“Hush, Marion,” said her friend, “it will make it no easier to Geoffrey for you to blame yourself so exaggeratedly, and it is very unlikely that the two or three weeks’ delay has made matters worse. Geoffrey’s withdrawing any large sums when he first intended doing so would only have accelerated the discovery without probably saving anything.”
But Marion had got it into her head that she alone was to blame for the overwhelming catastrophe, and refused to listen to Veronica’s attempted consolation.
It was the worst bit of the whole to her, the reflection that it was her doing. What a curse she had been to this man, she thought to herself! Saddening his whole life, as she had done: remorseful when, as she much feared in her present mood, it was too late; and now, to crown all, the cause of his finding himself a pauper; he who till now had known nothing of battling with the world, struggling amidst the toilworn human beings for the means of existence. In a very blackness of misery Marion Baldwin sat in silence while she thus accused herself.
Veronica was grievously distressed. At last she hit on a new argument.
“Marion,” she said, “Geoffrey will be returning directly. The bitterest part of this to him, I need not tell you, is the thought of what it will be to you. It is for you only he dreads so fearfully the trials before you both. I have been trying to comfort and strengthen him by telling him he was exaggerating what it would be to you. You are brave and strong, my dearest—braver and stronger than you perhaps think yourself. I know it is not this misfortune in itself which is so crushing you. It is this morbid notion that you have had a hand in bringing it on. But even supposing it were so, Heaven knows you advised Geoffrey as you thought for the best. It is unworthy of you to make yourself miserable by this judging by results. And if Geoffrey finds you thus, how will he, poor fellow, be able to stand it all? Don’t think me harsh, my poor child, for speaking so at such a time. You will thank me afterwards for urging you to show yourself a true wife by forgetting everything but your husband’s suffering, and strengthening him to bear it.”
Marion looked up with a new light in her face, a glance of mingled strength and tenderness in her eyes. A door was heard to open, a step slowly and heavily sounded along the passage. She had only time to whisper, “You shall not be disappointed in me, Veronica,” when the door opened and Geoffrey entered.
He had not expected to see his wife; and when he caught sight of her, his face flushed suddenly, and without attempting to greet her he sank down on the nearest chair, burying his head in his hands.
Veronica glanced imploringly at Marion, but her appeal was not needed. Without a word the young wife rose from her chair and crossed the room quickly to where her husband was sitting. He did not see her, his face was hidden, but he heard the rustle of her dress as she approached him. He knew it could not be the cripple Veronica; the step came quick and firm. A notion flashed into his mind that his wife was leaving the room because he had entered it; hastening from the presence of the man who had at last by his insane folly, put the finishing stroke to all the misery he had brought on her fair young life.
He would not look up. Instinctively he kept his face hidden, preferring to await blindly what he felt to be a crisis in his life. Less than a moment passed while Marion crossed the room, but time enough for a whole army of hopes and fears, doubts and misgivings to chase each other across poor Geoffrey’s brain.
He felt weak and giddy, for he had gone through much and eaten little in the last few hours; and a quiver ran all through him when a hand was gently laid on his shoulder and a voice, sweeter to him than the loveliest music, called him by name.