The Law and the Lady

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The oppression of the place became unendurable. I longed for the
pure sky and the free air. My companion noticed and understood
me.

"Come," he said. "We have had enough of the house. Let us look at
the grounds."

In the gray quiet of the evening we roamed about the lonely
gardens, and threaded our way through the rank, neglected
shrubberies. Wandering here and wandering there, we drifted into
the kitchen garden--with one little patch still sparely
cultivated by the old man and his wife, and all the rest a
wilderness of weeds. Beyond the far end of the garden, divided
from it by a low paling of wood, there stretched a patch of waste
ground, sheltered on three sides by trees. In one lost corner of
the ground an object, common enough elsewhere, attracted my
attention here. The object was a dust-heap. The great size of it,
and the curious situation in which it was placed, aroused a
moment's languid curiosity in me. I stopped, and looked at the
dust and ashes, at the broken crockery and the old iron. Here
there was a torn hat, and there some fragments of rotten old
boots, and scattered around a small attendant litter of torn
paper and frowzy rags.

"What are you looking at?" asked Mr. Playmore.

"At nothing more remarkable than the dust-heap," I answered.

"In tidy England, I suppose, you would have all that carted away
out of sight," said the lawyer. "We don't mind in Scotland, as
long as the dust-heap is far enough away not to be smelt at the
house. Besides, some of it, sifted, comes in usefully as manure
for the garden. Here the place is deserted, and the rubbish in
consequence has not been disturbed. Everything at Gleninch, Mrs.
Eustace (the big dust-heap included), is waiting for the new
mistress to set it to rights. One of these days you may be queen
here--who knows?"

"I shall never see this place again,"
I said.

"Never is a long day," returned my companion. "And time has its
surprises in store for all of us."

We turned away, and walked back in silence to the park gate, at
which the carriage was waiting.

On the return to Edinburgh, Mr. Playmore directed the
conversation to topics entirely unconnected with my visit to
Gleninch. He saw that my mind stood in need of relief; and he
most good-naturedly, and successfully, exerted himself to amuse
me. It was not until we were close to the city that he touched on
the subject of my return to London.

"Have you decided yet on the day when you leave Edinburgh?" he
asked.

"We leave Edinburgh," I replied, "by the train of to-morrow
morning."

"Do you still see no reason to alter the opinions which you
expressed yesterday? Does your speedy departure mean that?"

"I am afraid it does, Mr. Playmore. When I am an older woman, I
may be a wiser woman. In the meantime, I can only trust to your
indulgence if I still blindly blunder on in my own way."

He smiled pleasantly, and patted my hand--then changed on a
sudden, and looked at me gravely and attentively before he opened
his lips again.

"This is my last opportunity of speaking to you before you go,"
he said. "May I speak freely?"

"As freely as you please, Mr. Playmore. Whatever you may say to
me will only add to my grateful sense of your kindness."

"I have very little to say, Mrs. Eustace--and that little begins
with a word of caution. You told me yesterday that, when you paid
your last visit to Miserrimus Dexter, you went to him alone.
Don't do that again. Take somebody with you."

"Do you think I am in any danger, then?"

"Not in the ordinary sense of the word. I only think that a
friend may be useful in keeping Dexter's audacity (he is one of
the most impudent men living) within proper limits. Then, again,
in case anything worth remembering and acting on _should_ fall
from him in his talk, a friend may be valuable as witness. In
your place, I should have a witness with me who could take
notes--but then I am a lawyer, and my business is to make a fuss
about trifles. Let me only say--go with a companion when you next
visit Dexter; and be on your guard against yourself when your
talk turns on Mrs. Beauly."

"On my guard against myself? What do you mean?"

"Practice, my dear Mrs. Eustace, has given me an eye for the
little weaknesses of human nature. You are (quite naturally)
disposed to be jealous of Mrs. Beauly; and you are, in
consequence, not in full possession of your excellent
common-sense when Dexter uses that lady as a means of
blindfolding you. Am I speaking too freely?"

"Certainly not. It is very degrading to me to be jealous of Mrs.
Beauly. My vanity suffers dreadfully when I think of it. But my
common-sense yields to conviction. I dare say you are right."

"I am delighted to find that we agree on one point," he rejoined,
dryly. "I don't despair yet of convincing you in that far more
serious matter which is still in dispute between us. And, what is
more, if you will throw no obstacles in the way, I look to Dexter
himself to help me."

This aroused my curiosity. How Miserrimus Dexter could help him,
in that or in any other way, was a riddle beyond my reading.

"You propose to repeat to Dexter all that Lady Clarinda told you
about Mrs. Beauly," he went on. "And you think it is likely that
Dexter will be overwhelmed, as you were overwhelmed, when he
hears the story. I am going to venture on a prophecy. I say that
Dexter will disappoint you. Far from showing any astonishment, he
will boldly tell you that you have been duped by a deliberately
false statement of facts, invented and set afloat, in her own
guilty interests, by Mrs. Beauly. Now tell me--if he really try,
in that way, to renew your unfounded suspicion of an innocent
woman, will _that_ shake your confidence in your own opinion?"

"It will entirely destroy my confidence in my own opinion, Mr.
Playmore."

"Very good. I shall expect you to write to me, in any case; and I
believe we shall be of one mind before the week is out. Keep
strictly secret all that I said to you yesterday about Dexter.
Don't even mention my name when you see him. Thinking of him as I
think now, I would as soon touch the hand of the hangman as the
hand of that monster! God bless you! Good-by."

So he said his farewell words, at the door of the hotel. Kind,
genial, clever--but oh, how easily prejudiced, how shockingly
obstinate in holding to his own opinion! And _what_ an opinion! I
shuddered as I thought of it.

CHAPTER XXXV.

MR. PLAYMORE'S PROPHECY.

WE reached London between eight and nine in the evening.
Strictly methodical in all his habits, Benjamin had telegraphed
to his housekeeper, from Edinburgh, to have supper ready or us by
ten o'clock, and to send the cabman whom he always employed to
meet us at the station.

Arriving at the villa, we were obliged to wait for a moment to
let a pony-chaise get by us before we could draw up at Benjamin's
door. The chaise passed very slowly, driven by a rough-looking
man, with a pipe in his mouth. But for the man, I might have
doubted whether the pony was quite a stranger to me. As things
were, I thought no more of the matter.

Benjamin's respectable old housekeeper opened the garden gate,
and startled me by bursting into a devout ejaculation of
gratitude at the sight of her master. "The Lord be praised, sir!"
she cried; "I thought you would never come back!"

"Anything wrong?" asked Benjamin, in his own impenetrably quiet
way.

The housekeeper trembled at the question, and answered in these
enigmatical words:

"My mind's upset, sir; and whether things are wrong or whether
things are right is more than I can say. Hours ago, a strange man
came in and asked"--she stopped, as if she were completely
bewildered--looked for a moment vacantly at her master--and
suddenly addressed herself to me. "And asked," she proceeded,
"when _you_ was expected back, ma'am. I told him what my master
had telegraphed, and the man says upon that, 'Wait a bit,' he
says; 'I'm coming back.' He came back in a minute or less; and he
carried a Thing in his arms which curdled my blood--it did!--and
set me shaking from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot.
I know I ought to have stopped it; but I couldn't stand upon my
legs, much less put the man out of the house. In he went, without
'_with_ your leave,' or '_by_ your leave,' Mr. Benjamin, sir--in
he went, with the Thing in his arms, straight through to your
library. And there It has been all these hours. And there It is
now. I've spoken to the police; but they wouldn't interfere; and
what to do next is more than my poor head can tell. Don't you go
in by yourself, ma'am! You'll be frightened out of your wits--you
will!"

I persisted in entering the house, for all that. Aided by the
pony, I easily solved the mystery of the housekeeper's otherwise
unintelligible narrative. Passing through the dining-room (where
the supper-table was already laid for us), I looked through the
half-opened library door.

Yes, there was Miserrimus Dexter, arrayed in his pink jacket,
fast asleep in Benjamin's favorite arm-chair! No coverlet hid his
horrible deformity. Nothing was sacrificed to conventional ideas
of propriety in his extraordinary dress. I could hardly wonder
that the poor old housekeeper trembled from head to foot when she
spoke of him.

"Valeria," said Benjamin, pointing to the Portent in the chair.
"Which is it--an Indian idol, or a man?"

I have already described Miserrimus Dexter as possessing the
sensitive ear of a dog: he now allowed that he also slept the
light sleep of a dog. Quietly as Benjamin had spoken, the strange
voice aroused him on the instant. He rubbed his eyes, and smiled
as innocently as a waking child.

"How do you do, Mrs. Valeria?" he said. "I have had a nice little
sleep. You don't know how happy I am to see you again. Who is
this?")

He rubbed his eyes once more! and looked at Benjamin. Not knowing
what else to do in this extraordinary emergency, I presented my
visitor to the master of the house.

"Excuse my getting up, sir," said Miserrimus Dexter. "I can't get
up--I have no legs. You look as if you thought I was occupying
your chair? If I am committing an intrusion, be so good as to put
your umbrella under me, and give me a jerk. I shall fall on my
hands, and I shan't be offended with you. I will submit to a
tumble and a scolding--but please don't break my heart by sending
me away. That beautiful woman there can be very cruel sometimes,
sir, when the fit takes her. She went away when I stood in the
sorest need of a little talk with her--she went away, and left me
to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch,
with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well.
Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore
it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for
my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The
air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm
to my wounded heart. She has something to tell me--something that
I am dying to hear. If she is not too tired after her journey,
and if you will let her tell it, I promise to have myself taken
away when she has done. Dear Mr. Benjamin, you look like the
refuge of the afflicted. I am afflicted. Shake hands like a good
Christian, and take me in."

He held out his hand. His soft blue eyes melted into an
expression of piteous entreaty. Completely stupefied by the
amazing harangue of which he had been made the object, Benjamin
took the offered hand, with the air of a man in a dream. "I hope
I see you well, sir," he said, mechanically--and then looked
around at me, to know what he was to do next.

"I understand Mr. Dexter," I whispered. "Leave him to me."

Benjamin stole a last bewildered look at the object in the chair;
bowed to it, with the instinct of politeness which never failed
him; and (still with the air of a man in a dream) withdrew into
the next room.

Left together, we looked at each other, for the first moment, in
silence.

Whether I unconsciously drew on that inexhaustible store of
indulgence which a woman always keeps in reserve for a man who
owns that he has need of her, or whether, resenting as I did Mr.
Playmore's horrible suspicion of him, my heart was especially
accessible to feelings of compassion in his unhappy case, I
cannot tell. I only know that I pitied Miserrimus Dexter at that
moment as I had never pitied him yet; and that I spared him the
reproof which I should certainly have administered to any other
man who had taken the liberty of establishing himself, uninvited,
in Benjamin's house.

He was the first to speak.

"Lady Clarinda has destroyed your confidence in me!" he began,
wildly.

"Lady Clarinda has done nothing of the sort," I replied. "She has
not attempted to influence my opinion. I was really obliged to
leave London, as I told you."

He sighed, and closed his eyes contentedly, as if I had relieved
him of a heavy weight of anxiety.

"Be merciful to me," he said, "and tell me something more. I have
been so miserable in your absence." He suddenly opened his eyes
again, and looked at me with an appearance of the greatest
interest. "Are you very much fatigued by traveling?" he
proceeded. "I am hungry for news of what happened at the Major's
dinner party. Is it cruel of me to tell you so, when you have not
rested after your journey? Only one question to-night, and I will
leave the rest till to-morrow. What did Lady Clarinda say about
Mrs. Beauly? All that you wanted to hear?"

"All, and more," I answered.

"What? what? what?" he cried wild with impatience in a moment.

Mr. Playmore's last prophetic words were vividly present to my
mind. He had declared, in the most positive manner, that Dexter
would persist in misleading me, and would show no signs of
astonishment when I repeated what Lady Clarinda had told me of
Mrs. Beauly. I resolved to put the lawyer's prophecy--so far as
the question of astonishment was concerned--to the sharpest
attainable test. I said not a word to Miserrimus Dexter in the
way of preface or preparation: I burst on him with my news as
abruptly as possible.

"The person you saw in the corridor was not Mrs. Beauly," I said.
"It was the maid, dressed in her mistress's cloak and hat. Mrs.
Beauly herself was not in the house at all. Mrs. Beauly herself
was dancing at a masked ball in Edinburgh. There is what the maid
told Lady Clarinda; and there is what Lady Clarinda told _me._"

In the absorbing interest of the moment, I poured out those words
one after another as fast as they would pass my lips. Miserrimus
Dexter completely falsified the lawyer's prediction. He shuddered
under the shock. His eyes opened wide with amazement. "Say it
again!" he cried. "I can't take it all in at once. You stun me."

I was more than contented with this result--I triumphed in my
victory. For once, I had really some reason to feel satisfied
with myself. I had taken the Christian and merciful side in my
discussion with Mr. Playmore; and I had won my reward. I could
sit in the same room with Miserrimus Dexter, and feel the blessed
conviction that I was not breathing the same air with a poisoner.
Was it not worth the visit to Edinburgh to have made sure of
that?

In repeating, at his own desire, what I had already said to him,
I took care to add the details which made Lady Clarinda's
narrative coherent and credible. He listened throughout with
breathless attention--here and there repeating the words after
me, to impress them the more surely and the more deeply on his
mind.

"What is to be said? what is to be done?" he asked, with a look
of blank despair. "I can't disbelieve it. From first to last,
strange as it is, it sounds true."

(How would Mr. Playmore have felt if he had heard those words? I
did him the justice to believe that he would have felt heartily
ashamed of himself.)

"There is nothing to be said," I rejoined, "except that Mrs.
Beauly is innocent, and that you and I have done her a grievous
wrong. Don't you agree with me?"

"I entirely agree with you," he answered, without an instant's
hesitation. "Mrs. Beauly is an innocent woman. The defense at the
Trial was the right defense after all."

He folded his arms complacently; he looked perfectly satisfied to
leave the matter there.

I was not of his mind. To my own amazement, I now found myself
the least reasonable person of the two!

Miserrimus Dexter (to use the popular phrase) had given me more
than I had bargained for. He had not only done all that I had
anticipated in the way of falsifying Mr. Playmore's
prediction--he had actually advanced beyond my limits. I could go
the length of recognizing Mrs. Beauly's innocence; but at that
point I stopped. If the Defense at the Trial were the right
defense, farewell to all hope of asserting my husband's
innocence. I held to that hope as I held to my love and my life.

"Speak for yourself," I said. "My opinion of the Defense remains
unchanged."

He started, and knit his brows as if I had disappointed and
displeased him.

"Does that mean that you are determined to go on?"

"It does."

He was downright angry with me. He cast his customary politeness
to the winds.

"Absurd! impossible!" he cried, contemptuously. "You have
yourself declared that we wronged an innocent woman when we
suspected Mrs. Beauly. Is there any one else whom we can suspect?
It is ridiculous to ask the question. There is no alternative
left but to accept the facts as they are, and to stir no further
in the matter of the poisoning at Gleninch. It is childish to
dispute plain conclusions. You must give up."

"You may be angry with me if you will, Mr. Dexter. Neither your
anger nor your arguments will make me give up."

He controlled himself by an effort--he was quiet and polite again
when he next spoke to me.

"Very well. Pardon me for a moment if I absorb myself in my own
thoughts. I want to do something which I have not done yet."

"What may that be, Mr. Dexter?"

"I am going to put myself into Mrs. Beauly's skin, and to think
with Mrs. Beauly's mind. Give me a minute. Thank you."

What did he mean? what new transformation of him was passing
before my eyes? Was there ever such a puzzle of a man as this?
Who that saw him now, intently pursuing his new train of thought,
would have recognized him as the childish creature who
had awoke so innocently, and had astonished Benjamin by the
infantine nonsense which he talked? It is said, and said truly,
that there are many sides to every human character. Dexter's many
sides were developing themselves at such a rapid rate of progress
that they were already beyond my counting.

He lifted his head, and fixed a look of keen inquiry on me.

"I have come out of Mrs. Beauly's skin," he announced. "And I
have arrived at this result: We are two impetuous people; and we
have been a little hasty in rushing at a conclusion."

He stopped. I said nothing. Was the shadow of a doubt of him
beginning to rise in my mind? I waited, and listened.

"I am as fully satisfied as ever of the truth of what Lady
Clarinda told you, he proceeded. "But I see, on consideration,
what I failed to see at the time. The story admits of two
interpretations--one on the surface, and another under the
surface. I look under the surface, in your interests; and I say,
it is just possible that Mrs. Beauly may have been cunning enough
to forestall suspicion, and to set up an Alibi."

I am ashamed to own that I did not understand what he meant by
the last word--Alibi. He saw that I was not following him, and
spoke out more plainly.

"Was the maid something more than her mistress's passive
accomplice?" he said. "Was she the Hand that her mistress used?
Was she on her way to give the first dose of poison when she
passed me in this corridor? Did Mrs. Beauly spend the night in
Edinburgh--so as to have her defense ready, if suspicion fell
upon her?"

My shadowy doubt of him became substantial doubt when I heard
that. Had I absolved him a little too readily? Was he really
trying to renew my suspicions of Mrs. Beauly, as Mr. Playmore had
foretold? This time I was obliged to answer him. In doing so, I
unconsciously employed one of the phrases which the lawyer had
used to me during my first interview with him.

"That sounds rather far-fetched, Mr. Dexter," I said.

To my relief, he made no attempt to defend the new view that he
had advanced.

"It is far-fetched," he admitted. "When I said it was just
possible--though I didn't claim much for my idea--I said more for
it perhaps than it deserved. Dismiss my view as ridiculous; what
are you to do next? If Mrs. Beauly is not the poisoner (either by
herself or by her maid), who is? She is innocent, and Eustace is
innocent. Where is the other person whom you can suspect? Have
_I_ poisoned her?" he cried, with his eyes flashing, and his
voice rising to its highest notes. "Do you, does anybody, suspect
Me? I loved her; I adored her; I have never been the same man
since her death. Hush! I will trust you with a secret. (Don't
tell your husband; it might be the destruction of our
friendship.) I would have married her, before she met with
Eustace, if she would have taken me. When the doctors told me she
had died poisoned--ask Doctor Jerome what I suffered; _he_ can
tell you! All through that horrible night I was awake; watching
my opportunity until I found my way to her. I got into the room,
and took my last leave of the cold remains of the angel whom I
loved. I cried over her. I kissed her. for the first and last
time. I stole one little lock of her hair. I have worn it ever
since; I have kissed it night and day. Oh, God! the room comes
back to me! the dead face comes back to me! Look! look!"

He tore from its place of concealment in his bosom a little
locket, fastened by a ribbon around his neck. He threw it to me
where I sat, and burst into a passion of tears.

A man in my place might have known what to do. Being only a
woman, I yielded to the compassionate impulse of the moment.

I got up and crossed the room to him. I gave him back his locket,
and put my hand, without knowing what I was about, on the poor
wretch's shoulder. "I am incapable of suspecting you, Mr.
Dexter," I said, gently. "No such idea ever entered my head. I
pity you from the bottom of my heart."

He caught my hand in his, and devoured it with kisses. His lips
burned me like fire. He twisted himself suddenly in the chair,
and wound his arm around my waist. In the terror and indignation
of the moment, vainly struggling with him, I cried out for help.

The door opened, and Benjamin appeared on the threshold.

Dexter let go his hold of me.

I ran to Benjamin, and prevented him from advancing into the
room. In all my long experience of my fatherly old friend I had
never seen him really angry yet. I saw him more than angry now.
He was pale--the patient, gentle old man was pale with rage! I
held him at the door with all my strength.

"You can't lay your hand on a cripple," I said. Send for the man
outside to take him a way.

I drew Benjamin out of the room, and closed and locked the
library door. The housekeeper was in the dining-room. I sent her
out to call the driver of the pony-chaise into the house.

The man came in--the rough man whom I had noticed when we were
approaching the garden gate. Benjamin opened the library door in
stern silence. It was perhaps unworthy of me, but I could _not_
resist the temptation to look in.

Miserrimus Dexter had sunk down in the chair. The rough man
lifted his master with a gentleness that surprised me. "Hide my
face," I heard Dexter say to him, in broken tones. He opened his
coarse pilot-jacket, and hid his master's head under it, and so
went silently out--with the deformed creature held to his bosom,
like a woman sheltering her child.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

ARIEL.

I PASSED a sleepless night.

The outrage that had been offered to me was bad enough in itself.
But consequences were associated with it which might affect me
more seriously still. In so far as the attainment of the one
object of my life might yet depend on my personal association
with Miserrimus Dexter, an insurmountable obstacle appeared to be
now placed in my way. Even in my husband's interests, ought I to
permit a man who had grossly insulted me to approach me again?
Although I was no prude, I recoiled from the thought of it.

I arose late, and sat down at my desk, trying to summon energy
enough to write to Mr. Playmore--and trying in vain.

Toward noon (while Benjamin happened to be out for a little
while) the housekeeper announced the arrival of another strange
visitor at the gate of the villa.

"It's a woman this time, ma'am--or something like one," said this
worthy person, confidentially. "A great, stout, awkward, stupid
creature, with a man's hat on and a man's stick in her hand. She
says she has got a note for you, and she won't give it to anybody
_but_ you. I'd better not let her in--had I?"

Recognizing the original of the picture, I astonished the
housekeeper by consenting to receive the messenger immediately.

Ariel entered the room--in stolid silence, as usual. But I
noticed a change in her which puzzled me. Her dull eyes were red
and bloodshot. Traces of tears (as I fancied) were visible on her
fat, shapeless cheeks. She crossed the room, on her way to my
chair, with a less determined tread than was customary with her.
Could Ariel (I asked myself) be woman enough to cry? Was it
within the limits of possibility that Ariel should approach me in
sorrow and in fear?

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