Mr. Witt's Widow Part 26

"Ah, that is the most difficult task of all."

"I don't know anything about that. Only I hope you believe what you say.

Young men are so conceited nowadays."

"When Miss Pocklington comes in, you will tell her how sorry I was not to see her?"

"Certainly."

"And that I look forward to Tuesday?"

"No; I shall say nothing about that. You are not out of the wood yet."

"Oh yes, I am."

But Mrs. Pocklington stood firm; and George departed, feeling that the last possibility of mercy for Neaera Witt had vanished. There is a limit to unselfishness; nay, what place is there for pity when public duty and private interest unite in demanding just severity?

CHAPTER XIV.

NEAERA'S LAST CARD.

Neaera Witt had one last card to play. Alas, how great the stake, and how slight the chance! Still she would play it. If it failed, she would only drink a little deeper of humiliation, and be trampled a little more contemptuously under foot. What did that matter?

"You will not condemn a woman unheard," she wrote, with a touch of melodrama. "I expect you here on Sunday evening at nine. You cannot be so hard as not to come."

George had written that he would come, but that his determination was unchangeable. "I must come, as you ask me," he said; "but it is useless--worse than useless." Still he would come.

Bill Sykes likes to be tried in a black coat, and draggle-tailed Sal smooths her tangled locks before she enters the dock. Who can doubt, though it be not recorded, that the burghers of Calais, cruelly restricted to their shirts, donned their finest linen to face King Edward and his Queen, or that the Inquisitors were privileged to behold many a robe born to triumph on a different stage? And so Neaera Witt adorned herself to meet George Neston with subtle simplicity. Her own ill-chastened taste, fed upon popular engravings, hankered after black velvet, plainly made in clinging folds; but she fancied that the motive would be too obvious for an eye so _ruse_ as George's, and reluctantly surrendered her picture of a second Queen of Scots. White would be better; white could cling as well as black, and would so mingle suggestions of remorse and innocence that surely he could not be hard-hearted enough to draw the distinction. A knot of flowers, destined to be plucked to pieces by agitated hands--so much conventional emotion she could not deny herself,--a dress cut low, and open sleeves made to fall back when the white arms were upstretched for pity,--all this should make a combined a.s.sault on George's higher nature and on his lower. Neaera thought that, if only she had been granted time and money to dress properly, she might never have seen the inside of Peckton gaol at all; for even lawyers are human, or, if that be disputed, let us say not superhuman.

George came in with all the awkwardness of an Englishman who hates a scene and feels himself a fool for his awkwardness. Neaera motioned him to a chair, and they sat silent for a moment.

"You sent for me, Mrs. Witt?"

"Yes," said Neaera, looking at the fire. Then, with a sudden turn of her eyes upon him, she added, "It was only--to thank you."

"I'm afraid you have little enough to thank me for."

"Yes; your kindness at Liverpool."

"Oh, it seemed the best way out. I hope you pardon the liberty I took?"

"And for an earlier kindness of yours."

"I really----"

"Yes, yes. When they gave me that money you sent, I cried. I could not cry in prison, but I cried then. It was the first time any one had ever been kind to me."

George was embarra.s.sed. He had an uneasy feeling that the sentiment was trite; but, then, many of the saddest things are the tritest.

"It is good of you," he said, stumbling in his words, "to remember it, in face of all I have done against you."

"You pitied me then."

"With all my heart."

"How did I do it? How did I? I wish I had starved; and seen my father starve first!"

George wondered whether it was food that the late Mr. Gale so urgently needed.

"But I did it. I was a thief; and once a thief, always a thief." And Neaera smiled a sad smile.

"You must not suppose," he said, as he had once before, "that I do not make allowances."

"Allowances?" she cried, starting up. "Allowances--always allowances!

never pity! never mercy! never forgetfulness!"

"You did not ask for mercy," said George.

"No, I didn't. I know what you mean--I lied."

"Yes, you lied, if you choose that word. You garbled doc.u.ments, and, when the truth was told, you called it slander."

Neaera had sunk back in her seat again. "Yes," she moaned. "I couldn't let it all go--I couldn't!"

"You yourself have made pity impossible."

"Oh no, not impossible! I loved him so, and he--he was so trustful."

"The more reason for not deceiving him," said George, grimly.

"What is it, after all?" she exclaimed, changing her tone. "What is it, I say?"

"Well, if you ask me, Mrs. Witt, it's an awkward record."

"An awkward record! Yes, but for a man in love?"

"That's Gerald's look-out. He can do as he pleases."

"What, after you have put me to open shame? And for what? Because I loved my father most, and loved my--the man who loved me--most!" George shook his head.

"If you were in love--in love, I say, with a girl--yes, if you were in love with me, would this thing stop you?" And she stood before him proudly and scornfully.

George looked at her. "I don't think it would," he said.

"Then," she asked, advancing a step, and stretching out her clasped hands, "why ask more for another than for yourself?"