“I thought,” said Trent listlessly, “that Puritanism was about as strong there as the money-getting craze.”
“Your remark,” answered Mr. Cupples, with as near an approach to humour as was possible to him, “is not in the nature of a testimonial to what you call Puritanism—a convenient rather than an accurate term; for I need not remind you that it was invented to describe an Anglican party which aimed at the purging of the services and ritual of their Church from certain elements repugnant to them. The sense of your observation, however, is none the less sound, and its truth is extremely well illustrated by the case of Manderson himself, who had, I believe, the virtues of purity, abstinence, and self-restraint in their strongest form. No, Trent, there are other and more worthy things among the moral constituents of which I spoke; and in our finite nature, the more we preoccupy ourselves with the bewildering complexity of external apparatus which science places in our hands, the less vigour have we left for the development of the holier purposes of humanity within us. Agricultural machinery has abolished the festival of the Harvest Home. Mechanical travel has abolished the inn, or all that was best in it. I need not multiply instances. The view I am expressing to you,” pursued Mr. Cupples, placidly buttering a piece of toast, “is regarded as fundamentally erroneous by many of those who think generally as I do about the deeper concerns of life, but I am nevertheless firmly persuaded of its truth.”
“It needs epigrammatic expression,” said Trent, rising from the table. “If only it could be crystallized into some handy formula, like ‘No Popery,’ or ‘Tax the Foreigner,’ you would find multitudes to go to the stake for it. But you were planning to go to White Gables before the inquest, I think. You ought to be off if you are to get back to the court in time. I have something to attend to there myself, so we might walk up together. I will just go and get my camera.”
“By all means,” Mr. Cupples answered; and they set off at once in the ever-growing warmth of the morning. The roof of White Gables, a surly patch of dull red against the dark trees, seemed to harmonize with Trent’s mood; he felt heavy, sinister, and troubled. If a blow must fall that might strike down that creature radiant of beauty and life whom he had seen that morning, he did not wish it to come from his hand. An exaggerated chivalry had lived in Trent since the first teachings of his mother; but at this moment the horror of bruising anything so lovely was almost as much the artist’s revulsion as the gentleman’s. On the other hand, was the hunt to end in nothing? The quality of the affair was such that the thought of forbearance was an agony. There never was such a case; and he alone, he was confident, held the truth of it under his hand. At least, he determined, that day should show whether what he believed was a delusion. He would trample his compunction underfoot until he was quite sure that there was any call for it. That same morning he would know.
As they entered at the gate of the drive they saw Marlowe and the American standing in talk before the front door. In the shadow of the porch was the lady in black.
She saw them, and came gravely forward over the lawn, moving as Trent had known that she would move, erect and balanced, stepping lightly. When she welcomed him on Mr. Cupples’s presentation her eyes of golden-flecked brown observed him kindly. In her pale composure, worn as the mask of distress, there was no trace of the emotion that had seemed a halo about her head on the ledge of the cliff. She spoke the appropriate commonplace in a low and even voice. After a few words to Mr. Cupples she turned her eyes on Trent again.
“I hope you will succeed,” she said earnestly. “Do you think you will succeed?”
He made his mind up as the words left her lips. He said, “I believe I shall do so, Mrs. Manderson. When I have the case sufficiently complete I shall ask you to let me see you and tell you about it. It may be necessary to consult you before the facts are published.”
She looked puzzled, and distress showed for an instant in her eyes. “If it is necessary, of course you shall do so,” she said.
On the brink of his next speech Trent hesitated. He remembered that the lady had not wished to repeat to him the story already given to the inspector—or to be questioned at all. He was not unconscious that he desired to
