XV

The Chase was true to its highest traditions. Before the week was over

it was known that the sum determined on by the Egerton Defence Fund

Committee had been already promised, and more.

Stephen Byrne, with a heavy heart, went to the "general meeting" on

Tuesday evening. To have stayed away would have looked odd; also he was

anxious to know the worst. He walked there as most men go to a battle,

full of secret foreboding, yet dubiously glad of the near necessity for

action. If, indeed, there was to be a libel action, backed by all the

meddlesome resources of The Chase, things would have to come to a head.

This was a development which had never been provided for in his

calculations and plans. It would have been easier, somehow, if John had

been arrested, charged by the Crown with murder. He would have known

then what to do--or he thought he would. He wished now that he had been

to see John, found out what he was thinking. But he was nervous of John

now, or rather he was nervous of himself. He could not trust himself not

to do something silly if he met John in private again; the only thing

to do was to try to forget him, laugh at him if possible. And that was

the devil of this libel business. He would have to be there himself, he

would have to give evidence again, and sit there probably while poor old

John was stammering and mumbling in the box. Yet he had done it

before--why not again? Somehow he felt that he could not do it again. It

all seemed different now.

And that poem! Why the hell had he written it? Why had he sent it to

_The Argus_. He had had it typed on Thursday, and sent it off by special

messenger on Friday, just in time for the October number. _The Argus_

liked long poems. What a fool he had been! Or had he? He knew very well

himself what it all meant--but how could any one else connect it with

life--with Emily Gaunt? No, that was all right. And it was damned good

stuff! He was glad he had sent it. It would go down well. And another

day would have meant missing the October number.

Yes, it was damned good stuff! He stood at the Whittakers' door, turning

over in his head some favourite lines from Gelert's speech in the

forest. Damned good! As he thought how excellent it was, there was a

curious sensation of tingling and contraction in the flesh of his body

and the back of his legs.

When he came out, an hour later, he was a happier man. He was almost

happy. For it had been announced at the meeting, with all the solemnity

of shocked amazement, that Mr. Egerton had refused to avail himself of

the generous undertakings of The Chase and neighbourhood. The money

promised would enable him to sue with an easy mind. But he would not

sue.

There was nothing to be done, then, but put and carry votes of thanks to

the unofficial Committee for their labour and enterprise, to Whittaker

for the use of his house, to Henry Stimpson for his wasted efforts. The

last of these votes was felt by most to be effort equally wasted, since

they knew well that Henry Stimpson had in fact thoroughly enjoyed

collecting promises and cash, and had now the further unlooked-for

delight of having to return the money already subscribed.

This done, the meeting broke up with a sense that they had been

thwarted, or at any rate unreasonably debarred from a legitimate

exercise of their communal instincts.

But apart from this intelligible disappointment there was a good deal of

head-shaking, and plain, if not outspoken, disapproval of Egerton's

conduct. Stephen, moving among the crowd, gathered easily the sense of

The Chase, and it had veered surprisingly since Whittaker's

announcement. For John Egerton had advanced, it seemed, the astounding

reason that he might _lose_ the case. To the simple people of The

Chase--as indeed to the simple population of England--there was only one

test to a libel action. Either you won or you lost. The complex

cross-possibilities of justification and privilege and fair comment and

the rest of it, which Mr. Dimple was heard to be apologetically

explaining in a corner to a deaf lady, were lost upon them. If you

failed to win your case, what the other man said was true, and if you

were not confident of winning, your conscience could not be absolutely

clear. The meeting rather felt that John Egerton had let them down, but

they were certain that he had let himself down. And it was clear that

even his staunchest supporters, men like Whittaker and Tatham, were

shaken in their allegiance.

But Stephen Byrne was happy. He had trusted to luck again, and luck, or

rather the quixotic lunacy of John Egerton, had saved him again. It was

wonderful. It was all over now. John had finally made his bed, and he

must lie on it. He thought little of what this must mean to John, this

aggravation of the local suspicions. He saw only one thing, that yet

another wall had been raised between himself and exposure, that once

more his anxieties might be thrust into the background. That he might

settle down again with a comfortable mind to literature and domestic

calm. He had forgotten with his fears his compunction of an hour ago; he

had forgotten even to feel grateful to John; and if he thought of him

with pity, it was a contemptuous pity. He saw John now as a kind of

literary figure of high but laughable virtue, a man so virtuous as to be

ridiculous, a mere foil to the heroic dare-devils of life--such as

Gelert and Stephen Byrne.

So he came to his own house, thinking again of those excellent lines of

Gelert's speech. In the hall he composed in his mind the description of

the meeting which he would give to Margery.

But Margery, too, was thinking of Gelert. She was reading the manuscript

of "The Death in the Wood." She had watched Stephen go out in a slow

gloom to the meeting, and then she had hurried to the table and taken

guiltily the bundle from the special manuscript drawer. For Stephen,

with the sentimental fondness of many writers for the original work of

their own hands, preserved his manuscripts long after they had been

copied in type and printed and published. Twice during the last week she

had gone to that drawer, but each time she had been interrupted. And at

each reading her curiosity and admiration had grown.

She had suspected nothing--had imagined no sort of relation between

Stephen's life and Gelert's adventures. There was no reason why she

should. For she detested--as she had been taught by Stephen to

detest--the conception of art as a vast autobiography. Stephen's

personality was in the feeling and in the phrasing of his work; and that

was enough for her; the substance was a small matter.

Even the incident of the maiden in the wood, her death and her

concealment in the lake, had scarcely stirred the memory of Emily. For

the reverent and idyllic scene in which the two knights had "laid" the

body of the maiden among the reeds and water lilies of the lake, to be

discovered by her kinsmen peeping through the tangled thickets of wild

rose, was as remote as possible from the sordid ugliness of Emily's

disposal and discovery in a muddy sack near Barnes.

But now she had finished. And she did suspect. When she came to the

passage describing Gelert's remorse for the betrayal of his old

companion-at-arms, his gloomy bearing and penitent vows, she thought

suddenly of Stephen's late extravagant gloom, which she was still unable

to understand. And then she suspected. Idly the thought came, and idly

she put it away. But it returned, and she hated herself because of it.

It grew to a stark suspicion, and she sat for a moment in an icy terror,

frozen with pain by her imaginations. Then in a fever of anxiety she

went back to the beginning of the manuscript, and hurried through it

again, noting every incident of the story in the hideous light of her

suspicions. And as she turned over the untidy pages, the terror grew.

In the light of this dreadful theory so many things were

explained--little odd things which had puzzled her and been

forgotten--Stephen's surprising anxiety when Michael was born (and Emily

disappeared), and that evening in the summer, when they had all been so

silent and awkward together, and the drifting apart of Stephen and John,

and John's extraordinary evidence, and Stephen's present depression. It

was all so terribly clear, and the incidents of the poem so terribly

fitted in. Margery moaned helplessly to herself, "Oh, _Stephen_!" When

he came in, she was almost sure.

It was curious that at first she thought nothing of Gelert's illicit

amours in the castle, the stealing of his own friend's lady. That part

of the poem, of course, was a piece of romantic imagination, with which

she had no personal concern. But while she waited for Stephen, turning

over the leaves once more, the thought did come to her, "If one part is

true--why not all?" But this thought she firmly thrust out. She was sure

of him in _that_ way, at any rate. She flung a cushion over the

manuscript and waited.

He came in slowly as he had gone out, but she saw at once that his gloom

was somehow relieved. And as he told her in studied accents of distress

the story of the meeting, there came to her a sick certainty that he was

acting. He was not _really_ sorry that John had thought it best not to

take any action; he was glad.

When he had finished, she said, in a hard voice which startled her,

"What _do_ you make of it, Stephen? Do you think he really did it?"

Stephen looked at the fire, the first fire of late September, and he

said, "God knows, Margery; God knows. He's a funny fellow, John." He

sighed heavily and stared into the fire.

And then she was quite sure.

She stood up from the sofa, the manuscript in her hand, and came towards

him.

"Stephen," she said, "I've been reading this--You--I--oh, _Stephen_!"

The last word came with a little wail, and she burst suddenly into

tears, hiding her face against his shoulder. She stood there sobbing,

and shaken with sobbing, and he tried to soothe her, stroking her hair

with a futile caressing movement, and murmuring her name ridiculously,

over and over again.

It did not occur to him to go on acting, to pretend astonishment or

incomprehension. She had blundered somehow on the secret, and perhaps

it was better so. To her at least he could lie no more.

At last the sobbing ceased, and he kissed her gently, and she turned

from him automatically to tidy her hair in the glass.

Then she said, still breathless and incoherent, "Stephen, is it

true--that _poor_ Emily--and poor John--Oh, Stephen, how _could_ you?"

The tears were coming back, so he put his arms about her again. And he

spoke quickly, saying anything, anything to hold her attention and keep

away those terrible tears.

"Darling, I was a fool ... it was for your sake in the first place--for

your sake we kept it dark, I mean--it was John's idea--and then--I don't

know--I was a beast--But don't worry. Tomorrow I'll put it all right....

I'll give myself up--I--"

But at these words, and at the picture they raised, a great cry burst

from her, "Oh, no, Stephen. No! no!--you mustn't."

And she seized the lapels of his coat and shook him fiercely in the

intensity of her feeling, the human, passionate, protective feeling of a

wife for her own man--careless what evil he may have done if somehow he

may be made safe for her.

And Stephen was startled. He had not expected this. He said, stupidly,

"But John--what about John?--don't you want me--don't you--?"

"No, Stephen, no--at least--" and she stopped, thinking now of John,

trying conscientiously to realize what was owed to him. Then she went

on, in a broken torrent of pleading, "No, Stephen, it's gone on so long

now--a little more won't matter to him--surely, Stephen--and nobody

_really_ thinks he did it--_nobody_, Stephen. It's only people like Mrs.

Vincent, Mrs. Ambrose was saying so only yesterday--and it would

mean--it would mean--what _would_ it mean, Stephen--Stephen, tell me?"

But as she imagined what this would mean to Stephen she stood shuddering

before him, her big eyes staring piteously at him.

"It would mean--O God, Margery, I don't know--" and he turned away.

So for a long time she pleaded with him, in groping, inarticulate

half-sentences. She never reproached him, never asked him how he had

come to do a foul murder. She did not want to know that, she did not

want to think of what it was _right_ for him to do--that was too

dangerous. All that mattered was this danger--a danger that could be

avoided if she could only persuade him. And Stephen listened in a kind

of stupor, listened miserably to the old excuses and arguments, and

half-truths with which he had so often in secret convinced himself. But

somehow, as Margery put them with all the prejudice of her passionate

fears, they did not convince him. They stood out horribly in their

nakedness. And though he was touched and amazed by the strength of her

forgiveness and her love in the face of this knowledge, he wished almost

that she had not forgiven him, had urged him with curses to go out and

do his duty. No, he did not wish that, really. But he did wish she would

leave him alone now, leave him to think. He _must_ think.

His eye fell on the manuscript lying on the floor, and he began to

wonder what it was in the poem that had told her, and how much it had

told. She had said nothing of that. He interrupted her: "How--how did

you guess?" He jerked his head at the paper.

She told him. And as she went again through that terrible process in her

mind, that other thought returned, that idle notion about the wooing in

the castle, which she had flung away from her.

She said, faltering and slow, her lips trembling, "Stephen--there's

nothing else in it ... is there?... I ought to have guessed?--Stephen,

you _do_ love me--don't you?" She stepped uncertainly towards him, and

then with a loud cry, "Darling, I _do_!" he caught her to him. And she

knew that it was true.