“No action whether foul or fair,

Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere

A record, written by fingers ghostly,

As a blessing or a curse, and mostly

In the greater weakness or greater strength

Of the acts that follow it, till at length

The wrongs of ages are redressed,

And the justice of God made manifest.”

The Golden Legend.

Ralph’s anxieties came to an end while the Company were fulfilling their engagement at Nottingham. For one never to be forgotten day there arrived a letter from Mrs. Hereford, enclosing a long letter on foreign paper from Evereld. The sheet bore no address and she did not mention the name of the friends who were taking care of her, but she told him all about their kindness, and that Bride O’Ryan was with her, that she was quite safe from molestation and in the depths of the country far away among mountains and woods, where neither Sir Matthew nor Bruce Wylie could trouble her peace.

Later on came news from Mrs. Hereford that Evereld’s affairs had been put into the hands of Mr. Marriott, and that Mr. Hereford was in consultation with the old lawyer and would do everything he possibly could: offering, if it were thought well, to become Evereld’s guardian and trustee should the Lord Chancellor decide to deprive Sir Matthew of the Trusteeship. After that for some time came no news at all.

At last, growing anxious, Ralph made a hurried expedition to town late one Saturday night, and sought out his old friend Mr. Marriott on Sunday.

He could not however get anything very definite out of him. Mr. Marriott was always reserved and cautious, but he set him quite at rest as far as Evereld was concerned.

“She is perfectly safe and Sir Matthew can’t touch her, for she is now a ward of Court,” he said reassuringly. “I am not yet at liberty to speak to you as to details. I think however your old prejudice against Sir Matthew Mactavish was not without foundation. Unless I am much mistaken, he will soon be unmasked. Now to turn to quite another matter;—I understand from my client Lady Fenchurch, that you were present at Edinburgh last summer and met Sir Roderick. Tell me as carefully as you can all that passed while you were present.”

Ralph related all that he could remember.

“We have exactly the same sort of evidence from many other witnesses of similar scenes,” said the lawyer. “It will not be worth while calling you to appear at the trial. If you had witnessed any sort of violence, physical violence, we should subpoena you at once.”

“When does the case come on?” said Ralph.

“Possibly next week, but there is always great uncertainty as to the exact date.”

Ralph’s thoughts naturally turned to Macneillie and he remembered his words about suspense being tolerable because it was always so largely mixed with hope.

The lawyer, however, who knew nothing of his reasons for taking interest in the Fenchurch case, fancied the shadow on his face was caused by anxiety for Evereld Ewart, and began to talk in a kindly way of her future.

“Of course,” he said, “I can understand that under the circumstances it is hard for you not to be allowed even to know where Miss Ewart is. But it is safer that you should only communicate with her through Mr. and Mrs. Hereford. Who can tell that Sir Matthew may not pounce down on you again as he did at Rilchester. You know that she is safe and well and for the present that must suffice you. I have good reason to believe that the world will soon see Sir Matthew Mactavish in his true colours, and what will happen then no one can foretell. There are storms ahead, but I think they are storms which will at any rate clear your way.”

After this enigmatical speech Ralph went back to his work, somewhat perplexed, yet on the whole relieved and hopeful. There followed ten uneventful days and then one morning at Brighton, when he came down to breakfast and opened the paper, the first thing that caught his eye was a brief paragraph just before the leading article.

“In the Divorce Division yesterday the President and a Common Jury had before them the case of Fenchurch v. Fenchurch and Mackay. The adultery was not denied but the evidence failed to show legal cruelty on the part of the defendant. His Lordship was therefore unable to grant a decree nisi, but ordered a judicial separation with costs, and directed the amount to be paid into Court in a fortnight. Lady Fenchurch is well known to the public under her stage name of Miss Christine Greville.”

“She is not yet free from that brute then,” thought Ralph, a sick feeling of disappointment stealing over him as he realised how this news would darken his friend’s sky, how it would for ever cheat him of his heart’s desire. Hastily turning the paper to read the longer report, he found a whole column with the sensational heading, “Theatrical Divorce Suit,” and feeling how it would all grate upon Macneillie, longed to keep the newspaper from him. “He shall at any rate have his breakfast in peace,” he reflected, and crushing the paper in his hands he flung it into the fire.

The blaze had only just died down when Macneillie entered. He seemed in unusually good spirits; they had had good houses for three nights, moreover the weather was bright and clear, and the autumn sunshine of the south coast seemed doubly delightful after a gloomy tour in the midlands. Ralph thought he had never seen him look so young and buoyant and hopeful as just at that moment.

“Nothing like Brighton air for making a man hungry,” said Macneillie devouring a plateful of porridge and helping himself to eggs and bacon. “Have they brought round the letters from the theatre?”

Ralph handed him a budget, hoping that it would occupy him and make him forget the paper! But there were no letters of importance and Macneillie suddenly remembering that there might by chance be news of the Fenchurch case, which he was aware would probably come on during November, looked eagerly round the table.

“No newspaper?” he said. “How’s that? The Smith boy must have played us false.”

“I will run out and get one,” said Ralph. “Will you have any of the local ones, too?”

“Yes, let us see what they have to say about ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” said Macneillie.

Ralph disappeared and Macneillie having finished his breakfast rang for the maid to clear.

“Have you taken our newspaper to any of the other lodgers by mistake?” he asked, beginning to feel impatient for it.

“No, sir,” said the maid. “It’s in here, at least—” looking round in surprise, “I know it was in here. Mr. Denmead must have taken it away. I saw him open it when I brought in the coffee.”

Then in a flash it dawned upon Macneillie that Ralph had made away with the paper because it contained bad news.

“The boy couldn’t stand seeing me come upon it suddenly,” he thought to himself. “He wanted me to breakfast first. No one but Ralph would have thought of that! It is the worst news. I must be ready to bear it.”

He stood by the window looking out at the great expanse of sea with its blue surface crisply ruffled by the fresh wind. Away to the left the graceful outline of the chain pier seemed to speak of old fashioned Brighton, and it took him back to a time at least seventeen years ago in the very earliest days of his betrothal to Christine. How vividly the very tiniest details of the past came back to him. It had been in the days of aestheticism and high art colouring, a style which had suited Christine to perfection. He could remember, too, how at one of the little old-fashioned stalls he had bought her a dirk-shaped Scotch shawl brooch with a cairngorm stone in it; they had been far too poor in those days to dream of diamonds.

“She was only a child of seventeen,” he thought to himself, “younger than Evereld Ewart; and I was not perhaps so very much older than that young fellow over the way. Yes, I was though—it is Ralph! How slowly he is walking. I believe the boy cares for me, he hates to be the bearer of ill news.”

Ralph’s usually cheerful face was curiously over-cast; he put down the papers, muttered something about “going to Brill’s for a swim,” and made for the door.

“Rehearsal at eleven, don’t forget,” said Macneillie, taking up the London paper with a steady hand.

He was glad to be alone, and in the midst of his grievous pain he felt grateful to Ralph for that little touch of considerateness which had spared him to some extent,—that strategem which had deferred his evil day. For as he had said his suspense had been largely mixed with hope, he had tried to face the other alternative but his very sense of justice had inclined him to be hopeful. It surely could not be that after these long years of suffering there should be no release? Max Hereford’s words had chilled him for the time, but spite of them the hope had predominated. Now hope lay dead,—remorselessly slain by this unequal English law, which as a Scotsman seemed to him so extraordinary so intolerably unfair.

When a law is manifestly unjust,—when it flatly contradicts the foundation truth of Christianity that in Christ all are equal, that there is neither bond nor free, male nor female—there comes to every one of strong passions the temptation to break the law. It is such a hard thing to wait patiently for the slow tedious process of reform, that the headstrong and the impetuous and the self-indulgent, and all who have not learnt a stern self-control, will often take the law into their own hands and defy the world. Macneillie reaped now the benefit of long years of self-repression and suffering. He saw very clearly that it is only justifiable to break the law of the land when it interferes with a higher duty; that to break even a bad law because it interfered with one’s cherished desire could never be right; that to admit such a course to be right must sap the very foundations of society.

He saw it all plainly enough, yet, being human, could not at once shake himself free from the haunting consciousness that it lay in his power to choose present happiness, that in such a case the world would quickly condone the offence, and—greatest temptation of all—that he might shield Christine from the difficulties and dangers that were but too likely to assail one in her position.

Fortunately he had but little spare time on his hands, it was already a quarter to eleven and the mere habit of rigorous punctuality came to his help.

He walked down the parade, and the fresh air and the salt sea breeze invigorated him, his mind went back, sadly enough, yet with greater safety, from the future to the past, he seemed to be young once more and crossing this very Steyne with a tall golden-haired girl, who still retained something of the simplicity and innocence which she had brought with her from her quiet school in the country. She was beside him as he passed through Castle Square, beside him as he walked up North Street, beside him as he went along the Colonnade and entered the stage door of the very same theatre where they had acted together all those years ago.

There was a rehearsal of “Romeo and Juliet” chiefly for the sake of Ralph, who was the understudy for Romeo and was obliged to play the part that evening owing to the illness of the Juvenile Lead—John Carrington.

Though of course perfect in his words, he needed a good deal of instruction, and Macneillie who always found him a pupil after his own heart, receptive, quick, eager to learn, and with that touch of genius which is as rare as it is delightful, forgot for a time all his troubles in the pleasure of teaching. And if, after the night’s performance was over and his satisfaction with his pupil’s success had had time to pass into the background, the old temptation came back once more, it came back with lessened power and found a stronger man to grapple with it.

No word passed between master and pupil as to the bad news the morning had brought, except that as Ralph, somewhat sooner than usual, bade the Manager goodnight, Macneillie with his most kindly look said to him:—

“Your Romeo is the best thing you have done yet. The saying goes, you know, that no man has the power to act Romeo till he looks too old for the part; you have done something towards falsifying that axiom, and have cheered a dark day for me.”

“I owe everything to you, Governor,” said Ralph gripping his hand; and as he turned away he felt that he would have given up all and been content to play walking gentleman for the rest of his days if only Macneillie could be spared this grievous trial that had come upon him. He prayed for a reform of the law as he had never prayed in his life.

Left alone, Macneillie paced silently up and down the room, deep in thought. At length in the small hours of the night, he took pen and paper and wrote the following letter:—

“My dear Christine:

“It is impossible after our talk last summer in Scotland, to let such a time as this pass by in silence. You well know that I love you, nor will I pretend ignorance of your love for me. Let us be honest and face facts;—truth makes even what we are called on to bear more endurable. It is because I love and honour you that I write to bid you farewell. Let us at least be law-abiding citizens, even though the law be a one-sided, unjust law.

“I believe from my heart, that Christ, though disallowing divorce, with its natural sequence another marriage, for all the trivial reasons which the Jews were in the habit of putting forward, distinctly permitted them where a marriage had been broken by the faithlessness of a guilty partner. And assuredly He never set up one standard of morality for men and another for women; His words must apply equally to both.

“Doubtless some day the gross injustice of the existing English law will be removed, and as in Scotland there will be one and the same law for men and women in this matter. For that day I wait and hope. For many reasons I do not ask now to see you. Is it not better that we should not meet? I am convinced that it is safer and wiser that we should—both for our own sakes and for the sake of the profession—keep apart. Many may think this mere old-fashioned prejudice, but I believe I should serve you better at a distance than by dangling about you and so giving a handle to those scandal-mongers who love nothing so dearly as to make free with the name of some well-known actress.

“I dare not write more, save just to beg and pray that if there should ever be a time when you are in any danger or difficulty, and others—better fitted to serve because more indifferent—are not at hand, you will then turn to me for help.

“God bless you. Good bye.

“Yours ever,

“Hugh Macneillie.”

The letter reached Christine at Monkton Verney and the sight of it made the colour rush to her pale face. What she hoped, what she feared she scarcely knew herself, her heart was all in tumult. She read it in feverish haste, then again slowly and carefully, and yet a third time through fast gathering tears. How strangely it contrasted with the so-called love letters she had received from some men! And yet how infinitely more it moved her by its calmness and self-restraint!

“I was unworthy of you in the past,” she thought. “But God helping me I will try to be more worthy now.”

And without further delay,—dreading perhaps to put off the difficult task—she wrote him a letter which had in it the fervour of a new and strong resolve, and the beauty of a perfectly sincere response of soul to soul.

After that she plunged straight into business, and about noon sought out Miss Claremont and, walking with her in the quiet grounds near the ruined priory, told her of the plans she had made for the future.

“I have as you know made over the management of the theatre to Barry Sterne. He and his wife have been very good to me for many years, and it is better now that I should not again be burdened with all the cares of a Manageress. He proposes that I should take the part of the heroine in the new play that he is bringing out in January and I have just written to him accepting the proposal.”

“Are you fit yet for work?” asked Miss Claremont looking a little doubtfully into her companion’s face; it was curiously beautiful this morning, but not with the beauty of physical strength. Indeed Christine had never looked capable of bearing any very great strain and the last few days had taxed her powers to the utmost.

“I must get to work,” she said quietly. “There is no safety in idleness. How odd it seems that a physical break-down comes generally through overwork, and a moral break-down through too little work.”

“When must you leave us?” asked Miss Claremont.

“I think I had better go next week, and if you will keep Charlie a few days longer I can settle into that flat in Victoria Street which I have the refusal of. I shall manage very well there with my maid, and with Dugald to wait on Charlie; it will be necessary to live a quiet life for many reasons.”

Miss Claremont assented, nor was it possible to raise any objection to her companion’s plans. But she could not help secretly wondering whether, with all her good intentions, Christine was strong enough either in health or in character to live a life so beset with difficulties.