A new light came into his eyes, and he looked more like the Leicester of old, Leicester at his best. For a moment dark passions were dispelled by something higher, purer; the sunshine of joy rested upon him, but only for a moment.
"No," he cried, "that's all gone. I'll see the thing through to the end. Besides, it is not I whom she loves. It is a rich foreigner, a partner in the Great Tripoli Company, a Signor Ricordo, a man with an Italian father and a Moorish mother. Radford Leicester is nothing to her; she said so. She declared she could never marry him; ay, and in spite of her promise to him, she is willing to marry Ricordo. A woman's promise! Byron was right, in spite of all canting moralists. A woman's fidelity is like thistledown, and her promises are written in the sands.
"I wonder why that woman is so happy?" he went on presently. "A lonely widow, she has lost her husband, and her son was killed in the war, and yet she is happy. Her faith is strong, she has no fear. Of course she's simple, and she's ignorant; but if she's happy—great God, what does all our learning amount to? What is the value of all this culture of which we boast? She might have known all about me in telling that story of Aaron Goudge, for, after all, the motives of that sullen blackguard were quite as high as mine. Liddicoat wronged him and he tried to murder him. Olive Castlemaine wronged me, and I have brooded over something which is really worse than murder. He had his way, and then lived in torments; and supposing I have my way, what shall I be the better? Oh, what a bitter mockery life is!"
He strode along the valley which he had entered, and then, climbing the hill before him, came upon a long stretch of waste land.
"She told me she loved me," he went on; "told me that, in spite of struggle, her heart went out to me; told me, that while she feared me, she was never happy unless I was near; ay, and she told me, that although her promise never to marry seemed binding when she thought of others, it seemed to become less and less real when she thought of me. Well, why can't I be happy? Why can't I keep up my character, and live in happiness with her? She loves me, and I—no, I don't—I hate her still—yes, I hate her more than ever!"
But evidently he was not satisfied. The simple farmwoman had started him off on a new train of thought.
"'Nothing is ever worth doing wrong for; it never was, and it never will be.' Who said that? It's true after all. We may sneer at right and wrong, we may say that right and wrong alter with different peoples, different countries, but they remain; yes, and right is heaven, and wrong is hell. And I know enough of life to have learnt that hate means black night. The joy of it is devil's joy, only to turn to bitterness and gall. What is revenge, after all, but going to hell yourself in order to drag some one else there? And that's what I've been thinking of. But if I don't, what then? Let me think of that now; but no, I won't. I'm not one who vows to do a thing, and then throws it over lightly."
The sun began to lower, and the air grew cooler. The sweet, fresh air of the moors fanned his brow, and it seemed to bring healthier thoughts to him.
"Winfield refused to stay with me as my guest, when he knew what was in my heart," he said, "and Winfield does not profess to be a saint; he's only just a clean-minded, honest fellow. Was he right, I wonder? Why, after all, can't I be happy? Let me think now; yes, I will think it out. Suppose I give up my scheme of revenge; suppose I go away and leave my plans unrealised. Not that I am going to do it; but suppose, for the sake of argument, that I did, what then? I should never see her again, and she would think of me as an Eastern adventurer who proposed to her, and then was obliged to leave the neighbourhood because he feared the law or something of that sort. Never see her again!"
He stopped in his walk as though some unseen force barred the way.