Mrs. Rent could only look at her son with troubled eyes.
"It is very strange how perverse women are," Arnold went on. "One would almost think you are wilfully misunderstanding me. Do you realise how much the woman sacrifices, and how little the man gives in return? It has always been a fancy of yours to regard me as a saint. Let me tell you now that I am nothing of the sort. When I first saw Mrs. Charlock, when I first understood how unhappy she was in her domestic life, when I found what that woman really was, it was a revelation to me, and from that moment I laid aside all my selfish aims and ambitions, and I was prepared to make any sacrifice to save her from trouble and affliction. She is good and pure as Ethel Hargrave, and I want you to befriend her for her own sake, if not for mine. To all intents and purposes, Charlock has deserted her. He has been guilty of legal cruelty by turning her out of the house and compelling her either to leave him or to degrade herself by menial work. His next folly will give her the chance of appealing to the law to release her altogether. And then I shall be in a position to make her my wife."
"Mistress of Alton Lee?" Mrs. Rent stammered.
A gleam came into Rent's eyes. There was something almost threatening in his attitude.
"Ay, I mean that," he murmured. "Nothing less. And the sooner you understand it the better."
CHAPTER XXIII
BEHIND THE VEIL
In the purple stillness of the night, Kate Charlock could hear all that was taking place in the drawing-room. It did not occur to Arnold or his mother that there was any chance of the cause of all the trouble playing the eavesdropper. Indeed, the whole situation was so strange, so full of dramatic surprises, that it was impossible to think of anything but the word and the moment.
Kate Charlock had come back to herself with a start as her husband's name was flung at her, so to speak, from the drawing-room. Thitherto she had been listening in a vague sort of way, her mind too full of plans for the future to take much heed. Even now she had not given everything up for lost. She followed with satisfaction Mrs. Rent's declaration of what might happen if only the object of Arnold's infatuation proved to be anything like the woman he declared her to be. It would not be difficult to break down this wall of opposition when she was Arnold's wife. On the whole, it was worth while to take the risk. The struggle might be a long one. On the other hand, Kate Charlock remembered that perpetual dropping wears away the stone. It would be no fault of hers if she were not mistress of Alton Lee at the end of a year. Doubtless she would eat the hard bread of adversity in the interval. But the milk and honey to come would make up for all that. Surely a place like Alton Lee was cheaply bought at the price of a year's poverty.
Then the edifice suddenly crumbled and broke as John Charlock's name was mentioned. There was no mistaking the significance of Mrs. Rent's words. At that very moment Charlock was under the same roof as his wife. But why had he come? What scheme lay at the back of his mind? It seemed impossible he had come to fetch her away. For a moment it flashed across the woman's mind that Charlock had journeyed to Devonshire hot-foot for revenge. He was just the kind of man to shoot Arnold Rent and then take his own life. He would probably leave a long statement behind him detailing his troubles from his own point of view—the sort of statement that the press glories in and publishes in prominent type. If that happened, then, indeed, would she be a marked woman for the remainder of her days. The rest of her years would be spent like those of the heroine of the Scarlet Letter.