It was close on dressing-time when Charles came into the drawing-room, where Evelyn and Molly were building castles on the hearth-rug in the ruddy firelight. After changing his damp clothes, he had gone to the smoking-room, but he had found Dare sitting there in a vast dressing-gown of Ralph's, in a state of such utter dejection, with his head in his hands, that he had silently retreated again before he had been perceived. He did not want to see Dare just now. He wished he were not in the house.
Quite oblivious of the fact that he was not in Evelyn's good graces, he went and sat by the drawing-room fire, and absently watched Molly playing with her bricks. Presently, when the dressing-bell rang, Evelyn went away to dress, and Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she might sit on his knee.
He let her climb up and wriggle and finally settle herself as it seemed good to her, but he did not speak; and so they sat in the firelight together, Molly's hand lovingly stroking his black velvet coat. But her talents lay in conversation, not in silence, and she soon broke it.
"You do look beautiful to-night, Uncle Charles."
"Do I?" without elation.
"Do you know, Uncle Charles, Ninny's sister with the wart on her cheek has been to tea? She's in the nursery now. Ninny says she's to have a bite of supper before she goes."
"You don't say so?"
"And we had buttered toast to tea, and she said you were the most splendid gentleman she ever saw."
Charles did not answer. He did not even seem to have heard this interesting tribute to his personal appearance. Molly felt that something must be gravely amiss, and, laying her soft cheek against his, she whispered, confidentially:
"Uncle Charles, are you uncomferable inside?"
There was a long pause.
"Yes, Molly," at last, pressing her to him.
"Is it there?" said Molly, sympathetically, laying her hand on the front portion of her amber sash.
"No, Molly; I only wish it were."
"It's not the little green pears, then," said Molly, with the sigh of experience, "because it's alwaysjustthere,always, with them. It was again yesterday. They're nasty little pears,"—with a touch of personal resentment.
Uncle Charles smiled at last, but it was not quite his usual smile.
"Miss Molly," said a voice from the door, "your mamma has sent for you."
"It's not bedtime yet."
"Your mamma says you are to come at once," was the reply.
Molly, knowing from experience that an appeal to Charles was useless on these occasions, wriggled down from her perch rather reluctantly, and bade her uncle "Good-night."
"Perhaps it will be better to-morrow," she said, consolingly.
"Perhaps," he said, nodding at her; and he took her little head between his hands, and kissed her. She rubbed his kiss off again, and walked gravely away. She could not be merry and ride in triumph up-stairs on kind curvetting Sarah's willing back, while her friend was "uncomferable inside." There was no galloping down the passage that night, no pleasantries with the sponge in Molly's tub, no last caperings in light attire. Molly went silently to bed, and as on a previous occasion when in great anxiety about Vic, who had thoughtlessly gone out in the twilight for a stroll, and had forgotten the lapse of time, she added a whispered clause to her little petitions which the ear of "Ninny" failed to catch.
Charles recognized, in the way Evelyn had taken Molly from him, that she was not yet appeased. It should be remembered, in order to do her justice, that a good woman's means of showing a proper resentment are so straitened and circumscribed by her conscience that she is obliged, from actual want of material, to resort occasionally to little acts of domestic tyranny, small in themselves as midge bites, but, fortunately for the cause of virtue, equally exasperating. Indeed, it is improbable that any really good woman would ever so far forget herself as to lose her temper, if she were once thoroughly aware how much more irritating in the long-run a judicious course of those small persecutions may be made, which the tenderest conscience need not scruple to inflict.
Charles was unreasonably annoyed at having Molly taken from him. As he sat by the fire alone, tired in mind and body, a hovering sense of cold, and an intense weariness of life took him; and a great longing came over him like a thirst—a longing for a little of the personal happiness which seemed to be the common lot of so many round him; for a home where he had now only a house; for love and warmth and companionship, and possibly some day a little Molly of his own, who would not be taken from him at the caprice of another.
The only barrier to the fulfilment of such a dream had been a conscientious scruple of Ruth's, to which at the time he had urged upon her that she did wrong to yield. That barrier was now broken down; but it ought never to have existed. Ruth and he belonged to each other by divine law, and she had no right to give herself to any one else to satisfy her own conscience. And now—all would be well. She was absolved from her promise. She had been wrong to persist in keeping it, in his opinion; but at any rate she was honorably released from it now. And she would marry him.
And thatsecondpromise, which she had made to Dare, that she would still marry him if he were free to marry?
Charles moved impatiently in his chair. From what exaggerated sense of duty she had made that promise he knew not; but he would save her from the effects of her own perverted judgment. He knew what Ruth's word meant, since he had tried to make her break it. He knew that she had promised to marry Dare if he were free. He knew that, having made that promise, she would keep it.
It would be mere sentimental folly on his part to say the word that would set Dare free. Even if the American woman were not his wife in the eye of the law, she had a moral claim upon him. The possibility of Ruth's still marrying Dare was too hideous to be thought of. If her judgment was so entirely perverted by a morbid conscientious fear of following her own inclination that she could actually give Dare that promise, directly after the arrival of the adventuress, Charles would take the decision out of her hands. As she could not judge fairly for herself, he would judge for her, and save her from herself.
For her sake as much as for his own he resolved to say nothing. He had only to keep silence.
"There's no one to tell if you don't."
The door opened, and Charles gave a start as Dare came into the room. He was taken aback by the sudden rush of jealous hatred that surged up within him at his appearance. It angered and shamed him,and Dare, much shattered but feebly cordial, found him very irresponsive and silent for the few minutes that remained before the dinner-bell rang, and the others came down.
It was not a pleasant meal. If Dare had been a shade less ill, he must have noticed the marked coldness of Evelyn's manner, and how Ralph good-naturedly endeavored to make up for it by double helpings of soup and fish, which he was quite unable to eat. Charles and Lady Mary were never congenial spirits at the best of times, and to-night was not the best. That lady, after feebly provoking the attack, as usual, sustained some crushing defeats, mainly couched in the language of Scripture, which was, as she felt with Christian indignation, turning her own favorite weapon against herself, as possibly Charles thought she deserved, for putting such a weapon to so despicable a use.
"I really don't know," she said, tremulously, afterwards in the drawing-room, "what Charles will come to if he goes on like this. I don't mind"—venomously—"his tone towards myself. That I do not regard; but his entire want of reverence for the Church and apostolic succession; his profane remarks about vestments; in short, his entire attitude towards religion gives me the gravest anxiety."
In the dining-room the conversation flagged, and Charles was beginning to wonder whether he could make some excuse and bolt, when a servant came in with a note for him. It was from the doctor in D——, and ran as follows:
"Dear Sir,"I have just seen (6.30p.m.) Stephens again. I found him in a state of the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you word that he wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you would go if you knew he wished it, that I have commissioned Sergeant Brown's boy to take this. He wished me to say 'there was something more.' If there is any further confession he desires to make, he has not much time to do it in. I did not expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but I promised to give you this message.Yours faithfully,R. White."
"Dear Sir,
"I have just seen (6.30p.m.) Stephens again. I found him in a state of the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you word that he wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you would go if you knew he wished it, that I have commissioned Sergeant Brown's boy to take this. He wished me to say 'there was something more.' If there is any further confession he desires to make, he has not much time to do it in. I did not expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but I promised to give you this message.
Yours faithfully,
R. White."
"I must go," Charles said, throwing the note across to Ralph. "Give the boy half a crown, will you? I suppose I may take Othello?" and before Ralph had mastered the contents of the note,and begun to fumble for a half-crown, Charles was saddling Othello himself, without waiting for the groom, and in a few minutes was clattering over the stones out of the yard.
There was just light enough to ride by, and he rode hard. What was it—what could it be that Raymond had still to tell him? He felt certain it had something to do with Ruth, and probably Dare. Should he arrive in time to hear it? There at last were the lights of D—— in front of him. Should he arrive in time? As he pulled up his steaming horse before the police-station his heart misgave him.
"Am I too late?" he asked of the man who came to the door.
He looked bewildered.
"Stephens! Is he dead?"
The man shook his head.
"They say he's a'most gone."
Charles threw the rein to him, and hurried in-doors. He met some one coming out, the doctor probably, he thought afterwards, who took him up-stairs, and sent away the old woman who was in attendance.
"I can't do anything more," he said, opening the door for him. "Wanted elsewhere. Very good of you, I'm sure. Not much use, I'm afraid. Good-night. I'll tell the old woman to be about."
A dim lamp was burning on the little corner cupboard near the door, and, as Charles bent over the bed, he saw in a moment, even by that pale light, that he was too late.
Life was still there, if that feeble tossing could be called life; but all else was gone. Raymond's feet were already on the boundary of the land where all things are forgotten; and, at the sight of that dim country, memory, affrighted, had slipped away and left him.
Was it possible to recall him to himself even yet?
"Raymond," he said, in a low distinct voice, "what is it you wish to say? Tell me quickly what it is."
But the long agony of farewell between body and soul had begun, and the eyes that seemed to meet his with momentary recognition only looked at him in anguish, seeking help and finding none, and wandered away again, vainly searching for that which was not to be found.
Charles could do nothing, but he had not the heart to leave him to struggle with death entirely alone, and so, in awed and helpless compassion, he sat by him through one long hour after another, waiting for the end which still delayed, his eyes wandering ever andanon from the bed to the high grated window, or idly spelling out the different names and disparaging remarks that previous occupants had scratched and scrawled over the whitewashed walls.
And so the hours passed.
At last, all in a moment, the struggle ceased. The dying man vainly tried to raise himself to meet what was coming, and Charles put his strong arm round him and held him up. He knew that consciousness sometimes returns at the moment of death.
"Raymond," he whispered, earnestly. "Raymond."
A tremor passed over the face. The lips moved. The homeless, lingering soul came back, and looked for the last time fixedly and searchingly at him out of the dying eyes, and then—seeing no help for it—went hurriedly on its way, leaving the lips parted to speak, leaving the deserted eyes vacant and terrible, until after a time Charles closed them.
He had gone without speaking. Whatever he had wished to say would remain unsaid forever. Charles laid him down, and stood a long time looking at the set face. The likeness to Raymond seemed to be fading away under the touch of the Mighty Hand, but the look of Ruth, the better look, remained.
At last he turned away and went out, stopping to wake the old nurse, heavily asleep in the passage. His horse was brought round for him from somewhere, and he mounted and rode away. He had no idea how long he had been there. It must have been many hours, but he had quite lost sight of time. It was still dark, but the morning could not be far off. He rode mechanically, his horse, which knew the road, taking him at its own pace. The night was cold, but he did not feel it. All power of feeling anything seemed gone from him. The last two days and nights of suspense and high-strung emotion seemed to have left him incapable of any further sensation at present beyond that of an intense fatigue.
He rode slowly, and put up his horse with careful absence of mind. The eastern horizon was already growing pale and distinct as he found his way in-doors through the drawing-room window, the shutter of which had been left unhinged for him by Ralph, according to custom when either of them was out late. He went noiselessly up to his room, and sat down. After a time he started to find himself still sitting there; but he remained without stirring, too tired to move, his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands. He felt he could not sleep if he were to drag himself into bed. He might just as well stay where he was.
And as he sat watching the dawn his mind began to stir, to shake off its lethargy and stupor, to struggle into keener and keener consciousness.
There are times, often accompanying great physical prostration, when a veil seems to be lifted from our mental vision. As in the Mediterranean one may glance down suddenly on a calm day, and see in the blue depths with a strange surprise the sea-weed and the rocks and the fretted sands below, so also in rare hours we see the hidden depths of the soul, over which we have floated in heedless unconsciousness so long, and catch a glimpse of the hills and the valleys of those untravelled regions.
Charles sat very still with his chin in his hands. His mind did not work. It looked right down to the heart of things.
There is, perhaps, no time when mental vision is so clear, when the mind is so sane, as when death has come very near to us. There is a light which he brings with him, which he holds before the eyes of the dying, the stern light, seldom seen, of reality, before which self-deception and meanness, and that which maketh a lie, cower in their native deformity and slip away.
And death sheds at times a strange gleam from that same light upon the souls of those who stand within his shadow, and watch his kingdom coming. In an awful transfiguration all things stand for what they are. Evil is seen to be evil, and good to be good. Right and wrong sunder more far apart, and we cannot mistake them as we do at other times. The debatable land stretching between them—that favorite resort of undecided natures—disappears for a season, and offers no longer its false refuge. The mind is taken away from all artificial supports, and the knowledge comes home to the soul afresh, with strong conviction that "truth is our only armor in all passages of life," as with awed hearts we see it is the only armor in the hour of death, the only shield that we may bear away with us into the unknown country.
Charles shuddered involuntarily. His decision of the afternoon to keep secret what Raymond had told him was gradually but surely assuming a different aspect. What was it, after all, but a suppression of truth—a kind of lie? What was it but doing evil that good might come?
It was no use harping on the old string of consequences. He saw that he had resolved to commit a deliberate sin, to be false to that great principle of life—right for the sake of right, truth for the love of truth—by which of late he had been trying to live. So far ithad not been difficult, for his nature was not one to do things by halves, but now—
Old voices out of the past, which he had thought long dead, rose out of forgotten graves to urge him on. What was he that he should stick at such a trifle? Why should a man with his past begin to split hairs?
And conscience said nothing, only pointed, only showed, with a clearness that allowed of no mistake, that he had come to a place where two roads met.
Charles's heart suffered then "the nature of an insurrection." The old lawless powers that had once held sway, and had been forced back into servitude under the new rule of the last few years of responsibility and honor, broke loose, and spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom of his heart.
The struggle deepened to a battle fierce and furious. His soul was rent with a frenzy of tumult, of victory and defeat ever changing sides, ever returning to the attack.
Can a kingdom divided against itself stand?
He sat motionless, gazing with absent eyes in front of him.
And across the shock of battle, and above the turmoil of conflicting passions, Ruth's voice came to him. He saw the pale spiritual face, the deep eyes so full of love and anguish, and yet so steadfast with a great resolve. He heard again her last words, "I cannot do what is wrong, even for you."
He stretched out his hands suddenly.
"You would not, Ruth," he said, half aloud; "you would not. Neither will I do what I know to be wrong for you, so help me God! not even for you."
The dawn was breaking, was breaking clear and cold, and infinitely far away; was coming up through unfathomable depths and distances, through gleaming caverns and fastnesses of light, like a new revelation fresh from God. But Charles did not see it, for his head was down on the table, and he was crying like a child.
Dare was down early the following morning, much too early for the convenience of the house-maids, who were dusting the drawing-room when he appeared there. He was usually as late as any of the young and gilded unemployed who feel it incumbent on themselves to show by these public demonstrations their superiority to the rules and fixed hours of the working and thinking world, with whom, however, their fear of being identified is a groundless apprehension. But to-day Dare experienced a mournful satisfaction in being down so early. He felt the underlying pathos of such a marked departure from his usual habits. It was obvious that nothing but deep affliction or cub-hunting could have been the cause, and the cub-hunting was over. The inference was not one that could be missed by the meanest capacity.
He took up the newspaper with a sigh, and settled himself in front of the blazing fire, which was still young and leaping, with the enthusiasm of dry sticks not quite gone out of it.
Charles heard Dare go down just as he finished dressing, for he too was early that morning. There was more than half an hour before breakfast-time. He considered a moment, and then went down-stairs. Some resolutions once made cannot be carried out too quickly.
As he passed through the hall he looked out. The mist of the night before had sought out every twig and leaflet, and had silvered it to meet the sun. The rime on the grass looked cool and tempting. Charles's head ached, and he went out for a moment and stood in the crisp still air. The rooks were cawing high up. The face of the earth had not altered during the night. It shimmered and was glad, and smiled at his grave, care-worn face.
"Hallo!" called a voice; and Ralph's head, with his hair sticking straight out on every side, was thrust out of a window. "I say, Charles, early bird you are!"
"Yes," said Charles, looking up and leisurely going in-doors again; "you are the first worm I have seen."
He found Dare, as he expected, in the drawing-room, and proceeded at once to the business he had in hand.
"I am glad you are down early," he said. "You are the very man I want."
"Ah!" replied Dare, shaking his head, "when the heart is troubled there is no sleep, none. All the clocks are heard."
"Possibly. I should not wonder if you heard another in the course of half an hour, which will mean breakfast. In the mean time——"
"I want no breakfast. A sole cup of——"
"In the mean time," continued Charles, "I have some news for you." And, disregarding another interruption, he related as shortly as he could the story of Stephens's recognition of him in the door-way, and the subsequent revelations in the prison concerning Dare's marriage.
"Where is this man, this Stephens?" said Dare, jumping up. "I will go to him. I will hear from his own mouth. Where is he?"
"I don't know," replied Charles, curtly. "It is a matter of opinion. He is dead!"
Dare looked bewildered, and then sank back with a gasp of disappointment into his chair.
Charles, whose temper was singularly irritable this morning, repeated with suppressed annoyance the greater part of what he had just said, and proved to Dare that the fact that Stephens was dead would in no way prevent the illegality of his marriage being proved.
When Dare had grasped the full significance of that fact he was quite overcome.
"Am I, then," he gasped—"is it true?—am I free—to marry?"
"Quite free."
Dare burst into tears, and, partially veiling with one hand the manly emotion that had overtaken him, he extended the other to Charles, who did not know what to do with it when he had got it, and dropped it as soon as he could. But Dare, like many people whose feelings are all on the surface, and who are rather proud of displaying them, was slow to notice what was passing in the minds of others.
He sprang to his feet, and began to pace rapidly up and down.
"I will go after breakfast—at once—immediately after breakfast, to Slumberleigh Rectory."
"I suppose, in that case, Miss Deyncourt is the person whose name you would not mention the other day?"
"She is," said Dare. "You are right. It is she. We are betrothed. I will fly to her after breakfast."
"You know your own affairs best," said Charles, whose temper had not been improved by the free display of Dare's finer feelings;"but I am not sure you would not do well to fly to Vandon first. It is best to be off with the old love, I believe, before you are on with the new."
"She must at once go away from Vandon," said Dare, stopping short. "She is a scandal, the—the old one. But how to make her go away?"
It was in vain for Charles to repeat that Dare must turn her out. Dare had premonitory feelings that he was quite unequal to the task.
"I may tell her to go," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I may be firm as the rock, but I know her well; she is more obstinate than me. She will not go."
"She must," said Charles, with anger. "Her presence compromises Miss Deyncourt. Can't you see that?"
Dare raised his eyebrows. A light seemed to break in on him.
"Any fool can see that," said Charles, losing his temper.
Dare saw a great deal—many things besides that. He saw that if a friend, a trusted friend, were to manage her dismissal, it would be more easy for that friend than for one whose feelings at the moment might carry him away. In short, Charles was the friend who was evidently pointed out by Providence for that mission.
Charles considered a moment. He began to see that it would not be done without further delays and scandal unless he did it.
"She must and shall go at once, even if I have to do it," he said at last, looking at Dare with unconcealed contempt. "It is not my affair, but I will go, and you will be so good as to put off the flying over to Slumberleigh till I come back. I shall not return until she has left the house." And Charles marched out of the room, too indignant to trust himself a moment longer with the profusely grateful Dare.
"That man must go to-day," said Evelyn, after breakfast, to her husband, in the presence of Lady Mary and Charles. "While he was ill I overlooked his being in the house; but I will not suffer him to remain now he is well."
"You remove him from all chance of improvement," said Charles, "if you take him away from Aunt Mary, who can snatch brands from the burning, as we all know; but I am going over to Vandon this morning, and if you wish it I will ask him if he would like me to order his dog-cart to come for him. I don't suppose he is very happy here, without so much as a tooth-brush that he can call his own."
"You are going to Vandon?" asked both ladies in one voice.
"Yes. I am going on purpose to dislodge an impostor who has arrived there, who is actually believed by some people (who are not such exemplary Christians as ourselves, and ready to suppose the worst) to be his wife."
Lady Mary and Evelyn looked at each other in consternation, and Charles went off to see how Othello was after his night's work, and to order the dog-cart, Ralph calling after him, in perfect good-humor, that "a fellow's brother got more out of a fellow's horses than a fellow did himself."
Dare waylaid Charles on his return from the stables, and linked his arm in his. He felt the most enthusiastic admiration for the tall reserved Englishman who had done him such signal service. He longed for an opportunity of showing his gratitude to him. It was perhaps just as well that he was not aware how very differently Charles regarded himself.
"You are just going?" Dare asked.
"In five minutes."
Charles let his arm hang straight down, but Dare kept it.
"Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he not tell you all this thefirsttime you went to see him in the afternoon?"
"He did."
"What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "Hedid, and you only tell me this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?"
Charles did not answer.
"I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago, from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was the—the—"
"Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently obvious."
"Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several times.
"Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have given up Ruth to him—tohim!"
"No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids.
The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and, getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight of the house.
Dare, with arms picturesquely folded, stood looking after him with mixed feelings of emotion and admiration.
"One sees it well," he said to himself. "One sees now the reason of many things. He kept silent at first, but he was too good, too noble. In the night he considered; in the morning he told all. I wondered that he went to Vandon; but he did it not for me. It was for her sake."
Dare's feelings were touched to the quick.
How beautiful! how pathetic was thisdénouement! His former admiration for Charles was increased a thousand-fold.He also loved!Ah! (Dare felt he was becoming agitated.) How sublime, how touching was his self-sacrifice in the cause of honor! He had been gradually working himself up to the highest pitch of pleasurable excitement and emotion; and now, seeing Ralph the prosaic approaching, he fled precipitately into the house, caught up his hat and stick, hardly glancing at himself in the hall-glass, and, entirely forgetting his promise to Charles to remain at Atherstone till the latter returned from Vandon, followed the impulse of the moment, and struck across the fields in the direction of Slumberleigh.
Charles, meanwhile, drove on to Vandon. The stable clock, still partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as he drew up before the door. His resounding peal at the bell startled the household, and put the servants into a flutter of anxious expectation, while the sound made some one else, breakfasting late in the dining-room, pause with her cup midway to her lips and listen.
"There is a train which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that the dining-room door was ajar.
"There is, Sir Charles. Twelve fifteen," replied the man, who recognized him instantly, for everybody knew Charles.
"I am here as Mr. Dare's friend, at his wish. Tell Mr. Dare's coachman to bring round his dog-cart to the door in good time to catch that train. Will it take luggage?"
"Yes, Sir Charles," with respectful alacrity.
"Good! And when the dog-cart appears you will see that theboxes are brought down belonging to the person who is staying here, who will leave by that train."
"Yes, Sir Charles."
"If the policeman from Slumberleigh should arrive while I am here, ask him to wait."
"I will, Sir Charles."
"I don't suppose," thought Charles, "he will arrive, as I have not sent for him; but, as the dining-room door happens to be ajar, it is just as well to add a few artistic touches."
"Is this person in the drawing-room?" he continued aloud.
The man replied that she was in the dining-room, and Charles walked in unannounced, and closed the door behind him.
He had at times, when any action of importance was on hand, a certain cool decision of manner that seemed absolutely to ignore the possibility of opposition, which formed a curious contrast with his usual careless demeanor.
"Good-morning," he said, advancing to the fire. "I have no doubt that my appearance at this early hour cannot be a surprise to you. You have, of course, anticipated some visit of this kind for the last few days. Pray finish your coffee. I am Sir Charles Danvers. I need hardly add that I am justice of the peace in this county, and that I am here officially on behalf of my friend, Mr. Dare."
The little woman, who had risen, and had then sat down again at his entrance, eyed him steadily. There was a look in her dark bead-like eyes which showed Charles why Dare had been unable to face her. The look, determined, cunning, watchful, put him on his guard, and his manner became a shade more unconcerned.
"Any friend of my husband's is welcome," she said.
"There is no question for the moment about your husband, though no doubt a subject of peculiar interest to yourself. I was speaking of Mr. Dare."
She rose to her feet, as if unable to sit while he was standing.
"Mr. Dare is my husband," she said, with a little gesture of defiance, tapping sharply on the table with a teaspoon she held in her hand.
Charles smiled blandly, and looked out of the window.
"There is evidently some misapprehension on that point," he observed, "which I am here to remove. Mr. Dare is at present unmarried."
"I am his wife," reiterated the woman, her color rising under her rouge. "I am, and I won't go. He dared not come himself, a poorcoward that he is, to turn his wife out-of-doors. He sent you; but it's no manner of use, so you may as well know it first as last. I tell you nothing shall induce me to stir from this house, from my home, and you needn't think you can come it over me with fine talk. I don't care a red cent what you say. I'll have my rights."
"I am here," said Charles, "to see that you get them, Mrs.—Carroll."
There was a pause. He did not look at her. He was occupied in taking a white thread off his coat.
"Carroll's dead," she said, sharply.
"He is. And your regret at his loss was no doubt deepened by the unhappy circumstances in which it took place. He died in jail."
"Well, and if he did—"
"Died," continued Charles, suddenly fixing his keen glance upon her, "nearly a year after your so-called marriage with Mr. Dare."
"It's a lie," she said, faintly; but she had turned very white.
"No, Ithinknot. My information is on reliable authority. A slight exertion of memory on your part will no doubt recall the date of your bereavement."
"You can't prove it."
"Excuse me. You have yourself kindly furnished us with a copy of the marriage register, with the date attached, without which I must own we might have been momentarily at a loss. I need now only apply for a copy of the register of the decease of Jasper Carroll, who, as you do not deny, died under personal restraint in jail; in Baton Rouge Jail in Louisiana, I have no doubt you intended to add."
She glared at him in silence.
"Some dates acquire a peculiar interest when compared," continued Charles, "but I will not detain you any longer with business details of this kind, as I have no doubt that you will wish to superintend your packing."
"I won't go."
"On the contrary, you will leave this house in half an hour. The dog-cart is ordered to take you to the station."
"What if I refuse to go?"
"Extreme measures are always to be regretted, especially with a lady," said Charles. "Nothing, in short, would be more repugnant to me; but I fear, as a magistrate, it would be my duty to—" And he shrugged his shoulders, wondering what on earth could be done for the moment if she persisted. "But," he continued, "motivesof self-interest suggest the advisability of withdrawing, even if I were not here to enforce it. When I take into consideration the trouble and expense you have incurred in coming here, and the subsequent disappointment of the affections, a widow's affections, I feel justified in offering, though without my friend's permission, to pay your journey back to America, an offer which any further unpleasantness or delay would of course oblige me to retract."
She hesitated, and he saw his advantage and kept it.
"You have not much time to lose," he said, laying his watch on the table, "unless you would prefer the house-keeper to do your packing for you. No? I agree with you. On a sea voyage especially, one likes to know where one's things are. If I give you a check for your return journey, I shall, of course, expect you to sign a paper to the effect that you have no claim on Mr. Dare, that you never were his legal wife, and that you will not trouble him in future. You would like a few moments for reflection? Good! I will write out the form while you consider, as there is no time to be lost."
He looked about for writing materials, and, finding only an ancient inkstand and pen, took a note from his pocket-book and tore a blank half-sheet off it. His quiet deliberate movements awed her as he intended they should. She glanced first at him writing, then at the gold watch on the table between them, the hours of which were marked on the half-hunting face by alternate diamonds and rubies, each stone being the memorial of a past success in shooting-matches. The watch impressed her; to her practised eye it meant a very large sum of money, and she knew the power of money; but the cool, unconcerned manner of this tall, keen-eyed Englishman impressed her still more. As she looked at him he ceased writing, got out a check, and began to fill it in.
"What Christian name?" he asked, suddenly.
"Ellen," she replied, taken aback.
"Payable to order or bearer?"
"Bearer," she said, confused by the way he took her decision for granted.
"Now," he said, authoritatively, "sign your name there;" and he pushed the form he had drawn up towards her. "I am sorry I cannot offer you a better pen."
She took the pen mechanically and signed her name—Ellen Carroll. Charles's light eyes gave a flash as she did it.
"Manner is everything," he said to himself. "I believe the mention of that imaginary policeman may have helped, but a little stage effect did the business."
"Thank you," he said, taking the paper, and, after glancing at the signature, putting it in his pocket-book. "Allow me to give you this"—handing her the check. "And now I will ring for the house-keeper, for you will barely have time to make the arrangements for your journey. I can allow you only twenty minutes." He rang the bell as he spoke.
She started up as if unaware how far she had yielded. A rush of angry color flooded her face.
"I won't have that impertinent woman touching my things."
"That is as you like," said Charles, shrugging his shoulders; "but she will be in the room when you pack. It is my wish that she should be present." Then turning to the butler, who had already answered the bell, "Desire the house-keeper to go to Mrs. Carroll's rooms at once, and to give Mrs. Carroll any help she may require."
Mrs. Carroll looked from the butler to Charles with baffled hatred in her eyes. But she knew the game was lost, and she walked out of the room and up-stairs without another word, but with a bitter consciousness in her heart that she had not played her cards well, that, though her downfall was unavoidable, she might have stood out for better terms for her departure. She hated Dare, as she threw her clothes together into her trunks, and she hated Mrs. Smith, who watched her do so with folded hands and with a lofty smile; but most of all she hated Charles, whose voice came up to the open window as he talked to Dare's coachman, already at the door, about splints and sore backs.
Charles felt a momentary pity for the little woman when she came down at last with compressed lips, casting lightning glances at the grinning servants in the background, whom she had bullied and hectored over in the manner of people unaccustomed to servants, and who were rejoicing in the ignominy of her downfall.
Her boxes were put in—not carefully.
Charles came forward and lifted his cap, but she would not look at him. Grasping a little hand-bag convulsively, she went down the steps, and got up, unassisted, into the dog-cart.
"You have left nothing behind, I hope?" said Charles, civilly, for the sake of saying something.
"She have left nothing," said Mrs. Smith, swimming forward with dignity, "and she have also took nothing. I have seen to that, Sir Charles."
"Good-bye, then," said Charles. "Right, coachman."
Mrs. Carroll's eyes had been wandering upward to the old house rising above her with its sunny windows and its pointed gables. Perhaps, after all the sordid shifts and schemes of her previous existence, she had imagined she might lead an easier and a more respectable life within those walls. Then she looked towards the long green terraces, the valley, and the forest beyond. Her lip trembled, and turning suddenly, she fixed her eyes with burning hatred on the man who had ousted her from this pleasant place.
Then the coachman whipped up his horse, the dog-cart spun over the smooth gravel between the lines of stiff, clipped yews, and she was gone.
Mr. Alwynnhad returned from his eventful morning call at Vandon very grave and silent. He shook his head when Ruth came to him in the study to ask what the result had been, and said Dare would tell her himself on his return from London, whither he had gone on business.
Ruth went back to the drawing-room. She had not strength or energy to try to escape from Mrs. Alwynn. Indeed it was a relief not to be alone with her own thoughts, and to allow her exhausted mind to be towed along by Mrs. Alwynn's, the bent of whose mind resembled one of those mechanical toy animals which, when wound up, will run very fast in any direction, but if adroitly turned, will hurry equally fast the opposite way. Ruth turned the toy at intervals, and the morning was dragged through, Mrs. Alwynn in the course of it exploring every realm—known to her—of human thought, now dipping into the future, and speculating on spring fashions, now commenting on the present, now dwelling fondly on the past, the gayly dressed, officer-adorned past of her youth.
There was a meal, and after that it was the afternoon. Ruth supposed that some time there would be another meal, and then it would be evening, but it was no good thinking of what was so far away. She brought her mind back to the present. Mrs. Alwynn had just finished a detailed account of a difference of opinion between herself and the curate's wife on the previous day.
"And she had not a word to say, my dear, not a word—quitehors de combat—so I let the matter drop. And you remember that beautiful pig we killed last week? You should have gone to look at it hanging up, Ruth, rolling in fat, it was. Well, it is better to give than to receive, so I shall send her one of the pork-pies. And if you will get me one of those round baskets which I took the dolls down to the school-feast in—they are in the lowest shelf of the oak chest in the hall—I'll send it down to her at once."
Ruth fetched the basket and put it down by her aunt. Reminiscences of the school-feast still remained in it, in the shape of ends of ribbon and lace, and Mrs. Alwynn began to empty them out, talking all the time, when she suddenly stopped short, with an exclamation of surprise.
"Goodness! Well, now! I'm sure! Ruth!"
"What is it, Aunt Fanny?"
"Why, my dear, if there isn't a letter for you under the odds and ends," holding it up and gazing resentfully at it; "and now I remember, a letter came for you on the morning of the school-feast, and I said to John, 'I sha'n't forward it, because I shall see Ruth this afternoon,' and, dear me! I just popped it into the basket, for I thought you would like to have it, and you know how busy I was, Ruth, that day, first one thing and then another, so much to think of—and—there it is."
"I dare say it is of no importance," said Ruth, taking it from her, while Mrs. Alwynn, repeatedly wondering how such a thing could have happened to a person so careful as herself, went off with her basket to the cook.
When she returned in a few minutes she found Ruth standing by the window, the letter open in her hand, her face without a vestige of color.
"Why, Ruth," she said, actually noticing the alteration in her appearance, "is your head bad again?"
Ruth started violently.
"Yes—no. I mean—I think I will go out. The fresh air—"
She could not finish the sentence.
"And that tiresome letter—did it want an answer?"
"None," said Ruth, crushing it up unconsciously.
"Well, now," said Mrs. Alwynn, "that's a good thing, for I'm sure I shall never forget the way your uncle was in once, when I put a letter of his in my pocket to give him (it was a plum-colored silk, Ruth, done with gold beads in front), and then I went into mourning for my poor dear Uncle James—such an out-of-the-commonperson he was, Ruth, and such a beautiful talker—and it was not till six months later—niece's mourning, you know—that I had the dress on again—and a business I had to meet it, for all my gowns seem to shrink when they are put by—and I put my hand in the pocket, and—"
But Ruth had disappeared.
Mrs. Alwynn was perfectly certain at last that something must be wrong with her niece. Earlier in the day she had had a headache. Reasoning by analogy, she decided that Ruth must have eaten something at Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party which had disagreed with her. If any one was ill, she always attributed it to indigestion. If Mr. Alwynn coughed, or if she read in the papers that royalty had been unavoidably prevented attending some function at which its presence had been expected, she instantly put down both mishaps to the same cause; and when Mrs. Alwynn had come to a conclusion it was not her habit to keep it to herself.
She told Lady Mary the exact state in which, reasoning always by analogy, she knew Ruth's health must be, when that lady drove over that afternoon in the hope of seeing Ruth, partly from curiosity, or, rather, a Christian anxiety respecting the welfare of others, and partly, too, from a real feeling of affection for Ruth herself. Mrs. Alwynn bored her intensely; but she sat on and on in the hope of Ruth's return, who had gone out, Mrs. Alwynn agreeing with every remark she made, and treating her with that pleased deference of manner which some middle-class people, not otherwise vulgar, invariably drop into in the presence of rank; a Scylla which is only one degree better than the Charybdis of would-be ease of manner into which others fall. If ever the enormous advantages of noble birth and ancient family, with all their attendant heirlooms and hereditary instincts of refinement, chivalrous feeling, and honor, become in future years a mark for scorn (as already they are a mark for the envy that calls itself scorn), it will be partly the fault of the vulgar adoration of the middle classes. Mrs. Alwynn being, as may possibly have already transpired in the course of this narrative, a middle-class woman herself, stuck to the hereditary instincts ofherclass with a vengeance, and when Ruth at last came in Lady Mary was thankful.
Her cold, pale eyes lighted up a little as she greeted Ruth, and looked searchingly at her. She saw by the colorless lips and nervous contraction of the forehead, and by the bright, restless fever of the eyes that had formerly been so calm and clear, that something was amiss—terribly amiss.
"I've been telling Lady Mary how poorly you've been, Ruth, ever since Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party," said Mrs. Alwynn, by way of opening the conversation.
But in spite of so auspicious a beginning the conversation flagged. Lady Mary made a few conventional remarks to Ruth, which she answered, and Mrs. Alwynn also; but there was a constraint which every moment threatened a silence. Lady Mary proceeded to comment on the poaching affray of the previous night, and the arrest of a man who had been seriously injured; but at her mention of the subject Ruth became so silent, and Mrs. Alwynn so voluble, that she felt it was useless to stay any longer, and had to take her leave without a word with Ruth.
"Something is wrong with that girl," she said to herself, as she drove back to Atherstone. "I know what it is. Charles has been behaving in his usual manner, and as there is no one else to point out to him how infamous such conduct is, I shall have to do it myself. Shameful! That charming, interesting girl! And yet, and yet, there was a look in her face more like some great anxiety than disappointment. If she had had a disappointment, I do not think she would have let any one see it. Those Deyncourts are all too proud to show their feelings, though they have got them, too, somewhere. Perhaps, on the whole, considering how excessively disagreeable and scriptural Charles can be, and what unexpected turns he can give to things, I had better say nothing to him at present."
The moment Lady Mary had left the house, Ruth hurried to her uncle's study. He was not there. He had not yet come in. She gave a gesture of despair, and flung herself down in the old leather chair opposite to his own, on which many a one had sat who had come to him for help or consolation. All the buttons had been gradually worn off that chair by restless or heavy visitors. Some had been lost, but others—the greater part, I am glad to say—Mr. Alwynn had found and had deposited in a Sèvres cup on the mantle-piece, till the wet afternoon should come when he and his long packing-needle should restore them to their home.
The room was very quiet. On the mantle-piece the little conscientious silver clock ticked, orderly, gently (till Ruth could hardly bear the sound), then hesitated, and struck a soft, low tone. She started to her feet, and paced up and down, up and down. Would he never come in? She dared not go out to look for him for fear of missing him. Why did not he come back when she wanted himso terribly? She sat down again. She tried to be patient. It was no good. Would he never come?
She heard a sound, rushed out to meet him in the passage, and pulled him into the study.
"Uncle John," she gasped, holding out a letter in her shaking hand. "That man who was taken up last night was—Raymond. He is in prison. He is ill. Let us go to him," and she explained as best she could that a letter had only just been found written to her by Raymond in July, warning her he was in the neighborhood of Arleigh, near the old nurse's cottage, and that she might see him at any moment, and must have money in readiness. The instant she had read the letter she rushed up to Arleigh, to see her old nurse, and met her coming down, in great agitation, to tell her that Raymond, whom she had shielded once before under promise of secrecy, had been arrested the night before.
In a quarter of an hour Mr. Alwynn and Ruth were driving swiftly through the dusk, in a close carriage, in the direction of D——. On their way they met a dog-cart driving as quickly in the opposite direction which grazed their wheel as it passed; and Ruth, looking out, caught a glimpse, by the flash of their lamps, of Charles's face, with a look upon it so fierce and haggard that she shivered in nameless foreboding of evil, wondering what could have happened to make him look like that.
It was still early on the following morning that Dare, forgetting, as we have seen, his promise to Charles, arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory—so early that Mrs. Alwynn was still ordering dinner, or, in other words, was dashing from larder to scullery, from kitchen to dairy, with her usual energy. He was shown into the empty drawing-room, where, after pacing up and down, he was reduced to the society of a photograph album, which, in his present excited condition, could do little to soothe the tumult of his mind. Not that any discredit should be thrown on Mrs. Alwynn's album, a gorgeous concern with a golden "Fanny" embossed on it, which afforded her infinite satisfaction, inside which her friends' portraits appeared to thegreatest advantage, surrounded by birds and nests and blossoms of the most vivid and life-like coloring. Mr. Alwynn was encompassed on every side by kingfishers and elaborate bone nests, while Ruth's clear-cut face looked out from among long-tailed tomtits, arranged one on each side of a nest crowded with eggs, on which a strong light had been thrown.
Dare was still looking at Ruth's photograph, when Mr. Alwynn came in.
"Do you wish to speak to Ruth?" he asked, gravely.
"Now, at once." Dare was surprised that Mr. Alwynn, with whom he had been so open, should be so cold and unsympathetic in manner. The alteration and alienation of friends is certainly one of the saddest and most inexplicable experiences of this vale of tears.
"You will find her in the study," continued Mr. Alwynn. "She is expecting you. I have told her nothing, according to your wish. I hope you will explain everything to her in full, that you will keep nothing back."
"I will explain," said Dare; and he went, trembling with excitement, into the study. Fired by Charles's example, he had made a sublime resolve as he skimmed across the fields, made it in a hurry, in a moment of ecstasy, as all his resolutions were made. He felt he had never acted such a noble part before. He only feared the agitation of the moment might prevent him doing himself justice.
Ruth rose as he came in, but did not speak. A swift spasm passed over her face, leaving it very stern, very fixed, as he had never seen it, as he had never thought of seeing it. An overwhelming suspense burned in the dark, lustreless eyes which met his own. He felt awed.
"Well?" she said, pressing her hands together, and speaking in a low voice.
"Ruth," said Dare, solemnly, laying his outspread hand upon his breast and then extending it in the air, "I am free."
Ruth's eyes watched him like one in torture.
"How?" she said, speaking with difficulty. "You said you were free before."
"Ah!" replied Dare, raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my lawyer, and he says she is my wife."
"You told me she was not."
"It was an error," repeated Dare. "I had formerly been a husband to her, but we had been divorced; it was finished, wound up,and I thought she was no more my wife. There is in the English law something extraordinary which I do not comprehend, which makes an American divorce to remain a marriage in England."
"Go on," said Ruth, shading her eyes with her hand.
"I come back to Vandon," continued Dare, in a suppressed voice, "I come back overwhelmed, broken down, crushed under feet; and then,"—he was becoming dramatic, he felt the fire kindling—"I meet a friend, a noble heart, I confide in him. I tell all to Sir Charles Danvers,"—Ruth's hand was trembling—"and last night he finds out by a chance that she was not a true widow when I marry her, that her first husband was yet alive, that I am free. This morning he tells me all, and I am here."
Ruth pressed her hands before her face, and fairly burst into tears.
He looked at her in astonishment. He was surprised that she had any feelings. Never having shown them to the public in general, like himself, he had supposed she was entirely devoid of them. She now appeared quiteémue. She was sobbing passionately. Tears came into his own eyes as he watched her, and then a light dawned upon him for the second time that day. Those tears were not for him. He folded his arms and waited. How suggestive in itself is a noble attitude!
After a few minutes Ruth overcame her tears with a great effort, and, raising her head, looked at him, as if she expected him to speak. The suspense was gone out of her dimmed eyes, the tension of her face was relaxed.
"I am free," repeated Dare, "and I have your promise that if I am free you will still marry me."
Ruth looked up with a pained but resolute expression, and she would have spoken if he had not stopped her by a gesture.
"I have your promise," he repeated. "I tell my friend, Sir Charles Danvers, I have it. He also loves. He does not tell me so; he is not open with me, as I with him, but I see his heart. And yet—figure to yourself—he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up all. I am still married—Ou!—while he—But he is noble, he is sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his heart. But it is not only he who can be noble." (Dare smote himself upon the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. Ruth,"—with great solemnity—"do you love him even as he loves you?"
There was a moment's pause.
"I do," she said, firmly, "with my whole heart."
"I knew it. I divined it. I sacrifice myself. I give you back your promise. I say farewell, and voyage in the distance. I return no more to Vandon. There is no longer a home for me in England. I leave only behind with you the poor heart you have possessed so long!"
Dare was so much affected by the beauty of this last sentence that he could say no more, but even at that moment, as he glanced at Ruth to see what effect his eloquence had upon her, she looked so pallid and thin (her beauty was so entirely eclipsed) that the sacrifice did not seem quite so overwhelming, after all.
She struggled to speak, but words failed her.
He took her hands and kissed them, pressed them to his heart (it was a pity there was no one there to see), endeavored to say something more, and then rushed out of the room.
She stood like one stunned after he had left her. She saw him a moment later cross the garden, and flee away across the fields. She knew she had seen that gray figure and jaunty gray hat for the last time; but she hardly thought of him. She felt she might be sorry for him presently, but not now.
The suspense was over. The sense of relief was too overwhelming to admit of any other feeling at first. She dropped on her knees beside the writing-table, and locked her hands together.
"He told," she whispered to herself. "Thank God! Thank God!"
Two happy tears dropped onto Mr. Alwynn's old leather blotting-book, that worn cradle of many sermons.
Was this the same world? Was this the same sun which was shining in upon her? What new songs were the birds practising outside? A strange wonderful joy seemed to pervade the very air she breathed, to flood her inmost soul. She had faced her troubles fairly well, but at this new great happiness she did not dare to look; and with a sudden involuntary gesture she hid her face in her hands.
It would be rash to speculate too deeply on the nature of Dare's reflections as he hurried back to Atherstone; but perhaps, under the very real pang of parting with Ruth, he was sustained by a sense of the magnanimity of what, had he put it into words, he would have called his attitude, and possibly also by a lurking conviction, which had assisted his determination to resign her that life at Vandon, after the episode of the American wife's arrival, would be a social impossibility, especially to one anxious and suited to shine in society. Be that how it may, whatever had happened to influence him most of the chance emotion of the moment, it would be tolerably certain that in a few hours he would be sorry for what he had done. He was still, however, in a state of mental exaltation when he reached Atherstone, and began fumbling nervously with the garden-gate. Charles, who had been stalking up and down the bowling-green, went slowly towards him.
"What on earth do you mean by going off in that way?" he asked, coldly.
"Ah!" said Dare, perceiving him, "and she—the—is she gone?"
"Yes, half an hour ago. Your dog-cart has come back from taking her to the station, and is here now."
Dare nodded his head several times, and stood looking at him.
"I have been to Slumberleigh," he said.
"Yes, contrary to agreement."
"My friend," Dare said, seizing the friend's limp, unresponsive hand and pressing it, "I know now why you keep silence last night. I reason with myself. I see you love her. Do not turn away. I have seen her. I have given her back her promise. I give her up to you whom she loves; and now—I go away, not to return."
And then, in the full view of the Atherstone windows, of the butler, and of the dog-cart at the front door, Dare embraced him, kissing the blushing and disconcerted Charles on both cheeks. Then, in a moment, before the latter had recovered his self-possession, Dare had darted to the dog-cart, and was driving away.
Charles looked after him in mixed annoyance and astonishment, until he noticed the butler's eye upon him, when he hastily retreated, with a heightened complexion, to the shrubberies.