Then he got up, and opened and closed the door. The pa.s.sage to the clerks' office was empty. He came back to his table, and sat down again.

"Don't give him any more chances. Take it from me--he'll never reform.

Get rid of him now."

"Oh no--quite impossible."

"I had a talk the other day with Yates," said Mr. Prentice quietly.

"Yates is prepared to give evidence that he knocked you about."

"But it's not true," said Mrs. Marsden hotly.

The blood rose to her cheeks, and her lips trembled; but Mr. Prentice had ceased to watch her face. He was playing with an inkless pen and some white blotting-paper.

"Yates is ready to go into the box and swear it."

"Then she would be swearing an untruth."

"Yates would be a very good witness. Really I don't see how anybody could shake her.... I asked her a few questions.... She impressed me as being just the right sort of witness."

"Please don't say any more."

"Honestly, I believe we should pull it off. And why not? If ever a woman deserved--"

But Mrs. Marsden would hear no more of this kind of advice.

"I see no reason against it," said Mr. Prentice, persisting.

"No, no," said Mrs. Marsden sadly.

"It's the only thing to do."

"You don't understand me." And as she said it, there was dignity as well as sadness in her voice. "Even if it were all easy and straightforward, I could never consent to allow the story of my married life to be told in Court--to the public. I could not bear it. I simply could not bear the shame of it."

"Oh!... Well, it would be like having a tooth out. Soon over."

"But that is only one reason. There are many others."

"Are there?"

"You shouldn't--you mustn't a.s.sume that he only is to blame. There are faults on both sides. And I have this on my conscience--that perhaps he would have done very well, if I hadn't married him."

"My dear--forgive my saying so--that is magnanimous, but nonsense."

"No," she said firmly, "it is the truth. He had some good qualities. He was a worker. Idleness--with more money than he was accustomed to--brought temptations;--and he was very young. If he had remained poor, he might have developed into a better man."

"I won't contradict you.... Only it isn't what he might have developed into, but what he has developed into; and what fresh developments we can reasonably expect.... I see no hope. Really, I must say it. I believe, as sure as I sit here, that he'll eat you up--he'll ruin you, if you let him--he'll land you in the workhouse before you've done with him. That's why I say, get rid of him--at all costs."

But Mrs. Marsden only shook her head sadly and wearily.

Mr. Prentice stood at his window, looking down into the street, and mournfully watching her as she walked away.

She was dressed in black--she who had been so fond of bright colours never wore anything but black now; and the black was growing shabby and rusty. She seemed taller, now that she had become so much thinner; the grey hair at the sides of her forehead and the unfashionable bonnet tied with ribbons under her chin made her appear old; the florid complexion had changed to a dull white--as she turned her face, and hurried across the road, he thought that it showed almost a ghostly whiteness. And truly she was the ghost of the prosperous, radiant, richly-clothed woman that he remembered.

She had been so strong, and now she had become so weak--so pitiably weak; with a weakness that rendered it impossible to save her. His heart ached as he thought of her weakness.

She would be eaten up--soul and body. Secret information made him aware that she had sold the various stocks that she held at her marriage. The manager of the bank had regretfully told him so, at a meeting of the Masonic lodge--a secret between tried friends and trusted Masons, to go no further. She had employed the bank to sell these securities for her.

In the old days she would have come to him for advice, and he would have sent the order direct to the stock-brokers; but now she was weakly afraid of his knowing anything about her suicidal transactions.

He was looking out from the same window one afternoon a few weeks later, and he saw something that really horrified him. He could scarcely believe his eyes.

Mrs. Marsden had gone swiftly down the side street, and had vanished through the front door of those shady, wicked solicitors, Hyde & Collins.

He felt so greatly discomposed that he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat, ran down into the side street, and stood waiting for her outside the hated and ominous doorway.

When after half an hour she emerged from the clutch of his unworthy confreres, he took her arm and led her into Trinity Square; and, walking with her round and round the small enclosure, reproached her for deserting him in favour of such people.

"But I haven't deserted you," she said meekly bearing the reproaches.

"This is only some private business that they are attending to."

"But is it kind to me? You know what I think of them. I ask you, is it kind to me?"

"I meant no unkindness," she said earnestly.

And she offered apologies based on vague generalities. Life is complex and difficult. One is forced out of one's path by unusual circ.u.mstances.

Sometimes one is driven to do things of so private a nature that one cannot speak about them to one's oldest and best friends.

"Very well. But if you feel disinclined to confide everything to me--there are other men that you could depend on. Go to d.i.c.kinson--he's a thorough good sort. Or Loder--or Selby! Go to any one of them. But don't--for mercy's sake--mix yourself up with these brutes."

In order to defend herself, Mrs. Marsden was obliged to defend Hyde & Collins.

"They are quick to understand one. Really they seem sharp--"

"_Sharp!_ Yes--too sharp--a thousand times too sharp. But ask anybody's opinion of them. Look at their clients. They haven't got a single solid client."

"But they still act for Bence's--they do everything for Mr. Bence."

"Yes," said Mr. Prentice contemptuously, "but who's Bence, when all's said and done?"

"Ah!" And Mrs. Marsden drew in her breath, as if she felt incapable of continuing the conversation.

"I grant you that Bence has done wonders--and proved me a bad prophet.

But we haven't got to the last chapter of Bence yet. I don't believe Bence is really solid--and I never shall do, while I see him going in and out of Hyde & Collins's."

Mrs. Marsden meekly bore all reproaches; but she showed a stubbornness that no warnings could shake. She met direct questions with generalized vagueness. What is unwise in some circ.u.mstances may be not unwise in other circ.u.mstances. Life is complex--and so on.

When Mr. Prentice left her, he went back to his office full of the most dismal forebodings. She had placed herself in the hands of Hyde & Collins. She was indisputably done for.