Chapter VII: Via Crucis

As for me, I honour, in these loud babbling days, all the Silent rather. A grand Silence that of Romans;--nay, the grandest of all, is it not that of the gods!

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Commend me to the silent English, to the silent Romans.
CARLYLE.

Dr. Tremain was very much vexed when he found that Donovan had left without seeing him, nor could he gather any very distinct account of what had passed either from Mrs. Causton or Gladys. Mrs. Causton irritated him considerably by her tearful and highly-coloured descriptions of the evil which she imagined to have emanated entirely from her son's companion; Gladys was strangely silent and would volunteer nothing, but, in answer to a direct question, told her father that Donovan had refused to see him and would not allow her to disturb him. All this tended only too effectually to confirm the doctor's fears. Donovan had fallen back grievously, there could be little doubt of that; if it had not been so, could he have rushed off at a moment's notice in this way, studiously avoiding him after a separation of more than a year?

Stephen was too ill to be thoroughly questioned on the subject, but the doctor could not refrain from one or two attempts to gain from him the favourable testimony to Donovan's character, for which he hoped against hope.

Once in the night, when he woke refreshed after a long sleep and lay in listless quiet, Dr. Tremain hazarded a question.

"I don't wish you to talk much, Stephen, you are not fit for it; but just give me a simple yes and no to one or two questions. Has Donovan Farrant been influencing you in a way which your mother and I did not expect?"

"Yes," replied Stephen, glad that the question was put in so ambiguous a way that he could reply in the affirmative. But the next question was more direct.

"I am to understand, then, that my finding you in his company at the Z---- races is only one instance in many, that he has often been with you to places which Mrs. Causton--which I myself would have disapproved?"

Stephen's colour deepened; this question might still be answered by that deceptive "yes," but not without very uneasy stirrings of conscience. And yet how much that was disagreeable might be averted by that affirmative! He had been led astray, what could be more probable and pardonable? He should of course repent, turn over a new leaf, get into the doctor's good graces again, and in no way damage his prospects as Gladys' lover. But if on the contrary the ugly truth came out? Then there would be endless reproaches from his mother, unbearable humiliation; what harm could there be in giving a slight turn to the meaning of a word? In a minute, by that strange process of self-deception often noticed in very weak characters, he had almost persuaded himself that Donovan had led him into evil.

He turned a flushed face towards the doctor, and unable to speak the downright lie in one word, softened it down in a sentence.

"I got into the way of playing, and lost a lot at billiards. Farrant went with me. I hoped to have made it up here, but----"

"That will do," said the doctor. "You have spoken more than you ought."

There was such pain and disappointment in his tone that Stephen's conscience tormented him to speak the truth boldly even then, but it requires a certain amount of moral courage not to stick to a lie when it has been told, and moral courage was a virtue entirely wanting in Stephen. He lay silent in palpitating misery, wishing that he had never seen Donovan, or had never heard of the Z---- races, wishing that many things had been otherwise, but strangely forgetting to wish for the much needed increase of his own courage and honour.

In spite of this mental disturbance, however, he slept again, and the next day was so much better that Dr. Tremain felt justified in leaving him for a few hours. He could not rest now till he had seen Donovan, and entirely satisfied himself that there was no shade of doubt as to the truth of his fears.

It was no use to question Stephen or Mrs. Causton any further, but he made one more attempt on Gladys, who apparently had been the last to speak to Donovan.

"Now tell me, dear, plainly what passed between you," said the doctor, far too deeply engrossed in other matters to notice the painfully bright colour which rose in Gladys' cheeks.

"I will tell you, papa, exactly," she said, quieting herself with an effort. "Aunt Margaret said that she was sure he couldn't afford to waste two days in term time, and then Donovan, seeing that she wished him to go, said good-bye at once. I went to the head of the stairs to speak to him, for it seemed wrong to let him go like that, but he would not let me call you away from Stephen. And then--then----" her voice faltered.

"Well?" said her father, with some lurking hope that a fresh light might be thrown on the matter.

"I begged him to stay and explain all to you, for I thought he could. He didn't answer at first, and looked very, very miserable, but after a minute he told me that he couldn't explain anything, and that it was better that he should go at once."

"Was that all?" said the doctor, grievously disappointed.

"That was all," said Gladys, firmly. "But, papa," she added, with a sort of proud enthusiasm in her voice, "if you had seen his face when he spoke, you could not have believed for a moment that he has done this."

For the first time it dawned on Dr. Tremain that his child might possibly have thought more of Donovan Farrant than was wise. Mrs. Causton's old advice flashed back into his mind; he had talked of open-armed charity, and prudence with tied hands, and was this the ending of it all? He sighed very heavily.

"Dear little Gladys," he said, drawing her towards him, "we must not trust too much to faces."

He could not say more, but he looked very sorrowfully into Gladys' wistful eyes.

"You will go to see him, papa," she said, quietly, "and I think you will believe in him then."

Her words almost inspired the doctor with a new hope; warm-hearted and impetuous, he set off at once for London, and early in the afternoon reached the York Road lodgings. It was Saturday, and knowing there would be no lectures, he hoped to find Donovan.

The servant thought he was at home, but was not quite sure. She asked him to come in. Dr. Tremain following her into the sitting-room, found himself in the presence of an apple-faced old man, whose scanty reddish-grey hair was covered by a scarlet smoking-cap, and who seemed to be dividing his attention between a long clay pipe and a tumbler of brandy and water.

"I must have made a mistake, sir," said the doctor, apologising to the odd figure before him. "These cannot be Mr. Farrant's rooms, I think?"

"Donovan Farrant? Oh! yes, these are his rooms. Stunning good fellow he is too. You know him?"

The doctor was puzzled and annoyed.

"Yes, sir, I do know him. Is he in?"

"Gone not ten minutes ago," said the captain, surveying the doctor from head to foot with his little, good-humoured, watery eyes.

Dr. Tremain gave an exclamation of annoyance.

"Gone! how provoking. I specially wanted to see him. Where is he gone--do you know?"

Rouge was all at once seized with the conviction that this stranger was trying to track Noir and prevent his departure; so mentally congratulating himself on his acuteness, he resolved on a course of diplomatic hindrance.

"Mr. Farrant will no doubt be home in half an hour or so," he said, in his blandest tone. "Allow me to offer you a chair."

"You seem to be established here," said the doctor, with a slight frown. "Do you share Mr. Farrant's rooms?"

"I have that honour," said the old captain. "We are old friends--very old friends, I may say--and now in trouble and destitution, he, like the good fellow he is, holds out----"

The captain suddenly remembered his line of diplomacy, and covered his confusion by a cough and a return to the brandy and water.

The silence was broken by a shrill voice from the window.

"While-there's-life-there's-hope. While-there's-life-there's-hope. While-there's-life-there's-hope!" screamed Sweepstakes, in his harsh nasal voice, with maddening monotony.

The doctor, chafed and annoyed as he was, could not help laughing, Sweepstakes mimicking him in a senseless titter, and old Rouge himself joining heartily.

"Clever bird, isn't he. Brought him from West Africa years ago. Would stake my life he's the best talker in England." Then, looking keenly at the doctor, he said, hesitatingly, "You are not a detective, are you?"

The doctor laughed, and told him his name and profession.

"Oh! that's a comfort," said Rouge, heaving a sigh of relief. "Now we can talk freely. To tell you the truth, I thought you were tracking my son, who is just off to America. Boat sails this very day, in fact Donovan's now gone to see him off. I doubt if he'll be home till evening."

"Why, you told me half an hour just now," said the doctor, impatiently.

"When I took you for a detective," said Rouge, with a sly smile.

The doctor was so much vexed that he fairly lost his temper.

"I don't know who you may be!" he exclaimed, "but I must say I am surprised to find Donovan Farrant living with people who are in terror of a detective's visit. Have the goodness to tell me at what time you _do_ expect him to return."

Poor Rouge was so much flustered by the doctor's hasty speech that he was quite incapable of giving a plain and satisfactory answer.

"I wouldn't for the world bring discredit on the lad," he faltered, the ever-ready tears slowly trickling down his wrinkled cheeks. "I'm as fond of the lad as if he were my own son, and it's a son he'll be to me now that my own has left his native laud." Here he began to sob like a child, but still struggled to make himself heard. "I'm not such a fool as I look--time was when I was captain of the _Metora_--I was driven to it"--he pointed to the brandy bottle--"I was driven to it--and it's made me what I am!"

"Will you tell me when Mr. Farrant will be home?" said the exasperated doctor.

"Towards evening," faltered the old captain, "but I couldn't say for certain. Perhaps you'll leave a message?"

"I will come in again later on," said the doctor, and he hastily took up his hat and left the room, quite out of patience with the tearful old captain.

It was a miserable afternoon, cold and foggy; a fine drizzling rain fell continuously. The doctor felt very wretched, he had hoped to gain some fresh light by a conversation with Donovan, but his interview with Rouge Frewin had only perplexed and disheartened him. How was it that Donovan had taken up again with his old companions? How could he endure to have such a maudlin old wretch as a fellow lodger? Things certainly looked darker and darker!

Evening came, Dr. Tremain went back to York Road, still Donovan had not returned, and by this time the old captain had solaced his grief so frequently and effectively that he was by no means sober. A wretched hour of waiting followed. The doctor looked at his watch at least twenty times, the minutes were passing rapidly by, and at the end of the hour he knew he must leave the house to catch the last train to Z----.

Five minutes to eight! the doctor held his watch in his hand now. Three minutes! No sound but the heavy breathing of the old captain who had fallen asleep. Two minutes! how fast the hands moved! the doctor's heart sank down like lead. One minute! with a heavy sigh he put back his watch, absently brushed his hat with his coat sleeve, and got up. At that very moment a key was turned in the latch, the front door was opened and sharply closed, a quick firm step which must be Donovan's was heard in the passage, the door was opened. Yes, there he was; the doctor stepped hastily forward.

"I had just given you up, I've been in town since two o'clock, hoping to see you!" he exclaimed, anxiously scanning every line of Donovan's face.

His last hope died as he did so, for an unmistakeable expression of surprise, annoyance, and perplexity passed over it; his colour rose; he glanced from the doctor to the old captain before speaking, then with no word of regret at having missed so much of his friend's visit he hastily inquired after Stephen.

"Stephen is better, going on perfectly well," replied the doctor, shortly. "I must be off at once, though, or I shall not be able to get to--to-night. Perhaps you'll walk with me to the station."

Dr. Tremain was human and he had had a great deal to try him that day, his tone was almost bitter, Donovan winced under it. One comfort was that the ordeal must be short; a five minutes' walk--surely he could hold his tongue for five minutes, keep self down, strangle the words of self justification which must expose so much of another's guilt! And yet never before had he felt so little confidence in himself, the struggle of the previous day seemed to have exhausted his strength, as he stepped out into the dark rainy November night he felt an almost unconquerable shrinking from the inevitable pain which was before him. If he could but win through with it! If he could but do the difficult Right! and there floated through his mind the definition of Right which both he and the doctor held--that which brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people for the greatest length of time. He honestly thought that his silence would be right, and clung desperately to the one strengthening thought of the gain to others which this five minutes might bring. The doctor's voice broke in upon his mental struggle. He set his face like a flint and listened.

"I wanted some explanation of all this, Donovan, and I had hoped for plenty of time with you, we are limited now to a very few minutes. I must say that all I have seen of your way of life both to-day and yesterday has surprised and grieved me. I come to your rooms and find a disreputable old man, in dread of a detective's visit, and not too sober; he tells me he is an old friend of yours, I thought you made up your mind to break with such friends as those?"

"There were special reasons why Captain Frewin should be an exception to that rule," said Donovan, in a voice so well reined in from yielding to any sign of feeling that it sounded cold and indifferent.

"There are always special reasons, I suppose, for backsliding!" said the doctor, hastily.

There was a silence, then Dr. Tremain went on more quietly.

"That is, of course, your own concern; but, as to your relations with Stephen, I have some right to ask. His father is my oldest friend; he will hold me responsible for having allowed you to share his rooms. Stephen has himself told me that he fell into habits of gambling. I am not surprised; he is grievously weak. But he tells me that you were with him, and that explains everything far too easily. You are strong-willed enough to lead him as you please. Only I could not have believed it of you; I never would have believed it if I hadn't met you with him at Z----."

Donovan breathed hard, but did not speak.

"Have you nothing to say?" said the doctor, in the tone of one clinging to a forlorn hope. "Can you not tell me that I am at least in part mistaken? Can you not explain anything to me?"

He looked steadily at him as he spoke, thinking perhaps of Gladys' words, "You will believe in him when you see him." But Donovan's face was dark and cold and hard-looking now. The doctor had never seen such a look on his face before; he misinterpreted it entirely. But his very grief made him speak gently and pleadingly.

"God forgive me, Donovan, if I have been harsh with you; but just let me know from your own lips that you cannot explain things--cannot free yourself from blame. Gladys told me what you said to her, but I couldn't rest till I had heard the truth from you yourself."

"I have nothing more to say," said Donovan, clenching his hands so fiercely that even then the feeling of bodily pain came as a relief to him. "I can explain nothing; it would have been better if you had not come to see me."

"Ay, better indeed!" said the doctor, with some bitterness, "for then I should at least have had some hope that I was mistaken. The only thing is that Stephen is in part excused if, as he says, you did go with him, did lead him wrong. One more question let me ask you; I don't wish to play the inquisitor, but just tell me whether this was the reason you would not come to us in the summer?"

For the first time the burning colour rose in Donovan's face. How could he answer that question? They had just entered the crowded station: there under the flaring gas-lamps, amid the noisy traffic, his reply must be made--somehow. What if he told the doctor his real reason, told him that he loved Gladys? He hated mysteries; it would be infinitely easier to be perfectly open. Besides, the confession would explain so much, would at once bring him into his old place with Dr. Tremain. And yet, taking all things into account, it would be better for everyone but himself if he just held his tongue. Better for Stephen, better that he should lose his place in the Tremain household, and be entirely forgotten, better--infinitely better--for Gladys. If his name ceased to be mentioned, if they all believed him to be what he now appeared, in time she too would come to share that belief. He honestly believed that to forget him would be her truest happiness, and the remembrance of their last interview, when she had been unable to hide her pain, strengthened him now. Anything to save her from a lifelong sorrow! "Think evil of me, dear love," was now his inward cry, "suffer, if it must be, that short pain, but only learn to forget!"

And yet! Even now came a passionate sigh of longing, human weakness alternating with the lofty self-renunciation. If only there had been no obstacle! _Why_ was he hemmed in by thick darkness? _why_ were his doubts insurmountable? And then he shuddered to think that he was beginning to long for knowledge of the truth, chiefly that he might be in a position to win Gladys.

These thoughts had rushed tumultuously through his mind, and meantime the doctor waited for his answer, and they had walked up the platform. "Was this the reason you would not come to us?" He could not tell an untruth; the crimson flush which had risen to his brow, the long pause, both told unfavourably against him with Dr. Tremain. So did the iron voice in which at length his unsatisfying answer was made.

"I invented an excuse last summer--my real reason for not coming I entirely decline to tell you."

"I am disappointed in you, Donovan," said the doctor, and his voice even more than the words carried a terrible pang with it, and sent a momentary spasm of pain over Donovan's strong face.

"Just forget me, that is all I ask of you," he said, unable to free his tone from all expression as he would have wished.

The doctor had taken his place; something in that last speech of Donovan's touched him; he would have spoken in reply, but one of those trivial interruptions which break in so rudely upon the most anxious moments of life prevented him.

The shrill voice of a boy intervened.

"_Punch, Judy_, or _Fun, Evening Standard_, and _Echo_. Paper, sir?"

Some passenger wanted an _Evening Standard_; at that minute the train began to move. By the time the newspaper boy had sprung down from the step, Dr. Tremain was too far from Donovan to do more than wave a farewell. Once more Gladys' words flashed back into his mind, "You will believe in him when you see him," and this time, in spite of all that had passed, the doctor did waver. For in that tall dark figure on the platform there seemed to him a certain majesty--a majesty inseparable from right or absolute conviction of being in the right. He could not clearly see the face now, but the last look he had seen on it had been a strange blending of pain and strength, the strength predominating over the pain. Could he after all have been mistaken? Like the warm-hearted, impetuous man that he was, the doctor at once tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and, with tears in his eyes, wrote Donovan such a letter as the best of fathers might write to his son.

The ordeal was over, the victory had been complete, self had been absolutely kept under; but the victor was too entirely crushed to feel even a shadow of triumph. He stood perfectly still, watching the train as it steamed out of the station, with an odd sensation--more numbing than keenly painful--that it was dragging with it a great part of himself. Presently he must rouse himself to go on with life, to make the most of what was left. There are great rents and voids in most lives, at first we feel stunned and helpless, but after a time we become accustomed to the new order of things, and live on, "learning perforce," as some one has well expressed it, "to take up with what is left."

That the loss had come about by his own will did not at all soften matters to Donovan, but rather the reverse. He was past reasoning, almost past thought. When the red lamps on the last carriage had quite disappeared, he turned slowly away, aware that he had deliberately, with his own hand, turned the brightest page of his life's history. A new page must be begun; of that too he was dimly aware.

He left the station and walked slowly through the wet, muddy, cheerless streets. It did not actually rain, and the wind had risen, there was some comfort in that. With his usual craving for air and space he bent his steps to the river, walked along the Embankment, turned on to Blackfriars Bridge, and chose as his halting-place one of its recesses.

Not since the first days after Dot's death had such a crushing, deadening sense of loss oppressed him, and now, as then, he had to bear his pain alone. But he was stronger than in the old days, stronger because he was growingly conscious of his own weakness, and because his heart was infinitely wider in its sympathies. He was not in the mood to see anything, though the dark, flowing river, and the reflected lights, and the great looming outline of the dome of St. Paul's would at any other time have pleased his eye; to-night he just leant on the parapet, getting a sort of relief from the fresh night wind, but almost unconscious of time and place.

He was roused at last by becoming aware that there was another occupant of the recess. A small elf, whether boy or girl he could not at first tell, was yawning and stretching itself, having just awakened from sound sleep. Presently a dismayed exclamation made Donovan draw a little nearer.

"By all the blissed saints! if they ain't wet through, all the three of 'em."

Then came sounds of violent scraping, Donovan, stooping down a little, saw that his neighbour, a small ragged boy, was trying whether a light could possibly be kindled from a box of fusees which had been soaked through and through.

"Ye were a fool, Pat, me boy, to go to sleep in the rain!" exclaimed the elf, with a few superfluous oaths. Finding his efforts to strike a light ineffectual, he scrambled to his feet, and with great deliberation and muttered ejaculations about the "blissed saints," threw the three boxes of fusees one after another into the river.

"Why do you throw them away?" said Donovan, with some curiosity.

"They was wet through, yer honour," said the small Irish boy, looking up at Donovan with a friendly grin. "I chucked 'em into the river for fear the devil should get into 'em."

"How?" asked Donovan, with an involuntary smile.

"Och! yer honour has had no dealings with the devil thin, or he'd niver ask such a thing. Why, says I to meself, 'Pat, me lad, lave 'em to dry and ye'll sell 'em right enough;' but thin says I to meself again, 'But, Pat, maybe the devil 'ud be in the coppers ye'd get for 'em.' Yer honour don't know how terrible aisy it comes to chate a bit when there ain't nothing else to do."

"Yes, I do know," said Donovan, gravely.

"Do ye railly now?" said Pat, with a broad grin. "And did the devil get inside yer honour? Och, he's a terrible cratur to have dealings with! Last year, yer honour, I was half starved, and one day I prigged a loaf hot and frish from a baker's and ate it up like a shot for fear o' being cotched by the peeler, and if ye'll belave it, yer honour, the devil was in the loaf; och! I could have danced with the pain of it, and after that says I to meself, 'Pat, me lad, kape clear o' the devil, or maybe he'll gripe ye warse next time.'"

"Do you see that fire at the other end of the bridge, Pat?" said Donovan, looking down gravely at the little, grubby-faced Irish boy.

"The petatie stall, yer honour?" said Pat, wistfully.

"Yes," said Donovan, with a half smile. "Do you think the devil would be in the potatoes?"

Pat nodded emphatically.

"Bedad and I do, yer honour, if I was to stale 'em."

"But if I were to give them you?"

"Why, thin, yer honour," cried Pat, grinning from ear to ear, "it wud be the blissed saints as wud reward ye!"

"Come along, then," said Donovan, and the strangely contrasted companions walked off together, the bare-footed, superstitious, but honest little gamin and the grave, perplexed, but honest agnostic.

"If yer honour wud but eat one!" exclaimed Pat, looking up with shining eyes from the double enjoyment of the hot potatoes and the charcoal fire.

So Donovan ate a potato--and began his new life.