She all but laughed with glad confidence.

'Oh, I will trust you!'



CHAPTER XXV



Adela and her husband did not return from Belwick till eight o'clock in the evening. In the first place Mr. Yottle had to be sent for from a friend's house in the country, where he was spending Sunday; then there was long waiting for a train back to Agworth. The Rodmans, much puzzled to account for the disorder, postponed dinner. Adela, however, dined alone, and but slightly, though she had not eaten since breakfast. Then fatigue overcame her. She slept an unbroken sleep till sunrise.

On going down next morning she found 'Arry alone in the dining-room; he was standing at the window with hands in pocket, and, after a glance round, averted his face again, a low growl his only answer to her morning salutation. Mr. Rodman was the next to appear. He shook hands as usual. In his 'I hope you are well?' there was an accent of respectful sympathy. Personally, he seemed in his ordinary spirits. He proceeded to talk of trifles, but in such a tone as he might have used had there been grave sickness in the house. And presently, with yet lower voice and a smile of good-humoured resignation, he said—

'Our journey, I fear, must be postponed.'

Adela smiled, not quite in the same way, and briefly assented.

'Alice is not very well,' Rodman then remarked. 'I advised her to have breakfast upstairs. I trust you excuse her?'

Mutimer made his appearance. He just nodded round, and asked, as he seated himself at table—

'Who's been letting Freeman loose? He's running about the garden.'

The dog furnished a topic for a few minutes' conversation, then there was all but unbroken silence to the end of the meal. Richard's face expressed nothing in particular, unless it were a bad night. Rodman kept up his smile, and, eating little himself, devoted himself to polite waiting upon Adela. When he rose from the table, Richard said to his brother—

'You'll go down as usual. I shall be at the office in half-an-hour.'

Adela presently went to the drawing-room. She was surprised to find Alice sitting there. Mrs. Rodman had clearly not enjoyed the unbroken rest which gave Adela her appearance of freshness and calm; her eyes were swollen and red, her lips hung like those of a fretful child that has tired itself with sobbing, her hair was carelessly rolled up, her attire slatternly. She sat in sullen disorder. Seeing Adela, she dropped her eyes, and her lips drew themselves together. Adela hesitated to approach her, but was moved to do so by sheer pity.

'I'm afraid you've had a bad night,' she said kindly.

'Yes, I suppose I have,' was the ungracious reply.

Adela stood before her for a moment, but could find nothing else to say. She was turning when Alice looked up, her red eyes almost glaring, her breast shaken with uncontrollable passion.

'I think you might have had some consideration,' she exclaimed. 'If you didn't care to speak a word for yourself, you might have thought about others. What are we to do, I. should like to know?'

Adela was struck with consternation. She had been prepared for petulant bewailing, but a vehement outburst of this kind was the last thing she could have foreseen, above all to have it directed against herself.

'What do you mean, Alice?' she said with pained surprise.

'Why, it's all your doing, I suppose,' the other pursued, in the same voice. 'What right had you to let him go off in that way without saying a word to us? If the truth was known, I expect you were at the bottom of it; he wouldn't have been such a fool, whatever he says. What right had you, I'd like to know?'

Adela calmed herself as she listened. Her surprise at the attack was modified and turned into another channel by Alice's words.

'Has Richard told you what passed between us?' she inquired. It cost her nothing to speak with unmoved utterance; the difficulty was not to seem too indifferent.

'He's told us as much as he thought fit. His duty! I like that! As if you couldn't have stopped him, if you'd chosen! You might have thought of other people.'

'Did he tell you that I tried to stop him?' Adela asked, with the same quietness of interrogation.

'Why, did you?' cried Alice, looking up scornfully.

'No.'

'Of course not! Talk about duty! I should think that was plain enough duty. I only wish he'd come to me with his talk about duty. It's a duty to rob people, I suppose? Oh, I understand him well enough. It's an easy way of getting out of his difficulties; as well lose his money this way as any other. He always thinks of himself first, trust him! He'll go down to New Wanley and make a speech, no doubt, and show off—with his duty and all the rest of it! What's going to become of me? You'd no right to let him go before telling us.'

'You would have advised him to say nothing about the will?'

'Advised him!' she laughed angrily. 'I'd have seen if I couldn't do something more than advise.'

'I fear you wouldn't have succeeded in making your brother act dishonourably,' Adela replied.

It was the first sarcasm that had ever passed her lips, and as soon as it was spoken she turned to leave the room, fearful lest she might say things which would afterwards degrade her in her own eyes. Her body quivered. As she reached the door Rodman opened it and entered. He bowed to let her pass, searching her face the while.

When she was gone he approached to Alice, whom he had at once observed:

'What have you been up to?' he asked sternly.

Her head was bent before him, and she gave no answer.

'Can't you speak? What's made her look like that? Have you been quarrelling with her?'

'Quarrelling?'

'You know what I mean well enough. Just tell me what you said. I thought I told you to stay upstairs? What's been going on?'

'I told her she ought to have let us know,' replied Alice, timorous, but affecting the look and voice of a spoilt child.

'Then you've made a fool of yourself!' he exclaimed with subdued violence. 'You've got to learn that when I tell you to do a thing you do it—or I'll know the reason why! You'd no business to come out of your room. Now you'll just find her and apologise. You understand? You'll go and beg her pardon at once.'

Alice raised her eyes in wretched bewilderment.

'Beg her pardon?' she faltered. 'Oh, how can I? Why, what harm have I done, Willis? I'm sure I shan't beg her pardon.'

'You won't? If you talk to me in that way you shall go down on your knees before her. You won't?'

His voice had such concentrated savagery in its suppression that Alice shrank back in terror.

'Willis! How can you speak so! What have I done?'

'You've made a confounded fool of yourself, and most likely spoilt the last chance you had, if you want to know. In future, when I say a thing understand that I mean it; I don't give orders for nothing. Go and find her and beg her pardon. I'll wait here till you've done it.'

'But I can't! Willis, you won't force me to do that? I'd rather die than humble myself to her.'

'Do you hear me?'

She stood up, almost driven to bay. Her eyes were wet, her poor, crumpled prettiness made a deplorable spectacle.

'I can't, I can't! Why are you so unkind to me? I have only said what any one would. I hate her! My lips won't speak the words. You've no right to ask me to do such a thing.'

Her wrist was caught in a clutch that seemed to crush the muscles, and she was flung back on to the chair. Terror would not let the scream pass her lips: she lay with open mouth and staring eyes.

Rodman looked at her for an instant, then seemed to master his fury and laughed.

'That doesn't improve your beauty. Now, no crying out before you're hurt. There's no harm done. Only you've to learn that I mean what I say, that's all. Now I haven't hurt you, so don't pretend.'

'Oh, you have hurt me!' she sobbed wretchedly, with her fingers round her injured wrist. 'I never thought you could be so cruel. Oh, my hand! What harm have I done? And you used to say you'd never be unkind to me, never! Oh, how miserable I am! Is this how you're going to treat me? As if I could help it! Willis, you won't begin to be cruel? Oh, my hand!'

'Let me look at it. Pooh, what's amiss?' He spoke all at once in his usual good-natured voice. 'Now go and find Adela, whilst I wait here.'

'You're going to force me to do that?'

'You're going to do it. Now don't make me angry again.'

She rose, frightened again by his look. She took a step or two, then turned back to him.

'If I do this, will you be kind to me, the same as before?'

'Of course I will. You don't take me for a brute?'

She held her bruised wrist to him.

'Will you—will you kiss it well again?'

The way in which she said it was as nearly pathetic as anything from poor Alice could be. Her misery was so profound, and this childish forgiveness of an outrage was so true a demonstration of womanly tenderness which her character would not allow to be noble. Her husband laughed rather uneasily, and did her bidding with an ill grace. But yet she could not go.

'You'll promise never to speak—'

'Yes, yes, of course I promise. Come back to me. Mind, shall know how you did it.'

'But why? What is she to us?'

'I'll tell you afterwards.'

There was a dawning of jealousy in her eyes.

'I don't think you ought to make your wife lower herself—'

His brow darkened.

'Will you do as I tell you?'

She moved towards the door, stopped to dry her wet cheeks, half looked round. What she saw sped her on her way.

Adela was just descending the stairs, dressed to go out. Alice let her go past without speaking, but followed her through the hall and into the garden. Adela turned, saying gently—

'Do you wish to speak to me?'

'I'm sorry I said those things. I didn't mean it. I don't think it was your fault.'

The other smiled; then in that voice which Stella had spoken of as full of forgiveness—

'No, it is not my fault, Alice. It couldn't be otherwise.'

'Don't think of it another moment.'

Alice would gladly have retreated, but durst not omit what seemed to her the essential because the bitterest words.

'I beg your pardon.'

'No, no!' exclaimed Adela quickly. 'Go and lie down a little; you look so tired. Try not to be unhappy, your husband will not let harm come to you.'

Alice returned to the house, hating her sister-in-law with a perfect hatred.

The hated one took her way into Wanley. She had no pleasant mission—that of letting her mother and Letty know what had happened. The latter she found in the garden behind the house dancing her baby-boy up and down in the sunlight. Letty did not look very matronly, it must be confessed; but what she lacked in mature dignity was made up in blue-eyed and warm-checked happiness. At the sight of Adela she gave a cry of joy.

'Why, mother's just getting ready to go and say good-bye to you. As soon as she comes down and takes this little rogue I shall just slip my own things on. We didn't think you'd come here.'

'We're not going to-day,' Adela replied, playing with the baby's face.

'Not going?'

'Business prevents Richard.'

'How you frightened us by leaving church yesterday! I was on my way to ask about you, but Mr. Wyvern met me and said there was nothing the matter. And you went to Agworth, didn't you?'

'To Belwick. We had to see Mr. Yottle, the solicitor.'

Mrs. Waltham issued from the house, and explanations were again demanded.

'Could you give baby to the nurse for a few minutes?' Adela asked Letty. 'I should like to speak to you and mother quietly.'

The arrangement was effected and all three went into the sitting-room. There Adela explained in simple words all that had come to pass; emotionless herself, but the cause of utter dismay in her hearers. When she ceased there was blank silence.

Mrs. Waltham was the first to find her voice.

'But surely Mr. Eldon won't take everything from you? I don't think he has the power to—it wouldn't be just; there must be surely some kind of provision in the law for such a thing. What did Mr. Yottle say?'

'Only that Mr. Eldon could recover the whole estate.'

'The estate!' exclaimed Mrs. Waltham eagerly. 'But not the money?'

Adela smiled.

'The estate includes the money, mother. It means everything.'

'Oh, Adela!' sighed Letty, who sat with her hands on her lap, bewildered.

'But surely not Mrs. Rodman's settlement?' cried the elder lady, who was rapidly surveying the whole situation.

'Everything,' affirmed Adela.

'But what an extraordinary, what an unheard-of thing! Such injustice I never knew! Oh, but Mr. Eldon is a gentleman—he can never exact his legal rights to the full extent. He has too much delicacy of feeling for that.' Adela glanced at her mother with a curious openness of look—the expression which by apparent negation of feeling reveals feeling of special significance. Mrs. Waltham caught the glance and checked her flow of speech.

'Oh, he could never do that!' she murmured the next moment, in a lower key, clasping her hands together upon her knees. 'I am sure he wouldn't.'

'You must remember, mother,' remarked Adela with reserve, 'that Mr. Eldon's disposition cannot affect us.'

'My dear child, what I meant was this: it is impossible for him to go to law with your husband to recover the uttermost farthing. How are you to restore money that is long since spent? and it isn't as if it had been spent in the ordinary way—it has been devoted to public purposes. Mr. Eldon will of course take all these things into consideration. And really one must say that it is very strange for a wealthy man to leave his property entirely to strangers.'

'Not entirely,' put in Adela rather absently.

'A hundred and seven pounds a year!' exclaimed her mother protestingly. 'My dear love, what can be done with such a paltry sum as that!'

'We must do a good deal with it, dear mother. It will be all we have to depend upon until Richard finds—finds some position.'

'But you are not going to leave the Manor at once?'

'As soon as ever we can. I don't know what arrangement my husband is making. We shall see Mr. Yottle again to-morrow.'

'Adela, this is positively shocking! It seems incredible I never thought such things could happen. No wonder you looked white when you went out of church. How little I imagined! But you know you can come here at any moment. You can sleep with me, or we'll have another bed put up in the room. Oh, dear; oh, dear! It will take me a long time to understand it. Your husband could not possibly object to your living here till he found you a suitable home. What will Alfred say? Oh, you must certainly come here. I shan't have a moment's' rest if you go away somewhere whilst things are in this dreadful state.'

'I don't think that will be necessary,' Adela replied with a reassuring smile. 'It might very well have happened that we had nothing at all, not even the hundred pounds; but a wife can't run away for reasons of that kind—can she, Letty?'

Letty gazed with her eyes of loving pity, and sighed, 'I suppose not, dear.'

Adela sat with them for only a few minutes more. She did not feel able to chat at length on a crisis such as this, and the tone of her mother's sympathy was not soothing to her. Mrs. Waltham had begun to put a handkerchief to her eyes.

'You mustn't take it to heart,' Adela said as she bent and kissed her cheek. 'You can't think how little it troubles me—on my own account. Letty, I look to you to keep mother cheerful. Only think what numbers of poor creatures would dance for joy if they had a hundred a year left them! We must be philosophers, you see. I couldn't shed a tear if I tried ever so hard. Good-bye, dear mother!'

Mrs. Waltham did not rise, but Letty followed her friend into the hall. She had been very silent and undemonstrative; now she embraced Adela tenderly. There was still something of the old diffidence in her manner, but the effect of her motherhood was discernible. Adela was childless—a circumstance in itself provocative of a gentle sense of protection in Letty's heart.

'You'll let us see you every day, darling?'

'As often as I can, Letty. Don't let mother get low-spirited. There's nothing to grieve about.'

Letty returned to the sitting-room; Mrs. Waltham was still pressing the handkerchief on this cheek and that alternately.

'How wonderful she is!' Letty exclaimed. 'I feel as if I could never again fret over little troubles.'

'Adela has a strong character,' assented the mother with mournful pride.

Letty, unable to sit long without her baby, fetched it from the nurse's arms. The infant's luncheon-hour had arrived, and the nourishment was still of Letty's own providing. It was strange to see on her face the slow triumph of this ineffable bliss over the grief occasioned by the recent conversation. Mrs. Waltham had floated into a stream of talk.

'Now, what a strange thing it is!' she observed, after many other reflections, and when the sound of her own voice had had time to soothe. 'On the very morning of the wedding I had the most singular misgiving, a feeling I couldn't explain. One would almost think I had foreseen this very thing. And you know very well, my dear, that the marriage troubled me in many ways. It was not the match for Adela, but then—. Adela, as you say, has a strong character; she is not very easy to reason with. I tried to make both sides of the question clear to her. But then her prejudice against Mr. Eldon was very strong, and how naturally, poor child! Young people don't like to trust to time; they think everything must be done quickly. If she had been one to marry for reasons of interest it might look like a punishment; but then it was so far otherwise. How much better it would have been to wait a few years! One really never knows what is going to happen. Young people really ought to trust others' experience.'

Letty was only lending half an ear. The general character of her mother-in-law's monologues did not encourage much attention. She was conscious of a little surprise, even now and then of a mild indignation; but the baby sucking at her breast lulled her into a sweet maternal apathy. She could only sigh from time to time and wonder whether it was a good thing or the contrary that Adela had no baby in her trials.



CHAPTER XXVI



Mutimer did not come to the Manor for luncheon. Rodman, who had been spending an hour at the works, brought word that business pressed; a host of things had to be unexpectedly finished off and put in order. He, Alice, and Adela made pretence of a midday meal; then he went into the library to smoke a cigar and meditate. The main subject of his meditation was an interview with Adela which he purposed seeking in the course of the afternoon. But he had also half-a-dozen letters of the first importance to despatch to town by the evening post, and these it was well to get off hand. He had finished them by half-past three. Then he went to the drawing-room, but found it vacant. He sought his wife's chamber. Alice was endeavouring to read a novel, but there was recent tear-shedding about her eyes, which had not come of the author's pathos.

'You'll be a pretty picture soon if that goes on,' Rodman remarked, with a frankness which was sufficiently brutal in spite of his jesting tone.

'I can't think how you take it so lightly,' Alice replied with utter despondency, flinging the book aside.

'What's the good of taking it any other way? Where's Adela?'

'Adela?' She looked at him as closely as her eyes would let her. 'Why do you want her?'

'I asked you where she was. Please to get into the habit of answering my questions at once. It'll save time in future.'

She seemed about to resent his harshness, but the effort cost her too much. She let her head fall forward almost upon her knees and sobbed unrestrainedly.

Rodman touched her shoulder and shook her, but not roughly.

'Do not be such an eternal fool!' he grumbled. 'Do you know where Adela is or not?'

'No, I don't,' came the smothered reply. Then, raising her head, 'Why do you think so much about Adela?'

He leaned against the dressing-table and laughed mockingly.

'That's the matter, eh? You think I'm after her! Don't be such a goose.'

'I'd rather you call me a goose than a fool, Willis.'

'Why, there's not much difference. Now if you'll sit up and behave sensibly, I'll tell you why I want her.'

'Really? Will you give me a kiss first?'

'Poor blubbery princess! Pah! your lips are like a baby's. Now just listen, and mind you hold your tongue about what I say. You know there used to be something between Adela and Eldon. I've a notion it went farther than we know of. Well, I don't see why we shouldn't get her to talk him over into letting you keep your money, or a good part of it. So you see it's you I'm thinking about after all, little stupid.'

'Oh, you really mean that! Kiss me again—look, I've wiped my lips, You really think you can do that, Willis?'

'No, I don't think I can, but it's worth having a try. Eldon has a soft side, I know. The thing is to find her soft side. I'm going to have a try to talk her over. Now, where is she likely to be?—out in the garden?'

'Perhaps she's at her mother's.'

'Confound it! Well, I'll go and look about; I can't lose time.'

'You'll never get her to do anything for me, Willis.'

'Very likely not. But the things that you succeed in are always the most unlikely, as you'd understand if you'd lived my life.'

'At all events, I shan't have to give up my dresses?'

'Hang your dresses—on the wardrobe pegs!'

He went downstairs again and out into the garden, thence to the entrance gate. Adela had passed it but a few minutes before, and he saw her a little distance off. She was going in the direction away from Wanley, seemingly on a mere walk. He decided to follow her and only join her when she had gone some way. She walked with her head bent, walked slowly and with no looking about her. Presently it was plain that she meant to enter the wood. This was opportune. But he lost sight of her as soon as she passed among the trees. He quickened his pace; saw her turning off the main path among the copses. In his pursuit he got astray; he must have missed her track. Suddenly he was checked by the sound of voices, which seemed to come from a lower level just in front of him. Cautiously he stepped forward, till he could see through hazel bushes that there was a steep descent before him. Below, two persons were engaged in conversation, and he could hear every word.

The two were Adela and Hubert Eldon. Adela had come to sit for the last time in the green retreat which was painfully dear to her. Her husband's absence gave her freedom; she used it to avoid the Rodmans and to talk with herself. She F was, as we may conjecture, far from looking cheerfully into the future. Nor was she content with herself, with her behaviour in the drama of these two days. In thinking over the scene with her husband she experienced a shame before her conscience which could not at first be readily accounted for, for of a truth she had felt no kind of shame in steadfastly resisting Mutimer's dishonourable impulse. But she saw now that in the judgment of one who could read all her heart she would not come off with unmingled praise. Had there not been another motive at work in her besides zeal for honour? Suppose the man benefiting by the will had been another than Hubert Eldon? Surely that would not have affected her behaviour? Not in practice, doubtless; but here was a question of feeling, a scrutiny of the soul's hidden velleities. No difference in action, be sure; that must ever be upright But what of the heroism in this particular case? The difference declared itself; here there had been no heroism whatever. To strip herself and her husband when a moment's winking would have kept them well clad? Yes, but on whose behalf? Had there not been a positive pleasure in making herself poor that Hubert might be rich? There was the fatal element in the situation. She came out of the church palpitating with joy; the first assurance of her husband's ignominious yielding to temptation filled her with, not mere scorn, but with dread. Had she not been guilty of mock nobleness in her voice, her bearing? At the time she did not feel it, for the thought of Hubert was kept altogether in the background. Yes, but she saw now how it had shed light and warmth upon her; the fact was not to be denied, because her consciousness had not then included it She was shamed.

A pity, is it not? It were so good to have seen her purely noble, indignant with unmixed righteousness. But, knowing our Adela's heart, is it not even sweeter to bear with her? You will go far before you find virtue in which there is no dear sustaining comfort of self. For my part, Adela is more to me for the imperfection, infinitely more to me for the confession of it in her own mind. How can a woman be lovelier than when most womanly, or more precious than when she reflects her own weakness in clarity of soul?

As she made her way through the wood her trouble of conscience was lost in deeper suffering. The scent of undergrowths, which always brought back to her the glad days of maidenhood, filled her with the hopelessness of the future. There was no return on the path of life; every step made those memories of happiness more distant and thickened the gloom about her. She could be strong when it was needful, could face the world as well as any woman who makes a veil of pride for her bleeding heart; but here, amid the sweet wood-perfumes, in silence and secrecy, self-pity caressed her into feebleness. The light was dimmed by her tears; she rather felt than saw her way. And thus, with moist eyelashes, she came to her wonted resting-place. But she found her seat occupied, and by the man whom in this moment she could least bear to meet.

Hubert sat there, bareheaded, lost in thought. Her light footfall did not touch his ear. He looked up to find her standing before him, and he saw that she had been shedding tears. For an instant she was powerless to direct herself; then sheer panic possessed her and she turned to escape.

Hubert started to his feet.

'Mrs. Mutimer! Adela!'

The first name would not have stayed her, for her flight was as unreasoning as that of a fawn. The second, her own name, uttered with almost desperate appeal, robbed her of the power of movement. She turned to bay, as though an obstacle had risen in her path, and there was terror in her white face.

Hubert drew a little nearer and spoke hurriedly.

'Forgive me! I could not let you go. You seem to have come in answer to my thought; I was wishing to see you. Do forgive me!'

She knew that he was examining her moist eyes; a rush of blood passed over her features.

'Not unless you are willing,' Hubert pursued, his voice at its gentlest and most courteous. 'But if I might speak to you for a few minutes—?'

'You have heard from Mr. Yottle?' Adela asked, without raising her eyes, trying her utmost to speak in a merely natural way.

'Yes. I happened to be at my mother's house. He came last night to obtain my address.'

The truth was, that a generous impulse, partly of his nature, and in part such as any man might know in a moment of unanticipated good fortune, had bade him put aside his prejudices and meet Mutimer at once on a footing of mutual respect. Incapable of ignoble exultation, it seemed to him that true delicacy dictated a personal interview with the man who, judging from Yottle's report, had so cheerfully acquitted himself of the hard task imposed by honour. But as he walked over from Agworth this zeal cooled. Could he trust Mutimer to appreciate his motive? Such a man was capable of acting honourably, but the power of understanding delicacies of behaviour was not so likely to be his. Hubert's prejudices were insuperable; to his mind class differences necessarily argued a difference in the grain. And it was not only this consideration that grew weightier as he walked. In the great joy of recovering his ancestral home, in the sight of his mother's profound happiness, he all but forgot the thoughts that had besieged him since his meetings with Adela in London. As he drew near to Wanley his imagination busied itself almost exclusively with her; distrust and jealousy of Mutimer became fear for Adela's future. Such a change as this would certainly have a dire effect upon her life. He thought of her frail appearance; he remembered the glimpse of her face that he had caught when her husband entered Mrs. Westlake's drawing-room, the startled movement she could not suppress. It was impossible to meet Mutimer with any show of good-feeling; he wondered how he could have set forth with such an object. Instead of going to the Manor he turned his steps to the Vicarage, and joined Mr. Wyvern at luncheon. The vicar had of course heard nothing of the discovery as yet. In the afternoon Hubert started to walk back to Agworth, but instead of taking the direct road he strayed into the wood. He was loth to leave the neighbourhood of the Manor; intense anxiety to know what Adela was doing made him linger near the place where she was. Was she already suffering from brutal treatment? What wretchedness might she not be undergoing within those walls!

He said she seemed to have sprung up in answer to his desire. In truth, her sudden appearance overcame him; her tearful face turned to irresistible passion that yearning which, consciously or unconsciously, was at all times present in his life. Her grief could have but one meaning; his heart went out to her with pity as intense as its longing. Other women had drawn his eyes, had captured him with the love of a day; but the deep still affection which is independent of moods and impressions flowed ever towards Adela. As easily could he have become indifferent to his mother as to Adela. As a married woman she was infinitely more to him than she had been as a girl; from her conversation, her countenance, he knew how richly she had developed, how her intelligence had ripened how her character had established itself in maturity. In that utterance of her name the secret escaped him before he could think how impossible it was to address her so familiarly. It was the perpetual key-word of his thoughts; only when he had heard it from his own lips did he realise what he had done.

When he had given the brief answer to her question he could find no more words. But Adela spoke.

'What do you wish to say to me, Mr. Eldon?'

Whether or no he interpreted her voice by his own feelings, she seemed to plead with him to be manly and respect her womanhood.

'Only to say the common things which anyone must say in my position, but to say them so that you will believe they are not only a form. The circumstances are so strange. I want to ask you for your help; my position is perhaps harder than yours and Mr. Mutimer's. We must remember that there is justice to be considered. If you will give me your aid in doing justice as far as r am able—'

In fault of any other possible reply he had involved himself in a subject which he knew it was far better to leave untouched. He could not complete his sentence, but stood before her with his head bent.

Adela scarcely knew what he said; in anguish she sought for a means of quitting him, of fleeing and hiding herself among the trees. His accent told her that she was the object of his compassion, and she had invited it by letting him see her tears. Of necessity he must think that she was sorrowing on her own account. That was true, indeed, but how impossible for him to interpret her grief rightly? The shame of being misjudged by him all but drove her to speak, and tell him that she cared less than nothing for the loss that had befallen her. Yet she could not trust herself to speak such words. Her heart was beating insufferably; all the woman in her rushed towards hysteria and sell-abandonment. It was well that Hubert's love was of quality to stand the test of these terrible moments. Something he must say, and the most insignificant phrase was the best.

'Will you sit—rest after your walk?'

She did so; scarcely could she have stood longer. And with the physical ease there seemed to come a sudden mental relief. A thought sprang up, opening upon her like a haven of refuge.

'There is one thing I should like to ask of you,' she began, forcing herself to regard him directly. 'It is a great thing, I am afraid; it may be impossible.'

'Will you tell me what it is?' he said, quietly filling the pause that followed.

'I am thinking of New Wanley.'

She saw a change in his face, slight, but still a change. She spoke more quickly.

'Will you let the works remain as they are, on the same plan? Will you allow the workpeople to live under the same rules? I have been among them constantly, and I am sure that nothing but good results have come of—of what my husband has done. There is no need to ask you to deal kindly with them, I know that. But if you could maintain the purpose—? It will be such a grief to my husband if all his work comes to nothing. There cannot be anything against your principles in what I ask. It is so simply for the good of men and women whose lives are so hard. Let New Wanley remain as an example. Can you do this?'

Hubert, as he listened, joined his hands behind his back, and turned his eyes to the upper branches of the silver birch, which once in his thoughts he had likened to Adela. What he heard from her surprised him, and upon surprise followed mortification. He knew that she had in appearance adopted Mutimer's principles, but his talk with her in London at Mrs. Boscobel's had convinced him that her heart was in far other things than economic problems and schemes of revolution. She had listened so eagerly to his conversation on art and kindred topics; it was so evident that she was enjoying a temporary release from a mode of life which chilled all her warmer instincts. Yet she now made it her entreaty that he would continue Mutimer's work. Beginning timidly, she grew to an earnestness which it was impossible to think feigned. He was unprepared for anything of the kind; his emotions resented it. Though consciously harbouring no single unworthy desire, he could not endure to find Adela zealous on her husband's behalf.

Had he misled himself? Was the grief that he had witnessed really that of a wife for her husband's misfortune? For whatever reason she had married Mutimer—and that could not be love—married life might have engendered affection. He knew Adela to be deeply conscientious; how far was it in a woman's power to subdue herself to love at the bidding of duty?

He allowed several moments to pass before replying to her. Then he said, courteously but coldly:

'I am very sorry that you have asked the one thing I cannot do.'

Adela's heart sank. In putting a distance between him and herself she had obeyed an instinct of self-preservation; now that it was effected, the change in his voice was almost more than she could bear.

'Why do you refuse?' she asked, trying, though in vain, to look up at him.

'Because it is impossible for me to pretend sympathy with Mr. Mutimer's views. In the moment that I heard of the will my action with regard to New Wanley was determined. What I purpose doing is so inevitably the result of my strongest convictions that nothing could change me.

'Will you tell me what you are going to do?' Adela asked, in a tone more like his own.

'It will pain You.'

'Yet I should like to know.'

'I shall sweep away every trace of the mines and the works and the houses, and do my utmost to restore the valley to its former state.'

He paused, but Adela said nothing. Her fingers played with the leaves which grew beside her.

'Your associations with Wanley of course cannot be as strong as my own. I was born here, and every dearest memory of my life connects itself with the valley as it used to be. It was one of the loveliest spots to be found in England. You can have no idea of the feelings with which I saw this change fall upon it, this desolation and defilement—I must use the words which come to me. I might have overcome that grief if I had sympathised with the ends. But, as it is, I should act in the same way even if I had no such memories. I know all that you will urge. It may be inevitable that the green and beautiful spots of the world shall give place to furnaces and mechanics' dwellings. For my own part, in this little corner, at all events, the rum shall be delayed. In this matter I will give my instincts free play. Of New Wanley not one brick shall remain on another. I will close the mines, and grass shall again grow over them; I will replant the orchards and mark out the fields as they were before.'

He paused again.

'You see why I cannot do what you ask.'

It was said in a gentler voice, for insensibly his tone had become almost vehement.

He found a strange pleasure in emphasising his opposition to her. Perhaps he secretly knew that Adela hung upon his words, and in spite of herself was drawn into the current of his enthusiasm. But he did not look into her face. Had he done so he would have seen it fixed and pale.

'Then you think grass and trees of more importance than human lives?'

She spoke in a voice which sounded coldly ironical in its attempt to be merely calm.

'I had rather say that I see no value in human lives in a world from which grass and trees have vanished. But, in truth, I care little to make my position logically sound. The ruling motive in my life is the love of beautiful things; I fight against ugliness because it's the only work in which I can engage with all my heart. I have nothing of the enthusiasm of humanity. In the course of centuries the world may perhaps put itself right again; I am only concerned with the present, and I see that everywhere the tendency is towards the rule of mean interests, ignoble ideals.'

'Do you call it ignoble,' broke in Adela, 'to aim at raising men from hopeless and degrading toil to a life worthy of human beings?'

'The end which you have in mind cannot be ignoble. But it is not to be reached by means such as these.' He pointed down to the valley. 'That may be the only way of raising the standard of comfort among people who work with their hands; I take the standpoint of the wholly unpractical man, and say that such efforts do not concern me. From my point of view no movement can be tolerated which begins with devastating the earth's surface. You will clothe your workpeople better, you will give them better food and more leisure; in doing so you injure the class that has finer sensibilities, and give power to the class which not only postpones everything to material well-being, but more and more regards intellectual refinement as an obstacle in the way of progress. Progress—the word is sufficient; you have only to think what it has come to mean. It will be good to have an example of reaction.'

'When reaction means misery to men and women and little children?'

'Yes, even if it meant that. As far as I am concerned, I trust it will have no such results. You must distinguish between humanity and humanitarianism. I hope I am not lacking in the former; the latter seems to me to threaten everything that is most precious in the world.'

'Then you are content that the majority of mankind should be fed and clothed and kept to labour?'

'Personally, quite content; for I think it very unlikely that the majority will ever be fit for anything else. I know that at present they desire nothing else.'

'Then they must be taught to desire more.'

Hubert again paused. When he resumed it was with a smile which strove to be good-humoured.

'We had better not argue of these things. If I said all that I think you would accuse me of brutality. In logic you will overcome me. Put me down as one of those who represent reaction and class-prejudice. I am all prejudice.'

Adela rose.

'We have talked a long time,' she said, trying to speak lightly. 'We have such different views. I wish there were less class-prejudice.'

Hubert scarcely noticed her words. She was quitting him, and he clung to the last moment of her presence.

'Shall you go—eventually go to London?' he asked.

'I can't say. My husband has not yet been able to make plans.'

The word irritated him. He half averted his face.

'Good-bye, Mr. Eldon.'

She did not offer her hand—durst not do so. Hubert bowed without speaking.

When she was near the Manor gates she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw her husband. Her cheeks flushed, for she had been walking in deep thought. It seemed to her for an instant as if the subject of her preoccupation could be read upon her face.

'Where have you been?' Mutimer asked, indifferently.

'For a walk. Into the wood.'

He was examining her, for the disquiet of her countenance could not escape his notice.

'Why did you go alone? It would have done Alice good to get her out a little.'

'I'm afraid she wouldn't have come.'

He hesitated.

'Has she been saying anything to you?'

'Only that she is troubled and anxious.'

They walked on together in silence, Mutimer with bowed head and knitted brows.



CHAPTER XXVI



The making a virtue of necessity, though it argues lack of ingenuousness, is perhaps preferable to the wholly honest demonstration of snarling over one's misfortunes. It may result in good even to the hypocrite, who occasionally surprises himself with the pleasure he finds in wearing a front of nobility, and is thereby induced to consider the advantages of upright behaviour adopted for its own sake. Something of this kind happened in the case of Richard Mutimer. Seeing that there was no choice but to surrender his fortune, he set to work to make the most of abdication, and with the result that the three weeks occupied in settling his affairs at New Wanley and withdrawing from the Manor were full of cheerful activity. He did not meet Hubert Eldon, all business being transacted through Mr. Yottle. When he heard from the latter that it was Eldon's intention to make a clean sweep of mines, works, and settlements, though for a moment chagrined, he speedily saw that such action, by giving dramatic completeness to his career at Wanley and investing its close with something of tragic pathos, was in truth what he should most have desired. It enabled him to take his departure with an air of profounder sadness; henceforth no gross facts would stand in the way of his rhetoric when he should enlarge on the possibilities thus nipped in the bud. He was more than ever a victim of cruel circumstances; he could speak with noble bitterness of his life's work having been swept into oblivion.

He was supported by a considerable amount of epistolary sympathy. The local papers made an interesting story of what had happened in the old church at Wanley, and a few of the London journals reported the circumstances; in this way Mutimer became known to a wider public than had hitherto observed him. Not only did his fellow-Unionists write to encourage and moralise, but a number of those people who are ever ready to indite letters to people of any prominence, the honestly admiring and the windily egoistic, addressed communications either to Wanley Manor or to the editor of the 'Fiery Cross.' Mutimer read eagerly every word of each most insignificant scribbler; his eyes gleamed and his cheeks grew warm. All such letters he brought to Adela, and made her read them aloud; he stood with his hands behind his back, his face slightly elevated and at a listening angle. At the end he regarded her, and his look said: 'Behold the man who is your husband!'

But at length there came one letter distinct from all the rest; it had the seal of a Government office. With eyes which scarcely credited what they saw Mutimer read some twenty or thirty words from a Minister of the Crown, a gentleman of vigorously Radical opinions, who had 'heard with much regret that the undertaking conceived and pursued with such single-hearted zeal' had come to an untimely end. Mutimer rushed to Adela like a schoolboy who has a holiday to announce.

'Read that now! What do you think of that? Now there's some hope of a statesman like that!'

Adela gave forth the letter in a voice which was all too steady. 7 But she said:

'I am very glad. It must gratify you. He writes very kindly.'

'You'll have to help me to make an answer.'

Adela smiled, but said nothing.

The ceremonious opening of the hall at New Wanley had been a great day; Mutimer tried his best to make the closing yet more effective. Mr. Westlake was persuaded to take the chair, but this time the oration was by the founder himself. There was a numerous assembly. Mutimer spoke for an hour and a quarter, reviewing what he had done, and enlarging on all that he might and would have done. There was as much applause as even he could desire. The proceedings closed with the reading of an address which was signed by all the people of the works, a eulogium and an expression of gratitude, not without one or two sentences of fiery Socialism. The spokesman was a fine fellow of six feet two, a man named Redgrave, the ideal of a revolutionist workman. He was one of the few men at the works whom Adela, from observation of their domestic life, had learnt sincerely to respect. Before reading the document he made a little speech of his own, and said in conclusion:

'Here's an example of how the law does justice in a capitalist society. The man who makes a grand use of money has it all taken away from him by the man who makes no use of it at all, except to satisfy his own malice and his own selfishness. If we don't one and all swear to do our utmost to change such a state of things as that, all I can say is we're a poor lot, and deserve to be worse treated than the animals, that haven't the sense to use their strength!'

In his reply to the address Richard surpassed himself. He rose in excitement; the words that rushed to his lips could scarcely find articulate flow. After the due thanks:

'To-morrow I go to London; I go as poor as the poorest of you, a mechanical engineer in search of work. Whether I shall find it or not there's no saying. If they turned me out because of my opinions three years ago, it's not very likely that they've grown fonder of me by this time. As poor as the poorest of you, I say. Most of you probably know that a small legacy is left to me under the will which gives this property into other hands. That money will be used, every penny of it, for the furtherance of our cause!'

It was a magnificent thought, one of those inspirations which reveal latent genius. The hall echoed with shouts of glorification. Adela, who sat with her mother and Letty (Mrs. Westlake had not accompanied her husband), kept her eyes fixed on the ground; the uproar made her head throb.

All seemed to be over and dispersal was beginning, when a gentleman stood up in the middle of the hall and made signs that he wished to be heard for a moment. Mutimer aided him in gaining attention. It was Mr. Yottle, a grizzle-headed, ruddy-cheeked veteran of the law.

'I merely desire to use this opportunity of reminding those who have been employed at the works that Mr. Eldon will be glad to meet them in this hall at half-past ten o'clock to-morrow morning. It will perhaps be better if the men alone attend, as the meeting will be strictly for business purposes.'

Adela was among the last to leave the room. As she was moving between the rows of benches Mr. Westlake approached her. He had only arrived in time to take his place on the platform, and he was on the point of returning to London.

I have a note for you from Stella, he said. 'She has been ailing for a fortnight; it wasn't safe for her to come. But she will soon see you, I hope.'

'I hope so,' Adela replied mechanically, as she took the letter.

Mr. Westlake only added his 'good-bye,' and went to take leave of Mutimer, who was standing at a little distance.

Among those who remained to talk with the hero of the day was our old friend Keene. Keene had risen in the world, being at present sub-editor of a Belwick journal. His appearance had considerably improved, and his manner was more ornate than ever. He took Mutimer by the arm and led him aside.

'A suggestion—something that occurred to me whilst you were speaking. You must write the history of New Wanley Not too long; a thing that could be printed in pamphlet form and sold at a penny or twopence. Speak to Westlake see if the Union won't publish. Some simple title: "My Work in New Wanley," for instance. I'll see that it's well noticed in our rag.'

'Not a bad idea!' Mutimer exclaimed, throwing back his head.

'Trust me, not half bad. Be of use in the propaganda. Just think it over, and, if you care to, allow me to read it in manuscript. There's a kind of art—eh? you know what I mean; it's only to be got by journalistic practice. Yes, "My Work in New Wanley"; I think that would do.'

'I'm going to lecture at Commonwealth Hall next Sunday,' Mutimer observed. 'I'll take that for my title.'

'By-the-bye how—what was I going to say? Oh yes, how is Mrs. Rodman?'

'Tolerable, I believe.'

'In London, presumably?'

'Yes.'

'Not much—not taking it to heart much, I hope?'

'Not particularly? I think.'

'I should be glad to be remembered—a word when you see her. Thanks, Mutimer, thanks. I must be off.'

Adela was making haste to Teach the Manor, that she might read Stella's letter She and her husband were to dine this evening with the Walthams—a farewell meal. With difficulty she escaped from her mother and Letty; Stella's letter demanded a quarter of an hour of solitude.

She reached her room, and broke the envelope. Stella never wrote at much length, but to-day there were only a few lines.

'My love to you, heart's darling. I am not well enough to come, and I think it likely you had rather I did not. But in a few hours you will be near me. Come as soon as ever you can. I wait for you like the earth for spring. 'STELLA.'

She kissed the paper and put it in the bosom of her dress. It was already time to go to her mother's.

She found her mother and Letty with grave faces; something seemed to have disturbed them. Letty tried to smile and appear at ease, but Mrs. Waltham was at no pains to hide the source of her dissatisfaction.

'Did you know of that, Adela?' she asked, with vexation. 'About the annuity, I mean. Had Richard spoken to you of his intention?'

Adela replied with a simple negative. She had not given the matter a thought.

'Then he certainly should have done. It was his duty, I consider, to tell me. It is in express contradiction of all he has led me to understand. What are you going to live on, I should like to know? It's very unlikely that he will find a position immediately. He is absolutely reckless, wickedly thoughtless! My dear, it is not too late even now. I insist on your staying with us until your husband has found an assured income. The idea of your going to live in lodgings in an obscure part of London is more than I can bear, and now it really appals me. Adela, my child, it's impossible for you to go under these circumstances. The commonest decency will oblige him to assent to this arrangement.'

'My dear mother,' Adela replied seriously, 'pray do not reopen that. It surely ought to be needless for me to repeat that it is my duty to go to London.'

'But, Adela darling,' began Letty, very timorously, 'wouldn't it be relieving your husband? How much freer he would be to look about, knowing you are here safe and in comfort. I really—I do really think mother is right.'

Before Adela could make any reply there sounded a knock at the front door; Richard came in. He cast a glance round at the three. The others might have escaped his notice, but Mrs. Waltham was too plainly perturbed.

'Has anything happened?' he asked in an offhand way.

'I am distressed, more than I can tell you,' began his mother-in-law. 'Surely you did not mean what you said about the money—'

'Mother!' came from Adela's lips, but she checked herself.

Mutimer thrust his hands into his pockets and stood smiling.

'Yes, I meant it.'

'But, pray, what are you and Adela going to live upon?'

'I don't think we shall have any difficulty.'

'But surely one must more than think in a matter such as this. You mustn't mind me speaking plainly, Richard. Adela is my only daughter, and the thought of her undergoing needless hardships is so dreadful to me that I really must speak. I have a plan, and I am sure you will see that it is the very best for all of us. Allow Adela to remain with me for a little while, just till you have—have made things straight. It certainly would ease your mind. She is so very welcome to a share of our home. You would feel less hampered. I am sure you will consent to this.'

Mutimer's smile died away. He avoided Mrs. Waltham's face, and let his eyes pass in a cold gaze from Letty, who almost shrank, to Adela, who stood with an air of patience.

'What do you say to this?' he asked of his wife, in a tone civil indeed, but very far from cordial.

'I have been trying to show mother that I cannot do as she wishes. It is very kind of her, but, unless you think it would be better for me to stay, I shall of course accompany you.'

'You can stay if you like.'

Adela understood too well what that permission concealed.

'I have no wish to stay.'

Mutimer turned his look on Mrs. Waltham, without saying anything.

'Then I can say no more,' Mrs. Waltham replied. 'But you must understand that I take leave of my daughter with the deepest concern. I hope you will remember that her health for a long time has been anything but good, and that she was never accustomed to do hard and coarse work.'

'We won't talk any more of this, mother,' Adela interposed firmly. 'I am sure you need have no fear that I shall be tried beyond my strength. You must remember that I go with my husband.'

The high-hearted one! She would have died rather than let her mother perceive that her marriage was less than happy. To the end she would speak that word 'my husband,' when it was necessary to speak it at all, with the confidence of a woman who knows no other safeguard against the ills of life. To the end she would shield the man with her own dignity, and protect him as far as possible even against himself.

Mutimer smiled again, this time with satisfaction.

'I certainly think we can take care of ourselves,' he remarked briefly.

In a few minutes they were joined by Alfred, who had only just returned from Belwick, and dinner was served. It was not a cheerful evening. At Adela's request it had been decided in advance that the final leave-taking should be to-night; she and Mutimer would drive to Agworth station together with Alfred the first thing in the morning. At ten o'clock the parting came. Letty could not speak for sobbing; she just kissed Adela and hurried from the room. Mrs. Waltham preserved a rather frigid stateliness.

'Good-bye, my dear,' she said, when released from her daughter's embrace. 'I hope I may have good news from you.'

With Mutimer she shook hands.

It was a starry and cold night. The two walked side by side without speaking. When they were fifty yards on their way, a figure came out of a corner of the road, and Adela heard Letty call her name.

'I will overtake you,' she said to her husband.

'Adela, my sweet, I couldn't say good-bye to you in the house!'

Letty hung about her dear one's neck. Adela choked; she could only press her cheek against that moist one.

'Write to me often—oh, write often,' Letty sobbed. 'And tell me the truth, darling, will you?'

'It will be all well, dear sister,' Adela whispered.

'Oh, that is a dear name! Always call me that. I can't say good-bye, darling. You will come to see us as soon as ever you can?'

'As soon as I can, Letty.'

Adela found her husband awaiting her.

'What did she want?' he asked, with genuine surprise.

'Only to say good-bye.'

'Why, she'd said it once.'

The interior of the Manor was not yet disturbed, but all the furniture was sold, and would be taken away on the morrow. They went to the drawing room. After some insignificant remarks Mutimer asked:

'What letter was that Westlake gave you?'

'It was from Stella—from Mrs. Westlake.'

He paused. Then:

'Will you let me see it?'

'Certainly, if you wish.'

She felt for it in her bosom and handed it to him. It shook in her fingers.

'Why does she think you'd rather she didn't come?'

'I suppose because the occasion seems to her painful.'

'I don't see that it was painful at all. What did you think of my speech?'

'The first one or the second?'

'Both, if you like. I meant the first.'

'You told the story very well.'

'You'll never spoil me by over-praise.'

Adela was silent.

'About this,' he resumed, tapping the note which he still held. 'I don't think you need go there very often. It seems to me you don't get much good from them.'

She looked at him inquiringly.

'Theirs isn't the kind of Socialism I care much about,' he continued, with the air of giving a solid reason. 'It seems to me that Westlake's going off on a road of his own, and one that leads nowhere. All that twaddle to-day about the development of society! I don't think he spoke of me as he might have done. You'll see there won't be half a report in the "Fiery Gross."'

Adela was still silent.

'I don't mean to say you're not to see Mrs. Westlake at all, if you want to,' he pursued. 'I shouldn't have thought she was the kind of woman to suit you. If the truth was known, I don't think she's a Socialist at all. But then, no more are you, eh?'

'There is no one with a more passionate faith in the people than Mrs. Westlake,' Adela returned.

'Faith! That won't do much good.'

He was silent a little, then went to another subject.

'Rodman writes that he's no intention of giving up the money. I knew it would come to that.'

'But the law will compel him,' Adela exclaimed.

'It's a roundabout business. Eldon's only way of recovering it is to bring an action against me. Then I shall have to go to law with Rodman.'

'But how can he refuse? It is—'

She checked herself, remembering that words were two-edged.

'Oh, he writes in quite a friendly way—makes a sort of joke of it. We've to get what we can of him, he says. But he doesn't get off if I can help it. I must see Yottle on our way tomorrow.'

'Keene wants me to write a book about New Wanley,' he said presently.

'A book?'

'Well, a small one. It could be called, "My Work at New Wanley." It might do good.'

'Yes, it might,' Adela assented absently.

'You look tired. Get off to bed; you'll have to be up early in the morning, and it'll be a hard day.'

Adela went, hopeful of oblivion till the 'hard day' should dawn.

The next morning they were in Belwick by half-past nine. Alfred took leave of them and went off to business. He promised to 'look them up' in London before very long, probably at Christmas. Between him and Mutimer there was make-believe of cordiality at parting; they had long ceased to feel any real interest in each other.

Adela had to spend the time in the railway waiting-room whilst her husband went to see Yottle. It was a great bare place; when she entered, she found a woman in mourning, with a little boy, sitting alone. The child was eating a bun, his mother was silently shedding tears. Adela seated herself as far from them as possible, out of delicacy, but she saw the woman look frequently towards her, and at last rise as if to come and speak. She was a feeble, helpless-looking being of about thirty; evidently the need of sympathy overcame her, for she had no other excuse for addressing Adela save to tell that her luggage had gone astray, and that she was waiting in the hope that something might be heard of it. Finding a gentle listener, she talked on and on, detailing the wretched circumstances under which she had recently been widowed, and her miserable prospects in a strange town whither she was going. Adela made an effort to speak in words of comfort, but her own voice sounded hopeless in her ears. In the station was a constant roaring and hissing, bell-ringing and the shriek of whistles, the heavy trundling of barrows, the slamming of carriage-doors; everywhere a smell of smoke. It impressed her as though all the 'world had become homeless, and had nothing to do but journey hither and thither in vain search of a resting-place. And her waiting lasted more than an hour. But for the effort to dry another's tears it would have been hard to restrain her own.

The morning had threatened rain; when at length the journey to London began, the black skies yielded a steady downpour Mutimer was anything but cheerful; establishing himself in a corner of the third-class carriage, he for a time employed himself with a newspaper; then, throwing it on to Adela's lap, closed his eyes as if he hoped to sleep. Adela glanced up and down the barren fields of type, but there was nothing that could hold her attention, and, by chance looking at her husband's face, she continued to examine it. Perhaps he was asleep, perhaps only absorbed in thought. His lips were sullenly loose beneath the thick reddish moustache his eyebrows had drawn themselves together, scowling. She could not avert her gaze; it seemed to her that she was really scrutinising his face for the first time, and it was as that of a stranger. Not one detail had the stamp of familiarity: the whole repelled her. What was the meaning now first revealed to her in that countenance? The features had a massive regularity; there was nothing grotesque, nothing on the surface repulsive; yet, beholding the face as if it were that of a man unknown to her, she felt that a whole world of natural antipathies was between it and her.

It was the face of a man by birth and breeding altogether beneath her.

Never had she understood that as now; never had she conceived so forcibly the reason which made him and her husband and wife only in name. Suppose that apparent sleep of his to be the sleep of death; he would pass from her consciousness like a shadow from the field, leaving no trace behind. Their life of union was a mockery; their married intimacy was an unnatural horror. He was not of her class, not of her world; only by violent wrenching of the laws of nature had they come together. She had spent years in trying to convince herself that there were no such distinctions, that only an unworthy prejudice parted class from class. One moment of true insight was worth more than all her theorising on abstract principles. To be her equal this man must be born again, of other parents, in other conditions of life. 'I go back to London a mechanical engineer in search of employment.' They were the truest words he had ever uttered; they characterised him, classed him.

She had no claims to aristocratic descent, but her parents were gentlefolk; that is to say, they were both born in a position which encouraged personal refinement rather than the contrary, which expected of them a certain education in excess of life's barest need, which authorised them to use the service of ruder men and women in order to secure to themselves a margin of life for life's sake. Perhaps for three generations her ancestors could claim so much gentility; it was more than enough to put a vast gulf between her and the Mutimers. Favourable circumstances of upbringing had endowed her with delicacy of heart and mind not inferior to that of any woman living; mated with an equal husband, the children born of her might hope to take their place among the most beautiful and the most intelligent. And her husband was a man incapable of understanding her idlest thought.

He opened his eyes, looked at her blankly for a moment, stirred his limbs to make his position easier.

Pouring rain in London streets. The cab drove eastward, but for no great distance. Adela found herself alighting at a lodging-house not far from the reservoir at the top of Pentonville Hill. Mutimer had taken these rooms a week ago.

A servant fresh from the blackleading of a grate opened the door to them, grinning with recognition at the sight of Mutimer. The latter had to help the cabman to deposit the trunks in the passage. Then Adela was shown to her bedroom.

It was on the second floor, the ordinary bedroom of cheap furnished lodgings, with scant space between the foot of the bed and the fireplace, with a dirty wall-paper and a strong musty odour. The window looked upon a backyard.

She passed from the bedroom to the sitting-room; here was the same vulgar order, the same musty smell. The table was laid for dinner.

Mutimer read his wife's countenance furtively. He could not discover how the abode impressed her, and he put no question. When he returned from the bedroom she was sitting before the fire, pensive.

'You're hungry, I expect?' he said.

Her appetite was far from keen, but in order not to appear discontented she replied that she would be glad of dinner.

The servant, her hands and face half washed, presently appeared with a tray on which were some mutton-chops, potatoes, and a cabbage. Adela did her best to eat, but the chops were ill-cooked, the vegetables poor in quality. There followed a rice-pudding; it was nearly cold; coagulated masses of rice appeared beneath yellowish water. Mutimer made no remark about the food till the table was cleared. Then he said:

'They'll have to do better than that. The first day, of course—You'll have a talk with the landlady whilst I'm out to-night. Just let her see that you won't be content with anything; you have to talk plainly to these people.'

'Yes, I'll speak about it,' Adela replied.

'They made a trouble at first about waiting on us,' Mutimer pursued. 'But I didn't see how we could get our own meals very well. You can't cook, can you?'

He smiled, and seemed half ashamed to ask the question.

'Oh yes; I can cook ordinary things,' Adela said. 'But—we haven't a kitchen, have we?'

'Well, no. If we did anything of that kind, it would have to be on this fire. She charges us four shillings a week more for cooking the dinner.'

He added this information in a tone of assumed carelessness.

'I think we might save that,' Adela said. 'If I had the necessary things—I should like to try, if you will let me.'

'Just as you please. I don't suppose the stuff they send us up will ever be very eatable. But it's too bad to ask you to do work of that kind.'

'Oh, I shan't mind it in the least! It will be far better, better in every way.'

Mutimer brightened up.

'In that case we'll only get them to do the housemaid work. You can explain that to the woman; her name is Mrs. Gulliman.'

He paused.

'Think you can make yourself at home, here?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'That's all right. I shall go out now for an hour or so. You can unpack your boxes and get things in order a bit.'

Adela had her interview with Mrs. Gulliman in the course of the evening, and fresh arrangements were made, not perhaps to the landlady's satisfaction, though she made a show of absorbing interest and vast approval. She was ready to lend her pots and pans till Adela should have made purchase of those articles.

Adela had the satisfaction of saving four shillings a week.

Two days later Mutimer sought eagerly in the 'Fiery Gross' for a report of the proceedings at New Wanley. Only half a column was given to the subject, the speeches being summarised. He had fully expected that the week's 'leader' would be concerned with his affairs, but there was no mention of him.

He bought the 'Tocsin.' Foremost stood an article headed, 'The Bursting of a Soap Bubble.' It was a satirical review of the history of New Wanley, signed by Comrade Roodhouse. He read in one place: 'Undertakings of this kind, even if pursued with genuine enthusiasm, are worse than useless; they are positively pernicious. They are half measures, and can only result in delaying the Revolution. It is assumed that working-men can be kept in a good temper with a little better housing and a little more money. That is to aid the capitalists, to smooth over huge wrongs with petty concessions, to cry peace where there is no peace. We know this kind of thing of old. It is the whole system of wage-earning that must be overthrown—the ideas which rule the relations of employers and employed. Away with these palliatives; let us rejoice when we see working men starving and ill-clad, for in that way their eyes will be opened. The brute who gets the uttermost farthing out of the toil of his wage-slaves is more a friend to us and our cause than any namby-pamby Socialist, such as the late Dukeling of New Wanley. Socialist indeed! But enough. We have probably heard the last of this parvenu and his loudly trumpeted schemes. No true friend of the Revolution can be grieved.'

Mutimer bit his lip.

'Heard the last of me, have they? Don't be too hasty, Roodhouse.'



CHAPTER XXVII



A week later; the scene, the familiar kitchen in Wilton Square. Mrs. Mutimer, upon whom time has laid unkind hands since last we saw her, is pouring tea for Alice Rodman, who has just come all the way from the West End to visit her. Alice, too, has suffered from recent vicissitudes; her freshness is to seek, her bearing is no longer buoyant, she is careless in attire. To judge from the corners of her mouth, she is confirmed in querulous habits; her voice evidences the same.

She was talking of certain events of the night before.

'It was about half-past twelve—I'd just got into bed—when the servant knocks at my door. "Please, mum," she says, "there's a policeman wants to see master." You may think if I wasn't frightened out of my life! I don't think it was two minutes before I got downstairs, and there the policeman stood in the hall. I told him I was Mrs. Rodman, and then he said a young man called Henry Mutimer had got locked up for making a disturbance outside a music hall, and he'd sent to my husband to bail him out. Well, just as we were talking in comes Willis. Rare and astonished he was to see me with all my things huddled on and a policeman in the house. We did so laugh afterwards; he said he thought I'd been committing a robbery. But he wouldn't bail 'Arry, and I couldn't blame him. And now he says 'Arry 'll have to do as best he can. He won't get him another place.'

'He's lost his place too?' asked the mother gloomily.

'He was dismissed yesterday. He says that's why he went drinking too much. Out of ten days that he's been in the place he's missed two and hasn't been punctual once. I think you might have seen he got off at the proper time in the morning, mother.'

'What's the good o' blamin' me?' exclaimed the old woman fretfully. 'A deal o' use it is for me to talk. If I'm to be held 'countable he doesn't live here no longer; I know that much.'

'Dick was a fool to pay his fine. I'd have let him go to prison for seven days; it would have given him a lesson.'

Mrs. Mutimer sighed deeply, and lost herself in despondent thought. Alice sipped her tea and went on with her voluble talk.

'I suppose he'll show up some time to-night unless Dick keeps him. But he can't do that, neither, unless he makes him sleep on the sofa in their sitting-room. A nice come-down for my lady, to be living in two furnished rooms! But it's my belief they're not so badly off as they pretend to be. It's all very well for Dick to put on his airs and go about saying he's given up every farthing; he doesn't get me to believe that. He wouldn't go paying away his pounds so readily. And they have attendance from the landlady; Mrs. Adela doesn't soil her fine finger's, trust her. You may depend upon it, they've plenty. She wouldn't speak a word for us; if she cared to, she could have persuaded Mr. Eldon to let me keep my money, and then there wouldn't have been all this law bother.'

'What bother's that?'

'Why, Dick says he'll go to law with my husband to recover the money he paid him when we were married. It seems he has to answer for it, because he's what they call the administrator, and Mr. Eldon can compel him to make it all good again.'

'But I thought you said you'd given it all up?'

'That's my own money, what was settled on me. I don't see what good it was to me; I never had a penny of it to handle. Now they want to get all the rest out of us. How are we to pay back the money that's spent and gone, I'd like to know? Willis says they'll just have to get it if they can. And here's Dick going on at me because we don't go into lodgings! I don't leave the house before I'm obliged, I know that much. We may as well be comfortable as long as we can.

'The mean thing, that Adela!' she pursued after a pause. 'She was to have married Mr. Eldon, and broke it off when she found he wasn't going to be as rich as she thought; then she caught hold of Dick. I should like to have seen her face when she found that will!—I wish it had been me!'

Alice laughed unpleasantly. Her mother regarded her with an air of curious inquiry, then murmured:

'Dick and she did the honest thing. I'll say so much for them.'

'I'll be even with Mrs. Adela yet,' pursued Alice, disregarding the remark. 'She wouldn't speak for me, but she's spoken for herself, no fear. She and her airs!'

There was silence; then Mrs. Mutimer said:

'I've let the top bedroom for four-and-six.'

''Arry's room? What's he going to do then?'

'He'll have to sleep on the chair-bedstead, here in the kitchen. That is, if I have him in the 'ouse at all. And I don't know yet as I shall.'

'Have you got enough money to go on with?' Alice asked.

'Dick sent me a pound this morning. I didn't want it'

'Has he been to see you yet, mother?'

The old woman shook her head.

'Do you want him to come, or don't you?'

There was silence. Alice looked at her mother askance. The leathern mask of a face was working with some secret emotion.

'He'll come if he likes, I s'pose,' was her abrupt answer.

In the renewed silence they heard some one enter the house and descend the kitchen stairs. 'Arry presented himself. He threw his hat upon a chair, and came forward with a swagger to seat himself at the tea-table.

His mother did not look at him.

'Anything to eat?' he asked, more loudly than was necessary, as if he found the silence oppressive.

'There's bread and butter,' replied Alice, with lofty scorn.

'Hullo! Is it you?' exclaimed the young man, affecting to recognise his sister. 'I thought you was above coming here Have they turned you out of your house?'

'That's what'll happen to you, I shouldn't wonder.'

'Arry cast a glance towards his mother. Seeing that her eyes were fixed in another direction, he began pantomimic interrogation of Alice. The latter disregarded him.

'Arry presented an appearance less than engaging. He still bore the traces of last night's debauch and of his sojourn in the police-cell. There was dry mud on the back of his coat, his shirt-cuffs and collar were of a slaty hue, his hands and face filthy. He began to eat bread and butter, washing down each morsel with a gulp of tea. The spoon remained in the cup whilst he drank. To 'Arry it was a vast relief to be free from the conventionalities of Adela's table.

'That lawyer fellow Yottle's been to see them to-day,' he remarked presently.

Alice looked at him eagerly.

'What about?'

'There was talk about you and Rodman.'

'What did they say?'

'Couldn't hear. I was in the other room. But I heard Yottle speaking your name.'

He had, in fact, heard a few words through the keyhole, but not enough to gather the sense of the conversation, which had been carried on in discreet tones.

'There you are!' Alice exclaimed, addressing her mother. 'They're plotting against us, you see.'

'I don't think it 'ud be Dick's wish to do you harm,' said Mrs. Mutimer absently.

'Dick 'll do whatever she tells him.'

'Adela, eh?' observed 'Arry. 'She's a cat.'

'You mind your own business!' returned his sister.

'So it is my business. She looked at me as if I wasn't good enough to come near her 'igh-and-mightiness. I'm glad to see her brought down a peg, chance it!'

Alice would not condescend to join her reprobate brother, even in abuse of Adela. She very shortly took leave of her mother, who went up to the door with her.

'Are you going to see Dick?' Mrs. Mutimer said, in the passage.

'I shan't see him till he comes to my house,' replied Alice sharply.

The old woman stood on the doorstep till her daughter was out of sight, then sighed and returned to her kitchen.

Alice returned to her more fashionable quarter by omnibus. Though Rodman had declined to make any change in their establishment, he practised economy in the matter of his wife's pin-money. Gone were the delights of shopping, gone the little lunches in confectioners' shops to which Alice, who ate sweet things like a child, had been much addicted. Even the carriage she could seldom make use of, for Rodman had constant need of it—to save cab-fares, he said. It was chiefly employed in taking him to and from the City, where he appeared to have much business at present.

On reaching home Alice found a telegram from her husband.

'Shall bring three friends to dinner. Be ready for us at half-past seven.'

Yet he had assured her that he would dine quietly alone with her at eight o'clock. Alice, who was weary of the kind of men her husband constantly brought, felt it as a bitter disappointment. Besides, it was already after six, and there were no provisions in the house. But for her life she durst not cause Rodman annoyance by offering a late or insufficient dinner. She thanked her stars that her return had been even thus early.

The men when they presented themselves were just of the kind she expected—loud-talking—their interests divided between horse-racing and the money-market; she was a cipher at her own table, scarcely a remark being addressed to her. The conversation was meaningless to her; it seemed, indeed, to be made purposely mysterious; terms of the stock-exchange were eked out with nods and winks. Rodman was in far better spirits than of late, whence Alice gathered that some promising rascality was under consideration.

The dinner over, she was left to amuse herself as she could in the drawing-room. Rodman and his friends continued their talk round the table, and did not break up till close upon mid night. Then she heard the men take their departure. Rodman presently came up to her and threw himself into a chair. His face was very red, a sign with which Alice was familiar; but excessive potations apparently had not produced the usual effect, for he was still in the best of tempers.

'Seen that young blackguard?' he began by asking.

'I went to see mother, and he came while I was there.'

'He'll have to look after himself in future. You don't catch me helping him again.'

'He says Mr. Yottle came to see them to-day.'

'To see who?'

'Dick and his wife. He heard them talking about us.'

Rodman laughed.

'Let 'em go ahead! I wish them luck.'

'But can't they ruin us if they like?'

'It's all in a life. It wouldn't be the first time I've been ruined, old girl. Let's enjoy ourselves whilst we can. There's nothing like plenty of excitement.'

'It's all very well for you, Willis. But if you had to sit at home all day doing nothing, you wouldn't find it so pleasant.'

'Get some novels.'

'I'm tired of novels,' she replied, sighing.

'So Yottle was with them?' Rodman said musingly, a smile still on his face. 'I wish I knew what terms they've come to with Eldon.'

'I wish I could do something to pay out that woman!' exclaimed Alice bitterly. 'She's at the bottom of it all. She hates both of us. Dick 'ud never have gone against you but for her.'

Rodman, extended in the low chair at full length, fixed an amused look on her.

'You'd like to pay her out, eh?'

'Wouldn't I just!'

'Ha! ha! what a vicious little puss you are! It's a good thing I don't tell you everything, or you might do damage.'

Alice turned to him with eagerness.

'What do you mean?'

He let his head fall back, and laughed with a drunken man's hilarity. Alice persisted with her question.

'Come and sit here,' Rodman said, patting his knee.

Alice obeyed him.

'What is it, Willis? What have you found out? Do tell me, there's a dear!'

'I'll tell you one thing, old girl: you're losing your good looks. Nothing like what you were when I married you.'

She flushed and looked miserable.

'I can't help my looks. I don't believe you care how I look.'

'Oh, don't I, though! Why, do you think I'd have stuck to you like this if I didn't? What was to prevent me from realising all the cash I could and clearing off, eh? 'Twouldn't have been the first—'

'The first what?' Alice asked sharply.

'Never mind. You see I didn't do it. Too bad to leave the Princess in the lurch, wouldn't it be?'

Alice seemed to have forgotten the other secret. She searched his face for a moment, deeply troubled, then asked:

'Willis, I want to know who Clara is?'

He moved his eyes slowly, and regarded her with a puzzled look.

'Clara? What Clara?'

'Somebody you know of. You've got a habit of talking in your sleep lately. You were calling out "Clara!" last night, and that's the second time I've heard you.'

He was absent for a few seconds, then laughed and shook his head.

'I don't know anybody called Clara. It's your mistake.'

'I'm quite sure it isn't,' Alice murmured discontentedly.

'Well, then, we'll say it is,' he rejoined in a firmer voice. 'If I talk in my sleep, perhaps it'll be better for you to pay no attention. I might find it inconvenient to live with you.'

Alice looked frightened at the threat.

'You've got a great many secrets from me,' she said despondently.

'Of course I have. It is for your good. I was going to tell you one just now, only you don't seem to care to bear it.'

'Yes, yes, I do!' Alice exclaimed, recollecting. 'Is it something about Adela?'

He nodded.

'Wouldn't it delight you to go and get her into a terrible row with Dick?'

'Oh, do tell me! What's she been doing?'

'I can't quite promise you the fun,' he replied, laughing. 'It may miss fire. What do you think of her meeting Eldon alone in the wood that Monday afternoon, the day after she found the will, you know?'

'You mean that?'

'I saw them together.'

'But she—you don't mean she—?'

Even Alice, with all her venom against her brother's wife, had a difficulty in attributing this kind of evil to Adela. In spite of herself she was incredulous.

'Think what you like,' said Rodman. 'It looks queer, that's all.'

It was an extraordinary instance of malice perpetrated out of sheer good-humour. Had he not been assured by what he heard in the wood of the perfectly innocent relations between Adela and Eldon, he would naturally have made some profitable use of his knowledge before this. As long as there was a possibility of advantage in keeping on good terms with Adela, he spoke to no one of that meeting which he had witnessed. Even now he did not know but that Adela had freely disclosed the affair to her husband. But his humour was genially mischievous. If he could gratify Alice and at the same time do the Mutimers an ill turn, why not amuse himself?

'I'll tell Dick the very first thing in the morning!' Alice declared, aglow with spiteful anticipation.

Rodman approved the purpose, and went off to bed laughing uproariously.



CHAPTER XXVIII



Adela allowed a week to pass before speaking of her desire to visit Mrs. Westlake. In Mutimer a fit of sullenness had followed upon his settlement in lodgings. He was away from home a good deal, but his hours of return were always uncertain, and Adela could not help thinking that he presented himself at unlikely times, merely for the sake of surprising her and discovering her occupation. Once or twice she had no knowledge of his approach until he opened the door of the room; when she remarked on his having ascended the stairs so quietly, he professed not to understand her. On one of those occasions she was engaged on a letter to her mother; he inquired to whom she was writing, and for reply she merely held out the sheet for his perusal. He glanced at the superscription, and handed it back. Breathing this atmosphere of suspicion, she shrank from irritating him by a mention of Stella, and to go without his express permission was impossible. Stella did not write; Adela began to fear lest her illness had become more serious. When she spoke at length, it was in one of the moments of indignation, almost of revolt, which at intervals came to her, she knew not at what impulse. At Wanley her resource at such times had been to quit the house, and pace her chosen walk in the garden till she was weary. In London she had no refuge, and the result of her loss of fresh air had speedily shown itself in moods of impatience which she found it very difficult to conquer. Her husband came home one afternoon about five o'clock, and, refusing to have any tea, sat for several hours in complete silence; occasionally he pretended to look at a pamphlet which he had brought in with him, but for the most part he sat, with his legs crossed, frowning at vacancy. Adela grew feverish beneath the oppression of this brooding ill-temper; her endeavour to read was vain; the silence was a constraint upon her moving, her breathing. She spoke before she was conscious of an intention to do so.

'I think I must go and see Mrs. Westlake to-morrow morning.'

Mutimer vouchsafed no answer, gave no sign of having heard. She repeated the words.

'If you must, you must.'

'I wish to,' Adela said with an emphasis she could not help. 'Do you object to my going?'

He was surprised at her tone.

'I don't object. I've told you I think you get no good there. But go if you like.'

She said after a silence:

'I have no other friend in London; and if it were only on account of her kindness to me, I owe her a visit.'

'All right, don't talk about it any more; I'm thinking of something.'

The evening wore on. At ten o'clock the servant brought up a jug of beer, which she fetched for Mutimer every night; he said he could not sleep without this sedative. It was always the sign for Adela to go to bed.

She visited Stella in the morning, and found her still suffering. They talked for an hour, then it was time for Adela to hasten homewards, in order to have dinner ready by half-past one. From Stella she had no secret, save the one which she did her best to make a secret even to herself; she spoke freely of her mode of life, though without comment. Stella made no comments in her replies.

'And you cannot have lunch with me?' she asked when her friend rose.

'I cannot; dear.'

'May I write to you?' Stella said with a meaning look.

'Yes, to tell me how you are.'

Adela had not got far from the house when she saw her husband walking towards her. She looked at him steadily.

'I happened to be near,' he explained, 'and thought I might as well go home with you.'

'I might have been gone.'

'Oh, I shouldn't have waited long.'

The form of his reply discovered that he had no intention of calling at the house; Adela understood that he had been in Avenue Road for some time, probably had reached it very soon after her.

The next morning there arrived for Mutimer a letter from Alice. She desired to see him; her husband would be from home all day, and she would be found at any hour; her business was of importance—underlined.

Mutimer went shortly after breakfast, and Alice received him very much as she would have done in the days before the catastrophe. She had arrayed herself with special care; he found her leaning on cushions, her feet on a stool, the eternal novel on her lap. Her brother had to stifle anger at seeing her thus in appearance unaffected by the storm which had swept away his own happiness and luxuries.

'What is it you want?' he asked at once, without preliminary greeting.

'You are not very polite,' Alice returned. 'Perhaps you'll take a chair.'

'I haven't much time, so please don't waste what I can afford.'

'Are you so busy? Have you found something to do?'

'I'm likely to have enough to do with people who keep what doesn't belong to them.'

'It isn't my doing, Dick,' she said more seriously.

'I don't suppose it is.'

'Then you oughtn't to be angry with me.'

'I'm not angry. What do you want?'

'I went to see mother yesterday. I think she wants you to go; it looked like it.'

'I'll go some day.'

'It's too bad that she should have to keep 'Arry in idleness.'

'She hasn't to keep him. I send her money.'

'But how are you to afford that?'

'That's not your business.'

Alice looked indignant.

'I think you might speak more politely to me in my own house.'

'It isn't your own house.'

'It is as long as I live in it. I suppose you'd like to see me go back to a workroom. It's all very well for you; if you live in lodgings, that doesn't say you've got no money. We have to do the best we can for ourselves; we haven't got your chances of making a good bargain.'

It was said with much intention; Alice hall closed her eyes and curled her lips in a disdainful smile.

'What chances? What do you mean?'

'Perhaps if I'd been a particular friend of Mr. Eldon's—never mind.'

He flashed a look at her.

'What are you talking about? Just speak plainly, will you? What do you mean by "particular friend"? I'm no more a friend of Eldon's than you are, and I've made no bargain with him.'

'I didn't say you.'

'Who then?' he exclaimed sternly.

'Don't you know? Some one is so very proper, and such a fine lady, I shouldn't have thought she'd have done things without your knowing.'

He turned pale, and seemed to crush the floor with his foot, that he might stand firm.

'You're talking of Adela?'

Alice nodded.

'What about her? Say at once what you've got to say.'

Inwardly she was a little frightened, perhaps half wished that she had not begun. Yet it was sweet to foresee the thunderbolt that would fall on her enemy's head. That her brother would suffer torments did not affect her imagination; she had never credited him with strong feeling for his wife; and it was too late to draw back.

'You know that she met Mr. Eldon in the wood at Wanley on the day after she found the will?'

Mutimer knitted his brows to regard her. But in speaking he was more self-governed than before.

'Who told you that?'

'My husband. He saw them together.'

'And heard them talking?'

'Yes.'

Rodman had only implied this. Alice's subsequent interrogation had failed to elicit more from him than dark hints.

Mutimer drew a quick breath.

'He must be good at spying. Next time I hope he'll find out something worth talking about.'

Alice was surprised.

'You know about it?'

'Just as much as Rodman, do you understand that?'

'You don't believe?'

She herself had doubts.

'It's nothing to you whether I believe it or not. Just be good enough in future to mind your own business; you'll have plenty of it before long. I suppose that's what you brought me here for?'

She made no answer; she was vexed and puzzled.

'Have you anything else to say?'

Alice maintained a stubborn silence.

'Alice, have you anything more to tell me about Adela?'

'No, I haven't.'

'Then you might have spared me the trouble. Tell Rodman with my compliments that it would be as well for him to keep out of my way.'

He left her.

On quitting the house he walked at a great pace for a quarter of a mile before he remembered the necessity of taking either train or omnibus. The latter was at hand, but when he had ridden for ten minutes the constant stoppages so irritated him that he jumped out and sought a hansom. Even thus he did not travel fast enough; it seemed an endless time before the ascent of Pentonville Hill began. He descended a little distance from his lodgings.

As he was paying the driver another hansom went by; he by chance saw the occupant, and it was Hubert Eldon. At least he felt convinced of it, and he was in no mind to balance the possibilities of mistake. The hansom had come from the street which Mutimer was just entering.

He found Adela engaged in cooking the dinner; she wore an apron, and the sleeves of her dress were pushed up. As he came into the room she looked at him with her patient smile; finding that he was in one of his worst tempers, she said nothing and went on with her work. A coarse cloth was thrown over the table; on it lay a bowl of vegetables which she was preparing for the saucepan.

Perhaps it was the sight of her occupation, of the cheerful simplicity with which she addressed herself to work so unworthy of her; he could not speak at once as he had meant to. He examined her with eyes of angry, half foiled suspicion. She had occasion to pass him; he caught her arm and stayed her before him.

'What has Eldon been doing here?'

She paused and shrank a little.

'Mr. Eldon has not been here.'

He thought her face betrayed a guilty agitation.

'I happen to have met him going away. I think you'd better tell me the truth.'

'I have told you the truth. If Mr. Eldon has been to the house, I was not aware of it.'

He looked at her in silence for a moment, then asked:

'Are you the greatest hypocrite living?'

Adela drew farther away. She kept her eyes down. Long ago she had suspected what was in Mutimer's mind, but she had only been apprehensive of the results of jealousy on his temper and on their relations to each other; it had not entered her thought that she might have to defend herself against an accusation. This violent question affected her strangely. For a moment she referred it entirely to the secrets of her heart, and it seemed impossible to deny what was imputed to her, impossible even to resent his way of speaking. Was she not a hypocrite? Had she not many, many times concealed with look and voice an inward state which was equivalent to infidelity? Was not her whole life a pretence, an affectation of wifely virtues? But the hypocrisy was involuntary; her nature had no power to extirpate its causes and put in their place the perfect dignity of uprightness.

'Why do you ask me that?' she said at length, raising her eyes for an instant.

'Because it seems to me I've good cause. I don't know whether to believe a word you say.'

'I can't remember to have told you falsehoods.' Her cheeks flushed. 'Yes, one; that I confessed to you.'

It brought to his mind the story of the wedding ring.

'There's such a thing as lying when you tell the truth. Do you remember that I met you coming back to the Manor that Monday afternoon, a month ago, and asked you where you'd been?'

Her heart stood still.

'Answer me, will you?'

'I remember it.'

'You told me you'd been for a walk in the wood. You forgot to say who it was you went to meet.'

How did he know of this? But that thought came to her only to pass. She understood at length the whole extent of his suspicion. It was not only her secret feelings that he called in question, he accused her of actual dishonour as it is defined by the world—that clumsy world with its topsy-turvydom of moral judgments. To have this certainty flashed upon her was, as soon as she had recovered from the shock, a sensible assuagement of her misery. In face of this she could stand her ground. Her womanhood was in arms; she faced him scornfully.

'Will you please to make plain your charge against me?'

'I think it's plain enough. If a married woman makes appointments in quiet places with a man she has no business to see anywhere, what's that called? I fancy I've seen something of that kind before now in cases before the Divorce Court.'

It angered him that she was not overwhelmed. He saw that she did not mean to deny having met Eldon, and to have Alice's story thus confirmed inflamed his jealousy beyond endurance.

'You must believe of me what you like,' Adela replied in a slow, subdued voice. 'My word would be vain against that of my accuser, whoever it is.'

'Your accuser, as you say, happened not only to see you, but to hear you talking.'

He waited for her surrender before this evidence. Instead of that Adela smiled.

'If my words were reported to you, what fault have you to find with me?'

Her confidence, together with his actual ignorance of what Rodman had heard, troubled him with doubt.

'Answer this question,' he said. 'Did you make an appointment with that man?'

'I did not.'

'You did not? Yet you met him?'

'Unexpectedly.'

'But you talked with him?'

'How can you ask? You know that I did.'

He collected his thoughts.

'Repeat to me what you talked about.'

'That I refuse to do.'

'Of course you do!' he cried, driven to frenzy. 'And you think I shall let this rest where it is? Have you forgotten that I came to the Westlakes and found Eldon there with you? And what was he doing in this street this morning if he hadn't come to see you? I begin to understand why you were so precious eager about giving up the will. That was your fine sense of honesty, of course! You are full of fine senses, but your mistake is to think I've no sense at all. What do you take me for?'

The thin crust of refinement was shattered; the very man came to light, coarse, violent, whipped into fury by his passions, of which injured self-love was not the least. Whether he believed his wife guilty or not he could not have said; enough that she had kept things secret from him, and that he could not overawe her. Whensoever he had shown anger in conversation with her, she had made him sensible of her superiority; at length he fell back upon his brute force and resolved to bring her to his feet, if need be by outrage. Even his accent deteriorated as he flung out his passionate words; he spoke like any London mechanic, with defect and excess of aspirates, with neglect of g's at the end of words, and so on. Adela could not bear it; she moved to the door. But he caught her and thrust her back; it was all but a blow. Her face half recalled him to his senses.