Trent's Last Case

rt in June. White wreathings drifted up the fields from the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken grey deadness shedding pin-point moisture that was now and then blown against the pane

it. Mr. Trent had called, the maid said; he apologized for coming at such an early hour, but hoped that Mrs. Manderson would see him on a matter of urgent importance. Mrs Manderson would se

s, and a new and reserved expression, in which her quick sensibilities felt s

h at Bishopsbridge at twelve o'clock, but I cannot go until I have settled this thing, which concerns you only

d your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can properly tell you, Mr. Trent. I know that you won't make it worse for me th

than that; and if you give me reason to think it would be so, then I shall suppress this manuscript,' he laid a long envelope on the small table beside him, 'and nothing of what it has to tell shall ever be printed. It consists, I may tell you, of a short private note to my editor, followed by a long dispatch for publication in the Record. Now you may refuse to say anything to me. If you do refuse, my duty to my employers, as I see it, is to take this up to London with me today and leave it with my editor to be dealt with at his discretion. My view is, you understand, that I am not entitled to suppress it on the strength of a mere possibility that pre

don't know what dreadful thing you have found out, or what the possibility that has occurred to you c

ng from the bottom of my soul; but it is not I who have made this mystery. This is the most painful hour of my life, and you make it worse by not treating me like a hound. The first thing I ask you to tell me,' he reverted with an effort to his

s envelope from the table; his manner said that he perceived the interview to be at an end. But she held up a hand, and there was col

erson, being on oath, could withhold a part of the truth under any circumstances is a polite fiction.' He still stood as awaiting dismissal, but she was silent. She walked to the

t that he cared for his business more than for me, and I think I found out even sooner that I had been deceiving myself and blinding myself, promising myself impossible things and wilfully misunderstanding my own feelings, because I was dazzled by the idea of having more money to spend than an English girl ever dreams of. I have been despising myself for that for five years. My husband's feeling for me... well, I cannot speak of that... what I want to say is that along with it there had always been a belief of his that I was the sort of woman to take a great place in society, and that I should throw myself into it with enjoyment, and become a sort of personage and do him great credit-that was hi

siveness that must hitherto have been dulled, he thought, by the shock and self-restraint of the past few days. Now she turned swiftly from the window and faced him as she went on, her

, shamefully rich, to exist at all-where money is the only thing that counts and the first thing in everybody's thoughts-where the men who make the millions are so jaded by the work, that sport is the only thing they can occupy themselves with when they have any leisure, and the men who don't have to work are even duller than the men who do, and vicious as well; and the women live for display and silly amusements and silly immoralities; do you kno

ocial qualities... I did try. I acted my best. And it became harder year by year... I never was what they call a popular hostess, how could I be? I was a failure; but I went on trying... I used to steal holidays now and then. I used to feel as if I was not doing my part of a bargain-it sounds horrid to put it like that, I know, but it was so-when I took one of my old school-friends, who couldn't afford to travel, away to Italy for a month or two, and we went about cheaply all by ourselves, and were quite

hed and was weary of the luxury and the brilliancy and the masses of money just because of the people who lived among them-who were made so by them, I suppose.... It happened last year. I don't know just how or when. It may have been suggested to him by some woman-for they all understood, of course. He said nothing to me, and I think he tried not to change in his manner to me at first; but such things hurt-and it was working in both of us. I knew that he knew. After a t

nce in a temper of reverie and unguarded emotion. In both she was very unlike the pale, self-disciplined creature of majesty that she had been to the world. With that amazement of his went something like terror of her dark beauty, which excitement kindled into an appearance scarcely mortal in his eyes. Incongruously there rushed into his mind, occupied as it was with the affair of the moment, a little knot of ideas... she was unique not because of her beauty but because of its being united with intensity of nature; in England all the very beautiful women were placid,

is one brutal question which is the whole point of my enquiry.' He braced his frame like one preparing for a plunge into

rning face, and she flung herself aside among the cushions at her elbow, so that he saw nothing but her heavy crown of black hair, and her body moving with sobs that st

nowhere, seeing nothing, his soul shaken in the fierce effort to kill and trample the raving impulse that had seized him in the presence of her shame, that clamoured to him to drag himself before her feet, to pray for pardon, to pour out words-he knew not what words, but he knew that they had b

n, younger in nature even than his years, and a way of life that kept his edge keen and his spirit volcanic had prepared him very ill for the meeting that com