FACE TO FACE.
If Solomon himself, half starved and imbecile with despair, had suddenly
presented himself from his living tomb, Richard could not have been more
astonished than at the appearance of his present visitor. He had left
her but three days ago for Midlandshire. How was it possible she had
tracked him hither? With what purpose she had done so he did not ask
himself, for he had already read it in her haggard face and hopeless
eyes.
"Have I come too late?" moaned she in a piteous, terror-stricken voice.
"For breakfast?--yes, madam," returned Richard, coldly; "but that can
easily be remedied;" and he feigned to touch the bell. His heart was
steel again; this woman's fear and care he felt were for his enemy, and
for him alone. It was plain she had no longer fear of himself.
"Where is my husband?" she gasped out. "Is he still alive?"
"I am not your husband's keeper, madam."
"But you are his murderer!" She held out her arm, and pointed at him
with a terrible significance. There was something clasped in her
trembling fingers which he could not discern.
"You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat
grim."
"I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?"
"I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well. What
makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?"
"This"--she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon
his own--"this was found among your things after you left my house!"
It was a ticket-of-leave--the one that had been given to Balfour on his
discharge from Lingmoor. It seemed impossible that Richard's colorless
face could have become still whiter, but it did so.
"Yes, that is mine," said he. "It was an imprudence in me to leave such
a token among curious people. You took an interest in my effects, it
seems."
"It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me." Her voice
was calm, and even cold; but the phrase "poor Mrs. Basil" alarmed him.
"The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?"
"She is dead."
"Dead!" Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his
forehead. The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were
built had, then, departed from it! "When did she die?" inquired he in a
hollow voice, "and how?"
"On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease
which one like you will scarcely credit--of a broken heart."
Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit;
the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother's
death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly. If his mother had
died of a broken heart, it was this woman's falsehood that had broken
it; and yet she could speak with calmness and unconcern of the loss
which had left him utterly forlorn! He forgot all his late remorse; and
in his eyes glittered malice and cruel rage.
"I do not fear you," cried she, in answer to this look; "for the
wretched have no fear. The hen will do battle with the fox, the rabbit
with the stoat, to save her young. If I can not save my husband, I will
save my son. I have come down here to do it. You are known to me now for
what you are--a jail-bird. If you dare to meet my Charley's honest face
again, I will tell him who and what you are."
"Did Mrs. Basil tell you that, then?"
"Thus far she did," cried Harry, pointing to the ticket which Richard
had taken from her hand. "Is not that enough? She warned me with her
latest breath against you. 'Beware of him,' said she; 'and yet pursue
him, if you would save your husband and your son. Where Solomon is,
there will this man also be. Pursue, pursue!' I did but stay to close
her eyes."
"And so she knew me, did she?"
"She knew enough, as I do. Of course she could not guess--who
could?--your shameful past, the fruit of which is there!" and again she
pointed to the ticket.
"_My_ shameful past!" cried Richard, rising and drawing himself to his
full height. "Who are you, that dare to say so? Do you, then, need one
to rise from the dead to remind you of _your_ past! Look at me, Harry
Trevethick--look at _me_!"
"Richard!" It was but one word; but in the tone which she pronounced it
a thousand memories seemed to mingle. An inexpressible awe pervaded her;
she stood spell-bound, staring at his white hair and withered face.
"Yes, it _is_ Richard," answered the other, mockingly, "though it is
hard to think so. Twenty years of wretchedness have worked the change.
It is you he has to thank for it, you perjured traitress!"
"No, no; as Heaven is my judge, Richard, I tell you No!" She threw
herself on her knees before him; and as she did so her bonnet fell, and
the rippling hair that he had once stroked so tenderly escaped from its
bands; the color came into her cheeks, and the light into her eyes, with
the passionate excitement of her appeal; and for the moment she looked
almost as he had known her in the far-back spring-tide of her youth.
"Fair and false as ever!" cried Richard, bitterly.
"Listen, listen!" pleaded she; "then call me what you will."
He sat in silence while she poured forth all the story of the trial, and
of the means by which her evidence had been obtained, listening at first
with a cold, cynical smile, like one who is prepared for falsehood, and
beyond its power; but presently he drooped his head and hid his
features. She knew that she had persuaded him of her fidelity, but
feared that behind those wrinkled hands there still lay a ruthless
purpose. She had exculpated herself, but only (of necessity) by showing
in blacker colors the malice of his enemies. She knew that he had sworn
to destroy them root and branch; and there was one green bough which he
had already done his worst to bend to evil ways. "Richard, Richard!"
said she, softly.
He withdrew his chair with a movement which she mistook for one of
loathing.
"He hates me for their sake," thought she, "although he knows me to be
innocent. How much more must he hate those who made me seem so guilty!"
But, in truth, his withdrawal from her touch had a very different
explanation. He would have kissed her, and held out both his hands, but
for the blood which he dreaded might be even now upon them. He saw that
she loved him still, and had ever done so, even when she seemed his foe:
all the old affection that he thought had been dead within him awoke to
life, and yet he dared not give it voice.
"You have said my husband was alive and well, Richard?"
"I said I had left him so," answered he, hoarsely.
"Then you have spared him thus far; spare him still, even for my sake;
and, for Heaven's sake, spare my son! Harden not your heart against one
more dear to me by far than life itself. He has done you no wrong."
Richard shook his head; he yearned to clasp her to his breast; he could
have cried, "I forgive them all," but he could not trust himself to
speak, lest he should say, "I love you."
"You have seen my boy, Richard, many times. The friendship you have
simulated for him must have made you know how warm-hearted and kind and
unsuspicious his nature is. You have listened to his merry laugh, and
felt the sunshine of his gayety. Oh! can you have the heart to harm
him?"
Still he did not speak; he scarcely heard her words. The murdered man
was standing between her and him; and he would always stand there, seen
by him, though not by her. From the grave itself he had come forth to
triumph over him to the end.
"Richard"--her voice had sunk to a tremulous whisper--"I must save my
son, and save you from yourself, no matter what it costs me. You little
know on the brink of what a crime you stand."
He laughed a bitter laugh; for was he not already steeped in crime? She
thought him pitiless and malignant when he was only hopeless and
self-condemned.
"Do you remember Gethin, Richard, and all that happened there? Can you
not guess why I was made to marry--within--what was it?--a month, a
week, a day--it seemed but the next hour--after I lost you? You have had
twenty years of misery for my sake; but so have I for yours. Did my
husband love me, think you? Did he love my child? He had good cause, if
he had only known, to hate us both. Can you not guess it?"
He looked at her with eager hope--a trembling joy pervaded him. But hope
and joy had been strangers to him so long that he could scarce recognize
them for what they were.
"My Charley is yours also, Richard--your own son."
Richard burst into tears. There was somebody still to love him in the
world--his own flesh and blood--somebody to live for! The thought
intoxicated him with delight; a vision of happiness floated before him
for an instant; then was swallowed up in darkness, as a single star by
the gloom of night. His own flesh and blood; ay, perhaps inheriting the
same nature as his father. It was only too likely, from what he had seen
of the lad; and he had himself done his best to develop the evil in him,
and to crush the good.
"Don't weep, dear Richard: kiss me."
He shrank from her proffered lips with a cold shudder. "Nay, I can not
kiss you. Do not ask me why, Harry. Never ask me; but I never can."
She looked at him with wonder, for she saw that his wrath had vanished.
His tone was tender, though woeful, and his touch as he put her aside
was as gentle as a child's.
"As you please, Richard," said she, humbly, and with a deep blush. "I
only wished for it as a token of your forgiveness. It is not necessary;
those tears have told me we are reconciled. But you will kiss Charley."
"Nay; he must never know," answered Richard gloomily.
"I had forgotten," said Harry, simply. "You can guess by that the
loyalty of my heart toward you, Richard. I forgot that to reveal it
would be to tell my darling of his mother's shame. But you will be kind
and good to him; you will undo what you have done of harm; you will lead
him back to Agnes, and then he will be safe."
"Yes, yes," muttered Richard, mechanically; "I will undo so far as I can
what I have done of harm. I will do my best, as I have done my worst."
He rose hastily, and rang the bell. Harry eyed him like some attached
creature that sympathizes with but can not comprehend its master.
The waiter entered.
"I shall not go by the train," said Richard; "let a carriage and pair be
brought round instantly, without a moment's delay."
The waiter hurried out to execute the order.
"But you will surely return home, Richard, after what has happened?"
said Harry, thinking of his mother's funeral.
"The dead can wait," returned he, solemnly. "Go you back to town. In
three days' time, if you do not hear from me, come down to Gethin with
Charles and Agnes."
"But I dare not, unless my husband send for me."
"He _will_ send for you," said Richard, solemnly; "or others will in his
behalf."
Without one word or sign of farewell he suddenly rushed by her, and was
gone. A carriage stood at the front-door of the hotel, which had just
returned from taking a bride and bridegroom to the railway station, and
she saw him hurry into it.
"Fast! fast!" she heard him cry, through the open window; and then he
was whirled away.