“I will be answerable for Mrs. Mildmay,” said Fordham, with an evident response on his side to that opposition and dislike. Then he paused, evidently perceiving the necessity of conciliation. “Mr. Vincent,” he continued, with some earnestness, “we all understand and regret deeply the inconvenience—I mean the suffering—that is to say, the injury and misery which these late occurrences must have caused you. I know how well—that is, how generously, how nobly—you have behaved—”
Here Mr. Fordham came to a pause in some confusion. To express calm acknowledgments to a man for his conduct in a matter which has been to him one of unmitigated disaster and calamity, requires an amount of composure which few people possess when at the height of personal happiness. The minister drew back, and, with a slight bow, and a restraint which was very natural and not unbecoming in his circumstances, looked on at the confusion of the speaker without any attempt to relieve it. He had offered seats to his visitors, but he himself stood on the hearthrug, dark and silent, giving no assistance in the explanation. He had not invited the explanation—it must be managed now as the others might, without any help from him.
“I have seen Colonel Mildmay,” continued Mr. Fordham, after a confused pause. “If it can be any atonement to you to know how much he regrets all that has happened, so far as your family is concerned—how fully he exonerates Miss Vincent, who was all along deceived, and who would not have remained a moment with him had she not been forcibly detained. Mildmay declares she met with nothing but respect at his hands,” continued the embarrassed advocate, lowering his voice; “he says—”
“Enough has been said on the subject,” said Vincent, restraining himself with a violent effort.
“Yes—I beg your pardon, it is quite true—enough has been said,” cried Fordham, with an appearance of relief. Here, at least, was one part of his difficult mediation over. “Mildmay will not,” he resumed, after a pause, “tell me or anyone else who it was that gave him his wound—that is a secret, he says, between him and his God—and another. Whoever that other may be,” continued Fordham, with a quick look towards Mrs. Mildmay, “he is conscious of having wronged—him—and will take no steps against—him. This culprit, it appears, must be permitted to escape—you think so?—worse evils might be involved if we were to demand—his—punishment. Mr. Vincent, I beg you to take this into consideration. It could be no advantage to you; the innocent shall not suffer—but—the criminal—must be permitted to escape.”
“I do not see the necessity,” said Vincent between his teeth.
“No, no,” said Mrs. Mildmay, suddenly. “Escape! who believes in escape? Mr. Vincent knows better. Hush, you are a happy man just now—you are not qualified to judge; but we know better. Escape!—he means from prisons, and suchlike,” she continued, turning to Vincent with a half-disdainful wave of her hand towards her companion. “But you know, and so do I, that there is no escape—not in this world. I know nothing about the next,” said the strange woman, curbing once more the flush of excitement which had overpowered her as she spoke—“nothing; neither do you, though you are a priest. But there is enough of retribution here. The criminal—Mr. Vincent—you know—will not escape.”
She spoke these last words panting, with pauses between, for breath. She was afraid of him again; his blankness, his passive opposition, drove her out of her composure. She put her hands together under her shawl with a certain dumb entreaty, and fixed upon him her eager eyes. They were a strange group altogether. Miss Smith, who had still lingered at the door, notwithstanding Mrs. Mildmay’s imperative gesture of dismissal—out of hearing, but not out of sight—suffered some little sound to escape her at this critical moment; and when her patroness turned round upon her with those dreadful eyes, fled with precipitation, taking refuge in Mrs. Vincent’s room. The table, still covered with its white cloth, stood between that dismayed spectator before she disappeared finally, and the little company who were engaged in this silent conflict. Beside it sat Mrs. Mildmay, with a renewed panic of fear rising in her face. Fordham, considerably disturbed, and not knowing what to say, stood near her buttoning and unbuttoning his overcoat with impatient fingers, anxious to help her, but still more anxious to be gone. The minister stood facing them all, with compressed lips, and eyes which looked at nobody. He was wrapt in a silent dumb resistance to all entreaties and arguments, watching Fordham’s gestures, Fordham’s looks, with a jealous but secret suspicion. His heart was cruel in its bitterness. He for whom Providence had no joys in store, to whom the light was fading which made life sweet, was for this moment superior to the happy man who stood embarrassed and impatient before him; and generous as his real nature was, it was not in him, in this moment of darkness, to let the opportunity go.
“The innocent have suffered already,” said Vincent, “all but madness, all but death. Why should the criminal escape?—go back into society, the society of good people, perhaps strike someone else more effectually? Why should I betray justice, and let the criminal escape? My
