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Late in the afternoon Christina received a note delivered by hand.
"Mother, would you mind if I spent the night with Miss Merville?"
Mrs. Colebrook shook her head without speaking. In these days she lived in an atmosphere of gloom, for she had adopted the right of chief griever.
"Nobody else seems to care about poor Mr. Sault," she had said many times. "I really can't understand you, Christina, after all he has done for you, I won't say that you're heartless, because I will never believe that about a child of mine. You're young."
"Do you think Mr. Sault would like to know that you go weeping about the house for his sake?" asked Christina patiently.
"Of course he would! I would like somebody to grieve over me and I'm sure he'd like to know that somebody was dropping a silent tear over him."
On the whole, Mrs. Colebrook preferred to be alone that night. The late editions would have the result of the trial. Evie would be out, too. She was going to a theatre with Teddy Williams. That, Mrs. Colebrook thought, was heartless, but Evie had an excuse. Mr. Sault had done nothing for her: had even quarreled with her.
So Christina went gladly to her new friend. She saw the doctor for a minute in the hall and in his professional mood, Dr. Merville was charming.
"You open up vistas of a new career for me, Miss Colebrook," he laughed. "With you as a shining example, I am almost inclined to take up osteopathy in my old age! Really, you have mended wonderfully."
In Beryl's little room she heard the news.
"We expected it, of course," she said. "Did Sir John wire anything about Ambrose—how he bore it?"
"Yes, here is the telegram."
Christina read: "Sault sentenced to death. He showed splendid courage and calmness."
"Naturally he would," said Christina quietly. "I am glad the strain is over, not that I think it was a strain for him. Beryl, I hope we are going to be worthy disciples of our friend? There are times when I am very afraid. It is a heavy burden for a badly equipped mind like mine. But I think I shall go through without making a weak fool of myself. I almost wish that I was marrying Jan Steppe. The prospect would take my mind off—no it wouldn't. And it doesn't in your case."
"I don't want to have my mind relieved of Ambrose," said Beryl. "We can do nothing, Christina. We never have been able to do anything. Ambrose could appeal, but of course, he won't do anything of the sort. I had a mad idea of going to see him. But I don't think I could endure that."
Christina shook her head.
She saw him every day. He never left her; he was sitting there now with his hands folded, silent, thoughtful. She avoided saying anything that would hurt him. In moments when Evie annoyed her, as she did lately, the thought that Ambrose would not approve, cut short her tart retort. She confessed this much and Beryl agreed. She felt the same way.
Beryl had had another bed put in her own room and they talked far into the night. There was nothing that Ambrose had ever said which they did not recall. He had said surprisingly little.
"Did he ever tell you in so many words that he loved you, Beryl?"
Only for a second did Beryl hesitate. "Yes," she said.
"You didn't want to tell me that, did you? You were afraid that I should be hurt. I'm not. I love his loving you. I don't grudge you a thought. He ought to love somebody humanly. I always think that the one incompleteness of Christ was his austerity. That doesn't sound blasphemous or irreverent, does it? But he missed so much experience because he was not a father with a father's feelings. Or a husband with a husband's love. I suppose theological people can explain this satisfactorily. I am taking an unlearned view—"
Evie was very nervous, thought Christina, when she saw her the next afternoon. Usually she was self-possession itself. She snapped at the girl when she asked her how she had enjoyed the play, although she was penitent immediately.
"Mother has been going on at me for daring to see a play the night poor Ambrose was sentenced," she said. "I'm sure nobody feels more sorry than I do. You're different to mother. I ought to have known that you weren't being sarcastic."
"How is Teddy? I remember him when he was a tiny boy. Do you like him, Evie?"
Evie pursed her red lips. "He's not bad," she granted. "He's very young and—well, simple."
"You worldly old woman!" smiled Christina. "You make me feel a hundred!"
Yes, Evie was nervous. And she took an unusual amount of trouble in dressing.
"Where are you going tonight—all dolled up?"
Evie was pained. "That is an awfully vulgar expression, Chris: it makes me feel like one of those street women. I am going to meet a girl friend."
"Where are you going, Evie?" Christina quietly insisted.
"I am going to see Ronnie, if you want to know. You make me tell lies when I don't want to," snapped Evie. "Why can't you leave me alone?"
Christina sighed. "Why don't I, indeed," she agreed wearily. "What is to be, will be: I can't be responsible for your life, and it is stupid of me to try. Go ahead, Evie, and good luck."
A remark which considerably mystified Evie Colebrook. But, as she told herself, she had quite enough to try her without worrying about Christina and her morbid talk. The principal cause of her worry was an exasperating lapse of memory. In the agitation of the proposal, she had forgotten whether Ronnie had asked her to meet him in the park at the usual place, or whether she had agreed to go straight to the flat. An arrangement had been made one way or the other, she was sure. She decided to go to the flat.
Beryl came to the same decision.
"Steppe and I are going to Ronnie's place tonight," said Dr. Merville. "It will be a sort of—er—board meeting as Jan is leaving London tomorrow. I haven't had a chance of asking him about a matter which affects me personally. You do not read the financial newspapers, do you, Beryl? You haven't heard from the Fennings, or any of the people you know—er—any unpleasant comment?"
She shook her head again.
"Jan was asking me again about—you, Beryl. I can't get him to talk about anything else. I think you will have to decide one way or the other." He was pulling on his gloves, an operation which gave him an excuse for looking elsewhere than at her. "It struck me that he was growing impatient. You are to please yourself—but the suspense is rather getting on my nerves."
She made no answer until, accompanying him to the door, she made a sudden resolve.
"How long will you be at Ronnie's?" she asked.
"An hour, no longer, I think, why?"
"I wondered," she said.
It was lamentably, wickedly weak in her; a servile surrender to expediency. She knew it, but in her desperation she seized the one straw that floated upon the inexorable current which was carrying her to physical and moral damnation. Ronnie must save her: Ronnie, to whom she had best right of appeal. It was a bitter, hateful confession, that, despising him, she loved him. She loved the two halves of the perfect man. Sault and Ronnie Morelle were the very soul and body of love. She loathed herself—yet she knew it was the truth. Ronnie must help. He might not be so vile as she believed him to be: there might be a spirit in him, a something to which she could reach. The instinct of honor, some spark of courage and justice transmitted to him by the men and women who bred him. Anything was better than Steppe, she told herself wildly, anything! She dreamed of him, terrible dreams that revolted her to wakefulness: by day she kept him from her mind. And then came night and the unclean dreams that made her very soul writhe in an agony of shame, lest, in dreaming, she had exposed a foulness which consciously she had seen in herself.
If Ronnie failed—
("Ronnie will fail: you know he will fail," whispered the voice of reason.)
She could but try.