"Intemperance! It was brandy—sheer brandy. He brought himself to such a state that nothing but brandy would keep him alive, and in which brandy was sure to kill him;—and it did kill him. Did you ever hear of the horrors of drink?"
"Yes; I have heard of such a state."
"I hope you may never live to see it. It is a sight that would stick by you for ever. But I saw it, and tended him through the whole, as though I had been his servant. I remained with him when that man who opened the door for you could no longer endure the room. I was with him when the strong woman from the hospital, though she could not understand his words, almost fainted at what she saw and heard. He was punished, Harry. I need wish no farther vengeance on him, even for all his cruelty, his injustice, his unmanly treachery. Is it not fearful to think that any man should have the power of bringing himself to such an end as that?"
Harry was thinking rather how fearful it was that a man should have it in his power to drag any woman through such a Gehenna as that which this lord had created. He felt that had Julia Brabazon been his, as she had once promised him, he never would have allowed himself to speak a harsh word to her, to have looked at her except with loving eyes. But she had chosen to join herself to a man who had treated her with a cruelty exceeding all that his imagination could have conceived. "It is a mercy that he has gone," said he at last.
"It is a mercy for both. Perhaps you can understand now something of my married life. And through it all I had but one friend;—if I may call him a friend who had come to terms with my husband, and was to have been his agent in destroying me. But when this man understood from me that I was not what he had been taught to think me—which my husband had told him I was—he relented."
"May I ask what was that man's name?"
"His name is Pateroff. He is a Pole, but he speaks English like an Englishman. In my presence he told Lord Ongar that he was false and brutal. Lord Ongar laughed, with that little, low, sneering laughter which was his nearest approach to merriment, and told Count Pateroff that that was of course his game before me. There, Harry—I will tell you nothing more of it. You will understand enough to know what I have suffered; and if you can believe that I have not sinned—"
"Oh, Lady Ongar!"
"Well, I will not doubt you again. But as far as I can learn you are nearly alone in your belief. What Hermy thinks I cannot tell, but she will soon come to think as Hugh may bid her. And I shall not blame her. What else can she do, poor creature?"
"I am sure she believes no ill of you."
"I have one advantage, Harry—one advantage over her and some others. I am free. The chains have hurt me sorely during my slavery; but I am free, and the price of my servitude remains. He had written home—would you believe that?—while I was living with him he had written home to say that evidence should be collected for getting rid of me. And yet he would sometimes be civil, hoping to cheat me into inadvertencies. He would ask that man to dine, and then of a sudden would be absent; and during this he was ordering that evidence should be collected! Evidence, indeed! The same servants have lived with me through it all. If I could now bring forward evidence I could make it all clear as the day. But there needs no care for a woman's honour, though a man may have to guard his by collecting evidence!"
"But what he did cannot injure you."
"Yes, Harry, it has injured me; it has all but destroyed me. Have not reports reached even you? Speak out like a man, and say whether it is not so?"
"I have heard something."
"Yes, you have heard something! If you heard something of your sister where would you be? All the world would be a chaos to you till you had pulled out somebody's tongue by the roots. Not injured me! For two years your cousin Hugh's house was my home. I met Lord Ongar in his house. I was married from his house. He is my brother-in-law, and it so happens that of all men he is the nearest to me. He stands well before the world, and at this time could have done me real service. How is it that he did not welcome me home;—that I am not now at his house with my sister; that he did not meet me so that the world might know that I was received back among my own people? Why is it, Harry, that I am telling this to you;—to you, who are nothing to me; my sister's husband's cousin; a young man, from your position not fit to be my confidant? Why am I telling this to you, Harry?"
"Because we are old friends," said he, wondering again at this moment whether she knew of his engagement with Florence Burton.
"Yes, we are old friends, and we have always liked each other; but you must know that, as the world judges, I am wrong to tell all this to you. I should be wrong—only that the world has cast me out, so that I am no longer bound to regard it. I am Lady Ongar, and I have my share of that man's money. They have given me up Ongar Park, having satisfied themselves that it is mine by right, and must be mine by law. But he has robbed me of every friend I had in the world, and yet you tell me he has not injured me!"
"Not every friend."
"No, Harry, I will not forget you, though I spoke so slightingly of you just now. But your vanity need not be hurt. It is only the world—Mrs. Grundy, you know, that would deny me such friendship as yours; not my own taste or choice. Mrs. Grundy always denies us exactly those things which we ourselves like best. You are clever enough to understand that."
He smiled and looked foolish, and declared that he only offered his assistance because perhaps it might be convenient at the present moment. What could he do for her? How could he show his friendship for her now at once?
"You have done it, Harry, in listening to me and giving me your sympathy. It is seldom that we want any great thing from our friends. I want nothing of that kind. No one can hurt me much further now. My money and my rank are safe; and, perhaps, by degrees, acquaintances, if not friends, will form themselves round me again. At present, of course, I see no one; but because I see no one, I wanted some one to whom I could speak. Poor Hermy is worse than no one. Good-by, Harry; you look surprised and bewildered now, but you will soon get over that. Don't be long before I see you again."
Then, feeling that he was bidden to go, he wished her good-by, and went.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HOUSE IN ONSLOW CRESCENT.
Harry, as he walked away from the house in Bolton Street, hardly knew whether he was on his heels or his head. Burton had told him not to dress—"We don't give dress dinner parties, you know. It's all in the family way with us,"—and Harry, therefore, went direct from Bolton Street to Onslow Crescent. But, though he managed to keep the proper course down Piccadilly, he was in such confusion of mind that he hardly knew whither he was going. It seemed as though a new form of life had been opened to him, and that it had been opened in such a way as almost necessarily to engulf him. It was not only that Lady Ongar's history was so terrible, and her life so strange, but that he himself was called upon to form a part of that history, and to join himself in some sort to that life. This countess with her wealth, her rank, her beauty, and her bright intellect had called him to her, and told him that he was her only friend. Of course he had promised his friendship. How could he have failed to give such a promise to one whom he had loved so well? But to what must such a promise lead, or rather to what must it not have led had it not been for Florence Burton? She was young, free, and rich. She made no pretence of regret for the husband she had lost, speaking of him as though in truth she hardly regarded herself as his wife.
