the morning after zeus gildersedge’s burial, john strong walked the terrace before saltire hall, a man much troubled within himself. sentiment had always seemed so doubtful a virtue to the tea-merchant that he had for years regarded any such ebullition of the soul with intense suspicion. after a long talk with judith the preceding night he had gone to bed in a mood so generous and pliant that his own daughter had been astonished at the sudden surrender of her father’s pride.
but with the morning, that sober hour when the mind gleams like a sphere of marble in the sun, john strong’s emotions had cooled discouragingly. he viewed them on rising much as a masker regards the gay clothes he had worn the night before, when wine had cozened him out of his saner self. john strong went down to breakfast and faced judith stolidly over the massive oak table. she saw speedily that his mood had changed, and that he was much more the father she had known of old.
judith, with a sense of emptiness at her heart, left him alone after the meal, to his papers and his pipe. john strong smoked vigorously, biting the amber mouth-piece, twisting his papers to and fro with the viciousness of a man irritated by his own indecision. judith, on the watch, saw her father pass out onto the terrace with his favorite dog following at his heels. by instinct she went to the organ that stood in the great gallery above the hall, and began to play some sad, heart-searching melodies religion had drawn from the deeps of the soul. the solemn tones pealed out into the sunlight with a passion that throbbed from the woman’s heart.
john strong stood still to listen. the lines softened somewhat on his face and a slight tremor played about the dogged mouth. few men, be they blunt philistines, are inert to music when the tide of trouble runs deep. john strong leaned against the balustrading of the terrace, and felt once more the throes of tenderness that sleep had wiped from out his brain.
it was even as he pondered thus, pacing to and fro, then halting for a time as though thought claimed every red spherelet coursing in his blood, that john strong heard the sound of wheels upon the carriage-drive beyond the garden. the sound skirted the pines and laurels and the three great cedars, and ceased before the entrance on the northern front of the hall. john strong, with a shadow as of displeasure upon his face, turned towards the library window that opened upon the terrace.
then he heard voices, a woman’s and a man’s. a door closed. john strong halted in the sun. to him from the window came a man-servant, sleek and clean-shaven, treading deferentially towards his master.
“a lady to see you, sir.”
“what name?”
“she would give no name, sir.”
“hum.”
“i showed her into the library.”
“what sort of lady, william?”
“young, sir; came in a cab, one of dixon’s traps from rilchester. hope i did right, sir; the lady said it was important.”
“quite right,” said john strong, moving in the direction of the library.
within he found a smartly dressed, brown-haired woman in a pink toque seated with constrained precision in the middle of the sofa. the perfume of parma violets filled the room. the stranger was palpably nervous, a little hot and flurried, like a woman who had hurried to catch a train. john strong stared at her, hat in hand, questioned her as to the reason of the favor her presence conferred upon him.
“mr. strong?” she asked, tentatively, smiling forcedly, rising, and sinking again into her seat.
“i am john strong, madam—”
“i have come on a very delicate matter—”
the ex-tea-merchant took a chair and settled himself so that he could see the woman’s face.
“a delicate matter?” he repeated, scenting charity, or a hospital donation.
“most delicate, and to me—painful, mr. strong. excuse me if i seem disconnected. i want you to promise—”
she hesitated a moment, and sat staring half apologetically into the old man’s face.
“well, madam, what am i to promise?”
“that this visit of mine shall be kept a profound secret.”
john strong elevated his eyebrows.
“if you will first tell me your name, madam—” he suggested.
“my name?”
“i shall be better able to understand the situation.”
the lady in the pink toque drew off her gloves with nervous jerks and laid them neatly in her lap. then she put her veil up and moistened her lips with her tongue.
“my name is mabel saker,” she said, with her eyes fixed on the man’s face; “probably you remember that name.”
most certainly john strong remembered it. the expression on his massive and determined face betrayed the unpleasant familiarity of those few syllables. he sat in silence for the moment, his gray eyes fixed on the woman before him.
“so, madam,” he said, “you desire this interview to be kept secret. will you kindly inform me what its purpose is?”
“does my name suggest it to you?”
“i have my suspicions.”
“and you will consider any information i may give you as privileged?”
“how privileged, madam?”
“that you may make use of it where and when you like, provided my name is never mentioned.”
john strong settled himself firmly in his chair like the man of weight and substance that he was.
“well, madam,” he said, “i make you this promise. i suppose what you have to tell me concerns my son.”
miss saker touched her lips with her handkerchief and coughed suggestively. she assumed an air of reluctance with a cleverness that did her adaptability credit.
“mr. strong,” she said, impressively, “i have suffered greatly in my mind since certain unfortunate facts came to my knowledge. doubt and indecision have made a martyr of me. you will sympathize, mr. strong, when i confess to you that i have been torn between friendship and a sense of duty.”
john strong nodded like a judge.
“let me assure you, madam, that you have my sympathy,” he said.
miss saker pressed her hand tragically to her forehead and aped the manner of a popular actress whom she admired.
“how dreadful a thing it is,” she observed, “to find that one has been deceived!”
“most painful, madam.”
“your son, mr. strong—”
“my son, yes, madam.”
“was absolutely innocent, as was the girl whose honor they traduced.”
miss saker’s brown eyes were fixed expectantly upon the old man’s face. she had promised herself some dramatic excitement in watching the effect of her disclosures upon gabriel’s father. the result was less sensational than she could have imagined. she saw the old man sink more deeply into his chair. his head was bowed down over his chest, and there was a sudden spasm as of pain upon his face.
“please explain,” he said, in a strange voice.
mabel saker, somewhat frightened, pretended inordinate concern.
“oh, mr. strong, the truth has been too much for you. i have been clumsy. oh—”
the old man quieted her with a gesture of the hand.
“if you would be kind to me,” he said, “please tell me quickly all you know. it was a conspiracy, i suppose.”
miss saker began to lose her melodramatic action.
“major maltravers—”
“major maltravers. exactly.”
“he was in love with ophelia gusset.”
“exactly.”
“ophelia was sick of your son.”
“so i have heard.”
“people wrote anonymous letters.”
“people do that sort of thing—women, i should have said.”
“you understand me.”
“perfectly, madam; and the witnesses?”
miss saker put two plump fingers before her mouth.
“bribery,” she lisped; “inquire at callydon, mr. strong, and elsewhere; inquire at st. aylmers. i need not advise you in this.”
“and the decree has been made absolute?”
“six months—”
“it is too late, thank god, for mere intervention.”
miss saker stared.
“why do you say ‘thank god’?” she asked.
“because, madam, i would not have my son re-wedded to a devil.”
there was a short but impressive silence between them for a moment. then miss saker stood up, tugging at her gloves. john strong also rose like a man who was very tired.
“you understand, mr. strong,” she said, “what a terrible ordeal this has been to me.”
“i understand, madam, and, believe me, i am grateful.”
“and your promise?”
“a promise, miss saker, is a promise.”
the woman in the pink toque smiled, but the smile vanished utterly as she met the old man’s gray eyes. there was something so subtle and contemptuous in the look he gave her that her vapid self-esteem and her facile hypocrisy seemed to wither in a moment.
“good-bye,” she gushed, holding out a hand.
john strong touched her fingers and walked with her towards the door.
“good-bye, madam,” he said. “i hope you will have a pleasant drive to gabingly.”
“gabingly? not gabingly, rilchester.”
“pardon me, i was forgetting.”
“rilchester. i leave for london to-night.”
when the woman in the pink toque with her silks and perfumes had gone, and the sound of the carriage wheels had died beyond the meadows, john strong passed back to the library and found judith standing by the window. there was so strange a look upon her father’s face that judith gazed at him and was mute. haggard as he looked, a certain grim joy seemed to shine in his gray eyes, a joy that betrayed the passions that were working in his heart. judith went to him and held his arm.
“father, what is it?” she asked.
he partly leaned upon her, with one hand upon her shoulder.
“i was in the wrong,” he said, doggedly.
“father!”
“gabriel shall come home.”
“home!”
“and i, john strong, will stand and fight beside my son.”
