Part 2 (2/2)

He looked at her with sudden interest, for her pride attracted him. She was not in the least pretty; she might be any age from five-and-twenty to five-and-thirty. And she--well! she was a lady. But would she tell the truth? Women, even ladies, seldom did; still he must wait and hear what she had to say.

”I sent for you,” she began, ”because, knowing you were an adventurer, a man who had had to leave the army under a cloud--in disgrace----”

He stared at her blankly. Here was the truth about himself at any rate!

”I thought, naturally, you would be a man who would take a bribe.

There are diamonds in that case; for money is scarce in this house.”

She paused, to gain firmness for what came next. ”I was keeping them for the boy. I have a son in England and he will have to go to school soon; but I thought it better to save his father's reputation instead.

They are fine diamonds”--she drew the case closer and opened it--the suns.h.i.+ne, streaming in, caught the facets of the stones, turning them to liquid light. ”You needn't tell me they are no use,” she went on quickly, as he seemed about to speak; ”I am not stupid; but that has nothing to do with the question. I want you to save my husband--don't interrupt me, please, for I do want you to understand, and I will tell you the truth. You asked me why? and you think, no doubt, that he does not deserve to be saved. Do you think I do not know that? Mr. Greyman!

a wife knows more of her husband than anyone else can do; and I have known for so many years.”

A sudden softness came into her hearer's eyes. That was true at any rate. She must know many things of which she could not speak; a sort of horror at what she must know, with a man like Major Erlton as her husband, held him silent.

”Yet I have saved him so far,” she went on, ”but if what happened yesterday becomes public property all my trouble is in vain. He will have to leave the regiment----”

”He is not the first man, as you were kind enough to mention just now,” interrupted James Greyman, ”who has had to leave the army under a cloud. He would survive it--as others have done.”

”I was not thinking of him at all,” she replied quietly. ”I was thinking of my son; my only son.”

”There are other only sons also, Mrs. Erlton,” he retorted. ”I was my mother's, but I don't think the fact was taken into consideration by the court-martial. Why should I be more lenient? You have come to the wrong person when you come to me for charity or consideration. None was shown to me.”

”Perhaps because you did not need it,” she said quickly.

”Not need it?”

”Many a man falls under the shadow of a cloud blamelessly. What do they want with charity?”

He rose swiftly and so, facing the light again, stood looking out into it. ”I am obliged to you,” he said after a pause. ”Whether you are right or wrong doesn't affect the question from which we have wandered. Except--” he turned to her again with a certain eagerness--”Mrs. Erlton! You say you are prepared to tell the truth to the bitter end; then for Heaven's sake let us have it for once in our lives. You never saw me before, nor I you. It is not likely we shall ever meet again. So we can speak without a past or a future tense. You ask me to save your husband from the consequences of his own cheating.

I ask why? Why should I sacrifice myself? Why should I suffer? for, mark you, there were heavy bets----”

”There are the diamonds,” she interrupted, pointing to them; their gleam was scarcely brighter than her scornful eyes.

He gave a half smile. ”Doubtless there are the diamonds! I can have my equivalent, so far, if I choose; but I don't choose. It does not suit me personally; so that is settled. I can't do this thing, then, to please myself. Now, let us go on. You are a religious woman, I think, Mrs. Erlton--you have the look of one. Then you will say that I should remember my own frailty, and forgive as I would be forgiven. Mrs.

Erlton! I am no better than most men, no doubt, but I never remember cheating at cards or pulling a horse as your husband does--it is the brutal truth between us, remember. And if you tell me I'm bound to protect a man from the natural punishment of a great crime because I've stolen a pin, I say you are wrong. That theory won't hold water.

If our own faults, even our own crimes, are to make us tender over these things in others, there must be--what, if I remember right, my Colenso used to call an arithmetical progression in error until the Day of Judgment; for the odds on sin would rise with every crime. I don't believe in mercy, Mrs. Erlton. I never did. Justice doesn't need it. So let us leave religion alone too, and come to other things--altruism--charity--what you will. Now who will benefit by my silence? Will you? You said just now that a wife knows more of her husband than a stranger can. I well believe it. That is why I ask you to tell me frankly, if you really think that a continuance of the life you lead with him can benefit you?” He leaned over the table, resting his head on his hand, his eyes on hers, and then added in a lower voice, ”The brutal truth, please. Not as a woman to man, or, for the matter of that, woman to woman; but soul to soul, if there be such a thing.”

She turned away from him and shook her head. ”It is for the boy's sake,” she said in m.u.f.fled tones. ”It will be better for him, surely.”

”The boy,” he echoed, rising with a sense of relief. She had not lied, this woman with the beautiful eyes; she had simply shut the door in his face. ”You have a portrait of him, no doubt, somewhere. I should like to see it. Is that it, over the mantelpiece?”

He walked over to a colored photograph, and stood looking at it silently, his hands--holding his hunting crop--clasped loosely behind his back. Kate noticed them even in her anxiety; for they were noticeable, nervous, fine-cut hands, matching the figure.

”He is not the least like you. He is the very image of his father,”

came the verdict. ”What right have you to suppose that anything you or I can do now will overcome the initial fact that the boy is your husband's son, any more than it will ease you of the responsibility of having chosen such a father for the boy?”

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