For the Term of His Natural Life Part 78

North, paralysed no less by the suddenness of the attack than by the words with which it was accompanied, let fall his cloak, and stood trembling before the prophetic accusation of the man whose curses he had come to earn.

"I was dreaming," said Rufus Dawes. "A terrible dream! But it has pa.s.sed now. The message--you have brought me a message, have you not? Why--what ails you? You are pale--your knees tremble. Did my violence----?"

North recovered himself with a great effort. "It is nothing. Let us talk, for my time is short. You have thought me a good man--one blessed of G.o.d, one consecrated to a holy service; a man honest, pure, and truthful. I have returned to tell you the truth. I am none of these things." Rufus Dawes sat staring, unable to comprehend this madness.

"I told you that the woman you loved--for you do love her--sent you a message of forgiveness. I lied."

"What!"

"I never told her of your confession. I never mentioned your name to her."

"And she will go without knowing--Oh, Mr. North, what have you done?"

"Wrecked my own soul!" cried North, wildly, stung by the reproachful agony of the tone. "Do not cling to me. My task is done. You will hate me now. That is my wish--I merit it. Let me go, I say. I shall be too late."

"Too late! For what?" He looked at the cloak--through the open window came the voices of the men in the boat--the memory of the rose, of the scene in the prison, flashed across him, and he understood it all.

"Great Heaven, you go together!"

"Let me go," repeated North, in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

Rufus Dawes stepped between him and the door. "No, madman, I will not let you go, to do this great wrong, to kill this innocent young soul, who--G.o.d help her--loves you!" North, confounded at this sudden reversal of their position towards each other, crouched bewildered against the wall. "I say you shall not go! You shall not destroy your own soul and hers! You love her! So do I! and my love is mightier than yours, for it shall save her!"

"In G.o.d's name--" cried the unhappy priest, striving to stop his ears.

"Ay, in G.o.d's name! In the name of that G.o.d whom in my torments I had forgotten! In the name of that G.o.d whom you taught me to remember! That G.o.d who sent you to save me from despair, gives me strength to save you in my turn! Oh, Mr. North--my teacher--my friend--my brother--by the sweet hope of mercy which you preached to me, be merciful to this erring woman!"

North lifted agonized eyes. "But I love her! Love her, do you hear? What do you know of love?"

"Love!" cried Rufus Dawes, his pale face radiant. "Love! Oh, it is you who do not know it. Love is the sacrifice of self, the death of all desire that is not for another's good. Love is G.o.dlike! You love?--no, no, your love is selfishness, and will end in shame! Listen, I will tell you the history of such a love as yours."

North, enthralled by the other's overmastering will, fell back trembling.

"I will tell you the secret of my life, the reason why I am here. Come closer."

CHAPTER XV. THE DISCOVERY.

The house in Clarges Street was duly placed at the disposal of Mrs.

Richard Devine, who was installed in it, to the profound astonishment and disgust of Mr. Smithers and his fellow-servants. It now only remained that the lady should be formally recognized by Lady Devine. The rest of the ingenious programme would follow as a matter of course. John Rex was well aware of the position which, in his a.s.sumed personality, he occupied in society. He knew that by the world of servants, of waiters, of those to whom servants and waiters could babble; of such turfites and men-about-town as had reason to inquire concerning Mr. Richard's domestic affairs--no opinion could be expressed, save that "Devine's married somebody, I hear," with variations to the same effect. He knew well that the really great world, the Society, whose scandal would have been socially injurious, had long ceased to trouble itself with Mr.

Richard Devine's doings in any particular. If it had been reported that the Leviathan of the Turf had married his washerwoman, Society would only have intimated that "it was just what might have been expected of him". To say the truth, however, Mr. Richard had rather hoped that--disgusted at his brutality--Lady Devine would have nothing more to do with him, and that the ordeal of presenting his wife would not be necessary. Lady Devine, however, had resolved on a different line of conduct. The intelligence concerning Mr. Richard Devine's threatened proceedings seemed to nerve her to the confession of the dislike which had been long growing in her mind; seemed even to aid the formation of those doubts, the shadows of which had now and then cast themselves upon her belief in the ident.i.ty of the man who called himself her son. "His conduct is brutal," said she to her brother. "I cannot understand it."

"It is more than brutal; it is unnatural," returned Francis Wade, and stole a look at her. "Moreover, he is married."

"Married!" cried Lady Devine.

"So he says," continued the other, producing the letter sent to him by Rex at Sarah's dictation. "He writes to me stating that his wife, whom he married last year abroad, has come to England, and wishes us to receive her."

"I will not receive her!" cried Lady Devine, rising and pacing down the path.

"But that would be a declaration of war," said poor Francis, twisting an Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand. "I would not advise that."

Lady Devine stopped suddenly, with the gesture of one who has finally made a difficult and long-considered resolution. "Richard shall not sell this house," she said.

"But, my dear Ellinor," cried her brother, in some alarm at this unwonted decision, "I am afraid that you can't prevent him."

"If he is the man he says he is, I can," returned she, with effort.

Francis Wade gasped. "If he is the man! It is true--I have sometimes thought--Oh, Ellinor, can it be that we have been deceived?"

She came to him and leant upon him for support, as she had leant upon her son in the garden where they now stood, nineteen years ago. "I do not know, I am afraid to think. But between Richard and myself is a secret--a shameful secret, Frank, known to no other living person. If the man who threatens me does not know that secret, he is not my son. If he does know it----"

"Well, in Heaven's name, what then?"

"He knows that he has neither part nor lot in the fortune of the man who was my husband."

"Ellinor, you terrify me. What does this mean?"

"I will tell you if there be need to do so," said the unhappy lady. "But I cannot now. I never meant to speak of it again, even to him. Consider that it is hard to break a silence of nearly twenty years. Write to this man, and tell him that before I receive his wife, I wish to see him alone. No--do not let him come here until the truth be known. I will go to him."

It was with some trepidation that Mr. Richard, sitting with his wife on the afternoon of the 3rd May, 1846, awaited the arrival of his mother.

He had been very nervous and unstrung for some days past, and the prospect of the coming interview was, for some reason he could not explain to himself, weighty with fears. "What does she want to come alone for? And what can she have to say?" he asked himself. "She cannot suspect anything after all these years, surely?" He endeavoured to reason with himself, but in vain; the knock at the door which announced the arrival of his pretended mother made his heart jump.

"I feel deuced shaky, Sarah," he said. "Let's have a nip of something."

"You've been nipping too much for the last five years, d.i.c.k." (She had quite schooled her tongue to the new name.) "Your 'shakiness' is the result of 'nipping', I'm afraid."

"Oh, don't preach; I am not in the humour for it."

"Help yourself, then. You are quite sure that you are ready with your story?"

The brandy revived him, and he rose with affected heartiness. "My dear mother, allow me to present to you--" He paused, for there was that in Lady Devine's face which confirmed his worst fears.

"I wish to speak to you alone," she said, ignoring with steady eyes the woman whom she had ostensibly come to see.

John Rex hesitated, but Sarah saw the danger, and hastened to confront it. "A wife should be a husband's best friend, madam. Your son married me of his own free will, and even his mother can have nothing to say to him which it is not my duty and privilege to hear. I am not a girl as you can see, and I can bear whatever news you bring."

Lady Devine bit her pale lips. She saw at once that the woman before her was not gently-born, but she felt also that she was a woman of higher mental calibre than herself. Prepared as she was for the worst, this sudden and open declaration of hostilities frightened her, as Sarah had calculated. She began to realize that if she was to prove equal to the task she had set herself, she must not waste her strength in skirmishing. Steadily refusing to look at Richard's wife, she addressed herself to Richard. "My brother will be here in half an hour," she said, as though the mention of his name would better her position in some way.

"But I begged him to allow me to come first in order that I might speak to you privately."