By What Authority? Part 26

"Hubert," said Lady Maxwell, "I do not think you mean to insult me in this house; but either that is an insult, or else I misunderstood you wholly, and must ask your pardon for it."

"Well," he said, in a harsh voice, "I will make myself plain. I believe that it is through the influence of you and Aunt Margaret that this has been brought about."

At the moment he spoke the door opened.

"Come in, Margaret," said her sister, "this concerns you."

The old nun came across to Hubert with her anxious sweet face; and put her old hand tenderly on his black satin sleeve as he sat and wrenched at a nut between his fingers.

"Hubert, dear boy," she said, "what is all this? Will you tell me?"

Hubert rose, a little ashamed of himself, and went to the door and closed it; and then drew out a chair for his aunt, and put a wine-gla.s.s for her.

"Sit down, aunt," he said, and pushed the decanter towards her.

"I have just left Isabel," she said, "she is very unhappy about something. You saw her this evening, dear lad?"

"Yes," said Hubert, heavily, looking down at the table and taking up another nut, "and it is of that that I have been speaking. Who has made her unhappy?"

"I had hoped you would tell us that," said Mistress Margaret; "I came up to ask you."

"My son has done us--me--the honour----" began Lady Maxwell; but Hubert broke in:

"I left Isabel here last Christmas happy and a Protestant. I have come back here now to find her unhappy and half a Catholic, if not more--and----"

"Oh! are you sure?" asked Mistress Margaret, her eyes s.h.i.+ning. "Thank G.o.d, if it be so!"

"Sure?" said Hubert, "why she will not marry me; at least not yet."

"Oh, poor lad," she said tenderly, "to have lost both G.o.d and Isabel."

Hubert turned on her savagely. But the old nun's eyes were steady and serene.

"Poor lad!" she said again.

Hubert looked down again; his lip wrinkled up in a little sneer.

"As far as I am concerned," he said, "I can understand your not caring, but I am astonished at this response of yours to her father's confidence!"

Lady Maxwell grew white to the lips.

"I have told you," she began--"but you do not seem to believe it--that I have had nothing to do, so far as I know, with her conversion, which"--and she raised her voice bravely--"I pray G.o.d to accomplish. She has, of course, asked me questions now and then; and I have answered them--that is all."

"And I," said Mistress Margaret, "plead guilty to the same charge, and to no other. You are not yourself, dear boy, at present; and indeed I do not wonder at it; and I pray G.o.d to help you; but you are not yourself, or you would not speak like this to your mother."

Hubert rose to his feet; his face was white under the tan, and the ruffle round his wrist trembled as he leaned heavily with his fingers on the table.

"I am only a plain Protestant now," he said bitterly, "and I have been with Protestants so long that I have forgotten Catholic ways; but----"

"Stay, Hubert," said his mother, "do not finish that. You will be sorry for it presently, if you do. Come, Margaret." And she moved towards the door; her son went quickly past and opened it.

"Nay, nay," said the nun. "Do you be going, Mary. Let me stay with the lad, and we will come to you presently." Lady Maxwell bowed her head and pa.s.sed out, and Hubert closed the door.

Mistress Margaret looked down on the table.

"You have given me a gla.s.s, dear boy; but no wine in it."

Hubert took a couple of quick steps back, and faced her.

"It is no use, it is no use," he burst out, and his voice was broken with emotion, "you cannot turn me like that. Oh, what have you done with my Isabel?" He put out his hand and seized her arm. "Give her back to me, Aunt Margaret; give her back to me."

He dropped into his seat and hid his face on his arm; and there was a sob or two.

"Sit up and be a man, Hubert," broke in Mistress Margaret's voice, clear and cool.

He looked up in amazement with wet indignant eyes. She was looking at him, smiling tenderly.

"And now, for the second time, give me half a gla.s.s of wine, dear boy."

He poured it out, bewildered at her self-control.

"For a man that has been round the world," she said, "you are but a foolish child."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you never thought of a way of yet winning Isabel," she asked.

"What do you mean?" he repeated.

"Why, come back to the Church, dear lad; and make your mother and me happy again, and marry Isabel, and save your own soul."

"Aunt Margaret," he cried, "it is impossible. I have truly lost my faith in the Catholic religion; and--and--you would not have me a hypocrite."

"Ah! ah!" said the nun, "you cannot tell yet. Please G.o.d it may come back. Oh! dear boy, in your heart you know it is true."

"Before G.o.d, in my heart I know that it is not true."

"No, no, no," she said; but the light died out of her eyes, and she stretched a tremulous hand.

"Yes, Aunt Margaret, it is so. For years and years I have been doubting; but I kept on just because it seemed to me the best religion; and--and I would not be driven out of it by her Grace's laws against my will, like a dog stoned from his kennel."

"But you are only a lad still," she said piteously. He laughed a little.

"But I have had the gift of reason and discretion nearly twenty years, a priest would tell me. Besides, Aunt Margaret, I could not be such a--a cur--as to come back without believing. I could never look Isabel in the eyes again."

"Well, well," said the old lady, "let us wait and see. Do you intend to be here now for a while?"

"Not while Isabel is like this," he said. "I could not. I must go away for a while, and then come back and ask her again."