“Can nothing be done to keep it from Cecil?”
“Nothing. It is the only heritage I leave him and he’ll have to stand it as best he can. It won’t kill him, nor his courage; he’s made of stronger stuff than that. And if I’ve brought the family honour to the dust, he has it in him to raise it higher than it has ever been. Never let him forget that. You’ve played your part well all along, but you’ve a great deal more to do yet. You’ll find that Fate didn’t steer you into this family to play the pretty rôle of countess——”
“I am equal to my part.”
“Yes: I think you are. Now—I have an hour’s work before me. I can’t let you go till I have finished. You are a strong creature—but you are a woman, all the same. You must stay here until I am ready to let you go.”
“I want to stay with you.”
“Thank you. Sit down.”
He handed her a chair, and returned to his writing.
Lee knew that if he had condemned her to the corridor under a vow of secrecy she should have paced up and down with increasing nervousness. But she felt calm enough beside him. He wrote deliberately, with a steady hand, and out of the respect he commanded she felt as profound a pity for him as she would feel when she stood beside him in the crypt. The soul had already gone out of him: it did not even strike her as eerie that the vigorous body beside her would demand its last rites in an hour.
Although taught to forgive her father, she had been brought up in a proper disapprobation of suicide. The impressions rooted in her plastic years rose and possessed her for a moment: but she wisely refused to consider what was none of her business. She did not even argue Lord Barnstaple’s case, nor remind herself that she understood him. It was exclusively his own affair, and to approve or condemn him was equally impertinent.
Her chair faced the window. The crystal moon hung low above the park. The woods looked old and dark: night gave them back their mystery. The lovely English landscape was steeped in the repose which the centuries had given it. The great forests and terrible mountains of California may have been born in earlier throes, but they still brooded upon the mysteries of the future. England was worn down to peace and calm by centuries of passing feet. She had the repose of a great mind in the autumn of its years.