Hardly knowing how he got there he found himself on the top of Harcombe Hill. His head was bare and the soles of his thin slippers were cut with the flints of the hillside lane. He had walked, walked, walked, driven by a fury in his body and a fever in his feet.
His first idea had been to get as far away as possible from his companion. He felt that he never could be clean again after his contact with Dicky. How had the thing happened? Yesterday London seemed as far away from Harmouth as Babylon from Arcadia, and Rickman was not more infinitely removed from Lucia than Lucia was from Poppy; yet here they were, all three tangled together in Dicky's complicated draw-net. He held them all, Lucia by her honour, Poppy by her vanity, and him, Rickman, by the lusts and follies of his youth. This was what it had led him to, that superb triumphal progress of the passions. In language as plain as he could put it, he—he—had been offered a bribe to advertise Poppy Grace for the benefit of Dicky, who kept her. To advertise a little painted—he disposed of poor Poppy in a powerful word which would have given her propriety a fit if it could have heard him. That he himself should ever have been infatuated with Poppy seemed to him now incredible, monstrous. In the last three weeks he had not only grown sober, but mature. That youth of his which once seemed immortal, had then ceased to be a part of him. He had cut himself loose from it and put it behind him with all its miseries and tumults and pollutions. But he couldn't get rid of it. Like an unclean spirit cast out of him it seemed to have entered into Dicky as into a convenient herd of swine. And in Dicky's detestable person it rose up against him and pursued him. For Dicky, though sensual as any swine, was cautious. Dicky, even with an unclean spirit in him, was not in the least likely to rush violently down any steep place into the sea and so perish out of his life.
That Dicky should have appeared on his last night here seemed the vilest stroke that fate had dealt him yet. But Dicky could not follow him up Harcombe Hill.
He looked before him. The lights of Harmouth opened out a thin line to the esplanade, dividing the sea from the land by fire instead of foam; strewn in the bed of the valley they revealed, as through some pure and liquid medium, its darkness and its depth. Above them the great flank of Muttersmoor stretched like the rampart of the night. Night itself was twilight against that black and tragic line.
And Rickman, standing bareheaded on the hillside, was lifted up out of his immense misery and unrest. He remembered how this land that he loved so passionately had once refused him the inspiration that he sought. And now it seemed to him that it could refuse him nothing, that Nature under cover of the darkness gave up her inmost ultimate secret. And if it be true that Nature's innermost ultimate secret is known only to the pure, it was a sign of his own cleansing, this sense of comfort and reconciliation, of unspoiled communion, of profound immeasurable peace. In that moment his genius seemed to have passed behind veils upon veils of separation, to possess that tender and tragic beauty, to become one with the soul of the divine illimitable night.
He was not in the least deceived as to the true source of his inspiration. In all this, if you went back far enough, his body counted; his body which he had made a house of shame and hunger and desire, shaken by its own shivering nerves and leaping desperate pulses. But what of that now? What matter, since that tumult of his blood had set throbbing such subtle, such infinite vibrations in his soul.Thatwas what counted. He could tell by it the quality and immensity of his passion, by just that spiritual resonance and response. It was the measure of Lucia's power to move him, the measure too of his nearness to her no less than of his separation.
She could not take away what she had given; and among his sources of inspiration, of the unique and unforgettable secret that had passed into him with the night, on Harcombe Hill, as he looked towards Muttersmoor, she also counted. She would be always there, a part of it, a part of him, whether she would or no—if that was any consolation.
He had made no empty promise when he assured her that he would do his best; for there was something that could still be done. He built great hopes on the result of the coming interview with his father. His idea was to go up to town by the early morning train and talk the whole thing over as calmly as might be. He would first of all appeal to his father's better feelings; he would make him see this thing as he saw it, he would rouse in him the spirit of integrity, the spirit of mercy and pity, the spirit of justice and chivalry and honour.
But if all the arts of persuasion failed to touch him, Rickman Junior had in reserve one powerful argument against which Rickman Senior would hardly be able to contend. There would no doubt be inspirations, but as to the main lines of his pleading he was already clear. He felt entirely confident and light-hearted as he rose at five the next morning to catch that early train.
Rickman Senior was not in the shop when Rickman Junior arrived on the scene. He was in a great bare room on an upper floor of the second-hand department. He looked more than ever studious and ascetic, having exchanged his soft felt hat for a velvet skull-cup, and his frock coat for a thin alpaca. He was attended by a charwoman with scrubbing brush and pail, a boy with ladder and broom, and a carpenter with foot-rule, note-book and pencil. He moved among them with his most solemn, most visionary air, the air, not so much of a Wesleyan minister, as of a priest engaged in some high service of dedication. He was in fact making arrangements for the reception of no less than fifteen thousand volumes, the collection of the late Sir Joseph Harden, of Court House, Harmouth. And as he looked around him his face expressed the smooth and delicately voluptuous satisfaction of the dreamer who has touched his dream.
This look of beatitude faded perceptibly when the message came that Mr. Keith was in the front shop and wished to see him. Mr. Keith, it appeared, had no time to spare. Isaac had, in fact, experienced a slight shock at the earliness of Keith's return. His first thought was that at the last moment there had been some serious hitch with Pilkington. He found Keith sitting before the counter in the attitude of a rather imperious customer; but the warm pressure of his son's hand removed this disagreeable effect of superiority. Keith's face wore signs of worry and agitation that confirmed Isaac's original fear.
"Well," he said a little anxiously, "I didn't expect you back as early as this."
"I haven't come to stop. I've got to catch the twelve-thirty back again. I came up because I wanted to talk to you."
"Come," said Isaac, "into the office."
He laid his hand on Keith's shoulder as they went. He felt very kindly towards him at that moment. His heart was big with trust in the brilliant, impetuous boy. When he touched Keith's hand he had felt that intellectual virtue had gone out of it. He guessed that there was a crisis in the affairs of the House of Rickman, and that Keith had come with warning and with help. He knew his power of swift and effectual action in a crisis. Yes, yes; Keith's wits might go wool-gathering; but he was safe enough when he had gathered his wool.
"Well?" he repeated, lifting grave interrogative eyebrows. He had seated himself; but Keith remained standing, a sign with him of extreme perturbation.
"I thought I could explain things better if I saw you," he began.
"Quite so; quite so. I hope you haven't come to tell me there's been any 'itch."
"Well, I told you as much when I wrote."
"I understood you advised me to withdraw, because you thought Pilkington wanted a big price."
"I didn't know what he wanted; I knew what we ought to give."
"That was settled by looking in the register. You don't mean to sayhe's going to back out of it?"
Keith was so preoccupied that he failed to see the drift of his father's questioning. "You see," he continued, following his own thoughts, "it's not as if we had only ourselves to consider. There's Miss Harden."
"Ah, yes, Pilkington did make some mention of a young lady."
"She was good enough to say she'd rather we bought the library than anybody. I think we're bound to justify her confidence."
"Certainly, most certainly, we are," said Isaac with solemnity. He was agreeably flattered by this tribute to the greatness of his house.
"I thought I did right in promising that we would do our very best for her."
"Of course you were. But that's all settled. Mr. Pilkington knows that I'm prepared to meet his wishes."
"His wishes?"
"He gave me to understand that he was anxious to have a sum to hand over to the young lady. In fact, he wrote me a most touching appeal."
"What d——d impertinence! He had no business to appeal!"
"Well, per'aps it wasn't strictly business-like. But I think, under the circumstances, 'e was morally—morally—justified. And I think he will consider I've responded very handsomely."
"You've made him an offer, then?"
"I made it three days ago, provisionally, and he's accepted it," said Isaac, with some heat. "Why, he's got the cheque."
"For how much?"
"For twelve hundred."
"My dear father, you know, really, that won't do."
"Do you think it was foolish to pay the two hundred extra?"
Isaac gazed at him over his fine gold-rimmed spectacles; and as he gazed he kept drawing his beard slowly through one lean and meditative hand. It was thus that he grasped his son's argument and drew it to a point.
"Foolish? It was—Don't you see? We—we simply can't do it."
"Why, you said yourself we could go as far as four thousand five, or four thousand at the very least."
Keith looked steadily at his father, who was too deeply and solemnly absorbed to perceive the meaning of the look. "That was not quite what I said. I said—if we werenotprepared to go so far, it was our duty to withdraw. I thought I had made that clear to you."
"You 'aven't made it clear to me why you're objecting to that two hundred now."
Isaac was beginning to feel that stupidity was now his refuge.
"I'm not objecting to your reckless extravagance, as you seem to think. I'm trying to suggest that twelve hundred is a ridiculously small offer for a collection which can't be worth less than four thousand."
"It may be worth that to a collector. It isn't worth it to me."
"It's worth it to any dealer who knows his business."
"Pretty business, if you have to buy at fancy prices and sell at a risk."
"I allowed for the risk in the valuation—I always do. There's one point where youareextravagant, if you like. What's the use of paying me for advice if you won't take it?"
Isaac's stupidity increased.
"'Ow do you mean—paying you for your advice?"
"Paying a valuer, then, if you won't accept his valuation."
So unwilling was he to admit the sharpness of his father's practice that he tried to persuade himself that they had merely disagreed on a point of connoisseurship. "My advice, if you remember, was to withdraw decently, or pay a decent price."
"I've paid my price, and I'm certainly not going to withdraw."
"Well, but I'm afraid, if you won't withdraw, I must. You haven't paidmyprice, and I can't be responsible."
Isaac caressed his beard gently, and looked at Keith with a gaze so clear that it might have passed for pure. He was saying to himself, as he had said once before, "There's a woman in it."
"Don't you see," Keith broke out, "the atrocious position that I'm in? I promised Miss Harden that we'd do our best for her, and now we're taking advantage of the situation to drive an iniquitous bargain with her."
As Keith made this powerful statement Isaac smiled, puzzled and indulgent, as at some play of diverting but incomprehensible humour. In fact, he never could clearly distinguish between Keith's sense of humour and his sense of honour; both seemed equally removed from the safe, intelligible methods of ordinary men. He wasn't sure but what there was something fine in it, something in keeping with the intellectual extravagance that distinguished his son from other people's sons. There were moments when it amused and interested him, but he did not care to have it obtruded on him in business hours.
"I'm driving no bargain with the lady at all. The books aren't hers, they're Pilkington's. I'm dealing with him."
"And you refuse to consider her interests?"
"How can you say so when I'm paying two hundred more than I need do, on her account alone? You must explain that clearly to her."
"Not I. You can explain it yourself. To me, you see, the whole thing's simply a colossal fraud. I won't have anything to do with it."
"You'aven'tanything to do with it. I made the bargain, and I keep to it."
"Very well, then, you must choose between your bargain and me."
"Wot do you mean, choose between my bargain and you?"
"I mean exactly what I say. I know (if you don't) that that two hundred ought to be three thousand, and if it isn't paid I shall have to shunt the business. I never meant to stay in it for ever, but in this case I shall simply clear out at once, that's all. See?"
"No. I don't see. I don't see myself paying three thousand to a man who's willing to take two hundred."
"See my point, I mean. If the three thousand isn't paid, I go. On the other hand, if it is paid, I stay."
This was one of those inspirations on which he had counted, and it presented itself to him as a "clincher." At the same instant he realized that he was selling himself into slavery for three thousand pounds. No, not for three thousand pounds, for his honour's sake and Lucia Harden's.
Isaac looked graver, alarmed even; it struck him that Keith's peculiar vein of extravagance was becoming dangerous.
"You can calculate the interest at four per cent., and knock a hundred and twenty off my salary, if you like; but I'll stay. It's pretty clear, isn't it? I think, on the whole, it might be as well for you to close with the offer. It seems to me that if I'm worth anything at all, I'm worth three thousand."
"I haven't priced your services yet." Isaac's gaze shifted. He was beginning to feel something of that profound discomfort he had experienced before in the presence of his son. "Now, when you spoke to Miss 'Arden, had she any notion of the value of the library?"
"None whatever, till I told her."
"Do you mean to stand there and say that you were fool enough to tell her?"
"Certainly; I thought it only fair to her."
"And did you think it was fair to me?"
"Why not? If you're not dealing with her what difference could it make?"
He said to himself, "I've got him there!"
Isaac was indeed staggered by the blow, and lost his admirable composure.
"Do you know wot you've done? You've compromised me. You've compromised the honour and the reputation of my 'Ouse. And you've done it for a woman. You can't 'ide it; you're a perfect fool where women are concerned."
"If anybody's compromised, I think it's me. I pledged my word."
"And wot business had you to pledge it?"
"Oh, I thought it safe. I didn't think you'd dishonour my draft on your reputation."
"Draft indeed! That's it. You might just as well 'ave taken my cheque-book out of the drawer there and forged my signature at the bottom. Why, it's moral forgery—that's wot it is. I can see it all. You thought you were acting very generous and grand with this young lady. I say you were mean. You did it on the cheap. You'd no expense, or risk, or responsibility at all. I know you can't see it that way, but that's 'ow it is."
Keith did not defend himself against this view of his conduct, and Isaac preserved his attitude of moral superiority.
"I'm not blaming you, my boy. It's my own fault. I shouldn't 'ave sent you out like that,withcart blansh, so to speak, and without it. I should 'ave given you some responsibility."
"Oh, thanks, I couldn't very well have done with more than I had."
"Ah—you don't know the kind of responsibility I mean. You seem very ready to play fast and loose with my business. I daresay, now, you think since you 'aven't much to lose, you 'aven't much to gain?"
"Well, frankly, I can't see that I have—much. But I've got to catch a train in twenty minutes, and I want to know what you're going to do? Am I worth three thousand, or am I not?"
"You're worth a great deal more to me. You've got an education I 'aven't got; you've got brains; you've got tact, when you choose to use it. You've got expert knowledge, and I can't carry on my business without that. I'm not unreasonable. I can see that you can't act to advantage if you're not made responsible, if you haven't any direct interest in the business." He fixed his son with a glance that was nothing if not spiritually fine. Keith found himself struggling against an infamous, an intolerable suspicion.
"And that," said Isaac, "is wot I mean to give you. I've thought it well over, and I believe it's worth my while." He went on, joining his finger-tips, like a man who fits careful thought to careful thought, suggesting the final adjustment of a plan long ago determined and approved, for something in Keith's face made him anxious that this offer should not appear to be born of the subject under discussion.
"It was always my intention to take you into partnership. I didn't mean to do it quite so soon, but rather than 'ear this talk of flinging up the business, I'm prepared to do it now."
"On the same conditions?"
Now that Rickman's should eventually become Rickman and Son was a very natural development, and in any ordinary circumstances Isaac could hardly have made a more innocent and suitable proposal. But it was no longer possible for Keith to ignore its significance. It meant that his father was ready to buy his services at any price; to bribe him into silence.
His worst misgivings had never included such a possibility. In fact, before going down to Devonshire he had never had any serious misgivings at all. His position in his father's shop had hitherto presented no difficulties to a sensitive honour. He had not been sure that his honour was particularly sensitive, not more so, he supposed, than other people's. Acting as part of the machinery of Rickman's, he had sometimes made a clever bargain; he had never, so far as he knew, driven a hard one. He was expected to make clever bargains, to buy cheap and sell dear, to watch people's faces, lowering the price by their anxiety to sell, raising it by their eagerness to buy. That was his stern duty in the second-hand department. But there had been so many occasions on which he had never done his duty; times when he was tempted to actual defiance of it, when a wistful calculating look in the eyes of some seedy scholar would knock all the moral fibre out of him, and a two and sixpenny book would go for ninepence or a shilling. And such was his conception of loyalty to Rickman's, that he generally paid for these excesses out of his own pocket, so that conscience was satisfied both ways. Therefore there had been no moral element in his dislike to Rickman's; he had shrunk from it with the half-fantastic aversion of the mind, not with this sickening hatred of the soul. After three weeks of Lucia Harden's society, he had perceived how sordid were the beginnings from which his life had sprung. As his boyish dreams had been wrought like a broidery of stars on the floor of the back-shop, so honour, an unattainable ideal, had stood out in forlorn splendour against a darker and a dirtier background. He had felt himself obscurely tainted and involved. Now he realized, as he had never realized before, that the foundations of Rickman's were laid in bottomless corruption. It was a House built, not only on every vile and vulgar art known to trade, but on many instances of such a day's work as this. And it was into this pit of infamy that his father was blandly inviting him to descend. He had such an abominably clear vision of it that he writhed and shuddered with shame and disgust; he could hardly have suffered more if he had gone down into it bodily himself. He endured in imagination the emotions that his father should have felt and apparently did not feel.
He came out of his shudderings and writhings unspeakably consoled and clean; knowing that it is with such nausea and pangs that the soul of honour is born.
Their eyes met; and it was the elder Rickman's turn for bitterness. It had come, the moment that he had dreaded. He was afraid to meet his son's eyes, for he knew that they had judged him. He felt that he stood revealed in that sudden illumination of the boy's radiant soul. An instinct of self-preservation now prompted him to belittle Keith's character. He had found amazing comfort in the reflection that Keith was not all that he ought to be. As far as Isaac could make out, he was always running after the women. He was a regular young profligate, an infidel he was. What right had he to sit in judgement?
Shrewd even in anger, he took refuge in an adroit misconstruction of Keith's language. "I lay downnoconditions. I'm much too anxious about you. I want to see you in a house of your own, settled down and married to some good girl who'll keep you steady and respectable. It's a simple straightforward offer, and you take it or leave it."
"I'll take it on two conditions. First, as I said before, that we either withdraw or pay over that three thousand. Second, that in the future no bargains are made without my knowledge—and consent. That means giving me the entire control of my own department."
"It means reducing me to a mere cypher."
"Such bargains are questions for experts, and should be left to experts."
"If I were to leave them to experts like you I should be bankrupt in a fortnight."
"I'm sorry, but you must choose between your methods and mine. There's ten minutes to do it in."
"It won't take ten minutes to see what will ruin me quickest. As I told you before, I'm not going back on my bargain."
"Nor I on mine."
Isaac spent three minutes in reflection. He reflected first, that Keith had been in the past "a young profligate"; secondly, that he was at the present moment in love; thirdly, that in the future he would infallibly be hungry. He would think very differently when he had forgotten the lady; or if he didn't think differently he would behave differently when his belly pinched him. Isaac was a firm believer in the persuasive power of the primitive appetites.
"Only seven minutes," murmured Keith. "I'm sorry to hurry you, father, but I really must catch that train."
"Wait—steady. Do you know wot you're about? You shan't do anything rash for want of a clear understanding. Mind—as you stand there, you're nothing but a paid shop-assistant; and if you leave the shop, you leave it without a penny to your name."
"Quite so. My name will hardly be any the worse for that. You're sure you've decided? You—really—do not—want—to keep me?"
After all, did he want to keep him, to be unsettled in his conscience and ruined in his trade? What, after all, had Keith brought into the business but three alien and terrible spirits, the spirit of superiority, the spirit of criticism, the spirit of tempestuous youth? He would be glad to be rid of him, to be rid of those clear young eyes, of the whole brilliant and insurgent presence. Not that he believed that it would really go. He had a genial vision of the hour of Keith's humiliation and return, a vivid image of Keith crawling back on that empty belly.
At that moment Keith smiled, a smile that had in it all the sweetness of his youth. It softened his father's mood, though it could not change it.
"I'm afraid I can't afford to pay your price, my boy."
He was the first to turn away.
And Keith understood too thoroughly to condemn. That was it. His father couldn't pay his price. The question was, could he afford to pay it himself?
As the great swinging doors closed behind him, he realized that whatever price he had paid for it, he had redeemed his soul. And he had bought his liberty.
Really, as Miss Harden's solicitor pointed out to her in the presence of Miss Palliser, things looked very black against the young man. It was clear, from the letter Mr. Schofield had received from Mr. Jewdwine that morning, that the library was worth at least three times the amount these Rickmans had paid for it. Barring the fact that sale by private contract was irregular and unsatisfactory, he completely exonerated Mr. Pilkington from all blame in the matter. His valuation had evidently been made in all good faith, if in some ignorance. But the young man, who by Pilkington's account had been acting all along as his father's agent, must have been perfectly aware of the nature of the bargain he had made. There was every reason to suppose that he had known all about the bill of sale before he came down to Harmouth; and there could be no doubt he had made use of his very exceptional opportunities to inform himself precisely of the value of the books he was cataloguing. He must have known that they had been undervalued by Mr. Pilkington, and seen his chance of buying them for a mere song.
So what does he do? He carefully conceals his knowledge from the persons most concerned; obviously, that he and his father may keep the market to themselves. Then at the last moment he comes and pretends to give Miss Harden a chance of forestalling the purchase, knowing well that before she can take a single step the purchase will be concluded. Then he hurries up to town; and the next thing you hear is that he's very sorry, but arrangements have unfortunately already been made with Mr. Pilkington. No doubt, as agent of the sale, that young man would pocket a very substantial commission. Clearly in the face of the evidence, it was impossible to acquit him of dishonesty; but no action could be brought against him, because the matter lay entirely between him and Mr. Pilkington.
Lucia and Kitty had listened attentively to the masterly analysis of Mr. Rickman's motives; and at the end Kitty admitted that appearances were certainly against him; while Lucia protested that he was a poet and therefore constitutionally incapable of the peculiar sort of cleverness imputed to him. The man of law submitted that because he was a poet it did not follow that he was not an uncommonly knowing young man too. Whereupon Kitty pointed out one or two flaws in the legal argument. In the first place, urged Kitty, the one thing that this knowing young man did not know was the amount of security the library represented.
Mr. Schofield smiled in genial forbearance with a lady's ignorance. Hemusthave known, for such information is always published for the benefit of all whom it may concern.
But Kitty went on triumphantly. There was nothing to prove it, nothing to show that this knowing young man knew all the facts when he first undertook to work for Miss Harden. So far from concealing the facts later on, he had, to her certain knowledge, written at once to Mr. Jewdwine advising him to buy in the library, literally over old Rickman's head. That old Rickman's action had not followed on young Rickman's visit to town was sufficiently proved by the dates. The letter to Mr. Pilkington enclosing the cheque for twelve hundred had been written and posted at least twelve hours before his arrival. What the evidence did prove was that he had moved heaven and earth to make his father withdraw from his bargain.
Mr. Schofield coldly replied that the better half of Miss Palliser's arguments rested on the statements of the young man himself, to which he was hardly inclined to attach so much importance as she did. If his main assertion was correct, that he had written to inform Mr. Jewdwine of the facts, it was a little odd, to say the least of it, that Mr. Jewdwine made no mention of having received that letter. And that he hadnotreceived it might be fairly inferred from the discrepancy between young Rickman's exaggerated account of the value and Mr. Jewdwine's more moderate estimate.
Lucia and Kitty first looked at each other, and then away to opposite corners of the room. And at that moment Kitty was certain, while Lucia doubted; for Kitty went by the logic of the evidence and Lucia by the intuition which was one with her desire. Surely it was more likely that Rickman had never written to Horace than that Horace should have failed her, if he knew? Meanwhile the cold legal voice went on to shatter the last point in Kitty's defence, observing that if Rickman had not had time to get up to town before his father wrote to Mr. Pilkington he had had plenty of time to telegraph. He added that the young man's moral character need not concern them now. Whatever might be thought of his conduct it was not actionable. And to the legal mind what was not actionable was irrelevant.
But for Lucia, to whom at the moment material things were unrealities, the burning question was the honesty or dishonesty of Rickman; for it involved the loyalty or disloyalty, or rather, the ardour or the indifference of Horace. If Rickman were cleared of the grosser guilt, her cousin was, on a certain minor count, condemned; and there could be no doubt which of the two she was the more anxious to acquit.
"I suppose you'll see him if he calls?" asked Kitty when they were alone.
"See who?"
"Mr. Savage Keith Rickman." Even in the midst of their misery Kitty could not forbear a smile.
But for once Lucia was inaccessible to the humour of the name.
"Of course I shall see him," she said gravely.
He called soon after six that evening, coming straight from the station to the house. Miss Palliser was in the library, but his face as he entered bore such unmistakable signs of emotion that Kitty in the kindness of her heart withdrew.
He was alone there, as he had been on that evening of his first coming. He looked round at the place he had loved so well, and knew that he was looking at it now for the last time. At his feet the long shadow from the bust of Sophocles lay dusk upon the dull crimson; the level light from the west streamed over the bookshelves, lying softly on brown Russia leather and milk-white vellum, lighting up the delicate gold of the tooling, glowing in the blood-red splashes of the lettering pieces; it fell slant-wise on the black chimney piece, chiselling afresh the Harden motto:Invictus. There was nothing meretricious, nothing flagrantly modern there, as in that place of books he had just left; its bloom was the bloom of time, the beauty of a world already passing away. Yet how he had loved it; how he had given himself up to it; how it had soothed him with its suggestion of immortal things. And now, for this last time, he felt himself surrounded by intelligences, influences; above the voices of his anguish and his shame he heard the stately generations calling; they approved; they upheld him in his resolution.
He turned and saw Lucia standing beside him. She had come in unheard, as on that evening which seemed now so long ago.
She held out her hand. Not to have shaken hands with the poor fellow, would, she felt, have been to condemn him without a hearing.
He did not see the offered hand, nor yet the chair it signed to him to take. As if he knew that he was on his trial, he stood rigidly before her. His eyes alone approached her, looking to hers to see if they condemned him.
Lucia's eyes were strictly non-committal. They, too, seemed to stand still, to wait, wide and expectant, for his defence. Her attitude was so far judicial that she was not going to help him by a leading question. She merely relieved the torture of his visible bodily constraint by inviting him to sit down. He dropped into a chair that stood obliquely by the window, and screwed himself round in it so as to face her.
"I saw my father this morning," he began. "I went up by the early train."
"I know."
"Then you know by this time that I was a day too late."
"Mr. Pilkington sent me your father's letter."
"What did you think of it?"
The question, so cool, so sudden, so direct, was not what she felt she had a right to expect from him.
"Well—what did you think of it yourself?"
She looked at him and saw that she had said a cruel thing.
"Can't you imagine what I think of it?"
This again was too sudden; it took her at a disadvantage, compelling her instantly to commit herself to a theory of innocence or complicity.
"If you can't," said he, "of course there's no more to be said." He said it very simply, as if he were not in the least offended, and she looked at him again.
No. There was no wounded dignity about him, there was the tragic irremediable misery of a man condemned unheard. And could that be her doing—Lucia's? She who used to be so kind and just? Never in all her life had she condemned anybody unheard.
But she had to choose between this man who a month ago was an utter stranger to her, and Horace who was of her own blood, her own class, her own life. Did she really want Mr. Rickman to be tainted that Horace might be clean? And she knew he trusted her; he had made his appeal to the spirit that had once divined him. He might well say, "could she not imagine what he thought of it?"
"Yes," she said gently, "I think I can. If you had not told me what the library was worth, of course I should have thought your father very generous in giving as much for it as he has done."
"I did tell you I was anxious he—we—should not buy it; because I knew we couldn't give you a proper price."
"Yes, you told me. And I wanted you to buy it, because I thought you would do your best for me."
"I know. I know. If it wasn't for that—but that's the horrible part of it."
"Why? You did your best, did you not?"
"Yes. I really thought it would be all right if I went up and saw him. I felt certain he would see it as I did—"
"Well?"
He answered with painful hesitation. "Well—he didn't see it. My father hasn't very much imagination—he couldn't realize the thing in the same way, because he wasn't in it as I was. He'd seen nobody but Pilkington, you see."
Something in her face told him that this line of defence was distasteful to her, that he had no right to make a personal matter of an abstract question of justice. It was through those personalities that he had always erred.
"I don't see what that has to do with it," she said.
"He—he thought it was only a question of a bargain between Pilkington and him."
"What you mean is that he wouldn't admit that I came into it at all?"
She saw that she was putting him to the torture. He could not defend himself without exposing his father; but she meant that he should defend himself, that he should if possible stand clear.
"Yes. He hadn't seen you. He wouldn't go back on his bargain, and I couldn't make him. God knows I tried hard enough!
"Did you think you could do anything by trying?"
"I thought I could do a good deal. I had a hold on him, you see. I happen to be extremely useful to him in this branch of his business. I was trained for it; in fact, I'm hopelessly mixed up with it. Well, he can't do very much without me, and I told him that if he didn't give up the library I should give him up. It wasn't a nice thing to have to say to your father—"
"And you said it?" Her face expressed both admiration and a certain horror.
"Yes. I told him he must choose between me and his bargain."
"That must have been hard."
"He didn't seem to find it so. Anyhow, he hasn't chosen me."
"I meant hard for you to have to say it."
"I assure you it came uncommonly easy at the moment."
"Don't—don't."
"I'm not going to defend him simply because he happens to be my father. I don't even defend myself."
"You? You didn't know."
"I knew quite enough. I knew he might cheat you without meaning to. I didn't think he'd do it so soon or so infamously, but, to tell the truth, I went up to town on purpose to prevent it."
"I know—I know that was what you went for." She seemed to be answering some incessant voice that accused him, and he perceived that the precipitancy of his action suggested a very different interpretation. His position was odious enough in all conscience, but as yet it had not occurred to him that he could be suspected of complicity in the actual fraud.
"Why didn't I do something to prevent it before?"
"But—didn't you?"
"I did everything I could. I wrote to my father—if that's anything; the result, as you see, was a cheque for the two hundred that should have been three thousand."
"Did it never occur to you to write to anybody else, to Mr. Jewdwine, for instance?"
She brought out the question shrinkingly, as if urged against her will by some intolerable compulsion, and he judged that this time they had touched what was, for her, a vital point.
"Of course it occurred to me. Haven't you heard from him?"
"I have. But hardly in time for him to do anything."
He reflected. Jewdwine had written; therefore his intentions had been good. But he had delayed considerably in writing; evidently, then, he had been embarrassed. He had not mentioned that he had heard from him; and why shouldn't he have mentioned it? Oh, well—after all, why should he? At the back of his mind there had crawled a wriggling, worm-like suspicion of Jewdwine. He saw it wriggling and stamped on it instantly.
There were signs of acute anxiety on Miss Harden's face. It was as if she implored him to say something consoling about Jewdwine, something that would make him pure in her troubled sight. A light dawned on him.
"Did you write to him?" she asked.
He saw what she wanted him to say, and he said it. "Yes, I wrote. But I suppose I did it too late, like everything else I've done."
He had told the truth, but not the whole truth, which would have been damaging to Jewdwine. To deny altogether that he had written would have been a clumsy and unnecessary falsehood, easily detected. Something more masterly was required of him, and he achieved it without an instant's hesitation, and with his eyes open to the consequences. He knew that he was deliberately suppressing the one detail that proved his own innocence. But as their eyes met he saw that she knew it, too; that she divined him through the web that wrapped him round.
"Well," she said, "if you wrote to Mr. Jewdwine, you did indeed do your best."
The answer, on her part, was no less masterly in its way. He could not help admiring its significant ambiguity. It was both an act of justice, an assurance of her belief in him, and a superb intimation of her trust in Horace Jewdwine. And it was not only superb, it was almost humble in that which it further confessed and implied—her gratitude to him for having made that act of justice consistent with loyalty to her cousin. How clever of her to pack so many meanings into one little phrase!
"I did it too late," he said, emphasizing the point which served for Jewdwine's vindication.
"Never mind that. You did it."
"Miss Harden, is it possible that you still believe in me?" The question was wrung from him; for her belief in him remained incredible.
"Why should it not be possible?"
"Any man of business would tell you that appearances are against me."
"Well, I don't believe in appearances; and I do believe in you. You are not a man of business, you see."
"Thank goodness, I'm not, now."
"You never were, I think."
"No. And yet, I'm so horribly mixed up with this business, that I can never think of myself as an honest man again."
She seemed to be considering whether this outburst was genuine or only part of his sublime pretence.
"And I could never think of you as anything else. I should say, from all I have seen of you, that you are if anythingtoohonest, too painfully sincere."
("Yes, yes," her heart cried out, "I believe in him,becausehe didn't tell the truth about that letter to Horace." She could have loved him for that lie.)
He was now at liberty to part with her on that understanding, leaving her to think him all that was disinterested and honourable and fine. But he could not do it. Not in the face of her almost impassioned declaration of belief. At that moment he was ready rather to fall at her feet in the torture of his shame. And as he looked at her, tears came into his eyes, those tears that cut through the flesh like knives, that are painful to bring forth and terrible to see.
"I've not been an honest man, though. I've no right to let you believe in me."
Her face was sweeter than ever with its piteous, pathetic smile struggling through the white eclipse of grief.
"What have you done?"
"It's not what I've done. It's what I didn't do. I told you that I knew the library was going to be sold. I told you that yesterday, and you naturally thought I onlyknewit yesterday, didn't you?"
"Well, yes, but I don't see—"
She paused, and his confession dropped into the silence with an awful weight.
"I knew—all the time."
She leaned back in her chair, the change of bodily posture emphasizing the spiritual recoil.
"All the time, and you never told me?"
"All the time and I never told you. I'dalmostforgotten when you offered me that secretaryship, but I knew it when I let you engage me; I knew it before I came down. I never would have come if I'd realized what it meant, but when I did know, I stayed all the same."
"What do you think you ought to have done?"
"Of course—I ought to have gone away—since I couldn't be honest and tell you."
"And why" (she said it very gently but with no change in her attitude), "why couldn't you be honest and tell me?"
"I'm not sure that I'd any right to tell you what I hadn't any right to know. I'm only sure of one thing—as I did know, I oughtn't to have stayed. But," he reiterated sorrowfully, "I did stay."
"You stayed to help me."
"Yes; with all my dishonesty I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't made myself believe that. As it's turned out, I've helped to ruin you."
"Please—please don't. As far as I'm concerned you've nothing to reproach yourself with. Your position was a very difficult one."
"I ought never to have got into it."
"Still, you did your best."
"My best! You can't say I did what an honourable man would have done; I mean at the beginning."
"No—no. I'm afraid I can't say that."
He did not expect anything but sincerity from her, neither did he desire that her sense of honour should be less fine than his. But he longed for some word of absolution, some look even that should reinstate him in his self-esteem; and it seemed to him that there was none.
"You can't think worse of me than I think myself," he said, and turned mournfully away.
She sat suddenly upright, with one hand on the arm of her chair, as if ready to rise and cut off his retreat.
"Wait," she said. "Have you any idea what you are going to do?"
The question held him within a foot's length of her chair, where the light fell full on his face.
"I only know I'm not going back to the shop."
"You were in earnest, then? It really has come to that?"
"It couldn't very well come to anything else."
She looked up at him gravely, realizing for the first time, through her own sorrow, the precise nature and the consequences of his action. He had burnt his ships, parted with his means of livelihood, in a Quixotic endeavour to serve her interests, and redeem his own honour.
"Forgive my asking, but for the present this leaves you stranded?"
"It leaves me free."
She rose. "I know what that means. You won't mind my paying my debts at once, instead of later?"
He stared stupidly, as if her words had stunned him. She was seated at her writing table, and had begun filling in a cheque before he completely grasped the horrible significance of what she had said.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm writing thirty instead of fifteen, because that is what you ought to have asked for in the beginning. You see I am more business-like now than I was then."
He smiled.
"And do you really suppose I am going to take it?"
He meant his smile to be bitter, but somehow it was not. After all, she was so helpless and so young.
"Of course you are going to take it."
"I needn't ask what you think of me."
This time the smile was bitterness itself.
"But it's yours—what I owe you. I'm only paying it to-day instead of some other day."
"But you have not got to pay me anything. What do you think you're paying me for?"
"For your work, for the catalogue, of course."
"That infamous catalogue ought never to have been made—not by me at any rate."
"But you made it. You made it for me. I ordered it."
"You ordered it from my father. In ordinary circumstances you would have owed him fifteen pounds. But even he wouldn't take it now. I think he considers himself quite sufficiently paid."
"You are mixing up two things that are absolutely distinct."
"No. I'm only refusing to be mixed up with them."
"But you are mixed up with them."
He laughed at that shot, as a brave man laughs at a hurt.
"You needn't remind me of that. I meant—any more than I can help; though it may seem to you that I haven't very much lower to sink."
"Believe me, I don't associate you with this wretched business. I want you to forget it."
"I can't forget it. If I could, it would only be by refusing to degrade myself further in connection with it."
His words were clumsy and wild as the hasty terrified movements of a naked soul, trying to gather round it the last rags of decency and honour.
"There is no connection," she added, more gently than ever, seeing how she hurt him. "Don't you see that it lies between you and me?"
He saw that as she spoke she was curling the cheque into a convenient form for slipping into his hand in the moment of leave-taking.
"Indeed—indeed you must," she whispered.
He drew back sharply.
"Miss Harden, won't you leave me a shred of self-respect?"
"And what about mine?" said she.
It was too much even for chivalry to bear.
"That's not exactly my affair, is it?"
He hardly realised the full significance of his answer, but he deemed it apt. If, as she had been so careful to point out to him, her honour and his moved on different planes, how could her self-respect be his affair?
"It ought to be," she murmured in a tone whose sweetness should have been a salve to any wound. But he did not perceive its meaning any more than he had perceived his own, being still blinded by what seemed to him the cruelty and degradation of the final blow.
She had stripped him; then she stabbed.
To hide his shame and his hurt, he turned his face from her and left her. So strangely and so drunkenly did he go, with such a mist in his eyes, and such anguish and fury in his heart and brain, that on the threshold of the Harden library he stumbled past Miss Palliser without seeing her.
She found Lucia standing where he had left her, looking at a little roll of pale green paper that her fingers curled and uncurled.
"Lucia," she said, "what have you done to him?"
Lucia let the little roll of paper fall from her fingers to the floor.
"I don't know, Kitty. Something horrible, I think."