LOSING.
For a few days after the meeting between Grey and his mother at the
Castle he did not go to the Island. Something repelled him. The thought
of the Castle made him chill and uncomfortable now. He had never gone so
far as to try and persuade himself he was in love with Maud. He never
pretended to himself he felt more than a mild interest in her. The
nature of the circumstances surrounding him and impelling him towards
Maud had almost wholly obliterated the personality of the girl. She was
a minus quantity in the equation of his life. Could he bring her over
to the other side, the minus would become a plus, and he should be
saved. He was too much impressed with the necessity of winning her to
regard her personality with much interest.
Now he seemed to have receded further from her. He was no less impressed
with the necessity of winning her than before, but between her and him
had come of late a shadow, stretching from that interview at which his
mother, Maud, and himself, had assisted.
At first this shadow was vague, indistinct, a source of indefinable
uneasiness rather than absolute pain. Gradually, hour by hour after that
interview, his subsequent discoveries in the fly, and at Evans's office,
the appearance of vagueness disappeared, the repelling image took
absolute form, and between the girl and himself flitted the form of a
feeble beggared mother.
He had made no effort to trace Mrs. Grey. He knew nothing on earth would
induce her to take aid from him. He knew she could not be reached
indirectly, for she would suspect any side approach to be of his
contriving. When she would not keep a shilling of her own honest money
to buy bread, there was no likelihood of her receiving stolen money from
his hand.
"I have already sacrificed two women, am I about to sacrifice a third?"
He put this question to himself often, but took little interest in the
answer. If any other means of extricating himself offered, he would have
abandoned his design of marrying Maud. He saw no other loophole of
escape.
"If I don't marry Maud, sooner or later it will be found out I have made
fraudulent uses of my power of attorney, and they will seize me, search
the Bank and the Manor, and--hang me out of one of the crossbars of
that tank--always supposing I do not take the liberty of cheating the
hangman by making away with myself."
He began to feel jaded, and people saw changes in him, and asked him if
he was quite well. When not racked by dread or torn by remorse, a
strange languor fell upon him, and he could not rouse himself to do
anything not absolutely necessary.
In these languid moments he would think to himself: "I have been
over-trained by crime, and I am not capable of fighting as of old."
The first day he called at the Castle after meeting his mother there,
Maud could not be seen. She sent down Mrs. Grant to say she hoped Mr.
Grey would excuse her, as she had a headache, and Mrs. Grant had
recommended her to keep to her room.
This was an agreeable disappointment. He had come to the Island and
requested he might see Maud, not as a matter of liking at the moment,
but as part of a scheme of self-protection laid down when full of life
and vigour, and now carried out with diminished forces.
He formally examined the work upon which the men were engaged, and took
an early leave of the Island.
A meeting with Maud that day would have been too much for him. He did
not feel equal to urging his suit; allusion might have been made to his
manner on the last occasion, and he felt he could not carry off the
fiction of the imaginary dispute of the will with a hand sufficiently
light and firm.
He had now a vague fear--it went beyond fear, and assumed the settled
form of conviction--that his explanation of his violence had not
satisfied Maud. She might really have been indisposed, but of old so
slight an indisposition as headache would not have excluded him from her
presence. He was quite sure Maud had told him the truth, and that his
mother had divulged nothing prejudicial to him. But this was not all.
His mother may have divulged nothing, and yet his manner, his terror at
the sight of her, his violence when she had gone, and his subsequent
statement that litigation was not impossible, might have created an
impression not to be removed easily from the mind of the girl.
He allowed a few days more to elapse before calling again.
Mrs. Grant came to him and said Miss Midharst was so miserably wretched
and unwell she must ask Mr. Grey to be good enough to excuse her not
receiving him.
"I have been very unfortunate with Miss Midharst of late," said the
banker, with a smile to the little widow.
"She is so nervous and excitable," said Mrs. Grant, who seemed uneasy
and disconcerted.
"Until quite lately I have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Midharst
daily. I have not been able to come here so often as of old, and when I
do come I am so unfortunate as to find Miss Midharst laid up." There was
complaint in his tone.
Mrs. Grant felt exceedingly awkward. Maud had told her of Mr. Grey's
extraordinary conduct at their last interview. At her suggestion Maud
had written to Sir William and avoided an interview with the banker.
Maud had had a headache when he called last, but it was not bad enough
to prevent her seeing him if nothing unusual had happened. To-day she
was not unusually nervous, but she dreaded an interview with the banker
so much she became hysterical when his name had been announced. Still
Mrs. Grant's old feeling for Mr. Grey could not be put aside in a
minute, and now that she was face to face with him who had been so
useful and so kind, and found him complaining of exclusion from the
presence of her over whose fortunes the dead baronet had made him
guardian, she felt powerless and wretched. She said, in an unsteady
voice and confused manner:
"I am sure I am very sorry you should have been twice disappointed in
seeing Miss Midharst. It is unfortunate. But I hope you will not think
she intends any disrespect to you. I know nothing is further from her
thoughts."
Grey took the widow's hand gently in his. He felt conscious he was not
as strong as formerly. He had now no friend in the world. A woman, a
widow, had been his greatest friend. He knew Mrs. Grant meant him well.
"Mrs. Grant," he said, "I am sure I have a sincere friend in you."
"I am sure you have," she answered tremulously.
"Will you do me a great favour?"
"There is no one in the world, except Maud, for whom I would so soon do
all I can," she said earnestly.
"You will be candid with me, I know. You will be candid with me because
you could not be otherwise with anyone, and you will answer my question
as a favour?"
"If I can I will; you may rely upon that."
"I knew I was right. My question is: Has anything occurred to make Miss
Midharst disinclined to meet me?"
"She is not very well."
"You were good enough to tell me that some time ago. My question has
reference to something else. Has anything of a personal nature occurred
to make Miss Midharst disinclined to meet me?"
"You know, Mr. Grey, that when Sir William was here Maud made a promise
to him."
"Yes. That she would look upon him as her personal guardian. Is it to
that you refer?"
"It is. I believe Miss Midharst wishes to consult her cousin on some
subject of importance. She has written to him."
"And will not receive me until she gets his reply? Is that what I am to
understand, Mrs. Grant?" Grey's voice quavered, and his whole body
shook. How had that letter escaped him?
"I do not think Maud will be quite strong enough to see you for a few
days more."
"That is, until she hears from her cousin?"
"Until she sees him."
"_Sees him!_ What do you mean?"
"She wrote him, asking him to come back, if he could."
"That is not true. I never saw the letter," he whispered.
"Yes. She wrote him the day she saw you last, and he is coming back. He
has telegraphed to her saying so."
"The day she saw me last! The day I met another woman talking to her."
"Yes."
"Was it at the suggestion of that woman she wrote for Sir William to
come home?"
"No; that lady did not, as far as I can hear, mention Sir William's
name."
"And that was the day," said Grey, letting fall Mrs. Grant's hand and
pressing it against his throbbing forehead--"that was the day I forgot
the bag. How soon is Sir Alexander expected here?"
"Sir William, you mean."
"Ah, yes; Sir William I mean, of course. I forgot--I forgot!"
"We don't know exactly when he may be here, but he will certainly not be
longer than a fortnight."
"And between this and then Miss Midharst will not see me?"
He had still his hand on his brow. She did not answer.
Without taking any further notice of her he walked feebly out of the
room. For an hour he wandered aimlessly about the Castle grounds. There
were men at work, but he took no notice of them. When it grew dusk he
crossed over in a boat to the mainland, and set out to walk home.
The cool air and the walking gradually improved his tone, and little by
little he became familiar with the new aspect of affairs. He was
conscious of mental indifference, weakness, or numbness--he did not know
exactly what it was. Thoughts and ideas and things had lost half their
values to him. He felt like a man who wakes for the first time in a
prison where he is to pass his life, only the prisoner's heart is
afflicted with the memory of a better past. Grey, as he walked along,
did not once turn his eyes back. He kept them fixed rigidly forward.
In the immediate future he saw he should lose all influence at the
Castle. The moment Sir William came home his suspicions would be
aroused. He would make inquiries, and find not a single shilling of Sir
Alexander's money in the books of the Bank of England.
Then would come ruin and death, or death and ruin--put it either way. He
was beaten. He confessed it to himself. Discovery could not be three
weeks off. There was no loophole--no means of escape. The days of
abduction were dead and buried long ago. He could not carry Maud away
forcibly and marry her. He had, by law, no control over her person. She
would not see him until Sir William's return. Most likely she was acting
under the young man's advice in not seeing him.
A month ago he was keener, and would have felt angry at the interference
of this young man and the stubbornness of this girl; but he was past all
that now. He was beaten, beaten beyond all hope of retrieving his
fortune. His life was forfeit. His name would be branded for ever in the
town where it had been almost worshipped for years.
And when he had died by his own hand, and all had been discovered, his
mother, a wanderer on the land, would, as she sank into a pauper's
grave, learn the enormity of his crime, and call out that the sin of
having brought such a monster into the world might be taken away from
her in consideration of the wrongs he had done her.
No! no! no! Ten thousand times No! His mother should never hear the
awful words: "Henry Walter Grey found guilty of Wife Murder," or,
"Discovery of the body of Mrs. Henry Walter Grey, with a history of her
murder by her husband."
No; that must never be. But how was he to prevent it? Only one way
remained.
If he could hide the embezzlement, he could hide the murder. There was
now only one way of hiding the fraud: he must throw himself on the mercy
of Miss Midharst and her cousin. The moment Sir William returned, he
should make a full confession. While there is life there is hope, and
that was not a foolish hope. Sir William was young and chivalric. Sir
William would listen to his prayer and show mercy.