From that hour Lord Hartledon was a changed man. He went about as one who has some awful fear upon him, starting at shadows. That his manner was inexplicable, even allowing that he had some great crime on his conscience, a looker-on had not failed to observe. He was very tender with his wife; far more so than he had been at all; anxious, as it seemed, to indulge her every fancy, gratify her every whim. But when it came to going into society with her, then he hesitated; he would and he wouldn't, reminding Maude of his old vacillation, which indeed had seemed to have been laid aside for ever. It was as though he appeared not to know what to do; what he ought to do; his own wish or inclination having no part in it.
"Whywon'tyou go with me?" she said to him angrily one day that he had retracted his assent at the last moment. "Is it that you care so much for Anne Ashton, that you don't care to be seen with me?"
"Oh, Maude! If you knew how little Anne Ashton is in my thoughts now! When by chance I do think of her, it is to be thankful I did not marry her," he added, in a tone of self-communing.
Maude laughed a light laugh. "This movement of theirs is putting you out of conceit of your old love, Val."
"What movement?" he rejoined; and he would not have asked the question had his thoughts not gone wool-gathering.
"You are dreaming, Val. The action."
"Ah, yes, to be sure."
"Have you heard yet what damages they claim?"
He shook his head. "You promised not to speak of this, Maude; even to me."
"Who is to help speaking of it, when you allow it to take your ease away? I never in my life saw any one so changed as you are. I wish the thing were over and done with, though it left you a few thousand pounds the poorer.Willyou accompany me to this dinner to-day? I am sick of appearing alone and making excuses for you."
"I wish I knew what to do for the best—what my course ought to be!" thought Hartledon within his conscience. "I can't bear to be seen with her in public. When I face people with her on my arm, it seems as if they must know what sort of man she, in her unconsciousness, is leaning upon."
"I'll go with you to-day, Maude, as you press it. I was to have seen Mr. Carr, but can send down to him."
"Then don't be five minutes dressing: it is time we went."
She heard him despatch a footman to the Temple with a message that he should not be at Mr. Carr's chambers that evening; and she lay back in her chair, waiting for him in her dinner-dress of black and white. They were in mourning still for his brother. Lord Hartledon had not left it off, and Maude had loved him too well to grumble at the delay.
She had grown tolerant in regard to the intimacy with Mr. Carr. That her husband should escape as soon and as favourably as possible out of the dilemma in which he was plunged, she naturally wished; that he should require legal advice and assistance to accomplish it, was only reasonable, and therefore she tolerated the visits of Mr. Carr. She had even gone so far one evening as to send tea in to them when he and Val were closeted together.
But still Lady Hartledon was not quite prepared to find Mr. Carr at their house when they returned. She and Lord Hartledon went forth to the dinner; the latter behaving as though his wits were in some far-off hemisphere rather than in this one, so absent-minded was he. From the dinner they proceeded to another place or two; and on getting home, towards one in the morning, there was the barrister.
"Mr. Carr is waiting to see you, my lord," said Hedges, meeting them in the passage. "He is in the dining-room."
"Mr. Carr! Now!"
The hall-lamp shone full on his face as he spoke. He had been momentarily forgetting care; was speaking gaily to his wife as they entered. She saw the change that came over it; the look of fear, of apprehension, that replaced its smile. He went into the dining-room, and she followed him.
"Why, Carr!" he exclaimed. "Is it you?"
Mr. Carr, bowing to Lady Hartledon, made a joke of the matter. "Having waited so long, I thought I'd wait it out, Hartledon. As good be hung for a sheep as a lamb, you know, and I have no wife sitting up for me at home."
"You had my message?"
"Yes, and that brought me here. I wanted just to say a word to you, as I am going out of town to-morrow."
"What will you take?"
"Nothing at all. Hedges has been making me munificent offers, but I declined them. I never take anything after dinner, except a cup of tea or so, as you may remember, keeping a clear head for work in the morning."
There was a slight pause. Lady Hartledon saw of course that she wasde tropin the conference; that Mr. Carr would not speak his "word" whilst she was present. She had never understood why the matter should be kept apart from her; and in her heart resented it.
"You won't say to my husband before me what you have come to say, Mr. Carr."
It was strictly the truth, but the abrupt manner of bringing it home to him momentarily took away Mr. Carr's power of repartee, although he was apt enough in general, as became a special pleader.
"You have had news from the Ashtons; that is, of their cause, and you have come to tell it. I don't see why you and Lord Hartledon should so cautiously keep everything from me."
There was an eager look on Lord Hartledon's face as he stood behind his wife. It was directed to Mr. Carr, and said as plainly as look could say, "Don't undeceive her; keep up the delusion." But Thomas Carr was not so apt at keeping up delusions at the expense of truth, and he only smiled in reply.
"What damages are they suing for?"
"Oh," said Mr. Carr, with a laugh, and ready enough now: "ten thousand pounds will cover it."
"Ten thousand pounds!" she echoed. "Of course they won't get half of it. In this sort of action—breach of promise—parties never get so much as they ask for, do they?"
"Not often."
She laughed a little as she quitted the room. It was difficult to remain longer, and it never occurred to her to suspect that any graver matter than this action was in question.
"Now, Carr?" began Lord Hartledon, seating himself near the table as he closed the door after her, and speaking in low tones.
"I received this letter by the afternoon mail," said Mr. Carr, taking one from the safe enclosure of his pocket-book. "It is satisfactory, so far as it goes."
"I call it very satisfactory," returned Hartledon, glancing through it. "I thought he'd listen to reason. What is done cannot be undone, and exposure will answer no end. I wrote him an urgent letter the other day, begging him to be silent for Maude's sake. Were I to expiate the past with my life, it could not undo it. If he brought me to the bar of my country to plead guilty or not guilty, the past would remain the same."
"And I put the matter to him in my letter somewhat in the same light, though in a more business-like point of view," returned Mr. Carr. "There was no entreaty in mine. I left compassion, whether for you or others, out of the argument; and said to him, what will you gain by exposure, and how will you reconcile it to your conscience to inflict on innocent persons the torture exposure must bring?"
"I shall breathe freely now," said Hartledon, with a sigh of relief." If that man gives his word not to stir in the matter, not to take proceedings against me; in short, to bury what he knows in secrecy and silence, as he has hitherto done; it will be all I can hope for."
Mr. Carr lifted his eyebrows.
"I perceive what you think: that the fact remains. Carr, I know it as well as you; I know thatnothingcan alter it. Don't you see that remorse is ever present with me? driving me mad? killing me by inches with its pain?"
"Do you know what I should be tempted to do, were the case mine?"
"Well?"
"Tell my wife."
"Carr!"
"I almost think I should; I am not quite sure. Should the truth ever come to her—"
"But I trust it never will come to her," interrupted Hartledon, his face growing hot.
"It's a delicate point to argue," acknowledged Mr. Carr, "and I cannot hope to bring you into my way of looking at it. Had you married Miss Ashton, it appears to me that you would have no resource but to tell her: the very fact of being bound to you would kill a religious, high-principled woman."
"Not if she remained in ignorance."
"There it is. Ought she to remain in ignorance?"
Lord Hartledon leaned his head on his hand as one faint and weary. "Carr, it is of no use to go over all this ground again. If I disclose the whole to Maude, how would it make it better for her? Would it not render it a hundred times worse? She could not inform against me; it would be contrary to human nature to suppose it; and all the result would be, that she must go through life with the awful secret upon her, rendering her days a hell upon earth, as it is rendering mine. It's true she might separate from me; I dare say she would; but what satisfaction would that bring her? No; the kinder course is to allow her to remain in ignorance. Good Heavens! tell my wife! I should never dare do it!"
Mr. Carr made no reply, and a pause ensued. In truth, the matter was encompassed with difficulties on all sides; and the barrister could but acknowledge that Val's argument had some sort of reason in it. Having bound her to himself by marriage, it might be right that he should study her happiness above all things.
"It has put new life into me," Val resumed, pointing to the letter. "Now that he has promised to keep the secret, there's little to fear; and I know that he will keep his word. I must bear the burden as I best can, and keep a smiling face to the world."
"Did you read the postscript?" asked Mr. Carr; a feeling coming over him that Val had not read it.
"The postscript?"
"There's a line or two over the leaf."
Lord Hartledon glanced at it, and found it ran thus:
"You must be aware that another person knows of this besides myself. He who was a witness at the time, and from whomIheard the particulars. Of course for him I cannot answer, and I think he is in England. I allude to G.G. Lord H. will know."
"You must be aware that another person knows of this besides myself. He who was a witness at the time, and from whomIheard the particulars. Of course for him I cannot answer, and I think he is in England. I allude to G.G. Lord H. will know."
"Lord H." apparently did know. He gazed down at the words with a knitted brow, in which some surprise was mingled.
"I declare that I understood him that night to say the fellow had died. Did not you?"
"I did," acquiesced Mr. Carr. "I certainly assumed it as a fact, until this letter came to-day. Gordon was the name, I think?"
"George Gordon."
"Since reading the letter I have been endeavouring to recollect exactly what he did say; and the impression on my mind is, that he spoke of Gordon as beingprobablydead; not that he knew it for a certainty. How I could overlook the point so as not to have inquired into it more fully, I cannot imagine. But, you see, we were not discussing details that night, or questioning facts: we were trying to disarm him—get him not to proceed against you; and for myself, I confess I was so utterly stunned that half my wits had left me."
"What is to be done?"
"We must endeavour to ascertain where Gordon is," replied Mr. Carr, as he re-enclosed the letter in his pocket-book. "I'll write and inquire whathisgrounds are for thinking he is in England; and then trace him out—if he is to be traced. You give me carte-blanche to act?"
"You know I do, Carr."
"All right."
"And when you have traced him—what then?"
"That's an after-question, and I must be guided by circumstances. And now I'll wish you good-night," continued the barrister, rising. "It's a shame to have kept you up; but the letter contains some consolation, and I knew I could not bring it you to-morrow."
The drawing-room was lighted when Lord Hartledon went upstairs; and his wife sat there with a book, as if she meant to remain up all night. She put it down as he entered.
"Are you here still, Maude! I thought you were tired when you came home."
"I felt tired because I met no one I cared for," she answered, in rather fractious tones. "Every one we know is leaving town, or has left."
"Yes, that's true."
"I shall leave too. I don't mind if we go to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" he echoed. "Why, we have the house for three weeks longer."
"And if we have? We are not obliged to remain in it."
Lord Hartledon put back the curtain, and stood leaning out at the open window, seeking a breath of air that hot summer's night, though indeed there was none to be found; and if there had been, it could not have cooled the brow's inward fever. The Park lay before him, dark and misty; the lights of the few vehicles passing gleamed now and again; the hum of life was dying out in the streets, men's free steps, careless voices. He looked down, and wondered whether any one of those men knew what care meant asheknew it; whether the awful skeleton, that never quitted him night or day, could hold such place with another. He was Earl of Hartledon; wealthy, young, handsome; he had no bad habits to hamper him; and yet he would willingly have changed lots at hazard with any one of those passers-by, could his breast, by so doing, have been eased of its burden.
"What are you looking at, Val?"
His wife had come up and stolen her arm within his, as she asked the question, looking out too.
"Not at anything in particular," he replied, making a prisoner of her hand. "The night's hot, Maude."
"Oh, I am getting tired of London!" she exclaimed. "It is always hot now; and I believe I ought to be away from it."
"Yes."
"That letter I had this morning was from Ireland, from mamma. I told her, when I wrote last, how I felt; and you never read such a lecture as she gave me in return. She asked me whether I was mad, that I should be going galvanizing about when I ought rather to be resting three parts of my time."
"Galvanizing?" said Lord Hartledon.
"So she wrote: she never waits to choose her words—you know mamma! I suppose she meant to imply that I was always on the move."
"Do you feel ill, Maude?"
"Not exactly ill; but—I think I ought to be careful. Percival," she breathed, "mamma asked me whether I was trying to destroy the hope of an heir to Hartledon."
An ice-bolt shot through him at the reminder. Better an heir should never be born, if it must call him father!
"I fainted to-day, Val," she continued to whisper.
He passed his arm round his wife's waist, and drew her closer to him. Not upon her ought he to visit his sin: she might have enough to bear, without coldness from him; rather should he be doubly tender.
"You did not tell me about it, love. Why have you gone out this evening?" he asked reproachfully.
"It has not harmed me. Indeed I will take care, for your sake. I should never forgive myself."
"I have thought since we married, Maude, that you did not much care for me."
Maude made no immediate answer. She was looking out straight before her, her head on his shoulder, and Lord Hartledon saw that tears were glistening in her eyes.
"Yes, I do," she said at length; and as she spoke she felt very conscious that shewascaring for him. His gentle kindness, his many attractions were beginning to tell upon her heart; and a vision of the possible future, when she should love him, crossed her then and there as she stood. Lord Hartledon bent his face, and let it rest on hers.
"We shall be happy yet, Val; and I will be as good as gold. To begin with, we will leave London at once. I ought not to remain, and I know you have not liked it all along. It would have been better to wait until next year, when we could have had our own house; only I was impatient. I felt proud of being married; of being your wife—I did indeed, Val—and I was in a fever to be amidst my world of friends. And there's a real confession!" she concluded, laughing.
"Any more?" he asked, laughing with her.
"I don't remember any more just now. Which day shall we go? You shall manage things for me now: I won't be wilful again. Shall the servants go on first to Hartledon, or with us?"
"To Hartledon!" exclaimed Val. "Is it to Hartledon you think of going?"
"Of course it is," she said, standing up and looking at him in surprise. "Where else should I go?"
"I thought you wished to go to Germany!"
"And so I did; but that would not do now."
"Then let us go to the seaside," he rather eagerly said. "Somewhere in England."
"No, I would rather go to Hartledon. In one's own home rest and comfort can be insured; and I believe I require them. Don't you wish to go there?" she added, watching his perplexed face.
"No, I don't. The truth is, I cannot go to Hartledon."
"Is it because you do not care to face the Ashtons? I see! You would like to have this business settled first."
Lord Hartledon hardly heard the words, as he stood leaning against the open casement, gazing into the dark and misty past. No man ever shrank from a prison as he shrank from Hartledon.
"I cannot leave London at all just yet. Thomas Carr is remaining here for me, when he ought to be on circuit, and I must stay with him. I wish you would go anywhere else, rather than to Hartledon."
The tone was so painfully earnest, that a momentary suspicion crossed her of his having some other motive. It passed away almost as it arose, and she accused him of being unreasonable.
Unreasonable it did appear to be. "If you have any real reason to urge against Hartledon, tell it me," she said. But he mentioned none—save that it was his "wish" not to go.
And Lady Hartledon, rather piqued, gave the necessary orders on the following day for the removal. No further confidential converse, or approach to it, took place between her and her husband; but up to the last moment she thought he would relent and accompany her. Nothing of the sort. He was anxious for her every comfort on the journey, and saw her off himself: nothing more.
"I never thought you would allow me to go alone," she resentfully whispered, as he held her hand after she was seated in the train.
He shook his head. "It is your fault, Maude. I told you I could not go to Hartledon."
And so she went down in rather an angry frame of mind. Many a time and oft had she pictured to herself the triumph of their first visit to Calne, the place where she had taken so much pains to win him: but the arrival was certainly shorn of its glory.
Perhaps Lady Hartledon had never in all her life been so much astonished as when she reached Hartledon, for the first person she saw there was her mother: her mother, whom she had believed to be in some remote district of Ireland. For the moment she almost wondered whether it was really herself or her ghost. The countess-dowager came flying down the steps—if that term may be applied to one of her age and size—with rather demonstrative affection; which, however, was not cordially received.
"What's the matter, Maude? How you stare!"
"Isit you, mamma? Howcanit be you?"
"How can it be me?" returned the dowager, giving Maude's bonnet a few kisses. "Itisme, and that's enough. My goodness, Maude, how thin you look! I see what it is! you've been killing yourself in that racketing London. It's well I've come to take care of you."
Maude went in, feeling that she could have taken care of herself, and listening to the off-hand explanations of the countess-dowager. "Kirton offended me," she said. "He and his wife are like two bears; and so I packed up my things and came away at once, and got here straight from Liverpool. And now you know."
"And is Lady Kirton quite well again?" asked Maude, helplessly, knowing she could not turn her mother out.
"She'd be well enough but for temper. Shewasill, though, when they telegraphed for me; her life for three days and nights hanging on a shred. I told that fool of a Kirton before he married her that she had no constitution. I suppose you and Hart were finely disappointed to find I was not in London when you got there."
"Agreeably disappointed, I think," said Maude, languidly.
"Indeed! It's civil of you to say so."
"On account of the smallness of the house," added Maude, endeavouring to be polite. "We hardly knew how to manage in it ourselves."
"You wrote me word to take it. As to me, I can accommodate myself to any space. Where there's plenty of room, I take plenty; where there's not, I can put up with a closet. I have made Mirrable give me my old rooms here: you of course take Hart's now."
"I am very tired," said Maude. "I think I will have some tea, and go to bed."
"Tea!" shrieked the dowager. "I have not yet had dinner. And it's waiting; that's more."
"You can dine without me, mamma," she said, walking upstairs to the new rooms. The dowager stared, and followed her. There was an indescribable something in Maude's manner that she did not like; it spoke of incipient rebellion, of an influence that had been, but was now thrown off. If she lost caste once, with Maude, she knew that she lost it for ever.
"You could surely take a little dinner, Maude. You must keep up your strength, you know."
"Not any dinner, thank you. I shall be all right to-morrow, when I've slept off my fatigue."
"Well, I know I should like mine," grumbled the countess-dowager, feeling her position in the house already altered from what it had been during her former sojourn, when she assumed full authority, and ordered things as she pleased, completely ignoring the new lord.
"You can have it," said Maude.
"They won't serve it until Hartledon arrives," was the aggrieved answer. "I suppose he's walking up from the station. He always had a queer habit of doing that."
Maude lifted her eyes in slight surprise. Her solitary arrival was a matter of fact so established to herself, that it sounded strange for any one else to be in ignorance of it.
"Lord Hartledon has not come down. He is remaining in London."
The old dowager peered at Maude through her little eyes. "What's that for?"
"Business, I believe."
"Don't tell me an untruth, Maude. You have quarrelled."
"We have not quarrelled. We are perfectly good friends."
"And do you mean to tell me that he sent you down alone?"
"He sent the servants with me."
"Don't be insolent, Maude. You know what I mean."
"Why, mamma, I do not wish to be insolent. I can't tell you more, or tell it differently. Lord Hartledon did not come down with me, and the servants did."
She spoke sharply. In her tired condition the petty conversation was wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the mortifying consciousness that he hadnotcome down with her, chafing her temper almost beyond repression. Considering that Maude did not profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she felt this.
"Are you and Hartledon upon good terms?" asked the countess-dowager after a pause, during which she had never taken her eyes from her daughter's face.
"It would be early days to be on any other."
"Oh," said the dowager. "And you did not write me word from Paris that you found you had made a mistake, that you could not bear your husband! Eh, Maude?"
A tinge came into Maude's cheeks. "And you, mamma, told me that I was to rule my husband with an iron hand, never allowing him to have a will of his own, never consulting him! Both you and I were wrong," she continued quietly. "I wrote that letter in a moment of irritation; and you were assuming what has not proved to be a fact. I like my husband now quite well enough to keep friends with him; his kindness to me is excessive; but I find, with all my wish to rule him, if I had the wish, I could not do it. He has a will of his own, and he exerts it in spite of me; and I am quite sure he will continue to exert it, whenever he fancies he is in the right. You never saw any one so changed from what he used to be."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean in asserting his own will. But he is changed in other ways. It seems to me that he has never been quite the same man since that night in the chapel. He has been more thoughtful; and all the old vacillation is gone."
The countess-dowager could not understand at all; neither did she believe; and she only stared at Maude.
"Hisnotcoming down with me is a proof that he exercises his own will now. I wished him to come very much, and he knew it; but you see he has not done so."
"And what do you say is keeping him?" repeated the countess-dowager.
"Business—"
"Ah," interrupted the dowager, before Maude could finish, "that's the general excuse. Always suspect it, my dear."
"Suspect what?" asked Maude.
"When a man says that, and gets his wife out of the way with it, rely upon it he is pursuing some nice little interests of his own."
Lady Hartledon understood the implication; she felt nettled, and a flush rose to her face. In her husband's loyalty (always excepting his feeling towards Miss Ashton) she rested fully assured.
"You did not allow me to finish," was the cold rejoinder. "Businessiskeeping him in town, for one thing; for another, I think he cannot get over his dislike to face the Ashtons."
"Rubbish!" cried the wrathful dowager. "He does not tell you what the business is, does he?" she cynically added.
"I happen to know," answered Maude. "The Ashtons are bringing an action against him for breach of promise; and he and Mr. Carr the barrister are trying to arrange it without its coming to a trial."
The old lady opened her eyes and her mouth.
"It is true. They lay the damages at ten thousand pounds!"
With a shriek the countess-dowager began to dance. Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand pounds would keep her for ever, invested at good interest. She called the parson some unworthy names.
"I cannot give you any of the details," said Maude, in answer to the questions pressed upon her. "Percival will never speak of it, or allow me to do so. I learnt it—I can hardly tell you how I learnt it—by implication, I think; for it was never expressly told me. We had a mysterious visit one night from some old parson—parson or lawyer; and Percival and Mr. Carr, who happened to be at our house, were closeted with him for an hour or two. I saw they were agitated, and guessed what it was; Dr. Ashton was bringing an action. They could not deny it."
"The vile old hypocrite!" cried the incensed dowager. "Ten thousand pounds! Are you sure it is as much as that, Maude?"
"Quite. Mr. Carr told me the amount."
"I wonder you encourage that man to your house."
"It was one of the things I stood out against—fruitlessly," was the quiet answer. "But I believe he means well to me; and I am sure he is doing what he can to serve my husband. They are often together about this business."
"Of courseHartledon resists the claim?"
"I don't know. I think they are trying to compromise it, so that it shall not come into court."
"What does Hartledon think of it?"
"It is worrying his life out. No, mamma, it is not too strong an expression. He says nothing; but I can see that it is half killing him. I don't believe he has slept properly since the news was brought to him."
"What a simpleton he must be! And that man will stand up in the pulpit to-morrow and preach of charity!" continued the dowager, turning her animadversions upon Dr. Ashton. "You are a hypocrite too, Maude, for trying to deceive me. You and Hartledon arenoton good terms; don't tell me! He would never have let you come down alone."
Lady Hartledon would not reply. She felt vexed with her mother, vexed with her husband, vexed on all sides; and she took refuge in her fatigue and was silent.
The dowager went to church on the following day. Maude would not go. The hot anger flushed into her face at the thought of showing herself there for the first time, unaccompanied by her husband: to Maude's mind it seemed that she must look to others so very much like a deserted wife. She comes home alone; he stays in London! "Ah, why did he not come down only for this one Sunday, and go back again—if he must have gone?" she thought.
A month or two ago Maude had not cared enough for him to reason like this. The countess-dowager ensconced herself in a corner of the Hartledon state-pew, and from her blinking eyes looked out upon the Ashtons. Anne, with her once bright face looking rather wan, her modest demeanour; Mrs. Ashton, so essentially a gentlewoman; the doctor, sensible, clever, charitable, beyond all doubt a good man—a feeling came over the mind of the sometimes obtuse woman that of all the people before her they looked the least likely to enter on the sort of lawsuit spoken of by Maude. But never a doubt occurred to her that theyhadentered on it.
Lady Hartledon remained at home, her prayer-book in her hand. She was thinking she could steal out to the evening service; it might not be so much noticed then, her being alone. Listlessly enough she sat, toying with her prayer-book rather than reading it. She had never pretended to be religious, had not been trained to be so; and reading a prayer-book, when not in church, was quite unusual to her. But there are seasons in a woman's life, times when peril is looked forward to, that bring thought even to the most careless nature. Maude was trying to play at "being good," and was reading the psalms for the day in an absent fashion, her thoughts elsewhere; and the morning passed on. The quiet apathy of her present state, compared with the restless fever which had stirred her during her last sojourn at Hartledon, was remarkable.
Suddenly there burst in upon her the countess-dowager: that estimable lady's bonnet awry, her face scarlet, herself in a commotion.
"I didn't suppose you'd have done it, Maude! You might play tricks upon other people, I think, but not upon your own mother."
The interlude was rather welcome to Maude, rousing her from her apathy. Not for some few moments, however, could she understand the cause of complaint.
It appeared that the countess-dowager, with that absence of all sense of the fitness of things which so eminently characterized her, had joined the Ashtons after service, inquiring with quite motherly solicitude after Mrs. Ashton's health, complimenting Anne upon her charming looks; making herself, in short, as agreeable as she knew how, and completely ignoring the past in regard to her son-in-law. Gentlewomen in mind and manners, they did not repulse her, were even courteously civil; and she graciously accompanied them across the road to the Rectory-gate, and there took a cordial leave, saying she would look in on the morrow.
In returning she met Dr. Ashton. He was passing her with nothing but a bow; but he little knew the countess-dowager. She grasped his hand; said how grieved she was not to have had an opportunity of explaining away her part in the past; hoped he would let bygones be bygones; and finally, whilst the clergyman was scheming how to get away from her without absolute rudeness, she astonished him with a communication touching the action-at-law. There ensued a little mutual misapprehension, followed by a few emphatic words of denial from Dr. Ashton; and the countess-dowager walked away with a scarlet face, and an explosion of anger against her daughter.
Lady Hartledon was not yet callous to the proprieties of life; and the intrusion on the Ashtons, which her mother confessed to, half frightened, half shamed her. But the dowager's wrath at having been misled bore down everything. Dr. Ashton had entered no action whatever against Lord Hartledon; had never thought of doing it.
"And you, you wicked, ungrateful girl, to come home to me with such an invention, and cause me to start off on a fool's errand! Do you suppose I should have gone and humbled myself to those people, but for hoping to bring the parson to a sense of what he was doing in going-in for those enormous damages?"
"I have not come home to you with any invention, mamma. Dr. Ashton has entered the action."
"He has not," raved the dowager. "It is an infamous hoax you have played off upon me. You couldn't find any excuse for your husband's staying in London, and so invented this. What with you, and what with Kirton's ingratitude, I shall be driven out of house and home!"
"I won't say another word until you are calm and can talk common sense," said Maude, leaning back in her chair, and putting down her prayer-book.
"Common sense! What am I talking but common sense? When a child begins to mislead her own mother, the world ought to come to an end."
Maude took no notice.
There happened to be some water standing on a table, and the dowager poured out a tumblerful and drank it, though not accustomed to the beverage. Untying her bonnet-strings she sat down, a little calmer.
"Perhaps you'll explain this at your convenience, Maude."
"There is nothing to explain," was the answer. "What I told you was the truth. The actionhasbeen entered by the Ashtons."
"And I tell you that the action has not."
"I assure you that it has," returned Maude. "I told you of the evening we first had notice of it, and the damages claimed; do you think I invented that, or went to sleep and dreamt it? If Val has gone down once to that Temple about it, he has gone fifty times. He would not go for pleasure."
The countess-dowager sat fanning herself quietly: for her daughter's words were gaining ground.
"There's a mistake somewhere, Maude, and it is on your side and not mine. I'll lay my life that no action has been entered by Dr. Ashton. The man spoke the truth; I can read the truth when I see it as well as anyone: his face flushed with pain and anger at such a thing being said of him. It may not be difficult to explain this contradiction."
"Do you think not?" returned Maude, her indifference exciting the listener to anger.
"Ishould say Hartledon is deceiving you. If any action is entered against him at all, it isn't that sort of action; or perhaps the young lady is not Miss Ashton, but some other; he's just the kind of man to be drawn into promising marriage to a dozen or two. Very clever of him to palm you off with this tale: a man may get into five hundred troubles not convenient to disclose to his wife."
Except that Lady Hartledon's cheek flushed a little, she made no answer; she held firmly—at least she thought she held firmly—to her own side of the case. Her mother, on the contrary, adopted the new view, and dismissed it from her thoughts accordingly.
Maude went to church in the evening, sitting alone in the great pew, pale and quiet. Anne Ashton was also alone; and the two whilom rivals, the triumphant and the rejected, could survey each other to their heart's content.
Not very triumphant was Maude's feeling. Strange perhaps to say, the suggestion of the old dowager, like instilled poison, was making its way into her very veins. Her thoughts had been busy with the matter ever since. One positive conviction lay in her heart—that Dr. Ashton, now reading the first lesson before her, for he was taking the whole of the service that evening, could not, under any circumstance, be guilty of a false assertion or subterfuge. One solution of the difficulty presented itself to her—that her mother, in her irascibility, had misunderstood the Rector; and yet that was improbable. As Maude half sat, half lay back in the pew, for the faint feeling was especially upon her that evening, she thought she would give a great deal to set the matter at rest.
When the service was over she took the more secluded way home; those of the servants who had attended returning as usual by the road. On reaching the turning where the three paths diverged, the faintness which had been hovering over her all the evening suddenly grew worse; and but for a friendly tree, she might have fallen. It grew better in a few moments, but she did not yet quit her support.
Very surprised was the Rector of Calne to come up and see Lady Hartledon in this position. Every Sunday evening, after service, he went to visit a man in one of the cottages, who was dying of consumption, and he was on his way there now. He would have preferred to pass without speaking: but Lady Hartledon looked in need of assistance; and in common Christian kindness he could not pass her by.
"I beg your pardon, Lady Hartledon. Are you ill?"
She took his offered arm with her disengaged hand, as an additional support; and her white face turned a shade whiter.
"A sudden faintness overtook me. I am better now," she said, when able to speak.
"Will you allow me to walk on with you?"
"Thank you; just a little way. If you will not mind it."
That he must have understood the feeling which prompted the concluding words was undoubted: and perhaps had Lady Hartledon been in possession of her keenest senses, she might never have spoken them. Pride and health go out of us together. Dr. Ashton took her on his arm, and they walked slowly in the direction of the little bridge. Colour was returning to her face, strength to her frame.
"The heat of the day has affected you, possibly?"
"Yes, perhaps; I have felt faint at times lately. The church was very hot to-night."
Nothing more was said until the bridge was gained, and then Maude released his arm.
"Dr. Ashton, I thank you very much. You have been a friend in need."
"But are you sure you are strong enough to go on alone? I will escort you to the house if you are not."
"Quite strong enough now. Thank you once again."
As he was bowing his farewell, a sudden impulse to speak, and set the matter that was troubling her at rest, came over her. Without a moment's deliberation, without weighing her words, she rushed upon it; the ostensible plea an apology for her mother's having spoken to him.
"Yes, I told Lady Kirton she was labouring under some misapprehension," he quietly answered.
"Will you forgivemealso for speaking of it?" she murmured. "Since my mother came home with the news of what you said, I have been lost in a sea of conjecture: I could not attend to the service for dwelling upon it, and might as well not have been in church—a curious confession to make to you, Dr. Ashton. Is it indeed true that you know nothing of the matter?"
"Lady Kirton told me in so many words that I had entered an action against Lord Hartledon for breach of promise, and laid the damages at ten thousand pounds," returned Dr. Ashton, with a plainness of speech and a cynical manner that made her blush. And she saw at once that he had done nothing of the sort; saw it without any more decisive denial.
"But the action has been entered," said Lady Hartledon.
"I beg your pardon, madam. Lord Hartledon is, I should imagine, the only man living who could suppose me capable of such a thing."
"And you havenotentered on it!" she reiterated, half bewildered by the denial.
"Most certainly not. When I parted with Lord Hartledon on a certain evening, which probably your ladyship remembers, I washed my hands of him for good, desiring never to approach him in any way whatever, never hear of him, never see him again. Your husband, madam, is safe for me: I desire nothing better than to forget that such a man is in existence."
Lifting his hat, he walked away. And Lady Hartledon stood and gazed after him as one in a dream.
Thomas Carr was threading his way through the mazy precincts of Gray's Inn, with that quick step and absorbed manner known only, I think, to the busy man of our busy metropolis. He was on his way to make some inquiries of a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Kedge and Reck, strangers to him in all but name.
Up some dark and dingy stairs, he knocked at a dark and dingy door: which, after a minute, opened of itself by some ingenious contrivance, and let him into a passage, whence he turned into a room, where two clerks were writing at a desk.
"Can I see Mr. Kedge?"
"Not in," said one of the clerks, without looking up.
"Mr. Reck, then?"
"Not in."
"When will either of them be in?" continued the barrister; thinking that if he were Messrs. Kedge and Reck the clerk would get his discharge for incivility.
"Can't say. What's your business?"
"My business is with them: not with you."
"You can see the managing clerk."
"I wish to see one of the partners."
"Could you give your name?" continued the gentleman, equably.
Mr. Carr handed in his card. The clerk glanced at it, and surreptitiously showed it to his companion; and both of them looked up at him. Mr. Carr of the Temple was known by reputation, and they condescended to become civil.
"Take a seat for a moment, sir," said the one. "I'll inquire how long Mr. Kedge will be; but Mr. Reek's not in town to-day."
A few minutes, and Thomas Carr found himself in a small square room with the head of the firm, a youngish man and somewhat of a dandy, especially genial in manner, as though in contrast to his clerk. He welcomed the rising barrister.
"There's as much difficulty in getting to see you as if you were Pope of Rome," cried Mr. Carr, good humouredly.
The lawyer laughed. "Hopkins did not know you: and strangers are generally introduced to Mr. Reck, or to our managing clerk. What can I do for you, Mr. Carr?"
"I don't know that you can do anything for me," said Mr. Carr, seating himself; "but I hope you can. At the present moment I am engaged in sifting a piece of complicated business for a friend; a private matter entirely, which it is necessary to keep private. I am greatly interested in it myself, as you may readily believe, when it is keeping me from circuit. Indeed it may almost be called my own affair," he added, observing the eyes of the lawyer fixed upon him, and not caring they should see into his business too clearly. "I fancy you have a clerk, or had a clerk, who is cognizant of one or two points in regard to it: can you put me in the way of finding out where he is? His name is Gordon."
"Gordon! We have no clerk of that name. Never had one, that I remember. How came you to fancy it?"
"I heard it from my own clerk, Taylor. One day last week I happened to say before him that I'd give a five-pound note out of my pocket to get at the present whereabouts of this man Gordon. Taylor is a shrewd fellow; full of useful bits of information, and knows, I really believe, three-fourths of London by name. He immediately said a young man of that name was with Messrs. Kedge and Reck, of Gray's Inn, either as clerk, or in some other capacity; and when he described this clerk of yours, I felt nearly sure that it was the man I am looking for. I got Taylor to make inquiries, and he did, I believe, of one of your clerks; but he could learn nothing, except that no one of that name was connected with you now. Taylor persists that he is or was connected with you; and so I thought the shortest plan to settle the matter was to ask yourselves."
"We have no clerk of that name," repeated Mr. Kedge, pushing back some papers on the table. "Never had one."
"Understand," said Mr. Carr, thinking it just possible the lawyer might be mistaking his motives, "I have nothing to allege against the man, and do not seek to injure him. The real fact is, that I do not want to see him or to be brought into personal contact with him; I only want to know whether he is in London, and, if so, where?"
"I assure you he is not connected with us," repeated Mr. Kedge. "I would tell you so in a moment if he were."
"Then I can only apologise for having troubled you," said the barrister, rising. "Taylor must have been mistaken. And yet I would have backed his word, when he positively asserts a thing, against the world. I hardly ever knew him wrong."
Mr. Kedge was playing with the locket on his watch-chain, his head bent in thought.
"Wait a moment, Mr. Carr. I remember now that we took a clerk temporarily into the office in the latter part of last year. His writing did not suit, and we kept him only a week or two. I don't know what his name was, but it might have been Gordon."
"Do you remember what sort of a man he was?" asked Mr. Carr, somewhat eagerly.
"I really do not. You see, I don't come much into contact with our clerks. Reck does; but he's not here to-day. I fancy he had red hair."
"Gordon had reddish hair."
"You had better see Kimberly," said the solicitor, ringing a bell. "He is our managing clerk, and knows everything."
A grey-haired, silent-looking man came in with stooping shoulders. Mr. Kedge, without any circumlocution, asked whether he remembered any clerk of the name of Gordon having been in the house. Mr. Kimberly responded by saying that they never had one in the house of the name.
"Well, I thought not," observed the principal. "There was one had in for a short time, you know, while Hopkins was ill. I forget his name."
"His name was Druitt, sir. We employed a man of the name of Gorton to do some outdoor business for us at times," continued the managing clerk, turning his eyes on the barrister; "but not lately."
"What sort of business?"
"Serving writs."
"Gorton is not Gordon," remarked Mr. Kedge, with legal acumen. "By the way, Kimberly, I have heard nothing of Gorton lately. What has become of him?"
"I have not the least idea, sir. We parted in a huff, so he wouldn't perhaps be likely to come in my way again. Some business that he mismanaged, if you remember, sir, down at Calne."
"When he arrested one man for another," laughed the lawyer, "and got entangled in a coroner's inquest, and I don't know what all."
Mr. Carr had pricked up his ears, scarcely daring to breathe. But his manner was careless to a degree.
"The man he arrested being Lord Hartledon; the man he ought to have arrested being the Honourable Percival Elster," he interposed, laughing.
"What! do you know about it?" cried the lawyer.
"I remember hearing of it; I was intimate with Mr. Elster at the time."
"He has since become Lord Hartledon."
"Yes. But about this Gorton! I should not be in the least surprised if he is the man I am inquiring for. Can you describe him to me, Mr. Kimberly?"
"He is a short, slight man, under thirty, with red hair and whiskers."
Mr. Carr nodded.
"Light hair with a reddish tinge it has been described to me. Do you happen to be at all acquainted with his antecedents?"
"Not I; I know nothing about, the man," said Mr. Kedge. "Kimberly does, perhaps."
"No, sir," dissented Kimberly. "He had been to Australia, I believe; and that's all I know about him."
"It is the same man," said Mr. Carr, quietly. "And if you can tell me anything about him," he continued, turning to the older man, "I shall be exceedingly obliged to you. To begin with—when did you first know him?"
But at this juncture an interruption occurred. Hopkins the discourteous came in with a card, which he presented to his principal. The gentleman was waiting to see Mr. Kedge. Two more clients were also waiting, he added, Thomas Carr rose, and the end of it was that he went with Mr. Kimberly to his own room.
"It's Carr of the Inner Temple," whispered Mr. Kedge in his clerk's ear.
"Oh, I know him, sir."
"All right. If you can help him, do so."
"I first knew Gorton about fifteen months ago," observed the clerk, when they were shut in together. "A friend of mine, now dead, spoke of him to me as a respectable young fellow who had fallen in the world, and asked if I could help him to some employment. I think he told me somewhat of his history; but I quite forget it. I know he was very low down then, with scarcely bread to eat."
"Did this friend of yours call him Gorton or Gordon?" interrupted Mr. Carr.
"Gorton. I never heard him called Gordon at all. I remember seeing a book of his that he seemed to set some store by. It was printed in old English, and had his name on the title-page: 'George Gorton. From his affectionate father, W. Gorton.' I employed him in some outdoor work. He knew London perfectly well, and seemed to know people too."
"And he had been to Australia?"
"He had been to Australia, I feel sure. One day he accidentally let slip some words about Melbourne, which he could not well have done unless he had seen the place. I taxed him with it, and he shuffled out of it with some excuse; but in such a manner as to convince me he had been there."
"And now, Mr. Kimberly, I am going to ask you another question. You spoke of his having been at Calne; I infer that you sent him to the place on the errand to Mr. Elster. Try to recollect whether his going there was your own spontaneous act, or whether he was the original mover in the journey?"
The grey-haired clerk looked up as though not understanding.
"You don't quite take me, I see."
"Yes I do, sir; but I was thinking. So far as I can recollect, it was our own spontaneous act. I am sure I had no reason to think otherwise at the time. We had had a deal of trouble with the Honourable Mr. Elster; and when it was found that he had left town for the family seat, we came to the resolution to arrest him."
Thomas Carr paused. "Do you know anything of Gordon's—or Gorton's doings in Calne? Did you ever hear him speak of them afterwards?"
"I don't know that I did particularly. The excuse he made to us for arresting Lord Hartledon was, that the brothers were so much alike he mistook the one for the other."
"Which would infer that he knew Mr. Elster by sight."
"It might; yes. It was not for the mistake that we discharged him; indeed, not for anything at all connected with Calne. He did seem to have gone about his business there in a very loose way, and to have paid less attention to our interests than to the gossip of the place; of which there was a tolerable amount just then, on account of Lord Hartledon's unfortunate death. Gorton was set upon another job or two when he returned; and one of those he contrived to mismanage so woefully, that I would give him no more to do. It struck me that he must drink, or else was accessible to a bribe."
Mr. Carr nodded his head, thinking the latter more than probable. His fingers were playing with a newspaper which happened to lie on the clerk's desk; and he put the next question with a very well-assumed air of carelessness, as if it were but the passing thought of the moment.
"Did he ever talk about Mr. Elster?"
"Never but once. He came to my house one evening to tell me he had discovered the hiding-place of a gentleman we were looking for. I was taking my solitary glass of gin and water after supper, the only stimulant I ever touch—and that by the doctor's orders—and I could not do less than ask him to help himself. You see, sir, we did not look upon him as a common sheriff's man: and he helped himself pretty freely. That made him talkative. I fancy his head cannot stand much; and he began rambling upon recent affairs at Calne; he had not been back above a week then—"
"And he spoke of Mr. Elster?"
"He spoke a good deal of him as the new Lord Hartledon, all in a rambling sort of way. He hinted that it might be in his power to bring home to him some great crime."
"The man must have been drunk indeed!" remarked Mr. Carr, with the most perfect assumption of indifference; a very contrast to the fear that shot through his heart. "What crime, pray? I hope he particularized it."
"What he seemed to hint at was some unfair play in connection with his brother's death," said the old clerk, lowering his voice. "'A man at his wits' end for money would do many queer things,' he remarked."
Mr. Carr's eyes flashed. "What a dangerous fool he must be! You surely did not listen to him!"
"I, sir! I stopped him pretty quickly, and bade him sew up his mouth until he came to his sober senses again. Oh, they make great simpletons of themselves, some of these young fellows, when they get a little drink into them."
"They do," said the barrister. "Did he ever allude to the matter again?"
"Never; and when I saw him the next day, he seemed ashamed of himself, and asked if he had not been talking a lot of nonsense. About a fortnight after that we parted, and I have never seen him since."
"And you really do not know what has become of him?"
"Not at all. I should think he has left London."
"Why?"
"Because had he remained in it he'd be sure to have come bothering me to employ him again; unless, indeed, he has found some one else to do it."
"Well," said Mr. Carr, rising, "will you do me this favour? If you come across the man again, or learn tidings of him in any way, let me know it at once. I do not want him to hear of me, or that I have made inquiries about him. I only wish to ascertainwherehe is, if that be possible. Any one bringing me this information privately will find it well worth his while."
He went forth into the busy streets again, sick at heart; and upon reaching his chambers wrote a note for a detective officer, and put some business into his hands.
Meanwhile Lord Hartledon remained in London. When the term for which they had engaged the furnished house was expired he took lodgings in Grafton Street; and there he stayed, his frame of mind restless and unsatisfactory. Lady Hartledon wrote to him sometimes, and he answered her. She said not a word about the discovery she had made in regard to the alleged action-at-law; but she never failed in every letter to ask what he was doing, and when he was coming home—meaning to Hartledon. He put her off in the best way he could: he and Carr were very busy together, he said: as to home, he could not mention any particular time. And Lady Hartledon bottled up her curiosity and her wrath, and waited with what patience she possessed.
The truth was—and, perhaps, the reader may have divined it—that graver motives than the sensitive feeling of not liking to face the Ashtons were keeping Lord Hartledon from his wife and home. He had once, in his bachelor days, wished himself a savage in some remote desert, where his civilized acquaintance could not come near him; he had a thousand times more reason to wish himself one now.
One dusty day, when the excessive heat of summer was on the wane, he went down to Mr. Carr's chambers, and found that gentleman out. Not out for long, the clerk thought; and sat down and waited. The room he was in looked out on the cool garden, the quiet river; in the one there was not a soul except Mr. Broom himself, who had gone in to watch the progress of his chrysanthemums, and was stooping lovingly over the beds; on the other a steamer, freighted with a straggling few, was paddling up the river against the tide, and a barge with its brown sail was coming down in all its picturesque charm. The contrast between this quiet scene and the bustling, dusty, jostling world he had come in from, was grateful even to his disturbed heart; and he felt half inclined to go round to the garden and fling himself on the lawn as a man might do who was free from care.
Mr. Carr indulged in the costly luxury of three rooms in the Temple; his sitting-room, which was his work-room, a bedroom, and a little outer room, the sanctum of his clerk. Lord Hartledon was in the sitting-room, but he could hear the clerk moving about in the ante-room, as if he had no writing on hand that morning. When tired of waiting, he called him in.
"Mr. Taylor, how long do you think he will be? I've been dozing, I think."
"Well, I thought he'd have been here before now, my lord. He generally tells me if he is going out for any length of time; but he said nothing to-day."
"A newspaper would be something to while away one's time, or a book," grumbled Hartledon. "Not those," glancing at a book-case full of ponderous law-volumes.
"Your lordship has taken the cream out of them already," remarked the clerk, with a laugh; and Hartledon's brow knitted at the words. He had "taken the cream" out of those old law-books, if studying them could do it, for he had been at them pretty often of late.
But Mr. Taylor's remarks had no ulterior meaning. Being a shrewd man, he could not fail to suspect that Lord Hartledon was in a scrape of some sort; but from a word dropped by his master he supposed it to involve nothing more than a question of debt; and he never suspected that the word had been dropped purposely. "Scamps would claim money twice over when they could," said Mr. Carr; and Elster was a careless man, always losing his receipts. He was a short, slight man, this clerk—in build something like his master—with an intelligent, silent face, a small, sharp nose, and fair hair. He had been born a gentleman, he was wont to say; and indeed he looked one; but he had not received an education commensurate with that fact, and had to make his own way in the world. He might do it yet, perhaps, he remarked one day to Lord Hartledon; and certainly, if steady perseverance could effect it, he would: all his spare time was spent in study.
"He has not gone to one of those blessed consultations in somebody's chambers, has he?" cried Val. "I have known them last three hours."
"I have known them last longer than that," said the clerk equably. "But there are none on just now."
"I can't think what has become of him. He made an appointment with me for this morning. And where's hisTimes?"
Mr. Taylor could not tell where; he had been looking for the newspaper on his own account. It was not to be found; and they could only come to the conclusion that the barrister had taken it out with him.
"I wish you'd go out and buy me one," said Val.
"I'll go with pleasure, my lord. But suppose any one comes to the door?"
"Oh, I'll answer it. They'll think Carr has taken on a new clerk."
Mr. Taylor laughed, and went out. Hartledon, tired of sitting, began to pace the room and the ante-room. Most men would have taken their departure; but he had nothing to do; he had latterly shunned that portion of the world called society; and was as well in Mr. Carr's chambers as in his own lodgings, or in strolling about with his troubled heart. While thus occupied, there came a soft tap to the outer door—as was sure to be the case, the clerk being absent—and Val opened it. A middle-aged, quiet-looking man stood there, who had nothing specially noticeable in his appearance, except a pair of deep-set dark eyes, under bushy eyebrows that were turning grey.
"Mr. Carr within?"
"Mr. Carr's not in," replied the temporary clerk. "I dare say you can wait."
"Likely to be long?"
"I should think not. I have been waiting for him these two hours."
The applicant entered, and sat down in the clerk's room. Lord Hartledon went into the other, and stood drumming on the window-pane, as he gazed out upon the Temple garden.
"I'd go, but for that note of Carr's," he said to himself. "If—Halloa! that's his voice at last."
Mr. Carr and his clerk had returned together. The former, after a few moments, came in to Lord Hartledon.
"A nice fellow you are, Carr! Sending me word to be here at eleven o'clock, and then walking off for two mortal hours!"
"I sent you word to wait for me at your own home!"
"Well, that's good!" returned Val. "It said, 'Be here at eleven,' as plainly as writing could say it."
"And there was a postscript over the leaf telling you, on second thought,notto be here, but to wait at home for me," said Mr. Carr. "I remembered a matter of business that would take me up your way this morning, and thought I'd go on to you. It's just your careless fashion, Hartledon, reading only half your letters! You should have turned it over."
"Who was to think there was anything on the other side? Folk don't turn their letters over from curiosity when they are concluded on the first page."
"I never had a letter in my life but I turned it over to make sure," observed the more careful barrister. "I have had my walk for nothing."
"And I have been cooling my heels here! And you took the newspaper with you!"
"No, I did not. Churton sent in from his rooms to borrow it."
"Well, let the misunderstanding go, and forgive me for being cross. Do you know, Carr, I think I am growing ill-tempered from trouble. What news have you for me?"
"I'll tell you by-and-by. Do you know who that is in the other room?"
"Not I. He seemed to stare me inside-out in a quiet way as I let him in."
"Ay. It's Green, the detective. At times a question occurs to me whether that's his real name, or one assumed in his profession. He has come to report at last. Had you better remain?"
"Why not?"
Mr. Carr looked dubious.
"You can make some excuse for my presence."
"It's not that. I'm thinking if you let slip a word—"
"Is it likely?"
"Inadvertently, I mean."
"There's no fear. You have not mentioned my name to him?"
"I retort in your own words—Is it likely? He does not know why he is being employed or what I want with the man I wish traced. At present he is working, as far as that goes, in the dark. I might have put him on a false scent, just as cleverly and unsuspiciously as I dare say he could put me; but I've not done it. What's the matter with you to-day, Hartledon? You look ill."
"I only look what I am, then," was the answer. "But I'm no worse than usual. I'd rather be transported—I'd rather be hanged, for that matter—than lead the life of misery I am leading. At times I feel inclined to give in, but then comes the thought of Maude."