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CHAPTER X.
THE SQUIRE'S SECRET

It is not to be supposed that during all this time Miriam had lost sight of Gerald. Their conversation in the wood had had the effect of drawing them much more closely together, so much so that there had grown upon Arkel the habit not only of going with his troubles to Miriam, but of taking her rebukes ever so meekly whenever she choose to mete them out to him. But so far only had things progressed. He was at no time in danger of falling in love with her, being as much as ever the slave of Hilda's physical charms. But that young lady did not seem to be in the least in a hurry to bring matters to a more definite conclusion between them.

"You see, I cannot yet be sure that Gerald will really inherit Mr. Barton's money," she explained to her mother. "Once I am certain of that, you will find he'll propose quick enough. He'd have done so half a dozen times already if I hadn't stopped him."

"And what about Major Dundas? I thought – "

"Never mind Major Dundas. I assure you, although of course he likes me, he's quite crazy about Mrs. Darrow's governess. And she is welcome to him for all I care – solemn long-nosed thing that he is!"

"But, Hilda; suppose after all Mr. Barton should leave the money to him and not to Gerald?"

"Then Miss Crane would have to take a back seat, that's all. I should have to put up with him, long-nosed as he is."

"You might not find it so easy to get him, my dear."

"Oh yes, I would. I tell you, mother, that Miss Miriam, with all her goodness, is awfully in love with Gerald herself. I know it. So even if Major Dundas did propose to her she wouldn't have him. As it is we all know Gerald is devoted to me, and as he is almost certain to inherit old B.'s property, that is as it should be. As soon as I am satisfied that there is no longer any 'almost' about it, why then our little affairs will settle themselves quite quickly and nicely, you shall see. Believe me, dear mother, I know what I am doing."

Mrs. Marsh, weary and untidy as ever, looked at this guileless offspring of hers with something like surprise.

"Really, Hilda," she said, "your feelings are delightfully adaptable!"

It was not often Mrs. Marsh indulged in sarcasm – in fact, it was something of an effort for her. But her daughter's utter callousness brought it out of her.

"Cannot you understand that either Gerald or Major Dundas would, in his capacity of future Squire, be equally able to take me out of this pig-sty and give me something like a decent life? And cannot you understand that the man who can do that is the man for me? I don't pretend to any sentimental feelings at all."

"Well, you are candid, to me, at all events, Hilda. But at your time of life I confess I should like to see a little more romance. It is terrible to hear such purely mercenary sentiments from a girl of your years."

"That's so like you, mother. You actually blame me for doing credit to your own teaching – that's what I call so ridiculous and unfair. Who has told me for years that my face was my fortune? Who has always drummed into me that it was my duty to help my family by making a good match? I think you know."

"It is true, Hilda; we are so poor," wailed Mrs. Marsh. "But I'm sure I always wished that you might marry someone you loved, only I said it would not do for you to love a poor man, or else what would become of us? I can tell you I lie awake at night thinking of what would happen to us if your father died. We should all have to go to the workhouse, for he hasn't saved a penny, and his life is not even insured."

"Then is that not all the more reason why on this occasion, at all events, I should forego the luxury of sentiment. You may thank your stars that I am as I am."

"I married for love myself," wept poor Mrs. Marsh, with a flush at the recollection of what had been, "and I was very happy – for a time."

Hilda cast an eloquent glance at the slatternly room and at her prematurely aged parent.

"Well, you must forgive me, mother, but if this is the result of marrying for love, I trust my heart will continue to be governed by my head. After all, it isn't as if I didn't like Gerald. I do, very much, and I am sure I could be perfectly happy as his wife."

"Then I hope you'll marry him, Hilda. I should like to know that you had some feeling for your husband, and at the same time – well, be able to help us. And I hope, too, it may be soon, dear, for the butcher's bill has been running these three months past, and I don't know how we are to pay him. His meat's very bad too. As for the grocer's bill, it seems endless. I'm sure I never spare myself, and I cut down expenses to the very lowest. Yet your father is always grumbling. He says now he can't do with one candle but must have two. The number we seem to get through is appalling. He is never contented."

"Job himself would grumble in this house," retorted Hilda, and leaving Mrs. Marsh in the lowest of spirits, she went upstairs to dress, for Gerald was due to take her for a walk.

Recently that young man had shared his time pretty equally between London and Lesser Thorpe. For one thing he was deeply in love with Hilda, for another he found the greatest possible comfort in Miriam's company. So far he was obliged to confess to himself that, notwithstanding his promise to Miss Crane, he had achieved nothing very definite even negatively speaking. His life in town continued pretty much as it had been. Every now and then he would put some mild restraint upon himself, but such times were few and far between, and the result but fleeting. There was no backbone in the man, and an entire absence of any power of resolve. But at Lesser Thorpe he was always the repentant prodigal. Hilda was his Venus, Miriam his Minerva; but like Paris he did not hesitate to bestow the apple on beauty rather than on wisdom. His choice was wholly characteristic of his nature. In life there was but one path for him – the path of dalliance and of ease.

Notwithstanding the circumstances, it did not take Hilda long to dress on this occasion. Within ten minutes she was downstairs, and greeting Gerald with a smile. As she looked at him she thought how young, good-looking, and altogether desirable he was. She was sure she liked him as well as she could like any man. Hilda Marsh was a shallow girl, a vain girl, but on the whole not a bad girl. With a judicious bringing up she might have turned out a very respectable specimen of her sex; vain always, since vanity was the essence of her being, but still a woman of good instincts and some sense of duty in the world. As it was, she had not been thus blessed, and her position of beauty to the family, to be sold to the highest bidder, had done the rest. She had been taught that her mission in life was three-fold – to be careful of her beauty as her stock-in-trade, to catch a rich man with it, and to help her family when the rich man had been caught. In that misguided and slovenly household and sordid commonplace existence, there was nothing to appeal to or in the least degree to stimulate any of the other and finer feelings which might have lain dormant in her. What she saw around her gradually became reflected in her nature. As she saw others do, so she did, until she came to look upon material satisfaction, and the securing of it, as the whole object of life. But even so, as has been said, she was not wholly without redeeming qualities.

After her first burst of spite against Miriam she came to like her, and even to appreciate her high principles and wholesale disdain of the petty vanities of everyday existence. Such a personality was something altogether new to Hilda – something "larger" by far in human kind than she had ever met before. And it said no little for the girl that she acknowledged this to herself, and allowed her better nature to have its say, even to the point of dissociating herself from Mrs. Darrow in the persecution of her governess. So it was that Mrs. Darrow, deprived of her ally, felt it incumbent upon her to carry on the war with that double energy which had so quickly resulted in the dismissal of Miriam. Had Hilda's attitude continued, as it had been in the beginning, it is probable that the lady's tactics would have been based more upon a "linked business long drawn out," wherefrom not only would she have obtained enjoyment, but would have saved herself much personal inconvenience.

"You are looking very sprightly to-day, Mr. Arkel," said Hilda, as they walked down the village. "Have you had any good news?"

"The best of news. But before I tell it, let me ask you why you always call me Mr. Arkel?"

"It is your name, isn't it?"

"Yes, but surely you might call me Gerald; it would be equally correct, and ever so much nicer."

"I don't know if it would be quite correct," replied the cautious Hilda; "still, as you make such a point of it, I don't mind – if I can remember. Well – Gerald – and what is this joyful news?"

"Uncle Barton has decided to make me his heir!"

Hilda stopped. Although she had more than half suspected to hear it, now that the news had come she felt something like a shock. But the sensation was by no means unpleasant. On the contrary it brought with it a welcome sense of relief, for now no longer need she keep this young gentleman at arm's length. She could accept him with a clear conscience, and unless her powers of foresight were very much at fault, it would be as his affianced wife that she would return from their walk.

"I am very glad," she said. "You have my most heartfelt congratulations. Has Mr. Barton actually made his will?"

"Not yet; but he intends to make it this week. I shall start the new year, thank God, with my mind at peace."

"Very much so, I should think. I suppose it won't be long now before we have to congratulate you on another happy event – I am glad for Miss Crane's sake; she has had such a very bad time."

"Miss Crane! What on earth do you mean?"

"Simply that as Mrs. Gerald Arkel, Miriam Crane will at last say good-bye to the rough and tumble of life, of which up to now she seems to have had a good deal."

"Hilda! How can you talk like that? You know what my feeling is for Miss Crane. I respect her and I like her sincerely, but I have given her no cause to think anything else. Hilda, you know it isn't true – you don't really mean it. You know that for me there is no other woman in the world but you! You must have guessed it long ago."

"Guessed it? Dear me, no; how should I? I quite thought you were devoted to Miss Crane and she to you. Besides, you know it's very wrong of you to – to care for me. I am sure Mr. Barton would disapprove most highly if he knew."

"What has he got to do with it?"

"A very great deal, I imagine, seeing that if he likes he can revoke his will any day, and leave you without a penny."

"Uncle Barton wouldn't be such, a beast!"

"I'm not so sure about that. He has considerable capacity for being a beast. And you know how he dislikes me. But if you really do care, Gerald – "

"Oh, Hilda, you know I do – you are everything to me. Tell me that you care for me a little – that you will be my wife."

"Are you quite, quite sure you mean what you are saying – that you really – "

"A thousand times yes; I love you with my whole soul."

"And you are quite willing to take the risk?"

"Anything, everything – so long as I have you!"

"Then I will confess – I do care for you, Gerald."

She dropped her eyes, the very essence of humility. Her acting was beyond praise, and calculated to deceive a man very much less simple than Gerald Arkel.

"Dearest!" He clasped her in his arms; "and you will be my wife?"

"Don't, Gerald; you mustn't – besides, someone might see!"

"Well, let them – I don't care!"

"But I do." She released herself and sat down on the stile – the same by which Gerald had met Miriam for the first time. "Now do sit down, and do be sensible. You really must not behave like this. If I engage myself to you it must be on certain conditions."

"Make any conditions you like, darling, so long as you say 'yes.'"

"Very well, then, I make two. The first is that you are to keep our engagement an absolute secret until I give you leave to announce it. And the second is – well, the second is, you must be just the same before people."

"Well, naturally – if I agree to the first I must agree to the second. But I confess, dear, I don't like this sort of thing. Besides, I can't see the necessity for it. You aren't ashamed of me I hope?"

"Oh, Gerald, you dear goose – what nonsense! Haven't I told you that Uncle B. will make an awful fuss about it? That of itself should be enough for you. He is quite capable of altering his will."

"And in that case you wouldn't marry me, I suppose?"

"Indeed, yes; but I should hate to think that I had spoilt your chance – that I had been the cause of your losing five thousand a year. You must allow that what I say is common-sense."

"I suppose it is; then I hate common-sense, and I detest this secret business. At least, dear, when we are alone you will – " and Gerald proceeded to demonstrate how it should be when they were alone. But Miss Hilda was not inclined for such endearments. They were, to her mind, a trifle premature. She had her own little game to play, and for the present, at all events, they did not form part of it.

"Hush!" she said, "someone is coming."

He listened; and a light step fell upon the frosty air. It was Miriam. Her face was flushed, and her eyes seemed unusually bright. She was walking very quickly. She saw this Corydon and Daphne on the stile, and was quick to divine, from the expression on Corydon's face, what had been happening. She waved her hand and smiled, and passed on hurriedly. They watched her graceful figure dwindle in the distance, and returned to the discussion of themselves; with the result that Miss Marsh went home, as she had fully intended to do, under tacit engagement to the future Squire of Lesser Thorpe, and well content with her afternoon's work.

"They are engaged," she thought to herself; "I am sure of it: and I am dismissed! My life here is at an end, for I cannot – I will not lend myself any more to Mr. Barton's schemes. I must go back to Jabez, there is no help for it – back to the old life. Oh, how horrible it is! – and how hard! But he must swear to spare poor Jabez – he shall. If he refuses, I must force him to."

She walked on swiftly until she reached the house. The Squire was at home and in his library. She sent in her message, and was received at once. He looked more wrinkled, and if possible, more evil than ever, she thought, as he croaked out a welcome and placed a chair for her. Anxious to get it over, she came to the point at once.

"You are surprised to see me?" she said.

Barton's eyebrows went up at once.

"No, indeed; is it so very strange that you should visit an old man who has tried to show some interest in you? Perhaps you will allow me to say I am delighted!"

"Oh!" Miriam waved her hand. "I think you and I can dispense with compliments, Mr. Barton. I had better say at once that I have come here for a definite reason – to ask you a question."

"By all means; please don't hesitate."

"Well, then, is it true that you want to have Jabez arrested?"

"Let me answer you with another. Who told you I did?"

"The man you call the Shadow."

Barton frowned.

"Did he, indeed? I thought he was more discreet. I must speak to him. Well, and suppose I do wish to have Jabez arrested, what then?"

"I forbid you to!"

He could scarcely believe his ears.

"You forbid me– well, really," he sneered. "So far I cannot congratulate you on the object of your visit. And pray may I ask how do you intend to enforce this prohibition, for I take it you are prepared – or rather, think you are – to enforce it?"

"By exposing you to the parish – to the world. I know Mother Mandarin, sir; therefore I know you. You are an opium smoker – and worse!" she said.

Then she waited.

CHAPTER XI.
UNMASKED

Miriam's accusation came on Barton like a bolt from the blue. For a moment he seemed utterly incapable of speech – while of emotion he showed not a trace. Casting a terrible look on the woman who at once defied and threatened him, he rapidly counted his chances against her. A very brief survey of the existing circumstances sufficed to assure him that the power to coerce her was his. Then an ironical smile broke over his withered face. He glanced at door and windows to assure himself that they were closed. The subject under discussion was too dangerous a one for him to run any risks in that direction. When he spoke it was with all calmness and some irrelevance.

"Won't you sit down, my dear?" he said. "We can talk as easily sitting as standing – more easily perhaps."

As composed as himself, Miriam took a chair, and prepared for the encounter.

"I won't have Jabez harmed," she repeated, "especially by you, who are every wit as bad, if not worse than he is. In a moment of weakness you extorted from me his real name, and thereby you learned more about him than I intended you should learn. But why you should desire to have arrested a man who, whatever his sins, has never harmed you, I do not know. But, understand, I shall stand between you and Jabez – I will protect him. I know too much about you, Mr. Barton, for you to treat me with impunity, and I think you know it."

"And this is gratitude," said Barton, casting up his eyes. "I drag you from the gutter, feed you, clothe you, introduce you to respectable society, and you turn on me!"

"What you did, you did for your own ends," retorted Miriam coldly, "and you know well that I am not from the gutter. There can be no question of philanthropy on your part, or of gratitude on mine."

"Do you think I counted on your gratitude, you jade! If you did, you were wrong. I know that you, like the rest of your sex, would turn on me the first time your uneasy virtue touched your conscience. However, enough of this. As you say, you gave me sufficient information to enable me to obtain more, and I did. So you may as well realise that I am in the position to talk of force, and not you!"

"Not if you harm Jabez, for it is only through him you have any hold over me."

Barton stroked his chin, and looked at her strangely. She was unpleasantly concise – for a woman. He changed his tone.

"Miriam, Miriam, you are but a child after all; you believe all that is told you. Why this man should have informed you that I meant to harm Jabez I cannot say, unless it was to make bad blood between us, and to thwart my scheme in which you are concerned. But I shall find out his reason, and make him pay – as I can make him pay – for his interference. But you may set your mind at rest, you silly child. I have no intention of molesting Jabez, if only because by doing so, as you say, I should lose my hold over you. So long as you do my bidding, Jabez is safe; of course, if you don't – well, we won't talk about that for the present. As to your threatening to disclose my secret vice – I am not afraid of that threat. To tell every one here about me would do you no good – and it certainly would not do me much harm. But if you were to do anything so spiteful, I may tell you that I should have Jabez under lock and key in a week."

"So long as you do not harm him I will be – as I have been hitherto," replied the woman wearily. "It was only from what your Shadow Man gave me to understand that I spoke as I did. I will do all I can to meet your wishes."

"Marry Gerald then!"

Miriam shook her head.

"I said I was prepared to do what I could," she observed, "but so far as Mr. Arkel is concerned, I can do nothing. I may as well tell you at once that he is engaged to Hilda Marsh."

"Damn her!" said Barton, without moving a muscle. "How do you know?"

"I saw them sitting together on the stile near Farmer Bell's. One glance at them was quite sufficient for me. They are engaged, Mr. Barton. You will find that I am right."

Barton mused.

"I am not surprised," he said, after a pause. "I have no doubt you are right. I fancy I know, too, what has brought it about. Last night I told Gerald that I intended to make him my heir; he has, of course, gone straight to her, the hussy, with it, and she – by Heaven, what fools men are! – well, she's lost no time in bringing him to the point. Well," Barton chuckled, "it is not too late to remedy my little mistake. I shall just contrive to let Miss Marsh know that I have changed my mind – that for Gerald I intend to substitute John Dundas, and I fancy you'll see that she'll change hers pretty quickly too."

"Even if she does, it can make no difference so far as I am concerned. As I told you before, I tell you again, there is no chance of my marrying Mr. Arkel."

"But I thought you said – your feelings – !"

"Yes, I know that to my cost, but he does not love me, and will never, never ask me to be his wife. He respects me, he admires me – I am sure he likes me very much. But I must have more than that, Mr. Barton – or less. Let me go, please. I have tried to win Gerald; but he is not for me."

"But think of him– you would not see the boy ruined? With Hilda for wife and my fortune his ruin will be very complete. As his wife you could save him – you know you could! And you have three times the brains of that minx. Surely you could manage – "

"Enough, Mr. Barton. I will not hear what you are going to say. I could save him. Yes, I know I could," cried Miriam, and the tears rose in her eyes. "But, much as I love him, and God alone knows how much that is – I cannot lower myself in his eyes and in my own. I cannot do more, Mr. Barton. The salvation of Gerald is in your hands, not in mine. If you hated his mother, who wronged you, that is no reason you should ruin him, a young man, who has done you no harm. It is a villainous, mad, horrible thing to do!"

"You think so? Well, it must suffice for you that I know what I am doing. If Gerald, after all my kindness and care, had shown any love for me – if he had been even ordinarily grateful, I might have spared him. But he is a brainless, selfish, cold-hearted fop, who abuses me even while he eats my meat. He is useless to man, ruinous to woman, so the sooner he drinks and debauches himself into an early grave, the better it will be for humanity in general. I brought you down here thinking to give him a chance, but he has thrown that away. I have no pity for him!"

"Let your will in favour of Major Dundas stand," urged Miriam, "and Gerald will not lose his chance. Hilda is a mere fortune-hunter. She will throw him over as soon as ever she hears that he is poor."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," replied Barton coldly. "He shall have my money, and, since he is so blind, he can marry Hilda. You – since you refuse to save him – can stand aside and watch his downfall."

"I tell you it is beyond my power to marry him, even if I wished to. I cannot achieve the impossible. Gerald's future cannot depend upon me."

"Then, if it is to depend upon me, a cruel future it will be for him. By a new will I am leaving everything to him."

"Mr. Barton, you are an incarnate devil!"

"Nothing of the kind – only very much a man."

"A coward, since you revenge yourself on a dead woman."

At this Barton was seized with a sudden fury.

"I revenge myself on the son of a woman who ruined me," he almost shouted. "I would have lived and died a decent man but for her. Within me I had the seeds of a wicked heredity, which drove me, if not to crime, at least into contact with crime. The woman I loved would have saved me from myself, and my sister stepped in to prevent my salvation. I hated her for it, I hate her son, and the knowledge that he will go headlong to ruin after my death, will be the sweetest of my dying thoughts."

Miriam looked at the old man with amazement, as he shook with fury and impotent rage. His face became positively brutish, his eyes glittered with insane light, and he shook from head to foot, as though seized with a palsy.

"You say that I am an opium-eater," he continued wrathfully. "I am – I am! For years I was possessed of seven devils which tore at me, and, in despair, I took to the drug. Mother Mandarin! you know her well, and she knows me. Many a time have I crept down that foul lane in Lambeth to the foul den of that old hag, and there with many a pipe have I sought to smoke myself into oblivion – into an imaginary paradise where at least I might hope to dream of her who was lost to me. But did oblivion come – was Paradise opened? No, no! I was taken into hell – to suffer the tortures of the damned. My waking life was agony – my sleeping, pain everlasting; yet I could not tear myself away from the thing. It gained too strong a hold on me, and I am a slave to it even now – I confess it, a slave to Satan, to Apollyon, to Beelzebub. You know now why I go to London, and seek to deliver myself into the grip of those things which lie in darkness."

In his agitation he rose and paced the floor, rent and torn by the devils which, as he said, and which Miriam, with the spectacle before her, was constrained to believe, possessed him.

She remained silent, stunned almost by the outburst of this terrible nature – brutish, animal, horrible. It was as though the cold ground underfoot had opened to spout fire and destruction. Barton went on,

"Do you know my fear, Miriam? It is that some day I shall kill some one. That is the gift that I inherit from my ancestors. A thousand times the impulse has seized me, but, so far, I have had the strength to hold me back. A wife – a good, fond, loving, tender wife, could have saved me from the tortures which that bloody instinct inflicts. She would have exorcised the devil within me. Of that, my only salvation, I was robbed by my sister. I hate her!" he hissed.

"Flora, dead or alive, I curse you! I will ruin your son, as you ruined me, and when he dies a drunkard and an outcast, I shall laugh – yes, even though I am in hell, I shall laugh."

Shaking his fists, the old man dropped into his chair, and burying his face in his hands, burst into tears. His paroxysm of anger had exhausted him, and he was now weak as a child.

Miriam was amazed and terrified by what she had heard. Here was a man with the awful instinct of murder in his blood, possessed of a hideous love of crime. Within him lurked a monster ravenous as a tiger – a source of danger to all around him, although they knew it not. Miriam wondered whether in truth he might not already have followed the promptings of his mania – whether his hands were not even now stained with blood. Or, perchance, he had watched others do this devil's work at his bidding, while he had stood aside, and thus kept himself within the limits of the law. She could not say, she could not guess; but, silent and aghast, she looked at the sobbing man. Filled with the instincts of terrible crime, what a life he must have led! What tortures he must have experienced! Was he really sane or insane? Should he be allowed to go free or not? She could not decide. She could only sit there fascinated as it were by the sight of him – a human being abject and impotent from abandonment to the vile instincts which had clamoured for expression. She could almost find it in her heart to pity him!