If you will allow me, I will ring the bell for my trap.""You will do nothing of the sort," Wingrave answered testily. "You will stay here and talk to me.""I will stay with pleasure if you desire it," the lawyer answered. "I had an idea that you preferred solitude.""Then you were wrong," Wingrave answered. "I hate being alone."They moved out together towards the garden. Tea was set out in a shady corner of the lawn.
"If you will forgive my remarking it," Mr. Pengarth said, "this seems rather an extraordinary place for you to come to if you really dislike solitude.""I come to escape from an intolerable situation, and because I was ill,"Wingrave said.
"You might have brought friends," the lawyer suggested.
"I have no friends," Wingrave answered.
"Some of the people in the neighborhood would be very glad--" Mr. Pengarth began.
"I do not wish to see them," Wingrave answered.
Mr. Pengarth took a peach, and held his tongue. Wingrave broke the silence which followed a little abruptly.
"Tell me, Mr. Pengarth," he said, "do I look like a man likely to fail in anything he sets out to accomplish?"The lawyer shook his head vigorously.
"You do not," he declared.
"Nor do I feel like one," Wingrave said, "and yet my record since I commenced, shall I call it my second life, is one of complete failure! Nothing that Iplanned have I been able to accomplish. I look back through the months and through the years, and I see not a single purpose carried out, not a single scheme successful.
"Not quite so bad as that, I trust, Sir Wingrave," the lawyer protested.
"It is the precise truth," Wingrave affirmed drily. "I am losing confidence in myself.""At least," the lawyer declared, "you have been the salvation of our dear Miss Juliet, if I may call her so. But for you, her life would have been ruined.""Precisely, " Wingrave agreed. "But I forgot! You don't understand! I have saved her from heaven knows what! I am going to give her the home she loves!
Benevolence, isn't it? And yet, if I had only the pluck, I might succeed even now--so far as she is concerned."The lawyer took off his spectacles and rubbed them with his handkerchief. He was thoroughly bewildered.
"I might succeed," Wingrave repeated, leaning back in his chair, "if only--"His face darkened. It seemed to Mr. Pengarth as he sipped his tea under the cool cedars, drawing in all their wonderful perfume with every puff of breeze, that he saw two men in the low invalid's chair before him. He saw the breath and desire of evil things struggling with some wonderful dream vainly seeking to realize itself.
"Some of us," the lawyer said timidly, "build our ideals too high up in the clouds, so that to reach them is very difficult. Nevertheless, the effort counts."Wingrave laughed mockingly.
"It is not like that with me," he declared. "My plans were made down in hell.""God bless my soul!" the lawyer murmured. "But you are not serious, Sir Wingrave?""Ay! I'm serious enough," Wingrave answered. "Do you suppose a man, with the best pages of his life rooted out, is likely to look out upon his fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for the opportunity of doing good?
Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners and thieves of honest people.""God bless my soul!" the lawyer gasped again. "I don't think you can be--as bad as you think you are. What about Juliet Lundy?"Fire flashed in Wingrave's eyes. Again, at the mention of her name, he seemed almost to lose control of himself. It was several moments before he spoke. He looked Mr. Pengarth in the face, and his tone was unusually deliberate.
"Gifts," he said, "are not always given in friendship. Life may easily become a more complicated affair for that child with the Tredowen estates hanging round her neck. And anyhow, I disappoint my next of kin."Morrison, smooth-footed and silent, appeared upon the lawn. He addressed Wingrave.
"A lady has arrived in a cab from Truro, sir," he announced. "She wishes to see you as soon as convenient."A sudden light flashed across Wingrave's face, dying out again almost immediately.
"Who is she, Morrison?" he asked.
The man glanced at Mr. Pengarth.
"She did not give her name, sir."
Mr. Pengarth and Wingrave both rose. The former at once made his adieux and took a short cut to the stables. Wingrave, who leaned heavily upon his stick, clutched Morrison by the arm.
"Who is it, Morrison?" he demanded.
"It is Lady Ruth Barrington, sir," the man answered.
"Alone?"
"Quite alone, sir."
