“One moment. You are right, James. I could not. I acted for the best, so far as I could see my way. I listened to my hopes. It was important that I should do something to interest her in—in our life together. There were reasons, serious reasons, into which I cannot now enter. Her life at Southover. . . . She was not happy, she was not contented. She could not be.”
James had now nothing to say. He frowned, to conceal his pain. John spoke on slowly, as if labouring both words and breath.
“I have failed her—I have failed her. And since that—I have held out my hands, tried to speak. I am dumb before her youth and eager life. I love her dearly, I need her—but she cannot know it, will never know it. Experience is what she cries for, not of the mouth, but of the heart and blood. I have no blood to give her, and my heart is in a cage.” He spoke calmly, with the icy breath of despair upon his mouth; but it was to be seen that his thin frame trembled. . . . “A barrier grew up between us, not made with hands. Fate made her speak when I was at my lowest; it called me to listen when she was made strong by need. Since then she has respected me through fear; loved me by duty. I should have charmed her fears away, made love her food. Alas! You know that I have failed—from the very first.”
What could the other say? What could he do but bow his head?
“. . . I have endeavoured not to be selfish in this serious matter. It would have been easy for me to have kept her in the country; a plausible thing—it was implied when I took her. But I was not able to do that. The idea of the sacrifice of one so salient and strong, so well-disposed, with so much charm, was abhorrent to me. Deliberately, knowing full well what risks I ran, I chose for this Parliamentary work; and now I have, under my eyes, the result which I feared—the snares are all about her; she cannot walk without danger. And I must watch, and be dumb.”
He sat bitterly silent for a while. Then his eyes flamed, and he struck the table with his closed hand.
“Nobody shall take her from me. There is a point beyond which I cannot go. She is mine in all duty and conscience. I am vowed to protect her, and I will do it—both now and hereafter. Where she is now she is safe from the dastardly designs which beset her here. Her father will protect her, her father’s house. When she returns, I must take some steps—I must consider my plans—I have time enough. On this I am utterly resolved, that I will rescue her soul from destruction . . . my darling from the lions . . . from the power of the dog.”
His voice broke; he could say no more; but his face was white and stern. James Germain had no help for him.
XI
OF MARY IN THE NORTH
She had followed out Senhouse’s precepts as nearly to the letter as might be; neither staff nor scrip had she—no luggage at all, and very little money. In her exalted mood of resolve it had seemed a flouting of Providence to palter with the ideal. To follow the patteran unerringly—a bird’s flight to the north—one could only fail by hesitation. Time, and the pressure of that alone, had insisted on the railway. The road, no doubt, had been the letter of the law.