Kitabı oku: «Elster's Folly», sayfa 26

CHAPTER XXX.
MAUDE'S DISOBEDIENCE

Again the months went on, it may almost be said the years, and little took place worthy of record. Time obliterates as well as soothes; and Lady Hartledon had almost forgotten the circumstances which had perplexed and troubled her, for nothing more had come of them.

And Lord Hartledon? But for a certain restlessness, a hectic flush and a worn frame, betraying that the inward fever was not quenched, a startled movement if approached or spoken to unexpectedly, it might be thought that he also was at rest. There were no more anxious visits to Thomas Carr's chambers; he went about his ordinary duties, sat out his hours in the House of Lords, and did as other men. There was nothing very obvious to betray mental apprehension; and Maude had certainly dismissed the past, so far, from her mind.

Not again had Val gone down to Hartledon. With the exception of that short visit of a day or two, already recorded, he had not been there since his marriage. He would not go: his wife, though she had her way in most things, could not induce him to go. She went once or twice, in a spirit of defiance, it may be said, and meanwhile he remained in London, or took a short trip to the Continent, as the whim prompted him. Once they had gone abroad together, and remained for some months; taking servants and the children, for there were two children now; and the little fellow who had clasped the finger of Mr. Carr was a sturdy boy of three years old.

Lady Hartledon's health was beginning to fail. The doctors told her she must be more quiet; she went out a great deal, and seemed to live only in the world. Her husband remonstrated with her on the score of health; but she laughed, and said she was not going to give up pleasure just yet. Of course these gay habits are more easily acquired than relinquished. Lady Hartledon had fainting-fits; she felt occasional pain and palpitation in the region of the heart; and she grew thin without apparent cause. She said nothing about it, lest it should be made a plea for living more quietly; never dreaming of danger. Had she known what caused her brother's death her fears might possibly have been awakened. Lord Hartledon suspected mischief might be arising, and cautiously questioned her; she denied that anything was the matter, and he felt reassured. His chief care was to keep her free from excitement; and in this hope he gave way to her more than he would otherwise have done. But alas! the moment was approaching when all his care would be in vain; when the built-up security of years was destroyed by a single act of wilful disobedience to him. The sword so long suspended over his head, was to fall on hers at last.

One spring afternoon, in London, he was in his wife's sitting-room; the little room where you have seen her before, looking upon the Park. The children were playing on the carpet—two pretty little things; the girl eighteen months old.

"Take care!" suddenly called out Lady Hartledon.

Some one was opening the door, and the little Maude was too near to it. She ran and picked up the child, and Hedges came in with a card for his master, saying at the same time that the gentleman was waiting. Lord Hartledon held it to the fire to read the name.

"Who is it?" asked Lady Hartledon, putting the little girl down by the window, and approaching her husband. But there came no answer.

Whether the silence aroused her suspicions—whether any look in her husband's face recalled that evening of terror long ago—or whether some malicious instinct whispered the truth, can never be known. Certain it was that the past rose up as in a mirror before Lady Hartledon's imagination, and she connected this visitor with the former. She bent over his shoulder to peep at the card; and her husband, startled out of his presence of mind, tore it in two and threw the pieces into the fire.

"Oh, very well!" she exclaimed, mortally offended. "But you cannot blind me: it is your mysterious visitor again."

"I don't know what you mean, Maude. It is only someone on business."

"Then I will go and ask him his business," she said, moving to the door with angry resolve.

Val was too quick for her. He placed his back against the door, and lifted his hands in agitation. It was a great fault of his, or perhaps a misfortune—for he could not help it—this want of self-control in moments of emergency.

"Maude, I forbid you to interfere in this; you must not. For Heaven's sake, sit down and remain quiet."

"I'll see your visitor, and know, at last, what this strange trouble is. I will, Lord Hartledon."

"You must not: do you hear me?" he reiterated with deep emotion, for she was trying to force her way out of the room. "Maude—listen—I do not mean to be harsh, but for your own good I conjure you to be still. I forbid you, by the obedience you promised me before God, to inquire into or stir in this matter. It is a private affair of my own, and not yours. Stay here until I return."

Maude drew back, as if in compliance; and Lord Hartledon, supposing he had prevailed, quitted the room and closed the door. He was quite mistaken. Never had her solemn vows of obedience been so utterly despised; never had the temptation to evil been so rife in her heart.

She unlatched the door and listened. Lord Hartledon went downstairs and into the library, just as he had done the evening before the christening. And Lady Hartledon was certain the same man awaited him there. Ringing the nursery-bell, she took off her slippers, unseen, and hid them under a chair.

"Remain here with the children," was her order to the nurse who appeared, as she shut the woman into the room.

Creeping down softly she opened the door of the room behind the library, and glided in. It was a small room, used exclusively by Lord Hartledon, where he kept a heterogeneous collection of things—papers, books, cigars, pipes, guns, scientific models, anything—and which no one but himself ever attempted to enter. The intervening door between that and the library was not quite closed; and Lady Hartledon, cautiously pushed it a little further open. Wilful, unpardonable disobedience! when he had so strongly forbidden her! It was the same tall stranger. He was speaking in low tones, and Lord Hartledon leaned against the wall with a blank expression of face.

She saw; and heard. But how she controlled her feelings, how she remained and made no sign, she never knew. But that the instinct of self-esteem was one of her strongest passions, the dread of detection in proportion to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert her in returning. Had their senses been on the alert they might have heard her poor heart beating.

The interview did not last long—about twenty minutes; and whilst Lord Hartledon was attending his visitor to the door she escaped upstairs again, motioned away the nurse, and resumed her shoes. But what did she look like? Not like Maude Hartledon. Her face was as that of one upon whom some awful doom has fallen; her breath was coming painfully; and she kneeled down on the carpet and clasped her children to her beating heart with an action of wild despair.

"Oh, my boy! my boy! Oh, my little Maude!"

Suddenly she heard her husband's step approaching, and pushing them from her, rose and stood at the window, apparently looking out on the darkening world.

Lord Hartledon came in, gaily and cheerily, his manner lighter than it had been for years.

"Well, Maude, I have not been long, you see. Why don't you have lights?"

She did not answer: only stared straight out. Her husband approached her. "What are you looking at, Maude?"

"Nothing," she answered: "my head aches. I think I shall lie down until dinner-time. Eddie, open the door, and call Nurse, as loud as you can call."

The little boy obeyed, and the nurse returned, and was ordered to take the children. Lady Hartledon was following them to go to her own room, when she fell into a chair and went off in a dead faint.

"It's that excitement," said Val. "I do wish Maude would be reasonable!"

The illness, however, appeared to be more serious than an ordinary fainting-fit; and Lord Hartledon, remembering the suspicion of heart-disease, sent for the family doctor Sir Alexander Pepps, an oracle in the fashionable world.

A different result showed itself—equally caused by excitement—and the countess-dowager arrived in a day or two in hot haste. Lady Hartledon lay in bed, and did not attempt to get up or to get better. She lay almost as one without life, taking no notice of any one, turning her head from her husband when he entered, refusing to answer her mother, keeping the children away from the room.

"Why doesn't she get up, Pepps?" demanded the dowager, wrathfully, pouncing upon the physician one day, when he was leaving the house.

Sir Alexander, who might have been supposed to have received his baronetcy for his skill, but that titles, like kissing, go by favour, stopped short, took off his hat, and presumed that Lady Hartledon felt more comfortable in bed.

"Rubbish! We might all lie in bed if we studied comfort. Is there any earthly reason why she should stay there, Pepps?"

"Not any, except weakness."

"Except idleness, you mean. Why don't you order her to get up?"

"I have advised Lady Hartledon to do so, and she does not attend to me," replied Sir Alexander.

"Oh," said the dowager. "She was always wilful. What about her heart?"

"Her heart!" echoed Sir Alexander, looking up now as if a little aroused.

"Dear me, yes; her heart; I didn't say her liver. Is it sound, Pepps?"

"It's sound, for anything I know to the contrary. I never suspected anything the matter with her heart."

"Then you are a fool!" retorted the complimentary dowager.

Sir Alexander's temperament was remarkably calm. Nothing could rouse him out of his tame civility, which had been taken more than once for obsequiousness. The countess-dowager had patronized him in earlier years, when he was not a great man, or had begun to dream of becoming one.

"Don't you recollect I once consulted you on the subject—what's your memory good for? She was a girl then, of fourteen or so; and you were worth fifty of what you are now, in point of discernment."

The oracle carried his thoughts back, and really could not recollect it. "Ahem! yes; and the result was—was—"

"The result was that you said the heart had nothing the matter with it, and I said it had," broke in the impatient dowager.

"Ah, yes, madam, I remember. Pray, have you reason to suspect anything wrong now?"

"That's what you ought to have ascertained, Pepps, not me. What d'you mean by your neglect? What, I ask, does she lie in bed for? If her heart's right, there's nothing more the matter with her than there is with you."

"Perhaps your ladyship can persuade Lady Hartledon to exert herself," suggested the bland doctor. "I can't; and I confess I think that she only wants rousing."

With a flourish of his hat and his small gold-headed black cane the doctor bowed himself out from the formidable dowager. That lady turned her back upon him, and betook herself on the spur of the moment to Maude's room, determined to "have it out."

Curious sounds greeted her, as of some one in hysterical pain. On the bed, clasped to his mother in nervous agony, was the wondering child, little Lord Elster: words of distress, nay, of despair, breaking from her. It seemed, the little boy, who was rather self-willed and rebellious on occasion, had escaped from the nursery, and stolen to his mother's room. The dowager halted at the door, and looked out from her astonished eyes.

"Oh, Edward, if we were but dead! Oh, my darling, if it would only please Heaven to take us both! I couldn't send for you, child; I couldn't see you; the sight of you kills me. You don't know; my babies, you don't know!"

"What on earth does all this mean?" interrupted the dowager, stepping forward. And Lady Hartledon dropped the boy, and fell back on the bed, exhausted.

"What have you done to your mamma, sir?"

The child, conscious that he had not done anything, but frightened on the whole, repented of his disobedience, and escaped from the chamber more quickly than he had entered it. The dowager hated to be puzzled, and went wrathfully up to her daughter.

"Perhaps you'll tell me what's the matter, Maude."

Lady Hartledon grew calm. The countess-dowager pressed the question.

"There's nothing the matter," came the tardy and rather sullen reply.

"Why do you wish yourself dead, then?"

"Because I do."

"How dare you answer me so?"

"It's the truth. I should be spared suffering."

The countess-dowager paused. "Spared suffering!" she mentally repeated; and being a woman given to arriving at rapid conclusions without rhyme or reason, she bethought herself that Maude must have become acquainted with the suspicion regarding her heart.

"Who told you that?" shrieked the dowager. "It was that fool Hartledon."

"He has told me nothing," said Maude, in an access of resentment, all too visible. "Told me what?"

"Why, about your heart. That's what I suppose it is."

Maude raised herself upon her elbow, her wan face fixed on her mother's. "Is there anything the matter with my heart?" she calmly asked.

And then the old woman found that she had made a grievous mistake, and hastened to repair it.

"I thought there might be, and asked Pepps. I've just asked him now; and he's says there's nothing the matter with it."

"I wish there were!" said Maude.

"You wish there were! That's a pretty wish for a reasonable Christian," cried the tart dowager. "You want your husband to lecture you; saying such things."

"I wish he were hanged!" cried Maude, showing her glistening teeth.

"My gracious!" exclaimed the wondering old lady, after a pause. "What has he done?"

"Why did you urge me to marry him? Oh, mother, can't you see that I am dying—dying of horror—and shame—and grief? You had better have buried me instead."

For once in her selfish and vulgar mind the countess-dowager felt a feeling akin to fear. In her astonishment she thought Maude must be going mad.

"You'd do well to get some sleep, dear," she said in a subdued tone; "and to-morrow you must get up; Pepps says so; he thinks you want rousing."

"I have not slept since; it's not sleep, it's a dead stupor, in which I dream things as horrible as the reality," murmured Maude, unconscious perhaps that she spoke aloud. "I shall never sleep again."

"Not slept since when?"

"I don't know."

"Can't you say what you mean?" cried the puzzled dowager. "If you've any grievance, tell it out; if you've not, don't talk nonsense."

But Lady Hartledon, though thus sweetly allured to confession, held her tongue. Her half-scattered senses came back to her, and with them a reticence she would not break. The countess-dowager hardly knew whether she deserved pitying or shaking, and went off in a fit of exasperation, breaking in upon her son-in-law as he was busy looking over some accounts in the library.

"I want to know what is the matter with Maude."

He turned round in his chair, and met the dowager's flaxen wig and crimson face. Val did not know what was the matter with his wife any more than the questioner did. He supposed she would be all right when she grew stronger.

"She says it's you" said the gentle dowager, improving upon her information. "She has just been wishing you were hanged."

"Ah, you have been teasing her," he returned, with composure. "Maude says all sorts of things when she's put out."

"Perhaps she does," was the retort; "but she meant this, for she showed her teeth when she said it. You can't blind me; and I have seen ever since I came here that there was something wrong between you and Maude."

For that matter, Val had seen it too. Since the night of his wife's fainting-fit she had scarcely spoken a word to him; had appeared as if she could not tolerate his presence for an instant in her room. Lord Hartledon felt persuaded that it arose from resentment at his having refused to allow her to see the stranger. He rose from his seat.

"There's nothing wrong between me and Maude, Lady Kirton. If there were, you must pardon me for saying that I could not suffer any interference in it. But there is not."

"Something's wrong somewhere. I found her just now sobbing and moaning over Eddie, wishing they were both dead, and all the rest of it. If she goes on like this for nothing, she's losing her senses, that's all."

"She'll be all right when she's stronger. Pray don't worry her. She'll be well soon, I daresay. And now I shall be glad if you'll leave me, for I am very busy."

She did not leave him any the quicker for the request, but stayed to worry him, as it was in her nature to worry every one. Getting rid of her at last, he turned the key of the door, and wished her a hundred miles away.

The wish bore fruit. In a few days some news she heard regarding her eldest son—who was a widower now—took the dowager to Ireland, and Lord Hartledon wished he could as easily turn the key of the house upon her as he had turned that of the room.

CHAPTER XXXI.
THE SWORD SLIPPED

Summer dust was in the London streets, summer weather in the air, and the carriage of that fashionable practitioner, Sir Alexander Pepps, still waited before Lord Hartledon's house. It had waited there more frequently in these later weeks than of old.

The great world—her world—wondered what was the matter with her: Sir Alexander wondered also. Perhaps had he been a less courtly man he might have rapped out "obstinacy," if questioned upon the point; as it was, he murmured of "weakness." Weak she undoubtedly was; and she did not seem to try in the least to grow strong again. She did not go into society now; she dressed as usual, and sat in her drawing-room, and received visitors if the whim took her; but she was usually denied to all; and said she was not well enough to go out. From her husband she remained bitterly estranged. If he attempted to be friendly with her, to ask what was ailing her, she either sharply refused to say, or maintained a persistent silence. Lord Hartledon could not account for her behaviour, and was growing tired of it.

Poor Maude! That some grievous blow had fallen upon her was all too evident. Resentment, anguish, bitter despair alternated within her breast, and she seemed really not to care whether she lived or died. Was it for this that she had schemed, and so successfully, to wrest Lord Hartledon from his promised bride Anne Ashton? She would lie back in her chair and ask it. No labour of hers could by any possibility have brought forth a result by which Miss Ashton could be so well avenged. Heaven is true to itself, and Dr. Ashton had left vengeance with it. Lady Hartledon looked back on her fleeting triumph; a triumph at the time certainly, but a short one. It had not fulfilled its golden promises: that sort of triumph perhaps never does. It had been followed by ennui, repentance, dissatisfaction with her husband, and it had resulted in a very moonlight sort of happiness, which had at length centred only in the children. The children! Maude gave a cry of anguish as she thought of them. No; take it altogether, the play from the first had not been worth the candle. And now? She clasped her thin hands in a frenzy of impotent rage—with Anne Ashton had lain the real triumph, with herself the sacrifice. Too well Maude understood a remark her husband once made in answer to a reproach of hers in the first year of their marriage—that he was thankful not to have wedded Anne.

One morning Sir Alexander Pepps, on his way from the drawing-room to his chariot—a very old-fashioned chariot that all the world knew well—paused midway in the hall, with his cane to his nose, and condescended to address the man with the powdered wig who was escorting him.

"Is his lordship at home?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to see him."

So the wig changed its course, and Sir Alexander was bowed into the presence. His lordship rose with what the French would call empressement, to receive the great man.

"Thank you, I have not time to sit," said he, declining the offered chair and standing, cane in hand. "I have three consultations to-day, and some urgent cases. I grieve to have a painful duty to fulfil; but I must inform you that Lady Hartledon's health gives me uneasiness."

Lord Hartledon did not immediately reply; but it was not from want of genuine concern.

"What is really the matter with her?"

"Debility; nothing else," replied Sir Alexander. "But these cases of extreme debility cause so much perplexity. Where there is no particular disease to treat, and the patient does not rally, why—"

He understood the doctor's pause to mean something ominous. "What can be done?" he asked. "I have remarked, with pain, that she does not gain strength. Change of air? The seaside—"

"She says she won't go," interrupted the physician. "In fact, her ladyship objects to everything I can suggest or propose."

"It's very strange," said Lord Hartledon.

"At times it has occurred to me that she has something on her mind," continued Sir Alexander. "Upon my delicately hinting this opinion to Lady Hartledon, she denied it with a vehemence which caused me to suspect that I was correct. Does your lordship know of anything likely to—to torment her?"

"Not anything," replied Lord Hartledon, confidently. "I think I can assure you that there is nothing of the sort."

And he spoke according to his belief; for he knew of nothing. He would have supposed it simply impossible that Lady Hartledon had been made privy to the dreadful secret which had weighed on him; and he never gave that a thought.

Sir Alexander nodded, reassured on the point.

"I should wish for a consultation, if your lordship has no objection."

"Then pray call it without delay. Have anything, do anything, that may conduce to Lady Hartledon's recovery. You do not suspect heart-disease?"

"The symptoms are not those of any heart-disease known to me. Lady Kirton spoke to me of this; but I see nothing to apprehend at present on that score. If there's any latent affection, it has not yet shown itself. Then we'll arrange the consultation for to-morrow."

Sir Alexander Pepps was bowed out; and the consultation took place; which left the matter just where it was before. The wise doctors thought there was nothing radically wrong; but strongly recommended change of air. Sir Alexander confidently mentioned Torbay; he had great faith in Torbay; perhaps his lordship could induce Lady Hartledon to try it? She had flatly told the consultation that she would not try it.

Lady Hartledon was seated in the drawing-room when he went in, willing to do what he could; any urging of his had not gone far with her of late. A white silk shawl covered her dress of green check silk; she wore a shawl constantly now, having a perpetual tendency to shiver; her handsome features were white and attenuated, but her eyes were brilliant still, and her dark hair was dressed in elaborate braids.

"So you have had the doctors here, Maude," he remarked, cheerfully.

She nodded a reply, and began to fidget with the body of her gown. It seemed that she had to do something or other always to her attire whenever he spoke to her—which partially took away her attention.

"Sir Alexander tells me they have been recommending you Torbay."

"I am not going to Torbay."

"Oh yes, you are, Maude," he soothingly said. "It will be a change for us all. The children will benefit by it as much as you, and so shall I."

"I tell you I shall not go to Torbay."

"Would you prefer any other place?"

"I will not go anywhere; I have told them so."

"Then I declare that I'll carry you off by force!" he cried, rather sharply. "Why do you vex me like this? You know you must go?"

She made no reply. He drew a chair close to her and sat down.

"Maude," he said, speaking all the more gently for his recent outbreak, "you must be aware that you do not recover as quickly as we could wish—"

"I do not recover at all," she interrupted. "I don't want to recover."

"My dear, how can you talk so? There is nothing the matter with you but weakness, and that will soon be overcome if you exert yourself."

"No, it won't. I shall not leave home."

"Somewhere you must go, for the workmen are coming into the house; and for the next two months it will not be habitable."

"Who is bringing them in?" she asked, with flashing eyes.

"You know it was decided long ago that the house should be done up this summer. It wants it badly enough. Torbay—"

"I will not go to Torbay, Lord Hartledon. If I am to be turned out of this house, I'll go to the other."

"What other?"

"Hartledon."

"Not to Hartledon," said he, quickly, for his dislike to the place had grown with time, and the word grated on his ear.

"Then I remain where I am."

"Maude," he resumed in quiet tones, "I will not urge you to try sea-air for my sake, because you do what you can to show me I am of little moment to you; but I will say try it for the sake of the children. Surely, they are dear to you!"

A subdued sound of pain broke from her lips, as if she could not bear to hear them named.

"It's of no use prolonging this discussion," she said. "An invalid's fancies may generally be trusted, and mine point to Hartledon—if I am to be disturbed at all. I should not so much mind going there."

A pause ensued. Lord Hartledon had taken her hand, and was mechanically turning round her wedding-ring, his thoughts far away; it hung sufficiently loosely now on the wasted finger. She lay back in her chair, looking on with apathy, too indifferent to withdraw her hand.

"Why did you put it on?" she asked, abruptly.

"Why indeed?" returned his lordship, deep in his abstraction. "What did you say, Maude?" he added, awaking in a flurry. "Put what on?"

"My wedding-ring."

"My dear! But about Hartledon—if you fancy that, and nowhere else, I suppose we must go there."

"You also?"

"Of course."

"Ah! when your wife's chord of life is loosening what model husbands you men become!" she uttered. "You have never gone to Hartledon with me; you have suffered me to be there alone, through a ridiculous reminiscence; but now that you are about to lose me you will go!"

"Why do you encourage these gloomy thoughts about yourself, Maude?" he asked, passing over the Hartledon question. "One would think you wished to die."

"I do not know," she replied in tones of deliberation. "Of course, no one, at my age, can be tired of the world, and for some things I wish to live; but for others, I shall be glad to die."

"Maude! Maude! It is wrong to say this. You are not likely to die."

"I can't tell. All I say is, I shall be glad for some things, if I do."

"What is all this?" he exclaimed, after a bewildered pause. "Is there anything on your mind, Maude? Are you grieving after that little infant?"

"No," she answered, "not for him. I grieve for the two who remain."

Lord Hartledon looked at her. A dread, which he strove to throw from him, struggling to his conscience.

"I think you are deceived in my state of health. And if I object to going to the seaside, it is chiefly because I would not die in a strange place. If I am to die, I should like to die at Hartledon."

His hair seemed to rise up in horror at the words. "Maude! have you any disease you are concealing from me?"

"Not any. But the belief has been upon me for some time that I should not get over this. You must have seen how I appear to be sinking."

"And with no disease upon you! I don't understand it."

"No particular physical disease."

"You are weak, dispirited—I cannot pursue these questions," he broke off. "Tell me in a word: is there any cause for this?"

"Yes."

Percival gathered up his breath. "What is it?"

"What is it!" her eyes ablaze with sudden light. "What has weighed you down, not to the grave, for men are strong, but to terror, and shame, and sin? What secret is it, Lord Hartledon?"

His lips were whitening. "But it—even allowing that I have a secret—need not weigh you down."

"Not weigh me down!—to terror deeper than yours; to shame more abject? Suppose I know the secret?"

"You cannot know it," he gasped. "It would have killed you."

"And what has it done? Look at me."

"Oh, Maude!" he wailed, "what is it that you do, or do not know? How did you learn anything about it?"

"I learnt it through my own folly. I am sorry for it now. My knowing it can make the fact neither better nor worse; and perhaps I might have been spared the knowledge to the end."

"But what is it that you know?" he asked, rather wishing at the moment he was dead himself.

"All."

"It is impossible."

"It is true."

And he felt that it was true; here was the solution to the conduct which had puzzled him, puzzled the doctors, puzzled the household and the countess-dowager.

"And how—and how?" he gasped.

"When that stranger was here last, I heard what he said to you," she replied, avowing the fact without shame in the moment's terrible anguish. "I made the third at the interview."

He looked at her in utter disbelief.

"You refused to let me go down. I followed you, and stood at the little door of the library. It was open, and I—heard—every word."

The last words were spoken with an hysterical sobbing. "Oh, Maude!" broke from the lips of Lord Hartledon.

"You will reproach me for disobedience, of course; for meanness, perhaps; but I knew there was some awful secret, and you would not tell me. I earned my punishment, if that will be any satisfaction to you; I have never since enjoyed an instant's peace, night or day."

He hid his face in his pain. This was the moment he had dreaded for years; anything, so that it might be kept from her, he had prayed in his never-ceasing fear.

"Forgive, forgive me! Oh, Maude, forgive me!"

She did not respond; she did not attempt to soothe him; if ever looks expressed reproach and aversion, hers did then.

"Have compassion upon me, Maude! I was more sinned against than sinning."

"What compassion had you for me? How dared you marry me? you, bound with crime?"

"The worst is over, Maude; the worst is over."

"It can never be over: you are guilty of wilful sophistry. The crime remains; and—Lord Hartledon—its fruits remain."