"You will come back, Hodder?"
"Since you wish it, sir," the rector said.
Once in the street, he faced a predicament, but swiftly decided that the
telephone was impossible under the circumstances, that there could be no
decent procedure without going himself to Park Street. It was only a
little after ten. The electric car which he caught seemed to lag, the
stops were interminable. His thoughts flew hither and thither. Should
he try first to see Alison? He was nearest to her now of all the world,
and he could not suffer the thought of her having the news otherwise.
Yes, he must tell her, since she knew nothing of the existence of Kate
Marcy.
Having settled that,--though the thought of the blow she was to receive
lay like a weight on his heart,--Mr. Bentley's reason for summoning Eldon
Parr to Dalton Street came to him. That the feelings of Mr. Bentley
towards the financier were those of Christian forgiveness was not
for a moment to be doubted: but a meeting, particularly under such
circumstances, could not but be painful indeed. It must be, it was,
Hodder saw, for Kate Marcy's sake; yes, and for Eldon Parr's as well,
that he be given this opportunity to deal with the woman whom he had
driven away from his son, and ruined.
The moon, which had shed splendours over the world the night before,
was obscured by a low-drifting mist as Hodder turned in between the
ornamental lamps that marked the gateway of the Park Street mansion,
and by some undiscerned thought--suggestion he pictured the heart-broken
woman he had left beside the body of one who had been heir to all this
magnificence. Useless now, stone and iron and glass, pictures and
statuary. All the labour, all the care and cunning, all the stealthy
planning to get ahead of others had been in vain! What indeed were left
to Eldon Parr! It was he who needed pity,--not the woman who had sinned
and had been absolved because of her great love; not the wayward,
vice-driven boy who lay dead. The very horror of what Eldon Parr was now
to suffer turned Hodder cold as he rang the bell and listened for the
soft tread of the servant who would answer his summons.
The man who flung open the door knew him, and did not conceal his
astonishment.
"Will you take my card to Miss Parr," the rector said, "if she has not
retired, and tell her I have a message?"
"Miss Parr is still in the library, sir."
"Alone?"
"Yes, sir." The man preceded him, but before his name had been announced
Alison was standing, her book in her hand, gazing at him with startled
eyes, his name rising, a low cry, to her lips.
"John!"
He took the book from her, gently, and held her hands.
"Something has happened!" she said. "Tell me--I can bear it."
He saw instantly that her dread was for him, and it made his task the
harder.