Part 22 (2/2)
”You must obey your Inner Self, or suffer torment,” I replied.
”I must, and I will,” he said firmly. ”Now listen to me. My father was not, as I have said, a wealthy man, and on his death I inherited little beyond good principles and good books. The waiting period for financial success was long, but latterly I have made money. I have 7,000 in the bank, and a good income. And my judgment agrees with yours: I must part with my marbles.”
”Oh, Mr. Derwent,” I exclaimed; ”think well before you take so serious a step! What is my hasty decision worth? It was given on the spur of the moment: it was the immature judgment of an inexperienced woman!”
”It was the spontaneous expression of pure, instinctive truth,” he replied. ”Yet do not feel any sense of responsibility. I had already reached the same conclusion: you merely confirmed it, and in doing so helped and strengthened me--though the decision set back a hope that had arisen within me.”
”But, Mr. Derwent”--I was groping around vainly for a loophole of escape--”this Mr. Mainwaring, is he poor? does he need the money? will he use it well?”
”What does that matter?” he replied. ”His wealth or poverty cannot affect the question of right or wrong. The money is his by right. _I_ robbed him of it by forensic cunning and rhetoric, and I will repay him. As a matter of fact he is fabulously wealthy, and 7,000 is to him a mere drop in an ocean. And he spends his money on horses and dissipation. He is a bigger scoundrel than Lessingham, and that is saying much.”
”But what a shame, Mr. Derwent! It does not seem right.”
”It can never be wrong to do right. Besides, I misled you at the outset of our conversation--misled you purposely. I could not change my mind now if I wished to do so, for I posted Mainwaring a cheque for the full amount this morning.”
I felt ready to cry, but there was as much joy as sorrow in my breast.
I believe I smiled, and I held out my hand, which he grasped and retained a moment.
At that instant a telegraph boy pushed open the gate and advanced towards me.
”Miss Holden?” he inquired.
I took the envelope and tore it open. It contained only a brief message:
”Zermatt. _July_ 22_nd._
”Please come soon as possible. See Derwent.
”EVANS. Hotel Victoria.”
I burst into tears, and went into the house.
CHAPTER XXI
AT ZERMATT
I cannot truthfully say that sad thoughts were uppermost during the hours that followed. After all, it was my first trip to the Continent, and although I am thirty-six years old, and might be expected to have got over mere juvenile excitements, I confess to a feeling of cheerful antic.i.p.ation. Of course the squire was always in the background of my thoughts, but I had no sense of apprehension such as sometimes oppresses one before an approaching calamity.
And it was so nice to have everything arranged for me, and to find myself in possession of time-tables and railway-coupons and a clear itinerary of the journey without the slightest effort or inconvenience on my part. Undoubtedly man has his uses, if he is a clear-headed, kind-hearted fellow like the Cynic.
When the whistle sounded and the boat express glided out of Charing Cross I waved my handkerchief from the window as long as I could see him, and then settled down into the luxurious cus.h.i.+ons and gave myself up to reflection. How nice and brotherly he had been all the way to town, and since! I do not wonder that Rose enjoyed the journey. Rose!
I might have let her know that I was leaving by the morning train, but then she would have had to ask for an hour off; and when she has just been away for ten days her chief might not have liked it. Besides, the Cynic had such a lot of minute instructions and emphatic warnings to which I was forced to listen attentively.
Then there was Mother Hubbard, who had been set upon accompanying me on the ground that I ought not to travel alone and unchaperoned; but the Cynic agreed with me that at my age chaperonage is unnecessary. I am not the sort that needs protection; and the little motherkin would merely have added to my anxieties.
No, though there was a sick and perhaps dying man at the other end, and though sorrow might soon compa.s.s me about, I determined to enjoy the present moment, and I did. I enjoyed the breeze upon the Channel, the glimpses of peasant life in France as the train rushed through the flat and rather tame country, the dinner in the Northern railway station at Paris, and the novel experience of the tiny bed which was reserved for my use on the night journey. I was travelling in luxury, of course, and am never likely to repeat the experience.
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