The first sitting of the Birmingham Labour Congress was just over, and the streets about the hall in which it had been held were beginning to fill with the issuing delegates. Rain was pouring down and umbrellas were plentiful.
Harry Wharton, accompanied by a group of men, left the main entrance of the hall,—releasing himself with difficulty from the friendly crowd about the doors—and crossed the street to his hotel.
"Well, I'm glad you think I did decently," he said, as they mounted the hotel stairs. "What a beastly day, and how stuffy that hall was! Come in and have something to drink."
He threw open the door of his sitting-room as he spoke. The four men with him followed him in.
"I must go back to the hall to see two or three men before everybody disperses," said the one in front. "No refreshment for me, thank you, Mr. Wharton. But I want to ask a question—what arrangements have you made for the reporting of your speech?"
The man who spoke was thin and dark, with a modest kindly eye. He wore a black frock coat, and had the air of a minister.
"Oh, thank you, Bennett, it's all right. ThePost, theChronicle, and theNorthern Guardianwill have full copies. I sent them off before the meeting. And my own paper, of course. As to the rest they may report it as they like. I don't care."
"They'll all have it," said another man, bluntly. "It's the best speech you've ever made—the best president's speech we've had yet, I say,—don't you think so?"
The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Both nodded.
"Hallin's speech last year was first-rate," he continued, "but somehow Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just now isfight—and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!"
And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one to another. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowded hall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men present indeed—though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in the rest—had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenly conscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emerged successfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they went over the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene which had followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip. Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his own expense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving, contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just delivered had been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridor at Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his own room, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, and make two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its range nor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. The programme of labour for the next five years had never been better presented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin's presidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in the memory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, and knew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellows who would otherwise have stood in his way.
Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He had already betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to the New Unionism, and affected a costume in character—fustian trousers, flannel shirt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculated to set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun life as a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recently formed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to be already on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would win a seat in the coming Parliament.
The other two men were Molloy, secretary to the congress, short, smooth-faced, and wiry, a man whose pleasant eye and manner were often misleading, since he was in truth one of the hottest fighting men of a fighting movement; and Wilkins, a friend of Casey's—ex-iron worker, Union official, and Labour candidate for a Yorkshire division—an uneducated, passionate fellow, speaking with a broad, Yorkshire accent, a bad man of affairs, but honest, and endowed with the influence which comes of sincerity, together with a gift for speaking and superhuman powers of physical endurance.
"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Wharton, throwing himself into a chair with a long breath, and at the same time stretching out his hand to ring the bell. "Casey, some whisky? No? Nor you, Wilkins? nor Molloy? As for you, Bennett, I know it's no good asking you. By George! our grandfathers would have thought us a poor lot! Well, some coffee at any rate you must all of you have before you go back. Waiter! coffee. By the way, I have been seeing something of Hallin, Bennett, down in the country."
He took out his cigarette case as he spoke, and offered it to the others. All refused except Molloy. Casey took his half-smoked pipe out of his pocket and lit up. He was not a teetotaler as the others were, but he would have scorned to drink his whisky and water at the expense of a "gentleman" like Wharton, or to smoke the "gentleman's" cigarettes. His class-pride was irritably strong. Molloy, who was by nature anybody's equal, took the cigarette with an easy good manners, which made Casey look at him askance.
Mr. Bennett drew his chair close to Wharton's. The mention of Hallin had roused a look of anxiety in his quick dark eyes.
"How is he, Mr. Wharton? The last letter I had from him he made light of his health. But you know he only just avoided a breakdown in that strike business. We only pulled him through by the skin of his teeth—Mr. Raeburn and I."
"Oh, he's no constitution; never had, I suppose. But he seemed much as usual. He's staying with Raeburn, you know, and I've been staying with the father of the young lady whom Raeburn 's going to marry."
"Ah! I've heard of that," said Bennett, with a look of interest. "Well, Mr. Raeburn isn't on our side, but for judgment and fair dealing there are very few men of his class and circumstances I would trust as I would him. The lady should be happy."
"Of course," said Wharton, drily. "However, neither she nor Raeburn are very happy just at this moment. A horrible affair happened down there last night. One of Lord Maxwell's gamekeepers and a 'helper,' a lad of seventeen, were killed last night in a fight with poachers. I only just heard the outlines of it before I came away, but I got a telegram just before going into congress, asking me to defend the man charged with the murder."
A quick expression of repulsion and disgust crossed Bennett's face.
"There have been a whole crop of such cases lately," he said. "How shall we ever escape from thecurseof this game system?"
"We shan't escape it," said Wharton, quietly, knocking the end off his cigarette, "not in your lifetime or mine. When we get more Radicals on the bench we shall lighten the sentences; but that will only exasperate the sporting class into finding new ways of protecting themselves. Oh! the man will be hung—that's quite clear to me. But it will be a good case—from the public point of view—will work up well—"
He ran his hand through his curls, considering.
"Will work up admirably," he added in a lower tone of voice, as though to himself, his eyes keen and brilliant as ever, in spite of the marks of sleeplessness and fatigue visible in the rest of the face, though only visible there since he had allowed himself the repose of his cigarette and arm-chair.
"Are yo' comin' to dine at the 'Peterloo' to-night, Mr. Wharton?" said Wilkins, as Wharton handed him a cup of coffee; "but of coorse you are—part of yower duties, I suppose?"
While Molloy and Casey were deep in animated discussion of the great meeting of the afternoon he had been sitting silent against the edge of the table—a short-bearded sombre figure, ready at any moment to make a grievance, to suspect a slight.
"I'm afraid I can't," said Wharton, bending forward and speaking in a tone of concern; "that was just what I was going to ask you all—if you would make my excuses to-night? I have been explaining to Bennett. I have an important piece of business in the country—a labourer has been getting into trouble for shooting a keeper; they have asked me to defend him. The assizes come on in little more than a fortnight, worse luck! so that the time is short—"
And he went on to explain that, by taking an evening train back to Widrington, he could get the following (Saturday) morning with the solicitor in charge of the case, and be back in Birmingham, thanks to the convenience of a new line lately opened, in time for the second meeting of the congress, which was fixed for the early afternoon.
He spoke with great cordiality and persuasiveness. Among the men who surrounded him, his youth, good looks, and easy breeding shone out conspicuous. In the opinion of Wilkins, indeed, who followed his every word and gesture, he was far too well dressed and too well educated. A day would soon come when the labour movement would be able to show these young aristocrats the door. Not yet, however.
"Well, I thowt you wouldn't dine with us," he said, turning away with a blunt laugh.
Bennett's mild eye showed annoyance. "Mr. Wharton has explained himself very fully, I think," he said, turning to the others. "We shall miss him at dinner—but this matter seems to be one of life and death. And we mustn't forget anyway that Mr. Wharton is fulfilling this engagement at great inconvenience to himself. We none of us knew when we elected him last year that he would have to be fighting his election at the same time. Next Saturday, isn't it?"
Bennett rose as he spoke and carefully buttoned his coat. It was curious to contrast his position among his fellows—one of marked ascendency and authority—with his small insignificant physique. He had a gentle deprecating eye, and the heart of a poet. He played the flute and possessed the gift of repeating verse—especially Ebenezer Eliot's Corn Law Rhymes—so as to stir a great audience to enthusiasm or tears. The Wesleyan community of his native Cheshire village owned no more successful class-leader, and no humbler Christian. At the same time he could hold a large business meeting sternly in check, was the secretary of one of the largest and oldest Unions in the country, had been in Parliament for years, and was generally looked upon even by the men who hated his "moderate" policy, as a power not to be ignored.
"Next Saturday. Yes!" said Wharton, nodding in answer to his inquiry.
"Well, are you going to do it?" said Casey, looking round at him.
"Oh, yes!" said Wharton, cheerfully; "oh, yes! we shall do it. We shall settle old Dodgson, I think."
"Are the Raeburns as strong as they were?" asked Molloy, who knewBrookshire.
"What landlord is? Since '84 the ground is mined for them all—good and bad—and they know it."
"The mine takes a long time blowing up—too long for my patience," said Wilkins, gruffly. "How the country can go on year after year paying its tribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attack them as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long as Parliament and the Cabinet is made up of them and their hangers on."
Wharton looked at him brightly, but silently, making a little assenting inclination of the head. He was not surprised that anything should pass Wilkins's comprehension, and he was determined to give him no opening for holding forth.
"Well, we'll let you alone," said Bennett. "You'll have very little time to get off in. We'll make your excuses, Mr. Wharton. You may be sure everybody is so pleased with your speech we shall find them all in a good temper. It was grand!—let me congratulate you again. Good-night—I hope you'll get your poacher off!"
The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;—Molloy, with an eager business reference to the order of the day for Saturday,—"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everything to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"—Casey, with the off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his benevolence mistaken for servility,—and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been read in the manner of the last two, that although this young man had just made a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far, they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before they must. In truth, both were already jealous of him; whereas Molloy, absorbed in the business of the congress, cared for nothing except to know whether in the next two days' debates Wharton would show himself as good a chairman as he was an orator; and Bennett, while saying no word that he did not mean, was fully conscious of an inner judgment, which pronounced five minutes of Edward Hallin's company to be worth more to him than anything which this brilliant young fellow could do or say.
* * * * *
Wharton saw them out, then came back and threw himself again into his chair by the window. The venetian blinds were not closed, and he looked out on a wide and handsome street of tall red-brick houses and shops, crowded with people and carriages, and lit with a lavishness of gas which overcame even the February dark and damp. But he noticed nothing, and even the sensation of his triumph was passing off. He was once more in the Mellor drive; Aldous Raeburn and Marcella stood in front of him; the thrill of the moment beat once more in his pulse.
He buried his head in his hands and thought. The news of the murder had reached him from Mr. Boyce. The master of Mellor had heard the news from William, the man-servant, at half-past seven, and had instantly knocked up his guest, by way of sharing the excitement with which his own feeble frame was throbbing.
"By Gad! I never heard such anatrociousbusiness," said the invalid, his thin hand shaking against his dressing-gown. "That's what your Radical notions bring us to! We shall have them plundering and burning the country houses next."
"I don't think my Radical notions have much to do with it," saidWharton, composedly.
But there was a red spot in his cheeks which belied his manner. So when he—they—saw Hurd cross the avenue he was on his way to this deed of blood. The shot that he, Wharton, had heard had been the shot which slew Westall? Probably. Well, what was the bearing of it? Could she keep her own counsel or would they find themselves in the witness box? The idea quickened his pulse amazingly.
"Any clue? Any arrests?" he asked of his host. "Why, I told you," said Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "They have got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers and police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's my daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, andpreachingto me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at the Court. I trust it will be a lesson to her."
Wharton drew a breath of relief. So the man was in custody, and there was other evidence. Good! There was no saying what a woman's conscience might be capable of, even against her friends and herself.
When Mr. Boyce at last left him free to dress and make his preparations for the early train, by which the night before, after the ladies' departure for the ball, he had suddenly made up his mind to leave Mellor, it was some time before Wharton could rouse himself to action. The situation absorbed him. Miss Boyce's friend was now in imminent danger of his neck, and Miss Boyce's thoughts must be of necessity concentrated upon his plight and that of his family. He foresaw the passion, thesaeva indignatio, that she must ultimately throw—the general situation being what it was—into the struggle for Hurd's life. Whatever the evidence might be, he would be to her either victim or champion—and Westall, of course, merely the Holofernes of the piece.
How would Raeburn take it? Ah, well! the situation must develop. It occurred to him, however, that he would catch an earlier train to Widrington than the one he had fixed on, and have half an hour's talk with a solicitor who was a good friend of his before going on to Birmingham. Accordingly, he rang for William—who came, all staring and dishevelled, fresh from the agitation of the servants' hall—gave orders for his luggage to be sent after him, got as much fresh information as he could from the excited lad, plunged into his bath, and finally emerged, fresh and vigorous in every nerve, showing no trace whatever of the fact that two hours of broken sleep had been his sole portion for a night, in which he had gone through emotions and sustained a travail of brain either of which would have left their mark on most men.
* * * * *
Then the meeting in the drive! How plainly he saw them both—Raeburn grave and pale, Marcella in her dark serge skirt and cap, with an eye all passion and a cheek white as her hand.
"A tragic splendour enwrapped her!—a fierce heroic air. She was the embodiment of the moment—of the melancholy morning with its rain and leafless woods—of the human anguish throbbing in the little village. And I, who had seen her last in her festal dress, who had held her warm perfumed youth in my arms, who had watched in her white breast the heaving of the heart that I—Ihad troubled!—how did I find it possible to stand and face her? But I did. It rushed through me at oncehowI would make her forgive me—how I would regain possession of her. I had thought the play was closed: it was suddenly plain to me that the second act was but just beginning. She and Raeburn had already come to words—I knew it directly I saw them. This business will divide them more and more. Hisconsciencewill come in—and a Raeburn's conscience is the devil!
"By now he hates me; every word I speak to him—still more every word to her—galls him. But he controlled himself when I made him tell me the story—I had no reason to complain—though every now and then I could see him wince under the knowledge I must needs show of the persons and places concerned—a knowledge I could only have got fromher. And she stood by meanwhile like a statue. Not a word, not a look, so far, though she had been forced to touch my hand. But my instinct saved me. I roused her—I played upon her! I took the line that I was morally certainshehad been taking in theirtête-à-tête. Why not a scuffle?—a general scrimmage?—in which it was matter of accident who fell? The man surely was inoffensive and gentle, incapable of deliberate murder. And as to the evidence of hatred, it told both ways. He stiffened and was silent. What a fine brow he has—a look sometimes, when he is moved, of antique power and probity! But she—she trembled—animation came back. She would almost have spoken to me—but I did well not to prolong it—to hurry on."
Then he took the telegram out of his pocket which had been put into his hands as he reached the hotel, his mouth quivering again with the exultation which he had felt when he had received it. It recalled to his ranging memory all the details of his hurried interview with the little Widrington solicitor, who had already scented a job in the matter of Hurd's defence. This man—needy, shrewd, and well equipped with local knowledge—had done work for Wharton and the party, and asked nothing better than to stand well with the future member for the division. "There is a lady," Wharton had said, "the daughter of Mr. Boyce of Mellor, who is already very much interested in this fellow and his family. She takes this business greatly to heart. I have seen her this morning, but had no time to discuss the matter with her. She will, I have little doubt, try to help the relations in the arrangements for the defence. Go to her this morning—tell her that the case has my sympathy—that, as she knows, I am a barrister, and, if she wishes it, I will defend Hurd. I shall be hard put to it to get up the case with the election coming on, but I will do it—for the sake of the public interest involved. You understand? Her father is a Tory—and she is just about to marry Mr. Raeburn. Her position, therefore, is difficult. Nevertheless, she will feel strongly—she does feel strongly about this case, and about the whole game system—and I feel moved to support her. She will take her own line, whatever happens. See her—see the wife, too, who is entirely under Miss Boyce's influence—and wire to me at my hotel at Birmingham. If they wish to make other arrangements, well and good. I shall have all the more time to give to the election."
Leaving this commission behind him, he had started on his journey. At the end of it a telegram had been handed to him on the stairs of his hotel:
"Have seen the lady, also Mrs. Hurd. You are urgently asked to undertake defence."
He spread it out before him now, and pondered it. The bit of flimsy paper contained for him the promise of all he most coveted,—influence, emotion, excitement. "She will have returns upon herself," he thought smiling, "when I see her again. She will be dignified, resentful; she will suspect everything I say or do—still more, she will suspect herself. No matter! The situation is in my hands. Whether I succeed or fail, she will be forced to work with me, to consult with me—she will owe me gratitude. What made her consent?—she must have felt it in some sort a humiliation. Is it that Raeburn has been driving her to strong measures—that she wants, woman-like, to win, and thought me after all her best chance, and put her pride in her pocket? Or is it?—ah! one should putthatout of one's head. It's like wine—it unsteadies one. And for a thing like this one must go into training. Shall I write to her—there is just time now, before I start—take the lofty tone, the equal masculine tone, which I have noticed she likes?—ask her pardon for an act of madness—before we go together to the rescue of a life? It might do—it might go down. But no, I think not! Let the situation develop itself. Action and reaction—the unexpected—I commit myself to that.She—marry Aldous Raeburn in a month? Well, she may—certainly she may. But there is no need for me, I think, to take it greatly into account. Curious! twenty-four hours ago I thought it all done with—dead and done with. 'So like Provvy,' as Bentham used to say, when he heard of anything particularly unseemly in the way of natural catastrophe. Now to dine, and be off! How little sleep can I do with in the next fortnight?"
He rang, ordered his cab, and then went to the coffee-room for some hasty food. As he was passing one of the small tables with which the room was filled, a man who was dining there with a friend recognised him and gave him a cold nod. Wharton walked on to the further end of the room, and, while waiting for his meal, buried himself in the local evening paper, which already contained a report of his speech.
"Did you see that man?" asked the stranger of his friend.
"The small young fellow with the curly hair?"
"Small young fellow, indeed! He is the wiriest athlete I know—extraordinary physical strength for his size—and one of the cleverest rascals out as a politician. I am a neighbour of his in the country. His property joins mine. I knew his father—a little, dried-up old chap of the old school—very elegant manners and very obstinate—worried to death by his wife—oh, my goodness! such a woman!"
"What's the name?" said the friend, interrupting.
"Wharton—H.S. Wharton. His mother was a daughter of Lord Westgate, andhermother was an actress whom the old lord married in his dotage. Lady Mildred Wharton was like Garrick, only natural when she was acting, which she did on every possible occasion. A preposterous woman! Old Wharton ought to have beaten her for her handwriting, and murdered her for her gowns. Her signature took a sheet of note-paper, and as for her dress I never could get out of her way. Whatever part of the room I happened to be in I always found my feet tangled in her skirts. Somehow, I never could understand how she was able to find so much stuff of one pattern. But it was only to make you notice her, like all the rest. Every bit of her was a pose, and the maternal pose was the worst of all."
"H.S. Wharton?" said the other. "Why, that's the man who has been speaking here to-day. I've just been reading the account of it in theEvening Star. A big meeting—called by a joint committee of the leading Birmingham trades to consider the Liberal election programme as it affects labour—that's the man—he's been at it hammer and tongs—red-hot—all the usual devices for harrying the employer out of existence, with a few trifles—graduated income-tax and land nationalisation—thrown in. Oh! that's the man, is it?—they say he had a great reception—spoke brilliantly—and is certainly going to get into Parliament next week."
The speaker, who had the air of a shrewd and prosperous manufacturer, put up his eyeglass to look at this young Robespierre. Hisvis-à-vis—a stout country gentleman who had been in the army and knocked about the world before coming into his estate—shrugged his shoulders.
"So I hear—he daren't show his nose as a candidate inourpart of the world, though of course he does us all the harm he can. I remember a good story of his mother—she quarrelled with her husband and all her relations, his and hers, and then she took to speaking in public, accompanied by her dear boy. On one occasion she was speaking at a market town near us, and telling the farmers that as far as she was concerned she would like to see the big properties cut up to-morrow. The sooner her father's and husband's estates were made into small holdings stocked with public capital the better. After it was all over, a friend of mine, who was there, was coming home in a sort of omnibus that ran between the town and a neighbouring village. He found himself between two fat farmers, and this was the conversation—broad Lincolnshire, of course: 'Did tha hear Lady Mildred Wharton say them things, Willum?' 'Aye, a did.' 'What did tha think, Willum?' 'What didthathink, George?' 'Wal,aathowt Laady Mildred Wharton wor a graät fule, Willum, if tha asks me.' 'I'll uphowd tha, George! I'll uphowd tha!' said the other, and then they talked no more for the rest of the journey."
The friend laughed.
"So it was from the dear mamma that the young man got his opinions?"
"Of course. She dragged him into every absurdity she could from the time he was fifteen. When the husband died she tried to get the servants to come in to meals, but the butler struck. So did Wharton himself, who, for a Socialist, has always showed a very pretty turn for comfort. I am bound to say he was cut up when she died. It was the only time I ever felt like being civil to him—in those months after she departed. I suppose she was devoted to him—which after all is something."
"Good heavens!" said the other, still lazily turning over the pages of the newspaper as they sat waiting for their second course, "here is another poaching murder—in Brookshire—the third I have noticed within a month. On Lord Maxwell's property—you know them?"
"I know the old man a little—fine old fellow! They'll make him President of the Council, I suppose. He can't have much work left in him; but it is such a popular, respectable name. Ah! I'm sorry; the sort of thing to distress him terribly."
"I see the grandson is standing."
"Oh yes; will get in too. A queer sort of man—great ability and high character. But you can't imagine him getting on in politics, unless it's by sheer weight of wealth and family influence. He'll find a scruple in every bush—never stand the rough work of the House, or get on with themen. My goodness! you have to pull with some queer customers nowadays. By the way, I hear he is making an unsatisfactory marriage—a girl very handsome, but with no manners, and like nobody else—the daughter, too, of an extremely shady father. It's surprising; you'd have thought a man like Aldous Raeburn would have looked for the pick of things."
"Perhaps it was she looked for the pick of things!" said the other, with a blunt laugh. "Waiter, another bottle of champagne."
Marcella was lying on the sofa in the Mellor drawing-room. The February evening had just been shut out, but she had told William not to bring the lamps till they were rung for. Even the fire-light seemed more than she could bear. She was utterly exhausted both in body and mind; yet, as she lay there with shut eyes, and hands clasped under her cheek, a start went through her at every sound in the house, which showed that she was not resting, but listening. She had spent the morning in the Hurds' cottage, sitting by Mrs. Hurd and nursing the little boy. Minta Hurd, always delicate and consumptive, was now generally too ill from shock and misery to be anywhere but in her bed, and Willie was growing steadily weaker, though the child's spirit was such that he would insist on dressing, on hearing and knowing everything about his father, and on moving about the house as usual. Yet every movement of his wasted bones cost him the effort of a hero, and the dumb signs in him of longing for his father increased the general impression as of some patient creature driven by Nature to monstrous and disproportionate extremity.
The plight of this handful of human beings worked in Marcella like some fevering torture. She was wholly out of gear physically and morally. Another practically sleepless night, peopled with images of horror, had decreased her stock of sane self-control, already lessened by long conflict of feeling and the pressure of self-contempt. Now, as she lay listening for Aldous Raeburn's ring and step, she hardly knew whether to be angry with him for coming so late, or miserable that he should come at all. That there was a long score to settle between herself and him she knew well. Shame for an experience which seemed to her maiden sense indelible—both a weakness and a treachery—lay like a dull weight on heart and conscience. But she would not realise it, she would not act upon it. She shook the moral debate from her impatiently. Aldous should have his due all in good time—should have ample opportunity of deciding whether he would, after all, marry such a girl as she. Meanwhile his attitude with regard to the murder exasperated her. Yet, in some strange way it relieved her to be angry and sore with him—to have a grievance she could avow, and on which she made it a merit to dwell. His gentle, yet firm difference of opinion with her on the subject struck her as something new in him. It gave her a kind of fierce pleasure to fight it. He seemed somehow to be providing her with excuses—to be coming down to her level—to be equalling wrong with wrong.
The door handle turned. At last! She sprang up. But it was only William coming in with the evening post. Mrs. Boyce followed him. She took a quiet look at her daughter, and asked if her headache was better, and then sat down near her to some needlework. During these two days she had been unusually kind to Marcella. She had none of the little feminine arts of consolation. She was incapable of fussing, and she never caressed. But from the moment that Marcella had come home from the village that morning, a pale, hollow-eyed wreck, the mother had asserted her authority. She would not hear of the girl's crossing the threshold again; she had put her on the sofa and dosed her with sal-volatile. And Marcella was too exhausted to rebel. She had only stipulated that a note should be sent to Aldous, asking him to come on to Mellor with the news as soon as the verdict of the coroner's jury should be given. The jury had been sitting all day, and the verdict was expected in the evening.
Marcella turned over her letters till she came to one from a London firm which contained a number of cloth patterns. As she touched it she threw it aside with a sudden gesture of impatience, and sat upright.
"Mamma! I have something to say to you."
"Yes, my dear."
"Mamma, the wedding must be put off!—itmust!—for some weeks. I have been thinking about it while I have been lying here. HowcanI?—you can see for yourself. That miserable woman depends on me altogether. How can I spend my time on clothing and dressmakers? I feel as if I could think of nothing else—nothing else in the world—but her and her children." She spoke with difficulty, her voice high and strained. "The assizes may be held that very week—who knows?—the very day we are married."
She stopped, looking at her mother almost threateningly. Mrs. Boyce showed no sign of surprise. She put her work down.
"I had imagined you might say something of the kind," she said after a pause. "I don't know that, from your point of view, it is unreasonable. But, of course, you must understand that very few people will see it from your point of view. Aldous Raeburn may—you must know best. But his people certainly won't; and your father will think it—"
"Madness," she was going to say, but with her usual instinct for the moderate fastidious word she corrected it to "foolish."
Marcella's tired eyes were all wilfulness and defiance.
"I can't help it. I couldn't do it. I will tell Aldous at once. It must be put off for a month. And even that," she added with a shudder, "will be bad enough."
Mrs. Boyce could not help an unperceived shrug of the shoulders, and a movement of pity towards the future husband. Then she said drily,—
"You must always consider whether it is just to Mr. Raeburn to let a matter of this kind interfere so considerably with his wishes and his plans. He must, I suppose, be in London for Parliament within six weeks."
Marcella did not answer. She sat with her hands round her knees lost in perplexities. The wedding, as originally fixed, was now three weeks and three days off. After it, she and Aldous were to have spent a short fortnight's honeymoon at a famous house in the north, lent them for the occasion by a Duke who was a cousin of Aldous's on the mother's side, and had more houses than he knew what to do with. Then they were to go immediately up to London for the opening of Parliament. The furnishing of the Mayfair house was being pressed on. In her new-born impatience with such things, Marcella had hardly of late concerned herself with it at all, and Miss Raeburn, scandalised, yet not unwilling, had been doing the whole of it, subject to conscientious worryings of the bride, whenever she could be got hold of, on the subject of papers and curtains.
As they sat silent, the unspoken idea in the mother's mind was—"Eight weeks more will carry us past the execution." Mrs. Boyce had already possessed herself very clearly of the facts of the case, and it was her perception that Marcella was throwing herself headlong into a hopeless struggle—together with something else—a confession perhaps of a touch of greatness in the girl's temper, passionate and violent as it was, that had led to this unwonted softness of manner, this absence of sarcasm.
Very much the same thought—only treated as a nameless horror not to be recognised or admitted—was in Marcella's mind also, joined however with another, unsuspected even by Mrs. Boyce's acuteness. "Very likely—when I tell him—he will not want to marry me at all—and of course I shall tell him."
But not yet—certainly not yet. She had the instinctive sense that during the next few weeks she should want all her dignity with Aldous, that she could not afford to put herself at a disadvantage with him. To be troubled about her own sins at such a moment would be like the meanness of the lazy and canting Christian, who whines about saving his soul while he ought to be rather occupied with feeding the bodies of his wife and children.
A ring at the front door. Marcella rose, leaning one hand on the end of the sofa—a long slim figure in her black dress—haggard and pathetic.
When Aldous entered, her face was one question. He went up to her and took her hand.
"In the case of Westall the verdict is one of 'Wilful Murder' against Hurd. In that of poor Charlie Dynes the court is adjourned. Enough evidence has been taken to justify burial. But there is news to-night that one of the Widrington gang has turned informer, and the police say they will have their hands on them all within the next two or three days."
Marcella withdrew herself from him and fell back into the corner of the sofa. Shading her eyes with her hand she tried to be very composed and business-like.
"Was Hurd himself examined?"
"Yes, under the new Act. He gave the account which he gave to you and to his wife. But the Court—"
"Did not believe it?"
"No. The evidence of motive was too strong. It was clear from his own account that he was out for poaching purposes, that he was leading the Oxford gang, and that he had a gun while Westall was unarmed. He admitted too that Westall called on him to give up the bag of pheasants he held, and the gun. He refused. Then he says Westall came at him, and he fired. Dick Patton and one or two others gave evidence as to the language he has habitually used about Westall for months past."
"Cowards—curs!" cried Marcella, clenching both her hands, a kind of sob in her throat.
Aldous, already white and careworn, showed, Mrs. Boyce thought, a ray of indignation for an instant. Then he resumed steadily—
"And Brown, our steward, gave evidence as to his employment since October. The coroner summed up carefully, and I think fairly, and the verdict was given about half-past six."
"They took him back to prison?"
"Of course. He comes before the magistrates on Thursday."
"And you will be one!"
The girl's tone was indescribable.
Aldous started. Mrs. Boyce reddened with anger, and checking her instinct to intervene began to put away her working materials that she might leave them together. While she was still busy Aldous said:
"You forget; no magistrate ever tries a case in which he is personally concerned. I shall take no part in the trial. My grandfather, of course, must prosecute."
"But it will be a bench of landlords," cried Marcella; "of men with whom a poacher is already condemned."
"You are unjust to us, I think," said Aldous, slowly, after a pause, during which Mrs. Boyce left the room—"to some of us, at any rate. Besides, as of course you know, the case will be simply sent on for trial at the assizes. By the way "—his tone changed—"I hear to-night that Harry Wharton undertakes the defence."
"Yes," said Marcella, defiantly. "Is there anything to say against it?You wouldn't wish Hurd not to be defended, I suppose?"
"Marcella!"
Even her bitter mood was pierced by the tone. She had never wounded him so deeply yet, and for a moment he felt the situation intolerable; the surging grievance and reproach, with which his heart was really full, all but found vent in an outburst which would have wholly swept away his ordinary measure and self-control. But then, as he looked at her, it struck his lover's sense painfully how pale and miserable she was. He could not scold! But it came home to him strongly that for her own sake and his it would be better there should be explanations. After all things had been going untowardly for many weeks. His nature moved slowly and with much self-doubt, but it was plain to him now that he must make a stand.
After his cry, her first instinct was to apologise. Then the words stuck in her throat. To her, as to him, they seemed to be close on a trial of strength. If she could not influence him in this matter—so obvious, as it seemed to her, and so near to her heart—what was to become of that lead of hers in their married life, on which she had been reckoning from the beginning? All that was worst in her and all that was best rose to the struggle.
But, as he did not speak, she looked up at last.
"I was waiting," he said in a low voice.
"What for?"
"Waiting till you should tell me you did not mean what you said."
She saw that he was painfully moved; she also saw that he was introducing something into their relation, an element of proud self-assertion, which she had never felt in it before. Her own vanity instantly rebelled.
"I ought not to have said exactly what I did," she said, almost stifled by her own excitement, and making great efforts not to play the mere wilful child; "that I admit. But it has been clear to me from the beginning that—that"—her words hurried, she took up a book and restlessly lifted it and let it fall—"you have never looked at this thing justly. You have looked at the crime as any one must who is a landowner; you have never allowed for the provocation; you have not let yourself feel pity—"
He made an exclamation.
"Do you know where I was before I went into the inquest?"
"No," she said defiantly, determined not to be impressed, feeling a childish irritation at the interruption.
"I was with Mrs. Westall. Harden and I went in to see her. She is a hard, silent woman. She is clearly not popular in the village, and no one comes in to her. Her"—he hesitated—"her baby is expected before long. She is in such a state of shock and excitement that Clarke thinks it quite possible she may go out of her mind. I saw her sitting by the fire, quite silent, not crying, but with a wild eye that means mischief. We have sent in a nurse to help Mrs. Jellison watch her. She seems to care nothing about her boy. Everything that that woman most desired in life has been struck from her at a blow. Why? That a man who was in no stress of poverty, who had friends and employment, should indulge himself in acts which he knew to be against the law, and had promised you and his wife to forego, and should at the same time satisfy a wild beast's hatred against the man, who was simply defending his master's property. Haveyouno pity for Mrs. Westall or her child?"
He spoke as calmly as he could, making his appeal to reason and moral sense; but, in reality, every word was charged with electric feeling.
"Iamsorry for her!" cried Marcella, passionately. "But, after all, how can one feel for the oppressor, or those connected with him, as one does for the victim?" He shook his head, protesting against the word, but she rushed on. "You do know—for I told you yesterday—how under the shelter of thishatefulgame system Westall made Kurd's life a burden to him when he was a young man—how he had begun to bully him again this past year. We had the same sort of dispute the other day about that murder in Ireland. You were shocked that I would not condemn the Moonlighters who had shot their landlord from behind a hedge, as you did. You said the man had tried to do his duty, and that the murder was brutal and unprovoked. But I thought of thesystem—of thememoriesin the minds of the murderers. Therewereexcuses—he suffered for his father—I am not going to judge that as I judge other murders. So, when a Czar of Russia is blown up, do you expect one to think only of his wife and children? No! I will think of the tyranny and the revolt; I will pray, yes,praythat I might have courage to do as they did! You may think me wild and mad. I dare say. I am made so. I shall always feel so!"
She flung out her words at him, every limb quivering under the emotion of them. His cool, penetrating eye, this manner she had never yet known in him, exasperated her.
"Where was the tyranny in this case?" he asked her quietly. "I agree with you that there are murders and murders. But I thought your point was that here was neither murder nor attack, but only an act of self-defence. That is Hurd's plea."
She hesitated and stumbled. "I know," she said, "I know. I believe it. But, even if the attack had been on Hurd's part, I should still find excuses, because of the system, and because of Westall's hatefulness."
He shook his head again.
"Because a man is harsh and masterful, and uses stinging language, is he to be shot down like a dog?"
There was a silence. Marcella was lashing herself up by thoughts of the deformed man in his cell, looking forward after the wretched, unsatisfied life, which was all society had allowed him, to the violent death by which society would get rid of him—of the wife yearning her heart away—of the boy, whom other human beings, under the name of law, were about to separate from his father for ever. At last she broke out thickly and indistinctly:
"The terrible thing is that I cannot count upon you—that now I cannot make you feel as I do—feel with me. And by-and-by, when I shall want your help desperately, when your help might be everything—I suppose it will be no good to ask it."
He started, and bending forward he possessed himself of both her hands—her hot trembling hands—and kissed them with a passionate tenderness.
"What help will you ask of me that I cannot give? That would be hard to bear!"
Still held by him, she answered his question by another:
"Give me your idea of what will happen. Tell me how you think it will end."
"I shall only distress you, dear," he said sadly.
"No; tell me. You think him guilty. You believe he will be convicted."
"Unless some wholly fresh evidence is forthcoming," he said reluctantly,"I can see no other issue."
"Very well; then he will be sentenced to death. But, after sentence—I know—that man from Widrington, that solicitor told me—if—if strong influence is brought to bear—if anybody whose word counts—if Lord Maxwell and you, were to join the movement to save him—There is sure to be a movement—the Radicals will take it up. Will you do it—will you promise me now—for my sake?"
He was silent.
She looked at him, all her heart burning in her eyes, conscious of her woman's power too, and pressing it.
"If that man is hung," she said pleadingly, "it will leave a mark on my life nothing will ever smooth out. I shall feel myself somehow responsible. I shall say to myself, if I had not been thinking about my own selfish affairs—about getting married—about the straw-plaiting—I might have seen what was going on. I might have saved these people, who have been my friends—myrealfriends—from this horror."
She drew her hands away and fell back on the sofa, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. "If you had seen her this morning!" she said in a strangled voice. "She was saying, 'Oh, miss, if they do find him guilty, they can't hang him—not my poor deformed Jim, that never had a chance of being like the others. Oh, we'll beg so hard. I know there's many people will speak for him. He was mad, miss, when he did it. He'd never been himself, not since last winter, when we all sat and starved, and he was driven out of his senses by thinking of me and the children. You'll get Mr. Raeburn to speak—won't you, miss?—and Lord Maxwell? It was their game. I know it was their game. But they'll forgive him. They're such great people, and so rich—and we—we've always had such a struggle. Oh, the bad times we've had, and no one know! They'll try and get him off, miss? Oh, I'll go andbegof them.'"
She stopped, unable to trust her voice any further. He stooped over her and kissed her brow. There was a certain solemnity in the moment for both of them. The pity of human fate overshadowed them. At last he said firmly, yet with great feeling:
"I will not prejudge anything, that I promise you. I will keep my mind open to the last. But—I should like to say—it would not be any easier to me to throw myself into an agitation for reprieve because this man was tempted to crime bymyproperty—onmyland. I should think it right to look at it altogether from the public point of view. The satisfaction of my own private compunctions—of my own private feelings—is not what I ought to regard. My own share in the circumstances, in the conditions which made such an act possible does indeed concern me deeply. You cannot imagine but that the moral problem of it has possessed me ever since this dreadful thing happened. It troubled me much before. Now, it has become an oppression—a torture. I have never seen my grandfather so moved, so distressed, in all my remembrance of him. Yet he is a man of the old school, with the old standards. As for me, if ever I come to the estate I will change the whole system, I will run no risks of such human wreck and ruin as this—"
His voice faltered.
"But," he resumed, speaking steadily again, "I ought to warn you that such considerations as these will not affect my judgment of this particular case. In the first place, I have no quarrel with capital punishment as such. I do not believe we could rightly give it up. Your attitude properly means that wherever we can legitimately feel pity for a murderer, we should let him escape his penalty. I, on the other hand, believe that if the murderer saw things as they truly are, he would himselfclaimhis own death, as his best chance, his only chance—in this mysterious universe!—of self-recovery. Then it comes to this—was the act murder? The English law of murder is not perfect, but it appears to me to be substantially just, and guided by it—"
"You talk as if there were no such things as mercy and pity in the world," she interrupted wildly; "as if law were not made and administered by men of just the same stuff and fabric as the lawbreaker!"
He looked troubled.
"Ah, butlawis something beyond laws or those who administer them," he said in a lower tone; "and the law—theobligation-sense—of our own race and time, however imperfect it may be, is sacred, not because it has been imposed upon us from without, but because it has grown up to what it is, out of our own best life—ours, yet not ours—the best proof we have, when we look back at it in the large, when we feel its work in ourselves of some diviner power than our own will—our best clue to what that power may be!"
He spoke at first, looking away—wrestling out his thought, as it were, by himself—then turning back to her, his eyes emphasised the appeal implied, though not expressed, in what he said—intense appeal to her for sympathy, forbearance, mutual respect, through all acuteness of difference. His look both promised and implored.
He bad spoken to her but very rarely or indirectly as yet of his own religious or philosophical beliefs. She was in a stage when such things interested her but little, and reticence in personal matters was so much the law of his life that even to her expansion was difficult. So that—inevitably—she was arrested, for the moment, as any quick perception must be, by the things that unveil character.
Then an upheaval of indignant feeling swept the impression away. All that he said might be ideally, profoundly true—but—the red blood of the common life was lacking in every word of it! He ought to be incapable of saying itnow. Her passionate question was, how could heargue—how could he hold and mark the ethical balance—when awomanwas suffering, whenchildrenwere to be left fatherless? Besides—the ethical balance itself—does it not alter according to the hands that hold it—poacher or landlord, rich or poor?
But she was too exhausted to carry on the contest in words. Both felt itwould have to be renewed. But she said to herself secretly that Mr.Wharton, when he got to work, would alter the whole aspect of affairs.And she knew well that her vantage-ground as towards Aldous was strong.
Then at last he was free to turn his whole attention for a little to her and her physical state, which made him miserable. He had never imagined that any one, vigorous and healthy as she was, could look so worn out in so short a time. She let him talk to her—lament, entreat, advise—and at last she took advantage of his anxiety and her admissions to come to the point, to plead that the marriage should be put off.
She used the same arguments that she had done to her mother.
"How can I bear to be thinking of these things?"—she pointed a shaking finger at the dress patterns lying scattered on the table—"with this agony, this death, under my eyes?"
It was a great blow to him, and the practical inconveniences involved were great. But the fibre of him—of which she had just felt the toughness—was delicate and sensitive as her own, and after a very short recoil he met her with great chivalry and sweetness, agreeing that everything should be put off for six weeks, till Easter in fact. She would have been very grateful to him but that something—some secret thought—checked the words she tried to say.
"I must go home then," he said, rising and trying to smile. "I shall have to make things straight with Aunt Neta, and set a great many arrangements in train. Now, you willtryto think of something else? Let me leave you with a book that I can imagine you will read."
She let herself be tended and thought for. At the last, just as he was going, he said:
"Have you seen Mr. Wharton at all since this happened?"
His manner was just as usual. She felt that her eye was guilty, but the darkness of the firelit room shielded her.
"I have not seen him since we met him in the drive. I saw the solicitor who is working up the case for him yesterday. He came over to see Mrs. Hurd and me. I had not thought of asking him, but we agreed that, if he would undertake it, it would be the best chance."
"Itisprobably the best chance," said Aldous, thoughtfully. "I believe Wharton has not done much at the Bar since he was called, but that, no doubt, is because he has had so much on his hands in the way of journalism and politics. His ability is enough for anything, and he will throw himself into this. I do not think Hurd could do better."
She did not answer. She felt that he was magnanimous, but felt it coldly, without emotion.
He came and stooped over her.
"Good-night—good-night—tired child—dear heart! When I saw you in that cottage this morning I thought of the words, 'Give, and it shall be given unto you.' All that my life can do to pour good measure, pressed down, running over, into yours, I vowed you then!"
When the door closed upon him, Marcella, stretched in the darkness, shed the bitterest tears that had ever yet been hers—tears which transformed her youth—which baptised her, as it were, into the fulness of our tragic life.
She was still weeping when she heard the door softly opened. She sprang up and dried her eyes, but the little figure that glided in was not one to shrink from. Mary Harden came and sat down beside her.
"I knew you would be miserable. Let me come and cry too. I have been my round—have seen them all—and I came to bring you news."
"How has she taken—the verdict?" asked Marcella, struggling with her sobs, and succeeding at last in composing herself.
"She was prepared for it. Charlie told her when he saw her after you left this afternoon that she must expect it."
There was a pause.
"I shall soon hear, I suppose," said Marcella, in a hardening voice, her hands round her knees, "what Mr. Wharton is doing for the defence. He will appear before the magistrates, I suppose."
"Yes; but Charlie thinks the defence will be mainly reserved. Only a little more than a fortnight to the assizes! The time is so short. But now this man has turned informer, they say the case is quite straightforward. With all the other evidence the police have there will be no difficulty in trying them all. Marcella!"
"Yes."
Had there been light enough to show it, Mary's face would have revealed her timidity.
"Marcella, Charlie asked me to give you a message. He begs you not to—not to make Mrs. Hurd hope too much. He himself believes there is no hope, and it is not kind."
"Are you and he like all the rest," cried Marcella, her passion breaking out again, "only eager to have blood for blood?"
Mary waited an instant.
"It has almost broken Charlie's heart," she said at last; "but he thinks it was murder, and that Hurd will pay the penalty; nay, more "—she spoke with a kind of religious awe in her gentle voice—"that he ought to be glad to pay it. He believes it to be God's will, and I have heard him say that he would even have executions in public again—under stricter regulations of course—that we may not escape, as we always do if we can—from all sight and thought of God's justice and God's punishments."
Marcella shuddered and rose. She almost threw Mary's hand away from her.
"Tell your brother from me, Mary," she said, "that his God is tomejust a constable in the service of the English game-laws! If Heissuch a one, I at least will fling my Everlasting No at him while I live."
And she swept from the room, leaving Mary aghast.
* * * * *
Meanwhile there was consternation and wrath at Maxwell Court, where Aldous, on his return from Mellor, had first of all given his great-aunt the news of the coroner's verdict, and had then gone on to break to her the putting-off of the marriage. His championship of Marcella in the matter, and his disavowal of all grievance were so quiet and decided, that Miss Raeburn had been only able to allow herself a very modified strain of comment and remonstrance, so long as he was still there to listen. But she was all the more outspoken when he was gone, and Lady Winterbourne was sitting with her. Lady Winterbourne, who was at home alone, while her husband was with a married daughter on the Riviera, had come over to dinetête-à-têtewith her friend, finding it impossible to remain solitary while so much was happening.
"Well, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, shortly, as her guest entered the room, "I may as well tell you at once that Aldous's marriage is put off."
"Put off!" exclaimed Lady Winterbourne, bewildered. "Why it was only Thursday that I was discussing it all with Marcella, and she told me everything was settled."
"Thursday!—I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, stitching away with fiery energy, "but since then a poacher has murdered one of our gamekeepers, which makes all the difference."
"Whatdoyou mean, Agneta?"
"What I say, my dear. The poacher was Marcella's friend, and she cannot now distract her mind from him sufficiently to marry Aldous, though every plan he has in the world will be upset by her proceedings. And as for his election, you may depend upon it she will never ask or know whether he gets in next Monday or no. That goes without saying. She is meanwhile absorbed with the poacher's defence,Mr. Wharton, of course, conducting it. This is your modern young woman, my dear—typical, I should think."
Miss Raeburn turned her buttonhole in fine style, and at lightning speed, to show the coolness of her mind, then with a rattling of all her lockets, looked up and waited for Lady Winterbourne's reflections.
"She has often talked to me of these people—the Hurds," said LadyWinterbourne, slowly. "She has always made special friends with them.Don't you remember she told us about them that day she first came backto lunch?"
"Of course I remember! That day she lectured Maxwell, at first sight, on his duties. She began well. As for these people," said Miss Raeburn, more slowly, "one is, of course, sorry for the wife and children, though I am a good deal sorrier for Mrs. Westall, and poor, poor Mrs. Dynes. The whole affair has so upset Maxwell and me, we have hardly been able to eat or sleep since. I thought it made Maxwell look dreadfully old this morning, and with all that he has got before him too! I shall insist on sending for Clarke to-morrow morning if he does not have a better night. And now this postponement will be one more trouble—all the engagements to alter, and the invitations.Really! that girl."
And Miss Raeburn broke off short, feeling simply that the words which were allowed to a well-bred person were wholly inadequate to her state of mind.
"But if she feels it—as you or I might feel such a thing about some one we knew or cared for, Agneta?"
"How can she feel it like that?" cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "How can she know any one of—of that class well enough? It is not seemly, I tell you, Adelaide, and I don't believe it is sincere. It's just done to make herself conspicuous, and show her power over Aldous. For other reasons too, if the truth were known!"
Miss Raeburn turned over the shirt she was making for some charitable society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate cheek had flushed.
"I'm sure it's sincere," she said with emphasis. "Do you mean to say, Agneta, that one can't sympathise, in such an awful thing, with people of another class, as one would with one's own flesh and blood?"
Miss Raeburn winced. She felt for a moment the pressure of a democratic world—a hated, formidable world—through her friend's question. Then she stood to her guns.
"I dare say you'll think it sounds bad," she said stoutly; "but in my young days it would have been thought a piece of posing—of sentimentalism—something indecorous and unfitting—if a girl had put herself in such a position. Marcellaoughtto be absorbed in her marriage; that is the natural thing. How Mrs. Boyce can allow her to mix herself with such things as this murder—tolivein that cottage, as I hear she has been doing, passes my comprehension."
"You mean," said Lady Winterbourne, dreamily, "that if one had been very fond of one's maid, and she died, one wouldn't put on mourning for her. Marcella would."
"I dare say," said Miss Raeburn, snappishly. "She is capable of anything far-fetched and theatrical."
The door opened and Hallin came in. He had been suffering of late, and much confined to the house. But the news of the murder had made a deep and painful impression upon him, and he had been eagerly acquainting himself with the facts. Miss Raeburn, whose kindness ran with unceasing flow along the channels she allowed it, was greatly attached to him in spite of his views, and she now threw herself upon him for sympathy in the matter of the wedding. In any grievance that concerned Aldous she counted upon him, and her shrewd eyes had plainly perceived that he had made no great friendship with Marcella.
"I am very sorry for Aldous," he said at once; "but I understandherperfectly. So does Aldous."
Miss Raeburn was angrily silent. But when Lord Maxwell, who had been talking with Aldous, came in, he proved, to her final discomfiture, to be very much of the same opinion.
"My dear," he said wearily as he dropped into his chair, his old face grey and pinched, "this thing is too terrible—the number of widows and orphans that night's work will make before the end breaks my heart to think of. It will be a relief not to have to consider festivities while these men are actually before the courts. What I am anxious about is that Marcella should not make herself ill with excitement. The man she is interested in will be hung, must be hung; and with her somewhat volatile, impulsive nature—"
He spoke with old-fashioned discretion and measure. Then quickly he pulled himself up, and, with some trivial question or other, offered his arm to Lady Winterbourne, for Aldous had just come in, and dinner was ready.