“Don’t tell me any more!” she exclaimed, in a low, almost threatening voice. “I know the rest. You did it yourself, Sir Francis. You killed him—you murdered him in the dark: and he was the noblest, sweetest, most generous of men, and never harmed a human being! Can nothing make you feel that you have been wicked? And you tried to kill him once before—yes! that night of the thunderstorm. A man like you has no right to die! You ought to live forever, and have no rest!”
“Well, my dear,” said the baronet, not seeming to feel much emotion, “Providence is more merciful than you are, though not so just, I dare say: it doesn’t give a man earthly immortality on account of his sins. You see, I can’t feel as shocked at myself as you do; I’ve known myself so long, I’ve got used to it. And if you would think over my crimes, quietly, for the next twenty years or so, maybe you’d not be so anxious to have me damned. We are what we are, and some of us have bad luck into the bargain. That’s all! I’m glad you found me out, however you did it; for I don’t believe I should have had the pluck to confess I killed him, when it came to the point. It was a dirty piece of business; and if it hadn’t been for ... one thing, I was just as likely to put the bullet into my own heart as his. But,” continued the dying man, by a great effort raising himself in his bed, and lifting his arms, while the blood rushed to his face, making it dark and lurid, “but when I knew that in taking his life I had been led on to take the life of my own darling boy—that I loved a thousand times more than I hated anybody else—by the living God, I could have murdered Grantley over again, out of revenge!”
These are the last words known to have been uttered by Sir Francis Bendibow. He became unconscious soon after, and died the same afternoon. They were terrible words; and yet, when Marion recalled them long afterwards, it seemed to her that there might be, perhaps, something in them indicative of a moral state less abjectly depraved than was suggested by his previous half-complacent apathy.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE morning after Bendibow’s death, Merton Fillmore sent word to the Marquise Desmoines that he would call upon her that evening, if she found it convenient to receive him. She returned answer that she would expect him.
Ever since her parting with Philip Lancaster, the Marquise had kept herself secluded. After such an experience, even she needed time to draw her breath and look about her. It was more like defeat than anything else that had ever happened to her. It was defeat in fact, if not altogether in form. She had, whether consciously or unconsciously, shaped all her course and purpose to the end of being loved by Philip; and he did not love her. Nothing could disguise that truth: and it was additionally embittered by the discovery, almost unexpected to herself, that she not only preferred him to other men, but that she loved him, and that he was the only man she ever had loved. She had allowed him to perceive this, and the perception had failed to kindle in him a response. No doubt, she had assumed on the instant the semblance of cool indifference; she had divined her failure almost before she had made it; she had listened to his reply with a smile, and had dismissed him with defiance; but, after all, she knew in her inmost heart that she had been worsted; and whether Philip were as intimately conscious of it, or were conscious of it at all, made little difference. She had offered him more than any woman can offer with impunity, and he had professed himself unable to accept it.
After he left her, she was for a time supported by the ardor of defiant anger, which made her feel as if she had never been conquered,—had scarcely begun to fight, indeed: and had illimitable reserves of strength still to draw upon. But when this mood had flamed itself out, she began to realize how little her strength and resources could avail her. She had no longer any object to contend for. She had lost the day, and, no matter what her vigor and courage might be, the day in which she might redeem herself would never dawn. Philip was, to all intents and purposes, exanimate; and she might as hopefully strive, by dint of her beauty and brilliance, to restore life to a corpse from the hospital, as to stimulate Philip to feel even so much emotion toward her as would make him care whether she loved him or hated him. The shock of Marion’s loss, and the self-revelation it had wrought in him, had put him above or below the reach of other feelings. He had collapsed; and it was this collapse which had rendered him indomitable even by the Marquise Desmoines.
What was left to her? The injury was too deep not to demand requital. But how could she avenge herself on Philip? What could she make him suffer that he was not already suffering? His life was broken up: he had lost his wife and his place in the world,—for she knew Philip well enough to be aware that it would be a long while (if ever) before a man of his organization would be able to renew his relations with society. Surely hatred itself could not pursue him further. There was nothing to be done.
And yet to do nothing was intolerable to Perdita: she could have borne anything else better. Inaction gnawed her heart and made her existence bitter. But what could she do? Should she kill him? No: life could hardly be so dear to him as to make that worth while. Should she kill herself? That, indeed, was as likely as anything else to put an end to her unrest: but should she allow Philip to imagine that she had died for love of him? She laughed, and shook her head. It was while she was in this mood that Fillmore’s letter came, mentioning Bendibow’s death. The news interested her, for she fancied it might in some way bear upon the subject that possessed her thoughts. She awaited his arrival with impatience.
He came punctually, as usual; but his face and demeanor, as he entered the room, were singularly reserve and sombre. The Marquise, if she noticed this at all (and it would be hard to say what a woman like her does not notice), laid it to the account of the death-scene at which he had been present. As for herself, she felt no regret, and was not in the vein to express what she did not feel. She greeted the lawyer coolly and briefly, and went at once to the subject.