"That would be safer," she replied gravely. Then she raised herself on her elbow, searched among her papers on a little table at her side, and held out a letter to him.

"Will you put that out to be posted, please?"

He limped across the room and stood quite near--near enough to take the envelope from her hand.

"You read what I said about your correspondence?"

"Yes." He thought he could detect an impulse to say "Thank you," and the determination not to yield to it. Thanks for the right to breathe!

The right to be herself! He saw that she could not frame it.

The sound of the gong in the hall below was audible. He turned away--lingered, trying to put together some sentence expressive of his satisfaction that she should be on the sofa to-day, but he found the thing too difficult, and was off with a curt, "Well, good night!"

"Good night," she answered.

When he was back at the door, he turned again and looked at her. Her whole fair outline, supine upon the couch, was illumined in a rosy gilding. The room behind her lay shadowy; her own form on its dark side was blurred. But that outline against the purple misty garden without was like a thing of enchantment. So still--so very beautiful--he thought of an effigy upon a tomb. He closed the door with a hissing breath drawn between his teeth. In his hand he held the key to all his doubt--the reply to the letter he had read. When he had also read this he would know what he must do; he would be able to realise what he had already done.

He hastened downstairs feeling like a thief in his own house. He resented the fact of Hemming's quite natural presence in the hall, where the servant was busy removing the sticks, wet gloves, etc., which he had discarded upon his return home. He disappeared into his study, and sat down, wondering how his nefarious purpose could be best achieved, as there was no fire and no spirit-kettle handy. At first he thought he would have to wait until the following morning; but he believed that he should not sleep unless he had s.n.a.t.c.hed the knowledge he so inordinately desired.

He dined morosely, and there was sympathy in the kitchen for his lack of appet.i.te. It was not surprising to Hemming when he brought coffee to find it declined, and to be ordered to bring in the small spirit-kettle and the whisky decanter.

Alone at last, with the desired jet of steam, the monomaniac once more settled himself to his novel pursuit of tampering with seals. He had done so this morning without scruple. The letter he now held seemed to him far more sacred than the other. The blood rushed to his face, and his heart beat heavily as he peeled back the flap of the envelope. He felt almost as he might have felt had he intruded upon Virginia herself, as if he violated something pure and intact.

The letter was withdrawn. It lay under his relentless gaze. He took a peep into his wife's very soul.

_Mother! Mother!_

_If you had known how it would hurt, you could not have written to me so! What can I say to you? Can I reproach my own mother with injustice?

Yet I feel I cannot let you write as you do without telling you how unkind it sounds._

_What I have done is wrong. I know that now. I half knew it all the time. But what else was there for me to do? I believe G.o.d knows I did it for the best. I was at the very end of all my own strength; I was at the very end of all our money; I had you all dependent upon me; and I knew I was going to break down._

_I felt I had to serve you, and, oh, mother, you can't, you simply mustn't, deny that I have done that. Don't, for pity's sake, talk of my going off to be rich, and leaving you to the slavery that I found unbearable. That is not just, it is not true, but all the same it is torture to me that you should say it._

_The unfairness of it gives me strength to write what perhaps I might not dare if I were not so indignant, but it has to be said. Never, never, under any circ.u.mstances, will I ask Osbert to do more for you than he has already done. Please understand that that is my last word.

Last year we lived on less than 200, including Tony's school bills, which you will not now have to pay. With care, you ought to be quite comfortable on what you have._

_I do not know whether Osbert means to make me any allowance. He has said nothing about it yet, and I cannot ask him. If he does, you shall have anything I can spare, you know how little I want myself. At least, I ought to be able to keep Tony in pocket-money, the darling has suffered so from not having any. At this moment I have five shillings in the world, which I must use to buy materials to embroider a kimono for my Pansy. I promised her that! It is to be blue, with pale pink embroidery. Tell her I have not forgotten; I will get it next time I go out shopping._

_I have been resting all yesterday and to-day, and I think I shall soon pick up my strength; but not if you write me such cruel letters.

Oh, mother, for father's sake, who told me always to take care of you, don't let me think that what I have done has been all in vain!_

Virginia.

Osbert Gaunt pushed back his chair. His face was ghastly, and the drops stood on his forehead. He felt as if the house were too small, too close, to contain him. With shaking hands he pushed the letter and its envelope into a drawer, stumbled to his feet, hastened from the room, s.n.a.t.c.hed a hat from the hall, and went out into the moonlight.

He walked on blindly, striding fast, taking the direction that led him down into the long avenue through the park, from which one approached the house upon its southern side. He knew now what he had done. He had immolated an innocent victim. He felt as if there might be blood upon his hands. Stories are told of men who, having lost the use of a portion of the brain, have had this restored by means of a sudden shock or a terrific blow. Something of the kind had now happened to Gaunt. He looked back upon the man whom he had been, whom he had gradually become, during the past twenty years, as upon a leper. He shuddered at the very idea of such a monster.

Always before the eye of his imagination was the outline of Virginia's pale beauty, suffused with rose and gold. He recalled her patient quietude, her dignity and sadness. He knew now what she had been feeling. She had been quivering under the lash of her mother's diabolical selfishness; she had just relieved the anguish of her soul by writing that letter.

And he! What of the man who had tempted her?

A wild idea of crawling to her feet, of kissing them, of crying to her for pardon, turned him about and sent him striding unevenly half a mile upon his homeward way.

The futility of such a course suddenly struck him and once more turned him back.

She might pardon. Yes. She was the sort of nature that would pardon.

How might that help their future together? He knew that there could be no such thing as a future together for them. He hardly wished it.

His pa.s.sion of pity and remorse was quite untinged with any pa.s.sion of desire. He thought of Virgie as of a saint, a creature apart, something to be rescued from himself, if such an end could possibly be compa.s.sed.

If he spoke to her, if he begged forgiveness, he would have to confess his own late action. He would have to say: "I am such a cad, so lost to any sense of honour, that I first a.s.sured you of the safety of your private correspondence, and then deliberately read it."

He could not do that.

To one emotion of the human soul this man had been for years a stranger--tenderness.

The first invasion of his breast by the new-comer was torture. He had not wept since he could remember. Now his lashes were thick with the drops which the pathos of Virginia wrung from his unwilling spirit. He contemplated her as a man may study the outstanding merits of his patron saint, seeing her inner and her outward loveliness. Her reticence--the way in which she concealed from her mother all that he had made her bear! She made no complaint, left herself almost completely out of sight, was only pa.s.sionately anxious for rea.s.surance, to be consoled by the knowledge that her sacrifice had not been in vain for _them_! Pity flooded him. When he had been walking a long way he became aware that he was sobbing audibly.

This pain of unavailing compa.s.sion was maddening. What could he do? He had humiliated this rare creature, laid rough hands upon her, borne her off far from every one she loved. Yes, incredible though it seemed, she actually loved that mother--that trivial wanton upon whom he himself had lavished all that was best in him during the long, fruitless years that the locust had eaten.

Frustration--misunderstanding--injustice--and helpless regret!

This is life, and the old Greeks knew it. He thought of the majestic dramas of wrong and pa.s.sion and irretrievable disaster. He thought of Clytemnestra and Electra. They sound crude to us, the ancient stories--crude and b.l.o.o.d.y. We do not slay our husbands with axes in these days. Virginia Sheringham had not, in act, been an unfaithful wife; but by her neglect, her lightness, her extravagance and selfishness, she had ruined her husband financially, had contributed to his early death....

... And she had handed over her daughter to Gaunt as calmly as Clytemnestra handed over Electra to the swine-herd.

Human nature--ancient--modern! The setting different, the actions different, the motives eternally the same.

It was nearly two o'clock when, weary and footsore, Gaunt let himself in with his latch-key, through the door left purposely unlocked by Hemming, who was wholly astonished at finding that his master was out of doors when it came to shutting-up time.

Like a thief he crept to the study, re-sealed with infinite precaution the envelope he had opened, and slipped it into the post-bag.

Later, as he lay rigid, open-eyed, in his bed, watching the dawn creep on, it almost seemed to him as if the tumult and energy of his thoughts must travel through the door and penetrate to the silent room within--to the little golden head which, please G.o.d, was forgetting its sorrows temporarily in dreams.

If he could but send her a wordless message--some deep impression of penitence, of reverence, of his hunger to be forgiven!

Could this indeed be Gaunt of Omberleigh? Changed, the whole structure of his character demolished in a few hours by mere contact with the crystal honesty of a very simple girl!

CHAPTER XV

NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE