"You have the ordinary human struggles against poverty to confront, amongst others. I have neither kith nor kin of my own. I have left you what I die possessed of, absolutely, with the exception of a few small legacies which I desire you should give as soon as possible to the members of my own household, my servants and personal attendants. Money has its value—at times it may even remove you out of the way of a disaster which you could not otherwise escape. And I know that in the past you have suffered many small inconveniences through being unable to give in charity as much as you wished. Now you are my almoner—chosen because of my explicit trust, both in your guardianship, and in the beacon of light to which you look, which guides so many faltering footsteps in the eternal way."
CHAPTER II
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one."—SHAKESPEARE.
The great decisions of our lives are generally made in very undramatic settings. There is no stage music to carry us through the dreaded moment; we live through a crisis, and take up the thread of ordinary life again without a pause.
Morning dawned dull and grey, inclined to be rainy. Breakfast was served at eight-thirty as usual; at nine o'clock Evelyn interviewed her cook-general. Half-an-hour later she was hard at work upon the ordinary duties of the day. There was household linen to mend, silver to clean, china to be dusted; we have to go on with our daily work until the heavens mercifully fall.
There was no item of regular routine which she omitted: not even that of prayer. Yet Evelyn was no hypocrite. She knew quite well what the Church would say of her decision; she knew that she was risking her hold even on Christ's all-embracing pity. For the wantons and sinners He had forgiven had come to Him in shame and penitence, meaning to sin no more. In the one Biblical incident where He was brought in contact with a woman who expressed no remorse for the past, He Himself had given His injunctions solemnly—even while forbidding others to condemn her—"Go thou and sin no more."
Evelyn, of her own deliberate choice and will, from whatever motive, was setting out upon the path which religion and the world alike call iniquitous. The point of difference between the two judgments lies in this alone, that whereas the Catholic Church tries to stamp out and does actually condemn deeds which may for ever be concealed from those about us, the world condones all sin that clokes itself attractively, until the cloak is torn away. Then it is prompt to give sentence.
Those who, like Evelyn, make their choice in something of the spirit of a martyr, neither shirk nor evade the details of their fall. She was offering herself to Farquharson as the alternative of worldly fame. Had he retained his post in the Ministry she would, little by little, have drifted away from his life. But as things stood, this was impossible. Last night she had seen him shorn of every ambition, every hope, bereft of power and honour, shamed and broken, disappointed and disillusioned, forced to live with a woman who, once only uncongenial, was now actively abhorrent; stricken to the core of his being by the loss of the little son whose tender breath upon the waters of life had turned its gall and bitterness into sweetness and solace.
Now, having made her decision, there would be no turning back, no failure in carrying out the least of the many arrangements which it demanded.
Mechanically, she set about her task of tidying the house, of setting in more precise order that which was always orderly. She had withdrawn what little money she had in her banking account, and left it in the table drawer; Brand should not be pecuniarily the worse for her absence. She wrote to various friends offering them the flat for the season; she told them to deal direct with her solicitor, at 88 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, as she was going away shortly. She would not saddle her husband with the rent of a flat when he could live in bachelor quarters far more cheaply and conveniently.