A FIRST APPEAL.
"Stewart," said Harriet Routh to her husband in a tone of calm,
self-possessed inquiry, on the following day, "what has happened? What
occurred yesterday, which you had not the courage to face, and
deprived yourself of the power of telling me?"
As Harriet asked him this question, she unconsciously assumed her
former manner. Something told her that the cause of Routh's conduct,
and of the distress of mind which she read in his face, was not
connected with the subject that was torturing her. Anything apart from
that, any misfortune, any calamity even, might draw them together
again; might teach him anew his need of her, her worth to him--she
felt some alarm, but it was strangely mingled with satisfaction. The
sharp agony she had endured had impaired her faculties so far, had
dulled her clear understanding so far, that the proportions of the
dangers in her path had changed places, and the first and greatest
danger was this stranger--this beautiful, dreadful woman. In that
direction was the terrible impotence, the helpless horror of weakness,
which is the worst attribute of human suffering; in every other, there
was the power to exercise her faculties, to rally her presence of
mind, to call on her fertility of resource, to act for and with him.
With him at her side, and in his cause, Harriet was consciously
strong; out from a trouble in which he should be arrayed against her,
in which he should be her enemy, she shrank, like a leaf from the
shrivelling touch of fire.
She was standing by his side as she asked him the question, in the
familiar attitude which she had discarded of late. Her composed figure
and pale calm face, the small firm white hand, which touched his
shoulder with the steady touch he knew so well, the piercing clear
blue eyes, all had the old promise in them, of help that had never
failed, of counsel that had never misled. He thought of all these
things, he felt all these things, but he no longer thought of, or
remembered, or looked for the love which had been their motive and
their life. He sat moodily, his face pale and frowning, one clenched
hand upon his knee, the other restlessly drumming upon the table; his
eyes were turned away from her, and for some time after she had spoken
he kept a sullen silence.
"Tell me, Stewart," she repeated, in a softer voice, while the hand
that touched his shoulder moved gently to his neck and clasped it. "I
know there is something wrong, very wrong. Tell me what it is."
He turned and looked full at her.
"Do you remember what you said, Harriet, when that letter came from
Poynings--what you said about the hydra and its heads?"
"I remember," she answered. Her pale cheek grew paler; but she drew
nearer to his side, and her fingers clasped his neck more closely and
more tenderly. "I remember. Another head has sprung up, and is
menacing you."
"Yes," he said, half fiercely, half wearily. "This cursed thing is
never to be escaped nor forgotten. I believe. I can hardly tell you
what has happened, Harry, and even you will hardly see your way out of
this."
A touch of feeling for her was in his voice. He really did suffer in
the anticipation of the shock she would have to sustain.
"Tell me--tell me," she repeated, faintly, and with a quick
involuntary closing of her eyes, which would have told a close
observer of constant suffering and apprehension.
"Sit down, Harry." He rose as he spoke, placed her in his chair, and
stood before her, holding both her hands in his.
"I have found out that the man we knew as Philip Deane was--was Arthur
Felton, George Dallas's cousin, the man they are inquiring about, whom
they are expecting here."
She did not utter a cry, a groan, or any sort of sound. She shrank
into the chair she was sitting in, as if she cowered for life in a
hiding-place, her outstretched hands turned cold and clammy in her
husband's grasp. Into her widely opened blue eyes a look of
unspeakable horror came, and the paleness of her cheeks turned to
ashen gray. Stewart Routh, still standing before her holding her
hands, looked at her as the ghastly change came over her face,
telling--what words could never tell--of the anguish she was
suffering, and thought for a moment that she was dying before his
face. The breath came from her lips in heavy gasps, and her low white
brow was damp with cold sluggish drops.
"Harriet," said Routh--"Harriet, don't give way like this. It's
awful--it's worse than anything I ever thought of, or feared. But
don't give way like this."
"I am not giving way," she said. Drawing her hands from his hold, she
raised them to her head, and held them pressed to her temples while
she spoke. "I will not give way. Trust me, as you have done before.
This, then, is what I have felt coming nearer and nearer, like a
danger in the dark--this--this dreadful truth. It is better known than
vague. Tell me how you have discovered it."
He began to walk up and down the room, and she still sat cowering in
her chair, her hands pressing her temples, her eyes, with their
horror-stricken looks, following him.
"I discovered it by an extraordinary accident. I have not seen much of
Dallas, as you know, and I know nothing in particular about Mr. Felton
and his son. But there is a lady here--an American widow--who knows
Felton well."
"Yes," said Harriet, with distinctness; and now she sat upright in her
chair, and her low white brow was knitted over her horror-stricken
eyes. "Yes, I have seen her."
"Have you indeed? Ah! well, then, you know who I mean. She and he were
great friends--lovers, I fancy," Routh went on, with painful effort;
"and when they parted in Paris, it was with an understanding that they
were to meet here just about this time. She met George Dallas, and
told him, not that, but something which made him understand that
information was to be had from her, and she has appointed an interview
with Mr. Felton for to-morrow."
"Yes," repeated Harriet, "I understand. When she and he meet, she will
tell him his son is coming here. His son will not come. How did you
discover what you have discovered?"
He took out of his pocket a large locket like a golden egg, and opened
it by touching a spring. It opened lengthwise, and held it towards
Harriet. She looked at one of the photographs which it enclosed, and
then, pushing it from her, covered her face with her hands.
"She showed me that yesterday," Routh continued, his throat drier, his
voice more hesitating with every word he spoke, "when she told me she
was expecting him--and I contrived to secure it."
"For what purpose?" asked Harriet, hoarsely.
"Don't you see, Harriet," he said, earnestly, "that it is quite plain
Dallas has never seen a likeness of his cousin, or he must have
recognized the face? Evidently Mr. Felton has not one with him. Dallas
might not have seen this; but then, on the other hand, he might; and
to prevent his seeing it, even for a few hours, until we had time to
talk it over, to gain ever so little time, was a great object."
"You took a strange way of gaining time, Stewart," said Harriet. "Had
you come home last night in a state to tell me the truth, time would
really have been gained. We might have got away this morning."
"Got away!" said Routh. "What do you mean? What good could that do?"
"Can you seriously ask me?" she returned. "Does any other course
suggest itself to you?"
"I don't know, Harry. I am bewildered. The shock was so great that the
only thing I could think of was to try and forget it for a little. I
don't know that I ever in my life deliberately drank for the purpose
of confusing my thoughts, or postponing them, before; but I could not
help it, Harry. The discovery was so far from any apprehension or
fancy I had ever had."
"The time was, Stewart," said Harriet, slowly and with meaning, "when,
instead of 'confusing' or 'postponing' any trouble, dread, or
difficulty, you would have brought any or all of them to me at once;
unhappily for us both, I think that time is past."
He glanced at her sharply and uneasily, and an angry flush passed over
his face.
"What cursed folly have you got in your head? Is it not enough that
this fresh danger has come down upon me--"
"Upon _us_, you mean," she interrupted, calmly.
"Well, upon _us_, then--but you must get up an injured air, and go on
with I don't know what folly? Have done with it; this is no time for
womanish nonsense--"
"There is so much womanish nonsense about me! There is such
reasonableness in your reproach!"
Again he looked angrily at her, as he walked up and down the room with
a quicker step. He was uneasy, amazed at the turn she had taken, at
the straying of her attention from the tremendous fact he had
revealed; but, above and beyond all this, he was afraid of her.
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and said, "Let it drop, let it
drop; let me be as unreasonable as you like, and blame me as much as
you please, but be truer to yourself, Harriet, to your own helpful
nature, than to yield to such fancies now. This is no time for them.
We must look things in the face, and act."
"It is not I, but you, who refuse to look things in the face, Stewart.
This woman, whom I do not know, who has not sought my acquaintance,
whose name you have not once mentioned before me, but who makes you
the confidant of her flirtations and her appointments--she is young
and beautiful, is she not?"
"What the devil does it matter whether she is or not?" said Routh,
fiercely. "I think you are bent on driving me mad. What has come to
you? I don't know you in this new character. I tell you, this woman--"
"Mrs. Bembridge," said Harriet, calmly.
"Mrs. Bembridge, then, has been the means of my making a discovery
which is of tremendous importance, and thus she has unconsciously
saved me from an awful danger.
"By preventing George Dallas from finding out this fact for a little
longer?"
"Precisely so. Now I hope you have come to yourself, Harriet, and will
talk rationally about this."
"I will," she said, rising from her chair and approaching him. She
placed her hands upon his shoulders, and looked at him with a steady,
searching look. "We will talk this out, Stewart, and I will not shrink
from anything there is to be said about it; but you must hear me then,
in my turn. We are not like other people, Stewart, and our life is not
like theirs. Only ruin can come of any discord or disunion between
us."
Then she quietly turned away and sat down by the window, with her head
a little averted from him, waiting for him to speak. Her voice had
been low and thrilling as she said those few words, without a tone of
anger in it, and yet the callous man to whom they were addressed heard
in them something which sounded like the warning or the menace of
doom.
"When Dallas knows what we now know, Harriet," said Routh, "he will
come to us and tell us his discovery, and then the position of affairs
will be that for which we were prepared, if we had not succeeded in
inducing him to be silent about Deane's identity."
"Exactly so," said Harriet; "with the additional difficulty of his
having concealed his knowledge."
"Yes," said Routh; "but that is _his_ affair, not ours. He concealed
his knowledge because he was compromised. There is nothing to
compromise me. I neglected a public duty, certainly, in favour of a
private friendship; but that is a venial offence."
It was wonderful to see how the callousness of the man asserted
itself. As he arranged the circumstances, and stated them, he began to
regain his accustomed ease of manner.
"It is unfortunate that he should be compromised in this double way,
and, of course, there will be a great deal to go through, which will
be hard to bear, and not easy to manage; but, after all, the thing is
only as bad as it was when Dallas came back. Don't you see that,
Harriet?"
"I see that, Stewart, but I also see that he will now have a tenfold
interest in finding out the truth. Hitherto he might have been content
with clearing himself of suspicion, but now he will be the one person
most deeply interested in discovering the truth."
"But how can he discover it?" said Routh: his face darkened, and he
dropped his voice still lower. "Harriet, have you forgotten that if
there be danger from him, there is also the means of turning that
danger on himself? Have you forgotten that I can direct suspicion
against him tenfold stronger than any that can arise against me?"
She shivered, and closed her eyes again. "No, I have not forgotten,"
she said; "but oh, Stewart, it is an awful thing to contemplate--a
horrible expedient."
"Yet you arranged it with a good deal of composure, and said very
little about its being horrible at the time," said Routh, coarsely. "I
hope you are not going to be afflicted with misplaced and ill-timed
scruples now. It's rather late in the day, you know, and you'll have
to choose, in that case, between Dallas and me."
She made him no answer.
"The thing is just this," he continued: "Dallas cannot come to any
serious grief, I am convinced; but, if the occasion arises, he must be
let come to whatever grief there may be--a trial and an acquittal at
the worst. The tailor's death, and his mother's recovery, will tell in
his favour, though I've no doubt he will supply all the information
Evans would have given, of his own accord. I think there is no real
risk; but, Harriet, much, very much, depends on you."
"On me, Stewart! How?"
"In this way. When Dallas comes to see you, you must find out whether
any other clue to the truth exists; if not, there is time before us.
You must keep up the best relations with him, and find out all he is
doing. Is it not very odd that he has not mentioned his uncle's
solicitude about his son to you?"
"I don't think so, Stewart. I feel instinctively that Mr. Felton
dislikes and distrusts us (what well-founded dislike and distrust it
was!" she thought, mournfully, with a faint pity for the unconscious
father)--"and George knows it, I am sure, and will not talk to me
about his uncle's affairs. He is right there; there is delicacy of
feeling in George Dallas."
"You seem to understand every turn in his disposition," said Routh,
with a sneer.
"There are not many to understand," replied Harriet, simply. "The good
and the evil in him are easily found, being superficial. However, we
are not talking of his character, but of certain irreparable harm
which we must do him, it seems, in addition to that which we have
done. Go on with what you were saying."
"I was saying that you must find out what you can, and win his
confidence in every way. I shall keep as clear of him as possible,
under any circumstances. If the interview of to-morrow goes off
without any discovery, there will be a chance of its not being made at
all."
"Impossible, Stewart--quite impossible," said Harriet, earnestly. "Do
not nourish any such expectation. How long, do you suppose, will Mr.
Felton remain content with expecting his son's arrival, and hearing no
news of him? How soon will he set inquiries on foot which must end in
discovery? Remember, hiding is possible only when there is no one
seeking urged by a strong motive to find. Listen to me, now, in your
turn, and listen to me as you used to do, not to cavil at my words, or
sneer at them, but to weigh them well. This is a warning to us,
Stewart. I don't talk superstition, as you know. I don't believe any
nonsense of the kind; but this I do believe, because experience
teaches it, that there are combinations of circumstances in which the
wise may read signs and tokens which do not mislead. Here is just such
a case. The first misfortune was George's return; it was confirmed by
his uncle's arrival; it is capped by this terrible discovery. Stewart,
let us be warned and wise in time; let us return to England at
once--to-morrow. I suppose you will have the means of learning the
tenor of Mr. Felton's interview with this lady who knew his son so
well. If no discovery be then made, let us take it as another
indication of luck, circumstance, what you will, and go."
"What for?" said Routh, in amazement. "Are you returning to that
notion, when all I have said is to show you that you must not lose
sight of Dallas?"
"I know," she said--"I know; but you are altogether wrong. George
Dallas must make the discovery some time, and must bear the brunt of
the suspicion. I don't speak in his interests, but in yours--in mine.
Let it come when it may, but let us be away out of it all. We have
money now, Stewart--at least, we are not so poor but that we may make
our way in another country--that we may begin another life. Have I
ever talked idly, Stewart, or given you evil counsel? No, surely not.
In all the years for which you have been all the world to me, I have
never spoken vainly; let me not speak vainly now. I might implore, I
might entreat," she went on, her eyes now bright with eagerness and
her hands clasped. "I might plead a woman's weakness and natural
terror; I might tell you I am not able for the task you dictate to me;
but I tell you none of these things. I am able to do and to suffer
anything, everything, that may or must be done, or suffered for you. I
don't even speak of what I have suffered; but I say to you, be guided
by me in this--yield to me in this. There is a weak spot in our
stronghold; there is a flaw in our armour. I know it. I cannot tell, I
cannot guess where it is. An instinct tells me that ruin is
threatening us, and this is our way of escape. Oh, my husband, listen
to me!"
He was standing opposite to her, leaning against an angle of the wall,
mingled fury and amazement in his face, but he did not interrupt her
by a word or a sign.
"There is no power in me," she went on, "to tell you the strength of
my conviction that this is the turning-point in our fate. Let us take
the money we have, and go. Why should you stay in England, Stewart,
more than in any other country? We have no ties but one another." She
looked at him more sharply here, through all her earnestness.
"Friendships and the obligations they bring are not for us. The world
has no home bonds for us, Where money is to be made you can live, in
such content as you can ever have; and where you are I am as content
as I can ever be."
"You are a cheerful counsellor," Routh broke out, in uncontrollable
passion. "Do you think I am mad, woman, when I have played so
desperate a game, and am winning it so fast, that I should throw up my
cards now? Let me hear no more of this. Come to your senses, if you
can, and as soon as you can, for I will not stand this sort of thing,
I can tell you. I will not leave this place an hour sooner than I
intended to leave it. And as to leaving England, if the worst came to
pass that could happen, I should hardly be driven to that extremity.
What devil is in you, Harriet, to prompt you to exasperate, me, when I
looked to you for help?"
"What devil is in _you_," she answered him, rising as she spoke, "that
is prompting you to your ruin? What devil, do I say? Words, mere
words. What do I know or believe of God, or devil, or any ruling power
but the wicked will of men and women, to waylay, and torture, and
destroy? The devil of blindness is in you, the devil of wilfulness,
the devil of falsehood and ingratitude; and a blacker devil still, I
tell you. See that it does not rend you, as I read in the old
book--for ever closed for me."
Her breast was heaving violently, and her eyes were unnaturally
bright, but there was not a ray of colour in her face, and her voice
was rapid and unfaltering in its utterance. Routh looked at her, and
hated her. Hated her, and feared her, and uttered never a word.
"The madness that goes before destruction is coming fast upon you,"
she said; "I see it none the more clearly because that destruction
must involve me too. Let it come; I am ready for it, as I have been
ready for any evil for a long time now. You speak idle words to me
when you reproach me, Stewart. I am above and beyond reproach from
you. I am as wicked a woman, if the definition of good and evil be
true, as ever lived upon this earth; but I have been, and am, to you
what no good woman could be--and look to it, if you requite me ill. I
don't threaten you in saying this--no threats can come from me, nor
would any avail--but in your treachery to me, its own punishment will
be hidden, ready to spring out upon and destroy you. Scorn my
influence, slight my counsel, turn a deaf ear to the words that are
inspired by love such as only a wretch like me, with no hope or faith
at all in Heaven, and only this hope and faith on Earth, can feel--and
see the end."
He stepped forward and was going to speak, but she put out her hand
and stopped him.
"Not now. Don't say anything to me, don't ask me anything now. Don't
speak words that I must be doomed for ever to remember--for ever to
long to forget. Have so much mercy on me, for the sake of the past and
for the sake of the present. Ruin is impending over us; if you will,
you may escape it; but there is only one way."
She had drawn near the door as she spoke the last words. In another
instant she had left him.
Left him in a most unenviable state of bewilderment, rage, and
confusion. The emotion which had overpowered him when he had made the
discovery of yesterday was almost forgotten in the astonishment with
which Harriet's words had filled him. An uneasy sense, which was not
anything so wholesome as shame, was over him. What did she know of his
late proceedings? Had she watched him? Had any of the gossiping
tongues of the place carried the tidings of the beautiful American's
openly paraded conquest? No, that could hardly be, for Harriet knew no
one at Homburg but George, and George knew nothing about him. Was he
not always with either his mother, or his uncle, or with Harriet
herself? Besides, George would not say anything to Harriet that could
hurt her. The fellow was a fool and soft-hearted, his quondam friend
thought, with much satisfaction. He must set it right with Harriet,
however; under any circumstances he must not quarrel with her; in this
fresh complication particularly. It could only be a general notion
that she had taken, and he must endeavour to remove it; for though he
was horribly weary of her, though he hated her at that moment, and
felt that he should very likely continue to hate her, even at that
moment, and while resolved to disregard her advice, and utterly
unmoved by her appeal, he knew he could not afford to lose her aid.
If the beautiful American could have seen the visions of probabilities
or possibilities in which she was concerned, that floated through
Stewart Routh's mind as he stood gazing out of the window when his
wife had left him, she might, perhaps, have felt rather uneasy at the
revelation. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was not an adept at reading
character, and sometimes, when a disagreeable impression that her new
admirer was a man of stronger will and tougher material than she
altogether liked to deal with, crossed her mind, she would dismiss it
with the reflection that such earnestness was very flattering and very
exciting for a time, and the duration of that time was entirely within
her choice and discretion.
Stewart Routh stood at the window thinking hurriedly and confusedly of
these things. There was a strange fear over him, with all his
assurance, with all the security which he affirmed over and over again
to himself, and backed up with a resolution which he had determined
from the first to conceal from Harriet.
"If my own safety positively demands it," he thought, "Jim's evidence
about the note will be useful, and the payment to the landlady will be
tolerably conclusive. Dallas told Harriet the initials were A.F. I
wonder it never occurred to me at the time."
Presently he heard Harriet's step in the corridor. It paused for a
moment at the sitting-room, then passed on, and she went out. She was
closely veiled, and did not turn her head towards the window as she
went by. Routh drew nearer and watched her, as she walked swiftly
away. Then he caught sight of George Dallas approaching the house. He
and Harriet met and shook hands, then George turned and walked beside
her. They were soon out of sight.
"I don't think I shall see much more of Homburg," George was saying.
"My mother has taken an extraordinary longing to get back to Poynings.
Dr. Merle says she must not be opposed in anything not really
injurious. She is very anxious I should go with her, and Mr.
Carruthers is very kind about it."
"You will go, George, of course?"
"I don't quite know what to do, Mrs. Routh. I don't like to let my
mother go without me, now that things are so well squared; I don't
like to persuade her to put off her journey, and yet I feel I ought,
if possible, to remain with my uncle until his truant son turns up."
"Has--has nothing been heard of him yet?"
"Not a word. I was awfully frightened about it, though I hid it from
my uncle, until I met Mrs. Ireton P. &c. But though she didn't say
much, I could see by her manner it was all right. Bless you, she knows
all about him, Mrs. Routh. I dare say he'll appear next week, and be
very little obliged to us all for providing a family party for him
here."