Even Grace was not thought of; clutching his papers, he went to the magistrate who presided over the district court and sent in his card and asked for an interview. At first he was received with natural suspicion, his face was swollen and he looked altogether as though he had been mixed up in a fray, though his dress was so carefully arranged—but the merit of reality was there, and he sketched in glowing colours poor Margaret's position and the treatment he had received, and what he feared for her, in simple language free from exaggeration.
The magistrate consulted his clerk and sundry authorities with a deliberation truly maddening.
"I am searching for a precedent," he said, looking up at young Lyons, who was almost stamping with impatience.
He turned over leaves, backwards and forwards, and read and re-read passages pointed out to him by the clerk. Then he looked up, a bright idea having dawned upon him, and, keeping his first finger on a particular line, said:
"Are you the lady's nearest male relation?"
"No, I am not. Her only male relation is very ill in Scotland."
"Are you any relation of hers?"
"No; I am her friend."
"My dear sir," said the magistrate, "why take up my time in this way? You have no right to interfere—there is no precedent for such a thing, no precedent at all," and he got up and stood leaning his knuckles on the table and looking at Paul Lyons as though his ignorance of the law was almost worthy of compassion.
"Will you advise me, sir? What am I to do? Can you not tell me how I must set to work? Surely your experience can help me."
"No, sir; I really cannot take the responsibility of doing this—the lady's nearest relations must take the matter up. You had better not interfere."
"And if the lady has no relations?"
"That, sir, is a position—hem—the law never contemplated such a position. I really must beg you to withdraw now, you are taking up the time of the (he was going to say court but he corrected himself)—you are taking up my time, sir."
With hidden rage, poor Paul left him, and found himself in the street. What was the right thing to do? How could he help her?
He went to see Grace to consult with her; she cried and then laughed, and got quite hysterical.
"Oh! you foolish boy, I am her nearest relation, and I will send for the doctor; they sent him to me, but I got rid of him, I disliked him so much. We will have him here, and I will see if I cannot talk him into helping us."
She wrote a note and sent it off, and Paul, who by this time knew he had had no food for a long time, went off to his hotel, promising to be back again to meet the doctor and tell him the state of matters.
The picture he had drawn of Mr. Drayton's violence filled Grace with anxiety. She moved about restlessly, filling up the time by trying various occupations and throwing each aside one after another.
Jean, coming to see if she wanted anything, found her in a fever, and when she heard all was nearly "demented," to use her own expression. She talked and remonstrated and suggested all in a breath. The police, that would be a help.
When Mr. Lyons returned, this idea was given to him by Grace, and he was inclined to think it might help. He went off to find the superintendent, and was met by fresh difficulties.
The superintendent asked what he was afraid of, and laughed at the idea of his being called upon to protect a lady who had made no complaint. Urged by Paul at length he said,
"I will tell the man on that beat to look out, and if he hears screams——"
"He will of course at once get admittance," said Paul, eagerly, horrified to hear his own fears put into actual words.
The superintendent smiled—a superior smile,
"No, sir, he must not enter any man's house unless he is called in, it would be breaking the law."
"Then he must wait till murder is committed before interfering."
"Well, you see, sir, little rows and things cannot be interfered with unless one of the parties asks for help."
"It seems to me," said Paul, driven nearly to despair, "that the laws all round want a good deal of amendment."
"Perhaps so, sir, I'm sure I cannot say, but I have to see that my men do their duty, and that they do not exceed it."
Paul went back to tell Grace that the man on the beat was to be at hand, and it did not occur to her fortunately to ask what good being at hand would do for Margaret. But she had found out through the landlady that if two doctors declared Mr. Drayton to be mad, they could get a magistrate's order and have him put under restraint.
"After all, you have done a great deal more than I have done; I have wasted my day, and done nothing," said poor Paul, who was fairly tired out. Grace did not contradict him; so far from thinking she had done much she felt as though all the real effort, all the great trial, had yet to come.
She awaited with impatience the arrival of the doctor, turning over in her own mind after her usual fashion what she should say and how she should say it.
On his arrival he was surprised to find her sitting up when he had imagined her very ill; he stopped short, and gazed at her a little helplessly—what did she want with him?
As may be remembered, he had not been accustomed to much beauty, and was always on his guard against being influenced by it in an undue manner.
Grace was not so beautiful as Margaret, but she was not like the ordinary women he had seen; he had got into a groove of very middle-aged ladies, and, seeing them in private, saw them bereft of those adornments which concealed the ravages of time from the outside world.
Grace with her rippling hair tumbling over her shoulders, a heightened colour and sparkling eyes, prejudiced him directly.
So handsome a young woman must be certainly very wicked. Doctor Jones is not the only person in the world who imagines that goodness and plainness walk hand in hand. He prepared from the first therefore to act on the defensive, and his tone, asking, "You wished to see me, madam," was distinctly aggressive, and Grace, sensitive and anxious, recognized the tone and felt that at the outset she was met with a difficulty.
"Doctor Jones, you have seen and you know my sister, Mrs. Drayton."
"I have seen her; I cannot say that I know her; one cannot know a person just by seeing them for a moment or two."
"Well," said Grace, a little impatiently, "you know her husband, Mr. Drayton?"
"Slightly; yes, slightly, I do know him."
"Do you know that he is—mad?"
"No, I know nothing of the kind. Who says so, Miss Rivers?"
"I know it," said Grace, "and something must be done immediately!" She spoke with rising excitement.
"I cannot understand what you're driving at."
"Doctor Jones, a friend of ours went there to-day; he saw Mr. Drayton, and he told me if something was not done immediately he was quite quite certain that my sister will suffer. I am afraid for her poor child."
"Is she afraid for herself?" he asked, with a disagreeable smile.
"How can I tell?" said Grace, angrily; "he does not allow her to move without him; she is a very prisoner in that terrible house, she cannot come and see me; she escaped once and he has taken means to prevent her ever coming again. He does not allow her to go to church or to see a single soul. He must be mad, he is mad!"
"If I were Mr. Drayton and had a wife like your sister I would do the same, Miss Rivers."
"What do you mean?" she cried, passionately.
"Miss Rivers, your sister did not even allow to me that she had been out once. I saw her; I saw her meet her——I know it was her lover, in a shop."
Grace stared at him for a moment, and then she laughed wildly and hysterically.
"Poor Paul!" she said; "imagine, only imagine, being taken for Margaret's lover!"
Doctor Jones rose; he was exceedingly affronted.
"You and your sister, madam, must find a less honest man to help you carry out your wicked plans against poor Mr. Drayton's happiness. I am incorruptible!" and, with his head well in the air and a strong sense of virtuous resistance to beauty and blandishments, he prepared to go.
"Doctor Jones," said Grace, her burst of laughter over, "you have said a very wicked and a very ridiculous thing, but you had better go away. After your fancying anything wrong about Margaret I cannot bear seeing you. Why, the only excuse for you is, that you are probably as mad as Mr. Drayton."
"Madam, you may throw off the mask now and be impertinent, but nothing you say will move me. I am not going to declare a man mad when I believe him to be sane, to suit you or any one else."
"It does not in the least matter," said Grace, coolly, and speaking from the inspiration of the moment, "for the man whom I shall probably marry if I get strong, the man you imagine to be my sister's lover, will be here soon, and he will most likely bring Sir Augustus Jermyn down with him. I have great faith in him, and Sir Augustus will probably prefer naming the second medical man himself."
Doctor Jones was very much taken aback. It was hard that being an honest man should prevent his being thrown with so eminent a man.
"I—I should have no objection to meeting Sir Augustus and giving him my opinion. I should feel proud to assist him in forming a judgment."
"I have no doubt of it," said Grace, sarcastically, "but nothing will induce me now to mention your name to Sir Augustus. You have too completely prejudged and misjudged my dearest sister. You see her meet a friend, a friend much attached to us both, and jump immediately to iniquitous conclusions. Leave me! I never will forgive you, and if anything happens to my sister on you will the whole responsibility fall."
Doctor Jones retired, endeavouring to comfort himself with the reflection that he had acted purely from a sense of right. But that small, still voice—that voice that may be listened to or not but is always there—convicted him. He knew that because he thought Margaret in the wrong he had been resolved not to agree with her. He got positively hot with sudden tremor. What if Sir Augustus came, and found the man really mad! His opinion would henceforth be valueless, and, just as he thought this, the remembrance of Mr. Drayton's laugh was most uncomfortably present to him.
He said nothing to his wife of this; he must not lower himself in her opinion at any rate.
When he left the room Grace began to try and think if Paul had ever spoken of meeting Margaret. By degrees then it all came to her. Sir Albert Gerald must have met her, and that reptile of a doctor had seen them speak to each other. At the time she had forgotten this.
How difficult life was to her just now, and the fears for Margaret came to her in fuller force than ever.
Jean came into the room, her big Bible under her arm, her eyes shining with a look of content and peace. She noticed Grace's troubled expression, and she stroked her long hair.
"My bairn," she said, "it's a troublous world at times I know."
"It is all sent for the best," said Grace, giving utterance to the platitude nearest her lips at the moment.
"Oh! do not say that. You must na say that. We make evil to ourselves, God does not send it."
"He allows it," murmured Grace.
"Bairn, I ask you, and answer from your own conscience: Who brought all this weary trouble upon us?"
She stood like an inspired sybil, her brown face and homely features lighted by a Divine truth, and Grace, looking up, conscience-stricken, could only answer the truth, slowly and solemnly,
"It was I, Jean, I myself."