"Yes," he argued, "yes; but it is not for myself, it is for her! That man's disappointment and disgust at her rejection of his suit will goad him to say all evil of her--my pure, beautiful Griselda! And yet----"
Then he went hopelessly over the past week. That child who had come to the Herschels' doorstep; the pity which she had called to life; that expedition for the relief of the suffering man--if--if only that had never been, all this had been averted. All for a stranger, a worthless stranger, who was probably neither deserving of pity or help.
If he had known how close between Griselda and this man the tie was, how far the poor dying actor was from being a stranger to her, would his feelings have been different? would the truth have changed the aspect of things for him--made the situation more or less painful? I cannot tell.
The gray January dawn, creeping in through the holes in the shutters, and penetrating the room where the fire had burned out, and the candles died in their sockets, found Leslie in a fitful doze in the chair, into which, after walking up and down the room during the night, he had sunk at last from sheer exhaustion. On first waking he could not recall what had happened. He stretched his stiff limbs, and then the faint pallor of the dawn showed him the familiar objects in the room, and the present with all its stern realities became vivid.
He tottered upstairs to his bed, not wishing his mother to find him dressed in his gay evening clothes, when she came down to breakfast.
As he passed her door he heard her voice raised in prayer.
To pray aloud, in pleading earnest tones, had become a habit of the good people with whom Mrs. Travers had cast in her lot, and Leslie paused as he heard his name.
"My son! my son! Convert him, turn him to Thee, for he is wandering far from Thee, in pursuit of the vain pleasures of a sinful world!"
"I need your prayers, sweet mother," the poor fellow murmured, as he passed on to his room near hers. "Perhaps to-morrow I shall be beyond their reach. Oh! that great mystery _beyond_!"
The message came, as he expected, brought by Mr. Dickinson, who was to be Sir Maxwell's second, and Leslie referred him to Mr. Beresford to act for him.