O'Flaherty hesitated. The conversation was taking a strange turn, but he made up his mind to tell her the truth as far as he saw it. "I think," he said deliberately, "that it is very difficult for a man of great ability to be also a man of flawless character. He is probably tempted in a thousand ways which pass the less gifted nature by; on the other hand, his fate is much more in his own control. Berwick has come very well out of ordeals partly brought about by his own desire to succeed. Take his rather singular marriage."—the speaker looked straight before him—"Of course I well remember that episode in his life. Men marry every day for money, but Berwick conducted himself with propriety and dignity under extremely trying circumstances."
"Did you ever see her?"—there was a painful catch in Barbara's voice—"she was a friend, was she not, of Miss Berwick?"
"Hardly a friend—rather a worshipping acquaintance. No, I never saw Mrs. James Berwick. She was rather an invalid both before and after the marriage. I think she did a very wrong thing by her husband—one that may even yet have evil consequences. You are doubtless aware that in the event of Berwick's making a second marriage he loses the immense fortune his wife left to him."
"That, then, was what Miss Berwick meant when she said he could never marry." Barbara seemed to be speaking to herself, but the words fell on O'Flaherty's ear with an unpleasing significance. His mind made a sudden leap. Could Arabella be planning—oh! what a horrible suspicion concerning the woman he had once loved! But it came back again and again during the hour which followed. Had he not himself thought Miss Berwick was doing all in her power to throw her brother and Mrs. Rebell together?
He went on speaking, as if impelled to say what he really thought. "Well, such a thing as that is enough to test a man's character. From being a poor man, practically dependent on his uncle, Berwick became the owner of almost unlimited money, to the possession of which, however, was attached a clause which meant that in his case none of the normal conditions of a man's life could be fulfilled—no wife, no child, friendship with women perpetually open, as I know Berwick's more than once has been, to misconstruction."
"And yet other men—?" Barbara looked at him deprecatingly, "You yourself, Mr. O'Flaherty"—then she cried, "Forgive me! I have no right to say that to you!"
"Nay," he said, "I give you for the moment every right to say, to ask, what you like! I have no wife, no child, no home, Mrs. Rebell, because the woman I loved rejected me; and also because, though I have tried to like other women, I have failed. You see, it was not that I had made a mistake, such as men make every day, for she loved me too—that makes all the difference. She was in a different position to my own; I was very poor, and there was the further bar of my religion, even of my nationality"—he spoke with a certain difficulty. "At the time she acted as she thought best for both our sakes. But, whatever my personal experiences or motives for remaining unmarried may be, I have no doubt,—no doubt at all,—as to the general question. To my mind, James Berwick's friends must regret that he has never, apparently, been tempted to make the great sacrifice; and for my part, I hope the day will come when he will meet with a woman for whom he will think his fortune well lost, whom he will long to make his wife in a sense that the poor creature he married never was, and in whom he will see the future mother of his children." He paused, then added in a low voice, "In no other tie can such a man as he find permanent solace and satisfaction. If report speaks truly, he has more than once tried an alternative experiment."
He dared not look at her. They walked on in absolute silence.
At last she spoke, "Please say nothing of our walk round by Chancton Priory." And when, some hours later, there came a letter from Doctor McKirdy declaring that Madame Sampiero was not well, and longed for Mrs. Rebell's presence, Daniel O'Flaherty thought he understood. A pang of miserable self-reproach struck his heart and conscience. What right had he to have put this woman to the torture—to take on himself the part of Providence?
After they had all seen Barbara off, after he had noted her very quiet but determined rejection of Berwick's company on the way to Chancton Priory, Daniel O'Flaherty was in no mood to go for the walk to which Miss Berwick had been looking forward all that afternoon.