AN AFTERNOON CALL.
Gurth Egerton was delighted at the cordial reception he had received at
the hands of Mr. Adrian. He had, at any rate, in that interview
ascertained that, so far as Ruth’s parents were concerned, nothing was
known of Marston’s pretensions.
He was more than ever convinced that it was only braggadocio on that
gentleman’s part, and that he had nothing to fear from his old
companion. The more he thought of it, the more absurd it seemed to him
that he should ever have attached any importance to Marston’s
assertion. Ruth certainly was polite to him, and when he had seen them
meet they met as old friends. He quite understood that. Years ago,
before Marston went wrong, he had been acquainted with the family, and
Ruth and he had been sweethearts as boy and girl. But things were very
different now. Marston, in spite of his assumption of independence, was
only an adventurer. He felt convinced that his respectability was a
whited sepulchre, and that there was something very rotten underneath
it.
But the undoubted fact remained that Marston was now on visiting terms
with the Adrians, and that Ruth was not particularly cold to him.
It would be safer, at any rate, to clinch the matter at once, and bowl
Mr. Edward Marston out before he had a chance of scoring.
Gurth followed up his declaration to Mr. Adrian at once. He managed to
find himself pretty constantly in Ruth’s society, and he flattered
himself that he was on the straight road to conquest.
But he was determined not to be too precipitate, and by overhaste court
an answer which might render his position a difficult one.
One day when he called he was annoyed to find Marston at the house, but
he shook hands with him cordially, and barely allowed his annoyance to
be perceptible.
It was Marston’s first visit to the Adrians for some time. He had been
engaged on ‘important business,’ but he had not allowed Ruth’s little
note to remain unanswered.
He had written, telling her that he had been successful in a great
undertaking, and that now he was in a position to offer her a home and
devote himself solely to making her happy.
He had met Ruth, too, and the old romance of their lives had been
reopened at a second volume.
It is in the third volume that everybody is generally made happy, and
it was to the third volume which Marston was now anxious to turn.
He had conquered the fortress once more. It had been but weakly
defended. One by one, the barriers had gone down before the weapons
which Marston brought to bear upon it. The old love had never died
out—it had but languished awhile; and now that Ruth believed Marston to
be leading a new life, and to be the brave, honest-hearted, good fellow
she once prayed that he might become, she was thankful he had never met
that good woman she had once prayed might be flung in his path.
Who can explain the workings of a woman’s heart? Who can dissect it,
and show the complex machinery which governs its marvellous
performances? To attempt such a task would be to court ignominious
failure. I only know that Ruth Adrian, pure, good, and noble as she
was, loved Edward Marston, and trusted him as blindly and devotedly as
ever, in spite of the rude shock her faith had once received, in spite
of the many doubts with which her heart had been beset since his
reappearance on the horizon that bounded her little world. Her love was
strengthened and confirmed by the very fact that once he had led an
evil life, that once she had been compelled to snap the link, and bid
him go his way and leave her to go hers.
She found herself now hungering for a word from him, waiting about
where he was to pass, meeting him under all the romantic circumstances
of a first courtship. At twenty-eight her heart beat as quickly when he
came as it had done when she was eighteen. It seemed to her that their
separation and the long ordeal through which they had both passed had
but purified and intensified their love.
Even the element of secrecy which, as much for her own sake as for his,
Marston imported into the romance was not without its harm. Ruth knew
now that both her mother and father would be opposed to her match. She
saw that Gurth Egerton was in high favour, and, so far as they were
concerned, would be a formidable rival to her poor Ned. But she was her
own mistress now, and could decide for herself. Gurth Egerton was a
very pleasant gentleman, but he came too late. She had no heart left to
give. Marston had won it long ago, and now he had the right to claim
it.
When Marston called, he did so by Ruth’s advice. She didn’t want Gurth
Egerton to have the field entirely to himself. She was sure Marston was
quite as agreeable as he was.
Of course she had told Marston about Gurth—about the tea-party and his
constant visits. Of the interview with her father she herself knew
nothing. Marston was seriously alarmed. He remembered his interview
with Gurth, and he felt that it would not do to despise such a foe too
much.
Acting on Ruth’s hint he determined to ingratiate himself with the
Adrians as much as he could, and, if possible, cut Gurth out on his own
ground.
He knew that so far as Ruth was concerned he had nothing to fear, but
for her sake he was anxious that she should marry him with the full and
free approbation of her parents.
He felt that she would never really be happy under any other
circumstances, and, strange as it may seem, Ruth’s happiness was with
him now a primary consideration. He had gradually come to love his old
sweetheart again with an affection as pure and disinterested as that
she felt for him.
She seemed to him, like an angel of light, to banish the darkness of
the past. He never really knew how vile and wicked he had been till he
looked into Ruth’s sweet eyes, and thought that one day she would bear
his name.
He shuddered sometimes now as he thought of what an awful past was
linked with that name. Now that Ruth had assured him of her love, now
that the bright pages were open once more in his book of life, he
recognized, for the first time, the depth to which he had fallen. There
was much in the past about which he hesitated to think; there were
secrets buried away in the bygone years of poverty and scheming which
once he could remember with a smile, but which now made him tremble to
think that some day they might be dragged into the glaring light of
day.
‘What a different man I might have been had such a woman’s love been
mine years ago!’ he thought; but never for a moment did he blame Ruth
for the part she had played when his future hung in the balance.
He was innocence itself then in comparison with what he had been when
he plunged, reckless and despairing, into the black abyss of crime.
Even the deed which had given him fortune, the well-planned and
cleverly executed robbery which had astonished the world and left him
independent of crime for the future, terrified him now.
Without it he would still have been an adventurer—he dared not have
offered Ruth his hand. It was this vilely won wealth which he believed
would give him all the happiness he was ever to know in the future; it
was this which was to enable him to break with all his old associates
and live cleanly; it was this which was to be the foundation of a
genuine business career in which he might win wealth and honour
legitimately; and yet he never parted with Ruth after one of those
frequent interviews without wishing he had gone penniless to the grave
rather than have launched out into such a crime with her image in his
heart, and her sweet self the beacon that shone at the end of the long
dark path and lured him on.
It seemed a treachery to her now to have linked her with such villany.
The transition state of Mr. Edward Marston’s conscience was a condition
of things which would form a splendid study for the moralist and the
philosopher. The novelist must not pause by the way to dilate upon it,
tempting though the opportunity may be. He has already left the Adrians
and their visitors much longer than courtesy and the rules of fiction
allow.
Marston and Egerton left together. The conversation had been confined
to platitudes. Mr. Adrian was ill at ease, for he feared danger from
the Marston quarter now more than ever. When he did bring his eyes from
Patagonia to things nearer home, they generally saw pretty clearly.
Mrs. Adrian was so rude to Marston that Ruth was really distressed. The
good lady begged that he would not kick the chair legs, as they had
just been repolished; she requested him kindly to move his chair a
little way from the wall, as it was nibbing the paper; and when he drew
up to the table at last, in a tone of icy politeness she called his
attention to the fact that he was drumming with his fingers on the said
piece of furniture, a practice which, in her delicate state of health,
always gave her the headache.
Marston laughed good-humouredly, but the laugh was forced. Gurth was
ill at ease, for he saw that a storm was brewing, and when Marston rose
to leave he went with him.
He knew that, sooner or later, he and Marston would have to have a few
words, and he felt that it might as well be now.
He was hardly prepared, however, for the coolness which his rival
displayed.
‘Which way are you going, Gurth?’ said Marston, as they closed the
Adrians’ gate.
‘Home,’ answered Gurth. ‘Come with me and have a cigar.’
‘That’s just what will suit me best. I want to talk with you about one
or two things.’
The two men exchanged very few words on their way to Gurth’s house.
Both were busy with their thoughts. Both were bracing themselves up for
the conflict to come.
As they passed through one of the main thoroughfares the afternoon
papers were being sold, and there was a crowd round the placards.
Gurth went up and peered over to read the contents bill that was
exciting so much attention.
‘What is it?’ asked Marston. ‘A murder or a robbery?’
‘It will turn out both, I dare say,’ said Egerton. ‘The Great
Blankshire Bank has stopped payment.’
‘Oh!’ said Marston; ‘I don’t know much about commercial matters. Is
there anything special about the circumstances?’
‘No! only it is unlimited, and the shareholders will be beggars. The
liabilities are immense.’
‘Poor devils!’ exclaimed Marston. ‘I’m sorry for ‘em; but, as I’m not a
shareholder, it doesn’t interest me.’
Edward Marston spoke as he believed. He little knew that the failure of
the Great Blankshire Bank was to interest him very much indeed.