Sir Laurence's reverie had lasted a long time before the consideration of his own immediate movements occupied any place in it. When it did so, he formed his resolution with his accustomed promptitude. He had told them at Knockholt that he might perhaps go abroad; and now abroad he would go. He must leave London; he could not bear to witness the progress of this drama, in which he had so vital an interest, only as an ordinary spectator. He was parted from her; she was right--there could be no pretext of friendship in their case. Even if he could have obscured her clear perception and misguided her judgment; even if he could have persuaded her to receive him once more on the footing of a friend, he would have disdained to avail himself of such a subterfuge. The surest test a man can apply to the worth and sincerity of his love is to ask himself whether he would deceive its object in order to win her; if he can honestly say no, he is a true lover and a gentleman. Sir Laurence asked himself such a question, and was answered, no. He could not stand the Club-talk; he could not meet those men to whom she furnished matter for conversation,--not insolent indeed, so far as she was concerned, but intolerable in its easy, insouciant, flippant slang and indolent speculation in the ears of the man who loved her. He could not stop it; if he remained in town he must endure it, or forsake the society of all his customary associates, which was not to be thought of. Such a course of proceeding as that, in addition to depriving him of resources and leaving him nothing to do, would give rise to no end of talk and all kinds of surmises. If he started off suddenly, nobody knowing why, and went nobody knew where, it would be all right,--it would be only "Alsager's queer way;" but if he stayed in town and saw no one, or changed his set, then, indeed, that would be quite another matter. One's own set has toleration for one's queer ways, to which they are accustomed, but they decidedly object to any but habitual "queerness;" they will not bear with new developments, with running off the rails.
Yes, he would go; and the sooner the better. There was nothing to detain him now. He would have liked to see Miss Gillespie perhaps: but, after all, what good could it do? Her connection with the Hammonds, and through them with the Mitfords, had long been at an end; her mysterious note had warned him that her power was over; so that what could she do? and what had he to say to her? Persons of her sort were never safe to talk to, and were so full of caprice that she might either resent his visit or ignore the subject of Lady Mitford altogether; if she had ever had any interest in her, and it had been genuine, it was not likely she retained it now. No; he would not linger for the purpose of seeing her,--he would go at once. Whither? To Paris first, of course; and then he would consider. Was he always to be a wanderer? he thought; was he never to realize any of the good resolves, to put in practice any of the views, he had been indulging in lately? Was Knockholt to remain masterless, because he could not settle down to the interests and the occupations which sufficed for other and better men?--men who had not been exempted from the common lot either;--men, to many of whom their heart's desire had not been granted. Could he not now do as his father had done? No, not yet; the restlessness of mental trouble was upon him; the pain of unaccustomed moral processes; the shivering chill of the dawn of a new kind of light and a new system of thought. No doubt this would not be always so; after a time he could find rest and tranquillity in the duties and enjoyments of a country baronet's existence. Was this what she meant? Was this strength to do, and fidelity in adhering to duty, the noble law by which she ruled her life? Were they to bring him to the happiness which seemed so distant, so impossible? Were not the words upon the ring her message, her counsel, her command? Ah, well, if so, he might--he would try to follow them some day; but for the present he must get away. Like every wounded animal, he must seek refuge in flight, he must get him to the covert.
Sir Laurence Alsager did not remember, amid all his musings, that he was alone in the enjoyment of this resource; that she remained where her feet trod on thorns, and heart fed on bitterness--remained in the straight path of her duty, strong and faithful.
Yes, he would go at once,--that evening. He gave his servant the necessary orders, and then applied himself to writing letters on matters of business. While thus engaged a note was brought to him, and he was informed that the bearer awaited the answer. The note was enclosed in an oblong envelope, bordered with black about an inch deep, so that room was barely left for the address. He knew the handwriting well; he had been accustomed to see it in combination with every kind of coquetry in stationery; and he smiled grimly as he noted the mingled hypocrisy and coquetry of this very pretty and impressive affliction in black and white.
"What the devil is she at now?" thought Sir Laurence, as he broke the accurately-impressed seal. He had not had any communication with Mrs. Hammond since he left Redmoor in the spring; he had heard not quite all perhaps, but enough about her to make him shrink from any further acquaintance with her, as much from disgust of herself as from indignation on Lady Mitford's account; and he gave her too much credit for a sufficiently accurate knowledge of the machinery of London society, and the unfailing circulation of scandal, to entertain any doubt that she was well aware that he must inevitably hear, and had by this time heard, the stories that were rife about her. He was not in the least aware to how great an extent she had been actuated by torturing jealousy of him, though, as he had told Lady Mitford, he knew one of her motives was revenge; but he was prepared to give Laura Hammond credit for any amount of spite of which human nature is capable; still, what purpose could she have to serve by opening any communication with him? He read the note as he asked himself the question. It was dated from the house in Portman Square, and contained only a few lines. Mrs. Hammond had heard of Sir Laurence Alsager's arrival in town, and was particularly desirous of seeing him. She begged he would send her a line to say whether he could conveniently call upon her the same evening; she said evening, as no doubt his mornings were fully occupied with the business entailed by his acquisition of rank and fortune, on which she begged to offer her congratulations; and she equally, of course, did not go out anywhere, or receive (ordinary) visitors. She hoped Sir Laurence Alsager would comply with her request, as she wished to speak to him concerning a person in whom he was interested, and whom his acquiescence would materially benefit (underlined); and she remained his most faithfully.
"A snare and a bait," said Laurence, as he stood with the note in his hand, uncertain what reply he should make. His first impulse was to write that he was leaving London that afternoon; but he hesitated to do that, as it occurred to him she would be surprised at the abruptness of such a step, and setting her serpentine sagacity to work, might arrive at guessing something at least proximate to the truth. Curiosity; a strong conviction that Laura would not venture to tamper with his patience too far, and would not have dared to take this step without some motive; a vivid recollection of the interview which had taken place between them before the memorable visit to Redmoor, of his threat, and Laura's evident appreciation of its sincerity; finally, an irresistible longing to hear what Laura might have to say about Lady Mitford, and a vague dread that a refusal might in some indescribable way injure her,--decided him.
He wrote a short formal note, to the effect that Sir Laurence Alsager would have the honour of calling upon Mrs. Hammond at eight o'clock that evening, despatched it, and then returned to his letters.
Sir Laurence did not dine at the Club that day; he was in no mood to meet the men whom he must have met, and who would have made him pay the price of his popularity by inopportunely insisting on his society. He dined at a private hotel, and eight o'clock found him at the door of Mrs. Hammond's house.
He was shown into an inner drawing-room, which was brilliantly lighted, and where he was left alone for a few minutes. Then Mrs. Hammond appeared, and came towards him holding out her hand.
"I cannot congratulate you on your appearance, Sir Laurence," she said, as she seated herself in a low deep chair and looked up at him. The look was a peculiar one; intent observation and some anxiety were blended in its expression. He had taken a seat at her invitation, and was quite grave and self-possessed, while he preserved with exactness the manner of a man who was there in obedience to a summons, not of his own wish or act, and who was waiting to learn the motive which had dictated it.
Laura Hammond looked handsomer than he had ever seen her, as she sat in the lighted room in her deep mourning dress, whose sombre hue and rich material toned down the sensuous style of her beauty, and lent it that last best touch of refinement in which alone it had been wanting. Sir Laurence Alsager observed this increased beauty, but merely with an artistic sense of its attraction. To him Laura Hammond could never be aught but despicable and repulsive; and he was just then in the mood in which a man believes that only one woman in the world is really beautiful. She had conformed to custom in her dress so far as the weeds went, but she did not wear a widow's cap. Nothing would have induced her to disfigure herself by such a detestable invention; and though she knew she should be talked about, she considered that a minor evil. Her fine silky chestnut-hair, preserved from contact with the hideous cap, was banded smoothly on her forehead, and gathered into an unadorned knot at the back of her head, showing the profile and the delicate little ears to perfection. More beautiful than ever she undoubtedly was; but yet, as Laurence looked at her with close attention, he noticed that she had grown suddenly older in appearance. Even supposing all her former light and dashing manner to be resumed, the sombre dress to be laid aside, and the brilliant toilette in which Laura had been unrivalled among English women to have taken its place, a change had come over her. A line above the brow,--a horizontal line, not the sharp perpendicular mark that intellectual toil sets; a tighter closing of the lips, too seldom closed before; a little, a very little, less elasticity in the muscles which produced and banished the ever-flitting smile,--these were faint, but certain, indications.
"I have not been ill, Mrs. Hammond," replied Sir Laurence gravely; "but I have had a good deal of trouble lately, and that does not improve one's looks. But," he went on, "you wished to see me; may I inquire why? I am leaving town shortly; and--"
He paused; his natural courtesy arrested him. He could not tell Mrs. Hammond so plainly that he was anxious to get away from her as soon as possible. She saw it though, and she reddened with sudden anger, which in an instant she brought under control.
"You are amazingly business-like, Sir Laurence! The influence of your late onerous experiences in the character of Gentilhomme Campaynard, no doubt. By the way, how do you like it all?"
"All? I hardly catch your meaning. Since my father's death I have been, as you suppose, very much occupied, and I cannot say I like the details of a transfer of property and responsibility much."
"Ah, but the property itself, I meant,--the title and the fortune, the 'county-magnate' business, and the ward;--above all, the ward."
She spoke in a playful tone; but she watched him closely, and Sir Laurence saw it.
"She had heard something about Helen, and she is on a false scent," he thought. "Perhaps it is just as well to let her deceive herself."
So he replied, still gravely, still unwarmed by her manner, which was half caressing and half contemptuous:
"They are all good things in their way, Mrs. Hammond; and if their way be not yet mine, mine will be theirs some day, I hope."
"Ah, then, it's true!" she exclaimed. "You are really going to marry and settle; you are going to assume the semi-sporting, semi-bucolic, but entirely domestic character, which is so very charming, and which will suit you so perfectly; and henceforth the all-conquering Colonel will be sought for in vain under so admirable a travesty!"
Still he was grave and immovable. Her persiflage had no more power to charm, her ridicule to annoy, than her beauty had power to please him. It was all silly chatter; and he wondered at himself as he remembered the time when he preferred the nonsense, occasionally adulterated by slang and invariably spiced with spite, which she had talked then and always, to any words of wit or wisdom. She still watched him, under cover of her light manner, narrowly.
"You know as well as I do what is the ordinary amount of truth in public rumour, Mrs. Hammond. But you must excuse me for again reminding you that I am here at your request, and that you summoned me hither with some purpose. It was not to talk of my affairs and prospects, I presume."
He spoke the last words in a harsh and angry voice involuntarily. Anger against her, and something very like hatred of her, were strong within him, and grew stronger rapidly. He looked at her careless face; he marked her sensuous soignée beauty; and he remembered the fair woman whom he had seen struck down by her merciless hand in the dawn of her innocent happiness, in the pride of her hope and love. He would make her say her say, and leave her, or he would leave her with it unsaid; he was sorry he had come. What could this woman do but harm to any one; to him, and to her most of all?
"No, Colonel Alsager,--I beg your pardon, Sir Laurence,--I cannot always remember how times are changed, you see,--it was not. It was for a purpose which you may think a little less welcome, and perhaps even more trifling; it was to talk to you--of myself."
"Of yourself, Mrs. Hammond! What can you have to say of yourself that I ought to hear, or you to speak?"
"Much," she said vehemently; and in a moment her manner changed. He had a perfectly distinct recollection of her on the last two occasions when he and she had spoken together, especially on the last, when she openly defied him; when she had declared that she still loved him; when she had furnished him with the clue to her conduct which he had unravelled for Lady Mitford's enlightenment; when she had said, "I will break her heart, and then I will spoil her name."
Had she done so? had this woman fulfilled her threat? Very nearly; she had almost broken Georgie's heart, and she would certainly ruin her reputation if he--Laurence Alsager--did not resolutely withdraw, and deprive her of any pretext for slander. And so it had come to this: the woman he had undertaken to defend, for whose sake he had foregone so much pleasure and neglected so much duty, could be saved only by his absence! He knew that Laura was "talked of," and therefore persons unskilled in the science of society might suppose that she could not do much harm by talking of another woman; but Alsager was an adept, and he knew that a stone will bruise and maim, and even kill, if well-aimed and sufficiently heavy, though the hand that throws it be ever so much stained with sin. He feared--he feared exceedingly for the woman he loved, and whom this she-devil hated. He noted the change in Laura's manner before she spoke, and he feared still more.
"I have much to say, and I will say it," she went on vehemently; "and you shall listen to me! What! am I to have won at last, and at the end of such deception and slavery, the reward I have done all and suffered all for, and then am I to keep a decorous silence, and see it all made waste and worthless? Don't look at me in that grave, polite, criticising way, Laurence, or you will drive me mad!"
Something of menace and something of appeal in her manner, a startling energy in her gesture, and the hoarse intensity of her voice, threw Alsager off his guard; this was so totally new to him. He had seen her in many moods, but never in one like this. Tenderness, coquetry, a mock gust of passion, all the tricks of fence of the most finished flirt he had seen her play, and he had found them out--perhaps she had never really deceived even when she had most completely fascinated him; but he had never seen her thus, he thought, and he was right. She was in earnest; he was about to understand her fully now. She had risen impetuously from her seat, and approached him, and he had risen also; so they stood confronting each other. There was nothing artificial in the expressive grace of her attitude; her figure was perfect, and she was graceful always--never more so than now, when she was carried away into a forgetfulness of her own beauty, which, if it had been habitual, would have made Laura Hammond irresistible. Her eyes flashed, and her smooth brow reddened; but her beauty gained by every subtle change of expression, as she poured out a torrent of impetuous words.
"Did you think I had forgotten our last meeting and our last parting? Did you think I had forgotten the words you spoke then, and those with which I answered them? Did you think the past was all blotted out, and those three horrid years were gone like an ugly dream; those years during which you banished yourself for love of me,--yes, Sir Laurence Alsager, for me,--you cannot deny it, you can't take that from me, you can't transfer that jewel to her crown of triumph,--ay, start and stare; I know it all, you see,--and then came back to torture me by indifference, by neglect, by preference of another--and what another! my God! that made it a thousand times worse--before my face! What do you take me for that you think I would endure this, and when the time came for speech keep silence!"
She was trembling violently now; but as he looked at her, with all the amazement he felt in his face, she put a strong control on herself and stood quite firmly.
"For God's sake, what do you mean?" stammered Sir Laurence. "What are you talking about? What is it that you must say? What is it that I have done?"
"You ask me what I mean; you--you--did I not tell you then--when you pleaded to me for the woman who had rivalled me with you--that I loved you? Did I not tell you then, I say, and did you not know it?"
"You did tell me that you loved me then, Mrs. Hammond, and I did not believe you. You had told me the same thing before, you know, many a time, and you married Mr. Hammond. You married him because he was very rich,--perhaps you might have hesitated had he not also been old and silly; but he was, and your calculations have succeeded;--you are rich and free. Once before, when we talked upon this subject, I said we would not go into it any more. To you it cannot be profitable" (he laid an emphasis upon the word), "and to me it is very painful. 'That time is dead and buried,' and so let it be. I cannot conceive why you have revived its memory; but, whatever your purpose, it can have no success dependent on me. I have no bitter memory of it now; indeed, for some time I have had no memory of it at all. I know it is hard for a woman to believe that a wound inflicted by her can ever heal, and I daresay men show the scars sometimes, and flatter the harmless vanity of their ci-devant conquerors. But I am not a man of that stamp, Mrs. Hammond; I have good healing flesh, I suppose, as the surgeons and the nurses say; at all events, I have no scars to show."
He made a step in advance, as if to take his hat from a small table; and she saw that he intended to leave her.
"No," she exclaimed; "you shall not go! I am utterly resolved to speak with you; and you must hear me. I will be as cold and as calm as you are; but you must hear me, if not for my sake or your own, for Lady Mitford's!"
She motioned him to his seat, and smiled--a little momentary smile and full of bitterness. He sat down again, and she stood by the mantelpiece, on which she laid her hand, and for a moment rested her head upon the palm. Something forlorn in the attitude caught Alsager's attention; then he knew that she was acting, and acting well. Fury, perhaps ferocity, might be natural to Laura Hammond under certain circumstances; but forlornness never. When she next spoke it was in a softer tone, and she kept her face towards him in profile. It was her best look, as he remembered, and as she remembered also; for though she was not acting now in all she said--though she was more real throughout the whole of their interview than she had ever been before, nothing, except indeed it might have been severe bodily pain, could have reduced Laura to perfect reality.
"I believe," she said, "the best way I can make you understand why I sent for you, and what I want to say to you, is to tell you the truth about those three years."
"As you please," he answered; "I cannot conceive how their history can concern me, except that portion of it which I have witnessed; and that has concerned, and does concern me. But I am here at your request, and I will go only at your dismissal."
"When I married, and you went away," she began, "I was not very unhappy at first; there was novelty and success, and there was luxury, which I love," she said with emphatic candour. "Mr. Hammond was not a disagreeable man, and I never suffered him to get into the habit of controlling me. He was inclined to try a little, but I soon convinced him it was useless, and, especially at his age, would make him uncomfortable. So he left off." Her voice hardened now into the clear metallic tone which Laurence remembered so well.
"By degrees, however," she continued, "everything grew irksome; and a horrid weariness and sense of degradation stole over me; not because I loved wealth and luxury any less, but because of the price I had to pay for it. And you had made it dearer to buy, for you had gone away."
"Yes," he said, "I had gone away; and you would have liked to have me stay, and be experimented on, and victimized for your delight,--I can understand that; but I should have fancied, Mrs. Hammond, you knew me too well to suppose you could have played such a game as that with me."
"I would not have played any game with you," she said--not angrily, rather sadly. "How unjust you are! how unjust men always are! they--"
He interrupted her. "Pray do not indulge me--with that senseless complaint which women who, like you, are the bane and the torment of men who loved them with an honest, and the utter ruin of men who loved them with a dishonest love, make of their victims. I have long ceased to be yours, Mrs. Hammond; but I am not unjust. I say again, you would have made me ridiculous as readily as you had made me wretched. I don't deny it, you see. I am much astonished, and rather ashamed, when forced to remember it; but I am not weak enough to deny a weakness. To be so would argue that it is not entirely corrected."
He was provoking her to anger, but not altogether unintentionally; his best means of coming at her real purpose would be by throwing her off her guard.
"I say again," she repeated, "you are unjust; I would not have played any such game. I would have become used to my position in time; I would have seen you in the world; I would have seen you gradually forgetting me. It would not have been our angry parting, and a dead dull blank,--time to feel to the utmost all the horrors of a marriage without love. No woman, I believe, would sell herself, at least in marriage, which must last, if she could estimate them aright. And then such a meeting as ours! Do you remember it, Laurence?" She stole a very affectionate look at him here.
"Yes, I remember it," he said shortly.
"A horrid interview we had then, full of sneers and bitterness on your side, and not in the least real on mine."
"Is this a pleasanter one, Mrs. Hammond?" said Sir Laurence, who perceived that her levity was coming up again, and desired to suppress it. "I cannot perceive the utility of this retrospect."
"I daresay not," she answered coolly; "but I do." The pretty air of command was entirely lost on Alsager. She saw that it was, and ground her teeth,--a pleasant symptom of passion which she never could suppress. "By the time we met again," she continued, "I was sick and weary--not only of the price I had to pay for the wealth I had bought, but of the wealth itself. Of course I never changed my opinion of the value of money. I don't mean that; but I did not get as much out of the wealth I had purchased as I might have done. I was very much admired, and quite the fashion, but somehow I tired of it all; and then--then, Laurence, I found out why. I found out that I really had more heart than I believed, and that it was in your keeping."
"Pshaw!" he said, angrily and impatiently; "pray don't talk like this. You are drawing on your imagination very largely, and also on my vanity. The latter is quite useless, I assure you."
"Think what you like, say what you will,--I loved you. I knew it by the listlessness that was always upon me; I knew it better by the disappearance of that listlessness when they said you were coming home; and I knew it best of all when--when do you think, Sir Laurence Alsager?"
"I really could not presume to guess when you made such a discovery, Mrs. Hammond."
"Indeed! I will tell you, then. I learned it best of all when the first pang of jealousy I had ever felt in my life seized me. I had often heard your name coupled with that of some woman of fashion. I had heard a multitude of speculations about your affairs of the heart; but I never feared them--I never believed in them; I never knew that I had so vital an interest in them until your own look, your own manner, your own indecision of purpose about the visit to Redmoor, betrayed you to me, and told me who was my rival."
"Your rival!" said Sir Laurence in astonishment. "Surely you did not suppose I had returned to England to be caught again in your toils?"
"I don't know what I thought; I don't care. I only know that when you and I parted, you loved me, and were angry with me,--it was passionate love and passionate anger,--and that when you and I met, not only had you ceased to be angry, but you were rapidly succumbing to the influence of another woman--a woman utterly different from me! Not more beautiful,--I deny that; she has not the art of being beautiful; she has only the material. A woman whom I hate; whom I should have hated and would have injured, I believe, if you had never seen her. Yes; and you actually dared to menace me on her account; you presumed to pit yourself against me as her champion. You forgot that such championship hardly serves its object, in the eyes of the world."
Sir Laurence uttered an exclamation of disgust; and was about to rise, when she stepped forward close to him, and laid her hands lightly upon his breast for an instant.
"No, no, Laurence," she said; "bear with me. I did not mean it; not quite that. Can you not understand me? Ah, my God! how pitiless men are! While they want to win us, where is the end of that toleration? We may sin as we please, provided we do not sin against them and their self-love. But when that is over, they cannot judge us harshly enough; they have even less pardon and pity for the sins into which they have driven us than for any others."
"You are talking utter nonsense, Mrs. Hammond," said Sir Laurence; "and nonsense it is painful for me to hear. Your temptations are of your own making, and your sins are of your own counselling, not mine. I would have made you my wife, but you preferred--and I thank you for the choice--another destiny. Am I to blame? You have chosen to cherish a distempered fancy which has no foundation in truth, and am I the ruthless being who has robbed you of it? You have chosen to solace the tedium of your uncongenial marriage by a proceeding as vile and unprincipled as any woman ever ventured on, to her eternal shame. Harsh words, Mrs. Hammond, but true; and now you endeavour to lend an air of melodrama to a transaction which was in reality as commonplace as it was coarse. You find it hard to put your relation with Sir Charles Mitford on a sentimental footing,--he is hardly a subject for sentiment, I think; and you have invented this tragical theory of an indirect revenge upon me. Tush! I gave you credit for more tact."
This was well and boldly said; for Sir Laurence had but one object in view,--to do the best he could for Lady Mitford in this encounter with her foe. He knew as he spoke, as he looked into the unmasked face before him--pale and deformed with jarring passions--that the motive was real, though secondary; it had indeed only come to supplement the first, which had led Laura to employ her fascinations upon Sir Charles; but it had always been stronger, and had latterly completely swallowed up the other.
"Shall I never make you understand me?" she said passionately; "will you persist in bringing things that are unreasonable to the touchstone of reason? I don't know, I don't care how absurd what I am saying may sound; it is true, true, Laurence Alsager,--as sure as death is true, or any love that ever was more bitter. Yes, it is true: now think your worst, and say your worst of me; still you must see that I am far more wretched than she is. What had I to endure? What had she? I won her husband from her. If I did, was he a prize, do you think? A selfish, sensual, brainless fool; a man without taste, or manners, or mind; a man who is a living contradiction to the theories of rage and education; a man of whom she must have sickened in a year, if she had ever gained sense enough to find him out. She is not very clever, you know, and she might have taken longer for the discovery, if the habitual society of men who are gentlemen had not enlightened her. But she had a more sure and rapid teacher, who brought her consolation too." There was a world of malevolent meaning in the tone in which she said this.
"What do you, what can you mean?" he asked.
"Ah, you are getting interested now, Sir Laurence, when my discourse turns on her. Wait a little, and I will explain. I asked you what did she lose; I need not ask you what did I gain; the one includes the other."
"He was her husband," said Laurence.
"Her husband!" repeated Laura, with intense scorn. "You have caught the cant of the proprieties' school, have you? Her husband! And what were you? My lover, Laurence. Ay, you may forget, you may deny it; but you were, the day you landed in England,--I should have only needed opportunity to win you back again. Her husband!" (with a bold hard laugh)--"she might have taken mine, and welcome!"
Sir Laurence looked at her in growing disgust. Lord Dollamore was quite right; there was a strong dash of vulgarity about Laura Hammond, and it appeared whenever she lost her temper.
"Yes," she went on, more and more angrily; "think of her, and think of me. She suffered the tortures of jealousy, did she? of lawful legitimate jealousy, for which good people would give her pity, if she were not too proud to take it. She suffer! What did I suffer? I tell you, Laurence Alsager, she could not suffer what I suffer; it is not in her, any more than she could love as I love. She is a handsome, cold, egotistical woman, who thinks of her rights. Her husband belonged to her, and I took him, and she didn't like it. She felt it much as she would have felt my stealing her pearls or her Dresden china, I daresay; but suffer! Why, she's what is called a good woman; and if I chose to break with Mitford, he would probably now return to her, for he likes her rather; and she would receive his apologies, and all would be right again. Yes, she'd stoop to this stupid meanness, because he's her husband, you know; and matrimony is such a remarkably sacred institution, that a man may do anything he pleases. And you talk to me of a woman like her suffering!"
Sir Laurence made no answer. He was thinking how truly, from her own debased point of view, Laura Hammond read the character of the woman she had injured so deeply.
"You don't answer. Tell me, don't you know she would be reconciled with Mitford to-morrow, if he asked her?"
"I cannot tell you, indeed," he said coldly; "you had better 'break with Mitford,' as you phrase it, and find out."
"Will you not at least acknowledge that I had to suffer? The time of my bondage was short, but she deprived my freedom of all its value. She has won you, Laurence; and what is it all to me? I don't believe, in all her well-regulated life, she ever experienced such a pang as I felt when I saw her indifferent to Mitford's brutal neglect, and to my insolence, one morning, because she had just had a letter from you; a commonplace letter enough, Sir Laurence--she told us all about it--but I can never forget or forgive the serenity of her face; it seemed as if she had been removed into a world apart from us all."
How little she dreamed--how far, in her blind furious anger and self-abandonment, she was from dreaming of the secret stealthy delight with which the listener heard her words!
"You impute to Lady Mitford your own ideas, your own indifference to right, Mrs. Hammond; she is a woman who is incapable of wronging her husband, even in thought, though that husband be no worthier than Mitford. She rules her life by principles, and in her estimate of marriage regards the obligation rather than the individual."
"Indeed! That's a very pretty sentence, Sir Laurence, and you have learned your lesson like a very docile little boy. But hadn't you better reserve it for repetition elsewhere? for really sentiments of such grandeur are quite thrown away on me."
She was exasperated to the highest pitch by his perfect coolness, and tears of rage stood in her eyes. He had preserved an imperturbable composure; neither her passion nor her sarcasm moved him. Desperately she caught at the one hope that remained. She came towards him suddenly, dropped upon her knees by his side, and hid her face, covered with her hands, on his arm, while he sat astonished and confused.
"Laurence!" she sobbed, "listen to me. Do you not know that all the wicked things I say are said because I am miserable; because the love of you and the loss of you have turned me into something that I dread to think of and to look into? Have some compassion on me! I wronged you, I know; but can you not forgive me? Do you think the prize I won brought me any peace? Be merciful to a woman's vanity and weakness. Am I the only woman who is weak and vain? You did love me once; you could love me now, if you would only put aside your pride, if you would only try to be merciful to the errors which I have so bitterly repented. Laurence, this woman, who has been the cause of all--whose wrongs are upon her own head--what can she ever be to you? You know she is, according to your own account, too good to be tempted from her duty, while I--I am free; there is no barrier between us now--and I love you."
She raised her drooping head, she let her hands fall, and she looked at him. The time had been when such a look would have brought Laurence Alsager to her feet; but now, he had said truly, "that time was dead and buried."
He rose with an air of stern determination. She had risen from her knees, and had resumed her chair She was deadly pale; her eyes were wild and haggard; and she caught her breath with a sort of gasping sob, which threatened a burst of hysterical passion. Laurence spoke low and sadly:
"When you come to think over what you have just said, you will be angry with yourself for having uttered, and with me for having heard, such words. I will not dwell upon them, nor will I voluntarily remember them. If you had never caused me more than the pang which your first faithlessness to myself made me suffer, I might indeed have pardoned it, for the sake of the old glamour, and made myself miserable by marrying a woman whom I could not respect, because I had once loved her. But that the woman who jilted me for Percy Hammond's rupees, then betrayed Hammond for Sir Charles Mitford, and would now discard Mitford for me--by the way, I am a much richer man than Hammond was; barring the widowhood, your speculation has been defective--should dream, in the wildest paroxysms of a woman's unreasonableness, that I could be cajoled, or bribed, through my interest in another, to put her in my honoured mother's place, is beyond my comprehension."
She looked at him, still with wild haggard eyes, and still she sobbed, but shed no tears.
"Farewell, Mrs. Hammond," said Sir Laurence, as he took his hat, and turned towards the door; "you and I are not likely to meet again. I hope the remembrance of this interview will induce you to consider whether it might not be better for you to endeavour to imitate the woman whom you have not only injured, but vainly endeavoured to traduce."
"Curse her!" hissed Laura, in a tone that was no more like a woman's than were her words. "Let her look to it! I will punish you, Laurence Alsager, through her."
"No, you won't," he said; "for the first move you make in that direction, I will write to Mitford (I shall never be without information), and inform him that you did me the honour to propose to break with him in my favour."
"He would not believe you," she said, in a voice hardly audible from the intensity of her passion.
"O yes, he would; Mitford is not a fool on every point; and rumour says he's jealous, which is likely to quicken his intellects. At all events, I advise you to let Lady Mitford alone."
"Let her look to it," said Laura; "I owe this to her, and I will pay it."
He smiled, bowed, and left the room. She started from her chair, and listened, with her hands clasped upon her temples, till she heard the half-door shut; then she knew that he was gone--then she knew that her bold game was lost--and she felt that she should never see him more, who was the only man she had ever loved, even after her own cold and shallow fashion. She gave way to no passion now; she smoothed her hair, glanced at the glass, and rang the bell. When it was answered, she directed that Mademoiselle Marcelline should be sent to her.
Demure, quiet, and respectful as ever, Mademoiselle Marcelline entered the room.
"Marcelline," said Laura (she addressed her maid by her name now), "I am going to my room. Come to me in half an hour; I want to talk to you about something."
"A letter came for madame this evening," said mademoiselle; "but I took it from the valet de chamber, as I thought madame did not care to be disturbed."
Mrs. Hammond opened the letter. It was from her solicitor, and informed her that the final decision of the court, on her application for the guardianship of her stepdaughter, had been given that day against her. She frowned, then threw the letter down, with a short laugh.
"Everything is against me, I think. However, it is rather fortunate for Alice."
At the same hour on the following evening Sir Laurence Alsager was writing his letter to Helen Manningtree from Dover.