“He is going down,” Lady Ingleton resumed. “He has already deteriorated terribly. I saw him recently by chance in Stamboul (he never comes to us now), and I was shocked at his appearance. When I first met him, in spite of his bitterness and intense misery I knew at once that I was with a man of fine nature. There was something unmistakable, the rare imprint; that’s fading from him now. You know Father Robertson very well. I don’t. But the very first time I was with him I knew he was a man who was seeking the heights. Your husband now is seeking the depths, as if he wanted to hide himself and his misery in them. Perhaps he hasn’t found the lowest yet. I believe there is only one human being who can prevent him from finding it. I’m quite sure there is only one human being. That’s why I came here.”
She was silent. Then she added:
“I’ve told you now what I wished to tell you, all I can tell you.”
In thinking beforehand of what this interview would probably be like Lady Ingleton had expected it to be more intense, charged with greater surface emotion than was the case. Now she felt a strange coldness in the room. The dry rattling of the window under the assault of the gale was an interpolated sound that was in place.
“Your husband has never mentioned your name to me,” she said, influenced by an afterthought. “And yet I’ve come here, because I know that the only hope of salvation for him is here.”
Again her eyes went to “Wedded,” and then to the sister’s dress and close-fitting headgear which disguised Rosamund. And suddenly the impulsiveness which was her inheritance from her Celtic and Latin ancestors took complete possession of her. She got up swiftly and went to Rosamund.
“You hate me for having come here, for having told you all this. You will always hate me, I think. I’ve intruded upon your peaceful life in religion—your peaceful, comfortable, sheltered life.”
Her great dark eyes fixed themselves upon the cross which lay on Rosamund’s breast. She lifted her hand and pointed to it.
“You’ve nailed him on a cross,” she said, with almost fierce intensity. “How can you be happy in that dress, worshiping God with a lot of holy women?”
“Did I tell you I was happy?” said Rosamund.