V.

It is one thing to make a sudden and enthusiastic profession of

faith in a prodigy, and it is quite another to reiterate that

profession in cold blood the next morning. The Professor did not find

himself able to accomplish the latter feat. Calmer reflection showed

him that he had given Mrs. Harrington credit for the most extreme

disinterestedness, not because of any single thing that she had said

or done, but simply from an instinctive feeling that her nature was

nobler than it appeared to be upon the surface. Now instinctive

feelings do not ordinarily commend themselves as a sound foundation

for faith or sober philosophers on the shady side of fifty; and the

Professor, while maintaining the high opinion which he had formed of

the harpy, wished that he had not been interrupted just when he was

upon the point of asking her in plain terms whether she intended to

marry Bob Annesley or not. It is possible that he might have called

again and repaired the omission, had he not at this time found it

necessary to consult certain authorities at the British Museum; and

when once he was in town a variety of accidents detained him there.

After that he had to go down to Oxford, so that, what with one thing

and another, it was very nearly a month before he was in Lichbury

again.

Almost the first person whom he saw after his return was Bob Annesley,

and Bob's round face wore an air of such profound dejection that even

a short-sighted and absent-minded man could not help noticing it.

"All well here, I hope?" said the Professor interrogatively. "Have you

seen our friends the Cecils lately?"

Bob shook his head. "Never go there now." He added, with something of

an effort, "I shall never go there any more; I shall be out of this

before long. Sent in my papers last week."

"What!" exclaimed the Professor, rather startled. And then, as they

were near his door, "Come in," he said, "and tell me all about it."

The young man obeyed listlessly. "You may as well be told all about it

now," he remarked; "everybody will have to know soon."

The Professor was greatly perturbed, feeling that he had been somehow

to blame in absenting himself at a critical time. He did not ask for

further explanations, but having preceded his young friend into the

library, began at once: "This must not be allowed to go on, Annesley.

I am sincerely sorry for Mrs. Harrington, but I can't think it right

that two people should be made miserable in order that she may be

provided with a large income. I am disappointed in her, I confess. I

had hoped--but no matter. Since she won't break with you, you must

break with her; and possibly some sort of compensation might be

offered in a delicate manner----"

"I can't break with her," interrupted Bob quietly. "We were married

three weeks ago."

The Professor's consternation was too great to be expressed in any

vehement fashion. He could only murmur under his breath, "Dear, dear!

what a sad pity!"

"There was no help for it," said Bob. "I promised her ages ago that I

would marry her if her husband died, and I couldn't go back from my

word when the time came."

"Her husband!" ejaculated the Professor. "This is worse than I

thought. Do I understand you that she has had a husband alive all this

time?"

"Well, he died a month or two ago--when she was away in the summer,

you know. He had behaved awfully badly to her--deserted her soon after

they were married. It was no fault of hers."

"It was certainly a fault of hers to receive another man's addresses

while she was still a married woman," said the Professor severely.

"Oh, well, if you like to call it so; but I suppose I was as much

in the wrong as she was. Anyhow, I was bound to her. I told her

about--about Violet, you know, but she didn't seem to think that made

much difference. So, you see, there was no getting out of it,"

concluded Bob simply.

"There is no getting out of it now," remarked the Professor, with a

rueful face; "and I don't think you have improved matters by getting

married in this hole-and-corner way. What was your object in doing

that?"

"She thought it would be better," answered the young man

indifferently; "and, as far as that goes, I agreed with her. It has

saved us a good deal of bother with my people; besides which, I didn't

care to let all the fellows in the regiment hear about it before I

left."

The Professor groaned. He saw that the only course open to him, or to

any of Bob's friends, was to make the best of a bad business; but for

the moment he could think of nothing except what a very bad business

it was, and after promising to keep the secret until it should be a

secret no longer, he allowed the young man to depart without offering

him a word of consolation. Why he should have felt moved, some hours

later, to walk over to the lodgings which were still occupied by the

bride, he would have been puzzled to explain. She could not undo what

she had done, nor was there anything to be gained by upbraiding her.

Perhaps it was rather a strong feeling of curiosity than anything else

that led him to her door.

Having learnt that she was at home and alone, he followed the servant

upstairs, and was presently in the shabby little drawing-room so well

known to the officers of the 27th. Mrs. Harrington--to call her by the

name which she had not yet formally resigned--rose from the chair in

which she had been sitting by the fireside, and turned a curiously

altered countenance towards her visitor. The Professor was at once

struck by her extreme pallor, and by her air of weary despondency. To

look at her, one would have thought that she had just sustained a

crushing defeat, instead of having gained a victory.

"You have seen Bob!" she began.

"Ah!" sighed the Professor, speaking out his thoughts without

ceremony, "I fear you have made a terrible mistake, both of you."

"Yes," she answered, and said no more, though he waited some time for

her to explain herself.

"What made you do it?" he exclaimed at length. "You must have known

that you were laying up an endless store of wretchedness for your

husband and yourself; and I can hardly believe that you were

influenced only by the motives that you mentioned when I was here

last."

"There was one motive which I didn't mention," said Mrs. Harrington.

"You hardly know enough about me to be amused by it; but I have no

doubt that the regiment would consider it an exquisite joke if I were

to assert that I had married Bob Annesley because I loved him. And yet

it isn't very odd that I should love him. He was crazily in love with

me once; he was kind to me when no one else was kind; he treated me

like a lady; while other men, who by way of being my friends, were

insulting me, more or less directly, every day. Oh, I know what you

are saying to yourself. You are saying that if I had really cared for

him at all, I should not have married him against his will. But I

thought I might reckon without his will--he has so little of it. That

has always been Bob's defect; and I don't mind saying so, because it

is the only defect that I have ever discovered in him. I believed that

I could win him back, and that, when once we were married, he would

forget his fancy for Miss Cecil, as he has forgotten other fancies

before. Now that it is too late, I have found out that I was wrong. If

I had known three weeks ago as much as I know now, I would have died a

thousand times rather than have married him. He hates me, and I am

rightly punished for my blindness and obstinacy."

She had spoken quietly at first, then with a good deal of excitement;

but now her voice dropped to a whisper as she crouched down over the

fire, muttering, "Yes, I am punished--I am punished!"

The Professor frowned. He disliked melodrama, and had no great belief

in a repentance which could be evidenced only by words. "Perhaps money

and lands may afford you some consolation," he observed rather

cruelly.

Mrs. Harrington did not notice the sneer. "Why did you go away and

leave me alone with my temptation?" she cried suddenly. "You might

have prevented this."

"I cannot flatter myself," answered the Professor coldly, "that my

influence with you would have been sufficiently strong for that."

"It was stronger than you think. I liked you; you had been kind to me,

and I was ready to listen to you. I have not forgotten how you stood

by me that day when Mrs. Cecil turned her back upon me; women in my

position don't forget such things. But you went away just when I most

needed a friend, and so I allowed myself to be deceived by my vain

hopes."

"If any words of mine could have caused you to think twice before you

took this irrevocable step," returned the Professor, "I can only

regret most sincerely that business should have called me away at so

important a moment; but there is little use in discussing what might

have been. The only thing for you and your husband to do now is

frankly to accept a situation from which you cannot escape."

"Unless by means of an over-dose of chloral," suggested Mrs.

Harrington, with a faint smile.

The Professor got up. "Mrs. Harrington," said he, "you may yet prove

yourself an excellent wife and make your husband happy; but you can

hardly expect to do this easily or immediately. And if I were you, I

would not begin by making speeches which are silly if they are

insincere, and wicked if they are not."

Thereupon he left the room without further leave-taking, while she,

still bending over the fire, appeared unconscious alike of his rebuke

and of his exit. The Professor, as he walked home, felt that he had

been very severe, yet not unwarrantably so. "She is a foolish,

theatrical woman," he said to himself; "and I strongly suspect that

all that exaggerated penitence was assumed for a purpose. Of course

her chief object now will be to conciliate her mother-in-law, and she

probably imagines that my report of her may carry some weight in that

quarter. But she makes a mistake, because I shan't report anything

about her--good, bad, or indifferent. No more meddling with other

people's business for me!"