Lydia died after a week's illness. "I don't want to live with marks on my face," she had said. "What should I do, grown ugly? but you have been better than most men would have been." She had no qualms about her soul, and no longing for her mother. She had no violent affection for any one or anything, except, perhaps, her own beautiful body, which had been spoilt by the marks on it. If George Sauls had been a poor man, he would not have been troubled with her.
George experienced none of the terrible remorse that the preacher would have felt in like circumstances; but, nevertheless, while he stood by Lydia's grave, he made some resolutions which he kept.
Probably, in any case, the stronger qualities of the man, the intense ambition, and keen pleasure in work, the sweetening affection for the mother and sister he pulled up with him, would have asserted themselves, and kept his coarser qualities in subjection as he grew older; but the episode of Lydia and the hours spent beside her bedside ripened him fast. He made an end of the sowing of wild oats. They didn't pay!
He had lived a clean life since; but Meg would not know that—and it was fifteen years ago!
George felt it unfair that so old a sin should rise up now to blacken his image in the mind of the woman he had the misfortune to love.
He had been surprised when he had first heard the name of Tremnell again; but Lydia's mother had never so much as seen him, and his name bore no association for her. He had changed it, on coming into money, and was Cohen-Sauls, instead of Cohen, now; and his cool assurance had carried him safely through the unexpected encounter. The difference between thirty-six and twenty-one was so wide that he hardly even felt self-conscious.
It was odd that the preacher should have recognised him. "The pious humbug!" said George between his teeth; "at least, my hands are cleaner than his! I never took advantage of her faith, though certainly I never had the chance. He'll draw a sweet picture of the wicked man for her; I shall point a moral to several sermons. If I might meet him this once, with no woman standing by, perhaps I might deliver a message too. Hallo, what's this?"
He had been walking quickly, not looking much at the flat landscape around him; but his eye was caught by a newly made fence round the "Pixies' Pool" which lay a little off the regular track.
Moved by curiosity, he turned towards it, and leaning his arms on the rail, stared down into the salt depths that had had such fascination for Meg.
Mr. Sauls was not in the least imaginative, but while thus engaged he had rather an odd sensation,—a sensation as if some one behind him were watching him; and he turned round sharply.