The Malefactor [85]
"It is not like that with me," he declared. "My plans were made down in hell."
"God bless my soul!" the lawyer murmured. "But you are not serious, Sir Wingrave?"
"Ay! I'm serious enough," Wingrave answered. "Do you suppose a man, with the best pages of his life rooted out, is likely to look out upon his fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for the opportunity of doing good? Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners and thieves of honest people."
"God bless my soul!" the lawyer gasped again. "I don't think you can be--as bad as you think you are. What about Juliet Lundy?"
Fire flashed in Wingrave's eyes. Again, at the mention of her name, he seemed almost to lose control of himself. It was several moments before he spoke. He looked Mr. Pengarth in the face, and his tone was unusually deliberate.
"Gifts," he said, "are not always given in friendship. Life may easily become a more complicated affair for that child with the Tredowen estates hanging round her neck. And anyhow, I disappoint my next of kin."
Morrison, smooth-footed and silent, appeared upon the lawn. He addressed Wingrave.
"A lady has arrived in a cab from Truro, sir," he announced. "She wishes to see you as soon as convenient."
A sudden light flashed across Wingrave's face, dying out again almost immediately.
"Who is she, Morrison?" he asked.
The man glanced at Mr. Pengarth.
"She did not give her name, sir."
Mr. Pengarth and Wingrave both rose. The former at once made his adieux and took a short cut to the stables. Wingrave, who leaned heavily upon his stick, clutched Morrison by the arm.
"Who is it, Morrison?" he demanded.
"It is Lady Ruth Barrington, sir," the man answered.
"Alone?"
"Quite alone, sir."
FOR PITY'S SAKE
The library at Tredowen was a room of irregular shape, full of angles and recesses lined with bookcases. It was in one of these, standing motionless before a small marble statue of some forgotten Greek poet, that Wingrave found his visitor. She wore a plain serge traveling dress, and the pallor of her face, from which she had just lifted a voluminous veil, matched almost in color the gleaming white marble upon which she was gazing. But when she saw Wingrave, leaning upon his stick, and regarding her with stern surprise, strange lights seemed to flash in her eyes. There was no longer any resemblance between the pallor of her cheeks and the pallor of the statue.
"Lady Ruth," Wingrave said quietly, "I do not understand what has procured for me the pleasure of this unexpected visit."
She swayed a little towards him. Her head was thrown back, all the silent passion of the inexpressible, the hidden secondary forces of nature, was blazing out of her eyes, pleading with him in the broken music of her tone.
"You do not understand," she repeated. "Ah, no! But can I make you understand? Will you listen to me for once as a human being? Will you remember that you are a man, and I a woman pleading for a little mercy--a little kindness?"
Wingrave moved a step further back.
"Permit me," he said, "to offer you a chair."
She sank into it--speechless for a moment. Wingrave stood over her, leaning slightly against the corner of the bookcase.
"I trust," he said, "that you will explain what all this means. If it is my help which you require--"
Her hands flashed out towards him--a gesture almost of horror.
"Don't," she begged, "you know that it is not that! You know very well that it is not. Why do you torture me?"
"I can only ask you," he said, "to explain."
She commenced talking quickly. Her sentences came in little gasps.
"You wanted revenge--not in the ordinary way. You had brooded over it too long. You understood too well. Once it was I who sought to revenge myself on you because you would not listen to me! You hurt my pride. Everything that