Part 34 (1/2)

”There are reasons why I can't consider it for the present,” he said.

”What to say to him I don't quite know. By and by, perhaps. Joan is very young yet.... I don't know what to say; we must think it over.”

”Edward,” she said, after a pause, ”if there is trouble hanging over us, let me know of it. Let me be prepared.”

This reply, so different from any that he could have expected, kept him silent for a time. Then he took her hand in his and said, ”I don't know why you say that; I had meant to keep it to myself till the trouble came; but I suppose you can always see through me. Nina, there is dreadful trouble coming to us. I hardly know how to tell you about it--how to begin. There is such trouble as I sometimes think n.o.body ever had to bear before. Oh, my G.o.d! how shall I break it to you!”

It was a cry of agony, the first cry he had uttered. It rang through the room. Joan caught the echo of it, and lifted her head from the pillow, but dropped it again and closed her eyes on her happy thoughts.

”Oh, Edward!” Mrs. Clinton cried, clinging to him, ”I can't bear to see you suffer like this. My dear husband, there is no need to break anything to me. I know.”

”What!” His voice was low and alarmed. ”She has already----”

”Poor Susan told me,” she said. ”She told me on her death-bed.”

He sighed momentary relief. ”You have known for all these weeks!” he said. ”Oh, why didn't you speak?”

”What could I have said? How could I have helped matters? What was there to do?” Her usually calm, slow speech was agitated, and told him more of what she had gone through than words could have done. ”I saw you anxious and troubled, and I longed for you to confide in me; but until you did----”

”I couldn't,” he said. ”I gave Humphrey my promise. He had his reasons, but whether he ought to have----”

”Oh, I am glad you have told me that,” she said in a calmer voice.

”No, I think he was wrong--to ask that I should be shut out. I can help you--I have helped you--sometimes, Edward.”

He pressed her hand, which was lying in his. ”My dear,” he said, ”I want your help now very much.”

”We needn't talk more about the past,” she said. ”It is known now, is it? You have heard something while I have been away.”

He told her, up to the point where Mrs. Amberley had left him. His story was often interrupted by exclamations of pain and disgust, as the intolerable things that had been said to him through that long drawn-out hour of his torture were brought to light. He went off into by-paths of explanation, of self-justification, of appeal.

She soothed him, helped him to tell his story, was patient and loving with him, while all the time almost insupportably anxious to come to the end of it, and know the best or the worst. But when he came to Mrs. Amberley's plea for help, stumbling through the specious arguments she had used, as if for the thousandth time he were balancing them, defending them, inclining towards them, she kept silence. She trembled, as she followed the workings of his mind, groping towards a decision, with so little light to help him, or rather with lights so crossed that none shone out clearly above the rest. She thought--she hoped--she knew what his decision had been. But he must tell her of it himself. She could not cut him short with a question. The decision was his. Whatever it had been, he had already made it. If it had been right, a question from her must have expressed doubt; if wrong, censure, or at least criticism.

”I think, when she had left me,” he said quietly, ”I felt no doubt about what I was going to do. Everything she had said seemed to be true. It seems to be true now, when I repeat it. She _had_ suffered wrongfully, and would, to the end of her days. If I had let it be kept dark before, and thought myself right, it wouldn't be less right to keep it dark now. I could pay Sedbergh his money, which was the only thing that had worried me badly, after the rest had been done, and not done by me. The disgrace would be sharper still if it came out, because it had been hidden before, and certain things might have been misunderstood, or misrepresented. I knew she would do the worst she could, and wouldn't stick at lies. There was this marriage of Joan's to make or mar---- Oh, I don't know; I can't think straight about it even now. I thought it over for two days and nights. I prayed to G.o.d about it. Before Him, I don't know whether I've done right or wrong.

I'm bringing misery on you, and everybody I love in the world. I'm dragging the name of Clinton, that has stood high for five hundred years, down in the dust. But I couldn't do it, Nina. I couldn't do it.”

She threw herself on his breast weeping. He had never known her weep.

”Oh, Edward, my dear, dear husband,” she cried, ”I love you and honour you more than I have ever done. Our feet are on the straight path.

G.o.d will surely guide them.”

CHAPTER IV

A CONCLAVE

”Good heavens! What on earth can be the meaning of this?”

d.i.c.k was standing in his pyjamas at the window of Virginia's bedroom.