"I must see Mr. Erskine. Mr. Brewer, you must so manage it that I must see Mr. Erskine without delay."
"But you would do no good," said Mr. Brewer, in a very stern tone and with an utter absence of all his natural sympathy. "The man is so injured that his own mother could not identify him."
"Then may God have mercy on us!" cried Eleanor, sinking into a chair. "If I could only have seen that man before this woe came upon us!"
And then that woman burst into one of those uncontrollable fits of tears that are the offspring of despair. Lady Greystock looked at her for a moment, and then rose from her chair. "Victories half won are neither useful nor honorable," she said. "Wait, Eleanor, I will show you what that man was."
She opened a large metal-bound desk, curiously inlaid, and with a look of wondrous workmanship. She said, looking at her father, "I left this at Beremouth, never intending to see it again, But it got sent here a few years ago. It has never been opened since I locked it before my wedding day." She opened it, and took out several packets and small parcels. Then she opened one--it was a miniature case which matched that one of herself which had been so cruelly sent to good, kind Sir Geoffrey--she opened it "Who is that, Eleanor?" It was curious to see how the eyes, blinded by tears, fastened on it "My husband--my husband--Henry Evelyn. My husband, Mr. Brewer. Oh, Lady Greystock, thank God that at any cost he did not run his soul still farther into sin by bringing on you and on himself the misery of a marriage unrecognized by God."
"And because your unde, James O'Keefe, heard the report that got about concerning that man and Miss Lorimer, he ran his own soul into a guilt that may by this time have deepened into the crime of murder. Oh, Eleanor! when shall we remember that 'vengeance is mine, saith the Lord?'"
"My life, and all that is in it!" The words came forth softly, and Mr. Brewer, turning round, saw Jenifer.
"He has been before the magistrates at Marston, Mr. Brewer. He has denied all knowledge of everything about it. He is remanded on the charge--waiting for more evidence--waiting to see whether Mr. Erskine lives or dies. I hired a gig, and came off here to you as fast as I could be driven. Mr. May, in the old office, says that if Mr. Erskine dies, it will be hard to save him. But the doctor's man tells me Mr. Erskine has neither had voice nor sight since he was found--I saw Father Daniels in the street, and he, too, is evidence against the poor creature. He knows of Corny Nugent's letter; and Corny wrote to Jem also, so Jem told me, and he came off here to make sure that Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn were the same people. And he walked from the Northend railway station, and asked his way to Beremouth, and got a gossip with the gate-keeper, and settled to come on to Marston. And he met Lady Greys took in the carriage, and asked where Eleanor lived, and inquired his way. Did you know him, Eleanor?"
"Yes, I knew him directly; and it was partly because I knew him that I directed him on to you."
"Then he lost his way, and took to getting out of the park by walking straight away in the direction he knew Marston to be lying in. And he got by what we call 'the threshetts,' sir--the water for keeping the fishponds from shallowing--and there he must have fallen in, for he says he climbed the hedge just after, and walked straight away through the grass fields and meadows, and seeing the lights where the Fells were tending the sick cow last night, he got in there, all dripping wet, as the town-clock struck twelve. He does not deny to the magistrates that if he had found Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn to be one and the same man, that he might have been tempted to evil; he does not deny that. He says he felt sore tempted to go straight to Beremouth House and have him out from sleep and bed, if to do so could have been possible, and to have given him his punishment on the spot. He says he wished as he wandered through the park that something might send the man who had injured us all so sorely out to him, to meet him in the way, that they might have come hand to hand, and face to face. He says he has had more temptations since Corny Nugent's letter to him, and more heart-stirrings in the long silent time before it came, than he can reckon up; and that he has felt as if a dark spirit goaded him to go round the world after that man, and never cease following him till he had made his own false tongue declare to all the earth his own false deeds--but something, he says, kept him back. Always kept him back till now; till now, when Corny's last letter said that Erskine was surely gone to Beremouth to be married. Then, he said, it was as if something sent him--ah yes; and sent him here to see the man, to make sure who he was. To tell you, as a brother Catholic, the whole truth--to keep from the dear convert mother the bitter grief of seeing her child bound to a man whom she could never call that child's husband. So he came, Mr. Brewer. He came, and he was found here--but he knows no more of the punishment of that poor man, that poor girl's husband"--pointing to Eleanor--"than an unborn babe. As I hear him speak, I trace the power of the prayer that I took up long ago in my helplessness--when I could not manage my own troubles, my own life, my own responsibilities, it came into my heart to offer all to him. 'My life and all that is in it.' You and yours have been in it, Mr. Brewer. Your wife has been in it, her life, and her child's--you, too, my dear," turning to Claudia,--"you whom I have loved like one belonging to me--you have been in it; and that woman, my sister's legacy to my poor helplessness. There were so many to care for, to fear for, to suffer for, and to love--how could I put things right, or keep off dangers? I could only give up all to the Father of us all--'My life, and all that is in it.' And I tell you this, Mr. Brewer--I tell it [to] you because my very soul seems to know it, and my lips must utter it: In that life there will be no red-handed punishment--no evil vengeance--no vile murder, nor death without repentance. I cannot tell you, I cannot even guess, how that bad man got into this trouble--I have no knowledge of whose hands he fell into--but not into the hands of any one who belongs to me, or to that life which has been so long given into God's keeping."