‘surely, most bitter of all sweet things thou art.’

maurice clissold keenly scrutinized bridget trevanard’s face as they sat at supper that evening. muriel’s look of horror at the mention of her mother’s name had inspired unpleasant doubts upon the subject of his hostess’s character. he remembered how elspeth had told him that mrs. trevanard was known as a hard woman; and he told himself that cruelty, or even crime, might be consistent with that hard nature which had won for the farmer’s wife the reputation of a stern and exacting mistress. his closer examination of that face showed him no indication of lurking evil. that square, unwrinkled brow, those dark brown eyes, with their keen, straight outlook, denoted at least an honest nature. the firm lips, the square jaw, gave severity to the countenance—a resolute woman—a woman not to be turned from her purpose, thought maurice, but a woman whom he could hardly imagine capable of crime.

and then why give credence to the rambling assertions of lunacy? it is the nature of madness to accuse the sane. maurice tried to put the thought of muriel’s wild talk out of his mind; yet that awful question, ‘what has she done with my child?’ haunted him.

he felt less desire to prolong his stay at borcel. the restful tranquillity of the place seemed to have departed. muriel’s fevered mind had its influence upon the atmosphere. he could not forget that she was near—wakeful, unhappy—waiting for the lover who was never to return to her.

he took good care to lock his door that night, and his slumbers were undisturbed. the next morning was devoted to a long ramble with martin. they walked to a distant hill-side, where there were some druidic remains well worth inspection; came back to the farm in time for the substantial early dinner, had a look at the haymakers dining plenteously in a great stone kitchen, and then retired to a field where the hay was cocked, to lie basking in the sun, with their faces seaward, dreaming away the summer afternoon.

here maurice told martin the story of james penwyn’s death, and the brief love story which had come to so pitiful an ending.

‘poor child,’ he said, musingly, recalling his last interview with justina, ‘i verily believe she loved him truly and honestly, and would have made him a good wife. i never saw a nobler countenance than that player girl’s. i’m sorry i thrust myself between them with so much as one hard word.’

‘was no one ever suspected of the murder?’ asked martin.

‘yes,’ replied maurice, without taking his cigar from his lips, ‘i was for a little while.’

this was rather startling. martin trevanard stared at his new acquaintance with a curious look for a moment or so, before he recovered himself.

‘you were?’

‘yes. didn’t you know? my name was in the papers, but i believe they did me the favour to spell it wrong. perhaps i ought to have mentioned the fact when i was asking mrs. trevanard to take me in. yes, i, his bosom friend, was the only person they could pitch upon when they wanted to find the assassin. yes, i have been in eborsham gaol under suspicion as a murderer. the charge broke down at the inquest, and i came off with flying colours, i believe. still there the fact remains. the spinnersbury detectives put the crime down to me.’

‘it would need pretty strong proof to make me suspect you,’ said martin, heartily.

‘i was a good many miles away from the spot when that cursed deed was done, but it did not suit me to advertise my exact whereabouts to the world.’

‘why not?’

‘because to have told the truth would have been to compromise a woman, the only one i ever loved, as a man loves one chosen woman out of all the world.’

martin threw away his unfinished cigar, turned himself about upon the haycock which he had chosen for his couch, and settled himself to hear something interesting, with a bright eager look in his dark eyes.

‘tell me all about it,’ he said.

‘bah! weak sentimentality,’ muttered maurice, ‘i should only bore you.’

‘no, you wouldn’t. i should like to hear it.’

‘well, naming no names, and summing up the matter briefly, there will be no harm done. it is the story of a dead and buried folly, that’s all; a hackneyed commonplace story enough.’

he sighed, as if the recollection hurt him a little, dead as this old foolishness might be—sighed and looked seaward dreamily, as if he were looking back into the past.

‘you must know that when i was a year or two younger, and life was fresher to me, i went a good deal into what people call society—didn’t set my face against new acquaintances, dinner parties, dances, and so forth, as i do now. i’ve a fair income for a bachelor, belong to a good family, and can hold my own position well in a crowd. now amongst the houses i visited in those days there were only two or three where i went from sheer honest regard for the people i visited. among these was the house of a certain fashionable physician, not a hundred miles from cavendish square. he was a widower, with three daughters, the two elder thorough women of the world, and most delightful girls to know. we were chums from the outset. they drove me about in their barouche, made me useful as an escort at flower shows, a perambulatory catalogue at picture galleries, and we all three comprehended perfectly that i was not to dream of marrying either of them.’

‘dangerous, i should think,’ suggested martin.

‘safe as the tarpeian rock. my feelings for the dear girls were of a purely fraternal character from the first. i would as soon have bought the winner of the last derby for a park hack as had one of these two for my wife. i went shopping with them occasionally, twiddled my thumbs at peter robinson’s while they turned over silks, and i knew the amount of millinery required for their sustenance. no, martin, there was no peril here. unluckily, there was the third daughter—a tender slip of a girl, hardly out of the schoolroom—a child who had her gowns meted out to her by her sisters, and wore perpetual white muslin for evening dress, and brown holland for morning. good heavens! i can see her this moment, standing by the piano in her holland frock, with a blue ribbon twisted through her loose brown hair, and those divine hazel eyes looking at me pleadingly, as who should say, “be gentle to me, you see what a child i am.” no worldliness here—no ambition here—no avid desire of millinery—no set purpose of making a great marriage, i said to myself. only innocence, and trustfulness, and childlike meekness. so i fell over head and ears in love with my friend’s third daughter.’

‘very natural,’ said martin. ‘i don’t see why it shouldn’t have ended pleasantly.’

‘i didn’t act like a sneak—make love to the girl behind her sisters’ backs, and bide my time for winning her. i went to the doctor at once, told him what had happened, ventured to add that i thought my darling liked me, and asked his permission to offer her my hand. he hummed and hawed, said there was no one he would like better for a son-in-law; but his youngest child was really not out of the nursery, any question of an engagement was absurd. it seemed only yesterday that he had bought her a shetland pony. however, he gave me to understand, in a general way, that i was free to come and go, so our intimacy knew no abatement. i still did the walking-stick business at flower shows, and the catalogue business at exhibitions, and made myself generally useful, seeing a good deal of my fair blossom-like maiden in the meanwhile. we met very often, sat together of an evening unnoticed when the room was full, and before long we knew that we loved each other, and we had sworn that for us two there, should be no love but this. papa might say what he liked about youth and foolishness and shetland ponies. we were not impatient, we would wait for ever so many years, if necessary, but in good time we two should be one. sweet and tender promises breathed in the twilight from lips too lovely to betray, dove-like eyes lifted shyly to mine, soft little hand resting so fondly within my arm! i laugh when i think of you, and how it all ended.’

he did laugh bitterly, savagely almost, as he flung the stump of his cigar across the hay-cocks towards the sea. martin waited in respectful silence, awed by this little gust of passion.

‘well, we were pledged to each other and happy. this went on for a year. nobody took any notice of us, any more than if we had been children playing at lovers. we lived in a foolish paradise of our own, at least i did. heaven only knows what her thoughts may have been. one day, when i had been away from town for a week or so, i called in cavendish square, saw the two elder girls, and heard that my betrothed had gone for a long visit to some friends in yorkshire, at a place called tilney longford, a fine old country seat. papa had thought her looking pale and thin, and had sent her off at a day’s notice. she might be away two or three months. lady longford was the kindest of women, and was always asking them to stay at her place. “we can’t go, of course,” they said, “with our large circle; but that child has no ties, and can stay as long as they like to keep her.”

‘this was hard upon me. the privilege of correspondence was denied us, for i could not write my darling a clandestine letter. i went to the doctor a second time, and told him that i had waited a year, that i was so much deeper in love by every day of that blessed year, and urged him to receive me as his daughter’s suitor. he treated the question rather more seriously than before, repeated his assurance that i was the very man he would have liked for a son-in-law, but added that he did not consider my income sufficiently large, or my profession sufficiently lucrative to allow of his entrusting his daughter’s happiness to my care. “my girls have been expensively brought up,” he said. “you have no notion what they cost me. i have been too busy to teach them prudence. it has been easier for me to earn money for them to waste than to find leisure to check their extravagance. we live in too fast an age for the vulgar virtues.” i argued the point, but vainly, and told him that whatever decision he might arrive at, his youngest daughter and i had made up our minds to be true to each other against all opposition. “i am sorry to hear that,” he replied, “for it will oblige me to ask you to discontinue your visits here when my little girl comes back, a discourtesy which goes very much against the grain.” i left him in a white heat, went straight off to james penwyn, and arranged a tour which we had been talking about ever so long. we were to walk through the north of england, and i was to coach poor jim for his last struggle at oxford. london was hateful to me now that my darling had left it, and james penwyn’s company the only society i cared for.’

he paused, abandoned himself to the memory of that vanished past for a little, and then went on more hurriedly.

‘it was at eborsham, the morning before james penwyn’s murder, that i received the first and last letter i was ever to get from my love. she had addressed it to me at my london lodgings, and it had been travelling about after me for the last three weeks. her first letter! i opened it with such a thrill of joy, thinking how divine it was of her to be so daring as to write to me. such a broken-hearted letter!—telling me how a certain rich landowner, near lady longford’s, had proposed to her—she broke into a parenthesis, a page long, to assure me she had never given him the faintest encouragement—and how everybody persuaded her to accept him, and how her father himself had come down to tilney to lecture her into subjection. “but it is all useless,” she said, “i will marry no one but my own dear love; and, oh, please, write and tell me what i am to do.” think what i must have felt, trevanard, when i considered that the letter was three weeks old, and what persecution the poor little soul might have had to suffer in the interval.’

‘what did you do?’

‘can you ask me? i started off without a quarter of an hour’s delay, and got to tilney as soon as the trains would carry me. it was an abominable cross-country journey, and there i was eating my heart out at dismal junctions for half the day. it was past three o’clock when i ended my journey of something less than a hundred miles, and found myself at a detestable little station called tilney road, eight miles from tilney longford, and no conveyance of any kind to be had. i did the distance in something under two hours, and entered the park gates just as the church clock hard by was striking five.’

‘you went straight to the house?’

‘no, i didn’t want to bring trouble upon that poor child, so i prowled about the place like a poacher, skirting the carriage roads. luckily for me, there was a right of way through the park, so i was able to get pretty close to the house without attracting any one’s particular attention. i reflected that, unless the doctor was still there—not a likely thing for a man whose moments were gold—there was no one to recognise me except my poor pet. as i approached the gardens i heard laughter and fresh young voices, and a general hubbub, on the other side of the haw-haw which divided the park from a croquet lawn. there was a gaily striped marquee on one side of the lawn, a group of people taking tea under a gigantic cedar, and a double set of croquet players disporting on the level sward. my eyes were keen as a hawk’s to distinguish my dearest in mauve muslin and an innocent little chip hat trimmed with daisies—i observed even details, you see—busily engaged with her attendant cavalier, and with no appearance of being bored by his society. her fresh young laugh rang out silver-clear—that girlish laugh which had been one of her many charms, to my mind. “that hardly sounds like a broken heart,” i said to myself.’

he sighed, and waited for a minute or so, and then resumed in a harder voice,—

‘well, i was determined to form no judgment from appearances; and i could not stand on the other side of the haw-haw taking observations from the covert of an old hawthorn for ever, so i went round to the back of the house, waylaid a neat little abigail, and asked her if she could find miss blank’s maid for me. i accompanied my question with a fee which insured compliance, and my pretty one’s handmaiden appeared presently at the gate where i was waiting. she remembered me among the intimates in cavendish square, and consented to give her mistress the note i scribbled on a leaf of my pocket-book: “i hope i am not doing wrong, sir,” she said, “but a young lady in my mistress’s position cannot be too careful how she acts—” “in what position?” i asked. “didn’t you know, sir, my young lady is to be married the day after to-morrow?”’

‘that was a facer!’ exclaimed martin.

‘it wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear, was it—with that letter in my pocket vowing eternal fidelity? the remembrance of that gay young laughter was hardly pleasant either. the man i had seen on the croquet lawn was a good-looking fellow enough; and then one man is so like another now-a-days. a woman may be constant to the type whilst she jilts the individual. i had written to my betrothed, asking her to meet me in the park at nine o’clock, by a certain obelisk which i had observed on my way. by nine she would be free, i fancied, in that half hour of liberty which the women get after dinner, while the men are talking politics and pretending to be very wise about claret.’

‘did she come?’

‘yes, poor, pretty, shallow-hearted thing, looking very sweet in the moonlight, but tearful and trembling, as if she thought i should beat her. she sobbed out her wretched little story. papa had been so kind, her elder sisters had badgered her. poor reginald, the lover, had been so good, so generous, so self-sacrificing, and it had ended as such things generally do end, i dare say. she was to be married to him the day after to-morrow. “and oh, maurice, pray give me back my letter,” she said, “for i don’t know what would become of me if it ever fell into reginald’s hands.”’

‘how did you answer her?’

‘with never a word. i tore the lying letter into atoms, and threw them away on the summer wind. i made my love a respectful bow and left her, never, i trust in god, to see her fair, false face again.’