‘And so good-bye, dear old man. Judge me fairly at least; and keep my secret—for secret our marriage must be as long as my father is alive. Fédore sends kind remembrances, and bids me say when you know all—and there is more behind—you will not think of her too harshly.’
Should I not? The woman had greater faith in my leniency—or stupidity, which?—than I myself had. No harshness was too great, surely, in face of the wrong she had done the boy by marrying him. Yet two things were true. For that she loved him—according to her own conception of love—I did not doubt; and that she had rescued him from the demon of drink—for the time being—I did not doubt either. And this last—let me try to be just—this last must be counted to her, in some degree at all events, for righteousness whatever her ulterior object in so rescuing him might have been.
But admitting that much, I had admitted all that was possible in her favour. She had hunted the boy, trapped him, pinned him down, making his extremity her own opportunity; cleverly laying him under an obligation, moreover, which could not but evoke all his native sensibility and chivalry.
The more I thought of it, the more disastrous, the more abominable did the position appear. So much so that, going back to his letter, I read it over and over to see if I could make it belie itself and find any loop-hole of escape. But what was written was written. In Hartover’s belief he had made Fédore, and done right in making her, his wife.
And there were those, then, who would gladly compass his death! The last scene with Colonel Esdaile flashed across me; and other scenes, words, gestures, both of his and of her ladyship’s. Was the boy really and actually the victim of some shameful conspiracy? Only one life stood between the Colonel and the title, the great estates, the great wealth. Was her ladyship playing some desperate game to secure these for him and—for herself, and for her children as his wife? She was still young enough to bear children.—In this ugly coil that cardinal point must never be forgotten. But how could Fédore’s marrying Hartover forward this? Had the woman been set on as her ladyship’s tool, and then betrayed her employer and intrigued on her own account?
Good Heavens! and Nellie was free now. At that thought I sprang up; but only to sink back into my chair again, broken by the vast perplexity, the vast complexity, of it all. Free? Did I not know better than that? Had not her father’s tone, her father’s words in speaking of her, told me her heart was very far from free? Should I so fall from grace as to trade on her despair, and tempt her to engage herself to me while she still loved Hartover? Would not that be to follow Fédore’s example—almost; and take a leaf out of her very questionably virtuous or high-minded book? Besides, how did I know Nellie would ever be willing to engage herself to me? Vain dream—for, after all, what did the whole thing amount to?—Hartover was not of age. His marriage was null—if he so chose. He could find means to dissolve it himself, surely, when he found out Fédore, and saw her in her true colours.—And he should see. My temper rose. I would expose her. I would appeal to Lord ⸺. I would move heaven and earth till I could prove her complicity in Marsigli’s felony—and her connection with him, her real marriage. I would⸺
But alas! what could I do, with so many persons—powerful, rich, unscrupulous—arrayed against me?—Hartover himself, more than likely, protecting, in a spirit of chivalry, the woman who had nursed and befriended him, and to whom—as he believed—he had given his name in wedlock. I, on the other hand, armed but with light and broken threads of suspicion and of theory. For so far, as the Colonel had reminded me, I possessed no actual evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, against her.
No; it was impossible to break the web in which she and others—to their shame—had entangled him. I would put the whole deplorable business from me, and go quietly to Westrea for the Easter vacation. And Nellie?—I would never tell her. If she hoped still, I would never undeceive her. The dark cloud might blow over, the foul bubble burst—and then!—Meanwhile I would be to her as a brother. I would help her, strengthen her; in a sense, educate her. For what? For whom?—God knew⸺
But, just there, I was startled out of my painful reverie by shouts, confused tumult in the usually silent court below, and rush of feet upon the stair.
(To be continued.)