The struggle was a terrible one, but discretion in the end triumphed, and Eleanor submitted herself to the guidance of her devoted slave and ally. She knew now that Launcelot Darrell was guilty; but she had known that from the moment in which she had seen him lounging in the Windsor street. The task that lay before her was to procure such proof as must be convincing to the old man. In spite of her impetuous desire for immediate action, Eleanor was compelled to acknowledge that the testimony of the sketch-book was not strong enough in itself to condemn Launcelot Darrell.
The young man’s answer to any accusation brought against him on such evidence would be simple enough.
Nothing could be easier than for him to say, “My name is not Robert Lance. The drawing abstracted by unfair means from my portfolio is not mine. I am not responsible for the actions of the man who made that sketch.”
And against this simple declaration there would be nothing but Eleanor’s unsupported assertion of the identity between the two men.
There was nothing to be done, then, except to follow Richard Thornton’s advice, and wait.
This waiting was very weary work. Estranged from her husband by the secret of her life; unhappy in the society of Laura Mason, against whose happiness she felt that she was, in a manner, plotting; restrained and ill at ease even in the familiar companionship of Eliza Picirillo,—Eleanor Monckton wandered about the great rambling mansion which had become her home, restless and unhappy, yearning with a terrible impatience for the coming of the end, however dark that end might be. Every day, and often more than once in the course of the day, she locked herself in her room, and opened the desk in which she kept Launcelot Darrell’s sketches and her dead father’s last letter. She looked at these things almost as if she feared that by some diabolical influence they might be taken from her before they had served as the instruments of her revenge. So the weary days wore themselves out. The first week of Richard’s visit; the second week of Richard’s visit passed by; the middle of February came, and nothing more had been done.
Eleanor’s health began to suffer from the perpetual mental fever of anxiety and impatience. Her husband saw her day by day growing thinner and paler; a hectic flush crimsoned her cheek now at every trifling agitation, with every surprise, however insignificant; but, except for these transient flushes, her face was as colourless as marble.
Her husband saw this, and made himself miserable because of the change in his young wife. He made himself still more wretched by reason of those unworthy doubts and suspicions that were for ever torturing him. “Why was Eleanor ill? Why was she unhappy?” He asked himself this latter question a thousand times a day, and always answered it more or less after the same fashion.
She was unhappy because of the swiftly approaching marriage between Laura Mason and Launcelot Darrell. She had opposed that marriage with all the power she possessed. She had over-estimated her own fortitude when she sacrificed her love for the young artist to her desire to win a brilliant position.
“Why should she be different from other women?” the lawyer thought. “She has married me for my money, and she is sorry for what she has done, and perhaps upon the eve of poor Laura’s wedding day, there will be a repetition of the scene that took place at Lausanne nearly twenty years ago.” This was the manner of meditation to which Mr. Monckton abandoned himself when the black mood was upon him.