Gussy rose from her knees, showing a countenance as pale as death and still glistening with tears. She said,
“Mamma, shall we go away? Whatever there may be to be said or explained, it ought not to be done here.” She went up to the old man in the chair, who was still embracing his pocket-book, and kissed him on the forehead. “If any wrong has been done to you, I don’t know of it,” she said; “I thought it was nothing but good.”
“No wrong has been done to him—none—none,” cried Mrs. Harwood, suddenly dropping from her self-command and strength. “Children, you may not believe me, since I’ve kept it secret from you. There has been no wrong to him—none—none. If there has been wrong, it has not been to him. Oh, you may believe me, at least, for I have never told you a lie. Everything has been done for him. Look round you—look round you and you will see.”
“Who is he?” said Dolff, obstinate and pale, standing behind the chair.
“You have no thought for me,” said the mother. “You see me standing here, come here to defend you all, in desperation for you, and you never ask how I am to get back, whether it will kill me—— No, no, Janet has gone, who supported me, who was a stranger, and asked no questions, but only helped a poor woman half mad with trouble and distress. Ah!” she said, “he could go mad and get free—he who was the cause of it all: but I have had to keep my sanity and my courage and bear it all, and look as if nothing was the matter, for fifteen years. For whom? Was it for me? It would have been better for me to have died and been done with it all. For you, children, to give you a happy life, to do away with all disgrace, to give you every advantage. Yes, I’ll take your arm, Ju: you have not been a good child, but you know no better. Get me to my chair before I drop down; get me to my chair——” She paused a moment, and looked round with a hard laugh. “For I am very heavy,” she said, “and I would have to be carried, and who would do it I don’t know. Ju, make haste, before my strength is all gone. Get me to my chair.”
CHAPTER XLIII.
Gussy was the last to leave of that strange procession, of whom no one spoke to the other. She closed the door after her, and the curtains, and followed the erect figure of Dolff, drawn up as it never had been in his life before, and walking stiffly, as if carrying a new weight and occupying a position unknown. They all came into the hall, defiling solemnly one after the other, to find Mrs. Harwood deposited in her chair and awaiting them, almost as if the whole events of the evening had been a dream and she had never left that spot. It was with a strange embarrassment, however, that they looked at each other in the pale, clear light as they emerged from the doorway, almost like making new acquaintance, as if they had never seen each other before. Nobody certainly had seen Dolff in that new manifestation; nor was Gussy, she whose very existence had been wrapped up in that of Meredith, who had only lived to watch him for weeks past, recognizable. It was she who came out the last, but who made herself the first of the group.
“There may be a great many things to say,” said Gussy; “but not to-night. We have all had a great many agitations to-night. My brother has been hunted for his life. My mother has done a thing which, so far as we know, she hasn’t been able to do for years. Mr. Meredith has had a bad illness, for which it appears this unfortunate family is responsible too. I only and my little sister”—she paused here with an effort—“no; I will not pretend; I have had my share of the shock, too. We’d better all separate for the night.”
“Gussy!” cried Mrs. Harwood, with a sharp tone of appeal.
“Gussy!” cried Meredith, astonished, trying to take her hand to draw her towards him.