For Nita always closed the book when he approached, and laid it beside her in a manner which did not permit him to take it up.
‘It is the Imitatione Christi, Jerome; and I think she does like to be left with it,’ said Avice, abruptly.
The one other intimate visitor beside John Leyburn, was Father Somerville. Nita saw very little of him. She now never offered the slightest remark upon his visits, almost ignoring them. Both Jerome and Avice imagined that her dislike to him had merged into a neutral feeling. Somerville himself, and he alone, was conscious how completely he was held at arm’s length by the lady of the house, by the insignificant girl whom he had covertly sneered at many a time, even while he was advising Wellfield to marry her. He did not speak of it to anyone, but Nita’s treatment of himself galled him, and it is to be feared that his bosom was not inhabited solely by that angelic mildness, that indifference to all slights and injuries which Father Ravignac, at any rate, would have us believe animates the breast of every true Jesuit. Father Somerville had expected that Mrs. Wellfield would be unhappy; he had even taken active steps for making her unhappy, and he had expected that her unhappiness would cause her to take counsel with some one, perhaps with him, who so well knew how to invite confidence. But that unhappiness had had quite a different effect. It had transformed the ‘insignificant girl’ into a perfectly dignified, self-possessed woman–a very sad woman, certainly, but one who wore her crown of sorrow without cries or appeals–one whose grief was confessed, if at all, as between herself and her God–not to him, or to any like him. He was bitterly mortified, and while his keen insight told him the truth, he could not help admiring and wishing the more that he could gain any influence over her.
He had the more power over Jerome–a power which he valued, though he would as a matter of taste have preferred the other, since there was assuredly more glory in being able to influence a pure and exalted soul, than one weakened by selfishness and enervated by a feeling of self-contempt. He had not failed to probe Jerome Wellfield’s heart, as opportunity was afforded. One day, in a fit of almost intolerable remorse, when he had just heard the news of Sara’s having been at the point of death, and of her marriage with Falkenberg, and when, as it seemed to him, his wife was fading away before his eyes, consumed with her sorrow, Jerome had confessed–it could be called nothing else. The temptation of confiding in one whom he felt to be so much stronger and more self-sufficing–one whose hold on life and the things of life was so much firmer than his own, had proved too strong. Wellfield had told him the whole story of his love for Sara Ford–of his conduct towards her, and that, when he dared to think of it, he loved her yet. For a short time it gave him relief, then Somerville let him know, by degrees, that he had fastened a chain about his wrists–that he was, to a certain extent, in his power; he hinted, in short, that Mrs. Wellfield might take umbrage at the story, if it were related to her. Wellfield cursed his own weakness for a time, and soon began to long inexpressibly for some change of scene, however fleeting. He had deteriorated–that goes without saying. Deterioration–mental and moral–is as natural, as inevitable a consequence of a series of actions such as his had lately been, as the sequence of the seasons, the rhythm of seedtime and harvest, of reaping and garnering is inevitable, as, to use the hackneyed scripture, to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind is inevitable.
But of course the deterioration had scarcely yet begun visibly to manifest itself. His wife’s state had more influence with him than his own restless longings. His place was beside her–every voice of nature and of duty told him so, and he obeyed their mandate. The summer passed on. Nita did not expect her confinement until the end of October–and until that was over he must assuredly remain with her.
Things were, then, in this state at the beginning of October, when one of those things happened which do happen sometimes–little things in seeming, and which yet make grim sport with the greater things which seem of so much more importance.
A commercial house in Frankfort failed–a house with which Mr. Bolton’s firm had always done a large amount of business. A meeting of creditors was called, at which it was highly desirable that principals should be present. Wellfield wished to remain at home and let it pass, but Avice having incautiously spoken about it, Nita insisted, with a determination that was almost vehement, that he should go. It was ascertained that he could easily go and return in a week, and as a telegram requesting his presence came to add to the pressure, he went one morning in the first half of the month.
