Everyone agreed that, on the whole, Mr. Langhope had behaved extremely well.
He was just beginning to regain his equanimity in the matter of the will—to perceive that, in the eyes of the public, something important and distinguished was being done at Westmore, and that the venture, while reducing Cicely's income during her minority, might, in some incredible way, actually make for its ultimate increase. So much Mr. Langhope, always eager to take the easiest view of the inevitable, had begun to let fall in his confidential comments on Amherst; whenhis newly-regained balance was rudely shaken by the news of his son-in-law's marriage.
The free expression of his anger was baffled by the fact that, even by the farthest stretch of self-extenuating logic, he could find no one to blame for the event but himself.
"Why on earth don't you say so—don't you call me a triple-dyed fool for bringing them together?" he challenged Mrs. Ansell, as they had the matter out together in the small intimate drawing-room of her New York apartment.
Mrs. Ansell, stirring her tea with a pensive hand, met the challenge composedly.
"At present you're doing it for me," she reminded him; "and after all, I'm not so disposed to agree with you."
"Not agree with me? But you told me not to engage Miss Brent! Didn't you tell me not to engage her?"
She made a hesitating motion of assent.
"But, good Lord, how was I to help myself? No man was ever in such a quandary!" he broke off, leaping back to the other side of the argument.
"No," she said, looking up at him suddenly. "I believe that, for the only time in your life, you were sorry then that you hadn't married me."
She held his eyes for a moment with a look of gentle malice; then he laughed, and drew forth his cigarette-case.
"Oh, come—you've inverted the formula," he said, reaching out for the enamelled match-box at his elbow. She let the pleasantry pass with a slight smile, and he went on reverting to his grievance: "Whydidn'tyou want me to engage Miss Brent?"
"Oh, I don't know...some instinct."
"You won't tell me?"
"I couldn't if I tried; and now, after all——"
"After all—what?"
She reflected. "You'll have Cicely off your mind, I mean."
"Cicely off my mind?" Mr. Langhope was beginning to find his charming friend less consolatory than usual. After all, the most magnanimous woman has her circuitous way of sayingI told you so. "As if any good governess couldn't have done that for me!" he grumbled.
"Ah—the present care for her. But I was looking ahead," she rejoined.
"To what—if I may ask?"
"The next few years—when Mrs. Amherst may have children of her own."
"Children of her own?" He bounded up, furious at the suggestion.
"Had it never occurred to you?"
"Hardly as a source of consolation!"
"I think a philosophic mind might find it so."
"I should really be interested to know how!"
Mrs. Ansell put down her cup, and again turned her gentle tolerant eyes upon him.
"Mr. Amherst, as a father, will take a more conservative view of his duties. Every one agrees that, in spite of his theories, he has a good head for business; and whatever he does at Westmore for the advantage of his children will naturally be for Cicely's advantage too."
Mr. Langhope returned her gaze thoughtfully. "There's something in what you say," he admitted after a pause. "But it doesn't alter the fact that, with Amherst unmarried, the whole of the Westmore fortune would have gone back to Cicely—where it belongs."
"Possibly. But it was so unlikely that he would remain unmarried."
"I don't see why! A man of honour would have felt bound to keep the money for Cicely."
"But you must remember that, from Mr. Amherst's standpoint, the money belongs rather to Westmore than to Cicely."
"He's no better than a socialist, then!"
"Well—supposing he isn't: the birth of a son and heir will cure that."
Mr. Langhope winced, but she persisted gently: "It's really safer for Cicely as it is—" and before the end of the conference he found himself confessing, half againsthis will: "Well, since he hadn't the decency to remain single, I'm thankful he hasn't inflicted a stranger on us; and I shall never forget what Miss Brent did for my poor Bessy...."
It was the view she had wished to bring him to, and the view which, in due course, with all his accustomed grace and adaptability, he presented to the searching gaze of a society profoundly moved by the incident of Amherst's marriage. "Of course, if Mr. Langhope approves—" society reluctantly murmured; and that Mr. Langhope did approve was presently made manifest by every outward show of consideration toward the newly-wedded couple.
Amherst and Justine had been married in September; and after a holiday in Canada and the Adirondacks they returned to Hanaford for the winter. Amherst had proposed a short flight to Europe; but his wife preferred to settle down at once to her new duties.
The announcement of her marriage had been met by Mrs. Dressel with a comment which often afterward returned to her memory. "It's splendid for you, of course, dear,in one way," her friend had murmured, between disparagement and envy—"that is, if you can stand talking about the Westmore mill-hands all the rest of your life."
"Oh, but I couldn't—I should hate it!" Justine hadenergetically rejoined; meeting Mrs. Dressel's admonitory "Well, then?" with the laughing assurance thatshemeant to lead the conversation.
She knew well enough what the admonition meant. To Amherst, so long thwarted in his chosen work, the subject of Westmore was becoming anidée fixe; and it was natural that Hanaford should class him as a man of one topic. But Justine had guessed at his other side; a side as long thwarted, and far less articulate, which she intended to wake into life. She had felt it in him from the first, though their talks had so uniformly turned on the subject which palled on Hanaford; and it had been revealed to her during the silent hours among his books, when she had grown into such close intimacy with his mind.
She did not, assuredly, mean to spend the rest of her days talking about the Westmore mill-hands; but in the arrogance of her joy she wished to begin her married life in the setting of its habitual duties, and to achieve the victory of evoking the secret unsuspected Amherst out of the preoccupied business man chained to his task. Dull lovers might have to call on romantic scenes to wake romantic feelings; but Justine's glancing imagination leapt to the challenge of extracting poetry from the prose of routine.
And this was precisely the triumph that the first months brought her. To mortal eye, Amherst andJustine seemed to be living at Hanaford: in reality they were voyaging on unmapped seas of adventure. The seas were limitless, and studded with happy islands: every fresh discovery they made about each other, every new agreement of ideas and feelings, offered itself to these intrepid explorers as a friendly coast where they might beach their keel and take their bearings. Thus, in the thronging hum of metaphor, Justine sometimes pictured their relation; seeing it, again, as a journey through crowded populous cities, where every face she met was Amherst's; or, contrarily, as a multiplication of points of perception, so that one became, for the world's contact, a surface so multitudinously alive that the old myth of hearing the grass grow and walking the rainbow explained itself as the heightening of personality to the utmost pitch of sympathy.
In reality, the work at Westmore became an almost necessary sedative after these flights into the blue. She felt sometimes that they would have been bankrupted of sensations if daily hours of drudgery had not provided a reservoir in which fresh powers of enjoyment could slowly gather. And their duties had the rarer quality of constituting, precisely, the deepest, finest bond between them, the clarifying element which saved their happiness from stagnation, and kept it in the strong mid-current of human feeling.
It was this element in their affection which, in the last days of November, was unexpectedly put on trial. Mr. Langhope, since his return from his annual visit to Europe, showed signs of diminishing strength and elasticity. He had had to give up his nightly dinner parties, to desert his stall at the Opera: to take, in short, as he plaintively put it, his social pleasures homœopathically. Certain of his friends explained the change by saying that he had never been "quite the same" since his daughter's death; while others found its determining cause in the shock of Amherst's second marriage. But this insinuation Mr. Langhope in due time discredited by writing to ask the Amhersts if they would not pity his loneliness and spend the winter in town with him. The proposal came in a letter to Justine, which she handed to her husband one afternoon on his return from the mills.
She sat behind the tea-table in the Westmore drawing-room, now at last transformed, not into Mrs. Dressel's vision of "something lovely in Louis Seize," but into a warm yet sober setting for books, for scattered flowers, for deep chairs and shaded lamps in pleasant nearness to each other.
Amherst raised his eyes from the letter, thinking as he did so how well her bright head, with its flame-like play of meanings, fitted into the background she had made for it. Still unobservant of external details, hewas beginning to feel a vague well-being of the eye wherever her touch had passed.
"Well, we must do it," he said simply.
"Oh, must we?" she murmured, holding out his cup.
He smiled at her note of dejection. "Unnatural woman! New YorkversusHanaford—do you really dislike it so much?"
She tried to bring a tone of consent into her voice. "I shall be very glad to be with Cicely again—and that, of course," she reflected, "is the reason why Mr. Langhope wants us."
"Well—if it is, it's a good reason."
"Yes. But how much shall you be with us?"
"If you say so, I'll arrange to get away for a month or two."
"Oh, no: I don't want that!" she said, with a smile that triumphed a little. "But why should not Cicely come here?"
"If Mr. Langhope is cut off from his usual amusements, I'm afraid that would only make him more lonely."
"Yes, I suppose so." She put aside her untasted cup, resting her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her clasped hands, in the attitude habitual to her in moments of inward debate.
Amherst rose and seated himself on the sofa besideher. "Dear! What is it?" he said, drawing her hands down, so that she had to turn her face to his.
"Nothing...I don't know...a superstition. I've been so happy here!"
"Is our happiness too perishable to be transplanted?"
She smiled and answered by another question. "You don't mind doing it, then?"
Amherst hesitated. "Shall I tell you? I feel that it's a sort of ring of Polycrates. It may buy off the jealous gods."
A faint shrinking from some importunate suggestion seemed to press her closer to him. "Then you feel theyarejealous?" she breathed, in a half-laugh.
"I pity them if they're not!"
"Yes," she agreed, rallying to his tone. "I only had a fancy that they might overlook such a dull place as Hanaford."
Amherst drew her to him. "Isn't it, on the contrary, in the ash-heaps that the rag-pickers prowl?"
There was no disguising it: she was growing afraid of her happiness. Her husband's analogy of the ring expressed her fear. She seemed to herself to carry a blazing jewel on her breast—something that singled her out for human envy and divine pursuit. She had a preposterous longing to dress plainly and shabbily, to subdue her voice and gestures, to try to slip throughlife unnoticed; yet all the while she knew that her jewel would shoot its rays through every disguise. And from the depths of ancient atavistic instincts came the hope that Amherst was right—that by sacrificing their precious solitude to Mr. Langhope's convenience they might still deceive the gods.
Once pledged to her new task, Justine, as usual, espoused it with ardour. It was pleasant, even among greater joys, to see her husband again frankly welcomed by Mr. Langhope; to see Cicely bloom into happiness at their coming; and to overhear Mr. Langhope exclaim, in a confidential aside to his son-in-law: "It's wonderful, thebien-êtrethat wife of yours diffuses about her!"
The element ofbien-êtrewas the only one in which Mr. Langhope could draw breath; and to those who kept him immersed in it he was prodigal of delicate attentions. The experiment, in short, was a complete success; and even Amherst's necessary weeks at Hanaford had the merit of giving a finer flavour to his brief appearances.
Of all this Justine was thinking as she drove down Fifth Avenue one January afternoon to meet her husband at the Grand Central station. She had tamed her happiness at last: the quality of fear had left it, and it nestled in her heart like some wild creaturesubdued to human ways. And, as her inward bliss became more and more a quiet habit of the mind, the longing to help and minister returned, absorbing her more deeply in her husband's work.
She dismissed the carriage at the station, and when his train had arrived they emerged together into the cold winter twilight and turned up Madison Avenue. These walks home from the station gave them a little more time to themselves than if they had driven; and there was always so much to tell on both sides. This time the news was all good: the work at Westmore was prospering, and on Justine's side there was a more cheerful report of Mr. Langhope's health, and—best of all—his promise to give them Cicely for the summer. Amherst and Justine were both anxious that the child should spend more time at Hanaford, that her young associations should begin to gather about Westmore; and Justine exulted in the fact that the suggestion had come from Mr. Langhope himself, while she and Amherst were still planning how to lead him up to it.
They reached the house while this triumph was still engaging them; and in the doorway Amherst turned to her with a smile.
"And of course—dear man!—he believes the idea is all his. There's nothing you can't make people believe, you little Jesuit!"
"I don't think there is!" she boasted, falling gailyinto his tone; and then, as the door opened, and she entered the hall, her eyes fell on a blotted envelope which lay among the letters on the table.
The parlour-maid proffered it with a word of explanation. "A gentleman left it for you, madam; he asked to see you, and said he'd call for the answer in a day or two."
"Another begging letter, I suppose," said Amherst, turning into the drawing-room, where Mr. Langhope and Cicely awaited them; and Justine, carelessly pushing the envelope into her muff, murmured "I suppose so" as she followed him.
Overthe tea-table Justine forgot the note in her muff; but when she went upstairs to dress it fell to the floor, and she picked it up and laid it on her dressing-table.
She had already recognized the hand as Wyant's, for it was not the first letter she had received from him.
Three times since her marriage he had appealed to her for help, excusing himself on the plea of difficulties and ill-health. The first time he wrote, he alluded vaguely to having married, and to being compelled, through illness, to give up his practice at Clifton. On receiving this letter she made enquiries, and learnedthat, a month or two after her departure from Lynbrook, Wyant had married a Clifton girl—a pretty piece of flaunting innocence, whom she remembered about the lanes, generally with a young man in a buggy. There had evidently been something obscure and precipitate about the marriage, which was a strange one for the ambitious young doctor. Justine conjectured that it might have been the cause of his leaving Clifton—or or perhaps he had already succumbed to the fatal habit she had suspected in him. At any rate he seemed, in some mysterious way, to have dropped in two years from promise to failure; yet she could not believe that, with his talents, and the name he had begun to make, such a lapse could be more than temporary. She had often heard Dr. Garford prophesy great things for him; but Dr. Garford had died suddenly during the previous summer, and the loss of this powerful friend was mentioned by Wyant among his misfortunes.
Justine was anxious to help him, but her marriage to a rich man had not given her the command of much money. She and Amherst, choosing to regard themselves as pensioners on the Westmore fortune, were scrupulous in restricting their personal expenditure; and her work among the mill-hands brought many demands on the modest allowance which her husband had insisted on her accepting. In reply to Wyant's first appeal, which reached her soon after her marriage, shehad sent him a hundred dollars; but when the second came, some two months later—with a fresh tale of ill-luck and ill-health—she had not been able to muster more than half the amount. Finally a third letter had arrived, a short time before their leaving for New York. It told the same story of persistent misfortune, but on this occasion Wyant, instead of making a direct appeal for money, suggested that, through her hospital connections, she should help him to establish a New York practice. His tone was half-whining, half-peremptory, his once precise writing smeared and illegible; and these indications, combined with her former suspicions, convinced her that, for the moment, he was unfit for medical work. At any rate, she could not assume the responsibility of recommending him; and in answering she advised him to apply to some of the physicians he had worked with at Lynbrook, softening her refusal by the enclosure of a small sum of money. To this letter she received no answer. Wyant doubtless found the money insufficient, and resented her unwillingness to help him by the use of her influence; and she felt sure that the note before her contained a renewal of his former request.
An obscure reluctance made her begin to undress before opening it. She felt slightly tired and indolently happy, and she did not wish any jarring impression to break in on the sense of completeness which her husband's coming always put into her life. Her happiness was making her timid and luxurious: she was beginning to shrink from even trivial annoyances.
But when at length, in her dressing-gown, her loosened hair about her shoulders, she seated herself before the toilet-mirror, Wyant's note once more confronted her. It was absurd to put off reading it—if he asked for money again, she would simply confide the whole business to Amherst.
She had never spoken to her husband of her correspondence with Wyant. The mere fact that the latter had appealed to her, instead of addressing himself to Amherst, made her suspect that he had a weakness to hide, and counted on her professional discretion. But his continued importunities would certainly release her from any such supposed obligation; and she thought with relief of casting the weight of her difficulty on her husband's shoulders.
She opened the note and read.
"I did not acknowledge your last letter because I was ashamed to tell you that the money was not enough to be of any use. But I am past shame now. My wife was confined three weeks ago, and has been desperately ill ever since. She is in no state to move, but we shall be put out of these rooms unless I can get money or work at once. A word from you would have given me a start in New York—and I'd bewilling to begin again as an interne or a doctor's assistant.
"I have never reminded you of what you owe me, and I should not do so now if I hadn't been to hell and back since I saw you. But I suppose you would rather have me remind you than apply to Mr. Amherst. You can tell me when to call for my answer."
Justine laid down the letter and looked up. Her eyes rested on her own reflection in the glass, and it frightened her. She sat motionless, with a thickly-beating heart, one hand clenched on the letter.
"I suppose you would rather have me remind you than apply to Mr. Amherst."
That was what his importunity meant, then! She had been paying blackmail all this time.... Somewhere, from the first, in an obscure fold of consciousness, she had felt the stir of an unnamed, unacknowledged fear; and now the fear raised its head and looked at her. Well! She would look back at it, then: look it straight in the malignant eye. What was it, after all, but a "bugbear to scare children"—the ghost of the opinion of the many? She had suspected from the first that Wyant knew of her having shortened the term of Bessy Amherst's sufferings—returning to the room when he did, it was almost impossible that he should not have guessed what had happened; and his silence had made her believe that he understood her motiveand approved it. But, supposing she had been mistaken, she still had nothing to fear, since she had done nothing that her own conscience condemned. If the act were to do again she would do it—she had never known a moment's regret!
Suddenly she heard Amherst's step in the passage—heard him laughing and talking as he chased Cicely up the stairs to the nursery.
If she was not afraid, why had she never told Amherst?
Why, the answer to that was simple enough! She had not told himbecause she was not afraid. From the first she had retained sufficient detachment to view her act impartially, to find it completely justified by circumstances, and to decide that, since those circumstances could be but partly and indirectly known to her husband, she not only had the right to keep her own counsel, but was actually under a kind of obligation not to force on him the knowledge of a fact that he could not alter and could not completely judge.... Was there any flaw in this line of reasoning? Did it not show a deliberate weighing of conditions, a perfect rectitude of intention? And, after all, she had had Amherst's virtual consent to her act! She knew his feelings on such matters—his independence of traditional judgments, his horror of inflicting needless pain—she was as sure of his intellectual assent as of her own.She was even sure that, when she told him, he would appreciate her reasons for not telling him before....
For now of course he must know everything—this horrible letter made it inevitable. She regretted that she had decided, though for the best of reasons, not to speak to him of her own accord; for it was intolerable that he should think of any external pressure as having brought her to avowal. But no! he would not think that. The understanding between them was so complete that no deceptive array of circumstances could ever make her motives obscure to him. She let herself rest a moment in the thought....
Presently she heard him moving in the next room—he had come back to dress for dinner. She would go to him now, at once—she could not bear this weight on her mind the whole evening. She pushed back her chair, crumpling the letter in her hand; but as she did so, her eyes again fell on her reflection. She could not go to her husband with such a face! If she was not afraid, why did she look like that?
Well—she was afraid! It would be easier and simpler to admit it. She was afraid—afraid for the first time—afraid for her own happiness! She had had just eight months of happiness—it was horrible to think of losing it so soon.... Losing it? But why should she lose it? The letter must have affected her brain...all her thoughts were in a blur of fear.... Fear ofwhat? Of the man who understood her as no one else understood her? The man to whose wisdom and mercy she trusted as the believer trusts in God? This was a kind of abominable nightmare—even Amherst's image had been distorted in her mind! The only way to clear her brain, to recover the normal sense of things, was to go to him now, at once, to feel his arms about her, to let his kiss dispel her fears.... She rose with a long breath of relief.
She had to cross the length of the room to reach his door, and when she had gone half-way she heard him knock.
"May I come in?"
She was close to the fire-place, and a bright fire burned on the hearth.
"Come in!" she answered; and as she did so, she turned and dropped Wyant's letter into the fire. Her hand had crushed it into a little ball, and she saw the flames spring up and swallow it before her husband entered.
It was not that she had changed her mind—she still meant to tell him everything. But to hold the letter was like holding a venomous snake—she wanted to exterminate it, to forget that she had ever seen the blotted repulsive characters. And she could not bear to have Amherst's eyes rest on it, to have him know that any man had dared to write to her in that tone.What vile meanings might not be read between Wyant's phrases? She had a right to tell the story in her own way—the true way....
As Amherst approached, in his evening clothes, the heavy locks smoothed from his forehead, a flower of Cicely's giving in his button-hole, she thought she had never seen him look so kind and handsome.
"Not dressed? Do you know that it's ten minutes to eight?" he said, coming up to her with a smile.
She roused herself, putting her hands to her hair. "Yes, I know—I forgot," she murmured, longing to feel his arms about her, but standing rooted to the ground, unable to move an inch nearer.
It was he who came close, drawing her lifted hands into his. "You look worried—I hope it was nothing troublesome that made you forget?"
The divine kindness in his voice, his eyes! Yes—it would be easy, quite easy, to tell him....
"No—yes—I was a little troubled...." she said, feeling the warmth of his touch flow through her hands reassuringly.
"Dear! What about?"
She drew a deep breath. "The letter——"
He looked puzzled. "What letter?"
"Downstairs...when we came in...it was not an ordinary begging-letter."
"No? What then?" he asked, his face clouding.
She noticed the change, and it frightened her. Was he angry? Was he going to be angry? But how absurd! He was only distressed at her distress.
"What then?" he repeated, more gently.
She looked up into his eyes for an instant. "It was a horrible letter——" she whispered, as she pressed her clasped hands against him.
His grasp tightened on her wrists, and again the stern look crossed his face. "Horrible? What do you mean?"
She had never seen him angry—but she felt suddenly that, to the guilty creature, his anger would be terrible. He would crush Wyant—she must be careful how she spoke.
"I didn't mean that—only painful...."
"Where is the letter? Let me see it."
"Oh, no" she exclaimed, shrinking away.
"Justine, what has happened? What ails you?"
On a blind impulse she had backed toward the hearth, propping her arms against the mantel-piece while she stole a secret glance at the embers. Nothing remained of it—no, nothing.
But suppose it was against herself that his anger turned? The idea was preposterous, yet she trembled at it. It was clear that she must saysomethingat once—must somehow account for her agitation. But the sense that she was unnerved—no longer in control of her face, her voice—made her feel that she wouldtell her story badly if she told it now.... Had she not the right to gain a respite, to choose her own hour? Weakness—weakness again! Every delay would only increase the phantom terror. Now,now—with her head on his breast!
She turned toward him and began to speak impulsively.
"I can't show you the letter, because it's not—not my secret——"
"Ah?" he murmured, perceptibly relieved.
"It's from some one—unlucky—whom I've known about...."
"And whose troubles have been troubling you? But can't we help?"
She shone on him through gleaming lashes. "Some one poor and ill—who needs money, I mean——" She tried to laugh away her tears. "And I haven't any! That'smytrouble!"
"Foolish child! And to beg you are ashamed? And so you're letting your tears cool Mr. Langhope's soup?" He had her in his arms now, his kisses drying her cheek; and she turned her head so that their lips met in a long pressure.
"Will a hundred dollars do?" he asked with a smile as he released her.
A hundred dollars!No—she was almost sure they would not. But she tried to shape a murmur of gratitude. "Thank you—thank you! I hated to ask...."
"I'll write the cheque at once."
"No—no," she protested, "there's no hurry."
But he went back to his room, and she turned again to the toilet-table. Her face was painful to look at still—but a light was breaking through its fear. She felt the touch of a narcotic in her veins. How calm and peaceful the room was—and how delicious to think that her life would go on in it, safely and peacefully, in the old familiar way!
As she swept up her hair, passing the comb through it, and flinging it dexterously over her lifted wrist, she heard Amherst cross the floor behind her, and pause to lay something on her writing-table.
"Thank you," she murmured again, lowering her head as he passed.
When the door had closed on him she thrust the last pin into her hair, dashed some drops of Cologne on her face, and went over to the writing-table. As she picked up the cheque she saw it was for three hundred dollars.
Onceor twice, in the days that followed, Justine found herself thinking that she had never known happiness before. The old state of secure well-being seemed now like a dreamless sleep; but this new bliss, on its sharp pinnacle ringed with fire—this thrilling conscious joy, daily and hourly snatched from fear—this was living, not sleeping!
Wyant acknowledged her gift with profuse, almost servile thanks. She had sent it without a word—saying to herself that pity for his situation made it possible to ignore his baseness. And the days went on as before. She was not conscious of any change, save in the heightened, almost artificial quality of her happiness, till one day in March, when Mr. Langhope announced that he was going for two or three weeks to a friend's shooting-box in the south. The anniversary of Bessy's death was approaching, and Justine knew that at that time he always absented himself.
"Supposing you and Amherst were to carry off Cicely till I come back? Perhaps you could persuade him to break away from work for once—or, if that's impossible, you could take her with you to Hanaford. She looks a little pale, and the change would be good for her."
This was a great concession on Mr. Langhope's part, and Justine saw the pleasure in her husband's face. It was the first time that his father-in-law had suggested Cicely's going to Hanaford.
"I'm afraid I can't break away just now, sir," Amherst said, "but it will be delightful for Justine if you'll give us Cicely while you're away."
"Take her by all means, my dear fellow: I always sleep on both ears when she's with your wife."
It was nearly three months since Justine had left Hanaford—and now she was to return there alone with her husband! There would be hours, of course, when the child's presence was between them—or when, again, his work would keep him at the mills. But in the evenings, when Cicely was in bed—when he and she sat alone, together in the Westmore drawing-room—in Bessy's drawing-room!... No—she must find some excuse for remaining away till she had again grown used to the idea of being alone with Amherst. Every day she was growing a little more used to it; but it would take time—time, and the full assurance that Wyant was silenced. Till then she could not go back to Hanaford.
She found a pretext in her own health. She pleaded that she was a little tired, below par...and to return to Hanaford meant returning to hard work; with the best will in the world she could not be idle there. Might she not, she suggested, take Cicely to Tuxedo or Lakewood, and thus get quite away from household cares and good works? The pretext rang hollow—it was so unlike her! She saw Amherst's eyes rest anxiously on her as Mr. Langhope uttered his prompt assent. Certainly she did look tired—Mr. Langhope himself had noticed it. Had he perhaps over-taxed her energies, left the household too entirely on hershoulders? Oh, no—it was only the New York air...like Cicely, she pined for a breath of the woods.... And so, the day Mr. Langhope left, she and Cicely were packed off to Lakewood.
They stayed there a week: then a fit of restlessness drove Justine back to town. She found an excuse in the constant rain—it was really useless, as she wrote Mr. Langhope, to keep the child imprisoned in an over-heated hotel while they could get no benefit from the outdoor life. In reality, she found the long lonely hours unendurable. She pined for a sight of her husband, and thought of committing Cicely to Mrs. Ansell's care, and making a sudden dash for Hanaford. But the vision of the long evenings in the Westmore drawing-room again restrained her. No—she would simply go back to New York, dine out occasionally, go to a concert or two, trust to the usual demands of town life to crowd her hours with small activities.... And in another week Mr. Langhope would be back and the days would resume their normal course.
On arriving, she looked feverishly through the letters in the hall. None from Wyant—that fear was allayed! Every day added to her reassurance. By this time, no doubt, he was on his feet again, and ashamed—unutterably ashamed—of the threat that despair had wrung from him. She felt almost sure that his shame would keep him from ever attempting to see her, or even from writing again.
"A gentleman called to see you yesterday, madam—he would give no name," the parlour-maid said. And there was the sick fear back on her again! She could hardly control the trembling of her lips as she asked: "Did he leave no message?"
"No, madam: he only wanted to know when you'd be back."
She longed to return: "And did you tell him?" but restrained herself, and passed into the drawing-room. After all, the parlour-maid had not described the caller—why jump to the conclusion that it was Wyant?
Three days passed, and no letter came—no sign. She struggled with the temptation to describe Wyant to the servants, and to forbid his admission. But it would not do. They were nearly all old servants, in whose eyes she was still the intruder, the upstart sick-nurse—she could not wholly trust them. And each day she felt a little easier, a little more convinced that the unknown visitor had not been Wyant.
On the fourth day she received a letter from Amherst. He hoped to be back on the morrow, but as his plans were still uncertain he would telegraph in the morning—and meanwhile she must keep well, and rest, and amuse herself....
Amuse herself! That evening, as it happened, she was going to the theatre with Mrs. Ansell. She andMrs. Ansell, though outwardly on perfect terms, had not greatly advanced in intimacy. The agitated, decentralized life of the older woman seemed futile and trivial to Justine; but on Mr. Langhope's account she wished to keep up an appearance of friendship with his friend, and the same motive doubtless inspired Mrs. Ansell. Just now, at any rate, Justine was grateful for her attentions, and glad to go about with her. Anything—anything to get away from her own thoughts! That was the pass she had come to.
At the theatre, in a proscenium box, the publicity, the light and movement, the action of the play, all helped to distract and quiet her. At such moments she grew ashamed of her fears. Why was she tormenting herself? If anything happened she had only to ask her husband for more money. She never spoke to him of her good works, and there would be nothing to excite suspicion in her asking help again for the friend whose secret she was pledged to keep.... But nothing was going to happen. As the play progressed, and the stimulus of talk and laughter flowed through her veins, she felt a complete return of confidence. And then suddenly she glanced across the house, and saw Wyant looking at her.
He sat rather far back, in one of the side rows just beneath the balcony, so that his face was partly shaded. But even in the shadow it frightened her. She hadbeen prepared for a change, but not for this ghastly deterioration. And he continued to look at her.
She began to be afraid that he would do something conspicuous—point at her, or stand up in his seat. She thought he looked half-mad—or was it her own hallucination that made him appear so? She and Mrs. Ansell were alone in the box for the moment, and she started up, pushing back her chair....
Mrs. Ansell leaned forward. "What is it?"
"Nothing—the heat—I'll sit back for a moment." But as she withdrew into the back of the box, she was seized by a new fear. If he was still watching, might he not come to the door and try to speak to her? Her only safety lay in remaining in full view of the audience; and she returned to Mrs. Ansell's side.
The other members of the party came back—the bell rang, the foot-lights blazed, the curtain rose. She lost herself in the mazes of the play. She sat so motionless, her face so intently turned toward the stage, that the muscles at the back of her neck began to stiffen. And then, quite suddenly, toward the middle of the act, she felt an undefinable sense of relief. She could not tell what caused it—but slowly, cautiously, while the eyes of the others were intent upon the stage, she turned her head and looked toward Wyant's seat. It was empty.
Her first thought was that he had gone to wait forher outside. But no—there were two more acts: why should he stand at the door for half the evening?
At last the act ended; the entr'acte elapsed; the play went on again—and still the seat was empty. Gradually she persuaded herself that she had been mistaken in thinking that the man who had occupied it was Wyant. Her self-command returned, she began to think and talk naturally, to follow the dialogue on the stage—and when the evening was over, and Mrs. Ansell set her down at her door, she had almost forgotten her fears.
The next morning she felt calmer than for many days. She was sure now that if Wyant had wished to speak to her he would have waited at the door of the theatre; and the recollection of his miserable face made apprehension yield to pity. She began to feel that she had treated him coldly, uncharitably. They had been friends once, as well as fellow-workers; but she had been false even to the comradeship of the hospital. She should have sought him out and given him sympathy as well as money; had she shown some sign of human kindness his last letter might never have been written.
In the course of the morning Amherst telegraphed that he hoped to settle his business in time to catch the two o'clock express, but that his plans were still uncertain. Justine and Cicely lunched alone, andafter luncheon the little girl was despatched to her dancing-class. Justine herself meant to go out when the brougham returned. She went up to her room to dress, planning to drive in the park, and to drop in on Mrs. Ansell before she called for Cicely; but on the way downstairs she saw the servant opening the door to a visitor. It was too late to draw back; and descending the last steps she found herself face to face with Wyant.
They looked at each other a moment in silence; then Justine murmured a word of greeting and led the way to the drawing-room.
It was a snowy afternoon, and in the raw ash-coloured light she thought he looked more changed than at the theatre. She remarked, too, that his clothes were worn and untidy, his gloveless hands soiled and tremulous. None of the degrading signs of his infirmity were lacking; and she saw at once that, while in the early days of the habit he had probably mixed his drugs, so that the conflicting symptoms neutralized each other, he had now sunk into open morphia-taking. She felt profoundly sorry for him; yet as he followed her into the room physical repulsion again mastered the sense of pity.
But where action was possible she was always self-controlled, and she turned to him quietly as they seated themselves.
"I have been wishing to see you," she said, looking at him. "I have felt that I ought to have done so sooner—to have told you how sorry I am for your bad luck."
He returned her glance with surprise: they were evidently the last words he had expected.
"You're very kind," he said in a low embarrassed voice. He had kept on his shabby over-coat, and he twirled his hat in his hands as he spoke.
"I have felt," Justine continued, "that perhaps a talk with you might be of more use——"
He raised his head, fixing her with bright narrowed eyes. "I have felt so too: that's my reason for coming. You sent me a generous present some weeks ago—but I don't want to go on living on charity."
"I understand that," she answered. "But why have you had to do so? Won't you tell me just what has happened?"
She felt the words to be almost a mockery; yet she could not say "I read your history at a glance"; and she hoped that her question might draw out his wretched secret, and thus give her the chance to speak frankly.
He gave a nervous laugh. "Just what has happened? It's a long story—and some of the details are not particularly pretty." He broke off, moving his hat more rapidly through his trembling hands.
"Never mind: tell me."
"Well—after you all left Lynbrook I had rather a bad break-down—the strain of Mrs. Amherst's case, I suppose. You remember Bramble, the Clifton grocer? Miss Bramble nursed me—I daresay you remember her too. When I recovered I married her—and after that things didn't go well."
He paused, breathing quickly, and looking about the room with odd, furtive glances. "I was only half-well, anyhow—I couldn't attend to my patients properly—and after a few months we decided to leave Clifton, and I bought a practice in New Jersey. But my wife was ill there, and things went wrong again—damnably. I suppose you've guessed that my marriage was a mistake. She had an idea that we should do better in New York—so we came here a few months ago, and we've done decidedly worse."
Justine listened with a sense of discouragement. She saw now that he did not mean to acknowledge his failing, and knowing the secretiveness of the drug-taker she decided that he was deluded enough to think he could still deceive her.
"Well," he began again, with an attempt at jauntiness, "I've found out that in my profession it's a hard struggle to get on your feet again, after illness or—or any bad set-back. That's the reason I asked you to say a word for me. It's not only the money, though Ineed that badly—I want to get back my self-respect. With my record I oughtn't to be where I am—and you can speak for me better than any one."
"Why better than the doctors you've worked with?" Justine put the question abruptly, looking him straight in the eyes.
His glance dropped, and an unpleasant flush rose to his thin cheeks.
"Well—as it happens, you're better situated than any one to help me to the particular thing I want."
"The particular thing——?"
"Yes. I understand that Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell are both interested in the new wing for paying patients at Saint Christopher's. I want the position of house-physician there, and I know you can get it for me."
His tone changed as he spoke, till with the last words it became rough and almost menacing.
Justine felt her colour rise, and her heart began to beat confusedly. Here was the truth, then: she could no longer be the dupe of her own compassion. The man knew his power and meant to use it. But at the thought her courage was in arms.
"I'm sorry—but it's impossible," she said.
"Impossible—why?"
She continued to look at him steadily. "You said just now that you wished to regain your self-respect.Well, you must regain it before you can ask me—or any one else—to recommend you to a position of trust."
Wyant half-rose, with an angry murmur. "My self-respect? What do you mean?Imeant that I'd lost courage—through ill-luck——"
"Yes; and your ill-luck has come through your own fault. Till you cure yourself you're not fit to cure others."
He sank back into his seat, glowering at her under sullen brows; then his expression gradually changed to half-sneering admiration. "You're a plucky one!" he said.
Justine repressed a movement of disgust. "I am very sorry for you," she said gravely. "I saw this trouble coming on you long ago—and if there is any other way in which I can help you——"
"Thanks," he returned, still sneering. "Your sympathy is very precious—there was a time when I would have given my soul for it. But that's over, and I'm here to talk business. You say you saw my trouble coming on—did it ever occur to you that you were the cause of it?"
Justine glanced at him with frank contempt. "No—for I was not," she replied.
"That's an easy way out of it. But you took everything from me—first my hope of marrying you; thenmy chance of a big success in my career; and I was desperate—weak, if you like—and tried to deaden my feelings in order to keep up my pluck."
Justine rose to her feet with a movement of impatience. "Every word you say proves how unfit you are to assume any responsibility—to do anything but try to recover your health. If I can help you to that, I am still willing to do so."
Wyant rose also, moving a step nearer. "Well, get me that place, then—I'll see to the rest: I'll keep straight."
"No—it's impossible."
"You won't?"
"I can't," she repeated firmly.
"And you expect to put me off with that answer?"
She hesitated. "Yes—if there's no other help you'll accept."
He laughed again—his feeble sneering laugh was disgusting. "Oh, I don't say that. I'd like to earn my living honestly—funny preference—but if you cut me off from that, I suppose it's only fair to let you make up for it. My wife and child have got to live."
"You choose a strange way of helping them; but I will do what I can if you will go for a while to some institution——"
He broke in furiously. "Institution be damned! You can't shuffle me out of the way like that. I'm allright—good food is what I need. You think I've got morphia in me—why, it's hunger!"
Justine heard him with a renewal of pity. "Oh, I'm sorry for you—very sorry! Why do you try to deceive me?"
"Why do you deceiveme? You know what I want and you know you've got to let me have it. If you won't give me a line to one of your friends at Saint Christopher's you'll have to give me another cheque—that's the size of it."
As they faced each other in silence Justine's pity gave way to a sudden hatred for the poor creature who stood shivering and sneering before her.
"You choose the wrong tone—and I think our talk has lasted long enough," she said, stretching her hand to the bell.
Wyant did not move. "Don't ring—unless you want me to write to your husband," he rejoined.
A sick feeling of helplessness overcame her; but she turned on him firmly. "I pardoned you once for that threat!"
"Yes—and you sent me some money the next day."
"I was mistaken enough to think that, in your distress, you had not realized what you wrote. But if you're a systematic blackmailer——"
"Gently—gently. Bad names don't frighten me—it's hunger and debt I'm afraid of."
Justine felt a last tremor of compassion. He was abominable—but he was pitiable too.
"I will really help you—I will see your wife and do what I can—but I can give you no money today."
"Why not?"
"Because I have none. I am not as rich as you think."
He smiled incredulously. "Give me a line to Mr. Langhope, then."
"No."
He sat down once more, leaning back with a weak assumption of ease. "Perhaps Mr. Amherst will think differently."
She whitened, but said steadily: "Mr. Amherst is away."
"Very well—I can write."
For the last five minutes Justine had foreseen this threat, and had tried to force her mind to face dispassionately the chances it involved. After all, why not let him write to Amherst? The very vileness of the deed must rouse an indignation which would be all in her favour, would inevitably dispose her husband to readier sympathy with the motive of her act, as contrasted with the base insinuations of her slanderer. It seemed impossible that Amherst should condemn her when his condemnation involved the fulfilling of Wyant's calculations: a reaction of scorn would throwhim into unhesitating championship of her conduct. All this was so clear that, had she been advising any one else, her confidence in the course to be taken might have strengthened the feeblest will; but with the question lying between herself and Amherst—with the vision of those soiled hands literally laid on the spotless fabric of her happiness, judgment wavered, foresight was obscured—she felt tremulously unable to face the steps between exposure and vindication. Her final conclusion was that she must, at any rate, gain time: buy off Wyant till she had been able to tell her story in her own way, and at her own hour, and then defy him when he returned to the assault. The idea that whatever concession she made would be only provisional, helped to excuse the weakness of making it, and enabled her at last, without too painful a sense of falling below her own standards, to reply in a low voice: "If you'll go now, I will send you something next week."
But Wyant did not respond as readily as she had expected. He merely asked, without altering his insolently easy attitude: "How much? Unless it's a good deal, I prefer the letter."
Oh, why could she not cry out: "Leave the house at once—your vulgar threats are nothing to me"—Why could she not even say in her own heart:I will tell my husband tonight?
"You're afraid," said Wyant, as if answering herthought. "What's the use of being afraid when you can make yourself comfortable so easily? You called me a systematic blackmailer—well, I'm not that yet. Give me a thousand and you'll see the last of me—on what used to be my honour."
Justine's heart sank. She had reached the point of being ready to appeal again to Amherst—but on what pretext could she ask for such a sum?
In a lifeless voice she said: "I could not possibly get more than one or two hundred."
Wyant scrutinized her a moment: her despair must have rung true to him. "Well, you must have something of your own—I saw your jewelry last night at the theatre," he said.
So it had been he—and he had sat there appraising her value like a murderer!
"Jewelry—?" she faltered.
"You had a thumping big sapphire—wasn't it?—with diamonds round it."
It was her only jewel—Amherst's marriage gift. She would have preferred a less valuable present, but his mother had persuaded her to accept it, saying that it was the bride's duty to adorn herself for the bridegroom.
"I will give you nothing—" she was about to exclaim; when suddenly her eyes fell on the clock. If Amherst had caught the two o'clock express he wouldbe at the house within the hour; and the only thing that seemed of consequence now, was that he should not meet Wyant. Supposing she still found courage to refuse—there was no knowing how long the humiliating scene might be prolonged: and she must be rid of the creature at any cost. After all, she seldom wore the sapphire—months might pass without its absence being noted by Amherst's careless eye; and if Wyant should pawn it, she might somehow save money to buy it back before it was missed. She went through these calculations with feverish rapidity; then she turned again to Wyant.
"You won't come back—ever?"
"I swear I won't," he said.
He moved away toward the window, as if to spare her; and she turned and slowly left the room.
She never forgot the moments that followed. Once outside the door she was in such haste that she stumbled on the stairs, and had to pause on the landing to regain her breath. In her room she found one of the housemaids busy, and at first could think of no pretext for dismissing her. Then she bade the woman go down and send the brougham away, telling the coachman to call for Miss Cicely at six.
Left alone, she bolted the door, and as if with a thief's hand, opened her wardrobe, unlocked her jewel-box, and drew out the sapphire in its flat morocco case.She restored the box to its place, the key to its ring—then she opened the case and looked at the sapphire. As she did so, a little tremor ran over her neck and throat, and closing her eyes she felt her husband's kiss, and the touch of his hands as he fastened on the jewel.
She unbolted the door, listened intently on the landing, and then went slowly down the stairs. None of the servants were in sight, yet as she reached the lower hall she was conscious that the air had grown suddenly colder, as though the outer door had just been opened. She paused, and listened again. There was a sound of talking in the drawing-room. Could it be that in her absence a visitor had been admitted? The possibility frightened her at first—then she welcomed it as an unexpected means of ridding herself of her tormentor.
She opened the drawing-room door, and saw her husband talking with Wyant.
Amherst, his back to the threshold, sat at a table writing: Wyant stood a few feet away, staring down at the fire.
Neither had heard the door open; and before they were aware of her entrance Justine had calculated that she must have been away for at least five minutes, andthat in that space of time almost anything might have passed between them.
For a moment the power of connected thought left her; then her heart gave a bound of relief. She said to herself that Wyant had doubtless made some allusion to his situation, and that her husband, conscious only of a great debt of gratitude, had at once sat down to draw a cheque for him. The idea was so reassuring that it restored all her clearness of thought.
Wyant was the first to see her. He made an abrupt movement, and Amherst, rising, turned and put an envelope in his hand.
"There, my dear fellow——"
As he turned he caught sight of his wife.
"I caught the twelve o'clock train after all—you got my second wire?" he asked.
"No," she faltered, pressing her left hand, with the little case in it, close to the folds of her dress.
"I was afraid not. There was a bad storm at Hanaford, and they said there might be a delay."
At the same moment she found Wyant advancing with extended hand, and understood that he had concealed the fact of having already seen her. She accepted the cue, and shook his hand, murmuring: "How do you do?"
Amherst looked at her, perhaps struck by her manner.
"You have not seen Dr. Wyant since Lynbrook?"
"No," she answered, thankful to have this pretext for her emotion.
"I have been telling him that he should not have left us so long without news—especially as he has been ill, and things have gone rather badly with him. But I hope we can help now. He has heard that Saint Christopher's is looking for a house-physician for the paying patients' wing, and as Mr. Langhope is away I have given him a line to Mrs. Ansell."
"Extremely kind of you," Wyant murmured, passing his hand over his forehead.
Justine stood silent. She wondered that her husband had not noticed that tremulous degraded hand. But he was always so blind to externals—and he had no medical experience to sharpen his perceptions.
Suddenly she felt impelled to speak "I am sorry Dr. Wyant has been—unfortunate. Of course you will want to do everything to help him; but would it not be better to wait till Mr. Langhope comes back?"
"Wyant thinks the delay might make him lose the place. It seems the board meets tomorrow. And Mrs. Ansell really knows much more about it. Isn't she the secretary of the ladies' committee?"
"I'm not sure—I believe so. But surely Mr. Langhope should be consulted."
She felt Wyant's face change: his eyes settled on her in a threatening stare.
Amherst looked at her also, and there was surprise in his glance. "I think I can answer for my father-in-law. He feels as strongly as I do how much we all owe to Dr. Wyant."
He seldom spoke of Mr. Langhope as his father-in-law, and the chance designation seemed to mark a closer tie between them, to exclude Justine from what was after all a family affair. For a moment she felt tempted to accept the suggestion, and let the responsibility fall where it would. But it would fall on Amherst—and that was intolerable.
"I think you ought to wait," she insisted.
An embarrassed silence settled on the three.
Wyant broke it by advancing toward Amherst. "I shall never forget your kindness," he said; "and I hope to prove to Mrs. Amherst that it's not misplaced."
The words were well chosen, and well spoken; Justine saw that they produced a good effect. Amherst grasped the physician's hand with a smile. "My dear fellow, I wish I could do more. Be sure to call on me again if you want help."
"Oh, you've put me on my feet," said Wyant gratefully.
He bowed slightly to Justine and turned to go; but as he reached the threshold she moved after him.
"Dr. Wyant—you must give back that letter."
He stopped short with a whitening face.
She felt Amherst's eyes on her again; and she said desperately, addressing him: "Dr. Wyant understands my reasons."
Her husband's glance turned abruptly to Wyant. "Do you?" he asked after a pause.
Wyant looked from one to the other. The moisture came out on his forehead, and he passed his hand over it again. "Yes," he said in a dry voice. "Mrs. Amherst wants me farther off—out of New York."
"Out of New York? What do you mean?"
Justine interposed hastily, before the answer could come. "It is because Dr. Wyant is not in condition—for such a place—just at present."
"But he assures me he is quite well."
There was another silence; and again Wyant broke in, this time with a slight laugh. "I can explain what Mrs. Amherst means; she intends to accuse me of the morphine habit. And I can explain her reason for doing so—she wants me out of the way."
Amherst turned on the speaker; and, as she had foreseen, his look was terrible. "You haven't explained that yet," he said.
"Well—I can." Wyant waited another moment. "I know too much about her," he declared.
There was a low exclamation from Justine, and Amherst strode toward Wyant. "You infernal blackguard!" he cried.
"Oh, gently——" Wyant muttered, flinching back from his outstretched arm.
"My wife's wish is sufficient. Give me back that letter."
Wyant straightened himself. "No, by God, I won't!" he retorted furiously. "I didn't ask you for it till you offered to help me; but I won't let it be taken back without a word, like a thief that you'd caught with your umbrella. If your wife won't explain I will. She's, afraid I'll talk about what happened at Lynbrook."
Amherst's arm fell to his side. "At Lynbrook?"
Behind him there was a sound of inarticulate appeal—but he took no notice.
"Yes. It's she who used morphia—but not on herself. She gives it to other people. She gave an overdose to Mrs. Amherst."
Amherst looked at him confusedly. "An overdose?"
"Yes—purposely, I mean. And I came into the room at the wrong time. I can prove that Mrs. Amherst died of morphia-poisoning."
"John!" Justine gasped out, pressing between them.
Amherst gently put aside the hand with which she had caught his arm. "Wait a moment: this can't rest here. You can't want it to," he said to her in an undertone.
"Why do you care...for what he says...when I don't?" she breathed back with trembling lips.
"You can see I am not wanted here," Wyant threw in with a sneer.
Amherst remained silent for a brief space; then he turned his eyes once more to his wife.
Justine lifted her face: it looked small and spent, like an extinguished taper.
"It's true," she said.
"True?"
"Ididgive...an overdose...intentionally, when I knew there was no hope, and when the surgeons said she might go on suffering. She was very strong...and I couldn't bear it...you couldn't have borne it...."
There was another silence; then she went on in a stronger voice, looking straight at her husband: "And now will you send this man away?"
Amherst glanced at Wyant without moving. "Go," he said curtly.
Wyant, instead, moved a step nearer. "Just a minute, please. It's only fair to hear my side. Your wife says there was no hope; yet the day before she...gave the dose, Dr. Garford told her in my presence that Mrs. Amherst might live."
Again Amherst's eyes addressed themselves slowly to Justine; and she forced her lips to articulate an answer.
"Dr. Garford said...one could never tell...but I know he didn't believe in the chance of recovery...no one did."
"Dr. Garford is dead," said Wyant grimly.
Amherst strode up to him again. "You scoundrel—leave the house!" he commanded.
But still Wyant sneeringly stood his ground. "Not till I've finished. I can't afford to let myself be kicked out like a dog because I happen to be in the way. Every doctor knows that in cases of spinal lesion recovery is becoming more and more frequent—if the patient survives the third week there's every reason to hope. Those are the facts as they would appear to any surgeon. If they're not true, why is Mrs. Amherst afraid of having them stated? Why has she been paying me for nearly a year to keep them quiet?"
"Oh——" Justine moaned.
"I never thought of talking till luck went against me. Then I asked her for help—and reminded her of certain things. After that she kept me supplied pretty regularly." He thrust his shaking hand into an inner pocket. "Here are her envelopes...Quebec...Montreal...Saranac...I know just where you went on your honeymoon. She had to write often, because the sums were small. Why did she do it, if she wasn't afraid? And why did she go upstairs just now to fetch me something? If you don't believe me, ask her what she's got in her hand."