He laid his hand upon the handle of the bell as he spoke, but he did not pull it.
“You defy me, then, Launcelot Darrell?” said Eleanor.
“I do.”
“I am glad that it is so!” exclaimed the girl.
“I am glad that you have not prayed to me for mercy. I am glad that Providence has suffered me to avenge my father’s death.”
Eleanor Monckton was moving towards the door.
In all this time Ellen Darrell had not once spoken. She had stood apart in the recess of the window, a dark and melancholy shadow, mourning over the ruin of her life.
I think that she was scarcely surprised at what had happened. We sometimes know the people we love, and know them to be base; but we go on loving them desperately, nevertheless; and love them best when the world is against them, and they have most need of our love. I speak here of maternal love, which is so sublime an affection as to be next in order to the love of God.
The widow came suddenly into the centre of the room, and cast herself on her knees before Eleanor, and wound her arms about the girl’s slender waist, pinning her to the spot upon which she stood, and holding her there. The mother’s arms were stronger than bands of iron, for they were linked about the enemy of her son. It has been demonstrated by practical zoologists that the king of beasts, his majesty the lion, is after all a cowardly creature. It is only the lioness, the mother, whose courage is desperate and indomitable.
“You shall not do this,” Ellen Darrell cried; “you shall not bring disgrace upon my son. Take your due, whatever it is; take your paltry wealth. You have plotted for it, I dare say. Take it, and let us go out of this place penniless. But no disgrace, no humiliation, no punishment, for him!”
“Mother!” cried Launcelot, “get up off your knees. Let her do her worst. I ask no mercy of her.”
“Don’t hear him,” gasped the widow, “don’t listen to him. Oh, Eleanor, save him from shame and disgrace. Save him! save him! I was always good to you, was I not? I meant to be so, believe me! If ever I was unkind, it was because I was distracted by regrets and anxieties about him. Oh, Eleanor, forgive him, and be merciful to me. Forgive him. It is my fault that he is what he is. It was my foolish indulgence that ruined his childhood. It was my false pride that taught him to think he had a right to my uncle’s money. From first to last, Eleanor, it is I that am to blame. Remember this, and forgive him, forgive—”
Her throat grew dry, and her voice broke, but her lips still moved, though no sound came from them, and she was still imploring mercy for her son.
“Forgive!” cried Eleanor, bitterly. “Forgive the man who caused my father’s death! Do you think I have waited and watched for nothing? It seems to me as if all my life had been given up to this one hope. Do you know how that man has defied me?” she exclaimed, pointing to Launcelot Darrell. “Do you know that through him I have been divided from my husband? Bah! why do I speak of my own wrongs? Do you know that my father, a poor helpless old man, a lonely, friendless old man, a decayed gentleman, killed himself because of your son? Do you expect that I am to forget that? Do you think that I can forgive that man? Do you want me to abandon the settled purpose of my life, the purpose to which I have sacrificed every girlish happiness, every womanly joy, now that the victory is mine, and that I can keep my vow?”
She tried to disengage herself from Ellen Darrell’s arms, but the widow still clung about her, with her head flung back, and her white face convulsed with anguish.
“Forgive him, for my sake,” she cried; “give him to me—give him to me. He will suffer enough from the ruin of his hopes. He will suffer enough from the consciousness of having done wrong. He has suffered. Yes. I have watched him, and I know. Take everything from him. Leave him a penniless dependant upon the pittance my uncle left to me, but save him from disgrace. Give him to me. God has given him to me. Woman, what right have you to take him from me?”
“He killed my father,” Eleanor answered, in a sombre voice; “my dead father’s letter told me to be revenged upon him.”
“Your father wrote in a moment of desperation. I knew him. I knew George Vane. He would have forgiven his worst enemy. He was the last person to be vindictive or revengeful when his first anger was passed. What good end will be gained by my son’s disgrace? You shall not refuse to hear me. You are a wife, Eleanor Monckton: you may one day be a mother. If you are pitiless to me now, God will be pitiless to you then. You will think of me then. In every throb of pain your child may suffer; in every childish ailment that makes your heart grow sick with unutterable fear, you will recognise God’s vengeance upon you for this night’s work. Think of this, Eleanor; think of this, and be merciful to me—to me—not to him. What he would have to endure would be only a tithe of my suffering. I am his mother—his mother!”
“Oh, my God!” cried Eleanor, lifting her clasped hands above her head. “What am I to do?”
The hour of her triumph had come; and in this supreme moment doubt and fear took possession of her breast. If this was her victory, it was only half a victory. She had never thought that any innocent creature would suffer more cruelly by her vengeance upon Launcelot Darrell than the man himself would suffer. And now here was this woman, whose only sin had been an idolatrous love of her son, and to whom his disgrace would be worse than the anguish of death.
The widow’s agony had been too powerful for the girl’s endurance. Eleanor burst into a passion of tears, and turning to her husband let her head fall upon his breast.
