"I do not come, Mrs. Burrell, to ask for money. I bring you this sovereign, which belongs to Mr. Roland Tresham."
The gold fell from his fingers, spun round a few times, and, dropping upon the polished mahogany table, made a distinct clink.
"I do not understand you, Mr. Farrar."
The preacher hastened to make the circ.u.mstance more intelligible. He related the scene at the St. Clair chapel with a dramatic force that sprang from intense feeling, and Elizabeth listened to his solemn words with angry uneasiness. Yet she made an effort to treat the affair with unconcern.
"What have I to do with the sovereign, sir?" she asked. "I am not responsible for Mr. Tresham"s acts. I did my best to prevent the disgrace that has befallen the fisherman"s daughter."
"I think you are to blame in a great measure."
"Sir!"
"Yes. I am sure you are. You made a companion of the girl--I may say a friend."
"No, sir, not a friend. She was not my equal in any respect."
"Say a companion then. You taught her how to dress, how to converse, how to carry herself above her own cla.s.s. You permitted her to wander about the garden with your brother."
"I always watched them."
"You let her talk to him--you let her sing with him."
"Never but when I was present. From the first I told her what Roland was--told her to mind nothing at all he said."
"If you had put a gla.s.s of cold water before a man dying of thirst, would you have been justified in telling him not to drink? You might even have added that the water contained poison; all the same, he would have drunk it, and your blame it would be for putting it within his reach."
"Indeed, Mr. Farrar, I will not take the blame of the creature"s wickedness. It is a strange thing to be told that educating a girl and trying to lift her a step or two higher is a sin."
"It is a sin, madam, unless you persevere in it. G.o.d does not permit the rich, for their own temporary glory or convenience, to make experiments with an immortal soul, and then abandon it like a soiled glove or a game of which they have grown weary. What you began you ought in common justice to have carried on to such perfection as was possible. No circ.u.mstances could justify you in beguiling a girl from her natural protectors and then leaving her in the midst of danger alone."
"Sir, this is my affair, not yours. I beg leave to say that you know nothing whatever of the circ.u.mstances."
"Indeed, I know a great deal about them, and I can reasonably deduce a great deal more."
"And pray, sir, what do you deduce?"
"The right of Denas Penelles to have been retained as your companion.
Having made a certain refinement of life necessary to her, you ought in common justice to have supplied the want you created."
"All this trouble arose when I was on my wedding-trip."
"I think you ought to have taken her with you."
"Sir!"
"I think so. It was hard to be suddenly deprived of every social pleasure and refinement and sent back to a fisher"s cottage to cure fish, and knot nets, and knit fishing-shirts. How could you have borne it?"
"Mr. Farrar, such a comparison is an insult."
"I mean no insult; far from it. Even my office would give me no right to insult you. I only wish to awaken your conscience. Even yet it may take up your abandoned duty."
"Perhaps you do not know that I endeavoured last week to see Denas. I wrote to her. I asked her to come and see me. I told her I wanted to talk with her about Mr. Tresham. She did not even answer my letter. I consider myself clear of the ungrateful girl--and as I am busy this morning I will be obliged to you, sir, to excuse my further attendance. Take the sovereign with you; give it to the poor."
"G.o.d will feed His poor, madam."
She made a little scornful laugh and asked: "Do you really inquire into the character of all the money your church receives?"
"No further, madam, than you inquire into the character of the visitors you receive. Plenty of thieves and seducers are in every society, but it is not until a man is publicly known to be a thief or a seducer that we are justified in refusing him a courteous reception.
A great deal of money is the wages of sin, and it pa.s.ses through our hands and we are not stained by its contact; but if I give you a piece of gold and say, "It is the price of a slain soul, or a slain body, or a slain reputation," would you like to put it in your purse, or buy bread for your children with it, or take it to church and offer it to G.o.d? I wish you good-morning, Mrs. Burrell."
And Elizabeth bowed and stood watching him until the door was closed and she was alone with the coin. It offended her. It had been the cause of a most humiliating visit. She looked at it with scorn and loathing. A servant entered with a card; she took it eagerly, and pointing to the money said, "Carry it to Mr. Tresham"s room and lay it upon the dressing-table." She was grateful to get it out of her sight, and very glad indeed to see the visitor who had given her such a prompt opportunity for ridding her eyes of its gleaming presence.
Thus it is that not only present but absent personalities rule us.
In St. Penfer, Paul Pyn and Ann Bude, John and Joan Penelles, the Rev. Mr. Farrar and Mrs. Burrell, were all that morning governed in some degree by Roland"s evilly spent sovereign; and he far off in London was in the hey-day of his honeymoon with Denas. They were so gay, so thoughtless and happy that people turned to look at them as they wandered through the bazars or stood laughing before the splendid windows in Regent Street. Many an old man and woman smiled sympathetically at them; for all the world loves a lover, and none could tell that these lovers had forfeited their right to sympathy by stealing their pleasure from those who ought to have shared it with them.
But as yet the world was only an accident of their love, and there was a whole week before them of unbroken and unsatiated delight--a whole week in which neither of them thought of the past or the future; in which every hour brought a fresh pleasure, something new to wear, or to see, or to hear. If it could only have lasted! Alas! the ability to enjoy went first. Amus.e.m.e.nts of every kind grew a little--a very little--tiresome. The first glory was dimmed; the charm of freshness was duller; the unreasoning delight of ignorance a little less enthusiastic every day; and about the close of the third week Roland said one morning, "You look weary, Denasia, my darling."
"I am tired, Roland--tired of going a-pleasuring. I never thought anything like that could possibly happen. Ought I not to be taking lessons, learning something, doing something about my voice?"
"It is high time, love. Money melts in London like ice in summer.
Suppose we go and see Signor Maria this morning."
"I would like to go very much."
"Then make yourself very fine and very pretty, and let me hear if your voice is in good order to-day." He went to the piano and struck a few chords, and throughout the still, decorous house, people in every room heard the sweet voice chanting:
"I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men--the sea"--
heard it again in the weird, startling incantation:
"Weave me the nets for the gray, gray fish"--
and up and down stairs doors were softly opened, and through every heart there went a breath of the salt sea and a longing for the wide stretches of rippled sands and tossing blue waters.
Roland perceived the effect of the music and was satisfied. He had no fear of their future. What if the gold was low in his purse? That charmful voice was an unfailing bank from which to draw more. He was so proud of his darling, so full of praises and admiration, that Denas really put on an access of genius as she robed herself to his flattering words. Pleasure, and hope, and a pretty pride in her husband"s eulogies lent her new physical graces. She was conscious that there were eyes at every window watching Roland and herself leave the house, and she felt certain that their owners were saying: "What a handsome couple! How fond they are of each other! What a wonderful voice she has!"
It is easy to be gay, and even beautiful, to such thoughts; and Roland and Denas reached Signor Maria"s in a glow of good-humour and good hope. The Signor was at home and ready to receive them. He was a small, thin, dark man with long, curling black hair and bright black eyes. He bowed to Roland and looked with marked interest into the fair, sparkling face of Denas. He was much pleased with her appearance and quite interested in her ambitions. Then he opened the piano and said, "Will monsieur play, or madame?"
Roland played and Denas sang her very best. The Signor listened attentively, and Roland was sure of an enthusiastic verdict; on the contrary, it was one of depressing qualifications. The Signor acknowledged the quality of the voice, its charmful, haunting tones--but for the opera! oh, much more--very, very much more was needed. Madame must go to Italy for three years and study. She must learn the Italian language; the French; the German. Ah! then there was the acting also! Had madame histrionic power? That was indispensable for the grand opera. But in three years--perhaps four--with fine teachers her voice might be very rich, very charming. _Now_ it was harsh, crude, unformed. Yes, it wanted the soft, mellowing airs of Italy. Where had madame been living--what was called "brought up?"
Denas answered she had always lived by the sea, and the Signor nodded intelligently and said: "Yes! yes! that was what he heard in her voice; the fresh wild winds--yes, wild and salt! It is airs from the rose gardens, velvety languors off the vineyards, heat and pa.s.sions of the sunshine madame wants. Indeed, monsieur may take madame to Italy for two, three, perhaps four years, and then expect her to sing. Yes, then, even in grand opera."
This was undoubtedly the Signor"s honest opinion, but Roland and Denas were greatly depressed by it; Denas especially so, for she had an inward conviction that he was right; she had heard the truth. It was almost two different beings that left Signor Maria"s house. Silently Roland handed Denas into the waiting cab, silently he seated himself beside her.
"I am afraid I have disappointed you, Roland."
"Yes, a little. But we are going now to Mr. Harrison"s. There is nothing foreign about him. He is English, and he knows what English people like. I shall wait for his verdict, Denas."