Four days later, little Dot was taken with a sudden illness. Ernest and Edie sat watching by her little cradle throughout the night, and saw with heavy hearts that she was rapidly growing feebler. Poor wee soul, they had nothing to keep her for: it would be better, perhaps, if she were gone; and yet, the human heart cannot be stifled by such calm deliverances of practical reason; it WILL let its hot emotions overcome the cold calculations of better and worse supplied it by the unbiassed intellect.
All night long they sat there tearfully, fearing she would not live till morning; and in the early dawn they sent round hastily for a neighbouring doctor. They had no money to pay him with, to be sure; but that didn’t much matter; they could leave it over for the present, and perhaps some day before long Ernest might write another social, and earn an honest three guineas. Anyhow, it was a question of life and death, and they could not help sending for the doctor, whatever difficulty they might afterwards find in paying him.
The doctor came, and looked with the usual professional seriousness at the baby patient. Did they feed her entirely on London milk? he asked doubtfully. Yes, entirely. Ah! then that was the sole root of the entire mischief. She was very dangerously ill, no doubt, and he didn’t know whether he could pull her through anyhow; but if anything would do it, it was a change to goat’s milk. There was a man who sold goat’s milk round the corner. He would show Ernest where to find him.
Ernest looked doubtfully at Edie, and Edie looked back again at Ernest. One thought rose at once in both their minds. They had no money to pay for it with, except—except that dreadful cheque. For four days it had lain, burning a hole in Ernest’s heart from its drawer by the window, and he had not dared to change it. Now he rose without saying a word, and opened the drawer in a solemn, hesitating fashion. He looked once more at Edie inquiringly; Edie nodded a faint approval. Ernest, pale as death, put on his hat, and went out totteringly with the doctor. He stopped on the way to change the cheque at the baker’s where they usually dealt, and then went on to the goat’s milk shop. How that sovereign he flung upon the counter seemed to ring the knell of his seif-respect! The man who changed it noticed the strangeness of Ernest’s look, and knew at once he had not come by the money honestly. He rang it twice to make sure it was good, and then gave the change to Ernest. But Dot, at least, was saved; that was a great thing. The milk arrived duly every morning for some weeks, and, after a severe struggle, Dot grew gradually better. While the danger lasted, neither of them dared think much of the cheque; but when Dot had got quite well again, Ernest was conscious of a certain unwonted awkwardness of manner in talking to Edie. He knew perfectly well what it meant; they were both accomplices in crime together.
When Ernest wrote his ‘social’ after Max Schurz’s affair, he felt he had already touched the lowest depths of degradation. He knew now that he had touched a still lower one. Oh! horrible abyss of self-abasement!—he had taken the blood-money. And yet, it was to save Dot’s life! Herbert was right, after all: quite right. Yes, yes, all hope was gone: the environment had finally triumphed.
In the awful self-reproach of that deadly remorse for the acceptance of the blood-money, Ernest Le Breton felt at last in his heart that surely the bitterness of death was past. It would be better for them all to die together than to live on through such a life of shame and misery. Ah, Peter, Peter, you are not the only one that has denied his Lord and Master!
And yet, Ernest Le Breton had only written part of a newspaper leader about a small revolt of the Bodahls. And he suffered more agony for it than many a sensitive man, even, has suffered for the commission of some obvious crime.
‘I say, Berkeley,’ Lancaster droned out in the lobby of their club one afternoon shortly afterwards, ‘what on earth am I ever to do about that socialistic friend of yours, Le Breton? I can’t ever give him any political work again, you know. Just fancy! first, you remember, I set him upon the Schurz imprisonment business, and he nearly went mad then because I didn’t back up Schurz for wanting to murder the Emperor of Russia. After that, just now the other day, I tried him on the Bodahl business, and hang me if he didn’t have qualms of conscience about it afterwards, and trudge back through all the snow that awful Tuesday, to see if he couldn’t induce Wilks to stop the press, and let him cut it all out at the last moment! He’s as mad as a March hare, you know, and if it weren’t that I’m really sorry for him I wouldn’t go on taking socials from him any longer. But I will; I’ll give him work as long as he’ll do it for me on any terms; though, of course, it’s obviously impossible under the circumstances to let him have another go at politics, isn’t it?’
‘You’re really awfully kind, Lancaster,’ Berkeley answered warmly. ‘No other fellow would do as much for Le Breton as you do. I admit he’s absolutely impracticable, but I would give more than I can tell you if only I thought he could be made to pull through somehow.’
‘Impracticable!’ the editor said shortly, ‘I believe you, indeed. Why, do you remember that ridiculous Schurz business? Well, I sent Le Breton a cheque for eight guineas for that lot, and can you credit it, it’s remained uncashed from that day to this. I really think he must have destroyed it.’