"I don't want to give you a false impression," he said. "My wife was a woman in a thousand. Never did I have one moment's regret that I had married her. I think, if she'd lived, she might have made a man of me still. Perhaps it was a fluke—I don't want to make myself out better than I was, and I was a rotten young fool in those days—perhaps it was a fluke that she was what she was, because it was only her beauty that I fell in love with, and I hadn't the sense then to see what there was behind it. But what I do say is that my people ought to have seen. I'll never forgive them for that, and I'll never let Viola have anything to do with them. She doesn't even know their name, and——"
"I don't quite understand," said Wilbraham, as he seemed to be off on another gallop. "Why did your people object to your marrying?"
"Oh, well of course it was a fool's trick. I wasn't even of age, and she was a girl off the stage, but one of the sweetest, kindest girls that ever stepped. I only had her for a few years, but I tell you I'm in love with her memory still. She's been dead seventeen years and I miss her as much as ever. Life's nothing to me, though I'm not old yet; I buried it all in her grave."
It was curious, thought Wilbraham, that there should be a story here not dissimilar from the one that he had lived with for about the same length of time. But the girl whose father had made the same mistake as Harry's had not been shielded from its consequences as he had. She was hardly likely to have escaped the contamination of the rougher, harder world to which her father had descended. Wilbraham attributed Bastian's praise of his wife largely to the diffuse sentiment of the moment. He had not otherwise created the impression of a man living upon a life-long regret. His daughter, if she was the close companion of his poverty and the witness of his habits, could hardly be the rare and delicate flower that he painted her, though she was probably beautiful. At any rate it would be just as well to preserve Harry from contact with her. It would be an ironic stroke of fate if in this remote corner in which he had been brought up the glamour of the stage should obtrude itself once more.
"Is your daughter on the stage?" he asked outright, at this point in his reflections.
Bastian roused himself, and seemed to shake off completely his mood of hopeless regret. "God forbid!" he said. "I wouldn't have risked that, though if I had I believe she'd have come through it. You must see Viola. I don't know where she is now. She's like a sweet young creature of the woods—roams about in them all day. That'll tell you what she is—a London girl, who can throw London off her altogether when she gets away from it. She's less bound to it even than I am. Come up to-morrow, will you? I'll tell her to be in to tea. She sometimes takes it out with her. Can you come about half-past four?"
Wilbraham had been thinking rapidly. If this girl was in the habit of roaming the woods all day she might come across Harry, who was also in the habit of roaming the woods. All the ideas with which Wilbraham had lived for years past gathered themselves into the instinct to watch and guard. He must see this girl of Bastian's, and he must be prepared for what should come, so that he could deal with it without surprise and without hurry. Fortunately, he had not announced his intention of calling upon the artist that afternoon. He would say nothing about his visit at the Castle, but would announce one for the next day.
"Yes, I should like to come," he said, as he rose from his seat. "I must be getting back now."
About a third of the whisky remained in his glass. He stood looking at it, as Bastian expressed his pleasure in having seen him, and then drained it off before he left the room.
CHAPTER XV