The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

“He never said a word,” exclaimed Edith. “No, not even in that scene when we parted, and he might so easily have used what he knew to hurt me. Oh! he is different to us all—he is different.”

“Quite so, and that is why I wished you to marry him. Also, then as now he was going to get the title and the property, and, unnatural creature though you think me to be, I had, as it happened, a wish that you should share those temporalities. Indeed I have it still, and that is why I desire and implore that you should make it up with Rupert if he is still living. Listen, Edith!” he went on earnestly, “you are still a beautiful and admired woman, but you are now well past your youth, and soon the admirers will fall away and you haven’t many real friends, and can’t marry anyone else to protect and look after you. So I suggest that for your own sake you should take refuge with a husband in whom you yourself admit that there is much to esteem. Edith, my days are almost done; it is very probable that I shall have no further opportunity of talking to you upon this or any other subject. I urge you therefore as one who, being responsible for your presence in the world, has your welfare most earnestly at heart, to promise me that you will make inquiries, and if you find that Rupert is living, as I believe, that you will go to him, for he will certainly not come to you, and ask his pardon for the past. Will you do it?”

“I—think so,” she answered slowly, “and yet, after all that has been—oh! how can I? And how will he receive me?”

“I am not sure,” answered Lord Devene. “Were I in his place, I know how I should receive you,” he added, with a grim little laugh, “but Rupert is a forbearing creature. The trouble is that he may have formed other ties. All I can suggest is that you should be patient and try to work upon his feelings and sense of duty. Now I have said all I can, and shall say no more who have other things to think of. You have made your own bed, Edith, and if you can’t re-make it, you must lie on it as it is, that’s all. Good-bye.”

She rose and held out her hand.

“Before you go,” he said, with a nervous little clearing of the throat,—“it seems weak I know, but I should like to hear you say that you forgive me, not about the Rupert business, for there I am sure I did the best I could for you, but for bringing you into this world at all. So far, I admit, whoever’s the fault may be, you do not seem to have made a great success of it, any more than I have. As you know, I am troubled by no form of the common superstitions of our age, holding as I do that we are the purest accidents, born like gnats from the life-creating influences of sun and air and moisture, developed out of matter and passing back into matter, to live again as matter, whereof our intellect is but a manifestation, and no more. Still I cannot help acknowledging, after many years of observation, that there does seem to be some kind of fate which influences the affairs of men, and at times brings retribution on them for their follies and mistakes. If that is so, Edith, it is this fate which you should blame,” and the old man looked at her almost appealingly.

“No,” she answered, in a cold voice. “Once I remember, when I did not know that you were my father, I told you that I loved you—I suppose that the kinship of our blood prompted me. Now when I know how close that kinship is, and in what way it came about, by the disgrace of my mother during the life-time of her husband, I love you no more. It is not the fate that I blame, but you, you—its instrument, who were free to choose the better part.”

“So be it,” replied Lord Devene quietly. “Apply those words to your own life, Edith, and by them let it be judged as you have judged me.”

Then they parted.

Edith kept her promise. Going to a great lawyer, famous for his investigations of difficult matters, she told him merely that rumours had reached her to the effect that her husband, who for many years had been supposed to be dead, was in reality alive in the Soudan, or in its bordering desert, and suggested that he should put himself in communication with Lord Southwick and the Egyptian authorities with the object of ascertaining the truth, and if necessary send someone out to Egypt. The lawyer made notes, said that the matter should be followed up, and that he would keep her advised as to the results of his inquiries. Thereupon Edith, who, after their last bitter and tragic interview, did not wish to see anything more at present of the man whom she must believe to be her father, left town, as indeed it was her custom to do during the month of August, and went away to Scotland. When she had been there nearly six weeks, she received one morning a telegram from Lady Devene, which was dated from Grosvenor Square and read: