‘this is more strange than such a murder is.’
they were in madge’s dressing-room, that spacious, many-windowed chamber, with its closed venetians, which was cool and shadowy even on a blazing august day like this. they were alone together, husband and wife, face to face, two white faces turned towards each other, blanched by passions stronger and deeper than it is man’s common lot to suffer.
they had come here straight from the carriage that brought them back to the manor house, and they were alone for the first moment since madge had heard rebecca mason’s petition.
‘churchill,’ she said slowly, with agonized eyes lifted to his face, ‘i know all—all that woman could tell; and she showed me——’
she stopped, shuddering, and clasped her hands before her face. her husband stood like a rock, and made no attempt to draw nearer to her. he stood aloof and waited.
‘i know all,’ she repeated, with a passionate sob, ‘and i remember what i said when you asked me to be your wife. you were too poor—we were too poor. i could not marry you because of your poverty. it was my worldliness, my mercenary decision that influenced you, that urged you to——oh, churchill, half the fault was mine. god give me leave to bear half the burden of his anger.’
she flung herself upon her husband’s shoulder, and sobbed there, clinging to him more fondly than in their happiest hour, her arms clasping him round the neck, her face hidden upon his breast, with such love as only such a woman can feel—love which, supreme in itself, rises above every lesser influence.
‘what! you touch me, madge! you come to my arms still; you shed compassionate tears upon my breast. then i am not wholly lost. vile as i am, there is comfort still. my love, my fond one, fortune gave me nothing so sweet as you.’
‘oh, churchill, why, why—?’ she sobbed.
he understood the question involved in that one broken word, hardly audible for the sobs that shook his wife’s frame.
‘dearest, fate was hard upon me, and i wanted you!’ he said, with a calmness that chilled her soul. ‘a good man would have trusted in providence, no doubt, and waited unrepiningly for life’s blessings until he was grey and old, and went down to his grave without ever having known earthly bliss, taking with him some vague notion that he was to come into his estate somewhere else. i am not a good man. my passionate love and my scorn of poverty would not let me wait. i knew that, by one swift bold act—a wicked deed if you will, but not a cruel one, since every man must die once—i could win all i desired. fortune had made two men’s lots flagitiously unequal. i balanced them.’
‘oh, churchill, it is awful to hear you speak like that. surely you have repented—surely all your life must be poisoned with regret.’
‘yes, i have felt the canker called remorse. i could surrender all good things that earth can give—yes, let you go from these fond arms, beloved, if that which was done could be undone. and now you will loathe me, and we must part.’
‘part, churchill! what, leave you because you are the most miserable of men? no, dearest, i will cling to you, and hold by you to the end of life, come what will. if it was i who tempted you to sin, you shall not bear your burden alone. loathe you!’ she cried, passionately, looking up at him with streaming eyes, ‘no, churchill! i cannot think of that hideous secret without horror; i cannot think of the sinner without pity. there is a love that is stronger than the world’s favour, stronger than right, or peace, or honour, and such a love i have given you.’
‘my angel—my comforter! would to god i had kept my soul spotless for your sake!’
‘and for our child, churchill, for our darling. oh, dearest, if there can be pardon for such a sin as yours—and christ spoke words of mercy and promise to the thief on the cross—let us strive for it, strive with tears and prayers, and deepest penitence. oh, my love, believe in a god of mercy, the god who sent his son to preach repentance to sinners. love, let us kneel together to that offended god, let us sue for mercy, side by side.’
her husband drew her closer to his breast, kissed the pale lips with unspeakable tenderness, looked into the true brave eyes which did not shrink from his gaze.
‘even i, who have had you for my wife, did not know the divinity of a woman’s love—until this miserable hour. my dearest, even to comfort you, i cannot add deliberate blasphemy to my sins. i cannot kneel, or pray to a power in which my faith is of the weakest. keep your gentle creed, dearest, adore your god of mercy—but i have hardened my heart against these things too long to find comfort in them now. my one glory, my one consolation, is the thought that, lost as i am, i have not fallen too low for your love. you will love me and hold by me, knowing my sin; and let my one merit be that in this dark hour i have not lied to you. i have not striven to outweigh that woman’s accusation by some fable which your love might accept.’
‘no, churchill, you have trusted me, and you shall find me worthy of your trust,’ she answered, bravely. ‘no act of mine shall ever betray you. and if you cannot pray—if god withholds the light of truth from you for a little while, my prayers shall ascend to him like ever-burning incense. my intercession shall never cease. my faith shall never falter.’
he kissed her again without a word—too deeply moved for speech,—and then turned away from her and paced the room to and fro, while she went to her dressing-table, and looked wonderingly at the white wan face, which had beamed so brightly on her guests last night. she looked at herself thoughtfully, remembering that henceforward she had a part to act, and a fatal secret to keep. no wan looks, no tell-tale pallor must betray the horrid truth.
‘madge,’ said her husband, presently, after two or three thoughtful turns up and down the room, ‘i have not one word to say to you in self-justification. i stand before you confessed, a sinner of the blackest dye. yet you must not imagine that my whole life is of a colour with that one hideous act. it is not so. till that hour my life had been blameless enough—more blameless perhaps than the career of one young man in twenty, in our modern civilization. temptation to vulgar sins never assailed me. i was guiltless till that fatal hour in which my evil genius whispered the suggestion of a prize worth the price of crime. macbeth was a brave and honourable soldier, you know, when the fatal sisters met him on the heath, and hissed their promise into his ear. and in that moment guilty hope seized upon his soul, and already in thought he was a murderer. dearest, i have never been a profligate, or cheat, or liar, or coward. i have concentrated the wickedness which other men spread over a lifetime of petty sins in one great offence.’
‘and that shall be forgiven,’ cried madge, with a sublime air of conviction. ‘it shall, if you will but repent.’
‘if to wish an act undone is repentance, i have repented for more than two years,’ he answered. ‘hark, love! that is the luncheon-bell. we must not alarm our friends by our absence. or stay, i will go down to the dining-room. you had better remain here and rest. poor agonized head, tender faithful heart, what bitter need of rest for both!’
‘no, dear, i will go down with you,’ madge answered, firmly. ‘but let me ask one question first, churchill, and then i will never speak to you more of our secret. that hateful woman—you have pacified her for to-day, but how long will she be satisfied? is there any fear of new danger?’
‘i can see none, dearest. the woman was satisfied with her lot, and would never have given me any trouble but for this unlucky accident of her son’s attempt last night. i will get the man provided for and sent out of the country, where you shall never hear of him again. the woman is harmless enough, and cares little enough for her son; but that brute instinct of kindred, which even savages feel, made her fight for her cub.’
‘why did you bring her here, churchill? was that wise?’
‘i thought it best so. i thought it wise to have her at hand under my eye, where she could only assail me at close quarters, and where she was not likely to find confederates—where she could have all her desires gratified, and could have no motive for tormenting me.’
‘it is best, perhaps,’ assented madge. ‘but it is horrible to have her here.’
‘the egyptians had a skeleton at their feasts, lest they should forget to make the most of their brief span of carnal pleasures. it is as well to be reminded of the poison in one’s cup of life.’
‘and now go to our guests, churchill. your face tells no tale. say that i am coming almost immediately.’
‘my darling, i fear you are exacting too much from your fortitude.’
‘no, churchill; i shall begin as i mean to go on. if i were to shut myself up—if i were to give myself time for thought to-day—just at first—i should go mad.’
he went, half unwillingly. she stood for a few moments, fixed to the spot where he had left her, as if lost in some awful dream, and then walked dizzily to the adjoining room, where she tried to wash the ashy pallor from her cheeks with cold spring water. she rearranged her hair, with hands that trembled despite her endeavour to be calm; changed her dress—fastened a scarlet coque in her dark hair, and went down to the dining-room, looking a little wan and fatigued, but not less lovely than she was wont to look. what a mad world it seemed to her when she saw her guests assembled at the oval table, talking and laughing in that easy unreserved way which seems natural at the mid-day meal, when servants are banished, and gentlemen perform the onerous office of carver at the loaded sideboard; when hungry people, just returned from long rambles over hills and banks where the wild thyme grows, or from a desperate croquet match, or a gallop across the moorland, devour a heterogeneous meal of sirloin, perigord pie, clotted cream, fruit, cutlets, and pastry, and drink deeper draughts of that sparkling devonian cider, better a hundred times than champagne, than they would quite care to acknowledge, if a reckoning were demanded of them.
everybody seemed especially noisy to-day—talk, flirtation, laughter, made a babel-like hubbub—and at the end of the table sat the squire of penwyn, calm, inscrutable, and no line upon the expansive forehead, with its scanty border of crisp, brown hair, showed the brand of cain.
