Into the Highways and Hedges Part 65

"What an a.s.s you are, Lucas!" said Mr. Sauls, his voice sounding in the hall. "Go and tell the young woman that you know I am out on the best authority, for that I have just told you so myself."

A pause, and a deprecatory murmur from Lucas; then: "Would come in? The devil she would! These begging ladies deserve a snub. It's another Quakeress. Oh, very well, I'll tell her myself that I am out; and I don't think she'll do it again." And Meg heard his footsteps crossing the hall.

She pictured the imaginary Quakeress come to beg of George Sauls, and pitied her, imagination working in a curiously independent and rapid way, as it does in moments of suspense. Poor Quakeress! How could any woman stoop to beg from this man? Unless, indeed, it were a woman whose husband might have the life "choked out of him," and who was past caring for aught else!

What would he have said to the Quakeress? Would she have worn a bonnet like Mrs. Fry? Would Mr. Sauls have made her feel very hot and shy and ashamed?

The door opened. Meg stood quite still, keeping her eyes on the fire.

She would let him get over his astonishment, for she knew he hated being surprised. He held the handle in his hand for a second; he didn't exclaim, but there was a moment's breathless pause. This woman, standing sad and pale under his Nymph of the Roses, was quite the last he had expected to see. Then he shut the door firmly behind him and came forward.

CHAPTER XI.

"Mrs. Thorpe!" he said. "The world must certainly be coming to an end when you come to me!"

He did not even pretend not to be astonished; he was too clever a man to waste time in futile conventionalities. He had always his wits about him; and he spoke in a tone that expressed neither enmity nor friendliness; a surprise put George instinctively on guard.

"It is in danger of it--for me," said Meg. And then he guessed why she had come; and his face hardened.

"Nothing but the fear of losing what is more than all the world would have brought me. You are right."

"Ah! I won't insult you by sympathy this time," he said. "I remember that mine offends you; but--and I mean no offence, Mrs. Thorpe--I think that you had better not have come. A woman should always keep the refusing on her side; it answers best on the whole."

She had refused his aid with scorn when he had offered it, and now it wasn't to be had for the asking; but he preferred to spare her a fruitless entreaty. Where Margaret was concerned, revenge was not sweet to George. His words were meant for a fair warning (if she would only be wise enough to take it), and Meg understood them so.

"Much the best, when there is any choice," she said. "But there is none."

George looked at her for a moment in silence. The people who lead forlorn hopes never see "any choice".

"Then please sit down," he said; and came round to her corner of the fireplace, and pushed up a chair. She shook her head, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly, and stood facing her again.

"I have come to ask you for something," said Meg. "You gave my locket to me once, and I returned it to you."

"Your husband returned it to me," interpolated George, who stood playing with the china on the mantelpiece.

"With my entire consent," said Meg. "It only meant a dear memory to me then, but I thought it too valuable a gift to take from you. It means my husband's liberty, and probably his life, now; but----"

"Don't go on," said George. "It is of no use; it is not for me, of all men, to hinder natural consequences. You were right before when you told me that nothing should induce you to accept a favour from me. You were perfectly right."

Again it was with an honest desire to save her from a refusal that he spoke; but he felt as if he had struck her when he saw her white face flush.

"Yes, I remember," she said. "I knew that you would remember too. I told you it would be easier to take hot coals in my hands than help from you who injured him--so it would." She stretched out her hands to the fire with an unconsciously dramatic gesture. "So it would! If pain to my body could save his pain, I would do _that_ first. Shall I prove it?"

"No, thanks," said George drily. "I quite believe you. I always have believed you, even when your remarks have not been conducive to my natural vanity. We both meant what we said, I fancy."

"Yes," said Meg bravely. "I did mean it. I meant every word. And you swore that nothing should ever tempt you to try to help me again, and _you_ meant it. And yet I ask you. Give me the diamonds now, for they are the price of his life. Nothing that I could say if I begged on my knees, though I will do that if you like, could be stronger than this. I do remember, and yet I ask you."

He turned his head away, not caring to look at her. Was this Margaret?

Ah, yes! No other woman could so have moved him--"I remember--and yet I ask you--_even_ you," was what she meant; she was proud even in her self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

"You will?" she said.

"No!" he answered gravely. "I am sorry. I warned you not to ask me. One can't say such a 'no' so that it does not give pain, or I would. I don't want to be more of a brute to you than I need. I would say it gently if I could--but I cannot--I mean I will not--give you that."

He twisted his eyegla.s.s cord rapidly round his finger, as she remembered his doing of old, when he was a trifle excited in an argument. Then he made a mistake. He should have left his refusal there; but he did not; he began to justify himself; he could not bear that she should think him worse than he was.

"I should like to say that it is not because of what pa.s.sed between us outside the governor's house that I refuse your request now," he said.

"I am _not_ quite mean enough to revenge myself on you for that--I should not have given the diamonds up in any case."

"Why not?" said Meg.

He shrugged his shoulders again.

"Because _I_ am not quixotic," he said. "You mustn't expect a man to belie his nature. Look here, Mrs. Thorpe. You always knew me to be a fellow with what you and your father called 'low aims,' didn't you?

That was what you didn't like about me years ago. Oh, you never said so; and you were too good to despise any one; but you thought me on a different level; and I lost you; and Barnabas Thorpe married you. Very well! I had no right to complain; but, then, you mustn't expect _me_ to be high-minded now."

"If I offended you then----" began Meg in a low voice; but he stopped her.

"No, no. I don't mean that. I wasn't offended. Don't think I am saying this out of spite. I am _not_. I am only explaining. You were perfectly right, you judged me truly enough. I don't go in for being generous. I never give something for less than nothing. Naturally we both know that if I give you your locket I give you the case;--that is what you mean, isn't it?" He paused a moment, and Meg bowed her head.

"And some men, your father among them, would have let a man who had injured them go for the sake of the woman they--who asked them. I acknowledge that; but I am not of that kind. I have never even pretended to be. You have always understood that before so well," said George a little bitterly, "that you ought in fairness to understand it now."

"But Barnabas never injured you," said Meg, with a feminine begging of the point that brought an unmirthful smile to George's lips.

It was a hard fate that would not allow him to strike his enemy without wounding her. He hated this scene, and he hated his own weakness in hating it.

"You told me that you believed me; and indeed you must know that I am speaking the truth," she cried earnestly, with that instinctive feeling, that we most of us have, of the overpowering force of any fact that we thoroughly believe. "Barnabas could never strike a blow from behind. If you don't know that yourself, believe me for I do know him. Do you think I should be here now if I thought him guilty?"

"I have implicit faith in your word, which is more than I'd say of most men or of any other woman of my acquaintance," said George. "Since you say so, I am certain that you believe him innocent. I don't think that you could lie in any circ.u.mstances, certainly not well enough to carry conviction; but--I might say, consequently--you must pardon me if I can't pretend to equal faith in your judgment."

"My judgment is often wrong," she cried. "And yet, for that very reason, you may believe when I say I know him. Who do you think has ever had such cause to know him as I have had? I, who was his wife in name before I understood what love and marriage meant; who threw up everything at his bidding, and lived to recognise that he was not infallible?"

And George was silent. The boldness of this avowal surprised him. Meg, from their first acquaintance, had surprised him at times.

"We made a mistake," she said. "If Barnabas had been one shade less than utterly honest, it would have been an irretrievable mistake." She was thinking of a past despair, of which this man knew nothing, of black depths of water and a wind-swept marsh, and the thought gave her strength now. "You think that I believe in the preacher because I love him? It is not so, for I did _not_ love him. I know that he is honest.

What do you suppose would have become of me if he had not been good?"

she cried with a shudder. "Should not _I_ have had cause enough to know that?"

And Mr. Sauls felt the force of that shudder.

"I allow it," he said. "You certainly ought to know. We'll grant the preacher honest, if you like;--that is honest according to the gospel of Barnabas Thorpe, which quite pa.s.ses my humble understanding. Apparently you comprehend it. I'll take it on trust that he never steals diamonds, though he stole a wife; and that he could possibly explain everything, if his very remarkable code of morality did not include the sheltering of criminals. I'll grant you all that,--but it makes no difference. Let him carry out his own principles; far be it from me to prevent him this time. I would have prevented him once, but I was too late."

His voice lost self-restraint, and sounded momentarily hoa.r.s.e and fierce; then he regained his coolness.

"You are a little illogical," he said. "All that you advance may be absolutely true, Mrs. Thorpe; but it is no reason at all why I should suppress evidence, and give you the diamonds. His innocence is his own affair--not mine."