Demos Part 68

How would he bear it? How would he take this from _her_?

Fear crept insidiously about her heart, though she fought to banish it. It was a fear of the instinct, clinging to trifles in the memory, feeding upon tones, glances, the impressions of forgotten moments. She was conscious that here at length was the crucial test of her husband's nature, and in spite of every generous impulse she dreaded the issue.

To that dread she durst not abandon herself; to let it grow even for an instant cost her a sensation of faintness, a desire to flee for cover to those who would naturally protect her. To give up all--and to Hubert Eldon! She recalled his voice when the other day he spoke of Hubert.

He had not since recurred to the subject, but his manner still bore the significance with which that conversation had invested it. No dream of suspicions on his part had come to her, but it was enough that something had happened to intensify his dislike of Hubert. Of her many fears, here was one which couched dark and shapeless in the background.

A feeble woman would have chosen anyone--her mother, her brother--rather than Mutimer himself for the first partic.i.p.ant in such a discovery.

Adela was not feeble, and the very danger, though it might chill her senses, nerved her soul. Was she not making him too ign.o.ble? Was she not herself responsible for much of the strangeness in his behaviour of late? The question she had once asked herself, whether he loved her, she could not answer doubtfully; was it not his love that had set her icily against him? If she could not render him love in return, that was the wrong she did him, the sin she had committed in becoming his wife. Adela by this time knew too well that, in her threefold vows, love had of right the foremost place; honour and obedience could not exist without love. Her wrong was involuntary, none the less she owed him such reparation as was possible; she must keep her mind open to his better qualities. A man might fall, yet not be irredeemably base. Oh, that she had never known of that poor girl in London! Base, doubly and trebly base, had been his behaviour there, for one ill deed had drawn others after it. But his repentance, his humiliation, must have been deep, and of the kind which strengthens against ill-doing in the future.

It had to be done, and had better be done quickly. Adela went to her boudoir and rang the bell. The servant who came told her that Mutimer was in the house. She summoned him.

It was five minutes before he appeared. He was preoccupied, though not gloomily so.

'I thought you were at church,' he said, regarding her absently.

'I came away--because I found something--this!'

She had hoped to speak with calmness, but the interval of waiting had agitated her, and the fear which no effort could allay struck her heart as he entered. She held the parchment to him.

'What is it?' he asked, his attention gradually awakened by surprise. He did not move forward to meet her extended hand.

'You will see--it is the will that we thought was destroyed--old Mr.

Mutimer's will.'

She rose and brought it to him. He looked at her with a sceptical smile, which was involuntary, and lingered on his face even after he had begun to read the doc.u.ment.

Adela seated herself again; she had scarcely power to stand. There was a long silence.

'Where did you find this?' Mutimer inquired at length. His tone astonished her; it was almost indifferent. But he did not raise his eyes.

She explained. It was needless, she thought, to give a reason for her search in the lower cupboard; but the first thing that occurred to Mutimer was to demand such reason.

A moment's hesitation; then:

'A piece of money rolled down behind the shelf on which the books are; there is a gap at the back. I suppose that is how the will fell down.'

His eye was now steadily fixed upon her, coldly scrutinising, as one regards a suspected stranger. Adela was made wretched by the inevitable falsehood. She felt herself reddening under his gaze.

He seemed to fall into absent-mindedness, then re-read the doc.u.ment.

Then he took out his watch.

'The people are out of church. Come and show me where it was.'

With a deep sense of relief she went away to put on her bonnet. To escape for a moment was what she needed, and the self-command of his voice seemed to a.s.sure her against her worst fears. She felt grateful to him for preserving his dignity. The future lost one of its terrors if only she could respect him.

They walked side by side to the church in silence: Mutimer had put the will into his pocket. At the wicket he paused.

'Will Wyvern be in there?'

The question was answered by the appearance of the vicar himself, who just then came forth from the front doorway. He approached them, with a hope that Adela had not been obliged to leave through indisposition.

'A little faintness,' Mutimer was quick to reply. 'We are going to look for something she dropped in the pew.'

Mr. Wyvern pa.s.sed on. Only the pew-opener was moving about the aisles.

She looked with surprise at the pair as they entered.

'Tell her the same,' Mutimer commanded, under his breath.

The old woman was of course ready with offers of a.s.sistance, but a word from Richard sufficed to keep her away.

The examination was quickly made, and they returned as they had come, without exchanging a word on the way. They went upstairs again to the boudoir.

'Sit down,' Mutimer said briefly.

He himself continued to stand, again examining the will.

'I should think,' he began slowly, 'it's as likely as not that this is a forgery.'

'A forgery? But who could have--'

Her voice failed.

'He's not likely to have run the risk himself, I suppose,' Mutimer pursued, with a quiet sneer, 'but no doubt there are people who would benefit by it.'

Adela had an impulse of indignation. It showed intself in her cold, steady reply.

'The will was thick with dust. It has been lying there a long time.'

'Of course. They wouldn't bungle over an important thing like this.'

He was once more scrutinising her. The suspicion was a genuine one, and involved even more than Adela could imagine. If there had been a plot, such plot a.s.suredly included the discoverer of the doc.u.ment. Could he in his heart charge Adela with that? There were two voices at his ear, and of equal persuasiveness. Even to look into her face did not silence the calumnious whispering. Her beauty was fuel to his jealousy, and his jealousy alone made the supposition of her guilt for a moment tenable. It was on his lips to accuse her, to ease himself with savage innuendoes, those 'easy things to understand' which come naturally from such a man in such a situation. But to do that would be to break with her for ever, and the voice that urged her innocence would not let him incur such risk. The loss of his possessions was a calamity so great that as yet he could not realise its possibility; the loss of his wife impressed his imagination more immediately, and was in this moment the more active fear.

He was in the strange position of a man who finds all at once that he _dare_ not believe that which he has been trying his best to believe. If Adela were guilty of plotting with Eldon, it meant that he himself was the object of her utter hatred, a hideous thought to entertain. It threw him back upon her innocence. Egoism had to do the work of the finer moral perceptions.

'Isn't it rather strange,' he said, not this time sneeringly, but seeking for support against his intolerable suspicions, 'that you never moved those buffets before?'

'I never had need of them.'

'And that hole has never been cleaned out?'

'Never; clearly never.'

She had risen to her feet, impelled by a glimmering of the thought in which he examined her. What she next said came from her without premeditation. Her tongue seemed to speak independently of her will.

'One thing I have said that was not true. It was not money that slipped down, but my ring. I had taken it off and laid it on the Prayer-book.'

'Your ring?' he repeated, with cold surprise. 'Do you always take your ring off in church, then?'

As soon as the words were spoken she had gone deadly pale. Was it well to say that? Must there follow yet more explanation? She with difficulty overcame an impulse to speak on and disclose all her mind, the same kind of impulse she had known several times of late. Sheer dread this time prevailed. The eyes that were upon her concealed fire; what madness tempted her to provoke its outburst?