第90章 CHAPTER XXIII THE LION(2)

"He married you in good faith," Mr. Caryll repeated quietly, impressively. "I will make it plain to you. He married you believing that the girl-wife he had left in France was dead.

For fear it should come to his father's knowledge, he kept that marriage secret from all. He durst not own his marriage to his father.

He was not - as you may have appreciated in the years you lived with him - a man of any profound feeling for others.

For himself he had a prodigiously profound feeling, as you may also have gathered. That marriage in France was troublesome.

He had come to look upon it as one of his youth's follies - as he, himself, described it to me in this house, little knowing to whom he spoke. When he received the false news of her death - for he did receive such news from the very cousin who crossed from France to avenge her, believing her dead himself - he rejoiced at his near escape from the consequences of his folly. Nor was he ever disabused of his error. For she had ceased to write to him by then. And so he married you, madam, in good faith. That is the argument I shall use with my Lord Carteret to make him understand that respect for my father's memory urges me to depart in silence - save for what I must have said to escape the impeachment with which you threatened me.

"Lord Carteret is a man of the world. He will understand the far-reaching disturbance that must result from the disclosure of the truth of this affair. He will pledge Mr. Templeton to silence, and the truth, madam, will never be disclosed. That, I think, is all, madam.""By God, sir," cried Rotherby, "that's damned handsome of you!""You epitomize it beautifully," said Mr. Caryll, with a reversion to his habitual manner.

His mother, however, had no words at all. She advanced a step towards Mr. Caryll, put out he hands, and then - portent of portents! - two tears were seen to trickle down her cheeks, playing havoc, ploughing furrows in the paint that overlaid them.

Mr. Caryll stepped forward quickly. The sight of those tears, springing from that dried-up heart - withered by God alone knew what blight - washing their way down those poor bedaubed cheeks, moved him to a keener pity than anything he had ever looked upon. He took her hands, and pressed them a moment, giving way for once to an impulse he could not master.

She would have kissed his own in the abasement and gratitude of the moment. But he restrained her.

"No more, your ladyship," said he, and by thus giving her once more the title she had worn, he seemed to reinstate her in the station from which in self-defence he had pulled her down.

"Promise that you'll bear no witness against me should so much be needed, and I'll cry quits with you. Without your testimony, they cannot hurt me, even though they were disposed to do so, which is scarcely likely.""Sir - sir - " she faltered brokenly. "Could you - could you suppose - ""Indeed, no. So no more, ma'am. You do but harass yourself.

Fare you well, my lady. If I may trespass for a few moments longer upon the hospitality of Stretton House, I'll be your debtor.""The house - and all - is yours, sir," she reminded him.

"There's but one thing in it that I'll carry off with me,"said he. He held the door for her.

She looked into his face a moment. "God keep you!" said she, with a surprising fervor in one not over-fluent at her prayers. "God reward you for showing this mercy to an old woman - who does not deserve so much.""Fare you well, madam," he said again, bowing gravely. "And fare you well, Lord Ostermore," he added to her son.

His brother looked at him a moment; seemed on the point of speaking, and then - taking his cue, no doubt, from his mother's attitude - he held out his hand.

Mr. Caryll took it, shook it, and let it go. After all, he bethought him, the man was his brother. And if his bearing was not altogether cordial, it was, at least, a clement imitation of cordiality.

He closed the door upon them, and sighed supreme relief. He turned to face Hortensia, and a smile broke like sunshine upon his face, and dispelled the serious gloom of his expression.

She sprang towards him.

"Come now, thou chattel, that I am resolved to carry with me from my father's house," said he.

She checked in her approach. "'Tis not in such words that I'll be wooed," said she.

"A fig for words!" he cried. "Art wooed and won. Confess it.""You want nothing for self-esteem," she informed him gravely.

"One thing, Hortensia," he amended. "One thing I want - Ilack - to esteem myself greater than any king that rules.""I like that better," she laughed, and suddenly she was in tears. "Oh, why do you mock, and make-believe that your heart is on your lips and nowhere else?" she asked him. "Is it your aim to be accounted trifling and shallow - you who can do such things as you have done but now? Oh, it was noble! You made me very proud.""Proud?" he echoed. "Ah! Then it must be that you are resolved to take this impudent, fleering coxcomb for a husband," he said, rallying her with the words she had flung at him that night in the moonlit Croydon garden.

"How I was mistook in you!" quoth she.

He made philosophy. "'Tis ever those in whom we are mistook that are best worth knowing," he informed her. "The man or woman whom you can read at sight, is read and done with.""Yet you were not mistook in me," said she.

"I was," he answered, "for I deemed you woman.""What other have you found me?" she inquired.

He flung wide his arms, and bade her into them. "Here to my heart," he cried, "and in your ear I'll whisper it."