CHAPTER XXX

HUSBAND AND WIFE

Tout comprendre--
c'est tout pardonner.

Staring straight before her with haggard, unseeing eyes, her hands
clasped till the delicate bones protruded, her young face lined into
sudden agedness, grey with unnatural pallor, framed by the black
masses of her dishevelled hair, it was thus Sir Adrian found his wife,
when at length he was free to seek her.

He and Rene had laid the dead man upon the bed that had been occupied
by his murderer, and composed as decently as might be the hideous
corpse of him who had been the handsomest of his race. Rene had given
his master the tale of all he knew himself, and Sir Adrian had ordered
the boat to be prepared, determined to convey Lady Landale at once
from the scene of so much horror. His own return to Pulwick, moreover,
to break the news to Sophia, to attend to the removal of the body and
the preparation for the funeral was of immediate necessity.

As he approached his wife she raised her eyes.

"What do you want with me?" she asked, with a stony look that arrested
him, as he would gently have taken her hand.

"I would bring you home."

"Home!" the pale lips writhed in withering derision.

"Yes, home, Molly," he spoke as one might to a much-loved and
unreasonable sick child--with infinite tenderness and compassion--"your
own warm home, with your sister. You would like to go to Madeleine,
would not you?"

She unclasped her hands and threw them out before her with a savage
gesture of repulsion.

"To Madeleine?" she echoed, with an angry cry; and then wheeling
round upon him fiercely: "Do you want to kill me?" she said, between
her set teeth.

Sir Adrian's weary brow contracted. He paused and looked at her with
profoundest sorrow.

Then she asked, hoarsely:

"Where have they taken him to?"

"To Lancaster, I believe."

"Will they hang him?"

"I pray God not."

"There is no use of praying to God, God is merciless. What will they
do to him?"

"He will be tried, Molly, in due course, and then, according to the
sentence of the judges.... My poor child, control yourself, he shall
be defended by the best lawyers that money can get. All a man can do
for another I shall do for him."

She shot the sombre fire of her glance at him.

"You know that I love him," she said, with a terrible composure.

A sudden whiteness spread round Sir Adrian's lips.

"Poor child!" he said again beneath his breath.

"Yes, I love him. I al