CHAPTER XXIV.
I ACCEPT THE BURDEN OF PROOF
Henceforth the chase runs on, swift and relentless; and I give myself, with a fierce joy, to lead it over rocks and wounding briars, since it will drive me where by justice I should follow. Hounded and harassed of all the world, save in the instance of its two dear loyalest hearts, I turn at bay at length, and fight the bitter quarrel to an end. Then, though I lose, my persecutors shall bear for ever the marks of that affray, while I—while I am healing of my wounds in Avalon. When all is done, mine, I think, shall be the sweeter solace.
All that morning following the interview, I waited, in a conflict of emotions, for the hour of my appointment with Lord Skene. I would not doubt its upshot—and yet I doubted. It seemed incredible that I could have come so far to win so little. Was he so obsessed, so infatuated a spouse, that all other interests were subordinated in his mind to the one passion of uxoriousness? I believe indeed that that was the case. So he only might recover his beautiful partner, all less importunate pleas for restitution were as the silence of the dead to him. He would subscribe to any conditions, would do, or leave undone, whatever appeared to speed him to that amorous conclusion.
And what about the dead? Alas! a yearning for their reincarnation is always, I fear, the most artificial of sentiments. A re-embodied spirit would be the last to find a welcome in his old place. His effect upon the laws of property would be so destructive, would it not? his claims on our maturer sympathies, such an anachronism and a bore? Jerusalem, I think, must have been deeply relieved when its wandering dead lay down again.
Now, I was in the very act of starting for the house, when I saw the figure of his lordship himself coming briskly over the snow towards me—and from the direction of the road. I paused, in some astonishment, to await him. Already, I think, a premonition of the truth was foreclosing on me. There was an indescribable air of elation in his face, pink with exercise, and in his sprightly step and the almost imperceptible cock of his hat. Could this be the collapsed and stricken soul from whom I had parted not so many hours ago? A sort of desperate effrontery seized me.
“You have come from Market Grazing, sir?” I said as he reached me. “Well, that was against my advice.”
The roses in his cheeks deepened, I could have thought, to damask. But he was full of good humour, and would not be put out of it.
“Pooh!” he said, with a little embarrassed laugh; and, taking my arm, walked me slowly up the path through the woods. “You have established a claim to some licence, Gaskett; but you must remember that advice is not prescription.”
“I am glad, at least, you admit the claim, sir. It would appear a more gracious admission, perhaps, if you were to address me less formally.”
He turned to look at me with an odd expression of challenge, or, it might be, propitiation.