"And you wish me not to meddle either, sir," put in Ralph.
"Yes," said his father. "I am very willing to receive you and your wife at home; to make any suitable provision; to give you half the house if you wish for it; if you will only give up this accursed work."
He was speaking with a tranquil deliberation; all the emotion and pa.s.sion seemed to have left his voice; but Mary, from behind, could see his right hand clenched like a vice upon the k.n.o.b of his chair-arm. It seemed to her as if the two men had suddenly frozen into self-repression. Their air was one of two acquaintances talking, not of father and son.
"And if not, sir?" asked Ralph with the same courtesy.
"Wait," said his father, and he lifted his hand a moment and dropped it again. He was speaking in short, sharp sentences. "I know that you have great things before you, and that I am asking much from you. I do not wish you to think that I am ignorant of that. If nothing else will do I am willing to give up the house altogether to you and your wife. I do not know about your mother."
Mary drew her breath hard. The words were like an explosion in her soul, and opened up unsuspected gulfs. Things must be desperate if her father could speak like that. He had not hinted a word of this during that silent strenuous ride they had had together when he had called for her suddenly at Great Keynes earlier in the afternoon. She saw Ralph give a quick stare at his father, and drop his eyes again.
"You are very generous, sir," he said almost immediately, "but I do not ask for a bribe."
"You--you are unlike your master in that, then," said Sir James by an irresistible impulse.
Ralph"s face stiffened yet more.
"Then that is all, sir?" he asked.
"I beg your pardon for saying that," added his father courteously. "It should not have been said. It is not a bribe, however; it is an offer to compensate for any loss you may incur."
"Have you finished, sir?"
"That is all I have to say on that point," said Sir James, "except--"
"Well, sir?"
"Except that I do not know how Mistress Atherton will take this story."
Ralph"s face grew a shade paler yet. But his lips snapped together, though his eyes flinched.
"That is a threat, sir."
"That is as you please."
A little pulse beat sharply in Ralph"s cheek. He was looking with a kind of steady fury at his father. But Mary thought she saw indecision too in his eye-lids, which were quivering almost imperceptibly.
"You have offered me a bribe and a threat, sir. Two insults. Have you a third ready?"
Mary heard a swift-drawn breath from her father, but he spoke quietly.
"I have no more to say on that point," he said.
"Then I must refuse," said Ralph instantly. "I see no reason to give up my work. I have very hearty sympathy with it."
The old man"s hand twitched uncontrollably on his chair-arm for a moment; he half lifted his hand, but he dropped it again.
"Then as to Margaret," he went on in a moment. "I understand you had intended to dismiss her from the convent?"
Ralph bowed.
"And where do you suggest that she should go?"
"She must go home," said Ralph.
"To Overfield?"
Ralph a.s.sented.
"Then I will not receive her," said Sir James.
Mary started up.
"Nor will Mary receive her," he added, half turning towards her.
Mary Maxwell sat back at once. She thought she understood what he meant now.
Ralph stared at his father a moment before he too understood. Then he saw the point, and riposted deftly. He shrugged his shoulders ostentatiously as if to shake off responsibility.
"Well, then, that is not my business; I shall give her a gown and five shillings to-morrow, with the other one."
The extraordinary brutality of the words struck Mary like a whip, but Sir James met it.
"That is for you to settle then," he said. "Only you need not send her to Overfield or Great Keynes, for she will be sent back here at once."
Ralph smiled with an air of tolerant incredulity. Sir James rose briskly.
"Come, Mary," he said, and turned his back abruptly on Ralph, "we must find lodgings for to-night. The good nuns will not have room."
As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale but absolutely determined, and for the fast time in her life she noticed how like it was to Ralph"s. The line of the lips was identical, and his eyelids drooped now like his son"s.
Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had pa.s.sed into the other.
"Father--" he said.
She expected a rush of emotion into the old man"s face, but there was not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.
"I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come home again."
As they pa.s.sed out into the entrance pa.s.sage she turned again and saw Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.
"Oh! G.o.d forgive me," he said, "have I failed?"
CHAPTER VI
A NUN"S DEFIANCE