Elster's Folly Part 47

"I ask _you_, Lord Hartledon," she resumed, having noted the silent appeal to Mr. Carr. "It requires no third person to step between man and wife. Will you come upstairs with me?"

Words and manner were too pointed, and Mr. Carr hastily stacked the books, and carried them to a side-table.

"Allow these to remain here until to-morrow," he said to Lord Hartledon; "I'll send my clerk for them. I'm off now; it's later than I thought.

Good-night, Lady Hartledon."

He went out unmolested; Lady Hartledon did not answer him; Val nodded his good-night.

"Are you not ashamed to face me, Lord Hartledon?" she then demanded.

"I overheard what you were saying."

"Overheard what we were saying?" he repeated, gazing at her with a scared look.

"I heard that insidious man give you strange advice--'_you must quietly separate from her_,' he said; meaning from me. And you listened patiently, and did not knock him down!"

"Maude! Maude! was that all you heard?"

"_All!_ I should think it was enough."

"Yes, but--" He broke off, so agitated as scarcely to know what he was saying. Rallying himself somewhat, he laid his hand upon the white cloak covering her shoulders.

"Do not judge him harshly, Maude. Indeed he is a true friend to you and to me. And I have need of one just now."

"A true friend!--to advise that! I never heard of anything so monstrous.

You must be out of your mind."

"No, I am not, Maude. Should--disgrace"--he seemed to hesitate for a word--"fall upon me, it must touch you as connected with me. I _know_, Maude, that he was thinking of your best and truest interests."

"But to talk of separating husband and wife!"

"Yes--well--I suppose he spoke strongly in the heat of the moment."

There was a pause. Lord Hartledon had his hand still on his wife's shoulder, but his eyes were bent on the table near which they stood. She was waiting for him to speak.

"Won't you tell me what has happened?"

"I can't tell you, Maude, to-night," he answered, great drops coming out again on his brow at the question, and knowing all the time that he should never tell her. "I--I must learn more first."

"You spoke of disgrace," she observed gently, swaying her fan before her by its silken cord. "An ugly word."

"It is. Heaven help me!"

"Val, I do think you are the greatest simpleton under the skies!" she exclaimed out of all patience, and flinging his hand off. "It's time you got rid of this foolish sensitiveness. I know what is the matter quite well; and it's not so very much of a disgrace after all! Those Ashtons are going to make you pay publicly for your folly. Let them do it."

He had opened his lips to undeceive her, but stopped in time. As a drowning man catches at a straw, so did he catch at this suggestion in his hopeless despair; and he suffered her to remain in it. Anything to stave off the real, dreadful truth.

"Maude," he rejoined, "it is for your sake. If I am sensitive as to any--any disgrace being brought home to me, I declare that I think of you more than of myself."

"Then don't think of it. It will be fun for me, rather than anything else. I did not imagine the Ashtons would have done it, though. I wonder what damages they'll go in for. Oh, Val, I should like to see you in the witness-box!"

He did not answer.

"And it was not a parson?" she continued. "I'm sure he looked as much like one as old Ashton himself. A professional man, then, I suppose, Val?"

"Yes, a professional man." But even that little answer was given with some hesitation, as though it had evasion in it.

Maude broke into a laugh. "Your friend, Pleader Carr--or whatever he calls himself--must be as thin-skinned as you are, Val, to fancy that a rubbishing action of that sort, brought against a husband, can reflect disgrace on the wife! Separate, indeed! Has he lived in a wood all his life? Well, I am going upstairs."

"A moment yet, Maude! You will take a caution from me, won't you? Don't speak of this; don't allude to it, even to me. It may be arranged yet, you know."

"So it may," acquiesced Maude. "Let your friend Carr see the doctor, and offer to pay the damages down."

He might have resented this speech for Dr. Ashton's sake, in a happier moment, but resentment had been beaten out of him now. And Lady Hartledon decided that her husband was a simpleton, for instead of going to sleep like a reasonable man, he tossed and turned by her side until daybreak.

CHAPTER XXI.

SECRET CARE.

From that hour Lord Hartledon was a changed man. He went about as one who has some awful fear upon him, starting at shadows. That his manner was inexplicable, even allowing that he had some great crime on his conscience, a looker-on had not failed to observe. He was very tender with his wife; far more so than he had been at all; anxious, as it seemed, to indulge her every fancy, gratify her every whim. But when it came to going into society with her, then he hesitated; he would and he wouldn't, reminding Maude of his old vacillation, which indeed had seemed to have been laid aside for ever. It was as though he appeared not to know what to do; what he ought to do; his own wish or inclination having no part in it.

"Why _won't_ you go with me?" she said to him angrily one day that he had retracted his a.s.sent at the last moment. "Is it that you care so much for Anne Ashton, that you don't care to be seen with me?"

"Oh, Maude! If you knew how little Anne Ashton is in my thoughts now!

When by chance I do think of her, it is to be thankful I did not marry her," he added, in a tone of self-communing.

Maude laughed a light laugh. "This movement of theirs is putting you out of conceit of your old love, Val."

"What movement?" he rejoined; and he would not have asked the question had his thoughts not gone wool-gathering.

"You are dreaming, Val. The action."

"Ah, yes, to be sure."

"Have you heard yet what damages they claim?"

He shook his head. "You promised not to speak of this, Maude; even to me."

"Who is to help speaking of it, when you allow it to take your ease away?

I never in my life saw any one so changed as you are. I wish the thing were over and done with, though it left you a few thousand pounds the poorer. _Will_ you accompany me to this dinner to-day? I am sick of appearing alone and making excuses for you."

"I wish I knew what to do for the best--what my course ought to be!"

thought Hartledon within his conscience. "I can't bear to be seen with her in public. When I face people with her on my arm, it seems as if they must know what sort of man she, in her unconsciousness, is leaning upon."

"I'll go with you to-day, Maude, as you press it. I was to have seen Mr.

Carr, but can send down to him."