“Bashville,” she said, “will you please show them the way, and see that they are satisfied.”
“Some thief has stole my coat,” said Mellish, sullenly, to Bashville. “If you’ll lend me one, governor, and these blessed policemen will be so kind as not to tear it off my back, I’ll send it down to you in a day or two. I’m a respectable man, and have been her ladyship’s tenant here.”
“Your pal wants it worse than you,” said the sergeant. “If there was an old coachman’s cape or anything to put over him, I would see it returned safe. I don’t want to bring him round the country in a blanket, like a wild Injin.”
“I have a cloak inside,” said Bashville. “I’ll get it for you.” And before Lydia could devise a pretext for stopping him, he went out, and she heard him reentering the lodge by the back door. It seemed to her that a silence fell on the crowd, as if her deceit were already discovered. Then Mellish, who had been waiting for an opportunity to protest against the last remark of the policeman, said, angrily,
“Who are you calling my pal? I hope I may be struck dead for a liar if ever I set my eyes on him in my life before.”
Lydia looked at him as a martyr might look at a wretch to whom she was to be chained. He was doing as she had done — lying. Then Bashville, having passed through the other rooms, came into the library by the inner door, with an old livery cloak on his arm.
“Put that on him,” he said, “and come along to the castle with me. You can see the roads for five miles round from the south tower, and recognize every man on them, through the big telescope. By your leave, madam, I think Phoebe had better come with us to help.”
“Certainly,” said Lydia, looking steadfastly at him.
“I’ll get clothes at the castle for the man that wants them,” he added, trying to return her gaze, but failing with a blush. “Now boys. Come along.”
“I thank your ladyship,” said the sergeant. “We have had a hard morning of it, and we can do no more at present than drink your health.” He touched his helmet again, and Lydia bowed to him. “Keep close together, men,” he shouted, as the crowd moved off with Bashville.
“Ah,” sneered Mellish, “keep close together like the geese do. Things has come to a pretty pass when an Englishman is run in for stopping when he sees a crowd.”
“All right,” said the sergeant. “I have got that bundle of colored handkerchiefs you were selling; and I’ll find the other man before you’re a day older. It’s a pity, seeing how you’ve behaved so well and haven’t resisted us, that you won’t drop a hint of where those ropes and stakes are hid. I might have a good word at the sessions for any one who would put me in the way of finding them.”
“Ropes and stakes! Fiddlesticks and grandmothers! There weren’t no ropes and stakes. It was only a turn-up — that is, if there was any fighting at all. I didn’t see none; but I s’pose you did. But then you’re clever, and I’m not.”
By this time the last straggler of the party had disappeared from Lydia, who had watched their retreat from the door of the Warren Lodge. When she turned to go in she saw Cashel cautiously entering from the room in which he had lain concealed. His excitement had passed off; he looked cold and anxious, as if a reaction were setting in.
“Are they all gone?” he said. “That servant of yours is a good sort. He has promised to bring me some clothes. As for you, you’re better than — What’s the matter? Where are you going to?”
Lydia had put on her hat, and was swiftly wrapping herself in a shawl. Wreaths of rosy color were chasing each other through her cheeks; and her eyes and nostrils, usually so tranquil, were dilated.
“Won’t you speak to me?” he said, irresolutely.
“Just this,” she replied, with passion. “Let me never see you again. The very foundations of my life are loosened: I have told a lie. I have made my servant — an honorable man — an accomplice in a lie. We are worse than you; for even your wild-beast’s handiwork is a less evil than the bringing of a falsehood into the world. This is what has come to me out of our acquaintance. I have given you a hiding-place. Keep it. I will never enter it again.”
Cashel, appalled, shrank back with an expression such as a child wears when, in trying to steal sweetmeats from a high shelf, it pulls the whole cupboard down about its ears. He neither spoke nor stirred as she left the lodge.
Finding herself presently at the castle, she went to her boudoir, where she found her maid, the French lady, from whose indignant description of the proceedings below she gathered that the policemen were being regaled with bread and cheese, and beer; and that the attendance of a surgeon had been dispensed with, Paradise’s wounds having been dressed skilfully by Mellish. Lydia bade her send Bashville to the Warren Lodge to see that there were no strangers loitering about it, and ordered that none of the female servants should return there until he came back. Then she sat down and tried not to think. But she could not help thinking; so she submitted and tried to think the late catastrophe out. An idea that she had disjointed the whole framework of things by creating a false belief filled her imagination. The one conviction that she had brought out of her reading, observing, reflecting, and living was that the concealment of a truth, with its resultant false beliefs, must produce mischief, even though the beginning of that mischief might be as inconceivable as the end. She made no distinction between the subtlest philosophical misconception and the vulgarest lie. The evil of Cashel’s capture was measurable, the evil of a lie beyond all measure. She felt none the less assured of that evil because she could not foresee one bad consequence likely to ensue from what she had done. Her misgivings pressed heavily upon her; for her father, a determined sceptic, had taught her his own views, and she was, therefore, destitute of the consolations which religion has for the wrongdoer. It was plainly her duty to send for the policeman and clear up the deception she had practised on him. But this she could not do. Her will, in spite of her reason, acted in the opposite direction. And in this paralysis of her moral power she saw the evil of the lie beginning. She had given it birth, and nature would not permit her to strangle the monster.
At last her maid returned and informed her that the canaille had gone away. When she was again alone, she rose and walked slowly to and fro through the room, forgetting the lapse of time in the restless activity of her mind, until she was again interrupted, this time by Bashville.
“Well?”
He was daunted by her tone; for he had never before heard her speak haughtily to a servant. He did not understand that he had changed subjectively, and was now her accomplice.
“He’s given himself up.”
“What do you mean?” she said, with sudden dismay.
“Byron, madam. I brought some clothes to the lodge for him, but when I got there he was gone. I went round to the gates in search of him, and found him in the hands of the police. They told me he’d just given himself up. He wouldn’t give any account of himself; and he looked — well, sullen and beaten down like.”
“What will they do with him?” she asked, turning quite pale.
“A man got six weeks’ hard labor, last month, for the same offence. Most probably that’s what he’ll get. And very little for what’s he’s done, as you’d say if you saw him doing it, madam.”
“Then,” said Lydia, sternly, “it was to see this” — she shrank from naming it— “this fight, that you asked my permission to go out!”
“Yes, madam, it was,” said Bashville, with some bitterness. “I recognized Lord Worthington and plenty more noblemen and gentlemen there.”
Lydia