“Well,” she said, with a quivering sigh, “we can’t complain; and I don’t. It is not often a woman is given such an education for the natural evil in her. I think it teaches me to welcome the punishment I have striven so hard to avoid. I shall be clean at last in my shame. Let me be the one to confess it to him, that I may drink the cup to its dregs. My suffering after all is worse than yours.”
“Is it? Why?”
“Cannot you guess? Because I have learned to love him, Herbert, with all my heart and soul, and because I must kill before his eyes the thing he has honoured.”
“Kill! you don’t mean—”
“O, don’t look so scared! That would be a hateful, a selfish return for all his gentleness and nobility—to curse my love with a heritage of undeserved remorse. But I must kill his trust for ever—O, my dear, I must, I must!”
In sudden uncontrollable anguish she threw herself into her chair, and flinging her arms over the desk, buried her face in them.
In the meantime Gilead, returning to his chambers, set himself to concoct an epistle, at once guarded and alluring, to the obese one. It was a delicate task, and one or two trials were needed before he could satisfy himself as to the suitable form. This, finally, was the answer he despatched:—
“Mr George Barnwell” (the name occurred to him somehow, without suggesting any associations) “presents his compliments to Mr Winsom Wyllie, and, having noticed that gentleman’s advertisement in the Daily Post, begs to offer himself as a candidate for the post in question. Mr G. B. thinks that he may lay claim to the qualifications desired. He has been well educated; he has seen something of life; he has learnt from his Montaigne that Silence and Modesty are qualities very serviceable in conversation. Finally, he may boast, he believes, of being capable of his hands, and he is quite willing to refer the question of the honorarium to the test of his capacities.”
He gave his address poste-restante at the nearest office, and settled down to await in some trepidation, the possible reply.
Likely enough none would arrive. A berth which, though only temporary, offered itself so easy and so uncompromising, must attract hundreds of those poor out-at-elbows gentilities who were for ever prowling in search of such occupations as their respectable inexpertness could stomach. It shamed Gilead to think of his seeking to take the bread out of the mouth of any poverty so mean and forlorn; only his sense of desperate necessity urged him into competition with it. It were surely better that one pride should hunger than that a villain should go unmasked, a problematic murderer be allowed to pursue his nefarious course with impunity.