Marcella

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

CHAPTER XV.

The following afternoon about six o'clock Marcella came in from her second round. After a very busy week, work happened to be slack; and she had been attending one or two cases in and near Brown's Buildings rather because they were near than because they seriously wanted her. She looked to see whether there was any letter or telegram from the office which would have obliged her to go out again. Nothing was to be seen; and she put down her bag and cloak, childishly glad of the extra hour of rest.

She was, indeed, pale and worn. The moral struggle which had filled the past fortnight from end to end had deepened all the grooves and strained the forces of life; and the path, though glimmering, was not wholly plain.

A letter lay unfinished in her drawer—if she sent it that night, there would be little necessity or inducement for Wharton to climb those stairs on the morrow. Yet, if he held her to it, she must see him.

As the sunset and the dusk crept on she still sat silent and alone, sunk in a depression which showed itself in every line of the drooping form. She was degraded in her own eyes. The nature of the impulses which had led her to give Wharton the hold upon her she had given him had become plain to her. What lay between them, and the worst impulses that poison the lives of women, but differences of degree, of expression? After those wild hours of sensuous revolt, a kind of moral terror was upon her.

What had worked in her? What was at the root of this vehemence of moral reaction, this haunting fear of losing for ever the best in life—self-respect, the comradeship of the good, communion with things noble and unstained—which had conquered at last the mere woman, the weakness of vanity and of sex? She hardly knew. Only there was in her a sort of vague thankfulness for her daily work. It did not seem to be possible to see one's own life solely under the aspects of selfish desire while hands and mind were busy with the piteous realities of sickness and of death. From every act of service—from every contact with the patience and simplicity of the poor—something had spoken to her, that divine ineffable something for ever "set in the world," like beauty, like charm, for the winning of men to itself. "Follow truth!" it said to her in faint mysterious breathings—"the truth of your own heart. The sorrow to which it will lead you is the only joy that remains to you."

Suddenly she looked round her little room with a rush of tenderness. The windows were open to the evening and the shouts of children playing in the courtyard came floating up. A bowl of Mellor roses scented the air; the tray for her simple meal stood ready, and beside it a volume of "The Divine Comedy," one of her mother's very rare gifts to her, in her motherless youth—for of late she had turned thirstily to poetry. There was a great peace and plainness about it all; and, besides, touches of beauty—tokens of the soul. Her work spoke in it; called to her; promised comfort and ennobling. She thought with yearning, too, of her parents; of the autumn holiday she was soon to spend with them. Her heart went out—sorely—to all the primal claims upon it.

* * * * *

Nevertheless, clear as was the inner resolution, the immediate future filled her with dread. Her ignorance of herself—her excitable folly—had given Wharton rights which her conscience admitted. He would not let her go without a struggle, and she must face it.

As to the incidents which had happened during the fortnight—Louis Craven's return, and the scandal of the "People's Banking Company"—they had troubled and distressed her; but it would not be true to say that they had had any part in shaping her slow determination. Louis Craven was sore and bitter. She was very sorry for him; and his reports of the Damesley strikers made her miserable. But she took Wharton's "leaders" in the Clarion for another equally competent opinion on the same subject; and told herself that she was no judge. As for the Company scandal, she had instantly and proudly responded to the appeal of his letter, and put the matter out of her thoughts, till at least he should give his own account. So much at any rate she owed to the man who had stood by her through the Hurd trial. Marcella Boyce would not readily believe in his dishonour! She did not in fact believe it. In spite of later misgivings, the impression of his personality, as she had first conceived it, in the early days at Mellor, was still too strong.

No—rather—she had constantly recollected throughout the day what was going on in Parliament. These were for him testing and critical hours, and she felt a wistful sympathy. Let him only rise to his part—take up his great task.

* * * * *

An imperious knocking on her thin outer door roused her. She went to open it and saw Anthony Craven,—the perspiration standing on his brow, his delicate cripple's face white and fierce.

"I want to talk to you," he said without preface. "Have you seen the afternoon papers?"

"No," she said in astonishment, "I was just going to send for them. What is wrong?"

He followed her into the sitting-room without speaking; and then he unfolded the Pall Mall he had in his hand and pointed to a large-print paragraph on the central page with a shaking hand.

Marcella read:

"EXCITING SCENES IN THE HOUSE.—MEETING OF THE LABOUR MEMBERS.—A committee of the Labour representatives in Parliament met this afternoon at 2 o'clock for the purpose of electing a chairman, and appointing whips to the party, thus constituting a separate parliamentary group. Much interest was felt in the proceedings, which it was universally supposed would lead to the appointment of Mr. H. S. Wharton, the member for West Brookshire, as chairman and leader of the Labour party. The excitement of the meeting and in the House may be imagined when—after a short but very cordial and effective speech from Mr. Bennett, the member for North Whinwick, in support of Mr. Wharton's candidature—Mr. Wilkins, the miner's member for Derlingham, rose and made a series of astounding charges against the personal honour of the member for West Brookshire. Put briefly, they amount to this: that during the recent strike at Damesley the support of the Clarion newspaper, of which Mr. Wharton is owner and practically editor, was bought by the employers in return for certain shares in the new Syndicate; that the money for these shares—which is put as high as 20,000 l.—had already gone into Mr. Wharton's private pocket; and that the change of policy on the part of the Clarion, which led to the collapse of the strike, was thus entirely due to what the Labour members can only regard under the circumstances as a bribe of a most disgraceful kind. The effect produced has been enormous. The debate is still proceeding, and reporters have been excluded. But I hope to send a fuller account later."

Marcella dropped the paper from her hand.

"What does it mean?" she said to her companion.

"Precisely what it says," replied Anthony, with a nervous impatience he could not repress. "Now," he added, as his lameness forced him to sit down, "will you kindly allow me some conversation with you? It was you—practically—who introduced Louis to that man. You meant well to Louis, and Mr. Wharton has been your friend. We therefore feel that we owe you some explanation. For that paragraph"—he pointed to the paper—"is, substantially—Louis's doing, and mine."

"Yours?" she said mechanically. "But Louis has been going on working for the paper—I persuaded him."

"I know. It was not we who actually discovered the thing. But we set a friend to work. Louis has had his suspicions all along. And at last—by the merest chance—we got the facts."

Then he told the story, staring at her the while with his sparkling eyes, his thin invalid's fingers fidgeting with his hat. If there was in truth any idea in his mind that the relations between his companion and Harry Wharton were more than those of friendship, it did not avail to make him spare her in the least. He was absorbed in vindictive feeling, which applied to her also. He might say for form's sake that she had meant well; but in fact he regarded her at this moment as a sort of odious Canidia whose one function had been to lure Louis to misfortune. Cut off himself, by half a score of peculiarities, physical and other, from love, pleasure, and power, Anthony Craven's whole affections and ambitions had for years centred in his brother. And now Louis was not only violently thrown out of employment, but compromised by the connection with the Clarion; was, moreover, saddled with a wife—and in debt.

So that his explanation was given with all the edge he could put upon it. Let her stop him, if she pleased!—but she did not stop him.

The facts were these:

Louis had, indeed, been persuaded by Marcella, for the sake of his wife and bread and butter, to go on working for the Clarion, as a reviewer. But his mind was all the time feverishly occupied with the apostasy of the paper and its causes. Remembering Wharton's sayings and letters throughout the struggle, he grew less and less able to explain the incident by the reasons Wharton had himself supplied, and more and more convinced that there was some mystery behind.

He and Anthony talked the matter over perpetually. One evening Anthony brought home from a meeting of the Venturists that George Denny, the son of one of the principal employers in the Damesley trade, whose name he had mentioned once before in Marcella's ears. Denny was by this time the candidate for a Labour constituency, an ardent Venturist, and the laughing-stock of his capitalist family, with whom, however, he was still on more or less affectionate terms. His father thought him an incorrigible fool, and his mother wailed over him to her friends. But they were still glad to see him whenever he would condescend to visit them; and all friction on money matters was avoided by the fact that Denny had for long refused to take any pecuniary help from his father, and was nevertheless supporting himself tolerably by lecturing and literature.

Denny was admitted into the brothers' debate, and had indeed puzzled himself a good deal over the matter already. He had taken a lively interest in the strike, and the articles in the Clarion which led to its collapse had seemed to him both inexplicable and enraging.

After his talk with the Cravens, he went away, determined to dine at home on the earliest possible opportunity. He announced himself accordingly in Hertford Street, was received with open arms, and then deliberately set himself, at dinner and afterwards, to bait his father on social and political questions, which, as a rule, were avoided between them.

Old Denny fell into the trap, lost his temper and self-control completely, and at a mention of Harry Wharton—skilfully introduced at the precisely right moment—as an authority on some matter connected with the current Labour programme, he threw himself back in his chair with an angry laugh.

"Wharton? Wharton? You quote that fellow to me?"

"Why shouldn't I?" said the son, quietly.

"Because, my good sir,—he's a rogue,—that's all!—a common rogue, from my point of view even—still more from yours."

"I know that any vile tale you can believe about a Labour leader you do, father," said George Denny, with dignity.

Whereupon the older man thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drawing out a small leather case, in which he was apt to carry important papers about with him, extracted from it a list containing names and figures, and held it with a somewhat tremulous hand under his son's eyes.

"Read it, sir! and hold your tongue! Last week my friends and I bought that man—and his precious paper—for a trifle of 20,000 l. or thereabouts. It paid us to do it, and we did it. I dare say you will think the preceding questionable. In my eyes it was perfectly legitimate, a piece of bonne guerre. The man was ruining a whole industry. Some of us had taken his measure, had found out too—by good luck!—that he was in sore straits for money—mortgages on the paper, gambling debts, and a host of other things—discovered a shrewd man to play him, and made our bid! He rose to it like a gudgeon—gave us no trouble whatever. I need not say, of course"—he added, looking up at his son—"that I have shown you that paper in the very strictest confidence. But it seemed to me it was my duty as a father to warn you of the nature of some of your associates!"

"I understand," said George Denny, as, after a careful study of the paper—which contained, for the help of the writer's memory, a list of the sums paid and founders' shares allotted to the various "promoters" of the new Syndicate—he restored it to its owner. "Well, I, father, have this to say in return. I came here to-night in the hope of getting from you this very information, and in the public interest I hold myself not only free but bound to make public use of it, at the earliest possible opportunity!"

The family scene may be imagined. But both threats and blandishments were entirely lost upon the son. There was in him an idealist obstinacy which listened to nothing but the cry of a cause, and he declared that nothing would or should prevent him from carrying the story of the bribe direct to Nehemiah Wilkins, Wharton's chief rival in the House, and so saving the country and the Labour party from the disaster and disgrace of Wharton's leadership. There was no time to lose, the party meeting in the House was only two days off.

At the end of a long struggle, which exhausted everybody concerned, and was carried on to a late hour of the night, Denny père, influenced by a desire to avoid worse things—conscious, too, of the abundant evidence he possessed of Wharton's acceptance and private use of the money—and, probably, when it came to the point, not unwilling,—under compulsion!—to tumble such a hero from his pedestal, actually wrote, under his son's advice, a letter to Wilkins. It was couched in the most cautious language, and professed to be written in the interests of Wharton himself, to put an end "to certain ugly and unfounded rumours that have been brought to my knowledge." The negotiation itself was described in the driest business terms. "Mr. Wharton, upon cause shown, consented to take part in the founding of the Syndicate, and in return for his assistance, was allotted ten founders' shares in the new company. The transaction differed in nothing from those of ordinary business"—a last sentence slily added by the Socialist son, and innocently accepted by one of the shrewdest of men.

After which Master George Denny scarcely slept, and by nine o'clock next morning was in a hansom on his way to Wilkins's lodgings in Westminster. The glee of that black-bearded patriot hardly needs description. He flung himself on the letter with a delight and relief so exuberant that George Denny went off to another more phlegmatic member of the anti-Wharton "cave," with entreaties that an eye should be kept on the member for Derlingham, lest he should do or disclose anything before the dramatic moment.

Then he himself spent the next forty-eight hours in ingenious efforts to put together certain additional information as to the current value of founders' shares in the new company, the nature and amount of Wharton's debts, and so on. Thanks to his father's hints he was able in the end to discover quite enough to furnish forth a supplementary statement. So that, when the 10th arrived, the day rose upon a group of men breathlessly awaiting a play within a play—with all their parts rehearsed, and the prompter ready.

* * * * *

Such in substance, was Anthony's story. So carried away was he by the excitement and triumph of it, that he soon ceased to notice what its effect might be upon his pale and quick-breathing companion.

"And now what has happened?" she asked him abruptly, when at last he paused.

"Why, you saw!" he said in astonishment, pointing to the evening paper—"at least the beginning of it. Louis is at the House now. I expect him every moment. He said he would follow me here."

Marcella pressed her hands upon her eyes a moment as though in pain.
Anthony looked at her with a tardy prick of remorse.

"I hear Louis's knock!" he said, springing up. "May I let him in?" And, without waiting for reply, he hobbled as fast as his crutch would carry him to the outer door. Louis came in. Marcella rose mechanically. He paused on the threshold, his short sight trying to make her out in the dusk. Then his face softened and quivered. He walked forward quickly.

"I know you have something to forgive us," he said, "and that this will distress you. But we could not give you warning. Everything was so rapid, and the public interests involved so crushing."

He was flushed with vengeance and victory, but as he approached her his look was deprecating—almost timid. Only the night before, Anthony for the first time had suggested to him an idea about her. He did not believe it—had had no time in truth to think of it in the rush of events. But now he saw her, the doubt pulled at his heart. Had he indeed stabbed the hand that had tried to help him?

Anthony touched him impatiently on the arm. "What has happened, Louis? I have shown Miss Boyce the first news."

"It is all over," said Louis, briefly. "The meeting was breaking up as I came away. It had lasted nearly five hours. There was a fierce fight, of course, between Wharton and Wilkins. Then Bennett withdrew his resolution, refused to be nominated himself—nearly broke down, in fact, they say; he had always been attached to Wharton, and had set his heart upon making him leader—and finally, after a long wrangle, Molloy was appointed chairman of the party."

"Good!" cried Anthony, not able to suppress the note of exultation.

Louis did not speak. He looked at Marcella.

"Did he defend himself?" she asked in a low, sharp voice.

Louis shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, yes. He spoke—but it did him no good. Everybody agreed that the speech was curiously ineffective. One would have expected him to do it better. But he seemed to be knocked over. He said, of course, that he had satisfied himself, and given proof in the paper, that the strike could not be maintained, and that being so he was free to join any syndicate he pleased. But he spoke amid dead silence, and there was a general groan when he sat down. Oh, it was not this business only! Wilkins made great play in part of his speech with the Company scandal too. It is a complete smash all round."

"Which he will never get over?" said Marcella, quickly.

"Not with our men. What he may do elsewhere is another matter. Anthony has told you how it came out?"

She made a sign of assent. She was sitting erect and cold, her hands round her knees.

"I did not mean to keep anything from you," he said in a low voice,
bending to her. "I know—you admired him—that he had given you cause.
But—my mind has been on fire—ever since I came back from those
Damesley scenes!"

She offered no reply. Silence fell upon all three for a minute or two; and in the twilight each could hardly distinguish the others. Every now and then the passionate tears rose in Marcella's eyes; her heart contracted. That very night when he spoke to her, when he used all those big words to her about his future, those great ends for which he had claimed her woman's help—he had these things in his mind.

"I think," said Louis Craven presently, touching her gently on the arm—he had tried once in vain to attract her attention—"I think I hear some one asking for you outside on the landing—Mrs. Hurd seems to be bringing them in."

As he spoke, Anthony suddenly sprang to his feet, and the outer door opened.

"Louis!" cried Anthony, "it is he!"

"Are yer at home, miss?" said Minta Hurd, putting in her head; "I can hardly see, it's so dark. Here's a gentleman wants to see you."

As she spoke, Wharton passed her, and stood—arrested—by the sight of the three figures. At the same moment Mrs. Hurd lit the gas in the little passage. The light streamed upon his face, and showed him the identity of the two men standing beside Marcella.

Never did Marcella forget that apparition—the young grace and power of the figure—the indefinable note of wreck, of catastrophe—the Lucifer brightness of the eyes in the set face. She moved forward. Anthony stopped her.

"Good-night, Miss Boyce!"

She shook hands unconsciously with him and with Louis. The two Cravens turned to the door. Wharton advanced into the room, and let them pass.

"You have been in a hurry to tell your story!" he said, as Louis walked by him.

Contemptuous hate breathed from every feature, but he was perfectly self-controlled.

"Yes—" said Craven, calmly—"Now it is your turn."

The door was no sooner shut than Wharton strode forward and caught her hand.

"They have told you everything? Ah!—"

His eye fell upon the evening paper. Letting her go, he felt for a chair and dropped into it. Throwing himself back, his hands behind his head, he drew a long breath and his eyes closed. For the first time in his life or hers she saw him weak and spent like other men. Even his nerve had been worn down by the excitement of these five fighting hours. The eyes were lined and hollow—the brow contracted; the young roundness of the cheek was lost in the general pallor and patchiness of the skin; the lower part of the face seemed to have sharpened and lengthened,—and over the whole had passed a breath of something aging and withering the traces of which sent a shiver through Marcella. She sat down near him, still in her nurse's cloak, one trembling hand upon her lap.

"Will you tell me what made you do this?" she asked, not being able to think of anything else to say.

He opened his eyes with a start.

In that instant's quiet the scene he had just lived through had been rushing before him again—the long table in the panelled committee-room, the keen angry faces gathered about it. Bennett, in his blue tie and shabby black coat, the clear moist eyes vexed and miserable—Molloy, small and wiry, business-like in the midst of confusion, cool in the midst of tumult—and Wilkins, a black, hectoring leviathan, thundering on the table as he flung his broad Yorkshire across it, or mouthing out Denny's letter in the midst of the sudden electrical silence of some thirty amazed and incredulous hearers.

"Spies, yo call us?" with a finger like a dart, threatening the enemy—"Aye; an' yo're aboot reet! I and my friends—we have been trackin' and spyin' for weeks past. We knew those men, those starvin' women and bairns, were bein' sold, but we couldn't prove it. Now we've come at the how and the why of it! And we'll make it harder for men like you to sell 'em again! Yo call it infamy?—well, we call it detection."

Then rattling on the inner ear came the phrases of the attack which followed on the director of "The People's Banking Association," the injured innocent of as mean a job, as unsavoury a bit of vulturous finance, as had cropped into publicity for many a year—and finally the last dramatic cry:

"But it's noa matter, yo say! Mester Wharton has nobbut played his party and the workin' man a dirty trick or two—an' yo mun have a gentleman! Noa—the workin' man isn't fit himself to speak wi' his own enemies i' th' gate—yo mun have a gentleman!—an' Mester Wharton, he says he'll tak' the post, an' dea his best for yo—an', remember, yo mun have a gentleman! Soa now—Yes! or No!—wull yo?—or woan't yo?"

And at that, the precipitation of the great unwieldy form half across the table towards Wharton's seat—the roar of the speaker's immediate supporters thrown up against the dead silence of the rest!

As to his own speech—he thought of it with a soreness, a disgust which penetrated to bones and marrow. He had been too desperately taken by surprise—had lost his nerve—missed the right tone throughout. Cool defiance, free self-justification, might have carried him through. Instead of which—faugh!

All this was the phantom-show of a few seconds' thought. He roused himself from a miserable reaction of mind and body to attend to Marcella's question.

"Why did I do it?" he repeated; "why—"

He broke off, pressing both his hands upon his brow. Then he suddenly sat up and pulled himself together.

"Is that tea?" he said, touching the tray. "Will you give me some?"

Marcella went into the back kitchen and called Minta. While the boiling water was brought and the tea was made, Wharton sat forward with his face on his hands and saw nothing. Marcella whispered a word in Minta's ear as she came in. The woman paused, looked at Wharton, whom she had not recognised before in the dark—grew pale—and Marcella saw her hands shaking as she set the tray in order. Wharton knew nothing and thought nothing of Kurd's widow, but to Marcella the juxtaposition of the two figures brought a wave of complex emotion.

Wharton forced himself to eat and drink, hardly speaking the while. Then, when the tremor of sheer exhaustion had to some extent abated, he suddenly realised who this was that was sitting opposite to him ministering to him.

She felt his hand—his quick powerful hand—on hers.

"To you I owe the whole truth—let me tell it!"

She drew herself away instinctively—but so softly that he did not realise it. He threw himself back once more in the chair beside her—one knee over the other, the curly head so much younger to-night than the face beneath it supported on his arms, his eyes closed again for rest—and plunged into the story of the Clarion.

It was admirably told. He had probably so rehearsed it to himself several times already. He described his action as the result of a double influence working upon him—the influence of his own debts and necessities, and the influence of his growing conviction that the maintenance of the strike had become a blunder, even a misfortune for the people themselves.

"Then—just as I was at my wit's end, conscious besides that the paper was on a wrong line, and must somehow be got out of it—came the overtures from the Syndicate. I knew perfectly well I ought to have refused them—of course my whole career was risked by listening to them. But at the same time they gave me assurances that the workpeople would ultimately gain—they proved to me that I was helping to extinguish the trade. As to the money—when a great company has to be launched, the people who help it into being get paid for it—it is invariable—it happens every day. I like the system no more than you may do—or Wilkins. But consider. I was in such straits that bankruptcy lay between me and my political future. Moreover—I had lost nerve, sleep, balance. I was scarcely master of myself when Pearson first broached the matter to me—"

"Pearson!" cried Marcella, involuntarily. She recalled the figure of the solicitor; had heard his name from Frank Leven. She remembered Wharton's impatient words—"There is a tiresome man wants to speak to me on business—"

It was then I—that evening! Something sickened her.

Wharton raised himself in his chair and looked at her attentively with his young haggard eyes. In the faint lamplight she was a pale vision of the purest and noblest beauty. But the lofty sadness of her face filled him with a kind of terror. Desire—impotent pain—violent resolve, swept across him. He had come to her, straight from the scene of his ruin, as to the last bulwark left him against a world bent on his destruction, and bare henceforward of all delights.

"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said, suddenly, in a low changed voice—"as I speak—as I look at you—I see in your face that you distrust—that you have judged me; those two men, I suppose, have done their work! Yet from you—you of all people—I might look not only for justice—but—I will dare say it—for kindness!"

She trembled. She understood that he appealed to the days at Mellor, and her lips quivered.

"No," she exclaimed, almost timidly—"I try to think the best. I see the pressure was great."

"And consider, please," he said proudly, "what the reasons were for that pressure."

She looked at him interrogatively—a sudden softness in her eyes. If at that moment he had confessed himself fully, if he had thrown himself upon her in the frank truth of his mixed character—and he could have done it, with a Rousseau-like completeness—it is difficult to say what the result of this scene might have been. In the midst of shock and repulsion, she was filled with pity; and there were moments when she was more drawn to his defeat and undoing, than she had ever been to his success.

Yet how question him? To do so, would be to assume a right, which in turn would imply his rights. She thought of that mention of "gambling debts," then of his luxurious habits, and extravagant friends. But she was silent. Only, as she sat there opposite to him, one slim hand propping the brow, her look invited him.

He thought he saw his advantage.

"You must remember," he said, with the same self-assertive bearing, "that I have never been a rich man, that my mother spent my father's savings on a score of public objects, that she and I started a number of experiments on the estate, that my expenses as a member of Parliament are very large, and that I spent thousands on building up the Clarion. I have been ruined by the Clarion, by the cause the Clarion supported. I got no help from my party—where was it to come from? They are all poor men. I had to do everything myself, and the struggle has been more than flesh and blood could bear! This year, often, I have not known how to move, to breathe, for anxieties of every sort. Then came the crisis—my work, my usefulness, my career, all threatened. The men who hated me saw their opportunity. I was a fool and gave it them. And my enemies have used it—to the bitter end!"

Tone and gesture were equally insistent and strong. What he was saying to himself was that, with a woman of Marcella's type, one must "bear it out." This moment of wreck was also with him the first moment of all-absorbing and desperate desire. To win her—to wrest her from the Cravens' influence—that had been the cry in his mind throughout his dazed drive from the House of Commons. Her hand in his—her strength, her beauty, the romantic reputation that had begun to attach to her, at his command—and he would have taken the first step to recovery, he would see his way to right himself.

Ah! but he had missed his chance! Somehow, every word he had been saying rang false to her. She could have thrown herself as a saving angel on the side of weakness and disaster which had spoken its proper language, and with a reckless and confiding truth had appealed to the largeness of a woman's heart. But this patriot—ruined so nobly—for such disinterested purposes—left her cold! She began to think even—hating herself—of the thousands he was supposed to have made in the gambling over that wretched company—no doubt for the "cause" too!

But before she could say a word he was kneeling beside her.

"Marcella I give me my answer!—I am in trouble and defeat—be a woman, and come to me!"

He had her hands. She tried to recover them.

"No!" she said, with passionate energy, "that is impossible. I had written to you before you came, before I had heard a word of this. Please, please let me go!"

"Not till you explain!"—he said, still holding her, and roused to a white heat of emotion—"why is it impossible? You said to me once, with all your heart, that you thanked me, that I had taught you, helped you. You cannot ignore the bond between us! And you are free. I have a right to say to you—you thirst to save, to do good—come and save a man that cries to you!—he confesses to you, freely enough, that he has made a hideous mistake—help him to redeem it!"

She rose suddenly with all her strength, freeing herself from him, so that he rose too, and stood glowering and pale.

"When I said that to you," she cried, "I was betraying "—her voice failed her an instant—"we were both false—to the obligation that should have held us—restrained us. No! no! I will never be your wife! We should hurt each other—poison each other!"

Her eyes shone with wild tears. As he stood there before her she was seized with a piteous sense of contrast—of the irreparable—of what might have been.

"What do you mean?" he asked her, roughly.

She was silent.

His passion rose.

"Do you remember," he said, approaching her again, "that you have given me cause to hope? It is those two fanatics that have changed you—possessed your mind."

She looked at him with a pale dignity.

"My letters must have warned you," she said simply. "If you had come to-morrow—in prosperity—you would have got the same answer, at once. To-day—now—I have had weak moments, because—because I did not know how to add pain to pain. But they are gone—I see my way! I do not love you—that is the simple, the whole truth—I could not follow you!"

He stared at her an instant in a bitter silence.

"I have been warned,"—he said slowly, but in truth losing control of himself, "not only by you—and I suppose I understand! You repent last year. Your own letter said as much. You mean to recover, the ground—the place you lost. Ah, well!—most natural!—most fitting! When the time comes—and my bones are less sore—I suppose I shall have my second congratulations ready! Meanwhile—"

She gave a low cry and burst suddenly into a passion of weeping, turning her face from him. But when in pale sudden shame he tried to excuse himself—to appease her—she moved away, with a gesture that overawed him.

"You have not confessed yourself"—she said, and his look wavered under the significance of hers—"but you drive me to it. Yes, I repent!"—her breast heaved, she caught her breath. "I have been trying to cheat myself these last few weeks—to run away from grief—and the other night when you asked me—I would have given all I have and am to feel like any happy girl, who says 'Yes' to her lover. I tried to feel so. But even then, though I was miserable and reckless, I knew in my heart—it was impossible! If you suppose—if you like to suppose—that I—I have hopes or plans—as mean as they would be silly—you must—of course. But I have given no one any right to think so or say so. Mr. Wharton—"

Gathering all her self-control, she put out her white hand to him. "Please—please say good-bye to me. It has been hideous vanity—and mistake—and wretchedness—our knowing each other—from the beginning. I am grateful for all you did, I shall always be grateful. I hope—oh! I hope—that—that you will find a way through this trouble. I don't want to make it worse by a word. If I could do anything! But I can't. You must please go. It is late. I wish to call my friend, Mrs. Hurd."

Their eyes met—hers full of a certain stern yet quivering power, his strained and bloodshot, in his lined young face.

Then, with a violent gesture—as though he swept her out of his path—he caught up his hat, went to the door, and was gone.

She fell on her chair almost fainting, and sat there for long in the summer dark, covering her face. But it was not his voice that haunted her ears.

"You have done me wrong—I pray God you may not do yourself a greater wrong in the future!"

Again and again, amid the whirl of memory, she pressed the sad remembered words upon the inward wound and fever—tasting, cherishing the smart of them. And as her trance of exhaustion and despair gradually left her, it was as though she crept close to some dim beloved form in whom her heart knew henceforward the secret and sole companion of its inmost life.