Herbert signed to him to go. As the man turned to obey, he drew back.
Sydney had moved to the door before him, to leave the room. Herbert refused to permit it. "Stay here," he said to her gently; "this room is yours."
Sydney hesitated. Herbert addressed her again. He pointed to his divorced wife. "You see how that lady is looking at you," he said; "I beg that you will not submit to insult from anybody."
Sydney obeyed him: she returned to the room.
Catherine"s voice was heard for the first time. She addressed herself to Sydney with a quiet dignity--far removed from anger, further removed still from contempt.
"You were about to leave the room," she said. "I notice--as an act of justice to _you_--that my presence arouses some sense of shame."
Herbert turned to Sydney; trying to recover herself, she stood near the table. "Give me the book," he said; "the sooner this comes to an end the better for her, the better for us." Sydney gave him the book. With a visible effort, he matched Catherine"s self-control; after all, she had remembered his gift! He offered the book to her.
She still kept her eyes fixed on Sydney--still spoke to Sydney.
"Tell him," she said, "that I refuse to receive the book."
Sydney attempted to obey. At the first words she uttered, Herbert checked her once more.
"I have begged you already not to submit to insult." He turned to Catherine. "The book is yours, madam. Why do you refuse to take it?"
She looked at him for the first time. A proud sense of wrong flashed at him its keenly felt indignation in her first glance. "Your hands and her hands have touched it," she answered. "I leave it to _you_ and to _her_."
Those words stung him. "Contempt," he said, "is bitter indeed on your lips."
"Do you presume to resent my contempt?"
"I forbid you to insult Miss Westerfield." With that reply, he turned to Sydney. "You shall not suffer while I can prevent it," he said tenderly, and approached to put his arm round her. She looked at Catherine, and drew back from his embrace, gently repelling him by a gesture.
Catherine felt and respected the true delicacy, the true penitence, expressed in that action. She advanced to Sydney. "Miss Westerfield,"
she said, "I will take the book--from you."
Sydney gave back the book without a word; in her position silence was the truest grat.i.tude. Quietly and firmly Catherine removed the blank leaf on which Herbert had written, and laid it before him on the table.
"I return your inscription. It means nothing now." Those words were steadily p.r.o.nounced; not the slightest appearance of temper accompanied them. She moved slowly to the door and looked back at Sydney. "Make some allowance for what I have suffered," she said gently. "If I have wounded you, I regret it." The faint sound of her dress on the carpet was heard in the perfect stillness, and lost again. They saw her no more.
Herbert approached Sydney. It was a moment when he was bound to a.s.sure her of his sympathy. He felt for her. In his inmost heart he felt for her. As he drew nearer, he saw tears in her eyes; but they seemed to have risen without her knowledge. Hardly conscious of his presence, she stood before him--lost in thought.
He endeavored to rouse her. "Did I protect you from insult?" he asked.
She said absently: "Yes!"
"Will you do as I do, dear? Will you try to forget?"
She said: "I will try to atone," and moved toward the door of her room. The reply surprised him; but it was no time then to ask for an explanation.
"Would you like to lie down, Sydney, and rest?"
"Yes."
She took his arm. He led her to the door of her room. "Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked.
"Nothing, thank you."
She closed the door--and abruptly opened it again. "One thing more," she said. "Kiss me."
He kissed her tenderly. Returning to the sitting-room, he looked back across the pa.s.sage. Her door was shut.
His head was heavy; his mind felt confused. He threw himself on the sofa--utterly exhausted by the ordeal through which he had pa.s.sed. In grief, in fear, in pain, the time still comes when Nature claims her rights. The wretched worn-out man fell into a restless sleep. He was awakened by the waiter, laying the cloth for dinner. "It"s just ready, sir," the servant announced; "shall I knock at the lady"s door?"
Herbert got up and went to her room.
He entered softly, fearing to disturb her if she too had slept. No sign of her was to be seen. She had evidently not rested on her bed. A morsel of paper lay on the smooth coverlet. There was only a line written on it: "You may yet be happy--and it may perhaps be my doing."
He stood, looking at that last line of her writing, in the empty room.
His despair and his submission spoke in the only words that escaped him:
"I have deserved it!"
FIFTH BOOK.
Chapter x.x.xVIII. Hear the Lawyer.
"Mr. Herbert Linley, I ask permission to reply to your inquiries in writing, because it is quite likely that some of the opinions you will find here might offend you if I expressed them personally. I can relieve your anxiety on the subject of Miss Sydney Westerfield. But I must be allowed to do so in my own way--without any other restraints than those which I think it becoming to an honorable man to impose on himself.
"You are quite right in supposing that Miss Westerfield had heard me spoken of at Mount Morven, as the agent and legal adviser of the lady who was formerly your wife. What purpose led her to apply to me, under these circ.u.mstances, you will presently discover. As to the means by which she found her way to my office, I may remind you that any directory would give her the necessary information.
"Miss Westerfield"s object was to tell me, in the first place, that her guilty life with you was at an end. She has left your protection--not to return to it. I was sorry to see (though she tried to hide it from me) how keenly she felt the parting. You have been dearly loved by two sweet women, and they have thrown their hearts away on you--as women will.
"Having explained the circ.u.mstances so far, Miss Westerfield next mentioned the motive which had brought her to my office. She asked if I would inform her of Mrs. Norman"s address.
"This request, I confess, astonished me.
"To my mind she was, of all persons, the last who ought to contemplate communicating in any way with Mrs. Norman. I say this to you; but I refrained from saying it to her. What I did venture to do was to ask for her reasons. She answered that they were reasons which would embarra.s.s her if she communicated them to a stranger.
"After this reply, I declined to give her the information she wanted.
"Not unprepared, as it appeared to me, for my refusal, she asked next if I was willing to tell her where she might find your brother, Mr. Randal Linley. In this case I was glad to comply with her request. She could address herself to no person worthier to advise her than your brother.
In giving her his address in London, I told her that he was absent on a visit to some friends, and that he was expected to return in a week"s time.
"She thanked me, and rose to go.
"I confess I was interested in her. Perhaps I thought of the time when she might have been as dear to her father as my own daughters are to me. I asked if her parents were living: they were dead. My next question was: "Have you any friends in London?" She answered: "I have no friends." It was said with a resignation so very sad in so young a creature that I was really distressed. I ran the risk of offending her--and asked if she felt any embarra.s.sment in respect of money. She said: "I have some small savings from my salary when I was a governess."
The change in her tone told me that she was alluding to the time of her residence at Mount Morven. It was impossible to look at this friendless girl, and not feel some anxiety about the lodging which she might have chosen in such a place as London. She had fortunately come to me from the railway, and had not thought yet of where she was to live. At last I was able to be of some use to her. My senior clerk took care of Miss Westerfield, and left her among respectable people, in whose house she could live cheaply and safely. Where that house is, I refuse (for her sake) to tell you. She shall not be disturbed.