<p>It was in vain that Mildred warned her against +the danger of such an alliance.</p> + +<p>“Consider what a wretched match it would be +for you, Pamela,” she said. “Think how different +from your sister Rosalind’s marriage.”</p> + +<p>“Different! I should hope so, indeed! Can +you imagine, Aunt Mildred, that <em>I</em> would marry +such a man as Sir Henry Mountford, a man who has +hardly a thought outside his stable and his gunroom?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> +Do you know that he spends quite a quarter +of every day in the saddle-room, allowing for the +wet days, on which he almost lives there? I asked +him once why he didn’t have his lunch sent over to +the stables, instead of keeping us waiting a quarter +of an hour, and coming in at last smelling like a +saddler’s shop.”</p> + +<p>“He is a gentleman, notwithstanding, Pamela, +and Rosalind seems to get on very well with him.”</p> + +<p>“‘As the husband is the wife is,’ don’t you know, +aunt. You and Uncle George suit each other +because you are both intellectual. I should be +miserable if I married a man who had done nothing +to distinguish himself from the common herd.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps. But do you think you could be very +happy married to an accomplished idler who would +live upon your fortune—who would have everything +to gain, from the most sordid point of view, by +marrying you, and of whose fidelity you could never +be sure?”</p> + +<p>“But I should be sure of him. My instinct +would tell me if he were really in love with me. +You must think me very silly, Aunt Mildred, if you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> +think I could be deceived in such a matter as +that.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In spite of Pamela’s confidence in her own instinct, +or, in other words, in her own wisdom, +Mildred was full of anxiety about her, and was very +eager to place her charge beyond the reach of César +Castellani’s daily visits and musical talent. She felt +responsible to her husband for his niece’s peace of +mind; doubly responsible in that Pamela’s interest +had been subordinated to her own comfort and well-being.</p> + +<p>She had other reasons for wishing to escape +from Mr. Castellani’s society. That instinctive aversion +she had felt at sight of the unknown face in the +church was not altogether a sentiment of the past, +a prejudice overcome and forgotten. There were +occasions when she shrank from the Italian’s gentle +touch, a delicate white hand hovering for a moment +above her own as he offered her a book or a newspaper; +there were times when his low sympathetic +voice was a horror to her; there were times when +she told herself that her self-respect as a wife hardly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> +permitted of her breathing the same air that he +breathed.</p> + +<p>Innocent and simple-minded as her closely-sheltered +life had kept her, in all thoughts, ways, +and works unlike the average woman of society, +Mildred Greswold was a woman, and she could not +but see that César Castellani’s feelings for her were +of a deeper kind than any sentiment with which +Pamela Ransome’s charms had inspired him. There +were moments when his voice, his face, his manner +told his secret only too plainly; but these were but +glimpses of the truth, hurried liftings of the curtain, +which the man of society let drop again before he +had too plainly betrayed himself. He had been +careful to keep his secret from Pamela. It was +only to the object of his worship that he had revealed +those presumptuous dreams of his, and to her +only in such wise as she must needs ignore. It +would have seemed self-conscious prudery to rebuke +indications so subtle and so casual; but Mildred +could not ignore them in her own mind, and she +waited anxiously for the hour in which she would +be well enough to travel. She had all her plans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> +made, had engaged a courier—a friend of Miss +Fausset’s Franz—and had arranged her route with +him: first Northern Italy, and then the South. She +wanted to make Pamela’s exile as bright and as +profitable to her as she could. The life she was +arranging was by no means the kind of life that +Clement Cancellor would have counselled. It would +have seemed to that stern labourer a life of self-indulgence +and frivolity. But the time for the +higher ideal would come by and by, perhaps, when +this sense of misery, this benumbed feeling of indifference +to all things, had worn off, and she should +be strong enough to think a little more about other +people’s sorrows and a little less about her own.</p> + +<p>Mr. Maltravers urged upon her the duty of +staying in Brighton, and working as her aunt worked. +He had been told that Mrs. Greswold was a woman +of independent fortune, and that she had separated +herself from a husband she fondly loved, upon a +question of principle. It was just such a woman as +this that Samuel Maltravers liked to see in his +church. Such women were the elect of the earth, +predestined to contribute to the advancement of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> +clerics and the building of chancels and transepts. +The chancel at St. Edmund’s was a noble one, +needing no extension, its only fault being that it +was too big for the church. But there was room for +a transept. The church had been so planned as to +allow of its ultimate cruciform shape, and that +transept was the dream of Mr. Maltravers’ life. +Scarcely had Mrs. Greswold’s story dropped in +measured syllables from Miss Fausset’s lips than +Mr. Maltravers said to himself, “This lady will +build my transept.” A woman who could leave a +beloved husband on a question of principle was just +the kind of woman to sink a few superfluous thousands +upon the improvement of such a fane as St. +Edmund’s. Every seat in that fashionable temple +was occupied. More seat-room was a necessity. +The hour had come, and the—woman.</p> + +<p>Mr. Maltravers endeavoured to convince Mrs. +Greswold that Brighton was the one most fitting +sphere for an enlightened woman’s labours. Brighton +cried aloud for a Christian sister’s aid. It had all +the elements in which the heaven-born missionary +delights. Phenomenal wealth on the one side, abject<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> +poverty on the other; fashion in the foreground, +sin and misery behind the curtain. Brighton was +Pagan Rome in little. Together with the advanced +civilisation, the over-refinement, the occult +pleasures, the art, the luxury, the beauty, the burning +of the Seven-hilled City, Brighton had all the +corrupting influences of her Pagan sister. Brighton +was rotten to the core—a lovely simulacrum—a +Dead Sea apple—shining, golden, doomed, damned.</p> + +<p>As he uttered that last terrific word Mr. Maltravers +sank his voice to that bass depth some of us +can remember in Bishop Wilberforce’s climatic syllables; +and so spoken, the word seemed permissible +in any serious drawing-room, awful rather than profane.</p> + +<p>It was in vain, however, that the Vicar of St. +Edmund’s strove to convince Mildred that her +mission was immediate, and in Brighton; that in +his parish, and there alone, could her loftiest dreams +find their fulfilment.</p> + +<p>“I hope to do some little good to my fellow-creatures +by and by,” she said meekly, “but I do +not feel that the time has come yet. I am incapable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> +of anything except just existing. I believe my +aunt has told you that I have had a great sorrow—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, poor wounded heart, I know, I know.”</p> + +<p>“I mean to work by and bye—when I have +learned to forget myself a little. Sorrow is so +selfish. Just now I feel stupid and helpless. I +could do no good to any one.”</p> + +<p>“You could build my transept,” thought Mr. +Maltravers, but he only sighed, and shook his head, +and murmured gently, “Well, well, we must wait; +we must hope. There is but one <em>earthly</em> consolation +for a great grief—I will say nothing of heavenly +comfort—and that consolation is to be found in +labouring for the good of our sinning, sorrowing +fellow-creatures, and for the glory of God—for the +glory of God,” repeated Mr. Maltravers, harping on +his transept. “There are mourners who have left +imperishable monuments of their grief, and of their +piety, in some of the finest churches of this land.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Upon the evening on which Mr. Maltravers had +pleaded for Brighton, Miss Fausset and her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</i> +were alone together during the half-hour before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> +dinner; the lady resting after a long day in her +district: a composed, quiet figure, in fawn-coloured +silk gown and point lace kerchief, seated erect in +the high-backed chair, with folded hands, and eyes +gazing thoughtfully at the fire; the gentleman lounging +in a low chair on the other side of the hearth +in luxurious self-abandonment, his red-brown eyes +shining in the fire-glow, and his red-brown hair +throwing off glints of light.</p> + +<p>They had been talking, and had lapsed into +silence; and it was after a long pause that Miss +Fausset said,</p> + +<p>“I wonder you have not made the young lady an +offer before now.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose I am not in love with the young lady?”</p> + +<p>“You have been too assiduous for that supposition +to occur to me. You have haunted this house +ever since Miss Ransome has been here.”</p> + +<p>“And yet I am not in love with her.”</p> + +<p>“She is a pretty and attractive girl, and disposed +to think highly of you.”</p> + +<p>“And yet I am not in love with her,” he repeated, +with a smile which made Miss Fausset angry. “To<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> +think that you should turn matchmaker, you who +have said so many bitter things of the fools who fall in +love, and the still greater fools who marry; <em>you</em> who +stand alone like a granite monolith, like Cleopatra’s +Needle, or the Matterhorn, or anything grand and +solitary and unapproachable; you to counsel the +civilised slavery we call marriage!”</p> + +<p>“My dear César, I can afford to stand alone; +but you cannot afford to surrender your chance of +winning an amiable wife with fifteen hundred a year.”</p> + +<p>“That for fifteen hundred a year!” exclaimed +Castellani, wafting an imaginary fortune from the +tips of his fingers with airy insolence. “Do you +think I will sell myself—for so little?”</p> + +<p>“That high-flown tone is all very well; but there +is one fact you seem to ignore.”</p> + +<p>“What is that, my kindest and best?”</p> + +<p>“The fact that you are a very expensive person, +and that you have to be maintained somehow.”</p> + +<p>“That fact shall never force me to marry where +I cannot love. At the worst, art shall maintain me. +When other and dearer friends prove unkind, I will +call upon my maiden aunts the Muses.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span></p> + +<p>“The Muses hitherto have hardly paid for the +gardenias in your buttonhole.”</p> + +<p>“O, I know I am not a man of business. I +lack the faculty of pounds, shillings, and pence, +which is an attribute of some minds. I have scattered +my flowers of art upon all the highways instead +of nailing the blossoms against a wall and waiting +for them to bear fruit. I have been reckless, improvident—granted; +and you, out of your abundance, +have been kind. Your words imply a threat. You +wish to remind me that your kindness cannot go on +for ever.”</p> + +<p>“There are limits to everything.”</p> + +<p>“Hardly to your generosity; certainly not to +your wealth. As you garner it, that must be inexhaustible. +I cannot think that you would ever turn +your back upon me. The link between us is too +tender a bond.”</p> + +<p>Miss Fausset’s face darkened to deepest night.</p> + +<p>“Tender do you call it?” she exclaimed. “If +the memory of an unpardonable wrong is tender—” +and then, interrupting herself, she cried passionately, +“César Castellani, I have warned you against the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> +slightest reference to the past. As for my generosity, +as you call it, you might be wiser if you +gave it a lower name—caprice; caprice which may +weary at any moment. You have a chance of making +an excellent match, and I strongly advise you to +take advantage of it.”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me if I disregard your advice, much +as I respect your judgment upon all other subjects.”</p> + +<p>“You have other views, I suppose, then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have other views.”</p> + +<p>“You look higher?”</p> + +<p>“Infinitely higher,” he answered, with his hands +locked above his head in a carelessly graceful attitude, +and with his eyes gazing at the fire.</p> + +<p>He looked like a dreaming fawn: the large, full +eyes, the small peaked beard, and close-cut hair +upon the arched forehead were all suggestive of the +satyr tribe.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Pamela came smiling in, +self-conscious, yet happy, delighted at seeing that +picturesque figure by the hearth.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br> +<span class="fs70">THE TIME HAS COME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Three</span> days later Mildred and her young companion +started for Italy. The doctor declared that the +departure was premature—Mrs. Greswold was not +strong enough to undertake such a fatiguing journey. +But modern civilisation has smoothed the roads that +lead over the civilised world, and for a lady who +travels with a maid and a courier, journeys are +rendered very easy; besides, Mildred had made up +her mind to leave Brighton at any hazard.</p> + +<p>The hour of parting came for Pamela and Castellani, +and although the young lady took care to +remind him at least a dozen times a day of that +impending severance, not one word of the future, or +of any cherished hope on his part, fell from his lips. +And yet it had seemed to Pamela that he was devoted +to her, that he only waited for the opportunity to +speak. It seemed to her also that he felt the pain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span> +of parting, for he had an air of deepest melancholy +daring these farewell days, and talked only of saddest +themes. He was in Lewes Crescent nearly all day +long—he played the mournfullest strains—he behaved +like a man oppressed with a secret sorrow; +but never a word of love or marriage did he breathe +to Pamela. He pressed her hand gently, with an +almost paternal affection, as she leant out of the +carriage which was to take her to the station, and +bade him a last good-bye.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye!” she half sang, half sobbed, in the +darkness at the back of the hired landau, as they +drove bumping down St. James’s street. “Good-bye, +summer; good-bye, everything!”</p> + +<p>She did not even glance at Hannington’s autumn +fashions as they drove up the hill. She felt that life +was no longer worth dressing for.</p> + +<p>“He never could have cared for me,” she +thought, as she dropped her silent tears upon +Box’s thoroughbred neck, “and yet he seemed—he +seemed! Does he seem like that to every girl, I +wonder? Is he all seeming?”</p> + +<p>After this came a leisurely journey, and then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> +long, slow weeks of a luxurious repose amidst fairest +surroundings—a life which to those who have lived +and fought the great battle, and come wounded but +yet alive out of the fray, is the life paradisaic; but +for the fresh, strong soul panting for emotions +and excitements, like a young bird that yearns to +try the strength of his wings, this kind of languid +existence seems like a foretaste of death and nothingness. +Mountains and lakes were not enough for +Pamela—the azure of an Italian sky, the infinite +variety of sunset splendours, the brightness of a +morning heralded by a roseate flush on snow-capped +hills—all these were futile where the heart was +empty. Mildred’s maturer grief found some consolation +in these exquisite surroundings; but Pamela +wanted to live, and those encircling mountains +seemed to her as the walls of a gigantic prison.</p> + +<p>“It was so nice at Brighton,” she said, looking +along the burnished mirror of the lake with despondent +eyes, tired of the mystery of those reflected +mountains, descending into infinite depths, a world +inverted: “so gay, so cheery—always something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> +going on. Don’t you think, aunt, that the air of +this place is very relaxing?”</p> + +<p>That word relaxing is the keynote of discontent. +It is a word that can blight the loveliest spots the +sun ever shone upon. It is the speck upon the peach. +Be sure that before ever he mentioned the apple, +Satan told Eve that Eden was very relaxing.</p> + +<p>“I hope you are not unhappy here, my dear +Pamela?” said Mildred, evading the question.</p> + +<p>“Unhappy? O, no, indeed, dear aunt! I could not +be otherwise than happy with you anywhere. There +are lots of people who would envy me living on the +shore of Lago Maggiore, and seeing those delightful +mountains all day long; but I did so enjoy Brighton—the +theatre, the Pavilion; always something +going on.”</p> + +<p>The two ladies had their own suite of apartments +in the hotel, and lived in that genteel seclusion +which is the privilege of wealth as well as of rank +all over the world. Pamela envied the tourists of +Cook and Gaze, as she saw them trooping into the +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</i>, or heard their clatter in the public +drawing-room. It was all very well to sit in one’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +own balcony, gazing at the placid lake, while the +rabble amused themselves below. One felt one’s +superior status, and the advantage of being somebody +instead of nobody; but when the rabble danced or +acted charades, or played dumb crambo, or squabbled +over a game at nap, they seemed to have the best of +it somehow.</p> + +<p>“I almost wish I had been born a vulgarian,” +sighed Pamela one evening, when the tourists were +revolving to the “Myosotis Waltz” banged out on +a cast-iron grand in the salon below.</p> + +<p>Mildred did all she could in the way of excursionising +to enliven the dulness of their solitary life; +but the beauties of Nature palled upon Pamela’s lively +mind. However the day might be occupied in drives +to distant scenes of surpassing loveliness, the ever-lengthening +evenings had to be spent in the Louis +Quatorze salon, where no visitors dropped in to +disturb the monotony of books and work, piano and +pet-dog.</p> + +<p>For Mildred, too, those evening hours seemed +unutterably long, and as autumn deepened into +winter, her burden seemed heavier to bear. Time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> +brought no consolation, offered no hope. She had +lost all that had made life worth living. First, the +child who represented all that was brightest and +fairest and gayest and most hopeful in her life; +next, the husband who was her life itself, the prop +and staff, the column around which every tendril of +her being was entwined. There was nothing for her +in the future but a life of self-abnegation, of working +and living for others. The prospect seemed dark +and dreary, and she knew now how small a margin +of her life had been devoted to God. The idea of +devoting herself wholly was too repellent. She knew +now that she was very human, wedded to earthly +loves and earthly happiness, needing a long purgation +before she could attain the saintly attitude.</p> + +<p>She thought of Enderby every night as she sat +in silent melancholy beside the hearth, where a +solitary log crumbled slowly to white ashes on +the marble, and where the faint warmth had a +perfume of distant pine-woods; she thought of +Enderby and its widowed master. Was he living +there still, or was he, too, a wanderer? She had +heard but little of his movements since she left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> +England. Pamela had written to him, and he had +replied, but had said very little about himself. +The only news in Rosalind’s letters was of the extraordinary +development—intellectual and otherwise—of +the baby, and the magnitude of Sir Henry’s bag. +Beyond the baby and the bag, Lady Mountford’s +pen rarely travelled.</p> + +<p>Mildred thought of that absent husband with +an aching heart. There were times when she asked +herself if she had done well—when she was tempted +to total surrender—when the pen was in her hand +ready to write a telegram imploring him to come +to her—or when she was on the point of giving her +orders for an immediate return to England. But +pride and principle alike restrained her. She had +taken her own course, she had made up her mind +deliberately, after long thought and many prayers. +She could not tread the backward way, the primrose +path of sin. She could but pray for greater strength, +for loftier purpose, for that grand power of self-forgetfulness +which makes for heaven.</p> + +<p>Christmas came and found her in this frame +of mind. There were very few tourists now, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> +the long corridors had a sepulchral air, the snowy +mountain-tops were blotted out by mist and rain. +For Pamela, Christmastide had been a season of much +gaiety hitherto—a season of new frocks and many +dances, hunting and hunt-balls, and the change +was a severe test of that young lady’s temper. She +came through the ordeal admirably, never forgot that +she had promised her uncle to be his wife’s faithful +companion, and amused herself as best she could +with Italian music and desultory studies. She read +Mr. Sinnett’s books, studied Bohn’s edition of +Plato’s Dialogues, addled her youthful brain with +various theories of a far-reaching kind, and fancied +herself decidedly mediumistic. That word mediumistic +possessed a peculiar fascination for her. She +had looked at César Castellani’s eyeballs, which +were markedly globular—seeming, as it were, +reflecting surfaces for the spirit world, a sure indication +of the mediumistic temperament. She had +seen other signs; and now in this romantic solitude, +sauntering by the lake in the misty winter air, just +before sundown, she fancied herself almost in communion +with that absent genius. Distance could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> +not separate two people when both were eminently +mediumistic.</p> + +<p>“I believe he is thinking of me at this very +moment,” she said to herself one afternoon at the +end of the year, “and I have a kind of feeling that +I shall see him—bodily—very soon.”</p> + +<p>She forgot to reckon with herself that this kind +of feeling could count for very little, since she had +experienced it in greater or less degree ever since +she had left Brighton. In almost every excursion she +had beguiled the tedium of the way with some pleasant +day-dream. Castellani would appear in the +most unlooked-for manner at the resting-place where +they were to lunch. He would have followed them +from England at his leisure, and would come upon +them unannounced, pleased to startle her by his +sudden apparition. In absence she had recalled so +many tender speeches, so many indications of regard; +and she had taught herself to believe that he really +cared for her, and had but been withheld from a +declaration by a noble dignity which would not stoop +to woo a woman richer than himself.</p> + +<p>“He is poor and proud,” she thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span></p> + +<p>Poor and proud. How sweet the alliteration +sounded!</p> + +<p>She had thought of him so incessantly that it +was hardly a coincidence, and yet it seemed to her a +miracle when his voice sounded behind her in the +midst of her reverie.</p> + +<p>“You ought not to be out of doors, Miss Ransome, +when the sun is so nearly down.”</p> + +<p>She turned and faced him, pale first with infinite +pleasure, and then rosy to the roots of her +flaxen hair.</p> + +<p>“When did you come?” she asked eagerly. +“Have you been long in Italy?”</p> + +<p>“I only came through the St. Gothard last +night, breakfasted at Locarno, and came here by +road. I have not seen Mrs. Greswold yet. She is +well, I hope?”</p> + +<p>“She is not over-well. She frets dreadfully, I +am afraid. It is so sad that she and Uncle George +should be living apart for some mysterious reason +which nobody knows. They were the most perfect +couple.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Greswold is a perfect woman.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span></p> + +<p>“And Uncle George has the finest character. +His first marriage was unhappy, I believe; nobody +ever talked about it. I think it was only just +known in the family that he had married in Italy +when he was a young man, and that his wife had +died within a year. It was supposed that she could +not have been nice, since nobody knew anything +about her.”</p> + +<p>“Rather hard upon the dead lady to be condemned +by her husband’s silence. Will you take me to your +aunt?”</p> + +<p>“With pleasure. I think she ought to be +charmed to see you, for we lead the most solitary +existence here. My aunt has set her face against +knowing anybody, in the hotel or out of it. And there +have been some really charming people staying +here; people one would go out of one’s way to know. +Have you come here for your health?”</p> + +<p>“For my pleasure only. I was sick to death of +England and of cities. I longed to steep myself in +the infinite and the beautiful. Those indigo clouds +above the mountains yonder—with that bold splash +of orange shining through the gorge—are worth the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span> +journey, were there no more than that; and when the +wintry stars glass themselves in the lake by and by, +ah! then one knows what it is to be the living, acting +element in a world of passive beauty. And to think +that there are men and women in London groping +about in the fog, and fancying themselves alive!”</p> + +<p>“O, but there are compensations—theatres, +concerts, dances.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Ransome, I fear you are a Philistine.”</p> + +<p>“O, no, no! I adore Nature. I should like to +be above those common earthly pleasures—to journey +from star to star along the planetary chain, +rising at each transition to a higher level, until I +came to the spirit world where— This is the +hotel, and we are on the second floor. Would you +like the lift?”</p> + +<p>“I never walk when I can be carried.”</p> + +<p>“Then we will go up in the lift. I used to think +it rather good fun at first,” said Pamela with a sigh, +remembering how soon that trivial excitement had +begun to pall.</p> + +<p>Mildred received the unexpected visitor with +marked coldness; but it was not easy to remain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> +persistently cold while Pamela was so warm. Castellani +was one of those provoking people who refuse +to see when they are unwelcome. He was full of +talk, gay, bright, and varied. He had all the social +events of the past three months to talk about. +Society had witnessed the most extraordinary +changes—marriages—sudden deaths—everything +unlooked for. There had been scandals, too; but +these he touched upon lightly, and with a deprecating +air, professing himself sorry for everybody.</p> + +<p>Mildred allowed him to talk, and was, perhaps, +a little more cordial when he took his leave than +she had been when he came. He had prevented +her from thinking her own thoughts for the space +of an hour, and that was something for which to be +grateful. He had come there in pursuit of Pamela, +no doubt. He could have no other reason. He had +been playing his own game, holding back in order to +be the more gladly accepted when he should declare +himself. It was thus Mildred reasoned with herself; +and yet there had been looks and tones which +it was difficult for her to forget.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span></p> + +<p>“He is by profession a lady-killer,” she argued; +“no doubt he treats all women in the same way. He +cannot help trying to fascinate them; and there are +women like Cecilia Tomkison who encourage him to +make sentimental speeches.”</p> + +<p>She persuaded herself that the looks and tones +which had offended meant very little. For Pamela’s +sake she would like to think well of him.</p> + +<p>“You have told me about a great many +people,” she said, as he was leaving them, “but +you have told me nothing about my husband. +Did you hear if he was still at Enderby—and +well?”</p> + +<p>“He was still at Enderby up to the end of +November, and I believe he was well. I spent three +days at Riverdale, and heard of him from Mrs. Hillersdon.”</p> + +<p>Mildred asked no further question, nor did she +invite Mr. Castellani to repeat his visit. Happily +for his own success in life, he was not the kind of +person to wait for invitations.</p> + +<p>“I am staying in the hotel,” he said. “I hope +I may drop in sometimes—to-morrow even. Miss<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> +Ransome is good enough to say she would like to +sing some duets with me.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Ransome knows I have not been receiving +any visitors,” Mildred answered, with a touch of +reproachfulness.</p> + +<p>“O, but Mr. Castellani is an old friend! The +people you avoided were strangers,” said Pamela +eagerly.</p> + +<p>Mildred made no further protest. Few men +would have accepted a permission so grudgingly +given; but Castellani stopped at no obstacle when +he had a serious purpose to serve: and in this case +his purpose was very serious; for life or death, he +told himself.</p> + +<p>He came next day, and the day after that, and +every day for four or five weeks, till the first flush of +precocious spring lent beauty to the landscape and +softness to the sky. Mildred submitted to his +visits as an inevitable consequence of Pamela’s +folly; submitted, and by and by fell into the habit +of being amused by Castellani; interested in his talk +of men and women and of books, of which he seemed +to have read all of any mark that had ever been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> +written. She allowed herself to be interested; she +allowed herself to be soothed by his music; she +let him become an influence in her life, unawares, +caught by a subtlety that had never been surpassed +by anybody of lesser gifts than Satan: but never did +this presumptuous wooer beguile her into one single +thought that wronged her absent husband. Her intellect +acknowledged the tempter’s intellectual sway, +but her heart knew no wavering.</p> + +<p>César Castellani had seen a good deal of life, but +as he had assiduously cultivated the seamy side, it +was hardly strange if he lacked the power of understanding +a pure-minded woman. To his mind every +woman was a citadel, better or worse defended, but +always assailable by treason or strategy, force or art, +and never impregnable. Mrs. Greswold was his +Troy, his Thebes, his ideal of majesty and strength +in woman. So far as virtue went upon this earth +he believed Mildred Greswold to be virtuous; proud, +too; not a woman to lower her crest to the illicit +conqueror, or stain her name with the disgrace of a +runaway wife. But it had been given to him to +disturb a union that had existed happily for fourteen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> +years. It had been given to him to awaken +the baneful passion of jealousy, to sow the seeds of +suspicion, to part husband and wife. He had gone +to work carelessly enough in the first instance, +struck with Mildred’s beauty and sweetness—full of +sentimental recollections of the fair child-face and +the bright streaming hair that had passed him like +a vision in the sunlight of Hyde Park. He had +envied the husband so fair a wife, so luxurious a +home, with its air of old-world respectability, that +deep-rooted English aristocracy of landed estate, +which to the foreign adventurer seemed of all conditions +in life the most enviable. He had been impelled +by sheer malice when he uttered his careless +allusion to George Greswold’s past life, and with a +word blighted two hearts.</p> + +<p>He saw the effect of the speech in the face of the +wife, and in the manner of the husband saw that he +had launched a thunderbolt. It was with deepest +interest he followed up his advantage; watched and +waited for further evidence of the evil he had done. +He was a close student of the faces of women; above +all, when the face was lovely. He saw all the marks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> +of secret care in Mrs. Greswold’s countenance during +the weeks that elapsed between his first visit to Enderby +and the charity concert. He saw the deepening +shadows, the growing grief, and on the day of the +concert he saw the traces of a still keener pain in +those pale features and haggard eyes; but for an +immediate separation between husband and wife he +was not prepared.</p> + +<p>He heard at Riverdale of Mrs. Greswold’s departure +from home. The suddenness and strangeness +of her journey had set all the servants talking. He +found out where she had gone, and hastened at once +to call upon his devoted friend Mrs. Tomkison, who +told him all she had to tell.</p> + +<p>“There is some domestic misery—an intrigue on +his part, I fear,” said the glib Cecilia. “Men are +such traitors. It would hardly surprise me to-morrow +if I was told that Adam was maintaining an +expensive <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ménage</i> in St. John’s Wood. She would +tell me nothing, poor darling; but she sent for Mr. +Cancellor, and was closeted with him for an hour. +No doubt she told <em>him</em> everything. And then she +went off to Brighton.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> + +<p>Castellani followed to Brighton, and his influence +with Miss Fausset enabled him to learn something, +but not all. Not one word said Miss Fausset about +the supposed identity between George Greswold’s +first wife and John Fausset’s <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i>; but she told +Mr. Castellani that she feared her niece’s separation +from her husband would be permanent.</p> + +<p>“Why does she not divorce him,” he asked, “if +he has wronged her?”</p> + +<p>“He has not wronged her—in the way you mean. +And if he had, she could not divorce him, unless he +had beaten her. You men made the law, and framed +it in your own favour. It is a very sad case, César, +and I am not at liberty to say any more about it. +You must ask me no more questions.”</p> + +<p>Castellani obeyed for the time being; but he did +ask further questions upon other occasions, and he +exercised all his subtlety in the endeavour to extract +information from Miss Fausset. That lady, however, +was inflexible; and he had to wait for time to +solve the mystery.</p> + +<p>“They have parted on account of that first marriage,” +he told himself. “Perhaps she has found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> +out all about the poor lady’s fate, and takes the worst +view of the catastrophe. That would account for +their separation. She would not stay with a husband +she suspected; he would not live with a wife +who could so suspect. A very pretty quarrel.”</p> + +<p>A quarrel—a life-long severance—but not a +divorce. There was the difficulty. César Castellani +believed himself invincible with women. The +weakest, and in some cases the worst, of the sex had +educated him into the belief that no woman lived +who could resist him. And here was a woman whom +he intensely admired, and whose married life it had +been his privilege to wreck. She was a rich woman—and +it was essential to his success in life that he +should marry wealth. With all his various gifts he +was not a money-earning man, he would never attain +even lasting renown by his talents. For when the +good fairies had endowed him with music and poetry, +eloquence and grace, the strong-minded, hard-featured +fairy called Perseverance came to his christening +feast, and seeing no knife and fork laid for +her, doomed him to the curse of idleness. He had +all the talents which enable a man to shine in society<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> +but he had also the money-spending talent, the +elegant tastes and inclinations which require some +thousands a year for their sustenance. Hitherto he +had lived by his wits—from hand to mouth; but +for some years past he had been on the look-out for +a rich wife.</p> + +<p>He knew that Mildred Greswold was three times +richer than Pamela Ramsome. The wealth of the +Faussets came within the region of his knowledge; +and he knew how large a fortune John Fausset had +left his daughter, and how entirely that fortune was +at her own disposal. He might have had Pamela for +the asking; Pamela, with a paltry fifteen hundred +a year; Pamela, who sang false and bored him +beyond measure. The higher prize seemed impossible; +but it was his nature to attempt the impossible. +His belief in his own power was boundless.</p> + +<p>“She cannot divorce her husband,” he told himself; +“but he may divorce her if she should wrong +him, or even seem to wrong him: and the most innocent +woman may be compromised if her lover is daring +and will risk much for a great <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup</i>, as I would.”</p> + +<p>He thought himself very near success in these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span> +lengthening afternoons in the beginning of February, +when he was allowed to spend the lovely hour of +sundown in Mrs. Greswold’s <em>salon</em>, watching the +sunset from the wide plate-glass window, which commanded +a panorama of lake and mountain, with +every exquisite change from concentrated light to +suffused colour, and then to deepening purple that +slowly darkened into night. It was the hour in +which it was deemed dangerous to be out of doors; +but it was the loveliest hour of the day or the night, +and Mildred never wearied of that glorious outlook +over lake and sky. She was silent for the most part +at such a time, sitting in the shadow of the window-curtains, +her face hidden from the other two, sitting +apart from the world, thinking of the life that had +been and could never be again.</p> + +<p>Sometimes in the midst of her sad thoughts Castellani +would strike a chord on the piano at the other +end of the room, and then a tender strain of melody +would steal out of the darkness, and that veiled +tenor voice would sing some of the saddest lines of +Heine, the poet of the broken heart, sadder than +Byron, sadder than Musset, sad with the sadness of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> +one who had never known joy. Those words wedded +to tenderest melody always moved Mildred Greswold +to tears. Castellani saw her tears and thought they +were given to him; such tears as yielding virtue +gives to the tempter. He knew the power of his +voice, the fascination of music for those in whom the +love of music is a part of their being. He could not +foresee the possibility of failure. He was already +admitted to that kind of intimacy which is the first +stage of success. He was an almost daily visitor; +he came upon the two ladies in their walks and drives, +and contrived, unbidden, to make himself their companion; +he chose the books that both were to read, +and made himself useful in getting library parcels +sent from Milan or Paris. He contrived to make +himself indispensable, or at least thought himself so. +Pamela’s eagerness filled up all the gaps; she was so +full of talk and vivacity that it was not easy to be +sure about the sentiments of her more silent companion; +but César Castellani’s vanity was the key +with which he read Mildred’s character and feelings.</p> + +<p>“She is a sphinx,” he told himself; “but I +think I can solve her mystery. The magnetic power<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> +of such a love as mine must draw her to me sooner +or later.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Castellani had a profound belief in his own +magnetism. That word magnetic had a large place +in his particular creed. He talked of certain fascinating +women—generally a little <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passée</i>—as “magnetic.” +He prided himself upon being a magnetic +man.</p> + +<p>While César Castellani flattered himself that he +was on the threshold of success, Mildred Greswold +was deliberating how best to escape from him and +his society for ever. Had she been alone there need +have been no difficulty; but she saw Pamela’s happiness +involved in his presence, she saw the fresh +young cheek pale at the thought of separation, and +she was perplexed how to act for the best. Had +Pamela been her daughter she could not have considered +her feelings more tenderly. She told herself +that Mr. Castellani would be a very bad match for +Miss Ransome; yet when she saw the girl’s face +grow radiant at the sound of his footsteps, when she +watched her dullness in his absence, that everlasting +air of waiting for somebody which marks the girl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span> +who is in love, she found herself hoping that the +Italian would make a formal proposal, and she was +inclined to meet him half-way.</p> + +<p>But the new year was six weeks old, and he had +not even hinted at matrimonial intentions, so Mildred +felt constrained to speak plainly.</p> + +<p>“My dearest Pamela, we are drifting into a very +uncomfortable position with Mr. Castellani,” she +began gently. “He comes here day after day as +if he were your <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiancé</i>, and yet he has said nothing +definite.”</p> + +<p>Pamela grew crimson at this attack, and her +hands began to tremble over her crewel-work, though +she tried to go on working.</p> + +<p>“I respect him all the more for being in no haste +to declare himself, Aunt Mildred,” she said, rather +angrily. “If he were the kind of adventurer you +once thought him, he would have made me an offer +ages ago. Why should he not come to see us? I’m +sure he’s very amusing and very useful. Even you +seem interested in him and cheered by him. Why +should he not come? We have no one’s opinion to +study in a foreign hotel.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that, dear. People always +hear about things; and it might injure you by and +by in society to have your name associated with Mr. +Castellani.”</p> + +<p>“I am sure I should be very proud of it,” retorted +Pamela; “very proud to have my name +associated with genius.”</p> + +<p>“And you really, honestly believe you could be +happy as his wife, Pamela?” asked Mildred gravely.</p> + +<p>“I know that I can never be happy with any one +else. I don’t consider myself particularly clever, +aunt, but I believe I have the artistic temperament. +Life without art would be a howling wilderness for +me.”</p> + +<p>“Life means a long time, dear. Think what a +difference it must make whether you lead it with a +good or a bad man!”</p> + +<p>“All the goodness in the world would not make +me happy with a husband who was not musical; not +John Howard, nor John Wesley, nor John Bunyan, +nor any of your model Johns. John Milton <em>was</em>,” +added Pamela rather vaguely, “and handsome into +the bargain; but I’m afraid he was a little <em>dry</em>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p> + +<p>“Promise me at least this much, Pamela. First, +that you will take no step without your uncle’s knowledge +and advice; and next, that if ever you marry +Mr. Castellani, you will have your fortune strictly +settled upon yourself.”</p> + +<p>“O, aunt, how sordid! But perhaps it would +be best. If I had the money, I should give it all to +him: but if he had the money, with his artistic temperament +he would be sure to lavish it all upon +other people. He would not be able to pass a picturesque +beggar without emptying his pockets. Do +you remember how he was impressed by the four +old men on the church steps the other day?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I don’t think he gave them anything.”</p> + +<p>“Not while we were with him; but you may +be sure he did afterwards.”</p> + +<p>After this conversation Mrs. Greswold made up +her mind on two points. She would arrange for a +prompt departure to Venice or Naples, whichever +might be advised for the spring season; and she +would sound Mr. Castellani as to his intentions. It +was not fair to Pamela that she should be kept in +the dark any longer, that the gentleman should be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> +allowed to sing duets with her, and advise her studies, +and join her in her walks, and yet give no definite +expression to his regard.</p> + +<p>Mildred tried to think the best of him as a suitor +for her husband’s niece. She knew that he was +clever; she knew that he was fairly well born. On +his mother’s side he sprang from the respectable +commercial classes; on his father’s side he belonged +to the art-world. There was nothing debasing in +such a lineage. From neither her friend Mrs. Tomkison +nor from Miss Fausset had she heard anything +to his discredit; and both those ladies had known +him long. There could therefore be no objection +on the score of character. Pamela ought to make +a much better marriage in the way of means and +position; but those excellent and well-chosen alliances +dictated by the wisdom of friends are sometimes +known to result in evil; and, in a word, why +should not Pamela be happy in her own way?</p> + +<p>Having thus reasoned with herself, Mildred +watched for an opportunity to speak to Castellani. +She had not long to wait. He called rather earlier +than usual one afternoon, when Pamela had gone out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +for a mountain ramble with her dog and her maid, +to search for those doubly precious flowers which +bloom with the first breath of spring. Castellani +had seen the young lady leave the hotel soon after +the midday meal, armed with her alpenstock, and +accompanied by her attendant carrying a basket. +She had fondly hoped that he would offer to join her +expedition, to dig out delicate ferns from sheltered +recesses, to hunt for mountain hyacinths and many-hued +anemones; but he observed her departure <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">perdu</i> +behind a window-curtain in the reading-room, and +half-an-hour afterwards he was ushered into Mrs. +Greswold’s drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“I feared you were ill,” he said, “as I saw Miss +Ransome excursionising without you.”</p> + +<p>“I have a slight headache, and felt more inclined +for a book than for a long walk. Why did you not +go with Pamela? I daresay she would have been +glad of your company. Peterson is not a lively companion +for a mountain ramble.”</p> + +<p>“Poor Miss Ransome! How sad to be a young +English Mees, and to have to be chaperoned by a +person like Peterson!” said Castellani, with a careless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> +shrug. “No, I had no inclination to join in +the anemone hunt. Miss Ransome told me yesterday +what she was going to do. I have no passion +for wild flowers or romantic walks.”</p> + +<p>“But you seem to have a great liking for Miss +Ransome’s society,” replied Mildred gravely. “You +have cultivated it very assiduously since you came +here, and I think I may be excused for fancying that +you came to Pallanza on her account.”</p> + +<p>“You may be excused for thinking anything +wild and improbable, because you are a woman and +wilfully blind,” he answered, drawing his chair a +little nearer to hers, and lowering his voice with a +touch of tenderness. “But surely—surely you cannot +think that I came to Pallanza on Miss Ransome’s +account?”</p> + +<p>“I might not have thought so had you been a +less frequent visitor in this room, where you have +come—pardon me for saying so—very much of your +own accord. I don’t think it was quite delicate or +honourable to come here so often, to be so continually +in the society of a frank, impressionable girl,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> +unless you had some deeper feeling for her than +casual admiration.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Greswold, upon my honour I have never +in the whole course of my acquaintance with Miss +Ransome by one word or tone implied any warmer +feeling than that which you call casual admiration.”</p> + +<p>“And you are not attached to her? you do not +cherish the hope of winning her for your wife?” +asked Mildred seriously, looking at him with earnest +eyes.</p> + +<p>That calm, grave look chilled him to the core of +his heart. His brow flushed, his eyes grew dark +and troubled. He felt as if the crisis of his life +were approaching, and augury was unfavourable.</p> + +<p>“I have never cherished any such hope; I never +shall.”</p> + +<p>“Then why have you come here so continually?”</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, do not ask me that question! +The time has not come.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr. Castellani, the time has come. The +question should have been asked sooner. You have +compromised Miss Ransome by your meaningless +assiduities. You have compromised me; for I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> +ought to have taken better care of her than to allow +an acquaintance of so ambiguous a character. But +I am very glad that I have spoken, and that you +have replied plainly. From to-day your visits must +cease. We shall go to the south of Italy in a few +days. Let me beg that you will not happen to be +travelling in the same direction.”</p> + +<p>Mildred was deeply indignant. She had cheapened +her husband’s niece—Randolph Ransome’s +co-heiress—a girl whom half the young men in +London would have considered a prize in the matrimonial +market: and this man, who had haunted +her at home and abroad for the last seven or eight +weeks, dared now to tell her that his attentions +were motiveless so far as her niece was concerned.</p> + +<p>“O, Mildred, do not banish me!” he cried passionately. +“You must have understood. You must +know that it is you, and you only, for whom I care; +you whose presence makes life lovely for me, in whose +absence I am lost and wretched. You have wrung +my secret from me. I did not mean to offend. I +would have respected your strange widowhood. I +would have waited half a lifetime. Only to see you,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> +to be near you—your slave, your proud, too happy +slave. That was all I would have asked. Why +may that not be? Why may I not come and go, +like the summer wind that breathes round you, like +the flowers that look in at your window—faithful as +your dog, patient as old Time? Why may it not +be, Mildred?”</p> + +<p>She stood up suddenly before him, white to the +lips, and with cold contempt in those eyes which he +had seen so lovely with the light of affection when +they had looked at her husband. She looked at him +unfalteringly, as she might have looked at a worm. +Anger had made her pale, but that was all.</p> + +<p>“You must have had a strange experience of +women before you would dare to talk to any honest +woman in such a strain as this, Mr. Castellani,” she +said. “I will not lower myself so far as to tell you +what I think of your conduct. Miss Ransome shall +know the kind of person whose society she has +endured. I must beg that you will consider yourself +as much a stranger to her as to me from to-day.”</p> + +<p>She moved towards the bell, but he intercepted +her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span></p> + +<p>“You are very cruel,” he said; “but the day +will come when you will be sorry that you rejected +the most devoted love that was ever offered to woman, +in order to be true to broken bonds.”</p> + +<p>“They are not broken. They will hold me to +my dying hour.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, to a madman and a murderer.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.<br> +<span class="fs70">NOT PROVEN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Mildred</span> stood speechless for some moments after +those words of Castellani’s, looking at him with +kindling eyes.</p> + +<p>“How dare you?” she cried at last. “How dare +you accuse my husband—the noblest of men?”</p> + +<p>“The noblest of men do strange things sometimes +upon an evil impulse, and when they are not +quite right here,” touching his forehead.</p> + +<p>“My husband, George Greswold, is too high a +mark for your malignity. Do you think you can +make me believe evil of him after fourteen years of +married life? His intellect is the clearest and the +soundest I have ever found in man or woman. You +can no more shake my faith in his power of brain +than in his goodness of heart.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps not. The George Greswold you know +is a gentleman of commanding intellect and unblemished<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> +character. But the George Ransome whom I +knew seventeen years ago was a gentleman who was +shrewdly suspected of having made away with his +wife; and who was confined in a public asylum in +the environs of Nice as a dangerous lunatic. If you +doubt these facts, you have only to go to Nice, or to +St. Jean, where Mr. Ransome and his wife lived for +some time in a turtle-dove retirement, which ended +tragically. Seventeen years does not obliterate the +evidence of such a tragedy as that in which your +husband was chief actor.”</p> + +<p>“I do not believe one word—and I hope I may +never hear your voice again,” said Mildred, with her +hand on the electric bell.</p> + +<p>She did not remove her hand till her servant, the +courier, opened the door. A look told him his +duty. Castellani took up his hat without a word; +and Albrecht deferentially attended him to the landing, +and politely whistled for the lift to convey him +to the vestibule below.</p> + +<p>Castellani made the descent, feeling like Lucifer +when he fell from heaven.</p> + +<p>“Too soon!” he muttered to himself. “She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> +took the cards out of my hands—she forced my play, +and spoiled my game. But I have given her something +to think about. She will not forget to-day’s +interview in a hurry.”</p> + +<p>Albrecht, the handiest of men, was standing +beside him, working the lift.</p> + +<p>“Where is your next move to be, Albrecht?” he +asked in German.</p> + +<p>The noble-born lady had not yet decided, Albrecht +told him; but he thought the move would be either +to Venice or to Posilippo.</p> + +<p>“If I pretended to be a prophet, Albrecht, I +should tell thee that the honourable lady will go to +neither Venice nor Posilippo; but that thy next +move will be to the Riviera, perhaps to Nice.”</p> + +<p>Albrecht shrugged his shoulders in polite indifference.</p> + +<p>“Look here, my friend, come thou to me when +madame gives the order for Nice, and I will give +thee a louis for assuring me that I prophesied right,” +said Castellani, as he stepped out of the lift.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mildred walked up and down the room, trying to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> +control the confusion of her thoughts, trying to +reason calmly upon that hideous accusation which +she had affected to despise, but which yet had struck +terror to her soul. Would he dare to bring such a +charge—villain and traitor as he was—if there were +not some ground for the accusation, some glimmer +of truth amidst a cloud of falsehood?</p> + +<p>And her husband’s manner: his refusal to tell +her the history of his first marriage; his reticence, +his secrecy—reticence so out of harmony with his +boldly truthful nature; the gloom upon his face +when she forced him to speak of that past life: all +these things came back upon her with appalling +force, and even trifles assumed a direful significance.</p> + +<p>“O, my beloved! <em>what</em> was that dark story, and +why did you leave me to hear it from such false lips +as those?”</p> + +<p>And then with passionate tears she thought how +easy it would have been to forgive and pity even a +tale of guilt—unpremeditated guilt, doubtless, fatality +rather than crime—if her husband had laid his +weary head upon her breast and told her all; holding +back nothing; confident in the strength of a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> +love to understand and to pardon. How much +easier would it have been to bear the burden of a +guilty secret, so shared, in the supreme trustfulness +of her husband’s love! How light a burden compared +with this which was laid upon her! this horror +of groping backward into the black night of the past.</p> + +<p>“I must know the worst,” she said to herself; +“I will test that scoundrel’s accusation. I must +know all. I will take no step to injure my dear +love. I will seek no help, trust no friend. I must +act alone.”</p> + +<p>Then came a more agonising thought of the hapless +wife—the victim.</p> + +<p>“My sister! What was your fate? I <em>must</em> +know.”</p> + +<p>Her thoughts came back always to that point—“I +must know all.”</p> + +<p>She recalled the image of that unacknowledged +sister, the face bending over her bed when she started +up out of a feverish dream, frightened and in tears, +to take instant comfort from that loving presence, to +fling her arms round Fay’s neck, and nestle upon +her bosom. Never had that sisterly love failed her.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> +The quiet watcher was always near. A sigh, a +faint little murmur, and the volunteer nurse was at +her side. Often on waking she had found Fay sitting +by her bed, in the dead of the night, motionless +and watchful, sleepless from loving care.</p> + +<p>Her love for Fay had been one of the strongest +feelings of her life. She, who had been ever dutiful +to the frivolous, capricious mother, had yet unconsciously +given a stronger affection to the companion +who had loved her with an unselfish love, which the +mother had never shown. Her regard for Fay +had been the one romance of her childhood, and had +continued the strongest sentiment of her mind until +the hour when, for the first time, she knew the +deeper love of womanhood, and gave her heart to +George Greswold.</p> + +<p>And now these two supreme affections rose up +before her in dreadful conflict; and in the sister so +faithfully loved and so fondly regretted she saw the +victim of her still dearer husband.</p> + +<p>Pamela’s footsteps and Pamela’s voice in the +corridor startled her in the midst of those dark +thoughts. She hurriedly withdrew to her own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> +room, where the maid Louisa was sitting, intent +upon one of those infinitesimal repairs which served +as an excuse for her existence.</p> + +<p>“Go and tell Miss Ransome that I cannot dine +with her. My headache is worse than it was when +she went out. Ask her to excuse me.”</p> + +<p>Louisa obeyed, and Mildred locked the door upon +her grief. She sat all through the long evening +brooding over the past and the future, impatient to +know the worst.</p> + +<p>She was on her way to Genoa with Pamela and +their attendants before the following noon. Albrecht, +the courier, had scarcely time to claim the promised +coin from Mr. Castellani.</p> + +<p>Miss Ransome repined at this sudden departure.</p> + +<p>“Just as we were going to be engaged,” she +sobbed, when she and Mildred were alone in a railway +compartment. “It is really unkind of you to +whisk one off in such a way, aunt.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Pamela, you have had a lucky +escape; and I hope you will never mention Mr. +Castellani’s name again. He is an utterly bad +man.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span></p> + +<p>“How cruel to say such a thing!—behind his +back, too! What has he done that is bad, I should +like to know?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot enter into details; but I can tell you +one thing, Pamela: he has never had any idea of +asking you to be his wife. He told me that in the +plainest language.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say that you questioned him +about his feelings—for me?”</p> + +<p>“I did what I felt was my duty, Pamela—my +duty to you and to your uncle.”</p> + +<p>“Duty!” ejaculated Pamela, with such an air +that Box began to growl, imagining his mistress in +want of protection. “Duty! It is the most hateful +word in the whole of the English language. You +asked him when he was going to propose to me—you +lowered and humiliated me beyond all that words +can say—you—you spoilt everything.”</p> + +<p>“Pamela, is this reasonable or just?”</p> + +<p>“To be asked when he was going to propose to +a girl—with his artistic temperament—the very +thing to disgust him,” said Pamela, in a series of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> +gasps. “If you had <span class="allsmcap">WANTED</span> to part us for ever you +could not have gone to work better.”</p> + +<p>“Whatever I wanted yesterday, I am quite clear +about my feelings to-day, Pamela. It is my earnest +hope that you and Mr. Castellani will never meet +again.”</p> + +<p>“You are very cruel, then—heartless—inhuman. +Because <em>you</em> have done with love—because you have +left my poor Uncle George—Heaven alone knows why—is +no one else to be happy?”</p> + +<p>“You could not be happy with César Castellani, +Pamela. Happiness does not lie that way. I tell +you again, he is a bad man.”</p> + +<p>“And I tell you again I don’t believe you. In +what way is he bad? Does he rob, murder, forge, +set fire to people’s houses? What has he done +that is bad?”</p> + +<p>“He has traduced your uncle—to me, his wife.”</p> + +<p>Pamela’s countenance fell.</p> + +<p>“You—you may have misunderstood him,” she +faltered.</p> + +<p>“No, there was no possibility of mistake. He +slandered my husband. He let me see in the plainest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> +way that he had no real regard for you, that he +did not care how far his frequent visits compromised +either you or me. He is utterly base, Pamela—a +man without rectitude or conscience. He would +have clung to us like some poisonous burr if I had +not shaken him off. My dear, dear child,” said +Mildred, putting her arm round Pamela’s reluctant +waist, and drawing the girlish figure nearer to her +side, to the relief of Box, who leaped upon their +shoulders and licked their faces in a rapture of +sympathetic feeling; “my dear, you have been +treated very badly, but I am not to blame. You +have had a lucky escape, Pamela. Why be angry +about it?”</p> + +<p>“It is all very well to talk like that,” sighed the +girl, wrinkling her white forehead in painful perplexity. +“He was my day-dream. One cannot +renounce one’s day-dream at a moment’s warning. +If you knew the castles I have built—a life spent +with him—a life devoted to the cultivation of art! +He would have <em>made</em> my voice; and we could +have had a flat in Queen Anne’s Mansions, and +a brougham and victoria, and lived within our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span> +income,” concluded Pamela, following her own train +of thought.</p> + +<p>“My dearest, there are so many worthier to +share your life. You will have new day-dreams.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps when I am sixty. It will take me a +lifetime to forget him. Do you think I could marry +a country bumpkin, or any one who was not artistic?”</p> + +<p>“You shall not be asked to marry a rustic. The +artistic temperament is common enough nowadays. +Almost every one is artistic.”</p> + +<p>Pamela shrugged her shoulders petulantly, and +turned to the window in token that she had said her +say. She grieved like a child who has been disappointed +of some jaunt looked forward to for long +days of expectation. She tried to think herself ill-used +by her uncle’s wife; and yet that common +sense of which she possessed a considerable share +told her that she had only herself to blame. She +had chosen to fall in love with a showy, versatile +adventurer, without waiting for evidence that he +cared for her. Proud in the strength of her position +as an independent young woman with a handsome +fortune and a fairly attractive person, she had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> +imagined that Mr. Castellani could look no higher, +hope for nothing better than to obtain her hand and +heart. She had ascribed his reticence to delicacy. +She had accepted his frequent visits as an evidence +of his attachment and of his ulterior views.</p> + +<p>And now she sat in a sulky attitude, coiled up +in a corner of the carriage, with her face to the +window, meditating upon her fool’s paradise. For +seven happy weeks she had seen the man she admired +almost daily; and her own intense sympathy with +him had made her imagine an equal sympathy on +his part. When their hands touched the thrilling +vibration seemed mutual; and yet it had been on +her side only, poor fool, she told herself now, abased +in her own self-consciousness, drinking the cup of +humiliation to the dregs.</p> + +<p>He had slandered her uncle—yes, that was +villany, that was iniquity. She began to think that +he was utterly black. She remembered how coldly +cruel he had been about the anemone hunt yesterday; +how deaf to her girlish hints; never offering his +company: colder, crueller than marble. She felt as +if she had squandered her love upon Satan. Yet she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> +was not the less angry with Mildred. That kind of +interference was unpardonable.</p> + +<p>She arrived at Genoa worn out with a fatiguing +journey, and in a worse temper than she had ever +sustained for so long a period, she whose worst +tempers hitherto had been like April showers. +Mildred had reciprocated her silence, and Box had +been the only animated passenger.</p> + +<p>The clever courier had made all his arrangements +by telegraph: they spent a night at Genoa; drove +round the city next morning; explored churches, +palaces, and picture-galleries; and went on to Nice in +the afternoon. They arrived at the great bustling +station late in the evening, and were driven to one +of the hotels on the Promenade des Anglais, where +all preparations had been made for their reception: +a glowing hearth in a spacious drawing-room opening +on to a balcony, lamps and candles lighted, +roses on all the tables, maid and man on the alert to +receive travellers of distinction. So far as a place +which is not home can put on an aspect of homeliness +the hotel had succeeded; but Mildred looked +round upon the white and gold walls, and the satin<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> +fauteuils, with an aching heart, remembering those +old rooms at Enderby, and the familiar presence +that had first made them dear to her, before the +habit of years had made those inanimate things a +part of her life.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>She was at Nice; she had taken the slanderer’s +advice, and had gone to the city by the sea, to try +and trace out for herself the mystery of the past, +to violate her husband’s secret, kept so long and so +closely, only to rise up after years of happiness, like +a murdered corpse exhumed from a forgotten grave.</p> + +<p>She was here, on the scene of her husband’s +first marriage, and for three or four days she walked +and drove about the strange busy place aimlessly, +hopelessly, no nearer the knowledge of that dark +history than she had been at Enderby Manor. Not +for worlds would she injure the man she loved. +She wanted to know all; but the knowledge must +be obtained in such a way as could not harm him. +This necessitated diplomacy, which was foreign to +her nature, and patience, in which womanly quality +she excelled. She had learnt patience in her tender<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> +ministrations to a fretful invalid, during those sad +slow years in which pretty Mrs. Fausset had faded +into the grave. Yes, she had learnt to be patient, +and to submit to sorrow. She knew how to wait.</p> + +<p>The place, delightful as it was in the early +spring weather, possessed no charms for her. Its +gaiety and movement jarred upon her. The sunsets +were as lovely here as at Pallanza, and +her only pleasure was to watch that ever-varying +splendour of declining day behind the long dark +promontory of Antibes; or to see the morning dawn +in a flush of colour above the white lighthouse +yonder at the point of the peninsula of St. Jean. +It was in the village of St. Jean that George Greswold +had lived with his first wife—with Fay. The bright +face, pale, yet brilliant, a face in which light took +the place of colour; the eager eyes; the small sharp +features and thin sarcastic lips, rose up before her +with the thought of that union. He must have +loved her. She was so bright, so interesting, so +full of vivid fancies and changeful emotions. To +this hour Mildred remembered her fascination, her +power over a child’s heart.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span></p> + +<p>Pamela was dull and out of spirits. Not all the +Tauchnitz novels in Galignani’s shop could interest +her. She pronounced Nice distinctly inferior to +Brighton; declined even the distraction of the opera.</p> + +<p>“Music would only make me miserable,” she +exclaimed petulantly. “I wish I might never hear +any again. That hateful band in the gardens tortures +me every morning.”</p> + +<p>This was not hopeful. Mildred was sorry for +her, but too deeply absorbed by her own griefs to be +altogether sympathetic.</p> + +<p>“She will find some one else to admire before +long,” she thought somewhat bitterly. “Girls who +fall in love so easily are easily consoled.”</p> + +<p>She had been at Nice more than a week, and had +made no effort—yearning to know more—to know all—yet +dreading every new revelation. She had to +goad herself to action, to struggle against the weight +of a great fear—the fear that she might find the +slanderer’s accusations confirmed instead of being +refuted.</p> + +<p>Her first step was a very simple one, easy +enough from a social point of view. Among old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> +Lady Castle-Connell’s intimate friends had been a +certain Irish chieftain called The O’Labacolly. The +O’Labacolly’s daughter had been one of the +reigning beauties of Dublin Castle, had appeared +for three seasons in London with considerable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">éclat</i>, +and in due course had married a Scotch peer, who +was lord of an extensive territory in the Highlands, +strictly entailed, and of a more profitable estate in +the neighbourhood of Glasgow at his own disposal. +Lord Lochinvar had been laid at rest in the sepulchre +of his forebears, and Lady Lochinvar was a +rich widow, still handsome, and still young enough +to enjoy all the pleasures of society. She had no +children of her own, but she had a favourite nephew, +whom she had adopted, and who acted as her escort +in her travels, which were extensive, and as her +steward in the management of the Glasgow property, +which had been settled upon her at her marriage. +The Highland territory had gone with the title +to a distant cousin of Lady Lochinvar’s husband.</p> + +<p>Mildred remembered that Castellani had spoken +of meeting Mr. Ransome and his wife at Lady +Lochinvar’s palace at Nice. Her first step, therefore,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span> +was to make herself known to Lady Lochinvar, +who had wintered in this fair white city ever since +she came there as a young widow twenty years ago, +and had bought for herself a fantastic villa, built +early in the century by an Italian prince, on the +crest of a hill commanding the harbour.</p> + +<p>With this view she wrote to Lady Lochinvar, +recalling the old friendship between The O’Labacolly +and Lady Castle-Connell, and introducing herself +on the strength of that friendship. Lady +Lochinvar responded with Hibernian warmth. She +called at the Hôtel Westminster that afternoon, and +not finding Mrs. Greswold at home, left a note +inviting her to lunch at the Palais Montano next +day.</p> + +<p>Mildred promptly accepted the invitation. She +was anxious to be alone with Lady Lochinvar, and +there seemed a better chance of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à tête</i> at the +lady’s house than at the hotel, where it would have +been difficult to exclude Pamela. She drove to that +fair hill on the eastward side of the city, turning +her back upon the quaint old Italian town, with its +narrow streets of tall white houses with red roofs,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span> +and its Cathedral dome embedded in the midst, the +red and yellow tiles glistening in the sunlight. The +two small horses toiled slowly up the height with +the great lumbering landau, carrying Mildred nearer +and nearer to the bright blue sky and the snow-line +glittering on the edge of the distant hills. They +went past villas and flower-gardens, hedges of yellow +roses and hedges of coral-hued geranium, cactus +and agave, palms and orange-trees, shining majolica +tubs and white marble balustrades, statues and +fountains, oriel windows and Italian cupolas, turrets +and towers of every order; while the sapphire sea +dropped lower and lower beneath the chalky winding +road, as the jutting promontory that shelters +Villefranche from the east came nearer and nearer +above the blue.</p> + +<p>The Italian prince who built the Palais Montano +had aspired after Oriental rather than classic beauty. +His house was long and low, with two ranges of +Moorish windows, and a dome at each end. There +was an open loggia on the first floor, with a balustrade +of white and coloured marble; there was a +gallery above the spacious tesselated hall, screened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span> +by carved sandal-wood lattices, behind which the +beauties of a harem might be supposed to watch the +entrances and exits below. The house was fantastic, +but fascinating. The garden was the growth +of more than half a century, and was supremely +beautiful.</p> + +<p>Lady Lochinvar received the stranger with a +cordiality which would have set Mildred thoroughly +at her ease under happier circumstances. As it +was, she was too completely engrossed by the object +of her visit to feel any of that shyness which a person +of retiring disposition might experience on such +an occasion. She was grave and preoccupied, and +it was with an effort that she responded to Lady +Lochinvar’s allusions to the past.</p> + +<p>“Your mother and I were girls together,” said +the Dowager, “at dear old Castle-Connell. My +father’s place was within a drive of the Castle, but +away from the river, and one of my first pleasant +memories is of your grandfather’s gardens and the +broad, bright Shannon. What a river! When I +look at our stony torrent-beds here, and remember +that glorious Shannon!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p> + +<p>“Yet you like Nice better than county Limerick?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I do, my dear Mrs. Greswold. Ireland +is a delicious country—to remember. I saw a +good deal of your mother in London before his lordship’s +death, but after I became a widow, I went +very little into English society. I had found English +people so narrow-minded. I only endured +them for Lochinvar’s sake; and after his death I +became a rover. I have an apartment in the +Champs Elysées and a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pied-à-terre</i> in Rome; and +now and then, when I want to drink a draught of +commonplace, when I want to know what the hard-headed, +practical British intellect is making of the +world in general, I give myself a fortnight at Claridge’s. +A fortnight is always enough. So, you +see, I have had no opportunity of looking up old +friends.”</p> + +<p>“I never remember seeing you in Upper Parchment +Street,” said Mildred.</p> + +<p>“My dear, you were a baby at the time I knew +your mother. I think you were just able to toddle +across the drawing-room the day I bade her good-bye,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> +before I went to Scotland with Lochinvar—our +last journey, poor dear man. He died the following +winter.”</p> + +<p>The butler announced luncheon, and they went into +an ideal dining-room, purely Oriental, with hangings +of a dull pale pink damask interwoven with lustreless +gold, its only ornaments old Rhodes salvers +shining with prismatic hues, its furniture of cedar +inlaid with ivory.</p> + +<p>“I am quite alone to-day,” said Lady Lochinvar. +“My nephew is driving to Monte Carlo by the +Cornice, and will not be back till dinner-time.”</p> + +<p>“I am very glad to be alone with you, Lady +Lochinvar. I feel myself bound to tell you that I +had an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">arrière-pensée</i> in seeking your acquaintance, +pleasant as it is to me to meet any friend of my +mother’s youth.”</p> + +<p>Lady Lochinvar looked surprised, and even a +little suspicious. She began to fear some uncomfortable +story. This sad-looking woman—such a +beautiful face, but with such unmistakable signs of +unhappiness. A runaway wife, perhaps; a poor +creature who had fallen into disgrace, and who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> +wanted Lady Lochinvar’s help to regain her position, +or face her calumniators. Some awkward business, +no doubt. Lady Lochinvar was generous to a fault, +but she liked showing kindness to happy people, she +wanted smiling faces and serenity about her. She +had never known any troubles of her own, worse +than losing the husband whom she had married for +his wealth and position, and saw no reason why she +should be plagued with the troubles of other people. +Her handsome countenance hardened ever so little +as she answered,</p> + +<p>“If there is any small matter in which I can be +of service to you—” she began.</p> + +<p>“It is not a small matter; it is a great matter—to—to +a friend of mine,” interrupted Mildred, +faltering a little in her first attempt at dissimulation.</p> + +<p>Lady Lochinvar breathed more freely.</p> + +<p>“I shall be charmed to help your friend if I +can.”</p> + +<p>The butler came in and out, assisted by another +servant, as the conversation went on; but as his +mistress spoke to him and to his subordinate only +in Italian, Mildred concluded they understood very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span> +little English, and did not concern herself about +their presence.</p> + +<p>“I want you to help me with your recollection +of the past, Lady Lochinvar. You were at Nice +seventeen years ago, I believe?”</p> + +<p>“Between November and April, yes. I have +spent those months here for the last twenty +years.”</p> + +<p>“You remember a Mr. Ransome and his wife, +seventeen years ago?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I remember them distinctly. I cannot +help remembering them.”</p> + +<p>“Have you ever met Mr. Ransome since that +time?”</p> + +<p>“Never.”</p> + +<p>“And you have not heard anything about him?”</p> + +<p>“No, I have never heard of him since he left +the asylum on the road to St. André. Good +heavens, Mrs. Greswold, how white you have turned! +Pietro, some brandy this moment—”</p> + +<p>“No, no! I am quite well—only a little +shocked, that is all. I had heard that Mr. Ransome +was out of his mind at one time, but I did not believe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> +my informant. It is really true, then? He +was once mad?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he was mad; unless it was all a sham, a +clever assumption.”</p> + +<p>“Why should he have assumed madness?”</p> + +<p>Lady Lochinvar shrugged her portly shoulders, +and lifted her finely-arched eyebrows with a little +foreign air which had grown upon her in foreign +society.</p> + +<p>“To escape from a very awkward dilemma. He +was arrested on suspicion of having killed his wife. +The evidence against him was weak, but the circumstances +of the poor thing’s death were very +suspicious.”</p> + +<p>“How did she die?”</p> + +<p>“She threw herself—or she was thrown—from a +cliff on the other side of the promontory which you +may see from that window.”</p> + +<p>Mildred was silent for some moments, while her +breath came and went in hurried gasps.</p> + +<p>“Might she not have fallen accidentally?” she +faltered.</p> + +<p>“That would have been hardly possible. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span> +a place where she had been in the habit of walking +for weeks—a path which anybody might walk +upon in the daylight without the slightest danger. +And the calamity happened in broad day. She could +not have fallen accidentally. Either she threw herself +over, or he pushed her over in a moment of ungovernable +anger. She was a very provoking woman, +and had a tongue which might goad a man to fury. +I saw a good deal of her the winter before her death. +She was remarkably clever, and she amused me. +I had a kind of liking for her, and I used to let her +tell me her troubles.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of troubles?”</p> + +<p>“O, they all began and ended in one subject. +She was jealous, intolerably jealous, of her husband; +suspected him of inconstancy to herself if he was +commonly civil to a handsome woman. She watched +him like a lynx, and did her utmost to make his life +a burden to him, yet loved him passionately all the +time in her vehement, wrong-headed manner.”</p> + +<p>“Poor girl! poor girl!” murmured Mildred, +with a stifled sob, and then she asked with intense +earnestness, “but, Lady Lochinvar, you who knew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> +George Ransome, surely <em>you</em> never suspected him +of murder?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Mrs. Greswold. I believe he +was a gentleman, and a man of an open, generous +nature; but, upon my word, I should be sorry to +pledge myself to a positive belief in his innocence as +to his wife’s death. Who can tell what a man might +do, harassed and tormented as that man may have +been by that woman’s tongue? I know what pestilential +things she could say—what scorpions and +adders dropped out of her mouth when she was in +her jealous fits—and she may have gone just one +step too far—walking by his side upon that narrow +path—and he may have turned upon her, exasperated +to madness, and—one push—and the thing was +done. The edge of a cliff must be an awful temptation +under such circumstances,” added Lady Lochinvar +solemnly. “I am sure I would not answer for +myself in such a situation.”</p> + +<p>“I will answer for <em>him</em>,” said Mildred firmly.</p> + +<p>“You know him, then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p> + +<p>“Where is he? What is he doing? Has he +prospered in life?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and no. He was a happy man—or seemed +to be happy—for thirteen years of married life; and +then God’s hand was stretched out to afflict him, +and his only child was snatched away.”</p> + +<p>“He married again, then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he married a second wife fourteen years +ago. Forgive me, Lady Lochinvar, for having suppressed +the truth till now. I wanted you to answer +me more freely than you might have done had you +known all. George Ransome is my husband; he +assumed the name of Greswold when he succeeded +to his mother’s property.”</p> + +<p>“Then Mr. Greswold, your husband, is my old +acquaintance. Is he with you here?”</p> + +<p>“No. I have left him—perhaps for ever.”</p> + +<p>“On account of that past story?”</p> + +<p>“No, for another reason, which is my sad secret, +and his—a family secret. It involves no blame to +him or me. It is a dismal fatality which parts us. +You cannot suppose, Lady Lochinvar, that <em>I</em> could +think my husband a murderer?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span></p> + +<p>“A murderer? No! I do not believe any one ever +thought him guilty of deliberate murder—but that +he lost his temper with that unhappy girl, spurned +her from him, flung her over the edge of the cliff—”</p> + +<p>“O, no, no, no! it is not possible! I know him +too well. He is not capable of a brutal act even +under the utmost exasperation. No irritation, no +sense of injury, could bring about such a change in +his nature. Think, Lady Lochinvar. I have been +his wife for fourteen years. I must know what his +character is like.”</p> + +<p>“You know what he is in happy circumstances, +with an attached and confiding wife. You cannot +imagine him goaded to madness by an unreasonable, +hot-headed woman. You remember he was mad +for half a year after his wife’s death. There +must have been some sufficient reason for his madness.”</p> + +<p>“His wife’s wretched death, and the fact that he +was accused of having murdered her, were enough +to make him mad.”</p> + +<p>And then Mildred remembered how she had tortured +her husband by her persistent questions about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span> +that terrible past; how, in her jealousy of an unknown +rival, she, too, had goaded him almost as that +first wife had goaded him. She recalled the look of +pain, the mute protest against her cruelty, and she +hated herself for the selfishness of her love.</p> + +<p>Lady Lochinvar was kind and sympathetic. She +was not angry at the trap that had been set for her.</p> + +<p>“I can understand,” she said. “You wanted to +know the worst, and you felt that I should be reticent +if I knew you were Mr. Ransome’s wife. Well, I +have said all the evil I can say about him. Remember +I know nothing except what other people thought +and suspected. There was an inquiry about the +poor thing’s death before the Juge d’Instruction at +Villefranche, and Mr. Ransome was kept in prison +between the first and second inquiry, and then it +was discovered that the poor fellow had gone off his +head, and he was taken to the asylum. He had no +relations in the neighbourhood, nobody interested in +looking after him. His acquaintances in Nice knew +very little about him or his wife, even when they +were living at an hotel on the Promenade des Anglais +and going into society. After they left Nice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> +they lived in seclusion at St. Jean, and avoided all +their acquaintance. Mrs. Ransome’s health was a +reason for retirement; but it may not have been the +only reason. There was no one, therefore, to look +after the poor man in his misfortunes. He was just +hustled away to the madhouse—the inquiry fell +through for want of evidence—and for six months +George Ransome was buried alive. I was in Paris +at the time, and only heard the story when I came +back to Nice in the following November. Nobody +could tell me what had become of Mr. Ransome, and +it was only by accident that I heard of his confinement +in the asylum some time after he had been +released as a sane man.”</p> + +<p>“Did his wife ever talk to you of her own history?”</p> + +<p>“Never. She was very fond of talking to me +about her husband’s supposed inconstancy and the +mistake she had made in marrying a man who had +never cared for her; but about her own people and +her own antecedents she was silent as the grave. In +a place like Nice, where everybody is idle, there is +sure to be a good deal of gossip, and we all had our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span> +own ideas about Mrs. Ransome. We put her down +as the natural daughter of some person of importance, +or, at any rate, of good means. She had her +own fortune, and was entirely independent of her +husband, who was not a rich man at that time.”</p> + +<p>“No, it was his mother’s death that made him +rich. But you did not think he had married for +money?”</p> + +<p>“No; our theory was that he had been worried +into marrying her. We thought the lady had thrown +herself at his head, and that all her unhappiness +sprang from her knowledge that she had in a measure +forced him to marry her.”</p> + +<p>“Do you remember the name of the house at St. +Jean where they lived when they left Nice?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I called there once, but as Mrs. Ransome +never returned my call, I concluded that they wished +to drop their Nice acquaintance, and I heard afterwards +that they were living like hermits in a cave. +The house is a low white villa, spread out along the +edge of a grassy ridge, with a broad stone terrace on +one side and a garden and orchard on the other. It +is called Le Bout du Monde.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p> + +<p>“I am very grateful to you, Lady Lochinvar, for +having been frank with me. I will go and look at +the house where they lived. I may find some one, +perhaps, who knew them.”</p> + +<p>“You want to make further inquiries?”</p> + +<p>“I want to find some one who is as convinced of +my husband’s guiltlessness as I am.”</p> + +<p>“That will be difficult. There was very little +evidence for or against him. The husband and wife +went out to walk together one April afternoon. They +left the house in peace and amity, as it seemed to +their servants; but some ladies who met and talked +to them an hour afterwards thought by Mrs. Ransome’s +manner that she was on bad terms with her +husband. When she was next seen she was lying +at the foot of a cliff, dead. That is all that is known +of the tragedy. You could hardly hang a man or +acquit him upon such evidence. It is a case of not +proven.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br> +<span class="fs70">LOOKING BACK.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Lady Lochinvar</span> offered to drive Mrs. Greswold +to St. Jean that afternoon. Her villa was half-way +between Nice and Villefranche, and half-an-hour’s +drive would have taken them to the Bout du Monde; +but Mildred preferred to make her explorations +alone. There was too much heart-ache in such an +investigation to admit of sympathy or companionship.</p> + +<p>“You are all goodness to me, dear Lady Lochinvar,” +she said, “and I may come to you again for +help before I have done; but I would rather visit the +scene of my husband’s tragedy alone—quite alone. +You cannot tell how sad the story is to me, even +apart from my love for him. I may be able to confide +in you more fully some day, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>Lady Lochinvar kissed her at parting. She did +not care for commonplace troubles; she could not +sympathise with stupid family quarrels or shortness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> +of money, or any of the vulgar trivialities about +which people worry their friends; but a romantic +sorrow, a tragedy with a touch of mystery in it, was +full of interest for her. And then, Mildred was a +graceful sufferer, not hysterical or tiresome in any +way.</p> + +<p>“I will do anything in the world that I can for +you,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Will you let me bring my husband’s niece +to see you?” asked Mildred. “She has a dull +time with me, poor girl, and I think you would like +her.”</p> + +<p>“She shall come to me this evening, if she has +nothing better to do,” said Lady Lochinvar. “I +am fond of young people, and will do my best +to amuse her. I will send my carriage for her +at half-past seven.”</p> + +<p>“That is more than kind. I shall be glad for +the poor girl to get a glimpse of something brighter +than our perpetual <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>. But there is one +thing I ought to speak about before you see her. I +think you know something of an Italian called +Castellani, a man who is both musical and literary.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I have heard of Mr. Castellani’s growing +fame. He is the author of that delightful story +<em>Nepenthe</em>, is he not? I knew him years ago—it was +in the same winter we have been talking about. He +used to come to my parties. Do you know him?”</p> + +<p>“He has been a visitor at Enderby—my husband’s +house—and I have seen something of him +in Italy of late. I am sorry to say he has made +a very strong impression upon my niece’s heart—or +upon her imagination—but as I know him to be a +worthless person, I am deeply anxious that her +liking for him should—”</p> + +<p>“Die a natural death. I understand,” interrupted +Lady Lochinvar. “You may be sure I will +not encourage the young lady to talk about Mr. +Castellani.”</p> + +<p>Mildred explained her responsibility with regard +to Pamela and the young lady’s position, with its +substantial attraction for the adventurer in search of +a wife. She had deemed it her duty to confide thus +much in Lady Lochinvar, lest Castellani should +change his tactics, and pursue Pamela with addresses +which might be only too readily accepted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span></p> + +<p>She left the Palais Montano at two o’clock, and +drove round the bay to St. Jean, where the rose-hedges +were in flower, and where the gardens +were bright with bloom under a sky which suggested +an English June.</p> + +<p>She left the fly at the little inn where the holiday +people go to eat bouillabaisse on Sundays and +fête-days, but which was silent and solitary to-day, +and then walked slowly along the winding road, +looking for the Bout du Monde. The place was +prettier and more rustic, after an almost English +fashion, than any spot she had seen since she left +Enderby. Villas and cottages were scattered in a +desultory way upon different levels, under the shelter +of precipitous cliffs, and on every bit of rising +ground and in every hollow there were orange and +lemon groves, with here and there a peach or +a cherry in full bloom, and here and there a vivid +patch of flowers, and here and there a wall covered +with the glowing purple of the Bougainvilliers. +Great carouba-trees rose tall and dark amidst all this +brightness, and through every opening in the foliage +the changeful colour of the Mediterranean shone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> +in the distance, like the jasper sea of the Apocalypse.</p> + +<p>Mildred went slowly along the dusty road, +looking at all the villas, lingering here and there at +a garden gate, and asking any intelligent-looking +person who passed to direct her to the Bout du +Monde. It was not till she had made the inquiry +half-a-dozen times that she obtained any information; +but at last she met with a bright-faced market-woman, +tramping home with empty baskets after a +long morning at Nice, and white with the dust of +the hillside.</p> + +<p>“Le Bout du Monde? But that was the villa +where the poor young English lady lived whose +husband threw her over the cliff,” said the woman +cheerily. “The proprietor changed the name of the +house next season, for fear people should fancy it +was haunted if the story got about. It is called +Montfleuri now.”</p> + +<p>“Is there any one living there?” Mildred asked.</p> + +<p>No, it was let last year to an English family. +O, but an amiable family, rich, ah, but <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">richissime</i>, +who had bought flowers in heaps of the speaker.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span> +But they had left, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">malheureusement</i>. They had +returned to their property near London, a great +and stupendous property in a district which the +flower-woman described as le Crommu-elle Rodd. +There had never been such a family in St. Jean—five +English servants, three English mees who +mounted on horseback daily: a benefaction for the +whole village. Now, alas! there was no one living +at Montfleuri but an old woman in charge.</p> + +<p>“Could you take me to the house?” asked +Mildred, opening her purse.</p> + +<p>The woman would have been all politeness and +good-nature without the stimulant offered by that +open purse. She had all the southern kindliness +and alacrity to oblige, but when the lady dropped +half-a-dozen francs into her broad brown hand she +almost sank to the earth in a rapture of gratitude.</p> + +<p>“Madame shall see the house from garret to +cellar if she wishes,” she exclaimed. “I know the old +woman in charge. She is as deaf as one of those +stones yonder,” pointing to a block of blue-gray +stone lying amidst the long rank grass upon the +shelving ground between the road and the sea; “but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> +if madame will permit <em>I</em> will show her the house. +Madame is perhaps interested in the story of that +poor lady who was murdered.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you say that she was murdered?” +asked Mildred indignantly. “You cannot know.”</p> + +<p>The woman shrugged her shoulders with a +dubious air.</p> + +<p>“<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mais</i>, madame. Nobody but the good God can +know: but most of us thought that the Englishman +pushed his wife over the cliff. They did not live +happily together. Their cook was a cousin of mine, +a young woman who went regularly to confession, +and would not have spoken falsely for all the world, +and she told me there was great unhappiness between +them. The wife was often in tears; the husband +was often angry.”</p> + +<p>“But he was never unkind. Your cousin must +know that he was never unkind.”</p> + +<p>“Alas! my cousin lies in the same burial-ground +yonder with the poor lady,” answered the woman, +pointing to the white crest of the hill above Villefranche, +where the soldiers were being drilled in the +dusty barrack-yard under the cloudless blue. “She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span> +is no more here to tell the story. But no, she did +not say the husband was unkind; he was grave and +sad; he was not happy. Tears, tears and reproaches, +sad words from her, day after day; and from him +silence and gloom. Poor people like us, who work +for our bread, have no leisure for that kind of unhappiness. +‘I would rather stand over my <em>casseroles</em> +than sit in a <em>salon</em> and cry,’ said my cousin.”</p> + +<p>“It is cruel to say he caused her death, when +you know he was never unkind to her,” said Mildred, +as they walked side by side; “a patient, forbearing +husband does not become a murderer all at once.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but continual dropping will wear a stone, +madame. She may have tried him too much with +her tears. He went out of his mind after her death. +Would he have gone mad, do you think, if he had +not been guilty?”</p> + +<p>“He was all the more likely to go mad, knowing +himself innocent, and finding himself accused of a +dreadful crime.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I cannot tell; I know most of us thought +he had pushed her over the cliff. I know the young +man who was their gardener said if he had had a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span> +wife with that kind of temper he would have thrown +her down the well in his garden.”</p> + +<p>They were at the Villa Montfleuri by this time, +a long, low white house, with a stone terrace overlooking +the harbour of Villefranche. The woman +opened the gate, and Mildred followed her into the +garden and to the terrace upon which the principal +rooms opened. There was a latticed verandah in +front of the <em>salon</em> and dining-room, over which roses +and geraniums were trained, and above which the +purple Bougainvilliers spread its vivid bloom. The +orange-trees grew thick in the orchard, and in their +midst stood the stone well down which the gardener +said he would have thrown a discontented wife.</p> + +<p>The caretaker was not in the house, but all the +doors were open. Mildred went from room to room. +The furniture was the same as it had been seventeen +years ago, the woman told Mildred—furniture of the +period of the First Empire, shabby, and with the air +of a house that is let to strangers year after year, +and in which nobody takes any interest. The clocks +on the mantelpieces were all silent, the vases were +all empty: everything had a dead look. Only the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> +view from the windows was beautiful with an inexhaustible +beauty.</p> + +<p>Mildred lingered in the faded <em>salon</em>, looking at +everything with a melancholy interest. Those two +familiar figures were with her in the room. She pictured +them sitting there together, yet so far apart in the +bitter lack of sympathy—a wife, tormented by jealous +suspicions, no less agonising because they were +groundless; a husband, long-suffering, weary, with +his little stock of marital love worn out under slow +torture. She could see them as they might have +been in those bygone years. George Greswold’s +dark, strong face, younger than she had ever known +it; for when he first came to her father’s house +there had been threads of gray in his dark hair and +premature lines upon the brow which told of corroding +care. She could understand now how those +touches of gray had come in the thick wavy hair +that clustered close on the broad, strongly-marked +brow.</p> + +<p>Poor Fay! poor, loving, impulsive Fay!</p> + +<p>Child as she had been in those old days in Parchment +Street, Mildred had a vivid conception of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> +young companion’s character. She remembered the +quick temper, the sensitive self-esteem, which had +taken offence at the mere suggestion of slight; she +remembered dark hours of brooding melancholy when +the girl had felt the sting of her isolated position, +had fancied herself a creature apart, neglected and +scorned by Mrs. Fausset and her butterfly visitors. +For Mildred she had been always overflowing with +love, and she had never doubted the sincerity of Mildred’s +affection; but with all the rest of the household, +with every visitor who noticed her coldly, or +frankly ignored her, she was on the alert for insult +and offence. Remembering all this, Mildred could +fully realise Lady Lochinvar’s account of that +unhappy union. A woman so constituted would +be satisfied with nothing less than a passionate, all-absorbing +love from the man she loved.</p> + +<p>The rooms and the garden were haunted by those +mournful shades—two faces pale with pain. She, +too, had suffered those sharp stings of jealousy; +jealousy of a past love, jealousy of the dead; and she +knew how keener than all common anguish is that +agony of a woman’s heart which yearns for sovereign<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> +possession over past, present, and future in the life +of the man she loves.</p> + +<p>The market-woman sat out in the sunshine on +the terrace, and waited while Mildred roamed about +the garden, picturing that vanished life at every step. +There was the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">berceau</i>, the delight of a southern +garden, a long, green alley, arched with osiers, over +which the brown vine-branches made a network, open +to the sunlight and the blue sky now, while the vine +was still leafless, but in summer-time a place of +coolness and whispering leaves. There was the +fountain—or the place where a fountain had once +been, and a stone bench beside it. They had sat +there perhaps on sunny mornings, sat there and +talked of their future, full of hope. They could not +have been always unhappy. Fay must have had +her bright hours; and then, no doubt, she was dear +to him, full of a strange fascination, a creature of +quick wit and vivid imagination, light and fire embodied +in a fragile earthly tenement.</p> + +<p>The sun was nearing the dark edge of the promontory +when Mildred left the garden, the woman +accompanying her, waiting upon her footsteps,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> +sympathising with her pensive mood, with that instinctive +politeness of the southern, which is almost +as great a delight to the stranger from the hard, +cold, practical north, as the colour of the southern +sea, or the ever-varying beauty of the hills.</p> + +<p>“Will you show me the place where the English +lady fell over the cliff?” Mildred asked; and the +woman went with her along the winding road, and +then upward to a path along the crest of a cliff, a +cliff that seemed low on account of those bolder +heights which rose above it, and which screened this +eastward-fronting shore of the little peninsula from +all the world of the west. The carriage-road wound +southward up to the higher ground, but Mildred and +her guide followed a footpath which had been trodden +on the long rank grass beside the cliff. The rosemary +bushes were full of flower: pale, cold gray +blossoms, as befitted the herb of death, and a great +yellow weed made patches of vivid colour among the +blue-gray stones scattered in the long grass on the +slope of the hill.</p> + +<p>“It was somewhere along this pathway, madame,” +said the woman. “I cannot tell you the exact spot.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span> +Some fishermen from Beaulieu picked her up,” pointing +across the blue water of the bay to a semicircle +of yellow sand, with a few white houses scattered +along the curving road, and some boats lying keel +upward on the beach. “She never spoke again. +She was dead when they found her there.”</p> + +<p>“Did they see her fall?”</p> + +<p>“No, madame.”</p> + +<p>“And yet people have dared to call her husband +a murderer.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but, madame, it was the general opinion. +Was it not his guilty conscience that drove him mad? +He came here once only after he left the madhouse, +wandered about the village for an hour or two, went +up to the cemetery and looked once—but once only—at +the poor lady’s grave, and then drove away as +if devils were hunting him. Who can doubt that +it was his hand that sent her to her death?”</p> + +<p>“No one would believe it who knew him.”</p> + +<p>“Everybody at St. Jean believed it, even the +people who liked him best.”</p> + +<p>Mildred turned from her sick at heart. She +gave the woman some more money, and then with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span> +briefest adieu walked back to the inn where she had +left the carriage, and where the horse was dozing +with his nose in a bag of dried locust fruit, while +his driver sprawled half asleep upon the rough stone +parapet between the inn and the bay.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Pamela received her aunt graciously on her return +to the hotel, and seemed in better spirits than she +had been since she left Pallanza.</p> + +<p>“Your Lady Lochinvar has written me the +sweetest little note, asking me to dine with her and +go to the opera afterwards,” she said. “I feel sure +this must be your doing, aunt.”</p> + +<p>“No, dear. I only told her that I had a very +nice niece moping at the hotel, and very tired of my +dismal company.”</p> + +<p>“Tired of you? No, no, aunt. You know better +than that. I should no more grow tired of you than +I should of Box,” intending to make the most flattering +comparison; “only he had made himself a part +of our lives at Pallanza, don’t you know, and one +could not help missing him.” (The pronoun meant +Castellani, and not the dog.) “I am glad I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span> +going to the opera after all, even if it does remind +me of him; and it’s awfully kind of Lady Lochinvar +to send her carriage for me. I only waited to see +you before I began to dress.”</p> + +<p>“Go, dearest; and take care to look your +prettiest.”</p> + +<p>“And you won’t mind dining alone?”</p> + +<p>“I shall be delighted to know you are enjoying +yourself.”</p> + +<p>The prospect of an evening’s solitude was an +infinite relief to Mildred. She breathed more freely +when Pamela had gone dancing off to the lift, a fluffy, +feathery mass of whiteness, with hooded head and +rosy face peeping from a border of white fox. The +tall door of the <em>salon</em> closed upon her with a solemn +reverberation, and Mildred was alone with her own +thoughts, alone with the history of her husband’s +past life, now that she had unravelled the tangled +skein and knew all.</p> + +<p>She was face to face with the past, and how did +it seem in her eyes? Was there no doubt, no agonising +fear that the man she had loved as a husband +might have slain the girl she had loved as a sister?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> +All those people, those simple and disinterested +villagers, who had liked George Ransome well enough +for his own sake, had yet believed him guilty: they +who had been on the spot, and had had the best +opportunities for judging the case rightly.</p> + +<p>Could she doubt him, she who had seen honour +and fine feeling in every act of his life? She remembered +the dream—that terrible dream which +had occurred at intervals; sometimes once in a year; +sometimes oftener; that awe-inspiring dream which +had shaken the dreamer’s nerves as nothing but a +vision of horror could have shaken them, from which +he had awakened more dead than alive, completely +unnerved, cold drops upon his pallid brow, his hands +convulsed and icy, his eyes glassy as death itself. +The horror of that dream even to her, who beheld +its effect on the dreamer, was a horror not to be +forgotten.</p> + +<p>Was it the dream of a murderer, acting his crime +over again in that dim world of sleep, living over +again the moment of his temptation and his fall? +No, no! Another might so interpret the vision, +but not his wife.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p> + +<p>“I know him,” she repeated to herself passionately; +“I know him. I know his noble heart. He +is incapable of one cruel impulse. He could not +have done such a deed. There is no possible state +of feeling, no moment of frenzy, in which he would +have been false to his character and his manhood.”</p> + +<p>And then she asked herself if Fay had not been +her sister, if there had not been that insurmountable +bar to her union with George Greswold, would her +knowledge of his first wife’s fate, and the suspicion +that had darkened his name, have sufficed to part +them? Could she, knowing what she now knew, +knowing that he had been so suspected, knowing +that it was beyond his power ever to <em>prove</em> his guiltlessness—could +she have gone though the rest of her +life with him, honouring him and trusting him as +she had done in the years that were gone?</p> + +<p>She told herself that she could have so trusted +him; that she could have honoured and loved him +to the end, pitying him for those dark experiences, +but with faith unshaken.</p> + +<p>“A murderer and a madman,” she said to herself, +repeating Castellani’s calumny. “Murderer I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span> +would never believe him; and shall I honour him +less because that sensitive mind was plunged in +darkness by the horror of his wife’s fate?”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Pamela came home before midnight. Lady +Lochinvar had driven her to the door. She was in +high spirits, and charmed with her ladyship, and +thought her ladyship’s nephew, Mr. Stuart, late of +a famous Highland regiment, a rather agreeable +person.</p> + +<p>“He is decidedly plain,” said Pamela, “and +looks about as intellectual as Sir Henry Mountford, +and he evidently doesn’t care a jot for music; but he +has very pleasant manners, and he told me a lot +about Monte Carlo. A brother officer of his, bronchial, +with a very nice wife, came to Lady Lochinvar’s +box in the evening, and she is going to call for me +to-morrow afternoon, to take me to the tennis-ground +at the Cercle de la Méditerranée, if you don’t mind.”</p> + +<p>“My dearest, you know I wish only to see you +happy and with nice people. I suppose this lady, +whose name you have not told me—”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Murray. She is very Scotch, but quite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> +charming—nothing fast or rowdy about her—and +devoted to her invalid husband. He does not play +tennis, poor fellow, but he sits in the sun and looks +on, which is very nice for him.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Murray made her appearance at two o’clock +next day, and Mildred was pleased to find that +Pamela had not exaggerated her merits. She was +very Scotch, and talked of Lady Lochinvar as “a +purpose woman,” with a Caledonian roll of the <em>r</em> in +purpose which emphasised the word in its adjectival +sense. She had very pretty simple manners, and +was altogether the kind of young matron with whom +a feather-headed girl might be trusted.</p> + +<p>Directly Pamela and her new friend had departed +Mildred put on her bonnet, and went out on foot. +She had made certain inquiries through Albrecht, +and she knew the way she had to go upon the pilgrimage +on which she was bent, a pilgrimage of +sorrowful memory. There was a relief in being quite +alone upon the long parade between the palm-trees +and the sea, and to know that she was free from +notice and sympathy for the rest of the afternoon.</p> + +<p>She walked to the Place Massena, and there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> +accepted the beseeching offers of one of the numerous +flymen, and took her seat in a light victoria behind +a horse which looked a little better fed than his neighbours. +She told the man to drive along the west +bank of the Paillon, on the road to St. André.</p> + +<p>Would not Madame go to St. André, and see the +wonderful grotto, and the petrifactions?</p> + +<p>No, Madame did not wish to go so far as St. +André. She would tell the driver where to stop.</p> + +<p>The horse rattled off at a brisk pace. They are +no crawlers, those flys of the South. They drove +past the smart shops and hotels on the quay; past +the shabby old inn where the diligences put up, a +hostelry with suggestions of the past, when the old +Italian town was not a winter rendezvous for all the +nations, the beaten track of Yankee and Cockney, +<em>calicot</em> and counter-jumper, Russian prince and +Hebrew capitalist, millionaire and adventurer. They +drove past the shabby purlieus of the town, workmen’s +lodging-houses, sordid-looking shops, then an +orange-garden here and there within crumbling +plaster walls, and here and there a tavern in a shabby +garden. To the left of the river, on a sharp pinnacle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span> +of hill, stood the Monastery of Cimies, with dome +and tower dominating the landscape. Further away, +on the other side of the stony torrent-bed, rose the +rugged chain of hills stretching away to Mentone +and the Italian frontier, and high up against the blue +sky glimmered the white domes of the Observatory. +They came by and by to a spot where, by the side of +the broad high-road, there was a wall enclosing a +white dusty yard, and behind it a long white house +with many windows, bare and barren, staring blankly +at the dry bed of the torrent and the rugged brown +hills beyond. At each end of the long white building +there was a colonnade with iron bars, open to the sun +and the air, and as Mrs. Greswold’s carriage drew near +a man’s voice rolled out the opening bars of “Ah, +che la morte!” in a tremendous baritone. A cluster +of idlers had congregated about the open gate, to +stare and listen; for the great white house was a +madhouse, and the grated colonnades right and left +of the long façade were the recreation-grounds of the +insane—of those worst patients who could not be +trusted to wander at their ease in the garden, or to dig +and delve upon the breezy hills towards St. André.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span></p> + +<p>The singer was a fine-looking man, dressed in +loose garments of some white material, and with long +white gloves. He flung himself on to an upper bar +of the grating with the air of an athlete, and hung +upon the bars with his gloved hands, facing that +cluster of loafers as if they had been an audience in +a theatre, and singing with all the power of a herculean +physique. Mildred told her driver to stop at +the gate, and she sat listening while the madman +sang, in fitful snatches of a few bars at a time, but +with never a false note.</p> + +<p>That cage, and the patients pacing up and down, +or hanging on to the bars, or standing staring at the +little crowd round the gate, moved her to deepest pity, +touched her with keenest pain. He had been here, +her beloved, in that brief interval of darkest night. +She recalled how in one of his awakenings from that +torturing dream he had spoken words of strange +meaning—or of no meaning, as they had seemed to +her then.</p> + +<p>“The cage—the cage again!” he had cried +in an agonised voice; “iron bars—like a wild +beast!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span></p> + +<p>These words had been an enigma to her then. +She saw the answer to the riddle <em>here</em>.</p> + +<p>She sat for some time watching that sad spectacle, +hearing those broken snatches of song, with intervals +of silence, or sometimes a wild peal of laughter.</p> + +<p>The loiterers were full of speculations and assertions. +The porter at the gate answered some questions, +turned a deaf ear to others.</p> + +<p>The singer was a Spanish nobleman who had lost +a fortune at Monte Carlo the night before, and had +been brought here bound hand and foot at early +morning. He had tried to kill himself, and now he +imagined himself a famous singer, and that the +barred colonnade was the stage of the Grand Opéra +at Paris.</p> + +<p>“He’ll soon be all right again,” said the porter +with a careless shrug; “those violent cases mend +quickly.”</p> + +<p>“But he won’t get his money back again, poor +devil,” said one of the loiterers, a flyman whose +vehicle was standing by the wall, waiting for a +customer. “Hard to recover his senses and find +himself without a soul.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span></p> + +<p>“O, he has rich friends, no doubt. Look at his +white kid gloves. He is young and handsome, and +he has a splendid voice. Somebody will take care of +him. Do you see that old woman sitting over there +in the garden? You would not think there was +anything amiss with her, would you? No more +there is, only she thinks she is the Blessed Virgin. +She has been here five-and-thirty years. Nobody +pities <em>her</em>—nobody inquires about <em>her</em>. My father +remembers her when she was a handsome young +woman at a flower-shop on the Quai Massena, one of +the merriest girls in Nice. Somebody told her she was +neglecting her soul and going to hell. This set her +thinking too much. She used to be at the Cathedral +all day, and at confession as often as the priest +would hear her. She neglected her shop, and quarrelled +with her mother and sisters. She said she +had a vocation; and then one fine day she walked to +the Cathedral in a white veil, with a bunch of lilies +in her hand, and she told all the people she met that +they ought to kneel before her and make the sign of +the cross, for she was the Mother of God. Three +days afterwards her people brought her here. She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> +would neither eat nor drink, and she never closed her +eyes, or left off talking about her glorious mission, +which was to work the redemption of all the women +upon earth.”</p> + +<p>“Drive on to the doctor’s house,” Mildred said +presently; and the fly went on a few hundred yards, +and then drew up at the door of a private house, +which marked the boundary of the asylum garden.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold had inquired the name of the +doctor of longest experience in the asylum, and she +had been referred to Monsieur Leroy, the inhabitant +of this house, where the flyman informed her some +of the more wealthy patients were lodged. She had +come prepared with a little note requesting the favour +of an interview, and enclosing her card, with the address +of Enderby Manor as well as her hotel in Nice. +The English manor and the Hôtel Westminster indicated +at least respectability in the applicant; and +Monsieur Leroy’s reception was both prompt and +courteous.</p> + +<p>He was a clever-looking man, about sixty years +of age, with a fine benevolent head, and an attentive +eye, as of one always on the alert. He had spent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span> +five-and-thirty of his sixty years in the society of the +deranged, and had devoted all his intellectual power +to the study of mental disease.</p> + +<p>After briefest preliminary courtesies, Mildred +explained the purpose of her visit.</p> + +<p>“I am anxious to learn anything you can tell +me about a patient who was under your care—or, at +least, in this establishment—seventeen years ago, +and in whom I am deeply interested,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Seventeen years is a long time, madame, but I +have a good memory, and I keep notes of all my +cases. I may be able to satisfy your curiosity in +some measure. What was the name of this patient?”</p> + +<p>“He was an Englishman called Ransome—George +Ransome. He was placed here under peculiar +circumstances.”</p> + +<p>“<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Corpo di Bacco!</i> I should say they were +peculiar, very peculiar circumstances!” exclaimed +the doctor. “Do you know, madame, that Mr. +Ransome came here as a suspected murderer? He +came straight from the gaol at Villefranche, where +he had been detained on the suspicion of having +killed his wife.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span></p> + +<p>“There was not one jot of evidence to support +such a charge. I know all the circumstances. +Surely, sir, you, who must have a wide knowledge +of human nature, did not think him guilty?”</p> + +<p>“I hardly made up my mind upon that point, +even after I had seen him almost every day for six +months; but there is one thing I do know about +this unhappy gentleman: his lunacy was no assumption, +put on to save him from the consequences of a +crime. He was a man of noble intellect, large +brain-power, and for the time being his reason was +totally obscured.”</p> + +<p>“To what cause did you attribute the attack?”</p> + +<p>“A long period of worry, nerves completely shattered, +and finally the shock of that catastrophe on +the cliff. Whether his hand pushed her to her +death, or the woman flung her life away, the shock +was too much for Mr. Ransome’s weakened and worried +brain. All the indications of his malady, from +the most violent stages to the gradual progress of +recovery, pointed to the same conclusion. The history +of the case revealed its cause and its earlier +phases: an unhappy marriage, a jealous wife,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span> +patience and forbearance on his part, until patience +degenerated into despair, the dull apathy of a wearied +intellect. All that is easy to understand.”</p> + +<p>“You pitied him, then, monsieur?”</p> + +<p>“Madame, I pity all my patients; but I found in +Mr. Ransome a man of exceptional characteristics, +and his case interested me deeply.”</p> + +<p>“You would not have been interested had you +believed him guilty?”</p> + +<p>“Pardon me, madame, crime is full of interest +for the pathologist. The idea that this gentleman +might have spurned his wife from him in a +moment of aberration would not have lessened my +interest in his mental condition. But although I +have never made up my mind upon the question of +his guilt or innocence, I am bound to tell you, since +you seem even painfully interested in his history, +that his conduct after his recovery indicated an open +and generous nature, a mind of peculiar refinement, +and a great deal of chivalrous feeling. I had many +conversations with him during the period of returning +reason, and I formed a high opinion of his moral +character.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span></p> + +<p>“Did other people think him guilty—the people +he had known in Nice, for instance?”</p> + +<p>“I fancy there were very few who thought much +about him,” answered the doctor. “Luckily for +him and his belongings—whoever they might be—he +had dropped out of society for some time before +the catastrophe, and he had never been a person of +importance in Nice. He had not occupied a villa, +or given parties. He lived with his wife at an +hotel, and the man who lives at an hotel counts for +very little on the Riviera. He is only a casual visitor, +who may come and go as he pleases. His movements—unless +he has rank or fashion or inordinate +wealth to recommend him—excite no interest. He is +not a personage. Hence there was very little talk +about the lamentable end of Mr. Ransome’s married +life. There were hardly half-a-dozen paragraphs +in our local papers, all told; and I doubt if those +were quoted in the <cite>Figaro</cite> or <cite>Galignani</cite>. My patient +might congratulate himself upon his obscurity.”</p> + +<p>“Did no one from England visit him during his +confinement here?”</p> + +<p>“No one. The local authorities looked after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span> +his interests so far as to take care of the ready +money which was found in his house, and which +sufficed to pay for the poor lady’s funeral and for +my patient’s expenses, leaving a balance to be +handed over to him on his recovery. From the hour +he left these gates I never heard from him or of him +again; but every new year has brought me an anonymous +gift from London, such a gift as only a person +of refined taste would choose, and I have attributed +those annual greetings to Mr. George Ransome.”</p> + +<p>“It would be only like him to remember past +kindness.”</p> + +<p>“You know him well, madame?”</p> + +<p>“Very well; so well as to be able to answer +with my life for his being incapable of the crime of +which even you, who saw so much of him, hesitate +to acquit him.”</p> + +<p>“It is my misfortune, madame, to have seen the +darker sides of the human mind, and to know that +in the whitest life there may be one black spot—one +moment of sin which stultifies a lifetime of +virtue. However, it is possible that your judgment +is right in this particular case. Be assured I should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span> +be glad to think so, and glad to know that Mr. +Ransome’s after days have been all sunshine.”</p> + +<p>A sigh was Mildred’s only answer. Monsieur +Leroy saw tears in her eyes, and asked no more. +He was shrewd enough to guess her connection +with his former patient—a second wife, no doubt. +No one but a wife would be so intensely interested.</p> + +<p>“If there is anything I can do for you, or for +my old patient—” he began, seeing that his visitor +lingered.</p> + +<p>“O, no, there is nothing—except if you would +let me see the rooms in which he lived.”</p> + +<p>“Assuredly. It is a melancholy pleasure, at +best, to recall the sorrows we have outlived, but the +association will be less painful in your case since the—friend +in whom you are interested was so speedily +and so thoroughly restored to mental health. I take +it that he has never had a relapse?”</p> + +<p>“Never, thank God!”</p> + +<p>“It was not likely, from the history of the case.”</p> + +<p>He led the way across a vestibule and up-stairs +to the second floor, where he showed Mrs. Greswold +two airy rooms, sitting-room and bedroom communicating,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> +overlooking the valley towards Cimies, with +the white-walled convent on the crest of the hill, +and the white temples of the dead clustering near it; +cross and column, Athenian pediment and Italian +cupola, dazzling white against the cloudless blue. +The rooms were neatly furnished, and there was +every appearance of comfort; no suggestion of Bedlam, +padded walls, or strait-waistcoats.</p> + +<p>“Had he these rooms all the time?” asked +Mildred.</p> + +<p>“Not all the time. He was somewhat difficult +to deal with during the first few weeks, and he was +in the main building, under the care of one of my +subordinates, till improvement began. By that +time I had grown interested in his case, and took +him into my own house.”</p> + +<p>“Pray let me see the rooms he occupied at first, +monsieur; I want to know all. I want to be able +to understand what his life was like in that dark +dream.”</p> + +<p>She knew now what his own dream meant.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Leroy indulged her whim. He took<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span> +her across the dusty garden to the great white house—a +house of many windows and long corridors, airy, +bare, hopeless-looking, as it seemed to that sad +visitor. She saw the two iron-barred enclosures, and +the restless creatures roaming about them, clinging +to the bars, climbing like monkeys from perch to +perch, hanging from the trapeze. The Spaniard had +left off singing.</p> + +<p>She was shown George Ransome’s room, which +was empty. The bare whitewashed walls chilled her +as if she had gone into an ice-vault. Here on +everything there was the stamp of a State prison—iron +bars, white walls, a deadly monotony. She was +glad to escape into the open air again, but not until +she had knelt for some minutes beside the narrow +bed upon which George Ransome had lain seventeen +years ago, and thanked God for his restoration of +reason, and prayed that his declining days might be +blessed. She prayed for him, to whom she might +nevermore be the source of happiness, she who +until so lately had been his nearest and dearest +upon earth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span></p> + +<p>A law which she recognised as duty had risen +up between them, and both must go down to the +grave in sadness rather than that law should be +broken.</p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent fs80">END OF VOL. II.</p> +<br> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent fs70"> +LONDON:<br> +ROBSON AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.<br> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak bold fs150" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> + +<ul> +<li>pg 58 Changed: She must have have known.<br> +<span style="padding-left: 2em">to: She must have known.</span></li> + +<li>pg 121 Changed: The law does not recogise such affinities<br> +<span style="padding-left: 2em">to: The law does not recognise such affinities</span></li> + +<li>pg 236 Changed: goaded to madness by an unreasonble <br> +<span style="padding-left: 2em">to: goaded to madness by an unreasonable</span></li> +</ul> +</div> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75411 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |