She drew herself away instinctively—but so softly that he did not realise it. He threw himself back once more in the chair beside her—one knee over the other, the curly head so much younger to-night than the face beneath it supported on his arms, his eyes closed again for rest—and plunged into the story of the Clarion.
It was admirably told. He had probably so rehearsed it to himself several times already. He described his action as the result of a double influence working upon him—the influence of his own debts and necessities, and the influence of his growing conviction that the maintenance of the strike had become a blunder, even a misfortune for the people themselves.
"Then—just as I was at my wit's end, conscious besides that the paper was on a wrong line, and must somehow be got out of it—came the overtures from the Syndicate. I knew perfectly well I ought to have refused them—of course my whole career was risked by listening to them. But at the same time they gave me assurances that the workpeople would ultimately gain—they proved to me that I was helping to extinguish the trade. As to the money—when a great company has to be launched, the people who help it into being get paid for it—it is invariable—it happens every day. I like the system no more than you may do—or Wilkins. But consider. I was in such straits that bankruptcy lay between me and my political future. Moreover—I had lost nerve, sleep, balance. I was scarcely master of myself when Pearson first broached the matter to me—"
"Pearson!" cried Marcella, involuntarily. She recalled the figure of the solicitor; had heard his name from Frank Leven. She remembered Wharton's impatient words—"There is a tiresome man wants to speak to me on business—"
It was then I—that evening! Something sickened her.
Wharton raised himself in his chair and looked at her attentively with his young haggard eyes. In the faint lamplight she was a pale vision of the purest and noblest beauty. But the lofty sadness of her face filled him with a kind of terror. Desire—impotent pain—violent resolve, swept across him. He had come to her, straight from the scene of his ruin, as to the last bulwark left him against a world bent on his destruction, and bare henceforward of all delights.
"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said, suddenly, in a low changed voice—"as I speak—as I look at you—I see in your face that you distrust—that you have judged me; those two men, I suppose, have done their work! Yet from you—you of all people—I might look not only for justice—but—I will dare say it—for kindness!"
She trembled. She understood that he appealed to the days at Mellor, and her lips quivered.
"No," she exclaimed, almost timidly—"I try to think the best. I see the pressure was great."
"And consider, please," he said proudly, "what the reasons were for that pressure."