The Captain Explains why Mark Wylder Absconded.

‘How delicious these violets are!’ said Stanley, leaning for a moment over the fragrant purple dome that crowned a china stand on the marble table they were passing. ‘You love flowers, Dorkie. Every perfect woman is, I think, a sister of Flora’s. You are looking pale — you have not been ill? No! I’m very glad you say so. Sit down for a moment and listen, darling. And first I’ll tell you, upon my honour, what Rachel has been worrying me about.’

Dorcas sate beside him on the sofa, and he placed his slender arm affectionately round her waist.

‘You must know, Dorkie, that before his sudden departure, Mark Wylder promised to lend William, his brother, a sum sufficient to relieve him of all his pressing debts.’

‘Debts! I never knew before that he had any,’ exclaimed Dorcas. ‘Poor William! I am so sorry.’

‘Well, he has, like other fellows, only he can’t get away as easily, and he has been very much pressed since Mark went, for he has not yet lent him a guinea, and in fact Rachel says she thinks he is in danger of being regularly sold out. She does not say she knows it, but only that she suspects they are in a great fix about money.’

‘Well, you must know that I was the sole cause of Mark Wylder’s leaving the country.’

‘You, Stanley!’

‘Yes, I, Dorkie. I believe I thought I was doing a duty; but really I was nearly mad with jealousy, and simply doing my utmost to drive a rival from your presence. And yet, without hope for myself, desperately in love.’

Dorcas looked down and smiled oddly; it was a sad and bitter smile, and seemed to ask whither has that desperate love, in so short a time, flown?

‘I know I was right. He was a stained man, and was liable at any moment to be branded. It was villainous in him to seek to marry you. I told him at last that, unless he withdrew, your friends should know all. I expected he would show fight, and that a meeting would follow; and I really did not much care whether I were killed or not. But he went, on the contrary, rather quietly, threatening to pay me off, however, though he did not say how. He’s a cunning dog, and not very soft-hearted; and has no more conscience than that,’ and he touched his finger to the cold summit of a marble bust.

‘He is palpably machinating something to my destruction with an influential attorney on whom I keep a watch, and he has got some fellow named Dutton into the conspiracy; and not knowing how they mean to act, and only knowing how utterly wicked, cunning, and bloody-minded he is, and that he hates me as he probably never hated anyone before, I must be prepared to meet him, and, if possible, to blow up that Satanic cabal, which without money I can’t. It was partly a mystification about the election; of course, it will be expensive, but nothing like the other. Are you ill, Dorkie?’

He might well ask, for she appeared on the point of fainting.

Dorcas had read and heard stories of men seemingly no worse than their neighbours — nay, highly esteemed, and praised, and liked — who yet were haunted by evil men, who encountered them in lonely places, or by night, and controlled them by the knowledge of some dreadful crime. Was Stanley — her husband — whose character she had begun to discern, whose habitual mystery was, somehow, tinged in her mind with a shade of horror, one of this two-faced, diabolical order of heroes?

Why should he dread this cabal, as he called it, even though directed by the malignant energy of the absent and shadowy Mark Wylder? What could all the world do to harm him in free England, if he were innocent, if he were what he seemed — no worse than his social peers?

Why should it be necessary to buy off the conspirators whom a guiltless man would defy and punish?

The doubt did not come in these defined shapes. As a halo surrounds a saint, a shadow rose suddenly, and enveloped pale, scented, smiling Stanley, with the yellow eyes. He stood in the centre of a dreadful medium, through which she saw him, ambiguous and awful; and she sickened.

‘Are you ill, Dorkie, darling?’ said the apparition in accents of tenderness. ‘Yes, you are ill.’

And he hastily threw open the window, close to which they were sitting, and she quickly revived in the cooling air.

She saw his yellow eyes fixed upon her features, and his face wearing an odd expression — was it interest, or tenderness, or only scrutiny; to her there seemed a light of insincerity and cruelty in its pallor.

‘You are better, darling; thank Heaven, you are better.’

‘Yes — yes — a great deal better; it is passing away.’

Her colour was returning, and with a shivering sigh, she said —

‘Oh? Stanley, you must speak truth; I am your wife. Do they know anything very bad — are you in their power?’

‘Why, my dearest, what on earth could put such a wild fancy in your head?’ said Lake, with a strange laugh, and, as she fancied, growing still paler. ‘Do you suppose I am a highwayman in disguise, or a murderer, like — what’s his name — Eugene Aram? I must have expressed myself very ill, if I suggested anything so tragical. I protest before Heaven, my darling, there is not one word or act of mine I need fear to submit to any court of justice or of honour on earth.’

He took her hand, and kissed it affectionately, and still fondling it gently between his, he resumed —

‘I don’t mean to say, of course, that I have always been better than other young fellows; I’ve been foolish, and wild, and — and — I’ve done wrong things, occasionally — as all young men will; but for high crimes and misdemeanors, or for melodramatic situations, I never had the slightest taste. There’s no man on earth who can tell anything of me, or put me under any sort of pressure, thank Heaven; and simply because I have never in the course of my life done a single act unworthy of a gentleman, or in the most trifling way compromised myself. I swear it, my darling, upon my honour and soul, and I will swear it in any terms — the most awful that can be prescribed — in order totally and for ever to remove from your mind so amazing a fancy.’

And with a little laugh, and still holding her hand, he passed his arm round her waist, and kissed her affectionately.

‘But you are perfectly right, Dorkie, in supposing that I am under very considerable apprehension from their machinations. Though they cannot slur our fair fame, it is quite possible they may very seriously affect our property. Mr. Larkin is in possession of all the family papers. I don’t like it, but it is too late now. The estates have been back and forward so often between the Brandons and Wylders, I always fancy there may be a screw loose, or a frangible link somewhere, and he’s deeply interested for Mark ............