Mr. Pedgift, sir, the last time you were at the great house, when you came away in your gig, you--you overtook me on the drive.""I dare say I did," remarked Pedgift, resignedly. "My mare happens to be a trifle quicker on her legs than you are on yours, Bashwood. Go on, go on. We shall come in time, I suppose, to what you are driving at.""You stopped, and spoke to me, sir," proceeded Mr. Bashwood, advancing more and more eagerly to his end. "You said you suspected me of feeling some curiosity about Miss Gwilt, and you told me (I remember the exact words, sir)--you told me to gratify my curiosity by all means, for you didn't object to it."Pedgift Senior began for the first time to look interested in hearing more.
"I remember something of the sort," he replied; "and I also remember thinking it rather remarkable that you should _happen_--we won't put it in any more offensive way--to be exactly under Mr. Armadale's open window while I was talking to him. It might have been accident, of course; but it looked rather more like curiosity. I could only judge by appearances,"concluded Pedgift, pointing his sarca** with a pinch of snuff;"and appearances, Bashwood, were decidedly against you.""I don't deny it, sir. I only mentioned the circumstance because I wished to acknowledge that I _was_ curious, and _am_ curious about Miss Gwilt.""Why?" asked Pedgift Senior, seeing something under the surface in Mr. Bashwood's face and manner, but utterly in the dark thus far as to what that something might be.
There was silence for a moment. The moment passed, Mr. Bashwood took the refuge usually taken by nervous, unready men, placed in his circumstances, when they are at a loss for an answer. He simply reiterated the assertion that he had just made. "I feel some curiosity sir," he said, with a strange mixture of doggedness and timidity, "about Miss Gwilt."There was another moment of silence. In spite of his practiced acuteness and knowledge of the world, the lawyer was more puzzled than ever. The case of Mr. Bashwood presented the one human riddle of all others which he was least qualified to solve.
Though year after year witnesses in thousands and thousands of cases, the remorseless disinheriting of nearest and dearest relations, the unnatural breaking-up of sacred family ties, the deplorable severance of old and firm friendships, due entirely to the intense self-absorption which the sexual passion can produce when it enters the heart of an old man, the association of love with infirmity and gray hairs arouses, nevertheless, all the world over, no other idea than the idea of extravagant improbability or extravagant absurdity in the general mind. If the interview now taking place in Mr. Pedgift's consulting-room had taken place at his dinner-table instead, when wine had opened his mind to humorous influences, it is possible that he might, by this time, have suspected the truth. But, in his business hours, Pedgift Senior was in the habit of investigating men's motives seriously from the business point of view; and he was on that very account simply incapable of conceiving any improbability so startling, any absurdity so enormous, as the absurdity and improbability of Mr. Bashwood's being in love.
Some men in the lawyer's position would have tried to force their way to enlightenment by obstinately repeating the unanswered question. Pedgift Senior wisely postponed the question until he had moved the conversation on another step. "Well," he resumed, "let us say you feel a curiosity about Miss Gwilt. What next?"The palms of Mr. Bashwood's hands began to moisten under the influence of his agitation, as they had moistened in the past days when he had told the story of his domestic sorrows to Midwinter at the great house. Once more he rolled his handkerchief into a ball, and dabbed it softly to and fro from one hand to the other.
"May I ask if I am right, sir," he began, "in believing that you have a very unfavorable opinion of Miss Gwilt? You are quite convinced, I think--""My good fellow," interrupted Pedgift Senior, "why need you be in any doubt about it? You were under Mr. Armadale's open window all the while I was talking to him; and your ears, I presume, were not absolutely shut."Mr. Bashwood showed no sense of the interruption. The little sting of the lawyer's sarca** was lost in the nobler pain that wrung him from the wound inflicted by Miss Gwilt.
"You are quite convinced, I think, sir," he resumed, "that there are circumstances in this lady's past life which would be highly discreditable to her if they were discovered at the present time?""The window was open at the great house, Bashwood; and your ears, I presume, were not absolutely shut."Still impenetrable to the sting, Mr. Bashwood persisted more obstinately than ever.
"Unless I am greatly mistaken," he said, "your long experience in such things has even suggested to you, sir, that Miss Gwilt might turn out to be known to the police?"Pedgift Senior's patience gave way. "You have been over ten minutes in this room," he broke out. "Can you, or can you not, tell me in plain English what you want?"In plain English--with the passion that had transformed him, the passion which (in Miss Gwilt's own words) had made a man of him, burning in his haggard cheeks--Mr. Bashwood met the challenge, and faced the lawyer (as, the worried sheep faces the dog) on his own ground.
"I wish to say, sir," he answered, "that your opinion in this matter is my opinion too. I believe there is something wrong in Miss Gwilt's past life which she keeps concealed from everybody, and I want to be the man who knows it."Pedgift Senior saw his chance, and instantly reverted to the question that he had postponed. "Why?" he asked for the second time.
For the second time Mr. Bashwood hesitated.