"It's about George Cannon. It seems he was quite innocent in that bank-note affair. It's his wife who's been writing to me about it. I don't know why she should. But she did, and of course I had to reply."

"You never said anything to me about it."

"I didn't want to worry you, dearest. I knew you'd quite enough on your mind with the works. Besides, I'd no right to worry you with a thing like _that_. But of course I can show you all her letters,--I've kept them."

Unanswerable! Unanswerable! Insincere, concocted, but unanswerable!

The implications in her spoken defence were of the simplest and deepest ingenuity, and withal they hurt him. For example, the implication that the strain of the new works was breaking him! As if he could not support it, and had not supported it, easily! As if the new works meant that he could not fulfil all his duties as a helpmeet! And then the devilishly adroit plea that her concealment was morally necessary since he ought not to be troubled with any result of her pre-conjugal life!

And finally the implication that he would be jealous of the correspondence and might exact the production of it! ... He now callously ignored Cecil's signals for attention.... He knew that he would receive no further enlightenment as to the long secrecy of the past twelve months. His fears and apprehensions and infelicity were to be dismissed with those few words. They would never be paid for, redeemed, atoned. The grand scenic explanation and submission which was his right would never come. Sentimentally, he was cheated, and had no redress. And, as a climax, he had to a.s.sume, to pretend, that justice still prevailed on earth.

"Isn't it awful!" Hilda muttered. "Him in prison all this time!"

He saw that her eyes were wet, and her emotion increasing.

He nodded in sympathy.

He thought:

"She'll want some handling,--I can see that!"

He too, as well as she, imaginatively comprehended the dreadful tragedy of George Cannon's false imprisonment. He had heart enough to be very glad that the innocent man (innocent at any rate of that one thing) was to be released. But at the same time he could not stifle a base foreboding and regret. Looking at his wife, he feared the moment when George Cannon, with all the enormous prestige of a victim in a woman's eyes, should be at large. Yes, the lover in him would have preferred George Cannon to be incarcerated forever. Had he not heard, had he not read, had he not seen on the stage, that a woman never forgets the first man? Nonsense, all that! Invented theatrical psychology! And yet--if it was true! ... Look at her eyes!

"I suppose he _is_ innocent?" he said gruffly, for he mistrusted, or affected to mistrust, the doings of these two women together,--Cannon's wife and Cannon's victim. Might they not somehow have been hoodwinked?

He knew nothing, no useful detail, naught that was convincing--and he never would know! Was it not astounding that the bigamist should have both these women on his side, either working for him, or weeping over his woes?

"He must be innocent," Hilda answered, thoughtfully, in a breaking voice.

"Where is he now,--up yon?"

He indicated the unvisited heights of Dartmoor.

"I believe so."

"I thought they always shifted 'em back to London before they released 'em."

"I expect they will do. They may have moved him already."

His mood grew soft, indulgent. He conceded that her emotion was natural. She had been bound up with the man. Cannon's admitted guilt on the one count, together with all that she had suffered through it, only intensified the poignancy of his innocence on the other count.

Contrary to the general a.s.sumption, you must be sorrier for an unfortunate rascal than for an unfortunate good man. He could feel all that. He, Edwin, was to be pitied; but n.o.body save himself would perceive that he was to be pitied. His role would be difficult, but all his pride and self-reliance commanded him to play it well, using every resource of his masculine skill, and so prove that he was that which he believed himself to be. The future would be all right, because he would be equal to the emergency. Why should it not be all right? His heart in kindliness and tenderness drew nearer to Hilda's, and he saw, or fancied he saw, that all their guerilla had been leading up to this, had perhaps been caused by this, and would be n.o.bly ended by it.

Just then a mysterious noise penetrated the room, growing and growing until it became a huge deafening din, and slowly died away.

"I expect that's breakfast," said Edwin in a casual tone.

The organism of the English household was functioning. Even in the withdrawn calm of the bedroom they could feel it irresistibly functioning. The gong had a physical effect on Cecil; all his disappointment and his sense of being neglected were gathered up in his throat and exploded in a yell. Hilda took him in her right arm and soothed him and called him silly names.

Edwin rose from the bed, and as he did so, Hilda retained him with her left hand, and pulled him very gently towards her, inviting a kiss. He kissed her. She held to him. He could see at a distance of two inches all the dark swimming colour of her wet eyes half veiled by the long lashes. And he could feel the soft limbs of the snuffling baby somewhere close to his head.

"You'd better stick where you are," he advised her in a casual tone.

Hilda thought:

"Now the time's come. He'll be furious. But I can't help it."

She said:

"Oh no. I shall be quite all right soon. I'm going to get up in about half an hour."

"But then how shall you get out of going to Princetown?"

"Oh! Edwin! I must go. I told them I should go."

He was astounded. There was no end to her incalculability,--no end!

His resentment was violent. He stood right away from her.

"'Told them you should go'!" he exclaimed. "What in the name of heaven does that matter? Are you absolutely mad?"

She stiffened. Her features hardened. In the midst of her terrible relief as to the fate of George Cannon and of her equal terrible excitement under the enigmatic and irresistible mesmerism of Dartmoor prison, she was desperate, and resentment against Edwin kindled deep within her. She felt the brute in him. She felt that he would never really understand. She felt all her weakness and all his strength, but she was determined. At bottom she knew well that her weakness was the stronger.

"I must go!" she repeated.

"It's nothing but morbidness!" he said savagely. "Morbidness! ... Well, I shan't have it. I shan't let you go. And that's flat."

She kept silent. Frightfully disturbed, cursing women, forgetting utterly in a moment his sublime resolves, Edwin descended to breakfast in the large, strange house. Existence was monstrous.

And before the middle of the morning Hilda came into the garden where everyone else was idling. And Alicia and Janet fondly kissed her. She said her headache had vanished.

"Sure you feel equal to going this afternoon, dearest?" asked Janet.

"Oh yes!" Hilda replied lightly. "It will do me good."

Edwin was helpless. He thought, recalling with vexation his last firm forbidding words to Hilda in the bedroom:

"n.o.body _could_ be equal to this emergency."

CHAPTER XV

THE PRISON

I

Harry had two stout and fast cobs in a light wagonette. He drove himself, and Hilda sat by his side. The driver's boast was that he should accomplish the ten miles, with a rise of a thousand feet, in an hour and a quarter. A hired carriage would have spent two hours over the journey.

It was when they had cleared the town, and were on the long straight rise across the moor towards Longford, that the horses began to prove the faith that was in them, eager, magnanimous, conceiving grandly the splendour of their task in life, and irrepressibly performing it with glory. The stones on the loose-surfaced road flew from under the striding of their hoofs into the soft, dark ling on either hand.

Harry's whip hovered in affection over their twin backs, never touching them, and Harry smiled mysteriously to himself. He did not wish to talk.