Great Possessions | Page 5

perception might have play. When
the blow had fallen, her only surprise had been to find that she was not
surprised, not astonished. It seemed as if she had known this all the
time, for the thing had been alongside of her for years, she had lived
too close to it for any surprise when it raised its head and found a name.
Her reasoning powers indeed asked with astonishment why she was not
surprised. She could not explain, the symptoms of the thing that had
haunted her had been too subtle, too elusive, too minute to be brought
forward now as witnesses. But while the lawyer looked at the open face
and the large eyes, and the frank bearing of the figure in the photograph,
and felt that outer man to have been the disguise of a villain, Rose, the
victim, knew better. It was a supreme proof of the clear vision of her
soul that she was not surprised, and that, even while she seemed to be
flayed morally and exposed to things evil and of shame, she did not
judge with blind indignation. He had not been wholly bad, he had not
been callous in his cruelty; what he had been there would be time to
understand--time for the delicacies, almost for the luxuries of
forgiveness. What she was feeling after now was a point of view above
passion and pain from which to judge this final opinion of the lawyer's,
from which to know whether Sir David had left another will.
"There has been another will," she said very gently, "but, of course, it is
more than likely that it will never be found. I am convinced"--she
looked at the black and green turf all the time, and obviously spoke to
herself, not to Mr. Murray--"that he did not intend to leave me to open
shame"--the words were gently but very distinctly pronounced--"or to

leave a scandal round his own memory. Perhaps he carried another will
about with him, and if so it may be sent to me. Somehow I don't think
this will happen. I think the will you have in your hand is the only one I
shall ever see, but I do not therefore judge him of having faced death
with the intention of spoiling my life. I shall live in this house and I
shall honour his memory; he died for his country, and I am his widow."
That was all she could say on the subject then, and she could only just
ask Mr. Murray if he could see her again any time the next morning.
After answering that question the lawyer went silently away.
Rose stood by the table where he had sat a moment before, looking
long and steadfastly at the photograph. She looked at the open face, she
looked at the military bearing, she looked at the Victoria Cross,--it had
been the amazing courage shown in that story that had really won
her,--she looked, too, at the many medals. She had been with him once
in a moment of peril in a fire and had seen the unconscious pride with
which he always answered to the call of danger. She had, too, seen him
bear acute pain as if that had been his talent, the thing he knew how to
do.
"Ah, poor David!" she said softly. "What did she do to frighten you?
Poor, poor David, you were always a coward!"
CHAPTER II
IN THE EVENING
But this was a trial to search out every part of Rose's nature. She had
too much faith for sickness, death, or even terrible physical pain, to be
to her in any sense a poisoned wound. There are women like Rose
whose inner life can only be in peril from the pain and shame of the sin
of others. To them it is an intolerable agony to be troubled in their faith
in man.
Lady Charlton, swept out of the calm belonging to years of gentle
actions and ideal thoughts into a storm of indignation and horror, might
have lost all dignity and discretion if she had not been checked by

reverence for the dumb anguish and misery of her favourite daughter.
She had some notion of the thoughts that must pass in Rose's mind,
now dull and heavy, now alert and inflicting sudden deep incisions into
the quivering soul. Marriage had been to them both very sacred. They
hated, beyond most good women, anything that seemed to materialise
or lower the ideal. If there can be imagined a scale of standards for the
relations of men and women, of which Zola had not touched the
extremity at one end, the first place at the other extremity might be
assigned to such Englishwomen as Rose and her mother. The most
subtle and amazingly