Part 65 (2/2)

”_Always take the part of the people in the wrong--they need it most._”

The only conviction to which she could lay claim was somehow embodied in that sentiment.

XXVIII

Cedric

She wrote to Cedric, the sense of having put herself irrevocably in the wrong by her own act making her explanation into an utterly bald, lifeless statement of fact. She felt entirely unable to enter into any a.n.a.lysis of her folly, and besides, it would have been of no use. Facts were facts. She had taken Cedric's money, which he had given her for one purpose, and used it for another. There had not even been any violent struggle with temptation to palliate the act.

Alex felt a sort of dazed stupefaction at herself.

She was bad, she told herself, bad all through, and this was how bad people felt. Sick with disappointment, and utterly unavailing remorse, knowing all the time that there was no strength in them ever to resist any temptation, however base.

She wondered if there was a h.e.l.l, as the convent teaching had so definitely told her. If so, Alex shudderingly contemplated her doom. But she prayed desperately that there might be nothing after death but utter oblivion. It was then that the thought of death first came to her, not with the wild, impotent longing of her days of struggle, but with an insidious suggestion of rest and escape.

She played with the idea, but for the most part her faculties were absorbed in the increasing strain of waiting for Cedric's reply to her confession.

It came in the shape of a telegram.

”Shall be in London Wednesday 24th. Will you lunch Clevedon Square 1.30.

Reply paid.”

Alex felt an unreasonable relief, both at the postponement of an immediate crisis, and at the reflection that, at all events, Cedric did not mean to come to Malden Road. She did not want him to see those strange, sordid surroundings to which she had fled from the shelter of her old home.

Alex telegraphed an affirmative reply to her brother, and waited in growing apathy for the interview, which she could now only dread in theory. Her sense of feeling seemed numbed at last.

Something of the old terror, however, revived when she confronted Cedric again in the library. He greeted her with a sort of kindly seriousness, under which she wonderingly detected a certain nervousness. During lunch they spoke of Violet, of the shooting that Cedric had been enjoying in Scotland. The slight shade of pomposity which recalled Sir Francis was always discernible in all Cedric's kindly courtesy as host. After lunch he rather ceremoniously ushered his sister into the library again.

”Sit down, my dear you look tired. You don't smoke, I know. D'you mind if I--?”

He drew at his pipe once or twice, then carefully rammed the tobacco more tightly into the bowl with a nicotine-stained finger. Still gazing at the wedged black ma.s.s, he said in a voice of careful unconcern:

”About this move of yours, Alex. Violet and I couldn't altogether understand--That's really what brought me down, and the question of that cheque I gave you for the servants. I couldn't quite make out your letter--”

He paused, as though to give her an opportunity for speech, still looking away from her. But Alex remained silent, in a sort of paralysis.

”Suppose we take one question at a time,” suggested Cedric pleasantly.

”The cheque affair is, of course, a very small one, and quite easily cleared up. One only has to be scrupulous in money matters because they _are_ money matters--you know father's way of thinking, and I must say I entirely share it.”

There was no need to tell Alex so.

”Have you got the cheque with you, Alex?”

”No,” said Alex at last. ”Didn't you understand my letter, then?”

Cedric's spectacles began to tap slowly against the back of his left hand, held in the loose grasp of his right.

<script>