It was only after much thought that de Güldenfeldt decided to tell Pearl what had occurred at the hotel. He was anxious not to increase her fears. On the other hand, he knew that she must hear the story sooner or later, and he concluded that it were better she should get the true facts from him than to have imparted to her from some outsider a garbled and exaggerated version. Also, he was anxious, without frightening her too much, to impress upon her the great necessity for being on her guard, a task which, he knew, required both tact and delicacy.
Altogether, Stanislas felt that he had a difficult business before him. He was very desirous that Mrs. Nugent should leave Chuzenji without delay. He intended to use all his powers of persuasion to convince her of the necessity for such a step, and although he was prepared for many objections, he little reckoned on the total failure of his mission.
Pearl's steering was erratic, and her startled eyes looked brighter and bigger than ever, while she listened in silence to all de Güldenfeldt had to tell her. Hearing these distressing details was a truly dreadful ordeal to her. At each word Stanislas let drop, Pearl felt as if a knife was being thrust into her breast. For, if it were indeed true that Dick Martinworth were mad, Pearl instinctively knew that she alone was the cause of that madness. And as Stanislas' grave, calm words fell upon her ears, and the ghastly truth flashed upon her, that she--Pearl Nugent--had driven a man insane for love of her, she wept silently from very bitterness of soul.
So this was the sole result of her strivings, her flight of three years ago, her struggle for respectability and for virtue. So this--the mental collapse of a man, once famous for his brilliant intellect, once noted for his calm impartial judgments--was the climax, to what she in her self-satisfied pride, had been wont to consider a fairly successful victory over manifold temptations, a triumph of entire self-control. It was but now, in obtaining cognizance of his supposed insanity, that Pearl fully appreciated the passionate, yet self-sacrificing nature of Martinworth's devotion. She realised at that moment, that it was this actual act of self-renunciation that had caused the present state of things, the unhinging of that once powerful mind. Her frame shook as this thought was brought home to her. That look of yesterday--everything--seemed to be explained in those three words, "He is mad." He was mad. And she told herself that it was she--Pearl Nugent--by her self-righteous, cold, calm virtue and superiority, who had driven him insane.
She looked out her eyes wide open with dumb misery, at the blue expanse of water before her. Her hand was leaning on the tiller, but she did not move it. De Güldenfeldt watching her tears, partly read and understood the remorse and agony of mind through which she was passing.
He touched her with his hand.
"Don't take it so hardly, dear," he said. "I daresay he will get all right again. Indeed, Nicholson thinks him so now, and you must remember, he is the only one of us who has seen him since this awful thing happened. Don't you think you had better go away for a little, Pearl, until all this has blown over? You will get ill again if you worry so, if you take things so much to heart."
"Go away? What should I go away for? Where would you have me go?"
"Oh, up North,--anywhere. The Rawlinsons and I would of course, accompany you. You must get out of this place. You will get ill again. You badly want a change, Pearl."
"I want a change, when I have not been here a month? No! I have no intention of moving for the present. I am not ill, Stanislas. I am quite well. All I implore is not to be bothered--to be left in peace."