"We had better not stay here," he suggested. "We can see and hear too much. Do you know, I feel as if, in a measure, I have thrust this black humiliation and disgrace upon you. I feel hot and cold all over that I should even be discussing the thing with one so young and innocent as yourself."
"And why?" Ethel said. "I am not a child. I have heard of these things before, though I never dreamt that I should live to see the like of this at Alton Lee."
"It is like a romance," Charlock laughed bitterly. "What puppets we are in the hands of Fate! And I thought once that I was a strong man capable of defying the world and shaping my own destiny. I daresay you will say that it is my own fault, and perhaps you will be right. I don't know why I should be talking to you like this. But the peacefulness of the night and the look of sympathy in your eyes invite my confidence. But I will swear to you that if I could have foreseen that this honourable old family would be disgraced in this fashion, I would never have let my home go. I would have worked all the harder to gratify my wife's extravagance. I would have made it worth her while to stay. Perhaps I was too candid, too brutal. Do you suppose she would have left me as she did if she had come back the other night and found the homestead intact? Oh, dear, no. With all her air of purity and sweetness, my wife always had a shrewd sense of business and self-interest."
"Yet you loved her once," Ethel murmured.
"My dear young lady, I love her now. She has only to say one word and the whole past is forgotten. It may seem strange to you, brought up as you have been, that a man should love a woman for whom he has the deepest contempt. But there are many such cases in the world. Call it madness, call it fascination—anything you like. It is possible for a man to love a woman devotedly and yet not to speak to her, though she is under the same roof as himself. That has been my case during the last four years. I have despised myself for my weakness—I, who in other matters can be so strong. I am a self-contained man, and five years ago I thought I had found paradise. Then it began slowly to dawn upon me that I had made a mistake. There was sweetness and melancholy and fascination in my wife's smiling face, but no atom of sympathy behind it. She had no feeling for me. She had no kind of pride in my work. Even when she began to hang the millstone of debt about my neck she had no concern, though on more than one occasion I was on the verge of a breakdown. But I don't ask you to take all these things for granted. I don't even ask you to believe me. You will know my wife later, and it is probable that she will convince you that I am a brute and a boor and not fit to mix with decent people."
Ethel made no reply. There was something in this man's grim tones that moved her strongly. Someone was coming from the house. She could hear footsteps on the gravel. Then the light from the drawing-room windows fell upon the face of a woman who was slowly crossing the lawn. Her features were serene and beautiful. Her eyes glistened with heavy tears. It was only for a moment that Ethel saw the vision before it vanished in the shadows. The girl felt Charlock's hand tighten on her arm.
"My wife," he said hoarsely. "She has come out to leave her lover and his mother alone. Did you see her face?"
"Indeed I did," Ethel murmured. "The beauty of it! And such an air and expression of sweetness and resignation I never saw before. It seems impossible to believe——"
"I see you pause," Charlock said grimly. "I know exactly what you are going to say. It does seem impossible. Before God, it seems to me sometimes that it is impossible and that I am only dreaming. It would go hard with me if we both stood before a jury of our countrymen and she told her tale after I had finished mine. But I won't say more. I will leave you to judge for yourself. You have seen us both, and you must rely upon your own instincts. I won't ask you to give any verdict, because I feel sure it will be against me."
"I am very, very sorry," Ethel murmured.