The Mighty and the Merciful are one;

The morning dew that scarcely bends the flowers,

Exhal’d to heaven, becomes the thunderbolt

That strikes the tree at noon.

Judas Iscariot: a Drama.

There are moments in a man’s life when all the forces of life and society seem to conspire for his destruction; when, look which way he will, he sees no loophole for escape; when every step he takes forward seems a step downward towards some pitiless Inferno, and when to make even one step backward is impossible, because the precipice down which he has been thrust seems steep as a wall. Yet there is still hope for such a man, if his own conscience is not in revolt against him; for that conscience, like a very angel, may uplift him by the hair and hold him miraculously from despair and death. Woe to him, however, if he has no such living help! Beyond that, there is surely no succour for him, beyond the infinite mercy, the cruel kindness, of his avenging God.

The moment of which I speak had come to Ambrose Bradley.

Even in the very heyday of his pride, when he thought himself strong enough to walk alone, without faith, almost without vital belief, his sins had found him out, and he saw the Inferno waiting at his feet. He knew that there was no escape. He saw the powers of evil arrayed on every side against him. And cruellest of all the enemies leagued for his destruction, was the conscience which might have been his sweetest and surest friend.

It was too late now for regrets, it was too late now to reshape his course. Had he only exhibited a man’s courage, and, instead of snatching an ignoble happiness, confided the whole truth to the woman he loved, she might have pitied and forgiven him; but he had accepted her love under a lie, and to confide the truth to her now would simply be to make a confession of his moral baseness. He dared not, could not, tell her; yet he knew that detection was inevitable. Madly, despairingly, he wrestled with his agony, and soon lay prostrate before it, a strong man self-stripped of his spiritual and moral strength.

Not that he was tamely acquiescent; not that he accepted his fate as just. On the contrary, his whole spirit rose in revolt and indignation. He had tried to serve God—so at least he assured himself; he had tried to become a living lesson and example to a hard and unbelieving world; he had tried to upbuild again a Temple where men might worship in all honesty and freedom; and what was the result? For a slight fault, a venial blunder, of his own youth, he was betrayed to a punishment which threatened to be everlasting.

His intellect rebelled at the idea.

With failing strength he tried to balance himself on the satanic foothold of revolt. His doubts thickened around him like a cloud. If there was a just God, if there was a God at all, why had he made such a world?

In simple truth, the man’s fatal position was entirely the consequence of his once lack of moral courage.

He had missed the supreme moment, he had lacked the supreme sanction, which would have saved him, even had his danger been twentyfold more desperate than it had been. Instead of standing erect in his own strength, and defying the Evil One, who threatened to hurl him down and destroy him, he had taken the Evil One’s hand and accepted its support. Yes, the devil had helped him, but at what a cost!

‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ he should have said. It was the sheerest folly to say it now.

He cowered in terror at the thought of Alma’s holy indignation. He dreaded not her anger, which he could have borne, but her disenchantment, which he could not bear.

Her trust in him had been so absolute, her self-surrender so supreme; but its motive had been his goodness, her faith in his unsullied truth. She had been his handmaid, as she had called herself, and had trusted herself to him, body and soul. So complete had been his intellectual authority over her, that even had he told her his secret and thereupon assured her that he was morally a free man, though legally fettered, she would have accepted his genial pleading and still have given him her love. He was quite sure of that. But he had chosen a course of mere deception, he had refused to make her his confidant, and she had married him in all faith and fervour, believing there was no corner in all his heart where he had anything to conceal.

It was just possible that she might still forgive him; it was simply impossible that she could ever revere and respect him, as she hitherto had done.

Does he who reads these lines quite realise what it is to fall from the pure estate of a loving woman’s worship? Has he ever been so throned in a loving heart as to understand how kingly is the condition—how terrible the fall from that sweet power? So honoured and enthroned, he is still a king, though he is a beggar of all men’s charity, though he has not a roof to cover his head; so dethroned and fallen, he is still a beggar, though all the world proclaims him king.

Mephistopheles Minor, in the shape of gay George Craik, junior, scarcely slept on his discovery, or rather on his suspicions. He was now perfectly convinced that there was some mysterious connection between the clergyman and Mrs. Montmorency; and as the actress refused for the time being to lend herself to any sort of open persecution, he determined to act on his own responsibility. So he again canvassed Miss Destrange and the other light ladies of his acquaintance, and receiving from them further corroboration of the statement that Mrs. Montmorency had been previously married, he had no doubt whatever that Ambrose Bradley was the man who had once stood to her in the relation of a husband.

Armed with this information, he sought out his father on the Monday morning, found him at his club, told him of all he knew, and asked his advice.

‘My only wish, you know,’ he explained, ‘is to save Alma from that man, who is evidently a scoundrel. So I thought I would come to you at once. The question is, what is to be done?’

‘It’s a horrible complication,’ said the baronet, honestly shocked. ‘Do you actually mean to tell me that you suspect an improper relationship between Alma and this infernal infidel?’

‘I shouldn’t like to go as far as that; but they were seen travelling together, like man and wife, in France.’

‘Good heavens! It is incredible.’

‘I should like to shoot the fellow,’ cried George furiously. ‘And I would, too, if this was a duelling country. Shooting’s too good for him. He ought to be hung!’

The upshot of the conversation was that father and son determined to visit Alma at once together, and to make one last attempt to bring her to reason. At a little after midday they were at her door. The baronet stalked in past the servant, with an expression of the loftiest moral indignation.

‘Tell Miss Craik that I wish to see her at once,’ he said.

It was some minutes before Alma appeared. When she did so, attired in a pink morning peignoir of the most becoming fashion, her face was bright as sunshine; but it became clouded directly she met her uncle’s eyes. She saw at a glance that he had come on an unpleasant errand.

George Craik sulked in a corner, waiting for his father to conduct the attack.

‘What has brought you over so early, uncle?’ she demanded. ‘I hope George has not been talking nonsense to you about me. He has been here before on the same errand, and I had to show him the door.’

‘George has your interest at heart! returned the baronet, fuming; ‘and if you doubt his disinterestedness, perhaps you will do me the justice to believe that I am your true friend, as well as your relation. Now my brother is gone, I am your nearest protector. It is enough to make your father rise in his grave to hear what I have heard.’

‘What have you heard?’ cried Alma, turning pale with indignation. ‘Don’t go too far, uncle, or I shall quarrel with you as well as George; and I should be sorry for that.’

‘Will you give me an explanation of your conduct—yes or no?—or do you refuse my right to question you? Remember, Alma, the honour of our family—your father’s honour—is in question.’

‘How absurd you are!’ cried Alma, with a forced laugh. ‘But there, I will try to keep my temper. What is it that you want to know?’

And she sat down quietly, with folded hands, as if waiting to be interrogated.

‘Is it the fact, as I am informed, that you and Mr. Bradley were seen travelling alone together, some weeks ago, in Normandy?’

Alma hesitated before speaking; then, smiling to herself, she said,

‘Suppose it is true, uncle—what then?’

The baronet’s face went red as crimson, and he paced furiously up and down the room.

‘What then? Good heavens, can you ask that question? Do you know that your character is at stake? Then you do not deny it?’

‘No; for it is true.’

Father and son looked at one another; then the baronet proceeded:

‘Then all the rest is true. You are that man’s mistress!’

The shot struck home, but Alma was prepared for it, and without changing her attitude in the least, she quietly replied:

‘No, uncle; I am that man’s wife!’

‘His wife!’ ejaculated father and son in the same breath.

‘Yes. We were married some weeks ago, and after the wedding, went for a few days to France. There! I intended to keep the secret, till I was free to tell it; but gross, cruel importunity has wrung it from me. Do not think, however,’ she continued, rising to her feet and exchanging her self-possessed manner for one of angry wrath, ‘that I shall ever forgive you, either of you, for your shameful suspicions concerning me. You might have spared me so many insults. You might have known me better. However, now you know the truth, perhaps you will relieve me from any further persecution.’

Father and son exchanged another look.

‘Do you actually affirm that you are married?’ exclaimed the baronet.

‘Actually,’ returned the young lady with a sarcastic bow.

Thereupon George Craik sprang to his feet, prepared to deliver the coup de grÂce.

‘Tell her the truth, father!’ he exclaimed. ‘Tell her that she is no more married than I am!’

‘What does he mean?’ cried Alma, looking at her uncle. ‘Is he mad?’

‘He means simply this, Alma,’ said Sir George, after a prompting glance from his son. ‘If you have gone through the marriage ceremony with this man, this infidel, you have been shamefully betrayed. The scoundrel was unable to marry again, if, as we have reason to believe, his first wife is still living!’

The two men, father and son, had struck their blow boldly but very cruelly, and it came with full force on the devoted woman’s head. At first Alma could scarcely believe her ears; she started in her chair, put out her hands quickly as if to ward off another savage attack, and then shrank in terror, while every vestige of colour in her cheeks faded away.

Sir George stood gazing down at her, also greatly agitated, for he was well-bred enough to feel that the part he was playing was unmanly, almost cowardly. He had spoken and acted on a mere surmise, and even at that moment, amidst the storm of his nervous indignation, the horrible thought flashed upon him that he might be wrong after all.

‘“His first wife is still living!”’ repeated Alma with a quick involuntary shudder, scarcely able to realise the words. ‘Uncle, what do you mean? Have you gone mad, as well as George? Of whom are you speaking? Of—of Mr. Bradley?’

‘Of that abominable man,’ pried the baronet, ‘who, if my information is correct, and if there is law in the land, shall certainly pay the penalty of his atrocious crime! Do not think that we blame you,’ he added more gently; ‘no, for you are not to blame. You have been the dupe, the victim of a villain!’

Like a prisoner sick with terror, yet gathering all his strength about him to protest against the death-sentence for a crime of which he is innocent, Alma rose, and trembling violently, still clutching the chair for support, looked at her uncle.

‘I do not believe one word of what you say! I believe it is an infamous falsehood. But whether it is true or false, I shall never forgive you in this world for the words you have spoken to me to-night.’

‘I have only done my duty, Alma!’ returned Sir George, uneasily, moving as he spoke towards her and reaching out his arms to support her. ‘My poor child—courage! George and I will protect and save you.’

Hereupon Mephistopheles junior uttered a sullen half-audible murmur, which was understood to be a solemn promise to punch the fellow’s head—yes, smash him—on the very earliest opportunity!

‘Don’t touch me!’ exclaimed Alma. ‘Don’t approach me! What is your authority for this cruel libel on Mr. Bradley? You talk of punishment. It is you that will be punished, be sure of that, if you cannot justify so shameful an accusation.’

The two men looked at each other. If, after all, the ground should give way beneath them! But it was too late to draw back or temporise.

‘Tell her, father,’ said George, with a prompting look.

‘You ask our authority for the statement,’ replied the baronet. ‘My dear Alma, the thing is past a doubt. We have seen the—the person.’

‘The person? What person?’

‘Bradley’s wife!’

‘He has no wife but me,’ cried Alma. ‘I love him—he is my husband!’

Then, as Sir George shrugged his shoulders pityingly, she leant forward eagerly, and demanded in quick, spasmodic gasps:—

‘Who is the woman who wrongs my rights? Who is the creature who has filled you with this falsehood? Who is she? Tell me!’

‘She is at present passing under the name of Montmorency, and is, I believe, an actress.’

As he spoke, there came suddenly in Alma’s remembrance the vivid picture of the woman whom she had seen talking with the clergyman in the vestry, and simultaneously she was conscious of the sickly odour of scent which had surrounded her like a fume of poison. Alma grew faint. Some terrible and foreboding presence seemed overpowering her. She thought of the painted face, the shameless dress and bearing of the strange woman, of Bradley’s peculiar air of nervous uneasiness, of the thrill of dislike and repulsion which had run momentarily through her own frame as she left them together. Overcome by an indescribable and sickening horror, she put her hand to her forehead, tottered, and seemed about to fall.

Solicitous and alarmed, the baronet once more approached her as if to support her. But before he could touch her she had shrunk shuddering away.

Weak and terrified now, she uttered a despairing moan.

‘Oh! why did you come here to tell me this?’ she cried. ‘Why did you come here to break my heart and wreck my life? If you had had any pity or care for me, you would have spared me; you would have left me to discover my misery for myself, Go now, go; you have done all you can. I shall soon know for myself whether your cruel tale is false or true.’

‘It is true,’ said Sir George. ‘Do not be unjust, my child. We could not, knowing what we did, suffer you to remain at the mercy of that man. Now, be advised. Leave the affair to us, who are devoted to you; we will see that you are justified, and that the true culprit is punished as he deserves.’

And the two men made a movement towards the door.

‘Stop!’ cried Alma. ‘What do you intend to do?’

‘Apply for a warrant, and have the scoundrel apprehended without delay.’

‘You will do so at your peril,’ exclaimed Alma, with sudden energy. ‘I forbid you to interfere between him and me. Yes, I forbid you! Even if things are as you say—and I will never believe it till I receive the assurance from his own lips, never!—even if things are as you say, the wrong is mine, not yours, and I need no one to come between me and the man I love.’

‘The man you love!’ echoed Sir George in amazement. ‘Alma, this is infatuation!’

‘I love him, uncle, and love such as mine is not a light thing to be destroyed by the first breath of calumny or misfortune. What has taken place is between him and me alone.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ returned her uncle, with a recurrence to his old anger. ‘Our good name—the honour of the house—is at stake; and if you are too far lost to consider these, it is my duty, as the head of the family, to act on your behalf.’

‘Certainly,’ echoed young George between his set teeth.

‘And how would you vindicate them?’ asked Alma, passionately. ‘By outraging and degrading me? Yes; for if you utter to any other soul one syllable of this story, you drag my good name in the mire, and make me the martyr. I need no protection, I ask no justification. If necessary I can bear my misery, as I have borne my happiness, in silence and alone.’

‘But,’ persisted Sir George, ‘you will surely let us take some steps to———-’

‘Whatever I do will be done on my own responsibility. I am my own mistress. Uncle, you must promise me—you must swear to me—to do nothing without my will and consent. You can serve me yet; you can show that you are still capable of kindliness and compassion, by saving me from proceedings which you would regret, and which I should certainly not survive.’

Sir George looked at his son in fresh perplexity. In the whirlwind of his excitement he had hardly taken into calculation the unpleasantness of a public exposure. True, it would destroy and punish the man, but, on the other hand, it would certainly bring disgrace on the family. Alma’s eccentricities, both of opinion and of conduct, which he had held in very holy horror, would become the theme of the paragraph-maker and the leader-writer, and the immediate consequence would be to make the name of Craik ridiculous. So he stammered and hesitated.

George Craik, the younger, however, had none of his father’s scruples. He cared little or nothing now for his cousin’s reputation. All he wanted was to expose, smash, pulverise, and destroy Bradley, the man whom he had always cordially detested, and who had subjected him to innumerable indignities on the part of his cousin. So, seeing Alma’s helplessness, and no longer dreading her indignation, he plucked up heart of grace and took his full part in the discussion.

‘The fellow deserves penal servitude for life,’ he said, ‘and in my opinion, Alma, it’s your duty to prosecute him. It is the only course you can take in justice to yourself and your friends. I know it will be deucedly unpleasant; but not more unpleasant than going through the Divorce Court, which respectable people do every day.’

‘Silence!’ exclaimed his cousin, turning upon him with tremulous indignation.

‘Eh? what?’ ejaculated George.

‘I will not discuss Mr. Bradley with you. To my uncle I will listen, because I know he has a good heart, and because he is my dear father’s brother; but I forbid you to speak to me on the subject. I owe all this misery and humiliation to you, and you only.’

‘That’s all humbug!’ George began furiously, but his father interposed and waved him to silence.

‘Alma is excited, naturally excited; in her cooler senses she will acknowledge that she does you an injustice. Hush, George!—My dear child,’ he continued, addressing Alma, ‘all my son and I desire to do is to save you pain. You have been disgracefully misled, and I repeat, I pity rather than blame you. To be sure you have been a little headstrong, a little opinionated, and I am afraid the doctrines promulgated by your evil genius have led you to take too rash a view of—hum—moral sanctions. Depend upon it, loose ideas in matters of religion lead, directly and indirectly, to the destruction of morality. Not that I accuse you of wilful misconduct—Heaven forbid! But you have erred from want of caution, from, if I may so express it, a lack of discretion; for you should have been aware that the man that believes in neither Our Maker nor Our Saviour—an—in short, an infidel—would not be deterred by any moral consideration from acts of vice and crime.’

This was a long speech, but Alma paid little or no attention to it. She stood against the mantelpiece, leaning her forehead against it, and trembling with agony; but she did not cry—the tears would not come yet—she was still too lost in amazement, pain, and dread.

Suddenly, as Sir George ended, she looked up and said:—

‘The name of this woman, this actress? Where is she to be found?’

‘Her name—as I told you, her assumed name—is Montmorency. George can give you her address; but I think, on the whole, you had better not see her.’

‘I must,’ replied Alma, firmly.

Sir George glanced at his son, who thereupon took out a notebook and wrote on one of the leaves, which he tore out and handed to his father.

‘Here is the address,’ said the baronet, passing the paper on to Alma.

She took it without looking at it, and threw it on the mantelpiece.

‘Now pray leave me. But, before you go, promise to do nothing—to keep this matter secret—until you hear from me. I must first ascertain that what you say is true.’

‘We will do as you desire, Alma,’ returned Sir George; ‘only I think it would be better—much better—to let us act for you.’

‘No; I only am concerned. I am not a child, and am able to protect myself.’

‘Very well,’ said her uncle. ‘But try, my child, to remember that you have friends who are waiting to serve you. I am heart-broken—George is heart-broken—at this sad affair. Do nothing rash, I beseech you; and do not forget, in this hour of humiliation, that there is One above Who can give you comfort, if you will turn humbly and reverently to Him!’

With this parting homily the worthy baronet approached his niece, drew her to him, and kissed her benignantly on the forehead. But she shrank away quickly, with a low cry of distress.

‘Do not touch me! Do not speak to me! Leave me now, for God’s sake!’

After a long-drawn sigh, expressive of supreme sympathy and commiseration, and a prolonged look full of quasi-paternal emotion, Sir George left the room. George followed, with a muttered ‘Good-night!’ to which his cousin paid no attention.

Father and son passed out into the street, where the manner of both underwent a decided change.

‘Well that’s over!’ exclaimed the baronet.

‘The poor girl bears it far better than I expected; for it is a horrible situation.’

‘Then you mean to do as she tells you,’ said George, ‘and let the scoundrel alone?’

‘For the time being, yes. After all, Alma is right, and we must endeavour to avoid a public exposure.’

‘It’s sure to come out. It’s bigamy, you know—Bigamy!’ lie added, with more emphasis and a capital letter.

‘So it is—if it is true. At present, you know, we have no proofs whatever—only suspicions. God bless me! how ridiculous we should look if the whole thing turns out a mare’s nest after all! Alma will never forgive us! You really feel convinced that there was a previous marriage?’

‘I’m sure of it,’ returned George. ‘And, whether or not——’

He did not finish the sentence; but what he added to himself, spitefully enough, was to the effect that, ‘whether or not,’ he had paid out his cousin for all her contumelious and persistent snubbing.