The game had been played and lost. I do not think that my lady had thrown away a card, or missed the making of a trick which she might by any possibility have made; but her opponent's hand had been too powerful for her, and he had won.
She looked upon herself as a species of state prisoner, who would have to be taken good care of. A second Iron Mask, who must be provided for in some comfortable place of confinement2. She abandoned herself to a dull indifference3. She had lived a hundred lives within the space of the last few days of her existence, and she had worn out her capacity for suffering—for a time at least.
She ate her breakfast, and took her morning bath, and emerged, with perfumed hair and in the most exquisitely4 careless of morning toilets, from her luxurious5 dressing-room. She looked at herself in the cheval-glass before she left the room. A long night's rest had brought back the delicate rose-tints of her complexion6, and the natural luster7 of her blue eyes. That unnatural8 light which had burned so fearfully the day before had gone, and my lady smiled triumphantly9 as she contemplated10 the reflection of her beauty. The days were gone in which her enemies could have branded her with white-hot irons, and burned away the loveliness which had done such mischief11. Whatever they did to her they must leave her her beauty, she thought. At the worst, they were powerless to rob her of that.
The March day was bright and sunny, with a cheerless sunshine certainly. My lady wrapped herself in an Indian shawl; a shawl that had cost Sir Michael a hundred guineas. I think she had an idea that it would be well to wear this costly12 garment; so that if hustled13 suddenly away, she might carry at least one of her possessions with her. Remember how much she had periled14 for a fine house and gorgeous furniture, for carriages and horses, jewels and laces; and do not wonder if she clings with a desperate tenacity15 to gauds and gew-gaws, in the hour of her despair. If she had been Judas, she would have held to her thirty pieces of silver to the last moment of her shameful16 life.
Mr. Robert Audley breakfasted in the library. He sat long over his solitary17 cup of tea, smoking his meerschaum pipe, and meditating18 darkly upon the task that lay before him.
"I will appeal to the experience of this Dr. Mosgrave," he though; "physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic19 nineteenth century. Surely, he will be able to help me."
The first fast train from London arrived at Audley at half-past ten o'clock, and at five minutes before eleven, Richards, the grave servant, announced Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave.
The physician from Saville Row was a tall man of about fifty years of age. He was thin and sallow, with lantern jaws20, and eyes of a pale, feeble gray, that seemed as if they had once been blue, and had faded by the progress of time to their present neutral shade. However powerful the science of medicine as wielded21 by Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave, it had not been strong enough to put flesh upon his bones, or brightness into his face. He had a strangely expressionless, and yet strangely attentive22 countenance23. He had the face of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in listening to other people, and who had parted with his own individuality and his own passions at the very outset of his career.
He bowed to Robert Audley, took the opposite seat indicated by him, and addressed his attentive face to the young barrister. Robert saw that the physician's glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention, and became earnest and searching.
"He is wondering whether I am the patient," thought Mr. Audley, "and is looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face."
"Is it not about your own—health—that you wish to consult me?" he said, interrogatively.
"Oh, no!"
Dr. Mosgrave looked at his watch, a fifty-guinea Benson-made chronometer25, which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket as carelessly as if it had been a potato.
"I need not remind you that my time is precious," he said; "your telegram informed me that my services were required in a case of—danger—as I apprehend26, or I should not be here this morning."
Robert Audley had sat looking gloomily at the fire, wondering how he should begin the conversation, and had needed this reminder27 of the physician's presence.
"You are very good, Dr. Mosgrave," he said, rousing himself by an effort, "and I thank you very much for having responded to my summons. I am about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more painful to me than words can describe. I am about to implore28 your advice in a most difficult case, and I trust almost blindly to your experience to rescue me, and others who are very dear to me, from a cruel and complicated position."
The business-like attention in Dr. Mosgrave's face grew into a look of interest as he listened to Robert Audley.
"The revelation made by the patient to the physician is, I believe, as sacred as the confession29 of a penitent30 to his priest?" Robert asked, gravely.
"Quite as sacred."
"A solemn confidence, to be violated under no circumstances?"
"Most certainly."
Robert Audley looked at the fire again. How much should he tell, or how little, of the dark history of his uncle's second wife?
"I have been given to understand, Dr. Mosgrave, that you have devoted32 much of your attention to the treatment of insanity33."
"Yes, my practice is almost confined to the treatment of mental diseases."
"Such being the case, I think I may venture to conclude that you sometimes receive strange, and even terrible, revelations."
Dr. Mosgrave bowed.
He looked like a man who could have carried, safely locked in his passionless breast, the secrets of a nation, and who would have suffered no inconvenience from the weight of such a burden.
"The story which I am about to tell you is not my own story," said Robert, after a pause; "you will forgive me, therefore, if I once more remind you that I can only reveal it upon the understanding that under no circumstances, or upon no apparent justification34, is that confidence to be betrayed."
Dr. Mosgrave bowed again. A little sternly, perhaps, this time.
"I am all attention, Mr. Audley," he said coldly.
Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of the physician, and in a low voice began the story which my lady had told upon her knees in that same chamber35 upon the previous night. Dr. Mosgrave's listening face, turned always toward the speaker, betrayed no surprise at that strange revelation. He smiled once, a grave, quiet smile, when Mr. Audley came to that part of the story which told of the conspiracy36 at Ventnor; but he was not surprised. Robert Audley ended his story at the point at which Sir Michael Audley had interrupted my lady's confession. He told nothing of the disappearance37 of George Talboys, nor of the horrible suspicions that had grown out of that disappearance. He told nothing of the fire at the Castle Inn.
Dr. Mosgrave shook his head, gravely, when Mr. Audley came to the end of his story.
"You have nothing further to tell me?" he said.
"No. I do not think there is anything more that need be told," Robert answered, rather evasively.
"You would wish to prove that this lady is mad, and therefore irresponsible for her actions, Mr. Audley?" said the physician.
Robert Audley stared, wondering at the mad doctor. By what process had he so rapidly arrived at the young man's secret desire?
"Yes, I would rather, if possible, think her mad; I should be glad to find that excuse for her."
"And to save the esclandre of a Chancery suit, I suppose, Mr. Audley," said Dr. Mosgrave.
Robert shuddered38 as he bowed an assent39 to this remark. It was something worse than a Chancery suit that he dreaded40 with a horrible fear. It was a trial for murder that had so long haunted his dreams. How often he had awoke, in an agony of shame, from a vision of a crowded court-house, and his uncle's wife in a criminal dock, hemmed41 in on every side by a sea of eager faces.
"I fear that I shall not be of any use to you," the physician said, quietly; "I will see the lady, if you please, but I do not believe that she is mad."
"Why not?"
"Because there is no evidence of madness in anything she has done. She ran away from her home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and she left in the hope of finding a better. There is no madness in that. She committed the crime of bigamy, because by that crime she obtained fortune and position. There is no madness there. When she found herself in a desperate position, she did not grow desperate. She employed intelligent means, and she carried out a conspiracy which required coolness and deliberation in its execution. There is no madness in that."
"But the traits of hereditary42 insanity—"
"May descend43 to the third generation, and appear in the lady's children, if she have any. Madness is not necessarily transmitted from mother to daughter. I should be glad to help you, if I could, Mr. Audley, but I do not think there is any proof of insanity in the story you have told me. I do not think any jury in England would accept the plea of insanity in such a case as this. The best thing you can do with this lady is to send her back to her first husband; if he will have her."
Robert started at this sudden mention of his friend.
"Her first husband is dead," he answered, "at least, he has been missing for some time—and I have reason to believe that he is dead."
Dr. Mosgrave saw the startled movement, and heard the embarrassment44 in Robert Audley's voice as he spoke of George Talboys.
"The lady's first husband is missing," he said, with a strange emphasis on the word—"you think that he is dead?"
He paused for a few moments and looked at the fire, as Robert had looked before.
"Mr. Audley," he said, presently, "there must be no half-confidences between us. You have not told me all."
Robert, looking up suddenly, plainly expressed in his face the surprise he felt at these words.
"I should be very poorly able to meet the contingencies45 of my professional experience," said Dr. Mosgrave, "if I could not perceive where confidence ends and reservation begins. You have only told me half this lady's story, Mr. Audley. You must tell me more before I can offer you any advice. What has become of the first husband?"
He asked this question in a decisive tone, as if he knew it to be the key-stone of an arch.
"I have already told you, Dr. Mosgrave, that I do not know."
"Yes," answered the physician, "but your face has told me what you have withheld46 from me; it has told me that you suspect."
Robert Audley was silent.
"If I am to be of use to you, you must trust me, Mr. Audley," said the physician. "The first husband disappeared—how and when? I want to know the history of his disappearance."
Robert paused for some time before he replied to this speech; but, by and by, he lifted his head, which had been bent47 in an attitude of earnest thought, and addressed the physician.
"I will trust you, Dr. Mosgrave," he said. "I will confide31 entirely48 in your honor and goodness. I do not ask you to do any wrong to society; but I ask you to save our stainless49 name from degradation50 and shame, if you can do so conscientiously51."
He told the story of George's disappearance, and of his own doubts and fears, Heaven knows how reluctantly.
Dr. Mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened before. Robert concluded with an earnest appeal to the physician's best feelings. He implored52 him to spare the generous old man whose fatal confidence in a wicked woman had brought much misery53 upon his declining years.
It was impossible to draw any conclusion, either favorable or otherwise, from Dr. Mosgrave's attentive face. He rose, when Robert had finished speaking, and looked at his watch once more.
"I can only spare you twenty minutes," he said. "I will see the lady, if you please. You say her mother died in a madhouse?"
"She did. Will you see Lady Audley alone?"
"Yes, alone, if you please."
Robert rung for my lady's maid, and under convoy54 of that smart young damsel the physician found his way to the octagon antechamber, and the fairy boudoir with which it communicated.
"I have talked to the lady," he said, quietly, "and we understand each other very well. There is latent insanity! Insanity which might never appear; or which might appear only once or twice in a lifetime. It would be a dementia in its worst phase, perhaps; acute mania56; but its duration would be very brief, and it would only arise under extreme mental pressure. The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint57 in her blood. She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence58 of intelligence. I will tell you what she is, Mr. Audley. She is dangerous!"
Dr. Mosgrave walked up and down the room once or twice before he spoke again.
"I will not discuss the probabilities of the suspicion which distresses59 you, Mr. Audley," he said, presently, "but I will tell you this much, I do not advise any esclandre. This Mr. George Talboys has disappeared, but you have no evidence of his death. If you could produce evidence of his death, you could produce no evidence against this lady, beyond the one fact that she had a powerful motive60 for getting rid of him. No jury in the United Kingdom would condemn61 her upon such evidence as that."
Robert Audley interrupted Dr. Mosgrave, hastily.
"I assure you, my dear sir," he said, "that my greatest fear is the necessity of any exposure—any disgrace."
"Certainly, Mr. Audley," answered the physician, coolly, "but you cannot expect me to assist you to condone62 one of the worst offenses63 against society. If I saw adequate reason for believing that a murder had been committed by this woman, I should refuse to assist you in smuggling64 her away out of the reach of justice, although the honor of a hundred noble families might be saved by my doing so. But I do not see adequate reason for your suspicions; and I will do my best to help you."
Robert Audley grasped the physician's hands in both his own.
"I will thank you when I am better able to do so," he said, with emotion; "I will thank you in my uncle's name as well as in my own."
"I have only five minutes more, and I have a letter to write," said Dr. Mosgrave, smiling at the young man's energy.
He seated himself at a writing-table in the window, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote rapidly for about seven minutes. He had filled three sides of a sheet of note-paper, when he threw down his pen and folded his letter.
He put this letter into an envelope, and delivered it, unsealed, to Robert Audley.
The address which it bore was:
"Monsieur Val,
"Villebrumeuse,
"Belgium."
Mr. Audley looked rather doubtfully from this address to the doctor, who was putting on his gloves as deliberately65 as if his life had never known a more solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them.
"That letter," he said, in answer to Robert Audley's inquiring look, "is written to my friend Monsieur Val, the proprietor66 and medical superintendent67 of a very excellent maison de santé in the town of Villebrumeuse. We have known each other for many years, and he will no doubt willingly receive Lady Audley into his establishment, and charge himself with the full responsibility of her future life; it will not be a very eventful one!"
Robert Audley would have spoken, he would have once more expressed his gratitude68 for the help which had been given to him, but Dr. Mosgrave checked him with an authoritative69 gesture.
"From the moment in which Lady Audley enters that house," he said, "her life, so far as life is made up of action and variety, will be finished. Whatever secrets she may have will be secrets forever! Whatever crimes she may have committed she will be able to commit no more. If you were to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it, you could not more safely shut her from the world and all worldly associations. But as a physiologist70 and as an honest man, I believe you could do no better service to society than by doing this; for physiology71 is a lie if the woman I saw ten minutes ago is a woman to be trusted at large. If she could have sprung at my throat and strangled me with her little hands, as I sat talking to her just now, she would have done it."
"She suspected your purpose, then!"
"She knew it. 'You think I am mad like my mother, and you have come to question me,' she said. 'You are watching for some sign of the dreadful taint in my blood.' Good-day to you, Mr. Audley," the physician added hurriedly, "my time was up ten minutes ago; it is as much as I shall do to catch the train."
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1
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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luster
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| n.光辉；光泽，光亮；荣誉 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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periled
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| 置…于危险中（peril的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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17
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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18
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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25
chronometer
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| n.精密的计时器 | |
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apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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38
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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40
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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41
hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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43
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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contingencies
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| n.偶然发生的事故，意外事故( contingency的名词复数 )；以备万一 | |
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46
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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47
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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48
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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49
stainless
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| adj.无瑕疵的，不锈的 | |
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50
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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51
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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52
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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54
convoy
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| vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队 | |
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55
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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57
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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58
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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59
distresses
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| n.悲痛( distress的名词复数 )；痛苦；贫困；危险 | |
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60
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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61
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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62
condone
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| v.宽恕；原谅 | |
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63
offenses
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| n.进攻( offense的名词复数 )；（球队的）前锋；进攻方法；攻势 | |
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64
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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65
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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66
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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67
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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68
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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69
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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70
physiologist
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| n.生理学家 | |
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physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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