“Your father wrote in a moment of desperation. I knew him. I knew George Vane. He would have forgiven his worst enemy. He was the last person to be vindictive or revengeful when his first anger was passed. What good end will be gained by my son’s disgrace? You shall not refuse to hear me. You are a wife, Eleanor Monckton: you may one day be a mother. If you are pitiless to me now, God will be pitiless to you then. You will think of me then. In every throb of pain your child may suffer; in every childish ailment that makes your heart grow sick with unutterable fear, you will recognize God’s vengeance upon you for this night’s work. Think of this, Eleanor; think of this, and be merciful to me—to me—not to him. What he would have to endure would be only a tithe of my suffering. I am his mother—his mother!”
“Oh, my God!” cried Eleanor, lifting her clasped hands above her head. “What am I to do?”
The hour of her triumph had come; and in this supreme moment doubt and fear took possession of her breast. If this was her victory, it was only half a victory. She had never thought that any innocent creature would suffer more cruelly by her vengeance upon Launcelot Darrell than the man himself would suffer. And now, here was this woman, whose only sin had been an idolatrous love of her son, and to whom his disgrace would be worse than the anguish of death.
The widow’s agony had been too powerful for the girl’s endurance. Eleanor burst into a passion of tears, and turning to her husband, let her head fall upon his breast.
“What am I to do, Gilbert?” she said. “What am I to do?”
“I will not advise you, my dear,” the lawyer answered, in a low voice. “To-night’s business is of your own accomplishing. Your own heart must be your only guide.”
There was silence in the room for a few moments, only broken by Eleanor’s sobbing. Launcelot Darrell had covered his face with his hands. His courage had given way before the power of his mother’s grief. The widow still knelt, still clung about the girl, with her white face fixed now, in an awful stillness.
“Oh, my dear, dead father!” Eleanor sobbed, “you—you did wrong yourself sometimes; and you were always kind and merciful to people. Heaven knows, I have tried to keep my oath; but I cannot—I cannot. It seemed so easy to imagine my revenge when it was far away: but now—it is too hard—it is too hard. Take your son, Mrs. Darrell. I am a poor helpless coward. I cannot carry out the purpose of my life.”
The white uplifted face scarcely changed, and the widow fell back in a heap upon the floor. Her son and Gilbert Monckton lifted her up and carried her to a chair in one of the open windows. Richard Thornton dropped on his knees before Eleanor, and began to kiss her hands with effusion.
“Don’t be frightened, Nelly,” he exclaimed. “I was very fond of you once, and very unhappy about you, as my poor aunt can bear witness; but I am going to marry Eliza Montalembert, and we’ve got the carpets down at the snuggest little box in all Brixton, and I’ve made it up with Spavin and Cromshaw in consideration of my salary being doubled. Don’t be frightened if I make a fool of myself, Eleanor; but I think I could worship you to-night. This is your victory, my dear. This is the only revenge Providence ever intended for beautiful young women with hazel-brown hair. God bless you!”