The Explorer Part 12

'If I had been on the jury I'm afraid I should have had no alternative but to decide as they did.'

Lucy bent her head, and heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

VII

Next morning Lucy received a note from Alec MacKenzie, asking if he might see her that day; he suggested calling upon her early in the afternoon and expressed the hope that he might find her alone. She sat in the library at Lady Kelsey's and waited for him. She held a book in her hands, but she could not read. And presently she began to weep. Ever since the dreadful news had reached her, Lucy had done her utmost to preserve her self-control, and all night she had lain with clenched hands to prevent herself from giving way. For George's sake and for her father's, she felt that she must keep her strength. But now the strain was too great for her; she was alone; the tears began to flow helplessly, and she made no effort to restrain them.

She had been allowed to see her father. Lucy and George had gone to the prison, and she recalled now the details of the brief interview. The whole thing was horrible. She felt that her heart would break.

In the night indignation had seized Lucy. After reading accounts of the case in half a dozen papers she could not doubt that her father was justly condemned, and she was horrified at the baseness of the crime.

His letters to the poor woman he had robbed, were read in court, and Lucy flushed as she thought of them. They were a tissue of lies, hypocritical and shameless. Lucy remembered the question she had put to Alec and his answer.

But neither the newspapers nor Alec's words were needed to convince her of her father's guilt; in the very depths of her being, notwithstanding the pa.s.sion with which she reproached herself, she had been convinced of it. She would not acknowledge even to herself that she doubted him; and all her words, all her thoughts even, expressed a firm belief in his innocence; but a ghastly terror had lurked in some hidden recess of her consciousness. It haunted her soul like a mysterious shadow which there was no bodily shape to explain. The fear had caught her, as though with material hands, when first the news of his arrest was brought to Court Leys by Robert Boulger, and again at her father's flat in Shaftesbury Avenue, when she saw a secret shame cowering behind the good-humoured flippancy of his smile. Notwithstanding his charm of manner and the tenderness of his affection for his children, she had known that he was a liar and a rascal. She hated him.

But when Lucy saw him, still with the hunted look that d.i.c.k had noticed at the trial, so changed from when last they had met, her anger melted away, and she felt only pity. She reproached herself bitterly. How could she be so heartless when he was suffering? At first he could not speak.

He looked from one to the other of his children silently, with appealing eyes; and he saw the utter wretchedness which was on George's face.

George was ashamed to look at him and kept his eyes averted. Fred Allerton was suddenly grown old and bent; his poor face was sunken, and the skin had an ashy look like that of a dying man. He had already a cringing air, as if he must shrink away from his fellows. It was horrible to Lucy that she was not allowed to take him in her arms. He broke down utterly and sobbed.

'Oh, Lucy, you don't hate me?' he whispered.

'No, I've never loved you more than I love you now,' she said.

And she said it truthfully. Her conscience smote her, and she wondered bitterly what she had left undone that might have averted this calamity.

'I didn't mean to do it,' he said, brokenly.

Lucy looked at his poor, wearied eyes. It seemed very cruel that she might not kiss them.

'I'd have paid her everything if she'd only have given me time. Luck was against me all through. I've been a bad father to both of you.'

Lucy was able to tell him that Lady Kelsey would pay the eight thousand pounds the woman had lost. The good creature had thought of it even before Lucy made the suggestion. At all events none of them need have on his conscience the beggary of that unfortunate person.

'Alice was always a good soul,' said Allerton. He clung to Lucy as though she were his only hope. 'You won't forget me while I'm away, Lucy?'

'I'll come and see you whenever I'm allowed to.'

'It won't be very long. I hope I shall die quickly.'

'You mustn't do that. You must keep well and strong for my sake and George's. We shall never cease to love you, father.'

'What's going to happen to George now?' he asked.

'We shall find something for him. You need not worry about him.'

George flushed. He could find nothing to say. He was ashamed and angry.

He wanted to get away quickly from that place of horror, and he was relieved when the warder told them it was time to go.

'Good-bye, George,' said Fred Allerton.

'Good-bye.'

He kept his eyes sullenly fixed on the ground. The look of despair in Allerton's face grew more intense. He saw that his son hated him. And it had been on him that all his light affection was placed. He had been very proud of the handsome boy. And now his son merely wanted to be rid of him. Bitter words rose to his lips, but his heart was too heavy to utter them, and they expressed themselves only in a sob.

'Forgive me for all I've done against you, Lucy.'

'Have courage, father, we will never love you less.'

He forced a sad smile to his lips. She included George in what she said, but he knew that she spoke only for herself. They went. And he turned away into the darkness.

Lucy's tears relieved her a little. They exhausted her, and so made her agony more easy to bear. It was necessary now to think of the future.

Alec MacKenzie must be there soon. She wondered why he had written, and what he could have to say that mattered. She could only think of her father, and above all of George. She dried her eyes, and with a deep sigh set herself methodically to consider the difficult problem.

When Alec came she rose gravely to receive him. For a moment he was overcome by her loveliness, and he gazed at her in silence. Lucy was a woman who was at her best in the tragic situations of life; her beauty was heightened by the travail of her soul, and the heaviness of her eyes gave a pathetic grandeur to her wan face. She advanced to meet sorrow with an unquailing glance, and Alec, who knew something of heroism, recognised the greatness of her heart. Of late he had been more than once to see that portrait of _Diana of the Uplands_, in which he, too, found the gracious healthiness of Lucy Allerton; but now she seemed like some sad queen, English to the very bones, who bore with a royal dignity an intolerable grief, and yet by the magnificence of her spirit turned into something wholly beautiful.

'You must forgive me for forcing myself upon you to-day,' he said slowly. 'But my time is very short, and I wanted to speak to you at once.'

'It is very good of you to come.' She was embarra.s.sed, and did not know what exactly to say. 'I am always very glad to see you.'

He looked at her steadily, as though he were turning over in his mind her commonplace words. She smiled.

'I wanted to thank you for your great kindness to me during these two or three weeks. You've been very good to me, and you've helped me to bear all that--I've had to bear.'

'I would do far more for you than that,' he answered. Suddenly it flashed through her mind why he had come. Her heart gave a great beat against her chest. The thought had never entered her head. She sat down and waited for him to speak. He did not move. There was a singular immobility about him when something absorbed his mind.

'I wrote and asked if I might see you alone, because I had something that I wanted to say to you. I've wanted to say it ever since we were at Court Leys together, but I was going away--heaven only knows when I shall come back, and perhaps something may happen to me--and I thought it was unfair to you to speak.'

He paused. His eyes were fixed upon hers. She waited for him to go on.

'I wanted to ask you if you would marry me.'

She drew a long breath. Her face kept its expression of intense gravity.

'It's very kind and chivalrous of you to suggest it. You mustn't think me ungrateful if I tell you I can't.'

'Why not?' he asked quietly.

'I must look after my father. If it is any use I shall go and live near the prison.'

'There is no reason why you should not do that if you married me.'

She shook her head.