into the black abyss.’ That’s what the world says to the sinner, Margaret, my girl. I don’t know much of the gospel; I have never read it since I was a boy, and used to read long chapters aloud to my mother, on quiet Sunday evenings; I can see the little old-fashioned parlour now as I speak of that time; I can hear the ticking of the eight-day clock, and I can see my mother’s fond eyes looking up at me every now and then. But I don’t know much about the gospel now; and when, you, poor child, try to read it to me, there’s some devil rises in my breast, and shuts my ears against the words. I don’t know the gospel, but I do know the world. The laws of society are inflexible, Madge; there is no forgiveness for a man who is once found out. He may commit any crime in the calendar, so long as his crimes are profitable, and he is content to share his profits with his neighbours. But he mustn’t be found out.”
Upon the 16th of August, 1850, the day on which Sampson Wilmot, the banker’s clerk, was to start for Southampton, James Wentworth spent the morning in his daughter’s humble little sitting-room, and sat smoking by the open window, while Margaret worked beside a table near him.
The father sat with his long clay pipe in his mouth, watching his daughter’s fair face as she bent over the work upon her knee.
The room was neatly kept, but poorly furnished, with that old-fashioned spindle-legged furniture which seems peculiar to lodging-houses. Yet the little sitting-room had an aspect of simple rustic prettiness, which is almost pleasanter to look at than fine furniture. There were pictures — simple water-colour sketches — and cheap engravings on the walls, and a bunch of flowers on the table, and between the muslin curtains that shadowed the window you saw the branches of the sycamores waving in the summer wind.
James Wentworth had once been a handsome man. It was impossible to look at him and not perceive as much as that. He might, indeed, have been handsome still, but for the moody defiance in his eyes, but for the half-contemptuous curve of his finely-moulded upper lip.
He was about fifty-three years of age, and his hair was grey, but this grey hair did not impart a look of age to his appearance. His erect figure, the carriage of his head, his dashing, nay, almost swaggering walk, all belonged to a man in the prime of middle age. He wore a beard and thick moustache of grizzled auburn. His nose was aquiline, his forehead high and square, his chin massive. The form of his head and face denoted force of intellect. His long, muscular limbs gave evidence of great physical power. Even the tones of his voice, and his manner of speaking, betokened a strength of will that verged upon obstinacy.
A dangerous man to offend! A relentless and determined man; not easily to be diverted from any purpose, however long the time between the formation of his resolve and the opportunity of carrying it into execution.
As he sat now watching his daughter at her work, the shadows of black thoughts darkened his brow, and spread a sombre gloom over his face.
And yet the picture before him could have scarcely been unpleasing to the most fastidious eye. The girl’s face, drooping over her work, was very fair. The features were delicate and statuesque in their form; the large hazel eyes were very beautiful — all the more beautiful, perhaps, because of a soft melancholy that subdued their natural brightness; the smooth brown hair rippling upon the white forehead, which was low and broad, was of a colour which a duchess might have envied, or an empress tried to imitate with subtle dyes compounded by court chemists. The girl’s figure, tall, slender, and flexible, imparted grace and beauty to a shabby cotton dress and linen collar, that many a maid-servant would have disdained to wear; and the foot visible below the scanty skirt was slim and arched as the foot of an Arab chief.
There was something in Margaret Wentworth’s face, some shade of expression, vague and transitory in its nature, that bore a likeness to her father; but the likeness was a very faint one, and it was from her mother that the girl had inherited her beauty.
She had inherited her mother’s nature also: but mingled with that soft and womanly disposition there was much of the father’s determination, much of the strong man’s force of intellect and resolute will.
A beautiful woman — an amiable woman; but a woman whose resentment for a great wrong could be deep and lasting.
“Madge,” said James Wentworth, throwing his pipe aside, and looking full at his daughter, “I sit and watch you sometimes till I begin to wonder at you. You seem contented and most happy, though the monotonous life you lead would drive some women mad. Have you no ambition, girl?”
“Plenty, father,” she answered, lifting her eyes from her work, and looking at him mournfully; “plenty — for you.”
The man shrugged his shoulders, and sighed heavily.
“It’s too late for that, my girl,” he said; “the day is past — the day is past and gone — and the chance gone with it. You know how I’ve striven, and worked, and struggled; and how I’ve seen my poor schemes crushed when I had built them up with more patience than perhaps man ever built before. You’ve been a good girl, Margaret — a noble girl; and you’ve been true to me alike in joy and sorrow — the joy’s been little enough beside the sorrow, poor child — but you’ve borne it all; you’ve endured it all. You’ve been the truest woman that was ever born upon this earth, to my thinking; but there’s one thing in which you’ve been unlike the rest of your sex.”
“And what’s that, father?”
“You’ve shown no curiosity. You’ve seen me knocked down and disgraced wherever I tried to get a footing; you’ve seen me try first one trade and then another, and fail in every one of them. You’ve seen me a clerk in a merchant’s office; an actor; an author; a common labourer, working for a daily wage; and you’ve seen ruin overtake me whichever way I’ve turned. You’ve seen all this, and suffered from it; but you’ve never asked me why it has been so. You’ve never sought to discover the secret of my life.”
The tears welled up to the girl’s eyes as her father spoke.
“If I have not done so, dear father,” she answered, gently, “it has been because I knew your secret must be a painful one. I have lain awake night after night, wondering what was the cause of the blight that has been upon you and all you have done. But why should I ask you questions that you could not answer without pain? I have heard people say cruel things of you; but they have never said them twice in my hearing.” Her eyes flashed through a veil of tears as she spoke. “Oh, father — dearest father!” she cried, suddenly throwing aside her work, and dropping on her knees beside the man’s chair, “I do not ask for your confidence if it is painful to you to give it; I only want your love. But believe this, father — always believe this — that, whether you trust me or not, there is nothing upon this earth strong enough to turn my heart from you.”
She placed her hand in her father’s as she spoke, and he grasped it so tightly that her pale face grew crimson with the pain.
“Are you sure of that, Madge?” he asked, bending his head to look more closely in her earnest face.
“I am quite sure, father.”
“Nothing can tear your heart from me?”
“Nothing in this world.”
“What if I am not worthy of your love?”
“I cannot stop to think of that, father. Love is not mete out in strict proportion to the merits of those we love. If it were, there would be no difference between love and justice.”
James Wentworth laughed sneeringly.
“There is little enough difference as it is, perhaps,” he said; “they’re both blind. Well, Madge,” he added, in a more serious tone, “you’re a generous-minded, noble-spirited girl, and I believe you do love me. I fancy that if you never asked the secret of my life, you can guess it pretty closely, eh?”
He looked searchingly at the girl’s face. She hung her head, but did not answer him.
“You can guess the secret, can’t you, Madge? Don’t be afraid to speak, girl.”
“I fear I can guess it,