“What can I say?” Hester cried. “We are all in great trouble. I don’t know which is the greatest, but I cannot tell you secrets that are not mine. Dear Mrs. Morgan, tell the captain so. Whatever I know it is by accident. I think I shall die with anxiety and suspense, but there is nothing I can say.”
“My dear, you will not die, you will live to be anxious many another day. Rowley, my old man, you hear the child. We must not ask her another question. Wait, as you have waited many a time before. It is all in the Lord’s hands.”
The old man was wiping the moisture from his forehead: he had seated himself as soon as he came in, his old limbs were shaking under him. His large, colourless hands shook, holding his handkerchief.
“Mary,” he said, “if it is my flesh and blood that has brought this disturbance into the place, that has seduced her boy, and brought down ruin on her house, how am I ever to lift my head again?”
The old lady looked at him with pathetic eyes, in which there was a suffering as acute as his own, softened and made almost bright by the patience and calm that were habitual to her.
“Rowley, we are not thinking of Catherine, we are thinking of ourselves,” she said.
And then there was a pause. It seemed to Hester that her own brokenheartedness was a sort of child’s passion in comparison. She said humbly—
“Will you tell me what you are afraid of? There is nobody blamed but one. There is not a name spoken of but one. I don’t know if that is any comfort to you, Captain Morgan.”
“And the one is her boy, the apple of her eye, the only one that she has trusted, her choice out of all the world,” the old lady said. “Oh be silent, be silent, my old man! What is your pride to that? I would rather I had a share of the burden—I would like to be suffering with her.” The tears stood in the deep wells of those old eyes, which had wept so much. She was past weeping now. “The Lord forgive him and bring him back,” she said.
“You mean punish him, you mean give him over to the powers of darkness that he belongs to! What does he deserve, a man that has used a woman like that?”
“I am not asking what he deserves. I will tell you what he would get if he would come back. Pardon!” said the old woman with a sob, instinctively putting out her old soft hands.
“I am not for pardon,” said the captain vehemently, his head moving in his agitation, his hands shaking. “I am for every soul bearing its own burden. Here is a woman that has spread prosperity around her. She has been kind, even when she has not been merciful. The grateful and the ungrateful, she has been good to them all. She has been like the sun shining and the rain raining upon both just and unjust. And here is the end of her, stung to her heart by the child of her bosom. For it will be the end of her. She is a grand woman. She won’t bear being deceived.”
“Do not say that,” said Hester; “she is so strong, stronger than any of us—if you had seen her last night!”
“Where could I have seen her last night?” he said quickly; then, with a smile, “that is all you know, you children. Yes, stronger than any one of you, able to do everything. Do you remember the French boy in Browning’s ballad, Hester, that could not bear it when his Emperor asked if he were wounded? ‘I’m killed, sire!’ That is like Catherine. She stands like a tower. I can see her in my mind’s eye. She needs no sleep, no rest: but she is killed for all that.”
Hester rose to her feet as he spoke in an excitement she could not control.
“I must go,” she said. “I must go—I might be wanted.”
The old man rose and hobbled out after her. He followed her to the gate.
“I will wait while you get your hat. I am coming with you,” he said. “We cannot rest, Hester, neither you nor I.”
Mrs. John was dozing in her chair as she generally did in the afternoon. She opened her eyes and said, “Are you going for a walk, dear?” then closed them tranquilly again. The very atmosphere in the brown wainscotted parlour breathed of peace and quiet uncongenial with any such throbbings as those in Hester’s heart. She joined the old man, who was waiting for her at the door, and they went on together, saying little. The great window in the Grange where Catherine usually sat commanding the road was vacant. There was a certain deserted air about the place. They knew without a word that Catherine was still out of it.
“It is too far for you to go,” Hester said.
Though they had not spoken for a long time they understood each other à demi-mot.
“It is too far for me,” said he, “but what does that matter? everything will soon be too far for me. Let me go on while I can.”
They walked as far as the bank, where their anxious eyes made out the people lingering about, the air of curiosity and excitement. Old Captain Morgan hobbled up to Mr. Merridew, who was making his way out with a serious face. “You will excuse me for my anxiety, sir,” he said, “but will you tell me if Miss Vernon is there, and what is going on?”
“That is an easy question you are asking me,” said Mr. Merridew, eying him closely; “certainly Miss Vernon is there.”
“I am her near relation,” said the old man, “and you are connected with her by marriage.”
“I know very well who you are, Captain Morgan: a distinguished officer, though people have not found it out here. If you
