Sir George Tressady — Volume II by Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920

She looked at him appealing--her face one prayer.

But he, flushing, shook his head.

"I must not come into your world," he said huskily. "I must go."

The wave of grief rolled upon her again. She turned away, looking across the room with wide dim eyes, as though asking for some help that did not come.

Tressady walked quickly back to the chair where he had been sitting, and took up his hat and gloves. Suddenly, as he looked back to her, he struck one of the gloves across his hand.

"What a _coward_--what a mean whining wretch I was to come to you this morning! I said to myself--like a hypocrite--that I could come--and go--without a word. My God--if I had!"--the low hoarse voice became a cry of pain--"I might still have taken some joy--"

He wrestled with himself.

"It was mad selfishness," he said at last, recovering himself by a fierce effort. "Mad it must have been--or I could never have come here to give you pain. Some demon drove me. Oh, forgive me!--forgive me! Good-bye! I shall bless you while I live. But you--you must never think of me, never speak of me--again."

She felt his grasp upon her fingers. He stooped, passionately kissed her hand and a fold of her dress. She rose hurriedly; but the door had closed upon him before she had found her voice or choked down the sob in her throat.

She could only drop back into her chair, weeping silently, her face hidden in her hands.

A few minutes passed. There was a step outside. She sprang up and listened, ready to fly to the window and hide herself among the curtains. Then the colour flooded into her cheek. She waited. Maxwell came in. He, too, looked disturbed, and as he entered the room he thrust a letter into his pocket, almost with violence. But when his eyes fell on his wife a pang seized him. He hurried to her, and she leant against him, saying in a sobbing voice:

"George Tressady has been here. I seem to have done him a wrong--and his wife. I am not fit to help you, Aldous. I do such rushing, blind, foolish things--and all that one hoped and worked for turns to mere selfishness and misery. Whom shall I hurt next? You, perhaps--_you_!"

And she clung to him in despair.

* * * * *

A few minutes later the husband and wife were in conference together, Marcella sitting, Maxwell standing beside her. Marcella's tears had ceased; but never had Maxwell seen her so overwhelmed, so sad, and he felt half ashamed of his own burning irritation and annoyance with the whole matter.

Clearly, what he had dimly foreseen on the night of her return from the Mile End meeting had happened. This young man, ill-balanced, ill-mated, yet full of a sensitive ability and perception, had fallen in love with her; and Maxwell owed his political salvation to his wife's charm.