Elizabeth realized that she had gone too far to refuse Clavering a meeting, nor, in fact, did she desire to avoid him. Her feelings toward him had become more and more chaotic; they did not remain the same for an hour together. She felt that a powerful blow had been dealt her objection to marrying him in the removal of the divorce question; she doubted in her heart whether she ever could have been brought to the point of marrying him had his wife not died.
And then there had been another interview with McBean. He had told Elizabeth he was about to leave Washington to be absent a month, as he was combining pleasure with business on his visit to America, but that on his return, if the necklace were not forthcoming, he should begin legal proceedings immediately. Mr. McBean was fully persuaded, while he was talking to Elizabeth, that the necklace was around her neck, under her high gown, or in her pocket, or in a secret drawer of her writing-desk—in any one of those strange places where women keep their valuables. Elizabeth, in truth, did not know whether the necklace was in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia.
Then Baskerville, in spite of the crisis in his own affairs, had not neglected Elizabeth. He had managed to see McBean, and had discovered that the solicitor was perfectly justified in all he had done, from the legal point of view. When Baskerville came to inquire how far Major Pelham was responsible for what was done, he was met by an icy reticence on the part of Mr. McBean, who replied that Baskerville was asking unprofessional questions, and in embarrassment Baskerville desisted. It became clear, however, and Baskerville so wrote to Elizabeth, that her concealment of the pawning of the necklace, and her inability to pay back the money she had raised on it, were very serious matters, and she should at once lay the matter before her father.
Elizabeth, however, had not been able to bring herself to that. She thought of all sorts of wild alternatives, such as asking Clavering to lend her the money; but her soul recoiled from that. She even considered writing another letter to Hugh Pelham; but at that, too, her heart cried aloud in protest. She did not know where Pelham was, but surmised that he was still in West Africa. A letter addressed to the War Office would reach him—but when?
The more she thought of this, the simplest of alternatives and the one urged by Baskerville, the more impossible it seemed. She had loved Pelham well—loved him with all her soul, her mind, her heart; and that, too, when she was a married woman, loving another than her husband, without the slightest stain of any sort upon her mind, her soul, her heart. She doubted if she would have been half so dutiful a wife, but for Pelham’s love for her and her love for him. It seemed to her that his respect was as necessary to her as her self-respect. Their unfortunate attachment had been in the highest sense elevating. It had not required the soft consolation, the assurances, of weaker passions; but, lofty and austere, it was as strong and as silent as death, it seemed to be everlasting. And could a thing seem to be for ten years of storm and stress and not be?
As Heinrich Heine says, it seemed to Elizabeth as if there were no longer a great God in heaven since he had made his creatures so deceitful. What agony was Elizabeth Darrell’s? To have failed in her duty as a wife would have been the surest way to lower herself in Pelham’s eyes.
Clavering had reckoned upon Elizabeth’s neither knowing nor appreciating the effect of the revelations about him; in this, however, he was mistaken. She had read the newspapers diligently and understood his affairs far better than Clavering dreamed. The case had made a tremendous sensation. The tragic circumstances of the catastrophe, the probable action of the Senate which was known in advance, the far-reaching scandals which would result from the making public of the findings, all combined to give the country a profound shock—a shock so profound that it was known it would seriously jeopardize for the party in power the states in which Clavering and his gang had operated.
Among public men in Washington the feeling was intense. The senators who from a combination of honesty and policy had advocated going to the bottom of the scandals and punishing everybody found guilty, were in the position of doctors who have successfully performed a hazardous operation, but are uncertain whether the patient will survive or not. There was no doubt that many criminal prosecutions would follow, but there was a general belief that Clavering was too able and resourceful a man, and had too much money, to be actually punished for the crimes he had undoubtedly committed. His real punishment was his expulsion from the Senate.
Elizabeth Darrell knew all these things, and turned them over in her mind until she was half distracted. Another thing, small to a man but large to a woman, tormented her. She must meet Clavering—but where? Not in her father’s house; that could only be done secretly, and she could not stoop to deceive her father. The only way she could think of was in the little park, far at the other end of the town, where their first momentous meeting had taken place. So, feeling the humiliation of what she was doing, Elizabeth replied to Clavering’s letter, and named a day—the day before the one set for the final proceedings in the Senate—when she would see him; and she named six o’clock in the afternoon, in the little out-of-the-way park.
It was March then of a forward spring. The day had been one of those sudden warm and balmy days which come upon Washington at the most unlikely seasons. Already the grass was green and the miles upon miles of shade trees were full of sap and the buds were near to bursting. Six o’clock was not quite dusk, but it was as late as Elizabeth dared to make her appointment. Her heart was heavy as she walked along the quiet, unfamiliar streets toward the park—as heavy as on that day, only a few months before, when she had returned to Washington after her widowhood. Then she had been oppressed with the thought that life was over for her, nothing interesting would ever again happen to her. And what had not happened to her!