TEMPTED TO DISHONOR.

I hate looking back and re-reading words which I have written while the impulse was upon me; but I fancy I have somewhere called this tale a confession; if not, I should have done so. It claims no more to be ranked as a work of art than as a work of imagination. How could it? It holds only two characters--a man and a woman. It treats but of their love and of a few months of their lives. Nevertheless, in telling it I have endeavored to conceal nothing. I have tried to describe my thoughts, my hopes, my fears, my sorrows, and my joys, as they really were. I have, I believe, suppressed nothing which could lead any one to condemn my actions more strongly than, it may be, they now condemn them. My wish has been to show myself as I was then--no doubt am now--a weak, selfish man; yet, for the love which he bore a woman, one willing to risk fortune, life, even honor. If I have failed in my attempt to represent myself as such a one, believe it is not from intention, but from sheer inability.

But whether I have so far succeeded or failed in my purpose I know not; but I know that in this chapter I must, perforce, fail. The language rich and powerful enough to serve my needs has yet to be invented. The writer who could in any fitting way reproduce my thoughts has yet to be born.

And yet the chapter will be a short one. It will be but the record of a few hours; but such hours! Hours during which I struggled against a temptation to commit, not only crime, but base, cowardly crime; a temptation stronger, I dare to think, than poor human nature has as yet been subjected to. My words sound bold; but listen.

Oh, that one morning! How well I can remember it! Our breakfast was just over. The quaint-shaped little table, with its snowy cloth throwing into relief the deep colors of the luscious fruit upon it, still stood in the awning-roofed _patio_. I was alone, my mother and Philippa having retired in-doors to see about some domestic economy. I lounged lazily and at my ease. I rolled and lighted a cigarette, blaming myself as I did so for my barbarity in profaning the blossom-scented air with tobacco-smoke. Then I took from my pocket the London _Times_, which had arrived by the last post, and listlessly set to work to skim its lengthy columns.

I had no fear as to what the paper might contain. It was not from newspaper reports that I apprehended danger. I had, however, noticed that Philippa, when she saw me with a newspaper in my hand, eyed me anxiously and inquiringly; so that generally I contrived to glance through it when she was absent. I never permitted her to touch it until I had read it; but my only reason for this prohibition was, that I feared lest some chance allusion to the mysterious and undiscovered crime might distress her. Her own far-fetched fancy that another might be accused of it gave me not a moment’s uneasiness.

So I turned and doubled back the broad sheets. I ran down the topics of the day. I skimmed the leading articles. I glanced at the foreign news; paid scant attention to law reports, and disregarded altogether the money-market intelligence. At last I turned my attention to the provincial news column. A name caught my eye; a cold shiver of dread ran through me. My cigarette fell on the marble pavement, and lay there unheeded, as, with agitation which no words can describe, I read a short paragraph placed under the heading of the principal town of the county in which Roding was situated. Read!

“William Evans, the man accused of the murder of Sir Mervyn Ferrand, Bart., in January last, will be tried at these Assizes, which open on the twentieth. The case, which excites considerable interest, will be taken on the first day. It is reported that although fresh evidence against the prisoner will be forthcoming, it will be of a purely circumstantial nature.”

Every word of that accursed paragraph seemed like a blow falling upon my head. For some minutes I sat as one stunned. I felt my teeth chattering. I knew that my cheek was blanched. Philippa’s fanciful dread had come to pass! Another--an innocent man--was bearing the blame of her own mad act! Dazed, stupid, scarcely able to comprehend what must be the full effect of what I had just read, I sat motionless, with my eyes fixed upon that fatal sheet.

The sound of my mother’s pleasant voice calling to Philippa at last awoke me from my stupor. They were coming. I could not face them. I doubled up the newspaper, thrust it into my pocket, and rushed out into the street. As yet I had not dared to imagine what this intelligence might mean to us. I must have long hours of solitude, in order to decide what course should be adopted to face this, the last, the worst peril.

I passed swiftly through the iron gate. I went up the narrow street at a pace which must have made all who saw me think me mad. Whither did I go? I scarcely remember. I think it must have been to one of the public gardens; but in that hour all sense of locality left me. I went instinctively in search of solitude. I found, I know not how or where, some shady deserted spot. There, in the anguish of my heart, amid the wreck of my sand-founded happiness, I threw myself on the ground, and dug my finger-nails into the dry soil.

At first I thought I was going or had gone mad. The thoughts which rushed through my mind were disjointed, and wanted coherence. An innocent man accused of the crime! To be tried on the twentieth! The twentieth! and now it is the sixteenth! Fresh evidence forthcoming! The fools--the utter fools! This the boasted detective skill! To arrest on suspicion, to bring to trial a man who must be ignorant of everything connected with the murder! What is to be done? What can be done? Oh, my wife! my poor darling wife!

Then, I believe, I cried like a child. It seemed to me that all was lost. There was but one thing to be done--one course to be taken. My darling must give herself up to justice, and by her confession free this luckless wretch who now stands in peril of his life. She must bear the shame of the trial, and trust to human justice and the mercy which she had a right to expect. Oh, it was pitiful, pitiful! For a long while no alternative course suggested itself to me.

Human justice! What is justice? See how it can err! It can arrest, try, and--oh, horrible thought!--perhaps condemn to death an innocent man! How then would it fare with Philippa? Who, now that marriage has sealed my lips, was there to prove her madness when she slew that man? I raged at the thought. It seemed to me that we were hard and fast in the toils. I might, it is true, call William, my servant, to swear that her manner was strange and wild upon that night. I might call the nurses to prove that when first they saw her she was recovering from an attack of mania. But would they be credited? Would not a clever lawyer soon convince twelve ordinary men that it was not her madness which prompted the crime, but the crime which produced the madness? We were indeed meshed and bound; hemmed in on every side; helpless and, it seemed, hopeless!

And Philippa must be told this! I must tell her! How could I nerve myself to make the truth known to her--now, of all times, when her health was all but restored; when a kind of sad but placid acquiescence in what fate had wrought seemed to be gradually coming over her; now, when I was once more building up hopes of happiness for her as well as for me! For I knew--ah! think of this, and pity me--that before another half year should pass there might be given to my wife and me a gift which would go far toward sweeping away the memories of gloom and horror which had of late spread over our lives. I even dared to hope, to feel certain, that as she gazed into baby eyes, as she pressed a tiny head to her bosom, some, nay, much of the lost sweetness and glory of life might return to my love.

Think of this, and picture me lying on the ground that day, with the damning intelligence fresh on my mind! Think that in a few hours I must return to my home, and tell my wife that the bolt had fallen! There was no alternative!

No alternative? Stay, there is an alternative! The blood seemed to course wildly through my veins, my heart beat fiercely, my lips grew dry, and a choking sensation came over me, as for the first time the simple yet certain way of cutting the knot of my difficulties flashed across my mind. So simple, so easy it at first appeared, that I laughed at my stupidity in not having seen it at once.

Tear that accursed paper to pieces, Basil North! Scatter those pieces to the winds. Forget what you have read. Go back to your luxurious, flower-bedecked home. Meet the one you love with a smile upon your face: you have forced smiles before now! Greet her as usual. Say nothing of this morning’s news. Keep your own counsel; bury all you have learned in your secret heart. Do this, and be happy forever more!

But the man--the man who in a few days’ time is to be tried for another’s act? Well, what of him? The fool will doubtless be acquitted. Fool! Yes, it is the right term for one who can bring himself under suspicion. But if Justice runs on the wrong track until the end--if that man dies?

What then? What is this miserable life, what are a hundred lives when weighed against Philippa’s happiness? What is conscience? What is right and wrong? What is the phantom which men call honor? What, after all, is crime? Be silent, and forget. You are asked to do no more. You have riches, youth, health, and strong will. The fairest woman on the earth adores you. Why hesitate? Why let one boor’s life weigh in the scale?

Argue the matter in another way. Are not thousands of men slain every year by the whim of a monarch or a statesman? The thought of their death troubles not those who send them forth to fight. Men kill each other for revenge, for money, for a point of honor, and the killer lives on like other men live! Trust this man to the vaunted array of Justice. He is innocent, and will come from the ordeal unscathed. If found guilty, let him die. He will not be the first innocent man who has died, nor will he be the last to die. It is but one life! He is nothing to you; think of him no more. Come what may, you will always have your sunny home and the woman you love. Her children will grow up around you. Why hesitate? A life’s happiness is to be won by simply sealing your lips. Its cost is but, supposing Justice blunders, to bear the burden of one man’s death. A paltry price!

This was the temptation with which I wrestled during those long hours. Again and again I was on the point of yielding. Once or twice I rose to my feet with the fixed determination of destroying that paper, and letting things take their own course. Once or twice I even forced my steps some distance in the direction of home, but each time I turned, went back to the sheltered spot, threw myself again on the ground, and fought the battle anew.

No, I could not do this thing. I was a gentleman and a man of honor. Paltry as the price was when compared with what it might buy, I could not pay it. Although my whole soul was merged in Philippa’s welfare, I could not, even for her sake, suffer an innocent man to be done unjustly to death. The crime was too black, too base, too contemptible! I felt sure that, with the man’s blood morally on my head, the supremest joys which life could give would not lull my conscience to rest. I knew it would not be long before remorse and shame drove me to commit suicide.

Let the preachers say that sin is easy; that wrong is more alluring than right. There may be some sins which are easily committed, but I dare to say that there are others which the average man, educated by the code of honor, and dreading shame and cowardice, finds it far easier to avoid than to bring himself to commit. No, every sin is not easy!

But all the same my struggle was a mortal one. At times I fancy--it may be but fancy--that even now my mind bears some traces of that conflict; a conflict in which my victory meant ruin to my nearest and dearest. Was I not right when I said that my temptation was an all but unparalleled one? Yet in reasserting this let me humbly disclaim all credit for not having yielded. I strove to yield, but could not.

It was only when I had conquered, and put the temptation from me, that I was able to see how utterly useless such a crime as that urged upon me would have been. Doubtless Philippa, sooner or later, would have learned that Sir Mervyn Ferrand’s supposed murderer had paid the penalty of the crime. How would it have fared with us then--then, when reparation was placed out of the question? Knowing as I did every thought of my wife’s, every turn of her impulsive, sensitive nature, I was fain to tell myself that such news would be simply her death-blow.

But what was to be done? Finding that I could not compass the treachery which I dared to meditate, I cast about for another loophole of escape. What if I were to return to England, and accuse myself of the crime? To insure Philippa’s safety I would right willingly give away my own life. It showed the state to which my mind was reduced when I say that I considered this scheme in all its bearings, and for a while thought it furnished a solution to my difficulties! I wonder if my brain was wandering?

I laughed in bitter merriment as the absurdity of my new plan forced itself upon me. I had forgotten Philippa, and what the effect of such a sacrifice would be upon her. I had forgotten that she loved me, even as I loved her; that my dying for her sake--for the sake of saving her from the consequences of that gruesome night--would make an expiation, if any were due from her, the most fearful which human or diabolical ingenuity could devise.

No! Neither by sinning against my fellow-man nor by a voluntary sacrifice of my own life could I save her. After all my protracted mental struggles, all my lonely hours of anguish and wild scheming, I was forced to return to the point from which I started. Philippa must surrender herself, and free this innocent man. There was, indeed, no alternative!

And a day gone, or all but gone! The trial on the twentieth! To reach England--to reach Tewnham in time to stop that trial, we must travel day and night. Day and night, across sunny or starlit Spain--across pleasant France--we must speed on, until we reached our own native land, now lying in all the rich calm of the early autumn. I must lead my wife, my love, to her doom!

I rose from the ground. I felt weary, and as if I had been cudgelled in every limb. I dragged myself slowly back to my home. “She must be told; she must be told. But how to tell her?” I muttered as I went along. My appearance must have been wretched; for I received the impression that several grave-looking Sevillaños turned and looked after me as I passed by. Even as a cowardly felon who drags himself slowly to the scaffold, I dragged myself to the gate of our pleasant home, and on tottering feet passed into that fragrant space in which the happiest hours of my life had been spent.

As I entered, the remembrance of some tale which once I had read flashed through my mind--a tale of the ferocity of a by-gone age. It was of a prisoner who was forced by his captors to strike a dagger into the heart of the woman he loved. I know not where the tale is to be found or when I read it.

But it seemed to me that mine was a parallel case.

Pity me!