 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Daniel Duranda by George Elliott Dante Il Purgatorio I shall never like to see the Mediterranean again," said Gwendolyn to her mother, who thought that she quite understood her child's feeling, even in her tacit prohibition of any express reference to her late husband. Mrs. Davolo, indeed, though compelled formally to regard this time as one of severe calamity, was virtually enjoying her life more than she had ever done since her daughter's marriage. It seemed that her darling was brought back to her not merely with all the old affection, but with a conscious cherishing of her mother's nearness, such as we give to a possession that we have been on the brink of losing. Are you there, Mama? cried Gwendolyn in the middle of the night. A bed had been made for her mother in the same room with hers, very much as she would have done in her early girlhood if she had felt frightened and lying awake. Yes, dear, can I do anything for you? No, thank you. Only I like so to know you were there. Do you mind my waking you? This question would hardly have been in Gwendolyn's in her early girlhood. I was not asleep, darling. It seemed not real that you were with me. I wanted to make it real. I can bear things if you are with me. But you must not lie awake, anxious about me. You must be happy now. You must let me make you happy now at last. Else what shall I do? God bless you, dear. I have the best happiness I can have when you make much of me. But the next night, hearing that she was sighing and restless, Mrs. Davilo said, Let me give you your sleeping-draft, Gwendolyn. No, Mama, thank you. I don't want to sleep. It would be so good for you to sleep more, my darling. Don't say what would be good for me, Mama," Gwendolyn answered impetuously. You don't know what would be good for me. You and my uncle must not contradict me and tell me anything is good for me when I feel it is not good. Mrs. Davilo was silent, not wondering that the poor child was irritable. Presently Gwendolyn said, I was always naughty to you, Mama. No, dear, no. Yes, I was, said Gwendolyn insistently. It is because I was always wicked that I am miserable now. She burst into sobs and cries, the determination to be silent about all the facts of her married life and its clothes, reacted in these escapes of enigmatic excitement. But dim lights of interpretation were breaking on the mother's mind through the information that came from Sir Hugo to Mr. Gasquan, and with some omissions from Mr. Gasquan to herself. The good-natured baronet, while he was attending to all decent measures in relation to his nephew's death, and the possible washing ashore of the body, thought at the kindest thing he could do to use his present friendly intercourse with the rector as an opportunity for communicating with him, in the mildest way, the purport of Grand Court's will, so as to save him the additional shock that would be in store for him if he carried his illusions all the way home. Perhaps Sir Hugo would have been communicable enough without that kind of motive, but he really felt the motive. He broke the unpleasant news to the rector by degrees. At first he only implied his fear that the widow was not so splendidly provided for as Mr. Gasquan, as the baronet himself had expected. And only at last, after some previous vague reference to large claims on Grand Court, he disclosed the prior relations which, in the unfortunate absence of a legitimate heir, had determined all the splendor in another direction. The rector was deeply hurt, and remembered more vividly than he had ever done before how offensively proud and repelling the manners of the deceased had been toward him. Remembered also that he himself, in that interesting period just before the arrival of the new occupant at Diplo, had received hints of former entangling dissipations and an undue addiction to pleasure, though he had not foreseen that the pleasure which had probably, so to speak, been swept into private rubbish heaps would ever present itself as an array of live caterpillars disastrous to the green meat of respectable people. But he did not make these retrospective thoughts audible to Sir Hugo or lower himself by expressing any indignation on merely personal grounds, but behaved like a man of the world who had become a conscientious clergyman. His first remark was, When a young man makes his will in health he usually counts on living a long while. Probably Mr. Grandcourt did not believe that this would ever have its present effect. After a moment he added, The effect is painful in more ways than one. Female morality is likely to suffer from this marked advantage and prominence being given to illegitimate offspring. Well, in point of fact said Sir Hugo in his comfortable way. Since the boy is there, this was really the best alternative for the disposal of the estates. Grandcourt had nobody nearer than his cousin, and it's a chilling thought that you go out of this life only for the benefit of a cousin. A man gets a little pleasure in making his will if it's for the good of his own curly heads, but it's a nuisance when you're giving the bequeathing to a used up fellow like yourself, and one you don't care too straws for. It's the next worst thing to having only a life interest in your estates. No, I forgive Grandcourt for that part of his will. But between ourselves what I don't forgive him for is the shabby way he is provided for your niece, our niece I will say, no better a position than if she had been a doctor's widow. Nothing grates on me more than that posthumous grudgingness toward a wife. A man ought to have some pride and fondness for his widow. I should, I know. I take it as a test of a man that he feels the easier about his death when he can think of his wife and daughters being comfortable after it. I like that story of the fellows in the Crimean War who were ready to go to the bottom of the sea if their widows were provided for. It has certainly taken me by surprise, said Mr. Gasquan, all the more because, as the one who stood in the place of father to my niece, I had shown my reliance on Mr. Grandcourt's apparent liberality in money matters by making no claims for her beforehand. That seemed to me due to him under the circumstances. Probably you think me blamable. Not blamable exactly. I respect a man for trusting another. But take my advice, if you marry another niece, though it may be to the archbishop of Canterbury, bind him down. Your niece can't be married for the first time twice over, and if he's a good fellow he'll wish to be bound. But as to Mrs. Grandcourt, I can only say that I feel my relation to her all the nearer because I think that she has not been well treated. And I hope you will urge her to rely on me as a friend. Thus spake the chivalrous Sir Hugo in his disgust at the young and beautiful widow of a Malinger Grandcourt being left with only two thousand a year and a house in a coal-mining district. To the rector that income naturally appeared less shabby and less accompanied with mortifying privations. But in this conversation he had devoured a much keener sense than the baronettes of the humiliation cast over his niece and also over her nearest friends by the conspicuous publishing of her husband's relation to Mrs. Glasher. And like all men who are good husbands and fathers he felt the humiliation through the minds of the women who would be chiefly affected by it so that the annoyance of first hearing the facts was far sliter than what he felt in communicating them to Mrs. Davolo and in anticipating Gwendolyn's feeling whenever her mother saw fit to tell her of them. For the good rector had an innocent conviction that his niece was unaware of Mrs. Glasher's existence, arguing with masculine soundness from what maidens and wives were likely to know, do, and suffer, and having had a most perfect observation of the particular maiden and wife in question. Not so Gwendolyn's mother, who now thought that she saw an explanation of much that had been enigmatic in her child's conduct and words before and after her engagement, concluding that in some inconceivable way Gwendolyn had been informed of this left-handed marriage and the existence of the children. She trusted to opportunities that would arise in moments of affectionate confidence before and during their journey to England when she might gradually learn how far the actual state of things was clear to Gwendolyn and prepare her for anything that might be a disappointment. But she was spared from devices on the subject I hope you don't expect that I'm going to be rich and grand-mama, said Gwendolyn, not long after the rector's communication. Perhaps I shall have nothing at all. She was dressed and had been sitting long in quiet meditation. Mrs. Davolo was startled, but said after a moment's reflection, Oh yes, dear, you will have something. Sir Hugo knows all about the will. That will not decide, said Gwendolyn abruptly. Surely, dear, Sir Hugo says you are to have two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere. What I have will depend on what I accept, said Gwendolyn. You and my uncle must not attempt to cross me and persuade me about this. I will do everything I can do to make you happy. But in anything about my husband I must not be interfered with. Is eight hundred a year enough for you, mama? More than enough, dear. You must not think of giving me so much. Mrs. Davolo paused a little and then said, Do you know who is to have the estate send the rest of the money? Yes, said Gwendolyn, waving her hand in dismissal of the subject. I know everything. It is all perfectly right and I wish never to have it mentioned. The mother was silent, looked away, and rose to fetch a fan-screen with a slight flush on her delicate cheeks, wondering, imagining she did not like to meet her daughter's eyes and sat down again under a sad constraint. What wretchedness her child had perhaps gone through, which yet must remain as it always had been, locked away from their mutual speech. But Gwendolyn was watching her mother with that new divination which experience had given her and in tender relenting at her own peremptoriness said, Come and sit nearer to me, mama, and don't be unhappy. Mrs. Davolo did as she was told, but bit her lips in the vain attempt to hinder smarting tears. Gwendolyn leaned toward her caressingly and said, I mean to be very wise, I do, really, and good. Oh, so good to you, dear old sweet mama, you won't know me. Only you must not cry. The resolve that Gwendolyn had in her mind was that she would ask Doronda whether she ought to accept any of her husband's money, whether she might accept what would enable her to provide for her mother. The poor thing felt strong enough to do anything that would give her a higher place in Doronda's mind. An invitation that Sir Hugo pressed on her with kind urgency was that she and Mrs. Davolo should go straight with him to Park Lane and make his house there abode as long as mourning and other details needed attending to in London. Town, he insisted, was just then the most retired of places, and he proposed to exert himself at once in getting all articles belonging to Gwendolyn away from the house in Grossvenor Square. No proposal could have suited her better than this of staying a little while in Park Lane. It would be easy for her there to have an interview with Doronda if she only knew how to get a letter into his hands asking him to come to her. During the journey Sir Hugo, having understood that she was acquainted with the purport of her husband's will, ventured to talk before her and to her about her future arrangements, referring here and there to mildly agreeable prospects as matters of course, and otherwise shedding a decorous cheerfulness over her widowed position. It seemed to him really the more graceful course for a widow to recover her spirits on finding that her husband had not dealt as handsomely by her as he might have done. It was the testator's fault if he compromised all her grief at his departure by giving a testamentary reason for it so that she might be supposed to look sad, not because he had left her, but because he had left her poor. The baronet having his kindliness doubly fanned by the favorable wind on his fortunes and by compassion for Gwendolyn had become quite fatherly in his behavior to her, called her my dear, and in mentioning Gadsmere to Mr. Gasguan with its various advantages and disadvantages spoke of what we might do to make the best of that property. Gwendolyn sat by in pale silence while Sir Hugo with his face turned toward Mrs. Davolo or Mr. Gasguan, conjectured that Mrs. Grandcourt might perhaps prefer letting Gadsmere to residing there during any part of the year, in which case he thought that it might be leased on capital terms to one of the fellows engaged with the coal. Sir Hugo had seen enough of the place to know that it was as comfortable and picturesque a box as any man need desire, providing his desires were circumscribed within a coal area. I shouldn't mind about the soot myself, said the baronet, with that dispassionateness which belongs to the potential mood. Nothing is more healthy, and if one's business lay there Gadsmere would be a paradise. It makes quite a feature in Skrog's history of the county, with the little tower and the fine piece of water, the prettiest print in the book. A more important place than often dean, I suppose, said Mr. Gasguan. Much, said the baronet decisively, I was there with my poor brother. It is more than a quarter of a century ago, but I remember it very well. The rooms may not be larger, but the grounds are on a different scale. Our poor dear often dean is empty after all, said Mrs. Davolo. When it came to the point, Mr. Haynes declared off, and there's been no one to take it since. I might as well have accepted Lord Brackenshaw's kind offer that I should remain in it another year rent-free, for I should have kept the place aired and warmed. I hope you've something snug instead, said Sir Hugo. A little too snug, said Mr. Gasguan, smiling at his sister-in-law. You are rather thick upon the ground. Gwendolyn had turned with a changed glance when her mother spoke of often dean being empty. This conversation passed during one of the long unaccountable pauses often experienced in foreign trains at some country station. There was a dreamy, sunny stillness over the hedgeless fields stretching to the boundary of poplars, and to Gwendolyn the talk within the carriage seemed only to make the dreamland larger with an indistinct region of coal pits and a purgatorial gadsmere which she would never visit. To let her mother's words this mingled, dozing view seemed to dissolve and give way to a more wakeful vision of often dean and penicote under their cooler lights. She saw the gray shoulders of the downs, the cattle-speckled fields, the shadowy plantations with rutted lanes where the barked timber lay for a wayside seat. The neatly clipped hedges on the road from the parsonage to often dean, the avenue where she was gradually discerned from the window, the hall door opening, and her mother or one of the troublesome sisters coming out to meet her. All that brief experience of a quiet home which had once seemed a dullness to be fled from now came back to her as a restful escape, a station where she found the breath of mourning and the unreproaching voice of God and the voice of God and the voice of God and the voice of God as those sinking birds after following a lure through a long satanic masquerade which she had entered on with an intoxicated belief in its disguises and had seen the end of in shrieking fear, lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who were dropping their human murmury and hissing around her with serpent tongues. In this way Gwendolyn's mind paused over often Dean thoughts. But she gave no further outward sign of interest in this conversation any more than in Sir Hugo's opinion on the telegraphic cable or her uncle's views of the Church Rate Abolition Bill. What subjects will not our talk embrace in leisurely day journeying from Genoa to London? Even strangers, after glancing from China to Peru and opening their mental stores with a liberality threatening a mutual impression of poverty on any future meeting, are liable to become excessively confidential. But the baronet and the rector were under a still stronger pressure toward cheerful communication. They were like acquaintances compelled to a long drive and a morning coach, who having first remarked that the occasion is a melancholy one, naturally proceed to enliven it by the most miscellaneous discourse. I don't mind telling you, said Sir Hugo, to the rector, in mentioning some private details, while the rector, without saying so, did not mind telling the baronet about his sons and the difficulty of placing them in the world. By the dint of discussing all persons and things within driving reach of Diplo, Sir Hugo got himself wrought to a pitch of interest in that former home, and of conviction that it was his pleasant duty to regain and strengthen his personal influence in the neighborhood that made him declare his intention of taking his family to the place for a month or two before the autumn was over, and to Mr. Gasguan cordially rejoiced in that prospect. Altogether the journey was continued and ended with mutual liking between the male fellow-travelers. Meanwhile, Gwendolyn sat by, like one who had visited the spirit world and was full to the lips of an unutterable experience, that threw a strange unreality over all the talk she was hearing of her own and the world's business. And Mrs. Davolo was chiefly occupied in imagining what her daughter was feeling, and in wondering what was signified by her hinted doubt whether she would accept her husband's bequest. Gwendolyn, in fact, had before her the unsealed wall of an immediate purpose shutting off every other resolution. How to scale the wall? She wanted again to see and consult Duranda that she might secure herself against any act he would disapprove. Would her remorse have maintained its power within her, or would she have felt absolved by secrecy if it had not been for that outer conscience which was made for her by Duranda? It is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we were secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the breathing medium of all our joy, who brings to us with close pressure an immediate sequence that judgment of the invisible and universal which self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and disperse. In this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and in his opinion which was pierced even to the joints and marrow may be our virtue in the making. That mission of Duranda to Gwendolyn had begun with what she had felt to be his judgment of her at the gaming table. He might easily have spoiled it. Much of our lives has spent in marring our own influence and turning others' belief in us into a widely concluding unbelief which they call knowledge of the world, while it is really disappointment in you or me. Duranda had not spoiled his mission. But Gwendolyn had forgotten to ask him for his address in case she wanted to write, and her only way of reaching him was through Sir Hugo. She was not in the least blind to the construction that all witnesses might put on her giving signs of dependence on Duranda, and her seeking him more than he sought her. Grandcourts rebukes had sufficiently enlightened her pride. But the force, the tenacity of her nature had thrown itself into that dependence, and she would no more let go her hold on Duranda's help or deny herself the interview her soul needed because of witnesses than if she had been in prison in danger of being condemned to death. When she was in Park Lane and knew that the baronet would be going down to the Abbey immediately, just to see his family for a couple of days and then return to transact needful business for Gwendolyn, he said to him without any air of hesitation while her mother was present. Sir Hugo, I wish to see Mr. Duranda again as soon as possible. I don't know his address. Will you tell it me or let him know that I want to see him? A quick thought passed across Sir Hugo's face, but made no difference to the ease with which he said, upon my word I don't know whether he's at his chambers or at the Abbey at this moment, but I'll make sure of him. I'll send a note now to his chambers telling him to come, and if he's at the Abbey I can give him your message and send him up at once. I am sure he will want to obey your wish. The baronet ended, with grave kindness as if nothing could seem to him more in the appropriate course of things than that she should send such a message. But he was convinced that Gwendolyn had a passionate attachment to Duranda, the seeds of which had been laid long ago, and his former suspicion now recurred to him with more strength than ever, that her feeling was likely to lead her into imprudences, in which kind-hearted Sir Hugo was determined to screen and defend her as far as lay in his power. To him it was as pretty a story as need be that this fine creature and his favorite dan should have turned out to be formed for each other, and that the unsuitable husband should have made his exit in such excellent time. Sir Hugo liked that a charming woman should be made as happy as possible. In truth what most vexed his mind in this matter at present was a doubt whether the two lofty and inscrutable Dan had not got some scheme or other in his head, which would prove to be dearer to him than the lovely Mrs. Grandcourt, and put that neatly prepared marriage with her out of the question. It was among the usual paradoxes of feeling that Sir Hugo, who had given his fatherly cautions to Duranda against too much tenderness in his relations with the bride, should now feel rather irritated against him by the suspicion that he had not fallen in love as he ought to have done. Of course all this thinking on Sir Hugo's part was eminently premature, only a fortnight or so after Grandcourt's death, but it is the trick of thinking to be either premature or behindhand. However, he sent the note to Duranda's chambers, and it found him there. End of Chapter 64 This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Daniel Duranda by George Elliott Chapter 65 Oh, welcome, pure-eyed faith, white-handed hope, thou hovering angel girt with golden wings. Milton. Duranda did not obey Gwendolyn's new summons without some agitation. Not his vanity, but his keen sympathy made him susceptible to the danger that another's heart might feel larger demands on him than he would be able to fulfill. And it was no longer a matter of argument with him, but of penetrating consciousness that Gwendolyn's soul clung to his with a passionate need. We do not argue the existence of the anger or the scorn that thrills through us in a voice. We simply feel it, and it admits of no disproof. Duranda felt this woman's destiny hanging on his over a precipice of despair. Anyone who knows him cannot wonder at his inward confession that if all this had happened little more than a year ago he would hardly have asked himself whether he loved her. The impetuous determining impulse which would have moved him would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life forevermore from the dangers of loneliness, and carry out to the last the rescue he had begun in that monetary redemption of the necklace. But now love and duty had thrown other bonds around him, and that impulse could no longer determine his life. Still it was present in him as a compassionate yearning, a painful quivering at the very imagination of having again and again to meet the appeal of her eyes and words. The very strength of the bond, the certainty of the resolve that kept him asunder from her, made him gaze at her lot apart with a more aching pity. He awaited her coming in the back drawing-room, part of that white and crimson space where they had sat together at the musical party, where Gwendolyn had said for the first time that her lot depended on his not forsaking her, and her appeal had seemed to melt into the melodic cry, per pietà non dirmi adio. But the melody had come from Myra's dear voice. Duranda walked about this room, which he had for years known by heart, with a strange sense of metamorphosis in his own life. The familiar objects around him, from Lady Malinger's gently smiling portrait, to the also human and urbane faces of the lions on the pilasters of the chimney-piece, seemed almost to belong to a previous state of existence, which he was revisiting in memory only, not in reality. So deep and transforming had been the impressions he had lately experienced. So new were the conditions under which he found himself in the house he had been accustomed to think of as a home, standing with his hat in his hand, awaiting the entrance of a young creature whose life had also been undergoing a transformation, a tragic transformation toward a wavering result in which he felt with apprehensiveness that his own action was still bound up. But Gwendolyn was come in, looking changed, not only by her mourning dress, but by a more satisfied, quietude of expression than he had seen in her face at Genoa. Her satisfaction was that Deronda was there, but there was no smile between them as they met and clasped hands. Each was full of remembrance, full of anxious provision. She said, It was good of you to come. Let us sit down. Immediately seating herself in the nearest chair. He placed himself opposite to her. I begged you to come because I want you to tell me what I ought to do, she began at once. Don't be afraid of telling me what you think is right because it seems hard. I have made up my mind to do it. I was afraid once of being poor. I could not bear to think of being under other people. And that was why I did something. Why I married. I have borne worse things now. I think I could bear to be poor if you think I ought. Do you know about my husband's will? Yes, Sir Hugo told me, said Deronda, already guessing the question she had to ask. Auti, to take anything he has left me. I will tell you what I have been thinking, said Gwendolyn, with a more nervous energy. Perhaps you may not quite know that I really did think a good deal about my mother when I married. I was selfish, but I did love her and feel about her poverty. And what comforted me most at first when I was miserable was her being better off because I had married. The thing that would be hardest to me now would be to see her in poverty again. And I have been thinking that if I took enough to provide for her, and no more, nothing for myself, it would not be wrong. For I was very precious to my mother, and he took me from her, and he meant, and if she had known— Gwendolyn broke off. She had been preparing herself for this interview by thinking of hardly anything else than this question of right toward her mother. But the question had carried with it thoughts and reasons which it was impossible for her to utter. And these perilous remembrances swarmed between her words, making her speech more and more agitated and tremulous. She looked down helplessly at her hands, now unladen of all rings except her wedding ring. Do not hurt yourself by speaking of that, said Deronda tenderly. There is no need. The case is very simple. I think I can hardly judge wrongly about it. You consult me because I am the only person to whom you have confided the most painful part of your experience, and I can understand your scruples. He did not go on immediately, waiting for her to recover herself. The silence seemed to Gwendolyn full of the tenderness that she heard in his voice, and she had courage to lift up her eyes and look at him as he said. You are conscious of something which you feel to be a crime toward one who is dead. You think that you have forfeited all claim as a wife. You shrink from taking what was his. You want to keep yourself from profiting by his death. Your feeling even urges you to some self punishment, some scourging of the self that disobeyed your better will, the will that struggled against temptation. I have known something of that myself. Do I understand you? Yes, at least. I want to be good. Not like what I have been, said Gwendolyn. I will try to bear what you think I ought to bear. I have tried to tell you the worst about myself. What ought I to do? If no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income, said Deronda, I should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful prompting. But I take as a guide now your feeling about Mrs. Davila, which seems to me quite just. I cannot think that your husband's dues, even to yourself, are nullified by any act you have committed. He voluntarily entered into your life and affected its course in what is always the most momentous way. But setting that aside, it was due from him in his position that he should provide for your mother. And he, of course, understood that if this will took effect she would share the provision he had made for you. She has had eight hundred a year. What I thought of was to take that and leave the rest, said Gwendolyn. She had been so long inwardly arguing for this as a permission that her mind could not at once take another attitude. I think it is not your duty to fix a limit in that way, said Deronda. You would be making a painful enigma for Mrs. Davila, an income from which you shut yourself out must be embittered to her. And your own course would become too difficult. We agreed at Genoa that the burden on your conscience is one what no one ought to be admitted to the knowledge of. The future beneficence of your life will be best furthered by your saving all others from the pain of that knowledge. In my opinion you ought simply to abide by the provisions of your husband's will and let your remorse tell only on the use that you will make of your monetary independence. In uttering the last sentence Deronda automatically took up his hat which he had laid on the floor beside him. Gwendolyn, sensitive to his slightest movement, felt her heart giving a great leap as if it too had a consciousness of its own and would hinder him from going. In the same moment she rose from her chair unable to reflect that the movement was an acceptance of his apparent intention to leave her. And Deronda, of course, also rose, advancing a little. I will do what you tell me, said Gwendolyn hurriedly. But what else shall I do? No other than these simple words were possible to her, and even these were too much for her in a state of emotion where her proud secrecy was disenthroned. As the childlike sentences fell from her lips they reacted on her like a picture of her own helplessness, and she could not check the sob which sent the large tears to her eyes. Deronda, too, felt a crushing pain, but imminent consequences were visible to him and urged him to the utmost exertion of conscience. When she had pressed her tears away he said, In a gently questioning tone, you will probably be soon going with Mrs. Davolo into the country. Yes, in a week or ten days, Gwendolyn waited an instant, turning her eyes vaguely toward the window as if looking at some imagined prospect. I want to be kind to them all. They can be happier than I can. Is that the best I can do? I think so. It is a duty that cannot be doubtful, said Deronda. He paused a little between his sentences, feeling a weight of anxiety on all his words. Other duties will spring from it. Looking at your life as a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance, but it cannot really be so. What makes life dreary is the want of motive. But once beginning to act with that penitential loving purpose you have in your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions. There will be newly opening needs continually coming to carry you on from day to day. You will find your life growing like a plant. Gwendolyn turned her eyes on him with the look of one a thirst toward the sound of unseen waters. Deronda felt the look as if she had been stretching her arms toward him from a forsaken shore. His voice took an affectionate imploringness when he said, This sorrow which has cut down to the root has come to you while you are so young. Try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as a preparation for it. Let it be a preparation. Anyone overhearing his tones would have thought he was in treating for his own happiness. See, you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come from your marriage, which you feel was wrong. You have had a vision of injurious selfish action, a vision of possible degradation. Think that a severe angel seeing you along the road of error grasped you by the wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. And it has come to you in your springtime. Think of it as a preparation. You can, you will be among the best of women, such as make others glad that they were born. The words were like the touch of a miraculous hand to Gwendolyn. Mingled emotions streamed through her frame with a strength that seemed the beginning of a new existence, having some new power or other which stirred in her vaguely. So pregnant is the divine hope of moral recovery with the energy that fulfills it. So potent in us is the infused action of another soul before which we bow in complete love. But the new existence seemed inseparable from Duranda. The hope seemed to make his presence permanent. It was not her thought that he loved her and would cling to her. A thought would have tottered with improbability. It was her spiritual breath. For the first time since that terrible moment on the sea, a flush rose and spread over her cheek, brow, and neck, deepened an instant or two, and then gradually disappeared. She did not speak. Duranda advanced and put out his hand, saying, I must not weary you. She was startled by the sense that he was going and put her hand in his, still without speaking. You look ill yet, unlike yourself, he added while he held her hand. I can't sleep much, she answered, with some return of her dispirited manner. Things repeat themselves in me so. They come back. They will all come back. She ended shudderingly, a chill fear threatening her. By degrees they will be less insistent, said Duranda. He could not drop her hand or move away from her abruptly. Sir Hugo says he shall come to stay at Diplo, said Gwendolyn, snatching at previously intended words which had slipped away from her. You will come, too? Probably, said Duranda, and then feeling that the word was cold, he added, correctively. Yes, I shall come. And then released her hand with the final friendly pressure of one who has virtually said good-bye. And not again here, before I leave town, said Gwendolyn, with timid sadness, looking as pallid as ever. What could Duranda say? If I can be of any use, if you wish me, certainly I will. I must wish it, said Gwendolyn, impetuously. You know I must wish it. What strength have I? Who else is there? Again a sob was rising. Duranda felt a pang which showed itself in his face. He looked miserable, as he said. I will certainly come. Gwendolyn perceived the change in his face, but the intense relief of expecting him to come again could not give way to any other feeling, and there was a recovery of the inspired hope and courage in her. Don't be unhappy about me, she said, in a tone of affectionate assurance. I shall remember your words, every one of them. I shall remember what you believe about me. I shall try. She looked at him firmly, and put out her hand again, as if she had forgotten what had passed since those words of his which she promised to remember. But there was no approach to a smile on her lips. She had never smiled since her husband's death. When she stood still and in silence, she looked like a melancholy statue of the Gwendolyn whose laughter had once been so ready when others were grave. It is only by remembering the searching anguish which had changed the aspect of the world for her that we can understand her behavior to Duranda, the unreflecting openness, nay the important pleading with which she expressed her dependence on him. Considerations such as what have filled the minds of indifferent spectators could not occur to her any more than if flames had been mounting around her, and she had flung herself into his open arms and clung about his neck that he might carry her to safety. She identified him with the struggling regenerative process in her which had begun with his action. Is it any wonder that she saw her own necessity reflected in his feeling? She was in that state of unconscious reliance and expectation which is a common experience with us when we are preoccupied with our own trouble or our own purposes. We diffuse our feeling over others and count on their acting from our motives. Her imagination had not been turned to a future union with Duranda by any other than the spiritual tie which had been continually strengthening, but also it had not been turned toward a future separation from him. Lovemaking and marriage? How could they be the imagery in which poor Gwendolyn's deepest attachment could spontaneously clothe itself? Mighty love had laid his hand upon her, but what had he demanded of her? Acceptance of rebuke, the hard task of self-change, confession, endurance. If she cried toward him what then? She cried as the child cries whose little feet have fallen backward, cried to be taken by the hand lest she should lose herself. The cry pierced Duranda. What position could have been more difficult for a man full of tenderness yet with clear foresight? He was the only creature who knew the real nature of Gwendolyn's trouble. To withdraw himself from any appeal of hers would be to consign her to a dangerous loneliness. He could not reconcile himself to the cruelty of apparently rejecting her dependence on him, and yet in the nearer or farther distance he saw a coming wrench which all present strengthening of their bond would make the harder. He was obliged to risk that. He went once and again to park Lane before Gwendolyn left, but their interviews were in the presence of Mrs. Davolo and were therefore less agitating. Gwendolyn, since she had determined to accept her income, had conceived a project which she liked to speak of. It was, to place her mother and sisters with herself in Offendin again, and, as she said, peace back her life unto that time when they first went there, and when everything was happiness about her, only she did not know it. The idea had been mentioned to Sir Hugo, who was going to exert himself about the letting of Gadsmere for a rent which would more than pay the rent of Offendin. All this was told to Duranda, who willingly dwelt on a subject that seemed to give some soothing occupation to Gwendolyn. He said nothing, and she said nothing, of what chiefly occupied himself. Her mind was fixed on his coming to Diplo before the autumn was over, and she no more thought of the Lapidothes, the little Jewess and her brother, as likely to make a difference in her destiny than of the fermenting political and social leaven which was making a difference in the history of the world. In fact, poor Gwendolyn's memory had been stunned, and all outside the lava-lit track of her troubled conscience, and her effort to get deliverance from it, lay for her in dim forgetfulness. CHAPTER 66 One day still fierce mid-many a day struck calm, browning the King and the Book. Meanwhile Ezra and Myra, whom Gwendolyn did not include in her thinking about Duranda, were having their relation to him drawn closer and brought into fuller light. The father Lapidoth had quitted his daughter at the doorstep, ruled by that possibility of staking something in play of betting which presented itself with the handling of any sum beyond the price of staying actual hunger, and left no care for alternative prospects or resolutions. Until he had lost everything, he never considered whether he would apply to Myra again, or whether he would brave his son's presence. In the first moment he had shrunk from encountering Ezra as he would have shrunk from any other situation of disagreeable constraint, and the possession of Myra's purse was enough to banish the thought of future necessities. The gambling appetite is more absolutely dominant than bodily hunger, which can be neutralized by an emotional or intellectual excitation. But the passion for watching chances, the habitual, suspensive poise of the mind in actual or imaginary play, nullifies the susceptibility of other excitation. In its final imperious stage it seems the unjoyous dissipation of demons seeking diversion on the burning moral of perdition. But every form of selfishness, however abstract and nonhuman, requires the support of at least one meal a day, and though Lapidoth's appetite for food and drink was extremely moderate, he had slipped into a shabby, unfriendly form of life in which the appetite could not be satisfied without some ready money. When, in a brief visit at a house which announced pyramids on the window-blind, he had first doubled and trebled and finally lost Myra's thirty showings, he went out with her empty purse in his pocket, already balancing in his mind whether he should get another immediate stake by pawning the purse, or whether he should go back to her, giving himself a good countenance by restoring the purse, and declaring that he had used the money in paying a score that was standing against him. Besides, among the sensibility still left strong in Lapidoth was the sensibility to his own claims, and he appeared to himself to have a claim on any property his children might possess, which was stronger than the justice of his son's resentment. After all, to take up his lodging with his children was the best thing he could do, and the more he thought of meeting Ezra the less he winced from it, his imagination being more wrought on by the chances of his getting something into his pocket with safety and without exertion, than by the threat of a private humiliation. Luck had been against him lately, he expected it to turn, and might not the turn begin with some opening of supplies which would present itself through his daughter's affairs and the good friend she had spoken of. Lapidoth counted on the fascination of his cleverness, an old habit of mind which early experience had sanctioned, and it is not only women who are unaware of their diminished charm, or imagine that they can feign not to be worn out. The result of Lapidoth's rapid balancing was that he went toward the little square in Brompton with the hope that, by walking about and watching, he might catch sight of Myra going out or returning, in which case his entrance into the house would be made easier. But it was already evening, the evening of the day next to that which he had first seen her, and after a little waiting, weariness made him reflect that he might ring, and if she were not at home he might ask the time at which she was expected. But on coming near the house he knew that she was at home. He heard her singing. Myra seated at the piano was pouring forth, hers, mine, hers. While Ezra was listening with his eyes shut, when Mrs. Adam opened the door and said in some embarrassment, a gentleman below says he is your father, Miss. I will go down to him, said Myra, starting up immediately and looking at her brother. No, Myra, not so, said Ezra with decision. Let him come up, Mrs. Adam. Myra stood with her hands pinching each other and feeling sick with anxiety while she continued looking at Ezra, who had also risen and was evidently much shaken. But there was an expression in his face which she had never seen before. His brow was knit, his lips seemed hardened with the same severity that gleamed from his eye. When Mrs. Adam opened the door to let in the father, she could not help casting a look at the group, and after glancing from the younger man to the elder, said to herself as she closed the door, Father, sure enough. The likeness was that of outline which is always most striking at the first moment. The expression had been wrought into the strongest contrast by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can make the genius of a cromwell within the outward type of a father who was no more than a respectable parishioner. Lapidoth had put on a melancholy expression beforehand, but there was some real wincing in his frame, as he said. Well, Ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years. I know you too well, Father, said Ezra, with a slow, biting solemnity which made the word father a reproach. Ah, you are not pleased with me. I don't wonder at it. Appearances have been against me. When a man gets into straits he can't do just as he would by himself or anybody else. I've suffered enough, I know, said Lapidoth quickly. In speaking he always recovered some glibness and hardy-hood, and now turning toward Myra he held out her purse, saying, Here's your little purse, my dear. I thought you'd be anxious about it because of that bit of writing. I've emptied it, you'll see, for I had a score to pay for food and lodging. I knew you would like me to clear myself, and here I stand, without a single farthing in my pocket, at the mercy of my children. You can turn me out, if you like, without getting a policeman. Say the word, Myra. Say, Father, I've had enough of you. You made a pet of me and spent your all on me when I couldn't have done without you, but I can do better without you now. Say that, and I'm gone out like a spark. I shan't spoil your pleasure again. The tears were in his voice, as usual, before he had finished. You know I could never say it, Father, answered Myra, with not the less anguish because she felt the falsity of everything in his speech except the implied wish to remain in the house. Myra, my sister, leave us, said Ezra, in a tone of authority. She looked at her brother falteringly, beseechingly, in awe of his decision, yet unable to go without making a plea for this father who was like something that had grown in her flesh with pain. She went close to her brother, and putting her hand in his said in a low voice, but not so low as to be unheard by Lapidoth. Remember, Ezra, you said my mother would not have shot him out. Trust me, and go, said Ezra. She left the room, but after her going a few steps up the stairs, sat down with a palpitating heart. If, because of anything, her brother said to him, he went away. Lapidoth had some sense of what was being prepared for him in his son's mind, but he was beginning to adjust himself to the situation and find a point of view that would give him a cool superiority to any attempt at humiliating him. This haggard son, speaking as from a sepulchre, had the incongruity which selfish levity learns to see in suffering, and until the unrelenting pinchers of disease clutch its own flesh. Whatever preaching he might deliver must be taken for a matter of course, as a man finding shelter from hail in an open cathedral might take a little religious howling that happened to be going on there. Lapidoth was not born with this sort of callousness. He had achieved it. This home that we have here, Ezra began, is maintained partly by the generosity of a beloved friend who supports me, and partly by the labours of my sister, who supports herself. While we have a home, we will not shut you out from it. We will not cast you out to the mercy of your vices. For you are our father, and though you have broken your bond, we acknowledge ours. But I will never trust you. You absconded with money, leaving your debts unpaid. You forsook my mother. You robbed her of her little child and broke her heart. You have become a gambler, and where shame and conscience were, there sits an insatiable desire. You are ready to sell my sister. You had sold her, but the price was denied you. The man who has done these things must never expect to be trusted any more. We will share our food with you. You shall have a bed and clothing. We will do this duty to you because you are our father, but you will never be trusted. You are an evil man. You made misery of our mother. That such a man as our father is a brand on our flesh which will not see smarting. But the eternal has laid it upon us. And though human justice were to flog you for crimes, and your body fell helpless before the public scorn, we would still say, this is our father. Make way that we may carry him out of your sight. Lapidoth, in adjusting himself to what was coming, had not been able to foresee the exact intensity of the lightning or the exact curse it would take, that it would not fall outside his frame but through it. He could not foresee what was so new to him as this voice from the soul of his son. It touched that spring of hysterical excitability which Myra used to witness in him when he sat at home and sobbed. As Ezra ended, Lapidoth threw himself into a chair and cried like a woman, burying his face against the table. And yet strangely, while this hysterical crying was an inevitable reaction in him under the stress of his son's words, it was also a conscious resource in a difficulty, just as in early life when he was a bright-faced, curly young man, he had been used to avail himself of this subtly poised physical susceptibility to turn the edge of resentment or disapprobation. Ezra sat down again and said nothing. Exhausted by the shock of his own irrepressible utterance, the outburst of feelings which for years he had borne in solitude and silence, his thin hands trembled on the arms of the chair. He would hardly have found voice to answer a question. He felt as if he had taken a step toward beckoning death. Meanwhile Myra's quick expectant ear detected a sound which her heart recognized. She could not stay out of the room any longer. But on opening the door her immediate alarm was for Ezra, and it was to his side that she went, taking his trembling hand in hers which he pressed and found support in. But he did not speak or even look at her. The father with his face buried was conscious that Myra had entered, and presently lifted up his head, pressed his handkerchief against his eyes, put out his hand toward her, and said with plaintive hoarseness, Good-bye, Myra. Your father will not trouble you again. He deserves to die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. If your mother had lived she would have forgiven me. Thirty-four years ago I put the ring on her finger under the chapa, and we were made one. But she would have forgiven me, and she would have spent our old age together. But I haven't deserved it. Good-bye. He rose from the chair as he said the last good-bye. Myra had put her hand in his and held him. She was not tearful and grieving, but frightened and awestruck, as she cried out, No, father, no. Then turning to her brother, Ezra, you have not forbidden him? Say, father, and leave off wrong things. Ezra, I cannot bear it. How can I say to my father, Go, and die? I have not said it, Ezra answered, with great effort. I have said, Stay, and be sheltered. Then you will stay, father, and be taken care of, and come with me, said Myra, drawing him toward the door. This was really what Lapidoth wanted, and for the moment he felt a sort of comfort in recovering his daughter's dutiful attendance that made a change of habits seem possible to him. She led him down to the parlor below, and said, This is my sitting-room when I am not with Ezra, and there is a bedroom behind which shall be yours. You will stay and be good, father. Think that you will come back to my mother, and that she has forgiven you. She speaks to you through me. Myra's tones were imploring, but she could not give one of her former caresses. Lapidoth quickly recovered his composure, began to speak to Myra of the improvement in her voice and other easy subjects, and when Mrs. Adam came to lay out his supper, entered into converse with her in order to show her that he was not a common person, though his clothes were just now against him. But in his usual wakefulness at night he fell to wondering what money Myra had by her and went back over old continental hours at roulette reproducing the method of his play and the chances that had frustrated it. He had had his reasons for coming to England, but for most things it was a cursed country. These were the stronger visions of the night with Lapidoth, and not the worn frame of his ireful son uttering a terrible judgment. Ezra did pass across the gaming table, and his words were audible, but he passed like an insubstantial ghost, and his words had the heart eaten out of them by numbers and movements that seemed to make the very tissue of Lapidoth's consciousness. CHAPTER 67 The Godhead in us rings our noble deeds from our reluctant selves. It was an unpleasant surprise to Duranda when he returned from the Abbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at Brompton. Myra had felt it necessary to speak of Duranda to her father, and even to make him as fully aware as she could of the way in which the friendship with Ezra had begun, and of the sympathy which had cemented it. She passed more lightly over what Duranda had done for her, omitting altogether the rescue from drowning, and speaking of the shelter she had found in Mrs. Merrick's family, so as to leave her father to suppose that it was through these friends Duranda had become acquainted with her. She could not persuade herself to more completeness in her narrative. She could not let the breath of her father's soul pass over her relation to Duranda. And Lapidoth, for reasons, was not eager in his questioning about the circumstances of her flight and arrival in England. But he was much interested in the fact of his children having a beneficent friend apparently high in the world. It was the brother who told Duranda of this new condition added to their life. I am becoming calm and beholding him now, as her ended, and I try to think it is possible that my sister's tenderness and the daily tasting a life of peace may win him to remain aloof from temptation. I have enjoined her, and she has promised, to trust him with no money. I have convinced her that he will buy with it his own destruction. Duranda first came on the third day from Lapidoth's arrival. The new clothes for which he had been measured were not yet ready, and wishing to make a favourable impression he did not choose to present himself in the old ones. He watched for Duranda's departure, and getting a view of him from the window was rather surprised at his youthfulness, which Myra had not mentioned, and which he had somehow thought out of the question in a person who had taken up a grave friendship and hoary studies with the sepulchral Ezra. Lapidoth began to imagine that Duranda's real or chief motive must be that he was in love with Myra, and so much the better, for a tie to Myra had more promise of indulgence for her father than a tie to Ezra. And Lapidoth was not without the hope of recommending himself to Duranda and of softening any hard prepossessions. He was behaving with much amiability, and trying in all ways at his command to get himself into easy domestication with his children, entering into Myra's music, showing himself docile about smoking, which Mrs. Adam could not tolerate in her parlor, and walking out in the square with his German pipe and the tobacco with which Myra supplied him. He was too acute to offer any present remonstrance against the refusal of money, which Myra told him that she must persist in as a solemn duty promised to her brother. He was comfortable enough to wait. The next time Duranda came, Lapidoth, equipped in his new clothes, and satisfied with his own appearance, was in the room with Ezra, who was teaching himself as a part of his severe duty to tolerate his father's presence whenever it was imposed. Duranda was cold and distant. The first sight of this man who had blighted the lives of his wife and children, creating in him a repulsion that was even a physical discomfort. But Lapidoth did not let himself be discouraged, asked leave to stay and hear the reading of papers from the old chest, and actually made himself useful in helping to decipher some difficult German manuscript. This led him to suggest that it might be desirable to make a transcription of the manuscript, and he offered his services for this purpose, and also to make copies of any papers in Roman characters. Though Ezra's young eyes he observed were getting weak, his own were still strong. Duranda accepted the offer, thinking that Lapidoth showed a sign of grace in the willingness to be employed usefully, and he saw a gratified expression in Ezra's face, who, however presently said, Let all the writing be done here, for I cannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by burning, or otherwise. Poor Ezra felt very much as if he had a convict on leave under his charge. Unless he saw his father working, it was not possible to believe that he would work in good faith. But by this arrangement he fastened on himself the burden of his father's presence, which was made painful not only through his deepest, longest associations, but also through Lapidoth's restlessness of temperament, which showed itself the more as he became familiarized with his situation and lost any awe he had felt of his son. The fact was he was putting a strong constraint on himself in confining his attention for the sake of winning Duranda's favor, and like a man in an uncomfortable garment he gave himself relief at every opportunity, going out to smoke or moving about and talking, or throwing himself back in his chair and remaining silent, but incessantly carrying on a dumb language of facial movement or gesticulation. And if Myra were in the room he would fall into his old habit of talk with her, gossiping about their former doings and companions, or repeating quirks and stories, and plots of the plays he used to adapt, in the belief that he could at will command the vivacity of his earlier time. All this was a mortal inflection to Ezra, and when Myra was at home she tried to relieve him by getting her father down into the parlor and keeping watch over him there. What duty is made of a single difficult resolve? The difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences that mar the blessed return of mourning with the prospect of irritation to be suppressed or shame to be endured. And such consequences were being borne by these as by many other heroic children of an unworthy father, with the prospect at least to Myra of their stretching onward through the solid part of life. Meanwhile Lapidoth's presence had raised a new impalpable partition between Duranda and Myra, each of them dreading the soiling inferences of his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve and diffidence of the other. But it was not very long before some light came to Duranda. As soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the Abbey, he had called at Hans' marix rooms, feeling it on more grounds than one a duo of friendship that Hans should be at once acquainted with the reasons of his late journey and the changes of intention it had brought about. Hans was not there. He was said to be in the country for a few days, and Duranda after leaving a note waited a week, rather expecting a note in return. But receiving no word and fearing some freak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible Hans, whose proposed sojourn at the Abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a second call, and was admitted into the painting room where he found his friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat. His long hair still wet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wisened, anything but country-like. He had taken up his palette and brushes and stood before his easel when Duranda entered, but the equipment and the attitude seemed to have been got up on short notice. As they shook hands, Duranda said, You don't look much as if you had been in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to? No, said Hans curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one who has begun to feign by mistake, then pushing forward a chair for Duranda he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his hands behind his head while he went on. I've been to, I don't know where. No man's land. And a mortally unpleasant country it is. You don't mean to say you have been drinking, Hans, said Duranda, who had seated into himself opposite an anxious survey. Nothing so good. I've been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it, and having found myself just now rather out of bliss, I thought it judicious to seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a cask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution. What has been the matter? You were in good spirits enough when you wrote to me. Oh, nothing in particular. The world begins to look seedy. A sort of cabbage garden with all the cabbages cut. A melody of genius you may be sure, said Hans, creasing his face into a smile. And in fact I was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot London weather. Nothing else? No real vexation, said Duranda. Hans shook his head. I came to tell you of my own affairs. But I can't do it with a good grace if you were to hide yours. Haven't an affair in the world, said Hans in a flighty way, except a quarrel with a bric-a-brack man? Besides, it is the first time in our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs. You were only beginning to pay a pretty long debt. Duranda felt convinced that Hans was behaving artificially, but he trusted to a return of the old frankness by and by if he gave his own confidence. You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans, he began. It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I had never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa to meet my mother. My father has been long dead, died when I was an infant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew. My father was her cousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a probability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that I was glad of it, glad to find myself a Jew. You must not expect me to look surprised, Duranda, said Hans, who had changed his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the heel of his slipper. You knew it? My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had been there. Brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can't rejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be glad of in the end. When, exactly the end may be, I can't predict, said Hans, speaking in a low voice which was as usual with him as it was to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss about it. I quite understand that you can't share my feelings, said Duranda, but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new light over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai's ideas, and I mean to try and carry them out so far as one man's efforts can go. I daresay I shall by and by travel to the east and be away for some years. Hans said nothing, but Rose seized his pallet and began to work his brush on it, standing before his picture with his back to Duranda, who also felt himself at a break in his path embarrassed by Hans's embarrassment. Finally Hans said, again speaking low and without turning, Excuse the question, but does Mrs. Grandcourt know of all this? No, and I must beg of you, Hans, said to Duranda rather angrily, to cease joking on that subject. Any notions you have are wide of the truth, are the very reverse of the truth. I am no more inclined to joke than I shall be at my own funeral, said Hans, but I am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions on that subject. Perhaps not, said Duranda, but let me say, once for all, that in relation to Mrs. Grandcourt I never have had and never shall have the position of a lover. If you have ever seriously put that interpretation on anything you have observed you are supremely mistaken. There was a silence a little while, and to each the silence was like an irritating air, exaggerating discomfort. Perhaps I have been mistaken in another interpretation also, said Hans presently. What is that? That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another woman, who is neither wife nor widow. I can't pretend not to understand you, Merrick. It is painful that our wishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for supposing that you would succeed. That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Duranda, said Hans, with some irritation. Why superfluous? Because you were perfectly convinced on the subject and probably have had the very best evidence to convince you. I will be more frank with you than you are with me, said Duranda, still heated by Hans's show of temper, and yet sorry for him. I have never had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact, I have very little hope. Hans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his picture again. And in our present situation, said Duranda, hurt by the idea that Hans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to his words, I don't see how I can deliberately make known my feelings to her. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best comfort, for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we should have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than a mischievous animal. I don't know that I have ever betrayed my feeling to her, said Hans, as if he were vindicating himself. You mean that we are on a level, then. You have no reason to envy me. Oh, not the slightest, said Hans, with bitter irony. You have measured my conceit and know that it outtops all your advantages. I am a nuisance to you, Merrick. I am sorry, but I can't help it, said Duranda, rising. After what passed between us before, I wish to have this explanation, and I don't see that any pretensions of mine have made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any pleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. Now the father is there. Did you know the father is there? Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to dam him, with faint praise, I mean, said Hans, but with no smile. She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her feeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Either you nor I have injured the other that I can see. We must put up with this sort of rivalry and a hope that is likely enough to come to nothing. Our friendship can bear that strange surly. No, it can't, said Hans impetuously, throwing down his tools, thrusting his hands into his coat-pockets and turning round to face Duranda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. Hans went on in the same tone. Our friendship, my friendship, can't bear the strain of behaving to you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness, for you are the happiest dog in the world. If Myra loves anybody better than her brother, you are the man. Hans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at Duranda with an expression the reverse of tender. Something like a shock passed through Duranda, and after an instant he said, It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans. I am not in a good-natured mood. I assure you I found the fact disagreeable when it was thrust on me, all the more or perhaps all the less because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the Duchess. But now, confound you, you turn out to be in love in the right place, a Jew, and everything eligible. Tell me what convinced you. There's a good fellow, said Duranda, distrusting a delight that he was unused to. Don't ask. Little Mother was witness. The upshot is that Myra is jealous of the Duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the better. There! I've cleared off a score or two and may be allowed to swear at you for getting what you deserve, which is just the very best luck I know of. God bless you, Hans, said Duranda, putting out his hand, which the other took and rung in silence. After sixty-eight. All thoughts, all passions, all delights, whatever stirs this mortal frame, all are but ministers of love, and feed his sacred flame. Colourage. Duranda's eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a stronger stimulus than Hans had given it in his assurance that Myra needed relief from jealousy. He went on his next visit to Ezra with the determination to be resolute in using, nay in requesting, an opportunity of private conversation with her. If she accepted his love he felt courageous about all other consequences, and as her betrothed husband he would gain a protective authority which might be a desirable defense for her in future difficulties with her father. Duranda had not observed any signs of growing restlessness in Lapidoth, or of diminished desire to recommend himself, but he had forebodings of some future struggle, some mortification or some intolerable increase of domestic disquietude in which he might save Ezra and Myra from being helpless victims. His forebodings would have been strengthened if he had known what was going on in the father's mind. That amount of restlessness, that desultoriness of attention which made a small torture to Ezra, was to Lapidoth an irksome submission to restraint, only made bearable by his thinking of it as a means of by and by securing a well conditioned freedom. He began with the intention of awaiting some really good chance, such as an opening for getting a considerable sum from Duranda, but all the while he was looking about curiously and trying to discover where Myra deposited her money and her keys. The imperious gambling desire within him, which carried on its activity through every other occupation and made a continuous web of imagination that held all else in its meshes, would hardly have been under the control of a contracted purpose if he had been able to lay his hands on any sum worth capturing. But Myra, with her practical clear-sightedness, guarded against any frustration of the promise she had given to Ezra by confiding all money, except what she was immediately in want of, to Mrs. Merrick's care, and to Lapidoth felt himself under an irritating completeness of supply in kind as in a lunatic asylum, where everything was made safe against him. To have opened a desk or drawer of Myra's and pocketed any banknotes found there would have been to his mind a sort of domestic appropriation which had no disgrace in it. The degrees of liberty a man allows himself with other people's property being often delicately drawn, even beyond the boundary where the law begins to lay its hold, which is the reason why spoons are a safer investment than mining shares. Lapidoth really felt himself injuriously treated by his daughter, and thought that he ought to have what he wanted of her other earnings as he had of her apple tart. But he remained submissive. Indeed the indiscretion that most tempted him was not any insistence with Myra, but some kind of appeal to Duranda. Clever persons who have nothing else to sell can often put a good price on their absence, and Lapidoth's difficult search for devices forced upon him the idea that his family would find themselves happier without him, and that Duranda would be willing to advance a considerable sum for the sake of getting rid of him. But in spite of well-practiced hardyhood Lapidoth was still in some awe of Ezra's imposing friend, and deferred his purpose indefinitely. On this day when Duranda had come full of a gladdened consciousness, which inevitably showed itself in his air and speech, Lapidoth was at a crisis of discontent and longing that made his mind busy with schemes of freedom, and Duranda's new amenity encouraged them. This preoccupation was at last so strong as to interfere with his usual show of interest in what went forward, and his persistence in sitting by even when there was reading which he could not follow. After sitting a little while he went out to smoke and walk in the square, and the two friends were all the easier. Myra was not at home, but she was sure to be in again before Duranda left, and his eyes glowed with a secret anticipation. He thought that when he saw her again he should see some sweetness of recognition for himself to which his eyes had been sealed before. There was an additional playful affectionateness in his manner toward Ezra. This little room is too close for you, Ezra, he said, breaking off his reading. The week's heat we sometimes get here is worse than the heat in Genoa, where one sits in the shaded coolness of large rooms. You must have a better home now. I shall do as I like with you, being the stronger half. He smiled toward Ezra, who said, I am straightened for nothing except breath. But you who might be in a spacious palace with the wide green country around you find this a narrow prison, nevertheless I cannot say, go. Oh, the country would be a banishment while you are here, said Duranda, rising and walking round the double room, which yet offered no long promenade while he made a great fan of his handkerchief. This is the happiest room in the world to me. Besides, I will imagine myself in the east since I am getting ready to go there some day. Only I will not wear a cravet and a heavy ring there, he ended emphatically, pausing to take off those superfluities and deposit them on a small table behind Ezra, who had the table in front of him covered with books and papers. I have been wearing my memorable ring ever since I came home, he went on as he receded himself. But I am such a siborite that I constantly put it off as a burden when I am doing anything. I understand why the Romans had summer rings, if they had them. Now then, I shall get on better. They were soon absorbed in their work again. Duranda was reading a piece of rabbinical Hebrew under Ezra's correction and comment, and they took little notice when Labidoth re-entered and took a seat somewhere in the background. His rambling eyes quickly alighted on the ring that sparkled on the bit of dark mahogany. During his walk his mind had been occupied with the fiction of an advantageous opening for him abroad, only requiring a sum of ready money, which on being communicated to Duranda in private, might immediately draw from him a question as to the amount of the required sum. And it was this part of his forecast that Labidoth found the most debatable, there being a danger in asking too much, and a prospect of regret in asking too little. His own desire gave him no limit, and he was quite without guidance as to the limit of Duranda's willingness. But now in the midst of these airy conditions, preparatory to a receipt which remained indefinite, this ring, which on Duranda's finger had become familiar to Labidoth's envy, suddenly shown detached and within easy grasp. Its value was certainly below the smallest of the imaginary sums that his purpose fluctuated between. But then it was before him as a solid fact, and his desire at once leaped into the thought, not yet an intention, that if he were quietly to pocket that ring and walk away he would have the means of comfortable escape from present restraint, without trouble, and also without danger. For any property of Duranda's, available without his formal consent, was all one with his children's property, since their father would never be prosecuted for taking it. The details of this thinking followed each other so quickly that they seemed to rise before him as one picture. Labidoth had never committed larceny. But larceny is a form of appropriation for which people are punished by law. And take this ring from a virtual relation, who would have been willing to make a much heavier gift, would not come under the head of larceny. Still the heavier gift was to be preferred, if Labidoth could only make haste enough in asking for it, and the imaginary action of taking the ring, which kept repeating itself like an inward tune, sank into a rejected idea. He satisfied his urgent longing by resolving to go below, and watched for the moment of Duranda's departure, when he would ask Leave to join him in his walk and boldly carry out his meditated plan. He rose and stood looking out of the window, but all the while he saw what lay beyond him. The brief passage he would have to make to the door close by the table where the ring was. However, he was resolved to go down. But, by no distinct change of resolution, rather by a dominance of desire, like the thirst of the drunkard, it so happened that in passing the table his fingers fell noiselessly on the ring, and he found himself in the passage with the ring in his hand. It followed that he put on his hat and quitted the house. The possibility of again throwing himself on his children receded into the indefinite distance, and to before he was out on the square his sense of haste had concentrated itself on selling the ring and getting on shipboard. Duranda and Ezwar were just aware of his exit. That was all. But by and by Myra came in and made a real interruption. She had not taken off her hat. And when Duranda rose in advance to shake hands with her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and troublesome to herself. I only came in to see that Ezwar had his new draft. I must go directly to Mrs. Merrick's to fetch something. Pray allow me to walk with you, said Duranda urgently. I must not tire Ezwar any further. Besides, my brains are melting. I want to go to Mrs. Merrick's. May I go with you? Oh! yes, said Myra, blushing, still more, with the vague sense of something new in Duranda, and turning away to pour out Ezwar's draft. Ezwar, meanwhile, throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get his mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading was going on. Duranda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the walk, till Myra turned round again and brought the draft, when he suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravet, and saying, Pre-excuse my desabeel, I did not mean you to see it. He went to the little table, took up his cravet, and exclaimed with a violent impulse of surprise, Good Heavens, where's my ring gone? Beginning to search about on the floor. Ezwar looked round the corner of his chair. Myra, quickest thought, went to the spot where Duranda was seeking and said, Did you lay it down? Yes, said Duranda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernible on the variegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture near, and searching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes. But another explanation had visited Myra and taken the color from her cheeks. She went to Ezwar's ear and whispered, Was my father here? He bent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding. She darted back to the spot where Duranda was still casting down his eyes in that hopeless exploration which are apt to carry on over a space we have examined in vain. You have not found it? She said hurriedly. He, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and answered, I perhaps put it in my pocket, professing to feel for it there. She watched him and said, It is not there. You put it on the table, with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it in his pocket. And immediately she rushed out of the room. Duranda followed her. She was gone into the sitting room below to look for her father. She opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there. She looked where his hat usually hung. She turned with her hands clasped tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then she looked up at Duranda, who had not dared to speak to her in her white agitation. She looked up at him, unable to utter a word. The look seemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence. But he, taking her clasp hands between both his, said, in a tone of reverent adoration, Myra, let me think that he is my father as well as yours, that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. Say you will not reject me. Say you will take me to share all things with you. Say you will promise to be my wife. Say it now. I have been in doubt so long. I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love. The change in Myra had been gradual. She had not passed at once from anguish to the full blessed consciousness that in this moment of grief and shame Duranda was giving her the highest tribute man can give to woman. With the first tones and the first word she had only a sense of solemn comfort, referring this goodness of Duranda's to his feeling for Ezra. But by degrees the rapturous assurance of unhoped-for good took possession of her frame, her face glowed under Duranda's as he bent over her, yet she looked up still with intense gravity as when she had first acknowledged with religious gratitude that he had thought her worthy of the best. And when he had finished she could say nothing, she could only lift up her lips to his and just kiss them, as if that were the simplest yes. They stood then only looking at each other, he holding her hands between his, too happy to move, meeting so fully in their new consciousness that all signs would have seemed to throw them farther apart, till Myra said in a whisper, Let us go and comfort Ezra. End of Chapter 68. This recording is in the public domain.