Strange--very strange and unfathomable--is the heart of man. It did not even occur to him as the wildest scruple to be at all afraid that he had been lately a little, ever so little, less occupied with the thought of her. No shadow of a cloud rested on the great output of a strong man"s deep affection.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
"WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE"
It was on the same evening that Mark succeeded in seeing Molly. He had failed the day before, but at the second attempt he succeeded.
It was the first time he had entered Westmoreland House, and he had never, even in the autumn weeks when Miss Dexter had been most cordial to him, tried to see her except by her own invitation. Altogether the position now was as embarra.s.sing as it is possible to conceive. He had been her confidant as to a crime for which the law sees no kind of palliative, no possible grounds for mercy. As he greeted her it wanted little imaginative power to feel the dramatic elements in the picture.
Molly was standing in the middle of the great drawing-room dressed in something very white and very beautiful. At any other moment he must have been impressed by the subdued splendour of the room, and the grace and youth of the dominating figure in the midst. Mark was too absorbed to-day in the spiritual drama which he must now force to its conclusion to realise that he had also come to threaten the destruction of Molly"s material world and all the glory thereof. He had, too, so far forgotten himself, that the mischief Molly had wrought against him had faded into the background of his consciousness. His absorbing anxiety lay in the extreme difficulty of his task. It would need an angel from Heaven, gifted too with great knowledge of human nature, to accomplish what he meant to attempt. First he would throw everything into the desperate endeavour to make her give up the will simply and entirely from the highest motives. But what possibility was there of success? Why should he hope that, just because he called and asked her for it, she would give up all that for which she had sold her soul? He could not feel that he was a prophet sent by G.o.d from whose lips would fall such inspired words that the iron frost would thaw and the great depths of her nature be broken up. In fact, he felt singularly uninspired, and very much embarra.s.sed. And when he had tried the impossible (he said to himself), and had given her the last chance of going back on this ugly fraud from n.o.bler motives than that of fear, and had failed--he must then enter on the next stage and must merge the priest"s office in that of the amba.s.sador. He must bring home to her that what she clung to was already lost, and that nothing but shame and disgrace lay before her. He had the case, as presented by Sir Edmund"s letter in all its convicting simplicity, clearly in his mind--quite as clearly as the facts of Molly"s own confession to himself. It would not be difficult to crush the criminal, to make her see the hopeless horror of the trial that must follow unless she consented to a compromise. But it was the completeness of her defeat that he dreaded the most; it was for that last stage of his plan that he was gathering unconsciously all his nerve-power together. He seemed to hear with ominous distinctness her words at their last meeting: "If I can"t go through with it (which is quite possible) I shall throw up the sponge and get out of this world as soon as I can."
That had been spoken without any sort of fear of detection, without the least suspicion that she would have no choice in the matter of giving up her ill-gotten wealth. What he dreaded unutterably was the despair that must overpower her as he developed the long chain of evidence against her. As he came into her presence, overwhelmed with these thoughts, he was also anxiously recalling two mental notes. He must make her clearly understand that he had not betrayed her by one word or hint to Sir Edmund Grosse or any living human being; and secondly, he thought it very important to impress upon her that Sir Edmund and Lady Rose were of opinion that Larrone had suppressed the will or that Molly had never opened the box which contained it--were, in fact, of any or every opinion except that Molly was guilty of crime. For the rest he could, at this eleventh hour, hardly see anything clearly, and as he shook hands with Miss Dexter an unutterable longing to escape came over him. Molly"s greeting was haughty--almost rude--but that seemed to him natural and inevitable. He made some comment on a political event which she did not pretend to answer, and then as if speech were almost impossible, he actually murmured that the weather was very hot.
Then he became silent and remained so. For quite a minute neither spoke.
Molly was not naturally silent, naturally restrained. She moved uneasily about the room; she lit a cigarette, and threw it away again. At last she stood in front of him.
"What made you come to-day?" she asked.
Her large restless eyes looked full of anger as she spoke.
"I came to-day partly because I am going away very soon, so I thought that it might be----" He hesitated.
"But where are you going?" Molly asked abruptly.
"I am to take a chaplaincy at Lord Lofton"s."
"And your preaching?" cried Molly in astonishment.
"Is not wanted," said Mark.
"And your poor?"
"Can get on without me."
"You are to be buried in the country?" she cried in indignation; "you are to leave all the people you are helping? But what a horrible shame!
What,"--she suddenly turned away as a thought struck her--"what can be the reason?"
"It seems," he said very quietly, "that I have been foolish; people are talking, things are said against me, and things should not be said against a priest. But I did not come here to talk about myself. I came here----" He paused.
Molly sat down close to the empty fireplace, and was bending over it, her very thin figure curiously twisted, and one foot twitching nervously.
"You are going away," she said suddenly, "and it is my doing. I did not know I was doing that; it felt as if hitting at you were the only way to defend myself. Good G.o.d! I shall have a lot to answer for!"
She did not turn round; she crouched lower on the low chair and shuddered.
"And you," she went on in a low voice, "you want to save my soul! I have always been afraid you would get the best of it, and now I have destroyed your life"s work. Did you know it was I who was talking against you?"
"I did."
"And that I have said everything I dared to say against you ever since I told you my secret?"
"Yes; more or less I knew."
"Why didn"t you tell your authorities the truth long ago?"
"How could I?"
Molly made no answer. She got up in silence and took a key from her pocket and moved toward a small bureau between the windows. She unlocked the lower drawer and took out a packet of papers, and in the middle of this packet was an envelope in which lay the key of the room upstairs.
Her movements were slow but unhesitating, and when she left the room Mark had not the slightest idea of what she would do. If he had seen her face as she slowly mounted the great well staircase he might have understood.
How simple it all was. She reached the top of the many steps with little loss of breath; she turned to the right into the dark pa.s.sage that led to her own room, pa.s.sed her own door, and put the key in the lock of the one next to it. She knew so exactly which box she sought, though she had never seen it since the day when Dr. Larrone brought it to her. Although she had actually come in the cab that brought the small boxes from the flat, she had succeeded in not recognising that one among the number heaped up together. She knew exactly where it stood now, and how many things had been piled above the boxes from the flat with seeming carelessness, but by her orders.
The shutters were closed, but she could have found that box in inky darkness, and now a ray from between the c.h.i.n.ks fell upon it. She did not think now of how often she had told herself that she did not know what the box was like. Now it seemed to have been the only box she had ever known in her life. The cases on the top of it were heavy, and Molly had to strain herself to move them, but she was very strong, and every reserve of muscular power was called out unconsciously to meet her need.
She did not know that her hands were covered with dust, and that blood was breaking through a scratch over the right thumb made by a jagged nail.
When she came back into the drawing-room, Father Molyneux was sitting with his back towards her, looking with unseeing eyes into the trees of the park. She moved towards him and held out a long envelope.
"Take it away," she said, "If I have ruined your life, you have ruined mine."
She moved with uncertain steps to the chimney-piece, leant upon it, and, turning round, looked wildly at the envelope in his hands.
"Why didn"t you come for it before?" she asked him.
Mark could not answer. He was absolutely astonished at what had happened. He could hardly believe that he held in his hand a thing of such momentous importance. He had nerved himself for a great fight, but he had not known what he should say, how he should act, and then--amazing fact--a few minutes after he came into the room, and without his having even asked for it, the will was put into his hands!
Nothing had been said of conditions or compromise; she only asked the amazing question why he had not come for it _before_!
"You were right," she mused, "right to leave me alone. I wonder, do you remember the words that have haunted me this summer?--Browning"s words about the guilty man in the duel:
"Let him live his life out, Life will try his nerves."
It has tried my nerves unbearably; I could not go on, I have not the strength. I might have had a glorious time if I had been a little stronger. As it is, it"s not worth while."
It is impossible to convey the heavy dreariness of outlook conveyed by her voice and manner. There seemed no higher moral quality in it all.
"Half a dozen times I have nearly sent for you. But"--she did not shudder now, or make the restless movements he had noticed when he first came in: Molly had regained the stillness which follows after storms--"as soon as you are gone I shall be longing to have it back again. Men have done worse things than I have for thirty thousand a year! It won"t be easy to be a pauper; I think it would be easier to kill myself."
She was silent again, and Mark could not find one word that he was not afraid to say--one word that might not quench the smoking flax.
"I had to give it to you without waiting to talk of the future, or I might not have given it at all. But I should be glad if the case could be so arranged that my mother"s name and my own should not be dragged in the mud. It is only an appeal for mercy--nothing else." Her voice trembled almost into silence.
"I think that is all safe," said Mark. "I think if you will leave it all in my hands I can get better conditions for you than you suppose now.
They will be only too glad."
"But I gave it to you without conditions." Her manner for the moment was that of a child seeking rea.s.surance.