‘My love for Fédore is different—no morning wind from Eden about that. How should there be? In the interval I had very effectually parted company with all claims to the angelic state. But think—she nursed me, dragged me back from the very mouth of hell; protected me from those who sought to ruin me; gave herself to me; made a home for me, too, of a sort—oh! that poor, poor, hateful little Chelsea house!—coaxed me, flirted with me, kept me from gambling and from drink. How could I do otherwise than marry her, and love her, out of the merest decency of ordinary gratitude? I owe her so much—— And now’——
Here Hartover gave way completely. I felt rather than saw him—there was no light in the room save that thrown upward from the lamps in the street—fling himself sideways in the chair, crushing his face down upon the arm of it in a paroxysm of weeping.
Only a woman should look on a man’s tears, since the motherhood resident in every woman—whether potential or as an accomplished act—has power to staunch those tears without humiliation and offence. To his fellow-man the sight is disabling; painful or unseemly according to individual quality, but, in either case, excluding all possibility of approach.
I rose, went over to the window, and waited there. The boy should have his cry out, unhindered by my neighbourhood, since I knew he was beyond my clumsy male capacity of consolation. Later, when he came to himself, he would understand I had withdrawn not through callousness, but through reverence. Meanwhile, what a position and what a prospect! My heart sank. How, in heaven’s name, could he be drawn up out of this pit he had digged for himself? And he loved Nellie still. And, whatever his faults, whatever his weaknesses—vices even—his beauty and charm remained, beguiling, compelling, as ever. What woman could resist him? The thought gave me a pang. I put it from me sternly. Self, and again self—would self never die? Even in this hour of my dear boy’s agony, as he lay sobbing his hot young heart out within half a dozen paces of me, must I think of myself and of my private sorrow?
I looked up into the vast serenity of the star-gemmed sky above the black irregular outline of the buildings opposite, and renewed my vow to Nellie—remembering no greater love hath any man than this, that he lay down his life—life of the body, or far dearer life of emotions, the affections—for his friend.
And presently, as I still mused, I became aware of a movement in the room and of Hartover close beside me, his right arm cast about my neck.
‘Dear old man, dear old man,’ he said hoarsely, yet very gently, ‘forgive me. I have felt for these past twenty-four hours as though the last foothold had gone, the last foothold between me and perdition. But it isn’t so—you are left. Stay by me, Brownlow. See me through. Before God, I want to do right. Your worthless pupil wants for once to be a credit to you. But I cannot stand alone. I am afraid of myself. I distrust my own nature. If I go to her—to Fédore—with those empty jewel boxes of my mother’s in my hand and she lies to me, I shall want to kill her. And if she tells we what I can’t but believe is the truth, I shall want to blow my own brains out. For she has been very much to me. She is my wife—and what can the future hold for either of us but estrangement, misery and disgrace?’
He waited, steadied his voice, and then—
‘I know it is no small thing I ask of you; but will you come back to town with me to-morrow? And will you see her first, and so give me time to get myself in hand and decide what is to be done, before she and I meet? Will you stand between me and the devils of revenge and despair who tempt me? Will you do this because—barring you, Brownlow—I have nothing, no one, left?’
Needless to set down here what I answered. He should have his way. How, in God’s name, could I refuse him?