"They lived in a little house near the hospital. She tells me that after the first two months she began to loathe him, and she moved into the hospital to escape him. He tried at first to melt and propitiate her; but when he found that it was no use, and that she was practically lost to him, he changed his temper, and he might have behaved to her like the tyrant he is but that her hold over the people among whom they were living, both on the fighting-men and the women, had become by this time greater than his own. They adored her, and Cliffe dared not ill-treat her. And so it went on through the winter. Sometimes they were on more friendly terms than at others. I gather that when he showed his dare-devil, heroic side she would relent to him, and talk as though she loved him. But she would never go back--to live with him; and that after a time alienated him completely. He was away more and more; and at last she tells me there was a handsome Bosnian girl, and--well, you can imagine the rest. Lady Kitty was so ill in March that they thought her dying, but she managed to write to this consul you spoke of at Trieste, and he sent up a doctor and a nurse. But this you probably know?"
"Yes," said Ashe, hoa.r.s.ely. "I heard that she was apparently very ill when she reached Treviso, but that she had rallied under Alice"s nursing. Lady Alice wrote to my mother."
"Did she tell Lady Tranmore anything of Lady Kitty"s state of mind?"
said the Dean, after a pause.
Ashe also was slow in answering. At last he said:
"I understand there has been great regret for the past."
"Regret!" cried the Dean. "If ever there was a terrible case of the dealings of G.o.d with a human soul--"
He began to walk up and down impetuously, wrestling with emotion.
"Did she give you any explanation," said Ashe, presently, in a voice scarcely audible--"of their meeting at Verona? You know my mother believed--that she had broken with him--that all was saved. Then came a letter from the maid, written at Kitty"s direction, to say that she had left her mistress--and they had started for Bosnia."
"No; I tried. But she seemed to shrink with horror from everything to do with Verona. I have always supposed that fellow in some way got the information he wanted--bought it no doubt--and pursued her. But that she honestly meant to break with him I have no doubt at all."
Ashe said nothing.
"Think," said the Dean, "of the effect of that man"s sudden appearance--of his romantic and powerful personality--your wife alone, miserable--doubting your love for her--"
Ashe raised his hand with a gesture of pa.s.sion.
"If she had had the smallest love left for me she could have protected herself! I had written to her--she knew--"
His voice broke. The Dean"s face quivered.
"My dear fellow--G.o.d knows--" He broke off. When he recovered composure he said:
"Let us go back to Lady Kitty. Regret is no word to express what I saw.
She is consumed by remorse night and day. She is also still--as far as my eyes can judge--desperately ill. There is probably lung trouble caused by the privations of the winter. And the whole nervous system is shattered."
Ashe looked up. His aspect showed the effect of the words.
"Every provision shall be made for her," he said, in a voice m.u.f.fled and difficult. "Lady Alice has been told already to spare no expense--to do everything that can be done."
"There is only one thing that can be done for her," said the Dean.
Ashe did not speak.
"There is only one thing that you or any one else could do for her," the Dean repeated, slowly, "and that is to love--and forgive her!" His voice trembled.
"Was it her wish that you should come to me?" said Ashe, after a moment.
"Yes. I found her at first very despairing--and extremely difficult to manage. She regretted she had written to me, and neither Lady Alice nor I could get her to talk. But one day"--the old man turned away, looking into the fire, with his back to Ashe, and with difficulty pursued his story--"one day, whether it was, the sight of a paralyzed child that used to come to Lady Alice"s lace-cla.s.s, or some impression from the service of the ma.s.s to which she often goes in the early mornings with her sister, I don"t know, but she sent for me--and--and broke down entirely. She implored me to see you, and to ask you if she might live at Haggart, near the child"s grave. She told me that according to every doctor she has seen she is doomed, physically. But I don"t think she wants to work upon your pity. She herself declares that she has much more vitality than people think, and that the doctors may be all wrong.
So that you are not to take that into account. But if you will so far forgive her as to let her live at Haggart, and occasionally to go and see her, that would be the only happiness to which she could now look forward, and she promises that she will follow your wishes in every respect, and will not hinder or persecute you in any way."
Ashe threw up his hands in a melancholy gesture. The Dean understood it to mean a disbelief in the ability of the person promising to keep such an engagement. His face flushed--he looked uncertainly at Ashe.
"For my part," he said, quickly, "I am not going to advise you for a moment to trust to any such promise."
Rising from his seat, Ashe began to pace the room. The Dean followed him with his eyes, which kindled more and more.
"But," he resumed, "I none the less urge and implore you to grant Lady Kitty"s prayer."
Ashe slightly shook his head. The little Dean drew himself together.
"May I speak to you--with a full frankness? I have known and loved you from a boy. And"--he stopped a moment, then said, simply--"I am a Christian minister."
Ashe, with a sad and charming courtesy, laid his hand on the old man"s arm.
"I can only be grateful to you," he said, and stood waiting.
"At least you will understand me," said the Dean. "You are not one of the small souls. Well--here it is! Lady Kitty has been an unfaithful wife. She does not attempt to deny or cover it. But in my belief she loves you still, and has always loved you. And when you married her, you must, I think, have realized that you were running no ordinary risks.
The position and antecedents of her mother--the bringing up of the poor child herself--the wildness of her temperament, and the absence of anything like self-discipline and self-control, must surely have made you anxious? I certainly remember that Lady Tranmore was full of fears."
He looked for a reply.
"Yes," said Ashe, "I was anxious. Or, rather, I saw the risks clearly.
But I was in love, and I thought that love could do everything."
The Dean looked at him curiously--hesitated--and at last said:
"Forgive me. Did you take your task seriously enough?--did you give Lady Kitty all the help you might?"
The blue eyes scanned Ashe"s face. Ashe turned away, as though the words had touched a sore.
"I know very well," he said, unsteadily, "that I seemed to you and others a weak and self-indulgent fool. All I can say is, it was not in me to play the tutor and master to my wife."
"She was so young, so undisciplined," said the Dean, earnestly. "Did you guard her as you might?"
A touch of impatience appeared in Ashe.
"Do you really think, my dear Dean," he said, as he resumed his walk up and down, "that one human being has, ultimately, any decisive power over another? If so, I am more of a believer in--fate--or liberty--I am not sure which--than you."
The Dean sighed.
"That you were infinitely good and loving to her we all know."
""Good"--"loving"?" said Ashe, under his breath, with a note of scorn.
"I--"
He restrained himself, hiding his face as he hung over the fire.
There was a silence, till the Dean once more placed himself in Ashe"s path. "My dear friend--you saw the risks, and yet you took them! You made the vow "for better, for worse." My friend, you have, so to speak, lost your venture! But let me urge on you that the obligation remains!"
"What obligation?"