He could see them leaving their cards at his door and driving hurriedly off. They must do that much. It was the bitter pill which the Deemster's doings made them swallow. Then he could see his wife sitting alone, a miserable woman, despised envied, isolated, shut off from her own class by her marriage with the Deemster, and from his class by the Deemster's marriage with her. Again, he could see himself too powerful to offend, too dangerous to ignore, going out on his duties without cheer, and returning to his wife without company. Finally, he remembered his father and his mother, and he could not help but picture himself sitting at home with Kate five years after their marriage, when the first happiness of each other's society had faded, had staled, had turned to the wretchedness of starvation in its state of siege. Or perhaps going out for walks with her, just themselves, always themselves only, they two together, this evening, last evening, and to-morrow evening; through the streets crowded by visitors, down the harbour where the fishermen congregate, across the bridge and over the head between sea and sky; people bowing to them respectfully, rigidly, freezingly; people nudging and whispering and looking their way. Oh, God, what end could come of such an abject life but that, beginning by being unhappy, they should descend to being bad as well?
“What a fuss you are making of things,” said the voice again, but more loudly. “This hubbub only means that you can't have your cake and eat it. Very well, take Kate, and let the Deemstership go to perdition.”
There was not much comfort in that counsel, for it made no reckoning with the certainty that, if marriage with Kate would prevent him from being Deemster, it would prevent him from being anything in the Isle of Man. As it had happened with his father, so it would happen with him—there would be no standing ground in the island for the man who had deliberately put himself outside the pale.
“Don't worry me with silly efforts to draw a line so straight. If you can't have Kate and the Deemstership together, and if you can't have Kate without the Deemstership, there is only one thing left—the Deemstership without Kate. You must take the office and forego the girl. It is your duty, your necessity.”
This was how Philip put it to himself at length, and the daylight had gone by that time, and he was walking in the dark. But the voice which had been pleading on his side now protested on hers.
“Don't prate of duty and necessity. You mean self-love and self-interest. Man, be honest. Because this woman is an obstacle in your career, you would sacrifice her. It is boundless, pitiless selfishness. Suppose you abandon her, dare you think of her without shame! She loves you, she trusts you, and she has given you proof of her love and trust. Hold your tongue. Don't dare to whisper that nobody knows it but you and heir—that you will be silent, that she will have no temptation to speak. She loves you. She has given you all. God bless her!”
Affectionate pity swept down the selfish man in him. As the lights of the town appeared on his path, he was saying to himself boldly, “Since either way there is trouble, I'll do as I said last night—I'll leave Heaven to decide whether I'm to be a great man or a little man, and decide for myself whether I'm to be a true man or a happy man. I'll take my heart in my hand and go right forward.”
In this temper he returned to his chambers. The rooms fronted to Athol Street, but backed on to the churchyard of St. George's. They were quiet, and not overlooked. His lamp was lit. The servant was laying the cloth.
“Lay covers for two, Jemmy,” said Philip. Then he began to hum something.
Presently, in feeling for his keys, his fingers touched an unfamiliar substance in his pocket. He remembered what it was. It was the cracked medallion of his father. He could not bear to look at it. Unlocking a chest, he buried it at the bottom under a pile of winter clothing.