Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer, and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh hand--a hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself mad in what he had done on that Sunday night--mad with despair and rage at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend an ear to it--and a forgiving one.
"You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper," he had said, when Jasper told him that they could not receive him, "that he would be unwise not to see me, and the same to Mistress Wilding."
And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the wicked smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his eyes he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed, Richard found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took for pattern. He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained thereby a healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark. He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers, and even took to saying grace to his meat. Indeed--for conversion, when it comes, is a furious thing--the swing of his soul's pendulum threatened now to carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. "O Lord!" he would cry a score of times a day, "Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit!"
But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of his nature--indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made this sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the baronet might have to say.