She came to me unexpectedly. I had returned to town that evening, and next morning as I was sitting down in my study to answer some unimportant questions Maxwell Hartington had sent me, my parlormaid appeared. "Can you speak," she asked, "to Lady Mary Justin?"
I stood up to receive my visitor.
She came in, a tall dark figure, and stood facing me in silence until the door had closed behind her. Her face was white and and very grave. She stooped a little, I could see she had had no sleep, never before had I seen her face marked by pain. And she hesitated.... "My dear!" I said; "why have you come to me?"
I put a chair for her and she sat down.
For a moment she controlled herself with difficulty. She put her hand over her eyes, she seemed on the of bitter weeping....
"I came," she said at last.... "I came. I had to come ... to see you."
I sat down in a chair beside her.
"It wasn't wise," I said. "But—never mind. You look so tired, my dear!"
She sat quite still for a little while.
Then she moved her arm as though she felt for me[Pg 350] blindly, and I put my arms about her and drew her head to my shoulder and she wept....
"I knew," she , "if I came to you...."
Presently her weeping was over.
"Get me a little cold water, Stephen," she said. "Let me have a little cold water on my face. I've got my courage now again. Just then,—I was down too low. Yes—cold water. Because I want to tell you—things you will be glad to hear."
"You see, Stephen," she said—and now all her self-possession had returned; "there mustn't be a divorce. I've thought it all out. And there needn't be a divorce."
"Needn't be?"
"No."
"What do you mean?"
"I can stop it."
"But how?"
"I can stop it. I can manage—— I can make a bargain.... It's very sweet, dear Stephen, to be here talking to you again."
She stood up.
"Sit at your desk, my dear," she said. "I'm all right now. That water was good. How good cold things can be! Sit down at your desk and let me sit here. And then I will talk to you. I've had such a time, my dear. Ah!"
She paused and stuck her elbows on the desk and looked me in the eyes. And suddenly that sweet, frank smile of hers swept like sunshine across the wintry desolation of her face. "We've both been having a time," she said. "This odd little world,—it's us with its fists. For such a little. And we were both so ridiculously happy. Do you remember it, the rocks and the sunshine and all those twisted and little plants? And how the boat leaked and you baled it out! And the parting, and how you up that path away from me! A grey figure that stopped and waved—a little figure—such a figure! And then, this storm! this awful hullabaloo! Lawyers, curses, threats——. And Stella Summersley like a Fury of denunciation. What that woman has hidden from me! It must have accumulated.... It's terrible to think, Stephen, how much I must have tried her.... Oh! how far away those Alps are now, Stephen! Like something in another life.... And here we are!—among the consequences."
"But,—you were saying we could stop the divorce."
"Yes. We can. I can. But I wanted to see you,—before I did. Somehow I don't feel lonely with you. I had to see you.... It's good to see you."
She looked me in the face. Her tired eyes lit with a gleam of her former humor.
"Have you thought," she asked, "of all that will happen if there is a divorce?"
"I mean to fight every bit of it."
"They'll beat you."
"We'll see that."
"But they will. And then?"
"Why should one meet disaster half way?"
"Stephen!" she said; "what will happen to you when I am not here to make you look at things? Because I shan't be here. Not within reach of you.... There are times when I feel like a mother to you. Never more than now...."
And then with rapid touches she began to picture the disaster before me. She pictured the Court and our ineffectual denials, she made me realize the storm of that was bound to burst over us. "And think of me," she said. "Stripped I shall be and outcast."
"Not while I live!"
"But what can you do for me? You will have Rachel. How can you stand by me? You can't be cruel to Rachel. You know you can't be cruel to Rachel. Look me in the face, Stephen; tell me. Yes.... Then how can you stand by me?"
"Somehow!" I cried foolishly and stopped.
"They'll use me to break your back with costs and damages. There'll be those children of yours to think of...."
"My God!" I cried aloud. "Why do you
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