He was very ill, and could not talk, but he would not let her go. He made her sit where he could see her, and now and then stretched out his hand to her. Even in his pain he showed a quieter spirit. "Something may be working—who can tell!" thought Mary.
It was late in the afternoon when at length he sought further conversation.
"I have been thinking, Mary," he said, "that if I do wake up in hell when I die, no matter how much I deserve it, nobody will be the better for it, and I shall be all the worse."
He spoke with coolness, but it was by a powerful effort: he had waked from a frightful dream, drenched from head to foot. Coward? No. He had reason to fear.
"Whereas," rejoined Mary, taking up his clew, "everybody will be the better if you keep out of it—everybody," she repeated, "—God, and Jesus Christ, and all their people."
"How do you make that out?" he asked. "God has more to do than look after such as me."
"You think he has so many worlds to look to—thousands of them only making? But why does he care about his worlds? Is it not because they are the schools of his souls? And why should he care for the souls? Is it not because he is making them children—his own children to understand him and be happy with his happiness?"
"I can't say I care for his happiness. I want my own. And yet I don't know any that's worth the worry of it. No; I would rather be put out like a candle."
"That's because you have been a disobedient child, taking your own way, and turning God's good things to evil. You don't know what a splendid thing life is. You actually and truly don't know, never experienced in your being the very thing you were made for."
"My father had no business to leave me so much money."
"You had no business to misuse it."
"I didn'tquiteknow whatIwas doing."
"You do now."
Then came a pause.
"You think God hears prayer—do you?"
"I do."
"Then I wish you would ask him to let me off—I mean, to let me die right out when I do die. What's the good of making a body miserable?"
"That, I am sure it would be of no use to pray for. He certainly will not throw away a thing he has made, because that thing may be foolish enough to prefer the dust-hole to a cabinet."
"Wouldn't you do it now, if I asked you?"
"I would not. I would leave you in God's hands rather than inside the gate of heaven."
"I don't understand you. And you wouldn't say so if you cared for me! Only, why should you care for me?"
"I would give my life for you."
"Come, now! I don't believe that."
"Why, I couldn't be a Christian if I wouldn't!"
"You are getting absurd!" he cried. But he did not look exactly as if he thought it.
"Absurd!" repeated Mary. "Isn't that what makeshimour Saviour? How could I be his disciple, if I wouldn't do as he did?"
"You are saying a good deal!"
"Can't you see that I have no choice?"
"Iwouldn't do that for anybody under the sun!"
"You are not his disciple. You have not been going about with him."
"And you have?"
"Yes—for many years. Besides, I can not help thinking there is one for whom you would do it."
"If you mean my wife, you never were more mistaken. I would do nothing of the sort."
"I did not mean your wife. I mean Jesus Christ."
"Oh, I dare say! Well, perhaps; if I knew him as you do, and if I were quite sure he wanted it done for him."
"He does want it done for him—always and every day—not for his own sake, though it does make him very glad. To give up your way for his is to die for him; and, when any one will do that, then he is able to do everything for him; for then, and not till then, he gets such a hold of him that he can lift him up, and set him down beside himself. That's how my father used to teach me, and now I see it for myself to be true."
"It's all very grand, no doubt; but it ain't nowhere, you know. It's all in your own head, and nowhere else. You don't, youcan'tpositively believe all that!"
"So much, at least, that I live in the strength and hope it gives me, and order my ways according to it."
"Why didn't you teach my wife so?"
"I tried, but she didn't care to think. I could not get any further with her. She has had no trouble yet to make her listen."
"By Jove! I should have thought marrying a fellow like me might have been trouble enough to make a saint of her."
It was impossible to fix him to any line of thought, and Mary did not attempt it. To move the child in him was more than all argument.
A pause followed. "I don't love God," he said.
"I dare say not," replied Mary. "How should you, when you don't know him?"
"Then what's to be done? I can't very well show myself where I hate the master of the house!"
"If you knew him, you would love him."
"You are judging by yourself. But there is as much difference between you and me as between light and darkness."
"Not quite that," replied Mary, with one of those smiles that used to make her father feel as if she were that moment come fresh from God to him. "If you knew Jesus Christ, you could not help loving him, and to love him is to love God."
"You wear me out! Will you never come to the point?Know Jesus Christ!How am I to go back two thousand years?"
"What he was then he is now," answered Mary. "And you may even know him better than they did at the time who saw him; for it was not until they understood him better, by his being taken from them, that they wrote down his life."
"I suppose you mean I must read the New Testament?" said Mr. Redmain, pettishly.
"Of course!" answered Mary, a little surprised; for she was unaware how few have a notion what the New Testament is, or is meant for.
"Then why didn't you say so at first? There I have you! That's just where I learn that I must be damned for ever!"
"I don't mean the Epistles. Those you can't understand—yet."
"I'm glad you don't meanthem.I hate them."
"I don't wonder. You have never seen a single shine of what they are; and what most people think them is hardly the least like them. What I want you to read is the life and death of the son of man, the master of men."
"I can't read. I should only make myself twice as ill. I won't try."
"But I will read to you, if you will let me."
"How comes it you are such a theologian? A woman is not expected to know about that sort of thing."
"I am no theologian. There just comes one of the cases in which those who call themselves his followers do not believe what the Master said: he said God hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. I had a father who was child enough to know them, and I was child enough to believe him, and so grew able to understand them for myself. The whole secret is to do the thing the Master tells you: then you will understand what he tells you. The opinion of the wisest man, if he does not do the things he reads, is not worth a rush. He may be partly right, but you have no reason to trust him."
"Well, you shall be my chaplain. To-morrow, if I'm able to listen, you shall see what you can make of the old sinner."
Mary did not waste words: where would have been the use of pulling up the poor spiritual clodpole at every lumbering step, at any word inconsistent with the holy manners of the high countries? Once get him to court, and the power of the presence would subdue him, and make him over again from the beginning, without which absolute renewal the best observance of religious etiquette is worse than worthless. Many good people are such sticklers for the proprieties! For myself, I take joyous refuge with the grand, simple, every-day humanity of the man I find in the story—the man with the heart like that of my father and my mother and my brothers and sisters. If I may but see and help to show him a little as he lived to show himself, and not as church talk and church ways and church ceremonies and church theories and church plans of salvation and church worldliness generally have obscured him for hundreds of years, and will yet obscure him for hundreds more!
Toward evening, when she had just rendered him one of the many attentions he required, and which there was no one that day but herself to render, for he would scarcely allow Mewks to enter the room, he said to her:
"Thank you; you are very good to me. I shall remember you. Not that I think I'm going to die just yet; I've often been as bad as this, and got quite well again. Besides, I want to show that I have turned over a new leaf. Don't you think God will give me one more chance, now that I really mean it? I never did before."
"God can tell whether you mean it without that," she answered, not daring to encourage him where she knew nothing. "But you said you would remember me, Mr. Redmain: I hope you didn't mean in your will."
"I did mean in my will," he answered, but in a tone of displeasure. "I must say, however, I should have preferred you had notshownquite such an anxiety about it. I sha'n't be in my coffin to-morrow; and I'm not in the way of forgetting things."
"Ibegyou," returned Mary, flushing, "to do nothing of the sort. I have plenty of money, and don't care about more. I would much rather not have any from you."
"But think how much good you might do with it!" said Mr. Redmain, satirically. "—It was come by honestly—so far as I know."
"Money can't do half the good people think. It is stubborn stuff to turn to any good. And in this case it would be directly against good."
"Nobody has a right to refuse what comes honestly in his way. There's no end to the good that may be done with money—to judge, at least, by the harm I've done with mine," said Mr. Redmain, this time with seriousness.
"It is not in it," persisted Mary. "If it had been, our Lord would have used it, and he never did."
"Oh, but he was all an exception!"
"On the contrary, he is the only man who is no exception. We are the exceptions. Every one but him is more or less out of the straight. Do you not see?—he is the very one we must all come to be the same as, or perish! No, Mr. Redmain! don't leave me any money, or I shall be altogether bewildered what to do with it. Mrs. Redmain would not take it from me. Miss Yolland might, but I dared not give it to her. And for societies, I have small faith in them."
"Well, well! I'll think about it," said Mr. Redmain, who had now got so far on the way of life as to be capable of believing that when Mary said a thing she meant it, though he was quite incapable of understanding the true relations of money. Few indeed are the Christians capable of that! The most of them are just where Peter was, when, the moment after the Lord had honored him as the first to recognize him as the Messiah, he took upon him to object altogether to his Master's way of working salvation in the earth. The Roman emperors took up Peter's plan, and the devil has been in the church ever since—Peter's Satan, whom the Master told to get behind him. They are poor prophets, and no martyrs, who honor money as an element of any importance in the salvation of the world. Hunger itself does incomparably more to make Christ's kingdom come than ever money did, or ever will do while time lasts. Of course money has its part, for everything has; and whoever has money is bound to use it as best he knows; but his best is generally an attempt to do saint-work by devil-proxy.
"I can't think where on earth-you got such a sackful of extravagant notions!" Mr. Redmain added.
"I told you before, sir, I had a father who set me thinking!" answered Mary.
"I wish I had had a father like yours," he rejoined.
"There are not many such to be had."
"I fear mine wasn't just what he ought to be, though he can't have been such a rascal as his son: he hadn't time; he had his money to make."
"He had the temptation to make it, and you have the temptation to spend it: which is the more dangerous, I don't know. Each has led to many crimes."
"Oh, as to crimes—I don't know about that! It depends on what you call crimes."
"It doesn't matter whether men call a deed a crime or a fault; the thing is how God regards it, for that is the only truth about it. What the world thinks, goes for nothing, because it is never right. It would be worse in me to do some things the world counts perfectly honorable, than it would be for this man to commit a burglary, or that a murder. I mean my guilt might be greater in committing a respectable sin, than theirs in committing a disreputable one."
Had Mary known anything of science, she might have said that, in morals as in chemistry, the qualitative analysis is easy, but the quantitative another affair.
The latter part of this conversation, Sepia listening heard, and misunderstood utterly.
All the rest of the day Mary was with Mr. Redmain, mostly by his bedside, sitting in silent watchfulness when he was unable to talk with her. Nobody entered the room except Mewks, who, when he did, seemed to watch everything, and try to hear everything, and once Lady Margaret. When she saw Mary seated by the bed, though she must have known well enough she was there, she drew herself up with grand English repellence, and looked scandalized. Mary rose, and was about to retire. But Mr. Redmain motioned her to sit still.
"This is my spiritual adviser, Lady Margaret," he said.
Her ladyship cast a second look on Mary, such as few but her could cast, and left the room.
On into the gloom of the evening Mary sat. No one brought her anything to eat or drink, and Mr. Redmain was too much taken up with himself, soul and body, to think of her. She was now past hunger, and growing faint, when, through the settled darkness, the words came to her from the bed:
"I should like to have you near me when I am dying, Mary."
The voice was a softer than she had yet heard from Mr. Redmain, and its tone went to her heart.
"I will certainly be with you, if God please," she answered.
"There is no fear of God," returned Mr. Redmain; "it's the devil will try to keep you away. But never you heed what any one may do or say to prevent you. Do your very best to be with me. By that time I may not be having my own way any more. Be sure, the first moment they can get the better of me, they will. And you mustn't place confidence in a single soul in this house. I don't say my wife would play me false so long as I was able to swear at her, but I wouldn't trust her one moment longer. You come and be with me in spite of the whole posse of them."
"I will try, Mr. Redmain," she answered, faintly. "But indeed you must let me go now, else I may be unable to come to-morrow."
"What's the matter?" he asked hurriedly, half lifting his head with a look of alarm. "There's no knowing," he went on, muttering to himself, "what may happen in this cursed house."
"Nothing," replied Mary, "but that I have not had anything to eat since I left home. I feel rather faint."
"They've given you nothing to eat!" cried Mr. Redmain, but in a tone that seemed rather of satisfaction than displeasure. "Ring—no, don't."
"Indeed, I would rather not have anything now till I get home," said Mary. "I don't feel inclined to eat where I am not welcome."
"Right! right! right!" said Mr. Redmain. "Stick to that. Never eat where you are not welcome. Go home directly. Only say when you will come to-morrow."
"I can't very well during the day," answered Mary. "There is so much to be done, and I have so little help. But, if you should want me, I would rather shut up the shop than not come."
"There is no need for that! Indeed, I would much rather have you in the evening. The first of the night is worst of all. It's then the devils are out.—Look here," he added, after a short pause, during which Mary, for as unfit as she felt, hesitated to leave him, "—being in business, you've got a lawyer, I suppose?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Then you go to him to-night the first thing, and tell him to come to me to-morrow, about noon. Tell him I am ill, and in bed, and particularly want to see him; and he mustn't let anything they say keep him from me, not even if they tell him I am dead."
"I will," said Mary, and, stroking the thin hand that lay outside the counterpane, turned and left him.
"Don't tell any one you are gone," he called after her, with a voice far from feeble. "I don't want any of their damned company."
Mary left the house, and saw no one on her way. But it was better, she said to herself, that he should lie there untended, than be waited on by unloving hands.
The night was very dark. There was no moon, and the stars were hidden by thick clouds. She must walk all the way to Testbridge. She felt weak, but the fresh air was reviving. She did not know the way so familiarly as that between Thornwick and the town, but she would enter the latter before arriving at the common.
She had not gone far when the moon rose, and from behind the clouds diminished the darkness a little. The first part of her journey lay along a narrow lane, with a small ditch, a rising bank, and a hedge on each side. About the middle of the lane was a farmyard, and a little way farther a cottage. Soon after passing the gate of the farmyard, she thought she heard steps behind her, seemingly soft and swift, and naturally felt a little apprehension; but her thoughts flew to the one hiding-place for thoughts and hearts and lives, and she felt no terror. At the same time something moved her to quicken her pace. As she drew near the common, she heard the steps more plainly, still soft and swift, and almost wished she had sought refuge in the cottage she had just passed—only it bore no very good character in the neighborhood. When she reached the spot where the paths united, feeling a little at home, she stopped to listen. Behind her were the footsteps plain enough! The same moment the clouds thinned about the moon, and a pale light came filtering through upon the common in front of her. She cast one look over her shoulder, saw something turn a corner in the lane, and sped on again. She would have run, but there was no place of refuge now nearer than the corner of the turnpike-road, and she knew her breath would fail her long before that. How lonely and shelterless the common looked! The soft, swift steps came nearer and nearer.
Was that music she heard? She dared not stop to listen. But immediately, thereupon, was poured forth on the dim air such a stream of pearly sounds as if all the necklaces of some heavenly choir of woman-angels were broken, and the beads came pelting down in a cataract of hurtless hail. From no source could they come save the bow and violin of Joseph Jasper! Where could he be? She was so rejoiced to know that he must be somewhere near, that, for very delight of unsecured safety, she held her peace, and had almost stopped. But she ran on again. She was now nigh the ruined hut with which my narrative has made the reader acquainted. In the mean time the moon had been growing out of the clouds, clearer and clearer. The hut came in sight. But the look of it was somehow altered—with an undefinable change, such as might appear on a familiar object in a dream; and leaning against the side of the door stood a figure she could not mistake for another than her musician. Absorbed in his music, he did not see her. She called out, "Joseph! Joseph!" He started, threw his bow from him, tucked his violin under his arm, and bounded to meet her. She tried to stop, and the same moment to look behind her. The consequence was that she fell—but safe in the smith's arms. That instant appeared a man running. He half stopped, and, turning from the path, took to the common. Jasper handed his violin to Mary, and darted after him. The chase did not last a minute; the man was nearly spent. Joseph seized him by the wrist, saw something glitter in his other hand, and turned sick. The fellow had stabbed him. With indignation, as if it were a snake that had bit him, the blacksmith flung from him the hand he held. The man gave a cry, staggered, recovered himself, and ran. Joseph would have followed again, but fell, and for a minute or two lost consciousness. When he came to himself, Mary was binding up his arm.
"What a fool I am!" he said, trying to get up, but yielding at once to Mary's prevention. "Ain't it ridic'lous now, miss, that a man of my size, and ready to work a sledge with any smith in Yorkshire, should turn sick for a little bit of a job with a knife? But my father was just the same, and he was a stronger man than I'm like to be, I fancy."
"It is no such wonder as you think," said Mary; "you have lost a good deal of blood."
Her voice faltered. She had been greatly alarmed—and the more that she had not light enough to get the edges of the wound properly together.
"You've stopped it—ain't you, miss?"
"I think so."
"Then I'll be after the fellow."
"No, no; you must not attempt it. You must lie still awhile. But I don't understand it at all! That cottage used to be a mere hovel, without door or window! It can't be you live in it?"
"Ay, that I do! and it's not a bad place either," answered Joseph. "That's what I went to Yorkshire to get my money for. It's mine—bought and paid for."
"But what made you think of coming here?"
"Let's go into the smithy—house I won't presume to call it," said Joseph, "though it has a lean-to for the smith—and I'll tell you everything about it. But really, miss, you oughtn't to be out like this after dark. There's too many vagabonds about."
With but little need of the help Mary yet gave him, Joseph got up, and led her to what was now a respectable little smithy, with forge and bellows and anvil and bucket. Opening a door where had been none, he brought a chair, and making her sit down, began to blow the covered fire on the hearth, where he had not long before "boiled his kettle" for his tea. Then closing the door, he lighted a candle, and Mary looking about her could scarcely believe the change that had come upon the miserable vacuity. Joseph sat down upon his anvil, and begged to know where she had just been, and how far she had run from the rascal. When he had learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary stood to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly assault, and the greater were his regrets that he had not secured the miscreant.
"Anyhow, miss," he said, "you'll never come from there alone in the dark again!"
"I understand you, Joseph," answered Mary, "for I know you would not have me leave doing what I can for the poor man up there, because of a little danger in the way."
"No, that I wouldn't, miss. That would be as much as to say you would do the will of God when the devil would let you. What I mean is, that here am I—your slave, or servant, or soldier, or whatever you may please to call me, ready at your word."
"I must not take you from your work, you know, Joseph."
"Work's not everything, miss," he answered; "and it's seldom so pressing but that—except I be shoeing a horse—I can leave it when I choose. Any time you want to go anywhere, don't forget as you've got enemies about, and just send for me. You won't have long to wait till I come. But I am main sorry the rascal didn't have something to keep him in mind of his manners."
Part of this conversation, and a good deal more, passed on their way to Testbridge, whither, as soon as Joseph seemed all right, Mary, who had forgotten her hunger and faintness, insisted on setting out at once. In her turn she questioned Joseph, and learned that, as soon as he knew she was going to settle at Testbridge, he started off to find if possible a place in the neighborhood humble enough to be within his reach, and near enough for the hope of seeing her sometimes, and having what help she might please to give him. The explanation afforded Mary more pleasure than she cared to show. She had a real friend near her—one ready to help her on her own ground—one who understood her because he understood the things she loved! He told her that already he had work enough to keep him going; that the horses he once shod were always brought to him again; that he was at no expense such as in a town; and that he had plenty of time both for his violin and his books.
When they came to the suburbs, she sent him home, and went straight to Mr. Brett with Mr. Redmain's message. He undertook to be at Durnmelling at the time appointed, and to let nothing prevent him from seeing his new client.
Mr. Bratt found no difficulty in the way of the interview, for Mr. Redmain had given Mewks instructions he dared not disobey: his master had often ailed, and recovered again, and he must not venture too far! As soon as he had shown the visitor into the room he was dismissed, but not before he had satisfied himself that he was a lawyer. He carried the news at once to Sepia, and it wrought no little anxiety in the house. There was a will already in existence, and no ground for thinking a change in it boded anything good. Mr. Mortimer never deigned to share his thoughts, anxieties, or hopes with any of his people; but the ladies met in deep consultation, although of course there was nothing to be done. The only operative result was that it let Sepia know how, though for reasons somewhat different, her anxiety was shared by the others: unlike theirs, her sole desire was—notto be mentioned in the will: that could only be for the sake of leaving her a substantial curse! Mr. Redmain's utter silence, after, as she well knew, having gathered damning facts to her discredit, had long convinced her he was but biding his time. Certain she was he would not depart this life without leaving his opinion of her and the proofs of its justice behind him, carrying weight as the affidavit of a dying man. Also she knew Hesper well enough to be certain that, however she might delight in opposition to the desire of her husband, she would for the sake of no one carry that opposition to a point where it became injurious to her interests. Sepia's one thought therefore was: could not something be done to prevent the making of another will, or the leaving of any fresh document behind him? What he might already have done, she could nowise help; what he might yet do, it would be well to prevent. Once more, therefore, she impressed upon Mewks, and that in the names of Mrs. Redmain and Lady Margaret, as well as in her own person, the absolute necessity of learning as much as possible of what might pass between his master and the lawyer.
Mewks was driven to the end of his wits, and they were not a few, to find excuses for going into the room, and for delaying to go out again, while with all his ears he listened. But both client and lawyer were almost too careful for him; and he had learned positively nothing when the latter rose to depart. He instantly left the room, with the door a trifle ajar, and listening intently, heard his master say that Mr. Brett must come again the next morning; that he felt better, and would think over the suggestions he had made; and that he must leave the memoranda within his reach, on the table by his bedside. Ere the lawyer issued, Mewks was on his way with all this to his tempter.
Sepia concluded there had been some difference of opinion between Mr. Redmain and his adviser, and hoped that nothing had been finally settled. Was there any way to prevent the lawyer from seeing him again? Could she by any means get a peep at the memoranda mentioned? She dared not suggest the thing to Hesper or Lady Malice—of all people they were those in relation to whom she feared their possible contents—and she dared not show herself in Mr. Redmain's room. Was Mewks to be trusted to the point of such danger as grew in her thought?
The day wore on. Toward evening he had a dreadful attack. Any other man would have sent before now for what medical assistance the town could afford him, but Mr. Redmain hated having a stranger about him, and, as he knew how to treat himself, it was only when very ill that he would send for his own doctor to the country, fearing that otherwise he might give him up as a patient, such visits, however well remunerated, being seriously inconvenient to a man with a large London practice. But now Lady Margaret took upon herself to send a telegram.
An hour before her usual time for closing the shop, Mary set out for Durnmelling; and, at the appointed spot on the way, found her squire of low degree in waiting. At first sight, however, and although she was looking out for him, she did not certainly recognize him. I would not have my reader imagine Joseph one of those fools who delight in appearing something else than they are; but while every workman ought to look a workman, it ought not to be by looking less of a man, or of agentlemanin the true sense; and Joseph, having, out of respect to her who would honor him with her company, dressed himself in a new suit of unpretending gray, with a wide-awake hat, looked at first sight more like a country gentleman having a stroll over his farm, than a man whose hands were hard with the labors of the forge. He took off his hat as she approached—if not with ease, yet with the clumsy grace peculiar to him; for, unlike many whose manners are unobjectionable, he had in his something that might be called his own. But the best of it was, that he knew nothing about his manners, beyond the desire to give honor where honor was due.
He walked with her to the door of the house; for they had agreed that, from whatever quarter had come the pursuit, and whatever might have been its object, it would be well to show that she was attended. They had also arranged at what hour, and at what spot close at hand, he was to be waiting to accompany her home. But, although he said nothing about it, Joseph was determined not to leave the place until she rejoined him.
It was nearly dark when he left her; and when he had wandered up and down the avenue awhile, it seemed dark enough to return to the house, and reconnoiter a little.
He had already made the acquaintance of the farmer who occupied a portion of the great square, behind the part where the family lived: he had had several of his horses to shoe, and had not only given satisfaction by the way in which he shod them, but had interested their owner with descriptions of more than one rare mode of shoeing to which he had given attention; he was, therefore, the less shy of being discovered about the place.
From the back he found his way into the roofless hall, and there paced quietly up and down, measuring the floor, and guessing at the height and thickness of the walls, and the sort of roof they had borne. He noted that the wall of the house rose higher than those of the ruin with which it was in contact; and that there was a window in it just over one of those walls. Thinking whether it had been there when the roof was on, he saw through it the flickering of a fire, and wondered whether it could be the window of Mr. Redmain's room.
Mary, having resolved not to give any notice of her arrival, if she could get in without it, and finding the hall-door on the latch, entered quietly, and walked straight to Mr. Redmain's bedroom. When she opened the door of it, Mewks came hurriedly to meet her, as if he would have made her go out again, but she scarcely looked at him, and advanced to the bed. Mr. Redmain was just waking from the sleep into which he had fallen after a severe paroxysm.
"Ah, there you are!" he said, smiling her a feeble welcome. "I am glad you are come. I have been looking out for you. I am very ill. If it comes again to-night, I think it will make an end of me."
She sat down by the bedside. He lay quite still for some time, breathing like one very weary. Then he seemed to grow easier, and said, with much gentleness:
"Can't you talk to me?"
"Would you like me to read to you?" she asked.
"No," he answered; "I can't bear the light; it makes my head furious."
"Shall I talk to you about my father?" she asked.
"I don't believe in fathers," he replied. "They're always after some notion of their own. It's not their children they care about."
"That may be true of some fathers," answered Mary; "but it is not the least true of mine."
"Where is he? Why don't you bring him to see me, if he is such a good man? He might be able to do something for me."
"There is none but your own father can do anything for you," said Mary. "My father is gone home to him, but if he were here, he would only tell you abouthim."
There was a moment's silence.
"Why don't you talk?" said Mr. Redmain, crossly. "What's the good of sitting there saying nothing! How am I to forget that the pain will be here again, if you don't say a word to help me?"
Mary lifted up her heart, and prayed for something to say to the sad human soul that had never known the Father. But she could think of nothing to talk about except the death of William Marston. So she began with the dropping of her watch, and, telling whatever seemed at the moment fit to tell, ended with the dream she had the night of his funeral. By that time the hidden fountain was flowing in her soul, and she was able to speak straight out of it.
"I can not tell you, sir," she said, closing the story of her dream, "what a feeling it was! The joy of it was beyond all expression."
"You're not surely going to offer me a dream in proof of anything!" muttered the sick man.
"Yes," answered Mary—"in proof of what it can prove. The joy of a child over a new toy, or a colored sweetmeat, shows of what bliss the human soul is made capable."
"Oh, capable, I dare say!"
"And more than that," Mary went on, adding instead of replying, "no one ever felt such gladness without believing in it. There must be somewhere the justification of such gladness. There must be the father of it somewhere."
"Well! I don't like to say, after your kindness in coming here to take care of me, that you talk the worst rubbish I ever heard; but just tell me of what use is it all to me, in the state I am in! What I want is to be free of pain, and have some pleasure in life—not to be told about a father."
"But what if the father you don't want is determined you shall not have what you do want? What if your desire is not worth keeping you alive for? And what if he is ready to help your smallest effort to be the thing he wants you to be—and in the end to give you your heart's desire?"
"It sounds very fine, but it's all so thin, so up in the clouds! It don't seem to have a leg to stand upon. Why, if that were true, everybody would be good! There would be none but saints in the world! What's in it, I'm sure I don't know."
"It will take ages to know what is in it; but, if you should die now, you will be glad to find, on the other side, that you have made a beginning. For my part, if I had everything my soul could desire, except God with me, I could but pray that he would come to me, or not let me live a moment longer; for it would be but the life of a devil."
"What do you mean by a devil?"
"A power that lives against its life," said Mary.
Mr. Redmain answered nothing. He did not perceive an atom of sense in the words. They gave him not a glimmer. Neither will they to many of my readers; while not a few will think they see all that is in them, and see nothing.
He was silent for a long time—whether he waked or slept she could not tell.
The annoyance was great in the home conclave when Mewks brought the next piece of news—namely, that there was that designing Marston in the master's room again, and however she got into the house he was surehedidn't know.
"All the same thing over again, miss!—hard at it a-tryin' to convert 'im!—And where's the use, you know, miss? If a man like my master's to be converted and get off, I don't for my part see where's the good o' keepin' up a devil."
"I am quite of your opinion, Mewks," said Sepia.
But in her heart she was ill at ease.
All day long she had been haunted with an ever-recurring temptation, which, instead of dismissing it, she kept like a dog in a string. Different kinds of evil affect people differently. Ten thousand will do a dishonest thing, who would indignantly reject the dishonest thing favored by another ten thousand. They are not sufficiently used to its ugly face not to dislike it, though it may not be quite so ugly as theirprotege. A man will feel grandly honest against the dishonesties of another trade than his, and be eager to justify those of his own. Here was Sepia, who did not care the dust of a butterfly's wing for causing any amount of family misery, who would without a pang have sacrificed the genuine reputation of an innocent man to save her own false one—shuddering at an idea as yet bodiless in her brain—an idea which, however, she did not dismiss, and so grew able to endure!
I have kept this woman—so far as personal acquaintance with her is concerned—in the background of my history. For one thing, I am not fond ofpost-mortemexaminations; in other words, I do not like searching the decompositions of moral carrion. Analysis of such is, like the use of reagents on dirt, at least unpleasant. Nor was any true end to be furthered by a more vivid presentation of her. Nosology is a science doomed, thank God, to perish! Health alone will at last fill the earth. Or, if there should be always the ailing to help, a man will help them by being sound himself, not by knowing the ins and outs of disease. Diagnosis is not therapy.
Sepia was unnatural—as every one is unnatural who does not set his face in the direction of the true Nature; but she had gone further in the opposite direction than many people have yet reached. At the same time, whoever has not faced about is on the way to a capacity for worse things than even our enemies would believe of us.
Her very existence seemed to her now at stake. If by his dying act Mr. Redmain should drive her from under Hesper's roof, what was to become of her! Durnmelling, too, would then be as certainly closed against her, and she would be compelled to take a situation, and teach music, which she hated, and French and German, which gave her no pleasure apart from certain strata of their literature, to insolent girls whom she would be constantly wishing to strangle, or stupid little boys who would bore her to death. Her very soul sickened at the thought—as well it might; for to have to do such service with such a heart as hers, must indeed be torment. All hope of marrying Godfrey Wardour would be gone, of course. Did he but remain uncertain as to the truth or falsehood of a third part of what Mr. Redmain would record against her, he would never meet her again!
Since the commencement of this last attack of Mr. Redmain's malady, she had scarcely slept; and now what Mewks reported rendered her nigh crazy. For some time she had been generally awake half the night, and all the last night she had been wandering here and there about the house, not unfrequently couched where she could hear every motion in Mr. Redmain's room. Haunted by fear, she in turn haunted her fear. She could not keep from staring down the throat of the pit. She was a slave of the morrow, the undefined, awful morrow, ever about to bring forth no one knows what. That morrow could she but forestall!
If any should think that anxiety and watching must have so wrought on Sepia that she came to be no longer accountable for her actions, I will not oppose the kind conclusion. For my own part, until I shall have seen a man absolutely one with the source of his being, I do not believe I shall ever have seen a man absolutely sane. What many would point to as plainest proofs of sanity, I should regard as surest signs of the contrary.
A sign of my own insanity is it?
Your insanity may be worse than mine, for you are aware of none, and I with mine do battle. I believe all insanity has moral as well as physical roots. But enough of this. There are questions we can afford to leave.
Sepia had got very thin during these trying days. Her great eyes were larger yet, and filled with a troubled anxiety. Not paleness, for of that her complexion was incapable, but a dull pallor possessed her cheek. If one had met her as she roamed the house that night, he might well have taken her for some naughty ancestor, whose troubled conscience, not yet able to shake off the madness of some evil deed, made her wander still about the place where she had committed it.
She believed in no supreme power who cares that right should be done in his worlds. Here, it may be, some of my unbelieving acquaintances, foreseeing a lurid something on the horizon of my story, will be indignant that the capacity for crime should be thus associated with the denial of a Live Good. But it remains a mere fact that it is easier for a man to commit a crime when he does not fear a willed retribution. Tell me there is no merit in being prevented by fear; I answer, the talk is not of merit. As the world is, that is, as the race of men at present is, it is just as well that the man who has no merit, and never dreamed of any, should yet be a little hindered from cutting his neighbor's throat at his evil pleasure.—No; I do not mean hindered by a lie—I mean hindered by the poorest apprehension of the grandest truth.
Of those who do not believe, some have never had a noble picture of God presented to them; but whether their phantasm is of a mean God because they refuse him, or they refuse him because their phantasm of him is mean, who can tell? Anyhow, mean notions must come of meanness, and, uncharitable as it may appear, I can not but think there is a moral root to all chosen unbelief. But let God himself judge his own.
With Sepia, what wasbestmeant what was best for her, andbest for hermeantmost after her liking.
She had in her time heard a good deal abouteuthanasia, and had taken her share in advocating it. I do not assume this to be anything additional against her; one who does not believe in God, may in such an advocacy indulge a humanity pitiful over the irremediable ills of the race; and, being what she was, she was no worse necessarily for advocating that than for advocating cremation, which she did—occasionally, I must confess, a little coarsely. But the notion ofeuthanasiamight well work for evil in a mind that had not a thought for the case any more than for the betterment of humanity, or indeed for anything but its own consciousness of pleasure or comfort. Opinions, like drugs, work differently on different constitutions. Hence the man is foolish who goes scattering vague notions regardless of the soil on which they may fall.
She was used to asking the question, What's the good? but always in respect of something she wanted out of her way.
"What's the good of an hour or two more if you're not enjoying it?" she said to herself again and again that Monday. "What's the good of living when life is pain—or fear of death, from which no fear can save you?" But the question had no reference to her own life: she was judging for another—and for another not for his sake, or from his point of view, but for her own sake, and from where she stood.
All the day she wandered about the house, such thoughts as these in her heart, and in her pocket a bottle of that concentrated which Mr. Redmain was taking much diluted for medicine. But shehoped not to have to use it. If only Mr. Redmain would yield the conflict, and depart without another interview with the lawyer!
But if he would not, and two drops from the said bottle, not taken by herself, but by another, would save her, all her life to come, from endless anxiety and grinding care, from weariness and disgust, and indeed from want; nor that alone, but save likewise that other from an hour, or two hours, or perhaps a week, or possibly two weeks, or—who could tell?—it might be a month of pain and moaning and weariness, would it not be well?—must it not be more than well?
She had not learned to fear temptation; she feared poverty, dependence, humiliation, labor,ennui, misery. The thought of the life that must follow and wrap her round in the case of the dreaded disclosure was unendurable; the thought of the suggested frustration was notsounendurable—was not absolutely unendurable—was to be borne—might be permitted to come—to return—was cogitated—now with imagined resistance, now with reluctant and partial acceptance, now with faint resolve, and now with determined resolution—now with the beaded drops pouring from the forehead, and now with a cold, scornful smile of triumphant foil and success.
Was she so very exceptionally bad, however? You who hate your brother or your sister—you do not think yourself at all bad! But you are a murderer, and she was only a murderer. You do not feel wicked? How do you know she did? Besides, you hate, and she did not hate; she only wanted to take care of herself. Lady Macbeth did not hate Duncan; she only wanted to give her husband his crown. You only hate your brother; you would not, you say, do him any harm; and I believe you would not do him mere bodily harm; but, were things changed, so that hate-action became absolutely safe, I should have no confidence what you might not come to do. No one can tell what wreck a gust of passion upon a sea of hate may work. There are men a man might well kill, if he were anything less than ready to die for them. The difference between the man that hates and the man that kills may be nowhere but in the courage. These aregrewsomethinkings: let us leave them—but hating with them.
All the afternoon Sepia hovered about Mr. Rcdmain's door, down upon Mewks every moment he appeared. Her head ached; she could hardly breathe. Rest she could not. Once when Mewks, coming from the room, told her his master was asleep, she crept in, and, softly approaching the head of the bed, looked at him from behind, then stole out again.
"He seems dying, Mewks," she said.
"Oh, no, miss! I've often seen him as bad. He's better."
"Who's that whispering?" murmured the patient, angrily, though half asleep.
Mewks went in, and answered:
"Only me and Jemima, sir."
"Where's Miss Marston?"
"She's not come yet, sir."
"I want to go to sleep again. You must wake me the moment she comes."
"Yes, sir."
Mewks went back to Sepia.
"His voice is much altered," she said.
"He most always speaks like that now, miss, when he wakes—very different from I used to know him! He'd always swear bad when he woke; but Miss Marston do seem t' 'ave got a good deal of that out of him. Anyhow, this last two days he's scarce swore enough to make it feel home-like."
"It's death has got it out of him," said Sepia. "I don't think he can last the night through. Fetch me at once if—And don't let that Marston into the room again, whatever you do."
She spoke with the utmost emphasis, plainly clinching instructions previously given, then went slowly up the stair to her own room. Surely he would die to-night, and she would not be led into temptation! She would then have but to get a hold of the paper! What a hateful and unjust thing it was that her life should be in the power of that man—a miserable creature, himself hanging between life and death!—that such as he should be able to determine her fate, and say whether she was to be comfortable or miserable all the rest of a life that was to outlast his so many years! It was absurd to talk of a Providence! She must be her own providence!
She stole again down the stair. Her cousin was in her own room safe with a novel, and there was Mewks fast asleep in an easy-chair in the study, with the doors of the dressing-room and chamber ajar! She crept into the sick-room. There was the tumbler with the medicine! and her fingers were on the vial in her pocket. The dying man slept.
She drew near the table by the bed. He stirred as if about to awake. Her limbs, her brain seemed to rebel against her will.—But what folly it was! the man was not for this world a day longer; what could it matter whether he left it a few hours earlier or later? The drops on his brow rose from the pit of his agony; every breath was a torture; it were mercy to help him across the verge; if to more life, he would owe her thanks; if to endless rest, he would never accuse her.
She took the vial from her pocket. A hand was on the lock of the door! She turned and fled through the dressing-room and study, waking Mewks as she passed. He, hurrying into the chamber, saw Mary already entered.
When Sepia learned who it was that had scared her, she felt she could kill her with less compunction than Mr. Redmain. She hated her far worse.
"Youmustget the viper out of-the house, Mewks," she said. "It is all your fault she got into the room."
"I'm sure I'm willing enough," he answered, "—even if it wasn't you as as't me, miss! But what am I to do? She's that brazen, you wouldn' believe, miss! It wouldn' be becomin' to tell you what I think that young woman fit to do."
"I don't doubt it," responded Sepia. "But surely," she went on, "the next time he has an attack, and he's certain to have one soon, you will be able to get her hustled out!"
"No, miss—least of all just then. She'll make that a pretense for not going a yard from the bed—as if me that's been about him so many years didn't know what ought to be done with him in his paroxes of pain better than the likes of her! Of all things I do loathe a row, miss—and the talk of it after; and sure I am that without a row we don't get her out of that room. The only way is to be quiet, and seem to trust her, and watch for the chance of her going out—then shut her out, and keep her out."
"I believe you are right," returned Sepia, almost with a hope that no such opportunity might arrive, but at the same time growing more determined to take advantage of it if it should.
Hence partly it came that Mary met with no interruption to her watching and ministering. Mewks kept coming and going—watching her, and awaiting his opportunity. Mr. Redmain scarcely heeded him, only once and again saying in sudden anger, "What can that idiot be about? He might know by this time I'm not likely to wanthimso long asyouare in the room!"
And said Mary to herself: "Who knows what good the mere presence of one who trusts may be to him, even if he shouldn't seem to take much of what she says! Perhaps he may think of some of it after he is dead—who knows?" Patiently she sat and waited, full of help that would have flowed in a torrent, but which she felt only trickle from her heart like a stream that is lost on the face of the rock down which it flows.
All at once she bethought herself, and looked at her watch: Joseph had been waiting for her more than an hour, and would not, she knew, if he stopped all night, go away without her! And for her, she could not forsake the poor man her presence seemed to comfort! He was now lying very still: she would slip out and send Joseph away, and be back before the patient or any one else should miss her!
She went softly from the room, and glided down the stairs, and out of the house, seeing no one—but not unseen: hardly was she from the room, when the door of it was closed and locked behind her, and hardly from the house, when the house-door also was closed and locked behind her. But she heard nothing, and ran, without the least foreboding of mishap, to the corner where Joseph was to meet her.
There he was, waiting as patiently as if the hour had not yet come.
"I can't leave him, Joseph. My heart won't let me," she said. "I can not go back before the morning. I will look in upon you as I pass."
So saying, and without giving him time to answer, she bade him good night, and ran back to the house, hoping to get in as before without being seen. But to her dismay she found the door already fast, and concluded the hour had arrived when the house was shut up for the night. She rang the bell, but there was no answer—for there was Mewks himself standing close behind the door, grinning like his master an evil grin. As she knocked and rang in vain, the fact flashed upon her that she was intentionally excluded. She turned away, overwhelmed with a momentary despair. What was she to do? There stood Joseph! She ran back to him, and told him they had shut her out.
"It makes me miserable," she went on, "to think of the poor man calling me, and me nowhere to answer. The worst of it is, I seem the only person he has any faith in, and what I have been telling him about the father of us all, whose love never changes, will seem only the idler tale, when he finds I am gone, and nowhere to be found—as they're sure to tell him. There's no saying what lies they mayn't tell him about my going! Rather than go, I will sit on the door-step all night, just to be able to tell him in the morning that I never went home."
"Why have they done it, do you think? asked Joseph.
"I dare hardly allow myself to conjecture," answered Mary. "None of them like me but Jemima—not even Mrs. Redmain now, I am afraid; for you see I never got any of the good done her I wanted, and, till something of that was done, she could not know how I felt toward her. I shouldn't a bit wonder if they fancy I have a design on his money—as if anybody fit to call herself a woman would condescend to such a thing! But when a woman would marry for money, she may well think as badly of another woman."
"This is a serious affair," said Joseph. "To have a dying man believe you false to him would be dreadful! We must find some way in. Let us go to the kitchen-door."
"If Jemima happened to be near, then, perhaps!" rejoined Mary; "but if they want to keep me out, you may be sure Mewks has taken care of one door as well as another. He knows I'm not so easy to keep out."
"If you did get in," said Joseph, speaking in a whisper as they went, "would you feel quite safe after this?"
"I have no fear. I dare say they would lock me up somewhere if they could, before I got to Mr. Redmain's room: once in, they would not dare touch me."
"I shall not go out of hearing so long as you are in that house," said Joseph, with decision. "Not until I have you out again do I leave the premises. If anything should make you feel uncomfortable, you cry out, miss, and I'll make a noise at the door that everybody at Thornwick over there shall hear me."
"It is a large house, Joseph: one might call in many a part of it, and never be heard out of doors. I don't think you could hear me from Mr. Redmain's room," said Mary, with a little laugh, for she was amused as well as pleased at the protection Joseph would give her; "it is up two flights, and he chose it himself for the sake of being quiet when he was ill."
As she spoke, they reached the door they sought—the most likely of all to be still open: it was fast and dark as if it had not been unbolted for years. One or two more entrances they tried, but with no better success.
"Come this way," whispered Joseph. "I know a place where we shall at least be out of their sight, and where we can plan at our leisure."
He led her to the back entrance to the old hall. Alas! even that was closed.
"Thisisdisappointing," he said; "for, if we were only in there, I think something might be done."
"I believe I know a way," said Mary, and led him to a place near, used for a wood-shed.
At the top of a great heap of sticks and fagots was an opening in the wall, that had once been a window, or perhaps a door.
"That, I know, is the wall of the tower," she said; "and there can be no difficulty in getting through there. Once in, it will be easy to reach the hall—that is, if the door of the tower is not locked."
In an instant Joseph was at the top of the heap, and through the opening, hanging on, and feeling with his feet. He found footing at no great distance, and presently Mary was beside him. They descended softly, and found the door into the hall wide open.
"Can you tell me what window is that," whispered Joseph, "just above the top of the wall?"
"I can not," answered Mary. "I never could go about this house as I did about Mr. Redmain's; my lady always looked so fierce if she saw me trying to understand the place. But why do you ask?"
"You see the flickering of a fire? Could it be Mr. Redmain's room?"
"I can not tell. I do not think it. That has no window in this direction, so far as I know. But I could not be certain."
"Think how the stairs turn as you go up, and how the passages go to the room. Think in what direction you look every corner you turn. Then you will know better whether or not it might be."
Mary was silent, and thought. In her mind she followed every turn she had to take from the moment she entered the house till she got to the door of Mr. Redmain's room, and then thought how the windows lay when she entered it. Her conclusion was that one side of the room must be against the hall, but she could remember no window in it.
"But," she added, "I never was in that room when I was here before, and, the twice I have now been in it, I was too much occupied to take much notice of things about me. Two windows, I know, look down into a quiet little corner of the courtyard, where there is an old pump covered with ivy. I remember no other."
"Is there any way of getting on to the top of that wall from this tower?" asked Joseph.
"Certainly there is. People often walk round the top of those walls. They are more than thick enough for that."
"Are you able to do it?"
"Yes, quite. I have been round them more than once. But I don't like the idea of looking in at a window."
"No more do I, miss; but you must remember, if it is his room, it will only be your eyes going where the whole of you has a right to be; and, if it should not be that room, they have driven you to it: such a necessity will justify it."
"You must be right," answered Mary, and, turning, led the way up the stair of the tower, and through a gap in the wall out upon the top of the great walls.
It was a sultry night. A storm was brooding between heaven and earth. The moon was not yet up, and it was so dark that they had to feel their way along the wall, glad of the protection of a fence of thick ivy on the outer side. Looking down into the court on the one hand, and across the hall to the lawn on the other, they saw no living thing in the light from various windows, and there was little danger of being discovered. In the gable was only the one window for which they were making. Mary went first, as better knowing the path, also as having the better right to look in. Through the window, as she went, she could see the flicker, but not the fire. All at once came a great blaze. It lasted but a moment—long enough, however, to let them see plainly into a small closet, the door of which was partly open.
"That is the room, I do believe," whispered Mary. "There is a closet, but I never was in it."
"If only the window be not bolted!" returned Joseph.
The same instant Mary heard the voice of Mr. Redmain call in a tone of annoyance—"Mary! Mary Marston! I want you. Who is that in the room?—Damn you! who are you?"
"Let me pass you," said Joseph, and, making her hold to the ivy, here spread on to the gable, he got between Mary and the window. The blaze was gone, and the fire was at its old flicker. The window was not bolted. He lifted the sash. A moment and he was in. The next, Mary was beside him.
Something, known to her only as an impulse, induced Mary to go softly to the door of the closet, and peep into the room. She saw Hesper, as she thought, standing—sidewise to the closet—by a chest of drawers invisible from the bed. A candle stood on the farther side of her. She held in one hand the tumbler from which, repeatedly that evening, Mary had given the patient his medicine: into this she was pouring, with an appearance of care, something from a small dark bottle.
With a sudden suspicion of foul play, Mary glided swiftly into the room, and on to where she stood. It was Sepia! She started with a smothered shriek, turned white, and almost dropped the bottle; then, seeing who it was, recovered herself. But such a look as she cast on Mary! such a fire of hate as throbbed out of those great black eyes! Mary thought for a moment she would dart at her. But she turned away, and walked swiftly to the door. Joseph, however, peeping in behind Mary, had caught a glimpse of the bottle and tumbler, also of Sepia's face. Seeing her now retiring with the bottle in her hand, he sprang after her, and, thanks to the fact that she had locked the door, was in time to snatch it from her. She turned like a wild beast, and a terrible oath came hissing as from a feline throat. When, however, she saw, not Mary, but the unknown figure of a powerful man, she turned again to the door and fled. Joseph shut and locked it, and went back to the closet. Mary drew near the bed.
"Where have you been all this time?" asked the patient, querulously; "and who was that went out of the room just now? What's all the hurry about?"
Anxious he should be neither frightened nor annoyed, Mary replied to the first part of his question only.
"I had to go and tell a friend, who was waiting for me, that I shouldn't be home to-night. But here I am now, and I will not leave you again."
"How did the door come to be locked? And who was that went out of the room?"
While he was thus questioning, Joseph crept softly out of the window; and all the rest of the night he lay on the top of the wall under it.
"It was Miss Yolland," answered Mary.
"What business had she in my room?"
"She shall not enter it again while I am here."
"Don't let Mewks in either," he rejoined. "I heard the door unlock and lock again: what did it mean?"
"Wait till to-morrow. Perhaps we shall find out then."
He was silent a little.
"I must get out of this house, Mary," he sighed at length.
"When the doctor comes, we shall see," said Mary.
"What! is the doctor coming? I am glad of that. Who sent for him?"
"I don't know; I only heard he was coming."
"But your lawyer, Mary—what's his name?—will be here first: we'll talk the thing over with him, and take his advice. I feel better, and shall go to sleep again."
All night long Mary sat by him and watched. Not a step, so far as she knew, came near the door; certainly not a hand was laid upon the lock. Mr. Redmain slept soundly, and in the morning was beyond a doubt better.
But Mary could not think of leaving him until Mr. Brett came. At Mr. Redmain's request she rang the bell. Mewks made his appearance, with the face of a ghost. His master told him to bring his breakfast.
"And see, Mewks," he added, in a tone of gentleness that terrified the man, so unaccustomed was he to such from the mouth of his master—"see that there is enough for Miss Marston as well. She has had nothing all night. Don't let my lady have any trouble with it.—Stop," he cried, as Mewks was going, "I won't have you touch it either; I am fastidious this morning. Tell the young woman they call Jemima to come here to Miss Marston."
Mewks slunk away. Jemima came, and Mr. Redmain ordered her to get breakfast for himself and Mary. It was done speedily, and Mary remained in the sick-chamber until the lawyer arrived.
"I am afraid I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Marston," said Mr. Brett, seated with pen, ink, and paper, to receive his new client's instructions.
"No," said Mr. Redmain; "she must stay where she is. I fancy something happened last night which she has got to tell us about."
"Ah! What was that?" asked Mr. Brett, facing round on her.
Mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued by some one, and rescued by the blacksmith, whom she told her listeners she had known in London. Then she narrated all that had happened the night before, from first to last, not forgetting the flame that lighted the closet as they approached the window.
"Just let me see those memoranda," said Mr. Brett to Mr. Redmain, rising, and looking for the paper where he had left it the day before.
"It was of that paper I was this moment thinking," answered Mr. Redmain.
"It is not here!" said Mr. Brett.
"I thought as much! The fool! There was a thousand pounds there for her! I didn't want to drive her to despair: a dying man must mind what he is about. Ring the bell and see what Mewks has to say to it."
Mewks came, in evident anxiety.
I will not record his examination. Mr. Brett took it for granted he had deliberately and intentionally shut out Mary, and Mewks did not attempt to deny it, protesting he believed she was boring his master. The grin on that master's face at hearing this was not very pleasant to behold. When examined as to the missing paper, he swore by all that was holy he knew nothing about it.
Mr. Brett next requested the presence of Miss Yolland. She was nowhere to be found. The place was searched throughout, but there was no trace of her.
When the doctor arrived, the bottle Joseph had taken from her was examined, and its contents discovered.
Lady Malice was grievously hurt at the examination she found had been going on.
"Have I not nursed you like my own brother, Mr. Redmain?" she said.
"You may be glad you have escaped a coroner's inquest in your house, Lady Margaret!" said Mr. Brett.
"For me," said Mr. Redmain, "I have not many days left me, but somehow a fellow does like to have his own!"
Hesper sought Mary, and kissed her with some appearance of gratitude. She saw what a horrible suspicion, perhaps even accusation, she had saved her from. The behavior and disappearance of Sepia seemed to give her little trouble.
Mr. Brett got enough out of Mewks to show the necessity of his dismissal, and the doctor sent from London a man fit to take his place.
Almost every evening, until he left Durnmelling, Mary went to see Mr. Redmain. She read to him, and tried to teach him, as one might an unchildlike child. And something did seem to be getting into, or waking up in, him. The man had never before in the least submitted; but now it looked as if the watching spirit of life were feeling through the dust-heap of his evil judgments, low thoughts, and bad life, to find the thing that spirit had made, lying buried somewhere in the frightful tumulus: when the two met and joined, then would the man be saved; God and he would be together. Sometimes he would utter the strangest things—such as if all the old evil modes of thinking and feeling were in full operation again; and sometimes for days Mary would not have an idea what was going on in him. When suffering, he would occasionally break into fierce and evil language, then be suddenly silent. God and Satan were striving for the man, and victory would be with him with whom the man should side.
For some time it remained doubtful whether this attack was not, after all, going to be the last: the doctor himself was doubtful, and, having no reason to think his death would be a great grief in the house, did not hesitate much to express his doubt. And, indeed, it caused no gloom. For there was little love in the attentions the Mortimers paid him; and in what other hope could Hesper have married, than that one day she would be free, with a freedom informed with power, the power of money! But to the mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the future, the daughter never responded: she had no thought of plans in common with her.
Strange rumors came abroad. Godfrey Wardour heard something of them, and laughed them to scorn. There was a conspiracy in that house to ruin the character of the loveliest woman in creation! But when a week after week passed, and he heard nothing of or from her, he became anxious, and at last lowered his pride so far as to call on Mary, under the pretense of buying something in the shop.
His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not help being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for him. He looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request that she would allow him to have a little conversation with her.
She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to take a seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit.
"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss Marston!" he said.
"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be so much surprised as you think."
"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word of the contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask you to tell me the real nature of the accusations brought against Miss Yolland: your name is, of course, coupled with them."