When he had left the room Lady Mason’s last message was given to Sir Peregrine. “Poor soul, poor soul!” he said, as Mrs. Orme began her story. “Her son knows it all then now.”
“I told him last night—with her consent; so that he should not go into the court today. It would have been very bad, you know, if they had—found her guilty.”
“Yes, yes; very bad—very bad indeed. Poor creature! And so you told him. How did he bear it?”
“On the whole, well. At first he would not believe me.”
“As for me, I could not have done it. I could not have told him.”
“Yes, sir, you would;—you would, if it had been required of you.”
“I think it would have killed me. But a woman can do things for which a man’s courage would never be sufficient. And he bore it manfully.”
“He was very stern.”
“Yes;—and he will be stern. Poor soul!—I pity her from my very heart. But he will not desert her; he will do his duty by her.”
“I am sure he will. In that respect he is a good young man.”
“Yes, my dear. He is one of those who seem by nature created to bear adversity. No trouble or sorrow would I think crush him. But had prosperity come to him, it would have made him odious to all around him. You were not present when they met?”
“No—I thought it better to leave them.”
“Yes, yes. And he will give up the place at once.”
“Tomorrow he will do so. In that at any rate he has true spirit. Tomorrow early they will go to London, and she I suppose will never see Orley Farm again.” And then Mrs. Orme gave Sir Peregrine that last message.—“I tell you everything as she told me,” Mrs. Orme said, seeing how deeply he was affected. “Perhaps I am wrong.”
“No, no, no,” he said.
“Coming at such a moment, her words seemed to be almost sacred.”
“They are sacred. They shall be sacred. Poor soul, poor soul!”
“She did a great crime.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But if a crime can be forgiven—can be excused on account of its motives—”
“It cannot, my dear. Nothing can be forgiven on that ground.”
“No; we know that; we all feel sure of that. But yet how can one help loving her? For myself, I shall love her always.”
“And I also love her.” And then the old man made his confession. “I loved her well;—better than I had ever thought to love anyone again, but you and Perry. I loved her very dearly, and felt that I should have been proud to have called her my wife. How beautiful she was in her sorrow, when we thought that her life had been pure and good!”
“And it had been good—for many years past.”
“No; for the stolen property was still there. But yet how graceful she was, and how well her sorrows sat upon her! What might she not have done had the world used her more kindly, and not sent in her way that sore temptation! She was a woman for a man to have loved to madness.”
“And yet how little can she have known of love!”
“I loved her.” And as the old man said so he rose to his feet with some show of his old energy. “I loved her—with all my heart! It is foolish for an old man so to say; but I did love her; nay, I love her still. But that I knew that it would be wrong—for your sake, and for Perry’s—” And then he stopped himself, as though he would fain hear what she might say to him.
“Yes; it is all over now,” she said in the softest, sweetest, lowest voice. She knew that she was breaking down a last hope, but she knew also that that hope was vain. And then there was silence in the room for some ten minutes’ space.
“It is all over,” he then said, repeating her last words.
“But you have us still—Perry and me. Can anyone love you better than we do?” And she got up and went over to him and stood by him, and leaned upon him.
“Edith, my love, since you came to my house there has been an angel in it watching over me. I shall know that always; and when I turn my face to the wall, as I soon shall, that shall be my last earthly thought.” And so in tears they parted for that night. But the sorrow that was bringing him to his grave came from the love of which he had spoken. It is seldom that a young man may die from a broken heart; but if an old man have a heart still left to him, it is more fragile.
LXXVII
John Kenneby’s Doom
On the evening but one after the trial was over Mr. Moulder entertained a few friends to supper at his apartments in Great St. Helen’s, and it was generally understood that in doing so he intended to celebrate the triumph of Lady Mason. Through the whole affair he had been a strong partisan on her side, had expressed a very loud opinion in favour of Mr. Furnival, and had hoped that that scoundrel Dockwrath would get all that he deserved from the hands of Mr. Chaffanbrass. When the hour of Mr. Dockwrath’s punishment had come he had been hardly contented, but the inadequacy of Kenneby’s testimony had restored him to good humour, and the verdict had made him triumphant.
“Didn’t I know it, old fellow?” he had said, slapping his friend Snengkeld on the back. “When such a low scoundrel as Dockwrath is pitted against a handsome woman like
