“I think,” said Edgar, instinctively accepting the rôle of adviser, “that the best and most delicate thing you could do would be to leave the house to her for a few days. Let it be supposed you have business somewhere. Go to London, if you think fit, and investigate for yourself; but leave Clare to make up her mind at leisure. It would be the most generous thing to do.”
Arthur stared at him blankly for a moment, with a dull suspicion in his eyes at the strange, audacious calmness of the proposal. But seeing that Edgar met his gaze calmly, and said these words in perfect single-mindedness, and desire to do the best in the painful emergency, he accepted them as they were given; and thus they remained together, though they did not talk to each other, waiting for Clare’s appearance, or some intimation of what she meant to do, till darkness began to fall. When it was nearly night a maid appeared, with a scared look in her face, and that strange consciousness of impending evil which servants often show, like animals, without a word being said to them—and brought to Edgar the following little note from Clare:—
“I am not able to see you to-night; and I cannot decide where to go without consulting you; besides that there are other reasons why I cannot take the children away, as I intended, at once. I have gone up to the nursery beside them, and will remain there until to-morrow. Tell him this, and ask if we may remain so, in his house, without being molested, till to-morrow.”
Edgar handed this note to Arden without a word. He saw the quick flutter of excitement which passed over Arthur’s face. If the letter had been more affectionate, I doubt whether Clare’s husband could have borne it; but as it was he gulped down his agitation, and read it without betraying any angry feeling. When he had glanced it over, he looked almost piteously at his companion.
“You think that is what I ought to do?” he said, almost with an appeal against Edgar’s decision. “Then I’ll go; you can write and tell her so. I’ll stay away if she likes, until—until she wants me,” he broke off abruptly, and got up and left the room, and was audible a moment after, calling loudly for his servant in the hall.
Edgar wrote this information to Clare. He told her that Arden had decided to leave the house to her, that she might feel quite free to make up her mind; and that he too would go to the village, where he would wait her call, whensoever she should want him. He begged her once more to compose herself, not to hasten her final decision, and to believe that she would be perfectly free from intrusion or interference of any kind—and bade God bless her, the only word of tenderness he dared venture to add.
When he had written this, he walked down the avenue alone, in the dusk, to the village. Arden had gone before him. The lodge-gates had been left open, and gave to the house a certain forlorn air of openness to all assault, which, no doubt, existed chiefly in Edgar’s fancy, but impressed him more than I can say. To walk down that avenue at all was for him a strange sensation; but Edgar by this time had got over all the weaknesses of recollection. It was not hard for him at any time to put himself to one side. He did it now completely. He felt like a man walking in a dream; but he no longer consciously recalled to himself the many times he had gone up and down there, and how it had once been to him his habitual way home—the entrance to his kingdom. No doubt in his painful circumstances these thoughts would have been hard upon him. They died quite naturally out of his mind now. What was to become of Clare?—where could he best convey her for shelter or safety?—and how provide for her? His own downfall had made Clare penniless, and now that she was no longer Arthur Arden’s wife, she could and would, he knew, accept nothing from him. How was she to be provided for? This was a far more important question to think of than any maunderings of personal regret over the associations of his past life.
Next morning he went up again to the Hall, after a night passed not very comfortably at the “Arden Arms,” where everyone looked at him curiously, recognising him, but not venturing to say so. As he went up the avenue, Arthur Arden overtook him, arriving, too, from a different direction. A momentary flash of indignation came over Edgar’s face.
“You promised to leave Arden,” he said.
“And so I did,” said the other. “But I did not say I would not come back to hear what she said. My God, I may have been a fool, but may I not see my—my own children before they go? I am not made of wood or stone, do you suppose, though I may have been in the wrong?”